.::| MORLEY |::.

The Thirds

2012-01-24T07:44:00.001+11:00

I was just reading an article on Relevant Magazine talking about an entirely new concept with me, which is that of the "thirds" of relationships. It organised friendships into three parts. The first third is the new and shiny bit of the relationship where everything is amazing and fun. The second third: The car has lost its new car smell, but it’s still faithful in getting from one place to the other. It’s working, and it doesn't really take much thought or get much notice.

Then comes the last third: this is the hard part, where there is proportionally less progress, like a talented musician. There is the talent, which can make the first two thirds easier, but to get to the concert ready stage you have to work and sweat, and make a conscious decision to stick with it. This is the part that most people neglect, when the shine wears off.

We are addicted to the new, something shiny, like an Apple product, and we don't know at the time, but the shine will wear off that too. We have to stick with it, make a conscious decision to press through the last third in order to gain that something better that we all so desire.

I am very guilty of this, and therefore I'm good at making friends at parties, but often it doesn't even reach the second stage. I get there occasionally but I don't think I've ever pushed through the third stage, the hard bit. Perhaps this is why I blog? Because I don't push through to reach the stage of intimacy to talk about what I think and feel with my friends. That sounds rather sad, but hopefully it will motivate me. No worries.

God bless, Morley =)

To read the original article, which I very much stole, go here. http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/relationship/features/27969-loyalty-in-a-disposable-world

Epilogue

2012-01-12T17:47:00.001+11:00

It is so difficult to put into words, but these thoughts are supposed to let you know that you are loved, you are valued, and you are beautiful. And nothing can change that.

Thought Number Four.

2012-01-12T17:27:00.001+11:00

Remember that there is generally a daisy growing through the crack in the sidewalk and that darker the night is the brighter the heavens are

Thoughts Number Two and Three

2012-01-12T17:21:00.001+11:00

... Eventually a moment will come, when all has been said and done, when you will look back over what you've made. It may have made no sense at the time, but does a single piece of a puzzle ever tell the bigger picture? It may have seemed so imperfect in the moment but what is one shade of imperfect when perfection can not actually be found on this earth? It does not benefit you to make comparison with any other shade of imperfection, because there will always be those better or worse.

Beauty is in the broken, in character formed by trial. You are beautiful both in your triumphs, and in the depths of despair. What qualifies you for the label of beauty is not what other people perceive of you, nor what you perceive of yourself. It is that you live, that you are broken, and that you are human. You are beautiful.

This piece of writing is imperfect, but if it were flawless, would it contain any meaning? If I were perfect, wouldn't I supposedly be God?

Thought Number One.

2012-01-12T16:10:00.001+11:00

It is very easy to feel lonely, and not easy to feel loved. What we want more than anything is to share our lives with someone, anyone, be understood and understand, laugh, cry. Me, I want to cry. I think it's beautiful. I live for moments of beauty, fleeting as they are, and rare as they may be. One moment in a million. One moment of beauty is all I think I need because I am certain that when I look back in a few years time, I will no longer remember everything I suffered to achieve it. Sometimes it seems unfair that we go through all this toil for such small reward, and even then it is hard to appreciate it. But...

Things.

2012-01-07T10:24:00.001+11:00

I guess the thing I was most worried about with taking a gap year is that I wouldn't do anything and would live out a meagre existence at home with my parents trying to invent excuses to sneak back into school whilst all my other friends went to Uni and loved it and never wanted anything to do with Ballarat and my own stuck and sorry self there ever again.

But right now I'm outside the building where you get your RSA, and scheduled in for my senior first aid course in a couple of days. I've got work experience lined up for this week and a pretty solid cover letter and resume to send off to some pretty exotic places with some pretty awesome pay rates. I was worried about being left behind but now the tables have turned. Oh yes they have turned around doing one of those silly little jumps that you sometimes see people doing in the Macarina, and now they are facing the other way, having performed their 180 degree turn, and are facing in the opposite direction to the way they were directed before. The tables have turned and now it is you who must watch out that you don't get super envious of me doing something super fun whilst getting paid a lot of money and still managing to keep up some social life. It's all going according to le plan.

Unless of course it doesn't work and I'm stuck in Ballarat. In which case, you have very much permission to laugh at this entire post and promptly delete me from your friends list as a loser. But I'm 84.5% sure it's going to be awesome. Like this cake. Slater.

The List

2011-12-14T07:56:00.001+11:00

I am supposedly a fairly deprived child, evidenced by the following list of movies I am yet to watch:

Blues Brothers - done as of yesterday
LOTR - done as of November
Donnie Darko
Pirates of the Carribean
Up
Pocahontas - first five mins done
The Little Mermaid
Beauty and the Beast
Cinema Paradiso
The Dark Knight
Back To The Future
The Bourne Films
The Muppets -going in January
Hancock, I Am Legend and more Will Smith movies.
Something with Jackie Chan
And many more...
All those others also...
and that one...

NOOOO!!! NOT THE BIG SCARY NUMBER WHICH DETERMINES MY FUTURE!!! ANYTHING BUT THAT!!!

2011-12-12T14:41:00.001+11:00

I keep on forgetting about all that ATER stuff. Somehow I'm just not stressed. Really who cares? =) My friends are really the best in the world, and I'm pretty sure if my number comes back as a two, I could just hang around at their places for the rest of my life whilst drawing pictures of turtles on the sidewalk and begging for money. Luckily for them, I don't intend to do that. Anyways.

Look!!! An otter!!! Feel better now? You betcha.

Desiderata: You Rock

2011-12-09T08:23:00.001+11:00

I have had dreams and have often envisaged what the future would look like, particularly that bit that comes after skule. It always contained my own face smiling blissfully in a sea of contentment and emotional release, whilst surrounded by the closest friends I've had . Now 'tis upon me and I will shortly find it to be entirely different. J is going to be in Melbourne most of the time, as will K, D is notoriously hard to catch, E will be working and carolling, N (the lemming) will be in the world of work and Skyrim, and all the boarders will move back to their distant homes. Pretty much, I'm scared that I'll be left behind, that all my friends will move away and do amazing things while I'm left behind. I'm also pretty certain that this fear is universal.

But I can assure you of a few things right here and right now. You your very self will do things that will amaze, as each breath is a miracle, but more than that, even though you may not have received a million awards at speech night, you have done amazing things in the past which I have seen with my own eyes. You have also learnt from the past, so your future will contain not just as many amazing things, but so many more.

Secondly, do not worry yourself overly with questions of friendship. I know we all move apart, but of you continue to be a friend to others you can be assured of receiving continued friendship yourself. Do not try to measure your friendships or grasp to keep them close. If you lose a friend, treasure their memory, but if you are proactive in being a good friend to others, you will find this the exception not the rule. As said in cliché, your true friends will stick by you through it all, and it is reciprocal: you must stick by those you consider to be your friends. This summer, be proactive in sticking together. Don't sound desperate like some do and post ads in the local newspaper or Facebook, friends wanted. Simply invite folks over for a BBQ or a bonfire, have them round for tea, watch a movie or TV together, have a LAN party if you're interested, play frisbee or soccer in the park, go on a bike ride. If you see someone else feeling lonely, even if you're not the best of friends, do one of the above, because friendship comes by being a good friend. If you would préfer to wallow in self-pity, that's also perfectly legitimate. If you like that girl or guy, you're both free, so now is the time to ask him or her out. If rejected, although hard to see now, there is someone in store for you. Rejection is not a reflection on your personal faults.

The future is a question mark. Nobody knows what is out there. Those the most confident and self-assured may well fail, whilst those the most insecure and humble may triumph. Nobody knows. Go out and make the best of every opportunity. Or even better, make opportunity for yourself. You are more loved than you will ever know, or than most will ever show.

Live, from Andrew. Whoops. Meant to say love. Its actually just as appropriate to say live though. Awesome. I'll miss you all when we're apart and when we meet again, I'll rejoice. See ya' =)

Skoolsies

2011-12-05T22:43:00.001+11:00

The other perk of finishing skule is the event of schoolies. I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Living with friends is a fun thing to do, even if the long nights meant folks slept in for too long. Unfortunately, I only sleep until the sun comes up, so on Saturday my sleep deprivation reached impressive levels. I managed to use the time between when I woke and everyone else did for that other thing though, which is: getting kind of fit.

Year 12 seems to have prevented physical activity except for frisbee during lunch an the very occasional bike ride, so by the end of the year I was almost getting a bit of a jelly belly. Luckily, beaches are really great places to go for long walks, jogs, and swims, so one morning I jogged almost 5kms and the next a combination run walk swim for 20kms. Yesterday I rode my bike for over four hours and hopefully I'll manage some swimming over the next little bit also.

As for the rest of schoolies associated stuff, I've decided I don't enjoy the taste of corona, but alcoholic drinks are not quite the scaryness I thought they were. Also, I like romance movies. In addition: molluscs.

Over Thinking

2011-12-05T21:39:00.001+11:00

Named in honour of the classic song by Relient K, this post entails some of what I've been up to since I finished school. Well. Not quite. On Thursday at about midnight, I will never have to go back there again.

I'm going to miss it so much. I've built almost every relationship I have around the environment of Grammar, and without it forcing me to meet regularly all the folks there that I so dearly love, I'm not sure how I'm going to still feel like I have friends. I also regret a lot of what I haven't done, which is what the leavers say every year, but it is so true. Particularly there are people I wish I'd talked to more. It's always the way that you don't see that until its too late.

It is very likely that I will become depressed over the coming months in withdrawal from these folks, particularly as half of them are boarders from places like Horsham and Balranald. I've been thinking about a way to keep in proper contact with them all and it looks like the only way I could legitimately keep it up is either to form a sports team with them or do That Other Thing.

Now that year 12 is over I also apparently have no excuse for not dating folks anymore, and that's one of the scariest things, considering that I've never dated folks, had a girlfriend or kissed a girl before. I guess I told myself that it would be too distracting, or that nobody likes me. Hindsight tells me that perhaps it would have been good for me to figure out how that whole thing worked in the safe environment of skule, where the Girl that I like used to go. Oh well.

That's kind of an awkward thing to blog. But to be honest, which is supposedly virtuous, I have so many unanswered questions about it too. For example, do girls like me? Do girls like nice guys and is it necessary to be not as nice to garner female attention? Do romance movies contain any element of truth? How does rejection feel? Is it possible to get it right first time? These are rhetorical questions in the sense that I wish to find out the answers to most of them through experience.

Note: I don't take it as lightly as it may seem here.

Also, I had a dream last night where John Mayer was my bus driver and he taught me how to be a ninja wizard at guitar! That's all for now.

Love from Morley.

Enfin

2011-11-29T21:07:00.001+11:00

Enfin j'ai fini. Supposedly I finished a while ago but it really hasn't felt like it. I've been working as hard as I had been during and before exams all this last week, which has prolonged the stress I had been feeling for far too long. I hadn't let any emotion out for the last few months, feeling that if I did the controlled pressure release would all too soon become a damburst and in the nervous wreckage I would not be able to do anything. But it's all over now. I cannot believe it, and I really don't think it will settle in until tomorrow when I go to That Awesome Place to hang out with people that I think are amazing.

I almost feel like crying right now but I'm on a train full of people, having just finished an interview with the Monash Visual Communication folks. It's really hard to judge how you've gone in these interviews. All of them have been very different, this last the strangest of all. They were extremely intimidating so I had to be forceful in order to present myself how I wished.

Anyway. The final thought I am having right now is that I really think its beautiful to show emotion. Everything we do we divide into rules and principles and boxes. There are things which break those walls down, and they all stem from emotion. The three most beautiful things I have witnessed are in no particular order: Vincent Van Gogh's self portrait in la Musée D'Orsay, my very good friend singing, and my other good friend crying. These events were so full of emotion that they broke down the walls I build around my own feelings and made me feel like crying with their beauty. In short: emotion=beauty and I wish everyone knew this.

You rock.

Let's See How Far We've Come

2011-09-08T17:25:00.003+10:00

I don’t normally name my blog posts after Matchbox Twentysongs, because there are far better bands out there. Like Switchfoot, whose new album Vice Verses is coming out on the27^th!!! Regardless, thetitle seems apt, for I have come to the realisation of recent (meaning yesterday)that I actually have come a fair way. After having an epic soccer/Frisbee session with the Butler boys atlunch yesterday, Arun kindly reminded me that that wouldn’t have been possible acouple of years ago, because at that point I absolutely loathed this one guy. Whilst I did have minor problems in year 9,this guy knew nothing of them and yet still felt it necessary to refer to me asa freak and other such terms every time my name was mentioned.

Now? We get alongjust fine, and thinking of the reasons behind this I can see that we have bothgrown and come to a relative degree of acceptance of each other, and for me thiswas due to our fourth change of tutor. MrP. was able to conduct conversation on their level while still maintainingmaturity and respect for others by simply laughing with them, and following hisexample I was able to be “the bigger man” (it’s funny if you know what I’mtalking about) and simply laugh it off also. And he who I shall now refer to as the other gentleman was able to learnfrom his tutor also a degree of civility and perhaps respect.

Yet the biggest reconciliatory factor would have to be myparticipation in sport. On any field ofplay, nothing else really matters but the degree of effort which you put in tohelp your team win (by the way, there is an I in team: see below).

I enjoy exerting myself immensely, putting all my pitifulskill and energy into the game in the hope that somehow the Team may reignvictorious. These guys respect that,and even though I don’t score many points on the field it all counts towardsthe greater goal of being the awesomest being you can be.

Wow!!! Look at that!!! What??? I just realisedsomething awesome. See that word upthere? No, not that one… the one nextto it… yes… Being. Note how it oftengoes alongside the word human? How coolis that? When all those annoying literatureand artsy fartsy folks go on and on about what it means to be human, pleasepoint out to them that being human is simply that, the act of being, and whilstsome may fulfil the present participle of the verb more truly than others,humanity is nothing more or less than existing with the ultimate aim of livingto the awesomest extent you can.

I have no idea whether that bit above is correct or not, butit certainly sounds quotable. I sincerelyhope I haven’t wasted too much of your time with this like I’ve wasted mine. I need all the time I can get, as I willprobably die next Wednesday: Viscommfolios and finals due, along with a French SAC and House Dinner, Methods SAC onThursday and Chemistry SAC on Friday. Deathmuch?

