Monday 28 January 2008

bob and me

This is Bob. i work with Bob on a daily basis, and i will miss him when he goes to the place that toys go to when they're of no use anymore. Bob is Bob, and i am Bob. that is, Bob is me or i can be Bob. he is my super-ego, my split personality, he's the man who will say what i dare'nt. if there's a social issue, Bob addresses it, if there's a house issue-he's on it. if there's something you shouldn't say in front of a child, Bob will find a way. i am Bob in various role playing scenarios, all being based around his house.

Bob has a 2 bedroomed detatched and there are 6, sometimes 8 living in there. it can get pretty crowded. included in this picture are the 2 mummy's, Bev, Teddy and Pat Pat, the local policeman. there is a dog kennel to the rear of the property where Spot usually lives. he has gone awol since Christmas but Pat Pat assures us he will turn up again. Pat Pat is the voice of reason, he also is one of my super-ego's (the one i generally don't listen to).




Bob owns a shop, but only the downstairs. a girl called Cushdie owns the upstairs and has turned it into a cafe, without Bobs approval i must add. when she is in the shop, she rules the establishment and sends Bob out on trips he wouldnt go on otherwise, for instance rescuing one of the many Sophies from a perilous situation on the couch or taking someone to the hospital in the back of his delivery van.



now this is Annie, she is good friends with Bob, in what context I'm not sure, Best friends i think though they do have their falling outs. she also runs a shop, next door to Bobs, though it's unclear what she actually sells. Annies life is simple, she tells Bob what to do and he, generally does it without question, as he does with Cushdie but there doesnt seem to be the connection there is with Annie. she is very special to Bob, and only Bob knows why.

this is Bob chairing a meeting of the local residents on a
'Let's find Spot' campaign. l-r (anti-clockwise) Mummy, Teddy, Pat Pat, Daddy, Bev, Annie, Baby, Mummy, Mel, Tracy, Blashdee, Plak, Postman Pat.
welcome to our Imaginary world.


Saturday 26 January 2008

family ties (and pirates)

it's incredible really how our facial looks, our diseases our inflictions our traits and habits can be passed on to the next generation of unsuspecting, apparantly free individuals. apparantly because even though society tells them they are free and they have certain freedoms of choice there are some things they simply cannot get away from.
this is me, on a normal day just leaving the house to go to work.
an aging man who looks like he should have had dental intervention in childhood i think you will agree. but then in my day there was no room for vanity, it was a luxury of the rich and famous. you had what you had and that was that.



now take a look at my daughter, i admit, her teeth are slightly worse than mine and would need some real money throwing at them but to have those teeth AND an eye patch??? it's uncanny, as i was saying at the start, you can be as free as you like but your past will always be there imprinted on your every move. now i'm not a psychic or anything like that but i bet if you went back far enough into my geneology you'd find a pirate there somewhere who didnt have the best set of nashers. it just struck me the other day that i havent dug the back garden up for treasure lately, maybe the gene is fading. my wife is sick of it i have to say. she was finding X's everywhere and the next time she looked there was a big hole in the floor. i showed her the map but she didnt beleive me. said i should see `someone` but never said who. maybe he knows where the treasure is and that's why. hmmmmmm


Sunday 20 January 2008

yo billy!


my cousin, nicola and her husband, shaun went to bed one night and when they woke up in the morning the stork had brought billy to live with them. this is billy, he appears to like wearing facial disguises, which in this world of vague descriptions and lookey likey photo-fits is a plus. who could mistake you if youve got an orange groucho marx face on?

good lad. welcome to the crazy club.

Saturday 19 January 2008

new moon


short note, shouldnt even need to say this really but if anyone out there hasnt got elliot smith's `new moon` ( a collection of rare songs, b-sides and stuff that never made it onto albums) then they should. if they havent got any of his stuff then you know that thing that sometimes wakes you up or pushes you into a dreamy state and you dont know why? that feeling that you've forgot something when you havent or that something should have happened but didnt? thats the space that this great man fills.
start with either/or, work forwards then backwards, then pick up your guitar.

Thursday 17 January 2008


Just north of the european mainland (you can see it on a clear day) is a tiny island about the size of a large american lake. it's called Great Britain. it holds, at present, 60 million people. it holds 250 people per sq.km. Australia holds 2 people per sq.km. it's a vast difference i think you will agree. the trouble is that people are everywhere, except, it appears in Australia. people make problems. if people weren't about then problems wouldnt be. and qed, the more people you have, the more problems surely there must be.
now Great Britain, being in the middle of two great bodies of water has certain climates and weather patterns that you don't get everywhere, or anywhere else i think. we have this thing called rain. it's been with us since time began and we, as islanders have gotten quite used to it. the people in charge of Great Britain like rain as it keeps us grounded and stops us going out too much and congregating to discuss the unfair treatment of the aforementioned government. the government dont like us going out too much too, so the weather suits them fine. Also it decided to tax heavily anything that could be used a tool to gather and put in places laws and regulations that made life for the honest hardworking revolter more difficult.
now the rain has started to take the piss a bit and is slowly flooding the island that invented it. bit by bit, from the middle outwards really the ground is bogging and the endless low pressure is refusing to let it dry. peoples homes are flooding, then drying out then re-flooding on a 6 monthly cycle and it wont be long before the ground decides to skip the drying out period altogether. there is no hero to save us, there's this scottish guy who supposedly runs the country but he's not shaping up so well, and looks like he needs a rest. i don't know anyone called Noah who likes collecting animals and building boats for that `just in case` scenario so maybe a move to australia would be better. it hardly ever rains and theres no one to moan about it if it does.

