Music Blog, Part 1: Locking Down Black Snow Birds

(the first in a 3-part series... that I will complete today. So maybe it shouldn't be cut into 3. But I want to, because the topics are different. like a lot.)

So. Right. This is a blog I had an idea for ages ago on a turbulent train trip to work in which I ended up on the wrong train, and had to jump off the train at North Strathfield and promptly forgot about it. Yes, it was the same day I made a comic about.

The train of thought was inspired by one of many PennPoint episodes where Penn Jillette talked about his feelings after seeing Paul McCartney in concert in Las Vegas. All of these had some interesting things to say, including whether an artist should respect your memory of their previous work (like Paul does) or not (like Bob Dylan), and if Sean Lennon looks frighteningly like his father (he does). The one that got my attention, though, was where Penn discussed "Blackbird", which admittedly is not one of my favourite Beatles songs, and how it's always difficult to describe poetry using prose. To sum up (though I recommend you watch all the videos), he said that people have long posited on the meaning of the lyrics of Blackbird, whether it was a personal story, or whether it was about X or Y or Civil Rights or whatever. Essays have been written (including blogs by The Beatles Complete On Ukelele, which is incredible and you should read/download all of their stuff like I have) trying to contemplate and dissect meanings from this poetry.

Then Paul McCartney came out 34 years after the song had been written and said it was about American Civil Rights.

Right.

As Penn said, him saying what he meant by the song locks down the meaning. It cements the meaning, making all other meanings false, to a given value of false. Well, rather, it makes those other meanings into mere "interpretations" and the stuff of first year university essays (I still say Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher is a metaphor for brother-sister incest, you bastard professor). Admittedly, you could argue about the myth of the Auteur, and that the creator loses control of the work of art the moment it is released into the public, making all interpretations as real as the next until examined (sort of a Schrodinger's Song).

It's a theory I subscribe to, specifically due to the fact that I seem to be ridiculously easy to influence through music. A sad song can ruin my day. Seriously.

Anyhow, I reflect upon something I read in the liner notes of Barenaked Ladies' Greatest Hits album about the song "What a Good Boy". If you ain't heard it, go here for the video. The writer of the song explained in the notes that the song was "a young man's mediation on gender roles", but he had been sent so many interpretations and meanings for the song that were incredibly beautiful and transcended his original intention that he would prefer to let the song mean "whatever you'd like it to mean."

Sniff.

Oh, right. Snow. That Red Hot Chili Peppers song off of Stadium Arcadium. That day at North Strathfield, after I had watched Penn Point, and jumped off the train, this song came on. Now, I don't know if you know this one. I wouldn't have, had Tanja not gone through her "I must own all of the albums" phase of Chili Pepper liking.

Read the lyrics. They're here. Or watch the video.

My interpretation is that it's Anthony Kiedis having writer's block and relying on drugs to (initially) spark his creativity, despite knowing the dangers they pose, because he needs "more than himself to rely on", and that he enjoys the black-and-white morality of the addict: I need more, therefore I will get more, I am not accountable because it's not really me ("all my tracks/will be concealed").

I don't know if that's what he actually meant by the song, but that's what I think. And that matters, for a given value of matter.

Cooking Sunday: White Chocolate Blondies

This recipe originally came from a Revision3 podcast (now sadly cancelled) called Food Mob. It was an interesting show, with very cool recipes, but it had a flaw. The chef, Niall, would be cooking on the fly, and was a bit haphazard with measurements. Often what he would use would differ from the show notes on the website. The show notes themselves would often omit necessary steps and ingredients, or worse, list an ingredient, then never mention it in the instructions. As a result, to get a working recipe, you had to watch the show repeatedly, take notes, compare to the recipe in the show notes, and work out something yourself through trial and error.

This can be frustrating.

But here's one I've adapted from Niall's version and made multiple times. Fair warning, this is a very rich desert. Goes great for bake sales, but if you ate a whole batch to yourself, you might explode. And we wouldn't want that.

