I've lived on a dirt road all my life

There's no stopping the cretins from hopping

2005-10-26T21:37:00.000+02:00

I was driving home from work and wondering about how to resolve free will and determinism. I always seem to struggle when it comes to formulating this conundrum as a simple question. Here is part of it: is the current state of the world (and by extension, all past and future states) inevitable? The whole causality thing is quite a convincing argument in this regard, although I do wonder if that is an incomplete approach. Another conundrum: if you consider some decision that you have made (this being exercising your alleged free will), given the same state of the world (and your mind) at the time that you made this decision, would you ever make a different choice? I'm going with 'no'.

At any rate, I was mulling over all of this (I tend to do think about this sort of crap) when I drove past a beaten-up old blue van with 'Jesus is the answer' painted on the side in yellow.

So apparently I have my answer, although I can't make any claim to understand it. It's a bit like answering 'that is right' to 'how did you get to the moon?'

Check it! A new post!

2005-08-28T10:43:00.000+02:00

An indication of how industrious I feel when it comes to blogging.

A summarised version of what I probably would have blogged about over the last month:

How much The Island sucked.

How awesome the trailer for Sin City looks.

Damn miserable existentialists posing as biplane pilots.

Why you should listen to Apples in Stereo, Saturday Looks Good to Me and Charlotte Hatherley.

Why you must watch the original King Kong, if only for the Hispanic actor cast as a Chinese man. China, Latin America, what's the difference? Who can tell? Certainly not me.

Why cultural stereotyping is okay if the cultural group in question isn't around to protest.

That's about it. I'm going to go ahead and leave the task of thinking out the rest of these virtual posts as an exercise for the reader.

Grand Theft Auto malarkey

2005-07-16T12:38:00.000+02:00

Apparently there is a rather dodgy mod available for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. It is called Hot Coffee and it allows the player to have sex with their avatar's girlfriend. This has caused quite some consternation, check out this article for a longer explanation of the situation. In short, the people who released the mod claim that they unlocked some existing functionality in the game's code (i.e. they merely made it available instead of producing it themselves), but the folks at Rockstar Games claim that the mod was produced by malicious hackers etc...

Hilary Clinton is pissed off about the whole thing. She feels that the game should have been rated Adult Only (instead of the Mature 17+ rating it received). For those of you who are not familiar with the Grand Theft Auto series, the game involves being rewarded for a variety of criminal activities (stealing cars, running people down, shooting people/cops/hare krishnas). Maybe this has all changed since the first two GTA games that I played a few years back, but I truly doubt it.

This is the part that I don't understand: Clinton is pissed off about the simulated sex, yet apparently all the killing and stealing is okay? If video games really influence the behaviour of gamers, wouldn't we rather have more people having sex than killing people? After all, sex is a natural thing and in most places is not illegal etc... Stealing cars/killing people on the other hand, is generally considered to be poor practice.

Like eating glass

2005-07-09T11:49:00.000+02:00

I might be wrong. Usually I am kind of dismissive of overly hyped bands (anybody remember last year when Snow Patrol, or Keane for that matter, was 'the next Coldplay'?) on account of I tend to prefer to form my own opinions (quite odd, I know). Yet sometimes the hype is totally justified. Arcade Fire being a case in point.

So when I first started hearing about how Bloc Party is next most amazing band or whatever, I avoided them for a bit. And then I saw this really cool band on MTV and it turned out to Bloc Party. It has taken me a long time since then to actually get off my ass and buy the album (this however, has nothing to do hipsters or hype - I'm the king of procrastination), but it the album is definitely a worthwhile purchase. There is a sense of urgency in most of their songs, which makes for compelling listening. Even though I haven't been able to make out many lyrics yet, the music sounds like it is somehow very relevant to right now (as opposed to 1986).

Check it!

Up in flames

2005-07-06T23:34:00.000+02:00

Two predictions that I'd put money on (if I were a betting man):

1. Arcade Fire are the next Pixies. Over the next few years, they will release another three albums or so, all of which will be amazing, but will never be commercially successful. The fans will be rabid fans. Then they will break up for whatever reason and it will suck with great immensity.

2. google is going to rule the world in a few years. They are big brother, they are watching us and they are reading our email. They may even be monitoring where you live and work. They are the gatekeepers, they own our gateway to information. Check it. It really is a bit worrying when you consider how much we depend on google, and the kind of power that gives them.

