/karen/
Songs in the making
Monday, 31 March, 2008
I meant to blog this last week but you know the drill ...
The New York Times reached a new level of awesomeness last week with the launch of their Measure for Measure blog—a blog about “How to Write a Song and Other Mysteries”. It's a group effort featuring the stylings of Darrell Brown, Rosanne Cash, Suzanne Vega and the delightful Andrew Bird.
Bird kicked off with the first post and already there's plenty of gems to glean, including—
Solitude, boredom, and the desperate need to entertain oneself are ideal stimuli for songwriting.
and
Almost every breath contains some fragments of an escaping melody. If I shape my lips so as to whistle, my breath will take on a musical shape like sonic vapor. Words are much trickier. I would forgo words altogether if I didn't love singing them so much. My choice of words and my voice betray so much and that's what's so terrifying and attractive about it.
The rest is well worth a read ...
Egghead
Sunday, 30 March, 2008
Stress on
Monday, 24 March, 2008
I consulted the Stress-O-Meter today to see whether I'm just deluded or whether there is a valid reason for the way I feel. If you set the time frame as the past 12 months (which is the way I think you're supposed to do the test [at least that's the way I did it when it was first introduced to me]), I score 278. The webpage says,
Psychologists regard 300 points as being the breaking point for the average person. Eighty per cent of people with scores of over 300 and 53 per cent with scores between 150 and 300 are likely to suffer some form of stress-related illness.
Guess I'm not deluded then ...
Nails under your cuticles
Monday, 24 March, 2008
Thursday 13/3/08
Back at work. (*Groan*.) Another bout with Campaign Monitor (*Double groan*.) At least their tech support people were very nice and helpful (even if they still did think I was an idiot). I edited more CHNs, tried half-heartedly to make some progress with The Daily Reading Bible (Volume 15) (hereafter abbreviated to DRB15), had lunch with Guan and Bec in the AFES board room, went to prayer meeting and then product development meeting and then went home.
At home, I tried once again to do the Campaign Monitor import but again it didn't work. I gave up then. Ben and I walked to Newtown and had a very yummy dinner at Hikaru, our favourite Japanese restaurant in Newtown. We ran into Michael L and his dad there who changed their order once they saw what we were having (gyoza dumplings, salmon sushi rolls, sashimi set which came with miso soup and soba noodles).
We got to The Vanguard around 7 but it took a little while for the doors to open. There weren't a lot of people there, though they did manage to almost completely fill the dining section by the time the musical acts came on. We saw a girl named Christa who was pretty good (guitar duets, soulful/folk sort of stuff) and John Columbus (indie rock but their patter was a bit too oh-my-gosh-we're-so-cool-we're-in-a-band sort of thing. I did enjoy their opening number, though, and wished it was on the EP I bought of them). Ben bought me a lemon lime and bitters, and flicked through a music newspaper which had pictures from St. Jerome's Laneways Festival. The air conditioning was up way too high, and we hadn't brought a jumper, so at one point Ben asked them to turn it down. They agreed. Then The Hampdens came on and blew us away. They finished up at around 11:30 and we walked home.
Friday 14/3/08
Late nights are the flavour of these past couple of weeks. We slept in, then went into work together. Once again I tried to tackle the Campaign Monitor problem (no luck) and make inroads with DRB15 (ditto). Elsie came and we read the Bible together, finally finishing off Cash Values.
In the afternoon, we drove to counselling (I fell asleep in the car) which was, once again, sad, but good because it helped us understand each other better. We drove home and I made fish for dinner (and was quite proud of myself because it turned out pretty well). We watched Law & Order: SVU, then I watched House and 50 First Dates and felt myself slowly getting sick.
Saturday 15/3/08
By Saturday, I was definitely sick. I slept for a long time, then spent the day watching lots of TV—Buffy Season 6—while knitting and going through lots and lots of tissues, lots of water and Panadol every four hours. It felt like there was a particularly bad drought in the back of my throat and nothing would parch it.
Ben made risoni for lunch (which we also had for dinner). And then it was time for more sleeping.
Sunday 16/3/08
I woke still sick but I was able to do some computer stuff—work on my blog, etc.—watch Buffy and knit (I finished Season 6) but church was out of the question. Ben went but I stayed home. And then it was time for more sleeping.
Monday 17/3/08
Unfortunately I then woke up at 3:30 in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep. I was too hot, and when I wasn't too hot, I was too cold. Crazy weather! It's my theory that people tend to get sick around the time of drastic weather changes—when the temperature drops or rises dramatically. This weekend, the temperature had gone up quite a lot so it almost felt like summer.
I jumped on my computer and started doing web stuff, trying to solve some of my EE problems. I managed to tackle the static pages, templates, search box and menus. I quit as the sun was coming up. Ben hadn't slept well either, and was up at 7 for some reason. He took my key and went into work, while I went back to bed and read for a while (Mark Helprin, A Dove of the East and Other Stories, plus American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang), and finally slept for another four hours.
Finally I got up for more computer work (I was able to import my writing blog—yay!) Ben went out to dinner with Duncan F and I ate leftovers and watched Buffy Season 7 (last one! Unless you count the comics.)
Tuesday 18/3/08
Thankfully I was well enough to return to work because I had so much to do. I made a list and worked through it, the goal being to get to DRB15. It didn't quite happen. I had missed Briefing thinking day the day before because I was sick, so I had a lot to do to catch up. I tried not to panic.
Elsie came and we started reading Ezekiel together using the Bible Brief from Briefing #341. Then I met with Tony to talk about Michael Jensen's You and my work priorities for the next couple of weeks. Back to back with that was a meeting for The Faithful Writer which was heaps productive.
I left straight after at quarter to five to do the shopping at Marrickville Metro. I made a vegie stir fry with fish tofu for dinner, blogged and went to bed late. Again.
Wednesday 19/3/08
I ended up waking late—around 10:30 or so. Oh dear. I was supposed to be working at home on DRB15. Well, the good thing about working at home is that you can do it when you want to. I eased my way into it.
Campaign Monitor got back to me about my import problem and it turned out to be a problem on their end, not mine (yes!!! It's not PEBKAC!) Furthermore, they had imported all the data for me and it was all lovely, correct and shiny. Yay! I ♥ Campaign Monitor! So I spent the first couple of hours making the subscription process pretty, updating the subscription forms on our site and fixing up the people who had subscribed in the interim.
I watched one episode of Buffy over lunch and got stuck into DRB15 in the afternoon—compiling and formatting the file, then stitching it together in one long document. I took a break in the afternoon and did some Pilates with the help of YouTube (I quite liked this one [for arms and shoulders; involves weights] and this one [really gives you a good workout]. I was totally stuffed by the time I got to this one, though, and couldn't finish it. And my stomach was sore for days afterwards).
Dinner was leftovers and we watched an episode of Veronica Mars. Then I got back into DRB15 and managed to edit a third of it before it was time for bed. I felt less stressed then; at least I made good progress!
Thursday 20/3/08
Back in the office. Ben and I got in at 8:15 and shared an office. My To Do list started making me nervous again. I dealt with my email, then CHN, Campaign Monitor-related stuff (tidying up the loose ends), Briefing-related stuff and then, finally, You.
It was staff lunch so everyone was in, and we were having Japanese (yay!) I ordered a sashimi set and it was delicious (though not as good as Hikaru). It was interesting observing the different reactions towards the food from different people around the table—some of whom obviously found the prospect of eating raw fish rather gross. I wonder if non-Asians commenting on the weirdness of Asian food will ever not be weird for me.
In the afternoon I pushed on with You, making corrections and inserting comments in places where I needed Michael to look at something in particular. I also met with Tony to talk Briefing stuff briefly as well as talk about the look and feelYou.
We kept working until 6:15 when everyone else had gone. I remembered that I had forgotten to defrost the chicken that morning but I was feeling too exhausted to cook, so I suggested to Ben that we go out for dinner. We went to the dumpling house and had vegetables and dumplings, them came home and watched taped Law & Order and Numb3rs, and the rest of Veronica Mars Season 3 (sad! No more Veronica Mars!) plus extra features. We ended up going to bed at 1.
Friday 21/3/08
Good Friday. We slept in until 11, then got up just in time to watch The Christ Files on TV. I was impressed by the quality of the production and editing, and though that John Dickson did a good job.
I spent the rest of the day trying to import Lizz's blog into EE (it was doing weird things). We had salmon for lunch.
In the evening I went to see Step Up 2 at Burwood Greater Union with some school friends. I was early, so I got tickets and sat in the foyer, scribbling and knitting until they got there. Believe it or not, Step Up 2 is better than Step Up 1—particularly the dancing. This article in the New York Times made me want to go see it: apparently the director had never made a film before (and not for lack of trying; all his projects kept falling through) and then he got this one greenlit because the studio executive was impressed with his passion and determination. The film was cast with mostly unknowns who were really great dancers (so, like Centre Stage, the dancing is excellent and the acting not so much). The guy who plays the principal (Will Kemp) danced the lead in Matthew Bourne's version of Swan Lake (which I glimpsed on TV late one night and felt compelled to watch the entire thing, and then later went out and found it on VHS. I regret not seeing it when it was here in Sydney, but then I think I was living in Wollongong at the time).
