The Magical Pick Up Line Generator

Just to break up the 'So what did you do on your travels' theme that seems to happening here at the moment, I've decided to post something purely juvenile. I recently stumbled upon a silly site named for it primary function as 'The Magical Pickup Line Generator'. Here you type in the name of the person you wish to pick up and it generates you a pickup line. However as there is no one in particular I wish to use such a line on at the moment I used the names of my friends. My favourite so far being the response to the name George which was:

Your Pickup Line Is

You might not be the best looking girl here. But beauty is only a light switch away.

The website for your amusement is here The Magical Pick Up Line Generator. But remember my friends you need to use your powers for good not evil.

Catchya

Alice

Melbourne, Day Three

Technically, this post is a bit misleading, since this is actually my fourth day in Melbourne. I tried to write a post last night, I really did, but I just didn't get around to it. That's actually an incredibly poor excuse given that yesterday was the first day where literally nothing happened. Honestly. I woke up (late), Julian had a hangover, Julian hugged lots of people, I ate something at some point during the day, and then went to sleep after watching lots of Stargate. Essentially, a normal Adelaide day, but in a crazy city.

Since, basically, nothing worth putting in a blog happened yesterday, I was a bit concerned about writing another blog post again. The question on my mind was, what was better? Writing often about nothing, or sparingly about something? Julian was no help in answering this question, as he was too busy playing bad guitar tunes, and listening to a song for about two seconds before switching to the next.

While I'm writing this, though, something has occurred to me. This blog was started, according to Andrew, because none of us led interesting enough lives to have an interesting blog on our own. This is a pretty interesting point, simply because of another comment Andrew made on my previous Melbourne post - namely, that I seemed to be a much more interesting person while in Melbourne.

So, the question becomes, what defines an interesting person? If we're to believe Andrew, it involves going to see Dylan Moran, and also thinking about how to improve handling on Amish carts. On the random topic of Amish people, I also found out the other day that they don't wear moustaches because they believe moustaches are associated with the military. I guess that means this guy would rather make war than love...

At any rate, back to my original rambling point, does my going to see Dylan Moran make me an interesting person? Admittedly, Moran's a fantastic comedian, and really interesting to see live, but does that make me an interesting person for going to see him? Does Moran's interesting nature rub off onto me, much like some humour-based piece of bacterium?

Now, this bit of thought led me to something else, which was, maybe this is only happening because it's interesting that I'm in another city, watching Dylan Moran, while thinking about the Amish. Maybe there has to be a critical mass of interesting things that all happen at once before enough interesting things happen that people start to define me as an interesting person.

From here, my mind just arched to a really interesting possibility. What if we made a pact with ourselves, whereby we would not allow ourselves to go home after work and simply collapse but, instead, make sure that at least three interesting things happened that involved us each day. If nothing was happening then, by God, we'd go out and make something happen, whether it was watching a particularly good movie, learning how to play a new tune on a particular instrument, or even flirting with that cute girl that we've always wanted, but have been too nervous to go after. Hell, it doesn't matter if we don't succeed at any of the above, as long as we tried - failures can be interesting too.

I think that's about enough rambling for now, but I hope everyone has a bit of a think about what I've said, and tries to see if they can manage, even for one week, doing three interesting things every day.


EDIT: Corrected some proof reading errors, added more hyperlinks

Byron Wrapup Pt 2

follows on from this post

Day Two: Friday
Had a big sleep in and got to the festival about 2:00. It rained intermittently all day, but so far the grass was holding up reasonably well under the feet of the stampeding masses, and muddy patches were sparse. My ears had warmed up on the Thursday, and I was suitably receptive for a day of sensational music.

Paolo Nutini (Andrew's discovery of the festival!)
Didn't know anything about this dude. He was on early, so I wasn't expecting much. Despite his (stage?) name, he's actually Scottish, and sings as if he's impersonating an old Scottish man with a lisp. It took me a while to get over this and realise that his songs actually kicked serious arse. His band were good too, and soon the crowd were loving it. I've since listened to his album, and he mutes the whole old man impersonation considerably on his CD. I strongly recommend having a listen to some of his stuff (ugh, MySpace). Next time I'm in at JB, I'm buying his album (which was an exhorbitant $35 at the Bluesfest).

