Hey. Well was drinking on Saturday and brought up the whole light years, looking back in time question.
Got thrown back in my face that we do not see the past but we see what is actually happening because its all relative and it does not matter about the distance the light has travelled, its about how and when we receive this. If you know what I mean? Anyhooo, mulling it, mulling it big time.
In the meanwhilst here is some background galatic thinking.
Happy New Year and I hope you had a good one. 2009 is hear and I have some questions.
A lot of them are about money matters and finding a new job. But there are bigger issues.
I am sitting on the sofa watching The Hitcherhikers Guide To The Galaxy. I have not seen this before and its on because the lady is out seeing her mum, but it fits into my present New Year preoccupation. Science.
Given that the universe is trillions of light years in length I am under the impression that that means when we look at the stars and galaxies above, below and around us, we in fact are seeing them not as they are now, at that precise moment, but instead as they were billion or trillions of years previously. We see back in time. An exploding star has in fact been long dead and gone.
If we accept that and remind ourselves that we are not the centre universe but on a planet which is a tiny pinprick on the ass of the cosmos, then the same logic stands for any other life searching the universe as we do.
So if there is something else out there looking for life and they are looking at our galaxy, solar system and planet then they would not see me sitting on my sofa watching The Hitcherhikers Guide To The Galaxy but our galaxy, solar system and planet as it was millions of years ago, for example.
Now at present our technology allows us to only see living but seemingly still pictures of the cosmos. However, if we are theorising that the images at each end of this galatic search are both in the past then we can theorise that differing technology may exist and would it be possible for this other life to study us not as a distant collection of space gas and stars, but as if they were David Attenborough types looking through a set of binoculars seeing life in action. By that logic depending on the distant earth was from this other point in space and the level of the technology they could see our past in clear images. Dinosaurs, ice age, evolution of man etc etc.
Should they then record this and we would ever meet and share our joint histories, we would have the answers to many great questions and mysteries solved.
Happy New Year and here is a useful lesson in dealing with telesales callers....
If there is a representation of the waste that jesus inspires it must the 49'hilarious' football funny DVDs that pour onto the shelves of HMV, TESCO and our TV's breaks for adverts every christmas.
So far I have noted that Ricky Hatton, Ray Winstone and Phil Daniels have joined the like of Ricky Tomlinson, Gary Lineker, Nick Hancock, Gordon Ramsay, Bradley Walsh, Johnny Vaughan et al to punt the same fuckin' DVD.
I can say that. I'm a football fan and I think I could say that I have have seen most of the key funny moments of football from Asia to Brazil and back to Plymouth. Outside of the big laughs there are million dull clips of a referee jogging backwards and......haha....hohoho...the stumbles over onto his bum. Yes, you see this a hundred times of it just gets funnier.
These DVDs are expensive, badly produced, awfully narrated pieces of dad pop culture. Just wait till January 1st when all these will be 50p.....and still overpriced.
Lets be a bit more imaginative with the presents. Lets be a bit more imaginative with the product, and C-List celebs please think about how you want to anchor your status. Wanna be heading to the top and digging your own grave.
Tis the the season to be greedy and thankful. and when it comes to xmas music as you would expect the blogosphere is awash with songs embracing, sneering, hating and funking christmas in an assortment of styles, be it funk, punk, soul, electronic, rock, swing, jazz, gizz, gizz-jazz and twee.
For a xmas music pirate like me its a most wonderful time of the year. A few years ago my mix cd was made late in the year as I trawled the net looking for appropriate tracks. However, my discovery of Hype Machine changed that. I can now choose my tracks and place most in cold storage for the next years mix. Less stress, more choice, greater pleasure.
So I just want to say a quick thank you to all those other blogs out there who share their discoveries and music with everyone else. There are too many blogs to mention individually but I just wanted to say a special 'hey!' to a three blogs that really dig and other something different.
For today's offering I would say to celebrate The Emotions. The first track, What Do The Lonely... is just one of those magical darkside of the tinsel moments while Black Christmas is a bit all over the place but makes its point. Move over Bing Crosby I'm talking about Bill Cosby!!
Be it as it is the time of xmas tv, it feels appropriate to lash out at something.
I doubt I have many readers from outside Scotland (if so then welcome, say hi and stay tuned) so I do not think its an issue taking about xmas tv adverts. I could take a pop at all those horrible dvd's on sale for £15 where the likes of ricky hatton present the best of the most watched and therefore deadly dull footie funny clips all time.
I want to say something about Marks and Spencers and their xmas advert featuring Take That.
What is that all about? Yeah heavy on the product placement and randomn cleavage (don't mean those tits from Take That) but where is the narrative. What is meant to be the hook? What is the psychological tease that will have me in their stores buying expensive pants?
As far as I can see there is none of the above. All I can interpret from it is that Take That are spending their holidays at a remote stately mansion, getting drunk, snorting coke, playing with girls who are led by an aging former beauty in the form of Twiggy. In other words Take That are spending their holidays in a high end Whorehouse ran by Twiggy and whose headline dame is failed singer, model and presenter Mylene Klass. The Best Lil' Whorehouse in Xmas.
