Devolution of Music

Music Then:

  
Music Now:

What the hell happened?!  You have got to be kidding me!

Martian Martin

The Martian Missile by David Grinnell, a title that is actually a misprint.  The cover was originally to read: The Martin Missile.

As is evident on the cover, the story revolves around the factual events of an ambitious plan to fire Dean Martin into space, dressed as Robin from the popular Batman comics of the time.  The Martin Missile was devised by the United Nations in the late 1950's as part of earths plan to invade space. 

While inconceivable with today’s politically correct world view, back in the 1950's it did seemed like a good idea at the time, when originally floated at the U.N. meeting.  It wasn't difficult getting Dean to agree, the promise of martian martinis on the moon hand him scrambling into the capsule.  Unfortunately, the project was doomed for failure after the box office failure of Martins first solo film, Ten Thousand Bedrooms in 1957.

Animutopia Conquest

The third and final instalment of the three part Colin Mochrie vs. Jesus H. Christ animutation series by Andrew Kepple. The Conquest of Animutopia.

I think the previous two instalments had catchier music, but this one rounds off the underlying story and has a few mental extras at the end.

Hobbit Housing

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

A guy called Simon Dale built a real, live in, hillside hobbit house in Wales on a budget of just £3,000. Thats a cost of around $10 per square metre!

 Simon Dale constructed the woodland hobbit house for his family from stone, mud, and remnant wood from nearby forests, taking only four months to fully complete the project with help from his father-in-law. The home is also adorned with fairy lights and wooden furniture to complete the Tolkin look.

Designed to be fully sustainable, the home is heated by a wood burner with solar panels on the roof to provide power. It also has water supplied by a nearby spring to complete the cost free utilities.  Simon says: "Being your own have-a-go architect is a lot of fun and allows you to create and enjoy something which is part of yourself". But the real question is: do the solar panels also charge the batteries for his wife's Bilbo?

 Despite having no previous experience as a builder or carpenter the ambitious plans came to fruition.  Quite surprising really as hobbits are plain, simple folk who don't like adventures because it makes them late for dinner.  Simon says: "This kind of building is accessible to anyone. My main relevant skills were being able bodied, having self belief and perseverance and a mate or two to give a lift now and again".  All he needs now is a gardener called Sam.

Sheepish Explanation

The explanation may take several hours.

It's Trivialis

Floccinaucinihilipilification. No I didn't just slam my forehead on the keyboard, it's a real word. It's the categorising of something that is useless or trivial. I think I do that a bit. I'll have to make a note of being a floccinaucinihilipilificationist. Despite it's meaning, the pronunciation of floccinaucinihilipilification is no trivial task.

As far as I'm concerned, trivialis is the original, more correct descriptive term, not the term trivial. Like most words, trivia originally derived from the Latin, tri meaning triple and via meaning way, "a place where three ways meet".

The word trivia was used to describe a place where three roads met in Ancient Rome. All of which roads were said to lead to Rome, but that probably had something to do with them being built by Romans, and Rome is where the Romans wanted to go when they finished roaming around.  Later the term trivialis became a derogatory term meaning "appropriate to the street corner".

Eventually trivia began referring to the lower division of the Artes Liberales (liberal arts), basic education, being: grammar, rhetoric, and logic. The higher division of the Liberal Arts was the quadrivia, higher education. The quadrivia (four ways) being: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. So things not of the higher education (the quadvia) became referred to as trivial.

Dick Taste

A Taste of Dick Black by Dick Black and his Band...  Not to be confused with a taste of black dick by a band of black dicks.  There's a not so subtle difference if you didn't notice.

Dick Black is an old white guy with an average sized accordion, not a black guy with an over sized mouth organ.  Also Dick Blacks band is a group of musicians not a group of friends he plays basketball with on Saturdays.

Endangered Meals

As meat eaters, animals that we like to eat (cows, sheep, pigs) we tend to breed and farm to not just eat but encourage the increase of demand for those animals. Whereas protected species gradually diminish in numbers heading towards extinction due to habitat incursion from human development.

Therefore I propose that the best way to protect an endangered animal is to put it on the menu. Now I'm not talking about going out hunting them in the wild.  That's just not going to work.  What needed is to turn the uncared about endangered creatures of the planet into highly profitable and desired sustenance.

If we look at say turtles in Australia compared with other places in South East Asia we can see how this might work.  In Australia most turtles are a protected species due to their dwindling populations. Where as in other parts of South East Asia, turtles are regularly consumed  in many places and are in abundance.  When supply of  is scarce, costs increase and farmers increase production to take advantage of high profit margins. As supply floods the market, demand increases due to the lowering of price.

Now take a look at this panda:

See how meaty it is, just like a juicy cow.  You could eat that.  I bet it's tender from lounging around all day and should taste great from it's diet of bamboo shoots.