Novembeard
I'm skipping Movember in preference of my own invented facial hair month gimmick, Novembeard. You don't have to start on Nov 1, you don't have to follow any rules, and best of all, you don't have to donate to a charity if you don't want to. Best of all, you can substitute Novembeard for any month ending in -ber. Like Septembeard, or Octobeard, or Decembeard. Pity they all fall in spring/summer months here, huh? (Okay, a quick google shows that I'm perhaps the 69th person to come up with the word Novembeard. But that's okay. I know for a fact I used the word indietronic a year before it showed up on the internet.)

You know what ground my gears this week? Talking to people who not only owned eight houses, but thought paying $300 a year for full cover on each was unfair. Not to mention as a 'good customer' (ie. lucrative) they had discount upon refund upon arselicking over and above what everyone else has. You want a first step to take in solving the house price problem? Prevent this kind of property abuse, to begin with! That is all on that. For now.

I made a friend at work outside of my immediate team, through a mutual admiration of Arrested Development. She goes out with one of the guys from pop/punkers Sommerset, who happen to be the band responsible for denting one of my el cheapo dynamic microphones, during a gig above Tracs in Htown, in 2002. It still works, for what its worth.
Something else that grinded my gears this week was NZ Post, or whichever company it is that manufactures their generic bubbly post bags with the orange writing. It seems, to me at least, they've ever so slightly reduced the dimensions of their $1.25 bags so you can't comfortably fit a CD case in them. It used to be that you'd position it correctly with a little effort, then it would slide right on in. Today, it took great struggles, then it would end up taking half the bubbly with it as it went into the bag.

It's like they KNOW we were using them to send CDs, so decided to take a millimetre off the width, forcing us to use the $1.50 bags. Grrr.

The Black Caps selectors need to take a leaf out of my Shane Warne Cricket '99 playbook, and open with Daniel Vettori.

TOP FIVE ALBUMS OF THE LAST FORTNIGHT!!!!
1. My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade
2. The Killers - Sam's Town
3. The Datsuns - Smoke and Mirrors
4. Kasabian - Empire
5. Depeche Mode - Playing the Angel

Seriously, I'm as bemused as you are. The My Chemical Romance album is truly good. If you're doubting me, check out 'The Sharpest Lives' for something like a cross between New Order and Nirvana, 'Cancer' for something like a cross between the Beatles and Queen, and best of all, 'Mama' for something like a cross between The Wall, the Living End, and David Bowie. Even tracks that don't grab you right away manage to throw all kinds of cool stuff into the mix - 'This is How I Disappear' combines the expected pop-punk sound with some Master Of Puppets palm muting and an epic arrangement I'd expect is beyond the reach of most of their peers, and 'The End' is like Bowie's Five Years gone way of recent Green Day via the aforementioned Floyd's In the Flesh. Even the obvious 'next singles' 'Dead!' and 'Teenagers' manage to fit in some unashamed Cheap Trick guitar noodles and T-Rex riffing (saving the latter from being the worst track on the album, which would otherwise have to be the nondescript and by-numbers 'House of Wolves').

To think, till now whenever music recommendations had passed between my little sister and I, it had been from me to her... this is probably the first time I've got into something she liked first :) She's growing up! Or vice versa, in reverse... It also helps that the album happens to be the exact length it takes me to walk to work and back again. I like it when shit works out like that.

But speaking of Bowie, I'm sure there's a bug or something in last.fm. Every week, he seems to appear in my top ten plays, whether I listened to him or not.