Coping with the cultural logic of late capitalism part 1: ninjas

2005-07-06T23:20:00.000+02:00

I don't like going to shopping malls. Not one jot. In fact I detest it. Shopping malls are like labyrinths, except labyrinths are cool and malls suck. (An aside: imagine you travelled through a wormhole in a supermarket, say Hyperama, and you were ejected back into the same supermarket at some point in either the future or the past, would you be able to tell that you had time-travelled at all? The music would probably be the same bland, inoffensive adult contemporary rubbish that they play today. Your only clue would come from prices...).

As much as I hate going to the mall, I find that sometimes it is a necessary evil. Like last night when I wanted to listen the Bloc Party CD at the CD shop. I find that walking around pretending to be a spy (or better yet: a ninja!) makes the whole experience more bearable. You should try it. Seriously.

dictionary.com tells me that the plural of labyrinth should be labyrinths, yet I think that labyrinthes is cooler. What do y'all think?

The Island

2005-07-04T21:25:00.000+02:00

I've seen the trailer and I'm not too sure what to make of it. On the one hand, it is a triumph in terms of concept. What is better than a movie with Scarlett Johansson? A movie with more than one Scarlett Johansson! On the other hand, it is a Michael Bay movie. Michael Bay brought us such fantastic movies as Pearl Harbour and Armageddon! Eeee!

Batman!

2005-07-04T21:09:00.000+02:00

Okay, so this post is a little overdue, seeing as how I watched Batman Begins more than a week ago. Anyway, if you haven't seen it yet, you should definitely check it out. It is my favourite Batman film so far, and I really liked Batman Returns, so this really is quite something.

It is good to finally get a real explanation of how Batman came to be what he is. They don't gloss over any details, like the why hell a sane person would dress up like a bat, or where he would find a bat costume. Thankfully this approach also ensured that the batsuit didn't have nipples. Now if only they didn't cast Katie Holmes...

There again, her character was a bit annoying, so maybe Katie Holmes was a good choice after all.

gmail: cool or creepy?

2005-06-26T17:51:00.000+02:00

I've recently started making more frequent use of my gmail account. The whole thing is very cool in many ways. The interface and presentation is good, the speed is fantastic. But despite the coolness, it isn't without its creepy big brother aspects. The way that they target advertising at you is, I suppose, better than all the generic ads for green cards and whatnot, but it does raise some concerns. Initially I thought that everybody was getting a bit carried away over nothing with the whole mail scanning thing, but now I'm having second thoughts.

Since Google is an American company (at least I imagine it is), does this mean that they have to comply with the US government's idea of free speech? So if I start sending mail about bombs and presidents, am I going to put on some watchlist? Perhaps more interesting, what sort of ads will they choose for me?

At least some of the ads are kind of entertaining, check out this one:

'Get a powerful plan for restoring your relationship with your ex. $24'

Relationship battle plans. Fantastic.

Saturday looks good to me

2005-06-25T18:11:00.000+02:00

Y'all must check out 'Saturday looks good to me', I've only heard one and a half songs and already I'm sold! Sort of indie rock with sixties pop. But nothing like the Thrills. Stylee.

Last night I was lucky enough to watch This Way Out perform for the second time this year. They really should gig more often. If I had arrived sooner, I also would've seen the elusive The Abbots. All for the princely sum of R5! Although it was at Zanzibar - eeeeh! If you haven't seen This Way Out yet, then you must! Of course if you don't live in Pretoria it'll rather hard to catch them.

Giving up the ghost

2005-06-19T21:24:00.000+02:00

Okay, so I should probably post something so that you keep coming back. It should probably funny or insightful or interesting or something like that. While I work on that, check out Magical Trevor (he's ever so clever).

I watched Episode 3 again. Powerful as the dark side may be, it appears to have some serious drawbacks. Like the inability to brush your teeth. Did you see the Emperor's teeth? Damn! Ditto for Count Dooku. Might explain why nobody likes the Sith much - halitosis.

I watched Vertigo earlier today. It's cool a movie and all (only Alfred Hitchcock can turn an opening title sequence into an opportunity to create completely arbitrary suspense), but it is also really weird. I had forgotten all about the crazy nightmare sequence. If you haven't seen it yet, you should watch it.

