camera club beach shoot

sunset at brighton beach 2006Today marked the start of the 2006 Camera Club season... okay, that's a big fat lie.... technically it started last week, but that was a boring workshop thing that I didn't want to go to...

This week was our annual beach/swimwear shoot, which is usually worth going to... the past two years it was anyway... I shot about 110 shots each time, and each 110 shots was of the same male model (not the same one both times though).

This year I only took a single roll of 36 shots, split between the two (passable, but not great) male models, but I also took my digital camera along and after I was done with the film roll, I took about 60 digital shots... mostly of the sunset and some of random guys wandering along the beach (or perving on the female models we had with us).

We went to a different beach too this year, Brighton instead of Semaphore... not sure it was worth driving the extra distance to be honest... yeah, the jetty has that interesting tower thingy on it, and there were rocks, instead of the random dunes at Semaphore... okay, maybe it was worth it. The clouds didn't give us a decent sunset though, which was disappointing.

camera club seagulls 2006This shot gives you a good indication about a) the less obvious reason I only shoot the male models, and b) what it's like on a Camera Club photoshoot... 20,000 photographers (what... we all know I exaggerate), all trying to get a shot of the same (female) model or models. We always kind of compare it to a flock of seagulls... you throw one seagull one piece of food and suddenly every seagull in a 200km radius shows up... just substitute "Camera Club photographer" for "seagull" and "model" for "piece of food"...

And while that's happening, a lot of times the male models have just been standing around twiddling their fingers.

Poor male models...

I'll post some shots of the two guys that were there when I get the shots back from the lab.... depends on whether they're worth sharing or not... I was shooting with my new polariser on, so god only knows how the shots are going to come out...

It was nice to see everyone again... well, except the people who annoy me... but I ignore them for the most part, so it's all good. Basically it was nice to see the handful of people who I actually like... and what was REALLY nice was that my main Camera Club buddy, Stu, was back... yaaaaaaay! After we finally lost all the light, he and I wandered down the jetty so he could take some shots of the tower thing all lit up, and I just went along, mostly because I haven't seen him in about seven months. And then we went for coffee afterwards, a real coffee, rather than to Cafe Primo where everyone else went for substandard coffee.

Current Mood: pleased but sleepy

montage monday: yellow

I'm not sure if today's Monday Montage is the start of a theme or not... have to see if I can find enough of other colours... but this one goes alongside the Red montage.

The nice men come to pick up my sofa today... they called earlier to say they would be here "between 11 and 1"... I mean c'mon... that's a two hour window... I know they have to allow for traffic and moving furniture and maybe going back to the depot if the truck is full, but please... two hours? My living room is going to look so damn empty for a week without the sofa... it's gunna be weird!

School went back today... so for the first time in what feels like forever I saw schoolkids... okay... schoolboy, singular... on my walk this morning... it also means that I need to make sure I get my walk out of the way early, since I like to avoid the wandering children.

There did seem to be more people around this morning, whether that was because school has gone back, or whether it was all in my head because Thursday was a public holiday, and Friday was the day after a public holiday and people just decided to take a four day weekend, or what, I don't know...

The Powers That Be have switched the times of Oprah and the craptastic cooking show, Ready Steady Cook, putting Miss Oprah on an hour earlier... for no apparant reason that I can see... god I need a job...

Speaking of which, my Agency Girly is on leave this week... going to the cricket and the Big Day Out instead of finding me a job... what is the world coming to! I do like her though... I called her last Wednesday just to check in, and the beginning of the conversation went something like this... Her: "Hi, how're you doing?" Me: "Pretty good, and yourself" Her: "I'm bad" Me: "Oh dear, why's that?" Her: "Because I haven't found you a job yet"... see, she's fun!

Current Mood: i'm doin okay!

massive jump

67 to 1004 pageloadsI've been running StatCounter on my blog since December 7 last year, and the numbers have been pretty average for most of that time... around 56 pageloads and 33 unique visitors a day.

Which is why I almost had a heartattack when I checked my stats on Friday morning... 1004 pageloads and 702 unique visitors... a jump of about 1800% (at least for the pageviews).

I wondered if I'd been hit by some sort of spam software thing or something... which would make my stats jump so much in the space of a day.

Checking out the "Came From" section it all started to make sense, it was all traffic from Tottyworld... I couldn't work out why though...

A quick jump over to Tottyworld solved the mystery... I got mentioned in one of his posts... because I'd pointed out where the AFL players had got their outfits in one of his earlier posts.

Kinda scary really, that one mention could make my stats jump so much so fast... they're still not quite back to normal yet... but they're dropping by over half each day, so tomorrow or Tuesday and it should all be over.

I have to say that this unexpected hike in visitors has made me kind of look at StatCounter again... the free version only gives you details for the last 100 visitors... what pages they looked at, where they came from, the keywords used to find my blog (it kind of amazes me that people regularly search for "yaniblog"... who are these people and why don't they have me bookmarked or blogrolled?), and what countries they're from.

It gives me more details, but those are the ones I use the most, since they're kind of interesting... I do kind of wish it gave me a bigger log size though... particularly for the keywords and the countries... but alas, that I would have to pay for.

I suppose I could look around for another freebie counter that does give me all that stuff without paying for it, but I'm lazy like that...

Current Mood: what a jump!

photo saturday: australiana

australiana 2006Okay... I know that it's supposed to be Photo Friday... but what with the Brokeback post yesterday, I figured I could be a day late. This is a shot I grabbed on one of my walks... It's Australia's Coat of Arms fashioned into this stylish garden seat. I thought it was appropriate since Thursday was Australia Day and all...

Current Mood: content

movies: brokeback mountain

brokeback mountain - love is a force of natureSince Ma had today off, we decided that today was a good time to finally go and see a movie in Gold Class down at Marion. Originally we'd talked about going to see Memoirs of a Geisha there, but that was on at all the wrong times, so, since Brokeback Mountain isn't screening at the cinema we usually go to, we figured that it sounded like a plan.

I have to say, I'm totally sold on the Gold Class experience... Limited seating... no chance of anyone (other than the person you're with) sitting next to you... having staff personally escort you to your seat... big plush recliner chairs... the ability to have wedges (which we did) or pizza or whatever during the movie... too freakin' cool! Definitely need to that again!

I did fully expected it to be a room full of homos, Ma and me... but there were a lot more women than I thought there would be... and one or two couples that I thought could have been straight... of course one of those (the couple that sat in the next two chairs along from us) turned out to be J's ex (evil little troll that he is) with what I assume was one of his faghags... there were only two actual homo couples, and I think, a lesbian couple... but it was a much more "mixed" crowd than I expected.

I was a little apprehensive about the movie... I had very purposely NOT read or seen anything about it... I didn't want to know what the plot was beyond Heath and Jake falling in love... and to be honest, I'm glad I knew next to nothing about it, it let me just soak in the experience without any expectations. But by the same token, with all the hype going on around the movie, I did wonder if it would actually live up to those expectations.

I'm happy to say that it didn't disappoint.

Both Heath and Jake's performances were incredibly strong... but I can see why all the buzz had been around Heath's portrayal of Ennis... the character doesn't say much, but Heath definitely lets you in to what Ennis is feeling just by his body language and the words he DOESN'T say.

Of the two characters, as with most of these types of stories, I was more drawn to Jake's character, Jack Twist... the one who is more at ease with who he is and who would move heaven and earth to get the things he wants.

I also had to chuckle early in the movie when Jack is doing that thing that gayboys do... "not looking" at someone... where you know you want to look, with every fibre of your being, but you also know you can't look... so you appear to be so focused on whatever it is in front of you, but aren't seeing it at all, rather than looking at what you want to look at. Of course, in Jack's case, that something was naked Ennis, so I can totally understand the desire...

As for the visual look of the movie, I have to say that I'm pretty much loving Ang Lee... or else Rodrigo Prieto, his cinematographer (who also does a cameo as a Mexican prostitute)... or some combination of both. The movie is just so damn lush... from the first half hour of the movie with the beautiful mountain countryside, through to things that you would think wouldn't be an interesting or attractive shot... Michelle Williams sitting at the kitchen table with a coffee cup, waiting for Heath's character to come home sticks in my mind... it's just a beautiful shot. So is the shot of Heath framed with the Fourth of July fireworks behind him.

The other thing that struck me was how quiet and still and peaceful the first half hour or so was... until they come back to "civilisation"... and then how that pattern seemed to repeat every time they were away together.

The love scenes between the two guys are just about perfect... there's a real sense of not only tenderness in some of them, but that these two just NEED each other, and there's a real sweetness and tenderness to some of those scenes...

On the flipside, I probably could have lived without seeing Anne Hathaway's breasts (she's done Disney movies for goodness sake!) and, later on, her godawful blonde wig...

I did shed a tear or two at the end... mostly it was "the shirts" that got me... stoopid shirts...

I don't know that it's necessarily a movie I could watch over and over and over, but it's definitely one that I want to see again, and own... and I also HAVE to read the short story it's based on!

yani's rating: 4 fishing trips out of 5

hottest 100 reprise

top left to bottom right... ben, gorillaz, kanye, josh, bloodhound gang and cat empireYaaaaay... Triple J's Hottest 100 has just finished!

It's also fortunate that a change has come in after the 41°C day we've had...

