Means - Sending You Strength review

I've recently come across an album by a band called Means. These guys are Canadian Christian metal-core on Facedown Records. You're probably thinking the same thing I was... 'Here we go, another generic metalcore preach band.'

Well I couldn't have been more wrong. First of all, if I didn't tell you they were Christian (or on facedown) you wouldn't know it by reading their lyrics.... they're positive, empowering and about subjects we can all relate to, lifes struggles, family, friends, unity.

Secondly... i'm finding it hard to call them metalcore. I've been hooked on they're first album release Sending You Stength, March 07. They have all the great things in a hardcore band (along the lines of Comeback Kid) crew vocals, great vocals both scream and singing done by the guitarist, a little bit of mosh and catchy, speedy tunes that you cant help but getting excited about.

Musically this recording is flawless, there is nothing I would change and I love that... and it's not just a couple of songs, it's the whole album. Sure they don't break any boundaries but the crisp drumming, flowing sections and well planned guitars just make this an unbelievable release. I haven't been able to turn it off for a week now, but I also haven't played anything else and for me that says something. Lee is probably going nuts though.

Any hardcore fan should pick up this release, you wont be disappointed.

Merry xmas from me & SCUM

Hey kids (I haven't set up a scum blog yet, so this will have to do... it's on the list of many things to do)
On behalf of the SCUM crew i'd like to wish all our friends, family, people who've supported us and bands that have played for & with us throughout the year a safe, happy & fun christmas and new year.

It's been a great year for us, we've had our highs and lows but most of all we've enjoyed the music we love with our friends. Everyone is probably wondering what's going on with SCUM lately.... well, everything and nothing.
We're having a break from shows over the last and next few months only because some of us are away living life. Chips, JD and a few of the other Citi Rock kids have just come back from a missionary trip to the Phillipines, so that took up most of December and i'll be in Canada for most of January snowboarding and finding balance in my life.

Our first shows back will be around March sometime. But untill then we have a lot to plan and sort out. Future goals for SCUM include setting up a permanent venue in Maroochydore, so it's something we're all striving and working hard towards. Eventually this permanent venue will be a youth centre, indoor skate park and a central place for everyone to hangout, relax, jam, record, make art, make friends.... the list goes on. Exciting times!

On the hardcore front: It's pretty obvious to say that grass roots hardcore is far from cool anymore. The second half of this year we've seen numbers at our shows and many others rapidly decline. As a promoter this is a hard pill to swallow because we want to see our scene grow and expand. Not to mainstream global dominance levels, but to a point where the scene will be able to support itself. When it's not been supported from the very bottom it makes things extremely hard to secure the bands that everyone wants to have come and play here, we just can't justify bringing out international/interstate bands if the support isn't there.

However, personally, i'm not worried at all by the lack of people and support. I can see that the kids who have stuck around and shown their support are the true kids who'll always be around. We don't have fakes, posers and outright losers at our shows anymore.... everyone is here for the right reasons and that puts a smile on my face. Although i've been around long enough to know that sooner or later it will be cool again a we'll have a new flood of kids trying to buy scene points. These things happen, so for now i'll enjoy what we have.

The promising thing is, I know SCUM has built a strong foundation over the last 2 years and it's something we can all be proud of and continue to build upon.

On that note, personally i'd like to thank the moshpit boys for their continued support of our shows and the scene in general, at times they're the only thing sticking this all together and they've done it all for you.
Chips, Zoe, Lee, JD, Jesse, Mum dad & everyone elses parents who've helped out in any way, Allan & Citi Rock and all the church people who I don't know, Jordan, Greg Bower, Curtis, Zanesha, Pride of place boys, Greg against, matty c, all the bands who's played with and for us and all the kids who continuously turn up to our shows (no matter how short a notice we give haha)

Thanks
scottyxxx

P.S. Anyone who wants to come and hang with us, just give us a yell. Over the next few months we'll be freebording (snowboard simulation) and skating most nights and generally just hanging out doing summer stuff.

drop me a line scottyxxx@gmail.com or 0414259614

Echidna's Rule!

