... but more about that later, because there is important shit to talk about. The person there, in those news reports (and this one, and others), who lost their fingers, is Phil.

The same Phil who played in bands with me at school, who lived with me in Taringa, who followed me to cathedral place. He who - on the very day that he got his new saxophone - drove me to the hospital when I put a hole in my hand.

The world continues to be a fucked up place. Mum's talked to Phil's dad, he's ok, well his life is in no danger, but who knows how he could be feeling now.

Jaymis: argh. what the hell.
Jaymis: I don't want to think about it anymore.
Arillia: yeah we'll have nightmares
Jaymis: thinking about all the bad shit that's going on just makes me want to run away and hide in a hole somewhere
Arillia: i reckon

In a dramatic change of form - an explaination, and something that's not depressing:
I was so well looked after at Splendour. In fact, my first Splendour (and Byron Bay) experience was mediated by others, and they did a fantastic job. Kayte bought my ticket and organized somewhere for me to stay. Lukie took up the driving me there duties and also packed a very cool lunch for all of us. LCMs, rissole sandwhiches, and frozen poppers to keep the sandwhiches cool. Luke = cool flatmate of school lunchness.

Word of the week: Rissooooooole

fuckinghell. I hope they catch the guys who did this.

I have material, but I cant be bollocksed writing it up.

Sunday afternoon. Sitting in a cafe after closing. Nursing my flat white because they've cleaned the machine and wont make me another one. Music is turned up, lights are turned down. Some random people besides me for once are hanging around. The bosses children, my waitress friend's friend.

The staff were busy, so I played chess with my new found random friend. She's waiting to see Placebo and she's far better at chess than I am.

The little kids were of no help to my game whatsoever. They didn't even know the rules. So I told them I was winning. They're only little kids. They don't understand. Lots of 'How does this one move again?' and 'Check', '... BOLLOCKS'.

Lights off, alarm on, doctor loses a chess game. My small band of friends and I cruising to the car. I was riding my new friends skateboard. Its been a long time since I've been on a skateboard. Its easier without boots and a trenchcoat.

Sitting around a yellow shitbox, trying to figure out what to do. No. THEY were trying to figure out what to do. I was just hanging out with them until they ditched me. They were walking the same was I was walking home. So they were trying to figure out a placebo plan. I was trying to kickflip.

Down to the venue to wait in line for a ticket for my sexy coffee serving friend. I was still just along for the ride. Smoking too much and wishing I still had the skateboard.

Finally hit the window. One ticket for tonight please, put it on this bit of plastic. But they didn't take that type of bit of plastic. So I offered up cash and in about 6 words it was decided I was coming too. More cash dissapears.

Another person joins us. Another person I didn't know at all. Back to the shitbox to get rid of everything we didn't need. Move the car to the back of the venue. Knock on the back door to try and get backstage. Girls lay it on thick, we're looking for someone (who actually really worked there, but who we actually didn't know all that well).

5 minutes of backstage before we got kicked out. Back to the front of the venue for a legitimate entrance.

Tickets... 2 dance floor tickets, 2 seating tickets. This won't do at all. Boldly try and walk through to dance floor. Tickets checked, scam uncovered, fuck off to your seats. Bollocks.

Try the next door. Much talking I cant here. Letting the girls do all the talking. Didn't work either. Bollocks.

Last ditch try at the next door to the pit. Sob stories, sex appeal. Dave and his friends move into the mosh pit to watch sea life park from mere metres away.

Placebo didn't suck. I was surprised they didn't suck. Generally they suck live. Lighting was fantastic. Technical difficulty was hardly noticable if you didn't know the guitars were meant to actually be making noise.

Placebo over. Running out of venue. The girls want to slum it and go groupie. They want to hang around out the back of the venue to try and get some Placebo love.

Running through masses of people. Dave almost gets punched out by an angry driver trying to park somewhere stupid. I commando rolled over his hood.

To the yellow shitbox for much sitting around talking stupid and being cold. More people are turning up to groupie it. We moved closer to the door. Started sitting on their vans. Still no sign. Chatting to people coming in and out. They're in there. They don't know when they're coming out. Yes it is fucking cold isn't it?

Dave runs back to his unit for drugs, rum, textas and kero.

Back to dodgy cold dark alley. Make the party pick up. Joint goes around. Conversation gets stupider. The guy we were with playing placebo songs on a poorly tuned piece of shit guitar and singing in a quite respectable elmo voice. Frisbee comes out. Firestick comes out. More people start passing round drugs. Frisbee hits someone in the head. The fun continues.

The van we'd been using for seating left. Make do with ground and gutter. I started asking the guy on the door if the grog was free and if I could have some. Made jokes about me being poor. Decided when placebo finally came out I'd ask them for a dollar.

Tarago backs right up to the back door. Fuck. We're about to get shafted after.. an hour and a half in the cold.

Faced with dodgy fuckin austrailians at 2 in the morning in a freezing alley with firesticks and clouds of bud smoke.. Placebo ran for the van, offering only a quick thanks before getting in and buggering off.

I sat around being not surprised. Tried to give them shit but they couldn't hear me. Or.. ignored me. Nevermind.

They still put on a cool show. And I still got rather stoned and drunk.

Back to my lonely unit to spend 3 hours lying in my bed twitching before getting up and going to work.

It was a fuckin big detour on my walk home.

Hell, I only met Phil a few times at school and the various frivolities associated therewith, but by Christ if and when they catch the dude that did that to him I personally volunteer to hold the fucker down while they cut off a bit of anatomy close to HIS metaphorical heart.

Hell, I only met Phil a few times at school and the various frivolities associated therewith, but by Christ if and when they catch the dude that did that to him I personally volunteer to hold the fucker down while they cut of a bit of anatomy close to HIS metaphorical heart.

Ads: you and me and everyone else negro. That is some fuckedness.
I've heard more of the actual story. People know where to find me if they want to find out what probably happened.

Dave - Your dreck is our salvation. Well not really, but I personally like it quite a bit, and others also have expressed affection for your finger-twiddled brainpourings, so if you stop writing I'm going to bash you.. metaphorically.

For the last 19 years I have been making toast exactly the same way. Its not like my technique hasn't improved. I've always been a bit on the retarded side when it comes to the art of spreading condiments around - a trend that continues to this day, despite relying on it to stop me dying.

No boys and girls. The levels of retard in my brain are not what I'm about to rant about. The problem is technology.

Toast takes just as look to cook today as it did 10 years ago. 10 years ago I was probably using good ol' grey and black DOS. Now I can use eye-bleeding Windows XP. But my toasters gone from white to silver.

Even bread now has SUPER OMEGA SIX ADDITIVES to make your shit smell like pancakes. But I'm still relying on a couple of pissy little glowing bars to burn the shit for me.

There have been no significant advances in the realm of toasting. Fuck. Its well into the new millenium and I still have to fuckin butter my bread. AFTER waiting for it.

Sure, theres been little faggoty improvements. My new silver toaster has a cancel button. I can't remember any other toasters I've owned having a cancel button. But nor can I remember ever having trouble aborting my toasting adventure.

I'm one of those people who needs to eject the toast every 35 seconds to see if its cooked enough to stuff in my face. Why the fuck isn't there a toaster to cater for impatient people like me?

Don't get me wrong. I dont want any of those pre-condimentized frozen toast which you put in the microwave. Microwaves are naff, and it took me 3 months to notice that my new pad didn't have one and then I moved out 9 hours later.

Instant toasting. Why the fuck isn't there instant toasting yet? Laser toasting or quantum toasting or motherfuckin nuclear blast toasting. I want my fuckin toast now. Thats why I'm making it. You can't toast in advance.

And even if the heating bread hurdle can't be overcome, surely there are so many areas in which toasters can be improved upon.

Where my fuckin toaster with a TV out so I can see how brown its getting without hitting that crazy new cancel button? Aborting a toast is dicing with death. It fucks up the timer. If you forget about that toast, its coming out BLACK motherfucker.

What about a toaster that caters to the poor stoner? A toaster in which you can load a whole loaf of fuckin bread. A toaster which times itself so that the second you've finished stuffing the last bit of crust into your mouth BAM, theres 2 more bits of toast waiting for you.

Whoever said that technology doubles its power every x months is full of shit and semen and other nasty discharges.

In ten years time I'll still be toasting the same way. On the same primitive technology. And I'll still be poor enough to have to.

Goodnight.

You cunts.

if you are bored and stoned, which we all often are, you can pre-toast bread. "Pre-toast bread?!?!" you say to me in disgust, like i havent been thinking about the finer details, the important things like the bread being warm enough for the nuttelex or butter to go all melty? Well, this is why you pre-toast, then pop it back in for 15 seconds, thus making the toast warm enough to melt condiment you wish to apply, without the added time of actually waiting for the toast. If you have younger siblings or neices or nephews you can also employ them to pre-toast. Kids love to be useful.

Fairy Solutions.

you missed the worst part of all...

...that being when you grab the bread packet and realise there is only the shithouse end bits left.

So you open the freezer to grab one of the 4 loaves of frozen bread (so you don't run out) and have to "defrost" the bread in the microwave. and end up cooking half the bread whilst the centre stays frozen. Try that when you're stoned and just want to have vegemite on toast and a warm milo.

I also have experimented with the pretoasting method. There are a few problems with it though. Firstly, it is a very delicate art. If you leave it in for too long, you're going to get shit all through your toaster. The other problem of course is that pretoasting still takes up my precious time. It just takes it up when I'm not hungry. And if I'm not hungry, fucked if I'm going to be sitting around playing with bread.

I don't freeze bread either. Frozen bread is naff on a lot of levels. If I find myself in the situation of only having shitty end bits I tend to go for other crap stoner meals, such as an entire packet of water crackers with nothing on them.

And as you know, being a crap stoner is something I'm quite good at. You all know quite well I like to partake of the odd blast from a reefer. In fact I have been doing so for many years. And I lot of facist anti drug smut peddlers will tell you that it demotivates you.

I am here to say that this is total bollocks. In fact, the opposite is true.

If I can just get through this post, I can have a cone.

<3