Happy Unblog Birthday

Nope...this isn't what you think. It's not the long awaited blog from iBen (aka Roughage Man, aka Benvolio, aka Benny Fingers aka 37% of Blah (or 61% if you used Benjamin...or 50% if you sign up to this other half malarky)), it is in-fact an impostor posting to let the world know that it is exactly 1 year since the last post here.

This makes it Roughage Man's 1st unblogging birthday!

Until next year,

The UnBen

P.S. I guess really this blog should change title to AndroidBen rather the iBen now or maybe OpenSource Ben?

The Emporer's New Bang & Olufsen

I've never been into big tvs and top of the range computers and that but one thing I've always been passionate about is hifi. Music is lush and I think the only way to listen to it is in extraordinarily high fidelity and at an *assertive* volume.

Ok, so the self proclaimed flagship of audio equipment world wide is Bang and Olufsen who have a branch just off the Bank Plain bit of London Street so a few weeks ago I spent a good hour in the showroom sampling just how inspiring music can be through the right technology. Starting with Oasis, What's the Story in their PC speakers. Now that sounded pretty good - crisp, deep and you'd get change for £300 - considering Blah listens to music out of the laptop a lot it seemed like a worthwhile investment, but what the wee 2.1 set proved in fidelity, it lacked in tonal colour so I found myself whisked onto a pair of bookshelf speakers and Elbow, Starlings



At £1500 for the pair their base line speakers were already far beyond how much I wanted to spend but they did sound nice. Tidy size, stylish design, internally amped (which means music can go straight in rather than through an amp), but again, they lacked a certain body to the music.

Listening to music recreationally should always be an immersive experience. You should feel surrounded by the sound, it should be effortless to pick out the parts you want to hear and most importantly it should be so captivating as to wipe out any distraction. These speakers were none of these.

So onto the £3,000 stereo floor standing units and, yeah, they added much needed body, but there was no... soul to the music. I could hear it, but I didn't believe what I was hearing. Even for Massive Attack, Teardrop

Which my current system pumps out quite convincingly...

At his wits end, I suspect, Mr Salesman showed me Beolab 5. I've never considered listening to speakers that sound like a robot from a Gerry Anderson show but the idea now struck me as a tempting one. First impressions 'n' that. And Voila. Never have I heard Robert Glasper sound so stunning.

And I mean stunning in the most literal sense of the term. At last, music receited better than it was played. Audio lense technology or something... the sort of speaker that takes a sonargram of the room and audio sampling to guage how best to express itself. Worth £6,000 each? Definately.

But

Coming home to my current set up, which consists of a cheap £60 amp, and a pair of hand-me-down floorstanding speakers I inherited from someone who was done with them in the '90s - in which the woofs are held in with superglue - all of the above music sounds just as good, if not better than the middle of the road B&O line. Although not quite better than the £12,000 pair (by the way, Mr Salesman said he'd knock of fifty quid if I paid there and then in cash. Result) but with enough fiddling, despite the music sounding different, the desired outcome is still acheived. Trance like enchantment.

And so, home alone, with the neighbours still at work, I'll let Delirium take me on a great musical distraction and feel smug that sometimes the cheap man comes up lucky.

Flirting with the Turning Test

Some website has gotten hold of my msn and keeps asking me to be friends with various guises of its msn contacts which masquerade as flirty young ladies who want me to join their fair site... This site is of a sexual camera related nature and as such I am very moral and disagreeing...

It is however fun to try and flirt with the script their server uses:


*akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com is not on your contact list*

akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
Just here for fun
Bennyfingers says:
yer, I love model trains too
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
hey
Bennyfingers says:
Good evening. How do you do?
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
i'm 21/f your a male right?
Bennyfingers says:
only just
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
nice, I just got off work and finally got some time to relax which site did i msg you from again?
Bennyfingers says:
http://www.number10.gov.uk/
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
I know a way we can chat and have a better time.. do you cam?
Bennyfingers says:
How splendid. To answer your question, I indeed cam it like it's 1999
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
Well i don't do yahoo cam or any other cam because i have been recorded before... But i do know one site you can watch me on cam, that assures me no one records...
Bennyfingers says:
nuts tv? no one watches that
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
I mean... Do you want to see me on my cam?
Bennyfingers says:
you sound fat tbh
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
Ok go to http://www.freecamlink.net/aeb6 accept the invite on the page baby
Bennyfingers says:
No, you accept my invite!! *angry smiley*
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
sweet, fill out the info ur info.. i can not wait for you to see me baby let me find something nice to wear
Bennyfingers says:
Did you know CC stands for Cataract Checkup?
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
its the sites policy to ensure no minors get access to the site, so they might ask for CC to verify your age babe.
Bennyfingers says:
You refered to me as a `babe` in the same sentence that procluded `minors`.... I'm confused
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
What color Panties do you think i should wear? i might have you favorite color here somewhere...
Bennyfingers says:
`Coral flair`... it's in the Dulux colour range http://www.dulux.co.uk/colours/ready_mixed/oranges.jsp
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
Your such a good boy, i'm gonna show you what good boys deserve.. you can tell me to do anything you want me too!
Bennyfingers says:
You could do the washing up. Dishwasher won't get rid of last night's lasagne... Don't forget to dry straight away. Some terrible statistics about bacteria on drip dry crockery
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
Ok let me know when you get in so I can invite you directly to my cam.
Bennyfingers says:
You're quite bossy really aren't you
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
u have to enter a cc, atm, or debit card so they can tell your of age, thats the ony way to see me sweety
Bennyfingers says:
library card?
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
k you in yet babe??
Bennyfingers says:
what's `yet babe`? Is that like a special secret club with secret handshakes? If so, then I'm afraid not
akikowalsingham19@hotmail.com says:
k
Bennyfingers says:
Do you like casseroles?

So

I don't think any computer is going to sleep with me any time soon

Why wear camoflauge with high viz?

silly army soldiers and their good works for the country

Scaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarey!

Linky Link

Stephen Fry

'nuff said.

The Bennyfingers Trio update

... is a long way off so far but it's somewhere on a couple of horizons on from now.

The masterplan is that this great jazz adventure will get me to somewhere near the standard of Fred Hersch so I can pick up a brush-stick drummer and stand up bassist and we can tour the classiest joints of Norwich and, um, Harleston.... Yaxley maybe?? (Don't worry I'll give my band cool Jaaaaaazz names like*).

Here are the problems in order of importance:

1) I don't got me no talent maaaaaaan. But I'm working on it. Imporivsations are harder in the blues scale than in the diatonic scale so that's hard. Also blues accidentals touching on aleotoric from a blues scale, and mad melodies don't make the actual bein able to play side of playing something of a substantial stumbling block. Alliteration or no alliteration.

2) Norwich don't got no taste for jaaaaazz. The first and/or only time I've seen jaaaaazz live was the infamous Dale Hambridge Trio that I keep going on about, (and I was very close to seein the Robert Glasper trio but that doesn't count). Anyway, that was in Bath where they have taste. In fact the only other Jaaaaazz place I know in these collective aisles of the united Britain is Ronnie Scotts and that's not really dingy enough for the Bennyfingers trio. Actually I tell a lie, in the waffle house down St Benedicts/St Giles street we heard a jazz guitarist play which was pretty cool. Oh yeah and a jazz pianist on my 18th at the Wine Press by the exchange hall. But aside from that Norwich isn't really a contemporary jaaaazz city.

3) I don't have a jaaaazz hat. And La doesn't encourage the endeavour relating to the procuring thereof. If you don't know what a jaaazz hat looks like: a) WTF?!1 b) Linky Link.

By the way, the jury is still out on which is better out of Bennylegs and Bennyfingers so any feedback welcome. Feel free to stop me in the street any time of day or night, or send your answers on a postcard to PO Box 56789. Alternatively you can contact our `Jaaaazz name hotline` on 07890 189 390. Calls cost 15 from a UK Landline and mobile costs vary significantly. Make sure you get the permission from the person who pays the bill.


* Current jazz names include:
- Jackson Jeffery Jackson
- Lupo
- Little Man Cub (if a bandmember is short enough)

- Byron Valentino One Man Love Show

(a lot of those names have been plagerised from current and old members of Babyhead, the ska band)