Monday, December 24, 2007

Merry Christmas to all of my reader

Merry Christmas.

As usual, I've been a slack bastard and haven't sent any cards. I received some, thanks muchly.

[END]

Friday, December 21, 2007

Ripping songs off YouTube

Do you guys know about vixy.net, which enables you to save an MP3 file of stuff on YouTube?

[END]

Hey!

(been trying to meet you...)


I'm fourth on google for the phrase "Mitch Easter solo album". That probably explains why Beth from Atlanta read my post and left a comment. (I always wonder when someone outside my usual readership of two leaves a comment. For example, who is the anonymous who told me about the change in venue of the Rubber Bug gig?)

[END]

Friday, December 14, 2007

God save the village green!

Let's just say that someone is getting the Kinks' "Village Green Preservation Society" for Christmas... And Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, it if arrives before Christmas.

If you've seen the movie "Hot Fuzz" (and I recommend it if you haven't) you will hear songs from these two albums.

It reminded me of the village green at Twickenham. There was a second-hand/antiques shop nearby.

I don't know where this post is going, but here are some YouTube links...

The Kinks, "Village Green Preservation Society"

The Kinks, "Lola"


The Small Faces, "Lazy Sundays"

[END]

There were just two ads in a row with Mr. T in them...

Snickers, "Get some nuts" followed by "World or Warcraft". Hmm, I don't know what to think.

[END]

Friday, December 07, 2007

Canonicity 2

Thanks for the link, interesting discussion, but what do you think?

My personal opinion is that deleted scenes sitting on a DVD listed as "Deleted scenes" are not canon, but if at a later stage they are integrated into the actual episode, they become canon.

I'm not sure about the canonicity of scenes that appear in one version but then are deleted in a "director's cut".

And what about stuff like "Blade Runner", where there will be (is?) a third version. What really happened in that movie (no spoilers please).

Did Greedo really shoot first?

[END]

So are they trying to tell me...

...that Bob Dylan is the fifth Cylon?

[END]

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Canonicity

Boycat's Mum went on a bit of a shopping spree the other day. $600 on herself, $99 on me. But that $99 was Battlestar Galactica Series 1,2 and 3 (plus the mini-series). Each of the seasons has a disc of deleted scenes. Which raises the question, are deleted scenes considered canon?

My opinion is maybe, but probably not.

A scene deleted because the episode is running overtime could well be canon; but they don't really tell us why scenes are deleted, so we won't know if the show-runner wanted to put it in and didn't have the time, or if they dropped it because it wasn't working or because it wasn't quite the direction they wanted to go in. If it wasn't quite what they wanted, it isn't canon. Discuss.

As an aside, Boycat's Mum is a big fan of BG. When it first came on to the Sci-fi Channel [I'd watched it on Channel 10, but I'd lost it somewhere at the start of season 2 because of their dodgy scheduling], I started taping (discing? recording? byting? storing? fat piping to the hard drive? cutting actors out of residuals?) it, and she was sitting on the lounge when I first started watching 33 and it grabbed her attention. She's the one making me rush through the end of season 2 and season 3 now...

[END]

Saturday, November 24, 2007

I'm happier now

I come not to praise Howard but to bury him. Never (ever) forget the Tampa, Children Overboard, Workchoices...

Some thoughts...

Kev-o-sev has a great speech writer.

The Australian economy is not Australian society.

Farewell Andrew Bartlett, I hope you keep blogging.

The Senate is a bit of a worry.

[END]

What's wrong with me?

Why can't I care only about myself? Why can't I be happy if John Howard wins? What do I care if Australia turns into a United States survival-of-the-richest society? After all, we bought our house in 1993 for $145,000 and I'm a gazetted ASO5 in the public service and Boycat's Mum has just won a permanent AO4 - we're pretty much set for life. I don't have to care about people other than my immediate family, so why do I?

Why do I give a crap about people that I don't know who don't have enough money, or education or a good enough job to earn the kind of money that I do? After all, when I run into these people at work they don't like me, so why can't I just say 'Fuck you people, I've got mine'?

[Yes, I've started drinking early. Why doesn't anyone have Don's Party on TV tonight? Did I mention I'm a pessimist? I usually say being a pessimist means you can't be disappointed, but you can be presently surprised. Why do I feel like I'm going to be very disappointed tomorrow?]

[END]

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Top Gun

Jeez guys, I know about Sleep with Me, my point was I've never really subjected myself to Top Gun before (not a fan of Tom Cruise, 80s rock or militaries blowing shit up). The issue is not how smart Tarantino was for seeing the subtext, it's about how could people not be talking about the homoerotic subtext (supertext?) from the day the movie was released, it's so bleedin' obvious.

[END]

Friday, November 02, 2007

Qld Roar, Qld Roar... uh, whatever


So the Roar won tonight. I'm now a member with my tickets to 5 of the next 6 home games. Watch them not win a home game for the rest of the season. Pessimist, me?

Matt Scolaro was almost right. When he left the Reunion last weekend with the Roar down 2-0 or 2-1 he said they would win 3-2. Well, they were 3-2 until the third minute of extra time... (it finished 3-3) so you can imagine that I was very nervous during extra-time this week. But we got the win thanks to a goal from Reinaldo.

