30. All I Want Is More - Reel Big Fish

CDs that I want to get:

- 'Black Fingernails Red Wine': Eskimo Joe

- 'Eyes Open': Snow Patrol

- 'Autumn Flow': Lior

- 'Late Registration': Kanye West

- 'Wolfmother': Wolfmother

- 'The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living': The Streets

- 'Triple J Hottest 100 (Vol 13)': Various Artists (Seriously thinking about getting this one just for Sarah Blasko's cover of Flame Trees)

29. In The Cold Cold Night - The White Stripes

Think its been a week since my last foray into this weird and wonderful world of blogs. It really is an amazing network of interconnected computers and people that make up the Internet. And when you think about the Internet's ability to allow a guy from Melbourne to write something that could be read by a complete stranger across the oceans in Brazil (for example), its quite amazing indeed. Equally amazing is when you bump into someone from the Internet realm in the real world. Haha shout out to Leanne.

But that's all besides the point that I want to make.

The last few days have been cold.

Now the overall concept of winter as a season is nothing new to me, but I thought I had a general understanding with it that it would give me some fair warning before it came into force. Kinda like a guest who knocks on the door, rings the doorbell and then asks politely if she can come in. But it just seems that this year, I've looked up from my International Law textbook (fun fun) and I've found Winter drunk, half-naked and lying on my bed shouting at me to bring her another daiquiri.

Why Winter likes to drink daiquiris is quite interesting and might be best saved for a more appropriate juncture of time.

Anyway, its cold and I've yet to come to grips with it. While I am well aware that my preference on this matter it isn't really going to change anything, I'd just thought that all you out there would like to know.

Or not.

Onto something completely different, I've managed to get through 27.5 hours of work this week, get a crappy assignment submitted, attended all my exciting lectures, did some productive study, watched the pies absolutely destroy the cats at the 'G and get a Section snow jacket at 50% off; $250 down from $500 (just in case you couldn't figure out 50% of $500...)

Onwards to sleep.

28. Private Road - Bent

Its a lovely Friday afternoon for sitting in the first floor Monash law library doing an assignment.

No seriously, its not that bad.

I've got a nice window seat overlooking the ring road, so I have a steady stream of automobiles and people moving in front of me. I've got Chillout Sessions Volume 2 on my iTunes, I have my sennheiser px-100's pumping out the smooth bass and I've got an assignment where I only need 2 out of 40 to pass the subject. That's right, I need a mark of 2/40 to get an overall score of 51%.

Don't ask me how, but I managed to pull 2 HD's for the past two assessments, giving me a current mark of 49/60. So its all a bit easy now. Unless this assignment is a hurdle... either way, I'll get a pass and end up with a D. Not too bad for a subject that I don't care for.

27 hours of work next week, just in time to make some money before the snow falls.

A make-up international law lecture in the morning was too bad, especially the part when my lecturer brought in donuts for everyone for morning tea. And I tell you what, that should be compulsory for all morning classes, and afternoon ones should have free bottles of beer.

Anyway, library closes at 6 so I should get back into it...

27. Sunburn - Muse

An entry in the afternoon?

Must be assignment season.

So last night I was talking to a friend of mine when she mentioned that the latest SER D assignment was taking up too much of her time.

"No problems," I said, "we still have plenty of time before it’s due, haha I haven't even touched it yet."

Silence.

"You do realise its due on Monday right?"

"What? Isn't it due on the 25th?"

"Nope. Monday."

So what have we learnt? Well there's something to be said about forward planning and organising one's time. Also something about knowing when assessments are due. But more importantly, I've learnt that there is a big difference between the number 2 and the number 1. 25 does not equal 15. And that space of 10 days can mean a lot.

See, that’s not cool. It’s not even remotely cool. In fact is warm. Needless to say, I've done a bit, but not a lot, of this stupid assignment. And while assignments are generally stupid, the level of stupidity and overall sense of waste that this assignment emits is enough to make your standard assignment seem entertaining and heaven forbid, educational in comparison.

Oh well. Got work later, and a replacement 3 hour lecture tomorrow morning. Work on Saturday, pictionary at a Fi's place followed by a possible guest appearance at Boulevard on Saturday night (Friday has become the new Saturday, so I've been told), and work again on Sunday means that my Friday night will yet again morph into a night of homebound assignment hi-jinks.

But on a brighter note, my iPod has yet to arrive.

I really should get off this thing and get into my research. Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. But an even better plan would be to watch an episode of Firefly on DVD. Yes, that sounds even better.

26. One Of These Days - Michelle Branch

In lieu of studying international law, I've made the sensible decision to do one of these question-answer Internet blog things. For the first time in my blogging history mind you, a history stretching back to the halcyon days of early 2004, moving onto the seedy mindsay times of 2005 and here, on my 26th and most insightful post ever. Ever. Until my 27th that is.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get my hands onto a suitable set of questions. But being the MacGyver of the Internets that I am, I've soldiered on and made up my own. So in essence, I'm having a little Q&A with myself; the less we consider the psychological implications of this the better methinks.

Anyway, time for me to sit in the hot seat...

Hello
Umm hi

What are you doing now?
I'm answering a question about what I'm doing now, more precisely, I'm hitting keys on my keyboard.

Favourite colour?
Blue

Favourite colour M&M?
Red

What are you drinking?
A nice glass of Brown Brothers Mascato. A white wine of great varietal character

And that means what exactly?
Its wine, I drink it.

