unconscious mutterings 383

It seems that as people move up the corporate ladder (and/or go on leave), work flows in the opposite direction... and downhill seems to currently have my desk at the end of it.

Although it doesn't look like it's going to be as bad a week as I thought it might be... but that could just be because the meeting I'm dreading has been put off until Friday.

Kinda ruins my Friday... but still...

Unconscious Mutterings...
  1. Fresh air :: Fresh Prince of Bel Air
  2. Bodyguard :: Whitney
  3. Wedding :: Ring
  4. Remind :: Me
  5. Wicked :: Witch
  6. Crawling :: On Broken Glass
  7. Gasoline :: Tank
  8. Anyone :: Everyone
  9. Dancing :: So You Think You Can Dance
  10. Wall :: E
Current Mood:

need another sunday

lion arts centreCould I please have another Sunday... I don't exactly know where this one went, but I frittered it away somehow.

This photo is about the only thing I managed to accomplish of any note... and that was taken out of the car window on the way home from the sixth visit to IKEA in five weeks...

Now I should go and sort stuff out for the week...

Current Mood:

slightly failed saturday

rainy saturdayWhile it's one of those days where we did all the things we set out to do, it's also been a day that has been stunningly full of failure.

I was up late last night wandering around YouTube, so I set the alarm on my phone to ensure I got up in time this morning. I didn't. In fact, I got up about three minutes before Ma rocked up. Not great.

Fortunately we were able to make up the time somewhat at the supermarket, so it didn't throw the whole day off.

I knew that Ma wanted to swing by IKEA at some point during the day (and yes, for those of you keeping score that does mean that I've been to IKEA once a week for the past five weeks... I'm entering either intervention or detox country I think)... but she wanted to show me something in a particular shop so we headed off to Marion... except it turns out that Marion doesn't actually have one of those particular stores...

But I did find a new pair of sweatpants for my morning walk, since the current pair have started to tear in an inconvenient place... only to find while I was out and about that the jeans I was wearing have developed a hole in the same area.

Just once I would like to have to throw out a pair of jeans because they're essentially falling apart, not because they're practically perfect but have one small hole... it's incredibly annoying. And usually it's right at that time when you've worn in the rest of the jeans and they're pretty comfortable...

Once we were done at Marion and had some lunch we headed off to IKEA with the expressed purpose of going in, ignoring the whole store and going straight to the racks to get the chair that Ma wanted (and yes, I know, we could probably have gotten all three chairs she bought in the back of her car on one day... but as I've said before, I've been working her up to this for YEARS, so this is actually less painful). But as we have done every single time since Ma bought the two dining chairs a little while back, we ummed and ahhhed about whether the appropriate wood was beech or birch.

Seriously though, could they not have called them something else... something that wasn't almost identical! I don't care what trees they're made out of, don't give two colours that are pretty identical pretty identical names... it's confusing and annoying.

And in keeping with the theme of the day, we chose the wrong colour chair. Birch instead of beech.

So guess who's going back first thing tomorrow morning to swap it over... *le sigh*

I am hoping that that's it for the failure for today... for the whole weekend in fact...

Current Mood:

photo friday: three leaves

three leaves...
Three leaves with bus stop, umbrella shadow and skate shoe, 2010

It has been, without putting too fine a point on it... a clusterfuck of a week...
  • Monday passed in desk tidying and rage
  • Tuesday passed in meetings and Lost tears
  • Wednesday just passed
  • Thursday passed in form code, anticipation and Twitter discussions
  • Friday passed in plotting, discussion, donuts and banner code
No more now please... although I'm not sure that next week is going to improve that much...

I feel like there's a crossroads coming up, but the side roads are deserted and definitely the path less travelled... hopefully it doesn't come to that though.

In other news...
  • It is raining... it will continue to do so tomorrow
  • Jones Cane Sugar Soda is very tasty
  • I keep slicing my finger on my very sharp knives
  • People walk slowly and without paying attention and it's annoying
  • All of my pants never last long... it's most likely a friction issue
  • Discovering a song you loved but had forgotten about on iTunes is bliss
  • My hair is proving problematic
  • Chocolate, homemade pizza, yoghurt and soda make just about anything seem better (not mixed together though obviously)
That is all...

