Happy

Who: The Presets
What: Apocalypso

It’s here. It’s arrived, finally. After The Presets smashed the clubbing scene with their massive hit My People and released a single in its namesake with some interesting remixes, the album to which this song owes its creation has finally been released. My, is it a gem.
The Presets - Apolcalypso
Immediately as you pop the CD into your favourite playback device — I recommend something connected to a massive subwoofer — you will be blasted away by the opening track, Kicking and Screaming. Its heavy bassline will have you bumping and jumping; punctuated with a zippy beat and echoed with airy screams and the vocals of our boys Julian Hamilton and Kim Moyes, this track is a testament to the quality of things to come.

Second up is the absolutely smashing track My People, which I’m sure you’ve heard of previously. There’s so much emotion and energy here, this I would have to say is my current favourite dance track. Perhaps the best I’ve ever heard. I absolutely love this song for its grungy, deep and powerful sounds. The lyrics are obvious and easy to sing along to, and the backing vocals support and blend seamlessly with the grittyness of the track. I recently heard this song played in a club by the support act for Muscles, and it made me forget about the main act altogether.

A New Sky introduces us with a melodic chanting; a relaxed and refined track which retains the leg-jiggling catchyness of the opener; this track is a great way to pass the time to the next track, and arguably one of the best on the album, This Boy’s In Love. It’s so poppy and wonderful, you could easily be forgiven for embarassingly bopping your head to this in public places. The lyrics are so powerful and emotional; you can’t help but sing along.

Yippiyo-ay follows with some thoroughly oldschool sounds, reminding me of mid-eighties disco music; it’s catchy, smooth and suave. The perfect song to dance to with that pretty girl across the other side of the multi-coloured checkerboard dancefloor.

The rest of the album follows as the first few tracks start it off; strongly. Talk Like That and Together introduce us to some further hard-pumping beats that make you want to jump off your feet and run around the room, while Eucalyptus and Anywhere provide us more catchy tunes to hook our brains around.

If I Know You stands out as an awesomely powerful and emotional track; slow, sad, and moving. It’s kind of an anomaly to a first-time Presets fan; having not known much of their previous work. It’s different and thoroughly enjoyable.

For only $20 from JB HiFi, this album’s a steal. I thoroughly recommend you go and buy yourself a copy right now.

Well… if you know me, you knew it was coming. Having visited Carly over the weekend, an hours’ drive from here, I was able to relax; reconsidering some recent ponderings, and I realised a few things. While I know I will be tempted, when I have my new toy, to whip it out and use it whenever possible (including when I shouldn’t be); I realised that having it enabled me to at least have the choice of when I wanted to use it.

I decided in the end that I wanted, and maybe even needed, to buy a laptop, to give myself a choice of where and when I was going to do my computing. My desktop system will not be less useful, as it’s still a gaming powerhouse compared to the midrange laptop I’ve bought. It’s just that from now on, my desktop system will probably see a little less use. Though, when I’m at home, it’ll be put to use mostly as a completely overpowered mp3 player, as I can’t go too long without my speakers.
Dell XPS M1330 touch media keys

Anyway, what I ended up purchasing was the Dell system mentioned previously, with a few upgrades. It’s a Core 2 Duo 2Ghz with 2Gb RAM, the upgraded 160Gb 7200RPM drive, and the 1280×800 upgraded WLED-lit screen. It includes a fingerprint reader, Vista Home Premium (with Aero OMFG! and a bunch of bloatware), slot-load DVD(+-*%/?)RW, cool touch-sensitive media buttons, and other things I’m sure I’ll find useful (or not). All up it’s costing $1523.06 exactly, which I think its a pretty damn good price.

Having Windows and bloatware is no problem. I’m going to format the drive and kill anything on there before I do use it; maybe I’ll sell the Vista licence key to recoup some costs. Anyone interested? What’s Vista Home Premium (with Aero OMFG!) going for, retail, these days? You can buy it from me at 75% of the sticker price.

Anyway, now that I’ve taken the plunge, I eagerly await the arrival of my new toy.

Over the weekend, Carly and I visited Rasa, an Asian restaurant on Gympie Parade in Noosa Heads. It was really awesome.

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After watching the sun set, we sat down and perused the menus. It was comprised of standard fare Asian dishes, notably sweet and sour chicken or pork and satay chicken or pork. In addition, they had many sides which interested me, specifically ‘Bert’s Balls’ which came in steamed or fried varieties, and were made from something that was of similar taste to dim-sims, but they had something a little extra. They were very nice.

So, Carly and I had some of Bert’s Balls as an entree, alongside some special bread which was herb-ful and delicious. I can’t quite recall the name, so I’ll have to get back to you on that one. We chose our mains; Carly decided on satay chicken, and I chose something else entirely; I do not recall the name, but it was made from chilli, onion, tomato, chicken, and various vegetables, and it was absolutely yum.

The prices were definitely agreeable; at under $20 per meal, the portions were more than considerable and the quality of the food was excellent, most definitely not the fat-soaked cholesterol-fest that Asian food is typically presented as.

We had a wonderful time. After which, we visited Hastings St where we purchased some gelati from one of the local confectionary cafes; I had chocolate and strawberry. It was beautiful. The strawberry gelati, being made from real strawberries, tasted exactly like… strawberry. Simply incredible. The chocolate had a lovely hazelnut flavour to it.

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It’s out!

Go buy it! :D

Edit: I’m very annoyed by the fact that I cannot rip this CD. The first disc rips OK, but the second fails on the last two tracks, always in the same place. It must be some fancy-pants DRM at work to be stopping my drive ripping it. Too bad I only have an iPod and not a portable CD player, eh? Fucking tards Warner.

Edit again: TripleJ’s Hottest 100 was the number one album in Australia in the week ending March 15 — what’s the bet fucking Nova are going to play more songs from it?

Hi all!

Hope you had a mad-as weekend. I know I did. The TripleJ Hottest 100 countdown was simply ecstatic this year, with some really great songs receiving their deserved position in the biggest music countdown of the year.

You can review the final 100 listing and re-listen to the event at the TripleJ website; I’m a little disappointed that Muscles, Midnight Juggernauts and PNAU didn’t receive more recognition, but there really isn’t a song in that list that I don’t like (except maybe that fucking Soko song …)

This year saw 53 of the top 100 songs from Australian artists, which I think is a fucking top effort. Good work Australia!

Today marks six months to the day that Carly and I had our first date.

To celebrate, on Saturday eve just passed, we had ourselves a casual dinner at Birches restaurant — located at Mt Mee, the scenery on the drive there was wonderful, the scenery there was wonderful; quaint, nostalgic though not too rustic — and the food was good to boot! We both had an excellent time; capping the evening off by watching Mulan, as part of our recent effort to relive childhood memories through classic Disney films. Not particularly romantic some might say, but what’s not romantic about snuggling up to each other and watching an all-time favourite movie that we both enjoy? After all, being romantic is about sharing each others company.

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The day after, we were headed for the beach. Bribie Island surf side beach, to be exact. With my brother, Brett, his girlfriend Kate, Carly, and our mutual friend Annie and Jamie (and of course myself); in part it was because unfortunately Carly could not make it to next weekends friendly Christmas gathering, so we opted instead to have her open her from-friends prezzies a little early, likewise her gifts to Kate and Annie! Everyone was thoroughly delighted with their gifts, and we had ourselves a not-so-healthy deep fried fish & chip lunch to celebrate. Hey, that’s what we do in this country, alright?

After that, we headed down to the beach for a few hours, where we all mucked around kicking wahu balls, building sand walls to stop the inevitable tide, and running around madly acting like morons. It was great fun!

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(I like how they automatically arranged themselves by height in this photo, haha)

Hi all,

Went out last night for Ash’s 23rd birthday celebrations, and I had a great time. Although many people couldn’t make it, due to prior commitments and in some cases sheer poofterism, Ash, Troy, Bruce and I still had a good time, with Bruces friends Tom and Josh, and Ashs’ friend Nas joining us later in the evening. First we hit up O’Malleys where Bruce and I had ourselves something to eat; the chicken burger I had was nice but I think they overdid the chilli sauce. I couldn’t taste anything but chilli. Bruce had a Guiness pie, though it looked more like soup than a pie, but he enjoyed it nonetheless.

It’s here we also ran into the lead singer of Ponyloaf, who is a cool guy. If you recall, I saw them a few weeks ago at the Brisbane Powerhouse Museum, and they were just as awesome then as they had been when I first saw them support Midnight Juggernauts at the start of o-seven. On stage, he acts pretty fucked up. Jumping around, hitting himself in the head, falling over on purpose, that kind of thing. Brett reckoned he was on drugs, but apparently he just really gets into it all. Haha, sick.

We had to leave O’Malleys at 9 o’clock because Troy’s a fuckwit and wore shorts (grow a cell and evolve you phillistine), but we were able to hang out at the Pig’n'Whistle for the rest of the evening, having quite a few drinks and a good chat about which of us was gay, and which of us was gayer than that. Ah, drunksdedness. As a side note, the Pig’n'Whistle has a slogan along the lines of having a “genuine British pub” atmosphere, and perhaps it was coincedence, or perhaps they really do try hard with that, because all the bar staff had British accents. Haha.

Then Nas drove us all home as Troy and I sat in the back having hot gay man sex yelling at random passersby, simply ’cause we’re just that fucken tough.

It was a great night out and I hope Ash enjoyed himself, happy birthday mate!

Hi everyone,

What’s doing? Not much? Yeah, no, uh-huh, of course.

Haha, not really.

Had a great weekend just gone. Visited Alma Park Zoo with Carly and Annie, which I’ve only done twice in my entire life, surprisingly even though it’s a mere 10 minutes’ drive from my house. Saw some pretty cool animals, the baboons are mental. They look kinda like a cross between a human, a pig and some kind of long-snouted dog. Perhaps German Sheppard. It amazed me to see animals doing things that were entirely “human-like” in appearance; with the baboons picking at their food to get rid of seeds and other undesirable parts not unlike your average human would pick at a hamburger to remove an unwanted pickle.

The marmosets were cute; being the smallest primate in the world, and measuring about 15cm from head to butt. They reminded me of squirrels, but I reckon the marmosets would win in a fight. Stupid squirrels. And your nuts.

Marmosets

The camels were large and ugly; we didn’t hang around long as we expected them to spit on us at any moment.

The highlight of the day would’ve been the baby chicken pen at the Friendship Farm, literally a hundred or so baby chickens running around in a little pen, you could stick your arms in and hold as many as your hand could fit. The cool thing was if you tapped on the floor of the enclosure with your fingernail, they’d mostly all run over towards you at lightning speed. It was like watching the ebbs and flows of some kind of chicken river, except I was in command of the direction!

The ostriches were cool too. You don’t realise how fucking big they are until you see one standing next to a fully grown rooster. Why the rooster was in the same pen as the ostrich I’m not sure, perhaps it was placed there by the park to ultimately illustrate the point I’m making: male ostriches are huge. They also have huge penis-like things, which we had the (dis)pleasure of being able to view in its full glory, as the thing stopped right in front of us, let it all out, and took a huge dump. Hahaha. Apparently it’s all part of the same organ. Imagine that on humans…

Ostrich vs Rooster

Enough about ostrich dick.

There were heaps of other cool animals like the kangaroos, wallabies, emus and koalas. It’s strange, I live in Australia, but I don’t recall ever having seen an emu before, so it was a nice experience. They’re pretty awesome animals. Koalas are cute and a lot smaller than I thought they were, and kangaroos are really a lot bigger than I thought they were. Oh god, I sound like a shut-in.

Wallaby Koala

After that, we joined with my brother, Kate, Bruce and my mum and dad, and headed to the local RSL for Jamies 20th, which was pretty damn awesome. Despite the RSL being a money-pit for pensioners, and with my wholehearted disagreement with poker machines, I did manage to have a good time. The bar did double shots of bourbon in a pint of Coke, which many bars in the city won’t do, so I was stoaked with that. You go RSL, keep “supporting the community” and “helping our war veterans” by enabling all of the local pensioners to waste what life (and money) they have on the poker machines. That’s real community spirit. Fuckwits.

On the Sunday, ’twas rather lazy, Carly and I went to the surfside beach at Bribie Island and had ourselves a good time. Ah, the beach. So sandy (shut-in alert!)

Sunday evening Carly and I visited Annie and Kate, and we had chicken salad for dinner, expertly made by Kate, followed by chocolate cream cake, expertly made by Annie, followed by watching the Disney Hercules movie, which I haven’t seen for years. I don’t recall the main female character, Meg, being quite so obviously “sexy”. Honestly, I’ve watched a few Disney classics again recently, and I’m only just realising how sexual some of the female characters are. It can hardly be unintentional, but kids simply don’t notice that kind of thing. Or maybe they do…

PS: Pics coming when Nokia can make a fucking USB key function like a fucking USB key. My Arch Linux usb daemon can’t seem to maintain a solid connection, the phone keeps resetting it.

Woah!

Fucking top shit. It was excellent.

Firstly, on Friday afternoon after work, I made my way via public transport (two buses and a train to travel 7.8km from Aspley to Northgate – oh my!) to Northgate, whereupon I met with Soph, Brett, Kate and Annie, in preparation for one of my best weekends ever.

The plan was and happened as follows:

  • Friday night – Midnight Juggernauts @ The Tivoli
  • Saturday morning – recover, chill out
  • Saturday night – Riverfire!
  • Sunday – rest and relaxation

Good plan, eh? I thought so. I don’t think that’s an unfair self-assessment.

After arriving at the girls’ house Friday afternoon and getting changed into my new clothes, we hung out for a while and waited around for everyone to show. After much mucking about and waiting around and generally piss-farting about, we departed their house around 7.30PM; by the time we’d negotiated QRs Brunswick St Station refurbishments, Bruce and Ash’s hunger, and the streets of the Valley, it was around 9PM when we arrived finally at The Tivoli.

Unfortunately this meant that we missed the first support act, Young & Restless, who it seems would’ve been quite good live. Damn Arms were pretty good. Although initially, I didn’t particularly like any of their songs, as they basically sounded like tryhard Midnight Juggernauts impersonators, by the time they played through their headline track Homewrecker, I was jumpin’ and thumpin’ just as hard as the next indie-synth-rocker.

Indubitably, Midnight Juggernauts were the show stoppers, stealers, and wreckers. With their first LP, Dystopia just released, they have a veritable lengthy playlist to rock through.


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We all went pretty crazy, me especially.


Owen&Ash@TheTivoli

Owen-Bruce-Brettsfinger@TheTivoli

It was fucking awesome.


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Brett-Owen-Soph-Kate@TheTivoli

Not eating all day, combined with my drinking and few hours of non-stop jumping around makes for a fucked up Owen! Hell yeah!

We made to back to Northgate just fine, and hung out for a bit before people started to droop one-by-one like unwatered plants, only the strongest surviving into the early hours of the morning to keep the chattering and the good times rolling.

Saturday morning everyone woke late, except for Carly and I, who stupidly woke up around 8.30AM, after being asleep for at least four hours. We sorted ourselves out and a short few hours later, we all headed to the RE for a wholesome hearty lunch. I had the RE burger, which was awesome, and filled my empty, gurgling stomach just nicely. Bruce and Ash peeled off to go see The Bourne Ultimatum (which is pretty damn good), while Scott, Soph, Annie, Brett, Kate, Carly and myself headed to the Brisbane river, whereupon we happened across some ice cream and general mucking about.

Kate and Annie went to meet a friend of theirs at West End, Soph and Scotty went to meet Soph’s family somewhere else, and that left Brett, Carly and I to our own devices. We decided to head to our usual Riverfire enjoyment spot, and along the way we picked up a doughnut or two from Dreamy Doughnuts and enjoyed them thoroughly. I had a Lindt chocolate covered doughnut, and it was fucking awesome. Two thumbs up!

We arrived at our spot for Riverfire rather early, around 5PM. We had two hours to kill before much of anything happened, or so I thought. Fortunately for our sake, the RAAF Roulettes made some interesting flyovers; I never realised just how awesome the turboprop engines sound.


Owen-Carly@Riverfire

In between conversation, and entertainment provided by small kids and some helicopters, the time flew by, until Bruce and Ash arrived, and it was almost time for the main event. The first F1-11 flew over, rather high I thought. In years gone by, the dump and burn was executed at a lower altitude; one year, I swear I could feel the heat from the flame! This year, not so. However, the fireworks display was brilliant; they must have implemented some new techniques, or used different fireworks, because it seemed to be a lot more spectacular than last years’ display.

After Riverfire, we all headed awkwardly home, with QRs rail transport flailing under the strain of transporting the several-hundred-thousand-strong crowd out from the Brisbane CBD. Ash, Carly and I did eventually make it back to Northgate station, after which we bought ourselves some Maccas and chomped heartily while having a bit of a chin-wag. On account of our late-night-drinking-and-partying-then-trecking-around-Brisbane-induced-tiredness, Carly and I opted to get a lift home with Ashley, to save ourselves the walk from Petrie station. We said our farewells and headed back to my place.

Sunday, Carly and I hung out for a bit, and generally spent time relaxing. We had lunch with my family for fathers day, which was an excellent mixture of freshly cooked mackerel, fresh prawns, salads, breadrolls and softdrink. It was a good lunch, as my family don’t oft have time for each other these days. I thoroughly enjoyed myself today, despite the lack of action-packed-ness as compared to previous days this weekend.

All in all, I had a hella good time, and I have all my friends and family to thank for it! You guys fucking rock! emot-rock.gif

Went out on my dad’s boat weekend just gone. There wasn’t any real point to the trip; just to get out and get some fresh air, spend some time with some quality people, and give the boat a bit of a run. Although the morning got off to a slow start for some; with Bruce getting up at some crazy hour around 7AM to make it to my place on time for us to leave in an early fashion that never eventuated, we had some breakfast at the local Coffe Club, then headed back home to collect Brett, after which we collected some supplies for lunch, whereupon I was utterly confused by the ancient ATM facilities and the purchase requests of some people…

That was a long sentence!


The Boys
The Boys, from left to right: Brett, my dad, and myself

Bruce and I
MC Bruce and I

Ashley and I
MC Ash and I

Carly and I
Empress Wierd and I

We had a good run across Deception Bay and into Pumicestone passage; it was a little choppy on the way over, with a moderate breeze churning up the water. Dad’s boat handled it beautifully…


This is an old photo, but it illustrates my point

Whence we reached Pumicestone passage, we motored along a short while to the jetty at Bribie Island, whereupon dad dropped us off for a few minutes so we could buy some ice cream!

On the way back, Bruce had a go at captaining the bridge, and well enjoyed himself:

Captain Bruce

It was an excellent day!