The diary of Seiji san

How not to surf

2012-02-07T20:16:00.003+10:30

When you have a tiny camera on the end of your board, people expect a show. Instead, I decided to eat it on the first wave.

Lil` Seiji

2011-10-06T14:27:00.004+10:30

Eddie was my best friend in high school. From the day he arrived in year 8 til the day he left in year 10, we hung out nearly every single day. Riding around on our BMXs after school. Plottin ways to get the Bels and the Solzas and the Valas to smile at us.

He rocked an afro and introduced me to Bob Marley. I packed a calculator and tried to get him to stay in class and not drop out.

Eventually, their whole family had to return to Papua New Guinea, and I never heard from him again. That was some 12 years ago.

Then yesterday I see his name in my inbox!!!!

He put my name in to Google and found my email address. He`s the father of two, with another bun in his wife`s oven. I`m already mad emotional, right!? I tried for yeeears to track this dude down. Here comes the knock out. He tells me he named his son after me.

SEIJI.

Imagine that! I can`t stop thinking about it. There`s a little boy in Papua, no doubt rockin a mean fro, playin silly buggas. Lil` Seiji.

Fish in the Sky

2011-09-08T10:37:00.004+09:30

Steph`s best mate came to visit us last week. So we put on our tourist hats and went out exploring! Kabukichou provided us with one of the funniest nights in recent memory but that`s on some what happens in kabukichou, stays in... type shizinisms.

On the less devo flip side, we found this super rad Sky Aquarium on the 52nd floor of the Roppongi Hills building. Good on ya Tokyo.

Omar Musa takes on the world

2011-08-31T17:47:00.004+09:30

The Australian ran an article this morning with the headline:

Are we disrespecting the Opposition Leader? And is it because he`s a pugilistic wing nut?

They are quoting Omar of course, from this week`s episode of Q & A. I have nothing but respect for O, and his eloquent choice of words. I don`t agree that Obama is another Bush, but that`s just the point of the show, for there to be an intelligent discussion with opposing views. And not only did Omar hold his own, but by provoking panel members and steering the conversation with his wit and charm, I dare say he stole the show. Punctuated by nailing the closing poem.

I love that one of our mates has the courage and poise to articulate his thoughts on live national TV. Amazing. In case you missed it, check it out here: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3299482.htm

No flattened houses in Tokyo

2011-08-19T11:24:00.008+09:30

Shit got real last night!

We have a friend who`s involved in the HopeStay program. HopeStay arranges temporary homestays for Earthquake victims.

Our mate`s been hosting a bloke for a week from Iwate, up north, which lost half its population in the March earthquake/tsunami.

We all went out to dinner last night, the four of us. There was polite small talk. (Is it rude to ask about it?). Maybe not, but probably. Eventually I ask "Are you enjoying your time in Tokyo?" and the reply comes "Yes. There are no flattened houses in Tokyo".

People can`t seem to help but being intrigued by drama, even (or especially) tragedies. We just gotta know. Speaking for my own curiosity, I simply cannot fathom his struggle.

We learn through his strained voice that everyday in Iwate he sees flattened houses. There are no more bodies he says. In Tokyo for the first time in a long time he feels "safe". If there`s one thing he`s learnt: "First, take care of yourself". Isn`t that human nature? All too knowingly, he shakes his head sadly. "Too many firemen and police men went to hospitals and old people`s homes to help them evacuate. They all died. There was 30 minutes between the Earthquake and the first Tsunami," he tells us. "Those that went home for their parents or children, did not live."

How`d he get out? Dude heard a siren, did a U-turn and drove as fast as he could up a big ass mountain. His eyes answered the question that no one asked, about his family.

That was my overdose of realness for the week. Stephie and I signed up so we can be HopeStay hosts as well.

I'm on award tour

2011-08-09T22:42:00.003+09:30

We always wanted to hit up Moscow, cause we heard that it was completely unlike any other place.

On time, like George Michael

2011-08-08T22:23:00.002+09:30

Rich, who never fails to deliver the goods, sent me this fun little beat making site.

For a full 20 minutes I had myself convinced that I should quit Science and pursue my long hidden passion of making hip hop beats.

'Til I realised that the clever cartoon beat dudes automagically drop your samples at the start of the next bar. Crisp.

Last Thoughts:

Been away awhile, but the lure of electronic self gratification got the better of me.

Melo State of Mind part I

2011-04-03T21:52:00.017+09:30

New York City represent, represent, sent

- A Tribe Called Quest.

I fell in love with the city of New York! Admittedly this is not one of the more original emotions I've had recently. Even the plastic bags in NY love their city. The birthplace of Hip Hop, and still the centre of the world, I've been hearing about the pleasures of the grimy concrete jungle for too many years to stay away. It took my brother's moving there to lecture at Columbia University for me to finally check it out.

The timing ended up being perfect. Stephie and I attempted to move to Tokyo on the 9th of March, two days before the Earthquake hit. Luckily we were sightseeing in Kyoto at the time of the quake and only felt a small tremble. We'd planned the NY visit days before on an impulse and flew out of Tokyo on the 14th, hoping to return after 9 days. The Aussie Government prohibited us from returning due to the nuclear incident so we're actually back in Australia until the whole thing blows over.

Tokyo was a bit of a mess, what with the limited train lines and half stacked food shelves, but it definitely isn't unsafe. I've been reading a lot about it and there's little doubt that DFAT is over reacting in regard to the threat of nuclear radiation. As has been reported elsewhere, the levels of radiation in Tokyo right now is still lower than the baseline level of radiation in plenty of major cities around the world. The inconvenience is that Tokyo only has access to around 50% of its usual rate of electricity, hence the rolling blackouts during peak hour. But that is no reason for a DFAT level 5 scenario.

This represents a problem that seems to be recurring, which is that the communication between scientists and politicians is in general weak, and the result is seemingly unwise policy decisions. We see this happening time and again, with Climate change being the obvious example. Science communication is definitely a field I'd like to hit up after my PhD.

In the meantime, let me drop some photos of our time in NY.

Shiro posing behind his two favourite objects

Our local line at West 86th street

Stephie D rockin' a Yankees hat on the subway

42nd street by night

Chinatown near Tribeca

Lining up for student tickets to Broadway show Memphis

Mexican food in Brooklyn

Shiro and Shiori's local grocery store Wholefoods

St Paddy's day, watching March Madness

The city had a Melo State of Mind

The Celtics at Madison Square Garden

For a fan of the game, it doesn't get better than this

Times Square (30 photos stuck together)

Close up of the centre to show the quality

This came out pretty sick I reckon. I mapped the panorama onto polar coordinates (looking up)

(looking down)

Last Thoughts

Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning and the first thing that I saw...

Good Vibes 2011

2011-03-18T11:37:00.002+10:30

I made this on the plane the other day, it took me 3 hours for a 30 second clip.

Byron Bay with Johnny

2011-03-09T09:09:00.004+10:30

Johnny and I spent a week in Byron Bay recently. This was part of the "I'm leaving Australia, soak up as much fun as possible!" month.

Australia to Japan

2011-03-09T08:05:00.003+10:30

Every few years I pack up and leave the country.

I love Australia, obviously. More than the next bloke, even. But there's so much to see out there, and I love adventures! Gotta keep moving!

This time, it's Tokyo again :) Unlike last time though, I've bought a one way ticket! And unlike last time, I'm taking my girlfriend with me!! Quite a number of keen observers have expressed their surprise at this. I've left three girls behind so far in my young hectic life, as I've set out to explore the world. Never regretted leaving, but would have done it differently each time.

The first time, I should have sorted out my mind state first so that she didn't get so hurt. The second time I should have left much earlier. The third time I shouldn't have stayed with her.

I'm writing this in the departure lounge as she sleeps here on the couch next to me :) Fourth upon a time, lets see it how it plays out...

PM's Award

2010-12-03T10:54:00.003+10:30

I received an award recently for studying too much. A bunch of other kids were awarded too. Since it was called the Prime Minister's Post Graduate Award, they figured it might be nice for us to have dinner with the PM.

Only, she calls us last minute and cancels. Reckons she was too busy. But she did invite us to Parliament to meet her briefly for an awkward rendition of small talk.

I'm not making this up, listen to this. While Julia was making her way over to us, the guy two places to my left pulled out a book and started reading it.

I asked him under my breath "bro, are you serious? What are you doing?". He replies "I'm so nervous. I want to appear relaxed".

I had to laugh!

Sheep skin interior Loaded Ceviche

2010-07-17T16:14:00.003+09:30

I remembering seeing this dude skating in Cali a few years ago rockin' the craziest style! He had carpeted his longboard and was riding barefoot to the beach while holding a surfboard.

For some reason I was thinking of California when I woke up this morning so I stuck some carpet to my loaded fish board only to find a couple of hours later that Peeps, my creative housemate had painted a face on there! Not quite what I had in mind, but Legendary!

Pretty sure no one in the Southern hemisphere is skating a custom made sheep skin '09 ceviche!

Guess Who

2010-07-11T11:32:00.005+09:30

I gave Josh a custom made Guess Who set for his birthday a few weeks ago. He's always been the glue that's held the group together, and no one appreciates his friends more than Josh. So even though he thinks board games are wack, I knew he'd dig this custom made drinking game that he can play with his mates.

Here is a quick three step process on how to do it yourself:

Step one: Buy a guess who game for $20 from K mart

Step two: Print out faces of all your mates, including a few ex girlfriends and some local hotties

Step three: Play, in the form of a drinking game, where you can only ask creative questions such as: "has anyone in this room slept with the person?" or "has the person ever wet themselves in public" or anything else that is potentially embarrassing.

Saul Williams by ELK

2010-07-10T08:52:00.006+09:30

Omar and Kodak performed at ELK's exhibition last night at the Front gallery. They killed it as usual, I'll post the vid soon.

I'd only gone to support the boys, but ended up falling in love with local artist ELK's stencil art. In particular this one piece featuring Saul Williams. And I thought, that would look sick in our new apartment in Tokyo... so I bought it!

How to Gamble on the World Cup

2010-06-03T16:53:00.002+09:30

There are so many World Cup sweepstakes going around and maybe it's just my group of friends, but everyone seems to be going a little bit sports gambling crazy!

So I've spent a bit of time coming up with my very own super bet, which I shall call "The Seiji Bet".

Keep in mind this has been mathematically calculated using permutations and combinatorics and some other hard words that neither you nor I understand, to absolutely guarantee that a small percentage of the time, you will win 100% of the time.

All you need is $32 and a bucket load of good luck.

The Seiji Bet

So check it out, the World Cup breaks down like this: 32 teams in 8 groups. That's 4 teams per group.

If you can pick the top two teams (in order) of each group, you stand to win a lot of money. That's essentially what it boils down to.

The tricky part is, there are 429,981,696 possible combinations of how that can play out. Why is that? Because there are 12 possibilities in each group, and there are 8 groups, so it's 12 to the power of 8.

That's not quite worth putting money on, right?

Well suppose that instead of having to consider every possibility, you only had to pick the top 2 most likely outcomes in each group. Take group G for example. We have

a) Brazil

b) Portugal

c) Ivory Coast

d) North Korea

I'd pick for my most likely scenario

1st place: Brazil

2nd place: Portugal

And for my second most likely scenario

1st place: Brazil

2nd place: Ivory Coast

If we do that for each group, and forget about any other situation, then there are only 256 possible combinations. Down from 430 million to only 256! And I still get the two most likely situations in every group!

Taking this further, I reckon there are 3 groups in which the most likely scenario is so much more likely than the second most likely scenario that we can limit our choice here to just the one.

I'm talking about

group C with 1st: England, 2nd: USA (forget Slovenia and Algeria),

group F with 1st: Italy, 2nd: Paraguar (forget Slovakia and New Zealand)

group H with 1st: Spain, 2nd: Chile (forget Switzerland and Honduras)

Now there are only 2 to the power of 5, or 32 possible combinations!

Are you ready for the kicker? The most likely situation of the entire world cup - so taking the favourites for 1st and 2nd in each group - is paying 9072 to 1. And the least likely out of our possible 32 combinations is paying 18272 to 1.

See where I'm headed with this?

I've put $1 down for each of the 32 scenarios that can play out if I'm actually a genius and what I said before makes even a little bit of sense.

Last Thoughts

Chances are, some North Korean stooge will have the game of his life and cause an upset and I won't win, but for only laying down a measly $32, and having the chance to win between $9000 and $18,000, who cares?!!

TED x Sydney

2010-05-26T11:00:00.003+09:30

I went to an amazing conference last Saturday in Sydney. It was a TED x event, which meant that some of Australia's best minds came to give talks, with the platform being an "exchange of ideas".

Even though I was just an audience member, I really felt like I was a part of the whole event, ya know!? There was this super electric buzz in the air, like when you're about to play hide the sausage with your new girlfriend for the first time. The anticipation knowing that someone amazing is about to happen is just crazy!

There were too many mind blowing (I'm not Fat Joe but that Big Pun was intended) talks to detail, but let me mention my favourite three:

Michael Kirby

In case you didn't know

Australia's beloved former high court justice, who made some pivotal decisions during his stint as the longest serving judge in Aussie history.

What'd he say?
He spoke passionately about how homophobic Australia is and why we must have secularism in the state. Dope words, honorable Kirb!

Nigel Marsh

In case you didn't know

Author of Overworked and Underlaid

What'd he say?

The benefits of maintaining a good work/life balance. His appeal was that he was just an every day bloke, with a painfully simple message that relates to everyone, no matter their demographic.

Julian Morrow

In case you didn't know

Co-founder of the Chaser

What'd he say?

