Fucking groups, did i say i had a good group for my presentation? I reckon I'm DEAD WRONG!

Well for one of them anyway, I meet the other group tomorrow.

But anyway, this group I have for a presentation in 10 hours really bites the big one, we met for the first time today (only found out i was in their group friday due to fuck ups by them and the teacher) they seemed really uninterested in the talk but seemed like they had it under control. BBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZTTTT WRONG ANSWER! I get the guy who is going first stuff tonight, he is suppose to talk for about 2 minutes, I read his speech (its written word for word) and it came out at almost 50 seconds and I read it really slow, thats not good, then he sends me a diagram which is lifted straight out of the lecture notes and has been STRECHED TO HELL! and I have no idea why he sent it so I asked him if he is going to talk about it, he then tells me he is hardly going to refer to it and I can talk about it if i want or change it in any way...... wtf? I think that means its COMING OUT SUCKER! I'm not wasting my money (I had to go buy inkjet transparencies, over $20 for 10! fuck.) on printing out shit you don't even know you want! Then the other dude in my group was suppose to send me his shit for the slides and his speech this afternoon but I didn't get it till 10pm, and I only got like a 6 line email with 5 of those being very short and requested to be put on a slide, way to go to an effort, meanwhile im drawing up fucking diagrams in visio and writing mathematical examples out to try and engage the audience (this is a marking requirement) and I get fuck all support from these two, fuck them, they better be slightly better than fucking awful tomorrow or I'll fucking punch them in the arm (seriously), I am so getting out of this group, I've already started making arrangements. fuck this and fuck them.

I'm already stressed as hell and week 2 classes haven't even started, fuck yeah! Joy! Im so happy.................................

dot dot dot

The last few days I've been feeling, old. I hate it when I get like that, I think it means I want to be more 'productive', perhaps its my inner yerning to buy stuff. I never buy stuff, I'm such a tight arse with my money when it comes to buying things that are exclusively for me and no one else. The only thing I don't have problems with buying for myself is computer parts, and the essentials like food, school stuff and clothes, although I don't buy a lot of clothes, in fact it could be quite possible that I have bought the least amount of clothes of anyone I know. I still wear stuff that I bought when I was in year 10 or 11 in high school, thats the dedication I have to not buying clothes. I just wish I could justify buying casual clothes for retail prices but I just can't, that and the fact that most things I want to buy are not really "casual" clothes and cost a bomb. :/

Whinge Whinge Whinge.

This blog can only mean that I am really slowly talking myself into buying clothes, On some sorta subconscious level.

In other news, uni is underway and it going to be fairly heavy this semester I suspect, lotsa reading and presentations, infact I've signed up early to get my presentations out of the road early, I'm doing two next week. I did it so I could get it over and done with before I have time to freak about it and also in the hope of finding some good group members. I always luck out on the group members since I've gotten to uni, although these people I've been put with for both presentations seem very friendly and worker like, so that can only be positive. Right?

Good luck tomorrow astro! But its not like you need it! You're great!

Geez I really am enjoying this GU028 CD (Disc 2), i haven't enjoyed a CD like this for a few months. And a GU compilation like this for years.

What is it today with the price of text books? I remember when paying $80 was really steep for a text book, but what you got for that $80 was a 600 page monster full of colour and talk of object orientated analysis (or something like this when I was in tafe) and even when I started uni you would get these wonderful hard back full colour books (often oversized books too) for about $80.

Well what happened this semester???!?!?

If I had to buy all the books they wanted us to buy for my subjects this semester it would have cost me a total of $506, yeah thats five hundred and six dollars!!! (this is only for 4 'core' books, nothing else like lecture materials or secondary/supplementary texts), this is fucking ridiculous! We were lucky that the guy taking this international tax law subject took pity on us and said he would provide an online ocr'ed version of the $180 book we were going to have to buy (which will be out of date by the start of next year) and then tonight in my IT elective class the lecturer was gobsmacked that the book for his subject was $112, and after looking at it I can understand why, only just over 200 pages of black and white (low grade printing and paper) paperback text, no online component or anything fancy like that, just rehashed material about ecommerce (groan) and interorganisational systems and the like. Fucking bullshit, I spoke to him afterwards and he told me not to buy it and just use past texts or online journals to do my research. My mate in the class is thinking about photocopying the book (since it would be only just over 100 pages duplexed photocopying), I can't believe that text book prices are getting to the point where people who have never even considered copying a book like this are considering it as an option. What is going on in the academic book publishing world!

Dear all podcasters, fuck off.

EDIT: This post finally sees the light of day after blogger fucks me around a lot!

So after reading Spin Magazines list of the best albums from the last 20 years, as well MSNBC's alternative list and other people's lists, I thought I would sit down and write what 13 albums (including compliations) that most influenced me in my ever
changing musical tastes over the last 20 years. You'll probably think that most of the albums I have picked sucked or are too mainstream or may have never even heard of, but I don't care, I'm fucken doing this list! Self indulgence is the fuel of the intarnets!

