O HAI

Aaron: Ahh, blog. It’s good to see you. I’ve logged in and out, in and out of you (sensuously) during the holidays and could not find a single motivating topic to write about. And now I’m back at University, and the hard study life of an Arts student (3-4 days a week) is taking its toll. I feel compelled to do anything except read over my first week notes, prepare for tutorials and instead tend my online village Sexytownvillestein on Travian and write a nice, insightful blog post.

I think there’s just something about holidays that make me… content. And more so than the average person, I think. Or at least I’d like to think I’m more content than you. Deal with it. Anyway, now that I’m back at Uni and waiting for my body to adjust to routine yet again, I just feel uneasy, uncontent, unsatisfied with where I am in life.

I’m getting older, I’m almost out of my teens, and I just feel like I’ve barely done anything. I enjoy what I do in my spare time, I really do! But when I’m spending my weekdays travelling on public transport to and fro to a place where I sit and listen to people talk for a few hours everything  just seems so pointless and futile.

I don’t mind feeling like this though, it motivates me to change things around and make decisions I wouldn’t usually. So it’s nice to be feeling motivated(ish), but I also miss being spontaneous and not achieving much

Visual Representation of being Barraged. I am the goblin, not the rock.

I suppose I’d better get over this adjustment period, it’s affecting my Magic skills.

There’s a few things I want to cover when I’m motivated in the week, and hopefully we’ll see another wonderful spike in viewers, which have been surprisingly consistent over the past few weeks.

Also a minor quip here, one of my all-time favourite bands The Fall of Troy have broken up. They’re probably not everybody’s cup of tea (musically, they aren’t anybody’s cup of tea literally) but if you take the time to listen you’ll be exposed to some amazing guitar work and amazing song structure. Their best work, in my opinion, comes on their Ghostship Demos which became the masterpiece which is ‘Phantom on the Horizon’.

‘Nostalgic Mannerisms‘ is part 3 of that album. They’re finishing off their last tour soon, and I’m really disappointed I’ll never get to see them live again (I saw them once before I knew who they were, and they blew my mind).

Thanks for reading, talk soon.

The Time Has Come

Tom: Tomorrow I return to university. It’s been an enjoyably long break but it’s time to go back. With my return to uni I’ve decided that despite having posted nothing in a long, long time, I’m going to make an effort to put some more stuff on here. Surprisingly, my weekly status report says people are still visiting this place. For the strange souls who appear to have bookmarked us, be prepared for an actual update.

Now, the actual content that I will be posting has yet to be determined. In fact don’t be surprised if it’s just photos of miscellaneous objects from around my house.

The Frog

Tom: It was dark and I was leaving my house through the front door when I realised there was something slimy on the door knob. I turned on the light to find…

There was frog on it.

After taking plenty of photos I tried to move him (or her, I wouldn’t know how to check) to the garden. He secreted some kind of clear fluid on me and leapt from my hands out into the night. Initially I was afraid that he’d used some sort of defence mechanism but it turns out he just peed on me.

Fusion and The Future

Tom: This story caught my eye earlier today.

Maybe this means I’m an optimist. Or even a sucker; a fool. All I know is that when I meet Moses, the 60-year-old scientist who runs this place, and he shows me a tiny pellet, about the size of the multivitamin I take every morning, and swears it will provide an endless supply of safe, clean energy, I want to believe him.

Personally, I believe the next major step in technological evolution lies in fusion power. As the non-renewable energy sources of our planet begin to dwindle, people are already looking at greener ways of making electricity. Not only can fusion provide energy with little to no carbon footprint, it produces it at a scale that could provide for our ever expanding population and allow us to achieve things like inter-planetary travel. Isaac Asimov explained that the next level of technology  after constructing flying machines is to take control of our own primary. Fusion would achieve this by replicating the forces that power the sun, ushering humanity into a new age of science and technology. Or maybe I just read too much science fiction.

First Day With My Shiny New Camera (it’s actually black but, yeah)

Tom: My camera finally arrived in the post today. If I had another one I’d show you a photo of it.

After reading through the quick-start guide that came in the box, I decided to take it down to the park for a test drive. As I’m still learning the ins and outs of aperture size and whatnot, I took these ones with the camera’s automatic mode (click on the thumbnails to see full images).

I then proceeded to experiment with various settings like ISO and shutter time (the results of which I will not be posting as they all look terrible). Nevertheless, I’m getting the hang of it and I’m hoping to have some manual shots for you next time.

Overall, I’m finding the Nikon D40 a joy to learn on and you can expect plenty of photos to pop up on here and my new Flickr account. Until next time..

Some Things You Might Have Missed

Tom: While getting news has certainly been made easier with the advent of computers and whatnot, there’s a lot of stuff happening all the time. So much, in fact, that it’s obviously impossible to try and keep tabs on everything. So even though it’s past midnight and most people won’t be reading this until tomorrow, here are a few bits of today’s news you might have missed.

With the ratification of the Libson treaty, the Pirate Party now have a second seat in European Parliament and at 22, Amelia Andersdotter will become the Parliaments youngest member.

My political ambitions include a thorough revision and change of the copyright legislation, a complete removal of the patent system and a more balanced approach to security, safety and the market versus privacy, where the latter in particular needs to be taken much more into consideration. I believe in strong civil rights, even in a digital environment. (source)

Meanwhile, down in South Africa, fish stocks are dwindling and great white pelicans have turned to eating live gannet chicks. While certainly a neat trick for the pelicans, entire gannet colonies are in danger of being destroyed. With food scarce in the water, cape gannets (same bird family as pelicans) are spending extra time away from their nests hunting, leaving plenty of time for opportunistic pelicans to nab a quick meal. While this behaviour is a great example of adaptablity, cape gannets (who can live up to 25 years) are getting scarcer and scarcer.

That’s all for now as I am quite sleepy.

Hello Again

Tom: Kudos to Aaron for posting all week. I’m always interested in ways of forcing yourself to do things and I might even try something similar at some point. For now, I just thought I’d give you a little insight into what’s going on in my life/head.

This Saturday is my 18th birthday. Down here in Australia that means I will legally be able to drink, gamble and be charged as an adult. Yay! My only regret is I forgot to break a bunch of laws while I still could, but that’s ok, I’ll just have to do my wrong-doing internationally.

While I’m sure not much will actually change once I’m 18, I’m looking forward to being able to go to 18+ events like concerts. The timing is pretty good as concert season is coming up (actually, it could be a lot better. I could have turned 18 before concert season). But 18 or not, I still don’t have any money. To rectify that, I recently quit my job as a waiter at Sizzler and got myself two new jobs. The first is at the patisserie across the road from my house (so freaking convenient). The second is working for CBH, a company that handles most of the grainharvest in WA. The job is a few hours away so I’ll be staying with a friend’s family for a month. The job itself will be mostly labour but the pay is great and I’m thinking the time away will give me time to write. Or not. Either way, I get lots of money.

In other news, a hobby I’ve always meant to get into is photography. With my birthday on the way, I figured now was the perfect time and I enlisted some relatives to band together and buy me a camera. The result:

After consulting the the internet, I decided on the Nikon D40. Not only is it one of the cheapest DSLRs around, it’s apparently very beginner friendly. You can expect amateur photos to start popping up on this blog as soon as it arrives in the post.

That’s all for now but before I go, I suggest you have a read into the news of what happened to Professor David Nutt in the UK. Regardless of what your opinions are on the safety of drugs like ecstacy and cannabis, the way the government has written off his and the rest of the drug safety board’s scientific opinion in favour of a political agenda has scientists resigning like dominoes.

An Exercise in Motivation, Part 7

Aaron: It’s been interesting trying to force myself to write a post every day. I’ve learned a lot about what I do under pressure, and what motivates me to do things. In case I haven’t mentioned, I finished an exam on Saturday and I still have another four to go…and I’m the best procrastinator in the world. One of the tools I use to procrastinate is Magic Online, a wonderful interpretation of a great game online.

I play quite a bit of Magic: The Gathering. For those of you not in the know, it’s a fantasy collectable card game with a huge following around the world, with thousands of dollars of prizes and world-wide events being held weekly, and its a hell of a lot of fun. There’s quite a steep learning curve, and its even steeper the further you go into it. As it’s been around since 1993, and has around 10,000 individual unique cards available to play with, it represents depth and innovation in many ways rarely seen in the modern games industry. I’ve really gotten into it in the past few months, and a few new sets and ways to play are being released every year, and it’s definitely one of my favourite hobbies.

There’s this format called Limited Booster Draft which I’m quite enamoured with at the moment. The ‘Limited’ part just means there’s only a limited amount of cards to choose from, and in Booster Draft, these are unopened packs of 15 random cards. On a table of 8 people, each person opens a booster pack and takes a card, then passes the rest of the cards to their left. Keep doing this for each of the 15 cards, and then do the same for another 2 packs. Now, the intense amount of strategy involved in what to keep, what to pass, what to pick, how to build the deck, becomes overwhelming unless you’re really aware of the cards in the format, and guessing what people around you are building as well.

That probably wasn’t the clearest explanation of exactly what it is, but it’s just one of hundreds of ways to play unique and skillful games using the same sets of cards. And it’s my choice for Game of the Year. And because it’s my own awards and that’s the only contender, it’s also the winner.

Well, I’m very tired, and its been a tiring week. Thanks for reading.

An Exercise in Motivation, Part 6 (The Black Eyed Peas)

Aaron: I missed my post yesterday. I had an exam, I was doing other things in the afternoon… It’s amazing even in a exercise to motivate myself I give myself excuses on why I couldn’t do the thing I really wanted to do. Anyway…

Today I watched my weekly two minutes of television, and switched the channel to Channel [V] or something similar. Number 5 on the whatever-who-cares chart was The Black Eyed Peas’ Meet Me Halfway, which I’d never heard before. From what I heard, it was more of that radio-oriented, auto-tune laden garbage, but hey, I think, I haven’t listened to the album, so I won’t judge. I try to keep that opinion on things, but then number 4 was also The Black Eyed Peas, with their hit-smash-super-hit-chart-topping-hit I Gotta Feelin(g?). I’d only heard the song in passing at various clubs and things, and thought it was a good club song, and did exactly what it was designed for, singing along and dancing to.

I watched the video the whole way through. And the lyrics…I can’t even…I don’t…

I’m not sure how much I can post here, but if we get sued or taken down then at least this blog is important enough to matter.

I gotta feeling…
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good good night

I gotta feeling…
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good good night

I gotta feeling… (Woohoo)
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good good night

I gotta feeling… (Woohoo)
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good night
That tonight’s gonna be a good good night

Apparently. Tonight. Is going to be. A good night. I don’t have a problem with a good chorus, and this is an example of a great hook, and it works. It does what it does, and everyone knows every freaking word. A two year old could work them out and sing them back, and that’s exactly what a pop hook is supposed to do. Well done, Black Eyed Peas. Lets go further.

Tonight’s the night
Let’s live it up
I got my money
Let’s spend it up
Go out and smash it
Like Oh My God
Jump off that sofa
Let’s kick it off

I think…I don’t…I… I’m pretty sure lyrics are supposed to have some form of meaning. This is great for a pop song, but how far can it go? This was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. ‘Tonight is the night, lets live it up. I have some money, lets spend it. Lets go out and smash (it?), like, oh, my, god. Jump off the sofa?’ Ugh.

After another couple of verses which both defame Jewish tradition and good grammar everywhere, there’s another hook! Another one? What are you going to treat us to, Will.I.Am?

Lets do it
Lets do it
Lets do it
Lets do it
And do it
And do it
Let’s live it up
And do it
And do it
And do it
Do it, do it
Lets do it
Lets do it
Lets do it

This was accompanied in the video by gratuitous party scenes, lesbians and Fergie prancing around in next to nothing.

Are they actually trying to single-handedly kill what music is about? In creating a good pop song, with ‘great hooks’, they’ve simultaneously killed all my brain cells and any musical talent they may have had before they released this. After another few lines about doing body shots and singing about days of the week, it comes to the end of the song, which is repeating the freaking hook from the beginning another thirty times.

I don’t actually want to hear this song ever again. It is horrible.

But I am going to. It’s a great club song. Everyone knows the words. I know the words. And with a few drinks in me, I think my rational musical mind will not care, and sing the hell along like everybody else. Well done Black Eyed Peas, even people who hate your music kind of like it too.

An Exercise in Motivation, Part 5 (The Da Vinci Wiki)

Aaron: I just finished reading The Da Vinci Code for the first time. Like many other fads and things, like Harry Potter and Panic at the Disco, I got into it far too late to be involved in the craze, and now I can examine the actual impact of the texts.

The Da Vinci Code was a very interesting book. The writing style left a little to be desired, but that’s probably just me being all smug and thinking that I know how books should be written. The plot twists and turns were satisfying and resolved quite nicely, if a little bit fast towards the end.

The worst bit about the novel was the ‘disclaimer’ at the beginning which claims ‘Fact: The Priory of Sion…is a real organisation’. This, among other claims in the introduction, left me feeling a little stupid when reading some chapters and not being able to decipher what was factual and what was not. So, as per usual when I see, read or listen to something new, I jumped on Wikipedia to make sure that somebody had spelt out things that I didn’t understand or completely realise while reading. I know I’m not the only who does that, but wiki-checking after watching a new episode of How I Met Your Mother or watching a movie really helps expand that great vat of general knowledge that I contain in my mind.

The Wikipedia article titled ‘Inaccuracies in The Da Vinci Code’ is wayyyyyy too long. It has seven sections of content, many of which have sub-headings…and they’re all quite ridiculous. Ranging from the regular religious rejection of the book to the fact that a plane mentioned in the book has piston engines as opposed to being a Turboprop, some of the ‘inaccuracies’ are ridiculously pointless, and are part of any fictional construct. You don’t see articles called ‘Inaccuracies in Tomb Raider’ with sub-headings of ‘Pistols Don’t Actually Have Unlimited Bullets Inside of Them’.

Actually, after perusing the Tomb Raider Wikipedia page, there is a sub-heading called ‘Nude Raider’. That’s close enough actually.

I was actually going to use this blog to complain about the ridiculousness of the backlash towards The Da Vinci Code, which is just a standard thriller novel, with its twists and turns that happen to incorporate Jesus. But then halfway through I realised it’s just people on the internet having far too much time on their hands.