Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Lies for the Liars

I'm not quite sure that I should share this, in case someone from the band is reading and it goes to their head (see previous post and the comment on it for explanation). But the new album from the Used, "Lies for the Liars", is quite good.

I bought their first album when it came out in about 2002 I think, after hearing "A Box Full of Sharp Objects". It was a decent debut, in fact the first four or five songs were great (if you like punk music with liberal amounts of screaming), although the rest of the CD was kind of average.

The next one was a CD/DVD with live versions of the first few songs from their first album ie the good ones, and some filler. Still good, but you're expecting a bit more at this stage.

The next album, "In Love and Death" really sucked. It was at about this point that it became impossible to walk down Rundle Mall in the middle of the day without tripping over freakish punk/emo/goth kids. Mainly because for some reason they like sitting on the ground (often outside bookstores), talking about death and My Chemical Romance (at least I think they do). Anyway these kids love bands like The Used, so I kind of stopped listening to them, scared that maybe one day I'd decide to dye my hair black, get full length arm tattoos and insert a small hockey puck in my earlobe.

After this album, they brought out another CD/DVD package, with live versions of the crappy songs from their last crappy album. Awesome.

Their new album came out a few weeks ago and I thought I'd check it out by downloading it. I was surprised to find out that it was actually a retun to their first CD - a bit heavier, with less of the ballady type stuff on the last album. It seems really rare for bands to actually revert to their previous form - once they start to suck, it's a slippery slope that's not easy to climb back up (also see Smashing Pumpkins, The). Somehow though these guys managed to recapture the feel of their first album without coming out with a carbon copy of it.

This kind of music isn't everyone's thing - actually I can probably only think of one or two of my friends who may possibly like this - but if you think you might be interested perhaps download "The Bird and the Worm", "Paralyzed" or "Wake the Dead". Or just watch this video where Bert pretends to be Kurt Cobain.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Quickflix

The other day I joined up with Quickflix for a free trial. The concept sounds good - you order movies online, they ship them to your home within a day or so, you return them in the reply paid envelope they send you, then they send you some more DVDs.

I can see one problem already - the cost is like $30 or more a month, which is quite a lot to spend on DVD rentals, assuming you have a job to go to and some semblance of a social life.

The other problem is you can't just order anything you want - you have a "queue" of movies you want to see - which they recommend you keep topped up with at least twenty titles. What this means is that you might not get your first pick, or your second, but there's a good chance you'll get your nineteenth. You'd be surprised how few movies there are that you are interested in seeing, I know I struggled to fill my queue.

Anyway I joined up last Thursday, and my first movies arrived in the post yesterday. Which was awesome timing since I was home sick. (Side point - staying at home in bed all day is not nearly as fun as I remember it being. I would have had to have been in intensive care to stop me coming in to work today, and I don't love my job that much). I didn't get the movies I really wanted, but the ones I got were pretty good.

The first one I watched was "The Wrong Man". Starring Josh Hartnett (as the wrong man), Bruce Willis, a surprisingly attractive Lucy Liu, Morgan Freeman and Sir Ben Kingsley. I thought it was really good - kind of like a Quentin Tarantino/Guy Ritchie movie, but with less funny dialogue and perhaps a few more twists. I recommend this one, check it out. Final rating - B plus.

The second was "World Trade Centre". I was kind of in the mood for this after watching "United 93" a week or so ago (which by the way was a bit of a weird film - it's all in real time so there's no real character development, backstory or anything like that - its just a 90 minute dramatisation of the event). I enjoyed both films but possibly World Trade Centre a little more - for one thing, anything with Maggie Gyllenhaal is usually better than something without her in it. Also this movie just seemed a bit wider in scope - the scenes they shot in the New York streets as the building was coming down looked amazing. Nicolas Cage can be a bit annoying but he was fine in this. I'd give it seven out of ten.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Live in concert . . . Samantha Fox

I saw an ad the other day for Count Down 2 at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. Basically the idea is a whole lot of bands that nobody has really cared about for 25 or so years playing together, with the whole thing hosted by Molly Meldrum. I suppose the purpose of this type of thing is to a) ensure Molly continues to have employment in the entertainment industry until he dies and b) allow a whole lot of people to relive their youth by listening to songs from their adolescence.

Of course, if you're seeing 20 odd bands in the one night, you know that you're not really getting quality. No U2, REM, Police etc . . . the biggest name on the bill (or first one listed at least) is Rick Springfield. My only conection to Rick is shopping in JB Hi-Fi one day with Mirjana while she tried to find the cheapest possible way of purchasing "Jesse's Girl" on CD. I think eventually she decided $10 was too much to pay and we left. Which makes me wonder who is going to pay $100 to see him and all his friends in concert in 2007.

Anyway, what really struck me wasn't how crappy the lineup is . . . I'm sure there are people out there saying "If Samantha Fox, Richard Clapton and Kate Cebrano ever tour together I'm totally going" . . . it was that most of the performers were single people from bands. For example - Katrina (formerly of Katrina and the Waves) . . . Paul Gray (of Wa Wa Nee) . . . Les McKewon (formerly of the Bay City Rollers). Where are the rest of the guys? I want to know what the remaining members of Wa Wa Nee are doing that they can't make the show. Actually now that I think about it Wa Wa Nee sort of used to rock - maybe if they could get the rest of the guys back together it might not be half bad.

On second thoughts, maybe not.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Wouldn't it be nice

Drove up to Mintaro in the Clare Valley yesterday to check out a cottage on an acre of land. I was thinking the place would make a great weekender one day. Now obviously I don't have enough money to buy a weekender in the country right now, but Oliver the real estate agent didn't realise that. Or if he did, he decided to humour me. I felt kind of like George Costanza in that Seinfeld episode where he pretends to own a house in the Hamptons. I was just waiting for Oliver to call me a liar.


Anyway, it was amazing - 160 years old, with a giant main room, a few bedrooms, and a nice garden out the front.



The house fronted onto the main street in Mintaro, which is just beautiful - lots of great old trees and historic buildings, with cellar doors, a pub, a war memorial . . . if you took away the cars the place probably would have looked almost identical half a century ago.



Out back was vacant land - a few horses grazing in the next paddock over, an old schoolhouse on top of the hill - just an incredibly peaceful and relaxing outlook.

Unfortunately unless I come into $250,000 in the next week or so it looks like this place will remain a dream for me. Sure would be nice one day though.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Serious Scott

I've had a few people (OK fine, just one) request a picture of Serious Scott . . . well here he is. I'm sure you'd agree he kind of looks like an Asian Tim Pearce (well those of you who know Tim anyway).


Training sessions are moving along nicely. Still not a lot of smiling, but this week he was so pumped with my performance on the bench press he told me I was "f@#$ing awesome". That was nice.

After the session he gave me a photocopied sheet of paper with a drawing of a birthday cake on it. I figured it was a ploy to get me to buy him a birthday present (I would probably get him the Chris Rock Bring the Pain DVD, he could use a laugh) but instead it was a "gift to me". He's running a competition this month where in honour of his birthday, everyone who purchases a block of ten personal training sessions goes into the draw to win five free sessions. Still sounds more like a gift for him, but anyway.

Back soon with another update (and hopefully not in two weeks time).