10000 Days to Cairns

Well, 10 hours to Townsville today at least.
I'm writing this while waiting to be picked up for a road trip to Cairns this weekend.
I just finished listening to my new Tool CD, 10000 Days. It't technically not due out until tomorrow, so a big thumbs up to my local CD store staff for doing a dodgy for me. Support your local CD store. Yeah.
Anyway, I thought I'd use this time to do a quick first impressions of the album.
Wow. It's good, but it's also a departure from the last 3 albums. In a way, you can sort of see a bluring between A Perfect Circle, and Tool with this album. But that's OK, as they are still stylisitcly two seperate entities.
The main thing I got from this is all about art. I think they have really streched to the limit what they as a band can get away with whilst still retaining accessablity for non-muso fans. The Wings for Marie songs are a huge departure from your standard sweaty, shaved head, 6' plus fans type of song. This album is all about the band evolving as artists. I can't help but think that the Mars Volta has really helped in paving the way for making these swirling epic type songs more acceptable from a consumer stance. That said and done, this isn't some drowning depth prog-rock concept album. More a collection of musical vignettes.
I've always been a fan of the prog-rock side of tool more than the thrash side, and they've really come through for me in this album. It's going to take a lot more listens than just one to fully digest it though.
Thematiclly, there's lots of religious undertones, mostly in a dyphemistic way, as well as a sweet little song called Rosetta stoned, which makes me wonder if Maynard has an interest in psychiatry, as it's a pretty graphic depiction of a schizophrenic psychotic episode. Fun for the whole family there.
As a complete album, it seems kind of short even though it comes in at more than 75mins. For now I'm probably going to give it a 4, and privately enjoy the fact that there are a lot of metal head Tool fans that are going to completely misunderstand this album and hate it.
You gotta love a band that purposely alienates a huge contingent of it's fan base in order to do some artsy posing.
More soon when I get back from the Cairns roadtrip.

Quick question for the snobista

So today in clinic, the consultant was refering to a child who had an IQ of about 80, and said that the kid will never be a lawyer, but they're doing well in art.
That lead me to wonder:
If it's un-intentional, is it still art?
Hmm....

I was drunk

I was drunk
Originally uploaded by graum.

...But I did ROCK!

What's Nasi Lamak?

What's Nasi Lamak?
Originally uploaded by graum.

I make my guests work for their dinner

Chicks Dig Scars

Chicks Dig Scars
Originally uploaded by graum.

Real men bleed for their art!

Dolce fa niente

Yes... Yes it sure is sweet to do nothing.
So it has been a long time between posts. What can I say, for some unforeseen reason I seem to be spending more time at the 'spital, working on the whole being a good doctor thing. I'll get over it eventually.
The O&G rotation was actually a pretty good one. It was the one I had been worrying about, but now, I reckon if I get over the idea of being a surgeon, there's a good chance of me going down the O&G track. As long as I can concentrate on the O bit rather than the G.
Now, I am almost halfway through the paediatrics rotation. I do not like paeds. First day I got to meet two little kids who undoubtedly are about as messed up as you can get after your formative years consisting of systematic physical and sexual abuse.
It's not always happy families.
Those two really got to me, so much so that I went for my first ever counselling session. From that I learnt that transference and counter-transference is real, and can hit you when you least expect it. I feel bad for the kids, but at the same time I am grateful to have dealt with my reaction to them, and moved on. It was a very unexpected lesson however.
So yeah, since that day, I have been battling my dislike for paeds. I will certainly not be a paediatrician when I grow up. No thank you very much.
Happy notes though: This weekend was Easter, as I am sure a lot of you noticed. I've been busy in the last 4 days. Friday was cave crawling and movie day. Saturday was jam and picnic day. Sunday was dawn Easter service on Mount Archer, beach, dinner and movie day. Today was Breakfast and dinner day.
The cave experience was fun, under the guidance of Dan, Lana's fiancé. We did the cavern thing, then Dan and I did this freak out of a crawl space thing. I say freak out because it was about 4 meters long about 60cm wide and 30cm at best high. At the end of the crawl through was a chamber about 10m x 20x 1 1/2m. No photos unfortunately, as the camera would have been smashed in my pocket on the way in. Plus I didn't have a torch either, so I was relying on Dan's headlamp. Crawling out was worse, as Dan went first so I was crawling through the pitch black, and I got stuck on the way out. There was a very tight section where I had to exhale, just to fit through, thus my getting stuck. Funness.
The dawn service, was pretty cool I though, and that surprised me. I'm not a religious guy, but it was so beautiful up there it didn't matter. When Leanne and I got there, it was still dark and shrouded in cloud. As the service progressed, you could see the cloud drifting through, and as the air cleared the view of Rocky and the Dawson River materialised. It was just magic. Later that day after Leanne and Dougal went for a sail, to which I was invited but had slept through them coming round, we all went to the beach. It was another one of those I can't believe how lucky I am to be alive, where I am, with these friends to share it, kind of moments.
I had a very good day yesterday.
Topped by fantastic company for dinner where we all chipped in and husked coconuts to milk for the Nasi Lamak. It's a hard life.
This morning I had Deirdre, Kristy, Leanne and Dougal over for breakfast, primarily to spend a bit more time with Leanne before she had to go back to Theodore for her rural rotation.
And now here I am looking in horror at my kilo monster Easter egg I bought with the money my Mum sent me for Easter. I think it's going to kill me.
Anyway, I broke my short entry rule, so I will leave you with a parting thought;
There but for the grace of god goes me. Be humble.

Mt Jim Crowe

Mt Jim Crowe
Originally uploaded by graum.

The couz on the Crowe. Just another imaginative way to spend a Sunday morning.