Apologies for the Sun headline. This post is utterly apolitical and there is absolutely no swearing in it whatsoever.
Today, I have some lovely links for you:
Mario Bass Madness
Some of you know I’m a bassist. OK. Past tense. Was a bassist. It’s a relief to admit that it’s one of the few things in life I became rather good at. With perspective I can see that now. I could do things that most bassists couldn’t and I was happy with that.
So it’s always pleasant to come across the odd freak who is not just better than me, but in that league I will never fathom. His name is Jean Baudin and he plays bass in a two-handed style. This is something I started experimenting with in the mid 1980s, but once I realised that pianists were always going to batter me and freaks like Stanley Jordan would always be years ahead (he was of course a Blue Note guitarist of incredible ability, his rendition of Eleanor Rigby still ranks as one of my all time favourite covers) I gave up.
Baudin plays a nine-string Conklin bass. Yes, bass guitars are meant to have four string. I moved to a five string as soon as they were available and now find a four-string limiting, but nine-string bass? You’d have to be mad. The bass Baudin plays appears at the head of this article. Enough about the bass. Watch this video of Baudin playing the Mario theme two-handed if you have broadband. If you are a bassist, you will surely cry. If you are a guitarist, you will ask “why??”. Anybody else will find this hugely geeky and probably won’t understand what all the fuss is about.
His technique isn’t perfect, he fluffs some notes and his timing isn’t always great, but it’s nonetheless a sight to behold and a level most of us will never reach. It’s worth it just to hear Mario being done differently.
It’s a Smal World After All
The above is the winning image from the Nikon Small World competition. I actually preferred some of the lower placed ones, but it’s well worth a look if you like peering into the world of the small. Some of the colours are incredible, though a few cheat and use dye.
Feeling Hungry?
An average man, whatever that is, needs about 1,500 calories a day to meet his fairly sedentary requirements. Perhaps the above sandwich partially explains a few of the more rotund of our species walking down the same streets of L.A. that you’ll find fitness-obsessed Adoni with sculpted abs. It’s not just America that has become the land of paradoxes and extremes of course, but it’s always been, ermm, leading edge. It would be hard to find any edges on the average American nowadays.
What you want to know is, how many calories? And there’s an answer for that too. It’s 30,000. I will repeat that for the hard of hearing.
The above sandwich has 30,000 calories
Most of it is canola oil, 154 tablespoons of it and that’s what helped largely to capture the headline. Find out what the ingredients are and tell me if you could possibly have even a mouthful of this.
Balls
Finally, this is one of the most beautiful adverts I’ve ever seen. It’s a childhood dream. Every kid will love this. Every adult will remember what it was like to be a child. Then again, some of us will see it as cynical marketing. For once, I didn’t. This blew me away and had me laughing in delight with my kids as we watched. And it will also give some of you a glimpse as to who I will begin working for shortly, though I couldn’t possibly comment.
Have a great weekend and salaam to all of you.
