The Awkward American

Long Time Gone

2009-11-22T11:22:00.000-08:00

I did not die or get lost on a mysterious island with polar bears and smoke monsters on my way back from Australia. I probably should have mentioned that earlier... My main problem was flying out to LA on the worst possible day ever (when Michael Jackson died). Not only did this make me lose the pool on which celebrity would die next (I had my money on you, Stephen Hawking! You let the team down!), it made travel way more difficult. I have impeccable timing. So as always happens to me, I had a very odd time that day trying to get through LAX (the worst airport I have ever been to and now hate with a passion) battling weeping freaks who flew in from all over the world as soon as they heard the news, hoping to go to his funeral. Then on my other flight, a guy had a heart attack and we had to force a landing, causing me to miss the event which was the main reason I was going to Chicago in the first place. I wanted to punch everything, it was truly infuriating.

The reason I haven't updated is not because of a lack of interesting events (far from it), but I've been busy with an internship at a local music magazine. Well, I was until I was wrongfully fired. I won't go into it, because that's unprofessional and bitchy, but let's just say it's up there in crazy boss stories with the time I was fired from the cafe in Brisbane for being a Taurus and not owning a cell phone.

So now I have extra free time for updating blogs and doing freelance work, some links to which I will post here occasionally. One of the things I did for my former internship was photograph Thursday's concert at First Unitarian Church. I had photographed them previously on Warped Tour '06 and was excited to do so again, since they've long been one of my favourite bands and put on an amazing live show. The morning of the show, my boss called to inform me I'll be not only taking live shots, but a portrait of the band too. A few minutes after I got off the phone with him, I literally threw up from nervousness. Gross, yes, but I feel that needs to be part of the story to illustrate how incredibly excited/terrified I was.

We were supposed to do the photo shoot outside the church, but there were swarms of teenage boys waiting outside, so I started taking pictures of them sitting on the steps inside. It was too boring a setting, so I spur of the moment told them to go into the daycare center room. I then instructed them to sit in the tiny kiddie chairs. Yes, I told one of my favourite bands to sit in tiny plastic chairs in a room that spelled like Cheerios and pee. I'm still reeling from the absurdity of it. The resulting photo was fantastic though, and I despise that it was never used in the article. So for the first time ever, here it is, I guarantee there are no other photos of Thursday like this.

Among my other adventures, I traveled with my roommate Katie to Lancaster to interview a band I (at first) knew little about. I will be honest and admit that I originally wanted to interview them when they were on Warped Tour just so I could go to Warped again, but it fell through. When offered to interview them at another time, I decided to go with it since they seemed interesting. Hence the long voyage to downtown Lancaster, an area I had no idea contained any sort of concert venues. I'm very tempted to post the MP3 of our interview, since it's hilarious and the word 'bro!' comes up at least three times a minute. But I sound like a twelve-year-old boy, so I'd rather not put that out into the world, ha. Here's a link to the finished article (go to pages 12 and 13): http://www.origivation.com/issues/origiVation_2009.11.pdf

Due to a mix-up, Katie and I were unable to see that show, but they put us on the guest list for their next show in Philly, which was last week. It was mostly us and tween girls, but we had a blast and made all the teeny-boppers jealous when the guys saw us and ran over to give us hugs and ask how we were, haha. Katie also went up to their one tech (Colton, who I mention briefly in the article) and said, "Hello! I met you when you were sleeping!" She didn't mean it to sound super creepy, but it sort of did, and I died laughing. Katie, you're awesome.

Other highlights of the past few months include dressing up with my other roomie Sean as Bill & Ted from 'Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure/Bogus Journey.' It was most excellent. Don't have any photos of that yet, but I'll put them up when I do. I had people tell them I was a convincing Keanu Reeves, not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not. Another fun dress-up opportunity was Zombie Prom, which I went to with my fellow zombie obsessed friends Paige and Anne. My favourite part was doing the zombie shuffle into a Wawa afterwards and having a horrified cashier give us weird looks as we demanded "brains! Or pretzellllllllls? Raughhhhh, if you have themmmmm. Thanksssss, aughrawrgahhhhhhhhhh!"

(Anne, me, and Paige)

Apologies again that I haven't been updating. The Awkward American is far from being over, despite the fact I'm no longer abroad. Because even in America, I'm still awkward and American, so the title will always apply. More updates soon! <3

Last Goodbyes

2009-06-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

I know, I did it again and haven't written anything for a while. Partly because not much of interest has occurred since my birthday, partly because the Internet here continues to hate me and refuse to post photos. The one adventure I did have this last month is dependent upon several pictures, so you'll all just have to hear that one in person with a presentation.

As you may know/have guessed, I'm coming home soon. I leave for the States in a few days and then spend a few more Kerouac-ing around (buses, not hitchhiking of course) visiting friends in the Midwest before returning to Philly. Now, I don't want to sound like I'm making demands, but there are a few things you all must know:

1. I won't have an accent, I'm not Madonna. Please do not ask me to do an Australian accent, because I'm really not good at it. I mean, if you really want, I can try, but it always ends up as Kiwi instead. You might not notice, but Australians do and they get really mad at me for it, so I've just refrained from even trying.

2. I'm sorry, but "How was Australia?" will be answered with an equally vague response. Also, please tell me how you've been and not just ask me about Australia, claiming your year "hasn't been nearly as interesting." I like telling stories about my travels, but I'd like to talk about you guys too because I haven't seen you in so long!

3. I apologize in advance if I let slip a curse. I've never been one for swearing much, but it's so frequent and nowhere near as offensive here. As a result, my curse quota has risen significantly. Not to Colin Farrell level or anything, but still. My top swears are still 'crap' and 'bloody hell,' so it's not all that bad.

4. Yes, I lost weight. No, I don't know how much, but thank you. Yes, I still don't have a boyfriend. No, I do not know my grades yet.

5. I missed all of you so so much and am going to try to spend as much of my (short) summer catching up as much as I can. I'm going to be spending time with all you family folks first at the get together. But I know you'll probably want individual hangouts too. I'm definitely up for this and will do all I can, but please don't feel bad if you call up asking to go to a movie or something and I'm out with a friend. See, you have to understand that though my generation is the 'connected Internet bunch,' most of my friends have awful communication skills and they've only talked to me once or twice in the past year. Family gets first dibs and probably more over all time seeing me, but if I get a rare chance to spend time with my plan-challenged friends, I'll jump on it.

I can't wait to see everyone again! I'm disconnecting the Internet in my room soon, so I might not be able to e-mail as often, but I'll e-mail from the library when I can and at the airport before I leave. Love you! xoxo

Twenty-One (Jump Street)!

2009-05-10T14:53:00.000-07:00

I apologize profusely for not posting in quite some time, especially when I promised you all photos and stories from my Sunshine Coast vacation. Unfortunately, both my Internet connection and the Blogger photo uploader hate me, thus banding together to unleash much technological frustration. I’m sorry to say I’ll have to put yet another massive delay on that. Please accept the following word-heavy but hopefully humorous post as an apology.

One of the many ridiculous facts I’ve learned in my disgusting yet delightful Human Biology class is that every cell (with the exception of parts of the brain) in your body is replaced over the course of seven years. You’re literally a new person every seven years! Today I turned 21, meaning I’m in my ‘third body.’ So I figured I’d tap into that section of gray matter that’s been with me all along and have a little conversation with my ‘past selves.’

Note: For those of you unfamiliar with what I looked like, simply picture a girl version of Little Pete from ‘The Adventures of Pete & Pete’ for Seven. Fourteen was a bit like this picture of Caleb Followill (but with a way bigger nose) and Eighteen makes a cameo, she’s a less ginger female ‘Goblet of Fire’ era Ron Weasley. You all know should what I look like now, although my hair has gone a bit Nigel Tufnel the past few months.

21- "Wow, at least I've had consistently strange men’s haircuts!"

7- "Quiet, fart face!"

21- “Crap, I forgot. You’re at the stage where I was a little brat for no apparent reason.”

14- “Ooooh, what phase am I then?”

21- “If I’m not mistaken, you just started the hanging out in Target and obsessively listening to bands like Sum 41 era. I can’t believe we used to think we that was fun.”

14- “RAWK!”

21- “Your Sum 41 finger puppets are going to be stolen soon. Along with the whole backpack.”

14- *gasp* “Do I ever get my bloody little black backpack back?”

21- “No. And Deryck Whibley marries Avril Lavigne.”

14- “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

7- “Haha!”

14- “Shut up, 7! George Harrison and Jack Lemon die.”

7- *breaks down crying*

21- “Hey now, stop it! Some good things happen in the future! I’m a writer and I get to go to concerts for free! Plus, I’m living in Australia! Pretty cool, huh?”

14- “Do you have a boyfriend?”

21- “Um, no.”

7- “Are you a famous writer?”

21- “Not at all.”

14- “Have you at least met Heath Ledger in Australia or something?”

21- “He’s dead too.”

14- “Why must you tell me all this?! WHY?”

21- “Because you can be a tad annoying, 14. Not as annoying as 7, but yeah. It’s nothing personal, I mean, as 14-year-olds go you aren’t bad at all. You’re just in that starting puberty thing that makes everyone a bit naturally caffeinated and spazzy at times.”

7- “I made up a story about a ghost that was so scary, nobody wanted to use the second floor bathroom. Jean peed her pants. Then I jumped over the playground fence and ran home at recess. Escaping school is fun.”

21- “You creepy little evil genius. Why couldn’t it be anyone between 3 and 6 instead of you here? They were adorable.”

14- “Well surely you aren’t the oldest one, why are you here? Shouldn’t there be at least a 28 here too?”

21- “I’m probably busy by then! Perhaps touring the country with my rocker husband, taking pictures of his band along the way and writing our adventures.”

7- “Yeah, dream on. Or you're dead before 28.”

21- “God, you are so morbid! And mean! The ghost fascination stays 8 through 12, but we went back to being nice again. Why are you so bitter for just that one year?”

7- “Because I really hate school, duh. They wouldn’t let me in the special smart class. They get to play 'Zoombinis' and 'Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?' all day!”

21- “That's why? Really? Hmmm, yeah, I was never cool, was I? Damn.”

18- “Psh, what are you talking about? I’m cool! And I’m not just saying it because I falsely think I am, like 14 does. Now if you excuse me, I’m going to go babysit 3 and 4, the only other ages we were totally awesome.”

14- “Ooh, I forgot to ask, does ‘Return of the King’ turn out well? I bet it’s amazing! OMG, so excited for that!”

21- “18! I’m cool! Take me with you!”

18- “You spent the first few hours of being 21 watching Wolverine and obsessing over the inaccuracies. I like X-Men too, but man, that is pretty lame. You’re like, 21 going on 50 now.”

21- “Dammit. She’s right.”

7- "Haha, you're stuck with us!"

14- “WHEE! Look at me! I’m a pirate sailing around the living room in my purple sparkly inflatable chair! YARRR! WHEE!”

You are the King of the Divan

2009-03-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

Good news, everyone! I actually went out and did stuff this week! Then again, at one point I also said, “Oh man, we played Dungeons & Dragons for so long that I missed 'Lost!'” Which is about the geekiest thing a person can say outside of discussing string theory. Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s top moments:

* Went to see an awesome local band called The Paper and the Plane. I actually found out about them through one of the music magazines Mom sent me in a care package. I told this to the band and we all agreed the irony of discovering a Brisbane band through a publication written in Ohio is much appreciated.

*I sat in the wrong class for an hour and was completely terrified the entire time because it was a complicated web design course and everyone was writing advanced HTML codes. All I know how to do in HTML is italicize and bold fonts. Sometimes I can add a photo or link. Why didn’t I just leave, you ask? Well, when I peeked in, I asked the professor, “Is this Digital Imaging?” because it was in the room we’re normally in, but a different teacher. He said it was and after ten minutes I figured this was the wrong class and he probably thought I asked him something else (for having a not overly difficult to understand accent, you’d be shocked how many times people have no idea what I’m saying). And you can’t just get up to leave in the middle of a lecture or they yell at you. It was horrible. Plus, I never found out where the class I was meant to be in moved to. :[

*None of you probably care about this, but The Horrors released a new single that’s completely different from their old style, yet still fantastic. It’s over eight minutes long and never lags once, that’s how good it is. I almost cried with joy when I heard it the first time (music geek alert!) and have probably listened to it twenty times since.

*In small groups for my Human Biology class, we had to do an exercise where we were given a list of symptoms and had to diagnose the 'patient.' The rest of my group, who are Forensic Science and Pre-Med students were convinced the ‘patient’ was just drunk. I knew right away he had a diabetic shock. Guess who was the correct one? I then convinced my group that I knew this because I’m an Anesthesiology major with a specialty in small mammals. Yes, I have outsmarted the future doctors and scientists of Australia. Twice! Bwahahaha. I really only knew it because I have a diabetic friend and watch 'House' religiously.

*My flatmate Madeline is obsessed with the comedian Tim Minchin and has tickets to see him every single night he’s here, so I went with her on Thursday. It was the first time I’d ever been to a comedy show and I loved it. Then again, it was a bit concert-like because Tim Minchin does mostly comedic songs, kind of like Flight of the Conchords, but one Australian guy with a piano instead of two Kiwis with guitars. Turns out, the friend Madeline was supposed to take Friday night canceled, so I went a second time. The other great part about this show was the venue, a reconverted powerhouse. Much silliness was had pre-show taking pictures with all the graffiti left over from when it was abandoned. After the shows, we got to meet Mr. Minchin and he’s lovely. He has a huge bit in his show about Americans and when I said hello to him he was all worried he’d offended me. I just laughed and said, “Well, I’m from Philadelphia, so I’m pretty much in agreement with you.” (His jokes were mainly about the Bible Belt and Manhattan)

*On the way to the second Tim Minchin show, we saw The Kiss Army! Well, it was only two guys dressed up as Kiss, so it was more like a Kiss Small Battlement. Still, it was pretty darn cool, they went all out with the costumes. People over here really like to dress up, it seems.

*This weekend I attended a small party for a friend’s birthday, which was actually on St Patrick's Day, but we couldn’t celebrate it then. So we wore green and pretended to be Irish a week after the fact, haha. It was good fun and like all the best parties, ended with us driving around wearing cardboard crowns from Hungry Jacks, blasting ‘Ca Plane Pour Moi’ while receiving many stares from passing cars. Yes, we started out Irish and ended with a Belgian punk/disco song. Yes, there is such a thing as punk/disco.

*If you haven’t seen it already, I posted my Ace Enders interview over at Popserious. Woo.

Also, thanks again for the happy stories, everyone. They were very effective. With the exception of the wrong class incident and a particularly gruesome lecture on skin diseases, I had a significantly more uplifting week. :]

Hello Today

2009-03-14T03:19:00.000-07:00

Poor Australia, we’ve been taking quite a beating over here. First the fires, then floods, an earthquake, and just recently there was an oil spill right off the coast of where I live. I wanted to help clean it up, but they weren’t letting any untrained volunteers in. They keep showing footage of dead turtles covered in slick washed up on the beach. The news over here has been depressing the past few weeks, so if any of you have any cute stories or a happy article about a puppy becoming friends with a duck or something like that, please leave them in the comments.

Despite not being able to watch TV without seeing bad news, I’ve had a great time so far this semester. I get along with everyone in my flat (the jerky note-leaver has gone, hooray!) and have especially become close friends with the other girls in only a short period of time. This year is looking considerably better than the last, everything’s looking up Milhouse! Like always, I have a very strange bunch of classes to further my already schizophrenic transcript:

*Romantic and Victorian Literature- We read awesome novels written by long dead authors.
*Ghosts and the Gothic- We read awesome novels written by long dead opium addicts.
*Human Biology- We study biology way more in-depth than high school. The teacher shows pictures of unspeakable things that make all the medical students around me go ‘oooh’ while I try not to throw up.
*Digital Imaging- We Photoshop. From 6-8 pm on freaking Macs in a freezing cold room. I try not to smash the computer.

Fridays are my free days, so I spend a few hours volunteering in the food co-op. Which is nice because I get paid in store credit so it’s the closest I have to a job for now. Will work for soy milk. While sitting behind the ancient cash register that mocks my basic math skills, I realized that yesterday was the two year anniversary of the infamous Spring Break ‘bar fight’ incident with The Horrors. This trip down memory lane was then burst when a Hare Krishna customer asked me to help him pull a splinter out of his thumb.

Let's Pretend That It Was Perfect

2009-02-24T21:28:00.000-08:00

Before I tell my Soundwave tale, I would like to note that I'm not trying to be a smug name dropper. Granted, most of you who read this blog either don't know or don't care about the musicians I'll mention, but for those of you who do, I assure you I'm not trying to rub it in anyone's face. Yes, I got to meet some cool people, but my life is not glamorous. I spent five hours last night creating a character for Dungeons and Dragons because the guys I live with were short a player and begged me to join them. I have transcended my already very high level of geekiness.

Soundwave started with a photographer friend and I being told the media entrance was all the way down at the third gate. Walking down there, we noticed that a Gun and Ammunition Show was being held across the street and this worried us considerably. At Gate 3, we were told it was really Gate 1.2 we wanted, the very gate that directed us to this place. Frustrated, we trudged up the hill, past the angry looking gun nuts again, and politely explained our situation to the man at the door. With much difficulty, we figured out where we were supposed to go with only ten minutes to spare until the first sets were due to start. My friend was one of only three lucky photographers with permission to take pictures of Nine Inch Nails and we giddily shared a quick unprofessional 'OMG WE GET TO DO THIS AS OUR JOB EEEEEEEE!' moment. But then the woman with the list informed me I was not down for a media pass. I freaked out and tried calling Jenn Enders (Ace Enders' wife who had called me earlier to confirm my interview) but it went to voicemail. Ace was playing in a few minutes, so I had no choice but to shell out entirely too much money for a ticket. Yay Ramen for the next month.

I ran through the crowd of every punk, emo and goth in Queensland to Ace's stage where I managed to catch the majority of his set. Phew. My interview was to take place at 2 pm but I didn't know where I should meet them. I asked the security guard if he knew and he went to check, leaving me standing next to the stage as the crew set up for Jacks Mannequin. Then I realized that a girl in the front row was taking pictures of me. "Oh God," I thought, "Please don't let her think I'm somebody important just because I'm standing backstage." Nope, she was taking pictures of Andrew McMahon and the other members of Jacks Mannequin who were right next to me and I totally didn't realize it for five minutes. Figuring they'd know where Ace was, I asked their bassist if he'd seen him. He hadn't, then offered me some of the iced tea he was drinking. It was a sweltering day and I wasn't about to turn down a chance to make the joke that I'd swapped spit with the bassist of Jacks Mannequin, so I accepted. After taking a few huge gulps I realized it was iced tea of the Long Island variety. I'd basically just taken the equivalent of three shots of rum and vodka. At 1:30 pm. On a hot day. With an empty stomach. I knew that in about ten minutes I would be, erm, just a bit tipsy. Oh crap oh crap.

I tried calling Jenn again to see if maybe I could reschedule the time for my interview. Still her voicemail. Thus began my search for the Enders backstage at Soundwave where I technically wasn't authorized to be. The 'iced tea' kicked in somewhere right before asking the dreadlocked guy from Moneen. Who when he said he hadn't seen Ace, I responded with "Raaaah, f*** my life!" and a little kick to the air. Moneen guy about peed himself laughing at me. AWESOME. But the absolute best was when I saw Keith Buckley (the Every Time I Die singer, not the actor from James Bond).

KEITH BUCKLEYYYYYYYY!

RANDOM CHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK!

Have you seen Ace?

Frehley?!

Enders.

Game?!

Ace Enders. He used to be in The Early November.

Oh! That Ace. No, haven't, sorry. What band is he in now?

Um, Ace Enders. It's pretty much just him solo.

Hahahahaha. Hey, are you drunk?

Slightly. By accident.

Hahaha. ME TOO! On purpose though. Australia is awesome!

*High five*

We should have our own comedy routine. I wish I could've talked to him more, especially about the hilarious column he writes for Alternative Press, but he had to go. I would also like to point out that Keith has one of the strangest tattoos I've ever seen: Spock crying because he doesn't have a mustache.

Eventually I found Ace and Jenn, but they were all "Let's do this interview!" before I could ask them if we could move it to later. So I interviewed Ace Enders, the former lead singer of one of my favourite bands, in a less than desired state. Needless to say, it didn't go as planned and I slightly made a fool of myself. Maybe it wasn't all that bad, but I can't bring myself to listen to the recording just yet. I know I said 'magician' instead of 'musician' several times and fumbled with my recorder because it kept beeping at me. I also made a really really dumb pun that caused him to give me that 'No, please don't' look. Then we were cut short because Jacks Mannequin finally took the stage and were super loud. On the verge of tears from screwing my interview up, I stood with The Audition and watched Jacks Mannequin play. Emo times three! A choice observation from my notebook that I don't remember writing: "Lead singer of Audition has a huge mouth. Like, an Aerosmith sized gob. Whoa."

Not wanting to waste the fact that I was miraculously still backstage, I took the opportunity to wander and somehow got recruited by the catering crew for an hour. This was a lot more interesting than it seems because I got to see the lists of 'requirements' aka the food and drink bands demand be in their trailers/tents. I also got to deliver some of them. The smaller acts shared tents and just asked for some bottled water plus a deli platter or fruit & veggie tray. The guys from Horse the Band even picked their own food up, which was considerate of them. Bands higher up on the bill had a trailer to themselves and some unusual requests. I helped deliver Red Jumpsuit Apparatus their box of goodies and had to explain to them that in Australia, light beer means a beer that is lighter in colour and flavour, not low cal as Americans think of it. You heard it here first, folks, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus are a bit diva-ish. I am chock full of industry secrets.

After getting a 'Local Crew' wristband that would ensure I could get backstage again (which I unfortunately didn't get the chance to go back and use), I ventured back out to see Underoath. It ended up being more like hearing Underoath, because the crowd prevented me from actually seeing the band. I couldn't deal with that and headed towards another stage. On my way I ran into Craig Owens and chatted with him shortly then got a picture. I didn't want to bother him much, otherwise I could've talked to him all day. In person, he looks so much like Dominic Monaghan. Whom I also love. *sigh* There was a small crowd for Rival Schools, so I got a front row spot which I held through Hellogoodbye, Funeral For a Friend, and Chiodos. Standing in the same place for over four hours was well worth it, I've wanted to see Hellogoodbye for several years and Chiodos was undoubtedly the best set of the day. They even played the song I suggested to Craig (I won't say which, but if you know me you can probably guess). Usually being front row causes me ridiculous injury but this time it actually saved me because instead of pushing towards the front, people did a Wall of Death. Which is where the crowd splits at the middle then runs towards each other and start punching. Why people do this, I do not know. I just watch.

Saw a few more bands after that, nothing spectacular, then I watched NIN from very far away sitting on a bench with a friend. I was so exhausted I fell asleep during 'Head Like a Hole,' something you'd think would be physically impossible. My day still wasn't over, I was invited to the after party at Rosies. Granted, I was sitting down for most of that. It was okay, Jimmy Pop from Bloodhound Gang DJed and I was going to introduce myself as a fellow Philadelphian, but my friend said Jimmy licked his face when he said hello, so I decided against it. A few other musicians showed up, Keith Buckley was apparently in the VIP room for a bit and I'm pretty sure I saw one of the guys from Houston Calls hanging out with the ginger one from Forever the Sickest Kids. The latter is a really bad dancer, haha.

So there you go. Another patented 'How the Hell Does Danielle Always Manage to Get Into Those Sorts of Situations?!' story. Hope you enjoyed it. I'll eventually put up my interview with Ace, if I ever get up the nerve to transcribe it. :/

I'm a Troublemaker

2009-02-18T00:50:00.000-08:00

First of all, I would like everyone to know I'm perfectly alright and the wildfires are nowhere near where I am, though I appreciate the concern. The fires are all the way down in Melbourne, which is about as far away from Brisbane as Florida is from Pennsylvania. There were actually some major floods here in Queensland, but I wasn't affected by them.

I'm back at Nathan, so no more 17-year-old central where I felt like 'Charles in Charge.' Now (so far) my flatmates are three geeky guys closer to my age who play World of Warcraft all the time. Meaning my life is now 'The Big Bang Theory.' Yes, I enjoy comparing everything to sitcoms. Unfortunately the move itself didn't go as planned and I nearly had a nervous breakdown in the bus station. See, I had to be fully checked out by 10 am on Valentines Day, but I couldn't move in to Nathan until noon on the 15th. My plan was to leave all my luggage in a flatmates room, check out, walk around the city until 5 pm (when the building office closes), then have a flatmate let me in and spend the night so I could move my things to Nathan in shifts the next day. I would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling kids! My one flatmate got incredibly drunk the night before and thanks to her stupid friend that's always at our flat for some reason, had the brilliant idea to go out at 1:30 am.

Nothing was stopping them and neither of them knew the city, meaning I was pretty much forced to go with them (damn you conscience!) or else they'd wake me up with a paniced phone call to come rescue them anyway. I told them I wasn't going anywhere you have to pay a cover because I'm poor and we'd only be there for about an hour anyway so what's the point. I knew this was going to be a bad day when my flatmate started making out with a stranger who looked like Nick from 'Freaks and Geeks' while waiting in line at McDonalds. Yup. They just looked over at each other and BAM then they were sucking face. Several boys worth of flirting later, we eventually ended up at the club she wanted to go to. The same awful place where T and I once ducked into to avoid the rain and had those super creepers hit on us (I forget if I actually told that story or not, I don't think I did because it had funny photos to go with it that T never ended up sending me. Long story short, the guy hitting on me said I looked like a cocaine user because I "have the big nose for it," which he actually meant as a compliment. I then look over to see the guy chatting up T doing the 'Stop Hitting Yourself!' thing to her. We got out of there as fast as we could.) "No," I firmly stated, "I hate this place, it's full of jerks and I have a very strict policy of avoiding places with stripper cages built into their walls." But I was outvoted by the brilliant future of tomorrow and spent the next hour miserable. My flatmate then decided we should try the gay bar across the street. I was relieved since I'd much rather be there, but then I discovered it was $10 to enter and my flatmate needed me to pay for her as well. We ended up staying about ten minutes and had to leave because 'it wasn't happening enough' and the friend was uncomfortable. So I essentially spent a dollar a minute to marvel at gay raver kids dancing the Melbourne Shuffle. To top it off, they decided we should go back to the first club again. Hiding my anger, I told them I'll be waiting outside instead.

At this point, it was about 3:15 am and I'm sitting outside on a bench by myself. This would be worrying if I did this in Philadelphia, but in Brisbane you're perfectly alright. I was tired, grumpy, and just knew my day was bound to get crappier. My face must have shown it because from beside me a voice whispered in my ear, "Why so serious?" I almost had a heart attack. Standing there was a guy dressed as The Joker for no discernable reason. I just stared at him and then a guy in a Batman costume jumps out, yelling "Leave that citizen alone!" They then began to slappy fight for a few seconds and ran off. My flatmate's friend came out several minutes later to find me still dumbfounded. I tried to tell her about the amazing thing she just missed but she thought it was more important to be snarky about my flatmate. "I don't care how many guys she's made out with tonight," I practically yelled, "I just saw The Joker and Batman fighting!" She leered at me, "It wasn't really them. They're not real." A random goth guy came up to us, "You don't get it. Obviously Batman isn't real, duh. Point is, it was AWESOME!" Apparently he had witnessed it too and we talked a few minutes, with him offering me a cigarette if I knew the smallest country in the world. Which I did (Vatican City), but I don't smoke so I told him to give it to the next person who asks him for one on behalf of me. The friends he was waiting for showed up and we said goodbye, which made my flatmate's friend happy because she thought he was 'a freak.' Yeah, all those guys trying to grab your butt in that skeezy club are normal because they wear Abercrombie & Fitch but the goth guy who has an innocent friendly conversation to pass the time is the one we have to watch out for.

Eventually my flatmate was ready to go and the cab ride home was entirely arguments between her and the friend. I tried to calm the tension by making a stupid joke which neither got made the cabbie laugh. "You don't get it?" he said, thankfully on my side, "It was a pun." NEITHER OF THEM KNEW WHAT A PUN IS. The cabbie and I tried explaining it, but to no avail. How did they pass fifth grade English? Once back at the flat, I knew I'd never get up at 9 am if I went to bed at 5 am, so I just stayed up reading. The first part of my plan was successful but I was too exhausted to go into the city, so I told all my flatmates I was going to nap on the couch and to warn me if building management were coming. The flatmate I sacrificed my sleep and $20 for ended up opening the door because "she forgot and their knocking was killing me, omg I'm soooo hungover!" And thus I was kicked out hastily and forgot several of my things. I was called a cab, which I had no cash to pay for and had to use my credit card (I hate doing that). The office told him to take me to a hostel so I could spend the night there. An okay idea, but dammit, why is it such a crime for me to stay one more night at my old flat? Renters rights! It was also not such a great idea considering the hostel was full. But it was across from the bus station at least. With much difficulty and cursing, I managed to get half of my things into the world's most high security storage locker ("Please enter your birthdate, then choose a colour, re-enter your birth date, then pick a four digit code") and struggled onto a bus to a friends house with the other half of my bags. We spent our Valentines Day night eating pizza, watching 'Mean Girls,' then dancing around to my new favourite music video.

So to all those people who complain about Valentines Day because they're single or hate how commercial a holiday it is, you can shut it. Valentines sucks because something completely ridiculous (good and bad) always seems to happen to me that day. Fortunately I ended up having a fun time later on, but any day where you're dragging wheelie luggage and screaming obsenties because you're temporarily homeless thanks to your selfish flatmate is not really a good one. Damn you, Valentines Day curse!

On the bright side, this weekend I'm off to the Soundwave Festival and interviewing one of my musical idols, Ace Enders. I'll try hard not to cry like a Beatles fan when I meet him. Needless to say, next entry should be amusing and in a significantly happier tone.

I Just Can't Take It Anymore

2009-02-11T09:23:00.000-08:00

I’m currently being forced to listen to (and refusing to actually watch) ‘Beerfest,’ which followed up ‘Little Nicky’ and ‘Dodgeball.’ All with constant commentary and quoting! So those of you who know me well are aware this is a bit like my own personal hell. Although the ‘Sex and the City’ movie and ‘Undercover Brother’ would be on the schedule for Satan Cinemas too. If you haven’t guessed, this little film festival of idiocy was curated by my seventeen-year-old male flatmate. Actually I have two new seventeen-year-old male flatmates, along with a new American girl literally meant to replace me. Which means I have to move back to my old flat two weeks earlier than they initially told me. Boo-urns. Moving sooner than anticipated always sucks, but I’m feeling mixed about the actual moving.

Pro-
*No more 17 dude #2 and his commandeering of the living room as a screening area for ‘movies you guys HAVE to see.’ I’ve only known him for two days and he was alright in the beginning, but he constantly makes insulting ‘jokes’ about my age and America. I mean, I’m used to little digs at the US, sometimes they’re true or just funny. But he made two remarks today that really offended me, and that’s hard to do. Also, he got drunk and threw up profusely his first night here. Why does that always happen?

Con-
*17 dude #1 is so nice. Like a cool little brother who has a very similar music taste and a rad video game collection. We watched ‘Battle Royale’ and a few zombie movies together, good times. See, I loathe most comedies written with a target audience of teen boys, but any action/thriller movie teen boys love, I am obsessed with as well. My taste in entertainment is very difficult to understand at times. Anyway, I’ll miss this guy (and Hannah!) a lot when I leave, hopefully I can still get to hang out with them.

Pro-
*Back at Nathan, laundry and the internet are free. That makes my life a whole lot easier.

Con-
*You have to take a bus to get to the city or the closest grocery store. Where I am now, they’re within walking distance. I can never win.

Pro-
*Even though it can be a bit annoying that the wireless signal only works in the living room (which is why I had to endure crap movies all day), I do enjoy sitting and working on my laptop in a comfy chair.

Con-
*As I’ve mentioned before, the living room area of the Nathan flats are disgusting and that means I have to be a hermit sitting in my room when I write.

It’s not like I have a choice about moving again, though. Oh well. The only other news I have is that I’m officially a contributor to Popserious.com now! Please bookmark this site and check it from time to time, especially feel free to leave comments. If we get more web traffic this could very well mean I’ll have my first paid writing gig! But for now it’s just super fun and I write little commentaries on music and movies. I’m moving on Valentines Day, which is funny because I definitely do not love carting my stuff around. Wish me luck!

Sting Would Have None of This Behaviour

2009-02-01T02:49:00.000-08:00

I wish I had a real update, but no, things are dreadfully boring here. I've been cooped up the majority of the weekend because I haven't been feeling so well. But my Snood score is better than ever!

Anyway, I just thought you would all appreciate this. I usually walk by there every day and am a bit sad I missed witnessing such an ironic event. Knowing the local media, this is going to be on the front page of the news tomorrow and 'breaking developments' will pop up the rest of the month. Hooray?

P.S. I also get much amusement by turning the sound up on my computer and startling my flatmate with this.

A Girl Can Do What She Wants to Do and That's What I'm Gonna Do

2009-01-28T04:24:00.000-08:00

Looky, I made a weird new header for the blog! Sorry it’s a bit crappy, but I used a terrible online Paint-like program, plus I had to draw it with my laptop touchpad mouse (yes Dad, I know I have the wireless mouse you bought me, but it apparently doesn’t like working on my kitchen table). Do you know how incredibly difficult that is?! So yeah, the illustration of me looks a bit like a crazy cat lady, but oh well.

Anyhoo, actual events are occurring in my life now, holy crap! That reality thing is so annoying, it gets in the way of me sitting around all day watching DVDs of Piorot (I adore that fat little Belgian detective!) and reading Neil Gaiman books, you know? I can’t be bothered to write a chronological narrative about how I’ve been lately, so you’ll have to settle for a list of events in no particular order.

*I got a new flatmate, who I am getting along with already. Upon moving in, she didn’t mind that I had laundry strewn about drying everywhere (nobody warned me she was coming) and we just finished watching a few episodes of Daria together because she mentioned she loves it too after seeing the Daria picture in my header. Needless to say, I can tell we’re going to be friends.

*I did a guest post over at one of my favourite blogs, Popserious. My Mom and Dad are probably going to get mad at me for making fun of the name they gave me now. Sorry.

*I had another patented Why Do Weird People Always Talk to Me? conversation that was along the lines of this:
Metal Dude- “ARE YOU PUMPED FOR CATTLE DECAPITATION?!”
Me- “Um, excuse me?”
Metal Dude- “Cattle Decapitation! Woo!”
Me- “I really hope you’re talking about a band or something...”
Metal Dude- “F____ YEAH! Their album launch party! *guitar riff noise*”
Me- “Er, I hate to break it to you, but The Willows are playing tonight. Not Cattle Slaughter.”
Metal Dude- “I know, Cattle Decapitation are way too big to play here.”
Me- “But aren’t album launches where the bands play live or they at least let everyone preview the album?”
Metal Dude- “Uh, aren’t they playing it now?”
Me- “... They’re playing some emo band’s cover of ‘Umbrella’ by Rhianna. Which is almost the opposite of metal. So, I really don’t even know why you’re here, seems like there is no Cattle Mutilation party.”
Metal Dude- “DECAPITATION! DECAPITATION!”
Security Guy- “Is there a reason you’re threatening to chop the head off this young lady?”

*I watched the Inauguration at 3 am in my pajamas, sobbing at everything from Aretha Franklins hat to the awesome old guy who spoke at the end. When Yo-Yo Ma and his crew played their song I cried extra hard because parts of the melody were from ‘Tis a Gift to be Simple,’ which I used to sing at my Friends School. I can only imagine how incredibly excited the Quaker community is about Obama as the new president. Oh, and I should add that I was watching on the TV in the lobby with five strangers, so weeping (albeit with joy) in front of them was a tad embarrassing.

*At one point in a dream I was having last night, dream me ate a bagel and I woke up incredibly sad because I realized the past six or so months have been bagel-less. They have also been sans pretzel (both soft and the little Herrs ones), Ben & Jerrys, decent potato chip, cheddar cheese, Wawa in general, Butterscotch Krumpet, decent milkshake, hoagie, and Milky Ways. Mostly junk food, yes, but it’s a bit annoying not having anything worth snacking on. Or desserts that cost less than nine freaking dollars.

*While watching 'Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring' for the bazillionth time last week, I made the shocking discovery that Bret from 'Flight of the Conchords' is one of the Elves at the Counsel. He's sitting in the background, but they show him close up for about two seconds right after Frodo stands and declares he'll take the burden of destroying the ring. I then Googled it and turns out a whole bunch of fans thought he was so hot they made a fanpage for him and Peter Jackson put him in the third movie just because the fans demanded it. Hi, I'm a huge nerd that actually finds glee in things like this (even though I feel like a bad LotR fan for not knowing this until now).

*I can play two songs on my ukulele now! ‘Golden Skans’ by Klaxons and ‘Bad Reputation’ by Joan Jett, haha. Believe it or not, they actually sound really cool coming out of a uke. Next, I’m working on ‘Oh, This is Love’ by Hellogoodbye, which was written for the ukelele, so it’s a tad more appropriate.

*I discovered a magic closet of wonder in my flat that I’d previously never thought to look in. And now I have a new shirt and hot Kings of Leon poster that some girl (who I found out didn’t even live in this flat, how weird) abandoned. Finders keepers!

*What the hell, Oscar nominations? You're really lame this year save for nominating Heath Ledger (who we all know is going to win, no contest. I mean, why the hell is Robert Downey Jr. nominated for Tropic Thunder?!) and any of the awards Milk or Wall-E are up for. Geez, even the Grammys seem more interesting than the Oscars this year and I normally can't stand the Grammy awards.

*A very super awesome thing happened, but it’s a long story I’m saving for later because there’s likely to be further developments in the future. Sorry to get all Lost cliffhanger on you guys, but believe me, it may be worth it in a week or so.

Captain Vague signing off duty!

AAUUUGH!

2009-01-18T19:05:00.000-08:00

Watching Alfred Hitchcock movies alone on a Friday night is never a good idea, but I’m a stubborn idiot who felt the urge to see ‘The Birds,’ so that’s precisely what I did. I was camped out in the living room area, where I spend significantly more time now that the entire flat is essentially all mine and because of its close proximity to the kitchen. Pausing to put on an avocado face mask in the bathroom (embarrassing to admit I actually do that sort of thing occasionally), I come back out to find both doors to the balcony wide open. Commence panic. Closing and locking them, I decide to make a cup of tea to calm myself. That and should anyone have snuck in, I can also use the hot water to scald attackers.

But the water had not yet boiled when I heard a door click and footsteps. Three terrifying seconds later I found myself face to face with two guys and a girl, all of us screaming in shock. Before I could get up the courage to ask what the hell was going on, the girl angrily said, “Where is my cake?” This was not what I had expected to hear, so I just stared at her stupidly. Here I was in a bathrobe and produce smeared on my face encountering trespassing strangers wanting random food. The whole situation was like a cliche scene from a Disney Channel movie. All I could say was the very lame, “Actual baked good or like, the band?” I had also considered telling her I’d buy her some if she please didn’t kill or rob me. “It was in the freezer,” she yelled. Oh yeah, there had been a half loaf of pound cake in the freezer, I remembered it now. But I ate that two weeks ago because it was nearing its expiration date and was obviously unclaimed. “You’re the British girl!” I exclaimed, it all finally clicking, “I thought you moved out forever ago.” She explained that she had moved all her things to her boyfriend’s apartment two floors up, but on paper she still lived here. “But the other day I remembered I’d left that cake and now I want it.” It’s been over a month since I’ve seen this girl, I don’t even know her name and now I’m being harassed for something as incredibly stupid as this.

“What’s that black shit on your face and why’s it stank in here?” asked one of the two guys, whom I can only assume were her boyfriend and um, some other guy. “Avocado oxidizes. And the microwave spontaneously combusted a few days ago.” I stammered. Both statements are true answers to his questions, but I didn’t exactly phrase it the right way. The other night I was reading and looked over to see noxious fumes emanating from the empty microwave. Thank goodness I had an already wet tea towel nearby to throw on it and cease the flames, then fanned most of the smoke out so I didn't set off the alarm. I sprayed lots of air freshener, but it’s a bit difficult to get that lingering scent of burnt plastic appliance death. So now my toaster has been kidnapped and my microwave has gone the way of a Spinal Tap drummer. Hopefully the stove top, electric kettle and refrigerator stay loyal to me.

“Yeah, the microwave did that to me once.” British girl said poutily, then she and her dudes left with that. Thanks for scaring the bejeezus out of me, making slightly threatening demands, and not previously warning me about faulty wired deathtraps in our kitchen! After a few minutes processing that whole debacle, I went back to watching Tippi Hedren being dive-bombed by crows.

Wiiiiiild Horses

2009-01-08T21:03:00.000-08:00

When I was an intern at Citypaper, one of the editors had a running joke about me being the youngest of the group. Everyone else was over 21 and would go out to bars together, especially the one dive bar across the street. The first time I went along and just sat there soberly listening to tipsy journalists tell me about ‘that time they went to Dollywood’ or their cat, Samuel L. Jackson (I will perhaps some day write another post about this, because it’s a pretty funny story). As amusing as that was, I felt a bit left out and from then on only joined my co-workers when they went for the occasional post-work cupcake. Not that eating cupcakes helped my image as the baby of the group. I was assigned to doing the listings for kids activities and walking tours. Which was a bit redundant because 50% of walking tours are things like ‘Tots Explore the Woods!’ The other 45% are home or garden tours designed for all ages but you know only the elderly will show up and the last 5% are prison, ghost, or cemetery tours for history buffs/goths/Halloween.

One day, the editor threw something at me and said in a voice usually reserved for speaking to puppies, “You are going to love this one SO MUCH! It has ponies!” In my hands was a copy of ‘My Horse and Me,’ a computer game obviously intended for 10-year-old girls. The ironic thing being that even my preteen self probably would’ve gagged at the thought of playing this. I had to beat the game and write a review of it over the weekend. Now, I’m horrible at video games, the only ones I can succeed at are things like Myst or Rock Band. Even so, I beat Myst because my Dad helped me and in Rock Band I can only be the singer. Crap as I am at playing video games myself, I love watching other people and screaming at them to "get that guy over there, quick quick, auuuuuuuugh!" My friends refer to this as my ‘Backseat Gaming.’ I overcame all that and though it took almost the whole darn weekend, I achieved victory. The article ended up being one of the most fun things I’ve ever written, and for that reason I want to try it again.

I noticed the other day the library has several computer games that look deliciously stupid and thought it would be interesting to write about them once and a while as filler for when my life is boring. Don’t worry, you need not know anything about or even have an interest in computer games. I use no technical jargon and usually spend most of my review being silly (as you can see from the ‘My Horse and Me’ link above). So expect a few of these in the future, maybe I’ll expand into another one of my favourite subjects: awesomely terrible B-grade movies. I want 2009 to be more witty and less ‘Dear blog, I’m boring. Here’s what I didn’t do today.’

So This is the New Year

2009-01-06T05:18:00.000-08:00

So, how about this 2009? It doesn’t seem much different yet, but I always think that. I had a wonderful time in Sydney with my parents over the holidays. Believe me, I’d like to tell you everything we did. But those of you who know my Dad are probably aware how he packs as much sightseeing and activities he can into one vacation, using the guidebook as his personal Bible. If The Book deem it not worthy, thou must not partake and insteadith goeth somewhere involving much wearing down of thine sandals. The bottoms of my feet had bruises on them from walking so much. I practically have hobbit feet, so how I managed to bruise my thick soles is a mystery to me. And then when I said goodbye at the airport, my soul was bruised... Awwww, lame quasi-pun. But I was sad, especially since it was great having them as company again.

Now I’m back to Apartment 404 (which I like to call ‘404 ERROR!’), where I have no idea if I’m the only one still here. The Spanish girl moved out the day I left for Sydney and a lot of the Chinese girl’s stuff is gone. I thought the latter was staying for several more months, so it’s an absolute mystery. At first I was a bit freaked out, thinking maybe she was secretly a spy and had to flee, or maybe she had a heart attack in her room and now there's a dead body in her locked room I won't know about until I start to smell it decomposing. I need either Hercule Poirot or a Worry Hat. All I know is that she took the toaster, which we split the cost for. If I ever see her again, I am filing for custody. She doesn’t even use it, she neglects it and denies it love! *sob* I had to fry my bread this morning, it’s not the saaaame!

Unusual attachments to lost appliances aside, it’s a bit nice having the whole place to myself. I’m free to have my own little dance party in the living room and sell off the books Spanish flatmate left behind. But once again, I miss my Dad’s nerdy jokes and classic Mom statements such as, “Lizards run like a girl” and "You think he's cute?! But he's all... mincey!" Hell, right about now I wouldn’t even mind repeating the night of New Years Eve. It’s my absolute most dreaded of holidays, more than Valentines Day (because with that you at least get candy) and I’ve loathed it for several years. Despite having to stand around for about six hours in a huge crowd (another thing I’m not a fan of) while Dad herded us to ensure we get ‘the best view of the fireworks,’ I was glad to be there with my parental units. That was one of the first things I thought in 2009, along with, “Oh, please don’t start smacking people!”

This was in reference to the two Flavor of Love rejects (one wearing a ‘Sargent Sexy’ pleather getup and the other in a Playboy Bunny type of costume) standing near me who butted their way through the crowd half an hour before midnight and flirted with an old man to secure a place to stand. One woman yelled at them and it was a sass-fest for the rest of the night. It was pretty ridiculous, but then again, in 2008 the first thing I said was, “Hap-AUUUGH!” because my friend Paige tackled me and in 2007 I think I said, “Woo 2006! Wait...” The first thing I actually vocalized in 2009 was singing along to ‘Use Somebody’ by Kings of Leon, which is my idea of a perfect way to celebrate (as I drowned out the sound of “GET OWT MAH FACE, YOU JUST JEALOUS WE’RE SEXY AND NOT SHORT, UGLY YOU! SHUT UP ‘FORE I MAKE YOU MAH FIRST ENEMY OF THE YEAR!”).

Here’s to the ninth anniversary of millions thinking we were all going to die because of a computer error that never happened! Yay.

And a Danny Bonaduce!

2008-12-22T09:09:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post made from the airport terminal, where I sit way too early in the morning awaiting my flight to Sydney to spend the holidays with my parents. I had this whole great end of the year thing written, but that on my laptop back at my flat, so much for that idea.

Instead, I'll simply wish everyone a happy holiday and New Year. I leave you with my all time favourite Christmas video, yes, the animations are weird, but stick with it. Never fails to crack me up, I've watched it about 7 times in the past few days.

Have a good one, everybody! Much love.

Makin' mama so proud

2008-12-18T14:36:00.000-08:00

A week or so back, I was on the quest for jobs as usual, this time in Fortitude Valley, and I stopped for some lunch in Gloria Jeans (the way better Australian answer to Starbucks). While ordering, I noticed the cashier was staring at me a bit, almost nervously. I began to panic, running through all the things that could be wrong in my mind. Was I obviously sunburnt and didn’t realize? Was a man with a knife standing behind me? Was there a huge bug on my shirt? And yes, I thought them in that order, which shows you how mixed up my priorities are. I noticed she was about to say something and braced for the worst. “I like your sunnies!” she said sheepishly. I thanked her, wondering where that came from and was about to turn away when she continued. “Um, you’re American, right?” I nodded, still confused. “From where abouts?” I gave her my standard answer, “Philadelphia, it’s about two hours from NYC.” She looked really excited by this and I wondered why it was so interesting that I’m American and have cool sunglasses. “NYC,” she asked gingerly, “where your cousin lives?” Holy crap, how does she know I have a cousin there? Before I could ask, she looked at my shocked face and did a little dance. “I knew it! I knew it! You thought nobody would recognize you, but you look so much like him!” she squealed with glee. I had no idea what she meant, but I knew it was too good to pass up, so I played along. We had the following conversation with me completely improvising:

Me: “Really? Man, I never thought we resembled each other at all.”
Crazy girl: “Well, I mean, not exactly, since he’s a boy. But you really have the same hair and nose.”
Me: “What can I say, those are our best traits.”
Crazy girl: “I bet Ben gave you those sunnies. That was the other thing that made me realize it.”
Me: “Actually, no. I bought these myself. But Ben has a similar pair in red.”
Crazy girl: “Shopping with them must be loads of fun, eh?”
Me: “We are complete shopping whores when I go to NYC. Yup, we raid Beacons Closet, Trash & Vaudeville, you name it.”
Crazy girl: “Ooooh! Have you met Kirsten Dunst?”
Me: “Um, no.”
Crazy girl: “So Andrew and her aren’t really dating?”
Me: “Uh, I’m not at liberty to talk about Kirsten.”
Crazy girl: “Sorry! That was wrong of me to ask. I’m just such a big fan of your cousin! And Ben too, obviously. Will you be there tonight?”

And then it all clicked. She was talking about the band MGMT, who were in Brisbane that night. She thought NYC cousin+ similar hair and nose+ nice sunglasses meant I was cousins with Andrew from MGMT. If having the same schnoz and androgynous messy hair style as rock stars from my tri-state area meant we were related, then I have a way bigger and cooler family than I thought. I once met Adam Green briefly after his concert, he was incredibly high and grabbed my hair, saying, “Hey, we’re twinssss.” With crazy girl’s logic, we must have actually been separated at birth, along with several of The Strokes, Joan Jett, and way more NJ emo bands than I’d like to admit I know of.

Another thing that made this strange scenario even funnier to me was that I’ve been told I am the spitting image of other famous musicians, usually males. The only female celebrity I’ve ever been compared to was Claudette Colbert. A classmate’s mother told me that when I was in seventh grade and I had no idea who she was at the time, but now I’m flattered. My own mother, however, loved to point out I looked just like the lead singer of Fall Out Boy circa 2003. My friends even insisted I dress up as him for Halloween (not much of a stretch because I wore boyish clothes anyway) and people did double takes. He’s a lot heavier and slightly balding now, so that comparison no longer stands. Hey, it’s not so bad though. I’d rather be told I look like the girl version of an attractive guy than have someone say, “Are you Janet Reno’s daughter?” That would be rough.

Cousin? Eh, I can sort of see it...

Sitting on the dock of the (Byron) Bay- Part 2

2008-12-17T19:46:00.000-08:00

Day two in Byron commenced with me sleepily pouring an instant coffee packet into my cup of tea thinking it was sugar, then spitting said concoction all over the kitchen. T, who by some miracle didn’t have a hangover, was watching TV with a middle aged Irish woman that was also annoyingly upbeat at such an early hour. As T tends to do, this woman became her new best friend within minutes of meeting. Soon, the Irish woman was demonstrating her clog dancing for us. I stared, trying to stay awake during her spontaneous talent show, then she announced she was going to get her violin out for an extra treat. Because there’s nothing better than playing a scratchy rendition of an Irish jig for people you just met at 7:00 am. I’m sure the people who were still asleep especially appreciated it. T gave a standing applause and exclaimed, “Omigosh, could I have just like, one quarter of your energy?” I choked on my tea. I know what T meant, but the way she phrased it seemed like she was asking the woman if she could siphon a bit of her soul. If someone had asked me that, I’d instantly be disturbed, but the Irish woman laughed and said “Sure!” She then grabbed T’s hands and made a “swoooop” noise. It was like watching an overly enthusiastic version of the Wonder Twins. I loudly announced I was hungry, in hopes C would come out of the room and we could finally go to breakfast, leaving the madness behind.

Breakfast consisted of a delicious smoothie and T rambling on about how awesome the Irish woman is, like she’d known her for years instead of a half hour. We parted ways with C (she was going snorkeling) and headed for the tour bus that was taking us to a ‘genuine hippie town’ called Nimbin, which T could barely contain her excitement about. I’m quite accustomed to seeing hippies and therefore don’t find them as novel as T does, but the description on the tour pamphlet sounded fun. Plus, I don’t know how to swim, so I couldn’t go with C. The driver/ guide was awesome and played music he’d perfected to go along with the ride. Looking out the window at beautiful Australian countryside landscapes while listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young is indeed oddly fitting. I noticed T had her iPod headphones in, listening to Brittany Spears. “Dammit,” I said, snatching it from her and throwing it into my bag, “You want hippies, you listen to their music!”

About a mile outside of Nimbin, the driver pulled over and asked if anyone was an undercover cop. “You have to admit you are if asked,” he said, matter of factly. Nobody was, and he went into a long prepared story about marijuana and the laws of Australia. I had an idea what was getting on, but T was frantic. We finally drove into Nimbin, an incredibly small town in the middle of nowhere. Yup, it was essentially a tourist spot for people looking to easily score pot. T became so paranoid, you’d think she was on the stuff herself. “THESE AREN’T HIPPIES! THEY’RE... THEY’RE... DRUGGIES!” she hissed, clinging to my arm. I told her that druggies evokes the idea of a heroin addict passed out in an alley, these people around us were merely stoners. She didn’t care, they were the same in her eyes. Now, I don’t smoke pot, but in my opinion, it isn’t a big deal and T was way overreacting. One of my favourite moments was when a groovy older woman with silver hair in pigtails came up to us offering us cake and cookies. I politely declined and T said, “Hey, you didn’t ask me! I want cake!” I laughed, “Not that kind of cake.” T got all wide eyed, the concept of drugs in baked goods was clearly unknown to her. “That cool old lady, she was trying to sell us POT in CAKE?! How was I supposed to know that? I’m not from Philadelphia like you.” T has never been to Philly, but for some reason she thinks it’s this crazy place straight out of Grand Theft Auto and it’s a miracle I’ve survived the rough and tumble streets for so long.

Nimbin is best explained by the following pictures I took in the strange town ‘museum,’ a wonderful place full of random crap that creeped T out and made me giggle. Sadly, I couldn’t get a good quality photo of the black light room plastered with glowing velvet Unicorn and mushroom posters.

Dinosaurs, the Virgin Mary, an X-Files type of slogan, and a disembodied Bart Simpson head in the background. Quite possibly the best ‘museum installation’ I have ever seen.
We spent the remaining time eating goats milk ice cream (better than it sounds and T made me try it first in case it was ‘laced with something’) under a tent watching a guy with a banjo called Old Dan play weird songs. First he treated us to a version of ‘Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,’ then an original ditty that made me laugh so hard I wrote down the lyrics:
“My secret lover has a filmy negligee/
When our love was over, she said I didn’t have to pay/
I asked her why our love time was free/
Then she said, ‘Sealey’s Mattress sponsors me.’”

Back on the bus, T couldn’t wait to leave ‘the druggies’ and I chuckled, wondering how long it would take her to realize a good 80% of our fellow passengers were baked out of their minds. One Japanese girl sitting in front of us fell asleep and woke up repeatedly like she had narcolepsy, then stared at her hand for fifteen minutes. We drove through the rainforest on our way to a waterfall and the driver played a techno song because they used to have raves in the forest and the loud music was the only way you could find where the party was located. The techno music had a particularly interesting affect on the reefer crew. I think one of the reasons I don’t drink much or do drugs is that I get a lot more enjoyment out of watching other people who are drunk or stoned. It just amuses me way more than it should. I kind of wish I had let T get that piece of cake, as a sort of evil experiment to see how she’d react, but then again, she probably would’ve just been extra annoying. The waterfall was beautiful, but after I got a few pictures, it began pouring.

Our next stop was a random fellow’s macadamia nut farm, but because of the rain, we were unable to go anywhere on his property but a little cabin overlooking a pond. This is what greeted us on our way to the cabin:

He informed us these heaps of artistically arranged junk have been in the works for the thirty years he’s lived in Australia. Originally from somewhere in New York, he asked if there were any other Americans in the group. T, a couple from California, and I raised our hands. “I bet you’re all glad Obama won the election! Maybe now I can go back and visit the US again!” he bellowed. T winced a bit and diverted her gaze. I cracked a macadamia nut and willed the old hippie to notice her expression. “Why that look? You vote for Nader?” he asked. I could barely contain my excitement. T vs. Old Hippie Smackdown 2008! “Yeah.” she lied, knowing very well what would happen if she told the truth. Dammit. The last time she got in an argument about politics, her opposition asked what a “bright young woman like her would be doing voting McCain” and her defense was the dazzling gem of a comeback “Heidi and LC from ‘The Hills’ are voting for him too!” Disappointed, I ate more macadamia nuts than I’ve probably had in my entire life and took more photos.

This picture isn’t blurry because of my camera, but because that’s just how incredibly hard the rain was falling.

The ride back to Byron Bay was filled with even more excellent music and then we ran back to the share house shrieking after getting dropped off in the peak of bad weather. C had a good time and her session fortunately ended before the storm hit. Walking home, she discovered Cheeky Monkeys wasn’t open that night, so we opted for Japanese food instead. Back at the share house, it was more story time and violin recital with crazy Irish lady, her German friend occasionally chipping in sarcastically. “Is she always like this?” I asked in German, not wanting to offend the Irish woman. The German woman sighed and nodded. Oooh, I know all too well how German lady feels. My friendship with T is very much like that of Daria and Quinn Morgendorfer, minus the sister part. I once pointed this out to T, who of course had no idea what I was referring to. I showed her a few episodes and her response was the very appropriate, “You’re right! That’s soooo totally us!”

Day three was spent wandering a huge artist community in the cold rain looking for a particular glass artist T’s Mom once saw on TV. It sounds like a lot of interesting stories could come from that, but nope. Barely anything was open and when we finally found the place, T marveled at everything in there, but ended up not buying anything. I would have yelled at her, but I was too cold. The two and a half hour bus ride to Brisbane made me car sick and I had a grand ol’ time holding back vomit for two of those hours. Do you know how disgusting/painful that is? Very much so on both counts. So there you go, Byron Bay was not quite the beachy vacation I’d hoped, but it was certainly interesting save for the last day. T still tells me she misses the Irish woman, by the way.

Sitting on the dock of the (Byron) Bay- Part 1

2008-12-15T15:30:00.000-08:00

I'm finally getting around to writing about Byron Bay, which is funny considering it's not like I've had anything important keeping me from it. It's just a loooong story to write and I'd rather watch DVDs of 'Miss Marple Mysteries' while eating oatmeal. Because I'm 70.

Now before I start, I have been repeatedly told by one of my travel companions, "Omigawd, don't tell people about what we did on that trip!" Which makes it sound like we were on Girls Gone Wild or killed a dolphin with a speargun then sold it to a tuna company. There was nothing of that sort, the trip was PG-13 at worst, this particular friend is just very paranoid and Republican. Actually, both the girls (who I will refer to as T and C since they're so freaked out about even their first names being used) I went with are Republican. Not that it matters or I care, it's just hilarious going to one of the hippie capitals of the world with a bunch of conservatives.

Anyway, the trip started from Surfers Paradise, where T and I met up with C. They forced me to go to a super seedy club called 'Bedroom' where there are actual beds for people to lie down and make out/grope/whatever on. Classy! They played all the songs I hate, and I literally spent the entire time standing with my arms crossed looking grumpy while T and C danced around me. Of course there were the guys (and in one case, a really drunk girl) who pulled the whole, "Come ooon, smile! Dance! " I gave them the death glare and they backed the hell off. The only time I danced that night was when they played a Calvin Harris song and 'What is Love?' You know a club is playing terrible music when you think "Thank God for Haddaway!" If for some reason I ever become a spy and end up captured in enemy territory, all they'd have to do to torture me is recreate that place.

Later on, I was straightening the coasters on a nearby table and one of the waitresses (whose uniform is basically a corset, panties, and garters) got mad at me because making the coasters presentable is part of her job. So I messed them up again and she yelled at me even more. Not only am I the worst friend to go to a typical dance club with, but I may also be the only person whose slight OCD tendencies end up getting a Pussycat Doll wannabe angry. Fed up, I told T and C I'd meet them in an hour or so and went outside to take a walk on the beach. On my way there, I saw a snake trying to break into a poor cockatoo's cage. Don't believe me?

I had no idea what to do, I mean, throwing something at the snake is cruel and could also make it leap at my face. But I didn't want the bird's owner to come out the next morning to find feathers and a fat snake in the cage. So I took several pictures hoping the flash would confuse the snake, then ran away terrified. Might I add, I had no alcohol this entire evening, I'm just naturally indecisive and a bit stupid in certain situations.

After a wonderful beginning such as that, who knew what the next few days could have in store? (Hint: Many more awkward occurrences! This blog has the name for a reason.) T and C forgot to tell the Greyhound bus driver to wait for me while I got my ticket and it almost left without me. Thanks guys! They also sat together, leaving me next to a girl who spent most of the ride obsessing over my bag (which I made myself a few years ago). She even took a picture of it. It was simultaneously flattering and creepy. After dropping our things off at the awesome share house, we went to the beach in search of a lighthouse C insisted we visit. Have you ever gone to Washington DC and seen the monuments at the other side of the mall, then decided to walk because it doesn't seem too far away? But it's really 20 times the distance than you estimated. This lighthouse was like that.The following pictures are beautiful, yes, but they were taken over the course of a journey which took two and a half more hiking hours than estimated.

There was no way around these rocks, so we had to wade through a pool of knee deep water. It reminded me of when you have to ford the river in 'Oregon Trail.'

The lighthouse was nothing compared to the many Cape May and Jersey shore lighthouses I've been forced to see as the child of an architect. But it overlooked a nice view and I spotted some manta rays in the water below. (Insert horrible Steve Irwin death joke here)

It ended up being a good thing that we spent most of that first day outdoors, because the rest of the weekend consisted of torrential downpours leading to floods in parts of Queensland. That night, T wanted to go to a bar/restaurant called the 'Cheeky Monkey' because someone told her she'd love it. I prayed it wasn't another 'Bedroom.' To enter, you must choose between "Door #1: For sex kittens, groove masters, rebels, and bombshells" and "Door #2: For porn stars, secret service, show ponies, and comedians." I chose #1 purely for the rebel, but being a groove master would be pretty awesome too. If that wasn't fun enough already, a cheerful hostess gave each of us four raffle tickets, saying we're bound to win something between the three of us and asked if we'd like to order a slice of raspberry cheesecake for only $3. I was sold. Originally we were going to stay for an hour or so, but we ended up spending a good five hours there. Everything about 'Cheeky Monkey' was bizarrely mesmerizing. There was a raffle or stupid contest every half hour and in between, they projected music videos (of actual good songs with enough variety to make T, C, and I all happy, a rare event considering we each have vastly different tastes in music) on the wall. One of the better contests was seeing how many clothes pins this guy could put on his face while they played 'Take on Me' by A-Ha for no real reason.

I think it was 33 pins and he won surfing lessons, a mighty fine prize. One of my raffle tickets was called and I thankfully didn't have to do anything embarrassing. I got a $20 bar tab, woo. We decided to use it the next night since it was good for the rest of the week, but then C had a raffle ticket called and she won a $50 tab that had to be used up that night. Hahaha, OH NO! C and I don't drink much and the drinks we like are a bit more expensive anyway, so we each only had two. But ooooh T... She was a bit special that night.

C and I thought maybe we should head back, but then they announced the 'Male Strip contest' coming up. T told me she would bite me if we didn't stay for that. That was interesting, to say the least. Nothing full monty, but still blush-worthy, especially since the majority of the participants were 17 and 18 year old guys on Schoolies (the Australian equivalent of Senior Week). The best parts were T's reaction and that they made one poor kid strip to 'Barbie Girl.' We managed to get T back to the share house and I gave my $20 card to a German woman in the room next to ours.

I'm stopping here for now and I'll post the second half tomorrow. Go rest your eyes.

P.S. The guy on the computer next to me is practically screaming, "WAKEY WAKEY! SHAKEY SHAKEY! WHY DO YOU TAKE THIRTY YEARS TO LOAD?" at his computer. I'm trying very hard not to laugh.

Hot damn, Summer in the City

2008-12-07T22:09:00.000-08:00

(Note: I know, I know, I'm supposed to write about Byron Bay. But last night I wrote this following post out of boredom and figured I should use it now.)

I fear I am turning into the local crazy lady. Granted, I’m not as outrageously strange/awesome in appearance as my two favourite home town weirdos, Penny Man and Leprechaun Guy (Penny Man has coins glued to every piece of clothing he wears and according to my Mom, has a habit of surfing for porn on the public library computers. Leprechaun Guy is obviously a small Irish dude with the stereotypical ginger hair and beard who always wears green, rides a bike, and hangs out behind the 7-11, most likely dealing drugs). However, if I continue living my life as I have the past two weeks, I foresee a future of a Winebago in New Jersey, a job as the person who writes descriptions for the absurd products in Sky Mall, and my only companionship from a flatulent Westie named Iggy Pop. Maybe I’ll have a shrine of James Dean or Jim Morrison on my wall to talk to, convinced that if falling in love with a photo of someone from the past worked for the guy in The Terminator, maybe I could have a chance to go back in time and save the world with them. And now having re-read that last sentence, I realize it makes no sense if you haven’t seen the movie. Too darn bad. Now having re-read this entire paragraph thus far, I realize my comma splices are horrible and if my Senior year English teacher reads this, he will bludgeon me with a copy of ‘Strunk and White’ when I return to US soil.

SEE? This is what I have become. No job, TV, or Internet make Danielle a dull and pathetic gal. Allow me to let you into my world by detailing what I did today, which is very similar to what I’ve done the past fourteen days. Warning: The following is still a tad boring, despite me using the best of my self-deprecating wit to make it seem more interesting. If you honestly have better things to do than read this blog, I suggest you go about doing them.

9:00 am to 10:30 am- Alarm rings obnoxiously and I set it for fifteen more minutes several times until I finally give up and decide I should start my day. At least two cups of tea are needed to set things into motion.

11ish am- Got my laptop and seemingly useless stack of resumes in their backpack, hoist on said backpack with sunglasses and headphones on. Commence drudging into the city while listening to The Smiths.

A little past 11ish am- Wave at the old man who feeds the lorikeets in the park everyday and now recognizes me as a regular fellow weirdo.

Noon to 2:00 pm- Go to whichever area in the city I haven’t hit up for job opportunities (I’m running out) and hand out my resumes. When they say, “I don’t know if we’re hiring, but I’ll put this on the manager’s desk for you!” it is code for, “I’m going to throw this out later, but now I’ll pretend I care.” Usually I do this for even longer than two hours, but today is Sunday, so not much is open later than 4 pm.

2:00 pm- Walk to the library still listening to The Smiths. Feel emo. Wonder if it’s bad that I relate to lyrics written by a (now) 50-something British gay man during the ‘80s.

2:10 pm- Go to library and download Youtube videos of shows like The Amazing Race and Nevermind the Buzzcocks to watch back at the flat later that evening. Check out the following books: ‘Candy Girl,’ ‘The Devil in the White City,’ ‘The Romanovs,’ and ‘The Encyclopedia of Saints.’ Get disturbed and judgmental looks from the librarian because these books are about (respectively) a stripper, a serial killer, a bunch of long dead Russian monarchs, and a bunch of long dead Catholics (some of whom were Russian monarchs). I’m sorry I have a varied and eclectic choice of reading material.

3:00 pm to 3:30 pm- Wander around the city aimlessly. Buy honey lemon bubble tea because it’s the closest thing to Wawa Lemonade Iced Tea. Mmmmm.

3:30 pm- Start to walk home, become way too excited to eat dinner and watch a reality show about a bunch of idiots running around Eastern Europe.

4:00 pm- Read ‘Candy Girl’ for a while and realize how awkward it is that my own mother has read this book as well. Then again, we watched Superbad together.

5:30 pm- Make dinner and have the usual once a day chat with my flatmates, which is either about food or our native countries. Tonight it was about both, and the Spanish girl flat out told the Chinese girl that Chinese people eat dogs. The Chinese girl was confused, fortunately wasn’t offended by this slightly racist comment and just said, “No, I don’t think so.” I had no idea what to say, so I blurted out, “I think it’s actually Denmark that eats dog. It’s a delicacy there. I saw it on Quite Interesting, and Steven Fry is never wrong.” They stare at me and we all silently decide we should each go to our own rooms. Our section of the UN, if you will.

6:00 pm- Let the wonderful cheap laughs from The Amazing Race issue forth. I love this show a bit too much. Their cameramen have the best jobs in the world, I think I may have found my calling. Although knowing my luck, I’d be stuck with the obnoxious bickering couple they have every season instead of the token strange underdogs like the Jewish fratboys who lost their shoes in Kazakhstan or last season’s awesome goth couple from Tennessee who had pink hair and constantly said, “OH MAH GOTH!”

7:30 pm- Finish reading ‘Candy Girl’ already and decide to write this post. Wish I could file an application for a life.

I am Tired and Broken

2008-12-01T10:41:00.000-08:00

I hath failed you all again with my false promises. If it makes you feel any better, I was too busy being alone on Thanksgiving with nothing much to do. So I bought a small apple pie (not as good as home made and a bit pointless without the Tofurkey I look forward to all year) and ate it while reading a weird book my friend left me about chess and the French Revolution. That’s as close enough to the traditional as I could get unfortunately. I hear there was a mass Rickrolling during the Macys Parade and I can only imagine my family watching it with no idea what it meant. Oh how I’d like to be a firefly on the wall for that. I know that’s not how the phrase goes, but I don’t want to be a normal fly, they freak me out.

Anyhoo, continuing backwards to two Fridays ago, I got a photo pass to take pictures of some bands I was an embarrassingly big fan of in high school. I don’t quite listen to them as much now, but since I never got to see them back in the day, I thought I should at least make my inner 17-year-old happy. Well, even my inner 17-year-old felt like a geezer in this crowd. I’m pretty sure the guys in the band (who are only a few years my senior) and I were the oldest ones there, and that’s saying a lot coming from someone only about to turn 21. Halifax were the first up and I felt incredibly weird rocking out to their awesome cover of ‘Straight Up’ by Paula Abdul because looking around, I was the only one singing along. Sure, there was appreciative dancing and people seemed to like it, but nobody else knew the words. “Ew, this song is SO old.” scoffed the tiny scene girl to her fashioncore posse standing near me (they all had to be about 14). “Excuse me,” I interjected, “but some of us were alive when Paula Abdul was more than the crazy lady from American Idol.” But it turns out she didn’t mean the original, she meant this cover version was apparently ancient. This version which was released in 2004 on the Punk Goes Pop compilation I listened to obsessively my Junior year of high school. I was still older in 2004 than those kids are now. I wanted to cry. Then I’m pretty sure I did cry (in pain) when the next band came on.

The second act was one I wasn’t too familiar with, they’re called Haste The Day. I really need to research opening acts more before going to concerts, because this is usually where things go wrong. Haste The Day are a Christian metal band. Yeah, I’ve heard of that musical genre before, but like narwhals, I find them highly unusual and refuse to accept their existence until I see one up close. Let’s just say their fans mosh for Jesus enthusiastically. I was standing up front after Halifax, taking pictures (no guard rails between the stage and the crowd, every photographers’ nightmare) and when Haste the Day started, everyone rushed forward, causing me to sharply hit my shins on the foot high stage. Actually, it wasn’t even a proper stage, I’m pretty sure they were playing on way too low to the ground risers. I got to spend their whole set pushing backwards against a crowd of whippersnappers so that I didn’t topple onto the stage and be pray-screamed to.

Then Scary Kids Scaring Kids, the act I was especially there for, took the stage. Yes, I now realize I probably should have known a band with a telling name such as theirs might not have been the best to see in concert. But darn it, some of their songs are actually quite catchy if you look past the yelly parts. And I’ve always had a bit of a crush on their keyboardist, whom I was awkwardly about five inches from almost their entire set. My knee gave out a few times thanks to being smashed by the crowd into the stage and I’d be sent forward again, my hand landing on his keyboard to make a lovely BWAMP sound. That was embarrassing, but I continued taking pictures (with both a digital and manual camera, oooh impressive). The cameras are fine, but let’s just say that the bruises on my shins and knees are still healing over two weeks later. I talked to Pouyan (the keyboardist) afterward to apologize for being a guest soloist and we had the following conversation:

Me: “Sorry about being all up in your grill the whole time.”
Pouyan: “Aw, no problem. You were kickin’ ass and taking pictures!”
Me: “Haha, thanks.”
Pouyan: “Wait, are you American?”
Me: “Yeah, from Philly.”
Pouyan: “Oh, so THAT’S why you were holding your own so well, haha. When we played there it was mass chaos.”
Me: “Usually tends to be that way. So, I hear you guys like to play Uno when on tour.”
Pouyan: “Yes indeedy.”
Me: “Your other deck must be getting worn out, so I thought I’d give you my X-Men Uno set. I don’t use it much anymore and something that cool can’t just sit on the shelf.”
Pouyan: “Oh my God! You are my hero.”

With my former prized possession in even better hands and a hug from Pouyan, I happily limped to the bus stop headed back home. Even though it was crazy and I was a tad out of place, it was nice to finally see SKSK and Halifax. As I mentioned before, bits of their songs can be screamy, but I’ll leave you with this (sorry I can't embed it in the blog like usual) to see/hear why younger me especially loved SKSK. I still find it hilarious and one of the best music videos made on a low budget. Oh, and Pouyan is the one in the passenger seat playing Game Boy.

Next post I'll finally get to the Byron Bay trip, complete with lots of photos of nature and the beach. Hip hippie hooray!

Curse you, Mr. Moneybags!

2008-11-26T21:34:00.000-08:00

I just walked two miles (slightly uphill! In the humidity!) to get to a café with free wireless so I could post this. Sadly that’s not just an exaggeration and modern twist on the classic grandparents ‘In my day’ story, it’s because I’m too damn thrifty for my own good. I just moved to a new place for the summer (winter to all you not in this strange opposite land) where the cost of Internet use rivals the actual rent, so I guess this is the way it will have to be for a few months. It’s alright though, I get some exercise and then cancel out said exercise with a brownie in the café. Win-win!

The grand total of the five of you who read this will be excited to hear your wait was not in vain. Many interesting things have happened in the course of these two weeks, but I should probably start with the most recent. Yesterday I played the most pointless game of Monopoly of my life. Normally I love it, the thrill of buying up all the utilities and railroads, then laughing evilly when my uncle lands on one of them, maybe pretending to make my dog game piece pee on his race car game piece in a moment of gloating. I may be sarcastic in my writing, but I’m generally very polite in person and board games are the one time I get to be bitchy without feeling bad about it.

In my new flat, I share the upstairs with a Chinese education major that enjoys cleaning, while downstairs is a girl from Spain who is pretty much the sassy older sister from ‘Ugly Betty’ and a British girl I still haven’t seen despite living here for about six days. The two flatmates who actually show their faces were playing cards with an Indian girl when I got in and invited me to join. Let the language barrier fun commence! Fortunately I speak Spanish well and was able to ask mi amiga the rules. Unfortunately, I’m used to Spanish with a central American accent and it took me way too long to realize that in this particular game, threes were higher than aces for some stupid reason. But at least now I know how the Chinese girl felt when she told me my accent is a lot easier to understand than the Australians because I don’t speak as fast and pronounce my words clearer. My flatmates had to leave after a few rounds and I was left with the Indian girl. Whom I had no idea who she was or why she was in our flat. Clearly she wasn’t a guest of the others since they left and she didn’t go with them. I was about to sneak away up to my room and hope she’d leave on her own, but she decided we should play Monopoly.

I’ve never played it with only two people before and now know it’s especially not fun, but at the time I had nothing better to do and agreed. The game went on for three hours even though I had clearly won a little over an hour into it. But she refused to give up even though she had about forty dollars and everything she owned mortgaged. At first it was a bit pathetic and I felt bad so I let her stay at one of my three incredibly nice houses on Trafalgar Square (oddly, this version was all London streets instead of the usual Atlantic City) free of charge. But after a while, I wanted to throw the little wheelbarrow at her head and demand she declare bankruptcy as well as who she was. Right before she admitted defeat at my ‘Donald Trump but with way better hair’ skills, she asked if I enjoyed being in her old room. Her identity revealed at last! Who goes back to their old residence to pay a visit and ends up painfully drawing out a board game with someone they’d never met before?! I may just have to hide Monopoly and put out Uno in its place because if this somehow happens again, at least Uno is quicker and there are no excuses to try staying in the game. Plus, I have a very special X-Men Uno deck that is clearly one of my greatest possessions.

I’m going to keep this entry at that wonderfully Seinfeld-esque tale of nothingness, but will make the voyage again tomorrow to post a concert story. And of course, concert + me = something incredibly stupid bound to happen! Plus, it ties in with the X-Men Uno cards! CONTINUITYZ, I HAS THEM.

Oh, and P.S. My pictures and The Awkward American were totally featured in the Nylon Blog. Take a looksy! (You have to search 'Brisbane')

This is the Final Countdooooooooooown!

2008-11-14T00:15:00.000-08:00

Sometime earlier this week I was supposed to post about a particularly odd occurrence I had last Saturday, but what I have written up and ready to go makes little sense without the photos we took. Photos that are on my friend’s camera because mine is apparently operable by my hands only. She was supposed to e-mail them to me but keeps forgetting so you might not get to read that story for some time.

But worry not, I just returned from an equally stupid and embarrassing ordeal! My three and a half hour long Japanese Popular culture final. Nobody likes finals other than the fact that they signify the end of that particular course, but I especially can’t stand them because I seem to have things constantly go wrong on finals days. Last year, the train back to school from my internship in the city was stopped because of a stabbing (welcome to life in Philly!) two stations before mine, forcing me to take a bus then walk a few miles with a heavy backpack. I got in ten minutes before it was time for the exam and said final ended up giving me a mild case of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Today wasn’t physically as troublesome, but equally stressful. I got to the testing room twenty minutes early and chatted with two guys from my study group. Before I go on, I should mention that this class is basically Japanese students expecting an easy A, a bunch of cute nerdy guys, a girl with a huge tattoo of the Transformers symbol on her arm, and myself sitting around talking about things like ‘Battle Royale’ and J-punk. So basically one of my favourite University courses ever. I talked with the guys, sad that this is probably the last time I’ll see them again and just as I thought, “Oh duh, ask them for their e-mail!” the test administrator entered the room. Dammit. They allotted ten minutes for looking through the questions and being a quick reader, I spent a good eight minutes of this time ogling my crush’s strangely attractive new Wolverine-esque facial hair. He’s attractive, I swear it! Stop picturing a mutton chopped 18th-century geezer. He first got my attention the day he practically lead the discussion on Miyazaki films AND did so wearing a Horrors shirt. You instantly get points in my book for being a fellow fan of a band I love, especially bands barely anyone else seems to know about. Many a time I’ve terrified people by running across the street towards them yelling, “AHHH! I WAS AT THAT CONCERT TOO!”

Getting back on point, it final-ly (har har) started and I got past the vocabulary section to the essays. But halfway through my second essay, the nib of my mechanical pencil simply broke off. I had not anticipate this, as it’s never happened to me before and I thought it was a fairly solid pencil. I started to panic, shoving it back in with no avail and then opened the little canister of pencil lead to see if it was possible to write with only them. The answer is no, they snap in half, which is why you need the mechanical pencil nib to hold them in place. Arrrgh! I look around nervously and see that some students are using pens in their blue books. Since when were you allowed to use pens? I raised my hand to see if I could ask one of the two test administrators to let me get a pen from my bag. The closest one had seen me freaking out internally at my pencil, but gave me an evil smirk instead of any help. NOOO! “Relax, “I thought, “Ogle the cute guy for a bit, then try again.” That worked and I retrieved my pen, huzzah! I continued working, but after a few sentences, realized the pen was running out of ink. Why was I carrying a pen with barely any ink?! I don’t even recall using this particular one much at all! So an essay and a half of a final worth 40% of my overall grade was written in decreasingly visible ink. Near the end of the essay on the Takarazuka Revue (which I’ve included a link of the wikipedia definition for because it’s hilarious/awesome) the pen died fully and I scratched, “Sorry no conclusion, my pen’s life has ended” into my already suffering paper. Fortunately my professor has a good sense of humour and will hopefully understand, but I still slightly regret doing that now.

I’m actually traveling for once this weekend, over to Byron Bay after spending tonight at the Gold Coast. I look forward to attempting surfing again, but dread the thousand more freckles bound to form as a result. The other day, Elle commented that my arms were starting to look a bit tan, but then as she came closer, she realized that at a distance, my freckles sort of meld together giving the illusion of tan. Curse my Scottish paleness.

lהngre borta הn hem

2008-11-04T05:56:00.000-08:00

Unable to sleep and wanting to stop myself from further watching the strange Canadian cartoon about a bunch of teens taking orders from a fish with flattop hair to fight an old lady and her evil Chihuahua with a British accent, this morning I reread my last entry and I realized it was a tad snarky. They don’t even know about, yet alone read my blog, (psh, does anyone?) but I publicly apologize to my flatmates (not the one who leaves angry notes though, but he’s another matter) for being e-bitchy towards them. I just dislike how they have their own little ‘She-Ra Boy Haters Club’ and when I walk in the room they get all middle school, pretending to talk about something else like I don’t notice.

Then again, I can understand why they might not always want to spend time with me. See, they watch movies like ‘Sex and the City’ together, a film which I have suffered through seeing once already and considered breaking my own pinky finger as an excuse out of it. It’s the same reason they decline my offer to watch ‘Master and Commander,’ a Napoleonic war naval epic I have probably seen at least a dozen times. I get that I’m not exactly girly, but darn it, just because I prefer Henry Rollins to Hannah Montana doesn’t mean I’m against a good ol’ gossip fest about boys and whatnot. They should know that, considering my one wall: Kings of Leon :: the wall of an ‘80s fangirl: Tiger Beat pictures of Duran Duran. Please note however, Duran Duran < Kings of Leon, though I do enjoy the occasional boogie to “Hungry Like the Wolf.”

Getting back on point, I promised myself I would suck it up and rent a few movies all of us would like. I carefully chose three period piece costume drama type films that tend to have the right levels of romance (enough for them to keep interest but not so much that I want to gag) to battle scene (cool action, but not overly gory or annoyingly inaccurate to history) ratios. I was so proud for finally compromising like a big kid that I didn’t take much notice of the women in the city walking by with huge stupid looking hats perched on their heads. Which means I forgot today was the Melbourne Cup Horse Race, a joyous holiday which includes fighting back crowds of said hats, old men frantically placing bets, and people trying not to drop huge orders of food & booze they thought would be okay to transport back to their party on foot. It also means the TV was on the horses all day and there was to be no movie viewing tolerated. After all that, I grumpily gave up and took my bowl of store-brand Cocoa Pebbles back to my room where I spent the rest of my day reading to a soundtrack of music that's almost entirely in another language (for some reason, it’s been my favourite thing to listen to lately, especially if it’s in French or Swedish). I think this means I’m destined to end up living in a cave outside some strange modern Gaul or Viking community. Eh, it could be worse, at least I’m not one of the six people crushed to death by a vending machine every year (that was my Snapple cap fact the other day).

You're standing on my neck

2008-11-01T22:32:00.000-07:00

I was incredibly disappointed by my Halloween, apparently nobody thought to tell me it isn't a big holiday here. Instead everyone in my flat got drunk and went to the big soccer game oh so appropriately called the FARR Cup (say it out loud with an Australian accent... There you go). I also had a disgusting cold which I'm just getting over, but that didn't prevent me from dressing up. I was Daria, for all you that I was going to surprise with a picture of my awesome likeness, but lo and behold I didn't get a photo of my costume. Some other time hopefully.

I sat around as a phlegmy Daria watching Halloween movies from my childhood on Youtube for a few hours and then the flatmates (along with that random irksome guy who always seems to be drunk and watching infomercials on our couch every Tuesday and Friday night) came in yelling louder than televangelists. They had with them yet another stolen parking cone and a bottle of Baileys that "guess what? We found this in a bush! Free alcohol!" I retreated to my room, but quickly went back to the kitchen to grab some toast and a cup of tea so I could properly bunker down. I was too late, the insanity had started and only a minute after happiness all around in Drunkland, I walked into the kitchen to find the girls crying. "What happened?" I accused Irk, who was trying to lie down on our newly stolen coffeetable. "Dunno, they just mumbled a word and that got them both going." Irk then fell asleep and I tried to comfort the girls, politely asking if maybe they could at least tell me part of what was wrong all of a sudden so that I could help them. But it was another one of those, "YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND, DANI!" things because I don't have a boyfriend so that clearly means I know nothing about boys. The fact that I have common sense and lots of male friends who give me more insight to the male mind than I'd like is not good enough. In a very fitting Daria-esque rage, I went back to my room and watched more movies, hearing that ten minutes later everyone was happy and laughing again. Welcome to 170 Mood Swing Lane!

The day after Halloween I was supposed to go to an actual party, but I was even more sick that I had to skip out on it. Extra bummed out about that. But Halloween '06 was crappy and involved lots of drunk-wrangling as well, so at least last year was fun. As for the highlights of today, I got to watch my flatmate from China eat corn on the cob with chopsticks, a feat that takes mighty skill, and last night I had a dream I'm pretty sure was entirely in haiku. Exciting stuff. The end of the semester is approaching, which is insane because I still feel like I just got here sometimes. I only have one more final in two weeks, after that it's summer (weird!) and I recently discovered that means I have to move out. My job hunt in Brisbane isn't going great, so I was considering living in Melbourne for a few months. It would be weird starting over yet again, but I may not have another choice. The Awkward American in Melbourne? Maybe! I heard it's an awesome place with lots of cool independent bookshops, cafes, and boutiques, so my pathetic little resume qualifications might be accepted there. Fingers (and toes, because I'm double jointed, but you probably don't want to know that) crossed!

All You (Astro) Zombies

2008-10-30T04:00:00.000-07:00

While Philly is having a grand old time rioting and I'm being sent photos of the carnage (from friends I'm sure helped destroy a few of those trashcans themselves... I know you guys, don't deny it), I am across the world giddy about the approach of Halloween. Once again I have crafted a perfect yet genius costume out of things I mostly already own, as I have done the past five years. But I won't spoil the surprise yet.

Last year I was a hipster zombie, both a slight social commentary and an observation that a lot of indie bands have used zombies in their music videos recently. A grand total of two people got it. Here's a photo taken in the incredibly creepy stairwell that looks like it leads to Freddy Kreuger's boiler room:
That was a fun night because people actually thought we were still acceptable trick or treating age and not weird college students out to get free candy. Plus I got to attack my friends at certain points throughout the night, screaming things like, "Euuuurgh, grande soy mocha latte brainssssss!" or "Zombies no daaaaance, we shuffle and bob heads."

Speaking of zombies, I insisted Ellie and Alexa watch the original 'Dawn of the Dead' movie with me today because it's the greatest and most hilarious horror film ever made. Okay, I can't say that because I generally don't like horror movies and therefore haven't seen all of them, but you can't deny George Romero's genius. First of all, I love how all his movies are set in Pennsylvania. With those, the M. Night Shyamalan films, the Blob (and its sequel), and a few others I'm sure I'm forgetting, Pennsylvania must be the state where the most horror movies take place. So we got that going for us, plus as horror movie law dictates, the characters are incredibly stupid. Those elements alone make 'Dawn of the Dead' highly amusing to me, but I'm sold when you throw in zombies wandering the Monroeville mall to a polka song (which was later made into the 'Robot Chicken' theme), a motorcycle gang smooshing pies in zombies faces, and a man in a sombrero getting ripped apart because he chose the worst time ever to check his blood pressure. Don't be put off if you hate scary movies, it's not the least bit terrifying. I've watched it many times and I once had a mini panic attack just from the trailer for 'Cloverfield.'

And now because I can't find good quality videos for any of the Misfits songs I wanted to post, I'll settle for the creepiest music video I could think of off the top of my head (it isn't about Halloween, but oh well). They're awesome all year 'round, but especially appropriate now, one of my favourite bands of the past five years, heeeeeeeeeere's The Horrors!

You cant go wrong, come on skank along!

2008-10-26T23:50:00.000-07:00

It's official, nobody in my flat physically talks to one another anymore except for Ellie and I. Nick will instant message me from five feet down the hall just to say 'hello,' or as he says, "Morning!" (no matter what time of day it is). And even worse than that is the dreaded note on the fridge. Instead of knocking on everyone's door around 7 pm when all are guaranteed to be present and awake to call a flat meeting, they write an incredibly rude open notice. Now, I don't mind if it's just something along the lines of, "Could whoever's turn it is to take out the trash this week please do so? Thanks!" Those are friendly reminders and make perfect sense. But last night someone put up a wonderful jem the censored version of which basically states that if the note writer ever finds out who keeps using up the ice and not refilling the tray, they will make icecubes from their blood. I haven't used a single ice cube my entire time here, but the anger of that note made me dump all the ice cubes down the sink and leave the trays empty in the freezer. Just because they went about trying to solve a stupidly easy problem that doesn't matter much anyway with violent fingerpointing. No need to call in Miss Marple or a hitman. It's like Dylan Moran said in his stand-up act, "You want to write a note back to those types of flatmates and say, 'Dear Complaining One, NOBODY LIKES YOU.'"

On a lighter subject where I'm not being a hypocrite by whining about how annoying passive-aggressive proclamations from my flatmates are, I managed to get out for once this weekend. I went with a friend to a place we'd gone to once before, but only for an hour. This time we got there at 9:30ish, stayed quite late and thus were able to see two bands play before the DJ set. To give an idea how this place is set up, they play indie and alternative rock upstairs, then downstairs is split between the main room (which has the live bands and then usually plays ska, punk, and some hardcore afterwards) and the incredibly fascinating pop/hip-hop room. I literally stood by the pool tables for half an hour with my one friend (who is also from a large American city) cracking up watching all these drunk Australian hipsters/punks/emos/whatevers trying to dance to things like 50 Cent and Lil Mama. He turned to me and said, "Wow, I feel like Ving Rhames compared to these kids!" Which is saying quite a lot considering the two of us are pretty darn white. I wish I had video of it, words can't describe the hilarity factor... Then we went and skanked in the other room (for those of you not aware, skanking isn't what it sounds like, it's the type of weird dancing you do when a ska song is playing), where at least we knew we looked silly when we danced.

These obviously aren't any of the people that I'm talking about, but it's the closest I could find, so I'll leave it up to you to decide who looked stupider:
Hipsters who think they're gangstas (just imagine whats going on in the video but on a greater scale and throw in some punk/emo kids to boot)

Vs. My friends and I skanking way too enthusiastically (exactly like these guys are, but not out in random public places)

Yeasayer interview

2008-10-20T07:55:00.000-07:00

This is waaay overdue, but here's my whole interview with the awesome and oh so nice lead singer of Yeasayer, Chris Keating. Please send this to any friends interested in music because it's my first real interview and I unfortunately am not getting it published anywhere but here. For those of you here just to check up on what I've been doing, read the post below this one (though I hope you check this post out too!). Thanks, and enjoy! It's long, but well worth the read, as I got some particularly interesting unannounced (to my knowledge) music news out of him.

Danielle: “You must be tired, it’s a ridiculous flight from LA to here.”
Chris: “Well, we got in yesterday. Where you from?”
Danielle: “Philadelphia!”
Chris: “That’s where he’s from! *points at Ira* I’m from Baltimore. What’re you doing down here?”
Danielle: “I’m going to school here.”
Chris: “That must be awesome.”
Danielle: “Yeah. So, is this your first time in Australia?”
Chris: “Yup, second day.”
Danielle: “And your first gig?”
Chris: “Yeah, first gig tonight! And we already got to pet a koala bear! We got photos with them, it was so exciting. *pulls out photo to show me* They’re so cute.”
Danielle: “Awww, yeah, I love them. They look like little old men.”
Chris: “*laughs* They really do!”
Danielle: “So, from hearing your live performances, especially the Take Away video you guys did, your vocal harmonies seem to come quite naturally. Was recording easy because of that?”
Chris: “They actually don’t come naturally, we work pretty hard at it. I don’t think our voices really work that well together.”
Danielle: “Really?”
Chris: “Well, I mean, I don’t know. I never thought so. We just worked really hard to get them right. So recording, we spent a lot of time doing vocals. Like, months and months.”
Danielle: “Which song on All Hour Cymbals took the longest? Like from starting the idea to actual recording?”
Chris: “Hmmm, we did some demos for ‘2080' and ‘Sunrise’ probably more than a year and a half before the record came out. And so that was the longest, because we recorded them ourselves and then we found a record label and went into the studio for a few days and we went back and recorded ourselves again for about six more months. So those songs have been kickin’ around for a while.”
Danielle: “How do you guys pass time on the road?”
Chris: “With koala bears. *laughs* We usually don’t have any time off. Oh, reading books.”
Danielle: “Any good ones you’ve read recently?”
Chris: “I just finished ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X.’
Danielle: “Isn’t it amazing?”
Chris: “Completely! And now I’m reading a book about oysters.”
Danielle: “Seriously?”
Chris: “It’s interesting! It’s about the oyster trade in Colonial New York City.”
Danielle: “Oh, I guess that could be cool.”
Chris: “We usually try to go places like the zoo and stuff, if someone’s nice enough to take us.”
Danielle: “Okay, not to say that it’s ‘world music,’ because I know that you guys get that description all the time when you don’t classify yourselves as that, but your music does have a very worldly quality to it. Have you ever thought about doing a song in another language?”
Chris: “No, I haven’t. I think it’s kind of gimmicky to do that. None of us are really proficient in any other languages. I like the idea of that kind of Mick Jagger type of singing words you can’t really hear. Like Michael Jackson does. You know, they’re singing in English, but they’ll mash words together so it’s hard to tell what the hell they’re saying. Even in his big hits, in the chorus. I like that better. And that’s how I got into a lot of music from other cultures, because I didn’t understand the lyrics. So I had to listen to the melodies instead, without focusing on any of the lyrical content. When we’re writing melodies, we think about it like that and then we fit in words that make sense. But yeah, I think it would be strange for us to sing in another language. It would just be a bit pretentious or fake.”
Danielle: “You guys use lots of unusual instruments in your songs like sitars or the accordion in ‘Germs,’ do you play them yourselves, or do you get session musicians?”
Chris: “Everyone thinks we use sitars, but we don’t have any. There are some sounds that sound like it... We play everything ourselves. Anand did a lot of cello and string stuff and we’d pitch it down and arrange it with a sampler in a really weird way. We’d try to combine instruments to make a new sound, like a new instrument.”
Danielle: “That’s probably what the sitar sound was.”
Chris: “Yeah, a lot of synthesized layers of strings. I like trying to do that. To create a new sound where the listener is unclear what it really is.”
Danielle: “Is that hard to do live then?”
Chris: “Yeah. We use samplers and stuff, it changes a little live. But I think it’s good that it does. It becomes a challenge to try to recreate some of those sounds. Because I don’t want it to be just a guitar.”
Danielle: “I read somewhere that Anand wrote a musical about Pennsylvania coal miners. Can you tell me anything more about that? Are you guys big into musicals?”
Chris: “I like musicals when they’re good, a lot of ones from the sixties. Some can be unbearable, but I do like that thematic song writing and over the top, grandiose stuff. He’s working on it right now, they’ll be recording it in the winter. It’s his thing, almost a solo project. Though he’s collaborating with some other people, and yeah, it’s about a coal mining town in PA.”
Danielle: “Well, it’s not very often that you hear someone from an indie band is breaking into the musical world!”
Chris: “I don’t know how much I can say about it, since it’s not my project, but it’s really cool. Going to be an awesome record, people will be excited about it once they hear the whole thing. There’s a lot of other musicians doing guest vocals.”
*At this point, the rest of the band comes over and says hello, then tells Chris they’re going out for lunch. He asks Anand to get him a vegetable sandwich, then changes it to a steak sandwich. This makes me laugh for some reason and then I feel really stupid.*
Danielle: “I first heard you guys broadcast on the radio from South by Southwest on XPN, are you thinking of doing SXSW again this year?”
Chris: “Noooo. Too crazy! It’s cool, but a little stressful. Not all that fun to play at, just more fun to hang out. We didn’t even want to do it last year that much.”
Danielle: “I heard it’s one of those things you either love or hate...”
Chris: “I haven’t met any musicians who love it. It’s kind of a mess, the sound systems aren’t very good, stressful time scheduling, and you only play for fifteen or twenty minutes. There’s no set up time. It’s not exactly ideal. It can be fun, but only as a spectator.”
Danielle: “Speaking of music festivals, you’ve been in quite a few famous ones like Reading and Lollapalooza. Do you like those or would you rather play at a smaller, more intimate venue?”
Chris: “The smaller show. Festivals are fun, it just depends on which one and they’re just weird because it’s 5,000 people and the crowd is really far away. There’s a lot of security and the stage is up way high and it’s in the middle of the day. It’s kinda strange. I prefer a smaller club. We were doing a lot of festivals and then we ended up booking a show on our way through Germany we went to Switzerland and we played in Zurich and it was amazing. There was about 150 people at this club, this tiny club at full capacity, and it was so much better than playing to 10,000 at a festival. That show gave us more energy, a little bit of renewed life.”
Danielle: “There’s big music scenes where all of you grew up. Where you in a band previously or go to lots of concerts as a teenager?”
Chris: “Me and Anand grew up together in Baltimore, we were in a high school band, but nothing too serious. We all went to lots of shows. I think Luke used to play in a lot of punk bands as a kid. There’s different things we did, but nothing serious until Yeasayer came together. But I went to a lot of shows after I learned to drive.”
Danielle: “Yeah, because the areas are all so close! That’s why it’s great.”
Chris: “Mmhmm, I drove to Philly, or D.C. or up to New York. In the last six years, there’s been a good scene in Baltimore, not so sure what it’s like right now.”
Danielle: “It has some big names.”
Chris: “Yeah, it just seems a lot of those bands are moving away or touring so they aren’t always in Baltimore. When I was in high school, it wasn’t so much the case.”
Danielle: “Now there’s the Virgin Fest.”
Chris: “They didn’t have that, I think it’s new.”
Danielle: “Pretty recently, only a few years.”
Chris: “Have you been to it? It seems like a monstrosity.”
Danielle: “ I was tempted, because it’s had some great lineups, but it’s a bit too big and expensive for me.”
Chris: “I don’t like going to things like that at all. But I can see why some people do.”
Danielle: “What’s your song writing process like? Do you guys jam and come up with your own part, or do you individually write lyrics?”
Chris: “We jam a lot, but it’s mostly based on recording. Individual people or teams of two will record ideas we have and then trade tapes for the next person to work on it and slowly build up a layering that isn’t expected. Just keeping tons and tons of tracks on a computer and revisiting old jams, like bringing them back. That’s how the record got the eclectic sound we were going for. That’s how we like to work, we’ll see what happens in the future. It’s pretty rare that one person writes a song all by themselves.”
Danielle: “A lot of your lyrics have a mythological influence, have you always been inspired by mythology?”
Chris: “Yeah, there are some archetypal elements, one of the songs mentions Icharus. We mash up mythological figures with contemporary stuff and yeah, I think that was in the writing process. Those songs can be kinda hard to write, the mythological theme is heavy handed.”
Danielle: “Especially ‘2080' mentioning the future and possible apocalypse.”
Chris: “People seem to pick up on that stuff a lot, the apocalyptic themes. I’m not sure how much there really is.”
Danielle: “When I first heard ‘2080,’ I was just listening to the music because it was on the radio and didn’t pay attention to the lyrics and I thought, ‘Oh, this is a pretty song.’ Then I went and listened to it again later and I realized it was a bit dark.”
Chris: “I like contrasting the mood of the music with the theme of the lyrics. Darker lyrics with positive sounding music.”
Danielle: “Yeah, it doesn’t have to be death metal.”
Chris: “Or the opposite. Death metal with lyrics about butterflies or something.”
Danielle: “Do you have any new songs you’re going to play tonight or that you’ve been working on?”
Chris: “We’ve been working on some stuff, but we’ve mostly been touring for the past year. So not a lot of time to work together, but some individual parts. I’ve heard some of the stuff they’ve been doing, but it’s hard right now to try to get those songs together. We’ve got a couple new things we’re going to play, some things that aren’t exactly new, but aren’t on the record. I’m pretty sure we’ll throw some of those in tonight. We never decide what to play until sound check. We have some things in the works. We’re going to be recording all winter, when we’re done touring in December. Going to take four months off and work on the new record. Then we’ll have real new material.”
Danielle: “Are you going to release the song you did for Daytrotter on the new record?”
Chris: “The Daytrotter thing was a looong time ago. Like, more than a year ago. That was just live stuff I think.”
Danielle: “Yeah, but there was one you did about the end of the world. Well, one that wasn't '2080' and wasn’t on All Hour Cymbals.”
Chris: “Hmmm, I don’t think we had a song about that... Oh, wait, we had a song that came out only on a 7 inch in the UK called ‘Final Path.’ That’s it. We have a song that’s coming out on a compilation for Red Hot, it’s an AIDS benefit with Blonde Redhead, Arcade Fire, and some other bands like that. They’re all this compilation and we did a new song for that. That’s the newest thing we’ve recorded, that was sometime this summer. Oh, no it was in May. We went to Seattle to meet with Scott Colburn, who actually recorded the last Arcade Fire record, and did that song. So that should be out... whenever that’s out. *laughs* Probably this month or next month.
Danielle: “I absolutely hate using this word, but Yeasayer was one of the “buzz bands” of last year, who do you think are going to be the next big thing?”
Chris: “Chairlift, you ever heard of them? They are going to be BIG. They’re friends of ours from Brooklyn and we’re going to tour with them on the east coast of the States for ten days. They’re going to open for us, but they’ve been on an I-pod commercial, so...”
Danielle: “That tends to launch bands, yeah. The Steve Jobs bump.”
Chris: “They’re a really good band, really cool. Uh, who else? I have friends in a band called Dragons of Zinth, their last record was awesome and they’re working on a new one. Dave Sitek from TV on the Radio produced their last record and is probably working with them on this one. So, expect them to come down to Australia and do a world tour. We toured with them in Europe. Other than that, I don’t know. There’s bands I like a lot like Dirty Projectors, but they’re already out there and people already know about them. It’s hard to say, I usually don’t like stuff that ends up being really big or popular.”
Danielle: “I’m the same way.”
Chris: “MGMT are my only exception. We were friends with those guys before they made their record.”
Danielle: “They’re doing an Australia tour soon.”
Chris: “Yeah, they’re pretty huge here, aren’t they? I mean, they’re doing well everywhere, but it seems disproportionately popular here.”
Danielle: “They put up posters for their tour at my University and within two hours, they were all stolen by people to put up on their dorm walls.”
Chris: “That’s crazy! Yeah, normally the kind of stuff I like doesn’t get commercially successful, but just from hearing their first demos, we knew it would be. They’re one of the few bands I like and respect while they’re still hugely popular. Which is awesome. And rare. But Chairlift will be the next MGMT, I’m sure of it. Get an interview with them early.”
Danielle: “*laughs* Well, I’m all out of questions. It was so great to talk with you, thanks!”
Chris: “Thank you! I’ll see you tonight!”

Edit- Unfortunately, Blogger is being annoying and not letting me upload my pictures from the show. Blast, foiled again.

Boring life

2008-10-20T06:55:00.000-07:00

I did it again! I'm so sorry, folks, I've been neglecting my poor blog here. I just haven't had much interesting going on. I've basically become like an elderly woman. When not in class, all I do is sit around watching British quiz shows and eat oatmeal or work on my screenplays (one is a short for scriptwriting class, the other is a weird movie idea I've been thinking about). My flatmates have been acting particularly strange too, I don't know what's gotten into everyone. Ellie has been baking cupcakes practically every night, a different kind each time and for no occasion, while Teagan seems to be running some sort of plot to steal as many traffic cones from the Stadium parking lot as possible. Last I counted, there were three of them around our flat. I also woke up one morning to find that we have another chair and a different coffee table in our living room area. Nobody knows where they came from either.

But Halloween is coming up and even though they don't really celebrate it here in Australia the same way, they love an excuse to dress up and party. So hopefully I'll finally convince SOMEONE to go out so I'm not spending another weekend in with Chuck, Heroes (the new season of which is so incredibly stupid) and Stephen Fry. This concludes the yawn-tastic personal life update. I know it's long, but please read the Yeasayer post up above if you haven't already.

It's hip to be a square!

2008-10-09T10:35:00.000-07:00

I know this post is supposed to be the Yeasayer interview and pictures, but I still haven't finished the former. Twenty minutes of talking takes a lot longer to transcribe than one might think. Also, I've spent a bit too much time watching my new obsession, 'Chuck.' Hey, I have time to kill now that I don't have a job (thanks dumb boss and crappy economy!) so why not rent the entire first season of a TV show and watch the whole thing over the course of two days?

For those of you not familiar with the show, Chuck is an adorable nerd who works for the Nerd Herd at Buy Mart (basically the Best Buy Geek Squad, but they couldn't say that) and he accidentally sees a top secret computer file that puts restricted government information into his mind. The last part of that is a bit complicated to explain, it's all to do with the CIA and spies and stuff. Anyway, as cool as the spy factor is, my favourite part of the show is Chuck and his awkward friend, Morgan. They talk about the Arcade Fire, Guitar Hero, Lord of the Rings, and sandwiches in the cutest bantering way.

It is with great joy that I add Chuck and Morgan to my 'Adorably Nerdy Guys I Have Way Too Big Crushes On Considering They're Just Fictional Characters' Hall of Fame:
(Morgan Grimes as played by Joshua Gomez on the left, and Chuck Bartowski played by Zach Levi on the right)

The other members (in no particular order) include the likes of...
Milo Ventimiglia as Jess Mariano in 'Gilmore Girls,' not the classic definition of a nerd, but still very much one none the less. I was always mad Rory never ended up with Jess, considering they were both witty and shared a passion for reading and old movies. Yes, he had a bit of an attitude problem at times, but he eventually overcomes it. In fact, he moved to Philadelphia and opened up an awesome looking bookstore and Rory visits him to find he has matured. But she stayed with her stupid rich idiot college boyfriend. I remember watching that episode and wishing Jess was real so I could find his bookstore and flirt with him. Milo Ventimiglia is alright, but Jess Mariano, how I adore you.

Shane West as Dr. Ray Barnett on 'ER,' aka the reason I watched 'ER.' Why did you have to get hit by a car and have your legs amputated?! I really hope Dr. Ray comes back, because the show is way too depressing without all the times he pops up to make jokes or talk about punk music.
Gregory Smith as Ephram Brown from 'Everwood,' sighhhh. I was obsessed with this show and the often moody Ephram who could be a tad annoying, but then he'd make an anime reference and I'd love him again. Plus, Gregory Smith has been one of my crushes since he was Sport in 'Harriet the Spy.' Oh, and the actress who played Ephram's baby mama, Madison, is now on 'Chuck,' as Chuck's sister!Adam Brody as Seth Cohen in 'The OC,' though keep in mind I only mean Seasons 1 and 2 Seth Cohen. After that, the show started to go downhill and I stopped watching. This is a pretty obvious character for this list, as he's sort of the King of Nerdy TV Guys. But I can't help loving a guy who talks to a toy horse called Captain Oats and draws comics about his friends. Josh Schwartz, who created 'The OC' also came up with 'Chuck,' so the man is clearly a genius.Chris Marquette as Adam Rove from 'Joan of Arcadia,' the quintessential art nerd. It's been a while since I've seen this show, but I'm pretty sure half the reason I liked this character was because he reminded me of a guy in my art class I had a crush on.
Pretty much any role ever played by Jason Schwartzman. Okay, with this one, I love his characters because he plays them with such a charming quirkiness. Even Max from 'Rushmore,' who is a loser and borderline stalker is completely lovable because it's Jason Schwartzman.
Richard Ayoade as Maurice Moss in 'The IT Crowd,' hear me out on this one. He's probably the nerdiest of the bunch, but he's a brilliantly hilarious character. I highly recommend this underrated Britcom to everyone. Watch it and you'll want to hug Moss too.Jon Cryer as Duckie Dale from 'Pretty in Pink,' the original cute nerd underdog. Every time my Mom and I watch this movie, we're both swooning during the scene where Duckie lip syncs and dances to "Try a Little Tenderness." This is a bit weird, but I still think Jon Cryer's attractive now.
Patrick Flueger as Jeremiah in 'The Princess Diaries,' a character who does nothing in terms of plot, but is awesome regardless. I love the male lead in this movie (played by Jason Schwartzman's brother) too, but for some reason, Jeremiah and his way too red hair won me over back in middle school. All Jeremiah does is get picked on and do little card tricks, but he'll forever be one of the best elements of this film.

Patrick Fugit as Patrick in "Saved!" That's right, a Jesus nerd made my list. His character is just so sweet and accepting when almost everyone else in the movie is that hellfire and brimstone 'all sinners must pay' type of Christian. Now, I'm not super religious, but I wouldn't mind going out with the son of a Pastor if he were like Patrick.

So there you go, I clearly have too much time on my hands and looking back on this, I realize that all 12 guys on this list have brown hair (er, Jeremiah doesn't, but the guy that plays him does, so that counts). Guess I prefer fellow brunettes, haha. Wait, does brunettes only apply to women? It's the suffix 'ette' that makes me think so... Hmm, what do you call guys with brown hair then? Never mind, now I'm being a word nerd.

Peace out, rainbow trouts/Girl Scouts!

It's a fresh spring, so let's sing...

2008-10-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

I feel bad I haven't updated recently, but the Internet connection in my flat has been pretty crappy lately. Believe me, I wish it wasn't, because this past week was Spring Break. Something I didn't realize until my one flatmate left for home and I asked why. Which means I basically had no plans at all until Friday. D'oh. I spent time with friends (We went to a ginger factory. Yup. Not as lame as it sounds but still a bit funny considering everyone else there were little kids and their grandparents), wandered around, went thrift shopping, and watched random movies on TV with one of the three remaining flatmates who stayed. I also wasted the one day the Internet actually decided to work on figuring out how to fool the NBC website into thinking my computer was still in the US so I could watch the new episodes of Heroes. I lead a sad, nerdy life.

Then Friday finally came, the day I'd looked forward to all week. Why? Because I had my very first band interview with the wonderful Yeasayer! Unfortunately, everything before the interview went horribly wrong. Even though I took an extra early bus, it got caught in traffic and made me late, then when I got into work, the manager was angry not just about that, but that I didn't call him to let him know. See, I don't have a cell phone over here. I really don't need one because I'd only ever call three people in Australia and I have a phone in my room for that. Then I use Skype for everyone back home. Plus, I never really liked using mobile phones anyway. My manager thought this was sacrilegious apparently, and continued to tell everyone in the same tone one would use when saying "Can you believe she doesn't think the Earth is round? Get with the times!" This did not help my nerves and I bumbled a tiny bit the rest of my shift (though they were all small beginners mistakes, as is understandable). Right before I was to clock out, I grabbed a glass from the dishwasher without realizing it was broken and gashed my hand. Bleeding and freaking out, I ran to take care of it and while doing so, the manager and owner basically told me I was fired. Because of prejudice against non-cell phone users and because I was "late and will be again because that's how Taurus' are." Yup, I was fired preemptively (the owner is a 'psychic,' remember?) due to the fact I'd be late in the future.

I was extra freaked out about doing the interview an hour and a half after being fired, but the guys were incredibly nice. I met them all, but only interviewed their lead singer, Chris Keating. We had a fun twenty minute chat, which I've been working to transcribe and its been a pain in the arse. I hate how my voice sounds when its recorded and I also don't like hearing how many times I said, "Really?! No way!" or "Cooool!" during our conversation. Diane Sawyer I am not. The rest of the day was okay, I sat in a coffee shop and read for a while. I lost some enthusiasm for the concert because I kept thinking about my job, but it was a fun show. Well, fun other than a really drunk girl falling over on me while she was dancing a bit too much to '2080' and causing me to hurt my leg. So many injuries in one day, yeesh. I'll put up gig photos, a short review, and maybe even the interview here in a few days. I just have to hear from my editor and see what he needs.

For now, I'll leave you (since a lot of you probably don't even know who they are) with Yeasayer doing an impromptu acapella set in the Paris subway. Trust me, this is awesome and I gushed about it a bit to Chris and he was like, "Yeah, it was pretty cool, but I hate all that rambling I do in the beginning." So you guys have Chris' permission to skip ahead to the actual singing a minute and fifteen seconds in, haha.

Finally, finally, finally I was forced to face...

2008-09-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

Gee, Brain. What are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world... of graffiti. Then try to convince Danielle to do something other than schoolwork or watching movies!

That's right, everyone. I actually went out and had fun this weekend instead of being my usual hermit self! Huzzah! I worked on Friday morning, then left all giddy with my first pay in hand. So of course I went to Queen St. to spend half of it, ha. It was 'Talk Like a Pirate Day' and there were a few people dressed up, including this one lady who had THE coolest swashbuckler outfit I've ever seen. It looked like it could've been stolen from Kiera Knightly's 'Pirates of the Caribbean' wardrobe. I was really tempted to ask her if I could take a photo, but I got lily-livered. Then I walked around taking pictures of the cool graffiti and sticker art in the city. I also had at least eight lizards of varying sizes cross my path, including this fella who let me go camera happy on him.
Every time I saw an iguana or lizard I said, "OH MY GOD! LOOK AT IT! WHOA!" to nobody in particular, causing passersby to either question my sanity or know immediately I'm not from around here. Speaking of crazy visitors, looky what I found:
And here I thought he was down in Georgia! (For those of you that don't get it, that's a nerdy music joke, not a diss at the South)

Later that night I was ready to settle down for a Cameron Crowe marathon, but Alexa called and told me to get ready for a trip to the Gold Coast. Her super rich cousin was having his birthday party in the penthouse of the tallest building on Surfers Paradise over the course of four days and originally Alexa wanted to go Saturday (when I had work). She found out that Saturday he was going to have 70 people there and Friday was a calmer total of 20, so they decided to change nights last minute. The majority of the car ride up was spent by Alexa's recently engaged (at 18!) friend saying, "Ooh, I want to have my wedding reception there!" to practically every three or four star restaurant we passed. Then we reached the Huge Fancypants Hotel I Can't Remember the Name of.
I apologize for the bad quality, but my flash wasn't working for some annoying reason. Everyone at the party was pretty drunk when we got there, so we broke off from the main group and sat in one of the seven (thats how big it was!) bedrooms admiring the view and sipping some rum & orange juice in honour of pirates. Get it? The orange juice is to prevent scurvy! Anyhoo, the view was astounding and slightly reminds me of Atlantic City.We joined the rest of the party again only to find them talking about cartoons and a guy with dreadlocks screaming, "LETS GO GET ICE CREAAAAAAAM!" So, we opted to leave and go to a club that Constantly Planning Her Wedding Girl was raving about. They stamp your arm with a huge red 'SIN' when you enter (the place was called 'Sin City,' kind of a tacky name). How very Nathaniel Hawthorne. We didn't stay there for long, but it was fun enough. The ride back home was spent mostly by me singing along to Kings of Leon songs on the radio and obsessing about how they're not only one of the greatest contemporary bands but also the best looking family in music (which they totally are, even back a few years ago when they were in their '70s hair and too much flannel phase). Yes, I realize how pathetic it is that my conversations tend to revert to the topic of cute boys, bands, or cute boys in bands.

Saturday was my first time working movie night, which was awesome. The movie was 'East of Eden,' one of my favourites and it was hosted by a fabulous tranny who was just a bit tipsy. Oh boy, was that interesting. I kept getting called 'Raquel, Darling' and had to deal with a lot of gossip. I was supposed to meet up with friends later, but some bad directions and an idiot cabbie later, I found out I was only a five minute walk away. This really got me angry, because I should've known it was going to happen, I consistently get terrible taxi drivers. Then I get there and find my friends left. ARG! But fortunately I knew she lived nearby and remembered how to get there. I also had a cute guy come up to me and ask to help settle a bet with his friend for $10 that he couldn't get a random pretty girl to kiss him on the cheek. And yes, I gladly helped, teehee. I found Angie's house and we watched a DVD of Adam and the Ants videos (her favourite), exchanged concert stories, and all that fun stuff. She invited me to go to the beach with her posse next weekend, so it looks like I'll actually have something to write about then too, yay!

