unconscious mutterings 435

This is one of those weeks where I just want it to be Friday already... not because the week will be difficult, but because there are more interesting things happening on the weekend!

Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Decoder :: Ring
2. Cake :: Chocolate
3. Sense :: Sixth
4. Geek :: A badge I wear with no shame
5. Cousin :: Distanced
6. Goggles :: Steam Punk
7. Social media :: Policy
8. Butterfly :: Madame
9. Search :: Engine
10. Manicure :: Nails

Current Mood:

saturday shopping people is nuts

People is nuts!

More specifically, people in certain large-scale retails malls is completely and totally nuts.

Either that or it's just been a really long time since we went somewhere like Marion (which is had been).

Anyway... today started off slightly less hectically than usual since I wandered around tidying up last night, so I really didn't have much to do thi morning. Yay me.

The trip to the supermarket was half "blah blah blah So You Think You Can Dance" and half "blah blah blah plans for Ma's birthday"...

Once we'd shopping, unpacked and discussed the plan for Ma's birthday further, we headed down to Marion partly just to break the seven week run of going into the city.

People in Marion just be nuts... all taking up too much space, walking too slow, getting in both my and everybody else's way... urgh...

But I did get a new Bonds hoodie (so soft and light yet really warm... I'm wearing it as we speak) and a couple of cheap new scarves (yes, I am now officially addicted to scarves... but they were cheap, shut up)...

Mostly though we did what we always do at Marion... wandered around somewhat aimlessly. Actually we also spent a bit of time looking at toys, specifically looking for a stuffed rabbit for Tink's baby. I still haven't seen anything I like though.

That was about it really... wandering about... looking for rabbits... sighing heavily at people in the way.

On the way home again we called in at the Christmas Shop... mostly because they have a whole section of stuffed toys... but still nothing...

Current Mood:

photo friday: k1 and k2

Dot pointerly Friday...

• The photo is the Gary Seaman Dunnys I bought from the Paper String Plastic gallery at the beginning of the month... and since they have a lack of name or title, I've taken to calling them K1 and K2 because of the keys on their ears
• I dropped in to pick them up at lunch, ended up staying for ages and ages
• Picked up a couple of the Burger Theory cookies on the way back to work
• Finally met Trainer Boy who took over from Trainer Girl at the gym yesterday... he's too fucking young and pretty and helpful and earnest for words... kill me now
• I predict this is going to be a very "soup" orientated Winter... we haven't even officially hit Winter yet and I've made at least half a dozen batches of soup
• Unfortunately my boredom threshold for batches of soup is about two days... but I think putting dumplings/ravioli in on the second or third day might help
• Also since making soup this week, my house smells of garlic
  
• Since the chocolate goat's milk ice cream from last week was so tasty, I'm trying their green tea flavour
• And just to round out the food theme... I just realised that although I bought all the toppings to make pizza tonight, I neglected to actually get a pizza base... fuckitty... thankfully there's a sheet of puff pastry in the freezer... I'll improvise

Current Mood:

random blaizing hotness

Holy Random Hotness Nerdgasm Batman! With the tattoos and the nerd/hipster glasses and the shirt/tie and the hotel room with the typewriter... not to mention the naked butt.

Nerdy and naughty alternastud Anthony Blaize comes via Bentley Race from his recent trip to the US. He's nerdy... but with all that ink and the cheeky little smile, you know he's also more than a little bit of a bad boy.

Current Mood:

store's birds

Four different examples of Store's pigeons from four locations around the city...

Topham Mall, Blyth Street, Avoca Place and Kent Town... I do like the Kent Town one a lot... especially with the Gary Seaman pods and Yoda and whatnot...

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 434

I'm attempting to stave off this cold/flu that is threatening to overtake me before the end of the week (or, you know, tomorrow morning) by either completely ignoring it and behaving as normal and/or dosing myself up with whatever is handy...

Oh, and attempting to get more sleep... I plan on having an early night even if it kills me...

I'm hoping tomorrow is less manic than today... or at least waits until after lunch to go nuts.

Unconscious Mutterings...

