James A McDonough

Trying to take a passport photo

James A McDonough — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 02:31:10 +0000

I took this, but Theresa doesn’t like it:

How I see myself

So she took this one:

How Theresa sees me

I guess how she sees me is different to how I see myself.

Election 2010

James A McDonough — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:26:30 +0000

I worked the election for the AEC, the Kongwak booth in the seat of McMillan. It was hard work, a 14 hour day without a break. I was offered a meal break, I should add, but there were some slow times and there was only two of us working that booth so if I’d gone off the OIC would have had to cover issuing ordinary votes (my job) and do everything else (her job) too. So I had a sandwich at my desk.
I was reasonably happy about the outcome of the election (For anybody overseas, it was: hung parliament, Greens to take the balance of power in the Senate when Senate terms end next year, a Green elected to the seat of Melbourne, minority government formed at some stage in the future when the independents decide who to support). I didn’t feel that the major parties had a lot to offer other than lowest-common-denominator fear and greed. As an AEC employee I have no politics, though.
Mostly I found the process very interesting. Hopefully I did a pretty good job but I can’t count as fast as my OIC, who works in a bank, probably a perfect background for the task.
It was the first day I’ve worked since I got sick, apart from gigs, so it was a landmark. I’ve applied for a few other things, but so far no luck.
On the Sunday Gavin and I played a 50th at Venus Bay with John on bass and a very good tenor saxophonist who might have been called Russel. It was a very nice gig. I hope the birthday boy enjoyed it – I certainly would have if I’d been him.

2CDs

James A McDonough — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:37:30 +0000

I bought 2 CDs the other day and they arrived in the mail today.
I’ve actually been listening to Teenage Fanclub’s “Shadows” since I bought it – I went online and found a copy. Nice to have the CD though. It’s almost getting into chamber pop territory. In places it made me think of The Zombies, string arrangements, stacked harmonies, sixties sounds.
Sweet Apple’s “Love and Desperation” is big loud rock and roll. I bought it based on a good review in Mojo and J Mascis’ involvement. I like it a lot. I’d love to see them live.
The covers suit the music. The Fannies’ album has a sky blue and grey collage of architectural photos. The Sweet Apple cover is a lurid affair, two skinny girls in panties standing in a jungle, in a tip of the hat to Roxy music.

Freeza Battle of the Bands

James A McDonough — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 23:15:50 +0000

Sean and I went to a Freeza battle of the bands at the Wonthaggi town hall last night. I probably shouldn’t have gone but I wanted to support Innuendo. I did feel very old, but it was actually a much better Friday night than I’ve had recently. The sound was pretty crappy but very loud.
The bands were:
1. Innuendo
They’re a proper rock band that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in the seventies.
2. Bastion
Loud blokey screamo. Sloppy fun.
3. Dethroned AD
Enthusiastic disciplined screamo. Well presented and involving.
4. King Nine Will Not Return
Highly musical screamo. Very good guitarist. White MacBook that may have been playing synth lines.
5. Rafting Kids
Eighties pop music. Equipment problems. Good gear. Either really good or just a bit too up themselves. The mix was bad and the audience either just like screamo or they were exhausted.
6. Max DC played a drum solo while the annoying twerp MC fought to be the centre of attention.
I keep using the word screamo but of course I’m not part of that scene and I have no idea what it even means. I came home and checked the wikkipedia entry last night. We would have called them all death metal or thrash when I was younger, but the clothes were different.
Kids were well behaved, nobody appeared drunk or high, no aggression, well run night. Bus sitting out the front of the venue to return kids to various points of South Gippsland.
The last few times I’ve been out on a Friday we’ve gone to see acoustic acts at the Middle pub. It’s predictable covers, well performed to a drunken bar. For some reason I find this terribly depressing. Seeing five more-or-less local bands playing I think original music on a stage in a nice hall was a far better experience.
Who won? I was listening but I couldn’t hear the announcement. From talking to Ricky Hurst I think it was King Nine Will Not Return. I probably would have given it to Dethroned AD for their stage act. Rafting Kids and Innuendo are the bands I could enjoy having on a CD.
PS I may have mixed up the bands, five minutes research on Facebook was all I had to identify them this morning.

Uni results for semester 1

James A McDonough — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:08:55 +0000

I wasn’t expecting results until midday today but they came via sms last night and are up on the monash uni website this morning. I was happy with how I went:

FIT1001 (COMPUTER SYSTEMS) 95% HD
FIT1002 (COMPUTER PROGRAMMING) 72% D
FIT1003 (IT IN ORGANISATIONS) 76% D
PHL1010 (LIFE, DEATH, AND MORALITY: INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS) 97% HD

Hopefully as this semester gets busy and with me hopefully taking on some sort of work I will be able to keep it up.

Port Albert

James A McDonough — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:20:08 +0000

Last Friday we went down to Port Albert for a drive. We had a walk around and ate at the pub. We played some soccer in the park.

Family At Port Albert

It was low tech and not very expensive but we had the nicest day we’ve had for a long time. The kids were commenting how wonderful it was that we all felt so close. The day had started somberly with a pet funeral (goodbye Rusty, you were a good chicken) but ended up one of those golden days that you hope define family life.

Exams are done

James A McDonough — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 04:33:09 +0000

I’ve been doing exams.

