I Canna Get It Any Cuter, Captain!

I'm a big bloke, over six feet tall and well over 100 kilograms. I love my footy. I'm accomplished at the fine art of barbeque. I've even been known to go to the car racing.

But there's something particularly girly I can't resist.

Pictures of cute kittens.

The funny bastards at Cute Overload "scour the Web for only the finest in Cute Imagery™. Imagery that is Worth Your Internet Browsing Time."

And I can't get enough of it.

See You Again At Tooth Hurty

I've just spent most of today in pain at the dental hospital. A back molar needed to be pulled out.

Had a student. He was good but not good enough. An hour an a half at pulling at my tooth and he still couldn't get it out.

On top of that, nobody, him, his mates or supervisor, could get the anesthetic to work in the exact place they were pulling.

Ow times 1000.

Then get this. They had to give up. Too many anesthetic shots and still "the patient is not yet aneasthitised." I have to go back again on Thursday for the class to try again.

Yes, to start over.

Tooth still in and hurting.

Bonus. I have to go back again again in January for them to have a shot at getting my wisdom teeth out.

Ow times infinity.

Double bonus. Super strong antibiotics so I won't be allowed to drink at all during Christmas.

I need to lie down now.

You Know Where You Pick Up A Barracouta?

Grimy, tanned and wearing a FUBU wind jacket. Very low St Kilda.

"I'm 44 and haven't worked for over three years. I used to work at Fawkner Cemetery. I was a landscape gardener."

"Yeah, I dug graves. What do YOU reckon?"

He didn't look 44.

"I got a redundancy. You know what a redundancy is? Now I go fishing. What else is there to do?"

The two fish in his bucket were drastically undersized. He said he was going to eat one and the other, he would give to his mother.

"I've got no friends."

I thought he was talking about bait and he wanted bread. "You've got no bread? I've got some. Want some pipis?"

"I've got no friends."

Instead he was setting the bait. "But you have family," I said. "What about your sister, your mother?"

"My sister? She's gone years ago. And you know what my mother says? What she said to me this morning? Why don't you go fishing? And where do you pick up a barracouta?"

Back to fishing talk. I've heard him give the tip already five times. His look was stern as if I'm the bad son."No, where do you pick them up?"

"The GILLS..... The GILLS. You pick up barracoutas by the GILLS. Anywhere else is too dangerous."

The Meredith Come Down Explained

It's Thursday after last weekend's Meredith Music Festival and I reckon I'm ready to tells you all about it. Well, not all. Telling all would be quite unlady-like. NURSE?!?

Let's keep it to the onstage performances.

Eddy Current Supression Ring
The singer bloke wore surf/skate apparel and a pair of black leather gloves. Had a brief argument with a mate as to why the gloves. Mate argued "to look cool and ironic," while I pushed the "burns patient" defense. We only agreed on one thing. Eddy Current Whatever Ring are not our thing.

Sons And Daughters
All over the place songs in 1990's chic Glaswegian accents. Nice frocks but.

The Kills
Before I sat down to write this, I had a quick look at Beth at Miaow's Meredith review. Her take on The Kills is spookily the same (down to the Cousin It comparisons) as what I was going to say. Bugger it, here's what she wrote...

They were posturing American crap. Actually, they were repetitive posturing American crap, which is also how you could describe me if you knew my lineage, but you don’t. You can get away with playing your guitar with nothing but samply stuff and a pouting Cousin It to help you, but you’ve got to be good. You shouldn’t have to thow in robotic guitar playing movements and simulated sexual tension. Nor should you think that looking angst ridden whilst moving in a feline manner is going to help either. Jeeez. They bored me rigid.

J-Live
So so ho hum hip hop straight from New York. Marred by mixing desk gremlins causing vocals to only come out of the left side for two to three songs.

Bollywood Craptacular
First a couple of kooky lookin', kooky smilin' wacky arse sikhs bang their drums for several minutes. Then a bunch of amateurish dancers do their kooky stuff for the next seven hours. Kooky.

Stephen Malkmus And The Jicks
I was struggling at this point of proceedings. Malkmus' nine minute jams on songs I never liked in the first place, weren't making things any better.

Billy Childish And The Buff Medways
Brilliant, just as I guestimated. When I grow up I really want to be Billy Childish. I've already erected an eisel in the backyard.

You Am I
The biggest performance of the weekend. Made Wolfmother look like a bunch of curly haired twits. Honest, dirty and bittersweet rock'n'roll.

Airbourne
I was under heavy sedation at the time.

The Avalanches DJ Show
Here's me at The Pink Flamingo.... "Let's go down and dance to the Avalanches! They're playing Talking Heads! Come on! Let's go down and dance to the Avalanches! Come on!" Nobody would. Instead, a few of us thought it would be a good idea to go to someone else's campsite "soiree" which was nowhere near as fun as dancing to The Avalanches.

The "soiree" consisted of a bunch of humorless blokes trying to indulge in a guitar/harmonica/squeezbox jam. For so late in the night, these blokes were playing way too tentative. Frustrated, I snatched the harmonica player's instrument off him, gave it a wipe and blew the "soiree" away with one of the most brilliant, most soulful and most gorgeous harmonica solos ever performed in the history of earth.

Did the "soiree" duly appreciate my genius?

Drunk Girl: "That was amaaaazing."

Humorless Bloke #1: "It was a bit loud. We do have friends trying to sleep around here."

Drunk Girl: "I've never heard such..."

Humorless Bloke #2: "Yeah, I think it's time we called it quits for the night."

Matt Walker and Ash Davies
Due to the extended search of my campsite for the little bit of dignity I have left (which was misplaced somewhere during the "soiree"), I missed all of Matt & Ash's set but the last bit of All By Myself.

Quote Of The Weekend
Top mate and sound mixer to the stars, Simon Banko was getting peeved by the wonderful Okkervil River's crappy mix.

"I can't hear any of that accordian. MORE FARKING ACCORDIAN! MORE OF THAT FARKING ACCORDIAN! TURN IT UP!!"

Words that may never be said again.....

27...

Is the age Robert Johnson, Hank Williams, Otis Redding, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Chris Bell were when they died.

Photo of the good lookin' Hank Williams from Wikipedia.

Peurile Gallows 'Joke' Slipped Into Wikipedia

In the same week online encyclopedia, Wikipedia has copped flack over hoax entries, a peurile attempt at humor appeared inside the detailed entry for Crips founder and recently executed Stanley Tookie Williams.

On December 12, Schwarzenegger denied clemency for Williams. In his denial, Schwarzenegger cited the following:

"The dedication of Williams' book Life in Prison casts significant doubt on his personal redemption...the mix of individuals on [the dedication] list is curious'...'but the inclusion of George Jackson on the list defies reason and is a significant indicator that Williams is not reformed. I am the terminator. Prepare to die.'"

The 'joke' will most likely be pulled from Wikipedia in the next few hours.

When I Grow Up I Want To Be Billy Childish

One more sleep until Meredith. Yay!

Make sure you catch Billy Childish and the Buff Medways. Going by last night's gig at The Tote, Billy's going to tear that little farm outside Meredith to pieces. Especially look out for a couple of covers which are so so so right for getting a festival crowd jumping.

If only last night's support, The Breadmakers were on the Meredith bill.

Photo from The Age.

The World Of Kane Very Able

The guy who does The World Of Kane is into a lot of stuff I'm into.

Who isn't into high boots, wacky furniture design and stupid record covers?

Besides, any blog thingy which talks up the jerky New York accents and rocking soundtrack in The Taking Of Pelham 123 has to be worth following.

It's Time To Fire Up Firefox

Most of you still persist with the lunky and hideously vulnerable to security attack, Internet Explorer. It's time to switch to the recently upgraded Firefox.

Don't worry about your boss. Firefox is free for everyone, yes that's everyone including companies, to use. I don't get why Firefox isn't standard in the Australian workplace. It's strange. IT Managers swear by it on their work and play computers but can't seem to convince the rest of their workplaces to switch over.

And don't worry about losing your bookmarks during the changeover. Firefox does it all for you.

In the www's olden days a new web browser release was kind of special. Like giddy pop fans, we would count down the days before we could download the latest Netscape Navigator. When that day came we'd fire up Trumpet Winsock, and ftp like crazy until the early dawn.

Then Internet Explorer happened.

Most of us got lazy. Internet Explorer came already installed on Windows 95 so why bother with another browser? Internet Explorer got lazy too, without a big upgrade for yonks. It's so 1997!

If you already run Firefox, it's a good time to upgrade to the new version. Firefox 1.5 runs smoother than previous and most importantly prevents the popups which were starting to fool the alleged "popup free" browser. And my fave extension, "Add Bookmark Here" works with the new version.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. The new Firefox runs much smoother on my second machine, my pretty blue G3 Mac. Much better than Safari.

You can get Firefox by following the light blue advertisement to the right hand side of this page.

Miaow, Alex Papps Is Back!

Everywhere I went this weekend I caught up with and accidently bumped into friends from my olden days. Weddings and barbeques are good like that.

Of the many I said, "Sheesh, it's been a long time," to is old university chum, rock star and boating enthusiast, Beth Proudley, whose blog thingy, [m i a o w] the cat is bigger (878 entries to my tiny 258!), and much better looking than mine.

Talking of bumping into people from ye olden days....

Get this.

Friday night and a small group of us were outside a restaurant, talking up 80's heart-throb, Alex Papps. And Jeff, my mate who's toured with Keanu, mentions he's met Papps through an old friend a few times. Funny Papps stories ensue and then we go inside to eat.

Ten minutes later we're sitting in the restaurant waiting for entrees and who walks in?

ALEX FREAKING PAPPS.

And Jeff did know him. As we were leaving Jeff started talking to the Papps. They talked for a long time. Papps tells Jeff he's about to sign on to do an extremely popular kids TV show.

The Papps is back.

Unbelievable.

Okkervil River: They're So Hot Right Now

Two foriegn bands played in Melbourne last night. One is the best touring, live rock'n'roll band in the world right now.

The other is Oasis.

With three or four encores (I lost count, delirious) Okkervil River were incredible at Ding Dong last night. Don't dare miss 'em.

Oh yeah front bloke, Will Sheff is doing an acoustic thing at the Old Bar next week.

Here's a piss-funny/beautiful bit of the band bio written by Sheff on Okkervil River's lovely lookin' website...

I sat in the woods for hours. I listened to nothing but the Incredible String Band for a whole year. I became convinced the world would end in 1995. I became unconvinced of that. Seth said one day the world would shake us all like dog water. He later got arrested for drawing a stick figure picture of a bankrobbery in Mascoma Savings, but was released because he promised to take lessons with the police sketch artist. It felt like nobody had ever been alive before. Friends around us sank into delirium. My father asked that the school not expel me as a personal favor. Meanwhile we were making masks and holding secret ceremonies and trying to chase God out from beind the houseplants, beautiful and just as pretentious as we. And we played music under a thousand different band names.