Oh… and here’s a preview of what my folio may include…

Peace be with you all,

Love from Andrew =)

Fun Fun Fun

2011-07-25T11:13:00.003+10:00

The most joyous moments in my life are all related to singing or creating. From an early age, I didn't sing. My little brother Tom sang an enthusiastic rendition of the national anthem once (ten years ago) and from that moment became the singer in the household, and would always join in and then dominate any singing activities leaving you cowed in the wake of glissandos and overly changed rhythms that were a bit tasteless.

Yet now that has changed with the advent of harmony, for which I must actually give thanks to one of the metal bands I listened to in year 9, emery, who screamed and had intense guitars, but also had up to three different vocal parts in their songs, which really stood out in a metal band. From then on I heard harmony everywhere, and was consistently blown away by this new dimension I had discovered, in particular the abilities of some of my new choir friends to spontaneously harmonise just about anything. And so I had finally discovered a way to sing the songs I liked around the house, as Tom couldn't sing just the harmony part, and couldn't sing harmony and the solo at the same time, leaving harmony for me.

And so I win. I suggested that my brother Tom should perform Carole King's You've Got A Friend at the Butler Krome chapel service on the same theme. I think this is such a great song and so of course I knew the harmony, and sang it with my brother. It was great, it was beautiful, and so satisfying.
I'm supposed to be humble and say it was crap and I stuffed it up, and I did stuff up one bit. It's hard to be humble about something that you enjoyed immensely, and with people telling you how great it was.

Anyway. I hope you, whoever you may be (it turns out most of the people who read this are Americans), create things frequently and take great satisfaction in the act and just generally be awesome and enjoy your week. Smiles.

.::| Andrew Morley |::.

Denial Isn't A River In Egypt

2011-07-23T22:22:00.000+10:00

I had been feeling quite depressed on Thursday and before that, due to a variety of circumstances, one being that my holiday homework was not completed. The second was that I live in Ballarat, and it's always too cold here. The third was due to English literature: our task was a creative response to one of our texts, which could be a satirical parody of a text, an extended scene from the text, another something thing whatever or rewriting of a piece of the text from a different perspective. Of course, as all literature characters seem to be depressed or mentally unstable, getting into character was not the best way to go about writing the response. Yet that's exactly what I did, because I'm stupid. By the end of the two hours of writing, I pondered why I even bothered with this whole life thing, because how would any of this stuff that I wanted like a wife and a house and a garden and kids make me happy anyway. Why would I gain satisfaction from working to improve my life? My life would always be a hole that could never be filled, just because life sucks and who would want to live anyway. That's what thinking like the character was like, except more complex and stupid. And that's a pretty sad state. Somehow it got to me and long after the sac finished I still felt like nobody liked me and life was not worth living and I just didn't care. And then I walked up the hill in the rain. Even the gods above were spitting on me. It didn't feel any better the next day either.

Until I received at 12:42 a message on my mobile telecommunications device. It didn't really say anything that spectacular (although admittedly it was from a spectacular person). Yet somehow, my day was improved through that. Even though it didn't say much, for some reason I felt ten million percent better than I had all week. It was nonsensical, but it goes to show that what we think may be insignificant can mean a lot more than we intended, and that we have no idea how our minds work. We are truly bizarre. I owe whoever sent that text a lot, and I have no idea why. I just do. So thankyou.

A Brief History of Blog Templates (Now to then)

2011-07-20T20:10:00.013+10:00

Pillows are made for smashing

2011-07-18T17:37:00.000+10:00

For all their talk of you doing great things, the people who run this whacked out system seem to want you to spend a disproportionate amount of time in your room alone being lonely and feeling lonely and not getting any homework done anyway because loneliness is depressing and therefore not conducive to making the most out of your life. Long sentence.

Ideal

2011-07-02T15:14:00.001+10:00

In a blog article I read recently from writer Donald Miller, he described the letter his wife gave him, which I'll quote here:

After Paige and I got engaged, she found an old journal entry describing what she wanted in a man. She e-mailed it to me explaining I was all these things and more. But I confess I knew I fell short. I think she still has blinders on, and I’m thankful for that. But what this list is a gift to me, all the same. The list gives me an aim, a goal, a reference against which to test my character.

Most women start dreaming about their husbands at an early age, and that became more and more clear to me as Paige and I fell in love. I wasn’t just a man, I was her dream come true, the man upon whom she rested her hopes. It was frightening, I confess, and God knows I have failed and will fail again and agin. And...

...I’d advise any young girl or young man to create a list like this, and to have faith and sacrifice each day to honor the man or woman who will fulfill those desires. For Paige, this meant seasons of loneliness, seasons of going without, seasons of doubt. Perhaps this will be the gift you will give your spouse, your loneliness, your steel determination to endure though your faith is weak.

Cool. He sounds like a good guy, based on the list of qualities his wife was looking for, and his way of thinking, that in creating this list we may be prepared to wait for someone who fulfils at least some of our personal criteria, not just someone who you know well or someone who professes to like you, or the internet. But it's very intimidating too, particularly the thought that "women start dreaming about their husbands at an early age" which makes you wonder how you may ever become as good as Prince Charming. I know I'm not even in the same metaphorical galaxy as the person I want to be right now, and I probably won't reach that place for a fair while. Most likely not in my life.

But someday, I believe someone will exist in my life who I perceive to fulfil my criteria (they may already be there without my realisation of our destinedness), and so before that day I'd probably better have a good idea of the woman that I want, so that I may be pleasantly surprised when this person not only fulfils any ideals I have, but improves upon them, and I pray that God would help us and be with us, to get her and I to the points in our lives where wonderful things may happen.

In the meantime, I'm not who I want to be, so I'll quote something I heard, once upon a time...

We spend a lot of time hoping that we may find someone who is perfect for us, when we could be using the time to make ourselves perfect for them.

(in order that when things start to hit off, we'd be perfect for each other).

Note also: I have around ten unfinished thoughts which I hope to bring to you when I finally do finish with them.

Thanks for reading, enjoy your day =)

+-

2011-06-24T10:20:00.001+10:00

This is just about the worst I've felt in my life: here's the situation, in the words of a while ago:

There is a chem midyear I'm preparing for, viscomm finals were due two days ago and I still haven't done them, although I've been up past midnight for the last three nights in the attempt, and it's still looking just as bad. Which hence makes me super tired, makes me super sick, and plus I'm organising the backing track for chorals, and the year 12 hoodies, whilst pretty much everyday reporting a picture of somebody I know which has been posted on the Facebook page "like if you know someone who suffers from fuckhead syndrome" a page created by year 11 boys, who I hope will get attacked by pirates and whilst being pushed off the plank reflect on their idiocy. I'm finding it pretty hard to pull myself out of bed in the morning with the amount of fatigue and stress and missed deadlines.

But that was two weeks ago now. Currently, I'm feeling much happier, and I managed to complete my exams + semi-complete my viscomm folio and finals, so overall I'm not feeling like I'm going to fail. Thank goodness that after every exam week there comes a weekend, and for last weekend, I am more thankful than my fingers can type words to digitally thank you with. Directly after my literature examination I decided to take a stroll along the street and "just happened" to bump into an extraordinarily pretty girl wearing a red coat, with whom I proceeded to enjoy talking and sharing music for the remainder of that day. And in the evening, I went to the party of another of my good friends, the well renowned and loved _____ _______ to whom I gave the shirt which follows, thereby enabling me to keep for myself the backup birthday present which I purchased earlier in the day with aforesaid extraordinarily pretty girl.

Besides the presents and persons present at the party, the main attraction was not the apples in the well renowned boy's orchard, but was in fact pertaining to pyrotechnics, more specifically sparklers bombs. SPARKLER BOMBS ARE CRAZY AWESOME!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!¡!!!

...And thus ends the first third of my weekend (Friday), the remaining two thirds of which were also awesome, but are a tale for another time. The rejuvenating effects of such a weekend on a fatigued humanoid are quite phenomenal.

I will enjoy talking to you further upon our next reacquaintance, but until then, goodbye and love to you, internet friendoids, from Andrew.

GottaloveHamsters

2011-06-19T16:45:00.000+10:00

If I were a hamster, I'd be cooler than apple juice DJ cheese monster

How To Be Abducted By Aliens

2011-06-06T20:49:00.001+10:00

I must openly admit that the quizzical, mystified, diverted,blog-writing, evil genius in me harbors a dorky (and rather weird) secret appreciation for extraterrestrial beings. This is not an unhealthy intrigue, I assure you. For instance, I cannot watch E.T. and feel anything but disgusting by the time those dudes in creepy chemical radiation suits capture the poor shriveled little prune and plot how they're going to study it or torture it, or whatever. Maybe it's the idea of those nasty suction cups stuck all over Elliott that turns my stomach, but regardless, I can never really finish my
popcorn. Perhaps it's the sort of film best watched on VHS deep in the eerie musty basement of some odd distant relative's house (an obscure second cousin twice removed or something), sitting uncomfortably on a stained orange vinyl couch simply to get the full queasy effect.
Perhaps the nauseating hum of a broken flickering florescent light overhead is required to shed some sallow yellow light on the subject to really "put you in the mood." Yuck. I could go on forever about how awful it would be for anyone to watch E.T. in his or her second cousin's moldy basement for a billion stupid reasons, but that is not the point.

WHAT IS THE POINT?

The point of all this is to cleverly segue/shipwreck one school of thought into another and ultimately talk about aliens from an entirely different angle. An awesome angle, not a gross angle.

When you ask kids about aliens, they shriek and scream BIG SPACE WIERDOS! even though, hypothetically speaking, aliens are merely organisms from other planets/galaxies of which we humans have yet to explore or even discover. I'm in the middle of reading Perelandra by C.S. Lewis (book two in the Space Trilogy) and his vivid portrayal of aliens, to me, paints a much more compelling picture ofextraterrestrials as opposed to the nasty stomach aches I always get after attempting to watch E.T.

Child: MOMMY, A BIG FAT THING THAT SHOOTS GREEN EWIE STUFF IS IN BIG BROTHER'S COMPUTAH AND IT WOOKS WIKE A ALIEN!!!1!!!

Big Brother (yelling): IT'S A BOOMER FROM L4D2!

Child: What's a boomeh?!

Speculatively, should aliens actually appear any less hideous and revolting than E.T. (which I suspect is impossible), I gather there may be some of us humans who would think differently of the stereotypical 1950's melodramatic opinion of extraterrestrial abduction. Let's forget about the pods from Invasion of the Body Snatchers for a moment and wonder what it would take, say, for someone who actually WANTED to be abducted by aliens.

Well, dear friends, you've stumbled into the right place.

If you are indeed interested in getting abducted by aliens and are actively pursuing a potential opportunity, there are some things you need to know. Obviously extraterrestrial beings do not travel billions of light-years across infinite chasms of endless universe to abduct any old bloke; they have requirements or "essential qualities" that subjects of attention must clearly meet. Unfortunately, certain of us humanoids are more likely to get abducted than others (for reasons unknown to us), and quite bluntly, you may or may not fall into a given popular category. Not only do aliens need a darn good reason to choose you, you just need to be in the right place at the right time.

Let's talk about those of us who are most likely to be abducted.

There are certain types of folks out there who are seemingly more attractive to aliens than others. We have no idea why, but this is the way it is. For example, young children are usually more likely to be abducted than the elderly. Why is that? Here are some obvious reasons:

-Children are innately willing to cooperate with aliens. Aliens are "crazy" and "cool." Decrepit grandparents often resemble
extraterrestrials. I don't know a single little kid who wouldn't jump at the chance to "take old Uncle Earl's spaceship for a spin."

-Parents tell kids not to talk to strangers, but never aliens. They are captivating to kiddies. Toy Story factors into this.

-The developmental stages of the human race are obviously fascinating to outside life (minus the bed-wetting, vomiting, and nose-picking).

-Kids have plenty of time in their expected life span for tracking and monitoring post-abduction.

-Small children tend to carry Skittles, rocks, and crayons around in their pockets. Clearly fascinating stuff to aliens.

If you are NOT a child and are still interested in being abducted, fear not. There are certain groups of Homo sapiens, regardless of age, that aliens remain eager to study. These groups include:

Poets
Musicians
Beliebers
Mathematicians
People who look like Harry Potter characters
Grand master chess players
Video gamers
Collectors of odd items (like vintage sleeping bags or iron ostrich eggs)
College professors
Hobos
Really fat people in VW Bugs
Middle aged men (or women) who resemble Harrison Ford
Financial advisors
Super violent female soccer players
Smokers (of any kind)
Evil medical practitioners of proctology
The guy who drives the snowplow
Used car dealers
MySpace stalkers
Pizza delivery boys
Shopping cart wranglers
Crime fighters
Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch
Punk rockers
Small business owners (without earthquake insurance)
Reasonably talented arsonists
Speed metal drummers
Farmers
Attractive female dental hygienists
Smurfs
Kids who cheat on tests
Basketball players over seven feet tall
Politicians
Disgruntled US Postal Service employees
Neighborhood dad garage bands
Magicians
Really pretty girls
The guy at the beach with the metal detector
Monster truck rally enthusiasts
Clergymen
Barefoot NFL kickers
Medical students
Kenny G
Cruise ship captains
People who put ketchup on everything
John Wayne fans
NASCAR drivers
People with July birthdays
Scuba divers
Teenagers who wear shorts all winter
Baristas
Rodeo clowns
Hot Topic employees

This is by no means a definitive list. If you do not fall into one or more of these categories, there is still hope for you. Please take note of the following areas and times of day in which
extraterrestrials are likely to snatch you:

-Dark areas. Aliens love to hover over obscure or peculiar places. Corn fields, rural wetlands, botanical gardens, drainage ditches, abandoned warehouses, gravel roads, wildlife reservations, country churches, overgrown cemeteries, rustic camping grounds, deserted construction sites, sewage reservoirs, discontinued logging areas, wind farms, etc. For this reason, the brilliance and luster of large cities often make them the least likely of places from which to be
abducted.

-Trailer parks. Aliens are reluctant to abduct people from structures that are attached to the earth, possibly having something to do with aliens being nomadic travelers themselves. Whatever the reason, if you are truly serious about becoming an abductee, you need to sell your four-bedroom home and move into a trailer house as soon as possible.

