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[30 Jun 2007|04:03pm] |
Alan Davies
Marat Safin
Suspicious... have they ever been seen together? I expect not!
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[08 Apr 2007|06:39pm] |
Hmm, I don't think this program has done anything other than just pick the celebrities who have photos that are smiling and slightly in profile. I'm certainly not convinced I look anything like crazy-scientology-dwarf.
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[01 Apr 2007|05:09pm] |
I am very excited but also somewhat confused by the prospect of the new Bjork album. Excited because it features Brian Chippendale (from Lightning Bolt) and Chris Corsano (from just about every interesting band of the last few years) amongst other people, but confused by it being described as "[...]the most commercial thing she's ever done" by the head of One Little Indian. I guess Timbaland is producing it, so there may be a bit of a commercial draw there, but the previous two collaborators don't really scream 'commercial' to me. I hope their role isn't just limited to token appearances, because the prospect of a Bjork record with the amazing rhythmic and percussive backbone these two could offer is pretty mouth-watering. Konono # 1 are on there too, and they are no slouches when it comes to a beat either. Bjork should have tried to get Zach Hill or Damon Che on the record too to complete some kind of Holy Triumvirate of modern rock drummers.
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[03 Mar 2007|12:47pm] |
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Ghost - In Stormy Nights |
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Has anyone else seen this?
( Intense idiocy contained within... )
I'm becoming increasingly sure that the so-called 'liberal bias' that is apparently so prevalent in the media, and is constantly bemoaned by people like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh in the US, is really just the well-considered opinions of right-minded people which somehow offends their deeply skewed and disturbing worldview.
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[20 Nov 2006|05:02pm] |
A useful rule of thumb for deciding if science articles in newspapers are worth paying attention to, I find, is to skim it and see if the word 'boffin' is used at any point. This article is a prime example; My expectations weren't very high for a science article in the Mirror, but Jesus Christ this is a load of nonsense.
"IT sometimes takes a mighty hammer to crack a tiny nut. And none are more aware of this than scientists in Geneva, who are overseeing a vast engineering project that they hope will unlock some of the greatest secrets of the universe. What they discover may be used for the benefit of all mankind - including the reversal of global warming."
Whoa, hold your horses! This is the first I'd heard of it. Here I was labouring away under the misapprehension that the LHC was, if anything, going to contribute to global warming due to the huge amounts of energy required to run it. It appears however that we are in fact going to solve the problem for ever, whew, that makes my conscience a lot clearer.
"There could be signs of hidden dimensions of space beyond the three we know or exotic particles nobody has ever seen before. The Holy Grail, though, is the elusive Higgs boson, the part of an atom nicknamed the 'God particle'."
Part of the atom, eh? That one's news to me too, you learn something new every day! It only gets better though:
"But if the experiment is a success, the benefits of controlling the God particle could be mind-blowing. Mass and gravity could be manipulated in a way that is currently the stuff of science fiction. Tractor beams, as seen on TV shows such as Star Trek, would allow the manipulation of giant objects without any effort."
Wow! That's bloody brilliant! Just like Star Trek, you say? Marvellous. Will we be able to get some of those nice Heisenberg Compensator thingies too? I've heard they work very well...
"More crucially, anti-gravity propulsion engines could enable travel without burning polluting fuels - solving perhaps the planet's most urgent problem."
Ah, okay, so that explains (in terms of the article's internal consistency, not any factual basis I hasten to add) the 'reverse global warming' statement - Although it strikes me that this would only actually perhaps slow or alleviate global warming, rather than actually reversing it, lowering the global temperature precipitating a new ice age perhaps. Semantics aside, Mr. Pie, I'd like you to meet my good friend Mr. Sky.
Damien Fletcher, you are a moron.
...and no, I'm not just annoyed because LHCb (or any LHC B-physics program for that matter) isn't mentioned.
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[11 Nov 2006|05:41pm] |
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Two posts in one day may be a little excessive but I feel I would be remiss if I did not report on one of the strangest thing I've heard in a while: A bass clarinet version of Roots Bloody Roots by Sepultura. It can be found in all its glorious WTF-ness here.
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| Cheese is a kind of meat, A tasty yellow beef... |
[11 Nov 2006|04:04pm] |
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Kemialliset Ystavat - Savuava Harmonia |
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Had fondue for dinner last night; extremely weird, multiple-layer dreams ensued. One of the layers of the dream was me thinking 'that was a weird dream I just had'. The wonders of cheese. 
So far, I'm quite enjoying being in Geneva; the streets are paved with cheese and beer comes in towers. The fact that I'm not actually living in Geneva, but just across the border in France, is becoming slightly irritating though. It means that I usually have to leave whatever shindig is going on while the night is but young, in order to catch the last number 9 bus home. It does have some advantages, my apartment is bigger than the ones most of the students have (and has an oven - a very lusted-after commodity) and the cheese is cheaper on this side of the divide. I'll be moving into Geneva itself in a month or so, so I guess I shouldn't get too attached to these things.
Farewell for now, cheese-fans...
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[11 Oct 2006|04:45pm] |
I know it is not very nice to laugh at people's strongly held beliefs, but come on...
"Whenever I walk into my youth group, rock is being played. I feel Satan's control start to tighten"
"I would like to share a little testimony concerning my experience with 'Christian rock' music. I had listened to this music with my friends and at church social functions for several years before I got my own tape, recorded by a famous artist. Buying that tape was the biggest mistake of my life. Under its influence, my moral convictions began to dissolve and I allowed myself to become involved in a relationship with a boy from my church, against my parents' wishes."
Most importantly, don't EVER join a christian rock band, or this might happen:
Yes, chrisitan rock inevitably leads to Vampirism. Of course, there's no real eveidence for it, but it is scientific fact!
These are among the less abhorrent cartoons that can be found at Chick.com, what follows is not funny in the slightest, and I'll warn you, it may result in you wanting to smash your computer screen to pieces just to make it go away:
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[05 Oct 2006|05:44pm] |
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( Huh? )
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[30 Sep 2006|04:54pm] |
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The restaurants at CERN provide menus in English and French, but I don't think the staff take much care when doing the translation (infact, they probably just use babelfish), hence 'Filet de Blue Marlin' becomes 'Fillet of Blue Wizard', 'Champignon Vol au Vents' were offered as 'Mushrooms Flight of the Wind' and best of all, 'Croque Monsieur'... 'Man Eat'.
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[18 Jul 2006|06:30pm] |
too...hot..to...function...properly...
actually, I revise my statement: Yesterday it was too hot to function properly - today we remembered that the windows in our office can actually be opened, so it was a much more pleasant temperature with a nice breeze coming in. I have realised that of late all I seem to talk about on here is what records I've bought recently; this post is no different but I will be considerate and put it under a cut for those (most people, I'd imagine) who really couldn't give a toss about what I've been listening to over the weekend.
( Records )
We have a very adventurous mouse living under our sofa - mostly the mice in our flat scamper away as quick as a flash when you come into a room, but this one doesn't seem to care, it just stands in the middle of the room and looks at you. It was smart enough to know to dart for cover when Duncan threw the TV remote at it, but this mouse has some serious balls.
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[05 Jul 2006|05:05pm] |
Usually I can take or leave the Go! Team, but I've just heard their cover of Sonic Youth's 'Bull In The Heather' and it is ridiculously ace; Some excellently authentic SY-style guitar skronking with added glockenspiel and shouty massed vocals. I hope it is released as a single, a 7" of it would be perfection, but I fear that is unlikely. I heard it listening to Phil Jupitus' 6Music breakfast show, and it was a rare gem (along with 'A Message To You Rudy', surely The Specials' finest moment) in a mire of mediocrity. Lily Allen? For god's sake, just because she's an 'internet sensation' doesn't excuse the fact that her single sounds like Atomic Kitten. They also had Mani from Primal Scream claiming that PS are 'the greatest rock band around at the moment' or something equally moronic, 'Country Girl' was one of the lamest excuses for country rock I've ever heard, Neil Young could toss off a song in 20 seconds that would piss on it from a height of several miles. The show finished with 'emo-tronica' from Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly... As much as I wanted to like this guy, based entirely on his name, his whiny, sensitive-boy-with-a-guitar schtick, coupled with lame-ass powerbook strings and beats in an attempt to be 'cutting-edge' which is sadly about 5 years behind the times, left me completely unimpressed. My friend Ben does an ostensibly similar thing in one of his many and varied music-making personae (ie acoustic guitar + laptop + vocals) but about 50 times better.
