In case you thought he was. It's a common theme, really, people keep moaning about Microsoft's firm grip on the computer market, but let's face it, without Microsoft we would probably have been a lot worse off. And to prove it, let me show you how smart and how much of a visionary Bill Gates really is. I dare you to read this interesting interview from 1993. Go on, you know you want to.

Labels: computers, technology

I have a very strange and rather bad feeling about this.

Labels: evita, Lloyd-Webber, musicals, philip quast, theatre

So, apparently the European Playstation 3 will be inferior to the US and Japanese ones. Quelle shock. I am becoming less and less interested in buying one. First the ridiculously high price, and now I cannot play all of my old PS2 games on it? That's half the reason why I wanted one.

Sony are rapidly losing my vote in this "war" and as a sworn opponent to the XBox/XBox 360 I am now looking into sponsoring Microsoft with my money. Only...not now. Not until that big lottery win comes through.

Labels: gaming

Blatantly stealing the idea off Alligatorill's blog, here are my Oscar favourites and predictions for 2007. Entries in bold are my favourites, entries in italics are the ones I think will win, and titles with an asterisk (*) behind them are films I have actually seen.

Performance by an actor in a leading role:
Leonardo DiCaprio - BLOOD DIAMOND
Ryan Gosling - HALF NELSON
Peter O'Toole - VENUS
Will Smith - THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS *
Forest Whitaker - THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND *

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Alan Arkin - LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE *
Jackie Earle Haley - LITTLE CHILDREN
Djimon Hounsou - BLOOD DIAMOND
Eddie Murphy - DREAMGIRLS
Mark Wahlberg - THE DEPARTED *

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Penélope Cruz - VOLVER
Judi Dench - NOTES ON A SCANDAL
Helen Mirren - THE QUEEN *
Meryl Streep - THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA *
Kate Winslet - LITTLE CHILDREN

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Adriana Barraza - BABEL *
Cate Blanchett - NOTES ON A SCANDAL
Abigail Breslin - LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE *
Jennifer Hudson - DREAMGIRLS
Rinko Kikuchi - BABEL *

Best animated feature film of the year
CARS *
HAPPY FEET *
MONSTER HOUSE

Achievement in art direction
DREAMGIRLS
THE GOOD SHEPHERD
PAN'S LABYRINTH
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST *
THE PRESTIGE *

Achievement in cinematography
THE BLACK DAHLIA
CHILDREN OF MEN
THE ILLUSIONIST
PAN'S LABYRINTH
THE PRESTIGE *

Achievement in costume design
CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER
THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA *
DREAMGIRLS
MARIE ANTOINETTE
THE QUEEN *

Achievement in directing
BABEL *
THE DEPARTED *
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
THE QUEEN *
UNITED 93 *

Adapted screenplay
BORAT CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN *
CHILDREN OF MEN
THE DEPARTED *
LITTLE CHILDREN
NOTES ON A SCANDAL

Original screenplay
BABEL *
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE *
PAN'S LABYRINTH
THE QUEEN *

Best foreign language film of the year
AFTER THE WEDDING
DAYS OF GLORY (INDIGÈNES)
THE LIVES OF OTHERS
PAN'S LABYRINTH
WATER

Best motion picture of the year
BABEL *
THE DEPARTED *
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE *
THE QUEEN *

Labels: award shows, film

It has been proven.

Labels: computers, gaming, science

I have collected some very important news items from The Onion today, as due to server upgrades we have had close to nothing to do at work so far.

Please take some time to get up-to-date:

Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Item 4
Item 5
Item 6
Item 7
Item 8
Item 9
Item 10
Item 11
Item 12
Item 13
Item 14

Thank you!

Labels: humour

Congrats to all the winners, to all the nominees and to everyone else who feels they deserve a goodwill gesture from me. Fortunately one of the people I was hoping for won an award; Tamsin Greig for Best Actress in a Play. I am sure Daniel Evans was a worthy winner of the Best Actor in a Musical award, even though that unfortunately meant Philip Quast did not receive his fourth Olivier. It will come, though, one day, I'm sure.

