photo friday: vs nature

It's been a very trying day at work today...

We got "upgraded" to Windows 7 and Office 2010 at work this morning, and having to fight with it to get it to do what I wanted it to do (and what the old version of Office used to do perfectly), plus the general busyness of the UI left me with a literal headache by the end of the day.

And this morning as we all tried to set things up and come to grips with the differences there were a steady stream of mutters, curses and general profanity as we went along.

I'm sure I'll get used to it in a while... but it just doesn't seem to be particularly user friendly at this stage.

With the exception of Tuesday, I had lunch from a food truck every day this week... Monday and Friday it was taco taco from La Cantina Co... Wednesday and Thursday I went to see Pearl for some Burger Theory goodness.

Between now and November, Burger Theory is teaming up with six Adelaide artists to produce a series of "Art Burgers", as well as burger inspired art prints.

It took me two tries to get my hands on the first burger, Matt Stuckey's Be Friendly burger... with apple slaw, chipotle mayo, American cheese and bacon. It was totally worth it though... SO! DAMN! TASTY!

I called the mechanic earlier this week to book my car in for a service (and a much needed battery charge) tomorrow...

It was a little spooky actually, because the only thing I said to identify myself was the make and model of the car... but at the end of the call he called me by name... so either he recognised my voice or I'm the only one who takes my particular make and model of car there (possible, but not very likely).

Unfortunately never got around to taking my car out for a run at any point this week... so that could be a complete disaster when I go to start it in the morning.

I'll just have to go out early and try and start the car... so that I still have enough time to call the RAA if I need to.

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#photoadayaug

Another month, another month's worth of Photo-A-Day photos...

This month hasn't been quite as bad last month, but there were a few images that were definitely thrown together at the last second (Days 2, 4, 13, 15, 25).

And the Lego quotient was down this month (Day 5, 6, 26)... only three Lego related shots (for a total of 30 for the year to date)... but some of my other vinyl toys did show up instead (Days 1, 13, 17, 18)... although the ones in Day 13 are actually wood.

It was also the first time I've done two images that you could count as a set (Days 1 and 18)... outside and inside.

There's also been quite a bit of food in the latter half of this month (Days 15, 16, 19, 21, 23, 25).

• Day 1: Outside (outside the box)
• Day 2: One
• Day 3: Coin
• Day 4: Somewhere I sat (I didn't really sit anywhere that day since my chiro told me to sit as little as possible)
• Day 5: Logo (this one was a given)
• Day 6: Writing (the writing itself is from when I used to write questionable gay vampire erotica)
• Day 7: 8 o’clock
• Day 8: Glasses
• Day 9: Messy (Hard Rubbish Day... finally!)
• Day 10: Ring (my grandfather's signet ring... unfortunately his initials look like a dollar sign)
• Day 11: Purple
• Day 12: Spoon (this was cleverer in my head...)
• Day 13: Simple
• Day 14: Arrow
• Day 15: Ready (dinner's ready)
• Day 16: Food (Taco! Taco!)
• Day 17: Faces (vinyl toys for the win!)
• Day 18: Inside (inside the box)
• Day 19: Hole (mmmmmmm donut)
• Day 20: Today (the return of Topham Wall)
• Day 21: Cool
• Day 22: Home (Pearl, the Burger Theory van, returns home after getting some work done)
• Day 23: Pair (a pair of fresh buns... again, worked better in my head)
• Day 24: Path
• Day 25: Fresh
• Day 26: Dream
• Day 27: Tap
• Day 28: Clock
• Day 29: Down
• Day 30: Card (three of my favourite business cards)
• Day 31: Hidden

And, as always, the list for September can be found on FatMumSlim's blog... she also wrote an interesting article on "how not to fail photo a day".

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random ryder hotness

We're visiting the porn side for this week's Random Hotness... the black and white, porn star as model side...

The porn star in question is Max Ryder... and the photographer is Edwin Pabon, whose work I may have to revisit another time.

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sunday stroll

I needed a few things today... firstly I needed to take the car for a run... and by the end of the week I need a new template image for the blog... and I really did need to get out of my apartment for a bit.

So I combined the three by taking my camera for a wander around the Botanical Gardens.

Sadly, not much was blooming and colourful in the Gardens... although I did get a few good shots of general greenery.

I think I also gave my back a bit of a workout... given that I was taking photos there was some bending and stretching and whatnot, but I made sure I did everything carefully. I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of audible cracking when I go to see my chiro on Monday afternoon.

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pointless driving saturday

Today did not, as they say, go according to plan.

Ma was off getting her hair did this morning, so I was shopping solo. Which was fine... I got myself ready first thing this morning and went to get my car.