Reinaldo scored, finally, because he didn't have time to think. Simon Lynch finally scored last week [his second goal, the first was a penalty] because, again, he didn't have time to think. Don't let these strikers think!

The A-League's slogan this year is "90 Minutes, 90 Emotions". Are they kidding? For a Queensland Roar supporter, there's just one emotion for the whole game. Fear. How will we fuck it up this week?

The Rosalie 1986 21year reunion was last week. I got to see quite a few people I hadn't seen for a while. Of course, I embarrassed myself by not recognising a lot of people. Of course, I never hung out with them at school, why should I remember them now? Luckily my Ambassador, Boycat's Mum was there - she introduced herself to people and got their names. (And all the Phoneman family goss.) Jeez, Javier Sanchez looks like he should be playing in Serie A. Paul looked well-rested, strangely. Avio is balding. Whimpy is just himself, but 20 years older. I'm babbling.

[END]

The worst sentence I've ever seen in a court decision

"The pettifogging casuistry exhibited by the defendants' arguments is to be deprecated."
See Paragraph 4.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Misc 071003

I watched Top Gun last night. How gay is that movie?

Is anyone else suffering through a plague of moths?

Can the Queensland Roar's bad record against New Zealand teams continue? I'll be there Friday night to see if I ever get to see a Roar victory live.

It'll be 32 degrees here tomorrow. It's only October, for god's sake.

Anyone gonna buy the new Radiohead album? (Apparently, yes.)

Happy Sputnik day (for tomorrow).

Sulu gets his own asteroid.



[END]

Oh, crap...

It's the yearly Daylight Savings debate.

[END]

Friday, September 07, 2007

Congratulations

You have one of those. I still am one of those.

So Syme will have to share a birthday. That'll be easy to remember.

[END]

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Torchwood Series 2

Who knows if those of us relying on free-to-air will ever see Torchwood series 2? In the middle of Series 1, Channel 10 dropped it back to midnight Tuesday night, so I don't hold out a lot of hope of them showing series 2.

[END]

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Steve Fossett is missing

Steve Fossett, billionaire adventurer's plane is missing. I don't really care one way or another about billionaire adventurers, but he did keep me entertained the week I was recovering from my first bike accident, so I hope he's okay.

[END]

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Friday, August 31, 2007

You know you're old when...

You realise "Bust a move" by Young MC is 17 years old.

He'd be Old MC by now.

[END]

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Apparently, I didn't go to school with the mad bomber

According to an anonymous commenter - and why shouldn't I believe them, this is the internet and I believe everything I read - John Amundsen was only at Rosalie for Grades 4-7, then he went to Terrace in 1979. So I didn't go to school with him, I only went to the same school as him. (Although if you want to argue that the Primary and Secondary sections were different schools, then I didn't even do that.)

It's weird getting comments on a posting from May 2006 - and no, I don't compulsively check all of the comments from old posts, I get an email - my article must come up on Google or something.

Speaking of Google, a blog post of mine was second top when you searched for "Minnesota Triplets" recently. (Someone from Minnesota who had triplets was first). Now we're second, because the news.com.au entertainment guide page (listing the Zoo gig) is now first. Take that, Patrick Smith, who didn't believe I was in a Hüsker Dü tribute band.

[END]

Monday, August 13, 2007

C'mon, admit it...

...we all went through a Star Trek phase.

I remember someone (Paul? Syme?) years ago telling me they had rented the latest TNG videos and put them on their credit card because they had no money left (eat or watch Star Trek? Eat or watch Star Trek? Hmmm...).

I was watching the original Battlestar Galactica on the Sci Fi Channel, and that was followed by Firefly ('Serenity Pt 2') and that lead straight into the Sunday Night Trek-fest.

TNG
was something about Worf's son Alexander coming back from the future to save himself from turning out to be such a wuss. In Voyager, 7 of 9 got multiple personality disorder because of some virus Species 6339 created, then DS9 had an episode where Keiko had been taken over by a wraith who wanted to kill the wormhole aliens and forced O'Brien to sabotage the station to help. Then Enterprise was on - I haven't seen much Enterprise, but honestly, who has? - someone was trying to find out what Reed liked to eat. And then TOS had the infamous "Spock's Brain".

My point is, hands up if you have no idea what I'm talking about.

No one has their hands up, do you?

We all used to watch and even if we haven't seen anything for such a long time, we all know the characters and the situation and thus we could all watch any episode of any show and know immediately what is going on.

[END]

Another Girl Another Planet

The Sci Fi Channel is using The Only Ones' Another Girl Another Planet as music in one of their advertisements.

I first heard this song on a movie soundtrack that my sister, Anne*, had - I think the movie was called "That Summer" but it's really hard to find details about it. The listing on IMDB seems about right, but it doesn't have soundtrack info, so I can't be sure. Bob-speaking will know.

Anyway, whatever the movie was called, the soundtrack was fantastic - it was the first time I heard the Undertones (the song was probably Teenage Kicks) and it had The Only Ones of course, and many more that I can't remember right now.

