We Wuz Robbed!
May. 9th, 2006 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringThat's two mornings in a row I've gotten up early. Like real early.
First to hear Jim Hawkins on BBC Radio Shropshire and his Sunday evening Rock Show. This is immense fun - BookCrossers around the world tune in and banter along with the music on the Chit-Chat forum, as well as Jim himself diving in from time to time. Quite extraordinary, really. We check in via email and Jim makes a mention on air of who and where people are listening in from. I always get a mention because I'm so far away.
And it's a good show. Jim knows his music and doesn't spend too much time chatting. This is not your drivetime classics. This is not a drill. This is Rock and Roll!
And this morning to watch the webcast of the Sony Music Awards live from Grosvenor House in London, where Jim was nominated for Best Speech Presenter. Even to be nominated, five names out of how many BBC and independent radio jocks, is a huge honour. Jim has won a Bronze Sony four years earlier, and who knows?
I hook into the webcast and my internet connection dies. My LAN dies. I can't get into my wireless router. How bloody inconvenient. I reboot it (pull out the power plug, stick it in again) and get everything running again. Get onto the webpage, the media player is buffering...
And it dies again!
This happens half a dozen times before I figure out that unlikely as it seems, the video stream from London is killing my wireless router, no matter what browser oir what computer I use. I switch to the audio alternative, and that works, and then I try RealPlayer on a different computer and that works. So I listen and watch and play in Chit Chat as the evening progresses. They have a message forum, and naturally we BookCrossers play in that, sending increasingly ridiculous messages of support, especially once the lady running it begins to comment on how much support Jim is getting from people around the world. BookCrossing is mentioned.
And then Jim's category is announced, the contenders introduced, Bronze goes to someone else, Slver someone else...
...and Gold to someone else! Jim is one of the two nominees left out in the cold. The forum erupts in anger and disappointment, especially when the winner is some zoned out twit who swears his way through his thank you speech.
Poor Jim! He deserves better. There is talk of loading up charter flights to go and wreak retribution upon someone or thing.
BookCrossing gathering last night. A quiet one, thank goodness, and I'm able to hear what people are saying. I bring along a few undistinguished books from Toronto and Honolulu, Calissa has one or two, HeidiAussie a few more, but as usual, Unbalanced is groaning under the weight of two carrier bags full. Good books. Excellent books! We all snaffle a few, but there are still a lot remaining over to fill the OBCZ shelf.
I tip out some of the left over lollies/sweets/candies I've collected. These are the ones the kids have left, but there are still plenty of bizarro types left over. My favorite is NoTime! - with a toothbrush image on the packet meant for the hurried Japanese sarariman with no time to brush his teeth. Watering KissMint is another.
Home again through the cold. It's winter in Canberra now, well and truly, and though I wore a t-shirt or polo all the way through springtime Asia, North America and Europe (when locals all around were rugged and coated up) I can't get away with that here. It's cold.
A bit of research, and I discover that the place where I left my book at the American Cemetery overlooking Omaha beach is at the precise spot where the first man off the beach managed to gain the crest of the bluff. He came back years later and identified it, andjust by pure chance I picked it to leave my book. That's nice.
First to hear Jim Hawkins on BBC Radio Shropshire and his Sunday evening Rock Show. This is immense fun - BookCrossers around the world tune in and banter along with the music on the Chit-Chat forum, as well as Jim himself diving in from time to time. Quite extraordinary, really. We check in via email and Jim makes a mention on air of who and where people are listening in from. I always get a mention because I'm so far away.
And it's a good show. Jim knows his music and doesn't spend too much time chatting. This is not your drivetime classics. This is not a drill. This is Rock and Roll!
And this morning to watch the webcast of the Sony Music Awards live from Grosvenor House in London, where Jim was nominated for Best Speech Presenter. Even to be nominated, five names out of how many BBC and independent radio jocks, is a huge honour. Jim has won a Bronze Sony four years earlier, and who knows?
I hook into the webcast and my internet connection dies. My LAN dies. I can't get into my wireless router. How bloody inconvenient. I reboot it (pull out the power plug, stick it in again) and get everything running again. Get onto the webpage, the media player is buffering...
And it dies again!
This happens half a dozen times before I figure out that unlikely as it seems, the video stream from London is killing my wireless router, no matter what browser oir what computer I use. I switch to the audio alternative, and that works, and then I try RealPlayer on a different computer and that works. So I listen and watch and play in Chit Chat as the evening progresses. They have a message forum, and naturally we BookCrossers play in that, sending increasingly ridiculous messages of support, especially once the lady running it begins to comment on how much support Jim is getting from people around the world. BookCrossing is mentioned.
And then Jim's category is announced, the contenders introduced, Bronze goes to someone else, Slver someone else...
...and Gold to someone else! Jim is one of the two nominees left out in the cold. The forum erupts in anger and disappointment, especially when the winner is some zoned out twit who swears his way through his thank you speech.
Poor Jim! He deserves better. There is talk of loading up charter flights to go and wreak retribution upon someone or thing.
BookCrossing gathering last night. A quiet one, thank goodness, and I'm able to hear what people are saying. I bring along a few undistinguished books from Toronto and Honolulu, Calissa has one or two, HeidiAussie a few more, but as usual, Unbalanced is groaning under the weight of two carrier bags full. Good books. Excellent books! We all snaffle a few, but there are still a lot remaining over to fill the OBCZ shelf.
I tip out some of the left over lollies/sweets/candies I've collected. These are the ones the kids have left, but there are still plenty of bizarro types left over. My favorite is NoTime! - with a toothbrush image on the packet meant for the hurried Japanese sarariman with no time to brush his teeth. Watering KissMint is another.
Home again through the cold. It's winter in Canberra now, well and truly, and though I wore a t-shirt or polo all the way through springtime Asia, North America and Europe (when locals all around were rugged and coated up) I can't get away with that here. It's cold.
A bit of research, and I discover that the place where I left my book at the American Cemetery overlooking Omaha beach is at the precise spot where the first man off the beach managed to gain the crest of the bluff. He came back years later and identified it, andjust by pure chance I picked it to leave my book. That's nice.
