Well worth the time, because the new set sounds so amazing that it’s almost as if the cd’s are new, virgin,  unlistened to by my ears, whole audio landscapes that can be reexplored, where things that I have never heard are suddenly hearable. Well known old friends like Radiohead, Interpol, DJ Shadow, Elbow and many others have developed an extra shine, while new friends like Fever Ray, Florence and the Machine, Wintersleep, Mumford and Sons are extra fun to get in to. I mean, I don’t know what was up with my old speakers, but there are whole audio parts -especially voice- that I swear I’ve never heard before o0

In a quest to make it sound even more betterish, and refusing my friend Dennis‘  commanding wish to invest in (imo) stupidly expensive power cables which (imo) do fuck all to enhance anything because (imo) it’s impossible for anything that short to (imo) make a difference. Imo. :p Anyway, according to him I fail to comprehend what is done by these special cables, because they’re awesome and thus I generally suck and am a non-believer in the church. Which may be true, but we’ll see about proofs before I deign to invest money that could be beer in something that I get for free usually.

That said, and in complete contradiction of me not believing stuff that may or may not be true, I used the guide on the website that I link to below to connect my lurvelery ELAC’s to my amp in bi-wired mode. Sexy, nerdy, and it was do this or do the dishes, so the choice was easily made. So, after chopping up the last of my reserve of cable that I still had like friggin years after Maks gave it to me I hooked up the speakers and hit the couch for some serious listening. Radiohead’s Amnesiac spesh ed was first, now Florence and the Machine’s Lungs is on, and I’m going to finish with Mogwai’s Young Team. Too bad all my whiskey is gone hehe!

So, bi-wire, yeah or boo? I know that this is something that is at the fringe of things I might believe (if I’m in a good mood). Technically, meh, I have serious doubts: I don’t believe that I am hearing better sounds. Also, I’ve read a lot of stuff on the interpipes that says that bi-wire tech is full of shit. On the other hand, my amp sounds different now. It’s almost like my living room has magically gotten bigger, or that my amp has suddenly aged by 10 years or so. Hard to describe. Point in case is that right now I am not sure that I am pleased with this effect. It may have to go.

Still, it is potentially a cheap upgrade. Have a look at the guide below and may spend an evening nerding out…just like I did

http://www.brilliancehifi.co.uk/how-to-bi-wire-speakers.htm

My little backup script thingy has been completed, and ofc I’ve become inspired to make it more than it was.  This is a great exercise to see if I can still knock these things out, I mean, I’m not a scripter or have any real programming background to speak of. There are new criteria for the version 0.4 of the script.

teedlescript criteria

DONE    * runs in manual or non-manual (eg cron) mode, configurable in a variable.
DONE    * pulls the content of a (configurable) directory into a tar archive, compresses it on the fly with gzip and stores it in another (configurable) directory.
DONE    * detects if the run is the first one (eg backup is mandatory) otherwise it checks to see if the configured directory that should be backed up has changed size. If it has, the script will backup the dir, otherwise it won’t.
DONE    * detects the size of the backup, and will write a warning if the size of the target dir is less than twice the size of the backup, and will write an error and fail if the size of the target dir is equal or less than the estimated size of the backup.
DONE    * has a a lock file scheme, eg prevents the script starting while another instance of it is running
DONE    * has an email scheme, ie you get a “backup was successful || failed miserably” email to a mailbox you configure in the script.
DONE    * do something snazzy when run in manual mode to show the user that the script is actually still running hehe
* implement passwordless scp copy to a configured remote machine…..maybe
* asks the user questions at first run about what variables need filling
* check for presence of external variable file
* is flexible about the location of the variable file in case the user is allergic to /usr/local/etc
* test for everything eg extreme paranoia, assume nothing

I’ll be working on it if I have time

oh, yes, for those curious to what it looks like (or wanting to point out how bad I am at scripts hehe) you can see the thing here

