Whenever I try to write a quick catch-up type entry, I always type way too much about a couple of topics and then forget about writing about the other stuff... usually just because of time constraints. I shall try to keep this brief.... try.

• A new passion has emerged in my life - Flight of the Conchords. Its a fantastic show that Paul from work set me up with. Its about a couple of struggling New Zealand musicians in New York whom are struggling to make a living. While the initial draw card for the show are the (sometimes) hilarious songs, the series itself finds its own feet towards the end and don't rely on the music as much. The star of the show is definitely Murray - the band manager whom also works for the New Zealand embassy. Its a shame that the quality of the songs was not maintained for the whole season (it really drops after episode 6), but its a great show none the less :P


• While the first week of Mario Kart Wii ownership resulted in a crap load of hours being clocked up playing it, week two saw a big drop in its usage. This was not due to the game itself however, but more due to my time being occupied with other things. I will explain those things a little later.


• I saw Iron Man with Blake and Daniel a couple of Friday's ago. It was a surprisingly decent movie, which I had no intention of seeing to begin with. Its slightly different from normal 'Comic Book' movies, in that the hero did not actually possess any special powers himself. It was simply the fact that he had enough engineering knowledge to build himself a suit... thats what made him a superhero. I traditionally dislike Robert Downey Jr, but I'm starting to like him now. 6/10
  After the movie we met up with Tracy, Holly and Michelle, whom had made themselves comfortable at my place, playing Mario Kart and Wii Tennis. Their initial intention was to watch a couple of new episodes of Gray's Anatomy, but the lure of the Wii came over them :P We later tried to play some Worms, but Michele didn't like it.... and if Michele doesn't like something, it's shit and no one else is allowed to like it either, or be labeled dumb.
  At 23:45 Blake and I headed out for a coffee at our usual spot - Exomod. It was a little bizarre getting to the Café and finding that the Flying Scotsman was already closed. None the less, we 'sat and chat' (ed) for a while and eventually returned to my place to watch a couple of episodes of Conchords, before calling it a night at about 03:00. It might have been the lateness, but episode 7 was classic.... possibly my favorite of the season.


• The following Saturday, Trace and I finally purchased some external lights for the house (normal bulb lights are already there, but we want nice ones :-) ). We also went to the new IKEA store, who's restaurant section made me feel like I was back in Switzerland. I loved it.. the meat balls are to die for :P We went there looking for some manner of DVD&CD storage system. For some reason, a stylish bit of furniture which stores such things simply does not exist. Why are all DCD/CD shelves/cases so damn ugly?!
  
  At Harvey Norman, we bought a Apple TV for $199 (down from $449) - I have no idea why it was that cheap, but I bought it for one reason alone - to sell it on eBay. We made $150 profit on that baby :-) - we should have bought the other one that was there as well.....
  
  That evening, Trace, Blake, Markus and I played Mario Kart for a couple of hours. Twas a hell of a lot of fun :P Earlier in the day I was trying to teach tracy the art of the powerslide. She is getting better at it and will be a force to be reckoned with soon enough. We then watched another couple of episodes of Conchords before Blake and I headed out to coffee again. We returned at 01:15, at which point I watched Markus play online for a little while. By 02:30 I was ready for bed.


• Our new 24inch 3.06ghz iMac arrived on Monday :D It is glorious and beautiful and fast (espcially compared to my previous Mac Mini, which has been retired to the media room. Unfortunatelly I did have a little trouble migrating my data to the new computer (caused by some manner of hard drive failure on the Mac Mini... mid migration process), but I managed to get it all fixed up with the help of a new Hard Drive for the mini, and a firewire cable connected to the iMac. Changing the hard drive was pretty easy, though I was a little clumsy and rendered the DVD drive unless in the process.... not a big deal though, as I have a spare external DVD writer for the mini to use :P
  
  For computer related reasons, I went to bed at 01:30, 01:45, 12:30 and 12:30 on Mon, Tues, Wed and Thurs respectively. In other words, it was not a good week for decent sleep.
  
  In order to avoid any future issued with data retention, I bought a 650gb external had drive and set Time Machine in action. I think it was a very worthwhile purchase and should save me a lot of trouble in the future.... hard drives and I have never gone well together :-)


• Kelly came around on Friday night... unfortunately I was busy reinstalling the mac mini, and thus didn't get to see her very much. Perhaps next time. At 22:45 I was finished with that, and eager to head out for a coffee. Blake, as always was wanting and willing. Makan decided that 22:45 on a Friday night was too late for him to go out. He is a strange man. Incidentally, he also suggested that he would come around on Saturday night and enquired about my address in the late afternoon to facilitate this.... but he never actually turned up. The previous Saturday he stated that it was getting a bit too late for him to come over.... at 19:30! Perhaps once a month the moons and planets align just right, to enable him to leave his house. Even after sunset.

That is all for now.

Peter

E-von from work bought this site to my attention - > The St Andrews Face Transformer.

I actually have plenty of things I've been wanting to write about.... but this seemed more important at the moment :-)

Enjoy

Original Photo Nothing much to say here, except that this is the original photo I used....

Teenage Me As you can see, I've always been quite a good looking boy..

East-Asian Me If I was born a pasty asian man..... oh, the things that could have been :-)

Old me This one probably scares me the most, as I can really image myself looking like this in a few years....

Afro Me ...you know you want some :-)

It's taken about two years longer than I originally planned, but Trace and I have finally purchased a new Mac.

The current Mac Mini was never meant to be a long-term solution, but has held up well enough over this time for us to be satisfied with it. I originally bought it because my PC was literally dying... it was suffering from hardware failure and could not be relied on to store my precious data. So we bought the mac mini as a means of saving our data.

The original plan was to keep it for 6 months and then buy a new Mac Laptop of sorts... but by the time they came out, I was more than satisfied with the little mac we called our own. (Apart from the time the the new revision came out and made mine look like crap :-0 )

So, yesterday Apple released new revisions of the iMac and I could not resist. I've been looking to upgrade (patiently) for about half a year and was excited enough about these new editions to purchase one.

The excitement is two fold - Firstly, I'm looking forward to having a new Mac... it will be much speedier than the mac mini and have a much nicer/bigger screen. A new mac is always nice, yes. Secondly is the fact that the mac mini is to be retired to the media room! I'm so damn thankful that I wont have to burn divX cds and dvds anymore.. finally we'll be able to play everything (including iTunes) straight from the mac.. it will be so much easier... so very much easier :P

All we have to do now is await its arrival at our doorstep next week...

Bloody Grass Plants My eye the morning after the grass plant incident

I had a bit of a run-in with a grass plant out the front of our house yesterday.... I assumed it would be ok by morning, but it was not... a visit to the doctor later and now I have to use something worse than eye-drops.... eye-cream.

Damn it all!!!

Hello there,

Makan, Markus and I headed down to Collie for Triple J's One Night Stand. I didn't care overly about the bands that were playing. For me it was just an excuse to get out of the city, if only for a few hours, and do something different.


Markus, Makan and I looking very excited

The drive down there was pleasant enough. I tend to look forward to long country drives, as it presents a great opportunity to listen to a lot of music. Just between you and I though, I did miss Blake's company for that very reason. Makan and Markus (especially Markus) have different tastes of music to me... more importantly, they lack a certain amount of passion for the stuff. (That statement is less true for Markus, who's taste is simply very different to mine). The point being that the drive didn't quite feel as satisfying as it should have. Not that I'm complaining - it was still great to go on a road-trip with the boys.

Faker were pretty decent, though suffered a bit by performing during daylight hours.... in truth, after seeing Unkle at the Big Day Out, I'm not sure if any bands should EVER perform in daylight - not if the bands really want to ROCK!!

Pnau performed the same garbage they performed at the Big Day Out (see my Big Day Out post for more details). That being said, they did perform a couple of tracks that I actually didn't mind.... I have no idea what they were called, and I didn't like them enough to look into it more.


The Stage from a distance and the Carnival

I've been hearing good things about Cog, and I was quite eager to see them... it was quite surprising to me then that all I could think about after/during Pnau was driving back and beating the traffic... and perhaps enjoy a coffee in Mt Lawley before calling it a night. As such, since everyone seemed to be of the same frame of mind, I didn't not bother staying to watch Cog... hopefully I wont regret that once I get more familiar with them.

The road out of Collie was busy with teenage girls and boys from the big city, with no idea how to drive on a country road. It would take too long for me to describe some of the idiocy that was going on.... rest assured though that it was just plain scary to see how incompetent some of these young drivers were.... I must stress that they were NOT speeding, but were doing many other things which raised my eyebrows. USE YOUR DAMN BRAIN, LEARN HOW TO DRIVE, READ THE DAMN ROAD SIGNS, GROW SOME FUCKING BALLS OR JUST STAY OFF THE COUNTRY ROADS.

Ironically, after all my ranting, I got my first speeding fine in about 8 years on the way to Mt Lawley :P I was driving down Wellington St when all of the sudden, a cop jumped off the median-strip in front of the car and pointed at me to pull over. He said that he "pulled me over because of THIS!", and showed me the speed gun which said 64km/h... I responded with a 'ok', at which point he informed me that the limit on Wellington St (a 4-6 lane major road) has a 50km/h limit because it is not signed otherwise. I was shocked that he actually fined me... I was expecting a warning. 64km/h hardly counts as hooning, and a warning would have sufficed... especially since he checked my licence over the radio, whom would have told him I had a clean record. I dont mind paying a fine if I've actually knowingly done something - but this was just a little ridiculous for my taste. They were pulling over dozens or drivers. Revenue raising.... I dont like using the word, but that's all it was.

Coffee was nice - Blake met us there. That being said, after many many hours of driving, I was feeling tired and eager to get home... the fine didn't help that mood. None the less, we had some good laughs and good tarts.



Mario Kart Wii has been purchased and played. Markus, Blake, Makan and I raced for almost 9 hours straight on the first night. We went to bed at about 03:15 and got back up at 9:30 to play some more. Blake didn't actually stay over, but joined us again in the morning. The man has some manner of gift when it comes to Mario Kart. The came first in almost all of the races... his intimate knowledge of the Mario Kart DS stages probably had something with it - though it could also be the fact that he appears to have played every incarnation of this game since it first appeared.

