/devices/pseudo/bitbucket@0:bitbucket

Today I pumped water from the tank into the pool (with our Onga RivaFlow ittybitty pump) ... and while J and I were off experiencing Sweeney Todd in Gold Class @ Indro, it seems to have been bucketing down all through. That makes 4 from 4 - whenever I put water back into the pool, it rains heavily. Note that because I don't wash our car there's no correlation to be had on that front. Weird. Must be some science-y reason for I'm sure.

While perusing David Dale's SMH blog, I followed on the comment links to Encyclopedia Dramatica's entry on Australia. Quite funny, but very very biting. I particularly enjoyed the photo captions of Koalas, and the pics of Kevin Rudd. Separately, I hit CNN to catch up with the news in Jesusland and realised that CNN is running a political futures market, with a separate sub-market for Super Tuesday. It's very interesting for me to be able to watch how this all plays out, not least because I reckon the whole Electoral College concept is a massively anti-democratic concept.

Last night J and I hopped on the bus to have a good night out - dinner on Little Stanley St at Obsession, followed by Nigel Kennedy and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra playing Mozart's Violin Concerto No.4 in D, K218 and Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major Op, 61. He's a strange bloke, is Nigel. Cockney sorta accent, very interesting stage manner (including gangsta style handshakes with the concertmaster) and he "warmed up" with the Praeludium from Bach's Solo Partita number 3 (in E Major). I've been listening to Richard Tognetti's version of the Solo Partitas and Sonatas for about a year now and it was very interesting to hear the difference in tone. Even allowing for the fact that we were sitting up the back of the QPAC Concert Hall, Kennedy's version seemed quite a bit softer in tone, though every bit as vibrant. The Mozart... well, I reckon Mozart has written better works so I found it quite disappointing. Except for Kennedy's cadenza, that is - first time I've experienced a "whole of orchestra" cadenza. It was really, really good. I hope he records it at some point because it's definitely worth hearing. To round out the first half, Kennedy and the SSO Concertmaster, Dene Olding (who he went to Juilliard with) played some short Bartok pieces. Never been a fan of Bartok, really, so this left me cold. The second half was Beethoven, and a much better piece. Where I found the Mozart to be sort of thin and ill-defined, Beethoven's work was well fleshed out, had serious depth and had much greater exploration of its themes. Of course, I know, he had a greater range of instruments to work with and he wrote it aged 36 whereas Mozart was 19 when he wrote K218. And it shows. To finish off the concert they then played Csardas and an arrangement of Hendrix's Purple Haze. Reminded both J and I of Fourplay String Quartet in style, just a bit. Interesting to experience a similar crossover for classically-trained musicians when they try their hand at Jazz or Rock. Very interesting indeed. So we had a very nice evening, caught the bus home and turned into pumpkins. Technorati tags: topic:{Technorati}[Nigel Kennedy], topic:{Technorati}[Dene Olding], topic:{Technorati}[Sydney Symphony Orchestra], topic:{Technorati}[Mozart], topic:{Technorati}[Beethoven], topic:{Technorati}[Violin Concerto], topic:{Technorati}[K218], topic:{Technorati}[Opus 61], topic:{Technorati}[QPAC], topic:{Technorati}[Queensland Performing Arts Centre], topic:{Technorati}[Obsession Chinese Restaurant]