digicasts

Interesting, I guess if someone asks why do they do it you can now give them an answer.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Study shows how spammers cash in

 Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging

A great idea, though the kids may not approve come christmas day, ah well. Sod em.

Now to banish that horrid plastic moulded packaging that requires a stanley knife to open, and once op[en the edges of plastic become knifes, ready to snap back and rip your hands to shreds.

Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Stop sending mail you later regret

can’t be arsed to have a look right now to see if it’s true

Well, not me, but this blog.

251 posts and counting.

My, doesn’t time fly!

Testing iPhone app.

Could this really be true? Or am I only dreaming?

Kinda annoying as you spent months telling people Flash can’t be read by search engines etc. Though this certainly does not tackle the issue of accessibility, but it is one less argument against using Flash.

Kinda like how you preach about how text boxes and designs must be able to expand if the user enlarges the text size. This is now being handled via Firefox and IE7 with a “zoom the whole screen” approach. This doesn’t break the design, thus the divs do not need to be expandable. It is still early days as those browsers are quite new, so old good web practices are still relevant. But for something that I used to approach as a number one priority in my web work, is now sliding down the scale.

Official Google Blog: Google learns to crawl Flash

Why not?

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Bros reunion tour plan revealed

UK Office of Government Commerce cracks one off | The Register

All looks very innocent, tilt your head 90º to see what the hoohar is about.

… a woman found out if she shook it, she could shake up a man.

The original 1988 Hairspray movie kinda creeped me out the first time I saw it, I think it was the beatniks that did it, and that shot of the guy licking his lips whilst spraying his hair in the opening credits. In my youthful innocence I didn’t even question the that Divine wasn’t a woman.

In 2003 I “acquired” a bootleg live recording of the Broadway production of Hairspray and listened to it all the way through. It quickly became one of my top played albums, it made me laugh and the music was excellent. So I then brought the cast recording and would switch between playing the two, the live one for its extra dialogue and atmosphere and the OCR for its clarity. It came on holiday with me and became one of those albums that takes me back to the summer of sailing down through Holland with “you can’t stop the beat” blearing out, whilst desperately trying to learn the words to exhilarating finale.

Four years and one Hollywood movie later the show opens in the Shaftesbury theatre London. The once home to Rent (respect was paid by singing lines from Rent to David as we were waiting for it to start). The theatre was packed, we have very good seats in the stalls, and must of had a press row in front of us as there were two guys with notepads (and tidy hair), but also about four seats vacant which meant we had no heads directly in front of us.

I wanted the see the live show to filling the missing visuals that were in my head from the live show. How would they perform certain songs etc, what visuals the crowd were cheering to etc. However knowing that Michael Ball was playing Edna Turnblad and Mel Smith playing Wilbur I sensed that their role would purely be so a famous face could adorn the advertising. And after my disappointment with the big differences in sound from the US and UK productions of Wicked, I really wasn’t expecting too much. I would fill in the gaps for my knowledge of the show and be done with it. Surely the show couldn’t match the original version I had been spoiled with.

The show opens with “Good morning Baltimore” which really is an amazing song with such lines as “The rats on the street, All dance round my feet, They seem to say Tracy, it’s up to you” and “Good morning Baltimore, There’s the flasher who lives next door” (edit: I know it reads rubbish). The song introduces us to chubby little Tracy played by Leanne Jones for whom this is her first professional performance after graduating last year. It also paints the picture for Baltimore, the shabby small american town, but Tracy doesn’t care all she dreams about is music and dancing.

The song and dancing continued. Michael Ball came on and I was thinking he would try to steal the show being one of the two “stars”. Thankfully not, he was really very good, and certainly one of the better character actors, he still sang like Michael Ball though, but without the 12 second notes of the more traditional shows. Mel Smith was also very good, his role probably had the least singing, and should be sang like little man who runs a joke shop, fun, jolly etc etc, and he did.

The staging of all the songs was amazing, and with the great music and dancing mixed together it was a very energetic show. We were sitting next to an elderly couple who came to see Michael Ball, and as “Welcome to the sixties” was reaching its climax the old guy was whooping and punching the air. It was almost exhausting to watch.

When we reached the finale every one stood up and was clapping along. I love the last song and it is probably one of my most played songs on itunes, it is very fast and just gets bigger and bigger. The was a tremendous feeling of energy in the theatre, I was pretty gobsmacked, I certainly wasn’t expecting to get such a rush from seeing it and would compare it to my first performances of Rent and Hedwig, almost speechless trying to absorb it all in.

I wanted to see the show before I saw the film, and am glad I did, the film didn’t have the same punch as the show, less songs and too many “stars” to make it sell. John Travolta did do well as the character of Edna, but his singing was rubbish, and could barely be heard. It was very much a case of “oh look it’s John Travolta in fat drag” rather than a good performance. But it was ok, even if they did cut the final song somewhat.

Whenever I think of a title for the trip i think of that Balearic tune from Three Drives. Oh well.

I did start writing a very long entry about the trip, and it will be written some time and posted when i cut the video together. But in the mean time enjoy the photos on my flickr account

Things are good, blogs been getting strange hit, mainly from my post titles “what a gusher” from some dodgy sex sites, strange what people search for. And those pesky peeps who are embedding images from my Wicked review.

We went to see Dolly Parton, can’t believe I haven’t written about that. The show was at Wembley Arena. We had pretty good seats, in the second block, though the seat were not tiered which was a bit different to the theatre shows. I have not been to many gigs before… well I have only been to one gig before and that was Dolly on her last jaunt to London in 2002.

She didn’t disappoint, and sung a good variety of songs from the early days (you cant have a Dolly show and not hear Coat of many colours). There were some cringe moments with a duet with an Elvis impersonator to I will always love you. But on the whole it was a great performance. Singing was perfect, and it surprising to see how many instruments Dolly plays live, the penny whistle, banjo, guitar, harmonica and lots of other plucky things you would have on your lap or against your chest.

My beef with the show was the audience. They just would not keep still, I missed her grand entrance through the stage as the people next to me were in the wrong seats and their rightful owners came back to claim them. Some “fans” who knew the words were singing… well yelling along and kept going to get more beers, pushing everyone each time. This pissed off my neighbors and those behind me to the point of screaming “it’s not a pub” and then as he past kept poking him. People couldn’t seem to find their seats and were still wandering round standing up right in front of you. I hate to sound like a tit, but the tickets were not cheap, and you would think people would make it on time and savour every minute. Alas not.

But I am chuffed with a new tshirt and beautiful book. And the gossip of bumping into Graham Norton in the loos.

Now on to some more pressing things.