September 2003 Archives
Check Troubled Diva's Thespian Life post. In the first paragraph he describes a number of characters. Imagine all of them. Imagine all of them combined in one person. Yeah. Like that. But we love him.
We spent a while in the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin - I've added those shots to the gallery: gallery. Sue's smelling the flowers. More Dublin shots over at Hg.
I don't seem to have the energy to move, let alone give an accurate account of my Dublin trip, which by now is a week ago - ancient history. Luckily there's Mr Hg.
Scott Walker photo page.
Sick of paying through the nose for prints. The new EOS 300D Canon EOS 300D is "Unbelievably good value for money, groundbreaking" and "highly recommended". Maybe next year.
Now playing: Can't find my way home - The Swans.
Last night a mix tape saved my life. Cool article about the cassette tape, now 40 years old and kicking. Much like myself. My oldest cassettes date back to 1975 - as noted in the article, they hold up pretty well. I'll have to dig them out.
I could kick myself for not recording Sinead O'Connor in London when MrHg and I went to see her last year. But now there is She Who Dwells. A farewell album. A compilation album with an extra live disc, capturing her live at Dublin's Vicar Street. Sinead was put on earth to breathe new life into the age old songs she covers on this album and to bless this world with her own tunes. I hope she finds the strength and conviction to turn her decision to leave the music business around. Because, dammit, Sinead, Ireland needs you. There's a 4-year old out there who needs to be wanting more. Ask Fionán - he'll tell ya.
The West Wing, fifth season premiere was fast paced and exciting with carefully painted in 'depth' (where it used to come natural, with Sorkin at its head). If they can keep this up, it'll be a great season. Also saw workprints of Angel S5x01 and x02. Season opener was 'ok', the second one confirmed all suspicions and fears formed when we learned a certain male character was added to the team. I do think Harmony is going to work as a replacement for Cordelia, but the other other new female character can choke on an apple for all I care. I've given up on the series Jake 2.0.
Beef jerky is dried flavoured meat. You eat it as a snack. I've never met anyone who liked it, but I have a fondness for it that springs back to childhood days and always being on the 'Injuns' side - they made 'pemmican', so dried meat was 'cool'. Sue brought me some of this: Oberto Beef Jerky. Barbecue flavour, very tasty.
The Ixus doesn't perform too shabby in low light circumstances. (update: EOS pictures added)
Continue reading Bubble boy.
Some pictures from my Dublin trip. Taken in: that fancy place 'Rob' something next to Samsara on Dawson street, The Gravediggers, Glasnevin Cemetary, the Botanic Gardens and the Stag's Head.
It’s crazy but I’m frightened by the sound of the telephone, oh yeah
I’m worried that the caller might have awful news, oh my’. I haven't listened to my Robert Palmer albums in years. I was a fan in the late 70s, thought he was the sexiest thing on earth. Long before Addicted to Love. Long before -- shudder -- Powerstation. Robert Palmer was a guest in the studio not 200 meters from my office last monday. Today he died of a heartattack, in Paris, at the age of 54.
The Octagon bar in the Clarence Hotel has a big cocktail menu. From it I chose Apple strudel martini: Vanilla infused vodka, apple schnapps and apple juice shaken and topped with cinnamon dust. Smells like apple pie, tastes delicious and darling, it went straight to my head. When can I go back to Dub?
Jacinthaaaaaa!
Have not slept since yesterday 7AM. Arrived AMS 9:15. Made it into work pre-11AM. Away with the fairies. Still processing yesterday af'noon, evening and night.
Full Irish, on the #19 bus, Glasnevin Cemetary, right right right, walk walk walk, Botanic Gardens, photo op, roast pork (got some!), and a hoarse horse. So far so brill. Tomorrow's the big day - /me "crew" w/ permission to "photograph, record, document" in any way. Scoping out the vibe 11am in the morning. Happy.
