So I show up promising hilarious tales of shamefulness but I get distracted because this weekend was Australia day, which meant public holiday and also getting very drunk in a wading pool and climbing trees. Then, awkwardness! So, instead, links and memes!

Linkee!
The most amazing/traumatic plush toys ever
risty77, I saw this Austen thingummy and thought of you and your spinsterhood. If you read carefully, you'd see that they're all kind of minty they spend a lot of time with their sisters. Awkward.

From...rosmar? clawfoot? Many people!





And nicked from Frank;
81%

So, that was a fun time when my laptop was broken and I was busy being shameful and whatnot.

Does anybody else still use LJ?

I think its been a while since I did a good linkspam.

But I'm going to open with what must be the best thing ever. I know I've been (justifiably!) accused of bandying such a title about perhaps a little too frequently, but, well, stuff it. This really is the best thing ever. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you: The LolCat Bible.

This explanation (and the link) stolen from conductor37: Some weirdos from somewhere saw a picture of the first page of Genesis(from the Bible) but written in LOLCAT syntax. It was apparently sofunny and enough beer was had that they decided to do the REST OF THEBOOK.

This excerpt from Genesis:

Boreded Ceiling Cat makinkgz Urf n stuffs

1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.

2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz.

3 An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.4An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh litefrom dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripzover nethin.5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1

I just have no words except awe.

From clawfoot (XG Peeps are representin in this batch)



I have also discovered this awesome website: Crazy Blind Date. I want people to join up and experience it for me: anyone in Austin, Boston (I'm looking at you John), New York (Ahem Overtyrant) or San Francisco (Ahem Hayley) please join. Please. I'm begging you. Do it for me?

But finally, here is the single bizarrest video I've ever seen

So. Tonight I worked a cocktail party, where I was one of the happy friendly booze-servers. At the beginning of the evening, approximately 6pm (I just finished. Its 1am) I somehow managed to tear my pants. Not just a little bit. The tear goes from the bottom of my zipper right up to my belt at the back.

I am so hardcore: did I give up? Hell no. I tied on two aprons and worked that split like a mofo. But sometimes, surrounded by the aprons I stole (as well as approximately 493048390 bread rolls) I honestly think that my life is just a little bit ridiculous.

The best part? I wasn't even the only person who split there pants although typically, I was the most dramatic.

Dear Anyone Who Is Listening

I know I whine and complain and mutter about how I'm a bad student and then never actually do the work because I like to go out partying a bit much, however if, in future, someone could arrange a bit of lightning to strike perhaps, or even a power outage, that would would be greatly appreciated.

Because if there is ever a collision of my enormous laziness as well as my highly irritating desire to do things well and have it culminate in me staying awake for what I counted up to be 62 hours including a day where as much went wrong as it did this friday, well, I might just say fuck it and turn into a proper alcoholic. Because seriously dudes, that was an awful, awful 62 hours, but the day on friday was quite possibly the worst most painful awful day of my life and I seriously nearly lost my shit a couple of times.

Thanks

Rhys


How've you been recently internet people? I've been all over the map for the last few weeks and I am all out of the loop. LJ seems to have installed the world's single most annoying popup and its not even an ad, and thats driving me insane.

In other news, isn't this an awesome photo?
( For )


P.S. Happy birthday to bether_was_here. Only a few more years til I'm legal in your crazy country and we can get drunk together legally!

SO. Much news.

But, as a matter of some urgency, if you were to be, say, making a video about me, what things would you consider important to include? As a matter of some urgency?

Haven't checked LJ for ages. Am not doing so now! Am being resposible! Writing assignments!

HOWEVER

The Klaxxons - No Diggity.

Should you be interested.

So, among every other one of the bajillionty things I'm trying to make happen over summer, I've found one more.

Have any of you stateside folk ever heard of www.roadtripnation.com? It seems to be where they basically stick a bunch of uni students who're uncertain about their futures in a big green camper van and they drive around for five weeks. On the way, they are filmed while they interview interesting people.

Does this not sound like a completely awesome idea?

Then, because I honestly can never resist a music meme (and, y'know, was tagged by Katey)

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what they are.They must be songs you are presently enjoying. Then tag seven otherpeople to see what they’re listening to.

