Showing posts with label TIVO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TIVO. Show all posts

Friday, 21 August 2020

Oops, I Did It Again - #AnimalAugust #15


Although my Tivo is 80% full and there are a few series I am watching on streaming services (Netflix and Amazon Prime) I decided to pick up on Bosch (partly because of Hieronymus Bosch) , and am already for episodes into the first of six series featuring Elliot Gould look alike Titus Welliver as Harry Bosch as the main protagonist in another crime solving series which is rather enjoyable.

Also the new series of Lucifer has started and I am still working through The Boys and The Umbrella Academy, so I am not going short of anything anytime soon.

We do live in an amazing age for visual entertainment, I have watched quite a few series in the last few months so I know that half a dozen series is no bar to me watching something, it's a joureny you don't think about because you are just there to enjoy the ride.

So I am writing this quite late (for me) , so it's quite a short post.

For #AnimalAugust I'm going to go with "Cuckoo" by Lissie from the album "Catching A Tiger" which I played and really enjoyed yesterday. I've always loved her singing and material, and I also enjoyed her album of covers, so if you haven't heard her , take a listen , you may like.


Wednesday, 25 March 2020

Home Is The New Work


Today I was going to use a bit of my free time to put together a slideshow of "The Murderous Memorandum" by David King, but I am in contact with him and his partner and my friend tattooist Sophia Gourley and sent a message that he should do that given that he is an excellent artist and musician / composer. I shared my Nick Cane / Dr Faustus video which has proven quite popular and you can enjoy it here.

So that means I need to find something else to put my talents to, I am learning a couple of songs which may find their way to my Youtube channel and I have a couple of deliveries scheduled.

I have the first two series of "Orange Is The New Black"  which I am working through and am now on the final series of 30 Rock, but my TIVO disk is still 75% full so my Netflix trial is still on hold and I need to get a week of Now TV to watch series 3 of Westworld and Series 2 of Britannia.

I supposed that influenced the title of the post, and Home Is The New Work. I am wondering if people will have problems going back to an office environment if this ever gets back to normal. The situation has been predicted is so many dystopian future novels, and I am shocked how incompetent the UK and USA governments have been handling this.

As I am writing this I am listening to "Grand Hotel" by Procol Harum, and to be quite honest I don't think I have listened to it before and it is absolutely excellent. Windows Media Player and being at home is allowing me to explore my music collection a lot more than I have in years. iTunes and even MusicMatch were nowhere near as fast , efficient and convenient. People keep telling me a Kindle with Alexa is fine , but it keeps suggesting I get Spotify , and doesn't even reference the stuff I've bought on Amazon , and as for my ripped music , I can forget about that.

So we'll go with the title track from "Grand Hotel" and it is as impressive as it's title. Check it out.

Monday, 12 February 2018

Bitey - We Are Here To Drink Your Beer!!


That was a word Chris Hawkins used to described the cold this morning. The laminate kitchen floor was so cold that I had to put slippers on.  Outside the cars are frozen up and I am considering walking into work today. The sky is clear so it will be interesting to see the sunrise this morning. The roads are clear and on Saturday they were frosted up , and we did have snow flurries during  Sunday night.

Yesterday I was walking past the Westgate Ark Charity shop on Two Ball Lonnen I had noticed they now have cats in the window, and couldn't resist taking an instagram video that you can see here. A lot of people seem to like it and it is cute as hell.

I'm currently clearing recordings frome my TIVO box in anticipation of taking delivery of a V6 box, although as Yodel are delivering it I haven't a clue when I will get it, but rumours have it that it's an improvement on the TIVO box.

Anyway I'm sort of prepared for the bitey weather out there, though luckily I have the option of catching a bus if it really does get too cold.

I wimped out from seeing Alestorm last night but I'll include their video for "Drink" for you to enjoy as I get wrapped up and ready to continue my walking into work to deal with whatever awauts me when I get there. The Alestorm video will definitely wake you up.


I know it's Monday, but be positive and have a great start to the week.

Tuesday, 6 February 2018

Back To Reality


Have a break, especially in Whitby , is brilliant. In insulates from stuff that you have to do, although I was sure that I wouldn't keep up my 12K a day steps that I need to do to hit 340K in February (only 28 days this month), but I did that and more, hitting 18K on Sunday, but I knew yesterday would cause a dip, as it was going to be up, then driving back.

Luckily I took a full day off so that enabled me to do 15K steps yesterday, so there's not too much pressure for the rest of the month. The weather is possibly going to be cold, so that may affect my walking if if we also get rain and strong winds. Rain without wind means you can use an umbrella, wind without rain is just a question of wrapping up.

I came home to find my TIVO box had gone from 60% to 80% full in four days, slightly surprising on one way, but when you think a film can (with adverts) clock in at three and a half hours, and I recorded a few films, maybe it's not that surprising.