I dont really have anything negative to say about the game.. its a hell of a lot of fun and I'm sure we'll be playing it for many months before we get sick of it. The online play is fantastic - the quick little globe animation that shows where each player is from really adds to a sense of 'community'.

The new tracks are fantastic and creative, while its great to be able to play some of classic tracks from the previous version of the game. I'm particularly happy about the inclusion of DK Mountain - a course which has always been the main contest arena for Adrian and I :P

Cheers,

Peter

Its been an interesting past couple of weeks for good and bad reasons.

I've been pleased with the amount of coffees and teas that have been consumed lately. Especially since the crowd is 'slowly' expanding. That's not to say that more-is-better, but it is somewhat nice to learn that we are not the only people that like to go out for coffee, rather than drinks on a Friday/Saturday night.... and weeknights, for that matter.

Markus tagged along on one of our trips to the Exomod and the result was a pleasure. We sat outside and discussed music, while watching the drunken peoples filter out of The Flying Scotsman. So good was our time there that we actually had a second cup of coffee...something that has not happened it quite some time.

After the cafe, we headed home and watched Völkerball with the sound turned up. It is such a fantastic concert and I doubt a single member of the audience left unsatisfied. (Take note AIR). Its also one of those DVDs that just sounds fantastic, and for me that's very important indeed. Pretty much my only gripe with the show is that Engel wasn't played. Its one of their most instantly likeable tracks... and for that reason, they are probably quite bored of playing it.

After Rammstein we played a round of Worms: A Space Oddity. When I first played the game I thought it was utter trash... my opinion still holds that that view, but after my initial disgust, I have started enjoying playing it somewhat. The controls are just awful... everyone agrees... that being said, I've learnt to accept them. It probably takes a good 10 rounds or so before any manner of confidence starts to form with the controls... which is way too long for a game which is supposed to be the very pinnacle of Casual Gaming.

Makan popped over on a couple of occasions mid-week in order to play some Big Brain Academy and Mario Galaxy. He has taken a liking to both. Makan, Blake and I also headed out for a coffee, during which time Blake warmed somewhat to the Iranian man. It was good to see.

All that is left now if for all four of us to get together at the same time... oh how strange that would be to me.. none the less, its something I would like to see happen.

E-von from work, and her bubby Fernando came over last night to play a bit of Wii.

(I always find it strange to see work colleagues out of work. I'm not sure why... While I'm at work, I feel like I know these people pretty well, while outside of work I feel like I'm just getting to know them).

F put up a pretty damn good struggle with Wii Tennis. In fact, its been a long time since I've had to work so hard to beat someone :-) I would have loved a second match. That game was followed by some Bowling... I actually played one of my worst games in a long long time... luckily everyone else was having similarly bad luck, and I actually manged to win it.

...but then came Wii Boxing.... F is some manner of master-megaman with that game, and I got my ass kicked, apsolutely. After the first two games, I realised that I can not possibly beat this man with any method that I possessed at that point. He has a system... I must find out what it is. I'm hopeful that we'll get another chance to battle sometime in the future... perhaps the outcome will be different next time :-)

We also played some Worms, before picking up dinner and commencing a 15-turn spate of Mario Party 8. It was also enjoyable, and I hope to play a longer game with them sometime soon. I've had dreams of a Mario Party drinking party for some time. It seems fun in my head, but might not work as well in real life... my idea is that every-time you eat a Candy, you have to have a shot. I must try this... one day.

F ended up winning the game... he is a man of commendable skill, and it is obvious that he has a deep connection to Mario and his band-of-brothers-and-sisters. I've only been a Nintendo Child for a couple of years, where as he has been living and breathing this stuff for quite a long time.... for that I envy him :-)

Tracy, though coming last, did approve of the fun we were having, and has made mention of a rematch :-)

I'm looking forward to a rematch of all things Wii with E and F.... especially Mario Kart Wii, which comes out this Thursday ^_^

Cheers for now,

Peter

20/04/08 - Update/Follow-up to the previous journal entry:

I'm not a paranoid man, but a red car had just pulled up outside the house with a couple of young folks sitting in it.... I had noticed a similar/same red car following behind me after the 'incident' above. They just sat in the car and stared at the house and talked for about 30 seconds before driving on. The passenger was a guy, but I could not see the driver. I wonder if the cow actually followed me to see where I live? Surely people aren't that mad. Hopefully there will be no further updates about this matter in future.

...how strange of me to even think about this.

I just had a run-in with a mother at Bunnings....

I had just finished packing my soak-well pieces into the car and started reversing slowly out of my spot. Its a busy car park, thus extra slowness was required. After about a 10cm move, a woman carrying a baby suddenly appears behind my car, slammed her hand on my boot and called me a "dickhead".

I proceeded to wind my window down and apologised. I said I was going slowly because I could not see past the car next to me. I also said (because of the other kids around the place) "also, what your mouth around the kids, ay", to which she replied "oh fuck off". At that point "go fuck yourself" slipped out of my mouth by reflex....

The female companion that was with her seemed pretty embarrassed about her friend, which pleased me... I just wish I hadn't sworn back and lowered myself to her level at the last moment... I'll do better next time.

Just a couple of pieces of writing from X-Press.