In a rough chronological order.

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Soundtrack: The first ever audio cassette album I
ever bought, I had this tape before I even saw the movie. The first side of the tape
had Mc Hammer, Hi Tek 3 (Which was probably an influence to why I liked the next album
so much), Partners in Kryme (T-U-R-T-L-E Power!), all catchy songs and pretty danceable the more I think about, hell I'd go listen to those three songs right now if I had the album! I'm so sad.

2. Technotronics - Pump Up The Jam: The Album: This was my first ever CD album
purchase, I remember hearing "Get Up (Before the night is over)" somewhere and the
bassline and simplicity had me and I wanted more. Now these guys are viewed as
seriously lame by all long standing rave/techno boffins but for me this was the album
that introduced me to dance music or infact any music that wasn't easily accessible to me. I was only 9 or 10 years old and for most of my life had lived in deep outback
areas of QLD where you could only hear Country music, golden oldies, 70 to 80s popular music and what was dished up to you on Rage.

3. Madonna - Like a Prayer: Yeah its Madonna, yeah she sucks big time, and yeah, I
could kill my sister for being a huge fan and making us listen to this album over and over and over, but I might as well come out and say it, this album was really good! And if it wasn't for this album I would probably never had got what female pop songs were about, which is of course is all about themselves, and with Madonna being as fucked up as she is with her major family and religious issues, made for good lyrics, well, for Madonna.

4. Public Enemy - Fear of A Black Planet: This was the second CD album I ever bought, I never thought that this album was going to be very good, I bought it cause I heard something on Rage which was probably a part of "Don't believe the hype" (from "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back") and went to a music store a they only had "Fear of a Black Planet", I got it anyway and never looked back, the album is totally awesome the production by "The Bomb Squad" on this album was better imo than Nation of Millions, and Chuck D's rapping was eloquent, tight and full of meaning (Not gangsta rap), and even though I was just a young white kid that really didn't get a lot of small intricacies and implied meanings, it still made me angry and jive at the same time. This album introduced me to Hip Hop and I don't think I could have had a better induction.

5. Nirvana - Nevermind: Yeah of course this is going to be in here, we all heard it and we all fell in love with it for wrong or right reasons. Of course I bought it because everyone else was into it and for "Smells like teen spirit", this album took me down the alternative music/grunge path with purchases like Pearl Jam "Ten", Mud Honey, Screaming Trees albums etc etc, the first year or two owning this album I never really "got it" it wasn't until I was older that I started to understand what it was all about.

6. Nirvana - In Utero: I have to mention two nirvana albums because the band was the biggest thing in my life at the time and really had a huge impact on my music listening over my life. When this album came out everyone (well almost everyone) hated it, but personally I thought this album was the best Nirvana album and being so much more down right depressing really suited me at the time, the uncomprimising sound that came from this record really seem to do it for me at the time, "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle" was my favorite track off this album and probably my favorite Nirvana track. Actually just thinking about that song makes me want to go and listen to all my Nirvana albums again.

7. Stone Temple Pilots - Purple: Yeah you know it, STP hit it big with this album and I heard it and lurrrrved it, this album put across to me that rock bands don't have to be boring. I think a lot of critics didn't like STP or this album, but with those two huge tracks "Big Empty" and "Interstate Love Song" you can't deny how good STP were. Personally I thought that most of these tracks were great, so fuck you critics. In getting lost in my chronological order so I'm just going with whatever else has influenced me over the years.

8. Radiohead - Kid A: I put this here thanks to my manager at my old work (who was a
huge radiohead fan) listening to the album and hating it, that immediately got me interested in it and I listened to it and thought it was pretty cool but was not sold on it, than Shrike played it over and over and over (and over, seriously, it was pissing me off) before he ended up breaking up with his girlfirend (a fitting album for a breakup I reckon). I put this here instead of the much loved "Ok Computer" because its far far more interesting and feeds my electronica needs. I think Yorke really shows off his voice on this album than previous ones too (but you know, I could be wrong cause I'm not a huge Radiohead fan). I thought the future of rock bands was going to head in this direction when I heard this album, but instead they ended up going back to being more Buttish, oh well. And yes, as some might have guessed my favorite track from the album is "Idioteque", very uncool I know.

9. Bad Religon - Stranger Than Fiction: I got sucked into the whole Punk/Ska thing that was going around Portland at the time of me getting to the middle of my high school years (although I was going off in another direction musically at the same time as shown by the next album). This was the first album that I bought of that genre, I thought it was alright, supposedly not as good as there previous albums but I didn't care, at that point in my life heavy punk rock was where it was at for me, from here I went through a myriad of bads ranging from shitful small time Australian punk/hardcore/ska bands to swing bands to shit like Rancid, Millencolin, Operation Ivy and the like. I really enjoyed listening to that shit at the time but now I could live my life quite happily without hearing another skateboard smashing, skankin' induced punk/ska song.

10. Dave Clarke - Archive One: This was the first non mixed CD that I remember
listening to the most before I left Portland for good, It has the most famous of Dave Clarke tracks on here "Wisdom to the Wise" is the other well known one to all those dark Techno/Acid fusion lovers (Red 1 to Red 3), most of the other tracks can be casted as forgettable however the final track on the album "Splendor" is probably the most memoriable to me, its a slow vocal track that is such a departure from everything else Dave Clarke has done it shines out in my mind.

11. Sasha & John Digweed - Northern Exposure II (Double CD Edition): If I could make every person who doesn't like Dance music listen to one "mix CD" out of the 100's I have listened to over the years this would be it, this CD is what got me really really into what would be describe as "Progressive" music now (for a lack of a better term unfortuently), the mixing on this album is first rate and track selection is outstanding (this is what the Northern Exposure series is known for), this is also where you can truly get a feeling for what people mean when they say "journey" in regards to dance music, and this in my opinion is what "trance" should have been left at instead of morphing into the pile of shit it is today. I still listen to this CD to this day (quite often) and when I think I've gotten tired of it I just chuck it on again and away I go. Seriously it is really really really good (really).

Note: You could substitute this album with Northern Exposure I (European Edition, not American Edition) and get the same effect, The first album is probably a bit slower, darker but perhaps a bit more interesting with tracks from Banco De Gaia, Rabbit In The Moon, Young American Primitive and Future Sound of London. However NE II is just a personal choice.

12. Adam Freeland - Tectonics: Even though this mix album in my opinion wasn't as good as stuff the man had done years earlier on "Coastal Breaks" and in unreleased mixes etc, but it was the first CD I bought that really got me hooked on Nu-Skool Breaks as it has been coined. From here came my real foray of going back into all things breakbeat, 'breaks' and electro and has lead me to todays new sounds of "Prog Breaks" etc. If I had never bought this CD I may have never had wasted a lot of my cash on all my breaks records I never play now, dang nabit!

13. This spot is reserved for all those other albums I can't put on the list cause I'm out of spots, I'll just list some of the newer albums that I've listen to which have revitalised me in some way.

Ben Sims - Escapism, Luke Slater - Fear And Loathing, Dave Clarke - World Service: Albums of the recent years that have renewed my interest in minimum techno. The second disc on World Service is probably the best electro mix CD ever made (well imo).

Steve Gerrard - Thinking Out Loud: Awesome Prog Breaks disc on this Double CD, this is how it should be played.

Hybrid - Wide Angle Special Edition, Leftfield - Leftism: The best produced electronic albums ever!

James Holden - Balance 005: The best produced mix album since the 20th Century.

Carl Cox - F.A.C.T: best all round "techno" mix CD of the 90s.

Everclear - Sparkle And Fade: People never gave these guys enough credit, this shit was catchy and important to me when I was younger, so its going to get a mention!

I'm tired, I have more "band" albums to put here but I can't think straight.

Fuck this I am going to sleep.

Do your own 13 for me if you dare! Hell if you can be bothered doing 13 do 5. I love seeing what has influenced others when it comes to music.

I was watching "I am Sam" just before in spurts because I couldn't watch the whole thing cause I'm sure I probably would have cried. I've never encountered a movie where you have a tear swelling in your eye because your feeling so happy for the main character and so sad for him at the same time. Sean Penn is an unbelievable actor, I have always loved him in movies, he geniuenly believable all the time, Dakota Fanning was good in this movie too. The soundtrack was brillantly suited as well.

woo, passed my subjects, thank god. Only barely scraped in there on the two subjects I thought I was going to fail, but I still got there. Ahhh I feel better now.

Hello, so I'm deep into holidays now, so what have I been doing? Well apart from helping astro get about town i've been playing San Andreas, doing work for my dad and stressing about my families health issues, both my sister and my mum have problems, hopefully my sister is past the worst of it but I'm not sure about my mum, I guess all I can do is just hope that things aren't going to turn out for the worst and just wait and see.
I've also been terribly lazy the last week, astro and I have been doing this 9 week running program thing to get us to stop being so flabby and lazy. We completed it on Monday and that was something to be pretty proud of (I don't think I've ever been able to run 30 minutes without walking since I moved to Melbourne thats for sure), I hardly ever complete any exercise regime I set out to do. Not always because I get lazy/tired/sore and give up usually because I shift the goal posts so to speak, and end up making it a neverending goal thats always seems just out of reach. But anyway, we finished it and decided we would still keep running, however we haven't gone for a run since Monday and now its Saturday (we go three times a week). This has been due to both of us being a little bit busy, a little bit lazy and a whole lot of uninviting weather. Hopefully later today we will break the cycle and start again.
Tonight I am going to my sisters house warming party, I hope its alright and I don't get too bored, I don't get along with many of my sisters friends like I use to, but here is hoping I can go and just have a few drinks and no major dramas are to be had.