TV man has the following characteristics:

Age - unknown (c. 1980s colour portable model)

Occupation - sitting in the lounge room

Favourite drink - Guinness

Marital status - not married.  Currently hooked up with a video recorder

Likes - reruns, nintendo, badminton

Dislikes - Americanism, fossil fuels, people with plasma screens stuck to their heads

Personality - friendly and entertaining, but prone to static when it’s raining

Listens to - Interpol, Bloc Party, Suzie and the Banshees

TV man’s life is fun and interesting. Many people like him because he always knows the latest cricket scores and news reports, although he sometimes gets miffed at people who have their ‘eyes glued to the idiot box’ and stare dumbly at him for hours at a time. A little known fact is that TV man invented the phrase ‘what are you lookin’ at?’ after a stranger in a bar kept staring at him. The man’s protestations that he was just checking out the lastest episode of McGyver earned him a punch in the face.

TV man is cool. All hail TV man.

Photo courtesy of Liv.

The Southern Cross. Please squint for the seeing.

I never thought about the Christian symbolism of the Southern Cross before, but I bet it was intended. Like, claming the other half of the world for Jesus & Co. Otherwise the explorers would have named it the Southern Kite, which it so obviously is. And personally, I’d be much happier living under a kite than a crucifix.

Happy Friday :) Some QDB quotes for y’all:
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[Shameful_Buffalo] I got bored tonight, so I played the wal mart game, you know where you go to wal mart and see who can get the funniest items together

[Shameful_Buffalo] well I give my friends ryan and taylor $20 and they go off, taylor gets KY Jelly, Camoflauge shorts and Predator on DVD, I get some G2 Pilot pens, A mountain dew, Murray’s Superior Afroshine Hair Pomade, 12-pack of Lubed Trojans, a pair of Brinks Luggage Locks with keys, Electrical Tape, and some Reeses Peanut Butter Cups (standard double-cup pack).

[Shameful_Buffalo] Ryan comes back empty handed and this follows,
Ryan: “I played your game dude…”
Taylor: “then where is your stuff?”
Me: “Yeah, you had to buy something with that 20 I gave you..”
Ryan “I went to automotive and put a tire on layaway…”

[Shameful_Buffalo] I never laughed so hard in my entire life, I gave him the 10 bucks for winning and walked to the car with my bag of crap.

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[SpitZ] this sms was sent by a friend of mine
[SpitZ] Sally mr. pls,2wedding
[SpitZ] What’s that supposed to mean?
[crazhee] i think it read as “Sally mist’er period. please comma to wedding”

For three points.

Today, I had lunch with:

a) Colleagues.
b) Potential business partners.
c) A suspicious cup of yellow liquid.

The answer, of course, is C. What a glamorous life I have. Meanwhile, you’d think a university common-room used only by middle-aged academics would be somewhat neat and tidy. Instead the tables are sticky, magazines are everywhere, the sink is filthy and the rubbish bin smells like something died in it. Some kind of large fish, judging by the stench. Last year we replaced the fridge since it was against our OH&S policy to have an infectious disease hazard in the building, but the new one is already full of unclaimed hairy food and well on it’s way to Cowboy Bebop mutant pork roll territory. For a group of people who spend their time lecturing about social values, it’s surprising to see they can’t even roster a quick chuxing of the sink once in a while. Not that I ought to take the initiative myself. I mean, I’m only one person - I can’t make a difference.

Welcome to the 83rd-ranked page for ‘Charmz’ and World Number 1 ranked page for ‘Charmz rock’. Scroll down for my Charmz story.

Now, to today’s topic: ‘The Man Whose Pants Just Fell Apart.’

So I was at this party. It was the party of a girl I was going out with (but she didn’t really like me, she just couldn’t find anyone else to go out with) and her name was Phillipa. There was also Mel who was our friend and had long pigtails, a guy named Taz who was in love with Phillipa even more than I was, a wonderful girl called Helen who was a dominatrix, but only in her spare time since she was usually a secretary at a graphic design firm in Perth, a nice girl called Ally and her boyfriend, and finally there was a guy whose name I can’t remember: he was the man with the pants that just fell apart.

We were sitting in the lounge room eating some potato chips that Phillipa’s mum had put out on the table and talking. After a while the man looked down at his pants said, “Huh, I only bought these pants the other day and they’ve already got a hole in them”. And we all looked at the hole, just near his knee. Helen liked being mean, so she jumped up and grabbed the pants they tore even more. The guy wasn’t very happy so she left him alone for a while.

Then there was an interlude while we went to get some beers. Helen put the man with the tearable pants in hancuffs and marched him all the way there, as dominatrices do. When we arrived back at Phillipa’s house she let him rest on the floor and we noticed that his pants now had several more tears.

After that, when the pants man had recovered, Helen attacked him and tore his flimsy pants completely to shreds. He was left wearing his underpants and a belt made from the waistband of his former trousers, standing in a mess of shredded brown material. Then we all sat around and laughed for a while. The guy without pants soon disappeared to find some more pants, so Phillipa and Helen took all of the cards out of his wallet (he turned out to be a member of the army reserves) and put bits of cheese in the wallet, then put the cards back. When he found out he was really angry and went off again with Phillipa’s mum to the kitchen. I don’t know how he got home or wether he had any pants on when he left.

That was the story of The Man Whose Pants Just Fell Apart. It’s a true story. You might even know someone who was in it.

Do you want to become a member of the new Mattel-sponsored rock band ‘Charmz’? Visit charmz.com.au for details! Since I am in my twenties and not a girl, and thus ineligible to enter, I have chosen to review the accompanying Charmz Guide to Being a Rock Superstar to see exactly how accurate and realistic it is. For my personal qualifications, witness:

I’m the guitarist standing directly behind the lead singer. You can kinda see my shoulder and the top of my head. Fuckin photographers.

Okay, here we go:
1. Practice your singing each morning in the shower (using your shampoo bottle as a mic of course) ~ the perfect way to warm up your vocal cords for the day.

This is good advice. The warm and humid conditions in the shower are good for your voice. However, most professional singers prefer to sing into a frequent use conditioner bottle.

2. When you sing, think about your breathing. Singers need to take deep breaths to hit the high notes.

Half-true. Good breathing means a better and more consistent sound, and is just as important for low notes which require more power.

3. Practice makes perfect. Try grabbing your hairbrush and singing and dancing in front of the mirror (just make sure you lock the door to avoid any embarrassing walk-ins!)

Absolutely true. A remote control can also be a good substitute if your hairbrush is in the bathroom.

4. Don’t forget your fans. They’re the ones who got you where you are.

Not that you have any fans yet - you can’t even get into the venue because you’re only ten years old. In real life though, it’s true - having people who want to buy your CD and come to your shows is the only way to get anywhere. No, wait, you’re one of the Charmz now. You’re super-famous for no reason!

5. Customise your clothes to express your individuality. Add badges, buttons and jewels to your clothes to really funk them up!

And while you’re at it, perhaps you could write some songs?

6. Follow your dreams and believe in yourself. This is a surefire way to get to the top.

Bullshit. Following your dreams will leave you sad, miserable and alone. And if you have to believe in anyone, believe in your graphic designer.

7. Let your personality shine through. After all, this is what your fans love you for.

True, but it would help if your personality was a lot like everybody else’s. Try not to be too confronting or come off as miserable and depressed.

8. Ooze your own personal style. Whether it’s pop princess or rock chick, go with what describes you best.

And yes, it does have to be one of those two particular styles. What else are you going to be? Some hairy lesbian folk singer?

9. Rock on and have fun!

Brilliant. After a few years of poorly attended gigs, heavy equipment, frustration at your band members’ lack of talent and the gradual realisation that this will never be more than a hobby for you, you can look back and take comfort in this cheerful advice. Hey, at least you get a beer rider!

I have done nothing more interesting than pay my rent this week so I’ll spare you the pain of having to hear anything about it. Here is some neat stuff instead:

Matt Groening’s old comic strip Life In Hell, which is quite funny. A couple are below.

A Town Called Panic on the ABC kids’ hour on Tuesdays. A piss funny stop-motion animation that always ends in a Benny Hill style chase.

And finally, some nice choral music: PopChor Berlin sing Devo’s ‘Mongoloid’ and Scala Girl’s Choir covers the Divinyls’ ‘I Touch Myself’. Mongolid, he was a Mongoloid, happier than you and me!

Now some actual stuff about me - meme courtesy Kimli’s deliciousjuice.com

HEY! Am I spoiled?

Do you have:

(1) your own cell phone
(2) a television in your bedroom
( ) an iPod
( ) a photo printer
(3 your own phone line
(4) TiVo or a generic digital video recorder
( ) high-speed internet access (i.e., not dialup)
( ) a surround sound system in bedroom
(5) DVD player in bedroom
( ) at least a hundred DVDs
(6) a childfree bathroom
(7) your own in-house office
( ) a pool
( ) a guesthouse
( ) a game room
( ) a queen-size bed or larger
( ) a stocked bar
( ) a working dishwasher
( ) an icemaker
( ) a working washer and dryer

Okay, I give up. The quiz is three times longer than this, but I only fill in a fraction of the boxes. That’s how it works in Blogland: first you get da money, then you get da power, then you get to fill in da memes. I’m still working on stage one. Officially, I was half as spoiled as Kimli. Fucking yuppie.

