Your Opinion Is Wrong™

I just bought a Chariot CD and a Stolen Babies CD. Happy, happy, joy, joy. Listening to the first one (The Fiance) and am quite impressed so far. This is an album with personality.

Also, there's something else that's coming which I'm sure to blog about. I can hardly contain my excitement.

Spending money does make me feel better sometimes :-D

Here comes a rant. Now, Lucas, this ain't about you or Pete. Our little outfit's all about the muckin' around for our own amusement (in my eyes, anyway) with no intention of gigging and I know you have other commitments.

I was reading a forum on Harmony Central years ago which involved a discussion about the most important qualities people look for in other musicians. There were quite a few typical responses out there, but one person's entry stuck with me - reliability. For gigging bands, people need to show up to rehearsals and (more importantly) gigs. It's not just about turning up, though. It's about being prepared and planning ahead (speaking in redundant terms wasn't mentioned) to make the most of this precious time that we're burning. Preparedness means better jam sessions to go over written material and better gigs.

Now I read this well before I started working with anyone but Lucas, so at that stage what I was reading was 100.03% theoretical. Now that I've actually taken on various other projects over the past year or so, I've become a little disappointed. I've had a small number of jam sessions with bands/musos that I was writing stuff for - one has gone well. The others didn't really happen - when you've got half a band, you really can't do much in the way of rehearsal sometimes.

I've pulled the plug on three potential collaborators so far and have received what I believe to be a Long No from a two others. Not a Long No that I could identify to begin with (that would have saved time, wouldn't it?), instead it's always just a display of symptoms of people being ridiculously disorganised, making it hard to tell whether they want to work with me or not.

A month ago, I had taken on a little project with someone I work with (dear reader, you may know who this is or you may not) which I think I'll just shut down before I get too involved in arranging parts for it. The Other Half Of The Duo is not really doing much, although it was their concept. We were supposed to have a few jam sessions which just haven't happened on the basis that he doesn't feel like jamming when the day comes - well, at least he's not beating around the bush and just bloody says it. Material is written, but no lyrics put down (anyone who knows me should already know that if there's lyric-writing happening, it's never done by me). Similar issues occurred with previous experiences that I was talkin' about.

So - reliability. Yeah.

I think I've proven to myself by this point that I can keep to a schedule, so I might try pimping out my bass-playing again to an established band. I keep saying I'll just go with some group that needs a replacement or something, but I haven't really looked too hard lately. You'd think with all this whining that I would have, right? O.o

On the plus side, hopefully ZRS will be more productive than ever. Pete's taken his guitar back to his place so that he can actually go over guitar parts that I write - saving him from having to learn them when he gets over to my place. w00t!

Have you caught yourself watching an X-Files episode thinking you've just watched this episode in another season? Read on - you may be watching an Ethnic Episode!

1) The episode takes place within a cultural niche found somewhere usually in the American mainland.
2) Mulder and Scully are assigned to investigate an unexplained/unexplainable death of somebody who exists within this culture.
3) They usually encounter resistance by the majority of the people within the culture.
4) As a result of not being able to speak the language (or, you know, just because), they enlist the services of a detective who is of the same ethnicity - this person is used as their 'key' into the society that the investigation takes place in.
5) The culture has some hokey little mythos that crop up at some point during the duo's investigation. While the Ethnic Detective is always very knowledgeable about the strange little customs, myths and rituals, he's usually above them - always slightly disconnected from the culture while still justifying his presence with that whole 'cultural bridge' thing.
6) There's almost always a young woman in the episode - usually a daughter of a major player within the culture.

So there you have it: Six easy steps to determine whether it's been done before. The ethnicity in question just needs to be changed and voila - you have a whole new episode.

If you're still reading (AND WHY WOULDN'T YOU BE?!?!), here's a checklist for an episode that's not an Ethnic Episode, but a part of the ongoing conspiracy story arc:

1) Skinner asks Mulder or Scully 'Do you expect me to believe that?' at some point during the epiode.

So I was reading an essay written by George Monbiot. He was basically singling out out airline companies as one of the most responsible bodies of people regarding environmental concerns in the next few decades and what they were doing about it (not much, according to the information given).

I find this ironic as I was reading the essay on a plane as I was flying back to Sydney. Probably not the best thing to be reading at that point in time...

...or is it?

...I'm sorry, you thought I was going to say something? NO.