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PC vs Mac (Not Really)

In my latest flurry of gadget-buying, yesterday came the Canon mini-DVD camcorder. It wasn’t rashness on my part, but something I’d intended to get for quite a while. There are always things you wish you’d been able to film, and as Paul and I have one or two interviews planned (first one coming up early next month, no names mentioned just yet), it was a good time to grab it.

It’s a very nice piece of equipment. It has a widescreen option, which is pretty cool. My only (minor) disappointment is that there is no input for an external mike, which isn’t totally necessary but would’ve been a useful option to have. Great value for money overall, though.
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Listen to This

On the other hand, I heart my sound & vision system. My new DVD/CD player came today from Richer Sounds. Like the amp/decoder (also from Mr. Richer’s emporium), it’s a Sony model. The whole system, including speakers, as it stands, cost 240 quid, which is a good deal.

Sony’s name speaks for itself, but what I like about their gear is that they’re so user-friendly, and the manuals (for once) are really comprehensive and helpful (rather than the usual badly-written sketches in several languages). For instance, the player was not automatically sending a 5.1 signal to my amp, but the manual pointed the way in seconds. I have so many issues with instruction manuals that this makes a big difference to me.

The new player is impressing me a fair bit. While the old player was perfectly acceptable, the Sony’s sound output has a definite edge. I am hearing things on my CDs I hadn’t heard before. The amp is not a powerful one (you couldn’t shake the walls with it, but in a residential setting, this isn’t a great idea anyway), but I love the complete ‘wall of sound’ I can get from the set-up, which includes a cheap-but-effective sub-woofer.
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A Strange Hobby

In case you didn’t know: the live recording of Arnold Layne (Pink Floyd’s first single, about some creepy guy who steals knickers off washing lines!), from the May 30th ’06 David Gilmour concert at the Albert Hall, came out as a single on Dec 26th.

‘So what?’ you ask. Okay. The show coincided with Mr. D. Bowie’s visit to the UK to film his cameo in Extras. He was asked to perform lead vocals. And he did a fabulous job.
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Reality Bites

Just as I was wallowing in the sadness of not seeing Bowie on his current tour—probably his last full world tour—I heard he’d cancelled the final month of dates due to an injury. A trapped nerve. I hope it’s nothing worse than that; I’m still hoping to see him one of these days. (Though I do have a habit of missing these chances…)

Fact: Bowie, 57, has done around 110 shows in the last nine months, all running to two hours or so (25-28 songs, approx). I feel tired just thinking about it.

Reality Bites
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Random Music Comments

Still on music: finally picked up the last Blur album, Think Tank, the other day. Blur used to be my fave band a few years ago, but the fact that it took me almost a year—and HMV selling it off for £7.99—to get this one says a lot for my expectations. I wish I could say I was wrong; three listens later, I’m still waiting for one of the tunes to stay in my head. This, from a band whose melodies were always so memorable.

I will persist, though, and give it a few more tries. So far, it seems a huge disappointment.
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He Ain’t No Human Being

I have to say that John Lydon is tremendously entertaining on the latest I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, in what is otherwise a pretty tired lineup. This, from someone who never liked the Sex Pistols. Then again, I had few thoughts about anarchy when I was seven or eight years old; the attitude probably seems more relevant today. Maybe I should go buy a copy of Never Mind the Bollocks…
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