photo friday: thumb 'n' pony

thumbs up my little hangman
Do you know that until mid way through today, I'd totally forgotten that Monday is a Public Holiday.

Thankfully I remembered today and not, say, Monday...

This morning was not pleasant for going to work in... it was hammering down with rain when I left for work (it was so cold I had to get one of my scarves out) and I actually had to jump over the river that had formed in the gutter to get on board.

And then the bus was just dripping and leaking from just about every possible place... not so fun really.

And it was a busy day... but not a whole lot really got done. Sugarmonkey has gone off on leave for a month, so Rockchick and I tidied up his desk so we don't have to look at the big mess for a month... which then turned into getting out the Crisp Green Apple Pine O'Clean spray and giving his desk the once over...

Well, it beats doing actual work.

At lunch I took some photo proofs down to Paper String Plastic (today's photo choices are from the trip I made down there earlier in the week) and also paid for another 10 weeks of rental on my half a drawer.

It's also interesting hearing other people's reaction to the behaviour of somebody you've clashed with before... and even more so when at least three different people all say the same things about them without knowing it.

Also, I'm not really a numbers person, but I do love to fuck around in Excel with a graph!

Not bad on about four hours sleep...

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sydney sculpture reprise

bathing beauty coast guard reflected coast glass trioIn a month from now I'll be stepping off the plane in Sydney...

And today I've been having delusions about staying... it won't happen, but it's been a shitty day.

Enough said really...

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unconscious mutterings 452

In exactly one month from today I'll be packing my bags ready for the Mega Melbourne/Sydney Travel Extravaganza 2011...

Is it the end of October yet?

Unconscious Mutterings...
  1. Clay :: Pottery
  2. Eggs :: Hard boiled
  3. Dress :: Up
  4. Games :: Fun and
  5. Drummers :: Ten drummers drumming
  6. Proud :: Jewellery
  7. Hoisted :: Mainsail
  8. Feuding :: McCoys and Hatfields
  9. Itching :: Powder
  10. Remain :: Long division
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miss oh photo safari saturday

blue angel striped rowers
Today was a very different kind of Saturday... well, it was out of the ordinary anyway...

For Miss Oh's birthday this year, Ma and I bought her a digital camera, and to go along with that we said we'd take her out on a photo safari adventure.

Because Ma was bringing her down, I wandered off to do the shopping on my own. Essentially I only bought a few things... I think I've started gravitating towards the "shop as you need it" idea... or possibly it's the fact that I only really need to invent something for dinners on Tuesday and Wednesday... Monday is always the same, and I hit the shops Thursday and Friday.

Anyway... I finished shopping around the same time Ma was heading down, so it all worked out really well.

I couldn't get over how tall Miss Oh's gotten... not to mention how blonde. She's just turned 13, but she's very quiet and polite (little disturbing to think she's related to me)... and she laughs exactly like La Cousina.

flyer white watcher
Ma had got it into her head about going to the Adelaide Gaol... fortunately I managed to talk her out of it somewhat, and instead we headed down to Port Adelaide (Miss Oh likes old things... go figure).

We pretty much just wandered around the old parts of Port Adelaide... I gave Miss Oh a few impromptu photography lessons as we went, or at least shared random ramblings with her.

She did really well too... I know she's used digital cameras before, and some of her shots were a little lackluster, but then so were some of mine.

Once we'd wandered around the Port for at least an hour and a half we decided to head down to Semaphore... mostly because we weren't really sure what else we wanted to do.

Semaphore didn't really last long, so I gave in to Ma's insistence about the Gaol...

commercial blue red jaguar
Turned out that Saturday is the only day that it's not actually open... so we didn't even bother getting out of the car, because the outside isn't really that inspiring.

We did stop nearby though, since there were some horses in a little paddock just up the road from the gaol. They may have been something to do with the police museum thing near by...

Normally I wouldn't have been bothered about getting close to the horses, but there was a sign up saying that they may bite... whether that was just there to cover everyone in the unlikely event they did bite or whether they actually were biters I'm not sure. We didn't stay long though.

Our next stop was Perrymans to get some lunch and then headed down to the paddocks with the horses by Lefevre Terrace to sit and eat out goodies... then we wandered over to look at the horses.

It must have been the day for strange horse behaviour though because there was more than a little bit of "ears back" posturing and some general horse weirdness... so we kinda kept our distance.

That was that really... not an overly long day, but interesting. And Ma called earlier to tell me that Miss Oh had enjoyed herself.

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photo friday: sydney blue

blue anaconda small changes
Let's just say that I've had Sydney on my mind this week...

In fact, Sydney and haircuts and social media and winning and weekend plans and you know, stuff.

Pretty much all of our travel plans for the end of October have been organised, so now it's just a waiting game.

I really can't work out if I'm argumentative out of sheer bloody mindedness, or whether it's because I'm very passionate about the way certain things should be done or I just don't understand why people can't see things the way I see them since it's both blisteringly obvious that my way has merit. I'm not saying that my way is the only way to do things or that I'm always right, but I usually have reasons and a thought process being the things I get really passionate about, even if I can't completely articulate it.

And sometimes I just know it's right... you know.

I've also been a bit of a winner this week... I entered a couple of competitions on a movie website sometime in the last couple of weeks, them promptly forgot that I'd entered them until I got a copy of the Source Code DVD in the mail yesterday. There's also supposed to be a double movie pass on the way too. I just need to find somebody to take with me since it's not really a Ma kind of movie.

Yesterday I met an older lady who used to live in this apartment building. Not my apartment though, she actually lived upstairs. She and her friend were out at the gate and I heard her say something about "used to live here", so I went out and chatted with her for a bit... ended up inviting them both in very briefly just for the nostalgia rush. And because Adelaide is kind of a small city, it turns out her husband works for the company that delivers parcels here.

It is indeed a small world after all.

And now I'm watching the start of the new season of So You Think You Can Dance. To be honest I kinda wish they either a) pre-screened the contestants so the crazy/crap ones never make it on stage, or just didn't show them... or b) just started with the Vegas auditions...

Anyway...

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random ludwig hotness

This week's Random Hotness visits the land of "Didn't He Grow Up Pretty".

And the blonde, 19 year old, half-naked hotness in question is Alexander Ludwig, last seen in both The Seeker: The Dark is Rising and the remake of Race to Witch Mountain. He's also soon to be seen alongside fellow "DHGUP" former child star Josh Hutcherson in The Hunger Games.

I'm sure there's some pun I could make, either about witchcraft, things on the rise or something about Alex needing a feed... but I'll hold back.

alexander ludwig alexander ludwig
alexander ludwig alexander ludwig
alexander ludwig alexander ludwig

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tink makes a housecall

this is not indicative of my actual haircutWell that was a new and unusual experience!

Because Tink is now INCREDIBLY pregnant (it's so cute, she looks exactly the same except for the giant belly lump), so she's stopped working at the salon... but she's still cutting hair, thankfully.

So she packed up her little travelling hairdressing kit and came over tonight to cut and colour my hair.

It was a trifle odd... we set everything up in the lounge... used my old painting dropcloth and some towels to catch the hair and I sat in my old swivelly desk chair.

Oddly though, it never really occurred to me how integral the mirror is to the hair dressing experience. It was strange not being able to make eye contact while we were talking... especially given the amount of talking we usually do.

Given that we're both of a slightly similar vintage (Tink being a few years younger than me), I threw on the Video Hits 86-96 DVD, which was the perfect thing and kept us amused. I swear though that half of the time I don't even pay attention when she's cutting my hair. Obviously she's been cutting my hair for long enough that I trust her, but because we got talking... first about the Brisbane trip... then about my neighbours and how long I've been living here... I really wasn't paying attention. And of course the lack of a mirror meant I couldn't really watch the haircut.

We went with the same haircut as last time... very short on the sides and around the back and kinda high up before it starts getting longer... then bleached on top. I'm just glad that it's shorter to be honest!

Also, it was a buttload cheaper than going to the salon (although to be honest, it was all so friendly and cruisy that I forgot I was supposed to be paying her until right at the end... oops), so bonus there.

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movies: thirteen assassins

thirteen assassins - take up your swordWe were pretty much down to foreign language films this week... or at least films set in Asia. I came down to a very "chick" sounding film or 13 Assassins.

I'm still not sure it was completely the right choice.

I do like a number of other movies in this genre... Red Cliff, Seven Samurai (even though it almost always makes me doze off), Throne of Blood (the Japanese version of Macbeth) or any of the various Chinese movies where everything ends horribly and the last ten minutes make almost no sense.

And 13 Assassins fits comfortably in along side Seven Samurai... too comfortably in fact I think... I don't really want to use the word "derivative", but it feels similar in both structure and style, although not so much the specifics of what happens.

It also feels somewhat like two movies. The first half is a very quiet yet dialogue heavy drama involving a lot of people sitting around various rooms and talking about things endlessly to the point where I found it very hard to sit comfortably and/or stay completely awake. The second half is where all the action occurs, and is much more interesting, although it did feel a little like I'd seen a lot of it (or versions of the same) before.

It also feels very serious... there's not very much to lighten the mood, and even a couple of times when there were things that I think were supposed to make you laugh, the audience didn't seem to catch them fast enough to react before they were gone again.

Visually it also feels like two movies... the first half is all indoors and dark whereas the action/battle scenes are all outdoors in the middle of the day.

The action section also pushed the boundaries of credibility a couple of times... once with flaming cows (yes... cows... on fire) and the second with an unnecessary and frankly ludicrous waterfall of blood.

For the most part the gore is manageable, and certainly not on Kill Bill (Part One) standards, but they went to town on the sound effects.

Storywise it pretty much delivers what it says on the box... 13 assassins band together to kill the bat-shit crazy brother of the Shogun. And the movie goes out of it's way to show that the aforementioned BSCB really needs killing.

But in the end they really spend half of the movie talking about what they need to do and the second half doing it and not talking very much at all.

yani's rating: 1 flaming cow out of 5

unconscious mutterings 451

Today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

When I got up this morning at 5:30, the temperature was 25°C. Now it's raining and 14°C.

H-San is still on leave, Rockchick SMSed in sick then Sugarmonkey emailed in sick.

The temperature at work seemed to be extraordinarily high and the amount of air circulation seemed to be extraordinarily low.

Ma booked the hotel room for Sydney, I booked the flight back and the car for taking us to and from the airport in Melbourne.

None of these facts is in any way connected to any of the others.

Unconscious Mutterings...
  1. Earrings :: Silver
  2. Tomorrow :: Tuesday
  3. Soft :: Hard
  4. Idiots :: I have a new theory about idiots... I may blog it on another day
  5. Portraits :: Black and white
  6. Handicap :: Space
  7. Collar :: Peter Pan
  8. Blouse :: Silk
  9. Wool :: Sheep
  10. Statistic :: Information
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uncertain saturday shopping

99c beansYou know what... I'm almost longing for the Christmas season to start so that we can actually have a purpose to Saturday shopping again... it's been very hit and miss beyond the grocery thing lately and I like it less.

And it was kind of doubly a problem today because Ma was going into the city this evening to Princess T's 18th Birthday party thing, so she stuck around for pretty much 10 hours.

That's a lot of hours to fill...

The usual supermarket thing was... usual. Although I did want to tell young Thomas who was our designated check-out chick that he had three big holes in his pants around the pockets. Teenagers... what's the deal.

Anyway.

After watching essentially a whole episode of Tabitha's Salon Takeover, we headed into the city. For no other reason than Ma wanted to look at some shoe store and get some makeup at The Body Shop... well, more accurately, get them to do her makeup before paying a seemingly ridiculous amount of money on three items.

We parked in Rundle Street, wandered all the way down to the Mall, then headed down Hindley Street to visit the Burger Theory truck in Leigh Street. I have to say that their burritos are very tasty, but very, very full of beans. Neither Ma and I could actually finish our burritos, they were just too much. Like I said, tasty though.

