Apologies for the lack of updates, I had a wonderful time in Liverpool only to be brought down quite viciously by a bad case of the stomach flu upon my return. Once I manage to stay awake for more than 15 minutes in a row, I shall try to make a proper update.
Monthly Archive for September, 2005
I am feelling extremely unsettled by the outcome of yesterday’s Election Sunday. Not only are General Elections “bad” enough in terms of bringing about changes to the everyday life – but to have a General Election and then NOT knowing what is going to change because there is no actual winner as such is making things even worse. I was opposed to the vote of confidence and the resulting premature General Elections anyway – I’m just sayin’, wasn’t this whole mess kind of predictable?
On an even more personal note, I vote in a very small constituency of roughly 500 people. And I am pretty damn pissed off about the fact that 17 people of this village voted for the Right Wing Party. I am not opposed to the idea of swearing if it serves to emphasize a point, so let me just say: Fuck you, every single one of you NPD or REP voters. I don’t know what you’re doing in our small, peaceful village, but why don’t you all fuck off to the places where sickos like you like to hang out. In fact, why don’t you all move to some small deserted island where you can found your Rebublic of Racists, and then go all Lord of the Flies/LOST/The Beach and kill each other? A girl can dream.
The only consolidation: There are still no seats for the Right Wing parties in the German government. The Christian Conservatives are as right-wing as we get. If this was a time for enthusiasm, I would say yay. But it’s not, at least not for me.
Entrance of the old stadium
Warm-up
Lukas Podolski, the local hero
One of the reasons why I love Cologne so much – even the football banners are kinda gay, LOL.
Yay!
I predict a riot!
Yay2!
Mood shot
50,000 viewers! Sold out!
Boo.
Kastrati. Hehe.
Ladies and gentlemen, the defeated are leaving the building.
One of the most beautiful football stadiums if you ask me…
I’m feeling very guilty about the lack of updates, but I simply wouldn’t know what to write about. I was supposed to see the Kaiser Chiefs tonight but I got home from work pretty late, and I’ve been having a headache all day, so I didn’t go. Will I regret it? Hell yes. Also it’s one blog entry I didn’t write.
Instead, I’ve been spending my nights watching the “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” Year 1 and 3 box sets, which the wonderful M lent to me. Well I haven’t even finished Year 1 yet (I will have to ask M what happened to year 2), but I absolutely love this show. It’s on TV right now too, but for one reason or the other, I almost always miss it, so this is a great way to catch up.
Undoubtedly, the reason why I like it so much is the brilliant performance by Vincent D’Onofrio. I love it when he comes across as this extremely empathetic, perceptive, almost psychic person – only to go totally psycho during interrogations. LOVE IT. To me, he’s the most interesting character on TV right now. Obvs that is only the case because The L Word is off until February 2006, but still :p
I think I will have to make sure to watch some other stuff that Vincent D’Onofrio starred in. I still remember his performance in “The Cell” quite vividly. I was just thinking the other day that strangely I never minded Jennifer Lopez as an actress, I even really enjoyed some of the films that she starred in. But as a “singer”, she’s driving me nuts, simple as that.
Piercing gone terribly wrong.
Not really a post, merely testing image resizing features of various WordPress Themes.
Alan Cummings
Alexandra Hedison © isifa.com
Bif Naked aka Beth Torbert
Daniela Sea © thelwordonline.com
Some stuff that’s been going around my head lately:
- Kanye West “dissed George W. Bush again” – and I love him even more now. Come on, those changes in lyrics were funny! I read somewhere that he was performing at some football even last night (hey! I’m European, the football that I know about is a round ball with a total of 22 players not wearing helmets) and got booed there. Jerks. And I love him even more now.
- Still thinking about getting the iPod nano, but the big disadvantage has got to be USB 2.0. I got my PowerBook only one year ago, and it still has USB 1.1 (and FW). So one year later, Apple decides that it’s USB 2.0 “all the way”, and those of us who don’t have it can just get lost or buy a new machine? Well I don’t think so. I don’t see why they couldn’t make the nanos USB AND Firewire? My iPod shuffle is the 512MB model. Filling that with music via USB 1.1 takes AGES already – and if I were to get a nano, I’d probably go for the 4GB model. I don’t even want to think about how long it would take to fill that – and how much strain that would put on the battery. It just sucks. Well, I’d have to sell my shuffle first anyway, and I’m thinking about selling my 3G 20GB iPod too – the thing is, I hardly ever use it because I’m always worried I might get mugged. So it seems a bit pointless to keep it, on the other hand it’s in near-mint condition and I would be very sad to part with it. Well I guess I will have to ponder this a little longer.
- 10 days after its supposed relaunch, Spymac still isn’t fully back. The chatbox appears to be back online, but the first thing I read was one certain member going on about how he wants a black iPod sock for the black nano he just ordered (and this is a member who has got about every iPod under the sun and this is all he ever talks about. Can I say…. show-off?), and I was like “Ok, enough already” and quickly surfed away. I don’t care so much for Spymac, but I miss reading the blogs, especially Al’s.
- Only two months and 12 days until I get to see Rufus in concert again. Ok so maybe that is still a long time – but I am almost insanely looking forward to it. I have been listening to “Want Two”, which I’m ashamed to admit used to be my least favourite album by Rufus until I went to his show in April and finally recognized it for the sheer genius that it is, all day today.
- I will be in Liverpool two weeks from today. I also can’t wait, it should be so much fun. I’ve never been to Liverpool before, so if anyone has any suggestions on what to do and see, please post a comment, ok? Also recommendations on indie music night clubs would be great, since my Google search only returned many many techno clubs and I simply don’t go there.
