The Meat-tox

Hey guys, really quick post today... I only have 6 minutes before the Royal Rumble starts, and I don't want to miss it.

So, here it is. I've put on some weight again recently, and that's not a good thing for me, for a lot of reasons. SO, I'm starting what I'm going to call a "meat-tox" tomorrow. Think of it the same way as a detox, but with meat.

The reason it's a Meat-tox, is because if I did a detox, my body would literally stop working and start eating itself. Scary huh?

The basic idea is that I'm going to completely stop eating all the stuff that I know is really bad for me that I've been eating too much of recently, and also to really cut back in general on the amount of carbs I eat, because carbs are not my friend.

To help keep myself accountable I'm going to be doing video diaries and blogs about how I'm going. Firstly I'm trying for a month, to see how well it works, and if there's any little tweaks I need to do to keep things going well.

                                                So here's the first video diary entry thing.



Wish me luck!

It's time, it's time for a punk rock party

Hello folks,

I feel like this year is getting off to a much better start than last year. Without going into too much detail (and so I don't jinx myself) let's just say that I had a lot of stuff to deal with in a short amount of time last year, and it took a while to wrap my head around it all.

But this year, I have a band, I have a new(er) car, and I have the drive and determination to make things happen.

I also have the option to start a Bachelor of Arts course mid year this year.

I'm not sure if I'm going to accept the place in the course though, as my main focus is my band, The Savages.

That's what this blog is going to be about. My band.

The Savages really started about 12 years ago, when my best friend and I met, and had a music class together in high school.
We basically spent that entire year playing music together, and all of the years since.

We didn't actually form any official band until 2005, when we started our hard rock band, Abandoned Dream, which eventually morphed into our heavy metal band, Anihilism, which we stayed with until 2009 when we basically just stopped.

With these first two bands though, there always felt like a bit of a lack of drive, a lack of intent to get anywhere. We'd rehearse only occasionally, even when we had the few shows that we did play. Everything just felt like, well at least to me, that I was just waiting for stuff to happen, without putting much effort in on my end.

So, I took a break from music between 2009, and the first half of 2010. Oh, I should mention through all of this time with the other bands, I'd also been playing solo music. I've never been stuck inside only one genre of music. I feel like that would be far too limiting..I've written Metal songs, pop songs, punk songs, acoustic songs, even jazz and blues, and I have aspirations to try my hand at progressive rock, but I don't know that I have the skill at the moment.

So 2011 rolled around, and Curt and I started talking seriously about starting a band. We'd had a few conversations about it already, even written a couple of songs, but it wasn't until 2011 that we really got excited by the idea of starting a new band. Around that time we also went to see a band called Teenage Bottlerocket. I became immediately enthralled with the style of punk that they play. It's not as hardcore as a lot of punk that I'd been exposed to, and also not as poppy as what I'd traditonally called "pop punk". My definition for this term "pop punk" had been changed forever...and for the better too I might add.

So after that I started listening to more real Pop punk. Bands like Teenage Bottlerocket of course, but also The Lillingtons, The Queers, Screeching Weasel, The Huntingtons, and of course, The Ramones. I started writing what would become some of the first Savages songs, although the band didn't have a name at that point. I think at one point we were talking about calling ourselves "The Snowballs".. You see, we wanted a reference to the movie Clerks, because it is both myself, and Curt's favourite movie. And anyone who's seen Clerks, will know exactly where the Snowball reference would have come from. Incidentally, that's also why we use the number 37 for some of our band stuff, and The Savages is also a Clerks reference. (Bunch of Savages in this town...)

So we'd started writing, and even started rehearsing a little. And then, we saw Batfoot!, this awesome pop punk band from the Central Coast of NSW. In fact, I went to all three of their shows, in three nights. Which, for me, was a really massive effort. But I enjoyed myself so much the first night in Melbourne, that I decided I had to go to the Geelong show, and the final show was in Ballarat, which was easy for me to go to. It was awesome.

The Savages first T-shirt

Seeing Batfoot! gave us the final kick in the pants we needed. We came up with a name, we got a set of songs together, and we played our first gig in June 2012.

