Glowing away

I've just about finished my first attempt at an EL wire project.



It's very simple - a t-shirt ($20 from Farmers) with a spiral of green EL wire. The spiral is a good shape to start with, as it doesn't involve any cutting and is low-stress on the wire. I didn't even have to terminate it - just used a standard length and made the belt loop thing with the surplus. I used hot melt glue to stick the wire to the shirt, passing it through the fabric every so often to try and give it some structural integrity. I was going to sew the wire in place, but actually duct tape on the inside of the shirt seems to have done the trick. Also, I've used tape to hide the bits of the wire I don't want to show.

Why? I'm going to this psy-trance doof in Aussie - flight's this arvo!

On Airstrip One

‘Smith!’ screamed the shrewish voice from the telescreen. ‘6079 Smith W.! Yes, you! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that. You're not trying. Lower, please! That's better, comrade. Now stand at ease, the whole squad, and watch me.’

A sudden hot sweat had broken out all over Winston's body. His face remained completely inscrutable. Never show dismay! Never show resentment! A single flicker of the eyes could give you away.

- 1984, George Orwell, 1948

The home secretary, John Reid, today denied that plans to expand the use of "talking" CCTV cameras across the country were akin to "Big Brother gone mad".
Loudspeakers are being fitted to cameras in 20 areas, allowing CCTV operators to bark commands at people committing antisocial behaviour.

- Guardian, 4th April 2007

And people ask if I'm going to move back to the UK?

New Burning Man theme..

In case you hadn't seen this - this is the modified theme for this years Burning Man.

Gardening from indoors

I just saw a Flymo type lawnmower being dangled from a crane.

That looks a great way to cut the grass. You could swing it back and forth over the lawn from inside the crane cab. Or, if it was a remote control crane, from your sofa..

Hot Fusion

Went to an interesting gig last night - The Rapture / Gnarls Barkley at the St James.

Not sure why they put them on together - they are quite different although both are a fusion of styles.

The Rapture were my main reason for forking out for a ticket, and they were pretty good. I'd call them indie rock/dance music fusion (ok, if any genre fascists are reading this they will no doubt tell me the correct name). The style is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the Prodigy. None of the showmanship of Keith though - four New York collegey looking kids.. I'm going to start looking out some remixes of their stuff - I think that's a gap in my collection and would go down well on the dancefloor - I think their songs would work better for dancing at 8min length..

Gnarls Barkley combined being slick and enthusiastic. They started with the Pink Floyd song "We don't need no Education" - I assume they were at Bliss incognito and pinched the idea from Helix! Generally, they aren't my #1 choice of stuff, but pretty slick and entertaining.

Early (7:45) start was wierd though - I'm kinda used to gigs as being a late evening thing - I suppose they're doing it cos it's a schoolnight. Not sure how many tickets they sold, but the place didn't look full. It's an interesting experiment promoting three midweek gigs by majorish international bands on weeknights. In Auckland.