post-xmas xmas post

Hope everyone had a great Christmas! Special wishes go out to Michelle, Jina, and Shell! .. hope everyone got lots of fun goodies!

Anyway.. as is customary i have to give a brief run-down of the “booty” i scored this year.. and then once again comment on the fact that i’ve seen a new LOTR movie .. just like last year :P .. so my pressies:

Amelia on DVD
Something for Kate - A Diversion on DVD
LOTR:TTT Extended on DVD
Enemy at the Gates on DVD
Neal Stephenson’s “Quicksilver” <– WOO!
Shaver
Cash
Cocktail Mixer (one of those shaker thingoes)
Leather Seat
T-shirt
Leather Wrist-Cuff (good present Em!)
.. and i’m sure there’s stuff i’ve forgotten

Anyway, read on to see some x-mas shopping pics .. nothing that interesting ;)
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Posted by Christian Posted in: General 4 Comments » 28 December 2003

A Perfect Circle - The Thirteenth Step

A Perfect Circle - The Thirteenth Step

URL : www.aperfectcircle.com

Tracks:
1. The Package
2. Weak and Powerless
3. The Noose
4. Blue
5. Vanishing
6. A Stranger
7. The Outsider
8. Crimes
9. The Nurse who Loved Me
10. Pet
11. Lullaby
12. Gravity

Why: .. i love apc .. i remember when i first heard Judith a couple of years back, and knew instinctively before the radio dj said that what i had just heard was the one and only maynard james keenan from Tool singing.. as soon as their first album (Mer De Noms) came out i got my hands on it.. and this CD is no exception.. even though initially i was a bit let-down by the single (Weak and Powerless) i wasn’t going to crucify the album til i’d heard it all.. and that’s what i did.

Thoughts: I’ve come to the conclusion that all the cd’s i write about here i love.. so it’s no surprise that my thoughts on this cd are any different. Firstly .. this cd is much more pop-ey than the 1st album. Comparatively speaking… it’s much less dark but just as moody. .. the band seems to have gotten a bit more sub-dued as well, like relaxing a bit more in the energy they put in the songs, possibly as a by-product of already having released their first album they don’t see the point in “hammering” in their style to anyone anymore.
Talking about their style it must also be noted that there are definite changes in the orchestration of many of their songs.. i suppose this is only natural considering they lost Paz, their bass player, to Billy Corgan’s “Zwan” .. who was replaced by Joerdie White from Marilyn Manson’s band .. APC also happened (during this time) to score James Iha (Ex-Guitarist from The Smashing Pumpkins (yup.. Billy Corgan again) ) on Guitar.. so with this new lineup the construction of their peices has gone through quite a mind-fuck process .. scoring a previous electro-synth-shock-rock bassist and an old-schoolish rock-guitarist .. no wonder they get called a Super Group ..

So how do i think that this new lineup has affected their music ? I’m not sure. Like their first album, i’ve found that this album has a couple of tracks that just don’t work for me, and considering the epic-history of all the members (possibly minus Billy himself and the drummer) .. it would seem natural that the tracks that this band would spit out would be longer than they are.. but they aren’t. On average the track length comes in at around 4mins .. which slots it perfectly into “Radio-length” songs which isn’t in itself a bad thing.. just a personal dis-taste i have (so arty farty and crap aren’t i *blech*)..

Another thing which occured to me whilst writing about the new lineup is the fact that the band now has 2 lead-guitarists .. (correct me if I’m wrong) .. but wasn’t Iha the lead guitarist in the pumpkins.. and Howerdel certainly *was* the lead-guitarist earlier (in mer de noms).. so what has this done to them? Increased the melodic intricacies ? Increased the amount of fiddly-guitar-squeals they have? Increased ambient noise levels ?.. or all of the above .. I suppose it leaves one or the other free to act as a lead, almost-vocal, line during one of the few instrumental based songs (most of which didn’t impress me) these being track 5 “Vanishing”, Track 8 “Crimes”, Track 11 “Lullaby” ..

Highlight tracks for me were definately Track 1 “The Package”, Track 4 “Blue”, Track 7 “The Outsider”.. All the rest were okay. I felt the CD ended on a really weak note .. especially the finishing track which i thought lacked any sort of energy or interest at all ..

But trust me.. those highlight tracks definately make up for it.. The Package and The Outsider are a pair of hard-hitting rockin’ songs that i’ll be able to listen to over and over for a while.

okay okay .. i’m finishing.. but it’s funny.. to think that initially i wasn’t going to say anything bad about this CD.. ah well.

Posted by Christian Posted in: Music 2 Comments » 18 December 2003

end of an era

Daev moved out at the beginning of this week, and though i’ve been meaning to post about it .. i have found myself continually shrugging it off for this reason or that..

