random mystery hotness

Today's Random Hotness comes from the "Didn't he grow up purdy" file...

Can you guess who it is?

That's Jonathan Lipnicki, probably most famous for Jerry Maguire and the Stuart Little movies! Only he's 20 now, and not so little...

Current Mood:

golden coinage

In November last year I counted up all of my coins... well, all of the silver coins anyway, and came to the rather impressive and, as it turns out, incredibly weighty sum of $647.30...

Well, I'd officially filled the two money boxes I'm using to store my $2 and $1 coins in after the weekend, so I decided now was as good a time as any (it's that Spring Cleaning thing again) to count it all up and then work out what is going into the bank and what isn't ...

Turns out I have $2,296.40... although, to be honest, $2,110 of that is gold coins, and $1,560 is specifically $2 coins...

Scary really...

But it all adds to the bank balance which is helpful.

Although I'm only putting about half of it in the bank... thankfully it won't weigh anywhere near as much though. Now all I need are some more little plastic baggies from the bank...

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 400

I would very much like a day that's a little less busy... not sure if that's going to happen this week or not...

Also, not getting a headache like I did at the end of today would be a bonus...

Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Return :: of the Jedi
2. Alarms :: Burglar
3. State :: Budget
4. Picture frame :: Photography
5. Wreath :: 12.5 weeks until Christmas
6. Arrest :: Warrant
7. Sincere :: Thanks
8. Nathan :: Tall
9. Bag :: of Holding
10. Arched :: Back

Current Mood:

montage saturday: supermarchés puis botanique

According to Google Translate, my day can most simply be summed up by the phrase... "Supermarchés, puis botanique"...

And it sounds much more interesting that way... not that it wasn't a great day, it was... and it gave me an excuse to throw together a montage for the first time in a while.

The day started about the same as any number of Saturdays, firstly with me stumbling around my apartment tidying up (which is always somewhat pointless as by the end of Saturday the place always takes on a somewhat rumpled appearance), then with the ritual Supermarket Adventures...

For some reason we were nice and early getting there, and made it just in time for all sorts of things to be fresh out of the oven at Bakers Delight... mmmm warm carbs!

Anyway, we did the usual aisle slalom, avoided some of the slightly weird shoppers who were sharing our supermarket space (I swear there was a slightly trailer trash gay couple, one of whom looked a little bit like he was coming down off something) and got through the whole production unscathed.

We've been talking about heading to the Botanical Gardens for a few weeks, but the weather has been fairly awful since, but the forecast for today was supposed to be good, so we decided to head over there. And fortunately the sun did come out eventually, but there was also a fair bit of BGC (big grey cloud).

But as I've said on many occasions, BGC is just nature's softbox, so it never hurts with photographs. I also think the wet weather followed by the recent sunshine helped the plants all be budding and blooming and doing all manner of Spring-like things. So there was lots to photograph.

We also went into the Museum of Economic Botany, which we've never done before (not surprising, since it only reopening in 2009 after being restored. It's quite beautiful really, full of specimens of various woods and seeds and fruit and vegetables all dried out and displayed in glass cabinets. There was also a very interesting display about woodcarving at one end, which included the artwork in the centre of the montage... it was a peep hole with lighting that changed and was very cool... especially since my camera worked beautifully and snagged some great shots when I stuck the lens down the viewing hole.

Not long after we came out of the Museum my camera's battery gave up the ghost, so we headed over to Rundle Street to poke around some of the shops and then stop off at Cocolat to rest our weary feet and grab a bite to eat.

A very pleasant day overall, and now I'm sitting here in my trackies listening to 30 Seconds to Mars on my headphones... and soon I'm going to make a tasty home-made burger for dinner... *le sigh*

Oh, and something I forgot to mention in yesterday's braindump... Thursday marked my one year anniversary of being all wired up to the 21st Century... yep, a whole year of wireless broadband! At least, Thursday is the anniversary of when I actually got it to work properly. And in something of a record for me, I've had the same desktop wallpaper on my computer all that time!

Current Mood:

photo friday: hindley architecture

As usual for a Friday... a random collection of thoughts passing through my brain...