Afterwards, we went to George's Café for dinner. I had a very yummy risotto which I shared with Ramya because I couldn't eat it all. For some reason, I ended up giving them a grammar lesson and discovered I knew more about grammar than I thought I did. We ended up leaving the restaurant at around 11:45. I got home at 12:15.
Saturday 22/3/08
Ben woke before me and got stuck into work. (Paid work, not the sort of work we sometimes do for personal stuff.) Josh came over to help him with a problem, but I remained in bed reading for a while (graphic novels that Bec had lent me: Re-Gifters and The Plain Janes. I particularly enjoyed the latter).
Then I got up and made myself presentable, and started doing housework—putting away the dry dishes, changing the sheets, doing the laundry, etc. I spent the day working on more EE things but housework was sapping my energy. Ben and Josh went out and brought back burgers and chips for lunch, then Fish turned up and the three of them went off for a long walk in the national park. I stayed home and mucked around on Facebook and watched some Buffy.
Bec had been making some noise about wanting to see Be Kind Rewind and Ben was keen to see it, as was Fish. We thought it was all going to come together but then it didn't: Bec couldn't make it, and neither could Guan and Mary. So it was just us: Ben, Josh and I drove to Newtown and parked, and met Fish at The Italian Bowl. We had a table right up the back but it was fairly noisy. I had penne marinara and, as usual, was the last to finish.
We still had some time to kill so we went to Cinque for cookies and milkshake, then to the Dendy for the movie, where we ran into Mike and Lil. For a while during the trailers we had no sound, but then it came on and it was too loud. The movie was okay—heartwarming stuff, funny but also a little too silly for me. Still, I enjoyed it!
Afterwards we parted ways and went home. Ben went to drop Josh home and I stayed up and read Good as Lily.
Sunday 23/3/08
I managed to get myself up before 10, had a shower, read my Bible and prayed over breakfast, then got stuck into some serious blog renovations with widgets and feeds. Ben made me mince stir fry for lunch (during which I watched Buffy) and then he left for band practice. I came later with the church cashbox which had been making its homw in our boot for the past week. A lot of people were away. Malcolm preached well on the latter half of Matthew 4 and we had dips and cheeses for supper. Then we came home and I caught up on three weeks' worth of diarising ...
Monday-inanity
Sunday, 23 March, 2008
Monday 3/3/08
Despite having gotten home at around 12 or 12:30 the night before, I was still up and in at work by 7:30. I tackled CHN for the week, plus my email and Interchange (i.e. Letters to the Editor) and watched taped So You Think You Can Dance? over lunch. In the afternoon, I started work on e-news, then went home and kept wrestling with it. I made risoni for dinner, we watched an episode or two of Veronica Mars and then I got back to it. I finally quit working at 11 pm having had no luck in finishing enews. So frustrating, after all that coding! I contacted tech support, then treated my bruised ego to a shower and went to bed.
Tuesday 4/3/08
I went into work late (because I went to bed late) and continued to struggle on with e-news. I met with Ian K at 11 and we talked technology-related stuff. Then Elsie and I met to do Cash Values over lunch (partnership and generosity is great!). And I pushed on with e-news and stupid tech support who kept saying, “We don't troubleshoot custom code” while I kept saying to them, “The code is fine; it's your system that's the problem!”
We had a Briefing meeting in the afternoon and I took minutes. I tried unsuccessfully to finish e-news but gave up and left at 5. I got stuck in Gardener's Road in very bad traffic, then did a U-turn and took the back way through Newtown. It still took me an hour. Remind me once again never to drive during rush hour.
I cooked dinner and Ben and I watched an episode of Veronica Mars together. He left for Bible Study and I spent the evening watching the rest of So You Think You Can Dance?. I have to say the dancing is not as good as the American series. I haven't seen that much which has made me go “Wow!” or compelled me to go online to watch the dance again. But I like the judges and I like that Jason Coleman says some very sensible things.
Wednesday 5/3/08
Day off. I slept in and then did e-news for about three hours, still battling with tech support who said, “We looked at your code as a courtesy and there's something wrong with your code, not our system.” (Grr ...) Then I was on the phone with the tax office for a while (remind me never to talk to the tax office when I'm already frustrated). I watched Buffy Season 6 over lunch.