README:

put the script somewhere on your linux server.
copy it somewhere sensible like /usr/local/bin
make sure that it can be executed (chmod +x)
edit some variables (vi /usr/local/bin/teedlebackup):
this is where your stuff is you want to backup: SOURCE=/my/important/stuff
this is where you want your backup to go: TARGET=/my/backups
manual mode or not; 1=on 0=off (eg using cron) MANUAL=1
leave ADDY= blank for now

once you’ve tested it and it seems to work, change MANUAL=1 to MANUAL=0
if your account can mail, put a valid email address here and it will mail you ADDY=myself@mydomain.tld
set up your cron or root’s cron or whatever to run at a time you’d enjoy (crontab -e). example:

15 0 * * 1 /usr/local/bin/teedlebackup

^^ runs teedlebackup every monday at quarter past zero in the morning

if you are running it automated, and did not fill in your email, it will also leave messages for you in the system’s main logfile, which is usually /var/log/messages. you can look at the logfile with the tail or cat commands.

Enjoy!

• runs in manual or non-manual (eg cron) mode, configurable in a variable.
• pulls the content of a (configurable) directory into a tar archive, compresses it on the fly with gzip and stores it in another (configurable) directory.
• detects if the run is the first one (eg backup is mandatory) otherwise it checks to see if the configured directory that should be backed up has changed size. If it has, the script will backup the dir, otherwise it won’t.
• detects the size of the backup, and will write a warning if the size of the target dir is less than twice the size of the backup, and will write an error and fail if the size of the target dir is equal or less than the estimated size of the backup.
• has a a lock file scheme, eg prevents the script starting while another instance of it is running
• has an email scheme, ie you get a “backup was successful || failed miserably” email to a mailbox you configure in the script.

to do:

-do something snazzy when run in manual mode to show the user that the script is actually still running hehe
-implement passwordless scp copy to a configured remote machine…..maybe

only took me about an hour and a half to write, which I felt pretty good about considering the last time I wrote something is nearly a year ago. good to see I still have it in me heh

ps. nurd!

so, to conform to the internet age, where typing boobies! is not as good as displaying a picture of said boobies! (at least, I think so), I bring you my efforts in pictures (and please excuse the quality heh):

coming to ye olde polo here. strange how the pics completely do away with any depth perception. some of the snow I walked through to get to the car was over 30cm deep!

car

opened the door to show you the depth of snow on the roof of the car. about a cd jewel box high on the door I guess.

car

going to scrape the snow off the car’s windows, my hand and ice-scraper thingy disappeared in to above my wrist o0

car

and more windscreen. I guess a good cd case deep tbh.

car

even more windscreen, but this chunk gives you a good idea of the depth.

car

and done note how caked the roof is on the awesome Citroen next to my polo. and the footsteps leading away from the car, you can’t tell through the lack of depth perception in the picture but my feet were going in to well over my ankles. two or three inches over, judging from my jeans. I’m not very tall, but ankle height is more or less universal

car

now you may wonder why I am making such a song and dance about this hehe.

well, not just because I have to drive through it at 5.30am tomorrow but also because the last time it snowed here that I took notice is at least eight or nine years ago, and the last time it snowed and was cold enough for the snow to be around for a while is perhaps 15 or 20 years ago, and the last time it was so cold that people could drive cars on the IJsselmeer, and my uncle took pictures of frozen sea-ice pushed up on the beaches is 30 or more years ago. aka longer than some of you have been alive. Just goes to show

gosh, what to write? well, what is first in my mind is the fact that last week I helped move house for a friend by lifting things and driving a big van, which went quick and easy enough. just as quick and easy as the burgelers who came after we left again and took some of his belongings and photography stuff. stuff which is worth absolutely nothing to anyone except it’s rightful owner, so the only thing they’ve actually managed to do is upset my friend for the -maybe- 10 euros they stand to gain. what a set of twats is all I can say really. he was so happy the evening we were moving. what a set of twats!

in other -and happier- news, I have finished the project mountain bike for my friend Maks which is awesome haha! all I really had left to do was trim the hydraulic cables to size, a job which I absolutely hate btw even though it’s relatively easy. the bike has turned out awesome though, and I actually don’t want to give it to him heh. I will test ride it to my mum’s place tomorrow to see if I haven’t forgotten anything of major importance, like wheels or something

speaking of mountain bikes, I haven’t ridden mine since I got back from Norway. in fact I have not done a lot of things I said I’d do since then, except maybe finish one of my work targets for this year and do about 90% of another, which is good, but has not a lot to do with my hobbies really. except in the, erm, facilitating of them I guess ^^ anyway, testriding the maksbike tomorrow will be good, because to my mum and back is 20 km or so. night night!

currently, this is me

I mean, I get colds reasonably easily, or perhaps better worded I give in to them easily. Right now I have a headache because my head is filled with snot. My eyes hurt. I have random muscle pains, and I feel very cold.