Firstly, their review of the múm concert


Secondly, a fans perspective of the Air show


Thirdly, what X-Press thought about Air


I'm quite surprised that X-Press gave them such a good write up... but that's the press for you :P

Greetings,

Last weekend was certainly a big of a mixed bag, though the bad did not outweigh the good. As such, I am happy to declare it a great weekend.

Friday night was interesting, in the since that Blake and I enjoyed more drinks than we normally would. These drinks were mainly inspired by the knowledge that Dale and Tara (and a couple of Dale's cousins from Ireland) would be coming around. SMS' received before their arrival confirmed that they were indeed trollied, and we did not want to be the only sober ones.

While the first few drinks felt a little forced, the alcohol soon took hold, and before long we were playing Wii Tennis and Boxing with much merriment. We combined that with a little beat-driven music, and soon we were doing our best 'So you think you can dance' auditions.... and yes... we thought it.

The others turned up and we had a great time playing Tennis and Bowling. I wont the first game of bowling, while the second game I cant even recall :P

To end the evening, we danced in the media room to Daft Punk.... we stood in a circle as we took turns dancing in the centre... I thought I was fantastic, though I'm sure that was just the alcohol convincing me of that.

Trace had worked a afternoon/evening shift and was supposed to work the following morning. As such, the evening was concluded soon after midnight. Blake had commenced our drinks around 1800, so I was more than happy to call it a night by then.

In contrast, my planned Muse viewing ended up being a total flop. No one turned up. It was a little bizarre to sit and wait for people to turn up, and then eventually realising that no one was coming. Nothing like that has ever happened to Tracy and I. I can only assume that two events organised in one weekend was too much for work people... I dont blame them, but I do blame them for not letting me know they weren't coming, until I eventually had to prompt them via sms to figure out if anyone was coming.

When combined with the fact that both Matty and Makan were eager to come over (but were turned away due to the Muse viewing) and the fact that Trace and I were not at all in the mood to sit around the house by ourselves, I ended up getting a little shitty about the waste of time. Thankfully the day was not a complete write-off, as Tracy, Makan and I ended up heading down to Freo for a little drink at Little Creatures.

Makan, apparently, played like shit at Botanic Golf... missing that is one of my biggest regrets, as I would have loved to have played against him under that circumstances. I grow tired of loosing to him.

Just quickly - I went out to the Immigration Detention Centre and Perth Airport today. It was a interesting experience. I would love to work out at the airport, as the 12hour, 4 day on/off roster appeals to me... as do the penalty rates :P

As mentioned in a previous journal entry here, I have been of two minds in regards to seeing the two frenchys whom are Air. Traditionally I have been a big fan of them since my Scottish mate Paul (back in Scotland now, bless him) introduced me to them in 2003. In the last 18 months however, I have been drifting away from that Chill-out electronica 70s cheese (I mean good cheese) music. I still enjoy listening to their stuff, but I dont put it on with any regularity these days.

So when the decision came weather to spend the $110 on a ticket, I could not make up my mind... especially since no one I knew was particularly keen on seeing them either (for similar reasons). As such, I basically accepted the fact that I would not be seeing them. I was reasonably comfortable with that decision, with only the slightest of worry that if I didn't go, it would be another Peter Bjorn & John, Explosions in the Sky or Daft Punk regret.

And so, I sat at work on Thursday, having pretty much forgotten the concert was even on, when Makan sends me an email claiming to have tickets and asking if I wanted to go. Makan is about the last person I would have expected to make such a suggestion. Traditionally Makan does not organise anything. Furthermore, the Makan I know is quite difficult to motivate to do anything other than go to the movies. Canberra appears to have changed the man somewhat and it was surprising and refreshing for him to actually make such a suggestion.

That being said, while I have purchased Makan a couple of Air albums in the past, he actually had no idea who they were when he made the proposal... as such, the albums mustn't have made much of an impression on him. None the less, I was more than happy to go and see what Air had to offer. They do have quite a reputation for their live shows, and I was curious what it would be like.

So how was Air? Let me tell you!

...but first, allow me to say a couple of words about their support act - New Buffalo. I do not want to waste too much time writing about this woman. Her set was lifeless. She looked uncomfortable and moody. So moody that Makan and I were sure that she was actually in the middle of a argument with her instrumentalist (a woman with dark hair), as they kept glancing at each other with bitter faces. Also, at one point after a song, she used the line "Thank you... thank you to those of you that are clapping". It was quite a strange moment where the audience just sat there, and even people that were clapping looked at each other in a confused and embarrassed manner. The woman had no charisma in her at all, which completely took away from the cuteness that her songs probably have on her album. Overall, quite a disappointing support act... they should have used Radarmaker :-)

Also, the DJ that was playing between the support acts was utter crap... just ridiculous song choices that did not even come close to setting the mood for the main show to come.... Add to that poor poor sound quality (and issue which plagued the whole evening) and you had a situation where I almost would have preferred to have no music on at all. The only decent track her played was 'Someone like you' by Rôyksopp, and that cut out half way through, due to technical problems.

So then, onto the main event.

Air came onstage. Nicolas and Jean-Beniot took their positions, and played (unless I am mistaken) 'La Femme d'Argent' from their 'Moon Safari' album. It was a nice opener.



