I'd find political intrigue far more enjoyable to read about if it didn't end up affecting the wider world. As it happens, it does.

Thanks to the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme, the Liberal party (who, for you non-Australian leaders, used to be in power until 2007, and are now in Opposition) has basically imploded spectacularly thanks to the influence of the climate change sceptics. Until now, though, their leader (Malcolm Turnbull) has been aiming to get the ETS through.

Of course, the climate change dinosaurs in the party had to ruin it. Turnbull was not going to have the top job for much longer, especially considering how he screwed up months ago over an email which could have really screwed with the Government if IT WEREN'T FAKE, and today he lost the leadership to Tony "Captain Catholic" Abbott.

Abbott, by the way, is one of the climate change dinosaurs. He doesn't believe it exists, along with evolution and the rights of women to have an abortion (his attempt to ban an abortion drug only succeeded in turning every woman in Australia against him).

The ETS is basically doomed, but with it the Liberal party itself is also doomed to lose the next election (which I think is happening next year), as Abbott is basically like Sarah Palin with the right-wing factor turned up to 90001. He's got very limited appeal, given his history and personal beliefs, and it's likely that the climate change dinosaurs in the party will thrive under him, engineering another electoral defeat because the party will be controlled by those who fail to understand what the major issues are.

The tl;dr version of that was: Climate change sceptic controls Opposition party, ETS is fucked, Liberal Party doubly so.

And my DS Lite continues to disintegrate. A small bit broke off the left side of the bit between the two screens today. While alarming (why the hell is my DS falling to pieces what is this I don't even), at the very least I can jam it in the gap to prop up the top screen while playing.

I'm thinking that I'll save my Christmas money towards a new one. A nice new blue one (my present one is white). I don't expect them to be hard to find post-Christmas, as they came out years ago and most people would be flocking to the DSi in any case.

In other news, I fixed up my old Pokemon Silver cartridge with a new save battery. See, thanks to the in-game clock, the battery is drained faster than usual, so after about five or so years, it dies and prevents saving (and wipes any existing save file into the bargain). Of course, it is possible to unscrew it, dig out the old battery (it's a CR2025 round battery), and then insert a new one and tape it down. Now it saves again, and I'm having something of a massive wave of nostalgia, although I will admit the new games, what with the combat system, graphics, and music, have made me slightly more critical of the game than I otherwise would be, given that I'm a total fanatic for the 2nd generation. Thinking of this, I can't wait for the remakes.

In terms of the real world, still doing not much, getting some personal projects done, trying to find employment, basically nothing you'd really care to read about. Saw a film on Tuesday-Dinosaurs 3D. An otherwise average film aside from the fact that it focused quite a bit on the exact science of palaeontology, which was interesting, given my present aspiration.

So I was playing Fossil Fighters on my DS last night (it's a great game, by the way), and eventually decided to save and turn off. This I did, and then I closed the DS up...

SNAP!

And then the bit of the DS connecting the top screen to the bottom on the right fell off.

I suppose this was forewarned, in a way-a few days ago a tiny bit of the bottom of the top screen part snapped off. It didn't seem important, since it was a tiny part on the back, and its loss didn't visibly do anything.

But now there's this big chunk on the DS that's broken off. I've been keeping it in there, but the top screen doesn't stay still, and I have to prop it up.

I'm thinking that I'll spend my Christmas and birthday money on a new DS. Maybe a DSi, if they're cheap.

Ganked from shiome .

Step 1: Put your MP3 player or whatever music player you have on random.
Step 2: Post a line/stanza from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Bold the songs when someone guesses correctly. (No Cheating)

My iPod has a lot of instrumentals, so I'll skip those when they show up.
( I really wanted one of them to be the Pokemon theme, but oh well. )

FINISHED!

Ow, my hand. It hurts. Three essays in one exam, plus short answer and multiple choice, do that.

One...more...day. AND THEN FREEDOM.

FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM.

Because the Mesozoic era isn't a decade, I'd pick the 1960s, because I'm fascinated with the whole counter-culture movement. I'd want to return, though-so I can go back to the 1980s, buy G1 Transformers, then sell them on eBay in the present for lots of money.

I'm not sure I would bring anyone with me.

The HSC is going alright. I would like to discuss something more interesting, though, since absolutely nothing interesting has happened during the exam period besides a lack of stress.

So I'm watching episodes of Nostalgia Critic, and one of them is an old film called Warriors of Virtue, which, according to the critic, is far less interesting that its premise of martial-arts-kangaroos would make you think. Because I am a curious person, I went and looked it up on Wikipedia.

One interesting fact is that the guy who was Robert the Bruce in Braveheart was the villain-why he did this crap is beyond me. What is FAR more interesting, though, is that most the cast of Beast Wars were in the film, as voices. The list is quite extensive-Optimus Primal, Cheetor, Terrosaur, the McNeil gang (Dinobot, Waspinator, Silverbolt, and Rattrap), Blackarachnia, and Quickstrike could be said to be in this film in voice form.

Oh, and Unicron Trilogy Starscream is there too, but no one cares about that.

So, the HSC begins tomorrow. It's kind of weird, since everyone makes a big deal out of it, but I'm not really nervous.

I drew what I visualise this period to be.It might be challenging, it may be intimidating at times, but I'm going to get through the HSC and WIN.

Not much has been happening lately. I've been studying as much as I can (which is a lot), because if there's one thing I don't want to do, it's get a crap HSC mark, or at least an ATAR that isn't high enough to get me into uni.

I've been trying to get a job. Today I applied for Oportos (I am not prepared to sell my soul to McDonalds, though). Because I have a dumb email address, I made a sensible one (just my name) for work purposes.

Also, I finished my model army of Picts. Yes, I am geeky enough to be painting historical minatures for the purposes of wargames.

It's hard to describe a graduation day, particularly when it's high school you're graduating from. You're moving on with your life, away from the friends and people you've been seeing on an almost constant basis for years, particularly when they're not in your year. It's weird, since they're still there, but you can't really see them anymore.

I feel utterly drained.

Every year, there are the year 12 farewells. It's part of the rhythm of the school, so much so that our attitude towards this year's set was largely the same until we realised something.

They're farewelling US.

It's freaky-you don't expect to leave, but you do.

After some wild mass guessing along the lines of "IT'S THE APOCALYPSE!!1!", it turned out that it was a dust storm. Apparently, dust storms like this one haven't occurred in Sydney for 70 years.

At school, windows and doors were shut to keep the dust out. Even the air conditioning got turned off. Just as well, since it was getting a bit hard to breathe.

By the afternoon, the dust had blown away, and the skies were blue again.

And now, some appropriate music.


(nearly one week of school left holy shit)

So apparently some music from the upcoming live-action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender got leaked onto YouTube. It got pulled off soon after. However, this is the Internet, after all, and simply getting things off the internet is impossible (just ask Scientology). So, thanks to capslock_atla I currently have them.

There are four-Siege, Avatar Returns, Northern Water Tribe, and Fire Nation. I think Siege is the best out of them, mainly because it uses the TV series' theme. Fire Nation sounds threatening, as it should. Northern Water Tribe reminds me of the snow levels in Impossible Creatures. Avatar Returns is likely the weakest track for me. It just sounds a bit off for the moment I think it is going to be used for (Aang coming out of the iceberg). It feels too triumphant for it-at that stage, he was all like I AM MYSTERIOUS KID IN ICEBERG AND I GLOW AND FLY FEAR ME so I think the music should reflect that. Of course, it could be used for another part-there's one part in the third episode it would be very good for.

I'm still ambivalent about the film itself. M. Night Shlaymananabananarama (whatever) is directing, which will probably mean that the icebergs will try to destroy humanity or something.

My new course of action in regards to study (i.e. make more notes, practice essays, etc.) has had some strange outcomes.

Today I had a really awesome idea stemming from Modern History.

So it's April 1945, and American and Soviet forces are converging on Berlin. Nazi Germany is going down the toilet, basically. Hitler's in his bunker under the Reich chancellory, and he's all HELL NO. So he then gets into his GIANT MECHA which is like TEN STORIES HIGH and COVERED IN GUNS and then it bursts out of the ground and is like NEIN BITCH and then it starts owning the Allies. BUT THEN Churchill comes in with a squadron of fighters and bombers which COMBINE into A SUPER ROBOT and then he and Hitler go one-on-one for the fate of the world.

AND IT IS NARRATED BY STEPHEN FRY, WHICH IS AWESOME.

I had other ideas involving Mussolini in a giant transforming colosseum, but I realised that it would be historically inaccurate, because he wasn't in any position to be piloting a giant mecha at the time (being dead sucks like that).

At which point I kind of realised that study was getting to me.

Trial exams are OVER! HELL YEAH.

Now I just need to wait for the results. Might as well think about how I did.

English Advanced: Urgh. Well, I finished the paper at least. English is never my strong subject, despite trying hard. It just sucks. I think I did better in the Area of Study than I did in the Modules. The essays were tough-English is always good at giving out questions that are annoyingly ambiguous.

Modern History: It went well. I got to the first essay question and found that one of the options was what I'd been studying the previous day, so it was fresh in mind. I think I was a bit simplistic on the second essay, though.

Biology: I knew basically everything, but I got a curveball in a question about technology to measure blood oxygen levels. I drew a complete blank for it, so I made up some technology and hoped it was real (and the question was a four-mark one, too, so I better get SOMETHING). Everything else was good, though.

Visual Art: Like English, only more to my strength-I'm a very visual person, and I find it easier to analyse images than texts. I think I did well, despite being somewhat off on some of the questions.

Geography: The only essay that got corrections at the last minute, including new essay questions (the exam has three compulsory ones) that really weren't expected. I managed to do them at any rate, and write a fair bit as well. Mental note: write more practice essays.

History Extension: I reckon this was actually the easiest exam, since I had an entire weekend to revise for it and nothing else. I knew all I had to and them some, so the essays were easy to write (the exam is two essays back to back). I found the first question (on historions) a bit much, and so I did the second essay (on Tacitus) first. That warmed me up, and I did the first question easily.

So I have the night off now.

The HSC Trials are nearly over for me.

They are over for most of the class as of today, bar all those people who do Extension Maths and History (I do the latter).

So everyone's going YAY TRIALS ARE OVER and I'm standing in the corner going I HATE YOU ALL.

I will celebrate finally finishing the HSC Trials on Monday by going shopping. I found the fourth book in the Temeraire series (which is awesome and you should read it) at Dymocks, and I finally found Sideswipe at KMart. They're having a sale on TFs, so he's cheaper than usual. I want to preserve some money to get a nice deck box for my Magic cards, so that's good for me.

(Oh yeah, and it turned out all this feelings of getting out of TFs was due to the lack of figures that I had an interest in)

Waspinator likes fruit.

(Yes, I am studying for trials. I have to take breaks sometime.)

I went out to Broadway at lunch today, on my usual trip to KMart to see if there were any new toys.

Transformers, obviously, were the main target. I found some new ones-Grindor, Long Haul, Reverb, Wheelie-and loads and loads of old ones-Dirt Boss doesn't sell well, as do the Animated toys. Still no Sideswipe (not that I'm desperate for him). It's kind of annoying that I haven't seen Sideswipe (or Sideways) at all, despite other deluxes from the same wave, such as Breakaway (who doesn't appeal to me; I'm waiting for the Thrust repaint/remold of him). At the very least, this means I save money, which is something I'm trying to do.

I found some toys from the Dinosaur King anime. They were little static models of dinosaurs and the three protagonists. I like the DK dinosaur designs, but the little toys didn't really do them justice, IMO. Though I might get a pack with a Cacharadontosaurus in it-I don't have any models of that dinosaur yet.

Speaking of dinosaurs, there's apparently going to be a new Jurassic Park line out soon. It's entirely repaints of older figures, but it interests me since I didn't get them (the only JP toys I have are a T Rex model and the Eric/Alpha Pteranodon pack).

So I didn't buy anything there.

Lately, I've developed an interest in Magic: the Gathering. It's a rather neat card game. I got a starter pack a few weeks ago, but only this week I got to use it. I quickly found that artifacts and enchantments are very good at screwing me over, and I didn't have any cards that could deal with them. So after DnD club today I went off to a shop that sold cards individually for under a dollar each and got a bunch to help my artifact problems. Also, I got a creature card called Mosstodon. It's an elephant made of plants. I liked the name so much I just had to get it.

Also, HSC trials. I figured you people wouldn't really be interested in hearing about them, so I won't talk much. Suffice to say that I've been studying.

Boy Drinks Gasoline for Five Years to mimic Transformers

What. The. Hell.