the question

Maybe i should write something...

Happiness is...

A big cushioned chair that your neighbors gave to your brother when he said he was going to move out two years ago that has been covered in a crisp clean mighty mouse sheet he used to sleep on when he was young and placed near the fireplace with a small chair next to it so you don't have to jump high to get onto it.

A full day of study

11:00AM: Wake up.

11:30AM: Get out of bed.

12:00PM: Complete breakfast.

12:30PM: Finish browsing internet, commence study.

1:50PM: Stop study; take 17 high definition pictures of cat sleeping in front of the fireplace.

2:00PM: Start writing “A full day of study.”

2:05PM: Recommence study.

2:25PM: Get out of pyjamas. Search for socially acceptable clothes. Walk to fruit market to purchase cheese, bread and apple juice.

2:45PM: Enjoy cheese and crackers while simultaneously browsing the internet for distractions and contemplating what topic would be easiest to cover next.

4:00PM: Finally choose an option and recommence study.

5:30PM: Get sick of McLuhan and technological determinism, decide his work was far from the easiest topic.

6:30PM: Dinner and procrastination break!

7:45PM: Come to the conclusion that I’m not really going to do that much more work, decide to do one more reading before giving up entirely.

The next day 1/3 of my answers are based on the reading I completed 20min before the exam.

BAM! The Chemical Brothers are back in the house!

Just had a listen to their new album, it's groovy man, groooovy. On first listen it's managed to capture me much better than Push the Button did (tho that album turned out to be pretty decent with repeated listens after omitting two annoying tracks).

Last time they started messing with their formula, which didn't always work. This time around it's worked wonders, so we have an album with a bunch of classic sounding tunes along with plenty of new, interesting takes on the recipe.

'We Are The Night' should be out next week, i think.

A generic conversation with Miles

Miles: [generic greeting], [generic statement of interest in work/life/study]

Person: [generic statement of work/life/study being the same as last time Miles enquired]

Miles: [generic statement of interest in $activity]

Person: [$activity is good/bad]

Miles: [flip conversation to topic of Miles’ $activity]

Miles: [description of $activity]

Miles: [explanation of $activity]

Person: [attempt to talk about own $activity]

Miles: [pretend to take comments on $activity into account], [relate comments back to Miles’ $activity]

Miles: [link $activity to structural forces present within society]

Miles: [explain how $activity is affected by market capitalism] [lament current global political currents]

Person: [generic excuse to stop talking to Miles]

Be afraid! Miles is back on air- want to lend a hand?

That's right, Thursday the 21st of June will mark the inauguration of Half Baked Radio.

Cath has moved from the yellowish pastures of working for free at a radio station that nobody tunes into to the greener pasture of getting payed to say good things about the Greens (something she also did for free anyway). Thus Casa De Love has been retired and Half Baked Radio will continue it's spirit.

However now i'm a one man show! Who wants to be the second man/woman on occasion? I'd love to have any of you guys on at one time or another! It's lots of fun, we basically play whatever music we like and then thrust our opinions on the 3 or 4 people who listen to community radio. If you're interested let me know.

If you don't want to come along there's another way you can help: i need good local music so if anyone knows a band who wants to get their stuff on air you can have them get in touch with me at contacthalfbakedradio@gmail.com.

Here are the show details:

Half Baked Radio
on Triple H 100.1 FM
Every Thursday from 4:30pm to 7pm
and we have a blog! http://halfbakedradio.blogspot.com

For those who don't know Triple H is based in the Hornsby/Kuring-gai region, so anyone too far away may have problems tuning in. However the antenna is in a weird place so reception seems to be based more on altitude than on distance.

Instant Review: Queens of the Stone Age – 'Era Vulgaris'

I just finished listening to this album 2min ago, so here are my immediate impressions:
It’s pretty good, I definitely like it better than 2005’s ‘Lullabies To Paralyze.’ It’s a much dirtier, distorted and psychedelic sound for them this time around. I like the new style but it may turn some people off. After this first listen I find the middle of the album a bit repetitive but the end kicks it back up to the level of the first few tracks- which really gave me an awesome first impression. ‘Sick Sick Sick’ especially has a great riff, it works really well around the warped vocals. I’m not sure how this record will go with repeated listens but as it stands now I’ll definitely be shelling out for a ticket when they tour again.

Howard's musical tastes

Got this in a forward:

Feeling Prolific: Random reviews!

28 Weeks Later
This is a bloody sequel to a great film. If you want fast, angry zombies then this fits the bill. They run, they kill and they seem much more sadistic than what I remember from the first one. This film carries some interesting themes but in the end is just a quick run through London while avoiding different obstacles. Problems encountered include snipers, zombies, people who don’t want to run into the open to distract said snipers, gas, the dark, the uncertainty of your fathers moral character, badly locked back doors, helicopters and napalm. It’s good straight up horror with a couple of annoying plot points.

Radiohead - Videotape
This is a new song that has been played in their more recent tours. The version I heard was played in Boston in June of 2006. I love it; beginning gently it slowly builds up a piano playing behind some haunting noise. It slowly gets louder and more intense but never passes into weird craziness. It just builds up to a nice soothing and beautiful peak with Thom York’s usual wailing standing out. I really hope makes it onto the new album. I’m not sure what the lyrics are about, something about going to heaven and showing, bringing or getting showed a videotape. Possible recording one? Also not being afraid about ‘whatever happens because I know today has been the most perfect day I have ever seen”.

