Last week, Australian writer Frank Moorhouse spoke at the University of Wollongong as a spin-off of the Sydney Writers’ Festival. Alerted by the microscopic notice in the local newspaper, we went off to see him. We arrived just in time, negotiated with the ladies at the door, and went in. Arming ourselves with red wine and spring rolls, we sat down with about 80 others to listen to what Mr Moorhouse had to say.
Continue readingMonthly Archives: May 2005
Zatoichi — The Blind Swordsman
The story of Zatoichi has been around in Japanese movies and TV for a while. I saw this latest remake recently — it is a lot of fun, especially if you consider artistic, cinematic dismemberment to be fun. The director Takeshi Kitano said he wanted the blood in this film to “look like flowers blossoming across the screen”. It does have a certain unearthly quality that makes it quite mesmerising. And a good thing too, because there is a lot of blood in this film.
The sound is outstanding, particularly in the scenes where workers digging in a field or building a house spontaneously create a kind of rhythmic sound sculpture. I laughed.
A nice cup of tea and a sit down
“Well I think we should all sit down and have a nice cup of tea, and some biscuits, nice ones mind you. Oh and some cake would be nice as well. Lovely.”
That’s the mission statement of NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown.com. The world needs more websites like this.
Great BBC online music shows
I learned to love BBC radio when I lived in the UK last century; the shows covered every kind of music, and every week I would discover some new (or old) musical treasure. Now that I’m back on the other side of the world, I still listen in most days, thanks to their Radio On Demand — you can listen to any show up to seven days after it goes to air. Here I’ve put together notes and links to the shows that I listen to regularly.
Normally you’re supposed to use the built-in player on the BBC website to listen, but with a bit of poking around, you can get the RSTP URLs and listen using RealPlayer. This is much more convenient, since you can easily rewind, fast forward, and bookmark shows partway through. I have done the requisite poking around, and included the RSTP URLs in the notes below.
Motorola E365 is Rubbish — A Review
In 2003 I bought a Motorola E365. I hate it. Almost every day I discover a new thing I don’t like about it; finally, I couldn’t bottle up the bile any more, so I am venting my spleen here. If you are thinking of throwing your money away on this underengineered toy, please read this first, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Me and Mobile Phones
First, some history. My first mobile was an Ericsson thingy, which I bought in 1997. It was fine at the time, except it had no vibrating alert so I missed a lot of calls.
Next I bought a Nokia 3210 in 2000. Brilliant. I can’t say a single bad word about this phone — intuitive, responsive, a joy to use. The ideal gadget has only one button: you press the button and it does whatever you want it to do. The 3210 came about as close as a phone could come to this ideal.
Send your action figure on a tour of Italy
Have you ever wanted to go on a tour or Italy, but could never find the time? Well, why not send your barbie doll or garden gnome instead?
My friend Doug is auctioning “a trip of a lifetime for your favourite action figure“. Your action figure, stuffed animal, doll or gnome will tour several beautiful Italian destinations, pose for photgraphs, buy you some souvenirs, and send you postcards of gratitude.
Hurry! There are only nine days left for this eBay auction. eBay are listing it in their “Totally Bizarre” category, but as Doug says, “I guess I’m just blind as to why this auction is so outrageous… it’s just a nice, normal vacation. For an action figure. ;-)”
Thunder, Lightning, Strike — The Go! Team
Half bouncy and exciting, half pleasant and inconsequential. Like so much in life.
This album isn’t as good as I was expecting. About half the tracks sound like instrumental fillers from indie pop albums; they’re all worth a listen, but they don’t really hold the attention. Other tracks are better: there are a few energetic, lo-fi hip hop pieces with a bit of rapping. They sound old-skool in a good way to me, though why you’d trust the opinion of somebody who can’t even spell “school” is anybody’s guess.