Having given it a few moments thought after going to bed last night, it becomes very obvious why a play has a greater effect. Indeed it was pretty stupid not to realise it instantly. Unlike a movie or anything else you want to compare it to, in the theatre you are actually watching people. So when something descends into violence, it’s not on a big screen a 20 feet away from you, it’s two people doing their best to make it look real 6 feet in front of you. Not a small or a subtle difference really. I have no idea how I can describe the play. Several people have asked me in work if it was good or if I enjoyed it. I can’t say I enjoyed it, I don’t think I’m meant to be able to say that I enjoyed it. The performances were excellent, the dialogue in places felt stilted but maybe it was meant to be.

I had to collect the tickets before the show from up in Shaftesbury Avenue, right opposite the Forbidden Planet megastore. Having finished Eagle book 4 over the weekend I dropped in looking for book 5 which was unfortunately out of stock. Heading back down towards Leicester Square I stopped by the newish book/cd/dvd store that I can never remember the name of but has always got reasonable prices on everything. I figured the new Ash album was worth a few quid and was quite impressed to see the bonus live CD actually contained 14 tracks. Good stuff there.

A few weeks ago, I sent my sister an email. She’s in Dublin finishing up college at the moment but is due to move to Japan in about a months time. She did a year of college there and has a job set up with one of the local governments. Anyway various bands often do Japan only albums, Radiohead have notably done so for a good while. A couple of months ago, they released a Japan only compilation of live, remixes and b-sides and I wanted a copy. It was not available for export and while Amazon.com had it, they wanted over $40 for it at the time. So I figured I’d get her to have a friend pick it up or wait till she actually got back there. Anyway I was very pleased to see stacks of it on sale in this music store. First track was recorded at a gig I was at in London last year. I always like getting tracks like that. One of my favourite and certainly most played cds is a high quality bootleg of a Sigur Ros gig I was at early last year. Couple of quid more than normal albums but quite happy to pay £12 for it. And seen as I was at it, the Pixies recent live DVD. Really really looking forward to their gigs in a couple of weeks time.

Sad to report that the latest Alastair Reynolds isn’t hold my attention as much as the first 3 books. It’s missing that something which drew me into the others. I think it’s characters, there isn’t really a strong main character in this one (yet) and after having such strong characters coming through right from the start in all his prior books that it’s just not sitting right. By no means is this going to put me off finishin it, but it’s not driving me to sit down and read it. I’ve found myself slipping off to comics as I head to bed rather than my current novel. However it’s possibly not worth noting that I have named all of my ships in Eve after various lighthuggers throughout the novels.

Ok I found something about the new blogger which I *really* like, the search function. It’s Google doing what Google do best and it’s something that I’ve been wanting for a long time. Having just cross posted my last couple of entries there I really should just look at that code which awatson gave me to push blogger into here. Or indeed move to WordPress as discussed on Sk8J. Something to sort tonight I think. Should be a quiet one, maybe a catch up with the lads round here after work. It’s been a couple of weeks since I managed to make it out. It’s working out really nicely now. I have not had a full week in the office for a month and that’s going to continue for another 3 weeks. Just the way I like it.

Also on the good news front (for me anyway), my Thursday night work commitments are over for at least the near future so I should actually be able to make the V drinks in the Fitz on a regular basis and plan on being there from tomorrow evening.

I should go do some work now. I have to figure out why something works perfectly on dev and falls right over as soon as it touches production.