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well, it doesn’t matter how much musicians whine about illegal file sharing, sometimes they just love to do stupid things which definitely work in the favour of filesharers.

currently, U2 are finishing off their latest album, unofficially entitled ‘No Line On The Horizon’. bono is in france for post-production and decided to listen to the album. however, he decided to listen to it very loudly. so loudly, infact, that passers by could hear the album. they recognised bono’s voice and started recording the music from the street. so thanks to bono, 4 tracks have been leaked to the public. obviously, the quality is quite poor, but the point is that fans can get a listen to some tracks from the album … and it’s also a big ‘fuck you’ to people like paul mcguinnes (U2’s manager) who hates filesharers and thinks they should all be disconnected from the internet.

i still love U2, but this was a dumbarse thing to do … especially after their last cd was also leaked.

good work bono, ya wanker!

i’ve got my hands on a bunch of australian artists, which i’ve added to my mp3 player. at the moment, i’m listening to ben lee, sarah blasko, blue king brown, clare bowditch, bernard fanning, bob evans, gotye, the grates, lior, little birdy, kate miller heidke, the panics, josh pyke, xavier rudd, angus and julia stone, the be good tanyas, the cops, missy higgins, and the waifs.

i also got hold of some old chocolate starfish and cruel sea tracks. very fun ‘blast from the past’. i’m loving most of the music, especially the waifs. i’ve always been very fond of girls’ voices and guitars … which is pretty obvious from my choice of tracks. a lot of roots and folk music, with a distinct aussie sound.

a great track i found is actually a cover version by the waifs. it’s a paul kelly and kev carmody song called ‘from little things, big things grow’. the waifs’ cover version is really awesome. download it here if you want to listen … shhhh! don’t tell the recording companies!

if you know of any more good aussie music, especially like the stuff mentioned above, let me know.

got a hella busy weekend coming up … tonight i’m trying to finish angie’s photos (which i’m 3 weeks behind on) and update natalya’s site (which i’m months behind on)

ryan gets here in the morning. we’re gonna check out the magnum photography exhibition, go to cheungmuro and look around, then head to dongjak and do some photography on the bridge. the plan is to photograph the han river at sunset (here’s hoping for clear weather). the view from the bridge is probably the best location in korea. we can see the sunset, the han river, lots of buildings and a motorway on the right, and the 63 building on the left.

however, tonight’s work is progressing well. i’ve upgraded my site and fixed the permalink error. i’m running wordpress 2.6.1 which has a few error fixes from the wordpress 2.6 release. i also fixed some small cosmetic issues and uploaded a different smilie pack

i’m a bit hungry, so i might head out soon and get some food. actually, i’ve been a good boy lately. my diet has consisted of kimbab (lots), bibimbab, ramyeon, neng myon and dongass. it’s been a 95% korean diet … with the occasional sandwich thrown in … usually on the way to work.

but, i have beer … so i’ll grab a snack and have a few drinks while i do some editing.

oh, i almost forgot, i’ve started listening to last.fm. these days my regular music has been getting a bit dull, and i’m tired of changing playlists. so i figured it’s time to explore and find some new music … it’s working out well.

this. this is seriously one of the best short videos i’ve ever seen. i stumbled across it and i’m really glad that i did. i don’t know if it’s possible to understand how profound this is. what’s more, this sums up my opinions about life and the highly ravenous approach to life in korea.

if those thoughts aren’t enough to grab you, perhaps you’ll be more interested to know that it’s narrated by alan watts (famous buddhist philosopher) and animated by trey parker and matt stone (creators of southpark).

enjoy …

here she is, my little pineapple ukulele. it’ looks bigger in the picture, but actually, it’s quite small. for perspective, the body is 2 hands wide (side by side), the neck is 2 hands wide and the top is one hand. the whole thing is a little less than 50cm long.

i’ve already learned some chords. i can play Am, C, E, Em, Fm, and G … i can’t play them fast, but i know the chords and can fumble my way through some tunes. i’m glad i bought the ukulele … it’s going to be a lot of fun to play.