In the afternoon, Ben and I went for a walk around the bay—the same walk that we had tried to do with Fish that day when it rained cats and dogs. It was a very pleasant walk and it didn't rain. We did it in around an hour and 15. Then we came home, I made stir fry for dinner and we watched Veronica Mars.
Thursday 6/3/08
Back at work. I came in at 9:30 and I was cranky and sad. I spent the day working on Briefing things—reading articles and doing assessing. We had prayer meeting (I was cranky). I left right on four and did the grocery shopping. We had leftovers for dinner.
Friday 7/3/08
7:30 start. A better day than the day before. I did more Briefing stuff and got loads done. It was Friday Thai Day so we all got together and had Thai for lunch.
In the afternoon, I touched base with Tony about Briefing-related stuff, then left at 2:30 to go home and get Ben. We went to counselling together and it was sad for both of us. Back at home, we cleaned the house and I cooked—quiche (one with ham, corn and mushroom; one with sweet potato and mushroom) and pasta salad). Simon, Naomi, Fish and Duncan F came around for dinner (Christie couldn't make it because she was sick). Despite my total paranoia and anxiety about entertaining, it went very well and I got complimented on the food. I helped Naomi look up places to have high tea (never knew there was so many ... And this review from Grab Your Fork made me want to go have high tea at the Swissotel). And Fish and I looked up stuff on the Watchmen movie. Everyone left at around midnight, then Ben and I cleaned up and went to bed.
Saturday 8/3/08
We slept in and got up late. Ben gave me a crash course in Expression Engine: how to export Movable Type entries and import them into EE; how to create templates; what the different tags were, etc. We worked on it until the site stopped loading, then took a break to watch taped Numb3rs and Law & Order: SVU. We had leftovers for dinner, then Ben went to a tupperware party and I stayed home and watched House and Buffy (because I was feeling antisocial and tupperware does not excite me). We ended up going to bed late.
Sunday 9/3/08
Once again, we slept in. I spent the day working with Expression Engine and getting rather frustrated that I couldn't do stuff. Ben went to the Portuguese Festival in Petersham with Duncan F. I watched Buffy over lunch, then kept struggling on. Ben roped me in for band practice at church, and then somehow I got roped into doing the Bible reading too. They didn't tell me they were going to switch off the lights so they could show this PowerPoint presentation with the Bible reading so I squinted and did my best.
Unfortunately I didn't get any supper afterwards because I spent so long talking to Rosey, so I whined and Ben made me dinner. We watched Veronica Mars, then I did more work on EE and went to bed.
Monday 10/3/08
My goodness, the start of another week! Ben came into work with me and we shared an office, listening to his iPod all day. I tackled my email and the week's CHNs. Because I'd been having so much trouble with our bulk email provider, we decided to change, so I spent the day testing Campaign Monitor and found it quite agreeable. It's like bulk email for web designers, instead of bulk email for dummies.
After a very silly IM conversation about dumplings, Ben, Guan, Bec and I headed out to the dumpling house for lunch. We let Guan and Ben order because we were so braindead, and the dumplings were delicious! In the afternoon, I meant to listen to a talk by Kirsten Birkett but didn't quite get to it. We left at 4 pm, drove home and then went for a short walk to Marrickville Park and back (half an hour). I made dinner, then listened to Kirsty's talk in the evening.
Tuesday 11/3/08
Back at work, I was trying to import 6,000 email addresses into Campaign Monitor so we could start using it. Unfortunately I wasn't having much luck. I emailed tech support, and even though the girl who answered my query clearly thought I was an idiot, she did reformat the file for me to make it easier. (It helps that they're a Sydney-based company whereas the other tech support people I talked to the week before were in America so it would take ages to get a reply.) I can't remember what else I did that day but I'm sure it was productive.
In the evening Ben went off to Bible study and I watched taped So You Think You Can Dance?
Wednesday 12/3/08
Housework day. I did the laundry, changed the sheets, did the ironing, dealt with my email and then ran out of steam so spent the afternoon watching Buffy. We got dressed and then caught the train into the city and went to the GPO where I had found a pizza place. Ben's family had been thinking of going to City Extra at Circular Quay and then walking up, but I thought there must be somewhere better and closer. The internet gave me GPO Wood Fired Pizza and Menulog booking did the rest (nice service too!) The only thing is I didn't realise it was a food court, not a restaurant. It was a classy food court but it was a food court nonetheless.
This caused a bit of confusion when it came to ordering the food. At first, I started writing down what people wanted (which was difficult and stressful because I had about four or five people talking to me at once, and organising food for people is never easy anyway; remind me not to do it again). But then I realised that would muck things up payment-wise, and that we should all order separately. So we did: we went to the counter, placed our order, paid, got given this black pager thing which went off when the pizza was ready, and then collected our food. And it was very nice pizza too.
Ben went early to get robed for graduation, but we headed over to City Recital Hall in Angel Place at around 7. The reserve tickets went to Ben's parents, me and my mum, whereas Tim, Ros and Lizz had to sit with the masses. We got good seats on the left hand side of the hall about six rows from the front, and then I started to feel a little calmer. And then the ceremony began with singing, the graduands came down the aisle and filled up the seats with the lecturers and bishops following them (no archbishop, unfortunately; he was away). I had forgotten (once again) that other people I knew would be there, and so I saw Little (because Seamus was graduating), Emma T, Ali, Denise and countless others. Anyway, here are some happy snaps of Ben graduating with his BTh:
Ben easily had the best blurb about what he was doing this year—something like “This year, Ben Beilharz is working freelance in web design and plans to tour Petersham with his band Butterfly Sausage Pyramid.”
I'm so proud of my husband. A BTh isn't easy—it's certainly way harder than an Arts degree—and, even with everything Ben had to struggle with, he still managed to do it with Merit.
Afterwards, I tried to round up the family to take photos but Tim, Ros and Lizz were missing so I went to find them. Unfortunately I got sidetracked by people, and it turned out they were all downstairs by the time I got back to the foyer. So we took some photos, then family and godparents alike said goodbye and we headed back inside to return the robes.
We saw Fell, Crystal and Roger who invited us out for something to eat/something to drink (as they hadn't had dinner). Simon C, Mike and Ness joined us. Unfortunately GPO was closed up so we headed across the street to some bar. They had no food but we were able to have a drink (and Fell ducked down the street with Ben to have Maccas), and Crystal and I talked So You Think You Can Dance?. We parted ways at around 11:30, and Ben and I caught the train home.
Now you're back in the neighbourhood
Sunday, 23 March, 2008
Friday 29/2/08
The day that only comes in a leap year. Ben needs the car so I catch public transport in. At work, I'm working on the last article that's part of my responsibility for The Briefing. I call the author and apprise her of the situation. It's also the last day of the month and there is a tonne of stuff to do as well, however I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that e-news won't be out on time, given it's been redesigned.
I go to visit the doctor at 2:30 and it's an hour-long wait (as usual). Not sure what the point of making an appointment is. Anyway, it turns out my cholesterol hasn't changed that much; it's only dropped by a tenth of a point since I almost completely changed my diet. She thinks it's genetic and that I should go on medication. *Sigh*.
I don't have counselling that afternoon so I stay until about 6 when Ben comes and gets me. I'm completely exhausted. Fell is having surprise drinks for his birthday but I cannot face hanging out with people, so it's just Ben and Josh who go; I stay home and watch Buffy.
Saturday 1/3/08
I am zonked so I sleep in and spend the day trying to install Movable Type 4.0 on our new server. I try about three or four times and cannot work out what's wrong. It can't be the server because other Dreamhost users have managed to do successfully. By the end of the day, I'm tearing out my hair and feeling very stupid.
After chatting to Ben, I come to the conclusion that this course of action is a dead-end and that I should just go ahead and install Expression Engine instead (which I know works) and learn how to use it because we were always thinking we might switch Hippocampus Extensions over to EE anyway.
Sunday 2/3/08
The day of St Jerome's Laneways Festival. Tickets to this gig were our wedding anniversary and Valentine's Day presents to each other, and I was looking forward to hanging out with my favourite person all day doing his favourite thing (listening to music), even if I was a bit apprehensive about what it would be like attending my first outdoor music festival.
It started around 12 but we weren't interested in the early acts so decided not to go in until about 1:30 or so. We ran into Yvonne and Cameron at Circular Quay, then had a quick lunch at McDonald's. The area around Reiby Place was completely cordoned off with security fences covered in black plastic so outsiders couldn't see in (but they could hear that something was going on). As we approached the entrance, we saw a small group of girls anxiously wondering how they could get in, and felt a bit smug because the entire festival was sold out and they didn't have a chance.