How To: By You -An Experiment in Intuition: How to: Cook the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. On the new "How to: By you" weblog, this amusing thread about what we'd call a 'tosti' over here. Amazed at Brits not knowing their own bread. OK, so it's not called "English toasting bread", but it's the thick cut loaves of dense white 'bread' you find in any U.K. supermarket. Some are cut 'extra thick', for toasting.
Continue reading Toast.
Upcoming.org is a "collaborative event calendar". 's a long time since I've seen the term 'collaborative' used on a site since it was completely obliterated by the word 'weblog'. A warm welcome back.
MORNING TEAM.com has the new R.E.M. video for Bad Day.
Despite being home ill, bloated, feverish... my god do I want a slice of that. A few months ago I had a conversation concerning pork. This group of young folk were telling me they didn't like pork because it was tasteless. "That's because this health-crazy country cuts all the lovely fat off the pork." They laughed as if I were joking. "I'm serious." Blank stares. Someone piped in: "But I don't LIKE the fatty bits." I sighed and said: "You don't have to EAT the fatty bits if you don't want to... but you have to COOK the meat with the fat left on. The taste is in the fat - leave it on so the meat can soak up the flavour!" I was cast incredulous looks. Someone said: "My mum always cut it off." Your mum is stupid. And wrong. That's what I thought. But I didn't say it. Too busy ranting. "...or cut most of it off, sweat the bits in a pan and then use that to cook the meat in! 's Lovely!" I think I frightened them. Passion, it's best to hide it.
I had to go lie down (in the office's work out room). Add 'lots of pain' to symptoms.
Continue reading Ouch.
Listen to clips of Marc Almond's new album Heart On Snow. He's gone all Russian. And still out of tune. Still Marc.
Johnny Cash, various footage from the BBC -- he talks to Jools Holland about singing loudly on his way back home when he was young, because he could hear panthers. He also mentions the first song he ever heard, which his mother sang to him.
BBC British Music Guide: "In the 1970s and 80s, a wave of industrial and abrasive bands like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire pushed the boundaries while The Aphex Twin and Squarepusher pushed "intelligent dance music" -- so called because it is not very easy to dance to -- to the fore in the 1990s."
:: needledrop :: is the new band formed by the Fun Lovin Criminals ex-drummer with a girl he met on tour with the Criminals in Ireland. It sounds like diluted and emasculated old skool Tricky. (That would be Dido.)
Science Fiction Movie and TV Reviews: "Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy is being adapted into a four-hour miniseries that will be executive-produced by Kevin Brown and Lawrence Bender. The miniseries will cover A Wizard of Earthsea, Tales of Earthsea and Tombs of Atuan." I'll let that sink in for a while. [ ... ] FAAAAAAAACKIN'ELL!
This article on John Ritter's death mentions Alias Smith and Jones, one of the most popular 70s series to grace Dutch TV screens. It's heartthrob star, Pete Duel, shot himself watching an episode of the series in which he was shot. (That's how I remember it, but I was 8 or 9 at the time.) The whole thing was clouded in mystery - and there wasn't much news to be had other than the delayed and brief headlines in Dutch magazines. It made a big impression then on a still innocent generation. These days when an actor dies we find out before the body's cooled, and details of his or her demise will have been posted, gone around the world, discussed and twisted, applauded and belittled before the funeral was planned. Don't you think we need more mystery in life?
When we(bloggers) were young. Tom reminisces 'bout the early days. In the comments, Nick remembers the Cabal™. There should be a club for people who remember the Cabal™. Secret handshake and all. I miss those days, before Knowspam was needed, before the check out girl in the corner shop started living out her daydreams at GeoCities, before we were all dragged into making a living out of what was our little secret. If you stumble upon the next big thing? Ssss! Don't tell anyone!
