July 2009 Archives

[Moozik: Tears For Fears - Pale Shelter]

A little drama around my building at lunchtime today. We have blokes painting outside...

Apparently one of them did something naughty as he was cuffed & stuffed by Phoenix PD a little later...

My tax dollars hard at work as it obviously takes three cars to cuff & question a cooperative suspect...

And then decide what to do with him...

[Moozik: Type O Negative - Summer Breeze]

I just upgraded to Movable Type 4.3 and as always, held my breath to see what disasters awaited me. To my pleasant surprise, no piles of poo have surfaced. This is now the third time in a row that I've upgraded and it went without a hitch.

Got to give Six Apart some credit, they're really making these upgrades easy. Almost boring. As anyone who has used MT for a while will attest to, upgrades didn't always go this smoothly. But now there's no troubleshooting, no tearing out of hair, no trying to figure out how to downgrade the database schema and roll back.

In short, it "just works". Which makes me happy.

[Moozik: American Head Charge - Cowards]

I think my interest in photography started about three years ago when I got my first "proper" camera. It's only a Sony DSC-H5 and not a fancy DSLR but it's perfect for me and to be honest, you can pry it from my cold dead fingers. Since I've owned it, taking photos has grown into one of my favorite hobbies. I love it.

Recently a reporter from the Arizona Republic newspaper found some of my photos and contacted me. After a brief chat she told me they were writing an article about amateur street photography in Phoenix and asked me if I'd mind being interviewed. Of course I didn't mind ;-)

She asked some very good questions and I enjoyed it immensely. I submitted some of my photos for possible inclusion in the article. Coming up with "five examples of Phoenix street photography from this year" proved a little more challenging that I thought. I ended up picking these.

Draped In Patriotism

Facing West

Path Of Reflection

Rest

Spiked

We Swallow Change

I still don't know if I'll end up being quoted in the article or whether any of my photos will be included. Still, I've never been interviewed before so it was all rather fun.

[Moozik: Type O Negative - Summer Breeze]

At various points in my life I've been somewhat overweight. It's like an up and down roller coaster ride with me. For the past couple of years I've struggled to keep the weight bearable by subscribing to the 'do more, eat less' school of thought. Sounds a lot easier than it actually is I can assure you because I get tempted by food so easily. I love food. Love it. And none more so than our friend, Uncle Ice Cream.

I can remember eating an entire Vienetta in one sitting back when I was a wee nipper. My Ice Cream addiction has not lessened as I've gotten older. Now of course, trips to Cold Stone Creamery are a must whenever we're out and about. And when we're not out and about, my other friend, Uncle Ben & Jerry's likes to pay a visit.

Chocolate Fudge Brownie

Cake Batter

Cheesecake Brownie

I'm a bit partial to chocolate so my all time favorite flavors of Ben & Jerry's contain chocolate in some degree. Limiting it to just three was a lot harder than I thought. There are so many amazing flavors to choose from.

I know you like Ice Cream as well, so what are your favorite flavors?

[Moozik: Ministry - Over The Shoulder]

I remember reading a magazine a few years back, I think it might have been Q, that had a big list of bands you must see before you die. I'm not entirely sure why that popped into my head today but it did, so I decided to have a think about of my own personal list of bands I've yet to see.

I've split my choices into three lists. The first of which is probably the most realistic, the last involves some witchdoctor resurrection and/or sciencey mojo.

1) Stand a decent chance of seeing these bands/artists because most/all of the original members are still together.

Duran Duran
Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Ministry
Iron Maiden
Rammstein
Peter Gabriel
The Killers
Marilyn Manson
Killing Joke
Jean-Michel Jarre
Human League
Gary Numan
Van Halen

2) Probably won't ever get to see unless by some miracle they decide to re-form.

New Order
The Smiths
Bauhaus
The Stone Roses
Yazoo (missed their reunion shows last year)
Japan

3) Some members will need to either come back from the dead or someone will have to invent time travel.

Joy Division
Queen
The Doors
The Beatles
Mozart
Nirvana
Elvis
Pavarotti

What about you, who would you like to see if given the chance?

[Moozik: KoRn - Got The Life]

Earlier I was in the mood for some music videos. I haven't had a gander at MTVMusic.com in a while, so I went to see if there was anything new of note.

Hmm, new stuff that doesn't suck? Say it ain't so.

IAMX - Think Of England

MGMT - Kids

Tiga - Shoes

Of course, some old faves are there too. I haven't seen these in ages. The Smiths on Top Of The Pops for the win I feel.

Elvis Costello - Oliver's Army

The Smiths - Shoplifters Of The World Unite

Flock Of Seagulls - I Ran

[Moozik: Front Line Assembly - Torched]

Recently I've seen Songkick mentioned a few times and thought it might be fun to check out. Basically Songkick allows you to keep track of all the concerts you've ever been to but in a social networky kind of way. They call it your gigography. Now, I'm really not all that interested in joining yet another social network site but thought it might be somewhat interesting for about 10 minutes to have a gander at past gigs I've been to so I signed up.