On a more positive note, all of the tracks I've heard so far from the new Johnny Cash album (can someone have a new album when they've been dead for 3 years? Latest posthumous release of previously recorded material might be more appropriate) sound absolutely wonderful, and I will be buying it ASAP. I'm also eagerly awaiting delivery of albums by The Olivia Tremor Control, Flying and a This Heat box-set - 6CDs of groundbreaking, experimental post-punk goodness.
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[03 Jul 2006|02:58pm] |
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Fuck Yeah!!! This better not be another false alarm getting my hopes up again...
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[12 Jun 2006|12:23pm] |
I read a great joke this morning...
What is yellow and smells of bananas?
Monkey Sick
Made me laugh anyway.
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[05 Jun 2006|04:00pm] |
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Richard Youngs - Garden of Stones |
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"We declared war on terror—it’s not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I’m sure we’ll take on that bastard ennui."
"Donald Rumsfeld. Love him or hate him, you've gotta admit: a lot of people hate him."
I feel very proud to share a birthday with this guy - a fact I wasn't aware of until today. The things you learn when you're trying to avoid writing a presentation... I also share my birthday with William Blake, Friedrich Engels, and an 'Adult Film Star' called Lexington Steele (here's a hint - I don't think that's his real name).
I had a very weird experience the other night, I was in bed asleep and dreaming, but suddenly I became aware of this fact. I believe this is called 'Lucid Dreaming' - William Burroughs wrote on the subject quite frequently, and his friend Brion Gysin devised a machine to aid people in the pursuit of this experience by flashing multicoloured light infront of their eyes as they enter REM sleep. I remembered reading that if you become aware that you are dreaming, you can control the content of the dream, so I gave this a try. Once I had decided to do this, everything became white (like that bit in the Matrix where Morpheus is showing Neo 'The Construct') with objects only appearing as I thought directly about them. It was difficult though, because I now had to conciously and explicitly construct every object and sensation in the dream, rather than them coming from my subconcious. If I wasn't thinking explicitly about something, it would fade away, and If I tried to create something large or complex it was very vague and diffuse almost like a pencil sketch. It was very strange all in all, and thinking about it later I wondered if I had actually been aware that I was dreaming, or just (because I was aware of the concept) just dreaming that I was having a lucid dream and the whole thing along with the idea of self-awareness was just a product of my unconscious mind.
One thing is sure, I should eat less cheese before going to bed.
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[09 May 2006|04:56pm] |
Next time you're reading an LJ post and someone misuses an apostrophe, send them to the...
GRAMMAR CRISIS ROOM!
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[04 May 2006|05:01pm] |
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The Guardian has undoubtedly the worst music writers I've ever read anywhere. See this article for a case in point. I cannot believe people get to paid to write the stuff they put in the newspaper (even less-so the stuff on the website), a brain-damaged chimp could do a better job. I guess the solution is just to stop reading them, but it still irks me that these people seem so clueless. I know they probably have editors telling them what they ought to write about, but surely everyone is sick to death of hearing about the fucking Arctic Monkeys by now.
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[02 May 2006|03:52pm] |
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Wow, an awesome week has just been had by me. Went down to Manchester last Tuesday to see the Flaming Lips (for the 2nd time in a week) who put on the kind of show that only they are capable of. For those of you who've never seen them - imagine the best 5th birthday party it would ever be possible to have and set it to brilliantly skewed pop music made by lovable Oklahomans who may have taken more than a little acid in their time. Back up to Edinburgh on Wednesday, off the train just in time to get some dinner and head out to see Akron/Family who were absolutely unbelievable. This band are good on record but about 50 times better live. The music goes wherever the whim takes them, from dreamy freeform droning to full on psychedelic wig-outs via country-gospel-postrock with handclaps. Adem, who was supporting, was also good and again much better than the records of his I've heard previously. Thursday night was Silver Jews night, who played a brilliant set of stone-cold classic songs including my personal favourites 'Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed' and 'Animal Shapes'. Theeeeeen, down to Anglesey on Friday with some old friends from school. Had a great time, stayed in a beautiful place right by the beach. I was introduced to the game 'Ring of Fire' which was responsible for me feeling very hung-over, and the peculiar drink known as Toffoc, a product of Anglesey which had precisely the same effect.
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