Just made myself some nice anti-cold drink, with hot coldrex, whiskey and sugar. Perhaps I should go to bed for an hour or so :/

Well I’ve been a lazy fucker since I got back from my Norway holiday! I haven’t even gotten all the pictures on line yet! What have I done? Well, I’ve worked a lot, been under enough stress to make me break out in stress spots, and get a cold when the stress was gone again. Also, I’ve fantasized about mountain biking but haven’t had the time to do it, and mostly cancelled a lot of fun stuff that my friends asked me to go come see. So all work and no play makes TdC a dull boy, though I did enjoy what I was doing however ofc I can’t talk about any of it ^^

In between moaning about work, I have nearly finished the Maksbike, so there’s a surprise in store for him some time soon which will give Michiel and myself enormous pleasure to give to the poor fellow. I say poor because it was the original idea to tear his legs off with sweet biking, but I also fear for my own legs given that I haven’t been for a while either o0

Due to recent inspirations I am once again stoked to find a new house! This comes and goes, because I do enjoy living where I do quite a bit -except when people set fire to my front door ofc- but it is also quite expensive, and I’d much rather turn potential savings into travel, or bike bits, or beer So, I’ll be hitting the house websites again in my free time, and who knows I may find something that inspires me enough to actually take action.

In other news, I really need to start hitting the gym again. All this not biking and working too much is starting to show, and I’m not pleased. This weekend then, I will hopefully be arranging stuffs for me to push, pull and lift over the autumn and winter months that are coming. The leaves are turning pretty though, so there will be autumn mountain biking as well for sure!

Today is rubbish day, so there were a couple dozen bin bags there, and someone’s old couch to be taken away by the council. Someone had thought it was a good idea to set that alight, and then toss a couple of old wooden pallets on for good measure. To my alarm, this whole thing was directly outside my front door, in fact up against the door and front side of the house. The fire dept assured me that they were already well aware of the situation and would be there presently which was indeed within five minutes and everything was taken care of, police interviewed everyone etc etc.

I have two thoughts: primo) I am fucking glad that I woke up, secundo) what kind of complete moron would do such a thing?

I mean, besides the obvious…. I live in the central street of my town: there are cameras and such things like literally everywhere. The police already had a description of the arsonist. I mean…wtf, how stupid can you be?

Some of you know that I occasionally write for a Dutch music blog called File Under: New Music. Well, Thursday, Friday and Saturday of last week I was at Haldern-Pop in Germany, which is a (more or less indie oriented) music festival true to it’s small footprint with only about 5500 tickets. It was pretty awesome, and I saw a lot of bands I didn’t know yet, so here’s a list of what I’ve seen:

Day One

• Baddies (surprisingly good on stage)
• Broken Records (awesome)
• Wildbirds & Peacedrums (awesome voices and percussion)
• Palm Springs (shite)
• Wintersleep (awesome)

Day Two

• Asaf Avidan and the Mojos (meh bit full of themselves)
• Port O’Brien (awesome)
• The Temper Trap (awesome)
• Final Fantasy (45 mins of violins got on my nerves)
• Noah and the Whale (surprisingly awesome)
• Anna Ternheim (took me a while to realize why there were suddenly so may girls around me o0)
• Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros (awesome party, think Flaming Lips)
• Colin Munroe (meh)
• Loney, Deer (double meh)
• Athlete (TRIPLE meh)

Day Three

• William Fitzsimmons (really awesome)
• Grizzly Bear (meh)
• Bon Iver (more awesomesauce)
• Hjaltalín (fun Icelandic band)
• The Thermals (average punkpop)
• Mumford & Sons (awesome -this guy is Laura Marling’s partner if that tells you anything)
• Little Boots (she’s tiny and I want to take her home with me)
• BLK JKS (super awesome post-reggae with an amazing drummer)
• Health (AMAZING)

You can read my stuff if you can handle Dutch here: day 1, day 2, day 3 and even of you can’t it’s worth it for my mate Dennis’ awesome pictures

Wowwww long time no update! As per normal, apparently! Well I has updated stuffs to tell you, so here goes in no particular order!

