by simon baird

Thursday, May 28, 2009

cat versus virtual spider lolz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1flOvTeLjQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11qIk2asW6Y

please post videos of your cat attacking this: http://www.onemotion.com/flash/spider/

awesome spider

http://www.onemotion.com/flash/spider/ via @fremnet

Another fan of The Middle East

We are one of caterva not deny enteraos (endearing, if that), but with the entry that I will now let's give you even more angry. Me explicaré. Let me explain. If you talk about an Australian group, of which the only information we have is through their myspace, which have no record deal, which also have a long and published an ep already sold out and possibly cost you sweat find and tears, for nothing ... we are going to hate, I know ... because it is one of the best bands that emerged in the last decade.

Tim, Joseph, Mark, Jordan, Bree y Rohin forman The Middle East . Tim Joseph, Mark, Jordan, Bree and Rohin are The Middle East. Group exciting, full of nuances and surprising details, able to travel from absolute calm to the most epic landslide. We left for the "wise" label, but I only can mount the two videos I found on youtube, because although they are long, which is more than welcome @ it.  
Amazing!

Fwd: Friday 3rd July

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Club Chinchy <...@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, May 27, 2009 at 6:08 PM
Subject: Friday 3rd July
To: ...


Hi Guys,

Please forward on!

Cheers,

Mash

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

return of the bunnies


previously...

Middle East gig review



http://spoz.blogspot.com/2009/03/leader-cheetah-middle-east-live-ed.html

A blogger from Adelaide liked them:

They're a winter wonderland of snow softly falling on cedar, of crackling fires, hot cocoa, ridiculously romanticised children's books about squirrels, and you looking longingly into the tickling white cascade outside of your bedroom window as all the homeless in your neighbourhood get mauled to death by roaming packs of wolves. Yup, climate change sure is a bitch (and I never knew Townsville had it this bad!) but no one else has ever made it sound quite so beautiful. Think The Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver and Arcade Fire all coming together to sing Christmas carols. Imagine if Jim James from My Morning Jacket sung at your funeral. Picture Bat For Lashes, Jeff Buckley and Chris Isaac trapped in a glacier. They're the bluebird of happiness turning black with frostbite. They're that last red autumn leaf, clinging to the tree for dear life. They're ever so fragile, fleeting yet ever so forgiving to your ears. You only want more. You score this to any cinematic release and you'll be bursting into tears. I'm seeing a plastic bag dancing on the street, in a twirl of leaves.. and.. oh crap.. I think I've got something in my eye! *sniff* The Middle East leave me speechless, stammering, studdering and stupified. They shut me up completely.


CONCUR. :)

Click the link, there's more review and heaps of photos.

But actually I have something to say about The Middle East. It's about Rohin. Now he's the guy who isn't the lead singer. Jordan is apparently (I'm guessing) the main songwriter and sings vocals on Blood and so on. His voice is a delicate and beautiful one. But.. It's more of a low volume voice. It's perfect for quiet studio. In other words there's a chance that in some rock venues, especially bigger ones his voice might not have the capacity to blow your mind. Now he will probably get better with time. But here's the thing. Rohin is freakishly talented. He is a genuine rock superstar. He may have been born that way, I'm not sure. He can make your face melt quicker than cheese on a George Foreman grill. In a good way. A very, very good way. And he can do it with voice or his guitar (or a drum kit for that matter, but that's another story). But, (at least when I saw them at the Troubadour) he stayed kind of in the background. In fact he doesn't sing much at all except for some backup harmonies. He sang one line at full pelt I think in the darkest side and it was amazing. It made me want more. So anyway, my point? More cowbell.

Ps, did you notice the new drummer looks like Davey?

Pps, awesome sweater.

The Middle East essential links:

There are tour dates on the myspace page including (for any fellow Brisbane locals) 4th of June at the Old Museum.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

I'm not really sure...

...if you need me to keep you up to date with the latest youtube goodness. But just in case you do, here you go... (I promise I will keep this kind of post to a minimum...)

