:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Friday, December 05, 2003 ::

Project to drill into Earth fault: "An ambitious project by scientists in the US to try to predict earthquakes will go ahead thanks to a $20m grant from the National Science Foundation." Haven’t they seen A View to a Kill?

:: Dan 5.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Go to google, type in "miserable failure" and hit "I'm feeling lucky".

:: Dan 5.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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EP Review: Umek – Telontol

Bit of a late review this one, but I’ve just received a copy of the new Umek EP, Telontol, which was released on Monday. The opening title track itself is would be of interest to any Underworld fan, with its hard techno styling. However, the track is far too predictable for my taste, hardly changes at all over its near six minute running time and over uses a doppler sample (passing car like sound effect) that I’m sure the Prodigy used heavily on one track, possibly on the Jilted album. The second track, Genaolam, strats with some lovely dissonant jazzy keyboard stabbing that wouldn’t be out of place on Snares' Songs About My Cats. These end and there is a few seconds silence before it launches into another pounding techno track, this time broken up by a couple of key stabs where everything else is muted. It’s quite a nice little comical touch and the warm keys used here are like the resolution to the dissonant chords used at the start. This is a great DJ track nicely laid out for mixing. The final two tracks, Arondon and Entan, are both in the same vein but not as good and ultimately less memorable. This is great driving music, and for the DJ would be worth buying for Genolam alone, otherwise it’s not particularly memorable.

:: Dan 5.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Video for 'Crawl Home', the Polly Harvey/Josh Homme duet
from Desert Sessions 9 & 10. Requires Real Player. Also archive of Polly videos here.

Special fund raising preview of Fruitbat’s musical, January 23rd 2004 - The Bull & Gate, London Kentish Town. Tickets available at Shoppers Paradise. It’s a little steep at 30 quid but that does include a glass of Champagne on entry, canapes, a copy of the Soundtrack album (when completed) and a guaranteed seat for the musical World premier. Funds from this concert will go towards the recording of the soundtrack album and the first production of the musical.

:: Dan 5.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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0898 - MANATEE

:: popcorn 3.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Ancient hamster leaves behind a mammoth nut store

:: Dan 3.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Bill Bailey (nice new official site) is taking his Part Troll show, currently in London West End, on a nation wide tour next year. Full tour schedule and booking info here. He has also started blogging, following in the footsteps of other comedians (like Richard Herring and, umm, I can’t think of any other examples right now. I’m surprised Dave Gorman hasn’t) who have decided to give their fans a regular free slice of comedy to remind them to go to their shows and buy their merchandise.

P.S. A third series of Black Books is currently in production.

:: Dan 3.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Quick bit of Orb news. The new album, Bicycles & Tricycles, which was due for release back in April, is now slated for February 2004. It will feature the brilliant Land of Green Ginger, as heard on the Back to Mine compilation, and features collaborations with Thomas "practically a member of the Orb" Fehlmann, Jimmy "previously a member of the Orb, Mr KLF" Cauty, Fil "Autolump, see badorb.com Bless You compilation, where's my surname gone?" __ and Jack "Meat Beat Manifesto" Dangers (returning the favour of the Paterson appearance on MBMs RUOK? presumably). The Orbs current line-up is apparently Alex "he's The Orb on his own really" Patterson, Simon "Prayer Box, again see badorb.com Bless You compilation" Phillips and John "Witchman" Roome.

The Custerd album was also apparently due sometime this year, despite not having a label to release it on, but surprisingly never materialised. (There are some MP3s floating around.) The collaboration between Alex Paterson, Jimmy "see above" Cauty and Guy "Pink Floyd session bassist and originator of that fantastic Blue Room bass line" Pratt should be one to look out for if reviews of the Boom Bang Bombay (Rock The Boat) promo that appeared last year are to be believed, but I can only find any word on it on KLF fan sites so that is probably pretty biased.

Keep an eye on theorb.com for developments.

:: Dan 3.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Set your video for some great TV on Channel 4 tonight. (Listing. Link will only work today)
At 00:55 is Sound Travels - PJ Harvey, where Groove Armada "set off on a sonic pilgrimage to tell the story of great songwriter PJ Harvey". I’ve no idea why, but if it involves Polly it must be worth watching.
At 01:20 is Rather Good Videos featuring the animations of Joel Veitch of rathergood.com fame. See GromBlog for more homage to the scary kittens.
And one for Dash at 01:45 No Pies For 200 Yards - A Film About Mr Scruff.

