The above is a publicity shot of me from the Anarchy Productions film “The Adventures of April Justyce”. I play an assassin named Emma.

This film may or may not see the light of day because of casting issues. If you think you have what it takes to play the lead of April Justyce please contact the director, John Benjamin for details at dbar87@aol.com.

Tell him I sent ya!

Here is the first of two short videos, this shows some of the acts at Fringe Bar yesterday. The light was great for the audience, but not so hot for video archiving, something to look out for another time… (Lots of lessons learned, believe me!)

So, here’s a little taste of the Taster, a sample of the Sampler, a few bits of the bitsFestival. Enjoy!

Oh yes, I have been active for all but 3 hours, yet have major plans already in the process. Let the envisioning begin!

In the coming weeks, I plan to do 3 separate things as I get this blog underway:

1. While not ideal because this blog has just begun, I will of course be coming out with a top 10 albums of the year list, complete with links to free downloads of said albums. Depending on how much time I have, I may expand this to a top 20 list, but who knows.

2. As it is not only the end of the year, but also the end of the decade, I hope to add a top 25-top 50 list of the best albums of the decade. I will also try my best to find a free download for each of these albums, but if that’s not possible I will definitely get a link for the top 10-20.

3. Start talking about new albums that are coming out, my personal thoughts on them, and links to get a copy of them. As of now, I’m going to attempt to do one album per week, but that is dependent on the amount of free time as I’ll be busy with finals, which are coming up in 3 weeks, and how long it takes me to do 1 and 2.

Hopefully those “best of” lists will act as a sort of entry into the type of music I am interested in, and some people will be interested enough in me to follow/comment on my entries. As I don’t want to do all this work and not get at least a modest following of people to interact with, please comment soon, and comment often! As I also want to delve into the world of blogger, I will be searching out you fellow audio bloggers as well!

Liberal Women = Old Pity Whores

Warning: Before you read this post, let me get this straight. I’m not a republican or a democrat or any political affiliation. If you’re offended by it, and you’re a woman that means you have to get your act straight.

The other day I was watching online on Hulu the “new” TV-drama from NBC called “Mercy.”  For the ones who don’t know what that series is based, it’s about a girl named Veronica, a blond haired woman who came from a war in Iraq and trying to fit in the civilian area by working as a nurse where she’s mistreated by the Doctor but supported by her colleagues. In the first episode, she gets a visit from a new Doctor who is a former soldier she slept with in the war. Her world come crashing down as soon as her husband finds out in later episodes.

The story is nothing but inspiring. A veteran who supposedly fought to get “freedom” in this country categorized as a slut? During watching the show I debated with my husband about the whole issue. My husband called the character Veronica a whore, from the simple fact that she opened her legs to the most sightliest opportunity overseas while her not so perfect husband was working to build his house. He also stated that media teach society that if you’re a woman, you can do anything in the wrong sense of the word, that we’re imitating men. During our debate I reached deeper into the subject. Women before that “feminism movement”, they were devoted to three subjects:

1. Taking care of the husband
2. Taking care of the children
3. Taking care of the house

It was rare that a woman could cheat or get a job to be independent. When the feminism agenda came in the 70’s and early 80’s, well my friends and enemies, everything went downhill since then. Women wanted “rights” to become in sync with men, but at what price? We’re becoming so “independent” that we’re leaving the children, the male figure and the house with a white picked fence. We’re becoming single mothers with the thought that being with the father of the kid is not the answer teaching their kid 50% of values and morals without the male role. Married women are “unhappy” so they go desperate to get a quickie with their neighbor and single “independent” career gals are “depressed” because they can’t find Mr. Right after having one night stand adventures.

But Hold the Mayo! I’m not finished! Don’t these so-called liberated females are compared to old time whores? Consider it! This is not an insult, this is just a thought. During the end of the 19th Century in the Silver Valley (in Northwest Idaho) there were stories of so-called “independent” gals who were doing the same things as today. What these gals were called? A Prostitute! Many of these women were unhappy stuck in a profession that only 3% got married with rich folks (during the Wild West) while 97% of these were victims of illnesses and violence. And you think that women today had overcome this? We’re still on the same boat of dependency. There’s no way a woman can exist without the help of a man. Not now and not ever. We have a place and it’s called Housewife.

