hold tight

something is being sifted and beaten, folded and mixed. something new is being created. stay tuned.

isogashii da yo!

Couple of things that I have been up to lately - I went and saw the Pixar exhibition at ACMI with Brad, Ben, Yoko and Shiori. It really was an amazing thing to see - the creative process from sketched ideas to full blown 3D animation. I haven't seen all of their films and had not been that interested until I saw Finding Nemo, which I thought was great - but will endeavor to hunt down and watch all of their films in the near future. We talked about how Pixar is kinda the western Ghibli, but I dont think they are quite there yet. I just think sometimes their stories lack depth and subtlety. Too merchandising oriented perhaps? Now if you could get Miyazaki to write a film for Pixar - then we'd be getting somewhere. Not really his style I guess.

I ate some great food last night at a Korean place near where I used to live in North Melbourne. Pork Bolgolgi, Kim Chi, etc - really good and cheap. Unfortunately they had no Cass, so I drank some strange Japanese Pilsner beer I had never heard of - Reijyou or something. I tried to remember the URL on the can - lemme see if I can find it online... it was one of these.

I have been working on a couple of short films - one for my Time Based Media class, of which the treatment and storyboard is finished. The other is actually for a film festival happening next weekend called Shootout. Should be interesting and if the film turns out half decent, I'll post it up for people to watch.

I have been kinda wondering whether this blog is worthwhile or whether I should move my ramblings to Facebook or Mixi. Probably not Mixi, because if you arent a member, you cant see my profile and it's all in Japanese. Maybe facebook? I dunno.

Other quick points:

-Daft Punk is playing in Dec, emailed my sister to try and score some tickets
-Loving the Neutral Milk Hotel record
-Loving Panda Bear
-Have started listening to some old techno again
-Parents have moved into their new place, despite some hiccups and it not quite being finished yet
-Photos are up from BZ's birthday and my parents house on Flickr - link over to your right
-Looks like Howard and the liberals are going down in flames. ABOUT FUCKEN TIME
-My three favourite TV shows are in one after the other - Spics and Specs, The Chasers War on Everything and Summer Heights High. God bless the ABC
-I learned some great blokey Japanese yesterday - やった？ (asking a mate after he went home with someone)
-Have almost completely decided on end of year trip - Japan / Malaysia
-Plan to catch up with a mate that I used to work with at HP. Hopefully next week or the week after. Facebook FTW.

Thats it for now.

new gisborne

On sunday, I drove up to my parents place (as is almost a weekly occurrence) to have dinner. It was kind of my brother's birthday (well it was actually the week before but he was in Sydney). I drove to their house, then my dad drove us to a pub in the country for dinner. The town has a somewhat uninspiring name: New Gisborne. It's your typical one pub, one train station type of town - sleepy and farmy. The sun was setting as we were driving there, of which I have photos. I'll post them as soon as I find the cable thingy for the camera. We bought a bottle of local chardonnay, and shared it while sitting on a table in front of an open fire in the practically deserted restaurant part of the pub.

Surprisingly, being that far from any water, the menu was full of seafood. I decided however to go for the Angus 300g rump steak. I figure people pay lots of money for Australian beef in other countries - I should probably enjoy it while it's relatively cheap (~$25). It tasted great, though was slightly over-done for rare. Topped with garlic butter. I'm pretty sure I have a photo. Vegetables tasted great, not sure if they were local produce or not. Slightly under-cooked, though I like them like that. The wine was also great - again about $25 for a bottle, from the Gisborne area. Apparently there is a winery around there that we are planning on visiting. I might have to pick up a case.

As much as I like to wonder out loud how anyone could shun the conveniences of living in a city for country existence - in some tiny town where everyone is anglo, meat and three veg is the nightly staple, and drunk driving is expected - I do love visiting these places. I particularly love eating local food (if possible), drinking local wine, and trying to imagine what my life would be like, if I decided one day to leave Fitzroy and move to the country. It's totally a romantic notion I know, and those of you that grew up in the country I'm sure would love to alert me to the harsh reality of country living, but still.. I could play my drums at 2am. Though I can do that now.

We went back to my brother's house for dessert - they had bought a whole lot of little cakes and pastries from somewhere or other. I got to play with his dogs (which I dont get to see that often). All in all a pretty good night. It's a pity that neither of my sisters were in attendance, nor was Bradles. Ah well, I'm sure there will be plenty more nights like that.

back in my day

Last week I had the good fortune to have been given two free tickets to go and see The Cure play at Rod Laver Arena here in Melbourne. I had some idea that they were touring, but had no intention of actually buying a ticket - I mean I haven't listened to The Cure since I was a marginalised teenager, and so under other circumstances this concert would have come and gone without much notice from moi. When free tickets arrived via courier however, my interest levels rose a notch.

The concert was on a Sunday night which isn't the most convenient time, and it was bloody freezing, but Brad and myself braved the cold. I imagine Robert Smith would do the same for us. I was probably equally as excited to see The Cure as I was to see the crowd that pays to see The Cure. Tickets were $120, so I figured there wasn't going to be too many young kids there, but I was keen to see whether this current emo culture had embraced what you could probably label (mistakenly) the first emo band.

To begin with, I was slightly disappointed. There wasn't a nose ring or black fringe to be seen - just people like me - late twenty somethings, early thirty somethings, the occasional teenagers, some grunge left-overs. The smell of weed. I was anticipating a somewhat sooky set from a band that was my sooking soundtrack of choice, in a giant arena made from metal and concrete - clearly not designed with sound in mind. On top of this, we had seated tickets. I am a general admission kind of guy - I like to stand and watch in a crowd, dance if I want, nod my head if I want. I hate sitting at concerts.

We shuffled in and made our way to the seats, which happened to be in pretty much the best spot there was - just back a few rows and kind of off to the side of stage. I was also happy that there were PA speakers facing us, so perhaps we would get the sound before it had bounced off the walls and roof. In an unplanned but well timed move, we waited maybe 5 minutes before the house lights dimmed and the band came on.

