Tuesday 30th October 2007
So the other night I trundled off once again to London to once again see David Ford. It was as usual, spectacular. I think possibly the best ever (not counting M&C). The stage was packed with people, Ford, Hannah, Francis, G-Man, Franco, Joey Love (I think), and at least one other person who I didn't know. Largely thanks to this, there was more instruments on stage then you could shake a stick at. As normal, many guitars, drums, piano, but also a mandolin, trombone, and slide guitar. So yes, it was wonderful. There was two standing ovations (it was a seated), dancing in the aisles (well, one drunk woman during Cheer Up), and a proposal (she said yes!). I don't quite know what it is that he has live, but I find the albums are never quite as exciting, and recordings of him live tend to lose a lot of the magic.
So in other news, I have a brand new shiney Mac Book. Though on principle I'm not happy that it has an Intel processor in it, I can't deny that it's wonderful. It does get alarmingly hot which I don't like (I blame Intel), but it's so nippy at doing everything, and I've got Leopard on it which has a couple of new things in it which I'm particularly excited about: Spaces, stacks, and DTrace. I'm currently in the process of copying my stuff over from my old one. It's taking forever and I'm getting bored. :(
Sunday 21st October 2007
Song: Hot Water Music - Radio
So today was my Mecedes-Benz driving experience day thing. It was good ol' fun! There was a bit of a cock up, didn't get the car I wanted nor the DVD of it that I'd paid for... More on this later. So anyway, I was in one of these... 
It was a lovely car, I was quite scared of its power. It's a 6.3L V8 (not the 5.5L I thought I was getting, but that's fine... Bigger is better. So yeah, it was good fun, I carefully drove up to the bit where I was to first do a thing of accelerating hard as the car can do in a straight line and then brake as hard as the car can offer. So I accelerated a bit nervously at first, and within seconds we were going alarmingly fast and a few seconds of that and I had to break very hard. When driving back to do it again, the instructor guy said that was about 25% of what the car had to offer. 25%?! Christ. So second time, trying harder this time. So I pretty much put foot to the floor this time, and the wheels span a lot (as the ESP did its thing), and then braked harder. It's an odd sensation, as I've never driven anything that fast before. Anyway yeah we did that, then I had a slalom around some cone things to get used to the turning and stuff.
Then the bit I'd been looking forward to. The track! He took me on the baby track first, I expect because I'd never been on a track before, and it was quite good fun. I was doing about 20mph round the corners and it felt reeeally fast. Only did two laps I think of that, then on to the main track. This was going to be good. Again the first few laps were just about 20mph on the corners and little more than 35mph on the straights, but it still felt really quick. Anyway, as time went on my confidence in the acceleration and brakes improved, I was getting quicker. Had a bit of a problem with one corner which I had explained to me, but otherwise I was pretty much left to do my own thing, which was nice.
Then he took me off the track, and it was skid pan time. The turned out to not actually be as hard as it had first seemed. It's a very odd thing... Basically just driving round in a circle round and round for ages, then a firm stomp on the accelerator and the back kicks out quite nicely and then you have to turn quickly into the skid and hopefully recover the car... Or alternatively you tentatively tap the throttle to keep the revs up enough to keep the car going sideways. Although it was my first ever go doing this, it seemed to go alright. I managed to get it to go sideways and keep it controlled a few times. The hard thing though is being in the car, it's hard to know how much you've turned. I like this picture Anthony took, as you can see the front wheel is not standing vertical, as the car's going sideways. This was a good moment. 
Naturally, the crowd went wild. 
After this I had a go with braking in the wet, but in a straight line. Also a simulated pulling away onto black ice and trying to turn and accelerate off. Obviously the car spins round, but I apparently handled it "very well", and managed to turn into the skid again and keep it going in a straight line, though admittedly it did soon venture off to the side again soon afterwards. Finally we went back on the track for a few more laps, and with my ever increasing confidence found myself hitting 90mph on the long straight bit, and doing about 40mph round the right angle corners. Also found myself braking harder which was good, as I got more and more used to where down the pedals travel the brakes start to take effect.
Anyway, yeah so the DVD recorder didn't work in the car. Without me saying a word about it, I was offered a voucher for another 30 minute minute track day thing, in any car of my choice with the DVD. They sell these for £75, so I thought that was a pretty good deal. I plan on doing this soon.
So yes, good day... I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys driving. :)
Sunday 14th October 2007
I've been having stupid sleeping problems again the past few days. Keep waking up at about 7 regardless of when I go to bed. Usually waking up in a bit of a startled fashion, not like a nice slow waking. Then if/when I try and get back to sleep I then have a lot of very short sleeps, plagued by some rather unenjoyable dreams. This morning was particularly good though. Over the last few days I've been having those dreams where you know it's a dream, and feel you can control your actions in the dream. I don't know how common these are, but I read about it on the internet once, so I know I'm not the only person who has them. Anyway, this morning I had another one, and I seemed to be quite sure that I was in control. Oddly, I was lying in my bed, trying (but unable) to open my eyes, to wake myself. I remember reaching over to the cupboard by my bed and picked up my laptop, and put it on the floor (this is all in the dream still) and I thought to myself, if it's on the floor when I wake up, I'll know if I actually move about in real life like that, once I've got control of myself in a dream. So I did, the laptop was picked up and put on the floor, and then the dream went off on a whole other tangent. When I eventually woke up (I was trying to force my eyes open this whole time in the dream) I realised the laptop actually wasn't on the cupboard by my bed anyway, so needless to say it hadn't got to the floor. The test seemed like a good idea at the time though.
I had a crack at recording something lovely earlier. I gave it a lot of attempts, but never got it perfect, so excuse the little mistakes. I don't know what happened at the end, my hands just froze... But anyway, here it is! That old Alladin classic, and probably the most tricky thing I've learnt on piano to date.
A Whole New World (don't you dare close your eyes)
*Edit* Just incase anyone thought I was going mental or completely making it up, I found it's called Lucid Dreaming. Have a read. It's fun.
*Second edit* I've also just found this, which I also do a lot. False awakenings.