Bat Out Of Hell III

by | Sep 27, 2006 | Uncategorized

Listening this morning to "Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose", Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf’s new third installment of the story of … of… what the hell is this the story of? I have no idea. I’ve been listening to the original Bat Out Of Hell for 30 years and I’m completely clueless as to what it’s about. Something about a guy and a motorbike. And chicks. Fuck it, what more do you need to know?

Highlights of this new album…

  • Brian May’s cameo in the opening bars and solo of the new version of "Bad For Good" (yeah Tony Goodson – we finally get to hear Meat singing it). When this came on and I heard that guitar I was like "holy crap! that’s gotta be Brian May!" and so I looked it up. Oh yeah.
  • Steve "I used to play for David Lee Roth but then I quit and his career disappeared" Vai does the solo on "The Land Of The Pigs (The Butcher Is King)".

Ermmm… that’s about it. The album doesn’t grab me as a new classic, in some ways it kind of reminds me of any one of Alice Cooper’s post-Constrictor albums, a little bit too much gothic theatre and attempted metal. I think the catchiest track is perhaps "What About Love" a piano-driven duet with Patti Russo penned by Desmond Child. That should be the first single off the album. That or "Bad For Good" but I prefer Jim’s original version of that off his own album when Meat was resting his voice. Love to know what you think Goodson.

UPDATE: I’ve listened to the new and old versions of "Bad For Good" back to back several times now this morning and I’m pretty sure that, while the new version has Meat’s voice, May’s guitar and a massive arrangement going for it, the original version is definitely the superior. It’s faster, the arrangement is lighter, and Jim’s voice has a sense of urgency and desperation about it which really make it a plea on behalf of all of us who feel like we didn’t really turn out like the world would like us to be. What a chorus. I’ve been belting this out at the top of my voice all morning (sorry Dave next door):

And I know that I’m gonna be like this forever
I’m never gonna be what I should
And you think that I’ll be bad for just a little while
But I know that I’ll be bad for good

My Top Artists from Last.fm

by | Sep 25, 2006 | Uncategorized

Okay I know I’m slow off the mark on this one, but I’ve just installed and started playing with Last.FM and it’s… pretty frakkin cool. Here’s my profile if you care. And here’s a list of the top listened to artists on my iPod. Keep in mind my iPod is only a couple of months old, but this looks pretty accurate to me.

AMI Breakfast tomorrow

by | Sep 25, 2006 | Podcast, Uncategorized

I’m speaking tomorrow morning (Thursday Sept 26) at the Australian Marketing Institute breakfast about "Brands and Blogging". Also speaking is Paul Crisp who (according to the bio on the AMI site) manages public affairs for Telstra’s Consumer Marketing and Channels Division. He also leads Telstra’s New Media Project, managing the company’s corporate blog at www.nowwearetalking.com.au and its podcast service.

Does anyone know what Telstra’s podcast service is? Ever even heard of that before?

Exxon funds “misleading” climate change lobby groups

by | Sep 23, 2006 | climate change, science, Uncategorized

Feeling confused about whether or not climate change is really a threat? Good. That’s exactly what they want you to feel. Confused.

I was having a conversation about this with a friend over lunch during the week and he explained to me how the big oil companies fund hundreds of small lobby groups who purport to be scientists and who put out misleading and contradictory evidence deliberately to confuse the general public.

Here’s an interesting statement I read tonight:

According to Ward’s own analysis of Exxon’s Corporate Giving Report, the company last year funded 64 groups conducting climate change research, of which 25 were in line with mainstream climate science and 39 were "misleading." The latter category included the Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, to which Exxon gave $25,000 in 2005, the Exxon website shows. The Centre’s website says: "There is no compelling reason to believe that the rise in temperature was caused by the rise in CO2."

This is from an article in Al Jazeera stating that The Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science, is criticizing Exxon’s attempts to mislead the general public by confusing them with contradictory reports.

So, here’s how it seems to work. You give money to both the dodgy groups who make up their science off of the back of a breakfast cereal box but you *also* give funding to the real scientists so you can’t be accused of just funding the bad guys. You can say

"These organisations do not speak on our behalf, nor do we control their views and messages. They may or may not hold similar views to ours."

But what you *really* want to do is create confusion. It’s Alexander of Macedon’s old "divide and conquer" strategy updated for the 21st century corporation. Plausible deniability.

Now, when you read about the confusion in the newspaper, all you read is that Politician X said "Climate change is important and we need to do something about it now" but then you read that Politican B said "Such-and-such a group of scientists says it isn’t as big a problem as everyone is making out, go back to your Reality TV". Of course, what you *don’t* read is that the group Politican B quoted from was funded by Exxon.

Who has the responsibility to tell you this last fact? The newspaper? You would think so.