White Chocolate Blondies

THIS IS WHAT TO DO:

• Preheat your oven to 200 degrees.
• Take your butter out of the fridge. It'll be hard as a rock, so you can do this ages before, or, if you're stupid like me, you can put it into a ziploc bag, wrapper and all, and dip that bag into some hot water until it softens. Alternatively, you can put a baking tray with an inch of boiling water on the counter and rest the base of your metal mixing bowl in that. Did I mention you'll need a big metal bowl? You'll need a big metal bowl.
• take your big metal bowl (see? Told you.) and dump in your brown sugar. When your butter is soft enough (and you'd better hope it is), put it in with the brown sugar.
• Now comes the hard part. Get a wooden spoon or flat spatula, and mix the butter and sugar together, creaming them. It'll take some muscle. Don't use a whisk. Don't use an electric mixer. Both will just make a big mess and you'll spend half your time trying to pick the mixture out of the mixing-device-beater-tool-tong-thing. Think of this as character building, and reminisce about the last RPG character you made and how awesome they were until the game got boring.
• Now once your mixture is well blended and there are no lumps of butter in it, it should look like this:

• Add your flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda to the wet mix, get your spatula, and mix it all together again. It'll separate out into little globs, but keep mixing. It'll get smooth again.
• Break the egg into the bowl and mix again. You arm might be tired at this point. Switch arms. Seriously, you could hurt yourself.
• Once you've mixed the egg in, spread a handful of walnuts onto a chopping board. Oh, crap, did i forget to put walnuts on the list? You need walnuts. Write that down. So. the walnuts. Spread 'em out like this:

• (the picture is actually two handfuls) Run your knife through them, chopping into little bits. You could use a food processor or a mortar and pestle. Listen to your heart. Pour your chopped-up walnuts into the mixture and stir them in again. You thought you were done with the stirring? No, no, is no done.
• Get your vanilla pod.

• Slice the pod lengthwise and use your knife to scrape out the speckly stuff inside. Into the bowl with it. Stir thoroughly, making sure all the speckles are spread around.
• Measure out your chocolate chips. I use white chips, but really, you can use whatever you like. Into the mix with them and stir for the last time, I promise. The mix should be really thick by this point to where you can stand the spoon up in the bowl with no trouble, to whimsical effect:

Or you could fantasize about the world's unhealthiest lollipop:

Ahem. Anyhow.

• Get your pan, and lay down some baking paper. Scoop your mixture onto it, and flatten it down to about 4cm thick. Make sure there's baking paper between the mix and the pan, otherwise it'll stick.


• Into the oven with it. 20 minutes. Open the oven door, and poke a skewer into the middle. If it comes out wet, give it another 5 minutes.
• Take the tray out of the oven and let it sit for a few minutes, to let it settle back down (I didn't know what the opposite verb for "rise" was). It ought to look like this:

• As soon as you can, use the paper to lift the whole thing out of the pan and set it on a cutting board or tray. Peel the paper edges away and let it breathe:

• As soon as you can (again), chop the whole thing into squares and carefully lift them off the baking paper onto some paper towel (if you do this too soon, they'll fall apart. Judge it). The reason for the rush it that the blondies will leak butter as they cool. The last thing you want is that butter sitting on the paper and making the bottom of your squares soggy. You may need to move them carefully onto new paper towels a couple of times. Once they've settled, you're done! You can dust 'em with icing sugar, but really, they're fine on their own. See?

What I Got (continued)

WATCHING Forgot to mention a few more podcasts. Despite my dislike of their myriad of convention shows, iFanboy is still going strong since leaving Revision3. Their shows on Frank Miller and Starman have been my favourites lately. LifeHacker is one I've been trialing, and is nothing but good so far. It's basically tips on how to streamline and nerd up your life and work, such as making a cord-free office, making an emergency lamp out of a tuna can, or a laptop bag out of your hoodie. PennPoint is handy because when I watch it minimised, it's like listening to a radio show hosted by Penn Jillette. One of the few podcasts where video ain't necessary, which is good when your battery is low, or you have Twittering to do.

