Fireworks

Posted September 3, 2007, under Uncategorized
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Watched the fireworks from Princes St this year, with music provided by Forth 1 and the radio in my phone. Impressive as always, and it’s been a few years since I watched from the ‘front’, and hence witnessed the full waterfall glory – which remains absolutely stunning. Barber’s Adagio for Strings was excellent, although a tricky piece to set fireworks to – I think I enjoyed it more than everyone else.

The finale was John Philip Sousa’s Liberty Bell march, which is a fun piece of music, entirely suitable for being accompanied by explosions. Its fame stems in part from its use as the theme tune for a rather silly comedy show.

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Lovecraft

Posted September 2, 2007, under books, geek
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Paul helpfully saw the true meaning within my request to re-read the Baroque Cycle, so also brought over two H.P Lovecraft anthologies – namely that I hate myself, and require more pain and horror in my life. Fortunately the floor in my flat, unlike the roof, is structurally sound, so no additional reinforcement was necessary to support all three tomes of Neal Stepehenson’s work – their mass signature is starting to slightly distort nearby objects, however.

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Ultimate Frisbee

Posted September 1, 2007, under Uncategorized
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Some madness possessed me to participate in semi-organised Frisbee throwing on the meadows yesterday. People who know me will be aware of my vast deficiency in the hand-eye co-ordination department vital for a game of this nature, so many appalling blunders on my part ensued. Fortunately there were some good players to compensate for the bad ones such as myself.   Continue Reading ▶

Stinking primates.

Posted August 28, 2007, under films
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Continuing my attempt to watch all the films I’ve somehow never seen even though everyone else has, last night I finally watched Planet of the Apes. And I thought it was pretty interesting, and holding up fairly well. It suffered somewhat from having been parodied endlessly (though much less so than The Shining), but having seen Spaceballs, the fundamental plot twist was already apparent. I shall try to avoid ranting about the gaping holes in the science, because in spite of all the above, the underlying premise remains pretty good, I think. Also, learning where the ‘hiding in a museum exhibit of cavemen’ scene originates from made me laugh.

The critique of the violence and capacity for self-destruction inherent in (most of?) humanity seems somehow more incongruous when it’s Charlton ‘From my cold dead hands’ Heston as the subject. I can’t leave it without one science rant – who designs a spaceship capable of supporting crew for extended duration flight in a sleep state, but which can neither auto-land tolerably, or wake up the crew prior to descent?

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End of the Fringe

Posted August 27, 2007, under theatre
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Fringe is done and dusted for another year (for me at least, other people are doing strikes and outs for another week at least). This year I managed to see a goodly number of shows, quite aside from being involved with one.

  • Aneas Faversham – excellent Victorian sketches, apparently even better than last year, but I can’t comment on that aspect. Plus free badges as always, and the playing card flyers.
  • Sketchatron – all good, I got picked on though.
  • Improverts – twice, from upstairs both times. The final night was worth it for the party game alone.
  • Something Blue – Paris-trained clowns based in Devon, very clever and brilliantly silly.
  • Mod – American Beatles-inspired musical
  • Mephistopholes Smith – Richard ‘Rocky Horror’ O’Brian’s musical about the evangelist for Hell. Audience participation required, would have helped to have a larger number of people in.
  • Turning Test
  • Feurzabruta - breathtakingly good
  • Two Mirrorballs at the Film Festival, not as good as last year alas. Apparently the animation one was better, but clashed with the Guilds slot. Worthwhile just to see the crazily good ‘Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip – Thou Shalt Always Kill’ video though.
  • Spank! – which happened to include Brendon Burns on the night I was in – he then went on to win the not-Perrier award this year.
  • The amazingly cute and brilliantly funny Lucy Porter.
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printf(“Hello world.\n”);

Posted August 24, 2007, under Uncategorized
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So, I have a blog now, I guess. Time to write something fabulously exciting.

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