I got up at 8.15am this morning to take my brother to the tram stop. On the way home and just as I was about to turn into my driveway I notice that the entire rear end of my neighbour's Lexus 4WD was taken off. It was so severely smashed up that you could see the spare tyre and the rear seats of the car. I was like "What the fuck happened!". I saw my neighbour standing in a very mellow fashion and staring at the car. "Maybe she had a car accident earlier and drove it home?", I thought.

I was still in my pyjamas so I crept back to my house through the garage and as soon as I entered the house my mum flies down the staircase hugging me "Omg you're okay! You're Okay!!". I was a little stunned and confused.

"What's going on?? Of course I'm ok!"
"Didn't you hear the loud bang?"
"What you mean next door? That was already smashed up when I drove past!"
"Omg no it happened like 2 seconds before you got home then! I just heard this lound bang and this white car just sped off down the road!"
"I didn't see it!"

So we ran outside again and I had a better look at the torn up Lexus. And whilst I was driving past, I didn't notice the entire brick mailbox completely in pieces (as in, individual bricks, not large slabs of bricks still stuck together, it looked like it exploded). We went to talk to our neighbour who was in shock (hence the mellowed out look) and said that the white car drove up the lawn, hit the car and the car spun around and smashed open the mailbox and took the whole rear end of the car with it!

Like WHAT! Immediately I was so upset that how much of a coward this loser in the white car can be by just driving off and leaving this incredible mess behind. It was not just a single scratch along the side of the car! It was half a car gone and the entire BRICKED MAILBOX in pieces! So Mum told her to call the police straight away.

I was still in my pyjamas (yeah, I snuck out and drove my bro to tram stop STILL in my PJs) and so I asked another neighbour and mum to drive around our estate straight away to look for a damaged white car. Apparently it was a hatchback - surely an impact like that would totally ride it off?? Unfortunately they couldn't find anything.

The police came and soon the tow truck. The police were incredibly unhelpful which angered me... surely they can try a little bit more than "What can we do? There's no number plates!" - the public service system!

I had to go to uni so I quickly headed off and spent a few hrs there and then came back and typed up a flyer to put in everyone's mailbox in the estate asking for ppl to report if they suspect or notice damaged white car etc. Y'see we live in an estate where the only way you can get in is through my street. And the car was driving in the inwards direction. It's gotta come out eventually if the owner wants it fixed... even if it's sitting in a garage for 3 weeks. Still gotta come out my street. So I think the flyer will help if everyone in the estate knew about this.

And to make matters worse, my neighbour was slightly injured because the car hit her as it swung around and she was thrown onto the ground.

How horrible and irresponsible can people be? A lot of the people living in close proximity of us know about it and are looking out. Hopefully if we get the whole estate looking out for them we can find something. This was incredible.

Second song recording, y'all!

Okay, so I fucked up big time with this song. I recorded it and played around with a filter. Then I decided the filter sounded shit and so I went downstairs to get some food. Then I come back upstairs to remove the filter and I lose original recordings! So I'm panicking and trying to unfilter the filtered song using more filters! Garageband isn't my friend.

Due to the unfiltering of filtered recording, it's still a bit shite but sounding a lot better now than before. My first vocal line sounds as if I'm singing in some depressing karaoke bar. But it improves from then on. Excuse the lame-ness and take it for what it is - me loving this song and recording it! ;)

Click to launch the player!
Elton John - Daniel.mp3

I had issues trying to sing this song because it is rather low. Hitting low notes without going way out of tune was hard for me with my limited vocal range. I love Elton and this is one of my favourites. There's so many Elton songs that I would love to cover. Might go through them slowly. I think Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is next on the cards!

Haven't posted any photos of the things that I've been taking photos of lately. Haha. Mainly because I'm way too lazy to load the pics from my camera onto the computer. But now I have and here they are!

1. Transparanoia (i.e.: Something For Kate)
Live @ The Evelyn Hotel, Fitzroy.

Something For Kate played a 'secret gig' (for only $6 but it was bumped up to $12 on the night) as a warm-up for Splendour In The Grass. It was excellent seeing them in such an intimate venue after having seen them at the Big Day Out and at Rod Laver Arena (supporting David Bowie).

The sound set-up wasn't crash hot and the vocals were very muffled but it was a good show nevertheless. The support band, Mammal, was surprisingly impressive. I think they will go places - look out for them over the next few years! The front man is such a showman. Think Iggy Pop meets Michael Hutchence meets Anthony Kiedis. Yeah.


Den, me and Ben before the gig. What a team!


Paul Dempsey


Stephanie

Back to the frontman of Mammal - he crept backstage halfway during the gig and came back on with this discoball helmet/hat thing! He made a helmet looking thing with a disco ball which had such a great effect on stage. He was basically a walking disco ball when the spotlight shone on it - light reflecting off his head 360 degrees across the whole room. I took a photo of it but it didn't capture the whole disco ball effect. But you can see an outline of it. Hot.


Mammal frontman with his discoball hat.

2. SFK @ Federation Square

A few posts ago I talked about the gay Video Hits taping thing and here are some pics from the morning.



Me at Den's apartment, approx. 3am.


Rugged up and warm in ski-looking gear at 7am at Fed Sq.


During SFK set - View of the stage and the 'famous' big screen at Fed Sq.

3. Lorne

What do you do on a weekend when you have absolutely nothing to do? Drive up to Lorne for lunch, that's what! I took a few good pics on the Great Ocean Road but I can't be bothered posting them up. But here's my favourite.


Haha!

Yeah, so that's it. Posting photos on blogs require effort so APPRECIATE IT. I'm currently at uni with a 5 hour break. The things I do. I'm trying to fill my time productively which isn't really happening. I'm going to do some work now.


