The Countdown Has Begun

Can I just take this opportunity to point out that it’s now 26th November, and in one month’s time, Christmas will officially be over? In six week’s time, all the decorations will be burning merrily on a fire taken down, and the shops will be full of sales, Valentine’s Day cards, and Easter Eggs. Fantastic – some semblance of sanity will once again be with us.

Devious

Seeing the story today about Ian Huntley ‘admitting’ some of the things he’d done to the two girls it’s almost certain he murdered, I find myself wondering why he’s waited ’til now to admit these things. I’m admittedly cynical, but I wonder what game he’s playing – and I’m sure he’s playing a game with all the people around him.

I find myself thinking that he’s possibly just making the families and friends go through the entire thing again, having to stand up in court and face him so he can see their grief and loss. When it comes to the end of the case, I think he’s going to change his plea to guilty on all counts.

Zzzzzzzzz

Being a gobby git, I finally went to bed at 3.30 this morning. To sleep at about 4.30, and then was up again at 7. Having then been working on CSS gubbins all day, my brain is not strictly with it. I really need to sort out my body-clock and workload, as well as remembering that even when I’m not tired, at least laying on/in bed is a good idea.

2003/4 – Chinese year of the Geek

Blatantly nicked/followed from Meg and Gordon, the MSNBC online IQ test tells me my techie IQ is *blush* 187.

I am SO sad. I need to get out more.

Depressing

One section of d4d™ that started off with good intentions and never really got any further was the section on HIV and AIDS. Entirely my own fault – it was one of those “don’t quite know where to start” moments.

Even so, it still saddens and amazes me that HIV infections have risen 20% in the last year. That’s a scary figure – what’s happened to all the adverts that used to be on about HIV, condoms, how infection happens, so forth, so fifth?

With World Aids Day just round the corner, I suspect we’ll see more of these stories over the next few days.

Twunts

You’d never think it was rocket science, would you? All I want to do is buy a different case for my Motorola Three phone. On Friday I went into the little Three store (well, franchise, I think), waited quarter of an hour while the dumb twunt in the store tried to manage dealing with one customer (failing abysmally in the process) before giving up. Who’d have thought multi-tasking was such a strenuous task?

I tried again this morning. First thing – no customers, three members of staff. Should be a doddle.

Um no. They don’t accept cash. “Oh sorry, we don’t have a till.” I despair.

Linkin Park – MEN Arena

I was highly naffed off at missing linkin Park when they played the Manchester Apollo earlier this year, so when I knew they were playing the MEn I got tickets fairly quickly. I know, I realy need to get out less.

Support tonight came from Kinesis (who I missed *hangs head in shame*) and Lost Prophets, who were pretty good. The sound quality let them down massively, but they still managed to do well at warming up the audience. I’d never heard their stuff before, but I can see I might be downloading some test-tracks, see if they sound better when not in a shithole like MEN.

The entire atmosphere changed when Linkin Park came on though. The stage-set was impressive – and flippin’ huge, spanning the arena, and reaching out into the side areas where the audience were seated as well. More impressively, they made use of the entire stage – it’s not often you see an entire band as mobile and energetic as this one. Recently I’ve noticed a propensity for bands to go back to wired guitars etc., which limits the movement quite significantly. From what I could tell, all of the band were using radio mikes rather than wired, and so they were able to make use of the entire space, particularly the two singers, and the “roving guitarist”.

On this occasion, the photos really don’t do justice to the concert at all – on a total tangent, I’m getting more and more pissed off with the limitations of the current camera, and it’s going to be upgraded before long, I’m sure. The lighting throughout the show was superb, and the sound quality was spot on – hard to believe it was the same system that the Lost Prophets had sounded so (comparatively) shit on.

Linkin Park were only on for about 80 minutes total – but in fairness to them, that’s their entire two albums-worth, as well as a couple of new tracks, so I can’t really fault them for that. Also, from the sheer energy they put into the show, they must have been knackered by the end of it. It was a storming show, perfect sound and lighting, exceptional crowd response, and more energy than the local power station.

Oh, and anyone who doesn’t believe that Chester’s voice really can cover that incredible range – you’re wrong. It’s scary to see, and the only other person I’ve ever seen with an equivalent vocal range is Diamanda Galas – and believe me, that’s a complimentary reference. Hugely impressed.