Since then, we've played nearly a dozen "plugged" shows with some amazing bands, and played four or five acoustic punk shows. However, the best show we've played was the last "plugged" show we did, where we were lucky enough to play with Batfoot!, which was amazing. We got to hang out with the guys, and just generally have an awesome time. We talked about us going up to NSW to play shows with them as well, which is one of our goals for this year.

Unfortunately we also lost our drummer just after that gig (we had a different drummer for the batfoot! show too because of double booking on our old drummer's part), and since then (the start of december) we haven't been able to find a replacement.

The plus side though, is that even though we have no drummer, we can still play these acoustic shows. I really love that the music that we've written translates to acoustic gigs, as well as a full band setup. I really feel like this band can go somewhere, and that is what motivates me to keep it going.

This past week we also recieved our first batch of "The Savages" T-shirts. There's a picture of them up there ^.

I feel so good about this band. It feels like the right style of music, the right time, and it all just fits together really well. Curt and I are on the same page when it comes to writing music, and when we come together with a song one of us has written, the other always adds something more to it to make it even better. We've got something like 25-30 songs that are fully written, maybe not gig-ready, but fully written. We've set ourselves some goals, and we intend to do our very best to achieve them.

We also plan to at least try to start a podcast, and also a video diary of sorts, the latter of which, we've actually already started.
Here's the link to the first ever Savages video diary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZXlucZFnYQ

We also have a show coming up at Dogs Bar in St Kilda on the 12th of February. Hopefully just one in a large number of shows we have planned for this year.

To finish up, I'm really happy with how this band has come about, doing so much in such a short amount of time, and with such a clear vision of where we want to go.

I'll keep all you blog readers up to date with how the band progresses, but for now, I'm outta here.

Faking it, and Throwing the Bat at it!

I have a funny, strange, weird and slightly creepy story to share with you all, dear readers.

A little background first.

I'm a single guy as most of you know, and because of my condition, I find it harder to go out to places to meet people. Because of that I use online dating sites. I'm not embarrassed by this. The way life is today, with online being such a huge part of all of our lives, it's no different to meeting someone in any other way, except that you're not physically in the same room when you start talking. Which, I think can actually be a good thing. People sometimes make snap judgements based on someone's physical appearance, so if you take that away, and just have the actual conversation part of getting to know someone, it can be a very good thing.


However, occasionally that can also be a bad thing.

And that leads me to my story. It's a short story, but worth telling nonetheless.

I recently (last night in fact) started talking to a girl, who, from her profile, sounded great. Into the same kind of music as me, liked the same kind of movies, a bit alternative.. and overall just like a nice person. So we started chatting last night and got along really well. Even more similar tastes in music, and movies, and just in general I found her easy to chat to, and really nice and interesting.

There was one little red flag which I didn't notice too much at the time.. but in hindsight, was a bit iffy.

She has a lot of tattoos in her pictures, so naturally I asked how many she had in total. Her response was "well I have my arms done, my upper legs and my whole back".. If you have tattoos.. you know exactly how many you have, unless they are sleeves.. which these aren't.

So after today, I realised that should have been a warning sign.

Today, she put some new pictures up on her profile. Something didn't feel 100% right.. and for me, I trust my instincts totally.. or at least I'm trying to. So, I used google to search one of her images, to see if it appeared anywhere else.

It did.

Apparently this "girl".. has taken pictures from the blog of a hairdresser who lives  in London, and passed them off as her own. Which is really puzzling to me. And it reminds me of a movie/documentary that I saw a couple of years ago called Catfish.

I have in fact, in the last 5 minutes just talked to "her" some more, and I asked her which one of her tattoos is her favourite.. her response.. "my arms". Again.. her arms aren't covered in tattoos.

So it's a strange feeling I have at the moment. Part of me wants to have a go "her" and report her.... part of me wants to just say "I know you aren't the person in those pictures".. and part of me wants to mess with "her".. because "she" has messed with me.

The creepy part is not knowing the reasons behind the fake pictures.. It could be as simple as her not being comfortable showing herself online, but it could also be that .. "she" is a he, or a hacker, or some kind of criminal.

