Just got back from seeing Up. Greatest animated movie I’ve ever seen. Bar none. I have no idea how Pixar always excel themselves, but they do. They’re just the most amazing, cute, imaginative, heart-warming movies I think you could want. Screw Dreamworks and their lame-ass tripe. Pixar til I die (hardcore’s overrated).

Oddly, though – these glasses fit my double-wide head perfectly. These kids don’t stand a chance.

I was always going to watch this movie. Against my better judgement, I had to. The first was one of the most astoundingly ambiguous and engrossing movies that basically anything namesaking it is work a look-in. I read essay upon essay, I did the website treasure hunt, everything I could find. I came to my own conclusions, not about how time travelling “works”, but about why Donnie was given the powers that he was given. However wrong my conclusions were, they totally made sense to me.

The original being so open to interpretation, and that you could make any interpretation work are why you can’t just give some hack free reign to do whatever he wants with it!

As much as it may tempt you, seriously don’t be taken in by S. Darko. It’s a waste of your life that you don’t have the commodity of time travel to undo.

We love The Boxer Rebellion in this house. They don’t play the around here often enough – we’re used to being in Birmingham where they play pretty frequently. They’re one of the best-produced live bands I’ve ever seen so when I get wind that they’re playing, I make effort to get there. It’s difficult to make an associative recommendation of TBR because you should just like them. They don’t write catchy pop tunes, but each of their songs sticks in your head. They aren’t terribly brash or offensive, they’re just a great-sounding band who clearly love what they do. This is the important factor for me.

All this being said, whoever picks their support acts needs to lay off whatever it is they’re laying on. There’s no need to book shitty indie-by-numbers bands to make TBR sound better because they are always great. Nevertheless, tonight was a douzie.

First “act” took the form of Red Drapes (I’m not linking to their myspace as that will cement an association with them and I don’t want that), who were utterly awful. The whole band seemed totally bewildered by their surroundings and instruments in a way that didn’t work at all. I’ve seen live acts fight with their instruments before and it can be a really effective show, but the key is to have good songs as a contrast. It becomes ironic, which you can appreciate in context. Red Drapes play safe, boring songs which seem to be trying to piggyback the latent Kaiser Chiefs success of over-anunciated narrative and little discernible musical talent. The less said about it, the better (though I’ll probably say the most about them – it’s so much easier to belittle than to give praise!).

Next up were female-fronted Kaputt. Don’t think badly of me for making a deal out of the female member, because it’s unavoidable. It’s not very often I come across girl musicians who I would listen to more than once (I am personally obliged to mention the awesome Made out of Babies each time I talk about women in music) so I make a deal out of it. Kaputt will certainly not be everyone’s cup of tea; simple-concept songs with very few lyrics, chanted rather than sung with the occasional 80s-sounding keys and a guitarist who’s really just taking up space. A welcome swill of mouthwash to clear the nasty taste of Red Drapes (there’s a crude metaphor in there – watch me sidestep it gracefully).

Onto the raison d’être. I won’t ever be someone to say that anything is perfect, but TBR do their best to make that difficult for me. Because of their true indie upbringing, their live sound isn’t far removed from that of the studio. However, to watch them is to truly appreciate just how much they enjoy doing what they do and this is the reason to go. A band that is inexplicably always the bridesmaid (once supported by the now-far-too-successful Editors) has never seemed disheartened and continue to lose themselves on stage – the minutes of their set just disappears. Playing a great range of tracks from both of their studio albums and their great rapport with the crowd makes you forget that the air conditioning is leaking on you and you’re sweating horribly. It’s not often I will tell someone to listen to a band but, The Boxer Rebellion, you should. Go to their shows (they will be near you at some point, I almost guarantee it), buy their CDs and enjoy them.

(Sorry, Piers. One day I’ll come to a show and take only pictures of your dark-corner-hiding self!)

More photos of The Boxer Rebellion at The Joiners on May 15th 2009

My two least favourite things about myself (well, about anyone really) are laziness and compulsiveness. Normally, my laziness takes over my compulsiveness, case-in-point: I have to do the washing up in the evening, I’m very lazy, the washing up doesn’t get done. Gross, I know.

I have, however, found a way to combat my laziness with it’s strongest rival—you guessed it—my compulsiveness! Lists. Until recently, I listed everything in my diary, in a notebook, on my laptop, basically anywhere I could find some paper. That is, until I started using GTD apps.

I started out with Cultured Code’s Things. A deceptively simple app that organises your lists into projects, areas and tags with a useful Quick Entry HUD for creating tasks as soon as you think of them (so they don’t just go in and out). I love the simplicity of Things, and the fact that it has a counterpart iPhone app (buggy though it may be) is very useful. I used it briefly in the beta, but I just couldn’t integrate it with my workflow. It wasn’t until I started listing everything I do that I saw how useful having this on a computer could potentially be.

As much as I love Things, it does have some holes. I won’t go into all of them, because a lot are bugs in the software or things that are on the roadmap, so it wouldn’t be fair. All I’ll say is that I’m no longer using Things, and have replaced it with Potion Factory’s The Hit List.

For me, The Hit List’s single feature that sets it apart from Things is the presence of timer functionality for each item in your lists. You simply select an item, hit B and the timer starts. As a freelancer (or anyone who works on billable projects, really) this is incredibly useful. I create lists that directly map onto projects that I’m working on, so being able to log time against each item shows me not only how long each aspect takes me (for future quoting), but how much to charge.

The Hit List is still in beta, but I’ve found it to be very usable. I’ve only had to restart it once, when the HUD wouldn’t invoke, and it’s not done it since so I’m happy! There is also the promise of an iPhone app (which I have found to be almost a must-have), which I hope materialises soon.

Now that I have my GTD app in-hand, I’m able to make lists and set deadlines. My compulsiveness doesn’t like deadlines, oh no. It forces me off the sofa and to the sink to do the washing up, or to take out the bins, or to send the email I’ve been putting off and offers laziness as a reward. How generous!

So, there you have it, if you’re compulsive like me, but also incredibly lazy at times; try pitting your compulsiveness against your laziness. If you give it the right ammo, compulsiveness always wins!

I say “review”, but I’ve only had it a day so I can only comment on so much.

The main problem I have (other than an insatiable addiction to bags) is that I like to always have my camera on me. This is normally OK, but sometimes I need to take my laptop when I go out, but I don’t want to leave my camera. Until recently, I’ve been using a Jansport messenger bag, but it doesn’t provide a lot of support for my camera and lens (as I horrifyingly discovered) and there’s no space for anything other than camera and lens.

…