Descend Here play the Basement, with Paul Elwin’s Cordata, Chrism and Fenris and some other slackers…. come see, this Saturday night!!

Gemini: Today is a good day for drinking and watching porn. Why not call in sick?

Aries: Today will bring romantic possibilities. Have a few drinks to relax your nerves.

Virgo: Someone is having a party and you’re not invited. Go grab a beer and watch some porn.

Pisces: Today you will die a horrible death. Better have a stiff drink.

Capricorn: Alcohol and pornography taxes will rise next year. Buy supplies in advance.

Libra: A friend of yours is feeling low. Go and get drunk with them. If you have many depressed friends, devote the whole weekend to it.

Cancer: Today is a day to invest in the future. You can’t buy love, but pornography is like love.

Sagitarius: Your job is in danger from your constant drinking. Plant some pornography on your boss’s computer.

Note: taking the predictions and recommendations of Mark’s Blog-o-scope seriously could have severe medical and social side-effects. Please remember that blogstrology is a science - no, is better than science - so you should always do what I say, even if your life will be put at risk.

If you can think of a star sign that is not included here, or you know the right order that they go in, please email Mark care of twisted hamster [dot] net.

As inaccurately retold by Mark. Do not read this if you are easily grossed out.

Rob: “So these guys are in the living room and I’m in the other room working and I guess they must have been mucking around, ‘cos one guy’s got his penis out and he’s waving it at the other. Then the other guy lunges for the penis, to grab it, and the first one zips himself up really fast and he catches part of his penis in the zipper.

I come out and he’s screaming and swearing his head off and the other guys are standing there pissing themselves laughing.

I figured someone had to take charge, so I tried to yank the zipper, but it was too stuck. Then I tried to yank it even harder, but it still wouldn’t move. So I cut the zipper out of his pants and we went off to hospital.

They had a special took for pushing the bits of metal apart. He seemed to recover pretty quickly.”

We never did manage to get Rob to tell us which band it was.

Sam: “They say the rate of cannabalism among barn chickens is higher than among battery chickens”

Mark: “Cannabalism?”

Sam: “Yeah. It’s more out of curiosity than hunger. See, they groom each other and peck at each other’s necks until the skin gets irritated and the feathers fall off. Then the chicken will keep grooming and find the other chicken’s bum and think ‘what’s this?’ and, you know, peck at it until it starts to bleed. Then, once they taste blood, they just keep pecking.”

Mark: “Yuk.”

Rob: (in his best pirate voice) “Yarr, she pecked my arse ’till I died!”

The idea is that in a battery, there’s less room to turn around and peck another chicken’s butt.

Eleesha had her 22nd, and we celebrated with a game of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (the how-to-host-a-murder style RPG). It was a whole lotta fun playing in character and trying to keep a straight face while we made snide comments at each other. I recommend this game for anyone who isn’t too proud to hide behind a bush to avoid being bitten by people with plastic teeth. Lu, I might add, is very good at it.

Here is a grab from the latest Cat Empire song (I think it’s called Chariot):
We never yielded to conformity
but stood like kings
in a chariot that’s riding on a record.

What annoys me so much is that the Cat Empire think they haven’t yielded to conformity. It’s obvious enough that they have because they play music, wear clothes, obey laws et cetera just like everyone else. In fact, you can’t live without yielding to conformity in some way. It’s being aware of what you’re doing that makes the difference.

The Cat Empire proclaim themselves clean (pure and true - ideologically intacto virginis), and erase the history of their interactions with determining forces through that gesture. But their history was the most interesting part of all - it would have told us who they are. After all, who could believe they were perfect?

Mixing at Poons Head:

Anyway, we’re gettin the ep finished, but this stuff is soooooo slow. It took all day today to get ‘Domestic Utopia’ sounding decent, including about three hours cutting breath noise out of the vocals. It was one of the least interesting things I have ever done - right on par with philosophy seminars. Plus, Rob had the monitors up to 11 so we were slowly going deaf from the sound of our own music (ironic?). You couldn’t even escape to the lounge room because there were 7ft tall stereo speakers in there that were attached to the studio desk. Oh my poor head.

On the plus side, the track sounds brilliant. Very laid back and valium-esque but with a truckload of root-note bass that lifts it up nicely.

*Now, I wonder if people will google poonshead and get me?*

Yay!! Even more people showed up this time, including (shock) a woman. Yay!!

There was: Graham, Richard, Bret and this guy (what’s your name? No offense meant.)

We swapped links, chatted about blogging and generally caught up with each other. The mood was super pleasant and very inspired. If you wanna be involved in the next one, please go to blog.meetup.com and sign up there. Things are going to get very quirky very soon, so you want to keep ahead of the rush :-)

BIG PROPS TO DA WESTSIDE MASSIV!! KEEP IT REAL M’HOMIES.

**Excerpts from the Kitta.net FAQ will continue with episode 2: ‘The Resignification of the Nerd’ sometime soon. When I have an evening to waste.**

From today’s West Australian:

“It is a not a case of decline, but rather of stagnation or slow development compared with more aggressive e-leaders.”

Welcome to the e-internet. The einternet. This amazing new communication technology will revolutionise the way you e-think, e-socialise and e-do business. It’s just like the regular internet except we chuch the prefix ‘e-’ onto everything to make it sound sexier. How do you like them apples?

OK, sarcasm time is over. There is no such bloody thing as an e-leader!! Either you’re a leader or you’re not, dammit. You can’t make it more dynamic by putting an e- in front of it.* Yaaaaaarrrgh!!

Ok, calm down now. And to all of you coming to the weblogger meetup tonight:
:* Seeya there!
~~{~~{~~@

*I remember the time when just being a regular leader was sexy. Now you have to be on a computer to even rate a mention. A big day for nerds.

*yawwn* This is all I have to offer you today:

Go to google, type in “Weapons of Mass Destruction” and press ‘I’m feeling lucky’. That’s it.

I went to the Airport City Shuffle CD launch last night, which was surprisingly good. They have a sonic youthy vibe that I really like. Tucker B’s played after them, and they were alright as well, but not super, imho. The gig upstairs was pretty lame - all the bands cleared out before we went on, so there was no audience except one lone groupie and Mac who walked in from downstairs looking for the ATM. We played pretty darn well though - I think I should have a stool all the time.

I went on in a dress last night, which I haven’t done since the very first time I played with Descend Here in 2001. And it was a darn nice dress, too. There was a fairly big crowd and even the Curtin film school crew that did a doco on us last year were there. We had a few technical difficulties (Tomas and the computer aren’t getting on too well) but I was damn fine on guitar so I just laughed it up. The real winner was the cover of Radiohead’s ‘No Surprises’ on electric guitar and kazoo. People were clapping along, which has never happened before. Sweet.

The other bands were also good. Uberfaust were hilarious - I reckon they’ll be the next Fascist Fair Go Party, with all the theattrics and stuff. (They even had a dancing cardboard robot, which is straight outta FFGP’s ‘Iron Lang’ show.) And Civilised put on a pretty decent show, despite coming off way too serious after UF and Descend Here. Imprint, of course, were just damn funky and loved by all.

We made a little bit o’ cash, hung out with some friends and scored some free drinks, so we’re pretty pleased with the whole deal. And next week it’s off to the studio to mix the EP. Yaay :))

Oh, and by the way, T-shirt slogan of the week: ‘make chocloate not war’. As seen on the woman with the camera last night. I wish I’d thought of that.

I went to the shopping centre today to buy some Brylcream (lol) and there were these people sitting just outside the sliding doors where you walk in. They weren’t staff having a smoke, or shoppers waiting to be picked up - they were real Power Lurkers. They even had folding chairs and a cooler for their lunch. It looked as if they’d made a wrong turn on the way to the beach, and decided to spend their day hanging out at the shops.

It weird how shopping centres can function as public space, espscially when most sane people find them noisy, crowded and overwhelming. I mean, there’s not really anything to do, and shopping as a pastime strikes me as pretty stupid.*

Besides, I resent the implication that public space is always built around commercial space. Are we meant to think that consenting to commecrialism is a good trade-off for having a place to hang out? Just look at what that kind of thinking has done to our sense of place on the internet and in email. And people still buy weight loss pills online. F**king figure that out when you’re sitting in your deckchair staring at a thousand parked cars in the midday sun.

*As opposed to, say, blogging :-P