Current Mood:

random longjohn hotness

With the weather turning decidedly wintry of late, I figured it was only fitting to have a warm and wintry Random Hotness this week...

And that's where model Bryce Drapper and his longjohns come in... I don't know about you, but I'm feeling warmer already...

bryce draper's longjohns bryce draper's longjohns

Current Mood:

lost thoughts

the end of lostI just can't bring myself to watch the Lost finale again properly after watching it last night... the original plan was to watch it on the laptop and then watch it on my big teevee, but I just couldn't... it's on in the background while I'm writing this, but the sound is off and I'm only paying attention to parts of it.

I've cried during Lost episodes before... I've cried during Doctor Who episodes... I've cried during at least a couple of Buffy episodes... but I haven't cried like I cried during the Lost finale for... well... a really long time. And we're talking the big, huge ugly cry... with sobbing and snot and everything...

I've lived with these people for six years... following their every move, seeing them bleed and fall in love and fight and explore this giant mystery we call Lost... and as much as the show has been about polar bears and electromagnetism and submarines and hatches and quantum physics and time travel and a smoke monster and candidates and the like, it's also very much been about these people and their connections.

And the finale was all about connections. Connections lost and connections found... connections that just flat out made me cry.

So this is probably where it gets a little spoilery...

In flicking through some of the reviews I read somewhere that the finale was emotionally satisfying but intellectually unsatisfying... and I'll go along with that. In some ways the finale was almost emotionally manipulative (actually, probably not even almost... because, you know, when you bring the dog in at the last minute...) and that extra half hour they added to the show was pretty much just taken up with all the brief little flashback snippets...

Of course the more I start to unpick not just the finale perhaps, but the show as a whole, the more it fragments, but I always knew that they were never going to answer every single question in explicit detail, and like with any series that has been running for this long, there are always going to be inconsistencies...

Like why was Walt so "special" and why didn't that storyline ever go anywhere? And who did that house in the jungle belong to? And who gave Ben the order to kill all of the Dharma folk? And who actually kidnapped the flight attendant and the two kids? And other than the electromagnetism, why couldn't women have babies on the island? And did the numbers ever actually mean anything or were they a red herring? And surely they would have all run out of bullets by now...

But there was really only one little inconsistency that I really noticed with the finale... if Boone had already had his "flash"... who did he have it with? All of the full flashes seemed to be someone they'd loved and lost (tellingly enough) on the island (except Kate's... but the flashes seemed to be caused by love or trauma... so I think she counts as both)... but the only person I remember Boone being in love with was his stepsister Shannon (icky)... but then how did they get him to go to Australia to go and get her.

Maybe somebody dropped a plane on him...

I also read something that stated that for a "sci-fi show", it was a very "religious" ending. And I think that they missed the whole point of Lost. Yes it's a show that has had a lot of science fiction elements... but it's also always been about faith. Not religion, but faith.

Locke has always had faith that the island had a purpose for them. Jack's journey involved him going from a man of pure science to a man of faith. He believes in his purpose so much that he became the island's guardian. And the people who stop having faith or belief in who they are lose their paths (I'm thinking specifically of Claire and Sayid).

That's not to say that religion doesn't play it's part. Jack's father is called "Christian Shepard" for goodness sake. And there's any amount of religious imagery in the show... from heroin filled Madonna statues to Egyptian hieroglyphics to Mr Echo's staff carved with Bible scripture quotes to Dharma's "Namaste" greeting to the motherload of religious images, Eloise Hawking's multi-denominational church.

So the fact that the finale, and in fact the whole of the final season took place within a bardo (I refuse to use to P word), didn't seem out of place to me. Yes, it took place in a church, but I don't know that it necessarily had to be a Western idea of religion...

But the way it all came together definitely worked for me... I was satisfied that this was the way the road ended for the passengers of Oceanic 815.

And I'm glad it had to be Hugo!

Now I just need the complete box set...

Current Mood:

going back to the island for the last time

lost tarot cards... jack, the island and locke
If anybody needs me, I'll be on the island for the next two and a half hours...

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 382

I have a feeling that this week is going to be a big fat whack with a wet sack of crap...