I have been a little obsessed with Echidna's for a while now. They're an extremely unique animal in so many ways and they have a lot of other cool qualities too. Anyway have a read of this article I found... very interesting stuff.

"The echidna's neocortex, associated with reasoning and personality in humans, accounts for nearly half its brain's volume, compared to about 30 percent in so-called higher mammals."

The Enigma of the Echidna - National Wildlife Magazine

Blogged with Flock

Been a while

It's been a while since I last got on here. Flock has just made things a bit easier. I'm grading soon for 4th Kyu, but first I have to be assessed by Sensei Anthony at senior training next Thursday. Things get serious from here on in, but that's definitely not a bad thing. I'm being encouraged to basically bust out more because I'm close to been unstoppable... one of my sensei's words, not mine. So I'm stoked with that, but i'm in no rush to conquer the world just yet.

On another note, I have just 67 days till I go to Canadia and see Ally... can't wait! Been apart for so long we're both learning a lot about ourselves. I've learn't I'm an idiot and go temporarily slightly insane for short periods. Haha, I guess she just makes me a better person. Should be snowing where she is soonish, give it a week or so.

Lee has just come home with the best pornstar movember effort ive ever seen. It's horrible, but I can't look away....
I had more to band on about, but it's time to go...

Scottyxxx

Flock

I'm hooked on a new browser called Flock. It's a 'social' web browser, specifically designed for blogging, social networking and media. It's only in the early stages of development but so far so good, it's really intuitive and extremely handy. Also, it's based on firefox, so you know it's good, secure and has plenty of cool additional things to play with and make all the good things even easier! I'm lovin it, give it a go!!

Tigers

Having 3 tiger cubs just arrive at the zoo i've been doing a little research for various things and I've found some pretty alarming stats and other things.

As most people would know, the tigers population is in danger because of poaching and habitat loss. There are estimated to be 5000 tigers left in wild, this includes all sub-species. 3 Sub-species have become extinct in the last 70 years and if things don't change there is a sobering possibility that every tiger sub-species will be extinct in our life-time. Tigers once inhabited over nearly one fifth of earth's land, since the early 1900's the tiger has been pushed into tiny pockets of land about 1% of where they originally roamed and no sub-population with more than 250 mature breeding individuals.

Illegal trade in China & Tibet are the biggest threats to tiger poaching, although in recent years the Chinese government has made some offenses in connection with Tiger poaching punishable by death. Also, the Dalai Lama, a friend of the zoo in January 2006 preached a ruling against using, selling, or buying wild animals, their products, or derivatives. There was an out-cry and immediate action taken in part by Tibetan people who destroyed wild animal skins including tiger and leopard skins used as ornamental garments. It's too early to tell whether this will make a long term impact, but is a very good sign for the immediate relief of poaching.

Illegal trade in China however is the biggest problem and recently a joint conservation operation headed by the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation (Along with WWF/IFAW, BIAZA, WCS, ZSL, WSPA, TRAFFIC, CATT, SSN, Conservatin Internation and a bunch more) were successful in rejecting China to allow raising captive tigers for trade in their parts. This was rejected at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting. Inparticular, parties to the international wildlife convention also urged China to phase out its large-scale commercial tiger farms. This is huge news!! Currently in China there are about 4000-5000 tigers in illegal farms.

In the USA there is another problem, there are some 12000 tigers are being kept as private pets, this is more than double the wild population, how can the government allow this sort of thing to happen? It's estimated that there are some 4000 tigers in Texas alone. It's time to cut the red tape and bullshit. Only 19 states have banned private ownership of tigers, 15 require only a licence, and 16 states have no regulations at all... and ofcourse Texan rednecks are one of them.

