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... 

The Herald hasn't given up on its retard stock photo story, but at least the vast majority of their readers, who can't usually be trusted for good judgment, have told them just how stupid they're acting. As probably the day's biggest politics story, somehow, we had to cover it but at least I tried to be a bit more neutral in my headline.

Yeah, our new site looks pretty, doesn't it? There were a few teething problems, completely normal I suppose but then again, not every website has to deal with a John Campbell on-air-plug sending thousands to it all at once!

Check this out. It's pretty much the coolest, oddest but most creative remix, ever.


Big Ideas (don't get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

Takes a while to get started, but pretty awesome.

I installed a cleaning/housework regime on the weekend, but have been terrible in sticking to it myself this week... must... do... dishes...

I started work this morning at 5am, so it's like 9pm for me now, except a 9pm after only 5 or so hours of sleep, if that... arhghghgh... brain hurts. Now I've got lots of dishes to do :(

Sick gone. All better. I think. Not too bad a sleep either, a little broken up, but probably the best I've had in two weeks, ie. it was a normal sleep.

This morning I recorded the backing music to another track, Pakistan. This must be the billionth time I've recorded it, seems like I've done so many demos, but this one is meant to be for the album. Somehow I managed to combine Nirvana with the Killers in this particular version.

I'm gonna get ready for work, play some Battlefront, and go to work. Dishes and housework can wait till tomorrow or for tariqa. Muahaha.

Probably tomorrow.

There's nothing worse than taking the cleaning the cat litter tray outside for a clean, than returning it to the bathroom and finding the cat in position to take a dump on the floor where the tray would normally be.

I'm home today, feeling a little bit off. I've been entertained by a grade-A flamewar on Htown.co.nz, and setting up a page on Sellaband.com. Basically, people pay $10 towards artists they like, and when that artist gets $50,000, they get to use the money to make an album, and the proceeds go towards not only the artist and the website, but the fans who "believed" in them.

If I get $50 by the end of the year, I'll eat my hat. I don't own a hat, but I'll purchase one for the purpose of eating.


TOP ALBUMS OF THE MONTH!!!

1. Manics - Send Away The Tigers
2. Blonde Redhead - 23
3. Tom Morello - One Man Revolution
4. Good, the Bad and the Queen - S/T
5. Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero
6. James Dean Bradfield - The Great Western
7. My Chemical Romance - The Black Parade
8. The Rapture - Pieces of the People We Love
9. Smashing Pumpkins - Melon Collie
10. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Here I am, today, without a fuck-off beard. Yeah, I'm five years weaker without my super facial friend... But on the upside, I'm also five years younger.. looking! And it suggests I might play a stringed instrument of sorts, perhaps in a band, you know, of some sort. This impression would be much awesomer if I also wore a magic cape power of sorts - and if I was 22.

But I'm not, so I have to settle with half-clean-house-powers instead. And the power to blog.

Turns out, those powers are almost limitless if the Cleansprayanator isn't distracted by Ol'Farkanator, and their ancient nemesis Casionator doesn't intervene with Deadlinatron.

As in all epic quests, Confusatron has made an appearance, but rugby was the wiener on the day.

I still have a floor to vacuum, despite my dubious attempts at punesque humour. Dang.

I've been waiting all day for calls from various people, and had kind of given up on hearing back from anyone when, as I've literally got my hands in the toilet bowl giving it a scrub, who else calls but the person I least expected to hear from - Matt McCarten. Talk about timing...

I'm assuming real journalists don't find that kind of thing amusing.

So I was cleaning the bathroom, and suddenly the drawers beneath the sink suddenly flew open, a la Ghostbusters. I thought, huh? And pushed the top one shut. It flew open again. I seriously freaked for a bit, so decided to pull out one of the drawers (cause that's what you do when a ghost possesses your bathroom drawers - you aggravate it).

Turns out it wasn't a ghost - no, it was Scully posing for a cat image macro (click for bigger).

I know it sucks, but I'm trying to be busy tidying the house. Suggest a better caption if you want.

Public Address has been doing a bit on s59 recently - including this awesome piece, which points out the folowing:

How far can Mr Smith carry his logic that: "... scripture declares it is so, therefore I am obliged to believe and practice it"? I'm thinking of other bits of parental advice in the Bible, such as Deuteronomy 21:18-21 which states that parents should put persistently disobedient sons to death; or Deuteronomy 13:6-9 which says that you must kill your children if they try to convert you to another religion.

Hard News done a piece similar to mine of a couple of days ago, tearing apart the arguments some of those posting on the NZ Herald website have been making - including the following awesome burn:

Stace
I will just have to smack my kids so hard that they cant tell anyone about it.

You know what? Never mind whether you'd actually do that. You're a fucking scary freak for even forming the thought that let you write that sentence.

Very nice.

I High-Fidelitied our CD collection last night, into three sections. Firstly, the best CDs, which occupy the entertainment unit's CD holder whatsit; so that way, visitors who want to check out our CD collection will see all the awesome stuff first. And criminals will find it easier to steal the not so good CDs instead of the good ones.

The best CDs section spills over into my little CD holder thingee. The second section is all the NZ stuff, which happened to fit nicely and alphabetically into Tariqa's CD tower thingamabob. And lastly, everything else is alphabetised and sitting in the book case. The CD boxsets are being used to block off the bottom of the entertainment unit, to stop Scully getting in behind everything and chewing the stereo speaker wires he so loves to munch on.

I didn't realise how many double ups we have though! Two copies of Absolution, two Franz Ferdinands, two Garbages... but only one copy of the Divinyls' "I Touch Myself" on CD single.

Anyway... speaking of Scully, the feline tornado, he managed to jump off the balcony again. I found him whimpering down the park beneath a tree, scared out of his pants. He doesn't seem injured oddly enough, so perhaps he climbed down the tree that encroaches upon our balcony. Or maybe he learned how to land the first time. Either way, his daredevil Randy Campbell antics haven't cost us a couple of hundred bucks this time around. We're gonna have to get his balls chopped off pretty soon, if he keeps this up.

NZ beat the Windies! Woooo! Alright! Yeah! Uh-huh.

Tonight, so far, I've done two loads of washing. Both times, after clearing all the washing out of the machine, there has been a lone dollar coin sitting at the bottom. The best part? The second load was exclusively towels. I've lost money in jean pockets before, but never towels. I'm not sure I've ever stored money in towels before at all, not being an exotic dancer of any kind.

I'm half way through doing a house tidy and clean. I'm doing this one backwards, going kitchen-lounge-bedroom-bathroom as opposed to bathroom-bedroom-lounge-kitchen cause it's more satisfying doing the kitchen and lounge, and I'm not sure I'll do the whole thing tonight. So I wanted to make sure I felt like I'd actually done something, and I spend most of my time in the lounge, which is attached to the kitchen, so it made sense to do it this way.

Okay, now I'm off to do the bedroom, at least till Lost starts.

Well I did the big re-arrange last week as I said I would, and surprisingly enough, it worked. Somehow by adding the old computer desk with the laptop set up permanently on it to the bedroom made it more spacious. The bedroom, that is. The desk still has fuck-all room for anything. Just look at the size of its base! Okay, that pic doesn't really do justice to the awesome sprawl this thing has going on, but I couldn't find a better one. The pic, that is.

Soooo! I've had an eventful week. In approximate reverse chronological order, firstly (or is that lastly?) Scully almost became an ex-cat yesterday afternoon when he decided to do a Randy Campbell and leap off the balcony. At least that's what I think happened - either that, or he fell out the bedroom window. Either way, a neighbour downstairs found him crying, so we rushed him off to the 24 hour vet in Avondale, where he was pulled and prodded and squeezed till the vet decided nothing was broken, gave him an injection and some painkillers, and us a bill for $110. Luckily my last pay from the old job came through, and was a bit more than I was expecting. God giveth, and god taketh away... Scully seems to be doing okay though, he still wants to play and harass Kosh, but has to limp, as his back left leg is a bit sore. Before we got to the vet, I was worried, and asked Tariqa if they might put him down; she said no, if it was broken they might amputate though. For a second I had a vision that in addition to one cat who is deaf and one with half a tail who never comes home, we'd have one with only three legs. For now it seems he'll recover and we'll still have one whole, complete cat.

I can only hope we have better luck with children!

Yesterday was also my first day at AUT, only seven on my course showed up, which shows how relevant it really was. Still it was good to meet at least six of the class, and get a tour of the campus. Today we had a pot luck lunch and  it was only natural the seven of us would gravitate toward one another for conversation. Eleanor mentioned to one of the tutors we're the cool ones cause we came on the first day, to which I suggested perhaps we were in fact the uncool, nerdy ones. She spotted both the tops I wore yesterday and today were Threadless ones, so she seems cool. Now we've been buddied up to research a story on public transport issues in Auckland City - on the second day of Orientation week! Classes don't even start till next week, arrahg! The course is pretty full on it would seem...

I did find one thing on the AUT campus kind of baffling, however. This painting near the entrance to the library. WTF is going on here? Seriously? Sometimes, I just don't 'get' art. I wonder if it was posed, and what kind of awkward conversations would have been had during the creation of this piece.

So being a student is awesome, you're working but you're actually achieving something, you have time to do other stuff, people in charge actually listen to what you have to say, haha. Everyone in my class has a degree of some sort, about half have film/TV/media studies degrees, the other half are a mix of psychology, law and random arts students. A surprising number are from Waikato too, which is interesting. Someone showed me a recent photo of S block, and there's some hoary giant cover thing over the steps where I used to sit before my US history class. Interesting... A number have also had proper media experience, you know, something more than writing for the local student mag and ranting in zines and blogs, which is kinda scary. One guy up until last week was a lab manager for a major health food company, overseeing the vitamin levels in various cereals and things - and now he's studying to be a journalist. Another guy has been a flight attendant, another a resource management lawyer. One of the guys who came on the first day that I got to know used to run an orphanage in Nepal. The kicker? He's only 21. I don't even know what kind of career path leads you to Nepal, let alone running an orphanage. Apparently anyone can run an orphanage in Nepal, and I wouldn't doubt it now. So up against all this, I'm feeling a little out of my depth, but ah well. We're all in the same place now, so we'll just have to see.

Alright, heading back into the weekend now, I played my first gig with Kitty Hawk on Saturday night, at the Missing Teeth EP release party at the Pinnacle. So I feel like a proper member of the band now, which is great. What's not so great is I fucked up all over the place on stage, couldn't really hear what I was playing, was a bit nervous, blah blah blah. One song I came in with the wrong bassline entirely, but luckily that was my intro so it's not like it created a huge AAGHRGHRAGHKKGJKGJGH sound against the guitar. The others said everything went fine though, and the friends of the band (you know, the ones who know the songs better than even I do) said it was great and the band sounds way better than they used to, so that's cool I suppose. The others who played were Real Real Sick who weren't really my thing, and City Newton Bombers who were actually pretty cool. They did a version of Guns Of Brixton which sounded like a bad idea on paper, but was different enough from the original to really work. The best part of the night was watching tariqa get drunk while I didn't. Hehe.

So that's my last few days, I suppose. I've also been playing EA Cricket 2007, which is awesome, a huge step up from the past iterations, and a lot more realistic than Ricky Ponting's. Highly recommended, basically. Sucks I have to return it tonight. Wish I knew how to copy PS2 games. I quite enjoyed Lego Star Wars II as well, the cutscenes are hilarious.

And with that I'm off to finish my World Cup series on 07. There were a million other things I thought of to write about but have forgotten. Your gain.

I'm thinking later in the week I'll do a complete house re-arrange, right, I think I might've mentioned that already, but anyway, so yeah. Difficulty is, the layout of the lounge itself, minus the furniture, is kinda simple and obvious. One end has the front door and kitchen, the other double doors that lead out onto the balcony - so that kinda rules out putting things at either end. One of the sides has the stove, fridge and pantry, plus the door to the bedroom, which kind of limits what you can put there. At the moment that side has the main couch facing the other side of the room, and the second couch sitting on it's end, almost reaching the ceiling, so its footprint on the floor space is minimalized. Everything else, like the computer, stereo, amplifiers, TV, DVD player, Sky, second computer desk, CDs, etc etc is on the other side.

The bedroom is kind of full of the bed.

Now, what I want is something different, but that still makes sense, and provides a logical spot where I can have the second computer desk somewhere nice and away from everything else where I can do schoolwork on the laptop. Any ideas? Cause you know, without a diagram or scale or anything, I expect you all to have some.

I'm gonna sell some old stuff through the trademe, unfortunately it's all little stuff like games and shiat that doesn't take up any room, and I doubt the income will fund an extension to the apartment. An extra week's rent perhaps, but not a second floor.

Does anyone know where I can get The It Girl by Sleeper?  It's as if that band fell off the face of the earth once they split. I was possibly the only guy in all of New Zealand who gave a shit back in the 1990s, and I'm probably the only one now. Allofmp3 and Google don't seem to have the power.

EDIT: The album has appeared on Allofmp3! Awesome. I'm going to party like it's 1997.

My (soon to be former) workplace has the strangest ideas of what makes people work harder, and what makes them want to slack off. Remember how I told you we all were given iPod Nanos just before Christmas, for no apparent reason? Well that was pretty cool, especially since we didn't have to work any harder to get them. We just had to be employed here, which wasn't really difficult. Turn up, sit in chair, get paid, receive Nano.

Now, I just got an email detailing our incentive targets for the next two months (I'm not going to be here anyway, thank god), and they're kind of odd. The call centre reps who come in first and second win... a day working in a local branch, and dinner with the manager. Third prize? Lunch with a boss from your area. These are the prizes for two months work over and above the call of duty? These are prizes? WTF?

Anyway, I think I'm about to launch into one of my legend room/house rearranges. I've never had a bedroom or house that stayed laid out the same for too long, I get bored and restless. When I lived on Naylor St in Hamilton I'm sure I rearranged my room completely every couple of months at the most, then again it's not like I had a lot else to do then. But we've had pretty much the same arrangement here in Freeman's Bay since we moved in pretty much, and I can feel the midichlorians twitching. Problem is, it's no longer just a bed, TV, drawers and computer I'll be dealing with; there are loads more variables, and not all of them are tangible, ie. tariqa's opinion and thoughts on the matter. There's every chance I'll position everything in perfect harmony with functionability and logicalness according to Dan, only to find it upsets the natural flow of energy and karmic balance the previous arrangement had (in other words, piss off the girlfriend).

I planned to do it yesterday on my day off, but realised a single day might not be enough to complete the task, and we'd be left with a bed stuck diagonally across the room. I for one think Feng Shui's a load of bollocks, but the prospect of sleeping aligned with the angle of the half open door rather than the wall seems kind of wrong, even to me.

Besides, attempting to successfully rearrange the entire flat's furniture into some new system that works would take leaps of faith and logic my brain would reject as retarded, without a few cold ones clouding its judgement. Yesterday had too many non-cold ones related things to do, like band practise and a day/late, late, laaate night cricket match in Perth to watch.

I'm off to buy some new bass strings now, as I managed to break my A at practise the other night. That's how tough and hard our band is.