A day in the life

more days in the life

2008-08-23T12:23:43Z

I am sitting in a cafe just off Wilson street. It is late in the morning and most of the people have filtered out of the store already. I'm sitting at a large round table waiting for a much needed coffee and a yummy breakfast.
My stream of consciousness is certainly enabled at the moment, but the mundane thoughts that are coming out of it are not particularly inspiring, hence the use of the laptop rather than writing. For some reason it feels like whatever I write on the laptop won't come out with any sort of passion, conviction or particularly strong prose. Perhaps not, but the only good prose I've ... wait. thinking. I wrote some pretty cool stuff on the way over on the manly ferry on the old black laptop (think it was the first laptop I really identified as mine... as of now sitting in a heap at my parents place)...
At the moment I am wearing a black polar fleece skirt and have been doing a cotery of cleaning duties, mostly washing my own disgustingly large pile of clothes and attempting to fix the wine stains on the carpet. I had ordered a load of shopping from coles, which included a few very unnecessary items... vitamin tablets, lip balm, but importantly had a can of carpet stain remover. After leaving the stains for a month or more, I figured I needed all the help I could get. Some of the stains came out, but I think more fun came from the unventilated room, where I got kinda dizzy from all of the fumes... braincells, who needs them?
Not exactly sure what I am writing, but one thing that I picked up from my abortive attempt at joining the nanoMimo was Neil Gaiman's suggestion that you should always just power on through the creative block and write something anyway, even if it does suck balls.
Just thought of a really lame silly joke I thought of this morning as I was doing my chores...
I can't remember the exact joke, but it was something like : I feel like a cow, all domestic and well fed, with a dash of barbeque sauce. mmmmm. Terrible, I know, but i thought it was bad enough that someone has probably used it before.
A group of boy-ish looking lesbians with short hair are sitting across the way from me. Between my skirt and long hair and their shorts and shorter hair we are probably a suitable context for a lot of the 20th century. Not so sure about the 21st century. Maybe. I'm not so sure about this century as I was at the turn of it.
The cafe has started to fill up. I remember that most of the people are probably nursing hangovers from the Friday night happy hour partying and I'm actually up and about ridiculously early for this part of civilised Newtown.
The music in the room is indistinct and non-identifiable. Someone must have gotten rid of the people who liked decent music in this cafe, I can hear a bump, then a guitar thing, then a bump again. I actually sighed then, but felt bad about emoting it in this. Oh wait, I can hear an arpeggiated scale. Sounds like a 14 year old practising the bass. A talented 14 year old, but a 14 year old nevertheless. Nevertheless. I always read it as nerveless. Nerveless fingers gripped the cold of my soul. Nevertheless...
Today there are a plenitude of things to do, and not many of them are productive. I wanted to sit down and make use of my housemates all being away for the weekend to play a whole heap of music. I *want* to sit down and make use of my housemates all being away for the weekend to play a whole shitload of music. I *will* sit down, stand up, jump up and down and just generally enjoy myself while playing music. I want to make sure I record a whole song and publish it this weekend. I wonder who wants to join me for the fun. I could ask Ian but I can't handle too much of Ian's brilliant violin playing. I prefer it to be rougher and fit in with what I am playing - Ian is the virtuoso solo musician who can't stand to be the backup bass player. Metaphorically speaking. I'm not sure if Ian even plays bass...
I still feel peculiarly vulnerable, even in Newtown, from wearing a skirt. It's like all of me is on show for people to dissect and discuss and critisize. Perhaps they aren't, but it doesn't really matter introducing thoughts to the contrary.
I'm kinda wondering if I am even going to post this to the online blog-o-spere. Maybe. Will you critisize me too? Will you, o' will you?
I'm still not feeling like writing anything down, so I guess I'll drink my coffee which is taking ridiculously long to be brought over... yeah, its not here yet, then leave to continue with my cow-work.
So. My plan is to get out the big guitar amp downstairs and take over the tv room with guitar and maybe fiddle too. I'll message some peeps, but my hopes are not high at all. Maybe I shouldn't even bother with the messaging. I might just start playing and screw the rest of them. My goal is to get a song up online by the end of the weekend, but hopefully have most of it down by the end of today. word.

maybe i need to realise

2008-07-31T12:41:15Z

Without the violin, I am nothing.
not nothing, but a far lesser person. I need to do more.

on holidays

2007-12-24T04:59:12Z

I haven't put anything up on my journal for a while.
So I will.
I'm down in melbourne on the coast near Dromana.
I'm now quite convinced that the best place to actually go to a good pub is in melbourne by such a vast amount as to make me quite sad.

