going fully hi-def

Lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy...

No prizes for guessing what I ended up doing today. Actually, not very much of anything, but I did spend a big fat chunk of change on a new teevee and entertainment unit.

After yesterday's indecision I still wasn't completely sure what I wanted to do, but I was kind of envisioning what I'd need to do to replace the old system and what I'd do with all the stuff that lived on it...

So I guess I'd already mostly made up my mind... otherwise I would never have gotten Ma to come back down and we wouldn't have gone off to the store.

But we did... and I caught the eye of the lovely (and butch) Jake who I'd heard giving good advice yesterday and got him to work out what their best price would be... that is once we'd added on a HDMI cable and Ma had decided she was going to get this cute little TDK sound system... so all up it came to just under $1700....

And before I knew it I was the proud owner of glossy black KDL-32W5500 32" Bravia LDC TV, and a equally glossy black DAV-TZ200 DVD Home Theatre System (as seen above)!

I did loose my mind during the process somewhat though... mostly because there was a lot of standing around and waiting while for pricing and for Jake to find things out and get all the components and whatnot... so I had more than enough time to forget how to speak...

But eventually it was all organised and packed up into the car and we headed back here...

I'll just say that of all the parts of buying new stuff, the bit that I loathe the most is setting everything up... especially teevees and stereos and the like... although I will say that I like this whole HDMI cable system, because all you need is the one cable! Granted I probably should plug the yellow audio cable in, but at the moment it's fine.

Well, fine other than the fact that because I don't know what all the buttons do or why the system is doing certain things it's still doing some weird things that are a little disconcerting... but I still haven't read through the manuals properly... so I'm sure I'll work it all out eventually.

The other downside is, well, dustbunnies... Big fat feral mutant dustbunnies... very unattractive!

And I definitely need a new entertainment unit... the one I've got was a $20 special from one of the cheap shops... plus it seems quite small in the gap now that big ass stereo has gone. I also need to find proper spots for the surround sound speakers... so there's some settling in to be done...

I also had some issues trying to get the digital channels to tune in, especially given that I have to use rabbit ears... when I first did it neither 7 or 9 were there and I ended up having to put the aerial up on top of the bookcase (bless additional antenna cable!)... which kinda looks like some sort of modern art thing given that it looks like it's growing out of the back of the wooden hand I have up there...

But overall... in a word... WOW!

Once the aerial was in the right place, the picture quality was AMAZING... the colour, the clarity, everything... I mean I thought it was amazing when I got the set top box... this is such a level of magnitude above that, it's not even funny... the screen is about twice the size, which makes a difference obviously. But, really, wow! Ma and I just sat there entranced by Meerkat Manor of all things... but the detail... all those fuzzy little fuckers...

Then I "set up" the Home Theatre... which was a task and a half since I couldn't work out how to get it to display on the teevee... but I worked it out eventually. And the very first DVD I tried it out with was specially chosen... Transformers... because, you know, detail and big picture and sounds and whatever...

And yet again... WOW! I saw detail in the robots that I've never seen before... not even when we were at the movies.

So I'm something of a happy bunny...

And the whole old system is off to be recycled... Ma is taking the set top box (although I need to work out what the hell happened to the instruction book) and the rest of it is headed off to a home for disadvantage young men (which seems somewhat appropriate, although don't actually ask me why)...

I get the feeling that I'm going to spend far too much time watching stuff and going "Oooooh!" even if it's not that exciting... so long as it looks pretty...

Current Mood:

teevee shopping conundrum

I'm somewhat confused, decidedly undecided and a little bit worried... all of which is making me cranky...

To start the story at the end, I went looking at flat screen teevees again this afternoon, and while I think I found one I like, that goes with an entertainment system I like, the sum total of which would turn four appliances into two, it's still a big fat chunky of change... and even though I have the money and fully intend to get a new teevee and entertainment system, it's still kinda hard to lay out the big bucks like that.

It's also something of a "windowsill" problem (which I'm sure I've explain before, but I can't find the explanation right now... essentially, doing one thing means you notice something else which should be done, which means you notice somethings else, etc, repeat until insane)...

Yes, it means I can get rid of the old teevee and the stereo and the DVD/VCR and the set top box... but it also means I'll probably have to replace the until my teevee currently stands on... and the bricks the stereo is on would also go, then there would be a strange gap around the unit, and I'm planning on replacing my bookcases at some point too... and then where do I repatriate all the stuff that's currently sitting on and around the teevee and stereo now...

The stereo definitely doesn't owe me anything, since I've had it for about a billion years... in fact I've had the same stereo for over half my life... I got it when was about 15... and the teevee and DVD player have been around for at least 5 years, which isn't outstanding, but pretty good for modern electronics...

And yes, I have the money, and yes I should be working until at least August... and we all remember my legendary spending freakouts from The Bed and The Laptop...

Add to that the fact that it's something of a limited time offer (although with The Good Guys I don't think there's ever a problem about asking for their best price, especially if you go in and wave cash about at them)... so if I decide to get it, it's probably going to be tomorrow... theoretically we could have done it next week, but we've got plays to see and possibly street art to view and Ma's having her hair did...

