Great news, just found this official Placebo newsletter in my mailbox:

Placebo are on the eve of returning to the studio to start recording their 5th studio album. The new album due for release in 2006 is being produced by Dimitri Tikavoi, who has previously worked with Placebo on tracks such as 'The Ballad of Melody Nelson and 'Running Up That Hill'.

Keep checking http://www.placeboworld.co.uk in the coming weeks for news of some special studio updates.

Elsewhere, the former Placebo support band Anglo-American duo The Kills, release new single 'Love is a Deserter' on Monday 30th May on Domino Records. This favourite from their fantastic live show is the second single from their album 'No Wow'. Bonus tracks include brand new songs, remixes by Cavemen and Phones (uber-producer Paul Epworth), plus a couple of Xfm session tracks co-produced by Edwyn Collins.

To hear all the tracks and watch the video, go to their fab mini-site:

http://www.dominorecordco.com/site/minisites/loveisadeserter

I second the Kills recommendation, another fab band I got to discover thanks to zesty.

Thanks to the wonderful zesty, I got to find out about this brilliant band called Hot Hot Heat. However, the title for this entry is referring to the weather outside. It's so hot that I don't know what to do with myself. Spending time inside seems like a "waste of weather". However, whenever I do find myself venturing outside, I've usually had enough after about 30 minutes and go back inside. I love the summertime, I really do, but this is too much, too soon.

It's 5.45pm, and according to the Dashboard Weather Widget, it still is 31 degrees Celsius :o

I'm sitting at work, catching up with the news because it's been a bit of a slow day so far - unlike yesterday, when I was so stressed out by the time my "lunch break" finally arrived (at 3.30pm!)that I took a little sunbath in the yard and prompty fell asleep. I'm slowly becoming a huge fan of "power naps", I slept for 20 minutes tops, but that made all the difference.

So how am feeling? I'm not sure. I think the change in the political climate unsettles me. While everyone is crying out for changes and reforms, I'm thinking, "Surely you can't be so naive to believe that the CDU is going to make miracles happen here?!". I can't help it, I just think that any political party that has the word "conservative" scribbled all over their political agenda is not what this country needs right now. Going conservative does not automatically create a blooming economy just because it's a "change". A very bad change.

I found this quote by the Dutch writer Leon de Winter at Spiegel Online, which sums up my sentiments on the current political leaders very nicely:

"Natürlich hatte Gerhard Schröder keine andere Wahl, als jetzt den Wähler noch einmal zu fragen, ob er weiter machen soll. Das Problem ist, dass er im Herbst keine Chance haben wird, weil ein breiter Teil der deutschen Bevölkerung das Vertrauen zu ihm verloren hat. Dabei ist Schröder eigentlich ein guter Politiker - nur eben nicht in Krisenzeiten, denn er ist ein Mann der Kompromisse, nicht der klaren Visionen. Der CDU traue ich es ebenfalls nicht zu, die Probleme Deutschlands zu lösen."

Neither do I Leon, neither do I!

Wow, I'm amazed. It's been a really really good show this year. In fact, there were only two performances that I found horrible, namely Spain for sounding too much like that horrible horrible Ketchup-song, and F.Y.R. Macedonia, whose singer had the charm of a stick.

Fantastic performances by Norway. I'm going to buy that song! Also Moldova, what a great premiere at the ESC for them, and Sweden - I seriously swooned when I laid eyes on the singer. He looks amazing, his voice is amazing, his style is amazing, and the song is great too. Other contributions I liked were Hungary, Malta, Romania, Turkey, Israel, Serbia & Montenegro, Denmark, Switzerland, Latvia, and France. So if any of these make it, I'm going to be happy.

Ok, I'm having a major crisis here. For some reason the satellite feed is all messed up. It does get like that when there is a major thunderstorm outside, but I'm looking out of the window, and there is nothing! I just hope it's going to be ok when the real show starts.

The pre-show is pretty good - from what I can see. Mel C was there, lookin' good, some obscure German bloke whom I'd rather see never again, Lisa Stansfield (!!!), Yvonne Catterfeld (I'm almost embarrassed to admit that her new song sounds pretty good to me), and the whole thing is being hosted by one of my people on TV, Thomas Hermanns.

