The tubes rumble and steam under this great, beating city. They stop and start, shudder and moan but always, onwards keep going.

It all links together – a web of botched causeways, slip streams and dead ends, haphazardly, organically united under the coarsely slashed circle.

Its lifeblood, pumping through its veins 19 hours a day: we, the greying commuters. We seeth along its clogged ducts, feed into bottle-necks, cram behind the lost tourists, tut at the trundling, obese bags and three-wheeled prams and relentlessly pant in search of fresh reality.

It’s another world down there, the monoclinical lighting, globs of chewing gum – usually, perfectly, lodged in the nostril of a star on a poster – and stink from the bowels of life above. Every day we file down, rush and push, squeeze, raise eyebrows, grimace and shove, sit, avoid eye-contact, stare, lean, welcome, pour out, rush along, bustle and beep beep into the blinking morning. Then the formula flips and it’s dark and the mood is different and more foreign is ringing around the tin carriage, people who haven’t worked, first timers on the system, oh how weird that must feel… and once again we’re spat into cold, shivering energy.

The cartes huitres, the lights, the whirring wind forced through the pipes. Beggars, bad buskers, lovely drunkards and the occasional, fleeting glimpse of a face with a future you’d like to be part of.

Welcome to Monday.

Patented in 1999, the gerbil shirt allows you to take your pets with you anywhere. Why should they stay at home when you get to go have fun? The inventor cautions against undue collisions which might cause pet panic.

[via OhGizmo!]

Ilanit Neutra, a designer with many talents explores the various forms of art. Her work includes graphic and industrial design, styling and even set design. She is recognized for the exceptional quality and style of her creations. Through her passion for collectiong stuff and her ecology awareness Ilanit came up with a way to preserve the environment by creating art by the shape of handbags, purses, wallets, and sketchbooks bindings and belts, out of inner car tubes.

just blogging while im waiting for my tube of filler to soften in a sink of hot water,wanted to hang 3 items but couldnt decide where so ive now drilled 13 holes in the wall…..NOOOOO!

So, it wasn’t my patient, but another student had a patient tonight who was quite … ornery.  Understandable, given her condition (lung cancer spread to the brain).  But this patient had quite a time with the many folks who came into her room to help her:

• Trying to bite the instructor.
• Kicking the student when she came near.

And my personal favorite:

• Using her oxygen nasal cannula as a whip on the people coming near her bed.

In other news, my patient the last 2 days was a real sweetheart.  Older woman with quite a history, and who was in the hospital because of a stubborn little wound that wouldn’t heal.  She was in the hyperbaric chamber to promote wound healing, but had to have tubes put in her ears (bilateral myringotomy) because of the pressure of the hyperbaric chamber.  She didn’t have a whole lot going on, but was mostly blind, so I got to assist her with a lot of daily activities, such as helping her figure out where things were on her dinner tray, or helping her to the commode, or just generally sitting with her and getting her what she needed.

I really enjoyed these 2 days of helping her, because I felt like I was really aiding someone who needed it.  She was mostly self-sufficient, but it was nice to help her out whenever I could.  I also got to give her meds twice today, and didn’t even mess up once (unlike last time, where I forgot to ask the patient his name and birthday before I gave him his meds).  I’m becoming awfully familiar with doing the Accu-Chek as well (checking the patient’s blood sugar).

It’s also time to start thinking about a summer externship for 2010.  I’m asking my instructor for a letter of recommendation.  Not sure what I want to do yet — whether it’s just a general med/surg floor position or something more specific.  We shall see.

We’re still waiting for the new tubes to arrive.
They’ll finally be very good, we’ve commissioned them to a factory to make them very heavy so there won’t be any more problems with the bad manners of postmen all around the world. Moreover, if they’ll arrive damaged You’ll be able to use them as weapons.
So, it’s good, they’ll have a double use.
I know we’ve a lot of posters to ship, please don’t feel angry with us, we’re waiting for them cause we want to improve our shipping methods, c’mon time is a relative thing, You’ll be happy once the posters will be n Your hands safely.
In the meantime, to create some diversions, we can show You the pictures of the first colour of the new poster we’re printing right now.
It’s the new MEI poster and we’ve done the first “light blue silver” screening.
It’s good, we’ve some new colours and some new papers too for trying new effects.
We’ve received some samples and we’re experimenting a little.
And we’re also dreaming about our next studio, hopefully we’ll know something sure in the next days.
It’s quite a lot we’re waiting.
Ooooook, I’m gonna show You the pics, don’t  fume at me…
And tomorrow, if You’ll be nice all the day (that means: no bad words, don’t steal anything from Your friends, don’t look at dirty sites and say a little prayer for wishing our Premier will disappear from Earth…), we’ll have the second colour.
And maybe some more details.
It’s a cm 50×70 in 5 colour print. And we’ve studied a lot of nice things on it.
Ok, look at the pics now.

Nice, isn’t it?
And I guess You’ve the entire design clear now

Goooood night

————————————————————–
Listening to Those Poor Bastards – Satan is watching

Safari Ltd have produced several tubes (‘Toobs’) which contain a diverse selection of mini-dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. These tubes are a great choice for the indecisive amongst us – why pick one single large dinosaur when you can get an entire tube of small dinos for the same price!? The American Museum of Natural History feathered dinos tube contains an array of twelve dinosaurs, half of which are feathered and including some recent discoveries. A tube dedicated to feathered dinosaurs is a reflection of recent discoveries that continue to provide evidence for a close relationship between dinosaurs and birds.

All of the feathered dinosaurs are theropods and are depicted with plumage to some degree. A four-winged Microraptor a posed mid-flight with its feathered arms, legs and tail outstretched. It is worth noting that these figures are also available individually in the form of keyrings – I should know as a small Microraptor has been following my around as a fashionable backpack accessory for some time! The cumbersome animal Beipiaosaurus is portrayed posed on two legs, supported by one hand, it has yellow and grey plumage. The Dilong has black plumage and is posed on two legs, its tail is expanded into a slight tail fan and also acts as a support. A ‘winged’ Velociraptor with a long raised tail looks posed for attack with its sickle-shaped claws clearly visible. It also has a plume of feathers on the back of the head and brown stripes on the arm feathers. A brown and white Sinornithosaurus is quite similar to the Velociraptor in overall pose. The final feathered critter of the bunch is Caudipteryx which is positioned raised up on two legs, showing of his red breast and stubby wings. The tip of the tail has a distincive fan of feathers.

Pictured: The full set of twelve dinosaurs from the Feathered Dinos Tube by Safari Ltd. Back row, left to right: Caudipteryx, Psittacosaurus, Velociraptor; next row, left to tight: Apatosaurus, Dilong, Pachycephalosaurus; next row, left to right: Beipiaosaurus, Chasmosaurus, Microraptor; front row, left to right: Tyrannosaurus, Protoceratops, Sinornithosaurus.

Six non-feathered species have been snuck in amongst the dinobirds. I can’t determine any rational for the choice of species, other than the fact that some are contemporaries of one of the feathered dinosaurs. They include some popular names such as T.rex and Apatosaurus, but also some more obscure beasties. There is a Psittacosaurus in an almost quadropedal pose and with yellow/green skin. The distinctive parrot-like beak from which it’s name is derived is very clear. There are two frilled ceratopians; a Prococeratops with a stiking blue frill and a deep tail and a deep blue-skinned Chasmosaurus. Finally there is a Pachycephalosaurus posed on two legs and supported by its tail. The bony head is covered in bumps and highlighted in blue.

The detailing is nice and although not on a par with similar-sized offerings from Kaiyodo, for example, they are well worth the price tag – presently just $10 on Amazon.com (here). These tubes also offer a great opportunity for play and would make a great gift. I like the diversity in plumage colour on the feathered dinosaurs, similar to modern birds, and the intriguing set of species is a bonus for collectors. Also, the tube itself contains a small rotatable globe set into the lid.

All of the figures are about 7cm long and not to scale – after all, only the most active imagination could perceive a swooping Microraptor snatching up an adult Apatosaurus and whisking it up to its nest for dinner.

Available from Safari.com (here) and Amazon.com (here)

“I’m a writer man, I appreciate the elements of Hip Hop. I appreciate a guy like Common who goes city to city and just spits at the crowd for ten minutes about everything he sees. I admire talents like that because…That’s not really my creative process.”

here’s the crackberry recitation he’s referring to…

he just sounds like a basic up and coming rapper in the freestyle i.m.o.
he’s still really dope and in my top 4 favorite new artists…he’s a writer!

peace, and remember to smile, love.

TFL keep emailing me every week to let me know about all the work thats going on (i.e. which lines/stations are kaput). Fair enough, good service, thanks for the info. What annoys me is that every email says;

Transport for London’s investment programme to improve and modernise the Tube network is gathering pace. As a result, the amount of work taking place at the weekend is increasing.

Every week I am told that things are gathering pace. How much more pace is there to gather? Instead of opting to gather more pace each week, every week, would it not be better to work at the desired pace in the first place and stick to it? This ever increasing work speed must be playing havoc with the engineers organs…

bah.

Comment:

Ah, TFL are very good at telling you that things are moving, when in fact I hear they plan to rename the District Line as “The Snail Line”

here’s a video from a recent show where ‘lu when in over Drake’s “Forever.” my guess is a mp3 of this will be on the new Fahrenheit mixtape coming the end of November.

yea…he is better than all of them except maybe em (maybe!).
peace, and remember to smile, love.

