A couple of months ago my new car was towed from where I’d left it, near work. The council said it was parked in a clearway, and wanted $120.

I disputed the ticket, arguing I was not parked in a clearway because there was no clearway sign. You could see where there used to be a clearway sign, but there wasn’t one any more - and I sent them photos to prove it (one of them is attached - note the gap above the 60 sign).

Cutting a long story short, the council have now backed down and waived the ticket - but somewhat stupidly have yet to replace the sign.

If I was of a more masochistic bent, I’d totally park there again tomorrow. But Tariqa would call that silly.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

It hasn’t taken long for National to trot out the beneficiary-bashing - I really thought they’d leave it to the second term, but I suppose they’re riding high in the polls and feeling a bit cocky.

The irony is in this case that Paula Bennett, the minister for social development, is stripping away the exact kind of support that got herself off the benefit and into a career which has seen her go as far as well, being a minister in government.

But the most disturbing aspect of this current round of kicking people while they’re down, is that Bennett is basically saying if you disagree with the government, it’s okay for the government to release your personal details to the world and invite the ugly side of NZ society to publicly attack you.

These women are trying to get themselves off the benefit by going into training - and to be recieving benefits as large as they are, it’s obvious they have a number of children to look after, whose fathers aren’t in the picture. It’s hard enough bringing up kids when both parents are present, let alone doing it by yourself. And what would the privileged arsehole class suggest she do? Stay on the benefit, the one they’d strip from her if they had the chance? Kids don’t choose their parents, and it’s not the mothers you’d be punishing the most by taking it away.

When will people learn that punishing children for the choices of their parents’ only leads to more money being spent on social needs further down the track?

And when will they learn the key thing to getting people into paid employment and off govt support is education and opportunity?

No matter how much money John Key managed to siphon out of the economy as a money trader, his job will never, ever be as important as someone who brings up children alone.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

Picked up the new Manics album on the weekend, and have been listening to it almost non-stop since. I’m not sure how much any of you care, but it’s good hearing James singing Richey’s words again, even knowing it’ll never happen again. It’s a grower of a record, only the first couple of songs (Peeled Apples and Jackie Collins Existential Question Time) really stand out on first listen, but the rest soon show themselves - I’d have to say apart from those two, This Joke Sport Severed, All Is Vanity and Marlon JD would be my favourites. Steve Albini’s production is nice and heavy, but it’s been given a proper shiny mix so it’s not unlistenable. Rating at 83/100 on Metacritic at the moment, which is impressive for any major label album there. Nice artwork too, and all the lyrics printed out, which made the first listen (on my big headphones after a couple of drinks) all the much more enjoyable and eye-opening.

Anyway… that morning I was trying to catch a bus to town so I could pick up the CD before work, but didn’t have enough credit on my card. I figured I might have time to get some money and race onto the next bus stop, so hoofed it to the ATM and began navigating the long-winded menu.

I then heard this woman yelling, and turned around to see she was yelling at and approaching yours truly. WTF? I thought maybe I was being robbed - checked she wasn’t holding a knife - then listened to what she was actually saying: “GET OUT OF MY BODY! I TOLD YOU TO STAY OUT OF MY BODY!” Err, okay… she was shouting this whilst wearing a bum bag and rocking a boy’s haircut, waving her woollen-gloved hands in my face.

Then she attacked me - it wasn’t hard to block her blows, but it felt faintly ridiculous - I was being attacked by an insane lesbian. She then stormed off, much to the amusement of everyone standing around watching. The bus went past, and I thought shit, my bus to town, and ran off after it. I caught up, and for once the bus driver was accommodating, and pulled over for me.

All I wanted was to get my Manics album before work…

TOP TEN ALBUMS OF THE LAST… MONTH!

1. Sounds of the Universe - Depeche Mode
2. Journal for Plague Lovers - Manic Street Preachers
3. The Holy Bible - Manic Street Preachers
4. Doves - Kingdom of Rust
5. Screens - Mint Chicks
6. Day & Age - Killers
7. Years of Refusal - Morrissey
8. Modern Life Is Rubbish - Blur
9. Cardinology - Ryan Adams
10. Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future - The Bird and the Bee

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

I just heard an informercial that differentiated their product by saying it burnt off weight in ‘calories’…. I assume kilojoules are burnt off by their other product, the Scambuster 2000…

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

A guy kicks his girlfriend in the back, breaking it, and gets off with community work and a fine that he’ll barely notice.

And there’s no comment from Garth McFuckface and his Idiot Sentencing Trust? Why ever not?

Could it be ’cause Tony Veitch is wealthy and white?

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

Tonight I became probably the one billionth person in history to cut their finger with a knife while cutting tape for a box, but probably the first person in history to cut the corner of their mouth with a spoon whilst eating pumpkin and garlic tortellini.

The latter was an annoyance, the former had blood spewing everywhere.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

I think my taxi driver home tonight was drunk. He was driving with one hand, never once using his left hand - and he was driving an automatic, swerved all over the road - having trouble staying in lanes even when they were straight and almost hit cars parked on the side of the road - several times.

But I also think he was stoned, cause he did this all at a mere 40km/h, a full 30km/h slower than the average Auckland Co-op taxi driver.

On another note, I do wonder how this place will rent. I mean, it’s ‘close to all amenities’, but HAS NO FUCKING KITCHEN. Tariqa suggests perhaps we could live there and have pizza every night, and for $180 a week in rent, I’m sure we could.

I’m working on getting ‘Anti-Human Nous‘ onto the Nightline weather music - I just have to harass David Farrier the exact right amount, not too much, not too little.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

I thought after setting up the Radio Over Moscow Facebook, MySpace, iLike, Bandcamp, Garageband, Twitter, Reverbnation, Bebo and LJ that I’d remembered everything.

Then I remembered shit, one of the most important - last.fm! So that’s done now too. You can check it out here. Nothing different to the others, but at least these plays will scrobble (if you have last.fm/Audioscrobbler set up on your iTunes/Winamp), and believe it or not, I get paid! Well, nothing really. I just found out for the luna spark stuff, I’d earned €0.04. Still, you know…

John Key managed to piss me off this morning, telling everyone to spend their tax cuts on charity. Err, instead of giving the rich not-needed tax cuts, then asking them nicely to give it the poor out of the kindness of their cold, black hearts, why didn’t you just legistlate tax cuts to the poor, who’ll duly spend it to survive and help the economy? Oh, that’s right. They don’t vote for you, and only ever do when you’ve duped them into it through non-issues and lies. Dick.

PS: This is the for the LJ readers who were here before this became a part of my music blog thing (hence the ‘Mirrored from…’ at the bottom of each post): the ‘band’/Trent Reznor-ish music project thing is now called Radio Over Moscow. Why? It sounds awesome. A friend misread it as that, and I realised instantly it had to be changed.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

The neighbours had one of their drunken, middle-of-the-night noisefests last night, but kept the door shut, meaning it was barely even an inconvenience. Did their landlord finally tell them to shut the fuck up? She’s not aware of it yet, but the next time they do make noise, I’m calling her before I call noise control, now that I have her number.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

Last night I decided to put together my new comptuer desk, fearing that my old one would collapse and destroy the computer currently holding the 20GB of files that make up the unfinished Battletech 1. Four hours later, I think I’d learned enough about putting together kitset computer desks to write a manual on writing computer desk construction manuals - so here goes!

1. The instructions should not be in English, no matter where the desk is sold - this would make building the desk too easy and put carpenters and handymen out of a job.

2. What little instructions are in English should be in Engrish, Chinglish, Pidgin English or some mangling of Portuguese and one of the above.

3. There should be two differing sets of instructions, with conflicting information and piece-numbering.

4. All the different types of screws pictured should look exactly the same, with no attention paid to scale, shape or purpose.

5. Certain steps, chosen at random, should be displayed in mirror-image, so the customer puts at least one particular section together backwards.

6. There should be at least one step which is virtually impossible - for example, adding screws into a tight corner whilst lying on your back without any guide holes.

7. Each piece of wood should contain at least two decoy holes to confuse the customer.

8. Accessories such as CD holders and poles should be pictured in slightly different positions in each successive step, leading the customer to remove and rescrew each piece several times.

9. There should be at least three screws and one piece of wood left over when the build is complete in order to throw doubt into the customer’s mind whether their new desk is actually complete.

10. The very last instruction should show at least 10 individual sections all coming together in a single movement, as if done by an octopus.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

 Frazzled Dan, who has just been woken up by bad singing and bad electric guitar-playing at 1.30am: Shut the door.

Idiot neighbour(s): What?

Dan: Shut the fucking door.

Idiot: Now now, there's no need to swear.

Dan: There fucking well is, because you fucks have kept me awake all fucking week.

Idiot: What do you mean?

Dan: Do you even know what time it is?

Idiot: I work in hospitality.

Dan: I don't care. I work at 5am and I want to go to sleep.

Idiot: So?

Dan: *head explodes*

 I want to add a band logo at the top of the page. I had a band logo at the top of the page, but accidentally deleted. It took me many hours to work out how to get a band logo at the top of the page last time. This time, I can't work out how to get a band logo at the top of a page at all. Having a band logo makes a myspace page look so much more awesome. I've tried 15 different code generators, and none of them can get a band logo at the top of a page. I want every sentence in this entry to contain the phrase 'band logo'. 

I have to get this off my chest, cause no one seems to have brought it up, not that I've read anyway. If a four-day week is forced, who's going to be forced to take the pay cut? Working people. Who can least afford a pay cut? Working people. Rich people making money off investments, etc get to stay rich and their incomes, untouched. And whose money is it that circulates around, keeping the economy going? Working people.

It's a scam, and a really bad idea.

As a part of the New Zealand Internet Blackout in protest against the ridiculous 'guilt by accusation' law about to come into force (I think it's amazing they've managed to write a law that is both draconian and absolutely toothless at the same time), the folks at Creative Freedom NZ have organised the Copywrong Song: Remix Challenge.

