Something's afoot!

He he, that got y'all excited didn't it?
Mommy excelled herself this week with a couple of unexpected gifts for me

Cute bunny furry slippers for keeping me warm during the winter months.

And some cute kitty socks too!

Teenbeat XIIII - Steely Dan is "Collected"

This week post nearly didn't happen thanks to a severe migraine complete with flashing lights and electrical storms in my brain but here we go.
The Jazz influenced sounds of Steely Dan, comprising of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker  with other assorted helpers have long been a favourite of mine but between a sad story of sticky analogue tapes saved to a digital format that itself had issues like a major corporation that lack a playback machine for it and the odd decision to bump up the low and high notes and squash the gap between loud and soft sounds on the current  editions tying to find decent sounding Steely Dan has been challenging shall we say.

This is a band who had a way with lyrics and arrangements  as evidenced on songs like Rikki Don't Lose That Number, Reeling In The Years, Aja and Do It Again and recently I found this triple cd compilation issued in the Netherlands by Universal that does sound rather good with a generous selection from their 1972-1980 albums including the song FM from the movie of the same name.
It'll do until some one can remaster the studio albums anew.

Our day out

As kinda hinted at last week, the week was gonna be busy as I was going out twice and also has the effect of putting out of sync chronologically what should of been the next post but anyway after getting Chat  and Tumblr to work fine in Pale Moon, my default browser we come to this weeks post.
Going out had it's own ahem difficulties thanks to Cheshire East's decision to rapidly move forward resurfacing work requiring closing our main road off completely with very little notice so setting off required literally walking a mile and a bit through the fields to catch a bus to the areas super important rail station catching the train where upon its arrival I met with Jennifer.
Shock alert: I sent a text to Andi on the cellphone!
Traversing the road network in South Staffordshire isn't bad considering the population density outside of the peak hours obviously and it may surprise some but there are a  number of really nice buildings in the towns we went through such as St Peter's, the Parish Church of West Bromwich and the delightful Sandwell Nature Reserve.

All of this was enhanced by the brilliant sunshine and blue skies  on what had turned out to me a warm September's day.

(Above Miss Maisie bunny)
It wasn't long before we arrived at our destination and met with Andi.
Maisie and I  introduce ourselves, sorted our overnight stuff out and proceeded to read this weeks Beano comic  that we'd bought at the Station to the accompaniment of Jean-Michelle Jarre playing from a music server. I'll bet that beats getting up every 18 minutes to change lps!
Andi rustled up a most delicious home made Cottage Pie which was much appreciated while apart from talking about everything and anything including Camp, Andi treated us to hearing the original Captain Kremen  lp, that out of his head radio space fantasy of the DJ , the late Kenny Everett, in a series I remember well for the characters and amazing vocalizations.
I have this vague recollection of going to bed after changing into my kitty nighttime attire and brushing ones teeth sometime before Midnight and waking up around 7:30ish. Maybe it was the Elderberries??? Even Maisie was on that!
Before dashing off to catch the train back, Andi made a lovely cooked British breakfast complete with fried bread.
We'd like to thank Jennifer for the lift down and company as well as Andi for having us as we sure appreciate it all the way.

An enjoyable day

I never do things by halves, people and  this week isn't an exception for reasons that will become clearer with the passage of time as on Saturday September 6th I was away and leaving our Town our driver decided to go via the Rail centre that is Crewe, the delights of the market town of Nantwich and the tranquil Bunbury near to the Shropshire Union Canal (aka the "Cut" to people in South Staffordshire).

Enroute it looked rather dull especially over the Halkyn Mountains with a shower too but as you can see it was actually very sunny at this place. I think its overall feel is just that actually and it was heaving with people.

Got where this is yet? Okay it's Llandudno, North Wales about 15 miles from Colwyn Bay and as it happened just as I arrived boats were out taking people out to see the Great Orme and here is one with would be passengers.
That was taken before I went for a coffee, went to a large Magazine vendor and visited a surviving HMV music store armed with a voucher and walking out with some cds that effectively cost me nothing.

There are many ways of getting around but the most intriguing is this road train that goes from East to West Shore with it's colourful livery. I wonder if it has a steam engine to power it?
Talking of power, we must of had some as Mommy and I won two prizes each on the bus raffle with a box of chocolate Fudge and a diary for me and wasn't it some co-incidence,eh?

A more conventional way is this special tourist bus. I just love the seaside, something that's a constant with me from childhood.
I had fish and chips for lunch out before strolling along the Promenade, just relaxing as you do between fighting the Seagulls off and running around suitably kittyfied.
Mommy and I visited some clothes and gift shops which was fun and then decided to go for tea and some cake in the afternoon where I had a really big slice of a lemon and cream cake which was delicious to tide me over until we returned a couple of hours later.

Restoration post

Hi! We're back by the power of the Pale Moon after last weeks problem with the 'toplap' and trying to make the treacle laden old desktop actually do something that makes actually using an manual typewriter seem almost liberationly quick which was one of the first useful 'toys' I ever had.
While the original toplap is waiting repair or cannibalization for the spare parts, I has a new to me toplap that is smaller than that and has a more typewriter feeling keyboard which for those of us taught to type on a proper typewriter is very much appreciated.
Fortunately much of my music was backed up in many ways, vendor clouds, usb sticks and even on the cards of the music player  used to play from without having to fire up the computer although this leaves a few albums potentially missing that probably underscore the need to back up by whatever means the things that matter on your computer.
Equally having a back up of your bookmarks with those sometimes hard to recall web addresses helps in getting re-established as does having somewhere your passwords for sites you joined and contribute to.
While I didn't have a really update list the one from de original Treacle machine was at least serviceable and having been exported and the imported to Pale Moon using a usb stick on here only required two additions and one change to be of use in getting back online.
Thanks everybody for being understanding  during this period.