Some happy happs.

Mum’s away for two weeks, well, more like another 9 or 10 days. She’s in Tasmania doing god-knows-what so I’m all alone, loving it, inadvertantly letting all her plants die (whoops).

I quit the war memorial because they were being ultra stingy with my shifts. As in, maybe one or two every couple of months. So I sent a four-paragraph resignation letter to the recruitment agency and received the response: “Thanks for your email and work at AWM.” – Always nice to feel like you’ll be missed…

Went to a proper rave a few weeks ago. By proper I mean it was free, held outside the law, in an actual warehouse. Smoke, lasers, all that. Cops arrived in no time, but let the fun continue as they could see no hostile parties nor drug dealers (must have been blind lol). Actually it was the best night out I’ve had in about 18 months at least. They even had the wisdom to put the electro-house DJ’s on first, so after their craptacular set finished (they fumbled just about every mix), there was only quality left on the line-up.

Tried to go see Avatar for a third time, but the plan was to listen to mp3′s instead of the film. This was foiled pretty quick by the guy next to me complaining that he could hear my wicked beats. So I just bailed and went home. I didn’t need to see the rest of that movie again, despite the great visuals.

I have my first proper ‘gig’ coming up on the 26th of March in an upstairs lounge-bar by the name of Hippo. Every couple of months the local dnb crew (friends of mine) put on a night called Voodoo and they asked me to play this one. Apparently it might only be me and one other guy, which means I could be playing for a couple hours at least. This has seen me all over beatport trying to find sweet new tracks to fill the time. Nervous, but it should be great. Photos will come afterwards.

Also got an invite to a private birthday party being held on a double-deck boat, on Lake Burley Griffin. It’s gonna be all the local dnb/dubstep DJ’s celebrating one of their birthdays, cruising around the lake on this boat, fancy dress, blasting beats. Looking forward to it.

That’s about it.

Work It Makes Us

Just finished Day 2 of the 11 straight work days in a row that I have to power through. At least however, it’s not all supermarket shit – I get this weekend and next saturday at AWM so I suppose it’ll break the monotony a bit… until I remember that AWM is possibly the most monotonous, boring, 7 hours of tedium ever devised by mankind. Standing, doing absolutely nothing, waiting for tourists to ask questions… sigh. At least I will be relatively wealthy by the end of it all, thus enabling me to revive my savings jar – which went back to $0.00 over Christmas.

Joey managed to convince me to set my sights on Melbourne again, but after he left I did a little research (read: sent 3 text messages) and found out the rental prices there are gonna be a lot more than I’ve ever paid before (150/week bare minimum). So… still tossing up between coming home and going there after tax time.
If anybody’s interested in doing the move with me, that would be crazy cool.

The festival I was supposed to be playing at was postponed a few weeks ago until March, and a couple days ago I was notified that the whole thing had in fact been cancelled due to red tape regarding council approval for the event. The paperwork and such was apparently going to take so long it would be pushed all the way back to May, which would apparently conflict with a whole bunch of other big events going on in ACT and interstate, so the organisers decided to call it quits and focus on staging it next year – by which time I surely won’t be here.

So that sucks some donkey phallus, but when this dude gets back from the UK I hope to land a set at a local bar event or two. Sigh.

Nothing else is new. Hoping EB will refund my $49 for CoD4:MW as it turns out this other laptop has integrated video, not the radeon mobility whatsit that the internet suggested it did.

Balls.

Anticlimaticanberra

So it’s New Year’s Eve, with 17 minutes to go according to Windows. But back to that in a minute.

Joey had been here for a week or something, which was great. We drunk many a brew, vaporised some plant material, shot the breeze. The highlight though would have to have been the Saturday when we put one of my more genius plans into action: seeing Avatar in 3D… on acid

Fuck me, that was some mad shiz. We hung around at home waiting for the trip to begin so we could settle into the madness in comfort, then hopped on a bus to some seemingly far away suburb for their non-allocated-seating cinema. The bulk of the trip was pretty standard, nothing that special (at least for me… but ask Joey about his love of Canberra buses…) but the movie was insane.

As far as plot’s go, it was essentially a modern take on Pocahontas(sp?) or Dances With Wolves. Unrequited love is a well-worn theme, but at least it isn’t as worn as some others, and they pulled it off quite interestingly.
I mean the story and script weren’t bad, they just were nowhere near as mind-bogglingly awesome and ground-breaking as the real reason everybody was there – the imagery. Words cannot really do justice to how good it really was, visually. If you see it, you have to see it in 3D, you simply must. If you don’t, it’ll be like porn with just the audio – kinda hot, but nowhere near as satisfying.

It was such an immersive experience that the acid started to work its way into the movie. Usually when I watch movies while tripping, the visual distortion and hallucinations dont affect it because pictures on a screen move too fast. But this was 3D yo, and really good 3D – not tacky cheap 3D like shit flying at you from the screen, but every shot was set up with real depth. Hence, what happened was the people in the movie and the trees and shit were behaving like real people and trees and shit do when you’re tripping. Nuts.

I’ll definitely be going back to relive the awesomeness before it leaves cinemas. I can’t even imagine watching it on DVD or even blu-ray when they get released because it’s supposed to be seen in 3D, and anything less will now surely be lame and unsatisfying.

Christmas was a non-event. Mum went to Sydney over that weekend, leaving on christmas eve. I spent the actual day sitting around in my underwear doing whatever the fuck I pleased, not answering my phone for anyone. Joey was tied up with his family shiz so we didn’t get to hang either.

Speaking of Joey, that dick <3, he left yesterday so this is why I’m home doing nothing for NYE (5 mins away now).
They’re having some free concert shit in the city, but with no one to go with… fuck it. I figured staying home might indeed be sadder than going out alone, but this way I can still get tipsy and not waste $$$, and go to bed whenever I want. A fair deal. I’d also forgotten that I have to work both days this weekend at the War Memorial, which killed my mood as I was looking forward to several days of sleeping in. At least I’ll be rich.

Also, at this stage I’m back to square one regarding where I want to move to in 2010. My savings went back to zero over christmas, so I figure I’m gonna have to wait until July for tax time which will makes things a whole lot easier. Oh yeah, Melbourne was the other place I was thinking – I mean most of y’all nigs are gonna end up there sooner or later anyway, right? Plus it’s way cooler than adelaide, you know it.

There goes 2009 btw, I’m enjoying boxers, bassdrive, and bourbon. Boss.

Gonna go outside and listen for sounds of neighbours making shit blow up in the sky. Other points I was going to write about but didn’t:

- met a stoner chick who loves dubstep but works heaps and is a little cold
- gonna quit the memorial because our contract agency are jerks with no christmas spirit (hypocrite, I know).
- out of weed (OH GOD THE PAIN)

I can also, now, legitimately say that I haven’t worn pants all year.

[Insert festive pun here]

I’ve been pretty busy slaving away at work lately, and hence by the time I get home I’m too fucked to bother with such trivial activites like updating a blog.

Lately though, things have been pretty sweet. I’ve had the chance to play out a couple times at these open-decks events some friends of mine put on at this cocktail bar by one of the lakes. It’s like open-mic but for DJs, so anyone can play if they manage to secure a slot.

The first time I went, it was a good turnout however most people played electro-house which was kind of a let-down. I wasn’t on until midnight and indulged a bit too heavily beforehand, and as a result my set wasn’t as good as I would have liked. However, by the end people were dancing and I got some handshakes etc so I was happy. The other thing was that the decks were set up in ‘battle’ position (with the tonearm and pitch slider at the back, rather than on the right) which I wasn’t used to, so that didn’t help at all. I use the pitch slider a lot when mixing and for it to be in a different place threw me right off.

The second time, the turnout was worse, but I’m proud to say my set went off. Played really smooth classy liquid dnb, which suited the lounge-bar atmosphere I reckon. Finished it with the 80′s classic ‘Take on Me’ by Aha, for the lulz. It went perfectly with a really deep spectrasoul track, and I bet if more people were there it would have been a hit. No matter, the people sitting around chilling loved it anyway.

After that time I got invited to play an upcoming festival here on January 30th.  It’s called the ‘Bikini and Board Shorts Festival’ – sounds like everything I despise about the festival scene, right? But a set’s a set and I’m sure it will have its positives anyway. It’s a 24hr event that aims solely to support local DJs and also raise money for the NSW firefighters or some shit.  Goes from 12pm saturday to 2pm sunday, and my slot is 3.30am – 5.00am on the main stage. Hopefully by that time anyone with a shred of raving respect for themselves will be cranking it the hardest I reckon I’ll play more of that dark bad-ass shiz that I used in the Bad Kitty mix, for the sake of those with amphetamines.

Aside from all that, nothing else is new. Went out last night to ‘Voodoo’, a local dnb event that occurs every couple of months at a bar in the city. I’ve also been told I can probably play at the next one of those too, which should be fun. The crowd last night were all really chilled, and despite one of the decks dying and someone having to go home to get a replacement, it was a great night.
I also learned last night that the disadvantage of canberra being such a small city, all the jerkwads you expect to see roaming the streets yelling things like “OI CUNT” etc are more concentrated and confined, so you see more of them when you’re out. I got to see a hysterical chick get beat on a little by a fully sik wog, but to be fair she was hitting him too (kidding yo, the guy was a fuckwit). Cops came and I didn’t get to see the result

I learned from my previous mistake re: bicycle security and made sure to lock my bike up right out the front of the police station. See, last time, I left it tied to a fence near a main road and when I came back at 4am it was some distance away, in pieces. Luckily we have like 4 bikes here so it wasn’t the end of the world (if you ask mum, it was).

So yeah, because of the possible upcoming gigs I’m delaying my move back to SA for a bit. I still miss the place more than ever, but I just don’t want to pass up the opportunites to play. Also I’m finally starting to meet some cool like-minded people here, so it’s a bit more bearable.

Oh and just so this post isnt too positive, it turns out mum’s leaving me here alone for christmas while she goes to sydney with her boyfriend. I dunno if it’s gonna be the worst christmas ever, or the best christmas ever. I’m working the day before and the day after, and on the day I’ll be home alone playing games and sleeping. Eh, whatevz.

Miss you guys, and did I ever mention we have a guest bedroom? (NOT A HINT AT ALL LOL)

Out.

My favourite part of the daily commute.

Bad Kitty

My new mix “Bad Kitty” is now up at:

http://djmeow.bat-country.be/mixes/

It’s a different sound to the usual liquidy Hospital stuff that I mix. This was inspired half by the deterioration of relations with my mother, and my dissatisfaction with my current situation… and half by the Critcal podcasts put out by Kasra every now and then.

So it’s long (2hr 49min 57sec), dark and deep, and a little bit aggressive. Perfect for the moody youth of today.

One issue you’ll find is that the treble is too high (due to using $40 dick smith speakers to monitor with ), so just adjust it on the equaliser of whatever you’re listening to it on and it’ll sound fine. Fixing it would mean either doing it all again (fuck. that.) or editing the whole file, which would also take a long time and probably make the fine-sounding parts sound shit. So yeah, fix it yourselves LOL.

Other than that, I’m quite proud of it, and think it’s probably the best of the one’s I have recorded.

Let me know what you think!

Tracklisting:

Lomax – Come and See
Eveson – Naughty
Inside Info – Sound Was Golden
Inside Info – Perfect Crime
Vicious Circle – Access All Areas
Spectrasoul – Seeing Stars
Evol Intent – Odd Number
Telemetrik – My Lightyear
Q-Project – Metapyzikz
Whizz & Daze – Future Switch
State of Mind – Dark Man (feat. Trei & Jabz MC)
Inside Info – Clover
Dom & Roland – Hear My Call
Alix Perez – Melanie
Dom & Roland – Electric Smile
Cern – Lucid State
Naibu – It Took a Long Time
Seba – Crockett
Break – Timeline
Spectrasoul – Alibi
Zero T – Inside Man (feat. Beta 2 & Steo)
State of Mind – Flash Point
Dom & Roland – Half Life
Spectrasoul – Submission
Dom & Roland – Boogie Down
Data & Nebulus – Geometry
Spectrasoul – Un-Earthed
Noisia – Facade
Calyx & Teebee – The Divide
Nymfo – Cybernetic Disorder
Spectrasoul – Dark Hour
Data – Hydrogen
Naibu – Common Perception
Spectrasoul – Adoration
Naibu – Screens
Alix Perez – I’m Free
Calyx & Teebee – Warrior
Sabre – Eye Contact
Icicle – Late Hours (VIP)
Loxy & Naibu – Hajime (VIP)
Naibu – Urban Sprawl
Telemtrik – Space Coke
Syncopix – Lost in Space
Naibu – Pacific
Alix Perez – The Resolution
Sabre & Icicle – Sentry
Survival – 5 Miles
D Bridge – Dolls
Logistics – Murderation
Trei – Too High
D-Kay & Kasra – Spider
Seba – Special Ops
The Funktion – Get Up

Pics or it didn’t happen

Just figured I’d up a few photos that related to recent events. First up, that pacman shirt I bought the other day:

Next pic comes from my shift today at the supermarket. Just as I’d finished and was buying yet another tin of mints to compliment my cigarettes, two scungy dudes who I could only assume were pro traffic-light windscreen-washers, or much more likely a pair of violent thieves, started an argument with our security guard.

They just wanted to get a pouch of tobacco and some rollies, but something had upset one of them and he shouted some incoherent word at no one in particular. The guard comes over and gives him the eye and tells him to quiten down and some mild antagonistic banter is exchanged.

Then the guy (I did say there were two, but the second just kinda stood there the whole time with this expression: @_@) changes his tone to a sort of pleading quality, and asks the guard for some tissue paper because he’d hurt his leg and “was bleeding a little”. The guard asks what happened to him, which was met with a string of profanities, a suggestion that the guard mind his own business, and now a firm demand for tissues.

By this point, the guy had bought his shit and I had my mints, and I was on my way out of the building. I glanced back real quick in case a fight was going to break out, thus giving me reason to stick around and lol. Anyway, it was at this point I noticed the guy ha seriously understated the extent of his injury.

Damn, just tried to upload the pic from my phone but realised I got a crap shot. Anyway, there was blood all over the floor and soaked about 4 inches of his pants from the bottom, and more was coming. When I left, he was vainly (LOL PUN) trying to mop it off the floor, but really just spreading it around.

I lurve ma jawb.

More assorted pics:

My supermarket pwnz sometimes.

GENTLEMEN

My work (one of 'em) is more bad-ass than yours will ever be

This is where I hang out with a black overcoat and scold children. And get paid for it!

Lulz now available for your consumption in a variety of flavours!

And that’s it for the time being.

New proposal

Ok I know the whole “drive over to ACT and pick me up” idea was a little far-fetched. However, I am serious about getting the hell out of here. So I’ve come up with a better idea if anyone’s keen before the year is out.

The plan is, I save monies and get my car registered. Then, I pay for someone’s one-way flight from Adelaide to Canberra (must have full driver’s license), and we meet up and then drive my car back to Adelaide.

This works out cheaper and easier for both parties, and is pretty much the reverse of how I got here in the first place.

As for what I’ll do in SA after that….. well, I’ll deal with that problem when it arises.

Tell your friends! Also, let me know if anyone wants to do it. Free trip to canberra, then 2 glorious days on the road with me!

Queen of the Narcs

The worst thing about not having any real friends within >300km, is that when your mother decides to start an argument after an actually quite reasonable day, and tells you to go to hell, there isn’t actually anywhere to go.

Being so broke, and thus with no alternative accomodation options, this tends to suck a whole lot of nuts.

The answer of course, is alcohol.

I hate that all these posts are so negative and melodromatic, but if anything great actually happened then I assure you I’d write about that.

I briefly considered just throwing my stuff in my unregistered/uninsured car and leaving tonight while she’s at a double screening at the National Film and Sound Archives. However I then realised that with only $20 left, I wouldn’t make it very far. Could probably get to Sydney, but then I’d be broke in Sydney with no direction.

So I’m putting a call out,  for those of you that do own legitimate modes of transport than can carry me, the decks, and a few clothes. I need out. I’m sure everyone is probably too busy managing their own lives, but if someone wants to drive all the way out here and rescue me I’ll reimburse the costs and then some. I figure selling my car in the meantime and continuing work will cover this.

I just can’t wait until I can afford to get my license, register my car, and do it myself. The situation is getting too cancerous to stand much longer. I could just sell most of my shit and hop on a plane and start over…. but I don’t want to abandon my turntables just yet, despite my lack of practice and therefore improving skill.

Let the drinking begin.

King of the Dorks

The best thing about not having any real friends within >300km is that you can be a complete and utter dork and there’s no one to give you shit for it. To explain, I’ll start as always on a negative note (are there ever any positives to these posts?) Yesterday was pretty much the worst day ever, which is surprising because no one died.

I’ll just list all the factors:

- Mood started off at zero, half due to the fact I was paid a week late and spent 8 days with $0.99 to my name. Half due to the fact that due to the aforementioned poverty, I haven’t had my zoloft for over a week and STILL can’t afford the scripts. Even if I had the money, I can’t even find the fucking things. Coming off hard hurts a fuckton more than easing off slowly, which sucks anyway. My last doctor upped my doseage from 100mg to 150mg, but Zoloft (or any generic sertraline) doesnt come in 150, it’s 100 and 50. So that’s doubled the cost of my scripts. Plus, if I can’t find these scripts I’ll have to return to a doctor to acquire new ones, which will be about $80. So $80, plus $30 each for the actual drugs, that’s $140 that I still won’t have for another week.

- Got berated all day by the Panjabi Hitler who operates under the guise of shift supervisor at the supermarket. Apparently not knowing the ins and outs of that place on FUCKING DAY TWO is unacceptable. It got the point where I adjusted my attitude from “must get everything spot on” to “devil may give a flying fuck if I’m only charging people for 90% of their groceries.

- Did actually get paid, but had to immediately give up $400 to repay the use of my mum’s credit card that I’d been using as I was broke for ages. Also overdue board. I still have god-knows how much to pay her after a ~50min phone call to a mobile in SA last week…. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE

- Some fucknut stole my half-empty pack of cigarettes from the locker room at work, but at least had the decency to leave my more important booty. Not to say the smokes aren’t important, and if any of you argue otherwise, violence will result.

- Found the best t-shirt I’ve seen in a while in town (off-tap Pac-Man munching a line of capsules), but the only size they had was L and I totally wanted M…. bought it anyway. Ok that one’s not so bad, but it all adds up!

- Got half-way home on my 30yo bicycle when the gears or whatever locked up and sent me flying sideways into a median strip, in front of the many amused rush-hour motorists. Unhurt, but the bike didn’t make it, had to walk the rest of the way and wash all my clothes AGAIN when I got home. – Continued to try to sort the pay-slip related headfuck with other workplace, resulting in rage and unhelpful comments from mum. – My watch stopped. Won’t start again. NFI what its problem is.

- Realised that the Dragon Dreaming psy-doof thingy I’d been looking forward to is this weekend and I’d let myself become broke again…. so that’s out.

- Back to lack of drugs, as well as not having the prescribed ones I’m also out of oxy and weed. Foolishly when I DID have oxy, I also had boredom, so munched and sniffed my way through 800mg in 6 days. So very ashamed. In the end it wasn’t even doing anything except induce nausea and fatigue. At least now I’m not as afraid of vomiting as I used to be.

GO TIM!

Ok, some positives. Today was day 3 on checkout chick duty and it’s not so bad now that I have some vague idea of what I’m doing. Lulz came from the realisation that for most of the day I was the only anglo-aussie there, and most of the fellow anglo customers were coming to me. Subtle racism? Coincidence? I like the former, it’s more lulzy.

Scoffed a bunch of St John’s Wort that I keep for zoloftless emergencies, and today it actually worked. So I was a bit sunnier as the day wore on.

h wait, another negative: For lunch I decided to give HJs a go as I figured it was justifiable considering I havent eaten that shit in over a month. However, being a born-again vegetarian, I had to order a vegie burger. Dude. Total disappointment. I want my $8 back. And they used to be so good

Back to positivity. After overcoming my bad mood yesterday with a generous dose of H-Bomb with the volume cranked and six-pack of whisky/coke, I decided upon a concept for a new mix. So now I at least have something to fill my free time. Only thing I can really say about it is it’s gonna be fucking long. As of last night I had 95 tracks on the list, and there will be more to come. Unfortunately I can’t really give it much attention tonight as I finished at 8pm, and start at 8am tomorrow… Leaving a slim window where I just might be able to sleep for 5 hours or so. No, fuck you, it’s not 12 hours for sleep. I get up at 6am for 8am shifts, but it’s not even 10 hours because I won’t get to sleep before midnight, especially with nothing to help me along to the land of nod.

Since my bike is boned, I had to ride the even OLDER bike to work today. To make matters worse, it’s a girl’s bike. However, I’ve decided I like it more. The seat is bike and springy, the gears actually work, and it has a massive-ass bell about the size of a decent apple. Not some piss-weak ding-ding number either, I’m talking PPPRPRPRPRPPRIIIINNNNNGGGGGG!!! Dat bell be bad-ass ringin’ n shit. Plus I decided this bike has even more retro appeal than the other.

This brings me to the post title and opening paragraph, which surely by now have been completely lost on you. See with this ancient girl-bike with huge bell, business slacks tucked into my socks to prevent chain rippage, knock-off raybans that are essential to fight sunlight during my commute (and are the only sunnies I own), helmet designed for a 12yo, hideous green tie flapping in the wind… I’m pretty much the dorkiest guy on the road for an hour each day. But there’s no one to pay me out for it, and I’m confident that if a stranger did, depending on their stature, my pent up stress from the past fortnight would unleash itself upon them.

A physical ejaculatory storm of foul language and violent release would suddenly be upon them, and the imagery of this possible scenario fills me with joy. Hell when I stacked it yesterday I was actually hoping some jerk would make a wise comment just so I’d have something to take out the frustration on. I’m not a very threatening guy either, and would most likely get my ass kicked, but my theory was that the whole baby-trapped-under-car-so-mother-lifts-car adrenalin thing would kick in, promoting even more lulz. So er… like… eh screw it. I’m now distracted by the Chronicles of Narnia on tv.

Totally forgot where this post was going. Considering moving this crap to WordPress (edit: LOL HERE IT IS) or something, just because I desire the ability for unregistered readers to post comments. Not even sure if WordPress allows that. Meh.

Point is, my supermarket stocks nos bulbs.