a conversation

me: ...big storm... black sky... flooded building...

s: yeah, that's really cute. look, i don't know if you've heard about the storms down here... let's see.. any roofs ripped off? giant gum trees snapped like twigs? widow makers, we call them nowadays. no? what about cars... any cars washed down river? no? what about hail... golf ball, cricket ball or rockmelon...? no hail you say? tsk. so a little bit of rain was there? did you hear some thunder? aw, how special...

me: lolz

coincidence

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/11/26/memoriam/
http://www.basicinstructions.net/2008/11/how-to-express-condolences.html

(i only read three comic strips. today two of them are about dead cats...)

i just thought, perhaps you don't know about banksy...

http://banksy.co.uk/outdoors/horizontal_1.htm

Mogwai in March

http://premier.ticketek.com.au/shows/show.aspx?sh=MOGWAI09

firefly

i've been watching firefly. finally. last night i watched 'out of fuel' with evan, the one with the flashbacks. loved. it. i was enjoying the series up until now but this episode was a level above. now i can see the great crime it was to cancel that show. and the other thing is that tv shows usually get good in the second or third season, where the characters start becoming more three dimensional and the writer/s start to get comfortable enough to push things a bit. oh well.

(where is shepherd in the above btw?)

look ma...

hands free on iphone with music playing. when a call comes in the music gently fades out and the ring tone fades it. i squeeze the clicker near my chin and talk. after the call the music fades back in. this works best when listening to in rainbows.

also i have direct from iphone last.fm scrobbling working again. it's not the same one i used to have. it's a more basic one that does scrobbling only. called scrobble. find it in cydia. i guess i will write an iphone review and app recomendation post some day. in short though, i still feel kinda the same as i did on 10 jan 2007.

movember

...is drawing to a close. and not a moment too soon. looking forward to a shave. if you're wondering, i currently look pretty much exactly like this guy. howard moon.

um...

if nothing else i hope this blog is an honest blog. and because of that i have to come clean about the joanna newsom link in a previous post. the correct and honest title should have been "joanna shows a little more awkward cleavage that she intended to". by way of an apology here are some more savoury pics of our enchantress.

feist with angel wings (and colbert)

will stephen get his christmas wish? will elvis survive the bear attack? can leslie be any cuter?

if you liked that then how about this stocking stuffer

joanna newsom at fashion party

link

on saturday

A week ago I gave the guy at Pet Sounds about 200 cds and about 30 records. I want him to buy them. He said he'd have a look at them and give me his price. He told me in general he pays between $1 and $5 for cds but is selective about what he will buy. No problem I said. Today I called him.

Me: Hello, I'm the guy who gave you those boxes of cds last weekend. How's it going with those?

Guy: Ah look I can't say at the moment.

Me: Right, okay. Have you been too busy to look at them? Shall I call back in a couple more days?

Guy: No, I've looked at them.

Me: Well? How much then?

Guy: Well you know how it is in retail, there are ups and downs. Not many people are spending money. The economy and all that. Sometimes things just aren't moving. Other times... [blah blah... more irrelevant rambling..]

Me: Okay, sure, but given the present situation vis a vis the current world as it stands at this fucking point in time and in particular as it pertains to you and your second hand music retail business*, what is your price for my cds?

Guy: I dunno I'll have to take a look at them for you.

Me: ... [deep breath] ... Okay then. That would be super.

Is this guy planning to screw me? He seemed trustworthy, but it's been said I am a poor judge of such things.

* possibly not my exact words...

for cat people

http://www.basicinstructions.net/2008/11/how-to-modify-your-pet-behavior.html

a flock of festive flurries

from left: leopard, gutsy gibbon (dbl), vista (dbl)

Merry Xmas y'all!

Monty Python on YouTube

http://au.youtube.com/user/MontyPython

(thanks Rob)

For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It's time for us to take matters into our own hands.

We know who you are, we know where you live and we could come after you in ways too horrible to tell. But being the extraordinarily nice chaps we are, we've figured a better way to get our own back: We've launched our own Monty Python channel on YouTube.

No more of those crap quality videos you've been posting. We're giving you the real thing - HQ videos delivered straight from our vault.

What's more, we're taking our most viewed clips and uploading brand new HQ versions. And what's even more, we're letting you see absolutely everything for free. So there!

But we want something in return.

None of your driveling, mindless comments. Instead, we want you to click on the links, buy our movies & TV shows and soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years.

Harry Partch

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=P8NIpPhXpfQ

"some thirty five years ago i began experimenting with musical scales different from the piano scale. and for theoretical and practical instrument building purposes i determined on a fourty three tone to the octave scale. here is the scale on my chromelodian, an adapted reed organ"

"the diamond marimba has thirty six blocks placed in diagonal rows so that one stroke of a mallet will play either triads, or full chords. right hand strokes are major, while left hand strokes are minor."

ten years of penny arcade

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2008/11/19/ten-years/

I didn't believe it at first but... there it is...
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/1998/11/18/

Some recent highlights:

jessie's girl:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/10/24/

trick or treating:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/10/15/

mega man 9:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/10/1/

seinfeld/gates:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/9/15/

wow:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/9/12/

baby sitting:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/8/4/

happy birthday freya

..for yesterday

and welcome to the universe. it's a pretty cool place to be.
and also happy birthday scott for today. sorry, no video for you. :) you got your present a day early i guess.

(watch here to remove annoying youtube logo...)

here's another cloud video

link

music by cut copy.

dedicated to miranda and freya.

welcome freya heather waterhouse

link.

nice photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/claypanpete/

he lives in alice springs.

lost in translation

A very good joke, praise!

from Many aspects of life by zhiming

Sister priest on board the vehicle, the priest on his way up the handle in white thigh nuns, Sisters of the smiling priest said: Do you remember the Bible said that the section 129 is? Blush Father of the open hand. Father hurried home to open the Bible 129, see reading: "in-depth that you will no longer be a great happiness!" Claims that the priest: God, ah! Renna killed who are not good business! "

http://interestone.blogspot.com/2007/12/blog-post.html


Ps, Google Reader now has "Translate to my language" as an option for feeds. It's ace.


http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/11/translate-feeds-in-google-reader.html

blowin' in the wind - first ever performance

"it ain't a protest song or anything like that 'cause i don't write protest songs. i try to make em, i mean, i'm just writing it as something sorta, that's something to be said for somebody, by somebody"

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=mAlQrgmBqIk

correction... snoopy. mr peterson on the left below

link

tasha and mr peterson in real life...?

windy

inspired by and dedicated to tasha from doublefine and also Xavier.

ps, if you liked that then also check out liz prince who tasha met recently.

awesome orb spiders photo by stephen fry

see here



additional bonus spiders:

one i met in mt tamborine, see here, scroll down

eating a bird



giant one in japan (scroll down a bit). (i like this photo because of the girls spidery legs)

its little sister at tate modern



this post brought to you by the word "procrastination"

flying machine

john likes flying. he was very excited about this:



you can buy one in a kit for $60,000 US

it has four engines and no tail which means its stability depends on the counter rotation of its two props.

we all laughed and called it the spinning aerial suicide device and so on.

john laughed too but you could tell that he was a little sad that we were making fun of it.

http://www.acecraftusa.com/

http://au.youtube.com/results?search_query=GEN+H-4

i wish that some day john will get his dream flying machine and zip around the clouds with a happy face and no one laughing.

your own custom muppet. $90. 3-4 weeks.

http://www.fao.com/catalog/factories/muppets.jsp

!!!

we love rob

rob gets new shoes

rob needs new shoes

pac-man chart

triangle bass has three strings

via Marg and Robbin

i can see many uses for these

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24617984-5001028,00.html

it used to be when you couldn't walk to the bar you had to stop drinking...

Heather "Polly" Havrilesky

many years ago, lets say in late 90s, back when we used lycos and altavista and google wasn't invented yet, my favourite thing on the interweb was "filler". it was a weekly feature on a website called suck.com. i liked it so much i would print it out sometimes and make people (well at least one person anyway) read it. you can find it (perhaps poorly) archived here. it was kind of a wry, witty, hipster/ironic, but smart, humour for sensitive gen xers. anyway suck.com went broke and heather havrilesky had to find a new job, i guess at salon.com. so yadda yadda i'd forgotten about her until just now. here is a piece she wrote about obama and "our" generation. it's longish but you might like it. tnx to rambly for linkage. heather has a blog called rabbitblog and will sell you a childless whore shirt if you need one.

Update: forgot the link, duh. Thanks Tim. Also from Tim, Bob Dylan on election night.

no explanation required (or possible)

it happened at the strand a couple of weekends ago

dad joke

now i can rock and "roll" better than ever... har har.

some sigur ros vids for jude

This one is new:
http://www.last.fm/music/Sigur+R%C3%B3s/+videos/16158783

These are from their DVD called Heima:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc-FWL626uI
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=_sUVm77WjE0
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=BEpbnHO-ZGU

Wes Car doing Michael Jackson on Australian Idol

I switched off after the first guy was so terrible and my TV reception was so crummy. So I missed this:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=BTe_hIZkyok

...in which I ramble on some more about The Middle East

I have seen a DVD of The Middle East's CD launch at Riverway back in April. (Thanks Davey). I don't think I can explain to you how good it is. They have a 8 piece string ensemble. They have a choir. There is glockenspiel. There is Rohin, possible the most talented musician I've ever seen of who isn't already famous. He can sing and play guitar like Jeff Buckley if he wants to. (He's an incredible drummer as well by the way, see Joseph Liddy and the Skeleton Horse). And there's Jordan who sings lead vocals on Blood and plays guitar about as good as Elliot Smith. And can sing like Elliot Smith or even Jonsi from Sigur Ros. Their sound ranges from (the aforementioned) Ros, Smith and Buckley but with some Arcade Fire kind of energy thrown in. These comparisons are to give you some idea and are probably limited by my own musical territory, but not it's not to say their sound is derivative because they are as fresh and new as anything I can think of. The video is the entire set with multiple proper cameras edited together and obviously desk sound. And Rohin thinks it isn't good enough to be shown to anyone. Personally, I disagree. Lisatron has some shakeycam vids though they don't really do it justice. Dave told me they were amazing at Grovin' the Moo (where I didn't see them) and announced at that gig that it was their last show. Though as of now they are apparently reforming later in the year and might be gigging again by February. If it doesn't happen then I'm pretty sure anything Rohin and Jordan do in the future, (hopefully together), will be amazing. Rohin is doing solo sets, occasionally 'with friends' including Jordan and Bree (I think) that are pretty much unmissable and they are both doing all kinds of stuff with the new (at least to me) Townsville (Christian) Indie Rock scene which seems to have mushroomed up in the fertile ground beneath Middle East's branches, tended by Humble Pine aka Sam. Yes, I think they all met at church group, they don't drink or party rocknroll style, and I heard they played here last year. And that's fine with me. They could be scientologists and I would still be buying their back catalog. So please, someone, find me a copy of the CD. And if you have a chance to see Rohin at Martas or Molly Malone's then you should definitely consider going.

i feel this should be preserved...

... before it drifts beyond the "twitterizon". bam! oh yeah. you know it (see here).

It's from _why of course.
http://twitter.com/_why

Also known as why the lucky stiff.

Possibly he was trying to shake some of his 2600+ followers. Wonder if it worked.

I taced it for your enjoyment.

it strikes me as odd that hamburglar wears stripes. do burglars wear stripes? it doesn't suit burglars to have an identifiable dress code.
11:09 AM Oct 25th from web
    
if, on the other hand, he is in custody and they are prison stripes, what sort of terms in his parole allow him on playgrounds? vexing.
11:15 AM Oct 25th from web
    
most vexing indeed.
11:33 AM Oct 25th from web
    
for now, let's assume perpetual state of chase, after escape. unable to stop, unable to change attire. endless snatching of unguarded meat. ...
12:19 PM Oct 25th from web
    
searching for an academic take on this conundrum. trying: "mctrapment" "children's prisoner's dilemma" "robble ad robblium"
12:32 PM Oct 25th from web
    
it amazes me that children can figure all of this out. both the paradox and the implicit stranger danger. and eat their meals on time.
12:43 PM Oct 25th from web
    
quite vexing, to say the least.
12:48 PM Oct 25th from web
    
life is so troubling. this hamburglar quandary speaks of great sadness, of a police state. a cause for obesity, indeed. were i weaker…
12:54 PM Oct 25th from web
    
i will not go on.
12:57 PM Oct 25th from web
    
i'm done, to continue would be needless.
1:04 PM Oct 25th from web
    
@bil_kleb thankyou for the warning, i'm done now.
1:05 PM Oct 25th from web in reply to bil_kleb
    
twitter etiquette demands that i rein it in and i am doing just that.
1:10 PM Oct 25th from web
    
you have to remember that people get these messages on their mobile phones. so, if i go on too long, their phone basically keeps going off.
1:11 PM Oct 25th from web
    
and constant ringing reinforces themes of sadness, mortality, perpetually vexing things. (vexing is short for "very, very perplexing.")
1:18 PM Oct 25th from web

whereas perplexing is short for "perpetually very vexing." but i don't have time to go into that.
1:20 PM Oct 25th from web
    
@klunkatronic i appreciate the warning. i'm bowing out now, while i can still save face. just trying to think of a gracious way to do it.
1:29 PM Oct 25th from web in reply to klunkatronic
    
hang on, just reading back through a few messages, trying to figure out where i was going with this…
1:36 PM Oct 25th from web
    
here's the part where i defined what perplexing was
1:38 PM Oct 25th from web
    
@mikelovesrobots I AM TRYING TO CONTACT TWITTER.COM SO THEY CAN PUT A STOP HOLD ON THESE MESSAGES BUT THEY AREN'T ANSWERING THE PHONE
1:49 PM Oct 25th from web in reply to mikelovesrobots
    
well i think everyone's going to have to give me their carriers' phone numbers individually.
1:52 PM Oct 25th from web
    
enjoying a refreshing soft drink.
1:58 PM Oct 25th from web
    
the nice thing about introducing a soft drink is that i can stop there. no further explanation required.
2:02 PM Oct 25th from web
    
even if i wanted to expound, i can't. it's your basic soft drink. cool sensations, end of story.
2:04 PM Oct 25th from web
    
it sure is good, that much is for sure.
2:05 PM Oct 25th from web
    
yum!
2:05 PM Oct 25th from web
    
@klunkatronic i know you've probably moved on to other activities, but i figured out a great way to wrap this up. check it out sometime.
2:09 PM Oct 25th from web in reply to klunkatronic
    
@trptcolin yes, i adjourn.
2:22 PM Oct 25th from web in reply to trptcolin
    
folks, there is really no more to say about the drink. i'm not going there again.
2:25 PM Oct 25th from web
    
@k1rk i'm afraid i can't reply to you. these messages go to people's cel phones and they're trying to spend time with their families. ...
2:30 PM Oct 25th from web in reply to k1rk
    
@importantshock i am trying to please the people who want to know about the soft drink AND the people who just want to live their lives.
2:32 PM Oct 25th from web in reply to importantshock
    
@gustinp i know, i have been trying to keep this low key the whole time. it's you guys that are blowing this up!
2:33 PM Oct 25th from web in reply to gustinp
    
okay, whoa, i didn't mean to snap at you.
2:45 PM Oct 25th from web
    
the thing that eats me up is all these texts might be going to a regular mom baking bread and she has to take off her oven mitts each time.
2:46 PM Oct 25th from web
    
back to hamburglar, i do question clown arrest. have we become so deluded that we can't tell crimes from gags? i know i can't.
2:58 PM Oct 25th from web

example: when a clown steals something, as a joke, it's not serious. it's for fun. but cops hate being toyed with. hence this cruel cycle. ...
3:07 PM Oct 25th from web
    
i'm not a cop, so stealing doesn't bug me. but i don't like seeing a monkey dressed in a tux and a monocle, so i can definitely empathize. ...
3:13 PM Oct 25th from web
    
i hate the mcdonaldland sheriff. i can't stand burgers personified. that burger was a cow already. it had a life, so how is it a cop now?
3:17 PM Oct 25th from web

not sure why but it's my new favourite comic strip

Tasha
It's not really funny is it. There's no punch line. But that's why i like it. It's more like a blog in comic form. It's a comic blog. it's a "clog". [Jack Black voice] Bam. There it is. A new word. Who invented that? Me, baby. Mmm. [Hip thrust/]. That's right. And don't you forget it. [/Jack Black voice]

This is pretty good too:
Scott C

He's the guy who did these:
Friends with E.T.

it was good