February 2012
3 posts
1 tag
Game on, moles.
It’s election time in Queensland.
A quirk of scheduling means the state and local elections will be held within a month of one another, which means candidates will be battling the public’s campaign fatigue as much as their opponents.
Aside from a bizarre period from 1960-1972 where Rockhampton was split into electorates of north and south, the Beef Capital has always been...
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Go west!
My zine got accepted to Aunty Mabel’s zine distro, which is run by the Perth Zine Collective. I did a sneaky copy run before work this morning, and they should be over the other side of the country by the start of next week.
A lot of “zine people” don’t really like my zines. They’re quick to say nice things about my writing, but counter with the fact that it’s not a traditional perzine.*
...
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The bossiest shop in Rockhampton.
When I was in high school, Rockhampton’s East Street Mall was a terrifying place of empty shops and slippery tiles, populated by drunks and aggressive homeless people.
They’ve cleaned it up a bit over the past five years, but the long-time retailers are jaded, tough as nails and totally over dealing with the dodgy East Street regulars.
My sister was on the hunt for a costume for a...
January 2012
2 posts
1 tag
My week in photos: rain, music, rellies and...
My love of playing guitar is greater than my longing to have manicured hands like other adult women.
Blisters on my left hand are from playing bass, grazes on my right hand from playing an acoustic. Shred life.
I played at a house show in North Rockhampton on Australia Day, along with Lockjaw (pictured above). The small punk/hardcore community here makes me feel so excited and so hopeful...
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2011 in good reads.
I was an incredibly nerdy bookworm all through my early childhood and primary school.
I had the reading age of a 16-year-old by the time I was five, and I remember being taken up to the Year 3’s classroom when I was in Year 1, so they could see how badly they were being owned by one of the smallest Year 1s in the school.
Unfortunately this led to some pretty hectic bullying, which I tried...
December 2011
2 posts
1 tag
New Years.
[caption id=”attachment_735” align=”alignnone” width=”460” caption=”Bringing in the new year with the wankiest of all wanky ciders. It’s so wanky the brewers won’t even ship it out of Melbourne.”][/caption]
I start every working weekday with bleary eyes, saving blank news script templates with the broadcast area, time and date. Today’s...
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Zine 6!
Hello internet!
Issue 6 is done and dusted.
I’ve been in one city and job for the past six months, which is some kind of record for me. Issue 6 is about being punched in the face by life and mortality, early starts, trolling idiots on the internet and features the usual interviews, conversations and pro tips for life.
Copies will be in stock in stores in Brisbane and Melbourne, but...
November 2011
1 post
1 tag
Worse than a stocking full of coal.
Mum: Do you think signing Sophie up to Lite n Easy would be a good Christmas present? My sister: Uh, NO! Mum: (huffily) Why? She wouldn’t have to worry about cleaning up after herself. My sister: She doesn’t. I do that for her. HAPPILY. It’s a thing we have. That’s a terrible Christmas present. That’s like the time Granny gave Lucas (our brother) girl pyjamas for...
October 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Extra-curricular activities.
I’ve spoken about this before, but I’ve been having a blast getting back into writing and playing music.
It is my first love and like many first loves, I totally over-invested in it and ended up loving it to death.
I recently dragged the skills I learned during my 14 months in a music production degree out of the depths of my brain to record a split CD for my band Sailormouth and my...
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Poison City Weekender
I’ve never been much for parties. They make me nervous and I either drink and talk too much or leave early without saying goodbye to anyone.
Gigs and festivals often have the same effect on me; it takes something special to keep me there and keep the creeps away.
The Poison City Weekender is that something special.
I only saw one crappy band, all the people were nice and the venues were...
September 2011
3 posts
1 tag
Today is World Alzheimer's Day.
My early childhood was full of sleepovers at Marnie and Pa’s house in the Brisbane suburbs. They’d pump me full of ice cream and coco pops, then swim in the pool and take me to the park.
They even put up with me waking up at 5 in the morning. I’d jump into bed with them and read stories while they dozed back to sleep.
I remember spending hours searching for treasure in...
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Dear Jonathan Davis:
Dear Jonathan Davis,
Hey man, how’s it going? Can I call you Jonno? No? Ok, no worries, Jonathan’s fine.
So, Jonathan, It’s been 18 years since your band Korn first formed and 13 years since you guys released Follow The Leader, your second and most influential album.
You guys were pioneers. You mixed the aggression and beats of rap with the angst of Nine Inch Nails and guitars so tuned and...
1 tag
Say cheese!
I got a new camera today and it made me think.
While I’m totally fine with why I’ve upgraded, it’s very true that having a good camera won’t necessarily mean you take great photos.
The photo above is one of the shots I’m most proud of.
I was using a Nikon D90 that I’d bought using my Kevin Rudd money nearly a year earlier.
While I’d worked hard at...
August 2011
6 posts
1 tag
My sister cleaned up my study.
Home is somewhere to hang your journalism degree.
Original Article
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Highlight of my day, and every day.
It’s just SO satisfying when I read a bulletin the whole way through and it hits the 3:30 mark. Simple things.
Original Article
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Nothing suss: motivational gym posters.
I’ve joined back up to a gym.
The Rockhampton Fitness Centre, aka “Norm’s Gym” is the oldest gym in the city, and dudes have been coming here to lift heavy things since the 1960s. It was built in an old bank on the river, and they even have the old steel safe door open.
While it’s cheap and the staff aren’t creepily cheerful, it is a bit run-down. Sure, it has...
1 tag
G'day, Rockhampton.
I really like Rocky. Even though I grew up a couple of hundred kilometres west in Emerald, I see the blue mountains of the Berserker (pronounced Ber-SICK-er) Range and feel like I’m home.
This is the view from the top of Archer Street, directly opposite my old boarding school.
William and Charles Archer discovered the muddy brown Fitzroy river which runs through Rockhampton.
Their...
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Living in the future.
Check it out - my little sister is doing her maths homework by writing on her computer screen. HER COMPUTER SCREEN! WRITING ON IT!
Her whole grade was given these laptop computers as part of a Kevin Rudd education revolution scheme and apparently they’re pretty shitty, aside from the whole writing on the screen thing.
I’m nearly eight years older than my sister and when my mind is...
July 2011
3 posts
1 tag
Cemetery Gates.
There’s a cemetery near my house. Not one of the new-school lawn cemeteries, with manicured grass and brass plaques set in concrete, but an old cemetery. The kind of cemetery where the graves have pointy metal fences around them and the markings on the tombstones wore away long ago.
It looks particularly nice at sunset, so I decided to go for a walk.
The cemetery was built on some sort of...
1 tag
Something to do on the weekend.
When I told my doctor I was moving back to Rocky to work a job on the Brekky shift, he was concerned about two things. 1 - whether I’d be a good girl and get enough sleep; 2 - what I’d do between work and sleep, and on the weekends.
The answers were “yes” and “whatever I like, but probably something music-related.”
I first heard Jimmy Asher’s band early...
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Nesting.
You know what’s great? Having a house for the first time in three months. You know what’s not so great? Doing all the stuff you need to do to obtain and live in a house.
Dealing with real estate agents, buying draw liners and spatulas and outdoor brooms, locking doors, you know. That kind of stuff.
Luckily my little sister Issy has been staying with me and helping me set up my life...
June 2011
9 posts
1 tag
Interrupted transmission
Oh hey internet, how’s it going?
Sorry I haven’t been around much. I’ve just moved to Rockhampton and started a new job which involves being conscious at 3AM and reading the news for three central Queensland cities. I also don’t have home internet at the moment.
I just wanted to let you know that my new zine is finally on sale! There are photos, an interview with...
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Bridge climbing for photographers.
Along with the Stefan Skyneedle, the Story Bridge is one of my favourite parts of Brisbane’s built environment. You can’t (legally) climb the Skyneedle but you can climb the Story Bridge, so I bought a ticket to a photographic climb as a present to myself for the anniversary of my first year out of hospital.
Story Bridge Adventure Climb is one of just three bridge climbs in the...
9 tags
9 tags
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Experiments in medium-format film.
Homer Simpson once said, “Every time I learn something new, it pushes something old out of my brain.”
I’ve spent the better part of the last two years learning to wrangle expensive DSLRs, and all this new knowledge pushed out the quiet fact that cameras are essentially quite simple - a box with a hole to let light in, and a surface to capture the light.
I’ve been...
“The insidious thing about depression is that it takes determination and energy...”
– Depression, Burn Out and Writing Code | muddylemon
This.
(via michellej)
“The real anger is about the way the climate change debate has been conducted in...”
– Kathleen Noonan in this weekend’s Courier-Mail.
May 2011
5 posts
2 tags
2 tags
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Piglet racing!
ABC Sunshine Coast did an outside broadcast from the Gympie agricultural show yesterday. We battled technical issues and heat, but I was stoked to see Noah’s Farm’s “Thoroughbred Racing Piglets” again after walking past them at the Toowoomba Show earlier this year.
This is how it works: Children in the crowd choose a pig and name it. The child who backs the winning pig...
1 tag
Back to an itinerant life.
All good things must come to an end and unfortunately, Finda Toowoomba was one of those things. Finda’s demise means I’ve had to leave Toowoomba too, which is a real shame. I was just getting settled in!
Still, life goes on and I managed to wrangle a month of work producing radio with ABC Sunshine Coast, bouncing between the Breakfast, Mornings and Drive shows.
