kim's JJJ round-up for 2007

Being Thursday and all (and the cricket is on the radio) I've spent the morning considering my vote for the Big One on Australia Day. My first realisation, though, is that I'll be spending Australia Day at the cricket. Good? Bad? Undecided for now, but the fact remains, I still have to vote whether I'm watching cricket with 20,000 others or passed-out in a children's wading pool in the front yard (Australia Day '05).

The issue is that, similar to last year, there is no stand-out song that I can hang my hat on and continue my brilliant streak of picking the #1. OK, fair call, I DID pick it last year when NO ONE ELSE EVEN CONSIDERED IT, and have had a pretty freaking awesome record of success in the past;

2006 - One Crowded Hour - picked
2005 - Wish you well - picked
2004 - Take me out - picked (though everyone saw this one coming)
2003 - Are you gonna be my girl? - unfair, I was overseas most of the year, and who are Jet anyway?
2002 - no one cares pre 2003 ...

So will I continue the brilliance this year? Of course, but not sure if that will translate into picking the winner of the 2007 Hottest 100.

The big guns fired, and miss-fired all year; Wolfmother have only one entry, and for the life of me I can't think what it sounds like, so no vote there. White Stripes had a cracker of an album with Icky Thump, but I'm not convinced any of the singles are worthy of top spot (though I will be voting for one, or two). The Shins are apparently a good band, and will most likely poll well, and often, but through no help from me. The dark horses I really know, and care, nothing about are Radiohead. Most critics have hailed their album, but I can't say I've heard any of their singles very often on air so I can only presume if they do poll highly, it'll be because of the pretentious 'music tourists' who will vote for them because it makes them feel alternative and 'pushing the limits' of their musical boundaries. Fools. Missy Higgins had a decent 12 months, gained a lot of fans in Darwin (Humpty Doo to be precise) but her album hasn't had the wide flogging her last one got as the commercial stations obviously don't like girls who kiss girls (how different that would be if this was TV), so I don't see her doing as well this time round, though playing the Australian Card she'll be there abouts.

Midnight Juggernauts have had a stellar début year and will be high among the list of first-timers ... I'm thinking at least three songs in the 100, and their first single, 'Into the galaxy' will be top 20.

Silverchair are outside favourites for my liking. They changed their sound but the masses still followed, and they finally convinced me to buy one of their albums. It's not one of my Top 10 for 2007, but the fact they're Australian will see 'Straight lines' go close to the top, and I'd be shocked if it wasn't in the top 10.

The Hottest 100 love-child that is Powderfinger shall, I presume, again push the bar almost to the top. Unlike The Chair, I haven't yet fallen to buy one of their albums, but their singles 'Lost and running' and 'I don't remember' will be top 10ers, and maybe even top 5 for the former.

Following up on their J Music Award, The Panics will do nicely, but as they said on receiving their award, they write albums, not singles. 'Cruel guards' and 'Get us home' and 'Don't fight it' will be certainties for the 100, and with my backing they should push high up the list.

Others to watch: Kings of Leon, Foo Fighters, Jamie T, Angus and Julie Stone, Bloc Party and British India.

I have to admit MY top 10 (as voted for) don't reflect my expectations for THE top 10.

As voted for by Kim
Arcade Fire - Keep the car running
Birds of Tokyo - Wayside
Emilie Simon - Fleur de saison
Kings of Leon - On call
Muscles - Ice Cream
Muse - Knights of Cydonia
The Panics - Cruel guards
Silverchair - Straight lines
Spoon - The underdog
White Stripes - Conquest

Expected Top 10 on Australia Day
Straight lines - Silverchair
Lost and running - Powderfinger
Knights of Cydonia - Muse
Long road to ruin - Foo Fighters
Shelia - Jamie T
I don't remember - Powderfinger
Cop Pop - Cops
Better than - JBT
Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby
Real love - Regina Spektor

Now you feel empowered, go vote!

www.triplej.net.au

snakes on a farm

More snakes at work; several weeks ago (around the time I last encountered a snake here at work) an email went out saying the carpet python that lives in the toilets of one of the labs had given birth; a dozen eggs to be exact. Apparently she decided that she'd keep the eggs, and herself, in the bathroom as it's safe and dry, so there's been a few people brining in their own bed-pans to keep under their desk so they don't have to visit the snake every time their bladder gets the better of them.

