Monthly Archives: February 2004
Heckler and Denton
Last year I wrote a Heckler article for the SMH about how Andrew Denton should replace Simon Crean as leader of the ALP (this was before Mark Latham got the job, obviating the need for Denton to step into that role).
Just before Christmas Denton did a book signing in the Canberra Centre, promoting his “Enough Rope” book, which is basically transcripts from the TV series. Naturally, being a Denton fan from way back, I went to the signing, got a book, and while I was there asked him to sign my copy of the article. He said that he’d read it, but of course I was very wrong and he’d never want to go into politics, but he appreciated the vote of confidence. He signed it “Sorry, but you’re wrong”
The other funny thing was that because I was having two copies of the book signed he gave me his extra sincere signature, writing in my copy – “this is an extra sincere signature” – quite ironic.
In other interesting signature stuff, Tegan procured for me a signed photo of Gough Whitlam. She wrote to him and asked for a signed photo and to set up a meeting. Unfortunately the meeting fell through, but at last we know that it’s possible and we could arrange it in the future. How cool!
The Grey Album
There has been a bunch of stuff going around the web about “The Grey Album” – a hip-hop remix album, mixing together a vocal-only version of some Hip-hop record called “The Black Album” with The Beatles’ White Album. Basically, this guy mixed the two together, distributed it on his website, printed 3000 copies – and then promptly got slapped with a cease-and-desist order by EMI. There’s several interesting articles about it on the web, such as this one.
Anyway, it piqued my interest, and I managed to *ahem* listen to a copy. Herein follows my review:
Who shot first?
Well, it’s apparently official that the DVDs of the original Star Wars trilogy will be coming out this year.
http://www.dvdfile.com/software/dvd-video/archive/2004/02_10.html
Unfortunately, George Lucas does not want to release the original versions of the trilogy (the ones that those in my generation grew up on) as he considers the Special Editions to be the definitive editions, the movies he always wanted to make. This quote was the most pertient:
“But this is not a democracy. We love our fans, but this is about art and filmmaking. [George] has decided that the sole version he wants available is this one [the 1997 Special Edition].”
Personally, I like this take on it:
New baby (not ours)
Our good friends Andrei and Vanessa Cheng had a baby last week. Born at 1:27am on Friday 31 January was Laura Marie Cheng. Here are the other vital stats:
Weight: 3.35kg
Height/length: 50.5cm
Hair: dark brown (and lots of it, for a baby)
Eyes: dark blue (this is the same for all newly borns, or so I’m told)
Nose: Vanessa’s
Cheeks: Andrei’s
Here’s a couple of images I took with the digital camera on my phone when we visited them in the hospital (I never wanted one of those type of phones, but now that I have one I’ve discovered that it’s quite useful):
Both parents are doing well and expected Vanessa to be back home on Tuesday (yesterday).