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March 31, 2002

Dodgy money making schemes…

Latest recieved text message:

"I fancy you. To find out who I am, Call Now On 0906 711 XXXX This is a FREE msg. 16+ calls charged 50p/min."

What a superb way to con money out of gullible, love-staved fools. Even better than the “Someone has a crush on you” email address harvesting scheme. I guess when the fancy-ee rings up they have to give phone numbers of possible fancy-ers, thereby adding them to the list of people to be messaged next. The then-fancy-ers, now-fancy-ees ring up and supply even more mobile numbers.

If only I had thought of it first.

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Posted 7:43 pm by Wrighty — Comments (5)

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March 29, 2002

Upgrade!

Just a quick test to ensure that the upgrade to MT 2.0 went smoothly…

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Posted 4:04 pm by Wrighty — Comments (2)

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March 16, 2002

mastermind

Well we all need reassurance as we play life’s game of endurance
Like a nice cup of tea or a cigarette

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Posted 2:48 pm by matthew — Comments (0)

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March 11, 2002

And for your pleasure, more music reviewage…

DESERT HEARTS
Let’s Get Worse (Tugboat Records)
The marketing material that came with this album described Desert Hearts as “running somewhere between the dark, poetic inertia of Joy Division and the bruised dynamics of Daydream era Sonic Youth”, which is clearly hyperbole considering the blandness of this album. From the outset you know that things aren’t going to be particularly exciting, especially when the opening track (“DSR”) sounds like an Irish “Belle and Sebastian” tribute band. Things only get worse from here with tracks like “Florida Keys” which suddenly jumps from metal style guitar walls to fragile female vocals. This confusion of music styles doesn’t work and certainly bemused me. With the Ash sound-a-like guitar riff on the album closer, “last Song”, Let’s Get Worse is a surprisingly apt name for this debut album. 6/10 M.D.S.

ALL TOMORROW’S PARTIES
ATP 1.1 (ATPR)
This compilation album is released as a prelude to All Tomorrow’s Parties US festival, which was postponed in October due to the events in New York. Featuring unreleased material from such artists as Sonic Youth and Stephen Malkmus, the potential is there for an exciting album. Unfortunately, it’s rather a mixed bag, containing a mixture of instrumentals (“Old Lungs” by Stereolab is a standout with a very funky sax), chilled vocals (“How can I tell you that I love you” by Papa M) and what can only be described as shit. Track eight onwards is just awful – if I want to hear 8-bit computer samples with the ever delightful accompaniment of distortion, I’ll get my BBC Micro out of the loft. Only worth getting if you really want the unreleased material. 5/10 M.D.S

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Posted 4:35 pm by matthew — Comments (4)

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March 6, 2002

Webtoy

Shockwave Webtoy: Collapse

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Posted 6:05 pm by Wrighty — Comments (4)

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March 5, 2002

MT 2.0

Moveable Type 2.0 is nearly here, early March is the ETA. So far only one screenshot has been released (compare with current) but it certainly looks far removed from the current version, the menu bar on the left now has some considerably more meaningful icons and descriptions.

It would also appear that there is now a built-in search function which could be quite useful.

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Posted 4:35 pm by Wrighty — Comments (0)

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March 4, 2002

Getting involved with the Student’s Union this year has become a challenge to get as many of my fingers in as many pies as possible. Last week I had my first radio show with Simon and I also wrote my first review for Barefacts, the student rag:

GOLDRUSH
The Pioneers EP (Truck Records)
This was described to me as sounding like the Stone Roses, certainly the right decade for my musical taste. The title track, “Pioneers”, seems to be trying a little too hard to target the angry youth market. The overuse of electric guitars grates, making a potentially chilled indie number sound overly aggressive. Thankfully, with “Landscape” and “Help Yourself”, things are taken down a notch, replacing aggression with a more thoughtful sound. These last two tracks illustrate Goldrush’s potential - catchy melodies tied to nicely introspective lyrics. Good stuff. 7/10. M.D.S.

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Posted 8:52 pm by matthew — Comments (1)

© 2001-2008 Matthew Sheppard & Paul Wright