The Death Of Pop Music

Pop music (the concept, not the style) runs on the momentum of the relationship between radio stations, MTV and the record companies. As a song is released, the big companies (EMI, Sony etc) give these songs to the pop stations (Nova, 2Day FM, MTV etc). The radio or TV station plays the song repeatedly, giving the impression that it is popular, regardless of whether it is or not. Almost all of this music is in the same style (currently this is RnB and female fake rock (Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus (to name but a few))). This ideology goes back to the days when radio was king, and besides jazz clubs, the only music you could hear was through the airwaves. In the 1960's though, bands started to play gigs and rock clubs began surfacing, sometimes even allowing a band to survive without radio play (Led Zeppelin didn't release singles in the UK). When punk arrived in the mid 70's, live shows were the whole deal for these bands and they proved that a whole subculture of music could exist without the need for radio. Still, at this time, the most popular music was out there due to radio exposure. But when MTV reared its ugly head in the 80's, kids wanting to find good music would only have to see what was on heavy rotation to find out what to like. It was, dare I say, too easy to discover new music.


As of the early 00's, the music on pop radio was of little merit and was now supported by American Idol. This hellish show made millions of people believe that this was normal music, furthering the illusion that besides pop music, there really isn't much out there. This is not to say that great music can't survive, but it is always going to be harder on good artists when there are a large portion of people in the world that don't know better. These people, the viewers of Idol and the listeners of Nova, I believe would be listening to better music if this shit wasn't so easily available. These people (most people) obviously enjoy listening to music, or else they wouldn't be tuning into these stations and getting these records in the first place, so now imagine a world where they had to seek it out. I honestly believe they would seek it out, because music is an amazing thing that most of us want in our lives, hence the existence of a huge industry making money off feeding these poor misguided souls such easily accessible songs.


Now to the point of this article... I think the record companies are in their last years. More and more people are downloading music for free. Yes, alot of the music being downloaded is the crap that's on the radio, but what about the day when almost nobody buys music anymore, leaving the industry to die. If the companies don't exist, and therefore are not creating this bad music in such large quantities, will bad music just become another genre to seek out on the internet?


I have faith in people, and I truly do think most people just don't know the difference between what they like and don't like and will just take what is given. So if left to their own devices, with no corporation to tell them what to like, will the misguided masses seek out the type of music that is currently being pumped through ad nauseam??


If all music becomes equal in exposure, and (unless a friend burns you something) the only way to hear music is by seeking it out, will the next generation really want to go to the sites playing music akin to Akon, or will they follow their heart and listen with their own ears?


Perhaps it will mean the death of pop music after all.


 - Lee (while not listening to T-Pain)

Steven's Last Night In Town

There used to be a time in my life where I would relish a few drinks after work on a Friday; nothing like a cool beer or 10 to wash away the worries of the week. After my diagnosis with cancer in June this year, I haven't been working and therefore haven't had the pleasure of enjoying some bourbon and cokes with my fellow colleagues, a pleasure that I don't really miss... let me tell you why.

It's got nothing to do with the people I worked with, it's not the people that I don't like, it's consuming excessive amounts of alcohol that made me feel like crap every Saturday morning and pretty much ruined the two days of the week that were "free". But this wasn't something that started in Feb 2009 when I started work, it's roots were much earlier. The earliest drunken memory I have is when I was around 15, at Janis Dunnicliff's house in Cherrybrook. Janis' house was a key part of my teenage-hood - at his awesome parties I was introduced to alcohol, the beginning of a love/hate relationship that would continue for many years to come. It must have been late 2001/early 2002 (year 9/10 in school) when one Saturday night Lee, Pedram and myself were invited over to stay the night at Janis'. Being the young rebels we were we 'borrowed' a few beers from our fridges at home and brought them along with us. We walked over to the park next to Edward Bennett Drive and drunk them, and it was awesome!

I think that was the earliest memory I have of being drunk. I just remember feeling happy, being with my friends and being happy. I also remember falling asleep that night to 2 sounds - number 1 being the song 'Tribute' by Tenacious D on the TV, and the other being Lee crying (a sound that I would hear many more times over my drunken years with him).

Then there was the time at Luke Brecht's house, late 2002 when I was 16. We had been at Jess Muirhead's party in Glenhaven, and I had brought along a 375ml bottle of whisky that I smuggled from my cupboard at home. Jess had a fridge full of those small VB bottles (throw downs), so I started in on those. When those ran out I moved on to the whisky and cokes. I think I went through half or 3/4 of the bottle of whisky, so it's fair to say I was drunk. We were picked up by Luke's mum, Julie at around 10:30 or something (I can't remember much from this point on). Back at the casa de Brecht, his brother Matt (3 years older than us) had a few mates around, and there eyes lit up when they saw two 16 year olds stumble through the door. Shots were the next drink of choice. Tequila, Chartreuse, you name it we did it. Rumour has it, that they poured me a shot with Vegemite in it and I drank it... After shots were the Corona's (always on hand at the casa de Brecht) in Luke's spa. After the spa we took our beers upstairs to warm up in the shower and then down to Luke's study to watch some porn. The absolute last thing I remember of that night was watching porn from pinkworld and rocking back and forth on Luke's chair and then yyuuuuooohaofhdifjdosoadkfojaaaaaaaaahhhh - I threw up all over the carpet, all over the curtain and all over the powerboard...

Punishing Purchasers

I hate that shit, doesn't even make any sense...

Why is it that a medium like DVD contains these threats and warnings (never mind that they're near universally unskippable*) and a medium like free-to-air TV does not? The consumers who legitimately purchase DVDs are paying for the privileged to be threatened, it seems. We shouldn't be paying to be told not to steal, the industry should pay to tell us.

If I illegally download a movie, I get to do whatever I want with the file, keep it forever and there are no silly warnings or threats. Such is the nature of illegal downloads. Legitimately download a movie and it's loaded with DRM code (digital rights management), DRM code is what makes buying a digital file so unattractive. Buy the DVD and you have to wait a few minutes before you can watch it every time you chuck it in the DVD player. There are so many ways the industry could make legit downloading attractive. Unfortunately they don’t appear to be doing it yet - even if they did we couldn't utilise it in Australia without the NBN (Ah anyway, that topic goes so deep I won’t even begin). I’m just pissed of about this shit on DVDs I fucking buy. Just imagine you walk into a shop one day to buy a loaf of bread, your handing the money over and the cashier say "hey, remember not to steal from this store - we'll take you to court and take all your money if we catch you". I'd tell them to go fuck themselves.

- Dogman

*I notice that you can fast forward through it, but then after it there is this stark white government/industry warning that really cannot be skipped.

Reality is killing Creativity

One of the main problems with the world today (poverty and Bin Laden aside) is that too many people care what the Kadashians are doing. We can thank the Ozzbournes for it too. You will all remember a few years back when the Ozzbournes first came on to television. It was huge, everyone wanted to talk about how mental Ozzy was and how much his wife swore. I may have tuned in for half an episode to see what the fuss was about but I didn’t stick around after the commercial break.

This unleashed a swarm of has-been rock stars letting us into their homes to see how crazy they all were, but what was worse, the people loved it. Now there are hundreds of these types of ‘reality TV shows’ all over foxtel.

I use the word ‘reality’ very loosely because in no way do any of these shows represent reality. They are normally focused on the rich and famous who have much more money then sense, intelligence or purpose.

While hung-over at a female friends house one Sunday morning I was outnumbered by about three to one by girls who wanted to put on season who-gives-a-shit of The Hills. Being outnumbered and hung-over I didn’t put up much more than a groan and thought I could use it as an opportunity to check out some hot girls (I wasn’t disappointed). Now for those of you who haven’t seen this show it’s basically about a group of hot LA girls who have a lot of money and hang around LA talking about really important issues like who someone brought to a party and how much of a bitch that someone is and blah, blah, blah.

I couldn’t help but notice while watching this show how high the production value was. For instance all the conversations these girls were having were so well lit they looked like a film. This would be almost impossible for a team working as a ‘fly on the wall’ crew. They would have to pre-empt where they were going, send people ahead, light it where they think they would sit and then tweak it all just as they sat down which would interrupt the shit out of the restaurant.

I later found out from someone that the way this show works is that if x has a fight with y the producers ask them about it and find out what happened, then get them to re-enact the same fight the following day so that can shoot and light it properly. How is that real?

The other crowd favorites are the dating/reality shows. Farmer Wants a Wife, The Bachelor, The Bachorlorette, there are a few others (the names of which escape me) but they’re all basically the same show, a guy or girl picks a husband/wife (they are actually choosing someone they will spend the rest of their lives with on a TV show) out of a bunch of suitors. The worst part is people sit around at home desperate to find out whom he or she chooses, LIKE IT’S GOING TO LAST FOREVER!

Masterchef is one of the most watched shows on television, each week it’s on it gets a record breaking crowd tuning in. I walked past one day to see a few minutes of it and the segment that was on (which seemed to last most of the episode) consisted of the contestants trying a dish and then guessing what ingredients were in it, come on! How is that exciting? That was the whole show! The most infuriating part though is after someone tries what is obviously a carrot it then cuts to that same person after the challenge explaining what you just saw: 

“Yeah I tried the carrot and I was 95% sure it was a carrot” Then it cuts back to the challenge.
“Umm, carrot?”
Five second pause while the judges stand around looking like twats.
“Correct.”

What a waste of time.

The only commendable addition to this genre are the game shows on steroids. The Amazing Races and Survivors of the world. I don’t watch either but I understand how people would find these entertaining. At least here we see people use intelligence and wit to win a realistic prize like money or a car, not a wife or a husband.

I have only mentioned a couple of shows here when there are thousands of ridiculous shows out there. At the moment on free to air television there are two shows, TWO SHOWS! About random breath testing. When have you ever pulled up to a RBT and thought, you know what? This would make a great TV show. The TV exec who pulled up to an RBT and thought that, must have been drunk!


All this while there are phenomenal series out there like The Sopranos.

-Adam Bovino

Thank You

As I was falling asleep the other night, I was struck with a sudden feeling of gratitude for the simple things in my life. Perhaps I take these things for granted sometimes. Please add to this list if you want to, as I'm sure there are more wonderful and simple things to be thankful for. So without further ado;

Thank you to whoever in ancient Rome invented the sliding door.

Thank you to that dude in Egypt thousands of years ago that decided he wanted a nicer sleep and invented the pillow.

Thank you to Robert Adler for inventing the TV remote control. I love that thing heaps.

Thanks to the person that thought to make a little baby drawer and put it next to their bed. I love my bed-side table.

Thank you William Thomson, for making what we now know as Christmas/fairy lights. They are coming in handy at the moment bro.





PLZ ADD MOAR

A Brief History Of Time

Table Of Contents

1. Book review (Stephen Hawking's A Brief History Of Time)
2. Seven fun facts about the Cosmos
3. To infinity, and beyond

1. Book Review

To say that this was an easy read would be a lie... but to say that it was an interesting read couldn't be further from the truth. Stephen Hawking's 1988 best-selling science book is one of the most mind blowing things I have ever experienced. In it, he covers topics ranging from space and time, to the uncertainty principle, to black holes, and the origin and fate of the universe. The introduction by another legendary scientist, Carl Sagan, whets your appetite for the pages ahead.

