Australia, the next American state? Nah bro…

NB: Before I begin, I’d like to say that this post is just another case of me observing things the way they are and asking “why?” In no way is this intended to be a stab at someone or personal attack and I apologise beforehand if people perceive it to be, it is based on my opinion and observations alone. Feel free to post your opinions and whether you agree/disagree. Let’s begin my massive rant…

Now, I’m sure you’ve all heard people (the news in particular) talk about it before by asking the question “Why is our nation losing its identity and becoming overrun with American pop-culture?” The reasons never really occurred to me until a few days ago and I decided to look into it, seriously, what the heck is going on?

So today, (9^th July) I was kinda bored at home and searched through imdb.com for movies that I’m looking forward to watching. The list went through The Forbidden Kingdom, The Dark Knight, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and finally I got to The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (TotDE). Reading through TotDE, I had a look at the boards and read a bit of the reviews to see if this movie was actually worth spending my money on. Turns out that this movie is probably best left untouched because of the acting and rapport between actors, particularly between Brendan Fraser with his on-screen son Luke Ford.

For those of you that hadn’t looked into him (like myself) Luke Ford is an Australian actor that has been in well known Aussie shows such as McLeod’s Daughters, All Saints, Stingers, Home and Away and Water Rats. As I am a curious bastard, I looked into these shows to see how the internet saw Australian TV shows as of late. To my amusement, McLeod’s Daughters was rated a measly 3.4/10; even the Power Rangers has a better score than them. Though in the defence of the latter, Power Rangers DOES rock, just not lately. It’s not just McLeod’s Daughters; shows such as Home and Away, Neighbours and All Saints (the best of the lot) struggle to score 6.4/10 on imdb.com. Now, I know the problem with relying on just one source for making this rant, but let me ask this; when have you ever heard of a large percentage of American’s wanting to be surrounded by and indulge in our culture/way of life? Hardly ever; you do get the occasional ego-trip of the news asking American superstars about our great nation, but other than that you hardly ever see much regarding it.

Referring back to imdb.com and its scoring of Australian shows, it has been programs that are still on today that are struggling to do better than the “above average” quality as opposed to the current American shows that have been scoring highly. Another thing I found out is that Home and Away in the past 3 years has won the Logie Award for the most popular Australian drama. 5.4/10 and this is the best drama in our country? You have GOT to be kidding me.

Next, onto music. Anyone ever notice an abundance of kids dressing up like their favourite rapper? Anyone ever notice that the favourite genre of music of most people today is RnB and Hip hop? How many people do you know like to listen to Oz Hip hop? In fact, are you able to name all the American hip hop artists/groups and then do the same for more than or even up to half that amount of Australian hip hop artists/groups? How many people do you know enjoy listening to Australian music? I don’t know many… Why is American alternative so much more liked than Australian alternative? An overwhelming majority of my friends like to listen to American based music (Facebook is a wonderful source lol). As asked by Australian Idol contest Levi Kereama back in 2003 “Name one Australian RnB song”.

The same goes for favourite movies and favourite TV shows. The numbers go into a ridiculous amount when counting the number of times I see House, Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, Seinfeld, Simpsons, Family Guy, Heroes and many other American Shows. There was probably about an odd few amount of people I know that listed Chasers, Rove and Thank God you’re here. I also am yet to encounter someone I know that lists an Australian movie as one of their favourites. Actually, what ARE some well known Australian movies? Did you know that Moulin Rouge is an Australian international co-production with America? How about Babe? You get my point…

Now, I’d like to know why but obviously the answers will differ amongst different people. I’ve boiled it down to a few things and would like to know what people think.

1. Different/Experience – People are sick of the current way of life and seek exhilaration, excitement and fresh things all the time.
2. Idolisation – They like certain stars for whatever reason, looks, image, work/talent etc. These stars are big within American culture
3. Opinion – Like I mentioned before, opinions differ between people and the opinion here is that the shows are just better.
4. Image – Shallow, crude and probably insulting, but they like the image that it portrays.
5. Mass media and/or Marketing – It has better exposure than the Australian shows due to the large scale of production etc.