Michael Wilson's unedited account of coming down from the 51st floor of the WTC. Written a year and a half after the event. (via techno\culture)
Weekend not wasted after all. I noticed there was a spiegeltent in the park at the end of my street. It was the 'Idolize'. "Wouldn't it be funny if it were the same one Gavin's appearing in next week in Dublin?" Checked with the man, and whaddayaknow, it's the same tent. So I was sent out on a reconnaisance mission, checking out the vibe of the place and the stage in particular. The wankers wouldn't let me in, but I was allowed to check it out from the door and could report back positively. Mission accomplished.
Mine was a totally useless weekend in which I was tired a lot (finding myself asleep at the computer, head tilted in unnatural poses!), skipped a planned trip to the cinema to see The Quiet American, ate and drank bad food and managed to make my old computer go 'poof' (apparently some boot.ini crap, "NLDR is missing"). I contemplated writing a longer post about Portobello Road, inspired by Vaughan's photos, but I didn't think I would have something to say that I haven't said 100 times before. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm in a rut. Next weekend, everything will be better. I promise.
Has anyone seen the movie The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? Is it as bad as the reviews make it out to be? (I don't know the graphic novels.)
I hadn't been to Firda's site in a while and so I had not heard her mother passed away last month. Firda's writing letters to heaven.
Interesting post and thread on bilingual conversations and 'code switching'. I can switch between English and Dutch effortlessly most of the time and speak a bit of French and German as well.
Continue reading I'm bi.
If your Fridaynight is making your Saturday a little fuzzy, here's the cure: Badgers (Flash)
Seen some new stuff lately. Charisma Carpenter's TV film 'See Jane Date', which was dismal - though Charisma wasn't. David Greenwalt's Jake 2.0, about a NSA computer helpdesk tech who, in a lab accident, is infested with nano technology, which gives him superpowers. The NSA then employs him as a spy. It's Alias and Spiderman's bastard child. Could be interesting, but so far it isn't - found the main character completely unappealing. Also fast forwarded through the season opener of Enterprise S3. They've managed to make the theme tune worse by diminishing its country feel and making it more 'modern'. Ugh. I think Trek has lost its grip on me completely. But... recent spoilers for Angel are good! Is it me or are they making it more Buffy-ish, S2/3?
First came Listamatic, now there's Listutorial, simple tutorials on CSS based lists. The step by step simple CSS rollover lists is enlightening.
How long till there's a Blaine Livejournal? The Guardian: "Next, in his solitary confinement, Blaine takes up what we know, from Campbell's breathless tribute, to be "his journal". "Day one," says a man behind me, "Sat in a glass box." "Day two, still sitting in a glass box. Day three... " " (via Simon)
Buzz Rodell, who writes the O.C. blog "The Pool House", dropped by after I (rather harshly) dissed the tone of voice on the blog and said: "I'm still trying to find that balance between entertaining and over-the-top. In time, I'll work that out." Which is classy. More power to him. Hope they add comments to the blog.
Moviehole talks to Michael Caine, promoting his new film Secondhand Lion, and asks him "What gives you the greatest amount of pleasure these days?" Caine says: "Getting it right, getting to the end of a difficult take where you know you’ve hit everything and it’s absolutely perfect, and the director says “cut”, and you almost hear the technicians going “shew”. You get that and that’s like a drug, because a shiver goes down your spine when you’ve done it."
From the remarkably reverend Metafilter thread: "Marty Stuart told me that in the last few months, two vultures had taken up residence on the Cash property, and they would sit outside the window of John's office and stare at him. And John would stare back at them."
Daler Mehndi - Tunak Tunak Tun. Partial to the music, the vid's hilarious. Elsewhere on the site, albinoblacksheep.com: Tokyo Breakfast.. What IS all this? (Got this via Smoel.nl)
This is for Dutch readers. Check out Omroep.nl's new and improved www.uitzendinggemist.nl. With a new Top 5 of broadband webcasts, A-Z navigation and 'Gisteren gemist?'. Spread the word, webloggers of our nation, every little bit helps.