As the last speaker at a TED conference, Julian had the difficult task of giving a summary of all ten of the previous talks. Needless to say, he nailed it. The dude has jokes for days. He was the one guy I couldn't speak to at the after party because he consistently had 4 or 5 girls hanging off him.

Last Thoughts

It took me three James Squire Sundowns to work up the courage and about 20 minutes of telling people I was going to do it, but I finally did it man. I walked straight up to Lars Rasmussen, the Danish demigod who created Google Maps and more recently Google Wave, and said G'day at the after party. After three sentences of small talk, I told him that I would like to work for him. He laughed, and said "okay, lets see if that happens one day". What can I say, I'm a hustlah bay bee.

Big respect to Remo Guiffre who organised the entire event. Due to his unbelievable hustle, everything was volunteer and sponsorship paid. Even musicians like Missy Higgins and Mr Percival performed for free.

If you want to check out some nice photos of the event, check the flickr reel by clicking here

The Book of Seiji, Travel Edition (vol 2)

2010-05-06T09:42:00.002+09:30

Remember a couple of years ago when I traveled South America and fell in love with the continent? Well I had some nice photos of the trip, especially from my 6 weeks in Peru, and one month long adventure in Brasil. And since I happened to keep a little written journal during the trip, I had all the materials for a nice little book, in the form of a travel journal.

I'm making it sound like it was my idea, when in actuality I straight stole the plan from my girl who wrote some dope books about her travels. Either way, it took me awhile, but I finally got it printed and it arrived about a week ago. I found a way to show it here, but the publishing site only lets me show the first few pages...

So you'll just have to borrow it from me one day and have yourself a squidj-iri-didge.

The Book of Seiji Travel Edition, vol. 2 by Seiji Armstrong | BOOK INFO

Axis of Awesome

2010-04-28T08:30:00.002+09:30

Stephie and I saw this comedy band at the Fringe festival last year, on about our 3rd ever date. In this one track, they play "every single hit pop song using only four chords".

What's Beef?

2010-04-18T12:58:00.004+09:30

A friend told me over coffee this morning that he bumped in to a mutual mate of ours, who was out on the town the other night. Apparently the dude was pretty drunk and started ragging on me about my basketball skills, and how I think I'm all that when I have the ball in my hands. Hearing this obviously hurt my feelings, and since I considered this guy a pretty good mate, I called him up straight away.

I wasn't real sure how it was going to play out since I was a touch angry, but I gotta say I have new found respect for the dude.

Me: "Hey bro, I just had coffee with (...) and he tells me that he saw you out the other night and you were talking mad shit about me?!"
Dude: "yeah? I was pretty drunk bro, what did I say?"
Me: "That I think I'm a mad cunt on the court and.."
Dude: "you do.."
Me: "yeah but, the way you said it. And also that I have no game?!"
Dude: "I didn't mean any harm mate, just talking shit"
Me: "Bro, I've been nothing but nice to you man, then I hear you're running around talking shit about my game? It's not the greatest feeling."
(Filler)
Dude: "yeah that's my bad. Last thing I wanted to do was offend you. But we all think we're mad cunts on the court, and none of us take criticism well."
Me: "yeah but don't you think it would have been better to tell me to my face that you have a problem with my game?"
Dude: "I do, I tell you that you dribble too much.."
Me: "that's true... but you know what I'm saying?"
Dude: "yeah I do, it was filthy of me. I apologise mate"

That's roughly how it went down, with about 3 minutes of filler. He didn't deny it, didn't back down, and apologised genuinely. There is absolutely nothing more than that he could have possibly done, and I can learn a lot from the way he handled it. Everyone talks shit, especially when the MVP votes are coming up and there is a lot of ego at stake. So there it is, a lesson learned in emotional intelligence.

Is that the key to your heart?

2010-04-12T23:25:00.008+09:30

Josh recently bought a new car, which was excuse enough for a road trip! So we drove up to Byron Bay for some Easter festivities.

With just the right combination of beach time and clubbing, it was definitely a trip to remember.

Obama is the coolest prez of all time

2010-04-09T10:33:00.004+09:30

Here are 3 videos which made me smile yesterday:

Obama shooting hoops, via Brian

Janelle Mornae and Big Boi - Tight Rope, via OkayPlayer

A TED talk on how to start a movement and leadership skills, via the TED conference

Shiro and Shiori's wedding

2010-02-04T13:13:00.004+10:30

My brother Shiro married his lovely girl Shiori on the 19th of December, 2009. That wasn't a typo, their names are really similar.

Don't worry I worked that in to my Best Man speech. The crowd loved it. The same joke in Japanese bombed, though. I don't think those Japs were drinking enough... Can I say Japs? Is that still offensive? Shouldn't be. I really like the word. I'm going to try claim it back. Jappity Jap Jap.

Back to the wedding. I'm feeling heaps chatty, sorry. Let me just post the photos and keep the commentary to a minimum.

The Best Men

The Stunning Bride

"Bro, are you sure?!"

Too late now! Ian Blackwell's delivered the bride

"put your foot on the ground, where I'm pointing, yeah that's it"

The groomsmen are looking handsome!

Keepin' it local; they were married on mount painter, our backyard

That's the rug from our lounge room

Hey there's Stephie in the background!

Roba's thinking of doing a runner with the ring. "Anyone watching?"

Is that Kenesi's Dad?! Sure is, he was the celebrant. Represent!

Too late Roba

Hey those trees look great. Are they Eucalyptus?

Bridal family

I see you trying to sneak in to the photo Stephie! Don't get any ideas!

Gorgeous newlyweds

This photo should be in a Bridal magazine. I think Boyd Blackwell took it

Chinatown aka my Aunties, one uncle and a cousin

"I've made a huge mistake"

Reception at Uni House

VIP table. Shiiiiit

"Well I've known Shiro since I was...."

Pretty sure this is when I gave my Dad a shout out. Mad Cunt

Some of Shiro's mates

They're all good eggs

This ol' chestnut

The next person who asks "when is it your turn?" with a dumb smile is going to end up in the pond

Actually this was unrelated. Roba just drank too much. Legend

Swim your way out my friend!

The Blackwells, our favourite family

The Cool Kids

The Ingrams and the Davies

Uncle Alec, cousins Amy and Tim, and the next generation

Shiro's unofficial Godfather P Diddy, and Liz

That's my girrrrl. What a stunner

Both done well

All you need is love. bum ba ba ba bum

After the party is the after party

Pretty sure Kenesi and I made out just after this photo was taken.

Kenesi: "Seiji, I love you."

Seiji: ".....I know."

It's over!

Last Thoughts:

Without a doubt, it was one of the best days of my life. I was so proud.

Byron Bay

2010-02-03T18:52:00.004+10:30

I've just spent four heavenly days in Byron Bay.

Dad used to take us there in the Kombi when we were kids, and I spent an entire summer there a few years back discovering my inner hippie, and so it's become this magical place for me that I have to return to every now and then.

It's like I'm the little dude who stumbles upon the closet in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but instead of battling beasts in Narnia, I escape reality and find myself surrounded by world class surf beaches, beautiful back packing babes, and rad story telling travelers.

The excuse for going up this time was that Johnny has been suffering from heartbreak and also lack of surf. I suggested a little long weekend remedial road trip, and he's been smiling ever since :)

I didn't take these photos, but I swear it's this good and then some:

Last Thoughts

We slept in a tee pee and made a thousand friends at the camp site.

The crowd there is super Bohemian and straight up gypsie, which is heaps refreshing to be immersed in for awhile. On the last day I was saying goodbyes and this Canadian traveler named Paula tells me "Oh you're going back to the real world?? That is so sad." So I laugh and tell her "yeah a little bit. But you know what? I love the real world man!" And she pulls this extremely honest, innocent face and replies "Oh. I wouldn't know."

That just about summed up all of Byron Shire, half the people there have no idea what the real world looks like! Love it!

A Tasmanian New Year

2010-01-12T18:18:00.004+10:30

Tassie! Respect!

I had no idea that Tasmania was so freakin beautiful. I've never been one to voluntarily go trekking, but having just spent two weeks in search of the perfect climb, I might have found a new passion.

Check out my little video journal I threw together at lunch time:

There were plenty of moments when I didn't get my camera out and some of those were my favourite times.

The highlight was at the top of "The Walls of Jerusalem", let me try describe how it went down. The sun went down as we were cooking on the camp stove and by the time we had eaten it was near pitch black. So we blew out all our candles, lay on our backs, and watched the stars for minutes that went for hours. We had Ben Harper's "Welcome to a cruel world" playing quietly on Kat's speakers which fit the mood so well you would swear the music was made for that moment.

The stars became infinitely bright and I'm pretty sure no one had anything floating through their minds except for one thought, which was this: how beautiful is life?!

Omar Bin Musa and Kodak the Moment

2009-12-23T09:18:00.001+10:30

Omar Bin Musa and Kodak the Moment perform at the Spader Clothing Summer Launch at Globalise, December 2009.

Life Vinyl on 45rpm

2009-12-09T13:15:00.003+10:30

So Life is real busy these days.

I've just spent 10 days in Adelaide, the weekend before that I went to Melbourne for a mate's birthday party and the weekend before that we went bush walking up and around the Budawangs.

And now I've been told that if I get some decent results in the science lab by Christmas they'll send me to Paris next year to work over there for 3 months!

So instead of writing anything interesting here, I'm going to go old school and send you to two pages I liked a lot recently. One is flat out inspiring, and the other one made me chuckle.

The first one is about our mate, Pierre Johannessen, who has just received the coveted Young Australian of the Year Award, ACT edition. We play basketball on Pierre's team, and the boys over at Spader Clothing have a nice interview with him.

The next one is a site that Rich sent me this morning, where some dude has compiled Obama quotes from one of his books.

Who the Heck is Fidel Castro?!

2009-10-23T08:37:00.006+10:30

Guess who walked in to my lab earlier this week?

Fidel Castro!

I'm only being slightly misleading. I'll come correct; we were paid a visit by the son of former dictator and president of Cuba, Fidel Castro. But he wears the same name.

Officially, he's the Scientific Advisor to the President of Cuba (his uncle, Raul), and as I understand it he's on a trip around the world to foster scientific collaboration between the top science groups in the world and Cuban groups.

Only thing is, we were told that morning that we'll have a high profile visitor so "get the lab clean". So I'm vacuuming hard out and they must have been early cause when the door opens I've still got the vacuum cleaner in my hand.

I'm frozen in my spot, noisily vacuuming the same spot of the ground looking dumbfounded as the splitting image of the great revolutionary and his entourage of security stand around looking important. Quick to dismiss me, Fidelito proceeds to shake everyone else's hand.

No!

I wanted to shout

I'm not a cleaner, Fidelito!! I'm a scientist too!!

But instead I put the hoover back in its designated closet space. By the time I come back the dude is deep in conversation with my Czech Republican team leader and here I come awkwardly trying to stand close enough to be included in to the conversation. Then I fail to come up with a good opener and before I know it they're saying goodbyes!

Dammit!

Last Thoughts:

I felt like a lesser Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting...

Raphael Saadiq

2009-10-10T16:16:00.003+10:30

I guess these days with such amazing producers floating around, it's kinda hard to tell who can really sing. Thank god Jay Z declared the death of Auto-tune, that shit was hot for a minute but as soon as Kanye went near it, it threatened to kill music.

Here's Raphael Saadiq on national public radio, singing like people used to do. No effects, no hype, just a friend with a backing guitar.

Q Tip - Life is Better

2009-10-10T15:33:00.002+10:30

Saw this over at OkayPlayer just now. A touch late, since Tip's new album came out a couple weeks ago and all, but I love this video, it's hella quirky. Norah Jones fits the track so well!

Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-10T13:48:00.003+10:30

The New York Times had a great write up this morning regarding the surprise announcement of the Nobel committee, awarding my boy Obama with the peace prize.

Read it and watch the video of his reaction speech.

Last Thoughts

When Stephie and I found out last night via Marksy, she asked me "yeah we love him, but what has he done though?"

And I told it to her like this, check it out, he took a country that everyone hated, and is turning it into a country that everyone loves again.

The fact that the country in question is the most powerful in the world makes this a significant feat.

(500) days of Summer

2009-09-30T12:31:00.004+09:30

I went and watched (500) days of Summer the other night with the boys.

You need to watch this, its easily the best love related story I've seen since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In the same vain as Juno and Amelie; this flick has an infectious soundtrack, a super quirky screenplay and the result is pure magic.

I was going to post the trailer, but it gives too much away! do yourself a favour and go watch the real thing.

Even JC liked it, and he hates movies! Shout out to Omar who convinced us all it would be dope, when we were worried it'd be a crummy romantic comedy.

White Ribbon

2009-09-28T11:47:00.004+09:30

I recently became an ambassador for White Ribbon. What this entails is to spread one central message: To show love to our women.

Officially, the cause is to eliminate the violence against women globally.

My thinking is that a grass roots solution would be the most effective. Meaning, a bottom up approach. Instill values in to children and young adults which reflect the cause of the White Ribbon campaign. A clever way to achieve this is to make it cool to treat girls right. Cause if there's anything I've learnt from Cornell West, its that kids will chase The Cool, and let it dictate the actions in their lives.

And what's cooler than sport? If a sporty kid in year 7 sees Kevin Rudd pledging the White Ribbon Oath they might not take much notice. But now imagine the kid seeing their favourite footy player or sporting hero telling us to love the women in our lives. This resonates more closely in their lives.

Which is why I was stoked to learn that the Australian Sporting Commission is involved and currently in the process of designing a campaign. More on this in November when it will be launched.

