Got a good reason for taking the easy way out…

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’m sure the devoted followers (yes, you with the hat!) have moved on now to more exciting blogs (I saw mention of one with a nymphomaniac, that’s most of the audience gone already I suppose). You’ve missed out on my sad little life for the past five months, so I thought I’d fill you in.

First off, I’m at uni. You probably knew that. Secondly, I’ve taken up attempting to play the guitar. You probably didn’t know that. I’ve spent a great majority of time at uni doing a combination of the following:

• Going out.
• Bugger all.
• Sleeping.
• Work.
• Going out.
• Attempting to learn a new song.
• Sleeping.
• Relaxing.
• Going out.

As you can tell, it’s been a varied and exciting time. I’d certainly recommend going to uni (especially Leeds) for the experience alone. Leeds is a great city, has a great uni, and is just a nice place to be. Go. Now.

Physics is an interesting course and I’m in the middle of my exams at the moment (three down, two to go). Of course, it’s always a shame that we have to get up for lectures in the morning (you’d think that even the lecturers want to work in the afternoon, wouldn’t you?).

Anyway, for my new hobby. I’ve never actually considered myself musically talented unless, of course, headbanging to Bohemian Rhapsody counts as talent so when I sat for a good hour and learned Day Tripper I was quite rather chuffed, hence the post title. Since I don’t actually own a guitar, I’ve been borrowing my flatmate’s one. Unfortunately, he’s right-handed and I’m left-handed so I’ve been playing with all the strings upside-down. I’m toying with the idea of getting a guitar in the near future which would be a productive way to spend my student loan (naturally). That way I can annoy everybody and nobody can confiscate it “for my own good” or anything. Problem solved! Since I’m sure you all really, really care I’m going to tell everybody what I can (or have attempted, more like) to play.

• Day Tripper (the riff, anyway).
• Street Spirit (the intro bit of the song).
• Knocking on Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan, not Guns ‘n’ Roses yet)
• Twist and Shout.
• Run to You.
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
• The first six notes to Stairway to Heaven ( I WILL learn it one day in its entirety).

I’m going to keep at (still can’t play that damn F chord, maybe it’ll be easier with a left-handed guitar), I’m not one to give in so easily after I’ve vaguely accomplished something in a mere ten days!

Anyway, I’m not sure when I’ll post again, I’ll attempt to keep you all informed on my mundane life at uni, since it’ll be something you all care about. Cheerio!

Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come…

Hello again, everyone. I’m still going for some odd reason, so you’ll have to put up with another godforsaken post.

As of late, I’ve been using the latest (unstable) version of Ubuntu Linux, codenamed Edgy Eft. It’s to be released later this year (October, to be precise) and it’s certainly going to be an interesting release. The previous release (Dapper Drake) was aimed to be stable and polished, just what you need if you want a stable, production-ready desktop. Edgy, however, is a little bit different. It’s starting to introduce new technology and features, ma of which are emerging around the Linux community.

First off, it includes F-spot by default. F-spot is a lot like Picasa, and is a photo manager and simple photo editor. If you’re into the Web 2.0 buzz, you can upload your photos to Flickr. It’s not as feature-laden as I’d hope, but it’s developing quickly and certainly has a lot of potential. While Picasa is available for Linux, F-spot is certainly a program that can go far.

Ubuntu is always released with the latest version of Gnome (the desktop environment) and this release is no exception. This release is mostly improving on the last version (2.14) and doing a few minor improvements. However, they’re concentrating on speed and performance. Gnome’s startup (after you’ve logged on) probably takes around five seconds, and programs should load fairly quickly. OpenOffice is still rather slow, to be honest, but it’s far better than what it used to be (was 20 seconds, now about 12).

Another bit of speed info, this time it’s to do with startup/shutdown times. Ubuntu’s always been a bit slow at shutting down, so it was made a goal to improve this as much as possible. And so they did. It now takes just a few seconds, compared to the good 30-second wait it used to be. As for the startup speed, it’s currently minor. You see, they’re making a new system to start up the computer (called upstart). The actual idea isn’t to make the computer start faster, instead it’s to update the old technology. The previously-used technology is years old and it’s always been holding back the computer a bit. Anyway, Upstart is a good idea and, once it’s all done and dusted, startup should be improved more than the 2 seconds it’s taken off already (about 45 seconds down to 43).

