Canberra, Australia via SCL - Daniel Boyle

Canthraxsoldier · Post by **Canthraxsoldier** » 07 Nov 2006 00:20

haven't posted in this thing for quite some time.

tomorrow (as long as I don't fail it) is my last ever uni exam, I will be glad to get it over and done with, oh so very glad.

Time goes very quickly, it doesn't really seem like 3 years have gone by yet.

Haven't really been kicking a great deal. On tours at the AIS, I will generally give the kids a footbag demonstration, but usually stick to the tricks I know I will be able to hit.

I've barely been paid yet by the AIS, so I'm thinking tomorrow will be a big cash day, I sure hope so because there are quite a lot of debts to pay.

seen some rad bands over the last month or so

Killswitch Engage/Lamb Of God/Unearth
Stonefest- COG!!!, Mark of Cain, Regurgitator, Sarah Blasko
Metal for the Brain- Alchemist, Frankenbok, Samsara, FOUR DEAD, Shigella, Switchblade, prom queen

it's been pretty good times lately. Nationals in Hobart should be pretty good, I'm going to spend a little time in Victoria beforehand.

Canthraxsoldier · Post by **Canthraxsoldier** » 15 Feb 2007 00:09

it has been a REALLY long time since I wrote in this.

haven't really kicked all that much lately, been applying for jobs. Really sick of selection criteria. Been doing some tours at the AIS.

Decided today that we won't affiliate the footbag club with uni this year, it's really not worth all the effort. Thinking about starting an ACT organisation, which will have a bigger reach in Canberra, than just at UC. Then there would probably be a chance of sport and rec ACT funding.

I'm putting in a bid to have nationals here in Canberra next year. That would be good fun.

Me and my friend have started putting on some shows. Mainly just hardcore at the moment. Upcoming we have

Terror
Agnostic Front
Parkway Drive

with many more to come. We did a Carpathian show the other day, 300 payers, which is awesome for Canberra.

Aussies in Tasmania were great fun, I haven't even written about that.

I came 4th in sick 3 with pixie ducking clipper>ducking osis>ducking clipper.

My routines and shred 30 were pretty woeful.

I enjoyed Tasmania. I would go there again sometime. Check out more than just Hobart.

I got a new bike. My parents bought it for me for Christmas. I'm digging it. Gets me around a lot quicker than walking.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 16 Feb 2007 22:05

Sweet. New bikes are cool. Tasmania is really cool. Good luck with the job hunting. See you in Sydney next month

Canthraxsoldier · Post by **Canthraxsoldier** » 13 Mar 2007 15:04

Sydney jam is on this weekend, should be good fun.

Still searching for a real job, I had an interview on Friday with Orienteering Australia, as Executive Officer (basically just being their admin person, with a fancy title). Going to call them up in a little while. I would really like that job.

Putting bits and pieces together for my bid for nationals. It's still not due for quite a while.

This weekend in Sydney should be pretty good. I haven't actually been playing all that much lately, and looking in some of the other aussie blogs, it seems to be a fairly common theme.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 14 Mar 2007 00:49

So true. too busy, it sucks. This weekend will rule. See you there man.

Canthraxsoldier · Post by **Canthraxsoldier** » 20 Sep 2007 00:08

Haven't written in this thing in a seriously long time.

Since before the Sydney jam, which was pretty sweet, everyone was really chilled, and played one of the best games of four square I've played ever. Good fun.

So things have changed a bit

I live in Melbourne now, with my girlfriend. Everyone raves about how much they love Melbourne, it's pretty good, but I have a feeling I'm never going to get that "love" and I think that is largely due to my rugby league upbringing. haha.

Anyway I've had heaps of jobs since I've been down here, a while ago I was at an average of a new one every 2 weeks. I'm currently working with a fundraising company called 2Evolve, as a recruiter. We work with Greenpeace, WSPA and Child Fund and basically I prowl the streets looking for new people to work for the company.

I don't really feel that great about it, I don't think it's got a lot of integrity, being paid to work full time for a charity organisation (moreso, we don't even work FOR the orgs, but a different company). There are potentials to get massive bonuses. I'm pretty sure if you get a team leader hired, you get $500. It would be pretty amazing to get that, but still, don't know how comfortable I would be getting that sort of money.