From Independent Online

Swiss voters are deciding in a referendum today whether to accept a ban on the construction of minarets, which right-wing parties regard as symbols of militant Islam.

The move, led by the Swiss People’s Party, which has campaigned in previous years against immigrants, has stirred fears of boycotts and violent reactions from Muslim countries.

Polls indicate growing support for the proposal, but doubt remains about whether it will pass. The seven-member Cabinet which heads the Swiss government has spoken out strongly against the initiative.

Muslims have been keeping a low profile so far. The Geneva Mosque was vandalised on Thursday when a pot of pink paint was thrown at the entrance.

Earlier this month, a vehicle with a loudspeaker drove through the area imitating a muezzin’s call to prayer, and vandals damaged a mosaic when they threw cobble stones at the building.

Business leaders say a ban on minarets, the distinctive spires attached to mosques, would be disastrous for the Swiss economy because it could offend wealthy Muslims who bank in Switzerland, buy the country’s luxury goods and visit its resorts.

The vote taps into the anxieties about Muslims which have been rippling through Europe in recent years, ranging from French fears of women in body veils to Dutch alarm over the murder by a Muslim fanatic of a filmmaker who made a documentary which criticised Islam.

Local officials and human rights campaigners have objected to the campaign posters, which show minarets rising like missiles from the Swiss flag next to a fully veiled woman.

Minarets are typically built next to mosques for religious leaders to call the faithful to prayer, but they are not used for that in Switzerland. The four minarets already attached to mosques in the country will remain even if the referendum passes.

Muslims make up about 6% of Switzerland’s 7.5 million population, many of them refugees from the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Fewer than 13% practice their religion, the government says.

A survey by the respected polling institute gfs.bern last week indicated that 53% of voters opposed the initiative, although support for it has grown by three percentage points to 37% since last month. Typically in Switzerland the margins on such votes narrow as balloting nears. Ten percent of the 1,213 people polled were undecided.

I reckon there have been a few people scattered around Brisbane today mulling over their experience of our bitsFestival, whether they participated as creater/performers, or as members of audience at one or more of our four venues.

Right now, I’m busy putting together some short videos showing a selection of the shows. Here are a few stills to keep you going, it will be a couple of days before the editing process is completed, plus I’m still waiting for a few of the artists to sign the image release forms, giving us permission to show them to you.

If you couldn’t make it, you missed a treat. The range of shows was just a wide and deep as any fringe festival could hope for, we had wild and wacky, short and snappy, absolutely bizarre, scripted and improvised, sung and spoken, the most experienced world class performers, and the newest cabs off the rank dipping their toes in the water (howzat for a mixed metaphor?) for the first time.

If you were there, please use the comment box to share your experience and let us know what you thought.

The original ‘Dr Bill’. Bill Tormey, regarded as ‘outspoken’, has been a candidate for the Labour Party, stood as an Independent Labour candidate, stood as an Indpendent and is now a Fine Gael councillor. He’s also a Shamrock Rovers fan!

Many people in this country are short on time today.  Work, family and other obligations take nearly our entire time.  There is not much left for personal time to ourselves.  Not much time is left to be politically or religiously active or start a business.  For the good of the country, the good of the economy, and most of all the good of ourselves we must recover some of this time. Three areas of opportunity present themselves for recovering some of our precious time. 

WAITING: Airport delays are among the most lengthy and the most variable delays we face.  For example, the last time I flew to Chicago, the airport delays took longer than the flight itself, on both the way there and back.  Certain delays are due to security checks that don’t seem very useful, are invasive, but are also politically touchy to remove due to peoples’ fear of terrorism – (which are not to be ignored or taken lightly).  The airlines themselves are also much to blame for not having planes ready to go on time.  There have been proposals for years for a Fliers’ bill of rights that addresses airport delay due to airlines. It should be strengthened to require airlines to refund some or all of the ticket price depending on how many hours the customer has to wait.

Doctor’s offices schedule patients to maximize their profit, not to get patients in and out on time.  (For the record, I just fired my doctor for this, and her $140 tetanus shot).  A patients bill of rights similar to the proposed Fliers’ bill of rights, specifying free service if the wait is longer than X, would go a long way to solving the problem.

