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Geek music Toxic Custard newsletter

The new toy

In Parks and Recreation they celebrate an annual Treat Yo’self day. Mine was last week. I took my birthday and the next day off work. After much pondering, I bought a new home theatre setup. I’d spent way too much time pondering what I was going to buy. For a while I considered buying into  ... [More]

Categories
music

Music: best derivatives and best angry songs

Some best ofs in my current favourite lists. Best derivatives While most of the music on my favourites list are original compositions, here are some cover versions and songs that sample others that I currently like a lot: Something For Kate — Born To Run — I almost like this more than Springsteen’s original. P  ... [More]

Categories
music

Another old obscure music video clip: Jellyfish “New Mistake” (1993) – and a new one

An obscure music video from 1993, twenty years ago. I caught this video on Rage one night, and got into the band Jellyfish from there. I’m not even sure quite why I like it. The quirky music video (it was never clear enough on VHS, but it is here — all the band’s shots are  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism

The past and future of retail

In one lunchtime walk yesterday, I saw both the past and future of retail. “As seen on TV.” Seriously, they still use this tagline to hook people in? Does it still work? It’s never the name-brand products which used this — always the slightly dodgy ones. I walked past this display twice, and saw nobody  ... [More]

Categories
music TV

Obscure songs: JC001: Never Again

20 odd years ago, when I was into music videos (and television in general), I used to regularly record (yes, on VHS) a few hours of Rage on a Friday and/or Saturday night, and watch it the next day. I’d categorise each song as a 1, 2 or 3. 1s I would copy onto another  ... [More]

Categories
music Retrospectives

My retro iPod

I just realised my iPod is nearly nine years old. That’s an age in the world of computers and electronics… does that make it a retro item? It’s a third-generation iPod, back from before they had silly features like apps, movie playback, and colour screens… And yes, it’s still going strong, though admittedly most of  ... [More]

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dreams music Net

Quick random thoughts

The Herald Sun paywall launched in March, and offered free 2-month passes. Any word on what’s happened now those have run out? Strange dream: Woke up with the most enormous sideburns. Struggled to get them removed before having to go to work. Another dream: Was invited to a very elaborate dinner party at Alan Kohler’s  ... [More]

Categories
music

Shiny discs

CDs recently turned 30 years old. I first got a CD player in 1988, when they fell below $200 for the first time. It was a CDC brand player (made by Teac), for which I trekked out to KMart at Box Hill. It worked for fifteen years, until 2003 — though its replacement didn’t last  ... [More]