Friday: Went to see some metal bands. Twas free to get in, they were pretty good, and the atmosphere was pleasant. w00t!

Saturday: Opened Australian bank account. w00t! (Although they are charging me $5 a month for the privilege. The cheek!) Walked miles hunting for fabled goth shops. (Fabled in the chronicles of the gothic.org.au message boards, anyway.) Eventually found one, but everything there was ridiculously expensive.

Tried to go to other cathedral, but there was some sort of ceremony on. Found a small (and so take-home-able) book in a second hand bookshop, which I've long been intending to spend £5 on, for $1. w00t! Went to art gallery. Saw old Asian pottery and an exhibition of Caravaggio and his followers' work which was deeply funchie. w00t!!! Found a reasonably priced and reasonably light book about my favourite artist, Miro, in the gift shop, so I bought that as well. w00t!!!!!!

Sunday: Met longtime livejournal friend Ellie, which was goed. Just to be traditional: w00t! Went to the market and pier in the suburb of St Kilda, which was pretty. w00t! Sadly, am the worst tourist ever, and have yet to remember to take my camera anywhere. She then showed me where some more cinemas are, then took me to a place called Chapel Street, where she introduced me to a secret Borders books (noooo!) and a place selling cheap CDs (double noooo! It's not that I don't have money, as, for once, I have loads of it, but I should really conserve it for adventures.) Found a Children Of Bodom album which was relatively cheap, so bought that. w00t!

And c'est tout. Or c'est w00t, whichever!


Wednesday 26 May 2004

Yesterday, I realised that I must finish my computer game as quickly as possible, before someone else has the same idea and releases theirs. So I worked on it, and also watched TV, from which I learned that 10% of Icelanders believe in gnomes and fairies, and 80% don't like to discard the possibility that they might exist. Me and Ibid must go gnome-hunting when we get there!

This evening, I went to see some hardcore bands. I'm not much of one for hardcore, but I'd seen one of the bands the previous Friday and liked them. Naturally, this time, it took me ages to find the venue (it was chucking it down, too!), and when I eventually got there, they were just finishing their set. Their merchandise girl gave me a free CD though, and the other bands were good too, although I ended up mostly watching the dancers. In my (admittedly limited) experience, the most a local band in Britain can hope to inspire a standard moshpit. Here, down at the front, it's rather less crowded and violent but much more impressive a display. I don't know why: perhaps as well as learning to play guitar and skateboard, young Australian punks and metallers spend hours perfecting their dance moves in front of a mirror, but I was left wondering whether the bands or venues just hire professional dancers / gymnasts / martial artists to dance for them, especially since the synchrony between the participants is so good. But whatever causes it, it's breathtaking and terrifying to watch. Quickfire air-punching, flying kicks, handstands, cartwheels, and seemingly no bloodshed. It looked primitive and tribal and funchie.