I've often thought that this was the best soundtrack for any movie I'd never heard of.

*Anne was way ahead of the game musically; before they got stolen she had the Go-Betweens' Lee Remick and the Riptides' 77 Sunset Strip 45s.


[END]

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Holy crap, Boycat's got his own MySpace page...

Link

[END]

Grant Hart answers questions

Myspace blog

[END]

ReacTable

Given that at least half my "audience" reads Wired, you've probably seen this; but, the reacTable is pretty cool.

I'm not sure if it will ever be anything more than an alternative to the Theremin, or if anyone other than Bjork can do something with it; but it's an interesting project.

I can see people using it in the studio, to set up a sound (like a mutated beat) and then using it, or editing different things together, but using it live seems problematic.

On the off chance you don't know what I'm talking about, here some YouTubules:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0h-RhyopUmc

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MPG-LYoW27E

Bjork - Pluto




[END]

Friday, August 10, 2007

We sing better than your wife


David Beckham played his first Major League Soccer (MLS) game for the LA Galaxy today (Thursday night U.S. time) in front of 45,000 people at RFK Stadium in Washington D.C.

Beckham came on as a sub in the 72nd minute.

His team lost 1-0 to (Washington) DC United, but he did do one nice pass to Landon Donovan while he was on.

Beckham has technically been an MLS player since 1 July, but apart from 14 -odd minutes against Chelsea in a friendly, he hasn't played because of an ankle injury picked up with England and exacerbated with Real Madrid.


Destinies converge: Last year, Fred played in Melbourne's A-League winning team, this year he's playing in MLS for DC United. Last year, David Beckham played in Real Madrid's La Liga winning team, this year, he's playing for the LA Galaxy.

[END]

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Paully Paul B

No Bragg boxset.

Yes, I want it, thanks.

[END]

Dr Who: Reply

Family of Blood hasn't been on free to air yet. (Can you send me instructions on torrents? Although I only have 2GB per month, so torrents are probably out for me.) But Syme, I think you're right with the comments about the big red reset button - I think that's a problem with the 45 minute format, there isn't enough time to develop any depth before it's time to "solve" whatever problem it is.

Even though late-period "classic" Doctor Who was pretty much always four episodes with a very strict structure -- 1. What the hell's going on? 2. That's what's going on. 3. The companion gets taken hostage 4. Resolution -- at least 88 minutes was sufficient for some depth. 45 minutes is just not enough, so two-parters are always welcome. Although, as I mentioned, I hate the Dalek stories. I don't want individuality, don't want love; I just want EXTERMINATE!

Re the Doctor's companion. We're always going to get a modern person because the companion is supposed to be the viewer's "entry" into the story because they're supposibly someone like us.

My fave "companion" of the revived series so far is Mickey Smith; and not just because I saw Kidulthood last week. I wasn't too big a fan of Rose per se, but at least those stories had some depth mostly because we got some feeling for the people left behind. And what it's like to be the tin dog.

Wiki still says Catherine Tate is to be the companion for next year, based on a July BBC article. They say the BBC has "announced" it. The entire article gives me the idea that a lot of other people didn't particularly like Martha either.

BTW - Channel 10 didn't have Torchwood on this week and it isn't on next week either - a repeat Law and Order: SVU is on instead. WTF? [Later: It's on Tuesday nights at midnight.]

[END]

Sunday, August 05, 2007

I chose the new design of my blog because...

it reminds me of classic period TARDIS interior.

[END]

Doctor Who - 2007 series

Syme, when you gave the latest series of Doctor Who a 3, what was that out of? 5 or 10 or 100?

Those of us watching on free to air are up to the Lazarus Experiment. I've got to say, I'm either not warming to Martha Jones or I'm missing Rose. (Or maybe the stories are just crap. For example, I've not been too impressed with any of the Dalek stories in the past three years up to now apart from the battle of Canary Wharf one. And Shakespeare and a knock-off of the Fifth Element, please.)

Actually, it's not Rose I'm missing so much as Mickey Smith. I kind of like it when the Doctor's companions don't really like him. Which is why I'm interested in Catherine Tate coming back as the companion next year. Am I bovvered? Are you disrespecting me?

I might like Martha in Torchwood, too. Two of the Doctor's old companions together would be interesting. Who would Martha have her obligatory Torchwood lesbian kiss with, though?

[END]

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Replies

Triplets - I don't know, night time, I assume.

DVDs - No worries. I'm still living in 2005. And you managed to fit a lot of stuff on. Waiting gave me time to clean up my computer. I have less than two gigs left on my hard drive. I've still got to clean up a lot of these songs where I've got both .wma and .mp3 versions.

[END]

Friday, August 03, 2007

In the City

I'm listening to "In the City" by the Jam. There's a line in it "In the city, there's a thousand men in uniforms/ and I heard they now have the right to kill a man". This was 1977, or something like that. Ask Jean Charles de Menezes about that.

According to the Guardian, the UK Police now want the right to take DNA samples from litterers.

[END]

We've got new computers at work...

they have a DVD drive/CD burner, so I can finally access the DVD Syme sent me, thanks man.

