Download: 2400×1800 (3:4)

Download: 2800×1800 (16:10)

Happy Mother’s Day.

This set is a collection of breaks, house and trance from the past seven years - mixed and recorded on the fly by yours truly last Tuesday afternoon.

Tracklist:

1. Djuma Soundsystem - Les Djinns (Trentmoller Remix)
2. Markus Schulz - Without You Near (Gabriel & Dresden Mix)
3. Beckers - Switch (Ace Ventura Mix)
4. Metcalfe - Chameleon (Original Mix)
5. John Digweed - Warung Beach (Mashtronic’s White Sands Remix)
6. Ascension - For A Lifetime (Ocean Lab Mix)
7. Carrie Skipper - Time Goes By (Super8 Deep Mix)
8. Tranquility Base Feat Above And Beyond - Razorfish (Junk Science Mix)
9. Rob Le Pitch - Twisted (Tom Real & Rogue Element Remix)
10. Subsky - Single Gun (Solid Mix)
11. Dogzilla - Without You (Original Mix)
12. Momu - Hydergine (Original Mix)

Comments welcome and appreciated.

Download it here.

Fukuoka is the largest city in the southern-most main island of Japan, Kyushu. It’s got a population of approximately 1.2 million.  I was surprised to find out (thanks to Wikipedia, of course!) that it’s a sister city with Auckland, and also with Ipoh.

This photo was shot purely by accident on a Wednesday night in Fukuoka this March, with my dad’s Nikon D60. I didn’t even realise that the man was standing there, perfectly still, until after the photo was taken!

I’m back. Stay tuned.

Adeline also encouraged me to write on my blog about “my dreams, thoughts, and fears,” so I’ll start off with the last one.

I’m scared of flying.

Yes, scared of flying. Crazy, isn’t it? Me, the person who has flown hundreds of times, who has spent more than a week in total on a plane over the Pacific, who loves traveling, is scared of flying.

Rather, I became scared of flying last year.

I can’t narrow it down to any overly specific single event, but here’s what happened. Last year I was flying up from Dunedin to Christchurch, and the plane was delayed for about 3 hours due to an unspecified “mechanical fault,” which needed to be fixed. The flight ended up being at about 11 at night, and looking outside from the window of the plane, all I could see was black. Darkness. Nothing else. 

I used to have a habit of writing a single-page long journal whenever I went on a plane trip. It wasn’t a habit that lasted long. I just spent the last 20 minutes trying to find that notebook, with no success. It’ll be somewhere. To summarise though, I was terrified. Mostly because of the fact that, although I was on the plane, because it was night, I wasn’t able to gauge any sense of where we were in relation to the ground. And that’s when your imagination wanders.

My imagination wanders far, far too much.

The last flight I took was a few months later, again from Christchuch, back down to Dunedin this time. I was never really looking forward to the flight, and the last 15 minutes or so coming in to land were quite bumpy. And fuck that was scary. With every single bump I couldn’t help thinking if the drop would continue.

And for the past couple of weeks, what keeps coming back into my mind at every possible opportunity, is that in two weeks’ time, I have to get on a plane again.

And that terrifies me.

I know I will still get on. I’ll hate it, and be terrified of every moment of it, but I’ll still get on. But oh how I wish that I didn’t have to. 

It’s not rational. At all. But since when is fear every rational?

So maybe that’s part of the reason that it doesn’t really feel that I’m going off to Japan just yet. Because some small part of me is thinking that maybe, things won’t get that far. Like I said, it’s not rational. But that justification hasn’t helped make me any less anxious.

Any suggestions on what I should do? :s

Hehe. Check your RSS feed!

I went out for dinner with Adeline tonight. We’ve only been out for dinner twice, and, both times, it’s been for kebabs. Maybe there’s something in the meat? Adeline suggested McDonald’s (or, MacYum2x!, as she called it!) or kebabs, and kebabs sounded fair more appealing to me. McDonalds in New Zealand is pretty shit, to tell you the truth. It does have its time and place though - i.e. when you are drunk/have gone out, are hungry and need some fatty food. Then it’s over the street on a (literally) one minute walk to the Golden Arches. But I could count the times I’ve had McDonalds since I’ve been back in NZ (17 months or so) on one hand.

McDonald’s in Japan is a lot better anyway. Well, at least it actually looks like what it does on the poster!!

So, we went to have kebabs. The place we went to, I’ve only been to twice. The other time was with Kirk, right at the start of the semester, back in 2003, right after I started university. It’s funny how some single events can stick around in your memory like that.

This is just a big public thanks to Addy for having dinner with me. Honestly, we’ve been meaning to catch up for so long, and it was really really good. There’s been a lot going on in both our lives recently, and catching up on everything aside, it’s always good just to chat about random stuff. Even if you can’t remember how you ended up talking about it. :p So thanks. And I’m very happy about your comment of the photo you took of me!

Then, the eggs hit.

Sorry, that requires some explaining, doesn’t it? Okay, can do! Just as we were about to leave the restaurant, several hundred freshers (brand-spanking-new first-year students) came walking along the street, dressed up in bed sheets. Ah, the toga party. The toga party is where first-year students (particularly from halls of residence) wear a minimal amount of clothing, go to the Union or the Town Hall, get drunk, dance, and hook up. Or pass out. Or both. The police were even blocking off the street to allow the bedsheet-clad students to make their way to the craziness without fear of being run over. But don’t worry - they’re not totally free of danger. They get pelted with a few dozen eggs, while Addy and I watched from the supposed safety of the shop door. A shop door, unfortunately, does not keep you out of the firing line.

Thankfully I didn’t get hit much, just a bit on my shirt and my leg and shoe, but still. Ugh. So my stuff’s down in the washing machine now.

What random things have you been hit with?

How Do I Say That I Love You is a track off Dave Wallace’s upcoming EP, Road To Anywhere.

Read the rest of this entry »

In April last year, the display on my laptop broke. Well, broke would be a bit generous. It turned out that something with the video card (which is souldered onto the Logic Board, so can’t be replaced for under $1,3000 NZD) wasn’t working properly. This means that the display doesn’t working 99.9% of the time, but it does working very very intermittently. And it’s working now. So I’m sitting down on the couch in the lounge on my laptop with the wireless internet. Cos I can.

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated properly? I’m actually surprised that I haven’t got a message from David telling me to “update your friggen blog!!” yet! Hehe, oh well, looks like I might get away with it this time.

First of all, Happy New Year to you all! My New Year was actually more eventful than the last few that I’ve had. Ayaka was visiting from Japan, and Sam and I took her into the Octagon just before midnight to see the fireworks. I was quite impressed when they let of a cannon - which I later found out from Sam had a haggis in it! I now have visions of flying pigs running through my head. Or possibly spider pigs. I’m not too sure.

He does whatever he does, apparently.

Sam and I got all moved into our new flat on the 31st as well. It’s so much better than my place last year, and pretty much half the price!! And I’m actually living with people that I know, and unlike my place last year, we’re actually doing stuff together. It was a bit exhausting at first, simple because from last year, I’d gotten so used to having a lot (i.e. too much!) of my own time, and it felt funny to be spending so much time with other people. Never a bad thing! But it took a little while to get used to that again.

One third of my new room. It’s smaller than my old one, but still plenty big enough!

Jayra came back on the 5th, and Sayaka came back on the 7th. And after months, we managed to find someone else who wanted the spare room downstairs - Annelies, from Holland. It was her birthday on the 11th, the first Friday after she moved in, so we went out to Etrusco for dinner.

Jayra and I.

Sayaka, Annelies, Sam and I are buying groceries and cooking food together. It’s been really good - I haven’t had to cook as often, and, more importantly, I’ve been having a lot of things for dinner which I either don’t know how to cook, or wouldn’t even think to cook! Yum yum yum…

The four of us eating harumaki (the Japanese name for Thai spring rolls).

The weather was really beautiful yesterday, so, as I had written 2,000 words of my thesis the day before, I managed to justify it to myself that I deserved a break, so went to St Clair beach with Sayaka, Jayra, Annelies, and Sayaka’s friend Hidemi (I automatically went to type “Hideyoshi” there. Oh boy).

Looking North.

Looking South.

Looking at the camera.

Looking out to sea.

It’s amazing - in five years of living in Dunedin, this was the first time that I’d actually been to the beach. It wasn’t quite as nice (or as busy) as the beach in Japan, but damn the waves were huge! Some were well over two meters. We then went to a restaurant on the beachfront and had pizza bread with dip and home-made garlic bread. What is it about home-made bread which makes it taste so good???

So, that’s been my New Year so far. I also finished my job on the 5th, and will be starting a new 5-week job as the Welcome Desk Co-Ordinator at the International Office at the university on the 28th. That will no doubt be very busy, but should be a great experience and a lot of fun as well. I do however, have to try and get as much of my thesis done in the next week as I can, as I won’t be able to get much, if anything done for those 5 weeks. And then I’m off to Japan for three months!!