<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/4921881/?claim=59e95bu8f9q">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>
This year marks the 20th year that my favourite radio station has been posting their Hottest 100, the top one hundred tracks released that year as voted for by listeners. So naturally, they're getting listeners to vote for their favourite twenty tracks released in the last twenty years. Fitting.
Voting doesn't actually open until tomorrow, but I managed to put together my top twenty much faster than I thought I would. I've revised it a few times, but I'm fairly confident that this list is now in its final form. I'm also fairly confident that at least fifteen of them will be nowhere near receiving enough votes to even be considered for the final twenty.
I think it's a pretty well-rounded list. Although I was quite frustrated when putting it together because I'd think of the perfect song and it turned out to be released in 1991 or something.
So the other day I was just chillin' on the couch with my favourite cuddlebuddy, who was perched on my foot. It was cute, so I reached for my phone to take a picture. I guess he decided that if I was going to take a cute picture of him, he'd go all out and get his little face right up in the picture.
Photogenic little fella, ain't he?
And these ones are just because they're funny. And if there's one thing the internet needs, it's more pictures of funny lizards. Let's overthrow the funny cat pics once and for all!
I am not a very organised person. I try to be, but forgetfulness often gets in the way. This year, however, I am going to kick that in the ass and attempt to be so much more organised. And I know how I can do it too. It's simple.
I love lists. I love making lists, and I love that satisfying feeling you get when you can tick something off. So even more than I love lists, I love ticks. No, not the itty bitty itchy arachnids. Think Nike.
I've already started this at work (a few months ago, actually. Aw yeah!). I have a notebook that sits on my desk and there's a page in it for every day that I am at work. When I first come in to work, I check my in-tray and my emails, sort them into priority, and write them in a list in my book. Then I start at the top and work my way down the list, ticking things off as they get done. If somebody else asks me to do something while I'm at work, it gets added to the list. If it's a high priority, it gets marked as such. And then when it's done, TICK! YAY! Feels good, man!
So to make the rest of me as productive as Work JM, I'm going to get myself a smaller notebook and carry it around with me in my bag. Every morning, I'll make a list of what I need to do that day, and tick them off when they're done. So I get EVEN MORE TICKS! It's like being rewarded with stickers, but cheaper.
Hooray for psychological validations!
Also, I am going to make a list of bigger things that I need to get done that don't have a set time frame and hang it up at my computer desk, which is where I spend a great chunk of time when I'm not at work. And I'm going to put it here too, so if I don't get things done, you will all know and berate me for being unorganised. And by 'you', I mean me, when I go back and compulsively check previous blog posts for typos that may have slipped past my attention the first thirty times.
I really like cake. The band, not the thing you eat.
I also like cake. Yes, the thing you eat. But what I like more than eating cake is making cake.
Specifically, making cake for other people. I want to do more of that this year.
So that's why, at midnight last night, I was in the kitchen, making a cake for a friend whose birthday is today. It's a Mr Toast cake. Because reasons.
I made this one late last year for my younger brothers 21st birthday. He had a pirate-themed party. So I made a pirate-themed cake.
And here's the other side, so you can see the plank...that broke off during transportation .__.
And some of us dressed up in pirate-themed costumes.
This one isn't actually cake, it's gingerbread. But I'm including it because it was a lot of fun to make, and because there needs to be more Stargate-themed stuff on the internet that isn't fan-fiction.
And as usual, I'll leave you with a song that you should give a listen to. They describe themselves as the hardest hitting Hammond Organ Trio in Australia. That's reason enough to listen to them, right?
I've been trying to make a list of my top ten favourite albums of all time for YEARS (seriously), but I guess fate didn't want me to make the list until #6 was released last year. I kind of cheated a little by putting a soundtrack in there, but I think it is justifiable because all the tracks are by the same band, I just happen to like that collection of songs the best.
Anyway, this is a list of my personal top ten favourite albums of all time. No explanations. Nuts to explanations!
#10
Regurgitator - Unit (1997)
#9
Goldfrapp - Black Cherry (2003)
#8
The Pillows - FLCL Soundtrack #3
#7
Dead Kennedys -
Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables
#6
Django Django - Django Django (2012)
#5
Dandy Warhols -
...The Dandy Warhols Come Down (1997)
#4
Jeff Buckley - Grace (1994)
#3
The Beat - I Just Can't Stop It (1980)
#2
Kraak & Smaak - Boogie Angst (2005)
#1
The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow (2003)
Well, there you go. That's my top ten favourite albums of all time. I feel a strange and satisfying sense of accomplishment. Thank you, Django Django, for allowing me to complete my list!