There was pretty strict security on the way in. They asked us for ID and checked our bags (but, despite their website saying no recording equipment—camcorders, digital cameras, iPods, etc.—weren't allowed, they didn't seem to check too rigorously for those things as I saw many people with digital cameras once we were inside). Little Red were playing on the Park Stage (there were four stages set up in different locations within a block radius: one in The Basement, one at the end of Bulletin Place, one at the end of Reiby Place and one on the corner of Loftus and Bridge St). But we didn't stay to here them. We ducked into The Basement but weren't taken enough by Rudely Interrupted to stay.
Devastations were playing on the Reiby Place stage, and we sat there up the back next to the wall of a building behind the sound desk for a while listening to them. When they finished, we moved forward—as close as we dared for fear of ruining our ears—for Manchester Orchestra (who weren't bad) because Ben wanted to get a good spot for Okkervil River. (Okkervil River clashed with The Panics, but we chose to see Okkervil because The Panics are Australian and there will be other opportunities, whereas Okkervil are from Texas). One of the guys from Okkervil River—one of their lead guitarists who wore a black leather jacket with roses embroidered across the back of his shoulders—stood near us watching Manchester Orchestra and, at one point, bumped us and apologised which was very nice of him. Meanwhile, I was contending with the teenage girls behind me who kept bumping me as they danced, singing along out of key.
When Okkervil River came on at 2:50 pm, there was a surge towards the stage but we managed to stand our ground (despite the crazy teenage girls). I have to say, I wasn't really into them before this (even with listening to The Stage Names several times) but seeing them really made it all click for me and I totally enjoyed their performance (even if their lead singer is a total looney!) They had a lot of energy, they worked well with the crowd—even those way down the back—and you could see how much the entire band was into it, even in the quieter numbers like “A Girl in Port”.
Post-Okkervil, it seemed like everybody was trying to get to the Park Stage to see Stars (who I had grown to love in the month or so of listening to In Our Bedroom After the War and Set Yourself On Fire leading up to this). We found a fairly decent spot with a good view of the stage near the cannon (and, unfortunately, near a garbage bin). There were two festival attendees sitting on the ground, and everyone around them were giving them dirty looks because they kept accidentally spilling their beer on people's legs. The looks got worse when Stars finally came on. Two security guards even came over and told them to stand up (but after they left, the two promptly sat down again). Here I learnt the first rule of festival-going: don't sit down in the crowd while the band is on, no matter how much your legs are killing you. If you need to sit down, go somewhere else.
Stars were wonderful but, in my opinion, poorly miked so you really couldn't hear the gorgeous, simple textures of Amy Millan's voice. I could feel the crowd getting a bit restless and I wondered if it was because of familiarity with the material. They talked through the slower numbers (which is so rude!). I was glad they played “Your Ex-Lover is Dead” and “One More Night (Your Ex-Lover Remains Dead” and “Elevator Love Letter” (Ben's favourite Stars song).
After Stars, we moved over to the grassy area because Ben's legs were killing him. The grass was wet and littered with rubbish, but we found a not-too-gross clear spot and I left Ben sitting on our bag (which was just full of warmer clothing and water bottles) while I went in search of food. I got a hot dog and a Portuguese chicken burger and chips, and we devoured them as hastily as we could, then realised why the rubbish all around us wasn't in the bins: when you're in a crowd, it's next to impossible to get to a bin. So we ended up littering too.
Broken Social Scene were up next. The Laneways organisers had lumped all the Canadians in together—something which they were just thrilled about, given they all play in each other's bands. (Feist, plus members of Stars, are in Broken Social Scene.) On the grass, we didn't have a very good view of Broken Social Scene but I didn't mind too much because I wasn't so into the music (and hadn't studied up on them at all). Plus we were behind the people with the crates (who, once the music started, stood on the crates) and there were people smoking near us. So I didn't really enjoy that set at all.
We moved closer to the stage for Feist but so did everyone else. (At this point, we ran into Joe and his wife Carly. I thought it was the first time I'd met Joe properly but he said he's met me before this (why do I have such a bad memory for names and faces???) But despite the crush (and we really had to stand our ground for this one; I was so glad Ben was standing behind me for this set and not a bunch of dancing off-key singing smoking teenage girls), I had a really good view of Feist (even when this girl got her boyfriend to hoist her up on his shoulders and all these people threw rubbish at her to get her to come down because she was blocking their view), there were no smokers near us and I didn't get bumped too much. Bliss! And Feist was amazing! She mostly did songs from The Reminder—“I'm Sorry”, “I Feel It All”, (which I never really liked that much before but really loved it then), “My Moon, My Man”, “Mushaboom”, “The Limit To Your Love” (which is one of my favourite Feist songs), “Sea Lion” (where the looping completely stuffed up—what a shame) and, of course, “1234”, the song everyone seems to know her for (because Apple used it for their iPod Nano ad). Feist was definitely the highlight of Laneways for me; I thought she was just magical. But once again people talked through the slower numbers.