A very odd week this week... between a farewell lunch on Tuesday, the Creative Commons Roadshow on Wednesday and a workshop on Thursday I didn't manage to get out and have a proper lunchbreak until today...

The Creative Commons Roadshow was equal parts interesting and dull... interesting because I learned about a bunch of stuff to do with Creative Commons I didn't know including a number of case studies... like Cory Doctorow who produced the first ever novel available under a CC licence (I've already downloaded it, now I just need to get around to reading it) and Sita Sings The Blues an example of "open source cinema" (I'm planning on downloading that sometime over the weekend). The dull parts were more "business orientated" or just slightly repetitive of things that had already been covered.

Still, beats working...

Speaking of which, can I just say, I hate surveys... or more specifically, I hate surveys where I have to go through and aggregate the answers manually into a spreadsheet and drop all their slightly odd comments into a document... in fact that's pretty much ALL I did today with a couple of small exceptions... thankfully the survey closed today...

Oddly, aggregate has kind of become one of my words of the week... That and "numpty", although I have no idea where the hell I picked up... but it's a good all purpose non-swear word which you can imbue with the same vehemence as actual profanity.

I like words like that...

I need to have a closer look at the guide, but I'm very disappointed by the selection for this year's Feast Festival...

Current Mood:

random hartnett hotness

Sometimes I just come across (not literally mind you... forgive me, I've been listening to Talking Poofy podcasts all afternoon, and I've come over all inuendoey) photos for Random Hotness and it's just that perfect synergy between model and photographer...

Well in this case it's actually Hollywood star and photographer... unfortunately though I don't know who the photographer is for these shots of Josh Hartnett... but they are completely beautiful.

Plus the colours match this season's blog template...

Current Mood:

movies: easy a

Seeing as many movies as Ma and I do, every now and again you come across a little gem of a movie... sometimes when you're expecting it, sometimes when you're not. It happened with Stranger Than Fiction, it happened with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang...

And tonight it happened with Easy A!

I'm not going to lie, I'd heard very good things about this movie, but sometimes they don't live up to the hype, especially something that could easily be branded as a "teen sex comedy".

Except Easy A isn't that much of a teen movie, and nobody is actually having sex (which is the whole point).

What it is though is a smart, funny, clever, well written, beautifully acted piece of cinema that never has to stoop to using "cringe humour" that is so often a staple of the "teen comedy" genre.

And the lead actress, Emma Stone, is exceptional. She has great comic timing, a fantastic face (whether for looking sexy or looking goofy) and an amazing voice. She will definitely be somebody that we'll be seeing a lot more of with any luck. The only thing that's hard to buy is at the beginning of the movie when her character says that guys don't notice her. I frankly find that hard to believe. You'd notice her... with the reddish tint to her hair and that husky voice... trust me, boys would notice her.

But we have to suspend our disbelief of a lot more preposterous things in other movies, so I'm willing to let that slide.

The other thing that the movie skates a fine line on is a script that can occasionally be a little too smart and a little too self reverential for it's own good. There are a couple of lines where the characters refer to life not being like the movies, and given that this movie is, I think, trying for some John Hughes territory, making a reference to reasons why your life isn't like a John Hughes movie is a little dangerous. But still funny and well done.

Essentially, this movie exists in a world where other movies exist... and people make references to them, just the way normal people do. It just tweaked the fourth wall for me a couple of times.

Another instance of the movie being a little too clever I didn't realise until looking at the credits... the main character is called Olive... her parents are Dill and Rosemary... although they should have found a better name for her little brother than "Chip"... I'm willing to let that slide though, since I don't think her parents are every referred to by name in the whole movie.

Speaking of the parents... Often-times in so called "teen" movies, the adult actors are either somewhat substandard or not really given anything interesting to do... however Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson are fantastic as the aforementioned parents. They're the kind of parents that you instantly wish that you had...

Meanwhile Thomas Haden Church and Lisa Kudrow both happily switch between their own particular brand of crazy likeability and some a fairly grounded reality.

And then you have the general hotness of Penn Badgley and Cam Gigandet, which is never bad...