Although I did totally tidy and reorganise my desk today...

Unconscious Mutterings...
  1. Cream :: Pastry
  2. Be with you :: Shortly
  3. Pancakes :: Crepes
  4. Believe :: Prove it
  5. 45 :: Stars On
  6. Eat :: Drink Man Woman
  7. Background :: Image
  8. Pane :: Glass
  9. Aim :: True
  10. Collapse :: Nervous
Current Mood:

this far, no farther

Just to briefly summarise how I felt today, here are a couple of quotes...

Jean Luc Picard in First Contact...
We've made too many compromises already; too many retreats. They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!
Gandalf in Lord of the Rings...
You cannot pass! I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. The dark fire will not avail you, Flame of Udun! Go back to the shadow. You shall not pass!
You work with people, you explain things to them, you discuss approaches to things and best practice... and they agree...

And then suddenly they come at you from out of nowhere and cobble together a giant piece of crap from all the ideas that have already been rejected and propose it as the way forward.

So you spend a goodly portion of the day writing something that may make no sense but hopefully may have some kind of impact...

Or you give people every opportunity to do things for themselves, and at every turn they take advantage of your generosity and cry poor... and The Powers That Be let them... repeatedly... just because they offer to pay for the privilege of having you do something that is their responsibility.

And just once you would like to repeat those two quotes to them...

This far, no farther... you shall not pass... But it would be nice if I had some backup.

Current Mood:

sunday sytycd

I miss the American version of So You Think You Can Dance... I can't stand any of the hosts involved in the Australian version, so I'm missing my Cat Deeley... and Mia Michaels... and Sonya Tayeh... and, well, the dancers...

And that's both the bonus and the downside of YouTube... some of my favourite dances just don't show up, and sometimes the quality of the videos is a little squiffy...

Why haven't they ever released DVDs of all the dances?

Anyway... some of my favourites...


Mark and Chelsea with Bleeding Love... to this day I can't hear this song without connecting it to this dance...


Kayla and Kūpono with Gravity... I just cry... just about every time... stunning!


Twitch and Katee with Mercy... choreographed by the divine Mia Michaels... styling by the House of Amy Winehouse... and shows off the appropriate use of props...


Kherington and Twitch with Dreaming With A Broken Heart... and more Mia and more props... which also makes me choke up a little...


And just to show that not all of SYTYCD makes me cry, here's the Mia Michaels/Tex Avery approach from Evan and Randi with Koop Island Blues... affectionately known as "The Butt Dance"...

Current Mood:

short winded saturday

not that we have the paper vs plastic debate... title=Today started out a bit disastrously... and was probably the polar opposite to last week in a lot of ways.

While I woke up fairly early this morning, I then went back to sleep and woke up at 7:50, and Ma usually gets to my place around 8... so I had the fastest shower I've ever had in my entire life and managed to get dressed and pretty much organised by the time she got here.

But my hair pretty much looked like shit... that's the main problem with this whole longer hair concept... unless I get it just right, it looks like there has been a catastrophic motor vehicle accident on my head.

And as I was getting to the shower my leg slid out from under me... which could have been a total disaster, but fortunately it only made it to the opposite wall. Still hurt when my shin smacked into the little tile footrest thing though.

The day did improve somewhat once I got out of the house though.

As usual, blah blah Supermarket Safari, blah blah, unpacking...

And then we went to IKEA... which, for me, makes it the third time in three weeks.

So essentially we were just there for Ma... since she want to get another chair... not the same chair that she got last time, but a chair exactly like the one I have. But in the same colour as the chair she bought a couple of weeks ago. Which is actually the same colour as the chair I have.

*cough* copycat *cough* ;)

Anyway, I also spent a little bit of time ogling the Billy bookcases... AGAIN. There's just so much shit I need to do before I actually commit to buying them... grrr...

But that was pretty much it... Ma and I loaded her spanky new red chair into the car, we came back here, dithered around a bit, and then she trundled off home. And it wasn't even 2pm!

It was kinda too much of a pain to either leave her car there with the chair in it and do other stuff... or bring the chair into my place, then have to take the chair back out to the car again... plus we really didn't have much else we needed or wanted to do.

That didn't stop me from hopping in my car and wandering down to Arndale for a bit though... but I went with three specific objectives in mind, and came home with two of them and nothing else, so that was a bonus.

One is part of an associated art project (I didn't make the art, but I am trying something interesting in the way to display it, assisted by a shadow box frame from IKEA), and the other was new "weekend shoes". So I have some white cardboard and a new pair of cheap comfortable, black, laceless sneakers.

But I still managed to make the rest of the afternoon vanish in a puff of the proverbial...

Current Mood:

gold dot friday

gold dotsLet me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Buttercup is marry Humperdink in little less then half a hour. So all we have to do is get in, break up the wedding, steal the princess, make our escape, after I kill Count Rugen.

No wait, that's not me... that's The Princess Bride... my life is nowhere near as interesting as that...
  • The Day After The Planning Day is hard work... can we schedule these things on a Friday from now on?
  • Picked up two Hitchcock movies at lunch... Marnie and Torn Curtain... and at low low prices too.
  • I think The New World Order starts on Monday... which is good... I could use a new project or two.
  • Things that also start soon include me reading Kick-Ass. Tonight in fact.
  • Tomorrow I will be going to IKEA for the third time in three weeks. Maybe we can get there early enough to see if their breakfast menu is edible.
  • I need to go and make my patented Margarita Pizza with Proscuitto very shortly.
  • In an attempt to use up the battery on my iPhone before bed last night, I hit YouTube (via my wireless connection) and discovered the work of Pogo. Coolest stuff I've ever heard!

Current Mood:

akermanis is probably right...

and yes, i selected this photo for its inherent irony...Due to work commitments, I've been pretty much off the grid all day, so I was somewhat surprised when I checked my Twitter feed at lunch time to see all the brouhaha caused by Jason Akermanis and his column about gays coming out in the AFL in today's Daily Telegraph.

And I know what I'm about to say is not going to be viewed favourably by a great many people. But that's okay, because as we all know, opinions are like assholes, everybody has one.

I was surprised by the vehemence and derision directed at him.

Now I haven't read any of the articles where other people started denouncing him, and I didn't watch the piece on the 7pm Project, but I did read the article first thing this morning, and you know what... he's probably right.

I am wondering how many of the people who reacted to the story actually read his column, or if they just read the articles ABOUT the column and jumped to massive conclusions or whether they read the article with their minds already made up and only saw what they perceived as negative comments.

And just because something is negative and isn't the way that we would like the world to be, that doesn't mean it's not true...

I can't claim to be any kind of expert about AFL, but I would imagine, for the purposes of this discussion that Jason has a required level of knowledge.

He's probably been playing AFL for over half of his life and by his own admission has played with a out gay player, who, according to him "was a great guy who played his heart out and was respected by everyone in the team".

And while he admits to being uncomfortable showering with the guy he also says:

"What I should have done was to sit down and talk with him in an attempt to understand his life."

And maybe if he had the situation to do over again, that's exactly what he would do.

He goes on to mention IDAHO (International Day Against Homophobia) and the prevalence of suicide amongst gay teens, topics which a football audience may not be aware of.

But some of the comments I've read have been reacting strongly to his use of a few phrases...

Firstly, that a gay player "could break the fabric of a club"... again, while it's strong language, I don't think he's necessarily wrong. And if not break, then perhaps "severely distort".

News of a current AFL player coming out would be news around the world (not the whole world maybe, but I think it would get a mention in a lot of places)...

Now think about the reactions of fans and supporters to Nick Riewoldt crying during a game, or Wayne Carey sleeping with his team mate's wife. These things were punchlines for months and months afterwards, and I'm sure the players in question, if not their whole teams, were heckled by crowds at the time.

Now imagine if those same AFL fans found out that one of their team was "a big poof". Think about the signs they'd be holding up, think about the jeers and taunts they'd scream out, and hope like hell they wouldn't be able to bring in things to throw.

Now think about what that would do to the player. And to his team mates. I would imagine that sometimes it's hard enough to struggle through if you're losing and being jeered from the sidelines... but when the attacks are personal and not related to your performance on the field? And of course, if the team lost a game, it would be, in the minds of many of the crowd, "because of the poof".