******* NOTICE! *******
Before I forget... Melbourne International Arts Festival update. I have 5 people confirmed for 1984 and 3 for insen (Sakamoto) and 3 for the cabaret show. I will be getting tix real soon because I think some of them will sell out so please let me know if you're interested. Ciao!

I remember watching this clip ages ago. But it wasn't til Dick Mac had put it up on his blog that made me appreciate it so much more. Aren't they the most beautiful couple? Not only that, there's something awesome about mixed race couples. Not to say that non-mixed race couples are not as good... but there's something a bit special about mixed race couples. Seeing them emanates a feeling of the unification of love that crosses all boundaries.

Ask yourself the question. In the 'multicultural' world of today, do you see a whole lot of mixed race kids? No, not really. I think that there should be more mixed race kids out there. And they all should come together and represent a world of true multiculturalism. Why hasn't there yet been a revolution made up of mixed race kids? Ah, the day will come :)

Ladies and gentlemen,
John Lennon and Yoko Ono in No. 9 Dream!



Click on the play button in the center to play the video!

And in the spirit of things, here's a photo of Robyn and I standing next to John Lennon's "Imagine" mosaic tribute in Strawberry Fields, Central Park, New York.

Today I received the Melbourne International Arts Festival program booklet in the mail - addressed to me. ME. I don't ever remember putting my name down for any art related event. I don't know how they found me! Maybe I just eminate the radiance that says "Art is my life. Please forward all art related events to my home address"

So I just had a flick through and here are a list of events that I'm most definitely going to go to whether or not people are going to come with me. Please note that if you're a student, it is DIRT CHEAP - $19 for most events. And these events are internationally acclaimed and of very high profile. It's fucking awesome. Don't you just love being a student.

If you find any of the following of any interest to you and would like to occupy the seat next to me, please let me know. There aren't a lot of dates and because they are all $19 for students, I'm thinking the seats will fill.

1. George Orwell's 1984 - Directed by Tim Robbins
B Reserve Student $19
B Reserve Full $52
Premium $84.50

Fuck! It has come to Melbourne! My favourite book... in a stage play! This is a dream come true. To see a reenactment of the book that completely haunted me about the world today (after being turned down to be made into a film) in a play is something I'd die for.

Tim Robbins’ Los Angeles-based ensemble The Actors’ Gang brings to Melbourne its latest production, George Orwell’s 1984.

Imagine a world where people fear that their opinion cannot be expressed freely, where leaders are not held accountable for their deceptions, where perpetual war is waged against an unseen enemy; a world where ‘Ignorance is Strength, Freedom is Slavery and War is Peace’. This is the world author George Orwell created more than half a century ago and its insight into our world today is more than a bit alarming.

This will be simply amazing. I hope someone would like to join me.

The Arts Centre, State Theatre: Thu 12 - Sun 15 Oct 7.30pm, Fri 13 Oct 11am, Sun 15 Oct 2pm.

2. insen by Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto
B Reserve Student $19
B Reserve Full $44
Premium $71.50

I don't know whether you've heard of Ryuichi Sakamoto or not, but in my opinion, he's one of the most amazing musicians I've ever heard. You can easily find some of his stuff on Limewire or Kazaa or whatever downloading program you use - go and get a sample, especially songs like "Forbidden Colours", "Energy Flow". He's collaborated with prominent names such as David Byrne, David Sylvian and David Bowie (lol, all the Davids), Cesaria Evora. His music has been sampled countless times in electronic music such as chillout and breakbeat mixes. His work is, simple, beautiful. And to see him live is something I would have never thought would happen!

Ryuichi Sakamoto is a Grammy, Golden Globe and Oscar winning Japanese producer and composer who has made a career of crossing musical and technological styles. He is best known for his popular, orchestral and film music and has composed original scores for 18 major and independent films including Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and The Last Emperor. Berlin-based Alva Noto is a multimedia artist concerned with connections, circuitry and interactivity between different media. He uses sound, image, sculpture and the computer as hybrid tools to research what he describes as the “codification of the world”.

insen brings together these two different generations of artists and demonstrates their aspirations to explore the idea of electronic music as an inspiration for new musical structures. Together these two have recorded beautiful, precise and deceptively simple music, including 2005’s insen. Now Australian audiences can experience the live version of this celebrated collaboration in a multimedia concert featuring an impressive and atmospheric video installation that creates a hypnotic visual graphic representation of the music in real time.

I think it sounds amazing. Even if you're unfamiliar with the names it would be a mindblowing experience for the senses nevertheless.

The Arts Centre, Hamer Hall: Thu 12 Oct 8pm, Fri 13 Oct 8pm, Sat 14 Oct 1pm.

3. Camille - La Fille du Cirque
B Reserve Student $19, etc.

One show only. Sounds awesome.

Camille enjoys a formidable reputation for her passionate and dramatic interpretations of the songs of Jacques Brel, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Kurt Weill and more. An expressive performer both emotionally and physically, her shows are more about telling a story through music than simply singing songs. For the Festival, Camille performs her cabaret program backed by a five-piece band.

The Arts Centre, Hamer Hall: Sun 15 Oct 9pm

4. Now that Communism is Dead my Life Feels Empty by Richard Foreman
Concession $19

Now that Communism is Dead my Life Feels Empty, Richard Foreman’s 2001 philosophical and comic homage to a sense of Communism. It is a ferocious and funny exploration of an endlessly mutating universe, as two masters (and victims) are poked, imprisoned and bedevilled, and apprehensively try to be each other. Freddie could be a macho acid-rocking ‘Soviet’ obsessed with and expert in everything and anything American. Fred may be a snide American with a wilting influence who has lost faith in his own culture and is desperately seeking ideology and meaning.