Admittedly, we need to cater to kids in all disciplines but I think sport is a good example of how to target kids who might not otherwise care about such things.

In the meantime, lets all take the pledge with a simple click: http://www.myoath.com.au/

Because we all love girls. They are so beautiful.

Loaded Ceviche

2009-09-26T18:52:00.002+09:30

My new skatie, the Loaded Ceviche

I bought it from an old fella at Rip City, Santa Monica.

It rides so different to my Vanguard board, so much faster around corners! I won't lie, I have no idea how to carve on this thing, I need to learn how to work the kicker. I'm pretty good at walking around holding it though. Tick that box baby.

Will Ferrell on Health Care

2009-09-23T08:35:00.004+09:30

On the way back from Brasil I stopped by sunny Southern California for just long enough to eat some Mexican and buy a new skatie. I saw Obama on the news a fair bit over there. Poor guy, he's having a tough time with this health care reform.

I've recently read both his autobiographies, Dreams from my Father and the Audacity of Hope so admittedly I'm a little biased on Obama issues. I love the guy, and you should too.

But to an amateur like me, the health care debate seems to be black and white.

America spends more money on health care than anywhere in the world, and everyone more or less seems to agree that their current system sucks. So Obama proposes a reform. Now the experts (whoever they are) seem to all agree that it is a good reform and will save the states a lot of money and cover a lot more people. What's more, if you don't like it you can keep your current system. Apparently a win-win situation.

The trouble starts with the Republican party, the opposition, who would like to see Obama's political career damaged, at any cost, and so have spread propaganda and blatant lies about the reform to make him look bad. And the scary part is, it seemed to work, he's having a lot of trouble passing the bill.

So it seems to be not so much about health care, as it is about Obama versus the Republicans. The US public is the judge, and I just hope for their sake they make the right choice.

Check out what a bunch of comedians have to say about the topic, via MoveOn.org:

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Rob Machado - The Drifter

2009-09-08T10:29:00.004+09:30

There's nothing better than getting gently high on a comfy couch, throwing on a surf flick and being taken away for a couple of hours to exotic islands and endless rolling breaks.

I'm a big fan of the Woodshed films; I still remember watching A Broke Down Melody in Jon's dorm room back in Santa Barbara, 2004 and falling in love. Since then my Sprout, Shelter, and Thicker Than Water DVDs have been spun so many times you would think they were Sublime records at a Long Beach house party.

Apart from maybe Kelly Slater, my favourite surfer to watch was and still is Rob Machado. So when I came across a trailer for his new new flick on Dirk's website - which is definitely worth checking out by the way - I was stoked!

It looks like he's finally getting his own movie:

Big Bang Ballers

2009-09-07T04:16:00.004+09:30

About time I gave the Big Bang Ballers a shout out I reckon. This is Pierre's NGO which is blowing up like the world trade. Making big big waves all over the world, they are helping kids with their education, giving them a reason to smile and all in the name of basketball.

Check out their cause by checking out the website for the Big Bangs here and lets all support home grown NGOs. This is an event they have coming up:

Tongue & Groove Proudly presents the 2009
BIG BANGS GALA FUNDRAISER
Cocktails and Basketball
Celebrating the Big Bangs, an international NGO using the game of basketball to fight youth poverty and social disadvantage worldwide.
Join us for an elegant evening on Monday, 14th September, from 7pm to 10pm, as we strive to raise $11,000 for the Big Bangs’ school and orphanage camps in Bangladesh, Philippines, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Pakistan.
Tickets are $30.00 per head.
Tickets may be purchased at Tongue & Groove or online from 1st September. Limited numbers only.

Summer School in Paraty

2009-09-07T03:33:00.006+09:30

So the first week of summer school finished this morning. It's been an absolute blast! What a crazily good lifestyle I have here! Let me tell you about it.

I've been getting up every morning at 6 for a sunrise dip, most times to swim off the gentle hang over from the night before. Walk back to the hostel and read (just finished another Kurt Vonnegut and now am on the White Tiger) until the cool kids from different countries start trickling out of their rooms. Over dose on super fresh Papaya and watermelon for brekky while hearing stories from all over the world :)

Walk to school on the streets that sing reggae all day long :)

The school itself is 9 to 12, then 4 to 8, where I'll absorb science like a sponge and get super motivated and inspired to learn all that I can about this quantum shit.

During the 4 hour lunch break and in the evening we'll sit around on the beach eating Acai, drinking Agua de coco, telling lots of jokes and thinking of nothing else but enjoying life at that very moment :)

Every night's a party. I can't even keep up, I've only been going to the parties every second night, the other nights we might sit at a big table outside the bar and drink til late laughing at my butchered portugese and discussing girls, football and music.

Last night Brasil played Argentina in the world cup qualifiers and so they threw a big party at one of the share houses here. There would have been about 40, 50 of us piled in to that lively house, with half of the crowd from Argentina and half of the crowd from Brasil (with me and a few others in the middle!). There was so much chanting, dancing and singing throughout the whole 90 minutes I thought I was in a stadium!! And when Brasil won we stayed up all night drinking and celebrating. They sure can dance over here...

Last Thoughts

We have one more week, then I'll head home through Cali again. Might grab a new skatie in LA. Always wanted to ride a Loaded Ceviche, I reckon that would be sick for Tokyo where you need to dodge lots of people on the sidewalks...

Oh and by the way, Brasillians are the coolest people in the world. These are supposed to be physics geeks but they party harder than any Aussie I know. And always a smile on their dial with a joke up their sleeve! I might have to move here.

Paraty

2009-09-01T12:32:00.007+09:30

Wow, Paraty is absolutely beautiful.

The other students are mainly from other countries in South Americam and it turns out that I'm the only person here who doesn't speak either Spanish or Portugese - most people speak both fluently.

Someone threw a big house party last night which was amazing. We started at 6pm with a Brasillian style Barbie. I was drunk by 8pm, and speaking Portugese by 10pm haha. Somehow I had a bag of jokes last night and had a small crew in stitches too. After a few good calls, it went to my head and I was on a roll like ham and cheese! I might as well have changed my name to Seiji Seinfeld.

I realised when i woke up gorggily this morning that I somehow spent all night talking to lots of people and making new friends, even though I couldn't speak their language! Of course the beers helped, but I reckon I must be getting pretty good at the fine art of communcating through gestures and key words.

I'll never forget this guy Matt who I met in the Japanese alps years ago when I did a season there working at a snow boarding resort. He was a Kiwi, so his name was actually Mett, who couldn't speak a word of Japanese. But you wouldn't know it, he had the most friends at the place and the Japanese snow boarders loved him! He had a super high emotional intelligence and could empathise with the best of them. I guess most of communication is listening, not only to their words, but their body language and tone and stuff.

Having said that, I've enrolled in Portugese lessons for the short two weeks that I'm here, so hopefully I'll learn enough to be able to chat properly before I leave :)

The other kids from the hostel want to grab some lunch so I better peace out but real quick here's my view from where I'm writing this (the balcony of my hostel):

And then a three second walk out the door (I found out to frame photos in photoshop! looks kinda pro, aye!)

Peace!

Brasil!

2009-08-31T19:46:00.003+09:30

I love Brasil!!

I just flew in to Rio yesterday, via a couple of days in California, and have already fallen back in love with the place!

Tash came to pick me up from the airport, and within minutes we were eating Acai. That's pure goodness right there. Spent the rest of the day at Ipanema and various hangouts catching up on Tash's life and being delighted with some visual pleasures on the beach. Brasillian girls have to be the most scrumptioulacious, rich caramel mocha flavoured, most bootylicious females on the planet.

So I'm off to Paraty for the next two weeks for summer school. Who knew laser physics would bring me all the way to Brasil!? woop woop, revenge of the nerds baby.

My short time in Cali made me reminisce hard about the golden year at Santa Barbara all those years ago. Looking back, it might still be the best year of my life, but you know one thing I missed out on? girls, man. I had this girlfriend whom I loved very much, don't get me wrong, but I don't think she found me attractive at all because she never wanted to sleep with me. She was always tired. "It's only 9pm baby!" I would tell her, but she "got up early" would come the reply. And I just took it like a sucker! aye aye aye, I haven't thought about that in years...

The sun's coming up so I better get some Papaya ready for when Tash wakes up :)

I'm on TV!

2009-08-14T14:43:00.002+09:30

A few weeks ago the producers at the ABC show The New Inventors called up our group at uni and asked us if we'd like to go on their show. We were originally a little confused since we do scientific research in Quantum Optics, and although the group recently had some great results in an experiment, we didn't have a specific product which we could call an invention, let alone anything we could explain to the public on a 3 minute spot.

Unphased, they were super keen and so we relented. Who wouldn't want to go on TV after all?! Even though I'm the most unexperienced in the group, and I came after the particular experiment in question had been completed, due to a number of clauses I was eventually chosen, along with Hans, one of my PhD supervisors, to go on the show.

I was hyped! National TV!

True, high school Seiji always thought I'd make my TV debut for playing basketball, or soccer, or just being a spader in general, and now here I am going on for being a professional N.E.R.D. but hey like Ben Stiller insists in the Extras in regard to his on screen antics, it still counts.

So they flew us up, put us up, and looked after us for two days in the ABC studios in Sydney and the final product was put to air last week on wednesday. I was mad impressed at how much respect was flying around that place. They really made sure that we would be happy with the questions they asked us, and if we wanted something on the set changed they would bend over backwards to be accommodating. I wonder if it's only at ABC? I can't imagine the master chefs on Capital having much say about what they wanted to cook that day...

Anyway, It was all a bit exciting, really :) Uni threw us a viewing party, and I got to see a life size Seiji on the big screen with our entire rent a crowd, which ended up being 150 strong.

Just in case anyone cares, you can watch the episode by clicking here and then launching iView from the panel on the left. You only have til next wednesday I've been told, so get your Seiji fix while it lasts.

Last Thoughts

Yeah it was a bit of fun, and I honestly thought it wouldn't be that exciting, but I've been getting crazy amounts of love from mates about it and even kids I haven't spoken to for a minute have been dropping me lines telling me they caught it while flicking channels last week.

Shout out to Pierre who framed the Canberra Times follow up article for me to show genuine support.

Kenny, an Aussie icon

2009-08-08T16:46:00.004+09:30

One of the funniest movies I've seen recently is Kenny, an Australian mocumentary about a toilet cleaner.

Much like Walter's plan with the bag of dirty laundry, its beauty is in its simplicity. We all know a bloke like Kenny, with a heart of gold and a thousand Aussie euphamisms.

Last Thoughts

If you're Aussie, you need to watch this. If you're a touro, you need to watch this to understand us :)

Can't be fucking with Education. part 4

2009-08-06T14:51:00.012+09:30

It's been all about the science for the last two weeks.

Some people don't know this about me, but I love science.

When I get excited about how much of a scientific mad cunt I am, I might refer to myself as an academic gangster. In the past I have called myself a scholastic jedi, and recently I even went as far as to label myself as a higher educational maverick. Which is all kinda silly, I know. It's all for shits and giggles.

I never thought anyone else would be out there doing the same thing. Which is why I laughed super hard when I got this email from my professor in Tokyo, a guy called Akira.

I guess I never spoke much about him but he was my supervisor last year when i was living in Japan, and he'll be my boss when i go back to Tokyo next year for the second half of my phd.

He's kinda like me, a closet science geek, but if you met us at a party and had a chat you probably wouldn't walk away thinking "damn son, that kid was a bloody muppet." Hopefully you'd walk away thinking "hey you know what? that guy was alright. Maybe even kinda cool. He probably bumps Biggie in his speakers and prefers ATLiens to Stankonia." How right you would be.

Anyway, Akira is this 40 something year old professor, and his lab is undisputedly the best quantum optics lab on the planet. When he speaks, the academic world listens. In fact, dudes in the right circles have said that he'll probably get the nobel prize one day for the shit he did in Cali back in the 90s. He was the first to cook up a working teleportation experiment in his lab. You speak of hardcore...

So I get this email from him yesterday, and in fairly polite japanese he tells me that he sent his latest results to a guy called John Hall, some big shot in the field who got the nobel prize a few years ago, to ask him what he thought. And John writes back with nothing but love and academic praise.

This had Akira so stoked, that he explains to me that John Hall is pretty much "Master Yoda" and this completes Akira's Jedi training. He now sees himself as a certified Jedi.

Keep in mind this is an official email that he sent out to everyone on his staff roll, in a culture where everything has to be precise and courteous and with lots of implied bowing. Akira's got jokes!

Last Thoughts
.... you had to be there.

Melbourne for a weekend

2009-07-19T11:50:00.012+09:30

Last weekend Stephie, Yesi and I went down to Melbourne. We stayed with Charlie, who proved to be the host with the most.

We had dinner on Lygon street

Saw Wicked the Broadway Musical

Had brekky at Saint Kilda

Visited the Gallery to see a Salvador Dali exhibition

and walked a lot.

It was the first trip Stephie and I have done with friends, and there was a little bit of adjusting necessary I guess cause we're used to giving 100% of our attention to each other, but once we figured it out it was gravy (as in: as smooth as).

Last Thoughts

I've got a lot of respect for Charlie, he quit his day job to work on a project with his mate Bao. They're both clever cookies so I tend to believe them when they tell me they'll be certified ballers one day.

Crystal Cascades

2009-07-14T07:36:00.001+09:30

Dan and Bruce jumping off a 12 meter rock platform up at Crystal Cascades, just outside Cairns.

Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival

2009-07-02T16:06:00.006+09:30

I’ve been up in far north Queensland for the last two weeks, enjoying two completely different adventures. The first adventure was the Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival.

