Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Holy Shit Steve Jobs.

When I bought my MacBook in mid 2006, I thought nothing could possibly surpass it in terms of looks and build. It's slick, it's clean, it's white, it's slim, it's terribly modern and sophisticated.

And then Apple go and release the MacBook Air. It's slimmer, it's slicker, it's cleaner, it's made of freaking aluminium. The trackpad has been upgraded so you can use the gestures you use on the iPhone (which I had the pleasure of playing with the other day) - pinch, flick, rotate and all that jazz. Instead of having an onboard optical drive which is sooo last year, you can wirelessly access the optical drive of another computer if you simply must use it. And it has a backlit keyboard, a la the MacBook Pro. And it comes with an 80GB hard drive, with 64GB flash storage as an upgrade.

Fuck you, Apple, for making me love my MacBook less.

-R

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

It's been a while

So, I've been quite slack with this blog. I'm going through an extra long period of can't be arsed bloggingness. It's not like nothing's happening in my life right now, it's neither more or less exciting than it usually is when I'm blogging. I think the thing is that there are so many ways to connect with people now, there's almost no need for the blog. If I go to a big event, I'll put the photos on flickr or (increasingly) facebook and post a few comments, which other people will then comment on, so there's my connection there. I blame facebook entirely, actually.

Anyway quite a few things have happened since I last blogged. I went and bought my Maton and she is indeed a beautiful instrument which I play all the time. I think, despite my penchant for dark clothing, eyeliner, power chords and dancing like a maniac, I'm an acoustic girl at heart. There's something pure about being able to pick up a guitar and not having to plug it in. You don't even need a pick sometimes. If all the world's power sources failed tomorrow and we were cast back into the stone ages, I could still pick up my acoustic and play it by a fire. At least until I ran out of strings. Acoustic guitars are so alive too. They have a soul, not like electrics which are gorgeous and cool but I don't think they've got a soul under all that nitrocellulose or whatever the hell it is they finish those things with. I'm so losing my rockstar membership over this. Don't get me wrong, I love electrics and their cool effects and myriad of sounds, but if I had to choose to play only one type for the rest of my life, acoustic would be it. Hey, I could be like Tim Finn. He plays acoustics and dances like a maniac.

Speaking of all things Finn. Crowded House played Melbourne at the beginning of November. I was very lucky to get into the soundcheck (being a life member of the fan club does have its privileges). There were probably about 15 of us freezing our butts off in Rod Laver Arena (I guess having 10,000 people in there would make is quite warm so they made it extra cold to compensate), what a strange experience having the band up onstage in front of us. Neil asked if we had any requests so we got an excellent rendition of Whispers and Moans, and then someone asked for Everything Is Good For You. They hadn't played it since reforming but gave it a good try. It was fun watching them standing around onstage trying to remember their songs. We were also told that Split Enz are touring NZ next March but not to tell anyone as the press release was only going out that night. I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around with some of the people from soundcheck. There's a good burger shop on Swan St just past the Corner, I had an excellent hamburger with tomato and lettuce for $3.50. The show itself was of course wonderful, our seats were right up the back (literally, we only had two rows of seats behind us) but they had big video screens up so we could still see the action. It was quite a long set, they played for just on two hours. Seated crowds are very sedate, everyone got up to dance at the end though and Kat and I had a blast dancing and singing (in harmony no less) together. After the gig I went 'stalking' with some Frenz (fellow fanclub members). Janine had unexpectedly come down from Sydney so it was great to see her and Reanne and a few people I hadn't met before. Even without meeting any members of Crowded House it was quite enjoyable just hanging out and talking (Neil's excuse for not stopping the first night was that he thought we were just hanging out. Yes, we love to stand under bridges late at night talking). None of the Taragos stopped so we got ready to leave, but before we could Mark Hart came back and jumped out to sign things etc. He's a great guy and very friendly.

After the brilliance that was the first night I was quite eager to try and go to the second. However when I called work on friday morning I found out that I had been rostered on and no one had told me. To say I was disappointed was something of an understatement. Still, Janine and I went out for coffee at Elwood and I figured I could meet up with everyone after my shift so the day wasn't a total loss. When I got into work though my powers of persuasion took over and I suddenly found myself with the night off. We managed to get last minute tickets and my day went from sucky to quite bloody awesome. We ended up sitting near the right side of the stage, for a gig that was even better than the first. Neil Finn even stopped to sign things this night and I got my program signed by him, although I was far too awestruck to really say anything.

..Anyway this post is a couple of months old by now, it's been in draft mode and I kind of forgot about it. Christmas and New Years were great as usual, and I'm about to go to the gym with my little sister who just joined on monday. We're going to bully each other back into shape after putting on a few pounds over the holidays. I promise to blog a bit more from now on. Maybe.