I've watched the video for ABBA's new single "I Still Have Faith in You" dozens of times now, but only today did I notice that at about 3:07 in the video there's a ticket stub for ABBA's 1979 concert at Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton. Thanks to Sean for providing the link above to a cool CBC story about the concert. 

And here's the music video itself. 

 

E-Waterloo

A couple of weeks ago, I finally gave in an ordered an e-reader, which arrived on the Friday before Christmas. I resisted for many reasons, some of which still bother me:

• You don't own e-books, you licence them, which means you can't resell, loan, or give them away without breaking the terms of your licence
• They don't smell right (or at all)
• You can't fill shelves with them
• The reading experience is sterile
• How much electronic waste are millions of generations of e-readers going to generate over the next couple of decades? 

I finally gave in because something I feared eventually happened: some of my favourite authors are no longer publishing traditional books in the physical world. Unless I resort to piracy, I can't read their stuff. 

It was Lois McMaster Bujold who broke me. She's written several new books set in the same fantasy universe as The Curse of Chalion, The Hallowed Hunt, etc., and you can't buy print copies because they don't exist. 

Hence my surrender. To ease the pain, Sylvia bought me a very generous Amazon gift card, which I've used to fill my new Kindle with electronic books. 

I knew it would happen eventually; I just didn't expect it to be this soon. E-books, how does it feel now you've won the war? 

ABBA: The Movie

This is a weird little nothing of a film, a faux-documentary chronicling a hapless Australian DJ's attempts to record an interview with the 70s supergroup ABBA before the band leaves the country. Much to the consternation of his boss, the DJ hops from Sydney to Perth to Adelaide to Melbourne before securing his interview, completely by chance, in an elevator just before the Swedish minstrels are due to fly off to Europe. That must have been an expensive interview.

Really it's just a chance to show off footage from ABBA's Australian tour, and if you're a fan of the band that's reason enough to sit back and enjoy this frivolous ride. I certainly found myself compelled to sit through it, having happened across it by chance on Turner Classic Movies.

It's also an interesting time capsule of 70s fashion, architecture and design; the clothes sure were colourful then, as were the cars. And you can't help but think how much easier the DJ's task would have been had he had a smart phone...