29 Jun 2011
Posted in Rants at 9:45 pm by alby
OK Apple fans tell me something…
How on earth is iTunes supposed to work?
I have a bunch of podcasts wot I’ve downloaded (not via iTunes) and want to put onto the iPod. It won’t let me put them in the Podcast’s section. Is this in any way possible? If not, why the hell not?
OK so assuming iTunes won’t let me do something you’d think would be pretty straightforward how’s about this then?
Load them up as an album into the “Music” section. Easy you’d think eh?
Well I’ve tried multiple times to use “Add folder to library”. This has the wondrous effect of putting 3 of the 18 episodes into iTunes and leaving the other 15. These three seem to be at random and I have no clue why those three and not the others. I’ve changed the tags on the files to all be the same in terms of artist and album, the series is in order with track numbers from 1 to 18. The only difference is the title of each episode where only the episode number is different. There are no other differences at all in the tag info.
So that doesn’t work.
So I try “Add file to library” and pick the ones I wanted. This apparently does nothing. None of the episodes that wouldn’t import from “add folder” will import into iTunes. Why the hell not?
So once again the user-friendly company wot makes such easy to use products so ever so well has made something that should be easy in a couple of clicks apparently impossible. Bloody ludicrous.
Any ideas how to easily import an audio file into iTunes without a bloody aneurism-inducing fanny around palaver?
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28 Jun 2011
Posted in Life at 8:54 pm by alby
We got a school raffle thing going on at present. It’s the usual thing of a bit of money in return for the chance of a minor prize.
How minor? Well the top prize is £50. The 3rd prize is dinner at a local restaurant. So what’s 2nd then?
Da-dada-daaahhh: It’s…..a “Sony Walkman”.
Omwuh! Not heard of one of them for a while. I had to explain what it was to N at great length.
My initial thought was that “this can’t be right” and that they might mean an mp3 player or summat but they’re usually more than £50 aren’t they. I suppose some rubbish ones might be cheaper.
But wow. A walkman. Ahhh.
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20 Jun 2011
Posted in Life, Self-indulgence, Work at 9:41 pm by alby
Bleurgh.
Things very very busy at the mo. I suppose I’m in quite a good working place tho. This week I’m working 5 days, I’ve been offered a few Saturdays and a new clinic is offering me work. This should all be good.
However my main job is still the NHS one which is 3 days a week. Leaving it will mean a 3 month notice period (unless I manage to get myself instantly fired for serious professional misconduct – nice idea but I’ll probably lose my professional registration in the process).
So do I hand notice in now and take the risk or leave it until people can offer me more regular work and then I have to keep them waiting for 3 months?
It’s a nice situation to be in on one hand but then I have financial responsibilities which means we might suffer if I jump too early and get no more regular work more locally.
Hmm tricky.
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06 Jun 2011
Posted in Juggling, Life, People, Travel at 9:08 pm by alby
Ahh Camping.
We had 8 nights this May starting with the rest of the family’s first BBU.
The drive was a complete mare. Something like 5 hours with many stops involved. Once there though a few lovely people helped with baby-sitting and/or tent upping. We did only have one request along the lines of “How many days have you packed for?” as we dumped a house worth’s of stuff into the tent. Mildly surprised at that.
Bloomin’ cold it was at first. That first night was a bit of a nippy one. But we all survived that one well enough and the next 3 days were just relaxed and happy. Very nice people, lovely location and decent weather. Oh and the friendliest juggling convention took place around us too.
On the Monday we had to decamp, re-pack the car, drive north, unpack the car and re-camp. That was a long day.
The new site was just outside of Cromer. We’d packed up in 22 degree sunshine and were dressed for summer. As we got nearer Cromer the weather turned; we lost 8 degrees and gained rain and wind a plenty. It heaved it down with rain that night which gave us a rather rough view of Cromer as we went out for fish and chips. Not the best first impression.
After that though the weather was pretty darn nice and so was Cromer. At least it wasn’t bad for an English seaside town. Proper pier with theatre too.
