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Run Rincewind Run!
For the last Australian Discworld Convention Snowgum Films made a short film about Rincewind. This movie is now freely available on the web. It shows Rincewind performing his favorite activity: Running away!Labels: movie, Terry Pratchett
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Hogfather
Something almost unthinkable happened, a movie-adaption of one of Terry Pratchett's books! As I first heard about the undertaking, I was honestly quite skeptical, especially because Hogfather is one of the books with Death as one of the main characters. But to my great surprise and relieve they did a fantastic job and the adaption leaves almost no wishes open. Of course it wasn't possible to cover all the details of the novel, nevertheless it succeeds in telling the story and in a convincing manner to boot. I don't want to spoil the story here so I'll just a quick glimpse of the starting point: Due to a lack of faith the Hogfather vanishes and Death has to cover for him, on his trip he stumbles upon Susan (his grand-daughter), who then tries to figure out what's going on...
I can recommend this movie to anyone who likes Terry Pratchett's work, as well as to those who haven't read any of his books yet; and after you watch the movie, go and read the book! ;).Labels: movie, Terry Pratchett
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Whit Sunday Rock Night vol.2 @ Abart
The second Whit Sunday Rock Night took place at the Abart yesterday and I almost missed it! Per chance I visited the Abart homepage at 5pm yesterday to get some more information about the party of the evening; only then did I discover that a concert-marathon was scheduled for the day! Ten Swiss bands, none of which I had previously known or heard of (except My Name is George, which is very present in the media lately). So this was definitely something I had to check out. Fortunately I was just in time to see the first band.
Zhivago were first on stage and they played a cool mixture of Easy Listening and Alternative (Brit) Rock. I liked their style and fought it a great opening act, a pity that not that many people saw them perform.
Next up was Rita Hey, they introduced themselves as "the contrast program", which fitted very well. They played a mixture of Folk and Country music, something I normally don't expect to hear in the Abart, but nevertheless a very nice change.
Then came Barakuda, a three-piece which played Alternative Rock. The music they played was solid, but I just couldn't get used to the vocals. Maybe I'll have to give them another chance someday.
Then came Coldeve, one of my favorite bands of the evening, even though I cannot describe their style of music. I'm looking forward to their upcoming CD-Release later this year.
Next on stage were Dave Doorslammer & The Guests, the biggest disappointment of the evening. They played only one song, which lasted twenty minutes, but reminded me very much of a Jam Session. Normally I don't like music being labeled as noise, but for this band it just fits. All they made was noise, sometimes louder, sometimes quieter.
The Sidewalkpoets were then a very nice change. They played Melodic Rock and Easy Listening and were a blessing for my tortured ears.
Poison Ivvy were by far the oldest band of the day. This didn't stop them from delivering a kick-ass show! They played good old-school Punk-Rock and they managed to grab the crowds interest very well. And I enjoyed their gig tremendously.
Next on stage were elfish. I cannot quite describe their music either, but it has a very eery quality and their first song literally went under my skin. Definitely a band to look out for!
The second to last artist on stage was J. Kriste (Master Of Disguise). His back to the basics Indie-Rock could not quite convince me. But he seems a nice enough guy full of enthusiasm; he was thrilled to play in front of 400 people.
Then it was finally time for the main act: My Name Is George. Whereas the other bands had to present their music in a fifteen minute time-slot, My Name Is George had a whole hour at their disposal. Well, they were the most famous band on stage after all. The crowd loved their Retro-Rock and even though they have some catchy tunes, I couldn't quite get into the vibe, maybe it's just been too long a day. Maybe I'll give them another chance in the near future.
What stays with me after this evening is the good feeling that there is a lot of talent present in the Swiss music scene and that there are still many great bands out there to discover. And most of the bands have already produced a CD or EP. So I ended the evening with four new CDs (Zhivago, Sidewalkpoets, elfish, Fisher). Fisher didn't play that evening, but I've seen them twice at an unplugged concert in Uster and I've thought about buying their CD for a while now :)Labels: coldeve, Concert, Music
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Shopping Spree
It's been a while since we made our bulk order at our favorite game store, but yesterday I finally got my hands on the merchandise :). As a result my humble John Kovalic-Collection, he of Dork Tower fame, grew by a couple of items:As you can see my collection of weird board games grew as well by quite a bite and I'm looking forward to the next gaming session :).Labels: games, john kovalic
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Bech Con 2
I just returned from a four-day fantasy LARP. It was a very battle-intensive game and our stabs at diplomacy to solve the conflict peacefully failed completely. Nevertheless it was a great experience, especially because of the end-fight where about 200 players, 100 on each side, were fighting. Even though we lost the battle, it was only by a small margin and we were surprised ourselves for how long we managed to hold the superior enemy (due to players who were just way too powerful) at bay.
I had the opportunity to take some pictures, for obvious reasons not during the end-fight ;), and they can be found in my gallery.Labels: LARP, pictures
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Listen to (some of) my favorite songs!
Last.fm's last update made it possible to create a personal play list and listen to it as if it were a radio station. So now you can enjoy some of my favorite songs yourself!
PS: This is my 222 post! Wow I hadn't imagined it would go so far when I made my first post back in July 2003.Labels: metablog, Music
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Insights into my musical taste
Using last.fm can have some fun side-effects. For one you'll get to now other people with similar musical tastes. For another you can discover more about yourself.
For example I found out that my listening habits are not mainstream:
Analyzing my top 30 artists lead to a mainstream quota of 17.53%. Follow this link to discover more.
Not only are my listening habits not mainstream; they're eclectic as well. I scored 78/100 on an analysis of my top 20 artists, which is pretty high :). Go here to find out more.Labels: Music
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Labia @ Sleepless in Bremgarten
Yesterdays Labia concert happened on a special occasion. Bassist Armando celebrated his 25th birthday and so he received his birthday cake on stage! But back to the beginning. The gig happened at the Sleepless Party in Bremgarten. The location was hard to find by car, because all of central Bremgarten is car-free and so I had to drive a big detour.
The Reussbrücke Saal which hosted the party is actually gymnasium. This led to a feeling of a big school ball, this was enforced by the music the DJ played (oldies, rock, party tunes). The advantage of the big location was the huge stage that was available for the bands, on the other hand there was lots of empty space to fill. And the about 100 people present still left a feeling of a lot of potential for more. Rapertoir Rüsstal were the opening act. That's about all I'm going to say about that, except that Rap just isn't my favorite kind of tea...
Then finally Labia took the stage. And they performed a breathtaking show, full of energy and enthusiasm that well deserved to be captured on DVD. Which, if everything goes according to plan, will happen. It's a pity though, that not more people were present to enliven the atmosphere. Even though a the people were enjoying the gig, the cheering was almost lost in the big hall...
Last to play were Metal on the Rocks, a metal/hard-rock band from the canton of Aargau, which deserve a special mention because of their use of a cello. Unfortunately the cello was at times lost in their energetic music.
The drive back was quite interesting as well, I spotted two foxes and one marten on respectively next to the road.Labels: Concert, Labia
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The value of Reading
The more you read,
the more you know.
The more you know,
the further you'll go.
-Dr. Seuss
I received this nice anecdote through Thought for the day. It made me sad for a moment, because I barely have time to read at the moments, all my time is taken up with either working or studying for the GRE.Labels: Literature
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