I listened all day, something I haven't done for years and years... from first thing this morning during my walk, right through to the announcement of the No. 1 song a few minutes ago. Only six of my ten chosen songs got in, which is pretty good overall... I'm especially happy that Josh Pyke came in at No. 19... for obvious reasons...

2. Catch My Disease - Ben Lee
3. Feel Good Inc. - Gorillaz
13. Gold Digger - Kanye West
19. Middle Of The Hill - Josh Pyke
24. Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo - Bloodhound Gang
25. The Car Song - Cat Empire

And the actual Top 10? Not really surprisingly Gorillaz and Wolfmother both scored two tracks... and given the amount of airplay he's gotten in only the last few months, it's also not a huge shock that Bernard took out the top spot. I'm not a huge fan, but I don't mind the song.

The rest of the Top 10 looked like this...

1. Wish You Well - Bernard Fanning
2. Catch My Disease - Ben Lee
3. Feel Good Inc. - Gorillaz
4. Best Of You - Foo Fighters
5. Dare - Gorillaz
6. Mind's Eye - Wolfmother
7. My Doorbell - White Stripes
8. O Yeah - End Of Fashion
9. Joker & The Thief - Wolfmother
10. Do You Want To - Franz Ferdinand

Current Mood: hot but happy!

random aussie hotness

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i kiss pretty well

Your Kissing Purity Score: 29% Pure



You're not one to kiss and tell...
But word is, you kiss pretty well.


Current Mood: a little headachey

movies: underworld: evolution

underworld: evolutionI'm a massive fan of the vampire genre...

If there's a movie with vampires (or even a single vampire character) in it, I've usually seen it, even if it turns out to be mostly crap...
Not to mention teevee shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Kindred: The Embraced... I've seen them all...

And when I heard about the first Underworld movie... I thought, vampires versus werewolves... right up my alley...

I remember coming out of the cinema afterwards less than thrilled with what I'd seen... but that was mostly because of the really crap werewolves...

But then I got given the movie on DVD for Christmas in 2004 and having watched it a bunch more times I'm kind of fond of it... I mean the werewolves are still really really crap, but it grew on me after a while.

I'm just hoping the same thing happens with the sequel... Underworld: Evolution... which was our movie choice for the evening.

My first thought was that at least this time the werewolves looked like WOLVES instead of cats... but they also looked much more fake this time around... I don't know if it's the hair, or the fact that they did go to totally CGI werewolves for some of the opening scenes, or what, but while they were the right shape this time, the first movie's "wolves" looked much better.

And once again, the combination of Danny McBride & Len Wiseman as co-writers didn't particularly help the movie... although I am kind of fond of Len's visual style as a director... all dark and moody...

There was a whole bunch of stuff that just seemed unnecessary... most obviously was the sex scene between the two leads... I mean, c'mon... she's a vampire... and being a vampire is all about NOT having sex... it's all symbolic biting and penetration and whatnot... not actually physical loinage... although on the plus side it does mean Scott Speedman is all naked and very obviously so (unless of course body doubles were used), so I can live with that (even if certain pieces of his anatomy had to have been strapped to his body, if not, they would have been dangling into the shot).

This one was also SO much gorier than the first... there's blood and mutilations left, right and centre, all in a much tighter and jerkier editing style, which I have to say, doesn't always add to my ability to know what the hell is supposed to be going on.... especially when you have two dark bodies fighting in dark spaces...

I also don't know that this is actually a vampire OR werewolf movie... yes, the female lead IS a vampire... but whereas the first one was very much about the conflict between the vampires and werewolves, this movie seems to end up as a full on creaturefest.

The two people I have to take my hat off to are the costume designer, Wendy Partridge, who once again kicked butt all over the place with costumes that are so beautifully detailed... and Kate Beckinsale, who somehow keeps a straight face while making these movies... but who is also just SO good as Selene... even when the script is questionable. She does lose points because she married Len though... sure, he's cute and all... but c'mon!

Having said all that, I didn't dislike the movie... it just wasn't really what I was expecting. And, even though I originally had massive reservations about the first one, I just don't think that the sequel is as good.

yani's rating: 1 Immortal out of 5

sofa so good... not

big red sofa 2006Well... Michael the Sofa Repair Man just left... although I'd actually forgotten, he WASN'T the Sofa Repair Man... he was the Replacement Sofa Repair Man, since the actual Sofa Repair Man is on leave because his wife just had a baby...

However... unlike his attractive sounding voice on the phone this morning, Michael was very much not an attractive tradesman... very much the opposite...

Be that as it may... he came, he turned the sofa on it's back and unpinned it's proverbial skirt before staring up into it's virtual nether regions...

The verdict... They need to restring the broken webbing... to do that, they have to take it back to the workshop, and remove the arms so they can get to where the broken webbing is...

So that means that not only is the sofa NOT repaired, they will have to come and pick it up before the end of the week, and then who knows how long it will be before I get it back again...

*sigh*

Current Mood: sofa not fixed

montage monday: alphabet

north adelaide alphabet 2006Stepping out of my still-warm house this morning for my walk was SO nice, I can't even put it into words...

Cool breeze... mmmmmmm...

Now I'm just waiting for the morning sun to stop hitting my front door so I can open it and stick the fan back in there to try and pull more of the cool air into my place. After my post yesterday, the cool change came in in earnest, and I did manage to cool the living room down, but having the place shut up overnight just let the heat still trapped in the bedroom spread out...

The major downside to my tiny, yet functional, apartment... while it takes a while for it to get really hot, on the flipside, once it IS hot, it takes just as long to cool down again.

I also waiting for Michael the Sofa Repair Man to call me to let me know when he'll be here... a piece of the webbing in my very groovy red sofa snapped about a week ago, but fortunately said webbing is guaranteed for 10 years, so the nice folks at Le Cornu are sending out Michael to fix it for me. Here's hoping he's a cute Sofa Repair Man...

While we're discussing attractive tradesmen... I have to try and get a photo of Blonde Paint Monkey on my walk tomorrow... one of the houses (actually I think it's a doctor's surgery/clinic thing... but it was a house once) on Strangeways Terrace is getting a new paint job... and one of the painters can't be more than 20... and very, very skater boy, floppy haired (but not natural) blonde... and the last three times I've seen him he's been sitting all monkey-like on various portions of the OUTSIDE of the second floor railing, painting away quite happily.

Mmmmm... Paint Monkey...

Current Mood: not so hot... yaaaaaay!

heatwave

"Adelaide has been officially declared to have had a heatwave this week. Today is the fourth consecutive day the temperature has been above 40 degrees Celsius. The last time that happened was in 1940.

The weather bureau in South Australia says it is a heatwave if the temperature is at or above 40 degrees for three days in a row or if it is at or above 35 degrees for five days in a row."


Yep... we officially had a heatwave...

Urgh...

Although the "cool change" has come in... it's still very humid (around 54.6% according to my little weather man), but the temperature HAS dropped to around 28°C (82°F) and hopefully it should rain either tonight or tomorrow morning which should help.

I didn't sleep terribly well last night... the fan was only moving around hot air and after managing a couple of hours early on, I woke up every hour, pretty much on the hour from 1am onwards. So it came as no surprise to find out that the lowest temperature it got to last night was 35°C (95°F).

When it gets this hot for this long it just seaps into everything... every single surface in my house was radiating heat... the teevee remotes, the kitchen bench, the doorframes, my book... everything... my hair wax is almost a liquid... my clothes felt like they've just been ironed when I put them on... even my shampoo and conditioner are hotter than my body temperature...

Thankfully I wasn't one of the thousands of homes who haven't had any electricity (some for up to 18 hours on Friday) during the last four days... I don't know quite what I would have done if it had, today especially... packed up all my perishable food and gone to Ma's I guess...

I swear, if it hadn't been for the fact that I knew there was a cool change coming this afternoon, I would most likely have gone stark raving bonkers today.

None of this was helped by the fact that the stoopid new people keep telling us that while we're sweltering, Russia is around -30°C (-22°C)... oh to be that cold... Okay, I could be talking out the top of my head, having never BEEN that cold... but it's a nice thought... kind of like wanting to sleep inside the huge freezers at the supermarket...

I had a minor moment of panic this afternoon when I realised I could smell and see smoke outside the house. I went outside to see if I could see anything, and I realised that the smoke didn't seem to be coming from anywhere that I could see, it was just everywhere. On the evening news I found out that it was a bushfire that has burnt 20,000 hectares of forest on Kangaroo Island... which isn't really THAT surprising, keeping in mind that it's only 112 km (62 miles) southwest of Adelaide...

*sigh*

I miss winter...

Current Mood: still hot, but improving

my best zodiac match

This is a little scary when you consider that the only Sagittarius that I've ever had in my life was my bestest galpal, Lownee...

The best Zodiac Match for your personality is Sagittarius

sagittariusSagittarius the Archer (November 23 to December 21): This intellectual and independent partner is just your type. Initially, a Sagittarius may catch your eye with their knack for witty conversation and flirtation. But as you get to know them better, you're even more likely to be drawn to your Sagittarian's adventurousness and unhesitating willingness to take the risks necessary to keep life fun and free.

People born under this sign are typically both enjoyable to be around and interesting to talk with. Be aware that Sagittarians do have a tendency to become restless at times. However, this sense of adventure will help keep things exciting in your relationship. In the bedroom, you'll likely find that the Archer is sexually creative and will keep you happily engaged. This is simply a natural extension of the Sagittarian nature. Overall, they want to get the most out of life and are always on the lookout for exciting new adventures.

The Zodiac Match Test

Current Mood: still hot...

photo friday: clouds

clouds 2006It's been a weirdass day so far... hot but cloudy first thing this morning... then it rained for all of about ten minutes... then it was cloudy and a little cooler... now it's just damn hot... according to my little virtual weather boy... 40°C (104°F)... so hot, in fact, that he took his little virtual shirt off...

These clouds are from my walk this morning... the shot makes them look pretty weird, but they actually looked even weirder in person... the longer I look at the shot though, the more things I can see in the clouds... a strange griffin/squirrel thing on the right and a hooknosed, one legged gridiron player on the left...

Current Mood: hot hot hot hot hot

random brokeback hotness

Brokeback Mountain opens here next Thursday and I figured what could be better than doing a Brokeback themed Random Hotness!

The only problem is that next Thursday is also Australia Day (and I have other things planned to celebrate it), so I had to move the Brokeback Hotness forward to this week.

So here's a couple of shots of Heath & Jake from the Brokeback Mountain website (I actually cut down some of the desktop wallpapers).

jakeheath

Current Mood: mmmmmm hotness

everything happens for a reason

I'm not entirely sure how to start this post... although I think the best place to start is with what I believe on this subject...
  • I believe in reincarnation
  • I believe that we have lessons that need to be learned in this life
  • I believe some of those are lessons we failed to learn in previous lifetimes
  • I believe we "choose" those lessons and obsticles we want to address in this lifetime before we "come back"
  • I believe that a lot of the people who are close to us in our lifetimes, good friends, family, lovers, are usually people we have known before in various incarnations
  • I believe that everything happens for a reason even if we don't know why at the time
  • I believe that there are certain people and events that we are destined to encounter
  • I believe that those things are part of the lesson we need to learn
And I know that I've been around before... quite a few times actually...

I don't expect other people to believe what I believe, because, to be honest, I only believe it because of the things I've experienced. I have to admit, I'm equal parts sceptic and believer... I believe in Astrology, but I'm sceptical about the Star Sign columns printed in magazines and newspapers... that kind of thing. All the things I know and believe are things I've experienced first hand.

There have been two books that have reinforced or shaped my ideas around reincarnation... one was fiction, Daggerspell by Katharine Kerr, and reinforced the things I already believed and kind of gave me a framework to the whole idea of repeating mistakes and lessons over multiple lives. And the story about how I got that book is another story for another day...

caught between two worlds - special editionThe second was the book I just finished, Caught Between Two Worlds by Adelaide spiritual author, Scott Russell Hill. Actually the book I just finished is the "Special Edition", the rereleased and re-edited/updated version of his three books, Caught Between Two Worlds, Psychic And Truth & Lies Of The New Age (all of which are pretty much impossible to get now).

Back when I was working at the Department of Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology (how's that for a mouthful), I had a conversation with one of the women I worked with, Jan, about past lives and whatnot... I actually don't even remember what was said or how the conversation came up... but she said she had a book she thought I should read, and brought in the first of Scott's books, Caught Between Two Worlds.

Well, I devoured the book... sure, there were bits in it that made me raise my eyebrow sceptically... specifically bits about UFOs... but for the most part, the book really spoke to me. Jan brought along the second and then third book and I read them with equal interest.

And then I got to a particular paragraph at the end of the third book and just stopped reading. I must have reread that paragraph about fifty times. It was so completely about where I was at at that point in my life and it was one of those moments when you know the Universe is yelling in your ear...

The paragraph went like this...

'I let the pain of the past go,' I said softly while Barry continued to keep Tom occupied. 'The karmic cycle of destruction between this person, his friends and me ends here. Peace replaces anger, wisdom replaces ignorance. The future is my goal, the past is but a memory.'

It resonated with me SO much, that I actually photocopied the page and enlarged the paragraph until it was huge, and hung it in my cubicle at work.

Yesterday, as I was getting towards the end of the Special Edition of Caught Between Two Worlds I reached the same portion of the book...

And the quote wasn't there...

I reread the section again, just to make sure I hadn't missed it or anything... then I dug around in my papers for the enlargement of the quote... just in case I was misremembering it.

Nope... just as I'd remembered... although in the new edition the character in question was "Frank" not "Tom"... not entirely sure what that was all about...

At that point I got pissy with Scott... how dare he take out that paragraph or reedit it or whatever he did to it... and then I thought about it. When I read the book originally, I NEEDED to read that paragraph... it was important to where I was at, and the lesson that I was still struggling to learn. That paragraph was the very thing that actually got me to a place where I learned the damn lesson...

Which meant I didn't need the paragraph any more... so it wasn't there...

Everything happens for a reason.