By the way, all you users that don't have blogger accounts should be able to post comments now. (Obviously this is why I have only one comment on this blog. Obviously. You slackers!)

Organ donor

2005-06-11T16:20:00.000+02:00

The deluxe version of Entroducing was released this week. Entroducing has consistently been one of my favourite albums since I bought it five or six years back. Sometimes I swear that it still gets better the more I listen to it. It was unlike anything I had heard upto that point in time. And I was half a decade behind the curve at that time. Even by today's standards the album still sounds fresh. 'Why Hip Hop sucks in '96' is still totally relevant in 2005. If you haven't heard the album, get a hold of it and give it a listen. The deluxe edition comes with a second disc that features a live track (which should be awesome), some alternate takes and few more tracks.

I suspect that I'm becoming quite the Bloc Party fan. The tracks I've heard are really quite awesome. I'm keen to go buy the album, but I'm also keen to buy some more Sin City (saw the making of the movie yesterday - it looks awesome!). What to do? If only I were a dinosaur and didn't have to spend money I could get stuff by telling people that I wouldn't bite them if they gave me stuff. *sigh*

Y'all must help me decide which CDs I should buy for meself. DJ Matt, if you so much as mention The Wrens, Apples in Stereo or Spoon... you know where I'll kick you!

Microsoft solves age-old mystery

2005-06-11T16:16:00.000+02:00

Microsoft's new ad campaign for Office tells me that Office has evolved, and asks: have I evolved? Of course I have! I've evolved into a half-man half-dinosaur! It's the logical next step: a halfway point between we are and what we used to be. It is a little known fact that dinosaurs in fact evolved into people. One day billions of years ago we decided that we'd had enough running around biting stuff and wreaking havocc (can one wreak anything else?), so we thought that we'd evolve into humans so that we could build highways and go to the office during. And sleep in on weekends. However, it saddens to me see that even in our evolved state of half-dinosaur half-human, we are still spending our days not only at the office, but using Microsoft products. Eish!

'But hey who's on trial?'

2005-06-11T16:09:00.000+02:00

Bloody Jacob Zuma appears to have no intention of resigning. And even if Mbeki sacks him as Deputy President, he'll remain the ANC's second in command, which would mean that he'd probably be the next presidential candidate anyway. Bastich! What to do if he is our next president? Panic!

'Why can't we just look the other way?'

Y'all must listen to 'Evil' by Interpol. And the TV on the Radio cover of 'Mr Grieves'! It gives the original a good run for its money.

why the green goblin is cool (even though he isn't)

2005-05-31T19:26:00.000+02:00

The Green Goblin is almost always laughing about something. Apparently he finds the world a most amusing place.

"I'm flying on a thingy and throwing bombs at people! This is so funny! Hahaha!"
"Spidey you weak little fool! Hahahaha!"

The Green Goblin in fact laughs out loud. If Spiderman were an instant messaging comic, the Green Goblin would be typing LOL a whole lot. Because everything is so damn funny. I know a guy who uses LOL in his emails. As far as I can tell, it is his way of using IM-speak instead of a smiley or something. But I prefer to think of him laughing like a lunatic while sending email.

"Today we had a good time at work. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

Yes. Check out the M83 remix of Bloc Party's 'Pioneers', is way styling.

Oh yes, y'all must listen to the Ramones. All the time. With song titles like "The KKK took my baby away" and "Now I wanna sniff some glue" you can't go wrong. Besides, they have a wickedmad (crazywickedcool!) version of the Spiderman theme tune.

stereogum has posted a bunch of mp3s. Give the new Sufjan Stevens track a listen or two, it's extreme!

High above the mucky muck

2005-05-24T22:01:00.000+02:00

So it finally happened. The Joburg city centre has disappeared. It has been obscured by its own filth. The skyline is not supposed to be brown. It's just not right.

(When you wake) you're still in a dream

2005-05-24T21:47:00.000+02:00

Yeah, so I'm sure that nobody really cares too much about what I thought of Episode 3. Which is too bad, because I'm going to share my opinion anyway.