Why would anybody sign up for that? Most gay men have had the experience of a car full of yobbos driving past and screaming "faggots" or the like from a car window. Now imagine that it's not four guys in a Corolla... it's 80,000 people, and they're screaming it at you while you're at work.

Would you want to put up with that? Would you expect a current AFL player to have to put up with that? And why would you want to do that to another human being?

People get nuts about AFL... I don't understand why, but I know that they do. And there is a portion of football fandom that isn't the most enlightened of individuals.

So as Jason says, "try being the first AFL player to come out. That is too big a burden for any player".

And yes, while a lot of it would be external homophobia, I'm sure there would also be a fair share of internal homophobia perhaps less from team mates, but perhaps from old members of the football establishment.

But it's not like AFL players are the souls of tact and discretion and restraint... the number of times we already hear about players getting drunk and behaving badly, or drunk fans taking a crack at a player. And no matter what the clubs say or do, these things appear to keep happening.

Now add an out gay player to that mix. Even if the team was supportive, they'd be essentially thrust into the position of having to "defend the honour of their team mate" from every drunk yahoo with a bad attitude.

But I think a team that's totally supportive is a best case scenario... these clubs are filled with very young men often-times fresh from the country or at least living at home, and suddenly they're being treated like gods, they have freedom and access to vice of various descriptions and have been inducted into a giant boys club.

Now tell me that that isn't a breeding ground for homophobia.

So yes, I don't doubt that "it would cause discomfort in that environment should someone declare himself gay". I'm in no way saying that it's right. But it exists, and no amount of denying it will change that.

Which is why I believe that Jason has a point. I wish he didn't... but he does.

I do disagree with two portions of his column thought...

Firstly, I think these two statements are perhaps mutually exclusive...

"We have made massive steps in other areas of society and in time I hope the environment changes to a degree where coming out isn't a big deal."

"Young people from the ages 15-24 are the main participants in organised sport in Victoria. Some of them must be gay and I hope they thoroughly enjoy their sporting lives without having to experience any form of prejudice. But if they are thinking of telling the world, my advice would be forget it."

I think that it is the young people who are participating in organised sport who could come out and who could start to create the change he talks about in the first quote. Obviously if they're in a highly homophobic location, then they should think of their own safety first.

But I also think that the AFL probably needs to take a long had look at itself as regards the vilification of people based on sexual orientation. And treat it in exactly the same way as what happens with racial vilification, crack down on it and crack down hard.

The second portion is the sentence that opens his column...

"Two former AFL players are rumoured to have been offered $150,000 to be the first to publicly come out as gay."

Beyond the fact that I think it's incredibly stupid to have to pay someone to come out, although I understand that's probably more about exclusive rights to the story from media outlets and the like, I think that a former AFL player is the perfect person to come out. Or someone who is planing to retire anyway kills two birds with one stone and announces both things.

Or just someone who retired a while back but wants to get their name back in the paper... it did wonders for Daniel Kowalski (and is it just me, or is there some inherent hypocrisy in Daniel slamming Jason's comments when he himself didn't come out until way, way, way after his career was done... if fact, about the only person who could comment and not sound like a hypocrite would be Matthew Mitcham).

In reality though, I think the only other way for a gay AFL player to come out is right after they've won the grand final... but that only lasts until the beginning of the next season anyway.

I also think that all this condemnation was the wrong reaction... why has nobody "famous" from the gay community offered him the proverbial olive branch and said "You've raised this issue, what do you see as the best way forward?". Maybe he doesn't have those answers, I'd be surprised if he did... but instead of considering what he's raised and what we all, as Australians (or indeed, just the gay community for that matter) can do to begin to combat this issue everyone just calls him a brainless idiot and turned him into the punchline of jokes of varying quality.

So, for the record... Jason, I think you make a valid point and I thank you for raising it, although I truly wish the circumstances were different.

Current Mood:

random harsh hotness

The only problem with picking up Random Hotness images from random places is that you don't get any background...

But do you need to know much more with Sean here? I mean, harsh lighting, a hoodie, some underwear and a pair of longjohns...

black and white sean black and white sean

Current Mood:

lighting up those wednesday dotpoints

lamp corner on little collins lamp arcade, collins to little collins
  • I seem to be oversleeping more and more regularly... whether it's a winter thing, or I'm just not going to bed early enought or what, I don't know...
  • Tomorrow could conceivably be one of the longest days of my life... we have 8 hours worth of planning day... must remember to breathe and count to 10...
  • Discovered this morning that Heroes has been cancelled... right about the time I lost interest in it oddly enough...
  • I hate when I've planned what to have for dinner, got myself all psyched up for that particular thing and then either I'm missing a vital part or I have it but it's started to turn... ewww...
  • There are only two episodes of Lost left... ever... there's no way it's all going to make sense, even if the last episode IS 150 minutes long (including ads)...
  • Who decided bringing back The Gobbledok and giving it a creepy CGI face was a good idea...
  • I'm on a bit of a graphic novel kick at the moment... first Tintin, currently I'm about to dive into the latest Buffy, next up is Kick-Ass... then just for something completely different the Doctor Who book... okay, so maybe not THAT different (I'm such a geek)...
  • I wore my green shirt and black sweater vest this morning... then caught a look at myself in the mirror and realised I looked like I should be working at Woolworths...
Current Mood:

twitdiction

i am 60% addicted to twitterTonight was supposed to be movie night... but there was nothing good on... so it wasn't... so I stayed home and watched Hello Dolly instead...

Also, I'm supposedly 60% addicted to Twitter...

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 381

Where did my weekend go?

Unconscious Mutterings...
  1. Labor :: Liberal
  2. Sweater :: Vest
  3. Five minutes :: Bedtime
  4. Treatment :: Spa
  5. Eyebrows :: Tinted
  6. Awake :: Asleep
  7. Salmon :: Swimming upstream
  8. Red :: Favourite
  9. Hospital :: Doctors
  10. Midwife :: Birthing
Current Mood:

sunday summation

art cow in art treeSome random words that sum up today, in no particular order...
  • Sweet peppermint tea
  • Broken mirror
  • Frozen feet
  • Pink Playboy
  • Good Game SP
  • Disappearing weekend
  • V-neck
  • Swedish design
  • Unavailable bookcases
  • Kmart Google Maps locations
  • Slippers
  • Spirit guide photographs
  • Freeballing
  • Cellini Venus
  • Vanilla slice denial
  • Who-ticipation
Current Mood:

bugs bunny at the symphony

bugs bunny at the symphony*cue The Ride of the Valkyries*

Bugs Bunny at the Symphony was a thoroughly enjoyable evening's entertainment!

Although I will say that it's about time the Festival Theatre upgraded their seating... those seats are far too narrow and not overly comfortable for prolonged performances.

But that was about the only downside to tonight.

The seats were excellent (well, the location anyway, three rows from the stage, in the centre), the music was excellent, the cartoons were a trip down memory lane... in fact there was a lot of memory lane about the show, since Ma and I went to the original Bugs Bunny on Broadway show back in February 2005.

This is the "20th Anniversary" for that show (not the anniversary of it coming to Australia obviously) so a lot of the cartoons/music is the same, but there were some new pieces, including bits from some Hanna–Barbera cartoons (Tom & Jerry, Scooby Doo, The Flintstones).

While the Hanna-Barbera cartoons showed a definite difference in the quality of the actual cartoons (the Tom & Jerry particularly), the pieces of music for the other two, "Scooby Doo's Hall of the Mountain King" (Grieg's Peer Gynt) and "Bedrock Ballet" (Can-Can from Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld) had excellent montages.

You can also tell that the conductor, George Daugherty, loves what he does... firstly because he's been doing it for such a long time, but also just from the way he talks about it! And either he says very nice things about all of the Symphony Orchestras, or he really thinks the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra is top notch... I'm hoping it's the latter as they really were very good.

Really, what more can you ask for... good music and laughs... well, other than a more comfortable chair...

Current Mood:

somewhat atypical saturday

trolleyToday is clearly falling under that general heading of "atypical"...

Granted there will be a number of atypical days in the next month or so, but today was possibly more atypical than normal.

