Eurovision 2010 – Part 1

Bring Back Lordi!

I had so many plans for things to do today, and got none of them dealt with. I guess I just needed a day of wasteful sloth. Oh well, I’ll be energetic tomorrow.

In the meantime, it’s the yearly schlockfest of Eurovision! Woohoo! 😀

The first semi-final was last night, the second will be tonight, and the final on Sunday. I probably won’t see all of it, it clashes with Doctor Who after all, but I’ll certainly be enjoying what I do.

Anyway, here’s my run down of the first semi-final – or as much of it as I can write before the seconf semi final starts. All performances are rated on a scale of 0 to 5 where five is the best thing ever, and zero is a good argument to nuke the country responsible…

Moldova – “Run Away” – SunStroke Project and Olia Tira: Nothing really special here. There was a glowing electric violin, a guy spinning around on a disk, and a woman in a weird white puffy skirt that made her look like an ostrich. Some of the makeup seemed to be based on the chopper pilot from Avatar and the glowing violin bow was waved around like a light sabre. The song was a passable dance track but pretty much forgettable. Verdict: 3 out of 5 (Competent).

Russia – “Lost and Forgotten” – Peter Nalitch and Friends: A fairly poor showing from Russia I thought. A slow, dreary waltz with a slightly more energetic chorus. There was some really bad acting with the singer looking mournfully at a photograph, there was a bit where one of the backup singers talk sings, glitter fell fitfully from the ceiling throughout and they threw in a wind machine for the end where the song inexplicably went all happy. Frankly the whole thing was mawkish in the extreme, and the singer sounded off key half the time. Verdict: 2 out of 5 (Poor).

Estonia – “Siren” – Malcolm Lincoln and Manpower 4: An interesting attempt by Estonia with a bunch of guys in suits and lead singer who seemed to have taken his fashion cues from the New Romantics. The song sort of sped up and down with a guy alternately playing and attacking a piano, and the singer breaking out into occasional bursts of mad dancing before calming down again. Then right at the end one of the backup singers passed out (I presume this was part of the act…). If the song had been any good it would have been quite a good show, as is the song was weak and unfocused. Verdict: A high 2 out of 5 (Weak).

Slovakia – “Horehronie” – Kristina: At last some proper Eurovision madness! Kristina and her tree people took to the stage in leaf and vine adorned druid robes and sang and danced while a second woman dressed in white stood off to the side and did nothing. In the second verse she took over the singing duties when Kristina’s dancing got out of hand. The song itself sounded like Shakira crossed with Deep Forest and concluded with the dancers throwing bits of string around. Very confusing and quite entertaining. Verdict: 3 out of 5 (Quite Competent).

Finland – “Työlki ellää” – Kuunkuiskaajat: Basically an eccentric oompa-oompa song with accordion and two women dressed in white. Oh and downright silly folk dancing. Nothing amazing but at least it had a decent beat and lots of enthusiasm. Verdict: 3 out of 5 (Competent).

Latvia – “What For?” – Aisha: A girl in a silk dressing gown and greek sandals singing an Alanis Morrisette accordion song with lyrics that had to be heard to be believed. “Uncle Joe?” “Mr God?”. People, if you’re going to sing a song in a second language at least get someone who speaks said language to check it over before performing it in front of millions of viewers. Problems aside the singer had a strong voice and performed the absolutely insane lyrics pretty well. Verdict: 3 out of 5 (Competent once you block out the words).

Serbia – “Ovo je Balkan” – Milan Stankovic: A beaming man-child with terrifying hair and one of Adam Ant’s old jackets sings a halfway decent dance track with crazy wailing horns while waving his legs around in a deranged manner. Could have done with more bass and they slipped in a stupid “radio effect” on one of the verses. Verdict: 2.5 out of 5 (Should have tried harder).

OK, the second semi-final is about to start, so check in tomorrow for more reviews and sarcasm!

Poisonous Fumes

Revenge of the Roaches

My good friend Ryan is (I hope he won’t mind me saying) an environmentalist much more towards the hippie end of the spectrum than myself. Living as he does on the fringes of the rural enclave of the Swan Valley he is often moved, when visiting my home in the inner suburbs, to comment on the difference in air quality by darkly muttering things like “the very air you breath is a poisonous fume” under his breath.

I, an urban lad born and raised and hence having lungs adapted to a heady mix of carbon monoxide, ozone and soot, barely even notice the difference.

But not this morning. This morning the air in Bayswater tastes like someone’s been burning tyres for fun and profit. It is indeed a poisonous fume worthy of Mordor and my head is already aching from it. Heading in to work will be a relief – if I survive the walk to the train station that is.

I suppose it’s kind of appropriate. I fumigated my apartment yesterday to deal with a persistent cockroach problem. Obviously the roaches had some powerful karma to call on and are getting their revenge by gassing me from beyond the grave. Tricky little bastards.

Going to go look for an oxygen mask now…

May Day

It’s been a while hasn’t it?

Well I’m not dead. I’ve just been busy. I took the last week off work to really get to grips with all the cleaning that my apartment needs. Or rather needed as I’ve actually managed to get most of it done. The place is now cleaner that it’s been in probably years, and there’s room to walk around freely without having to skip hop and jump around various piles of useful things. How long it’ll remain like that I don’t know.