I currently have $500 burning a hole in my wallet... another $350 in my safe place... Ma's suggesting putting in another (from memory) $300 of "birthday money", plus she has someone who'll take my old teevee off my hands (and possibly the stereo and the DVD player as well). And I can draw the rest of the money out of the bank tomorrow.

For the record, they're both Sony products... the KDL-32W5500 Bravia LCD TV and the DAVTZ200 DVD Home Theater System... so, good quality stuff, at least on the face of it... plus I'll be able to use a single remote instead of the three I'm currently using...

Can you tell that I'm either trying to talk myself into it or out of it... in equal measure...

In other news from today, we went to the supermarket, I bought things, Weetbix have changed the size of their 1kg packet, which I'm not pleased about, I bought some "Thomas Rosenthal Group" Santoku knives very cheaply thanks to collecting stickers at Foodland, we went to West Lakes, bought nothing, I was semi haunted by guys in pale chambray shirts and white shorts, as well as guys in dreadlocks... I was happier about the latter than the former.

Current Mood:

photo friday: green r

Can two be classed as a set? This isn't the first street art "R" that I've shot... although I don't like my chances of finding another one...

It's been an odd end to a very long and somewhat odd week... originally I was supposed to head into town for an opening at the 5000 Gallery... but I just couldn't be bothered after being out for the last three nights. Actually, this bit of street art is one that I spotted last night before Josh Earl.

Turns out it was a better plan to stay in... *evil grin*

Although that did throw my whole evening out of kilter a bit.

We were all a bit off kilter at work today... I don't think I actually completed anything after I got back from lunch... there was a bunch of stuff that I needed to do, but I couldn't focus enough to do any of them, so I ended up doing about half of all of them... not great, but hopefully I'll be able to knock them all off fairly easily on Monday.

This Fringe stuff is addictive... the more stuff I see, the more of other stuff I think that it would be nice to be able to see. Although I think there's probably only one more show I might add to the list, and that's only if I can get cheap tickets...

It has been a very long week tho...

Current Mood:

fringe: josh earl vs the awwcbc book

I'm just going to come right out and say it... if you had a single digit birthday during the 1980's, or your mum had a copy of the book, then you absolutely have to go and see Josh Earl vs The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book!

I've made no secret of the fact that I chose this show solely on the name... I remember the AWWCBCB fondly from my youth, and any comedy show that was based around it sounded good to me.

Best! Decision! Ever!

The show has singing, it has dancing, it has actual real live cake, it has photos from the AWWCBCB projected the wall, it has an adorable skinny little hipster boy with self confessed lesbian hair and spray on jeans... and it definitely has laughs.

Sadly I'd forgotten all the cakes in the book, but seeing them projected on the screen definitely brought back memories given the fact that Ma made more than a few of them for me and The Cousins... including the upright piano cake for my 14th birthday... I'm such a dork.

Actually, right after the show I called Ma and asked her to bring the book down on the weekend...

Even the countdown to the start of the show has cake... number cakes counting down, which I'd also forgotten were in the book (and which was La Cousina's 14th birthday cake, complete with marshmallow Frangipani).

But enough about cakes...

One of the funniest parts (other than seeing all the really weird looking cakes) was the section where he used a conversation with his mum and turned it into a rap... but there were a lot of highlights, Josh is one funny guy.

So big fat check in the Highly Recommended column!

Current Mood:

random randall hotness

I'm dipping into The Big Book of Porn for this week's Random Hotness... Zack Randall!

Sure he's been around for a while, and scored the title of Freshman of the Year in both 2007 and 2009, and there's been some "scandal" along the way, but he's as cute as all get out... especially with the facial hair...

Plus he's got the hearing aid/deafness thing, which gets him bonus points (yeah, I'm a twisted puppy, we all know this)...

Current Mood:

fringe: the kransky sisters - three bags full

It's nice that even when you don't realise a particular show has allocated seating, but it turns out that the sweet but mostly docile boy at the FringeTix outlet gave you a good seat anyway... not a perfect seat mind you... but I was second row centre for The Kransky Sisters tonight, so I can't complain.

It was also a very, very strange audience... lots of Women of a Certain Age... which struck me as very odd, although given that the Kranskys are themselves WoaCA, it's probably to be expected.

I'm also convinced that people don't know how to behave in any kind of theatre setting... not everyone you understand, just the odd one or two every time... this time it was a guy in the row behind me who didn't have a volume control or an off switch.

However, even that wasn't enough to ruin a fantastic night's entertainment!

Of the four things I've seen so far this year, The Kranskys go straight to the top of the list...

I'd only ever seen them on the old "In Siberia Tonight" teevee show, where they only really did one song with a bit of a lead in, so getting to see a whole hour's worth was definitely an experience.

And all in all they're as funny as I remember... funnier even because there was just more material. They were as dour and creepy and droll as I was expecting though. And they also manage to make exceptional music with an old 60’s reed keyboard, guitar, musical-saw, tuba, and a cooking pot... plus they have fantastic voices!