The latest version of Gaim has also been included. Gaim is a wonderful IM program, allowing you to run MSN, ICQ, YIM, AIM, IRC and Jabber all together (as well as some other random ones I’ve never heard of). The latest version comes with a newer, better interface and lots of random extra features.

Last, and certainly not least, is the inclusion of AIGLX. Those of you who know me well have probably heard me getting overly excited about something called Xgl. It allowed you have a lovely set of desktop effects rendered by your graphics card. Anyway, AIGLX is a different method of doing this (and isn’t a big workaround hack like Xgl) and is going to be the default way of special graphics like this. Anyway, this has been turned on by default. To have the snazzy effects, you need to do two simple commands and it’s all yours.

sudo apt-get install compiz

compiz –replace

This should work on most graphics card (even integrated cards) and I’d guess that a Radeon 9000/GeForce 2 upwards will support the effects. As a point of comparison, it works fine on my 9700 Mobility, only slowing if Firefox has been open for a long time. While this may be emerging technology, it’s certainly very good and is comparable to Vista’s Aero effects (just without requiring a brand new graphics card).

That’s it from Edgy for now. I wouldn’t recommend using it as your primary OS yet (it’s still unstable) but once released it should be a very capable and powerful OS. I’ll keep you updated as more features are shown off.

I never said I was frightened of dying…

Well, today I am IMMENSELY bored, so I feel the urge to do something. And so I will. Today’s lovely lecture will be on perhaps the best concept album ever made, one that is very well-known across the world, has been linked with the Wizard of Oz, was in the album charts for almost 15 years and is one of the best-selling albums of the world. No, it’s not Spiceworld, it’s Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Now, other albums I’ve reviewed (all two of them) were talked about on a song-by-song basis, but this is a more complicated album than that, so I’ll try a different approach.

To summarise, the album is about life. It’s split into ten different songs, including some pure instrumentals, a rhythm based around tills and the dropping of money, the sound of clocks chiming, even a woman screaming (sounds odd, works well). It’s varied, to say the least. Anyway, as I said, the album is effectively about life and it’s happenings.

The album starts with the soft pounding of a drum, a heartbeat. In the background you hear bits of life – “I’ve been mad for fucking years, absolutely years”, the sound of a ticking clock, the sound of money, a roller-coaster climbing a hill, finally ending in a climatic bit of screaming -, you’re then launched into Breathe (that previous bit was Speak to Me). You’ll have probably heard this (other than Money, it’s probably the most well-known song on the album). Now, let me start you off on the life theme of this album. Speak to Me is life in the womb, you hear snippets of the world around you, before the big scream leading into (go on, guess!) birth, hence the name Breathe.

On the Run, a fully instrumental bit (rather electronic, really), follows. This is about fear of travel (on a plane in particular), ending with a big explosion as the album quietens down. The aftermath of the explosion is turned into quiet ticking, then lo and behold! Alarm bells ringing! Clocks chiming! Time is just a great song, with brilliant lyrics talking about how life slips away and a fantastic electric guitar solo in the middle.

Still with me? Good… Seamlessly at the end of Time, you’re lead back to Breathe (Reprise), a great little touch. The final note of this leads into the next, rather unusual song, The Great Gig in the Sky. A beautiful piece of piano playing starts this off, with some rather true words following:

“And I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do; I don’t mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There’s no reason for it—you’ve gotta go sometime”

Then the song leads into the screaming and wailing, not something from your everyday song. It’s bizarre, to say the least. The next track, Money, is more normal. You’ll have heard this one, and it has a tune you just can’t forget. The themes for these two songs are rather obvious, death and human greed.

Us And Them, the next track, is the theme of war and human struggle. Exciting stuff, eh? A quieter and more sombre song than the rest of the album, as well as being the longest (clocking at 7:50 – nothing on the 23:44 of Atom Heart Mother, of course). Any Colour You Like is another instrumental. It’s very cheerful, but I have no idea what this song’s about. Nice, though.