I flew in to Cairns, leaving behind an icy cold 7 degrees Canberra winter, stepping off the plane in to 30 degrees of happiness. Bruce and Omar came to pick me up and took me straight to our room at Gilligan’s, a hectic hostel on the main strip. Caught up with the crew, 12 strong, including Dan whom I haven’t seen since October when I visited him in Oxford, which is where he yields his academic light saber these days.

A few beers at the bar, lots of laughs, and damn man it was good to get my relax on, without a worry on my mind. I guess I’ve been working pretty hard on my PhD studies back in C town, and i very rarely get to chill the fuck out 100% for days at a time.

We drove up to Laura, about 7 hours north in Cape York the next day, Bruce and I taking control of the 2 monster 4 wheel drives we hired to transport the 12 of us.

Then for the next 4 days we cooked our meals on the camp fire, slept under the stars on tarps, washed ourselves in the river and were immersed in aboriginal culture. There were some 20 tribes who would share their stories and a window in to their rituals and ways of life, through dances.

Bruce repped his tribe Aurukun hard and I filmed a bit of their dancing. I was so blown away by his dancing man, it was a side of Bruce I’ve rarely seen before. He’s usually the life of the party with his jokes and infectious charisma, and so to see him dead serious and obviously amazingly proud of his home town was mad humbling.

Bruce Martin and fellow dancers from Aurukun at the Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival, 2009.

Like any camping trip, it becomes more about the people you are with. It was a fairly tight group, I guess the core group had gone to grammar together and were super close, to the extent that I sometimes felt a little on the outside, but it was always good times with plenty of laughs.

Omar was on fire the whole trip, the dude’s got jokes for days and had the entire camp in stitches with his sometimes exaggerated but always entertaining story telling. I remember one night I’d fallen asleep while Bruce and Omar were telling hilarious stories right through the night, and I kept hearing snippets of dialogue in my dreams and would wake up laughing.

Celia, Bruce’s mate from way back when, deserves a mention for dominating the campfire kitchen, smashing out tastalicious curries, stews and cooked brekkies.

Last Thoughts:

The day after we got back to Cairns, I caught a bus up to Palm Cove for a science conference which is where I’m writing this from now. There are 2 king size beds in my room, we’ve been eating Barramundi, rib eye fillet steaks, and wines to match every night while the resort overlooks golf courses and beaches. The knowledge they’re showering us with here is dope and I feel like I'm attending the Scholastic Jedi Academy, but you know what? I’d trade it all in to be back at the camp fire by the river aye.

Home by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

2009-06-10T16:30:00.003+09:30

I saw the most amazing TED talk the other day.

It was by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, a French photographer, who talks about his passion for taking photographs of the Earth from above.

Been doing it for years, dropped a few books which demanded respect in the relevant circles, and now he's making movies.

So I checked out his latest docco which he spoke about and it blew my mind! Such beautiful cinematography, and silky smooth transitions. It's called Home and they are showing it for free until the 14th of January here

Go and watch it for 5 minutes if you have time. If you can hold out, around the 20 minute mark is when it starts to blow me away.

Last Thoughts:

The docco is all about Climate Change and although I only saw half of it, I thought it was pretty well done. Kinda hard to talk about that shit without waxing propaganda or appearing subjective.

Spader Clothing in SLAM magazine

2009-06-09T20:00:00.006+09:30

So check it out, Jimmy's clothing label Spader Clothing is absolutely killing it. The T shirt designs are fresh to death, and apparently we're not the only ones who think so. Jimmy told us over lunch today how SLAM magazine have featured a Spader shirt in their latest issue, with Jordan on the cover no less. Baaaaallin!!

Last Thoughts:

Click on the page photo to make it bigger to check the realness. I'm not real sure how you gauge when your label has "made it", but in my books this is a legitimate milestone. Spader is now officially too legit to quit. Respect.

Omar Musa - Hemingway Video

2009-05-30T16:57:00.002+09:30

Omar's video for Hemingway, directed by Tom Spiers. Straight fire.

Shot on location in London over a hectic seven days mainly between the hours of 10pm and 4am Hemingway is the first video for Omar Musa off his "Massive" Ep.

Wolfram Alpha

2009-05-12T15:29:00.004+09:30

So the dude who created Mathematica, Stephen Wolfram, is about to release his new project next monday.

It's called Wolfram Alpha and it is essentially a resource for answering questions. They describe it as a computational knowledge engine, with the aim to organise and deliver all the available knowledge available today. Ambitious? Heck yeah, but I've been following their blog for a minute and this looks legit.

They reckon they opened up access for testing yesterday and within minutes, thousands of people had discovered it and started playing. The comments were more than inspiring, people describing it as a way better version of google or wikipedia.

I guess Alpha's strength is the fact that when you ask it a question it computes an answer on the spot, rather than accessing a stationary database of facts. So if you ask it how far the moon is from Earth, it will show you the orbit and tell you the distance that very instant, rather than the average value that wikipedia will quote.

Last Thoughts

I reckon this will become one of those things you can't live without once you've started using it. Kinda like iPhones, google, and the entire internet. How the heck did those old school cats live without the resources we have these days?

See ya Jake Mayne

2009-05-10T15:41:00.010+09:30

One of our best mates, Johnny Jakeman, is going over to the states for a few months on exchange. We threw a barbie on the weekend so that he could say goodbye to everyone and have a few more laughs.

I suggested we play some silly buggars and bob for apples and throw eggs at each other. Johnny loved this idea and rocked up with all the ingredients to guarantee a super fun time happy day. That's how they speak English in Tokyo by the way. Lots of adjectives.

Here's me trying to take out the camera man with a cricket ball. As Chapelle once said, everything looks better in slow motion.

And here's Ian Blackwell smashing an apple, sorry I filmed on a funny angle. You might have to crane your neck.

Stephie and Yesi getting ready to bob for apples

Ian Blackwell showing Kimmy how it's done.

Last Thoughts

Music makes me smile

2009-05-02T14:05:00.008+09:30

Play these loud and on full screen and you`re guaranteed to be winning at life.

I Stumbled upon this video over at uponthingz. Dope concept for a hip hop track. Apparently this was taken in one take and the audio was taken from the room, not in a separate studio. I love how raw the MC is.

Shiro showed me this rad video of street musicians all over the world singing the same song. Pure magic baby.

Playing For Change | Song Around The World "Stand By Me" from Concord Music Group.

You can always count on Brett to send you wholesome tunes, this is the latest track he`s sent me.

I saw this this guy, DJ Tucker, at the Big Day Out a couple of years ago. Amazingly innovative, he can (and does) make music out of anything. In this video he uses cooking utensils to rock a phat beat.

Last Thoughts:

I`ve just read Obama`s Dreams From My Father. Best political book I`ve read since Malcolm X`s autobiography. Not like I`ve read many at all, but maybe that`s the point, it`s super accessible. I`m pretty much his new biggest fan.

From Byron to Tokyo

2009-04-22T15:27:00.001+09:30

Byron Bay

2 weeks ago Stephie and I drove up to Byron Bay for the Bluesfest music festival. We had a rad week playing in the surf (Stephie stood up on the second day!) and eating organic cookies. Remember Bojan, that Swiss exchange student I used to have dance class with? Yeah he lives up at the Goldie now so he came down and taught us both how to surf. he's a surf instructor now, Coolest job E-verrrr. The festival went for 5 days and kinda blurred in to one muddy memory, but there were a few highlights that made the ticket price worth it.

Low rider were unreal, Ben Harper was too far away from us and played songs that we didn't know - real shame cause you know i have crazy love for the dude, Xavier Rudd killed it, but my fave was probably this Texan Country/Swing band called Hot Club of Cowtown.

Tell you the truth man, we had way more fun chillin outside of the festival.

Tokyo

Then all of this week, I've been in Tokyo. It's kinda nice to walk back in to the life I had here last year man. We played pick up games at Yoyogi all of yesterday arvo and half the kids remembered me and the other half were my friends by the end of the day. Catching up with old mates, hittin up my old favourite watering holes - Blue Parrot, Eat More Greens, the Shibya sushi bar, Lex -it's starting to feel like I never left. I went in to my old lab and my laser safety glasses are still there complete with my name printed on the side. Hella nerdy I know but damn it made me smile.

Spent an exhausting weekend in Maebashi visiting Ash, and although it was tons of fun, i kinda felt like we'd drifted apart heaps which bumbed me out a touch. We didn't seem to have the same chemistry we had last year, but I guess that sometimes happens. Our minds are both in completely different places these days so maybe it shouldn't have come as such a big surprise.

I'll tell you one other thing man, as much fun as Tokyo is, that inherently lonely feeling that was hovering in the back ground all of last year is right up in my face this time around. It's almost like I'm only realising now how lonely I was all of last year in Tokyo, when I didn't have a solid community to share the laughs with. Sure I have mates here and there in Tokyo, but nothing like the plethora of good eggs we have back in Canberra. It didn't help that I was in the lab by 5am and not leaving til 7 or 8pm most days... Compare that to the cruisy 9 to 6 I have now, damn I was a soldier last year. Funny how you don't notice at the time.

Last Thoughts

I'm homesick for Tokyo and homesick for Canberra at the same time. I can't really explain it.

Tales of heartbreak part 4080

2009-04-06T16:42:00.009+09:30

I had a rad weekend man.

Rocked out at Jan`s party all arvo on saturday before having a big night out on the town with the boys and the (new) girl. Throw in a Gorman House Markets session with Heather, a Portrait gallery date with Jen, a lunch with JC, Goodie and O, and a poker night at Steph`s and you have a fairly solid script for guaranteed fun times.

One other event I managed to squeeze in was a pot of green tea with the ex. Lovely girl. But she has a habit of giving me ice cream headaches to the heart.

We kinda discussed the situation we`re in now, which is that we`re both living in the same city again, but not looking in to each other`s eyes.

On the surface, one of us has moved on and the other hasn`t. We realised this while talking last night over tea. One of us got teary eyes and the other cried.

Love is a motherfucker.

Homework Club

2009-03-29T10:15:00.021+10:30

Every Thursday for a couple of hours in the afternoon, Harry and I tutor kids at the Community Centre. Officially, the session has the title "Homework Club" and the premise is that Uni students will provide free help with your homework if you`re between the ages 11 and 18.

Inevitably though, and I called this from day one, the homework ends up being a front. Most of the kids that come along don't really need help with their school work, they need people who will listen to them.

We have about 8 students rock up, from the 12 year old Kenyan refugee to the teeange Lebanese brothers, with a few assorted shapes and colours in between.

One of my favourites, lets call her Hope, rocks up with a baseball cap to the side, a shy smile and only a pocket full of sentences throughout the entire session. But she keeps coming back week after week, even though she never brings homework, and seems to like it when I ask her about her week and her favourite classes and boys. Her bashful answers are the reason why the sessions are a dope concept.

Last week we had a super interesting talk. There are 3 Lebanese brothers who were tricked in to coming once when their mother told them she was taking them to soccer practise and dropped them off at the community centre. Can you imagine 17 year old high school students to whom street cred is everything voluntarily attending a homework club? Heck nah. The first time they came I wasn`t there and apparently the other tutors didn`t know how to handle their distruptiveness and chose to pretty much ignore them. They didn`t come back for a few weeks (understandably) but then rocked up one day I guess just to keep the mother happy by giving it one last chance.

Luckily, the A Team (Harry and I) were there and we`re prefectly suited for these kids cause although we get balls deep into the academics, we still rep the street hustle which has as its mantra only two things: chasing girls and playing sport. So they opened up to us and we learnt some frightening things.

The first was the degree of racism alive today in public high schools. The second oldest is in year 10 at Darra and reckons that last week a vietnamese schoolground gangster pulled a knife on him at lunch time, and some "white cunt" waved the Aussie flag in front of him and told him to "go home you fuckin Leb cunt". Those are fighting words man. I felt for this kid, I really did. They don`t help the situation either, they proudly showed us iPhone videos of them punching kids who had being racist towards them, only to provoke a downward spiral of vicious revenge and police attention.

The more productive talk we had afterwards was about drugs though. They asked our opinion on party drugs and we had a great long informal chat about marijuana and ecstasy in particular. I had two main points I wanted to drill in to the kids and they went like this:

1) Peer pressure is a motherfucker; chasing the "Cool" is everything in high school. no matter what teachers or parents will tell us, it`s gaining the respect and admiration of our peers which largely dictates our success in high school. It`s different in every school but unfortunately one aspect of "being cool" which seems to almost be a constant around here in Australian schools, is taking party drugs. Handling peer pressure can be the ultimate test of your street cred. And I discovered along with some mates at Canberra High, the ultimate "get out of peer pressure free card": Sport.

If you play sport at a high level, not only are you automatically elevated to playground legend status, you are also exempt from the unfortunate burden of taking drugs to show you are rebeling against the system. I`ve said it before but I was a chess playing, book reading geek in Canberra High, invisible to girls, until the day I started playing on the school Basketball team. All of a sudden the cool kids would say what`s up in the hall way and at parties there would be no pressure to drink once kids knew you had a game coming up.

2) Know what the drugs do to you if you must take them. Weed is a lot worse for certain groups of people than others. People who are prone to mental health issues and people under 23 (when the brain is developing the fastest) will get messed up if they smoke too much Mary Jane. Conversely there`s a great deal of evidence that suggests if you are out of these groups there are almost no long term effects and toxicity is lower than that of say alcohol.

