Purple Ladies

Every morning when Gye Greene drives to work, about a kilometre before he gets there, there's a big convergence of purple ladies. Women of all ages -- but mostly in their 20s & 30s -- wearing lavender polyester dresses with hems just above the knees. He says they look like 1960's flight attendents -- or quasi-Trekkies going to a "Galaxy Quest" convention.

Actually, he thinks there's a beauty school nearby, and those are their costumes. (Or rather, their uniforms.)

Aussies wear school uniforms. Coming from the Pacific Northwest [i.e. top left corner of the mainland U.S., but not including Alaska], it's weird for us to see all the school kids wearing their school uniforms at the bus stops before and after school, and in the shopping malls (or, as they're called here, shopping centres). The boys remind him of boy scouts or summer camp kids; the girls look like Madeline (from the children's book; "In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines..."). e.g. http://www.greattapes.com/gt/product.phtml/madeline

(Note: I **could've** linked to some big chain online bookseller. But I chose not to. ;) Not that they don't serve their purpose.)

Gye Greene has a baby girl. In a few years, **she'll** be dressed like Madeline. Sooo cute!!! :)

Apparently, no viruses (virii?) in this e-mail

Just received an e-mail from a friend. At the bottom was this message:

> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.7.1 - Release Date: 3/9/2005


So: Do any e-mail viruses auto-generate a message saying:

"No viruses in this incoming message. Nosiree!!! None!"

:)


If they were clever -- they would!!!

(Oops! Should I have published that on the 'net?)

;)

Good bands: The Grates; Bell

Gye Greene and I saw a really good local band play, yesterday. By accident. They were playing in a park, and we were passing by. They were good, so we stopped. Ended up staying for the whole thing!

They're "The Grates" -- "grates" like "big metal grilles", not like "spiffy, nifty, most excellent." (Not "The Oh-Needers," either.) Website at: http://www.thegrates.com/

And -- they ARE pretty great! ;)


In this Age of the Internet, I think it's un-strategic for bands to have non- web searchable names -- names that don't yield a positive hit. Like "The Cars" or "The Strokes" -- hard to find.

It's better to have common words that are misspelled (e.g. "Korn"), or uniquely unusual combinations (e.g. "They Might Be Giants"). I'm just saying...


A good example of that is one of my all-time favorite bands, "Bell." From Seattle; they're the DICKENS to web search! Keep getting "Bell Labs," "Bell Helicopters," "Taco Bell"... Even after adding "music" to the search field, you get hits for musical bells. Adding "Vanessa" (the name of the songwriter/guitarist/singer) gives you "Vanessa Bell" -- some British painter.

Try "vanessa veselka" plus maybe "bell." This is the first hit I got:

http://www.musicscene.com/msi/bands/bel/vanessa.html

Note the click-able songs down the right side. I'm pretty sure they're all from their album "A Clear Sense of Beauty" -- one of my all-time faves.

Sadly -- as seems to be the case with any non-famous band I really like -- instead of finding fame and fortune, the band dis-banded [an oxymoron?]. Bummer.

Check half.com, or similar, to see if you can pick up one of their albums. I recommend "A Clear Sense of Beauty." "Perfect Math" has good songs, too.

So, here we go...

O.k., so my name is Tall Guy -- and this is my blog. I'm still trying to figure out how this works -- although this interface is pretty user-friendly. :)

Um -- I'm a musician (among other things) ; buddies with Gye Greene. We met in Fife, Washington -- just north of Tacoma -- which is about an hour south of Seattle -- back in 1993(? - I'm bad with dates). And now we're in Brisbane, Australia.

More later. Mostly, just starting up this account. FREE blogging! What could be greater?!