stadium arcadium

It's been four years or so since the Chili Peppers released By the Way. Like all of their past albums, it had a sound of it's own, but was a fairly predictable follow up to Californication (which took a while to grow on me, but is now part of my regular playlist).
Stadium Arcadium feels almost like a look to their past through older eyes. The energy they used to have is starting to wane, but in it's place is a comfortable, tight sound. Blood Sugar will always be my favourite album, but Stadium is not to be sniffed at. Tracks like the funky Hump de Bump, Warlock and Tell Me Baby are highlights, with Dani California, She's Only 18 and Turn Me On showing off John Frusciante's incredible guitar work. As they move away towards a more mellow style though, Flea doesn't get to spread his wings as much, being left to fill out the sound rather than lead it like he used to in tracks like If You Have to Ask and Suck My Kiss.

Overall, Stadium Arcadium is going to appeal more to new fans than old, but it's going to do well and deservedly so. The Red Hot Chili Peppers can still knock over the competition when they aren't even trying. If they tried just a little harder to funk it up, they could once again achieve greatness.

Verdict: Pretty damn good, but not life changing

halls gap

Deb's parents and her grandmother were over here for a holiday a few weeks ago. They went for a trip down the Great Ocean Road and then to Hall's Gap in the Grampians. I missed the first part of the trip, but met them in Hall's Gap after 4 or 5 days:

• 5.45am wake up at alarm to catch 8.15 train from Spencer st
• 7.30am wake up again without alarm
• 7.35am leave the house after brushing teeth, using loo and dressing simultaneously
• 7.42am catch a cab from Camberwell Station
• 7.58am arrive at Spencer St
• 8.01am buy ticket
• 8.25am find that the train to Ararat is delayed
• 9.10am leave Melbourne after standing on the platform for an hour
• 11.00am train terminates at Ballarat instead of going through to Ararat due to an accident the day before
• 11.10am manage to find the replacement coach that is going to Stawell
• 11.45am coach driver announces that VLine is paying for a cab to get me to Hall's Gap because the late train made me miss my bus
• 11.58am arrive in Stawell on the coach from Ballarat
• 12.45pm cab drops me off at the nearest pub to Hall's Gap
• 1.03pm my seafood basket arrives
• 2.20pm time to get to the accommodation as Deb is running late and won't be there for a few more hours
• 3.30pm find that the pub nearest to Hall's Gap was actually 4.5km from where we're staying, and I looked stupid walking around carrying a small suitcase
• 4.00pm Deb and co arrive. Long bloody day I tell you

Anyway, there were bushfires in the region earlier in the year, so everywhere you look are burnt trees and stumps. It's starting to regenerate though, so it looks pretty cool.
The attached photos are:
"Lake" Lonsdale
Burnt trees new growth
The Grampians from above
Some kind of flower. Apparently you can live on it, but it tastes like shit
Bottles in the Seppelt drives
A ladder under the old entry point for the drives
Some of the local wildlife
Deb at dinner on her folk's anniversary

lucky he wasn't drunk

Or he'd be legless as well
Armless Man Caught Speeding

iron man

We finally replace our crappy, leaking, hot and cold iron yesterday. Sick of leaving puddles on my work shirts, and tired of kneeling on the floor to iron them, we bought a new super iron and full sized ironing board. The tabletop board will be destroyed beyond repair shortly, but it was the iron's turn today.



Verdict: Fuck you iron

aac day

The Allowable Annual Cut is the volume of timber that may be harvested from a particular part of forest in any one year. It's a shame that the acronym was already taken, otherwise the organisers of the dawn service in Melbourne would have used it for their own purpose. They managed to remove New Zealand from everything but the word ANZAC, concentrating entirely on Australian soldiers.
I totally understand that I am a Kiwi living in Australia, so naturally there are bound to be some differences to how I see the world compared with Joe Ocker. I'm comfortable being mocked because of where I'm from, it's part of the territory, but to have my country's sacrifice completely ignored is really disappointing. Every other day of the year, fine, but on a day that is supposed to honour the bravery and loss of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corp, to not even hear the words New Zealand spoken aloud is almost offensive.

Lest we forget huh?

cabinet part ii

I couldn't help myself. I had to rig up a basic cardboard control panel to make sure everything worked properly. It did.



Verdict: peow peow

cabinet part i

Last week, I came across some great plans for a home arcade machine. This happened around the same time that I downloaded MAME and a bunch of old arcade games (Pacman, Streetfighter, Double Dragon etc). I figured that I need to have a project at home that doesn't involve beer, but does make me use my hands. Enter my Mame cabinet. It's essentially a computer set up to look like an arcade machine, except instead of just playing one game, it will be able to play ALL OF THEM.
This is close to what it's going to look like eventually:

I'm going to make it a kiwi theme, and put the silver fern down the side along with some other stuff that I haven't thought of yet. Actually, hang on, I'll stick the fern on there now.

I knew that if I looked into this project too much, I'd be put off by either the cost or the time invoved, or the fact that I don't have a workshop, so I went out to a warehouse in the middle of nowhere on Saturday and put things in motion. A few hundred dollars later, I'm in possession of two joysticks, a few dozen buttons and a circuit board which is basically an interface for everything.
My toolbox currently consists of a set of screwdrivers and a pair of pliers that Dad gave me the last time they were here, a Leatherman™, an old hacksaw and a hammer. Not really a big enough range of gear to make something 6 feet tall out of wood. Unless it was popsicle sticks...
Anyway, I went to a hardware shop today to start buying a few extras. Not being a fan of cheap and nasty, I came away with a trade quality drill and jigsaw. I'm sure the old man will be happy knowing that I bought Makita and not some knock off.
The next part is to sit down and actually design everything. The last time I worked with wood, I think I made a hand mirror at school when I was 11, so i's going to be a pretty steep learning curve. Luckily we live in the age of Google, so whatever I don't t know today, I will know by this time tomorrow, in seven languages, one of them probably Klingon (groan).

I figured this blog (geez, I hate that word!) would be the best way for me to keep track of how long I'm taking, and what I was thinking at certain points along the way. Looking back, I'll be able to pinpoint the exact day that I lost the tip of my finger in a routing accident, and how happy Deb was that I managed to get black paint all over her azaleas.

It's going to be an interesting journey.

my friend meloney

I thought it would be funny to see if we could grow a watermelon in a pot (from seed). We've done radishes and capsicums, but this is a bit different. The seed was planted a few months ago and now we have a vine that stretches at least 3 metres end to end (that's close to 10 feet in ye olde measurements).
Flowers have come and gone without bearing fruit, so I thought it was sterile, but this morning we noticed otherwise:

It's only as wide as a fingernail at the moment, but at least we now have a real, homegrown watermelon. The weather's turned crap, so it probably won't get much bigger, but I'm happy.

Verdict: nice melons

slaps

I recently created a database for my department that monitors peoples' productivity as well as having the ability to track turnaround times for various pieces of work. I managed to roll it out as the "Service Level Agreement & Productivity System" without noticing that the acronym was SLAPS. It’s too late to change now, so that’s how it’s going to stay.

Sweet

(P.S. I should also add that it wasn't my idea for the database. Where I work, people are rewarded for high productivity, and there had to be a fair way of measuring it)

it's a sign

I saw a sign on a shop door yesterday: “Back in 20 minutes”.

Seriously, what fucking use is that? What time did you leave? When should we send out the search party.

Idiot

the games

It seems odd that we booked our Commonwealth Games tickets almost a year ago, and now it's here! Well, it's half past here at the moment and I'm only just posting about the opening ceremony now. Perhaps I'll bullet point things, it'll be easier to write.

• The seats were great! We sat facing the ramp that all the atheletes came down
• There was a flying tram with wings... and other flying stuff...
  
• Something about a child's imagination, and a duck
• There were koalas there as well
• The Queen gave a speech
• atheletes
• fireworks
• ...
  

Anyway, I remember being impressed by it, but my memories fade pretty quicky. That's why I keep digital memories like these:


We also went to the womens gymnastics on Saturday, which would have been cool, but no one seemed able to stay on their feet! I caught a few of the offenders in action:


Next stop will be some athletics finals on Saturday back at the MCG. It's supposed to be a hot day, so fingers crossed for a nice evening.

god save the swagman

It was discovered last week (or thereabouts) that organisers of the Commonwealth Games wouldn't be playing God Save the Queen at the opening ceremony. What the hell? It's the COMMONWEALTH games and the QUEEN is going to be there who, like it or not, is Australia's head of state.

If I went out and mugged someone because I didn't see the relevance of police in a modern society, I'd be locked up. Even though I don't believe in the rules, I still need to live by them. Laws are put in place by politicians who are elected into that role by the people. The majority of people, which brings me to my next point:

In 1999, Australians had the choice to abandon the Queen in favour of a President, but this was rejected. Does this not mean that the majority of Australians like the idea of the monarchy? I agree that the concept is pretty outdated and can't see it surviving the next referendum, but at the moment that's the regime. Surely with the huge international profile that the games will have, Australia should be wary of how this will be viewed by the rest of the world, so far they're coming off as ill-mannered and disrespectful.

rain

There was a bit of rain here on Saturday.

"a bit of" = a hell of a lot of
"rain" = most of the world's water supply falling from the sky

It managed to force it's way in through the wall behind the oven, the top of the window frame in the bathroom and the ceiling in the lounge. No damage to our stuff though, so all is good.
I took this video outside from under an umbrella. If you listen at around 0.28 secs, there's a cool clap of thunder.


