Early Risers.

[Simon G]

Further to comments about converting vinyl LPs and Cassettes to MP3 etc, I did all mine a few years ago using a program called Goldwave. I bought a simple cable to run from my amplifier tape output to the PC sound card Line In channel, and Goldwave then captured the music. Once captured, it was able to filter out all the pops, crackles and hiss. Obviously the more you filter out, you will lose some of the original sound, so I experimented to find the best compromise in noise reduction against sound loss.

 

Goldwave can be found at www.goldwave.com and used to have an evaluation version, which allows some many uses before asking you to purchase it. I am not sure about the latest version. Goldwave can also convert the sound to MP3, CD format, OGG Vorbis and other formats. It has been one of the very best software items I have used.

[gordon s]

I did once refer to a lady called Sophie Roper as Ropey Sofa, though not to her face. She must have had a sense of humour, because she was told about it and found it funny.

 

Spoonerisms do run in the family. back in the 1960s, and uncle referred to my parents new property (called Penlan in Gipsy Lane), as Ginlan, Pepsi Lane.

 

I know you have links to Wokingham, Simon and Gipsy Lane is just around the corner, but there is another member on RMWeb called Penlan.  Just a coincidence or are you related?

Edited December 11, 2015 by gordon s

[AndrewC]

Morning from the Welling casualty ward boring borough. Off the knee for another day. Not a happy chappy this morning. Lack of sleep and SWMBO still fighting the Canadian tax man about her residency status letter. 47 weeks and counting for something that used to take 30 days and which is in their service charter as must be resolved within 90 working days. With the way the Canadian $ has gone this week the delay has lopped another £600 of the value of her pension. At the current rate it will soon be worth less than it was 12 years ago when it was locked. Sadly there is no way of recovering the losses from the b*stards.

 

Time to fire up the bean squeezer 3000 and make a couple of eggnog lattes.

 

Just popped in to say happy Friday to all. Laters.

[jamie92208]

Morning all from a village that doen't seem to be able to make it's mind up whther to be wet or dry.  

Dave(TG) I hope that Is contnues to progress well.

Jock, best wishes for tomorrow.

 

Here the day is gradually being organised as the boss has got up.   This morning the ironing is beckoning so music will be chosen soon.  I am also hopeing to get some sense out of Amazon.   Over 6 months ago they started a new account verification procedure for the account that I use to sell books for a charity that I am secretary of.   These are published by the Society and provide us with a strady income stream.   Amazon have messed the procedure up so badly that for the last 3 months our books are'nt visible on Amazon though my account inventry is well stocked.   I am fed up of dealing with the faceless wonders who never read my emails properly and at times have had two different departments sending me contradictory instructions, along with software failures etc.   I have now resorted to blogging about this on my facebook account.  I am hoping that I can get some sense out of them today.

 

Anyway I've also got to go down to the clubrooms to sort some boards out and will be there this evening as well so it should be a good day.

 

Regards to everyone else.

 

Jamie

[Gwiwer]

The Rmweb member by the moniker of penlan (IIRC he doesn't use a capital P) lives in Mousehole, Cornwall, where he is probably very busy putting finishing touches to the annual festive lights.  I seem to recall he is a major driving force in that now internationally-known event with the switch-on about now.

Thanks for the info re Goldwave.  This pre-supposes one has a functional tape deck which is sadly not the case here.  The twin-decks both pooped themselves years ago after heavy use and neither has worked since owing to the absence of spares / a willing technician / a sensible price to repair.  

 

Happy POETS day.  Nothing to PO from here so I've been product-testing the 2015 Shiraz harvest for a couple of hours now

[Shedman5]

Morning, not a good start to the day as the alarm didnt go off which meant other half woke up with 20 mins to go before her hairdresser appointment!

 

My fault as I set the alarm on my new iphone bought a couple of weeks ago in Florida, unlike my old Blackberry which saw 7 years of service before giving up the ghost you cant turn the phone off  and the alarm still function.

Oh well we live and learn!

 

A light shopping trip beckons on her return for some fresh stuff then its back to the shed and the model shop later on today.

 

Weather forecast for tommorrow is grim which in turn means more modeling time, every cloud as they say

 

Enjoy your day folks

 

Alan

[The Stationmaster]

I hate golf clubs full stop!

The only one I have ever visited had a well stocked bar.

 

Off to Waitrose (Tilehurst) for now.

Edited December 11, 2015 by The Stationmaster

[Barry O]

Shopping completed and  a moreasons breakfast consumed (they do a mean scrambled eggs on toast).

 

Her indoors taking eldest Herbert (all 6' 4" and 9st 4lb of him) to  collect a Christmas tree - if its taller than him it won't fit! and then she too is off to the dresser of hair. This costs 4.5 times my hair cutting costs so to make up for this might just buy some railway bits.

 

Baz

[big jim]

Yet another day 'control orders' due to the logs not running, might go and have a look at gresty lane later for something to do, its been resignalled so would be handy to see

 

Annual leave from today until the 27th december but working my rest days next week, refreshing the cambrian to machynlleth

 

Got my new years eve roster, 23:00ish from greenford to bescot, arriving 03:30, i dont go out new years eve so that suits me nicely

[Barry O]

Jim

 

more time to get things done in the shed??

 

Baz

[jamie92208]

It must be hairdressers benefit day as the boss is having hers done this afternoon.  Hers also costs 5 or 6 times what mine does. 

 

Anyway I am pleased to report that Amazon has been stirred into action.   I've just had a phone call from 'Sam' whoa after initially telling me that everything was OK, listened to me and eventually agreed that there was a problem with their website.   He is going to investigate further and call back,   I have suggested that Amazon should buy a substantial quantity of our books for their own stock as compensation for the loss of sales over the past few months.   He is going to send that suggestion upwards.

 

I await further developments but the ironng still awaits as well.   I feel Mike oldfield's Ommadawn coming on to soothe my ruffled nerves.

 

Jamie

[gordon s]

Anyone see Breakfast news on BBC this morning?  They were talking about Carlisle Utd football pitch and how they were doing their best to clean up after the floods.  They went on to say that amazingly the groundsman had found three koi carp in the goal mouth.  Cue the picture of the three carp inside a yellow bucket.  

 

Naga Munchetty looked really puzzled, thought for a few seconds and then asked 'who would leave a bucket full of fish in the goal mouth'?

 

It took a good minute or two for her to realise the groundsman had caught them and put them in the bucket.

 

...and I thought it was only blondes that were dumb.

 

http://www.itv.com/news/2015-12-10/what-a-catch-carlisle-find-three-koi-carp-in-goalmouth-during-flood-clean-up/

Edited December 11, 2015 by gordon s

[PhilJ W]

Jim

 

more time to get things done in the shed??

 

Baz

Isn't that what he's driving?

[Two_sugars]

During the last flood, they only found one goldfish swimming around the goalmouth. . . As for Naga . . . does anyone think she looks a little elvish?

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Best wishes to Jock for tomorrow, hope everything goes well. All this talk of hair reminds me that mine is overdue for a trim, what is left of it, I was going to suggest that the prices charged by hairdressers depended on quantity of hair but if that was the case I'm entitled to a refund. Like the film Lisa, going by the cars I'd say late 20's rather than 30's. Thats all for now be back later.

[Jock67B]

Stop Press, before I try to catch up with all the posts : my hernia operation, scheduled for tomorrow was CANCELLED this morning. Apparently a rush on emergencies has seen the surgeon required elsewhere! A real nuisance with everything planned, but they say that I can have it done on the 31st, at which time I will have priority!

I suppose that if someone is in urgent need, it's only right they should take priority - that's what I'd want if it was one of my grandchildren after all.

Thanks for all the wishes anyway, I'll try to read through and catch up a bit later,

Kind regards,

Jock.

[PhilJ W]

Stop Press, before I try to catch up with all the posts : my hernia operation, scheduled for tomorrow was CANCELLED this morning. Apparently a rush on emergencies has seen the surgeon required elsewhere! A real nuisance with everything planned, but they say that I can have it done on the 31st, at which time I will have priority!

I suppose that if someone is in urgent need, it's only right they should take priority - that's what I'd want if it was one of my grandchildren after all.

Thanks for all the wishes anyway, I'll try to read through and catch up a bit later,

Kind regards,

Jock.

I was going to mention that my sisters knee op has also been cancelled. Not really surprised at this time of year when the NHS is really up against it.

[shortliner]

Or "Rain-rains" as they are known by my five year-old nephew

SWMBO refers to them as "Snakes" - don't ask me why !

 

Edit somewhile later - SWMBO read this and said "'Cos they're VIPERS, of course !"

Edited December 11, 2015 by shortliner

[The Lurker]

Jock, how irritating. Joanna will be getting you to do the hoovering now.

