Tomorrow, I return to Employment Place, after three days on the sick, as last week I came down with some dreadful flu thing. Once again. Unfrotunately, this time, instead of it just affecting my nose and throat, this time it decided to take my left ear and chest with it. I’m still not right. My ear still feels like there’s a bowling ball stuck in it, and my throat is once again making it difficult to swallow.

Oh, the joys of being poorly.

The time off, however, has allowed me to get some of the things I meant to do ages ago out of the way. Firstly, I upgraded Beastbits, my main machine. You may remember on 31st March, I tried to install Windows XP onto a SATA drive, with absolutely no success at all.

Yesterday, I tried a different approach, which I didn’t think would work. I backed up my installation of Windows XP onto 2 bootable DVDs with the help of Nero BackItUp (or whatever it’s called). I then put in the new hard drive, and restored the image back to the hard drive.

It only bloody worked.

Not only did this bypass the rigmarole of having to restore everything, it means that I know this method actually works. Unfortunately, the whole process seemed to take forever. Sooo, now I have XP installed on a SATA drive. Wooty.

On the subject of upgrades, the amount of free space I have on mercuryvapour.co.uk has increased too! It WAS 800Mb, it’s now 2Gb. Unfortunately, as of yet, there has not been any bandwidth increase, so basically they’ve gave me a larger bucket, but the same amount of water to keep in it…

Yeah, that analogy works.

So, onto the theme music bit. None of you will remember a show that aired on the Disney channel (and at come point Channel 5) named “Okavango”. It was one of those awful Sunday afternoon things, about a family who moved from the city to… er, “Okavango” to look after all the wildlife. Or something. I didn’t really watch it. It did have one good thing about it. The theme music. I loved it.

Eventually, the show fizzled off the airwaves, and was never seen again. No DVD release, no repeat, nothing.

A few years ago, I tried to locate the theme music, with absolutely no success. in fact, I was amazed by the amount of information I DIDN’T find.

Following on from a thread about “best theme music“, on Glen’s forum, I suddenly had a recollection of Okavango, and how much I liked the theme tune.

I tried to find the video on Youtube, with no luck. I had to resort to a google search which turned up this low quality video.

I didn’t expect anyone to have heard of the show, and indeed, they didn’t. Glen said…

“Never heard of it, but I recognised the bird off of Alien Nation. Do I win a prize?”

To, which, I replied, jokingly…

“Only if you can find a better copy of that theme music.”

At this point, if I had a sound effect for a jaw dropping, I’d be playing it right now. I do have this picture, however.

Within two hours, Glen had tracked down a 2-minute long MP3 of it. Oh my! But, it was just a preview, thetrefore low quality and no ID3 information at all. Unbelieveable.

He titled the email “I rock”, and he certainly does rock. Not stopping there, however, I badger him for some further information, and his response….

“It’s Invent Yourself by Julian Laxton”

In the posting was the link where he got the preview from, and also a link to where it can be purchased. Turns out the full track is just under 6 minutes long. Awesome!

So, I purchased it. The site was located in South Africa, which means the cost of getting the track was 8.74 Rand. And that works out at roughly 60p. Bonus!

I shall be back at work in 7 hours time. Apparently there’s a new phone system. This WILL be fun.

Technorati Tags: backup, beastbits, disk, hard drive, hdd, julian laxton, okavango, theme music, upgrade, website space increase

Well, today, I’ve been at work. But less about that.

Today started off at 8AM. I awoke, fresh as a daisy, which was a bit disheartening considering I didn’t start work until 2PM. Oh well. This gave me some time to watch the footy highlights, and also watch the pool on Sky Sports. Those six hours positively *flew* by. Ahem. It also gave me chance to dry off my trousers which were still damp after being removed from the washer the previous night. Other highlights included watching Countryfile, listening to Just a Minute, devouring some sossy rolls, and topping it all off by having a nice warm bath. Before I knew it, it was time to gather my things and jump into the taxi which would whisk me off until the fiery bowels of work.

I picked up my coat which had fallen off the table and onto the floor. I never hang my coat up, I usually just leave it lying on the table, though in this this particular instance, it had left the confines of the table and went hurtling to the floor. I put it on, and then instantly wished I hadn’t. It was covered in sick. Dog sick, to be precise.

One of my precious dogs had decided to rewind their breakfast all over it. Before I knew it, my hands were covered in foul-smelling Chappie-Chunder. And so were my freshly washed trousers. Oh, you BASTARD. With the taxi fast approaching, I quickly removed my trousers, and left them in the middle of the floor. The coat went upstairs, and in the bath. I quickly emptied my pockets, but some of it had soaked through, leaving me with a handful of sticky, greasy coins. Joy.

