Friends

Pippa's post about friends made me want to post this, because I've been thinking about friends a lot too lately.

I think I'm a bit lonely in Melbourne. I've noticed it's really hard to make friends here. I would call my flatmate and a few people at work "friends", and that's about it.

In Adelaide it seems I went to a few gigs, meet a few people, and then became almost life-long friends with them. In Melbourne I'm lucky to meet the same group of people twice when I'm out.

I met this girl at a wedding in Adelaide, and yes, I won't deny there was an attraction (at least one way) but we went out together the next day, and had a ball together. I met some of her work friends, and I could tell pretty much instantly that if I was back in Adelaide, these people would become my friends.

Nothing like this has happened in Melbourne except with workmates. Which is fine, I work with some great people, but it's just weird to me it's like this. It's something I didn't plan on encountering when I moved here. I expected to go out, see the same people, hang out, get friendly and become part of "the group".

Yet it hasn't happened.

It's like that episode of Seinfeld when he's talking about making friends with people when you're older.

"When you get in your 30s, it's very hard to make a new friend. Whatever the group is that you've got now, that's pretty much who you are going with. It's as if you're not interviewing, you're not looking at any new people, you're not interested in seeing any applications for new friends. The fact of the matter is they don't know the places, they don't know the food, they don't know the activities. If you're introduced to a friendly guy at a club or a gym, it's like you want to say to them: Hey look, I'm sure you're a very nice person, you seem to have a lot of potential, but I'm just not looking for friends now.

Of course when you are a kid, you can be friends with anybody. There are almost no qualifications required. If someone is standing out in front of your house now, that's good enough, You walk out say hello -and before you know it you're jumping up and down on the bed! As children you can have almost anything at all in common and its good enough for a friendship - You like coke? I like coke. Great let's be best friends!"

This, and the fact I can relate my life to an episode of Seinfeld kinda freaks me out...

Pure Bliss

I just found a great webpage all about one of my favourite Adelaide bands...



Written by the extraordinarily talented and incredibly friendly Dave McCain (aka DAMC / Techione), it details the rise and unfortunate fall of this incredible band.

On top of that, Dave's got their two eps available for download!

Website Updated

Well, as per usual I've been a little slack in keeping my website updated.

So this weekend I've gone and updated it all just for you!

I've added all my CD reviews from 2008, as well as updated the Interviews section with the work I've done for inthemix.com.au including my interview with Portishead's Geoff Barrow

Enjoy!

Top Shit of 2008

Yeah, I know it's a little late, but here are my top ten lists for 2008

Top 10 Video Games (all formats)
There are many games that maybe should be on this list, but I simply haven't played them so can't make judgement.

1. Fallout 3
2. Fifa 2009
3. Left 4 Dead
4. GTA IV
5. Saints Row 2
6. Grid
7. Fable 2
8. Civilization Revolution
9. NHL 09
10. Braid


Top 10 CDs
Again, these are CDs I've listened to / own / reviewed.

1. The Bamboos - Side Stepper
2. Baobinga & ID - Big Monster
3. CW Stoneking - Jungle Blues
4. The Heavy - Great Vengeance and Furious Fire
5. Sharon Jones & Dap Kings - 100 days, 100 nights
6. Downsyde - All City
7. Belleruche - The Express
8. Mr Scruff - Ninja Tuna
9. Primal Scream - Beautiful Future
10. DubXanne - Police in Dub

Another year been and gone!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all that.

My Christmas was pretty much a debacle, again.

I wanted to have Christmas with my mum and my aunt Laurine (her real sister) and my blood cousins.

On the hour long train ride to Gawler to meet my mum, who now lives in Saddleworth, my 4 year old reliable companion, my iPod, decides to die.

As an aside I also think it was stolen from my bag at the airport - but sucks to be them for getting a broken ipod!

Going on the old train line to Gawler Central brought back a load of memories - it's one I used to be intimately familiar with - but I was amazed at the amount of change that has occurred in the last 10 years too.

On the way to Ardrossan my mum tells me my cousins won't be coming... which annoys me no end as I could have caught up with my other family instead! So I had Xmas with my mum, my aunt, and my aunt's crazy friends - all about 60 years old and with whom I had nothing in common with. They were nice people, but still, I obviously would have preferred to be elsewhere.

I stayed at mums on Xmas Day eve, and the next day she went to drive me back to Gawler so I could catch the train back to Adelaide. She had little petrol, so we did the normal thing and went to the petrol station. However, the petrol station had no petrol either, and wasn't expecting the trucks to arrive until Mid morning. And the nearest petrol station was too far away to risk driving to, because there would have been a good chance it would have been closed for the boxing day holiday...

Worse still, I had to be back in the city by midday for what I consider my REAL Xmas celebrations - the ones with my friends from school, the ones we do every year with this year being even more special as one of whom was back from the USA and another over from WA...

Luckily the one bus which runs every two days from Far North SA to Adelaide just happened to be coming at the same time in the morning - If I had chosen to go any earlier or later I would have been stuck in Saddleworth.

I got on the bus, paid $20 and arrived 2 hours later in the city, then had another half hour trip to where I was staying...

Then, when I went to Stef's house for that Xmas, the Metroticket people who I had phoned earlier to enquire about buses told me the wrong number, and I had to walk for about 20 minutes from the wrong road to the right road!

Luckily, the rest of my trip to Adelaide was fucking awesome.

Renee & Paul's wedding was splendid, and I met a really nice girl there too! We went out again after that, and had heaps of fun with her and her crazy workmates. It was weird being in Adelaide and hanging out with a bunch of people I didn't know at all, but heaps of fun at the same time.

I also cuaght up with pretty much everyone I wanted to catch up with at Summer Break - lots of people I didn't expect to be there were there. It was awesome drinking, dancing and chatting with friends there.

That's my only issue with Melbourne - I don't have a regular crew here. There's a few guys from work I hang out with, but they're not as passionate as I am about music and gigs. So I always go out by myself - which I don't mind - but sometimes it would be nice to have friends here who had the same passion for music and gigs like I did in Adelaide.