Or rather, I got division 4 in saturday lotto, which means I won A$52.17 (approx. US$47). Still, not to be sniffed at at all. What's been happening? Not much. I bought Assassin's Creed II. Excellent game. I hope to go back to it at some point... otherwise I've wasted $80. I have finally listened to the whole Florence + the Machine album. Sure, a bit late, but I'll have you know I knew about them over a year ago, before the album had come out. Song of the blog post? Well, band really. The Jezabels. http://triplejunearthed.com.au/Artists/View.aspx?artistid=15256 The first two songs (Hurt Me and Disco Biscuit Love) are great. They're an unsigned indie band from Sydney. You can download the songs for free, but it's probably illegal if you are outside of Australia/are not an Australian taxpayer. I love Unearthed. Uni's back. I feel a little lost after my 3-4 months of holidays. That is all. :D

I'm late to the party with this blog, but I am avoiding launch goggles. Put imply, the game is amazing. It's a huge improvement on the first game, which has been getting a lot of retrospective sh*t in the coverage despite the fact the only reason it is 'bad' now is that Mass Effect 2 is so great. Breakdown- POSITIVES. New shooting in a fast-paced Gears vein. Lack of Mako. Martin Sheen. Better character writing. Prettier. You get a fishtank and model ships. Highly simplified inventory and upgrades. Customisable armour. Plenty of humour. DOWNSIDES- you have to feed the fish. Insane is really hard. Not as much Martin Sheen as one would like. Your PA is bad at telling if you have already read your emails. No male/male romance option, making the human female/human female option even more inequitable. An annoying antagonist. It's a super game. The levels are fun, and they are built for episodic play, for those who can't afford to play for hours on end. It's funny how they get the Australian girl to say bloody in her second line, which is the third line of the opening sequence. Cos you know, we all say it all the time. I am really digging this song. It's called How to Tame Lions by Washington from their EP of the same name. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBSqgCZWavc, because I can't remember how to link properly. Where the bloody hell are you? Stair out.

HEY THERE ALL. I am tipsy. It is the evening of Australia Day. All is good. SONG OF THE DAY- Ween, *MY* Party. Because my party was a roaring success. ALSO SONG OF THE DAY- Mumford & Sons, Little Lion Man. Because I successfully predicted it would be no. 1 in the Hottest 100 (the world's biggest music democracy). The Internet is my witness, because I said it in a tweet to a 30-something social worker inn Sydney who I don't know for realsies, over a month ago. Sadly my favourite Regina Spektor song did not get in, but two others did. But Cave by the no. 1 band did also, which is Alistair Likes This (if this was facebook). This is also enough of a blog for now, because I am too tipsy to write anymore, I will wake up tomorrow dry in the mouth, and probably should not play video games right after I post this because I will lose. BUT hey world! I had a great day! The end. : D

That is exactly how many gamerpoints I have as I post this.

I haven't written a blog in so long. What's new? Not much, really. I anticipate I'll finally hit 20 000 G on my xbl account tonight or tomorrow, and I intend to have 25k by February. I finished my history major and am now three-quarters of the way through my two bachelor degrees. I missed out on a distinction by 1 point for one subject, and I cannot have got less than 75 for the exam, so I have no idea what happened, especially because it was my favourite history subject for the semester, and especially because the essay I rushed for the other history subject got me an HD overall. I have a craptonne of games to catch up on, including Assassin's Creed 2, ODST, and more dated titles, like Overlord II, Fallout 3, GTAIV DLC, finishing Fable II's DLC, finishing Bioshock sans Vitachambers, more Mass Effect, finishing Dead Space on impossible and getting the first space gun achievement.... I played Beatles Rock Band and discovered that my singing isn't that bad. Having said that, I am not going to attempt to sing in any other RB games so as to protect my ego. Not a bad game... if a bit skimpy on songs and a bit simple in gameplay. I watched most of the 3rd season of 30 Rock, and it is damn funny. I've kind of given up on Stargate Universe, though I should still watch the whole first season so I can say it's crap with authority... The End, I think? I haven't anything else to say other than I am alive. But not doing science.

I bought one. : D. It's pretty cool, tho I'm still getting used to typing on it. Will keep me artificially brief. : P um. A week and two days til the end of teaching of my third year at university. Really scary that if I weren't doing a double degree I'd be almost ready to graduate. Not sure if I want to continue with my politics next year after doing history and english this year. But I want an English major now, so I have to keep going. And I want to do honours in history. I sort of know what I want to do then, but there's no guarantees, and I am freaked out by a real job. But before that, I need to get all my work done, and look in to a summe job. I'd like to work at the local council library, because it'd be easy and close. Borderlands and Brutal Legend. Relationships and (post?) teen angst. Lovely spring weather and lingering colds. Apathy and anxiety. Most of this aren't juxtapositons, but they definitely are pairings for me. I want things to be similar to now forever. Insert Alphaville here. Poor joke, I know. Guess I will sign off, got to get up earlyish to read for an awesome tute that I will only ever have once after tomorrow.... : ) stair.

Hey you guys, I don't have Swine Flu. No way. It was just a bad cold. More of a cough, really, because that is the main way it manifested itself. Hacking and spluttering. It wasn't so bad I couldn't go to uni, but I only went to class, didn't talk much, and did no other work. Which sucks. Hey you guys, I saw Moon today. It was really good. The trailer sucks, makes it look like a 2001 rip-off. It's deeper than that, and more interesting. You think you have it pinned down a few times, but it doesn't go quite as you expect, which is refreshing. The score was excellent. If you've read 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' by Heinlein, you'll see where the inspiration comes from. I highly recommend it. Oh, and you like David Bowie? He isn't in it, but his son was the director. Hey you guys, Stargate Universe started last week. The premiere was in the form of a telemovie, and it was kinda Battlestar-esque. It doesn't seem as camp as SG-1, or as optimistic as SG-A. Looks like it will be darker, more serial and more serious. Plus they have natty new uniforms with square cut collars. You know. Like Japanese schoolboys, or Battlestar. Hey you guys, that's all. Feel like doing a haiku. That's all, bye for now.