Essentially, both first time movie writer Bert Royal and director Will Gluck should be commended on a great piece of work!

yani's rating: 4 scarlet letters out of 5

unconscious mutterings 399

Sometimes you just want to go "Would you make a freakin decision already!?"...

Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Mustache :: Clone
2. Person :: ality
3. Restore :: Settings
4. Discretion :: Lacking
5. Lamp :: Genii
6. Pillow cover :: Bedding
7. Arousal :: Sexual
8. Seattle :: Starbucks
9. ATM :: Money
10. Custard :: Tart

Current Mood:

some proper saturday shopping

You know those days when you say to yourself "I need to buy blah and blah and blah"... and then you come home and you've bought a bunch of stuff, but none of the stuff you expected to.

Today was one of those days.

Not the Supermarket Safari part, that was about the same as usual, although I got lots and lots and lots of green ingredients with which to finally make green soup.

Once we were done with that we headed off to Marion since there was a bunch of stuff that Ma wanted to look at in various stores, all of which were at Marion. For my part, I wanted some cord for the little basil seed bottle (but there wasn't really anywhere that would have had what I wanted), a new watch battery (I keep thinking my watch is losing time, but it seemed fine today) and a new case for my glasses (I'm not completely sure what I want, and I only saw a couple of versions today) since the hinge is going on the one I have.

That didn't work out so well (although I have perfect good reasons for that)...

But we did end up looking at the Christmas decorations in both Big W and David Jones... I know, Christmas decorations and it's only September... the world is coming to an end, however Ma and I became part of the problem. Not only did we look at the decorations, but we ended up buying some.

In my defence, I bought two more toy soldiers (help, it's officially an addiction) and some new fairy lights (which are for all year and I've been planning to get them for the last two years), so not anything really that Christmas related. Or at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Ma also bought a couple of new saucepans, and since they were so cheap I got one too, specifically for making Smashed Broccoli in... and it's red... so, bonus!

Once we'd bought everything we dropped it all back into the car and went back into Marion in search of lunch. But the Marion food court is pretty much like a lot of other food courts, tempting in theory, but often disappointing in practice. In the end we went and got the Mediterranean Platter at Spargos instead.

Turned out to be quite nice... particularly the marinated squid, the rice balls and the haloumi cheese... but we left most of the salad and an unidentifiable thing in a gravy boat.

And that was about the size of it really...

Now all I have to do it put the new lights up! Although that may need to wait until I have some hooks.

Current Mood:

photo friday: stag camera

I do not have the slightest idea what happened to this week.

I spent far too much of it going "I'm going to do this and this and this and this and this today"... and pretty much managed to do the first two before the day spiralled into a big hole of "other random crap".

Although weirdly, when I came to write up my weekly task list this morning I couldn't think of anything of substance to add to it. So, essentially I spent most of my week being very busy doing nothing particularly of substance.

It was Adelaide PARK(ing) Day today... I only saw one of the spaces on my way to work this morning, but it's a great idea, even if it does feel a little weird walking past people sitting on grass in a parking space... I'm especially disappointed that I missed seeing the giant stegosaurus skeleton on Rundle Street though.

And since my life is currently quite boring, that's really about it...

Current Mood:

random jarek hotness

This week's Random Hotness comes from the model file... these two shots, one a little bit angelic, the other a little bit S&M are of model Jarek Pietka...

Current Mood:

monochromium melbourne

It seems like every time I go to do one thing this week, three other things appear out of nowhere and distract me... as it is at work, so it is at home...

But part of my distraction at home today was marking the end of an era... I cleared all of my remaining images out of the photography website I started using in 2002 (and stopped using in around 2006 when it became clear the focus of the site had changed). This wouldn't have taken so long, but I wanted to keep all of the comments so I downloaded all the photo pages before deleting them (90 pages later).

It's all part of me current desire to slim down my digital footprint (and there's still a blog post about that rattling around in my head). I think possibly it's part of the annual "Spring Simplification" where I just want to tidy or rearrange or update stuff around this time of year.

And while it's been on my mind for a while, I think I was also partly inspired to do it today because H-San asked me to do some touch-up work on a very old photo this morning, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed the zen-like repetition of touching up photos that aren't purely digital (and/or are of people).

