Gecko Bloggle

Here’s Johnny Vancouver and my first podcast *together*… actually in the same freakin’ ROOM, and stuff. 1hr 10mins (64MB) of music and talking and technical mishaps.
Download/play it here, or if you’ve got a thing that downloads Podcasts, just subscribe to our feed (the RSS link on the sidebar of my blog or click here)

I’ll put proper links in the playlist in a bit. Please comment and let us know what you think.

• {TalkyBit}
  Akufen – Deck the Halls
  Dare – The Gorillaz
  Toasted Dub – Jack Dangers
  {TalkyBit}
  Fix Up, Look Sharp – Dizzy Rascalz
  Say That – Latyrix
  Sissy Strut – The Meters
  {TalkyBit}
  Think (About It) – Lynn Collins and the JB Allstars
  Live With Me – Massive Attack (f.
  Poems – Nearly God
  {TalkyBit}
  Brazil – Brazil Soundtrack
  Tonight Romanticize the Automobile – Hawksley Workman
  Black Tongue – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
  {TalkyBit}
  Tru Skool – Coldcut (f. Roots Manuva)
  Down By The Water – PJ Harvey

So I got a pair of funky Logitech Wireless iPod Headphones (with remote on the ear), graciously given to me by a person at work (who knows someone from Logitech), and loved loved loved them. They felt good, they sounded great (and much lighter than my monstrous Koss UR30s).

Wore them during my daily commute to/from work (I walk for about 30min each way, which is just about right for the 2600 podcasts and the latest – or eldest – tunes in my library), and had them for about two weeks before I noticed that the fit didn’t seem quite as tight as when I got ’em. After wearing them for another day or two, I took a look at the neck band, and noticed a hairline crack on the inside of the band. This is what I saw:

Now, two weeks later, the crack has managed to migrate to the other side of the band, too, and now I’ve got headphones that would (if I were to wear them) literally be held on by the wires inside the neckband. Now, I’ve seen sport style headphones before, but the major difference seems to be that there’s no reinforcement on the back of the neck point, which would create the largest amount of stress on the plastic. I’m also guessing that these Logitech phones aren’t made with the most supple of plastic, which gives you a nice tight fit on the side of the head (for folks who are missing the top parts of their ears, I guess), but means that the majority of the stress in on a part of the headphones that has 1) no reinforcement and 2) no give.

I’ve been Googling some other folks to see what they think, and it looks like I’m really REALLY not alone in this.

I’ve also seen some interesting ways to work around the brittle plastic that makes the neckband of these things.

I’m thinking coat hanger, bent around to make the shape of the band, and then duct-tape/gluing them in place, or trying to disassemble them entirely, down to the earpoint, and essentially Frankensteining another (cheaper, more durable) neckband onto them.

Still, I LOVE the sound on them, but it’s just so sad to see them snap so easily after some fairly mundane use.

And besides, it was really fun to put ’em on Ripley and then use the iPod in my hand to essentially turn him into a remote-control dancin’ machine.

I’ve been tasked with something sorta interesting by Arwen’s sister:

First, I’m going to do a nice wind-down on a track by CocoRosie (never heard of ’em, but the one track I’ve heard so far is kinda cool.

But here’s the thing: I’m looking for the sound of a music box being wound up, just the clanky, rachety noise of the crank being turned. I’ll start googling some of the sound effect sites, but if anyone’s got something they have (or could record), I’d be most appreciative.

As per my previous post, here’s some more tunes from this unknown Asian (?) artist.

Please ask around, and see if you can figure out who this might be.

Thanks in advance.

Unknown Track by Unknown Artist #2

and my personal fave (makes me think of Portishead’s Dummy album)

Unknown Track by Uknown Artist #6

MC Squared

Very fast little beatboxer… Pretty good.

Most impressive: Him playing the Apollo (check the video link).

Crazy baby…

Via Somechick

Go to wikipedia and put in your birth date. Don’t put in the year.

Post in your Blog with three events, two births, and two deaths and one holiday/observance in your
journal including the year (of the event, not your birth)

Februrary 17th:

Events:
# 1958 – Pope Pius XII declares Saint Clare of Assisi (1193~1253) the patron saint of television
# 1972 – Sales of the Volkswagen Beetle model exceed those of Ford Model-T.
# 1974 – Robert K. Preston, a disgruntled U.S. Army private, buzzes the White House with a stolen helicopter.

Births:
# 1962 – Lou Diamond Phillips, American actor
# 1971 – Denise Richards, American actress

Deaths:
# 1909 – Geronimo, Apache leader (b. 1829)
# 1982 – Thelonious Monk, American jazz pianist (b. 1917)

Holiday:
# World Cabbage Day

FlOw is a very mellow and relaxed sort of “eat what’s smaller than you” kinda game, and even though I generally hate these sorts of games, I found this one really soothing and sort of hypnotic.

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Takes about 30 seconds to figure out what’s going on (holding down the mouse button makes you move faster), and about 15-20 minutes to play through to the bottom (no, there’s no giant boss at the end), and I’m told by a friend there’s something very similar for Nintendo DS, but hey.

Free’s good, and so’s pretty… Headphones/speakers add to the effect (and could just about put you to sleep).

via Boing-Boing

Someone out there has made a movie timeline (mostly Sci-Fi, of course) that puts all of the movies’ dates together into one big string. For instance:

PRESENT DAY, APPARENTLY…
2006 Unicron reformats Megatron into Galvatron after a battle of Autobot City (Transformers)
Bicentennial Man

but my fave is of course, in 2010 when along with the Olympics, we’ll finally have Thunderbirds!

Here’s some pics from Tate’s first meal today.

I love the look on his face when the carrots hit ‘im. (click pic for fullsize)

For Xmas this year, Ripley got a whole big bag of dressup stuff. One of the things in there was some awesome tinsel-like wig. Rip’s taken to rockin’ out and calling himself (and I swear we don’t know why) “David Boowee.” He recently bought some shades to make the ensemble complete…
(and yes, his pants are on backwards)…
At least it’s not Vanilla Ice (he prefers the old school hip hop, actually).