Author: Kristian Golding

They’re the only thing I can watch time and time again, and thank God, they have saved my arse many a time when the only other things to watch on television are those God-awful afternoon soapies (Passions being the worst of a very bad bunch). So I went to see “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Supersize Me” on Friday night. F9/11 was absolutely awesome! The cinema it was being shown at was packed, the first time I’ve ever seen it that full, and I swear the whole room was getting hotter as people in the audience were getting more fired up (me DEFINITELY included). I think one of my favourite parts was when Michael Moore was asking members of Congress whether they’d like to enlist their sons/daughters into the defence forces. Ooh, that, and all the parts where George W. Bush was looking like an idiot. Some people would no doubt disagree with the viewpoint that Moore put across, probably saying that it was polarised to being anti-Bush, but I think that we’re in a better place now that doco was made. I was completely unaware of a lot of what was presented even though I thought I knew a bit about what was going on, and it’s made me go and research it on the Internet. As an aside to all this corruption talk, a while back I found a de-classified document which described plans from the early 60’s that the then American government had drawn up to make it appear that Cuba had attacked the US. It’s a pretty amazing read – I’ll put in a link when I find it again.

“Supersize me” was also pretty cool. If you’re in Oz you may have seen the manager of McDonald’s Australia on TV ads attempting to debunk Supersize Me. Obviously he’s trying to save his arse, but I think seeing the ads first and then seeing the doco pointed out how the McDonald’s guy was twisting things to save himself. In the doco there was a section in the case where two teenage girls were trying to sue McDonald’s. The lawyers stated that the case could only hold water if they could prove that eating only McDonald’s caused a deterioration in a person’s physical well-being. I don’t think there was any such information available at the time. So that’s one of the reasons why Supersize Me exists as a doco today – to prove that exact point. Anyone, even wankerchops, know that eating only junk food for a month is going to be pretty unhealthy, but no-one’s actually set out to prove that before. Again, in-your-face documentaries like this can only be a good thing I reckon. McDonald’s have changed their tune since then, even though they insist it’s not a reflex response to Supersize me.

Well, this is sort of weird. I’ve actually got to the point where I have now booked my flights to both the consulate in Melbourne for my visa and for the actual trip to the US. The visa interview is on the 27th July and the day I fly out is the 30th July. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for all the stuff I want to get done, but we’ll see how it goes. I’ve organised transport of my guitar, amp, computer and extra clothes via air freight to the US but I still have to organise a place to live as well as a rental car. Most of this is handled by other people though, so it should be ok.

Check this out though – when I was looking at the distance between Fort Lauderdale (where I will be landing) and Plantation (where I will be working), I saw something that was a little too close to home. This was from a mapquest map search:



Did you see it? Down near the bottom – Riverland! That’s the same name of the area where I grew up in South Australia. Weird.

I’ve added all the (sort of) non-incriminating pics from my farewell to my webshots account, which you can find here. Yeah, I felt compelled to write comments for each photograph, and I really was running out of ideas.

Holy crap I had a great time at my farewell party last night! Thanks to all of you who came along (you know who you are!) One of my mates got some pics from the night so when I get access to them I’ll post some of them. My rollerskating party farewell was held at the St Clair recreation centre in Woodville – which turned out to be an awesome venue. Parking turned out to be a bit difficult because 500 or so nerds were also having a LAN party in another part of the building. Actually, calling them nerds is a bit tongue-in-cheek really because since I’m an engineer/programmer of sorts you could probably technically claim that I am a nerd as well. Ahh well. Put it this way though – I’d prefer to fall on my arse ten times more than I did at rollerskating last night than go to something like that. The whole LAN party thing just doesn’t appeal to me.

Getting back to the rollerskating farewell. The theme of the night was late 80s/early 90s which was about the time I went rollerskating when I was living in Loxton. A few people got dressed up for the event, but I didn’t expect many people would since we were heading into town afterwards. I think I benefited from having another change of clothes because for the two hours of skating that I had scheduled I went hard the whole time, which showed up as gross sweat patches. Apologies peeps. I think I fell down over 10 times, partly because I couldn’t see what I was doing with the Whoopi Goldberg-like hair piece I had on, mostly because I ain’t the best skater. My right hand is absolutely killing me today, but, I’ll consider all of it as practice for Florida 🙂

So, with the theme I had to have some appropriate music. Here is what was played:

Aerosmith + Run DMC – Walk this way

MC Hammer – You can’t touch this

N-trance – Stayin’ alive ’95

Red Hot Chili Peppers – Give it away

De La Soul – Ring Ring Ring

Boogie Pimps – Sunny

Madonna – Material Girl

En Vogue – My Lovin’

Roxette – Dangerous

2 Unlimited – Tribal Dance

Vanilla Ice – Ice Ice Baby

Michael Jackson – Beat it

Jon Bon Jovi – Living on a prayer

Belinda Carlisle – Leave a light on

Crystal Waters – 100% pure love

Deee Lite – Groove is in the heart

Dimples D – Sucker DJ

EMF – Unbelievable

C+C Music Factory – Gonna make you sweat

Heavy D – Now that we found love

Huey Lewis and the news – Hip to be square

Janet Jackson – Black Cat

The KLF – Last train to trancentral

Will Smith – Miami

PM Dawn – Movin’ on up

Salt ‘n’ Pepa – Push it

Stevie Wonder – Superstition

Technotronic – Everybody dance now

Van Halen – Jump

Ab Logic – The Hitman

Eurythmics – When tomorrow comes

Ok! That’s a bloody long list. Some songs I forgot to include were:

Survivor – Eye of the tiger

East 17 – House of love

The A-team theme song

Maybe I can include them in a 3-hour long rollerskating session?

After the rollerskating session I got changed out of my skanky clothes and headed to the Botanic (I just love that place!!!). I had a wicked night and I hope everyone who came along enjoyed themselves!

Check ya.