The last two songs, now. Brain Damage is about madness, probably written about Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd’s former leader singer, actually went a bit mad and left the band (who, incidentally, died a few weeks ago). Eclipse is a fitting end to the album, acting as a sort of eulogy in a way, then ending with the famous line “there is no dark side of the moon really, matter of fact it’s all dark…”

DSotM is, at the end of it, one of those albums that everybody on the planet should hear at least once. It has helped pave the way for modern rock along with Sgt. Pepper’s, Revolver, Led Zeppelin IV, A Night at the Opera and more. Any self-respecting fan of rock music should simply listen to it.

A definite 10/10, methinks. Anything less would be a crime.

I am waiting patiently, I’ll wait for the sign…

I feel guilty, I haven’t posted for ages. I’m sure it doesn’t matter, I doubt anyone actually reads it anyway. Regardless, I’ll make a nice post for you to read.
Today I felt like posting a review of the latest Muse albums, Black Holes and Revelations (or: BHAR, a much more fun title). I’m a very big fan of Muse, all four of their albums are very good and they’ve yet to make something bad. BHAR is just the same. It starts off with Take A Bow, quite a dramatic and over-the-top start to the album, then just launches into Starlight straight afterwards. This is one of the best songs on the album, and is exceptionally simple with a fantastic chorus, although the ending is a bit of a let down.
Supermassive Black Hole, I’m sure you’ve heard already. It’s a rather poppy song, and is a bit out of place from some of the other songs. This has been the theme on Absolution and Showbiz, Time is Running Out and Muscle Museum were both different from the rest of the album. It’s a good song, but there are other, far better, songs on the album that could have been used.
Map of the Problematique (extra points for the French words, obviously) is a bit of a filler track, yet it has a catchy riff to it, yet it’s still better than the next song. Soldier’s Poem is one of those quiet, mellow ones without much substance to it, something I’m not a great fan of, to be honest. Fortunately, it’s only two minutes long.
Invincible is a bit of a love song (Together we’re invincible. Blah, blah, blah), and slowly gets louder and louder as the song progresses. Rather good, really. Assassin follows after, and is a lot more fast-paced, it (at least to me) gives the impression of a man riding on horseback if anything. The song sounds like it would have fitted in just fine with Absolution.
Exo-Politics is a brilliant song, one of the best on the album. I don’t know what it is, but the song’s just really easy to enjoy and great to sing along to. City of Delusion isn’t bad, although it’s very similar throughout, just broken up with two bridges in the middle and near the end.
Hoodoo is my least favourite track, and is just rather boring, really. Fortunately, Knights of Cydonia makes you forget about that. It is just an amazing song, and is over-the-top in a great way. It takes a while to kick into the lyrics, but when you finally get there it has the gem of a line “Don’t waste your time or time will waste you”. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable song, and is the perfect ending to the album.

Overall, the album is good, but isn’t as good as their earlier work (read: Origin of Symmetry). What gets my hopes up is that the next album may be more of a concept album like Dark Side of the Moon, something that Matt Bellamy mentioned in an interview. Muse certainly have it in them to release an album like that.

Anyway, I’d give this an 8/10.

It’s on America’s tortured brow that Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow…

It’s been slow and boring lately. I’ve had exams, revision and all those horrible things that go with it. The only thing that’s kept me remotely sane is the World Cup. I never really got into the last one as much (can’t quite remember why, to be honest) but I’ve been happily watching this one. There’s been some great matches, but some of the better teams aren’t playing as well as they should. Brazil, France and Germany are the biggest offenders. I suppose it’s partially to do with them all fielding older players. As time goes on, the coaches still feel as though they can play their older players, even though they’re nowhere near as good as they once were.
Anyway, I’m sure you may possibly be interested in who I think will win? I’m being honest when I say that England stand a good chance this year. Brazil, after seeing that game against Croatia, don’t look too good. France played terribly in their game against the Swiss and the German defence seemed shaky against Costa Rica. The Czechs were doing well, but their key player was injured in the match against America. Italy are a shadow of their former selves, but are better than most of the other teams.
In the end, though, the best contenders are England, Argentina and Holland. Holland will probably be taken out on penalties (their biggest weakness), leaving Argentina and England. I suppose we’ll get a better picture in the next games, but that’s what I think at the moment. The only thing that can hold the English squad back is Sven. We nearly lost it in the second half of the Paraguay match, and the substitutions made were pretty terrible at the end of it. We should see a full-strength England squad when we play against Sweden which should, theoretically, be virtually unstoppable.
Roll on World Cup final!