I have seen the future of DRM in Chapel Hill

In Borders (the book shop) I noticed that they had one of those central stands full of Vinyl records. There was an odd selection, I can remember seeing the new Radiohead album (or was it Coldplay, I can never really remember which is which) and bizarrely the ‘Violator’ by Depeche Mode. Anyhow I realised what a genius idea it is for record companies start pushing vinyl records.

  • It’s easy to convince customers via nostalgia that vinyl sounds better than CD, and so they should pay a premium price.(*)
  • It’s a real pain in the arse to copy a vinyl record and share it with your friends.

(*)The records were prices at around $24 whilst CD’s are more like $15. In terms of fidelity, I think that a properly setup vinyl HiFi probably is superior to CD, but for the layman I still reckon CD’s are easier to get a decent sound from.

New address

less than a week in, and owing to recognising our faults we schedule a housewarming to spur us into action, but due to yet more faults we omit swathes of photography due to alcohol consumption, great turn out, shame on those that wouldn’t pay the transatlantic fare to attend !!!
The playroom in the basement proves to be a capital investment, paying off already with all the kids largely held captive by Rock Band.
The local bottle bank saw some action on Saturday, as did the store adjacent that happily took our hungover souls in during the thunder storm during their sale.

Memorial Day (May bank holiday)

We were going to pop to the park, as we had no big plans, but a quick phone call later and we were off to Jordan Lake for a picnic. Amanda kindly offered to make scones, Howard stepped up to the mark with a background yell that he would bring the tea, so all that was left for us to do was dig out the Christmas rations of clotted cream, the food parcel offerings of Cadbury’s chocolate and make some cucumber sandwiches.


3 go flying


This weekend we went to the local theme park, it was just over 2 and a half hours away, but that’s pretty local to most Americans, except probably New Yorkers who seem to be a bit like Londoners who generally think, that ‘The West Country’ is whatever comes after Hammersmith… but anyway at the park there is what you could probably call a giant swing. There is an enourmous arch, from which a pair of steel cables hang down. A third cable is connected to a pilon, about 150 ft back, and 150 ft high. You each step into an oversized bib, the sort of thing that hang-gliders use (apparently). Anyhow everyone gets hooked together, and then winched up the pilon. Then one of the ‘flyers’ pulls the ripcord and you swoop down.. The scariest part is immediately after the cord is pulled, and before there is any tension in the swing cables. At that point you are in a very short and unexpected freefall before accelerating towards the ground at around 60 mph. We have a video on youtube here

New house? Slight return.

So, we decided against buying the ‘giant shed’ for one thing I think the sellers have an unrealistic expectation of the price (since obviously I am an expert in these matters) any how we have made an offer on this place (below) and have had that offer accepted. I was there this morning with the house inspectors, and there were only a few very minor issues. Next up is the air-conditioning guy and then finally Mr. Termite. I haven’t heard anything bad from the mortgage broker so I am assuming all is well there.


The weekend is finally here, and this is the ideal weekend – homemade cake and great coffee, add the newspaper and that’s a great weekend at home. Alas this was last weekend, and now I’m full of cold and feeling sorry for myself, we’ve been to see a different house and decided to go for that one instead, yesterdays great weather has turned to showers, and ~did I mention I was feeling sorry for myself?