I'm not good at remember the order in which things were played, but 'Venus' soon followed. The lighting display was pretty pleasing, and certainly managed to capture the moods of the songs quite well... though I'm not sure how well that will be represented in the vids below.


Air, playing - Venus

After Venus came one of my all-time favourite Air tracks - Run. I think it is at this point the my appreciation of the live Air experience started to diminish. I suddenly realised that while I love their music on CD, it is pretty much impossible for them to recreate the intricacies of their sound, in a live setting. And it really did sound pretty terrible. I'm not sure who was sitting in the mixing tent, but it was... just bad. Run is a highly atmospheric song, and they were trying to perform it as such... but it just didn't work. It sounded amateurish at best. That being said, I appreciate that I might have had unrealistic expectations, since I love that track so much.

'Talisman', one of my other favourites followed. I listened eagerly for the string section to start (in my view, the best part of the song), only to find that they replaced it with a synth sound. I was displeased again.

'People in the city' was done pretty damn nicely (since it doesn't have those subtleties I was mentioning earlier)


People in the City

The highlight song of the night for me, surprisingly, was 'Dont be Light' from the '10,000 Hz Legend' album. I've always liked the song, but didn't actually expect them to play it... but they did, and it sounded great. The lighting was also very well done and added a lot to the atmosphere of the song. It certainly got the crowed going (to some degree) and the tiny off-centre mosh pit was finally starting to get a workout.


Don't be Light

I guess I will now mentioned one of my other gripes - The venue. Its true that Kings Park is a beautiful setting for such a concert.... but who on earth made the terrible decision to set up the stage at the back of the little lake? There was basically a 35m semicircle of water in front of the stage, stopping anyone from actually getting close. The standing area was completely to one side of the stage, in front of the speakers... there was not even a tiny bit of overlap. This setup basically resulted in 95% of people remaining seated on the ground, which is not very decisive to creating energy in the crowd.


The tiny 'standing' section to the right... everyone else was seated on the lawn

My next gripe - What the fuck sort of band walks offstage and expects people to cheer for an encore after just 40-min? Most people there paid over $100 for their tickets, and I everyone seemed pretty damn aggravated that they were basically being asked to beg for more for their money. I was clapping loudly, while swearing about them to myself and to Makan. Naturally they came back onstage and continued playing.



They played a couple of songs from their new album (there was only one song I actually didn't recognise), followed by the closer - Kelly Watch the Stars.


Kelly Watch the Stars

So, after a little more than 70-min on stage, they called it a night... That's 70-min for their first show in Australia ever. That's 70-min worth of music, from a catalogue of 6 CDs (5 hours worth, according to my iTunes). That's 70-min for over $100, with a really crap support act, terrible acoustics and annoying stage position. The physical and mental disconnection between the stage and the crowd made it feel like we had just watched a live concert at a outdoor cinema.

I'm actually pretty curious what other people thought.... It was not a bad concert, but it certainly was not a good one.... I would have rather spend $40 to seen Múm again... in fact, I would have gladly paid the Air price to see Múm again :-)

I do not regret going, and I am very thankful for Makan coming up with the idea, and supplying the discounted tickets. I was simply expecting more of everything, and the terrible sound quality did not help things.... nor did their pretentious early encore, and early finish.

Cheers

Peter

Greetings,

Last night I, Blake and Makan went to see Be Kind Rewind at Luna Leederville.



I first heard about this movie about 5 or 6 months ago, and the synopsis certainly had my attention. Basically, a guy accidentally erases a whole video rental store's video (because he was magnetised) in a poor part of mainland New York. As they are unable to afford to buy new copies (or get them quickly enough in order to sustain the business) they decide to re-shoot the movies themselves. Naturally, they have limited means with which to recreate some of these cinematic classics they decide to tackle... this, thus, leads to comedy happening.

This is the fourth movie by Michel Gondry, whom has previously bought us Human Nature, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep. Added to this are a swag of fantastic music videos for Beck, The White Stripes, Kylie Miogue, The Chemical Brothers and Björk. As such, my expectations were high, and given what I read and saw in the trailer, I made the assumption that I would not be disappointed.

I was disappointed.

When I first read about this, I was expecting it to be hilarious. I though it was going to be a satirical movie for movie lovers (not just for teenage movie lovers). I was expecting to see Jack Black and Mos Def acting out classic scenes from a lot of movies. I assumed the humour would be found in the subtlety of those two almost getting it right. Unfortunately, that was not the case, and I think the movie didn't get it right as a result. The beef of the movie was the actual story of the video store, and its imminent closure due to the redevelopment of the block they are located in.

I realise that this was a low budget movie, but it was easy to tell that most of the budget probably went on paying the actors wages, rather than the sets.

There were five memorable parts:
1. The Ghostbusters Scene in the Library... the 'shhh' was golden :-)
2. The Driving Miss Daisy 'you dont know how to read' scene. It had me laughing tears.
3. The Rush hour 2 'falling from the building' scene - it was golden :-)
4. Jack Black with the 'truck snout' while conveying King Kong.
5. The use of tomato pizza bases as blood splatter.

