Yesterday I sat through 50 minutes of pain, carefully disguised as ‘Cardiac Lecture 7′ in the Physiology guidebook. Don’t get me wrong: I think body systems are fascinating. I spent all of last year hacking up human cadavers, and I really do want to move on from this BSc to something more…. medical, so it’s not like I’m uneasy about the workings of the body. What I found unsettling about yesterday’s lecture was the lecturer himself – and his teaching methods. He is undoubtedly a highly intelligent man and clearly knows what he’s talking about, but insists on using primary school examples and analogies, as well as employing a tone which is unmistakeably condescending.

However I can put up with condescending lecturers – I know how frustrating lectures must be for them half the time, and hell – I condescend often enough. What really irked me about his lecture (and I realise how petty and ridiculous this gripe is going to sound) was his incorrect use of units. Inches instead of metric measurements, PSI and mmHg instead of Pascals (I know it was a medical based lecture, and we’re talking about blood pressure which is almost always measured in mmHg, BUT IT SHOULDN’T), pints instead of litres. I’m not exagerating – he used all these imperial units in the single lecture today.

Right, so now you all think I’m mad and anal-retentive for firstly noticing and secondly actually caring that units weren’t used correctly. Yeah well, if you let your guard down, or decide that it’s really not that big of a deal, this is what happens:

(click the image for a big’un if you feel like reading the smaller print)

What the hell – it seems that with the success of that TV ad visualising greenshouse gases as little black balloons, the new scientific unit for greenhouse gas is the ‘black balloon’?

I suppose at least it’ll be easy to stop global warming now. We don’t need bother about carbon sequestration, cutting down on fossil fuels or any sort of green energy – just stop balloon factories from producing the little black bastards…

Pete

Just in case you’ve living under a rock and/or don’t have people under about 20 in your life, Harry Potter’s final romp (actually ‘Final Romp’ has to be a better name than ‘The Deathly Hallows’ surely?) is due to hit bookshelves around the world on July 21st. The big news of the last couple of days is that the coverart has been unveiled for promotional purposes, and my god is the cover ugly.

Before I cause any confusion – I am Australian, we get the British coverart and, even if we didn’t there is no way that any sane individual would ever pick the US art over the British. Original = best in this regard.

Make your own mind up about the artistic merits of the art yourself I suppose, but I’m a little perturbed by both the black background and then the gratuitous colour throughout the rest of the cover that seems to be trying to offset the dark and foreboding background. Oh well – the actual book is sure to be better…

Pete

One of the main reasons I (and I suspect many, many others) enjoy contemporary French music is that I have absolutely no idea what is being sung. For all I know Camille’s stunning songs ‘Ta Delour’ and ‘Au Port’ are about rape and vomiting. But I have to admit, as nice as total ignorance is, it isn’t the only drawcard – it is my belief that the French have a much more balanced and deeper understanding of how electronic elements can be expressed in otherwise not-so-conducive-to-electronica music, and as a result are pioneering (or at the very least simply being better at) a sub-genre of electronic music that is really quite beautiful.

Point in case: Emilie Simon. When I first started looking for her stuff a month ago, her music was actually classified in JB-Hifi under ‘electronic’. Having heard snippits of her music on the radio and online, I was suprised at this revelation, and a little pissed off that it’d taken me the better part of 10 minutes to find the bloody music. From what I had heard, Emilie Simon couldn’t really be considered an electronica artist – I would have said Sarah Blasko like vocal softness, generous dollops of strings; xylophones; and percussion instruments, with a guitar riff here and there and smooth synthesised music underscoring the more traditional musical elements. If I had to classify her music, I’d call it alternative acoustic, but even then it would perhaps be far more prudent to simply chuck it in the ‘world’ catagory.

Anyway Emilie Simon rose to fame in her homeland after composing the original soundtrack to the film ‘The March of The Penguins’. Unfortunately when the Americans got hold of the rights and dubbed the narration of Morgan Freeman, they also dumped the original soundtrack in favour of a score composed by Chicago composer Alex Wurman. As a result, most of the non-French world never really saw (or heard) Simon’s big breakthrough, and as a result the artist has had little success outside of her own country, where she is something of a star.

So, on with the show. Today’s offering is her more rocky, less dancy ‘Fleur de Saison’ – a single from her most recent album ‘Végétal’, which was released last year. You can (as always) click on grannytunes to get the juices flowing, or if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, check out the video below. She’s a hottie and is naked for parts of the video, so it’s worth it (for the less sex-obsessed, the video also features lots of plants, so I’m sure there’s something for everyone). Enjoy.

Pete

Sometimes I am totally in awe of the human capacity to remember stimuli, regardless of how subtle it may be. In particular, I am often blown away when a certain smell causes long forgotten memories to resurface – whether it be a particular deodorant worn on holiday to Port Douglas some eight years ago, the distinct smell of rum that still causes queeziness, or the rather off-putting stench of stale beer, which is the smell that hangs over a particularly affluent area of Cape Town due to the continent’s biggest brewer being up the road – they can bring back poignant and very strong memories, all thanks to the right proportions of the right chemicals being drawn up our noses.