So I was thinking, imagine if all these animals could be released back into the wild. This would more than triple current wild population. Some experts say it can't be done, that tame tigers could not properly survive in the wild. Then I read that this has already been tried, and this experimental tiger has proven a success in showing survival capabilities. Tara, a hand-reared tigress from a zoo in England was released to the wild in India with the permission of India’s then Prime Mininster. Unfortunately the zoo was irresponsible in breeding programs and released a hybrid Siberian-Bengal Tigress instead of a Bengal as they said she was. Now the population in which she was released has subsuquentially polluted the otherwise pure Bengal Tiger gene pool. This has the potential to spread to other tiger groups, at its worst, this could jeopardise the Bengal tiger as a distinct subspecies altogether. Idiots.

Anyway, that's getting off track, the bottom line is to stop the illegal trade, don't buy animal products and to put pressure on the governmemnts and those who are supporting it. Also put pressure on the rich Chinese businessmen dicks who think that tiger penis is an aphrodisiac. Unfortunately many people in China believ that tiger parts have medicinal properties. Don't be fooled, there is no scientific corroboration to these beliefs.

Make sure you're aware of the products you buy, their impact may be more than the obvious things that we see, like fur coats, ointments, etc. Side effects of things like buying wooden furniture/products, this wood may have come from a rainforest that could be tiger or other endangered specied habitat. Also, there is some comfusion around some products. Tiger Balm, for example is not made from any tiger parts. The name came from the inventors sons and is named for its virtues of Strength and Swiftness. Infact, some proceeds from Tiger Balm sales go towards tiger conservation efforts.

Here are some links, read about the conservation efforts and see how you can help.

www.australiazoo.com.au

www.wildlifewarriors.org.au

www.savethetigerfund.org

Effin Milo tins

Why the hell do Milo tins have the old seals again? These are the most dangerous things I've seen on a food container and my finger felt it’s wrath tonight, slicing extremely deep into the tip while I was washing one out. Oh Bob Saget!
What happened to the ring pull seal thingy they had a year or 2 ago? That was easy to get off, secure and NOT dangerous. I’m sure nestle are saving on materials, but who really gives a shit, stop being stindgy and save a few fingers?!? Ppsssstt… oi nestle guess what? No one likes them! I'm sure I'm not the only anti-dangerous-milo-tin activist out there. Nestle, you’ve got some answering to do. I’m pissed and it’s still bleeding 4 hours later. I want answers? I think I'm entitled. I want answers? I want the truth. I can't handle the truth.
I'm sure I could handle it... umm, ok

What ever
Show tomorrow, atleast I'm excited about that.
If you’re wondering about the pic, well I'm just experimenting with new blogging software called Blogjet. So far so good.
Fuck nestle
Scottyxxx

Home stretch

Hey all
We're well and truly into the home stretch of the year, things have been going so fast and i've got plenty on my plate as usual.
My karate schedule has been shaken up because my normal Tuesday class (Which i've been going to since day 1) has been closed because the numbers weren't good enough. So it kind of opens up my week for more classes. Looks like i'll be doing Monday at Bli Bli with sensei rod (from my normal class), Wed & Friday at Palmwoods with sensei's Joan & Kim respectively. I'll also throw in a Buderim with Amy on some Tuesdays and senior training is Thursday. I'm going to try and do a class every day of the week sometime, just to try it out. Ofcourse my graphic and web design commitments have been restricting me to do this, so hopefully it'll happen soon when I get a couple of jobs out of the way.

Speaking of which, i'm in the final stages of finishing Natasha Zuvela's portfolio website, Tash is in the Entertainment Crew at the zoo. www.natashazuvela.com
It's looking really nice and she's very happy with it!

When i've finished that i'll get my new Red Lion Design website finished (the design is looking really cool) and i'll setup a seperate blog specifically for that side of things. Shibby!
SCUM - Sunshine Coast United Music is also pretty full on, i've started designing the site for that, along with organising 7 shows to the end of the year, writing proposal documents to council, procedure docs and the rest of it.... very busy. for now, you can see all the show details at our myspace. www.myspace.com/scum00

On a quick note, a friend from Belgium who was an exchange student with us in yr 12 is honeymooning here in just a week.... good times. And mum & Zoe are off to the Mediterranean and some parts of Europe for a few weeks.... nice one. I chose not to go because i'll be seeing Allie in Canadia at xmas.

Righteo, can't stop. Catch ya
scottyxxx

Rain

Gotta love the rain, I don't know why but it just seems very soothing and makes it easy to chillax and get to sleep easy too. Speaking of which... zzzzz zzzz zzzz

The dissappearing fish scandal

There's a scandal at my place and it's huge... well it is for me.
So the story goes...
Last year I had this Siamese Fighting Fish for about 7 or 8 months named Buddy. Anyway one day I went to feed him and he was gone... just like that. No note, didn't leave me a msg or anything... or kidding. But he was gone. And there didn't seem to be any reasonable explanation. I had my suspicions, but nothing more than that. So I got over it and got a new fish and named him Google. So i've had this fish for about 4-5 months and all was fine, until I went to feed him this morning and he was missing. Same deal... no trace of him anywhere, I can't effing believe it! Where the hell are my fish going???? I now someone or something is conspiring against me. And I have my theories that involve Pozi Kris and a rat... For obvious reasons, I cannot elaborate.. infact I may have said too much already. Shhhh.

I'm now determined to figure out wtf is going on, because it's got me buggered! I'm thinking of setting up a surveillance cam... not really, I could be there for months watching a fish in a small tank.. hrrmmm sounds like minutes of fun.

If anyone has any ideas about what has happened, or have seen Buddy and or Google please contact me or your local police. Crime Stoppers even... not sure this warrants OOO, we could bypass that and go higher like the federal police or APS.

no karate pics

I just realised that in all this time i've been doing karate I've got no photos of me doing anything in or out of a gi or dojo. I do remember dad did take a pic of me at a grading a few years ago and Zoe took a blurry one of me at a tournament, but they were lost when my old laptop died. So I have nothing... shame shame shame.
I think i'll get one of the photography girls at work to do a photoshoot. I can picture it now... on top of a mountain or in a dry grassy paddock under a tree in the afternoon light.... sounds a tad spiritual/hippy.

Couple of things about karate do. It is a combination of chinese kung fu and Japanese/okinawin martial arts. It was brought over to Japan and Okinawa a couple of centuries ago and was first called te (hand) or was sometimes referred to as Chinese hand. Then the Japanese decided to give it a Japanese name to be more appealing to their people. So they called it Karate (empty hand)... Then some time later they added 'do' meaning 'way of'... karate do. The way of the empty hand. Implying that it is not just a physical martial art but a way of life and gave it a spiritual element that also gave it more appeal to the Japanese. Other martial arts around the same time did the same thing... changing names and adding 'do'... Akaido, Judo etc.
I'll get into the finer details of karate and where i'm at with it another time.
cheers
scottyxxx

Borneo

So, I'm really facinated by Borneo at the moment (among other things like echidnas and humpbacks... but that's another story). So a few facts... just so we're all on the same page... It's the worlds 3rd largest island, also the 3rd highest island. It's in Southeast Asia and is divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Ok, so down to business... This island has some of the densest, spectacular and oldest undisturbed areas of rainforest in the world making it the centre of evolution and mutation of many exclusive species of plants and animals. A good example is the snake and lizard species who have adapted to the unique formation of the jungle by learning to jump and glide from tree to tree and form the right muscles, skin and bone structure to have this ability.

I'm particulary intersted in the fact that new species of plant and animal are being found on a weekly basis. This isn't just things like small fish and fungus that might easily elude humans for hundreds of years, but things like small mammals, snakes and frogs to name a few.
In December 05 WWF scientists got a couple of photos of a red-haired domestic cat size carnivore mammal. They showed these photos to locals and Borneo wildlife experts, all of whom said they have never seen it before. If this is infact a new find it would be the first discovery of a new mammal species in South East Asia for over a hundred years... that's just freakin amazing.
Another amazing discovery is of a new Leopard species. The Borneon Clouded Leopard was offically named and classified this March. Until recent DNA tests, it was thought to be the same species of cat found on the mainland. It's also found on neighbouring island Sumatra. Take a look at this beautiful cat, it's bloody awesome!

This alone should be enough for people to wake up about the destruction of the rainforests of Borneo. You can always get involved with organisations like WWF (World Wildlife Fund), National Geogaphic and ofcourse Wildlife Warriors. I know that the money donated will go towards saving habitats and animals in places like Borneo. Australia Zoo is also affiliated with a group of people including ex keepers who help rehibilitate orphaned Orangutans in Borneo.

There's PLENTY of other unique animals found on Borneo that I want to share that I will get to another time. Like gibbons, rhinos, pygmy elephants, orangutans and a bunch of others... for now I need some sleep.

peace out
scottyxxx

Avoild Palm Oil!!!

There's some disturbing stuff you should know about Palm oil products and the effects the farming of it are having on the Orangutan populations in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Habitat destruction is the biggest threat to most threatened and endangered species of animal around the world, and this is another example of the blatent disregard governments all around the world have for our environment and the wildlife trying to exist in it.

Please have a read of the important issues these sites stress, print out some flyers and avoid the products mentioned. There is also a petition, so fill it out and make your voice heard.

http://www.orangutan.org.au/palmoil.html
http://www.palmoilaction.org.au/
http://www.orangutan.org.au/petition

"All this time wishing our voices could be heard, now finally have a voice and no one says a fucking word.
So lets scream as loud as we can and make it fucking break, and let nothing stand in our way!"

facebook flurry

What's up with facebook? I've had an account for ages and done nothing with it the whole time because no one i knew was on it.... now all of a sudden in the last 2 or 3 days i've had like half a dozen ppl added, mainly old friends from school which is cool. Don't get me wrong, i'm not complaining ... bit of a weird flurry is all.
Here's my profile
scottyxxx

Website updates

I've just got hold of a sweet flash/xml gallery for displaying images thanks to a mate at work. So when I finally get around to updating all of my sites, art, design, artist community and scum I will have all images and videos setup with this noice lookin flash script. Choice bru. Can't wait to get stuck into it.
I also can't wait to get all of my sites off the gluggy, ridged bloody joomla shitty cms. I'm sick and tired of those sites.
Righteo
scottyxxx

Wicked wireless

I've finally got me a wireless router and im broadcasting from my bedroom now rather than 3ft away from my modem in the lounge room. It's about bloody time but now i'm stoked. So all good.

Noticed how over priced the RRP's of modems and routers are?? Freakin crazy, I got a standard DLink for $55 on ebay, the same thing retails for $100-130. What the?

Oh that reminds me, i've gotta leave some posi feedback for the seller. Only took a couple of days to get here. Nice one.
later gator
scottyxxx

Mini road trip

Hey ho, Lets go! So I went on a mini road trip on the weekend to Byron Bay with Chips, Jesse, Zoe & Lee. We went down for a show and decided to make a day of it, so we left nice and early so we could spend some time there and chill before the show.

We checked out Dbah and showed Jesse the border on the way down because she hadn't been there before. Dbah was pretty big, so we thought the coast south would be even better... haha were we wrong.

We got to Byron and checked the surf straight away... wreck, small... main, small... clarkes, small... pass, small. We decided to muck around on a small but very clean and nicely shaped bank half way up clarkes. It was bloody cold, so after a couple of short quick tubes and a nice role I decided to get out and warm up.

Then we went for a walk into town and get something to eat. Looked at all the surf shops n the usual Bryon stuff. Then on the way back to the car bumped into some of the local hardcore kids... they all seem to stand around in groups listening to their ipods. Sometimes spoilt, rich kids with trendy hair cuts like this give me the shits sometimes.

Anyway, then we went for a lil drive to show Jesse around a bit more... lighthouse (was raining and cold so we didnt get out) and Wategoes. Then kicked it back to the Wreck carpark to hangout for the afternoon to kill time, take pics and chillax. Good times.

Oh the show... yeah pretty good music, but i'm over the Bryon scene... it's so...... scene. No athmosphere, no pride, no heart. Just a bunch of rich, fat, spoilt scene kids slaying the crowd. Wow good on em. They can have their crappy little scene, they fucked it, then can have it. It used to be a nutorious place for heavy, packed, unforgettable shows... i'm sure the bands that played wont be back in too much of a hurry.

Well that's enough, check some of the pics I took here at my picasa profile or my ringo profile

Transformers

Transformers - The Movie... Giddy up. Not much I can say about this but go and see it as soon as you can. Like, right now, because it's the movie of the year... probably last 5-8 years for me. I havn't anticipated a movie like that in a long time and I wasn't dissapointed at all. I'm not going to give anything away. Just prepare for an intense movie, strap yourself in and enjoy the ride!
Scottyxxx

Whale Watching - Steve's Whale One

I went whale watching last week on Steve's Whale One. Australia Zoo's new whale encounter experience. A select few employees have been lucky enough to go out on the maiden voyages before the first official voyage, today, Sunday July 1st.
What an experience! It was unbelievable and I recommend anyone and everyone to spend a day watching the giants of the ocean.

Onboard Steve's Whale One you'll get a full experience with a Marine Biologist, Professional Photographer and several Australia Zoo staff to help you with your every need. You'll get a great lunch, get to watch some footage of Steve Irwin in Antarctica and all the whale action you want.

You can see my pics here

photo sharing

So i've just done a bunch of research for photo sharing/storage network site, I had a look at about 7 or 8 different sites. Some of them are OK and some just lame. So i've decided and recommend www.ringo.com . It's pretty user friendly, very fast uploads, no limit on storage space and looks nice too. (Just watch out for the sneaky little ads, you have to Skip>> a few things.)
So i've got a bunch of stuff up there and will be using it for my file storage for this blog in the future. Anywho, so i've got some work pics from Australia Zoo and just friends/family and travel shots... also some random stuff. Go check it out, heres my profile.

Countdown till I have an internet connection... T minus 12 days... give or take a month... who knows.

Oh I got some photos from alex on her farm in Connecticut too if anyone wants to see.
Righto, cheers
scottyxxx

odd karate

Had a weird karate class last night. It was outdoors, which doesn't sound so weird because we've had beach classes and other things for seminars and special classes.

But last night we rocked up to the dojo to discover it being renovated, covered in scaffolding and surrounded b a 10ft fence. So instead of packing up and going we stayed and toughed it out. We ended up under a part of the school on the cement with seats and handball lines everywhere. Pretty bloody cold, and a bit rough on the feet, but it's karate... not craft

First post

So here's my first post, there's plenty to come.
I'll have internet at my place soon which will make this much easier and convenient.
Well, currently... i'm at work, which means this has to be quick. Work is bloody fantastic! Anyone who doesn't know as of yet, im the website designer at Australia Zoo. Here's my web profile.
Alex left the country for New York just 2 days ago. She's just arrived at her Summer Camp at Bucks Rock, New Milford Conneticut. It's all a bit weird becuase i've just been messaging her and placemarked her location in google maps, she doesn't seem all that far away really.... strange.

Well like I said, there's more blogs to come, including seperate blogs for my music SCUM, website design RED LION DESIGN and art and landscape paintings BURNT UMBER. So as soon as i've got them up and running i'll keep updates on how those sides of my life and business are going.

Also, i'll keep updates on my karate progress. Currently Zoe and i are 4th Kyu Blue belts. I'll be starting senior training soon for my Sempai (student teacher) course and then Sensei... Where I might end up with a dojo of my own... crazy.

Pics, i'll also be updating my pic library at ringo or faces fairy often too... i'll keep adding links to the latest of them too.

Anywho, thats enough.

Cheers
ScottyDONT