If you want to read this book (and if you are at all interested in the cosmos I highly recommend it), I suggest reading it when you have the least amount of distractions such as noise and fatigue. This is because every page contains so much information that if you blink you'll miss something, an event I found myself doing throughout reading this book. My first attempt at it (yes it's one of those) was last year, and I got half way through it only to lose interest and start something else. So in many ways a level of commitment is needed to get through it; and when you do the rewards will be great.

On my second attempt I had a little more time on my hands, and so took my time. I kept notes on interesting facts (7 of those I will share with you in chapter 2 of this blog), as it was not only a way of keeping track of where I was at, it also solidified my knowledge of often super confusing ideas such as the uncertainty principle and wormholes. This book is meant for someone who has no knowledge of science at all (a 'layman') and even though I know bits and pieces, I've never actually studied physics beyond high school, and even then Mr. Fernside's year 10 science class wasn't the right environment for me to grasp these concepts.

I guess that Hawking does a good job at explaining these concepts to a layman, however I felt that I needed to stop and go on Wikipedia to learn more as I went along, and in that respect (since this book was published in the 80s and the layman back then wouldn't have had their own encyclopaedia in their pocket) the book is a little confusing, and hard to read at times. But that's what I liked about it, he doesn't dumb any of the concepts down at all. Hawking explains a concept once, and if you don't understand it, I think the best thing to do is to just keep reading. An excerpt from the book states, "If you remember every word in this book, your memory will have recorded about two million pieces of information" - and that's if you remember every word.

So my advice is to jump into it with a fresh and open mind, knowing that it's not going to be an easy read, and to keep a piece of paper and pencil handy so you can grasp the universe we live in just that little bit better. In the next chapter, I will share with you 7 of the most interesting things that I came across whilst reading this phenomenal book by a very intelligent man.

Music – part 1 of ?

"Music sweet music, I wish I could caress" - Jimi Hendrix

Do you ever get that thing happen to you where you feel totally inspired to do something awesome, artistically or whatever and you start or are about to start and then you realise that you are undertaking something quite epic, at least on a personal scale, and you fear that you won’t do it justice so you just give up and leave it unfinished? Or worse still you just don’t do anything...you don’t even start it? Sucks ey? I get it plenty, I write a 15 page short story and then ditch it cos it isn’t perfect. I avoid writing about Arrested development cos I want to do a 3 part epic on how much I love it. With that in mind I present Music – Part one of question mark...exclamation mark

So yeah the other day I was cruising Venice Beach with Luke and Jay, lapping up the Sun and the cool vibe of this alternative beach strip. Early on Jay and I walk and this black guy stops us and shoves his CD in our face. The guerrilla sales tactics pays off, leaving us ambushed and bewildered and slow to react. Before we know it Jay has headphones on and I am putting on a set from some other rapper. I listen along and find that the music isn’t so bad. The guy talks to me and says he is touring with Big Day Out later this year and he turns out to be genuinely interesting. I figure I will buy his CD for a few bucks to help support fellow a aspiring musician. He asks my name and signs the CD. As he does so, he explains he works on donations, the CD is free. Jay’s rapper, however, is about 30 seconds ahead with the scam than me and my rapper. He is at the point where he explains that he “usually gets around $15-20.” Jay politely offers $5, it’s all he can spare, and he’s gotta get lunch and catch the bus back. “Yeah like I said I usually get around fifteen to twenty dollars,” he says a tad more forcefully. So the veil is lifted from my innocent head as I turn back to my guy who is frowning at the $5 bill in my hand. We offer to return the Cds, but then they are already signed with our names, like their sigbature suddenly makes this 50c disc a vintage piece of music history.

It’s hard to describe the disappointment that swept over me as I accepted that I had been hustled out of what turned out to be $15 (standard price), but i think my rapper could tell. Our conversation which included me congratulating him on his success and wishing him well for his tour down under dissolved into to me nodding and just wanting to get away from these guys as he pocketed my dough.

In the end it wasn’t that bad as we left feeling impressed by their scamming abilities and with a solid quote for the rest of our holiday but I guess the ultimate disappointment for me is that these guys are artists and musicians. I was into the music and, more importantly, the feeling of comradery of a musician struggling to make it. His success and his story were interesting and I’m glad we got the chance to share it, but it all became a hoax when his true motive showed through. It should be the love for music and expression and creativity and a strong desire to share those things with people that drives a musician. Like Jay pointed out, instead of inspiring and finding new listeners they are just pissing off potential fans. Compare what they do to a story Lee told me about giving some random guys a lift home and bypassing $10 for a promise that they visit the Vienna Circus facebook page. I know which musician has a clearer idea of the power and importance of music.
- Eden (while listening to Dark Side of the Moon – Pink Floyd)

PS. We listened to the CD and it sucked balls

Yogo Gorilla!

I was walking through Franklin’s (a relic of the 80s/90s) at Westleigh (also a relic of the 80s/90s) and saw some Yogo. The 90’s was the heyday of Yogo, it had the best commercials and I loved the taste of that chocolatey custardy shit. So Brooke and I bought a two pack and ate it when we got home. It was delicious. Probably not as good as I had remembered, but still... delicious.

I wouldn’t have known about Yogo, or had those fond memories had it not been for a certain Gorilla and his sidekick Snake. The stop motion Yogo ads of the 90’s were really good and in my mind rose above the usual shitty kids commercials (as memorable as some of the jingles may be).

Here is the first:



I don’t remember that one either. Regardless, here the Gorilla and the snake appear for the first time. It’s quite a crude representation of what they would eventually become...



“Barry... BARRY!!... I’ll get back to you Barry...” Haha!

That is the full-length 90 second version of the commercial that we saw most often cut to 30 seconds. Looking at the debut and then at the feature length shows a huge change. It’s like ‘Please Please Me’ vs ‘Abbey Road’. You can appreciate both, but the production values of the later are undeniably superior. The ad also features drumming by the guy from ‘Regurgitator’ and ‘The Hard-Ons’ (kinda famous) and a bunch of references to films.

I don’t like most children's advertising, but when it’s this creative – how can I not? I’ve only posted two ads here because that's all I could find (I know there were more). But with this series the ongoing use of the Gorilla and Snake was great and the fact that they were stop motion meant a good deal of effort had to be invested. All Hail Yogo Gorilla!

- Dogman

Online Petition: Bring Back Lee's Comedy College!!

Many months ago in a land not so different from ours, a young boy named Dr Lee Robert Sullivan Ph.D decided to share his wonderful wealth of comedic knowledge with his fellow moon dwellers. It was a wonderful idea, a comedic cousin to Album of the Week, Lee's Comedy College came out with a bang. Doug Stanhope's Something To Take The Edge Off is one of the best comedy albums I have heard. Such a passionate speaker with a unique old school view on life, this album has received considerable listening time in my music heavy iPod, and Lee says it isn't even Doug's best! Sure, the comments section didn't get the classroom discussion that the professor would have liked, but this freshman selection suggested that people like me were finally going to get a simple, easy to use and frequently updated page of comedy gold.

But alas, tragedy struck. In only his second lesson Dr Lee took a risk and gave his pupils Dana Gould's Let Me Put My Thoughts In You. More like homework than a fun filled listening extravaganza, this album became 30mins+ of half chuckles and unclimaxed joke set ups. On reflection it seemed as though his style didn't click with me or perhaps (and this has happened on a Patton Oswalt album I have) I was bothered that the audience laughed at everything with undeserved vigour. Comedy albums work better in front of small audiences.

Anyways, after the ill received sophomore effort, the professor abandoned the school and left us comedy tragics who are too lazy to find albums ourselves (me) in the scrapheap of Lee's Comedy College Dropouts. Well I'm here to request, nay, demand that Lee, self proclaimed funniest man in the world, returns to his illustrious career as an acomedemic. I hope to get 10 signatures and then send them to Lee in his secret hideaway in the windy hills of Ireland. In respect to what Lee's Comedy College was founded on I will post a Comedy album of the Week in his honour with an album Lee has repeatedly told me to get:

David Cross - Bigger and Blackerer

1. Opening Song (The Sultan's Revenge)
2. If You Care
3. That One Show About Drugs and Stuff
4. Me and Drugs
5. Black Stuff
6. ...Or Worse
7. Where We Are Now Back in Sept. '09
8. Silly Religious Crazies
9. REALLY Silly Religious Crazies. I Mean, Double, Triple Crazy!!
10. Random Goofabouts
11. I Can't Get Beer in Me...
12. Lesson Learned

So let's all get the album, give it a listen and write some comments discussing it underneath along with your signatures and hopefully we can get the College back and running and serving the comoonity again.

- Eden

And while we're at it I think we should get Hamish's Cock College back again

The World Game

I love sport in general and one of my favourites is Soccer/Football. I think the greatest thing about Soccer is that it is a the World Game, played in pretty much every country and followed like a religion by people of all race and nationality. It’s not hard to see why either. It is the simplest of ideas – Kick the ball into the goal, goalkeeper can use his hands to stop the ball.

The tactics of Soccer is where the simplicity of the game becomes so much more. Possession over Position, Long Ball, Counter attack, Set Pieces, 4-4-2, 3-4-3 or 3-4-1-2. Watching an expert analyse the specific tactics opens a whole new perspective to the game and it certainly helped me develop my own tactical approach to the FIFA video game franchise (I am the top of the FIFA rankings as well).


The World Cup is so epic. Most people see it as a one month competition but in reality it is a four year journey to unearth the world’s greatest footballing nation, culminating in the finals that feature the 32 best nations from all corners of the earth. Every match is important and every nation that features in the World Cup is brought to a standstill when they play. If aliens came down to attack earth during World Cup time they would probably postpone the day of attack for a month to watch the tournament play out.

Despite the terrible jersey's I still want Australia to go well in the Cup...Last chance tonight to qualify for the final 16.

It’s history is rich and captivating. Every World Cup is a contest not just between countries, but also between continents. There have only been 7 winners in 18 World Cups: Brazil (5), Italy (4), Germany (3), Argentina, Uruguay (2), England, France (1). Continents? South America - 9, Europe - 9.

So who will go ahead in this years tournament? Can the flair of Brazil outdo the strongest midfield ever seen as Spain looks to claim it’s first title? Can Maradona’s heir apparent - Lionel Messi - lead Argentina to overcome the might of the superstars of the English Premier League? Will the relentless attack-orientated Chile breakdown the overdefensive, boring ‘let’s just dive and get a penalty’ mentality of Italy? Or will Africa, Asia, Central/North America or even Oceania become the third region to claim futbol’s ultimate prize? No they won’t, Brazil will probably win…

The chance to see Lionel Messi in full flight is enough to get me wet for this World cup

- Eden (while listening to Vienna Circus Live @ The Beach Road Hotel)

Flash

I’ve read and heard a lot of trash talk about iPhones and iPads not supporting Flash. At first I agreed that it was silly to not include it, then I thought, what if there is a really good reason? Turns out there are plenty.

I'd like to first start by saying that the iPhone is the first phone I ever saw that delivered a true internets experience. All other phones I'd used the internets on looked like total shit and are slow. The iPhone managed to make the internets on a mobile phone amazing. All without Flash, the current standard for multimedia.

But why is Flash a defacto standard for multimedia on the internets? In '91 Apple released Quicktime, a revolution in desktop multimedia – Windows machines at the time could barely play audio files (in '92 Microsoft released Windows Video, with thousands of lines of code stolen from Quicktime). About 5 years later (during the browser wars Internets Explorer V Netscape), Microsoft made Internets Explorer incompatible with Quicktime and bundled in Flash. We had a situation where Adobe’s closed/proprietary Flash became a standard for web content because Microsoft pushed it. Apple’s Quicktime, which eventually became integral for the open MPEG4* standard, was pushed back.

Aside from the politics, there is a sound technical reason for Flash to not be included on Apple’s touch devices. Have you ever noticed those ads were you move the mouse over them and the cursor interacts with the ad? Most video sites hide the progress bar, play/pause button until the mouse cursor hovers over it. So even if Flash was installed on an iPad/iPhone none of this will work. Flash websites are built with the assumption that a mouse equipped computer is going to be looking at them. This reason alone should be enough to convince anyone.

The replacement for Flash is HTML5. Videos on HTML5 sites are encoded in a higher quality (using MPEG4), you don’t get that stupid loading thing and you can click anywhere in the video at anytime and it should just start playing. HTML5 in an open standard, meaning there is a consortium of companies who define how HTML5 will progress through the years, not one company (Adobe…). Plus no one has to pay a fee to anyone for its use (Adobe gets money for Flash).

All the big video sites are now changing over to HTML5. I’m seeing it happening now. I accidentally went to youpr0n the other day, at the top of the page it said “we’re currently recoding our entire library”. It’s the same with other similar sites. YouTube has done it, Vimeo has done it, all the big porn sites are doing it… these constitute the most popular video sites on the internets. If these sites have made the change then I can only see Flash becoming obsolete very quickly.

- Dogman

*This is what you’re watching when you look at a high quality video on YouTube (or any quality video site for that matter). Flash format is .flv, MPEG4 format is .mp4.

Onions, Fools and Entourage

Onions

I had a thai noodle dish from the place at my work today, and they must have had a different chef working because the bloody onion wasn't cooked enough or cut fine enough. A few good bits were in there but most of them were pretty crap. So I had a really bitter (is that what it is?) taste in my mouth throughout the meal which ruined the whole thing. But it was in this discomfort that I observed a pretty cool feeling. The thought of onions in any capacity was now turning me off. And I fucking love onions. So I imagined having onions cooked on a barbeque, or in a thai dish properly bloody served. And I couldn't imagine ever wanting onions again. In my turned off state, I not only took out all the shitty pieces, I even took out all the good ones. I'd been burned by onions, and I was temporarily, psychologically damaged. One bad experience turned me off the whole deal. Okay, I'm gonna be straight with you people. I realised right now how much I don't like this article. I don't blame you if you're bored. Hopefully it doesn't turn you off my blogs for good.

A Fool

Today at work a guy was telling me about how something went a little haywire on his shift. 

He said, "The print came off the platter, I was like WTF, but I sorted it out in time."

He actually said 'WTF'. And he wasn't being ironic. What a stupid fool.

And...

Imagine coming across a building painted in the brightest, most awesome colours and patterns. You assume that inside there must be something awesome going on, something great and fun. You open the front door and walk inside only to find the whole building is empty. That's what it's like for me to watch Entourage now. The premise is simple. How could you possibly have a boring show with that premise. THAT premise.

Season 5 ended with Vince being told by Martin Scorsese that he will play the Great Gatsby in Marty's new movie. It ended with that scene. Awesome stuff. Season 6 is gonna be sweet, we'll see the gang on set getting up to cool movie star shit, perhaps Vince clicks really well with Scorsese and a costar gets jealous followed by hilarity and fun ensuing. Or Eric gets too close to the project, trying to make changes to the film and it causes a rift in their relationship, the same rift that has been brought up in the season prior (see what I did there, that's called building character arcs). Or maybe Turtle will get a coke problem and die (the dream lives on). So obviously, this being the shittiest, most fucking underwhelming show of all time, season 6 starts with Vince at the premiere of The Great Gatsby. Because apparently what we imagine happened on set is better than what they could have given us. The writers are essentially admitting that they wouldn't be able to entertain us. Well it's hard to imagine what went on during the filming when they don't even discuss it at all during season 6. So the Scorsese angle had no payoff. It didn't even have a build up. It was of no consequence whatsoever. Actually it was worse than that, because they got us excited for nothing, which is worse than just, well, not doing the Great Gatsby/Scorsese angle at all, because at least then we wouldn't have even imagined him on set in the first place, only to be disappointed when we don't see it. Do the writers realise that the show is fake?? They're allowed to do ANYTHING, so why are we treated to him hanging at home doing nothing, waiting in between gigs. And if their answer is that it's just like that for actors sometimes, well fuck that. He's a made up FAKE character, he can do whatever they want him to do. And it's insulting to give an audience (a bloody loyal one to still be watching), a cliffhanger with no payoff, just to ensure that they watch the first episode of the next season. Basically, the writers are saying to us, "wait wait, please don't go..... how about this!!" And then they probably said to each other, "oh shit, Scorsese says he can't do the story arc. His agent told me he's got an actual career and is busy with real projects or some shit and that he was just doing us a favor for an episode because he was in town or some shit. Maybe we should have thought of this before. Oh well, who cares. Our audience surely won't. They'll keep watching forever whatever we do."

Entourage should be the best show on TV. It could be a deep, darkly comic satire on how the movie industry affects people, both the highs and lows. Well, Season 6 ended with Vince going off to film a fucking Ferrari biopic. Bullfuck. If the next episode is him at the premiere then I'm done. 

 - Lee

Tekken Tag Tournament Rankings

As of 9th June, 2010

1.    Eden ‘The Master’ Clarke: Consistency over the years has led to a Federer-like dominance of the Tekken arena by this outstanding combatant. He combines a solid foundation of standard striking, unique side stepping and well ingrained timing with an ability to adapt to the playing style of his opponents to achieve the majority of his victories. Many matches are decided before a single strike is thrown as he holds a firm self belief which is usually matched by his opponents own self disbelief. Like Federer though, it is becoming harder and harder to hold onto number 1.
Weaknesses: Few and far between, however, the standard of the opponents has risen and many people are staking their claim to the number 1
Best characters: Julia, Jun, Hwoarang, Lei

2.    Russell ‘The Heel’ Gill: Infamous for his low combos, Devil lightning and extravagant victory celebrations, Russell is an unrelenting competitor who lets the results do the talking. He is an adaptive and disciplined fighter and has a vast array of characters, meaning he is unafraid to go into a battle selecting random. One could argue a case for Russell being number 1, but the only One to do that would be Russell. Russell as Baek is extremely frustrating as he has almost mastered a 10 hit combo. There is nothing worse than losing to Russell.
Weaknesses: Motivates his opponents to beat him with his ultra-heel persona
Best characters: Baek, Hwoarrang, Brian, Yoshimitsu

3.    Luke ‘The Magician’ Bovino: Luke is an undeniable talent in the Tekken arena and very entertaining to watch as no match is ever over when Luke is playing. Luke has an array of extravagant moves with a number of players. He is willing to risk taking a hit to get out a more difficult move that will cause more damage and stun the fans. Luke can make shitty characters awesome with his unorthodox approach. Many classic Tekken battles feature Luke.
Weaknesses: Known to self capitulate from unlosable positions and usually does so verbally. “I got nothing”
Best characters: Lei, Ganryu, Panda, Kunimitsu

4.    Dean ‘The Natural’ Burr: The most unique Tekken player of his generation, Dean possesses an abstract style of fighting that could be compared to a southpaw boxer, or a left handed tennis player. His unparalleled style leads to never before seen combos and is best expressed in the form of Paul - a character who is unusable to most due to his apparent shitness is suddenly near unstoppable when used by Dean. Believed to be low on the rankings only due to a lack of appearances in competition, this gaming master is the only player who Eden does not have 100% self belief in defeating.
Weaknesses: Inexperience means he has not adapted fully to all playing styles, limited character base
Best characters: Paul, Jin, Yoshimitsu, Heihachi

5.    Lee ‘The Drifter’ Sullivan: Flip a coin when you are playing Lee. Heads, he plays awesome; Tails, he is almost non existent. Now flip that coin five times during the match and that is Lee. Basing his fight on continuous backing away, Lee will wait until you strike first before offering his counters. One round he will crumble like someone playing Tekken for the first time, the next he will destroy the opponent with effortless ease, all while recounting an embarrassing tale of his childhood.
Weaknesses: One good round, one close round, one shit round.
Best characters: Law, Hwoarang, Brian

6.    Jason ‘The Kid’ Bovino: Not a gamer by nature, Jason is instead a Tekken player by occasion, and occasionally he will surprise the much more experienced veterans. Often he uses the forbidden Eddy, but fuck it, someone’s gotta use him. Although over three rounds Jason will usually lose, he always puts up an entertaining battle and for at least one round he can match it with anyone.
Weaknesses: Lack of ambition in the Tekken realm, wastes time with pointless endeavours like writing music and screenplays
Best characters: Eddy, Law

7.    Dogman: Never really had a consistent string of Tekken competition to develop his skills and style, Hamish struggles to keep up the pace with the Tekken nerds mentioned above. He can still hold his own, and is a valuable and sometimes surprisingly awesome teammate in 4 player contests. A natural gamer, Hamish has shown potential for greatness in his limited Tekken exposure
Weaknesses: Inexperience
Best characters: Law, Julia

8.    Helly ‘The Masher’ Vienne: A player from the days of mashing the two punch and two kick buttons in unpredictable excitement. Helly grew up on Tekken with her sisters and is a master of not knowing what buttons she is pressing but managing to do a 10 move combo in the process. Helly rarely plays and when she does, like Jason, it is never for keeps. She is happy win, lose or draw but misses the whole point of playing video games - winning.
Weaknesses: Doesn’t really care
Best characters: Xiaoyu?

Note on ranking system: This is not a points based system. Simply a perceived aggregate of wins and percentages that exists in my own head. Feel free to comment and dispute any of said rankings.

Why Speaking Spanish is Awesome

Uno: Es muy bueno para mantener una mente intelligente y alerta.
Dos: Te da respecto a la gente que habla muchos lenguas. Es super dificil . Tambien es muy interesante para ver los cosas similares y diferentes entre las dos lenguas. Te da mas idea de la origen de su propia lengua.
Tres: Si conoces a alguien que puede hablar español, puedes hablar con el o ella sobre otra personas, no importa si las personas estén en lo mismo lugar!
Cuatro: Para viajar con dos lenguas es perfecto para conocer un pais o muchos y encontrar a muchos amigos de paises diferentes.
Cinco: Puedes escribir tu diario y leer Harry Potter en español.
Six: You can write pretentious blogs on your website that only your friends read, even though your friends don’t speak spanish.
Siete: Puedes crear tatuajes y estados de facebook en español para impresionar a todos.
Ocho: Puedes ver peliculas de paises diferentes sin subtitulos...pero es poco dificil y no vas a entenderla muy bien...probablemente es mejor que usas subtitulos...
Nueve: Puedes ser casi tanto awesome como yo.
Diez: Puedes conocer a una Peruana bonita de trabajo para practicar la lengua, y despúes de conocerla, encuentras que te gusta y quieres conocerla mas. Y si tienes mucho suerte puedes besarla y ser mas feliz!!!

- Eden

Electric Cars

I may be naive when I say this, but wouldn't it be cool if we lived in a world where people did what was best for everyone, themselves included.

We can absolutely have electric cars on the roads. If starting now, every car manufactured was electric, then it would probably still take decades before everyone was driving electric cars because nobody is going to just abandon their current one. But still, there has to be a starting point, and the car and gas companies are stopping it from happening.

Just imagine if all these people meditated everyday and wanted what was best for everything. The heads of these industries would say, "well, looks like something has arrived that trumps what we've been doing. Now that we know, we'll have to stop. I'll have to find another job, but that's worth it for the sake of efficiency and the health of the planet I live on."

Sounds naive, but someone's got to think it.

Public Toilets

I don’t like public toilets, even if they’re really private I still don’t like them. You know why? It’s other people. Other people are the worst, sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who knows how to use a toilet properly. Lifting a seat before you piss is a good idea if you don’t want to leave piss all over it. Flushing after doing a piss (or anything for that matter!) is a good idea too.

Recently I went into a public toilet to take a wiz, to my disgust there was a deep-yellow bowl of piss waiting for me, with droplets sprinkled all around the seat. It’s the height of rudeness and disrespect toward your fellow man to leave a toilet in this state. Normally in this situation I’d begrudgingly clean the seat after doing my business so the next person didn’t think it was me who made the mess. But this time I thought, fuck it - this is the last time I clean up after someone else. Never again will I wipe up the piss of some poorly potty trained piss fiend. I kicked the seat up with my foot, pissed, flushed and left.

/rant

- Dogman

Justin Bieber - Really??

“Who the fuck is Justin Bieber?!”
- Russell

In case you didn’t know already, there is a 16 year-old kid from Stratford, Ontario, Canada (posing left) who goes by the name of Justin Bieber. He started out singing songs on YouTube when he was 12, which were uploaded with the help of his mum (just like all the great child-stars). These were spotted by some agent named Scooter (true story), who arranged for Bieber to be flown down to Atlanta to sing some tunes with Usher – all at the ripe old age of 13. Bieber is now 16, and is an international teen sensation, making teenage girls whet everywhere – he has even sung for Obama in the White House!

The reason I’m writing this is because up until pretty much yesterday, I had never heard of this guy. I slightly recall a few years ago hearing about some baby-faced Canadian singing on YouTube, and Usher and Justin Timberlake were jacking each other off to see who could sign him first, but who remembers something like that? Anyway, he was in Australia this week, and around 4,000 girls waited outside the Channel 7 building on Martin Place from 3am to catch a glimpse of this small human through a window while he sung on Sunrise.

I’m trying real hard to take myself back 7 years ago to when I was 16, but I can’t remember wanting to see someone that badly. Granted, I’m not a girl – but still I had posters of Jennifer Love-Hewitt (drool) and Sarah Michelle Gellar on my wall, fantasized over them… and nope, didn’t have the urge to wait on some chilly-ass concrete with thousands of other horny me’s hoping that she would marry me. Just like any douche-bag pop loser with no real talent except for a pretty voice and churchy niceness, this is only a fad let me assure you. I lol’d when I heard that Molly Meldrum compared him to Prince.

Maaayyyyybbee if this guy wrote songs like (wait, does he write songs?) like “All My Loving” I would completely understand this mania, but he obviously didn’t so why should I care?

Hey, if you like this kid, that’s awesome – I just don’t think we can be friends.

- Russell

P.S. - I feel bad for posting so soon after Eden's much more insightful and quality blog on Superstition below, so scroll down a touch and check it out.

The Dark Veil of Anonymity....

"The mind can never again fit back to its original proportions once it's been stretched by a new idea."