-Prime locations for human selection are large forests, open countryside, remote islands, mountaintops, deep canyons, and vast deserts. While many of these places have significant amounts of sunlight during the day, nightfall creates the perfect environment for abduction. Watch the sky. The more stars you can see in the sky, the more likely it is that you are in an attractive area. Depending on your location, the darkest time of night will vary. Generally, you should not expect noticeable alien activity between the hours of
midnight and 4 am.

A few things to remember:

-When you enter your predetermined dark location, bring a flashlight along. If you trip and injure yourself, it could weaken your appeal. It is more time efficient NOT to have to repair a human subject before studying it. Bring something to eat as well because there is no way to be sure exactly when the aliens will show up, if at all. Scientific studies indicate that humans carrying/eating sandwiches have been
chosen more regularly than others (the sandwich bag is usually left behind). Taco Bell employees have also been known to disappear into restrooms and never come out again (although scientists are unsure if this has any direct correlation to alien activity or not).

-Make sure you go alone. Extraterrestrials are withdrawn beings and will NOT risk a chance of being sighted and/or photographed as a result of hovering too closely to a group of humanoids gazing at the stars with their arms open. Abductees are always carefully studied and chosen on a one-by-one basis to ensure optimal selection. You should sit, lie or stand by yourself in a remote area and allow the aliens to get a good look at you if/before they should choose to nab you. On rare occasions, a human is selected with good intention but is subsequently hurled back to earth after a few minutes of first impressions aboard the alien spacecraft (causing serious injury and/or death). As a potential abductee, you MUST regard this as an occupational hazard and accept the risks involved. You CANNOT be hesitant or timid. Aliens don't want crybabies. Extraterrestrials don't abduct wimps.

-Be yourself. Don't look too anxious to be taken away. Don't make your desire for transport obvious. Aliens are not stupid; if you seem too eager, they'll assume you're a spy. Don't wear dark sunglasses. Don't wear an alien costume or carry a glittery sign begging to be chosen. Costumes are insulting and you must respect their right to choose. When you arrive at your predetermined location, pass the time without
appearing impatient but do not appear too idle or the aliens may assume you're expecting them and will subsequently pass over with no indication. Appear semi-occupied. Whistle to yourself, read a book, listen to your iPod, play golf on your cell phone, whittle sticks with your pocketknife, play Solitaire (if there is enough moonlight), crochet an afghan, softly hum the Alphabet Song, twirl your mustache, do cartwheels or pushups. All abductees are at least seemingly unsuspecting.

-Should you happen to notice a coherent monochromatic light, tractor beam, electromagnetic laser effusion, stimulated emission of photons, or all of the above, RUN. Aliens love the thrill of the chase. Put up a fight, look angry, lash out, act like you don't want to go with them, shout things like "YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE!" or "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!" or simply "BLEAHHHHH!!!!" This alone makes you an attractive candidate.

Tips to ensure a successful abduction:

-Above all, be open to new experiences. This is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of alien abduction. Simply having an open mind can make a person more accepting to the various probes and experiments that aliens conduct. Extraterrestrials need humans willing to look at things from a different perspective or the abduction process will not be a win-win situation for anyone.

-Talk casually with your friends/family (or to yourself in the mirror) about your interest in aliens, your desire to be an ambassador for the human race, your suspicion that extraterrestrials are superior, etcetera. Alien spies are everywhere; if they pick up on your
conversations, you're likely to get at least a UFO sighting.

-Drop subtle hints. This is known as announcing your candidacy. It can take a number of forms — casual conversation over a plate of sushi, or the
purchase of abduction literature for example. It is imperative that this is done correctly. Don't be too eager or too apathetic, for at either extreme, you risk attracting the wrong alien.

-Acquire some interesting or unusual characteristics — like juggling, salsa dancing, javelin throwing, or dentistry for instance. Occasionally otherworldly visitors do not come to Earth for human selection, vengeance, or even experimental purposes — but for entertainment. Some visitors are often the insubordinate children of aristocratic alien dictators out on secret joyrides in their parents' spacecraft. They are not interested in the mundane human cliche. They want to see backflips, double-jointed thumbs, mullets, and champion hot dog eaters.

If you consider this advice, you have a good chance of being abducted. There is however, no guarantee.

Good luck to you.

"Hey mom, there's something in the back room
Hope it's not the creatures from above"

-Tom DeLonge

A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat

‎"So, tell me about your hair?" I get this question every time I go to a new salon. "Um, it likes sunshine and long walks on the beach??"

Food is an important part of a balanced diet

I know what time it is, but not right now.

Hi Dave. As much as you may hate his music, he is a rather funny chap. I am of course talking about Adam Young of Owl City. =). I re-blogged it. Naughty me.

God didn't make mistakes

2011-04-12T08:59:00.001+10:00

Hello my excellent good friends. I just thought you might like to hear a thought I thought recently. I'll give you a bit of back-story: I was really looking forward to these holidays, as I was behind from the start with this year 12 thing and I'm hoping I can use these two weeks to boost myself back into the realm of academia, but additionally I was looking forward to the first weekend of the holidays, because it was James' 18th.

My parental units talked to his parental units a while back and said it was all cool, which was cool because this was going to be a slightly less docile affair than the bush dances I occasionally attend. Basically 24 hours at James' house, I was interested in going very much, not as an opportunity to drink alcohol or sleep over with friends, but actually I wanted to be the cool one at the party by being different. Anyway. I wanted to impress people not with how smashed I could get but with the lack of inhibition which some people require alcohol to achieve whilst retaining my dignity and sense. I danced more enthusiastically than any of the drinking folks, and the only alcohol I took was in the cake and in the alcoholic popsicles, which don't really contain anything.

But the one thing I hadn't considered was that the random Horsham girls who seemed to be the only ones seriously drinking, completely lost their rationality and when I said she didn't look well after she almost regurgitated she thought I meant that she was ugly and proceeded to tell everyone else at the party that I said she was ugly and how rude. It was mildly humorous. Anyway. As a total non-partygoer like a lot of my Ballarat friends it was kind of shocking seeing a whole group of girls get drunk while their boyfriends barely had any, lose all rational thought, then proceed be generally loud and annoying and look sick. The thing I don't get is that their heels didn't make them any prettier, neither did the fact that they smelt like alcohol and looked sick. With the addition of the make-up, in short they looked dreadful and it was pretty hard to get to know them when all they said was "aren't you drinking? Why not? It's fun!". The only reason I can see for their actions is because their other friends were doing it, and they hoped to get taken advantage of by some random guy, which is a pretty miserable excuse. Maybe their state of drunkenness allowed them to believe that they were pretty and all the guys were looking at them and and that they were actually having fun, but I knew in my state of clarity that I actually was having fun with my awesome Ballarat friends, I could dance better when I wasn't drinking, I could make much more intelligent remarks to my mildly drinking friends and actually get to know some people better.

Now. Getting back to the original thought, basically, you're amazing just the way you are. There was a girl on the bus last week who thought I was looking at her because she was pretty, and I'm sure she was underneath all that make up, but I just wish she'd heard a song by Carter & Carter, which to paraphrase goes a bit like this: God made you perfect, every hair he put in place, every freckle on your face. It doesn't matter what they say, because when God made all of us, he didn't make mistakes.

Peace people. Be the awesome.
Until next time, farewell.

Carbon Tax: A Strange Topic For A Blogger Such As I

2011-03-18T21:14:00.001+11:00

*NOTE: THIS ENTIRE POST IS GOOD SOUNDING GARBAGE. I'M NOT WELL RESEARCHED ENOUGH TO COMMENT UPON POLITICAL ISSUES ACCURATELY.

What on earth is a carbon tax, and why should we have one? We've had an emissions trading scheme proposed, but the idea was dismissed by the public, and rightfully so, for the following reason:

An emissions trading scheme is indirect action against climate change. It provides an incentive for businesses which pollute to reduce their emissions or else they must pay for carbon credits, but the real polluters won't really care because they can buy out a pine plantation or tree growing company and say they're offsetting their emissions by planting trees. Yes, trees trap carbon, but the point is to reduce the amount of carbon being emitted in the first place. The only way an emissions trading scheme could cause direct action is if money recouped from the government auctioning carbon credits is used to directly subsidise renewable energy and sustainable technology research. Also, what about the non business owner? Households consume a heap of energy, mainly through cooling and heating. The more advanced forms of heating can run off electricity, but are relatively ineffective at actually heating anything, the same with gas heating. Fires produce a heap of carbon dioxide, producing a lot of heat, but are terribly inefficient, releasing the carbon dioxide the tree has amassed. An emissions trading scheme has no way of targeting households or individual consumers, only affecting medium to large business owners.

So how is a carbon tax different? The current carbon tax proposal is no different: it will simply tax people for creating carbon, with no direct method for offsetting emissions, and will effectively be "just another tax" on the end of your power bill.

The solution is to make the tax capable of killing itself, by the following method:

1. Tax people for the energy they consume and carbon they produce (this money goes to the government)

2. Use the money to pay a small team of engineers, who will develop a series of kits to be fitted to individual houses. The kits will be made up of renewable energy technologies: small wind generators, solar panels, solar hot water and methane generators for farms with animals. The technologies will produce energy to be fed into the already existing power grid through a meter which records power produced and deducts that from energy used on power bill.

3. Use remaining money from tax to subsidise the purchase and installation of the renewable energy business and household kits.

4. This reduces the need for power consumption from coal and other power stations, with already in place renewable energy power stations producing remaining energy required.

5. Hence, with a greatly reduced number not paying the tax through their self-sufficiency, the tax will not be an issue.

6. Live happily ever after

A particularly attractive form of renewable energy is building integrated photovoltaic cells (BPIV), which can be used to cover or replace glass. They're like tinted windows which double as solar panels! Awesome!

Doing Things: An Ambiguously Titled Post

2011-03-12T16:30:00.000+11:00

What I want more than a lot of other things, for example, DETENTIONS is to have more time. I would really like a time machine right now, for no other purpose than to find a period of history with no distractions like FACEBOOK, and simply study lots and get ahead, get the edge I really should have made for myself over the summer vacation. I have no excuse for not doing the work that was asked of me. It was simple enough, but unfortunately I didn't do enough of it and consequently I've been behind from the beginning. I have two or three songs which occasionally pop into the sweet as shuffling of my cephaloPod, the characteristic common to their choruses being that we have 20/20 hindsight, but unfortunately we can't change what we've done, and we have no right to feel ripped off by what our choices have given us. It is definitely my own fault and it will be a helluva lot of work to get myself back into the black before we begin our exams. Regret makes you angry. This year can very definitely change the course of your life and it is very hard after so much work to believe that you are more than your ater, and that all will be well even if I fail everything. Life in general will be so much hard work and it will seem insurmountable, but work hard and you get rewards. I'd better keep telling myself that.

If you felt that was at all boring hit up Relevant Magazine in Google and read any article which tickles your fancy. They're smarter than I am.

Hola! I'm still here!

2011-03-09T19:51:00.004+11:00

Hi. I haven't blogged for ages. Just letting you know I still exist and care about this whole interweb thing and will be writing shortly. I am currently thinking about Forrest Gump and the significance and goodness of conservative values, a dying system. I'm also enjoying particularly the music of Adele, Andrew Peterson and Francesca Battistelli and advise you to check them out. See you!

Note: conservatism in terms of a philosophy and not an attitude against any form of change, but upholding values which are not upheld so much these days as a moral system opposed to I'm afraid of old and any new party drug or moral system must be good because it was made with now in mind and relates to our current society. I like more the glass of milk, go to church and conventional comforts of home idea, but not "I'm afraid of new" either. Anyway. Most of that post was a comment.

The Tourist

2010-12-30T21:25:00.000+11:00

The Tourist
It seems like a lot of people go up the Eiffel tower only to take a picture of themselves on the object, to prove that have been there and their minds have been supposedly broadened as travel purportedly does to us. If we see the world through a camera lens, to be reviewed later on, are we really seeing it? We got some really great pictures up the Eiffel tower! The same pictures that 10000 other tourists take every day, just with a different face.

It's difficult to be an individual tourist, because we're all the same really. We go and see the same things, then buy a t-shirt. I want to be the tourist who sees things uniquely, and sees unique things. But really I'm just one of them. Admittedly I am unique, and conscious of the fact that I am seeing touristy things, but I still can't pretend I'm not a tourist. I want to be at home. Everywhere I go that is what I want to be, I want to blend in and feel like I belong. Tourists cannot do that as they are by definition strangers, unless they are with the people with whom they feel most comfortable, in which case home is where the heart is (does anyone else think of the song from that episode of Madeleine when they hear that phrase?). Anyway.

Note: I have not seen the Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp movie, but the title is apt.

.:: MORLEY::.

It seems I have a different song stuck in my head every hour.

2010-12-30T07:45:00.001+11:00

It seems I have a different song stuck in my head every hour.

Today:

Generic Neil diamond song
Blues brothers medley
My one and only love - Hartman/Coltrane
welcome - Coltrane
Four brothers - Stan Getz
Brick by boring brick - paramore who got brokeded up
Generator - foo fighters
More than kind - antiskeptic
You don't know what love is - Chet Baker

Until his death Lully was the only composer allowed to write an opera, by royal decree of King Louis XIV. Random fact. So. Vanity, eh.

The prevailing theme of the last few days seems to be vanity. First Versailles where Louis XIV built a palace which revolved around himself. The rooms on the edge of the palace were decorated with images of the roman gods associated with planets, all revolving around the centre, himself, Apollo the sun-god. Big head? And the hall of mirrors is vanity incarnate, with a view out onto a specially built canal which all the way to the horizon Louis had built so that it didn't follow perspective down to a vanishing point but actually grew wider to give the illusion of it staying the same width all the way along. Crazy. But Louis was a guitarist, so that explains everything. And then the lit text called 'the death of Napoleon' in which Napoleon escapes from his island of captivity to be replaced by a body double, takes a guided tour of the battle of waterloo, sets up a successful melon trading company in Paris and plots to reclaim his empire by blackmail and other ingenious mechanisms only to get a chest infection and die before any of his plans come to fruition, a statement on the vanity of scheming. And then there is my own vanity and insecurity, wanting a new overcoat because my current one matches my mother, and thinking that all my friends would take time out of their day to read what I have to say, which I think some of them do, but thinking that what I say here should be of importance and a source of enlightenment when really it is all plagiarised from my brain, who thought of it before me, and my surroundings which inspired my brain. Anyway. Sorry if I'm boring or don't make sense, but it's good to write things down, and hopefully by either agreeing or disagreeing with what I say, it develops your own opinions and thoughts.

