urban wanderer

Wednesday, January 28, 2004   After 3 profitable years, we played our last music trivia at the club yesterday. Profitable in the sense that our team somehow always managed to win some money. If were lucky, we take the whole lot and sometimes just the minor one. But at least it pays for whatever we spend on drinks or grub. Being the last day, the place was packed even staff members joined (they're not allowed to win prizes though). And being Australia Day week, all questions were Aussie-related so I wasn't able to contribute a lot. What the fuck do I know about the band Cold Chisel (although they're considered the 2nd best Australian band ever, AC/DC coming first). This freakin team called Delta force blitzed everyone. They scored 79 points compared to our 62, good for third place & $100. I also managed to score a couple of movie passes so that'll take care some of my Valentine's Day movie budget. All I need now is someone to tag along har har. They had to junk this trivia thing coz there were hardly any people joining but they only have themselves to blame. They screwed the scheduling, they hired a host who is, as what one of my teammate aptly described, an 'honorary blonde' & they screwed the quiz format. A lot of teams got turned off with all these screw-ups. Anyway, we now have to find another place. I hope they don't mess up the karaoke. posted by uging | 2:50 PM Monday, January 26, 2004   We celebrated Australia Day yesterday & while I stayed home watching tennis, most Aussies flocked to the beaches, parks, cricket grounds, harbours & wherever they can celebrate the most important day in Australia. There were boat races & fireworks in Sydney harbour, concerts in Canberra, sporting events in Melbourne & Adelaide & storms in most parts of Queensland (eep). I reflected on what being a naturalized Aussie means. While none will detect a hint of Aussie-ness in my persona (I hardly even adopted the accent), I can honestly say that I'm proud of being an adopted Australian. Of course my Pinoy values are still intact & I'm also proud of my Filipino heritage but the days of 'fuck this country, I'm gonna milk it dry first then go back to the Philippines' attitude are long gone. I've realized how lucky I was to have been afforded such privilege. posted by uging | 4:50 PM Sunday, January 18, 2004   Wanted: Personal Secretary Qualifications: 1. Must not be hot-looking 2. Non-Caucasian 3. Must know how to lie Why this post? Remember that chick I was blabbing on about 5 posts ago? The slut finally got the chop. She obviously has lost interest with her job but she never had the balls to resign. Maybe she was being smart. See, here in Oz, if you become unemployed because you got fired, you're eligible for unemployment benefit, otherwise, bugger it. But that girl sure doesn't know how to lie (lay? its probably a different story). Before we went on Christmas break (and on our last day at that), she rang & told my boss that she couldn't come because 'there were no trains available'. There was indeed a train strike the previous day but when they say 'one hour strike', that for sure won't carry over the next day. So my boss became suspicious and rang the train station. Indeed, all trains were on schedule, so he rang the girl's place. She wasn't there but her mom was & gave her boyfriend's phone number. Boss rang and the chick answered. Huli ka! hehe. So to cut a long story short, my boss, being such a great guy let her off with just a warning. So everything went roses. Until last Friday. She rang early Friday & told my boss that she's sick. But the poor girl had these tons of undeleted emails which my boss happened to access (yeah its invasion of privacy but who gives a toss). So turned out that the girl attended a Thursday night party, got drunk, had a bad hangover thus cannot get up for work which is fair enough, if she didn't say in her email that she's planning to chuck a sickie the following day. And the timing was really off since there's plenty of stuff piled on her desk. This morning, she rang, and said that she won't be in at all and my boss said 'ah she's gonna get the sack anyway'. Sayang, I was getting along with this girl but hey, business is business. This is like the 3rd axing for that position and all of them were young, smart-looking, but disinterested Caucasian girls. We joked earlier that what we need are 'losers', people who have no social life so they can focus themselves on work. Someone like that Indonesian exchange student we had sometime ago who, unfortunately had to go back home coz her student visa 'expired'. posted by uging | 9:24 PM Monday, January 05, 2004   SPOILER ALERT Well, most of you have probably seen the last installment of the LOTR trilogy. Anyway, I wasn't really much of a fan since I never liked fantasy flicks but my friend begged me to go & watch the movie with her. I don't wanna waste $14 on a movie that I can not relate to coz I've never seen the other 2 so over the holidays while all people are trooping to the cinemas to watch