Declan vs. Himself

Back in Christchurch for the week, I spent Saturday afternoon making silly movies with my cousin on my cellphone. Turns out it's the funnest thing in the world. After being initially pretty suspicious, he got so excited about it.

This is the first one we made, with Declan playing both roles.



Then after we finished that one, while taking my puppy Fritz for a walk, we came up with another idea. This was was all Declan's vision. There's an elaborate sequel involved with a character named "Dr. Zarcophagus", who has a snake that comes out of his chest. But we only had time to make Part 1.


Declan declared himself "Okay with being famous," and allowed me to put the videos on YouTube. Can't wait for the sequel.

And just as an extra bonus movie for the weekend, I made my first viral-cute-puppy-video with our dog Fritz.

SKILLS AND ASSETS

I work at Blockbuster Video. It's considered an awesome job due to it being easy. It is. People assume I just spend all my time watching movies. I do. But it's much much more than that.

And in order to convince myself of the benefits of my job, I have compiled this list.

Skills Callum Has Gained From His Job

1. Can alphabetise super fast.
2. Knows the difference between Horror and Thriller.
3. Can balance large stacks of DVDs in one hand.
4. Small talk.
5. Can nod and smile at the same time.
6. Can leave an answering machine message without wanting to die afterwards.
7. Time management skills.
8. Has "spare time" now (which I realised using number 7).
9. Can quote most of Fantastic Mr Fox.
10. I wear a watch now.

The last ones a cop out.

My job's amazing.

Reminder

Shit's been getting kind of real lately, which has been super lame. In the midst of all the stress and horror and depression and angst you kind of forget the simple things that can really help. Like listening to music.

I HAVEN'T BEEN LISTENING TO MUSIC.

How did I not spot this??

Anyway, Oli downloaded Smith Westerns' Dye It Blonde for me, and seriously, within the first three seconds of the first track I remembered...

MUSIC IS AWESOME.

Really.

I feel better now.

Know Thyself...

Let's face it, Socrates. You're a jerk. Just look at you, in your robe-toting ignorance. Fucking wanker strutting around telling people they know nothing, not chipping in his fair share of the political duties, whilst going on and bad mouthing the whole system anyway! Well, YOU think of a better political system than democracy, you mind numbing twat.

But NO, instead you claim ignorance, and yet continue to question the authority and organisational structure of a system that you choose to have nothing to do with. You then spread the word to a bunch of kiss-ass tyrants who take pride in bending your message to validate their self-centred political aspirations.

Go do something with your life. Why not take a leaf out of the sophists book? They did alright, eh? Despite being shunned politically, and disowned by any man with philosophical standing in Athens, they avoided living to the age of 70 in complete poverty! Poverty, Socrates! Look at you! You're an old man, this can't be healthy. Have some self pride. Cut your hair every now and then. Bathe for Christs sake.

Frankly, Socrates, I'm worried about you. Do you really have to be so fucking impolite to people? Just learn to accept people for who they are. And maybe, if you do that, you'll come to accept who YOU are. There's nothing more emotionally crippling than self doubt.

All I'm asking is that you make sensible decisions, and try to live out the few years you have left with a litttle financial security. Who knows, it could be fun. You've got a lot of potential. Just don't fuck it up.

Im so emailing this guy...

BAM!

why parades kick ass... when your in them.

During the santa parade on Sunday I strapped my camera to my belt loop so I wouldnt drop it, then sneakily took lots of photos to show Paige, and you too. So here's why being in a parade is significantly awesomer than watching them...

Heres some sick action shots of me and Oli running down Moorehouse Ave because we were late.

We found some other little guys from our band and so they ran away from their mothers to join in on secret awesome mission. Olis the one in the jeans. Notice how the little guys overtake us.

These little kids did not enjoy the loudness of the Samba band.

This is us marching down the middle of Columbo St. Yeah.

BOOOOM!!!

Fuck yeah.

Things Today

These holidays are going splendidly. I climbed a hill with a bunch of complete strangers and yet hat wiked fun, ran down Moorhouse Ave with some little kids, got in a parade and took lols of photos, walked far far too much (which I always enjoy), got over my fear of dogs and intersections, almost wrote a book and watched the end of Amilie with Paige (who, just so you know, is awesome. She explained to me her big awesome ingenious theory about the personality traits of all the numbers. It's brilliant. Next time you see me, ask me about it), walked more, watched more movies, watched Were the Wild Things Are and ate far too much popcorn (which I always really enjoy), and then slept in too far. MOST interstingly, my hatred of Letterman turned into a strange obsesive addiction. Hmmm... he's still not funny but the show somehow comforts me. Then I had minor surgery.

I had this weird mole thing on my neck that sprung up during exam week. I picked at it (yes... hate me) and it bled. And then it scabbed so I picked more (Go on! i know im a terrible person) and it bled more and grew and grew into something monstrous and disgusting. Luckily I kept it hidden behind a slick badass bandaid. Today I finally got it removed. I got a sick local anisthetic and they cut it all out. Amazingly they didn't get blood all over my tshirt which I was most worried about. The moles on my neck, and so quite close to all these delicate arteries and things. So, the other day, when I was all nervous about the operation, Sam and Oli were teasing me. Worst call came from Sam; "Hey Callum, you know what's going to be fun? Bleeding out."

Bastard. Luckily, he's moving out today. Party starts now.

ps. Photos coming soon. I tried to upload the video of Oli jumping the river but gave up. Il get it eventually. It is badass, I promise.

The *Afformetioned* Duck Feeding Game (AKA Duckdafuck)

Okay... here we goes. I feel sort of bad sharing this game because its too awesome, but whatevs. I'm impulsive and just too nice.

PREAMBLE

Ever gone duck feeding and been like; "Man... This is exactly like last time. I WISH there was something more to this!" Well, I did once. And so me and Paige competed in the first (and ever, so far) game of DUCKDAFUCK, the best bread orientated duck fun ever*!

REQUIREMENTS

Two or more people

Generic bagged bread (opt. mouldy)

Ducks (make sure you have lots. If you have only a couple then thats cheating and your boring and you chose a really bad place to feed ducks you idiot)

A pad and paper (for score keeping.. yay tally graphs!)

HOW TO PLAY?

Well... it's very easy. More or less, it's an aim game.

Player A, please choose a duck. Now, point too that duck and make sure Player B knows which one you're refering to by saying something like "The baby one with the twitchy head" or "The male teenage one with the gimpy foot" or "THAT one!"

Next, Player B, making certain that you know which duck you've been assigned, throw a bit of bread at it. Your goal is to feed it (It has to eat the bread that you throw at it... duh). For each piece of bread that you fail with, make a mark on a tally graph, like so;

Next; swap the bread for the pad and go again. This time, Player B challenges Player A and so on and so forth until you've gotten sick of the game (impossible) or until you run out of bread (much more likely).

THE WINNER

Play by golf scores. The person with the least tallys on their graph wins. But wins what?...

Always have a prize. It makes it way more fierce. You can decide on whatever you want. Maybe make it a slap bet! (dangerous). Me and Paige were competing for a kick ass round blue exercise cone thing that you might use for goal posts or something in PE. It worked as a mad hat. I didn't really mind when Paige won because it didn't even fit me anyway.... *cries*


HINT... The whole game rests on what duck you challenge. If you give your opponent a real whimpy duck to try and feed, chances are they'l spend ages trying to feed it while the bigger scarier ducks steal its food. You'll probably win through this tactic. I lost through this exact ploy.

This game may sound real easy to the non-duck feeders reading this post. But anyone who has fed ducks knows how crazy competitive they get. ALMOST as competitive as you'll get playing this kick ass game.

*besides duck sandwiches

Dude, I got no time for haters.

Man. Man oh man. Things are great.

It really takes the awesomeness of the first two days of non-school to make me realise how soul destroying school life actually is, for me anyway. Such a weight is gone. And it kicks fucking ass. Oh, no no... of course I'm not thinking about how much crazy shit I have to get done next year. I'll let future Callum sort that shit out. Two days. I can't believe it.

Oli and I were talking about on the way home from nothing today (as we often do on such a lovely walking day) that we're slowly conquering our little fears. Like when Oli jumped that river (it SOO happened! Totes). Or at least he is. But I will too. From now on. It's just stupid to avoid them because they mean nothing, and they change nothing if you stick to them. But if you break them, it feels so damn good. That little self pride of conquering fear really sets you up to enjoy awesomeness and notice the little things. Noticing serendipitous moments. Making fun out of anything. Turning things into games (NB. ANYTHING can become a game. Just add some rule too it that makes it fun... a punishment, a bet, even a tally graph to keep score of something boring. Its childish, but thats exactly the point). Sure I sound pretentious and self uppity but dammit I'm happy.

Oh, I can't believe I havn't told you this story yet. Its another duck feeding story. With Paige. Thats our thing. So there we were, jelly park pond, feeding swarms of crazy ducks. Like swarms. They were going nutto over this bread, honestly. It was a little scary. Well for me, lots of things are scary. But they were so competitive and nasty. So we turned it into a kick ass game (which i'll talk about in my next post... its honestly amazing. I cant understand why I haven't told you!). When we ran out of bread there was a lull in conversation. Not akward or anything... just a break from the intense action of the moments preceeding. I picked up a stick and prepared to aimlessly throw it into the water. "Man, it would be so awesome if we had a dog" I said, slightly bored as the stick splashed into the water. And then, in a streak of black fur a crazed happy mass of paws bolted past and bundled into the river. It was only when the thing had dropped the retrieved stick at our feet and prepared to shake the water off that I realised...

I had summoned a dog.

Unbelievable? Believe it. I told Oli this story today on the way home from nowhere today and he said "Wow... what did you do to deserve that sort of awesomness? Thats like three fonterra guys worth of good fortune."

Oh the fonterra guy... you wouldnt get that reference would you? Oh ill tell you the story later. First, the game.

Good luck wth the next one Mr Brown.

lol

I spent the entire weekend studying classics (read: reading Dan Browns new encyclopaedia). For those of you who are unaware, classics was sort of my one subject this year that I could miss. See, I couldn't miss art because i love it and it loves me. And I couldnt miss English and Music because those were sort of important to my future... and my "PLAN". And I couldnt miss maths because im scared of my maths teacher. And Art historys awesome, and far far too much fun (well... was. *tear*.) and thats it. SOO, whenever I had a music lesson or was really hungry or had far too much art to do, it seemed Classics had to bite the bullet, despite the fact that Mr Drurys the man, and I even went to Italy early this year on the class trips of all class trips. Well, it didnt stop Classics from going straight through me. I cant remember why I did it, I mean, I didnt really do very well at history last year... wait.... so, why DID I do classics this year?? If I knew I was going to be bad at it. Hmmmm....

OH WAIT!!

So that brings me to today. The Odyssey went quite well (its pretty much english) and so did the pompeiian art bit. Everythign was going actually pretty smoothly, so by the time I got to the essay on Athenian democracy I was in a pretty good mood. But unfortunately Athenian Democracy as a subject doesn't hold the delights that you would expect from a topic that examines political developments of a era that we found underground. And plus I was sort of accidentaly absent for the good part of the topic. Oh, and dont forget Dan Brown fucking things up. And I didnt have a big breakfast. And the exam examiner lady was reading a book on GRAMMAR which made me laugh for a solid hour.

ANYway. Like halfway through my fluff filled essay on male citizenship I sort of, gave up. Mid sentence even... I just sort of realised I didnt know nearly enough to help me pass. This is sort of what happened (I'll note with a * where I gave up);

The punishments towards Athenians who broke the rules of Citizenship were incredibly strict. If a person broke the rules of citizenship, or pretended to be a citizen the * Athenian Police would arrest him. Then, they would make the offender sit in a small steel box in the sun for a week to think about what he had done. Then, if by the end of the week the non citizen had completely repented for his sins, they would give him a ten minute head start. After which the townspeople would chase him with long swords and sharpened wooden poles to the edge of the city limits. Then, the townspeople would celebrate with a strict and rigidly coreographed dance. The End... Well, I'm hungry. I'm thinking I might go get a sushi ball.

I get my results in January, so I'll defs let you know how I went. God I love NCEA.

PS. I still cant find that fucking chord. I guess no one will ever believe that Oli truely jumped that river... he did btw.

EDIT: I got my results back!!!! AAAAAAND Not Achieved. Ha. Saw that coming. I got very excited when I saw that it had been moderated, but Sam kindly reminded me that thats random. Huh. Next year!

Math the Never

Okay okay... Okay. I'm very very excited and stoked right now. But I'm getting ahead of myself (lols for reference)...

Today I was doing my level two maths exam. It went pretty all right. I did a suitable amount of revision in the weekend. On Saturday I taught myself how to do logarithms. For those of you who avoided year 12 maths logarithms are special magic numbers which make algebra awesome. Needless to say I spent all day doing examples and getting real awesome at it (sidebar. there were two logarithm questions out of the whole six papers. I could have done the second one another way but I kinda forced it. It was awesome). Sunday I did calculus. For those of you who dont know anything, calculus is a maths on meth. Its not healthy. But it is kind of magic. But dont go thinking I'm a fan of math. I'm really not... maths is stupid. Well, high school maths is. I've been doing maths all my living memory. From counting... to subtracting... to MULTIPLICUNTION... long division. fractions. adding/subtracting fractions. algebra (giggles)

...

it was a long, long journey. Lots of "why??!"'s were had. I struggled to understand the point for long periods of my life when I was certain that I wanted to do music/film/art/things that Im naturally good at and wont take long periods of academic struggling. But I wont go on and on...everyone feels this way. Even maths teachers... but they would never admit it.

So there I was, halfway through my trigonometric equation paper when I realised... this wwas the LAST TIME I WAS EVER DOING MATHS! EVER!!! EVER EVER!!!! EEEVVVVEEEERRRRRR!!!!!!!

And then I got Los Campesinos! stuck in my head and my day was perfect forever amen.

Celebration Sandwich

Because its tuesday and everything I thought I'd show you a recipe. It's my "hurray i finished my art folio sandwich and I want to celebrate" sandwich. Everyone should have their own celebration sandwhich. Its my one rule (he lies).





Instead of a detailed analysis on how to make it (EVERYONE knows how too make a sandwich) here's lots of photos...







you need: A WHOLE banana (thats the point); peanut butter (whatever kind, except unsalted... thats just weird... and make sure its not made in china. Not because I dont like china... i do, its just something to do with shipping and carbon footprints ya ya ya...); manuka honey; chocolate chips; bread (if your feeling adventurous or have a very large banana, use the crusts. Extra support).





EAT

Something good I got out of today...

“To explain the creative musician’s basic objective in elementary terms, I would say that a composer writes music to express and communicate and put down in permanent from certain thoughts, emotions and states of being. These thoughts and emotions are gradually formed by the contact of the composer’s personality with the world in which he lives. He expresses these thoughts (musical ones...) in the musical language of his own time. The resultant work of art should speak to men and women of the artist’s own time with a directness and immediacy of communicative power that no previous art expression can give.”

Aaron Copland