Then we pretty much wandered back along the Mall, stopped off to get a drink, and then back to the car.

When we got back we fiddled around a bit, then started looking at hotels for our Sydney trip at the end of next month. We're aiming to go back to the same hotel as last time, but when we checked out the website, it appears that they've had something of a makeover, at least in part, and now there seem to be three classes of rooms... Deluxe, Superior and Standard. But weirdly, when trying to book a room, they only seemed to have one room of each type available.

Weirdness.

So Ma is going to try and call them tomorrow (or Monday) to see what the deal is.

It also turns out that Sculpture By The Sea has moved the opening date back a week, which would have been fine if we weren't going to be in Melbourne the previous Thursday, so we're going to have to be in Sydney for a full week and go to Sculpture on the opening day. That could end badly.

We are thinking about maybe heading over the bridge to Taronga Zoo one day, and I'd really like to head out to Newtown. So I think we'll be looking at bus and trains and whatnot... although I would kind of like to walk across the Harbour Bridge.

And then Ma went off to Princess T's 18th Birthday party thing... I don't know whether it's like a cocktail thing, or what... but I wasn't really interested in going. And T knew that... I think Ma said when she originally gave me the invite that T thought I probably wouldn't come but wanted to invite me anyway. Which sounds more convoluted than I think it is. It was a sweet gesture though.

But like I said at the top of this post, I kinda feel guilty that I don't really feel guilty about not going.

I didn't want to go, there wasn't really any expectation that I should of gone or had to go or anything... but at the same time... I dunno. I don't know that I really want to follow this particular thought all the way down it's rabbit hole though.

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photo friday: kidrobot by swatch

kidrobot for swatch - bengali by joe ledbetterThis is my Bengali Swatch and Dunny by Joe Ledbetter as part of the Kidrobot for Swatch...

And that's the awesome perspex display case both open and closed... when it's closed it's this great looking display case... so very groovy. The only downside is that I can't bring myself to break up the set by wearing the watch. So potentially I may end up buying another watch in the range that doesn't come with a figurine to actually wear.

I spent pretty much my whole lunch break at the Burger Theory truck today... I nearly didn't.... while the line wasn't quite as long as last week, but unlike last week the sun was out, which made things slightly less comfortable.

I was probably in line for between 20-25 minutes... but you know what, it was totally worth it. I don't know what it is about the Burger Theory burgers... but they hit all the right parts of my brain. Ditto with their chocolate cookies.

I also bought more socks from American Apparel... they're not cheap, but they're damn good socks.

And I'm going to make some version of Niçoise salad for dinner, so I should crack on with that...

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random stymes hotness

Today's Random Hotness comes from the same school of young male models as previous Hotness River Viiperi.

Showing off his body and his personality in these black and white shots (courtesy of Tumblr) is British model, skateboarder, drummer and TV presenter, Ash Stymest.

ash stymes ash stymes
ash stymes ash stymes
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things i like

things i likeI realised recently that I have a tendency to use this blog to complain about things that annoy me... not always, but I feel like there's a degree of it that has crept into my writing.

So to counterbalance that I'm going to take a leaf out of my own book and revisit the second ever post I did for the blog.

And, essentially, remind myself of all the things that make me happy.

Some of it is the same as the old list, but a whole bunch is new.

Things I like...
  • Guys who fill out a suit nicely.
  • Getting parcels in the mail.
  • Songs by Josh Pyke.
  • Casual Friday.
  • Accidentally exposed underwear/skin.
  • Silence.
  • Artwork by my favourite artists.
  • Farmers Union Strong Iced Coffee.
  • Well shaped hands.
  • Movies with great dialogue.
  • Discovering new pieces of street art.
  • Homemade fruit salad.
  • Seeing the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in Sydney.
  • Pale redheaded guys with freckles.
  • Getting three stars on Angry Birds levels on the first try.
  • The smell of old books.
  • A good double cut roll.
  • Tanned blonde guys.
  • Getting good seats for shows.
  • Sunset over the ocean.
  • Crisp red apples.
  • The laneways of Melbourne.
  • The curve in the small of a guy's back.
  • Playing with Photoshop.
  • Pogo's movie/real world remixes.
  • The smell of rain on hot concrete.
  • Lamb Rogan Josh with naan bread.
  • Thunderstorms.
  • Piercings, especially nipples and eyebrows.
  • Snapping the perfect photo.
  • The colour red.
  • Haighs chocolate.
  • Bookstores.
  • Good kissers.
  • Guys in hoodies and not much else.
  • People who make me laugh out loud.
  • Clean sheets.
  • Burger Theory burgers.
  • Stationery stores.
  • Tall, lanky dudes.
  • Hot showers.
  • Scarf weather.
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unconscious mutterings 444

I had a guy and his little boy approach me at lunch to ask if I liked a particular football team... I didn't understand why until I realised the little boy was holding his dad's mobile phone which had the same case as mine.

But I was so thrown by the question I didn't really say very much... but it was a whole world of weird.

Unconscious Muttering...
  1. Submission :: Dominate
  2. Lucy :: I Love
  3. Feather :: Float
  4. Magnetic :: Field
  5. Bowling :: Shoes
  6. Stress :: Ball
  7. Sweetly :: Smile
  8. Creamy :: Manlove
  9. Awaken :: Morning
  10. Beaten :: Egg
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speedy mall saturday

supermarket through a fish eye lensWe originally had a whole different plan for today involving Miss Oh Livia... but that fell through. Thankfully, given the weather, it turned out to be a good thing.

Useful, but not terribly interesting overall.

After the usual routine, we headed down to Marion in my car (I really don't drive it enough, so it was good to give it a decent run there and back).

Other than looking in most of the same places we always look, our main objective was finding Ma a new outfit for an event she's going to next weekend. There really weren't that many options... everything was either too casual, just plain ugly or didn't fit right... sometimes all three.

We even had one of the women in Myer trying to help Ma find things (back off bitch, that's what I'm there for)... but unfortunately most of the clothes in that particular range were way too ugly and just not right.

She did point us in the direction of another section though, which turned out to have a top that fitted Ma where it needed to and hid the problem areas. So bonus there.

But that was about all we really did... other than coo over the puppies in the pet store... so damn cute.

It was a quick day overall really... we got back from the supermarket reasonably early and weren't at Marion that long.

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photo friday: his and hers collars

lace red bow tie
Some his and hers collar action for today's Photo Friday... from one of the semi regular "ye olde" fashion displays they regularly have in Adelaide Arcade (I think they're by TAFE students).

I've been feeling a little out of my depth this week... or a little lost... or a little bit that it's all too fucking hard.

As a general note to both myself and the world at large, I give the following piece of advice:

Don't wear mesh underwear for a full day that involves any walking or sitting... it's not comfortable, and you end up with an ass that looks like a leg of ham (you know, with the criss cross pattern).

Speaking of underwear, I went and bought some at American Apparel at lunch... and I would have followed that up with lunch at the Burger Theory van, but the length of the line exceeded the time I had left on my lunchbreak... *sad face*

I've also made a habit of ignoring people I know this week... not on purpose (at least not the first time)... first I totally didn't even see tweetbuddy Peteski on my way to the bus stop last night (to be honest I'm still not sure if he was on the same side of the road as me, the opposite side or in a car), and this evening I ignored the trainer girly who did my last program as I was leaving the supermarket. Her I could have spoken to, she was smiling at me when I came out of the store, but I didn't immediately realise who she was, so the expression on my face didn't change, and it wasn't until I started to turn away I realised who she was.

And then I couldn't be bothered...

Have I mentioned recently that my life is monumentally dull?

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random bound hotness

Some stylised Japanese rope bondage for today's Random Hotness...

These photos, featuring model Robert Maynard, are by photographer Eli Schmidt for the East Village Boys website.

robert maynard by eli schmidt for east village boys robert maynard by eli schmidt for east village boys
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