To be honest, I would have been happy to hear a couple of songs from my youth - instead we got a 3 hour set of amazing music. The sound was spot on, the band was tight and seemed to be feeling a great vibe. The crowd was probably as you would expect - random dancing framed by people with their hands in their pockets bobbing up and down. The lights and video were top notch - effective and creative without overkill. less than half of the songs actually used a backdrop and those that did mostly used a still image rather than video. It worked amazingly well. The band looked as if they had been frozen in 1990 and transported to the year 2007 (except that Smith is now somewhat umm.. plump). Black clothes, boots, crazy hair.

As they played, all kinds of memories came flooding back - skating, doc martins, other bands like the clash and the dead kennedys and ministry and skinny puppy and nirvana (not your mtv unplugged rubbish, but Bleach and Nevermind - I was 15 when the latter was released). Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Pavement, Soundgarden, The Pixies - so many great bands from my youth - it got me wondering about new bands these days, and led me to the eventual realisation that perhaps music was better when I was younger and the admission that I have indeed become my father.

Well that's not entirely true - for one, my dad likes Neil Diamond and Queen. I haven't quite gotten there yet.

I don't mean that the music from my youth was the best music ever, I mean that the music from my youth and all the music before that dating all the way back to the 50's was better than the shit they call music these days.

This is of course a sweeping generalisation and has more holes than swiss cheese, but I bet you understand what I mean. I bet I dont even need to explain myself. I bet you are sitting there, holding your Wolfmother cd in one hand and your Supergrass cd in the other, nodding slowly in agreement. I bet you want to smash that Wolfmother cd right now. Go on - do it.

Don't get me wrong - I LOVE new music, and there have been some good bands appear in the last few years, but do you think any of them will be around in 20 years time, with a back catalog full of great music? Granted, being around for 20 years does not automatically suggest that your band is great (take U2 for example), but it seems a band is really only worth one or two albums these days. Why is that?

So now you're probably sitting there thinking "well gee.. defining good music is really a subjective thing and loads of teenagers would disagree with you and tell you about My Chemical Romance.." - to you I say this: you are wrong. Defining good and bad music is not subjective. Your taste in music is subjective, but whether you like Matchbox 20 or not, you need to understand that they are rubbish. You should accept it, and move on. I like shit bands. Everyone does - there's no shame in it. Just understand that they are shit, and move on.

Yeah, I know I just sound old. I am old. Seeing The Cure though, reminded me of what music did for me as a kid. It reminded me of what a concert experience can be, and reminded me of why I love music, and what I'm searching for in new bands. They really were amazing.

So I have been listening to The Cure pretty much constantly since last Sunday. It's not as sooky as I remember, and I'm amazed at how similar some of it sounds to New Order, but that can't possibly be a bad thing.

not so fun friday

Last night I went out for a few beers with some friends that I hadn't seen in a while (Hi Brant!). I hadn't eaten before I'd left, and quite frankly the first few beers didn't even touch the sides. You can see where this is heading, right? I didn't get home too late (maybe midnight?), but I have a class at 8:30am on a friday morning - something that should be banned in my opinion. I woke up this morning feeling a little dry and headachey, but more than anything, tired. Normally, I would have simply turned the alarm off, rolled over and gone back to sleep, but I missed this same class last week, and the truth is, I really like it (Computer Sound Production), even if it is very simple and dumbed-down somewhat. So I dragged my sorry arse out of bed, a little later than I should have, and eventually found my way to school (45 minutes late).

The lecturer is a nice guy - smart, musically talented, friendly - or so I thought. He came over to have a chat, and I mentioned that I missed last week's class, to which he really tore into me. I then asked what I missed and he shrugged the question off with "well maybe you should ask your classmates.." For a second, I thought I had been transported back to high school. Anyway, as the class went on, he seemed to come around to being friendly with me again, but wow that was another side to him.

Brad and I have decided to enter a film competition being held in Geelong at the end of September - should be a lot of fun I reckon. I'm also going to enter some of my older work into a student digital arts awards competition in Japan. Nothing to lose, as far as I can tell. Speaking of Japan, I have finished putting together the DV from last years trip and have burnt a DVD - it looks great if I do say so myself. I worked with raw DV (no compression codecs) the entire time, which sometimes meant working with 8Gb files, but my little beast had no problems at all handling everything and rendering at a great speed. I will encode this is h.264 soon and try to post it online.. no idea where though, as I dont have any webspace. It goes for 35 minutes which I think is too long for youtube.

I'll start taking photos again this weekend, now that the camera is back from overseas. Am also planning a couple of short video art pieces using the DV I have - should look nice.

Sonically, I have posted another recording - you can download it from here. This is less experimental, more straight forward, more guitar heavy. It was recorded as just a rough sketch to get some ideas down, so it is riddled with mistakes, and there are many changes planned, but anyway, have a listen - feel free to leave comments either positive or negative. No vocals yet...

Bah, its 2:20pm and I'm still hungover - I should go get some food and then get to class.

またね。

more engineering..

Im not sure this is quite as amusing as the first lot of notes, but here they are. No time to write anything substantial just now - will update again tonight or tomorrow.

Internet communication engineering week 3
Lecture notes.

- find 3 unusual sites and post them on the discussion board.
- join second life – there will be a day when we meet on second life. This will affect my mark.
- DVB-T is australia’s free to air terrestrial digital tv
- DVB-S is satellite
- DVB-C is cable
- DVB-H is handheld
- PBL sold channel 9 and foxtel ownership – foxtel now owned by telstra and news corp.
- only 4 free to air football games now, foxtel is evil.
- in the future, no-one will want just music – they will want the video clip too.
- radio was better before we were born.
- blue hills radio play was the most popular.
- in the future, radio plays will come back.
- the goon was another radio play featuring basil faulty.
- hi-fi’s are rubbish and should be thrown in the bin.
- 6% of people don’t listen to music.
- if you don’t know pink floyd, you’re an idiot.
- local news is crap – BBC is where it’s at.
- digital radio broadcasting will allow for an all Abba channel
- Buddhist radio would be silent.
- DAB is not just a german beer
- DAB ignores ghosting.
- DAB does not operate over the internet – via a digital network
- Mark has a new mobile phone with GPS
- it has lots of features
- Americans have their own systems
- China copy everything
- How much bandwidth does a FM radio station use? What about DAB-T – 1.5Mhz

noise

On saturday, with nothing else planned, and no-one around, I decided to take my new laptop into the studio and record some stuff. The main thing I had intended to do was to record a song that we have been working on for a couple of weeks, before it disappears completely from my head. I did that, and am reasonably happy with how it sounds. The recording is just a rough sketch type thing for the other guys in the band, and we will re-record it good and proper some time soon. No vocals yet, so I'm not ready to share it with anyone. Yoko gets back on wednesday, so we'll see how we go over the next week or two.

