Things found at the back of my sock drawer
Fri, Jan 13, 2005
Sambeau used to update his website once upon a time.
And then one day he became big in Japan and he used all his bandwidth up and he couldn't pay his hosting bill so he had to start again somewhere else and then there was a bit of a disaster when all his content was lost. And then he found some of it — the really old bits.
So here for posterity and vanity and god-knows-what-else are the bits of the old sambeau.com that could be found. They are probably out-of-date now (what with being 3 years old) and most of the links probably point to 404s and Google will not be happy, but who cares. I won't say enjoy. But by-all-means look if you want. There are at least 2 laughs to be had in there — somewhere.
The Song Sketchbook
Sep, 2002?
Sambeau likes to sit in the spare room and sing to himself instead of talking to his long-suffering relatives and loved ones.
He intends one day to make an album (much in the way all university lecturers intend one day to write a book). But here you can get a glimpse at where the project is at.
Presented in glorious free mp3, these snippets of song and slightly rough-at-the-edge tunes are all works-in-progress.
However, they are a rare insight into the mind of a man who thinks he is a musical genius even though he clearly is not.
Save our Moon
Mon, Sep 23, 2002
Sambeau is worried about The Moon . First he hears that there are not just one moon going round the world but three of them. Then he hears that the main one (the one we call “The Moon”) is planning to leave us. Then he hears that the trees that the astonauts brought back from The Moon have gone missing .
Trees? Sambeau thinks that this is all getting very strange and suspects a Government plot of some kind. The BBC are clearly in on it. But why would they want to discredit The Moon?
He also wonders if maybe this is the reason that Buzz Aldrin , esteemed second human to step foot on The Moon, has been punching people?
Ringtones in your “Britney Spears”
Mon, Sep 23, 2002
Sambeau is a big fan of Google , he far prefers it to
yahoo . He also worries about his
health a bit, but knows that a few good
jokes are good for both body and soul. He has never bought anything from
ebay but that's the first site he would visit should he want to buy some second-hand tat from a dodgy american. He does use an online
dictionary a lot as he has difficulties with speling. He also likes to look at pretty
Pictures but isn't really a fan of filthy internet pornography — at least that's what he tells his girflriend.
He doesn't like hotmail.com either as that seems to be nothing more than spam and
porn . He likes to look at sites that have lots of song lyrics and
mp3s as he loves
music but he can't read guitar tabs although he does play the guitar but not loudly as that gives him ringtones in his britney spears ..
He doesn't play computer
games either, really, he prefers to sit in his pantyhose and read a good book like harry potter . He loves internet
maps especially mapquest and
steetmap . He has used them on a number of occasions to get driving directions and thus they have saved him from getting lost when he has used cars to travel . He looks at the BBC
weather from time-to-time as insurance — you never know what it is going to be like in the UK, it could be as hot as egypt or as cold as canada .
He never tires of
quotes especially funny quotes and quotations and should he need one for something he is writing he will probably
ask jeeves to find him one as he is no einstein . He hates
Clip Art especially free clipart as it has usually been drawn by a short-sighted baboon with a zx81. He never stays in
hotels as he is too cheap . He is a
parent and loves his kids . He has so far not needed viagra to spice up his sex life. Due to his girlfriend's pregnancy he is also pondering
baby names but not kazaa , lolita or hentai as they are just plain silly things to call young girls .
More than that, he wonders if putting all the top keywords in one paragraph will have any effect on his search engines ranking. Only History will tell.
New Llap Goch
Mon, Sep 23, 2002
Tony Blair has been harping on about how an attack on Iraq would be pre-emptive self defence . Sambeau can't help but be reminded of Llap Goch — the ancient welsh art of self defence.
“The BEST way to protect yourself AGAINST any ASSAILANT is to ATTACK him before he attacks YOU ... Or BETTER ... BEFORE the THOUGHT of DOING so has EVEN OCCURRED TO HIM!
