The Lonely Islands’ I’m On a Boat is parodied by Bill and Ben with alot of help from Shapeshifter’s P-Diggs. Oh, and a goat too.

It’s been nearly a year since I was involved in the music business down-under in Sydney, and I can only say it’s been a great thing for my appreciation of music again. The last year or so working at EMI sucked all the passion I had for music out of me and left me hating a one of my most favoured things. But that’s all changed for me, thankfully, and I’m starting to hear and appreciate some really good music again, it could also be the fact that this year has been blessed with some really smashing releases.

And right out of the blocks we have the new clip from Empire Of The Sun which was made to celebrate the longest solar eclipse thus far in the 21st century. It’s one of the most eccentric clips i’ve seen in a while but I love it all the same. Another fantastic clip by the Josh & the crew at Mathematics.

Keeping with the EMI trend, the crew from The In Sound From Way Out have posted up a bunch of new Jamie T tracks from his upcoming album Kings & Queens (Out in September). The first single is Sticks n Stones, and I like what I hear so far, not as instant as Panic Prevention, but the album should be a cracker, wish I could catch him live again, that Candy’s Apartment show in ‘07 was brilliant!

Pearl Jam have this week posted up The Fixer, the first single off their new album Backspacer and it’s a cracking tune! Eddie is back in full force, can’t wait for the end of September for their new album, I just wish I was somewhere where they will be touring as I don’t think Singapore will get a show somehow. Rumors are that its a Pearl Jam & Ben Harper tour…

But the one thing that i’m looking forward to the most is the Nine Inch Nails concert here in Singapore on August 10th at Fort Canning Park, I missed the Australian tour earlier on this year and was absolutely gutted, and with rumours going around about this possibly being their last world tour it’s gonna be a killer show at a really awesome outdoor venue! Only a few weeks to go now… But until then, there really have been some awesome albums out in the first 1/2 of the year, and here is a list of some of my faves so far this year.

• Sepultura – A-lex
• Mastodon – Crack The Sky
• Glassjaw – Everything You Ever Wanted
• Pearl Jam – Ten Reissue
• Propagandhi - Spupporting Caste
• Chimaira – The Infection
• Earth Crisis – To The Death
• Hatebreed – For The Lions
• NOFX – Coaster
• Mos Def – The Ecstatic
• Alexisonfire – Old Crows Young Cardinals
• Rancid – Let The Dominoes Fall
• Sonic Youth – The Eternal
• Placebo – Battle For The Sun
• Karnivool – Sound Awake
• August Burns Red – Constellations
• DevilDriver – Pray For Villains

If the first half of the year is anything to go by then 2009 is gonna be one to remember and those end of the year charts are going to be a little more difficult to fill in than the past couple of years.

It’s not been the easiest 6 months since Anita and I moved to Singapore in early February to start our Asian experience. To be fair we have had our fair share of ups and downs so far but we are starting to head down the right track, at least for now. Anita has found herself a job working in Workplace Safety doing some Marketing, it’s long hours and late nights, but in this climate it was the best we could get before her tourist visa expired. We’re still on the lookout for other opportunities if they arise. My career has done a complete 360 in the past month, Rubicon Reserve Wines went into liquidation at the start of June which threw our plans a little out the window, however it was not all doom and gloom right away. I was kept on for a while as a new company was formed shortly after, so things continued there for a while but there was a lot of uncertainty over the future, and especially how and when we were going to get paid (I’m still chasing May’s pay and it’s not looking good).

But where one door closes, another opens, and after consulting some people in the legal know here in Singapore, I’ve decided to open up my own business doing Web Design & Online Consultancy. It’s something I was considering after my days at EMI but it’s a lot easier here in Singapore to start up a business, especially with the tax breaks and incentives from the government, the timing all seemed to fit into place this time. I’d been doing a little bit of work on the side for a couple of clients throughout my time in Singapore and was quite enjoying that work, so why not do it full time? I couldn’t argue with myself there.

There are a few loose ends to tie up regarding the finalisation of the company and my visa, but things are progressing along pretty well. business cards are on the way as well as an official company stamp. Cheque books are in and Anita is looking after the expenses, book keeping and everything to do with numbers. The really positive thing about this whole change in career is that I’m busy and really enjoying the work that I’m doing every day, and I can’t remember the last time I felt that way about work.

Back in March, Anita and I picked up two little turtles from a local aquarium shop, something we had wanted to add to our aquarium set-up for a while but never managed to in Sydney. Licensing laws are stricter in Australia because of the need to protect local species, and a license is needed to have reptiles as pets, plus, our local aquarium store in Cremorne were unable to source any for us, we didn’t press the issue much either.

So after about 6 weeks in Singapore we decided to get a couple of turtles, named them Mikey and Toby, a small tank as well as a few guppies. We didn’t get off to the best start, the guppies didn’t survive more than a few days and one of our turtles had a disease which meant he was unable to swim. Poor Toby was only able to skim across the top of the water, apparently it’s a common disease and he didn’t make it longer than about 6 weeks, eventually he was just too weak, he was a little fighter though and he’ll always be remembered.

As time went on, the lone survivor Mikey was getting bigger and bigger by the week, so the tank went from being half full, to full in a matter of short weeks. We got a little creative and made him a basking area complete with bamboo ladder, artificial grass, and a palm tree. The idea being that if he ever got sick of swimming he had somewhere to go and warm up and soak in the rays.

Time went on, and a month or so ago Anita and I decided that he had outgrown his first home and it was time to splash out on that well earned upgrade, he ended up with a 60 litre tank, complete with a new high powered waterfall filter (turtles are pretty messy little animals), tank ornaments and a water oxygenator. We kept his old basking area as well and that’s going to be the next upgrade.

So, here we are in July, Mikey has some new fishy friends (Tetra’s added to the tank over the weekend) to chase around and he’s happy as Larry. We took some photos of him a couple of weeks ago so we thought that we should share then here.

I hope you enjoy the pics as much as we enjoyed taking them. Check out the slideshow below, or view them on Flickr.

Anita and I caught up with a friend from Sydney yesterday for a nice casual lunch at Brewerkz that soon turned into an all night drinking session ending about 12 hours later, some of my favourite nights start and finish that way.

We started at Brewerkz with a couple of Volcano burgers that were nice and firey and set the tastebuds alight, just enough to be cooled down with a jug or two of their fantastic Golden Ale.

Full to the brim, we stumbled our way across to Cafe Iguana for some Macho Margaritas, $23 bucks for an awesome frozen delight in the heat of the day, how could you pass that up? We simply could not refuse the bargain and dug right in, good times.

A few hours later we caught up at Juat Beer, this little local bar down at the row of shops at our condo Ridgewood, with 1-for-1 James Squire Amber Ale until closing. Another old school friend Darren joined the festivities and much fun was had by all until the fun police decided it was too late and moves us along.

The drinking would not stop there, we grabbed a bottle of Balentines for the house and headed in cabs to Holland Village to grab a feed of noodles, roti prata, and some Heineken longnecks, and there was much rejoicing.

A good time was had by all, and a hangover has been very hard to avoid, speaking of that, I should really get out of bed and do something with the day.

It’s been a while since the last Australian AC/DC tour, and you can tell, with all tickets selling out in record time, with the first Sydney show going in around 12 minutes on Monday morning. Demand is high for what will surely be their last tour with scalpers on eBay asking for up to AUS $800 for two tickets, more than double the asking price of $150 per ticket. It’s not uncommon for this to happen, with most concerts featuring their fair share of tickets scalped via eBay, and unfortunately for the public, there isn’t much anyone can do about it.

I myself considered making the trip down under, possibly to Perth, to see one of the shows but didn’t get my shit together in time. It’s a little disappointing having seen Guns N Roses, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest over the last couple of years, ACDC, I guess is the only band missing from my Metal Hall Of Fame.

It does bring up the notion of relevance, Priest, Maiden and Gunners have all had new albums out, ACDC now as well so you could answer that with a simple yes. However there are a lot of other artists out there still touring the same old crap every few years, one just had to watch the terrible American Idol finale this year, in which Lionel Ritchie, Santana & Cindy Lauper all performed hits from the late 80’s and early 90’s. Are they still relevant? I would have to argue that they aren’t, or at least if they are, it’s definitely only because they made it big, once, and there is a bit of a musical revival around the 80/90’s in the pop music scene at the moment, at least Prince is constantly reinventing himself and his music. The nail in the coffin really, is the news that John Farnham is going out on yet another tour, at least 5 years after his ‘last ever tour’.