APP-ING I've been leaning away from iPhone games lately, using my phone much more for media and web-based stuff, though one has grabbed my attention: ShapeShift may look like a Bejewelled clone, and maybe it is, but it's highly addictive. My only gripe is that it's not timed, but turn-based, and you don't get any bombs (the only things that'll stop a game) until at least 8-10 minutes of gameplay. So until that point there is absolutely no challenge. It's also a battery-suck. I've also been playing a bit of Fruit Ninja, since they updated and added Arcade mode, which really changes up the action, adding power-ups and rewarding you for creativity. I've long been a user of Words With Friends, sometimes running as many as 20 games at a time. This has become its downfall, though, as the sheer number of games combined with an instant rematch after each win or loss has rendered the joy of winning obsolete. As it doesn't matter, then my motivation for playing is lost. I've branched out into its cousin, Hangin' With Friends, but it's not grabbing me as much. The random nature of Hangman means you either get the word straight away or you have no idea and flail about getting things wrong. I therefore don't feel accomplished when I get something, I just feel lucky. Social-media-wise, SoundTracking has been my latest download. It's free, and it is to music what Instagram is to photos. You can have to grab what's playing around you (handy in bars or music shops) or grab what's on your iPhone and post it with a comment. The big honking downside? Nobody's using it. At least, no one that I know. That means the service only exists to post songs to Facebook, Twitter, etc. Without the rich community that Instagram has, I don't think it'll stick with me long. Speaking of Instagram, it's become one of my primary ways of interacting with my social networks. You guys think I tweet a lot? My Instagram feed is 2-3 times as full. However, my love of skylines and clouds has gotten me tons of likes from people I don't know, but annoys the crap of people I actually know. So swings and roundabouts. Speaking of Apps, I still can't find a good blogging app for iPhone that'll let me post photos to Blogger the way I normally do, and it shits me.

READING I've been digging through the pile of books I've had since Christmas and cleared a few off my list. I finally took the plunge and read The Gunslinger by Stephen King. Despite high hopes, I did not like it. I found the language too florid and the characters inscrutable, taking actions I did not understand and they did not explain. I was waiting for the actions to make sense, but no one gave any explanation for what they were doing apart from it's "what I must do." Great. Thanks. One I had no preface to was iBoy by Kevin Brooks. It's a kid from the housing projects outside of London who has an iPhone hit his head from a high height and gets superpowers. Yep. Initially it's just an internal processor and all the knowledge of the InterWebz, but then it extends to a personal forcefield, electrical powers, telekenesis and, well, whatever the plot demands from the scene. No upper limit or explanation is given for these powers, and he essentially runs around beating up gang members until the finale, which by that point I did not care about. It was not a good book. The third volume of Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis, and the series is starting to bug me. It tends to alternate between wonderful, funny and interesting stories, and then perhaps one issue in three will be terrible. It's inconsistant stuff like that that I want to push through to get to the good stuff. Example? A sentient police dog that Spider castrated during a riot seeks revenge upon him. It's exactly as bad as it sounds. But the rest is so good! Argh. However, I am tempted to try the Spider Jerusalem Experiment. For one day, from early morning to late at night, to watch television. To do nothing but watch free-to-air television. Take it all in. I think it'll either result in some amazingly interesting blogness or my brains running out of my ears. I have 8 or so issues of The Word sitting waiting to be perused. i should really do something about that.

LISTENING I've found a cheap CD shop (10 CDs for $50) near my work, so I've resupplied my musicness. Here's a list because I couldn't be bothered keeping up the format of my own blog entry:

• Pulp - Hits (I don't know why I keep buying Pulp albums. I think I need to admit that I like the idea of pulp more than I like the actual music.)
• Two Door Cinema Club - Tourist History (discovered this through Soundtracking, fun electro-indie pop stuff. Highly catchy)
• Grinderman 2 (Grind Harder? Electric Boogaloo? More strange and interesting stuff from Nick Cave and the Dirty Three. However, like with the first album, I'm only keeping about half of it in my rotation.)
• Cold War Kids - Robbers & Cowards (Indie. But not hipsterish. I like it. Next question.)
• Muse - Absolution (More epic soundscapes. Sounds great through big headphones. May lead to slight air guitar)
• Kaiser Chiefs - Yours Truly Angry Mob (cementing the fact that yes, I really like the Kaiser Chiefs. They are fun and I like them.)
• Siouxsie - Mantaray (I've had three tracks (Into A Swan, Loveless & Drone Zone) from this album forever. I think I got the best tracks, as the rest of the album isn't all that.)
• She Wants Revenge - This Is Forever (more of the same from the Joy-Division-sounding darkwave-post-punk-electro duo. This is not a bad thing. This is a good thing.)
• The Puppini Sisters - The Rise & Fall of Ruby Woo/Betcha Bottom Dollar (Andrew-sisters-1940s-style-close-harmony-singing mixing covers of Beyonce and the Bangles with old school swing hits. Addictive and wonderful.)
• The Bravery - The Sun And The Moon Complete (What's this? a two-disc set with the same songs on each? It's the original garage-sounding 2007 album on Disc-1, and the same songs redone and re-recorded with a more electronic synthy twist on Disc 2)
• The Pipettes - We Are The Pipettes (60s Girl Group tribute act. Pure summer pop goodness. Check out Pull Shapes, as mentioned in Jamie McKelvie's Phonogram: The Singles Club)
• ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - So Divided (these guys continue to impress me, though seemingly no two of their songs are remotely the same in tone or genre. Lush and layered sounds that sound fantabulous through headphones or good speakers)
• Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 (have only listened to a bit of this but it seems like a return to form)

There! That'll do it. That should give you something to do for a bit.

What I Got (Watching)

New look blog! Or at least, until I decide to change it again. The background seems to be the hardest thing to decide on. So expect further changes, as I am indecisive.

I've had all these posts rushing around in my head, so I'm going to try and combine them into a rapid-fire short-form-list of what I've been watching/reading/listening/Apping.

Is Apping a word? It is now.

Warning. Excessive linking ahead.

WATCHING With my longer commute, I've finally been delving into things I've had on the HDD for months, including Transformers Animated, Justice League, Teen Titans, and Transformers Prime. All are highly recommended, for different moods. T:A is arc-based, like Justice League, so it's great to watch the stories unfold when you can watch 3 or 4 episodes in a row. TT is much MUCH more episodic and far less serious (they even have a special Japanese version of the awesome PuffyAmiYumi theme song as a signal that it'll be a silly show). Transformers Prime is as if Beast Wars, War For Cybertron, and the Transformers film series had a crazy LAN Party/threesome which made beautiful shiny robotic baby, and then had it raised with the G1 series as a nanny, which is a strange image and I want you all to forget it. Thing is, I know the first half-season of ALL these shows are not the best. Persevere. They will Grow The Beard. Promise. Also, seeing all these awesome shows has made one I previously loved look a bit shallow. Batman Beyond was always my favourite of the DCAU, and compared to Justice League, frankly most of it seems a bit shallow (but I could listen to the theme song all day long). Oh, and the first season of Batman: The Animated Series sucked. Like a lot. At home, since we've run out of Castle, Modern Family, & Community (which we still love), and Big Bang Theory, Chuck and 30 Rock (which we're starting to wane on, due to Flanderization and Seasonal Rot), we've been looking into movies. The arrival of Netflix Instant streaming into our house caused an evening of Emma/How To Marry A Millionaire (which showcased examples of Politeness Judo & Ship-To-Ship Combat in the former and MegaNekko in the latter). It's also caused me to find the Astonishing X-Men Motion Comic. It's also caused an overabundance of choice, which has led to occasional BSOD moments when deciding what to watch. Happily, there's always Firefly. My podcast watching has slowed ever since I took a few weeks off watching Podcasts while trying to sort out my music library. Then they piled up and suddenly I have 14 episodes of FrameRate, 10 of NSFW, 42 of the Totally Rad Show and 17 Diggnations. Funnily enough, I was about to keep up with Destructoid, Appjudgment, Death Battle, and Bytejacker due to their shorter run times. Though Bytejacker is now on hiatus, which makes me sad.

