Long weekend!! Yey!!!
To be perfectly honest I have no idea what this long weekend is for. Triple J is broadcasting it’s normal weekday programing, which is a good indication that it’s a West Australian public holiday only, but I’m not sure which one. Possibly it’s one of the Queen’s many birthdays, either that or Foundation Day, which celebrates some woman cutting down a tree. Anyway, I don’t care because after all a public holiday is a public holiday 🙂
I haven’t been up to all that much lately, apart from work. We’ve got a few big jobs on at the moment, one of the biggest being replicating a set of three entire websites without FTP access. That means that rather than go in and just download all the files in a sane and ordered manner, we have to do it all via the browser. You know, right click on every single image and save it, then save all the pages manually, then read the code and copy the URLs to get a hold of any linked css or js files. Needless to say this isn’t a lot of fun. I’m not exactly clear on why the client won’t give us the FTP details – my best guess is they don’t want the original company to know they’re changing over to us until it’s all a fait-acompli. This seems of dubious legality at best, but hey, I presume they know what they’re doing.
Apart from that the only thing of note I’ve accomplished in the last few months is an ambient/chill out remix of the Waifs’ London Still. You see Triple J were running a competition where they provided the various broken down components of three songs (London Still, El Questro by Downsyde and some stupid Silverchair thing) in MP3 format and challenged people to remix them, so I figured I’d have a go. I’m fairly pleased with my effort, but unfortunately it shall never see the light of day. Copyright was only waived by the artists for the purpose of the competition, the mp3 files were only allowed to be downloaded for use in the competition, the resultant remixes were only allowed to be posted to the competition website, and the competition was only open to people aged 25 years or under. So if I even play my remix to an empty room I’m probably in violation of international law and in extreme danger of having my door beaten down by the copyright police and being hauled off into imprisionment at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Or something 🙂
On the subject of music though I was extremely distressed to discover that those scary Russian lesbians Tatu (or whatever) have done a “cover” of the Smiths’ How Soon is Now. BLASPHEMY!! SACRILAGE!! HERESY!! DEVILTRY!! ISOLATIONISM!! FREE SILVER!! I mean good Lord, why not let them re-score Beethoven’s fifth for those singing cats while they’re at it? Doesn’t anyone have respect for the classics these days? Sheeze!!
I say “cover” because their version only barely resembles the original. They’ve got some semi-competant session musicians in to do a halfway decent version of the tune, but then totally disfigure it with their – well you can’t actually call it singing, they sound like a pair of trapped marmosets. Thin, reedy, whining and shrieking is closer to the mark. I move here and now, that we set up a fund to procure a rocket propelled grenade launcher and plane ticket to Moscow for Morrisey, and send him over to set them straight. We could even throw in a marmoset tracking dog. That’ll learn them!!
Hrumph!
Anyway, about the only other thing I’ve got to say is something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, namely the fun and games that went on over at F*ntastico a few weeks back. For those who came in late this is a long, narrow Subiaco eatery that Rebecca, Dom and myself visited a while ago (and at which the prawns gave me mild food poisoning). Anyway it was in the news recently when it was the scene of a vicious street brawl between a group of “high profile” C*ffin Ch**ters, and some “associates” of “N*rthbridge ident*ty” John K*zzon.
(Edit – August 9 2004 – I’ve altered several of the names and terms in the above paragaraph because this weblog entry kept coming up number one on K*zzon/F*zio related web searches – which probably isn’t the best thing for my long term health prospects. Allegedly 🙂
Apparently the two groups were eating at F*ntastico when an argument between them got out of hand. So they proceeded to step outside to sort it out. This “sorting out” resulted in one of K*zzon’s “associates” by the name of F*zio being knocked to the ground and having his head and face repeatedly kicked and stomped on, to the point where he required 40 stitches. The management of F*ntastico quite sensibly pulled down the roller shutters and locked everyone inside as soon as they realised what was going on, and eventually the police arrived and broke it up. Not long afterwards a “mysterious fire” hit F*zio’s gym in Northbridge, but the police swear black and blue that there’s no connection. Of course.
A few Perth-specific phrases there probably need some explanation. The C*ffin Ch**ters are what the press and police like to refer to as an “Outlaw Motorcycle Club” and the rest of the population as “bikies”. Northbridge is the nightclub and entertainment district of the city, hence a “N*rthbridge Ident*ty” is a person of importance in that area and the kinds of fields and endeavors associated with that sort of area (although K*zzon seems to be the only person to whom the term is ever applied). I might be more specific except it could well result in a visit from some “large men”. Allegedly.
(On the subject of bikies, it should be noted that in Australian English it’s quite common for words to be truncated and have an “ie” or “y” stuck on the end. For instance truckie, footy, Chrissy, barbie, prezzie (respectively truck driver, football, Christmas, barbeque and present – yes “Chrissy prezzie” is disturbingly common *g*) and a whole host of others I can’t be bothered thinking about. To someone unfamilar with this tendancy a “bikie” might sound like a quite cheerful and even jolly sort of person riding around on his Harley laughing deeply and waving at small children and pensioners. Remove this image from your mind at once. Bikies are not cheerful or jolly. Replace the “ie” with “er” to translate the phrase into into US or UK English. Yes, them.)
So yes, F*ntastico. The place to go for risky prawns and street violence. Extreme dining! 🙂
OK, I’m going to go now.
PS: My bathroom sink is unblocked! Yey!! 🙂
