| Caught my attention...... |
[20 Nov 2008|09:24pm] |
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might be something by 'pistols and posies' |
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India praised for sinking pirates | ![INS Tabar [File picture]](http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45219000/jpg/_45219313_instabar226.jpg) The Indian navy is now patrolling off the Somali coast |
An anti-piracy watchdog has welcomed the destruction of a suspected Somali pirate vessel in the Gulf of Aden by an Indian navy warship. INS Tabar sank the pirate "mother ship" after it did not stop for investigation and instead opened fire, an Indian navy statement said on Wednesday. There has been a surge in piracy incidents off the coast of Somalia. The latest attack came days after the Saudi-owned Sirius Star supertanker and its 25 crew were seized by pirates. The supertanker is now anchored off the Somali coast. 'Heartened' "If all warships do this, it will be a strong deterrent. But if it's just a rare case, then it won't work," Noel Choong, who heads the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, told Associated Press.
Anti Piracy Watchdog?
Is this him....
While I'm on the subject, I read that the Pirates are after some Millions for the safe return of the Oil tanker (which I would imagine is quite hard to hide) and the hostages (easier to hide)........Come on guys, play the game, let the people go and then stick Canoons and a big Jolly Roger on the Oil tanker, have you people never seen Waterworld (actually, probably not thinking about it, not many people did........perhaps I need to rethink this whole strategy) |
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| Things that make me chuckles. |
[24 Oct 2008|04:48pm] |
In light of the impending recession/apocalyspe/guinea pig epedemic/no bread in the shops the BBC has taken this time to work hard and come with.....a snazzy logo for it!
the downturn...in all it's glory:
Good to know that, in a move that would make Chris Morris proiud, money is being used constructivelyy to at least put a cool and trendy spin on the whole sorry mess....
For all the problems that this is going to cause, I do appreciate the 'final plot twist' in the whodunnit of our doom.....
After being told for some 10 years that all our lifes were in mortal danger from either Muslim fundamentalists, urban gangs armed to the teeth, the sea rising and swallowing the south coast or a new red peril from either Moscow and Beijing it's somewhat reassuring to find that our actual real enemy was all along...middle class wankers in suits that play russian roulette with other peoples cash........having been to the financial district many times....I am not in the least bit surprised.....
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| If you are of an apololyptic bent.. |
[08 Oct 2008|01:24am] |
Then the recent Wars, breakdown of society, rising crime, credit crunches etc. etc. May have stroking your sage's beard and wondering if indeed, that guy with the End is Nigh sandwich board is right after all..
Well, In accordance with 'the prophecy' the final sign has now arrived..Chinese Democracy will apparently be released on November 13...
Run for the Hills!
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| Well, tell us something we didn't know all along..... |
[23 Jul 2008|03:41am] |
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From the BBC
Rock drummers 'are top athletes' |  Blondie's Clem Burke took part in the study |
Playing the drums for a rock band requires the stamina of a Premiership footballer, research suggests. Tests on Clem Burke, the veteran Blondie drummer, revealed that 90 minutes of drumming could raise his heart rate to 190 beats a minute. Despite rock's reputation for unhealthy living, Dr Marcus Smith, from Chichester University, said drummers needed "extraordinary stamina". A hour in concert could burn between 400 and 600 calories, he said. Clem Burke, who provided the beat for hits such as "Heart of Glass", "Atomic" and "Call Me" was invited to take part in the eight-year project by Blondie fan Dr Smith. It is hoped that the results could help develop outreach programmes for overweight children who are not interested in sport. Burke was connected to equipment to measure his heart rate and oxygen uptake, and the levels of lactic acid in his blood. He found that during a performance, his heart averaged between 140 and 150 beats a minute, peaking at 190, levels comparable to other top athletes. However, Dr Smith said that while top footballers were expected to perform once or twice a week, drummers on tour would be doing it every night at a different venue. Drummers burn 4-600 calories per hour He said: "Footballers can normally expect to play 40 to 50 games a year - but in one 12 month period, Clem played 90-minute sets at 100 concerts. "Footballer find playing a Champions League game once every two weeks a drain, but these guys are doing it every day when they are on tour. "It is clear that their fitness levels need to be outstanding - through monitoring Clem's performance in controlled conditions, we have been able to map the extraordinary stamina required by professional drummers." The project was conducted jointly by the University of Gloucestershire and the University of Chichester. A dedicated "drumming laboratory" is now being built at the Gloucester campus and it is hoped that other professional drummers will be tested. Dr Steve Draper, from Gloucestershire University, said: "This is the first facility of its kind in the world." Professor Edward Winter, a specialist in the physiology of exercise at Sheffield University, said that the challenge of playing the drums should not be underestimated. He said that at 190 beats per minute Clem Burke was probably exceeding the maximum heart rate predicted for a man of his age. "Rock drumming in particular is very energetic, and to add to this, these guys are playing in a hot environment - you'll see them literally dripping with sweat." |
Big shocker there.....pampered overpaid kickers of ball don't work as hard as a Drummer....
