About Me

Midgets in striped trousers get me hot and randy.

So who am I?
Michael, Mikey, Mick, depends who you are and what you prefer to call me I guess?

You can call me Susan if it makes you happy

Typically it’s Michael to family and professionals, Mikey to most of my friends, Mick to everyone at work.
Slot yourself in there somewhere and pick one.

What do I like to do? Well I think I could like anything. I just have a natural interest in anything and everything. Except pokies, can’t work out for the life of me the attraction to those things.
I would say though, I love music. More on that later. I love movies. More on that later also. I love cooking, my favourite being Mauritian cuisine, which is where my mum and family come from. Unfortunately was a little immature and a bit of a self involved teen to have spent enough time for my grand mother before her passing to learn from her. I did however find a lady online who is a family friend of my mum’s godfather and is a renowned Mauritian cook in Australia apparently. Happy to cook for you if you feel like coming around for food, booze and hammocking
I love my hammock. It’s like the below picture, minus the wanky people.

It is the ultimate hangover/recovery getaway. Nothing like the morning sun slowly creeping over the roof’s peak with you headphones on drinking coffee in your hammock.
I love gardening. Don’t know why, maybe again from my Nana who had beautiful garden. I always remember the side garden, with the big nectarine tree providing what seemed like when my sister and I were young, a miniature hidden forest. I remember the chilli plants in the lounge room window, the cacti amongst the red volcanic rocks in the front yard, that big tree in the backyard which we said had “itchy bombs”. Still have no idea what that tree was but I remember every time we mowed the lawn, I would get all crazy itchy as they got pulverised by Mr Mower. My current clan of plants is somewhat small, partially due to renting and only having a courtyard, are Acer palmatum ‘Dissectum Seiryu’, Acer Palmatum “Sango Kaku” or Coral Bark Maple, a habanero chilli, strawberry plant, kangaroo paw, indian bamboo, and a really old cactus from my Nana’s garden before the house was sold. It was being ignored at my dad’s house so I took it. It even flowered this beautiful yellow flower and then the massive storm that hit Melbourne in 2010 smashed it along with all three of my 5ft tomato plants before they ripened. So dirty on that one.
I love making stuff. Wood working, metal working, machining, electronics, engineering disciplines of all types but my main love of these is electronics which I am (still) completing a degree at RMIT University for. My current job I do a lot of mechanical design though which I also love.
I love RC cars, call me childish but it’s awesome fun. I love having something to tinker with.
I love drinking, haha, and I am aiming to be able to distill vodka sometime within 12 months from now with the ultimate goal of making my own gin. I LOVE gin. Was kind of a real wanky story of how I got into it too. I tried gin because of the Snoo Dogg son, Gin and Juice. Well gin and juice isn’t all that good. Maybe I didn’t know what juice to actually et but I tried a few. Wasn’t impressed. Somehow I stumbled upon gin and tonic somewhere. I wasn’t hooked at first. I just fond it refreshing. Some years later I had it again, then discovered that Bombay Sapphire is fantastic. I actually bought it because of the bottle to be honest. While listening to Amy Winehouse (who I love, musically), I heard her mention Tanqueray. I looked it up, found out it was gin, bought some and loved it! I love putting the bottle in the freezer until it’s as thick as runny cream, glass filled with ice, pour gin to half way up the glass, top with tonic and about 5 slices of lime.
I love music as I mentioned earlier, and because of that and because of my love of electronics, I love hi-fi equipment. I love all those silly high end units worth bucketloads but I much prefer all the wonderful creations people make themselves. I will post more about this in my blog as I (finally) complete projects.

More on the music front. Well this is a big one, wide and varied. Grew up on rock and heavy metal thanks to mum. All the big 60′s and 70′s bands, Led Zepplin, Deep Purple, Dio, Buffalo, but most notably, Black Sabbath. From there, my mum’s taste continued to lead me. Pantera, Sepultura, Deicide, Slayer, Testament, Fear Factory, Faith No More, Metallica (And Justice For All and prior). The list cold go on and on and on.
About 1998, or when I was 16, I started listening to electronic music. Much to my embarrassment now, usually where no one would find out because “I liked metal and that’s that”. It first started out with Reactivate 10, a double mix CD of progressive and hard trance. Somehow I ended up with a copy of this from my uncle, who was really starting to get into electronic music himself. I still never listened to it though. I however ended up with a copy, on tape (metal of course!!!), of Crystal Method’s Vegas. This album changed everything for me and to this day, brings waves of emotion of every type, loads of memories and evokes feelings I fail to describe in words. I mostly remember the fishing trips, sitting on the side of a river, freezing cold, rugged up, pitch black, with my Phillips earbuds and my walkman. Don’t even remember the brand of that thing. It was on constant rotation and track 10 was cut short. I only ever heard it when I bought the album eventually. My music tastes up until this point was what is called Nu Metal now, such as Korn, early Limp Bizkit (love the 3 Dollar Bill Y’all album), Deftones etc and also metal, Strapping Young Lad, Fear Factory, Soulfly, Damaged (absolute ripper of a Melbourne metal band who are no longer, seen them live backing up Fear Factory. Tore up the place like I have never seen). Oh and there is Mudvayne, love LD50 album. Not so much their other stuff. Now, it’s really the more brutal the better. Later tastes include Meshuggah, in fact that’s about it since I have drifted out of the metal scene. Not because I don’t like metal, just finding it hard to find more stuff that I do like. Anyway, so Crystal Method opened this whole new world of music, noises, beats, rhythms, song structures and stuff that I had never heard before. From here I started getting into psy and goa trance. Really deep dark stuff. Something you would enjoy while sitting in a dark, moody lit room, puffing big plooms of smoke into the air, eyes struggling to make focus of the intricate wall papers or the delicate chandelier. I have been there before and am trying to describe that exact room. Don’t even remember where it was to be honest. City somewhere, more than definitely no longer there or replaced by another electro or house club playing shit for the masses. Now don’t get me wrong, I have no gripes with commercial music and it has its place. Still shits me to tears and I really struggle to find much of it that I like. I try not to be a music snob and I don’t think I am because I don’t let commercial success get in the way of what I like or do not. Statistics say otherwise however. Meh. Just to prove myself innocent, I like J-Lo – Get Right. Can’t explain that one. I like her singing on the chorus for some reason. Strikes a nerve.
Anyway, so psy and goa led to investigating the Reactive 10 CD again. Wow! I bought Reactivate 13, which was the latest by that time and that has one of my all time favourites. Olmec Heads – Liftoff. The John ’00′ Fleming remix is also fantastic but the original is by far the greatest. I remember falling asleep in front of the PA speakers that I borrowed from school for a party while very drunk listening to that song. I also remember getting a little over emotional at my 18th birthday listening to that song, but in a really happy way. I also remember hugging Dayna and tackling her to my bed in front of her boyfriend. (Miss you girl, been a while!). I remember Aaron falling out of my bedroom window that night, golden!!! Just some of the highlights of that very eventful night.
Little off topic I know but while off topic, my 19th birthday was equally fantastic down at Scubar which was across the road from Amber lounge downstairs, Simone at the door, banging out drum’n'bass downstairs. This was a new era of music for me. Davey Dave and I stumbled upon this place one night early on in our nightlife escapades. Instantly we were hooked. We went home and downloaded unbelievable amounts of drum’n'bass. I got really into every drum’n'bass which was fresh, banging, smooth, and everything in between while Davey Dave delved more into IDM. We both liked it all! Whole new worlds (notice we are back on topic… smooth Mikey, smooth) opened up yet again. I actually remember watching 9/11 (even though as far as I am concerned it’s 11/9, I hate yanks and their little differences sometimes and dates is one of them along with the imperial system) on TV (well actually it was my very first and last Mac) round the clock while listening to drum’n'bass. Still remember the feeling I had too. Kinda scared like I was watching a world changing event, which I really was although it doesn’t feel as significant as it did back then. The music still feels the same, although it has lost that sense of mystery which always comes when listening to new music. Drum’n'bass is a little dead these days but I do enjoy a massive banging tune such as Spor – 1up.
I had a massive down period for music. Years and years. Same stuff over and over. Didn’t even carry my music playing device (which varied between minidiscs, CD walkmans and iPods) with me like I used to in the earlier days. That is changing slowly, have two ten inch subs in the car. It’s friggin’ hilarious but it makes my morning drives to work so much better. I tend to only listen to it down the quiet industrial streets where no one can see me.
But yeah, sometime recently I discovered dubstep while on a mission to find some new music. 16bit – Panic. That song started it all. 16bit are some kind of geniuses from the future. It’s the most violent ear-fucking music I have heard and I love it!!! Sure there is a lot of crap dubstep, in fact most of it is crap, but you get those tracks that just send you flying.
I suppose amidst all of this I should say I had been listening to other music and hitting some gold now and then. Amy Winehouse, I LOVE her voice. Take the Box fro the Frank album is out of this world, as is In My Bed. There is Jill Scott, Erykah Badu and lots of other artists I have a song or two of that make up that void of which there was not much significance. I must admit though, I love a smooth atmospheric track. J’avance by Rollercone is an example. Can you say sexy french chick vocalist? Oh yeah, melts my heart every time.

Getting late and I am in Poocastle, I shall finish this off some other time.