But mostly I'm all about being distracted at present...

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 398

I'm officially avoiding bread this week... just as an experiment...

Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Singapore :: Noodles
2. Blah blah blah :: What I hear too much of
3. Stall :: Market
4. Bowls :: Lawn
5. Entrance :: Fee
6. Antique :: Chair
7. Elizabeth :: Queen
8. Hook :: Peter Pan
9. Width :: Girth
10. Photo journalism :: Time

Current Mood:

that saturday feeling

The only problem with this photo is that there's no frame of reference, so it's very hard to tell exactly how teeny tiny the bottle is, but when I say that I'm planning to attach it to some cord and wear it as a pendant (not sure if that's with or without the basil seeds), it should give you some idea.

Today's Shopping Adventures were much better than last week's slightly dismal outing...

I started the day off with a Solo Supermarket Safari since Ma was off having her hair done... which would seem planned since I had mine done yesterday, but the timing was a compete fluke.

I was also relieved to find that I wasn't continually burping when I woke up... but that was short lived, because as soon as I had something to eat it started again... *sigh*. Actually I realised that I had some Roquefort cheese on Thursday (well, cheese type product that contained an element of Roquefort), so I'm wondering if that, combined with yeast from bread products is causing the problem. I did buy some Yakult though, so I'm hoping that helps...

Anyway, I did a reasonably quick shopping trip, had a wander around Target where I bought a new pair of work pants (which was a little disheartening since they're a size larger) and a new belt.

By the time Ma got here I was all unpacked and had just finished reading the paper, so essentially I was good to go.

We decided to go into the city... well, Ma suggested it and I just agreed, basically because it was a decision...

Ma did have a couple of places she wanted to look in, but mostly we did the same wander up and down the Mall we usually do. But then I took Ma down Hindley Street to show her the Toy Soldiers lightboxes. On the way back we decided to take a look along Leigh Street, which underwent some "gentrification" a while ago, but since we don't generally spend much time down that end of town, I don't think either of us had really been down there.

It was very groovy actually... not a whole hell of a lot to do, but a nice little street.

We did take a look around Leigh Street Luggage where I kinda fell in love with the Ogon Aluminium wallets, I'm just not sure how practical they'll actually be for me, given that I tend to stick a lot of stuff in my wallet... but I think the idea will keep rattling around in my head.

After that we headed back to the car, headed back to my place and had a few minutes of sitting around wondering what to do about lunch. I didn't really want very much, but eventually we decided to head down to Queen Street to the Queen Street Deli. And essentially we had breakfast for lunch.

Then we had a little wander around the few little chichi shops on Queen Street, which is what brings back to Ocimum Basiliscum... the basil seeds... which I bought mostly for the little tiny bottle.

Current Mood:

photo friday: store's girl

Another one of the Hindley Street light-boxes from the Toy Soldiers crew... this time, one of Store's ladies...

Today has definitely had it's highs and lows...

A big high was today was Haircut Day... woohoo! And the beginning of the transition to Summer Hair. On top of that, a slightly more radical haircut than usual... that previous plan I had about growing my hair out has now officially been thrown out of the window, although it is slightly long on top, it's the ultimate in "short back and sides".

And two different colours... the Winter brown around the sides and then some balayage with blonde on the top...

As always Tink and I talked a lot of crap during the whole process which was nice.

Then after my haircut I wandered around town for a bit, got a bit of dinner, that kind of thing...

The big low for today happened around lunchtime. I went over to the Central Market, had the same thing I've had for lunch any number of times, and then on my way back I got the hiccups... which then turned into burping... and I've been burping almost continually since. It's very irritating and not a little bit gross. It's also kept turning back into hiccups which isn't any fun at all.

I even bought some Mylanta Rolltabs but they don't seem to have had very much of an effect. Hopefully it sorts itself out overnight.

So that's pretty much been the size of my day... *burp*

Current Mood:

random hoult hotness

A little bit of a crossover Random Hotness this week...

What do you get when you mix actor and previously featured hotness Nicholas Hoult and fashion designer/director Tom Ford and glasses...

Other than A Single Man, obviously... you get the Fall/Winter 2010-11 ad campaign for Tom Ford Eyewear...

With crows!

Current Mood:

towers on blue

At some point I'm going to make Ma a calendar that consists solely of stuff photographed against blue sky... clear blue sky, cloudy blue sky, whatever... but I'm pretty sure I could make her a "Picture of the Day" calendar and still have blue sky photos left over...

I'm pretty sure the shot on the right is from Melbourne, but don't quote me...

Filed under Ramblings, General:

• Went to see Scott Pilgrim for the second time last night... this time with Ma (since I wasn't sure whether it would be "her sort of movie"... but she liked it). It's still awesome!


• There were a bunch of things I intended to do at work today, most of which got shunted to one side due to yet more issues with our CMS. Grrrrrrrr... This is why we never get to be "proactive" about things, we're too busy putting out all these stupid pointless fires in our crappy CMS.


• On my walk this morning I started thinking about my digital footprint... okay technically I started thinking about death, which made me think about my digital footprint and it's size and what the hell happens to it when I do shuffle off this mortal coil... but I think that's a post for another time (the digital footprint thing, not the thinking about death thing)...


• It turns out that I could get the Tim Burton Exhibition Catalogue here in Adelaide for the same price that it would have cost me to order it from the ACMI, including postage and handling... and it's not like they have a proper ordering system at the ACMI, it has to be done by mail, phone or fax... I say *pfffffffft* to that!


• Of course once I ranted about that on Twitter I got a very pleasant reply from somebody at ACMI thanking me for my feedback which then made me feel like a tool...


• I'm having oven baked fish with roasted tomatoes (and stuff) for dinner, I better get cracking!

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 397

It's amazing how quickly the time of sunrise changes at this time of year...

Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Gangs :: Street
2. Contact :: Beginning of the school year
3. Surprisingly :: A word I say very regularly although I don't know how surprised I ever am
4. Penciled :: In
5. Ignore :: An internet blessing
6. Let’s go! :: Hey! Ho!
7. Cornerstone :: Of my mind
8. Influential :: Names
9. Holistic :: Helicopter View
10. Lovesick :: Puppy

Current Mood:

a funny old saturday

It's been a funny old day... firstly the weather, which has been cold, grey and damp for most of the day took a turn to the windy, stormy and torrential this afternoon and it's still a bit blustery out there...

But today was officially The Day That Got Away From Us...

We did the Supermarket Safari thing this morning as always, I stocked up one lots of stuff to make soup with, and we went a bit nuts on cheese and whatnot...

Then we came back here and unpacked and essentially sat around looking at each other going "what shall we do, what shall we do"... we had nothing... no ideas, no plans, nothing. And the weather just made matters worse, because anywhere that was kind of outside was out since we didn't want to have to dodge the rain a lot.

There didn't seem to be a point in going to any of the shopping centres... we were at Marion last week and mostly we just wander around and don't really go into many of the shops... plus neither of us really needed anything. All in all it was looking a little bit disastrous, nowhere to go, nothing to do...

In the end we decided to go back down to Marion "just for something to do"...

On the way we stopped off at what I think was called "The Scottish Shop" because Ma regularly says that she'd like to look in there when we drive past. And at least now she never has to say that again... unless I particularly want to buy a kilt or she wants some Scottish jewellery...

Of course, it being wet weather and the Saturday before Father's Day it seemed like everybody had decided to go down to Marion... and the fact that we'd left it slightly later than we usually would do... essentially we could not find a car park... yes, there were people leaving, but there were also a LOT of people circling the car park like deranged suburban sharks but every time we saw one there was already a car waiting to pounce on it.

And of course whenever it rains in Adelaide it seems like all the drivers lose their tiny minds so there was much stupid driving and honking.

We tried upstairs, we tried downstairs, but after a while we realised that it just wasn't going to happen. The only problem then was that we had absolutely no backup plan...

So we went with our usual default backup plan whenever we're within theoretical spitting distance of the coast... we went down to the beach. Coz, well... clouds and waves and whatnot... awesome.