”
Another brave American
Wed, Sep 11, 2002
“We can choose to huddle under the wings of enforcers who proclaim their allegiance to the highest principles and values, or take responsibility for our fate, and that of future generations. The latter choice is far harder, but is the only one that can be contemplated by decent and honest people. ”
—Noam Chomsky at BBC News Online
Grief is the price of Love
Wed, Sep 11, 2002
Californian sixties psychadelic group Love once sang “The news of today is the movies of tomorrow” and never has Sambeau felt that more than exactly one year ago today. Like most of the world he was lucky enough for it to be only a major television event in his life rather than an event that touched him personally. He experienced horror — but lost no-one.
But he urges you all to remember the human cost of the world's biggest terrorist attack. The utter pointless waste of it all.
There must be better ways to get your message across..
Aortal Mortal
Tue, Sep 10, 2002 (Late)
Sambeau would like to thank Daisy Daisy for making him her Aortal link of the week (god knows where whe found him!) as well as the gift of this fabulous link. Enjoy!
The bravest man in the USA
Tue, Sep 10, 2002
At long last, a prominent American artist —
Steve Earle — has had the courage to be “urgently pro-American” (without organising some god-awful candle-lit, flag-waving charity concert) and is actively disagreeing with current US policy. He is almost certainly risking life and limb along with commercial success by doing so. He is, also, the only major American musician so far to use their own brain rather than their accountant's while applying their art to the terrible events of September 11th. Whatever happened to the protest singer — a once honorable profession?
“..it is John Walker's Blues that has caused the most controversy so far. Earle has been accused of "glorifying a traitor" in this story of John Walker Lindh, the "American boy raised on MTV" who couldn't identify with anything in his own culture and eventually became a Taliban fighter”
Sambeau applauds Steve Earle for his courage. He even encourages you to buy the album which is appropriately titled, Jerusalem. Let's hope he is the first of many.
A “Tempest of Audiological Majesty”?
Fri, Sep 6, 2002
Though never a fan of Baywatch nor
Night Rider , Sambeau has
always had a sneaking admiration for the huge stinking pile of
shit that has been the total output of
David Hasslehof's
acting career to date.
Sambeau is also convinced that if all the world's
mullets were traced back to one point, the prime
mullet would indeed be the one atop Mr.
Hefferhanger's nonce.
And so it is with thoughts like these in mind that he
would like to point you in the direction of
The Best of David
Hasselhoff - a suprisingly long album despite
it's title. In particular the
reviews on Amazon.com
are a must read for any Mr. Horse'n'hoof follower.
Zyklonic irritation
Thu, Sep 5, 2002
German mega-corporation Bosch Seimens ,
one-time Nazi accomplice and wartime exploiter of jewish slave labour,
has been caught Jackbooting over holocaust survivors' feelings once again. They have applied to market gas ovens
under the same name as the gas used to kill jews in Nazi extermination camps — namely Zyklon .
How insensitive can you get? Sambeau is considering giving up DIY as a protest.
Sony Robot Madness
Thu, Sep 5, 2002
As a young chap, Sambeau was a big fan of
top-tech-tastic tv show
Tomorrow's World .
Every week he would tune in, excitedly sloshing his
dinner onto his lap, hoping to see a real working
robot —
one than not only looked like a robot is supposed to but
also behaved like a robot aught to also.
This never happened.
As a young chap, Sambeau was also a big fan of
ska-tastic nutty-boys Madness .
He and his pre-pubescent chums would form lines and
nutty-walk
around the school playground. He dreamed of being in a
fantastically popular beat combo and doing a similar dance
on Top of the Pops one day.
This also never happened.
Little did he know then that young japanese boys were having
exactly the same childhood on the other side of the world.
And now, as grown-up top technologists at
Sony they have transferred
their hopes, dreams and childhood disappointments into a
little chap snappily called
SDR-4X .
This is the first robot Sambeau has seen that
fulfills his strict childhood criteria. But more than that,
it is a little metal incarnation than none-other than 80's
pop-star and Madness front man
Suggs .
See the video for yourself
.