Oh, crap, that took 34 minutes to write. I might need to pick this "What I Got" thing up later, as I must get ready for work.

Duke of URL.

Day 3! Whoo-kak!

This is an official Tiki Bar TV shirt, from my third purchase from their lovely store. Tiki Bar TV is single-handedly responsible for engendering my interest in tiki cultural, cocktails, and podcasts in general.

Not bad for a little show that I clicked solely due to the thumbnail of a pretty girl and the "Explicit" tag on iTunes.

Yes, I admit it. I may have been expecting racy content when I subscribed. Sue me. I'm male.

Instead I got a wildly irreverent, smart and extremely funny series.

Initially, though, I was just confused. The episode was "Red Handed" which is fairly steeped in what I laughingly call continuity.

I quickly downloaded every episode I could, and set about turning Fridays into Tiki Fridays at work, a practice which happened every Friday for 16 months, and caused much in the way of shenanigans. Yes. It also gave me practice at cocktail making, meaning that I'm now considered to be okay at it. I've heard.

The show is now on hiatus, and has been for a while, but I consider it to be very special.

Bunnies high!

Introspection & Gazing At Navels.

I love my wireless keyboard. Not just because I can operate the computer on the TV, but mostly because when I type quickly on it, it sounds like a typewriter. I have always loved the solid, clunky immensely satisfying *clunk* of typewriter keys. I even briefly flirted with the idea of buying an old one off eBay, just for the cathartic feeling of typing (I was held up by the fact that you can't buy ribbons for them anymore, and anyway, shipping would be a bastard).

 

Today is my first day on prescription pain medication. As anyone who's known me more than 5 minutes knows, I've suffered from headaches pretty much all my life. I hesitate to call them migraines, as what people have described to me as migraines does not fit what I get. More accurately, they're just really bad headaches, usually focussed at the base of my skull in two little knots. I have no doubt that things like stress or adrenaline bring them on, and they are occasionally resistant to medication, and often helped by physio. Lately, and by lately, I mean in the last fortnight, I have been having... different experiences. I'll go to sleep about 11:45 or midnight, then wake up roughly an hour later with a headache. A specific kind of headache, only on the left side of my head. For a moment, it'll feel like a minor thing, like you might have after just one too many beers the night before. But then as soon as you shift in position, it levels up.  If you'll forgive my purple prose for a moment, I'll describe the feeling: imagine a ball of lightning. Not a big ball, perhaps the size of a golf, or ping-pong ball. And it's spinning and roiling on the surface, kind of like the CGI Sparks in the Beast Wars: Transformers TV show. This ball sits just inside my left temple, and throbs. Then, in a motion I can only describe as similar to the lightning attacks in InFamous or Storm from Ultimate Alliance, it will lash out with lightning strikes. These strikes can hit anywhere along my head, but seem to like just behind my eyebrow, the sinus next to my nose, my upper molars, the hollow behind my jaw, and yes, the base of my skull. When they strike, they tend to march along a path, like an ellipses (you know, one of these --> ... ... ...) and then conduct off the bones in my face, before retreating again. The severity of these strikes can range from electric-shock-uncomfortable to body-wracking-painful. The first time it happened, it hurt so much I could barely speak. I have never hurt that much that I can remember. I tried to get up, but couldn't. I had to wait until the strikes died down, then lurched out of bed, staggering, really, up to the kitchen looking for some panadol. I also heated up a wheat-bag heat pack, and laid it on my face until the medication kicked in, and I could relax enough to go to sleep. The next morning, no pain. However the next night? Repeat scenario. This basically was three nights of last week. Only once did it carry over to the day after. Night before last, it happened again, just as severe as the first time. But it stayed. I had the same feeling all morning. I took more panadol (panadiene now, with codeine) but or once, the edge did not come off. No. Instead it got worse. And I was at work. Blurred vision, loss of balance... I at one pointed wished I could do something as dramatic as collapse so people could see how much I was hurting. Finally, after a "go to the doctor, you bloody fool" email from my loving wife, I did. Dr. Lentham, who I'd gone to before for my other headaches, looked on my file, and tried to offer my Cafergot. "You gave me that last time," said I. "The caffeine nearly did my head in." (see earlier post for caffiene related wackiness). So after hearing how bad it was, he prescribed Durotram XR (or tramadol hydrochloride to those playing at home) along with a huge pack of dissolveable aspirin. Instructions? Take one Durotram before bed. It will slowly dissolve over 24 hours, and take 3 aspirin when I get a headache, and 2 more if it doesn't help after 3 hours. I took the Durotram last night. I woke up at 1:00am with another lightning blast. Got up, took the aspirin, went back to bed. Did I mention that my brain tends to process the pain visually? Blame years of video games and TV. When it hits, I usually involuntarily picture marching lightning bolts raining destruction. Last night? It was raining fire. Odd, surreal, cartoon fire. I eventually got up and slept on the couch to spare Tanja my tossing and turning. This morning, I was wide-awake at 7:15 with the oddest feeling. I'm still in pain, but I feel like my head is numb. As I described on Twitter, it's like I'm standing between two white sheets on two clotheslines, looking West, while behind the East sheet is a huge grey silhouette (that would be the pain). There's a breeze blowing, and the sheets move and someties I get a glimpse of the grey in the corner of my eye (followed by a brief, but solid pain that, were it in a comic book, with have the sound effect "SPANG" like the glint of sunlight off a blade), but then it will fade back. And, if you'll keep to the metaphor for a moment, I don't want to turn, or move too quickly, because the sheets are barely any refuge. I feel fragile, like a spiderweb.

 

Also, if I may dirgress for a moment, I'm finding myself focusing on things too intently. Anyone who's known me for the afore-mentioned 5 minutes also knows that I doodle. A lot. Almost compulsively. It's a habit I picked up in high school, carried on to university, and worked into my various careers, be they retail, on-phone, or managerial. When I was on the phones, I could go through a pen in 5 days. As a symptom, I've also gained the habit of buying pens (usually gel pens of varying brands, I prefer 0.7mm points or above, rollerball better than brush) from newsagents. I have a huge pencil-case at work (which at one point 6 months ago, was raided and many of my pens stolen, which displeased me to no end). I usually have a few in my backpack, in case the mood strikes me. This morning, as I was watching The Digg Reel & iFanboy, trying to relax, I had grabbed the desk calender from the computer room and was using my Pilot Vpen (you know, the ones with the fountain pen nib?) to doodle. My usual subjects are stars, which I've taight myself to draw freehand, without interior lines, specifically what some people refer to as "<punk stars", but compounded with many layers, and random words being said around me or thought by me in block letters, usually serif, done in alternating outline and filled styles, though occasionally I'll like the look of certain letter) were being used, but I realised something: I was bringing my face closer and closer as I drew, the edges becoming sketchier and sketchier, like something out of a Spawn comic (ironically one of the discussion points on iFanboy). After a while I was not paying attention to the show, just watching myself draw. I had to shake my head to break my concentration. Is this part of the medication? I don't know.

 

And I still find it ironic that a potentially side effect listed for headache medication is "headache".

Warhawkin'

So I've been playing a lot of the Warhawk demo for my brand spankin' new PS3.  I've never played any Halo-type games before, let alone on multiplayer. This is that sort of game: you spawn into a camp with a bunch of other guys to protect your flag using guns, turrets, and vehicles, including tanks, jeeps, and the titular Warhawks, plans that can switch from VTOL hover mode to jet mode (no complain). Even though I only have the one demo level, I've been having a lot of fun. The fact that every other sprite I see is another human player makes things really interesting as a human is unpredictable.