I will say that I kinda miss Arva, the original third sister... while Dawn (the new French Horn playing sibling) was hilarious, I was always very fond of Arva, she just had this look on her face that made me laugh... Dawn is somewhat more unhinged I think... very funny though.

It was also fun trying to work out what song they were doing as it started... given that they do all the songs in their own distinctive style, I will admit that I didn't pick some of them until they got to the chorus. I did pick Werewolves of London right away though.

And I found myself thinking how great it would be if they did a version of a Lady Gaga song...

There were a lot of great moments... I did enjoy the running gag that every time something went wrong, be it having to check a guitar amp cord or knocking a tamborine off the stand or whatever, Dawn always got the blame, even though she wasn't anywhere near it.

I'm also curious to know if the bit about the toilet brush head coming off was scripted or not... when it first happened I thought it was an accident, but I'm not convinced... it was incredibly funny though.

As was when they dragged poor Steve out of the audience and proceeded to dress him up as the fourth Kransky, complete with wig and have him join them in a little bit of syncronised tambourine action... and the lucky bugger got a certificate of participation.

It was all over far too soon... they went from playing the saw to tales of London and Amsterdam to a wonderful uncomfortable silence as Mourne lamented her lost love life to them sniffing Steve's shirt after he was escorted off stage to Dawn's very off-kilter dancing... and then they walked off stage, into the crowd and out of the theatre to go and stand on the street corner and sell tea towels and magnets and CDs...

Originally I was just going to get a photo of them, but I ended up buying a magnet and a tea towel, which they all signed for me... in handwriting that's very specific to their characters too... Mourne's is very flowing cursive, Eve's is a little jagged and uneven and Dawn's although it doesn't look too bad, was done in such a manic and frenzied way that made me laugh.

If they come back again, I'm definitely going, and I'm definitely taking Ma!

And, to finish, a little YouTube action from the days of Arva...


Current Mood:

movies: percy jackson and the lightning thief

I'm going to say something that's not really going to shock anybody... without the Harry Potter phenomenon, I kinda doubt Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief would have ever been made into a movie...

And getting the director of the first two Harry Potter movies was probably a wise move, but it does encourage additional comparisons that another director might not have attracted.

Having said all that though, I think that the movie stood up fairly well against not only the Harry Potter movies, but also movies like the Narnia series.

In fact, in a lot of ways it was easier to enjoy than Harry Potter... I haven't read the Percy Jackson books, so there was no baggage, there was no having to work around what they may or may not have included or glossed over from the book... I could just sit back and let the movie happen on it's own terms.

Sure, the whole plot is essentially one big fat MacGuffin to cram in as many Greek mythological references as possible, but it's serviceable.

Plus I've always had a big thing for Greek gods, so I was pretty much in my element as far as that was concerned.

And, if I'm being completely honest, Percy Jackson is a lot easier to like than Harry Potter... there's much less moping around and feeling sorry for oneself and remarkably little angst even if Percy does fall prey to the somewhat predictable "must go and do this thing that I've been forbidden to do" plot device that happens a lot in this type of movie (I'm pretty sure that's the basis for the plot of every Harry Potter book/movie).

But enough with the comparisons, let's just deal with the movie on it's own merits.

Logan Lerman was very impressive as the titular Percy... plus he's quite cute to boot (and I can say that without feeling like a complete perv, because he's now officially 18). However, I have to say that his offsider, Brandon T. Jackson, was a trifle annoying at times... that was probably more about the way the character was written though... but he just ended up being "smart mouthed African American comedy relief sidekick guy"... which is a shame, because the character had potential at the beginning of the movie, but went downhill later on.

And sadly, the Hermione to Logan and Brandon's Harry and Ron respectively, Alexandra Daddario didn't really have very much of an impact, either the way the character was written or the way she played it (actually, probably more of the former rather than the latter)... she was okay, but thinking back on it, for this supposed "great warrior with battle strategy skills", she was a bit vanilla throughout.

Additional snaps do have to go to both Rosario Dawson and Uma Thurman for chewing their way delightfully through the scenery...although, honestly, Rosario was a little too Deus Ex Machina for my liking.

However, these are things that have really only come to me when thinking about the movie afterwards, it did keep me thoroughly entertained during the two hour running time.

It's definitely entertaining... the plot hurtles along quite quickly although it doesn't seem particularly rushed. I would imagine that the book has more time to catch it's breath, but I could be wrong about that.

The special effects are solid throughout... there was something not completely right about the satyr and centaur effects, but they also weren't standing out as obviously "effecty"... in fact, none of it was bad, I just don't know that it was stand-out good either... but definitely solid overall.

So all in all, it's entertaining and solid... good but not exceptional within the genre... but if you like the genre, then it's worth a look.

yani's rating: 3 winged Converse out of 5

unconscious mutterings 369

It's been a fairly shit day... I have the sniffles, the aircon wasn't working at work, and I just wasn't up for any bullcrap...

Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Teeth :: Doctor
2. Sweeten :: Tea
3. Demons :: Angels
4. Pizza :: Yes please!
5. Protector :: Pocket
6. Smooth :: Operator
7. Coat :: Of Many Colours
8. Pebbles :: Bambam
9. Pregnant :: Pause
10. Sing :: Song

Current Mood:

the end of a timelord

I have no idea why the hell Doctor Who has such an effect on me...