Look! Another Obama picture and this time he is in High School or something similar. It's an almost too bigga stereotype for him to the black guy in the basketball team. haha
Anyhoo...There's some hip hop on the new mix. After some major lobbying from MC Rat, Run DMC's Christmas In Hollis takes a centre stage so in honour of his moaning and pleading and at points begging here is a remix of the track. I did consider using this mix but just like addidas, the originals are always best.
PS. Watch this a gloriously Hollywood liberal two fingered salute to those social fascists, religious nuts and terrified pensioners who want to stop members of the gay community from making the same great moves or awful mistakes from heterosexuals or gays who have not yet come out.
It's baltic outside. The shops are full of crap throwaway merchandise and hordes of willing muppets willing to waste their cash bolstering WH Smith. It's christmas.
My 2008 christmas mix has been completed and is being issued as we speak. I plan to put it up on the blog so anyone who does not have direct contact with me can get a taste. That does not mean the christmas spirit is over for me. I am going to post some tracks that only made it to the cutting room floor.
For the compilation I was very happy with its title, 'Have a merry Christmas, a happy Hanukkah, a crazy Kwanzaa, a tip-top Tet and a solemn, dignified Ramadan' and the xmas quotes that adorned its cover (thanks to Ari Gold, Paulie Walnuts and Bobby Baccala). While my first effort in 2006 had a fantastic variety of tunes it was not a true blood xmas comp, borrowing some tracks that suggested the festive period rather than using it to full effect. Last years had quite a few comedy tracks and so this year I wanted it to more minimal on the laughs and more focused on turkey, snow and boxing day constipation. To all those in receipt or waiting on their subscription, enjoy.
Being forced out of the flat this morning to go to christening, in a chapel, in Possil!!! Means I have iron a shirt, wear a suit, shave and prepare a 'listening to some kiddie-fiddler tell everyone how I'm going to hell unless I let him touch me' face.
It's baby Marcus' big day so I will shut up and enjoy as best I can. So in homage to the day i was looking through a google search for christening and the first million pages were all companies looking to make as much money as possible for tiny outfits which will be worn once and then placed in a family time capsule only to be taken out by the parents when they want to embarrass marcus when his first girlfriend comes round.
However, did find this site for hand knitted christening outfits all the way from an e-pensioner in the Shetlands. It says she is a compuslive knitter. That made me think about how bizarre a compulsion that would be. One search and of course I came across a site of a complusive knitter. Please check it out, if only for the halloween cakes in the form of a brain and severed foot. argh!!
In honour of knitters here is a song whose title if not content says a lot.....
Many years ago in a glaxay far away people placed large platic boxes filled with thousands of metres of black tape into a large box full of mini-pneumatic drills. They used this to watch adverts from 1986 which were showing inbetween the premiere of Howard The Duck. Scientists had believed that users of such nology had faded into history just like there ferguson vhs players but a prodigal user has surfaced.
I will not use her full name but just say she is known as L McMillan to some and Linda M to others. Recently a close confidant of Linda M exposed her recent purchasing of blank video tapes. I presume it was in preparation of all those christmas movie premieres showing on analogue tv, like Honey, I Shrunk The Kids or Octupussy.
So to you Linda M I dedicate the above artists impression of a blank VHS tape, inspired by descriptions of the nology from survivors of that generation. And of course a song in homage to video past struggle hold over all other nologies.
Sitting in the new flat on a drizzly Guy Fawkes evening. Totally shattered. Why? Stayed up last night watching the US elections and Barack Obama's history making victory.
At first I said "i'll stay up until he gets Ohio or Florida." Soon that became, " i'll wait until he gets 215+ as I know California will be 55 in the bag." By then it was too late and I waiting for the west coast polls to close and Obama's victory and the Republican's defeat to be announced.
Mixed feelings at first. Workmates asked if I was happy Obama had won. Happy would be the wrong word. I think relieved would more appropriate. I say that because I'm a socialist and I think that while Obama may tick all the boxes for liberals and those seeking a break from the Neo-Con hold on Washington, for me he is not someone whose ideas and party come close to wwhat I look for.
In fact when I was asked who i would vote for I said to pals that if I was in a swing state Obama would would get my anti-McCain vote but if I was in New York I would probably end up voting for some obscure leftist bloke standing for the People's Anarcho-Revolutionary Brotherhood of Harlem. But if i had done that then I think I would have been guilty of dwelling in the cynical mindset so many of us socialists can get into.
In fact I would have missed out in playing a role in electing a black man as the US President. Something I thought I would never see in my life. For while Obama may not be a trotskyist fellow travller, he does appear sincere is his desire for a better America, and of course it would be a slap in face to those millions of Americans who chose not to fear him but back Obama and change history.
I don't know if things will change that much for Americans or myself, and certainly doubtful Palestinians or Afhgans will find freedom through one man's election. But I can say in the future I watched it live. I can show folk the 'Obama Rocks' badge I bought in NYC a year and a half ago.