Umami-ness decision
Thu, Sep 5, 2002
Sambeau (a keen and somewhat accomplished chef) is shocked and amazed to hear that despite what
Mr. Harvey Alan , esteemed high-school
Biology teacher and Banjo player said sometime back in the 1980s,
we actually don't have four tastes -
we have five:
- Sweet, Sour, Salt, Bitter, Umami
“Umami!?”, I hear you cry. . Yup,
Umami:
“In 1908, Japanese researcher Kikunae Ikeda found
that the glutamate contained in seaweed sauce triggered a
fifth taste which the Japanese call umami. It's hard to
describe umami. It's commonly translated as meaning
“meaty”
or
“savory”
but there's more to it than that - an
incomparable taste sensation that encompasses all of the
senses. Ikeda's discovery led to the mass production
of Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) a flavor enhancer widely used
in Chinese and Japanese cooking. Last year researchers at
the University of Miami succeeded in proving that
taste receptors for umami exist,
making it likely that the
existence of five tastes will eventually gain general
acceptance”.
Unfortunately, Sambeau is sort-of allergic to MSG.
But he is a big fan of Parmesan, which he has been reliably
informed by a Sunday Newspaper, contains one of the highest
concentrations of natural MSG (and therefore umami) in a
natual foodstuff. It also seems that Nigel
Slater has therefore been advocating adding
parmesan to squid and fish. Sambeau is not sure the
Italians would agree but he is willing to give it a go!
These Greeks are Crazy (tap tap)
Wed, Sep 4, 2002 (Mum's Birthday)
It gets worse.. Look at this
“The Greek government has
banned all electronic games
across the country, including those that run on home
computers, on Game Boy-style portable consoles, and on
mobile phones. Thousands of tourists in Greece are
unknowingly facing heavy fines or long terms in prison for
owning mobile phones or
portable video games . ”
“Greek police will be responsible for catching
offenders, who will face fines of 5,000 to 75,000 euros
(about $4,980 to $74,650 )
and imprisonment of one
to 12 months ”.
Mittens for security and comfort
Wed, Sep 4, 2002 (Mum's Birthday)
Sambeau was first alerted to the existence of this
fabulously awful (but cringingly hilarious) flash animation by
The Copydesk.
If you would like to see what
filthy propaganda
the BBC is feeding to our children,
take a look here
. I particularly recommend page two of November where we see
how Afghan children are sad because they have no television but
then cheer up quite considerably once we start bombing them.
It's All Greek to me
Wed, Sep 4, 2002 (Mum's Birthday)
As anyone who has ever watched The Eurovison
Song Contest will know, the
Greek nation can be a little bonkers at
times. But not even Sambeau in his wildest flights
of fancy would have expected the birthplace of
Democracy and the
Olympic Games to do something
quite as bonkers as they have just done. No, this one is far
beyond bearded blokes in pleated skirts and Nana Mouskouri
lookalikes playing the Bouzouki.
Believe it or not the Greeks, in a move even more daft
and totalitarian than
China's banning of Google, have just
banned all computer games.
A €10,000 fine and three months in the slammer
awaits any weak soul who reaches for the Minefield or Hearts
icon. So just don't do it, Soros.
Rea-Think
Tue, Sep 3, 2002 (late)
Sambeau is a big music fan . Hence he has no truck
with the likes of
Chris “ Dublin's Anne Widdecombe in trousers” de Bergh,
Eric “God is a name sometimes applied to me on
account of being able to play the electric guitar”
Clapton,
Mark “Lay waste to Palestine” Knopfler and of course
Chris Rea: Mark's less talented Geordie brother (a kind of
unholy cross between fellow geordies
Sting and Jimmy
Nail but with all the looks of
super-talented Ricky Tomlinson ).
Now, Sambeau is neither terribly talented nor
terribly pretty (and certainly can't play the banjo as well
as supertalented Ricky Tomlinson), but he has always kept
himself sane by telling himself a few home truths.
- He is less mad than Sting
- He is better looking than Ricky Tomlinson
- He is more talented than Jimmy Nail
But poor old
Chris Rea
has not yet even come up to scratch on
the Jimmynailometer. It has been facts like this that has
laid the foundation for
Sambeau's personal
well-being.
But that boat has just been well and truly rocked.
