I wielded a video camera in earnest for the first time in a little while last night. Hobart pub-rock artistes “17HZ” were launching their album at the Republic, and they had a few cameras in attendance to capture the event.

I managed to talk my way into shooting from side of stage, which was great fun – I’ve always preferred to go handheld rather than be lumbered with a tripod. So while my arms are a bit achy today as a result, I think I got plenty of cool shots, and I’m looking forward to seeing it all cut together.

The guys had gone to some trouble with the lights, bringing in a fair arsenal of bits & pieces to complement the Republic’s rather modest collection of hardware-shop coloured garden floodlights. Well, by complement I guess I mean entirely replace. It was no Pink Floyd show (unless we’re talking mid-60s perhaps) but it felt a bit more like a “real rock show”.

No pictures to show, alas, as I handed the tape straight over at gig’s end. but once it’s on youtube I’ll provide linkination.

Why is it that Windows XP feels infinitely faster and more responsive on my Macbook than OSX Leopard does?

Don’t get me wrong – I love OSX, it’s shiny and friendly and ergonomic and all those good Apple-y things. But it’s also a little sluggish feeling. Windows is not so nice, but I always feel a little more productive when I’m in that environment. And for some reason my wireless, which might be generously described as “tentatively feasible” on the OSX side of things, suddenly becomes reliable and speedy in Windows. Perhaps it’s a driver issue, but you’d think that if there’s ONE thing Apple could get right running their own OS on their own hardware, it would be drivers.

Sigh.

I’m going to change the focus of this little regular verbal skittering. Out with the music-only slant for a start – there are many more strings to my bow, and it doesn’t really make much sense to arbitrarily limit myself to one of them. I think I had this notion that you can be taken more seriously in a field if you devote yourself to it (or at least give the appearance of devoting yourself to it) but after careful consideration, deliberation, and other words ending with “ation” I’ve reached the conclusion “bugger that”.

Which is why, you might have noticed, there is no musical news in this particular message. It’s not that there isn’t any to be reported – there is at least a little – but I sort of want to keep this “focus change” post a bit clearer. Well, apart from all this rubbish I’m going on about now.