Music is the order of the day today, my chums.

Firstly, yesterday was indeed Hottest 100 day. I was just about as Australian as you could get – went over to a mate’s place and ate lamb, beef and sausage, played backyard cricket, drank a lot of beer and of course listened to the radio.

Getting onto the actual countdown, my votes were by and large fairly successful, with 6 of the ten making the final 100, although I admit they seem to be mainly clustered around the lower end. The big suprise to me was the fact that although Wolfmother managed to break a record and get 6 in the list, Pyramid wasn’t included. Shattered. Anyway the songs I voted for (and thier respective positions, in no particular order):

Songbird – Bernard Fanning (14)
It’5! – Architecture in Helsinki (56)
Messages – Xavier Rudd (92)
Munich – Editors
Take, Take, Take – The White Stripes
I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor – Arctic Monkeys (50)
Smoke It – Dandy Warhols (82)
Pyramid – Wolfmother
Na Na Na Na Naa – Kaiser Chiefs
Believe – The Chemical Brothers (80)

For the entire list, you can surf over to the official site where you can also listen to the whole 8 hours as a stream for a limited time. I’m a little disappointed that Bernard Fanning won the poll, but then again the entire top 5 is questionable, so I shouldn’t be too pissed off. He is pretty cool, afterall.

Anyway the second and possibly more noteworthy musical happening today is that this day, the 27th of January 2006 marks Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 250th birthday. Whether or not you listen or are even at all interested in classical music, he was undeniably one of the most influential composers of all time. I remember seeing ‘Amadeus’ in music class at school 7 or 8 years ago and not giving a toss about him whatsoever, but things have changed and I now hold a deep regard for the man and his music.

I’m especially enthralled at the story of Mozart and the Vatican choir’s ‘Miserere’. According to legend, Mozart and his father were travelling through Italy, and decided to attend St Peter’s basilica for a once-a-year singing of one of the Vatican’s holiest songs. It was considered so important that not a note of the score was allowed to leave the Vatican, at pain of excommunication. After sitting through the service, Mozart and his old man then spent the day out, before getting back to thier lodgings where Wolfgang wrote out the entire score (which is a NINE voice work, stretching for about 10 minutes) from memory. He returned later to make a few minor changes to his script (and was apparently furious with himself for needing to do so) but there kiddies is what I believe to be the first example of music piracy the world has seen, as well as pure genius at work.

Anyway happy birthday old chum, and here’s to another year of great music.

Pete

I know I’ve got a bit of a reputation for ripping on Australia like it is a horrible country full of undeserving infidels, and these feelings often come to the surface around Australia Day, however, this year is different, surely due largely to the fact that Jake – the evil, Australia hating catalyst behind much of my cynicism – is overseas. Also, although I have to admit I don’t subscribe terribly whole-heartedly (or at-all-heartedly) to the jingoistic attitudes that cause the rest of the country to riot, tomorrow IS an important day. Apparently some bloke landed in Sydney two hundred and something years ago, but EVERYBODY knows the main reason there’s a public holiday is because Triple J runs it’s Hottest 100 poll. And for those interested, it’s the biggest music poll in the world!

Anyway on that alluring bombshell, Happy Australia Hottest 100 day!

Pete

Because I don’t have a video iPod (or rather more to the point an iPod at all due to a bit of a misdemeanor a week or two ago) I haven’t really investigated video podcasts to their potential, but this evening was pleasantly suprised by a recommendation of AB’s to check out a video podcast entitled ‘French Maid TV’.

Basically three attractive young supposedly French girls set about educating the masses on how to do something. Unfortunately the first episode is all about video podcasting, but the computering around is constantly interrupted by cleaning and pillowfighting, both exhibiting the maid’s…. better qualities.

Anyway I suggest you have a look yourself – the first and only episode is a paltry 11MB, so the download should be painless and those fortunate enough to have portable players that still bloody work can even chuck it on and watch it on the train, to the bemusement of many.

Pete

Well well well. They grow up quickly, don’t they?