After listening and being impressed by Jem's "Down To Earth", her second album, yesterday on my walks I played her debut album "Finally Woken" which opens with the song that got me into her "They" whith it's sampled vocal motif played on a Fairlight or something and sounding like it's been lifted from one of the BBC favourite vocal groups that would guest on Sunday programs like the Swingle Singers orthe like. "They " is brilliant and is worth buying the album for that song alone. While the rest of the album is not earth shattering it is still well worth investigating with some songs that will stay with you.

I'll leave you with "They" and get wrapped up for the walk to work. Have a good Tuesday my friends, this is the start of my four day work week.

Tuesday, 12 December 2017

Snow, Laziness, Apathy,Lethargy and Ethiopiques


.. and it's cold. Back from Litton, and back to work . This is the part of the year where I thought my walking would take a hit, you can wrap up but sometimes the biting cold and wetness can get to you and you just want to get on a bus or get in and keep warm.

I don't know if it;s an age thing or my natural laziness, but I seem to find it increasingly difficult to do things that need preparation. This can be getting the laptop and mouse out the bag to do a blog post when I'm on holiday. Another is playing a DVD, you have to get up , find the DVD , take it out of the case, switch on the DVD player , tune the TV to the DVD channel, and play the DVD. It's far too easy to take the alternateive route and click a few buttons on the remote and play something on the TIVO, or on demand. Although strangely I still like  playing things on vinyl, and that is very incovenient and labour intensive.

Cooking is similar, I am alwasy tempted to chuck a frozen pizza in the oven, though last night it was mashed normal / sweet potato and bean burger which meant cooking but it was worth it. I still don't do ready meals, although part of that is that ready meals often take as long to cook as it would to prepare from scratch.

I like to be able to walk into a situation and start doing what I want to do, I don't like the preparation , so maybe I'm not lazy , just selective.

I am still hitting my rolling monthly million steps despite the weather, though part of the motivation for that is the fact it helps with keeping my blood sugar under control.

While on holiday I picked up a Best of Ethiopiques album , and I remember listening to some of this music and actually being frightened by it, it was so other worldly atmospheric, but disturbing. I corresponded with Nadine Shah about it, so will include "Yegelle Tezetta" byMulatu Astatke which is a great piece but I find there is a strage menace behind it. Have a great Tuesday everybody.

Thursday, 30 April 2015

TV IS KING!


Well it is and it isnt. I'm old enough to remember only two channels, being really annoyed when Kennedy got shot because ITV took all their programs off and just had some woman playing piano and I missed my weekly episode of Bonanza. I saw the transition from black and white to colour, the moon landings and England winning the World Cup..

I remember getting BBC2 and that was a 50% increase in available TV , then we got Channel 4 and Brookside and Channel 5 was a relatively recent terrestrial addition , plus there was the proliferation of satellite , Sky's money managing to make and sterilize football in one fell swoop.

When we had limited channels , audiences could be huge , but people complained like hell about repeats. We now have digital channels that are completely repeats. People complain about the TV License but happily shell out five times as much for subscription TV that STILL is full of advertisements.

The switch to digital came and gave most people loads of effectively free content funded by adverts. Plus these days we can have catch up TV and recording boxes that allow you to skip adverts, enabling you to watch what you want when you want.

It's very seldom these days that you need to get home for a TV program unless it's a televised live event, but we now probably watch more TV than ever before. It#s ubiquitous. We have TV on Mobile devices and there's a TV screen visible wherever you sit at work.

TV IS KING!
And my point is people still say "There's nothing on television" , apart from the off switch you have all the options above. My TIVO box is 90% full and Netflix and Amazon Prime don't even touch my radar. There are times when you channel hopand cant find anything you want but there are so many catch up and record options you should always be able to find something.

And if not, why not read a book or call a friend , that's even better than TV!

Though the Tubes song was appropriate as it gave the  post it's title.

Thursday, 8 May 2014

Virgin On The Ridiculous.




Two years ago I did a post a day in May, this May I've posted virtually nothing.  Things are still happening but today my time has just been eaten up with work and a getting a new TV device and router installed by Virgin, followed by a quick trip into town, which became not so quick , and it was raining , but c'est la vie.

We are all resistant to change, though I like to think I'm open to it, whether it's a new job , new bus route , new phone or whatever, but with the installation of the TIVO I was thinking I'm going to have to learn how to use it, and like a typical man haven't bothered with the manual, the writings to small anyway. I looked at the online and discovered it has an Ethernet cable which means I can connect it to my network but I'm not sure what that will let me do.

Anyway this gets me into the thing where once you take the plunge to do something new, there's usually no going back and sometimes it's only taking that first step that gets to into another world of possiblilities.

That sounds grandiose , but it isnt . I got a TIVO box because it will save me £15 a month on my TV outgoings, as well as increasing my storage capacity by 200% as well as yet undreamt of extras.

Anyway it's good if you can do new things, and I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity, so I've done a post about something not too interesting but , I thought I'd let you know. Have a great night everyone.

Included the Noah and The Whale song cos I've always loved it and it has lovely sentiments.