Officers who speak too aggressively to civilians, who fail to turn off their engines when they park their cars, or commit other minor violations of proper conduct will be forced to wear bright pink Hello Kitty armbands as punishment, police Colonel Pongpat Chayaphan told AFP.
Meanwhile at the Sanrio Hello Kitty site, you can make up your own Hello Kitty e-postcard, stationary and download screensavers. Why not knock up something for the bad boy/girl in your life?
While checking out The Rock Hard Times, I noticed a related project called The Largest River which is a simpler way of searching out Amazon.com. I personally don’t mind Amazon’s flashy interface but there’s a lot to be said about simple stylesheets and lots of white space.
I’m just a sucker for a cute logo, and theirs is very cute indeed:
For some reason, I’m on the Lily Allen mailing list. I think I signed up to get some free song. I saw her play the Metro (Sydney) on Friday night and it was damn good. Slightly surprisingly as I was expecting it to be just okay.
She was funny, dressed in gray blue sack dress rather than usual 50s fluffy dress/sneakers. And while she doesn’t come across a terribly nice person generally, she was lovely to her audience. She was using an asthma puffer (”very rock n’ roll” in her words) on stage and all seemed very soft until later when I think she realised it was Friday night and/or started to get quite tipsy. Anyway, she skulled a cup of Jägermeister and then opened up a present that a girl in the audience gave her – another bottle of Jägermeister which she passed around the audience. Security stepped in finally when the bottle ended up with the giver of the gift who then tried to skull the whole bottle.
She also has this funny little giggle that punctuated almost every thing she said. She was pretty drunk by the end of it and despite the asthma, she lit up a few ciggies near the end. She said she was shattered and for the first time, I saw the band as they were leaving the metro. They were in some Tarago-esque stationwagon/van thing and she was in the front seat and so small (and probably slouching that we could barely see her.
All round, it was just really fun. The audience was about 90% female and while the fashion, as always at these things, was hilarious it wasn’t particularly pratty. It was great crowd, enthusiastic but not aggressive.
Anyway, back to my Lily Allen mail – it was promoting a downloadable music lesson service called Now Play It:
‘Now Play It’ is a new and exciting way to learn and play your favorite songs. This unique video service features real music and real artists all backed by real learning techniques. It has been developed to help offer a more instant and direct way of learning, for every range of musician. ‘Now Play It’ aims to get people as close to the artist and songs they love as simply as possible. If you want to play a song, there is no better way to learn than from the artist who wrote or performs it…welcome to ‘Now Play It’.
From a quick look around, prices seem to start at around 1.99 pounds to download their “Lite” tutorial (basically the artist’s video with superimposed instructions like chord charts), 3.99 pounds for a ‘Full’ tutorial (the artist themselves spending 15-25mins explaining how to play the song). You can also get the “In House” tutorial (not the artist but a Now Play It tutor) for a bit cheaper (2.99 pounds).
As Lily herself pointed out when she played one chord (aand not terribly well) on Friday, she’s only just learning how to play the guitar so there aren’t acutally any “Full” tutorial from her. Only the “Lite” and the “In House”. Same deal for Radiohead though I don’t know what their excuse is.
Explaining the “In House” version:
We have this 3rd option available so that we can make sure that we can offer as many different tutorials in the Now Play It style, even if an artist isn’t around to teach them anymore.
“Isn’t around… anymore”? Sounds like they’re dead. Anyway, only “Lite” and “In House” versions for David Bowie and Coldplay. Gorillaz only have “Lite” versions (understandable given they are supposed to be cartoons but a “Full” version would have been way cool).
The Rock Hard Times is a music project from the Mime Cuvalo, maker of the brilliant FireFTP plugin for Firefox:
Why another music website? Yes, I know about discogs.com, last.fm, musicbrainz.org, and all of the others. I practically live on “teh Intrawebs” so believe me, I know. Well, surprisingly enough, my reason for doing this website is that I felt there wasn’t a site like it available – that there was a need for it. Something that would pull everything on a particular artist together into a neat, simple package. Something that would be editable by the people but in a more structured than how Wikipedia does it. And, yes, discogs.com and musicbrainz.org do this in their own way and I totally respect their work. However, discogs.com is more focused on discography, musicbrainz.org is more focused on being able to put proper mp3 tags on tracks, and I am more interested in making a sort of meta-fansite. Another inspiration for the site was my love of movies which brings me to IMDb.com on a regular basis. IMDb is cool on how it brings together all the different aspect on movies: actors, soundtracks, quotes, trivia. And I thought a musical counterpart to IMDb didn’t really exist and was missing from the rich fauna that is the web. So, here it is, a site that I hope will fill the gap. Hope you like it.
You can set up an account and start adding info on your fav. bands. It’s got a really nice homely feel about it – probably helped by the sparse but sweet retro-ey (but not in a naff way) art and stylings. I like the idea that they have a their picks of the week labelled as “stuck in our heads” – very cute.
It is certainly a world away from the intimidating universes of the Wikipedias. Stop by and click on “browse” to sample some random artists – you’re guaranteed to find something that is, at least, interesting.
Just made a page to record my fav Firefox Hacks. Will be useful for times like this week when my Firefox profile just decided to uninstall itself and all my lovingly cultured extensions and hacks. Grrrr!!!
I could smell summer in the air tonight, it was wonderful but slightly disconcerting… just as I get used to one extreme of temperature, another is on its way.
If you are at all into photography (or film for that matter), you’ll know how complex good lighting can be. I personally take the lazy approach and just use natural light, but Strobist.com attempts to make it easier. Start off with the Lighting 101.
Damien is on AIR’s record label (Record Makers). Not a fan of all of his stuff but it’s also worth checking out “Mitzuki” – it’s very Serge Gainsbourg/Jane Birkin. So is The Frogs (yes he is French so he is allowed to make fun of them):
