Why do people learn Latin? So they can translate Sir Mix-A-Lot's raps into said Latin [via BoingBoing] should anyone from the past come into the future and wish to enjoy what the crazy fella has to say...

magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri.
(Large buttocks are pleasing to me, nor am I able to lie concerning this matter.)
quis enim, consortes mei, non fateatur,
(For who, colleagues, would not admit,)
cum puella incedit minore medio corpore
(Whenever a girl comes by with a rather small middle part of the body)
sub quo manifestus globus, inflammare animos
(Beneath which is an obvious spherical mass, that it inflames the spirits)

i bought things and it cost money.

UNKLE's newy 'cos I liked the first one.

Freeland's newy because I liked We Want Your Soul and on the flick through I've had it sounds like the kind of dancydrumandbaseytrancymixy stuff I like. The non-radio-edit version of WWYS is better.

R.E.M.'s Bad Day because sometimes their b-sides are good and it was only four fitty.

And, and I have to admit, I feel kind of dirty, but Hunters & Collectors new best of because I never got around to getting Collected Works and stuffed if I was going to convert all my 7" singles to CD/MP3 when I could spend $25 and rip 'em in 10 seconds.

I can always skip their shite cover of the D.A.A.S.'s Throw Your Arms Around Me. Luckily they put it last, right after that bloody AFL song.

Author Jeff Noon website with many links to projects such as the graphic novel for Vurt, facinating self observation from Noon on the writing of Needle In The Groove, notes from Noon on his latest projects including his new book Falling Out Of Cars... and a Vurt movie...

I'm now heavily involved in writing the script for the film version of Vurt, my first novel. This will be directed by Iain Softley, whose K-Pax (opening soon in the UK) was a recent number one in the States. The Vurt film will be a reinvention of the book, rather than a straight adaptation. I'm taking the opportunity of bringing the book in line with my current concerns, without losing its essential "Vurtness" of course.

And Jeff Noon vs. Brian Eno...

[A] couple of months ago I received a telephone call from Brian Eno. I've never met him before, but I'd sent him a copy of Cobralingus when the book first came out, just on the off chance, and subsequently forgotten about it. Then he gives me a ring, and tells me that he loves the book, and that he's doing a piece of music based on some of the texts! He wants me to come down to his studio and listen to the first, rough version of it. So, there I was, inside Eno's studio, listening to this amazing music coming out of the speakers, and a voice intoning words that I had written. It was more than a little overwhelming, as you may imagine.

Jeff's top 10 list of books at the Guardian. "The Annotated Alice by Lewis Carroll" looks interesting.

And Jeff Noon's notes on why Pixel Juice isn't just a collection of short stories.

I've finally noticed that you can update the "departments" for news items on this blog. I've been ignoring them lately, with most of my posts being under "cool band" or "hmmmm interesting" I created ages ago.

So I've going to create a few new ones and start using them again and see how it goes. Eventually I guess you'll be able to use them to find all the reviews I've done etc.

I'll probably get lazy and give up. We'll see. Also means the last three years of posts will have dodgy/wrong departments (two really, the first year of this blog I used a different method of posting).

DVD Audio ripper, for those of us with Music DVDs that would also like to listen to them in my car (such as the Underworld Everything Everything DVD which has extra tracks not on the CD, and I suspect for the upcoming live Robbie Williams DVD which will have tracks not on the CD).

Wired article trying to argue Sony should skip trying to put out an iPod clone and go straight for the portable video market. Stupid idiot. We want Sony to create an iPod clone. Competition, innovation, cheaper products, better products. Just because "Apple won" doesn't mean they'll win next year.

How about a harddisk audio player that can accept drivers for new formats? With a screen plug developed later so it can play video later? Sony would have the tech to do that no trouble.

Gee, Microsoft won, let's not create a SQL Server/Windows/Media Player clone, let's just build the a new toilet brush cleaner just in case that's the next big thing.

I don't know why coders keep having date conversion problems with US (mm/dd/yyyy) and Australian (dd/mm/yyyy) dates. I'm constantly patching people's code because the server they put their code on wasn't set up the way they expected. It's so simple to pass your dates around in dd/mmm/yyyy (that is 13/Oct/2003) format, getting around all such issues no matter how the server is set up.

Anyway...

Kaaza planning to bill users of P2P networks. But how much?

New York Times article on the price of music downloads [via Scripting News]. Most interesting is the little bit o' info in the right column.

The Beatles, "Revolver" - LP - 1966 price $4.50 - Price adjusted for inflation $26

Frank Sinatra, "songs for swingin' lovers" - LP - 1955 price $3.50 - After inflation $24

Eminem, "The Eminem Show" - CD - 2002 price $15 - After inflation $15.50

So music wasn't cheaper in the old days?

Later in the article though they claim that 99 cents per song, even after inflation is still 10 times more than what people paid for singles in the 50's.

So make singles online 10 cents and see how many people still pirate...

But the single was always an advert (read write-off) for the album which it seems even back then cost a lot of money.

I wonder how well a store online would go if they sold the big single for 10 cents but still forced you to buy the whole album for $9. I bet no-one would buy the album.

And remember, Frank Sinatra was a cover band. Speaking of which...

Saturday night, had a quick dinner, met up with Chris for his buck's party.

After a bit of time at Elephant and Wheelbarrow on Burke street (they had dinner there, I turned up around 9pm), we ended up at the Arcadia Hotel, corner Toorak and Punt road where a cover band was playing (Chris knew some of the members). They were pretty good, playing 80's, early 90's rock and a few newies that fit into that formula. Their medley of Sweet Child Of Mine / Enter Sandman / and a Bon Jovi song I can't think of right now was great. I enjoyed them a lot more than "Slumberyard" who bring in a younger more bonehead crowd with their Korn and Linkin Park covers.

The pub itself wasn't too bad either. Sure, it didn't know if it was a pool hall, or a rugby viewing centre, or a band venue, but they had Coopers red on tap and they weren't stingy with the burbon.

When we entered they scanned our drivers licences into a computer "in case of trouble". One of Chris' friends handed over one of the old plastic licences and the bouncer said "don't get much the old licences in here mate *wink*". It was a pretty young crowd of 18-30s.

Got home around 4am. Woke up a bit hung over, only in the head. My stomach was saved. At least I wasn't hogtied.

Sunday checked out the Queen musical "We Will Rock You" with a bunch of friends. The story is very cheesy but most of the musical numbers were pretty good. There were a few Australian Idol moments (that is, off notes), the jokes were mostly terrible (except that Brian May guitar solo joke, that was gold). At times it was kind of sick with the many references to Freddy as some kind of hero. Like digging up his corpse and flinging it around the stage Weekend At Bernie's style.

The actress who played Killer Queen was a real low point (bad singer), but we discovered after she was a stand in. Every musical number involving here was a struggle. The rest of the cast were excellent, except possibly for the main actors' dodgy fake American accent.

The band that played all of the songs were fantastic, almost never missing a note. I was only disappointed at them right at the end in the "encore" when the gutiarist got the huge spotlight for his guitar solo and he just stood there looking at his guitar and didn't move while he played. Not much of a tribute to Brian to stand there like Jim Martin but not even bob your fluffy head.