Phone support queues, such as when calling your credit card issuer or phone company can last an upwards of an hour.  To add insult to injury, they also like to play ads while you wait.  Lately some companies have added a feature where you can give them your account # and phone # and they will call you back at a time of your choosing instead of waiting.  It should be required of all companies to give their customers this option.  This need not be an onerous new regulation: just providing an option to leave voicemail would be acceptable.

Checkout lines at stores are ripe for reform.  In the 1990s self service check out was
introduced.  Generally these are no faster than a human cashier, because of all their error.  I believe we have all heard “*beep* please wait for cashier assistance” far too many times.  I know many people like these lines (because they can verify that the scanned price is correct) and do not advocate their removal.  I do advocate that they be made to work properly without waiting for a cashier to be called to assist every 2nd customer.  For example stores like Wal-Mart, allow their checkout lines to form 15-20 minute queues – even when most of their registers are open.  I am not sure how to solve this problem – but it has to be done.  15-20 minutes x 6 stops per family per week = 1.5-2 hours/week x 52 weeks per year = 78 to 104 hours per family per year is more than 3 or 4 entire days per family per year spent standing in line.

Several people I know have proposed some solutions to waiting:
$1 shop online – this is great if present privacy problems can be resolved.  (See my upcoming series on privacy).
$2 make waiting more productive.  This can work to the extent that you can conduct your business, worship, etc, in the checkout line.  I read in lines to improve myself and my skill-base for my career – so I am sure others could do something along these lines.
$3 Finally it was suggested that, a person could record his time spent waiting in line, multiply it by his hourly wage, and have it deducted from his bill.  Heaven help the company that delays a million dollar a year CEO for half an hour.

WORKING:  Presently, the 5 day 40 hour work week is standard.  This leaves 5 evenings and 2 weekend days to service our family and other obligations.  Good luck having any time left for yourself.  (I realize that some blue collar workers earn time and a half by working beyond this, and many white collar professionals and managers are forced to work beyond this by their company for no additional compensation.  They could certainly put in some portion of a 5th workday each week if they chose; perhaps by telecommuting.)

Lately many companies have been experimenting with flex time and the 4 day work week.  Flex time allow employees to schedule their day such that they can service all of their obligations around their work.  The 4 day work week allows the employee to work 4 10 hour days instead of 5 8hour days, thereby gaining an extra useable day on the weekend.  For many employers, this makes sense too.  Any office building operating Monday-Friday 8-5, could have all of their workforce be in at least 1 day a week together so that meetings can be scheduled, and then sign up for any other 3 days they please.  Retail and service operations would especially benefit from this too, because they could have more employees around before and after operating hours to restock shelves, clean and so on.  Likewise, a call center, hospital or a steel mill operating 24/7 with either 3 shifts or 4 turns rotating in every 8 hours could use 10 hour blocks instead to staff their operation just as well.

Employees would benefit by having a 3rd useable day off every week.

DRIVING:  There are about 300 million people in this country.  About half of us work.  Nearly all of us workers commute to our job.  Many of us have long-mileage trips.  Many of those trips take unnecessarily long to make; the average American spends ½ hour commuting, each way, to work.  If we could save some of that time, as a society we would be better off.  Families could spend more time together and people would have more time to relax.   Roughly 300,000,000 people x ½ work x 2 trips per day x ½ hour average per trip multiplies out to tell us that American spend roughly 150 million man hours are spent in a car commuting to and from work each day.

What if we could save some of that time?  25% would be roughly 37 million man hours saved per day.  To the average American, that would mean saving 15 minutes every day.  Multiply that by 250 commuting days per year and the average American would have roughly 2¼   extra full 24 hour days each year to do something other than sit in a car.  So how could we do it?

First we should establish some ground rules:  (1) whatever changes are made should not increase driving fatalities.  (2) whatever changes are made shouldn’t cost a lot of money.

There are many things that could be done.  Most commutes involve a mix of highway and city driving, so both should be addressed.  Many of the worst commutes involve long delays due to high traffic, construction or poorly designed intersections – which makes these ripe opportunities to work on.

Highway driving is an easy fix: raise the speed limit to 85mph on all highways.  Insurance companies compile a slew of statistics showing that higher speed is associated with higher fatalities.  More careful researchers note that it is the difference in speed between the many cars on the road that lead to accidents and fatalities.  So when raising the speed limit, we should also raise the minimum to 70 or 75mph .  Excepting certain collectors’ antique cars there are no cars on the road that can’t do at least 70 or 75mph.  It doesn’t cost hardly anything to do this.  Many motorists already drive at these speeds in defiance of the law, and seem quite safe doing it.  Indeed, the British Medical Journal noted in 2006 that British highway fatalities per year actually increased slightly after installing speed enforcement cameras (studied 1996-2004) to slow their drivers down -i.e. speed is not the dangerous and important factor that we are led to believe. Obviously, in severe weather, one would drive at a safe and reasonable (slower) speed – no one wants tp do 70-85mph on snow and ice.  Also, local government would have to stay on top of potholes, read: Canton, Ohio, where the potholes often seem to be more numerous than the sands by the sea, and they can appear to be large enough to float ocean-going vessels.  All other things equal, the average American motorist, could save a maximum of 8 minutes a day or 1 ½ days per year.

City driving is more difficult.  It depends very much on delays due to traffic and intersections.  1 possible reform would be to raise the speed limit on most roads that are not highways to 40 mph.  Critics argue that in certain situations involving on-street parking or older (small dense) residential neighborhoods, that 25mph makes sense.  I agree with them on this.  No one wants to run over a child or have any other kind of accident.  But everywhere else, 40 mph would make sense and make a big difference.  Enacting this reform would save the average American commuter a maximum of a third of a day per year.  It would save us even more time when running our errands.  This is not an expensive change either.  It would also help for all the cities in a given metropolitan area to cooperate in synchronizing their stoplights.  Pairs of multilane 1 way streets with timed lights have significantly reduced travel time in many cities across the nation.

Reducing delays are the biggest improvement opportunity of all.  When I first started my previous job, my 30 mile commute took 65 minutes on average – event though it was 2/3 highway driving with a 65mph speed limit.  By leaving for work at 6AM instead of 6:55AM, I found I could reduce this time to 35 minutes.  I avoided traffic, drove 40 and 80mph instead of 25, 35 and 65mph and had more favorable stoplight cycles.  In practical terms, I saved 10½  24 hour days each year.

Herein lies a large part solution: it’s cheap and easy to change the time at which we commute.  As companies allow more flex time and telecommuting, this reduces the peak traffic densities on our road ways.  We can improve this by having governments pass ordinances that non-customer service buildings open before 7:30 or after 8:30 in order to spread out the load.

This still leaves the matter of construction delays.  Most delays form when a roadway is reduced by 1 or more lanes to be worked on.  2 innovative solutions have appeared lately, but not yet widely.  (1) do the work at night, and reopen the entire road each morning.  (2)  Rather than close down many miles of highway all at once, just close down the section that needs to be closed in order to do work and cure the cement properly.

More creative ideas yet are worth exploring.  Many professional people could telecommute to work at least 1x per week, thereby saving at least 20% of travel time.  Moving to a 4 10hour day work week would certainly save 20% of commuting time for everyone.

If all these ideas were implemented, the average American could easily save at least 1 to 2/3  of his driving time each year.  Imagine what you would do with an extra 20-40 minutes every day.

I recently heard my aunt’s parrot make a door-slamming noise and shout ‘FUCK YOU!’.  Apparently the bird had been sold to my aunt by a couple who divorced immediately after.  My aunt, who divorced too, years before she got the bird, speculates that the woman kicked the man out of the bedroom because he was a male chauvinist pig who wouldn’t help with the housework.

Decades ago, when men earned all the money in a household, and women stayed home all day, men got the idea that they didn’t need to help women with housework and child raising. Today, it is not possible in most professions for a man’s income alone to support a family. So women now work as much and as hard as men. It only makes sense that they split the child raising and housework duties evenly too. Just as employers require employees to cross train in additional skills and back up other employees, so to family members help each other out. Most men appreciate sports. We surely can understand teamwork. I fully believe in equal responsibilities and rights. But that’s where it stops.

No woman is ever going to kick me out of my bedroom or house. I pay the mortgage on that house on time every month. I put 20% of the purchase price down on that house to buy it – out of my own money. I put $25,000 of materials into renovating it (a century home) – and I did the work with my 2 bare hands.

