Ok, I jinxed it. The last time I updated this sorry excuse of a blog I pointed out that updates were becoming less frequent and that I was going to write a lot more. It did not happen. Life has been too distracting. Here is what I have been up to since that last post:

 

 

Last night I attended the live performance of De La Soul at The Arena. They have been around since the late 80s when they made waves with their 3 Feet High & Rising record. I prefer their more recent work, especially the Art Official Intelligence album. I have most of their albums but I could not recognise most of the tracks they performed. Their live sound is heavier than their studio recordings and many of the DJ's samples were new to me. Not that I am complaining; I enjoyed the performance, especially the band's interaction with audience members. At one point they invited girls in the audience to dance on the stage and many obliged. A good time was had by all.

 

 

This weekend Melbourne was hosting the Formula 1 GP and I was watching coverage all day on Saturday and Sunday. This is the only race of the year that Australian fans get to see qualifying so I was very happy to be watching it. The new format is great; three sessions, with all cars on the track for the first, ten for the second and five for the third. Qualifying was interesting because there was a lot of wind, the temperature was cold and at some point there was rain. On race day the sky was clear and Alonso finished first, Raikkonen second and Ralph Schumacher third. My biggest disappointment was Montoya's retirement due to an electrical fault and the driver I feel most sorry for is Jenson Button, whose car blew up and came to a stop a few metres away from the finish line. He would have finished third. One of the race highlights was Mark Webber leading the race for half a lap but unfortunately his car developed a clutch problem. Despite that, I think it was a great race, with plenty of action, crashes and overtaking.

 

 

I started playing The Wind Waker on my GameCube a few nights ago and was very impressed with the game. It is an Action/Role Playing game about a young island boy on a quest to save his kidnaped sister. The presentation is flawless,the graphics use a technique called Cell Shading that makes 3D models look like cartoons, the game controls are taught to the player with an amusing in-game tutorial, the music is suitably cinematic, level design is very well thought out and the story is interesting. It is one of those games where all the elements have gelled together perfectly. It is supposed to be a relatively short game so I look forward to spending a few weeks playing it to the end.

 

I also started reading Steven Pressfield's Virtues of War, a fictional account of Alexander The Great's life and military campaigns. I am enjoying it a lot because it is a more entertaining way of learning about the man than reading a, accurate but dry history book. Of course some liberties are taken with the facts for the sake of story telling but who cares? The author is upfront about all inaccuracies in the introduction. What I have read so far is Alexander's battles in mainland Greece under his father's command and the massacre he lead after his father's assassination. It is a complicated character for sure; Alexander is not blood thirsty but he would kill if it was necessary politically. He was after all a young king and his father had enemies all over Macedonia, Greece and Persia.