Sunday 27 May 2007

Zombie Walk

News Flash:

Headline: Hordes of Zombies roam city streets

Dateline: Adelaide Sat 26 May

Hordes of the undead rose from the Adelaide Parklands to traverse the streets of Adelaide.

Whilst most were docile, some moved incredible fast and demonstrated rudimentary motor skills suchs as operating cameras and other technological devices.


No one is sure what their purpose was, but as the shambolic mass stumbled down Rundle Street, Rundle Mall and Hindley Street, the chant of brains could be heard continually, making this reporter suspect they were protesting the lack of intellectual stimulation that Adelaide has to offer the denizens of the underworld. (or the populous at large - Ed.)

As far as we know, no one was injured or turned into a Zombie during the walk, although there was one weird zombie preaching the word of the Lord to the others in an apocalyptic manner.

Unfortunately that zombie was obviously more braindead than the others, as he kept trying to cite the scriptures but clearly had no proper understanding of them. One choice quote was "Jesus died on the Cross for our Sins, that should have been you" which is a clear misrepresentation of the meaning of the Cruxifiction.

Unfortunately this reporter was too busy staring at the raver zombie's cute ass and considering if sex with the undead would be considered necrophilia to take a photo of preacher zombie.

Video footage of the event follows, where you can hear a little of the preaching of the braindead zombie ...



More Photos and Videos at Ringo.com

Monday 14 May 2007

Updated Podcast

Hey all,

Finally updated my interview podcast!

I've got the following interviews up:

Kid Koala
Breakfastaz
Plump DJs
Stereo MCs
Roots Manuva
DJ Z-Trip
Coldcut
DJ Craze
The Roots

Unfortunately quite a few of them couldn't be put online (like my Andy C interview) because the recording quality was too bad.

I've got recording sorted now though and shouldn't have that problem again, and will start updating this much more regularly - interviews will go online 2 months after I publish them.

Subscribe Here

You can download individual episodes too.

If you want to subscribe via iTunes just click here
(or open the podcast menu in iTunes and search for FunkyJ)

Sunday 13 May 2007

As Promised... Hilltop Hood & the ASO Photos!

Pressure

Suffa

Debris

7000 people going off!

More at Ringo

Hilltop Hoods with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

I just saw the Hilltop Hoods with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

Simply amazing!

They've always been top performers - I played at a gig with them about 7 years ago and even back then they were awesome, but to a home crowd of over 7000 people (which is some kind of record for a home crowd at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre) and with a 32 piece orchestra they were something else.

Also, as far as anyone is aware, hiphop has never been attempted with an orchestra outside of Springfield during the Lollapalooza tour

I did an interview with them the other week, and took some great pictures tonight, which I'll put online later.

I seriously reckon these guys are one of Australia's greatest bands, up there with AC/DC, Chisel, Midnight Oil, INXS, Crowded House...

Sure, it's totally different music, but the impact these guys are having on Australia is just as great as those other bands; they're selling shitloads of records, they're doing wonders for live music, they're inspiring so many others, and made Australian hiphop a legitimate art form.

If only they can make it overseas... They will do ok in Europe and the UK, but the US is really hard to break into, especially with hiphop...

Saturday 12 May 2007

FunkyJ.com temporarily down

You may have noticed that funkyj.com is "under construction".

This is so I can do some work on it like get my some interviews online and organise it all a little nicer. This will involve using a better CMS and figuring how how to use it...

Hopefully it will be all complete over the weekend, but this could be a week long job...

Monday 7 May 2007

Utterly exhausted

Last night I was up until midnight playing LOTRO. Nothing unusual about that, that's my usual 'bedtime'.

But I woke up at 3am and went to the toilet, and as I walked into the bathroom the floor was all wet. At first I thought the cat had gone mental and peed there. It was a totally out of character thing for the cat to do, but hey, it was 3am and my brain wasn't fully switched on.

After I got out of the toilet I realised that the cat wouldn't have done that, so turned on the light to find my whole entire kitchen flooded, with water snaking across the floor making it's way towards my records and turntables.

I opened up the cupboard where the hot water heater is, and water was pissing torrents out the valves and along the top.

I searched frantically around the house for towels and buckets, and then began searching for the water mains. I live in an old 19th Century converted barn, and I assumed the mains would be on one of the properties we were linked to. I found a water mains tap, and turned it off, but that did nothing.

So I ring the land agent and then their after hours emergency service number and no body answers.

I ring Rheem and they tell me it will be about $200 for the first 40 minutes and a stupid amount thereafter. Meanwhile my kitchen is looking like an indoor swimming pool. I now know why they are called Rheem...

