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Ok, first question for you if you don't own this "Why not?", and if you're going to tell me you're not familiar with Lou Reed I will call you a liar, you just don't realise it.

Lou Reed's music has definetly hit you in some form be it taking a walk on the wild side (if you're easily offended don't listen to the lyrics too carefully), the BBC's rendition of Perfect Day (originally a Lou Reed tune, heathen), or Satellite of Love, among others.

As an aside, from what I've heard about the new killers album Lou Reed is a major influence and this will be very obvious with the albums release (I believe he's even collaborating)!

The Bowie influence is also another fairly heavy feature of this album, so if you're a fan then yet another reason this album is a must listen.

Now some people dismiss this as pop-y, and to those people I would probably agree, it definetly falls into that category, but still as far as pop goes this is by far and away leading the current popular output, with some frankly amazing catchy tunes.

Admittedly "She's so love-l-y" is currently suffering with being overplayed on the radio, and I suspect "Elvis ain't dead" will soon be rendered to the same fate, however the whole album is filled with these entertaining tunes and definetly one for the collection if you like a cheery album.

"Elvis ain't dead cos I heard him on the radio!"

These developments include among other things 10 new input types (because yes, believe it or not web pages will want users to input date selections, I know I'm shocked as well) as well as many other new tags which all seem to make sense, and the best news, the framset tag is being shot down as well as its frame and noframes counterpart.

See the changes here at the W3C

The Ramshackle Rally Valencia takes a route from Calais beginning August 21st through Annecy, San Remo, Perpigan and on to Valencia in time for the La Tomatina (Tomato) festival [which essentially involves a load of people lobbing tomatoes at one another]! Our plan is then to get our vehicle to complete the whole route back again :-s!

On another note: we are not doing this solely because we're nuts, we will of course be raising money for charity, and I will let you know how you can donate as soon as we have it all set up, keep checking back!

Visit the site at www.beautyassociates.net

Anyway, if you're not familiar, then it's time to get familiar, his music is absolutely incredible with such a vocal range, and brilliantly witty humour, see below for the last single and I will post a link to the new single when it's available, or check out his website - www.mitchbenn.com.

We had a room full of cardboard, packing foam, 3 tins of black spray paint, PVA Glue, craft knives, 10 metres of elastic, gaffer tape, a 15m garden hose from B&Q and several dissected scart leads; the only thing we were really lacking was any skill whatsoever.

The intention was to create four matching packs, with guns, and we more or less achieved (all four being of equally poor construction).

Last night we went to see Omid Djalilli at Colston Hall - while he is a superb comedian, we were definetly laughing throughout, his support was the highlight of the evening.

Boothby Graffoe writes some of the most surreal, obscure comedy tunes you will ever, ever hear including such greats as Bungee Girl, this has to be heard to be believed visit his website - www.boothbygraffoe.com or get hold of WOT ITALIAN? (his debut album) and have a listen, if you're not laughing (or at the very least extremely confused) I will be amazed.

First up, the new monitor (Samsung 2232BW) this montior is so clear, the colour clarity is superb, and it looks so slick with the shiny black plastic that seems synonomous with Samsung these days, also the software that comes with it is well worth installing giving extra vibrancy, and making image adjustment even easier (as the samsung's buttons are a bit fiddly) adjustment can be done via the application.

Next up was a TV tuner card - the Hauppage WinTV-HVR 1100 - this tuner card works perfectly well on XP through its packkaged software, however when brought up on XP Media Center the first thing I was confronted with was a decoder error, incidentally there is a solution to this problem, you need an mpeg2 dvd decoder that is compatible with media center - here is a free one.

In my view the title alone means it has to be owned - however - for many that is not a good enough reason, so to those I strongly suggest a listen. If you liked squeeze then you really will love this, I would have to say that this is by far and away his best work, a comment I don't make lightly. But lyrically every detail is taken with careful care and consideration, from the obviously personal to the not so much.

The second song is a personal favourite having heard Chris tell the story about how he wishes he'd been around more for his children this song highlights his feelings on this.

This really is a must own album.

Ok, let me attempt to summarise - surreal, cow bell, lyrical genius. I'm afriad thats about the best I can manage and yet here we have one of the most original modern albums (I'm not entirely sure modern is fair). But this album truly is worth a listen if you like to be forever amazed at an albums lyrics as you sit and listen and think "what did they just say".

This album also never gets old, as I can put it on over and over again and never tire. And why are their not more cow bells in music.

"I want to row you across the ocean so blue Till we find the man who kissed all the women in Japan"

The casting is a master stroke Robert Downey Jr. is every bit the imagining of Tony Stark, playing some brilliant monologues (it still counts as a monologue if you're talking to a mechanical arm, I'm sure of it). Jeff Bridges is outstanding and Gwyneth Paltrow plays off of Tony Stark with such brilliant awkward chemistry, the cast truly make this film.

That said the CG effects are also an absolute triumph, where you can never tell that CG is in use unless they want you too, and then you wish that the CG stuff actually existed and could be used.

All in all this is a real success for Marvel, and long may they continue in this vein, I can't wait for the sequel in 2010!