I don't know if it's David Tennant, or Russell T Davis, or what, but ever since the ninth Doctor regenerated into the tenth Doctor, I end up a basket case on a regular basis...

And tonight was no exception... invariably I end up crying a bit at the end of each season, and this was worse because it was the end of David Tennant's reign as The Doctor. So basically I spend the last 20 minutes or so of the final show sobbing... we were way past crying at this point... in fact I went into, as Oprah calls it, The Ugly Cry. There was snot, there were tears, there was some sobbing... it was very unattractive.

I also didn't even realise where the prophesied "four knocks" came from until afterwards... which is probably a good thing, because there was more than enough sobbing... especially as The Doctor said goodbye to everyone...

Having seen the new Doctor's outfit though, I have to say, not a fan of the bowtie! He did look hot in David's outfit...

Current Mood:

fringe related saturday

It was all a very early kind of day today...

Because we had tickets for The Grimstones at 10am, and my new Fringe motto is "Get There Early", Ma came down early so we could get all the shopping out of the way early and be down at The Garden of Unearthly Delights at a reasonable time.

All of which worked out very well indeed... partly I think because I haven't really been buying that much stuff on Supermarket Safaris of late... I don't know if it's the weather or I just have too much stuff I haven't used yet or what... but it's usually very light on...

And there was the added bonus that we went everywhere in my car today... *sigh* air-conditioned car... love ya!

Once we'd done everything and came back here to unpack and whatnot, we headed off to the city to find a carpark and try and get front and centre for the show... turns out that none of that was really very hard!

Snagged a parking space right at the East Terrace end of Rundle Street, about the third space in in fact... and since the Garden only opened in time for the first show of the day (which I'm guessing would have been The Grimstones) we were actually early and wandered along Rundle Street for a bit.

As we were wandering along I noticed that there were a bunch of little sketches stuck to poles and walls and signs... all little scribble sketches of faces... amazing stuff! And since they were only stuck on with blutak, I'm not embarrassed to say that I snagged a couple of my favourite ones (turns out they weren't original sketches, but rather photocopies, but if you look at them from a distance you'd never know)... and on the back was the artist's details, Fleur Elise Noble, and the dates of her show (23-25 Feb). She's very good!

Anyway, we wandered back to the Garden, and thoroughly enjoyed The Grimstones... then our next stop was across the road to Amococo...

Behold... the inflatable luminarium... yeah, I'd never even heard the word before this either...

Sure, there was lining up, and it was quite warm inside in spots (I don't think all the air coolers were working because there were all these little alcoves with air vents in them but they weren't all blowing), but it was TOTALLY worth it... it's absolutely amazing!

It feels completely alien, but it's absolutely gorgeous... and a photographer's dream (I can just imagine doing a fashion shoot or better yet, a nude shoot in there)... once you manage to avoid all the other people who are in there, but the whole thing is so segmented and labyrinth-like that you don't need to wait long until you feel like you're completely alone. It would be amazing to use as a party space or something, where there would be less people and more of a relaxed vibe with music (there were lots of kids running around, which is never very zen).

There was even a guy photographing an odd girl wearing a doctor's coat and stethoscope... I have no idea what the hell that was about...

Had it not gotten a little warm in there I could have happily hung out for much much longer... but I'm definitely going to have to go back, especially since entry is only $2! And it's one I totally recommend!

Anyway, after that we jumped back in my car (woohoo air-conditioning... sorry, but that just never ever gets old!) and I drove Ma around to show her all of the inflatable spacemen... we didn't stop or anything, but I assume they're going to be around for a while, so we could always do it on a much cooler day. The only one I couldn't find was the one in Rymill Park...

And since the last one we saw was in Light Square (and quite possibly my favourite), we just kept heading down Currie Street and ended up going to Marion...

Marion, was essentially Marion... although quote of the day has to go to the woman dressed up in costume (I think she was supposed to be this character, but I'm not sure... she had the spots tho) along with a Darth Vader and a stormtrooper (I'm guessing they were all part of that Star Wars/Stormtrooper charity organisation, it's not the first time we've seen them at Marion)... but she was talking very earnestly to a couple of civilians as we walked past, and I heard her say, in all seriousness, "I am a Jedi Knight"... she specifically emphasised the "am" too...

Okay then... if you say so!

I also snagged two Margaret Cho DVDs at JB HiFi.... one for now, and one for my birthday... woohoo... which is only about three weeks away!

And that's about it really...

Current Mood:

fringe: the grimstones - hatched

I think the first time I heard about The Grimstones was Sunshine's post about them in the middle of last year... then I realised that I'd missed them in last year's Fringe... *sad face*

Fortunately the show was back this year, so I booked tickets for today's morning performance for Ma and me.

Given how hot and awful the weather is today, I'm glad we booked in for a very early show (and that the tent was somewhat air-conditioned), and it also meant that the crowd for the show was quite small... and somewhat unsurprisingly, included a deaf woman and her kids.

I knew going in that the show was performed by a deaf puppeteer, and honestly, it just adds that extra level of "cool oddness" to this quirky little puppet show...

It's very Tim Burton/Lemony Snicketts/Addams Family actually... and the fact that Asphyxia narrates the show in sign language which her "helper", August, then translates for her just adds that little extra something, but it doesn't feel weird within the confines of the little Grimstones universe. But their little snarky interactions (Asphyxia always wanting to make sure that August is further back on the stage than she is... or not letting August add things to the story) are great fun.

I did like the fact that when they come out onto the blank stage carrying big suitcases that look like books (and it goes without saying that I would LOVE to have luggage that looked like big books), August actually comes out to the audience and shakes people's hands... and since Ma and I were front row centre, I shook hands with her... err... him... okay, slight gender confusion... the character of August is played by Paula, who is a woman (obviously), but August is dressed like a man... so I'm not sure whether the character is a man, or a woman in man's clothing... but anyway...

I wasn't quite sure what was going to happen when the show started, after all the stage was completely blank, but they come out with the big books as I said and throughout the course of the show, the books/suitcases get opened, and the world of the Grimstones just unfolds.

There's actually a seven minute trailer for the show on YouTube...


They're both exceptional puppeteers... there are any number of tiny little details that the puppets do, from crying to breathing that just feel so real, especially when they don't have dialogue... and like with many of the other puppet shows we've seen of late, at certain points you actually don't pay attention to anything other than the puppets themselves.

I was also impressed with the use of magnets in the puppets hands (and I'm guessing other parts) that allowed them to do certain things in certain spots... very clever.

There were only two minor downsides to the show... the first is that either the level on August's microphone was a bit too low or the music was a bit too loud, but the dialogue got a touch overshadowed once or twice... and the other downside that it was only an hour long.

And having read Sunshine's post I knew there was a question and answer session at the end, but given that the audience was so small, there really weren't that many questions.

Ma also ended up buying the book all about the making of the show...

I was also very happy to hear that Asphyxia is currently working on a sequel, all about Mortimer Grimstone and how he died... and we're DEFINITELY going to have to go and see that one!

Two very enthusiastic thumbs up... and absolutely one you should go and see!

Current Mood:

photo friday: fringe astronauts

There are eight giant inflatable astronauts invading Adelaide...

As well as these two standing guard over Victoria square, there is one perched atop the Adelaide Town Hall, one scuttling along the side of the Bank SA buildings on King William St, another climbing the balcony of Nova 919 on Hindmarsh Square and one attacking the AC Arts in Light Square (I can't seem to find any photos of that one, so I'm not certain what it's actually doing). Plus there's one upside down in what appears to be a giant umbrella at the Garden of Unearthly Delights and another in Rymill Park.

So there will probably be more photos as I track down these spacemen...

Today has very much been a day of defeated expectations...

I overslept, got up, was planning to go for my walk, realised I was just too damn tired, so I curled up on my bed for about half an hour and had a little nap.

Then I got into work, fully intending to work on changes to the project I knocked over earlier this week, but found an email in my inbox that needed a reply and ended up banging out an A4 page worth of reply to that instead... then one of our team who'd left to have a baby came in with baby in tow, so I had to coo and goo and have a hold of the baby. So that killed far too much time... then just before lunch a total stranger came in with her little boy who was just so fricken adorable. He had these massive blue anime eyes and was just too cute, so when he wandered over to us he ended up bouncing from Sugarmonkey to me for a while.

Finally I got around to working on the project changes at around 2pm...

Then before I knew it it was hometime...

Oh, and I stopped off at the Fringe ticket office at lunchtime and bought a ticket for The Boy With Tape On His Face, which is supposed to be excellent. That brings my total Fringe tickets up to seven... which is a 600% increase from last year... and a 700% increase from the year before.

I am Fringe Monster, hear me roar. And yes, I'm aware that there are people who will be seeing 3 or 4 times that many shows (and that there are supposed to be about 700 shows on altogether), but it's big as far as I'm concerned.

Current Mood:

fringe: josh thomas's surprise

Okay, so I'm the first to admit that I haven't seen very many live comedy shows... in fact, if we're talking actual real live stand-up comedy... then I've seen exactly two shows... Adam Richard last March and Josh Thomas tonight...

And Adam Richard is my yardstick for funny... I laughed my ass off at the Adam Richard show. I think Adam Richard is usually hilarious!

Josh Thomas is no Adam Richard.

Which is not to say that he wasn't funny... he was, but he just wasn't Adam Richard funny.

I didn't think the crowd was going to be as bad as Friday night... but I was wrong... there wasn't a line outside at all, but I was surprised when I got to the venue... the line snaked from the Spiegeltent for what seemed like miles and miles... I definitely need to get there earlier in future.

But once everyone finally got into the tent, it didn't seem that full... which was kinda weird. I could have gotten a better seat than I ended up with I think... especially since I was sitting across the row from a bunch of women who I'm pretty sure had been drinking for far too long, as they kept talking... I wasn't that far away from shushing them, but they weren't being continually noisy, which was more annoying actually.

