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December 02, 2006
Saturday Morning Roundup
Lots of stuff you might want to know about.
Over at eMusic, the venerable folk label Topic has arrived. 64 albums so far, not (shame) including Voice of the People. But June Tabor, all manner of Watersons and Carthys, Brass Monkey, John Tams, the new (Folk Award nominated) Tim Van Eyken album, and so on. Loads of great stuff and I am probably going to systematically download every Topic album I don't already own, using eMusic Booster Packs. Booster Packs are more expensive than regular eMu, at 50 tracks for £14, but that's still approx four top-quality folk albums.
Having dipped my toe in the waters of eBay selling a couple of months ago, this weekend we are selling a couple of dozen bits of clutter. This approach to decluttering is timeconsuming but satisfying. My previous foray covered the cost of the brilliant selling tool Garage Sale. The aim this time is to sell enough stuff that after expenses, postage, ebay and paypal fees, I cover the cost of an Aperture license. I still qualify for the (large) student discount, too, which is nice. The 'pro' features of Aperture that work so well for serious photographers also very much suit people photographing for eBay and other utility photography. A couple of the items we're selling actually belong to the kids; I'm hoping that the experience of getting actual cash for toys they've never played with will encourage them to give up other stuff they don't want or need. It is difficult, for example, to imagine that anyone who's ever had a conversation with Marianne would think that a Bratz doll was a likely present for her; we're selling two different ones. So you see that I doubt eBay will make me rich any time soon.
Meanwhile, I appear to have acquired not one but two new cameras. After some months of organisation, I received my twin Sony P200 from Co van Ekeren in the Netherlands. More about that here. Chances are I won't really get to use it in anger until we have brighter days; twinned cameras do not really handle flash well. The other camera is a Fujifilm F-30, bought with low-light photography, in particular concert photography, in mind. I was pretty pleased about what it delivered from the Battersea fireworks display, and I am managing some nice surreptitious concert photos.
On the matter of concerts, we've recently seen Spiers and Boden, Karine Polwart, Chris Coe, and Steven saw Chris Wood and I saw Al Stewart on the same night in different cities. Paul Kincaid wrote about a different instantiation of the Stewart concert.
And now I must sort out the League of Fan Funds website.
Posted by Alison Scott at December 2, 2006 12:36 PM