Still here!

I'm still here!

Just nothing to blog about really... or alternatively, I've had heaps to blog about but can't.

I've already been chastised about something I posted on Facebook, and although this website is far less visible, considering the way things are going, I need to be on my best behaviour.

That, and I'm lazy.

And I've also been playing Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Seriously, all my spare time has been sunk into this game. It's an amazing MMO - and the first where I've reached the level cap, and continue to play after a couple of months.

I'll have a full review in Time Out just in time for the Australasian launch, so stay tuned.

And if you have an account, I'm playing on the Jek Jek Tar server... Look out for Funk ;)

Five Minutes of Funk

You may have noticed a change of name of this blog from Sound Off to Five Minutes of Funk.


I figure with internet at home, at work, and on my phone, I should be doing more with this interconnectivity, as well as better justify internet fees, at least to myself.

So, I'll be endeavouring to post for 5 minutes (or there abouts) every day.

Unlike previously with this blog, that may mean a lot more inane stuff, although when it comes down to it I am still me and will undoubtedly post things which are gratuitous self promotion, my wise and learned opinion on all things musical, watchable, readable or playable, or just me ranting about whatever.

As usual, I'll try to avoid blogging about feelings and personal shit, as that hardly interests me so why should it interest you?

I'll also feed into the blog from facebook and twitter, and vice versa.

I've got another idea I want to get off the ground that I want to call Sound Off... so keep an eye and ear out for that ;)

Stupid Survey

Survey:

1. My ex... probably still hates me...

2. Maybe I should... stop spending money on gigs!

3. I love... music.

4. People would say that I'm... better than you.

5. I don't understand why people... don't think like I do.

6. When I wake up in the morning... spend too long in the shower.

7. I lost my... lust for life.

8. Life is full of... broken dreams and unfulfilled promises... luckily none of mine!

9. My past is... full of mistakes and missed opportunities.

10. I get annoyed... often.

11. Parties are... a staple of my life.

12. I wish... I did all this 10 years earlier.

13. Dogs... are good for attracting women.

14. Cats... are selfish cunts - just like me.

15. Tomorrow... can wait.

16. I have a low tolerance... for people who can't tolerate others.

17. If I had 10 million dollars... I would get a ticket into space.

18. I'm totally terrified... I won't ever get to experience space travel.

19. My spouse... will have to be awsome.

20. I'm listening to... everything.

21. Outside... is there for the taking.

22. My car... is waiting to be bought... and for me to get a license .

23. Fish n chips... are best by the beach.

24. Music... is often the only thing worth living for.

25. I completely trust... no one.

26. I am thinking... it's late and I shouldn't be posting this crap.

27. This weekend I am... enjoying my free time. And playing videogames.

28. True love... is like the cake... a lie.

29. Down at the disco... I get my groove on.

30. Before I go to bed I... think about my friends and how much I miss them.

one word answers

OK, Maz sent me this via facebook.

Facebook allows you to import blogs as notes.

As I'm pretty lazy and rarely update my own blog, let alone have another one on facebook via the notes system, I thought I'd do that fancy-schmansy import thing.

So here it goes:

You're only allowed to post one word answers to these:

1. Where is your cell phone? pocket
2. Your significant other? nonexistant
3. Your hair? neat
4. Your mother? elsewhere
5. Your father? nonexistant
6. Your favorite thing? music
7. Your dream last night? coincidental
8. Your favorite drink? beer
9. Your dream/goal? spaceflight
10. What room you are in? computer
11. Your hobby? games
12. Your fear? celibacy
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? there
14. Where were you last night? concert
16. Muffins? occassionally
17. Wish list item? sex
18. Where you grew up? Adelaide
19. Last thing you did? crapped
20.What are you wearing? clothes
21. Your TV? off
22. Your pets? dead
23. Friends? fine
24. Your life? busy
25. Your mood? tired
26. Missing some one? nope
27. Car? nope
28. Something you're not wearing? watch
29. Your favorite store? online
30. Your favorite color? blue
33. When is the last time you laughed? today
34. Last time you cried? forget
35. Who will resend this? GAF
36. One place that I go to over and over? work
37. One person who emails me regularly? spambots
38. My favorite place to eat? everywhere
39. Why you participated in this survey? bored
40. What are you doing tonight? nothing

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.

Yeah, well I'm a bad blogger, ok?

Yeah, I know I'm a bad blogger.

Because I don't blog about crap that doesn't matter, like feelings and shit, I don't really have much to say. And I could get worked up over a million things, but I can't be fucked any more. All the ranting and complaining about the world won't change it, so I don't bother to comment on it any more.

Even on forums and such where normally I'll be attacking this or defending that, I can't be bothered so much any more. It wastes time and drains my mind energy, or some shit.

If you really want to know what I've been saying about this or that, you can check up on me on the Gawker network, as I comment on their stories quite regularly... Also I'm still writing / reviewing for inthemix, xboxworld and now Time Out Sydney so read them too.

As to what's been happening - well, I got promoted for one - now I'm assistant producer. It's a lot different to QA Lead - I don't have to work late much. In fact, I don't play the game as much, either.

I had a DJ gig at Bimbo Deluxe the other week which went really well, and I'm hoping to get another soon.

I saw Stevie Wonder last week. It was absolutely amazing. Then I saw Roy Ayers, who was also very good.

And that's about it for this update...

Expect the next one in a few months :p

Back online!

Thanks to hostonce's terrible customer service, my domain expired.

I was notified on Friday last week, and cut off on Saturday. I sent 2 emails and posted 3 help desk questions and got a response on Tuesday.

That's not good enough.

And now because I wanted my site and email back on ASAP I'm locked into another 6 months with them...

At least everything is functioning now.

Differences in Opinion

Andrew Bolt has done it again.

On the one hand he claims that the bombing of Hiroshima was necessary to save further bloodshed, but then he condemns Penti Linkola a Finnish green thinker for believing the world needs less people in order to save the planet.

I'm really confused by this, because I see these as the exact same kind of thinking.

I'm not sure if my comment is too long, but Bolt has said he's writing a larger article tomorrow, so I might re-post it in those comments. I really hope I get a response, because I'm legitimately worried that I'm the stupid one for not seeing a difference, and hoping he can clear it up for me...

Here's what I wrote:

Andrew, didn't you just today say that the bombing of Hiroshima was required to stop a greater catastrophe?

I'm pretty sure you did:

"In making such judgements, the utilitarian is driven above all by the moral imperative to preserve as many people as possible from harm. Given that, the utilitarian would also seek in war to avoid any needless deaths, especially of civilians."

Unlike many of your blog posts, these are completely your own words. [LINK]

So you agree that those Japanese killed in the dropping of the bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima needed to be sacrificed to save the planet from the greater threat of Nazi and Japanese Imperialism.

Is that correct?

So how can you condemn these people - you were saying the EXACT SAME THING in that people need to be sacrificed for the greater good??

I really can't see what the difference is here.

One the one hand you had the annihilation of everything we hold dear by the Nazis and Japanese, and on the other hand we have the annihilation of everything we hold dear by environmental breakdown.

Either way it's still total Annihilation.

BUT WAIT - I know what you're going to say "Environmental Annihilation isn't certain."

Well mate, neither was cultural annihilation by the Nazis.

If you look at history, you'll see that the Romans tried to do the exact same thing as the Nazis, and they succeeded, and then the Saxons, and then the Christians, and so on and so on, but traditions thousands of years old that we hold dear still exist.

The world took a different course, but many traditions people held dear and fought for were preserved despite them losing to another culture.

So, can you please explain what the difference between Linkola's position and your position is, because I can't see one.

More blogging, more frequently

Well, seeing as how I'm off to Melbourne, I'm going to try and blog more regularly, to keep myself occupied and keep my friends up to date with what's going on...

Long Time No Blog

Hey all, sorry, long time no blog.

Been buzy* lately and haven't had much to write to be honest.

Everything is simply kicking along nicely, nothing much to say about anything except videogames but you can read that over on my ign.blog

I've succumbed to facebook. But you all knew I would no doubt.

I took some photos of the Lunar Eclipse which I'll put on ringo later.



*buzy means "busy and/or lazy". It's a term I just made up. It's good. You should use it.

OK... so it's *almost* done

OK, so my page has been re-arranged and made more readable and "user friendly".

I've added some cool things like my LAST.FM player, so you can listen to the music I listen to!

I've added the feed from MySpace and IGN where I blog about games and music respectively. I sometimes double up, but deal with it ;)

I've also got a Skype Button so you can see if I'm available for a chat.

I'm eventually going to rearrange FunkyJ.com and update it with my latest interviews as soon as I can. That takes a little more work as the CMS and Word don't play well together, and I've got to convert all my word docs to text, then cut and paste, then format them all... Yes, icky I know!

I'm thinking of changing to a whole new CMS, so if you've got any suggestions post them in the comments!

Ch..ch...ch...changes!

OK, I'm finally changing a few things about my blog and website over the easter break!

Hopefully everything happens without trouble!

Knut the cute polar bear

Remember that story about those horrible animal activists who wanted to have that mega cute little polar bear called Knut put down?

For example THIS STORY



The cute little fella was even in the Colbert (or should that be Colbear?) Report!

Well, the whole story is a fiction. A lie*.

There's a bear called Knut, and that's about the extent of the "truth" behind this story.

Thank the world for mediawatch!


But I just wanted to bring this up to say that journalists never do their jobs correctly. I know the reasons for this - lack of funds, lack of time, publishing deadlines - but I don't CARE about them.

In any other industry, if something similar happened, the people who took this story as truth and reported it from the AP feed would all be sacked.

