I recently bought some tickets to see the singer Usher at the O2 (or North Greenwich Arena if you followed the Olympics). The tickets were quite expensive and there was a similarly over-priced booking fee.
It turns out that Usher decided that being a judge on the USA version of The Voice was more important than singing to his fans in the UK (I don’t consider myself a fan, see My Music). So he has postponed his tour over here.
Ticketmaster, through whom I purchased the tickets, were really good at contacting me about the postponement of the event. I received a text, mobile phone message, home phone message and an email. I have also been refunded the price of the tickets. However, they have kept the booking fee! As far as I can tell I have not actually booked any tickets because they don’t exist anymore and so I should get a full refund.
I do know it is probably in the T&Cs somewhere about them keeping the booking fee. What do they care? If I want to see a band in the future I’m still going to use them. It’s win-win for Ticketmaster.
Broken now Fixed
Seeking Tractors
Here’s a picture of #1 looking for tractors in the field south of our grounds. Combine harvesters rate highest followed by pretty much anything else.
Changing Appearance
I’ve just been editing my theme files of this website to remove the “leave a comment” link at the bottom of pages. I have no idea about php but I can see how it works from looking at the files stored on my server. A little bit of searching of the internet (world wide web really) and I found the sections to remove from my index.php file. I think this has meant that the website looks a little neater.
However, I do need to have another look and edit out the | symbol that appears at the end of each communication after the tags for that communication. One of the issues is that it is hard to see where these parts of the php file are when you already have deleted the “leave a comment” bit.
Anyway, it’s been about 14 months since I started this website and I am finally doing some tidying up. If they update the theme that I am using then I’ll have to do the whole editing thing again, BOO.
Aggrotech or Hellectro
As I explain on the page called My Music in the About Me section, music is something special. If it moves you then enjoy it. Metal is my preferred form of music. Heavy guitars with bass and drums. Vocals not always necessary as it’s just another instrument to me. I don’t really dissect the lyrics but friends if mine do.
Anyway. Rammstein was my band of choice for quite a few years. I go in phases of trying new bands and then becoming a bit obsessed. When my #1 son was born I explained to WW that there were two bands I still wanted to see:
- AC/DC
- Rammstein
If these bands toured I would go and see them. Rammstein sound new and different and so I really liked listening to them and AC/DC are just ace, even if you include the 4 shit albums they made in the 80s and 90s! I guess they are a bit like Iron Maiden. Class bands who keep releasing new material but it’s not as good as the stuff they wrote when they were young and trying to make their place in the world.
I saw AC/DC at Wembley Stadium and also I saw Rammstein at Wembley Arena. AC/DC were, of course, brilliant. Rammstein was just awesome. The support band for the Rammstein gig was called Combichrist. They sounded really good. So, I bought an album, taking a guess at what one might be their best.
Today we are all demons – Combichrist
I loved it. It has no guitars but is very heavy dance music with sick lyrics and metal type vocals. I bought another album and found it was very good to run to.
What the F^^K is wrong with you people – Combichrist
Now it was time to start investigating this rather strange new music style. It turns out it is called Aggrotech which is an off-shoot of EBM. It all came out of the industrial sound and went wild in the Benelux countries. Who’d have thought it eh?
So now I am the proud owner of a number of titles in this genre. It’s good to run to and emotionally a little crazy. Lovely.
- Aesthetic Perfection
- Combichrist
- Icon of Coil
- Scandy
- Suicide Commando
Some other bands I have downloaded recently are:
- Front Line Assembly
- KMFDM
Although these are a bit industrial they definitely don’t fit into an aggrotech shuffle as they have guitars and, trust me, that’s a shock when you are running to sick clubby music to get loud guitars making a din!
My definition of aggrotech is:
Heavy metal with keyboards instead of guitars
or
Heavy dance music with sick lyrics and poor singing
Excellent Equipment
Recently I have bought some running equipment. See my previous posts about losing weight, getting fit and running. I have been so impressed with these items that I have decided to “big them up” on my website.
Firstly I needed some headphones and so after a little browsing of the Amazon website I settled on the Sennheiser MX 680i earphones. I already had a pair of Sennheiser earphones for work and so I value the brand. The earphones are splash-proof and have the iPhone integrated remote. They are great.
Now that the winter is closing in I need a torch that i can use while running. That means looking at Petzl but Silva also make head torches apparently, I thought they mainly made compasses and navigation equipment but you live and learn. I did some online research and settled on the Silva X Trail Plus. This has a 140 lumens main beam, wide angle LEDs and a rechargeable battery pack. I love it. I can run safely at night and see where I am going and the state of the terrain. Brilliant. The specification is a bit cheeky though. It claims the light is 100g and it is, but the head band, and battery pack are not included in that calculation. The battery is carried on a waistband so it’s not really a problem.
Check out my routes on this web page: http://t.co/npRiLuoZ
Paralympics
On Saturday the 8th of September the Parish family went with the Whites to watch the Paralympic Road Cycling at Brands Hatch. It was a baking day and the racing was already underway when we got there. We weren’t allowed to take our drinks into the venue and we weren’t allowed to take in some dinner knives I had packed for cutting our bread but they did let us take our pop-up sunshade which was nice as the sun was scorching that day.
We set up camp on the bank overlooking Clearways and Clark Curve and could see the cyclists every 15 minutes or so as they completed another lap. The children didn’t really understand what was going on and the adults couldn’t really watch what was going on because they had to look after the children.
None of this mattered as the atmosphere was excellent and we all had a lovely time. The children did get slightly over-exposed to the sun though and I still feel guilty about that. #2 son has now walked on the gravel trap of Clark Curve and stood on the tarmac of the Brabham Straight which is very pleasing to know.
This is the view to the start line of Brands Hatch with the track set up for road cycling.
This is the view looking back towards Clearways with the track set up for the paralympics road cycling.
Early Morning
Although being woken at 5:20 this morning was a bit harsh thanks to #2 we had a lovely time playing. I took this shot once #1 had woken and I saw the fog settled over the fields in the south of our grounds!
Blood Brother
Many years ago, when I was a teenager, my best friend and I decided to commit our friendship to a new level. We decided to become blood brothers. Now, I don’t even know if people still do this or even if it happened in the past and is just an urban legend. A quick glance at Wikipedia says:
Blood brother can refer to one of two things: two males related by birth, or two or more men not related by birth who have sworn loyalty to each other. This is usually done in a ceremony, known as a blood oath, where the blood of each man is mingled together. The process usually provides a participant with a heightened symbolic sense of attachment with another participant.
Somehow we had some instructions about cutting our forearms and then clasping arms together so the blood mingles. We misread the instructions! Rather than a cut 5cm from the wrist we made a 5cm cut from the wrist. Our blood was mingled. That was in around 1988 and we remain the best of friends today. In fact he was my Best Man at my wedding and we still share the same music tastes and go to concerts together.
Brilliant!
Charming
Here’s a picture of the first charm that WW got for her Pandora bracelet. It was a present from the children for her first day in her promoted job.