I was sitting on the internet not too long ago thinking to myself, 'Isn't it a fantastic thing that we have these blogs now?' I mean, what an amazing concept... Internet goers have been given the privilege - nay, the POWER to write what they want, when they want, to an audience of unfathomable proportions. This 'upgraded' feature to our online lives can be extremely entertaining and educative for all when used properly, much like it has been with Beatles on the Moon. But sometimes, more often than not, the amazing limitless power of internet blogging falls into the hands of the numbingly dumb Neanderthal scum, and this amazing limitless power is completely abused, turning blogging into one of the most potentially dangerous tools used on the net today.
For example:
My father is and has been a prominent lawyer in Papua New Guinea for 20 years. He has built up a glowing reputation through almost 20,000 cases for numerous politicians and national leaders. This has advanced him to the point of owning his own legal firm, with regular clientele coming back again and again to receive the same outstanding legal service they know they're going to get. But not 3 weeks ago, a blog was posted on the Crime and Corruption PNG website accusing him of conspiring with one of his clients to steal millions from the government of Papua New Guinea.
The accusation came from a twenty-something dead head living in the USA who was hiding behind an anonymous alter-ego, and believe it or not, after many impressionable minds had logged on to the website, this accusation was published in the country's daily newspaper.
"LAWYER CHARGES 5 MILLION KINA FOR 6 PAGE LEGAL ADVICE!" The headlines read.
As you can imagine, my Dad's reputation was shot to hell.
Knowing my Dad for quite some time (since birth to be precise), I can tell you he was completely innocent. The blogger had found two separate pages of unrelated legal documents, stuck them together and called it proof.
Greg Sheppard's reputation, which had taken him over 20 years of hard work to achieve, was tainted in seconds by a slimy little internet rat who didn't have any idea of what he was talking about. Not to mention the numerous death threats he received after hundreds of thousands of people read the damaging false information.
Now, I'm sure most of you people reading this are aware that defamation of character is a serious crime against someone's good nature. But even after my father had finally cleared his name with the Police and the rest of Papua New Guinea, he couldn't find the person responsible because the name he had been using on the blog was false.
So the question I pose to you is this:
Should anonymous internet blogging be a thing of the past? Do we now need to be putting our real names at every bottom of every page? It should never have to come to that, but as with all of the few TRUE liberties the public are given, one stupid idiot ruins it all.
I believe that what has happened to my father is a grave warning for what's to come as more and more of the idiotic population realise the power they can wield underneath their fingertips.

- George Sheppard

My Quest For Minimalism

I've been affected by Hamish's article. I've decided to not just read it and think how cool that would be, but actually take it to heart.

Since I discovered Buddhism, I've felt a connection to the idea of minimalism and have had many moments to think about how I would like to start getting a bit more serious with it. I guess an irony is that through minimalism, I don't want to take as many things seriously. Because when I go on Facebook and see that there is something in my inbox or there is a notifuckation, I have a feeling (albeit a light and over time a subconscious one) of happiness that people want to talk to me. And the opposite happens when my inbox is empty. To me, that is taking something unnecessarily seriously.

When I saw Into The Wild, I felt a connection to the movie and it's message. To me, that is a film about minimalism, among other things.

When I was a kid, I thought about how much I wanted to be an adult, as I'm sure most kids do. Part of that adulthood did not involve a life filled with something like the internet and it's power to pull me in. We all know what it's like to go on the internet to look at one thing and find yourself sitting for hours looking at mindless stuff. Actually, this is more a personal thing, because most people find that looking at sites is a good way to expand your general knowledge, and if that's you, then that's right for you and your personality. But I've always been one to just be interested in a few things passionately and I don't feel a need to know much more than that. Also, it's not that the internet is a bad thing, it's obviously a great thing. But it is the amount of hours I have spent on the internet and the reasons I am there that bother me.

It all comes down to this: my music, my friends, my family and the art I experience. This is all I want. Because less crap equals more goodness. Through meditation, I am becoming more focused in my day to day life, and it is showing through how well Vienna Circus is going. I am slowly employing minimalism into my life. YES!!

- Lee

Censorship

"In general I am in favour of free speech but..."
Reader comment in response to an interview with one of the moderators of Encyclopedia Dramatica.

To me this person completely contradicted themselves in 10 words. You cannot be in favour of free speech while supporting any form of censorship. There are no 'buts' with freedom of speech - it's all or nothing.

Encyclopedia Dramatica has some of the most confronting stuff I’ve seen on the internet. Read an article about any minority group (or majority group for that matter) and it will be filled with every offensive stereotype you can imagine and more. But should you censor this stuff because it is highly confronting and mostly offensive? Cunt is another word for vagina, e=mc2, coke is black and bubbly and according to ED - niggers love fried chicken. These are all valid pieces of the human web of knowledge. Every last scrap of this information was generated in the mind of a human and even if you do censor them they still exist. To me this makes ED just as valid as Wikipedia. It’s what you choose to do with knowledge that makes the difference. Like the majority of humans on this planet, I don’t want to hurt anyone.

It’s likely that ED will be blacklisted under the new internet clean-feed that the Government wants to implement. Unfortunately it will be one of the many sites that will be blocked because it will be given a classification of “Refused Classification”. The government reasons that anything that you can’t buy on the shelves in Australia now (i.e. – has an RC rating), will be blocked on the internet with the clean-feed. So it kind-of sounds reasonable, except that pretty much everything that is rated RC isn’t even illegal in the first place. For those of you out there into ‘golden-showers’ (or anything remotely kinky), sorry… you’ll have to hunt that stuff down via illegal avenues if the government have their way.

Already we have a government telling us what we can and can’t see on our store shelves even though it’s not necessarily illegal. All this done under the guise of the “Australian Classification Board” - really, they should actually be called the “Australian Censorship Board”. Who in the government is making these rules? Why are we not being consulted? If we’re going to ban ED because of its offensive content, perhaps we should have banned the works of Einstein. After all he was the one who proposed e=mc2, and that was key to the creation of the atomic bomb. Where does it stop? That’s the problem with censorship – once you begin, it can never end.

Having been reading about this topic for several months I’ve come to the conclusion that censorship is bad for humanity. It shouldn’t exist at all. However, classification is a good thing, we should have an informative system (don’t get me started on the whole R+18 rating for games) so everyone knows what they will be seeing before they look. Obviously this isn’t always going to work but that’s life.

- Dogman

"History is full of people who out of fear, or ignorance, or lust for power have destroyed knowledge of immeasurable value which truly belongs to us all. We must not let it happen again." – Carl Sagan


I would say more about the internet filter but there are others who have done a much better job than I ever could have. I urge you to read the following:

The Internet Filter Explained
An Interview with an ED Moderator