Put those things together and you get some classic moment.... tis unfortunate that those things probably amount to about 2 minutes of screen time... not quite enough to carry the other 92 minutes of the movie.

Some people will argue that this was a small movie with heart, but I failed to feel the heart in it.... and I tend to love small movie with said heart.

In conclusion - I have seen worse... much worse... but I really think they could have made more of this... much more - 4/10

Good Morning,

As my previous voice post indicated, last night was the night for Múm, plus special guest.

Blake and I got to the Rosemount Hotel a little before 20:00. While walking from the car-park, a young man came out of the shadows and enquired if we were on our way to see Múm. I noticed he had a ticket in his hand, so I was happy to confirm with him that that was the case. (Until I saw the ticket, I assumed my car was going to get broken into while we were enjoying the show). His name was Matt and we listened to his blight. Apparently, he tried to get in, but was refused entry due to the fact that he was not 18 yet. He asked to to pretend to be his brother, and I thought 'why not?'. After a couple of sentences were exchanged, he (much to Blake's and I's amusement) requested that I speak with an Australian accent to make our siblingness more convincing. This request was ignored.

We got to the door... Matt did not get in. I told him I'd see him at home. Poor bastard :-)

Once inside the grounds, we enjoyed a couple of beers, while patiently waiting for the doors to open.


The crowd gathering patiently at the back of the Rosemount Hotel || Blake making the most of the wait

I must digress for a moment to briefly rant about mobile phone cameras - They fucking suck! Not that I didn't know that already, and not that I was at all surprised by the shitty pics that were produced last night. Furthermore, I'm sick of overhearing people refer to megapixels as a measure of quality. IT AINT! Compare this photo (which has been scaled to half its original size) taken with my 8 year old 2mp camera to the images taken at last nights event with my new 2mp Nokia phone. I chose the linked image because it is a nigh-time shot for the purposes of comparison.

...so back onto the topic then

The doors opened and we went within the bowels of the hotel. At first we sat at the bar, then I spotted a table to one side of the stage, which I took possession of enthusiastically.. Blake was less enthusiastic due to its position (right in-front of some floor-to-ceiling speakers), so I went back to the bar. I then noticed that people had started sitting on the floor in-front of the stage. We joined the lazing crowed, and soon the support act appeared on stage - Perth Post-Rock band Radarmaker.

Radarmaker were surprisingly good. So good that I will be keeping an eye out for their album(s) next time I go to a CD store. The first two songs, as well as the last, were definitely standouts, and I found myself liking the songs without proper vocals much more than the ones with. That being said, it is difficult to be original within the post-rock genre sometimes, and their music sounded a lot like Explosions in the Sky, and the occasional bit of Sigur Rós.

My only issue with Radarmaker was, unfortunately, Wendi - Their only female band-member. She did not look like she was having a good time. She looked stressed, which did not suits the post-rock music they were playing. Without actually knowing her, I wont judge her too harshly, but I dont think she looked like she was enjoying making the music they were playing. Even when they did a instrument swap, her drumming somehow seemed to lack passion...


The crowd seated on the ground, listening to Radarmaker


Radarmaker... though not going very much in this shot

I had high hopes that given the type of music that múm was about to play, that the crowed would simply remain seated and enjoy the ambience of their sound... unfortunately, the people that had stood at the back during Radarmaker had different ideas, and soon everyone was forced to stand in order to see. With everyone seated, there was a great atmosphere... with everyone standing, it soon felt like we were there to watch a pub band... a bit of a shame.

"We are the musical group múm" was heard through the speakers. A introduction made all the more cute by the think accident, brought all the way from Iceland. The band started playing, and the audience was entranced.

The only múm song that I actively recognised was "Oh, How The Boat Drifts" from their "Summer Make Good" album. Many other songs sounded familiar, though I certainly could not think of their titles. They introduced a few of their songs by explaining what they were about, though their comment about the plant song were most memorable - "This next song is about Plants - You have so many plants growing here! In Iceland we have three. Not three types, just three plants"

They used a variety of traditional and unconventional instruments during the show, though I dont know the names of any of them :P Most prominent of these were the blow-pipe fuelled mini-piano/ accordion things.


The only photo I took of múm on stage. You can see why. Damn phone camera

It turns out that múm are a very likeable band indeed. They had great chemistry on stage and really seemed to enjoy playing for their fans... despite the heat, which must have been around 30 degrees. At one point one of the band members said that "I hope you guys are used to the heat, because we're not". If they were uncomfortable, they certainly didn't look like it. That being said, the stage manger was behind them, enthusiastically swinging the stage-doors open and closed to get air circulating around the stage.... I'm sure it helped the situation a little.

Somehow, a Asian guy with his two female friends whom was sitting behind me, had someone managed to get in front of me during the 'stand up' process. While this did not bother me initially, this event resulted in me expending much of my mental energy to not knocking him to the ground...yes. It is a shame that my most vivid memories of last night are of this damn huge head and hair! In addition to not being able to see past him easily, he kept moving back towards me... slowly, and constantly, resulting in me having to move back in the same manner, in order to to avoid having his asshole grind on my mons-pubis. I must stress that there was no need for him to be moving back. There was plenty of room between him and his female accomplice, and even more room between her and the guy in front or her. I could tell people behind me were getting annoyed with me having to move back and I soon found myself so sandwiched that the only way I could clap was by raising my hands high above my head (to the delight of the band, no doubt), or to clap directly into my left or right ear.

