Speed!
Posted on | February 25, 2004 at 10:54 pm | 1 Comment
I know it’s been a little while since my last entry, but I’ve been somewhat busy. I’ve got some kind of head cold or hay fever thing that is sapping my energy. My dad is moving into a retirement community this weekend, so there’s been a bit of dealing with that – helping him sort through his stuff and moving over what we can beforehand.
And I’m still on a high from last week’s good news. It’s so rare to get good news any more.
I’ve finally upgraded my DSL to something more than 256K. Qwest has been unable to upgrade me to the 640K service. Now suddenly they started offering the “Up to 1.5MB” service and they said I qualified. So I jumped on that. It just went into effect today. However, my ISP, The Denver Exchange is having trouble coping with many of their customers suddenly signing up for this service at once. So until they can upgrade their bandwidth (which is going to take a couple of months), I’m not getting close to the full possible speed. But at least I’m getting anywhere from 250-1000k, depending on time of day etc., which is a lot nicer than the 200k or so I was getting before. And at least TDE is not going to raise their rates for the new service until they get their bandwidth issues straightened out.
One of the first things I did with my extra speed is download and watch the short film Batman: Dead End which is an 8-minute “fan made” film that has actual production values and stuff. It’s not as good as the hype would suggest, but it’s an impressive achievement nonetheless. I just thought it was hokey bringing Predators and Aliens into it.
I got to hear the new Shalini album, Metal Corner (due out April 6th on Dalloway Records), and I gotta say it totally rocks. Shalini’s voice is very loud, strong and confident on this one and the music and production is simple but forceful. I’d like to say that it’s the kind of thing that would appeal to fans of groups like The Donnas, but it’s more sophisticated than that.
I watched the DVD of Once Upon A Time In Mexico last weekend. I really admire what director/auteur Robert Rodriguez does, since he’s kind of a one-man movie making factory and he does it all (including the music) cheap. Or so he says. His “10 Minute Film School” documentaries on his DVDs are always fascinating. And I really want to try out the slow-roasted pork recipe from this “10 Minute Cooking School” on this DVD. I love slow-roasted pork, and I always order the Carnitas the first time I try out a new Mexican restaurant. (However, I don’t shoot the cook if it’s too good.) Anyway, Mexico is really sharp and I think Johnny Depp did as good a job in it as he did in Pirates of the Caribbean.
I bought and listened to the multichannel SACD of Propaganda’s A Secret Wish, which is currently available only as an import. They are a weird German synth-pop band on ZTT records (home of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Art Of Noise). They had a mild hit off this album back in ‘85 with Duel (”The first cut won’t hurt at all/The second only makes you wonder”) which is on this album as well as it’s harsher longer alternate version, Jewel. The album was produced by Trevor Horn and he does the 5.1 surround mix on this disc as well. I thought it was one of the better surround mixes I’ve heard – all-encompasing without being too gimmicky. I hadn’t heard the album in many years and couldn’t recall a single song off it, but I was surprised at how quickly all the songs came back to me when I listened to it. I especially like the song P-Machinery, which has a killer synth riff and some nice vocals.
Enough media talk for now. Latre.
Comments
One Response to “Speed!”
Necks →
February 26th, 2004 @ 11:40 am
ohh johnny depp…
can i borrow it?
i love dat boy…..a pal oh mine bought pot from him way back when….hee hee hee…..jes kiddin’…..or ammmmmm i……. :rolleyes: