weateallthepies.com

I don’t listen to a huge amount of classical music but now and again I’ll have the urge so it’s nice to have some decent recordings. Classical radio (At least in the UK) goes for the popular route which inevitably means playing short pieces “you might have heard on that advert” which is nice but gets a little boring.

Anyway go here where you will find 10 recordings on symphonies performed by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra which I’m told is pretty well respected. It certainly sounds good but I know very little about classical music apart from liking the sound of it occasionally…or trying to work out which advert I’ve heard it in

You’ll need to register to get the links but all you really need is a valid email address.

Starting on October the 15th you will be able to download a free recording of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra every day. The recordings are available until the 24th of November 2008.

Spotted H+ Magazine the other day and it’s an interesting read.

Some fascinating articles, great design and production. If you don’t know much about transhumanism, get stuck in and read something.

Found this great documentary playing free on Google video. A great insight into faith and the lack of it, in a slightly less confrontational style than the brilliant but marmite-like Richard Dawkins.

Anyway, here is part one, I’ll add the others at some point this week.

Part I - Shadows of Doubt Jonathan Miller visits the absent Twin Towers to consider the religious implications of 9/11 and meets Arthur Miller and the philosopher Colin McGinn. He searches for evidence of the first ‘unbelievers’ in Ancient Greece and examines some of the modern theories around why people have always tended to believe in mythology and magic. — Uploaded because this needs to be available as a shining light of the historicity of reason midst the depths and oceans of media absurdity and religious propaganda. So few representatives of atheism provide a compelling and earnest account for unbelief, let alone with the lucidity and intellectual vigor of Jonathan Miller. He is sincere and moving in this attempt to explain and understand the origins of the truth of disbelief of religious superstition and faith.

Had a a stinking cold for the last week so I’m in a generally grumpy mood…

Anyway, here’s the best short zombie film you’ve probably never seen:

I Love Sarah Jane

A different kind of Zombie Film. A short film selection of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Jimbo is 13. All he can think about is one girl, Sarah Jane. And no matter what stands in his way - bullies, violence, chaos, zombies - nothing is going to stop him from finding a way into her world. NSFW Warning: Strong Language and Zombies.

Neil Gaiman is currently touring to promote his new Children’s novel “The Graveyard Book” and at each venue is reading a different chapter.

The readings are being recorded and posted here so that the entire reading of the book can be watched for free.

I don’t know much about the book but I’ve never been dissapointed by Gaiman’s work so I’ll be sitting down to enjoy some of this even if it is aimed at real children.

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy.

He would be completely normal if he didn’t live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead.

There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy—an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer.

But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod’s family. . . .

Love this scuplture by Jean Shin.

Records were melted and sculpted to form a cascading wave, dotted with bursts of colorful labels. The resulting structure speaks to the inevitable waves of technology that render each successive generation of recordable media obsolete. The piece also aims to physically manifest the ephemerality of music as well as one man’s musical tastes, as represented by his personal record collection

As it’s getting near to that time of year….

Check out Mark Gervais’ cool flash animations he projects onto his window. Damn good idea which now gives me ideas for several nasty pranks.

You can buy the DVDs but not here in the pleasant green land it seems

My favourite lounge electronica heads Thievery Corporation are back with a new album, Radio Retaliation.

Nothing particularly innovative, just the usual effortless beats they seem to churn out every so often. If you want some polished, easy listening you can’t go far wrong with this.

Free to stream or download with adverts at we7.

You might not have heard of the Westboro Baptist Church, they are a hateful bunch of people calling themselves a church who base most of their belief system around hating other people, primarily homosexual people it seems.

They picket the funerals of dead soldiers holding signs saying things like “God Hates Fags”, “Homosexuality = Death,” “Fags Die, God Laughs,”. They use their own children for this and are generally a despicible excuse for humans.

so it fills my heart with much joy to see that the Central Arkansas Pastafarians group have been doing a little protesting of their own.

What do you do to make a bunch of soulless nutcases abandon their post at the Convention Center? Send in the pirates!

Yep, the cuckoo Phelps hate group walked the plank this morning after a happy bunch dressed like pirates and holding signs saying “God hates shrimp — Leviticus” and “God hates cotton-polyester blends” stood opposite them at the corner of Markham and Scott streets. The group, made up of Central Arkansas Pastafarians, waved swords and growled “Arrghh!” in a manner that would have made Abbie Hoffman proud.

With cars honking and waving at the pirates and a TV crew giving them all the attention, the Phelps group — with a child in tow, sadly – picked up their “fag” epithets and went away. Pitiful.

[via Arkansas Times]

Saved my PC from certain death and now back with a fresh OS install so I can once again resume my meaningless rambling.

Service will resume shortly.