ROTK, I was at the video shop renting the first two. I ACTUALLY LIKED IT. Maybe I'm still one of the few who has this connection with Sean Astin. How many 80s flicks has he been in? My favorite of course was 'Toy Soldiers'. Anyway, we saw ROTK last Sunday. Liv Tyler annoyed the hell out of me but the most bullshit character of all is Frodo. Why is he the freakin hero in this movie? All he did the entire fuckin series was to make life miserable for Sam & the rest of the Fellowship. At the end of the movie, he ended up on a vessel along with Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins & those gay elves/immortals or whatever you call Agent Smith's character. Why?? If Smeagol didn't interfere, Frodo would've ended up not tossing the ring & everyone will become miserable again. What an anomaly. But I liked the movie hehe. posted by uging | 2:58 PM Thursday, January 01, 2004   I'm probably the only pathetic loser who had to get back to work on a Friday after a week-long break. Yep, Friday, last day of the week & just as I thought I was gonna cruise, all these e-mails & stuff which the IT Manager should've been handling if he wasn't on holidays were passed on to my old pitiful self to fix. To make things worse, one of our clients lost all her files & I had to help out restoring them. Damn, I thought I was gonna bludge all day since the bosses are out. But at any rate, I started the day early. World Idol is on at 6:30am & I wasn't going to miss this. Kurt Nielsen, the Norwegian Idol came out the winner. Just as everyone thought Kelly Clarkson would win the whole thing convincingly, this dude, widely ridiculed for his looks (he was dubbed as 'the hobbit') took out the plum & rightfully so. Kelly screamed, Guy chose the wrong song, Heinz looked pretty but that's about it & everyone else were horrible. Kurt who some people said could out-Bono Bono from U2 sang 'Beautiful Day', which I might actually do tonight at the karaoke depending on how many Wild Turkey I'll guzzle. posted by uging | 5:03 PM		archives Band of Bloggers curves ahead girl with the indigo eyes the princess she likes to watch moka java true companion north star stories of the painted desert dream of the sirens bella luna bookmarked best jazz band in the world Soccer madness Pinoyexchange NBA online quizzes weird stuff fun & games Weekly Top 10: Fave George Benson & Al Jarreau tracks 10.Lady Love Me One More Time 9.Feel Like Makin Love 8.20/20 7.This Masquerade 6.Love Times Love 5.Turn Your Love Around 4.Were In This Love Together 3.Boogie Down 2.Mornin` 1.Breakin Away Musical heroes: Def Leppard Def Leppard, in many ways, was the definitive hard rock band of the '80s. There were many bands that rocked harder, and were more dangerous, than the Sheffield quintet, but few others captured the spirit of the times quite as well. Emerging in the late '70s as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, the group actually owed more to the glam-rock and metal of the early '70s — their sound was equal parts T. Rex, Mott the Hoople, Queen and Led Zeppelin. By toning down their heavy riffs and emphasizing melody, Def Leppard were poised for crossover success by 1983's Pyromania, but skillfully used the fledgling MTV network to their advantage. The group was already blessed with photogenic good looks, but they also crafted a series of innovative, exciting videos, which made them into stars. They intended to follow Pyromania quickly, but were derailed when their drummer lost an arm in a car accident, the first of many problems that plagued the group's career. Def Leppard managed to pull through such tragedies and they even expanded their large audience with 1987's blockbuster Hysteria. As the '90s began, mainstream hard rock shifted away from Leppard's signature pop-metal and towards edgier, louder bands, yet the group maintained a sizable audience into the late '90s and were one of only a handful of '80s metal groups to survive the decade more or less intact. Def Leppard had its origins in a Sheffield-based group Rick Savage (bass) and Pete Willis (guitar) formed in their late teens in 1977. A few months later, vocalist Joe Elliott, a fanatic follower of Mott the Hoople and T. Rex, joined the band, bringing the name Deaf Leopard. After a spelling change, the trio, augmented by a now-forgotten drummer, began playing local Sheffield pubs, and within a year they had added guitarist Steve Clark, as well as a new drummer. Later in 1978, the recorded their debut EP Getcha Rocks Off and released it on their own label, Bludgeon Riffola. The EP became a word-of-mouth success, earning airplay on the BBC. The group members were still in their teens. Following the release of Getcha Rocks Off, Rick Allen was added as the band's permanent drummer, and Def Leppard quickly became the subject of the British music weeklies. Soon, they signed with AC/DC's manager Petter Mensch, who helped them secure a contract with Mercury. On Through the Night, the band's full-length debut, was released in 1980 and instantly became a hit in the U.K., also earning significant airplay in the U.S., where it reached number 51 on the charts. Over the course of the year, Def Leppard relentlessly toured Britain and America, including opening slots for Ozzy Osbourne, Sammy Hagar and Judas Priest. High N' Dry followed in 1981, and it became the group's first platinum album in the U.S., thanks to MTV's strong rotation of "Bringin' on the Heartbreak." MTV would be vital to the band's success in the '80s. As the band recorded the follow-up to High N' Dry with producer Mutt Lange, Pete Willis was fired from the band for alcoholism, and Phil Collen, a former guitarist for Girl, was hired to replace him. The resulting album, 1983's Pyromania, became an unexpected blockbuster, due not only to Def Leppard's skillful, melodic metal, but also to MTV's relentless airing of "Photograph" and "Rock of Ages." Pyromania went on to sell 10 million copies, establishing Def Leppard as one of the most popular bands in the world. Despite their success, the band was about to enter a trying time for their career. Following an extensive international tour, the group re-entered the studio to record the follow-up, but producer Lange was unavailable, so they began sessions with Jim Steinman, the man responsible for Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell. The pairing turned out to be ill-advised, so the group turned to its former engineer, Nigel Green. One month into recording, Rick Allen lost his left arm in a New Year's Eve car accident. The arm was reattached, but it had to be amputated once an infection set in. Without a drummer, Def Leppard's future looked cloudy, but by the spring of 1985 — just a few months after his accident — Allen began learning to play a custom-made electronic kit assembled for him by Simmons. Soon, the band resumed recording, and within a few months Lange was back on board, but once he joined the team, he judged the existing tapes inferior and had the band begin work all over again. The recording continued throughout 1986, and that summer, the group returned to the stage for the European Monsters of Rock tour. Def Leppard finally completed its fourth album, now titled Hysteria, early in 1987, releasing it that spring to lukewarm reviews; many critics felt that the album compromised Leppard's metal roots for sweet pop flourishes. The record was slow out of the starting gates — "Women," the first single, failed to really take hold. But with the second single, "Animal," Hysteria began to take off. It became the group's first Top 40 hit in the U.K., but more importantly, it began a string of six straight Top 20 hits in the U.S., which also included "Hysteria," "Pour Some Sugar On Me," "Love Bites," "Armageddon It" and "Rocket," the latter of which arrived in 1989, a full two years after the release of Hysteria. During those two years, Def Leppard was unavoidable — they were the kings of high school metal, ruling the pop charts and MTV, and teenagers and bands alike replicated their teased hair and ripped jeans, even when the grimy hard rock of Guns N' Roses took hold in 1988. Hysteria proved to be the peak of Leppard's popularity, yet their follow-up remained eagerly awaited in the early '90s as the band set to work on the record. During the recording, Steve Clark died from an overdose of alcohol and drugs. Clark had long had a problem with alcohol, and following the Hysteria heyday, the band forced him to take a sabbatical; he did enter rehab, but to no apparent effect. In fact, his abuse was so crippling that Collen had to play the majority of the guitar leads on Hysteria. Following Clark's death, Def Leppard resolved to finish its forthcoming album as a quartet, releasing Adrenalize in the spring of 1992. Adrenalize was greeted with mixed reviews, and even though the album debuted at number one and contained several hit singles, including "Let's Get Rocked," "Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad" and "Make Love Like a Man," the record was a commercial disappointment in the wake of Pyromania and Hysteria. After the release of Adrenalize, the group added former Whitesnake guitarist Vivian Campbell. In 1993, Def Leppard released the rarities collection Retro Active, featuring a new single, "Miss You in a Heartbeat," which scraped the lower reaches of the Top 40. Two years later, the group released the greatest hits collection Vault while preparing their sixth album. Slang arrived in the spring of 1996, and while it was more adventurous than its predecessor, it was greeted with indifference, proving that Leppard's heyday had passed, and they were now simply a very popular cult band. Undaunted, Leppard soldiered on, returning to its patented pop-metal sound for Euphoria, which was released in June of 1999. "must listen" DISCLAIMER: The title URBAN WANDERER as well as the link titles to other blogs are song titles from a jazz band. I used these titles as a gesture of appreciation & gain no financial benefits from this & in no way used to promote my blog. For the real deal, visit their website.