Such is the power and curse of wireless broadband and mobile phones. Before my Nokia somethingorother’s internet speed slowed to a crawl and it could no longer access Facebook, I would frequently check my Gmail and friends’ statuses before dragging myself out of bed. I’m not sure if I should lament or celebrate this turn of events.
I used to do a daily list of links, but that fell by the wayside for some reason. Consider this a restart.
Skippy on the menu as Australia seeks to fight global warming. (Bloomberg; for the record, kangaroo meat isn’t bad)
Suit against God tossed over lack of address. (AP/MSNBC.com)
Consumption of psychoactive drugs by Tiwanakuan mummies. (Anthropology.net)
Crate expectations: 12 shipping container housing ideas. (Treehugger)
What your home and workspace say about your politics. (Lifehacker)
The music alliance pact. (UnaRocks)
Nerd rage. (1,000 Tiny Things I Hate)
Forget subprime mortgages, it was bin Laden. (The National)
Choir mistress pays hospital parking fine in 3,500 pennies. (The Daily Telegraph)
Hey, if The Daily Telegraph says so, it must be credible, yes?
A moment spent working on something else or taking a break altogether allows the brain’s unconscious thought process to take over, American psychologists believe. When the brain kicks back into gear, the conscious thought process will pick up on the solution, they found.
BoingBoing is getting very excited about the upcoming adaptation of Joe Haldeman’s novel, though to be honest I’m not a big fan of it. I bought it as part of the Sci-fi Masterworks series and, while it had interesting things to say, it didn’t really grab hold of my imagination. Perhaps I am too removed from its Vietnam war subtext. Ridley Scott could do good things with the material, though, so I remain open to it, if and when it gets off the ground.
One of my colleagues points out that the title was also used by the New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins for his book on Iraq. Can we expect the Scott film to follow along the same lines? Iraq has dragged down US films at the box office, so only time will tell.
Well, only kind of. The Reykjavik index lost 76% of its value when it opened for trading this morning, but largely because the three main (now nationalised) banks had been removed. It just shows how heavily we have relied on the banks for our perceived economic strength in recent years, and how far we could still fall (even if the markets are rallying).
The main act is always going to have its work cut out when the support group is fantastic, and with a sloppy performance marred by poor sound quality, Dragonforce failed to make the grade.
That’s not to say they didn’t have their moments. The three-part vocal harmonies on songs such as “Fury of the Storm” were excellent and the drumming was generally immaculate; given the speed of the performances and the liberal use of double-bass drums, this is no mean feat. Herman Li also put in a great effort and I couldn’t find fault with his playing.
However, it was a sign of a band off form when they make an absolute shambles of their second song on the night (“Operation Ground and Pound”). The vocalist, ZP Threat, seemed to miss his notes quite often and Sam Totman was all over the place on guitar; his grimaces during the night indicated that he knew he was screwing up notes, but he didn’t seem to care all that much either. His guitar was out of tune, but that doesn’t really compensate for generally sloppy work.
Tracks from their latest album, Ultra Beatdown, seemed shaky, which is a bad mad considering the time spent putting the album together and the time already spent touring. It may have been an off night but, apart from “Operation Ground and Pound”, their older stuff was much tighter and more consistent. The other exception is probably “My Spirit Will Go On”, where the vocals were off.
There was far too much posing, and it’s cheeky for a guy who spent most of the evening either posing or goofing around with his bandmates (and an off-stage roadie) rather than relating to the crowd to slag said crowd off for being boring. The “bored c**ts with hands in their pockets” were pointed out, but of course they were bored; Dragonforce didn’t take the stage until 10pm, more than 45 minutes after Turisas. When you spend €32 on a gig in Cork, you expect a bit more for your money.
Thankfully the saving grace of the night was Turisas, who did exactly what all support bands should do and used their 30-minute set to grab the audience by the nads and win them over. Their blend of hard metal, folk and warrior theatrics went down a treat, with more and more people arriving as their set progressed. I love this band and hope they come back to Ireland soon.
Here’s what Dragonforce should sound like:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jgrCKhxE1s[/youtube]
And here’s some Turisas:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8EDgekt6M0[/youtube]