Caboose

Just found this site: Odd Blogs, a mixture of the usual blogging stuff and odd news stories.

I’ve just upgraded to version 2.5 of Movable Type, the software that makes this part of Caboose work.

The main improvements are the search box on the right and making the site more accessible. See Dive Into Accessibility for more information on accessibility issues.

Let me know if you notice any problems.

Yesterday I watched the film, today I found the site of the organisation that looks after the fence.

It’s not as big as it used to be, the name has changed and it’s mostly to keep emus out these days.

The latest part of my campaign to get out more was a free members’ preview of Rabbit-Proof Fence at the Arts Picture House.

I thought they had really taken advantage of the scenery and found some fantastic actresses to play the parts of the three aboriginal girls taken from their families to be trained as servants. Kenneth Branagh did a very good job as the Chief Protector of Aborigines, a well-meaning but misguided bureaucrat.

Deborah Mailman also appeared, she’s one of the stars of The Secret Life of Us, one of my favourite TV programs. Sadly Channel 4 are only showing it on their E4 digital channel at the moment. I’m waiting patiently for it to return to normal TV.

Just one thing I noticed: is it just me or does the language spoken by the Aborigines in the film not sound a lot like the Ewoks from Return of the Jedi? Is this possibly where the Star Wars people got some inspiration from?

Went to see Beth Orton (alternate site) in concert at the Cambridge Corn Exchange last night, fantastic. Wasn’t too keen on the support act, Ed Harcourt, but Beth was amazing.

I had been a bit worried that her voice wouldn’t come through well live, but it did. The mixture of old and new songs was good, the band were great, on the whole a very pleasant way to spend an evening. We just caught the final encore, ‘I wish I never saw the sunshine’ with Beth alone on stage, an excellent way to finish off.

I was surprised by how teeny she looks on stage after reading lots of interviews going on about how tall she is. She seemed quite nervous and shy doing the links between songs, although later on she told a few very bad jokes.

Albums:
Trailer Park
Central Reservation
Daybreaker

Looking at the stats for my site I’ve come across some very strange referrer strings.

Why are what look very much like porn sites referring to my site?

Very odd. My pet theory is that it’s some kind of weird advertising scheme, using fake referrers. Anyone else got any ideas?

Just found Blog HotorNot, most other people probably found it ages ago.

Five years ago today I waved goodbye to Grimsby, as well as to my family and set off for two years in Antarctica.

It really doesn’t seem that long.

Might scan in some of the photos later, if I can find them.

Found this at The Onion.

Also Chemists honour Sherlock Holmes, or should that be “Royal Society of Chemistry desperately seeks publicity”?

I joined the Heffers video club today, I got a bit fed up with Blockbuster on Mill Road only stocking the current Hollywood stuff. As my first video I got 101 Rekjavík.

About all I can say is it passed a couple of hours tolerably. Like the life of the main character it doesn’t seem to go anywhere and I was quite surprised when I read the IMDb entry to find that it’s supposed to be a comedy.

Maybe I was just in the wrong mood for it. I tend to be quite forgiving of films I don’t like, prepared to give them another chance. The only exceptions so far have been Volcano and Event Horizon.

Volcano was the last film I saw in the UK before going South and was one of those group decisions, where you all end up seeing the film none of you wanted to see.

Event Horizon was just unforgivably bad. If they had just copied a bit more of some of the films it’s derived from it would have been better, or at least so-bad-it’s-funny. Instead it was just dire. People walked out in the middle of it.