So before the opening question gets asked again, the media should probably ask this “what notable things have we done to make sure our national identity is preserved?" Sorry for such a long post =D

YF Camp

So as some of you may know, I went to a 4 day camp known as YF camp (Youth Fellowship) run by Jeri's church and designed to promote the christian faith and act as a social gathering to meet new people, learn about the bible, talk about morals, partake in activities and whatnot. This year I went again and decided to write an entry about it as last year I didn't really have a blog done up. So here goes... NB: All group names had something to do with fish because of the book of Jonah (the camps' theme)

Day 1 (Friday 27th)

Nothing really happened on the first day, met up with Damian (Ong) and Amanda Li. Drove all the way down to NSW, we were having interesting convos when all 3 of us were awake. A particularly interesting conversation regarding food popped up and we started talking about the strangest foods we had heard of or eaten. I think I took the cake by telling them about Casu Marzu and developed chicken/duck eggs (Check out #5 and #1, I've actually eaten #1 and have to admit that it's quite nice but #5 is just messed up, dunno how it didn't get #1). We ended up arriving at around 7pm to see everyone already playing games and enjoying themselves, lucky for us we also arrived just in time for dinner, our convo (as delectable as it was) made us all really hungry.

After dinner we had to form into our bible study groups (the one I was part of was called caviar aka the n00b group) and introduce ourselves, do an icebreaker etc. We had to introduce ourselves, tell everyone who brought us there, where we were from and what we wanted to be when we were kids. Me being the genius that I am, said that I wanted to be an inventor because the blue ranger from power rangers was one, but enough of that embarrassing story. We ended up playing a boys vs girls game called ASAP and we pretty much got shat on by the girls, yay boys! In our group, only G and I were the ones that were "returning" members, others had either upgraded or didn't return (with a place like "NSW" who could blame them lol). After that we had to pretty much hit the sack; now I dunno about you but when people talk I tend to reply despite needing sleep and/or whatever. We pretty much didn't get to sleep until around about 3am...

Day 2 (Saturday 28th)

Sleeping at 3am was a pretty stupid idea, breakfast was at 7am and we got up at 8... yes, we missed breakfast =( after our "large" meal we went to worship in song and talk, then morning tea (yes, 1hr after brekky), after morning tea came bible study and then lunch. I was about ready to die of overeating but managed to suck it in somehow. This day was somewhat special as 3 girls were getting baptised, all 3 gave their testimonies and were quite moving, with several people crying. I think it was here that made me think to myself that even though I don't particularly like organised religion, speaking out against it is an even worse thing to do as it does great things for people.

Get this though, the 3 girls got baptised at the BEACH... how cold would it have been, clazy. After that it was organised recreation and free time, our group was versing fishballs (I think), we were pretty much all about to leave when I sat down near Boris and Dylan who bloody picked me up and threw me into the water! BASTARDS! I put up a struggle but they got me into a position I couldn't get out of and put me in. Unfortunately for Dylan, he got thrown in as well and he got more soaked than I did... KARMA. After that I took a shower for about... an HOUR, trying to get sand out of my clothes at the same time, FRICK. I gave up after realising how long it was taking and decided to just let them dry (despite one not actually drying because I'm an idiot and threw it straight into a plastic bag).

Same deal happened here, but bible study went for longer and in worship we got told about our skit criteria. After that supper was to be served but since I came prepared with instant noodles while everyone had to settle with something else that I didn't like (probably redbean) mwahaha. Supper proved to be interesting because Brian decided to try out this popcorn trick he saw on youtube, looks believable enough... doesn't work though, save yourself the trouble and embarrassment. This was probably the worst night as I went to sleep and woke up at around 4am with an eyelash in my eye, couldn't get it out so I had to go to the toilet to flush it out and was wide awake after that =(

Day 3 (Sunday 29th)

Wow... we woke up in time for breakfast?!? What happened? Today pretty much ran in the same format, except there was a question and answer session (regarding life) combined with free time earlier in the day. The big thing for the day was pretty much skit night, for those of you that don't know what we do in skit night... we pretty much had to follow the criteria that were given to us and use it to make a show, this years' criteria was 1: use the group name; 2: use a verse from the bible; 3: use a random item in the skit which gets given to you literally right before you start. After bible study we pretty much had zero idea on what we were to do for the skit, nothing was coming to our heads and we just ended up deciding to redo a chapter in the book of Jonah in a very fobby fashion. Lots of ideas were getting tossed around, some great, some poor, but in the end we had to settle with this and it wasn't looking good because of the length of it...

