Mirrored from Radio Over Moscow.

I now know why the stormtroopers, despite being talked up by geriatric Obi Wan, could never hit anything.



Because Tariqa accidentally knocked them off the top of the television. 



See?



I think Luke's lightsabre got bent once too. And yeah, they're divided lightside/darkside, and yeah, that's a Wild Thing on the darkside... 

If eight left-wing parties receive 10% of the vote each, and one right-wing party gets 20%, do you think NZ should have a right-wing govt? No, because 80% of people voted left - and under MMP, the majority will get their way. under FPP, the majority 80% will be overruled by the 20% that voted right. This is why MMP is far superior to FPP - you can exchange right for left, the same applies. If you cannot understand this, you shouldn't get to vote at all.

Simple enough? Can you please stop whining now?

I haven't posted much recently 'cause I've been playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, both I and II. Truly awesome games, and better storylines than the prequels in some ways.

I was really tired this morning when I woke up, so tired I felt hungover. So I went to the dairy, and holy fuck - you can get 500ml cans of V. The caffeine arms race is really getting out of hand. So is the price of Rivermill bread - I swear last time I bought some it was $1.50, today it was $3.80. I'm going to assume the wrong price stickers were in the wrong places. 

I'm going to Htown for election day/night, to celebrate/drown sorrows with some like-minded friends who don't want to see Castle Helengrad fall. And it's my sister's birthday the following day, so two birds, one stone and all that. Actually three, cause mum's apparently got loads of baby stuff for us to bring back. Have I mentioned he never, ever kicks when I put my hand on tariqa 's belly? I'm going to pretend he knows who's boss. If only I could get the cats to be so learned.

What movie should I take tariqa  to tomorrow night? Any ideas? Seen Wall-E already.


TOP TEN ALBUMS OF THE LAST MONTH!

1. Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke
2. Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul
3. Metallica - Death Magnetic
4. TV On The Radio - Dear Science (yes, I actually like this one)
5. The Stills - Oceans Will Rise
6. My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
7. Scars on Broadway - Scars on Broadway
8. Coldplay - Viva La Vida
9. Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement
10. Keane - Perfect Symmetry

John Cleese has demoted Michael Palin to #2 on his list of funniest Palins. No prizes for guessing who's now #1.

I just found out this guy from A Clockwork Orange is Darth Vader. The guy inside the voice, not the voice, of course.

Maybe it's my dad genes kicking in, but this is pretty funny. 

And now that I've just spent an hour and a half or so translating what I think of the new Oasis and Keane albums into 240 words or so for a review, I have to say almost the whole time, I've been listening to fucking Be Here Now, and I'm still not even half way through it; and it rocks. Yes, I've fully ingested Perfect Symmetry and Dig Out Your Soul, but Be Here Now is a part of my adolescent musical education I can't deny. Yeah, it's loud as hell, which in some ways places it 10 years ahead of its time, but there's so much random shit going on, and the 'modern' loudness is being applied to a '90s cocaine-fuelled mix, and yeah.

I should re-do my 128k mp4s into 192 though. When I got my first iPod,  it was hard to imagine that within four years my monthly data allowance would be as large as my hard drive ( at the time).

My landlord was supposed to be doing a flat inspection today, but never showed. And I'd totally taken down all the posters and removed the Star Wars displays and vacuumed. And shit.

I keep giggling because I recorded an organ part for this song I'm working on, and there's one little note in it that I don't know, it must be the chord it's under or the next note after it or something, but every time I hear it I think of the Ewok celebration dance at the end of Return of the Jedi.

And I just got a Google Chrome sad tab for the first time, and it actually says: "Aw, Snap!" Awesome.

First off, in order to win the war on pollution its waging before the Olympics, Beijing has declared war on the sky. Yes, in order to clear the thick smog that blankets the city, they are going to make it rain by firing chemically-coated artillery shells into the clouds. This ticks so many 'evil genius/axis of evil' boxes - chemical weapons, weather control, misguided science to name but a few.

Viceland.com sent me a message asking if they could link to and do an entry on Ice McGunface, and I told them no. Firstly, Vice, the magazine sucks. I hate Vice. Secondly, I'd imagine their website to be only worse, and there's no telling what crap people might post. Besides, since when did blogs ask people for permission to link to stuff?

Last weekend we had the Star Wars ultramarathon - it's kind of shameful it's taken this long for me write about it! Rob, Jennah and Simon came over during the early parts of The Phantom Menace, which showed commitment, and yeah. Even Tariqa passed on heading out into what was the coldest day of the year and made it to the end! We passed on watching Family Guy's Blue Harvest immediately afterward though, haha.