I have some of these albums (some of the Beatles) but not a lot. Groovy.

You are truly Lennon Bell.

[Where does the live Wilburys stuff come from? "My Back Pages" is basically the Byrds version, with Roger (Jim) McGuinn singing.]

[END]

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Misc 070722

I just got broadband. Let's hope it just allows me to do what I used to do on dial-up, only faster. Sure, I've used 516 MB in the past 36 hours.

I got a spanky new phone - a Nokia N73 - with a 3.2 mpx camera and a 2GB music player. This probably isn't that exciting to those of you with your 1 terabyte iPods, but for me it's pretty cool. Oh, and it also make phone calls.

[END]

Minnesota Triplets 2 - UPDATED


The irony of being in a Hüsker Dü covers band is that we have to play the songs live as they are on the records, not like Hüsker Dü play them live.


Dirt keeps talking about some live recording where Bob only sings about five verses in Divide and Conquer (it's got about about 10)... but we have to do the whole lot.


Although not at practice last week with Woodduck, since I was singing. I just sang the same verses over and over, and I only managed to do about 5 verses in Divide...


Photos taken from a live video that I've got, live at the Camden Palace, circa 1985. (Note the reflection of my lounge-room light in every picture.)


[Holy crap, have you seen the photo of Bob on Wiki?]

UPDATE:
Black Sheets of Rain?

[END]

Saturday, July 21, 2007

TARDIS shaped USB hub

firebox tardis usb hub

I searched Syme's blog (hey, the name hasn't changed now for weeks - what's goin' on?) and I didn't see a mention of this, which is strange because I go to Syme for all my TARDIS-related news.

The place that sells the USB hubs also sells little dongles that flash when your phone rings.

[END]

Friday, July 13, 2007

Australian Football - Let's face it, we're not very good

So, like the Americans, we can't beat Iraq, either.

Let's face it, for the entire World Cup, we were ahead for about five minutes - the last five minutes against Japan. Then we lost t o Brazil, came from behind to draw with Croatia and lost to Italy. In the Asian cup, we came from behind to draw against Bahrain and now we've lost to Iraq. Even with Vikuda, Kewell and Cahill on the park, we have to face the fact that we're not very good.

[END]

Minnesota Triplets

The Triplets are playing at the Zoo on October 13 (I think: whatever the Saturday is).

We've had one practice together, which was pretty good, considering we haven't played together for 7 years,and we haven't played these songs for longer than that. The line up is Dirt on vocals, the Alien on drums, Michael Woodrow is travelling from Melbourne to play bass. I'm playing guitar and Ross MacLennan is also playing guitar. Ross played bass at a practice two weeks ago at Red Star, 37 Brookes St, Bowen Hills.

We'll be there tomorrow - Saturday - from 10 til 2. I haven't worked out with Ross who will play what, but I don't really see the difference between a 4-piece Triplets and a 5-piece Triplets.

[END]

US Election 2008 - The contest I'd like to see

Ron Paul vs. Mike Gravel

[END]

Friday, June 15, 2007

The Avengers (Movie)

Nine years late, I've seen The Avengers movie. Yes, it's garbage. And the worst thing about it: Uma Thurman. What were they thinking? Some of it is quite droll, but they needed someone a lot better to play against Ralph Fiennes.

[END]

Petrol prices

How stupid can people get - on the news a few weeks ago "Petrol prices leap by seven cents ahead of public holiday!" Well, of course: it was Thursday. Petrol prices always go up on Thursday; and that particular week, they didn't go up as much as they usually do.

Today (Friday - after the weekly rise) the price was $1.19. Two weeks ago, on a Tuesday (before the rise) the price was $1.20 - prices are coming down.

And anyway, if the government were really serious about global warming and stuff, they wouldn't complain - prices are too low anyway.

[END]

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Misc 070609

For those about to enter the institution of marriage, we salute you. But you know what they say about institutions... Seriously, I hope you're planning on procreating: on Peter Costello's standard of one for you, one for your partner and one for the country; you, me, Paul and Danny will be running 11 children behind by the end of this year.

It's raining. (He says, thinking of Marge Simpson and donuts falling from the sky.)

I've had plenty of other things to say in the past few weeks, but then I think "Who wants to hear about that?" I've got to snap out of it: if every blogger thought about whether anyone really wanted to hear what they had to say then nothing much would ever get written.

Atlantic hurricane season started last Friday. Let's hope this year is more newsworthy than last year. I can say that of course because I live nowhere near the Atlantic ocean. Maybe what Pensacola needs is another big storm to clean up the Saufley Field landfill.

I've been remiss in posting my tedious local sports reports this season. Basically, the Souths Logan Magpies and Taringa Rovers had horrible starts to the season. The Magpies are second last and I haven't seen a table for the Brisbane Men's Soccer Premier League, but I'd guess Taringa would be in around the same position.

But, in the NRL, it's good to see the Gold Coast Titans doing better than the Broncos.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Australia Card II

Here's a fantastic quote from a brochure on the Government Surveillance Card.. sorry "Access Card"...