CUB Malthouse, lots of dates.

Okay, so if any of those interest you, let me know and we can sort out some dates!!

For more information, visit melbournefestival.com.au.

So uni has started... and for the last time! As much as that is exciting and a huge relief to finally see the end of the tunnel so near in front of me, I am really sad! Oh well, enjoy the moment as they say. And I'm trying to make the best of my last semester.

I've only had two days of uni so far and they've been awesome - very cruisy, I see my friends all the time, good classes so far, a whole lotta fun. I'm loving all my subjects at the moment. And I've got great lecturers for all of them... thank god!

On Tuesday it was like as if I spent the whole day with 'me mates' - I had like 4 straight hours of Andrew in the morning (2hrs worth of class, another 2 hrs worth of coffee/bludging around/basketball/wasting valuable thesis time) and then met up with the rest of the 'posse' for squash. After squash, I had an hour of Brendan, where we went to check out Radio Monash's recording suites and equipment for our podcast. Then I went home and had about a 2-3hr break from them and then drove to the city for yet another 5 or more hours of the same group of people for beer and, frankly, just beer.

Today I had 4 straight hours of Ben (2 hrs worth of class, another 2 hrs worth of coffee/bludging around/showing of the biomed secret garden that's really not that secret anymore and that had a really giant cactus with cobwebs all over it/wasting valuable thesis time) and then met up with the rest of the 'posse' for more squash. After squash I had an hour or so of Brendan to go over plans for our podcast (and not to metion, wasting of valuable thesis time) and then an added hour of Brendan + Ben for more wasting of valuable thesis time and 'brainstorming' topics for our podcast.

Y'know, thinking about it, it's pretty much like Groundhog day. What, out of the two days, do you see different apart from the interchanging friends who I spend time with and apart from the fact that we went out for Beer on Tues night? (Notice how I've decided to knight the word 'beer' with a capital B). I think I see my friends WAY too much. But I don't care... I love the company and it's not going to be changing anytime soon!

So MOVING ON. Like I said, I've been taking the first two days pretty cruisy. Besides, what's there to do?? I could be doing work for my thesis but at this stage there's not a whole lot to do. I'm going to take things easy and as they come... because I know I won't be this lucky for very much longer!

So The Presets thing didn't end up working out. It was a bit too late. Argh.

Oh well. So on Sunday Den, Robyn and I went to Federation Square at 8am to be a part of Channel 10's Video Hits live telecast thing. Apart from the freebies and Something For Kate, it was so shite. The host, Axle Whitehead, is the biggest lame-ass, and it was really funny, because as you would expect from a crowd of people there to see bands like SFK and Wolfmother, you'd get a lot of "You Suck, Axle!" , "Axle is a wanker!" - even though most of them were teeny boppers themselves. You get kids who are like 13 years old... girls who are like so prissy... wearing their Bettina Liano jeans and crazy over Wolfmother. Have they listened to Wolfmother before? Do they even like it for the music? All they do is say "Omg, he's SO hot". Puh-lease.

Just imagine an entire crowd of teeny boppers who think that they are at a real rock concert so they try to dress 'rocky' - big Marge Simpson red necklaces, red lipstick, blue tights but with grandma shoes. Y'know its like the whole concept that goes "I'm wearing this accessory. This MAKES me a rock chick, it's the defining item, thus, I am cool". God, it was as if 'style' freaked out and ran out of the room. Some even brought along their mothers in case they had fainted in the midst of this totally mild "rock concert". There were a handful of kids with Ramones hoodies who just looked like the type of people you felt where you could go up to and ask "Please name for me three Ramones songs", and they wouldn't know what to say.

The whole crowd was slightly dodge. I felt old. But what can you really expect when its a Video Hits taping AND there are Nova 100 vans parked around. For the first time I missed the Big Day Out crowd. At the BDO I felt comfortable and even great to be just walking around by myself having lost my friends in the crowd because everyone was there for the music, everyone was real and everyone didn't give a fuck whether or not you're 'cool' because everyone WAS cool. Here, it was completely opposite... I lost Dennison and Robyn for like two seconds and immediately I almost freaked out. I walked around with the most worried expression on my face, peering everywhere, "Robyn!", "Den!", "Where are you!", "help!" and all these icky kids around me staring at me. Immediately and without hesitation I reached into my bag and rummaged for my phone. "Where's my phone! I'm lost! Omg! I'm scared! Save me!!!!!!!!"

We wanted to get these lanyards - some access pass to get to the front of the stage. Then we realised that they were giving out signs saying "I love Video Hits" for you to hold up for the camera and immediately we decided that we will not sell ourselves like that. Or even to be exposed on TV. In fact, we probably drew attn to ourselves. In the midst of the screaming 15 year olds for the camera, find the three Asians standing still, arms crossed, with a slight concerned look on their faces. Hilarious.

We we waited like four hours before SFK got to play their two songs! Two songs! But it was well worth it. I'm too lazy to put piccies up now, maybe later. For the four hours we entertained ourselves by scoring freebies such as the free gifts that come with each issue of TV Hits and Girlfriend magazines. The free TV Hits magazines that they were giving out were packaged with Sharpie pens. So whilst the entire crowd was still oblivious to the fact that there were three giant crates of free mags, we helped ourselves to ripping off as many Sharpies for ourselves off the magazines. Who wants a magazine that features Westlife, The Veronicas, and a horde of other gay ass top 40 groups. Then I took two Girlfriend magazines, one for myself and one for Brendan as research material for our "Pathetic Teenage Confession" segment on our Podcast. The magazine came with free Kiwi Fruit Lipbalm which I took four because it was great. Then Robyn and I sat down on some steps, turned to the "hunk of the month" page in Girlfriend and started turning him into a tranvestite with our Sharpie pens.

Now, thank God that The Arctic Monkeys gig is an over 18 event. Reading through Girlfriend, they can't stop saying shit like "Omg, we are like SO excited that the Sheffield boy rockers, THE ARCTIC MONKEYS, are going to be rocking out down under!", like ick.

We also entertained ourselves by picking out people in the crowd who we thought had Myspace profiles and who would have really dodgy photos of themselves pouting at the camera wearing excess eye-liner trying to look hardcore. I discovered something funny. When you shout "Myspace!", atleast ten people turn and look at you - obviously because they have some close association to it.

Also another ground breaking observation that I had made was that even though 90% of girls would say that they hate Paris Hilton and think that she is the biggest good-for-nothing rich bitch on this planet, they still are fascinated by her. How do I know this? Tell me, if you're a girl or you're a guy who knows girls (I'm assuming you aren't that sad), and have a rather negative opinion about Paris Hilton as a human being, whenever they see her in the media, be it in the newspaper, a magazine, TV or whatever, they will ALWAYS look at her and be interested in the associated article with a fixation that cannot be compared with any other celebrety of similar lifestyle/status.

For example, Shakira's video clip that came up on the big screens at Fed Sq that morning caught hardly anyone's attention. Except maybe the guys. And this Indian guy who was dancing along to it by means of thrusting his hips fowards and backwards, left and right. But when Paris Hilton's video clip of her new song came out, the whole crowd of girls perk up, shouted "Booo!!". After the crazy fits of laughter from them about how ridiculous Paris is in that clip, there was complete silence and complete unwavering fixation to the screen. I looked around and ALL of them were just staring up at the screen - each and every one with the exact same facial expression that read "She's such a spoilt brat but, wow, she is stunning nevertheless and even though her song sucks, she is capable of making a remotely decent achievement of something so many people wish they could do - be a pop star, singing a song that immediately goes to top ten. What's more, she's filthy rich and gets anything that anyone could possibly want without having to work for it. I wish I could have her life, have her body and have all that attention even though I hate her for what she is." Admit it girls, we are all jealous of her to some (major) extent. Who wouldn't want a rich daddy to provide for you (and possibly five generations after you) for your entire life without you having to work for any of it?

Anyways, I'm really tired and I have a 9am start tomorrow so I think I'm going to go to bed. This is the last 'first day of the semester' for the rest of my life!

So I was kinda bummed when I found out that there were only 4 tickets left or their gig at the Northcote Social Club (which is most likely sold out now), I kinda decided that "It's okay, I don't HAVE to see them even though they are FUCKING AWESOME". Then... today... due to my *exclusive* music connections (LOL) I have found another (and free) way to see them. It's confidential stuff so I won't leak it until the day. BUT ARGH! I love The Presets.

So I was browsing through the online Monash Marketplace and see what students were advertising to sell. Sometimes you find some cool things, like I got my record player from a dude who posted an ad.

Anyways, so today, guess what I found.

ENDING LIFE SALE.
discontinuing with my life, due to emotional problems everything i own will sell for 50% of original price. looking for good life insurance as well.

How peculiar! Wonder what she is going to do with the money from the sale considering she is going to do what she says is doing: killing herself. I refer to the poster of the ad as female because she is. I won't reveal the name on this blog. With a name like that I would take my life too. Omg it's just too good to keep it from you! But I won't because it's not nice. She is named after a breed of bird - a funny one... a colloquial term you'd use for a bird with a long name and are quite popular household pets. Oh I've said too much!

I'm not the one to point and laugh at other people's misfortune or miseries... it may as well be some kind of sick joke because it's so lame and rather unconvincing. And besides, what can I do, the contact details this person left was "death@student.monash.edu.au", like yeah right missy! Can you get any more funnier? But whatever the intentions, I gotta say, it just makes all the other ads about bookshelves and study desks so much less entertaining.

I'm currently reading three books at the same time. This is rarely ever the case. The most maybe I'd have two going. It's hard to have three equally enthralling books sitting on your bedside table in a pile and that when you go to bed you're like "Now which one should I read now? Oh I can't decide!"

The books in this trio-of-equally-riveting-books collection are: Ben Elton - High Society, Michael Moore - Stupid White Men, Steven Levitt - Freakonomics. I borrowed Stupid White Men off Steve today. It is probably one of the most entertaining non-fiction books I've ever read. I've always wanted to read it but never ever got around to doing so. Now I am. Yay :o)

Had an awesome recording session today! Steve laid down some awesome guitar tracks for Starman. I did the backing guitar to Ziggy Stardust (with some help haha) and provided the vocals for both songs. Steve's going to be painting over the rhythm acoustic guitar tracks with his electric over the next few days and touching up the sound quality of the songs. I'm very excited about blogging them! We recorded two songs in under 4 hours. I think that's a good effort.

Update on my building models. I've managed to cut out 100x100mm blocks out of the huge hunk of blue high density foam with a saw. A SAW. Took me forever. Now I have 90 or so individual blocks. They aren't even perpendicular to the ground when you stand them up. That's how dodgy my sawing was. Now I have 90 blocks to sand down. It takes me about 10 mintues to sand each block! Like omg. That means, if you do the math... I'll be stuck in the garage for a few days.

As sick as I am of getting blue dust that do nothing but stick to my clothing all over me, I like doing mindless repetitive tasks sometimes. I can't feel guilty for not using any part of my brain because essentially I AM doing 'homework'.

YAY! Guess what guess what guess what! I PASSED GLOBALISATION & ECONOMIC SYSTEMS!! Remember how I was wailing on and on about how worried I am about this subject? Well I *passed*. And I even got an email from my lecturer saying that my paper was 'excellent'. I am so so pleased.

It seems that yesterday was my happy day. Two cool things happened which totally turned my week around and made me a much happier person. Some of you *may* have noticed that I changed the previous post about a million times. First time I wrote a really long and personal post about how everything is so depressing and how I'm so depressed and how everything else seems to be becoming even more depressing. Then I changed it a bit and included song lyrics that described exactly how I was feeling. Then I decided that I was revealing way too much and it's not such a good idea. I'm not a freak but sometimes when your blog is like that, it makes you look like a freak who doesn't know how to control and handle one's feelings. So I changed the post to be merely an account of how broke I am.

But anyway... yesterday was MY day. I had a really rough start of the week and even Marsh noticed that I wasn't myself at Trivia! Now let me tell you, for Marsh to notice anything, it must be in-your-face obvious. He goes "Are you alright? You're not really yourself tonight", and I must say, as much as I was feeling down in the dumps, I was flattered that he took notice. Anyways, having spent 99% of the last four years with him at uni you'd expect a deeper understanding to form between two friends. And as 'Russell Crowe' puts it "He's a good bloke... a good mate".

Yeah so today I'm feeling a whole lot better. Relieved, more likely. Also, I no longer have to do a stupid first year subject anymore! The Commerce course structure changed halfway through my degree and apparently I have to change to the new structure which exempts me from doing this first year core unit! It's awesome because I was really dreading it. And it's a fucking boring subject. Instead I get to do a second year subject that interests me a whole lot more: Actuarial Statistics. I'm pumped!

Okay, so for next semester I have 5 subjects. They are:
1. Engineering Thesis Project B
2. Environmental Fluid Dynamics
3. Fundamentals of Heat Transfer
4. Deformation of Solids
5. Actuarial Statistics

Actuarial is my final subject to complete my Commerce degree. And y'know what, that's it for finance! No more finance subjects EVER. I'm a finance major :) Now give me your money! Actually, my blog is probably not a great place to sell myself as a finance major after how the previous post made me look like I have the worst financial management skills ever. Hey, I'm not that bad ok! I own stocks. And I have an ING Savings Maximiser account that I have sworn not to touch (because there's not much in there either... Buahaha).

Okay so now that next semester is sorted out I have one less thing to worry about. Since I don't have to overload, I can think about finding some casual work to earn some $$. Though I will need as much time as possible for my thesis, it should be remotely manageable. The things people do for $$.

I'm gonna head off and get some lunch and get ready to head off to Wheelers Hill where a cool recording and jam session will take place! Peace out!

I went to buy some high density foam today. $87 or something bucks, that's pretty cool - manageable, I guess. So during the transaction I handed over my debit card to pay using my cheque account. Meanwhile I was silently hoping that I had enough funds in there because since my internet banking was locked after I tried logging in three times (I swear it was the same password but it just locked me), I had no idea how much money I had in there. It had been locked for almost a month because I was too lazy to just pick up the phone and call the bank. So it was a whole month of using my debit card and not knowing what rate I was going at ploughing through my last remaining dollars I had on my name.

"Sorry the transaction was rejected". Damnit. So I obviously have less than $87 in my bank account. Hesitantly, I pulled out the remnants of my wallet, $50. "Please put fifty on cash and the rest on my card". The $37 went through. Phew! So I lugged my huge lump of expensive blue shit to my car thinking "Maybe I had only $60 in my account. I should have atleast $20 left in there".

Drove to Chadstone where my first stop was the bank. I asked the teller to unlock my internet banking account to which she replied, "I'm sorry I can't do that. You're going to have to call our hotline."
And I go "But I'm physically standing HERE. I have VISITED the bank... surely you can do something. Surely that takes more effort than picking up the phone!".
She goes "I'm sorry I can't control the passwords for the internet banking side of it". And there I am rolling my eyes because what's the point of branches these days then?!
"Can I atleast check the balance on my account then please?" and I hand her my card. I got a little mini statement printed out... of which my eyes darted straight to the final figures. And my jaw dropped.

10 cents. 10 cents is all I have to my name.

I quickly checked the coin section of my wallet $6.25. Great. My wonderful self is worth a total value of $6.35.

Right now I'm tweedling my thumbs as to what to do exactly about my slightly pressing problem. I need to get myself another job because I'm having some issues with my work right now, I'm technically unemployed. Fuckers. And the manager is too scared to return my calls! How lame is that! I tried calling again today to yell at them but the 'leadership team' (what bullshit) was not in and will not be in until thursday. So thursday awaits my abusive phone call.

My problem is that I'm so worried about next semester that I don't really want a job. Next semester will be absolute craziness, I want all the time I can possibly get to concentrate on my uni. My thesis. My friggin' 5 or 6 subjects (depending on my results which will be released this Thurs). Argghhh...!

Oh and btw, back to my luck I mentioned earlier about just having enough funds (bar the 10 cents) on my card to pay the balance of my foam... the irony of it all is... I signed up to Google Adsense for some extra money for hosting ads on my site (which is why you see to your right there is a Google sponsored ad). One of their ways of verifying your bank account is by making a small deposit. They sent me slightly more than $1. If it weren't for this extra bit of money, I would not have been able to pay for my foam!

Thank god for Google Adsense! Oh and before I forget... if you see an ad that interests you, please click on it. It doesn't hurt and doesn't take more than just the push of the mouse button. I shall be receiving some small small income for that. Please help in my time of need! :P

Omg. So I read Brendan's blog earlier today and his latest post is a story about how he has dodgy social skills. I didn't think too much of it because I didn't think I knew who "Mr. M" was. But now I do. And it's fucking hilarious.

I have everything I need now to start making my building models for my thesis experiment! I went into uni today to meet Rhett who had brought in the two marine plies that we had ordered. I've got 2x1m of the stuff to drill 340 holes in! Also met up with Brendan (whom I've accidentally offended with my TV post below) who gave me a sample of some high density foam which I will be using to carve out my buildings. Popped into Bunnings to pick up a pack of galvanised clout nails of which I will be using to fasten my buildings onto the marine ply boards.

So it's Workshop George this weekend with all my drilling and my nailing and my sawing. Wow, I just realised how suggestive that sounded. It was not intentional.

Speaking of suggestive, my post below may have made me sound like a conservative. I am not a conservative. I was merely annoyed at some of the crap that's on TV and these annoyances simply sparked a rather angst fueled argument to point out how stupid some people can be.

I'm now going to start ruling out measurements on my boards so I can start some drilling! Fun. :)

I'm getting a bookshelf :) After my months of whining about a bookshelf I'm finally getting one. My uni books and my other non-uni items are overflowing and spewing out of every corner of my room that I really need somewhere central to put them. And I'm getting one installed onto my desk. Aceeeee... I'm gonna have one whole section dedicated to my art books, one section to my uni engineering nerdy textbooks, one to novels, one to travel guides and language dictionaries. Books are rather significant to me. I see them as a representation of what the person knows about this world. I mean, of course there is a lot more to a person than what they read... but you just find out so much simply by reading. Having a bookshelf, to me, is like putting together all the things that define me. I'm an engineer, I study finance, I love art, philosophy, I love reading novels, music magazines and other high brow periodicals. And such.

As you can tell, I like personalisation. Anything that allows me the freedom to personalise, I'll be right at it. Which is why I love corkboards. You can put whatever shit you want up on it. I like mobile phones that allow you to change everything (colour, wallpaper, ringtone, message tone). Bookshelves and CD towers do the same for me. I like going to people's houses. I take notice of their bookshelf and their CD/DVD collection. I make some judgments based on what I find on their bookshelf/CD/DVD collection. Not crazy judgments like "Omg what a loser, I'm not going to be his/her friend anymore", but little ones like "Hm, we don't have the same taste.", "So he likes punk music, let's talk about punk music then", "So he likes death metal, let's not talk about death metal or music then".

I must say though, that if I find a CD collection that is made up of things like "Ashlee Simpson", "The Veronicas", "T.A.T.U.", "Bond", "Rob Thomas", "Sum 41", and a bookshelf full of Cleo, I'd pack up my things and leave straight away. So if any of you have those things, don't invite me over. I can't help being a snob. Y'know there's just some instances where you can't help being an elitist. I just like people with good taste, and frankly, I really can't stand people who don't. Whilst on the topic of bad taste, I can't stand the show Big Brother. I think it's the most vile and retarded thing ever on this planet. It's like you took the creme de la creme of society's extroverted scum and chucked them in a house together to create even more scum.

I'd also like to point out that there's so much around lately on TV that promotes casual sex. Casual relationships. Casual everything. Taking life as if nothing mattered. Living as if there were no responsibilities and the only decisions you ever have to make was "Where and what am I going to do tonight?" I feel so detached from the real world when I see things like that. I don't even know what matters anymore. Where do you draw the line as to what is important? I don't even watch a lot of TV. Intelligent TV is on the decline and it has been for a long time.

I don't have any hang ups on TV shows that promote the high life and all that casualness. I mean, how can a TV show about ordinary life be anything exciting? It's when people try to live their lives like these TV shows, taking the values of these characters as their own values, putting excuses to the shit that they do in their own life such as "Well, these people do it so that's why I'm doing it too. It's cool. It's a recognised sociological activity". TV strips people of their individuality because you're tempted to be something that you're not and the line that you drew between what was accepted and not accepted starts to blur.

I could go on forever about this. I was just about to dwelve into Karl Marx's hang-ups on advertising and the power of the media in making individuals want things they don't need, be things they aren't and stripping them of all things that are pure to them - i.e.: their own individuality. They become simply objects. Objects that reflect the current social trends that the media dictates and portrays.

Ahh, anywho. I'm going to go now. Enough ranting for the day. It's just so sad to have so many shallow people around. And seemingly becoming even more shallower. A number of people have put down my interests just because it isn't the norm or put down the fact that I get so excited about certain things. I really hate that. The worst thing is that they think they are the ones who are cool to be taking things so casually and not being passionate about anything. I really don't like unpassionate people. I find them fucking boring.

Nothing much at the moment. There's actually loads but this is probably not the best place :P That's what I have come to realise about having more and more readers on my blog. I remember back in the day when I only had like one visitor to my blog: myself. That was sweet because this could be my online journal. Maybe it would be awesome to have some anonymous blog - just so you can write shit and share your 'experiences'. Who knows how many people out there are going through exactly what you're going through... maybe I can find someone/people who can relate! And may that person help me decide what exactly is going on in my life and what to do about it. But then again, having an anonymous blog means that you can't put up photos of your weekend away camping with your friends serving as a portal for your peeps to download photos and discussions outside of the pub. So you're left with two blogs of which you don't know which to devote your time to.

Blogs are becoming a complicating issue. What used to be simply a web log is in fact a new medium that plays a role in faciliating the relationships between people. I've seen friendships fall apart resulting from 'something' that was blogged about. On the other hand, friendships have been strengthened because you 'find out more about the person'. You see a different side to them. Such fuels a newfound appreciation for your friends. I know I have.

