Power napping

Now I don't usually need any help taking a 'power nap' while staring at a computer screen...it seems to go with the territory. But here's 3 variations (electronic, classical and nature) to listen to online or download. Think they last about 20 minutes each.....yawn, well maybe......zzzzzz

Napsounds online

Tipping Point

I posted about Tipping Point when there was only one chapter (it's an online point and click adventure game).....but it's now up to chapter 4 so......

Play all 4 here

Back from foreign parts

So I'm back from Berlin....as you can see from the picture on the left the weather wasn't the best, that's the Fernsehturm (TV tower) in Alexanderplatz disappearing into the mist....we didn't bother going to the top! A`whistlestop tour.....

• Alexanderplatz
• Unter den Linden
• Brandenburger Tor
• Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
• Potsdamer Platz
• Berlin Wall Documentation Centre
• Gemaeldegalerie
• Altes Museum
• Berliner Dom
• Hackescher Markt (video, not mine)
• Olympiastadion

....and for a bit of retail therapy Ka De We
I'm all walked out, half a stone heavier and sporting a German chest infection....never mind, soon be Christmas! I'll post some pictures of the trip (and severely hung-over students) when I get round to downloading the camera.

Bad Welsh

.....The English is clear enough to lorry drivers - but the Welsh reads "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated."

The rest of the story here

And after the trick-or-treaters are tucked up in bed I'll be watching......

Nosferatu.....

1001.....

....cleans a big, big carpet, for less than half a crown......whoops, sorry, nostalgia for the joys of early UK TV advertising and substantially lower prices got the better of me there! Just to report that we've got 1001 posts under our belts and are still staggering along.

But should you feel the urge for celebrating the occasion with a substantial (it runs to 16 volumes, so definitely not for the faint-hearted, or prudish for that matter!) dose of culture, can I suggest "The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night" at archive.org ....plain vanilla text available for download. Wikipedia article with lots of links here

It wouldn't be Halloween if I wasn't listening to.....

Soooo.....why change the habits of a lifetime?

Ninja Cat

Berlin bound

Come Monday and you might catch me (along with aforementioned 50 quantity surveyors) on this live webcam on Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, our hotel is over to the left and the U-bahn station to the right. So now all I've got to do is pack, and there won't be much because we're flying steerage with a 15kg hold baggage allowance, the ball gown and fur coat are on ice!

The 'DO' Lectures

I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago, but better late than never!

"The Do lectures are all about getting a handful of speakers together in one place, in the hope that they may inspire you to go Do something. To give you the tools and the desire to change the things you care about."
The lecures are all online here

Here's a sample
Andy Cummins....Surfers Against Sewage Campaign Officer
"Andy started surfing way back in 1992 in the North East. Back then surfing in the North Sea was similar to surfing in an open sewer. This served as great inspiration and drive to bring about change, but at 15 he never thought he could be an active part of that movement, so the most he did was join Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) and tag along to actions and events in his area.
Since then, travelling, experience and education has helped open his eyes to the scale of abuse our oceans and seas suffer at our hands. He has been a full time SAS campaigner since 2003, working on over 50 campaigns."

Spooky sounds from Saturn

NASA has posted some spooky sounds from the solar system....

Another spooky game

Ghostscape is a game where..... "You play a veteran investigator of the occult who, upon hearing rumors of a haunted house, cannot stay away...and what a paranormal gold mine it turns out to be! Chairs and cups move as if grasped by some invisible hand, mysterious diary entries litter the floor, grotesque paintings adorn every room. And then, of course, there are the ghosts. But who would believe you? Luckily, you have your trusty camera to provide proof." (via JayisGames)

Halloween lucky dip

There's some lovely vintage Halloween images here (the image above is one of them)

Also worth checking out is the Vintage Halloween Postcard pool for creepy cards.

Monsters in mid-1870s news prints from Pink Tentacle.....

"For a brief period in the mid-1870s, artistic woodblock prints known as “newspaper nishiki-e” were a popular form of mass entertainment in Japan. These colorful prints fed the public’s enormous appetite for sensationalism by retelling shocking stories culled from the major newspapers of the day. The Meiji government swiftly cracked down on the publishers of these “unofficial” sources of information, causing them to disappear as quickly as they had appeared, but not before hundreds of issues had been published and circulated around Japan."

The Hospital...an interactive artwork. Wander/click around a deserted, derelict hospital. As they say "Stay a while, stay forever"

Why not get in the Halloween mood with some Zero Budget Zombie Make-up

Scuttlebuggery is described as "sort of like a game of liquid soccer played between beetles with drops of absinthe and formaldehyde"....it had me beat, but I rather liked the music, and I'm guessing that if you get past the first level you get to hear more

Who knows, maybe more later......

Yum yum

Surveying Berlin.....again

And staying with the European theme, I'm off to Berlin on a fieldtrip very soon....check out the website, live the dream....imagine me tramping the streets with 50+ quantity surveyors! (I'll be the one at the back shouting 'two by two, hold hands while you cross that road, get a move on!'....it's rather like herding cats)

Here's one for Anne and John.....

.....just back from a long weekend in Paris (where apparently it was t-shirt weather....hang on, t-shirts, what are they?) They can relive the experience (of Paris, not the weather) at Paris en images....just a small collection of 25,000 pictures!

Scaring the kids....a lost art? Discuss.

Halloween cocktail.....

....just so you can buy in the essentials in advance!

Brain Hemorrhage
1/2 - 3/4 oz. Peach Schnapps
Float 1-2 Tbl. of Baileys on top
Drop 1 tsp of grenadine through the Baileys.

Apparently it tastes like peaches and cream

Link

Slow, slow, quick quick, slow.....

On my iGoogle homepage I have this widget that delivers up random free fonts to download....the one above is dance-step....which reminded me of the vintage joys of Victor Sylvester and his Silver Strings (I really must get out more!!) So anyway, if I'm suffering, you can too. (Just pray I can't find a picture of Edmundo Ross in one of his ruffle-sleeved signature shirts because then you're in REAL trouble!)

First off, the distinctive sound.....

Discover Victor Sylvester!

A vintage Victor struts his stuff in the 20's



....and some vintage "Come Dancing" (they sewed all the sequins on themselves!)

Jesmond Picture House

After standing empty for 15 years, the Jesmond Picture House is earmarked for demolition and replacement with a, no doubt faceless, office/shopping complex sometime soon (if the process hasn't already started....it's a while since I went 'the posh way round' on the Metro to town!) Seeing that there's a bit of a family connection (Uncle Elwood was the manager there at least until the early 70's and was always good for a free seat on a quiet night when my grant cheque didn't quite stretch) I thought a memorial post was in order to mark its passing.

From Wikipedia...."This suburban cinema opened in 1921 and survived well into the multiplex age. Made in America was the last film to be screened there when it finally closed its doors in October 1993."

The Jesmond didn't just do films, I remember seeing Alexi Sayle there in the mid 80's....it was described as "a memorably bawdy and raucous night", and I can vouch for the fact that it was!

In 2007 28DaysLater, the UK urban exporation group, 'gained access' (no names, no pack drill!) and took some pictures of the decayed interior....see them here together with scans of the Chronicle write-up