Big night, right in line with the Academy Awards and the MTV Video Music Awards (before they got all prudish that is). I know that most other people don't feel that way, so I will be watching them alone *sob*. But that's ok, gives me more time to concentrate on making lists of my own personal favourites. In fact, I might even publish them here later.

Even though this week went by in a blur, one of the events that stick out is me calling my mother on Wednesday morning, only to be greeted by the words, "Robbie is dead!". I can hardly describe what I was feeling that moment, but "shock" sums it up pretty nicely. However, thoughts were rushing through my mind, within about three seconds I had come to the conclusion that certainly this was no accident, he must have killed himself.

When I told my friend about it, she said she would have thought the same thing, "he just seems like the kind." What, the kind who kill themselves? I don't quite agree there, I don't think there is "a kind" that does. What I do think, however, is that he does seem like the sort of person who is not truly happy. Then again, lots of people are not. I know that I, in my own twisted sort of way, am happy. But whenever I see Robbie in interviews, he does strike me as exceptionally unhappy. My friend reckons that it's because he's probably gay and has to hide it. LOL. We have also concocted a fascinating theory about Jonathan Wilkes, but due to impending legal actions I shall refrain from posting that here.

I do wish that people who think that true happiness comes from material possession would consider Robbie Williams as an example to think again. The man has it all - the money, the cars, the success, the women (if he's so inclined ;)), a loving family. Does he appear to be happy? No. I couldn't say that I own a lot in terms of materialistic things, but it doesn't really matter to me. I have a nice computer, which is all I need. Whenever people ask me, "So if you were on 'Who wants to be a millionaire' and you'd win the million (HIGHLY unlikely scenario), what would you do with the money?", the only thing I ever come up with is maybe an even nicer computer. The G5 by Apple maybe, or the 17" PowerBook? The iMac G5 when I'm feeling particularly decadent. The rest of the money would go straight to my savings account, and I'd give some of the money away, too.

So obviously, I'm a nerd. But I'm a happy nerd. I have people around me whom I love very much. I live in a democratic country (even though I have the sneaking suspicion that I will be feeling less happy about the country after the elections on Sunday!), I have things I am passionate about - music for example. I used to have times when I was feeling very low, but I like to think that these times are in the past now. I don't know how exactly, but sometimes the walk is the goal, to badly translate a German saying into English here. I do know that a quote by an actress whom I appreciate greatly has helped me in a lot of ways: "Just be who you are and don't second-guess yourself." So simple, yet so true!

As for Robbie - turns out it wasn't the Robbie Williams we all know and (at least in my case) love. Obviously. No, it was a bloody sea lion, the "lead actor" of a German TV show, who had escaped from the set to chase some real live fish. I think he had a heart attack while being out there or something. Whatever. At least he was free when he died.

Scan from the "All I Want"-DVD inlay.

Spent the day trying to come up with a new template. I know that frames are so yesterday, and CSS divs are the way to go. However, I didn't get anything to look the way I wanted it to, and I have been feeling too cranky and tired to put up with that sort of stuff today.

So I made a couple of changes to my old website instead. One thing that I just can't get to work though is that when you're using Internet Explorer and are on a PC, the links in the top frame below the image won't show up - AND I DON'T KNOW WHY!!!

They are there on Firefox (Mac and PC) and Safari (Mac). I can't test it on any browsers/platforms right now. I even ran the W3C validator on that particular page and it didn't come up with any errors apart from the language specifications. And to be honest I don't feel like giving it any more thought, either. I think Firefox is the best browser there is anyway, I don't see why so many people still put up with that crappy IE.

If you do happen to be on Internet Explorer, don't worry (at least not about my page that is. You should still worry about security and missing out on tons of new features!) If you can read this, you are on my main page. You might not be able to visit my other links, but since they don't have that much content anyway, you're not missing anything really.

Well, not really, obviously. However, I simply command that you just have to listen to either "Antony & The Johnsons" (album), "I Fell in Love With a Dead Boy" (EP) or "I Am a Bird Now" (album) by the fabulous fabulous Antony of Antony & The Johnsons-fame.