Sunday 13 January 2008

virtual eqine husbandry


for the last, i dont know how long, the computer i use has taken to creating a zoo, virtually of course and keeping all kinds of wierd and wonderful creatures. the animal it is most favourite of is the horse. not just any horse though, oh no, not my baby, this computer likes trojan horses, and it likes them alot.

(you dont need to worry if you are reading this and i have sent you stuff, this computer has only just gone on the net, like 2 weeks ago and i didnt send anybody anything so don't fret.)


i found 64, then went onto net to get a spyware prog i use and found another 684 when i came off along with 12 worms and 30 tracking devices.


so my virtual stable of 740+ trojan horses was complete, and i took it all away from it. awww poor pc. silly twat, if it wanted a pet why didnt it say? i would have got it a goldfish.
the picture is the last full moon we had here. i have loads of stupid pointless pictures like this. i'll post them all sooner or later. my daughters sickness is better now. some family came over today from bury and the 2 little ones played well together. the boy, billy starts nursery on weds......good luck bill, it's a blast man.

Tuesday 8 January 2008


this is my little one just before she went to school this morning. she was sick so had to come home, she was so sick that i had to catch the sick in my hands til i could transfer it to a towel, nice. she's great. youd like her.

Monday 7 January 2008

the coming of age

well, tomorrow i am officially an age old. i have lived through times you wouldnt wish on your worst musical critiquing forum member. i will be 35. thats half of the life that my forefathers promised me.
yes i have the wrinkles and yes i have the grey hair.
has anything happened in those 35 years you might ask? well, of course. i helped thousands of people sit down comfortable in their homes. ive helped provide shoes for thousands of people who had more than enough shoes anyway. i lost my `cherry` on a veranda in spain. i've been burgled 3 times,, ive had 6 cats, 5 dogs, 2 frogs, 8 stick insects and 2 tortoises. i've lived and thrived in many places, not just england. i've trained at least 3 people in the art of making alcohol using just fruit, sugar, bread and water. i have trained more in the art of making it using real equipment. ive supported the barclay brothers in making their island, just off the end of the world, habitable. ive helped pay fellow musicians rent by loving and supporting them, i am in the process of supporting a very gifted musician ( my daughter) find her musical niche and have seen the great Elliot Smith live, twice. both times he changed my life.
the 2nd half of my existence will be more fun than the 1st. i dont know what the plans are, i'll let you know when i make some.

Sunday 6 January 2008

a world without cookies......?

where would i be without my cookies? hell, i use them all the damn time, i nibble at their virtual-ness and pick out the best html for myself. when ive finished with them i leave the crumbs of javascript there on the plate for the cat to sniff at and reject.
god bless internet explorer and all the free `do you want` pages it sends me. i too use them all the time. i have had 74 penis enlargements and gambled my whole life away on party poker. when im not doing the aforementioned i like to take exotic breaks away or vote on crap things i dont give a shit about, when im not doing that i like to shop for insurance, i am insured for everything, even if my plastic bag from tesco breaks on the way home or the single uht cream somehow leaks onto the croissants....i'm covered.
god bless pop ups and the interuptions they cause.
bastards, havent they got anything better to do?

Saturday 5 January 2008

damn computers

need i say more. the computer i use is dying, i'd buy it a wreath if i had the money. man, stuff should be really straight forward except we create these machines and only certain people know how to work them. crash course in computers? they show you how to switch it on and how to run the disk clean up, the rest is filled with your course collegues bigging themselves up by showing everyone what they did at the weekend and having a 2 hour discussion about that.
maybe i should find a cave, by the sea and put messages in a bottle everytime i want to blog.
would be a whole lot simpler.

Thursday 3 January 2008

finally the world has come to a small shed in blackpool

its taken its time i have to say. the shed (or the studio as i like to call it) has been on the brink of wireless connection for some time, now it's dreams are to be finally realised, i will be able to work hard and post what i create the very same night, from the very same spot in whatever state i am in. i gave a big sigh of releif when the moment came. to be honest i wasnt looking forward to hearing another asian voice on the other end of the line, i had visions of a conversation full of "I'M SORRY-WHAT??" and "YOU'LL HAVE SAY THAT AGAIN I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND" but i was wong, the accent was slighlty off and she kept saying things like "Yeeeeaaahhh??" but what a bang on gal. she worked me through some areas of the computer i have never dared go into and did it with ease and style.
i'm not a racist man, i just find it hard to talk to people who's english is broken while theyre trying to help me. i get frustrated at me not them.
but anyway, as i write from my (cold) studio i salute the men and women trying to make a better life for them and their families by talking to idiots like me on a premium rate phone line.
maybe a crash course in computers would have been cheaper.

Wednesday 2 January 2008

a good few days work

even though i do other stuff for a living, my passion is music and everything that comes with it, the recording of, the listening to, the watching of etc etc. over the last 3 or 4 weeks ive been running a program called Kristal audio engine on my pc, recomended by friends. ive been learning about mixing and processing sound on a computer as opposed to a standalone machine, which was my area before.
its been a hard slog running something that sometimes doesnt like the machine youre using and makes all kinds of spontaneous additions to something you dont wish to add to. finally the 3 songs i have been working on (B.U.R.Y./Mariolla and Back of Beyond) are ready in their preliminary stages to be posted and subsequently criticised, i hope.
lets hope there will be many more hours of beautiful creation with Kristal, she's good and she's free.
website is www.soundclick.com/jungchoi