AlSymerz

I'll start pissing in 44's!!

Armoured Angel - Hymns Of Hate

Google is probably the most used generic trademark, but it also sounds better than pretty much all the alternatives. In Australia I remember all sorts of names that I didn't immediately know were trademarks, things like asprin, bandaid, biro, liquid paper, pyrex, catseyes, eksy, vaseline, lavalamp, bobcat, astroturf, and probably a heap I don't remember. There is probably plenty of localised ones too, like here in Australia in the 60's and 70's we all had Hills Hoists in the back yard, not clothes lines. It was invented in the 40's and Hills Industries made a lot of things like swing sets, trampolines (which itself originated as a trademark), tv aerials, and many other metal tubing products, but the Hills Hoist became our 'clothes line' because nearly every house had one, but that was also back when every house had a back yard to put one in.

I probably first started listening to Venom because of the image they had created. Not many radio stations here in the 80's were playing metal but the few that did played Witching Hour and Black Metal fairly heavily. Then our late night music show started playing the clips every few weeks so it became more about image and the visual look than it was about the music. They did influence a lot of our local music scene, bands that didn't make it much further than pub gigs and the odd EP. Not really sure what Venom have done since the 80's (other than beard oil) but I remember listening to Storm The Gates and not being overly impressed.

It's interesting that CC beard oil has made the news and creating conversation on so many different platforms. The mob making this stuff has been adding bands names to their beard oil for a while and none have created the hype the Cannibal Corpse has. The same company sells beard oil in the name of Exhorder, Hatriot, Jeff Mantis, Venom, and others. Perhaps it's all in the name because the others don't all have such appealing names like Butchered Body.

Strapping Young Lad - Heavy As A Real Heavy Thing

Invest in a beard just like you invest in your car. If it's a car you want to keep, you give it a grease and oil change every 12 months. Same goes for the beard or you just wont get decent mileage out of it and resale value will be low.

Devin Townsend - Ocean Machine

We only have issues with condensation in the rooms that face south during the winter, but you're right it makes sense to have them. I think the guy that built this house decided that he'd left so many gaps, holes, crevices and fuck ups in this house that it was going to breath just fine without eaves, or maybe it's just bad building. This one is a steel framed house to so there is all sort of gaps and things I never expected. The couple down the road, essentially our neighbours but there's 5 fences between us and I couldn't hear them if they yelled, have a steel frame house from the same builder and the wife hates it with a vengeance. Makes too much noise as it expands, makes too much noise as it contracts, she's half deaf and refuses to wear her hearing aid around the house yet she can hear the house move in the weather. I think she wanted to thump me the day I told her I don't even hear such noises these days.

One thing that really shits me is that this house is build without eaves. I was doubtful when I chose this design that not having eaves was the best idea and I wish I'd listened to those doubts. I've got powered roof fans at the high points of the roof which do extract heat, but they still don't cool the roof space down that much. Having eaves wouldn't solve the heat issues but it would go a ways to improving it.

Well there ya go. Hoover's been around since the 60's and I think most Aussies have known it's a brand rather than a job for most of that time. For many years we had Hoover ads everywhere, it was hard not to know it was a brand name. How we never took on the word as a job is beyond me though because we took on things like Band Aid. We've got generations of people who never knew band aid was a brand name, they just thought it was a generic name for a bandage stuck over an open wound that made it heal quicker. I guess there is a lot of genericized trademarks around the world.

-20C? Shit I'm glad I don't have to put up with that. We get negative nights in winter but only a few points into the negative, nothing like that.

Listening to/watching. Devin Townsend Live at Bloodstock 2021

It supposedly keeps the heat out in summer and in, in the winter, how well it does it I don't know but scientists have been saying it works for decades so for such a small cost I believe them. I know there is a hell of a difference between the roof cavity and the rooms below and there is only insulation and wall plaster separating them. I was up in the roof the other day running some cables for security cameras and it was mid 20's outside but the roof space was so hot the filthy dust and old bushfire ash was clinging to my sweat when I got out. So I'm going with insulation does something!

Our builder wasn't even a volume builder, they can't afford to be a volume builder when they have to travel 40 minutes between builds and can't have the same tradesman work multiple sites at a time. The building industry is just shit in this country. I could probably live anywhere in this country if I tried, but my problem is that anywhere I have lived it hasn't take that long to stop seeing the beauty of the place. I love Perth, but if I lived there I'd have to get a job to pay the bills, that alone wouldn't stop me seeing the beauty of the place but it would certainly help.

I have no idea what difference it makes practically but when my house was built I put insulation batts in all the external walls. The builder was against it, he made all sorts of claims that if there was any problems he would be responsible etc, but I told him once the brick work was done I'd do the batts and I wasn't letting him plaster the walls without it. I don't really know if I have saved any money, or made heating and cooling better but I'm glad I did it. I think years and years of boosting the building industry through government grants and home owner grants, then through schemes to employ apprentices etc have made the building industry here very lazy, many builders cut lots of corners they think wont be inspected, many inspectors don't do their jobs properly and design laws are so lax compared to what they used to be that they get away with building tents.

Allegiance - Skinman

Even on a day like today it's only 26 degrees but the water is probably as warm as you'd want it for a baby's bath. It would be good if you could run without a hot water heater just by running pipes through the hot roof cavity, but while the water is bloody hot it's not consistent enough to rely on as hot water. I've often wondered how many people in newer houses are being environmentally conscious while at the same time wasting litres of water waiting for it to cool in the summer and waiting for ages for it to warm in the winter. Most of the time my wife does it she watches water go down the sink until it's at her desired temp, but I grew up on tank water and not watching it go down the sink was burnt into my brain at a very young age.

They create hell inside the house too. 30 years ago they used copper pipe in the wall to run water around the house. These days they use plastic pipe and run it through the roof along the shortest path. It's good for the plumbers pocket because they still charge like a wounded bull, but it's fucking terrible in the Summer. Last week when the temp was only 31 during the day, at 6pm just before the storm hit, the water in our kitchen, the furthest point from where the water enters the house was so hot I couldn't put my hand under it. I usually waste (use alternatively) 4 litres of cold water waiting for the kitchen taps to get hot enough to do dishes. The other day I nearly filled both sinks, approx 9 litres before the cold water tap was giving me cold water.

Adelaide seems to get extremes, frosts in winter and heatwaves in summer, but not constantly either. Outside of Melbourne it doesn't seem as hot but it's definitely the humidity that kills the heat. We had 31 the other day and then just before the storm arrived it became sticky and warm, then it absolutely hammered down for 40 minutes, remained dark until 8pm and the sun came out again and everything steamed up. I was a shitty day, I'd much rather 40 degree that hot steamy rain.

Anthrax - Among The Living

In this country hover seems to immediately make people think helicopter parent. It's becoming like that stupid idea of calling people Karen. If someone mentions a person hovering some idiot always has to pipe up with something about the person's parenting ability because so many people are stupid. We also don't often hoover in this country (cause we love dust!). Although Hoovers were once very big sellers in this country people tend to vacuum here rather than use the brand name.

Damn, when I first read that I read it was hovering and I pictured you with your arms out, your body moving gently side to side and you making sounds like a helicopter!

Ozzy - Diary Of A Madman (Happy Birthday for Friday Oz!)

One thing that annoys me about audio cassettes is their longevity. Sure they can be stretched and eaten by the player but in general they do last. Whereas video cassettes are bloody terrible for storing as an archive. A video tape stretches a lot more when it's played and run over the play heads, which does eventually decrease it's life span, but I have hundreds of cassettes that still play fine, whereas my collection of VHS tapes are all slowly dying while being stored in exactly the same manner as the cassettes.