I big hug to the SOLT for bringing us very live coverage and a big raspberry and a fart in the general direction of the Beeb for announcing the winners half an hour before the ceremony had ended. Bad show, people!

Tonight's episode of Waking the Dead was the best one in the series (but then the latest series has been a bit too potty for my taste, to be honest, not even a bearded Trevor Eve with his sexy laptop (because I have the same) (laptop, not beard) could quite save this round)--hopefully it won't fall apart again in tomorrow's conclusive episode, which is also the last in the series. My prediction is still that it will be the last episode ever. Time to move on, but only as long as Trevor (Mc)Eve gets another high profile part in a drama. Or spends the next eight months on stage in London, that would be nice. And expensive, for me.

Going to bed now; hoping everyone had a nice week and that the coming week will be even better!

Labels: award shows, philip quast, tamsin greig, theatre, trevor eve, TV

About a week ago I posted the link to FeelTheEdge.com, a project where a near-blind guy basically snowboards for charity. Two days ago I saw him on the tube. So if any of you thought it was a spoof or something, he actually exists, and he does have a snowboard.

And for some strange reason, my post where I apologised for not discussing bird flu, ended up on BirdFluBreakingNews.com's list of interesting bird flu blogs. They clearly have no idea about how to make a spider program checking the Net.

I have watched The Last King of Scotland, Babel and For Your Consideration lately and they were all good. The two former better than the latter, but as I am highly biased towards any film made by the people behind For Your Consideration, I would recommend that one as well. In fact, I think I already did that earlier this year, without having seen it yet. Oh, well.

We have a favourite pizza take-away from which we order...uhmm...way too often. Today the pizza delivery guy greeted us with a "long time since I saw you". Should we have invited him in for coffee?

Labels: current affairs, film

So just a few days after the BAFTAs, an even more exciting award ceremony took place in London (minus Marton Csokas, but nevertheless more fun). I was overly pleased with most of the awards, not entirely displeased with any of them, and exceedingly glad Lily Allen got none of them. Hooray, I say! It was meant to be her year, and she went away with absolutely nothing, nada, zilch and zip. I couldn't be happier if I was suddenly told my credit cards had been paid off (and believe me, that would make me delirious...in a good way). I know, schadenfreude is my forte tonight.

I totally forgot to comment upon the return of the fantastic Life on Mars yesterday, probably because I wasn't completely concentrating on the story. I was mainly annoyed by the fact they are going to ruin a perfectly good series by transforming it into an American one for the US market. Grow up. I understand they would have problems with some of the local dialects and historical references, and I understand that from a producer's point of view the more people would watch the series, the more money they earn, of course, but why do they have to adapt brilliant stories just so that Americans who can't be bothered peeking outside of their own borders would "get" the story? It seems like everything has to be adapted to the US population, just like a spoilt brat--chewed and already digested for their convenience.

So when President Putin said last week that the world had indeed turned into a one-superpower world and everyone had to bow to US demands and every little whim, the US representatives started sulking and said that they do not want to run the world by themselves and the rest of us had better hand them their toys back or they would go tell their "mom". Once again, grow up.

One of the best things about the US, however, is the fact that the more than half of the population who do not agree with the Bush administration, can and do speak their mind. Much thanks to this, so can (and do) I. After all, like everything else, the Internet is basically run from the US.

Imagine if we were all censored like the people of the "People's" Republic of China.

Labels: award shows, current affairs, marton csokas, music, TV

The Society of London has published a brand new and very interesting interview with Jason Isaacs that I think you should all read. Looking forward to seeing lots of him this year (on stage, in the new Harry Potter film, in Brotherhood and hopefully in another series of The State Within).

I really must apologise if you think I have commented too little upon the newest bird flu scare here in the UK. I just can't be bothered, that's why. I've never been scared of that thing, just like I wasn't scared of SARS when that was deemed to be the new doom of civilisation. Sorry!

And then I would have to apologise; turns out the acoustic Erasure album, Union Street, isn't half bad after all. Perhaps slightly too much on the C&W side of things, with quite a lot of steel guitar sounds, but still not the worst I've heard.