And that's where I ran into my first problem. I'm incredibly crap at keeping old concert ticket stubs. So while I vaguely remember that I saw Iggy Pop at the Cambridge Corn Exchange some time in 1993 (?), I don't have a clue what the actual date was. Songkick allows you to search for artists, cities, and venues in the hope some kind soul has already entered the info for you. If they have, you just click "I was there" and you're done. If they haven't then you're kind of buggered without your ticket stub.

So all my initial enthusiasm bit the dust rather quickly as there are so many gigs that I won't be able to add unless someone does all the legwork for me. Oh and then I still have to actually, you know, remember that I was there and manage to get the right year - was it the gig they did in 1991 or 1992? Hmm...

Still, I did manage to remember and find the first ever concert I went to. Erasure at the Birmingham NEC, 15th November 1988. I was 14.

Do you remember your first concert?

Update: see what I mean about remembering? Shakin' Stevens seems to have preempted Erasure by a couple of years. Cambridge Corn Exchange, I was 12.

[Moozik: The Prodigy - G-Force (Energy Flow)]

Writing movies reviews is hard. And time consuming. Today, not only am I feeling lazy but, quite frankly, sometimes I just don't know why I like or dislike a movie. I just know.

Taken. Very good. Liam Neeson actually believable as all round action bloke.

Gran Torino. Clint! Eastwood! Very good. Best movie of the weekend. He's old you know, that Eastwood fella.

The Good Night. Didn't think I was going to like it, started very slow, but got a lot better. So I ended up liking it after all. Gwyneth Paltrow's "I hope you shit your pants" was worth the watch alone.

Revolutionary Road. Very slow going. And to be honest, I only watched half of it because I was on the phone. So this really isn't any kind of review at all. My better half watched the whole thing, said it was depressing. So I won't be watching the rest of it.

[Moozik: Jesus Jones - Blissed]

I just had a mini cleanup of my iTunes library, got rid of some duplicates, songs I didn't even know I had, and albums I'll never listen to. Brought the song count down to 12,475 songs.

Now, some of those songs I've listened to a lot, and listen to all the time...

...and some songs I haven't even listened to once.

So I've decided that it's high time that I at least attempt to listen to those songs that I think I want to keep but for some reason haven't really gotten around to it. Enter iTunes Smart Playlists.

You can create some incredibly powerful playlists this way but sometimes the simplest are the best. Just give me the songs that have a playcount of less than ten.

So that's narrowed it down to 9142 songs. Which I suspect are going to be on heavy rotation for quite some time.

[Moozik: Clan Of Xymox - Stranger]

• BBQ last Saturday. Drank beer, played drums, and learned about Harley Davidson's from biker blokes. Now to convince my better half that buying a Harley is a good idea. Of course, will first have to learn how to actually, you know, ride a motorbike.

• He was an icon from my yooof and had hits that I grew up listening to, but come on now, can we pump the brakes a little on the wall-to-wall Michael Jackson coverage on TV? The media are really milking this to a level I've not seen before.

• The nice weather bloke on TV tells me that it will be 116° this weekend. So if I leave the frying pan outside on the sidewalk for a couple of hours, will it be hot enough to fry an egg? Hmmm, these are the things that keep me awake at night.

• My oldest friend is going to be a Dad for the first time. Congratulations are well in order and I couldn't be happier. The first drink this weekend is for you mate.

• For whatever reason I had the bright idea to have a little Rap experiment last week. So for a few days I listened to Rap whenever possible. Verdict? Rap complete shite. Well, except for Public Enemy. And the Beastie Boys but they don't really count do they?

[Moozik: Ascii.Disko - Nitrate]

Mobile phones have become one of those irreplaceable items to the point where we wonder how we ever lived without them. We did, obviously, but how much more convenient is it to call a person instead of a place? How much more convenient is it to be able to make a call wherever you are instead of having to find a bloody pay phone?

But it's not only that. Text, tweet, stream music, take photos, take video, upload files, find restaurants, surf the web, and play games. The world is your mobile oyster. And it's all very cool. I love it. But at what point is it too much? At what point have we become too plugged-in?

At the pub on Friday night, the amount of people sitting at the bar glued to their phones surprised me. I think I never really noticed before. Even couples on dates were doing it too. As soon as one of them went to the bathroom, out came the phone and the tweeting or texting or web surfing commenced. Like clockwork.

At the cinema on Saturday night, same thing. Phones out everywhere not only while the trailers are playing but during the actual movie itself. Everyone doing some mission critical task that can't possibly wait until the movie ends. You're not that important. You've paid to watch a movie right? Perhaps you should, I dunno, watch it?

Sunday night proved entertaining as well. We were at a concert and still people were texting and tweeting and talking on their phones. In the middle of a concert. Have you not paid to come and see this person live onstage? What could possibly be that important that you can't wait until the concert ends?

Now, I love gadgets & those internets as much as the next geek. But it's ok to sometimes leave your phone in your pocket. Really. The world will still continue, everything will be ok.

Kids today I tell you. Attention spans of goldfish. Now, get off my lawn.