Chris
Rea has had a near-death experience. And rather than take solace
in his 30,000,000 album sales and his no-doubt unbelievable
wealth, it seems the poor geordie bugger has had an epiphany
and realised that his whole musical career has been a pile
of shite to date. As such he has discarded his manager and record
company, gone back to his roots and finally made a record
that isn't complete bollocks.
..unfortunately it is blues
and hence another stinking pile
of shite in Sambeau's opinion.
But at least he can now hold his head high on
The Southbank Show at some point (if it
isn't too weighed down with all those chins).
Still, Radio “gosh! we're a bit hip” 4 were impressed with the conversion.
And as such
an interview can be heard here.
Moof it on up!
Tue, Sep 3, 2002
Sambeau is very keen on MacOS X. However, he has
been much missing some of the more fun bits of the old
Macintosh - Apple seems to have come over all serious in
recent years. Most especially he has been missing
Clarus the DogCow . This
friendly half-Bovine-half-Canine has been a feature of the
Macintosh print dialogue for nigh-on 15 years and it seems a
real shame to remove her now and deprive generations more
Macintosh users from her cheeky little face.
However help is in hand thanks to those cheeky chaps at
interealm.com
who have gone and written a simple installer that puts
Clarus back in her rightful place. Hooray! Download your
copy today!
If you would like to know who Clarus is they also
produce a couple of interesting and informative links
explaining her history.
iPod, youPod, we-all-Pod for iPod
Tue, Sep 3, 2002
Sambeau, has a very kind friend called
Burns-The-Bet and Mr.
Bet has a very nice Mac with dual processors, fancy
Soundstick transparent speakers, a sub-woofer and the
biggest monitor he had ever seen. Sambeau, was
very jealous indeedy especially when Mr. Burns pulled out
a brand-new iPod still in it's box. His eyes nearly
popped out of his head.
Now, Burns-The-Bet is a very lovely and
generous fellow. He reaches into the
brand new box and says “would you like to borrow
it?” At this point Sambeau's eyes are popping
out on stalks but he manages to croak a feeble “Yes
please”.
So now Sambeau is the proud owner of an iPod for a
few weeks. And it is a fantastic thing. What's more Mr. Bet
took the time to fill it up with lovely music including
every Tom Waits tune ever
recorded.
Now Sambeau intends to start hanging around in
coffee shops and music boutiques just to make trendy people
sick. Haha. Aaah. Life is good..
100 acres, 400 takers
Mon, Sep 2, 2002
Sambeau, Mr. Bean and MC Julyah went to 100 acres at the
weekend. This was without a doubt the best
festival ever due to the lack of crowds.
Thus, there was no queueing to be done at any point
especially at the bar and the toilets. This is a rare treat at a
festival.
The music wasn't half bad too. Sambeau liked
I am Kloot very much indeed.
They were a three piece blessedly free from DAT and were
much better for it. The chums also enjoyed
Cornershop and were much
impressed with the groovy Sitar playing.
Alabama3 were an amazing site to
behold in both a visual and an aural way and were also much enjoyed despite the fact that
Sambeau thought he was watching Mojave 3 and was thus
a little confused. ‘Bonkers’ is one way to describe them, but
‘fantastic’ is also - go-go dancers in stars'n'stripes bikinis
and all. Gorky's Zygotic Mynci were also a bit bonkers too. But
not in a good way.
Mr. Bean enjoyed the kangaroo boxing but not as much as
those spectating enjoyed seeing Mr. Bean being beaten up by
a kangaroo. They all enjoyed the Thai food courtesy of
The Angel Thai Restaurant which
is in St. Neots Apparently. £5 for a plastic plate of nosh seemed a
little expensive at first — but not once it was
tasted. There may be a trip to St. Neots in the offing.
All-in-all, much fun was had. Roll on next year
“What is the definition of my life?”
Fri, Aug 30, 2002
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913):
Sambo /Sam"bo/, n. [Sp. zambo bandy-legged, the child
of a negro and an Indian; prob. of African origin.] 1. A
colloquial or humorous appellation for a negro; sometimes,
the offspring of a black person and a mulatto; a zambo.
So there you have it!
100% buzz-word compliant
Fri, Aug 30, 2002
Sambeau would like it to be known that there is
a much more complex database driven, searchable,
object-oriented, dynamic version of this site coming.