We zoomed over to Hunstanton for a day with my folks and niece and nephews which was fun despite Hunstanton being a dump and losing 2 children at one point. The following day my folks came to Cromer for a rather lovely day of lazing and walking and beach sitting. And that was about it.
Things of note were that the businessmen of Norfolk seem to be untrustworthy dodgy types. There was a children’s fair thing on the seafront at Cromer where you had to buy tickets from a central place and signs up all around to insist that you don’t give cash to the staff! Nice way to treat your staff – “hi thanks for working for us, we don’t trust you.” In Hunstanton too the refrain “No refunds” was apparent on a goodly number of signs.
We went at one point to a crazy golf course only to find another “no refunds” sign, a price of a fiver each and another sign that said “No followers”. The group in front of us were debating this as they had a very young member of their family but the rather dodgy looking people in the hut were not shifting on their no follower rule. This kid was no way old enough to play the game so they were being total arses. We decided not to spend that much money when it involved giving it these shysters.
Oh the town should be renamed “Hunstanto’n” as no-one there seems able to use apostrophes correctly.
After Cromer we packed up and headed to Manchester as R had rather sweetly bought us tickets to see The Fall live in their home town that Friday. Hellish journey! Getting northwest from Cromer isn’t easy. In the end it took us 6 hours of slow and tedious roads. The show was fun whilst it lasted but it didn’t last very long at all so a long day’s drive for about 60 minutes of entertainment (including support poet “a low rent John Cooper Clarke” and band). Officious bouncer helped to annoy many, R couldn’t see anything and it was awfy hot. Luckily R’s sister is lovely and looked after the young folk for us (with the excellent help of her daughter) whilst we were out. And finally home on the Saturday.
All in all a lovely week. I think we need less stuff and a wilder trip next time. Maybe Glen Brittle?
Have fun.
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05 Jun 2011
Posted in News, Rants at 9:18 pm by alby
I was in a local shop today and whilst waiting to be served I saw the newspaper stand with all its blaring headlines. One stuck out as it was a story that wasn’t about a footballer getting a valuable away goal or some geordie lass whose accent would never have played in America. It was the Mail on Sunday’s headline in fact.
No in fact it was the entire front page as far as I could see. There was a story about the BBC (filth-ridden, tax burdenous scum the lot of them) and how they scandalised the nation by broadcasting a rude word, no THE rudest word, at 6.30pm on a Friday a few months back.
I don’t know how we all missed the story when it happened as it was obviously a massive thing to be deserving of a whole front page of a national newspaper. Clearly there can be no other things of national and international importance ongoing that deserve precedence over this outrage.
I wasn’t about to buy the rag so I looked online when I got home again.
Once into the detail of the story it turns out that they didn’t broadcast the word at all, merely hinting at it in a scripted link between questions on an episode of the News Quiz. So could this be right? A national front page story about a swear word that wasn’t even uttered? Apparently so.
Brace yourselves, I am about to repeat the joke:
“The tories, putting the n into cuts”
A little risque but hardly deserving of moral outrage. Despite the not-at-all feigned outrage, of this utter non-story the paper even then re-prints the joke in full without any censorship. So not even a slight bit hypocritical then?
The BBC has had a long history of risque comedy on the radio from the Goon Show’s “Hugh Jampton” through Round the Horne’s beautifully disgraceful pushing of the boundaries to near breaking point to ISIHAC (“brushing the dust and wax off in the dark”) and more. So what’s special about this incident?
And isn’t radio 4 supposed to be a grown-ups channel? I hardly think there’ll be a million bored and impressionable teens sat listening to the News Quiz of a Friday evening.
Was it a cavalcade of complaints that set this off? No? In fact there was a startling total of 1 complaint. Yes, 1. Against one of radio 4′s most listened to shows. Thankfully the complaint was thrown out. This was what kicked off the news story.
But what’s the actual story here? Could it be the Mail’s relentless campaign to use any ammo whatsoever to try and kill the BBC? The most respected broadcaster anywhere in the world? Probably. What a depressing world it would be if the piece of vile nastiness that is the Mail manages to impoverish the culture of this country yet further.
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