"No, I'm not bitter. Why should by bitter? I'm thrilled to death with life. Life is -- the way God has given it to me was just a platter -- a golden platter of life laid out there for me. It's been beautiful." Thus spoke Johnny Cash in an interview with Larry King in November 2002. Johnny Cash died in hospital in Nashville last night. He was 71 years old. Here's a 1972 concert of him. And via Bieslog, the last song on his last album: We'll meet again. (real)
I applied for a free Blogger hoodie. (Perhaps I should explain that now that Blogger Pro is folding, all Pro users have been offered a refund or a hoodie in return for their support) Got an error message saying no record was found. E-mailed support. This is the answer: "We have been unable to find a record of your Pro upgrade purchase. Can you please provide us with more information about the purchase date or the last 4 digits of the credit card used? A copy of the transaction verification email could also be useful if you still have it." For crying out loud, I've been using Blogger since 1999, beta testing and what not and upgraded the minute Pro was released. I am USING Pro. Surely they can see that? Take your hoodie and stuff it up your Google.
Franz Ferdinand - Darts of Pleasure. (via Hg) More about the band. Great single, shades of the Stranglers!
Sars, of TWOP fame, is looking for Don - the man who kept her company on 9/11 in New York.
From my stats at Knowspam.net I can see there are three domains that feature the most in spam: yahoo, hotmail and aol.com. I'm toying with the idea of sending them all straight to /dev/null in their entirity. (Would it be arrogant to say: You want to e-mail, get a real e-mail address or a better provider?) I think I'll start with yahoo.com.
Amsterdamstories.com, the first citystories site after SFstories.com is one of my bastard children. I don't have the volume of material to fill it and don't know how to encourage others to contribute. I've failed where places like Seattlestories.com, DublinStories.org and Utrechtstories.com (though that site's been dormant for a while) have succeeded. If someone would care to take over and make this baby thrive, I would be very grateful. You (or a team of youse) have to live in Amsterdam. Drop me a line.
My provider XS4ALL, is upping our ADSL speeds again. Was 1536/256 Kbit/s, will be 2048/320Kbit/s per November 3 and the price is going down EURO 6,12 to a total of Euro 79,95 a month. How does that measure up to where you live and your provider?
OEbase is music site with 'hand picked' CDs and DVDs for sale, a music weblog and free MP3s. It's run by founding members of Shriekback and Gang of Four. (MeFi found)
It's just another day. Until you start reading survivor stories.
If you're in Monaco, you may want to check out SuperWarhol. (Flash)
Blogger Pro discontinued. Features folded into free Blogger.
'Official' blog of the TV Series 'The O.C.': THE POOL HOUSE, written by an 'insider' who has a rather annoying tone of voice. And what to think about this: 'Pool Haus for our European readers'. He's forgotten that, thanks to his liberating ass, not all of us over here speak German?
Boom. La. La. (Flash)
Chris's Josh has a weblog. Cultivated Stupidity and it's full of stuff I want to read. Sinead. Jarvis. Who needs more than one reason?
Subtraction, fab looking MT driven site.
Pixies reuniting. I'm thinking NOOOOO, keep that monkey in heaven! It better be good or they'll experience the biggest backlash in the history of music.
Hill Street Blues is being repeated on RTL5. I haven't seen it in a couple of years - I'm surprised how well it's holding up, it doesn't look dated at all. Is it because that whole 70s thing is hip right now, or is it because it was an exceptionally good series? Both, I'm sure. It's great watching the first few episodes of S1, it might even be the first time for me.
Flash god Joshua Davis (not to be confused with Wired's Joshua Davis) has developed software that re-compiled video in halftone format. Check the site for a demo (under 'news'). Very cool effect.
Sea Change Educator's Guide: "Eighteen photographic artists from all avenues of contemporary practice who share the same classical subject -- the sea." (via HillmanCurtis.com)
: : Speak Up : :, web design magazine. Looks pretty, great use of MT. (via De Lijst)
Japan, Sylvian, Rain Tree Crow repackaged. The Raft is streaming videos for Orpheus and Nightporter. The Brilliant Trees sleeve looks gorgeous. The interviews on the albums are a bit, um, dull: "How did you hook up with Holger , was he the German guy?" DS: Yeah."