thanks to rubberchicken for passing this on. it’s a chick who plays the ukulele. she did a tripped out version of survivor by destiny’s child. the song was pretty cool and i think it won some kind of ukulele competition.

anyway, it’s inspired me to get myself a ukulele and learn how to play it.

yay!! demonoid’s trackers are back online … it means that one of the best torrent sites on the internet is back in business. i love demonoid … to celebrate, i uploaded a torrent (snoop dogg’s ‘ego trippin’) and downloaded a few applications. looks like all my movie and music needs are back … well, oink is still gone, but demonoid is freaking sweet.

btw, i don’t know why, but i don’t like much rap, yet i like snoop dogg … shizzle my nizzle!! LOL … go figure!

i bought myself a little mp3/pmp player yesterday. it’s a cowon d2. my ipod has just about shit itself and i wanted something small and convenient, preferably with video. i decided not to go with another ipod because i’m sick and tired of reorganising my fucking library every time i want to find songs (fuck you i-tunes). so now i can keep my library organised independently, and stored on my external 80gig hard drive.

the cowon d2 has 4gig of memory and i got a 4gig sd card, giving me 8gig in total. i’ve started throwing some music on it and i’ve put some movies in the sd card. the simpsons movie is there, animatrix, and some southpark episodes. i also put napoleon dynamite on it … i’ve been wanting to watch it again.

the reason i picked the cowon d2 (it’s korean made) is because of the subset of features. it has a voice recorder, organiser, notepad, full korean/english and english/english dictionary, calculator, alarms, etc. it’s also got a mini flash player, so i added a flash subway map to the player, so i can find where i’m going on the train.

i’ve stuck some photos on it too.

the only downside is that i need to convert movie files into a smaller format. but it’s not really an inconvenience, however it does take a while.

the upshot is that the player will be very useful beyond korea. since it plays mp3s and videos, all i need to do is keep a few sd cards and i’ll have plenty of music and stuff to keep me occupied.

plan ‘a’ is to use a spare sd card (2gig) and fill it with audiobooks … i’m really becoming addicted to listening to audiobooks while i’m on the subway.

well, there ya go! props to craig for finding out that an old mate of ours, brendan agius, has got himself a band. they’re called the volty strings, and have a myspace page as well.

brendan and i went to university together. we had a few drama classes and also did a production of jesus christ superstar … brendan played simon zealots and i played peter. i remember brendan and craig doing their comedy drama production ‘the brothers who weren’t really brothers circus’. LOL

if you drop by brendan, good luck with your band … here’s a looksy at their debut song.

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you know what?? fuck everyone who doesn’t like radiohead … i like radiohead. i understand how they can be hit and miss, but i remember driving around brisbane looking for a copy of their album ‘ok computer’ desperate to listen to it … craig will remember that too … it was probably the worst day of his life.

but i think radiohead are awesome. thom’s voice is freakishly good and their lyrics are offbeat. and their new album ‘in rainbows’ has a few songs, especially ‘nude’ that are haunting and brilliant … brilliant in the ‘karma police’ way.

the coolest thing about their new album isn’t the music itself, but the big smackdown they’ve given to the recording industry with this album. rather than find a new label, they’ve quietly gone about making their new album and released it (sans fanfare) on the internet … direct sales to their fans. they’re not the only ones going down this route, nine inch nails, jamiroquai, prince, and others are doing the same thing … the same, recording labels can go to hell, kind of promotion.

this morning the album ‘in rainbows’ was released via radiohead’s website. i logged on and bought the album. admittedly, the album can be bought for free (by offering to pay $0) but i actually paid 5 pounds british ($11 american) for the album … not because i like radiohead … but because i want to promote the direct artist-fans relationship that will be better for everyone.

i’m listening to the album as i type this rant … and the album is good … really good. i’m enjoying it a lot.

ironically, this is the first time in nearly 5 years that i’ve actually paid for a cd … and that’s saying something.