- Talking about Google, it occurred to me that a Gmail-account for this blog might me a neat idea. Well, turns out that there was some legal dispute, and now German users no longer have access to the @gmail-address, but get @googlemail instead. What the hay? Well, I figured out a way to work around this (*cough* proxy servers *cough*) – so I could have registered a Gmail address, but of course the ones I wanted were already taken. And I’m the worst person when it comes to thinking of “creative” user names – which is why I spend little time on online forums. So if you have a suggestion for a blog email address, feel free to leave a comment.
- Just tested the successor to the Kubrick WordPress template which I’m also using, the K2 by Michael Heilemann which is in beta stage right now, and it rocks. If I should ever have a little more time than I do at the moment, then I will make sure to tweak that a little and use it as the main theme, it has so many exciting new features.
for winning the Mercury Music Prize. I should have posted it last night when Al kindly let me know via email (I should also note that it took the online press almost half an hour after that to announce the news!) and when I read it I shouted out “Yay!!!”. In all fairness I didn’t even know he was nominated until Al told me during the show – I always assumed Antony was American, plus I didn’t pay too much attention to the nominees because the show isn’t broadcast here. But when I went to the website and read the shortlist, I was very impressed by the great list of nominees.
The winner then was surprising to many, but as far as I’m concerned, well-deserved. He’s been making amazing music for quite some time now without ever getting enough credit for it. The self-titled debut album still makes me cry almost every time I listen to it.
I quite like this Reuters article – my only criticism concerning his appearance at the Mercurys is that he wasn’t wearing an evening gown 
Androgynous New Yorker wins top U.K. music prize
By Peter Griffiths Wed Sep 7, 2:59 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) – An androgynous New York-based artist who sings haunting ballads about gender confusion was the surprise winner of one of Britain’s most prestigious music prizes Tuesday.
Antony Hegarty, whose quavering voice has been likened to Billie Holiday and Nina Simone, won the Mercury music prize with his band, Antony and the Johnsons, for their album “I Am a Bird Now.”
Acclaimed by critics but little known in the mainstream music world, Hegarty has been described as the “gayest thing ever recorded.”
The 20,000 pounds prize is awarded each year by an independent judging panel to the best album by a British or Irish band. Antony and the Johnsons only qualified for nomination because Hegarty was born in Sussex, southern England, before moving to the United States.
“I am completely overwhelmed,” Hegarty, 34, said after accepting the award at a central London ceremony. “I think they must have made a mistake. I think that is insane.”
Bookmakers William Hill had made the Leeds-based alternative rock quintet Kaiser Chiefs the favorite to win the award, while Antony & the Johnsons were fourth on its list.
The event was hosted by musician and TV presenter Jools Holland and featured performances from Kaiser Chiefs, as well as fellow nominees KT Tunstall, the Go! Team, the Magic Numbers and Bloc Party.
Hegarty said trying to pick among such different nominees was like choosing between an “orange and a spaceship and a potted plant.”
At well over 6 feet tall and with a ghost-white face and straggly hair covering his face, Hegarty’s looks are as unusual as is his voice.
Rolling Stone magazine described his voice as “an instrument of delicacy and rapture in which Nina Simone, Morrissey and Joni Mitchell seem to inhabit the same breath.”
The Mercury judges often award the prize to rising stars rather than established names. Past winners include rock bands Franz Ferdinand and Pulp, rapper Dizzee Rascal and singer-songwriter PJ Harvey.
Love it, so much more efficient than the old version, and no more brushed steel, yay. However, my new favourite freeware, “Clutter”, no longer works with it, at least the “export image to iTunes”-feature, which was basically my favourite part of it doesn’t. And that was the one thing that made me think about getting an iPod with a colour display…
*(finally!)
A live report from the current special event in San Francisco annouces new products. First of all, the Motorola ROKR phone is a phone with iPop shuffle features. It will be exclusive to Cingular in the United States, and the advertising campaign will feature Madonna (with her fashionable black sling I do wonder?) Would be exciting, if the phone wasn’t by Motorola. It looks like a silver rip-off of the SE75oi. For European readers, rumour has it that the ROKR will be exclusive to o2 UK, so it will probably be licensed to other European partners of o2 as well.
Secondly, the iPod mini will be replaced by the iPod nano, which features flash memory storage rather than a hard disk, a 14-hour rechargeable battery, a colour-screen, and USB 2.0 connectivity. It also sports a 30-pin dock connector that is compatible with existing iPod accessories. The nano comes in black or white and is available in 2GB and 4GB confiugurations for $199 and $249. Apple will also offer a $29 iPod nano dock, a $39 lanyard with built-in headphones (sweet!), $29 colored arm bands and slip on cases. (from AppleInsider.com)
Ah well, I guess I shouldn’t have bought the shuffle after all, or should I? I guess I will put it up for sale on eBay and then get myself a nano after my trip to Liverpool.
A new version of iTunes, iTunes 5 will finally be made available later today, which is the one thing I’m totally excited about right now since it’s free
It also looks like I was right with my prediction on iPod car accessories a while ago, since Honda, Acura, Audi, and Volkswagen are announcing iPod connectivity solutions today. I do have a Volkswagen, but I have come up with a connectivity solution myself, so I can’t see myself spending cash on that one. It may look prettier than mine, but hey, looks really aren’t everything.
Apple has updated their website now. I’m so getting one of the nanos.
It’s been reported by the Washington Post that foreign aid for the victims of Hurricane Katrina is being delayed because of bureaucratic measures that cannot be handled sufficiently at this point. I remember the same thing happening when the Tsunami , though back then it was blamed on the political structures of some of the countries. It always hurts to see that help cannot reach those who need it because of extensive paperwork being in the way.
Washington Post: Foreign Giving. Offers of Aid Immediate, but U.S. Approval Delayed for Days