If Admins weren’t supposed to cry they wouldn’t hire girls for the job

by | Sep 22, 2006 | Podcast, Uncategorized

That and other very fine words of advice can be found in "Satan’s Training Brochure", WW Turmel’s guide to Middle Management behaviours. I’m pretty sure some of my past bosses had read this, especially the chapter entitled "Getting To Maybe:- Delayed Decision Making For the Budget-Constrained". In fact, I think I know some venture capitalists who have also read it. If you like the read, make sure you also check out WW’s podcast "The Cranky Middle Manager" on TPN.

Andy Delin not impressed with Outlook 2007

by | Sep 22, 2006 | Uncategorized

Is Andy Delin the new Scoble? A Microsoft blogger with enough balls / management support to say what he thinks even when it may not be completely obsequious? Let’s hope so… especially after I post this up there!

His recent review of Outlook 2007 : "so far I haven’t found too many changes of significance… In my opinion, Outlook is an irony – a productivity tool which distracts and overloads. Outlook knows so much about me – my contacts, my activities, my communications - and yet it doesn’t use this knowledge to guide what information should be given or hidden in a given context."

He’s also made some very interesting insights into why my decision to go back to pen and paper is a good one (and, by the way, I’m still loving it):

An elegant moleskine notebook may be expensive, but in fact, the cost and quality brings a certain respect for your thoughts. You won’t throw that thing away when it’s full, and the book itself is robust enough to preserve your thoughts for years. In time to come, you’ll pick up that elegant moleskine book and flipping through, you’ll recall what you were thinking about in 2006, what you were trying to achieve, what you aspired to and what you were struggling with. This is beautiful. Dare I mention PDAs and Outlook in the same paragraph? Those things are disrespectful of human markings, they are almost programmed to forget. They aren’t trustworthy containers (remember ‘trustworthy computing’ ?).

Trustworthy. Exactly. I’ve lost SO MUCH DATA from Outlook and my PDA over the years it’s disgusting. The whole OST / PST mindfield that Microsoft imposes on you in the name of an Outlook backup is still a complete joke. If I want to find a particular email from the last ten years that I wrote in Outlook, first I’d need to find the right PST. I’ve got them all backed up on CD somewhere, but there is about 20 of the suckers. Each time I re-built my laptop I had to back it up and then would normally start a new one to get the old one off my harddrive. Not to mention the many times I had to re-build Outlook due to PST corruptions. So I’d have to import various PSTs into Outlook and then search the lot of them for the right email.

Now compare that to finding a Gmail message from 2004 (when I started using it in anger). Takes two seconds. One maybe.

Anyway… paper is good. I’m loving it. However, I still haven’t worked out a good way to back it up without doing a daily scan.

Hugo Chavez loves Grandma Funks

by | Sep 22, 2006 | Iraq, Melbourne, Uncategorized

Chavez is making geopolitics interesting again. Just as it looks like the Fidelissimo is riding off into a khaki sunset, along comes Hilarious Hugo with his attacks on Bush. According to The Australian:

VENEZUELAN President Hugo Chavez has taken his anti-imperialist rhetoric to New York’s Harlem overnight and ridiculed US President George W. Bush as a puffed-up John Wayne wannabe. And a supportive crowd loved it.

Mr Chavez stunned delegates at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday by calling Mr Bush "the devil himself" and saying he left the smell of sulfur hanging in the chamber from his appearance the previous day.

He received an ovation at the United Nations, but nothing like the raucous and upbeat receptions later Wednesday at a free university and again overnight at a Baptist church in the predominantly black neighbourhood of Harlem.

Crowds soaked up his critique of the Iraq war, his interpretation of the history of US military interventions and his stories about visiting Cuban President Fidel Castro, who is recovering from surgery.

You have to love this guy. He doesn’t just stay home and slag Bush. He goes to New York muthafraking City and says it. This is a man of the people. He’s also doing almost as much for Noam Chomsky’s book sales as his appearance on G’Day World:

Mr Chavez began his speech by displaying a copy of American writer Noam Chomsky’s 2004 book Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance, and recommended it to UN delegates and US citizens.

By yesterday, the book had risen from backlist obscurity to the No. 3 bestseller at Amazon.com

And the reason why the Democrats won’t win another election? They denounced Chavez! They should be getting this guy tattooed on their freaking skulls. He’s doing what they (and the US media) seem too scared to do – criticize Bush in a way that gets people’s attention.

Grandma Funks by the way is a terrific café in Richmond (Melbourne) that I’m having breakfast in this morning and I’ve just discovered they have FREE WI-FI. I’ve been coming here for years because I love the vibe of the joint (and the quality of their latte) but the big free wifi sign on their wall makes it a clear winner for "best Melbourne cafe 2006".

HUgo Chavez loves Grandma Funks