Ours, naturally: on July 6 this year (our fifth anniversary of being together), Jess and I were married at St. Matthews Anglican Church, in Guildford! It was a fairly small affair with only 50-odd people but it was totally amazing, and went off without a hitch (aside from the bit where we actually got hitched). You can see some photos of the event right here.

The night before the wedding, my brother Simon threw me a buck’s night at his house. As I don’t drink and am not into strippers, he decided to put me through a punishing series of Manliness Tests instead. These ranged from mowing his lawn, to cooking a ham and cheese sandwich on the barbeque (surprisingly difficult), to explaining exactly how a car worked (sorcery?) to smashing pieces of concrete. With my very own personalised, engraved sledgehammer.

My final score was a very acceptable 435 out of a possible 550, and Simon presented me with my very own “Approved for Marriage” certificate. Which I promptly accidentally left somewhere at the church and lost forever. Thanks Simon!

This one has to go to ours as well! Gosh, these awards are a bit one-sided. A few months after the wedding, we took off for the United Kingdom where we spent a couple of weeks jaunting through the various locales. Starting in London, we moved up through Manchester into Scotland, and from there across to Ireland, back down through Ireland across to Wales, then a few more days with the extended family in England before jetting off to spend the last few days of the trip in Leipzig, Germany with Jess’s brother Chris and his wife Hannah.

All told it was a bit more rushed than we’d have liked, and we ended up with some staggering roaming bills from Telstra due to the apparently mistaken belief that Google Maps wasn’t that data heavy. But overall it was an amazing experience – the first time Jess had ever been overseas, in fact! – and gave us a great tasting plate of the UK to return to later. We also got to meet some lovely people and eat some lovely food. Also, some awful food. I’m looking at you, any-and-all Indian restaurants in the UK.

We fell absolutely in love with Scotland, and now plan to return there at some point and buy a cottage to live in. This plan is tentatively known as “Operation: Scottage”.

In August we managed to sneak down to Busselton for a few days of quiet relaxation at a lovely little chalet by the beach. It was beautifully cold and lusciously green (although not, we would discover later, as green as anywhere in Scotland). Over the weekend we sampled many handmade delights in and around the region as well as visiting our favourite Indian restaurant, which had just opened up its first expansion down there.

The picture above is us eating at The Goose Cafe on a Saturday morning. We’d planned to take a walk down the Busselton Jetty but the wind was kicking up a storm and so instead we whiled away the morning inside the beachside cafe, by a crackling fire, eating pancakes and bacon. It was amazing.

Busselton, Margaret River and indeed the whole region are absolutely gorgeous and delightful to visit, but the sheer and utter lack of anything to do after 8PM on any given night was quite pronounced. Nearly everyone we saw had cracked open some sort of booze, and in fact a charming young pair of men walked into the restaurant while we were eating actually drinking already (and carrying a six pack in the other hand) – before casually checking with the waitress if it was okay. And, you know, that’s fine! If that’s what you’re into. But yeah, it was a bit strange to see.

Back in February – shit, almost a year ago now – we were walking home from a Comedy Night at the Charles Hotel and decided to stop in at the local petroleum dispensary for some iced cream. It was closed, alas, so we headed to Hungry Jacks nearby in the same carpark, only to find that there was a very adorable but disgustingly thin and sick-looking cat wandering around. He had a collar on and everything but no tag, and he was more than happy to eat some Hungry Jacks burger patties out of our hands and let us pick him up and pat him. After a few agonising minutes of deciding whether to get involved or not, we took him home and shacked him up in the laundry for the night.

The next day, we took him to the Cat Haven animal shelter nearby, where they told us flatly that if they couldn’t find his owner within 24 hours (he wasn’t microchipped), they would just put him down as it cost too much to keep him and he was too old for adoption. We were pretty disgusted by this attitude and left, taking it upon ourselves to walk the streets of Mt. Lawley, doorknocking and putting up “Found Cat” posters and so on. After six weeks or so of this with no result, my lovely ex-colleague from games.on.net, Brenna Hillier and her partner Nicole offered to take him in, and we shipped him across to Sydney to stay with them where he is now very fat and happy and gets lots of love and affection. All’s well that ends well.

Here’s our dog Rosie, carefully and lovingly patting the neighbour’s dog Gugle, who came over to be babysitted while they were out for work. Pretty fucking adorable.

This year, when my editor Bennett Ring left games.on.net, he nominated me for the role of caretaker/interim editor while they searched for a new full-time editor. I gleefully put my hand up to be that editor, and was pleased as punch when they decided to choose me to take full-time care of the site permanently in November this year. It’s basically the best job in the world, I’m not going to lie.