I got in the car. I put my key in the ignition. I turned the key.

Nada. Zip. Zilch.

I tried again. Still nothing. And I realised that the alarm light was still on. But when I pressed the button on my keyring it didn't go off. And when I opened the car door the alarm light went off completely.

So in essence I didn't have enough battery power to even turn off the alarm.

Not good. I know that I haven't driven the car in a while, but I only had the battery replaced around April last year... so it wasn't really the best way to start the day.

I called the RAA, like you do, and had to settle in to wait for the guy to arrive. Fortunately it was only about 20 minutes, and he had the car started in all of about 30 seconds. I think it actually took him longer to get the van into the rear carpark than it did to get my car working again.

Unfortunately because the battery was so very, very, very, very flat, it meant that I had to drive the car around for an hour. And it isn't like I could go somewhere and run errands or anything... I just had to drive. So I ended up doing a big loop around heading north, then west, then south, then back north again... then a brief instance of heading east then south then east before I eventually looped around and found myself at the supermarket.

But even with an hour of loop-di-loop plus doing my shopping, plus a stop off at the Honey Man, and I still made it back to my place before Ma made it down to my place.

So not the worst Saturday of my life... but not exactly how I wanted to spend the morning.

Once again we didn't really have any plans... although Ma wanted to poke around for a new iPhone cover... so we headed into town for a little bit only to discover that all the cases on offer around town are either singularly uninteresting or else not the kind Ma was after... so we'll have to find her one online somewhere.

I think I'll have to make a point of driving the car a few times this week after work, just to keep it charging up... although the RAA man did say that it needed a good long charging session, so I might have to book it in with the Mechanic Man and get them to give it a good jolt... plus it's overdue for a service.

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photo friday: rooftops

It's been a busy week...but the good kind of busy...

And given that I've walked home every day this week on instructions of my chiro, I think I've cleared some of the cobwebs out of my head. Or possibly replaced one set of cobwebs for another, I'm not completely sure yet.

Speaking of my chiro, my back has been almost completely pain free this week. Granted my shoulders are now where the problem is, but it's a definite improvement.

The Burger Theory truck finally returned to the city on Wednesday... yay! And today I braved the wind and rain to visit the La Cantina Co truck for awesome soft taco goodness...

And... yeah... there really isn't anything else noteworthy...

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random kit hotness

My favourite character on the fantastic teevee show Game of Thrones is Jon Snow, played by this week's Random Hotness, Kit Harington.

I was sold on the character from his very first appearance, plus it doesn't hurt that Harington looks gorgeous with the big curly mane of hair and beard.

And looking at one of these photos in particular, it is kind of a shame that Jon Snow spends all his time covered from top to toe in leather and fur (although that has a certain appeal all of it's own).

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movies: the bourne legacy

The Bourne Legacy is the fourth movie in the Bourne series and the first one not to feature Matt Damon as the titular superspy.

Damon, and the character of Bourne, never feels particularly far away from this new movie though. Partly because it's set, at least in part, during the events of the third movie but also because Damon's face shows up a number of times as a very familiar photo from the first Bourne movie.

Moments of this movie also feel very much like the previous films... there's the use of the Bourne Theme at the very end, there's the impossible chase using vehicles in improbable ways (although absolutely nothing tops the chase sequence in the first movie for me). A number of the same actors show up playing the same characters and the story is interlinked and (I guess) expanded upon.

It does feel a little bit like the shadow of the three previous movies is hanging over this one a little bit... as though it really given a chance to stand on it's own feet.

Part of that could have been fixed by setting the movie five or ten years after the previous ones... allow it to breath a little. But that's not what they chose to do... and I think the movie suffers for that choice a little.

The story is also needlessly complicated... and the beginning of the movie is incredibly story-heavy. Unlike the first Bourne movie where it's a gradual build up to rooms full of people staring intently at computer screens and yelling at underlings, this movie feels like it dives straight into that without really getting us invested in Bourne Mark II (Jeremy Renner's Aaron Cross... and to be honest, I think we hear Jason Bourne's name more often than we hear Aaron's).

There also doesn't seem to be any of the mystery and intrigue that really characterised the first three movies. There was always some piece of the puzzle that Bourne needed to uncover to be able to end the movie, but the reason that Cross is doing what he's doing is so incredibly (and I hesitate to use the word, but it seems appropriate) stupid that I wasn't really bothered whether or not he succeeded.

