Here’s some stuff that I figured out this week, during working/a bucks night/a day in Brisbane/my mate’s wedding/the channel [v] conference.. I want to share it with you. Take what you will.

1: The world is a better place. PRINCE is touring again!!! I am going to go to every show that I can. I have seen thousands of gigs through the years, and this hands down, was the greatest show I ever, ever saw. Get tickets. Do it.

2: When at a bucks night, and you and your mates all end up at the club where the girls take their clothes off for cash, remember this: No matter what they are or are not wearing, no matter what kind of eyes they may make at you, no matter how hot they are, no matter how much money you have paid for ‘private’ time with a dancer, never forget that each one of them is someone’s daughter/sister/girlfriend/best friend. Show some respect..

3: I caught the biggest wave of my life while away on conference (two feet and I kooked it all the way in to the shore, but it was the biggest that I have ever done). It was with a bunch of mates form work and a supreme guy who is a paid free surfer, Dave Rastovich (paid not to compete, but just to go around the world and surf. That’s it.. cool job innit?). Doing stuff alone is cool, but sharing a moment like that with friends is unbeatable.

4: I love the Valley in Brisbane. I remember now why I lived in the thick of it, it’s the best. Great food, music, cute girls and great fun. Oh and everybody knows everybody. But the 7-11 sucks where Che’s cafe used to be.

5: Driving while tired is just stupid. You’ll kill yourself, your friends and the people on the other side of the road. Pull over, have a power nap. Throwing caffine at it won’t help. Your body will sleep if it wants to, you have no option. Get out of the car, have a stretch, drink water, jog up the road and back a bit..or better still nap. Get there late. Don’t get dead.

6: If you live in the city, get out of town for a day or two. The horizon is a very refreshing thing to see when you haven’t caught it for a while. refreshing thing to see when you haven’t caught it for a while.

What’s being flogged on Andrew’s overflowing iPod this week..

:: Curtis Mayfield: the Great – Frontin’ from Pharrell and Jay-Z is the greatest. Find out why Pharrell is always singing in falsetto. Curtis is the original Superfly guy.

:: Jet’s new album – So they sound like the easybeats. Do I care? No. They rock. buy it and learn the songs (it’s all just a few chords, you can do it!)

 :: G’n'R- Lies – After releasing possibly the toughest debut album of all time, smacked out, drug fried booze filled Gunsnfugginroses pump out an EP full of B-side acoustic beauty. They defined a genre with ‘Patience’, sensetive rocker sings power ballad about hot chick. Yay.

:: Yngwie j Malmsteen’s Rising Force: Marching Out:So, now you own the Darkness record, know why it’s just so good. ‘I am a viking’ is the greatest power metal song ever. Jeff Scott Soto is THE greatest rock singer of all time – Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!!!

Instead of things I learned this week, here’s some things to try over the next seven days. email me and tell me how you go.

1: Try and eat Vegan food for a week, or even a day. Thai, Chinese, Yummy bean burritos, the world is your soy bean. Soy Milk, beans and fruit and nuts, loads of yummy vegies. go here for help. Do it just to say you did it, then eat meat again next week.

2: Find twenty minutes before the sun goes down. Put on your sneakers. Get out of your front door (this is the hardest part). Pick any direction you want, face it and run that way for three minutes. If you have to, stop running and keep walking in the same direction for seven minutes, then turn around and walk home for ten minutes. Stretch. Do the same thing tomorrow, but make it four minutes run, six minutes walk then turn around and walk home for ten minutes. Run one minute more every day, six days a week until you can do twenty minutes running non-stop and then do twenty one, twenty two etc. Woo! You now excersise every day, you fit bloody thing you. (You can’t tell me that you don’t have twenty minutes, and everyone can start with running for just three minutes, even if you run super slow and it nearly kills you. Do it today, and tomorrow, and then within a week you’ll feel a million bucks.)