That is all

pump some iron

2 years, 3 months and 7 days... that's how much time had passed since I'd done any exercise that didn't involve carrying my washing machine up and down stairs. I realised this when me and Deb were putting together a photo album that included some taken of me in the midst of my clubbing career in London. I think if I tried doing an 8 hour doof session now, I'd either die of a heart attack, or my man boobs would jerk so hard they'd tear off from my neck down.
Which is why I've joined the gym. No more bitch tits, no more mono-ab, pack your bags fellas, you're off.
I've only been to 3 sessions so far, but I feel really good about it. The first few weeks are supposed to be the hardest, but this time around, I can't wait to get back. A few sore muscles here and there, but they disappear as soon as I walk through the door.
One thing I'd change though is the communal shower. The last time I showered with other guys was probably at intermediate, so it'll be a few more weeks before I forget that my junk is on show. Most people are obviously more than used to it, which is fine, but some of them stay in the shower for close to 20 minutes. If they aren't clean by that time, they aren't going to get clean. They're either there to perv at everyone, or to wave their third leg around. Surely there are places you can go to that specialise in that kind of thing?

stuff on the walls

After talking about it for ages, putting it off and changing our minds, we finally have a bit of colour on the walls here. It's nice to have something to break up the big blank spaces, especially knowing that they're both "original works".

The canvas print we ordered arrived last week. The lower right corner is a bit dark, but that's my fault for not setting up my monitor properly.



We have a bunch of photos that would look good on display, but didn't like any of the pre made photo frames that you can get, so we had one custom made. The photo doesn't do it justice, but the frame is matte black, with a canvas textured black photo mat with a white inner border. There's also a black mat without the border tucked away, so we can customise how it looks depending on what photo is in there. Wow, I didn't realise how boring that sounded until I read it again. I really need to get out more!
That said, something else I want to get done in the future is a set of four frames to hold some photos from my failed Monopoly™ project.

The original plan was to take photos of everything on the original Monopoly board and make my own board with photos. I managed to get about 9 pieces done before it was time to leave the country. Oh well.
Tune in next week for more exciting adventures.

storm in a teacup

stuff

When you don't have anything to say, it's nice to let the internet do the talking:

I love the idea of my wife
Beer Bot
Unintentionally sexual comic book covers
Blair & Bush at the Gay Bar

new year

A quick recap:
Went home for Christmas to visit the folks. A bit of rain, a bit of sun, your standard Dunedin summer holiday :)

New Years in Melbourne was hot. 43° hot. We sat around for the day, trying to keep cool and then went out for dinner. I think the heat must have been a bit much for us, because after two drinks, we were both feeling seedy enough to just go home. We got off the train at Camberwell just in time or see the fireworks in the city. They were pretty far away by that point, but at least we were a part of it :)

I've got a short term role as a team manager at work which is pretty cool. It's only for a month before I move into my new role as a continuous improvement...guy. It's basically going to involve designing and implementing a workflow and reporting database. It's going to be challenging because I've only done it on a small scale before, not one that will be used by 70-80 people! I'm gong to have to hone the old Access skills a bit, but at least the money will be a bit better.

..what else? It's time to spruce up the flat a bit. I'm getting a canvas print done of the london eye. The photo has been chunkified so it's more an arty kind of thing:


It looks pretty cool printed on photo paper, but it may look different on a 12" by 18" canvas. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

the cold little toe of new zealand

Me & Debs are off to Dunedin on Friday to see our families for Christmas. I'm looking forward to getting away from work for a week, where I can relax without having to fix spreadsheets or databases. The only technology I'll be using will be my ipod, and the only spreadsheet will be the one pulled up to my chin before I go to sleep.

sydney

I must be doing something right at work, because I got to go to Sydney on company money. Sure, I had to attend a day long CEO forum that was drier than a truckful of flour, but they put me up at the Hilton, so all is forgiven. The 43rd floor is pretty cool, unless you get the elevator all to yourself, with no stops on the way up. With the hangover that I had after my first night there, it was hard work dealing with the pressure change.

(based on my two days there) Sydney seems to have a lot going for it. It doesn't feel like it's trying a hard as Melbourne to be cool. A lot of Melbournians will talk your ear off telling you everything that's so great about their home, to the point that it all just becomes white noise. Sydney(ers, ites?) don't have the same affliction. They aren't as friendly, but at least they know how to keep the noise down a little. Maybe I'm getting old, but why does every second person I meet have their volume knob stuck on obnoxious prick? My guess is the large Greek/Italian influence, where members of a 12 strong catholic family had to yell to be heard when they were kids. I swear, it's like I'm at a club where everyone but me can hear the music and feels they have to shout their conversation.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Sydney is cool, but the weather was average. Here's a few pics of the bridge and opera house on an overcast day: