Does anyone at all know what to do when your computer is so f***ed that no desktop icons, task bar or start menu appear when you switch it on, and you then have to use the Task Manager to do everything?

Apart from swear at it/kick it/place old-fashioned voodoo curse on it, etc.

Today, I built a new bed and a chest of drawers and tidied up the living room and threw a wobbly about the state of our flat and the fact that the in-laws are coming for Christmas when I'm not gonna be here cos I'm working and we still have a scabby sofa-bed in our kitchen and bare plaster on our hallway walls and doors that need repainting and a ( Read more... )

Oooft.
Starting to flag a bit while nearing the end of today's living room paint job, so have re-energised by listening to these guys:

Click to view

'Earl Brutus - goes well with paint fumes.'
I'm sure they would have approved.

Things I am currently enjoying/excited about/want to buy:

Old albums by Mouse On Mars, Two Lone Swordsmen and Plone.

New album From An Ancient Star by the wonderful Belbury Poly finally coming out in January ( Read more... )

The thing below was meant to be posted a while ago, but somehow it wasn't. However, thanks to the miracle of "Restore from saved draft?" - an excerpt from just after I'd popped into Mono for the tail-end of Gimme Shelter 4, having missed the Secondhand Marching Band gig due to Q Without U recording shenanigans ( Read more... )

Utterly wide awake, with an 8am start tomorrow. This morning, even. My body clock is a mass of "UH ( Read more... )

Looks to me like I won't be able to play at the next Marching Band gig, if we're playing at 4pm, cos Q Without U are recording stuff at 12, and by the time we get everything set up and stumble through the songs (we've had no rehearsals recently), the chances of my getting to Mono for 4pm are slimmer than a Slimfast-addicted giraffe ( Read more... )

The Marching Band played in Stirling last night.
We were brilliant.
I feel very ill.
Perhaps I'm allergic to Stirling.

THERE WAS A POINTS FAILURE, etc.

Currently subtitling the 2008 World Music Awards.
I never realised Beyonce had a wee sister called Solange.

Solange?! That sounds like something you buy in a chemist's, FFS.

Still, at least she's not called Freshelle.

Having not been called into work today, and having stripped almost half our hallway of its hideous, beige, floral-patterned, bumpy wallpaper, and having managed not to fall off the table I was standing on while stripping said wallpaper, I am going into town for some booze, some dinner and an Art Brut gig with the missus. TOP OF THE POPS! etc.