But, getting back to Josh Thomas and his actual show...

I'm also not sure that calling your show Surprise and not mentioning in any of the promo material that it's basically about you coming out and largely gay themed is that much of a good idea... I'm pretty sure that there were people there who had no idea what they were walking into other than "oh, its that funny little guy off the teevee, lets see him"! There were three very straight looking teenage boys a couple of rows in front of me who I'm pretty sure had no idea what had hit them.

I'll also be the first to admit that I had NO idea up until very, very recently that Josh Thomas was one of The Gays... Ma said she knew the first time she saw him... but me, no idea... I guess he fitted into that kinda asexual category... people who you just don't think about having a sex life... or a sexual orientation... or whatever. And I was somewhat surprised when I found out.

And, if I'm being completely honest (and apologies to Josh if he ever reads this)... I'm pretty sure that Josh Thomas isn't that comfortable with his own gayness just yet... or else he wasn't worked out how to work his gayness into a show without making cheap jokes at his own expense (okay, there were some funny lines, none of which I can remember right now, but there were also some bits that I would have almost called bordering on homophobic). Which brings me back to the "telling your audience beforehand" thing... if they know what to expect then you shouldn't have to "apologise" to anyone for who you are because they'll know coming into it.

I was thinking about it on the way home, and this is not the "Josh Thomas stand-up show about gayness" I really want to see. What I want to see is the routine he does in ten years time when he's an old hand at this gay thing and he's more sure of himself from that perspective.

The bits where he was talking about his relationship with his boyfriend Tom, or rather falling in love with Tom, were good (especially since I happened to see some YouTube clips of Tom earlier today, so I had more of an idea about him in general)... sweet and funny and whatnot... I liked those bits, I don't think the audience got some of the religious stuff though...

But enough with the Dr Phil analysis...

Completely changing the subject... I swear it was like 100°C in there with the people and I wasn't even standing under the big lights like he was, and I was wearing shorts... but he was still wearing a freakin cardigan... Well, I guess when you have a schtick...

I could have stuck around after the show, bought a poster, got him to sign said poster, taken a photo of him and me with my iPhone... okay, so I might have done the first two, but there's no way I'd do the last one. But it all seemed a little weird in a way, so I just left (and I'm trying not to think about it, or I might regret it).

All in all though, I'd give him a 70% on the Adam Richard scale...

Current Mood:

random little hotness

I'm dipping into Fantasticsmag for today's Random Hotness... and their "It's The Little Things That Mean So Much" spread...

I'm not sure if the particular model featured in both of these shots is Adam or Steve though (but I imagine that the casting director had a good chuckle about putting two models with those particular names together)...

Current Mood:

much ado about nothing

I swear, this week is Much Ado About Nothing so far... and of course, next week is going to be chocker block... I think I'm out every night next week except for Monday, what with Fringe stuff...

Today's Featured Photos are more of the ticket machine art by Matt Stuckey from Saturday...

I got my hands on the Triple J Live A Version albums today... and made a very pleasant discovery that combines my love of Josh Pyke's music with my love of Winnie The Pooh... I didn't even know there WAS a song called "The House At Pooh Corner", let alone that it was wirtten by the man responsible for the songs "Footloose" and "Dangerzone"... or that Josh Pyke had covered it for Like A Version! Colour me a happy bunny!

Other than that I finally knuckled down and started the project I've been putting off at work since before Christmas... and, unsurprisingly, it only took me a very hours to polish off... the problem was the starting.

And now I need to go and decide what the hell I'm going to do with this chicken breast for dinner...

Current Mood:

back in the day...

Guess who this is before you look any further...

Bet you can't...

Yep, Christopher Walken was actually the hotness back in the day...

Via The Daily What...

That is all...

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 368

You know, I had a whole thought process about what to add to this post this morning, and now it's all gone... I hate that.

Work has been a little bipolar... I did win third prize in the Valentine's Day raffle at work (proceeds to Haiti), which was red wine, which is mostly pointless, but it's the Taylor's brand, with the seahorse logo, so Ma will end up with it.

On the down side, H-San was in a mood all day, and when he's in a mood, it just sucks all the life out of the place.
Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Suitcase :: Travel
2. Exhaust :: Pipe
3. Olympics :: Yawn
4. Video :: Old School
5. Cargo :: Pants
6. Previously :: on Lost/Dollhouse/Buffy the Vampire Slayer
7. Wild card :: An unknown quantity
8. Artificial :: Intelligence
9. Gambling :: Addiction
10. Exhibition :: Ist

Current Mood:

sunset heart

This photo, which I snapped at sunset last night, is my one and only nod to Valentine's Day... or as I've seen it referred to on Twitter... "I Prefer To Be Single Day" or "The Feast of St Hallmark"...

I saw the sunset from my bedroom window and headed out, then spotted these twin palm trees, which I'm sure I've seen a million times before, but yesterday, because I knew St Hallmark Day was around the corner, they kinda looked like a heart.

Kinda... if you squint a bit...

