Why Easter was cancelled this year

Posted on Saturday, 22. March 2008 by hmvh

Easter is cancelled

On a more sombre note, that’s not the only thing getting cancelled or aborted.

Watch this space for details.

Image credits: Original photographer

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Laughing Matter

Posted on Tuesday, 18. March 2008 by hmvh

Added the best of a bunch of jokes and similar nonsense that have been accumulating over the last few months, with the followers of Bulgarian yoga enjoying particular attention.

So there!

Everybody wants to be a dog

And why do so many cats feature on my blog?

Image: Print ad by Leo Burnett Agency

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Dope from Africa

Posted on Saturday, 8. March 2008 by hmvh

13:45. The doorbell goes ding-dong. The dog barks.

The friendly postman drops off a parcel… a surprisingly heavy parcel, marked as “registered letter”. I dutifully sign for it.

I look. I wonder.

I wonder if this truly is what I had almost not expected to arrive (but secretly hoped it would).

Hmmm… looks like it? Wow! The postage alone was R178.90 (14.50 euros = $22.36).

I carefully tear it open and out pour some ten CDs, a DVD-ROM, and a book. I analyse.

Continue reading →

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Prolific Performer Profile Provider

Posted on Friday, 7. March 2008 by hmvh

One of the more journalistic, serious and most certainly interesting aspects of discogs.com is the oft-underrated task of researching and “profiling” the people, bands and indeed record labels/companies behind the music that appear in the database which, at the time of writing, boasts some 925,451 releases, 778,809 artists, and 78,238 labels.

And that’s a load of data.

While there are certainly some erroneous duplicates, intended dummy entries, gaping holes or outright rubbish in there, many of the artists do have some sort of description (profile), detailing who they are, where they’re from, what they do, and which artist of the same name they shouldn’t be mistaken with — much of which you won’t find elsewhere.

Depending on the artist or label involved (and to satisfy some own perverse craving for information and a need for knowledge), writing up a decent and accurate profile can take anything from a few seconds to several weeks (hinging on what facts can be extracted from other sites, interviews, magazines, blogs, the physical album/single, or even personal knowledge and own experience).

In some instances, direct contact with that person or a representative is necessary to feed that hungry beast.

Continue reading →

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On flickr and internet thievery

Posted on Sunday, 24. February 2008 by hmvh

Life is full of coincidences.

Just the other day I was having a chat with a hobby photographer colleague about flickr.com and how some photos have a tendency to show up on other, completely unrelated sites and blogs (guilt mode: off) when there, out of the blue, tonight I get an email to say that one of my “photos with a Creative Commons license has been selected for inclusion in the newly released fourth edition of our Schmap Salzburg Guide”. Continue reading →

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It’d better not pour…

Posted on Thursday, 31. January 2008 by hmvh

And 142€ later the passenger window was repaired: Apparently a material flaw, it was said that the standard plastic bracket is known to break on occasion, with the window dropping into the door. Repair kits feature one made of metal.

“Pretty normal,” the guy from VW said. “Pretty expensive,” I replied.

Now with 180,000km on the clock, it’s apparently also pretty normal that the windscreen wipers have given up the ghost. Oh, they still do wipe — but in slow motion. At least the wiper motor’s fine then, ‘cos that would’ve been real pricey.

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An uncomfortable past, or the inconvenient truth?

Posted on Saturday, 19. January 2008 by hmvh

One of the most rewarding benefits of being a discogs moderator is getting to rub virtual shoulders with the rich and famous in the music business.

Errhmm… strike that last line!

Rather: One of most frustrating tasks of being a discogs moderator is having to put up with the nonsense of the wanna-be rich-and-famous in their own bedroom.

You see, fame does not necessarily equate to a reasonable degree of intelligence or skill, nor does having a record out exclude the quasi-famous from having to abide by regular rules, and nor does it automatically mean one can lay claim to the exclusive right to change the course of history (alternatively known as a set of agreed-upon lies).

Example: DJ Tony and DJ C00ldewd are good friends. They’ve known each other since C64 days. They deejay together. They bring out a forgettable techno white label vinyl slab or three under the “project” name of UniqueTeam, or something equally inventive. They’ve got their little MySpace and Facebook and Wikipedia and last.fm and AllMusic and Discogs profiles all nice and cosily set up, proclaiming greatness to the world and the web at large — especially now that Richie Hawtin played their huge “choon” once.

In fact, their future’s so bright, they gotta wear sunglasses at night.

Continue reading →

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Music vs. VHS

Posted on Saturday, 5. January 2008 by hmvh

In the past, people associated the word “videos” with not only cassettes but — more specifically — cassettes with movies on them.

Films. Fully-fledged big-budget Hollywood fodder or shorts, TV shows, flicks, ads, documentaries, pornos, private, commercial, professional, home, amateur, art… the whole gamut of visually-focused messages, moving images or memories to be viewed in the confines of your own home.

In the current context, audio quality play a mere supporting role but once you precede the word “videos” with the word “music”, you suddenly have a completely different form of art — a very different product — and in my humble opinion the ultimate art form (but that’s topic for another discussion).

Continue reading →

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