Labels: current affairs, erasure, film, jason isaacs, music, theatre, TV

Perfume - The Story of a Murderer; the story of a perverted moron, more like, but certainly a feast for the eyes, this film! Honestly, if you like beautiful photography and camera work, you should see Perfume. The plot was...interesting and silly at the same time, and the film lasted at least 30 minutes too long for such a plot, but at least a couple of my favourites were in it (Dustin Hoffman and of course Alan Rickman).

I have added a new link under "Things that matter"; Feel the Edge. It's all about charity, man! And, uhmm, snowboarding.

Labels: Alan Rickman, current affairs, dustin hoffman, film

So I spent the most of the ceremony watching Marton Csokas, as he was being filmed a lot during speeches etc. No big surprises, other than perhaps a few nice ones. I have a feeling the Oscars will be slightly different, like...giving more awards to themselves. And perhaps Scorsese will actually get an Oscar this year, who knows?

Jonathan Ross was a different host to Stephen Fry, unfortunately for him, we would much rather want to hear Fry's play on words than Ross's half-funny remarks.

It would also be nice to have at least half of the recipients present to receive their awards. When three awards in a row had to be brought back off stage by the people giving them out, it became rather embarrassing.

Oh, well, at least I didn't disagree with most of the choices this year.

Labels: award shows, film, marton csokas

Who needs telly and computer games when they have a vivid imagination?

I normally have long and very weird dreams, compared to people I have discussed this with, so there is really nothing special about last night's dream, other than that it was really long and both scary and funny at the same time. It was also sort of like a complete sci-fi film with a beginning, a middle and an end. This is usually not the case when it comes to my dreams.

OK, so the whole thing started with some friends of mine and myself in a house somewhere. At that moment we did not know where we were, but we had lived and worked there for quite some time. Apparently, we ran a library/grocery store in our house and had a huge garden at the back. Then there was an explosion somewhere outside and giant blow-up dinosaurs and casinos (don't ask) started swarming our whole neighbourhood. To give you an idea, they were many storeys tall. Think Godzilla. Only...less mobile. We went outside and tried to secure the incredibly old, rickety picket fence and its many gates, before the awfully scary blow-ups reached our house.

At this point we noticed we were in fact just a pod at the very edge of a gigantic moonbase, and there had been an alien invasion.

The leader of the pack strangely enough turned out to be the grandfather of one of us and was yet another huge blow-up doll, sporting a blow-up cane. Even though he was immensely evil and led an interstellar attack force, he needed help getting around, so those of us who were members of his family had to guide him around the base as he ordered one assault after another.

The upside of the blow-up attack force was that they moved very slowly and made very little impact on anything they bumped against, the downside was that since we were living in glass bubbles, the base was soon extremely crowded.

We could see no way out of there, and after another frantic attempt to secure the garden fence, we huddled together indoors and tried to devise a cunning plan. Unfortunately we had to build a mountain of old junk in order to get into our living room, as one of us (not me) had already made a great plan and invited an enormous louse over, and this louse had moved in by throwing out all of our junk. Let me tell you, lice are SCARY when they become the size of a car. They do have kind eyes, though.

Apparently, lice turn out to be the only defence against galactic and intergalactic blow-up dinosaur attacks, and you only need one to take down a medium-sized force. I am still unsure as to why lice are so efficient when it comes to combating in space, as I had to spend most of the remainder of the dream fighting off blow-up granddad and negotiating with the moonbase's defence force.

You see, the defence force was led by this very cautious colonel who thought we should abide our time and not make any rash decisions, so I had to kick some arse in order to get him moving at all. So while some of my friends were busy trying to keep blow-up granddad on his feet (but away from any of his forces), I was left with the rest (including Spitting Image's Queen Elizabeth, Don Johnson a la Miami Vice and a boy scout), hanging from a tree while conducting our best diplomatic tactics with the wary colonel.

In the middle of our discussions, comic relief happened in the form of an enormous blow-up Pink Panther, smoking and wearing a black beret and sunglasses, appearing from nowhere and harvesting a big round of applause from everyone involved in the war (including the other blow-ups, but they needed a lot longer time to clap).