Its a shame that so much of my mind was occupied with this guy. None the less, múm were fantastic.

I did not recognise the encore at all. Indeed, it might not even have been a song :-) While it started innocently enough, it slowly turned into a huge wave of distorted noise at ear-bleeding sound levels. Some people were covering their ears, but I loved it. I stood there with my eyes closed (perhaps because I was sick of looking at hair) and felt the vibrations through my whole body. Twas pretty damn cool, though certainly not music my parents would approve of :-)

While I never claimed to be a huge fan (I only own one of their albums), my fondness for them has increased greatly after last night.

Cheers

Peter

Blake and I have been wanting to watch disk 2 from Sigur Rós' Heima for some time now. We've watched disk one on a couple of occasions and have grown to love it. Disk one is a documentary with interviews and live performances, while disk two features the performances in full. The reason why we have not actually watched the second disk is because of a technical fault in my system that I have only last night managed to rectify.

I was up late last night, mostly fuelled on coffee, as a big wave of annoyance came over me which motivated me to find out what was wrong. You see, earlier that evening, my parents came over for the first time to watch a movie. I was pretty displeased when the sound started clipping... in fact, I was a little embarrassed. Either way, I realised it was time to get to the bottom of the problem and get it sorted.

Fault detection in these sort of systems is always a nightmare, simply because there are so many variables - Amp/Receiver/cables/dvd player/dvd/combination of some/all etc... None the less, I was determined to find the fault.

Fault is probably a strong word, but lefts just say that all those fancy sound enhancing features on some DVD players... you dont want them. I've been under the belief that there was a problem with the audio encoding on disk two, which caused a rather unpleasant crackling noise to come out of the centre channel, and sometimes the rears.. the cause of the problem was actually the 'Dialogue Enhancer' feature, which pushed the centre channel signal over the normal threshold under some circumstances, causing it to clip at the pre-amp stage of the sound reproduction.....needless to say, all DVD player based sound enhancement features have now been turned off. I am pleased.

...anyway, just to back-pedal a little - My parents and Markus came around for dinner last night. I made a Beef and Vegetable Casserole with some mashed potato on the side. I think it turned out pretty decent, and the guests seemed to like it. I didn't think it was as good as the Risotto I made the night before, but I guess its hard to compare the two. I always find that casseroles/stews/goulashes always taste better the following day.

As a special treat, my parents bought along the Swiss movie-hit of 2006 - Die Herbstzeitlosen.



The story revolved around an old lady, Martha, who's husband had recently died. She's in her 80's and is looking for things to do, to get her mind off the fact that she is now alone. With the help of the local vixen (probably a strong word to use), she rediscovers her passion for creating beautiful lingerie. As a result, she decides to open her own lingerie shop in town, much to the conservative town-folks' disgust. Needless to say, comedy and tragedy happens as a result. It was basically a feel good movie, akin to Kinky Boots. It was cute, Swiss, enjoyable, though nothing extraordinary. 6/10.

...so returning to the topic in the first paragraph - We finally got to watch Disk two from Heima.



So after months of expectations, were we disappointed? I sure as hell was not. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. The sound was fantastic, the song choices were spot on and the visuals suited the music brilliantly. Furthermore, it was long. Due to some strange disk authoring, I cannot say how long it actually went for, but it certainly felt like a very complete representation of their music, as well as what they were trying to achieve with their free Icelandic tour.

Their music is truly the sort of that comes from a deeper place. It is not music created to make money - its music created for themselves, and that is what makes it so very different. In an interview I saw a while back, the band members stated that in Iceland, no one makes music to make money, because there simply aren't enough people to actually buy it there. Icelandic musicians primarily make music for themselves and for each other... it it comes to pass that it makes them some money, then they eat some Þorramatur and rejoice. But making money from their art is not at the forefront of their thinking... as such, some of the most interesting, and most beautiful music in the world, comes from a little island with a population of less 315,000 people. 8/10

I've put off posting simply because a lot has been happening that I would like to document, but I havent felt up to the task of writing about those things... as, as always happens in these situations, those things have combined with new things to create a situation where I would have to type many many pages in order to properly document everything the way I would like to.

I'm not a lazy man... my problem is that I never feel like I have enough time to do a job right... that being said, there is no denying that when it comes to some things, I certainly am lazy :P

The point then being that I like to take my time when writing these entries... especially now that I've decided to put a lot more pictures and such into them. It's difficult to find that time, and even now I know that I wont actually get a chance to write about everything I would like to. Why then do I always waste so much time writing little intros like this?

To the point then... below is a list of topics I've been drawing up...


The moo-cow is courtesy of Tracy

As you can see, the list is not overly huge. But my underlying desire to write about each little point in great detail is what makes things difficult. I'll knock off some of the quite topics first.

The East Perth Redevelopment Authority & LandCorp

A few weeks ago, LandCorp released its proposal for the Perth foreshore. I'm sure there'll be a while heap of conservative people whom oppose the project. Personally, I love the proposal, with the exception of the loop-bridge, though perhaps it will look better in real life.