What are you listening to now?
One of These Days by Michelle Branch

Why?
I heard that latest song by the Veronicas in the car before, and I realised that that’s what you get if you got Michelle Branch and split her in half. And then I had an urge to listen to Michelle Branch. It all makes sense in my head.

What are you reading?
'Kafka on the Shore' by Haruki Murakami and 'Strychnine Lives', the latest 100 Bullets trade

What are you watching?
New season of Arrested Development in 45 minutes, too much West Wing, a bit of Black Books and I've actually just got the first season of Little Britain from a friend. A bit uncertain about it, but I've been assured that its comedy gold.

When have you had to lead a team, and how did you do it?
Hmm this requires some S.T.A.R. analysis huh? Let me see..
One time I was recruited into a rag-tag team of ruffians and given the task to lead the group to rob a casino. As I've never met these people before, and I was quite certain that some of them were convicted felons with a dangerous disregard of authority, I knew that I had to adapt my leadership style to suit the circumstances. First thing i did was get a slab of beer and get the guys reasonably drunk. Then I got some hobo off the street and broke his arm with a crowbar to demonstrate that I wasn't to be messed with. Luckily, I only had to kill one of them before they all got into line. Long story short, we managed to pull off on of the biggest diamond heists in the history of the world, made a major motion picture out of it, and I made a reasonable amount of cash as a result. And me and the boys are best of buddies.

When was the last time you wore women’s clothing in order to infiltrate a girls-only dorm?
Umm haven't done that before...should I have by now?

Why do you pretend to be someone you're not?
I'm not pretending. I'm not like that guy on that show about pretenders, I forgot what it was called…

Last time you got drunk?
Phillip Island last month. I was travelling fine with the beers, but then a detour into wine territory followed by random shots of liquor took its toll.

Last time you woke up and found yourself on an alien spacecraft?
Last Friday. It isn’t as exciting as it sounds, just a lot of random noises and the less we say about the probes, the better.

Last time you woke up before 8am?
December last year…and all the working stiffs out there get annoyed J

Anyway, I could go on, heaven knows I have…but I made a silly promise a few minutes ago to meet up with a friend at uni at 9am tomorrow. Oh well, guess I should try this ‘sleeping at a reasonable time’ thing, see if it fits.

25. Down At The 303 - The Cat Empire Project

Let me tell you a story.

It’s a nice story about love, regret, identity, loneliness, robots, pirates, ninjas and hope.

You always need hope.

Hope is what drives a man when all seems lost. And while an automobile can also perform this task, it’s hope that makes that automobile run. Well technically its petroleum that makes an automobile run, but wouldn’t it be great if hope was enough? I mean look at the price of petroleum these days.

But I digress.

Actually let me follow this train of thought here. What we need in the world is an automobile that is powered by human thoughts. That’s not to say that if I had one wish for what we need in this world I’d immediately go for the thought-powered automobile.

I’d probably wish for a nice chicken sandwich.

I’ve spent a fair bit of the last few days thinking about writing a novel. And while the overall outcome of a paperback written by myself is something that would give me a great deal of pleasure, it’s the actual physical writing part that is the source of my reluctance. And the fact that I need something to write about first.

That being said, it’s not like I don’t have the time these days.

But I might need to acquire a typewriter and to develop a dangerous cigarette habit.

Or is that the stereotype for print journalist circa 1970s?

Regardless of the necessary addictions that would result, I’ve decided to take a tiny step in this direction. Who knows what will come of it, whether it be a longer blog entry than usual, a short story, a longer short story or something that I’d actually be proud of.

The question still remains, what to write about?

There’s that phrase, ‘write what you know’. So what do I know? And where will this limited knowledge take me? And how many questions can one ask in a paragraph? Four? Surely not five? Dare I suggest six?

So the next few days/weeks will be centred on getting that idea, that vibe for my story. Rest assured, something will come from it.

In other news, I put in my order today for my 30Gb Video iPod. I got it online due to the simple fact that it was the only place where I could get my student discount price of $403.70. So all that remains is the wait, probably mid to late next week I presume.

Last Monday saw my 3000-word administrative law research essay completed and handed in, just a little something to reassure all those out there that I’m still doing some law degree-related work.

That being said, exams are coming in a few weeks.

No doubt in the next few weeks I’ll be waxing lyrical about the evils that my upcoming exams will bring into my life. But right now, with the benefit of a five or six week buffer, I’m quite unfussed about it all, perhaps best shown with the fact I don’t know if I have five or six weeks to go.

This will change soon enough.

I purchased two cds last week (has it been that long since my last post? A thousand apologies); Cities by the Cat Empire Project and Both Sides of the Gun by Ben Harper. Both purchases were on a whim and based solely on the artists’ names rather than any particular song. It’s a gamble that I’ve taken a few times, (see In Case We Die by Architecture in Helsinki) and I’m happy to report that the gamble paid of handsomely. So if you’re any way inclined, I recommend both.

To go back to the notion of gambling with cds, its something that I don’t believe enough people do these days. With the advent of the Internet and illegal mp3 downloading (not that there is a causal relationship between the two), it just seems that people have become happy with their musical range. They pick a genre and remain closely within those limitations. They only get songs that they are comfortable with and there is a reluctance to try something different. I’d be the first to admit that I’m like that, and it’s a trait that I’m trying to break.

So please, if you have any artist that you believe is the proverbial bee’s knees, give me a shout. I’ll give it a go, and while I’m promising nothing in terms if I like them or not, at least I’ll give them a go.

And while you’re at it, a well thought-out structure to a novel would be handy.

And a nice chicken sandwich.