start of the gig season
What with students back at university - the gig calendar is looking pretty full for the next couple of months. SFA on friday at the royal festival hall looks to be pretty special - load of supporting acts including bravecaptain (he of the boo radleys) the furries are doing an accoustic opening thing downstairs early on and then later the main event is split into 2 halves with a beer interval in the middle, excellent.
Also coming up are glc, ian brown, franz ferdinand, keane, graham coxon and last but not least NEDS ATOMIC DUSTBIN!
oh and also
my website hosting company had a major problem a couple of weeks ago and they had to go to backups - this means the parts of my site not created by
blogger.com have not been fully recovered.
Mostly this just means the photos are missing - I'll re-upload them all from home as soon as I get a chance.
back from the ireland
back from the windy wet country where I pranged the van big style. luckily no-one was hurt. stupidly windy whilst we were there, got some surfing and windsurfing in although not as much as we would have liked due to not having any transport for 3 days :(
lots of pics to follow including blarney castle and some big waves.
link of the day has got to be Amazons new search engine, bookmark saving, all in one web tool which is called
a9.com.
unsplice the main thing
despliced that del.icio.us feed from the main blog one as it was cluttering it somewhat. if you want to see what links I'm bookmarking at del.icio.us then by all means use this
seperate feed.
film review roundup
(stuff what I have watched recently)
bit of a spate of cinema goings - twice in edinburgh, its always nice to go to the cinema in the day and watch a film without all the mongs you get in a multiplex on a week night. so in no particular order:
- hellboy
watched at home on dvd, unsurprisingly on my own. as paul ross would say its riproaring rollocking rollarcoaster of a ride. I thought it was actually pretty decent as far as these comic book adaptions go and definitely better than spiderman.
- spooks series 2
also a solo mission for me, again on dvd. its great, possibly even better than the first series. if you like tense tv drama with completely unrealistic plots where a few main characters save the UK from certain and nasty deaths every episode, this is the stuff you're after.
- six feet under series 2
watched on div-x but have just bought the dvds. I haven't got to the end of this yet but we are loving it - the characters are starting to annoy me a bit but I think its due to over-saturation (i.e. watching an episode almost every night). time for a break after this one to get some 24 watched :)
- kill bill volume 2
again on div-x but have again bought the dvd. i thought it was great and possibly will get better with another viewing. lots more plot and lots more characterisation than the first.
- dawn of the dead (remake)
best remake I've seen since Texas Chainsaw, but having said that I haven't seen the originals of either. to steal a quote from somewhere else I cant remember where: "its a million times better than it has any right to be", or something like that. dodgy div-x and the dvd is now on its way so looking forward to watching it again with a decent picture quality and some loud 5.1
- 16 years of alcohol
watched this in edinburgh as part of the film festival, good things: its got tommy and spud out of trainspotting bad points: its nothing like trainspotting. bit too arty for me this - I liked the plot and way the film developed but overall it felt like the director was constantly trying to be very clever.
- the bourne supremecy(and the bourne identity)
watched this at the cinema last night after re-watching identity on div-x. they really are great films - i like the fact that they're all europe (or in the case of supremecy europe and moscow) and both have a very international feel.
- the village
or M Night Shyamalan's The Village as it seems to be referred to everywhere. I thought this was dull as. Very very slow (yes even slower than Signs or Unbreakable). I have decided I just dont like his films - he so hell bent on there being a audience shocking defining moment he loses all sense of where the film is going.
dentist tonight, followed by more running. bing!
gmail invites
anyone want a gmail account - google webmail with excellent searching and 1GB of storage space. let me know they've just given me a load more invites.
more stuff
Friday night did the borderline, post cider, post waggamammas plum wine and saki. got there too early had 10 minutes of good music and a pint of snakebite and black before it all went a bit pete tong. Some complete knobend called tom arnold with "his band" came on and "entertained". He annoyed us within seconds - of course it helped that he had been walking round with a stupid hat on prior to playing, introducing himself to all as someone who was in the band. For christs sake its the borderline? There cant have been more than 40 people there and they were
all waiting for the dancing to commence not for some tit in a stupid hat to play overblown wannabe indie rock at them.
cab home was easy though.
saturday night, greek restaurant - top notch food, good couple of bottles of house white.
sunday and monday was return to windsurfing - post ankle injury. emma tried out her
new board which let us down big style, the board is great but the fittings cheap and low quality. I also let myself down by wiping my board out on monday in the nice north westerly which was speeding through poole harbour. sailed it back with no fin (thats difficult believe me) and now have to get it repaired quick sharp before going to Ireland!
After writing this I just looked up borderline and to my shock found out it is owned by none other than mean fiddler, how long has this been the case? no wonder the live music has gone down hill -
borderline website