Project Maksbike

One fine day while out mountain biking with my friend Gigagiel, we hit apon the awesome idea of awesomeness how awesome it would be to get our friend Maks back on the mtb. Well, it would so happen that after all this awesomeness we went to the Murderhole to err rehydrate with Maks and his -at the time- maybegirfriend and her friend. This turned out to be a really fun evening with lots of laughs and too much beer. GG and I had both worn our Crocs slippers to show poor M that we at least were secure in our sexuality and were thus able to wear such appalling shoewear outside the house. Well, before I’d done showering and mud removal and stuffs, I had checked my email because the good folks at On-One had sent me one of those nice promotional emails filled with bits of bike sex to lust over. In this case there certainly WAS something to lust over in the shape of the Lynskey built titanium 456 bike (10/10 according to MBUK). Anyway, even at a discount TI is silly money and I put it off as nice to have one day if I ever find a diamond in my socks or something.

Anyway, during this evening of too much beer, what resistance I had to purchasing the ti frame gradually eroded (with no help at all from GG, oh no) until we were actively discussing the easiness of swapping bits off the current steel 456 etc etc.Well long story short the next day I bought the ti 456 and an explosion of glee followed. A week later I had the frame, and another week later I had the wheels that OO had forgotten (sic) to send me, but no matter all was well and sorted. Half a day later I had moved all the parts over from the steel 456 frame to the ti, and being me I then looked at it for a week and didn’t ride while I slowly put together the steel frame for my friend. So about 75% through I discovered that I was missing vital things like brakes and some other bits and bobs that I’ve since long sourced, but anyway brakes would be kind of handy, hopefully cheap ones too, since I am giving him the bike as repayment for losing his phone (d’oh) on the train (d’oh) in a moment of mental fogginess whilst having a Really Bad Day filled with lots of stress but anyway the bike has already become an expensive experiment and financially I would have been better off getting him a phone but hey! It’s going to be awesomesauce to destroy him in the woods, so that is payment in itself, no?

TI 456 zomg

Ok so after having looked at the ti bike for a week while I got my head around riding it I did and it was awesome. As my mate Will said, it would have sucked to not be awesome but ofc MBUK didn’t lie and the ti bike rides like a dream. I thought the steel 456 was great, but the ti version just feels so yummy to ride that it’s incredible. I swapped out the wheels I had for the full XT ones that OO had sent me (urgh centerlock and UST btw, which made me rethink my manifest hatred of UST setups and discover that I, in fact, still hate them). The wheels ride just as nice with tubes though, and I’ll never go through the hell that is trying to reinflate empty UST setups after say, a flight to Scotland, with a track pump while getting laughed at by Will. So I went to Mariendaal and beasted myself on the climbs there trying out the bike, and it is completely awesome (just can’t say that enough). The rear end is very very hard though, and I do see myself getting something like a carbon seatpost to take the edge off, but that is far in the future as I am skint o0 Been out with GG as well, and the bike just wants to go faster and faster and I also make it up the short sharp climbs that usually kill me. Slowly, that is true, but I make it up them none the less.

Haldern Pop

Wheee I am going to Haldern festival in Germany to write for fileunder.nl (and for my own pleasure ofc. Dennis and I will be there covering the action and chilling out. I’m particularly looking forward to Bon Iver and Little Boots, the latter because she’s hot and plays a tenori-on and the former because their singer has an amazing voice and they make sweet songs. Out of the rest of the lineup I’d like to see Broken Records, Soap&Skin and Wintersleep on Thursday, The Temper Trap, Woodpigeon, Noah and the Whale and Patrick Watson on Friday, and iLiKETRAiNS, BLK JKS, The Thermals, Bon Iver and Little Boots for the Saturday. We’ll see and as with London Calling you can read my full review (in Dutch) together with Dennis’ excellent pictures on fileunder.