BigMick

Yeah, the housing situation really makes my blood boil. I'm a working man (two jobs in fact) and my wife works. We have two kids in school. I've paid my rent to my private landlord for the last five years, no problem. I'm not an alcoholic, I'm not a drug addict, I'm not just straight out of prison. The wife's not pregnant, or a single mum. We're basically a hard-working normal family. How many points do we get on the SIC and Hjaltland housing list? 0. Null. Zero. Zilch. Zip. Absolutely Sweet FA. Surely having a job should count in your favour? Having a good financial record should count in your favour? Na, that would be the application of common sense, as opposed to Government guidelines. Bah.

I'm not disputing the middle of the road playlist, or any of the rest of that. Its the condescending response that really winds me up. The presumption to tell us where we're going wrong. A simple no would have sufficed. As regards the hour of alternative music in the evening, people have asked this before. The answer has always been no. -- Mick

I like the comment that went: "more action along the top line, that is a tune" Is he wanting Phillip Arthur dropping along to see him .

Hi all, I thought I'd transcribe a message from SIBC as to why they won't play certain local bands. I find it quite insulting, after all some of the bands/people mentioned have had airplay on radio 1, whom frankly have more idea. Not to mention the national music press who have given Bacchus 7/10 and Ten Tonne Dozer 8/10. Oh, and see if anyone else can spot the contradictions in what he's saying. If they'd said "we ain't playing you 'cos yer crap", that's fair enough, but to presume to lecture us on where we're going wrong... I'll write more later about this. I'd like to hear other views first. ------| QUOTE |---------- "Hi, Thank you for the oportunity to listen to Bacchus and Ten Tonne Dozer. Some years ago when Paul Johnson of Rock Salt and Nails came to us and professed a hankering to having a hit single, we warned him that his wish would ruin his credibility with the folk circuit where hits are seen as selling out. The same applies to most niche music, where fans equate hits with pop and junk. Bacchus and Ten Tonne Dozer seem pretty uncompromising and I'm sure that their fans would not like that to change. The main problem and radio station would have with Bacchus is going through all the tracks for the "f" and other taboo words. Those occurred in three of the four tracks we listened to and they could be in all of them. We just do not have the time to check every record we get - we have accept the assurances of record companies. The musicianship on Bacchus is fine, but we would be looking for some more action along the top line, that is a tune, for a singer of this style. These tracks are a few years old, and since then "punk" has moved on considerably, it has acquired a new sound eg the likes of +44. We would like to hear something new from Bacchus. A common problem with local bands is to produce something of interest and then nothing. Of the top 56 songs we are playing, all but 3 are from 2008 (and those three were from December 2007). With TTD were [sic] hearing lots of influences. Musicianship is fine yet again, but the singing style tends to be niche, yet again. This has been the case with lots of heavier bands in recent years, the instruments are fine but the voice makes airplay difficult. For instance, we always try to play Linkin Park on full rotation here, and most songs sounds great on air, but sometimes we can't with the screaming just too much for most listeners. The game of music, like that of radio is really tough. We have been in this business for forty years now and after all that time we have become cautious about encouraging people in such a career. If they want to go down that road their own passion will take them there. But for every success there are a thousand failures, and the price for some is high. We would not want to be party to such a price. If your bands are really serious about getting played on the radio, any radio, they must produce the goods. If they are prepared to adapt, good and well, and if they are not, that is their choice. We always give local bands a massive benefit of the doubt - many have got airplay on SIBC with songs that we would have dismissed from famous names. We want to hear new songs from these guys, not something from three years ago. Things have moved on since then and new music sounds completely differend, as it should. All the best, and good luck, Cheers Ian and Inga SIBC" ------| END QUOTE |----------

I had managed to purge modem init strings from my memory . Dammit. That's me back into therapy again. I'm sending you the bill, Pooks .

Wonder how many other former Zetnet employee's there are lurking here . *raises hand*. That's two and the former owner I've spotted so far. Mr Mutopian is lurking here somewhere too... I still remember those heady days hidden away in a dark back room, discussing the merits of netscape 3 over ie 2, eudora over pegasus, etc and doing tech support for windows 3.11 and windows 95 . Amusingly enough, I also remember the MD of my current employer coming up to do work experience with Tim Cole as a fresh faced 16yr old kiddie with an aptitude for Perl. I remember him looking in at this roomful of weirdly-dressed hairy-faced blokes, and looking positively terrified. Mind you, whenever he sees me to this day, he looks positively terrified...

Its been doing the rounds for weeks now. Apologies if its already been posted.

Was torn between the Jag and the beemer, but opted for the beemer after tossing a coin. 4, 3, 4, No, God no. That's a zero. Sheesh. -- BigMick

Hi, I don't have any available at the moment, but if you either send me your email address or a place I can upload to, I'll send you on some mp3's. The myspace and bebo sites do have some songs, but the quality is poorer than I like. The URL's are: http://www.myspace.com/tentonnedozer http://tentonnedozer.bebo.com -- BigMick

Currently I'm using gnome. It is bloated and can be a pain in the ass, but I haven't had the leisure to sort out a window manager the way I like it. I used to the enlightenment window manager, then moved on to windowmaker, and then KDE. I put up with KDE for about three months before I was back using windowmaker. Now I'm using gnome as it was installed by default and I'm just too busy/lazy to move over to something else .

D'oh! I meant to put this in the original post, but didn't quite get there! They also reviewed Bacchus: "Bacchus' fast-paced garage punk is gloriously derivative, but distinct enough to survive. With their Scottish accents and pub-smoke voice the generic and uncomplicated music isn't to Bacchus' detriment. Silly lyrics always go down a treat as well. [7]" -- BigMick

Metal Hammer magazine reviewed the Ten Tonne Dozer song "The Valley", and this is what they said: "The fact that TTD are no spring chickens adds credence to this southern metal (from the Shetlands!) quartet. The deep Anselmo growls and Wylde guitar twangs feel more embittered than had they all been 23-years old. Part Pantera, part Black Label Society, part System of a down - and with great solos. [8]" Well chuffed with that. Special thanks to Philip Arthur and Bacchus for sending the demo in. -- BigMick

Been using Debian linux for more than 10 years and I'm quite happy with it. I have a windows machine in the house that the kids (and occasionally me) play games on, but for mostly everything else I use linux. I note that Solaris isn't on the list. I use that for work, and have a few ultrasparcs lying around. Sparc linux is still a bit wobbly, but kde runs fine on solaris. As for the old OS argument, well personally I feel that linux still isn't ready for the average joe bloggs user. Yes, you can do everything on a linux box that you can on a windows machine -and in many cases better - but seeing as how most people will use either a PC or a mac for the first few years makes the switch to linux difficult. Nothing is comfortable, everything is slightly different and not many people have the time and patience to relearn everything all over again. Its great for us geeks - i mean I can bring a windows machine to its knees in a matter of seconds when programming, but linux generally keeps ticking over no matter how many mistakes I make. But for someone wanting to play games, and write letters or just cruise the internet, let them carry on and use what they are used to. To each their own, I say. -- BigMick

At least a haggis is honest about what's in it. Can you say the same about many burgers, sausages, chopped and shaped meat products, etc? Personally I love haggis, though I'm the only one in the family who'll eat it. Everyone else suffers from the "ewww" factor too. Ah well, all the more for me, then! -- BigMick

I had a couple of the fake twenties from the fire festival handed over the bar on Friday night by local jokers. They're easy enough to spot. The "Bank of Northmavine" bit across the top does give the game away somewhat! I did feel sorry for the young lass who'd obviously thought she'd found a twenty, though... -- BigMick

One question. Where does this assumption that the indigenous people of Shetland before the vikings were picts? I've yet to see a satisfactory proof of this, or indeed been satisfied with the circumstantial evidence. What about the Finn men mentioned in tales from Unst. I've read about this in a book on Shetland archeology but never seen another reference to them. Can anyone shed any light on this?

Yeah, that's the website itself. Probably script kiddies found a system with an insecure password. Googling for h2s04 hack brings up force10 as the top hit, so this may have been like this for a while. -- BigMick

Invisible bike! God, I laughed so hard I nearly pissed myself. -- BigMick

You complete sod. Now I can't get that tune out of my head!

Money and women are the most sought after and the least known of any two things we have. -- Will Rogers We who revel in nature's diversity and feel instructed by every animal tend to brand Homo sapiens as the greatest catastrophe since the Cretaceous extinction. -- S. J. Gould "I see little divinity about them or you. You talk to me of Christianity when you are in the act of hanging your enemies. Was there ever such blasphemous nonsense!" -- Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple" "You, sir, are nothing but a pathetically lame salesdroid! I fart in your general direction!" -- Randseed on #Linux My experience with government is when things are non-controversial, beautifully co-ordinated and all the rest, it must be that not much is going on. -- J. F. Kennedy Men who cherish for women the highest respect are seldom popular with them. -- Joseph Addison "No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas." I have great faith in fools -- self confidence my friends call it. -- Edgar Allan Poe The girl who swears no one has ever made love to her has a right to swear. -- Sophia Loren

I have to say in my opinion that this forum is fairly tame in comparison to others that I post on. Anyone remember (or like me still use) usenet? You got some really classic flame wars on there. You know, along the lines of: The sky is blue. Response: How dare you express your fascist nazi views in alt.sky.is.blue. You should be taken out and ! etc etc etc. Na, Shetlink is pretty innocuous, as these things go. If someone sends or posts a message that you take offense to, respond in a calm and reasonable manner, and avoid name calling, etc. Differences of opinion are unavoidable, its just the manner of the discussion that requires a little self-restraint. Also, read every message at least twice before responding to make sure that there's no way you could have misread or misunderstood the meaning. -- BigMick

We need another thread called the Remorse Zone. Me - I had a tin of beer when I got home from work, then straight to bed. No hangover here, yaaay! -- BigMick

Gawd I remember her. Fantastic. Lita Ford was the other rock babe at the time. Currently: Nightwish Anthrax Megadeth Exodus Kreator Yesterday was an odd day - jazzy folky spanish kinda mood, Steffan Grapelli and Django Reinhardt Al Di Meola The Red Vans (I found a CD Rory gave me years ago) Stevie Hook (another CD I found in the same box in the loft) Ed Aleyn Johnson (Tape in the same box. Just a copy, lost the original which I bought off him when he was busking outside the BoS building on commercial street)

Anyone who knows me knows why. Name's Michael. Somewhat larger than a normal human, though within government guidelines for the average gorilla. All I can say is thank god I wasn't called Richard. Then the nickname would have been a downright lie. -- BigMick

I want to clear something up here. I heard tonight that large group of guys from Scalloway were planning to come to the gig on Thursday. They heard that the gig had been cancelled and phoned flints to find out what had happened. They were told by a member of staff that we'd cancelled the gig as we hadn't practiced enough! Believe me, we are well practiced and were completely ready for the gig. This is outrageous. First they cancel the gig at short notice and then they start telling downright lies to people to try to justify their reasons. Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on with the management in flints? -- BigMick