I am also absolutely sure that I would probably die within a year of acute alcohol poisoning and comfortable cushions.

fo shure.

I went to a pub down in Richmond (or nearabouts). It was so damn cool.
Why doesn't sydney have pubs like that?

The pub was called the Great Britain : http://www.melbournepubs.com/v/326/

world of rock. truly. i'm nowhere near that now, but certainly its a good place to go to and I will try to make it back there next time i'm in melbourne.

hehe. funny. :)

2007-06-22T07:27:08Z

to splendour we will go!

2007-05-15T03:32:09Z

Well, I just got tickets to splendour, which is just splendiferous.

I'm actually going to be camping this time, so excitement plus plus - dirty three will be playing and the shins and hopefully none of those bastards will pull out on me...

anyone else planning on going to splendour out there?

http://w3.splendourinthegrass.com/Tickets/sold-out.html

UMMMMM... okay, so I bought my camping ticket at 1pm, ... , how does this work?
I was on the ticketing system at 9am and got booted cause they didn't like firefox, but... huh?

Anyway, they can't take em off me! I paid for em, and I'm getting them. :)

chris

further subjects for alienations:

2007-05-11T10:52:12Z

btw, this is the result of me using a service called stumbleupon and fishing out articles that i think are worthy.
sorry if this offends anyone's sense of ... volume.

http://www.americanatheist.org/win98-99/T2/silverman.html

I liked this interview.
I liked Douglas Adams.

I like slint.

chris

pure pure gold!

2007-05-11T10:35:01Z

recconize suckerz!

2007-05-11T10:22:01Z

thoughts from the founding fathers of the US.

2007-05-11T08:42:46Z

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."
[James Madison, 1803]

...

...

funny how americans only quote the founding fathers when they are talking about freedom and liberty, not religious freedom and liberty:

...

[laws establishing freedom of religion]..."were meant to include within them the Muslim, the Hindoo [sic], and the infidel of any sort."
[Thomas Jefferson in a letter to his nephew, Dethloff, Henry C., ed. Thomas Jefferson and American Democracy. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Co. 1971]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/political-fudge-cant-hide-sham-of-hicks-charges/2007/02/08/117052

2007-02-08T23:13:16Z

Its kinda interesting this one, because I (with my underdeveloped legal mind) actually thought
that when Ruddock brought this up, I thought that maybe this was okay. A bit dodgy, but okay. But I'm thinking in their terms - let's charge him any goddamm way we can, even if its a hodge-podge of civil, military and donald duck laws.

I say no more quack!

chris

(from the article:)

The prior existence of a domestic crime applicable to civilians is quite irrelevant to this case. Hicks is facing trial for alleged war crimes that didn't exist at the date of his supposed transgressions and no amount of dust being thrown in our eyes by people in the US and Australia, eager to shore up this shameless kangaroo process, should disguise that fact.

The important question is: are material support for terrorism and attempted murder in violation of the law of war actually war crimes? In relation to the particulars of the Hicks case, the answer is no.

You only have to think of attempted murder in a theatre of war to see how ludicrous it is. Hicks was fighting for the Taliban which, whatever one may think of it, in 2001 was the government of Afghanistan. To take up arms and fight as a soldier for a government in a war is not illegal.

sue the flag for libel!

2007-02-06T21:59:45Z

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/flag-falls-short/2007/02/06/1170524096347.html

so it turns out that the flag was wrong anyway, as well as ... well, just kinda crap and overly anglo-centric.

From the article:
--
Anyway, the astronomer noted, the flag's Southern Cross is only a fleeting stellar feature. Three of its stars, hot giants, are doomed to burn out in a few million years.
--
So maybe we can replace the union jack with the stars?

Or maybe a picture of great fat wads of cash.

sigh...

as an djunct to the previous rant...

2007-01-28T03:28:08Z

http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1545

pretty well thought out article. :)

happy åustralia day

2007-01-28T00:59:36Z

Well friends,

Greetings to you on this happy australia day, or rather, your own particular version of it. I just watched a particularly interesting australia day commentary on abc where the presenter went around to interview many facets of Australians: the convict descendents, the proud british descendents, the native aborigines, immigrant Iranians; the one thing that I found was that whenever the australian flag was involved, I invariably attached a dislike for the people involved.

For somehow, friends, I have become a card carrying flag hater. Never given to overt displays of nationalism at the best of times, I have become almost obsessed with the degree with which people misrepresent flags in order to rally around a particular idea. In this case, we have a flag which is basically a defaced version of the British naval ensign. Showing all of the verve and imagination which could have come from the same marketing genius who sold meat pies back in the 50´s (meat pies, they´re meat, and they´re pies, and they´re Australian... eat them!), we looked up in the sky and decided that the southern cross would be a great symbol of us. Don´t get me wrong, I think the southern cross is a great constellation, and worthy of much discussion, but thinking about it logically, ... pretty much all of the southern hemisphere could lay claim to it, so its hardly ´uniquely australian´.

Basically what the federation star being under the union jack says to me is this: Australians still think of themselves as being under the British rule. The southern cross is saying, yeah, we´re basically a southern hemisphere version of the British. This, considering all of our multicultural heritage, seems completely anomolous to where we are moving as a country, and to re-embrace a flag which holds those ties seems quite illogical to me, especially considering its exclusion of any non-british Australians (and yes, surprisingly, they do exist in much larger numbers than the White Australia policy could ever have imagined!).

So, historically, people say we´ve fought under the australian flag in World War 1, World Ware 2, all these wars, all these brave soldiers fighting under the flag. We can´t possibly change it, can we? WW1 we were fighting under the Union Jack. WWII we were fighting under the Union Jack, with a small portion fighting under the (then unoffical Australian Flag). Indeed, the Australian flag as we know it today was only ratified in 1953, a far cry from those who would have us believe that it has been a part of Australia since federation.

My beef is as follows:

1. The flag is divisive
2. The flag is not indicative of its population
3. It promotes an us vs them mentality
4. Its backwards, not forwards looking.
5. It offends me in its complete unoriginality.

There are probably people out there that will even hate me for holding such a harsh view on the flag, but this will just go to further my claim that its all about the us and them. And nothing about Australia and its future prosperity.

chris
god save the queen!

off to melbourne,

2006-12-07T12:23:28Z

See you all soon, I'm off to Melbourne for a few days, and then hoooome,...

cos its such a perfect day.

i'm glad i spent it with you...

chrs

emo me baby.

2006-10-31T07:59:45Z

This one's for the emo's out there, just waiting to cry. :)

sunday:

2006-10-15T07:59:58Z

dum de dum.

i'm sitting around doing crap all.
This, however, is quite funny:

http://www.humanistsofutah.org/2002/WhyCantIOwnACanadian_10-02.html

I was trying to think of an australian version of this; obviously if you put australia as the america of the region (hey, we've got more macdonalds than anywhere else, i think); it would have to be New Zealand as Canada (damn pot smoking hippies) and ... who would be Australia's Mexican bitches? :)

c

yoga rocks...

2006-10-13T13:45:59Z

I just went to a rest and relaxation thing round the corner at a yoga place. 2 hours of me paying people so that I could snooze.

I feel quite serene now. :)
like i've just smoked a bag o' green sorta serene. minus the giggles. :)

c

okay. totally wierd.

2006-10-10T11:07:27Z

Okay. You know when you listen to a song that really kinda freaks you out. This is that. But good. Just in a very wierd way. Don't listen to it: you'll hate it. ;)

Peking O - Can Driving my way to,Driving my way back to yesterday,Driving my way back to yesterday,The night never sleeps.Driving my way back to yesterday,Driving my way back to yesterday,Driving my way,Driving my way back to yesterday.Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah!Says "I carry a heart."Momma gonna eat, momma eat.Momma gonna eat, momma gonna eat, poppa gonna eat,Momma gonna, poppa gonna, momma gonna, poppa gonna,Momma gonna, poppa gonna, momma gonna, poppa gonna,Momma gonna, poppa gonna, momma gonna, poppa gonna,Momma gonna, poppa gonna eat.Momma gonna eat, poppa gonna eat,Momma gonna eat, poppa gonna eat,Momma gonna eat, poppa gonna eat,Momma gonna eat, poppa gonna eat,Momma gonna eat, poppa gonna eat,Momma gonna eat, poppa gonna eat,Momma gonna eat.Let us go, let us go, let us go, let us go,Let us go, let us go, let us go, let us go,Just got to go, just got to go, just got to go, just got to go,Just got to go, just got to go. Lyrics provided by leoslyrics.com

honestly, nothing really to say.

2006-10-05T13:08:47Z

I suppose you would say I feel a little listless.

I just finished a computer game that took up a large amount of my time, and now that it is beaten I can return to my previously scheduled programming.

Sorry to aeronwen:and the stoned one for not turning up to the pub on the afl grand final saturday. I was extremely hungover.

Sorry to Kitty for not making birthday drinks, I was up in the blue mountains getting pissed and walking places.

Apologies to the world. We now return you to your regularly scheduled viewing.

gdonk.

c

hurrah!