I'm also always bugged by the shadowy government agents in these movies... not through any fault, but because I think there are probably people that think like they do and would do morally bankrupt things while claiming it's for the greater good. But whereas in the previous movies at least one of those shadowy individuals gets exactly what's coming to them and is taken down by the hero, that also seemed to be lacking this time around... there was no punishment for their behaviour. In fact they also managed to take down a good character from previous movies. And that really did bug me.

Having said that, once the action ramps up, it is a really good action flick... all the fights and the action feels very Bourne... and I was carried along by those sequences quite well.

Both Renner and the requisite female accomplice/love interest, this time played by Rachel Weisz, are great in their roles. I was a little conflicted by Edward Norton as one of the aforementioned shadowy men... normally I would expect to like him in a movie, so it took my brain a little while to work around that preconception.

All in all the movie feels very much like a little brother to the original Bourne trilogy, one that doesn't have quite as much charm or style as it's big brother.

yani's rating: 2 blue pills out of 5

topham wall returns

Topham Wall is back... kind of...

The council has granted approval to a group of young artists taking part in a Carclew Youth Arts program to spray a piece over the wall they had painted over and ruled off limits to graffiti. 

I went down today at lunch... took my digital camera, which turned out to have a completely flat battery. Fortunately though, I had my iPhone with me, and that produced some decent shots.

But it also looks like I'll have to go and visit it more often again...

Carclew public art program manager Annemarie Kohn said the council had chosen a number of people to paint the Topham Mall site, between Waymouth and Currie streets, every three weeks.

I do like the bats... I don't know who's responsible for them... but they're all kinds of awesome...

Carclew ran a graffiti art workshop in May for 80 aspiring artists, and have a waiting list of more than 100 people for future workshops. From that process, they selected three young artists to work on the piece with renowned graffiti artists; Dash from Melbourne, Kab from Adelaide and Perth artist Poise. The youth and the artists designed the work on Saturday and used all of yesterday to paint it.

And I still haven't gotten myself around to the new "free wall"...

Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood said it was a good outcome that addressed concerns about street art. "It is no longer a 'free wall'," he said. "There is a free wall under the Morphett St bridge where artists can go their hardest."

I'll be interested to see how Topham develops this time around though...

(Quotes from 'Spray it again, Sam - Topham Mall graffiti wall re-opens' - Adelaide Now)

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will and the ghost

It seems that so little is known about the life of Shakespeare that writers enjoy inventing "what might have beens" to fill up the space.

There's also a shorthand that writing about the world's most famous playwright gives you... there's his entire collected works to comb through and lines that are so famous that they surpass the plays that they're from.

Will and The Ghost at The Bakehouse Theatre written by Aoise Stradford and Canal Condemn and directed by Lucy Markiewicz does both of these things beautifully.

The play is more a "what never really was" rather than a "might have been", but it's all the more interesting for it.

When Will Shakespeare is mugged after drinking at the Bear's Head Tavern, a mysterious stranger who rescues him and takes him home uncovers his dark secret. Under threat of exposure, Will enters into a pact with the stranger. But is he dealing with a man or a poltergeist?

The writing by Stradford and Condemn is really strong... there are moments in the play that I realised afterwards were referring to the play itself, and the use of Shakespeare's works is cleverly worked into the dialogue, never feeling heavy handed.

David Hirst as Will and John Maurice as Ghost are both excellent actors, although both are very different.

Hirst occasionally plays Will very close to the line of caricature... there's an element of an almost over the top, cartoon version of Shakespeare in the performance, but it never gets out of hand, and Hirst definitely plays up the humour in his role. However there are moments both when he's terrified as well as when he's livid where he's captivating and embodies those emotions with every fibre of his being.

With Maurice you're never entirely sure whether he's the Ghost of the title or some kind of Elizabethan mobster... both the writing and his performance tread that line brilliantly where you could believe either, or both at the same time.

The two actors have fantastic chemistry together both in the moments of humour but also when things turn nasty between the two characters. Will's reactions feel real because Ghost's actions have weight behind them.

While the ending doesn't really feel like a surprise, as the whole play has been building to exactly that moment, it the execution does come together as a perfect moment of theatre.

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just a little spot of shopping saturday

Since Ma and I are headed out to the the-atre tonight, we kept today's shopping to a minimum.

Ma has headed home for the afternoon and will come back tonight in time to go and get some dinner before the play.

Essentially we did the usual Saturday stuff, albeit in Ma's new car. I kept having moments where half of my brain recognises the new car and another part of my brain keeps looking for the old car.

The seats in the new car are more snug than the old ones though... and perhaps not quite as comfortable at present. But all the good things about the new car make up for it.

After the usual unpackery and Ma wandering down the street for a coffee, we decided to head down to Arndale so Ma could look for some floor mats for the new car.