One of the perks of the job is that sometimes people in PR at video game companies send you nice things. Alan Moore at THQ for example sent me the one-and-a-half metre long replica chainsword from Space Marine, that you see in the above photo. He did so after ringing me up to sadly inform me that I couldn’t have one as they were exceptionally limited, so needless to say I flipped out like an excited schoolgirl when it showed up at the door. What a delightful troll he is.

Taco Salad. Make tacos as usual (in our case, per the directions on the Old El Paso taco kit), except replace “taco shells” with “bed of corn chips”. Adorn with toppings and serve, shoveling the ingredients into your face at high speed.

Perhaps a fairly farcical topic for me to discuss as I have all the tonal sensitivity of a tub of yoghurt, but it’s been a pretty musical year for me! I not only purchased a CD (just one, mind you) but even went to a music festival for the first time in living memory. John and I spent a delightful afternoon at Groovin’ the Moo in Bunbury which, despite the overhanging aroma of cooking cow pats and the tendency to be happily hugged by drunk bogans, was a pretty awesome experience. The highlight of the afternoon was of course Gotye, whose new album Making Mirrors also came out this year (predictably, it was the one I purchased).

As far as iTunes is concerned, my number one most-played non-Gotye song of the year is “Focus” from the Frozen Synapse soundtrack. So I’ve embedded that above for you. As far as the internet is concerned however, the number one hit of the year is of course “Snakes”, recorded by MC Chilly J and remixed by Jess. It’s probably the best song ever made. Listen to it here (or download it here as an iPhone ringtone).

Thanks for a great 2011, everybody! It’s been up, down, and shaken all around. Here’s to more frequent and less erratic blogging, continued health and happiness, and having another puppy to add to our family. We’ll be picking this little girl up some time in February. Isn’t she adorable?

Well, sorry about that little hiatus yesterday, but I felt like a butt, and then I went and did things anyway, so what resulted is that the time I had free at home I spent in bed asleep! True story. But I did get to hang out with my bro Deebs, who is leaving us in less than three weeks! :(:(:(

Anyway, today I’m meant to talk to you about what song ‘inspires’ me. Fuck that!

I’ve never been a person that really understands inspiration. Maybe I’m just not that creative. Well, yeah, that could be it. But when I’m inspired to do something it’s usually because of a random selection of thoughts that came together at a particular moment that made me think of something else.

The fact that this is such a random process is probably part of the reason I don’t create original things very often, and I need something like this set of rules to help me along. It’s a problem, I know. Especially if I want to be a writer some day. And you know, there are a vast selection of psychological reasons we could get into for why this is a thing.

But we’re not going to. You know why? ‘Cause we’re meant to be talking songs.

Now, while I don’t get inspired by any particular songs per se, I do really really love music. I love a lot of different types of music, and I love them a LOT. I sometimes have a hard time relating to other people’s music choices, because I’m so passionate about my own (see Tim: “You have shit taste in music”). But the point of this exercise is to get me writing, right? Not just so you can all learn my innermost secrets. So I thought what I’d do instead is pick a small selection of my favourite songs and pieces and tell you why I think they rule!

I’ll try to make them many and varied so they aren’t just the same old thing, ja? Anyway, let’s do this.

————————-

Turns out I didn’t do this or, indeed, anything at all! I honestly sat there for the longest time until I realised I felt so shit that this just wasn’t going to get done, and then I gave up. True story! But now I feel better, so let’s actually do this, and other things. I’ve been painting all day, actually, so my creative juices are fucking BURSTING THEIR BANKS, LADIES.

Okay, songs. Go!

Let’s start with the most generic category and work from there. Rock! My favourite rock song is Welcome to the Jungle, by Guns and Roses. Man, what a great song. The powerful lead guitar drives it from beginning to end, the vocals are catchy and singalongable and the pounding of the drums is fast enough to make it awesome, but slow enough to make it epic. The lyrics are a little nonsensical, but it just doesn’t care because did you hear that solo? That’s right, shut up. Between this and Fuel by Metallica, I can get pumped up for anything.

Okay! Metal. I was going to pick a Rhapsody song, but I couldn’t. Not only because they are a series of concept albums, so you have to sort of take whole albums as a single song, but because, well, let’s be honest, they all sound pretty similar anyway. But man. Rhapsody. Or rather Rhapsody of Fire, I think they’re called now. They’ll always be Rhapsody to me. Anyway, Rhapsody. I believe their specific genre is “symphonic epic power metal”. Doesn’t that just say it all? So it’s power metal, obviously. The epicness comes from the scale, I suppose of not just one concept album, but a series of concept albums that all follow a continuing saga. The symphonic comes from their use not only of guitars and drums etc, but that they incorporate flutes, violins, brass even harpsichords into just about every song. Not even just like, a one off. They’re practically members of the band.

