I reckon our national anthem is a pretty good song, however there are just some cases when you wish the anthem was, say, slighlty more progressive, so when I came across a reference to ABC Comedian Adam Hills perfoming such a version this morning, I had to find myself a copy. A quick search of youtube and there she was in all her beauty 🙂 enjoy.
Walk This Way
Yesterday marked the start of the 2nd week back at uni for me and I am getting used to new lecturers, doing my readings, going over notes and starting to plan my assesment pieces. I am a bit ticked off with one of my classes as the lecturer said at the first lecture last week, that he should have the reading brick put together in the next couple of weeks! Dude, based on the fact that reading bricks are designed to have the readings that accompany each weeks lecture, they should be ready for week 1, week 2 at the latest. grr.
These are three things that I am loving at the moment.
Strawberries. Fresh, sweet and flavoursome Queensland Strawberries. Strawberry season also means that the Ekka is fast approaching and that means strawberry sundaes and fireworks.
Hayseed Dixie. I am a big fan of the cover version and these guys with their “rockgrass” versions of classic rock songs produce some of the best covers I have heard in a while.
The Mountain Goats. Well I have loved these two guys for over a year now and in a mere 20 days their new album Get Lonely is released. I can’t wait to hear the other songs after listening to Wild Sage on NPR’s All Songs Considered.
And this is one thing that makes me so incredibly happy.
West Papuan David Wainggai is finally set to receive a TPV (Temporary Protection Visa) after the Refugee Review Tribunal overturned the original Department of Immigration ruling that granted visa’s to the 42 other West Papuan’s who landed on Cape York in January. I can’t describe how happy I was when I first heard it on the news and later read it in the paper. Justice Comes Ashore. Govt weighs appeal against Papuan visa decision.
After I had done my school work yesterday I sat down and had a little play.
I like rain on a tin roof
I like rain on a tin roof,
only when you’re deep in my arms.
The sound of rain on a tin roof
reminds me of the beat of your heart.
And I like rain on a tin roof,
takes me back to something I started.
I like rain on a tin roof,
Baby it’s all right, all right,
It’s all right, I’m inside.
– Tin Roof
women in docs
Last night I went to one of the most magical shows I have ever seen. There are two main things that make a show magical for me; they are great storytelling lyrics and lots of band/audience interaction. A band can play great music but if they just rock out on their stage and don’t interact with the crowd telling stories or making jokes the show looses a lot of interest for me.
Last night was purely magical because amongst other things these two things happened with both bands that played.
As part of the Brisbane Festival a series of free 9:30pm concerts have been running in the Spiegeltent after the main concert has played. Last night the 7:30pm concert was the amazing songstress Kate Miller-Heidke which was also broadcast on ABC QLD radio which when I heard it was been broadcast I ran around the house finding a tape and a tape recorder so I could “podcast” the show later. I have listened to parts of it already and am reminded of just what an amazing voice she has. Pure Magic. Just before the live broadcast started Steve Austin mentioned that the 9:30pm concert tonight was The Genes and women in docs and that all those people in SE QLD who could get to the Spiegeltent in King George Square by 9:30pm should. I made a decision that and after waiting so many years I was going to go and finally see women in docs live. I am so glad I went.
The Genes played first for about 1hr and a pretty rocking three piece of two brothers and their drummer. Lots of super cool songs with some great lyrics and plenty of harmonica. One of the songs that stood out was one that was all about surfing and the sequence of events from throwing on the wetsuit and running down the sand to the waves.
Then shortly after 10:30pm a band came on that I have been wanting to see since 1999 when their self-titled debut EP was released and like many others I fell in love with the song “Tin Roof” and the other five superbly written songs on it. I can tell you that since 1999 “Tin Roof” is one song that has always stuck in my head and I often find myself humming the song or when we get heavy rain and I can hear it on the tiles I sing a couple of lines from “Tin Roof”. Due to a number of reasons it has taken me seven years to see them live. Seven years of built up waiting meant that the show meant so much for me. I sat on my seat, clapping, swaying or singing along with the rest of the crowd as magic was created before our eyes.
For a band that got off a plane from North America 10hrs before they played I was more than impressed. From their classics to their newer stuff and some pretty rocking covers during their movie game section they played an amazing set. The movie game section is where they talked about who would play them in a movie of their life, what sort of movie it would be and what the theme song would be. When each of the band had talked about what their choices were, they would play the theme song. The “theme song” that got the most the laughs was when the drummer Geoff Green said he would be played by Hugh Jackman but he had to make a point clear, it would be Hugh Jackman Wolverine style (muscles and beard) not Hugh Jackman Boy from Oz style (maracas) in response to this they played Dancing Queen which definitely not Hugh Jackman Wolverine style.
There was lots of harmonica provided Roz, heaps of laughs provided by both Chanel and Roz as well as some kick ass fiddle and keyboards by Silas Palmer and rocking drums by Geoff Green. There was heaps of talking between the songs about the songs or about past experiences. When they finally finished playing shortly before midnight, I picked up a copy of their most recent CD red wine and postcards and drove home with a smile on my face as I put the CD in and let it play.
You can listen to three of their tracks at OzTrax as well as sample from their first two EPs on the samples section of their website.
Stick It
Well no Iceland post for today as I have spent the day scrapbooking 🙂 This past week I have been helping a friend out with her entry in one of the major scrapbooking comps here in Australia and it started my fingers itching to play.
A couple were done a couple of weeks ago but most were done today or yesterday.
