William Gibson stops blogging to get on with writing again. Yay!/Boo!
Project Gutenberg of Australia (via Polly). It follows Australian copyright laws so has more content than the US based site. For the moment. Until George visits and stuffs everything.
Planned a trip to JB HiFi this lunch time but rain/cold got in the way. Plan to pick up new five track Regurgitator live DVD, David Bowie's new one, new Powderfinger single, new Ween album and hopefully the Underworld "Back To Mine" compilation. Would pick up new UNKLE and Fantomas but they're not out yet darn it. Frustrating to know someone is completed and ready to be listened to and the only reason you can't get it is because of some stupid arbitary physical distribution date.
I'll probably go to JB tonight, but I'm betting they'll have maybe one of the CDs I want. They rarely have stuff I want on the date of release.
The band has been offered a good deal on some management. Very expensive though and I don't think we'll really get anything out of it until we have the EP done... band meeting Wednesday.
Gig at Laundry went well. Thanks for the review Damien and Dave. Photos! (thanks Kenn). Getting a bit sick of technical problems though (foldback again) and one of the bass strings was a tiny bit flat but I suppose it's his turn after all the tuning I did at the Dan O'Connell. New songs went down well. Next gig possibly at The Tote. Waiting for them to get back to us.
Got a parking ticket. I spent 5 hours in a 2 hour park so it's my fault. It's only (*cough*) $50. I was expecting $100. I got the ticket only 10 minutes after going out and checking I didn't have a ticket yet.
The URL on the back on City of Yarra parking fine tickets is wrong (http instead of https).
What's more, my ticket isn't even in their system yet. Big messages asking me to pay as soon as possible and apparently it can be up to three working days before my ticket is added. Rude.
Some smart-arses ripped our letterbox out of the ground on Saturday night. Maybe... it could have been the wind, but I don't think it was strong enough to break a metal pipe.
Review of crappy cheapo DVDs part 2:
The Lady Vanishes (1938) was Hitchcock's last "low budget" film before hitting the bigtime. Very amusing (except for a few quite rank racist jokes, garlic breath, get it, but of course the English jokes were funny) and interesting story of a woman who falls asleep on a train (having been brained by a falling flowerpot) and discovers the "middle aged" woman she was travelling with is missing. No one will believe she's gone.
The Terror (1963) looks older than it is. The version we saw was very faded and damaged. "Shot in about 4 or 5 days right after completing 'The Raven'" (imdb.com). Staring a young Jack Nicholson (Andre) as a lost French officer from Napoleon's army who spots a young woman on a beach, who dissapears into the ocean. Andre tries to follow but nearly drowns. He wakes in an old womans house and is told the young woman doesn't exist, please go away. Being a stuborn idiot he continues on searching for the woman, finding an old Baron in a creepy old castle. Nothing happens beyond what I told you for most of the rest of the film. The last 15 minutes it all goes to hell like an episode of Passions with crazy impossible twists all over the place. The young girl is possessed. The old woman is seeking revenge for the murder of her son by the Baron. Except the Baron didn't do it, his servent did. Except his servent didn't, the Baron did. Except the Baron IS her son. The old woman has been using the girl to channel the Baron's wife (who he killed because she was sleeping with Eric, the old woman's son) to trick the Baron into killing himself so he can be with his long lost wife. Somewhere in there someone gets their eyes gouged out by a bird. Then it ends with a swim in the big crypt pool of fun, the old woman catching fire and some crappy skull vs. oil effects. Rubbish. Apparently God's only unforgivable sin is suicide. Must remember that. Sorry if I've ruined it for you but you're better off this way, really.
More recently (last Saturday) Pirates of the Caribbean was great fun. The script was a little bit jumpy, never really sure if it was trying to be funny or violent and there were a few yawnful spots. But the whole movie looked fantastic. Massive body count for a Disney film. And it had a monkey in it.
CD business vs. DVD business [via Slashdot]:
People listen to the average CD many more times than they watch a DVD. Yet CDs are languishing in stores and DVDs are flying off the shelves. How to see this other than sheer music industry incompetence?
I'll be interested to see if anyone thinks the movie business is so clever in 5 years time when everyone can download a whole DVD quality movie in 5 minutes, with extras included.
Beatles record label Apple Music sues iPod maker and iTunes seller, AppleMusic. They have a contract from years ago that says Apple can continue to use the "Apple" name as long as it doesn't enter the music business.
I wonder if Alex will start a breathless Robbie Williams fansite. Hey, I like Robbie too but $100+ is too much cash for a guy I can see live on DVD. David Bowie on the otherhand...
Havn't they known for decades that mobile phones etc. can effect plane's electronics? So why havn't they fixed the planes?
Stats on file downloading after RIAA lawsuits:
[American] Internet users also said they would be willing to pay for music per song - 25 per cent were willing to pay $US1.00 ($1.51), 15 per cent would pay US50 cents and US10 per cent would pay less than 50 cents.
I'd love to know similar numbers for Australians. I think Aus$1 per song is maybe too much but acceptable for singles. I'd think $1 per song would be OK as long as you got a huge discount if you want the whole album, say $5 an album. US$1 is way too much.