Anyway last night I experienced one of these ‘nam-flashback type scenarios, but it wasn’t a scent that triggered my memory – it was a note progression in a song that was playing at La La Land. It was some random Portuguese song that I was sure I had never heard before, but the tune was distantly familiar. I was curious, and had to satisfy that curiosity. So, the next time I rose to go to the loo, I had a quick chat with the DJ and asked him about the track. He had picked up a record of Brazilian music in New York, and this particular song was his favourite on it. I took down the details, unable to solve the puzzle then and there, and proceeded with my evening, promising to investigate in the morning.

The morning dawned with that blooding Rita song by the Beatles stuck in my head (random? I think so…) along with what felt like a Trotsky-like icepick, but I had to work, so lying in was not an option, although fortunately, wasting a little time at work was. Within a few minutes I had found a couple of small independent overseas record stores selling the album that the DJ had shown me the evening before, and did a little bit of a search into the artist who appeared on the album, a one Noriel Vilela – a now deceased Brazilian bass, who apparently was famous for being the singer for the band ‘Cantores de Ébano’ or The Ebony Singers in the 50′s and 60′s. He split with the band in 1968 and released a supposedly quite popular solo album, and then seems to have faded into obscurity, at least from an internet standpoint (most of the history was in Portuguese).

So, I knew a little about the actual song, 16 Tenelados, but was still completely clueless as to how I actually knew the song. It was only when I got home this afternoon that the translation twigged – 16 Tonnes. Johnny Cash sang a song about 16 tonnes! Maybe it was a translation one way or the other…

Anyway with the English title I did a bit more sleuthing and lo and behold came across 28 separate artists that have sung the song – including Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Stevie Wonder and Bobby Darin. Apparently the song was originally written by an American named Merle Travis, as a lament to the coal mining industry, and the difficulty of making a crust. The US government at the time of release was concerned that the song had communist undertones, and as such it faded into obscurity until 1957, when Tennessee Ernie Ford recorded a version of the song which, released as a B-side, shot to number one in the US, sold 2 million records in less than two months, and exploded Ford onto the US music scene.

As I said, there have been at least 28 covers over the years, so unfortunately I have no idea whose version I heard first, but I have no doubt that the newly discovered (but actually still 40 year-old) Portuguese version is by far the coolest.

So, grannytunes. On it today are FIVE versions of the same song, because I want my dear readers to have the best possible understanding of how a song can evolve over multiple covers. Firstly (or lastly, depending on how you view it) is the original 1946 version by Merle Travis. Then the record breaking 1957 version of Tennessee Ernie Ford, a (rather crap) sing-and-dance Tom Jones version, dated 1967, a contemporary cover in Portuguese by ‘Funk Como Le Gusta’ released in 2001 and finally (although actually first in grannytunes), the song that started this whole bloody thing, 16 Toneladas by the speaker shattering Noriel Vilela (LJers can get this song by itself here, or surf on over to dialagranny.com to hear all 5). Enjoy.

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store

Por isso vem, vem
Embale na nossa
Este balanço
Tira qualquer um da fossa
Ele é um barato e é da pesada
Esse é o famoso 16 toneladas

EDIT: I’ve since learnt the Portuguese has fuck all to do with the original English – oh well, the clever bugger made a depressing song happy!

Pete

I spent most of Thursday afternoon last week stewing about my biochem lab that day. It wasn’t about the incredible proteins I had just sequenced (or rather cut up pieces of paper to emulate protein sequencing) or infact anything to do with the subject whatsoever. It was about the way the lab technician had misused the word ‘nerd’ – and more importantly the way society in general has done the same for the last ten years. Alright, so I wasn’t stewing per se – truth be told I wasn’t even upset, but it did cause me to think about the use of the word ‘nerd’ over the years, and its changing meaning.

Like most other aspects of modern life, the lab based courses at university have really had to clamp down on OH&S in recent years. Every experiment has to be audited, and its safety, relative educational merit and most importantly financial costs have to be re-evaluated each year. One of the more anal changes in certain units is the insistence that sciencey lab sessions are taught in laboratory conditions. For example, for last week’s biochem lab – which involved sitting at a desk, doing calculations and then cutting up pieces of paper and gluing them on a larger sheet – required lab coats, lab goggles and closed-toe shoes (admittedly most other weeks we would actually be using nasty stuff that could eat our clothes and feet, while burning our eyes out). Although it has confused me as to why long pants are not enforced if shoes and lab coats are, the main gripe in this kind of lab (at least for me) is having to wear goggles when there is no threat of either mechanical or chemical trauma that isn’t omnipresent in everyday life. Anyway the new regulations got my goat specifically last Thursday because fate had chosen that particular day for me to forget my own goggles, which meant I needed to hire (for a dollar and the deposit of my ID card) a pair from the lab storeroom.

The pair I managed to get were – spectacular. Not dissimilar from the oversized novelty sunglasses you can buy around the place at the moment, except black frame with clear lenses in a wraparound sort of style to inhibit splashes from the periphery. Let me try to illustrate their magnificence:

Pete, pre lab (and clearly a little bit pissed off, with a very large jaw):

And, surprisingly not so pissed off, but with the supplied 1970′s glasses:

Who said science students can’t draw? Anyway at the end of the lab, when I had to return them and get my student card back (who the hell would steal THOSE?), I started making small talk with the lab assistant, about how I’d become attached to the glasses, and that beauty often came from within when she came out with her corker.

