Duran Duran and the completeness of life

On May 30, 2005, In Amsterdam Rant, By admin

Tonight at Amsterdam’s Heineken Music Hall I saw one of the great bands of my time, Duran Duran! Now I’ve been a Duranie since these guys first hit the scene with Planet Earth (which is actually playing in the background on my piss poor excuse for an entertainment center as I write this) back in 1981 when I was but a really young teeny bopper. 24 years later, to see them live, completes one of my lifes great desires.

Like a fine wine, these guys have gotten better with age. Over the 2 hours they played they took us on a journey of classic 80’s glam Duran all the way through to their new look, new millenium latest releases. Standing there dancing to the techno-electro-dance-rock-pop-new wave-synth numbers, I was transported back to being 18 again and then taken all the way forward through my young life to now. Ahhh… it was like a ride in some magical time machine with 2000 of your closest old friends.

You can see that the band really had fun too, as there was this aura of joy around them as they played. I read just recently on John Taylor’s website that after finally knocking his coke addiction on the head, he realised that he was passionate about the band and the music, and tonight it really showed!

Really, these guys represent the last of the great 80’s and 90’s rock synth fusion bands to still be recording and touring! At their peak they were icons of style and everything new wave. Unlike a lot of “pop” bands back then, they weren’t trying to keep a foot in the 70’s. Fuck no, they were going where noone had gone before! They wanted to bring a new sound to a new generation. Their influence in music would imprint itself into the dance music that was to follow them, particularly in UK house styles that was so popular in early underground rave parties.

When they finally hang up the instruments and stop releasing records (pray that it is not so for a long time), a musical era will come to an end. I don’t think the world will see their like again for they are unique as is their sound and their look.

Padwanna.

 
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The injustice of Schapelle

On May 27, 2005, In General Rant, By admin

For me, my faith in any legal system was shot dead and buried when I heard the verdict of 20 years was passed down on Schapelle Corby for her alleged importation of 4.1 kilograms of marijuana into Bali. Now you either believe she did it, or she didn’t, and I believe that she didn’t. Why? Because nobody is going to buy 4 kilos of pot in Australia and take it into a country where you can buy it at a 1/10th of the price! It just doesn’t make any business sense at all, not to mention common sense!

For my part I believe the drugs were planted on her by corrupt baggage handlers who use baggage as their transportation mechanism. The Australian Federal Police were already investigating a crime ring involving these workers before Schapelle was caught 8 moinths ago. Yet none of that was taken into account by the Indonesian judges. It disgusts me that Schapelle who was an unwitting mule, will now lose the prime of her life to an Indonesian prison.

Justice was not served with sentencing Schapelle to prison, and neither will it stop drug trafficking. Considering the ringleaders in the Bali Bombings of October 12, 2002 got 2 1/2 years for the murder of over 120 people, it seems that justice is the furthest thing from the judges minds. All this sentence was designed to do was destroy one young girls life – for nothing! And that is the biggest injustice of all in this case!

Schapelle Corby Support Site

Padwanna

 
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Real strangers and virtual friends

On May 19, 2005, In Tech Culture Rant, By admin

Tonight I went to dinner with the work crowd as a celebration cum reward for releasing a major peice of software to the commercial world at the time some big managers project plan said we would (I work in the IT department of a web commerce company). Now while I share the same peice of carpet with these people for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, over dinner I realised that quite a few of them are not people I would want to see outside of work. And some of them, are just downright annoying bastards that I wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire! Well maybe that’s a bit harsh, I would piss on them, but grudgingly!

After I came home from dinner, I logged into World of Warcraft, and took my Paladin – Lunark – out for a run. My friends, who also play WoW, don’t know about my Paladin as we are all meant to be diehard Horde players. I can’t help it though, Lunark is so much fun to play, and tonight he made his first friend.

Which is where I was going with this story in the first place. As I was running around Jasperlode Mine, I came across the path of another Paladin, a woman called Callandra. We teamed up and played the quest out at the mine, and spent a good 45 minutes in each others company chatting all the while. During the time we spent together we went from strangers to friends; sharing laughs, saving each others lives, and enjoying the warmth that comes with hanging out with someone comfortable.

After I said goodbye to Callandra and left the game, it suddenly dawned on me that our concept of friends and strangers is not something based on the reality of our five senses, but on the emotional empathy of our imagination. You see, being able to make some bond with the personality of an individual through a virtual medium (like WoW) is enough for our minds to make an image of a person upon which feelings can be projected.

The irony being, it is entirely possible to sit in a crowded room full of stangers, or sit alone at home and be surrounded by friends.

Padwanna.

 
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The wonders of the web

On May 18, 2005, In Internet Rant, By admin

Well strangely enough, I’ve had this blogger account for like, two years or something. It’s one of those events lost in memory that was so significant at the time of creation I thought it would lead on to greater things. Alas it did not… until now.

After making my first blog yesterday at work, I figured, why not try and add these wise rantings to my website, so others besides myself could chuckle at them! Yes, a sound idea, and one that I didn’t think would be too much trouble to ‘make it so’. I struggled around with a few funky technical ideas, all of which didn’t pan out as well I had hoped, so I decided to run with something simple… just putting the blog on a page of its own. In the end it turned out to be simple and functional, just like womens sex toys, so who am I to go against the tried and tested.

I just hope someone reads this thing to make the minutes of effort all worth it!

Padwanna

 
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The blogging phenomenon

On May 17, 2005, In Internet Rant, By admin

This is my first blog here! I once tried to write my own blog software but then quickly realised that there were a lot of smart people writing blog software far better and far faster than I would ever be able to do.

I really got inspired in this blogging by moby. He’s been writing blogs before they were even called blogs. The guy is amazing though; smart, incisive, funny, witty! Obviously he’s very intelligent, but he’s also not a lazy prick, which really shows by the sheer proliferation of his journal entries.

Well my time has come. I figure every blog started but with one entry, and this is mine! So moby, if you ever end up reading my online journal, I hope you find it just cool as I find yours.

Padwanna! :-)

 
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