Recent shennanigans in the realm of DarkAeon

Rar,

So I figured that it was about time for another personal update to my blog; I never seem to find time to be able to do these sort of posts any more.

That said, not all that much has happened if I’m honest (well, nothing interesting enough to blog about!).

My employers have decided to shackle me to my email inbox with a new BlackBerry – I have the Curve 8310, and so far, I really like it (the device, not the email and the constant beeping!). I’ve named him Barry as it is easier to exude my wrath onto a personified object as opposed to an objectified person!

The spec of the device is rather good, and along with my N95 8GB (personal phone), there is pretty much nothing that I cannot accomplish thanks to the wonderful smartphone technology. Between them, they can do more than my computer can I think!

Size Dimensions 107 x 60 x 15.5 mm
Weight 111 g
Display Type 65K colors
Size 320 x 240 pixels
- Full QWERTY keyboard
- Trackball navigation
- Wallpapers
Ringtones Type Polyphonic (32 channels), MP3
Vibration  Yes
- 3.5 mm stereo headset jack
Memory Phonebook Yes, Photocall
Call records Yes
Card slot microSD (TransFlash)
- 64 MB flash memory
Data GPRS Yes
HSCSD No
EDGE Yes
3G No
WLAN No
Bluetooth Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
Infrared port No
USB Yes, miniUSB
Features OS BlackBerry OS
Messaging SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging
Browser HTML
Games Yes
Colors Silver
Camera 2 MP, 1600×1200 pixels, LED flash
- Integrated GPS
- Java
- Media player
- BlackBerry maps
- Organizer
- Voice dial
- Built-in handsfree
Battery   Standard battery, Li-Ion 1100 mAh
Stand-by Up to 408 h
Talk time Up to 4 h

… now, I just need to find a way to get it to use the dishwasher and I’ll be sorted for life!

I am still loving the musical that I went to see the other week, Spring Awakening. I now have the soundtrack too, which is on a constant loop it seems. There’s nothing better than missing your train and breaking into ‘Totally F**ked’ hehe.

The Saturdays are featuring quite highly on the music that I am listening to at the moment too, as are P!nk, Queen, the Dreamgirls soundtrack, the Pan’s Labyrinth soundtrack, the Across The Universe soundtrack and the ever fabulous Scissor Sisters.

Greg and I have recently started shopping at Waitrose and are very impressed with them as a supermarket. A completely different work ethic seems to be present when compared with their larger competitors, most likely due to the differing business models. We’ve found that Waitrose do price competitively, have pleasant staff and sell excellent quality food (especially fresh fruit and vegetables) – I don’t think that we’ll be returning to Tesco anytime soon to be honest. For those who haven’t tried Waitrose yet (and happen to have one nearby!), I’d heartily recommend them.

I’ve just embarked on the CBA stage of the CIMA exams, and plan to study for my first paper (Business Economics) over the next 8 weeks or so, so that is a bit of an adventure I guess… be intrigued to see how this all pans out, as I’ve wanted to get back into study for quite a while now, and so this is a perfect opportunity to spend several years working towards becoming a Management Accountant and hopefully carve out my career further as time goes on.

A friend of mine, Adam, has suggested the BBC comedy series ‘Beautiful People’ to me… does anybody else have an opinion on the series before I go out and spend £20 on it?

(ooo, I’ve just noticed a strange correlation between the freeze-frame poses of both P!nk and the chap from Beautiful People! Is this the new fashion? Should I arrange myself in a similar picture and send it to Vogue??)

I think that’s it for news really, and most of the above isn’t really all that newsworthy! Should I feel depressed?

Right, that’s decided, I feel depressed and I need, no, I DESERVE(!) chocolate… which I will see to, right after I’ve slapped Barry Beeping BlackBerry back into silent submission!

Don’t you just love it when…

… in the middle of the Oscars, Beyoncé starts singing bits of your favourite music in a number called ‘Musicals Are Back!’ ?

The Youtube link above is unfortunately ambiguously labeled (and poorly spelt too!), however, Beyoncé, Hugh Jackman, Amanda Seyfried, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens all appear.

I have been looking forward to seeing this since I first heard about it a week or so ago… I have to say that it isn’t stunning and admit that it does get a little lost in itself pretty much from the onset, however it still counts fab in my books.

The best bit…? It definitely has to be at 1:17 on the clip, “Wait a minute… something’s missing…”

Oh, and hurrah to Slumdog Millionaire for doing so well (amazing film), and although I’m a little miffed to see The Dark Knight didn’t pick up too many technical awards, they did OK, and Heath Ledger’s posthumous Oscar award for Best Supporting Actor was definitely deserved!

What A Feeling!

Cor, blimey!

Did anyone else catch Robert Webb on BBC One’s ‘Lets Dance for Comic Relief‘ ?

The concept of the show is remarkably simple, celebs / well known people appear each week and try to perform an established dance routine (such as a song from High School Musical, Grease etc) in order to get the public to vote them through to the final. Something like 36.8p of every 50p phone call, goes to Comic Relief – and no, I have no idea where the .8p comes from either!

Most celebs got dressed up a little and gave it a fair effort (though I agree with guest judge Michael McIntyre – Biggins was suitable for nothing other than ‘Walking on Ice’!), however Robert Webb got a little too far into the psyche of his character (the female welder-cum-dancer from Flashdance)…. as the video clip below demonstrates.

Absolute comedy gold!

I don’t think that I have laughed so much in years!! Kudos to Webb for putting himself out there like that, well done that man!

BBC iPlayer should carry the full episode via THIS LINK until the afternoon of Saturday 28th February 2009.

Synopsis: Hosts Claudia Winkleman and Steve Jones present a brand new four-part spectacular celebrity-packed dance show in conjunction with Comic Relief. Each week, they are joined by regular panellist Anton Du Beke and two special guest panellists who are on hand to comment, congratulate, cajole or commiserate on the standard of the celebrity performances.

In the first three weeks of heats, six different celebrity acts each perform an iconic dance from Hollywood musicals, West End stage shows and pop videos. Who will wow us with their twinkle toes, and who will flounder with two left feet?

Each week there is a viewer vote and two acts go through to the Grand Final on the 14th March.

Celebrities competing in the series include: Jo Brand, Dick and Dom, Robert Webb, Angela Rippon, Deborah, Duncan and Peter from Dragon’s Den, Paddy McGuinness and Keith Lemon, and many more.

This week’s show also includes special performances from the cast of West End hit Billy Elliot, and Girl group The Saturdays perform this year’s official Comic Relief single, I Just Can’t Get Enough.

Proceeds from the voting will go through to Comic Relief.

Spring Awakening

I have just gotten back from the Lyric Hammersmith theatre in London where my friend Adam and I went to see ‘Spring Awakening‘, a new musical based on the 1891 play by German playwrite, Frank Wedekind.

First off, I really must say that I was terribly impressed with this show.

Although I was unaware of the original play, and thus cannot comment upon it’s comparison and likeness to the original work, I thought that it was a coherent piece of theatre, with a strong cast and top-notch quality acting.

For those people interested in such a comparison, Wikipedia has quite a good analysis on the page for the musical version of this play (as well as having a seperate page for the play itself).

The story is set in late 19th Century Germany and focuses on a small group of teenagers and their new-found discovery of sex and sexuality. As you would imagine, Spring Awakening is not really suitable for children due to the overarching themes of sex, sexuality, rape, masturbation, abortion and the bad language that is sometimes used (there is a song called ‘Totally F***ed’ for example). Perhaps not the most likely of subjects to make a new rock musical out of… but I can think of a few West End shows with yummy actors in them that I’d like to see explore some of those themes hehe!  (note to self – “TSK! Shame on you!” hehe).

A great mix of drama and songs, I thoroughly enjoyed this performance – it is easy to see why this show garnered 8 Tony awards in the USA (incidentally, this show has just closed on Broadway and is currently touring the USA).

It has just been announced (literally this afternoon) that Spring Awakening will transfer to The Novello Theatre the week after closing at the Lyric Hammersmith (it closes 14th March, re-opens 21st March) where it will initially run until October 2009. The  soundtrack for the show (the OBC and not an OLC) will be released in the UK on 23rd February 2009.

The stage set itself was lovely, both Adam and I remarked on it, and we especially liked the use of lighting – it was a fantastic set-up that they had with numerous bare lightbulbs hanging down from the ceiling – it almost made me want to up sticks and head back to Manchester to start work on a warehouse conversion project so that I could have lighting as fantastic as was on display on stage!

The picture below gives a fair idea of the lighting design that we so loved.

The space was very well used, and it was really easy to follow all of the action. They managed to make the space versatile enough for one to watch for two hours without it becoming dull. (NB – the show is 2 hours, 20 mins, including interval, though the timings may change when it transfers to The Novello).

As an aside, both Adam and I reckon that this is the start of Harry Potter the Musical…. the lead chap, Anuerin Barnard, looks just like Lee Meade… who in turn looks like Harry Potter we think! If you squint a little bit, Charlotte Wakefield (the leading lady) could pass as Hermoine Granger, and Sian Thomas (who plays the Adult Lady – and was one of my favourite characters!), is actually IN Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, hehe!

Plenty of totty in this musical, though I must say that Iwan Rheon (who plays Moritz) wins the over-all prize:

Followed shortly by Jamie Blackley who plays Hanschen:

It was really nice to see such a young cast… I have read somewhere that only three of the cast members do not fall in to the 16 – 24 age bracket (and two of those are middle age adults). I must say, I did initially remak to Adam that I had enjoyed hearing a youthful ensamble when it came to the singing… having adults singing some of these songs may have caused for the vocals to be a little overpowering perhaps.

I have also posted regarding the OBC recording on THIS post – it’s remarkable how quickly the soundtrack has become one of my favourites of all time!

The show also has Chris Barton in it as a swing, whom some of you may remember from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Any Dream Will Do” show when searching to find his new Joseph.

I’ve posted my four favourite songs from this show below, although for me, it was really all about the acting on this occasion:

And Then There Were None [my over-all favourite]

Mama Who Bore Me

Totally F***ed

The Bitch Of Living

At this point, I hasten to add that I in no way condone people recording in theatres and whatnot… especially when the production’s own website carries audio/visual on it (it’s just a pity one can’t link to it!) : http://www.springawakening.co.uk/

If you are considering frequenting the show, I would judge it based on the clips on their website, and not the random YouTube links that I have posted above (as there really wasn’t much kicking around on there!).

To finish the post, I thought that I’d do so on this brief clip… the legend that is Whoopi Goldberg getting in on the action at the Tony Awards hehe!

GO AND SEE THIS PRODUCTION – I implore you!

‘Squiriferous’

‘Squiriferous’ is the word that I have ‘adopted’ through http://savethewords.org/

This website was originally brought into my periferal by Stephen Fry when he tweeted the website to his followers on twitter… consequently I had a look at the website and decided to play along and adopt a word!

The principle behind the website is to get English speaking people to try and prevent some of the fabulous (and slightly antiquated) words from the English language from falling into the historic oblivion. By encouraging people to get actively involved with the language, the objective seems to be to a fairly modern approach to what is effectively an age-old ‘problem’.

They have a rather well designed website, some really nice coding has gone into it – top marks for the effort that has gone in to getting their cause up and running.

You also get a little certificate to acknowledge your efforts:

You can also become a fan of savethewords on Facebook if you fancy putting your new linguistic skills to practice.

Oh, and as for the word ’squiriferous’ itself – it means ‘ to possess the qualities of a gentleman’/ or to be ‘of a gentlemanly nature’

In a bid to obtain a status of ’squiriferous’ amongst my peers, I have decided to post a yummy picture or two of Dominic Cooper.

Surely I have achieved the status of squiriferous now? hehe!

Cowboys And Angels (2004)

Cowboys and Angels is a 2004 film produced by Wide Eye Films, funded by The Irish Film Board (Bord Scannán na hÉireann) and released by TLA Releasing.

Cowboys And Angels

Cowboys And Angels tells the witty story of two Irish lads – one straight and one gay – from their youthful career ambitions to romance and entanglements with the law. Shane is a shy civil servant striking out on his own; Vincent is a gay fashion design student looking for a roommate. When they cross paths, a friendship begins with Vincent helping pull Shane from his shell and sending him on the way to fabulousness! Of course it isn’t all smooth-sailing, as Shane becomes involved in drug-running and falls for Vincent’s best-friend, Gemma.

I stayed up and watched this film last night, and must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Very well made, believable, 3D characters who don’t fall into the age-old stereotypes, well scripted, and truly a delight to watch.

Speaking of the quality of the acting, Michael Legge (Shane) had previously been in Angela’s Ashes and in 2008 also went on to appear in Shameless as Tom O”Leary, whilst Allen Leech (Vincent) went on to appear in an Irish comedy, Man About A Dog amongst other things.

Although TLA Releasing are predominantly involved in the distribution of ‘gay’ films, this film by no means a ‘gay’ film in my opinion – it is just a ‘normal’ arts-council-y type film that happens to have a gay character or two in it (so refreshing to see for once… though the main characters, Vincent especially, are very cute, so it’s almost a pity hehe!).

Shane and Vincent

On the DVD extras they include ‘deleted scenes’ – scene 97 happens to be my favourite – it’s just SOOOOO sweet hehe! It’s a pity that they cut scene 96 and so couldn’t insert this one, as I reckon that it would have really added to the relationship between the two characters. However, I believe that they were right to cut scene 96, and so I guess I’ll just have to be happy that they included it as an extra!

Play.com are currently the more economical option for purchasing the film (currently at £6 in the UK) , as are HMV (online) and Amazon.co.uk (who I notice have now reduced their free-post threshold to £5 instead of the previous £15!)- for that price I really would recommend that you go out on a limb and purchase this film and see what you make of it…. I defy you not to enjoy it!

UNIX time system reaches 1234567890 seconds old

Just a quick one to give a passing nod to the UNIX time system, which will ‘celebrate’ reaching 1234567890 seconds old on Friday 13th February 2009.

Or, to re-phrase, at 23:31:30 GMT on 13/02/2009 it will be 1234567890 seconds since 00:00:00 GMT on 1/1/1970, which was the UNIX epoch.

I hasten to add that it is not just UNIX operating systems which make use of this process, most operating systems do these days.

For example have you ever tried to put a date into Microsoft Excel and it’s come out with a date in the 1970s (normally 01/01/1970)?  It happens all the time to me – especially when trying to input 2010 dates! Most date detail is actually stored as a number in computer operating systems – once again, playing around with data formats in Microsoft Excel is a rather good way of illustrating this point.

Although Friday 13th is being referred to as ‘epoch’ by many, this definition is technically incorrect, as an epoch would refer to a defining moment at the creation of something… which this is not – 00:00:00 01/01/1970 was though.

Friday is  just a really cool thing for slightly weird people like myself who derive a degree of satisfaction when numbers work in a way like this!

Abtruse Goose has a grand sketch which really does sum it all up hehe…

Here’s a link to a nice little site which has a count-down (or should that be count-up!) clock which shows when the Unix clock will reach 1234567890 and whatnot.

I’ll leave the final words with Dilbert:

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday!

Just a small post to reference that it is my blog’s first anniversary today! Hurrah!

I’m very happy with the stats that I’ve been able to generate over this past year, so thanks to all for reading and following! Marvellous work!

Also, today marks the day that I am closer to being the age of 24 than I am to the date that I turned 23… yes, it’s that regular despair that I feel when I realise that I now have to start referring to myself as ‘nearly 24′.

Here’s a link to my first post on this blog… it seems strange that a year ago today I was worrying about exactly the same thing! I guess my outlook on life hasn’t changed as much as I thought it had in the last year!

I am really worried that I may end up having some kind of mid-young-adult-life crisis, such as this… or even worse… this! hehe.

24 will also be my last year in that awesome 18 – 24 age bracket on all of the surveys.

Ah well, can’t win them all, eh?!

Cadbury’s Eyebrow Dance

Just came across this advert for Cadbury’s Daily Milk…

I wasn’t really a fan of the gorilla advert to be honest.. it seemed a little… well rubbish and overblown!

Whilst I still think that this new ad is also a little bit too extravagant for a bar of chocolate, I absolutely love it!

Metallica & San Francisco Symphony Orchestra

Collectively known as “S&M“, I’ve recently re-discovered just how much I love this recording/concert.

It’s been almost ten years since this gig took place (April 21 and April 22 1999, Berkeley Community Theatre, California) and personally, I would still rate it as perhaps one of the best musical recordings, EVER.

Those who know me may be a little surprised at my being a fan of Metallica (believe me, it’s not all STEPS and Kylie hehe!), however I have been a fan of rock music much longer than I have of pop and so hearing some of this music really does stir up memories from long ago and whatnot. I can still remember hearing this music constantly at college when my friends had control over the common stereo, and afternoons spent in friend’s bedrooms watching these performances, with all them playing and singing along (all of my friends played guitar, whilst I was more of a piano kind of person).

I think that the idea of a marriage between rock music and a symphony orchestra via the medium of a live concert is pretty revolutionary. The sound that they manage to create together is absolutely phenominal, and Michael Kamen deserves a lot of kudos for his classical scoring and integration which really does set off and compliment Metallica’s songs and their performance. I love classical music, and I love rock music – and the combination of the two is truly electric in my opinion.

Although I am a fan of most Metallica songs, if I ultimately had to choose between versions, I would choose the S&M versions over the originals pretty much every time over. I have included video clips of some of my favourites below.

Nothing Else Matters

No Leaf Clover

The Call Of Ktulu

Master Of Puppets

Until It Sleeps

This evening, I have been watching the DVD recording of this concert on my HDMI TV/DVD player with the volume cranked right up… simply put, it is an awesome experience! Ten years may have passed and the line-up may have changed, however this doesn’t feel at all dated. A classic recording in my opinion, and one of my all-time favourites.