Today we went hunting for some surf. It ended up settling for Praa. Ryan and I went in. Joe and Emma had a lovely day at the beach while Ben did a bit of photography.

British Surf Mags at Keith’s. Taken by Ryan.

Secret spot behind the bush.

Rinsey looked alright but Ben wasn’t keen of the crowd factor.

Ryan had a million stickers in a box so Ben and I snagged a few.

Some fun looking rights at Praa.

Down the line. Taken by Ryan.

Head Dippers. Taken by Ryan.

Ryan getting shackled. Taken by Benji.

Another pit in Ryan’s arsenal. Taken by Benji.

Ryan going off the wall. Taken by Benji.

I didn’t quite make that right… Taken by Benji.

Ryan got smashed by this rogue. Taken by Benji.

Pigdogging isn’t my thing. Taken by Benji.

It was a fun sesh. Golden sunsets for everybody on the south coast.

Below are some of my favourite guitars to play.

I really like the tones and feel of the Danelectro and Rickenbacker models.

Also featured below the links are some pics of great guitarists and musicians that play Danelectro and Rickenbacker.

You may find what you’re looking for at these sites as well. I have found them to be very helpful and fun.
The Recordist

Aztechmusic.com

Guitarchordfinder

Playbetterbluegrass.com

Guitarmasterclass.net

Audacity

AX84.com

cheapguitarsreport

gettuned guitar tuner

haramps guitar shielding

harmonycentral guitar instruction

americanmusical.com

logue.net chords

Guitar Wheel instruction tool

Guitarnuts.com technical

guitarnoise.com

projectguitar.com intonation

mwcamerica.com

Tortoiseguitar.com

Mandolincafe.com tuning

fret2fret.com instruction tool

RogerMcGuinn.blogspot.com

rocknrollvintage.com

gonegator.com Tom Petty stuff

Enjoy.

What are your favourite guitars?

What type of music do you play?

Self taught? Lessons?

Play at home, with friends, family, live in public?

Record your playing at home onto a PC?

First guitar you owned/played?
Please leave Comments.

This Cort Effector model has built in effects circuits and sounds good for a low priced guitar. I have one like this, but all black. They were sold at Sears stores back in the 80’s. It was my first guitar.

OK so I was probably a bit harsh in my last post on this topic but wanted it to strongly reflect my belief that ability is the major factor for a good tone. BUT as guitarists we love the hobby aspect of collecting pedals and trying new set-ups and this is what we want to read about. Is there a blog that will give us particularly good tips in setting up that killer sound?

I personally take a bit of the Neanderthal approach to guitar in that I think everyone MUST have three great sounds. After that all the other effects are just icing:

1) A great clean tone. I prefer single coils for this and especially love the neck & middle pickups on a strat for single note stuff and the just the neck or middle pickup for strumming. I swear by a tube amp due to it’s responsiveness which is especially noticable when playing single note runs on the neck & middle setting of the strat. I also always have a hint of reverb. In a band setting you need to EQ a bit more trebly than you would in your bedroom so that the sound cuts through the mix. When it comes to strumming you have to be a bit careful to control how the strings ring so I pretty much always palm-damp. A bit of chorus sounds nice BUT only once you’ve got the clean sound useable on it’s own.

2) A great rhythmy drive tone. This time the bridge pick-up either single coil or humbucker seems to work best especially if playing with drums and bass (it will sound too trebly on its own but you really need this especially if there is also synth or keyboard in the band). Again tube overdrive sounds the best to my ears as does a 12 inch speaker. I’ve never been impressed with 2×10’s although 4×10 are OK. I like a bit of reverb and occasionally add a short delay to make the sound seem a bit bigger. The trick is to avoid the “angry bee” sound that cheap transisters seem so keen to provide. If you have the angry bee sound and can’t get rid of it with your EQ you need to think or trying out a new pre-amp. I personally like the (discontinued) mesa V-twin however there are many similar options such as the damage control “womanizer” that also sound great. Drive wise I like to just hear individual notes in a chord. I normally set my drive level by switching to the front pup of the strat and playing a couple runs making sure that gentle picking sounds pretty clean but then harder picking brings in the drive nicely. Finally if Free’s “Alright now” riff sounds good you know you have the sound – I call it the nut factor.

3) A great solo sound. For this the front pup of a strat sounds bluesy and the bridge sounds rocky. Unlike the rhythm sound you want to hear the drive no matter how quietly you pick a note, and you also want it to ring enough to pull off some tapping. This may mean that the guitar feels a bit like a live beast but its up to you to try and control how much the strings ring with damping and also making sure you are accurate when you hit your notes. Volume wise it needs to be substantially louder than the rythm which can be a bit disconcerting in a live situation, however it helps to step closer to the bass players amp when playing a solo in order to stay in time and hear the chord changes. It is the solo sound that is most likely to show up poor technique and sloppy solos. The best practice is to play scales trying to make sure that you distinguish between notes as clearly as possible.