2006-09-10T02:17:52Z

Yay for the swans! Its about time that they had a bit of a break. A little worried that its going to make them less likely to get the flag, but that's just superstition talking hopefully.

I am sad, though, for it will mean that they will play one less game this season.

Order of preference for who should win the flag:

1 Sydney
2 Fremantle
3 Melbourne
4 Western Bulldogs
5 Adelaide
6 West Coast
7 Collingwood (surprise surprise)

c

Hi, notime, will tell all soon

2006-07-26T12:19:35Z

Back from Splendour.

In one piece. Mostly.
One piece of advise: Don't do long-haul drives. I hauled ass all the way from byron, and my ass paid the price.

The moral of the story: your body might forgive you. Your ass never will.

update soon.

ciao,
chris

perkele vittu saatana

2006-07-04T10:33:57Z

that's what i think of ye all.

or something like that.

okaydammit!

2006-05-25T14:02:32Z

Having lots of people hanging around the house... who woulda thunk it could actually be fun.

my hermit ways have led me to an unentitled belief in my own hermitudal value. What you say?
And what the hell is with makingmis-spellings? Its so hard to do, I can't believe that ruth is so proficient at it! :)

haahahah. okay. signing out. :)

fun at the zoo

2006-04-30T04:13:11Z

Such a day of mixed bizness.

Saturday was a bit of a bastard. I managed to win $10 on the pokies and then lose a pair of glasses that were worth around $400. And then I got a parking ticket, and then my phone battery died spontaneously.

Hungover as a bitch on saturday, went with clair to the zoo, which was lovely. Its been a while, but the day was perfect for it, and I had a great time.

So, all up, a fucking expensive weekend. Shit happens, generally to me (sorry for whiny white-boy bitch - its just fun).

On the plus side, I saw an avalanche of oranges rolling down central station one morning last week. It was enough to bring a huge smile to my face.

c

the laneway festival

2006-03-06T04:00:21Z

Well,

Where to start but the beginning - it was a beautiful day, and so I started out on the grass waiting for mrak to be let in the gates, and for Pivot to come on. Drank a beer while listening to Pivot do yet another captivating set - their music is just getting better and better the more I listen. Wandered down to catch the end of Pretty girls make graves, which was pretty decent.

Here is the set list:
http://www.stjeromesguidetosummer.com/laneway/sydney/times/

Another little sit on the grass, listening to Gersey, who were pretty decent. A quick sojourn back down to listen to Wolf And Cub made Gersey just that much better - too much wailing and guitar solos made the emo-esque Gersey sound the much better option.

A bit more meandering around, and meeting up with all of the usual suspects prompted some of us to line up to get in to see The Gossip in the Basement, but, alas, the venue organisers screwed up big time as it was well night impossible to get in to the basement for all but those courageous few who dared to line up for more than 45 minutes. Not this cat - i nicked back to the grass to see faker and sink a beer and a pie. :)

Next was probably one of stand-out acts of the day: Les Savy Fav - to anyone who hasn't seen this band, then you're in for a treat if you make it. Sydney has been lucky enough to have seen quite a bit of this band (ask Mark if you want to know exactly how much). The lead singer Tim Harrington is the antithesis of rock in his appearance, with a full beard and a bald head and a pot belly you could rest at least a six pack on (although i think he was actually quite a bit skinnier this time around). In his actions, though, he is indy/punk/rock incarnate, Yes! All of that and more! Coming out in a cross between Yasser Arafat and the local drunk, with red sunburn paint all over his body, it didn't take long (after gradually warming the crowd up with his Bondi Beach burn story) to get his clothes off, except for a pair of Bondi Budgi Smugglers and then to dance around the stage like a crack baby screaming out his own brand of indy rock. Jumping over the barriers into the crowd, with his mic in tow, he tore through the crowd and disappeared. I started to get a bit concerned that he wouldn't come back when his microphone started on its way back to the stage without him. But 'lo and behold, he appeared again atop the high wall to the right of the stage around 4 or so metres above us. For the people who hadn't seen Les Savy Fav before, it was a bit of a shock, but the shock continued for them as he wrapped the microphone around the tree and abseiled down the wall for the waiting crowd to catch him below. Damn! What can you do to top that. The rest of the night was struggling to catch up!

Art of fighting were excellent, as were the Raveonettes, both viewed from the grass, and Broken Social Scene were impressive. The last band were really quite good - seeing the avalanches was fantastic fun - I was hoping they would do a rjd2 style gig, but they didn't pull out anything from their own repertoire, making it a very lively and fun and technically good dj set.

All in all, what a fun day. :)

chris