No sooner had I slapped up my reserve trousers on, I headed off out the door, muttering to myself, whilst clutching a carrier bag filled with my bait for the day. A curry and a bottle of coke. I wonder how long it took you to predict that.

Soooooooo. Along came work, and I won’t go into any more detail, as that would be considered bad (chicken) karma……… now THERE’S an in-joke I’ll be scratching my head over in years to come… Oh, but on the way home, I saw a fox, for one the second time in my life (here’s the first)

Right, anyway, that takes care of that. Now, onto the real news. The first is that my next door neighbour for well over 20 years has finally abandoned his abode, and no longer lives next door. They (he and his wife) disappeared without even saying a goodbye, which I’m gutted at. You’d have thought, that after being neighbours for so long, they’d have at least knocked on the window and waved. Or something.

What’s even odder is that he appears to have left his cat beind…

(Archive Picture)

Strangely, there’s somebody else moved in next door already, so hopefully they’re taking care of him. I’d hate to think he’s just been abandoned and left to fend for himself. He’s a great little cat, always comes up to me and miaows his little furry head off, and doesn’t stop until I tickle him under the chin.

I have a distinct feeling I’m going to miss him living next door. We grew up together in every way, shape and form. I have audio tapes going back from when I was nine, and he couldn’t have been more than 4, singing the “Denver, The Last Dinosaur” theme.

It just seems that every one of my friends have disappeared for some unknown reason. Wayne vanished without a trace again, back on 7th Jan 2007, Coatesy has completely vanished. I haven’t heard from him since November, and his last email from that date was slightly worrying. I’ve not spoken to Chris this year either.

Wow, in fact, I’ve just realised. I have had absolutely no contact with ANYONE outside of work this year. That’s alarming. Cue Chad, and his “Get Out More” rant. I’ll look forward to deleting reading it.

OH! On another subject entirely… I’ve finally seen it. It’s taken me ten years, but I’ve finally seen it. Yes, I have seen…… THE VIDEO TO “ANGEL” BY THE QUEST PROJECT! And I also know the real reason it wasn’t released, and it’s heartbreaking. First off, let’s have the video:-

Now, since I first discovered Youtube, I’d been searching for the video, in the vain hope that one day it would appear. I wasn’t even sure if it had a video, though the previous single “Initiate the Creative” had one. These searches, rather like the “One 2 Many” one, would take place every few weeks, and they’d always turn up empty.

That was, until today. Obviously, I’d found it, but it hadn’t been up for more than a few hours, and I was the *27*th viewer. Those who know me always knew I have had a superstition about that number. I’ve mentioned it in a post previously, but I can’t find it.

Secondly, the reasoning behind its non-release…. the takeover of Island records.

Jonyrokstar, the original poster of the video, and member of The Quest Project, states that “Angel was never officially released. Island got took over just before it was due to be released, so everything got pulled. They had actually pressed the whole shipment of cds for the release as well. SO, they’ve either been trashed & scrapped, or sent to the moon by rocket or something.”

Well, you heard it here first, though I’m truly gutted that something like that could have happened, and I have a feeling that it’s going to be one of those things that keeps me lying awake at night.

And, on that note, I’m shattered. I’m off to bed.

EDIT: Jonyrockstar mentioned this post on this facebook too, so er… welcome, if you’ve came from there.

Technorati Tags: angel, cat, deleted, destroyed, Dogs, island records, moggy, moved, neighbour, pussy, quest project, sick, vomit

Following on from my post a couple of weeks ago, I’ve just checked youtube, and, although I can’t quite believe it, someone has actually posted the official video to “Downtown”.

Again, I expect it to disappear as quicky as it appeared, so I’m adding it just to make sure that some other people get to see it before it disappears. I like the addition of the 80s style MTV Europe logos. I have so many of those on tape.

The audio on this particular version is a bit better to the version I posted perviously, though whoever transcoded it decided to add a daft credits thing on the end, meaning you lose the last few seconds, though I’m probably the only person on the planet to care about that. (EDIT: The person who uploaded the video contacted me, the video was cut short by MTV, and the audio is better as the uploader replaced the original audio from the tape with an MP3)

I might go upstairs and play it at full volume, to annoy the neighbours. They had a party, you see, which meant that I was awoken with the sound of loud shouting at 6AM. The party eventually ended at approximately 7AM. It is now almost 10AM at the time of typing, and I’m considering blasting out the greatest hits of Belinda Carlisle at 11AM, followed by Black Lace / Agadoo, on loop for an hour and a half.