Neither of us were super-keen to stick around for Gotye and Ben wasn't feeling too well from all that standing, so we went and got chips and wandered over to the Reiby Place stage and caught The Presets just as they were about to do “Are You the One?”. We came back and watched Gotye for a while, and I was very impressed at his ability to be a completely one-man band (playing the drums for a bit, singing, playing keyboard, wandering around the stage) but all of that made it hard for him to engage with his audience. We left a couple of numbers before the end of his set and walked down to Circular Quay to get gelato from Gelatissimo. I thought I had a free cone but it turned out to be only for a single scoop. Then we caught the train home.
Work in progress
Sunday, 23 March, 2008
What a constructive day! You can't see it but on my new-and-improved blog, I've
- successfully finished importing Lizz's blog (not that she's using it at the moment but anyway ...);
- fiddled with the Current blog so it now scrolls;
- added a scrollable list of the most recent comments;
- added a LibraryThing widget that loads random covers of my library (well, my library as it currently stands; I need to finish the nerdy endeavour of putting the rest of my books into it);
- added a search widget for my library;
- added a LastFM widget which displays what I'm currently listening to;
- created RSS feeds for full posts, excerpts and (most wonderful of all) comments.
Asleep on the lawn
Wednesday, 19 March, 2008
Last Thursday I scored free tickets to see The Hampdens at The Vanguard (they're an Australian band who hail from Melbourne). I have to say that The Vanguard is one of the best places to see stuff—and not just because you usually get to sit down (seats in the gallery up top). It's also because it's such a classy venue, with cool wallpaper, art nouveau (in the style of Toulouse Lautrec) on the walls, antique-looking furniture, etc. I've never eaten there but the SMH says the food is good.
Anyway, about The Hampdens. When I pre-ordered Skin by Katie Noonan some time last year, the CD slicks weren't printed very well. I think the order also shipped a bit late (like, maybe, a day late!) I might be wrong about that. Anyway, the record label printed new slicks (which Katie signed) and sent them to us with a copy of her single to say sorry. In addition, they included five songs from The Hampden's new album (which still has not yet been released) The Last Tea Party.
It was easy to get hooked. The Hampdens are pure pop, and they have that sort of sound which is very easy on the ears. (I'm sure Guan will find them conventional!) I really love “Asleep on the Lawn” (which they played on Channel 7 a few weeks ago). And the gig was a lot of fun! They had a lot of energy and they worked well together as a band. Apparently (says Ben), they threw in a few musical nods to Postal Service and The Flaming Lips but I'm obviously not indie enough to pick those up ...
Here's a few happy snaps:
Blinks
Wednesday, 19 March, 2008
- Just look at this gorgeous bed! (via Endicott Studio): Jamie Bluth later posted a follow up about her favourite bed.
- Loobylu on dream houses.
- Neil Gaiman audio (some tracks available for free!) I love hearing Gaiman read his own work. That's why I not only own Coraline in paperback and hardcover but also in audio (I know, I know; what a madwoman! Three copies of the one book! It's the same for Robin McKinley's Beauty: one in hardcover, one in hardcover ex-library and one in paperback).
- FAWM: February Album Writing Month: Like NaNoMoWri but for composers. And in February. (Ben! Ben! Ben!)
- 3191: a year of evenings (via Photojojo): Two friends put up one photo per day which summed up the mood of the day for an entire year. They also did it with mornings.
- The legality of Australian street photography: Fascinating stuff about what you can and can't do, involving stuff to do with privacy laws and child protection, etc. etc. Coming off The Ten Legal Commandments of Photography at Photojojo.
- Grab Your Fork: Food reviews around Sydney with mouthwatering photos. (Oh, I want a digital SLR!)
- Postcrossing: Receive postcards from all over the world. But why??? Surely the thing about mail is getting it from someone you love. (That's where Bec and I differ ...)
- Watchmen movie: With a blog by the director (who did 300) who apparently carried around his copy like a Bible and reproduced it in film virtually panel-for-panel. Gerard Butler is not in it (but he does narrate The Black Freighter which will appear on the DVD only). And Alan Moore is still steadfastly refusing to see it. (Well, can you blame him, given what they did to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?)
- One day as a perfect 1950s wife: Rather amusing article in the vein of reality TV.
A short one. (For once.)
