chrisbray.co.uk - Random musings from an Internet Connected, VW Drag Racing, Music Loving, Software Engineer.

I love Nitro Cars!

Chris Bray — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:34:20 +0100

This is what everyone loves about Drag Racing...

Thomas Nataas Top Fuel funny car in the Santa Pod Nitro Fuel shootout.
Picture by Chris Bray

A Winning Weekend!

Chris Bray — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:21:04 +0100

Wow! What a weekend!

I spent this weekend racing at Shakespeare County Raceway, I also celebrated my 28th birthday.

Things couldn't have gone much better really, although I had a rough qualifying session I did manage to get on the ladder and that was good enough for me, this weekend was more about spending time with my mates and chilling out in a traditional 'shakey' fashion.

I was drawn against Shane Rae in the first round and after an extraordinarily long wait we took to the track, there wasn't a lot in it dial in wise, his bus is quick!! After a pair of 0.0 second reactions we were off! I caught Shane by the 1000ft mark and got off the gas to avoid a breakout, taking the heat win. Close one though!

Next up was Holly Baldwin, I had a head start this time with Holly's bug running quicker than me but after a storming 60ft and first 1/8th I knew I'd done well so I eased off the gas at the top to take another heat victory.

My opponent for the semi final was Martin Ayton, currently challenging for the Sportsman championship Martin is a seasoned Pro and I knew it wasn't going to be an easy race! We both got away well and it was neck and neck at the stripe, both of us on and off the gas as neither of us were sure who'd won, until the win light showed -> and I realised it was me!

Wow! Through to the final! No time to hang around as we were called down straight away. The final was against my good mate (and first time trophy winner) Polly Naylor and it was another close affair! 0.01 seconds separated us at the finish line with Polly running 0.03 over her dial in and me running 0.02 over! I'd won!

I was both happy and sad at the same time, I was over the moon that I'd just won my first event for a few years, but at the same time Polly is a really good mate and it seemed a shame to beat her!

All in all a fantastic weekend, I'm now 2nd in the VWDRC championship, and I've won the APIRA VW Sportsman championship! Sadly with no chance of catching Spencer for 1st in the National Championship and I'm only 10 points in front of Adrian Wigley, so no time to rest on my laurels, I've gotta pull one out of the bag at the National Finals and do my best to take second overall!

Wish me luck!

Another great new album - Girl Talk - Feed The Animals

Chris Bray — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:15:10 +0100

Ok, I know I missed the boat on this one too but I've been listening to another album over and over for the last few weeks, it's called "Feed The Animals" by "Girl Talk" and I think it rules!

Feed The Animals is the fourth album from Pittsburgh, PA's Gregg Gillis under the name Girl Talk and it's a sample-fest of the highest order! Think Osymyso's classic Intro Inspection (or Intro Expansion series) vs ColdCut's seminal 70 Minutes of Madness. With everything from Avril Lavigne and Big Country to Rod Steweart and everything in between! Roughly centring around hip-hop most of the mix has that kind of feel, but the beats range from 80's cheese and disco right up to the latest pop hits. This mixtape is a great example of sampling and how to generate "flow" in a cut and paste style mix, it manages to blend a huge number of in some cases just the tinyest snippets of tunes into one, without feeling choppy or overly disparate, a great example of how a mix can be more than just the sum of it's parts.

Interestingly Girl Talk have done "the Radiohead thing" and released the album on a name-your-price principal, but the difference is the more you pay the more you get, so whilst you can have 320kbps MP3's for free (or pay whatever you like), if you pay $5 you can have it in high quality FLAC glory, make it a tenner and you get it on CD and as one file too. I think this is a great way of releasing music and I highly recommend you head over to http://www.illegalart.net to have a listen, right now!

Click Here for the YouTube original.
Hey hey, you you!

Click Here for the YouTube original.
No diggity!

Jyrojets self titled debut album - Out Now!

Chris Bray — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:00:00 +0100

I know my last post was about the Jyrojets single "Dead On Arrival" and that I'm a couple of days late with the review, which in itself isn't as comprehensive as I'd have liked due to time constraints... but... the self titled album that they took that excellent single is out on download NOW (and physical media next week), and I suggest you check it out!

Putting the music aside for a minute I'm a big fan of what the band have done with their album release, sure, you can buy it on iTunes, where it'll count for the charts and yadda yadda but you can also buy it direct from the band, and here's the clever bit, in DRM-FREE high-quality (192kbps) MP3 format! Good on you guys. I'm a big fan of digital music, but not a great fan of DRM. It's good to see a band trusting their audience and embracing fair use with a proper commercial release.

The album itself is a mix of catchy guitar driven indie pop and I really like it. Given the nature of the record it's hard not to draw parallels with other artists, I'm sure the band hate being compared to fellow Scots the Fratellis but I gonna do it anyway. I don't know if there's a big scene up in Scotland making this same style of tune, but there are tunes here that certainly wouldn't be out of place at a Fratellis gig. One other obvious comparison is to the Stereophonics, back when they were really good. The gruff "I gargle gravel for breakfast every morning" vocals on "Holywood Hold On" (a great anthemic rock moment) and "Favourite Thing About Jane" really do it for me.

That's far from all the Jyrojets offer though, there's some great poppy tunes here, I found myself singing along to "All The Rage", "Rocksinger" and "Sandcastle Girl" even after just a few listens! "Wishing You Well" shows a more mellow side of the band but I can just see the light show going from dim backfill into blinding the crowd for that chorus. A little reminiscent of The Departure "Little Sister" is a great rock tune complete with feedback, crashing intro and an excellent singalong chorus.

This is the first new album for a while that's stayed in my CD changer for more than a few days and I can honestly say I've had it in the car since I got it a few weeks ago and it seems to get better and better.

A great album, and even better considering it's a début, this record has the kind of depth you don't expect from an upcoming band and shows that Jyrojets clearly offer a lot more for the future.

As I posted last time they've got a MySpace and a Bebo and their official site contains loads of information, audio, video and information on how to buy both this album and their previous releases
available at http://www.jyrojets.com

Jyrojets - Favourite Thing About Jane

Click Here for the YouTube original.
We're out drinking it the citaaaayyyy!!

Jyrojets - Dead on Arrival - Released Monday 9th June

Chris Bray — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:25:01 +0100

I've just been tipped off about another new release that took my fancy, this Monday the Inverness band "Jyrojets" will release their third single "Dead on Arrival" on Songphonic records.

I think this is a great tune!

With a great guitar riff, a proper singalong chorus and the best use of reverse delay I've heard for a while they've spent the past couple of years touring the world with shows as diverse as Moscow, SXSW in Austin TX, Radio1 sessions and even a slot at Rockness, I strongly encourage you to check them out as I think they're gonna be big very soon!

Their debut album follows on the 16th June (review coming soon) but for now you'll have to cope with downloading the single from 7 Digital or iTunes.

As ever they've got a MySpace and a Bebo and their official site contains loads of information, audio, video and information on how to buy their previous releases available at http://www.jyrojets.com

Jyrojets - Dead on Arrival

Click Here for the YouTube original.
... but I'm paranoid

Microsoft U-Turn on OOXML

Chris Bray — Thu, 22 May 2008 19:00:00 +0100

In light of a recent post by Rob Weir on the woeful inadequacies of Microsoft Excel 2007's financial functions I thought this might make interesting reading...

Microsoft have formally announced that Office 2007 SP2 will be updated to support ODF 1.1, and NOT OOXML! Office will also be updated to include support for PDF 1.5, PDF/A and Microsoft's own XML Paper Standard (XPS) which is currently being prepared to be presented to the standardisation boards.

This move has been treated with trepidation by some ODF advocates and we do need to wait until early 2009 to see what Microsoft will actually do, but I firmly believe it's a step in the right direction for Microsoft. Hopefully this will mean that they have recognised the multitude of mistakes they made with OOXML and that ODF is a much more suitable format, and with their joining the standards boards and a continued promise of interoperability we can only hope this is the first step of many!

Watch this space I guess!

Project "break-a-golf-in-a-day"

Chris Bray — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:25:00 +0100

Well, it's started, I've just had my mate (and fellow racer) Rich come over and start taking the second car apart. We're trying to strip as much as we can as quickly as we can, I want to try and keep the engine, gearbox and front suspension together as one and move it all out in one piece, that way it should be relatively easy to move around on it's wheels!

Here's a picture as we'd just started... Rich managed to get the bonnet off quicker than my N95 managed to focus!

Before

And after some four hours of work we managed to get most of it un-bolted, almost ready to roll out from under the car.

After!

Now for the big-reveal!

As some of you know I've got a VW Fastback shell in storage waiting for build-up into a race car, but as yet I don't have an engine/gearbox etc. Well... Plans change and given I now have an engine/gearbox etc "spare" I'm thinking RNJ Motorsport will be getting a call to locate this 150bhp Golf GTi motor in the back of said Fastback shell! The aim is reliable, dependable power without costing the earth, and with the likes of James Hodson running serious power from the 20vT motors (which are physically very similar to the 16v you see here) the upgrade path is obvious.

This is how the project stands at the moment....

Looking sad in the lockup.

Here is my inspiration...

Doug Harvey's awesome car.

How close the final product is we will see!!

Black Kids - I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You

Chris Bray — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:00:00 +0100

This week I'm really getting into this tune, by the Black Kids out of Jacksonville, Florida it's called "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You" and I think it's great!

Click Here for the YouTube original.

While you're there see if you can find the Twelves mix for a cracking slice of Brazilian-produced French electro.

Springspeed 2008 Day 1

Chris Bray — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:07:13 +0100

We're having a great day here at Shakey the sky is blue, the sun is shining and the track is great. We're all running PB's and it's oh so close! First run this morning didn't start so well as I broke my staging brake in the fire up road but managed to rig it enough to work. Things started well with a 0.002 reaction but the run finished poorly as I ran 16.01 on my 15.8 dial in, after having changed from 16.0 in the fire up road!

Second run started just as well with a 0.007 reaction, but ended up badly as the chase to catch Polly went right to the line with me finishing first in a double breakout! My time was 15.87, if I'd kept my 15.8 from the first run that would have been pretty good, except I'd raised it to 16.0, oh dear!

Third run hooked up nicely, sadly starting with a tiny 0.09 red but running through with a 15.83 on my 15.8 dial in :)

Number one qualifier at the end of day one and a 0.002 reaction... Happy :)

Unfortunately it's just started raining a bit so we're not sure what's going on yet, but it seems we're finished for the day.

More tomorrow :)

BSI To Face High Court Case Over OOXML U-Turn!

Chris Bray — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:00:00 +0100

The Register is today running a story on how the BSI will face a high court action from the UK's Unix & Open Systems User Group over it's controversial u-turn regarding the adoption of Microsoft's Office Open XML as an ISO standard.

The BSI reversed it's decision to oppose this "standard" in March this year after Microsoft failed to fast-track OOXML into the ISO and will face action in the High Court backed by a number of British advocates of open techology include the Open Source Consortium.

If you ask me it's the right thing to do, the BSI reversed its decision for no good reason other than pressure from Microsoft or one of their cronies. OOXML has no place on the ISO standards roster, especially when the ISO already have a perfectly good, openly developed, standard for office documents! The more the BSI know they've done wrong the better.

If you wish to support this action, and at the same time earn a number of other benefits too, you should consider joining the UKUUG.