Who do I have to thank for finding out about this genius singer? Rufie, of course. Here I was, listening to "Want Two", "Old Whore's Diet" to be more specific, when I was like, "Ok, whoever is guest-singing on that one, he's got the gayest voice ever."

However, as the song progressed (it's a looong song, almost 10 minutes) I grew increasingly impressed by the lead singer. He's got one of these voices that can sound like a full choir. It's just impossible to categorize, it is quite female-sounding at times (critics have often compared him to Nina Simone), then very dark and masculine, and almost bordering on an opera-esque soprano. And the vibrato on the higher notes is simply breathtaking. Sometimes the voice is just a side-dish of a song, in Antony's case it becomes a full-fledged instrument.

I did a bit of googling and found out that he had released a self-titled debut album which I then bought, and I've never looked back. It is pure musical perfection, backed up by a full orchestra it still brings the occasional tear to my eye. I also managed to get hold of the "I Fell in Love With a Dead Boy"-EP and I just have to say that the title track has already made it to my list of funeral songs.

Hey, I love music so much, do you really think I could stand the thought of leaving this world with bad music being played at my funeral?! I'm by no means suicidal or anything, but I'm realistic enough to know that anything could happen to anyone any day. Anyways, "I Fell in Love With a Dead Boy" is fantastic, some cool gender confusion lyrics combined with a very dramtatic, almost 15-second-long pause only 45 seconds into the songs - amazing.

"I Am a Bird Now" is a fine album too. It features Boy George, Lou Reed and Rufus Wainwright, and of course "What Can I Do" is my favourite song, it's not even two minutes long but long enough to have made me cry on first listen, and still touching me very deeply whenever I listen to it.

Antony is an exceptional artist, simple as that. The fact that people like him and Rufus Wainwright are still out there give me hope that the music industry isn't as bad as the world we live in.

You can find sound samples from his songs here:
http://www.brainwashed.com/antony/

Just got home, felt like watching my Rufus Wainwright "All I Want" DVD AGAIN, popped it into the DVD player, noticed that my remote control was somewhere else, and pressed the ">>|"-key on my DVD player to see whether that works as the menu selector.

Welp apparently it does not, but I found the most amazing DVD Easter Egg instead! It's a very cute and VERY funny (what's with the cap locks today?!) video by Martha and Rufus who couldn't make it to an award ceremony where their mother and aunt, The McGarriagle Sisters, were honoured. The video features them mimicking the sisters, it's so funny that I wouldn't even know where to start.

This is just the icing of the cake. "All I Want" is just the way I wish all these other music DVDs I own were like. It features a full-length documentary, numerous extracts from several live shows, the recording session for the documentary, promo clips, interviews, a very cute mini-documentary from 1998 with clips of a very young Rufus, and probably even more. My recommendation: GO BUY!

I had to smile at this - shortly after waking from sleep, my PowerBook displayed a whopping remaining 64:24 hours of battery life! Not bad, eh? Now if only they made batteries like this.

IMG_1705
Originally uploaded by hellagood.

Testing how this shows up.

Oh Ilene Chaiken, why must you torture us so? Not only did Shane finally reveal her feelings (in a very Shane sort of way. Had it been any other person, one would have thought, "Say what?!"), but it made Carmen walk away from her? I mean, hello?

Does this mean Shane is going to be off to sulk forever - or at least well into Season 3? The trailer gave little away: At least Shane and Carmen appear to be on speaking terms. They are watching a Jenny Freak Show (literally). And then the trailer had to proclaim a "shocking season finale." Why is that always neccessary? I'm going to keep watching a show, even if things go well for a while!

I still remember being a bit of a mess after the Season 1 finale. I felt like everything had shattered to pieces, and I really, really don't want this to be happening again.

My outlook isn't bright - I do guess that Bette and Tina will get together. Now that is the couple I don't care about. I imagine that Dana and Alice are going to split up over Lara. I always wanted the sous chef back, but not if it means a breakup is involved!!! And Shane and Carmen... I do have this sneaking suspicion that things might actually look promising, and then emotionally-more-than-fragile Jenny comes along and fucks it up big time. Yep, you guessed right - I'm not exactly Jenny's biggest fan!

Anyways, this is one of my favourite TV Shows, and I'm going to miss it when it's not around.