 

Greetings fro the year end that just won't end. I was about to go last night when I got nabbed by the auditors and had to spend an hour providing info and explanations for things that they had been informed about 6 weeks ago. I nearly missed the meal last night. Signing of the accounts was delayed again so they have been back for yet more again today.

 

 

On the plus side, the meal was excellent, if expensive. It was fine dining with a Chinese twist at HKK.

 

I'm interested to read about conversion to MP3 as I have come to the conclusion it is a step I will have to take. I currently have many CDs, LPs and Cassettes. there are also some auto rip things on Amazon. If I convert them to MP3s is there any restriction on the type of player - for example, I have an I tunes account and if I were to acquire an ipod would it play the mp3s from Amazon? I know it would play mp3s from converted CDs as we managed that for Elder Lurker's ipod shuffle a while back. But are the Apple products the best for this sort of thing? Answers on a post card.....

 

Roll on the weekend

[The Lurker]

Going back to earlier posts regarding spoonerisms. When my eldest was small we were in a bakery ordering cakes and buns etc. he wanted to pay so we let him. When accepting the change he thought he'd be clever and say thank you in German, but he got a bit mixed up and said donkey shite instead. He also came out of school one St David's Day and shouted in a loud voice the it was Daffodildo day. Sheila face was a picture.

A KFC opened around the corner form us when Elder Lurker was about 6. He proudly told us it stood for Ken F*cky Chicken, much to our amusement

[edcayton]

Morning, not a good start to the day as the alarm didnt go off which meant other half woke up with 20 mins to go before her hairdresser appointment!

 

My fault as I set the alarm on my new iphone bought a couple of weeks ago in Florida, unlike my old Blackberry which saw 7 years of service before giving up the ghost you cant turn the phone off  and the alarm still function.

Oh well we live and learn!

 

 

Alan

 

Possibly teaching Granny to suck eggs, but my (non-i) phone has something called "aeroplane mode" which turns off phone, text, internet etc, but allows alarms and other things to work. Even I can turn it on and off, having been told about it by my son.

 

Towards the end of the marriage my ex started to go to Tony and Guy for £100 haircuts. Apparently she still does, and complains of a shortage of money.

 

Ed

[Simon G]

I know you have links to Wokingham, Simon and Gipsy Lane is just around the corner, but there is another member on RMWeb called Penlan.  Just a coincidence or are you related?

No relation to Penlan, as far as I know.  It is a Welsh word, simply meaning top of the lane (I think!), although it wasn't at the top of this particular lane.

 

Just back in from my morning walk over the cliffs at St Bees golf course.  The wind was very strong from the west and nearly had me off my feet a couple of times.  When it is like that, I stay well away from the edge.  Next it is off to the Dentist for some (hopefully painless) treatment.

[edcayton]

Many moons ago I bought a CD recorder at great expense, with the intention of converting my LP's to CD. The problem was that it couldn't recognise individual tracks because of the noise in the gaps. It meant that I had to sit by it and stop/start it between tracks. Then of course technology overtook me, but I wonder if this is still a problem when using USB connections to computers?

 

Ed

[big jim]

Jim

 

more time to get things done in the shed??

 

Baz

Hopefully, ive managed a few hours in there this week already so hopefully a few weeks like that should get the bits i want doing done

[The Stationmaster]

Morning (again) all,

 

Major upheaval on the domestic front - shopping list 'reconsidered', weekend menus 'reconsidered' so in the light of these managerial reviews we duly went to Tesco instead of Waitrose (caveat - further consideration of the weekend menu might mean a Waitrose visit tomorrow, what a hectic life we lead).  And of course we got a discount at Tesco - no wonder their profits are dropping away.

 

On more important matters I have long been a lover of spoonerisms and such 'silly' terms as St Pancreas (which is what I have also long called that station) as well as such other different place names like St Reatham, Sluff, and Cla'am while one of the nicest I ever heard was from a clearly young and rather nervous station announcer who greeted train arrivals with 'this is Diddlycot' over the tannoy system.

 

Jock sorry to hear you have been messed about but I hope your new 'definite' date will be exactly that - don't forget to to remind them which side it is!  All sounds very straightforward nowadays, I think I was in hospital for several months following my first one (and the second one) and somewhere I've still got the bill for the first one which my parents hung onto.  Anyone who thinks the NHS was up and running by mid 1948 is labouring under a misapprehension - my first hernia operation was invoiced, in the middle of that year.

 

So have a  good day one and all and Jock - don't do too much whilst under household orders.