Despite one or two shockingly poor bits of scriptwriting ("She's simply lost the will to live") I really enjoyed Episode 3. It kind of redeemed the prequel trilogy - a little bit anyway. I won't go on for too long about what I thought was cool and what was annoying. If nothing else it was cool to see wookies again (wookie noises rock the party) and it was entertaining to see how Darth and the emperor went about rekitting out their spaceships and troops to have a totally retro, dark, gigantic red button aesthetic. They've got some weird ideas of what looks good, but I guess that I kind of prefer their austere b-movie sensibility to the opulent big budget stylings of the old republic. It was decadence I tell you (and not Darth Vader) that led to their downfall. Shouldn't have had such shiny space ships. Or allowed Jar-Jar Binks to enter represent the opposition.

Seriously, who thought that Jar-Jar was a good idea?

Friday is I need more sleep day

2005-05-20T22:18:00.000+02:00

I was checking out the DVDs available at Look and Listen the other day and I noticed a rather cheap looking DVD box. It was from some dodgy looking range of low budget action movies from the 70's and it was called 'Raped in the Ghetto'. It starred Art Garfunkel and the blurb on the back was in German. Really. Too weird and too screwed up.

I need sleep. I need Star Wars. I need next weekend to follow on directly from this weekend.

Check it: the black metal dialogues.

Not that it really needs saying, but don't ever watch White Noise. Unless you like really bad movies. That make absolutely no sense at all. I was watching it and thinking of how I'd rather be watching Evil Dead 2. Seriously, what kind of a horror movie doesn't have chainsaws? Or Ash?

DJ Matt sent me this X3 link. Check it out. Sounds cool.

Anchorless

2005-05-15T21:57:00.000+02:00

After having decided that perhaps it is wise to try to make peace with Sunday evenings (after all, they are always going to be there) I decided to watch a movie. I made the mistake of watching 'thirteen' after having heard that it is a good movie. I suppose that it is a good movie, but it made me miserable and I'm pretty sure that watching it did not benefit me in any way.

Next Sunday I'm going to be a bit more critical about the movie I watch.

Besides the movie and my sleeping bag catching fire, today was pretty good. I have no idea how people live in colder climates. I suppose they just have warm climates. But at least we can go out for a braai a month from midwinter and it is probably warmer than many other places that are supposedly approaching midsummer.

Although not having to fear gangs of people attacking you with broken bottles is always a plus.

2005-05-05T19:32:00.000+02:00

I was shocked to discover that at least one person actually reads my blog and notices when I don't update it [I'm talking about you Matthew]. Two weeks back one of my harddrives failed and Windows decided to forsake my soundcard - leaving my unable to listen to music and hence unmotivated to use my computor. This is my attempt at excusing my slackness.

I'll make this short, as I have to be off in a minute and I'm pretty bad at saving posts and actually finishing them. You should check out the following bands/artists if you haven't already done so:

Iron and Wine
Sufjan Stevens
Rooney
Party Ben (good for mash ups)

Okay, that's shockingly short list, but I haven't heard too much new stuff recently (what with spongled 'putor and all). In case y'all are wondering at my apparent inability to spell the computor, I've decided that my spelling is more appropriate. It is also more scalable and sustainable. Yes it is, and if you disagree I'll have my secret service abduct you and put you to work in my banana plantations.

Bagels are so last year

2005-04-21T22:08:00.000+02:00

To bring myself more in line with the general feeling that I've been picking up on other blogs, I've decided that I should start hating on the O.C. (even though I really really like it and Alex is so hot right now). And I've decided to start using the phrase 'hating on', because all the trendy hipster kids are using it on their blogs. I would use some other new phrases like 'are you macking on my girl?' or 'are you maddogging me?' but I don't really know what they mean, besides the fact that I heard the on the O.C. and consequently they must suck.

So they've been having bagels on the O.C. far too often for my liking. Bagels used to be so tasty, but now that they are on the O.C. and getting all commercial and whatnot. Next thing your little sister might end up stealing your bagels to eat while she listens to evil commercial music - *hiss!*. But now that bagels are getting popular they don't taste as good any more.

I'll stop now.

I can never quite fathom what the dilly-o is with general public's opinion of the O.C. On one hand it appears to riotously popular (as it should be, not least because Alex is so hot right now), but there again, everytime I read something about it online (and maybe this is because I'm reading all the stupid blogs) I only ever hear people slagging it off.

Music stuff

Architecture in Helsinki released their second album last week and so far it is sounding way cool. Y'all should give it a listen, along with Tegan and Sara (try 'Walking with a ghost'), Ambulance Ltd and Rooney (a very cool Weezer-esque band that I first heard on the O.C. - don't worry it was on an episode before it was cool to hate the O.C., so the the music still sounds okay), and the Jimmy Eat World cover of Wham!'s 'Last Christmas'. Wicked mad! Sucker fool!

Movie stuff

I watched the Ring 2 this week and thankfully it wasn't nearly as scary as the first movie. I'd like to go on record as possibly the only person in the world who thinks that the Ring is scarier than Ringu. Anyway, the movie was entertaining enough, although it didn't have any chainsaws or dismembering of the evil undead (I've been watching Evil Dead movies recently), which was a bit of a let down. A chainsaw and, let's face it, Ash would've improved the movie no end. He'd have shown that Samara what for.

It's weekend tomorrow (thank goodness) and I'm going off to see what all this Colour Bar malarky is about. (Probably about monkies and the evil undead)

Ben Gibbard you rock the party

2005-04-12T19:42:00.000+02:00

Cogito ergo sum. And what does that mean for Bush? There is no George Bush. I wish. Hmmm.... That's the sort of random crap that I think of in the traffic on the way home. A productive way to spend my time, no doubt.

I got hold of Kelly Clarkson's 'Since You've Been Gone' (this was after listening to the awesome Ted Leo cover over and over again), and shockingly it is rather good. I can't believe how blatantly they ripped off the guitar bit in 'Maps', hoping that somehow nobody would notice.

Check out this article about the new Death Cab album. Note Ben Gibbard's response to whiney fans complaining about their upcoming appearance on the O.C. - I couldn't agree more.

I watched the SpongeBob movie over the weekend and in my opinion it is one of the better movies released this year (sorry Martin Scorcese, but how can you compete with an appearance by none other than the Hoff himself?). In fact I was raving about it being movie of the year until Colin pointed out that I had already awarded that title to Hero. Dammit.

Check out the new mp3's at stereogum, there's some Ben Lee, Aqualung (apparently a new track) and all sorts of stuff that I have never heard of.

Stuff!

2005-04-04T20:46:00.000+02:00

Get the new Weezer single here. Not sure if this guy knows that Dave wasn't actually on Bleach (which might explain the improvement). Check out the same directory for new S.O.A.D and Gorillaz.

Get a My Bloody Valentine concert here.

Thursday is new stuff day

2005-03-31T21:11:00.000+02:00

Check it...

So much new music is on the way. Weezer's new album 'Make Believe' is out sometime in May (I think), check http://www.weezer.com for details. Ben Folds has a new album called 'Songs for Silverman' on the way. Gorillaz new album should be out soon. Sadly, they've dropped Dan the Automator (bastards!), but their new beatmaster is none other than the mighty DJ Dangermouse! The new single 'Feel Good' would be soooo much better if it weren't for the rather unfortunate resemblance to U2's (how much do they suck right now?) 'Staring at the Sun'.

The Bravery's self-titled debut was released this week. See if you can find some reference to them that doesn't mention the similarities to the Killers, the Cure and the Strokes - I dare you. Colin, you were the first person I heard that from, but definitely not the last. It's uncanny. I'll have to give them a listen before I say anything good or bad.

In other news, the Arcade Fire made it on to the cover of Canadian Time magazine, ay. Check out the full text here. It seems pretty much obligatory to rave about how amazingly good they are. insert rave here. Although for my part, 'Rebellion (Lies)' sounds like the Pixies to my ears. The rest of it sounds like My Bloody Valentine (so good! so good!) [hehehe!].

The Killers were playing live on tonight's episode of the O.C. and by live, I mean lip-synching really badly on stage. Still, it was cool that they made an appearance. All they need now is to get Death Cab and the Arcade Fire to make 'live' appearances... Excellent Smithers!

Oh yeah, Radiohead played a new track at a concert about a week back. It's called 'Arpeggi', try get hold of it.

I just read that Death Cab will be making an appearance on the O.C.

Stylee.

And all the damn indie kids are moaning, because heaven forbid other people might like the same music as them. And damn any of the bands they listen to if they ever manage to breakthrough to a wider audience. And here I was thinking that bands got together so that only small numbers of elitist monkies would listen to their music.

My very first post

2005-03-21T21:17:00.000+02:00

Welcome to my blog, the home of superior opinions.

Okay, so my first post in pretty poor, but I have to post something now so that my blog will actually appear! Besides, I'd rather be reading Calvin and Hobbes than thinking of something to post.