After spending maybe 3 hours recording that, I went for food, and then went back to the studio with the intention to grab my laptop and go home. I did start noodling a little with my guitar however, and decided to just press record. I kinda liked the direction, so recorded some other stuff to go with it. The end result is the mp3 below. Be warned - it's noisy, and has 2 live drum tracks and a drum machine. Let me know what you think either way.

FX:
-DD-6 Digital delay
-Pi Big Muff (Russian)
-MT2 Metal zone
-Roland CR1000 compu-rhythm
-Behringer 91 delay
-Logic 7.2

Music for your pleasure

the rantings of an engineer

I think I mentioned in the last post that I am currently studying a subject called Internet Communication Engineering. I have one 2 hour lab and one two hour lecture each week, and despite my initial feeling, I am actually enjoying it a lot. On top of working in groups of nerds to complete the 4 lab assignments; each week I get to listen to the rantings and ravings of an old man. Well, when I say old, I probably mean mid forties. He is greying, wears glasses and is a little tubby. He always wears the same clothes - blue polo shirt, beige chinos - the standard uniform and dress sense of a typical IT guy. Trust me - I know.

At 5:30pm, he waddles into lecture theater 2 on level 8 of building 12, RMIT. 2 hours of ranting and drivel ensues. Sweeping generalisations, borderline racism, sexism, political discourse.. all standard fare. There is practically no structure to these "lectures", and normally I would have stopped going, but to be honest, the guy is nothing if not entertaining - in the same way David Brent was entertaining I guess, but more horrifying, because it's real. I should mention here that this guy is a really great programmer. He was my C++ lecturer and he wrote code that was used in Windows 2000 server. He is smart. He's also grumpy.

So for your amusement, and for as long as he remains entertaining, I will put my lecture notes for this class on my blog. The notes are in order, so try and imagine the flow of his ranting, from subject to subject. The views of my lecturer are obviously not aligned with my views - to be honest, he sounds like someone's dad, crapping on about how everything was better when he was younger. Oh also, he likes to talk about internet porn. A lot.

Enjoy.

Lecture 2 - 24/07/2007
Internet communication engineering notes.

Civilisation is a rip off of Empire for mainframe
Play wolfpack empire – apparently you have to be a super nerd to play
Security, etc
What are the legal obligations of a company with regards to storing electronic information.
Telstra = bad
Americans = bad
Timing is important in delivery of services
Why doesn’t telstra sell VOIP services?
Why did they show Die Hard, 3 times last year on TV?
English carry-on movies are for crazy insomniacs.
Find 3 examples of unusual internet offerings – what is different, why was it successful / not successful?
Americans = stupid and evil
Don’t use porn
All TV in Australia was better in the 70’s than it is now.
Kids today cant read
Qantas are stupid
Empire takes forever to play and like Double Dragon, only one person can win.
Old lecture note password: RMIT0896
There are web cams on the internet
Australians are lazy and don’t work hard.
Broome has the most beautiful sunset in the world.

..and we're back

Hisashiburi ne! Long time, no updates. I know you were sitting around at home all day, clicking refresh, saying "come ooooonn, update your blog already!" putting the rest on your life on hold. I know the feeling - I've been clicking refresh a lot lately, waiting for the delivery boy to drop off a new laptop. Well it arrived yesterday, and thus I no longer have any way of justifying the lack of updating the blog other than that I am lazy.

Which I am.

Well I'm not apologising. It's my crappy blogspot blog and I'll update it when I like, thank you very much. I probably shouldn't drink before I update this kind of thing however. Anyway, so I'm back at RMIT for semester 2. I am studying the following: Time Based Media, Digital Compositing, Internet Communication Engineering and Computer Sound Production. Usually you have 2 or 3 good subjects and one that completely sucks, but I actually like all 4 this time round. I am in a group of hardcore engineering nerds for the internet subject, and it's quite amusing to spend time with them. Their life currenly revolves around Cisco routers, Linux distro's and getting drunk in the vein hope that somehow when they are drunk, they may get to actually meet those other humans that have boobs. I do like 'em though - maybe it's my inner nerd coming out a little.

Ben and Yoko-chan have been in Japan for 3 weeks now, so I have had the place to myself mostly - Brad has stayed a bit, but I realised that despite living by myself for years, I dont think I would want to do it anymore. I miss those guys a lot. They get back on August 1.

Im only working 2 days a week now, around uni. Still 2 days too many at that place, but I can deal with it. I wont name and shame here - it's probably not wise.

As far as nihongo goes, I really havent done much lately. Yamaguchi-san still teaches me stuff once a week via jabber, and I am writing a kanji on my whiteboard every few days, but I really haven't devoted any real meat and potatoes time to going through exercises and that kind of thing. I will soon though, and maybe get Yoko-chan to help me a bit more. I really miss Alex's podcast though. I've also been told to not be lazy and update my mixi page. I'll do that soon too, I swear.

The new laptop is very nice - macbook pro core 2 duo 2.2, 2gb ram, 120gb hdd, 15.4". Everything is coming along nicely - the only thing I need to sort out is I am always resting my hands on the ambient light sensors, thus causing the screen to dim and keyboard to light up. I guess it's something I will get used to over time. So the next step is to buy a nice Nikon digital SLR, then I'll be prepared for travel!

More later..

またね。
ジャロド。

suki suki suki

Hot on the heels of my ibook breathing it's last breath, it seems my ipod has also gone to a better place. Not only that but my Sony amplifier is in Protector mode, meaning it needs some kind of maintenance too. Technology, why are you forsaking me? Maybe I am overly statically charged. Perhaps I should get around in some kind of anti-static clothing, or lay a big anti-static mat in my room.

Anyway, the good thing about when your electronics pass away is that you have a perfectly good reason to buy some new toys. I'm planning on getting a new laptop in the next few weeks, and am kinda hoping they release a new ipod too, but I guess with the impending release of some phone device, apple probably arent about to update the ipod.

I have uploaded some new pictures to flickr - we have been eating some really awesome food at home lately thanks to Yoko and Shiori. I had my first ever experience with making your own sushi and have to say it was probably the best sushi I have ever tasted. My favourite combination was nori, tuna, natto and egg roll. Hoo boy, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Healthy too! We also had Oden, and then last night, my favourite - sukiyaki. We are seriously spoiled I think. Unfortunately Yoko left for Japan today for a month, so I'll probably go back to less healthy italian home cooked food. I reckon I'll try homemade sushi again though.

I've been a bit slack on the Japanese front lately, and with posting on the learn Japanese forum. I got a couple of new kanji learning programs for the DS, so will get into it again in the next week or so. I haven't listened to the last couple of NFTOS episodes, but will catch up in the next day or two.

I should get back to work.

またね！

drunk

After a turbulent, stressful and very busy week, I spent the entire weekend either drunk, hung-over, or in that state where you feel a bit seedy, but you are starting to get drunk again, so it's ok. Friday night saw Brad, Yoko, Ben, Chris, Adele and myself head out to King of Kings - a crusty little Chinese restaurant on Russell Street. The food is pretty good and really cheap. Crispy skin pork on egg noodles with corn and chicken soup for about $11. We also got stuck into beer and a couple of bottles of wine, before heading off to the Croft Institute. The next thing I knew, I was having random drunk conversations, and enjoying my freedom from university for four weeks.

I woke up the next morning feeling pretty good despite a hangover. One of the best saturday mornings in a long time, I reckon. Had a late lunch, before heading to the Mount View Hotel in Richmond to watch New Zealand v Canada play rugby. It was a pretty boring game to be honest, though Canada played beyond all expectations. I was drinking gin and tonic, trying to convince myself that because it looked like lemonade, that it would somehow fix me right up. And fix me, it did.

By 8pm saturday night, I was with Brad and Hayden, drunk again. We left shortly after and went on somewhat of a bar crawl in Melbourne - visitng that pink rooftop bar above the hostess place Asuka for some random Czech beer, then Loop for a Hoegaarden (they dont sell Hoegaarden anymore!), then to Double Happiness, before finally heading to possibly the worst pub in Melbourne - The Elephant and Wheelbarrow (not my suggestion, I assure you.) We stayed there for a couple of hours, watching some shitty coverband play awful sport/punk music while fat bouncers stopped people drinking on the dancefloor. The place was starting to get to me, though luckily we left, and headed to a Karaoke bar. By that stage it was maybe 3am, and to be honest, I was ready for an open fire, a blankey, and a Police Academy marathon. Getting old, getting old.

Sunday was a lazy day, but Brad and I managed to make it into the studio on Sunday arvo to record some more stuff. I'm happy with how that is coming along, and am looking forward to sharing some of it.

The downside of me being on University holidays is that I am now working full-time for the next month. Good for money I guess, particularly as I need to buy a new laptop, but I havent worked 5 days a week in a while.. The upside though, is that for the next month, I can play video-games completely guilt free. I can go home from work and just watch tv if I want. That is something I havent been able to do for a long time.

i just cant get started

That song by You am I has been in my head for the last few days, and has managed to seep into my waking life by way of philosophy. This is week 13, the final week of university for semester one. It is the business end. Shit is due - all at once, shit is due. Lots of shit. I apologise for the lack of an update for a week, and I would like to tell you that it is due to me working studiously away at finishing up these pesky major projects, but the honest truth is I just cant get started. Like a rabbit caught in headlights, frozen by the idea that I need to put fingers to keyboard and punch out some quality musings, while adhering to strict guides and templates of course.

See, the thing is, I know that once i start typing, I'll be fine. I'll punch out one project and move straight on to the next. I'll cut through it like a knife cutting through something. It will flow, then flow faster, until finally I am typing at full speed (20 wpm!), and I will start to actually enjoy what I am doing. Once finished and spell-checked, I'll feel that sense of satisfaction and an elevated interest in the topic at hand. I'll enjoy submitting the document electronically, and will be able to go back to playing with my pokemons, which is really all I want to do right now, without feeling the guilt that I currently feel when I am doing anything other than my homework (like writing this blog entry).

But I just cant get started. I can hear Tim Rogers in my ear, and he wont leave me be.

Right now, my laptop is sitting there, Word open, with my name at the top, student number, and then the word "Title" with a blinking cursor. OK, fuck this. Im going to go and get some food, then when I come back I'm gonna dig in. Dig in hard.

I'll post a decent update after the week is out. MUST FOCUS.

ghouls and ghosts

On Sunday, I went for a drive up to the town where my parents live. It's about 45 minutes from where I live, directly away from the city. It's the kind of place that you loathe, when you are young and stuck there on a friday night because you are too young to go out to a club, and because there really is nothing that you could term "adequate public transport". Having left said sleepy town when I was 17, and now being the very wise and mature age of 31, I have had plenty of time to forget about all the things I hated, growing up there. It's funny how your memory does that - selectively remember good stuff.

Don't get me wrong - I still dont want to move back there. It's a suburban hell of housing estates and kit homes. There are maybe 4 pubs - none of which I would dare enter on a friday or saturday night for fear of being beaten up but a drunk bogan local. The culinary options for dinner start at Chinese and extend to Italian and back to Chinese. Oh and Fish and Chips. I am yet to find a decent coffee in the entire town, and hold no hope of EVER getting a decent coffee - no-one embraces mediocrity like a small town in the outer suburbs in my opinion.

Anyway, despite all that - I have come around to the idea that the town itself is actually not a bad place to visit (for a few hours - a day, tops), and the drive is pleasant.. good even. The road goes past the airport, so if you are lucky, a 747 will fly over your car at only a couple of hundred feet. Then past the airport is rolling hills (currently green hills thanks to the recent rain).

My parents love to feed me. That's what happens when I visit - I get fed. I have been visiting a bit more often lately too, as they are currently in the process of building a new house, so they love to take me up to the property and show me the new wiring, or point out where the wall oven will go (incidentally they are getting 2 wall ovens). I had been meaning to take some photos of the place while it was being built, and finally did so this weekend just gone. There is one in particular that you should take a look at. I apologise for the lack of light..

This photo is the view over the back fence. As you can see, there is hill, some trees, a town in the distance, and well, a cemetary. Directly over the back fence. In fact, if you happen to occupy the bedroom at the very back corner of the house, the view out your window is crosses and tombstones. Creepy?

Nope. My family has a pretty good grasp of death and it's related traditions. My mum is a grief counsellor. My mum, dad and younger sister have a business creating funeral books. I myself only a few months ago, was engaged to create a video montage piece for the funeral of one of my primary school teachers. I presented it to the husband of the deceased the night before. My mum has a great outlook on death and the funeral process - buy the cheapest coffin, no need to spend money on the ceremony, etc. Family conversations have been known to hover around the topic of what funeral songs we would like (my younger sister wants a live band, probably featuring Jack White if possible - I would rather have a Chinese woman croon out Neighbourhood #1 by The Arcade Fire on a white grand piano, while someone releases 12 white doves, and perhaps one assassin eyes off another, finger on the trigger, in a back row pew. Or maybe some radiohead.. I dunno).

So the fact that they are building a new house that backs on to a cemetary is really no big deal to us. There was talk about growing a line of trees along the back fence just high enough to block the view (for friends and relatives I guess), but I am completely opposed. I say, if you live near a cemetary you should not shy away from it - in fact you should completely embrace it. As a side note, the cemetary behind them is no longer having people buried there, so there will be no random coffin sightings.

Maybe I'm alone on this one. My dad keeps joking about how he wont have to buy flowers ever again, but I sense a very small uneasiness in his voice. Going out to the shed at night may take on a whole new vibe for him.

One last thing - when my grandmother passed away (17 years ago, I think), her request was that she be buried somewhere close to the family. She got her wish - we can see her grave from the backyard.

tadaima

Simply. That’s how my DS Lite now operates. I have gone from 5 games to 800 games overnight. At a time when I should be studying and not much else.. Anyway, I wanted to talk about why I started this blog – or more so what inspired me to begin writing stuff again, taking photos, writing music, making video art, all of the stuff that makes me feel good about myself, my life and perhaps even makes me feel OK about being 31, single and having no plans for even a relationship, let alone the M word.

I had never been one for blogs particularly – I had to write one for university, but purely as a design journal / process documentation type thing. I did write personal stuff on it but never really felt comfortable baring my life for all and sundry. It kinda felt fake – like when your dad buys a “cool” t-shirt and a pair of adidas sneakers and a cap, and tries to act all hip around your friends while they secretly roll their eyes. Not that I was trying to be cool – but I have never been one to share my random thoughts with many people. My couple of really close friends, yes – but that’s about it. So it didn’t feel right – I just wrote that stuff because I thought that’s what you are supposed to write. The result being a wooden, awkward log of random thoughts, images and my second year musings on the theory of design. I shudder to even dig it up now. I do know it’s still online though.

So last year, I had planned to go to Vietnam for a semester – my university had offered me and two other people a place in HMC. I wont go into details, but lets just say that work got in the way, and I declined to go – instead taking six months of school to work full-time. Quite the opposite of what I had planned. Maybe I’m getting old after-all. During this time, I took a break from creating things. I kinda needed a break to be honest, so it was OK. This drought of ideas and motivation continued for a good 10 months – during which time I mostly worked, played video games, and occasionally studied Japanese. I was listening to Alex and Beb throughout this time – and it was Alex that kept me going with my Japanese study. Not that my motivation for that was lacking, but I was sick of Pimsleur style super-formal rubbish, and was getting dis-heartened that despite a couple of years of moderate effort, I still couldn’t understand a thing when I watched Japanese TV or movies. Alex’s podcast was the first one I found that actually taught spoken Japanese – and it was such a breath of fresh air for my Japanese study. Around this time, I also became friends with some Japanese people living in Melbourne – one of which I see a lot of. She also has been helping me learn to speak every day Japanese. I appreciate that formal Japanese is important to study, but you would swear they spoke two different languages.

Anyway, fast forward to a couple of months ago, and I was going through some older episodes of Learn Japanese. One of them featured Rob Holbrook, in a minor role – but he provided great input. I can even remember what he was talking about – “おねさん、なまちゅうちょだい”. I found Rob’s podcast at that point and began to go back through old episodes – it was great to discover Alex was also a part of News From The Other Side, along with a huge cast of other characters – ex-pats living in Japan, presumably teaching Japanese. From my perspective, even more than the actual content of the podcasts, what I found interesting was how this social network of ex-pats exists across cities. It suggests to me that there is a real cultural isolation for がいじん living in Japan, and as a result a strong community forms. Also interesting is the involvement by Japanese in this community, and the relationships that exist. Is it a little bit hipster for Japanese to hang out with foreigners? It seems so, in my opinion.

Im getting off topic slightly, and will return to that topic at a later date… Back to News From The Other Side – I can’t remember which episode this was from, but I distinctly remember a conversation that took place, and Rob was talking to Alex about how people need to stop treating myspace, facebook, blogs, youtube etc any differently to television – how it’s all become one in the same. He then talked about receiving criticism from people who don’t contribute anything – and by that meaning not contributing to.. the creation of content I guess – in whatever format or medium that may be. It got me thinking about what I had produced in my first couple of years at university, and the fact that I had practically stopped doing ANYTHING. I remembered how good I felt when I did actually create something – put something into the world which is mine. Something that I was proud of, and fucked if I care what anyone else thought because I was putting stuff out there, and unless you have / are, then I dont care what you think. It was that moment, while sitting in my car outside a pizza shop, hungry, listening to the podcast, that spurred me back into action with a new frame of mind.

I didn't necessarily decide to create a new blog right there and then, but I knew it was time to get back into action. I knew that I wanted to be someone who was putting stuff out there, not just consuming it from the other end. I dont intend for this blog to be the product of my efforts - merely a part of documenting the process that is my life. I guess it's not that different to my first blog when you consider it - though I feel a hell of a lot more comfortable than I did before.

To Rob and Alex, I owe you a drink of your choice, in a city to be determined.

clap your hands, assignments due!

Myself, Brad, Ben and Yoko went to the Hi-Fi Bar on Tuesday night to see American band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. It was a freezing night in Melbourne, but the heat of a thousand hipster music fans was enough to warm the inside of the venue. The opening band was called New Estate (melbourne), and featured a somewhat tubby drummer stuffed into a scout shirt. Lets just say watching him play the drums was mesmerising.. kinda like a lava lamp is mesmerising. OK, that was a cheap shot - I actually really liked them. The drummer completely stole the show though - he even sang a couple of numbers. The whole band was completely nerdy and not hipster - which was their appeal for me. I hate indie hipster bullshit - would much prefer to watch or play in a band full of normal people who just really love music.

CYHSY were good. Good like cheese on toast is good. Not great, and not shit, just good (was it Damon Albarn who said that? I cant remember). The band had quite the cast of characters - a drummer that looked like Chuck Norris, twins on bass and guitar, Napoleon Dynamite on keys and the singer with that voice. Not much stage presence going with this lot, though plenty of smarm from the singer. Perhaps a little too much smarm. Anyway, my ears hurt for a couple of days after. It was fucking loud.

Im edging closer to the end of Semester one on the uni front, which means everything is due. I spent 6 hours last night fucking with httperf and webalizer on an apache server for an assignment. Not exactly my idea of fun. I also have a photo journal due, of which I have done little to no work on. I'll get onto that over the weekend.

Tonight, we are heading into the studio it seems, so I'll get whatever pictures, video and sounds I can; and if they dont completely suck, I'll be sure to put something online.

talk and tales of takoyaki

First of all, I have uploaded some new photos to Flickr - the link is to the right, over there on that side bar thing. I took some photos while I was in the studio on the weekend and while I was driving. On top of that, I took a few photos from the Japan Festival that we went to on Sunday, though those aren't up yet. Maybe they will be by the time you read this. Maybe. I have also added a Top 10 weekly artists from my last.fm account (thanks polarkun) - it grabs info from itunes and automatically updates.. Amazing eh?

Ben, Yoko and I watched the FA Cup final on saturday night from the comfort of our lounge room. We had planned to go to a pub, but as the night got on, we got lazy. The match started at midnight here you see. So we got a slab, cooked some dinner, and watched the game (after all but finishing our season in the La Liga on Winning Eleven 2007). And what a boring shiteful game of football that was. I dont have much more to say about it other than Drogba's goal wasn't bad, but that doesnt cancel out the fact that he's a diving bastard.

As I mentioned, I went to the Japan Fastival on sunday with Brad, Yoko, Ben and Yoko's flatmate Shiori. We also took a DV camera, and made a video. You may or may not see that in the future. Time will tell. It was OK, but nothing special. Worth going just to get takoyaki - something that I love and something that is not easy to find in Melbourne (well easy to find, but not easy to find good takoyaki - most of the Japanese restaurants in Melbourne are run by Chinese or Honkeys, so good, real Japanese food can be hard to find). There were girls in Kimono, and displays of Koto, Taiko and a Japanese born Australian blues singer named George Kanakawa. I have seen this guy play before on the streets of Melbourne, and he is awesome.

There is a strange phenomenon in Melbourne, and I'm sure elsewhere, of young Chinese and particularly people from Hong Kong pretending to be Japanese. They dress like Japanese, wear anime t-shirts or bathing ape, go to things like the Japan Festival with their PSP in hand, all the while trying so hard to look like a hipster they fail miserably. My Japanese friends are also aware of this, and have a laugh about it. I'm not sure where it comes from - especially considering the history of the two countries and their current relationship. Anyway, it was fun, though really crowded - I guess adding to the "authentic feel". Ha!

Yesterday was spent doing anything BUT what I should have been doing - uni assignments. It's amazing how dusting the television becomes an attractive alternative. I Played squash against Brad last night. He killed me, but it was exercise. We went for a quick swim after that, then came home and made dinner. We are both trying as best we can right now, to eat out as little as possible - both for health and financial reasons. Mind you, I think it's cheaper to eat out sometimes, than cook.

hisashiburi

Thursdays are big days for me. I get up at around 7:30am to get ready for work. A quick shower, and I'm off. I drive to work because where I work there is little in the way of public transport (2 buses per day) - which is the bane of my life. You see, I live on the north side of Melbourne and work on the south side. What this means is that every morning and every afternoon, I have to drive my car across the city. For those who dont know, Melbourne has a great network of trams, and as a result we do not have many buses clogging the roads and our lungs. I love catching a tram, as it affords me time to play my DS, and work on my laptop, or just close my eyes and listen to music and podcasts. There is a tram stop about 1 minute walk from my house too. So it pisses me off even more that I have to drive to work. Riding a bike isn't really an option for me, as a) it would take a while and I value my sleep, and b) I dont own a bike.

