Avenue Que?
June 5, 2008
Dean and I went to see Avenue Q last night, having heard rave reviews about it. Plus, he found some cheap tickets, which turned out to be really good. There was only one problem: we both hated the show. So much, in fact, that we left at the intermission and didn’t bother going back for the second part. It was just too dull to waste another hour of our lives on.
It wasn’t the fault of the actors. (Not all of them, at least.) In particular, Mark Goldthorp animated his characters with great skill. And Rebecca Lock, the leading monster, did a hell of a job on the singing front. But skilful actors is not enough; it has to be entertaining too, and this one was not. It was just full of platitudes.
This came as a bit of a surprise. We seemed to be the only ones in the audience not enjoying the show. And it came with recommendations from people that we thought of as friends that have (allegedly) been to see it several times. Now we need to re-assess these friendships: real friends wouldn’t trick friends into viewing Avenue Q.
The pulled-pork sandwich I had afterwards lifted the evening somewhat.
Napoleon Dynamite
March 11, 2006
So.. boring… Loosing.. will.. to.. live…
Presumably you have to stay awake for at least three days, drink all the participants of an AA meeting under the table and get high as a kite before this thing gets funny. I had to take many breaks while watching this film. Trying to watch it all in one go would have ended in me slashing my wrists from boredom.
A Short History of Nearly Everything
February 18, 2006
Bill Bryson takes us on a whirlwind tour through the history of science; in less than six hundred pages he covers the origin of the universe, the vastness of space, the truly miniscule sizes of things at an atomic level, the elements, scientists bikkering over the age of Earth (and pretty much anything else), life at the very extremes, the discovery of DNA, the rise of Man and the extinction of the Dodo. It is a succinct and truly fascinating read.
Everyone should read this book.
Munich
February 6, 2006
Come Sunday nigth all the festivities of the weekend’s stag do were over and a few of us went to see Munich at Colosseum in Oslo (possibly still the largest THX cinema in the world with room for 978).
I liked the film. It managed to portray both sides as people, not just machines that do good or evil. It’s a testament to how interesting the film was that I not once noticed how tired I really was until afterwards (we had been to a stag weekend after all).
As usual when I go to the cinema I developed a strong urge to brush my teeth. Damn popcorn skins.
New Headphones
December 2, 2005
Earlier when I’ve griped about the iPod Shuffle, saying it needed a dynamic compressor, Mark Fowler told me I just needed better headphones. I didn’t really take him too seriously as I didn’t think there could be that much difference between in-ear headphones.
Nevertheless, when my headphones failed recently, I decided to try the Shure EC2 he were recommending. I found them a bit weird and painful to wear to start with (they don’t just go in the ear, they go inside the ear canal) but that was just a matter of finding which of the 9 different sizes and types of sleeves fit my ears best. Because they fit so snugly into the ear canal, they significantly reduce the amount of surrounding noise that you hear. This means I don’t have to jog the volume on my iPod up and down all the time if a song has quiet and loud parts; the effective dynamic range is much greater. They also manage much lower frequencies than I’ve heard in any other headphones.
In short they have made it enjoyable to listen to music on my iPod again. That makes them worth the (rather stiff) price, in my opinion.
Interview with the Vampire
November 20, 2005
I’ve been intending to read some of Anne Rice’s books for some time, but I’m sad to say I’m fairly disappointed with this one. It is a surprisingly boring book about a fascinating subject. As I read, I kept thinking “Surely something will happen soon?”, but unfortunately it never did.
We’re a fly on the wall in an interview with the vampire Louis. He is made a vampire by Lestat, who (presumably) in an effort to control Louis tells him very little about their origin and claims they are alone in the world. Though I disliked Lestat from start to finish, Louis seemed OK at first. After a while it turns out he’s the worse of the two though. He’s a pompous and depressing sentimental coward whose moping around and whining about his cursed existence soon gets on your nerves.
