Dark Side of the Fruit Loop

On Saturday night i am going, with a very good friend, to see the band Mars Volta in concert. and I'm scared.

Partly because to me Mars Volta's music sounds like I'm being chased through a musical instruments store by a bunch of angry, stoned mexicans, who are themselves being chased by a herd of stoned, angry elephants with trumpets surgically attached to their trunks but the elephants are always sucking helium so every note they blow is in falsetto which shatters all the windows in the musical instruments store which is actually located inside a small schizophrenic hamster's head.

All of this is fine when it's in the form of a cd in the safety of my own home, but in concert? I mean how much prog rock can one person handle?

Just look at Syd Barrett of the progiest of prog rock bands: Pink Flloyd. Thats right he's dead. Dead from too much prog rockin'. Sure the doctors might tell you it was "pancreatic cancer", but what would they know? They may also tell you he died 38 years after he left Pink floyd, but thats the thing, once you got the prog rock you've got it for ever. You end up sitting in the corner of a room counting your fruit loops as you eat them in bizarre time signatures.

So i'm looking forward to the concert, for the chance that it just may change me for ever, as only prog rock can. I like fruit loops.

"Looking back 2020"

So tomorrow is my birthday. And I'll be 20. I know it's not old but when you've been a teenager for the past seven long years it seems like a big leap. Twenty, it's just ten years from thirty, but ten years ago i was ten and that seems like ages. So, at the risk of being completely self centered, i thought i'd review highlights from the last 10 years of me.

10 - I started learning percussion armed with two drumsticks and a practice pad. Drumming, although i never did enough practice, would provide me with an excuse to skip classes for the next 7 years.

11 - Bought my first album "Love This City" by the Whitlams. I didn't realise it at the time but it's a pretty big deal. Suppose i was ever on the show Rockwiz, they always ask the first album you bought. I'd be pretty happy saying the Whitlams as it's a good album that i still listen to today. My brother on the other hand would have to say "So Fresh Volume 6". I also played softball, not very good at catching in the outfield.

12 - Totally missed the Pokemon craze due to the fact that i never bought any pokemon cards. Was hooked on my first real computer game Frogger 3D. Read "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" for the first time. Such a nerdy year.

13 - Started high school. Awkward high school dance with girl i was forced to dance with. Played volleyball, proabably because it didn't involve an outfield.

14 - I won tickets to my first ever concert, the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the entertainment centre. I was totally freaked out by some of the heavily pierced, tattooed, people wearing black at the concert. When i returned to see the Chili Peppers 4 years later i realised the same people i was freaked out by were now most of my friends.

15 - nothing significant.

16 - I started a band with my friends. We went through more band names than original songs and the one full original song we did write didn't have the most original lyrics, I'm pretty sure Sting wants his lyrics back. It did have the most original title though, for no reason whatsoever, "Jesus in a Milk Bottle". Also i drank alcohol for the first time, kinda.

17 - I finished High School. Started Uni. Psychology was probably a bad choice, but i didn't know it yet. Got a car.

18 - Discovered beer and realised i liked it. Tried nightclubs and realised i didn't like them. 

19 - Realised the bad choice i made with uni and made a change for the better. Bought a camera and fell in love with taking photos. Started this blog. Started writing this post 30 minutes ago and it's almost 12 so i'd better finish otherwise i'll already be 20 and this post will be pointless. 

THE CHEESE MACHINE

If you thought the Terminator was cool. think again.

If you were impressed by transformers, get ready to be blown away. I know i was when my father brought home....

THE CHEESE MACHINE

Ok. Lets get some things straight. It doesn't make cheese, oh no, it slices cheese. I didn't know i needed a machine to do this, but thats ok. What i want to know is at what point does a 53 year old man decide he and his family need a CHEESE MACHINE?

Maybe it was when, after seeing the box on the shelf, he read that he could:

"Save money on pre sliced cheese with this slice of heaven"

Maybe it was seeing the picture on the back of self described "famous inventor" David Holcomb with his smug cheesy grin. A grin that i now understand to mean "hahaha you bought it suckers!"

Let me describe the CHEESE MACHINE. Well it combines two of the world's greatest inventions, that being the wheel and of course the guillotine. Having said that, pretty much it's just a plastic box that you put a block of cheese in. Then with the help of an unnecessarily large wheel on the side you push the cheese slightly out of the box, where you use the guillotine to slice the cheese. 

The instructions offer additional advice on the best ways to use your new CHEESE MACHINE:

"If cheese does not fit do not force cheese into Cheese Machine. Resize block and reinsert. If at any time you feel resistance, stop and check the machine."

Wait, wait, wait. Resize block? With what David Holcomb? How can i possibly resize my block of cheese without your "slice of heaven"? What would you recommend i do? nibble on it a bit?use a belt-sander maybe? or use... a...knife? 

That's right David, a knife. I can use a knife to slice my cheese, proudly carrying on the traditions of my ancestors who for centuries have each at some time or another toiled over a block of cheese, knife in hand, to create their own little "slices of heaven", which they would place on toast and melt under a starry outback sky, and maybe, just maybe they would look up and think "in the future, a machine will do all of this", well they were right, just a shame the machine's so shit.

Hot Seat

Like many people last month I was surprised and confused by revelations that WA Opposition Leader Troy Buswell had been.... 'chair sniffing'. 

Now i consider myself pretty hip, down with the new trends, i think i can safely say i can drop it like it's hot, drop it like it's hot, drop it like it's hot. I mean if it was raining i'd definitely let my peeps stand under my umbrella ella ella ay ay. But i digress.

Despite being "with it" I hadn't heard of chair sniffing. What i couldn't understand was what you get out of giving some one-on-one nostril time with Mr. seat. Not wanting to knock it without having tried it i decided to take the plunge.

I shut and locked my bedroom door to make sure i wasn't interrupted getting intimate with a chair. I stood by the door considering the chair that would be my first. It wasn't the sexiest piece of furniture i'd ever seen (forest green material cushion on 6 roller castors with a side lever for gas hight lift) but it'd have to do. I carefully knelt beside the chair and with my eyes closed i leaned in.  

snoooort!

I took a good two second whiff as the smell of the fabric entered my nostrils. Opening my eyes i waited for an effect...any effect...nothing. I didn't feel anything. 

Although i didn't feel the dizzying rush i had expected i had gained something so much more important. For now i can say, without fear of hypocrisy that you Troy Buswell are a loser.

Crazy in the Headline

I work in a newsagent and see some stupid things. Here are this weeks most stupid headlines from women's magazine covers.

"Bulldog Bridesmaid" (NW)

"How To Eat Like A Hot Chick" (Cleo)

"I Created Britney's MySpace" (Dolly)

and my personal favourite

"A Crazed Roo Tried To Drown Me" (Take 5)

Bus Stop

I was sitting on a seat at my local shopping centre bus stop, wondering just how evil a person you have to be to get the job of working out uni timetables that resluts in me having to sit at my local shoping centre bus stop at this hour; and listening to Silverchair, trying to make sense of daniel johns' lyrics (i didn't).

Waking from my stupor i discovered, to my horror, that my fellow commuters had resorted to something that i couldn't have imagined, something that sickened me... they had begun queuing. 

Why queue? There's more than enough seats on the platform for everyone. Do they all have hemorrhoids? What are the chances of 15 strangers all having hemorrhoids? Is it contagious? 

This sent my mind racing. How contagious could it be? Was I in danger just sitting here or did there have to be some kind of physical contact? Even worse, was there some kind of massive disgusting all night orgy at the hotel across the road that had resulted in a bad case of 'roids for all 15 people and an awkward trip on the bus to their respective  jobs?

Or, even more sickening than that, was it some kind of display of societal cohesiveness? Did everyone decide that instead of the the usual scuffle for the front of the queue, the brawl to be the first one to hand their $3.20 to the driver, that they would all be nice stand in line and no one would get an A-frame in the groin? 

As the bus pulled up i carefully walked to the back of the line, past the nymphomaniac accountants and pensioners and, keeping a safe "i'm not with them" distance, joined the queue. 

i AM iron man

Movies change me. Not physically. In the head. I'm not talking about Clockwork Orange style neurological torture, this is regular voluntary, stale popcorn, sticky floor, cheap Tuesday, cheap thrills movie going. It's crazy i know, but there's something about isolating yourself from the outside world to stare at a wall for two hours that leaves a crazy impression.

The most recent example for me was Iron Man. Sure it's predictable: Dude invents iron suit, saves world, gets the girl, credits roll. But somewhere between the first explosion and the "no animals were harmed in this film" disclaimer I've been transformed.

I walk out of the cinema and suddenly everything's different. The short lob of my coke bottle to the bin is suddenly a grenade perfectly hitting the evil terrorist's bunker. The kids playing time crisis in the arcade are allies giving me cover as i walk to the carpark. Even my car seems to go faster as i negotiate the superfluous speed bumps. "10 km/hr! Eat my dust Westfiled."

I promise you i'm not crazy. I don't have some gun fetish. I just know that after i saw the latest 007 movie it took me 10 minutes to start the ignition because i was convinced there would be a car bomb.

Don't be concerned, i'll be ok. Just don't be surprised if you find me digging up your garden after watching Indiana Jones next week.