Firstly, I’m quite happy that he won, as does the rest of the world. My only concern is that well, we’re all a little too happy. At the moment, Obama has been touted as USA’s saviour – I’ve seen several images of him photoshopped into a Superman costume.

But what happens if and when he screws up? Chances are he’s going to make a bad call in his years as president. Are we still going to be so starry eyed that we don’t notice? We may love him, but we still need to be critiquing his actions for the next four or more years.

One other thing I’m interested in is how international perceptions change, or if they change at all. At the moment, we’re all pretty stuck on the idea that American’s are arrogant and pretty stupid – an image that really wasn’t helped by Bush. (and sorry all Canadians who get lumped into the “American” tag – it’s not your fault)

But I can see Obama leading a change in these views. Perhaps if he refrains from invading oil rich countries and starts compromising with other leaders, we can learn to love thou American again.

[Pez - Festival Song]

The weather’s heating up which means it’s music festival time! Last year I tried to go to every festival that made it to Perth. This year, I’m saving my money, but am still looking at about 3 or 4 festivals this season.

But of course, the biggest challenge a lot of us face is alcohol! I hate paying $9 for the privilege to drink lukewarm beer from a can (seriously, no beer tastes good in cans) and having to sit in the designated 18+ area that’s far away from the stage and has no shade. So like many others, I’ve been working on ways to bring my own. Here’s some methods I’ve discovered

For the one day festival

• Pre drinks. Find a friend who lives near the venue or a train line and start drinking. Of course, you may find yourself too drunk to be allowed into the festival, you may fall asleep before the headliner or you may simply have so much fun that you forget to go to the festival altogether
• Hip flasks. Useful in all occasions. Fits into pockets, underwear, socks or between boobs. Hip flasks generally hold enough for me, but the big drinker may need a fair few. Also, since hip flasks tend to be a bit pricey, you have to hold it for the rest of your day.
• Travelling shampoo bottles. You should be able to find them at chemists and they cost a couple of bucks. Upside is that they’re cheap so you can dispose of them when you want. Downside is that they only hold a couple of shots, so you’ll definitely need a few.
• Tape it to yourself. This can only be done with smaller sized bottles and can often be difficult to hide. Plus, the tape hurts when it comes off.
• 4 litre sunscreen bottles. Clean out the bottle and fill with whatever spirit you desire. Now get a condom and fill with sunscreen. Tape under the nozzle of the sunscreen (use lots of tape, otherwise you’ll end up with sunscreen tinged drinks all day). The idea is that when you go through the gates, the person checking bags will be a bit suspicious, so all you have to do is pump the nozzle a couple of times to prove that yes, it is actually sunscreen. Of course, the problem here is you now have a big container to lug around all day and 4 litres of spirits to drink. Hence, recommended to anyone who’s planning on simply sitting on the grass and drinking all day.

The biggest problem is that all of these still involve you buying soft drink at the festival, which means you’re still have to line up and pay excessive amounts of money. And you you can’t really smuggle in beer, which is what we all crave on a hot afternoon.

For the camping festivals

(I should mention that I’ve only had experience with Southbound, so I’m not sure how well these methods will work in the Eastern States)

• Bread. Get a loaf of bread and hollow it out. Insert your spirits (you may need to put them in a smaller bottle) and put the bread in a bag. See? You’re planning good, well rounded meals while you’re camping!
• Toiletries. Since the people checking your bags are only volunteers who are trying to see the bands for free (and smuggled in their own alcohol like you), they really don’t care about checking bags. Bring some shampoo, conditioner, Clearasil, contact fluid etc and fill the bottles with alcohol. Noone’s going to check, especially if you put all this into the bag of any well groomed female.
• Goon. Once again, staff can’t properly check everything – there’s thousands of hot, grumpy campers lining up! Generally they’ll make you open your bag, maybe get you to move a few items for they can have a look in, then pat the bag down and let you go on your merry way. Goon is good because it’s soft, so it won’t be noticeable when they’re poking your bag, there’s about 40 standard drinks, which is a good weekends’ worth and it’s cheap so if it does get found, then who cares? Try folding it up into a jumper or something so it’s less likely to be found.
• Soft drink bottles. Festivals will generally let you through with unopened bottles – they check to see if the seal is broken. It’s pretty difficult to open a bottle without breaking the seal, but you can buy new caps. Home brewing stores, like U-Brew It sell screw top bottle caps which once screwed on, look (and are) completely sealed.  The caps I’ve found are black, which means they can only be used for bottles which usually have black caps – that’s any Pepsi drink. So before the festival, make your bourbon/Pepsi mix, cap with the screw tops and go on your way.

Don’ts

• Try putting vodka in water bottles. Everyone knows this trick and you’ll just end up being forced to pour it down the drain.
• Get angry with staff, security etc. Even if you get caught.
• Drink too much and be a dick.
• See the bands rather than drink the whole time.

This is my last month of uni… forever. My eyes are on graduation, which of course won’t happen if I continue being lazy.

But the weather is improving and the beach is beckoning and my social calendar is filling up and bands are announcing their tours and my assignments are stacking up.

So  those uni students struggling like I am – GOOD LUCK! Join me in becoming a hermit while repeating this mantra; “I can do this!”

Just think of all the money you can save and hangovers you can avoid by staying in and studying on a Saturday. Exciting, I know.

I’m pretty sure that bottled water is just another status symbol. But I still don’t understand why people would constantly pay such inflated prices for something that’s coming from their tap.

And now a new bottled water company has come out in America – Tap’d NY. The idea is that instead of pretending that their water comes from the rainforests in the Amazon or whatever other untouched location companies put on their bottles’ labels, Tap’d NY is pretty clear that they’re just using New York tap water and filtering it in whatever magical ways they choose.

Their selling point is that you’re saving the environment by having the water made locally, rather than being shipped overseas. Of course, the fact remains that you’re still contributing to our landfill AND you’re paying about $1.50 per bottle.

If people were really worried about the environment, maybe they should invest that money into a Brita or hey, drink the water straight from the tap. I promise that there are thousands of New Yorkers drinking tap water and not dying.

Now here’s my problem; whenever I go out, I always carrying a bottle of water. Despite warnings that I might get cancer, I refill the same plastic bottle over and over again. However, one normal, handbag sized bottle isn’t enough to get me through the day and I’m either forced to buy a bottle of water or be thirsty for the rest of the day (I usually go with the latter because I’m stingy like that).

If I’m at uni, I have no problems. There’s taps for refilling water all over campus. However if I’m in the city or a shopping centre, there’s nothing. I have considered refilling my water bottle at the hand basins in the ladie’s loos, but I have a line, and that crosses my line. And the city does have the occasional water fountain, but most don’t actually deliver any more than a drizzle and there’s always the very likely chance that a drunk 18-year-old decided to use the fountain as a urinal.

I think that what Perth needs is some fine, clean water bottle filling taps. Everywhere. Then I can save my $3 for important things, like a cheeseburger.

Neil Young, supported by My Morning Jacket announced an Australian tour for January next year. Of course, we all know that as soon as a band decides to tour at this time, rumours start flying.

These rumours didn’t last long – promoters have already confirmed both bands will be playing. This seems unusual to me because usually the promoters will let rumours fly around without any confirmation until the official announcements are made. But I guess with the internet, it’s difficult to keep any plans secret.

Of course, as a Perthian, the question for me is if both bands will play the entire festival or do the dreaded ‘East Coast Only.’

Apparently a Siberian Tiger escaped from it’s harness when it was being research by wildlife scientists and went to attack a television crew that happened to be standing around at the time.

Our pal Vladmir shot the tiger down – with tranquilisers, not bullets of course.

Strange, huh? The Russian prime minister offers to help out with some wildlife research because you know, he loves all of God’s creatures.

To increase world awareness of the plight of the Siberian Tiger, he invites the media along to film his every action.

And by pure coincidence, the tiger escapes and while all our scientists and media are running for our lives, Vlad bravely pulls out a [tranquiliser] gun and shoots down the tiger.

One can almost forgive him for that little incident with Georgia.

“Shanghai police will post photos and videos of jaywalkers in newspapers and on TV in a bid to shame them out of breaking traffic rules”

What would you prefer? A $50 fine or to be published jaywalker in your local newspaper?

I don’t know how effective this would be if implemented in Australia. I think if I spotted a picture of anyone I knew breaking petty crimes, I’d probably email them with not much more than a, “haha, I see you’re breaking the law again.” Perhaps only those with high public profiles would stop jaywalking as a result of naming and shaming.

If it were to work, it’d probably be a bit closer to Big Brother – simply the idea that we’re being watched as we break the law.

But what about other areas of the law? Would this work with speed cameras? Instead of having the government sending us $100 fines and thus being critisized for revenue raising, publish photos of speeding drivers. After all, speeding is a little more tabboo than jaywalking. We hear a lot about people killed by other driver’s negligence, but I can’t recall the last time I heard of someone dying as a result of another persons’ jaywalking.

Here’s just a couple of the promo pictures;

I absolutely love it. Forget about Kate Moss or Agyness Deyn; Wallace and Gromit (and Lady Tottington) represent everything that I think of when I think of Britain. Look at Wallace being all charming in his new suit. And Gromit being a little amused by it all (but we all know that he loves that scarf).

Lady Tottington’s slight awkwardness at being dressed to the nines is what really does it for me. It’s like she’s just gotten her hair and makeup done and is trying to fit into her new, sexy image.

And the photographer must have been pretty chuffed with the whole arrangement. No grumpy models turning up late and making outragous demands. No needing to take hundreds of photos for the one perfect shot. Just work into a pose, get some decent lightening and take a couple of quick snaps. Shoot done!

I incidentally, I browsed through the online store and chose out a few bits and pieces I’d like to see in my wardrobe. If anyone has a spare £260, feel free to buy this Lara Bohinc clutch for me.

So as my first entry, I will simply list every blog I subscribe to on Google Reader;

Photos of strangers on the street

Facehunter

Street Clash

Style Scout

Sartorialist

Dropstitch

Photos taken with the assistance of self timer or a dirty mirror

Garbage Dress

Style Bubble

Liebemarlene Vintage

Food blogs

The Crepes of Wrath (I only read one, because one is enough to make me hungry AND feel bad for my lack of cooking skills)

Shoes, shoes, shoes

Manolo’s Shoe Blog

Shoe Blog

Shoewawa

PR stuff which I fully intend to use in essays

PR 2.0

Pop! PR Jots

Online Public Relations Thoughts

Employees With Issues

Raging Server

Waiter Rant

Other Stuff

Who the Bloody Hell Are They?

The Worst of Perth

Boing Boing

Stuff White People Like

Hipster Runoff