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Kyü: the big questions

Kyü

Location: Clark Park, North Sydney. Photos here.

Players: Freya Elizabeth, Alyx Marwood, Les Croques Messieurs.

Score: Les Croques Messieurs: 24, Kyü: 14

Game Note: A demon of a pitch – complete with obstacles, low light and a 20° slant towards the harbour. Experience won out, but not without a respectable challenge.

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Kyü’s debut album is due out oh-so-soon, and while the indie-world salivates in waiting, we thought we’d assail them with the larger issues facing humanity. They were gracious enough to oblige. Check out their myspace for an album teaser.

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##LCM: In light of the continuing threat that North Korea poses to worldwide security, would you say in your opinion that South Korea is being foolhardy in pressuring its neighbours to financially sanction North Korea on account of their recent wayward naval aggression?

AM: Well I think Koreans are actually the nicest people in the world.

LCM: Nicely played madam.

AM: No actually! I’ve been to Seoul and people were so amazing. Although i also went to the demilitarised zone that borders North Korea. You can actually walk pretty close so you can see the North Korean guards on the other side waiting to shoot if anyone get too close.

LCM: How was the food in Seoul? We’ve heard mixed reports.

AM: Well I’m a vegetarian, so I couldn’t eat anything! It was like Kimchi for a week. Although it was funny because I got lost in these huge markets in Seoul and they were selling freeze dried lizards and stuff, and i was so hungry I almost caved to save my life. I’d eat meat to save my life for sure, but I don’t think humans are “meant” to eat it. So yeah i got beef with Sam Neil, mind the pun.

FE: Well I actually read the Spectacles interview on your blog, and they posed a funny question about vegetarians which maybe you can answer Al…

LCM: Ah yes! Is it hypocritical to eat animals, then to kick up a stink when aliens come down to eat us?

AM: Well funnily enough I was actually reading this Childrens Introduction to Philosophy book when i was at Parramatta library the other day. And there was this analogy for Vegetariansim. It was very simple but it was great! There was this guy on a desert island, and he only had one beef sandwich on him. It was all he had to eat so he was saving it. He bumped into this bunch of cannibals and they tied him up and were about to eat him. So he was all like “please don’t eat me”. And they were like “Why? Why shouldn’t we eat you”. And then he said like “I’m a living thing and i want to live!”. So they were like :”Oh, I suppose you have a pooooiint”. Anyway it was at this point that his beef sandwich fell out of his backpack and when they asked what it was he said it was a beef sandwich so the gig was up!

FE: Did they eat him?

AM: They did, because it was hypocritical! He can’t eat a living thing then claim that he shouldn’t be eaten.

FE: That’s a heavy children’s story! I’m still gonna eat meat though.

LCM: Well there’s a philosophical question then about where one stops classifying things as “living” for the purposes of vegetarianism.

AM: I think if it had a mother or a face.

LCM: Are animals then culpable for eating other animals? Like a cheetah? Can we turn the Children’s story on it’s head and take from it that it’s okay to eat other carnivores??

AM: Well cheetahs are actually BUILT for killing and eating meat, and I don’t think humans are. We dont have the right teeth…

FE: But we’re built to think, so that we can kill stuff.

AM: No we’re not, we’re just built to survive. And yeah like i said, I’d eat a cow if it meant death otherwise, but the fact is that there is so much to eat that isn’t a dead living thing!

LCM: So our brains give us choice.

AM: Exactly right.

FE: But what about how people become iron deficient if they don’t eat red meat?

AM: There’s plenty of iron and protein in veg. You just have to know what gives it to you.

FE: Well i’ve ALWAYS eaten meat and i think it’s healthy. I disagree. I think we’re built to eat meat.

LCM: Have you ever eaten meat Alyx?

AM: Never! I ate veal once by accident and it came back up. I eat cheese, but only without rennet.

LCM: Rennet?

AM: It’s the enzymes of the stomach lining of the cow basically. It’s funny though, i actually think that eating meat is less bizarre than drinking milk and cheese and stuff. It’s another animal’s sustenance prepared for it’s young!

FE: It is very strange to drink a cow’s milk

LCM: Good point!

The turf, while endearing, was not up to ICA standards.

##LCM: Considering the ever-increasing strain on public hospitals, do you consider the legalisation of euthanasia a slippery slope to unscrupulous health-care cost containment?

AM: I just read about some 80 year old woman who wanted to die, she was fully mentally capable just didn’t want to live anymore.

FE: It’s tough isn’t it! I think that it’s only the potential exploitation of it that makes it bad. If someone actually wants to die (with perfect mental faculties), why should they not be able to it the nicest way possible? What about people that are actually non-responsive and the family has the decision to turn off the machine..

LCM: Wait though, that’s not Euthanasia is it?

FE: Well from experience with a family member with dementia, I think that in circumstances where someone is just flat out suffering, surely the family should be able to ‘turn off the machine’ or so to speak. But yeah, this is all pretty agreeable in principle but it’s in the taking advantage of it that there’s problems I guess isn’t there.

Unorthodox in music, as in croquet.

##LCM: Okay then, a related question – At what point during foetal development, would you say that a person should gain the legal status of a human being?

AM: Well my friend’s having a baby, and at ten weeks into her pregnancy, she went and got an ultrasound. The baby was fully formed and had a heartbeat. Ten weeks!! It’s scary. I’m pro-choice, but it’s a HUUGE question isn’t it.

FE: I can see myself as a foetus wanting to be alive, and also as a pregnant teenager who really can’t afford to nurture a baby and bring it up properly. I think anyone who thinks they have a definite answer to this is kidding themselves.

AM: My mumma was quite young when she had my brother, and i can’t imagine a life without my brother in it!

FE: Ah, but can you imagine having had a baby when you were three years younger than you are now?

AM: Well, if it were to bring my brother into the world, in a really weird non-freudian way, then yes.

LCM: Ha, so maybe your not pro-choice, but you’re definitely pro-‘having your siblings’.

AM: Haha, exaclty. Sibling surrogacy.

_

##LCM: What are the three biggest problems currently facing humanity??

FE: Did you just ask that?

LCM: Yup. It’s out there.

AM: Ummm… Cats. I hate cats.

FE: Hey!

AM: Except for Carly and Pussywillow….

FE: My Carly is amazing! But cats??? Really?

AM: Okay, okay… how about U2.

LCM: Absolutely! This was meant to be an open question, but that is
definitely a correct answer.

AM: I was about to say Lady Gaga but I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side.

FE: I actually don’t even know any of her songs but did you hear what Joanna Newsom said about her??

AM: Yeah that was awesome. Apparently she got drunk and did an interview and said that Lady Gaga and Madonna were arseholes. Or dumbasses or something. She even did a follow-up apology email where she said she shouldn’t have called her a dumbass, but she’s just completely untalented.

Scarves: mandatory if colour appropriate

FE: Haha, yeah it was completely un-apologetic. What about people thinking that global warming is a hoax.

AM: My sister does environmental science and genetics, and she has this guy doing a Masters in her faculty who was a disbeliever. This is a qualified scientist who is going to shape the future of science and doesn’t believe in it. You guys believe in global warming yeah??

LCM: Well, at the risk of alienating our not-insignificant “Global Warming Skeptic” demographic… I think it’s safe to say we are Pro-Global Warming.

FE: Hah, pro-global warming hey?

LCM: Haha… Aah yes. We think the Earth could do with a couple of extra degrees.

FE: Ooooh, oooh…. is it too late to say mosquitos. They are the worst thing ever.

AM: Agreed!

FE: So that’s our answer…mosquitos, U2 and global warming deniers.

Wim: taking off

Wim

Location: Rushcutters Bay Park, 11am Saturday. More photos from the day here.

Players: Martin Solomon, Simon Jankleson, Dustin Bookatz, Saul Wodak, Les Croques Messieurs.

Score: Les Croques Messieurs: 24, Wim: 10

Game Note: Wim’s breathtaking run through the first three gates had us concerned that we were about to get hustled. Bold play from the guests, which was ultimately unsustainable.

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Wim are currently playing a huge 6 week residency at the Kings Cross Hotel. Check their myspace for details.

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LCM: So you’ve just returned from recording your debut LP in Los Angeles… it must have been exciting all jumping on a plane together.

DB: Well funny story – we actually had to split up. Saul, Harry and I were on the same flight but Marty and Simon were on some Delta flight.

MS: Harry actually has a huge fear of flying.

SW: Ha, yeah that’s the reason we actually had to split up. The Delta tickets were like 400 dollars cheaper but Harry didn’t want to fly with them because he was scared it would go down. He had to get premium economy on Qantas.

LCM: I’m pretty sure i heard that Delta’s motto is “We’re cheaper coz we skimp on maintenance”.

SJ: Well you laugh, but there’s a bit of a stigma about not flying Qantas! They’ve obviously seeped into our subconscious with their safety record.

Nothing if not dapper.

LCM: What’s on your iPod flight mix?

SJ: It’s funny you’re asking us all these plane questions, because we genuinely try not to do anything on flights. I think we were all completely inebriated. The idea was to just take a bunch of sleeping pills and wake up in a different country.

DB: They should make a service for people who hate flying, where you take heavy sleeping pills the night before your flight. You give the people the keys to your front door, they come into your place at night, they take you to the airport, put you on a plane, you get to the other side, some other people take you from the plane, put you in a hotel room and you wake up in another country. People would pay for that!

SW: That would be an amazing service.

LCM: Well that incidentally answers our next question which is…

SW: … are we addicted to Sleeping pills??

LCM: Hah, that’s right we ask everybody that question. No we were going to ask about how you deal with a long flight… but how about this question then wiseguys: Have you ever ‘relieved’ yourself in the bathroom on a long flight?

SJ: Not personally, but with the whole “mile high” thing, I reckon it’s something about the altitude that makes everybody horny.

DB: Yeah, well it could be that whole self-asphyxiation thing. Like the higher the altitude, the less oxygen and thus the more powerful the experience.

SJ: There’s just something about being high in the sky with these air-hostesses that you can look at but not touch…. There’s definitely a porn element to flights.

SW: Hah! Well Harry’s always got his eye on the hostesses… though it’s purely to be reassured by their facial expressions. So long as they’re looking calm, then the plane’s not about to plunge into the Pacific.

Congested at the '5th'.

DB: Well interestingly enough when I was flying next to Harry, he basically needs to chat to anyone he can to avoid thinking about the flight… so he started talking to this hostess. Anyway, long story short, he mentions how he’s scared of flying and she launches into this horror story about how a few months earlier, the plane she was on dropped like a thousand feet mid-flight. And she banged her coxyx or something and it half-paralysed her, requiring weeks of rehabilitation. And she had tunnel vision and this whole fucking completely dramatic thing! And then she said “well at the end of the day i just think that’s it’s God’s will. If it’s your time it’s your time!”. Who says that to someone who’s scared of flying?? Harry was freaking out the whole flight!

LCM: Have you ever been on a flight and lost your daughter, and you were told by the flight crew that she was dead, but it turns out she wasn’t dead and it was just some big conspiracy like that movie Flight Plan with Jodie Foster?

Captain Caveman: a Wim fan.

SW: Haha, yes. Infact twice. They’ve been skimping on family security too on Delta. They didn’t let my  kids on Business Class.

DB: Well they shouldn’t let kids on Business anyway. I’m pretty sure kids can’t register a company –  so if kids cant legally DO business, they shouldn’t be allowed ON business.

SW: They should be resigned to cages in the carriage hold. Like dogs.

DB: Absolutely! But I actually heard a story about someone’s little poodle that was put on a plane in a cage next to rabid German Shepherd. The big one just barked at it throughout the whole flight and it ended up crapping itself by the end of the flight. No In-Dog Entertainment is gonna turn that around.

Passer by: Not even a shmacko’s ad on repeat. Hey, what are you guys playing?

SW: I dunno mate, but whatever it is we’re doing it badly.

The Bakery: share recipes (but actually).

The Bakery

Location: Sydney Park, St Peters, 1pm Sunday.

Players: Emily Collins, Samantha Paver, Ruth Wells, David Sattout, Jesse Ricketson, Les Croques Messieurs.

Score: Les Croque Messieurs: 24, The Bakery: 15

Game Note: The first turn of the game was the Bakery’s best: David coolly slotting the first gate. It was downhill from there. Click here for photos.

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The Bakery are launching their single “Giving Your Love Away” at the Mac on the 7th May (free entry o’course). Check the Bakery’s website for all musical info. We just wanted recipes. Both come care of Emily Collins.

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poseidon: had skills

Brownies of Glory (not for the faint hearted)
3/4 Cup butter
140gr unsweetened chocolate
2 cups of caster sugar
1 tablespoon coffee powder

1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon of salt
4 large eggs
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate
1 cup flour
3/4 cup pecans toasted and chopped

This recipe is pretty damn easy. Just do it like this and it’ll be awesome:

Melt the butter and chocolate over hot water.
Remove from heat and whisk in sugar, coffee, vanilla and salt. Add eggs one at a time. Stir in flour then nuts. Chuck it in a pan and cook it.
Bake for about 20-30 mins in 170 degree C oven or to suit your tastes…. the less time, it’s kinda more like fudge…cook it a bit longer and it gets a bit more cakey/chewy.

easy pickings for the pants-less fish consul

Cinnamon and Walnut Syrup Cake:

(Think special afternoon tea with Nanna)

Cake:
3 eggs
3/4 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup self raising flour
3 teaspoons cinnamon
185 gr butter melted
3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Syrup:
1 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup water

Ok so beat eggs and gradually add the sugar til it’s dissolved. Beat in flour, cinnamon, butter. Stir in walnuts. Bake in mod oven (180) for about 30 min.
Syrup: Combine sugar and water, dissolve over heat. Bring to the boil, but turn it down straight away – simmer for 5 minutes.
Pour hot syrup over hot cake and let sit for a little bit. Don’t use all the syrup if it’s looking too wet….you don’t want to drown the cake, just soak it through.

The Bakery: now tendering offers from Derwent

Spectacles: tech-heads.

Location: Centennial Park, 11am Sunday. It was a cracker of an autumn morning as the photos will attest. Click here for more.

Players: Dave Carter, Hamish Brown, Jeremy Giacomini, Les Croques Messieurs.

Score: Les Croques Messieurs: 24,  Spectacles: 17.

Game note: A respectable showing, but ultimately the game was lost early. Download Spectacles’ new EP. Or check their website.

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“If you’re not a vegetarian, and you have a problem with the DOOM aliens coming down to eat us, then you’re a bit of a hypocrite no?”

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_LCM: So are you guys actually into computers?

DC: To varying degrees I think we all are. Whether you’re using them at work, using them socially or using them to make music. They’re just necessary. Some would say a necessary evil.

JG: We’ve become so reliant on computers, it’s not even funny. We get all trained up just to sit down for 10 hours a day in front of a computer, and I reckon Devo had it right – we’re de-evolving – we’ve got to the point where computers are taking over so now we’ve got to train ourselves to do less and less. We’re just gonna get weaker while computers are getting stronger.

HB: It’s also representative of a disconnection from nature. The fear is that if we get too stuck into technology we’ll forget that we like green things and trees.

LCM: …and croquet.

HB: And croquet of course.

DC: Yup, that’s why there’s no croquet on Wii or Xbox. Can’t be replicated. Look I think computers are like any other tool or tech, they’re neither good nor bad, it just depends whether you use them for good or for evil. They can be the cause of massive connection with people, they can also be a source of nerdifying isolation depending on how they’re used. They can take over your life if you’re not careful.

LCM: …or offer you a second one in some cases too! Have you ever given Second Life a whirl?

DC: Believe it or not I actually wrote a paper on Second Life. I had to develop a character and go into the world for an essay I was doing for a subject at university. I ended up going completely crazy in there. It’s a pretty strange place second life. All kinds of weird stuff, people stealing things, people paying real money for things.

...strategising

LCM: What’s your favourite FPS?

DC: I used to be a huge addict of Counterstrike and Team Fortress Classic and lots of other online shooters too. LAN Parties was another big thing for me. Hosted them, held them, longed for them. They’re no longer I guess au fait socially, which is a shame coz there’s nothing better than fragging someone who’s in the same room. You gotta be able to go “booyah, I got ya good”. There was also Duke Nukem, Wolfenstein and Doom if we go back some years

HB: Fuck I was playing Doom literally the other day. Doom ’95 man, took me right back to year 9. Just walk around and shoot up all the naked monster dudes. They all die the same way. The CGI is really lame but it’s the most fun first player ever. I was totally into the BFG, but the plasma cannon was also pretty wicked.

LCM:  Did you use the cheats?

HB: See I didn’t know the cheats. Nah, I was all man. Cheats are for hacks. [laughs]

DC: IDCLIP let you walk through walls, and the secret’s got unlocked by the tilda button. IDDQD was god mode I think.

HB: Shit i’m writing this down. iddqd you said? … um, don’t worry I’m not using it for Doom.

LCM: Haha, yeah “Doom i play legit. Wolfenstein I cheat like an asshole”.

DC: Well, that makes sense doesn’t it? It’s okay if you cheat against the Nazis, but there’s rules of engagement against aliens from space. Also, if you’re not a vegetarian, and you have a problem with aliens coming down to eat us, then you’re a bit of a hypocrite no?

LCM: That’s a very good point.

DC: Yeah, like if you enjoy eating bacon, and you take issue with a superior race that doesn’t consider human beings conscious entities… then you’ve pretty much got it coming.

longing for the end peg

LCM: Do you remember any Dos games?

DC: Commander Keen man! The most difficult thing was trying to explain to friends with consoles how difficult it was to start a Dos game. You have to put the disk in, but that’s just the start of it. Then there’s the command prompt… Then there’s like CD caddies. We had them at our primary school. They were meant to protect the surface of the Disc or something. We also had the World Book at school. It was a competitor, halfway between Encarta and Britannica.

LCM: Did you have the World Almanac you needed to play Carmen Sandiago??

DC: Oh yeah, you needed a code from that to get in to the legit version. Like you had to go 25 words down page 170 or something. In fact, that is exactly why digital rights management doesn’t work. They need to go back to book based copy security. When you open your Eminem CD you should need to refer to the World Almanac to play it.

LCM: So what programs do you use to make music?

DC: So our most recent EP and first EP was done on Logic. But a bit was done on Protools by our producer Adrian. A lot of is was actually done the old fashioned way. We laid down drums in a studio then did the rest in our bedrooms and various little other spaces. So pretty lo-tech.

HB: Garage band is always good for little practice tracks.

LCM: It’s so easy to make music these days isn’t it?

DC: Yeah, but because there’s so much out there, it’s really forced bands to try to think about how to sound different to other people. And everyone has the same equipment and capabilities. It’s all about how you use the technology and sound different. I suppose the programs we use are separate to the other tech we use – loopers, samplers, synths and stuff. Our approach is trying to figure out how to use each in a way that other people haven’t used before. We routinely have experimental sessions where we just play with different sounds.

"well, my father was an equities trader, and my mother was a 486"

LCM: Photoshop vs Paint?

DC: Depends on the task

HB: I’ve always enjoyed Paint.

DC: We’ve been experimenting with some animation stuff, on paint. I actually have a tablet laptop that I use for work, and just firing up paint to do some random animation in sequence and hitting “save as” is about as technical as we get. It’s certainly a lot of fun to experiment with that. And there are things that Paint can do that Photoshop can’t – like pixellate the crap out of something.

a croque monsieur has eyes only for the prize

LCM: What’s the most heinous virus you’ve ever received?

HB: [in computer voice] I once had a trojan virus lodged in the lower part of my cerebral cortex. It caused me to do some erratic things. My behaviour was quite frowned upon.

JG: I got one on my computer that keeps coming up called “back door”.

DC: [laughs] One time a mate sent me a text file over ICQ that said ‘this is a virus, your computer is now under our control”. But he’d just written it in notepad.

LCM: …ICQ was awesome

DC: yeah, but it eventually became “bloatware” as I believe it’s known. It started off as a file share then it wanted you to play poker on it, it could do a million things except message. Then they added all the ads everywhere. Ahhhh dear.

Annie (Dave’s girlfriend): How do you guys file your PRON?

DC: ….um, so that’s the end of the interview yeah?

gentlemen even in defeat