Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

Bought a new guitar today - from the reviews/retail prices I’ve seen, I think I got a major bargain… $300 including the case, and it’s pretty much new, hardly been used. Apparently the mum bought it for her kid, but he didn’t take to it, preferring the Epiphone his uncle or someone got him. Ah well - my gain! 

It’s a Karina Les Paul copy, looks pretty much like the classic white Les Paul James Dean Bradfield plays.

Watching the season finale of Lost tonight… treading carefully on the interwebs till then… 

In other news… Melissa Lee continues to entertain. We’re no longer in the Mt Albert electorate, just outside of it really, but I can still confidently say she never had a chance before this week, but well and truly doesn’t now. I doubt she’ll ever be able to stand for Waitakare either, considering her support for the motorway through Mt Albert is predicated around bypassing criminals west.

Assembled my cross trainer yesterday - if only that was the hard part. Now I have to convince myself to use it. I think I’ll find a way to set the computer never to display the calories burned, as it’s a little depressing. It’s a minute of running/walking/whatever it is you call what you do on a cross trainer to hurn off a Diet Coke. That’s not encouraging!

New Manics album next week. Freakin’ excited.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

Google is launching its new profile/social networking thingamabob this week, so I thought I’d have a quick squizz, and noticed one of the questions had an interesting answer suggestion…

Awesome. Link.

Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

 Many TV shows nowadays assume the viewer has access to discussion foums, ARGs, this little thing called the internet, etc... yet continue to pretend people are hanging out to watch shows (with 25% ads) two months behind the rest of the world. Hell, the only reason I have Lost, perhaps my favourite show ever, on right now, is that I haven't yet felt tired enought to go to sleep, despte the fact I have to get up just after 4am for work.

How is torrenting shows any different to taping them off the TV? Especially when ad-removing VCRs have been around for years, and many of the same companies behind the financing of entertainment material are also involved in the production of equipment, media and advertising which supports copying in all sorts of forms?

Half the fun of Lost is discussing the theories and possibilities on internet forums, which is impossible if you're watching it six months behind. Let's just pretend it's 1989 and my friend in the US taped it, sent it to me fastpost, and I had an NTSC player, and  no one would ever know.

Isn't it bizarre that "piracy" in 1989 wouldn't have raised an eyelid, yet the much most efficient service available in 2009 is considered illegal?

Tuesday: Visibly on the improve and feeling a lot better. Apart from frequent, but not chronic itches on the face and scalp, a bit on the leg, and the spots, I mightn't even realise anything was wrong. Probably as contagious as anything, though.

Saw The Betrayal for the first time last night - the legendary 'backwards' episode of Seinfeld. TV was quiet so I missed a bit of the dialogue, seemed quite odd and interesting. Great ending though (or should I say beginning?). 

Cricket on today - cricket is awesome when you're stuck at home. Especially when you're running out of episodes of Lost to watch (six left....).

Sunday: Feeling pretty crap in the morning, but it quickly clears up and I think I'm beginning to notice a pattern here. The blisters are starting to scab up too, which means although I'm just as spotty, it no longer looks like I'm evolving into a demon.

Monday: I woke up quite itchy, probably because I forgot to take my second Voltaren the previous night. I'm able to eat normally, finally, which I prove by scoffing down a packet of noodles and two slices of bread for lunch. I even pop outside to put some rubbish and recycling out, the first time I've been out since eight days earlier that wasn't a trip to the doctor's.

I try to do some housework, but after ten minutes or so get really fatigued, every time. So instead I plough on through six episodes of Lost, season 4.

 Saturday: Woke up not feeling too bad compared to Friday morning, maybe because I actually managed to get three or four hours' sleep in! After the initial dose of painkillers, I'm quickly feeling not so bad - compared to the last few days. I'm still not looking forward to the inevitable uncomfortable and possibly painful night, but this is a good sign. 

If I'm turning the corner, it's definitely no hairpin, but welcome nonetheless.

In other news, someone posted me an empty envelope that had not even been sealed. WTF?

I'm about 2/3 of the way through Lost season 3. If you're a fan, I highly recommend Lostpedia. It's so geeky, even Tom's fake beard gets a page, and there's an indepth analysis of how often Hurley says 'dude'.

Day #3 was yesterday, of course. I was out last night having a few drinks with my classmates, and more people showed up than expected, so that's my excuse. It's good enough for me...

I stripped This Means More of all it's guitar, and layed down some fizzier, less rawkus takes. Took most of the noise out of the choruses, replaced it with reverby moogs. You can't have too many reverby moogs. So now the track, once crushed and limited to hell, sounds not only viscous, but vaguely psychedelic. Ooh, and I added some quiet handclaps and a tambourine. I kept the handclaps quiet as I've never been able to master the art of recording handclaps effectively. I should just do a New Order and use the ones in the 909 drumset, hehe.

So after that I... got distracted by the shiny new laptop and played Sim City 4. Unfortunately, after getting a new city up and running at a profit (hard to do without getting mafia help), it crashed. Helpfully, Vista said it was trying to work out what went wrong so it wouldn't happen again, but came up empty. Grrrr.

In other news... tariqa must have given the cats P this morning, as Scully has been bouncing from one end of the house to another. At least he's feeling alright. I've managed to block off the under-bed area again, so he's been scoping that out, trying to find a way back under there.

Also this morning, I've seen first hand what effect banning junk food from schools has. I popped up to the dairy to buy a Pepsi (yes, a Pepsi - I prefer it to Coke oddly enough), and the place was full of Polynesian schoolgirls, arms full of chocolate, chips and Chup-a-Chups.

Maybe they should just ban foods beginning with ch come to think of it.

Anyway, because of last night's shenanigans I missed Lost, so I'm off to find a torrent for it.