Basically, it's a piece of music by Disasteradio and Mike Corb of which they've uploaded the individual tracks, inviting people to remix it and upload it for others to check out. The song itself is a cheesy but sweet little number about the idiocy and wrongfulness of the law change, so this morning I had a go, and this is what I got (right-click, save as):

Copywrong (luna spark remix - loud master)

Copywrong (luna spark remix - quiet master)

Legal bit:

This song has been released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand License, which means that it is FREE for you to download, share, copy, distribute, sell, remix, and sample provided that you:

Attribute the work to the Creative Freedom Foundation including the url http://creativefreedom.org.nz
Share Alike: If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work but remember that other people get to remix your work too!

EDIT: In a grand piece of irony, MySpace won't let me use a black square as the icon for the song, claiming: "There was an error: "Photos may not contain nudity, violent or offensive material, or copyrighted images. If you violate these terms your account will be deleted."

WTF?!

1. Only 5 percent of New Zealanders are employers.
2. New Zealand already has some of the laxest employment laws in the developed world.
3. We have a low-wage economy.
4. Small businesses are trying to find ways to attract new employees.
5. Bosses are not always right.

So why in hell is National proposing a 90-day fire-at-will bill? It means that within 90 days of hiring someone, a small business employer can fire them, no questions asked. Even if the firing is totally unfair, the employee will have no recourse to legal action. This law will erode job security, particularly in low-paid environments, as most small businesses are. Wages can be kept low with threats of termination - "You'll sign this contract now stripping you of any rights to pay rises, or I'll fire you before the 90 days are up." And it will increase the likelihood job seekers will try to avoid small businesses as employers, and will instead look elsewhere. And, anecdotally, I get the impression businesses are already allowed to write in a probationary period into an employment agreement, if they think it's necessary. Example: Woman gets hired by small business. Two and a half months later, woman finds out she's pregnant. Boss says, "Fuck off, I don't want any pregnant women working here." Woman says, "but.. but.. but..." Boss says, "Don't give a shit, Go on the DPB."

This is one really fucked up way to drive up productivity and wages, if that's what National really want. But coming the same day as they try to sign their tax cuts for the rich into law? Fuck you, National. That's the end of any supposed benevolent goodwill you might have had.

Twice I've had my neighbours threatening to cut each others' throats today, and for fuck's sake, as I type I can hear another argument developing. 

Update: three times. Fuck you neighbours. Kill each other like you say you are, or move out.

A new study shows the vast majority of people (70%) who opposed to the "anti-smacking" law do not understand it, while a slim majority of people who support it do. The same study also shows of the 41% of parents who do smack, only 9% think it is effective - that equates to less than a measly 4% of all parents.

Of course, Larry Baldock (that guy I called a cock) thinks the survey is "crap", because parents are afraid to admit they smack their kids for fear of prosecution - which I suppose places him firmly in the aforementioned 70%.

But how do you punish a cat who's deaf? Kosh pisses me off sometimes.

So I called that snail-mail-spam-scam place this morning, to find out how they got my name and address - they woudn't tell me, then I got a phonecall from manager Julie (I'm assuming she's the woman with the '80s haircut on this page), who said she would not tell me either, so I'm not sure the point of her call except to call me stupid and tell me if I wanted their business, I'd have to beg. Err, what? Peter Sun and the Better Business Institute? More like Better Hope Their Victims Can't Use Google. 

In other news, I'm looking forward to the new Destiny Church Circus. We should build a wall around it and let the lions loose. Or failing that, let Jeremy Wells loose.

 I recieved this piece of mail that looked like spam, but on paper. Addressed to me. So I called the toll-free number (0800476984), and the woman who answered said she could not tell me how I got onto the mailing list, but that it was not a scam, then hung up on me. I tried again, and got a guy who said because it was outside business hours, he could not tell me how I ended up on their mailing list, but he could sign me up anyway. 

Googling the guy who supposedly sent it, and the name of the scheme, brings up several scam-warning sites on the internet.  What a surprise...

The bus was horrendously late, so I tried calling tariqa  to tell her I'd be late - but I was out of credit. I tried topping up, but the new automated system wouldn't accept my pin number, so I tried calling customer service - but as I didn't have any credit, and Vodafone now charge $1 for customer service, it kept hanging up on me. Grrr.

So once home I called Vodafone on the landline, only to get a guy called Islam who said he didn't understand what my problem was, and would get a manager. 10 minutes of silence later, I tried again, and got a guy who wouldn't even listen to my problem without first getting my number, but wouldn't promise he wouldn't charge me for the privilege of speaking to him.

So I went to whitepages.co.nz:



O RLY?

But I tried anyway, looking through their site, and made a discovery - if you call 09 3552007 you get a New Zealand-based customer service centre. There I got a guy who said sure, if it's a problem at our end we won't charge the $1 - hey, it's the principle, not the amount. He looked into it, and said yeah, your account is frozen for some reason, and the password isn't working, so I'll reset it for you, and I can see the credit card you used last time to top up, shall we use that again, there you go, all done.

Fuckin 'eh.