I produced the drive...
April 2011
2 posts
5 tags
Things I've learned from my teenage sister over...
My sister Issy is an absolute crack-up. She also has it way more together than I did at her age and is taller and better-looking than me.
Luckily for my ego I don’t see her very often, but we got to do some sisterly bonding over the Easter break. We’re getting older and being nicer to each other, which means we listen to each other more. Here are some things I’ve learned from...
5 tags
Rolling.
[caption id=”attachment_306” align=”alignnone” width=”502” caption=”Toowoomba City Rollers celebrate their first-ever win!”][/caption]
When I was living in Brisbane, I found roller derby girls terrifying. Some were gigantic and physically intimidating, others were rockabilly hot and all of them were passionate to the point of being a bit full-on. ...
March 2011
5 posts
3 tags
30 DAY SONG CHALLENGE: A song that makes you happy
Michael Jackson - ‘Don’t Stop ‘til You Get Enough’
I’m not a massive MJ fan. I never even went through a phase as a pre-teen. Still, he was such an undeniable talent and it is such a tragedy that his life was ruined while he was still so young.
Also, this song rules.
Original Article
4 tags
Tagged, tracked, logged.
Moods are so subjective, aren’t they? I remember when I was at my most crazy and unwell, I still thought my issue was one of willful bad behaviour, not mental illness and certainly not bipolar disorder.
Both my GP and psych strongly recommend I keep a mood diary so I have a record of what my brain chemicals have been up to and how my lifestyle affects my illness. I have dreadful handwriting, so...
1 tag
30 DAY SONG CHALLENGE: Your least favourite song
Wynter Gordon - “Dirty Talk”
Mostly, I love my job. Anyone who knows me is well aware of my love of storytelling and that’s basically what I do for a living.
The bane of my (work) existence is doing social photos, especially at events such as the Zoo Magazine Swimwear Model heats. Yep. I would be more witty and scathing about it but I’d like to stay employed, you know?...
2 tags
30 DAY SONG CHALLENGE: Your favourite song
The Jealous Sound - “Abandon! Abandon!”
I first heard this song at a gig in early 2009, when Brisbane band An Horse covered it. I think their cover is a little bit sucky but it made me check out the original, which I adore and keep coming back to.
The Jealous Sound’s album Killing With Kindness was the soundtrack of my time in hospital last year. I’d lie in bed listening...
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Man vs heart vs bull.
My dad’s been pretty sick lately.
Well, actually he had open heart surgery to remove a calcified valve and prevent a possible aortic rupture. His father had his first heart attack at 35 and a second one killed him when he wasn’t too much older than my dad is now; heart disease has been an elephant in the room that is Dad’s mind ever since.
He’s relatively young and...
February 2011
5 posts
1 tag
Writing for Fasterlouder - a ladder-climbing...
Working for free is an unavoidable part of starting out in any career. Whether you want to be a writer or a surgeon, you have to pay your dues and work hard to make your name before you start getting financially rewarded.
I was nineteen years old when I started my journalism degree. I wanted desperately to improve my writing. It was a motive that naive, combined with my love of music that led...
10 tags
The people in the flood zine - how are they now?
It’s been a month since the January 10 flash floods that tore strips off Toowoomba and destroyed the Lockyer Valley. The first run of the flood zine is almost sold out, which is pretty exciting. There are more copies on the way and I’m going to keep selling them until demand drops off. If you’d like a copy, Smells Like Zines distro is selling them through their web store for...
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RESCUED FROM WHOTHEHELL.NET: Brisbane river boat...
Brisbane has lost two of its most-loved gig venues and with the building that houses Burst City being sold, we’re looking down the barrel of a “music city” embarrassingly bereft of official venues for the original live music scene that tourism and arts officials like to wank on about.
The solution is to get motivated and find unofficial venues for gigs. Jai Sparks from Brisbane melodic punk...
3 tags
RESCUED FROM WHOTHEHELL.NET: Streamer Bendy
Streamer Bendy - You’re so cool from Streamer Bendy on Vimeo.
Almost five years ago, I was dating a guy who was in a band with Erinn Swan. It was a pretty dysfunctional outfit - Erinn was (and is) a pop singer and the rest of the band were writing nu-metal songs. As much as I love both those genres, it kind of didn’t work. The guys and assorted hangers-on would mock Erinn about her ...
January 2011
7 posts
1 tag
Side projects ahoy!
It’s been a while between blog posts, hasn’t it? I’ve been working away on a few side projects and didn’t want to post unnecessary crap on here when I could post useful crap instead. My server has also been playing up, but that’s another story.
Zines!
Issue #4 of the zine a.k.a. “The Flood Issue” is finished! Elouise from Smells Like Zines Distro will be...
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