by simon baird

Friday, October 13, 2006

Joanna hates the lamers

It's been way to long since my last post about Joanna Newsom. Via Stereogum:
I think some people perceive me to part of a movement or something that I don't really associate myself with. I think there's a lot of fakery, a lot of monkeying and posturing, a handful of kids who just latched right onto what they saw as a scene, and set themselves industriously to the synthesis of a particular vibe, and I'm pretty insulted when I occasionally get credited in the press for having anything to do with the dissemination of that vibe... I'm not part of some epic, bracelet-clanking, eyes-rolled-back, blasé, nihilistic scenester cult or anything. I've seen some awful displays, let me tell you. I've gone to some shows that have left me feeling heartbroken about the state of music. A soulless, mindless, watered-down, image-obsessed, artless stab at John Fahey or Marc Bolan or Karen Dalton or Donovan or Vashti Bunyan is no less lame than, like, Nickelback or whatnot. There are so many kids who have this energy, you know -- you can tell they were into, like, electroclash five minutes ago, or whatever was big in Williamsburg or Berlin at the time, and now they've grown their beards out and they're doing this thing that they think they understand, but they don't understand at all, and I just find it exhausting to have to consider what they do "music."

Ooo SNAP. I hope she doesn't turn bitter.. :)

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Google Docs

The thing that's new is the url and the fact that the documents and the spreadsheets are nestled in together. Also take a look at Zoho (the company bravely competing with google in this area).

steve kilbey's blog

Via a commenter on my post over here I learned that Steve Kilbey has a blog. He writes quite a lot, poems mixed with in a stream-of-conciousness style journal entries. And he sometimes calls himself nevets yeblik. O-kay. Here's a little snippet:

oh i dont know
im backstage at the tivoli
they got wi-fi here
im blogging
gee i cant remember too much about eumundi
i kept my head down n i did my gig
it was good someone said...
we stayed ay a lovely bed n breakfast joint
with a huge sloping garden filled with plants n flowers n birds
spring sunshine n blue skies
i did yog n chi on ye olde verandah


He also does paintings that you can buy on his web site.

Top 5 reasons you know you're a nerd...

Okay I ran out of ideas after 4.

4. You spent the weekend updating your TiddlyWiki plugins to use the new features in version 2.1...

3. You are fluent in both Javascript and Klingon...

2. You spent the weekend updating wikipedia with the technical errors in the World of Warcraft South Park episode...

And the number one reason you know you're a nerd:

[drum roll]
...
...
...
...
...

1. You spent the weekend removing the updates from the nerds who updated wikipedia with the technical errors in the World of Warcraft South Park episode.

See this article for details.

I think I'll be fetching the torrent for that one. Speaking of cool shows, here is David Bowie on Extras.

Friday, October 06, 2006

(not) doing bike license training

So I was filling out the paper work you have to do I was entering the expiry date on my license. Oops. Expired two weeks ago. Sooooo long story short, I have a new license but it's nothing to do with bikes.

I have trouble making a face for ids. They should give you a mirror to practice. I try to smile and it comes out a weird closed mouth smile that makes my lips look puffy. And my eyes are open too wide for fear of looking droopy-lidded. Plus I have a five day growth. Maybe next time I'll shave and try a non-smile photo... IN THE YEAR 2011.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

movie reviews

Nacho Libre
Probably would have been better if Jack Black didn't forget his accent now and again. The er, corn scene should have been cut. Despite all that the ending had me in tears of joy. See it if you like Napolean Dynamite. Don't see it if you'd prefer to remain unfamilar with Jack Black's nipples.

Shop Girl
Sounds okay, right? Clare Danes, Jason Schwarzman... Maybe Steve Martin is the next Bill Murray? No. Oh boy that was painful. Then you realise it's probably semi-autobiographical about Steve Martin. That makes it WORSE. Don't see it.

Penny Arcade's take on Zune's so-called WiFi support

See comic here. For more see Tycho's commentary here and the Engadget article here.

Ps, here's a feed for your Google Reader subscriptions.

Pps, I just realised the problem with the new shuffle. You have to carry this when travelling so you can charge.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

two words. and a letter

Tenacious. D. January.*





No, I'm probably not going. :(

My third bike lesson

Lesson 2 was zig-zagging and doing figure eights around orange witches in the car park. That was okay but I left feeling like I was progressing too slowly for my liking. Yesterday for the first time I went out on the road. I wore a bright orange vest and followed the instructor around trying to remember what his hand signals are supposed to mean. Basically I was awesome. I got to try third and fourth gear for the first time. Everything seemed much easier than before. We cruised around the back streets of Mundingburra for a while and even went on Ross River Road for a little bit. Rob (not the guy with the Rocket 3, that's Peter, he was away yesterday) said I was ready and I booked for the day long QRIDE course on Friday. So since I'm pretty broke my actual budget to get a bike consists of what I can trade in the scooter for plus what I can raise by selling my clock radios on ebay. But anyway I think this one would be nice. Mmm... yellow.