Now, I have a confession to make... my name is Yani and I have a Sharpie addiction...

So obviously I couldn't go past a pack of coloured Sharpie markers... especially when they came with a free (if slightly cheap looking) pencil case to keep them in.

Mmmmm... coloured Sharpies...

I also got seduced by a new iPhone case at the Optus Store... it's from the same company as all my other cases, but it's slimmer than my current case. It also looks like it's melting, which is weird, but cool.

But that was about it really.

And now I have the afternoon to myself...

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photo friday: colours and letters

I'm not the kind of blogger who starts off their posts with that whole metacommentary thing of apologising for the fact that they haven't been posting... I'm generally not a big fan of it on other people's blogs and until the last few months it really wasn't an issue on my blog.

However, I have noticed in the last couple of weeks that I haven't really been posting all that much stuff beyond the obligatory Tuesday Movies, Random Hotness Thursday, Photo Friday and Saturday Shopping...

But there really hasn't been that much going on in my world of late... well, not very much that's especially interesting...

So I guess this is me apologising for apologising for the lack of posts... or possibly apologising for not apologising... or not apologising for apologising... fucked if I know... my head is all over the place just currently...

But let's recap the week that was...



Monday

I had the last of my original series of eight chiro appointments, and I actually felt much, much better this week than I have in a long time. I also made the appointment for my "reassessment" for today (ie Friday, see below) after work.



Tuesday

Ma picked me up from work in her shiny (red) new car. Not because we were going to the movies, or for any real reason, she just wanted to a) show off the new car and b) drive it around more.

I also got my Kickstarter reward from the Artisan Dice project... wooden dice! I still have no idea what woods they're made from, but they're very pretty.



Wednesday

I went to the Central Market for lunch and bought the supplies for one of my peasant lunches (bread, salami, cheese, strawberries) plus some chocolate (and a few other bits and pieces).

I also discovered that there is now a Cupcake Truck that drives around selling cupcakes... I was intending to buy one on my way back from the Market, but I ended up on the wrong side of the street.

Then I had the Potato and Leek soup that Ma made and brought down on Tuesday for dinner... very yummy, although next time I might run it through the blender before I heat it up.



Thursday

Yaaaaay food trucks!

Not Burger Theory (they'll be back in the city next week) but a "new kid on the block", La Cantina Co (sadly their actual website doesn't seem to work for some reason).

Banger and I went down to visit their truck (Truck Norris... I know, right!) and try their soft tacos at lunchtime and it turns out that they're pretty damn tasty. I opted for the chicken (smoked chicken with fresh guacamole) and the and pork (with a pineapple salsa).

Personally I preferred the chicken, but I still need to try the beef and vegetarian versions. They were both very tasty though and the service was good (plus the guy doing the serving is quite attractive).

I will definitely be back though!

I also want to try the Raw Thirst truck that was out there with them... mmm smoothies...

Friday

Possibly due to all the wind and rain last night, I didn't sleep overly well... And I woke up seemingly ever hour on the house from around 1am onwards.

I don't know why that is always the case though... if I'm going to wake up like that, I always seem to wake up either right on the hour or within a few minutes thereof. It's very weird.

I also decided that I wouldn't take my pain pills this morning. I've had a really good week with regards to pain in my back/leg and I do know that I need to stop taking the pills given that I've been taking some variation of them since I hurt myself in May.

So whether I've been suffering with a combination of lack of sleep and codine withdrawal, I don't exactly know, but I had a headache for most of the afternoon/evening and I haven't felt especially bright eyed and bushy tailed all day.

Since I had to wait around after work for my chiro appointment, I wandered over to Espionage Gallery to have a look at the exhibition that opened last night.

Unfortunately the exhibition, which is the first one not actually curated by Josh, was a bit of a fizzer. There were a couple of interesting works, but nothing of the usual standard. In fact, the previous exhibition, he didn't have a huge number of people but sold two thirds of the works... this one they had nearly 200 people through the gallery and not a single thing sold.

But I got to hang out and chat with Josh, so that was a nice way to kill time until my appointment.

And then I went to get all reassessed by the chiro...

Overall the news is good... she's impressed with my progress, but because it's such a long standing problem, we're going to do another eight sessions over the next four weeks just to really sort me out.

I'd already decided that I probably wanted to do that, as I've felt like we've made good headway with the lower part of my back, but putting things in the right place has now thrown the top of my spine out of whack, so I'd like a chance to get that settled too.

And now that I've decided that I'm going to kick the painkillers cold turkey, it's a good chance to really see how my body is.

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