I just added two new reviews to my ukulele site: the Kala Eight-String mahogany tenor and the Vorson Electric, solid-bodied, steel-string tenor. You can find the site here with all the reviews and other information: vintageukemusic.com/ukuleles/ Or jump directly to the new reviews themselves: Kala Eight String Vorson Electric
The gentleman in the uniform on the right is William Gordon Pudney, Chief Petty Officer and engineer on the cruiser, Niobe, one of the earliest ship’s in Canada’s fledgling navy. William (Bill) was born in Canada, in 1893. He is perhaps in his early 20s in this undated photograph, taken a century or more ago, maybe even younger. William, my grandfather, served on the Niobe shortly after it was acquired from England, and later served on it in WWI, when it patrolled the Atlantic. He may have also served on another ship when the Niobe was put out to pasture as a ……… click below for more ↓
I just returned from Orangeville where Broadway Music hosted a two-and-a-half hour musical workshop this Saturday by Manitoba Hal today (which will be followed by his concert tonight from 8-11 p.m. – try to attend, if you can: he’s very talented). Very informative and well worth attending. Interestingly, at least half the participants were my age, and I didn’t see anyone in the classroom under 40. Perhaps you have to be mature in order to really appreciate music this way, not simply as the soundtrack in the background. Hal spoke to the group about a basic approach to understanding music ……… click below for more ↓
I picked up a ROKU streaming stick this weekend at the local Staples store to get access to some internet TV. The box advertises 500+ channels, while the boxes for the upscale models 2 and 3 offer 450+ and 1,000+, respectively. However, the official webpage for Roku says you can get more than 1,800 channels in the US on these devices. The Canadian site suggests it’s closer to 1,000 – Canadians get shortchanged by this and similar services, it seems. But by my count on the screen, the actual number of possible “channels” tops 1,300. Before you shout “woo hoo” and rush out ……… click below for more ↓
Among my many iPad apps is a simple one called ‘Ampersands.’ All it does is display, in large format, numerous ampersands from different typefaces. A brief introduction tells the viewer it was the designer’s intent to show how the character had become art in it its own right. It accomplished that to some degree, but it is also limited; showcasing only a very small handful of ampersands out of tens of thousands, all simply shown alone on the screen. And it does it without explanation why that particular character was chosen. Beautiful, but the limitation in numbers makes it somewhat frustrating. ……… click below for more ↓
I spent the past couple of weeks diligently working on updating and expanding our Collingwood Public Library Ukulele Group (CPLUG) songbook. I’m happy to announce it is completed – and that I can get back to my regular blogging. Update, June 2020: The link to download was broken and is fixed. AND there are more songs in the songbook than listed below. I had put together two smaller songbooks previously for group use, as well as sent along several individual song sheets over the past year. Over the time since the group began, I’ve been updating my own style and ……… click below for more ↓
In a recent story titled “Neil deGrasse Tyson Selects the Eight Books Every Intelligent Person on the Planet Should Read,” the eminent astrophysicist listed his top eight book titles – from a Reddit conversation that was going on back in December, 2011. Here are the books he chose back then (check the linked story above for his comments on why he picked these titles): The Bible; The System of the World, by Isaac Newton; On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin; Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift; The Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine; The Wealth of Nations, by Adam ……… click below for more ↓
After two years away from the game, I was recently convinced by a friend to return to World of Warcraft again and play in the fantasy universe of WOW. At 10 years old, WOW remains the biggest, most-subscribed, most popular MMORPG, with around 10 million subscribers. By technology’s rapid-aging standards, WOW is a grandfather game; maybe even a great-grandfather. It has certainly spawned a lot of offspring, although not all are legitimate. I started playing WOW back in 2005. although I didn’t play it seriously and attentively until a little later, after the first expansion. Then I got heavily into the ……… click below for more ↓
It seems that only yesterday I was saying thank you to my first 100,000 unique visitors at this blog after just over two years of writing. That was at the start of March. Now, 10 months later, I want to say thank you to more than 208,000 visitors for coming here and reading my humble efforts at writing, at philosophy, politics, history, science, reviews and – very important to me – music.* In 2014, I wrote 220 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 527 posts. I’ve written almost 840,000 words – more than 350,000 of them ……… click below for more ↓
Lately, I’ve been redoing all the arrangements of songs I put together for the Collingwood Public Library Ukulele Group (CPLUG) this year, as well as arranging some new pieces for the group. I’m working on a new layout for the tunes that makes them easier for beginners to follow and makes the songbook somewhat easier to manage. I’ve zipped a few of the most recent tunes (in PDF) here: Dec 2014.zip. As I often do, I offer some of the songs in alternate keys. You can always transpose any song yourself, with the help of my free chord transposition wheel. ……… click below for more ↓
I had meant to read a statement at last night’s final meeting of Collingwood Council, but I misplaced my printout between the time I left home and the meeting’s start. I remembered most of it, but may have missed a few words. Here’s an edited version of what I said with some notes from what I had written for the occasion: First, I’d like to thank staff for all their help and support these many years. Staff have helped make council’s ideals, plans and goals into reality. Without them, we would have floundered and run aground on our unconsummated ideas. ……… click below for more ↓
Do you drink a glass of wine with dinner every night? That puts you in the top 30 percent of American adults in terms of per-capita alcohol consumption. If you drink two glasses, that would put you in the top 20 percent. When I read that in the Washington Post, I went, yikes! I have a glass of wine with dinner many nights – three to five times a week. The US figures show about 30% of Americans don’t drink at all, and another 30% have less than one glass per week. No wonder they’re so religious in the USA. Maybe ……… click below for more ↓
This year another remake of Godzilla was released, and of course I had to get a copy. I have many of the other Godzilla films made over the past 60 years, sadly not all of them. There were so many monster movies made in Japan through the 1950s and 60s that it’s hard to keep track of them all, let alone collect them. B-films, all of them, and still entertaining if you can find them. (If I recall it properly, I first watched the original Godzilla in the late 1950s at a drive-in theatre, sitting with my parents in the front ……… click below for more ↓
I cannot read Dylan Thomas’ poem, ‘Do not go gentle into that good night‘ without a lump in my throat. I read it at my father’s funeral, several years ago, so for me it has a personal context that retains its emotional impact. Many poems move me or touch my heartstrings, however, that have no such personal context, although I cannot recall the last time one moved me to tears. When I got Anthony and Ben Holden’s book, “Poems That Make Grown Men Cry: 100 Men on the Words That Move Them,” I expected to be deeply and powerfully moved by the ……… click below for more ↓
Thank you everyone who voted for me this election. I am delighted and honoured that you once again gave me your confidence and trust to represent you for another term in office. Unfortunately, although there were a lot of you, it wasn’t quite enough. I will not be returning for the upcoming term, but perhaps I will run again in 2018. I promised this term, as I always have done, that I would keep the interests of all of Collingwood in the forefront; to make decisions I believe are in the best interests of everyone to be fully open and transparent in my decision making, ……… click below for more ↓