Poor Ollie! (And poor Dean. And Gail. And Hugo.) I'm a sad old person who starts to sniffle reading the story of someone's dog she's never met who needed emergency surgery. He's ok, thank heavens.
There's a reason messaging/chat/irc is so popular. It's because you don't have to open your mouth to speak and can just sit there idling comfortably (for hours) without having to say something. It's a 24/7 sunday afternoon reading the papers on the couch with your room mates kind of comfort zone. Lovely. But the people who built Kazaa have built Skype, P2P telephony. We haf vays and means to make you speak, geek!
So, Helena Christensen can take photographs. Interesting shot of Bono's head half submerged in water.
Dive into mark on the Disneyfication of Pooh: "...you know what we really need here? clothes. it’s just completely unbelieveable that all these make-believe animals are frolicking around in a forest with no visible means of economic support, talking and carrying on and writing bad poetry and generally displaying signs of higher-order intelligence, but none of them are wearing any clothes."
MT user and getting comments spam? Seven quick tips for a spam-free blog. (via etc)
Erik Benson, creator of All Consuming, the force behind Seattlestories.net has publishe his book Man Versus Himself.
Radio 4 spoke (all too briefly) with Salam Pax: the Baghdad Blogger. Interesting to hear his voice. His book was published this week. He says about the war: "It had to happen this way. From inside there was no hope." He's addicted to blogs..
Fairvue Central: Nikolai (creator of the Bloggies, celebrating four years in weblogging) back, with a fab looking site. Check out his 26Things feature and play with the horizontal/vertical switches.
Hydragenic: "...fill the comments box with your most heartless potted descriptions of my cranky old self." Personally, I cannot think of anything unkind to say about Mr Hg. But that's because my brain is vewwy vewwy tired. I once said he is the Jonathan Meades of weblogging.
Angel 5x01 trailer and screencaps . Not too long till the season starts. I'm trying to stay spoiler free, which shouldn't be too much of a problem since I'm not that invested in the show.
After Life, photos taken at Streatham Cemetery. Some are animated (flash), use your mouse... (via the K)
While the new U2log.com is still in production I decided to try out building a small website in MT. I picked Virginprunes.com because it desperately needed better navigation and a makeover in preparation of impending re-releases on Mute Records next year.
Continue reading VP makeover.
A Picture's Worth - essays on photographs of personal significance. Submit a photo and your story.
Romantic comedies, they're all the same. Two Weeks Notice is no different. But Hugh Grant is in it, which makes it compulsory fodder and I'll even suffer Sandra Bullock for it. An added bonus was the absolutely eerie similarity to part of my life at the moment. Made me chuckle just that bit extra. Oh and Grant looks adorable in tennis shorts. (And he can play, good technique and all! Unlike Bullock, most of whose forehands would have gone over the fence had the camera followed through.)
Jarvis Cocker on the painter John Currin, who did some of Pulp's album sleeves. 'He communicated the general discomfort that was being felt by Pulp."
Just when I had planned my day off indoors and online, someone comes and messes it all up by dragging me out for lunch, shopping, people watching and a spot of Chinese. Friends. They're the DEVIL, I tell ya.
Our train was delayed this morning. The woman (late 20's) next to me pulled out her mobile while we were stuck at Naarden/Bussum station and rang her mother. She rang her mother to tell her she was going to be late. She rang her mother to ask her for advice. She rang her mother because she was going to be a little late for work and what to do about it. Her mother - who was very loud - told her to just go in and tell the truth, the train was delayed. The woman then asked her mother whether she should first pick up her new I.D. from somewhere, or whether she should go straight into work. Her mother told her to make the decision depending on how long the train was going to be delayed. They then took a few minutes saying goodbye. 'Call you later,' the woman said.