This will be the first year in many that I won’t have attended at least a day of the Australian Open grand slam. To be honest I’m not that bothered, but one thing I will miss is picking the newcomers out from the slops on the outside courts. This tradition stretches back to the opens of 2000 or so, when a couple of mates and I would look for Kournikova ‘replacements’, as the real thing was often inaccesible due to overcrowding or us being stuck on a shitty little ground pass, and not being able to get to centre court. Anyway that search proved consistently to be quite fruitless, so instead I swapped to finding interesting, hideous or just funnily dressed players. Following that criteria, two players that stood out last year have proven to really shine this year. My pick from the womens draw, Marion Bartoli caught my eye for her ridiculously complex service action and funky Le Coq rainbow sneakers that matched her dress. they’re just on the left (cool hey?) but unfortunately I can’t show you her action – you’ll just have to see it for yourself. Anyway I caught her attention for a short while for laughing out loud after a serve, prompting her to scowl at me which I treasured, having rarely if ever before caught the attention of a pro. Anyway I thought that would be the end of that career, and I should throw her memory on the proverbial bonfire along with Chladers and Kandarr but NO! MARION BARTOLI WON A TOURNAMENT IN NEW ZEALAND EARLY THIS YEAR! I couldn’t be happier… (link)

That is, unless I had another winner in my pocket – the giant killer Marcos Baghdatis, who happens to be two days older than me. I can’t admit to having such an intimate affair with the Cypriot, but (largely thanks to his huge, drunken first round Cyprian support crew) I did pick him out on outside courts early last year before he progressed to the 4th round, and looks like going further this year after not only causing Andy Roddick – the 2nd seed in this tournament – to lose a set (which hadn’t happened in his three previous matches), but a fourth round match as well.

Come to think of it, it really is a shame that I’ll be missing the action this year – although I suppose I could always throw the first and second round, outside court losers into a hat and choose a couple of new protegé’s. Hehehe

Pete

Extreme weather is never fun. However at least when it’s extremely cold (for me extremely cold means overnight minimums of 8°C (48°F) and below) you can throw another blanket on, snuggle a bit closer or go for a run to keep warm. When it’s extremely hot on the other hand, nothing seems to work. It’s always uncomfortable, sleep-ins are an impossibility, and lethargy creeps in due to overheating.

Right now it’s extremely hot almost universally around the country. In Adelaide they’ve had 3 or 4 days now above 40 degrees (105F), in Sydney it’s been in the mid thirties for a week now and I think the only capital not forecast for near 40 degree heat tomorrow is going to be Perth which is odd – usually they have scorching summers. Here in Melbourne today’s forecast 33 turned into an absolute stinker at 41, with 43 forecast for tomorrow. Whats worse is that at 2am in the morning it’s still almost 30 degrees, making nighttime sleep next to impossible as well.

That said, for all my whinging I’m a lazy shite who has the luxury of being able to lounge around feeling sorry for myself all day – the real people in trouble are those poor bastard European tennis players still sweating it out at Melbourne Park. I suppose it’s only fair getting them to sweat a bit for the ridiculous prize money that awaits. hehehe

Funny – I don’t think I’ve mentioned the tennis yet this year. Nor the VB series that is well underway. Oh well, such is life.

Fuck it’s hot.

Pete

Well I’m home for the time being – truth be told I’ve been home for a couple of days now. Anyway do I have some stories for you? Not really, but I did find these photos that I snuck out of the high security facility I was trapped in for days at a time not long ago.

In bed feeling a bit grumpy. Note the bruising on inside of right elbow.

View from my bed down the ward. This is a purely research based ward, ie no sick people, just 20 year old uni bums out to make a quick buck. Note the lack of anyone around me – I smelt pretty badly, at least according to AB. Anyway that might give you a tad more insight into the hospital life I was leading a couple of weeks ago. Fun!

Well that’s that for tonight. I’m back in Melbourne for a day or two at least to take care of some business, see some old chums and defestify from spending too much time in Anglesea.

Pete

I had a topic for a post today lined up and formulating in my head but I lost the drive to write, and there was a lot of other stuff for me to do today anyway. To further antagonise PETEblog fans, I’m off to Anglesea for a couple of days, so you won’t be hearing from me again for some time – although considering the time intervals between posts recently they break probably won’t appear particularly abnormal. Sit back and relax – it’s summer!