It will have industry standard widgets, thingumies and
what-nots and be 100% buzz-word
compliant . It will efficiently generate
HTML, XML, WML, XHTML or SMIL from reusable templates, which
will be mapped directly into a fancy object model. It will
cleanly separate the presentation layer from the logic and
data in a fancy kinda way. It will probably even handle all
my session management needs, without using cookies. It may
even be built out of Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) or Java
2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Javary type stuff. If Sambeau can be bothered.
But it is unlikely that it will ever have any real content to speak of.
The Drunken sessions
Fri, Aug 30, 2002
Sambeau's friend Mr Saunders
has a fancy music computery doo-dah that is
all-singing and dancing apart from you have to do the
singing yourself. This is what Sambeau did some nights after
the pub. Mr Saunders also has good taste in
red wine and a very generous
nature and this is very evident in the
singing quality demonstrated here along with deficiencies in
the lyrical content memorisation competency levels. Strange
noises, burping, slurring etc are due to technical issues in
the internet music encoding optimisation levels and should
be treated of as a feature
.
The Obligatory Links
Fri, Aug 30, 2002
Sambeau's links. Please find here
for your delectation a selected
number of relevant hyperlinks to pages that in some way have
a bearing on the life and times of Sambeau.
The Small Print: This site has been tested and verified by the
W3C organisation. It failed (on numerous occasions) and
therefore should not be used as a guide to writing compliant
html. This site may be unsuitable for Americans due to high
content in the ironic spectrum. Also unsuitable for children,
the old, the infirm, pregnant women, pets, foreigners, city
bankers, republicans, heavy metalists and other stupid people.
This site does not support hebrew nor any other daft character
sets. Warning: do not believe anything written on this site,
especially the small print - It is probably untrue, inaccurate,
a guess, a stupid joke or a downright lie. Do not eat this site:
It may contain e-numbers and html entities. Any links found on
this page are provided as a courtesy and should not be taken as
an endorsement - even if I say I really like them. Please do not
use any product or service advertised on this site - it is
almost certainly a load of rubbish. My employers have nothing to
do with this site and should not be held responsible for any of
its content (even though it may currently be hosted on one of
their machines - probably the mac under my desk) they don't know
about it's existence, probably wouldn't approve anyway, so it
wouldn't be fair on them would it - they are nice decent chaps
and wouldn't want to be involved in such things I'm sure.
However, don't tell them as I like having it hosted for free,
ta. Any rudeness, defamation of character, besmirching of gentle
folk, anti monarchist, treasonable and/or terroristic text is
probably a joke on my part and shouldn't be taken as an attack
on western democracy. Though setting fire to a naval dockyard
and having your way with Princess Anne without her permission
are still hanging offenses in this country I still support your
right to choose either as a valid lifestyle option, should you
so wish to go down that dangerous route.
All Sambeaus in this site are purely fictional. Any similarities
to other Sambeaus living, dead or snoring on the sofa are purely
coincidental, especially:
this Sambeau,
this Sambeau
and
this Sambeau.
Spelling mistakes are
intended in an ironic way. This site has been created by trained
professionals under strict supervision, please do not attempt
anything similar at home. © - 2002 - sambeau phillips @
sambeau.com :: The Real Sam Phillips :: Sambeau (Sam, Sammy,
Samuel) Phillips a slightly portly, baldy man with beard and
glasses who works with computers and the internet, father of
Georgie (Geo, Georgia) Miles Phillips and Noah (Nonny-noo)
Phillips, son to Kate (Catherine) Phillips nee Budge and Dave
(David) Phillips and Brother to Dan (Danny, Daniel) Phillips,
Bron (Bronny, Bronwen Phillips, Meg (Meglegs, Meg-legs, Megan)
Phillips and boyfriend to Chelle (Michelle, Shelly) Stubley.
Formerly of Hillhead, Glasgow, UK now of Histon, Cambridge, UK,
once of Westlands, Nairobi, Kenya and born in Newton near The
Mumbles in Swansea, Wales lives here in his virtual pyjamas.
