I just can't seem to get my new webcam to work properly!
Can you see what the problem is?

I saw this in some one's house and found it very moving. It's very well written too. Rather cheekily I snapped it with my phone so I wouldn't forget it.
I had a poke around to try and find out who wrote it but results are inconclusive. One person claims it was found in the pocket of a dead soldier in WWI, author unknown, which is quite plausible but doesn't necessarily mean the soldier wrote it.

A website of, "Healing & Inspirational Poetry" attributes it to:
(A) Mary Frye 
(B) Joyce Fossen 
(C) An unknown member of the Hobi Native American Tribe

I think the last one there is verging on the preposterous!

I AM NOT THERE

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there, I did not die.

Did I say I'd be off-line until the 1st of September? I think I did.
I hadn't bargained fot the stupendous arrogance and incompetance of that great British dinosaur, (run from a call centre in India these days), known as BT, or British Telecom.

The hardware was faulty. It has driven me to distraction and screwed my computer up somewhat.
Finally, I have the replacement hub/router free of charge with a bit of an apology and a, "Have a nice day".
I believe the nice man in India who says he will reimburse the bills I have payed for a service I did not receive for the last two months.

Copper wire could never have competed with fibre optic cable anyway but unfortunately there is no fibre optic at my new address so I'm stuck with an inferior technology and a complacent provider.

I'm kind of gob-smacked that it took two months for them to sort out replacement hardware!

Dear all,

I am moving house and changing my ISP. Consequently I shall be offline until 1 September 2008. Thanks for all your comments.

See you soon,

Mark

On Mother's Day 1997, the fledgling band I was in, called, "Voodoo Chilli", took ourselves off to the cheapest recording studio in town and recorded these four tracks live onto Digital Audio Tape.
"Live", as in we played it together, all at the same time and there is no overdubbing or adding parts one at a time. What you hear is exactly what we played. Some young dude with dreadlocks and dodgy shorts worked the mixing desk and this is what came out.
We played this stuff to a live audience three times for charity gigs. The most successful being the one for disabled bikers to my mind! The Old Angel in Nottingham was the loudest though!!! ;¬)

I've stuck this on here because,
1- I'm quite proud of it!
You can hear how I used to handle a guitar back in the days when I played every day and my fingers went where I meant them to!
2- My last audio cassete of this, our demo at the time, is starting to get chewed up and I wanted to preserve it digitally before it becomes unplayable.
There are a couple of glitches on the tape on the first track that I can't iron out.
It gets better as it goes along though.
Also, the tracks are pretty long because we left space for vocals that never materialized.
We had a whale of a time doing it.

I have a You Tube account. I subscribe to a user called rpoland.
He posts videos of some some phenomenal guitar players.

This one is no exception. He blew me away!
The player has skill and feeling and remains absolutely in control throughout.
It doesn't strike me that there is a single improvised note yet it sounds exciting!
Stuff like this gives me something to aim at!!!

I am not party to his political beliefs but I bet he likes trees and I bet he's a Socialist at heart.
Capitalists are rubbish on the guitar. Take it from me. I know!
Mind you Socialists are crap at art. History proves it!

I like trees. They make me feel better. Especially when TMLWITWW is with me!

This is a Photo Bucket slide show of some of my favourite treey places.

Rumours of my untimely demise are somewhat exaggerated! I just haven't had a minute to myself for months now. Not that I'm complaining you understand!

I'm very proud of my 13-year old nephew playing drums here. He has talent!
His 11-year old younger brother can pretty much do the guitar part to this song too though to the best of my knowledge the guitarist here is another 13 year old from the same school.
Oh that music lessons were this interesting when I was a kid!
Sweet Child Of Mine. Well, my brothers kids actually but I was well impressed and thought I'd do my best to give them the oxygen of publicity and a few more hits on their You Tube account.

Keep it up boys! This is great stuff! It's such great fun and people will love you for it too!

What a wonderfully expressive noise Albert Collins makes!
I never realised those blues licks poured out of him finger style.
Cracking stuff!

I just tried the link to my Google Pages gallery on my profile, as I have done periodically for the last 6 to 9 months and my jaw dropped when I read this patronizing bullshit! I’m sorry there is no other word for it!

Face Book lets me link to MySpace and Google Pages.
Google Pages lets me link to Face Book and MySpace.
But MySpace disables the links under the pretence of protecting me.

Well I don’t want your protection Mr. Rupert Murdoch! You already own far more of the world’s media than is healthy!

If you don’t know who Murdoch is try typing Rupert Murdoch and MySpace into Google.

Patronising bullshit copied and pasted below:

The link you are trying to visit has been disabled.

You have reached a link that is no longer in service.  That means the link was very naughty, and, much like head lice, had to be eliminated before it spread.

You may be asking yourself, "Hey, what was it about that link that got it in trouble?" An excellent question!  Usually, it’s one of the following reasons:

-      The link was spam!  No one likes spammers, and we don’t like their links.

-      You almost got phished!  There are people out there who want to steal your MySpace password.  They want to log in as you and send spam, harass your friends, change your profile, and generally run amok.  Phishing pages are usually designed to look like MySpace to trick you.  Other sites may also ask for your MySpace login information to customize your profile, insert videos or slide shows, track visitors, or any number of other things.  Don’t make it easy for them.  ONLY USE YOUR MYSPACE LOGIN INFO ON WWW.MYSPACE.COM!!

-      Viruses are not fun!  Neither is adware, spyware, or malware.  We cut the links to places that are known sources of infection.

If you really did want to check out some spam, viruses, or phishing pages, we’re really sorry to have interrupted.  We’re sure you can find it elsewhere.  There’s plenty on the Internet

I think I’m taking my ball home thank you very much! Face Book is a lot more fun anyway!

*spits*