Triple J Hottest 100

Over the past few days I've listened to the Triple J Hottest 100 CDs, from 1 to 14.

If you're not familiar with the Hottest 100, Triple J radio in Australia runs a countdown every January (usually on Australia Day), where listeners have voted for their favourite songs of the previous year, and the top 100 are played in reverse order. It's an institution these days, and people even hold Hottest 100 parties (I've been to a few over the years). Then, in about July of the same year, Triple J release a double CD containing about 42 of the Hottest 100 songs. I've bought every one of these CDs.

(The Hottest 100 started in 1989, and for the first 3 years it was a countdown of listeners' favourite songs of all time. They skipped 1992, then relaunched it in 1993, focusing only on songs from the previous year. They started producing the CDs in 1993 too.)

The CDs are generally a good mix of music, but each year there is at least one completely shit song that I can forgive listeners for voting into the countdown, but I can't forgive the Triple J producers for putting onto the CDs at the expense of something brilliant.

My favourites are numbers 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. The early CDs can transport me back to their specific years in seconds, allowing me to reminisce about my days at uni in the early 90s. The standard has fallen in recent years, although perhaps I can put that down to my music tastes evolving beyond what Triple J plays (e.g. I really can't stand Wolfmother).

Anyway, for each Hottest 100 double CD, I've listed my favourite song (difficult to choose just one), the hidden treasure, and the completely shit song (you'll see that I'm not a fan of The Bloodhound Gang). Anyone care to challenge me?

Hottest 100 1 (1993)

• Favourite: "Cannonball" - The Breeders
• Hidden treasure: "Juice" - Headless Chickens
• Shit: "All That She Wants" - Ace of Base

Hottest 100 2 (1994)

• Favourite: "Cornflake Girl" - Tori Amos
• Hidden treasure: "Fall" - Single Gun Theory
• Shit: "Absolutely Fabulous" - Pet Shop Boys

Hottest 100 3 (1995)

• Favourite: "Common People" - Pulp
• Hidden treasure: "Summer" - Buffalo Tom
• Shit: "The Reefer Song" - Mindless Drug Hoover AND "I Wanna Be A Hippy" - Technohead

Hottest 100 4 (1996)

• Favourite: "Underground" - Ben Folds Five
• Hidden treasure: "Coppertone" - Fini Scad
• Shit: "Ballad of the Skeletons" - Allen Ginsberg

Hottest 100 5 (1997)

• Favourite: "Bitter Sweet Symphony" - The Verve
• Hidden treasure: "Crazy" - Cordrazine
• Shit: "Fire Water Burn" - The Bloodhound Gang

Hottest 100 6 (1998)

• Favourite: "Intergalactic" - The Beastie Boys
• Hidden treasure: "Drinking in L.A." - Bran Van 3000
• Shit: "I Don't Like It" - Pauline Pantsdown

Hottest 100 7 (1999)

• Favourite: "Weir" - Killing Heidi
• Hidden treasure: "Theophilus Thistler...An Exercise In Vowels" - Sonicanimation
• Shit: "The Bad Touch" - The Bloodhound Gang

Hottest 100 8 (2000)

• Favourite: "The Time Is Now" - Moloko
• Hidden treasure: "Teenager Of The Year" - Lo-Tel
• Shit: "Sunset (Bird of Prey)" - Fatboy Slim

Hottest 100 9 (2001)

• Favourite: "Where's Your Head At?" - Basement Jaxx
• Hidden treasure: "Dust Me Selecta" - Gerling
• Shit: "Fat Cop" - Regurgitator

Hottest 100 10 (2002)

• Favourite: "Don't Mug Yourself" - The Streets
• Hidden treasure: "Punk's Not Dead" - Darren Hanlon
• Shit: "6.66" - Salmon Hater

Hottest 100 11 (2003)

• Favourite: "Step Into My Office, Baby" - Belle & Sebastian
• Hidden treasure: "Life Sentence" - Epicure
• Shit: "Gay Bar" - Electric Six

Hottest 100 12 (2004)

• Favourite: "Fit But You Know It" - The Streets
• Hidden treasure: "Somersault" - Decoder Ring
• Shit: "Chicken Payback" - The Bees

Hottest 100 13 (2005)

• Favourite: "Do Do's and Whoa-oh's" - Kisschasy
• Hidden treasure: "This Year" - The Mountain Goats
• Shit: "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo" - The Bloodhound Gang

Hottest 100 14 (2006)

• Favourite: "One Crowded Hour" - Augie March
• Hidden treasure: "Heart's A Mess" - Gotye
• Shit: "I Want You So Hard (Boy's Bad News)" - Eagles of Death Metal

Black Sheep

Tonight I saw the NZ film "Black Sheep".

"An experiment in genetic engineering turns harmless sheep into blood-thirsty killers that terrorise a sprawling New Zealand farm."

It's a shlock-horror zombie flick, and I was really hoping it would be as good as "Shaun of the Dead" - but that was asking a bit much.

It's amusing, with plenty of clever lines, plus some more obvious sex-with-sheep jokes, and an obsession with fart jokes (which was unexpected).

It's over-the-top gory, in the style of the early Peter Jackson films "Bad Taste" and "Braindead". For example, when a sheep tears out the intestines of a human victim, the camera doesn't pan away - we get to see EVERYTHING. I have a high tolerance for that sort of thing, but even I was wishing I hadn't eaten dinner before seeing the movie.

The special effects and creature designs are AMAZING, and they're one of the the main reasons I wanted to see the film. They were done by Weta Workshop, who did the effects for the Lord of the Rings films.