3: Write a song. It’s easy. You only need three chords, shit you don’t even need chords. Open your mouth and sing/rap anything. Write it down. It doesn’t have to rhyme with anything, or be about anything, and can be as lame as you like. If you need help start like this: Verse/Chorus/Verse/Bridge/Chorus repeat to fade. Woo. You are now a songwriter. It’s not hard. Remember, the Rolling Stones wrote ‘Satisfaction’ sitting by a pool in less then fifteen minutes.

4: Find a new favourite band this week. Log on to NME.com or something and read the album reviews. Find something that appeals to your taste from a band that you’ve never heard before. Go and buy it. Listening to new music keeps you alive. Relying on the same albums your whole life will turn you into a wrinkled pruney cranky pants. Nag your friends non-stop about your new favourite band this week.

5: Write a letter. Yes a letter. Not an email, you know those things that used to come in envelopes back in the day? Grab a piece of paper, write something on it and shove it in an envelope, then lick a stamp (you can buy them from the post office) and send a letter. Send it across the street to your mate, across town to your Grandparents, or across the world to your mates. Shit, even send one to me if you have no one else to write to., Andrew G – C/o Channel [v] GPO Box 5002 Sydney NSW 1044. Put a photo in the letter, and a dried Eucalyptus leaf or something from your garden. Make it at least a few pages long, and doodle on the envelope for something to make the postie smile. One written letter in your own writing, is worth fifty emails.

6: Have the balls (or ovaries) to walk up to someone, smile and say – ‘Hello, how are you? I think you’re cute. What are you doing later? Can we talk? (or something to that effect) They may say NO, but if they do, then you’re in the same place that you were in if you didn’t ask them in the first place. Go on, be brave.

7: Finally, click here and feel better about yourself..

What’s being flogged on Andrew’s overflowing iPod this week..

:: Good Buddah: Naturalogical – They’re the guys rapping on the Resin Dogs single. Woo yeah. Aussie Frikkin hip hop

 :: The Atomic Bitchwax II – So I bought both albums at the same time, but it took me this long to get around to the second one. Ed from Monster Magnet’s side band. Fat riffs that’ll make you want to own a V8…

:: Digital Underground : Sex Packets(still) – Shock-G and the boys have hip hop sex with Donna Summer’s ‘Love to Love you’ on ‘Freaks of the Industry’… That song could be about a few people that I know.

:: The Darkness: Permission to Land:(Still still!) Whipped out my Les Paul and tried to learn some of these riffs this week. I’m shit at playing guitar but these guys aren’t. I even put on my PVC pants from the band days to get in the mood.

The last seven days have been interesting, but they have taught me this…

1: Adventures rule. Making life and adventure is the key to getting through it..

2: When in Adelaide, go buy records at Big Star records, much fodder for your hungry iPod, then go next door and eat Yummy vegan food at the little basement veg cafe. Yum yum yum.

3: If you’re a bouncer and trying not to let me come into your Vodka Bar in Adelaide, don’t say ‘no mate too casual’ then in response to my very polite inquiry as to what part of my attire I could nip back to the hotel and change so I won’t bust your dress code, rudley give me the once over and say ‘sneakers mate, your f##king SNEAKERS!’, just as three people walk out and you let six people in all wearing said kind of footwear. I know that you’re doing your job, but the standard ‘members night’ would have sent me on my way. Thanks for making an exception and letting me in anyway mate. I had a brilliant time, if you’re in Adelaide, hit the Vodka Bar – killer tunes, cute people and yes VODKA. Woo what a combination!

4: There’s notihng quite as special than being at your cousins Lithuanian wedding at Eagle on the hill in Adelaide and seeing nothing to eat on the menu, then having a quiet word with the waiter guy, and within ten minutes, a three course vegan special has been whipped up for you. Awesome. It’s all about food for me isn’t it?

5: Your relatives all stay the same. I haven’t seen my cousin Gintaras for sixteen years, but he’s exactly the same. Older, fatter, sexier and now father of three, but he’s the same guy I knew when he was ninteen and I was thirteen. I also found out that he had a hand in making the big poo pipe that carries my poo and wee away from Bondi out into the sea. Thanks Gint. I have clean, poo free waves to play in because of you. Now he builds tanks. cool!

6: My Mum was a size 22 a year ago, and now is a size 14. She looks a million bucks. I caught up on a year’s worth of hugs in one day. Mum hugs still fix everything y’know.

7: Download some tab right now and learn that song you’re digging on [v]. Go on, it’ll take you five minutes. Worth it – chicks love blokes who play guitar. Look at John Mayer! Crikey.

8: I’m going to put this here again.. If you’re feeling down about your body image because every time that you open a magazine you see a human body that seems too good to be true? Click here and feel better about yourself..

What’s being flogged on Andrew’s overflowing iPod this week..

:: The Neptunes Presents: Clones So Chad pulled out of coming on our show. So what, Frontin’ still is set to launch Pharrell as the next Marvin Gaye. If you haven’t got any Marvin Gaye yet – crikey GET SOME! !

 :: Queens of the Stone Age: Queens of the Stone Age- Post Kyuss awesomeness. Middle of the desert on too many drugs and no water? Sounds a bit like this I’m sure. Dirtier and nastier then Rated R or Songs for the Deaf..

:: Digital Underground : Sex Packets – “I’m a freak, I like the girls with the Boom, I once got busy in a Burger King Bathroom” The band that brought 2pac to your attention, a classic piece of Pfunk reworking in a sexed up hip hop adventure. ‘Freaks of the Industry’ could be about a few people that I know….

:: The Darkness: Permission to Land: Just went number one in the UK… Buy it ok! Get your hands off of my woman is the song of the year next to Gay Bar…Falsetto in Lycra always sounded great and here’s why..

1: When I’m driving around in my car listening to my iPod really, really loud I like to think that I’m giving the people around me in traffic and on the pavement a little joy in their day by hearing some good music. All I am really giving them however is the shits, at this pony boy with the bad hair driving by them with loud, wierd music blaring out of his poncy, poser car…

2: When out drinking with giant football guys who are up for a good time, be aware of how drunk they are. The more beers they consume, the less they think about pulling their ‘good to see you!’ punches on the arm. I still have purple arms from Sunday night. ouch – i am such a wuss.

3: Manners are the most valuable thing that you can ever own. They cost nothing, and yet will open more doors for you (pardon the pun) than anything else.

4: The Sneaky Sound System throw the best parties ever. Wall to wall with hot guys and girls and great music to dance to. Woo. I always love to boogie to those boys!

5: Girls who know what they want and aren’t afraid to ask for it are so much more fun that those who think you know what they want and spend all their time pissed off at you because you won’t give them what they want even though you don’t know what it is. You end up having a much better time, wasting less time and always doing the right thing, because you know what it is, because she’s told you.. do you get it?

6: If you didn’t do this last week, call your Mum now and thank her for putting up with all of your bullshit over the years, thank her for lending you all those dollars, cleaning up your baby poo, mopping up your vomit, putting food in your mouth and basically making you who you are. She deserves it, and call your Dad too. If you don’t belive me, wait a few years, then do it. They’re the only reason you’re alive. You may not always agree with tthem, but respect them.

7: Working up the guts to ask the cute girl next to you at the Salmonella Dub show if she wants to dance with you for the last few songs is so worth it. Yay. Her name was Kylie. Woo! It was only for about twenty minutes, but was brilliant, then we parted ways…

8: If you’re feeling down about your body image because every time that you open a magazine you see a human body that seems too good to be true? Click here and feel better about yourself..

What’s on Andrew’s iPod this week..

:: The Neptunes Presents: Clones jeepers. My favourite band in the universe pops out a fresh one. Killer!

:: Salmonella Dub : One Drop East – New Zealand have some of the best bands ever. These guys are no exception – Reggae/Drum and Bass/Dub Brilliance. Great live show too!

:: Early 80′s oz rock – I found a stash in a book shop the other day – INXS first three albums, DiVinyls, Men at Work, Cold Chisel, Jo Jo Zep, brilliant stuff..

:: The Darkness – Just won two Kerrang! Awards (the rock grammy) It’s the business. Great bloody band. Buy it ok! Get your hands off of my woman is the song of the year next to Gay Bar.