Oh yes, we have water again. As of some time yesterday morning.

Gothic Ballarat
Melbourne painter, David Noonan, talks about Ballarat's gothicity:
'The city itself has a kind of brooding feel ... The architecture, the weather is very grey. I was around 15 and I was getting into punk and post-punk music, Nick Cave and so on, and we had a little counter-culture going on in town. Tony Clark was my favourite artist back then.
'In some ways it was very romantic, it had a very European feel. But then I went to the VCA with all of its theory and it was hard to justify any of that. But there is definitely a connection with the later work and those earlier years.'

Thank God for grumpy cleaners
The cleaners just got here and found out about the fact there's no water. And they were pretty cheesed that they're supposed to do their job without any water. So they called the Accomodation Office at Mt Helen and went off at them about how it's 'bloody illegal' and a health hazard and stuff. This is much appreciated. They can brush off a few riotous students, but not an angry cleaner.

It's raining rain!
Guess what? It has been raining since last night. But because it's been raining since last night, we now have no water. A watermain burst. Therefore, no:

showers
toilets
washing dishes
cordial
cooking food that requires water
washing hands
brushing teeth

Everything's supposed to be fixed by 9am, but it could take until Friday...
Any suggestions on how to survive without water, possibly until Friday? Also, any other things one can't do without water?

Personally, I think it's kind of silly. But for this weeks Fourth Wall challenge we have to get as many people as possible to visit our e-zine, and send an e-mail to the judges with the title of our e-zine - What About Us? - in the title field. So have a look at it, and if you think its worth your e-mailing time, do that.
You can also link to us using one of the buttons below, if you like:

Ballarat Gothic
I'm doing an assignment on Gothic spaces, and I'm stuffing around with different effects on a photos of Ballarat's Old Post Office building, which I took last year. The first pic is the original. The second is the one I like most. The third is what I did following Tim's advice.

These are Tim's:

I think I like Tim's second one most as well.

What About Us?
This is the e-zine that Rifky (a reality TV addict from Sydney) and William (one of the great minds behind 1000 Monkeys, also from Sydney), for The Fourth Wall.

In other news, today we had a planning meeting for Existence (the Students for Christ group I'm directing at Camp Street) and Rhiannon has gotten herself an axolotl. She's worried to might be suffering from anorexia, as it hasn't eaten either of the goldfish she bought it to eat yet...
And my Dad was in Broken Hill on Friday. He won't be going Back to Melbourne via Adelaide though - instead he'll be coming through Ballarat before Easter.

Benton County in Oregon* has banned marriage - hetersexual and homosexual - until the state works out what's the go.

*How many sides does an oregon have?

Went to Bendigo again on the weekend, this time for the Warrnambool mission core leadership weekend. Spent the weekend receiving good training and planning next summer's mission.

I got back to Ballarat at about 10pm Sunday. Soon after we managed to fit ten people into the Gillies Street phone booth. We think we might be able to fit fifteen if we stack people on to of each other at the back.

Last night was Mafia Night, organised by James and Tab. The room was done up all Mafia-like and everyone dressed up as Mafia and assassins and stuff.
First round I guessed everyone who was Mafia. Which was good, because next round I was Mafia, and a couple of people were expeceting me to be 'right' again. That game Mafia won, with none of us getting killed. The next two rounds I was a cvilian again and got killed.
Scotty and Devo kept saying I was Mafia because I looked like Steven Segal, and he's always a bad guy.
On a much more serious not, an accused hitman was murdered in Melbourne that night.

And this afternoon one of my tutors took us on an excursion to the Behavioural & Social Sciences & Humanities photocoping room, to show us how to copy onto transparencies. When we got back to ther tutorial room she told us that if we ever got stuck while trying to copy onto transparencies to get her from her office or send her an e-mail.

Escaperail
Photos with fire escapes in them.

She is a he
In his International Woman's Week speech, George Bush praised Fathi Jahmi, a Libyan government official, who was imprisoned 2002 for promoting democracy and free speech, and had been released by the government that day.
Unfortunately for Bush, it turned out that Jahmi wasn't actually a woman.

