Up until this point I had managed to completely avoid the buzz surrounding English rock band Muse, but this week I decided to purchase the new H.A.A.R.P. CD/DVD combo; mostly because at under $30 for a CD and a two hour concert DVD it’s a very sweet deal and I knew I’d like some of it.

I wasn’t actually expecting the band to be as impressive as they are, however. The live show is truly something to behold and it reminds me again just how small New Zealand is. The concert was filmed live at Wembley Stadium in London, a venue that holds around 90,000 people, and Muse sold out two nights in a row. The atmosphere and sheer scale must be something that people living in NZ simply cannot comprehend because we have nothing quite like it.

It is however pleasing that more of the big acts are visiting Aotearoa lately. I caught the sold out Chili Peppers concert at the 12,000 capacity Vector Arena last year and despite claims that the sound quality isn’t up to standard, it was certainly a kickass show and the fact that more bands are now including Auckland in their tour schedule is encouraging.

As it turns out the blog theme I was using wasn’t compatible with the latest version of Wordpress, which I upgraded this site to last night. I spent half an hour or so looking around for a good theme but there’s a real lack; it seems that most wannabe theme creators are only in it for the resulting Google traffic as most themes are seriously poor, even those from “designers” who publish a dozen themes on their own dedicated site.

Then I stumbled upon this one which is a decent blend of colour and simplicity. I’ve simplified it further for my cause and plan to tweak it a bit more still.

It’s the winner until I happen to see something better!

I’m a big fan of the old Guns n’ Roses so it amused me to see that the Dr. Pepper soft drink brand has reportedly offered to give a free can of Dr. Pepper to everyone in America if Chinese Democracy is released this year.

I don’t suppose that soft drink fans will be getting their hopes too high, though - Chinese Democracy has been in the works since around 1994 and it still has no set release date. Expenses to this point apparently exceed $13 million. D:

Stumbled across this whilst checking how Phoenix’s season was going at the 3/4 point of the NBA season.

The first dive is comedy in itself; but the reaction to Shaq’s similar buildup when he doesn’t dive the second time is brilliant.

Gameplanet has word of a new Starcraft II trailer. I never really got into the original Starcraft, but I’m looking forward to this - Blizzard historically just doesn’t make bad games and it’s been a long time since a real-time strategy game has interested me. Here’s the trailer: