I like it when I go to my mums for the holidays and a wireless connection is in the air for the taking. Without further ado, here are some links for the week!
How good is this guy? I love that the beat actually cooks.
This show is just insane. It's like Wonder Showzen for kids. When I have children, I want them to watch this. It's like a super fun time psychedellic school of insanity. Dancing monsters and freaky songs, Biz'z beat of the day.. it's just nuts. Kids who watch this will be cool kids.
How delightful is this photo! My life gets a little better just from looking at it. Here's the link to the music of the girl on said photo! http://japundit.com/archives/2007/12/29/7611/
This Adult Swim style of absurdist humor really melts my brain. It's like the new evolution of inanity. I don't know how much I can take, but what I can I love.
I want one of these so bad that it hurts. It's made by the man who made the Electroplankton musical game on the Nintendo DS. This is simply the best toy ever made. (Apart from remote control helicopters). (One day, when I have money, lots of disposable money, I will buy this thing.. it's $1200!!). Just watch it in motion! Or Read More about it.
I kept on telling my boss 'I want a Ball Chair, I want a Ball Chair!'.
Some guy got a broken one (it had a small crack) from us, 'We can't have that! Return it at once for a full refund' I said. In hope. But he didn't.
Finally last week, my boss said 'We have a Ball Chair for you!'. 'Yay!' I danced with joy.
So I now have a Ball Chair.
"The Ball Chair - or Globe Chair as it's called sometimes - was designed by using one of the most simple geometric forms - the ball. Cutting of a part and fixing it at one point Eero Aarnio comes to a remarkable result - a completely unconventional shaped chair:
A Ball Chair is a "room within a room" with a cozy and calm athmosphere, protecting outside noises and giving a private space for relaxing or having a phonecall. Turning around its own axis on the base the view to the outer space is variable for the user and thus he is not completely excluded from world outside.
The Vitra Design Museum notes in his brochure on the Ball Chair miniature: "It is something between a piece of furniture and a piece of architecture and at the same time embodies both the mobile and the established, the fixed.""
It was a pain getting it in my room, but it's the best. Steve called it 'A new universe in comfort'. Pixie said it was 'the best thing to happen in your life'. Caroline wouldn't get out of it and I'm doing my work from inside the Ball Chair.
Ball Chair, Ball Chair, Ball Chair.
I covered the Ball Chair in colored post its, green, pink and blue. Now the Ball Chair looks furry or feathered. Like the ancient and all powerful Aztec God Quetzalcoatl.
I had to choose which music to play during the day in relation to the Ball Chair. I chose the retro psychedellia of Kula Shaker. All my decisions are now in regards to their harmony with my shiny new Ball Chair.
Ben is talking about the end of the world, but that's OK because I have a Ball Chair.
Today at my mentor meeting, (Fyi: I do a business mentoring thing, my mentor is Alex and he's a wise old man who flies planes and runs an import business), (He also reminds me a LOT of my Grandfather in Mexico) (Is it acceptable english to have two comments in parentheses one after the other?) (I better stop), and my mentor said that two good conversation starter style questions are.
What movie changed your life?
What are you really looking forward to?
So the second is easy: LOTS of things. Travel, music, people, chance.
The first, well, not as much. But I realized a movie that really changed my life was Terminator 2.
Don't laugh! It really did. It changed the way I looked at a lot of things.
It was the first movie I snuck out of my friends parents cupboard to watch, I remember the feeling of naughtyness and contentment at watching this film, I still relish that feeling of being naughty.
It introduced me to John Connor. I wanted to be John Connor so bad. I got into Guns'n'Roses because of this movie. I also started wearing cool jackets that were too big for me, and decided to become more independent. I'd go skating down to the arcade on my own and so on. (I was 8, in Mexico City)
It opened my mind up to ideas of time travel and changing futures. This movie helped keep open the momentum of a wondrous mind in all things sci fi.
It introduced throughts of theological and spiritual consequence to me, 'No fate but what we make for ourselves' (I was 8).
I remember watching the doctors in the movie not believing a word Sarah Connor had to say. It made me so angry! She was so passionate! They had the photos! Why wouldn't their closed minds listen?!
I swore to myself I would always keep my mind open and if when I was older some lady screamed at me about time travel and robots, I would listen. To this day I maintain a mind just as open.
It made me wary of authority, of blind allegiance, of computer controlled and dominated governments. It fed my us vs the elusive 'they' mentality, which I had so much fun with during my teens (and today).
It presented a strong woman lead character, with a passion and love and drive.
It made me realize I could pick locks with a paper clip (it's hard but you can)
It had Mexicans with big guns in underground bunkers.
I was hitchhiking through the Australian desert with my best friend Rachel. We were on the bus bored and she turned to me and asked, 'What's your favorite movies of all time?'. I looked back at her 'Aliens, and Terminator 2'. I braced for a laugh, but she said 'Really?! Me too!' and began quoting the film. We'd been best friends for years and hadn't known this about each other!
What more could a movie do?!
I remember getting an email from Rachel, I'll dig it up..
"Well what fun! Today I read a 300 page book on the Holocaust. Oh how I laughed. It sounded like a lot of fun. Who ever knew the Germans had such a sense of humour!? Then I read the short history of my grandads fight at sea during the second world war. Man was HE having fun! HOO HOO! THen I watched the opening of Saving Private Ryan, y'know, just for a laugh of course. THen I turned on the news and that jolly old joker georgie was hittin hard with the one liners, y'know, the sort that makes your sides ache with laughter and milk come out your nose. I'm telling you, he's the next Sienfeld.
But then I say something that really bugged me. Alien Resurrection. The soundtrack is so fucking star treck. The Aliens roar like lions. LIONS. THis is outer space, not outer Kenya. The Aliens drip like they've been doused with KY jelly by that Elvis chopper that comes in for all the bushfires. I mean thats just fucked. By itself, the movies not so bad, but this is sacred heritage. You can't fuck with it. The movie, as a sequel to one of the greatest flicks of all times, is an abomination and a disgrace and it really pisses me off. I am NEVER NEVER going to watch terminator 3. NEVER."
This weekend went by quick, and I'm writing about it because so much happened and I want to remember it!
On Friday night I went to see 'Zappa Plays Zappa' at the Hamer Hall in Melbourne. It was phenomenal. If you don't know what it is, it's Dweezil Zappa playing Franks music with some of the original band members. At one point they actually played 'with' Zappa by having him displayed on a big screen playing the solos and singing while they performed the backups. They also had Ray White and Steve Vai onstage. Truly it was a magnificent display of musical virtuosity and passion. Note perfect. They got the audience members to throw words on stage 'Insemination', "Woozle Wazzle', 'Meat Pies!'. Then used these words to string together a song about a man who practices insemination by putting his woozle wazzle into meat pies. The song was in the spirit of Frank and not only that, it was a great song that made the crowd laugh and weep in awe on realizing how a silly topic can still be converted into a magnificent gospel song that moves the entire audience.
There was over 50 minutes of solos and not once did it get boring. Steve was in awe, I was in rapture. The show was amazing. 5/5 Stars.
.... So the next day I had a jam with a couple of dudes who I'd been intending on jamming with for a while. Well it's hard to explain this but.. the jam was excellent, it was really good rockin out.. but.. it.. just didnt have anything for me. I dont know if the gig the night before made me realize how silly we sounded rocking out on A and Em or just how predictable it all was.. it was a good rock out.. but.. the whole scene, of packing gear, rehearsing, other dudes rehearsing in other rooms.. the metal band, the funk band.. us.. I'm just, so OVER IT. I don't think I want to be in a band again.. and I don't want to be mediocre... and a band that rocks out really good, for the most part, is still mediocre. I want to do something new, and original and my own. I think I'm going to do my own thing from now on. I feel like throwing my amp in the bin. (!)
That night Steve and I played a bit of the Wii, Mario Galaxy (awesome) & The Simpsons Game (crappy but a fun experience worth playing). Julian came over, Milo and Caroline too. Then they wrestled and Caroline threw Steve down the stairs, jumped on him and tried to gouge his eyes out. Steve threw her off and admitted defeat, then everyone wrestled some more.
I realized this week that my favorite people tend to be loud and obnoxious. With a really good heart.
Zoe slept over, we lay around all morning, we're always late to whatever we have planned when we sleep over at each others. She had stuff to do at her school so I went to the river with Caroline and Milo and Z and Indigo to swim and eat ice cream.
Oh, and we got a new housemate. His name is Tarquin and he's a band dude, he's nice, tho a little aloof, but it's all good and his girlfriend is awesome.