When we got back to the discussion, it turned out the colonel had suddenly seen the light and launched his defence force, which was basically a giant XBOX 360 hidden within an even bigger Transformer. Since everything now seemed to reach an end, we took the liberty to go to the local fun fair, where we visited The Church of Pierce Brosnan, which he himself had started. He became very angry when we started giggling at the sight of him exiting his church wearing a tuxedo and sunglasses. Even Don Johnson giggled. So Pierce Brosnan went back in and sulked while we were having fun at the rest of the fair.

And no, I am not a sci-fi geek at all. I like the odd sci-fi flick and loved the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Temple games, but do not have Yoda figures on my desk while quoting Kirk and Picard off the top of my head.

I do know who they are, though. And I do say "Scott me up, Beamie" on occasion, but that is more a reference to the game Leisure Suit Larry than the Star Trek series (because any trekkie would know that quote was utterly wrong).

Labels: dreams, humour

Philip Quast makes me sweat. I would like to know who searched for that and ended up on my blog.

Labels: philip quast

Well, it's not really so much an update as an information service currently in operation as I am looking through all the different info connected to this blog. I have been updating my Frequently Accessed Search Queries guide and also, once again, discovered I am still paying for one of my tracking engines, even though I believe I cancelled my subscription with them two years ago. Oh, well.

Anyway, I have been running a few polls on this site for three years or so, and some of you have, strangely enough, taken part. Some of you may have taken part several times, but let's not be too picky. Since the polls have been removed from the site (due to the fact the right-hand menu eventually ended up taking up much more space than the blog entries themselves), I thought I would give you the highly scientific answers:

Poll 1: You'd rather read:
A) a book (43%)
B) two books, simultaneously (43%)
C) a letter from the insurance company (0%)
D) the TV guide (0%)
E) than sleep (14%)

Poll 2: There's a:
A) green hat on my head (0%) (not too surprising)
B) fly in my soup (0%) (people eat way too little soup)
C) dreadful thunderstorm coming (0%) (thankfully)
D) lot of work to be done (75%) (hope you didn't mean the blog)
E) big hug waiting for me (25%) (for you, I guess)

Poll 3: I wish:
A) I was a little bit taller (40%)
B) I was a baller (20%)
C) I had a girl that looked good, I would call her (0%)
D) I knew which song these lyrics are from (40%) (I Wish, by Skee-Lo, anno 1996)

Poll 4: Favourite Bowie Song:
A) Let's Dance (40%)
B) Fame (0%)
C) Life on Mars? (40%)
D) Changes (20%)
E) A Better Future (0%)

Poll 5: Worst Game-to-film:
A) Street Fighter (50%)
B) Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (0%)
C) Super Mario Bros. (50%)
D) Mortal Kombat (0%)
E) Resident Evil (0%)

Poll 6: Which continent are you from?
A) Oceania (11%)
B) Europe (67%)
C) Asia (0%)
D) Africa (11%)
E) America (11%)

Not quite consistent with the trackers on my site, however, as the US is the second country on the list of where most of my visitors come from.

Labels: time wasting

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Yesterday I read this article in some Norwegian online paper about a UK council having released a calendar with a couple of mistakes in it. They had added a few dates. Some people were confused. The council promised to do better next year.

Q1: Why is this news?
Q2: Why is a Norwegian newspaper reporting this as news?
Q3: Why did I read it?
Q4: Why did I think about how much it had wasted my time, this morning?
Q5: Why did I decide to waste more of my time by commenting upon such a waste of time?
Q6: Why did I decide to waste your time commenting upon it?
Q7: Why did you choose to read this post even though I warned you?

And people still wonder what lies behind all the aggravation in the world. There's wastage of people's time...and the guy sitting behind me coughing every minute without holding anything in front of his mouth.

Labels: time wasting

I must apologise for updating this thing so infrequently. I think about my dear blog every day, but seldom actually go to the extent as to writing anything in it.

So what am I doing these days? The usual. Working, watching telly, reading a bit, playing computer games, going to the occasional performance.