Keyboard cat (not the original but it's my favourite one)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyauGeRa5T0

Slap chop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWRyj5cHIQA

I recommend the above unreservedly. But this last one is only if you're really bored..
wog shooting in kings cross as described by Clare Werbeloff


Update: I forgot to say, she made it all up. The police questioned her and she's like, er, I was just joking.

Friday, May 15, 2009

milton train rainbow


rainbow in milton


it's not every day you see a giant sky shark


little totoro does NOT enjoy being laundered


sometimes 140 characters just isn't enough...


train jockey extraordinaire

my ferny grove train in the morning leaves at either 7:06, 7:16, 7:26 or 7:40. the 7:06 is express from enoggera to bowen hills, so that's the best one to take, and the one i'm usually on. work is at milton which means i need to change to the ipswich/darra line at either central or roma st. the 7:06 and the 7:16 get me to central or roma street about four minutes before an ipswich train. but on the 7:26 or 7:40 the changeover window is shorter, maybe a minute. so i have to hustle. a delay can cause me problems, and when i do miss it i have a 20 minute wait, so if i'm at roma street it's amost quicker to walk to milton. so today i was on the 7:40 and there was about a two minute delay somewhere near wilston. i jumped off at central, platform 2, and saw that the ipswich train on platform 5 was already flashing. the thing about the flashing is you don't know how long it's been flashing. you might have a few minutes to get there or it might be leaving in seconds. (they ought to increase the flash frequency gradually until the train departs but that's another post). the stairs at central were jam packed as usual so i figured i probably wouldn't make it and would be late for work. then it dawned on me that i still had a chance. i jumped back on the train i'd just got off. i moved up three carriages so as to be close to the stairs at roma street. i bolted off the train at roma street where the stairs and concourse are less congested, ran down the stairs of platform 5, across and up the stairs at platform 8. now the screens at this point actually weren't showing my green ipswich line so i thought i was a goner. but halfway the stairs i saw the train in it's usual place and the screen on the platform was green rather than cyan which means terminating here at roma st. just then the platform staff blew the whistle. i still had about 10 steps to go. i actually stopped running a bit, thinking the doors would close, but they remained open as i got closer and closed about a second after i jumped on. massive. win. (i really like trains).

more hot chip - so glad to see you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVzR-qciA58

it's so beautiful

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Monday, May 11, 2009

maps story

karen o maps angus crying

it's the old girl meets boy, boy breaks girls heart, girl writes beautiful song, boy doesn't show up to video shoot story.

also: maps means My Angus Please Stay (probably not true but cute)... and maps, because while he was breaking her heart he was on tour a lot or moving to berlin and she would look at maps to see where he was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYJjHCZN46U

Friday, May 08, 2009

on gapminder

I just learned that Google owns that software now, it's called Trendalyzer. See http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/world-in-motion.html

lunch time viewing update

the abc news is still must see. but the daily show has gone out of fashion. mark likes TED. today's selection was Hans Rosling's 2006 TED presentation on graphminder. it's interesting stuff. all about visualising world statistics like wealth and health and many other things. linkage:

2006 TED Talk

More talks and videos at gapminder.org

Main web site, gapminder.org

You can use the software here

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

a fox can catch a rat under some snow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP15zlyra3c

(watch in HD if you can..)

lyrebird can imitate anything

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y

would you like some mercury with that?

Just like Liz Lemon I'm getting a flu shot tomorrow. It's not for swine related flus of course but just your regular garden variety flu. One guy said he doesn't want it because of the mercury content and because mercury is linked to alzheimers. I scoffed but sure enough some vaccinations for adults do contain some mercury. I'm getting my shot anyway, just thought I would keep my readers informed. See here for details. I thought I would include a picture but instead, here is Liz Lemon dancing... (!?)

Friday, May 01, 2009

I forgot to mention...

Two of them (the fly and the sand buggy) were taken by a colleague of mine, Shaun. Here is his flickr page.

Please enjoy my wallpaper collection

My Wallpaper Collection

(If you want to download one you click the photo then find the little save icon under the photo and click it)

Brought to you by Dropbox (2 GB of disk in the cloud, automatically synced, version control, with clients for mac, windows, linux).

I only just got it but it seems pretty good.

Get Dropbox