I finally got a steady social life over here, aren't you all proud?

Why can't we be friends?

2008-09-14T21:25:00.000-07:00

Well, I tried, I really did, but thanks to the Josh Pyke concert I wanted to go to being sold out, the outdoor Operator Please concert being rained out, and my flatmates boyfriend issues causing all other plans to be drama-ed out, I spent yet another weekend doing nothing. However, my first day of work went well, so yay, but not much to really go into about that.

Don't get me wrong, as I've said many times, I like my flatmates a lot, but it always sucks being the only single friend. Especially when you're trying to comfort them and they basically tell you that they appreciate the sentiment, but I shouldn't give advice when I've never been in a relationship. Ouch. Speaking of friends, all they wanted to do was watch the sitcom of that very name which I've never been too keen on. Maybe its because I was only eleven when everyone was getting Rachel haircuts or perhaps its because I know there is no way they could ever afford an apartment that size in Greenwich Village, but I just don't find "Friends" that funny. Naturally, they had to do the whole "Oh, I'm such a Monica type of person!" thing and I was instantly labeled Phoebe. Figures I'm the kooky and artsy yet street smart one who marries a gay Canadian ice dancer so he can get his green card.

But seriously, I know I should be trying to make more friends so I don't have to rely on the same people when I want to actually go somewhere or do something. I'm just not very good at making friends the traditional way. Most of the people I've known for several years will tell you about the strange circumstances under which we met. For example, when I hit Paige in the face with my sock at a sleepover five minutes after being introduced to her and we're still close over seven years later. Or how my Mom made me carpool with Jenna because we both liked Tamora Pierce books and after a few quiet rides I broke the ice by comparing a picture of a bald man's head on the back of a bus to a cheese knish. I'm just not very good at 'get to know you small talk.' The other day, I got into a conversation with my Screenwriting classmate about 'The Sixth Sense' and I literally followed her onto her bus just so I could keep talking with her. It wasn't the bus I needed (though I told her it was) but it went close enough to where I live and I got home an hour later than usual because of it. I think I may have weirded her out, but I have that effect on lots of people.

In a similar vein, a few weeks ago my flatmates dragged me to (eurgh) Pub Night, which I can't stand. This guy told me he was from Stewart Island, adding that I'd probably never even heard of it. But I knew exactly where it was, I told him, and he was very impressed. "Well," I said, "I'm good at geography. Not so much capitals outside of the US and Europe, but the basic 'where countries are' for everywhere else at least, you know?" I then went on a long tangent about how as a child, I loved 'Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?' while all the other kids adored that annoying math game '24,' which we were forced to play in school. I spent my time playing the 'Carmen San Diego' computer game instead of studying for the '24' tournament and I lost in the first round. Kids laughed but I told them I was going on the 'Carmen San Diego' game show and winning a real prize, on national TV none the less. Unfortunately the show ended right before I was old enough to qualify and I was devastated, but my geography skills stayed with me. The guy looked at me and went "Okayyyy, I'm going to the bar..." Later my flatmate informed me that he was trying to flirt. Dammit. Always a Phoebe, I guess.

EDIT: This is for those of you that don't know/remember what I'm talking about. Look at how high tech those animations are, haha. And I love that the roach is named Kafka. Boy, did I want to wear one of those neon fedoras and ACME Crimenet ketchup & mustard coloured blazers so badly! *sigh*

I'm so tired, my mind is on the blink...

2008-09-10T11:55:00.000-07:00

Well, it's a bit past 6 am here and I'm awake. "Good for you," one of you might be thinking right now, "getting up early to tackle the day!" Um, no. I just haven't slept all night. No need to worry though, I'm not so fraught with emotion that I can't partake in slumber or pulling a hectic all-nighter to write a paper my grade depends on. It's mostly due to the stupid ravens and kookaburras outside cackling all night keeping me awake. While home to some incredibly cute fuzzy mammals, creepy bugs, and poisonous things, Australia is also blessed with some of the most annoying birds in the world.

So what did I do to whittle away at these early morning hours? I wish I could say I enjoyed a cup of tea while reading a classic novel, but alas I did not. Unfortunately I haven't read a non-schoolwork related book in the entire time I've been here. It saddens me greatly. I have been pouring over every magazine and newspaper I can find though, so at least that's something. Their library here is in the mall, which I just can't get over. The MALL! That's like putting an Urban Outfitters in the middle of Home Depot. So I thought it over and using the wonders of Youtube, I've done the closest thing to curling up with traditional literature: Watched old episodes of 'Wishbone,' of course!

The sad thing is, I remember almost everything that happens within these episodes. A few seconds into 'Salty Dog,' (the Treasure Island episode, which weirdly enough, was written by now famous comedian/political commentator Mo Rocca) the main characters all bike ride up to an abandoned barn. Suddenly I think, "Wait a minute, there's a lucky horseshoe that Sam (the girl) wants and later they go in there, get stuck, and the barn is burning to the ground when she finds it!" That's precisely what happens and I haven't seen this show since it aired over twelve years ago. I have to wonder how much space in my brain is wasted just by storing early '90s TV show plots. So I decided to watch other shows I loved as a kid to see if I could recall them as well. Sure enough, I knew main turning points in episodes of 'Ghostwriter,' 'Blossom,' 'Family Matters,' 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch,' and 'Are You Afraid of the Dark?' from only a minute or so in. Hell, I even remembered a few direct quotes from an episode of 'Boy Meets World' I chose at random from the many seasons it ran. All that's been in my noggin for at least nine years and I never realized it until now. No wonder I can't recite my 7 and 12 times tables, they've been replaced with meaningless trivia!

Anyway, things are going great other than me discovering a lame excuse for a talent. I got an awesome new job at a cafe/restaurant and am pretty sure I also secured a (non-paying as usual but great opportunity) spot writing for a local music magazine! I was in such a good mood the other day that I went out and bought a ukulele. Yes, I impulse buy small stringed instruments, not clothes or chocolate like most females my age. It's the coolest instrument ever! I missed my guitar, which I was finally stating to get the hang of when I left, and decided it would be a good way to keep in practice. Plus it wasn't expensive at all and is much better suited for my tiny little hands. I've only had it for two days and I can play Frère Jacques already! Pretty soon I'll be a ukulele master and can do duets on a train with Patrick Wolf *sigh* I wish.

'Wishbone' and ukuleles... I realize how incredibly lame I am. I know I keep saying it, but I'll go somewhere interesting and take pictures soon. Once I have money from my job, I'll be able to travel more and who knows where the music writing could lead! This weekend, however, will be spent working said job and (finally) sleeping. Wooohooo.

Time flies by like fly time

2008-09-04T23:14:00.000-07:00

This week went by waaaaay too fast. Maybe it's because the seasons have changed so drastically here, we've been getting spring showers already and winter just ended a few days ago. I still get confused by the opposite seasons. Because of said rain, I was forced to stay inside a bit, but I made sure to watch Australian Idol and read old issues of an amazing Aussie magazine called Frankie. Now, I can't stand American Idol, but find myself addicted to the Australian version. There is significantly more talent, variety of music styles, and the judges actually have more constructive criticism than "A bit pitchy, dawg!" Plus, almost every contestant knows how to play at least one instrument in addition to being able to sing well. See, I'm still experiencing Australian culture even though I'm indoors! Once the weather is better, I promise to be more interesting.

I've been here a week or so shy of two months time, but for some reason this week was particularly full of people asking me questions about America. For starters, I'm shocked how little about American geography most people I've met here know. Only one person knew right away where I meant when I said Pennsylvania. It's not like it's even an obscure state! I always hear on the news that America is the stupid one where lots of kids don't know even their own state capital and other countries around the world shame us in the US History and Geography department. But I had a guy as me if Philadelphia was "near Chicago, you know, that state where the Pilgrims landed, right?" Just explaining where exactly I'm from is frustrating enough sometimes, but then I get the same top five "oooh, I've always wanted to know this about America" questions:
1. What's New York City like?
2. Is high school in America just like in the movies and TV?
3. Do you see famous people like all the time?
4. Have you ever been mugged/ have you ever seen someone get shot?
5. Do people from the South/New York/Boston/etc. really talk in those exaggerated accents?

And I usually give the same answers every time:
1. It's so big that this question is incredibly vague. I've only been to three of the five boroughs [explains and names boroughs] and I still can't begin to describe just Brooklyn in itself. But New York City is awesome, though I personally don't think I could live there. You should try and visit it for yourself. It's not anywhere near as dangerous as TV and movies make it seem.
2. Not at all. Though I'm sure there are rich California kids who have amazing courtyards they're allowed to eat fabulous lunches in. The closest thing to my high school experience would be an updated version of 'Daria' mixed with 'Freaks and Geeks,' maybe a bit of 'Pete and Pete' thrown in. [That's right, my life was and still is more of a weird, under-rated comedy than a drama or coming of age romance.]
3. I see and have met lots of musicians that I find famous, but the only really famous person lots of people would be familiar with I've seen in Philly is Jay McCarroll, who won the first season of Project Runway. So no, not really. Only B and C-List folks.
4. Um, no. I know people who have though. And if I had, I don't think I would want talk about it.
5. Yes, but not everyone obviously. I don't sound like I'm from Philly at all, thank goodness. My vote for weirdest American regional accents go to Long Island and Wisconsin. [Then I do my impressions of said accents. No offense to people from those areas!]

I can understand people being intrigued by the fact I'm from America and don't mind answering their questions, but sometimes I hate that I'm 'The American.' Would people still be interested in talking to me if I wasn't from a place that's novel to them? Do they make assumptions about me based on my accent? Sometimes I want to put on a British accent and see if I'm treated the same way. When I was in Scotland, there were a whole bunch of other Americans, but here I'm one of three that I know of on the entire campus. The other two are from New Hampshire and Colorado, so they aren't as close to the big cities as I am. Fortunately I haven't had anyone insult me for being American, but I still can't help but think the big "I'm from a famous American city!" sign that seems to be on me overshadows everything else about myself.

Oh, down to the river we ride...

2008-08-31T01:30:00.000-07:00

Yet another mistake was pointed out to me (thanks Becky!), so now everyone can comment on my posts. I have no idea why it was set so only people with Blogger accounts could respond. Sorry!

Riverfest is going on all week in the city, but having gone both Friday and Saturday, I'd say the only day anything interesting took place was yesterday. Friday, a group of friends and I just wandered around looking for something to do besides shop and eat food. We passed by Hungry Jacks (what they call Burger King here for some reason) several times throughout the day and the same group of bored looking goth kids were always sitting outside. I had to wonder why this was their choice place to mope. Did Robert Smith get onion rings there once? Maybe some day I'll go over and ask them. More aimless walking in search of a Riverfest event, but the only noteworthy thing that happened was passing Hare Krishnas and being given pamphlets by the Socialist Youth Society. Nothing like being told you should consider a new religion and political party by people on the street!

Back at the flat later that night, I stayed up to finally watch a few hours of Rage. Rage is an uninterrupted six hours of music videos shown late at night on weekends. So clearly, this was a bit like heaven to me.

Haha, look at my happy little face! And please ignore my horrible attempt to grey out my flat's disgusting and ugly sofa set. It looks like someone trash picked it from a crack house. Needless to say, I never sit on it. Anyway, I was so excited to watch full videos that have more than just a band playing in a field or a rapper with some booty-shakin' hos (yeah, I'm looking at you, modern MTV and VH1 when you actually take time off from awful reality shows to screen a few videos). The absolute best one of the night was a song that I've heard before, but never seen the video of. It's called 'Letter from God to Man,' by the British rappers Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip. Believe me, it's outstanding and not really as religious the title implies.

I know it's a bit difficult to understand his accent sometimes, so here are the lyrics. Seriously, I was watching this at around 3 am, on the verge of sobbing. Then it changed to The Kooks and my flatmate walked in to get a glass of water and looked at me weird, wondering why I was so misty-eyed over a bunch of rock stars in tight pants flirting with models.

Riverfest Saturday was a bit more impressive because that night was Riverfire and entirely too many people were walking around. So we opted to spend most of the day in the Science Center and Art Museum. They were both pretty neat, though I was creeped out at the sheer amount of taxidermied animals the Science Center had on display. What made it weirder was that every single one had it's cause of death underneath it. I realize that's so nobody thinks they were killed just to be stuffed, but do I really need to know this poor wombat died from impacted bowels? We waited in ridiculously long lines to get dinner, then at 7 a huge fire-spurting plane flew past way too low, scaring the bejeezus out of me and letting everyone know the fireworks were about to begin.

Unfortunately, I did not get to enjoy the display as much as I'd like to because a third of the crowd were taking pictures. Some using their flash. I wanted to scream, "Put your damn cameras down and enjoy the fireworks! Don't you realize your photos are going to suck anyway?" I was so angry that all these people were taking shots that were of the dark sky and one little green spark, then turning to each other and going, "Oooh, that's a good one!" WATCH THE FIREWORKS! Don't take pictures so you can instantly reminisce about that red heart shaped one and miss two minutes of other fireworks in doing so! I mean, I love to take photos and understand that they want to capture their beauty. But take a few really great pictures if you can, then put the camera away. Taking several bad pictures a minute for the entire half-hour fireworks show is just stupid. Since when did photography become about quantity over quality? Grump, grump, grump. Sorry for the rant, it just really annoyed me that I waited all day and people were ruining the show for me.

Today I slept in and am continuing work on a paper for World History, super exciting stuff! Tomorrow is the start of September, maybe I'll be a bit more interesting in the new month. Hope everyone has a good Labor Day! I won't because I don't get the day off. :[

Hot Glam! (I Love You So)

2008-08-24T23:53:00.000-07:00

Oh wow, I just realized one of my favourite blogs, Popserious put me on their blogroll! Right at the top too, because it's alphabetical order, but that means I'm above Best Week Ever and Boing Boing! Whoa! Thanks guys, you're awesome! Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Airplane!, !!!, Oh the Places You’ll Go!, and a whole bunch more exclamation points! I'll stop now. I think that last sentence made my spell check have a nervous breakdown.

Also, my Mom pointed out to me that I accidentally had last week's entry as August 13th, when it was really the 20th. So that's fixed now, thanks to the observational powers of Editor Mom. See, all those years of me asking her to proofread my essays payed off.

I make a point of checking a few Philly news sites every day just because I like to keep up on what's going on back home. The last thing I saw on Australian news regarding PA was about the Phoenixville Blob Festival. But it was this piece of (where else but) New Jersey news that made me laugh. Oh you Joize kids and your shenanigans, how I miss you. When I saw that headline, I half expected it to be the group of guys I lived next to last year. They were in the martial arts club and would all stand up then bow at the same time after finishing meals in the dining hall. That was a bit weird, but the Ninjas were nice guys and I never had to worry about my room getting robbed.

Unfortunately my neighbors this year aren't so respectful. Well, just the one. As I said before, all my flatmates are wonderful, but it's the guy who lives below me that's in for a fight. Usually people have to complain because the person above them is blasting music and it's going through the ceiling. I have the reverse problem. To try and handle it politely, I went on the school's chat room because he's constantly on it. I figured it was an easy way to let him know he should turn his music down, but then I didn't think over the fact I was talking to a college chat room full of 18-year-old boys...

Dani: Pace... It’s past midnight. Also, this is like the 10th time today you've played 99 Luft balloons. Could you please turn it down?
Void: stick a luft balloon in his pooper. then inflate it.
Dani: No... I just want him to know his music is way too loud and way too crappy.
Morven: put your vagina on the floor and enjoy it.
Void: pace, can you hear the vagina on your ceiling?
Pace: yeah, its hot. NANANANAAAA 99 LUFTBALLOONSSSSSS
Dani: Listen closer and you'll realize it's my fist.
Pace: hahaha, haha my window aint even open. must be loud.
Dani: Yes, yes it is. That's my point. I have to sleep.
Pace: 99 luftballons cued for 7:40 am
Dani: I'll be up then anyway. HA. And you're just lucky I don't have speakers myself.
Pace: *points speakers upwards*

This went back and forth for a few more minutes, with them getting progressively more lewd and I finally left because got sick of trying to reason with such idiocy. Fortunately, the RA came and made Pace turn off his music shortly after that. They must've heard it themselves because I didn't even call them. But they apparently continued the stupid 'vagina on the floor' thing in the chat long after I left. My one computer savvy flatmate saw that they were being jerks and used a secret trick to kick them off the server for two hours. Thanks man!

EDIT: Pace and my flatmate Gus are good friends that go way back, which means Gus is trusted enough to have a copy of Pace's key. He's also pretty sure of the password to Pace's computer. Did I mention Gus lives right across from me and has to get up really early, so he hates when Pace blasts music too? Next time it happens or Pace is rude to me, Gus and I are going into his room, deleting all the songs he blares repeatedly, and downloading every single Yanni, Goo Goo Dolls, and Jonas Brothers song in their place.

Despite that one annoyance, I had a great weekend. I went to a Glam Rock themed party (I was supposed to be Debbie Harry, but it didn't quite work considering I don't have blond hair or look anything like her) and got to hang out with a fun bunch of punk kids in hilarious outfits. The party was in a cute little rented Russian hall that had pictures of Catherine the Great and Leo Tolstoy. It looked like a babushka's house. Even better, it was directly across the street from the AFL (Australian Football League) stadium. The AFL fans sure were taken aback when they saw a bunch of 20-somethings dressed up as Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Marc Bolan, Ziggy Stardust, and Suzi Quatro going into a Russian hall. COMMUNISM! After about two hours of dancing to glam, we decided to just play what we normally listen to, and by the end of the night, we were dancing (in the same way they do in this video) to our favourite Eurovision song:
We then decided to go outside and somehow our conversation turned to jingles from several years ago. Iggy (I don't remember half the real names of these people, mostly because they were introduced to me as their character) was saying he remembered one that had a fat kid saying some phone number over and over. Naturally, we had to call the number to see if the fat kid answered. Apparently that number is now the hotline for a radio station and the operator asked Iggy what he wanted to talk about. "Um, life... Love... How my stupid girlfriend just ran off with the fat kid and took the dog with her. Now I only have the cat, who hates me." Either the story sold them or they were desperate for callers at 1:45 am, because we got put on air. We practically died laughing. Nobody has any idea what station we even called.

SECOND EDIT: At first I didn't put any pictures from the party for some reason, but now I've been told I can't describe a party like that and not provide visuals.

Angie should be a magician's assistant! I love Dennis' expression in the background, haha.

Dancing up a storm, a rather silly looking dance storm. This photo gives you the idea of all the crazy Russian paintings and memorabilia on the walls. That's me on the right in the black tutu and silver top that makes me look like a ballet baked potato. As I looked through pictures I realized that almost every single picture (such as this one) I'm in has me holding a beer. It makes me look like a complete alco, but it's actually the same beer I held all night. Because all they had was beer, which I am not a fan of. Too much carbonation and the taste doesn't appeal to me. So the entire night I took about three sips, yet I kept it with me because I didn't want to be rude. I'm the exact same way with soda. I've probably drank one can of Pepsi in my whole life. I realize that nobody would take offense to me disliking their beloved 'beeah,' but I always worry and over-think things like that.