Other than that it's been a slow day... I finally gave J his monitor back (well, he swung past and picked it up), I watched Jaws and I got laid (not spectacular, but pleasant enough)... so not a bad IP2BS Day all up...

Current Mood:

shattered saturday

I am. So. Fucking. Shattered.

Seriously, four hours sleep followed by a big fat shopping Saturday... blessed Santa Maria.

My brain is mostly broken, my feet are killing me and I'm not that far away from sitting here dribbling in my shoes. That is if I was wearing shoes. I am having difficulty making a coherent sentence though, so bear with me.

We started off in the usual fashion, Supermarket Safari, and I think I maybe got a dozen things, if that... partly because I was telling me about Briefs from early this morning, but essentially my head just wasn't in the game... this may end badly later in the week, but I got stuff I really needed, so I should be okay.

Next up we went to Arndale, for reasons that escape me just currently... probably just a wander and a sticky beak... and that's pretty much all it ended up being. And the up escalator was out of service AGAIN... seriously people, just fix the fuckin thing already!

Anyway, after a quick stop off here (to pick up my camera and also so that I could change into my shorts) we headed down to the Homemaker Centre at Mile End... well, specifically to Good Guys because I wanted to look at flatscreen LCD teevees...

I read something this week saying that because of the looming threat of 3DTV, places are selling their flatscreens off cheaper. Can't say that I really saw that much evidence of that though... maybe in other places, but not Adelaide.

But there was one of the LG teevees that came as part of an "entertainment pack", although I'm not sure how "pack" it was really, since it only came with a home theatre system, also LG. I will admit I was somewhat tempted... 81cm LCD teevee, surround sound home theatre system that plays DVDs, has an iPod/iPhone dock and a subwoofer the size of a toddler, all for just over $1000. And maybe if I had been working of some of the higher levels Iwould have bought it... but I was supposedly only looking. I kinda wished I'd snapped a pic of the details for both bits of kit, then I could have Googled some product reviews and stuff.

And it would be good because currently I have the DVD/VCR, the 20 year old stereo and my digital set top box all hooked up to the teevee and each other in an ever complicating loop, so it would be nice to be able to ditch all of that and just have the one unit for all three things.

The offer only lasts until Monday though, so if I was going to do it, then I need to make my mind up tomorrow morning once I've had some sleep.

Then that would be it for appliances/technology stuff... well, except for the microwave... and if I replace that I'm going stainless steel.

So we wandered around looking at stuff in Good Guys, then took a look around Howard's Storage World. To be honest it was just too hard to make decisions about anything today, so I tended to err on the side of caution and went with the safer shopping options (or lack of purchasing altogether) wherever we went.

Our last stop was Rundle Street in the city, in search of all this parking machine ticket art...

Actually, they weren't that hard to find, but they were awesome looking. That's where the orange pic at the top of the page comes from... the other one is a piece of "living advertising" that was bolted to the wall in Synagogue Place... the only problem is I can't work out the web address... I've tried "planbio" and "planbia", but neither seems to work.

So not the best thing from an advertising perspective.

Pretty though.

As we were headed back to the car I saw this freaky little punk girl putting up Fringe posters... posters for the show "Attack of the Ginger Ninja"... so I stopped her and got a copy of the poster to give to La Ninj on Monday... should be good for some giggles. And the poster's kinda cool too.

So, yeah, that's about it... Now I just need to organise an early night....

Current Mood:

fringe: briefs

Tonight was my very first taste of the Adelaide Fringe for 2010... and if I'm being honest, really my first real taste of the Fringe. And it's 2am and I really should be attempting to get some sleep before Saturday Shopping Adventures, but I think I'm too wound up to sleep.

Plus my hands are still overheated and tingling from all the clapping...

But I compromised... I'm actually typing this from bed... bless you laptop!

Because I've never done the Fringe, much less The Garden of Unearthly Delights, I really didn't know what to expect when I went down there tonight... other than expecting the car park situation to be crap... which it kinda was, but I gave up and parked in one of the multistoreys.

But when I got down to TGoUD I didn't really expect people to be queued all the way from the entrance to the road... and I figured since there's no harm in asking, I went to the ticket booth and said that I was going to see one of the shows and was there any way I could jump the queue.

Turns out that's exactly what I could do... woohoo!

Then I realised I had no idea where the hell anything is... there doesn't seem to be a map anywhere, and I had to find a certain tent. Turned out to be a tent very near the entrance, so that was fortunate.

Less fortunate was the fact that the show before the one I was due to see was running late and Briefs was going to be starting some 20 minutes late... so I decided to go for a wander and take a look at the rest of the Garden.

Very cool... freaky, full of bright shiny lights and drunk people, but still very cool. And then I ran into J and Pika... which was a whole world of "of all the gin joints, etc". But nice.

So I hung out with them for a while before wandering back to the tent... bad move on my part really, since all the other people who rocked up seemed to have stuck around and got into the queue... which I was now not at the front of. And I had a couple of braying donkeys (not really, just really loud, drunk women) standing right behind me in the line... I just wanted to slap the crap out of them as they had an increasingly pointless and pretentious conversation.

Eventually the tent opened up and we went on in... and because I'm just one person all on my own I managed to snag a seat right at the end of one of the banquettes (well, somewhere between a bleacher and a banquette really), with a perfect view of everything (including the guy in the audience who had a piercing through or behind his Achilles tendon).

I don't know if it was because this was their first official show, or what, but it wasn't at all slick... the sound was all over the place in spots, they hadn't set up the video projector thing before we went in, nothing major, just little things.

The Samoan drag queen hostess/compare was good, although suffered the most from the sound levels being out of whack... more mic volume, less music please. But she got the crowd all involved in doing some Samoan clapping at one point which was actually kinda cool... I can't remember the words, but it was rubbing hands together going "memememememe", a normal clap, a cupped hand clap and saying "ho" to her "hehe" (I think). Worked very well as audience participation to get us all engaged in the show.

Other than that, we were promised lots of beautiful boys in not very much clothing doing circus tricks and that's very much what we got... rope work strip tease and silks performance and tumbling and balancing on poles and comedy and those cup things on a string and hula hoops and plate spinning (although the plate spinner really wasn't sexy... funny, but not sexy)...

Now I've seen plate spinning before in the movies or on teevee... but I had no idea that seeing it live would be so nerve wracking.... you're just waiting for things to drop, sure that the performer isn't really paying attention... but then suddenly he's there, speeding up the plate.

I was also very proud of myself... before starting, the plate spinner had been eating from a huge "protein powder" container... actually he'd been wandering around since before the show started eating from the container... what the stuff was I have no idea... but before he started the plates he finished off the powder and then kicked the container into the audience... and it sailed overhead, right towards me. Usually this would be a recipe for disaster, but I plucked it effortlessly out of the air and put it on the step next to me.

Oddly though, even with all the barely dressed boys, I think that the cutest guy of the night was fully dressed for most of it, only stripping down to his Bonds trunks for the finale... which probably says a lot about me. Although the blonde tumbler who did a Risky Business number was very hot.

And on the down side I would possibly suggest to them that they really don't need the two video pieces... the one that opens the show would actually be better done as a live piece (although harder to pull off in part), and the tribal tattooing piece before the silks work, although interesting, pretty much alienated the audience, or at least a section of it... I know the girl sitting next to me didn't look at the screen at any point, and I'm sure she's not the only one.

It also stops the show dead... sure, you're better connected with the guy with the tattoos when he comes out to do the silks work, but it just seems to drag on for too long.

But all in all it was fun... a little bit crap in spots, and very, very, very low rent... but fun and sexy and worth seeing.

Current Mood:

photo friday: classic, modern

Dipping into the Melbourne file again... mostly because I just haven't had the opportunity to photograph too much stuff locally... but hopefully with the advent of the Fringe, that may change... cooler weekend weather helps too...

This shot (albeit with a different orientation) ended up in Ma's calendar too... but she does have a thing for towers with spires.

It's been a very long, very overheated, very trying week. And definitely a sleep deprived week too... which is probably why it was so damn trying.

I'm also a little worried, because tonight is the first of the Fringe shows I'm going along to, but it runs from 11:30pm to 1am... so I could either end up falling asleep during it or else I'm going to be somewhat crabby in the morning. Hopefully I manage to acquire a second wind at some point this evening, that would certainly be handy. Add to that that I have no idea where the hell I'm going to park. Parking, in the city, near Rundle Street, on a Friday night, after 11pm... yeah, no idea.

What else did I do with my day...

• Bought an Autobot symbol pendant (sad, but true)
• Went into Haighs for the first time this decade
• Finally found the Kevin Smith movie to complete my "View Askewniverse" collection (Chasing Amy)
• Gave some interim training to an attractive young gentleman who actually got it with minimal explanation
• Discovered that with some minor fiddling I can slide my iPhone into the pad on the strap of my Crumpler bag... I also discovered that that doesn't make taking the bag off over my head with the speakers still in my ears any easier
• Describing a particular workgroup as "The Kite Eating Tree" from Peanuts seriously cracked Sugarmonkey up

And that's about it really... sure there was some actual work in between all of that... but how is that important?

Now I'm off to make one of my very tasty Margherita pizza... cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, baby bocconcini... yummy...

Current Mood:

random 365 hotness

A particularly NSFW bumper Random Hotness this week... well, not the Hotness itself, but there's some NSFW linkage...

On February 10 last year German blogger Haikal Noyes started posting a photo of himself every day... in his own words, he wanted "365 pictures with me being the model. 365 pictures with me being the photographer. I'm trying to create some aesthetic, a little bit erotic, slightly porn." (that last bit is where the NSFW comes in).

This week he posted his final image for now... not his 365th image, because there were a few days there he posted multiple images, but the final of the series.

What I like most about his photos is the incredible range of scenes and ideas and looks he manages to give himself. One day he might be jerking off onto his dining table, the next he's wrapped in foil, the following he's naked outdoors.

And he's really not shy (not that he has much to be shy about, given his body)...

While these aren't necessarily my favourite images from his collection, they're amongst my favourites from the ones not featuring full frontal nudity.

Hopefully after he's taken a little time off he comes back and continues to post photos...