Yet I'm betting in 90% of newspapers and websites you won't even see a correction, let alone an apology to all involved.

It's utterly disgusting that these people go about their lives, after ruining the lives of others, without any feelings of guilt or remorse after reporting a story so badly. The media has totally screwed this up, and are unapologetic about it, and it makes me so angry!

Please, to all my readers, all 3 of you, can you link to this post, to the mediawatch page, blog about it, email about it, just spread the word about this, and get the media to admit their mistake and apologise to the men whose lives have been threatened with violence because of this poorly researched story.




*I'd go further and say it's a dirty smear campaign against Animal Rights and those who support them, and then by extension the Leftist and Green movements, but that would make me seem paranoid...

Blogger Update

So, I've gone ahead and updated this blog to the new blogger software, and editied previous posts and removed the tags and used the blogger software itself to tag my posts.

So far I like it.

The "labels" should be called "tags", but for now I'll let that pass.

I'll have some kind of "tag list" or "tag cloud" up and running as soon as I figure out how to do it.

I'm also looking at getting the RSS feeds from MySpace and IGN into this blog too.

So Bolt doesn't Like Borat

So, Andrew Bolt and some wanky socialist don't like Borat?

Here's my response:

I confess I haven't seen the movie, but I have seen enough of Cohen's Shows to realise what this movie will be.

If people are too ignorant to get the joke, to know about Cohen and Borat because they can't be bothered thinking about anything outside their own little window, sucks to be them.

His act simply wouldn't work on people who weren't ignorant. But there's so many people in the world who are so shallow and close minded that his act will continue to work for many, many years.

Maybe if we had a better education system, better global outlook, and a better society overall, Cohen's humour would be what you claim it is - cruel and manipulative.

But the fact so many don't question him, don't challenge him when he's being racist, sexist and homophobic - enough people to get a successful series and movie made - is the really sad part of his act.

If you have trouble recoginsing the predudices of people in the film, maybe it's because it's your own predudices coming into play.

You claim it is 'courteous people' being made fools - no it isn't.

These people go along with him - for whatever reason - and never once do they say "hey, you're out of line" or "stop doing that" or "I don't give a fudge where you come from, stop insulting those people". Never once do they challenge him, and many go along with him. That's worse than fooling people in the first place. Who is more fool?

The Nazi's killed millions because people refused to speak up against what they knew was wrong, and Cohen is pointing out even many years later people are just as ignorant, even with our internet and globalization.

Hopefully Borat will make people more aware of what they do and how they act. Then Cohen has done what he wants to achieve, and that's a damn better outcome than feeling warm and fuzzy because of portaloos.

Oh, and those "Frat Boys" aren't the innocent fools you make them out to be...

"While Cohen and his production team certainly have a knack for finding and taking advantage of the, shall we say, socially questionable citizens of the "U.S. and A," it's hard to imagine that this suit has much merit. First off, a quick look at Seay's Myspace pictures suggest that "gettin' drunk and havin' a good time," are pastimes he regularly engages in -- not behaviors that the producers likely duped him into. Second, he, along with everyone else in the film, signed an agreement relinquishing any rights to take action. Third, the scene in question is so despicable (even though Seay appears less awful than his two frat brothers) that it's hard to imagine any judge or jury feeling sympathetic to his cause." (link)

How real are the commentators?

I was thinking about something whilst looking at Andrew Bolts blog today - How many of those people are REAL people with real desire to know more and debate the issues Bolt puts forth, and how many are news corp stooges and cronies?

Likewise with the AdelaideNOW blog, which is full of praise for the new layout?

I don't like the new page because the stories are different from the Advertiser, meaning if I want to read the front page I have to go buy the paper, which I refuse to do. I'm not paying for one or maybe two stories. Also, you used to be able to read the paper and stories from up to a week previously, but I can no longer find that functionality on the website.

Sure, I can go online and read other sites, but when Adelaide only has one news source, it kind of makes it a little hard to find stuff about us from an Adelaide perspective. But that's besides the point.

Anyway, on Sunday there was a story by Amanda Blair, an ex Adelaide radio jock, about how DJs and radio hosts are aware that most callers to the station are fake.

And it got me thinking... how do we know these blog commentators aren't fake?

The posts are moderated anonymously, and there's nothing to tie people to their posts like other sites like Kotaku or even a web forum.

I added a comment to the AdelaideNow website, and hopefully Rod, the editor, can answer...

Hey Rod,

Just like to get your opinion on something...

Given that the fake radio caller thing has been blown wide open by the Sunday Mail (well, for those listeners too stupid to realise the truth beforehand anyway), I'd like to know what guarantees do we have that people responding to these blogs aren't just newspaper people posing as 'concerned readers'.

Because the posts are moderated before we see them, I feel that this is very open to abuse, much like the Radio calls.

Surely a registered user database would be better than anonymous posting coupled with anonymous moderating.