I did sign up as a supporter for WSPA (World Society for Protection of Animals) which is probably the best charity we work with, and they do some really good work. There are actually some guys from some reasonably big name Aussie bands that work as frontliners for WSPA (Kisschasy, Bodyjar, Responder, The Scissor File etc). But anyway, they do really good work with helping animals out so that their not stuck in a cage for their bile etc.

I've been playing a fair bit of footbag, and a few weeks ago I felt I hit a bit of a peak, I hit about 8 new moves in the one session. I have learnt fairy sets, which I didn't really expect. I hit a lot of cool stuff, but especially of note pixie reaper and pixie butterfly reverse swirl, that was a really good session.

So I'm organising Nationals for next year. I'm a bit disappointed with my progress so far, but a bit of a reminder not on the footbag.org forum from Ian has got me to start getting myself together.

Canberra, Easter Weekend, next year. Should be good fun though. And we will most likely have guys like Dan Ednie and Phil Morrison, who both made finals at Worlds this year, massive props to them (first southern hemisphere people to do that). I am heavily considering heading to Worlds next year, it's something I've always wanted to do, and going to Prague would be amazing.

So that's a bit of an update from me. Also, very excited for the Narooma jam just after New Years. That will be RAGING!

speaking of raging

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

will probably be the best band I ever see.

and I'm seeing Machine Head next month, who are currently the best band I've seen.

Awesome.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 12 Dec 2007 21:53

I'm back at home in Bega at my parents place. I was really starting to get incredibly depressed in Melbourne, and I was working crap job after crap job and it really just got to me.

So I'm going to relax here for a while until after new year sometime, hopefully I can get some stuff sorted, so I can go on the dole or something, I really don't want to look for work at the moment.

In footbag news...Lynton and Brendan played last week, as well as Scott, Alex, Janis, Dan, Leon, Macca blah blah blah the works, they were all there...it was a really good kick to leave on (except I played horribly)

So the Narooma jam is on pretty soon, that should be pretty awesome, Narooma is definitely one of the best town on the south coast...hopefully I can pick up my game a little.

So I'm thinking of starting a footbag zine. I'm starting a DIY hardcore/metal zine...so I'm thinking about doing the same thing in relation to footbag. Maybe I could build it up from there, and eventually work it into a "real magazine". See what happens.

oh yeah..I changed my username, the old one really was horrid. This one is much more simple!

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 14 Dec 2007 01:39

Ah man, you're gone already...

Pity I hardly played the whole time you were in melbouren

I was pretty pissed to miss last weekend but I sorta had my sisters wedding... haha. Also I still can't play... thinking of starting some toe stuff soon but clipper is definately out of the question.

that zine sounds siiiick.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 14 Dec 2007 03:03

yeah man, at least we got to play a couple of times!

So now that I don't have a job, this summer should be the summer where I improve A LOT at footbag.

So I have started doing a lot more drills, the latest one I learnt was ripwalk>whirl repeat

also hit ripwalk>drifter on both sides

Hit 50 clippers (alternating, left side and right side) at the start of my session today.

yesterday hit blurriest and blurry whirl for the first time. Only on one side though.

Going to go up to Narooma during the week next week and kick it with Nathan...he doesn't have a job either........LOOK OUT NAROOMA JAM.... we may be in reasonably ok form. haha.

So a while ago my girlfriend found an IPOD on the street outside our house, and decided to pick it up, keep it and see if anyone came looking for it. No one ever came, so now it is MINE!!!! (she already has one) It's been sitting in the draw for ages, and I finally got the charger and stuff to get it going. Really helps so much with staying motivated to kick.

Have been getting heavily back into lostprophets first album Fake Sound Of Progress....it's really good.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 15 Dec 2007 18:28

So it's been good just being able to browse the internet the last few days (I haven't had the internet at home for over 6 months, so everything is always a rush, and I generally forget what I originally meant to do and spend the whole time looking on Facebook or something)

whereas now, I can just sit back and look around - although my parents only have dial-up which becomes frustrating at times. But anyway, I have started reading a whole bunch of blogs, looking at different viewpoints on playing footbag and developing yourself as a footbag player. I really like reading ones that have been going for quite a long time and you see them improving and improving.

I played for a short while last night, it started sprinkling a little bit, and I was just taking it pretty easy. I did work on the DATW's that I hadn't hit before (left foot in>out, right foot out>in)... I cam close to left, and hit the right foot...I would really like to be able to hit all of the DATWs in one run, that would be pretty cool.

I went to the beach yesterday with my parents. I bodyboard, but in the last few years have only been able to get out VERY occasionally...I think this was only the second time I'd been to the beach in the whole year! But anyway, the surf was quite big (maybe 6-7 foot on the sets) and it was quite unpredictable where the waves would break. Anyhow, I get out the back and I paddle into one of the bigger waves of the day (kind of like coming back to play footbag after 6 months and trying to hit ripped warrior or something- stupid!)

I started out with a massive drop which I was actually impressed I stayed on there, but as I continued across the wave, it started going way to fast for me and I got smashed by the whitewash, and was tossed and turned upside down and all around. When I came up, I got hit by another wave which smashed me round, so I headed into the beach...........I was really dizzy and felt kind of sick, like I might spew or something.

So I just sat down on the shore for a little while, then decided I couldn't come to the beach and just get smashed by one wave and go home, so I went back out...and my Dad's like, I've had enough, let's go in. So I caught the next wave, which was much smaller, and I did a better job of riding it, but I was still feeling very dizzy and shaken up.

It's raining today, so I don't think I will play any footbag today, however I have been thinking of some things I would like to hit in the next couple of weeks.

drifter>torque rpt
whirl>drifter rpt
sidewalk>ripwalk rpt (I have come very close to this, but am still yet to hit it)
tap> pixie ss mirage rpt
ducking butterfly>spinning butterfly rpt

For the last while I have had a growing desire to travel the world. In the past I have been much more than exploring Australia than checking out the rest of the world, but now I have covered a huge amount of Australia (there are still plenty of places I would like to check out though), so now it's time for somewhere else. Now the key issue for me is the money, as I currently have none at all. But I have been thinking about it, and if I head overseas in July/August, that's still a lot of time to save.

I am basicaly using this time at the moment to get my life back into order, start going somewhere. I am really quite excited about moving back to Canberra, (which is a rare thing to say in Australia) but I really felt settled there. The reason I moved though, was because things had become stagnant, I felt there was not enough opportunity (also I wasn't earning anywhere near enough money to survive)

But anyway, I am having a very relaxing time back in Bega, it's pretty good...haven't really done all that much at all, but it's time I needed to just chill out.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 23 Dec 2007 17:04

So it's pretty much the end of the year, which has been a pretty crazy year overall.

I started off the year at Melbourne Airport, having had no sleep and heading to Tasmania for Nationals. I placed 4th in Sick 3, which is the best I have done so far in a freestyle comp, and I hope to improve on that next year. I had a lot of fun down in Tasmania, and also captured the wicket of the opposition's top batsman in our first Footbag XI vs Rest Of The World XI match, which we subsequently lost.

On returning to Canberra I started looking for a "real job" which didn't really work out, things were getting pretty shit, so me and Kate decided to try out Melbourne. It was all a bit rushed, as it was only about 2 weeks between deciding to move down there, and actually packing up our crap and getting in the car.

In between this I saw some cool bands, the highlights being putting on Terror's show in Canberra, and also going to Soundwave Festival (Deftones, Hatebreed, Thrice, Terror, Suicidal Tendencies, The Bronx, Unwritten Law, etc) and also got up to the Sydney Jam, when Phil Morrison came out, and that was pretty sweet, very relaxed.

I did a couple of demos, one at the "ParkLive" Australia Day concert, which I will do again next month, and also one at the ACT Youth Week launch night.

So anyway, on moving to Victoria, we stayed at Kate's mum's house in Geelong for a while (about 1 hour from Melbourne). I was expecting this would last 2-3 weeks. We ended up there for 2 months, and both of us were commuting to Melbourne each day, to work shitty jobs, which was not so fun. I was also coming in to play footbag on sundays, which was my only day off. I wasn't really improving much at all at this stage, and getting quite frustrated with my game.

When Dan Ednie went overseas, I started doing a number of demos and stuff in his place, as well as doing some of my own, and got to a variety of places including a school for kids with IQs of less than 55, a jail, the horse races, some school holiday programs, and the National Outdoor Education Conference.

Also during this time I was starting to play a lot of footbag and start to get on the improve. There was a patch of about a month or so where I was hitting some really good stuff, include dimwalk rev swirl, which is probably the best move I've ever hit.

As time went on I was still working really shitty jobs, and starting to go really crazy, so I've headed home to my parents for a while, with the intention of moving back to Canberra in the new year.

I have been trying to play quite a lot lately, generally playing for an hour or so each evening, when it's a bit cooler. I have been playing reasonably well, and headed to Sydney for a couple of days, and had some good sessions, one with Dyalan at Darling Harbour and one with Guido in North Sydney.

Some good stuff I have hit recently

ducking butter> ducking osis rpt
ducking pdx mirage> paradon, to finish off my session with Guido
ducking butter> diving butter rpt

So next year I'm just going to keep working hard at getting better at footbag, and I guess getting better at life. I may go back to uni in second semester, as the current degree I have is fairly useless, and I don't really want to work in the industry anyhow.

I would like to travel over to Europe, and head to worlds, as I've never travelled overseas, I'm 23- I think it's about time! And I could imagine worlds being a lot of fun.

So I think next year will be a much better year than this one, I hope so anyway!

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 07 Jan 2008 14:59

Just got back yesterday from footbag camp in Narooma. It was a pretty sweet time, basically we went to the beach each morning, kicked in the afternoon, ate like kings the whole time and partied at night.

I don't have any photos or anything so I won't make a long post or anything. I enjoyed my time up there, it was all pretty fun.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 08 Jan 2008 00:56

Excellent

so disappointed I couldn't make it ><

Sounds like things are looking up for this year... hope it all goes well! I just have to get off my lazy ass and play some hacky...

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 08 Jan 2008 21:31

just make sure you come to Nationals

OR YOU'RE BASHED.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 16 Jan 2008 21:23

So I'm in the process of moving back to Canberra from Melbourne. I guess Melbourne wasn't really for me. I didn't really get settled well into a job or anything, and it was a long way from friends and family, blah blah blah.

Anyhow, I have spent about a month with my family down the coast, and that was really good. Just went to the beach almost every day, which was really refreshing. Have started to get Centrelink, and had to go through all these hoops, but now I don't have to look for any work for 3 months, so they just hand over the money, so that works well for me.

I got up to Canberra on Tuesday afternoon, and started back at my old job at the AIS on Wednesday morning. There's not too many shifts at the moment, but once school starts back up there will be more to come. So my main goal at the moment is finding a house for me and Kate. Went to an inspection this morning for a place in Lyneham, but the house was totally crap. It was a 3 bedroom, which we don't need at all, and also out of our price range. 2 of the bedrooms were ridiculously tiny, and the bathroom looked kind of scummy. So gave that a miss. I'm going to look at a place tonight in O'Connor, from my gatherings there's one person that lives there in a three bedroom house, and is looking for either one person or a couple to live there. It's not far from where we used to live, which was a really good spot, not far from the city, or for Kate to go to uni. And the room is $140/wk, which would mean we'd only have to pay $70 each! BARGAIN. Some of the places I've been looking at have been so very expensive, so this would be very good, and then I could just stay on the dole for the rest of the year and get really good at footbag haha.

Speaking of footbag, I made a list of goals while I was coming up on the bus, and one of them was to play footbag for one hour every day, and I have been managing that quite well so far. Yesterday I worked a lot on developing my routine for nationals, and it's all starting to come together. It's been very hot up here though, which is pretty uncomfortable.

I'm really hoping I can get myself to Worlds this year. I currently have no money at all, but I'm really in a position to do it, as I can just work hard for a while, save up, go there, and come back and still have the same job. I really want to see AT THE GATES, who basically invented the melodic death metal sound, they broke up over 10 years ago and are doing some reform shows, including Wacken in Germany, which would be amazing.

Anyway, footbag in Canberra is going to be really good this year. Caroline and Nathan are both moving up in the near future, I'm doing a demo at the Park Live festival, and we're having Nationals here at Easter. I'm siked.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 03 Feb 2008 16:39

In the last week, I have been to three of the best shows I've ever been to in my life.

On Monday I went to the Big Day Out and saw RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

and even though I was approximately 1.2km from the action, the setlist was completely amazing, just great song after great song. Also saw Anti Flag, Enter Shikari and Silverchair, who were all pretty good. Venue was not very good though, not much shade or seating to be found. BUT WHO CARES WHEN YOU SEE RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE.

On Friday night I saw Samsara and Dropsaw and my friends band Slowburn at the Arthouse, which is one of Australa's greatest venues for hardcore and metal. Samsara are so heavy, they're basically like Slayer with huge mosh parts. Everyone went crazy when they were playing, and it was awesome.

The next day I drove up to Canberra with this guy Chris who runs "Give Blood" zine, he stayed at my place for a couple of nights in Melbourne and then we went to a show that was quite similar, but once Samsara finished, instead of going, that was sweet, time to go home, it was time for the insanity that is 4 Dead. Everyone was going completely insane, it had been over a year since I had seen them and it was so good to see them back in action. At some stage during the set the singer Jon threw the mic out into the crowd, and there were about 15 people gathered around it, so I decided it would be a really good idea to headwalk over the top of them (a headwalk is like a crowd surf, but standing up). "Suprisingly", this wasn't such a good idea, and about halfway through I came crashing down, landing on both my elbows, which still hurt today

. But still, awesome show.

In footbag news, I have kicked a fair bit in the last week or so. Played a few times in Melbourne, and managed to hit smoke for the first time, which was cool. Played yesterday in Canberra with Nathan, but I was really sore and not in any sort of good form.

Now I should be getting back to the house hunt. urgh.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 12 Feb 2008 21:16

I found a house, it's sick.

Much better than looking for one.

Kicked yesterday with Caroline in this undercover area in the Canberra Centre, pretty good session, my sister came along as well, as she hit inside stall, pincher and clipper kick and a bunch of other stuff which was really cool.

Am preparing to put out a footbag zine, and have also started another zine called Capital Eyes which is about hardcore and stuff.

Things are going pretty well.

Just call me hagesy · Post by **Just call me hagesy** » 13 Feb 2008 13:34

Does caroline live in canberra now.

It will be cool to catch up with that dandy dandy girl.

love your work boyle, see you soon.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 13 Mar 2008 17:36

have been kicking a fair bit

we've got one week til Nationals now. I'm getting pretty siked, although today I played and pulled up a bit sore in my ankle.

I have hit a wide variety of new moves. Caroline, Nathan and I play most days of the week, it's pretty sweet.

I'm working back at the AIS again, it's pretty good, I just got a payrise which is sweet.

I have been working a lot but today I have most of the day off.
I can't get on to footbag.org at the moment and that is annoying me.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 24 Mar 2008 20:31

Nationals are done with for another year, and this year it was my turn to have a crack at organising them.

Some things were done well, some terribly, but over all we all had a pretty good time and everyone was playing well at some stage.

Pretty full on week and there's been a lot of beers had.

I competed really well though, I was so happy with how I played, I only dropped 3 times in the routine, and I hit a better combo than what I hit last year in sick 3 (pixie ducking clipper> ducking osis> diving butterfly and also ripwalk>sidewalk>ducking butterfly). I actually hit about 4 or 5 combos in my seven attemtpts My only playing aim that I didn't meet was scoring over 100 in shred 30, however I did still come 3rd, which is a bit ridiculous. I think I scored about 87 or something. Dan was in first place with over double my score.

As for the day of competition, there was a very low turnout, probably my two major stuff ups were the lack of advertising and a bit of a disaster with sound equipment. We decided to change the venue only a week out from the competition which meant Petr from the Czech Republic had been waiting at the wrong place all day.

These were due in some parts to laziness on my behalf and in some parts to the complete lack of funds that we had. But too late to do anything about it now. Everyone got to compete, and nobody had to pay for accommodation, so that was a good deal. I wanted it to be a really DIY style of event, as in the past I've been pretty heavily involved in the hardcore/punk rock scene and was drawing a lot of influence from that. But in the end it was old Father Time that got me and the competition was on and all the people that had said they would love to come and watch weren't there.

However, we had plenty of competitors in each event, including an intermediates section, and overall everyone looked like they were having a good time.

I hit a lot of new tricks over the last few weeks

highlights

stepping ss whirl
flip terrage (my flip pixies have been bad for way too long)
sumo
grifter
quantum osis

I would like to go to Worlds this year, but not sure if I will be able to save up enough.