1. International :: Flights
2. Witnesses :: Police
3. Rising :: Sun
4. Two years ago :: Same shit, different year really...
5. Sausage :: Big, thick, juicy...
6. Physically :: Aroused
7. Approached :: Danger
8. Mole :: Wind In The Willows
9. Collar :: Peter Pan
10. Encased :: Carbonite

Current Mood:

shopping, books and modern art

Today was both fairly typical and a little bit atypical...

The Saturday Routine was followed like always, other than the fact that I did it on my own and in a fairly short period of time because Ma was off getting her hair did.

It always goes faster when I go by myself... I just stick my earphones in and whizz around the supermarket... slightly less fun though.

When I got back I had a sudden craving to watch one of my Margaret Cho DVDs, so I fired it up while I was unpacking and reading the paper. I got nearly all the way through it before Ma got down here, and then we sat around for a little while, so it was about 11am by the time we headed back out.

And as seems to be fairly typical for us for the last seven weeks, we headed into the city (I swear, next week we're going down to Marion or something), with the general intention of hitting the Samstag Museum of Art and some of the street art I saw last Sunday.

The street art was easy, but unfortunately Samstag doesn't open until 2pm on Saturdays, so after we wandered around the University grounds for snapping pics of the architecture for a while, then went back to the car and headed over to the Mall for a while.

Remember how for the last several weeks I've categorically sworn that this is absolutely the VERY LAST TIME I'm going into Borders?

Yeah, well today was absolutely and utterly the LAST TIME... especially given that the store closes by Friday and I think I've now looked at every single book left on the shelves and picked out the few things that should have come to $179.88 but instead came in at $53.96... Score!

But I'm glad that they're closing at the end of the week... it's been something of a painful process, and every time I go in the part of me that loves bookstores battles with the part of me that loves bargains... one is very happy and the other is fairly depressed. I do wonder if they're going to get down to 95% off everything by the end of the week... or just have staff standing out the front handing books to people as they walk past... it definitely seems to be one of those "everything must go" deals... and even then they're going to have stuff left... they have so many copies of certain shitty books and DVDs I don't even think they'd be able to give them away.

By the time we stopped off to get something to drink and eat it was past 2pm, so we headed back down to the west end of the city and snagged a park right outside the Samstag Museum of Art.

The reason for the trip was the May's Lane Street Art Project exhibition... large scale pieces of work from street artists who have placed their work on May's Lane. Some great pieces... but I kinda wish there had been more of them! However it's always good to see street art come off the streets and into the galleries... especially the Samstag... it's a gorgeous venue.

We also went upstairs to look at a photography exhibition... and the less said about that the better...

So that was it really...

Current Mood:

photo friday: dark columns

It's been a long week... oh wait, haven't I said that every Friday for the last month or so? Well it's still true... a long week that has been equal parts RUSH RUSH RUSH and periods of inactivity. And my day started off on the wrong note when I overslept and didn't have time to go to the gym.

Fortunately (I guess) today was more the inactivity... but I know Monday is going to be busy, so it was the calm before the weekend before the storm...

Fortunately I also had a haircut booked so it was nice to just go hang out with Tink, talk some crap, get pampered... that kind of thing.

I now know that I have until the end of July to find an appropriate stuffed rabbit for Tink Jr... well, technically the middle of August, however my last haircut will be before we go to Brisbane at the beginning of August...

See how I just slipped that in there... Brisbane, around the first week in August... nothing's booked yet, but that's the plan.

After I left the hairdressers I headed down to the bus stop and as I got to the end of the Mall I crossed paths (and locked eyes) with a guy I may or may not have slept with. If I did, then the whole locked eye things is fine... if not, sorry dude I didn't mean to freak you out.

So, I've had my haircut, booked my next two haircuts, stopped off on the way home to buy pizza, found my Large Tony "Rooster Pig" teeshirt in the letterbox, I have chocolate ice cream in the freezer made from goat's milk (could be yum, could be gross, we'll see) and am about to settle in for So You Think You Can Dance...

Friday Night = Sorted!

