Have little money and have to prioritise between needs when deciding what furniture to buy, and what I can live without. Like no table for a week.

Overpowering urge to buy a burglar alarm everytime everyone's at work.

Bath turned brown almost instantaneously, after a few days of use.

Cooking meals and then observing everyone eating together at unorthodox places due to lack of table, then conversing.

Lava Lamp - Room +3.

Friends of housemates, and neighbours, come around and then interact with me and I can see little green ++ and red -'s appearing above our heads when we talk.

I think before The Sims came out this was just classified as independence. Except for little green ++ social indicators and the occasional slap game that we play sometimes.

I know that most people only read Bradism for the monthly music round up, and it's ok, it's coming. I'm just a little internet handicapped at the moment.

It will be average.

So, Internetivity has been limited lately. So no new music yet.

On the plus side it's not even half spring and I'm already sorta tanned.

Also almost every lettuce leaf I eat comes from my own garden.

Also. Also. I now have internet and am downloading Linux ISOs at 1.2MB/s and that's awesome. Plus today it was super sunny. I think I will just post a mega music round up at the end of October with a bonus phocumentary too.

The St. Jerome's Laneway Festival first announcement was issued this morning and the lineup is a veritable who's who of Bradism.com Best New Music roundup. Actually, there's just 5 as well as Jay Reatard who I didn't really listen to before returning that CD to Rip it Up. Oh and Four Tet had a decent EP earlier but I didn't review it. Anyway, the point is Girl Talk is coming to Adelaide!! And The Hold Steady, Daedelus, Pivot and Stereolab. Plus some others that might end up getting reviewed before February. It was a really fun day this year despite being there on my own for most of it and having an epic hangover and lack of sleep from the Fringe Opening Night party the night before. So wherever you are in Australia, go to Laneway.

The current US election features one Joe Biden as democratic vice-president and for that I’m glad. While I’ve been clouded in my own ignorance to most of the happenings in the drama that is the US election process - save the occasional entertaining conspiracy theory YouTube thread blaming Barrack for the sub-prime mortgage crisis – the appointment of Sarah Palin as republican vice-president candidate has made it impossible to ignore the increasing quirkiness defining each of the players involved. Besides Obama the potential first black president there’s McCain the close to death War Hero backing up for the republicans, fighting alongside Palin the caricature conservitive mom ready to usurp the moment his heart fails. And it's not too early to forget steely Hilary and her close second to be presidential candidate featuring the support of her saxophone playing, stood-by husband.

I can't convince myself that to even get to the senate it wouldn’t require a supreme level of intelligence and determination. However, 2008's election candidates seem cut by the same typecasters responsible for the next spinoff of Grey’s Anatomy. With all their weirdness, are these seriously the best people that could be running for office? Out of the whole country? Say what you like about Australian politics but at least here you know an election is going to be contested between one generic, middle-aged white guy and another generic, middle-aged white guy and that the elected will more likely win on the strength of their policies (and the effects of tall poppy syndrome) over being the contestant television audiences related to the most. This election seems like it was built for entertainment, or worse like it's a sneak peak of the future where President is won in a political equivalent of American Idol broadcast for a season on in prime time and occasionally pre-empted by Sunday Night Football.

It's simply dangerous the amount of room for character development among the candidates. Any season of Lost should be enough to convince you that when individuals with controversial and demographic differences combine, plot twists are inevitable. And frequent! Will Palin poison McCain to accelerate her conservative agenda? Will America struggle with personal demons and vote for Obama just to prove they're not racist? Will a hidden secret in Bill's past come back to haunt him at a critical time? Will Biden… Oh God, compared to the rest of them he’s so vanilla I just want to say skip the elections, make him president and let's avoid the drama. But, I'm afraid a shot of him behind the desk in the Oval Office, on the phone with Osama and confirming that everything is falling into place could make the best end of season cliff hanger ever...

Living on my own is certainly teaching me many life lessons.
For example, if you do a load of washing on a Friday morning and your housemate dumps it in your only washing basket friday afternoon, by Sunday night the clothes will be dry without you ever having to hang them out.

Also, it is way hard to eat a whole loaf of bread in a week.

And I now know how to use the clothes dryer we inherited with this house.

One of the four lift control panels scattered among the six lifts on my floor has it's "down" light jammed permanently on.
Some days, usually Fridays, I know how it feels. Stuck there in plain sight looking like it's busy, but really just doomed to wait indefinitely for a trip to the ground floor that never comes. Well, ok, it does come eventually. At around 5pm usually - unless it's POETS day. It was today. Today I was fucking Shakespeare.

I was particularly keen to vacate because my prerogative was gym this evening. I haven't been there much lately and I think my body gets accustomed to moving heavy shit around regularly, and when I don't it stores that energy as bound up tension that escalates into a need for 'push metal above head'.

When it comes to stress relief gym exercise differs to basketball, which is what keeps me from getting to the gym as much as I used to lately. At basketball you have to talk up and use team strategies. At the gym you say "Hi" at the front desk then just stare blankly at your reflection for two hours in silence. Internally you choose some heavy thing and start pushing or pulling or lifting it but not a single word needs uttering until you get back to your car and sing every word you do and don't know to every song you hear and drink an Up&Go.