Current Mood: still learning

movies: the producers

the producers - bialystock and bloomYou know, I actually can't remember the last time I laughed so much, and for so long as I did tonight... we went to see The Producers and damn it was funny!

I don't always find Mel Brooks humour that funny... sometimes he's good, sometimes he labours the point a little too much. But The Producers, was just funny enough in all the right places and in all the right ways... yes, it's definitely farce and a little slapstick, but it's also really FUNNY! Ma was worse than me... she's never one to laugh quietly, and there was more than one occasion where I was sure everyone in the cinema could hear her... *rolls eyes*... Mothers... whatchugunnado?!

Anyway, I love Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick (Matthew especially, all the way back to the days of both Ferris Bueller and Torch Song Trilogy) and although there was a large amount of them chewing of the scenery in a BIG way (but both in very different ways, which helped), it was well done, and just fitted the feel of the movie.

I can see why it probably offended a whole lot of people back when it originally came out, but I didn't have a problem with any of it, from the over the top queens (including a bare-chested, non-speaking cameo by my favourite Queer Eye, Jai Rodriguez) to the whole Springtime for Hitler thing (on that note, I was also amused by the fact that the "perfect Aryan Stormtrooper" we see at the beginning of the musical within the musical was actually played by John Barrowman, a openly gay man.. whether that was intentional or not, I don't know... but I liked it)... like I said, the whole thing was extreme farce, and very much taking the mickey out of itself.

Having said all that, I've never seen the original movie, or the play, so, who knows, maybe those are better... but I very, very, very much enjoyed my first exposure to The Producers... and this is another one that will definitely have to find it's way into my DVD collection.

yani's rating: 4 goose-stepping chorus boys out of 5

four!

fourI got bitchslapped... err... tagged by The Other Andrew to do the "Four" meme...

Four jobs you've had in your life:

  • Online Support Officer at Department of Education & Children's Services
  • Assistant Finance Officer for the Department of Human Services
  • Support Consultant for a recruitment company
  • Word Processing at a business college
Four movies you could watch over and over:

(It doesn't mean that any of them are among my favourite movies, although Clue actually is, but that I can watch them over and over... occasionally while doing things like washing the dishes or cooking)

Four places you've lived:

(I've only ever lived in five houses, all in South Australia, and the suburbs repeat so...)
  • Elizabeth Vale
  • North Adelaide
  • Golden Grove
  • North Adelaide
Four TV shows you love to watch:
Four places you've been on holiday:
  • My house (does that count?)
  • Melbourne
  • Aldinga (beachside suburb to the south of Adelaide)
  • And Melbourne again
Four websites you visit daily:
Four of your favorite foods:
  • Turkish bread
  • Lamb Rogan Josh
  • Chicken (breast in general)
  • Rocky Road
Four places you'd rather be:
  • Somewhere with airconditioning
    (I'm looking at a week of 30C-plus temperatures with no aircon)
  • Working
  • New York
  • London
Four Play:

I tag... actually I tag nobody... for one, when I get tagged by either Andrew or Eddy, whoever tagged me has already tagged the other one, and since they're two of the people I know will pretty much always do a meme it makes my list harder... so I'm not tagging anyone... so ner! But if you want to do the meme, go for it.

Current Mood: noncommittal

montage monday: red

red 2005It's weird, the way things work out sometimes...

Yesterday I did that long rambly post about the Mean Reds, which only really got that title because the line from Breakfast at Tiffany's popped into my head part way through...

Then this morning I realised I had to get the final shot for my Monday Montage... and it was only then that I actually realised that my montage theme was red... honestly... I did most of the montage at the end of last week (and would have finished it on Friday if the battery in my camera hadn't run out of juice part way through my walk), and never connected it with the post when I was writing it yesterday.

Technically it's a red montage, but it kind of ended up being red with a minor in white and black because they tend to show up together a lot on signs and things.

Current Mood: i'm okay

mean reds

this doesn't have a damn thing to do with this post, but it's red and pretty and I had to give you somethingA couple of days ago I realised that I hadn't written a long rambly post for quite a while... in fact since New Years a lot of my posts have been fairly light on actual information... yeah, I got my hot water back, and had coffee with a potential model... but I haven't really had anything to SAY... at least nothing that actually looks like something of importance.

There are a couple of those longer rambly posts rattling around in my head, but one of them needs to wait until I've read one of my Christmas presents and the other won't let me pin it down long enough to actually work out what it is...

I think part of the problem is that, like a fair few other Bloggers around the place, I've kind of come down with a case of the Post Christmas Mean Reds* (see bottom of post)... I don't know that it actually has anything to do with Christmas being over... maybe it's more about the start of a new year and the fact that I pretty much feel stuck...

Of course, the Universe, having a fairly sick sense of humour, finds it funny to send particular things my way when I'm in this kind of mood... like on Thursday, watching Oprah, the show was Have You Let Yourself Go?... and while most of it was about stay-at-home Moms and just women in general, there was just enough in the show to hit home with me to make me, once it was over, pick up the phone and call my girlygirl at my new agency to check in with her and see what was happening... stoopid Oprah...

The end part of the show was about asking yourself Who am I? (stealing from Oprah.com... It's a lifelong question. It's not about the stuff… "I'm a mom," or "I'm a good employee" - it's "When I was born, what was the plan for my life?")... And to be honest I'm in two minds about both knowing and not knowing the answer...

For the path of my life up until this point, yeah, I'm fairly sure I know what the plan was, because it's all there, laid out behind me, and I completed it all, or at least all the bits of it that I can see... it's the other half... the future path that I'm pretty much clueless about... I don't know that it's all one big plan though... although there is a whole theme at work, but I don't know that I've got anywhere left to go in said theme...

Hmmm... I think this might have been the other rambly post that I mentioned at the beginning wouldn't be pinned down... and it possibly deserves its own post at a later date, where I can be less vague and quasi mysterious about it all...

Anyway... where was I...

The aforementioned agency girlygirl didn't call me back until Friday morning... technically I should have known she would probably be doing interviews all afternoon on Thursday... I mean I went to see her for my interview in the afternoon... on a Thursday... and she came straight out of another interview before me... so... yeah...

She gave me the usual "Things are picking up again after Christmas, I'll keep you posted" spiel... I worked for an agency at one point myself... though not as a consultant thank god... so I know how it goes... I do have a good feeling about this girlygirl though... she's all funky and whatnot, and I know there's a job on it's way... I just need to be in the right place at the right time.

I've only heard back from one other agency out of the seven I sent my resume to... and that was a really brief email (which actually got caught in my spam filter and very nearly got deleted... which also makes me wonder if there were other answers that DID get killed by the spam filter) basically saying "Thanks, we don't got nothing for you, but we're lazy, so add your details to our database on the website so we can look you up without having to do anything"... I haven't bothered as yet... stoopid agency...

I really do want to be working again... this whole "enforced vacation" thing was fun... but I'm kind of over it now... like Eddy I like the whole routine and mental stimulation thing of work... at least when I'm working somewhere fun, or if not "fun", at least stimulating... hell, at this point I would even be up for somewhere that's dull and not so mentally challenging... so long as I was getting paid.

Which weirdly enough, does seguay into one of the other things that's been floating around in my head a lot of late.... a combination of thoughts about what happens when Ma dies and what happens when I die... cheerful, no?

Ma isn't getting any younger, she'll be 59 this year, and given that we have this very atypical relationship, it's mother/son but with a secondary "friend" layer over that... I actually enjoy spending time with her... which is partly why we do the movie thing... spending time with her isn't a chore or something to be suffered through.

And so, I wonder what happens after she's gone... which then makes me wonder about what happens after I'M gone... I especially get that feeling looking around my apartment... what happens to my tons and tons of crap after I'm dead... who do I leave all the DVD's and all the books and all the stuff to?

Part of the whole Ma thing comes back to the job thing... she's not going to be working forever (retirement in Australia is somewhere in there between 60 and 70... but there doesn't seem to be hard and fast rules about it), and I'd like to be able to spoil her, buy her things, take her places, not support her as such, but throw money in her general direction when appropriate... lord knows she's done it for me enough times.

Add to all that the fact that my friendship base is pretty damn thin on the ground (ie pretty much non existant) at present... given that J is in London, Lownee disappeared into the ether, Raury is dealing with his own traumas, and various other friends have chosen to absent themselves from my life for one reason or another. There's the Camera Club gang, but they're more acquaintances than friends... and the one person who I did consider a friend disappeared from Camera Club for most of last year...

I'm a solitary person though, so for the most part it isn't that much of a problem... and I suck at the whole social situation thing, unless I already know at least a couple of the people around me...

So yeah... such is the sum total of my life at the moment... not quite sucking beyond the telling of it... but it has it's moments...

It also explains why I just read certain things written by other Bloggers and just roll my eyes... yeah, friends, good job, great apartment, an only occasionally psychotic boyfriend, lot and lots of sex... how terrible is your life! (I'm only teasing (mostly)... I love the little smurf really)

Okay, I think that's enough of a rambly "Where's My Head At" post... waits for the collective sigh of relief from around the globe...

* Mean Reds: "The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?" - Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's

Current Mood: attack of the mean reds

movie star double

ethan hawkeYour movie star double is Ethan Hawke!

An intellectual like you needs to be played by someone who understands how to be deep without being boring, someone who can grasp complicated subjects and make them seem clear cut, someone like Ethan Hawke. Whether bringing Hamlet to life or getting published himself, Ethan has shown the world that being smart can be sexy.

Were you sometimes the kid in class who realized when the teacher made a mistake — even if you didn't always point it out? Now that you're grown up, it wouldn't surprise us if you still liked the challenge of banter or enjoyed staying up late talking about the latest in political, social, or celebrity circles. Your glamour comes from your head first and radiates out through your looks. So keep that confidence up. Ethan's a natural to star as you because he, like you, has a good head on his shoulders. And isn't afraid to use it.

Who's Your Movie Star Double?

Current Mood: smart

photo friday: bougainvillea

bougainvillea 2006I don't know what it is about this, but when I saw the gate with the bougainvillea over it on my daily walk, I had to take the shot... It might just be the combination of the white, green and magenta... or I could have just been channelling The Other Andrew...

Current Mood: tired and bored with summer

random mikkel hotness

I've kind of got another random photographer for this week's Random Hotness, but this is more about the model, Mikkel Olsen, than it is about Norwegian photographer, John Andresen... I couldn't help feeling I needed something a little summery this week... and while this is a very fake beach, I do like these shots.

mikkel olsenby john andresen

Current Mood: mmmmmm hotness

my blog should be...

Not exactly like this was a surprise...

Your Blog Should Be Purple



You're an expressive, offbeat blogger who tends to write about anything and everything.

You tend to set blogging trends, and you're the most likely to write your own meme or survey.

You are a bit distant though. Your blog is all about you - not what anyone else has to say.


Current Mood: a little bored

movies: valiant

valiant - featherweight herosWell it seems like its all "bird related CGI movies" at present... last week there was Chicken Little, and this week, World War II carrier pigeons in Valiant.

Of the two, I have to say, I enjoyed Valiant a lot more... partly because Valiant actually had a story that had a beginning, middle and end and actually went somewhere, and partly because it was a British production, from Vanguard Animation, and it was just nice to see someone new muscling in on Pixar and Dreamworks.

The story isn't anything brilliantly new... we have a main character who is (insert appropriate difference here), leaves home to (insert plot here) and meets some other oddball friends along the way, until finally his (insert appropriate difference here) means that he (saves the day/gets the girl/insert other appropriate plot ending here)... we've seen it all before, in about a billion different variations, but it's nicely done here.

It's also interesting that this is the second "kids movie" out at the moment that has a backdrop of World War II... The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe being the other one. I'm not especially sure how appropriate an animated "war movie" is for kids... but, hey, I'm not a parent, so what do I care...

As with a lot of these animated movies where there is a lot of well known voice talent, although this one does seem to have more than it's fair share.... I tend to spend the first couple of minutes pulled out of the moment because I recognise the voice before I can just let that go and enjoy the story. In this case, with this all British cast being full of voices I recognised, from Hugh Laurie to Tim Curry and all points in between, it did take me a little while to stop being distracted by working out the voices. Having said that, there were a bunch of the actors I didn't pick up on... most notably Rik Mayall as one of the German falcons, Cufflingk.

One other thing I did notice that I thought was a nice touch... every time you hear the pigeons fly, it had that unmistakable pigeon sound... the cooing noise overlaying the wingflaps, which made them sound very believable. On the downside, the animators seemed to have worked so hard at making the birds (and mice) look "realistic", that the handful of humans you see just look a little too fake, although I couldn't tell you why.

I'll be interested to see what Vanguard do with their next project, Phreex, which is due out in 2007.

yani's rating: 2 wing feathers out of 5

montage monday: numbers

numbers 2005Another Monday, another Monday Montage... I don't actually know if there will be one next week or not... haven't been inspired with a subject as yet...

Anyway, I started this one while I was still finishing up last week's Strangeway's montage, with the 21 at the beginning of the second row and the 81 two rows down... and it grew from there. I don't know that I've ever noticed house numbers more (except of course when I'm actually trying to find a specific one).

On a slightly related note, during my walk this morning, I turned down the street with the "Roman Frieze" house and spotted a little figure standing way off down the street... and the figure was just standing there, and kind of moving it's arms... and I couldn't work out what it was doing... then the arm movements looked familiar... whoever it was was taking photos. I did wonder at that point, whether or not it might be someone from Camera Club... I doubted it, but you never know.

Eventually I got close enough to work out that I was right (not about the Camera Club thing, but about the taking photos thing), although from where she was standing, I have no idea what it was on the opposite side of the road that she might have been taking photos of.

Anwyay, she was headed towards me, and we crossed paths just outside the Feet Fountain house, where she stopped, I assume, to take a shot of the fountain and the little concrete feet... but I couldn't help grinning to myself as I was walking past thinking... "Been there, done that!".

Current Mood: amused