"Nobody will be denied access to services if they don't have an access card, but from 2010 people will need to be registered and have a card in order to access Commonwealth benefits, such as Medicare rebates."

Translation: Nobody will be denied access to services if they don't have an access card, but from 2010 people who don't have an access card will be denied services.

[END]

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Gun nuts

Boy, the gun nuts are getting me down.

I know I could just stop reading "Reason" but I agree with them on so much other stuff that when the odd story comes up that I know I'll disagree with, I try to read it to expose myself to some other arguments. (Except when they're writing their global warming denial articles; I draw the line at that.) Reason are libertarians, and they believe in personal freedom. For them, that means the freedom to own guns since what a person does in their own homes is no one else's business. The trouble with that is that, if a person fires their gun in their own home the bullets don't just miraculously stop at their edge of their property. Whereas I believe my personal freedom means I have the right not to be killed by someone with a gun.

Anyway, I digress. The reason gun nuts are getting me down is that they can't see the other side of the argument. There's been two big furphies that have come up in the wake of the Virginia Tech thing. The first is that if you make owning guns illegal and stop law-abiding people from owning guns that means only criminals will have guns. No, if you make it illegal to own guns there are a lot less guns around, and everyone will find it harder to get them. They don't can't imagine what a society without guns could look like, so all they look at is "I can't get a gun". They seem to imagine that Wal*Mart will still be stocked with loads of guns with the only difference being that they won't be allowed to buy one. They can't see that no guns means no guns. Seriously - do you know how to get a gun? I don't.

The second fallacy came in an article by Steve Chapman in Reason on April 19: "The carnage at Virginal Tech was as bad as gun crimes get, but it was also as rare as they get". What the? What Steve is arguing is that there are a lot less gun crimes - "deadly violence is a diminishing danger" - but that totally misses the point that "some" is still a lot more than "almost none".

But I'm a realist, I know things will never change in America. That's why I will probably never go there again.

[END]

Damn those intended consequences

Under WorkChoices, it's legal to sack someone for the "operational" reason that you can hire someone else for less money. Don't you hate it when things you intended to happen later happen sooner?

[END]

Friday, April 20, 2007

No, the cheese was not by mail

That was pretty much the reason I went to the valley today, to buy some taleggio from "Black Pearl Epicure" (and to do something interesting on this most glorious of days). What they sold me - artavaggio - is actually more of a robiola lombardia. It actually looks pretty much like this picture, stolen from the "Australia on a Plate" website (since it's the same brand as the one I bought):
I obviously didn't pay attention to the end product when they covered taleggio on "Cheese Slices".

(I also spent $20 on parmagiano-reggiano.)

[END]

April 20 - set the last

We'll make this the last one. It's dark and the battery on my camera has run out. It would only have been a picture of my feet anyway.

5.20pm. Storm's a-comin'.

[END]

April 20 - ring in

I won't be posting this one to the other blog or flikr group, so you can only get it here.

I like this, because - while the over-saturation has been post-processed - the radial blur was done in camera.

[END]

April 20 - set the third

In which our intrepid reporter sits around the house photographing things, while wondering why he spent $30 on artavaggio cheese (it smells like garbage-water).

2.20pm. Boycat on the bed.

3.20pm. Lucky wonders what the hell the sculpture behind him is all about.

4.20pm. Not playing, just photographing.

[END]

April 20 - set the second

I drove to the valley, left Boycat's Mum and the car there and then caught a train to Beenleigh and then a bus home.

11.20am. Preparing to upload first set of pictures.

12.20pm. Relaxing with the tv.

1.20pm. At the Hyperdome.


[END]

April 20 - Set the first

6.20am. Looking south towards Beenleigh

7.20am. On the freeway, Brisbane

8.18am. At Brunswick Street Station

9.20am. The 9.20 Gold Coast train

10.20am. Student art in Beenleigh
[END]

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Ugly new word of the day

COMPLEXIFIED.

As in "The Republicans greatly complexified the tax code..." (quote taken from the New York Times.)

Yes, the tax code was humongoed in its complexification.

[END]

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Misc 070417

Only three days to go...

With the Virginia Tech shooting , they are angry about the fact that notification was slow for over two hours after the first couple were shot in a dorm room. I think the reason is two people shot was no biggie. This is not my usual "a few less Americans is a good thing" view - I'm just saying that so many people get shot over there that, statistically, two more wouldn't have seemed like a big deal.

John Howard still doesn't get it. He acknowledges he's behind in the polls and all he can say is "What it means is that I must work a lot harder to point out the dangers of a federal Labor government." No buddy, you've got to work a lot harder to point out the positives of continuing with a Liberal government.

Thursday, April 05, 2007

Photos from Melbourne

Yarraville houses

The Pub of the Rising Sun

Ted Whitten outside Whitten Oval

Lavender

Yarraville

Yarraville station [END]

I hate CD reissues with bonus tracks + Mitch Easter solo album!

Don't you hate it when they reissue CDs you already have with bonus tracks?

All three of Let's Active's CDs have been re-released as collector's editions (or is that "collectors' editions"?) all with bonus tracks. I bought my Let's Active CDs 15 years ago, I don't want to buy them again.