To be fair, woe be to any man that thinks he is going to marry a rich woman and walk off with half her stuff. I would like to beat such men personally! (if one can consider them men at all).

In this country, the divorce law requires the man and the woman to split up their assets equally at the divorce, in the absence of a prenuptial agreement. Any woman I marry will sign one of these agreements renouncing her legal right, in the event of a divorce, to anything that I had before the marriage. And I don’t want her stuff either – its her stuff.

…which brings me to a reform: The law should be changed so that you don’t need to go through the ugly step of asking your beloved wife (or husband)-to-be for a prenuptial agreement. Marriage should be all about love, and not about money!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about methods of game design for more interesting, simple flash games, and this is when I had a moment of inspiration after sitting around in the hot sun of a car par for an hour. I opened the back of a work book and decided to break the boredom ice by designing a game fundamentally simple in nature, in light of a lot of stuff I had played recently, but most of all, Noitu Love 2 by Joakim Sandberg. In a recent interview I watched with Sandberg, he discussed that his primary goal was to reduce the game down to its most basic, fun points, discarding extraneous features that he felt detracted from the ultimate goal of fun. In this instance, however, my goal wasn’t to create so much a game of the calibre of Noitu Love 2, but to reflect Sandberg’s principles of well implemented, integral features as a primary drive. My method proceeded thusly.

I limited myself to a single, ruled A4 page, not as a means to limit my creativity, but to reduce my design to its most important and central features. From there on I wrote whatever I felt was necessary, whether that be descriptions, lists or drawings; this should be whatever you consider important. I began with a brief statement of purpose since at this stage I hadn’t developed this style completely, but you may find some individual value in doing so. From there on I developed my ideas in a sort of systematic style where I took time to cement a central idea on paper, and then I worked out how it could be presented. My product was a sort of platformer where the character had a grappling hook that they could both use to swing on things, and to spring themselves off the ground, presumably there would be areas in which you were limited to either one of the abilities in an environment of perpetually increasing challenge, akin to that game where you played the stickman with the long, rope like arms that you swang off the jagged ceiling with, whatever it was called.

In hindsight, I don’t really have a lot to say about this particular technique since it is such a free, open style, all that must be involved is your ability to come up with a reasonable design brief on a single page. It will be rough at first, and you will often find yourself running out of space, but practice will be necessary, both for your ability to come up with an idea that will fit onto a page, and for the quality of the game idea itself.

In honour of this style, I didn’t write a blog entry longer than Atlas Shrugged this week.

Miles Newton – The Machination, creative director

“Rural kids do not have the same opportunities as urban kids so their independence is significantly delayed until they get their licence; as a result they have to rely on their parents to get around.”

Problem:

An  independent option for transport for rural kids  is cycling.  But cycling in NZ is a risky business; on average 225 children of  aged 10 to 14 are hospitalized a year. Open/rural roads take up 10% of all cycling crashes and over half the cycling deaths are on open roads. The faster a car is going the harder it is to avoid hitting a cyclist. A driver driving at 50km/hr will travel 37 meters after braking before coming to a complete halt.  The same driver going at a 100km/hr will move 5 meters further before even reacting and will travel a further 69 meters before halting completely.  The speed in which cyclists are hit often determines how badly they will be hurt. A cyclist struck at 32km/hr has a 95% chance of surviving. A cyclist struck at 48km/hr has a 55% chance of survival. But a cyclist struck at 70km+/hr has a survival of virtually zero.

Solution:

1. New Zealand needs to get proper cycle lanes, away from the roadway where possible. 35 million dollars has been put aside for the creation of cycle lanes for tourists while the roads for New Zealand resident cyclists aren’t safe. This money should go towards cycle lanes, giving Rural open roads priority.
2. Lower the speed limit on open roads.
3. Better car drivers’ education and better cyclist education, as  many cyclist ride 2 abreast/3 abreast where they should not, and ride through red lights etc. Fines for offending cyclists and motorists (higher fines) and emphasis from police to tackle these problems.

SOMERS TOWN Independent British director Shane Meadows’ well-deserved reputation as a visionary film-maker is kept firmly on track with the gritty, unglamorous yet ultimately delightful (and relatively short at 68 minutes) SOMERS TOWN.

Set in the decidedly un-trendy inner city London district of the title Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) is a streetwise kid from the north of England escaping his grim surroundings for a possible shot at the big city dream.

Arriving at the huge St. Pancras railway station, he initially gets a bad taste of the capital after being mugged by three local lads before he ends up befriending Marek (Piotr Jagiello), the son of a Polish migrant working on the new Eurostar rail terminal.

The lonely young budding photographer takes pity on the rough Northern kid, and the two boys gradually bond after some petty criminal activity, and their shared infatuation with a French waitress Maria (Elisa Lasowski).

SOMERS TOWN is a small, yet perfectly formed, ode to friendship which here transcends culture, background and language (half the film is in Polish). The two young leads are both superb, and the minor characters all fit perfectly into the mix, especially Graham (Perry Benson), a dodgy Arthur Daly cheeky-chirpy Cockney type who runs a shonky business hiring out deckchairs and flogging off bootleg Arsenal Football Club shirts!

Director Meadows’ previous films include the acclaimed TWENTYFOURSEVEN with Bob Hoskins as the small town boxing coach, and the powerful THIS IS ENGLAND which also starred the charismatic Turgoose. Shot primarily in stark black and white SOMERS TOWN perfectly captures the dead end feel and atmosphere of the working class immigrant areas which are generally shunned by film-makers for the more colourful tourist friendly areas of England’s capital.

DVD extras: Theatrical trailer.

–> Interview with director Shane Meadows here

–> Article in Interview Magazine here

–> Somers Town is being distributed locally by Madman

MIKE CHILDS

Hello everyone! Exciting news! I’m super happy to announce that ‘To the Victor’ is now available for you to enjoy on DVD!

That’s right, I am selling copies right here on this website and for $10 (Aus) this gritty sci-fi short can be yours. There’s some extras on the disc like the trailer, commentary and full length music tracks from the film as well as three other shorts that I have directed! The other films on the disc are Bulb, Junk and Blindsight. The disc is pretty cool looking and comes presented in a super spiffy case with some awesome cover art from the graphic designer on the film, Mark Young.

By purchasing a copy you will be directly funding my further film pursuits and I promise that this is where the money will go. So if you like what I’m doing then please help me to continue making movies and consider buying a copy of the DVD! It’s definitely my best work so far.

If you’re keen all the details and how to buy is over on the To the Victor page.

Erick Dillon received 71 votes for his troubles.

The Independent from today:

Johann Hari: A morally bankrupt dictatorship built by slave labour

Dubai is finally financially bankrupt – but it has been morally bankrupt all along. The idea that Dubai is an oasis of freedom on the Arabian peninsular is one of the great lies of our time.

Yes, it has Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts and the Gucci styles, but beneath these accoutrements, there is a dictatorship built by slaves.

I’m done.

I’m through.

It’s over.

I’m finished trying to run, finished trying to control, and finished trying to be independent. Trying to be a grown-up. Let fate fall where it may, and I guess I’m leaning against the old fallback of “if God wills it.”

But seriously. At this point, if God wills it, I’ll be one intensely blessed grateful dumb shit.

I’m done.

I’m done with pretending that I’m an adult. I’m not, okay? So get over it and leave me alone. I’m struggling to get into a college that I know I’m not prepared for in a competitive world that’s waiting with eager, dripping jaws to eat me alive. I’m not ready.

I’m through.

I’m through sitting back and letting my hundreds of responsibilities run amok over me. It’s partially my fault through disorganization, partially my fault through neglect. I’m doing so much I can’t focus on the important things. If something doesn’t go, I will. I’ll go insane. So I’m through being trampled by my own many loves and passions, and I’m through being choked and hung by the dramas of my friends and school life. I’ve got to distance myself from it, before it gets me. If I don’t focus, and work my ass off on the thing that is most important, I won’t get anywhere. Ever.

It’s over.

So it’s over, kids, and here I am typing as a shakily resolute and keenly terrified individual who’s not grown up and who’s ready to practice and who really just wants to stay home and love her life and her family in peace.

But Time and Nature won’t allow it. So ready or not, I’m out in less than a year. If I go to a shitty school, well hey, that’s my own fault. Goodbye, Eastman. Nice looking at your name on the website, C.I.M. I wish I would have been good enough. I’m sorry for wasting your time, Heather. I’m deeply sorry, Mrs. Ripley.