Once you have the above three sounds sorted out you can do whatever you like experimenting with effects BUT if you don’t have these sorted out spend money on your speaker, amp and guitar lessons before buying more effects!

Finally these sounds can’t be worked out at bedroom practice levels. I have ALWAYS been disappointed when trying to translate the perfectly dialled in bedroom sound into a live situation. You have to find these three sounds at gig volume with the rest of your band, tweaking perhaps during a practice or even a gig, and then trying to remember what worked!

By Katelyn

I magically stumbled upon these amazing projects today while surfing the web!  I am a big fan of the old school Mario so these really tug at my heartstrings and brought back good childhood memories!

source: boingboing.net

This is a 7′ x 7′ Raccoon Mario rug made from 3.5″ hand crocheted granny squares.  Each of the 386 granny squares represents 1 pixel that makes up the entire picture.  Simply amazing!

source: pixelatedgeek.com

This is an adorable and ingenious scarf that is, obviously, based off the piranha plant and tubes in Mario.  She even gives a tutorial on how to make the scarf.  I would also like to point out how awesome the room decor is in this picture.

This weekend saw Jack move home. It consisted of a two-try trip to Ikea, the first was foiled by anti war protest marches and failing public transport meaning the majority of the tubes were down. Luckily, the second trip consisted of Em being a life saver  and deciding that instead of meeting up for a Pilates class and then lunch she would drive me to Ikea and have meatballs (thank you Em xx).  This thankfully meant that at 5.45 this evening our furniture got to the office. It was a long Sunday.

So we find ourselves at 73 Parkway a space that in the coming months will hold a whole host of events, thanks to the lovely people at Camden Town Unlimited who are doing their damndest to add an injection of buzz into Camden Town – not that it’s not got any currently but there’s never any harm in a bit more! We will be working at this lovely little office until just after Christmas, watching several events pass us and putting on a few of our own.

The first of these events is Reentry, a show by artists Sol Archer and Sarah McNulty who we met last night and are looking forward to sharing the space with for the first week!

The rest of today I am sure Laura will report as we tackle flat pack furniture and pop down to our favorite fancy dress shop Escapade to grab an outfit for the Opal Nera Ball tomorrow.

Soon we will have lovely news of things we will be doing in the space below us and we look forward to seeing all your lovely faces over North!

Why did I buy it?

I wasn’t happy with the amount or quality of drive I could get from my Laney VC30. I jammed with a guy who had a Mesa amp and liked the sound so much I got a V-twin from ebay. I would love to buy a proper Mesa such as the Lonestar, however with limited finances and certainly limited levels (ie in the bedroom) the V-twin is just as good.

How does it sound?

It has three channels – clean, blues and drive – however only two are accessible via the foot switch. Also it only has one set of controls (including gain) for all the channels so you are sort of stuck to compromising with the settings. I have it configured so that one footswitch turns the pedal on and off whilst the second switches between the blues and drive channel. I essentially set up a great crunchy rhythm tone on the blues channel and then use the drive channel as my solo boost because it is much louder and dirtyier despite all the settings remaining the same. This has worked really well for me, so much so that I tend not to use the drive channel on any of my amps in favour of this going into the amps clean channel. The mesa overdrive sound powered by the 2×12AX7 valves really needs to be heard to be believed. The only negative on the sound front is that some say this can be used a a recording pre-amp however every time I try to record I get so much noise (especially on the solo setting) that I have never kept a track recorded through this pedal.

Sell or keep?

Definately a keep because this IS the drive sound for me. Of course if I could get myself a Mesa amp this pedal would probably become extra to requirements, however at the moment it forms the heart of my sound.

Knowing when to try to conceive after a miscarriage is a big question. Having that positive pregnancy test and being excited about being pregnant and then miscarrying is a big lose and heartbreak.

There is no clear evidence as to when it is the right time to try to conceive again. Many feel that waiting for your body to heal is the right thing to do in order to avoid another miscarriage.

When going through a miscarriage it is such an empty feeling. For those women who have been down this road only they can explain what this feels like. The same holds true for the tubal reversal women that are counting each cycle to a positive pregnancy test. Each cycle seems like it takes forever but they still do not give up hope.

Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center is known as the best tubal reversal center available to women and couples from all over the world. The fallopian tube repair rate stands at 98% and the Essure and Adiana Reversals were first successfully performed here. The message board is full of women who are trying to conceive and one of the biggest messages is that do not give up hope that it will happen.

For many women the month after month of predicting ovulation and waiting for the positive pregnancy test would certainly be too much to bear without the help of their tubal reversal sisters.

So whether you have had tubal reversal or not many women go through miscarriage and it is important to know that you are not alone. Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center has an extensive website with videos, the message board and a blog that is full of support and information.