‘They are quite…. nerdy.’

What? Nerdy? As opposed to what? The hundred or so second year biochemistry students walking around the lab? The bloody PhD students instructing those 2nd years?

I think you kind of know that a word used as an insult twenty years ago has lost all its venom when a lab technician who makes her SALARY from mixing chemicals and running a biochemistry lab uses it to describe something that clearly has no power over its own form. Poor glasses – they never hurt anyone…

Oh well, dear word. Rest in Peace.

Pete

[I apologise for the brief end of this post. I've been sitting on it for a week now, and only found the time to write it up this evening, but have to rush off to Cous Cous' birthday bash. He better have actually booked out La La Land.]

They say that there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing. Apparently my body is reminding me of that fact this week. I’ve got one of the worst colds I can remember having. My nose is actually like a running tap, my head is pounding (I’ve never had a headachey cold before), my entire body aches and my throat feels like someone has gone at it with sandpaper for a couple of hours.

That said, it may have just been worth it – I’ve experienced one of the most leisurely and social weekends for quite some time – and with the exception of Friday night it really wasn’t as expensive as it should have been (monetarily speaking – the cost to my health and sanity hasn’t been counted). Friday night was spent in the city for god-knows-what reason – at various bars and clubs ending at the hairy canary where the evening waned on and we were eventually booted out at about 2am. I was home an hour later, to rise a few hours later to accompany the old man to the F1 qualifying session on Saturday, a few kilometres from home in central Melbourne.

After a surprisingly enjoyable day spent watching hydrocarbons being burnt by the bucketload, I rushed to change into St Pats day/NAB cup final gear, settling on a green polo under the footy jumper. Claire, Jordan, Kel and I met in Carlton to have a few leisurely afternoon pints before heading to Jake’s farewell party – he is leaving this week for 9 months overseas. Although the first portion of the gathering was devoted (at least for me) to the footy, it was a heartily enjoyable night. I eventually left Jake’s after 4, and although I was admittedly one of the last to leave, the sheer amount of time spent at Berah’s really speaks for itself.

Sunday morning was spent trying to recover (although surprisingly – and this phenomenon was repeated with Claire – I had no real hangover to speak of) a little of my energy for a BBQ at an old friends house who I hadn’t seen for months. The kicker is that Tashi only lives around the corner from me, so there was no way I was going to miss a chance to see her. The start coincided nicely with the start of the GP race (fucking Raikonnen), but the motor racing quickly gave way to leisurely Sunday afternoon frivolity – the perfect end to a already very decent weekend. Unfortunately my internal alarm clock was obviously not functioning, as I got home after 11, and then started panicking as to a weekend of supposed study lost to the temptation of alcohol, women and a sedentary lifestyle.

Anyway Sunday night, although not particular booze-laden was one of the worst night’s sleep I’ve had in months. I woke maybe a dozen times to a drowning feeling as the sputum collecting in my sinuses started to cut off air circulation, and the other typical symptoms of a cold set in. I woke on Monday morning feeling less than dapper, and trudged off to a 9am lecture delirious from lack of sleep, with a body that felt like it’d been hammered around by a boxer, and an elevated temperature. The best thing is it hasn’t changed in the last 24 hours. At least I didn’t have to work last night…

I suppose that’s karmic punishment for a weekend free of stress.

Pete

Occasionally I’ve had the pleasure of sharing lectures at university with deaf students, who are supplied with signers who stand at the front and sign away while the main lecturer drones on about god-knows-what. It was somewhat confusing, as these signers would appear randomly at single lectures, sometimes weeks apart, which meant that either some poor bastards were going almost entire semesters without understanding lectures, or they just didn’t turn up to the majority of lectures, which opens another can of mysteries – how would they catch up? I think I can safely rule out audiotaped lectures…

Anyway, I found that whenever the signers were present, I would spend the majority of the lecture gazing at the blur of hands that made up supposedly comprehensible signals – it was quite beautiful in many ways, but extraordinarily distracting, as I would often play a game with myself or whoever was sitting near me, trying to make new meaning for the signs – meaning that made more literal sense to what was being mimicked. So, you can probably understand my glee when I stumbled over this video this afternoon.

I know I should be ashamed, sourcing so much joy from what could be considered a disability, but the translation is bloody good…

Pete

So, not only did were my demands met last weekend (my football related demands anyway), but we followed through and won our second round NAB cup match this weekend, against the Hawks. Now, granted most teams take the pre-season competition less-than-seriously, fielding inexperienced, second-rate teams and not taking losses terribly seriously, but the fact of the matter is that a win is a win is a win. Actually two wins are two wins are two wins.

So, after watching last night’s match on telly while trying to dress for a 21st, I woke up this morning with one goal in mind – follow through on my own promise to the club.

Done. If we wooden spoon again, I may very well cry.

Pete