More great music

Thanks to Mirjana for this one.

Pearl Jam and hip hop

How to get engaged in four simple steps

Some footage from Saturday night . . .

Obviously not filmed by myself . .


NIN: Wish live with Ben & Greg from The Dillinger Escape Plan - Adelaide, 2.28.09 [HD] from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

Alice In Chains and Nine Inch Nails live

On the weekend I went to Soundwave. Not a huge festival guy, but I wasn't going to turn down the chance to see a reformed Alice in Chains. The fact that Nine Inch Nails would be there too just sealed it.

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of turning up too early. I was sitting round my home around 3.30pm doing nothing, and thought "This is stupid, I may as well just go down to the show". I got there around 4, and spent three hours listening to really crappy heavy metal and punk bands. I got quite bored, and started doing things like lining up to buy an icecream just to kill 15 minutes.

At around 6.30pm I went over to the front of the stage Alice in Chains were going to be playing, and found it mainly desserted, because there were some crappy Canadian punk band playing on the adjacent one. So I waited half an hour, and found myself around ten rows back from the front when Alice in Chains came on.


It was an interesting group of people watching their set - I saw one group of three guys with one wearing a Pearl Jam shirt, the other a Tea Party one, and the third Faith No More. In a sea of tattooed and pierced punk rock kids, there was just a little island of regular thirty-ish guys, who looked like me and my friends.
Alice in Chains came on at about 7pm - the three original, non-dead members, with new singer William DuVall. Who may be the coolest looking rock star ever. Kind of like Shaft fronting a grunge band.


I'd forgotten what a great guitarist Jerry Cantrell is, his lead playing was a lot more complicated than I remember on record. And while they didn't quite nail the exact sound of Layne-era Alice in Chains, it was pretty damn close.


After their set I moved 50 metres to my left and waited for Nine Inch Nails. I was really looking forward to seeing them, but the early start was starting to take its toll on me, and part of me just wanted to go home. Nevertheless, they didn't disappoint. Playing as a four piece, they mainly covered songs from their first few albums. Highlights were "Terrible Lie", "Suck", and their encore performance of "Wish", with half of Dillinger Escape Plan joining them on stage. Amazingly noone got injured during this song.

Overall I was glad I went, although next time I'd stick to the plan and only go for bands I wanted to see.

Underbelly 2

Last year I refused to watch "Underbelly" while it was on TV. This was mainly based on my experience with Aussie TV dramas, which tend to be really crappy. The few bits I did catch didn't do anything to change my mind. But once it was finished, I was given a DVD with downloaded copies of the episodes, and gave it a shot. I watched the whole thing in a few weeks and actually quite enjoyed it. Perhaps it was the fact that it was based on real events, some of which I vaguely remembered occuring in the nineties, made the difference.

Anyway, I went into this year's "Underbelly 2" expecting more of the same, but was disappointed for the first two weeks. Mainly it was just Matthew Newton (son of Bert/real life domestic abuse convictee) smuggling drugs into the country, having sex with a variety of girls, and occasionally executing a subordinate. Not terribly exciting.

This week's episode was fantastic though. I loved the whole war between Ray-Chuck, and the two brothers who looked like band members from "Almost Famous". Although I didn't really find Sally from Home & Away believable as a grown up, she still looks like she's 20 years old. And it did seem a little strange that Ray-Chuck's guys emptied two machine gun's worth of ammo into a guy in a small bathroom and there weren't any busted tiles.

It was easily the best hour of the series, and it looks like it will continue into next week, with the introduction of Chopper Read. I was seriously considering phasing this out of my rotation but will stay with it a bit longer now.

Destroying the planet one dolphin at a time

Friday night I picked up my new car (necessitated by my run-in with a certain senior citizen a few weeks back). It's a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and I love it.

Of course, being a huge environmentalist, I don't like the fact that everytime I drive to the local blockbuster somewhere an innocent dolphin, or perhaps baby seal, dies. But on the other hand, I feel like Tony Soprano when I'm behind the wheel of this thing, so it all balances out.

My favourite part is the interior. Leather (heated) seats, wood-look panelling, a ten disc cd stacker . . . it's more comfortable than my lounge room. And I like the fact that I feel safe in it, you get the feeling that elderly and/or Asian drivers would just bounce off.

The downside is that the insurance company would only insure it for $11,000, $1500 less than what I paid for it. Which is crazy because they just paid me $5,000 more than what my last car was actually worth. I guess I'll have to concentrate on avoiding accidents from now on.

Guitar Hero World Tour

Friday night I had friends over for a BBQ, and movie in the backyard (after the votes were tallied, Fargo was the chosen film).

Before the movie started though Ash brought his new Guitar Hero World Tour game and we played that. Although my playing time was limited, trying to cook a BBQ and be a gracious host and all, everyone else seemed to enjoy it.

Especially Gav, who put his hand up to sing on almost every song, and got into character with the sunnies, and ad libbing little bits like "Hello Adelaide! How y'all doing?" during the song intros.

Anyway it was great fun, and I'm looking forward to doing it again, and perhaps spending a little more time rocking out with At the Drive-In and Tool then.

Weekend recommendations

Three things that I have experienced this weekend and would recommend to you, my reader (and presumably) friend.

1. Kefi

After hearing rave reviews from a number of people, we got takeaway from Kefi, a greek place on Tapleys Hill Road at Glenelg North last night. I would highly recommend.

To start of with, the serves are huge. I'd been warned of this so we just ordered one lamb souvlaki to share. It came with two skewers of lamb, delicious potatoes, salad, and some garlic-y sauce. I (barely) finished my skewer, Michella finished half of hers, and her dog Noah got the rest.

It tastes delicious too. I'm no major food critic, but this was good stuff.

2. Life on Mars

This month's Rolling Stone came with a dvd of the first episode of this series (apparently it starts on channel ten in February). Normally I'd ditch this kind of thing, but I noticed it starred Harvey Keitel, Christopher from "The Sopranos", Lisa Bonet (the hot girl from the "Cosby Show" who married Lenny Kravitz), and Lester from "The Wire". It was like I cast the show myself.

So I sat down and watched the dvd and thought it was pretty good. Its based on a UK show which I'll never watch, and is about a cop who gets hit by a car, and wakes up in 1973. You presume its part of a coma, but you don't really know. Anyway, he's a cop back then too, so he solves mysteries which may or may not have a bearing on current 2008 events.

I think I'll stick with it for a while, since I'm too lazy to get an aerial installed at my house I'll have to download the episodes.

3. The Free Darko Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac

I ordered this off Amazon a week or two ago and it arrived on Friday. To tell you the truth I have no idea what these guys are talking about half the time, but the pictures do look awesome.

Understanding in a Car Crash

I haven't been involved in a car crash in a long time. About twelve years ago I was driving with Gav as a passenger, and we got rear ended by a 4WD, and that was the last time (for me, not Gav, that set him off on a streak of car accidents for the next twelve months).

That streak came to an end on Saturday though when I collided with an elderly driver with either a poor attention span, a poor understanding of give way signs, or possibly both.

Luckily, neither of us were hurt, although she seemed pretty confused afterwards. Its possible she was like that normally though, I'm sure I will be by the time I reach my 91st birthday.

My car was a total write off, which was actually kind of a plus, since I wasn't all that attached to it. And it was insured for more than its current value.

The insurance company came through pretty well too - they took a look at the car this morning, declared it a write off straight away, and put the money into my account (allegedly) this afternoon.

So now I get to pick out a new car, which will be fun. Stay tuned to see what I come up with.

Quick DVD roundup

While Gav's breakdancing was the most entertaining thing I saw this weekend, I also caught a few good movies on DVD.

Friday night saw Wall-E, which I rather enjoyed, even though it was a little uneventful. As its an animated feature I presume its aimed at kids, but I wonder how it would hold their attention. The first half hour or so doesn't feature much dialogue, just a few lines of robot talk, and I found my mind drifting a bit. It picks up in the second half though, and the animation was fantastic.

Last night I sat down to the new X-Files movie. I was a big X-Files fan in the nineties, although I guess there weren't a lot of other options on TV back then. I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of it, but it was pretty decent. At one point Michella even said "You know what, this isn't actually a bad movie". They should put that quote on the DVD cover. Of course, that was before all of the limb amputations started. Still, you could do a lot worse than this, and Dana Scully is looking as good as ever.

Cocktail Party

I could write a whole bunch about the cocktail party I went to last night, but really all you need to know is contained in the following video . . .

Best Seinfeld episode ever

Watching the Seinfeld DVDs Paul gave me for Christmas, I came across my favourite episode of all time - "The Voice".

It's got it all - a great Kramer plotline with his intern, George openly hated by his colleagues at Playnow and loving it, Elaine backsliding with Puddy, and the best use of music I've ever heard in a sitcom . . .

The Wrestler

I'm not sure if the movie guys are making better movies, or I'm getting better at picking them, but I'm on a bit of a streak with quality films the last month or so. Last night I saw The Wrestler, which was the best movie I've seen in a while.

Before we got to the cinema though, we stocked up on snacks at the IGA opposite Adelaide Uni on North Terrace. I'd never been there before, but it rules. Possibly because they have all of the international students as their clientelle, they stock a big range of American soft drinks and confectionary, and even Krispy Kreme donuts. I grabbed a Cherry Coke and packet of Allens Party Mix, but felt like I could have really gone crazy with all the good stuff they had.

We saw the movie at Palace, because we're classy like that. Looking at the list of films showing there, the place has definitely changed. It used to be all art house and foreign movies, but now you can see stuff like "Quantam of Solace" there. Possibly it's because they've expanded into the old IMAX theatre, and there's not enough weird stuff out there to show on the number of screens they have now. Really the only difference between there and Marion is they don't show the "Day the Earth Stood Still" or "Marley and Me" type stuff.

If you watch the trailer below you'll get a pretty good idea of what The Wrestler is about. Mickey Rourke plays a washed up wrestler from the eighties who's a failure financially, and in his relationships, but still loved in the wrestling community. He struggles to find peace in the outside world but only gets it when he's in the ring, and surrounded by his fans.



Throughout the movie he strikes up a bit of a relationship with a local stripper (the always lovely, and often these days naked, Marisa Tomei), and tries to reconcile with his estranged daughter.

Apparently the studios wanted Nic Cage to play the main role, which would have been terrible, but the director stuck with Rourke, and he's perfect for the part. He looks like a guy who has spent years abusing his body, and propping it up with all types of drugs. Hopefully someone gives him an award for this, he deserves it.

The way the film is shot is great too. It's so natural that it feels like a documentary at times.

Anyway, I loved this, and highly recommend. And if you don't trust me, like I know some of you don't (I'm sorry Paul, but I really thought 8MM would be good), Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 98% rating. And that's from professional movie reviewers, so you make up your own mind . . .

Where in the world is Julius Hodge?

Last night Paul and I went to the Powerhouse to see Julius Hodge and the Sixers take on Wollongong.

Except that Julius Hodge didn't show up. We knew something was up when we couldn't see a black guy in a Sixers uniform during warmups. A quick count revealed though that there were 12 players in uniform, so Hodge wouldn't be appearing. As of writing this, there's still no explanation for where he was.

It was a great game anyway, close most of the way. It's really weird watching an Adelaide team that isn't just based on shooting threes, between Schenser (25 points) and Ballinger (20 points) we were going inside almost every time. Bruce kind of redeemed himself for me after single-handedly losing the game the last time I saw the Sixers, and Maher had a fantastic streak in the third quarter where he scored 14 points.

Jacob Holmes should never be allowed to shoot, no matter where he shoots from, it looks like it's not going in. And Cooper did that thing where he took a twenty foot jump shot for no other reason presumably than he felt like he deserved it. It did not go in.

Also noteworthy was the fact that they haven't changed the music there since Paul and I had season tickets in the late nineties. And some guy proposed to his girlfriend in a timeout. Classy and romantic. Finally, we won, which is always a plus.

Work

Today was my first day back in the office after the Christmas break. Actually I should say is, it's still going. It feels like I've been here forever.

Mirjana gave me a daily time wasting calendar for Christmas, and so far today I've already caught up on all the days I missed because I wasn't at work, so had better stuff to do. My favourite one was the page for today, 5 January, which involved finding as many country names as I could in a word jumble thing. I think I got them all.

I also responded to an email we received from two women who were complaining that they had to pay double the amount each for a hotel room than couples have to. I wanted to suggest that they might like travelling together sometime, to cut down on their costs, but I think they mainly prefer writing emails together. Their email address sounded like it came from a cult. I hope the Federal Police don't find my email response when they raid their compound.

I went shoppping at lunch time today. I like to wait until a bit into the sales, when the shops get a bit more desperate to get rid of their old stock. Today it paid off big time, I got a fancy new Sportscraft shirt at Myer marked down from $129 to $44.25. I used a $50 voucher work gave me for ten years of service to pay for it. I'm not sure if I feel good about that or not.

I'm thinking ahead to tonight now. My home time is precious now that I'm back at work, there's only a few hours a night and I don't want to waste them. I think I'll spend them going to the gym, then watching old Sopranos episodes (not a waste at all).

I'm back

Well, it's been a while, that's for sure. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to keep doing this, but the outcry from all five of my readers convinced me to give it another go.

In broad terms, since my last post I've turned 32, celebrated Christmas, and perhaps my quietest new year ever, taken a few weeks off of work, bought an awesome new guitar (pictured below), and eaten roughly 200 Subway cookies (I can't recommend these highly enough, especially the double choc ones, and the white choc and macadamias).


I've been trying to branch out a bit lately with music (ie not listening to the same Damien Rice cd over and over) and so have been downloading a bunch of stuff then listening to it in my car. Some of it's old music I missed the first time round like Dinosaur Jr, and there's some new stuff like The Gaslight Anthem. I'm loving their new one, The 59 Sound. It sort of sounds like a cross between punk and classic American rock like Sprinsteen and Tom Petty. Actually, a lot like Bruce Springsteeen. Here's an example . . .



I've also been on a bit of a GNR kick, reading Stephen Davis' excellent biography "Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N Roses". Despite the fact that pretty much none of the band members (other than the possible exception of Izzy) come across as being even remotely likable, I really enjoyed the book. It was kind of surprising to read that the best stuff from the Use Your Illusion albums, like Don't Cry, November Rain, and You Could Be Mine, actually dated back to the Appetite for Destruction days. Which means that the band had pretty much ran out of good ideas by about 1988. Having said that, I did buy Chinese Democracy the week it came out, and really like it. Definitely the best thing to come out from the band since the first album.

I've caught a few movies in the last week - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Slumdog Millionaire. While they aren't my favourite type of film (I prefer movies where characters say cool, witty things then shoot people), I liked both of them. Slumdog Millionaire was the better of the two, and I'd recommend that to just about anyone. I'm never going to India though.

Of course Christas was just a week or so ago, and the best gift I got this year was "Call of Duty: World at War" for my PS3. Here's the trailer . . .



I'm loving it so far, the graphics are amazing, the action is always intense, and it feels like you're in a movie. I've tried playing online a bit but I suck really bad at that. Mike/Corey/Ash - you guys need to get this game so we can play online together. Hopefully you're all as bad as I am.

Speaking of generally sucking, my fantasy basketball team should be ashamed of itself this year. I can't blame any one of them in particular, but outside of KG, J Terry and Ben Gordon they've all been a huge disappointment to me. Not much I can do but sit back and hopefully they develop some pride in the next few months.

That's about all I've got for now, hopefully it won't be another two months till my next update.