Rodriguez
If Bob Dylan and Nick Drake had a baby, and that baby grew up to be a 60ish year old musician, he would sound like Rodriguez. Apparently he was big in the 70's. Seems as though he's run out of steam in the 21st century. Definitely one for the die hard older fans, who seemed to dig him. The most interesting thing about his performance was that he spoke to the audience only in cryptic, rhyming couplets. Oh, and he couldn't remember the name of his band members, so he had to ask his bassist to introduce the band. One day I want to be so famous I don't have to remember names.

Gomez
I'd really only heard a couple of tracks by these guys before the fest. They're the kind of band that seems to crop up pretty frequently on chillout compilations, so I was expecting something pretty laid back. Actually, they know how to rock. They're about a seven piece, with three guys up the front singing, and two drummers. An impressive setup, and an impressive sound. Left me wanting to hear more of their stuff.

Joss Stone
She's prrdy. Well, about as prrdy as British girls get, anyway. The music was... inoffensive. Well, maybe that's a little harsh. She started off in a fairly poppy kind of vein, and it was only really in the second half of her set that she let the band (which was extensive and talented) do their thing. She does have an amazing voice, but like Vanessa Amarosi among others, some purists might question what she was doing at the Bluesfest in the first place.

Animal Liberation Orchestra (Most mind blowing surprise of the festival!)
I almost wasn't going to stay around for these guys, because I had half a mind to check out Terrence Simien and the Zydeco Experience. Laziness won the day, and I stayed at Mojo. A good thing, too, because these guys are my type of people. They're a guitar/piano, bass, and drums trio that kick out the jams mellow-wise, if you catch my drift. They kind of sound like if Donovan Frankenreiter came from a good middle class family in Boston, and formed a band with two of his clones.

Anyway, about a third of the way through their set, they call out a good friend of theirs - Jack muthafuckin Johnson!! JJ wasn't even playing at the fest, so I don't know if he happened to be in town, or what. At that stage, Mojo was about half full, but as word spread, you could see people literally sprinting from the other side of the festival to get to the tent. The rest of the set was about a 50-50 mix of Jack Johnson and ALO songs. It was all good. I've now got their album, and a memory of a great performance I won't soon forget.

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
Bela Fleck is widely regarded as the world's best banjo player. He teams up with the Flecktones, comprising a guy who could be the world's best bass player; a clarinet/sax player who can play two saxophones at the same time; and a guy in a pirate hat who calls himself the 'future pirate' or something similar, who weilds a homemade guitar-shaped looking device, which is actually a drum machine.

There's no pretense of organisation here - Bela and the Flecktones don't play songs so much as 10 minute long solo opportunities. I heard a helluva lot of bass solos over the five days - some good, some bad - but the Flecktones' bassist was the best.

Ziggy Marley
I'd been looking forward to this all day. I'd seen Jr. Gong Marley at last year's Bluesfest, but Ziggy is probably the true heir to his father Bob's legacy. I was right up the front of the Crossroads stage, and the smaller tent worked well to get everyone on their feet and packed in tight. Marijuana smoke filled the air and put everyone in the right frame of mind as Ziggy came out and launched in to a few of his own songs. Over the course of the set he probably played about six or seven Bob Marley tunes, which was what the crowd was there to see. Fantastic stuff.


Miscellaneous Reviews
Langos - 9/10: Langos is hungarian fried bread, topped with garlic sauce, sour cream, goulash and cheese. Kind of like a pizza without meat. Reasonably priced and very filling, it's the ultimate festival food. I was walking up to random strangers and shouting 'get one of these!'

