Exercise #5 Gloria: a hot chick from Kyneton

Gloria has also been posted to my Flickr account (tags are gloria, "hot chicks").

Exercise #7 Ska music

I've been transferring some of my old vinyl records to digital format. I've already successfully transferred a lot of material from audio cassette, but I'm having a problem with hiss interference when recording from the turntable. I suspect a dodgy, very tired turntable.

However, with some styles of music (such as reggae/ska) this is not such a problem, since they are acoustically pretty busy. Erik Satie's piano music, by contrast, is very unforgiving. So I've re-discovered a favourite album that I haven't heard for about 20 years. The UB40 file. Boy did that pin my ears back, cranked up nice and loud. Even more risk of brain damage through headphones, I'd have to say.

But a man always wants more. So I visited a very hip record shop in Greville Street during my lunch break to see what they had. They have a uteload of the stuff. But forget about more UB40 -- they are still performing and recording after nearly 30 years, but not playing the style that so impressed me as a young sociology student.

If anyone can advise me about my turntable problem, please advise. I'm using a pre-amp unit designed for such projects, and Audacity software.

Exercise #3 Hello brave new world

This is just a test entry, as I have nothing of interest to anyone else to say at this point. It's not unlike Leunig's cartoon where, once every child has a mobile phone, we can say or text things like "have a nice day" to everyone.

But I am interested in this whole process, just in case I ever have something worthwhile to say.