I suppose I can’t really blame James for my lack of sleep. I think most of it came from the fact I had what would have to be the worst tin of “beef” curry I have ever had. I’d got it from Netto, and on the label it looked totally unappetising. I don’t even know why I bought it. I then opened it, and it was even worse. I then began to eat it… it was like a party in my mouth and everyone had brought gristle. It was horrible. The only saving grace is that I’d laced it with my own special blend of curry powder, which made the sauce at least edible.

Anyway, let’s return the conversation to curry, just for one more second. Despite my abomination earlier, I did have a nice curry which I prepared earlier in the day…

I didn’t take a photo of the awful one. I’d rather just forget all about that.

Technorati Tags: awful, chicken jalfrezi, curry, Food, Music, netto, one 2 many, tinned, youtube

Some of you may remember that I have a love for a particular song called “Downtown”, by long-defunct Swedish songsters One 2 Many.

It has frustrated me for the past seven years, that although I’ve mentioned it quite a few times, I’ve never been able to post an example of what it sounds like. Finally, thanks to the wonderment of YouTube, someone has actually made a video with it in. The video itself is nothing special, as it’s just the cover of the single, but you can hear the record, and of course, that’s the main thing…

Unfortunately, I have a feeling it won’t be up there for long, despite the fact this song went out of print decades ago, so watch it while you can. You’ll probably hate it, but I don’t care. It’s one of the best songs ever as far as I’m concerned.

Technorati Tags: downtown, embedded, europop, hit, media, Music, one 2 many, scandanavian, song, vinyl, youtube

Way back in the mid to late 90’s, a guy called Tom Davies used to host a talk-in show on TFM, imaginatively titled “Tom’s Talk-In”. After ad breaks, etc, he used to play bits of music, usually announcing the telephone number to ring in and other bits of information like that.

All (or at least most) of these tracks were edited versions of different songs from the 80s and 90s (including my much-loved “Downtown” by One 2 Many). I knew a few of the tracks, but not all of them. There was one particular one I loved, and didn’t know the name of. At some point in 1998, I got Chris to phone in and ask its name…

“You can’t buy it”, was Tom’s 4-word response.
“What’s it called, then”? Chris asked.
“It doesn’t have one”.

I didn’t quite believe this, and still don’t obviously. A few people had rang up in the past, and asked what a certain piece of music is. Sometimes he’d help, sometimes he’d say it didn’t have a name, despite the fact I knew what it was.

At some point after this, Tom crashed his car into a field after swerving to avoid a fox, and the minidisc containing the show’s music was lost or destroyed. Some of the original music returned, but this particular track didn’t, and I never heard it again.

Luckily I found an old C90 with this particular tune on, and I was able to ask a few people whether they knew it. Unfortunately, nobody did. To this day, I still call it “The Unknown Song”.

And now, dear readers, this is where it comes down to losing £1. I know of one website on the internet that allows you to “phone in” the song you’re listening to, and they’ll identify it for you, out of their database of “millions”. If they don’t recognise it, they don’t charge. Ooooooo. I was bored, my mobile was in my hand, and I’d loaded this particular sound file. So, I signed up, called the number they gave me and pressed play.

The call disconnected, and I sat patiently, waiting for a text message. Within seconds, the phone beeped, and I grasped it, hoping for a result.

“We couldn’t work out what that was. Make sure the music is loud, don’t sing and don’t hang up”.

Bum. Well, at least they didn’t charge me.

I gave it 4 more goes, each with the same result, despite trying it at different volumes. Bollocks.

On the 5th attempt, I got this…

RESULT! Er, well, it was *a* result. Not the correct one. This particular track turned out to be some foreign track, and not even close to what I wanted. Arse. 50p down, then.

I gave it one more go. This time, the result was even worse than the last one. It thought it was “Winter Wonderland”, by The Kenny Lee Sound. Somehow, I have a sneaking suspicion that’s totally and utterly incorrect in every way, shape and form. Now, I suppose it’s my own fault, I’m not exactly giving it a lot to go on, 17 seconds of audio, taped off the radio, on a cassette, dating from the 80s with audible tape wear, and possible edits all over the place. Therefore, I’m not blaming the site - I’ll probably use it for something else at some point, and be absolutely delighted with it.

The MP3 I played it is located here if you want to have a go at IDing it yourself, or if you’re just curious to what I’m whittering on about. If you do find out what it is, for god’s sake, leave a comment or something.

Technorati Tags: help, identification, instrumental, mp3, Music, radio, tfm, tom davies, unknown song