Cheap Therapy

Saw a reference to the zerowastewa site in the paper on the weekend, in case anyone’s interested. Includes info on local recycling schemes etc. at community, government and business/industry levels

SBS are screening anti-racism expert Jane Elliott’s “Indecently Exposed” at 7:30 on Tuesday (tomorrow) night. Jane divides a group of Canadians into those with blue eyes and those with brown eyes, and sees how they then react to each other. If it’s anything like her previous social experiments it will be confronting and well worth watching.

For those of you who want to browse the songs in iTunes. Pretty much all of them are available this year, obviously the iTunes folks have got hipper

1. Augie March - One Crowded Hour
2. Eskimo Joe - Black Fingernails, Red Wine
3. Hilltop Hoods - The Hard Road
4. The Killers - When You Were Young
5. Scissor Sisters - I Don’t Feel Like Dancing
6. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
7. Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
8. Gotye - Hearts A Mess
9. Muse - Starlight
10. The Grates - 19-20-20
11. Little Birdy - Come On Come On
12. John Butler Trio - Funky Tonight
13. My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade
14. OK GO - Here It Goes Again
15. Lily Allen - Smile
16. Peter Bjorn & John - Young Folks
17. The Grates - Science Is Golden
18. Muse - Supermassive Black Hole
19. Lupe Fiasco - Kick Push
20. Regina Spektor - Fidelity
21. Youth Group - Forever Young
22. Tool - Vicarious
23. Hilltop Hoods - Clown Prince
24. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion
25. Placebo - Meds
26. Camille - Ta Douleur
27. The Strokes - You Only Live Once
28. Saboteurs - Steady As She Goes
29. Tool - The Pot
30. Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down
31. The Killers - Bones
32. The Butterfly Effect - Gone
33. Cops - Call Me Anytime
34. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dani California
35. Lily Allen - LDN
36. Bob Evans - Nowhere Without You
37. Bob Evans - Don’t You Think It’s Time
38. Josh Pyke - Memories & Dust
39. The Butterfly Effect - A Slow Descent
40. Basement Jaxx - Take Me Back To Your House
41. Hilltop Hoods - What A Great Night!
42. The Grates - Inside Outside
43. Angus & Julia Stone - Paper Aeroplane
44. Lady Sovereign - Love Me Or Hate Me
45. Karnivool - Roquefort
46. AFI - Miss Murder
47. Pony Up! - The Truth About Cats & Dogs (Is That They Die)
48. Regina Spektor - On The Radio
49. Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales Of San Francisco
50. The Strokes - Heart In A Cage
51. Something For Kate - Cigarettes And Suitcases
52. The Herd - Unpredictable
53. The Living End - Wake Up
54. Eagles Of Death Metal - I Want You So Hard (Boy’s Bad News)
55. Wolfmother - Woman (MSTRKRFT Remix)
56. Hilltop Hoods - Stopping All Stations
57. Josh Pyke - Private Education
58. Sarah Blasko - Always On This Line
59. Placebo - Song To Say Goodbye
60. Hot Chip - Over And Over
61. Foo Fighters - Everlong (Acoustic Live)
62. Justice Vs Simian - We Are Your Friends
63. TV On The Radio - Wolf Like Me
64. Something With Numbers - Apple Of The Eye
65. Bloc Party - The Prayer
66. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Phenomena
67. AFI - Love Like Winter
68. Darren Hanlon - Happiness Is A Chemical
69. Beck - Nausea
70. Ben Folds - Such Great Heights (Like A Version)
71. The Grates - Lies
72. Jet - Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
73. Matisyahu - King Without A Crown
74. Snow Patrol - Hands Open
75. Ben Kweller - Sundress
76. Jet - Rip It Up
77. Hilltop Hoods - Recapturing The Vibe
78. Placebo - Infra-Red
79. Sarah Blasko - Explain
80. Wolfmother - Love Train
81. Gnarls Barkley - Gone Daddy Gone
82. Freestylers/Pendulum - Painkiller
83. Butterfingers - Get Up Outta The Dirt
84. Thom Yorke - Black Swan
85. Infadels - Love Like Semtex
86. Kanye West - Touch The Sky
87. Ben Harper - Better Way
88. Pendulum - Tarantula
89. Arctic Monkeys - Mardy Bum
90. Jurassic 5 - Work It Out (Feat. Dave Matthews Band)
91. Panic! At The Disco - The Only Difference Between Martyrdom & Suicide
92. Lily Allen - Alfie
93. Lily Allen - Everything’s Just Wonderful
94. Gotye - Learnalilgivnanlovin
95. Eskimo Joe - New York
96. Red Riders - Slide In Next To Me
97. Pearl Jam - Worldwide Suicide
98. The Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control
99. Audioslave - Original Fire
100. Blue King Brown - Come And Check Your Head

It begins, appropriately enough with beer, and a buck’s night. MAME arcade game consoles are very cool if you want to relive your misspent youth spent in video game arcades (specifically, the one behind the Rottnest tea rooms, where many children would spend the time while their parents were drinking nearby at the Quokka’s Arms).

Australia Day itself begins with watering my Parents’ pot plants. After specifically going around to get instructions last weekend (which basically amounted to “I water these every day”), I proceeded to water them with the help of Puggle, which only made everything take twice as long or thereabouts. Much more fun though, although Puggle seemed to be getting more water than the plants. This time around it was just me, which probably halved the water use. Counted the potplants. There are 272 of them.

Took advantage of the Parents being away my cousin’s wedding in Bangkok to enjoy their swimming pool. Sadly did not get around to ensuring the MX-5 was in good running condition, very un-Ferris like.

Avoided anything that might involve fireworks, other than listening to them outside. Saw many Australian flags (including one stylishly flying from the front of a jet black Cadillac(?) station wagon), locals lounging about in their wading pools with the BBQ in the front yard. Caught random snatches of Triple J’s Hottest 100 on the radio whilst driving. Saturday was the usual shopping (this time in Dad’s car, fortunately his airconditioning seems to work better than mine…). A brief trip to the Fish shop to keep Puggle appeased, then it’s off home for a quick nap before heading out to watch Jim Henson’s Storyteller: Greek Myths in the evening, followed by the Scrabble fiend documentary Word Wars.

Sunday is Puggle’s cousin’s birthday in the park. Sure is hot. Log onto the Perth Airport web site to check their flight arrival time from Thailand, only to discover their plane was delayed 108 minutes (pilot decided to go back after taxiing rather than continue without hydraulics fully operational). Watched lots of unaccompanied minors getting off the plane from Dubai, presumably all going back to their boarding schools this week. (Hint: If sending your kid as an unaccompanied minor, remember airline and airport staff are not necessarily trained or vetted for working with kids). Watched woman in burkah arrive and have child in burkah run towards her and hug her in greeting. Some wag in the crowd comments “How do they know?” Managed to get my parents from the airport and drive Dad’s car back to their place with no disagreements! My parents estimate that they have about 90 potplants, I offer them some more realistic figures. Glad they are home safe anyway.

Expending discretional power usage on airconditioning. Heat rash.

Must now catch up on a long weekend without blogging

Today is (was) Hug a Writer Day

If you’re looking for DVD’s of SBS shows (such as Pria Viswalingam’s “Decadence”) some are available from Marcom Projects.

Where is it? It’s like already the 23rd here in Australia. I guess we just have to wait for the rest of the world to catch up.

Whilst waiting for the bus I got to watch a guy in a front-end loader drive into Chicken Treat, park the front-end loader in the carpark, discover that Chicken Treat hadn’t opened yet, and then get back in the loader, reverse out through the carpark and then do a U-turn at the lights.

I find myself agreeing with John Howard that banning the Australian flag at the Big Day Out is a stupid idea. If you can’t control yobbos with flags then you can’t control yobbos without them.

Meanwhile the fascist Qantas refused a man a flight because he was wearing a T-shirt bearing a picture of George Bush that said “World’s #1 Terrorist”.

The bus home one of the passengers got told off for whistling. I suspect he suffered from some sort of cognitive navigation disorder as he wanted to get to Curtin by catching a bus that goes north-west from UWA.

Grammar Girl is sort of an agony aunt for grammar wonks.

The Thing in the Crib