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.
July 24, 2010
Freeza Battle of the Bands
July 16, 2010
Uni results for semester 1
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.
July 13, 2010
Port Albert
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.
July 6, 2010
Exams are done
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.