Yes, I would like cheese with my whine, thank-you. Anyway I get to work around 9-ish. I finish at 4:30pm, then drive straight to University. I leave my car outside my office there, and go to a Web Server and Web Technology lecture, from 5:30pm until 7:30pm. After that, I have a tutorial class for the same subject from 7:30pm until 9:30pm. Long day eh? At that point, I have not eaten and will usually do one of two things: Drive-thru somewhere on the way home and eat garbage, or get home and dial a pizza (well when I say dial, I mean order it over the internet). Either way, Thursday night dinner is not good for my health or my slowly expanding waist.

Last night though, I got home and Ben and Yoko had cooked a Japanese Curry, with salad and opened a bottle of wine. It was possibly the greatest thing ever - the food was delicious and healthy, and it meant that I could just eat, then start doing some homework straight away. The main stand-out however, and the reason I am writing about this, is that last night I met God, in the form of fried whole garlic in miso paste. I am salivating right now just thinking about it. PRAISE JESUS! You have to try this if you havent already - get a head of garlic, peel all the cloves, pan fry them in a little olive oil until golden, serve on a plate with a spoonful of miso paste next to them. Dip garlic in paste, eat, repeat. PRAISE JESUS!

On the Japanese front, I have been talking a lot to my friend Shinpei this week. I have learnt how to use の in place of でしたか thus taking me one step closer to sounding like a normal Japanese speaker, rather than someone who has listened to Pimsleur and studied Japanese for 6 months at University (me). I was a little confused at first but Arex of Learn Japanese helped me out cause he's a top bloke. I am now the mod of the Learn Japanese forums, so join up if you are interested in learning the language. I have also been reading I am Doraemon, Gadget Cat From the Future - a manga that is in both English and Japanese.

I was talking to some people online the other night about accommodation in Tokyo, and I started to find the websites of some of the places I have stayed over the years - and it really started to give me the bug again. I'm going to have to start making plans to head over again real soon. Melbourne to Tokyo or Osaka return is about $400 for me (I get cheap airfares) so I should do it soon. Still saving for a new mac though....

We haven't done much lately in the way of our band (besides pull faces while playing). I have obtained a solid state digital recorder too, so I want to try that out. I think we are going to go into the studio on saturday night after the FA Cup final and drink some Jager bombs and see what comes of it. I'll take in still and video camera and record some audio, so I'll put some up online (providing it's "suitable") haha. We have also toyed with the idea of making a podcast so people can laugh at our "funny Australian accents" - dunno what will come of that, if anything.

I have skype set up on this PC, now that my ibook is deceased (RIP). I can get my iSight to work with video, but no audio, so I'll find a mic and then start adding everyone. I'm looking forward to catching up with Uncle Archie in China, having a chat to some friends in the US and maybe meeting Arex and other Learn Japanese people.

I have a heap of new photos to upload, so I'll get onto that over the weekend, and link it on here.

home brewed beer

I've had a fairly uneventful last 5 days or so. On Thursday last week, I drove a good mate to the airport - he was off to Seoul for a wedding - one that I had originally intended to also attend, but due to various circumstances, I couldn't make it. Instead, I spent saturday at work. I work in IT and I was migrating some servers - something that requires a little work, then a lot of waiting followed by a little work, so I spent a good part of the day watching videos about the church of Scientology on Youtube. Entertaining to say the least.

Actually I did go out on friday night - Ben's sister was down from Sydney so we had dinner at Gaylords - the most unfortunately named Indian restaurant in the world, and then ended up a Loop bar - one of my favourite in Melbourne. I really should start taking photos of these places and uploading them for you to see. Started the night with one of Ben's homebrews - this one tastes amazingly like Hoegaarden!

This is all out of order, but Sunday was spent hanging out in the city and at my office at RMIT, then treated myself to a sunday night pizza. I really love sunday nights - while everyone else goes to bed early to get ready for work, I can stay up late and pretend it's still saturday night. I dont work monday's you see - I have university classes from 5:30pm, so monday for me is about sleeping, doing homework, and uni. I also dont work fridays, so thursday nights for me are like friday nights. Pretty sweet eh?

I havent mentioned this here but my ibook died recently, so I have been saving my pennies for a new macbook pro. In the meantime though, a bloody awesome mate has decided to loan me his ibook for use in the studio and at uni until I get a new laptop. Some friends transcend awesome.

I also installed Skype on my pc at home last night, and added Alan and Tim - will add Archie tonight too. I was thinking about adding Alex Brooke from Learn Japanese, but I thought I may put ondue pressure on myself to talk to and be recorded by him, and I'm too much of a shy little australian when I'm sober.

4 of 7 gods

I had a pretty low key weekend. Spent all of Saturday in bed sleeping and recovering from the hang over from hell. Woke up around 5pm to find the house deserted, so was looking forward to hanging out with Brad, but he had other ideas. I watched Broken Flowers at home instead and planned on catching up with FFXII, but in the end sat around surfing the web feeling completely bored and kinda lonely. Sunday was spent wandering around the city with no purpose really. I spent an hour or two in the studio playing the drums, which made me feel better. I found two syringes in the hallway of the building, so called security and had them organise to get rid of them. Thank you heroin addicts!

I planned to go see my parents on Sunday afternoon too, but that didn't happen. I eventually came home and spent most of last night in my room. I didn't do any specific Japanese study last night, but I did attempt to translate a bunch of questions from English to Japanese - not sure how well I went though. Then late last night, I spoke to Chie in Nara via Skype video - which was cool. I haven't spoken to her for 6 months, so it was good to catch up again. I'll tell you one thing: just when you think your Japanese is starting to get somewhere, you have a conversation and your mind goes blank, or you blurt out stupid stuff, and your confidence goes back down several notches. We talked about maybe doing Japanese / English lessons via Skype - I'll see how that goes.

So right now, I am in my room where I seem to be spending 90% of my time these days - listening to to Cut Copy while 4 of the 7 gods of Japan stare at me from below my monitor. I just completed an assignment on sound design in games. I am really enjoying this subject - it's something I know a lot about, and it's easy for me to write on. Now I should probably devote the same time to my other subjects.