We traipsed on down to Henley Beach and stopped off at the square, but it's kinda crap... hardly anything seemed open, there's nowhere decent looking to get fish and chips or anything... so we headed back to the car.

But as we headed back I was looking out at the water and spotted a dolphin... woohoo! This little fin and curving back would just pop up out of the waves every now and again, so we wandered past the car and down the shore a bit, just trying to spot it again.

And it didn't look like anybody else actually noticed it... either that or they're just used to it and all blasé and crap... but really, if you're blasé about seeing a wild dolphin is there really much point to your continued existance?

Anyway, once it got a bit too nippy we headed back to the car and headed off in search of a fish and chippery...

Now I may have mentioned this before, but back in England in the olden days, my Granddad (and Nanna) ran a fish and chippery... and that's where Ma grew up (in the house above said store)... so you could say that batter runs in my veins to some degree.

That being said...

We stopped off at the fish and chip shop in Grange... once upon a time that store was twice the size it is now, in fact it feels like every time I go in there the store is a little bit smaller than the previous time (I'm sure it's not, but it did used to be twice the size). And the windows are all covered with tinting film, which I'm sure makes sense in Summer when the evening sun is pounding through the windows, but it does make, but it also makes the place seem like it should be closed and a bit sketchy.

The place itself looks like it's in the throws of going out of business... the fridge had hardly any drinks in it, the menu board is really horribly done and full of spelling mistakes... it's all a bit yuck.

Having said all of that, the fish itself wasn't too bad... but I think that's the last time we ever, ever go there...

But it is nice to sit by the ocean eating fish and chips... which we did...

And then we headed back in the general direction of my place, although we did stop off at Bunnings so Ma could take a look at some drought tolerant plants (and no, the irony of looking at drought tolerant plants in very wet weather did not escape me) and then some general wandering around looking at hardware and whatnot.

That was the point, as I mentioned at the beginning of the post, where the heavens opened and the weather went nuts!

Wind and rain and the whole banana...

Thankfully I'm all toasty warm and dry and indoors...

Current Mood:

photo friday: samurai artist

This guy just happened to be doing live artwork when we were in Melbourne Central... and I managed to snap some pictures of the finished version as well.

Today has been something of a horrid day interspersed with moments of cool...

I spent most of the day listening to people with various accents sell me on the benefits of their usability tools, none of which did the same job as the one we were intending to use but which had browser compliance issues.

And there's nothing... so who the hell knows what we're going to end up doing...

It also rained today... and I mean RAINED... big fat rain with thunder and lightning and everything. But fortunately when I went out at lunch it was "straight down" rain so my big gigantic umbrella saved my butt and I didn't even get my shoes that damp.

And speaking of lightning... this is what I call hardcore:

A 60-year-old woman was struck by lightning at the Defence Science and Technology Organisation about 11.30am but was uninjured and drove herself to the Lyell McEwin Hospital.

At the moment though it's very much not "straight down", it appears to be banging intermittently against my living room windows, which is quite an achievement due to the two foot overhanging balcony above the front of my place. In a word, windy.

While I was at lunch I made an appointment for Haircut Day next Friday too... so, productive too...

It's been a very audio/visual kind of 24 hours really... I watched a few online videos when I got home from work that made me a bit misty eyed, and last night I started listening to an interview with Adam Savage which was really fascinating... I just need to find time to listen to the other half...

But for now I think I'll curl up with my blanket and have some dinner.

Current Mood:

random monteleone hotness

Google tells me that today's Random Hotness, Dominick Monteleone, is an actor as well as being a model...

But having a look at his resume on IMDB, I think it's good that he's a pretty face...

Current Mood:

spring has sprung template

Sometimes it amazes me how the perfect photo for a template sometimes falls right into my lap right before I'm about to change it.

I suppose it's not that surprising given that it's on my mind... but the Spring template quite literally was an accidental discovery... I was walking back to the car on Sunday and went past the City Beach volleyball court and saw the sun shining through these little green shoots.

Of course, the first day of Spring has been nothing but grey cloud and rain... but light wussy Spring rain compared with last week...

Current Mood: