Silversun Pickups, "Carnavas"
"Lazy Eye" is a fantastic song. It captures all the guitar textures and build up / take down that Smashing Pumpkins used to do back in the day, with vocals that are less grinding. The rest of the album is pale and sad in comparison.
Fall Out Boy, "Infinity On High"
One of those bands we kept hearing about and occasionally seeing on Rage. Some kind of weird mix of punk, rock and pop. I enjoyed this album but our edition includes some bonus tracks that really just get in the way. They have a humour to them that isn't too in your face, and some excellent production. I particularly like the first track which is hard rock all the way, a deliberately constructed in-your-face-first-track that worked on me. I intend to check out the new album which has been getting some great reviews.
Hot Chip, "The Warning"
I was surprised to like this album. I had assumed they'd be some horrible indie band with monotonal vocals and try-hard Commodore 64 beats and plinky-plonks... and they are. But they don't seem to be being ironic. The music simply works, and the 80s synthiness becomes a nice feature instead of something to look down on. They also make great videos.
The rest of these are more metal albums from the guy at work listened to while working late.
Keep of Kalessin, "Armada"
This is my new favourite metal album for the year, overtaking Cavalera Conspiracy. Brutal, very very fast, some great use of acoustic. I was reminded of Fantomas and Slayer and Ministry. I could listen to it all day. And I did for a couple of weeks.
Shining, "V:/Halmstad"
Slower paced metal, on the way to doom but not quite there. Depressed lyrics. Imagine someone in a field screaming their woes into the rain. It isn't quite singing, it's crying. Some fantastic guitar work, although one of those solo's sounds strangely like a Guns'n'Roses solo.
Grand Magus, "Iron Will" and "Wolf's Return"
"Grand" yes. Big alternative hard rock guitar riffs, huge clear vocals. I'm reminded of Soundgarden throughout, although not as depressed. I thought they were just a tiny bit too cheesy though.
Pestilence, "Consuming Impulse"
Thrash of the kind I didn't think they made in the late 80s. I think I'd enjoy this. It has some great structure, riffs, and surprisingly listenable production for an album so old. But I haven't yet been in the mood for something so full on. It doesn't quite have the range that Keep of Kalessin has to keep me listening.
Agalloch, "Ashes Against The Grain"
These guys sound almost exactly like Stemage, the creator of Metroid Metal, a metal recreation of the Metroid (computer game) soundtrack. I was convinced they were one and the same, but they're not. As such, I liked them, as I like Stemage, but on reflection they weren't interesting enough. I think I enjoyed the similar sounds, but the music couldn't keep up.
Mind's Eye, "Cut Snake Poetry"
Absu, "Tara"
Melechesh, "Sphynx"
Ophthalamia, "Dominion"
Try as I might, including various relistens, I just can't remember anything about these albums. Nothing grabbed me. Literally. In one ear and out the other.
As a quick reminder, MP34Free.net provided links to MP3s on the web, but did not host the MP3s. They were found guilty and forced to pay a large fine.
The combination of mechanical copyright for audio records (itself a bizarre law) and easy networked digital copying just happens to be easiest law to break on the web.If I had a website with a link on it that said "clicking this link will kill a person, clicking it will mean you have committed murder" and someone clicked it, who is liable?
On the surface it's entirely the fault of the person clicking the link, and yet, what moron provides a link that will kill someone just by clicking on it?
If I had a website that just let people add links, and someone added the link described above, who is liable if someone clicks that link?
Maybe we'll find out in Saw 4.
Or a much better example... lets say I created a link that when clicked, posted an anonymous article on a public contribution blog or mailing list which was libellous. Who gets sued for libel?
To apply the above to iiNet, if iiNet created a piece of technology that let you do anything, and one of the things one of their customers did was illegal, and they didn't stop it, who is liable? iiNet for creating the technology, or the person who did the illegal thing?
Or, as AFACT are arguing, iiNet for making such technology available and not policing it.
When we moved in to our new place back in early 2005, one element we failed to notice is that the gas meter is inaccessible. When they renovated in the 90s they built a garage in the front yard, blocking off the meter. Adding to that we bought a dog, meaning we could not leave our back gate open.
The meters are read by the distributor who pass that information to the reseller. The distributor, snippy at being unable to read our meter, would often send huge estimates, forcing us to call our reseller to get it changed to something sensible.
In 2008 our reseller changed their policy so that you could not change the reading over the phone, all readings had to be "actual".
This meant organising to be at home for the reader to turn up once every three months. However, unlikely any other tradesperson, the distributor refused to organise a time, just a day. And the organisation was usually a "maybe" so often they would not turn up. All very frustrating. At times, we could only get a three day window when the reader turned up.
Eventually, after many wasted days off, I gave up. I changed our account to bill smoothing so we paid a monthly amount based on our previous bills and the readers were all ignored. Amusingly the estimates became very accurate after this. Also, as long as we kept paying, the reseller became less upset about our estimated readings, restraining themselves to a simple "please organise a reading" letter with each bill. Letters they never followed up.
In February this year I attempted to move us to a different reseller. All seemed to go well, except that we didn't transfer. We kept getting bills from our existing distributor. I called and called many times and eventually worked our it was because our meter was not getting read (duh).
So I organised more readings. They didn't show. Four times. I rang the distributor (despite this being a big no-no, "talk to your reseller, we don't talk to customers") and discovered the reading requests were not getting through to them. All very frustrating.
Eventually I bit the bullet and asked for a meter move. Moving the meter turned out to be much cheaper than I expected (less than $300), however, the distributor only moves the meter, they do not then relink your house up to it. Linking our house up to the meter again proved the most expensive part ($550).
However, after three years of pissing about waiting on-hold for people who cannot help nor particularly care about our situation, and over a weeks worth of annual leave wasted waiting at home for nothing, $900 or so seems cheap to have this solved.
I look forward to joining the rest of society who gets their meter read without issue and can move between resellers with one simple phone call.
All previous reseller move requests have been cancelled. We'll sit on this until the next actual reading comes through and we know we're set.
Next year I'll look into resellers again. My urge to punish my existing reseller has gone so I might be happy to stay with them.
The incompetence of the reseller I attempted to move to deal with the meter situation doesn't fill me with any confidence, despite the problem being entirely the fault of my distributor (who I cannot unfortunately change). I'd like to move to some kind of green gas/electricity plan if possible.
I don't see why they don't just add that pole to existing trains.
The number of times I've seen a packed train with three or four people in the middle of that area with nothing to hold on to.