List: '10 terrific iPhone and iPad musical performances’

Today’s ‘List Friday’. Decades ago, Sweetheart Vivienne and I knew a then young couple who bragged they had to wed each other as their fathers both owned Rolls Royces. Fair dinkum. No joke. If you reckon that’s no basis for a marriage, you’d be right. They’re divorced. But it took 30+ years to get there. In 16 days time, Sweetheart Vivienne and I will have been married for 43 years. I can’t identify all the reasons for our marriage’s longevity. But one important one is that in key ways we’re different. Even opposites. That’s an asset because we complement each other. Her strengths are my weaknesses. And vice versa. But you can be sure one fact that’s played no part in our long marriage is that she owns an iPhone and I an iPod touch. These gizmos suit our different needs well. But both are beautiful, user friendly, fast, and ultra-portable. It’s amazing what Apple’s packed into their small cases. I could say ‘everything but the kitchen sink’. But that’d be exaggerating. Though try a bunch of musical instruments. Today’s list, from last Friday’s Age, is ‘10 terrific iPhone and iPad musical performances’ [1]. I’m pleased that, despite the list’s title, some iPod Touches are included. My fave? They’re all astounding. Remarkable. But I’ll go for Lang Lang [pictured] playing an iPad Flight of the Bumblebee [2]. I’m not saying you can’t make just as awesome music with a Rolls Royce or two. However I’ll reserve my judgement until I hear it. Ho hum.

An old dog learns a new word

Today’s ‘Positive and Optimistic Sunday’. Without wanting to blow my own trumpet, I think I know a fair bit about the English language. Including its idiocyncrasies and grammatical nuances. I’ve read Don Watson’s books [1] Weasel Words and Death Sentence [2]’ also Lyn Truss’s book Eats, Shoots and Leaves [2]. I own a copy (albeit superseded) of the Australian Government’s Style Manual [3]. I frequently consult my 2,129-page copy of Webster’s Dictionary. I have a dictionary and thesaurus on my iPod Touch. I listen to the podcasts and receive email bulletins from Grammar Girl (pictured) [4]. I often discuss grammar with Sweetheart Vivienne. And we frequently tackle crosswords. So last Thursday I was nonplussed by this email from my darling sister Sue [5]. Paraprosdokian sentences? Never heard of them. A quick google search [6] revealed much. Coming from the Greek words meaning ‘beyond expectation’ [7], a paraprosdokian’s exactly as Sue’s email defines it. I’ve heard many of them in my lifetime; but until last Thursday I didn’t know their category name. Of course I should’ve been more humble about my knowledge of English. Indeed the more I know, the more humble I should be, e.g. Wikipedia says some paraprosdokians create a syllepsis [8] – also known as a symantic zeugma [9]. Yikes. At least I know more about English now than I did last Wednesday. A positive and optimistic notion? Sure.
P.S. h/t darling sister Sue.

Shit, eh.

Shit. When I was a nipper my Dad washed my mouth out with soap for saying that word. Which naturally only encouraged me to say it more. In those 1950s days, that word didn’t appear in the media. But in the decades since then, life’s become more liberal, in Australia anyway, and so formerly forbidden words are now seen and heard regularly in private and public [1]. And nowadays shit’s used as an adjective and a verb as well as a noun.

So yesterday I had a shit day. Though I had a mountain of work to do including watching 4½ hours of surveillance video, I couldn’t resist the temptation to download iOS 4 [2] and install it on my iPod Touch. The download was flawless, but soon after the installation started it crashed. It crashed several more times. It kept giving me various error messages. Finally, out of desperation, I attached my iPod to Sweetheart Vivienne’s MacBook Pro computer, and the download and installation went without a hitch. But this all took me hours. So yesterday I didn’t get much work done. Including no video watched. Ho hum.

Whilst on the subject of shit, Sweetheart Vivienne and I have habitually different ways of inserting toilet rolls onto the holder. She does it with the end sheets back touching the wall (pictured), and I do it with them forward away from the wall. I suppose this is an example of the Mars and Venus thing [3]. Shit, eh.

In bed with cultural dissonance

In my 63-year lifetime so far, there’s been major technological advancement. It’s been massive. Monumental. Unprecedented, too. Arguably the era of greatest and fastest tech advancement ever. When I was a nipper no-one would’ve believed that in 2010 I’d be able to wake up, turn on a portable electronic device smaller than a sardine tin, and within 10 seconds be reading something called email, and be linked to the world by something called the internet. But yesterday I did exactly this. And via the internet I read an item about telegrams [1]. This week is Back to Morse Week [2] – the 20th – marking the completion in 1872 of the 3,200 km Overland Telegraph Line between Adelaide and Darwin [3]. To celebrate, this week Darwin residents can send free telegrams nation-wide. Do you remember telegrams? They were used to send good and bad news; congratulations and commiserations. Best Men read them at weddings. And the Queen sent them to her centenarian subjects. The world’s first telegram was in 1844 – in the USA. Australia’s first one was in 1854, and the last one was in 1993 [4]. Technologically speaking, 1993 seems like an eon ago. (I didn’t send, or receive, my first email until 1998.) I don’t know if the current tech flourish’s increased people’s happiness. It’s an interesting question. But that doesn’t, and shouldn’t, stop us marvelling at it. Or suffering cultural dissonance [5] when one lies in bed surfing the net on one’s iPod, reading of telegrams. Ho hum.

The iPod, the terrorist and the police chief

Sweetheart Vivienne recently became an iPhone owner. And I in turn inherited her iPod Touch. Naturally I’ve been downloading Apps – free ones, of course, because I’m a parsimonious old guy. One of my favourites so far is AppBox Lite [1] which contains many utilities. One utility calculates the number of days between two dates. Which is how I know 103 days have elapsed since 19 January when Hamas terrorist and arms smuggler Mahmoud Abdel Raouf Al-Mabhouh met a timely death in his Dubai hotel room [2]. And 45 days have elapsed since 18 March when Victoria Police’s Chief Commissioner Simon Overland was detected carrying live bullets on a Qantas domestic flight [3]. Both these events have vanished from the media. Like sunk stones. Without trace. Because, self evidently, in each case there have been no new developments. In relation to Al-Mabhouh all investigations by Dubai’s police, Scotland Yard, the Australian Federal Police and Interpol have seemingly come to nought. What welcome news. Whoever killed him did the civilised world a favour. In the Overland case, the metaphorical sunk stone is unwelcome because it demonstrates the Rule of Law doesn’t apply in Australia, i.e. the law doesn’t apply equally to each citizen. I’ve been waiting for a wag to put some bullets in a pocket and walk through airport security to see what happens. But so far no takers. I think, now, both stories are gone forever. Ho hum.