Flour Power

Conan O'Brien just announced via Twitter that he'll be in a 30-city tour around the US, starting April 12th.

The tour is named "The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour", as a clear allusion to the fact that he's barred from having his own TV show until September, according to his severance deal from NBC. The shows are described at the official site - TeamCoco.com - as "a night of music, comedy, hugging, and the occasional awkward silence".

If you're in the US, you should go and buy a ticket now. For those of us in Europe, all we can do is hope Coco comes visit. Well, at least he should come to Ireland, to his ancestor's land. Right?

Last night Dave Matthews Band had their return to Ireland for a concert in The O2, 3 years after their last visit to Guinness-land. The show was opened by Alberta Cross who didn't really manage to warm the crowd up, and got me afraid we would have a below average concert. But slowly the venue got almost full and then Dave and his band, with all their experience in live performances, turned it into an excellent show.

Dave was very energetic as usual, and goofed around and danced throughout the whole gig, stealing some cheers from the crowd. The talk about getting drunk the night before (in a pub with live music and singing even without knowing the lyrics) probably wasn't just talk, and I bet he had a few in him when he stepped on the stage. The leprechaun hat and the pints of Guinness were nice details that made the Irish crowd quite happy.

My favourite song of the night was Ants Marching, with a brilliant violin solo by Boyd Tinsley. Being more of an old-school fan, I thought there were too many songs from the latest album, a total of 8: Funny The Way It Is, Squirm, Shake Me Like a Monkey, Lying In The Hands Of God, Seven, Why I Am, You & Me, Baby Blue. Even so, the band managed to get a few of the classics in, like Stay Or Leave, Gravedigger, The Stone, Crash Into Me and Crush. I was a bit disappointed that some of my own favourites, like #41, Say Goodbye, Jimi Thing or Typical Situation, didn't make it, but it was a great setlist nonetheless. The other problem was the very short, and somewhat lukewarm, single encore. But that seems to be Dublin City Council's fault, with their 11pm curfew... Oh well, I shouldn't be complaining about a great almost-3-hour concert, should I?

I've already mentioned Dave's hectic behaviour that helped ignite the crowd, and the amazing Boyd Tinsley violin solo. Add to that Jeff Coffin's fantastic performance on the saxophone (who seemed to never run out of breath); the less than brilliant but still very good Tim Reynolds on the electric guitar; fan-favourite Carter Beauford on the drums (who threw so many drumsticks to the crowd and I couldn't get my hands on a single one, argh!); Stefan Lessard on the bass; and Rashawn Ross playing trumpet. The result was an awesome concert that started slow but had the crowd roaring for more by the end of the night.

Here's the complete setlist:

Bartender
Stay Or Leave
Funny The Way It Is
Squirm
Shake Me Like A Monkey
Lying In The Hands Of God
Gravedigger
Anyone Seen The Bridge
Ants Marching
#27
Seven
The Stone
Crash Into Me
Crush
Where Are You Going
Why I Am
You & Me
You Might Die Trying
All Along The Watchtower

Encore
Baby Blue
Cornbread

Will be posting some of the videos and photos I was able to take during the show as soon as I have the time to sort through them all. Stay tuned!

I've been going on about this for some time, and finally here's a very organised way of showing the idea.

(via Ferreira's dump)

Yes! More Futurama episodes!

HitFix is claiming that Futurama will return to Comedy Central in June, with the first episode being aired on the 24th.

I say: "That's about time!". The show aired from 1999 to 2003 when it was cancelled. Despite a huge fan base and numerous petitions to bring it back, all we got was a few "extra-long episodes": Bender's Big Score, The Beast with a Billion Backs, Bender's Game and Into the Wild Green Yonder. Then last year Comedy Central finally announced that the network had ordered 26 new episodes to premiere this year. A few months later, fan enthusiasm was temporarily tempered by reports that the vocal talent might be replaced for the run of new episodes, but eventually the full cast reached new agreements and Philip Fry, Bender, Leela and the rest of the Futurama gang will sound very much like we're used to them sounding.

(via HitFix)

Flight of the Conchords, the New Zealand folk comedy duo, will be coming to Europe for a 15-stop tour with dates in the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, and the UK. Jemaine and Bret will be joined by co-stars Kristen Schall (fan-turned-stalker Mel) and Arj Barker (shop owner Dave).

That's awesome news, right?

Well, kind of. Maybe it's good news for the lucky ones who got tickets, but us mere mortals won't make it.

Here's what happened. Tickets went on sale at 9:00 today. And by... I don't know... 9:00 they were sold out (at least the Dublin and London dates). I know that because I was at the the bloody ticketmaster page refreshing it over and over again, and still all the tickets were gone as soon as the "Find tickets" button showed up. How that happened I don't know, but it's very frustrating that I didn't even get a chance. Kudos for the Conchords for having such loyal fans (maybe the tickets were all bought in the Fan Club pre-sale).

As usual, some tickets are already showing up on eBay and other such sites. For 3 times their original price. I feel like shooting those people...

For reference (not that you'll be able to get tickets...) all of the Flight of the Conchords 2010 Tour Dates are:

3rd May- Amsterdam, NL at Melkweg Max
4th May- Amsterdam, NL at Melkweg Max
5th May- Dublin, Ireland at Olympia
6th May- Dublin, Ireland at Olympia
10th May- Birmingham, UK at NIA
11th May- Manchester, UK at Apollo
12th May- Manchester, UK at Apollo
14th May- Glasgow, UK at SECC
15th May- Glasgow, UK at SECC
16th May- London, UK at HMV Hammersmith Apollo
17th May- London, UK at HMV Hammersmith Apollo
20th May- Bergen, Norway at Grieghallen
22nd May- Oslo, Norway at Folkteatern
23rd May- Copenhagen, Denmark at Vega
24th May- Stockholm, Sweden at Cirkus

I think we're safe on the being born and dying parts (although our parents can still be held accountable for our birth...), but I guess we have to stop doing stuff, or Apple will make us pay licensing fees or something.

This is part of my most recent rant against the Cupertino company for the 20 iPhone patents Apple's suing HTC over.

The image above is part of the satellite imagery that Google recently released of the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) - commonly known as The Boneyard. It's a collection of over 4,000 retired aircraft including nearly every plane the US armed forces have flown since World War II.

Get more info at BBC News, or just explore the whole thing in Google Maps.

(via Gizmodo)

It's now more than a month late, but I need to get this one out of the way: on the 15th of January, my Guinness counter hit number 500. It has come a long way since number one, when I first arrived to Ireland.

And since this was more than just another pint, I made sure I drank it in the same pub I had the first one in. And more: I was sitting at the same table. And this took place exactly (give or take a couple of hours) one year after Guinness Pint Number One. Historic, eh?!

"And now what?", you might ask. Well, now I stop counting. It was fun as a topic of conversation, but the fun was gone when people insisted on telling me how much money I had spent on Guinness.

Now that I'm done with the counting, I also got rid of the counter in the sidebar. I just felt the need to point this out, otherwise people might think I stopped drinking Guinness altogether, which is not the case at all. Rest assured, Guinness people, I'll keep sending money your way...

Thanks to @grealish.