iMatt :: The Blog of Matt Clare

On Thursday Jan 27th Kronos Quartet did a sold-out concert and Brock University.

I got into Kronos because I’ve always liked strings and because they’ve worked with so many amazing artists. In fact, David Harrington DJed an hour of some of his favourite music over the lunch hour. It was a smattering of American classics and pop from around the world, including some very interesting Japanese music. Apparently he travels with at least 300 CDs while on tour, and it’s certainly not all classical.

The concert itself was very sonic. The final performance, On Scared Ground, just sounded amazing. It actually sounded a lot like the industrial/String mix of the tracks DJ Spooky and The Freight Elevator recorded. I’ve been combing the iTunes music store and the P2P networks to get a copy of it, but no luck so far.

If I’ve peaked your interest check out the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack or one of there better recent releases, Ghost Opera, which has a Japanese flavour to it.

Mr. Bush was inaugurated yesterday, and as he swore into the office he wasn’t the only person on this planet swearing about his second term.

I am looking forward to the inauguration of Viktor Yushchenko on Saturday [Globe]. At least when Ukrainian elections have suspicious outcomes they hold new ones. Mr. Bush should take note of what happened in the Ukraine, and the recent peace deal in the Sudan [Mail & Guardian, South Africa].

This, Mr. Bush, is what freedom looks like when it is on the march, it’s not just about words.

So while the rest of the world tries to solve it’s problems without America’s help, and despite it’s interference, Mr. Bush presents us a speech in which he says the word freedom 25 times, and liberty 17.

Had a great time at Pete’s stag party on the weekend. As this picture taken after we left le Biftheque proves, Pete was making the most of his last few days of single life.

It was also good to see Mr. Mike Stewart!

The annual Macworld conference in San Francisco was held today. As usual Steve Jobs gave his keynote and proved why he’s always been Apple’s best sales person. There were lots of new announcements, here’s my take on them.

Tiger: The new version of OS X, looks nice, but I’m not clamoring for it like I was Jaguar.

Keynote 2: Apple’s presentation software looks great! I used the last Keynote a for a few presentations this year, most notably all my WebCT presentations because of it’s graphing and video features. Looks like it’s only get better. May favourite feature is when you have your PowerBook plugged into the projector your screen has what’s projected, your notes, what’s next, etc. on it. Keynote 2 is part of the iWork packages which comes with Pages, a new version of AppleWorks – which was a horrible program!

iLife ‘05: New version of iLife that has a version of iPhoto that can be more than just crop and fix red-eye.

iPod shuffle: The new tinny, affordable, flash-based iPod to take on all the imitators. It was bound to happen.

Last but not least, the Mac Mini. I’ve created a quick flash animation to explain how (I figure) Apple was finally able to make an affordable Mac:

It was about time Apple addressed the price premium of ’switching’. You provide your own screen and keyboard and mouse (which we all have kicking around) and get this new tinny computer to power it all for around $500. You can expand the RAM and buy third party firewire drives to expand the storage or add a DVD burner (it comes with a CD burner). With the Motorola built G4 long since paid for its development Apple can easily offer something like this desktop with what appears to be iBook/PowerBook parts. A very smart idea.
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Be on the lookout for this Canoe.ca journalist!

Maybe the reason the article was a 404 error was the police got him!

- From Google News Canada [news.google.ca] at 9:10 EST.

We got a good 6cm plus of warm snow on Saturday, so I thought I’d head out with the new camera and take advantage of the beauty the snow adds to the ugly town. More here, mattclare.ca/winter

Just when you thought Ashton Kutcher was an OK guy after he campaigned for John Kerry, and gave his quote about Kerry’s plans to lower most people’s taxes and raise his singificantly. Well, it appears as though that Bush win has left that money in Ashton’s dangours hands. Ashton has purchased a International CXT. That’s International as the transport truck manufacturer.

The Sun (the UK one, not Toronto etc.) has the pictures: http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,4-2004541348,00.html

The International CXT is the world’s larget pickup. It’s like an International 18 wheeler hitting a hummer – but the resulting vehicle lost enough weight to no longer need a commercial drivers licence to operate it. The best part is because it’s just the same truck that delivers Pepsi to the local store, it probalby can’t handle off-road tasks any better that the 1/4 sized Land Rover Discovery.

How did I learn about this, as one not known to be up on celebrity gossip? Well I found out about the CXT and then Google ‘cxt own‘ to find out who the first idiot would be.

Earlier this week Bill Gates was demoing his new media centre PC and got a rude, but familiar suprise. It was in Las Vegas at Consumer Electronics Show (CES), with help from Conan O’Brien, Gates was about to show off the new software a part of his keynote but the soon-to-be-shipped software froze up, despite two attempts. Conan thought it was funny, and he was probably trying to hold it back considering he was on the richest man in the world’s payroll.

Of lesser note, was a blue-screen-of-death that appeared on a new XBoX game, but that’s just a working demo of game, not a should be market ready operating system.

No more CNN crossfire! Too bad I don’t have a catagory called ‘Ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead’, because this one fallls under that one!

CNN’s cross fire has been cancelled, well they fired Tuker Carlson after testing him out behind the news desk all last week. As John Stewart of The Daily Show likes to point out; Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala are both Republican and Democratic hacks that bring no meaningful thought to the debate show. John Stewart famously appearedon Crossfire last fall to tell them ‘to stop’.

The other hosts were the scary-southerner James Carville and the other Republican contributer Bob Novak, who (using Stewart’s words) is a duche bag.

Bob Novak. Not only is Novak generally against rights, he also leaked the identity of a CIA agent to the press to attack her husband politically. That’s right, On July 14, 2003, Robert Novak revealed the name of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame in print after a White House tip. Plame’s husband, former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, had publicly challenged President Bush’s claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium ore from Africa. Bobbie Novak, from those security minded Republicans, exposed an undercover agent because her husband exposed a fact that contradicted the Republican’s made-up reality. Learn more at BustBob.com or from this article at the Pittsburgh Review.

The Globe and Mail article announcing this quotes Jonathan Klein, chief executive officer of CNN’s, in saying “I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp,” adding “I doubt that when the President sits down with his advisers they scream at him to bring him up to date on all of the issues,” he said. “I don’t know why we don’t treat the audience with the same respect.”
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Just got back from the K-os conert at Brock. Saa-heat!!

His band was really tight, especially the guitar and bass, as you have to be to play K-os’s stuff. My favourite moments was when Hit the Road Jack was used to lead into the song with the same beat, Crabbucit!

Other great moments included some freestyle in the middle of the show, with a lot borrowed from Public Enemy by both K-os and the guy on the turn tables. My favouite track, Crucial, was the last track off the album then the broke out the power chords (even Kevin himself rocked with his own guitar). Almost everyone knew all the words, and the their were a good number of people there, especially when you consider that the posters went up on the last day of exams and tickets didn’t go on sale until nine hours before the show!