It's really beautifully filmed too - yet another film showcasing New Zealand's natural beauty. I have to go there!

I think what let it down was the acting - very wooden, especially from Danielle Mason, who played the female lead. Every time she spoke I just wanted her to shut the hell up! She wasn't believable at all.

And it's also not really scary. Just gory. Oh so very gory.

But I'm glad I saw it - my curiosity is satisfied. However I'm also glad that I didn't pay to see it - I won tickets from Triple J...

Scrubbers and bitches

Last night I caught up with a couple of my close girlfriends. We've been friends for over 25 years.

For a long, long time, this group of friends has eschewed names when talking to each other, and instead we call each other "Scrubber", "Scrub", "Slapper", "Bitch", and even "Skanky Ho". This applies in person, on the phone, in emails, etc. It's very common to hear me answer the phone and say "Hi scrub, how you going?"

We were speaking like this long before Paris and her merry band of scrubbers even knew how to pronounce the words!

One of the friends I saw last night has lived in the US for the past couple of years, and she was home for a short visit. She was telling us about how she's made friends over there, but that it's just not the same as hanging out with her old friends. At the end of the night, she sighed, smiled, and said "It's just so good to be called "Bitch" again".

Heh - gotta love that.

Speed dating

So last night I tried speed dating for the first time. It was fun, but weird.

Here's how it works: 12 girls, 12 guys. 6 minutes each. The girls stay seated and the guys rotate. Each person wears a tag with their name and a number. You receive a rating sheet, on which you record the tag number of each person you want to see again - and you say whether you want to "date" them, or see them as a "friend". (Meh, I have enough bloody friends!) You hand this in at the end of the night. There's another part to the rating sheet that you get to keep - on this you can make notes about each person so that you can remember them later.

The next day, you receive an email from the organisers. If someone picked you and you also picked them, you receive each other's contact details and can arrange a date if you want to. If people picked you and you didn't pick them, you don't get any contact details, but instead you just find out how many people picked you (a nice little ego boost).

I went with a few friends who'd done it before. When we arrived, they were disappointed to realise that they'd met a couple of the guys the last time they went - and one of my friends had been on an unsuccessful date with one of them! Un! Comfortable!

There ended up being 12 girls and 11 guys. The age range was supposed to be 27 to 39, but I'm certain that 5 of the guys were in their mid-40s (at least).

Everyone was very friendly. With most people, the 6 minutes went really fast, although there were a couple where I was praying for the bell to ring! One guy in particular wouldn't let me get a word in - it was hilarious. The description I wrote on the night was TALKATIVE. (It was good practice for when I have to deal with verbose patients - how to politely interrupt and bring the conversation back on track...)

Another older bloke told me all about his sad divorce, etc., and I do recall he started talking about how he wasn't just looking for someone to have sex with, but thankfully the bell rang before that train of thought could be followed too far.

Then there was the guy who decided he was infatuated with me. Sure, I had very nice hair and cleavage (such as it is) on display last night, but he was a tad over the top. AND it was the same guy my friend had been on a date with after the last event, so not weird at all, right?

We'd briefly chatted at the bar before the formalities got underway, and then when it was his turn for 6 minutes with me, he pulled the chair really close and told me how beautiful I was, he couldn't believe I was single, blah blah. All very lovely of course, but FULL ON. And of course I wasn't interested in him. Then he proceeded to talk about me when he had the 6 minutes with each of my other friends. And then he came back at the end of the night to reiterate everything to me. Sheesh.

Work came up in about 75% of the conversations, so that's where I had to break the news that I'm a poor student (with the prospect of a prosperous future). It drew the usual responses: "you're so brave", "how many years is the course?", "are you going to specialise or just be a GP?" (aaaagh pet hate - General Practice IS a specialty people!). Unfortunately I didn't find myself a sugar daddy.

I picked one guy out of the 11 to see again, and I wasn't even sure about doing that. Got the results today - he didn't pick me, so no matches! However 6 of the other guys picked me, which is nice (I think we can safely assume infatuated guy was one of the 6).

Would I do it again? Sure, but maybe next year. I don't want to see the same people again. And I'd probably only go with one other friend, or maybe none - I think the guys found it odd when they realised we all knew each other so well.

A fond farewell to crap...

Last week we finished learning about gastroenterology at uni. It was really interesting, but I kind of got over all the lectures about poo (especially the different types of diarrhoea). All with pretty pictures of course! But thankfully no smell-o-vision.

Things that stood out:

• Melaena is nasty
• Steatorrhoea is nasty
• Alcoholic liver disease is horrible
• There's a liver disease with my name!

Now we've started learning about the renal system (kidneys), to be swiftly followed by reproduction. So it's nice to see we're going to be down the business end of the human body for another couple of months.

Shut Up & Sing

Last week I saw "Shut Up & Sing", the documentary about the Dixie Chicks. It was fantastic - inspiring and uplifting. I'm a big fan of the Dixie Chicks, but you don't need to be to enjoy this movie. A healthy dislike for Dubya will do.

"Freedom of speech is fine, as long as you don't do it in public: so the Dixie Chicks learnt after an anti-Bush statement at a London concert saw their fans turn against them, radio refuse to play them, and CD sales plummet. The top selling female recording artists of all time even received death threats – but still they refused to just shut up and sing. This film, voted Best Documentary at the Sydney Film Festival 07, covers the band's effort to ride out the turmoil that would leave their careers under a cloud, yet come out stronger at the end."

Showing at the Chauvel, Paddington.