:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Saturday, August 16, 2003 ::

Amanda and I went to the PJ Harvey gig at The Eden Project last night. It was a great show and an absolutely great venue. Eden itself is fascinating and concertgoers had access to the site and bio-domes etc. for most of the evening. We enjoyed ourselves despite having an argument in the Tropical dome and threatening to spend the rest of the evening separately. A threat we didn’t carry though by the way. The stage was sat in front the domes in an amphitheater so you had a pretty good view from just about anywhere. The whole way the event was organized, the friendliness and approachability of all of the staff, was amazing. It didn’t make you feel like cattle being herded around like many events do.

Elbow supported, although it wasn’t the best gig I’ve seen then do it was still pretty good, I think the crowd weren’t really with them and the amount of new material didn't help as the new album isn't out until next week so no-one new any of it.

According to the schedule Polly was going to play for two hours, but came on a little late and finished early giving us just over an hour and a half. It was her first UK gig for two years and the crowd gave the impression of having been waiting all of that time, although many off them also gave the impression of just wanting to hear material from Stories… and didn’t seem to know the rest of the songs. She has gone back to the original three-piece line up of the first two albums and a much more raw sound than on all of the subsequent albums. Along with the return to the older line-up came a return of the older material, which was absolutely great, it was like seeing her ten years ago again. Most of the set was made up of tracks from Dry and Rid of Me, with just a couple of token gestures thrown in from each of the others. Fantastic.

Oh yeah, and she was wearing leather boots and an almost non-existent dress with her chest exposed and arse cheeks hanging out. What more could you ask? Right, gotta find some pictures…

Set list

:: Dan 16.8.03 [Arc]    ::
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Levitated Design & Code, a friendly organization, who make some great visuals. Open Source code for funky web graphics.

:: Dan 14.8.03 [Arc]    ::
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Mr Sneeze in drug row

Microsoft iTune rival launched in Europe

Flash mobbers target Bristol

Five-year-olds the fastest expanding group of mobile phone users

:: Dan 14.8.03 [Arc]    ::
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The net is becoming a new medium for original productions, including more new Dr Who.

This year we will spend more money on ringtones than on singles. Glad to see the Italian Job Theme is in the current Top Ten, not that I’ve ever heard anyone use it, and not that I’d ever buy a ringtone. I’m a phone permanently on silent person and so should most other people be rather than subject us all to Scooter's Logical Song.

Handy Google hint from the Guardian; You can now get better search results by asking Google to search for a cluster of synonyms, simply by putting a tilde in front of the search word. Searching for ~food, for example, will also find pages that contain the words cooking, cuisine, nutrition, recipe and restaurant. There don't seem to be any disadvantages, either: if a word has no synonyms assigned (eg sex), you get the same result as searching without the tilde.

More than a third of IT staff think that losing access to email for a week would be "more traumatic than events such as a car accident or getting a divorce".

:: Dan 14.8.03 [Arc]    ::
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Organising a gig? Looking for something a bit different? Want to get the (geek) crowds in? Why not book DJ Portia Surreal, The World's Premier Topless DJ?

:: Dan 13.8.03 [Arc]    ::
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Lost track of the number of legal cases M$ is fighting? Check the Legal News page on their site for a current list and a complete achieve, including their stock responses for journalists.

:: Dan 12.8.03 [Arc]    ::
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I want to milk the bionic cow!

:: popcorn 12.8.03 [Arc]    ::
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So, you take the kids for a nice educational family day out at a farm, you accept you might have explain the ins and outs of reproduction afterwards, or where bacon comes from, but you don’t expect to get an education in why the bible is totally factually accurate and why anyone of suggests otherwise is a liar.

:: Dan 12.8.03 [Arc]    ::
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It's hardly going to dent their coffers, but I like it when M$ lose court battles.

I like it better when you say "M$ have been fined half a billion dollars".

Sure, M$s army of lawyers might get it overturned at apeal, but they might not.

:: popcorn 12.8.03 [Arc]    ::
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Wagner extremes: at this year’s Edinburgh Festival you can either see Wagner’s complete 'Ring Cycle', clocking in at a meagre 15 hours, or alternatively there’s the 80 minute abridged version for “Wagner Virgins”. Link is to audio interview, can’t find a text version, sorry.

:: Dan 11.8.03 [Arc]    ::
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My latest PC upgrade has killed my box again (that and a scratched XP disk), so I'm in NoSoudOutput land at the 'mo. Which is a damn shame because I stumbled across a link for "Smells like teen spirit done in Japanese a capella", then I find that there's three albums d/l-able there.

How can it not be good?

:: popcorn 10.8.03 [Arc]    ::
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