For me, if someone reads my blog, I know that they care about me. I write things here and there on my blog that I sometimes don't talk about in person. And if a reader picks up on that and talks to me in person about that particular topic it's an awesome feeling! I say that I write a lot of shit on this blog, and frankly, I do, but is that a deterrant for someone to read it? And it's not like I'm always talking about how depressed I am or how nothing ever happens in my life. Not *that* kinda shit. I'd like to think I'm slightly more entertaining than that.

Anywho. I'm totally pumped. Robyn has given me the most awesome early birthday present EVER. A ticket to go see The Arctic Monkeys (completely sold out - tickets are beyond the brink of extinction). That's not why I'm so so excited - Arctic Monkeys are great but they don't rock my world... but that's not the point. Point numero uno: I'm finally going to attend a gig with Robyn that's not a festival and that's not in America. We're going to dress up! Point numero two (fuck it, I don't know what two is in Italian. Sad I know): THE GRATES ARE THE SUPPORT BAND. The FUCKING GRATES. Ahhh! My fave Aussie band. In fact, my fave band RIGHT NOW. I'm totally in love with them. I plan to dress up like the lead singer, Patience, to the gig i.e.: green dress and red tights. AHHH. So excited.

PLACEBO is also coming down to Melbourne. I went to check out the tix. They are on sale this friday but unfortunately I can't afford it! It's like $70 or something crazy like that - I was hoping it would be closer to the $50 mark. There would be no question going to see Pla-fucking-cebo if money wasn't so much of a fucking issue right now. Stupid work. I don't have shifts. I am looking for something else now. It would be the perfect thing to kick start my 22nd year in this world. It's like a week after my birthday. Speaking of Placebo - more men should wear more makeup without having to look emo.

Ok, so enough blabbering from my end. I've actually escaped having to go into uni for most of this week - mainly because I have been busy with other things. But I'm getting a fair bit of work done at home which is ace. I'm actually really freaked out beyond control about second semester. I'm also freaked out about my results that will be released next week. *Sigh*. I'm also freaked out about my seemingly bleak future. (Thanks Brendan, 'bleak' is the perfect word)

Everything is rather bleak right now. Second semester is rather bleak because I'm not sure whether I'll be needing to overload due to a possibly failed subject. I already have 21 contact hours. My chance to go work overseas next year in Germany is bleak because I don't know whether I'll get a job there and won't know until like November. Personal life... rather bleak. Chances of saving up money is also incredibly bleak. But the funny thing is I trudge along just fine. I mean, I think about these things fairly constantly... but really, nothing worse than to let it get you down! I mean, final year is fucking depressing... but hey, what can you do. Life's only going to get more complicating from here on so I better get used to it.

I will now go and work some more on my thesis :)

I buggered off for about two and a half days to join my uni friends for a camping trip up at the Warburton Caravan Park. It was two days of a lot of freezing our asses off, beer drinking, sitting around doing bugger all, collecting firewood and toasting marshmallows. Great fun.

Ben came around to pick me up at on Wednesday night, stopped by the local supermarket to buy some food and drove up to Warburton. The roads were very very dark and you knew when you were out of metropolitan Melbourne as soon as you could look up into the night sky and see the milky way ever so clearly - not individual dots of twinkling stars but an airbrush spray of them.

We arrived at around 9.30pm and met up with the others who were already sitting around a fire with loads of empty beer bottles on the ground. After setting up the tent and doing some unpacking (i.e.: chucking on super warm clothes because it was fucking freezing) we joined the group and cracked open a beer. Mmm.

Brendan (with his awesome four lens camera from Kinki Gerlinki), Andrew and Rob around the campfire.

Rob opening wide for a toasted marshmallow.

The first night around the fire was rather, though predictably, strange. My knees were absolutely burning, my trackies felt like as though they were on fire but the rest of my body was freezing. This led to some awkward sensation in my legs like as if they were about to fall off. I was totally restless. We went to bed at around 3am which meant that we must have been sitting there for 6hrs straight. I brought up my 12 string guitar and Andrew and I had a bit of a jam to Pink Floyd - much to the dismay of the others. But they survived.

Didn't get much sleep that night because my face was totally freezing. I would bury my face under the sleeping bag which was nice cos it was warm but after a minute I found out that I couldn't breathe so out popped my head out of the sleeping bag to get some air and the cycle starts again. As dozy as I felt the next day it quickly waned off as the weather was beautiful.

Kris cooking up a stormn for breakfast the next day.

This was how Ned Kelly toasted his bread.

Benny looking rather sprightly the morning after.

Yeah, he's pretty cool.

Breakfast was awesome. For some reason, food tastes so much better on camp. I just had some baked beans on a slice of bread with an egg that Ben fried up and tasty cheese. It sounds fairly run off the mill but it was great!

After brekkie we sat around the no longer firing camp fire and did absolutely nothing apart from the random sitting around banter and digging into a pack of Party Mix. Allen's... Nestle... not good... but it was there. And I was craving some strawberries and cream.

Rob hungrily eyeing Ben's party bag. Excuse the pun.

Rob: "Awesome."

Campsite.

After finishing the Party Mix and a round of footy and frisbee (Btw, while we're on the topic, what is 'ultimate frisbee'? Frisbee for nerds?), we headed 'into town' for some bought food. Cheating already!

Walking into town. The two Marsh's are holding hands with their respective Jesses. How cute!

We wanted pies but the bakery we went to ran out. It sucked because that place has some great pies as I've been there before a few years back with my family. We ended up at a fish n chip store which had some cool non-fish items on the menu such as burgers and souvlakis. I ordered an awesome hawaiian beef burger. Totally rockin'.

Brendan: "Hey George, how 'bout them burgers?"

Eating lunch by the river. Andrew: "Hey everyone, check out that naked chick on the other side of the river"

After lunch we walked back to our campsite and started our hunt for firewood. Now we're talking. We had about an hour and a half of daylight left (we only got up at around 11am), which meant we had to put that to good use or freeze our arses off later that night otherwise. I wasn't of much help because I tend to suck at these things i.e.: picking up heavy bits of wood, breaking branches off trees. But I facilitated the activity with random acts of kindness: opening the car door and dragging the wood back to camp.

Sorting out the wood at camp. I just love this photo. It looks so fake and set up - everyone is doing something unique, a perfect composition of image subjects, nice backdrop with the sun directly at the tips of Brendan's fingers. It was not fake.

Ben starting up the fire for the night

At this point I decided to go and have a nap to make up for the lack of sleep the night before. Didn't really happen. I just lay there and thought "What the hell am I doing. There's like twenty minutes of daylight left. Everyone's outside being social. I'm here having a 'nap'. What an idiot". Had that going around in my head for about ten minutes and decided to leave the tent to join the others. Sat there, had a beer, my face went red, it got dark, and started getting ready to head over to the local pub for dinner and TRIVIA NIGHT. Wherever we go, we can't seem to escape the wrath of 'trivia night'.

I don't have any photos from dinner or trivia night because I thought it was time to stop being so Asian. Well, my friends are very very very un-keen on the whole taking photos thing that I thought I'd get shit for having the flash go off in a very inappropriate location: a pub in Warburton. I don't understand the aversion to cameras. I love photos! What's left to look back on if you don't take photos??

Anyways, dinner was awesome. They had $10 Schnitzel night (which I might mention that they spelt it as "snitzel". Like what the hell is a 'snitzel' meant to be? A sneezing weasel?) with a fantastic range of schnitzel toppings to choose from: Hawaiian (pineapple + ham + cheese), Aussie (egg + bacon), Bolognese, Seafood, NACHOS (corn chips + sour cream + guacamole), etc etc. I decided to stick with my 'hawaiian' theme for the day and chose a hawaiian schnitzel. Can't have too many of them pineapples. It was great.

Trivia was rather random. The two presenters were a little too enthusiastic about the whole shebang that it was rather scary yet somewhat amusing to watch. It's interesting studying the social aspects of these things. They had a guitar, a keyboard (to play drum rolls when announcing the scores after each round, of which there were five), a game wheel, a tv, and two laptops. Coming from Crown Pub Trivia which consists of merely a microphone and a black board and some chalk, this was rather excessive. The presenters also walked around with a very over-enthusiastic look on their faces and took their work so seriously like as if the night depended on them being there. Again, much contrast to the guy at Crown who doesn't really give a fuck.

After a heavy round of trivia - five rounds with 20 questions in each was a little leaning on the 'get me outta here' side, also, the questions weren't as stimulating or as fun as the ones you get at Crown, we headed off back to camp. Ben, Jess x2, Steve and I took a car and drove back whilst the rest WALKED. HAHA. The car was warm :) At camp we sat around the fire preparing ourselves for more sitting around and doing nothing for the rest of the night. I had a Pepsi Max because I had about four beers already that night and it doesn't take much for me to get off my face. Pepsi now, more Beer later.

Brendan: "So, Marsh, how bout them Marshmallows?"

Pringleman Steven: "YOU WANT A PRINGLE?"

We musn't have been too entertaining for poor Steven who spent a chunk of the night working on his Sudoku. The walkers from the pub joined us shortly after and sat down and chatted. Some suggestions to play "Never Never" of which I objected because it was too dark to see who was drinking or not. Suggestions for Pictionary was slightly more absurd. Charades was fairly obscure and again, too dark. We spent a large chunk of time trying to string sentences without using the word 'like'.

We ended up with our lovely "Community Truth" game that we had invented last time we were up on Ben's boat i.e.: People take turns asking a 'truth' question and everyone has to answer it. Very Year 9 but hey, it's never boring is it? It went for a few hours... well into the wee hours of morning. Because a good proportion of our group were paired up... it was rather... how shall I put it... embarassing and, at times, repelling. It's funny how you only find out about things about people only in games of truth and dare, rather than in forms of conversation. I guess that's the whole idea of the game. The game left me feeling a little depressed. I can't really put my finger on why I was feeling so. I guess in a quick phrase... 'a little empty inside'.

The next morning was the day that we were to leave. Didn't really help the fact that we all got up close to 1pm which meant we only had about 3hrs left.

Rob, Andrew and Ben - all looking rather sleepy.

Rob cooking up some scrambled eggs. Brendan: "Wow that looks like shit!"

Slightly disturbing, Rob.

Cooked: Rob's scrambled eggs. Sexy.

Me, Rob and Ben. Yeah, I didn't realise how much of a ponce I look with those big sunnies. What a snob.

You couldn't be further away from the truth.

After more sitting around after breakfast we packed up and got ready to head off home. I got a lift back with Brendan who played a pretty interesting Podcast on the way back. It was about words related to race, culture and ethnicity. Touchy and sensitive topic but handled brilliantly with a ten minute disclaimer at the start. Americans are so PC!

Camping trip was great fun... I had a brilliant time and I wished it had lasted longer. Those two days was over in a blink of an eye. I've been looking forward to it so much since last semester... and there it is! Over! We were meant to be going up to Eildon on Sunday but that was cancelled and rescheduled. I guess its better to spread things out a bit.

There are more pics where these come from. I will upload the entire collection onto my photo album soon. So check it over the next few days!