Category: Old and Uncategorised

7:30am – at the office: I didn’t think anything could possibly taste worse than Red Bull. I was wrong. Sugar Free Red Bull makes ordinary Red Bull seem like the nectar of Parnassus by comparison.

Well, I wasn’t going to make an entry tonight, but then I read Ali’s blog criticising me horribly *g* for not mentioning Turkey’s entry in Eurovision, so I just had to respond 🙂

The reason I didn’t mention Turkey was (of course) that since they came in the top 24 (or some other number) last year they qualified automatically and didn’t have to perform in the qualifying round. So there! 😉

Sad to say, I didn’t get to see all of the final since we went out to dinner (at a Korean barbeque restaurant would you believe?) for Andrew’s birthday, but I did manage to catch the last few acts. Also (thanks to SBS’s Countdown to Eurovision) I’d heard most of the songs anyway. So although I can’t do as detailed a rundown as I did for the qualifiers I can still make a few comments.

Spain. I didn’t see Spain’s performance on the night, but I quite liked their song. Ummm, France – same deal. Russia – their song was quite good, but I’m sure large parts of it are lifted from some 80’s track that just kept tugging at my mind. If I could hear it a few more times I’m sure I could figure it out.

Poland – I really liked Poland although no-one else (including the rest of Europe) seems to. OK, the lyrics were a bit stupid, but the tune was good. Sweden were very good, and frankly their singer looked amazing for 38 :). Turkey’s ska band were spectacular, I’ve been humming their song all week. if Ukraine hadn’t won, then they should have.

Ukraine of course were spectacular – I really can’t say more about them than I did previously, except that it’s great that they won. Of course Estonia should have won, but Ukraine was a pretty good substitute 🙂

Of course a lot of truly horrible performers did far too well, Malta and Bosnia in particular. I was also impressed that Greece did as well as they did – I mean their song was hardly anything special. On Ali’s note about countries with similar languages it was interesting to see that most of the former Yugoslav states rated each other’s song very highly – moreso than the rest of Europe did.

Hmmmm, I’m sure I had something else to say. Oh yeah, it turns out that Ukraine are the highest scoring winners ever with 280 points, smashing the record held by the UK with 227 (for some song by Katrina and the Waves – no, not Echo Beach, something else). A lot of this has to do with a lot more countries competing this year, sure, but it’s still very impressive.

So yeah, that’s it for now. Got to go eat dinner 🙂

PS: All the video clips are available on the SBS website here. Just in case anyone really has to see how bad Bosnia were 🙂

PPS: Not the actual Eurovision performances, the official video clips for each entry – such as they are. But at least you get to see the Estonian “Five Women in Sacks and their Diabolical Drummer”

PPS: In Estonian it’s “Neiok

Observations prompted by watching Doctor Who – The Mind of Evil.

1) I’d be terrified of a maniacally laughing, 12 foot tall, semi-transparent Jon Pertwee too.

Well that sucked! Estonia completely failed to get through to the finals at Eurovision. If it wasn’t for the fact that Shivaree are so big in France and Italy I’d accuse Europe of having no musical taste at all! Anyway in this post-Eurovision-Qualifiers /pre-Eurovision-Finals period I thought I might as well give my run down of last night’s performances. You know, just because I can.

FINLAND – This was a tango song by the “Finnish Tango King”. It was every bit as boring as you’d expect Finnish tango to be. Hey the Kalevala is great, but this guy was no Sibelius. 5/10

BELARUS – What the heck was this? A couple of refugees from a bad Lord of the Rings convention wailing about Galileo? What? 3/10

SWITZERLAND – The best I can do is quote the Australian commentator “Hi-Five should sue for plagiarism. And defamation of character”. Happily these losers managed the ultimate Eurovision accolade of ‘null points’. Yey! 4/10