Pills will definitely give you a long term disadvantage in life, and there are peer reviewed medical journals articles which have shown this conclusively. I explained to them in their language how the brain has chemicals which make you happy and ecstasy releases a large amount of these chemicals when you take it. But you only have a limited supply and if you take too many E`s you`ll eventually run out. Then you`ll be the saddest dude in the world. This seemed to really hit home with them.

Last Thoughts:

I`m learning a lot about how kids at this age think, and how I used to think at that age. I reckon the most productive way for society to solve all these problems - party drugs, violence, playground bullying - is to show that it`s not cool. And the only people who can define what is cool, are the cool kids :) We need atheletes and TV celebrities to promote anti-drugs and anti-violence campaigns. Until that happens, Harry and I will keep doing our little part each thursday. Cause you know we keep it cooler than a polar bear`s ball sack.

U-Min

2009-03-17T16:02:00.004+10:30

One thing I learnt while I was living in Tokyo last year was that contrary to popular belief, Japanese people can dance.

Last Thoughts:

Shout out to Stephie D for the hook up.

3 hip hop videos

2009-03-06T15:09:00.005+10:30

This is what I`m listening to these days: Blu, Homeboy Sandman, Q Tip, Amanda Diva, and whatever Pac Div I can get my hands on.

This is what I`m watching these days:

P.O.S. - Optimist

Johnson & Jonson - Up All Night

Homeboy Sandman - Lightning Bolt

Last Thoughts:

In dramatic fashion, my iPhone flew out of my girl`s car on to the road last week has been sent away to the phone hospital (apple centre). I`m still holding back the tears.

Hip Hop at Good Vibrations 2009

2009-02-16T09:46:00.021+10:30

I cop a bit of flack for my frequent use of superlatives when describing music festivals or gigs, but let me make one thing clear. The Good Vibrations festival this year was the BEST day of hip hop I`ve had since Rock the Bells in 2004. There were three reasons why.

1. Wale

Two and a half mixtapes into the game, and signed only this time last year to Interscope, I`ve been riding Wale`s jock pretty hard since I first heard him on Mark Ronson`s East Village Radio show. He can rhyme over any beat, with crazy amounts of swagger and lyrical word play. He has a flow so dope I`d listen to him even if his lyrics were wack and lyrics so dope I`d listen to him even if his flow was wack.

Having said all that, I was fairly weary of the fact that he doesn`t have enough material for a full 50 minute set and was anticipating unhealthy amounts of crowd hype... which unfortunately turned out to be not a bad predicition. There were a few too many "say hoooo" and "when I say___, you say____" moments. But he absolutely nailed the tracks we wanted to hear: Breakdown, Ice Cream, NikeBoots, WALEDANCE (the Justice Remix) and killed his verse on the Roots song.

2. The Pharcyde

Say what you will, Fatlip is STILL the man. Displaying an infinite amount of charisma, you get the feeling he`s as raw as the first day he grabbed a mic. He`s easily the most versatile MC in the group man, the amount of tracks he laid down a phat beat for by beatboxing, the amount of dance moves he showcased while others rocked the mic.... and his clarity and flow was unmatched.

Add to the mix Slim Kid Tre with his soulful harmonies, Booty Brown with a vocal pitch as high as Stewardess pussy, and Imani who`s straight up a homocide case cause he murders any verse he touches, and you have one of the most under rated Hip Hop groups of all time.

Even though only one of them would rhyme at a time, it was always a Pharcyde show simply cause the other three would either be performing choreographed dance moves, or layering the track with harmonies or bringing straight fire with punch ins on a Beastie Boys/Run DMC level. This was hip hop at it`s absolute finest!!! I`m getting excited just remembering it all!! woop woop!! it`s getting hot in here!! *goes for a walk to calm down*

3. Q Tip

One of the most prolific MC`s of all time. You could argue the greatest MC of all time debate all day and do laps around New York or Cali, but if you`re talking versatility, you`d be hard pressed not to end up in Queens. What a lot of cats forget about is Tip`s production credits. Not only did Tribe make some of the best hip hop in the game, consistently, but the amount of bangers that the Abstract laced with his beats is simply bananas. We`re talking Nas, Mobb Deep, De La, Janet Jackson, Busta....

The amazing thing is, he`s still relevant. Producing for talent as fresh as Amanda Diva, Tip never ever fell off. He`s been in the game since what, `88?! Can you imagine how many rooftops and back yards he rocked back in Queens before MTV knew his name? And the fact that he can still deliver one of the most entertaining, diverse hip hop shows (complete with a band) blew me away.

His set was pure magic!! He would tease us with verses from Electric Relaxation then come hard with a joint of the Renaissance. He`d tell a story about a girl he met who turned out to be kinda young, and tell us that her name was ".... Bonita.... Applebaum...". He`d sing Find a Way and blend it in to Breathe and Stop. Every track was an undisputed classic. The shit was ridiculous. It almost makes me angry how great the show was.

Last Thoughts

Fairly wack name, but he does get one solid line out of it: "What good is an ear if a Q-Tip isn`t in it?"

I`m on a Boat

2009-02-11T11:23:00.004+10:30

Brett hits up my facebook wall every now and then with a link for some dope hip hop or a hilarious video... this is what he sent me this morning and I`m still laughing. It`s by the group who brought us the youtube classics "Jizz in my Pants" and "Dick in a Box".

...Alright my embedding skills seem to be lacking right now so lets go old school and hit up the source

Last Thoughts:

This ain`t seaworld, this as real as it gets, I`m on a boat motherfucker don`t you ever forget!

Reasons to Smile part 174

2009-02-11T10:52:00.000+10:30

I didn`t go to work yesterday. Shiiiit, I went to Jervis Bay instead.

And if I`m telling the truth, I actually left the afternoon before and camped at Pretty Beach with Jen. We spent the whole day loungin`, reading on the sand and even saw Dolphins at Hyams beach! I probably spent about 90% of the time smiling, where as if I had gone to work I would have only spent between 40% and 65% of the time smiling, depending on how much rad science I learnt that day.

Speaking of smiling, everyone loves a good night out. We`ve had quite a few recently aye. Scattered amongst the nights at Sub-Urban and the occasional house party, we`ve had 3 free hip hop shows in the last month. Mannn this should be part two in my This is Why Canberra`s Hot series.

Z Trip

Last time he came to Australia he headlined Good Vibes. He`s opened for the Rolling Stones for 500,000 people. And he played in Canberra on a monday night at the Transit bar. For free.

Unadvertised, you had to rely on the raw power of word of mouth amongst the hip hop heads to be down for this one... Shout out to Ingmar for the tip!

No need to even exaggurate here, he played the best DJ set I`ve seen since Jazzy Jeff in the Bay back in 2005!

The crew: Jimmy, Ingmar, Anthea, Raff, Mouse and only about 50 others in the crowd!

Santogold

Part of the Sydney Festival a couple weeks ago, Brooklyn`s Santogold rocked a pretty solid set.
The two back up dancers dressed all in gold were on some next level type robot shit! I remember giving her album some heavy, heavy rotation when it dropped last year and I was surprised at how much better she was live than coming out of a speaker... It`s official. She`s legit!

The crew: Rich, Nubia, Brian and a fairly rowdy selection of the tight jeans wearing, coloured sunnies sporting, beverage holding Sydney festival goers.

Omar Musa

The Queanbeyan Booooooy debuted his Massive EP last weekend at the Fringe Festival. Everything he said was funny and charismatic, every song he performed was a winner and the crowd control was on point like a decimal.

The crew: Pretty much all of Canberra!

Last Thoughts

This girl who I crushed on at a primary school camp (some 15 years ago!) hit me up on facebook yesterday! Turns out she`s best friends with Vala and lives up in Manly now... Haha that kinda made me smile :)

This is Why Canberra`s Hot

2009-02-09T09:48:00.000+10:30

I love Canberra.

We`ve just had the multi cultural festival which is one of my favourite weekends of the year. Never too much hype, it`s consistently a sleeper hit.

You`ll find people walking around a maze of international food stalls and getting drunk in the middle of the day, off Polish beer. But it`s a front. The real reason people go is because everyone is your friend on this day. Everyone is so damn proud of their dual nationality, and respectful of the hundreds of others in the stalls next door.

Here at the festival, Indians aren`t those dudes calling you while you`re having dinner to offer you long distance calling, they`re dudes like me or you, but who can make a tasty vindaloo curry. On this day, Lebbo`s aren`t driving fully sic CRX`s, lowered with rims. They`re dudes like me or you, but with an appetising plate of mixed grill. Racial profiling (like what I`ve just done, not to be racist but quite the opposite, to make a point of how silly and socially accepted it is!) is non-existent at this festival.

And there are guaranteed to be pretty girls everywhere. Not just regular pretty girls, but that special breed of pretty girl that you never see any other time of the year. That unique race of pretty girls who don`t frequent night clubs, late night cafes or any other blatant excuses of social gatherings. You know who I`m talking about, every city has this wonderful group of anonymous pretty girls.

You might have caught a glimpse of her at the museum that one time, or at the lake with her family on a picnic... and we always have the same reaction. "...hey bro, is that girl over there super pretty?! yeah she is aye, damn I`ve never seen her out before... maybe it`s true what they say, there is a breed of phantom pretty girls who don`t light up on the social radar..."

They`re purposefully avoiding the social lime light see... they don`t believe in wearing short shorts and a curvaceous white singlet just to go to the grocery store, they don`t care too much for meeting people some place where the music is so loud you can`t hear if the guy is nice or not.... They don`t care for guys with footy player haircuts, or tight jeans or V neck shirts or gym memberships.... they probably like trumpets and book marks...

I`d go on, but by their very nature, I don`t know anything else about them. All I know is that events such as the multi-cultural festival lure out this mysterious sub-community because of the unspoken understanding that for at least one weekend in the year, social constructs seem not to exist in town. A half japanese science geek with a wicked jump shot can talk to a Macedonian Jim Beam model or a Philipino belly dancer and no one will judge. The haters leave their hater-aid back at their crib and pack a smile and an open mind instead.

This is why Canberra`s hot yo.

Invasion Day Holiday

2009-01-28T11:22:00.034+10:30

A couple hundred years and a bit ago, white people landed in what we now call Australia and invaded the land with no regard for the locals. We`re talking murder, rape, armed robbery, loitering and illegal parking.

To celebrate this horrendous achievement white people don`t have to work on this particular day of the year and instead usually go to the beach.

Still a pawn in this game, I played along.

What I`m trying to say is that I went down to Jervis Bay with some mates for the Australia Day long weekend. I`ll let the photos tell the story.

Rich hurt himself on the first day so we stuck him under a bush while we went and played at the beach. He wasn`t impressed.

Brian got up early every morning and went for a swim in his speedos.

Marksy came for a play, but didn`t stay at the house with us. Unfortunately the combination of his death metal boardies and un-colour-cooridnated Kmart rashie just wasn`t photo journal material. So instead, here`s another one of Brian admiring just how close the beach was from our back yard.

If he went for a 30 second walk, this is what he would have seen:

Another 30 seconds...

Last Thoughts:

In my irrelevant opionion, Australia has better beaches than: Cali, Northen Peru and even Brasil. Also, has anyone else noticed that Common simply cannot freestyle?

Who the Heck is Jonathan Safran Foer?

2009-01-20T14:48:00.017+10:30

Dude`s only written two books, but claims a spot on my list of favourite authors.

He tells sad stories with beauty and magic. His ideas are so unreal and fantastic that you`d think Peter Pan wrote them while he was on mushrooms, trippin out in neverland.

One of my favourite passages from his first book is about a girl who was born miraculously in a river. A bloke called Yankel wins a lottery ran by the town to see who will raise her, and when she grows up Yankel has to invent stories about the girl`s mother to avoid the heartbreak the truth would bring to the motherless daughter.

Was it love at first sight, Yankel?
I loved your mother even before seeing her - it was her smell!
Tell me about what she looked like again.
She looked like you. She was beautiful, with those mismatched eyes, like you.
One blue, one brown, like yours. She had your strong cheekbones and also your soft skin.
What was her favourite book?
Genesis, of course.
Did she believe in God?
She would never tell me.
How long were her fingers?
This long.
And her legs?
Like this.
Tell me again about how she would blow on your face before she kissed you.
Well that`s just it, she would blow on my lips before she kissed me, like I was some very hot food and she was going to eat me!
Was she funny? Funnier than me?
She was the funniest person in the world. Exactly like you.
She was beautiful?

It was inevitable: Yankel fell in love with his never-wife. He would wake from sleep to miss the weight that never depressed the bed next to him, remember in earnest the weight of gestures she never made, long for the un-weight of her un-arm slung over his too real chest, making his widower`s remembereances that much more convincing and his pain that much more real. He felt that he had lost her. He had lost her. At night her would reread the letters that she had never sent him.

The book is called `Everything is Illumintated`, go and cop that.

One bit I really liked in the second book was a short story about how New York once had a sixth borough. And one day the island it was on started to drift away. There was a boy from the mainland who was talking to a girl on the island through a long piece of string and paper cups at each end. His final sentence was I Love You and since she wanted to save it, she trapped the sentence by placing the cup upside down on her shelf before she ever heard the words.

I can`t tell it like he does, but the idea of this girl being washed away forever without ever hearing his declaration of love for her is too damn sad and beautiful.

He says in an interview that he wrote 2500 pages to get 300 for his second book `Extremeley Loud and Incredibly Close`.

Last Thoughts

Shout out to Emma Stroud who put me on to this dude, by telling me that he is the husband of Nicole Krauss, the author of the History of Love.

Iguassu Revisited

2009-01-07T14:05:00.012+10:30

My second week in Brasil I went to the Iguassu Falls, which claims to be the largest collection of waterfalls in the world.

I met a Szerbian dude who convinced me to kayak from the Argentinian side to the Brasilian side, then jump on a boat to go right under one of the smaller waterfalls! Probably one of the most exciting things I did on the continent.

There was a platform where you could walk out and be right on top of one of the larger waterfalls, called Devil's Throat:

Last Thoughts:

It made me want to pee real bad.

Beached Whale

2009-01-04T16:33:00.002+10:30

This is for all those travellers who asked me what New Zealanders were like.

We Got Game (or so we think!)

2009-01-03T09:54:00.005+10:30

Summer is in full swing :)

The last two weeks have been a tasty cocktail made up of nights out full of laughter, sandy feet and tanned beach bodies, late night ball games and music floating out of open windows.

This is undoubtely the best time of the year, not only because the summer vibes put a smile on everyone's dial, but also because a lot of our mates who have dispersed from our childhood town (myself included!) will come home for the holidays.

Inevitably some of us get reminiscent and start throwing out the "I remember way back when" sentences. The funny thing about our group is that we all used to play basketball in college, and I've always been pretty sure that each member of the group thought that they were the best. The star of the group.

Last night at the bar this was more than confirmed.

Alcohol and ego are a lethal mix. What started out as friendly banter amongst a few empty glasses manifested in to plans for a 4pm showdown with a $200 prize. The money is of course unimportant, the bragging rights will be priceless.

Me and Joshie versus Bruce and Goody. 4pm at the Lake.

Last Thoughts

I better go buy some raincoats for them.

Aftermath (January 4th)

Seiji's team: 20.

Not Seiji's team: 22.

My wallet is lighter, both my left ankle and right hip are bruised, but worst of all I can never talk shit about my game again. I've been served a whole oven's worth of humble pie!

haha, nah I'm telling it all wrong. In actuality it was a heaps friendly match on a sunny outdoor court with our mates cheering and joking on the side lines.

S.A. Flashback # 1: Brasillian Kaiman

2008-12-26T18:16:00.014+10:30

I've been home (Canberra, Australia) for a week now. I love it aye. I remember travellers telling me "Oh bro, you're about to go home, you're going to hate it! poor you!" But check it out, what they failed to realise is that I was coming home to an Aussie Summer! Is there anything better in the world?! Hecky no.

Andy picked me up from the airport in Sydney and filled me in on what I missed in the last 9 months. It took about 3 minutes. hahaha jokes, I love how nothing ever changes at home. Only your perspective.

We had a quiet welcome back barbie the next day which was a good trick because I got to catch up with most of my friends without even leaving my backyard.

South America is already threatening to become a distant memory, so let me drop some flashback posts real quick. Here's a video of our crazy Italian mate feeding a piranha (that we caught ourselves!) to a kaiman in ther river, in the Pantanal, the Brasillian Jungle baby! Check out my scramble when the kaiman decides to swim in my direction!

Last Thoughts:

Three biggest surprises while I've been gone:

A black dude was elected as president of the biggest empire in the world,

Kanye dropped an album where he sings unashamedly with an automatic pitch tuner, and

My best mate who was reliably single now has a girl...

Hasta Luego South America

2008-12-19T05:25:00.004+10:30

I can´t believe it. I´m leaving South America today! After leaving Canberra some nine months ago I´m finally going home to Australia.

Sad as hell to be leaving, but super hyped to see all my home town amigos. I´ve made a thousand new friends while I´ve been travelling but the friendships were super intense and only days or weeks long. It´ll be great to chill with my buddies who I´ve shared lifetimes with... stability man, that´s what I need a slice of.

A thousand shoutouts to all of you who made this one of my best journeys of all time. We had some laughs didn´t we?! A few cries and a few scares too... Keep in touch aye...

Last Thoughts:

A week in Buenos Aires was not a bad way to end the trip.

If I told you that the girls in Argentina are even prettier than in Brasil, you might be inclined to think I was loco. I wouldn´t have believed it either... but I saw it. With my own two eyes.

Peeeeeeeace! (photos and flash back posts to come!)

Vitor Araújo in Rio

2008-12-10T15:05:00.005+10:30

I'm falling in Love with Rio de Janiero.

I spent the whole day with Tash, being shown around her beautiful city. It's so great to cath up with her! She's doing amazingly well, living in a real cosy neighbourhood with her husband who is a film director. She's currently co writing a screen play for an adapation of the book Marching Powder which is the story about the San Pedro prison in Bolivia. Her stories about Hollywood are unreal! Real life Entourage style!

Anyway, after spending the arvo at the heavenly Ipanema beach, Tash had to go to night school so I caught a bus in to Lapa and went to a fancy pants piano concert.

How very cultured of me.

Almost everyone was in either a tux or a la di da dress and then you had me, fresh from the beach in my boardies, sandy feet and a singlet. To be honest, I love how I roll.

The dude I paid to see was João Donato, a legend in Brasil, but for me the opening act stole the show.

18 years old, as passionate as they make 'em, and so talented I had goosebumps while he played. I'll see if he's on youtube, hold on.

Yeah he was, alright check it out, his name is Vitor Araújo and this track is called Asa Branca. You don't have to watch the whole thing, it's pretty long. Just get a taste of his flavour:

Last Thoughts

After the show and an a small bucket of acai, I met up with Tash in Bota Fogo and we checked out a Samba club with a kick ass live band. And we danced til way past both our bed times.

Ahhhh Rio....

Prainha-Branca

2008-12-08T23:28:00.003+10:30

What an amzing weekend!!

Eric and his girl showed me just how beautiful Southern Brasil can be. We drove a few hours this way of Sao Paulo and jumped on a ferry accross a river to a super chill island amongst the Atlantic Jungle.

Surfed, Chiiilled, and ate copious amounts of Açai. I swear the island had reggae as its theme music and everywhere you went you could hear a lazy ass dope beat with some Rasta preaching to slow down, make love and smoke weed. Unless I´ve missed a subtle point somewhere, that´s all anyone ever seems to do in Brasil.

Last Thoughts

I just read the funniest book since ´Vernon God Little´. It was called ´Breakfast of Champions´ by Kurt Vonnegut. It didn´t really have a coherent story line but the anecdotes were off the chain. And it had lots of pictures between the pages. And so on.

Wafeek

2008-12-06T00:54:00.004+10:30

One really cool thing about travelling is that I`m going to have more than a bucket load of books and hip hop to catch up with when I settle again.

I had a sneak peek just now and wow there are so many new faces! This is the first video I saw, by a guy I never heard of. I love it.

Wafeek - I'mma Learn Ya [Official Music Video] from Marc Kharrat on Vimeo.

Last Thoughts:

My flight is boarding. Goodbye Peru, I missed you Brasil.

Stephen A. Smith on Black Athletes

2008-12-06T00:32:00.004+10:30

Saw this on Sports Centre this morning:

Jimmy Huacachina

2008-12-05T11:06:00.007+10:30

I´m in Huacachina, a small oasis town in the middle of the Peruvian dessert. I got drunk yesterday and wrote a short story about a guy called Jimmy who builds an empire here in Huacachina. I read it again this morning over breakfast and found it to be hilarious. I was drunk again though I must admit. In fact, I´m drunk now. I don´t even know what I´m talking about.

I´m going to turn in to a screen play, sell it in Hollywood and use the money to buy a coast house in Columbia. They´re so cheap right now.

I have to leave this town and get to Lima by 7am tomorrow morning to fly to Sao Paulo.

The 4 day trek to Macchu Picchu was probably the highlight of my entire time in South America. I´ll drop the photos along with a story line when i get back.

This is what the crew looked like: (I stole this from Jenna´s facebook)

Last Thoughts:

Home in two weeks... I´m actually really looking forward to get back to Canberra aye. You can´t beat an Australian summer.

Thanks for the comments everyone. It´s kinda fun when I realise that some people read this from time to time. peeeeeeeeace.

Sicchespampa versus Tokyo

2008-11-27T05:16:00.002+10:30

Wow. That was different.

I was supposed to stay for a month, but for a variety of reasons (mostly because I selfishly decided I don`t come to Peru very often and I should see Machu Picchu while I`m here) I left a week early. But trust me, 3 weeks in another universe feels like eternity.

Every night during dinner they would ask me questions about Japan and I would blow their mind with stories of how futuristic Tokyo is.

Lets see how the two cities fare in a textual pepsi challenge:

Population

Tokyo - 35 million

Sicchespampa - There were about 100 people, 200 cows and 40 billion chickens

Water

Tokyo - If you put your hand under a tap, water will come out automatically. Afterwards, a seperate machine will blow hot air on your hands to dry them.

Sicchespampa - On weekends only, if you were lucky some river water will come out of the one ¨tap¨ in the back yard. But if you drink it, your stomach will implode.

Where you walk

Tokyo - In some houses the ground is heated (electric carpets). In some buildings, the ground moves (walkway escalators)

Sicchespampa - The ground inside is the same as the ground outside: mud. It´s always cold and never moves. In the kitchen they spit, piss and throw food scraps on to the floor as we eat. Don´t worry though, the 40 billion chickens who live in the kitcehn eat it all up before you can say Aye Corumba.

Cash Money

Tokyo - I was making a bit over $100 a day. As a student.

Sicchespampa - The father of the family, provider of 6, makes US$4 a day.

Cuisine

Tokyo - I swear you can find food from anywhere in the world, done well and the restaurant won´t be more than 30 mintues away.

Sicchespampa - The go to meal here was plain spaghetti in hot water with a bit of salt and an unripen banana. Onec a week we got a fried egg and sometimes peas turned up on my plate unannounced. The crazy thing is after about a week I learnt to love these meals!

Toilets

Tokyo - Some toilets have permanently heated seats. Others will spray water up your bung hole to wash it and then blow hot air up your ass. No, literally.

Sicchespampa - There´s a hole in the ground in the back yard but no one uses it except for me. The others just go anywhere and pull their pants up without even a wipe. Gross!

Transport

Tokyo - If it was sunny but not too hot I would skate. If it was sunny and hot I would ride my bike. If it was raining I would catch a train. If I missed the train, don´t worry, another one would come in 4 minutes. Guaranteed. 4 stations down my line was shinjuku, with 700,000 people a day.

Sicchespampa - Rain or shine you ride a donkey to work. You can´t miss him, he waits patiently in the garden for you. 4 farms over you might see 7 people chewing sugar cane.

Groceries

Tokyo - There´s at least one 24 hour convenient store on every single block. You can buy anything you can think of from groceries to underwear to concert and airline tickets.

Sicchespampa - The nearest grocery store is 9 and a half hours away. On a bus.

Last Thoughts

The craziest part is that every day in Sicchespampa was filled with laughter and people singing. Everyone in the village was your best friend and people there were genuinely happy.

In Tokyo, nobody smiles. If you ask a checkout chick how her day was, she thinks you`re either a pervert, trying to rob her, or both.

Where in the world is Sicchespampa?

2008-11-04T23:05:00.005+10:30

Leymebamba

2008-11-03T03:09:00.003+10:30

After a laaazy 5 days in Rio I find myself in Peru, about to hit up a small village up north to do some volunteering for a month.

I´m going to pick coffee beans in the Peruvian Andes. How Gangsta is that?!!

Apparently no one speaks English at the place so I´ll be forced to learn Spanish! I can´t wait! I´m going to come home spitting lyrics in Espanol like my name was Jose Gonzales with a pony tail and shit.

No idea if they will have internet there (hopefully not) but I promise I´ll write heaps when i get back.

Last Thoughts

My professors in Australia and Japan must be smokin some angel dust because they wrote to me saying that I should start my PhD in Australia for two years, then go to Tokyo, rather than hitting up the land of sushi and formalities first... So hard to even think about scholastic matters when my only concern has been to remember to put enough sunscreen on at the beach... aye aye aye...

Aye Corumba!

2008-10-25T23:22:00.011+10:30

I just spent 4 amazing days in the jungle! We did a whole lot of trekking and slept in hammocks. It was unreal! Dope, really.

There were about 15 of us, a solid mix of an international crew. I spent most of my time with 3 chilled out Germans smokin weed in the hammocks by the river, telling jokes and having a laugh... Stories and photos to come...

My favourite part of travelling is meeting all these other travellers. More than the sights or the events or whatever, I just love meeting new people who think differently.

And they all have amazing stories to tell about where they´ve been, what´s definitely worth seeing and all that. What has surprised me is that time and time again, Bolivia will be mentioned as their favourite country. Apparently it´s just off tap. This is why I was super hella extremely keen to check it out and straight after the Pantanal I went to Corumba, which is on the border between Brasil and Bolivia.

The other side of the coin is that Bolivia is the poorest country in South America and crime watch is in full effect. So I thought I better jump on the internet and check the latest news to see what's going down... Long story short, I read that there´ve been protests 10´s of thousands strong about proposing a referudum to amend the constitution. There is civil unrest, and crime and violence against travellers has sky rocketed up...

The old Seiji would have gone anyway, but I just had a bad feeling about it all, and you have to trust instinct aye.

Icing on the Cake

A dude I was travelling with to the border, met 3 Bolivians who were staying at our hostel. And they told us don't worry about the violence, we can even travel with them to Santa Cruz! This had me tempted man, travelling with locals has to be safe, right?! So that night they take us out to the local night club and we all get a little tipsy off those tasty little capirinhas... It was a rad little place with a live band playing samba and yeah man it really made me feel like I was in Brasil...

Then at around 6am I realise I haven't seen the others for awhile, and after an unsuccessful search I walk back to the hostel... My room mate stumbles in at around 9am with a grim face and a story to match. He reckons he woke up in hospital with an IV drip in his hand and no money in his wallet. He couldn't remember a thing and reckons he must have been robbed and drugged.

And the Bolivians? No sight of them...

Last Thoughts

haha, I gotta come clean. I played that angle like my name was Rupert Murdoch. The Bolivians might not have had anything to do with it (they seemed like good blokes, and my mate didn't suspect them), but to me at least it was mad suss. It was enough of an omen for me, so I fucked the border off and ran away down south! Spent a night at Eric's place in Sao Paulo and now I'm in Rio de Janiero! What a life!!

Foz Do Iguacu to the Pantanal

2008-10-21T21:20:00.004+10:30

We rolled into Campo Grande this morning after the 18 hour bus ride and Im just waiting for the Irish dude to get out of the shower so I can get so fresh and so clean, clean, before hitting up the Pantanal for some Pyranna fishing!!

Ive come from 3 days at Foz Do Iguacu, home to the biggest waterfalls in the world!! I took this amazing boat trip from the Brassilian side of the falls to the Argentinian side and even went straight under a bunch of violent falls and got drenched... Amazing!!! You should have seen this epic kayaking trip we went on bro, we saw Kaimans (small crocodiles), wild monkeys, and plenty of lizards aye...

I´m going to be camping in the jungle for the next 4 nights then crossing over to Bolivia.

Last Thoughts

I accidently jumped on the wrong bus yesterday and ended up in Paraguay!! Imagine that!! The city was a hole so I didn´t even stay long enough to say ¨aye carumba¨.

Batman´s Dead End, Sao Paulo

2008-10-19T11:37:00.012+10:30

I´m in Brasil, and it`s off the motherfuckin chain!

A few days ago I was in Sao Paulo and saw some dope pieces of street art around the corner from my hostel in Villa Madalena. I started out on this blind walk following the paintings, going through unknown neighbourhoods for a good hour. What a trip!

A few of them were far too tasty and so I started taking some photos, when this old grandma called me over and told me in Portugese that there was a street a few blocks from here with some of the illest paintings in the state. At least, that´s what I decided she was telling me since I don´t speak a word of Portugese.

A few blocks later and sure enough I find this alley behind a pub that was straight overflowing with deliciousness. Every wall had a piece. A mate had told me the previous night to look out for this area, it was called Batman´s Dead End.

Last Thoughts:

I didn´t have time to post any stories, but Europe was amazing! Caught up with so many great friends... real sad to leave! I´ve realised i´m not going to be able to update this very often, but I`ll drop some retrospective posts when I can... Verona was probably the most beautiful city i have ever seen...

Leaving Sri Lanka

2008-10-10T20:06:00.004+10:30

The mountain was beautiful, but after I climbed back down to the town of Delhousie and found out that the last bus home had left already, things started to get kinda messy... I started hearing rumours of a town 2 hours away called Hatton where there was a train at 10:30pm which would take 8 hours to Colombo, leaving me a couple of hours to grab my stuff from Jan's parents' place and get to the airport... it looked like that was my only ticket...

so I somehow made a friend (the only dude in the entire village who spoke English!) and he was kind enough to drive me 2 hours to Hatton. What a legend aye, I seriously had just met this guy and hardly knew him but he told me that no one else spoke English so I wouldn't even be able to order a taxi if I wanted to. If I hadn't had met him, damn I don't know what I would have done... but anyway... oh one amazing conversation we had was when I gave him 2000 rupees ($20AUS) for the petrol and the trouble of driving a stranger 2 hours out of town, and he told me that's half of his monthly salary. I asked him (ignorantly) would he make more money in Colombo because it's a bigger city and he laughed and told me "yes my friend but I am Tamil. I will be kill in less than day". That really stuck with me man.

My luck turned kinda sour when we got to Hatton though because we found out that the train workers were on strike, apparently an expected occurrence when your country is in civil war... so it was looking fairly dim for me at this point, but then we heard of a bus that left at 3am which would get me back barely in time for my flight if I absolutely rushed in Colombo. Only, when my friend dropped me off at the bus station there were very intimidating guys walking around aimlessly swinging AK47s and looking restless, and a police officer came up and told my friend something very important for about 5 minutes. After the police left my friend hesitated to tell me but finally revealed that the police had told him "he should not wait alone, he will danger and pain".

Which had my heart beat elevated from '94 hip hop to '07 drum and bass. Apologising and looking a little sorry for me, my friend gets back in his car and tells me he has to go back to work (2 hours away remember!!). Not thinking clearly I tell him "yeah you're right, your boss will be looking for you. See you later". On hindsight my half of that conversation should have been more like "are you serious bro? Please stay and hold my hand I'm scared for my life".

Long story short because it is a long story trust me, I checked myself into a local hotel for 600 rupees and sat in a dingy room literally crawling with cockroaches, forcing my self awake until just before 3am. I knew if I had fallen asleep it was game over for my flight. And without an alarm, and having not slept the night before it was a lot harder than I explain here.

But this is the craziest part if you're still with me. I leave the hotel and start walking to the bus station, which is about 10 minutes away. 5 meters from the hotel I do the nervous look around because the alley was filled with bad vibes and I see 3 dudes following me. Or maybe they're just going in the same direction, at this point I don't know. So I pick up pace and start making detours... I look behind nonchalantly and they've picked up pace and I'm starting to become convinced they're following me.

They weren't gaining on me so I could still think rationally even though my heart was now beating like futuristic Dub Step on acid and I was almost running I was so scared. I see the bus station up ahead and breathe a sigh of relief while I tell myself I've made it.

Only, when I get close I see that the station is deserted and there is only one bus which is definitely out of action. At this stage I feel like I've lost this little game I was involuntarily playing and I'm fresh out of options. I turn around and look at the 3 guys and just wait there with absolutely no thoughts going through my mind. 2 of them stop and take a step back and start looking around, while the other one walks right up to me, past me and starts looking around the station. I didn't know what they were looking for but then i would have to assume now looking back, they were checking to see if there were any police or witnesses around.

The guy starts walking back to me and says "my friend, where are you going?" And so I tell him "Colombo" and I swear at this point some kind of panic button inside of me has been pressed like I know this guy means harm and I act 100% on impulse and just run. I ran straight past him down the road and into the nearest coffee shop and sit down at a busy table full of students who have no idea why this sweaty, weary eyed stranger has joined them. I look back at the entrance and sure enough the guy is there pacing the register, but eyes fixed on me. Holy fuck it was scary.

What happened next I can't explain too well, an old man came to my table and asked "my friend, where are you going?" (the entire village musta learnt this one phrase) and for some reason I had some kind of break down, I started telling him everything that came to my head "hey listen sir, I'll be honest. I haven't slept for two days, I'm Australian, I climbed a large mountain today and cut my toe which is still bleeding, I would like to get to Colombo to fly out of this country because I'm really scared and the train was on strike and...". He cuts me off with "Colombo??" at which I respond "yes sir, Colombo. but I don't know how to get there".

He then turns to face the entrance and says "Colombo. Bus" and I see a bus rolling very slowly past the shop. I grab my bag and run straight past the dude from before like he doesn't exist and literally JUMP on to the bus as it drives away into the motherfucking darkness and shit. 6 hours later and I've finally stopped sweating, I roll into Colombo and get to the airport with 40 minutes to spare.

Climbing Sri Pada

2008-10-08T03:18:00.002+10:30

Alright so Im about 2 countries and already a thousand stories behind but let me rewind and drop this one from the very start of my trip.

Jacked From: The Seiji C Travel Journal, 3rd October

I'm writing this from the peak of Sri Pada, the second highest mountain in Sri Lanka. I'd take some photos to drop on my blog later but we're literally in the clouds so all you can see is a dreamy white haze!

But yeah this mountain has a pretty rad story behind it, check this out, you know Adam of Adam and Eve fame? Well apparently when homeboy was cast out of heaven this is the first place he set foot on Earth. And they told me you could see his footprint at the very top of the mountain... during pilgramige season that is!!

I climbed this mountain mainly out of immaturity haha, they told me it was too far from Colombo, too dangerous, and I didn't have enough time. I saw this as a challenge and set out to silence all the critics and also the man. Marty McFly would have done the same had someone called him chicken.

So anyways I climb this beast in this ridiculous heat and figured even though the track is closed I'll be able to at least sneak a peak at the foot print right? But at the very top just now, I encountered a lonely old man guarding it. He must have been about a thousand years old and was standing as still as a statue, giving the impression that he had been standing there all day waiting for me. He only spoke one word of English and that was "security". He would pound his chest and tell me proudly over and over again when I gestured that I wanted to see the footprint. He was quite a site, I would have taken a photo but the flash probably would have killed him. He was a frail old bastard!

What was kinda cool though was that the ancient bouncer invited me back to his room at the tip of this 2500 meter hill and made me some fresh tea. We spoke through gestures and the Singalese in the back of my lonely planet. In exchange for the tea I gave him my favourite Nike Air Force 1 North Carolina Blue key ring and he smiled a beautiful toothless smile. It was a fuckin moment man. A million dollar moment.

Janelle Monae - Many Moons

2008-10-02T00:52:00.003+09:30

This video has to be the dopest, most original shit I've seen in a minute!!

This girl is hotter than my bath water!!

Jacked From: Okayplayer, via Andre 3000

Introducing the Seiji 1`s

2008-09-30T13:20:00.008+09:30

Generic Adidas white on whites on sale at ABC mart: ￥２０００

6 colours of paint from Loft: ￥１２００

Painting your very own pair of the freshest, illest, most scrumpalicious kicks out there: Priceless

I present to you the Seiji 1's:

Last Thoughts:

After the photo shoot, I let them relax a little in the park.

life without a letterbox

2008-09-28T18:32:00.003+09:30

As part of my leaving the country in 5 days routine, I went to the park just now to give some homeless dudes a bunch of clothes and futons that I don`t need anymore.

I`ve always been curious about homeless people so I spent a bit of time with them just now and thought I`d make some observations, if I may.

1) Homeless people always smell the same in any country - this is analogous to how all downey`s look the same, no matter where they`re from, how old they are, or even if they have balls or not.

2) Homeless people don`t tend to get much done in an average day. It seems to me they just sit around being homeless on most calendar days. Of course, some collect cans.

3) For some reason, homeless people (that I meet anyway) tend to be kinda fussy about things you try to give them. I`ve had cheesecake turned down in Chicago, a banana smoothie refused in San Francisco, and now a futon refused in Tokyo. One homeless dude even turned down sushi in Byron because, and I quote, "ohhh, there`s no salmon avocado ones left".

Last Thoughts

Homeless people in Tokyo tend to live in communities with tents, shared clothes lines and even communal patches of tarp to sit around and be homeless on.

Scribbles of thought part 17

2008-09-19T08:44:00.026+09:30

That might have been the toughest moment I`ve had in this office yet!

So before you can say "holy motherfuckin sushi roll" my 6 months in Tokyo has nearly come to an end! I only have 2 weeks left to clean up the mess I made, then I`m off on my travels :) :)

And the final event on my academic roster is a presentation at the Japanese Physical Society`s annual meeting. On a national scale, it doesn`t get bigger than this baby.

Everything that I`ve worked hard for in the lab - the 4am starts, the now almost regular 14 hour days - was to run a stupidly complicated experiment and now that we have good results, people want to hear about it. So this final pressie is the perfect punctuation mark to end the story of my academic battle that was this year.

The talk is on monday up north in Iwate. I`ve had practise sessions nearly every day this week. The first one was the most intense and nerve racking I`ve ever encountered.

At the end of the talk, I lived out everyone`s worst classroom nightmare: some unlearned 4th year punk motherfucker asked me to explain the intricacies of multi-partite entanglement teleportation, and just as I was bringing up a spare pre-prepared slide to answer this, my boss goes "oh hey that`s a good idea. Everyone needs to know this, why don`t you start from scratch and derive everything on the board."

Keep in mind, this topic is ridiculously new and the total number of people in the world who comprehend it enough to explain it coherently might not even reach double digits!

The room is dead set silent. I lick my dry lips and take a nervous swallow. I swear it was the loudest swallow of all time.

I start sketching out phase space diagrams and some gangsta beam splitters on the white board like my name was Zephyr. I`m dissecting phase space relations like I eat them for breakfast but then right when i get to the part with the Electro Optic Modulator, I hesitate.

Then I hesitate some more.

Electricity was always my weakness see. I`m a product of the light generation. Fuck Thomas Edison. Newton, Fresnel, Hecht, What?!!

My boss jumps in with some help and then says "you knew this right?"

Now I`ll admit that sometimes when I`m in the presence of excellence I won`t admit the entirety of my lack of knowledge, but this time I was straight up humbled by the sheer strength of his explanation.

He can take a concept as abstract and unreal as a threesome with Jess Alba and Meagan Good at the playboy mansion, and break it down with sentences as concrete and real as washing your dick in a bathroom sink after a quickie. Too vulgar? it`s my journal motherfucker.

So I tell him "nah not really, there are gaps still in my knowledge". And for no other reason than to take the pressure off of me, he starts telling a story of how he once battled the great Phillipe Grangier (of academic crush fame) to set the definition of the classical limit of Quantum Fidelity.

Anyway, the end product of all this rambling is that I got through it, and now I`m not even a single bit nervous for my actual pressie on monday.

I feel like I`ve crossed the finish line for real and as a result I`ve started properly planning my trip to South America.

This phase of my life is over.

I`m out like Vince`s rep.

Last Thoughts

What I`ve failed to mention is that I`m living in a bubble right now with respect to the ex visiting. Characteristically I have given it no space in my mind for thought, but her presence is fucking with my mind no doubt. yeah no doubt. We`ll see how this plays out. For now at least, I wear a smile.

