Stop the (Word)Presses!

It’s 2am

I should be asleep so that I can wake up tomorrow for school.

But fuck, this is just too good and random to wait.

Firstly, all the following is from the Bridezilla Wikipedia Page. And none was done by me. I have an account on wiki, and I really can’t understand Japanese.

More on that later.

Anyways…

Click to enlarge. Now focus on the six there. The reference, that is.

Now see this…

Okay, enlarge that picture. You see something strange? It links to my review of that concert six months ago, yet on Last.fm japan.

In short, I’m the author of a reference on Wikipedia, a place reserved for academic luminaries or band’s myspaces.

This is weird.

The best thing to happen to commercial radio

I got Nova 969 to play The Beatle’s classic I Want To Hold Your Hand on Friday night.

They also played The Panics‘ Don’t Fight It just before it. That makes it, officially, the best six minutes of music ever on that wretched station.

And I’m proud to have been apart of it.

I’ve won tickets to U2 and CDs off Nova before. Yet no victory is sweeter than this one.

It starts tomorrow

The year of infinite sadness that is. It’s my HSC year. Oh God, help me.

Anyways, I’m getting used to  not having a keyboard and mouse around (technically, a way of forcing me into doing homework and study) and going on the computer with an egg-timer next to me!

I have fifteen minutes to go!

Anyways, things to come in the next few weeks, IN POINT FORM!

• Some decent Film Reviews
• Photo blogging/reviewing of my trip to Sydney FC v Melbourne Victory
• As above, yet on the awesome concert that was THE NATIONAL!
• More on my little endeavours through life.
• Overall, a more active blog, to keep me sane.

Also, the MASSIVE love for my Big Day Out post is both flattering and gratuitously accepted. Never had such a jump in views in my life! Thank you my visitors!

See y’all!

Interesting Observation

The red dot? When I wrote my article on the Big Day Out.

I’m going to review a lot more often now. Or something.

SIDENOTE: Anyone remember The Dot? That system Channel Seven used to keep its ratings high after the 2000 Olympics? Man, that was a weak attempt by them…

“Are you here visiting Australia?” “No, we’re just going to a Rock Festival…”

And so, a naïve pharmacist started what was set to be a big day, pun intended, at Big Day Out 2008. After all the dramas of buying tickets on-line at 4a.m., arguing with pedantic parents on my right to attend and a huge cancellation that came as unexpectedly as the death the day beforehand, I was on my way to what I hoped would be the first of many outings to what is an Australian institution.

Warning: Epic Post Follows…

White Words on Black Shirt.

Is that news true?
Or is your News Limited?

Wins.

The Tragedy That Is: Brian Wilson

Sydney Festival First Night was arguably the best way to start a month-long arts, music and culture festival in one of the worlds most vibrant cities. Practically, close off the most family-friendly areas of the CBD and hold a party, complete with gay-disco weddings, raves in Business Precincts and Huge Swing lessons around park fountains.

However, the ticketed “big” headliner proved to be one of the most depressing, life-draining moments in my short live-music-viewing history. A Music Luminary in his own right, Brian Wilson has a grand history as an innovator of pop music in the 60’s, through captaining The Beach Boys. What I saw on-stage at The Domain tonight, however, was a man in tatters. He sat there, emotionless, reading the most well-known non-Beatles lyrics off a teleprompter, banging at a keyboard and flailing his arms around as an entourage of incredibly skilled musicians filled in the wide and deep gaps.

I was told that he suffered a mental breakdown that he never truly recovered from some twenty years ago and, I believe, it clearly shows. It’s odd, seeing an artist and/or band age, especially one that’s not only a celebrity, but so connected to the history of an entire generation. Bob Dylan does so many key-and-lyrical changes in a performance the next thing he’ll be doing a duet with The Mars Volta. The Rolling Stones use a tried and tested formula so much that their recent works sound like filler off albums released decades ago. U2 have seemingly forgotten that they’re not the UN; The Sex Pistols ruin their classics for video games;whilst others are fighting off deaths to rekindle their lost fire. The major difference between them and Wilson, at least, is that they all still show signs of life.

Such is the nature of music’s, or just art in generals, evolution that the artist may never be seen again in the same light, even if they don’t die. I’ve only ever known a Brian Wilson like the one I saw today, and will grow up knwoing Paul McCartney as a boring guy going through a bitter divorce, Michael Jackson as a strange black-turned-white man who “likes” children, and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as silly old men. This is not because I’m ignorant to their histroy or their place in the music world, but becasue this is what I’ve been presented with as thier characters during my lifetime, leaving me to wonder how they truely were back when they were younger and not at this state.

I wonder where and how we’ll see the big bands and artists of now when they have reached their veteran age? Only time will tell.

133MAC

Mac support (that also take iPod support calls) have a very perculiar call centre. First and foremost, the guy on the other line had no fake-Anglo name, spoke in broken, accented English, was arguing with two others who seemed, from a phone at least, to be fluent in Australian English, didn’t notice that I told him that I had Window Vista on my PC, and hung up on me halfway through explaining how to reformat my iPod Shuffle.

In contrast, Symantec’s Support Line have a very Indian-Subcontinent-Sounding David Welles in a quiet call centre, who asked for all my operating details (In a non-phising way) and guided me right through fixing my Norton Internet Security subscription so that my mum would be happy.

Makes you think: we always bag out the Mumbai Call Centre, yet they seem to be the ones offering decent service. Of course, there’s the issue with our information being jeopardised (I’m sure Product Disclosure Statements cover that, though), but when I get decent service, I recognise it, even if it has to come from someone who thinks I live in Austria.

May I take this moment to point out how much I hate call centres in general. Despite many suggestions to do otherwise, I do not plan to work at one any time soon.

A sign in an undisclosed private venue’s toilet

NB:
Do Not Smoke In The Toilets
HAVE PRIDE MEN!

All it needed was “BE A MAN!” and this would be the best No-Smoking sign ever.

Heard the joke about the two politicians who looked exactly the same?

No, neither have I

But yes, we have a new tyrant leader these days in the great land of Oz. His name’s Kevin. No, he isn’t that accountant who did your taxes a few years back (although he could easily have been mistaken to have been). He enjoys saying “education revolution” a lot, is friends with a guy who knows Bono and likes the taste of his own earwax. I really don’t know how anyone can like the taste of their own ear wax. It’s far too bitter.

Other than that, he seems like a nice guy, which appears to be why he got a landslide victory. Which isn’t usually the best thing for a politician these days. Compare Paul Keating and Jeff Kennett, for example. One tries to be nice yet is a complete arse, the other is a complete arse yet reshaped Victoria completely. I don’t like those odds.

Now, no matter how he performs, I value one thing about this nation: Its democracy and the ability to be democratic in a civilised fashion. That is, the transition to one government from another is free of persecution or violence, which is something I wish the whole world had. Not to mention, both of our major parties are rather decent, when it comes down to the facts.

So, back to my political slant at this, whilst most of the blind conservatives whine that our country is going to end up in an economic recession under Ruddkips, remember that voting for superfluous new-age leadership wasn’t a step towards a better future (although I, with my KEVIN07 shirt in hand, hope that will be the case), yet one away from a Liberal dictatorship that would have left us all earning $2 an hour no matter what age, gender or position we were in, with the next major project being a 200ft-tall statue of a lion with Peter Costello’s head crafted on it. Which we would all have to build under the new SlaveChioces Act (WorkChoices amendment) 2009, until we are saved by the great prophet Kelly-Ned who parts the Tasman Sea, leading us to our safety in the land of Zealand of the New.

Go figure.