By the way, we've been seeing a bit of this St. Denis guy around the place and we just looked him up. He was sainted as far as I can tell for the miracle of his death. It seems that after his beheading, Denis stood up, picked up his severed head and walked out of Paris to the north. Where he supposedly eventually fell over, there is now an abbey where kings of France have been buried since. Quite bizarre. Anyway. We're standing in line now to see some Monets, and it may take another three hours of standing in line, so I have plenty of time to write. We could see Monet at l'Orangerie, but my my mum wants to see them here, because she loves standing in queues. TTFN.

.:: MORLEY::.

Noel

2010-12-26T20:20:00.000+11:00

Noel

Today we go to Chartres on the SNCF, the French equivalent of v-line, except it's nice, and fast. Due to the clear night last night, everything froze, so hopefully the snow won't melt today. Chartres is about an hour from Paris, and goes via Versailles, hence we are now traveling through some of the most picturesque countryside you will see, French villages and snow covered forests with no leaves, except on the evergreens. The snow is pure and clean, the best they have had for years. Postcard material.

That afternoon: wow that was a nice cathedral. World heritage listed, full of amazing windows and carvings. My favourite was the ascension, which I didn't get for a while. It appeared to just be a crowd of disciples until I saw the feet hanging from the top of the relief, which cracked me up. We have all these churches full of grandeur, but they get so obsessed with the building and the history that they forget the people. Outside the church on the freezing snow covered street there was a beggar, and I think he was for real as it takes commitment or actual bad luck to be out on the street on christmas day. I think the church would be more holy if they stopped swinging round the golden ball of incense, sold all the silverware, stopped the million dollar restoration (it's an old church, let it be old, it makes it prettier anyway) and let the beggar inside. I want to tear that church down as beautiful as it is and build a house for the homeless. It would serve god's purposes much better, and as remarkable as the carvings of people gone now are, much more beautiful is the life of the individual, in particular the life of the smiling and laughing individual. That is our world heritage, not hollow buildings. The building will crumble eventually anyway, the soul of that man on the street is eternal. Restore the soul, not the building. That's my two cents for Christmas. On a more peaceful note, I purchased a star wars comic in French. It's quite good. And the train ride back was quite nice too, mainly due to my Christmas playlist which I wrote down here. Nice songs which complemented the occasion. Anyway. Merry boxing day now. Love from Morley.

My playlist for today:
every breath you take - copeland
Battle - Colbie caillat
September song - chet baker
Somebody's baby - Jon foreman
Daybreak - Chet baker
Mr sun - Kina Grannis
For you from me - Jon McLaughlin
Toothpaste kisses - the Maccabees
I've never been in love before - chet baker
The little things - Colbie Caillat
My sweet lady - John Denver
Realize - Colbie Caillat
No-one really wins - copeland
Grown-up Christmas list - buble
Human - jon McLaughlin
Je tire ma - Kurt Elling
Oxygen - Colbie Caillat
My ideal - Chet Baker

.:: MORLEY::.

Paris

2010-12-24T21:41:00.000+11:00

Paris
I guess unless you're a random who lives in America and reads my blog, and apparently most of my traffic comes from the US, you would already know I'm in Paris. Tout d'abord, I've seen lots of amazing things in Paris and England, but the highlights are definitely a man squeezing himself through a tennis racquet in Covent Gardens, catching the tube, the trip almost to Stonehenge where it snowed properly for the first time in my life, and just seeing the way people live in England. In Paris so far, ice skating halfway up the Eiffel tower was a highlight, and seeing the paintings of Vincent Van-Gogh in the musee d'Orsay, which trump the louvre for beauty. I'd never seen a painting which could make me cry, and I still haven't, but Vincent Van-Gogh's works make tears well up, and if I weren't surrounded by strangers who for some reason I don't want to cry in front of, I'm sure I would have cried. His self-portrait is the single most emotional work of art I have seen. I want to give him a hug. Anyway. My grandpa is probably sitting down right now with my brothers and father in a room full of candles, listening to Stan Kenton's christmas album as is his custom on christmas eve. Stan Kenton is a little known jazz arranger and is by grandfatherly decree the epitome of cool. Off to Notre Dame now. See you, Merry Christmas. Grosse bises. It's a Paris thing.

.:: MORLEY::.

The assorted activities of Andrew in England so far.

2010-12-18T23:32:00.001+11:00

I've been keeping fairly busy actually, sorry I haven't updated for a while. So on the first day as I said earlier we caught the tube back from the airport on district and picadilly lines. How cool does that sound? The tube is an excellent system. Just like myki, except it actually works. Oyster cards pretty much never break down, and the stations are easy to navigate if you speak English. We've used the tube to go most places. In case you didn't see on Facebook, it's quite cold here, with snow falling yesterday over most of England. It didn't really settle in London, but it's still cool. We're staying in Belgravia in London, a very nice district. Hyde park/Buckingham palace is four blocks north, Westminster just east, Covent Garden north-east (very trendy district, go there for markets/street performers/uni students/coffee), Knightsbridge and therefore Harrods to the west. Right now I'm on a bus to Stonehenge right now, so I may interrupt with (JUST SAW A JAGUAR CX75 or something like that CONCEPT CAR IN A SHOWROOM ON CROMWELL ROAD epic. Anyway) updates on stuff outside. On the first evening we walked up to Wellington arch on hyde park corner through Eaton Square, full of embassies on streets with houses identical to those in My Fair Lady where my favorite song from a musical is sung (see Facebook). I want one of these houses so I can walk along the street in front of it and sing like that. Or maybe give it to my girlfriend (not that I have one) so the song is more appropriate. Anyway. It's beautiful, and I now have an awesome camera to work with, so I'll take some pics for you. Second day was touristy, I went on the eye, saw big ben, Buckingham palace, tower bridge, Westminster abbey and parliament. Touristy is bad. Btw, it's snowing again now, quite heavily. We can only go 30 miles per hour cos of the snow on the road. Day the third was much better. I bought a new camera, quite a nice digital compact from a place in the wonderful Westminster. Nice markets and stuff, then saw the changing of the guard at the palace. It's quite a good ceremony. The bands and dudes with guns march in to the palace and strut around for a while. They must have vocal coaching for yelling the orders. The band is excellent too, playing carols and Hawaii 5,0 in jest in the snow which started as they played. Then coffee and back to the hotel. Then we went to brompton road, knightsbridge, home of Harrods. It's quite epic. You can pay in gold, and buy white grand pianos and crocodile skin soccer balls for £2500. Strange. It's crazy. Don't buy anything, too expensive. Go to charity stores (opp shops) and you can buy Sloane Street (like Collins street) clothes really cheap, because the kind fellows of Mayfair donate everything after a year. They actually are that rich! Bonkers! Stonehenge is shut because of the snow, so the bus is taking us to Windsor castle/legoland instead. This is the best snow they've had around London for 25 years. See you later. I have some Dido to listen to whilst driving down a snow covered avenue. For pics, see facebook. Wish you were here. Love from Morley

.:: MORLEY::.

So it's really hard to type on the underground

2010-12-17T08:40:00.001+11:00

So it's really hard to type on the underground
It rattles from side to side like an alligator in a pool of oyster sauce. Hounslow west: please mind the gap between the train and the platform. Heathrow and the British Airways or 'pommy planes' was cool and all so British, as you would expect. But it's true. Anyways. The first British schoolboys got on at Hounslow central, and the houses are looking remarkably British too. I find it funny how the houses are the same and yet they each manage to maintain a distinctive sense of character. It seems that everything is even more British than I expected if that makes sense. I had a preconceived idea of what London would look and feel like, and it turns out it wasn't like that. It was even cooler. Anyway, I'm almost at our stop. I'll post something else soon.

With love, Morley

.:: MORLEY::.

Japan and other such escapades

2010-12-17T08:40:00.000+11:00

Japan and other such escapades

So Narita airport Japan is about the size of Ballarat and suburbs. Once you land, it takes around 20 minutes to taxi in to the terminal. Crazy, and then the people make you stand in a line for international connections screening, and I lost my camera standing in that line. I had it on one side of the checkpoint and I think I picked it up on the other side, after it went through the x-ray thing, but it was gone next time I checked. They also have 3 different types of toilets in Japanese airports, and special rooms for smokers to die in. And the travelators yell at you in Japanese "the end is coming" in English translation. I'm assuming they mean the end of the travelator. Anyway. Sleepy... See you in London folks.

.:: MORLEY::.

Chasing the Midnight

2010-12-15T10:23:00.000+11:00

Chasing the Midnight

So I'm on a plane right now watching a movie with bad Aussie accents on my way to Japan. It's completely mental that there is an armada of 200 other people on the plane with me all on their own separate missions in the middle of the night. It gives an indication of how much actually happens in the world each day. They've turned out the lights, and it seems everyone is asleep except for me and the engines. The man across the aisle fell asleep on his screen with the movie still playing. It was funny. I think we just finished flying over PNG. Anyway. That's how my trip started, flying across the world in the darkness, life as we know it far below me, and the first real patch of turbulence. 5 hours to go on this cramped plane. Did I mention Mr Tony Abbot is on board, in business class of course. I wouldn't call it romantic or fun, but it's an experience. Hopefully there will be free wireless in Japan. Tired as bro. Sleep...

.:: MORLEY::.

Leaving, On A Jet Plane

2010-12-11T09:25:00.000+11:00

Leaving, On A Jet Plane

John Denver is one of the most honest and sweet artists I have heard. He was gifted with an amazing voice and sense of beauty and hope to go with it, a dream of flying evident in so many of his songs, a simple and beautiful ambition. I love tales of those who flew, like Icarus, Amelia, and John. If His songs didn't soar to the same heights as his dreams, I would sing them all my days. I still do, just down an octave or three. He was flying for me, he was flying for everyone, he was trying to see a brighter hope for each and every one, he gave us his life, he gave us his spirit and all he could give in his music, one of the few artists who makes such beautiful music that I cry every time. To quote Jon Foreman, another great artist in his own right, "if it doesn't break your heart it isn't love"

So I'm going away for a while, to places I never really thought I would go to so soon in my life. I feel privileged at the moment, but trepidatious as it's winter, which is not how I imagined myself going to England for the first time, despite dreaming of a white Christmas, which looks promising right now. I'm staying in England for only 3 or 4 days as the main intent of the expedition is to improve my French communication, but it should be enough time to go to Harrods and see some squirrels and such. Not squirrels at Harrods. That would be silly. Paris should be interesting, the tower encrusted with snow on a wintery Christmas day, speaking in French most of the time should be fun too. But it still isn't quite how I imagined it. My ideal plan would be to go and see the world perhaps at the end of school with a couple of my close friends, being independent and sharing the experience with some of my best friends, or maybe going shortly after I get married as the best honeymoon ever, spending my time with the best person ever. Maybe going in summer to see the lush green English countryside in glorious technicolour. Mother does not quite fit that description (I hope she doesn't read my blog). I suppose somebody wise would tell me at this point that beggars can't be choosers and I should make the most of the opportunity ahead of me, and I suppose that they are right. So I wish I could fit all of you in my suitcase and take you with me, but unfortunately I don't think they pressurise the cargo hold unless there are dogs on the plane. My sincerest apologies for the airline's lack of thoughtfulness.

I wish you peace and blessings while I am away. To all my friends, we shall have a lot of catching up to do when I return.

Love from Morley

.:: MORLEY::.

Last wednesday was a day of people being nice to me

2010-12-10T11:12:00.001+11:00

Last wednesday was a day of people being nice to me. I forgot my lunch due to my own stupidity and luckily my tute group gave me cake and Tim-Tams and chips, then will gave me the remaining half of the cost of a sausage roll. After school I caught the bus down the street because a certain cd I had purchased was filled with clicks and white noise. The man in the store exchanged it for a more expensive compilation and made up the difference! Rock! Then I went to the opp shop and bought Roget's thesaurus for an art project. Except the didn't have any change because they'd closed the till and gave it to me for free. Rock x2!!!
It seems people are randomly nice to me, when I know I don't deserve it. So thanks, and hopefully you haves day as nice as last Wednesday was for me today. These were all material things given, but they came from the generous hearts of randoms. Cya <3

.:: MORLEY::.

On Facebook and stuff

2010-11-14T20:03:00.000+11:00

Observations from this week:
Contrary to what Frank Lloyd Wright would like, our bedrooms are slowly becoming larger, allowing us to have more stuff in them and spend more time in them. The breakdown of family may be due to this and a series of other factors. Facebook? Even the TV can be used as a family event, but Facebook...no. I've been reading a fair bit about the virtue and bad bits of Facebook recently and watched the social network.

One writer for Relevant magazine defends Facebook and encourages us to make the most of it because it's not going away and suggests the obvious benefits of the site which are staying in touch, helping us to make time for others, benefits for business and effective advertising which the audience can actually appreciate, together with making people who are perhaps lonely or feel socially awkward feel included.

I know for me, I'm quite shy, and Facebook enables me to talk to people I may not normally. For example a girl (perhaps yourself) who is extremely popular and is constantly surrounded by others keen to talk to them so I feel I should let them out of courtesy steal this person's attention and that girl will of course appreciate how I'm not actively annoying her and therefore like me. That's my bit of totally unsound logic which I enact most days in the politics of sitting down next to persons. So Facebook helps.

Another writer for the same magazine (its a really good magazine) states:

"The most common complaint I've heard about social media is that it leads to narcissism. But what these detractors are forgetting is that social media is inherently social. The reason that people share the details of their life usually isn't for their own benefit. Especially in our increasingly separated world, people want to connect with their friends and family through common experiences."

Yes, social media is inherently social, but another writer also for Relevant magazine makes the point that on Facebook our profiles and statuses are meant to be seen by others, and we create them accordingly, to stir up certain people or be cool to others. Basically what he goes on to say is Facebook is a mirror. We hone our profiles and statuses so people will think we are cool, ask us out, comment etc. Therefore Facebook creates a kind of vanity which leads to narcissism. He goes on to say that as long as we recognise the possibility of this occurring we should be able to deal with it and use it's powers for niceness.