 

I can recall watching an episode of the Totally Rad Show where Alex Albrecht was talking about Star Wars: Galaxies. He said multiplayer online games of that sort are made up of moments that you can talk about for days afterwards. Warhawk is no different. In the one day I've played the demo, I've had no loess than three such moments:

 

• [-] I spawn into the camp, along with a few other guys. I get into a jeep, manning the machine gun turret. Another player hops into the driver's seat and starts motoring towards the enemy base. I spend most of the ride firing to the sides and rear of the jeep, giving him cover. So I'm strafing behind us into a group of infantry when the jeep fishtails to a stop. Then I see my driver running away from the jeep in a big old hurry. "What the fuck does he know that I don't?" So I rotate the turret to the front...
  ...to see a tank ten yards directly in front of me, and a shell leaving its cannon. Kaboom.
• [-] I spawn, but there's no vehicles around, just a few people mining the place and a few on turrets. So I climb the sentry tower to look around. I also grab the sniper rifle that's up there. No sooner have I stood up from the ladder when the tower is strafed by machine gun fire. I hide in the little shack on top of the tower and peek out the window to see an enemy Warhawk hovering in the middle on the camp, laying waste to the turrets and my teammates. I aim through the window of the shack, fire two sniper rounds into the undercarriage...
  ... and the Warhawk disintegrates into a chrysanthemum of flame. Awesome.
• [-] I actually get ahold of a Warhawk that's not instant destroyed by flak fire and streak towards the enemy base. I see one of them get into their Warhawk, and try to take off. I know he's not used to it, because he bounces off a few buildings getting off the ground. I lock on with a homing missile and blow him to bits. I then see another enemy Warhawk flying off in the distance. I give chase. He immediately goes evasive, zipping through canyons and around mountains. I'm right on him, trying for a missile lock. Out of nowhere, he darts around a corner. I follow...
  ...only to see him nipping around a weather-balloon/obstacle in the way. I have time to realise I can't  avoid it, and think "Clever girl." before crashing and burning.

And that's only after one day! Amazing.

 

 

You've been swindled by...
Lucas Brown
Team Leader/Tiki Bartender/Big Boss Man
Got your nose. Got your wallet.

 

Mark Millar sums it up.

I was watching an interview on iFanboy with Scottish comics writer Mark Millar (who's written all sorts of things, like Ultimates and Civil War and stuff, and has, I can say with a staunch record of heterosexuality, the cutest accent ever). His latest project is called War Heroes and it's set in Iraq and it involves super-powered parties on both sides of the conflict. He's been getting a lot of flak for writing about and commenting on American politics while not being an American (which is dumb, because as Tanja points out, if that were the case, only Germans could write about Nazi Germany). Millar's response was basically that an outsider can often get a better view due to the lack of personal involvement. He summed it up with a line that I'm stealing for use whenever I can:

"You don't have to be a horse to be a vet."

Classic.

29 things to be happy about.

Here. Go read. Made me smile. Especially #20.>

My Daemon (apparently)

Going to see the Golden Compass tonight with Tanja (after a decent review from the Totally Rad Show).

Halloween, but not Hallowe'en.

So it’s Halloween (I always hated putting the apostrophe in between the e's. It was a thing they only did at school). And for the second year in a row, I’ve done nothing. Admittedly, last year I came to work dressed as an undertaker, Craig came as Zoidberg and Rick came with a knife through his head. But we were the only ones. This year I didn’t even do that. The extent of my Halloween dress-up was to wear these shoes to work. They made my feet greener, and me taller but really weren’t all that Halloween. Sigh. On the TikiBar forums, people are posting Jack O’Lantern Tikis and on Neil Gaiman’s blog, someone posted a photo of a Neil O’Lantern. I miss punkins, even though watching them get gutted makes me throw up.

Tanja and I drank some fancy beers on the weekend. I had the idea after watching too many Diggnation episodes. We went to Vintage cellars and got some beers (mostly Belgian, one British and one German). The list was as follows:

-Two bottles of a random German doppelbock of a brand that we’d had before. Ok, not spectacular.

-Two bottles of Chemay Trappist White : A Belgian Trappist blond beer. Quite floral, but very dry as well. 8%, which is getting towards proper beer strength. Good. Thumbs up.
Two bottles of Chimay Trappist Blue : A Belgian Trappist dark beer. Quite sweet. 9%. Fuck yeah. Got the seal of approval from both me and Tanja for the next time we’re there.