So, I try to twist a few knobs on the water heater, nothing budges. It's all wet and slippery and I'm not the world's strongest guy.

I find the release valve and think "A ha! I'll turn this on and just let the water empty down the drain. It's a waste, sure, but at least it's not going to flood the house!"

So I squeeze the valve and watch hot water pour out of the valve and go straight against the wall, run down the wall and join the other water from the leak, further exasperating the problem.

So, I think "---- this" and call Water SA - maybe they can help. The lady tells me that usually they could tell me where my mains water meter is connected, but the program they use to look that up has been down all weekend and won't be fixed until the morning.

So I call back Rheem and ask if I'll have to pay up front, and they tell me yes, which is impossible for me to do because I don't have that much money, not even on my credit card. So I ask if the lady can give me advice - I know there must be some kind of shut off valve, but she tells me she can't provide me with that information.

It's now 6am, I'm utterly exhausted, sleep deprived, soaked to the bone, and so worried about the water damage this massive leak is doing, I can't even swear at the bitch.

I basically pass out for an hour, wake up when my flatmate sms's me telling me she doesn't know where the water mains is either. She gets home, sees me and the house and starts laughing, then offers to help.

Then, at about 8:30 the plumber calls, and he tells me how to turn the water off on the water heater. But, as I mentioned before, I tried all the valves and couldn't budge any. I work at the one he told me to, and nothing.

So my flatmate goes to the mechanics around the corner, uses her wily womanly ways and gets a spanner. After about 10 minutes of trying to get between the valve and the wall, I get the water shut off.

The plumber arrives, takes one look at it, and says it needs replacing and they need to ask the house owner for permission.

Thankfully he said yes.

But now I am so exhausted. Physically from mopping and sponging and carrying buckets outside, and mentally because I've only had about 4 hours sleep...

In retrospect it's pretty funny, and if my brain wasn't so frazzled from so little sleep I would have taken pictures...

Sunday 6 May 2007

Seven Nation Army

This was on J-TV a few weeks ago, but I think this is amazing!

I find this guy's voice to be absolutely enchanting. He sounds like he was plucked straight out of the cornfields along the Mississippi in the 1920s...

C W Stoneking's cover of Seven Nation Army

Thursday 3 May 2007

50 Reasons why Star Wars is better than Star Trek

Ok, I know I may be biased, after all, I am working on a Star Wars game after all, but this list of 50 Reasons why Star Wars is better than Star Trek is a tremendously funny and accurate list.

But really, you only need one reason why Star Wars is better, and that's this:

Tuesday 1 May 2007

The Advertiser Editors have some bloody nerve!

I had to laugh at the editorial entitled “Free people must be allowed a free press” that was on the AdelaideNow website on April 28, 2007.


The gall of the Advertiser editors to claim that they are some kind of bastion of democracy is phenomenal. If they actually think that they need to stop smoking the crack they are obviously are on and come down from their ivory tower and actually participate in the local community, because it's obvious they have an over inflated perception of them selves and their newspaper.

I couldn't help myself - I had to write in:

You claim that “A free media, the freedom of speech and expression of opinion, is the heartland of any democracy”.

The moment News.Corp appropriated all of Adelaide's papers into one was the moment the “press” ceased to resemble anything remotely associated with the word “free”. Murdoch's constant and consistent meddling in political affairs in Australia, the UK and USA stripped his media of any claim to the democratic process. Add to that the Federal Government's recent relaxing of media ownership laws to allow Murdoch more control and your entire diatribe at the government and lawmakers becomes fallacious at best, diabolical at worse.

You claim that parliaments are “the epitome of half-truth and obfuscation” yet in the last few months the Advertiser has shown itself to be more than equal to that task.

You claim that we are “fed a diet of misleading and shrewdly crafted press releases” but who publishes these releases? Who constantly publishes unresearched feeds from PR people and foreign newspapers?

The story about Knut the polar bear still has not been corrected in ANY news corporation publications, although the ABC's mediawatch showed that elements of the story were completely false and the animal rights activists involved now fear for their life because you “copy and pasted” the article from AP's news feed.

Examples of this sloppy journalism on corrections has increased phenomenally in recent years and yet your responses to such places as mediawatch when queried on it are unapologetic in most cases, and downright rude in others.

I have a challenge for you – you research and report the truth properly according to the MEAA's code of ethics, and when you do screw up the truth of the story you print a prominently positioned apology, and we, the public, will help to fight to stop your freedoms being eroded.

But until that time to ask that we support you would be laughable if it wasn't such a disturbing and disingenuous use of the Advertiser's editorial.