:: Dan 3.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Another idea for those around the Bristol area, Thee Heavy Heads Disco will be showing American Mullet on Thuesday December 16 at the Cube Cinema. Not much more information on the Cube site unfortunately but at least check out the American Mullet site for more information about the film (now available on DVD and VHS) and its gratuitous mullet content. Its two quid on the night to get in but you do get FREE ENTRY WITH A MULLET! What more could you ask?

:: Dan 3.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Thai MPs protest mistress ban

Buffy 'inspires Doctor sidekick'

Spam poetry. (Not to be confused with the Spam Song)

:: Dan 2.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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The web is a complex ever changing place, where nothing is certain for long. The average lifespan of a Web page is only 100 days. Of the 2,483 British government Web sites 25 percent change their URL each year. Robert Dellavalle, of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, found he had huge problems citing web links in the footnotes in research papers as the pages referenced were constantly moving or disappearing. This inspired him to write a new research paper on the subject; Going, Going, Gone: Lost Internet References. Summary, Full Text. He likens this trend to the burning of the library in Alexandria in 48 B.C., when the greatest repository of knowledge of the time was lost forever. This could happen again if we don’t take steps to avoid it and the paper includes some ideas about how this could be achieved.

(All the links in the paper seem to be good at the moment btw =] )

As an aside, I’ve just noticed that GussetBlog is now over one year old. As of the 20 November, the day Gusset was preoccupied with putting on our most recent gig, we should also have been celebrating having created one years worth of throwaway observation and now probably mostly dead links. Happy Birthday to us!

:: Dan 2.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Don't be scared... It's the extremely un-Christian avatar that is worrying...
No members though, I wonder why?

:: Dash 2.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Yes, thanks for that Popcorn. My actual problem with it is that the front page used to tell me how many new emails I had and if I clicked on that it would take me to them. Now it only tells me how many I have from addresses on my contact list (and gives me direct links to those) but I cannot click on that number and see all of my new mails. When I click on the Mail tab I find that I actually have plenty more (not all spam) that it didn’t tell me about. It’s just not a very intelligent way of laying it out or linking it if you ask me. The new extra large Mailbox Usage bar is a waste of space and excuse to make the Get Extra Storage link more prominent. I’ll get used to it though, ho hum.

:: Dan 2.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Dan, look for the big tab at the top that says "MAIL", that might be what you're looking for.
My inbox is empty at the mo, but it does display what unread mail I have on the front page.
So maybe things have been tweaked in the past ten mins?


Either way, blech.

:: popcorn 2.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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...no, still like it. Anyway, here are some links:

Rumsfeld wins award for talking bollocks
The Nonsense League Table
Official Plain English Campaign Awards site

Pirated versions Longhorn are on sale in Malaysia for $2

:: Dan 2.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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Agghh! I’ve just woken up to find Hotmail and eBay both have new looks. eBay’s is just a colour change and it actually looks quite nice. Hotmail’s is more fundamental and a step backwards in usability. It was annoying enough when it stopped taking you to your inbox when you logged on, now it doesn’t even tell you how many messages you have. Annoying. It’s like waking up in some bizarre alternate reality. I might go back to bed and see if everything is back to normal later...

:: Dan 2.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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If you like scratch DJs don’t miss DJ Q-Berts UK tour next week:
Dec 10 – Glasgow
Dec 11 – London
Dec 12 – Bristol

Simon and Garfunkel are back together and touring the US to promote a new best of collection. Shame they don’t seem to be playing outside the US but hopefully something will happen if we keep our fingers crossed.

Go West. "Bristol, the south west's biggest city, has long been the creative hub of the region, home to some of the larger advertising and design agencies, followed closely by its smaller, slightly more languid cousin, Bath."

The Chris Cunningham DVD is finally released to day. It’s available pretty much everywhere so why not buy it from your favourite supplier: Warpmart, Boomkat, Amazon

Thanks to G3RM for the following:
Lose weight fast with Creepy Richard (D. James)
There were three days of experimental electronic music in Huddersfield last weekend, internet radios streams etc are up at Ultrasound

:: Dan 1.12.03 [Arc]    ::
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