Maybe, when they do these editions, they should put out one more CD, with just all of the bonus tracks on it. Nah, if they did that, they wouldn't get enough money out of the poor fanboy suckers.

In other Mitch Easter news, he's finally released his first solo album, "Dynamico". Mind you, the second and third Let's Active albums were pretty much solo albums anyway. There's a free track available here. Not surprisingly, it sounds very much like Let's Active with slightly better production.

Speaking of Let's Active, there's some interesting live stuff on YouTube. It's a shame that the audio doesn't sync well with the video.

[END]

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Drop and give me 50 (millilitres)

So, the Australian Sports Anti-Doping people claim they've done nothing wrong by making a bunch of schoolkids do what would be considered indecent exposure if an adult did it to provide urine samples without parental consent because, they say they have "the right to test any children who play sport covered by an anti-doping policy at any time."

So, if you're playing football in the park watch out, some dirty perve from ASADA might be coming after you. You don't have to be playing in a competition organised by a governing body that has signed-on to the ASADA code, you just have to be playing a sport.

[END]

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Misc 070403

New from Ikea: Flat-pack houses

This is the benefit of stacking the courts: everything is legal - even if it's potentially illegal - if the court won't even look at the case.

John Howard won't sign Kyoto because he says it would be economically damaging to Australia; it "would have disadvantaged Australian industry". But then he says that "Australia is on track to meet its own Kyoto targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." There appears to be a large contradiction there, leaving aside the fact the we can't have our "own Kyoto targets" if we haven't signed Kyoto. We're on track to meet reductions targets. These are the same targets that we would have if we'd signed Kyoto. These are the same targets that the government says would damage Australian industry. But we're on track to meet them without damaging or disadvantaging Australian industry. So doesn't that prove the 'signing Kyoto will disadvantage Australian industry' thing is false? (My own opinion, informed only by my own cynicism, is that the government is lying about being on track to meet Kyoto targets.)

[If I'm being totally honest (and I'm not saying if I am) I'd like for nothing to be done about global warming. I think it would be fun living in 'interesting' times. I like maps and aerial photos and such, so it would be fun to go down to the beach and every so often and go "I remember when the water was only up to here, I remember when that island was a part of the mainland" - it'd be like living in southern Louisiana. Let's face it, I don't know anyone personally who lives in any of these threatened Pacific Island countries, so while it will be sad if loads of them die, it's not going to affect me personally. Mind you, I don't have kids. I might feel differently if I had to worry about future generations. But I doubt it, since I'm dead inside.]

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Sunday, April 01, 2007

Yeah, add me to the April 20 Blog

You have my email address, send me details at work.

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Thursday, March 29, 2007

What a let down, they're just cartoons

If you hadn't seen them yet, here is the page showing all 15 of the U.S. Star Wars stamps.

http://www.uspsjedimaster.com/main/vote/view_stamps.html

What a gyp - they're drawings. And Artoo doesn't even get his own stamp - even the gay robot gets his own stamp. R2-D2 has to appear with Leia in the famous "Artoo is a postbox" scene.

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Worthless anger management class, I hate it so much. I spit on it...

Of course, I'm not a 19-year old being assaulted by her dad, but I think this whole Ukrainian swimmer thing is a hoot. Real life imitates The Simpsons. "Go home little girl..."

Meanwhile I'll believe cane toads have really evolved when they learn how to talk. I think this is less about 'evolution' than it is about literal survival of the fittest.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

And of course, we welcome our brothers and sisters in Local 420

Whether you're the Steamfitters' Local 420 of Philadelphia or the Municipal Hospital Employees' Union Local 420 of New York, you're welcome to join the party.

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These guys seem like fun, can we let them join?

There's a "religious" "sect" called Temple 420. They seem to have the right idea, they should join the April 20 party!

Temple 420: Congregation of Christians, Jews uses marijuana for religious sacrament

Woo hoo! Bong hits 4 Jesus!

(They have a website, but Google warns that it might damage my computer. Sounds heavy, maaan.)

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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Great new music (from 6 months ago)

Yep, I'm about 6 months behind listening to music I've downloaded from Salon.com. (I have about 400 Meg to go...) So this song is new to me, but it might be old hat to you.

Yo La Tango - "Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind"

This sounds like a cross between Statues by Hüsker Dü and a Slaughterhouse Joe song (I can't work out which because, did I tell you?, the cassette player chewed up my SHJ tape.)

Warning, this is about 15,000Kb, so it's a big download for those of us on dial-up.

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Monday, March 19, 2007

Yes, John; yes we will.

'Voters will focus on Govt's record, not resignations: Howard' is the headline on ABC Online.

Yes, John, we will judge you on your record. But do you really think that's a good thing?

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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

I was going to do 'even more updated', but I figured, nah.

Thanks for the info, Syme. I saw the stuff about what someone said at a Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con somewhere on wiki, but I couldn't find it again.

I knew that Serenity didn't make its production costs back - but who knows, the DVD might sell well...

I agree, a new format could be considered to be going forward. And he has every right to return to Buffy, his most popular series; but, it's still going back. Forwards plus back equals?

