News and Weather

Work has been a pain in the ass recently, and to top that off, I discovered today I maxed out on my vacation time, which not only means that I worked overtime (unpaid) but also that I've lost four hours of pay by not accruing more vacation. So, I've booked some time off in August. Yippee!

Anyway, a couple of days ago I joined The Vault (edit: now at The Vault), or as my friends affectionately refer to it, Thevault (pronounced Tivo). This means I get to watch a lot of White Stripes, Raconteurs and The Dead Weather videos in far higher quality but far crappier streaming than at other sites, and have the benefit of 'exclusives', which are videos Jack White hasn't yet given away to some other site in a fit of gifting. I suspect that like the Q&A Video (Full name The Dead Weather, Their Oral History and Future Plans, an explanation and an apology from the band themselves) which was given away to Boing Boing, they'll all escape sooner or later. Until then, they're exclusive (man).



Normal Dead Weather.

I lucked out because the very day after I joined, The Dead Weather did a little impromptu live show for teh fanz. Everyone who got the word in time - Thevault tweets us - sat on the website to watch Jack and the boys and girl go through two songs, Rambling Man (Hank Williams) and a light version of So Far From Your Weapon, apparently while in their dressing room waiting for tonight's real live show. Cool it was, although it was possibly a mistake to upload an entire rock band through a laptop webcam attached to a 56k modem. It was a 56k modem, wasn't it? It streamed like one. It's a wonderful idea and they looked as happy as The Dead Weather ever looks (somewhere between dejected and thunderous, rather than their trademark depressed and furious). It was an intimate little gathering that combined the quality of feeling invited into something special with the qualities of neither party having to dress up and interact with other people. It put a smile on my face anyway.



Happy Smiling Live Dead Weather.

The fans failed to reciprocate TDW's unusually good nature and lobbed complaint messages about the sound and video frame rate into the chatroom. Bloody kids. In my day we had to chivvy the whole village into banding together to form a public limited company with enough wherewithal to buy a clipper ship before we were able to bring rock stars over from America. It took six weeks with a fair wind and even if they avoided being boarded by pirates [nasty] they all had scurvy by the time they landed. You have to admit this modern streaming whatsits is better than *that*. At least they keep their teeth.

I've just realized it's called The Vault, i.e. where vampires live. I'm kind of slow. I suppose all the upbeat, sunlit names like Stately Pleasure Dome were taken or something.

(Edited: The Vault moved from Modlife and its famous stream rate.)