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PHONEBOOTHS

Took a brief trip back to auckland in july because my dad is currently working over there so me and my brother decided to head over for a couple of days and see the place had changed and catch up with some mate from when we lived over there. Between 97 and 99 we lived in auckland while my dad was working as F&B manager at the sheraton there. Anyway we get off the plane and dad is there to pick us up so the first thing we want to do is go and check out our old nieghbourhood and school etc. but something odd strikes me as we are driving down the streets of suburban auckland, i sit and ponder for a few minutes and then it hits me. . . . PHONEBOOTHS, bam! they have phonebooths, telstra had long ago decided that people in sydney no longer used phonebooths and have proceeded to rip out all but a few scattered phonebooths around the city and suburbs. But not in auckland, in the city there is a phonebooth on the corner of every block:

Auckland Town Hall: much like sydney town hall it is home to the city's emo population and much more:

Like christian asian sing-a-long groups

Revelations

When i walked into jb-hifi yesterday i did not expect to find that the new Audioslave album had been released i thought that it was scheduled to be released on the 5th, so anyway i bought it without hesitation as i am a huge fan of chris cornell i think he is a fantastic musician. Temple of the Dog is without a doubt my number one favourite album and anyone who hasnt heard of it i strongly suggest you go and hunt it down. The album started out as chris cornell getting together with former members of mother love bone jeff ament and stone gossard and with the help of matt cameron, mike mcready and eddie vedder, for a tribute to the late andrew wood, lead singer of mother love bone and chris cornell' s flatmate. It evolved into a complete album and the sessions produced some truly awesome songs. But anyway back to audioslave.

The first album was good but in my opinion the second album was just an ok album with a couple of great tracks, so i wasnt sure how i would recieve this album. it would seem that as a band they have found their niche. overall its a very enjoyable album and much more radio friendly in my opinion but not in a bad way. the first track:

Revelations - is probably going to be the follow up single to original fire. It has a great chorus and very catchy, Original Fire and Broken city are great songs with the rythmn section showing their stuff. Wide Awake is without a doubt the highlight of the album, an attack on the US government for their inaction after hurricane katrina. The rest of the tracks are good songs as well but i havnt listened to the album to form much of an opinion on them yet adn im too lazy to write anything else as i have procrastinated enough and now i have to get on with this lab report on magnetic susceptibility. A cool piece of news relevant to this post is that chris cornell is confirmed to have recorded the title track to the new james bond film casino royale, which i think is pretty cool.

Super fun happy lab notes, the experiment as described by the lecturer: rather boring procedure wise but in terms of theory quite scintillating.

Push Me Pull Me

A fan made video of a favourite track of mine, well worth a look.

PJ tix

oh yeah!!!

and a close up

and a picture i found of the reaction between potassium chlorate and sugar.

Boxing Day

Ahh Boxing day. . . the day we pay for the excess of christmas day

the crud of the last year

The year is coming to an end, christmas is approaching so i think it time to reflect on the things that really gave me the shits.

First up, music. The worst songs of 2005:

Don't cha - pussycat dolls: I don't know how the fuck this became popular, maybe the tweens where hypnotised by them "shaking their booty" in the clip to make them request the song ( i admit ive found myself watching the clip, but only because i was curious) but still a shockingly bad song.

Any of the new songs from the Black Eyed Peas: I have never been a big fan of the Black Eyed Peas but i admit some of the songs from their last album weren't half bad. But to me it seems as though they just made a new album in order to cash in on the success of their previous, and it clearly sounds rushed and half arsed.

Shine - Shannon Noll: Man the radios have been playing this song to death and the only reason i can think of why is because the record company is paying them bigtime to play it. It is a really lousy song, the lyrics are pathetic, the music is poor and it sounds like numerous other songs. In fact when i first heard it i thought it was another good song.

Good Charlotte: they suck, nuff said









Simple Plan: best description i have heard about these guys is that they sound like a whining version of the backstreet boys.

There were lots of other crappy songs released this year but none of them were memorable enough to remember.

Movies:

Fantastic Four: this was just boring, though i spose i can give it good marks for not moving too far if at all from the superhero formula laid down by the many hollywood adaptions of the past few years.

the rest of the movies that i remember seeing this year were pretty good ( i guess i should make a post about the good stuff as well)

Television:

Well there was the usual reality tv tripe that grace our sets each year like big brother and australian idol. But one reality show was a cut above the rest as a bad idea . . . Australian princess, this was just dumb.

The Alice: this didn't last long though im sure it had nothing to do with those brilliant enticing bus shelter advertisements such as " men want her, she needs a father". With a line like that who wouldnt want to watch it . . .

Otherwise 2005 wasn't an entirely bad year.

Some advice should you ever be in this situation

A dream I had the other night answered a question that has been plaguing me since I was a wee lad: What do you do if elephants attack? Well now I know and I intend to share it with you all. First let me set the scene…

It was a warm summer evening, the sun was just beginning to make its journey towards the horizon and the city was smothered with a soft light that just relaxed the souls of all those present. A feeling of calm emanated from the surrounding buildings this was the best time to be in the city, the moment between the end of peak hour rush and before everyone flocked to the city for an evening of decadence, debauchery and designing kites to fly the next day. But this calm was waning as people began to flock to the imposing citadel that was some random five-star hotel.

I was making my way up the colossal set of stairs that led to the main foyer of the hotel when I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of a nearby public square. This was no ordinary square though, it was filled with elephants. A parade of elephants all standing up on their hind legs dancing. Thinking back I can only assume that this was one of two things: A war dance in preparation of what would surely become a night filled with bloodshed or that the elephants were in town having a good time and were provoke into attacking the hotel when one of the bar staff refused to let them take their drinks outside. Either way I’ll never forget the malicious look in the lead elephant’s eyes when our gazes met for nothing but the briefest of moments.

As I entered the hotel I was greeted by a rush of cool air lingering with the smell of alcohol, tobacco and diethyl ether. Although everyone was in good spirits there was definite ominous feeling hanging in the air and it became more apparent as the hotel staff began to prepare for the imminent invasion. Mirrors were lined against the walls at regular intervals and the staff began to brief the guests on the proper procedures of how to defend against an elephant attack. It didn’t take long before the elephants were on us. They were fighting a guerilla campaign against us among the urban jungle of the hotel corridors. The narrow halls and grand foyers offered little in the way of cover against the mass charge of elephants. As quickly as they appeared they retreated only to come at us again from a different approach. Mirrors were becoming scarce, the fragile weapons, our only offensive and defensive weapon at our disposal, could not handle the sheer panic that had gripped the guests and staff. Every sound of shattered glass was accompanied by wails of terror and accusations of clumsiness and stupidity. We slowly made our way towards the lifts, harried all the way by marauding elephants.

When at long last the lifts were in sight the elephants attacked in numbers one would hardly believe possible. It was every man for him self, a desperate sprint to the lifts was all that was left. People crammed the lifts well beyond the advertised maximum capacity. Those who didn’t make it in time were left behind. As the lift doors closed their muffled screams were cut off abruptly, followed by the sound of entrails splashing against the already blood soaked carpet. Sighs of relief echoed through the lift as we reached the 14th floor, one woman started crying as the trauma of the experience overcame her once strong emotional state. We were safe, the elephants would never dare go above the 13th floor, they were scared to death of heights. They had almost no problem up to and including the 13th floor but if they passed the level 13 they would be unable to control their fear and would be easily overcome by the people in the hotel. We were safe but we were cut off, besieged on all sides by the creatures we once strived to protect and preserve.

That is where the dream ends. One might wonder how it ended, well I could think of two possible endings:

The optimistic ending: After three days and four nights of relentless siege warfare, the elephants low on resources to continue the siege and the defender running out of mini hotel soaps and shampoos and terrified of the minibar bill, reached an agreement. A peace deal was drawn up and elephants and humans continued to live together in peace for centuries.

The pessimistic ending: Though they defended valiantly, the humans were eventually overcome. The elephants overcame their fear of heights and slaughtered every last man woman and child. But the human race can take some consolation in the fact that the elephant’s victory was a pyrrhic one, they sustained heavy losses in their final push against the human defenders and their mirrors and it took many decades to replace those lost on that darkest of dark nights.

So the moral of the story is: if ever you are backed into a corner or attacked by elephants just hope to god you have a mirror handy if not get as high up as you possibly can. (Not much of a moral really more like a piece of handy advice one should keep close because I’m sure it works with woolly mammoths as well.)