Skillet have just announced that they will be touring Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne in Mid-January 2011. As yet it is not announced that they will be playing Parachute Festival in Hamilton, New Zealand the following weekend but if previous tours by big name Christian bands at that time of the year is to go by there is a very high likelihood that they will be.
I have just finished listening to the five episodes of The Chaser’s new radio show The Blow Parade. While the short series is now finished you can buy the episodes and additional disk of full length songs from the ABC Shop.
I sure hope The Chaser boys do another series, these days radio is a rather dead medium with the exception of being stuck in traffic. However, this series shows that you can still have a lot of fun with comedy without needing visuals. The whole premise of the series is based on a mockumentary of various bands and ages of music. Each episode focuses on the life of a different fake band which is styled on an actual real band.
The Five Episodes/Bands were:
Luke Deuteronomy – Pink Floyd
Egg Zagar – Led Zeppelin
The Fatcocks – The Clash
Me Me Me – U2
Funkalicious – The Jackson Five
I have no real clear winner for favourite episode, the first episode Luke Deuteronomy was great, however Egg Zagar being killed by a beached whale was rather fantastic as well, not to mention Me Me Me’s Tuesday Slightly Inconvenient Tuesday.
The video clip from Good News Week below shows just how brilliant The Chaser are at good comedy.
Tonight both Toy Story and Toy Story 2 were on TV. It was good fun watching the movies back to back, particularly as I have not seen Toy Story in a number of years, and I have never seen the sequel.
The best thing about Pixar films is the number of references to other movies and items from the real world they hide in their movies. IMDB has a massive list of trivia on their site for both of the movies, one of my favourites is the use of the use of the utah teapot in the original movie during the tea party. One of the more interesting references that I only picked up on tonight is a reference back to Logan’s Run. In that movie they must escape carousel, in toy story they must escape the claw.
I just watched the Top Gear America Special on TV it is a few years old but I had not seen it before. The end of the episode has a really serious side to it and Jeremy Clarkson provides a real stinging but truthful social commentary as shown in this clip:
I just got home from seeing the movie adaptation of Under The Mountain. It is a must see. It remains very true to the book with only a few minor changes (such as the age of the twins). The entire production is top notch, the acting and cast is perfect, the special effects state of the art (thanks Weta Workshops) and it is great to see such a good kiwi film. I will note that the film, while based on a kids book, is rated M, it is not over the top scary. But it is scary enough that it would easily upset some kids (even some adults jumped in parts of it). It would be the best kiwi film since Out of the Blue.
I have had a number of emails and conversations about the December 12 2012 over the past few weeks. Mainly sparked as a result of the new disaster movie 2012.
I saw the movie on Friday night and it is terrible. The theme is a good one and there was potential to create a really good and really scary film, however, it fails miserably. Under doing the 2012 theme and over doing trying to almost kill every single cast member 6 times over. It really should have been called 2012 where humans become cats and have 9 lives.
Anyway I am side tracked. Below is a copy of an email I just sent to a friend on the ideas around 2012.
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I do not believe the world is going to end in 2012.
Yes the magnetic poles of the earth could swap. This has happened a number of times in the past, although not for a few thousand years. If this happens it is most likely it will happen very quickly (as in overnight) and it is unlikely we will see any major changes (however all the compasses will point in the wrong direction). There is a possibility that the change could also cause an electric field that could wipe every electronic device in existence. Essentially sending us back to the stone age. This is only speculation. But if it happened we run the risk of nuclear reactors exploding etc as they suddenly have all their cooling and other support structures stopped. It would also kill hundreds of people on life support etc in hospitals. But again this is unlikely to occur and there is certainly no truth to it happening in 2012.
The Mayan calendar ends of December 12 2012 as in the movie. However this does not really mean anything at all. There have been plenty of other calendars over time that have ended at different times. And even our current calendar is not that old (we started using it around 1552 if I can remember correctly). Before that we had a calendar that started in April. And before that we had a calendar that was based on 10 months (hence why sept = 7 does not make sense with september being the 9th month or oct = 8 being the 10th month. Furthermore currently those of Jewish faith and muslims use different calendars as well. One ancient calendar ending does not equal the end of the world.
It is a simple as that, there is no big conspiracy or whatever. Just someone starting a rumour and those who do not know better blindly believing it.
Brits who illegally download music from the internet also spend more money on music than anyone else, according to a new study.
The survey, published today, found that those who admit illegally downloading music spent an average of 77 pounds ( NZ$176) a year on music –33 pounds more than those who claim that they never download music dishonestly.
The findings suggest that plans by the Secretary of State for Business, Peter Mandelson, to crack down on illegal downloaders by threatening to cut their internet connections with a “three strikes and you’re out” rule could harm the music industry by punishing its core customers.
An estimated seven million UK users download files illegally every year. The record industry’s trade association, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), believes this copyright infringement will cost the industry 200m pound this year.
The poll, which surveyed 1,000 16- to 50-year-olds with internet access, found that one in 10 people admit to downloading music illegally.
1 in 10 admitting it? I am sure the true figure would be well over 50% if not close to 75-80%.
However, music industry figures insist the figures offer a skewed picture. The poll suggested the Government’s plan to disconnect illegal downloaders if they ignore official warning letters could deter people from internet piracy, with 61 per cent of illegal downloaders surveyed admitting they would be put off downloading music illegally by the threat of having their internet service cut off for a month.
“The people who file-share are the ones who are interested in music,” said Mark Mulligan of Forrester Research. “They use file-sharing as a discovery mechanism. We have a generation of young people who don’t have any concept of music as a paid-for commodity,” he continued. “You need to have it at a price point you won’t notice.”
Exactly.
Personally I never file share music. Every single piece of music I have I have paid for – including 404 songs from iTunes.
However, that is not to say I have broken the copyright laws. By simply listening to a piece of music that you do not own through You Tube is technically downloading and is therefore illegial. And herein lies the challenge. How do you protect an artists copyright and ability to earn a profit from their work at the same time ensuring that work reaches a large enough market to spur enough interest in the work for people to purchase it?
