This is a kind of bittersweet song. You could see for yourself what I mean had the copyright cartels not removed the official video from YouTube. Listen to the music at the above link, but ignore the graphics because it was uploaded by spammers.
Pretty fucking sad when we have to rely on spammers to upload good music to YouTube.
Now as I type this, the amazing voice of Roy Orbison is heard. He died of a heart attack just as he was undergoing a late career revival. Very sad that he couldn’t keep making more music. The official video for this song shows the 4 remaining band members performing the song in a train car, I think. When Roy’s part came, the camera showed his guitar in a rocking chair, with his coat draped over the chair’s back. Very tastefully done, and like I said, bittersweet because of that.
And years after that first Traveling Wilbury’s album came out, George Harrison died. And that was the end of another amazing musical career.
So, from things musical to things whimsical.
The venerable floppy disk has also reached the end of the line.
I had to nick the above image from the article, because it shows the evolution of the floppy disk. Also, search YouTube for “Don’t copy that floppy!”, but don’t heed the message of the video because it’s wrong. Just laugh at it.
I have never used the old 8″ version of the floppy because I was too young. I did however buy my share of blank 5¼” floppy disks. And I remember using a hole punch to notch the upper left side of each disk so that both sides could be used for data. And I remember using my Commodore 64 with it’s model 1541 Disk Drive, which was slow as hell but lightning fast compared to loading programs off cassette tapes.
Ah, those were the days. I remember London Drugs used to have a kick-ass computer department. I would buy floppy disks and other peripherals for my Commodore 64 from the (not so) nearby London Drugs because they always had the best selection and lowest prices. Weird that it’s a drug store.
Of course, with the purchase of my PC in 1998, I was deep in the world of 3½” floppy disks. What high-tech marvels those are compared to the 5¼” ones! 144 MB available!!! OH MY GOD HOW WILL I EVER FILL THAT?!?!?!
Actually, by the time I had gotten around to getting that PC, 144 MB was low. There were disk-splitting applications used to split files that were over that amount. There were also 5, 10, 15, and even 20 and up disk collections to install software.
Then the CD came and killed those little square disks…. mostly.
CDs are pretty much dead too, but they can still be bought. I just bought 10 of them a couple of weeks ago, actually. And because of my geekiness, I may still need to use CDs for data and floppy disks for some very limited uses regarding my very first computer.
But other than that, it’s USB flash drives all the way, baby.
And now that I’m done talking this ultimately pointless whimsy, I must now turn to something very sad.
Ronnie James Dio died today. He was 67, and he succumbed to stomach cancer. He was rocking and rolling till the end. He had an incredible career, first recording in 1958 and touring all the way up to 2010. So many great bands and albums along the way. I think I’ll be listening to Rainbow, Black Sabbath and Dio for the next few weeks to properly see him off.
\m/