Browncoats say No Surrender. 'Firefly' lands in film afterlife. Fox cancelled the new show by Joss Whedon after criminally mistreating it, not promoting it and more or less wishing it dead before it even started. Universal bought the movie rights. Now wouldn't it be something if the movie resulted in a TV spin off... They can't take this show away from me. Congrats Joss. (CNN picked it up too.)
"I know that it's wrong, but ’if you need me, I’m here’, turns me on, I can’t help thinking it’s a miracle you’re here."
Bowie, Reality. I'd like to say to him "David, darling, just because the whole world is revisiting the 80s doesn't mean you have to follow suit. It wasn't your best decade." (One good track on it: Bring me the disco king)
Fab photo of the Polyphonic Spree playing live at Lowlands. (link now works)
Fabchannel.Com - Live and on demand concerts from Paradiso in broadband streaming video. Straight from the infamous Amsterdam pop venue.
Pull quotes, yay.
Next time I smile at ya, you'll know what I really mean to say.
Queer Eye's Carson: "'Can you do anything with this?' I'm really tempted to say, 'No, absolutely not. And put him down, please.' But usually what comes out of my mouth is, 'No, he's really handsome. Just lose the pleats."'"
Since I started at my current job I've worked on a lot of the 'verticals' (portals) that we have - but religion and multiculture in particular. Since a couple of days I've been running the music site next to the multiculture one, just temporarily (understaffed, natch). But I'm happy to say that as from today I'm taking over music completely (and will run the Radio 4 - classical music site AND keep an eye on the health page...) . It's a general music site covering pop, jazz and classical (I like that broad approach). I'm stoked, as they say.
one word. so little time.. You get 60 seconds to write about one word. (via storyblog)
Hugo's almost as big as Oliver already. Oliver's my internet boyfriend.
Slimming for the Beach :: Philip Casey's weblog on Irish writing and other engrossments. Have exchanged e-mails with Philip in the past (though I cannot remember exactly what about - may have been around the time I had a site called Henry Street, an Irish site guide) - didn't know he had a personal site and blog now.
Dubliners to get wireless broadband at nearly half the cost of DSL and matching speed. Right then, moving to Dublin now an option.
Didn't know Dead Like Me had a proper site. I've been following the series. Its' quite fun but they are obviously still finding their way with it and it doesn't have a Joss Whedon-type mind behind it. In fact they've already got rid of the guy who created the show. For the Brits reading this, Sky2 just bought the series.
I'm not pro or contra cannabis. I don't smoke it (though I have in the past), I hate the smell of it, I don't mind other people smoking it as long as they don't do it in my face. I object to kids smoking it on the trains as you see so often here. Anyway, the Netherlands is now the only country whose government supplies the durg to pharmacies: Cannabis as a prescription drug. The article contains an interview with an American expatriate who moved to Holland after he was arrested in his own country: "Now after 20 years, Mr Burton has become an official cannabis supplier to the Dutch government. He finds it ironic that in this capacity he'll soon be exporting marijuana into the US for new research purposes."
It's absolutely astounding how much information has been gathered on our new WhedonWiki in just a couple of days. I toyed with the stylesheet last night - I think it looks better now. (update: well, it looked good until I decided to do white on black) Quite like Trebuchet when it's large like in the headers.
Interpol live at Lowlands this weekend. There's lots more at VPRO's 3voor12. Use the dropdown at the top to go to Saturday and Sunday.
Too many people asked me today: "Charles Bronson? Who is he?" I'm either old or perhaps people just don't remember actors. I remember as a kid, Chato's Land was one of my favourite westerns. I always sided with the 'injuns'.
This year's Dublin trip is turning into "Dublin - The Gathering part II: Reunion". Which is good.
Two suggestions for Interpol (the band) I picked up somewhere: "Either go darker, or go lighter. And Gary Numan should produce them." Thoughts? (It must be important because I woke up with it this morning.)