What a weekend! No, for once I am not referring to anything I got up to. Far from it, for me it was a very lazy and non-event of a weekend. However sporting wise, it was electric. I watched all of the FA Cup ties (although only fully concentrated on the Manchester and Chelsea ties) and Arsenal play away at Wigan. I was able to clamber away from the television and computer to fit in a piano lesson yesterday morning. On Saturday morning, as I had my breakfast, my Dad handed me a copy of The Guardian Guide. On the front was a drawing of the DMC-12. It was an interesting article but the reason for it appearing on the front page of the entertainment guide (perhaps a slow news weekend) was to prompt the concept album by Neon Neon which centres around DeLorean, the man, the car and the company.

I watched the finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Friday night. As the conclusion was just two standard length episodes I watched them sandwiched between Eastenders. It was good, in places very good but not up to the jaw dropping marvelous moments of Heroes. However, the ending was very well done to leave it all open for series two. On Virgin 1 on Saturday night, they were showing the first two episodes back to back and I watched for a while and realised why the show perhaps is not as great as it could be. Worth watching if you like the franchise plus Summer Glau is just magnificent as a terminatrix. In a continuation of the theme, five screened Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines last night as well. Looks like there is a fourth installment with Christian Bale on the way and it will link into the series! Finding music videos has not always been easy. It was only a few years ago that I discovered Solly4Life dot com and have never looked back. It is a great site with music videos added on a weekly basis. I e-mailed the chap, (Solly?) on Saturday and he responded the next day to confirm that he hoped to upload my requested video the next day. Sure enough, when I checked this afternoon, Jordin Sparks featuring Chris Brown had been uploaded. Fantastic. I downloaded the rar file (hosted over at RapidShare) and as the file slowly landed onto my machine, I sent a thank you message to Solly. He is a legend and I owe him a big debt. The majority of my music videos are from his collection and there are still plenty from his back catalogue I could do with downloading.

You must be bored of me constantly going on about Miss Sparks and this song but I think this story might be worth the read. During my last piano lesson on Sunday 17th February I had given my teacher, Clive an mp3 of the song. I wanted him to transcribe the notes from the chorus onto manuscript. As I arrived to my lesson yesterday morning (late for the first time at 11.11am) I could hear him playing the mp3 on Windows Media Player on his laptop and playing some notes on his piano and noting down a string of notes (excuse the pun). He had done it! The song does not lend it self to being played on the piano, it doesn’t have a full melody. Instead there are just trails during the chorus. (In fact Jordin plays them briefly at the opening of the video). I must say that, I find this a true talent. To be able to hear a piece of music a few times and begin playing the notes on your piano / keyboard. I now have the notes (just two lines and sixteen notes) transcriped in my manuscript book. I tried to play them tonight but failed miserably. This is what lack of practice does to you, it knocks your confidence. However, I am determined to try and continue and for once to begin playing songs I love rather than just those from my teaching materials. However I think I am light years away from my grade one exam. The Daily Mail gave away copies of Flight Of The Navigator on DVD on Saturday, so my Dad picked up a copy. A classic 1980s movie which I grew up with and ruined on VHS (I watch it too many times). It was the movie that introduced me to the music of The Beach Boys. I have not had a chance to watch the movie, I just put it on to check out the quality which is reasonably considering it is a freebie. I will try and watch it in full at some point, perhaps this coming weekend. Memories of my childhood!