mind the pregap

OK, so maybe I'm a bit slow. Pregaps are something I was vaguely aware of, but never really bothered to understand. My bad. Having now read up on them, I spent the last hour or so raiding my CD collection, and finding some absolute gems of hidden tracks from some great artists. A quick hook-up through the desk to Garageband, and I'm up a load of new, easily accessible mp3s.

Favourites so far include the original demo of "9 crimes" on 9, wherein it sounds like Damien Rice does all the bashing and backing vocals himself, based around a much harder and edgier guitar riff - much better to me than the piano-based single. Another great one is "I Just Can't Get Through To Myself", a snappy two minute wonder from David Gray on White Ladder. Do yourself a favour, find out what the hell I'm talking about on wikipedia and then get stuck in. Happy hunting!

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blackout bother

The power's just back on after going out for a few hours this evening. Due to the current fault (there's always one) in our alarm system at home, the blackout tripped the backup alarm and so the wailing commenced. After being heavily chastised by my sister, (that makes it sound much politer than it was) for attempting to say I might be able to fix it, I waited for her to storm off and then disabled and dismantled the alarm at a couple of points around the house (after first binding up the offending siren in a rubber glove and parcel tape, does a good job of blocking the airflow.)

The fact that the entire operation took me less than five minutes, and I didn't really know what I was doing until I opened the boxes, is now going to keep me up all night. Think we need to see about a system upgrade... prospective burglars, don't get any ideas.

Ironically, watching the bit in Gangs of New York where Cameron Diaz's character is robbing uptown houses dressed as a maid...