It was pretty stressful but also very rewarding. I had to drive over to Churchill and sit in a room with about 500 (mostly) much younger people. Theresa and the kids were very supportive, letting me pretty much disappear into the bedroom for three weeks. I wasn’t getting a lot of sleep, and when I was asleep I was mostly dreaming answers to trial papers.

The exams actually finished about a week ago. I’ve just been resting since then.

I think philosophy was pretty ok. It was 2 hours and 40% of the total mark. If I didn’t do so well it perhaps doesn’t matter as I was on a pretty good average going in. Java programming I was quite tense about, but overall, I’m hopeful that I did ok and I’d be surprised if I didn’t at least pass. It was 3 hours and a hurdle requirement of 40% applies, so if I bombed out that whole subject is shot – that goes for the other IT exams too. Doing a programming exam with paper and pencil was quite odd. No compiler errors to work from!

The Computer systems I was worried about, to be honest, but I think the exam was o.k. I was on an average of about 90% going in, but honestly thought that I could have got less than 40%. There just seemed to be so many little bitty things to know. Prepping for the exam I started to see the big picture – the notes and lectures were sequenced sensibly – but the course still seemed to be a list of things that you really ought to know. As it was I thought it was a fair, reasonably predictable paper and I’d hope for a decent grade.

IT in organisations I was also a bit worried about. There was nothing really hard to understand in it, but a lot to remember, and I’d never really felt that I connected with the subject. The exam was again fair and I thought pretty straightforward. I was only looking for a pass but I could have done alright.

Anyway, I’ll find out how I went in a couple of weeks, and I’ll make sure (dear reader) that you are informed right away.

It’s been six weeks …

James A McDonough — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:48:24 +0000

… since I kissed my honey goodbye … no, since I posted last. That’s because I don’t care much and you don’t care at all. Anyway, I’m finished my exams. If all went well I now have four subjects done towards my Bachelor of Information Technology. They are
1. Computer systems FIT1001
2. Java Programming FIT1002
3. IT in Organisations FIT1003
and
4. Philosophy (Morality, life and death) PHL1010.
I’ve lost a little weight, I’m sleeping a little better, I’m looking for a job. Maybe I’ll post again soon and let you know how I went when I get some results back in a couple of weeks.

Cover albums

James A McDonough — Wed, 19 May 2010 10:12:20 +0000

Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd

Dark Side Of The Moon by The Flaming Lips

I’m just listening to The Flaming Lips doing Dark Side of the Moon. It’s really quite beautiful. Their strongest set of songs for years. Sorry. Somebody on Gearslutz asked Alan Parsons what he thought of it. He said he’d have to have a listen. I now suspect that he just didn’t want to say anything nasty. Production values have changed over the years. Not better or worse. I really like the amount of distortion on the Lips version. It sounds cheap and lovely. But I’ve been listening to a lot of early seventies stuff (e.g. Hatfield and The North) and it is very well recorded.

I was wondering what I’d do if I was going to cover an album. Tonight’s The Night was the first thing that I thought of. But you can’t really make it any dirtier (well, you could, you could do it like a Gun Club record or something, but Tonight’s The Night is so dirty because it’s so true, not being brutal in an unbalanced way). Actually, I’d like to hear a Gun Club version of Tonight’s The Night. Maybe the original version that they cut that didn’t have any of the pretty songs on it. I believe David Briggs thought Neil Young was a pussy for not putting out the ‘real’ version.

I wouldn’t have the balls to try Electric Ladyland though if you did it with no guitars that would be interesting. Exile On Mainstreet you couldn’t really change much. Maybe take the country thing all the way and do it in the style of Gram Parsons. I wouldn’t mind trying Seance (by The Church) with all natural, slightly garage sounds. The drum sound on that record used to really give me the shits, but now I kind of like it. It is so annoying and ugly that it lends an alienating FU vibe to the whole record that suits the lyrics.

On the whole it’s a stupid idea. I’ve just been studying so hard today that I’ve gone all mental. And because I haven’t had a drink I’m all wired up. I have Swimmers Ear and it is really quite painful.

I have to get up at half past five in the morning because Sean has an excursion to Melbourne. So perhaps I should try to unwind and get to bed early.

Physical media

James A McDonough — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:32:47 +0000

One of the nice things about studying is that I spend a lot of time with music playing. When I’m out in the shed I like to listen to CDs. After all, they sound better. And they have nice covers.

I was online talking to a guy from college and I said I’d been listening to a lot physical media. His response was that he hadn’t heard of them, were they any good? This is a pointless story. He’s a muso. He knows what a CD is. But still this sounds like a tale that is pregnant with meaning. Perhaps it just has a bit of abdominal bloat. I was reading No Idea in a waiting room the other day. Katie Holmes isn’t pregnant, she’s just carrying a bit of fat. Same with this story.

The CDs you can see are

Matthew Sweet – Japanese fan CD, title in Japanese. I’ll try to find the title online and paste it in, I can’t type Japanese characters. EDIT here it is : キミがスキ・ライフ

Preston School of Industry – All this sounds gas

Golden Smog – Weird tales

Sarah Blasko – What the sea wants, the sea will have

Marvin Gaye – What’s going on

Urge Overkill – Exit the dragon

13th Floor Elevators – The psychedelic sounds of

Curtis Mayfield – the best of

Pink Floyd – Wish you were here

Elmore James – The sky is crying

The pictures – Pieces of eight

I should stop this wanky nonsense and do some work.