Noticed this thread of appreciation for Nick Cave on boards.ie, it was the first time I’ve seen his letter to MTV declining his nomination for the MTV Music Awards from years ago.
TO ALL THOSE AT MTV,
I WOULD LIKE TO START BY THANKING YOU ALL FOR THE SUPPORT YOU HAVE GIVEN ME OVER RECENT YEARS AND I AM BOTH GRATEFUL AND FLATTERED BY THE NOMINATIONS THAT I HAVE RECEIVED FOR BEST MALE ARTIST. THE AIR PLAY GIVEN TO BOTH THE KYLIE MINOGUE AND P. J. HARVEY DUETS FROM MY LATEST ALBUM MURDER BALLADS HAS NOT GONE UNNOTICED AND HAS BEEN GREATLY APPRECIATED. SO AGAIN MY SINCERE THANKS.
HAVING SAID THAT, I FEEL THAT IT’S NECESSARY FOR ME TO REQUEST THAT MY NOMINATION FOR BEST MALE ARTIST BE WITHDRAWN AND FURTHERMORE ANY AWARDS OR NOMINATIONS FOR SUCH AWARDS THAT MAY ARISE IN LATER YEARS BE PRESENTED TO THOSE WHO FEEL MORE COMFORTABLE WITH THE COMPETITIVE NATURE OF THESE AWARD CEREMONIES. I MYSELF, DO NOT. I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN OF THE OPINION THAT MY MUSIC IS UNIQUE AND INDIVIDUAL AND EXISTS BEYOND THE REALMS INHABITED BY THOSE WHO WOULD REDUCE THINGS TO MERE MEASURING. I AM IN COMPETITION WITH NO-ONE.
MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY MUSE IS A DELICATE ONE AT THE BEST OF TIMES AND I FEEL THAT IT IS MY DUTY TO PROTECT HER FROM INFLUENCES THAT MAY OFFEND HER FRAGILE NATURE.
SHE COMES TO ME WITH THE GIFT OF SONG AND IN RETURN I TREAT HER WITH THE RESPECT I FEEL SHE DESERVES – IN THIS CASE THIS MEANS NOT SUBJECTING HER TO THE INDIGNITIES OF JUDGEMENT AND COMPETITION. MY MUSE IS NOT A HORSE AND I AM IN NO HORSE RACE AND IF INDEED SHE WAS, STILL I WOULD NOT HARNESS HER TO THIS TUMBREL – THIS BLOODY CART OF SEVERED HEADS AND GLITTERING PRIZES. MY MUSE MAY SPOOK! MAY BOLT! MAY ABANDON ME COMPLETELY!
SO ONCE AGAIN, TO THE PEOPLE AT MTV, I APPRECIATE THE ZEAL AND ENERGY THAT WAS PUT BEHIND MY LAST RECORD, I TRULY DO AND SAY THANK YOU AND AGAIN I SAY THANK YOU BUT NO…NO THANK YOU.
YOURS SINCERELY, NICK CAVE 21 OCT 96.
You never know if the guy is completely taking the piss out of you or not, but it is great stuff either way. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds will be playing in Dublin Castle in a couple of days, it is disappointing that they didn’t make it to Cork, especially with The Marquee looking well below par this summer.
Monday, February 25, 2008 Occasionally I see fit to throw a bone to the frantic Googlers out there looking for tech support answers. Here’s an easy one for anyone who forked out on this wifi range extender that they sell in Maplin and is currently finding it completely unusable. The firmware that it comes with quite simply does not work. In my case, the unit stays connected for a few minutes at most before requiring a reboot. Upgrading to this firmware did the trick OK.
I can’t believe a product could be released that is so obviously broken. I’ve seen lots of dodgy firmware versions for routers in the past that will choke up due to syn floods or viruses or whatever, but out here on a quiet private network in the middle of the country side there is no excuse for keeling over, straight out of the box. Got to say though, this has been rock solid since upgrading.
Sunday, February 24, 2008 Not quite a dramatic as the lemur or the hamster, but now I want a pet hedgehog.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008 Quake Live, the newest in the Quake series by ID Software, is now accepting beta testers. You can sign up with your email address on the website. Quake Live is a free game, based on Quake 3, fully focused on the multiplayer side of things. Multiplayer games have strayed far from the tried and trusted “just point and shoot” mantra of Quake, so it is good to have another game that does not require you to twirl around three times and tap you heels before planting a bomb on the VIP.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 I’m posting on behalf of someone who has lost their dog in the Knockraha area (near Glanmire in Cork).
