From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V3 #307 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Sunday, November 15 1998 Volume 03 : Number 307 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Alloy: It's So Quiet Today [Tim_Dunn.JBA_HEATHROW.SPL_EXTERNAL@jba.co] Re: Alloy: It's So Quiet Tonight/ Sight reading! [RThurF@aol.com] Re: Alloy: Poster up for grabs at eBay [RThurF@aol.com] Re: Alloy: It's So Quiet Tonight/ Sight reading! ["I T Admin @ Govt Offic] Re: Alloy: TEP and FFBs ["I T Admin @ Govt Office North West" > I think I've heard of "Plan 9" (digging through my memory... surf band? Or am I just thinking of the title of another band's cd?) It would be fun if your mom visits us at Alloy! I am looking for pictures of my family to put on my new web page, and it made me remember when one of my little sisters visited the old Tap Room years ago. electrix tried to pick her up... it was funny. Don't worry Rochelle, Dave and I don't have a social life either! :) last night I practiced keyboard after we watched Millenium, and Dave was doing some work of his own here; we worked til 1am. I don't normally play keyboard but my cello is being adjusted & has to stay on the workbench a little longer. I still find myself coming up against the brick wall of my own sight-reading deficiencies, and often feel like just giving it up & playing everything by ear. It would be making my life as a progressing cellist far more difficult if I DIDN'T know how to sightread, but studying this language of written music is driving me insane. I have progressed over the years... but so gradually!! Sightreading for me is like trying to recite Shakespeare and do trigonometry calculations while rehearsing an intricate dance routine. My head hurts again just thinking about it..! Robin T ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 09:48:32 EST From: RThurF@aol.com Subject: Re: Alloy: Poster up for grabs at eBay Monya, did you see that a copy of the same poster Michael sent me is for auction at eBay? Robin T ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 01:05:24 +0000 From: "I T Admin @ Govt Office North West" Subject: Re: Alloy: It's So Quiet Tonight/ Sight reading! At 09:45 14/11/98 EST, Robin wrote: > >I still find myself coming up against the brick wall of my own sight-reading >deficiencies, and often feel like just giving it up & playing everything by >ear. It would be making my life as a progressing cellist far more difficult if >I DIDN'T know how to sightread, but studying this language of written music is >driving me insane. I have progressed over the years... but so gradually!! >Sightreading for me is like trying to recite Shakespeare and do trigonometry >calculations while rehearsing an intricate dance routine. My head hurts again >just thinking about it..! > >Robin T > > Time, time, time. If only there was more time and I wasn't so lazy. Every time I think about starting to learn to read music I think of how long it will be before I'm even slightly competent. You may feel like you're doing mental gymnastics, but at least you have years of experience behind you. I can only play my guitar by ear and don't even know the names of any of the chords I play, never mind being able to read the dots. Stick with it Robin, there's always more to learn, but look at how much you've learned so far. I bet it's a lot when you analyse it. Slarv ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 01:05:16 +0000 From: "I T Admin @ Govt Office North West" Subject: Re: Alloy: TEP and FFBs At 10:44 13/11/98 +0000, Lem alias Croydon wrote: > >BTW, for the benefit of Web historians, FFB was my contribution to the FES >three-letter-anagram discussion. It's not my fault, I blame The Fast Show >(a comedy sketch show on BBC television). The show had a recurring sketch >in which one of the actors played a hard-as-nails career woman, who would >happily stomp on the faces of other women to get where she wants to be. >Only whenever there's a man in the room she instantly reverts to a little >girl voice, and becomes totally helpless and subservient. There was a >sketch in which she's arguing fiercely about the diagnosis a female >gynaecologist has given her when a male doctor comes in. Suddenly she's all >smiles and she turns to him and says: "Can you help? I think I might have >something wrong with my furry front bottom..." > Now then, I didn't know this was from the Fast Show at the time, but having caught the re-runs since the demise of the Tap Room, I have seen the sketch in question. I love this show, particularly the old buffer who sits in his chair, talking about shooting tigers in Africa and being very, very drunk at the time, but probably my favourite sketch of all was the skit on 'The Singing Ringing Tree.' They called it something like the Singing, Ringing, Binking, Plinking, Binging and Bonging tree. There was a magical bridge over a ravine which played a tune as anyone stepped on it, but in the skit it played the tune of 'Cars' by Gary Numan. It ended up with the hero's head being blown off in a magical explosion and the heroine sitting on it under her voluminous skirt, not entirely unlike that brief section in the video of Hot Sauce (I KNEW I could get a Dolby refernce in here somewhere). Lem, you might be too young to remember this, but it was one of those weird eastern European fairy tale series shown by the BBC many years ago, badly dubbed in to English. Despite the dubbing there were some great series, some of which weren't fairy tales (Belle and Sebastian, and Captain Zeppos to name but two). Singing Ringing Slarving Bargling ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1998 01:05:14 +0000 From: "I T Admin @ Govt Office North West" Subject: Re: Alloy: It's So Quiet Today At 11:03 14/11/98 +0000, the_copse wrote: > >Hi everyone > >Well I never thought the day would come when I'd be sat on my own in an IT >office on a Saturday doing some system testing while the rest of the world >is out having fun etc etc. The scary thing is I'm going to be here for most >of Sunday too! I'm not mental or anything, it's just that I've had to take >a whole load of emergency leave next week and I'm trying to get ahead of >myself before it happens. So if anyone's out there this weekend during UK >office hours feel free to drop by for a chat! > >It really is pretty boring around here! > >See you later! > >the_copse > Well, this has been my fifth or sixth Saturday working in a row, with one Sunday thrown in for good measure. Only one of these was on my own, the others have all been with four or five members of the IT team, converting our users' PCs from Win 3.11 to Windows 95. We also convert during the week, but as we're training 20 users per day, and it takes around an hour to convert each PC and user account, there aren't enough hours in the day to keep up with the training schedule. Working Saturday is 'nice' in that we don't helpdesk calls to answer, we can just get on with the conversion and catch up with the accounts we haven't had time to convert during the week. It's a little strange though, as we could be working in an office alone once we've allocated the work out, and on any floor between 4 and 21, overlooking the centre of Manchester, Piccadilly Gardens to be precise. This week the Christmas Fair has arrived, complete with oversized ferris wheel and a number of other rides, so there's a constant background noise of music. It's strange working in an almost empty building while all around the Mancunians are doing their Christmas shopping. We seem to have got into a pattern of doing some kind of upgrade at this time of year, which is pretty good as the overtime pay relives the Christmas stress on my bank balance. But it does get a bit wearing after a while. Well, the training's all but over now. We're waiting for our last lot of Celerons to arrive (they're due on Wednesday) then we can convert the straglers and tidy up the anomalies that have occured during conversion..... and THEN we can start planning the introduction of our intranet. Theres' never a dull moment at gonw@gtnet.gov.uk Slarv This is powered by 'Feng Shui' from Ozric Tentacles' 1993 album 'Jurassic Shift' which I only discovered this week and which I'm mighty impressed with. This is an instrumental band, not unlike Brand X, and they have some great track titles (e.g. Sunhair, Stretchy, Half Light in Thillai, Pteranodon, Vita voom). Can't understand why I never discovered them before; I wouldn't have NOW if one of my staff hadn't lent this CD to me. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 22:27:30 EST From: Wargun2438@aol.com Subject: Re: Alloy: It's So Quit Tonight a quick note here - a link to a decent bio. Any other good ones out there? http://www.musicblvd.com/cgi-bin/tw/1324315911098653_104_19871 also known as this link: Thomas Dolby ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V3 #307 ***************************