I would give just about anything to not have to go to work tomorrow.. That's a bad sign, eh?

the dentist

Last week, I had to hand in a game review as part of the degree I am dragging myself through. Prior to writing the review, I did some reading on "old" vs "new" game journalism - something that I found interesting. There was an article posted on the subject website by a game journalist in the UK, talking about the shift in focus from reviewing the mechanics of a game, to putting the emphasis of a review on the gamer's experience. He used the analogy that game reviewers should become "travel writers to imaginary places". I started to think about my Wii, and the direction Nintendo has taken over the last few years, coupled with the fact that the original gamer generation (my generation - people who grew up with atari 2600, C64, NES, SNES, etc) is getting older and couldn't agree more about this idea of new game journalism. I am all for reviews allowing themselves to be somewhat more intellectual, and incorporating cultural references from outside the video game canon.

I set about writing a review for the game Okami (PS2) and attempted to try and explain to a non-traditional-gamer audience why I love video games through the review - by explaining those small instances of time, where the interaction between the controller and your hands, or the screen and your eyes, makes you feel something. I'm not sure how successful I was at doing that, but the end result was that of the ~1000 words that I wrote, not many of them focused purely on the game in an isolated sense - disconnected from the fact that I was playing and I was describing my experiences with playing it. Some may see this as self-indulgent, and in fact more an op-ed piece than a game review, but my aim was to describe a gaming experience to an audience that doesn't necessarily understand why people play games at all - and isn't that the game industry's Brave New World?

I'm not sure whether I want to post the actual review; I'm not sure anyone is all that interested anyway.

I got back from the dentist an hour or so ago - I had gone 17 years without seeing a dentist, and despite 10 years of smoking and more of compulsive coffee drinking, all I needed was 2 fillings. They were done a few weeks back, and today I went in just for a clean. It hurt a bit and made my gums bleed, but I now have shiny white teeth for the first time in years. The strange thing was this is the same dentist I went to last - 17 years ago - and not a thing has changed. He is located in the town that my parents live. The office is exactly the same. The room he works in is the same - same chair, same light, same aerial picture of the area stuck to the roof for you to look at while he drills your teeth. He says he remembers me too. The only thing that had changed was that they removed the fish tank from the waiting room. That was the best part!

I have been studying lots of Japanese in the last couple of days, with Shinpei-sensei and Yoko-sensei, as well as listening to Alex and Beb. I will get around to posting some resources that I have found - for now, check out a now defunct podcast called Talk Sushi - done by an Australian guy living in Japan. The site used to be a subscription based thing, but then he opened it up to everyone for free, so check it out. I want to scan some of the Japanese children's books that Yoko gave me to study with too - I'll do it soon.

30th birthday party tonight - we are getting old, that's for sure.

8 krispy kreme donuts later

I downloaded some of Rob's podcasts today. The real News from the Other Side, not the other one about gay haflings having sex with farm animals that I found on iTMS, the one with the conversation about the doco on people who have sex with horses - and wandered around Melbourne this morning, shopping for a present for my flat mate's birthday while listening. I'm by no means a podcast expert or anything - I've listened to a few, never made one myself, but this is what I like - just a guy kind of documenting conversations and points in time. No ads, no agenda (as far as I can tell), just a regular self-proclaimed nerd. Must be weird having some stranger from another country listen to your seemingly trivial conversations..

Anyway, I found an awesome virgin mary toast stamp. Apparently you stamp someone's bread with it, then toast it and proclaim A MIRACLE when the toast pops up. Not a present for my flatmate though. I also found a black joy division t-shirt - the one with the Peter Saville design on the front, which is rad, but not a present for my flat mate either. Got a new charger for my DS lite, a new bath mat, a football scarf for Yoko and 12 krispy kreme donuts, but no present for my flat mate. Bad shopper.

I studied zero japanese today, though I did use the phrase "それはいっけませんね” when I got home to find that my flat mate had spilt hot tea on his chest and burnt himself. I also always read the labels on the FANCL bottles on the shelf in the bathroom when I'm in there. Does that count as studying?

Watched Dog Day Afternoon yesterday for the first time. Good film!

ok

I wonder how many of these things appear and disappear in any given day? I bet everyone starts them with the best intentions to update them regularly too. Well I am one of those people it seems. Sometimes you need to just get stuff out, or document an experience or god forbid bitch about someone doing something stupid. So it is with great insignificance, that I make this first post of my new blog. It's not my first blog mind you - I do have another one online, but that was purely for a university class, and is mostly just design stuff, and none of my personal endeavours, of which I'm sure none of you will find interesting. At least this isnt a fucking myspace page eh?

I'm not really sure what my exact intentions are for this blog. I plan to share a bit of what's going with me - stuff I'm into, music I like, how much I hate my job, how my degree is coming along, my continuing and agonizing battle with trying to learn Japanese, my mis-guided attempts at putting a band together, my family, whatever else I feel like spewing forth via my keyboard I guess.

This is one of those things where I have no idea if anyone will actually read this, which is kind of strange. I mean, who am I talking to then? Myself? Isn't that a diary? I dont know other bloggers, and I'm not a member of any online community that I give a shit about. Maybe that is part of the intention - to meet people who are even remotely like me. Or nothing at all like me, but we get along. Or maybe not - fucked if I know.

I'll be posting photos and probably some music and stuff too. I'm pretty sure I can do that from here. If not, I'll do it from somewhere else.

So right now, I'm in my room typing this from my pc. It's completely dark except the light from my monitor. Saturday afternoon, raining outside, listening to The Boredoms. I have no plans to go anywhere tonight, but I have loads of games to play. I started playing Dragon Quest VIII last night, but fell asleep shortly thereafter, so I'll probably dedicate a few hours to that tonight. For some reason, while in the city today, I felt the need to buy 12 Krispy Kreme donuts (as if I wasn't fat enough already), so I guess I'll get stuck into those too. Im also currently playing FFXII and Zelda on the wii, though to be honest, the sword swinging wrist action has kind of been detering me from playing it - and I LOVE the zelda series.


We talked about jamming tonight, but Im not sure Im in the mood. I'll see how that goes.