A bit more information about our Ramshackle challenge

What we're doing:
Our team of 4 (Low Grade Entertainment - Fish, Oddjob, James and Stan) will be driving some 1,450 miles from Calais to Valencia on the Ramshackle Rally, in a car worth less than £100 (they're the rules, we're not just cheap), and hopefully completing the course in 4 days (with a working car - probably powered on Diesel and Hope).

About CLICSargent:
Our mission is to be there for each family, caring every step of the way, providing individual support to children and young people with cancer and leukaemia and their families through:

• Clinical, emotional, psychological, social and financial services in hospital, at home and in the community across the UK
• Being a strong voice nationally and locally
• Research into improving treatment and care.

Why CLICSargent:
Having taken part in a charity abseil recently alongside a woman who's son had been diagnosed with leukaemia 3 days previous she said that the charity had already been so helpful and supportive that she wanted to give something back. This for me underlined how crucial CLICSargent's work is, and how any support we could give would be appreciated - so please GIVE GENEROUSLY!

Please click here to donate

First up we need your sponsorship, and your friends sponsorship, and anyone you've ever met's sponsorship, for this click here to donate - this is really really appreciated!

Secondly we have a poster available if you could download this, print it and put it anywhere and everywhere (legally) allowed, obviously don't attach it to your neighbours cat that would just be daft, but any photos of novel places they've been attached will be added on the website :-)

Click here to download poster

Finally we are still looking at a team car theme, so any suggestions would be more than welcome, just drop me an e-mail

If you would like any more info, or want to know how you can help even more then just drop me an e-mail and I'll get right back to you - businesses you can get involved and get your logo on the car ;-)

Firstly the film – a good kids picture – no more, I would’ve enjoyed it if I was 8, unfortunately I’m not and it’s not got the imagination or wit we have come to expect from so many computer animated films from the Dreamworks / Pixar studios, with the likes of Monsters Inc, Shrek, Finding Nemo, Toy Story to name but a few. Although there are a few moments which will wash straight over your kids head, and bring about a wry smile.

Now let me move onto the real reason I’m writing this – the lacklustre 3D. For my mind to charge the extra they seem to believe they can add on to the ticket price, the film must make use of the extra dimension, this film does not. The most impressive moment to make use of the visual improvement are the trailers by Disney at the beginning [who appear to be firmly running with the 3D film genre] with some eye popping moments as things fly out of the screen, after this there is nothing that will even make you flinch at the screen.

Finally, my whole downer on this “new innovation” was based on a showing under the REAL D 3D brand cinema screen I am yet to see one of the new era of 3D films on an IMAX screen and am prepared to bet that this may greatly improve the film quality and will undoubtedly increase the 3D element exponentially.

So my take would be I-MAX is the only way to watch!
]]> http://www.awhale.co.uk/index.php?page=article&article=16 2009-04-18 00:00:00 Andy COMPUTER Up until about a year ago I was firmly against the iPod, and then after being firmly #*$$£? off by just about every other device I finally decided to follow suit, got an i-pod and have never looked back, ultimately it’s a very good mp3 player (don’t worship it – it just works) , it’s an iPod classic 160gb and that’s more than enough space if you just like music like me.

Anyway I digress, the real reason I write is because when I got the iPod it meant having to rip my entire CD collection to iTunes which was fine, just took a little while to do. Now this meant having my CD collection all available in one place … great … however this new device also came with a cover art feature … great … or not, it’s all good as long as you only own music that’s in the iTunes library, which to name but one excludes the entire beatles back catalogue (of which I own a great deal).

So I am mainly writing here to let you know about a magnificent tool which after a great deal of research I found Tune Up - http://www.tuneupmedia.com/. This tool will work through your entire musical catalogue and locate any tracks without cover art and fill in the blanks, as well as cleaning up any track names for CD’s that could not be found (couldn’t test this iTunes seems pretty good in most cases for this). Unfortunately the free version only does 50 cover art’s, but the meagre price tag of just $30 is well worth it for a fully functioning iPod.

If you’re a Mac user there is a free application that by the looks of it will do much the same thing (don’t know – not a Mac user, unable to try it) called gimmesometune - http://www.gimmesometune.com/.

Back to my original positive point, Wolverine, its a fantastic combination of gripping story line, stunning special effects, and truly believeable acting (given the universe in which they live). The only minor down point is Gambit who needed to be a lot more sullen, witty and faithful to the comic. The fight sequences between Wolverine and Sabretooth are awesome but still not unbelievable, and the story arc they have chosen is a perfect forerunner to X-MEN 2. You absolutely have to see this film if you have any interest in comic book based films.

In other film news:

"the only things certain in life is that every odd-numbered 'Star Trek' movie is s**t" - Tim [Spaced]
After watching the trailers; I'd be inclined to say that this may be the film to buck the trend, fingers crossed on this one.

However the real star of the show was Feste (Olivia’s Fool) played by Miltos Yerolemou, his singing, dancing and dark comedy shaped the show and brought everything together to form this wonderful piece of theatre. I thoroughly recommend a trip to the Duke of York theatre to check this out, whether you’re a Shakespeare fan or not.

As a side note if you’re after somewhere to stay on a one night stop can I recommend the Arosfa Hotel (it’s small, but extremely friendly and very clean and comfy).