Monday, 17 March, 2008
So I've been trying to change hosting. I've been trying to change for a while. After all, we signed up and paid for this whiz-bang hosting that offers us oodles of space and stacks of special features and multi-domain management, etc. etc. and it's just sitting there waiting to be used. And I figure we ought to be using it. (Well, Ben's already using it but that's another story ...) But me not being much of a web geek and having never done this sort of thing before on my own, it's been a little tricky. I spent one very long and frustrating weekend trying to install Movable Type 4.1 on the server and I was unsuccessful, so that meant a total change of plan. Ben had always been keen on using Expression Engine for Hippocampus Extensions, and that was, in fact, one of the reasons why we bought hosting, so it seemed logical to switch content management systems and use that. The problem is, you can't learn EE in a weekend. It took Ben four or five months! Did I mention I'm not a web geek? (Well, I may be a bit geekier than you but I'm certainly not as geeky as some!)
So anyway I've been spending the last three weeks trying to get my head around EE and have been annoying Ben majorly in the process. I have to say, I'm very impressed with EE (even though it does some things which are just maddening and I think, “Why can't you just do it like Movable Type???”). I've managed to import all entries and comments from this blog and set it up with individual archives, category archives, drop-down menus, a search box, static pages and everything! But of course my little blog is just one very small part of the behemoth that is Hippocampus Extensions. There are parts of this domain that I have no idea about.
So given that this transfer thingy is going to be a long and rather painful process (as I continue to work my brain around EE's little quirks), I figure why should the blog stop? Why let host transferral turn into one big heap of writers' block the way it, you could say, has for some people who still haven't launched their new and improved blog? I'll just double post. I still get my creative outlet, you still get to put up with me, the people who only read this through their RSS reader can stay in touch with what's going on, and when I can finally flick the switch and point the Hippo to its new Campus, the transition will have been more or less seamless.
Well, almost. You'll notice I've made a few cosmetic changes—the major one being you can't comment. I can talk to you but you can't talk to me (well, not through this blog anyway). You'd only be commenting into Movable Type, and Movable Type's days are numbered. You also can't search my blog or look at my archives (unless you're clever). Hmm ... seems like we're both in for a very one-sided conversation ...
Current:
read: The Complete Polysyllabic Spree (Nick Hornby) {27/02/2008}
Bible: Matthew (ESV) {26/02/2008}
Bible: Joshua (ESV) {25/02/2008}
seen: The Jane Austen Book Club {22/02/2008}
seen: August Rush {20/02/2008}
Bible: Psalms (ESV) {18/02/2008}
seen: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 5 {17/02/2008}
seen: Whisper of the Heart {08/02/2008}
seen: Kung Fu Hustle {08/02/2008}
seen: Extras: Season 2 {06/02/2008}
read: Whatever You Think Think the Opposite (Paul Arden) {05/02/2008}
seen: Sweeney Todd {03/02/2008}
seen: Howl's Moving Castle {01/02/2008}
Bible: Isaiah (ESV) {31/01/2008}
seen: Juno {29/01/2008}
seen: 27 Dresses {26/01/2008}
seen: Serenity {23/01/2008}
Bible: Deuteronomy (ESV) {22/01/2008}
listening: Trigun: The First Donuts (Tsuneo Imahori) {22/01/2008}
listening: Cowboy Bebop OST 1 (Yoko Kanno) {22/01/2008}
seen: Firefly {19/01/2008}
seen: Enchanted {16/01/2008}
seen: Amazing Grace {15/01/2008}
seen: Whisper of the Heart {11/01/2008}
seen: Extras: Season 1 {10/01/2008}
read: Boy Meets Girl (Meg Cabot) {09/01/2008}
Bible: Revelation (ESV) {07/01/2008}
seen: Sex and the City: Season 1 {05/01/2008}
read: The Dreaming (1-3) (Queenie Chan) {01/01/2008}
read: The Devil Wears Prada (Lauren Weisberger) {01/01/2008}
seen: The Golden Compass {30/12/2007}
seen: Pride & Prejudice {28/12/2007}
seen: I'm Not There {27/12/2007}
seen: Elizabethtown {27/12/2007}
seen: Atonement {26/12/2007}
seen: Mirrormask (director and writer's commentary) {22/12/2007}
read: Civil War: Front Line (Book 1) (Paul Jenkins, Ramon Bachs, Steve Lieber et al) {15/12/2007}
seen: Finding Neverland {15/12/2007}
seen: Suddenly 30 {15/12/2007}
seen: The Muppets Take Manhattan {14/12/2007}