Dr Eduardo de la Fuente, Sociology of Media Lecturer
An interesting character. He has a nice conversational style and talks around the lecture notes quite well. This is what I see makes a good lecturer- one that adds information around the slides they put up rather than just reading them out. However much of his material is based on the weeks readings, if doing the readings before the lecture be prepared to cover the same ground several times. He’s quite relaxed and casual but does seem to think that he is funnier than he actually may be. I say he’s pretty cool all up. He also has an awesome name.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3
Overall this is an enjoyable film centred on several action set pieces. It’s good but no better than the second one. It manages to tie up the plot lines left over from the first two but on the other hand also leave the series incredibly open to sequels. I find this series interesting because the main characters don’t seem to trust each other at all and frequently backstab everyone. I think every character was betrayed at least once physically or emotionally throughout the film. Can’t they all just get along? It’s kind of frustrating but at least tries a different take on large scale action movies. Orlando gives his usual performance- a masterful reproduction of looking worried or confused. Sometimes he’s even both! Now, if you go to see it and don’t really get much out of it, I suggest not sticking around for the bonus scene after the credits. It doesn’t really add much that you couldn't guess and you’d get just as much out of it by having someone else tell you about it.

Last.FM
This would come under the swanky ‘Web 2.0’ umbrella, from what I gather Web 2.0 tech is all about user generated content. This site can keep track of everything you listen to. It then you lets you look at what other people are listening to, showing you the people which have similar tastes to you so that you can check out what else they’re interested in. It also generates it’s own list of music that is similar to yours and lets you listen to it streamed. So far it seems pretty cool, after only using it for a week or two it’s been suggesting music that I already like but haven’t played with this site keeping track of it- hopefully once it gets a broader sense of what I enjoy it should be able to point me to new and exiting things. I also just love stats and lists so checking out just what I’ve been listening to and how much- or what other people have, is a lot of fun for me. It’s even easy to use; you just install a small program that sends back your info to the site. After that there is no other effort involved.

Check it out at http://www.last.fm

Check me out at http://www.last.fm/user/morningbright/

yay

I found new Radiohead songs...

and they're awesome!

I feel like i've been robbed

Where are the side bits on my bread?

SBS keeps the TV guide entertaining

Friday, 18th of May

10.00pm: My Penis And I
'Captures one man's journey in coming to terms with the size of his penis'

V festival roundup

Hells yeah! It was a great little festival, with above average toilet and eating facilities along with the usual slew of bars, atms and market stalls.

Of course the amnemnities are all well and good but in the end it's all about the music:

The New York Dolls: Old rockers rocking on, quite amusing to watch really.

The Rapture: Great! They played a really nice danceable set- and i can't disapprove of any band which has a sax.

Jarvis Cocker: I really liked the half of his set i saw, he was a funny old brit who had some great songs to play.

Beck: I expected him to just stick to his last two albums but he actually performed a fair amount of old stuff, from the hits ike Loser and Devils Haircut to stuff from Seachange. I'll admit at first i was a bit disappointed but as the set went on it kept getting better, his backing band was awesome. He had the ultimate rocker looking base player- all dylan-esque and dressed in head to toe in leather. Then there was the guy who's whole job was to dance around the stage and perform various odd tasks- like putting a series of larger and large boom boxes at the front of the stage, or serving food to the band when they set up a table to eat while beck soloed the seachange material. Of course in true Beck style the table was hooked up to a mic and the band started playing tunes with the cutlery. Then there were the puppets, oh the glorious puppets...

Pet Shop Boys: Odd and weird, and not really that exiting to watch.

Pixies: Ah so good, they played great but having seen them the night before i already knew what to expect. They pretty much did the exact same set with some of the more feedback filled tunes cut out.

Oddness encountered in Chinaland

• we all knew tomato was considered a fruit but the chinese have really taken the fact to heart: it's in every fruit salad you order anywhere, in abundance!
  
• Beijing has three train lines, they are called line 1, line 2 and line 13. I'll let you ponder what happened to the other 10 or so in between.
• Of all the things we saw in china many things were similar, but only one thing remained eerily the same: Oreos.
• Crawford eats like a really big animal that eats a lot, i envy the man.
• It's not a chinese meal without a great bit black hair in it.
• At times we were accosted by chinese people who wanted their picture taken with one of us, this was a bit odd but what was stranger was when a possible japanese tourist wanted to do the same. Are we really that much of a novelty or is this just the chinese secret service keeping tabs on tourists?
• From now on undercooked potato chips will be know as: Chips, Lhasa style.
  
  and that's all i can think of, perhaps i should have waited a tad less than a month to post this.
  

listmania

I haven't posted in a while but i don't think you'd all find my life particularly interesting anyway. However, seeing as it's the new year and lists are all the rage i present you with my own list:

Top ten lists i wish i could have been bothered to make in 2006:
10 - Top five Muppet's
9 - Top one Shannon Noll songs i liked this year
8 - Best eight books i never finished reading in 2006
7 - Top six things i clean at work
6 - 25 reasons to hate nickel back
5 - 101 ways to get jailed in China
4 - 8 reasons why Beck should tour Australia
3 - 56 things to do with two trampolines, a sheep and a bucket of water
2 - 6 most painful times between 5am and 7am that my cat wakes me up at
1 - One delicious reason to go to Western Australia