And this week was a very nice one when it comes to stage performances. The long awaited Follies in Concert charity gala took place at the London Palladium. I had nightmares about my inferior clothing the night before, but as people seemed to go in whatever outfit they had lying around five minutes before leaving home (I am generalising heavily here; actually most people looked quite nice), this proved to be an unfounded worry. The people on stage looked more glamourous than most of the audience. Of course, it could also be the fact that many of the lookers-on were there for the same reason I was (well, that is doubtful, but still...) and couldn't actually afford more than the ticket and thus no new clothes.

OR it could be that people just don't give a toss anymore. People wearing jeans to the theatre annoy me. I am indeed turning into an old bag.

The audience's clothing aside, we were all having a good time and we enjoyed showing our appreciation to the cast and crew, even though not all of us gave any extra money to the charities of the night, the Starlight Children's Foundation and the Kingston Hospital Cancer Unit Appeal.

I must admit (I have a lot to learn, but please bear in mind that I only fully discovered theatre in 2001) that I didn't quite realise how great a cast it would be, what kind of a treat I was going to get. I had been focused on a few select names I recognised, the rest did not mean anything to me. However, when the show started, I began to see the light. There were the immense voices of Kim Criswell and Dame Josephine Barstow, the well-known faces of Imelda Staunton, Meg Johnson and Angela Rippon, the perfect casting of Liz Robertson and Tim Flavin and of course the reason for why I was there (three guesses, everyone, no prize to be won), Philip Quast and Maria Friedman.

There were a few others there, too. Like Sir Trevor McDonald, the reason for why everyone named Trevor now automatically becomes Trevor Mc... in our home. Thus, the much talked about Trevor Eve of course becomes Trevor McEve. Go figure. And speaking of Mr. Eve, I am glad Waking the Dead is back, but I have a peculiar feeling that the next episode, in two weeks' time, will be the last.

Back to the Follies, it had a lot of typical Sondheim numbers, but for me the pinnacle was when Maria Friedman performed Losing My Mind. Not because of the song itself, but the fact that at the end of every chorus I had this thought of the Pet Shop Boys in my mind. And when I got back home I discovered why I thought the song should have had a quicker tempo; I am of course used to hearing the song in synth-pop form and performed by the previously mentioned PSB.

As London Underground did their usual weekend "engineering works", the non-stop route from the theatre to my own place was non-existent and I had to take the train back home. On the upside, the train took me all the way to my door (nearly), so that I wouldn't have to go through the local slums the slightly fishy neighbourhood in the late evening.

Then, yesterday, I went to see Evita for the last time. As I had officially forgotten how many times I have seen it (five or six), I told myself "enough is enough". Plus, Philip Q is leaving soon and I cannot stand Mark "Houlihan" Heenehan in that part (I even sneered at him involuntarily yesterday, the poor chap), so what is the point? And so, naturally, midway through the second act I had to admit to myself that I needed to see it once more.

I would like to apologise to anyone sitting next to or behind me at any musical I know, as I cannot sit still and just watch the thing--I have to drum the beat (and sometimes the chords) with my fingers. Preferably somewhere on my face. People on the tube are probably getting used to it, but it's different at the theatre (even though people wear jeans).

Ooh, by the way, there was a new Che yesterday. At first I thought he was rather good, but he didn't last the course and halfway through the first act I found myself missing Matt Rawle.

And yesterday's audience was the worst I have been part of for a long time. They were ok, but somehow I just felt very uninspired. I couldn't feel the love. Sort of. Luckily, the cast were very professional and either 1) didn't bother, 2) didn't pick up on it, or 3) weren't as paranoid as I was. As opposed to certain other casts I have been unfortunate enough to experience. I did spot one of them starting to laugh during one of the more sombre scenes, though, which was fun (I am so cruel I enjoy it when people fuck up on stage...or rather, I find it very funny and rather laugh with them than at them). Besides, I really doubt no one else noticed. When you have seen the show a few times, you may take the liberty to start watching the other actors, not just the ones currently singing.

Before signing off, I would like to recommend the brand new album by MIKA - Life in Cartoon Motion. It's a really poppety-pop album and very uplifting.

Labels: dreams, evita, music, musicals, personal, philip quast, theatre, tim morgan, trevor eve, TV