This week, I’ve been experimenting with the EVOC20 Logic vocoder, mastering and, for the first time ever, some harmonies. From my own mouth. Sorry.
For those interested, this track features elements of ‘I Can’t Wait’ by ‘New Shooz’.
Month: February 2010
Sleep Cycle Alarm: Tiring
Those 59p iPhone Apps are nearly always tempting. Because they’re 59p. That’s nothing, after all. Loose change. The kind of stuff you loose down the back of the sofa.
So, it was with little trepidation I purchased Sleep Cycle Alarm. A little App which monitors your sleep patterns and wakes you up at your most ‘awake’ within a thirty minute window you preset.
Reviews, while nearly always developer-led, were 99% positive, so what did I have to loose?
Sleep, as it turned out. Far from leaving me feeling refreshed and ready for the day, Sleep Cycle Alarm appears to be largely useless, faffy and tiring.
Firstly, it only monitors movement. It doesn’t plug into your brain, so despite the statistics graph suggesting it is aware of when you’re dreaming, it simply isn’t.
This presents several problems. Firstly, unless you’re single or you and your partner posses a 400ft-wide bed, it will register every single movement both you and your loved one make.
Secondly, it must be placed under your bed sheet but away from your pillow. Once again, unless you sleep in Shaq O’ Neal’s bed, this isn’t particularly practical. It also means you spend most of the night checking the phone is still in place or hasn’t been crushed by your constantly tossing and turning head.
Lastly, the statistics graphs are interesting. Once.
There’s no snooze function, either. I understand the whole point of this is to wake you up when you’re most with it, but we’re not designed to wake up instantly. Snooze buttons are essential.
So, to round up, don’t bother with Sleep Cycle Alarm. You’ll only end up more tired.
New Track: Upstairs
Capello Misses a Trick
So, after exactly a week of every Tom, Dick and Harry lending their press-influenced views on the most boring scandal ever to grace football, it took Fabio Capello just 12 minutes to deliver the bad news to John Terry.
The Chelsea skipper will captain the England team no more.
I’m disappointed. Not in Capello (well, not entirely – read on to hear why); he did the only thing he could after the relentless media-led pressure we’ve witnessed over the last seven days. It didn’t matter how many people – like me – failed to see the connection between a footballer’s extra marital relations and his ability to captain the national team; there was simply no way Terry could continue to be captain with such a black cloud hanging over him. Capello did the right thing.
Incidentally, it wouldn’t surprise me if we’ve all actually forgotten what the offence was, exactly – it seems so irrelevant now.
I’m continually impressed by an England manager who clearly doesn’t mess about. While pressure undoubtedly led him to this decision, you can be sure he made it confidently, quickly and without a second thought of what anyone else might think. He wants to win the World Cup and doesn’t give a toss who he upsets on the way. I like that.
I don’t like his decision to simply realign the captaincy, though. Ferdinand? Really? He may have been second in line but has hardly played all season. When he was playing, he was hardly at the top of his game. Yes, he’s had a chequered past, too, but this isn’t the root cause of my dismay today.
If anything, Capello should be assessing whether or not Ferdinand is fit for a place in the World Cup squad at all, let alone lead it.
He’s missed a trick here, Capello. Gerrard should have taken Terry’s place. No?
I’m willing to be proved wrong though, Fabio. Please don’t let this uncharacteristically weak decision make a mockery of my praise for you above…
John Terry: Sensationalism Gone Mad.
Yesterday, I drove roughly 350 miles. Along the majority of those congestion-strewn roads, I listened to Talksport. I usually do this while out on the road and it isn’t typically a problem. Yesterday, however, it was.
For a total of around 6 hours I was treated to one long, continuous debate about John Terry, his extra-marital relations and whether or not he should still be England captain.
Every DJ on the station (and not in the least Stan Collymore who I think may have been playing with himself whilst endlessly spurting pointless superlatives about the supposed forthcoming meeting between Terry and Capello; “Capello is a greatly morale man and will not at all be concerned with what John Terry does behind closed doors away from the big lights and spectacle of the beautiful game”) simply repeated their views again and again. As did the callers. And the guests. When all was said and done, there were only about 3 different views; they were simply regurgitated, modified and drawn out each time they were expressed. I literally had a headache as I finally turned into my street at the end of the day.
I’m not going to embellish on this massively boring subject too much further, but I will give my opinion.
What John Terry does off the pitch is his business and his business only. I find all the debate over the affair hugely uncomfortable. It’s clear us Brits have a massive problem with sex (more so than the US, I’d say) and are so easily appalled by anything relating to it that it is invariably made a big deal of when something like this happens.
He’s a great defender and a very good captain. What he does away from the pitch is totally irrelevant. End of story. The only reason this has been made front page news is because the way in which everything is sensationalised these days.
Whenever we approach a big tournament like the World Cup, the press in this country reach for their knives and start their level best to completely screw up any chance England have of doing well. Why wouldn’t they? We love wallowing in our own misery in this country; if England go out in the group stages they’ll sell lots more papers.
Finally, are footballers role models? No, of course they’re not. They swear, spit, fight, cheat and spunk their ridiculous earnings up the wall. Any notion that the are to be held on a pedestal by anyone is daft. Yes, kids admire them and want to be them, but that’s life, I’m afraid. I’m sure they want to be film stars, too, but how many parents would want their child to turn into Lindsey Lohan?
There we go. 463 words and I’m done.