New mobile phone
November 9, 2005
Nadia has bought me a new mobile phone. Up till now I’ve been with O2, but this is on Orange. This means my mobile number will change in the nearby future, but my old phone will be lying around turned on for a transition period.
I’ve been wanting to change phones for a number of reasons, chief among them being:
- The keylock on my current Siemens phone (a c65, I think) is shockingly bad; in effect, it has no keylock. The result is that my phonebook is chock-full of garbage such as “##*#”, “###” and variations of that theme, and my bag has a habit of calling people on its own.
- I’m really fed up with being on pay-as-you-go. Every time I really need to call I’m out of credit, and O2’s credit top-up procedure blows goats. Unfortunately with my usage (5-10 ppm) switching to a contract phone is going to be at least twice as expensive as pay-as-you-go.
- I want bluetooth synching to my Mac’s addressbook. I abhor typing on phones, and trying to manually keep two sets of address books in synch is rather horrible.
- I have a terrible sense of direction so I’d like the ability to check google maps, streetmap or multimap when I’m trying to find the place I’ve agreed to meet with friends.
Thoughts about the new phone: since this is a Nokia clam phone, the keylock is not going to be an issue now. I’m still going to be on pay-as-you-go, but Orange offer direct debit so maybe this will not be so bad. Still no bluetooth synching; since getting a contract phone is out of the question, bluetooth phones are way out of my price range. However, Nadia transferred the numbers from my old phone for me, so I didn’t have to do that part, at least. As for maps, this thing does GPRS but I’m not sure if I can use any of the mapping services with that yet.
Update: After advice from a friend I’ve now gone through the steps required for keeping my old phone number. You can stop panicking now.
Jingo
November 8, 2005
Jingo is the 21st Discworld novel. I finished reading it last weekend, but never got around to saying anything about it. I generally don’t, as there are so many of them. I thought I’d mention this one though, because it is ludicrously political. Though many of the previous books in the series deal with speciesism, this is the first one that deal with racism, and makes for a pretty darn good satirical critique of it.
Songs that give me goosebumps
October 25, 2005
Some songs give me goosebumps when I listen to them. I can feel the skin on the back of my neck tighten, and a tingle spread up the back of my head and down my back. Here’s a list of such songs (in no particular order):
- The Heart Asks Pleasure First / The Sacrifice - Michael Nyman (from The Piano)
- Missing - Everything But the Girl
- Images - Bel Canto
- A Thousand Miles - Vanessa Carlton
- White Houses - Vanessa Carlton
- Half A Week Before The Winter - Vanessa Carlton
- Behind Blue Eyes - The Who
- I’m with you - Avril Lavigne
- Nobody’s Wife - Anouk
- High - Amber Filter (from a University of Westminster promotional CD called this cd is shite)
- Gonna Get Close To You - Dalbello (from Womanfoursays)
- All I Know - Anneli Drecker (from Tundra)
- The Dam at Otter Creek - Live (from Throwing Copper)
- Jackie - Sinead O’Connor (from The Lion and the Cobra)
- Troy - Sinead O’Connor (from The Lion and the Cobra)
- Jóga - Björk (from Homogenic)
- Play Dead - Björk (from Debut)
- Stinkfist - Tool (from Ænima)
- Schism - Tool (from Lateralus)
- Laterlaus - Tool l (from Lateralus)
- The Grudge - Tool (from Lateralus)
- The Patient - Tool (from Lateralus)
- The Hollow - A Perfect Circle (from Mer de Noms)
- The Noose - A Perfect Circle (from Thirteenth Step)
- Weak and Powerless - A Perfect Circle (from Thirteenth Step)
- Pet - A Perfect Circle (from Thirteenth Step)
I filed this post under “Reviews”, though it really isn’t. It’s just a list of songs that I really like.
The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
October 14, 2005
I saw it last weekend. I’m pretty indifferent to it, though I think it’s a film to keep fans of the book(s) happy; it would be rather baffling if you’re not familiar with the story. Trillian was cute though.
