24th
December
2009
Here I am on Christmas Eve at work seeing a double load of patients since most of the other doctors have already abandoned us, but only a few short hours to go before a 4 day break.
Just thought I’d take this opportunity to wish anyone who reads this a Happy and Blessed Christmas, wherever in the world you may be!
As I’ll be here in Australia, I thought it was appropriate to share this little effort from Rolf Harris – Christmas in the Sun, perhaps his best Christmas song since the classic “Six White Boomers” (not that that’s saying very much…) As I’ve said before Christmas is the one time of year it’s okay to listen to otherwise forbidden music, so I hope you can excuse the cheesiness of this… on a tangential issue, it’s been interesting following the story of the UK Christmas #1 single. Not sure where Rolf came, but I was kind pleased to see the X Factor contestant beaten by Rage Against The Machine’s “Killing in the Name Of” (cool song, but don’t think I’ll post the video here as this is generally a PG rated blog) – can still remember my year 12 maths teacher raving about that song in high school. Funny how a grass roots internet campaign can drive such an old, aggressive (and quite rude) song to the top of the chart…
Anyway, I digress – here’s Rolf Harris :
And if you survived that, check out Rolf’s version of Stairway to Heaven – can’t get much more cheesy than this!
Tags : Australia, christmas, Rage Against the Machine, Rolf Harris, Stairway to Heaven
Categories : Personal |
7th
December
2009
Just thinking this morning about how I love the feel of this time of year – the anticipation of Christmas, the warm weather, days at the beach or dips in the pool, picnics in the evening, even the busyness of the shops and everyone racing around can be cool if you just sit back and take it in and not get swept up in the stress of it all. I like the decorations of shops, houses, the city, even cars now sporting reindeer antlers! But most of all I like the music – a strange mixture of old-time crooners, archaic hymns, and other cheesey songs that any other time of the year I wouldn’t be caught dead listening to. But at this time of year I love it – dragging out my collection of Christmas MP3s and playing them any opportunity I get. And I like the fact that you can walk around the shops and hear songs about Jesus, even if no-one seems to be paying any attention to it.
It goes without saying that Bing, Frank, Dean, Nat, and Elvis are essentials. I also love country styled Christmas music (I’m a big Brad Paisley fan and his Christmas album is tops!) And old style rock Christmas – Beach Boys, Jackson 5 of course! Not forgetting all the big pop music Christmas hits – John Lennon, David Bowie, Band Aid (which 
features one of the stupidest lyrics in history “there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmas time” – like that’s the reason we should feel sorry for them? Hello! Most of the world won’t have snow for Christmas. If we ever have snow here I’ll be seriously worried about climate change!)
The other day I was trying to explain to my kids how this is the only time of the year where it’s okay to enjoy Neil Diamond (the rest of the year he is verboten) – and the same goes for David Hasselhoff (his Christmas album is one of my many guilty pleasures). I’m afraid I can’t stretch that rule to include Streisand – her music is still taboo all the year round.
I won’t delve into the massive topic of Christmas novelty albums other than to mention Christmas in the Stars – the Star Wars Christmas album from 1980. I can only force myself to listen to this once each festive season it is so awful. It mostly features C3PO, Chewie, and R2D2 but on one of the songs you can hear a young Jon Bongiovi in his first recorded appearance. It’s bad, although not quite as horrible as the Star Wars Holiday Special TV show (which words cannot describe just how execrable it is).
Anyone else have any suggestions of Christmas music – good, bad or otherwise??
Finally, while we’re on the topic of Christmas, here’s a cool video we had in church yesterday – SC vs JC
Tags : carols, christmas, music, star wars
Categories : Personal |
28th
October
2009
It’s a quiet day at work and I haven’t posted here in some time so thought I’d share some of my musings.
Today I find myself thinking about Blu-Ray…
For a number of reasons I have held off getting a Blu-Ray player up to now but it seems to me the time is probably right to get one.
- Blu-Ray is clearly the dominant only HD movie disc format following the demise of HD-DVD (I still have a few of those along with my X-box 360 HD-DVD add-on). There does not seem to be any obvious successor in the pipeline so Blu-Ray will probably be with us for a few years to come
- Most shops have a decent sized Blu-Ray section now with an increasing selection of titles at better prices. This is only going to improve further. Nowadays if I’m thinking about buying a DVD I’m always reluctant to do so knowing there is a better higher-def alternative out there. When I get the new Star Trek movie or a new U2 concert disc, I’d rather it was the best possible experience available..
- Blu-Ray players now seem to be coming down in price, and the strong Australian dollar is only going to help that
So I’m starting to look at Blu-Ray players – might use up some of the credit on my interest-free store card account thingo as I shouldn’t really be spending disposable income on that sort of thing at present (so I’ll spend 2011 or 2012’s instead! lol)
Any suggestions of good, cheapish Blu-Ray players would be appreciated… I’m intending to stay away from the Sony Playstation 3 as we already have 2 games consoles in our home and don’t want to complicate things by adding another – plus I believe they don’t work with universal IR remotes.
Hopefully I’ll get a Blu-Ray player soon and the Santa can bring a few discs this Christmas… 
Tags : blu-ray, christmas, Technology
Categories : DVD, Technology, Television |