The Perth Waterfront website has some pretty decent pics and explanations of the concept, so I encourage you to visit the site to make up your own mind.

The fact that the Swan river is so far removed from the city has been one of my main gripes for quite a long time... I actually had grown to accept that nothing would ever be done to change that, so this announcement was a great big and pleasant surprise to me. Perth has become one of the wealthiest cities in the country - I think its about time that it started looking like it. I just hope they actually get this project off the ground within a decent time.. I dont want to be in my 60s by the time I get to enjoy it.

This brings me onto the East Perth Redevelopment Authority. There are several fantastic projects in the works there. I'm excited about the Riverside development and the East Perth Power Station redevelopment. I am, however, most excited about the Northbridge Link proposal. Sinking those damn train-lines is well overdue, and I cant believe this project is currently on-hold. Lets hope they get this off the ground sometime soon. Its a brilliant proposal and really should be moving ahead full-pelt... I guess we'll have to be satisfied with the Perth Arena..... I'm not big on its exterior design, but I do support its construction.


.... it appears they saved some money on their illustrations, compared the the foreshore project :-)

Makan makes he return to the biggest state
A couple of weeks ago, Makan returned to Western Australia as a Lawyer. To be honest, I always assumed he would never return to live in WA permanently. But as he put it, landing a job in WA was more of a coincidence than anything else. He wanted to get a law job, and this is where he got one. At this point it does not really feel like he is here to stay... if I was him, I would be feeling pretty unsettled and would probably be looking to move back east somehow. Dont get me wrong - I'd love for him to stay. Perth is a great city and I think he'll be happy here in the long term. But Canberra gave him independence and taught him professionalism, gave him some great friends and bought him closer to the excitement of the eastern states. If I was him, I would miss those things greatly.

Within the first couple of weeks of his arrival, he met some of my work-friends at Iris' going away drinks at Carnegie's, while I met a couple of his collegues at Tiger Lil's. The Tiger Lil's night was a strange one. Mostly because no one from work was there. Its one of immigration's favourite evening hangouts, but there was no immi officer in sight anywhere... so suddenly I felt like the new guy in town, standing around trying to fit into a group of people I didn't know. It was quite an ironic situation really... at least it felt ironic to me.

The Araluen Chilli Festival
Ah yes... the sweet sweet chilli festival. They day started when I departed my humble home at 12:10 in order to pick up Shazza by 12:30, pop by Judith's so she could follow me with her cousin, pick up Jen in Mt Lawley, and then head down the Freeway to Atwell to pick up Makan.The drive from Atwell to Araluen was a pleasant one. Traffic was flowing nicely and traffic lights were few. The same could not be said for the way home (up Albany Hwy) which was far from relaxing.

The Araluen Chilli Festival is an annual event which has started to develop a loyal, and more and more sizable following.


Makan walking, and Jen and Charmaine perving on some guys ass

Its always difficult to explain to people that the festival is not, in fact, a Mexican style chilli cook-off (though that would be a lot of fun). Instead, it is a festival devoted to the Chilli Plant, and the wonderful things you can do with them. Luckily, this year, there were quite a few curry AND Chilli-stands. Give it another two to three years, and a cook-off is bound to be on the lists of events.

We didnt waste much time when we got there. We were hungry. And after a 5 minute period trying to quell our hunger with sample chilli dips, we decided to fork out some money and actually buy some food. I, as well as Judith's Cousin, ate some Indian Curry for lunch, while the others settled for some manner of spinach pita-bread stuff. I think we made the right choice, though she appeared to struggle with the hotter curries.


Charmaine and Jud's cousin enjoying a chat and a meal.

I was stuffed.... we continued our journey along the marked path and sampled several delightful chilli-things, and even gazed upon some chilli-plants. They looked glorious. And while I really really wanted one, I knew that I could not offer it a good home at the moment. Perhaps next year.

My full stomach did not stop me from getting overly excited at the sight of the Malaga Bratwurst Man! I love that guy, and love his sausage(s). I managed to squeeze one down my gob, and thoroughly enjoyed ordering it in German :-)

Soon enough, we were in the licenced area, listening to African music, watching some African tribal dancing (so much ass shaking) and enjoying some chilli inspired alcoholic beverages. The Chilli-Beer proved popular, though my liking of it dissipated when I learnt that it was actually a NSW product.. I really wanted it to be local.

For some reason, Judith was reacting rather badly to the African music. While the rest of us quite enjoyed it, she absolutely despised it. As a result, she got into a bit of a mood, which was a shame. We still had a good time though.


Makan enjoying the good stuff | Makan and I having photo-times. I love my hat | Jen and Charmaine looking good for the Camera

Jen and Makan got along pretty damn well... under different, more affordable circumstances, they would have had an all-out drinking competition... there was much talk of it, and I did buy them a round or two which kept them happy. That being said, Makan would have no chance against Jen... she is the drinking master, and no one can touch her....NO ONE!!

I think this festival will only get bigger and I'm already looking forward to next year's :P

Well, that's all for now. As predicted, I have not managed to strike a lot of topics off my list, but hopefully I'll get to them in the near future. I will leave you with the following pics... make of them what you will.



Cheers

Peter