Mum and I went to Stick It tonight and loved it! It was a great movie however I think it will be/was pigeon holed by most as a teen girl movie however I think it had a couple of very good story lines and was very well produced and it also had a pretty kicking soundtrack.
As we were walking out of the cinema to go down to have supper the strangest thing happened. We were walking over to the lift and who do I see sitting near the cinema but one of my best friends from high school and her boyfriend, which was fine because they are quite the movie goers. Then as we walking to cafe area, a girl calls out to me and says “Hi Helen” and after a bit of chatting, I had no idea who she was at first but she said we had worked together and she was a year above me at school. Then after we parted I realised who she was and my jaw just kept on dropping. I had not seen her since June 2004 or so and she must have lost at least 30kg and was looking fantastic. I just kept on saying wow to Mum.
Then as we drew closer to the cafe, I walked past someone else I had worked with at a different store and had a chat to her as well that was not all one of the wait staff at the cafe we supped at was a couple of years below me in both primary and high school and we had played in band together. It was quite different.
I mean we were at our local shopping centre and pretty much everyone I have worked with or gone to school with would hang out, shop or work there but I have never run into that many people I have known in such a short space of time. I mean I work at this shopping centre and I might only see people I know once every fortnight or so.
about that
Well I think I have ironed out all the bugs of this new theme, what do you think?
I am still trying to decide what I want to put in the header so at the moment it is just a pretty simple graphic using a brush from Jason Gaylor’s Worn Hi-Res Brushes III.
I cracked down and bought a new camera bag yesterday, I got a Crumpler Seven Million Dollar Home in Blue. Buying a camera bag is one of the hardest things to do. I have been after a bag for a long time which would take some uni books, some other stuff and some camera gear, after playing with numerous different combos at the camera store and at the Crumpler store, I have had to decide that the product I want is just not on the market yet.
Mum is progressing along nicely, the other day she moved up from a 7/8 plaster cast to a fancy knee brace, which looks like the one on this page.
We have watched some more movies
- I Heart Huckabees (This was cool)
- Before Sunset (This was an amazing film, very different to what I am used to as it basically only has two characters and the movie consists of them walking round Paris talking)
- Bride & Prejudice (This was super rad, I could watch it over and over, loved the musical parts and all the colour)
- Ladder 49 (Parts of this make me teary :()
- The Princess Diaries (A simple little movie to curl up on the couch watching on a Friday night)
Tonight however, I will not be watching a movie but will be sitting on the edge of the couch full of anticipation as Australia goes head to head against Italy to play for a quarter-final spot in the World Cup! Go the ‘roos!
Some of you may know Karyn but for those who don’t, she was the first non-Australian person from 2peas that I gotten to know, she is in the USA Navy and is married to an Icelander (which is how we connected), well after some time spent training in SC she is now smack bang in the biggest sandpit she has ever known in other words she is now in Iraq (or in her words Irock the Casbah). She has posted some photos that are well worth checking out and she is always up for well wishes.
That is about it.
Hello Holiday
So the Socceroos didn’t get up, we only lost by two against Brazil and Japan-Croatia tied with no goals, which means that we still look good for the next round.
I did my last exam for the semester yesterday, now I just have to wait for the results to come rolling in, even though grades are not announced until July 5, I already know that I have gotten two distinctions (6) and I think I might get another two yet and one credit (5) if I manage to pull this off, it will be my best semester at uni ever. One of those distinctions would have been a high distinction if I had not done miserably (11/20) on the mid-semester. Bring on next semester (which is my last semester of my undergraduate Bachelors degree)!
I watched three DVDs yesterday. The first was with Mum – Hope Springs, quite a nice romantic comedy and the character played by Minnie Driver was just a total piece of work. The second was with Mum and Matthew – Do You Remember?: Fifteen Years of the Bouncing Souls, which was a really great doco about The ‘Souls which made me think I really should have gone with Matthew and his friends to see them when the played the other month. The last one I watched was Speak, this was an incredible movie, I didn’t think it would be anywhere near as dark as it was but it was just incredibly moving.
Bring on five weeks of holidays and try to forget that this time last year we were busy preparing for the Palsson Grand Iceland Tour of 2005, I guess though in four years times we will all do our best to make our way back as a family for the quinquennial clan gathering.
I have plans of grandeur to fill my holidays with, which include the following.
- Make this top – Simplicity 4589, view A
- Make pasta
- Finish the final testing of a new blog template
- Attack the ever increasing pile of recipes to try and make a good number of them
- Learn how to knit – Continental style (Mum was taught English style like most Australian’s but thinks it would be better for me to learn Continental style as it is so more efficient, she talks of when she was in Iceland and like most of the other women spent a lot of time knitting by hand or with their machines and how the Icelandic women were just powerhouses with their knitting, maybe I can talk her into paying for me to go to Iceland these holidays to learn how to knit?)
- Get a fair stack of scrapbooking done
- Make a couple of bags
- Get my bike serviced so I can start riding again
- Go on a couple of mini photographic expeditions
- Go see Trivia at the Metro Arts
- Go see Death Cab for Cutie at the Arena
- The Brisbane Flickr meet up on Sunday
- Get a couple of photos printed and mounted for a long overdue birthday present
- Have fun
- Work a heap
- Organise some sort of filing system for the clippings I collect
- Hit up the shops/life with Andrea
- Party hard(ish) with Sam
- Play copious amounts of Gamecube with Matthew
- Organise something with The Girls from school
- Read all the books in this monstrous stack I have – five different trips to the library and the four I need to finish beside my bed (if you click on the photo you can see it full size so you can have a “browse” of my library shelf)
The real question is how much of this list will I actually get through and how much I won’t finish.