First off, Ma was having her hair did (including blonde streaks that are pretty much undetectable to the naked eye), so I was off to do the supermarket thing on my own. I didn't end up coming back with much stuff though... and I did manage to make it within a short space of time, so possibly a swings and roundabouts motif there.

Then, after I'd come back and unpacked and read the paper I ended up sitting around and waiting for ages until finally Ma was on her way.

And neither of us really knew what the hell we wanted to do with the bulk of the day, but since we're heading off to see Bugs Bunny at the Symphony tonight, so she had to stick around.

So we did what we usually end up doing when we're not completely sure what the hell it is we want to do... we went to Marion to wander about the shops and stare at the freaks and weirdos...

I got another Bonds zip up hoodie to add to my ever expanding collection... I'm pretty sure I now have six... red, grey, charcoal, lime, sapphire and now cream/grey stripes. I'm an addict, I'll admit it.

I also took a punt and picked up a third copy of Hello Dolly... the first two I bought had the same covers and both were from a completely screwed batch... got to the middle and then bam, stopped working. Hopefully this one is different.

You do have to worry about some people sometimes... there was a guy walking through the foodcourt whose jeans were essentially ripped from above the pocket all the way down to about the knee, so there was a big flap of denim swinging in the breeze, and showing off his generic underwear. Now I don't know if they were like that when he put them on, or if he'd had a little accident or what... but if it wasn't intentional, you're in a shopping centre full of clothing shops... go in one and buy new pants! And if it was intentional, why?

As we were leaving I decided it would be a good idea if I went to the Little Boy's Room... so I did... and when we got home I was wondering to myself why my underwear seemed to be sticking to me... turns out that somehow chewing gum came into contact with my underwear, which then came into contact with me, and then I sat on it the whole way home so it got all warm and sticky.

It's not a nice sensation, trust me. Also, what sort of gross person leaves their chewies around a public toilet like that? Urgh!

Anyway, now it's time to get organised and go out to have some dinner before the show...

Current Mood:

photo friday: skater

skater on bowlIt seems that for whatever reason, I've been crossing paths with a large number of skaters this week... so I thought it would be fitting to delve into my photo archives and feature something from the one and only photoshoot I've ever done with a skater...

There's something about this shot I love, even though you can't see his skateboard...

I would have liked to work with him again though... but it never eventuated.

Thoughts from today...
  • Anyone with a pulse and a Twitter account should have known I made soup from Pink's tweeted recipe on Tuesday night... not only was it incredibly tasty, but if I didn't want to save some to give to Ma, it would essentially have fed me for the rest of the week... had things with it the last two days, but very worthwhile...
  • When did Balfour's pies become bland and tasteless? I'm sure they used to be tasty... or have I just had too many good quality ones to settle for second best...
  • I WINZ! H-San has after seemingly unattainable large packets of Samboy Chicken Chips... and like any good flunkies/competing bastards, Sugarmonkey and I have been competing (somewhat) to see who could find said large packets, hence ensuring bragging rights until you do something stupid... and tonight I found them in my supermarket...
  • It's entirely possible that I walked past my first teenage fuckbuddy (as in we were both teenagers at the time) today at lunch... right height, similar build, but the face was much more mature... coulda been him though...
  • Am I the only person not familiar with the phrase "blows goats"?
  • My feet are cold...
Current Mood:

random silas hotness

Given that I'm currently making my way through the second series of Weeds, it seemed appropriate to go with a Hunter Parrish themed Random Hotness (since he plays the older son, Silas on the show)...

And fortunately, I had a couple of the shots he did with GQ...

All collegiate and wintery and preppy and pretty... even if his character is currently an annoying little brat...


Current Mood:

deus ex tintin

deus ex tintinWhen I was a kid I read every single one of the Tintin books (and all of the Asterix stories, but that's another story)...

And when you're a kid, you just think they're whizz bang adventure stories.

I reread some of them in my 20's, and while they'd perhaps lost a little of their luster, they were still enjoyable...

But rereading them again now in my 30's I'm starting to realise exactly how much deus ex machina is going on.

And not just "a seemingly inextricable problem being suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new character, ability, or object", since sometimes it seemed like the "machina" was working to both get Tintin into as well as out of the problem in question... sometimes within the same page. Some of the notable examples include:
  • Tintin's saved from being shot by a firing squad three times, once by revolution, once by guns jamming and once by invading forces... within the space of two pages
  • A lightning bolt blows him out of a window, out of his jacket, out of ropes tying him up and down the road a few hundred metres, but he's still able to get up and run off
  • He's dropped out of a plane, still in his seat, the parachute fails and he lands in a big wagon full of hay
  • Saved from going over a waterfall by a conveniently placed rock and tree branch
  • Picks up a burning log to free his tied hands without burning himself
  • Discovers conveniently placed tunnel while trapped in a beachside cave that not only saves him from drowning but takes him right into the heart of the bad guy's lair
  • Car taking him to State Prison crashes allowing him to fake being unconscious and escape only to get hit by a car carrying the very person he's on his way to see
But there's also the fact that Tintin seems to be bullet-proof or invulnerable...

For example, within the three books I've read...
  • Tintin involved in car accident: 4
  • Tintin hit by car/near miss: 2
  • Tintin involved in plane crash: 2
  • Tintin rendered unconscious/hit in head: 10
  • Tintin shot at: 10
  • Tintin has knife thrown at him: 2
  • Tintin nearly drowns: 1
  • Tintin attacked by a gorilla while wearing a kilt: 1
And after all these things he's shown in hospital... once...

I'd also like to know where he's getting his money... he's supposed to be a reporter, but during none of the books I've read this time around does he appear to go to an office or submit a story or do any kind of actual "reporter" work... he appears to nominally interview one person (or at least is talking to her while holding what looks like a notebook), but the rest of the time he swans off around the globe at a moment's notice.

Isn't he supposed to be around 20 or something? Is he supposed to be independently wealthy or something? Inheritance from dead parents maybe?

Also, why did he never graduate to grown-up pants?

Having said all of that, I'm still enjoying reading them again...

Current Mood:

tuesday towers

deco tower central dome
Two different towers from The Melbourne Collection...

Speaking of Melbourne, I put the date for my next trip to Melbourne on The Big Board of Stuff at work today... granted we haven't booked any tickets, no hotel room, no flights, nothing... but just putting the date on the board made me feel slightly better.

Of course the rest of the day was a pain in the butt... but still...

In fact, it feels as though this is going to be a very long week.

But the house is full of the incredible smell of freshly homemade soup... and I have about ten minutes until it's ready... and that gives me a happy...

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 380

I'm going to assume that an ongoing lack of sleep and having to deal with ongoing government bureaucracy is wearing me down... I've had a crick in my neck since a meeting this morning and I'm at varying levels of "fuck it"... Plus I left work half an hour later than usual...

Unconscious Mutterings...
  1. Rock n Roll :: High School
  2. Be with you :: Nobody
  3. Richard :: Cranium
  4. Hair :: Cut
  5. Police :: Sting
  6. Experience :: Knowledge
  7. Father figure :: Nope
  8. Nice :: Bland
  9. Switch :: Off
  10. Appearance :: Questionable
Current Mood:

i want bookcases

the new plan above and the existing room belowTwo things became apparent to me this afternoon...

The first is that I cannot add... sometimes even with the help of a calculator (I added the same set of numbers on two different occasions and got two completely different answers... the first one wrong, the second one right... I have no idea what I did)... the second is that I really, really want new bookcases (but this isn't news, since I've wanted new/more bookcases for some time now).

It's also surprising that just creating a virtual copy of a real room with doors and windows the right size and in the right place viewed from an angle that you're used to seeing it automatically makes you feel like it IS that room, even when it's just a basic model.

Which brings me around to the Ikea Home Planner, which I saw when we were there yesterday... and behold my plan for new bookcases in my living room. Taller, lighter, deeper and with much more shelf space... and even a corner unit.

Sadly, they only let you do kitchens and offices and bedrooms... so the choices for living rooms boiled down to bookcases... but like I said, oddly enough, just putting those bookcases in made the room feel very much like my real living room.

So $500 worth of Swedish bookcases later (plus delivery, since I'm sure they're going to be too big to get into either Ma's car or mine)... that could be my place.

Current Mood: