New music for me!
I don’t know why, but Guardian’s Buzz came to mind this afternoon. A friend at college had it, oh – 9 years ago. Hello, iTunes: they have it! I would have got it from Word, but they were out of stock. And then, thinking about Guardian, I started thinking about the News Boys and Take Me to your Leader: again, a friend (not at college this time, but at Christian Union) had a copy, and I borrowed it, and listened to the title track about a zillion times. iTunes again: this time because it was about half the price of Word. Bit sad, but ultimately – eh. I’m not that attached to the hard copy version.
Cassettes…
are no more.
I chucked out all of my cassettes a couple of weeks ago, in a mood of downsize or die. It was a bit sad… but I do own a large chunk of the stuff on CD now anyway, so I guess it’s not a complete loss. And the only place I could possibly still listen to them is the car, and I do actually have a secret stash of them there already. My tape with Boom Crash Opera on one side and Ice House on the other, and a tape of American Christian music my friend Denise, from way back at college, made for me. Listening glory!
Ipods and earphones
So it seems the thing to do these days as a teen is to share your ipod – walk around with someone, each of you having one earphone attached to the one ipod. Seems like a slightly looser version of the 3-legged race to me.
Thing is, though, lots of friends are in trios or more. So what I want to know is, has someone invented earphones with more than just 2 listening bits? Or a double-jack or similar so that more than 1 pair of earphones can go into the one plug? This would seem to be the next innovation that ipods bring about.
Is it wrong to spend a book voucher on music?
Well, it wasn’t specifically a book voucher, but it was for organising a Literature Enhancement programme at school last year, and it was for a mostly-book-store… but it just so happens to be the ABC store as well, and the latest JJJ Hottest 100 (volume 14) just came out. So I got that. I also got a book – it was on special, Jeanette Winterson’s Tanglewreck, which looks fairly interesting.
Year 12s
Hello! to the Yr 12s who have found my blog today, because they decided to find out exactly what the deal with my email address was.
And thanks to the one student who said they thought it was Rando Male X. Lovely.
The Sweetest Thing
I don’t know why, but we are watching The Sweetest Thing. It’s terrible. It’s all about Christine Applegate and Cameron Diaz showing off their bodies and being ridiculous. It purports to be about the sexual revolution, wherein the girls get to sleep around and have the fun that we’ve always imagined the boys got to have since, after all, they don’t have to worry about getting knocked up. Of course, it turns out that that isn’t fulfilling, and what the girls actually really want is a steady relationship with a man who makes them laugh.
I have no problem with the idea of steady relationships – hell, I got married at 22. What I do have a problem with is people who pretend like they’re being controversial or breaking sexual stereotypes, but actually simply reinforce them.
And use really, really bad jokes to get there.
Archaeology (March/April)
Some random musings on some of the articles in the latest Archaeology mag from the Archaeological Institute of America…
“Who’s Buried in St Paul’s Tomb?” Unlikely to be Paul, I would have thought, statistically… I find the last sentence a bit weird: “Naturally for us archaeologists it would be interesting to know if the remains inside really belong to St. Paul,” says Giorgio Filippi. If he is speaking for all archaes, then ‘I doubt it’ is my response; if for his fellow Vatican Museum archaes, then maybe. But how would you be able to tell anyway?
The world roundup is always fun… favourite item this time is the fact that Indiana Jones made it in…
“Publish or be Punished,” says Israel to diggers there – and while I feel sorry for the archaes who feel pushed to do more and more and have no time for it, I understand where Israel is coming from too. Having your cultural heritage stolen, or just forgotten because it lies gathering dust (outside of the ground where no one else can find it) can’t be too much fun.
I really enjoyed “Beyond the Family Feud”, about the question of where the Olmecs fit in with other Mesoamerican cultures and whether that’s even a valid question to ask. I love a whole new take on old issues.
Haven’t seen Apocalypto, don’t plan on it. The article trashing its portrayal of the Maya, by David Freidel, was pretty entertaining though.
I (heart) the Antikythera Mechanism. Every now and then someone discovers/decides something new about it, and it gets into the news as if the thing itself has just been found – rather than oh, a few decades ago. But the new stuff being used and found out is very cool, especially the geodesic dome to shine light at it at different angles.
I like Vikings too, so the stuff in “Iceland’s Unwritten Saga” – about investigating early settlements there – was interesting too. And it linked nicely to “Diamond Rush,” about the diamond-hunters who went to Brazil in the C19, in that both are looking at the impact of humans on the environment and what we today can learn about how it happens – and, hopefully, what could be done about it.
There were other bits and pieces in this issue, but I just find it a bit hard to rustle up a huge amount of interest for much American archaeology. Bad of me, I know. Oh well.
Done!!
I wrote myself a list on Wednesday of all the things I had to do today, my day-away-from-students (not really a day off, I think…). And I’ve just completed it all! I’m not convinced that my prep for VCE is spectacular, but it will get me through Mon and Tues at least… and I got marking done during lunch and after school detentions yesterday… but still, I’ve polished off the entire list, and i am very proud of myself.
That even includes an hour or so of riding the bike, and an hour of practising le bass, which I’ve basically not picked up until this week for… oh, more than a year. I no longer feel like I will sound like a complete loser on Sunday at church.
Payment in Icecream
Not a good way to make a living, but pretty good on the side.
For editing the entirety of Wishbone St, Kate is giving me ice cream from Jock’s ice cream palace in Albert Park.
My first installment was fig ripple – with a cinnamon base. I was a bit dubious, at first – haven’t had many figs in my life, not quite sure why. But it is delightful.
700th post
It’s a bit depressing that my 700th post was about Life Support, rather than something more meaningful, but it does rather reflect my life at the moment – hectic during the day, not allowing for all that much more!
But I promise there will be more on books and fish and history in the near future.
Maybe.
Randomly Yours, Alex 