I think what I'm going to do is just block and report the profile. I don't want anything to do with someone who isn't who they say they are.

I also just don't understand (other than for nefarious means) what the point of not putting a photo of yourself is.. I mean, what happens if it's just that they aren't comfortable showing themselves online, but then you meet and they look nothing like their photo? If that happened to me, I'd leave straight away. That would be absolutely it. Lying is one thing I won't put up with.. and trust to me is the biggest and most important thing for a relationship to work.

So that's my little story. I hope you all enjoyed it.

Online dating.. usually good, sometimes creepy.


Also as a little addition, I just wanted to talk about the big moment in the Twenty20 Cricket last night.. For those that didn't see it .. here's what happened:

Marlon Samuels (who plays for the Renegades), while bowling, grabbed one of the Stars players (David Hussey)'s shirt while he was running between wickets, essentially preventing him from taking an extra run.

So, in the 2nd Innings, Shane Warne (the captain of the Stars) was bowling to Marlon Samuels, and at the end of his over, walked up the pitch towards him and said "Come on Marlon.. why don't you grab some more people".. and then this little nugget.. "Fuck you Marl..." and his mic was cut off. Yes, he was wearing a microphone AND they had a close up of him as he said it as well.

So that in itself was amazing. You never see or hear things like that in cricket.

But that wasn't the end of it. The next over, Warne fielded a ball and, as he put it, tried to throw it to the Wicketkeeper, but in fact hit Marlon Samuels in the arm. Now I think that he did it on purpose out of anger and frustration, so I'm not condoning it. But I'm really not condoning Marlon Samuel's reaction either. Oh.. what was his reaction you ask? He threw his bat sort of at Warne, but sort of not. The point is he threw his bat up in the air, and down the pitch, which was really uncalled for.

It certainly added a lot of extra drama to the match. Unfortunately Marlon Samuels got hit in the eye while facing another bowler (purely accidental, the ball came up off the edge of his bat and went in between the peak of his helmet and the grill), and it looks like he's hurt pretty badly. So hopefully he is ok, and can at least play in the ODI's for the West Indies in a few weeks.

So that's what happened. I think it was a situation that got out of control, but the umpires and other players handled it really well, and defused the situation very quickly. It's funny to me that a verbal altercation and an "accidental" ball hitting someone is described as "the worst fight in world cricket"... If you compare that to a typical fight in the NRL or in AFL.. there's almost nothing to even talk about. No-one punched anyone, and Warne's throw that hit Samuels was under-arm and not thrown hard at all. I think it's because we never see that amount of aggression that people have been so shocked by this incident.

Personally I don't think it was ever going to go any further.. Marlon Samuels is a massive tall West Indian, and Shane Warne, while feisty, is a lot shorter and smaller than him. And he's also not stupid enough to fight in the middle of a cricket match. Just to speed in his car while being part of an anti-speeding campaign.

Here's a short video of the first part of the altercation (warning: there is swearing in it.. so don't watch it with a kid around!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2a1Tv9rNHM

That's it for this one folks, hope you liked it... comment, like, chat, let me know.. and I'll be back soon. Possibly on video as well!

Goals for the year and rabbits in hats.

Everyone seems to be doing it, so why not me too right?

At the start of every year, people make new year's resolutions. Well, not me. I just set some goals for myself.

So I thought I'd write a blog talking about that. And maybe what I got up to for new years eve. After all, this is a blog about my life, so why not include life event things right? Who knows what might come out onto this page.. er.. file?.. Post! That's what they're called.

So new years eve.. I'm not much of a party guy these days. I don't like big crowds (with the exception of gigs), I really don't like being around a bunch of really drunk people (again, I can make exceptions at gigs), and I don't like clubs and the music that's played at them. Basically, to me going to a club is essentially me going somewhere full of people I have nothing in common with who I don't want to be around, doing things I don't like doing and listening to crap music. Not my idea of a good time.

So for the third year in a row I think, I went to my best friend's place. He was having a small party, which suits me much better.
Really there's not a lot to tell.. we had some food, told a lot of stories and jokes, ribbed each other, played some trivia, and had a great time.

Oh, actually, one highlight for me was performing a magic trick.