It’s pretty sucky .. i think mainly cos i’m not sure of anyone else i’d be tolerant of living with except for him .. but his new place is nice (if not miles away).. and at-least we got to top off all our adventures with the mightiest of adventures on Sunday.

We borrowed a trailer from a local servo, one of those trailers with a cage, so as to not worry about having to tie shit down.. and loaded all his shit into this trailer.. then finally ditched his mattress on top of everything.. now you must be aware that the mattress was a good .5 to .75 metres from the top of the cage.. and we thought it would be fine.. anyway i told daev we weren’t going to take the freeway because i was sure that you’re not allowed to drive more than 90KM/H with a trailer on .. and the limit on the freeway is 110KM/H .. so we took the slower highway route.. completely forgetting the fact that i had to cross a huge bridge using this way ..

anyway.. in the middle of this bridge.. the mattress flapped up on it’s side.. we were on the lane closest to the side of the bridge.. and i was thinking “SHIT.. it’ll be okay on it’s side .. as long as we get off the bridge” .. anyway.. the thing start looking like it was going to fall off the trailer and into the fucking river.. so i did the doubly stupid thing.. and fucking stopped the car on the bridge.. a lil bit of history about this bridge okay .. before the bridge.. and after the bridge.. there’s usually not that much heavy traffic.
When i say heavy traffic i mean trucks.. huge ass trucks with shipping containers on the back.. but somehow this bridge always has these huge assed-trucks on it.. so i put on my warning lights and daev and i jumped out of the car.. i’m standing on the lane-side of the trailer.. trying to get this mattress down whilst daev’s on the other side pushing it down against the wind.. occasionally these huge ass trucks go past trying to suck me off the side of the trailer.. it was fucking petrifying.. down the lane i could see all these trucks un-aware of our stopped vehicle in the lane .. at least one of which had to do a crazy swerve into the other lane so as to not kill us!

anyway.. i remembered the tow-rope in the boot of my car.. so i grabbed it .. and daev and i sort of tied the shit down (in the middle of the bridge) .. then drove off

we weren’t more than 1-2 mins on that bridge.. but approximately 5-10 trucks had to burn past us.

…

After our ordeal we went out to subway to settle ourselves.. and BOY was it delicious.

(i’ve added some pics in the extended entry.. so feel free to have a look!)
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Posted by Christian Posted in: General 6 Comments » 18 December 2003

why the bookmarks ?

oh god.. i’ve done the un-thinkable.

I’ve deleted all of my bookmarks.. all of my favourites ..

For most people this wouldn’t be such a bad occurence, i mean, who cares about bookmarks? ..

i do *quivery-lip* .. i’ve been slowly building up my categorised mass of bookmarks for somewhere between 4-5 years .. i think at last count i had somewhere in the realm of 1000 bookmarks.. each placed in a very organised hierarchy. A folder for uni with sub-folders for topics, then into assignments.. a folder for reviews, which was split into 12 different sub-folders depending on what sort of review, a few folders for LJ’s .. a few folders for blogs and other personal web-sites.. and i deleted them all.

fuck

i have to thank the link to the research done on the life-time of a website from my last post that makes this all bearable.. because chances are.. 40-60% of my links were dead now anyway..

Posted by Christian Posted in: General 6 Comments » 15 December 2003

interviews and links

this entry will mostly be a back-log of links i haven’t posted about .. in fact.. there are so many, i’m going to hide them in the extension! .. but until then, make do with a ramble.

about 20 days ago i wrote about how i did have stuff to write about .. but wasn’t going to write it (*snicker*) .. well i’m going to write a bit of that stuff now

Firstly, all of my exams felt great. I won’t know if they went great until i get my results on the 16th .. but until then, they will continue to feel great, and theoretically i’ve finished my course and are therefore a professional computer scientist. In the midst of my exams i got a notice for an interview for the Motorola Global Software Group, who happen to have a new office not too far away, and since i was the project manager for a year-long project under the guidance of a senior software engineer at motorola i thought i was in with a great chance (especially because our group completely kicked ass and are expecting near to completely-full marks for our end of year report + presentation) .. anyway.. the interview went great (i felt) .. it was an hour of conversation that i would say went really well.

Anyway.. 1 and a half weeks later i find i didn’t get one of the graduate spots .. which is okay. Because now i’m enrolled to study computer science for another year to turn my Bachelor of Computer Science into a Bachelor of Computer Science Honours. The supervisor i’ll be studying under is an extremely capable computer-security expert and to tell you the truth, i’m scared and excited and nervous.. like when i first began studying comp-sci.. i’ve already got a small pile of books i have to get through before the semester kicks off next year .. and i can’t wait. .. anyway.. onto the mindless links!
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Posted by Christian Posted in: General 5 Comments » 8 December 2003