I was going to ask what the B5 reference was about. Now there was a show that milked it way past its use-by date. (And you know what happens to milk past its use-by date.) It lost me when, after compressing the 5-year story into 4 years, it then tried to expand it back to 5 years. "I know let's do a couple of stories about characters that only the hard-core fans care about." Oh, and let's do a prequel movie where all of our characters miraculously turn up in the same place years before they knew each other...

Still, it's disappointing to only have about 13 episodes of Firefly to watch, when you know there could have been more. And River really only kicks ass in, what?, one episode and the movie? Shame.

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Sunday, March 11, 2007

I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I... [UPDATED]


Has anyone heard rumours about a Serenity 2? Apparently Summer Glau or someone was at a Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con in Brisbane, and she said something which fanboys have taken to indicate she's seen a script for Serenity 2.

See Comments - Syme seems to think that going back to Buffy is going forward. Ha.

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Friday, March 09, 2007

Why is Syme blogging on Paul's blog?

Just askin'.

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They're coming right for us!!!



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The angelic lips of feeling too damn good

I recently had to listen to a lot of commercial FM radio.

There wasn't much choice: when the two of us are in the car, I don't have control over the radio and we were staying at Boycat's Mum's sister's place in Melbourne and she listens to a station called "Mix 101". A mix of all the same old crap, I guess.

In country New South Wales, there is a series of stations called Star FM. They are interchangeable - they all play the same music and their announcers all sound the same. Unfortunately, they don't play the same music at the same time which means that when you drive too far from one transmitter and have to find the next station, you get to hear all of the same songs all over again.

And boy, even different bands are starting to sound the same. There is a song around at the moment called (I think) "The Lips of an Angel". Because FM radio doesn't back-announce you don't get to hear the name of the band, but I was pretty sure it was Nickelback. It took a week and a half to discover that it wasn't. (I can't remember the name of the band now, it's something like "Fester". [I've just checked online and it's 'Hinder'; I knew it had six letters.] I know their album has -- get this, how novel -- a chick in a bikini on the cover because I saw an ad for them on TV within about, I don't know, 10 seconds of getting home.)

Although at one stage - between Goulburn and Yass, I think, there wasn't much on the radio that we could pick up, so Boycat's Mum let me listen to Matthew Sweet. She must have listened to about 8 out of 15 songs on Girlfriend, plus Sick of Myself (twice - she likes it) and Scooby-Doo Where Are You. That's pretty good, as she tends to be a Nova girl. (We did try listening to Vega in Sydney, but there were a few too many '70s songs for her liking, so we'd changed that to Nova before we'd even made it into the city.)

Random Comments on current "Popular" music.
  • I hate Nickelback, all of their songs are sub-grunge garbage. And get the damn frog out of your throat and sing, Chad.
  • When I was an ASO3, supervising the ASO1s, they used to listen to the radio. I had a rule that they could listen to commercial radio until one of several bands came on - guaranteed to be within an hour or so. Barnesy or Chisel, Billy Joel, Dire Straits. These days I'd have a new list. These are songs I'm very sick of after the past few weeks. I don't know the proper names, because there's no back-announcing:
  • - "The Light Surrounding You" (Evermore?)
  • - "How to Save A Life"
  • - "Lips of an Angel"
  • - anything by Nickelback
  • - The new Avril Lasagne song. Avril must have worked out that "I'm With You" was a big hit so now her new song "Keep Holding On" is just a remake. Is this what the kids today call Emo?
  • -I'm sure there's more I just can't think of them at the moment.
  • I notice the trend of people just singing over other people's songs and calling it their own continues unabated, although I do like that "Falling in Love Again" song, even though they break into "Head Over Heels" by Tears for Fears in the middle.
  • I don't mind the current Gwen Stefani song, it kind of has a 50s feel; but, I'm sure I'll be sick of it soon.
  • Who are these "Fall Out Boy" people?

...well my batch job is coming to an end, so I'll finish now...

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Friday, March 02, 2007

Well, I'm back...

From driving to Melbourne, with a 4-hour stopover (yesterday) in Sydney. Danny's well, if anyone's interested.

I took some photos, which I'll post if they turn out any good (it's hard to tell on the screen of a mobile or cheapie camera, so I'll have to download them to see.)

I feel like I'm ready for my liver to be made into foie gras, even though we didn't go out to eat all that often while we were down there. Although we did spend $299 for lunch for three, but that was at Fifteen Melbourne and I had some lovely pork with lentils, a nice pasta and a cheese platter. And most of a $50 bottle of wine - after sharing a $40 bottle - because I wasn't going to leave a single drop undrunk at those prices.

The trip was more for the benefit of Boycat's Mum's sister (it was her 35th birthday, the first since her separation) so I was a bit superfluous a lot of the time. Which was kind of okay, because I like catching trams and looking around but Boycat's Mum likes shopping.

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Saturday, February 10, 2007

Do proverbs make sense?

"Waste not, want not"

What does this mean? If you don't want it, you don't waste it?

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Friday, February 09, 2007

The Sanity Assassins - #1 on mp3.com.au

...on the "Grunge" chart.

