Trysting Fields

Ack! No Bulbs!

I was certain Piedemonte's would have bulbs.

If anyone coming tonight knows any morally flexible dentists..

kthx etc

I Can't Believe I Went Out Last Night

On the evening before my nite of nites, heh. But hey, I'm young (20), I can get away with that kind of thing.

Anyway. I got tagged with this ages ago. Generally I disregard such things but I actually saved this, against such a time as I would be able to do it.

That time is now.

What's On Your iPod?

4420 songs (12.4 days, 20.3 GB)
5 videos (28:24 minutes, 248 MB)
0 photos (0 MB)

Sorted by artist
First artist: The 5,6,7,8s
Last artist: Zamfir
(both tracks from the Kill Bill Vol 1 soundtrack, funnily enough)

Sorted by song title
First Song: 'Cello Song by Nick Drake
Last Song: Zyclon B. Zombie by Throbbing Gristle

Sorted by time
Shortest Song: 0:04, Harmonic Necklace by Penguin Cafe Orchestra
Longest Song: 31:31, All Apologies by Nirvana

Sorted by album
First Album: 13 by Blur
Last Album: Young Team by Mogwai

How many hits when you search for "sex"? 39
How many hits when you search for "death"? 19
How many hits when you search for "love"? 264
How many hits when you search for "angel"? 60
(more than sex & death combined, which is also funny)

How many playlists?
None as yet.

First ten songs that come up on shuffle
1. Singing The Blues by Tricky
2. Good Feeling by Violent Femmes
3. I Am The Resurrection by The Stone Roses
4. Sundrops by Kristin Hersh
5. Fait Accompli by Curve
6. Flying Dutchman by Tori Amos
7. Who Needs The Peace Corps by Frank Zappa
8. Electronic Renaissance by Belle & Sebastian
9. Drive You Home by Garbage
10. A Letter To Elise (Blue Mix) by The Cure

Ten most played songs
(nb these stats are inherited from iTunes and reflect a three-year legacy)
1. Katrina by Killing Heidi (194 plays)
2. The Reflecting God by Marilyn Manson (176 plays)
3. Queer by Garbage (154 plays)
4. Playboy Mommy by Tori Amos (148 plays)
5. For My Lover by Tracy Chapman (124 plays)
6. Watch Your Back by Avant Garde (117 plays)
7. Someday I'll Find You by Craig Armstrong & The London Symphony Orchestra feat. Shola Ama (112 plays)
8. A Sorta Fairytale by Tori Amos (98 plays)
9. Bad Ambassador by The Divine Comedy (84 plays)
10. I'm With You by Avril Lavigne (79 plays)

I tag LJ (and anyone else reading this with a blog and a proper motherfucking iPod).

Dreams Come True

This Little Tableau Happened Entirely By Accident

I put the apple down to go and answer the phone. Only upon returning to the kitchen did I realise it was necessary to take a picture and post it to my blog.

I heart Art.

Soiree de Semi

~'s extraordinary invention, The Discombobulator (tm) astounds and delights jaded party guests who thought they'd seen everything:

Dear Billie,

I don't know if you're familiar with my Amazon wishlist. But if you are, you'll know that I've lately been looking to reacquire your first album, which I originally bought - much to my girlfriend at the time's disgust and bemusement - from the Tottenham Court Road Virgin Megastore shortly after it came out in 1998.

It was an indulgent, impulsive and kind of silly purchase.

I'd thought Because We Want To was a brilliant, stunning, classic, etc pop song. (And the way everyone just instinctively knew, well in advance of its release, that it was going to go in at number one and dethrone #$&% Three Lions '98 was a thing of beauty.)

But, y'know, I'd listened to most of your record on listening posts, and didn't actually even think it was really all that great.

I was basically a snobby indie kid. And besides, I didn't like you as much as B*Witched (whose LP, conversely, was the fucking bomb - and could legitimately be said to have changed my life, in a subtle kind of way).

But there was just Something About You. The way you stared piercingly out of the sleeve from under your hair, a paragon of innocent knowingery; and the matching combination you displayed in interviews of unquestionably genuine irrepressible-15-year-old-witnessing-all-her-dreams-coming-true wonderment and an equally unfakeable worldly-wise, seen-it-all intelligence. (And your tits. I liked your tits, also.)

You were just too cool.

And, hey, there were some nice songs on there. I Dream I'm Dancing remains a staple to this day. Honey To The Bee. Couple of good songs.

Sadly, that copy was stolen along with almost all my other CDs a few years later. Somehow, inexplicably, yours felt like one of the ones I was most gutted to lose, even though I could only ever have played it all the way through maybe five or six times.

Flash forward half a decade or so to a couple months ago and I'm watching an early episode of the excellent new series of Dr Who. And I suddenly decide that I want it back. You can't get all the tracks online anymore. I put it on my wishlist.

Late last week, finalising my previous eBay CD purchase, it occurs to me to search for it, and I find a copy - of the original UK release, with Because We Want To and Girlfriend tracked first, as it should be (although, you know, the US order works, too) - going for 99p, no bids, expiring in four hours. I grab it.

Today it arrived, extraordinarily quickly. I was really thrilled; much more so than I expected to be.

So I bring it inside, and whilst ripping it to the eMac, idly pull your Wikipedia page.

Try to imagine my surprise and delight as my eyes are scanning the opening line of the entry and relay to my brain the hitherto un(consciously)known fact that today is your birthday!

Happy 24th, Billie. Hope you're having a great one.

Love your work.

Very best wishes,

Teigan

Mysterious Postal Benevolence

This arrived yesterday from a mail-order DVD retailer in South Australia, with no message save for a 'Happy Birthday' appended to my name on the address label:

Apart from a few relatives who'd be very, very unlikely to anonymously send me Harmony Korine movies, I don't really know anyone in South Australia.

Anyway - whoever you are (if you're reading), thank you so much! As a present, no other widely-available DVD could please me more.

Stoked.

Grant Morrison Explains Everything

at Disinfo.con in February 2000. (Grant Morrison is a writer, iconoclast and man who Knows. He basically invented The Matrix, amongst other things. He is also funny as hell.)

Semi linked this a while back but having just re-viewed it, I'ma pimp it again because it's fucking brilliant and everybody with at least half a functioning brain and any clue at all should watch it now.

No, I don't care what else you think you're doing or have to do. Watch it now.

Watch it now.

That is all.

American Guy's Oxfam Trivia Night

My team, Custard of Lump, performed badly. For my part I was still a fair bit hungover from the previous evening.

But I did come away with this candelabra that looks a bit like the Fiat NOX octopus:

The bidding got kind of silly, but I still paid $1 less than its market value ($25). I needed a centrepiece for my mantle.

Most Interesting Thing I Have Eaten This Week

Caper omelette with pomegranate syrup ala Jaye de Koan.

It was really nice!

Second Twenties

Got it? Second twenties.

I made a right mess of my first twenties.

They were a learning experience. *shrugs*

I learned a lot.

Having given the matter some considerable thought, I've decided to take them again.

(NB Do not argue.)

Does Anyone Else Ever Get

That dark, menacing feeling which you just know (because it's familiar from more overt contexts) means someone you know is hating on you really hardcore - but you can't for the life of you figure out who it is, or why?

I have that right now.

Who are you, and what did I do?

Spill it.

My Skin Looks Really Cruddy At The Moment

This is why you shouldn't smoke, kids. Or grow old.

For H

Not having posted any gratuitous pictures of Kate Beckinsale for no particular reason in nearly 16 months is "damaging" my blog, apparently.

Wine Review: 2005 Rothbury Estate Chardonnay

This tasted quite watery to me initially; it had that sour grapey-alcohol taste one traditionally associates with wine, but in a subtle, barely-there kind of way. After a few glasses the flavour started to seem a bit more pronounced and mildly nauseating. But it was fairly drinkable overall.

Bentendo had a glass with me; he opined that it was "really sharp" and claimed he could "taste it at the front of [his] mouth".

Its alcohol content was 12.5%. I consumed about 80% of the bottle over two and a half hours on Sunday night. By the time I was finished I would rate my level of drunkenness (zero being sober, ten being unconscious or at least blacked out) at about 4.5.

Overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 (ten being definitely wine, zero being not wine at all, but something else), I would give this 9.5. It was almost unquestionably a bottle of white wine.

Don't Have Time To Check It Out Properly Right Now

But this is quite interesting.

"The message [reg required] went on to explain that Lonelygirl15 was a project to harness the audience to develop and evolve a story and "usher in an era of interactive storytelling where the line between 'fan' and 'star' has been removed".

While not everyone is convinced that the filmmakers' confession is genuine (many believe it's part of the developing mystery), it now seems certain that Lonelygirl15 is a fake - although who is behind the hoax and the purpose of it is still unclear.

A clue left in one of the videos suggests it may be another month before we find out.

In a video posted a week ago titled Bree The Cookie Monster, Bree and Daniel rate batches of cookies they said they baked.

Bree's purple monkey puppet holds up score cards. The first one gets "10", the second "12" and the third one "06". Why "06" and not "6"?

Viewers point out that the sequence makes a date: 10/12/06 - or October 12, 2006, using the US method of writing dates. October 12 also happens to be the birth date of the late occultist Aleister Crowley, whose picture can be seen on a wall in Bree's room.

News of the hoax, however, does appear to have dented Lonelygirl15's popularity."

The Cleaning Is So Done

This makes me happy.

Sparkly clean bedroom

Sparkly clean living room

More Postal Benevolence

Surprised & delighted was I to take delivery of this package today.

My birthday isn't till the 14th (yes, as it happens I do have an Amazon wishlist), but I thought it would be alright to open the large bottles now, being pretty sure I already knew what they were:

Thanks, toots! You rock. (Have a good flight.)

Adam Got Hacked!

Cunts messed with his template and his archives - and deleted Hagakure 419. Cunts!

Life just keeps dropping the bombs this week. First there was that whole freakish untimely death of Steve Irwin thing.. now this.

My Mother, Of All People

.. has sent me a dozen bottles of wine.

And a bottle of champagne in a package with two glasses.

It's an air-miles thing. She flies a lot.

Thanks, Mum!

Stuff I Did This Week

               

- Exhaustively cleaned the kitchen, the dining room, the hallway, the laundry, and the bathroom.

- Made sixteen phonecalls, took seven phonecalls, attended interviews with three people, and lodged one detailed & tedious application form in pursuit of new revenue streams. Ate dodgy Japanese food on Chapel Street; gawped at people hanging on Chapel Street.

- Visited Bentendo at his new place.

He has a very nice view of the city, which I was unable to photograph for security reasons

- Reincarnated my old mobile - which I thought I'd lost, eventually replaced, and later found - as a second phone, via the purchase of a $25 prepaid SIM card.

- Updated my address book and phone contacts.

- Succesfully enticed a professional tiler into assessing dire bathroom tile issue situation, pictured. (They refused to replace the tiles, arguing that the only meaningful solution was to retile the whole bathroom.)

- Made an elaborate pictoral blog post about cooking harira.

- Inspired by trawling my own blog archives, figured out how to region-unlock my DVD player.

- Made a disastrous birthday card.

- Stupidly trammed it all the way out to the RSPCA in Burwood East to buy a kitten, only to discover that - it not quite being kitten season yet, see - they didn't have any. (Note to self: next time ring ahead.)

- Got shitfaced at The Mint and elsewhere again with Jo, Xade, Rorschach, Jaye deKoan and sundry others. An unshaven Tript was vaguely encountered somewhere in the vicinity of the Victoria Markets at around 1am. About two people at least one of whom I did not previously know ended up on my foldout couch watching Reservoir Dogs.

- Recorded a cover of Always On My Mind with my associate Mishuki One for H419.

- Made an elaborate pictoral blog post about things I did this week.

- Watched entire series of John Safran vs God (purchased secondhand last Sunday for $5).

- Went to the gym five times.

- Wrote 36 emails to 15 people.

- Et cetera.

First Day Of Spring, Motherfuckers

And you can feel it in the air.

This week has been mostly about the cleaning.

I tried unsuccessfully to buy a cat yesterday. But when I woke up this morning, one was wandering around the house anyway. It must have scaled the garden wall and got in through the back door, which I forgot to secure last night.

It was not particularly inclined to be photographed.