I’ve also finished Fallout 3, which was a bit dissapointing as I didn’t realise that the last quest I took on was actually the last quest – I had a whole lot of other stuff I wanted to do! I also discovered that I hadn’t actually installed the add ons, and then had massive problems trying to get them to install over the top. So, in the end I uninstalled the whole thing and then reinstalled it fresh (with the add ons). Sadly this meant the loss of my character, along with my highly customised home (I had my collection of garden gnomes, chinese swords and deathclaw hands arranged just the way I wanted them!).

On the plus side I get to play it all through again, which I’m currently doing 😀

Last Sunday was of course Anzac Day. As is my wont I headed down to the local dawn service, although it wasn’t as good as last year’s. Actually it was all a bit shambolic. One of the cadets guarding the memorial threw up halfway through (I have to say that the rest of the unit perfomed admirably, the CO leading him off and another cadet stepping forward to take his place immediately) and the speaker from the RSL’s lecture on all the wars and peace keeping actions Australia has been involved in since World War One conspicuously ignored Vietnam (I like to think this was an oversight rather than an example of the RSL’s historically rocky relationship with Vietnem veterans). A further surprise was in store however, as he finished off his talk by telling us all to spy on immigrants lest they bring down our democracy or something, which was really quite disconcerting.

I’ve also been getting stuff across to my new computer, which is now pretty much set up and ready to be used on a daily basis (apart from just as a platform for Fallout 3, which to be fair it has been used for on a daily basis). I managed this trick by buying a terrabyte external hard drive, which has made transfering stuff so much easier. Hooray for affordable USB storage!

Anyway I’d better go. I’ve uploaded a bunch of new photos to Flickr and they need descriptions and tags.

Lifehacker FTW

Was a fail, now fixed!

Lifehacker is a pretty cool site – one of the ones I check on a daily basis during my lunch break. That said, it would be nice if when they decide to illustrate an article with one of my photos they actually attributed it to me. Particularly since the Creative Commons licence I use on my photos requires it.

I’ve added a comment to the article – we’ll see what happens.

Also on the subject of my Flickr stream, the operator of Save the Cliffe has been nice enough to upload my photos (with full permission and CC attribution) to his site. I can only hope it helps.

Later: Aha! Lifehacker have fixed the attribution. Thanks guys!

Derp

Derp Derp Derp

I hope everyone enjoyed this year’s April Fools prank. For those who missed it, it can be viewed in all its glory here…

I’m at the office, working away my Good Friday. Not that I’m working particularly hard mind you – just catching up on a bunch of minor jobs that have been waiting in the eaves for the last few months. It’s actually not a bad way to spend a day – working at your own pace with no other people around to distract or annoy you. A much more restful atmosphere than the usual office environment.

Anyway, before I go, here’s some twisted genius to enjoy ;D

How are those hot little potatoes?

Can’t sleep. Feral Ghouls will eat me.

Picked up my new computer on Saturday and rather than do anything useful like start migrating data across I spent most of the weekend playing Fallout 3. I think I’ve overdone it a bit – I’m developing a morbid fear of train tunnels and when I saw a dead cockroach at Subiaco station this morning I almost tried looting it for meat.

I think I’d better go cold turkey for a few days 🙂

Obama is true Hitler

Godwin?

We get a lot of spam at work – it kind of goes with the territory. Most of it’s the usual ads for male enhancement products, pleas for help from dying/persecuted millionaires and catalogues of Chinese crapware. But every now and then (for some reason) we get bombarded with poorly written missives protesting about something to do with the University of Aalborg, one Peter Axel Nielson and the hosting of student websites.

It’s hard to figure out exactly what the writer is upset about because his (her?) emails are liberally peppered with barely coherent rants concerning President Obama, Hilary Clinton, Hitler and Jesus (or as the writer prefers, “Jesu”). From what I’ve been able to establish over the months we’ve been been getting this stuff, Peter Alex Nielson (maybe) moved the hosting of a student’s website from the sever in his department (I think) and then called in Obama and Hilary (perhaps) to persecute said student in the United States (possibly). It’s all very confusing.

In any case I’ve been meaning to post one of these insane screeds for months. One came in today, so enjoy!

who does believe that hitler can change his essence?
it is impossible that obama may change his essence of hitler.
many people paraded in my city. I was very angry too.
I do not work at Aalborg university now. I left the criminal university. I never go to Aalborg university again.
Jesu forgives the criminal souls. They schemed the machination together.
in fact, After peter axel nielsen lost the head position, Obama and policemen helped him persecuting the student in USA. We heard all based on the software.
thereby, you may understand why obama came to Europe before presidential campain.
you may understand what the Aalborg university did.
you may understand why there was the financial crisis in the world. you may understand who operated american stock market.
you may understand why Anders Fogh Rasmussen became the secretary-general of NETO.
you may understand why the Aalborg university removed the student’s webpages on each department.
you may understand what obama did. you may understand what obama can do.
you may understand what obama will do
Using obama