all continues apace

i began radiotherapy last tuesday. despite the process essentially boiling down to me holding very still while they shoot me with gamma rays, it's all a bit of a non-event. well, at least to this point in time. each treatment lasts from between 5-10 minutes, although most of that is just spent positioning you on the table. the actual blasts themselves are completely invisible and last for about 3-4 seconds a pop. then you get up, put your shirt back on and get on with your life. still no signs of potential side effects, but they're probably unlikely to emerge for another week or two anyway. i was rather disappointed to work out that the chances of me turning into the incredible hulk are apparently minimal, but i'm still hoping that at the very least i might end up with an incredible hulk shoulder. and when i get angry it turns green and huge, and shoulder butts its way through a tank. with me hanging on the end like a marionette puppet... even so, everyone continues to tell me that radiotherapy is as nothing compared to the chemotherapy shitstorm... but then i look back to the almost complete lack of tangible effects that the chemo had on me, and i wonder if that adage can possibly hold.

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other news of import:

1. i got through my raw semi-final. next stop is the state final, on at his majesty's theatre on march 8. in front of 1200 people. shit me running. tickets are available through BOCS

2. i had been hoping to do a couple of elective units at uwa this semester in order to chip away at the 15 odd units that i presumed i still had left in my law degree. however, in a rather... odd turn of fate, it turns out that, by a miracle of modern academia, la trobe only thinks i have 5 units left to do. yes, by the mere act of transferring my degree to another state, i have lopped two thirds of it off. i now have less law to do than most of my friends. this is both hilarious, and slightly unnerving. they've credited me for trusts (because it was bundled up with equity) despite the fact that i have never done trusts, and really have absolutely no idea what they are or how they work. hopefully they won't come up in any future interviews...

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odds and sods:

1. stuff white people like: this does exactly what it says on the packet. a blog of things that are peculiarly white, such as #70: difficult breakups"" or "#67: standing still at concerts". brilliantly done.

2. fuck i hate garfield. i mean, everyone does, but for me it goes deeper you know. i feel like he stole certain portions of my childhood. luckily some form of comic redemption is at hand, because similarly resentful individuals have been doing experiments in garfield. first up we have the classic random garfield generator which simply combines three disparate garfield panels and mashes them together to form a newly absurdist take on feline-canine-human interactions. and then we also have garfield minus garfield, a collection of garfield strips that have had the cat removed. leaving jon to speak aimlessly into the air. it's like, existential, and shit.

3. a distressing, but awesome video of a slow motion karate chop. this clip is made by the sound effects.



4. a wonderfully embarrassing video of a man attempting a public proposal at an nba game but being rejected by the object of his affection. i can only hope that if something similar ever befalls me, there'll be a giant mascot on hand to aid with the comforting. commentators would also help.



5. a man using crystal glasses filled with different amounts of water to form music. i can only imagine how many hours of hard work and experimentation it must have taken to get to this point, and exactly how little real world application it actually has.



and that's plenty. more soon. or as warranted.

audiovisuals

back from a thoroughly enjoyable, if not a little flat-strap tour of melbourne and its people. was good to feel part of the rhythms again though. there's a lot to like there. but it remains a future contingency for the moment, and perth has plenty to keep my thoughts busy. my raw comedy semi-final is on this thursday at the charles street hotel, and i'm doing a run through of the material at the shapiro comedy night at the brisbane hotel on tuesday. i'm rather excited actually. and if the prospect of 5 solid minutes of jokes about cancer gets you all hot under the collar then you should come to one/both of them. tumour humour is the new aids.

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remember prince? me too. what i don't remember is this 1987 incident involving james brown and a black michael jackson all whiling out on stage together. only problem is that prince seems like he may be a little... hepped up. as they say on the streets. best vocal performance ever? almost definitely



if i was manager of an office, everyone would be using hawaii chairs. hell, i'm tempted to get one for home. i just can't get that jingle out of my head...



and finally for some audio. radiohead's 'in rainbows' was not only a pretty stonking album, it was also a pretty stonking exercise in the capacities of digital distribution. their 'pay as much as you want' policy was both reasonably revolutionary, and awesome. of course a subsequent experiment by the slightly less cultish trent reznor and saul williams entitled 'the inevitable rise and liberation of niggy tardust' has not fared so well, but the idea of freely available music underpinning a new musical economy is kinda intoxicating. but i digress. yesterday i stumbled upon a project by producer/dj amplive called 'rainydayz', a hip-hop recreation of 'in rainbows'. despite being hit with a cease and desist halfway through, amplive managed to plead his case and now the album is available for FREE from the website behind these words. While it's a little patchy, there's some pretty cool tracks on there and it also features vocals by a whole suite of mcs, including perennial favourites chali 2na (who has the deepest voice in the universe) and del the funky homosapien (who doesn't). definitely worth the download though. think of it as doing your bit for the new musical age.

of idle delays and imminent returns

somehow my flight to melbourne has been delayed by two and a half hours, meaning that it now leaves 15 minutes prior to its immediately subsequent melbourne-bound brother. how a flight which takes little more than three hours can be delayed by close to the entirety of its duration isn't wholly clear to me, but it's given me a fine opportunity to take advantage of the free food, beer and internet available from the wonderful world of the qantas lounge. i'm onto my second rotation on the buffet. they've introduced pan-asian finger food. exciting.

more exciting (probably) is the fact that i'm actually going back to melbourne. albeit briefly. still, a week in this fabulous city is more than enough to get me all hot under the collar. it's coming courtesy of the enforced break between chemo and radiotherapy, which doesn't kick in until the 19th. and there's people to see, festivals to attend, bars to frequent and stand-up to do. oh my lord yes. had a meeting with oncologist last tuesday which seemed to clarify the likely shape of the next few months as well. i'll have radiotherapy from the 19th of feb to the 4th of april, followed by another six week break as i wait for my body to de-irradiate itself before we look into surgery around mid-may. best case scenario (i.e. no chemo post-operatively) i should be done around my birthday, medium-case (i.e. chemo post-operatively) and i should be done some time in auagust. which might be too late for second semester, but i think this city's going to struggle to keep me in place for another 6 months. ah, melbourne. you're so close i can almost smell you.

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and while we're in the mood for filling in time, here's a few odds and sods to occupy those idle minutes.

1. want to feel worse about your place of employment? then spend a while browsing 'this ain't no disco, it's where we work', a collection of workplaces that have poured more money into their office design than you have into your house. makes those demountable cubicle partitions we know and love look pretty sweet if you ask me.



2. while we're on the topic of design, hows aboot some floating salt and pepper shakers. fuck to the yeah. i could live in cardboard and still be content if i had some of these.



3. show some valentines love. order chocolate miis, for your significant other/tennis arch-rival. send your mii designs to paul pape and enjoying eating each others digital representation in chocolate form. how... lovely.



4. jennifer maestre makes sculptures out of pencils. i'm sure she does other things with her life as well, but this is too cool.



5. news from the world of science that men could be made redundant, as scientists have successfully created sperm cells out of female embryonic stem cells. while the process is still incomplete, it raises the possibility that viable, genetically diverse human pregnancies could be produced from two women alone. interesting...

6. and finally, the good people at reuters have compiled a debunk-heavy list of the seven greatest medical myths. as someone who has for years been arguing that shaving body hair could not possibly cause it to come back thicker, i can't help but feel slightly vindicated.


and would you look at that, my plane boards in ten minutes. thank christ.