Christmas 2018 style

The day is finally here as I'm home for Christmas and I'm out of my jim jams and into my pinafore dress, tie and grey socks with pretty bows as we get to open this years presents.
Starting this Christmas edition like last year made 'on the hoof', Elgar has always called with most my recordings being from the very late 1970's to the 1980's.

This newish acclaimed one, came out in 2016 offers two works I did not have and adds them in both stereo and surround sound in Super Audio cd quality (playable also in regular cd).
It will no doubt be treasured as collecting classical music recordings is very much a long term thing.

The Dandy is the always the Dandy, one a few comics I had as child and while sadly it no longer comes out weekly, it does have summer specials and this annual that stay with the original stories and indeed do even have reprints of cartoon strips from past years

One difference this year is I didn't get the Beano annual because there has been a big change in how the more traditional cartoon series have been drawn, in some such as Dennis the Menace written so he doesn't actually menace that messes up the whole backdrop to the character and a move toward so-called political correctness in the newer stories.

Instead I opted for this compilation issued to mark the 65th anniversary of Minnie The Minx  which consists of reprints of classic adventures as is which is a tribute to a heroine of mine.

I did however pick up the 2018 Christmas special edition which as 68 pages and printed more like a softback magazine.
lt fits in where I'd of had the comic editions across Christmas  where its a good example of where the comic is at today.

 Finally a new anime for me to watch in blu ray and regular dvd too.

And another but this one is just in blu ray.

This was a much talked about anthropomorphic animated film from 2016 that I had as a 'stocking filler' on Blu-Ray.
I also had some money I can put toward some other things after Christmas.
I hope everyone has had an enjoyable Christmas.

Christmas Paws

Well by the time you see this, I shall be off social media for anything than the most briefiest of moments to ensure all is well and there is absolutely nothing that needs urgent attention on those accounts left.
There's that much other stuff to do that simply I can't run the blog and tumblrsphere and carry out all my social responsibilities connected with christmas so real life wins out I'm afraid.
Actual christmas's count.

We've always loved Hello Kitty on this blog from day one and I certainly love to watch ice skating and hockey either in person or on tv.
Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and all the best for the New Year.

Final fling

In a week were frankly it has seemed we've been going through a political nervous breakdown of major proportions thanks to Brexit and the no confidence measure that P.M. Mrs May won by 200 votes yesterday my mind went backwards to the chaos of 1978/9.

The last time this all happened I was very much record centred and in 1978 a compilation by the short-lived but never forgotten over here rock and roll pioneer Buddy Holly was issued which many of my eras teens bought part of the appeal for me was I knew these songs as covered by people like Showaddywaddy who did Heartbeat, Mud who covered Oh Boy!, the Stones with Not Fade Away and the Beatles who did Words Of Love on Beatles VI (UK: Beatles for sale).
So what was on it wasn't unknown and from oldies radio shows I knew a number of the other songs including Brown-eyed Handsome Man, It Doesn't Matter Any More and Rave On.
That lp was re-issued on cd in 1989 by which point I had the acclaimed "Buddy Holly from the original mastertapes" MCA cd mastered by Steve Hoffman but recently treated myself to a copy this childhood album on cd. 

 The exact mastering sources aren't listed but as True Love Ways has the count off on the other cd I do think it borrows some from it.
The strength is this has the post posthumous hits on it I remember and follows the UK order of release.
In all the chaos, relistening to this on cd helped.

Lighting the flames at Tumblr

It's like standing a distance away with a friend hearing the crackles slowly intensifying as a bonfire  roars into action  consuming its content and others fearful moving back and even away lest the sparks come anywhere near them.
This week Tumblr primed their bonfire, pouring kerosene under all 18+ marked NFSW blogs they had accepted since 2007 in the fall out from losing having apps in Apples iOS store and Google Play late last month.
Okay, personally except for the odd post one on one account I could live with that if it wasn't for the start on Monday of removing the old safe search and sensitive content filters replacing that with a computer based algorithm that looks at pictures and the odd tag  and decides if you are hosting sensitive/nsfw/adult  content .
Anyone with past memories of sites can recall the issues other sites had with such approaches such as on Yahoo360 and issues from time to time on Facebook but at least it is used as a moderation tool.
Here it can decide by itself to deactivate your blog and worst still is being applied retrospectively to all your posts so if like me you an account that has near enough 8,400 posts on in about 5 and half years, you are them expected to trawl though each one on your dash to find any that have been flagged.
That is an unfair expectation to place on people as there is no indicator of flagged posts you can click on to show you just those posts. It could take a person several weeks to find them.
When you do, you see often the most innocuous of posts flagged up things like a reblog of childrens toy ads from a 1989 christmas catalogue - material safe for kids to browse at home in the company of parents - being treated as if it's porn.
There appears to be forming lengthy lines already for such flagged posts being reviewed one hopes by actual humans and the more false positives it finds, the longer this will take for each and everyone to be looked at.
Trouble is the deadline for no nsfw as deemed by this system is December 17 so if we accept any blog that was flagged as nsfw is gone by default then if posts are not reviewed and accepted as mistakes then you may find your blog mysteriously gone.
Potentially you may not get the chance to be reviewed if there are too many cases for the very limited staff doing this to work through.
One top of all of this a barrage of tags have been classed as nsfw such as "lesbian" and "trans" like they're porn related rather than the means of people who are trying to find each other through searching through tags.
This is already leading already to an exodus from the site because apart from those who do post intentionally but lawful nsfw content, many of us are finding this whole business so time consuming and emotionally stressful we are close to meltdowns, fearing losing friends and for those of us in age regression communities, support when our blogs are deactivated.
Like I saw, I fear they've lit the bonfire that will in time burn the site down so it's a ghostly relic like My Space or gone for good like GeoCities and Yahoo360 are.