Byron Bay Mud - 6/10: It pretty much rained off and on for the five days, which meant the festival grounds got muddier and muddier each day. I didn't bring waterproof shoes, and was extremely worried about contracting trench foot. Byron Bay mud has a curious consistency, though. It's thick, and if your shoes get muddy and then have time to dry, the mud sets and actually serves as a waterproof coating. The mud loses points, though, because now I'm back home I can't get it off my shoes.

Jim Beam - 10/10: A drink for bogans, you say? Well... yes. But for some reason my time at the festival has converted me into a Jim Beam fan...

Melbourne, Day Two

Hello all, and welcome to my second installment in my series of posts on the Melbourne holidays. I'm personally rather impressed that this second post even exists, partially because I'm tired, partially because I'm lazy, but mainly because I've had a bit to drink. Technically, my night isn't over just yet, but I thought a post now would be infinitely better than a post in say, one hour, when writing will become somewhat more difficult.

Melbourne so far has been treating me rather well. It rained today, which I suppose is par for course for the city. About two minutes later, it stopped raining, and the sun came out instead, followed by rain again in about twenty minutes. Again, this would have to be par for course for the city.

I'd have to say the highlight so far of my trip has been going to see Dylan Moran at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. There was no reason whatsoever to use hyperlinks for either of the previous two names, but by God, I like the pretty blue lines. Moran was his usual hilarious self, which is to say, a somewhat drunken Irishman making fun of anyone or anything that he could think of. It was fantastic, mainly because he didn't notice us.

Before ol' Dylan, we had a good little trip down to the Market, to have a look at various things that no person really needs, but that are nonetheless on sale. I managed to successfully waste time, and also have a small heart attack when I withdrew some cash and got a bank statement as to how much I had left - damn you Virgin!

Tomorrow, I'm going to be going to the Imax to see Frank Miller's 300 (oooh yeah, I'm definitely on a hyperlink power trip here). It should be a good little outing, and I'm hoping on getting some nice stylised violence worked into my holiday.

I think that's all for now - this post has basically consisted of me pulling words out of... somewhere, just to be able to say I had a post today. I'll post more tomorrow, with luck. I hope you're all doing well, and nothing too serious has happened in the outside world. Before I leave, I'll leave you with this momentary conundrum that's been plaguing me:

Would an Amish person lower their cart for better handling?

Melbourne, Day One

Hello bloggers (And random economists), welcome to one of my first posts in a while.

As most of you know, I left for (and arrived in) Melbourne today, for a 7 day holiday. I noted that I was beginning what I'm hoping will be a fun and exciting vacation on Friday the 13th, a fact that would no doubt send shivers of vindictive pleasure down the spine of every high school teacher of mine who'd ever accused me of being the Antichrist.

To begin with, I had planned on driving to Melbourne, mainly because I love the feeling of driving through country towns (and, inevitably, not stopping as you slowly realise that any town that has a tin shed as a town hall probably isn't worth exploring). I had thought that, what with my shiny, new Lancer, a long interstate drive was just what the doctor ordered.

Alas, though, my mechanic had a different opinion, and I was told that, until my car had at least one service, it would probably be a poor idea to take it for a long journey. So, one day before I was supposed to be driving to Melbourne, I decided to fly. Being a bit of a poor bugger, I chose to fly Virgin, and that was where my adventure began.

I arrived at the airport relatively early, to pick up my ticket and wait pointlessly at the departure gate for a bit. Eventually, my flight came and I happily strode through the boarding area, happy to finally be on my way. About 30 seconds later, I came upon an obstacle. I'd reached a fork in the path, with one path being a well light corridor that I presume continued onto the plane in glorious airport-decor splendor, and the other being a set of concrete stairs, that simply went down to god knows where. A typically cheery Virgin sign on the wall read that passengers with seat numbers 1-14 could take the shiny, happy corridor, while the rest of us would have the reassuring theme of industrial concrete to guide us to our destination. A few passengers, the privileged elite, happily strode forth into the corridor, while the vast unwashed masses began their inevitable trudge down the stairs. Pausing for a moment to express my envy for Business class passengers and their luxurious path, I took the one more traveled by.

Our concrete-laden descent ended up taking us to the airport tarmac, where I happily boarded the plane, eager to find my seat, and also escape the unique smell of airplane fuel being loaded. I sat down on my seat, and was pleasantly surprised to hear Bob Evans being piped through the plane.

Eventually, though, "I believe in Love" was cut off, in favour of a much less romantic, though probably more practical, demonstration of the safety features of the plane. I dutifully listened as Sarah, my wonderful hostess, explained the various things we'd need to do in case of an emergency. I didn't take any of them in, of course, but I figured I could always ask the person next to me, if worst came to worst.

Unless they were already dead, of course. Forgetful people, take note, always try and aim for a middle seat in economy, so you have two potential people to ask for help, if you ever run into problems.

With the safety features of the airplane taken care of, Sarah launched into a chat about the in-flight entertainment that Virgin was offering on the phone. She directed our attention to the wonderful LCD in front of us, she directed our attention to the wonderful controls for those screens on our seats, she explained to us how the wonderful people at Foxtel had provided us with a multitude of wonderful channels to choose from and then, finally, she directed our attention to the wonderful credit card slots next to the LCD panels, which would allow us to actually use all this wonderful entertainment, for the low price of just six dollars.

As Sarah explained all this, the LCD monitor happily showed advertisement after advertisement (Navman GPS - it's like having a local in your car!) I decided not to take up her (incredibly good value) offer, and instead contented myself with a good book instead. The adverts, though, seemed to be there to stay. I periodically tore myself from my book to check up on what was being sold. One of the more interesting ads was for Matavai Resort. The ad wasn't interesting due to anything the resort was offering, but more for the seemingly random ticker tape of words that were scrolling across the bottom of the screen during the entirety of the ad. Along with "Scuba Diving", and "Sailing", and the usual resort-type activities, Matavai also seemed to offer "E Bay", and "Pussies". That one managed to puzzle me, though not nearly as much as the next advert section, which began with a title screen called "Virgin Voyeur Active", and then proceeded to be two minutes of scantily clad women running around in bikinis.

During this all, Sarah again approached, this time with an offer of a sandwich from the menu, or alternatively a drink, or chips. You'll be interested to know that Virgin charges five dollars for two pieces of bread and some ham and cheese. Obviously, Virgin seemed to be the Pizza Shop of the skies, suckering you in with cheap Pizza that goes to Melbourne, only to gouge you on Garlic Bread that keeps the entire operation afloat. Still, because Sarah was cute, and I was hungry, I bought the food all the same.

All too quickly, though, the entire thing was over and the plane landed, leaving me cold, alone and unsatisfied on the Melbourne airport tarmac. I picked up my bag, gave Julian a quick ring to let him know that I'd arrived, and popped off into the toilet. You'll all be interested to know that the humble condom dispenser has now evolved into a much more entrepreneurial device, that not only dispenses condoms, but also does breath mints, breath sprays, deodorant and hair gel. Hooray for capitalism!

Finally, Julian arrived, picked me up, and we went back to his place, where I promptly settled in, and was treated to a viewing of the most bizarre film I've ever seen.

And that's where I'm up to folks. Bit of a long post this one, and I'm sorry for making you all read through it (Hah, I kid myself that you have :P). The aim right now is to basically write one post every night for each night I'm in Melbourne. I guess you'll all know if that's worked out or not after tomorrow night. For now, good night, and hope Adelaide's treating you all well (Except you Trent, you damn Finnish person you :P)

Byron Wrapup Pt 1

More astute readers will know that I've been at the Byron Bay Blues and Roots festival for the past week. It's a five day event that takes place a couple of hours south of Surfers Paridise, and has, in my opinion, consistently the best lineup of acts out of any Australian music event.

What follows is part one of an extensive (tedious??) recount (gloat??) of my experiences at the 'fest. For those of you with itchy feet, here's the three word summary: Best Goddamn Bluesfest Ever! Click on the pic below for an overview of the program. Acts I saw are highlighted in blue.



Day One: Thursday
Despite the fact that the opening acts weren't starting until fiveish, we got up early to play a round of golf at the Lismore Workers Club course. It's a lovely course, and it would have been a good chance to unwind in readiness for five days of peace and love, but I was not at the top of my game. As anyone who plays golf knows, this is a euphemism that means I walked around the course silently spewing white hot frustration, frequently stopping to whack the ball 20m into the next patch of rough.

Still, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and, to paraphrase Brad Pitt, at least no one was throwing my severed penis out of a moving car. After we handed in our clubs we had a pie and a couple of Tooheys Olds at the clubhouse. For some reason, Tooheys really does taste better on tap and in NSW.

After a powernap back at the country club at which we were staying (aka my uncle's boarding school) it was time to hit the road. I was keen to get to the fest by 4:00, since there was to be an unadvertised performance by Ben Kweller in the smallest of the four stages. We took the back roads into Byron to avoid the inevitable traffic jams, and got a park 10 mins walk from the site of the festival. We had arrived.

This is a smaller version of a very big stitched image (click to enlarge, though). If anyone really wants to see the huge version, I'll have to get a Picassa account or something. I haven't had time to photoshop the joins out yet.

Ben Kweller (solo)
By the time we'd gotten our wristbands on and scooted over to the APRA stage, BK's set had already started. There were bouncers at the entrance to the tent and a small line had formed. The evil Coke overlords control this stage - entry is permitted to the first 300 people who supply the Coke reps with a (usually fake) email address and mobile number. Apparently registration had finished and the tent had reached capacity. I hung around outside anyway, because the performance was being displayed on a big screen just above the entrance, albeit accompanied by the muffled sounds emerging from within.

Gradually, people started to leave the tent. I jumped into the line, and within minutes was transported into the dark bowels of the Coke marketing machine. As I passed down the metaphorical corporate esophagus, I was greeted by a smiling blond succubus, who offered me a choice: would I prefer a free Coke, or a free Coke Zero? Feeling somehow dirtied, I reached out for the Coke. If I was going to be forced to look refreshed for the cameras (which were recording the performance for a Coke Live 'n' Local show), I opted to do so with the product that didn't taste like liquid cardboard.

In any case, Ben Kweller was worth selling my soul for. He sang a few tunes off his latest album while playing guitar, then switched over to keyboard and did some of his older stuff. I think he had a bit of a cold, but no one seemed to mind. His style of music's really suited to intimate venues like the APRA stage. I'm sure he won over some new converts, proving that good can come of even a Coke marketing excercise.

After his set, Kweller answered a few questions, including one about whether the Bens (superband comprising BK, Ben Folds and Ben Lee) would ever re-form. BK said that that would definitely happen at some stage, although he didn't know exactly when, and that it could involve a whole album and a world tour! Sweet.

The Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars
These guys are always a great opening act for any festival. Everybody listening has fun, loses their inhibitions, and walks away ready to listen to more music. High energy stuff, with the bassist playing his guitar over his head for two whole songs, all the while swaying and grinning like a crazy man. Their sound is a mixture of Cuban influences and African beats. A happiness injection.

Ben Kweller
At 7:00, Ben was back with his band on the largest stage. The band worked well, and they tried to throw in a few blues undertones to the performance, but the large crowd weren't really up for some of BK's slower numbers with quirky lyrics. The sound levels weren't quite right, and at times it was hard to hear the vocals. Still, it was a special performance for me because I'm a long time fan, and haven't seen him do his stuff live since the Bens tour years ago.

John Mayer
The only John Mayer stuff I'd heard previously were his radio friendly pop tunes. I was skeptical, but my travelling companions assured me he'd be worth seeing. They were dead right. Mayer is a guitar god, and the crap that makes it onto the radio doesn't do him justice. I saw more awesome guitar solos than I could count over the course of the festival, but John Mayer still sticks out in my mind as a highlight.

Wolfmother
I really didn't know what to expect from a live Wolfmother performance, but hey, if you're at a festival and they're playing, you can't not see them, right? It seemed like everyone in the entire festival shared the same view and was crammed into the Mojo tent. Wolfmother didn't disappoint. I'm a convert, and if you can catch them live, I'd recommend it. For a band that's been touring for - what, about a year? - they put an amazing amount of energy into their show. The lead singer really has an amazing voice, and can bust out a pretty decent solo. They finished on 'The Joker and the Thief', and the crowd just went nuts. A kickarse end to our first day.

Maintaining a sense of perspective in today's world

As I'm sure we're all aware, there is quite a bit of crap going on in the world. It can all get a bit depressing, but I urge everyone to keep a sense of perspective.

Yes, the word 'Muslim' has become, in the minds of too many people, synonymous with the word 'terrorist'. Yes, the fear of change and the unknown is driving voters in western nations to elect conservative governments intent on bringing about a return to the 12th century. And yes, Network Ten have decided to put on another series of Big Brother this year.*
But despite all this, we can take solace in one simple fact:
Every 1 minute and 15 seconds, the monitor of the computer I'm currently using does, for no apparent reason, a sort of vertical mexican wave.

* And yes, whenever I create a list, it will always consist of two genuine elements followed by one silly one. It's no longer funny, I just do it because it's what I do. Much like the Family First party, a joke stops being funny the second it becomes institution.

Not strictly canonical

Here's something I whipped up for Jono. The rest of you can have a look, too, if you dare. Just click to enlarge. Warning: the easily offended will be.



Now, some of you might have some questions about this, and I propose that Jono should field them. After all, it was his idea originally.

There's another reason to direct your enquiries Jonowards. I'll be at the Byron Bay Blues and Roots Festival from tomorrow until mid next week. To which end: I want to see contributions from everyone up on this blog when I return. George has to post twice.

One final bit of housekeeping - for the (two) people who might care, I've posted an answer to the grammar problem I posed a couple of posts back. It's in the comments to that post.

As they say in Mexico, sayounara.

I can be topical too!

Reading the paper today, I had a bit of a thought.

With the whole David Hicks thing, there are people who claim that those who protested on behalf of him did so due to a belief that he was innocent, whilst the protests were not about his culpability, but rather the unlawful conditions he was subjected to in Guantanamo.

So is it me, or is it ironic that it was likely those same people who vehemently proclaimed Princess Saint Schapelle Corby to be innocent, regardless of any little things like 'evidence'?

Ahh, politics. And to chime in on earlier topical rants, I'm all for the Government introducing a national broadband network. I mean, the other alternative is that Telstra does it, and who wants that?

Y'know, it could be fun to send dozens of Monopoly board games to Sol Trujillo... ;oP

And oh yeah, I'm in Adelaide. Who's doing what this weekend?

Bits and pieces

Happy April Fool's Day, everyone! No, just kidding, you all suck.

Google Analytics is a beautiful thing. For people who actually make money off their sites from advertising, it provides them with a breakdown of who's clicking what, and when. For the rest of us, it provides lots of interesting facts about our readership. For instance:

• This week we had our first Japanese visitor, from Shimbashi chou, which I seem to recall is a district in Tokyo
• Thanks to my obnoxious knocking of a much more famous blogger, our traffic this week was about six times higher than average.
• On five occasions, someone (almost certainly Alice) couldn't remember the URL for this blog, so had to google 'Salmon Conversations" to get here
• The only other visitor who's come from a search engine searched for "Gadens lawyers" + "billing targets". Hmm.

In other news, the graph in my Journal of Jog has gone from a dot to a line. Also, today I was doing some cheese work, and I was so bored, my brain started to rebel by creating awful jokes. For instance:

Q: What did the Mozzarella say when the Edam told a bad joke?

A: 'That's not very Gouda'.


Until next week, I'm Monica Attard. Goodnight.