I do like the idea of a drumming laboratory......to engineer the Superdrummer, who will obviously be Dolph Lundgren pumped up to the nines with wierd blue chemicals
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| Zippy de doo dah. |
[30 Dec 2007|06:56pm] |
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Film Soundtracks......Geeky eh? |
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Happy New Year and all that stuff........
As is tradition in times of need, I shall be paying this chap a visit tomorrow to see what 2008 will bring.
Right, off to the Pub.
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| Wacking. off in ma camper. |
[22 Oct 2007|06:01pm] |
Or rather just. Wacken.
CARCASS
&
AT THE GATES
Both reformed and playing. A must do really....
In other Crap, been watching waaay too many films and catching up on US TV shows.
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| Recording, general tiredness etc. |
[21 Sep 2007|05:05pm] |
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An Excellent 14 hours working on a new track last night, well worth the pain I felt today at work.....which is already got me doing about 60 hours a week on a big project...but do be honesat, I feel pretty good about being pushed to the limit, makes life worthwhile...
Of to see a mates band, Scythian (www.myspace.com/scythiandeath) well worth checking out, in the wilds of Croydon....
This pic cheered me up no end, so I thought I'd share:
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| Musicians, Ambition, Vision. |
[17 Aug 2007|03:01pm] |
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Today's mini ranting point is something that really goes over my head, from people I've dealt with recently....specifically the idea of people who are too easy going, or trying to cover all bases...
A hard one to explain, so let me put it into context:
I know what I want to do musically (some might say TOO much!) but generally speaking, I know exactly what kind of music I want to play, what kind of band I want to be in, what I want from the people I'm playing with and lots of other minor stuff....all which amounts to a...plan. i.e. I actually would like to control my own creative life and not just kind of drift along or compromise my style or abilities just to keep someone else happy.....after all, seeing as there is NO money in music as a rule, why should I take the one thing that should be 100% me and make it not me?
Know, most of the musicians I know (and as a good chunk of them are of a pro standard, this may be more than average) are pretty much of the same ideals, they have a Vision of where they want their music to take them and do their best to try and keep that vision 'true'....
I reference this specifically as, once again, we are having to look for another member, our drummer (who, to be honest, I had quite a few reservations about, but you tend think 'drummers a drummer....too hard to find another') having made it clear that he was banking on the band as a career choice and didn't really 'get' the music or the ethos behind it (which is pretty obvious by him not knowing songs one week the next)..
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe lots of people are happy to just play and not really connect with what they are paying, but I'd like to think, as a composer and ideologist, that it does actually matter.....certianly when playing, I can usually feel peoples moods and enthusiasm through their playing to a very fine degree (as a Vocalist, bad playing while I'm singing actually causes me physical pain), so if someone is just playing Bar A x 4, Bar B X 8, there's no way on earth they can connect with the point.......
Which I suppose leads me onto the next point, which is the purpose of music at all.....in my opinion...unless you are a Keats, a Shakespeare or even Irwin Welsh...for most of us, Words just don't cut it, we simply no longer have the vocabulary of previous generations to say what we want properly (note to self: the irony of typing that. ha ha) and if we can put our words into sense, chances are they will be misunderstood. Music, is vastly superior at emotional communication....instead of saying 'I feel sad' you can MAKE someone sad, make them angry, make them happy if you like (don't really use this one much myself :-) ), point is, you can transfer you emotional states onto others, providing of course, they are actually listening....(seeing as so much of the Muzak we hear everyday is, to me anyway, souless, pointless and completely devoid of any actual communication, it's not surprising people are no longer able to really listen to music...damn I envy the 18th century sometimes.).......ambigious emotions (as Kryten found hehe) being quite hard to do, but certainly not impossible.
All of which leads me onto my final point, which is....Where the bloody Hell is a Drummer that can understand this and not just be 'person who hits things' Been lucky enough to finally find three people who, I think anyways, 'Get it'.
Hopefully should have some news soon..
Mental download over.
End of line.
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| The creeping feeling of Rust.... |
[24 Jul 2007|04:07pm] |
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As though as know will well know, I'm not one to complain. hahaha
I am however, feeling decidely creaky on the business of being in a band at the moment..I think I've actually forgotten how to do it, the music side is, obviously, fine, but the 'business' (I invert comma this as business is defined in my brain as "a transaction between parties involving goods or services with money being exchanged and a profit being made by the vendor") side of things just isn't...'there' at the moment, maybe it's just being out of practice, but the usual bullshit, err I mean sales patter that I used to fluently flaunt out to get a Band gigs, or anything else for that matter just doesn't come as diuretically any more...
Either way, things will need to turn around soon...as I can be pretty sure that if I'm starting to feel this low about the bands prospects, those of a less committed vocation will already further down the road to buggeritsville. Which is pretty annoying generally.
I have a major beef with one potential situation at the moment, but I'll keep that under wraps until it's either completly resolved or not going to happen at all. but the word payola is involved.
All of which rambling is pretty much head emptying I guess, and read by two mice and a sandwich called ernest, So I'll move onto something more fun, like Film reviews....no part order for these..
Films Wot I ave seen resently. by Akatechon, age 4 3/4
Transformers.
It's a Dominos Pizza of a Movie, Meaty, Cheesy and satisfying and you could go for more at the end. Only gripe, as pointed out by many reviewers, is the Big Red Blur fights Big Black Blur fight scenes that a lot of CG artists and directors have fallen into, simply because the processing power is there...18000 MB of RAM you may have, but my eyes are only 48K! </geek> but in the context of the whole film, they are a minor abberation...It's good, that's all you need to know.
Hannibal Rising.
Slated by just about everyone, well guess it what..I thought it was good. the French guy playing young holdmeballs did a fine job as far as I'm concerned, cool, calculating and vicious, but still edgy and not quite sure of himself at times...I think peoples main issue with it would be that it kind of makes him the hero until the last five minutes when the character is supposedly an 'Evil' monster (I could massively digress into Morality here, but sufficed to say, I'm pretty ok with the idea that one mans murder is another mans meat, soon as the cows, chickens (and in the case of camden, rats and pidgeons..great with noodles) run out, You're all on the menu.) but to finish, I couldn't really find much to complain with it at all, and the fact that no-one picked up on how frankly beautiful some of cinematography is justifies it alone.
Premonition.
Not the supercool Japanese version, the remake with Sandra Bullock. Is dull, and her character is eminently frustrating all the way through.
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[05 Jul 2007|12:24pm] |
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Behemoth - New Album (which is incredible) |
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New Photos of DorEterna, more to follow as I work on them :-)
( Under The Cut for space saving. )
As you may or not be aware, DorEterna are now a fully functional entity, with a hunger for some giggage.
I'm currently redoing all of the website, press packs etc. but if anyone has any London based Support slots going, we'll take them, gratis. and do our own promotion. get in touch!
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[02 Jul 2007|03:08pm] |
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Maiden are playing Wacken in 2008. That's my Summer sorted then :-)
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| Hey there.... |
[31 May 2007|04:23pm] |
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mood |
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enraged |
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Gods of Entertainment, I have to do some Vocal Recording tonight, how are we fixed?
(In ominous reverby booming voice) "Actually, we've got you down for a Screwover week, so here, have an Cold and severe Sore throat that manifests today and only today. Oh, and we've stolen your Car, don't thank us all at once, the usual fruit basket will suffice..Gods over and out"
Damn.
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| More Drinking..More Fun.... |
[19 May 2007|09:53pm] |
My name is Otto
I like to get Blotto
Awesomeness abounds from an excellent drinking session yesterday. I feel more alive than I have done in a good long while, and certainly feel 100% about my Band, my friends and life in General. It's a strange quirk of Fate that something as simple as many Pints of Lowenbrau and a good head session can wipe clean the slate..my good mood couldn't even be dented by an hour long walk home from the nughtbus, at sometime around 4am.
Many changes afoot at the moment, moving tomorrow so it's a good 24 hour session of packing, cleaning and generally ensuring I get all our deposit back. Also Going to bring that rusted machine that is DorEterna back out into the live arena, so expect to see us soon, we are. the Shit.
More laters, right now I have to go rescue my dinner.
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| Bored at Work..... |
[19 Apr 2007|02:06pm] |
So I had a doodle, with a pic nicked from Interlock's Myspace page....
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akatechon's journal
It is clear that their fitness levels need to be outstanding 
contemplative