Our problem was that the criteria was too "restricting" but it all ended up being random with heaps of fobby asian parts to it anyway. Think of everything stereotypically fobby asian that pops to mind... yum cha, fried rice, accent, fu manchu moustache, big 2, chinese whispers (ok, maybe not the last one) and that's what our skit involved. Words can't really describe this night, basically think of constant laughter at how lame/funny/random people can be and combine it into one night. Even though our skit was hella short... we managed to pull out a 2nd?!? Oh well, flukes are still wins =P

After concert night came supper again and this time we got proper food but I didn't eat anything (saving room for my 2nd bowl of instant noodles hehe) and pretty much left to go to the bonfire to chill with all the camp people. Lots of laughs, jokes and photos all around with people roasting marshmellows, seeing "shooting stars" and stargazing. Easily the best night of the entire camp and we stayed out until around 1:30, if people ever do plan to go to a big bonfire... beware the after effects.

Day 4 (Monday 30th)

We woke up at around 7:45, I had the groggiest voice because of the bonfire, everyone else was just being hella lazy, nothing major happened this day except for final photos, more good food and the traditional "food auction". It's pretty much what the name states, auctioning of the food that was leftover from the camps supplies, this years auctioning wasn't that great because of a lack of sweets, fruit juice, soft drinks and the like; can you say "yay vegetables"?

Highlights

- Someone getting raged at by a character from family guy
- Skit night
- Steve's rendition of a chinese emperor
- Organised recreation on the beach
- Jeri's alarm tone... man, that thing is hella annoying
- Bonfire night

All in all, great camp like last years (campsite wasn't as good though) and will be looking forward to YF Camp reflections night (this coming saturday). Might be looking into going back again next year as it was so enjoyable, better people this year for sure though.

New material

Wow... been nearly a month since I've posted. Goddamn I remember that I said I wouldn't neglect this thing but I've eaten my words haven't I? Well, I've actually been busy with my life and I've accomplished quite a few things, but am now in the exam season and may not accomplish a ton within the time I've been given... but we'll find out.

Anywho, I've been hella busy at uni and other places "studying" up for finals at our home/GP South. I've managed to take a video blog of of our adventures, just for fun. There was another video of me saying that I'm buggered and going to sleep but you can't really hear or see much at all so I didn't post that. There's also a few photos flying around of random stuff but I'll edit this post when they're finally up.

Here's the videos... http://www.youtube.com/user/willus259

PS: Comment the videos and not here, you can comment here if it's regarding my blog, but video related stuff should go to youtube.

PPS: Good luck to all for exams =)

Edit: Jeri uploaded the photos rofl

Khuu


Anty

Yeah right...

So it's been brought to my attention that Nick Shoung and Jess Luu are somehow biologically related and/or look alike. To those that think they do, I'm willing to bet you that they DON'T.

- First of all, they don't pose like homies with a pout thing going on in photos...




- Secondly, I don't think I've seen either of them jim in on photos....




Well, they don't definitely don't LOOK alike!



Haha, what did I tell you guys?! They don't act OR look similar!

You aint fooling no one...

Going shopping without buying has its consequences apparently. I went to the ralph lauren polo section of myer and asked to try on a shirt to see my size so I could use it for later references (possibly shopping on ebay lol). After I tried it on and didn't buy it (not that I was intending to anyway), the girl serving me told me the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard; "You know, you won't be able to find this shirt anywhere else".

Yeah right, I should ask her what this is

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-NWT-Mens-RALPH-LAUREN-SS-Polo-Shirt-Size-Large_W0QQitemZ220231321787QQihZ012QQcategoryZ57990QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

They're probably getting pretty desperate right about now.