Anything Free Is Good... Except For Syphilis

A wise man once said ”Anything free is good, except for syphilis” and he wasn’t far off the mark. This weekend I got my first ever tattoo and it turned out to be an awesome piece of work, best of all it was free.

I’ve been planning on getting tattoos for a good couple of years now but just never got around to it. I have had many tattoo designs that I’ve wanted to get from a drum kit on my biceps to an ace on my wrist (as in to have an ace up my sleeve) but have never been 100% sure about it, which is a valid reason to not have it done. On top of that I’ve never really had the cash spend on them either, it’s hard to justify spending between $150 to $600 on a picture that’s going to be on your arm forever when your still paying off the medical bills that helped fix that very same arm in the first place.

This time however the opportunity was too good to pass up, it seems my moment had finally arrived. As I have previously mentioned I had struggled to find a design that I know I would want forever and up until a few months ago I was still very uncertain, I had many ideas floating around in my head, but nothing was 100%. However it finally dawned on me, the perfect tattoo for me would have to be Full Scales symbol. A lot of people say that getting band tattoos is a bad idea, and I agree to a certain point. What if the band breaks up? What happens if they sell out? What happens if they start releasing music you don’t like? All of these points, these reasons for getting tattoos of bands are very valid extremely good points, but I have an answer for them all.

In this case the answer simple, the band has already broken up and they still mean the world to me. At their farewell gig I almost cried, which for me is a big deal because the last time I remember crying about anything was probably as far back as grade 6 or year 7 (don’t bother asking me or commenting about why, it’s a whole world of I don’t want to go there), this band managed to reach me somehow and for that I am forever grateful.

The other key reason for me getting this tattoo now is simply because it was free. Body Language has an apprentice working there and for him to gain experience he obviously needs to practice on people. I was a little bit concerned about letting an apprentice do my tatt to begin with but the more I thought about it the less I worried. The tattoo design itself is pretty simple, it’s all straight lines, the only thing that he could do wrong would be to screw up a line and it wouldn’t be straight. But after further discussion amongst those of my friends who know a lot about tatts they pointed out that if that did in fact happen it’s a simple fix, the tattoo artist (his name was James) would just have to make the line a little thicker, nobody would know the difference.

Leading up to the event I was very nervous, but as soon as he started my nerves quickly disappeared and I was very relaxed, well about as relaxed as you can be when you’re having needles inserted in and out of your body over and over again. To those who keep asking me about the pain, the best way for me to describe it is that it’s like having you leg hairs pulled out one by one, except at a very fast rate. It was painfull but it was easily bearable, the worst part for me in fact wasn’t the pain, it was lying in the same position for so long.

If you wish to view and photos they can be found here: Full Scale Tattoo

Bits and Pieces

Well for the first time in a long while I feel a sense of accomplishment with my work. Don’t get me wrong I’m enjoying it a lot more since my promotion and the new set of responsibilities I’ve found myself taking on, but it was still lacking that all important “I’m doing something that matters” feel. Well yesterday it finally came when the first thing I’ve ever designed came into the factory.

It’s not the most technical thing in the world but for my first effort I was quite proud of what I produced. Simply all it does is lift these jaw sections that weigh roughly 50kg of the benches on the factory and on to the machines. The design itself was simple yet effective which in my opinion is how everything should be designed.

Now off the topic of work is anyone else pumped about the weekend?
I’m really looking forward to Friday night as I’m attending some metal trivia night as part of team OzProg I’m suppose to be the “nu-metal” expert, I’ve been reading up a little bit so I should do ok for myself.

On top of that I’m expecting switch to be going of the hook as there are quite a few people I know going. Sadly I can’t afford to drink but I still plan on acting like a fool and having a great time.

I may also be cutting my “emo” fringe off on Saturday morning, I’m still undecided on whether I should do it or not. It’s grown to be a part of me and I honestly don’t think it looks too terrible. In fact I never wear it straight down unless it’s as a joke so I don’t see the point in cutting it. Any suggestions?

No Room At The Inn

Well it’s that time of the month again (I’m not talking about my aunt flow visiting either) and it seems this time I will be unable to escape what I’ve been avoiding for at least three years now. It’s been a heated topic of discussion between my parents and I in the past and quite probably in the future. What am I talking about you may be asking yourself? Or maybe you’re asking yourself why the hell am I still reading this? Regardless of what you’re asking yourself I’m talking about the ongoing issue of paying board.

Before I start my ranting I should make myself clear. A agree whole heartedly with my parents that I should be paying board, it’s just the simple matter of I don’t want to because there is much more useful things I can put my money towards. For example the $30 a week or whatever it may end up being could be put towards bills, savings, credit cards or my ever growing pile of medical expenses. As a matter of fact when I told my parents I was seriously pondering the idea of moving out they told me I should reconsider as it’s easier to save from home (granted that’s true) and even easier for me as I don’t have to worry about board.

Even though it’s only roughly $30 out of my pocket if I live at home compared to $55 a week plus groceries, added bills and food for myself if I choose to move out, and me being the stubborn person I am this just pushes me further out the door. I’d much rather spend the extra cash and get as far away from home as possibly in the end the pros (don’t have to deal with parents, living with people I actually enjoy spending time with, the experience even) will most likely outweigh the cons (less money, doing my own washing – which I’ve started doing now anyway, it’s a lot harder to save, actually have to worry about if there’s food in the cupboard) so it would be worth my while. I already provide most of my own food at home anyway and have been doing to for a while now since I decided my family eats too much unhealthy food.

