This morning I woke to find a bulletin on myspace posted by one of the bands on my friends list pointing to a YouTube video of Saddam Hussain’s execution. I know that YouTube is supposed to allow for user generated content freeing the world from the shackles of what TV news want to show, but I feel this is going too far. I would have thought that Google; owners of YouTube would have more integrity than to allow this sort of content on their networks. I find the clip very disturbing (and I didn’t even watch it), it takes a lot to shock me, I have seen just about everything on the Internet, but this hits an all time low in my opinion, yet people are so blood thirsty that the clip is the YouTube hit of last year! Are we that sick as a society that we need to upload and view this sort of content? It seems so, what’s next live sex shows with minors; where will it end? I am all for the right to free speech and allowing ordinary people to be able to publish their works, but this piece of voyeurism is beyond contempt, what if a child sees this clip, it’s not something a child should be exposed to on the Internet. You would think that a company like Google would have some sort of pre-moderation of videos before they appear on the Internet, or at least look for words like “Saddam”, “Hussain” and “Execution” as well as their common misspellings. Previously I haven’t had a bad word to say about Google, but this has brought them right down in my opinion for allowing such voyeurism without any sort of adult filter!
Now that’s the rant out of the way, sports stuff; let’s start with the weekend’s football fixtures. Plymouth Argyle played Southampton at Home Park on New Years Day and it was another disappointing home draw. The visitors took the lead within five minutes of kick off when Grzegorz Rasiak pounced on a Romain Larrieu error to make the score 0 – 1 to Southampton. Plymouth had plenty of chances, but again failed to capitalise on them, it was a full hour before the Pilgrims levelled things with a Barry Hayles shot from 12 yards out neatly tucked away into the top right corner of the net, Hayles was later sent off for a second bookable offence. The game ended 1 – 1, which I really shouldn’t be surprised at really, this result is Plymouth’s 7th home draw this season, which simply isn’t good enough, you expect to win your home fixtures. This leaves the Pilgrims in 13th in the league; seven points off the final play-off place and a massive 17 points off the league leaders. I think that early season hopes of claiming a play-off place is fading very quickly, if we can’t start pulling wins out of the bag, mid table may not be an option as the league is closely contested! Liverpool had a much better day out at Anfield beating Bolton 3 – 0. Peter Crouch opened the scoring in the 61st minute with a superb volley, Steven Gerrard scored yet goal with another fantastic volleyed shot two minutes later. Dirk Kuyt completed the footballing lesson in the 83rd minute with a driving shot along the ground to defeat Jussi Jaaskelainen for the third time on the day. Liverpool now move back into 3rd above Bolton and Arsenal who also won giving Charlton a 4 – 0 thumping at the Emirates Stadium.
More disappointment in the Ashes, England have thrown away another golden opportunity to take the initiative with all England wickets tumbling for 291 runs in their first innings. Why it’s so damn disappointing and frustrating is because at one point England were 166 – 2, then Pietersen and Bell’s wickets fell in quick succession, suddenly there were two batsmen at the crease with zero. The only reason England managed 291 is because of Flintoff’s innings of 89, once he was dismissed; the end was nigh! Australia finished day two 188 – 4 wickets; 104 runs behind England with six wickets intact. But the Aussies have one big advantage, their tail-enders can bat pretty damn well, so can easily add a couple of hundred runs to their total. So I would say that the Aussies have the advantage unless England can knock over the remaining wickets early when play resumes at 11:30(GMT) tonight.
Finally some work/sound engineering babble; let’s start with last nights open mic night at Voodoo, I am seriously wondering whether it’s worth continuing with it. When Konrad doesn’t come down, none of his friends come down, so hence no-one really plays. I was sat around hour and half before anyone decided to play and that was former Voodoo engineer Jim, then Pete’s band The Dharma Bums came down from practice upstairs to play a few songs. Which was the highlight of the night, two guitars, bass, Violin and two vocals, after that no-one played! If there is never going to be any fresh blood coming in to play, what’s the point of having the night? Second thing is that it seems that certain people are trying to usurp me as Voodoo engineer trying to get their engineering friend in to engineer the nights I would have normally done. That person is the one I suspect of damaging the drum monitor as outlined previously, I’m not saying that he is a bad engineer, far from it, but I question his methods especially with concern of volume, in my opinion it doesn’t have to be deafeningly loud to sound good. it has to be loud to an extent, but it doesn’t have to be so loud that 12Kw of amps is being clipped, I personally rarely get near the clip lights and no-one has complained that it wasn’t loud enough, but do compliment me on my sound!
PS: 30,565 people visited this very site last year, that’s something that I find hard to believe. It’s hard for me to imagine that many people would be interested in my random comments and thoughts, but I thank every one of those 30,565 visitors for reading!