-One bottle Delirium Tremens Belgian Strong Pale Ale . Apparently, the shop only gets in one case of it at a time. It’s 9.0% strength and cost $8 per 330 ml bottle. But it was smooth as silk, floral, and just really really nice. Plus the bottle was opaque ceramic. Which is awesome. Plus, it’s named after the shakes that hit when you’re detoxing. Cool.

See what happens when you try new things?

Oh, well.

Ok, now I'm mad.

I noticed through the Diggnation podcast yesterday that EA was giving away Command & Conquer Gold as Freeware. Fucking great, right? I loved that game like some kind of computerised, violent, surrogate child. So I download the ISO file, all 500 megs of GDI and 500 Megs of Nod disc. So I extract the files to a folder and try to run the install.

(( Error: Not all files are present. Please run the installation from the CD-ROM. ))

I don't HAVE the CD-ROM!

I've tried it every which way. I downloaded a patch off the website, tried running install within WinRAR, tried using the Autorun feature in the file. No fucking go. Knew it was too good to be true.

You, a little bit of me, and some ThunderCats toys are gonna change the wine world, whether they like it or NOT."

I know I've been pimping Podcasts lately (what with forcing people to watch TikiBar by grabbing them and holding them in front of my iPod, and forcing flashdrives full of Diggnation episodes on Ted and Adrian) but I have another one to spruik. It's Wine Library TV. Although of interest mainly to the Adrian crowd (though they do a Prosecco episode Craig might like), it's still great. The guy (who is an exciteable New Jersey guy) talks about stuff like a wine having a nose like the banana candy out of a Runts box (do they have Runts in Australia?) or another wine having a plasticky, action-figure-y smell. Heh. Then there's the episode he decides to find out if the clod climate has an effect on the enjoyment of wine. So he drags the camera crew out into the blowing-snow-minus-20 New Jersey winter. Then tastes wine in his parka and beanie. Awesome. It's in my Blogger links at the bottom now. Go check it out!

Colbert: "Kids won't stand idly by. They'll go home and blog it."

For some reason Digg won't let me blog this.

So go here:
http://rawstory.com//news/2007/Colbert_Todays_kids_dont_know_how_0920.html
Make sure you watch the video at the bottom.

Is it ironic that I see an article about how people need blogs to express opinions, and my first instinct is that I need to blog it?

I wish my facial hair was emo. That way it'd cut itself.

I often, when I'm going to be in a place for more than five minutes at a time, take an odd or interesting picture with my phone and make it my wallpaper. I wish I had a feature on my phone that would choose the wallpaper based on where I was and what I was doing. Like it'd show the work building when I'm at work, or a pile of paper when I was a TAFE, or the drumkit when I'm practicing. I think people would pay for that feature.

As per an example, I was at Marrickville Metro Woolworths this morning (which is a goddamn zoo on Saturdays), standing 6th in a line of 7 people at the express checkout. I took a picture of one of the people in front of me buying 14 sticks of butter and a canteloupe (was he going to deep-fry it? I don't know). Admittedly, I was getting funny looks too, carrying a toothbrush, dental floss, and a 1 kilo bag of sugar. Not the sonic toothbrush. I have enough trouble with the vibrating razor.

Despite my hatred of JayJays as a whole and my hatred of buying printed shirts that I haven't made, I have somehow ended up with a t-shirt, from JayJays, with Darth Vader on the front saying "Your Empire needs you." Go figure.

Just a hint: Mixers at work+Madras curry chicken pizza+Jager+half a bottle of wine+an incredibly beautifully mixed cosmo=one growly stomach the next day.

We've finally properly introduced Ashleigh to the TikiBar podcast. She likey. Hooray! Now we just have to convince Tanja.

When you wear shorts, your shoes feel huuuuuge. Like they're sticking out.

Oh, and Beck's Guerolito? Awesome.

I, Drinkbot

This is too cool for words.