BLERGH. But seriously, I might. My dad had the flu last week (and is getting better from it now), and he had a flu shot, so it's not really likely it's anything else. Couldn't come at a worse time. Back to uni tomorrow (after Labour Day today), and I have to go to my tutorials because I have one quiz for American history and one presentation for Tudor/Stuart British history to do, and in English we're talking about a really good Atwood book. And I have to finish my research for my British essay this week. It's not actually too bad right now, if it is pork plague. Just an annoying cough and a bit of aching in my shoulders which might just be because I worked a long shift yesterday. But my dad didn't have much fun at all when he had it. So, that's pretty much all for now. I hope it doesn't work out bad, and that I can go to uni all week. I mean, I'm kinda of helping people out if it means they get immunity. :P Cya

Hey there. Decided to write mini-blogs more often. Shortened language to be expected hereon in. Apparently I'm a swot. Hence the title. So, i always do tutorial readings. I always like to say stuff in the teaching-time (not allowed to say c to the lass). I want to get my money's worth, teachingwise, out of my university education. not just the bit of paper at the end, P's-get-degrees style. (P is a Pass, kinda like a D). So today, the English lecturer, because we are lucky enough to have her as a tutor, tells us to start the last book of the course. (It's been a 60s pop-culture course, mostly). I've already read it. I make a comment, it's a funny book (The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood). She agrees. No one else has started it. Does that make me a swot? I don't think so. We have three books to read in a semester. Last semester, in fin de(19th) siecle, we had ten or eleven full novels. Case two. We got our history minors back yesterday. Who was/was not a gentle(wo)man in 16th Century England. I got 85. An HD. (A+...?). My second in two years, after first year. Apparently to begin with, that makes me swottish (though I did beat the girl who finished ahead of me in year 12 history- at least I got the history prize then, and am beating her now). But I 'accidentally' left the end of a sentence/paragraph. And in the same tutorial, I anticipated the tutor's comment on why servants wouldn't be allowed the vote... (same as recent arguments against women- one household, one vote). Apparently that's swottish too? So... I like to know what's going on. But I don't think swot is quite right. I dunno. Anyway. DRAMA. Pretty minor stuff, but it feels like a lot is going on atm. And it's not just my stuff that needs to be got together, there's been a seriously interesting-to-watch break up within my friends (that was shi to the znit that got censored. Apparently that is a naughty word). BUT... the girl who you almost definitely do not remember me blogging about two years ago is being real close again. It's totally going to be my turn to reject her this time. And she shall learn her lesson and it shall be good. But I have a much better rationale behind it than she did oh so long ago. Actually, it would be close to three years.... weird. BTW, Up was not as good as Wall-E. Close, but no cigar. Maybe a whiff of the smoke after the person smoking it has left the room.... GOODNIGHT AND GOOD LUCK! (I'm tired. This is totally not not getting the principle that it may not be night when you read this. It just means I'm being authentic and loyal to my own current personal timeline.)

So, I haven't written a blog for so long, I decided to just write what I'm doing right now. I blame it on Safari 4. Or whatever the new one is. See, it has this 'top sites' feature, which is sort of like bookmarks, but displays your favourite sites in a coverflow format. The pages I always visit are on there, and this is not one of them. SO. It's nearly the end of our mangled second semester at Australian universities. I've got no work due for slightly less than a month, when major essay (finals?) start to be due. It's getting very spring-y, and this is my first friday evening/night home for three weeks. WHAT I AM DOING RIGHT NOW. Listening to the new Muse album. But, you say it's not out yet! Well, sure. But Triple J are streaming it off their website (http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/geo/muse_resistance/). It's not that bad. A little epic in its aim, but hey, it's MUSE. 'Uprising' has got to be a pain in the butt. 'United States of Eurasia' is too try-hard, wannabe Queen-y, (although I love the Central Asia-esque strings or whatever. Makes me think of the word Tashkent). 'Undisclosed Desires' is pretty good. The better songs are the less-obvious ones, what seem to be non-single tracks. One that I can't remember now has echoes of 'Starlight'. The climax/medley/movement ('Exogenisis: Symphony' part I, II and III) at the end is quite good. Can't help but think of Radiohead. Of course, Radiohead have an authenticity or sincerity that Muse lack, and it's audible as ever. Not bad at all, still a good time, but I'm not a super big Muse fan, so it's hardly a fully informed opinion that I'm giving. But it feels like the first and second halves of two different concept albums, at least at a first listening. So... that's about it. If you try the link, there's a chance it won't work if you are outside Australia. The ABC has this thing where they don't let you access their stuff if they think you're a non-taxpayer stealing their bandwidth. GAMES. I want Scribblenauts. I want Overlord 2. I know pretty much nothing else about games at the mo, other than Beatles has completely sold out. I still haven't sent my Xbox off to get fixed. PHONE. Mine is cactus. I'm going to buy an iPhone, despite horror stories I've heard, because I figure if it's that bad, then there'd be a heap more of them and you wouldn't have to look to find them. Plus other smartphones cost the same, and even non-smartphones that are pretty speccy cost tonnes, so this is the most cost effective solution, I figure. That's all? I think so.