by cameron | May 23, 2007 | Uncategorized
Amazing isn’t it how sometimes songs you heard in your childhood but that didn’t really GRAB you back then can come back to you 20 years later and BLOW YOU AWAY!
SUPERNAUT by Black Sabbath of their 4th album, mysteriously titled “Black Sabbath Vol. 4”. What demon of the Underworld rose up to give Tony Iommi that marvelous riff? I haven’t been able to get it out of my head all day. And Ozzy’s lyrics!! Check them out:
I want to reach out and touch the sky
I want to touch the sun
But I don’t need to fly
I’m gonna climb up every mountain of the moon
And find a distant man a-waving his spoon
Okay Oz, you had me until the last line. You want to try it all, experience it all, taste it all. I’m with you brother, I really am. But a man waving a spoon? WTF? I know, “moon” is hard to rhyme without resorting to Buddy Holly “June”, “soon”. What about “And when I’m 60 I’ll look like a prune.”? That would have been accurate if not poetic.
I’ve crossed the ocean, turned every bend
I found the crossing near a golden rainbow’s end
I’ve been through magic and through life’s reality
I’ve lived a thousand years and it never bothered me
A thousand years! A man I can look up to. A transhumanist before we had such a word.
Got no religion, don’t need no friends
Got all I want and I don’t need to pretend
Don’t try to reach me, ’cause I’d tear up your mind
I’ve seen the future and I’ve left it behind
Me either Ozzy. Who needs friends? I’ve seen the future too and it ain’t pretty. I’m running it. Trust me. Not pretty.
And then at the 2’50”, after a blistering Iommi solo, we go from the heaviest riff in history into a… samba??? Cowhorns, pepper shakers, and washboard??? WTF???
I dunno, but I’m loving it. Worked out the riff on my guitar (not hard, five notes) and been playing it LOUD for my neighbour’s appreciation for the last 15 minutes.
Thank GOD for the Sabbs.
Get a preview of the track at Amazon. I do not recommend downloading the whole 2CD Best Of Black Sabbath from a torrent service like this one. That’s just not on kids.
by cameron | May 23, 2007 | Podcast
Today I ask you – what is it going to take for you to get off the bench?
And wish my dead dad a happy 58th birthday.
Here’s a link to the post on The Age and here’s a link to the J. Paul Getty book I mention.
by cameron | May 21, 2007 | movies, science, science vs religion, singularity
The guys from the Singularity Institute are trying to get on the front page of Digg. Do me a favour and DIGG SIAI.
See also Eliezer’s new video interview.
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Remember Stan Relihan from episode #219? The LinkedIn guy? Well I’m excited to announce that he’s starting his own show on TPN! You may recall I half-jokingly set Stan a goal at the end of the show to use LinkedIn to get me a good guest for the show. Well he’s the guy that set up my interview with Vint Cerf. So we both agreed he proved his point. 🙂 We haven’t come up with a title for the show yet but it’s going to be around networking, using LinkedIn and Web2.0 tools but also how to network the old fashioned way. Strategies for getting the most out of your network. As networking is something I’ve never really been good at or comfortable with, I’m really excited about the show.
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Michael Lemonick over on Time’s site has a good article on ID vs Evolution. There’s some fiery debate in his comments. Michael’s post on the recent “dark matter” images is also good. Helped me start to get my head around what I’m looking at.
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Anyone know when GRINDHOUSE is opening here?? When I wrote this post on March 30th, according to YourMovies.com.au it was supposed to open on May 31st but it seems to have disappeared? I wonder if this has anything to do with the news that they are going to split the films up?
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OH MY ZEUS!! I just watched the most brilliant, amazing, mind-wrenchingly awesome film I have seen in eons – HARD CANDY. I’ve been hearing about this film since it hit the cinemas and most people told me “it’s hard to watch”. But I loved it. I haven’t been this excited about a film since… Fight Club. This is the best psychological thriller I have seen since DEATH & THE MAIDEN. I thought Ellen Page‘s performance was amazing. Although it’s pretty hard to pass her off as a 14 year old, even a “mature” 14 year old, she’s believable enough. But her performance was simply spellbinding. I can’t think of enough adjectives to describe this movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, get it out on DVD immediately. Do not pass GO, etc.
by cameron | May 21, 2007 | Uncategorized
Broke my fast tonight after three days. Couldn’t hack it. Grrr.
Excited by this image of The Joker from the next Batman film though. Looks very dark – as it should be. No more cartoon villians. Show me something that will give me nightmares and long for a caped crusader equally as twisted to keep me safe.
Watched two great old films over the weekend – The Hudsucker Proxy and 12 Monkeys. Both absolute classics.
by cameron | May 19, 2007 | Melbourne, Uncategorized
So… who is going to challenge my top score on Spinword? My best score on Spinword Eternal is 11860. My best word was “dilute”.
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Today is day two of the fast. My weight yesterday morning was 95.2. Today it’s 94.2. I’m feeling it today. Headache, feeling fuzzy. Every food smell seems enhanced. It’s not so much feeling hungry, just like you’ve run a marathon. Slightly cranky and not quite with it.
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I sat in on Ewan’s live Rock Show this morning. Very cool. Had a group Skype IM windows open with about 6 or 7 people in it, commenting on the tracks he was playing, making requests, asking for shout outs, etc. I’d love to have G’Day World set up like that. Live. Will have to find out how he did it.
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My movie recommendation of the week: The Wrong Man aka Lucky Number Slevin, depending on which country you are in. Terrific gangster black comedy starring Bruce Willis, Josh Hartnett, Morgan Freeman, Sir Ben Kingsley and Lucy Liu. Directed by Paul McGuigan. Someone on IMDB described it as “Layer Cake meets Kiss Kiss Bang Bang meets The Usual Suspects” and I’d add in a bit of Pulp Fiction. Fast snappy Sorkinesque dialogue. Good plot twists – not completely invisible, I saw them coming, but still fun nonetheless. Smarter than most films I’ve seen recently.
DON’T bother seeing Spiderman 3. Apart from the Saturday Night Live homage (and, of course, the awesome Bruce Campbell cameo), it’s a terrible disappointment on many levels, not the least being the weak portrayal of Venom. Where is the tongue? What happened to the tongue?
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Eddie Everywhere McGuire has finally been boned from the top job at Channel Nine. While he claims he hasn’t been boned, it’s obvious that he either was pushed or realized he had to fall on his sword. My guess is the latter. He’s no idiot and he has to realize what a disaster year he has lead them through. I admire Eddie, he’s built himself up nothing to become a major power player in media, politics and sport at a very young age, through sheer hard work and schmoozing. But I never thought he was the guy to turn Nine around. If they want to become leaders again they need to make leadership choices. Do something bold, exciting, innovative, not just take the same bullshit formulas that have been destroying television for the last ten years and do more of the same. Eddie has hosted some of the worst examples of television in history. They need someone in the top job who understands that television in this country is currently just a race to the bottom and the only way out is to re-invent and re-imagine, not more of the same.
I love the way the Melbourne papers are sucking up to him today. No-one wants to call it like it is. They are all afraid of him. Eddie – you’re a winner. No doubt about it. But you fucked up the Nine job mate. Boning Jessica. White-anting Jana Wendt. Cutting the News staff. Making 1 vs 100. Pretending the Beaconsfield mine was worth more than a 5 minute story.
The only good call was putting Sarah Murdoch on the screen every morning. That was genius.
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