LATVIA – This sounded kind of like a Googoo Dolls song speeded up. It wasn’t anything fantastic, but it was a whole lot more bearable than what came before. They also sang in their native language which always gets extra points from me, both for integrity and because not understanding the lyrics of a Eurovision entry generally makes it a whole lot more listenable. Oh, and the chorus seemed to mention Mozilla. 6/10

ISRAEL – This guy could actually sing, he had a tremendous voice. And when he was singing in Hebrew (I presume that’s what it was anyway) he wasn’t bad. Unfortunately he kept switching between Hebrew and English and the English lyrics were appalling. Some kind of mawkish call for peace, love and tolerance. Sure I agree with the sentiment, just not the medium. At the end it just turned into a bunch of high pitched wailing. Oh, and there were distracting graphics of gigantic birds flapping their wings constantly in the background, which was annoying. 5/10

ANDORA – An inoffensive pop song in Catalan, with extremely silly dancing. They also went badly off key halfway through and stayed that way for the rest of the song. 5/10

PORTUGAL – This was sort of like the flashbacks you’d have if you dropped some really bad acid while watching Saturday Night Fever. Or maybe what you’d see if your video of Saturday Night Fever got chewed up and started playing one of the dance sequences on a five second loop. It was in Portuguese, but even that couldn’t save it from being a hideous mess that should have been swept off the stage with firehoses. Firehoses full of acid. Thankfully it was short – either that or I blacked out. 2/10

MALTA – And continuing with hideous messes we come to Malta. The performers are apparently a couple. This is a very bad idea, neither of them should be having children, least of all with each other. The song was all about how their love is on-again off-again, and the first twenty seconds or so was the woman wandering back and forth across the stage warbling like a bad Kate Bush impersonator while the guy just stood there. Then with no warning he suddenly started up and began belting out opera! Full on Pavarotti style tennor opera! About how their love is on-again off-again! She continued to warble on with him interjecting now and then with more bursts of Pavarotti, until the end of the song when she (no doubt inspired to have a go) tried to do some opera as well, wailing it right into his face. Oh it was hideous. A conceptual nightmare that defies even the loosest definition of what it means to be ‘musical’. Sad to say it got through to the final, which means we’ll have to listen to it all over again on Sunday. *sigh* 2/10

MONACO – In a what was probably some kind of coup for the costuming department the girl from Monaco wandered onto the stage in darkness wearing a cloak studded with Christmas lights. That’s about the most notable thing to say about her performance, apart from maybe that anything said (or sung) in French sounds much classier than it actually is. The song didn’t really go anywhere, but it was pleasant enough listening, and at least had a beat. 6/10

GREECE – A fairly banal latin-influenced piece of filler. The singer nonetheless looked to be pulling it off with some dignity until he suddenly ripped the costumes off his female companions and they turned into go-go dancers in gold lame bikinis. About the one interesting thing about the song was that the bits of flamenco guitar giving it its latin flavour sounded like they were done on bouzoukis, which was a nice touch. 5/10

UKRAINE – OK, picture Xena Warrior Princess. Then picture her with a bunch of burly men (well two men and three women) in furs and leather. Then give them all whips. Then give them a magical expresso machine that never goes dry and can pump out 50 gallons of coffee a minute, wait until they’re all nicely hyperactive and enter them in Eurovision. This will give you some idea of the Ukrainian entry. I don’t pretend to understand what the heck they were carrying on about, but it was certainly impressive (it’s entirely possible that they were actually declaring war :). In any case the song was a bit of a mess at the beginning, but actually turned out quite well towards the end, and there was plenty of stomping and shouting to move things along in an entertaining fashion. They made it into the final too, so we can enjoy it all over again. Yey! 7/10

LITHUANIA – Lithuania really let down the Baltic States this year. Their song was so banal that I can’t really remember anything about it. What I can remember though were a bunch of guys dressed like insane clowns (think John Wayne Gacey here) posing and posturing in the background like they’ve been given an overdose of medication. And waving giant flags. Towards the end of the song they got up on a raised stage at the back and did some weird synchronised dancing, then ran forwards and showered the singers with confetti (I half expected them to pull out knives and gut them). 4/10

ALBANIA – The girl from Albania had a really impressive voice. Unfortunately she was singing a really unimpressive song. The quality of her voice was such though that she actually managed to lift it a bit and make it listenable. 6.5/10

CYPRUS – The song from Cyprus was really not my kind of thing. Too slow, no beat to speak of. But the girl singing it had really good technique. If it’dhad been more my kind of song she probably would have got a higher score. 6/10

MACEDONIA – The guy from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (to give it its full, non-offensive-to-nationalist-Greeks title) obviously wants to be Prince. He looks like Prince, he has the same hair and beard as Prince, and his costume, a sort of white version of the trenchcoats from The Matrix would certainly not be rejected by the Purple One. Unfortunately neither he nor his song-writers are Prince. His song wasn’t actually bad, it just had some very strange syncopation – I think they were trying for ‘funky’ but just ended up with ‘disjointed’. If they’d performed in Macedonian (is that a language? I’ll have to check) they may have pulled it off. 5/10

SLOVENIA – The singer looked kind of like my cousin (there is really nothing else to say) 5/10

ESTONIA – These guys were my favourites. Five women in weird sack-like traditional folk costumes, a drummer who could have been Satan himself, and all the words chanted in some obscure dialect of Estonian that only a few thousand people still speak. The dancing was nothing to write home about, but the drummer more than made up for any entertainment gap by refusing drumsticks and playing the kit with his hands, head and face. He’d actually announced before going on that he was going to do something ‘totally outrageous’ (I was expecting him to bite the head off a live goose) but in the end he just slid across the stage on his belly at the end of the performance (either the powers that be dissuaded him or things are really sloooow in Estonia these days). This was the best song of the night, and the fact that they didn’t get through to the finals is a true crime against music! 8/10

CROATIA – This was a somewhat dark and jazzy track reminiscent of Windmills of Your Mind – up until the chorus anyway when it went sort of ballistic. The singer had a pretty good voice, it’s a shame the song wasn’t performed in Croatian as originally planed. 7/10

DENMARK – This song sounded scarily like Ricky Martin crossed with Justin Timberlake. And scarily the guy singing it bore a strong facial resemblance to Eminem. Even scarier all of this added up to a pretty good performance, including an impressive slide across the stage that seemed to defy physics (I think he must have had wheels in the back of his shoes). The sound went kind of funny halfway through, but recovered before the end. 6/10

SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO – This song has been touted as a possible winner and it’s easy to see why. It’s got plenty of spooky ethnic flute, and catchy ethnic drum backed up with the latin beat that seems to have infected just about every non-latin country this year. I think there was a scary violinist in there somewhere too, although I can’t quite remember. 7/10

BOSNIA HERZEGOVINA – This entry was utterly ridiculous. Ex-boy-band pretty boy “Deen” with his shirt undone trying (and failing) to look like a young Billy Idol strutting about the stage miming to a tape of himself moaning and hissing the phrase “In the disco”. And miming badly, his lips never even came close to matching what was coming out of the speakers. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if he got confused and was miming the Bosnian version. It got into the final, but didn’t deserve to. I’d give it 4/10, but it deserves at least 2 points for sheer camp value. 6/10

NETHERLANDS – This was one of the blandest and most banal songs of the evening. It was like a Back Street Boys ballad performed by two guys, neither of which could really sing. Predictably it got into the final. 5/10

So, that’s my opinion of Eurovision 2004. The qualifiers anyway 🙂

Right, so if the interum Government in Iraq wants the coalition to leave, they will. Nice, convenient way to get out of war you can’t win without admitting you’ve been defeated isn’t it?

“How can you go wrong with five chicks in sacks and a satanic drummer?” — Journalist Emma Tom (regarding Estonia’s entry in this year’s Eurovision song contest.)

Roll on Friday!! 🙂

This is one of the funniest things I’ve read in ages.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/camwyn/328358.html

Of course it could just be me.

(Stephanie, you now have no excuse not to read The Silmarillion! 😉

I was hoping to have today off to make up for working Saturday. No such luck, put in another 10 hours. I was also hoping to have tomorrow off – since I arranged to have every second Friday off – but I’m going to have to go in. Probably another nine hours. I’m so tired I can barely think.

So naturally (the universe having it in for me and all) who should I run into on the train? Lyndah of course. Haven’t seen her in months and we run into each other when I’m exhausted, disheveled, suffering from severe sleep deprivation and all my clothes are crumpled up because I haven’t had the time to iron properly. Isn’t it fantastic the way circumstances conspire to screw me over in the most remarkable way possible? *sigh* 🙂

Well at least she said hello. That was nice. She could have walked on past without saying a word – I was strenuously pretending not to have noticed her and was doing a pretty professional job of it (I’m good at looking vague ;-). Things are easier that way – people are way too complicated.

Hmmmm I’m sure there was some other stuff I was going to write about, but I can’t think of it. So I’ll write about something else I was going to write about but couldn’t think of a while ago but can think of now.

So, how’s this for a plot? A scientist working for the Government is messing around with some alien technology. It activates unexpectedly and he finds himself stranded in a parallel universe where a major project taking place in his own universe is far more advanced, to the detriment of all. He’s treated with extreme suspicion by people he regards as his friends but who’ve never actually met him, and one of his closest friends (with radically altered facial hair) turns out to be a dangerous enemy. As disaster approaches he manages to convince the powers that be to give him the resources he needs to return home and save his own world from disaster.

Fans of Stargate-SG1 will of course recognise it as the plot of the episode There but for the Grace of God, recorded in 1998. Fans of Doctor Who on the other hand may recognise it as the plot of Inferno recorded in 1970.

Hmmm, coincidence? 🙂

Alec Eiffel by the Pixies is the sound of the inside of my head. It’s the sound that my brain makes. If you really want to know what it’s like to be me then get hold of a copy, put in on a stereo with a really good subwoofer, turn the volume up loud enough to severely anger the neighbours, hit ‘play’, close your eyes and listen. Really listen. Listen to the individual threads of sound, listen to them in combination, study the beats and patterns. Repeat. Turn down the lights and repeat. Do this enough and you might get some idea of how I think 😀

That twirling round song by Kenobi on the other hand is the complete antithesis of how my brain works. As soon as it comes on the radio my brain goes into total spasm. Axons firing randomly, neurons slamming shut (or is it open? I need to brush up on my neurology) and entire sections of my cortexes (corti?) disconnecting and dancing round and round in a ring much like the animals in the song. If it ever comes on while I’m using scissors there’s every chance I’ll die a horrible bloody death.

Another nine hour day. It probably shows.

Well there’s been another long break between entries (or maybe it just seems long). This is (of course) down to work, which seems deterined to kill me at the moment. I worked nine hours today, ten hours yesterday, and six hours on Saturday (yes, I went in to the office on Saturday) and I’m still behind. Stupid server upgrade!

Anyway I’m just really making an entry to say that I’m not dead. Oh, and that I’m reading a really good book at the moment. A Little Piece of England by Andrew Gurr – the former Chief Executive of the Falkland Islands. Not only is the subject matter fascinating (well, at least I think it is), but his writing style is hilarious. There are sentences in there (even the odd passage) that could have been penned by Douglas Adams. It’s great!

Oh yeah, I also received a mothers’ day catalogue from the ABC yesterday. A mothers’ day catalogue titled Thing’s (sic) You’ll Love. There is no way I can let that pass!

So… <Frasier Crane>What is the world coming to when that bastion of learning and culture the A-B-C sends out a brochure emblazoned with a glaring grammatical error!!</Frasier>

C’mon, put on your best Boston accent and shout it out loud! You know you want to 🙂

PS: Nikki Webster has a new album?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!