And in this dream, Depeche Mode recorded an acoustic album, made up songs written by Paul McCartney (music) and Mark Mothersbaugh (words). Weird… but awesome.

I’m close to finishing the Radio Over Moscow recordings. Might see if Rob’s keen to do the The Purpose of Man vocals while he’s up here for my Planet of the Apes Mid-Winter Movie Marathon (yes, it deserves capitals).

And lastly, my latest entry on Eight Track Mind is about NZ Music Month.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

I had another cool dream this morning, unfortunately it all started going horribly wrong even before I woke up... 

tariqa

Seriously. Now if only they'd ban it here! Marmite is where it's at, totally.

I bought us (kind of for tariqa's birthday) a PS2 yesterday, one a couple of weeks old, off a guy I once spent half an hour talking to one quiet Saturday afternoon at the CD store. Came with Tekken 5, God of War and Gran Turismo 4. For the first time, ever, Tariqa was the one engrossed in a computer game while I was the one preparing dinner in the kitchen. Mmmm, homemade pizza. With lots and lots of cheese. Perhaps too much cheese, if there is such a thing.

Damn, I'm at work today, and the music is freakin' terrible. Madonna's American Pie is playing. It has all those cheesy William Orbit synths in it, and has managed to date more in four years than than... cheese...?

My friend Nathan has managed to score a 3 bedroom house in suburban Hamilton for $229,000 - said the owners were deliberately seeking out a young couple to sell to at a good price. Lucky bastard! He's having a housewarming next weekend which he's said will be 'old-fashioned' by which I assume he means drunken. So I might head down to the 'Tron a bit earlier than I expected, which will be cool, but then again I wasn't expecting to spend X amount of dollars buying a PS2 either...

I had this dream the other night I had a jet pack, and flew across the Earth, and touched down on the set of a new Tom Hanks movie. Tom was so impressed, he offered me a place in the movie. All 'cause I had a jetpack. It was so cool, then I woke up.

WEEKLY TOP FIVE ALBUMS OF THE LAST FORTNIGHT!!!

1. The Killers - Sam's Town
2. Kasabian - Empire
3. The Datsuns - Smoke and Mirrors
4. ELO - Greatest Hits
5. Muse - Black Holes and Revelations

WHAT I GOT FOR XMAS

A bongo drum
A lamp
A new pair of chucks
Eight bottles of Lion Red
A set of trays
A comic book about rabbits called Apocalypse Meow (I suppose I'll know why when I read it)
A pair of rattlesnake magnets

And probably something else I've forgotten... Eight?

Ooh, I'm about to see Luke Skywalker take out the Death Star. Hang on. Darth's on his tail. Why doesn't Vader just shoot him? He's flying pretty straight. Leia looks worried. Here he goes... But wait! Han Solo comes in and takes out Vader, leaving Luke to destroy the Death Star! Wooo.

ANYWAY... Tariqa's already had a bitch and a moan about our weekend here. I suppose I'll add it also took AGES to do anything... like, when we got up in the morning to go to Raglan, I had a rest for about an hour, played an entire game of Age Of Empires II, and still had time to ask Tariqa, 'what is it exactly that we're waiting for?' At that particular moment it was washing, but who knows. Annalise, Tariqa and I got to Raglan almost an hour before the others, and were about ready to go home by the time they arrived. Of all the relatives, Annalise was perhaps the easiest one of the lot to get along with, despite the reputation... I heard many arguments while in Hamilton, some I was a part of (lets just say I'll never be trusting whitepages.co.nz again), some from the neighbours (if the kid won't go to sleep cause he's hungry, then feed him, don't scream at each other about it all night), but none quite as weird as the one between Tariqa's two sisters. Five minutes of eavesdropping, and I still couldn't work out what they were fighting about. Apparently it was towels, but it sounded more like a debate from a first year BSocSci tutorial.

My sister's growing up fast too. Last time I hung out with her, she was into Ashlee Simpson. Now it's all My Chemical Romance, she even had like six badges, pinned to her pants no less (like I used to have mine - she even said this was why she did it this way, woo). She seemed pleased with the Brotown series 2 DVD I got her also... My brother kicked my ass at Age Of Empires II, my first game and all though... so I've borrowed that in leiu of not being able to play Civilization 4, which still bugs me. It's a turn based strategy game, why did it need to be in 3D???

Hung out with Rob + Simon on Monday night, Tariqa stayed for the Family Guy movie, Jenna stayed with us through Anchorman, but then it was boys only as we hit town... boys only being the original plan, but hey. It's not like you get much guy talking done when you're watching Family Guy/Will Ferrell. Besides, I didn't stop laughing for about five minutes after seeing the wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man, so as you can see, not a lot of discussion could be had anyway... sensible, guy or otherwise.

We hit the Outback, cause Spirited was shut, played some pokies and some pool. Simon and Rob had a go at Sega Rally, which i opted out of due to the fact I completely suck at Sega Rally - I can't turn the car while it's in the air, you see, and I seem to spend most of my time in that game flying through the air, uncontrollably, and without hope of ever passing one checkpoint in time. Daytona USA I rule at, but not Sega Rally.

Rob might be moving to Auckland sometime, as Jenna is looking for higher pay - presumably because Rob isn't earning the required income to meet her standards - being owning a beach house, earning enough for her to stay at home, etc etc. It's when she said the most she can get per hour nannying in Hamilton is only, "about $17 per hour," nannying, that I thought to myself, how did Rob end up with this girl? Three years ago Rob was seriously considering (and had the plans all set up to) starting a commune on government owned land in the forests near the mountains south of Turangi. I suppose that's one thing growing up poor does for you; you learn to live with whatever life throws at (or in this example, doesn't throw at) you. I'd hate to be disappointed with myself if I didn't earn a brazilian dollars a year, cause it's so much easier... not earning a brazilian dollars a year. But anyway, one upshot of that is Rob might move to Aucks, which would be cool. I even got him to admit he mightn't mind giving music in rock band form another shot. But you know, they also mentioned Australia as another option, so who knows. I did talk to Laura this morning, she told me she's moving to Aucks in a few weeks, so yay, a friend. Well, another friend. I suppose I have some up here now. Kinda.

There was a commotion outside earlier on, I thought maybe a fight was going down, but no - Still Man (so named as he 'busks' by standing still and doing absolutely nothing all day) was having verbal fisticuffs with a preacher, and a third man was taking photographs, while bypassers looked on in bemusement. No idea what they were arguing about, I assume one of them started doing (or in Still Man's case, not doing) thier thing on the other one's turf. But if there's one thing Still Man sholdn't be doing while on the 'job', it's getting into arguments. He's meant to be a human statue, not John McEnroe. He's kind of diluting his brand with this behaviour. It's not the first time I've seen him yelling at people either, I once witnessed him verbally abusing a man in line at the ATM near where he stands. He must be bottling up his anger while he stands so still all day.

I had a dream last night I got sunburnt on my facve while wearing sunglasses, so had the white around your eyes effect, with the red cheeks and everything... it's happened before in reality, but in the dream, I had a solution to the problem - I borrowed some of Tariqa's new tanning lotion, and just coloured in my face all a bronzey kinda brown. Why didn't I think of that before?