Headphones

Posted On Wednesday, May 27, 2009 | 3 comments

We have a problem in our studio, one which is endemic in all radio studios.

Our spare set of headphones is rooted.

They only work in one ear and someone keeps nicking the little adaptor that turns the little plug into a big plug. They’re effectively useless through no fault of ours and it’s frustrating. It means that if we have a guest, we either have to steal someone else’s spare set (becoming exactly the sort of person who pisses us off) or not giving them headphones to wear – not usually a problem unless they really want to wear some.

I have my own headphones, Sennheiser HD25-SPs. I got them maybe 7 or 8 years ago and I love them. These puppies are about $250 to buy new so I’m pretty careful with them. My wife Anna has exactly the same model for her on air work. I don’t let anyone else use them because I’d rather it was just my ear sweat on them. It’s selfish but you have to look after your gear. Camille has her own too and we have sneaky little hiding places for them.

So anyway, I went into an opshop today and found some new headphones. By new, I mean that these cans are so old that I can’t find anything out about them on the internet. (They’re Technics brand and the model is EAH-220 if you’re an antique audiophile and know about them.) They are magnificent.

Putting them on, you resemble a pilot. The sound is good as long as I don’t turn the volume up too loud and they cost... wait for it... $1 dollar.

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I KNEW I'd seen her before!

Posted On Friday, May 22, 2009 | 2 comments


Lady Gaga is ..... Julie Goodyear aka Bet Gilroy from Coronation Street!
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Frozen Pea Snacks

Posted On Tuesday, May 12, 2009 | 3 comments

They call it the “Arsenic Hour.” Who “They” are and why they call it Arsenic, I don’t know. According to the dictionary, Arsenic is a grayish-white element having a metallic lustre, vaporizing when heated, and forming poisonous compounds. We’re just talking about the time just before dinner where the kids are hungry. Mum and Dad are stressed and busy, and the kids either want to be right under the busiest feet or crying.

In our house, with a 2 ½ year old and a 1 year old, we’ve discovered a trick that can ease this pressure and I want to share it with you. It’s not television, nor sugary snacks, not locking them up the other end of the house, yelling or threatening time out. It’s not pleading with them to stop crying, sending them outside and locking the door or bathing them early even though all of these weapons have been considered, and used with varying degrees of effect by many of us in the past.

We even tried child gates across every entrance to the kitchen. This, while stopping the kids from getting in the oven, unfortunately causes them to behave like very unhappy criminals protesting their innocence from a maximum security prison cell. The irony is that the children hanging white knuckled and wailing on the bars are free and those in the kitchen preparing dinner are incarcerated, yet you can’t explain that to a two year old.

The trick that eventually worked in our house is frozen peas. Frozen peas are cheap, clean, healthy, fun and they’re not going to spoil dinner. They’re also icy cold so not evil like all the other vegetables apparently are.

Pour a handful of frozen peas straight from the bag in the freezer into a bowl and serve.

The only downsides to this so far are that when the peas are spilt, they have to be picked up one at a time and when you run out of frozen peas, frozen mixed vegetables don’t seem to have the same effect. Try it out. In our house, frozen peas have become the saviour in the half hour between when the kids think dinner should be, and when dinner is actually served.

This week anyway...
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Marking Time...

Posted On Friday, May 08, 2009 | 1 comments

People always say, ‘Don’t wish your life away...” and I’m not. I’m just looking forward to getting into our new house. By bad design we ended up having to rent a wee house in Karori (which we are very, very grateful for, lovely landlords) before we can move out to the Hutt.

The rental is 3 bedrooms with not a lot of accessible land for a 1 year old and almost 3 year old and no room for my office / studio which is currently in a pile in the corner of my office at work. It doesn’t help that the weather has been so shithouse either. The other day we went to the cemetery in the rain and ran round – good fun! However the reason we did it was not for the humour of running round in the rain, it was because the kids were going to murder each other if I didn’t get some space between them!



Every day we click on the photos of the house that we can’t move into until July and do the virtual walk through, sighing. We went to check out kindys for Soph today and found one we liked, yet still we can’t do anything except not look forward to moving everyting we own again!

Not wishing anything away, just anticipating... Eight weeks today and counting.

Here’s some humour in the meantime, I made an absolute knob of myself with Boh Runga. Listen to her beautiful new song Evelyn and then wait til Smart ruins everything at the end. This has already been on facebook but I thought I’d post it here too. The best way to deal with a mistake is to own it, I reckon.
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Happy Birthday to me!

Posted On Sunday, May 03, 2009 | 1 comments


This is a digital voice recorder and it's all mine!

Thanks to my lovely wife, I can now retire my tired old Minidisc recorder, microphone and cord and heavy bag to lug it about. No longer will I have to play recorded audio into my studio in real time, I just plug in the USB and it's already there!

Radio geek recording heaven.
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Bye Hurman!

Posted On Saturday, May 02, 2009 | 0 comments


Yesterday, we sold our house. It’s been a great house but we grew out of it.

It also turns out that Karori is on average 2 degrees colder than the rest of Wellington. I kind of wish someone had have told us that when we first started looking there. Still, the person who has bought our old house will be very happy.

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D and C vs John Key | May 1

Posted On Saturday, May 02, 2009 | 0 comments


Our monthly catch up with Uncle John...

Click here to listen.
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