Month: November 2019

Might be marginally distracted by the TV

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It’s been a bit of a piecemeal day today as we had an electrician from our utilities company arriving for a scheduled visit, which meant our power was out for a couple of hours.  Still, I’ve managed to get a lot of easily-procrastinated jobs ticked off the to-do list, which is something.  I’ve also been able to catch up with Strictly this evening for the first time in a week, so I’m happy.

Tomorrow is Geth’s and my wedding anniversary.  It’s going to be a fairly busy day as we’ve got parkrun in the morning and then Geth is interviewing an author onstage at the Newcastle Book Fair, so it’ll be the evening before we get to celebrate with a nice meal!  Looking forward to it.

Strictly results show
Not an OOTD: Tess and Claudia’s expressions here sum up my anxiety while catching up with last week’s results show!

Today’s earworm playlist:

Adam Ant – ‘Puss In Boots’
Duran Duran – ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’
Jamie Madrox and Jimmy Urine – ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’*

*This is a cracking industrial cover by members of Twiztid and Mindless Self Indulgence! I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it, but I did.

Gig Review: Adam Ant at Sage Gateshead, 9th November 2019

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Another November gig… but far from the last!

I was at the Sage Gateshead two nights running over the weekend of the 9th and 10th November.  The Saturday gig was Adam Ant, who is of course an absolute ‘80s pop legend and thus a must-see in my book.  The tour was celebrating the 1982 Friend Or Foe album, which was played in its entirety, followed by a set of favourites and crowd-pleasers.

The support act were the Glam Skanks, who are an all-female glam rock band: basically, everything I was looking for in a band when I was a teenager.  The image and the music is just right – being from California, their sound leans more towards the American end of glam rock (New York Dolls etc.), but they obviously know their stuff regarding the British history as well and it was a really fun, energetic set.  I loved them and will be investigating their music further!

The Glam Skanks at Sage Gateshead
New favourites!

The energy only ramped up further when Adam Ant and his band came on stage after the interval.  It was most definitely a ‘standing from the outset’ gig (if you go to a lot of older bands’ gigs, where the audience tends to skew a bit older as well, you will know that this is usually not the case!).

Adam Ant at Sage Gateshead
It was difficult to get a photo of him ’cause he wouldn’t stay still!

The Friend Or Foe section was a good romp through the album tracks (including a rousing ‘Goody Two Shoes’, probably my highlight of the gig), and then things really kicked off for the rest of the set.  I was so happy to hear ‘Xerox’, my favourite track from the Ants’ earlier and slightly gothier days, and of course the crowd went mad for the big hits.  Here’s a video I took of ‘Antmusic’:

It’s getting really hard to choose my favourite gigs from among the many I’ve been to this year, but this one is definitely up there!  I’ll do a 2019 gig roundup next month.  But I’m not quite done yet…

A day of two halves

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Bit of a manic morning today, with a last-minute client who had a very tight deadline! It meant I had to rush to get to Slimming World, but I did make it before the end of weigh-in.

I’ve since been having a very quiet afternoon/evening – not planned, but it’s been one of those days where I’ve found it hard to concentrate and I’m not actually sure what I did for that whole time. Hoping to be a bit more with it tomorrow.

Advent calendar
Not an OOTD: this arrived from Mum and Dad today! Always an exciting delivery 😀

Today’s earworm playlist:

Pepsi & Shirlie – ‘Heartache’
Queen – ‘Killer Queen’
Duran Duran – ‘(I’m Looking For) Cracks In The Pavement’
A-ha – ‘The Sun Always Shines On TV’
Duran Duran – ‘Falling Down’
Paul Young – ‘Come Back And Stay’
Michael Land – ‘Talking With Jumbeaux LaFeet’

Venturing out

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A fairly early post today as I’ll be busy all evening. It’s the final ukulele class this term (sadly I can’t make the end-of-term concert next week as I’ll be at a gig in London, so it’ll be January before I’m back playing ukulele with the class again!) and then poetry night afterwards. Both of the poems I’m reading tonight are about it being a good time of year to stay in the house, which is sort of indicative of my current outlook on life.

I’ll be nipping out to Slimming World tomorrow, after which I can start preparing for a semi-quiet weekend!

Home treadmill
Not an OOTD: the treadmill is most definitely a near-permanent feature at the moment, with even Geth finding it too slippy to run outside most mornings.

Today’s earworm playlist:

Wham! – ‘Last Christmas’

Where did the day go?

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I’m really absorbed in a couple of projects (including my NaNoWriMo text adventure) at the moment, and so the days have a tendency to disappear. Today was no different. I’m going to have to take a break from it tomorrow so that I can actually get some house admin done!

Might open it up again once I get back from poetry night tomorrow evening though…

5 1/4 inch floppy disks
Not an OOTD: got the old 5 1/4 inch floppies out all ready for testing on the (hopefully still working) BBC Micro next month! Can you tell I might be excited for Christmas already?