Pete

Ever get that intense frustration when you hear a song but can’t identify it? It must be one of the more frustrating positions to be in, and it happens all too often with me. The advent of easy internet searching has made it at least possible to find songs, if you happen to catch a bit of meaningful lyric, as well as the song being popular enough in the first place to have someone transcribe it previously. This means that many decent songs I hear on the radio slip by me, never to be heard again, and that, my dear readers should not be tolerated.

Well anyway, much to my glee a couple of neat inventions I’ve stumbled over in the last week may just have ridden the world of this terrible affliction. Two separate web based programs help identify ‘that’ song, in two different ways.

The first, The Song Tapper, is a little javascript program that asks you to tap the spacebar of your keyboard to the rhythm of any song you wish to identify. In testing, I started easy and it managed ‘The Alphabet Song’ and “Mary Had a Little Lamb’ quite well, however anything slightly more complicated and success rates dropped sharply. It also wasn’t so impressive that it gave the option of about 15 drastically different songs at the end of each tapping session. You can add your own if the database doesn’t get your tapping right, so it’s always growing smarter, but I still don’t know how much use this will be for people that have a song stuck in thier heads and want to know what it is.

Anyway this is where the second program, Tunatic, comes in. Tunatic differs from the song tapper in that it is an actual program which you install, and then play music to, either through an external microphone although (unfortunately) you can’t sing or hum to it – it needs to be the recorded track. It listens for various bits and pieces of the music, puts it into crazy internet code and sends it off to a central server, where it compares the footprint to thousands on database, and (hopefully) returns a match. It can also learn songs that you have, with a second program Tunalyser. Unfortunately Tunalyser is a mac only program at the moment, so a substantial number of users can’t add to the database, but it’s still very impressive stuff. The program was easily able to identify big American and British songs, and even managed big aussie names like Powderfinger and Acadaca, but struggled with lesser known artists such as The Beautiful Girls. Even if it’s used as a bit of a gimmick by people like me, I reckon there is potential for widespread use of music recognition software like that. Quite nifty, and it’s only been operational for a couple of weeks.

Anyway give both the programs a look, and see if you have a mac, do the world a service and teach the database your music. Think of it as your good deed for the day, and then kick back with this exceptionally cool sand game.

Pete

Some greatastic news and some craptacular news today, folks.

Firstly, my clinical trial finished this morning. There was a bit of a medical exam, then the last blood collection, an ECG, and vitals. Then, my favourite part of the whole endeavour – the cheque was given to me. Voila!

But now, alas the craptacular news. My beautiful little Huglebert, approaching his 3rd birthday, passed away yesterday, peacefully. It’s done this before – last year in the UK – which last time set me back $100 for a new harddrive, but this time I will not show any mercy. I find it slightly coincidental that as soon as I find myself with a bit of cash, my stuff starts falling apart, but I must be strong and fight the urge to spend on exhorbitant and unneccessary gadgetry. Who knows – maybe I can live without the iPod for a little while anyway. Then again, those new 5G iPods ARE mightily cool. Le sigh.

Anyway for those at all interested, the iPod most probably has a corrupt harddrive, or perhaps even the mainboard is broked. Regardless, it goes without saying that Huglebert is now not working. Basically turning it on produces the normal whirring and clicking, but within 5 seconds the apple icon is replaced by a folder with an excalamation mark and it loses power and reboots, continuing this cycle until it runs out of juice. In the old days, I could leave it like this for half an hour and eventually it would boot up, but then within days the problems would start again. Eventually it got to the stage where it just wouldn’t boot at all. This time, I got to that stage with no early warning, no nothing. Oh well, c’est la vie.

Pete

I know it’s not terribly pretty right now, and I know that it still requires a fair bit of work to get working properly, but welcome to PETEblog v2, powered by WordPress 2.0. Although obviously the colours are different, the most major differences are behind the scenes, such as this page that I’m typing into (very snazzy) and then things that are so behind the scenesish that even I haven’t noticed, like security issues etc.

Anyway bear with me while I get aquainted with the new system: hopefully we’ll continue to have some fun with this little shite. Let’s just see.

Pete