here's lookin' at you, kid...

Was back up for a review day at UUC yesterday, and took full advantage of the non-restricted broadband to access lots of things I've been meaning to look at for a while. Top of the list were Blitzen Trapper, whose combination of country music and electronica is currently fascinating me greatly. (Cheers to Jonny B for that one... oh no, public exposure! What if your pupils find you...)

Speaking of pupils, a lot of people may now be living in fear after the realisation that more than a few of the people on our course all already popping up on the wonderfully uncomfortable Rate My Teacher website. Oh dear.

Was shopping for a new DVI to VGA adaptor earlier this week, and decided to also avail myself of some new clothing for my MacBook Pro. I remain quite fond of my eco-friendly cardboard protective casing, but society deemed it time to move on. So I bought a memory-foam-tastic LArobe case instead. [Making me, obviously, the envy of all my friends.]

Also, on Dave's recommendation, I've been Flocking around... it's not quite as exciting as anticipated, but again, the dial-up warlock may be responsible for that too.


Of course, the most exciting news there is is that tomorrow, the short epic that is Noir goes up against four other films in the final shortlist of Cinemagic's Young Filmmaker of the Year Award. We're probably more confident than we should be, but initial feelings are good. If you're free tomorrow (Sunday) at 4.30, all five films will be screened and then the award awarded in the QFT. There's very few tickets left but if you give me a shout there are some spaces left on our guestlist! (There's a lot of unsupportive girlfriends out there...)

half-term hangover

The last fortnight or so has been nothing short of mental. But, rather than try and simplify things and give a brief overview, I think I'm going to give a full blown commentary. [That, and I'm tired of marking discursive essays...]

Playrights went really well (the weekend before last - see below for more.) Spent all of the Sunday holed up in a trashed dressing room in the freezing cold QFT, staring at my MacBook and willing the footage to make sense. Eventually it did, and the finally four minutes went down a storm as it opened the show. Sadly, I don't think it'll get on YouTube (soundtrack copyright) but cheers to everyone who came up to the 'Film Crew' after and said it was awesome I guess. More work with Drama types is lined up as a result - the Film Studies experience lives on! (But with funding... gasp.)

Recovered nicely to go and witness the glory of The Frames at the Grand Opera House on Monday night. Though they played a mixed bag of really old and new (no Fake, hardly anything from For The Birds or Dance the Devil, for Frames fans...) it was an awesome gig. They've really come into their own when it comes to just getting up and playing whatever the hell they feel like, and the organic feel really shone through whenever they just started dragging on random collaborators and jamming away (including an inspired rendition of support act Mark Geary's It Beats Me which is a brilliant song. Apparently they do cover it quite a bit but Marketa Irglova was joining in which made the harmonies all a bit crazy...) But that's enough ranting about that.

Caught another great act on Tuesday, when we popped down to Common Grounds to see old favourite Mr Andrew Good introduce us to his new brand of muzak.
Andy's songs have always been quite good, but needed something to take them out from the realms of being 'just another singery-songwritery type.' And it has very much happened with the music now channelled through an absolutely brilliant five-piece, as yet unnamed band. (I'm going to keep calling them the Andy Good Experience until I hear anything better!) The songs have filled out magnificently, and as most of South Belfast is probably aware of by now, I think they're the best thing in a long line of good things.

Got to hear them again Monday night just past, as they were on the same bill as us down at Stranmillis' Student's Union, in what turned out to be a very homely, and pretty busy night of live music. Me and old PJ attempted to bring the sexy back somewhat with the first outing of a load of newish material we've been putting together. Though we felt it was a bit ropey, to be honest, a lot of it went down a bit of a storm which is really encouraging. Of course The Andy Good Experience then stole the show a bit (I thought) but then that was only to be expected.

In between all the pretending to be an undergrad again and whatnot, we did of course start back to school on Monday. Up to my eyeballs in marking, but starting to get the hang (or just getting less concerned!) of lesson planning and time management. Even managed to fit in some time for a bit of quality Need For Speed: Carbon action. [Ok, not really quality, more numbing escapism. Hey, there's not enough light for kicking a football off the wall anymore.] Between one thing and another, I'm actually physically wrecked. What's hilarious is that I lived the kind of life last week that I never bothered to do when I was actually living in Belfast, on account of being so lazy. I reckon Joni and her Big Yellow Taxi might have been onto something.

And one other thought... was gearing up to finally buy a proper domain and start getting a legitimate website for mediatree, but there are no decent domains left. Time for a rebranding? Possibly. Probably. Annoying so.

Back to work!