1. Imperial Teen - Yoo Hoo. So apparently, I really like soundtracks recently. Also, this reminds me of Louis XIV for some reason.
2. Travis Morrison - What's Your Fantasy?. Originally by Ludacris. You should all know how whiteboys pretending to be black delights me by now.
3. Koop - Come To Me. From the Grey's soundtrack. A completely Grey's song, which is to say that its kind of like a 50s christmas carol sung by crack addicts. It makes my housemates cry.
4. Feist - Honey Honey (Live at Toronto's Danforth Music Hall. I'm kind of in love with Feist. Possibly familiar from the iTunes famous 1,2,3,4 which has an absolutely brilliant video clip. Bright colours! Dancing! This song is far less happy, but is a gorgeous, soulful live recording that I can listen to on repeat for hours.
5. The Gossip - Listen Up. Beth Ditto's nude NME cover and the fact she's a crazy lesbian from Arkansas who likes to punch skinny bitches has really generated a lot more attention than it a) deserved and b) should have got, given her delicious, gorgeous voice. I like this much more than the angrier Gossip stuff, because she actually gets to showcase a bit.
6. PJ Harvey - White Chalk. The title track from White Chalk which is just as good as I hoped it would be. God I love you Polly Jean.
7. Boy Kill Boy - Maneater. Its a swinging cover of Maneater. Just download it now.

I will tag whoever wants to do it. Spread the music meme love!

So I...sort of got elected to the student council thingy. Um...whoops?

Also, I've never been more glad I wasn't a backstreet boy. Christ.

Guys, purging your userpics is hard. My paid LJ time expired like, the other day and suddenly WHOA! Ads! Not many userpics! Alas. However I want to say thank you again to the lovely and still anonymous person who bought them. Don't do it again, you crazy fool; give money to the homeless or something. But it was really nice.

Has anyone else noticed that tertiary education sucks bumhole? I have three weeks of classes left. That is, at this very moment in time, 11 weekdays. It translates, thanks to the wonders of my schedule, into exactly 5 days where I am attending classes. In that time, I have nine seperate assignments due. Actually, I have eight assignments and a test. The lecturer refuses to tell us any little details like, oh, when the test will be, but its definitely happening. Maybe.

In other less whining-about-the-future and more whining-about-the-present news, I've got an interesting collection of lecturers. There is my one, consistently good lecturer (this is my third semester with them) and they are one of the major parts I haven't gouged out my own eyeballs yet. I enjoy their classes, even though its not in my preferred specialty and I'm going to miss them next year. I have one other lecturer who is such a ridiculous non-entity that its a joke. But I have two other lecturers, both of whom returned assignments to me this week. One of these was a major piece of assessment, a big long essay on...something that I can't remember right now on account of the drinking. The other was a simple exercise, worth less than 15% of the course mark, that we'd had like, three days to complete.

Each of these lecturers teach subjects I was very interested in before I started then semester; the first is one of my electives. One of my last electives for a while, in fact, since my university apparently doesn't believe in specializations or, y'know, student choice. The topic of the subject is of particular interest to me, but its not part of my normal school and its structured differently to any subject I've done before. Furthermore, there are only about 8 people who show up to the lecturers, which I happen to think is awesome. The classes are interactive but not just us sitting around discussing: we're actually taught and ideas are raised and debated. We're encouraged to think, rather than just regurgitate or even vaguely apply informatoin to generic scenarios, which is one of my enormous issues with the main stream of my coursework. In short, I really enjoy this class (You wouldn't think it from the whining I do on here but I actually do enjoy rather a bit of my university).

The other class is somewhat different. I was actually even more interested in going into this course. It's a mandatory course but its all about one of the aspects of my degree that interests me the most. It's also about what I do at work. The lecturer is one I actually had last semester who, despite being an absolutely enormous fucktard asswad, is a very good, available, effective lecturer. He appears to have suffered some kind of stroke over the mid-year holidays, however and he spends endless lecturers complaining about how he doesn't earn enough before launching into a spiel about how he took a quick trip away on the weekend. Every lecture is opened by him showing us all his desktop and demanding that we guess which obscure location in the United Kingdom the photo was taken. When this invariably fails - even the English exchange student lets him down - he gets grumpy and then mutters and sulks. Often, we receive a brief interlude on our ignorance. During the lectures themselves, he is frequently rude, dismissive of legitimate questions and patronising to a degree I find physically nauseating. You mentally impaired self-aggrandizing jackass, don't tell me that "the math is beyond [me] and you don't have enough math to explain it to us in terms we'd understand". I'm not an idiot. Nor am I, by any stretch, mathematically incompetent or ignorant. I happen to already understand the math you're apparently to poorly educated to explain to us. Furthermore, apparently you don't understand it well enough, if you can't explain it to anyone.

Aaaaaanyway. Both of these lecturers gave back an assignment this week. One of these assignments was filled with helpful feedback! Comments on every paragraph, even if it was just a "Good" or a "needs work". The other had a total mark. It also had some of the component marks. Not all - apparently we're required to make educated guesses. One girl who's plane was delayed for like, four hours, meaning she was like, two hours late submitting the assignment received 0%.

I bet you can't guess which lecturer gave which.

God these next 3 weeks are going to suck.

So if I was to ask a theoretical question, what would be your favourite ways to mess with your housemates heads?

In a completely consentual war. I didn't start this.

Firstly, I received today (or yesterday, its a bit blurred) a comment on an entry from march last year saying "Thank You", no more, no less. But, if I have brightened your day anonymous person, I am joyful!

Secondly oh my God guys, I've just discovered Craigslist. Australia is predictably boring because everyone here knows the internet is explicity for the purpose of porn and illegal music downloads but Americans, never let it be said you are not consistent!

More importantly, I've just discovered the Best Of section of Craigslist. If I was ever going to start a cult - not an unreasonable possibility - than it would be founded around the ideas set forth by this revolutionary inspiration.

Some of my other favourites include:
Ass Kicking Machine
18 Inch Mounted Lobster
Buy my stupid manchild cousin's awesome kayak!
We found your dogs

Oh, the joy.

In other news, there is no other news. I do not want holidays to end, because the reduced rate of effort required is soothing to my soul. The washing machine we got weeks ago still doesn't work, meaning that once again I will humiliate myself by passing out in the laundromat over the road on sunday morning to the unholy glee of the owners who seem to take a rather ghoulish delight in waking me up and saying sympathetically "Big night?"

No, witty owners. I just wore myself out playing mahjong. All those tiles are the reason I smell like the inside of a bar after I've showered twice and I'm wearing two pairs of sunglasses at once inside.

But on the plus side, I've realised that I really don't have enough self respect not to download a Kevin Federline album and am going to belatedy do such for a little while, before going out dressed like a whiteboy to dance like a whiteboy.

Now that I've got all that out of the way, the fun stuff.

FREEBIES.

First of all, however, I'm going to link you to a myspace music page of something so insane even I wouldn't have it on my computer: A Radiohead - Kevin Federline Mashup.

Now! Ten of my favourite new songs, not all of which were mentioned previously, ending with my absolute favourite new artist.

10. Machine Gun Fellatio - My Ex-girlfriend's Boyfriend These guys were Australian indie favourites for a while, mostly because they were completely insane. Machine Gun Fellatio, or MGF as the band was before its tragic breakup more commonly known, were fronted by a man known as Pinky Beecroft who is pretty much Australia's version of Keith Richards, only less articulate. I'll just link to the wiki page because I want to explain about how they remain one of my favourite concerts ever. Chit Chat von Loopin Stab, the guitarist, actually stripped naked, covered his penis with a Winnie the Pooh puppet, climbed up a ten metre high tower of speakers and did the most disturbing dance I've ever seen. They were spectacular and I miss them so.

9. The Bjork and PJ Harvey - Satisfaction. Original by the Rolling Stones. Basically, there's nothing much else that needs to be said here.

8. Roisin Murphy - Night of the Dancing Flame Initially a part of the electronica duo Moloko who may or may not be familiar to you, Roisin Murphy is an odd one. She's been picked up for a number of things - from performances on So You Think You Can Dance to one of Meredith's theme songs on Grey's Anatomy - and she's still strangely unknown. I'm kind of baffled by it. She's clearly electronica-influenced, but this is definitely pop music.

7. Final Fantasy - Fantasy. Original by Mariah Carey. I know absolutely nothing about this artist. I have not, to my recollection, ever heard the original of this song. But this one dude who, admittedly doesn't have the vocal range of Mariah Carey (although really, who does?) just rocks out with his violin. If you can get past the strangely long introduction.

6. Operator Please - A Song About Ping Pong. This is definitely the most upbeat and rocky of the songs on this list - a trend I've noticed comes and goes with me - but oh, is it good. This is pop rock at its best. Nonsensical lyrics, simple catchy instrumentals, and I actually was friends with a few people who went to school with these guys. They're they kind of cool people I want to be when I grow up.

5. Regina Spektor - Lounge. There is something so intimate about Regina Spektor's music. I really don't know how to explain this very well; I have difficulty pimping her out because I basically want to keep her all to myself. My piano fetish is well documented, so it really isn't a surprise when I like one of her piano songs. This is, I do not think, one of her best. The lyrics sound like a rambling homeless person, but the piano itself is such a beautiful, supportive accompaniment of her gorgeously broken voice. Like I said, there's something so intimate about her songs, especially her best recordings. I feel like I'm sitting in a corner reading a book or something, and she's sitting in her corner just playing the piano slowly, softly, to herself. Its beautiful, even if she says the word "larvae" a little much and ends the song by making car noises.

4. Nickel Creek - Spit on a Stranger Original by Pavement. This is one I was originally intending to hold on to for Covers month but honestly, I got lazy and I'm liking it a lot especially right now. The original is not a song I'm familiar with, on account of my preference for being punched in the testicles repeatedly over listening to Pavement (they're from California? Really?) but this version - from the band who's cover of Toxic by Britney Spears is equally fantastic and I should surely have already pimped to you all - is very stripped back and completely displaces the awful wretchedness that I find so difficult with Pavement. Its not a happy song, because, well, they still didn't change the words, but oh do I enjoy it.

3. The Bowerbirds - In Our Talons. Another find from The Volume Knob, the Bowerbirds are from Raleigh, of all places. They got picked up very well by a variety of indie sources (like the guy from the Mountain Goats who wrote that song about going to heaven so you get peanuts) and their debut album is, reportedly, a miraculously successful mishmash of styles. Of the two songs I have, however, this one I consider by far, the superior. Plus, its played on an accordion.

2. Horse Feathers - Finch on Saturday M4A. This might as well be a Gomez song. It wouldn't stun me in the least to discover that this is some sideproject of theirs because the vocals are ridiculously similar, and there are definitely some simliar musical elements. A beautiful lilting guitar and violin melody and some gentle, mildly nonsensical vocals just adds up to a deliciously soothing piece of music.

1. Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights M4A. This is my absolute favourite of all these new songs. This is Amy Winehouse, times a thousand. But better. There's a reason for this: The Dap-Kings were majorly involved in the production of Rehab in particular, as well as a couple of other tracks of Back to Black. Wikipedia is telling me they're a big part of a movement aimed at taking back funk and soul to the 60s-70s and if this is what its going to sound like, I am so for that its not possible to describe.

One of the things that makes them so spectacular, however, is Sharon Jones. An ex-gospel singer, she used to be a prison guard at Rykers Island and it shows: she was in Australia before I went to Denmark and did a series of interviews that I recall very vividly and this woman is one bad-ass mofo. She makes these songs with an absolutely gorgeous voice. Why are you still here? Download this song and listen to it right now.

Huzzah! I have never been more pleased to be on holidays, even if these holidays are...um...only for like two days because I don't get to take time of work and one of those days will be taken up with the submission of an assignment.

What I was actually going to use my soapbox for today is to talk about music again. You see, I pretty much constantly add new music to my collection. I'm one of those people who uses and abuses music until I almost can't stand it anymore but still does it anyway, then doesn't listen to it at all for like 19 months and then returns it to nice, healthy normal rotation. Which is to say, in short, my iTunes is permanently set to shuffle but I queue stuff up all the time. Recently, I have been doing that, but I've just been doing it from my recently added.

( For no particular reason, I decided to review the music I've added to my collection since we moved house. This does not include the music my housemates have added to my collection which both hurts and horrifies me. Brief thoughts underneath on a bunch of albums as well as a heap of single songs. )

That was really quite long enough, I think

*horrifying note. When I went to look this up on youtube again since I accidentally closed the tab, I put the words "When Under Ehter" into the search. I'm sure you're all familiar with search dropdowns. Two possibilities came up: When Under Ether and What What In the Butt? HOUSEMATES. WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING ON MY COMPUTER. EW.

Last night, Robert Jordan died.

Asscakes. I know a lot of people didn't like the books and criticized them and blah blah blah, but I don't care because I loved them. I was so into them for ages - they're the only complete series of books that I actually own (apart from a couple of random cheapies) and they're the only books I actually still go out and buy as soon as they come out.

Boo.

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