Dress-up Jesus
Urban Outfitters are selling magnetic Jesus dress-up toys. Some people have been offended, saying the toy is in bad taste as it includes a skull t-shirt, tutu and a devil suit.

Apparently my dad is currently somewhere just the other side of the Victoria/New South Wales border. He's been riding his bike around for a few weeks now. He wants to get to Canberra, then go back to Melbourne via Adelaide. (Since you've proabbly never met my dad, yes, he's crazy.) He'll proabbly be in Adelaide about the same time as I am, so I'll have to get a balaclava when we go through Balaclava (on the way back from Port Lincoln), so he won't recognise me.

Last night Walshy caught a duck at the lake and put it in Lainey's room. She didn't appreciate his generosity, as it crapped all over her carpet.
Now there is a picture of a duck stuck on Lainey's door, with a cross over it - 'no ducks'. The duck has a speech bubble, saying, 'I'll be back.'

Although they've not exactly been playing well, the Labrador Tigers' president reckons the team's sponsorship by a local church has effected the football team's behaviour for the better, in contast to rape allegations aimed at players from other Australian teams recently.
'The deal includes $5000 in cash, a prayer from the pastor for success and compulsory attendance for the whole team to at least one church service a season.'

Starbucks will soon start a service in their stores where customers can burn their own mix CDs. They plan to have the service operating in 2500 stores within two years. But it won't be cheap: US$6.95 for the first five tracks, plus US$1 for each additional track.

Didn't go to uni on Monday. Felt really sick (stomach), so I thought it'd be best to stay home and sleep. By evening I was feeling a lot better, and not very tired, so I ended up staying up until about 1am, which wasn't the best idea since I had to get up at 7am. So yesteday I really struggled to stay awake through classes.
Then last night, at about 11:30, just as I was getting to sleep, two or three guys got home, drunk, and proceded to yell and crash into things until about 1am. (Seriously, what student goes out and gets drunk on a Tuesday night?) Thus I thought I'd better sleep in today and miss my morning tute rather than go to both tutes half asleep.

The Fourth Wall
I'm currently involved in The Fourth Wall:

'The Fourth Wall is an online competition/game involving the creation of webzines through a series of structured challenges.
In TV-show terms, think Survivor meets [insert country name here] Idol meets (apparently) The Apprentice.
The game initially involves four teams of three and will involve weekly eliminations and other "surprises" along the way.'

Chalk drawings
You know how when someone's killed the police use chalk to trace around the body?
A certain number of minutes ago certain people went out onto a certain road and traced around each others' bodies creating the appearance of this.

Stupid things in Australian politics
Stupid thing #1: The NSW Greens put forward a bill yesterday to prevent drunkenness in Parliament. Strangely, the bill was shot down. Hours later, NSW Labor MP Peter Black appeared in Parliament while under the afluence of incohol. (Props to Tab.)

Stupid thing #2: Pauline Hanson, former leader of white-supremist party One Nation, thinks her time in gaol shouldn't prevent her from donating blood because she was convicted on false charges. She says she's insulted at Red Cross's refusal to accept her as a donor. What the?!

Sam (one of the environmental management students) has a dead bat in her kitchen's freezer. She wants to show it to her lecturer.

Robotcop III
The Robotcop III has been created to teach the people of Hong Kong all about crime.

Initiation
This afternoon was initiation for all the new people at Gillies Street. This involved being blindfolded and then covered in all sorts of disgusting, spew-worthy stuff. Baked beans, canned spaghetti, eggs, beer, fish oil, barbecue sauce, salmon, flour. The flour was actually quite good because it soaked up all the wet stuff. I am so not putting anyone through it next year...
Here are some photos. Hover for captions pointing out where I am. Click to enlarge.

Now I'm going to go wash my hair again.

A Chinese computer-game addict has died at at his computer, ending a 20-hour session of the online game, Saga.