What happens, happens. If I can’t contact anyone and have them be my savior with my transcript and SAT score report today, then I am fucked. And who can or will help me, the irresponsible procrastinator who is falsely deluding herself that she can make it in the vicious world of music?

I just want to sing. And that will probably never happen now, because I’m a fucking retard.

So guess what.

I’m done.

Discovered last year by Triple J Unearthed these high school kids gained a fair bit of local fame with their song Come Around.

Instead of trying to come up with a groovy name for their recently formed band, they decided to go with their own names, Tim and Jean.

A mix of Indie Electro/Pop these teenagers have a lot of talent. Using synthesizers out the yin yang, Come Around is a summer party song with heaps of energy.

We have been listening to Come Around for almost a year now and thanks to the awesomeness of our new website we can now post their song. Check it out below!

NL2T Rating: Song: 4/5

CHECK IT OUT AT DESIRAPESTA.COM

Manchester Orchestra, The Strongest & Most Emotional Band Out Of These 4 BANDS & THAT IS SAYING A LOT!!!! Not to mention Andy Hull is also part of the sickest side project since Team Sleep & not only is it painfully emotional, intense & beautiful – But, it & he has it planned out so well. They have 2 Albums out right now & their 3rd Album will be the end to a trilogy amongst a concept regarding a Captain of an old fishing Boat who sets sail and finds the thing that he misses, loves, hates & believes in.. Along with insane Sea Creatures that I won’t even ruin for than fan that will look into this. I have so much respect for Mr. Andy Hull & I am going to try and get Andy to give me my first interview ever for my little Blog which will become an actual website once all of my money isn’t going towards helping others. I figure the Karma Police will eventually come & bail me out of these shackles..

Mimicking Birds – Nate Lacy Was Already My Favorite Songwriter In The Indie Game & Then My Favorite Musician From My Favorite Band (American Band & Almost Global) To Sign Them To Glacial Pace. If You Don’t Know Who I Am Talking About, Then You Apparently Need To Do Some Research~!!

Phoenix (One of my Top Albums Of The Year! By Far The Best Musicians Of All The New Bands. Their Sass Factor Reaches That Of HOT FUZZ By The Killers & That Is BEcause Of ALL 4 MEMBERS INVOLVED!! Greatest Band From France, Not The Best Singer.. They Would Be Lucky To  Crack Top 10, But I Think Their Upside Is A STRONG A+ ~

He Dreams Awake Is The Weird One Of The Bunch.. I Heard Of Him Through A Mutual Friend & I Was Blown Away With The 40+ Tracks I Got My Hands On & That Is When I FOund Out That He Doesn’t Do Many Interviews, There Aren’t Any Pictures I Can Find Of Him & He Hasn’t Even Released His Debut Album Yet~ His Music Is Very Intriguing & The Theories + Structure That He Uses Or Refuses To Use, Makes It That Much More Mysterious To Me. There Is Something About This Solo Artist Who Obviously Treats Music As An Art & His Title Of Musician More Like A Status Of An Artist. This Doesn’t Sound Right, But I Don’t Know What Makes Sense With This Individual & I Would Put A Lot Of Money On The Fact That Is Exactly How He Is Playing His Cards.. Very Close To The Chest~

So. There Are My Four Best Rising Bands in the Industry~

I Hope You Check Them Out & Give Me Some Feedback On These Four Bands & Better Yet, Who You Think The Best Young Bands Are & It Would Be Cool To Hear Of A Few More Like HDAwake, Artists That Are Still UNDER THE RADAR

Promotional video 2009

I am building up to three things here in my drive for reform: fixing the economy, fixing the country, and fixing religion.

Fixing the Economy:

Fixing the Country:

Fixing Religion:

On Wednesday 18^th November, Foundation 1 and 2 visited the Post Office in Somersham. 

Earlier in the week, we had written individual postcards to Mr Peace. The children worked out what size of stamp their letter required and purchased the correct stamp over the counter. We met a postman and found out how our letters will get to Mr Peace. We watched him unlock the post box, collect our postcards and take them away in his van. We also met a postlady who was returning undelivered parcels and worked out what will happen to them. 

We have made our own post office in the classroom and are enjoying reliving all the things we saw on our visit.Thank you to all the parents who accompanied us and helped to make our visit a success.