Yes, the denizens of mp3.com.au must have questionable taste.

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Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Apple, Inc. Vs Apple Corps - who cares?

So Apple and Apple have come to an arrangement.

Why did they have to fight in the first place? Apple (Computer) could so easily sell its music stuff under the brand name of "iTunes" (i.e, drop the Company's name altogether) which is probably better-known than the name "Apple" anyway.

And woo-hoo, people will now be able to buy Beatles music to stick on their MP3 players. They've been able to do that for years, they're called CDs. (And there's no pesky Digital Rights Manglement on MP3s you rip yourself.)

On another note, I'm probably going to buy my first MP3 player this week; Aldi is selling one for $70... I hope it handles WMA files.

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Monday, February 05, 2007

You can probably skip this one

The Qld Police Union are "extremely angry at the treatment of Senior Sergeant Hurley."

Yes, imagine being held to the same standards as a regular member of the public. It's a travesty, I say!

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Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Bog Water

I'm for drinking recycled water, by the way. I mean, do people think birds and fish and things don't already crap in the dams.

9 News had a poll which showed only 55% support; but it was a phone in-poll which means the more motivated people (the ones who are against it, given that President Pete's decision means those who are for it have lost motivation) have more incentive to ring and vote. Clive Berghofer
probably voted a thousand times.

9's just done a story on Vista. Given that they're in partnership with Microsoft at Ninemsn, it's not surprising that they gave it a positive review. But we can do without the falsehoods in the story, thanks - 95% of computers use Windows, ha!

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Monday, January 29, 2007

Government also stops caring about its heritage

Another government department name change that escaped my attention last week -- because, let's face it, it's not very riveting stuff -- was the name change from the Department of Environment and Heritage to the Department of The Environment and Water Resources.

So, in one reshuffle, that's multiculturalism AND our heritage gone.

Also, that brings the total of departments with the acronym of "DEWR" to two. Although they added the word "The" to the name, so maybe they want to be "TEWR"

And in an update, the DICs at Immigration have allowed some agencies to use the acronym DIAC. I don't have a pronunciation for this one yet, although "DY-AC" seems to be the only thing that would work.

I'm sure you're all waiting with bated breath.

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Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Immigration department to change name to a bad acronym.

Public Servants tend to refer to their own and other departments by acronym. Thus the (old) Department of Family and Community Services was referred to as "FaCS" (FACKS).

Now that they're Family and Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, one person I know insists on pronouncing FaCSIA as though it were spelled fascia (i.e., FAY-SHA), but most people still just call it FACKS, or FACK-SEE-A.

Whether or not the D -- for 'Department' -- is pronounced depends on whether or not it makes a good acronym. Social Security was always called "DSS", not just the "SS". If the D in FaCS had been pronounced, the acronym could well have sounded very much like "The effing Cs".

Still, the Department of Primary Industries and Energy has -- or at least had -- an acronym (DPIE) that is pronounced "Dopey", so not everyone thinks about the acronyms before naming the department.

And it shows. The Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DEE-MA) has changed name to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. It won't stop them being dicks, though.

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Thursday, January 18, 2007

RSS feeds and new Blogger

If anyone monitors this by RSS, you might have noticed that the feed has gone weird recently. I'm going back through old posts and putting labels on them and the feed updates with the latest one I've done, no matter when it was originally published. Hopefully, this post will fix things up.

But if not, meh. I'll be doing it for a little while longer, but I'm not going to do them all. I think.

And, yes, I did send him Hindu Love Gods.

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Tuesday, January 16, 2007

This is so disgraceful, I'm going to have to use the c-word

Centrelink.

There, I said it. I'm pretty sure it's the first time I've used it here.

If you go into Centrelink to lodge your dole form and you have what used to be known as a 'breach' - they have some new-fangled euphemistic phrase for it now, 'participation failure' or something - they won't process your form. They tell you that no one in the office can help you and they send you over to a phone to call some other place. The problem is you can't get through to the other place; you sit listing to hold music for a half an hour, or sometimes an hour and a half.

Sometimes there is someone in the office who can help you, but instead of getting to see them, they make you go over and ring them up. They make you sit out the front of the office talking on the phone to someone hiding in the back of the office.

You have to do this, or you won't get paid. Ever.

Centrelink used to pride themselves on 'customer' service. Now it seems they just don't care. They used to want to help people, now they make you talk to people sitting 10 metres away from you by phone. I'm sure it's so the staff don't get to see the people on the other end as people, just annoyances they can hang up on if they feel like it.

This is symptomatic of the contempt in which the Howard government holds unemployed people. It matches the contempt in which they hold employed people. (c.f. WorkChoices.) If you aren't an employer, they don't give a crap.

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Thursday, January 11, 2007

21st Century Etiquette

If you buy someone a CD, is it okay to rip it before you give it to them?

LATER: Thanks, Syme; just the answer I was hoping for. (See comments.) I don't think my brother would mind, after he doesn't believe in paying for music anyway. It's easy to tell he's never forked out money for a recording session or to get a CD pressed.

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ABBA, Buck's Fizz, Morrissey???

Morrissey is reported to be in talks to write England's next Eurovision entry.

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