takethemoney, run

there is a choice to make

2008-04-29T09:56:00.001+09:00

The world is irreducibly complex.

Post-modernism didn't go far enough in rejecting the meta-narrative. Much of our view of the world is based on meta-narrative fallacy leading to utterly useless prescriptive generalisations.

For example;
We are sometimes implored to reduce our 'food miles'; that is, the distance our food has to travel to get to us. The reasoning is simple - we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by not transporting food further than is necessary. However it is often the case that growing tomatoes out-of-season costs more (in carbon emissions) than shipping them from a country in which they are in season.

Ergo, moral prescriptions like 'eat locally to reduce greenhouse gas emissions' are based on a view of the world which is so simplistic as to be absurd. If one wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the only moral principle they can derive for such a purpose is 'eat foods which have had the least greenhouse gas emissions used in the production and transport'. Irreducible complexity, by definition, defies simplification.

The world of painstakingly constructed (and, ironically, ever more complex) meta-narrative fallacies super-imposed over the reality of human existence is the biggest obstacle to the project of truly understanding and embracing the absolute absurdity of life.

fuck outta hea

2008-04-08T12:38:00.002+09:00

Today i don't feel very good. It seems like there are a lot of people out there for whom life is much easier than it is for me.

this is my life and i want it back

2008-04-07T01:52:00.003+09:00

This weekend was actually quite good.

Friday night I chilled with Zoe, ate some food at Lotus and watched some DVDs at home. It was a pretty good relaxing day.

Saturday I worked which was pretty boring, then drove (or rather, was driven) down to Funbury for the Her Nightmare show at the Prince. I got to show Will a little of my hometown, and although I don't think he was that impressed it was nice for me to be back. We went to check out the Table and sure enough the Sawyers and a few of my old crew were drinking and hanging out down there already, the playlist was Slayer and Municipal Waste so it was pretty thrash. Dickson was climbing as usual and Pope also as usual.
At around 830 we bailed on the Table and headed to the Prince to catch Vengeance. I got into the zone and although I messed up pretty bad going for a mic share that wasn't there, I had a good time. Break Even played well but there's still something about that band that doesn't quite work for me, but everyone seemed to appreciate them as usual. Her Nightmare had some technical difficulties but once they got started they were pretty heavy. There's nothing flashy about HN, just heavy riffs and angry lyrics. Security were being jerks but aside from that it was a good show.
We drove straight back and arrived at Will's around 2 and I then sat in my car and listened to the entire new Blacklisted album before driving home for a sleep. The album is really good, although not what I expected and as such it's taking a few plays to get used to.

Today we played at HQ. I missed Strong Finish's set which was a bummer because their new recordings sound pretty good and I wanted to see if they could back it up live. We were up next and although the sound wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be, I had a good time. I borrowed Trav's wireless which made for some fun times, like doing side-to-sides and two-stepping while playing Hold Your Ground. I also did a stage-dive with the guitar which I highly recommend.
After that I had my face melted by Gallows For Grace, ate some pretty average subway (all the sauce was at the top of the sub. What the fuck subway guy?), saw Her Nightmare again and came home for pizza and DVDs with Zoe.

All in all, not a bad weekend.
How was yours?

waves crashing

2008-04-03T13:46:00.005+09:00

Formal logic breaks my brain sometimes.

I'm going to drop two of my classes and just go to uni part-time this semester. Work + bands + studying is getting to be way too much for me. I'm also going to see the doctor and get some blood tests to rule out any physiological causes for my tiredness and bad moods. So we'll see.

short fuse

2008-03-31T04:08:00.003+09:00

Tonight I can't sleep so I'm listening to recorded lectures and trying to catch up a little on uni stuff. I'm still way behind though. This sucks because tomorrow I have heaps of shit to do and I'm going to be either really tired or worse (and more likely) sleep through half of it and get further behind.

I'm really hungry and I want to eat some raisin toast. Pretty sure I'm pulling an all-nighter now.

Bec graduates tonight. Wonder if I'll ever graduate.

I keep seeing threadless shirts everywhere this week. Some of them are pretty rad. Also, I still really like fullbleed. And I want that Donnybrook longsleeve pretty bad.

life's ill life might kill

2008-03-27T11:13:00.003+09:00

All of the problems in my life right now boil down to me consistently making bad decisions. Saying it is easy, but here's to the more difficult challenge of fixing them.

Word of the week: Fresh: as in, the new Donnybrook longsleeve is fresh.

i've put my life on a shelf

2008-03-12T12:58:00.002+09:00

Today I'm cleaning up my house. I have too many shirts I don't like. I think soon I'm going to throw out/give away a lot of my stuff. I have this habit of keeping things just in case they come in handy someday. So I end up with lots of useless crap.

Trail bars for breakfast. Work tonight, school tomorrow. I always want what I haven't got.

ending a day the same way it began

2008-03-11T00:59:00.002+09:00

15 hours later crossed legs on
the floor in the shower cold water cold tiles
head in hands wondering what went wrong and
will it ever go right.

the owl of minerva

2008-03-06T13:16:00.004+09:00

back at uni.
lectures
and tutorials
and readings
and assignments
and waiting
and motivation
and sleeping in.

disappointments.

so what the fuck are you going to do kid?

2008-02-12T12:09:00.000+09:00

Last night I slept a lot. Probably like 11 hours or a little more. I have this shitty sleep rhythm going on where I'll stay up late and get up early for a day or two, then I'll pass out for 11 or 12 hours and catch up. Basically I hate sleep because it's a waste of a good day. I resent missing out on that time.

Standfast practice last night was pretty good, we'd had a couple of weeks off and that was probably good. We didn't even fight with each other last night. We also put together a new song that I'd been working on at home and I think the guys were kinda into it. I was happy with how it sounded.

Writing songs this time around has been a slow process. When we first started on the new tracks (7 of which we've already recorded with Jay) they came out so fast we almost couldn't keep up. We'd come to jam each week with all the stuff we hadn't had time to do the week before. I guess we were averaging about 1 song every practice and we were pretty pumped on how they were sounding. Then we recorded the demos and since then it's been more of a struggle. We have two done now but they still need some polishing. I don't really know why. I think it's going to be a pretty cool record when we're done.

Listening to Modern Life Is War. They're so sincere. Like you listen to it and go 'man, these guys really mean it.' That's what I want to sound like.

still rattling at the chains on the gates of the world

2008-01-28T01:11:00.000+09:00

the daily grind
is really getting me down.

rent
bills
payslips
days off
early mornings
late nights
savings accounts
saving up.

just to clear the air

2008-01-14T03:33:00.000+09:00

Everybody should be a vegetarian.

The bottom line: animals suffer. there's no justification for ignoring that suffering to satisfy human desires. It's absolutely possible to live a long and healthy life without eating animals, and that's what you ought to do.

As if that wasn't reason enough:
The world's cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people—more than the entire human population on Earth.

Yes you read that right. Ignoring the billions of chickens, pigs, sheep, fish, and other animals raised by humans for food or clothing, raising cows for food uses more food than would be needed to feed the entire world. Farm animals turn large amounts of protein (in the form of grains) into small amounts of meat protein. Depending on the species, livestock consume between 5 and 20 times more protein than they yield.

Go veg.

these dreams will be my anchor, these dreams will be the death of me

2008-01-10T02:07:00.000+09:00

all i've wanted since i can remember really wanting anything
is to make my life in music.

nothing was ever so important to me.

in a neon sign i am born again

2008-01-09T02:09:00.000+09:00

this is a place for me to write things that are better out than in.

A red bird and a blue bird sit near each other, In the same tree. Now anything is possible.

2007-05-01T15:00:00.000+09:00

Upon the Chinese fleet's return from the New World, Admiral Kheim recounts to the Emperor the story of their visit to its West Coast, first in the North and their meeting with the young girl, Butterfly, and then their adventures in the Inka city further South. Finally, Butterfly's death from smallpox on the voyage home.

The Wanli Emperor nodded, fingering one of the gold disc ingots they had brought back, and then the big hummingbird moth of beaten gold, its feathers and antennae perfectly delineated with the utmost delicacy and skill. Kheim stared at the Heavenly Envoy, trying to see in to the hidden Emperor, the Jade Emperor inside him. Kheim said to him, 'That far country is lost in time, its streets paved with gold, its palaces roofed with gold. You could conquer it in a month, and rule over all its immensity, and bring back all the treasure that it has, endless forest and furs, turquoise and gold, more gold than there is yet in the world; and yet still the greatest treasure in that land is already lost.'

Kylie's 'books' section used to read 'Books steal the soul' - and I was never sure if she was kidding or not. To some extent I'm still not, you never know with her. But I'm nearing the end of a book that I've owned for a number of years, and read part of a couple of times before. The last few weeks, it's been my constant companion, in mind if not always in reality - and I'm starting to see some sense in Kylie's words. The book is called The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Only time will tell if Rice and Salt has really changed me or the way I see the world, certainly it's coloured my thoughts lately as anything will when fresh. But it deserves credit for making me think about history, and the ways we live it and write it and talk about it and make it every day. For making history alive, even though the characters are not.

ramyani viksya madhurans ca nisamya sabdan
parayustuki bhavati yat sukhito pi jantuh
tac catasa smarati nunam abodhapurvam
bhavasthirani jananantarasauhrdani

Even the man who is happy glimpses something
Or a thread of sound touches him

And his heart overflows with a longing
he does not recognise

Then it must be that he is remembering
a place out of reach people he loved

In a life before this their pattern
Still there in him waiting

holy ghosts and talk-show hosts

2007-03-28T15:03:00.000+09:00

This week I discovered that I like Norma Jean.

I've always had a bit of a strange relationship with Norma Jean. They were one of those bands that I felt like I should like - lots of my friends like them, and don't understand why I don't.

What's more, I find their aesthetic incredibly appealing. NJ's album art, merch designs and tour posters are brilliant. Their song and album titles are amazing. And the lyrics... well, it's Christian Metal and as such I don't often relate, but I can appreciate that they're well-written.

So for a long time I've wanted to like Norma Jean. I've had Bless The Martyr... and O God, The Aftermath on my computer for a while and I've tried to listen to them, hoping that things would fall into place and I'd see what other people see. But I never 'got it'. My problem was, basically, that I find the music itself fairly unlistenable.

I've always grouped NJ in a category with some other inexplicably popular bands, most notably Converge; bands whose music I simply didn't enjoy listening to. What's more, I had a sneaking suspicion that these bands didn't really want me to enjoy their music.

Sometimes I felt like maybe I was missing the point of this music. Other times I thought I must just be too 'mainstream' - perhaps my simple mind craves verses and choruses and major-key melodies and catchy singalongs, all the things that bands like Converge and Norma Jean seem to abhor.

Then I listened to the appropriately-titled Redeemer. This record has structure(!), and rhythm, and melody, and songs that start somewhere and finish somewhere else. It even has -gasp!- pretty singing. Upon listening, I remarked to Zoe my surprise that it's Norma Jean, but it sounds like music. The album is heavy, and dark, and intense, but not to the extent that it precludes actual enjoyment.

So now I file Norma Jean under 'bands whose music I enjoy, but I wish I didn't know what the lyrics were about,' among such illustrious company as As I Lay Dying and Underoath.

this is a sinking ship with a calcium bow

2006-12-14T15:05:00.000+09:00

i'll be standing atop the highest mast
shaking angry fists and cursing gods i never believed in.

i'll be the weight at the bottom of the anchor
pulling this ship of wood and iron and tar and flesh
down where it fucking belongs.

so what if you were all i had

2006-10-03T15:08:00.000+09:00

I've been sleeping a lot. I'm still tired all the time. There are worse things I could be doing with those 12 hours of my day, I suppose. Bright side.

Last night I was lying in bed listening to the wind.

expectations
debts
credits
judgement
positive thinking
negative gearing
expectations.

bought fortunes from carnival seers; saw them through.

2006-10-02T15:08:00.000+09:00

schumann resonance
long drives
bike rides
kill 'em all
predictions
REG
something coming something coming
the system
poison
nothing
fries with that
NASA
nothing
extinction
fires left ablaze.

let's toast the night away to friends and forget about tomorrow

2006-07-16T15:09:00.000+09:00

Inside this week's edition:

O! highs and lows.
A change of routine,
A big decision on the horizon;
Friends and other joys of our world.

I:
My brain is a mystery to me. My brain and my heart. I never cease to be amazed by my ability to go from the happiest to the most desperate of moods with such haste. Tuesday night, in particular, was weird. Maybe it's something I'll always have to deal with.

II:
No band practice this week. It was weird. Kain and I worked on some new stuff, though. I'm pretty psyched to get out to Ed's and get back to work on the four-or-so new songs we have to get done.

III:
I have to decide pretty soon if I'm staying in Bunbury next year or not. I hate decisions. I'm not a strong enough person to make decisions like this. Uni or band? Both? How would that work? I can't answer any of them.

IV:
I had a great week/end. I saw so many amazing people. Jacobi is one of my favourite people ever. Ebony is love. The boys (Kain, Kyle, etc) never cease to astound me. Keira is my big sister. Raich gives excellent hugs. Cerah is my newest friend. Nath is like family. I could go on forever - please take your absence from this list as a sign of my inadequacy, not yours.

popeye

2006-03-18T15:10:00.000+09:00

Today I saw Popeye.
Straight-up, if that guy wasn't Popeye then I don't know who the hell he was. Old, skinny, white tank-top and white short shorts, tattoos, white baker's cap.

It was ridiculous.