Also, did I mention that this little metal band from Italy, who have trouble speaking basic english (see: “emerald sword” pronounced “eeeeme-rald *shudder*) got Christopher Lee on not one, but like three of their albums? He even actually sang on one. It was amazing and epic.

Great band.

Okay, up next is… Pop! That’s right, even popular audio-listening tracks will get a mention here. I’m not fussy, really, I’m not going to limit myself away from a genre just because it’s not hip to listen to pop music, ironically. Well, it is hip to listen to it ironically. But you know what I mean.

Anyway, my selection for this category is an older pop tune, but a pop tune none the less, mostly ’cause I could not think of a single other category it would possibly fit into. And that is the song “I Could Never Be Your Woman” by Whitetown. You’ve possibly heard it, even if you don’t recognise the name. Anyway, the first thing about this song that I love is that it is in fact sung by a man. So I guess he’s right! It also talks about marxism for some reason. Musically, it’s funky as hell. It’s all electronic as far as I can tell, but the bassline in solid and the drum machine is very catchy. I also love the sound of horns as though filtered through a old timey turntable. Everything rules about this song. If you haven’t heard it, look it up on youTube. It’s got a neat filmclip also.

Classical is my next category. I don’t suppose too many of you can relate to this category, but it is in fact a tie for this one. First up is the Jupiter movement from the Planets suite by Gustav Holst. It’s pretty famous, you may have heard it in one of it’s other forms. But it is a beautiful piece of music, both grandiose and regal and jolly and fun. The toher contender is Tocatta and Fugue by Bach. Eeeeeeveryone will have heard this one, even if, again, you don’t know it’s name. It’s that really sinister piece of music that always get’s played when, I dunno, vampires come into the room. DEE-NUR-NEEEEEEEEEEEE…. duh-duh-duh-duh-duhhhhhh-duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Anyway, it is an incredible, incredible piece of music. There is a reason Bach is still one of the most famous composers of all time. He was a genius. But yeah, listen to it in it’s entirety, it’s about 12 minutes long, and just wonder at the convoluted, intricate nature. And remember the guy is not only playing on two keyboards, but a third with his feet.

Incredible.

I had some others I was going to mention, a lot of others in fact. You can’t get a small list of my favourite songs, unfortunately. But this had already taken over an hour, and is goddamn long enough! I’ll just list ‘em and give you a summary.

Ayreon – Into the Electric Castle: Actually an entire album, again a concept album, but taken as a whole, one of the best pieces of music ever.

The Animals – House of the Rising Sun: Just a solid fucking song. Amazing.

Soko – I’ll Kill Her: The story of a vaguely french chick who has her whole life planned out before the guy even asks her out. Also, he’s seeing someone else. Beautifully awkward and bitter.

Nightwish: Goddamn, anything by Nightwish. One of the few bands who’s stuff I’ve collected almost in it’s entirety. Such an amazing band.

Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue – Where the Wild Roses Grow: Such a beautiful and sad song. Almost makes me cry, but I’m enjoying it too much.

So that’s it for today! Well, for the last three days, I guess. Regular updates start again tomorrow! Or today, I guess. But there’s be another one tomorrow, making them regular again from that time forward!

Whhheeeeeeeeee!

But what is the story, Tim. What’s it all about. Well, I’m glad you asked…

You see, I think Victoria Bitter is great. Not the drink, of course – it tastes like somebody accidentally spilled yeast into paint stripper and let it ferment. Not the drink, no thanks, but the… the meta. Everything about Victoria Bitter – its history of sportsmen and moustaches, its constant presence at barbeques, race riots and other quintessentially white-Australian haunts and even its delightful advertisements with their barely restrained homo-eroticism and their chest-butting, sheep-shearing, bicep-crunching, sweat-dripping machismo. All these things, I find utterly fascinating. But there is nothing about Victoria Bitter that I love so much as its theme music.

You know the one. Dun dun dun, da-da-da-da dah nah, da dah nah, dah nah, da-da-da nah…. It’s great. It is, isn’t it. It’s practically the second national anthem, or at least the third if you count Waltzing Matilda. And quite frankly I do, because any song about a guy who steals a sheep and then leaps into a pond to get away has my vote.

Anyway, the urge came upon me a while back to actually try and acquire this theme music for myself. If it was in my possession, then I would be able to play it any time I wanted. No more sitting glued to the car radio waiting for an advert to come on for me, no sir! I hastened immediately to the nearest computron and found the Fosters website, hoping that they would be able to provide me with the musical crack cocaine that I so desperately craved.

In fact, they didn’t. They didn’t have anything at all, other than a glistening photo of a Victoria Bitter bottle and an angry paragraph describing to me in detail just how much more chest hair I would spontaneously grow with every sheep-shearing swig. I was lost. I was hopeless. So I did what any sane man would do in my situation.

I filed a support ticket.

From: Tim
To: Fosters Consumer Relations
Subject: Victoria Bitter Theme Music [Incident: 080729-000]
Date: 29th July 2008

Hi guys,

Some years ago, I remember that it was possible to download the VB theme from your website. I can’t seem to find the link anymore. I love the theme to pieces and it would be great to have it on my playlist! Can you please bring it back, or send it to me?

Thanks a lot!
Tim

A reasonable request from a reasonable man. Surely Fosters would not stand in the way of my divine imperative! Two days later, just as my vision began to blur and the shakes set in, a reply arrived.

From: Betty (Fosters Consumer Relations)
To: Tim
Subject: Victoria Bitter Theme Music [Incident: 080729-000]
Date: 31st July 2008

Hi Tim,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us at Foster’s.

Plesae find attached the VB Theme music.

Please contact us again should you have any further queries we can assist you with.

Kind Regards,
Foster’s Consumer Relations

Yes! I eagerly downloaded the file, told the stereo to kick it to the max and hit play.

No dice. It was not the Victoria Bitter theme music. In fact, it was an mp3 recording of a radio advertisement about the Victoria Bitter theme music. Close, but not quite. It was clear they needed clarification. I pulled my broken heart together long enough to compose a reply.

From: Tim
To: Betty (Fosters Consumer Relations)
Subject: Victoria Bitter Theme Music [Incident: 080729-000]
Date: 31st July 2008

Hi Betty!

Thanks for the response and the attached mp3. Unfortunately I was hoping for the actual theme itself, not the radio ad about the theme. Is it available at all? I’m sure I used to have it. I could just dig up the Magnificent Seven theme, but it’s not the same :(

Thanks again,
Tim

They had been good before – would they be good again? I waited eagerly to see if they would return to me. Days passed, then weeks. Then months. I returned to a normal life, and forgot my dark past. That is, until December, when I happened to chance across the old email in my inbox. I immediately tried to fire off another reply to dear ol’ Betty but The Man slapped me in the face, telling me that my incident number was too old and had been closed due to lack of activity. They had forgotten me!

I raced to the Fosters website, retrieved my password details and opened another support ticket. I would not be denied.

From: Tim
To: Fosters Consumer Relations
Subject: Victoria Bitter Theme Music [Incident: 081205-000031]
Date: 5th December 2008

This question references closed incident 080729-000055.

I still have not received an answer to my question. Is it possible get a copy of the Victoria Bitter theme music? Not a radio ad *about* the theme music, but the theme music itself.

If you would like to bargain, I am happy to offer Fosters a large art project I did which features Victoria Bitter in the position of God in an Australian parody of Michaelangelo’s painting of the Sistine Chapel. It is about 5 by 4 foot long and would look great in the Fosters offices.

I am very serious about this! Please respond.

Here I was, putting my heart and soul on the line. Not to mention a 5-by-4-foot piece of polystyrene on which I had clumsily glued a Victoria Bitter related cartoon. Would they respond? It turns out they would, in fact. Four days later, I heard from the lovely and talented Moira:

From: Moira (Fosters Consumer Relations)
To: Tim
Subject: Victoria Bitter Theme Music [Incident: 081205-000031]
Date: 9th December 2008

Hi Tim,

Sorry it took a while, but we finally managed to get a copy of the VB theme music. We’d love to get a photo of your art work, which we will pass onto the brand team to have a look at.

If you have any problems with the file, please let me know.

Kind Regards,
Foster’s – Consumer Relations

Yes! There it was, in black and white pixels: an attached mp3 file promisingly labeled: “01 VB Theme Music”. I downloaded it, cranked the stereo, and hit play.

Glorious music. Sweet, beery majesty. No radio ads, no voiceovers, nothing but the Victoria Bitter Theme Music, a sweeping, uplifting piece of Australiana that looped over and over for five minutes and twenty amazing seconds. It was everything I wanted, and it was mine at last.

Jess, bless her soul, indulged me for the entire length of the song before politely asking me to not do that ever again. I agreed. I also kept my word, and sent Moira a picture of the art project I did. Here it is:

Moira never did get back to me. I guess they didn’t like what they saw, but that doesn’t bother me too much. I got what I needed, and if they can’t see fit to decorate their offices with the most definitive piece of Australian artwork since the time of Frederick McCubbin, well, that’s their business. Me, I’m just happy to be able to share this music with the world.

Matter of fact, I’ve uploaded it now.