5. Mindless Self Indulgence – If

MSI refer to themselves as an “Industrial Jungle Pussy Punk” band. Confused?

At first I was dissapointed, but after I realized I was comparing it to their previous album too much, I started to like this album. It’s their second best album after “You’ll Rebel To Anything”.

Highlights: Never Wanted To Dance, Lights Up

4. Teenage Bottlerocket – Warning Device

Contagious Ramones “Three Chords” style pop punk. A simple album which is short, fast, loud and a lot of fun.

Highlights: In The Basement, Social Life

3. Dillinger Four – Civil War

Fans waited 6 years for this album and huge hype generated around it, particularly when an early Internet leak spread like wild fire, causing some suprising controversy. I felt left out of the loop since I actually hadn’t heard the band before, so what I did was buy their classic debut album “Midwestern Songs Of The Americas”.

I fell in love with the album, and not long after I began listening to “Civil War”. “Civil War” is more of a pop album in comparison to their debut, which is harsher and grittier. You’ll find yourself singing along merrily to these socially aware pop punk songs.

Highlights: Gainesville, Americaspremierefaithbasedinitiative

2. Less Than Jake – GNV FLA

Less Than Jake’s strongest album since “Hello Rockview”. The move to start their own independent record label has reinvigorated these guys. Energetic and positive ska-punk tunes, perfect for the summer holidays.

Highlights: Does The Lion City Still Roar?, The Space They Can’t Touch

1. The Gaslight Anthem – The  ‘59 Sound

It’s hard to ingnore these guys with all the hype that surrounds them. Their sophomore release proves that these guys are worthy of the hype. “59 Sound” will transport you back to a time of Miles Davis, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, all while still managing to sound fresh.

Highlights: Great Expectations, The Patient Ferris Wheel

I’m still putting together a list for my top 2008 anime, hopefully I’ll have that done soon.

It’s nice to see so many Americans realizing how important this election is and actually going out to vote. It’s important to get your voice heard and you can make a difference. Surely even the cynics can agree that Obama couldn’t possibly be worse than Mccain, so at least have the attitude of voting for who sucks the least. I sort of lost faith in American voters when Bush got re-elected, but I can say now that my faith in you guys has been restored.

I watched Obama’s victory speech live on TV today, and the man certainly knows how to make a brilliant speech. I actually cried, and I’m not even living in America.

Dude, that’s not what I meant at all. In any case I gave myself a bad name because I misinterpreted my own point, and got confused and acted like an idiot. Of course non-white people can be Oztaku if they’re Australian citizens, for example I extended the word to describe Blissmo from Yukan Blog, who is Asian by the way.

I’m not helping myself at all and I should probably make my article die in a fire. As if I haven’t got enough things to be depressed about.

- NewGeekPhilosopher on “What Is An Otaku?”

I don’t know whether I should be angry at you or not….
Which makes me angry!

Do I give a shit about you already having enough things to be depressed about? How am I supposed to know you have other shit going on? This is about your stupid article and nothing else. Don’t go looking for pity.

“Oh, Punktaku! Please don’t criticise me because I’ve got enough shit to be depressed about”

And you expect to hear – “Oh I’m so sorry, I never realised. How careless of me” well, don’t expect anything like that from me. Now I’m really pissed.

With my article I let you off nicely you weak, cowardly dog. Now let me go into detail. *ahem*

Oztaku is already a word coined by an Australian doujinshi magazine. These guys sponsor and appear at many Australian conventions, I’m surprised you haven’t heard of them. You claim to have coined a new term? Consult google next time you dumbass. You give Oztaku a bad name, they don’t sprout pretentious bullshit like you do.

You say that the word Otaku is negative? Go to hell. I find that very offensive. I like Otaku, and I consider myself a little bit of one myself. What’s wrong with the term Otaku? You say this about Oztaku “We need a liberating word that empowers us in following our hobby” Otaku is a word that is already used to empower people. You think people feel bad about themselves when they call themselves and their friends Otaku?

“An Anime fan who is Australian, often Anglo Saxon” wait, why do you mention this? Who cares? Oh well, I’m sure you just mentioned it in passing but “…lot more sense than calling white Anglo Saxon people who don’t see their hobby as counter-culture at all otaku”. What the hell?

“…is most likely an Oztaku, because they interact with established media networks to promote Anime and Manga actively.” So you think you’re better than us just because you promote Anime and Manga to the media? Just mentioning an anime to someone in passing or writing reviews on a blog counts as promotion as well, most people promote their hobby, you’re nothing special.

I’m too tired to continue with this. You’re a waste of my time and effort. I hope both you and your article die in a fire.

Advertisment: Hey kids! Want to appear in next week’s Comment of the Weak?

1. An Oztaku is someone from Australia who is a fan of anime and manga.
2. Oztaku don’t consider themselves complete losers like Otaku, because they aren’t obsessed and anti-social.
3. They believe that Otaku is a derogatory term and people may discriminate against them, despite the fact that we don’t get biased media attacks on Otaku in Australia, and your average Australian doesn’t even know of Otaku.
4. An Oztaku wouldn’t want to scare away his Anglo Saxon friends with some weird Japanese word, so they feel the need to add “oz” to the title so it doesn’t feel too multicultural and far away from home.
5. Race plays a big part in the Oztaku scene. Being an Anglo Saxon Australian automatically gives you credibility.
6. Oztaku don’t use their hobby as a counter-culture unlike Otaku who show their distaste for the system by consuming endless amounts of figures, games, DVD’s, plushies, manga and wallscrolls. Otaku also protest for the freedom to marry their favourite anime characters. Viva La Revolution!

NewGeekPhilosopher should reconsider his name. People discriminate against geeks all the time.

“I bet you spend hours of your time playing Dungeons and Dragons and reading fantasy novels you geek! You seriously need to get out more”

But do you really care what those morons think? Do you really?

I had a look in Planet 13, some new ‘punk’ chain store in the city. The moment I walked in everything looked clean cut and well organised. The place lacks any sort of character. There’s no local tour posters messily posted all over the walls, no graffiti and no crudely designed and half torn advertisements for wanted musicians. Over the speakers I don’t hear noisy hardcore punk music scaring away potential customers, but instead I hear some popular ’scene’ music.

I was happily browsing posters while trying to put up with the crappy music they were playing when an employee walks up to speak to me. She wants to know how my day had been, she asks the question through a fake smile. I’ve already found that there’s nothing I want from this store and I could very much just ignore her and leave. I foolishly decided to give her a chance and started a conversation with her. She’s impressed with my taste of music, but once she knows what I’m listening to she starts trying to sell me some band t-shirts she thinks I might like.

I was very clear when I told her I was just looking for posters, but she insisted she wasn’t trying to sell me anything. Instead it seems she just wanted to show me all the ‘awesome’ new designs they brought in. After trying to sell me some more bullshit, she rudely cuts off the conversation to piss off another customer. This shop assistant didn’t really want to know how I’ve been, what I listen to or where I hang out. She just wanted to sell me shit, and once she couldn’t convince me to buy anything, she wasn’t interested in talking anymore.

Punk shouldn’t be all about big business, endorsing products from evil faceless corporations and appearing in commercials. I always thought punk was supposed to be free from all this bullshit.

You can read the review here.

Reviews will always be on pages while you will be informed of updates via blog posts. All little thoughts on life, music and anime will be written in a casual manner on blog posts as well. I’m also considering doing music reviews and I recently bought my first model at Manifest, so I might start collecting models and do reviews and photo shoots. Manifest was terrible as I waited five hours in line on the Saturday, and you even had to line up to get into the theatre to see the cosplay competition. I bought a weekend pass and went to both days. Sunday sucked as well because I couldn’t get into the cosplay competition because they couldn’t let anymore people in. The organisation at Manifest was a complete mess, but the quality of cosplay was awesome and the Manifest crowd in general seemed like a cool bunch.

I also went to a gig at the Corner Hotel which I neglected to review some time ago. I saw Carpathian playing with some other hardcore bands. The bands were pretty good and the value for money was fantastic, $12 for four bands. It was certainly more crowded than I expected, Carpathian have surprisingly hit the big time, they even hit the Australian ARIA charts at #19! That’s insane for a hardcore band. One thing I couldn’t stand at the show was the hardcore dancing. Hardcore dancing for those unfamiliar with the scene, is where hardcore kids basically throw punches and kicks to the beat of the music. Supposedly you don’t hit people while hardcore dancing but that certainly wasn’t the case at this show. Kids kept hitting people like myself, standing on the edge of the pit trying to watch the bands! Do what you want inside the pit, but please, don’t involve other people trying to enjoy the show in their own way.

Hardcore Kids 'Fucking Shit Up'