My sleeping has gotten better, I think the virus I had at the time must've been a lot harsher than I thought - I didn't even know I had one till the doctor said, and now it's gone I'm not so tired yet awake. I'm getting by on six or seven hours a night, which isn't bad.

I had so much I was going to write about, and now I can't remember any of it. If my phone had a camera I could show you the smashed up bus stop on the way to work which used to have a life-size portrait of Ali Williams on it, and now doesn't, but it doesn't have a camera.

Tariqa's written about the neighbours' big fight with the smashed windows and all that last week, but she made it friends only so I suppose I'll have to say something! They were having a domestic long after I'd meant to have gone to sleep. I heard some pretty heavy banging, so called the police - then while I'm on the phone to the operator, there are three loud smashes, none of which sound like bottles.

Come to think of it, sounds of smashing bottles might've signalled even worse trouble to come!

But anyway, I fell asleep once they quietened down (except the baby, which cried long and hard), which must've been when the cops arrived. Today the windows were suddenly all fixed, large boxes on the lawn their kids ended up playing in (before relocating to our lawn, hence my previous post!). I doubt they called the landlord - I was considering doing that myself to be honest, but never got to it. It seems loud guy (who I'm sure I've complained about before) has moved out now though, so maybe things will be fine from here on in.

Damn, it seems Ice McGunface has raped the battery on this laptop. I've been here half of Viva La Vida and it's already down to 50%.

I'm sure I'll remember everything I was going to write about once the battery hits 5% and the computer shuts itself down...

He's just broken up with Mandy Moore - this isn't the cool part, but this, part of his statement, is:

Unfortunately I am allergic to paparazzi and have found the best antidote to that sort of nonsense is staying behind the guitar and typewriter, staying close to my support group of friends and band mates and not engaging in activities that prevent me from taking care of myself or others.I found the entire speculation and subsequent photographs and intrusions terrifying and only wish to live as normal a life as possible, so that I might always remain punk as f*** AND sober." Also, I just want to jam. Plus I like metal A LOT.

Haha, awesome. Only Ryan Adams would profess his love for metal while announcing his break-up with a pop singer. (Damn, why is it that the death metal made by an alt-country singer in his spare time is better than 99% of metal created by dudes with tattoos and long hair?)

I'm almost all ready for the Star Wars ultramarathon - somehow by reintroducing the second couch into the lounge's line up, the house seems more spacious. Hmmm. Strange physics, these are. I've got beer, chips, fruit juice, ginger beer, coke, two pizzas, some Star Wars magazines, six DVDs and a big TV. I think I'm all set.

And if that's not enough, I'll whip out Battlefront II for some interactive Star Wars action!

Hard News has an interesting take on the truckie protest - the increase to the truckies would amount to 1% of their entire annual costs, approximately $500 - this figure isn't debated by the truckies' people either - yet the economic damage done by the blockade potentially cost businesses far more than that on a single morning. I know at the CD Store, our sales were incredible sensitive to things going on - even having a crap (or even a good) busker outside could nosedive our sales for a couple of hours. If a busker can do that, imagine what 2,000 trucks could do!

The new My Morning Jacket album is probably the album of the year, definitely so far.

Since Friday I've had a crazy weird headache. I think it's related to lack of sleep, but even after sleeping an okay (not great, but okay) couple of nights, it's still here. And the suck thing is sitting at a computer seems to make it worse, which is suck cause my job is sitting in front of a computer screen for eight hours a day. I've just done three days, and have five more till the weekend - where I'm having people over (perhaps) for a Star Wars ultramarathon (all six movies) on Saturday. And the headache kind of makes it hard to listen to music properly, which is suck cause I'm smack in the middle of recording heaps of cool, loud rock stuff.

And when I'm tired, I can't sleep, and I get awake at stupid times of the day/night. GrrrrrrR.


TOP ALBUMS OF THE WEEK!

1. My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
2. Coldplay - Viva La Vida
3. Weezer - Red Album
4. Portishead - Third
5. David Gilmour - S/T

The new My Morning Jacket is brilliant, even better than Z.

Well I've been on lates the past week, but I was getting rides home a la tariqa  last week, and this week I'm not as she has work in the mornings, and it's hard to go to sleep right away once you've walked over half an hour in the night.

Anyway, my Star Wars ultramarathon is going ahead it seems, it's so official I made a Facebook page for it as I don't have anyone's cellphone numbers in my new phone. There's limited couch space, so if you want in, you'll have to wait and see if there is any, which is unlikely.

I'm gonna do Tariqa's meme thingee. I hate calling them memes. It sounds silly and I'm not even sure it's a totally accurate name for them, which is why I tag them as 'internet surveys'. Which sounds even sillier.

1. Name: Dan. It could have been Reece, but mum vetoed it, and let my father the guy who got her pregnant give me my middle name. Yeah, thanks a lot.

2. Age: 27. When I was younger I was convinced I was going to die at 27, just like Kurt Cobain and every other self-disrespecting rock star. I thought it was going to be in a car crash. Well, there are only about 13 days left for this to happen, and one of them is going to be spent in front of the TV watching six Star Wars movies, so it's looking good for 28.

3. Location: Somewhere in this satellite pic.

4. Occupation: News online editor for 3 News. It's not online news, it's news online. There is a difference.

5. Partner: Tariqa - nearly four years now! Wooo.

6. Kids: None yet.

7. Parents: This is a pretty dry 'meme', huh? I'm getting tired. I'm gonna stop now.


TOP ALBUMS OF THE PAST FORTNIGHT!

1. Weezer - The Red Album
2. Coldplay - Viva La Vida
3. My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
4. Weezer - The Blue Album
5. Nine Inch Nails - The Slip
6. REM - Accelerate
7. Portishead - Third
8. Radiohead - In Rainbows
9. Manic Street Preachers - Gold Against the Soul

I listened to Gold Against the Soul the other day for the first time in ages, and fuck, that album rocks. It gets treated unfairly, really. It's definitely the most polished album they ever did, but the heaviest at the same time, at least musically.

On the way to work this morning (which is to say somewhere between 4.25am and 4.59am this morning) I saw two complete baguettes, fresh-looking, just lying in the gutter, 50 metres or so apart. I was a little bemused, till around the 15-minute mark when I came across a footpath chilly bin marked "FREE FRENCH BREAD - HELP YOURSELF" with myriad loaves, all undated and looking half frozen, and half stale.

Just after the chilly bin a man who looked just like a Tibetan monk, except wearing civilian clothes ('cause Tibetan monks aren't civilians?) ran right past me. A few minutes later I had to cross the road to avoid some vagrants. Well, they might just have been backpackers hanging outside a place with a sign saying 'HOSTEL', but I wasn't taking my chances.

I also came across a working Nokia cellphone, which I ditched upon realising it was the kind of brick I used to mock back when I owned a Sagem. That, and it was under a bridge, and so was probably some kind of trap.

My walks to work this early aren't usually this exciting! Except for yesterday when REM's Accelerate was exactly the same length as my walk. I'm not kidding - I'm Gonna DJ ended at the exact moment I hit the stairs and for the last time, knocked on the door to be let in. Yes, I finally got a swipe card, so now if I really wanted to, I could go to work at 5am. Oh wait...

Budget? Um, I'm not going to use it to buy cheese, but I have a few comments. Firstly, although the much touted 'average' worker earns $45k, the median worker - an almost infinitely better gauge of how the everyday person is going - earns about $35k, according to some five-minute-maths I've just done using a simplified income stats table, which I'm 99% sure mirrors reality. CEOs can earn millions, but no one can earn below zero, remember...

I'm bound to remember more and add it later, if not to this entry then to new ones...

Oh yeah. I'm totally excited about the new Indiana Jones movie. I've read a bazillion reviews, and once again, I think it's a case of "even the bad reviews make it sound good!" again... my trilogy DVD set was a casualty of the recent robbery, but the marathon last weekend has got me back going. one thing the reviews seem to agree on is that a) Harrison Ford is the best thing about the film, and b) Shia La Buffet is actually pretty good. I mean, he did a good job in Transformers, but it wasn't like he had to act at all in that, so it's hard to understand how he got the "new Indy" job (let's not beat around the bush) so quickly... but I bet many are happy it wasn't Hayden Christiansen.

In Anakin's defence, I've read some pieces recently that suggested he was supposed to be an angsty teenager the whole time, meaning Christiansen pulled the character off brilliantly, and shouldn't be mocked. To a degree I agree, except that Darth Vader would never have given a shit about sand, and that Lucas could have given him some better dialogue... like, dialogue people would actually speak. But then again, I still think the atmosphere wins out and I'm still totally organising an ultra-marathon, even if it takes a bring-your-own chair policy and extreme drunkenness to get through it all.

WEEKLY TOP TEN (FIVE) OF THE LAST FORTNIGHT!

1.  R.E.M - Accelerate
2. Portishead- Third
3. Supergrass - Diamond Hoo-Ha
4. Radiohead - The Bends
5. U2 - Zooropa

The photocopier at work is one of them machines that make a supersonic high-pitched 'eeeeeeeeeeee' sound that seems to annoy no one but me. I really don't know why my hearing has not deteriorated enough for this not to be a problem - I've barraged my eardrums since I was 14 with walkmans, iPods, gigs and practises, yet I can still hear monitors squealing and other electro-buzzes that 90% of one of my classes last year were blissfully unaware of. I don't know if I'm cursed or blessed!

So if anyone ever installs one of these horrible things in my vicinity I'll be destroying it quick smart.

In other news, or should I say otherworldly, Darth Vader's failed, drunken attack on a Jedi church has landed him a suspended sentence. I'm not kidding.

I've made some amusing mistakes at work this week, all part of the learning curve according to my manager. The best was perhaps when a popup menu came out of nowhere just as I was clicking into the article edit tool, and instead I'd somehow moved the national news stories to the top of the page.

It seems I'm not the only one who thinks Lisa Lewis' boobs are kinda freaky. Quite an amusing article, that one is.

Out of interest, I wanted to see if my last post about Larry Baldock being a cock comes up in a Google search for the guy, and sure enough, of 115,000 reported results, my post is already the 36th hit. Sweet. I'm sticking it to the man.

It's time to buy a Wii. No ifs or buts about it now.

And how is this for some crap reporting by the people at Stuff.co.nz? "50 Cent tops Kanye West on NZ charts," screams the headline.

Yeah, of course 50 Cent's album has debuted higher than Kanye's in the first week - BECAUSE IT WAS RELEASED A WEEK EARLIER, YOU FUCKING NUMBNUTS. Kanye's album won't be on the charts till next week.

Maybe they're referring to the single charts, you might ask - well, in that case, the phrase "with Fitty claiming first blood" is also incorrect, because as they point out, Kanye's "Stronger" was #1 last week.

Who knows what they're smoking.

Wasn't much of a day, really. Just a bit of tinkering with Tell Me The Truth before work this morning. I created a clone of the offensively loud synthesizer, ran it through a lofi EQ filter and faded it over the original, so now when the track settles down, the synth does too. Sweet.

And to make this post worthwhile, here's the Robot Chicken: Star Wars special!

I've spent the last couple of days on the Hoani Waititi Marae in West Auckland. It's odd that when you're at home or uni, you can't go too long without the urge to check your email or phone for texts, but when on a marae, it never crosses your mind. Anyway...

We spent pretty much the whole time doing one of three things; listening to speakers, playing cricket, or eating. Mostly eating. Man, did we do some eating.

The trip started oddly though, when a girl (no idea who she is, she's not in our classes, but she was sitting with us) came in the side door during the introductions and let her cellphone buzz and buzz, ignoring it while people looked around to see whose it was. A girl in my class leaned over and told her to turn it off, and the late girl responded with, "if you give me that look again, I'll punch you in the face."

At least when I say I'm going to punch someone in the face, they're usually on TV and fully deserving of it! Weird.

Anyone seen Zodiac? Sounds interesting to me, but I need to convince tariqa - who now wants to watch Shortland Street's 15th anniversary episode over the Simpsons and Futurama. Madness! Anyway...

Played at bFM's Fancy New Bands last night (I took a few hours out of the listen/play/eat routine to rock out), which went well. Well enough for Mikey Havoc to tell me we were 'awesome'... but the second gig we did, an hour later at the Schooner, was way awesomer. A tenth the people there, but pretty much all of them were up and dancing, in stark contrast to our last show there. We opened with a warbly Road To Nowhere leading straight into Big Stick (video from Vegas Girl gig). We dragged some girl from the audience to play keys on The Beach ("just play those keys there, whenever you feel") and did our best ever Minitron.

Then within five minutes of finishing, I was on my way back out to the marae. Weird night! After the lights went out, it took ten minutes or so for everyone to settle down and be quiet, but I was having real trouble keeping in this niggling giggle... I was convinced that at any second, someone was going to let out a ripper of flatus, and the very thought kept me on the edge of bursting out laughing for a good 15 minutes or so. In the end, no one did one, not while I was awake anyway.

We were all woken up about seven when our lecturer told everyone to get up - wasn't as scary as the time on a school camp when we were all sleeping in a massive aluminium hut, and our teacher decided to wake us up by banging on the side of it. I was having a dream at the time, and suddenly all the people in my dream began freaking out, thinking it was the end of the world, till I awoke and realised it was just a horribly loud and obnoxious P.E teacher's idea of fun.

For anyone reading this in Hamilton, who isn't already aware of it, Ward Lane hosts the third annual Circle Jerk tomorrow night - where Htown bands play covers of other Htown bands, hence the Circle Jerk-iness of it all. Rob and I played at the last one as luna spark, and did Rose Petals and Confetti by the band of the same name, and The Classic by Stadium, some of whom are now in the New Caledonia. Last year a group did my song Seal the Prison pretty faithfully, which was cool, and the year before that the Clerics did Sleepless. I wonder if anyone will do anything of mine this year? Probably not, haha. Most of them in bands now probably don't even know who I am.

Is that enough linkage for you? I'm gonna go to the video store and find something to watch. I should watch Star Wars really, considering it's the 30th anniversary and all... but I already watched it on May the Fourth kinda. Ah well.

This is about as awesome as that pic of the Star Wars cast playing in an 80s metal band. This one here.

I think the guy who made this video (can I assume it's a guy?) can truly say he's done something as awesome as that picture.

Fuckin' eh.

"Skywalkers in Korea cross Han solo"

Yep, I think I have a new favourite headline ever.

May the fourth be with you!

And still into silly Star Wars things like this (not dial-up friendly).

I'm so going to update-every-day in October to make up for this.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46458

Haha. I'm a nerd.

I'm home sick today. Just after tariqa left this morning, I had this pain in my guts, and I thought I was gonna have to go to the hospital. It was like, it was gonna explode or something. I blame Tariqa's dad's home brew.

It's so fucking hot. I"m gonna install this demo of Star Wars - Empire at War, see if its any good, and if it can be cracked.

I met Mike Shinoda today. He was sitting at one of the pubs across from the store, and Mark offered me goodies (incl a New Order DVD) if I went over and got him to sign a copy of the Fort Minor album, for his girlfriend's brother. I was reluctant at first, cause I'd feel like a dick if it wasn't him, you know? But anyway, a New Order DVD was at stake, so I wandered over, ignored some giant shaved-headed guy I assume was his bodyguard, and just asked Mike directly, who seemed fine. Of course, Mike thinks he met a fan called Leon, that being the name I had to get him to write the dedication to. 

NEW ORDER DVD! See, now aren't you jealous Alison? I got a New Order DVD and you didn't. 

I also read the Rally of NZ is now in Hamilton, which I suppose is more motivation to move back there one day for Tariqa than I could ever instil in her.

I've started writing down notes and bits and pieces for a simulation game based on the life of a songwriter/rock star. It could potentially be awesome, the only downside being I don't know how to code games into modern computers. I could try writing it in C64 basic, then using some probably non-existent converter to change it into modern PC code... and somehow learn how to do pictures so it looks nicer...

Got an email from Rob who suggested we do a recording He's Dead, one of the very first songs we ever wrote, way back in 1995 or 1996 or something. It was certainly the very first song we ever recorded, onto an old four track tape machine the school had. Somewhere I bet I've still even got the music video for it... I wonder what his motivation for recording it now is. It's not as if between us we've written 200 better songs in the meantime... or maybe it is...

Census was last night. I hope you all entered 'Jedi' for religion. Tariqa told me at first, 'you can't put Jedi as your religion, cause it's all just made up,' then realised that's exactly what a religion is. Mark put 'Sith,' and for occupation, put 'ninja.' I should have put 'pirate' just to be opposites. Dang.

We have to move house again. Turns out the new property owners don't want us there, for whatever reason. Not sure about the other tenants, but GRRRR. They should pay for it, rich bastards. Property managers and landlords in Auckland suck. So we'll probably buy our own place perhaps, cause that way we won't have to deal with them.

Kinda overshadowed NZ winning the cricket. Then again, the Windies have no idea how to win a match it seems, so it's no big deal. But how about that catch from Astle? Cool.

I've been trying to print off a PDF of the new album cover here at work, where there is a printer, but something odd keeps happening. It's 12cm by 24cm, but it keeps printing off at 11.5cm by 23cm. This is odd in itself, but I noticed something else even stranger - that's the exact same percentage difference as what I found between PAL and NTSC video systems - 4.167%. Crazy. I know this from trying to get Dark Side of the Moon to line up with Wizard Of Oz :p

Eventually I got it to print off at the right size by clicking some box in the options menu. Weird. But now I need some nicer paper to print it off on, so I'll have to trudge back to the Warewhare I suppose. Went there this morning to find el cheapo DVD players so I can watch Star Wars on a proper size screen, but they didn't have any. Auckland Warewhare sucks. I bought a phone instead, one that rings, unlike our current piece el shito.

We're gonna need a working phone if we're gonna be looking for a new place. GODDAMNIT!!! FUCK!