Hooray! A weekend with parties n stuff in the Summer at last!

Oh no, i'd said to myself "no more whingey blog entries" so i really shouldn't wang on about the incompetencies of Curtin University's administration staff. So i won't! Yay, that wasn't too hard. Now to the fun stuff. I was saying in earlier entries that life had been dull this summer. Well, the last week has changed that. Thursday I was up all night doing stuff, Friday I had Anna's Birthday party. Finally, a good house party with lots of people and new and interesting folk to meet. It was complete with Kinder Surprise and other second hand toys hanging off the clothes line for each guest to take home as a memento. Although, like at most parties, I never really got the chance to hang out with the Birthday girl.
Saturday. Jess came back to Perth and got to see her again. Early evening I went to see Bill Bryson do some live interview at the concert hall. Was cool but it would've been cooler if he was just doing spoken word stuff, that way we would have had more personality and spontenaity thrown in. Later on I went to Bek's 21st at the Hudson bar, all of Jess' peeps were there. Had some drinks and amazingly met the girls from last night's party again (not surprising in Perth I suppose). Then it was followed by a night of clubbing, which made it hard to be full o' beans for Sundays' Good Vibrations festival at Belvoir Amphitheatre.
Ah, Good Vibrations! So much fun. I can happily say that most of the performances there were FANTASTIC! Mylo was great, the Scissor Sisters were great, Bent was great! Everything was tops about it, and the highlight for me was this comedy performance team called the Cuban Brothers. They were one latin guy and two black guys. They had the crowd in their hands, they were so funny. By the end, they were all in their underpants dancing, and as a finale, the main man ripped his g-string off, and did some nude breakdancing to Lionel Ritchie's All night long, before running through the crowd!
Yes it was a good weekend. EERk, this week, though, has been mainly getting signed up for my post graduate units. It was yuk. But Orientation day was good yesterday, I got to see the Panda Band and as usual Downsyde played and made everyone get lively, as well as everyone drinking a lot of beer!
Responsibility starts on Saturday, my first subject starts then.

Cool Links according to Grant

www.m3rck.net awesome tunes, my current favourite record label
www.mumbleboy.com funky animation

The Necks at the Hyde Park

I arrived at the Hydey about 20 minutes into their set, but the power had gone out moments before my entry into the pub. Mr Ee and myself intrepidly entered.. and were astounded to find a room full of people sitting at their tables in the almost total darkness. It had been an incredibly stinky hot day and there were power failures all around Perth, as everyone had cranked their airconditioners to full speed to cool their sweating selves.
The Necks are a band that really shouldn't be cut off in the middle of a song. They generally do freeform ambient to frenzied jazz numbers that last around 45 minutes. So lucky for us, they had to start all over again. It started slowly.. just slight cymbals and tinkerings of piano. the bass was ever so soft and mild. 10 minutes passed.. and a slow pattern developed. 20 minutes passed. The tempo increased. At around the 30 minute mark, the drummer leaped onto the snare drum for the first time, and the music had become hypnotic. It just kept on going! And then it slowed down, but became a jungle of swishing sounds, and as I looked around, the crowd seemed transfixed on some image that the music was creating in their heads. Some had their gaze fixed on the ceiling, others were far away, and others still were lying on the tables, in their own little world. My mind was all over the place, but one thing Gav and I both shared was a big grin in appreciation of the masterful music that we experienced. This it the third or fourth time I have seen them, and I am continually impressed by them.
Piece of advice to anyone going to see the Necks: Make sure the venue has comfy chairs! I saw them at the Harbourside Brasserie on Sydney harbour a few years back, and my arse was as numb as Lloyd Swanton's bassed out fingers!
Oh yeah, they have a website too: www.thenecks.com

And also, I got to hang out with Christina for the first time! Woohoo, what a funky chicken she is. Hey that brings up another point. What's the deal with boyfriends that get unreasonably threatened by guys. I mean, its pretty obvious i wasn't hitting on her, she knows all about my gf, and I think its not so cool to be getting the evil eyes from her boy, especially when I was being so jovial to him and introducing myself and all that. I know I'm a new friend of hers, so I guess he was just sussing me out but hey, its annoying. I have the opposite problem to this, where I try to be tolerant when guys actually ARE hitting on my partner, and this is where it gets confusing. Jess (who is my girlfriend for anyone who is randomly reading my blog other than myself) is an outgoing girl and she loves to dance. When we first started seeing each other i guess we still hadn't established our commitments and stuff, so i guess i did feel insecure about her incredibly sexy style of dancing. But hey, we worked it out and all is pretty cool there. I found that when we'd go out dancing, guys would inevitably try to pick her up and she wouldn't respond. After a while, they would be busting the moves, even after she had stopped dancing. I'd be around and we'd be together, but so many guys don't suss the body language. So fair enough, maybe the subtle thing doesn't work, so I have to resort to the 'arm around my girl and a quick kiss' trick to let them know that he should stop hitting on her. This is where I am astounded. SO many times has this happened that I just find it so uncool: The guy gives me this "I can out do you, I'm going to woo her away from you" look, puffs up his chest in a particular way and does the alpha male - peacock dance, and tries to win the girl by impressing her. I think this is one of those things that only the same sex can notice, guys I know complain about this too. So here I am, tolerant of guys wanting to pick up Jess, cos i understand when you are keen on a girl you want to chat with them, and also for her, as she wants to meet nice people and make new friends without assuming every guys is a sleazebag. Its not healthyto assume every guy is hitting on you, but I guess only a girl truly knows how that can feel. But I also know when its not cool to try to pick someone up, and I know when to back off. It's just general decorum. So when I meet guys who look at me like I'm trying to steal their girl away when it is unfounded, I think it sucks ass.
Wow, all that spiel to make that point - It sucks ass. How profound. I hope you enjoyed reading this riveting and probably standard argument that you have already heard before.

Factory work

eeep. I just did a shift in a cardboard factory. whoah. great money (ie, $10 an hour more than in my other regular paying casual job), but hey i feel like i've sold my soul. you gotta be fit to maintain this kind of work, and what's more, I can't help get that feeling that I have failed in life every time I take a shift. Of course that's baloney, but i had hoped that once i finished uni i'd be scooped up by some NGO or world corporation and be saving the world by now. Now i know all's fine, but i just can't enjoy that kind of work. of course I will keep doing it, as one day a week of that and I can afford to go out and buy a few beers. and like I said before, it keeps me fit, and nothing like a buff bod to keep Jess' eyes on me. Funny thing was, i met another Curtin student there, who studies social sciences! Just the same as what i just finished. Small city, this town of Perth.

Cupcake the nosey rat 

Oktoberfest Jess and Nat 

Adam's Pool
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42 degrees on the beach

Well i feel that i look like a bit of a chubby chump in that pic with Lilo and Jenn. But hey its one of my only pics so it will have to do. eek, yesterday was something like 42 degrees celcius! I went down to the only rescue location: the beach, and found myself in a pickle. Clint Roberts and meself bounded in to the water, and then wandered to the beach bar and sank a couple of beers. Then, the only reasonable thing to do was to jump back in the water again. Three rounds of this later we were starting to feel the booze in our brains, so we waited until Clint's girlie Michelle arrived straight from work. Then she joined in and we were still on the beach doing this (and eating oysters with our beers) until it was well dark. Finally we dragged ourselves away, only to go home, grab some tunes and go down to South Beach, where we pretty much were the only folk. Sheriff (the dog) bounded around whilst we sunk a few bourbons and by the time we left, we were heartily stonkered. All was well in the land of Perth in the Summertime. As much as I miss my feral and dodgy-fun-times life in inner city Sydney, no other city in Australia quite pulls off a sunset like Perth. I knew there was a reason why I chose to live here..

LianaGrantJenn@Graduation
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Patrick the wise
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why polyester is not good for nightclubing

so anyway i was hitting the dance floor bustin' a move when i realised that ooh ahh i was getting a tad overheated there. I was all set to rip off ye old shirt, but I couldn't break the golden rules:

1. My friends were in another section, not a good look to do this when on the floor by oneself (ie. i did not want to look like a complete fabio el-sleazo).
2. I was the only person really ripping it on the floor, so I would'a looked like a right chump.
3. I haven't worked out for a while, it's only good to do that when either in a room of drug fiends who are approaching meltdown or if some girl is taking it off for you with intent.

well here I am, roasting it up, and i realised that hmm, february in Perth and a long sleeved polyester shirt in a nightclub launced me into sauna land. what's the deal with geisha these days? it felt like a blue light disco, everyone seemed so timid there. meanwhile poor old jess had crashed early, Bec's super home made cocktails had us rolling like hobos by the 4th glass.
well yes so a good night was had and here endeth today's lesson.

Graduation

Last night I donned the robes, put the little morter board on top of my head and walked across that stage to receive a piece of paper for my last three years of toil and study. It was pretty cool to actually graduate, even though I have low chances of actually gaining relevent employment. I'll have to put some pics up on my flickr site.
Friday night tonight, time for some fun! Bec's birthday party tomorrow and off to see the Necks with Christina and her peeps on Monday. Should be a ripsnorter.

De-boring techniques

Tonight's the night when I will finally graduate from my Social Sciences degree. Wow, three years have already passed since that day I returned from my wanderings in Europe and Thailand. Of course because there are naff all chances of finding any relevent work with what is essentially an arts degree, it looks like I have to co another 6 months of post grad stuff to make me more employable. Ah, it'll be fine, just gotta remind myself I won't be poor forever.
Shit this has got to be the most boring blog in the history of boring blogs! Trust me to start writing in the middle of the most boring period of my life for a really long time! Hmmm.
I think I will start a tally of action in my life to kick start myself out of this funk.

○ Night Club adventures: ----------------------
○ Home Porn films made recently: --------------
○ Cocktail Nights of alcoholic dumb-ass-ery: 2 weeks ago with Smellissa and Danica and co.
○ Waterslide action: not too bad - mid January with Becalicious and friends at Wet'n'Wild.
○ Drug'n'assorted party tricks: Found an e for the Big Day Out, hey that wasn't too bad!
○ Fitness: a whopping 6 laps at wesley pool yesterday! fuck i'm an unfit bastard these days,
hehe

I have two weeks of no commitments until uni starts again.. hmm a trip to Sydney sounds like a plan.. Thailand? that sounds even better.. money.. hmm, none of that.. cocktails? Yes that sounds like the answer!

Big day out bruises

wooo haa!
well the bdo this year was a bit of a ripsnorter i must say. but jees why the flip didnt they make the Chemical Brothers play on the main stage?! It was a freakin' oven in the boiler room, and with 60,000 or whatever whipper-snappers there when i went to the john for a whiz the doors were locked when i got back.
so anyway i went to see the beastie boys and well yeah they still know how to put on a great show! They were great live. now, there were some fine looking folk at the show..
oops, gotta go now, more tomorrow.........