“YOU heard that it was said, ‘You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ However, I say to YOU: Continue to love YOUR enemies and to pray for those persecuting YOU; that YOU may prove yourselves sons of YOUR Father who is in the heavens, since he makes his sun rise upon wicked people and good and makes it rain upon righteous people and unrighteous. For if YOU love those loving YOU, what reward do YOU have? Are not also the tax collectors doing the same thing? And if YOU greet YOUR brothers only, what extraordinary thing are YOU doing? Are not also the people of the nations doing the same thing?

From Matthew 5, New World Translation, Watchtower (JWs) - this reads a lot better than the King James equivalent.

This is my favourite passage from the bible. There are two things about it that are important. The first is a simple point: that the original language of the text (they don’t say which it is) has a plural form of ‘you’ that is rendered as YOU. English doesn’t have any equivalent, although we sometimes say ‘youse’ to address more than one person. The second important thing is the way Jesus breaks with the old testament law. Instead of responding to violence with violence, he says to respond with understanding and kindness. That’s an odd move; asking us to treat people as friends even when they don’t deserve it. What’s the deal? There are two things to consider: the first is that, according to Jesus, right actions are not reducible to the trade of one good thing for another. Take the tax man, who only likes you if you give him money - what he does is nothing special or commendable. The reward for doing the right thing, says Jesus, is in heaven, not on earth. The second point is that respect transcends boundaries. Being friends with people who are the same as you is no big deal. The world is full of people who only like those who are the same as them, whether that be in terms of nationality, race, class or anything else. Jesus says: nup - a true act of compassion is toward those who are different from us; those who we don’t understand and probably find a bit scary.

The heart of the matter is this: a truly good action does not consist in simply doing what is expected. Nor does it conform to the economy of ‘one good thing for another’. It is necessarily excessive. The things that Jesus teaches - forgiveness, faith & love - are not content with small actions. To forgive those who don’t deserve to be forgiven, to have faith even though you might be disappointed, and to love someone simply because they are a human being and not because of what they have done. That’s the Jesus idea. That’s why I think Matthew 5 kicks arse.

“And if YOU greet YOUR brothers only, what extraordinary thing are YOU doing? Are not also the people of the nations doing the same thing?” Put that on a fucking billboard in Washington DC.

Yuck, what a write-off of a weekend.  I spent most of the time fiddling with the computer and recording some takes for the songs I’m working on.  Getting the guitar sound right has been a bit difficult and the mixer is crammed with takes that need deleting.  I’m also finding that playing twenty tracks with fifteen compressors, EQs and reverbs uses up most of the CPU and memory.  I’ll have to stop tweaking and just get the bloody things done, but I’ve learned a lot just screwing around for a few days.  I would show you my improvised ‘pint glass stickytaped to the top of the microwave’ microphone stand, but I forgot to take a photo.

btw, did everyone else hear Martha Wainright on Rockwiz last night?  I’ve never heard her stuff before but fuck she’s got the greatest voice ever.  And she’s pretty hot too.  I’m-a go get some mp3s of hers.
Tomorrow I promise to write something funny and relevant.  Believe it.

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Lush Puppy: I lost my virginity at an anime convention - this sentence makes me sound a lot fatter than I actually am.

This is a page from the manual of my new microphone. Apparently, you can only use it for bogan music.

What do you do when you need to de-mould the bathroom but don’t have any gloves? Use glad wrap to make mittens! Reminds me of a line from an REM song - bet you can’t guess which one.

Moi. Stupid posterless rented apartment walls.

I was just looking at a picture of the Alesis Micron MIDI controller and I said to myself: ‘Wow, that’s cool.  It’s pink!’  I am officially turning into Tomas an idiot.  In other news, a very funky and tasteful navy-blue M-audio Fast Track Pro is headed my way, along with a chunky silver Rode studio mic. I have been browsing around for samples of people’s fridge doors, toasters and bubblewrap (the later is totally overrated as a sound, btw). Musical goodness on teh way.

Here’s a story I heard today. I think it’s from a New Scientist article on learning:

Two people are in the kitchen talking, and one of them is preparing a leg of lamb. She takes a knife and chops off the ends of the bit of meat before putting in on the stove. The other asks her “Why did you do that?” and she says “Well, I’m not sure exactly why you do it. It’s just how my mother did it.” So later she goes and asks her mother why she always cuts off of the ends of the bit of meat and the mother says “I do it bcause that’s the way my mother always used to do it. I don’t know how it makes the meat taste better.” So mum doesn’t know anything, and then they drive over to granny’s place and sit her down and ask her about the meat. Why do you chop the ends off before you cook it? And granny says “Well that’s because I never had a pot big enough to get the whole thing in, so I always chopped the end bits off to make it fit.”

We don’t always do things the best way, often just the way we learned. Our habits are full of old junk. Just look at this obsolete qwerty keyboard.