The Null Device
2001/12/19
s,San Francisco,St Kilda/Byron Bay,g: The Onion: San Francisco is my favourite market. (Beware of the evil text-obscuring Flash ads though.)
And here come Australia's draconian new "anti-terrorist" laws; not quite as Orwellian as Bush/Ashcroft's power-grab, but still a worry, especially surveillance powers. And life sentences for supporting terrorist groups could be a concern, depending on how the government defines "terrorist". (Greenpeace? Sinn Fein? Anti-capitalist protest groups?)
The legislation is expected to breeze through Parliament, with Labor pledging to support it (and having an after-the-fact inquiry into it), and the Greens and Democrats powerless against it (which, granted, is why the Democrats are so unexpedient to oppose it.)
I splashed out on a minor CD-buying spree today, picking up:
- Trashmonk, Mona Lisa Overdrive
- Belle & Sebastian, I'm Waking Up To Us EP (because I've had the brass bit from I Love My Car playing in my head)
- Radiohead, I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings (the live version of Like Spinning Plates is beautiful)
- and Hood's highly experimental attempt to merge coldwave and house music, predictably titled Cold House
There are probably still some 2001 titles I'll want to get before the year is over (so they get a chance to make my "records of 2001" list if they so merit it); these probably include the new ones from A Silver Mt. Zion, Departure Lounge, Her Space Holiday and Trembling Blue Stars.
I found out yesterday that the landlord is coming to inspect my flat this Friday afternoon. Which means that I have to remove the posters from the walls (or put them on nails in landlord-friendly frames), make sure that the cables I buried under the carpets don't show, and generally make sure that the place looks presentable. It's probably a good thing that I don't have a cat at the moment.
Bizarre: Commuters on a train in Finland got a shock when the train's television screens began showing graphic videos of animals being slaughtered. The video tape turned out to have been the conductor's home video, which was accidentally shown to passengers. What happened to the conductor is not mentioned. (via onepointzero)