Good article at The Program on street art - which is not just graffiti, by the way.

Invermay Primary School, on the outskirts of Ballarat, has suffered five arson attacks within four days, including a molotov being thrown into a class room at 1:00am yesterday. Luckily the fire station is nextdoor.
If you know anything about the attacks, calls Ballarat CIU on 53366080 or CrimeStoppers on 1800333000.

The EU is trying to force Microsoft to exclude MediaPlayer from future versions of Windows.

On Friday night I went up to Bendigo with Trav and Emily, for Erica's 18th the following night.
Spent most of Saturday at Trav's parents' place reading The Castle of Otranto and The Dressmaker. In the afternoon I went for a walk around Specimen Hill and got lost in the bush for a while which was fun, then found my way back.
At the party, my cousin Greg was promoting his new product, Knights of the Red Cordial Table red cordial, which appears to be the first fund-raiser for next summer's Warrnambool Mission. Also, Craig (Trav's younger brother) and Dale did a stand-up comedy act. Fortunately, Craig is a lot funnier than Trav is.
Going to Bendigo again in two weeks, for Warrnambool Mission's core leadership retreat.

Gay marriage
Recently there's been a big fuss in the church about homosexuals getting the same rights as heterosexuals, in regards to marriage.
But what does a government sanctioned marriage mean? A government can't keep people accountable to wedding vows. Only the church can do that. All the government does is makes it easier for 'married' couples to get divorced.

The Begonia Festival
Yesterday was the begining of the Ballarat Begonia Festival. Yesterday entry was free for Ballarat residents, and since it's held just accross the road, in the Botanical Gardens, Socksy, Beck, CJ and I decided to wander over and have a look.
There was this band who had some affiliation with Gold 104. We got some Telstra balloons and planted them amongst the begonias.
Eventually we came across the Univeristy of Ballarat's tent, which was full of begonias grown by the horticulture students at SMB, probably for Kerry Cox's garden. It was also quite conveniently unmanned. So we thought we'd do our univeristy a hand and take over for a while, handing out course guides to people who were interested and pretending to know something about horticulture.
I know they got the idea from Amelie, but check out the Begonia Festival website's Celebrity Gnome Competition.

Andromeda
Today Andromeda played at the Mt Helen campus. They are pretty good, but most people at Mt Helen campus listen to Power FM and have never heard of them, so there weren't many people there. But they are a pretty cool band. They had the first track Noise Festival's magazine's CD last year. They have an EP out at the moment called Something White & Sigmund. I scored a poster.

Relevant

I haven't blogged in a while. Been to busy.

Thursday was the Commencement Dinner for the City Residence Society. The theme was 'Lawful & Unlawful', meaning we were supposed to dress as someone from either side of the law. There were quite a few police, a couple of detectives, lots of gangsters, two Ned Kellys, a few prostitutes, a heroin addict and a bikie. Oi was a poirat. Arrr!
Dinner was followed by a rather banal game of Perfect Match.

For over a week now I've had a poster for The Passion of the Christ on my door. Because of that a lot of people've been asking me about it, and about what I believe. One person asked me for a Bible.
Friday night I went and saw the film. It was pretty graphic, but not more than I was expecting. But I do think criticism is for the amount of violence is justified, because sometimes it seemed just bit over the top. But which is worse? Over the top or under the top? In every other film I've seen based on the life of Jesus, the last day of his life is extremely sanitised, to make it user-friendly.
And it's not anti-Semitic. Jesus and his disciples were portrayed more 'Jewishly' than I've seen the portrayed before. Also, most of the people who try to help Jesus are Jewish. But, considering what they've had to go through in the past, I can also understand why some Jews were worried about it.
However, while it's a great opportunity for the public to become more aware of Christian scripture, as a film, The Passion is certianly no masterpiece.

On Saturday I went down to Melbourne, for Wob's 21st, at Seamus McSomething*'s Irish pub.

On Sunday I came back up to Ballarat, with most of the stuff that was still at my parents' place.

*No-one seems to know the actual name for the place.