Not sure when exactly, but the eggs were collected up by one of our many rangers and the carpet python was asked to 'move on'. Nine of the eggs went out to one of the wildlife parks out of town, the other three were kept, they hatched, and now we have three more carpet pythons on the farm. We were asked to come and document their release to various corners of the farm, and Co-worker #1 decided he'd assist by being Mr Big and gently taking the snakes from their box and placing them under a bush, all the while assuring us that carpet pythons are not venomous and the young ones rarely bite ... Co-worker #1 currently has eight (8) small puncture holes in his forearm, though maintains they really are docile animals.

The ugly can go to hell

The ugly can go to hell says Jack Marx ... who's not exactly the prettiest flower of the bunch himself. But he has a point.

the straight gay guy

There's a guy at the gym who annoys me, but not much, mainly because he's not THAT much bigger than me, and is in denial about his homosexuality, so more than anything he makes me laugh.

I've seen this guy around a fair bit; at the shops, in town, at the gym (obviously), this is easy in a small city, and he stands out (to me) as he's relatively good looking, but this is waining. The first time I saw him I immediately thought 'gay' and 'you beauty, he's my type'. This was ground-breaking for two reasons;

1) My gaydar broke two life-times ago (it didn't 'break' as such, more it was beaten out of me; who'd have thought being a gay priest in Chicago in the 1800s would be frowned upon? These days it's the norm I hear).

2) There is an incredible lack of guys around here worthy of my attention.

Now, I've seen this guy at 'The Local Gay Bar' a number of times, and on several occasions he's been doing the dirty on a pole on the dance floor - albeit by himself, but ALWAYS looking around to see who's watching. Gay. Anyway, I know he's seen me watching, but the more I watched, the less I liked. Talk, dark, handsome, muscled (but not too much), but something was missing, so he never got me. Skip forward a few weeks, and there he is, at the gym, and there I am, watching him again, trying to figure out whats lacking, when suddenly his girlfriend walks up and starts talking to him. He's recognised me and saw the look on my face when she started talking to him; nothing exactly wrong with talking to a girl at the gym (sometimes I wish I had someone/anyone to talk to) but from that moment on, he never left her side, and whenever I'd look anywhere near his direction, he'd grab her arm and kiss her. Like, all the time. Eight times in a 25 minute period. In the end I'd look over during one of his sets and catch his eye, just to put him off.

Obviously this guy is;

a) Paranoid that someone saw him at a gay bar
b) Paranoid about being stared at by a gay guy (but he loves dancing at a gay bar???)
c) Is in denial about his sexuality

To be honest I don't care. I'd given up on him well before he decided to no longer be gay. At least now I have a new game; Make The Straight Guy Squirm. I'm pretty good at this one.

He'll probably complain next week and I'll be asked to leave.

I bet she won't wear a strap-on even if/when he begs.

The major issue I have with all this is that it proves my gaydar IS actually broken.

fruit is overrated

Eating fruit is overrated. While shopping last night I made the conscious decision to make Monday (today) an overly smart eating day; I'd plan everything and be sure that all that I eat would be of benefit:

Breakfast: Oats
Morning snack: Fruit
Lunch: Pasta
Afternoon snack: Tuna
Dinner: Chicken breast and rice

So far it's 11am, the oats kick-started the metabolism this morning and the fruit has proven to be a complete waste of time. Sure it tastes nice, but does bugger all for hunger. There are a dozen different varieties of chocolate bars and chips sitting on a table on the other side of the office, and everyone of them has my name on it.

Addendum:
I have discipline in training my body, but convincing myself to eat ONLY GOOD FOOD is somewhat harder. I did, however, offset the chocolate bar with a banana when I got home. This means I'm not completely destined to end up in hell. Oh, forgot, yes I am.

Confucius 4.7 and the perfect front kick

Continuing on with Confucius 4.7;

"Your faults define you. From your very faults one can know your quality"

My linkage to old mate Jeff Dahmer probably wasn't the best, but it smacked of "did Jeff have ANY qualities?" Apparently his brother doesn't think so, he changed his name, but his 'mom and pop' still maintain the Dahmer moniker, as well they should, and say they "still love their son despite his crimes" so this tells me he obviously had SOME qualities. I'm not a philosopher, I really shouldn't be allowing these thoughts to migrate from my head to the keyboard (damn you fingers!) but I figure throwing it out there may get someone else thinking about it, someone smarter than me, and I'd be keen to see their thoughts. Nature vs Nurture, etc, etc, and only a mother could love him all ring true, but there are cases where parents and family have completely disowned someone for lesser crimes than Mr Dahmer, but his stand by him.

So from his faults, can we know Jeffrey's qualities, or is that something that only he can know himself? In his mind, Dahmer may have considered his murders as ultimate acts of fulfillment, and thus, they were his qualities; its just that no one else saw them that way. The way we interpret our qualities is just as personal as our qualities themselves I guess.

The ORIGINAL reason this verse came to stand out was in relation to my training. In the martial arts, you can teach someone (anyone) how to perform a front kick; you can demonstrate it for them, break it down and explain the mechanics, the theory, the reasoning, the application and the variations, but you cannot make them perform the perfect kick; their faults won't allow it.

The art is perfect, humans are not.

As long as we keep this concept in our head when training and instructing, you're sure to get good results from all students. I cannot perform the perfect kick, but I visualise it in my head and continually strive to better my technique. My students do likewise by watching me and imitating what I do (hence why I have to be continually improving myself). The front kick I can perform isn't bad, my right leg is far more powerful than the left, but my left offers greater reach and height; these are my faults, but also my strengths. If I'm breaking wood, I use my right. If I'm demonstrating how to kick for length and height, I use my left. I am able to demonstrate both variations of the same kick, effectively, because I KNOW MY FAULTS and have learned to put them to an advantage. The faults in this instance are numerous; multiple groin injuries and ankle issues on the right side and muscle tissue problems and a knee operation on the left have resulted in me refining the kicks I perform with each leg slightly differently, but that's my quality. Ideally I would like to be able to perform perfect kicks on both legs, but I cannot, and never will due to the injuries, so I maximise what I DO have.

That is my interpretation of the verse, not a scholarly view, but the view of a martial artist looking to improve physical techniques with brains, not brawn.

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So that was Sunday; lots of posts, scroll down and see 'em all; there's bound to be something there that'll spark you up for a Monday morning of abusive commenting.

And for the record, The Besnard Lakes sound NOTHING LIKE THE ARCADE FIRE as I had been lead to believe.

The US '0' - Poor Countries '1'

I'm not an environmentalist, even by a long shot, but I laughed out loud tonight when the news came through that the US representatives in Bali had been howled down by members of the poorer nations of the world. They're all together for a general free-for-all bitch session on how they're going to save us from Mother Nature trying to evict us from planet Earth, and the US' Ms Paula Dorbriansky and her cronies remained defiant to the end until my new favourite person, Papua New Guinea's Kevin Conrad broke his silence ...

"When the delegate from Papua New Guinea, Kevin Conrad, asked to speak, opposition to the U.S. had reached a crescendo. "We seek your leadership," he said referring to the U.S. "But if for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please, get out of the way."

South Africa, Mali, Brazil, Jamaica, Uganda and Tanzania followed with statements supporting India's position or that of developing countries more generally.

None of America's traditional allies came to its defense."

For me, that last line is the clincher; you know you're stuffed when none of the other bullies come to your aid.

smoke that one Mr Andrews

Brand new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd explained today that Australia is moving towards a decidedly nicer place to live for boys like me. And as a result, I have this to say to Federal Member for Menzies, and FORMER Minister for Being a Cock-Head:

Fuck you Kevin Andrews, fuck you.

vindicated

I hate pop culture (truly, I do) but it's great to be vindicated by someone like Robbie Williams on international issues such as facial hair.

tattoo you

The gratuitous use/coverage of tattoos has never appealed to me, but the subtle use of simple images and text on the body as an addition, an accessory or a message, I think, can be, well, down right sexy. I've seen words on forearms a lot lately, but the problem is whose name or what word should you use? When it goes wrong = friends of mine; he got her name on his lower back, and she left him two weeks later.

One of those Star Shots shops in town has a picture of some nob who got a picture taken of him, topless, with his new born daughter. Why is he a nob? Two reasons:

a) He has his daughter's name tattooed on his arm in an Old English-style typeface ... the type that needs good kerning ... his tattoo does not have good kerning ... it looks tacky.

b) He named his daughter Willow.

This man is a tool.

I expect that sometime in the future I'll expand on the existing tattoo I have, but how, I'm not sure. I like the idea of words/text on the inside of my bicep (ala London Preppy) but it'll have to be meaningful, and not just some random 'nice' symbol or shape. Much to consider. And tribal armbands are almost as bad as poorly kerned words.