The only thing stoping me from moving out right now is the debt I like to call my “unmanageable” debt repayments which simply is the debt I’m struggling to manage with paying off right now, if I were to move out it will be impossible. In the end I will make the decision based on my tax return as silly as that sounds. If I can get around $2000 back (sadly it’s unlikely, but if I’m meant to move out now, you know fate and all that kind of mumbo jumbo I will get the return I need) it will give me some breathing room and pay back a rather large chunk of my unmanageable debt.

The Boys Are Back In Town

Well it’s taken almost four months but finally our band has been reunited. With Rhys (our guitarist) touring through Europe rocking out at all the metal festivals and Nick (our drummer) travelling around the globe with his wife-to-be Sarah the band was on hiatus. Now that they have both returned there is excitement in the air and musically everybody is going crazy. Rhys has been writing new riffs for us to hear, Nick has been going crazy on the drums and I’ve been working extra hard on my lyric writing and singing ability.

There is one change that is possibly for the better, yet still a little sad and that’s the replacement of our original bass player Pat who’s been with the band since the beginning (You were always entertaining dude, continue to rock out). Brought in to replace Pat is my friend Bert who is a very talented musician, and very experienced when it comes to bands. He’s the only one of us who has ever played a “real” gig and his old band was doing quite well for themselves having won a few battle of the bands and playing at Push Over in Luna Park, they were starting to make a name for themselves. On top of his experience comes his “spontaneous” personality which will hopefully perk up the rest of us on stage.

We have decided to move away from playing covers and move into writing our own music which personally is something I’m very happy about. While covers are fun and can be entertaining there is no sense of accomplishment after playing them where as if you’re playing a song written by your own band and others like it there’s a feeling of achievement, it’s quite nice to say the least. What we end up writing will be interesting as we all listen to different types of music and will clearly have very different ideas. Bert is all about the punk rock, Nick is a progressive metal fan, Rhys is all into his death metal (and sadly very bad rap music) and I’m more into the nu-metal genre, if we can successfully merge the ideas together hopefully it will be something special.

As always we are open for suggestions on our forever changing band name, so feel free to suggest a few. We have a first band practice this Saturday so wish us luck and hopefully one day we will be playing in a pub near you.

A Quick Brodie Update

Hey all it’s this is just a quick Brodie update seeing as it’s been a while since my last blog. Life’s been tré busy and fairly eventful.

I’ve been skating a lot lately and I’m starting to show some improvement. I can now do a Stall 180 and a 180 Stall (there’s some skater lingo for you), and slowly and painfully getting my grinding skills together. However with skating comes pain and behind the pain are many bruises. About a week or so ago now I was trying some “tricks” down in the Eastland car park when I had a terrible stack. I was trying to grind a gutter and my feet slipped from under me and I landed on my right hand side using my forearm to break my fall. It didn’t tickle. My arm bruised immediately but wasn’t too bad. Since then I’ve managed to fall on the same part of my arm at least 5 times either while skating or playing soccer due to this my arm is now double the size of my opposite arm and the bruise covers most of my arm. I ended up being sent home from work on Monday and spent about 3 hours in Maroondah hospital getting x-rays. Luckily for me nothing was broken or chipped and it was just a case of severe bruising resulting in the doctor putting my arm in a sling and telluing me to chow down on some pain killers (“chow down” was not the doctors exact words).

Aside from another hospital visit and a new injury to add to Brodie’s list of “Gumpishness” I played in my two indoor soccer teams grand finals last week. The first final went well, it was my work team division 5 match, we won quite easily, 14-3. The match was a bit of a let down as it wasn’t much of a challenge for us, being a final you would expect a closer score line. I played fairly well and finally scored a few for the 1st time in weeks, I ended up getting player of the match as well which was a pleasant surprise. The next final I played was for my division 1 team, we entered the match as heavy underdogs. The team we were up against had only lost one or two matches for the entire season and was a clear by 12 or so points on the ladder followed by us. We started poorly conceding 2 goals in about 5 minutes but we managed to pull ourselves together. We played very well for the rest of the match, we managed a 2 goal comeback midway through the 2nd half, I managed to score again, I was stoked as it had been a while since I had scored with this team. The scores were tired at 2-2 until the final few minutes where they managed to slip one past Dean in goals to score the winning goal for the match. Overall however we played great, going into the match we were expecting a good pounding but we did ourselves proud.

Aside from sport there’s the usual drama that’s going on in my life, I managed to “lose” my mother for about 4 weeks until she rocked up home a few days ago. She seems pissed at me because I didn’t go and see her, but it was kind of hard when I didn’t know where she was and couldn’t get in contact with her. On top of that there are girl issues (isn’t there always), it’s a long story and probably best not blogged about for many reasons, but yeah I’ve been hella happy yet fairly down about the whole situation at the same time, it’s truly quite confusing.

Sorry about the lack of blogs but I have been stuck for stuff to write about lately, I’ll try and pick up my game.