I wonder if it’s all really necessary, surely they have enough money, and surely their music is still selling well in discount bins all around the world, but really, does the world really need another John Farnham tour? Or Santana doing the 1,287,670th live version of Black Magic Woman? I hardly think so, but hey, I’m no longer in the music business, and I often think that’s for the best…

On a side note, I am really looking forward to seeing the Nine Inch Nails show in Singapore in August, a band that is still changing, molding and some might say leading though these uncertain times in the music industry. It might be their last tour which is sad, but after missing their shows earlier in the year in Sydney, I wish August 10 would roll around soon.

As I sit down to write this, the Chiefs are on their long-haul journey to Pretoria to play the drop-kicking Bulls, fresh from their win over the Crusaders in this weekends semi final. After leaving at 3am this morning NZ time and making their journey though Australia, then on to South Africa by plane, they make their final stage via bus to Pretoria. As a long time suffering Chiefs fan, it’s nice to finally have them fight it out for the title, and after winning 11 or their last 12 games, they go in with some decent form with two recent hard fought wins over the Hurricanes and one against the Brumbies, even Foxy believes that they can do it.

I’m predicting a pretty hard fought game at altitude, the Chiefs have a bit going against them, but it’s the wrong end of the season for excuses, they’re just 80 minutes away from achieving what all teams set out to do at the start of the season, with just one team, the Bulls standing in their way. Hopefully we see a free running game with Mills leading from the back and Messam churning out some more big hits. It’s gonna be a cracker of a game, and I can’t wait.

I’ll be drinking some Tui to the Mooloo Men on Saturday night!

RIP GeoCities 1995-2009…

Probably a bit after the fact, but I thought it was worth mentioning the passing of one of the sites that started all this for me way back on dial-up internet. GeoCities is officially shutting its doors and going offline. This is the same site that was bought by Yahoo back in 1999 for a staggering $3.57 Billion US dollars and at the time, was home to 1.1 million users, I was one of those users, it’s where I launched m first website, one of the many that ended up on geocities before I bought my own domain in 1998. Check out this awesome geocities timeline.

So without repeating all that Alex blogged about the other day, he really covered it all, everything I wanted to say, just head on over to ColoursAndLight for a gander.

In other news, I’ve just updated my theme to the very awesome Thesis 1.5 WordPress theme, and so far I’m liking what I see.

Met up with the Berrick’s last night who are here for a couple of weeks over the Easter break. We met up at the Bungy Bar at Clarke Quay for a few pints and to watch the Waratahs v Bulls Super 14 game, a disappointing result for the Tahs so we headed off to get a bite to eat at Makansutra after a recommendation from my mate Roy Tan. I had some Motobak which wasn’t great and was mostly onion while the rest had differing types of noodle dishes, which all gave me food envy. You live and you learn, and after paying more than we expected for what we got, we headed along to the Singapore Flyer for our night flight.

Some wheeling and dealing later and we managed to get a whole capsule to ourselves, just the four of us, which was really nice as the next capsule was loaded with screaming kids, not who we really wanted to share our ‘flight’ with. The whole journey took about half an hour, unfortunately Anthony’s battery died so it was only me taking photos, and I really should have brought my tripod, some of the pics would have turned out a lot better had I been a bit more stable with my shots, but a few pints will do that to any photo, and I’m sticking to that story.

It’s quite a surreal experience but fantastic at night, especially when we reached the summit (around 168 meters above sea level) looking down on the city of Singapore, during the day you would have been able to see up to 45km away, which would make it easy to see parts of Malaysia and Indonesia. I snapped a few pics, some good, some not so good and need some post-processing in Lightroom when I can get some time, i’ve uploaded them anyway cause I’m too hungover to do anything else at the moment…

Happy Easter! I’m off to tuck into some chocolate eggs…

The funniest joke ever is uniting the world…

Do you like fishsticks?
Yes
Do you like to put fishsticks in your mouth?
Yes
What are you? a gay fish

Kayne West is a lyrical genius, but doesn’t get it.

It’s time for him to go home … back to the ocean, to be a gay fish along with his auto-tune.

I haven’t laughed that hard at anything in a long time, I really think you should all check out the full episode at South Park Studios.