Now I know what this blog is going to be about. Goals, and magic.

I got really interested in learning magic a few months ago, after seeing this video (this is my first attempt at embedding something so if it doesn't work, i'll put the link at the end of the blog)

This is a magician called Shawn Farquhar on a show Penn and Teller did called Fool Us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ2ebs9F1ek

So after seeing that trick (and watching it probably 15 times), I found myself wanting to learn how to do card tricks. I've always liked magic...my mum tells me I used to do bad card tricks when I was a kid, and I vaguely remember getting a magic set at some point too. I love the performance side of it, and the technical skill involved especially interests me. And, if you watch that trick, it is just about flawless. Even a few months later, learning all that I've learned about sleight of hand, I have no idea how he does what he does. (Neither do Penn and Teller though, so I don't feel too bad)

So I decided to buy a couple of decks of cards. A couple quickly became a couple of dozen. It's become something of an addiction to me. I didn't realise at first that there were collectors of playing card decks, but I've quickly become one. I have around 40 decks at this point. The great thing about them is that even though they're not that readily available in Australia, the decks aren't too expensive. Sure, some can get up to $20 and above, but in general they range from about $5 to $15, so I've spent a little bit of money on them, but there are much worse things to spend money on.

My favourites in my collection at this point are the few black decks that I have. They're incredible looking. I also have a deck where the hearts and diamonds are coloured blue instead of red, which I love.

What I've found though, and this may sound like a strange comparison, is that learning sleight of hand and card magic, and cardistry, is a lot like learning how to play the guitar.

I know what you're thinking.. No it's not! Guitars have strings!

You're absolutely right. But, learning card sleights is all about muscle memory, exactly the same way that learning to play the guitar is. For example, I can remember when I first started learning guitar, changing chords was almost impossible to do fluently. In the same way, learning to riffle shuffle cards is all about muscle memory. When I first started trying to shuffle the cards like this (the way magicians do), I was fumbling all over the place and found it almost impossible.. and even thought about giving it up. But, I persevered, and mastered it. I've focused more on learning techniques to start with rather than just jumping into learning tricks, though I have a few simple tricks under my belt, including the one I performed for my friends at new year's... where I turned a red card blue.

This leads me into the other subject I wanted to talk about in this post, being my goals for the year.

1. Get better at card magic, and grow my collection of cards.

This one is pretty simple.. I'd like to be able to do more than one trick convincingly, and get much better at the sleight of hand stuff. And obviously buy more cards.

2. Confidence.

I have this weird lack of self confidence. I want to change that. It's mainly with people I don't know, my friends and family, and people that I'm comfortable with, I have no problem being confident and outgoing. But, as my single friends and readers will know, it's a very different story when it's someone you're meeting as a possible romantic prospect. I need to figure out a way for my confidence I have with my friends to come through when meeting new people.

3. Maintain my exercise and diet and lose more weight.

Another simple one. I want to lose at least another 10 kilos this year, and hopefully more like 20. If I stick fairly closely to my diet and keep walking every day, it's going to happen.

4. Get at least one tattoo.

I tweeted at Kevin Smith telling him I was going to get one of his quotes tattooed on me and he favourited the tweet, so I have to do that at some point. Oh.. and just so you don't think i'm getting a ton of words put on me, the quote is "Why not?" The full quote is in this picture:

5. Find a new drummer for my band.

This one is a "has to happen soon" goal, as we've got some gigs tentatively booked in the coming months. Pretty simple really.

6. Get my band to greater heights

We have some goals in our band, some of which we've already achieved, but we still have a lot left to do. This year we'll release our first cd, have our first merchandise available to buy, and play some shows interstate.

Some other goals I want us to achieve are to get played on the radio (if we can find a radio station that plays punk), get into some magazines or so some kind of interviews, and there are some bands we want to play with, and have hear our music somehow as well.


That's about it really, I mean there are things that are a little out of my control like start a new relationship, or make some money.. but those 6 are my main goals for the year.



Oh, one last thing, I'm thinking as I said in a previous post, of starting a video blog. Let me know if you like this idea, and I'll see what I can come up with.

That's it for this installment. Thanks for reading.