The dog went missing two days ago, a quiet male dog, part spaniel, pictured here:
Please send me an email if you know of anything.
I saw Rescue Dawn last night, a movie starring Christian Bale about the German American navy pilot, Dieter Dengler, who crash landed in North Vietnam during the war and was held in a prison camp. Rescue Dawn had some good points, but it was not quite up to Bale’s high standards, and definitely not worthy of the high rating I’ve seen it get on the internet. I was suspicious of a few plot holes and inconsistencies, since this is meant to be a true story, and Google turned up this site built by some friends and relative of the prisoners with a 12 page account of the escape told by the other survivor, Pisidhi. The site has video clips of Pisidhi and Dieter, and others, and offers a new perspective on the story – particularly on the character “Eugene” who was apparently portrayed very unfairly in the film.
Any Irish bloggers hosted on Blacknight, be warned that they have decided to clamp down on the issue of servers getting overloaded by popularity surges on Wordpress-based sites.
As far as I can tell, Blacknight have always been good on traffic spikes, and whenever some guy gets dugg or stumbled it was well handled. Michele recommends using a different blogging platform like Movable Type, or else installing a cache plugin. One thing to note – I had Wordpress wp-cache plugin enabled in my installation for a long time, even upgraded it when there were new versions. Didn’t realise that this isn’t enough, and I had to edit a line in the wp-config.php to actually activate the caching.
As per our Acceptable-Usage Policy, we might have to suspend any site that causes issues like this. Putting it simply – if you’re not being a considerate neighbour we might have to shut you down until you behave.
This is definitely a fair policy, but Michele, I hope I don’t need to point out what is wrong with this sentence from a “how to win friends an influence customers” perspective.
Thursday, January 24, 2008 Any Django heads should scoot over to Django People, a new community website centered around the popular Python web framework. Nice site – I love how your location is shown in a strip of Google maps on your profile page. For example, my profile (here) has a ~100px high strip of Cork City extending as far west as Dripsey and east to Barryscourt on my wide 1440×900 resolution. Apparently I’m 1 mile away from John Handelaar and 0 miles away from a guy called Dan, and that’s about all the Django guys in the immediate area for now (I know there are more than that!) Great use of Google Maps, and overall a very nice resource for Django, it will be a huge benefit to anyone looking for a local freelancer.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008 For some reason probably known to everyone except me, months will pass with no significant Irish tech-related events, then a bunch of them come together at once. Like Bus Éireann, if you’re lucky. Looks like the end of Feb/early March is one of the hotspots this year – Web2Ireland has all the latest news on upcoming events in Ireland. It might be difficult for me to pick and choose which [un?]conferences to attend. I’m considering Creative Camp (well done on the new website) in Kilkenny Castle. I suppose Blog Talk will have to be on the list, seeing as it’s being held in Cork.
If it’s not bad enough that I’m attending a conference about blogging, well I have to admit to skulking in the shadows of the social media darkside this month, caught in the maelstrom of Twitter. Never thought I’d get hooked on it, I always assumed it was just a big club full of narcissistic attention-whores who liked to bash Robert Scoble in 140 characters or less. Good for tracking events like the Irish election. It made more sense to have everyone migrate over to the technically superior Jaiku.
I was going to write a big long post apologising for having doubted Twitter, trying to convey what is so great about it, and to get a few more Irish people using it. But Damien has summed up enough just now on his blog. If it’s all about the conversation, there is no doubt that Jaiku has failed, there is no buzz. Also, there is something superior about the non-linear flow of conversation on Twitter – while it is more difficult to accurately follow what’s going on, it is easier to dip in and dip out with the added advantage of not having to read through a string of boring posts like a forum (chez Jaiku). I can’t help feeling that reading in 140 character chunks is somehow affecting my brain – not just the way I read and write but the way I talk and think. Who knows what evolution is going to throw up in a few decades if we keep this restriction.
All Twitter needs now is more normal people; dentists, fishermen, students, accountants… anything other than the same old “early adopters” that you see popping up everywhere droning on about the latest additions to the Facebook API. It will be great when there are hundreds of Cork people bopping around in the Twittisphere spewing their thoughts on Munster rugby or traffic on the South Link. My profile is here (jgalvin) so add me and I’ll reciprocate (as long as you’re not a bot or a spammer or something).
On a completely different note – kudos to all involved at Two Tits and a Vote, an armchair campaign to advocate for better women’s health care in Ireland. Starting with postcards to Mary Harney.
