Martin Scorsese Is Really Quite A Jovial Fellow
Ms .45's mp3/bureaucratic/gaming blog.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Well, somebody clearly shook somebody for a certain amount of time
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Wagons at Northcote Social Club, Cup Day 2009 redux (aka I am a lazy fuck)
Samson
If I may put on my disgruntled hipster douchebag hat on for a minute, Wagons are sounding a little poppier than when I discovered them and fell in love with their old school, everyone-dies country and western (if you play Draw Blood backwards, assuming you can get it on vinyl, you get your truck, dog and wife back, in that order). As a reminder of their roots (how can you not love a country band that namechecks Danzig?), here's a hit from the wayback machine.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Wagons at Northcote Social Club, Cup Day 2009
Love Me Like I Love You
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Ron Asheton Tribute, Cherry Bar, 21 March 2009
Kim Salmon & Mick Harvey, Raw Power
I will confess right now that I had no idea what was happening in the first part of Bored!'s set, and found out through a review in InPress. For the first half, Fiona Lee Maynard was on vocals in a tribute to Asheton's version of Destroy All Monsters. It was great fun, but of course I didn't know any of the songs, although a stylish version of These Boots Were Made For Walking was accompanied by the snazziest blue snakeskin cowboy boots I have ever seen (not pictured).
Bored! I Wanna Be Your Dog
More images at my Flickr set.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Tex Perkins, James Cruikshank & Charlie Owen (with Tim Rogers) - photos & video
For your delectation, however (OK, I was just dicking around with the camera), I took a couple of videos which you may observe below.
"Any Old Time"
"Great Apes"
Bushfire epilogue
Burns: Relax, Simpson. I just brought you in here for a friendly
hello...
Homer: Whew...[heart slows down]
Burns: ...and goodbye! You're fired!
Homer: [gags] [heart speeds up]
Burns: But, wait. Perhaps I'm being too hasty. You _are_ highly
skilled...
Homer: Whew...[heart slows down]
Burns: ...at goofing off!
Homer: Aaargh! [heart beats faster]
Burns: Now don't worry, Homer. You're the kind of guy I could really
dig...
Homer: Whew...[heart slows down]
Burns: ...a grave for!
Homer: Aaargh! [heart beats faster than anything]
Burns: Your indolence is inefficacious!
Homer: [stares blankly] [heart beats normally]
Burns: That means, you're terrible!
Homer: Aarrggghh! [heart goes crazy] [collapses]
(courtesy The Simpsons Archive, "Homer's Triple Bypass")
The fires got to within a brisk walk of the township of Healesville proper, with several properties that could only be described as "razed". I didn't take any pictures - it felt wrong. I was struck by the fact that the burnt areas are red, not black as I was expecting. My parents' house is right in the middle of two of the fires - patches of red surround their place and I wonder if it's our turn next year.
Still, as the photo above illustrates, people are not letting it bother them.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Victorian Bushfire Appeal
Nearly 20 years ago now, Henry Rollins described the LA riots as "The Shit Is On Fire Show". Well, this year The Shit Is On Fire Show is playing a sold out season in my state.
New York Times - Death Toll in Australian Fires Climbs to 131
Guardian - Australia bushfires death toll may reach 200
Al Jazeera - Australia PM: Fires are mass murder
Le Monde - L'Australie accablée par des incendies meurtriers
You get the idea. I and my loved ones are fine, but as I read the internets I keep calling home (in the Yarra Valley) every hour on the hour and reminding my parents about how they've always dreamed of buying a yacht and living on St Kilda pier. NOW WOULD BE A REALLY GOOD TIME, GUYS.
Not everyone has been so fortunate, and the death toll is so massive that everyone knows someone who's lost everything - widowed, orphaned and/or holed up in a burlap sack in one of the Red Cross camps across the state. I'm not gonna pull your dick any more - you know what I'm building up to here.
Australian Red Cross Bushfire Appeal 2009
Salvation Army Victorian Bushfire Appeal (for Australians - outside Australia, go here)
Bendigo Bank Bushfire Appeal
Do a little shopping (Coles donation day, Friday 13th February)
If you're one of these people who've gone sane and don't have a credit card, the National Australia Bank has an account you can transfer funds into.
National Australia Bank
NAB account: BSB 082001 Account #: 860046797
Let's face it, if you're reading this blog you were only going to go and blow $20 on the latest shitty time-management clone or Pitchfork-endorsed whiners, so go buy yourself some good karma instead.
EDIT: Commenter Alex from the British Red Cross notes that "Visitors from the UK can also donate through the British Red Cross at www.redcross.org.uk/bushfires."
OTHER EDIT: If you're able to volunteer your time and skills, call 1300 366 356 or register at http://www.govolunteer.com.au/volunteer/events.htm. People with medical skills are certainly welcome to volunteer, but people are also sought to distribute donated goods at the relief centres, provide catering and other support to volunteer firefighters, and clean up after the fires have been doused. Know that volunteer organisations may take a while to get back to you - we have been inundated with potential volunteers, and need to match offers of help with areas of need.
ANOTHER EDIT: The Victorian RSPCA has some requests. They have enough people to billet pets, but they currently need blankets, temporary fencing and those 'green' bags that supermarkets sell.
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Sunday, February 08, 2009
One Hundred Pushups
I don't really like sport. In fact, I'm not much into any physical activity that doesn't involve lifting weights 12 ounces at a time, or bench-pressing some late-20s hottie with my inner thighs. I don't like sports people, seeing them as much more like Wayne Carey than John Landy. Thankfully, I've been surrounded by people who are genuinely interested in fitness and health, rather than in being into sport because they're utter sheep, which has been invaluable in my motivation and learning.
So motivating myself to get regular exercise has been quite challenging, and much more related to 'push' factors (not wanting to be fat anymore, not wanting to get sick every six weeks, not wanting to be depressed... see how they're all negative?) than 'pull' factors (such as being healthy, which takes quite a while, or even being better looking, which takes frickin' ages). Like just about everyone who's lost a lot of weight, my progress is starting to level off - I'm still losing weight, but not at the comparatively rapid pace I enjoyed when I started. I'm getting bored with my workouts, bored with the music I play (need more Hype Machine!) and am generally treading water.
To break it up, I'm trying to introduce some external, quantitative motivations - I'd like to set objective benchmarks for myself (I'm probably never going to think I look any good, so I'm better off setting a totally objective goal like "I can run 4km in less than 30 minutes"). One is to participate in a fun run where I actually run - in previous efforts I've walked the distance and not bothered with timing. And the other day I rather spontaneously decided to do the One Hundred Pushups challenge. The fact that they conveniently have a pushups logger appeals to my not-so-inner nerd (if you'd like to check my progress, you can search for user baker1). The best thing about it is that it shows a clear numerical progress, which is simple and easy to observe - not necessarily the case with weight loss, where you may confront the I'm-smaller-but-haven't-lost-weight-WTF phenomenon. Given that I'm starting at the lowest possible level - the exhaustion test led to, wait for it, THREE (3) whole pushups ('man' style, from the toes, and done on the floor rather than from the side of my coffee table where I usually do it) - the only way is up, baby! Even if I don't make it to one hundred in six weeks (in fact, I think that's pretty unlikely), to try and fail is still beneficial. Wish me