Today’s earworm playlist:

Duran Duran – ‘Come Undone’
The Everly Brothers – ‘All I Have To Do Is Dream’
Clint Mansell – ‘Leaving Earth’

Story paths and tinkering

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While there’s an extent to which I feel I’m sort of not getting the full experience of NaNoWriMo this year due to rebelling and creating a story that is both an update of a novel from sixteen years ago and a brand-new text adventure game, I have to say I’m enjoying it more than I’ve enjoyed any creative project in years. I’d be working on it morning till night if I didn’t have so many other things going on at the same time! It’s partly because, as I’m designing it as a text adventure, there are a lot of different ways through the story, and so I’m telling several versions at once rather than one definitive version. It’s a lot of fun.

Spending so much time playing with the Adventuron coding system over the last few months has encouraged me to dig out my extremely brief childhood attempts at learning QBASIC. I’ve converted a few of the old ’90s files to BBC BASIC (because I’m excited about the fact that Dad and I are finally going to be digging the old BBC Micro out this Christmas after years of meaning to get round to it…fingers crossed it still works!), which is very similar, and I’m going to be doing a bit more experimentation in that area.

It’s going to be a relatively quiet week, so I’ll be fairly head down with my project.

QBasic to BBC Basic
Not an OOTD: crying with laughter at this ‘demo menu’ program that Dad put together in 1996 to show me how to programme a menu in QBASIC 😀

Today’s earworm playlist:

Blondie – ‘Maria’
Natalie Cole – ‘Miss You Like Crazy’
Aitch and ZieZie – ‘Buss Down’
Post Malone – ‘Circles’
Dermot Kennedy – ‘Outnumbered’
Cast of Muppet Treasure Island – ‘Something Better’
Gunship – ‘When You Grow Up Your Heart Dies’
Duran Duran – ‘The Chauffeur’
The Midnight – ‘Days Of Thunder’

Sunday pottering about…and sleeping, possibly

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The in-laws have headed off now, so I’m having a quiet Sunday afternoon getting on with a bit of writing and adventure game coding. Hoping to get some gaming in this evening as well!

I’m still finding I’m very drowsy, but hopefully another good night of sleep will sort that out. Back to work tomorrow.

Nintendo Game Boy
Not an OOTD: there was lots of retro gaming on the Switch this weekend, which reminded me that I’ve been needing to superglue my old Game Boy screen back on for years now! Finally got round to it yesterday. All of the cartridges still work, except Wario Land – but curiously enough, Wario Land still works in my Game Boy Colour, just not the Game Boy Original…but the Original is fine with all the other cartridges…strange. Still, at least they all still play in one machine or another (and if they didn’t, I could redownload them on my 3DS for a couple of quid, so there’s that).

Today’s earworm playlist:

Whitney Houston – ‘Saving All My Love For You’
Duran Duran – ‘Electric Barbarella’
Duran Duran – ‘Winter Marches On’
Little Mix – ‘Black Magic’
Koji Kondo – ‘Super Mario Bros. Theme’
Roxy Music – ‘2HB’
Rockwell – ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’

Half asleep

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Not doing very well in terms of staying awake today! I’ve had two giant glasses of Pepsi Max and three coffees and I still can’t keep my eyes open. It’s probably partly because I had to get up for parkrun this morning … but I wasn’t THAT late last night. Hopefully I’ll perk up a bit this evening!

Geth’s folks are visiting at the moment, and they’ve all gone into town to go shopping, so I’m sitting on the sofa trying not to snooze. It is most definitely hibernation season now.

Glass of cola
Not an OOTD: I’m not sure how much more of this I’m going to have to drink in order to stay awake!

Today’s earworm playlist:

The Midnight – ‘Shadows In The City’
Georgia – ‘About Work The Dancefloor’
Ollie Wride – ‘Back To Life’
Faderhead – ‘Dancers’
Koji Kondo – ‘Super Mario Bros. Theme’

And a bonus track that Geth was humming earlier:

Norman Greenbaum – ‘Spirit In The Sky’

Flying Friday post

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Just a quick one today as Geth and I have guests coming. Will update properly (-ish) tomorrow!

Cassettes
Not an OOTD: I encountered my old cassette collection while tidying up today. Not at all respectable in music snob terms but a good illustration of a late ’80s/early to mid ’90s British childhood.

Today’s earworm playlist:

Robbie Williams – ‘Dream A Little Dream’
Duran Duran – ‘Electric Barbarella’
Ed Sheeran, Camila Cabello and Cardi B – ‘South Of The Border’
Adam & The Ants – ‘Antmusic’
Madonna – ‘Into The Groove’
Elton John – ‘Your Song’
The Midnight – ‘Sunset’