Izza Kizza - Hello

2008-09-15T16:33:00.004+09:30

This shit is freshhh!

Izza Kizza -Hello from Izza Kizza on Vimeo.

Last Thoughts

Izza Kizza explains his new video:

My People….Here is a mix-tape video done by my boy Hectah. If you dont know… Ima school ya: Hectah is an amazingly talented multimedia artist who is responsible for all of my creative photos, graphics, artwork, myspace layouts, and viral videos. Basically he is the entire visual element of me, and we completely inspire each other. Hectah approached me and said that he wanted to try and do a video for a song from my Kizzaland mix-tape. He chose “Hello” since he thought it the song was crazy and “didn’t get the exposure it deserved”. Since we had zero money to make a video for a mix-tape, he had this idea of taking upwards of 20,000 photos on a small laptop in the i-photo program, and sequence them together in stop motion/ time lapse photography all in a mac i-book. I didn’t know what all of that meant at first (sounded like some flux capacitor -10,000- gigawatts back to the future type shit), so I just went with the flow and put my trust in him and his idea. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the next thing you know I was walking around Union Square in NYC with a laptop strapped to my chest. Necessity is truly the mother of invention. Steve jobs would be proud. This is the final result….enjoy.

Jacked From

Fader via Okayplayer. Click here for the mixtape download.

Large Hadron Collider

2008-09-15T16:07:00.004+09:30

The Large Hadron Collider has finally been built and they ran the first ever test run of the protons the other day. We`re all still alive (for now) so you should all be cheerin.

Educate yourself:

Last Thoughts:

This is probably a lot more Earth shatteringly amazing than a lot of people realise. Including myself.

Travis Barker and DJ AM

2008-09-14T10:28:00.001+09:30

This shit is Hot!

Fix Your Face

Jacked From:

OkayPlayer

hey hey you you I don`t like your girlfriend

2008-09-13T23:02:00.000+09:30

Oh mate the funniest thing happened the other night!

So we went out for dinner in Omote Sando, to this kinda chique vegetarian restaurant. I`m not going Vegan or anything but I guess I`ve cut right down on meat and I try to only eat fish these days... that`s another story, let me stick with this one for now.

There was me, T, Naimisha and her friend who I`d only met once before but was a cool guy.

We were talking about this and that, having a laugh, and somehow started talking about the night clubs in Tokyo. The club Muse came up, and I offered my opinion that it`s the scrungiest joint in the city, cause dude`s go there to molest women on the dance floor, and girls go there with the intention of getting molested on the dance floor. Who am I to judge? If they`re both down for it, isn`t it gravy? But I judge anyway.

About this time, it comes up that we have a mutual friend, a girl called.... no I can`t drop her name, lets just call her Nadia. I`m getting excited because maybe he knows some of my other friends so I give him a bit of a "oh sweet bro! how do you know her?!" and he tells me "oh I met her at Muse".

I foolishly respond with "Oh I believe that. "

A little bit of silence follows, and I decide that my dinner mates need some clarification on my previous sentence... So I put this out there: "yeah Nadia definitely doesn`t mind a bit of a....you know what".

mad awkward silence until the dude goes "yeah actually, that`s my girlfriend".

SNAP!!

Hilarity.

T and Naimisha burst out laughing and I`m in disbelief at my own rudeness and all I can do is laugh and offer him "really? no way. bull shit!? dammmn. sorry bro"... Even he was laughing, it was quite an amusing situation hahaha.

I`m such a stooooooge!!!!

Last Thoughts:

I was kinda saved later on in the evening when it was discovered that I had confused Nadia for another girl, and so I hadn`t actually called this dude`s girlfriend a sl#t after all. But of course no one believed me and thought I was just throwing out some belated defense.

Who the Heck is Girl Talk?!

2008-09-08T09:52:00.004+09:30

Girl Talk is this mashup DJ from Pittsburgh who is famous for getting nude while performing on stage.

Philip Blackwell put me on back in the day while on a road trip to a festival where he was playing. Wackness be told, I had a mild case of soft-cock-itis back then and since he was playing past my bed time I missed his set.... how gangsta is that?! not gangsta at all...

To my ears he was kinda cool, but not dope.

That all changed when Brett hit me up and told me that the new album if fire. He was telling the truth, it is indeed red hot. This is track 3 off the album Feed the Animals, check it out:

Last Thoughts:

Entourage season 5 episode 1 premiered last night in the states!! it`s downloading as we speak...

Natural Hot Spring in the Mountains

2008-09-06T23:11:00.005+09:30

I'm staying at the most amazing hostel right now in Nikko, about 2 hours north of Tokyo. T flew in to Japan yesterday and is visiting for two weeks so I brought her here for the weekend.

I purposefully haven't given myself time to think about the emotional dramas that could pop up when an ex comes to visit. Especially when it's someone you haven't seen since the breakup.

But hey that's what life is all about, handling these situations and the associated complications.

I just thought I'd jump on here real quick to remind myself when i read this later how deeply relaxed I feel right now. We just got back from a dope onsen.

I sat outside in the natural hot spring being sprinkled with light rain, surrounded by the forest blanketed in a rich mist, and couldn't think about anything else apart from how beautifu life is.

Live from, home of the...

2008-09-01T14:05:00.017+09:30

Twice upon a time there was a girl who thought she liked a boy on the bus.

She flirtatiously kissed him on the cheek and then remarked unapologetically "sorry, I might have put lip gloss on your cheek". A cheeky grin followed the comment and then she offered "I could put some lip gloss somewhere else if you want...".

She was once upon a time in love with a boy back home and was living happily ever after but that all seems like forever ago.

Listening To:

Outkast - Aquemini
Girl Talk - Feed the Animals
Joni Mitchell - Chelsea Morning

Stephen Hawking Lego

2008-08-30T11:26:00.005+09:30

Jacked from:

Dirk and his facebook post. Thanks mate.

The History of Love

2008-08-27T11:07:00.004+09:30

I`m reading the most amazing book.

I can`t even go 2,3 pages without coming across a passage that will make me feel it in the back of my eyes, or deep in my stomach.

I`ve spent the last few days reading out whole paragraphs to whoever is around. If no one is in ear shot, I`ll call someone.

Here is one of my favourites, from very early on in the story:

Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in a house across the field from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was Queen and he was King. In the autumn light, her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfulls. When the sky grew dark they parted with leaves in their hair.

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.

Last Thoughts:

Shout out to Lindzy who recommended this book to me.

never could refuse a dare...

2008-08-12T22:56:00.005+09:30

Someone dared me to climb up a balcony. I told him "Shiiit, you don`t have to dare me twice."

Last Thoughts:

I`ve caught some kind of disease where I feel the need to climb everything I see.

Tales of a Scholastic Jedi

2008-08-11T23:41:00.005+09:30

Alright man I don`t even know how to convey this. I`m in love with my life right now like you can`t even believe.

Check out where I am, they have me at this 5 star resort at the picturesque Shonan beach for the second week of this crazily dope science conference. Last week we were at Lake Saiko (next to Fuji san) where we spent the evenings swimming in the lake surrounded by million dollar views of the impressive mountains and forests.

I`m meeting some amazing people here who have come from places like Berkeley, Stanford, and other internationally renowned uni`s, and who share my passion for aquiring knowledge.

The craziest thing is that these people are genuinely interested in what I have to say about physics, my one true passion that doesn`t involve a mic or a ball or breasts. When I tell them how I entangled four squeezed vacuum states with only three beam splitters, they don`t tune out like I`m used to, but they ask me for the details!! And they can comprehend and appreciate how exciting all this quantum shit is!

I met a guy today who has taken a lecture course given by the legendary Mandelbrot, another guy who told me an amazing story about Leon Chua, and some of the professors who worked at Bell Labs in its heyday are here at this very conference giving plenary talks. Bell Labs is where they invented the transistor, which was the birth of electronics.

This is such a condusive environment for obtaining knowledge and inventing original and creative schools of thought. When I`m not listening to talks or going for swims at the beach, I`m furiously scribbling down the maths related to my experiment and rederiving everything to find out a way to take my research to the highest level. I have to take this motivation back to Tokyo with me!!!

Last Thoughts:

My presentation was voted (equal) 4th out of 122 and they even gave me $100 prize money!!! Bro, I swear you would think I came 1st place if you saw how happy I was at the awards ceremony. Sure it`s not top 3, but hey I was competing against fairly decent company so I`m walking on the moon right now.

It`s not all science though ;) we all just got back from the beach where we saw the super rad kamakura fireworks festival. Afterwards a few of us swam out to a small rock island in the moon light and I foolishly attempted to climb it. I got to about 7, 8 meters high, which doesn`t sound like it`s that high but it was higher than two basketball rings stacked up. And it was pretty much a vertical rock climb and I realised that if I fell I would 100% have to go to hospital and it would be a very big waste of time.

Then the weirdest thing happened, my right hand started shaking and I couldn`t hold on to the rock anymore! My dad had told me about a similar story once when his legs started shaking uncontrollably on a climb and now I can fully comprehend how helpless it makes you feel. It would have been a funny sight: me holding on for dear life just in my boxers with my right hand shaking like I had parkinsons!!

So I tried to climb down and some of the rocks I was going for would crumble when I grabbed them!! It`s been awhile since I`ve had that now familiar "this could be very bad" feeling. The last time I had that was when I went too fast on my skate board in Santa Barbara. This one played out to be a boring happy ending though. Another kid even climbed right to the top (twice as high) and I felt like a little girl in comparison.

Tales of an Academic Gangster, part II

2008-08-06T01:48:00.003+09:30

I`m pumped baby!!

I had a presentation today at my first international physics conference, and this was my big chance to tell the world what I`ve been up to in the lab in the four months since I came to Japan in April.

And I`ll tell you man, I surprised myself. Even though I was a touch nervous, my talk flowed like a Biggie freestyle in the pre Bad Boys era. Lucid and eloquent baby.

Two compliments from big deal motherfuckers and my academic confidence is through the roof. I feel like I`m too legit to quit. I`ve started something amazing here in Tokyo man, I`ve hit that next level.

Last Thoughts

Heck yes I`m riding my own jock right now. But hey, this is why I have a journal man, I could never tell anyone in person how proud I am of my hard work for the fear of coming across as arrogant.

Phife said it best: I never walk around and think it`s all about me, even though deep in my heart, it just might be.

Fuji Rockers part II

2008-07-30T21:02:00.020+09:30

Musical Highlights

Kate Nash

Imagine if Patience and Lily had crazy hot lesbian sex. The love child then grows up and manifests a musical style resembling losing control on a trampoline in LDN.

This prodigal (and nameless) love child has a younger sister who is slightly less talented, however on occasion shows flashes of melodic brilliance. This young sister is Kate Nash.

She played a really fun set and showed Japan how cute she is :) Mariella was my jam.

Jamie Lidell

Rich told me once to check this guy out. Rich put me on to the Cool Kids, Jamie T and Lily Allen. Why did I not take his advice?

He looked like a young Buddy Holly on the stage, sang like he was from Harlem, and beatboxed like his name was Tom Thumb.

A bag of surprises.

Ozomatli

The only band I had seen before out of the whole line up. Which impressed me because well lets face it, I`m a festival slut.

They played the best set I`ve ever seen them play, with a copious amount of intimate crowd participation.

Heck, at the end of their set they marched into the crowd with hand held instruments and engaged the crowd in chants for a good 20 minutes!

Rodrigo y Gabriela

These two were my favourite act, straight up. I fell in love with Gabriela and her guitar. I don`t know if I`ve ever seen so much raw passion at a gig before.

Fuji Rockers part I

2008-07-30T16:28:00.001+09:30

Magic. Pure magic baby. That`s the only way I can describe our time at Fuji Rock, the biggest music festival in Japan.

We left Tokyo thursday night after a spectacular fireworks festival down by the river and met up with Ashleigh (and later her Canadian friends) in Naeba, about 2 hours north of Tokyo. This was hands down the best festival site I have ever seen. Surrounded by the magical forests of Niigata (a ski resort in the winter), the place resonated a beautiful serenity that totally immersed everyone there.

On one of the nights the stars were in full effect and the moon was dominating the sky, so I decided to sleep outside on a roll mat. It was the first time I had done that since Byron and the hippie spirit inside of me was awoken a little :)

Everything about the place was magic bro, I went on this long ass bush walk up one of the mountains and came across some real pretty rivers and waterfalls and saw some big ass butterflies on some kick ass flowers.

Two things that rank heaps high on my list of favourite activities are eating and bathing. Now check this out, they would have had over 50 different food stalls there each with a nutritious, diverse and well priced menu. But what really impressed me was the fact that they had a free onsen on site!!! And if the line was too long, you could jump in to the onsen next door, which was more legit, and only cost $5.

I tell ya, after a hard day of partying at a festival getting your dance on, lounging in a relaxing natural hot spring is just about heaven.

Last Thoughts

As if all this wasn`t enough, the Canadians brought some Mary Jane along, and she made sweet love to my mouth. Wait, that doesn`t quite sound right... I`ve been watching too much Arrested Development recently and Tobias is infiltrating my diction...

Tales of an Academic Gangster

2008-07-23T19:15:00.005+09:30

We had a huge result in the lab today.

We teleported an arbitrary quantum operator through a multi mode entangled continuous variable linear cluster state. You speak of hard core? I`m an Academic Gangster.

This earns me the highly coveted title of certified AMC.

Last Thoughts

I`m so happy right now you can see my smile from behind :) :) :)