Iron Maiden: Flight 666

I watched this documentary/concert film the other night. It tells the story of the "Somewhere Back In Time" world tour (which I was lucky enough to catch at Twickenham in July 2008).

The tour was quite an achievement: flying on their own plane (Ed Force One), with vocalist Bruce Dickinson as pilot, they covered 50,000 miles in 45 days, performing 23 shows on 5 continents. (This doesn't count the European leg of the tour which they did later in the year.)

It's an interesting and very enjoyable watch -- definitely a must-see for nostalgic Maiden fans. What stood out above all is how the guys have basically stayed close to their roots and are very down to earth about it all -- a stark contrast to the self-absorbed, prima donna antics of Metallica as seen in Some Kind Of Monster.

Garden Pics

(1) Potato patch:

(2) Planter boxes: the tall plants in the background are snowpeas (L) and broad beans (R). In the foreground are parsnips, swedes, spinach, rocket and a bunch of other things I can't remember..

(3) In the rockery at the back there is a lime tree. In the foreground is the recently-completed stormwater drain in front of the retaining wall. The two lengths of drain are joined under the cement by 90mm plastic pipe, and at the far end another pipe joins up to the pit at the back corner of the house. It seems to be doing its job so far based on a couple of recent downpours -- but only time, and a few really decent inundations, will tell.

Jump Back: New Apple iPod Shuffle Restores Fanboy Faith

A while back I ranted at length about my disgust at the 3rd incarnation of the iPod Shuffle (you know, the one with no buttons and the required apple-branded headphones blah blah blah).

Well, it looks as though Steve Jobs may just be an Interim Solutions reader, because the latest iPod Shuffle has just been announced, and guess what: the buttons (and basic design of the third generation model) are back, baby! With the important addition of playlist capability -- allowing you to go beyond a single amorphous 2GB randomized list and cater for different moods.

At 69 aussie big ones, this is once again looking like pretty good value. The simple, robust design really is ideal for jogging or the gym.

For now I'm still persevering with my 3g model, but it may soon be time for this fanboy to upgrade...

P.S. Another major upgrade is the new nano, which has an all-touch screen face. I'm less impressed by this since it represents (a) more power needed and thus shorter battery life, (b) a bigger area to get scratched, and (c) harder to change songs/volume with the iPod in your pocket. I do like the fact that it includes a radio (something that is standard with most other brands but which Apple have obstinately refused to include in most of the iPod family).

The Guitar Diaries #9

Last week's lesson was another mixture of revising previous material and introducing a bit of new stuff. The new stuff included jazzing up the Mr PC progression by adding more passing chords, some basic improvisation based on simple motifs starting from each chord root note, and a few more arpeggio ideas in the harmonic minor scale.

The Guitar Diaries #8

Last week's lesson was a bit of a mixed bag:

1. Started off by reviewing the "Mr PC" tune and happily it was sounding better -- I was managing to get my "swing" on :-)

2. Introduced some new ideas for comping using chord shapes based on stacking intervals of diatonic fourths (instead of the thirds that comprise regular triads and seventh chords). We went through shapes involving 3 and 4 notes, all starting on the fifth string. 

One interesting thing is that when you start on minor or half-diminished tones (i.e. A, B, D, E when in the key of C Major), you get a stack of four perfect fourths. Thus, instead of a dissonant or melancoly sound, you get a more neutral, open sound.

For the major seventh tones (C,F) --- as well as the dominant seventh (G), if you include 4 tones --- you stumble on a tritone at some point in the "stack" of fourths. Of course you have to, since two perfect fourths on top of each other make a minor 7 interval -- so if you want a major seventh, one of them has to be an augmented fourth. For the dominant seventh, the tritone is the interval from minor 7 to major 3rd (8va).

These shapes seem to have quite versatile applications in comping. As an example, in the tune Mr PC (which is becoming something of a workhorse) we looked at playing the root C and D fourth stacks instead of Cm7, and the Fm7 and Gm7 stacks in place of Fm7.

3. Arpeggio shapes: introduced a bunch of root 5 and root 6 seventh arpeggio shapes. These were more-or-less familiar but I wasn't "fluent" in them, so I've been practising them during the week.

4. "Yesterday" (by The Beatles) chord melody piece. He gave me the sheet music but I haven't had a chance to start working on it. It sounds a fair bit more challenging than the "twinkle twinkle little star" one that we did a few weeks back, so it should be fun.

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Gripping, harrowing, moving --- and all too believable...

View all my reviews

Hung, drawn and quartered?

So I just read that we may have a hung parliament...

What's that all about? I didn't know Ron Jeremy was running as an independent... Does this mean we're in for a bout of Stag-flation???

Or does it mean we've collectively woken up and decided that the only good politician is one that's swinging from the rafters? Not something we're likely to see this far from Kandahar, but maybe it would be a fair outcome. It would be one way to introduce a bit of much-needed accountability into the political process...