Current Mood:

random viiperi hotness

This is the largest, most bumperest Random Hotness EVER!

And it's essentially a little bit of a visual love letter to gorgeous Spanish/Finnish model River Delfin Canomanuel Viiperi with photos from Homotography, MMScene and Design Scene.

I'd seen some of his photos before, but it was only when I went looking for his name that I found a ton of pictures of him and fell completely under his cheeky, sexy spell... even if he was born the same year that I graduated high school.

Given the number of photos I found, it's highly likely River will feature in later Hotnesses.

He also has a blog and a Twitter account...

And to finish off, River in motion...

Even without the audio (Cee Lo Green's 'Fuck You') this is adorable!

Current Mood:

movies: source code

There are Thinking Movies and Not Thinking Movies... Source Code seems to be what happens when a Thinking Movie and a Not Thinking Movie reproduce.

And knowing it's from the same director as Moon makes perfect sense... although there really isn't much overlap between the two stories (and Duncan Jones didn't write Source Code), there's still a similar thematic vibe to the movies. The theme of identity and what makes you who you are.

All of that is obviously where the Thinking part comes in... and it does get more thoughtful as it progresses, right up until the very end which is very much one of those endings that you could discuss all the way home.

The Not Thinking part is predominantly Jake Gyllenhaal running around on a train trying to discover who is going to blow it up.

There's also more than a few similarities between Source Code and Deja Vu from a few years back...

Delving into slight spoiler territory for a moment, the whole premise of the movie is that Jake's character gets to relive the last eight minutes of somebody else's life over and over and over to work out who blows up the train... however because the event has already happened, and even though we're told that it's the first attack of potentially many, the stakes for Jake seem surprisingly low. Or at least I felt distanced from them because they weren't really real.

Because he's not really on the train but on the reconstructed memory of that train he can do anything, say anything, smack people around, whatever... and it just resets and he can start again. Essentially it's like Bill Murray trying to work out how to woo Andie MacDowell in Groundhog Day through a method of trial and error.

The only time the stakes really kick in is the very last loop... but I won't say any more about that...

Jake is very good in both the running around bits as well as the more cerebral parts that take part in the titular Source Code... but as I've said before (in relation to other movies obviously), Michelle Monaghan is pretty damn good with the minimal stuff she's given to do (which mostly seems to consist of following Jake around and being confused)... and Vera Farmiga is equally awesome (once again) as the slightly atypical military officer.

To be honest, as I mentioned, I was somewhere disengaged (not because it was bad, just because the movie seemed to be set up that way) from this movie for a lot of the 93 minute running time, but the final loop through the train journey and the end of the movie pretty much won me over.

yani's rating: 3 exploding trains out of 5

unconscious mutterings 433

Today was one of those days where I just wanted to yell at people this morning to shut the hell up about personal shit so I could work...

The Grumpy continued for much of the morning... lots of twiddly little things that were just going the wrong way...

I think I just need more sleep...

Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Code :: Monkey
2. Brothers :: In Arms
3. Immigration :: Borders
4. Heavy :: Metal
5. Bracket :: Shelf
6. Murder :: She Wrote
7. Neighbor :: Neighbour without the U
8. Collar :: Slave
9. Onslaught :: Information
10. Eyebrows :: Guys should never shave them

Current Mood:

unplanned city street art adventure

What started out as a plan to take myself out for breakfast followed by a trip to buy something in the storage oeuvre turned, instead, into a distinct lack of either of those things and, as the pictures would suggest, a mini street art safari.

I did actually take myself to Melbourne Street (where I have two vouchers for two different cafes) but they both looked kinda busy and to be honest I was a little intimidated about going into either of them to eat alone. Normally I don't have a problem with that, and I did have a bag full of Collect magazine, iPhone and headphones, but even so it just felt weird, so after wandering up and down the street I gave up and went back to the car.

I'd planned on heading down to Arndale to see if I could find a suitable "toy box" (and yes, the quotes are there for exactly the reason you think they are... those kinda toys), but since I was already that close to the city I figured I would swing around the long way, snap some photos of the street art we discovered yesterday and be on my way.

Best laid plans of mice and men, as they say.

I really need to start carrying some 10c and 20c pieces in the car for parking though... if I'd originally planned to head that way I would have stuck some in my pocket, but as I was flying by the seat of my pants I didn't... in fact I was completely without change having not spent any money by that point.

And sadly, since they cancelled the Rundle Street Markets on a Sunday the car park is no longer free... although $4 for the whole day is pretty good.

When I hit Rundle Street I actually wandered off the wrong way down to Cocolat to get a hot chocolate (m'eh... hot, but I've had better) and then wandered along Rundle Street slowly swigging away on it.

I felt very boho hipster actually when I made it up to where the street art was... I still had some chocolate left and was taking photos with one hand and swigging away with the other. Completely pretentious, although slightly less so because it only looked like a giant coffee.

Although the Rundle Street Markets are no longer there, a number of the stallholders got together and decided to move the whole thing over to Hindmarsh Square, so I wandered over to see what was going on... and I have to say, it all felt decidedly low-rent. Actually, it just felt like some sort of school fete (okay, the stuff people was selling wasn't that bad, but there was a very fete kind of vibe to the whole thing)... needless to say, I didn't stay very long, just did one lap and then legged it.

Since Ma and I wandered around Rundle Mall yesterday, I wasn't really in the mood to do it again today, so I called it quits and wandered back to the car park, detouring for some street art on the way (that's where the Tavistock Lane picture comes in).

Thinking about it, today really came down to my routes from Point A to Point B... I was already in Melbourne St, so the city was closer... from Rundle St I figured I would detour around and head off to Arndale via the Morphett Street Bridge...

On my way through the city I realised that I wanted to stop off and actually photograph the Morphett Street Bridge thanks to this...

However, I know it's always a pain in the ass to find a park around that neck of the woods, doubly so without the aforementioned coinage, so I ended up doing a couple of laps and was driving past the Grace Emily when I saw the Be Free girl at the top of this post, and decided to just park there.

That meant I had to wander through the backstreets to get to the bridge and instead of going the more direct way I figured I would swing past the car park behind Higher Ground on the off chance there was any new street art.

As I was walking down the side street, I noticed the piece at the end seemed to be new, or at least I didn't really remember it... and as I got closer I realised it was really, really, really new... as in it was still being painted!

When I got closer I looked at the guy doing the work (I was directly behind him, so I couldn't see his face) and had the strangest feeling that it was Benzo... but figured it couldn't be because last I heard he was overseas.

He finally turned around and it was Benzo! He also remembered me (even though we've only met twice... and I'm sure I came across as a total fanboy geek the first time), shook my hand, and stopped to chat for a bit.

Part of me wonders if it's just because he's nice... or whether he partially remembers me from the first time we met, but the other two times he knows he knows me, but can't exactly place me. That right there is what you call Low Self Esteem ladies and gentlemen!

Anyway, we had a slightly surreal chat (surreal for me anyway... and not helped by what I'm guessing were TAFE students doing a fashion shoot in the background and being all half dressed girls and whatnot), then I wandered off towards the bridge.

And the bridge is actually more impressive than I thought it was going to be... although impossible to photograph all at once, and I think I'll have to slap my panorama program into shape before it will do what I want it to do (maybe I just need to stitch the photos together one at a time). It's also there the ampersand at the top of the post came from... and given that I do have a little bit of a thing about ampersands (if I had the room I'd probably collect them), I made sure I got some good shots of it.

Then after a quick detour on the way back where I discovered the whole side of a two story building covered in what I think is a very minimal Store design (that's the white cloud tentacle thing at the top) and a very bright and colourful unfinished piece, I wandered back to the car and called it a day...

But what with editing all the images, creating a bunch of posts for later and writing this up, I seem to have lost a big chunk of the afternoon/evening.

Current Mood:

another city shopping saturday

We seem to be gravitating to the city a lot recently... this is the sixth week in a row we've ended up heading into town, partially because it's close and easy to do I think.

This morning started off the same as always, although I had much less tidying up to do because I actually did a bunch of it on Thursday night.

After we were finished with the supermarket stuff, we wandered around Target, Ma bought a bunch of clothes (including a kickass short red trenchcoat) and some old lady tried to chat me up while I was waiting for Ma outside the changerooms...

I was sitting there, minding my own business sending a text message and she started talking too me... freaky old biddy.

Anyway... the usual unpacking and paper reading ensued, then we headed into the city.

First stop was the Bead Shop to get a new clasp for the chain the "fork" I bought last weekend was on... it snapped earlier this week... I wasn't terribly impressed, but it's a really nice chain, so I didn't want to just discard it.

We stopped off in a couple of other shops in Rundle Street, discovered some new street art (sadly I didn't have my camera with me and my iPhone was being difficult), then wandered down the Mall and stopped off in Borders. Any day now, I'm sure they're going to close off the upstairs... the whole place just looks bare and as I said before, more than a little bit tragic.

Ma ended up grabbing some kid's books to put away for various people's offspring at Christmas, because, well, that's what she does. But really, even at 60-80% most of the stuff was too expensive for me to consider.

We headed down to the Myer Centre, did more wandering around, went to look at the puppies again (they had different ones in the playpen) and I ended up holding one of the fluffy little ones I was looking at yesterday... so docile and calm and just sat there on my hand. Granted, while I'm not really a dog person, if I had to choose between the one I was holding and the other one which was much more excited, I would have chosen the excited puppy.

And since they had a cage full of black kittens I wouldn't have chosen a puppy at all if I'd been looking for a pet.

After that we wandered back to the car, dropped in at the North Adelaide Village to pick up a couple of things and that was pretty much it for the day.

It doesn't sound like a lot really, but it kept us occupied.

Current Mood:

photo friday: pooches

Blogger was "currently unavailable" when I wrote this (annoying, but it's the first time in at least two years it's been particularly problematic)... so I resorted to my old friend Notepad, but hopefully I'll get a chance to post it some time tonight (or, as it turns out, tomorrow afternoon).

It's been a very long and somewhat frustrating week... and I was very glad to get to the end of it. Lots of last minute stuff that I didn't really want to be doing, some meetings which seemed to consist of going through information I'd previously emailed to people, and people changing their minds seemingly just for the sake of being contrary... very, very glad to get to the end of it.

Although that was before I was sitting on the bus and suddenly realised that I'd left $30 worth of Haighs products sitting on my desk at work. D'oh! It was my own fault... normally I would have left the Haighs bag in front of my Crumpler bag or put it the chocolate directly into my bag... and today I didn't.

I also finally got my red and white scarf from Jazz yesterday... it's long and stripey and soft and somewhere between Doctor Who and Where's Wally. I'm such a scarf whore now... that's three new scarfs this year... added to the six I already have.

Originally I'd planned to use the red and white scarf as today's photo, but I just couldn't get a photo that was interesting enough.

So instead I went with pooches, partly inspired by the fact that I called into one of the pet stores in the city at lunch today to look at the puppies and the kitties... I thoroughly recommend it as a general Friday tonic, especially when they've got puppies out of the tiny plastic cages and in a playpen in the middle of the store... daaaaawwwwwww!

Current Mood:

random valhallan hotness

A Random Hotness all the way from Valhalla this week... well, Valhalla, California via Summer Bay anyway...

Chris Hemsworth, who cut his teeth on Home and Away before hitting the big screen as the God of Thunder.

At least I think they're both pictures of Chris... the left image definitely is, but the right one has some serious Brad Pitt overtones.

Current Mood:

green wednesday thoughts

One of these things is not like the others... actually to be more accurate, one of these things was taken much earlier than the others and in a different city...

Today has been a very trying day... from being unable to log into something first thing this morning, through to people suddenly deciding that something that had been decided on 12 months ago and was perfectly logical and firmly in place needs to be changed at the 11th hour. And the fact that I also had to polish something up at it's own 11th hour...

There's too much fucking 11th hour action going on at present... fucking bollocks.

Plus Winter is definitely here, and until I make dinner in the evenings the house is really really cold.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have chicken to cook and soup to reheat!

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