Daily Archives: April 25, 2010

Comment Registration

Okay, I didn’t want to go this route if it could be avoided but at least for the time being, anyone who wants to leave a comment will need to register and login.

The reason is simple: the spammers are getting more clever. Some days I get zero spam comments, some days I get more than a hundred. Up till now, it’s been easy to figure out what’s spam because those comments generally fall into one or more of several categories: links to crap that are probably masking viruses, Russian (and other non-western) alphabet, things that have nothing to do with the post that the comment appears under, blatant advertising.

But now I’m getting multiple comments that look reasonable. They have a reasonable looking email address, reasonable looking web site URL and are relevant responses to posts. But many of them are cut-and-paste jobs from previously approved comments.But click on those URLs and they lead to weird pages, like a blog but with no content. I don’t know if these sites have viruses or not (I think I’m safe because I’m running Chrome and anti-virus software) but I can’t figure out any other purpose for them.

The end result though is that I can’t tell a valid comment from a spam one unless it’s coming from a source I recognize. So I’m going to do this for now and see what happens.

If you feel strongly against this and don’t want to register to leave a comment here, I hope you’ll take the time to send me an email at hongkietown at gmail dot com and tell me why.

Photos From Last Night

Not that many. I’m generally not the kind of photographer who will push people aside or stand in front of someone else in order to get a shot, so it wasn’t easy finding good spots and angles. But I think I got a few good shots of 3 of the bands.

First up is A Roller Control, live at Time Out’s Big Night Out at Grappa’s Cellar in Hong Kong, April 24 2010. Very 80s sounding dance pop. Unfortunately, the only times the lead singer (2nd from right) did anything visually interesting, he wasn’t under any of the spotlights. But take a look at how serious these guys are. I think the guy 2nd from left is trying to be Brian Eno. (They were one of the acts that opened for Peaches a week ago in Macau.)

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Here’s DP, also at Big Night Out. Okay, you’re looking at the bass player and the drummer and asking where’s the rest of the band? Nope, that’s the whole band, two guys, bass guitar and drums. White Stripes taken to an even further extreme? Actually they were far better than I expected.

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Finally, Killer Soap at Rockschool. I like these guys a lot. As previously mentioned, I voted for them at the 2008 GBOB and was happy that they won. Lead singer Rocky has a terrific voice and he’s very charismatic on stage – arena moves in a small club.

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Pythonesque

A couple of days ago I finally caught up with The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. I suppose most people checked it out since it ended up being Heath Ledger’s final film; I viewed it because I’m a Terry Gilliam fan. The fact that Gilliam co-wrote this with Charles McKeown, his collaborator on Brazil and Munchausen had me feeling optimistic.

Visually, the film is Gilliam’s best looking work to date. Throughout his career, one of his specialties has been getting things to look like a million bucks on a ten cent budget. Here, with a full palette of CGI effects, the results are gorgeous. If only Gilliam could tell a story, then this might have been something a whole lot better than it turned out to be.

Basically, you’ve got Christopher Plummer, very Munchausen-like as the immortal Dr. Parnassus, proprietor of a rickety traveling show who can’t stop making (and losing) bets with the devil, played by Tom Waits. There’s Lily Cole as his beautiful daughter, the subject of one of the wagers. And his assistants, Mini-Me Verne Troyer and Andrew Garfield (from the Red Riding trilogy). Heath Ledger shows up hanging from a bridge, a mystery man with amnesia.

That’s one of the problems of the story for me. I think it might have played better had we known more upfront about Ledger and less about Parnassus. As it is, the big “reveals” about Ledger’s past carry little weight. As you may or may not know, Ledger died before the film was completed. He’d done all of the major sequences but is replaced in the fantasy sequences by Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. The way this film plays out, it means that the weight of the climax is on Farrell’s shoulders instead of Ledger’s.

It’s a partial return to form for Gilliam after a series of disasters. I might watch it a second time and see how it plays now that I know where it’s going.

I noted a trailer on the Blu-Ray disc for something called Not the Messiah: He’s a Very Naughty Boy. ”From the creators of Spamalot.” Post-Python, Eric Idle’s recent career mainly consists of keeping the Python flame alive. Or, if you prefer, plundering the old stuff because most of his non-Python stuff didn’t set the world on fire. (Which is a shame really, when one considers how wonderful The Rutles was.) Spamalot was successful as a Broadway show. This is obviously an adaptation of Life of Brian and seems to take the form of an oratorio, performed live at the Royal Albert Hall with full orchestra and chorus, soloists and guests. Other Python members – including Gilliam but not Cleese – apparently show up as well. The US release date for the DVD and Blu-Ray is June 8th. I’m sure I’ll watch it but I’ll be approaching it with very low expectations.

Quick Break

Off to Manila on Monday, back on Wednesday – no, not a celebration of the new job as some might think, just need to get a few things taken care of before I start work the following week.

This will also be a test of sorts as I’ll be bringing along my iPad and leaving my laptop at home. The hotel we’re staying in has broadband but no WiFi; fortunately I’ve got a pocket-sized router sitting in a drawer here and it’s working fine with the iPad at home and hopefully it will work just as well from the hotel.

Last night we went back to Guru for dinner, I wanted my gf to try it out. I booked one of the outside tables and it was very relaxing – and if anything I enjoyed the food more on the 2nd visit than the first. Still went with the blue mango chat salad and tried their very nice grilled tandoori salmon – light and moist, they told me they spice it, sear it on the grill and then put it in the tandoori for just a minute. Even better, a prawn curry (think it was bhuna) was a seriously good curry, packed with the complex combination of flavors that I love in Indian food. This could be a new favorite.

My next stop was Time Out’s Big Night Out at Grappa’s Cellar and they had a really good turnout there. I stayed for about two hours, long enough to check out 3 bands who were, um, interesting. Would have liked to stay longer for Chuchukmo and Poubelle Int’l but wanted to show my face at Rockschool for Underground’s release party for their third CD. My timing was great because I got to see Killer Soap. I first encountered them when I was a judge at the Global Battle of the Bands in 2008 and thought they definitely deserved the first place spot that they got. The lead singer’s got a great voice, the band is tight and some of the material is strong (and some isn’t). It was great to have two events like this although a shame that they were both on the same night! Possibly some photos later.