The Social Network movie was also insightful to see why Zuckerburg created the page and how he knew it would be successful. Because people want to be able to communicate and learn about others outside of the normal means of communication. Basically taking "the harvard experience" and putting it online. The final thing Zuckerburg adds before the site goes live is the idea of relationship status, a way of finding out if people are "available" without awkward conversations. A lot of it gratifies stalker-ish behavior without being stalker-ish. Except of course it's your choice what you put up there for others to see so it doesn't get too serious unless you're an actual stalker.

Obviously I spend too much time on Facebook, probably because I spend too much time alone. I wish I went and did interesting things with other cool people in a non-digital realm of existence, but homework. Study turns us into such loners, and then we go on Facebook to feel less alone and therefore have to spend more time alone doing homework. Annoyingly it's a circle.

Anyway. Thats that thought. Also, Gabe Bondoc writes cute music that you would sing to your girlfriend if you had one, and she'd agree to marry you then and there. They're that honest and lovely. Kurt Elling has a great voice and taste, and Andrew Peterson tells beautiful honest stories in his songs. Kind of like John Denver crossed with awesomeness. Gives me chills, particularly counting stars, his latest album. Oh and Chet Baker rocks too.

BARNUM:

2010-07-28T19:52:00.002+10:00

So for four months, I gave up my time to stand around a piano and sing, then march across a timber floored room, throw coloured balls in the air, stick my bum out like a snooty waiter. And now its over, and its kinda sad. Wow. Anyway. It was a musical called Barnum, in which I played Mr. Sherwood Stratton. I auditioned for it on the spur of the moment, only deciding the morning before that I would show them what I had, and sang my favourite song from a musical (On The Street Where You Live – My Fair Lady), smiling the whole time. And it just takes so much time and effort that nobody would criticise you for leaving the cast, but you just work through it, keep on keeping on burrowing blindly towards whatever is at the end of it, whether that be disaster or triumph. And I’ve learnt so much. How to smile, be myself, act a part and you know if I could go back and do that audition again now, how much more I could have impressed them folks. So, enough rambling. It was a great show I thought. We had over 400 pre-booked for the final night and final night went off without a hitch and was ten times the performance we had in the preview. It’s amazing how a show comes together, and by opening night, how different it is to any of the previous run throughs.

Here are some moments that really stood out along the journey for me:

-learning to juggle after being inspired by the Jackson Juggling Ninja.

-Being contacted to do the posters and getting my inspiration from Barnum the man himself.

-Seeing my posters in A2 in the WCPA, A3 all around the skule and in A4 all down Sturt Street.

-Eating everyone else’s left-over maccas

-Getting Barnum shirts printed

-Our first run-through with lights and our amazing curtain, and then the first run-through with make-up and costumes

-Oh no! Becca’s ankle! We’ll have to do the lift with Mr. Scudder!

-Getting my program printed and running around making changes and trying to figure out why we wanted our programs to bleed.

-Kate doing my hair. Laurence and the side-burns. Me and my new relationship with eyeliner and mascara.

-The eyelashes

-Edward Cullen.

-Learning my stage smile (picture included)

-Stupid stage superstition – “Macbeth! For goodness sake, just get over it.”— CHOOKAS!!! Tyrannosaurus REX! RAAGGGHHH! The force will be with you…always.

-SARAH YOU LEGEND! You let the balloon go.

-Mr Higgs in your dressing room lol

-helium, seriously not good for you right before the show (see facebook later)

-Max slipping over with style

-“Andrew, just smile, don’t laugh at the audience!” you know it really does makes you smile when there are very pretty friends of yours sitting in the front row

-“Charlie! Charlie!” “No, Tom Thumb” “NOOOOOO!!! CHAARLIEE!!!”

- ITS OVER!!!

-Thanks! My presentation (legendary!)

-The amazing performances each night of Patty,Maddy, Elissa and Lane!!!

-after final night, bumping out, stealing a shopping trolley and waking up ALL the boarders.

-Maddys going grey

-“Sure you don’t need a shopping trolley for all those flowers?”

-Hitler in springtime featuring Ferris Bueller. How disturbing.

OK. NOW its all over, and I’m feeling kinda down, cos we were an amazing bunch of people. Pity… …There Was A Sucker Born Ev’ry Minute…

Barnum Posters

2010-06-27T11:31:00.002+10:00

Riding In The Rain

2010-05-30T11:08:00.000+10:00

Woke up this mornin. Got outta bed. Went for a bike ride in the rain to wake myself up, whilst singing singin' in the rain in my head, and ended up camping out in the Buninyong Newsagents reading Top Gear Mag until the storm abated. Rode back up the hill at full tilt during a break in the rain, and got into the shower. I shower naked. Halfway through my nice warm shower, feeling good, washing my hair, which means my eyes are closed. I open them half a minute later to a completely different scene. Blood everywhere, running down my face, down my arms, dripping to the floor. Goodness gracious, it was like a horror movie. In the end, I hadn't been stabbed, t'was merely a bleeding nose, which was annoying. It's pretty challenging to dry yourself and hold your nose at the same time, never mind getting dressed. It bled for ages. Anyway. That was my morning. Just thought you might like to know.

Little Things

2010-05-18T16:18:00.000+10:00

Little things, are the treasures kept inside,
In our hearts, a moment recognised,
The sweetest memories, that are never out of touch,
Oh, it’s the little things that mean so much…
Little Things – Troy Cassar-Daley
Hi! It’s true. It is the little things. The first words I said to you were probably ‘Hi’. It wasn’t some witty remark specially designed to make you immediately think ‘this person is cool’ like romantic relationships in movies. I’ve built relationships which work where the only things we’ve said to each other are Hello for years, but after a while I felt close enough to that person simply through this habitual exchange that I could then ask them favours and when we finally did talk, words just flowed.
I have deep relationships with some people who read this blog thing, and one thing I’ve noticed is that the shallow stuff seems to have lessened. When I say Hi with enthusiasm, they don’t respond, or respond as if their mind is elsewhere and that really hurts. Hellos and goodbyes are crucial thing in relationships, please pleaze priddy please say hi with enthusiasm, like you care, like you’re actually there. I know it makes me feel so much better. You don’t even have to say it. Use your eyebrows, your hands to communicate, that makes it even more real and awesome. Goodbye!

Must Have Done Something Right

2010-05-18T16:16:00.002+10:00

You came along one day and you rearranged my life,
All I’ve got to say is I must have done something right,
I must have done something right.
Must Have Done Something Right – Relient K

One day most of us think that we’ll run into that perfect person who we will fall in love with and marry, live the rest of our lives in harmony with. So we sit around and wait for them to come along. This is wrong. What we should be doing is trying to make ourselves into the perfect person for someone else, instead of hoping that they’ll accept you for the person-who-could-improve that you are right now. Cos if you aren’t right for them they aren’t right for you and vice versa. If that makes sense. But that’s not saying you/they may not become the right person them/you in the future. If that makes sense. Goodnight anyway.

Explaination

2010-05-05T10:50:00.002+10:00

saw you last night
dance by the light of the moon
stars in your eyes
free from the life that you knew
-Magic, Ben Folds

Just explaining, there's links across the top of my blog now, which go to other kind of things by me, but they aren't really started. I just kinda wanted to separate some of my thoughts from the others, so they didn't all get cramped and start fighting.

Morley

So…Dance.

2010-05-03T11:32:00.002+10:00

For those of you who didn’t go, it was actually pretty fun. Glares from Amelia, Arun, Millie, Vicki, pretty much all the krome tute group and lots of other peeps were for some reason directed at me for not convincing someone to come. Not my fault, but I accepted their blame anyway. Stood around for the first little bit not knowing what to do, just wondering how all the guys suddenly just looked a few years older and more professional. Tried complimenting a few girls on how beautiful they looked, but kept on getting my tongue tied in a knot. I’d look down at peoples heels to see how their self esteem was going. Some tall people became taller than me, and that was just annoying. Still, they all looked very pretty. Well, maybe not all, but all my friends anyway.

Danced for a bit, it was interesting to see people’s styles of dancing and how it represented their personality, or how it was different. My style was, I looked at the coolest person standing round me and tried to copy them. Max has all the moves. Seriously, he was so cool. And that yr 10 Jackson kid. The jazz pianist. Amazing dancer. I waltzed with CK, which was hilarious. Then stood in front of the speaker stack and got deaf. The band was really good, I thought. Their covers sounded really professional, although their choice of songs in the second half was decidedly less tasteful.

I got my picture taken looking like a goon. Had some soft drink. I then spent the next couple of hours wandering around dazed, trying to bump into certain people, and not into others. That bit was boring, because when I bumped into them I was too shy to talk. Trying to talk to people at the end of the night was pretty hard anyway, cos we were all deaf. And all the girls sat down cos of their feet. Seriously. Don’t wear heels stupid people. Guys like girls anyway, and your feet and yourself are going to look amazing even if your heels are shorter. Walking out to the gate at the end of the night, girls average step length was around 10cm. It hurt me to feel how much pain they were in. The only good thing to come out of it was a conversation starter. “so, how much pain are you in right now?...” All we could do was shake our heads and laugh. Still. A fun night. It’ll be great to look back on in a few years, then shake our heads and laugh a bit more.

Boxing

2010-04-21T19:24:00.000+10:00

A jail cell,

the box you put me in, a floor,

walls and a ceiling, but no door.

Lucky there’s a chimney…

Once upon a time I met someone I had never met before, and we talked about things. I’m sure this has happened to you also, cos that’s what you do when you meet peeps. Anyway. The thing this person tried to do was put me in a box. “you’re one of those [mollusc] kind of people…”

We’re all guilty of this. We meet a someone and we’ll try to put them in a box depending on what music they like, how they talk, where they come from, but they’re never ever going to fit inside the box quite like that, there will always be an extraneous bodily part hanging out the side. Stereotypes like drama/art people (they all wear black and white), can be funny, and this is ok if jokingly done, but we love the boxes we put others in too much. We lurv our stereotypes, and that’s where we get most of our modern aussie humour from, but this box is a jail cell, and makes people unsmiley. It is these boxes which can make Australians racist. It is possible to physically trap a person’s body, but it should be impossible to ensnare a person’s mind. Unfortunately sometimes a person believes in the box others have put them in and are therefore trapped.

Solution: Disbelieve the box, or alternatively, if someone tries to put you in a box, tell them you’re just not gonna fit.

Boxes are box shaped, and people are people shaped. You can’t put me in a box.

Angry. Pertaining To The Dream Of Lara. Rwrr!

2010-04-21T09:08:00.000+10:00

Happy happy joy joy, molluscs and beavers and cute furry animals. Sounds good. This is what some people think when they hear Christian. A faith which makes people happy all the time, with their heads up in the clouds. Really? Spread the love. Butterflies! But what is that cute furry animal in the distance? It’s a wookiee. Rwrrr!!! Wookiees are a more realistic representation of us. Wookiees live in the real world. They get angry. God gets angry, and aren’t we meant to be like him? Some people think anger is evil, because after all it does lead to the dark side, but in this case… although it pains me to say this, STAR WARS IS WRONG!!! Anger is newtral (note: that’s not how you actually spell neutral).

But we should get angry about what God gets angry about, social injustices, abortions. Not the way our little brothers but their toothbrushes in the wrong spots in the toothbrush holder. Anger is destructive and constructive. Like a hammer. Or a wookiee. There is one well known bible story in which Jesus constructs a whip and chases baddies out of the temple. But note, he takes the time to actually make a whip. Control your anger, padawan.

Also, remember God loves the person you’re angry about more than you can possibly imagine. I stole this, point for point, from an article in RELEVANT Magazine. Read: When It's Good To Get Mad

Profound

2010-04-15T14:43:00.004+10:00

…said Caspian. “I was wishing that I came of a more honourable lineage.”

“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.”

Easter Bunny

2010-04-04T12:12:00.000+10:00

Thursday, he comes home and sets rabbit traps for these troublesome pests, Friday, the first rabbit dies. On this Easter Sunday morning, 6: 30 the Easter bunny has fallen to our traps and then whacked on the head three times just to make sure he was dead, poked a thousand times by small cousins to make doubly sure. The death of this small animal proves that chocolate eggs are not delivered by rabbits as the myth would have us believe. The Easter Bunny makes no sense at all. Where would he carry the eggs? In his pouch? Rabbits don’t have pouches. So it could be an easter Kangaroo. But that doesn’t make sense either, because where would the eggs come from? Kangaroos don’t lay eggs, and no animal we know of lays chocolate eggs of that varying size and filling. The answer to this confuddling confusification is dinosaurs. Dinosaurs lay eggs of all different shapes and sizes and little is known of these creatures really. Why? Because dinosaurs are actually magic creatures. Think about it. It actually makes sense and means we don’t need to worry about palaentologists telling us the God is a wally. Dinosaurs are magic beasts which eat Cocoa Beans and then lay chocolate eggs in fridges all over the world. Occasionally they die and because they’re magic, the super-age at that time and become fossils. Everybody assumes the egg fossils we see now were once protein and embryos, but actually they were just chocolate.

Sorry about this post. It’s silly. I hope you have a nice Easter with lots of chocolate from the Eastersaurus, but don’t forget it’s all about a man who died in our place and was raised again from the dead to give us new life. Not just Easter. Our whole lives are about this man and his torturous death and triumphant resurrection.

Thee Little Words,

from Morley

My Favourite Things

2010-03-31T17:10:00.001+11:00

This list changes all the time, but right now in this moment…

-Short hair: No hair in my eyes, dries in seconds, un-oily, love the way it flicks back like a catapult if you run your hand through it, doesn’t get mussed up if you put on a hat.

-Stories, things with deep and long, detailed and beautiful history, but presented to the imagination, not just a hard statement of boring fact: Recently I’ve been reading The Wheel of Time, an epic series, set in a fantasy world with a deep and long, detailed and beautiful history of the struggle of dark and light. A fight against the forces of evil. Reminds me of Star Wars, a fictional universe, a beautiful lie if that’s what you would call fiction. A universe imagined in enough detail and history and beauty to enwrap and enrapture the imagination.

-Speed, Determination, Skill, Hope, a Mistake, an Honest Apology: This was Mark Webber’s weekend. I really do support Mark Webber, and thought he drove an amazing race on Sunday, and awesome qualifying and practice on Saturday. You could see the determination in the way he drove on Sunday, how badly he wanted this, so much. He was pushing himself to the very limits of what was possible and then even further. It seemed impossible from some position that he could win, but he just kept pushing, struggling. It really was awesome. But he made a mistake, he pushed beyond the limits of his car and physical limitations and his hopes were dashed in a moment of contact with the McLaren. He apologised to all after the race, for his mistake, he was apologizing to himself aswell. He’ll learn from it make himself better, and thank God for another chance.

-Quotes, a Lesson: From The Gathering Storm, part of The Wheel of Time.

* * *

“You always have a choice. Maybe you can’t pick where you are forced to go, but you still have a choice…”

* * *

Tell me. Why?

Maybe… Lews Therin said, shockingly lucid, not a hint of madness to him. He spoke softly, reverently. Why? Could it be…Maybe it’s so that we can have a second chance.

Rand froze. The winds blew against him, but he could not be moved by them. The Power hesitated inside him, like the headsman’s axe, held quivering above the criminal’s neck. You may not have a choice about which duties are given you, Tam’s voice, just a memory, said in his mind. But you can choose why you fulfill them.

Why, Rand? Why do you got to battle? What is the point?

Why?

All was still. Even with the tempest, the winds, the crashes of thunder. All was still.

Why? Rand thought with wonder. Because each time we live we get to love again.

That was the answer. It all swept over him, lives lived, mistakes made, love changing everything. He saw the entire world in his mind’s eye, lit by the glow in his hand. He remembered lives, hundreds of them, thousands of them, stretching to infinity. He remembered love, and peace, and joy, and hope.

That’s why he fought. That’s why he lived again, and that was the answer to Tam’s question. I fight because last time, I failed. I fight because I want to fix what I did wrong.

I want to do it right this time.

New Discoveries, on ya bike: I thought I knew _________. This is my town, I know it like the back of my hand. I’ve spent days riding or walking it’s streets observing its beauty and history. I thought I’d travelled every street, seen it all. But I was wrong. On my ride yesterday I discovered a housing estate in _________ I’d never seen before, and it amazed me. One turn in the road I’d never taken before, but what was even more amazing was a small bush track leading through the back of the estate and continuing on through the trees. I had no idea where it would lead but I need to follow tracks like this, so that I know where they end up. I discovered an entire suburb new to me. I’d always wondered what __ _____ actually was. I always thought they just needed a name for the place so that it wasn’t a Uni in the middle of nowhere. But there is actually a town. It doesn’t have a supermarket, but there are a million houses I’d never seen before, new streets to explore. Amazing.

Photo manipulation: I learnt from a week of work experience with designers, cool people, who enjoy what they do. Cool people. I’m repeating myself myself myself. Said cool people twice twice.

Anyway, this is just like a weight loss ad or ad for that other thing that no one can spell where you dance to music. Seriously. Just dance in your room to your own music. This has the added benefit of zero embarrassment, you choose the music, and you can add unconventional and awesome moves like air guitar (star power!) and ‘The Retard’, a new move invented by me.

Shuff It Up... (remix)

2010-03-25T17:15:00.001+11:00

Normally this goes as follows:

(Rules:
1. Put your music player on shuffle mode.
2. Press forward for each question.
3. Use the song title as the answer even if it doesn't make sense.
4. Give your comment on the answer, how they actually relate.
5. Tag 5 humans.)

But wouldn’t it be a bit more interesting if I actually tried to answer these questions truthfully, to the best of my ability? Light Gives Heat – Jars of Clay

How are you feeling today? I’m fairly happy today as is my custom. Sometimes things just suck, but this is not one of those times. Recently I went to skule and hung out with vibrant, cool people and just tried to ignore all the bad bits. This week, the weather has been absolutely beautiful, reminding me of some beautiful people I know and would love to spend these beautiful days with. Forget and Not Slow Down – Relient K

Will you get far in life? I don’t know. Sometimes it’s hard to see where I could be down the track, it’s hard to imagine how I could be happy, the ways I could be blessed, the problems I could face. Probably go to Uni and either follow in the footsteps of Obama and become el presidento or just become a talented designer. It could happen. Hopefully I’ll get married along the way, and someday I’ll die, but not quite yet. Factory Man – Troy Cassar-Daley (that doesn’t bode well for either of those careers).

What is your best friend’s theme song? Probably Taylor swift something. They may be surprised to find that I consider them my best friend, but I do, and they probably shouldn’t be. Surprised, that is. Flood – Jars of Clay

What's your high school like? It’s pretty good. My skule is where most of my friends are, or at least it’s where I see them. At my skule, most of the teachers really care for the students and their dreams. There’s also a really good amount of stuff you can do out of skule, like bands, where you meety cool peeps and make friends. I Keep My Secrets Safe – Saosin.

How can you get ahead in life? Do not procrastinate. Procrastination gets you behind and then it’s hard to catch up. Three other things. Faith, Hope, Love. The Setting Sun – Switchfoot.

What's the best thing about your best friends? They are nice to me. We have fun together and laugh. That’s the simplest explanation, but it’s still valid. Sweet Thing – Keith Urban

Describe your parents. Well, I suppose other people from outside looking in… …would think they were gibbons. No. You may think them tight and restrictive, but actually they’re fairly reasonable, they are loving but they’re just different to yours. They live in a world different to ours and are so concerned with keeping me out of trouble that it can sometimes be annoying. I mean, all parents are like this if they’re good folks but my parents especially. Break Me Down – Red.

How's your life going? Good. I’m behind on skulework, but that’s normal. I’m disorganized, but that’s normal. I’m not socially brilliant, but that’s normal. I don’t like all your music, but each to his/her/their own, and that’s normal

First song played on my birthday. Happy Birthday. Duh. I Miss You – Blink 182

Will you have a happy life? Hopefully. Happiness is kind of fickle, and although we can achieve happiness, this world and our lives and hearts are still corrupted. But, yes, I will if I can, strive to have a happy life, a wife, a house, kids and a dog, to create something beautiful. Dreams are funny things though. We dream about things and achieve our dreams and find out what we dreamt for isn’t really what we wanted. We can dream for things which are not good for us, because dreams are what we want, and not what God wants. Sometimes there is more pleasure in dreaming than in achieving your dreams, and I’m not saying dreaming is bad, but dream of what God wants, which is love. Just generally. Heart – Jars Of Clay

What do your friends think of you? Andrew is a nice guy, but he’s a bit withdrawn. He seems nice, but I haven’t talked to him enough. He was once told simultaneously by numerous people he knew that he was be their idea of a dream husband because he did washing up, was nice and generally a bit organized. These people had obviously not seen his room. Africa – Toto.

Do people secretly lust after you? Umm… I’d feel very wierded out if they did and I’d tell them to stop. Seriously. Beurk. Stop. I’d be fine if you just had a crush on me, but just save it til Uni. Thanks. Watermelon Man – Herbie Hancock

How can you make yourself happy? Smile. Faith, Hope, Love. ‘nuff said. Cornerstone – Day Of Fire.

What should you do with your life? Smile. Love. Hope. Have faith. Souls On Ten – The Almost

Will you ever have child? Hopefully, and if they’re a girl probably named something like Padmé, Rachel, Monica, Amberley or Cerasi (two in there from star wars) and if they’re a guy, Anakin, David (I know lot’s of nice Davids), Josh (I know lot’s of nice people called josh), Fergus, Oswald, Leopold, Otis or something else. Incomplete – Switchfoot. Well I sincerely hope they are complete.

What song will you dance like a freak to? Hello Seattle (remix) – Owl City. The Line – Lecrae.

What does your mum think of you? Irresponsible with regards to homework and organisation. I’m good. One Flight Down – Norah Jones

What is your deep dark secret? I love you. I stuff up all the time when you’re not looking, and when you are, but mon dieu is always looking. I Wonder What Became Of Me – Toots Thieleman/Trijntje Oosterhuis

what’s your mortal enemy theme song? Probably Never Gonna Give You Up – Rick Astley, but if they’re my mortal enemy, it’d be something suitably ghastly by Lily Allen. Ghastly. The Last Night – Skillet.

What is your personality like? Nice, a tad withdrawn, but that’s just me. I like music and bad jokes and laughing so much I make pig noises and Star Wars and design, and I secretly like stuff which makes me cry and romantic comedies, because if you don’t cry occasionally, you’re a plastic hamster. Nothing Is What It Seems (Without You) – Saosin.

Fail

2010-03-22T15:12:00.001+11:00

I was going to post now, I promise, I really was, but the computer is playing up...sorry :)

The Truth — Lecrae

2010-02-20T17:08:00.002+11:00

“Some people say that God ain’t real, cos they don’t see how a good God can exist with all this evil in the world, if God is real then he should stop all this cos he’s all powerful right? What is evil though, man? It’s anything that’s against God, it’s anything morally bad or wrong, it’s murder, rape, stealin, lying, cheating. But if we want God to stop evil, then do we want him to stop it all, or just a little bit of it. If he stops us from doing evil things, what about lying, what about our evil thoughts, I mean where do you stop? The murder level, the lying level, or the thinking level. If you want him to stop evil, you gotta be consistent, not just pick and choose. That means you and I will be eliminated because we think evil stuff. If that’s true, then we should be eliminated, but thanks be to God that Jesus stepped in to save us from our sin, Christ died for our evils. Repent, and turn to Jesus, man”

something i wrote about eventually coming home. i'm back now

2010-01-13T16:28:00.000+11:00

Whilst on mt ollivier looking at mt cook:

tendrils of cloud grip at the mountaintop like the claws of a dragon clutching at it's prey, but the prey is ever strong, the mountain refusing to relinquish it's place in the landscape, and the cloud dissipates. The day grows old and the shadows lengthen, the sky a summer blue, slowly fading to gold and then to pink, Mt. Cook lighting up this spectacular hue before the long shadows claim the mountain aswell. The sky turns a gentle mauve, before all the colours mix together to gray. Even as the sun leaves the sky and the light with it, the mountains still make for a panorama worth seeing. It's 10:30 now and there's still light in the heavens outside Muellers hut, surrounded by snow at 1810 meters. Could this be the most beautiful place I have ever been? I can see my first star and the young adventurers in the hut slowly succumbing to the night, but still laughing and talking. It reminds me of what is truly the most beautiful place in the world, where I feel a constant warmth in my heart and everything is beautiful in my eyes. It is with God and with friends and wherever there is love, ever strong, greater than the mountains, bigger than the sky...

NZ-milford, mt cook, and the boat back north

2010-01-10T17:13:00.001+11:00

.::| NYE |::.

2009-12-31T16:48:00.000+11:00

Wow. I kind of haven't written for a while, even though I just uploaded all previous NZ posts just then. What I've been looking at after Wellington kinda takes all those other photos and stuff which are awesome and make them look a lot less awesome. Like Akaroa and Christchurch, which are nice and green and beachy, and then down to Dunedin and Otago peninsula which are more spectacular where we stayed in a castle. Well. The stables of the castle over christmas cos there was no room at the inn...And then we kind of had a car crash in the rental and the Friendee was gone, leaving us stuck in a castle, an alright place to be stuck. While stuck, we did manage to get into Dunedin and visit the Cadbury factory. Chocolate overload.Then got another rental and travelled to Milford Sound, which is the most spectacular place I've ever been and when the LOTR guys came along to see where there were good spots to film they were just left there with their jaws hanging open and couldn't really film there cos everybody would just keep on getting distracted by the awesomeness. Not really. That's what would have happened. New Years Eve now. Sorry I can't upload the pictures of Fiordland. They're still on my camera. Anyway... dumdeedeedumdeedumdeedee. See ye.

MISSION: CATCH UP ON BLOG

2009-12-31T16:32:00.000+11:00

TIME: 1000 HRS NZT (20/12/09)
SOUNDTRACK: ‘FORWARD MOTION’ by THOUSAND FOOT KRUTCH
LOCATION: WELLINGTON

So. After Auckland, we went through EPIC countryside down to a place called Rotorua and a farmstay in even more EPIC-dom. Just check the view out my window:

No wonder they filmed Lord Of The Rings here.

SLEEP.

Next morning, went for a walk on a kinda cool hill. Then saw a Maori cultural demonstration in Rotorua and also EPIC bubbling mud and the GEYSER OF EPICALITY.

SLEEP

Next morning climbed an even more EPIC hill, but then along comes this:

This is Ultra-Fat-Massive-Tank-Awesome-Epic Mount Unpronounceable Nguaruhoe. An active volcano. Last eruption 1975, but it was due for another one. It’s a tough climb, like 38° incline and trust me, it’s steep. The side of the mountain is all volcanic ash and pebbles, but you had to be extra careful because there were also big rocks, and if you accidentally got them rolling they’d tear down the flat 600m drop at a speed of fast with the potential to kill someone. One man broke his leg and got airlifted out. The ash is annoying cos it’s all slidy.

Halfway up the mountain, the clouds came in, but the interesting thing was that we were above them. Before the clouds closed, before we reached the summit, I looked down and there was a scene perfect for a LOTR battle, and over the hill, a crystal lake, deep blue on top of a mountain.

At the summit was the biggest surprise yet. Snow. Epic. Also, there was smoke coming from a vent in the side of the mountain. Scary. Nice view.

We went back down and saw a man epically sliding the whole way down the volcano on his pants. Anyway. Having an awesome time and going to the south island tomorrow, which should be wicked. Miss you all. Morley.

Oh no. Not yet. Also these trees here are californian redwoods, but in NZ. Spectacular trees. Actually this was probably more epic than the volcano.

MISSION: AKL-SLEEP

2009-12-31T16:19:00.000+11:00

MISSION STATUS: FAILED

TIME: 1110 HRS NZT (17/12/09)
SOUNDTRACK: ENDLESS TIM FINN ON YHA STEREO. YOU’D THINK HE WAS A KIWI OR SOMETHING…
LOCATION: AUCKLAND

MISSION: AKL-CBD

2009-12-31T16:18:00.000+11:00

TIME: 1400 HRS NZT (16/12/09)
SOUNDTRACK: ‘TRAFFIC AND PEOPLE'
LOCATION: AUCKLAND

Auckland’s CBD is really tiny so not too much to explore there, but go up queen street far enough and it gets really steep and asian. Past that, there is an amazingly huge park with geese and 86 hectares and an awesome museum and awesome forests 10 mins from CBD with a nice abandoned railway station and nice hills and then left that park and found Auckland Uni and awesome grounds almost nicer than the park with amazing old buildings and then found another park which linked to the uni and had an awesome fountain and awesomer trees. Then saw a poster advertising Switchfoot, Underoath, Falling Up, Family Force 5, Hillsong United and Leeland all in the same festival. Sweet As Bro!

MISSION: QF 025 737-AKL

2009-12-16T09:00:00.007+11:00

TIME: 1100 HRS NZT (16/12/09)
SOUNDTRACK: ‘FLY WITH ME’ by JONAS BROTHERS
LOCATION: AIR

GOON 1: “hmm. Looks like an aeroplane. Sounds like an aeroplane. Tastes like an aeroplane. Very nice.”

GOON 2: “ooh, yes. I’ve had it in the oven all night”

GOON 3: “can I have a slice?”

“mmmmm…”

anyway. Thanks spike milligan. ‘Mao’s Last Dancer’ was a pretty good film, even if the cabin crew kept trying to give me breakfast while I was watching… sorry. I’m excited. I don’t get to fly very much.

MISSION: QF NZ 025

2009-12-16T03:00:00.004+11:00

TIME TO DEPARTURE: 0300 HRS EST
TIME: 0300 HRS EST (16/12/09)
SOUNDTRACK: ‘ALWAYS’ from ‘HELLO HURRICANE’ by SWITCHFOOT
LOCATION: YANKEE FLAT ROAD - WARRENHEIP

Wocka! Wocka! Wocka! Sleepyboo grnnmmrrzz. Unreal. I’m going to NZ…

jgnfkf

2009-12-13T19:39:00.000+11:00

Sorry I didn't blog earlier, but i've got an excuse for every day if you want...ok...monday orientation day for peter and then bookswap and band until 7:30 got home ate dinner went to bed, pooped...tuesday went to activity day, came home, went on internet and in the one minute of time i was allocated i was able to read your email, and got kicked off...wednesday my grandparents got here and i was making christmas cards for everyone else...thursday speech night and last day of skule...friday grandparents here and strict parents and mowing the grass at church and then work christmas party...saturday parents were being really tough on computers because they wanted me to spend more time with grandparents, one of whom was at the time on a lawnmower...

cool.

2009-12-03T20:49:00.001+11:00

a picture, a poem, a song.

2009-11-20T20:45:00.002+11:00

How do I show how I feel?
The words from my mouth fail me,
any picture I draw isn't right,
my song is off key,
the right words feel wrong.
How do I show how I feel?

I don't. I am how I feel,
and if you have vision you'll see,
that the song is my life,
the words are my heart,
the picture is me.

he has vision, he sees me.

BE NICE TO YOUR KNIVES

2009-11-19T10:30:00.003+11:00

In Knife and Razor-Land there are evil vegetables and bad herbs and nasty papers with black dotted lines on them and hairy hairs. They deserve to be cut. Knives like cutting herbs and veggies and fruit and hairy hairs and paper with black dotted lines on it, because they’re bad, bad things in Knife and Razor-Land and steal all the happiness out of the land. Then there are the good guys. All humans are automatically good guys. Children’s pets are good guys. Without exception, all knives and razors love these things and would hate to cut them. Knife and Razor-Land is real. Knives and razors really do hate cutting your skin, drawing your blood, or anybody else’s blood for that matter. Think of Mack the Knife, and Gilette the Razor. Think of them and don’t abuse them. They love you and they’d hate to cut you. You are the good guy. Don’t make them do anything they don’t want to do. Love your knives, be good to them, and let them chop veggies and hairy hairs…

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ...

2009-11-18T12:59:00.000+11:00

I need to laugh more.

Be Nice To Small Insects (except for flies)

2009-11-16T15:28:00.000+11:00

I don't write very much, but I like doing artsy stuff so I should probably put this stuff on my blog more because I like it and it's fun and awesome. Yeah. And maybe music aswell. My favourite song for this week is Welcome, done by John Coltrane.

Melons

2009-11-07T09:28:00.000+11:00

That's me! My name is now Melons and I'm back from a week in the bush, excited to be here but not excited about maths homework. Okey dokey. See you soon...

Love from Melons

Nath's Joke of the week

2009-10-31T11:42:00.000+11:00

What do you call a sleepwalking nun? A roamin' Catholic.

Is the sun the son of a star or is a star the sun? What?

2009-10-31T11:38:00.000+11:00

How many apathetics does it take to change a lightbulb?

I don't care, but I think I fail at keeping up an online presence. You see, the more online things I sign up to the less time I get to spend on each of them and therefore I fail at all of them. Anyway. Online isn't real anyway. I think I'd much prefer to talk to you in real life, so lets do something sometime. Anytime. Let's sit in the stairwell. Let's visit Santa at Myer. Lets go bowling, rock climbing, out for bubble tea, drooling on Aston Martins, sit on some green grass somewhere and laugh.

Sailin'

2009-10-09T09:23:00.002+11:00

Don't you think it's funny that the first day of the second week of May every year is a Sunday?

No. It's not funny at all. The first day of every week is a Sunday. Which leads me very smoothly to the topic of artichokes. When I was sleeping on the roof on the Sunday morning of the 4th of October, and concurrently taking a time lapse of the sun coming up over the city, I was reminded early in the morning of the danger I was in of a skydiving artichoke falling upon my head and completely not destroying my face, from a helicopter which passed overhead.
It sailed underneath the pinky orange clouds of night in the city, and the smell of the deck underneath me made me feel like I was on a ship. My mind drifted on an ocean of thoughts about oceans. I felt quite honestly like a sailor. The clouds moving made the stars look like they were flying past, and I awoke around 4:30 to find my sleeping rug damp with dew. In this surreal state of mind I sailed on until 5:30 when I realized the dew would probably have come over the lens of my camera and had to get up to wipe it off. Ouch.
My mind was brought swiftly back to reality by the skyline of a city in my view. I thought for a moment I may have sailed into a foreign harbor (whoops, forgot my freshly minted passport), but 'twas not to be. If I had a hammock, I'm sure I could have pulled it off, and I'd probably still be in that blissful fantastical state.

Psalm 46

2009-10-05T11:19:00.000+11:00

In response to 'trapped':

¹ God is our refuge and strength,
       an ever-present help in trouble.
² Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
       and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
³ though its waters roar and foam
       and the mountains quake with their surging.

⁴ There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
       the holy place where the Most High dwells.
⁵ God is within her, she will not fall;
       God will help her at break of day.
⁶ Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
       he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
⁷ The LORD Almighty is with us;
       the God of Jacob is our fortress.

⁸ Come and see the works of the LORD,
       the desolations he has brought on the earth.
⁹ He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;
       he breaks the bow and shatters the spear,
       he burns the shields with fire.
¹⁰ "Be still, and know that I am God;
       I will be exalted among the nations,
       I will be exalted in the earth."
¹¹ The LORD Almighty is with us;
       the God of Jacob is our fortress.

TWLOHA

2009-09-24T12:14:00.000+10:00

Also, if you don't know about these guys, you should probably look them up. They are To Write Love On Her Arms and it's pretty powerful stuff. Read their vision and mission statement. It's really good.

Trapped

2009-09-24T12:11:00.003+10:00

Our town is the prettiest town in the entire world. Our house is comfortable and warm. My hair smells like blueberries on account of kids shampoo. Despite this, I feel trapped. I feel like I’ve spent 2 weeks alone. I know I’ve got my brothers and my parents, but during holidays, they all become increasingly irritable, and I just need to get out. Read a book. Play a game. I go for walks or bike rides all the time for any excuse to just do something. I went on the internet once and I sent an email. I didn’t get a reply. I went on MSN. Nobody was on. I went for a ride around wishing I’d bump into someone I could talk to. I finally went onto Facebook chat, and amazingly, there was somebody I knew. Unfortunately you can’t get anything talked about if the most you’re ever online for is 10 minutes. I miss everyone. In an unexpected interruption from this ceaseless boredom I caught up with some old friends at church. Next week I’ll be going on camp mon-fri. I’ll finally be out of Buninyong. Unfortunately that means I don’t really have much time left to catch up with the people I miss more than anything… I wish you all reading this the very best. I hope (if you’ve had them) you’ve enjoyed your holidays in oodles of happiness. Love from me.

Here’s Looking At You:

2009-09-24T12:10:00.001+10:00

I Miss You:

(from imaginary mx)

To Kayla, the gorgeous girl on Thursday’s 4.00 train to Glen Waverly. You were singing along to Blink 182 ‘I Miss You’ on your phone next to the guy with the fro. I was the guy who smiled at you.
-random

Makeup your mind.

2009-09-19T20:44:00.003+10:00

Olivia B asked me during conservation camp what I thought of makeup. First of all, I said, if you do your makeup properly, I shouldn’t actually notice it. Secondly, I think I appreciate people being themselves, presented as they are (but then, you say, why should you spend any effort on your hair? To which I say, I just don’t like being the solution to the world’s oil problems). Also, who’d want to kiss anybody covered in makeup? It’d smudge and go everywhere and it probably doesn’t taste nice. I’m not sure what else I think. Anyway. I’m not against makeup, but poorly applied or unnecessary makeup, or makeup which detracts from a person’s beauty really puts me off. Any final thoughts, Andrew? Oh… umm… Yes! God made you perfect. Every freckle on your face he put in place.

Yeah! That rhymes! Kewl!

Holidays!

2009-09-19T20:43:00.004+10:00

So far the holidays have been pretty boring. The first day of the holidays was an awesome day. Got up at 6:00 and went for a walk (in shorts! First time in ages!). I discovered Buninyong is much bigger than I thought it was. Then got back home and remembered I had work. Pottered off over there in my fluorescence. But I forgot to clock on! Whoops! Also dropped a couple of boards of wood on my feet, which missed my steel caps and gave me a huge black bruise! Pain! Yeah! I finished off six sentences in a row with exclamation marks! Anyway.

Relient K were awesome, but I haven’t got David his shirt, because we had to rush off and I didn’t even see their encore. What was it? Nobody told me yet… Anyway. Next morning couldn’t walk because I couldn’t walk from bruise on foot. So I played pokemon Sapphire all day. But in the following days (they followed each other. Isn’t that weird? Imagine if days went on shuffle like iPods…) I discovered Buninyong was even huger than I had thought the previous days.

Anyway, bored again now, but I’m going to make a billy cart next week with Peter. TTFN.

Fixed

2009-09-02T12:29:00.001+10:00

wow. i just realised all my blog posts had been posted as though they were in an American time zone. I was wondering why... Fixed now hopefully

.::| MORLEY |::.

Sunshine

2009-09-02T11:59:00.000+10:00

Good morning sun! You're looking good. Now, i don't go handing out compliments to everyone, but then again, i don't know everyone, so i probably couldn't anyway. You could if you wanted to. All you have to do is shine. I want summer, i want to lie around on the green grass and sit under trees and laugh and frisbee. But thankyou sun for shining so brightly this morning, because you've made me high.

"sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy,

sunshine in my eyes, can make me cry,

sunshine on the water looks so lovely,

sunshine almost always makes me high..."

- John Denver

40 hour famine

2009-09-01T15:53:00.000+10:00

I know jane just posted a thing about the 40 hour famine, but i'll do this anyway. Oh well. Now i can't actually think of anything to say, apart from HARRY POTTER IS AWESOME and now i'm addicted to it and i probably wouldn't have put it down to eat on the weekend anyway, and i know there's a lot of criticism out there about it, but ultimately it is a fictional story which captures the imagination and encourages people to dream and imagine and lots of positive stuff. It's a story of good vs. evil, just like Star Wars, and it's all about a person doing good in the face of unspeakably evil Voldemort, and hoping to in the end defeat evil and have a lot of fun along the way. Anything that captures the imagination... J'ai faim.

Also i have more threadless designs now...

Miraculosity Isn't A Word, But It's Fun!

2009-08-25T16:03:00.000+10:00

In Andrew-land, there is Victoria and New South Wales and South Australia and Queensland, and when he was five, there was Tasmania, but not since. There is Ballarat and Melbourne and Sydney once or twice a year. In fact, Andrew's realm is almost half of Australia-Land. But he hears rumours from all his noble subjects, of lands across the seas, and places without eucalyptus, koala and kangaroo. Called things like France-land and United States-land and Malaysia-land and Coruscant-land (not sure if that last one's real or not), and most evidence suggests these lands exist. But never has he crossed the waters to the other side, and seen the overseas. Maybe they're all made up to make him really jealous of you and your travelled-ness.

Maybe he should find out for himself whether it's real. Maybe he should start out with that little island off the east of our big island. Home of the sheep. Yeah! I'm going to New Zealand, and it's gonna be awesome!

"Badal do Zamana!" (change the world)

2009-08-18T15:41:00.001+10:00

Tony turned up about a half an hour late and i was delegated the position of sitting in the back of his 4wd while the others enjoyed the comfort and suspension of the 11-seater.

'They didn't know i had all the lollies.' (Morley)

Arrival at the Shyke/Sheik/Dunkeld Bunkhouse was 2 hours later. Can you believe Tony didn't know the way to get to the project he was meant to be leading?

'He was a most peculiar man' (Simon & Garfunkel)

We followed the less peculiar park rangers to Lake Linlithgow to plant our first batch of trees in 2-litre-milk-carton-gaurds.

Hamilton, supplies, pasta, back to Shyke, drawing, reading graphic novels, listening to Anberlin and Relient K. (Anberlin in Billboards, 170 Russel St. Melbourne 24th August for Under 18s)

Morning: Say hello to the friendly insect colony in the shower!

I never finished writing this post. To those who came with me on the camp, you already know what happened anyway (and you're awesome), and to those who didn't, you wish you'd been there, even though these words make it sound really dodgy and bad.

TTFN

(Ta-ta for now!)

Jane did this

2009-08-17T15:18:00.000+10:00

hi :)

Fourever- when we make a cd, i'm voting for this as album cover

2009-08-06T17:57:00.000+10:00

This is just something i did on the weekend while experimenting with halftones on the weekend. I picked a random picture and it grew from there. If you don't get it then don't worry about it.

Howtodo

2009-08-04T15:50:00.000+10:00

Hello david. I said i'd post on how to get a custom pattern as a background for your blog, so here it is.

First of all, you need to either get or create a pattern. If you already have a pattern, skip ahead:

The pattern i have used here is from the same image used for the header. I used the the live trace tool in illustrator and then set all fills to transparent, and strokes to my greens to create this, but you can achieve the same in Photoshop by

- using 'Artistic--->cutout' tool and then

- 'Stylise--->glowing edges'.

I then take the image to photoshop and:

-use lighting effects, soft omni, to achieve the fade out around the edges.

- then inverted the image (ctrl + I) and went to 'hue/saturation', colorise and selected green, 25% saturation.

-duplicate the layer background

-select the bottom layer

-for the next step, first look up your image size, and if it is an odd number for either width or height, change the image size until both are even.

-Then take these numbers and divide them by two.

-go to filter--->other--->offset, and input the numbers you divided (make sure wraparound is selected)

-now select the top layer

-set blending mode to darken

-now, just make sure the image is a suitable size for web. About 1000px is about max for ok load times.

Good. Then upload your image to the web. Photobucket (http://photobucket.com/) is really good for free image hosting, and when you upload, it even gives you the address of the image for the next step.

Then go to Layout--->EDIT HTML and find the tag which says 'body'. It will either have the background as a picture, or a colour (#FFFFFF (white)).insert web address of your pattern as shown.

Good... Just make sure your pattern colour goes with your blog colour. To change this go to the content wrapper tag as shown (just scroll down a bit) and insert colour choice.

This could probably be done easier another way. But i'm silly. You can change your header a lot easier. Anyway, this is dodgy and basic, but it works.

I said i would post and i did!

2009-07-22T21:31:00.001+10:00

Hello again, and welcome back. Skule’s been fun. Lot’s of maths, but apart from that, I haven’t really done much and the anticipation you waited with before I posted this was probably wasted, because I don’t have much to say that’s not a state secret. I have posted on Threadless a few designs more since the ones I posted, but the ideas seem inferior. I do have a lot of good ideas, mental images and rough sketches, but I can’t illustrate that well on the computer. I think I need one of those graphics tablets. T’would be good. I think I might post a few pictures now…

Also, I think I want to be a design-ee person, cos I can spend all day doing that. I can’t do maths for more than 2 hours consistently. I think I’d like that.

I AM VERY SILLY AND I APOLOGISE FOR NOT BLOGGING

2009-07-21T16:30:00.000+10:00

How'd you like it. NEW!

Anyway, you may have seen my facebook album if you're my friend containing photos that i took in the blue mountains, but just to recap, here's my holidays...
I worked the first week, and got paid, but unfortunately have to do tax return. And i also have this beige hoodiee (plain), and i had the idea of making it look a bit more interesting, (i would upload a photo except i'm at skule), so i bought/brought (can never tell) some fabric with which to attach the design to, but before i could, we went away to NSW.
Licorice factory at junee first and buying 2kg of it. Then went to katoomba, where my dad assured me there was a sewing machine. There was, but, if you look on my FB photos, you can probably see that it was covered in over 15 years of dust, and was just about the first model sewing machine after they switched from being pedal powered. Amazingly, it actually worked after oiling and a new needle, and i got stuck into it. I'll upload a photo of the final design when i get online next (tomorrow?). Also discovered that you need written permission in NSW to tie your dog to a post (councils suck). Went on a bushwalk. Discovered why people have dslrs, and also put my mp3 player through the washing machine and dryer cos i'm silly. IT STILL WORKS! Anyway.
Back at skule now, but i'll tell you more bout that on the morrow.

Love from

.::MORLEY::.

Threadless

2009-05-26T16:32:00.000+10:00

So. There's this awesome site, right, and you get money for doing stuff you want to do. Sounds fun. Please go to threadless.com if you have time and rate my designs. Hopefully pretty highly. I think they're cool anyway. Though they'll get cooler as i do more work on them.

http://www.threadless.com/critique/44726/Rainsticks_Raining_Sticks

http://www.threadless.com/critique/44779/Help_I_m_Trapped_Inside_This_Shirt

http://www.threadless.com/critique/44603/tree_city_tee

2009-05-18T14:48:00.000+10:00

It's a post thingo

2009-05-15T08:58:00.000+10:00

Ouch. There’s a scratch on my left leg and I don’t know how it got there. Anyway. I was meant to write one of these thingos a while ago, but I had to write a letter in another language and theorise about music, create a review for the movie Gattaca, edit a poster for Boat Race Ball, eat, sleep, go on a youth group camp with Warren (he’s so cool, he can do a wheelie on a unicycle), and do 4H questions 1-8 in my maths textbook. But now I’m finally ready to do it, and it’s weeks past and not really that relevant anymore. Anyway. It was my birthday on May the 5th, and I had loats of fun (that’s a cross between loads and lots and means heaps). San, Ni, Ici, sticker photos. It didn’t really feel like a normal birthday, but define normal. Thanks to the academy… no. Thanks to J and Nagle, cos you’re funny, fun and funny, and also to The Wong. Normally on a birthday, I actually sleep, and have lollies like this,

but ‘You can’t stop change any more than you can stop the suns from setting,’ a Skywalker quote which is actually useful. This change was awesome, and they even managed to make it educational. Design is Difference. Different is good. Design is good. Particularly graphics, typography, photography and… ya know… motion graphics.
Another change was KFC, but I still don’t like it. The chips were soggy and boring, the chicken took twenty minutes of picking at ribs before you could eat any, and it was 80% bone/batter, 20% meat. The freshener made me smell disinfectant for the rest of the night. But experience is good aswell.

Poxton

2009-05-15T08:54:00.000+10:00

Mr. Poxton came into class today and did philosophy. I like it. It’s fun. But I’ve figured out more of why I like it. Voila. Ok. I’m a guy, and we like things like this. Guys all like to think they’re smart. Philosophy is particularly suited to us then because it makes you feel smart. Anyway. What we do is we try to figure out ‘why?’ or ‘what?’ or ‘how?’ using logic. We think in a straight logical line until we come to a conclusion or a new question. We try to figure out whether there is a God, or if you’re a dyslexic insomniac atheist, you stay up late at night and wonder, ‘is there a doG?’ But the thing is, that God, or a dog, are both too complicated for us to come up with a simple solution. An ANSWER. For the people who like maths, there is always a definitive ANSWER, even if it’s irrational. But for the people who like this English or philosophy thing, there probably is no set ANSWER.

OK, Andrew, start again. We spend a lot of our lives looking for meaning, or THE ANSWER. But what most people don’t get, but Douglas Adams hinted at, is that if you go out looking for it, you probably won’t find it. This is where Star Wars comes into it. I know this is in at least one star wars book, but I can’t remember which. “When you learn that you know nothing, then you are truly ready to begin learning” -Probably Qui-Gon Jinn or Yoda. This quote could I suppose be adapted to the lives of a non-Jedi. We cannot know the mind of God, and therefore we’ve probably got to accept this to be at peace. I’ve heard that some people think that the more we know about God, the closer we are to him. A person who has never read the bible can be a far better Christian than a religious leader. Guys like logical smart things. Faith doesn’t seem to be logical, if we think about it and say that we’re believing in something we don’t have THE ANSWER for. The people who are smart are the unlogical ones who do believe, even though they don’t have all the answers.

So...

2009-05-06T11:36:00.000+10:00

So. Hello again. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Sorry. I haven’t been online much at all lately. I think this is largely due to the considerable lack of spare time and sleep I have been having among these recent weeks. Upon blogging, mine energies have not been expended greatly, but maths homework! Agh! There’s so much of it! Anyway. Not much has been happening recently. I’ve been watching Pride & Prejudice, which is so romantic it’s funny. And just a tad silly. I’ve also been reading heaps, mostly fantasy/sci-fi, or action and I have noticed a common thing that’s been happening in most of these books is that the hero/hero-ess person thing has almost always had something happen to them which takes them away from their homes and possessions, pretty much takes away their previous life and starts them off again on an adventure, leaving them with only their wits and a few measly possessions to survive on. Makes you wonder what we really have without our material worth. I mean, a fair bit of our coolness at skule seems to be based on whether we have funny shirts, what music we listen to, and whether or not we have handheld telephonic and multimedia devices. But the truly cool people are the ones who don’t mind if I have a phone, or listen to dance music or rock. One of these books suggests that the only thing we have left are our stories, our lives and our minds. But hopefully you have more than that. I think I’d like to keep my hands aswell. Maybe a foot or two. A mouth would help. Anyway. You get the picture. What picture? This picture? This is a pretty hard picture to get.

Radonm

2009-05-06T11:29:00.000+10:00

Just a random thing i post because i can’t think of much else.

Rules:1. Put your music player on shuffle mode.
2. Press forward for each question.
3. Use the song title as the answer even if it doesn't make sense.
4. Give your comment on the answer, how they actually relate.
5. Tag 5 humans (cos dogs don’t count)

How are you feeling today? Something-Frank Sinatra (of course i’m feeling something! I’m never not. But I don’t know what i’m feeling, so something is probably the best answer)

Will you get far in life? Enjoy The Silence-Anberlin (That isn’t really an answer. Ah well.)

What is your best friends theme song? Bliss-Muse (Are they really all that blissful?)

What's your highschool like? All Messed Up-Sum 41 (appropriate, but it’s not as messed up as most others)

How can you get ahead in life? Pelagia’s Song- From Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (dunno what it means, but it’s a nice song)

What's the best thing about your best friends? Who Needs Air-The Classic Crime (‘When you got what i got ,what i got, Who Needs Air?’ lyrics from song. Nice)

Describe your parents . Helpless - K. D. Lang (not really but it’s very funny)

How's your life going? The Entire World Is Counting On Me And They Don’t Even Know It – Norma Jean (sorry, metal. Maybe i’m important.)

First song played on my birthday. That’s Not My Name – The Ting Tings (yeah, everybody kept calling me David, and the cake was Thomas the Tank Engine. Confusing)

Will you have a happy life? No One Knows – Queens Of The Stone Age (true. Except God)

What do your friends think of you? On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand – Jars Of Clay (Hey! That’s a good thing isn’t it?)

How can you make yourself happy? Vertigo – Haste The Day (So I should climb Mt. Everest?)

What should you do with your life? Glass Onion – The Beatles (umm... yes. The day I understand That, the universe will end.)

Will you ever have child? Condescending – P. O. D (synonyms: Pompous, Arrogant, Snobbish, Lofty. Maybe I won’t have them.)

What song will you dance like a freak to? Undone – Lifehouse (only when i come undone)

What does your mum think of you? Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) – The Beatles (The Beatles are wierd. Maybe my mum thinks i’m on drugs)

What is your deep dark secret? Swallowed In The Sea – Coldplay (good. Nobody’s ever gonna get it there!)

What's your mortal enemy theme song? We Will Rock You – Queen (OK)

What is your personality like? Tears Of The Saints – Leeland (yes, I Know i’m sad, but not that kind of sad!)

What song will be played at your wedding? The Older I Get – Skillet (funny cos it’s a song about a breakup)

ok. wierd. bye

hi

2009-04-11T18:27:00.000+10:00

it's bloo. All in favour of the new template say 'neigh'. Like a horse

yo

2009-04-01T12:09:00.000+11:00

Yo. Hi all yo people out there. Just in case you liked the pictures i posted a couple of things back, here's a link to my public picasa web album which has all the pictures i've uploaded. To see them click here

It is everyone's responsibility to look after small trees

2009-03-31T15:39:00.000+11:00

Blooging is really funny. I can write something completely random and you can read it and go 'wow. that guy's wierd/funny/nice' and whatever. This random stuff i'm writing could be terribly boring, but you're still reading it, and therefore i can implant ideAS IN YOUR HEAd, say things that are completely wrong, and you'll probably think them true. Just like tv. Did you know you use less brainpower while watching tv than sleeping? It can say anything and you think it's good or right, and it has to be really bad, or very wrong for you to wake up to that. So please don't just take on board things i say. Think about them for yourselves and make comments, say something. I can count a million times i've been wrong (not just on maths tests), so if i am, tell me. anyway this is bad and random and really silly, but you still read it.
See ya.

Quote of the day

2009-03-23T15:11:00.000+11:00

While everybody else shakes my hand, you my heart.
-A. A. Milne

2009-03-17T15:40:00.000+11:00

New!

2009-02-28T17:45:00.001+11:00

wow! My Blog Changed!

pics

2009-01-29T20:50:00.000+11:00

Mr Holi-day

2009-01-29T20:49:00.000+11:00

Mr. Andrew: So, Mr Holi-day, after taking me to some of the more spectacular places in the country and filling my camera and head with images, what do you have in store for the rest of my rest?

Mr. Holi-day: I don’t know exactly.

Mr. Andrew: You don’t know exactly? Perhaps some hint?

Mr. Holi-day: Use your imagination.

****

[2 WEEKS LATER]

****

Mr. Holi-day: So, Mr. Andrew, what did you do with the rest of your rest.

Mr. Andrew: I don’t know exactly.

Mr. Holi-day: You don’t know exactly? Perhaps some hint?

Mr. Andrew: I used my imagination.

Mr. Holi-day: Ah.

Mr. Andrew: You see Mr. Holi-day, I had no reason whatsoever to purchase a star wars clone trooper helmet for myself, yet I did, because of my imagination. During the course of the weeks leading up to the holidays, I didn’t think I would survive them intact without contact from my friends, but survive them I did, because I had to, and because you gave my mind a chance to get swept away in it’s own imaginings, imagining I could be a Clone Trooper, immersing myself in the universe that is George Lucas’ Star Wars, as quite often happens in the holidays with me. Also the world of creative photography inspired my mind to dream up all sorts of compositions, and Barack Obama captured my imagination anew with optimism and hope for the future of a nation. The West Wing (the best show ever created for US television) helped me to imagine that there were amazing people guiding these countries of the world, people with vision, with audacity, with a strength of mind to take a country and make it the best that can be, and then even better. Molding their vision into reality and constantly aspiring to more. How’s that for a speech?

Mr. Holi-day: Good. See you again at Easter.

Mr. Andrew: Thank you very much. Bye.

I Am Crazy

2008-12-28T11:58:00.000+11:00

As i hurtle towards certain death on a plank of wood with wheels attached to the bottom of it, I think about all my christmas presents and how sad they will feel when i crash into the fast approaching fence and all of them go to someone else. In conclusion, I say skateboarders are crazy, and don't ever go near a skateboard in the pouring rain wearing thongs, especially if a steep hill is just around the corener. In the end i cheated death by picking a small patch of grass in front of the fence to fall into, thereby missing the fence, but getting funny looking green streaks all along the bottom of my shorts.

(note: I may have used some poetic license here, but it's a relatively truthful account)