Friday, January 29, 2010

Reading..

So one of the joys after having moved north is that I now have a 60 (or so) minute trip into work. Combinig this with the wonderful local library has done wonders for my reading. I've been trying to read a good mix of fiction and non-fiction books. So far in 2010 I've read:

:: Stephen Carroll - The Lost Life; The Time We Have Taken; The Art of the Engine Driver; The Gift of Speed and The Lover's Room.

:: Sam Harris - The End of Faith.

:: Tim Keller - The Reason for God

:: Tom Frame - Losing my Religion - Unbelief in Australia

:: Ted Kennedy - True Compass.

:: Alister McGrath - The Dawkins Delusion.

:: Jasper Fforde - The Eyre Affair.

:: Jacqueline Kent - The Making of Julia Gillard

:: Orson Scott Card - Magic Street

:: Currently: I'm reading Jonthan Freeman's Shrinking the world and Paul Kelly's The March of the Patriots.

I'm heading back to the library soon, so any suggestions of what to read next?

++

briefly on the tennis. While I would stop short of calling Federer a hero, there is something in this artilcle.. (comparing him with other freakishley talented sports-people such as Warne and Tiger). There was something refreshing in the way he answered Jim Courier's questions following his quarter
final and semi final wins. I'm looking forward to the final on Sunday
night.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Another few articles

The first one, which may not surprise you Cricket Australia's research indicates that the team is not well liked it seems that there's more the public want than just winning.

And another article about how social networking sites are being used...

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Favourites from 2009 ...

Hard to believe that we are now in January 2010.  Doesn't seem so long ago that I was pondering what 2009 would bring, and writing about the happenings of 2009. I think that the only music I was expecting was the new U2 record (and rumour has it 2010 may see their next one...)

On to my top five... the contenders are ...  Strict Joy (The Swell Season), Backspacer (Pearl Jam), Fireflies and songs (Sara Groves), Hello Hurricane (Switchfoot), Long Fall Back  to Earth (Jars of Clay), No Line on the Horizon (U2), Outer South (Conor Oberst), Glass, Tavener, Nyman (Amy Dickson). A couple that I need to listen to more - Golden Rule (Powderfinger), As Day Follows Night (Sarah Blasko).

Its thougher than I thought to pick between them this year. I had pretty high expectatons with both U2 and The Swell Season, and The Swell Season got closer to delivering than U2.

No Line on the Horizon - well while I still don't like Get on Your Boots, the album has grown on me quite a bit (not that its in my top three of their albums).

It was always going to be hard for The Swell Season to match their first record (which was pretty close to perfect). The highlights are Marketa's singing on Fantasy Man and I Have Loved You Wrong. The songs speak of the experience of break-up (and seem to ring true).

I had heard a lot about Sara Groves before, but hadn't listened to any songs. Last year she release Fireflies and Songs - filled with quite a number of personal reflections (I love the story behind 'It's Me" - which opens the lid a little on conflict in marriage. Jars of Clay new record, similarly focuses the eyes on relationships using the metaphor of planes landing in 'Safe to Land'.

Backspacer is one of Pearl Jam's stronger records (and better than their self-titled pervious record), tte stand out tracks for me are Unthought Known, and Just Breathe.


So the top five:
5 - Swtichfoot - Hello Hurricane
4 - Pearl Jam -  Backspacer
3 - Jars of Clay - The Long Fall Back to Earth
2 - Sara Groves - Fireflies and songs.
1 - The Swell Season - Strict Joy
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The few that I'm looking forward to at the moment are Broken Bell, and the new Elbow and Arcade Fire records. I'd like to hear are Noah and the Whale and Mumford and Sons which were released last year.

Newsprint...

A few random bits a pieces, from the newspapers for 2010...

Tweeting... an interesting (and negative) take on twitter...

Kindle... I'm old fashioned, clearly...  it doesn't really matter how good the screen is, how many books you can get on it and how cheap it gets, I'm just not so keen on the kindle. I was tyrying to read something off my screen the other night, and realised I just wanted to print it out and read off the paper.

Avatar.. (though to me I can't be sure its not true for alot of movies.. like Star Wars, maybe even Lord of the Rings...). Still haven't seen the film, seems to get some mixed reviews. Will write more if/when I see it.

(and acting... - and the 'harder' roles).