Fender Jaguar/Jazzmaster authority and accomplished surf guitarist Mel Waldorf writes at Surf Guitar 101 about an american tv-show (HGTV) they (himself and Jessica Lindsay) participated in and got their home office re-designed.

This is when the action takes place
Air times:
.January 26, 2008 5:30 PM ET/PT
from the HGTV website:

‘Tropical Tiki Office
As avid collectors, homeowners Mel Waldorf and Jessica Lindsey have a jackpot of fun finds to use, so creating a very personalized space is easy. While incorporating bright and fun elements, host Karen McAloon and the Design Remix team give the room purpose, clear up clutter and form functioning workspaces. The result is a home office that’s practical, yet playful and as tempting as a tropical tiki island.’

Disclaimer: The show’s director strongly encouraged us to behave like imbeciles… we were acting…really.

I really would love to see this.

Design Police | Bring bad design to justice.

My dayjob is freelance graphic-designer. I see a lot of really bad design – sometimes there doesn’t seem to be a designer involved, not even a bad one. Those folks who “design” without being designers won’t understand what these stickers are about, very unfortunately!
Found via Spreeblick

One of these days I have to learn them all, hopefully I already do some of them, without knowing their names. Exotic scales are what sets Surfmusic apart from earlier forms of instrumental rock’n’roll, and connects it with jazz (like early George Benson and Gabor Szabo) and Exotica.

From BBC News website article:

A little alcohol ‘can be healthy’
Beer
Experts warned that over-indulgence could pose severe health risks
A little alcohol combined with a healthy active lifestyle may be the best recipe for a longer life.

A European Heart Journal study suggests the combination can cut the risk of heart disease.

A Danish team found people who led an active lifestyle were less prone to heart disease – but the risk was cut still further if they drank moderately.

However, UK experts warned people should not be encouraged to drink, as too much alcohol can be very damaging.

Physical activity has shown greater benefits to heart health and overall health in previous research compared to drinking alcohol
Ellen Mason
British Heart Foundation

The researchers followed nearly 12,000 men and women for nearly 20 years, during which 1,242 died from ischaemic heart disease (IHD).

Link

Here‘s a great little regular music show you might find entertaining:
Jet Set Planet

A program of space age era instrumentals, TV Jazz, and other related music, featuring dismissed, forgotten, or otherwise marginalized vinyl LPs from the record bins of Thrift Store USA.

* Exotica
* Crime Jazz
* Lounge and Cocktail music
* Big Bands in the Stereo Age
* Ping-pong percussion
* Bongos. Bossa Nova, and Latin tunes
* European and American soundtracks
* Jazz for swingers and soft-core sensualists
* E-Z & Sleazy Listening
* Rock-Gone-Wrong
* Juvenile Delinquent music
* the Now Sound
* Songs of the Jet Set
* the Schreee of 10,000 strings
* and Spy jazz

From the days A&Rs would do the occasional string arrangement. The Billboard Hot 100 sounded different. This particular one from 1963 reminded me of the days I did full song chart themed mix tapes of, say, summer 1964, southern Calfifornia local radio charts music. That way I had a nice helping of surf instros, among their contemporaries. I would pop it in the car-radio-tape player, blasting out of 2 sixties Dual speakers in the back of my beetle on the way to St. Peter with my 9ft board on the roof. You never know what it feels like until you try it.

kfxm/kfmen radio blogspot

Gordon finished his Jaguar project. It’s a very special guitar, based on Fender’s favorite surf guitar – the Jaguar.
Everybody wants to hear it, and I am no exception! He chose Charlie Christian style pick-ups and a reverse headstock, that crazy french-man.

Here’s his blog.

The Cowabunga Surf Music Webring (which my Homepage www.kawentzmann.de was a proud member of) is going to be closed down.

I have chosen not to renew web hosting and the domain registration for
Zptduda.Com, which will be effective at the end of January. This will mean that
the Cowabunga links pages will be going away. If you have not already, I highly
recommend that you join SurfGuitar101.com and add your site to their links pages.

I will also be closing down the Cowabunga webring. If your site is currently a
member of the Cowabunga ring, please feel free to remove the banner graphic and
web ring controls from your pages.

Thanks and best regards,

When I first started on the web I only had a tiny space at Luxuriamusic’s community. I attempted to join the Ring with that, but no reaction from Dave – it was around late 2000. The old web was still going strong. I don’t remember exactly when I attempted to join again, maybe it was only 2006. He accepted my new homepage – but checking the membersites was desillusionating, showing every forth band or so had gone/broken-up without even acknowldeging the webring. Clicking through the links you got the impression of strolling through a ghost town at times. While Surfmusic101 is alive and well, it’s a site with a lively forum. And MySpace also get’s a good share of surfmusic action. So the internet habits have changed so much that it doesn’t seem worth the effort on Dave’s part? I don’t know, maybe he just has not enough time to do the maintenance.
I will remove the Cowabunga links now.

He directed the biggest bollywood movie of all time: Sholay. Here’s a movie song (composed by R.D. Burman) on YouTube.

From the BBc South Asia website:

Veteran Bollywood film producer GP Sippy has died in the western Indian city of Mumbai at the age of 93.

Mr Sippy was best known as the producer of Bollywood’s biggest ever commercial success, Sholay (Flames).

read more at BBC

Great stereo recording demonstration. It’s incredibly real, use headphone to hear the stunning effects. You don’t get there with panned mono. I guess they used headphone mics and a little processing of some kind. Curious? Click here.