And on one last, final note, here's my favourite track from my favourite album of all time:
Just like Halloween, Thanksgiving isn't really celebrated here in Australia. I don't even know what it really is all about. I could look it up, but then my Google search history would look vaguely normal...for a short while, anyway. By the way, it is possible for a skunk to kill a dog. Just in case you were wondering.
Anyway, all that I know about Thanksgiving, I've learned from cartoons. Which means pilgrims and turkeys and pumpkin pie. And I suppose being thankful for things. Which is nice that there's a day specially for you to be thankful for things, but personally I think that if you're really thankful for things, you should remember it always and appreciate them ALL the time.
On that note, here are some things that I am forever thankful for:
Sports socks. Thank you for keeping my feet comfortable all through the year and not wearing out as often as boring regular socks.
Google. Thank you for revealing to me the answers to (almost) all of my stupid questions.
Restaurants that let you split bills. Thank you for making dining out with a large group of friends that much easier.
Ballpoint pens. Thank you for always being in the bottom of my bag, ready and waiting for whenever I feel like drawing something.
Regurgitator. Thank you for all the albums, the live shows and being there for me all through my childhood.
Octopuses. Thank you for not living on land and not being able to climb trees.
Steam. Thank you for the awesome sales, being mostly reliable and letting me buy games without having to leave the house.
Badminton. Thank you for being a fun sport that I can actually play even though I am terribly uncoordinated.
Sunscreen. Thank you for making it possible for me to keep my pale ass outside all day while only getting partially sunburnt.
Rollercoaster Tycoon. Thank you for allowing me to vicariously live out my dream of being a rollercoaster/waterslide tester.
Of course, there are many more things that I am forever thankful for. Friends and family, mostly, but nobody ever comes to the internet for sentimentality, do they?
Also, thank you to The Oatmeal for making awesome shirts.
Okay, so Halloween isn't really celebrated that much over here. Not like in America at all.
Some parents like to let their kids dress up and go Trick or Treat-ing. I even saw one family attempting to do so on my walk home from the train station after uni. I'm not convinced they would've had too much luck. I saw ONE house decorated for Halloween today, and it was about a half hour drive away from my house. I'm actually glad I wasn't home around Trick or Treat time. I'm not sure I could handle answering a door to children expecting candy and have to tell them that all I have in my cupboard is brown rice, museli bars and a box of Wheaties.
Some people use it as an excuse for parties and to dress up in costumes, which is fine, if you aren't already of the opinion "hey, who needs an excuse to dress up silly and have some friends over?".
Me? I use Halloween as an excuse to indulge my love for horror movies. The problem lies in deciding which one to watch. I decided that since it was Halloween tonight, I should find something REALLY scary, and roped one of my housemates into it. But what movie to watch? In an attempt to find out what the scariest movie ever made was, I searched online for lists of the ten scariest movies ever made, found nine of them, and charted my results. Here's the top ten I came up with:
Top Ten (apparently) Scariest Movies Ever Made
10. Hellraiser
9. Alien
8. The Omen
7. Poltergeist
6. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
5. Psycho
4. Halloween
3. Rosemary's Baby
2. The Shining
1. The Exorcist
I have seen exactly.....ALL of them before. Here I was hoping that the internet would wow me with a list of movies that I'd not seen before, but no. Thanks, internet. Maybe if I expand my research to more than just top tens, and find some lists that actually have foreign films in them? I think the Japanese are pretty great at horror movies. And horror games too! Did anybody else ever play Project Zero? I think in some places it was called Fatal Frame. And just now, looking it up, apparently there is a Fatal Frame MOVIE in the works! YES!
Anyway, we ended up watching a couple episodes of The Walking Dead, and Saw. And then he went to bed and I sat at my computer and watched Unthinkable. Scary? No. Creepy? A little. Disturbing? Yes.
And, just in case anything I've said makes you think I have a personal vendetta against Halloween (I don't, by the way), I painted my nails with some ghosts.
And now I leave you with one of my most favourite cheesy Halloween songs!
