Saw Nine Inch Nails at the Hordern last night. They were killing it until about half an hour in when suddenly the whole Hordern Pavilion lost power, P/A, lights, everything. When it became clear it was going to be a while before things got fixed, everyone drifted out into the yard out front to wait.

After about 20 frustrating minutes, we found ourselves people-watching… big guys with dreadlocked goatees in Slayer tshirts looking increasingly pissed off. Security guys running around with their walkie talkies, clearly terrified the Slayer tshirt guys would start a riot. Of course they decided to close the bar, which was presumably intended to prevent people from getting juiced up and rioting, but really only made things worse.

After 40 minutes the lights came on, and a huge cheer went up. Everyone filed back in and the band fired back into the set with 1000% intensity. Probably the best NIN show I’ve seen, despite (because of?) the intermission.

Most fascinating is this video that shows what happened backstage while they tried to get the lights back on. At the time, we were outside joking around that Trent would be curled up in a foetal position with Kleenex on hand. But as you can see in the video, he is calm, collected, an absolute pro.

NIN Sydney 2.24.09 – Mid-show Power Outage [HD] from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

Its finally here! The long threatened awaited podcast, baked into delicious high quality SURROUND SOUND AUDIO! *

In episode one of the podcast, Marty and I discuss current events, and introduce our new segment: “Theatre of the Mind”. And of course, we review movies, such as OUTLANDER, SCREAMERS: THE HUNTING, and HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3! To give you an idea of the high calibre of films we’ve chosen, here are some choice quotes from this weeks batch of reviews:

“Diabolical piece of trash”
“A child could have written this”
“Terrible. Just… terrible.”
“Completely out-of-control stupid”

Where can I download this piece of podcasting history, you ask? And I answer, with a mischievous wink, why right here of course!

Unnamed Podcast – Episode 1 – Standard Quality (22mb)
Unnamed Podcast – Episode 1 – High Quality (44mb)

Language warning: there is quite a bit of swearing, but its mostly performed in a tasteful and creative manner.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please send them to “podcast AT xxxdan DOT com”, or just leave a comment on this post. Any ideas are welcome, in particular we’re looking for a name for the show — seriously, we’re completely out of ideas.

Enjoy!

* in order to experience surround sound audio, play on multiple stereos simultaneously

For once I’m glad the lens of my camera phone is all scratched and blurry

Whirlpool!!!! LOL

Morgan’s intense 20 minute accordian solo was not universally lauded

Cinematic Orchestra @ Sydney Recital Hall, fantastic gig. We found great balcony seats right next to the stage, next to this very intense girl in a baseball cap who was there by herself. She gave me the most withering look when I talked during the performance, and then at the end, she didnt even clap. Morgan thinks she was high, he’s probably right.

David Byrne at the Sydney Opera House. They’re playing “Burning Down The House”, the second of three encores. Yeah, they’re all wearing tutus. No, I don’t know why either.

Guys, if you’re not going to take this seriously… why do I even bother.

“Just hurry up and take it, people are staring at us!” “Um, I think its on video…” “C’mon, my face hurts from smiling!” “There’s a flower icon on the screen, how do I… should I turn off the flower?”

My friends need to stop passing away…

Dave, I still feel bad about that night at Cheers, and I wish we’d talked about it more. I’m glad you finally moved out like you wanted to. I will miss geeking out with you and your down-to-earth nature, as well as your insatiable thirst for bass. R.I.P.

Sawicki, I’ve never seen a guy your age with his shit so together. It sucks that you never got to see my Boxee setup, I thought I was going to see you at Good Vibes tomorrow, WTF dude? Here’s hoping they keep your performance in the movie, that was some bad-ass miming. Wish I could have got to know you better. R.I.P.

And my friends that are still alive, please, please take care of yourselves, OK?

…you wake up all sweaty from a nightmare in which your Bangkok office has sent you a new WSP code package to deploy, but it won’t install to your test environment… no matter… what… you do!

Even better: after it woke me up and I couldn’t get back to sleep, I decided to take advantage by getting into work a few hours early. How excruciatingly Dilbertesque.

The other day, without warning, a friend went on something of an anti-I.T. guy tirade.

I wasn’t offended, as I can’t pretend the guy he was describing (unable to fix the issue but still manages to both patronise and belittle you) doesn’t exist in the industry, I have in the past worked shoulder to shoulder with him. These guys give the rest of us a bad name, but they’re definitely a minority. So while this dude’s rant didn’t get to me personally, it did get me thinking about real estate agents.

See, I have a “thing” with real estate agents. Almost every single one I’ve dealt with has been two-faced, deceptive and lazy. I’ve oft been known to rage against the real estate agent machine, both at the pub and in public. But I’m now having second thoughts about this particular bugbear. In the past year I’ve befriended at least one (former) real estate agent, and she’s actually a lovely person. It makes me wonder, how many times have I ranted from the back of the pub about the nefariousness of property managers while one of them sat amoungst the group, musing privately: “we’re not all like that!”

So I have made a decision; from now on I will cut real estate agents some slack. Its true, a few bad apples can taint the whole barrel. But sometimes, its just a few bad apples.

…and left behind in a bakery on Enmore Road

Google Analytics tells me the most frequently visited article on my crappy site is the one about Danny Green, the wannabe rockstar scam artist in San Francisco.

Well, what the peoples wants, the peoples gets! Breaking news courtesy of RemyRules on VirtualTourist:

San Francisco. Same story as with Danny Greene, but going by Danny Bluestone as of 1/10/2008. “Melting pot”, “played bass for Tina Turner”. Watch out for the light blue eyes. The guy is like Hypnotoad. Don’t give him any money.

http://www.thevine.com.au/entertainment/articles/the-crow-is-getting-a-remake.aspx

Whereas Proyas’ original was gloriously gothic and stylized, the new movie will be realistic, hard-edged and mysterious, almost documentary-style…

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