This guy ('Marc Bolan') stayed in Glam Rock mode all night, he's my hero.

I should really know all their names, I'm terrible... I only know the one to the right who looks more like a member of Panic at the Disco is Rhys, because that's a pretty memorable name. Dude in the middle is so a rockabilly version of David Bowie! I have to laugh how he's posing tough with a clenched fist when he's wearing heavy makeup and the other two are flaunting it for the camera.

That's about it for now, nothing else interesting with me other than I'm a huge nerd and have been watching Mystery Science Theater 3000. Oh wow, the Australian news just said that "Jimmy Page from The Who played at the Olympics closing festival last night." It's called fact checkers, good job.

Mystik Spiral

2008-08-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I finished watching all five seasons of Daria (I forgot how oddly parallel that show and its characters are to my own life, perhaps that's why I love it so much) and switched to being an Olympics addict. I never used to watch them much in the past, but it's everywhere over here and I couldn't ignore it if I wanted to. There are giant screens all over campus and the city for people to watch while eating lunch, to take a break from their walk, etc. The ironic thing is I usually don't care at all about sports and sometimes could even go as far as saying I hate them (mostly just because rabid Eagles fans during playoffs are incredibly annoying). Yet the other day I was on the verge of tears when that one weightlifter kept slipping grip and lost his chance. I screamed in anger just as passionately as my flatmates when the Australian boat meant to win the race capsized only a few hundred meters from the finish. Yes, Phelps is amazing and totally deserves his victory, but I actually prefer watching the offbeat competitions and rooting for the countries I probably can't point out on a map.

I haven't just been sitting around watching active people though, I've been doing some sporty whatsits of my own. I went rock climbing last week and not just on an indoor wall like I'm used to, but an actual cliff face. That was a bit terrifying, but it's something I want to try to do every week or two, so hopefully I'll be a pro by the end of the year.

Spent the weekend at Stradbroke Island, aka Straddie, which is gorgeous.

We went surfing, kayaking and sand boarding, all of which were intense fun but completely killed my muscles. Unfortunately I don't have any photos from the first two, and the only one I have of me sand boarding is me with my butt sticking out as I try not to fall over. So I won't be posting that, neither will you see the video of me going down the dune then face planting in the sand. How about pictures of a pretty sailboat and a cute skink on a rock instead?

I was incredibly tempted to put a photo I took of my friend standing on the cliff and write, "Oops, that's a cute skank on a rock, wrong photo..." but I decided against it.

One of my favourite parts of the trip was actually the part a lot of people hated. We were crammed into a seatbelt-less troopie (a type of van) meant for a lot less people to travel in and sped around the island going over logs, rocks, and such off road obstacles while our driver turned up Australian hip-hop to drown out the sound of us being tossed around and freaking out. It's sort of a 'you had to be there moment,' but at one point, the driver pulls down a little DVD screen and this music video starts playing on it:

I was the only one to recognize what it was from the start and thought, "Okay, that's a random choice!" Then other people picked up on it and soon we were all singing "YOUUUUUUUU... YOOOOOU GOT WHAT AHHHH NEEEEEEED!" at the top of our lungs while being thrown around and hitting our heads in the back of this van. It was a bit like that scene in 'Almost Famous' when they all sing along to 'Tiny Dancer,' except a lot less harmonic and with more bruises. It was worth it not only for that experience, but we spotted this little guy chilling out in a tree.

It's not very often you get to see a koala in the wild, our guide was telling us most Australians can't even say they've seen one outside of the zoo. Then he got way too excited about how koalas are constantly high/drunk from all the eucalyptus they eat, which made us a bit uncomfortable considering he was our driver.
Later, as we ate lunch in the park, I spotted a pigeon with a sweet mohawk (I wish I got a better picture of it).

The only bad part of the trip was the ferry because it was the car-loading kind that I associate with doom thanks to 'War of the Worlds' and that episode (the only one I've ever seen and it had to be this one) of 'Greys Anatomy.'

Fortunately we survived both times and managed not to be sucked under by aliens or crash into Seattle. Phew. I know, the chances of both those things occurring are incredibly high in Australia. We should all be grateful I'm alive.

I don't really have much else to say, so I might as well leave you with another purposely awful/hilarious music video by the namesakes of this post title and one of my favourite fictional bands (after Drive Shaft and Wyld Stallions of course), enjoy 'Freaking Friends' by Mystik Spiral:

They're like, "Whehs the caah?" and we're like, "Wihs the cah?"

2008-08-06T14:41:00.001-07:00

And then at the end the three of them go stand outside the Australian Embassy and flip it off, haha.
I keep watching 'Flight of the Conchords' with my flatmates, which makes it even better because one gets all mad when they make jokes about Australia (the others don't mind). There's a New Zealander in the dorms on my friend's floor and every time I see him, I say "Brit? Prizint. Jirmain? Prizint. Murray? Prizint. Ivrywin prizint? Litz start this band mitting!" Then he death stares me because I'm sure he gets jokes like that constantly. I think it's cute how New Zealanders pronounce the letter 'e' as 'i,' so I kid in good nature. They make fun of themselves on 'Flight of the Conchords' as well, and some of the jokes are true about both countries. Like when Bret and Jermain are fascinated because basic American TV has more than 4 channels.

Yes, there are really that few stations here. Well, there are technically seven, but two are repeats of other channels, and one is a crappy local channel. Though I shouldn't diss the latter, since that's what I watch most often. I haven't watched much recently because the TV is being hogged by the boys for rugby and AFL matches. The other day I woke up in my beige cinder block room, found a tall skinny guy in his pajamas yelling at a soccer match on TV, and forget what country I was in for a few seconds because I've experienced the same situation in three countries now. Guess I always end up living with tall skinny guys who get very angry at sports, haha (yeah, I'm talkin' 'bout you, Matt).

One of the great things about living with so many people is that someone is always around, and in our case, usually doing something weird. A few days ago, I took a break from watching movies (hey, I don't have any assignments yet) to take a walk and as I leave, my flatmate who works at a donut shop comes in with two dozen chocolate frosted donuts she managed to snag. Actually, they were just normal glazed, but she also had the melting chocolate and truffle shavings to make them fresh. I took a picture of the amazing sight (so much for my walk, eh?) before we demolished them:
As we're eating these, one of the guys says, "Oh, I should probably just have one. I'm a bit full from eating all that cookie dough earlier!" I thought he was joking, but a good ten minutes later, he's gnawing on a half-finished tube of raw chocolate chip cookie dough and reading aloud to us from an article he found online about a creepy British guy who has sex with his cars. Give us a month and this whole flat is going to get diabetes, I swear. Geez, are we a healthy bunch. That Freshman Fifteen I never got may just show up now if we continue like this.

To bring things full circle back to my favourite Kiwis, here's a clip that I have probably watched 30 times and still laugh at all the same parts. Um, just like I do with the actual Lord of the Rings...

Where the hell are you, exactly?

2008-07-31T10:55:00.000-07:00

Arg, I've been a bit lazy and not updated recently, sorry everyone. I'd like to say I've been busy out going partying and being cool or something. I've actually spent most my nights sitting around watching TV, dumb movies, or Japanese game show clips from Youtube with my flatmates. That's right, I live with a bunch of fellow nerds. Magic Cards, World of Warcroft, constant quoting of 'The Simpsons,' Dungeons and Dragons, one guy is studying the science of lasers... Yup, full-out geekdom in here, yay! There are currently four guys and three girls (counting me) in our flat, we all get along very well, thank goodness. Well, two of the guys rarely leave their rooms, but they're nice when I do have a four second conversation with them and they don't cause any sort of trouble. One gives me a cheery "Good morning!" every time I see him, even if it's 4 pm.

I suppose I should explain the flat, since a lot of people were confused about where I'm living. First of all, my campus isn't actually IN the city, it's in the middle of a forest a few miles from the city. The other day I was sitting on the balcony eating breakfast and two turkeys ran by gobbling at each other. That was pretty odd. My one flatmate also keeps trying to convince me to be warned of the scourge that is 'drop bears.' Which is just something made up to scare foreigners, kind of like our jackalope or snipe. I told him that and he said, "Snipe? Like... Severus?" Hahaha, yeah, in America, Alan Rickman jumps out and attacks tourists, hahaha. Anyway, there are eight people (though we're currently one person less) in a flat sharing the kitchen, bathroom, and lounge area. We each have our own single room going off a hallway that looks like this:

Yes, a tad dodgy looking (to throw in some local slang), but that's Uni for you. That light is burnt out now though, and for some reason it keeps buzzing randomly in the middle of the night despite the fact it's off. The only way to stop it from doing so and keeping you awake all night is to smack it with a broom. We all take turns doing that so the same person doesn't have to get out of bed constantly, kind of like taking care of a crying baby. Er, you don't hit babies with brooms to shut them up though, hopefully. Also, you can't quite see it, but there's an iron burn on the rug from previous inhabitants. Speaking of the wonderful people who used to live here, we keep finding all this weird stuff they left behind. That closet at the end of the hall had a sewing machine from the 1970s in it, a treasure I've since claimed. We also discovered a broken skateboard (good for moving things) and 'Street Fighter II: The Board Game,' which we have yet to play, but I'm super excited to because it looks hella awesome.

I finally went into the actual city (not just the huge weird mall and sprawling Asian markets nearby campus) on Monday for my first day of classes. Half my classes are there, the other half are here at my home campus, which is nice because I get to spend my time in both environments. The city campus has all the artsy types and home campus has all the nerdy types, so either place I'm set to make friends. Granted, there are the "WOOO! I LIKE KEGSTANDS AND METALLICA!" type at both, but those are easy to avoid for the most part. My class was annoyingly short since it's the first week, so I decided to wander around a bit.

This interesting looking path was right outside my lecture building, so of course I followed it. The sculptural enclosure/ plant tamer thing changes gradually as you walk along, I kept staring up at it and almost running into people. Another mistake I keep making is walking on the wrong side of the street. Just like they have opposite car lanes here, Australians walk on the other side, and American me goes along the incorrect way out of habit. I've caught on to looking a different direction when crossing the street, but I always forget to walk to the left. To the left... Everythang you own in a box to the left... Sorry, had to.

Soon alongside the path, there was a cute little stream with a heap of palm trees and other exotic plantlife. And look, a duck! An animal I've seen before in the wild! Believe it or not, this is the first wild animal I've seen in Australia that we have in America too. Not THIS exact duck, I mean the species. They don't even have squirrels or pigeons here! However, I did spot a seagull later on, and of course I yelled "MINE! MINE! MINE!" :]

Continuing on, the creek turned into a little lagoon for kids. Sand, rocks, things to play on in the water... It looked like it belonged in a Disney World resort. "Well that's weird!" I thought, "All this in the middle of the city? But the lagoon was nothing compared to...

The full out man-made beach right next to the lagoon! And I thought Central Park had weird stuff in it! Why they need this in Australia where they can drive half an hour to a real beach is beyond me. Please note the ibis wading in the water there. Somehow, this sacred Egyptian bird made its way over to Australia and they're EVERYWHERE. I saw about five eating Cheetos out of the trash and I thought, "Shouldn't you be mummified? Piss off!" The funny thing is that for a public fake beach in a major city, this was surprisingly clean. If Philly built one, there would be crack vials, needles, and dead bodies in it a week after opening.

The beach with the river and city skyline in the background. I said Chicago before, but this picture makes it look like the start of 'CSI: Miami,' so I may have to change my comparison. Later I saw a guy trying to make a video of himself doing ninja jumps off a nearby flight of stairs with this view in the background. I ruined one of his takes by making a weird face as I went past.

That's all the pictures I took, because after this the walk goes by entirely too many outdoor restaurants and nothing else. Um, what else is new with me, hmmm... I keep having people think I'm Canadian, even other Canadians who should know the difference. Also, the other day I told someone I was from Pennsylvania and they said, "Ooh, what's a Wawa?" I got all excited that they knew that and went on a rant about how amazing Wawas are. Apparently the person only knew that because of the Bloodhound Gang song 'Pennsylvania,' which has a line that goes, "Do you even know what a Wawa is?" At least that's what they got out of that song, because the rest of the lyrics aren't entirely flattering. Damn you, Bloodhound Gang, for being one of the things Australians associate me with. That goes for you too, Bam Margera, cream cheese, and Kobe Bryant! There are hundreds of better things to come from Philadelphia!

I'll leave you with this hilarious video of the latest craze sweeping Oz:

Road to Australia

2008-07-25T23:27:00.000-07:00

I'm watching the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby 'Road to...' series of movies on TV. I know, you're probably thinking "How can Danielle sit and watch old movies when she's in Australia?!" Or maybe you're just thinking about something funny the cat did the other day. But for those of you that ARE thinking the former, at least now that I put the question in your mind, I assure you I'm not a complete lard. One, these movies are clever, hilarious classics and two, it's almost 6 pm here and apparently on the weekends, nobody but me emerges from their rooms until much later.

I'm also a tad bit mopey because I realized back home it's Philly/NJ Warped Tour day. I can't believe it was two whole years ago that I last went. Things have changed so much since then, with both the bands I saw that day and myself. That was my first brush with being a writer/photographer and though my article and pictures never got used in the end, I gained so much from it. I know this blog is supposed to be about my time in Australia, but I would like to finally let some of my pictures from Warped '06 be seen. I feel bad just having them stay in my computer, like I'm hoarding them or something.

I still can't believe I've had the honour of being within feet of JOAN FREAKING JETT. She sounded as awesome in 2006 as she did in 1983 and the woman is 30 years my senior but still looks better in a bikini than I do.

I saw about 20 bands and took over 500 pictures that day, but way too big a number of those photos were of the boys in The Academy Is... Especially Tom Conrad, their former guitarist who's now in Empires and works as a photographer himself. I won't lie, I was a bit of a TAI fangirl, and I still listen to them occasionally. However, I prefer Empires now, they're a lot more mature in music and lyrics, plus their fanbase isn't mostly 13-year-olds.

Okay, so this photo is posed, I still love it though. I unfortunately missed The Sound's set, but Felix and Maja were just standing around their merch tent later that day and I talked to them for a bit. Mostly about the 'Snakes on a Plane theme' video, haha.

Geoff Rickly (lead singer of Thursday) is impossible to get a picture of, so I was proud I actually managed a few. Though, for every successful photo, I had about ten of him blurry or flashing his armpits, haha. Apparently, the next tour stop after this one, he was swinging the mic and it smashed his face. He continued singing despite a bloody nose, that's how hardcore he is.

I remember showing my Mom all my pictures and her saying something along the lines of, "Wow, lots of shirtless punk guys. I can see why you had such a good time." And Tom Gabel from Against Me! is definitely one of the reasons I'm fondly reminiscing my time at Warped. *sigh* Those were the days...

The Voyage

2008-07-24T03:29:00.000-07:00

The other morning I woke up to the creepy laughter of this little guy, the kookaburra. I think that's what it is, at least. Then this morning I was awoken to the wild call of the Australian neighbour loudly singing along to ABBA.

I finally managed to take pictures of the comic/drawings of my trip(s) to get all the way to this impossible to reach continent. Yes, I had to take pictures of it because I don't have a scanner. Unfortunately, Paint has disappeared mysteriously on my computer and I'm hopeless at using Photoshop for anything other than brightening colours, so each panel is separate. Which I personally find super annoying and apologize for, though it does have the advantage of letting me comment individually on certain things. Oh, and keep in mind I drew these while incredibly tired, so they're pretty awful, haha. They got posted weird too, so click on them to see the full image larger.

Though it was the shortest amount of time I had to wait the entire trip, I didn't really enjoy being surrounded by dance team pre-teens hyped up on coffee their scary looking mothers gave them. Especially at 5 am. I don't need continuous conversation provided by frigging Sparkle Motion that early, okay?

I have the impressive power to fall asleep despite being barraged with loud noises, which is ironic, because I can't deal with them when I'm awake. Yeah, I'm talking about you, rap-blasting, bass-thumping people who live above me.

My drawing does no justice at all to the wonder of Alex Greenwald. Even when he's all tired from flying, he looked adorable. Sorry, I just revert back to a 14-year-old every time I think about meeting him. I mean, how often do you meet someone who's in one of your favourite bands AND one of your favourite movies from when you were a teen? (The drawing of me in the second panel looks like a trannie... Dammit.)

Someday I'll meet one of my favourite musicians and not say or do something completely stupid. This is about the eighth or ninth time I've failed at the previous statement, so I'm guessing my time should come soon.

I was also a bit pissed off still that I never got my picture with Alex Greenwald. Because I'm an idiot and left the terminal to get my luggage, thinking I could go back to the waiting area again. Which they stopped letting you do six years ago. Not a particularly bright moment on my part. Plus, LA smells gross and I had to walk a mile to get from Terminal 1 to Terminal 7. DID NOT WANT.

I was so exhausted and miserable when I drew this on the plane. I slept through the actual movies they showed and when I woke up it was six hours of 'Hannah Montana.' Needless to say, I was not going to watch that and therefore had nothing to keep my mind off of being sad. Choosing to travel alone was probably a poor choice, looking back on it.

I couldn't find a coloured pencil to make him purple, so use your imagination. No, I do not have a picture of this guy (sorry Nana), and yes, I did take one of the drinks. I damn well deserved it.

I love how these drawings get progressively crappier as I go along. This is the end though, I landed okay and went into Brisbane to get a hostel room for the night. I was with a girl from Taiwan, a Swedish girl, and a Swiss girl. We didn't understand each other a lot, but we got along well. Ha, at one point the Swiss girl says to me that there was a contest going on in the hostel pub that night that she was all excited about. I had seen a sign for Quizzo and asked her if that was it (after trying to explain what it was). "Nooo, somezing else. I don't know the word..." she said. Then blasting over the loud speaker, "IT'S LADIES NIGHT! YOU FINE FEMALES JUDGE THE MEN'S STRIP CONTEST, WITH A PRIZE OF AN $80 BAR TAB TO THE HUNKY WINNER!" The Taiwanese girl's face was of utter shock, the Swiss and Swedish girl were all smiles, and I was falling over laughing. I declined their offer to go and slept for a good 10 hours. Jet-lag is the strangest/worst feeling, especially with such an extreme time difference.

Not too much has happened in the week since arriving, other than me taking obscene amounts of cute animal photos at the Irwin Zoo. I literally have 30 pictures of just koala butts and another 15 of one koala looking like a little grumpy old man while he eats. :/

Finally online

2008-07-22T21:14:00.000-07:00

I now know that a lot of airports don’t have free wireless, a shocker to an East Coast American such as myself. I thought I could spend my time online while waiting at the terminal or in cafes, but nope. So that’s why it took me so long to get in contact with everyone, hope nobody was freaking out about it. Anyway, as you may know, two years ago I moved to Scotland for a few months. There I had to type out multiple e-mails and IMs to people about what shenanigans I was getting into (even though there weren’t many, at least compared to the people I lived with). That got a bit annoying at times, especially when my computer would be a jerk and randomly delete everything two seconds before I hit ‘send.’ Hence the point of me making this blog, so people could have a general idea of how/ what I was doing so I don’t snap and bludgeon my laptop with a boomerang the thousandth time I get asked an annoying vague question such as, “So what’s it like there?” And no, that doesn’t mean I’ll stop writing personal e-mails, call, IM, etc. Geez.

Anyway, I had planned to write about the various stages of my journey to Australia, but being incredibly bored, I decided to do a comic version as I went along. I'll put that up shortly, but for now I'll share this wonderfulness, which I've been making fun of relentlessly for the past few days: