wednesday mumblings

This is a note to myself: Today is Wednesday, tomorrow is Thursday and you have the day off, the day after is Friday and you're going to Melbourne.

I've had a real problem trying to remember what the day was. Or possibly more accurately, my brain kept getting confused about what day tomorrow was. Or something. I don't know.

It's not really surprising, I've had a lot of sugar today thanks to Banger's birthday celebration, which we somewhat over catered as usual, and the fact that I've fried my brain a little bit this week reading and rereading and editing and reediting my job application that I submitted this afternoon.

To be honest we had some slightly disappointing and some relieving news about the positions this afternoon. Without going into too much detail, there are a lot less positions than we were expecting but anyone who's shortlisted as being acceptable for a position will be offered any additional positions of the same level that are created.

So that's good...

And I feel better about the whole interview process after we all had a meeting with the big boss about the whole process... especially given the fact that I'm generally shitty at interviews.

But, you know what, I'm very much of the opinion that if I get it, I get it... if not, well, fuck it... it wasn't supposed to happen.

If nothing else, having a brain full of job applications and whatnot this week has meant that I really haven't had any time to even think about the trip to Melbourne... but on the flip side of that I'm not really excited about the trip either. Not that I'm not pleased to be going away... I'm just not revved up about it.

I'm pretty sure that'll change when I get up on Friday morning, if not before.

Current Mood:

weird old saturday shopping

It's been a weird old day...

Not a long one or an eventful one, but just weird.

It started in the usual fashion... me getting myself organised, followed by Ma's arrival and the trip to the supermarket.

The supermarket was slightly weird if only because neither of us bought very much... and not really because we're headed off to Melbourne at the end of the week, but possibly because both of us still had a fridge full of stuff left over from last week.

I know when I used to do my grocery shopping on my own I would always have a "full shopping week" and a "light shopping week" when I usually just went to the supermarket around the corner to pick up the bits and pieces I'd run out of. And today very much felt like one of those "light" weeks.

Then after we came back here before heading out to the framing shop to pick up the piece with the string on upside down and Ma's two prints, both of which looked great.

Beyond that we really didn't have any plans... so Ma suggested that since we were in the neighbourhood we could drop into Ikea for a general wander around. I did want to pick up a couple of extra shelves for my bookcases, so it seemed like as good a plan as any.

And essentially we pretty much did just wander around the store. Yes I picked up the shelves, one wood, one glass... but that was pretty much it.

When we came out we still didn't have an actual plan, but Ma suggested we could head down to West Lakes and see a movie with the mostly useless (to us anyway) Reading vouchers we have.

That could have been a plan, if it hadn't been for the fact that Ma a) missed the exit to the Ikea store while driving past it and then b) proceeded to drive in the completely wrong direction not once but twice trying to get from Ikea to West Lakes.

Normally this would be cause for amusement and much mockery, but it seems to be happening more and more and I'm genuinely concerned that Ma is actually starting to lose the plot. Not on everything... but the small things around the edges... stuff she should know without even having to think about, and she's getting fuzzy on details.

I know she's in her mid-60's but it's still a distressing thought. And one that I hope isn't more serious than general old-peopleness.

Anyway, because we drove completely in the wrong direction and then had to drive all the way back in the right direction, by the time we got to West Lakes it was pretty much right on the time for the movie to start, but to be honest I really didn't feel like it anymore.

So we gave it a big miss... wandered fairly aimlessly around the shopping centre and called it quits and came back here.

Not really the most of exciting of days... but then there's more than enough excitement to come next weekend.

Current Mood:

photo friday: flurfy plus purpy

You know those days when you're the second to last member of your team left standing and a major project that you haven't had anything to do with needs to be launched and then doesn't work properly. And you work out the first problem, only to discover and second problem, fix that, discover a third problem, fix that...

Yeah, that... all morning. And in the end they decided to leave it as it is and worry about it next week, which suited me.

That was on top of fielding a bunch of other issues, partly due the aforementioned team absences.

Thankfully the afternoon was fairly quiet, but by that point I'd lost all sense of enthusiasm. But it's Friday, so m'eh.

It's been a busy week too...

Tuesday was Movie Night, so that's a night out of the house... then Wednesday was Haircut Night and last night was Art Appreciation Night at Espionage. So I was quite relieved when I realised that I didn't actually have a chiro appointment tonight and I could come straight home after work.

I swear at this point, Tink could suggest just about anything and I'd probably be all "yeah, sure, why not"... there's that level of trust and the fact that, really, it's fairly hard to screw up my hair within the confines of the usual style I favour.

So it's maybe a little longer on top than previously... although possibly not by much, and Tink took the blonde a little further down, blended the line a little more, which looks pretty good.

And we talked... and talked... and talked. Okay, it was more me this time, I kind of unloaded all the drama I went through a couple of weeks ago and everything that's kind of fallen out of that since. As always, it was good to just have a sounding board for all that stuff.

The show at Espionage last night was Cameron Brideoake's Floating World's show... and although I'd already bought one of Cameron's pieces there were still a couple of other pieces that I could have been tempted by. I love his stuff so much. Which is good since I have a number of his pieces and I'm commissioning a tattoo piece from him as well.

It was an interesting mix of people too... a number of faces I recognised, and oddly a couple of people who I didn't expect to remember/recognise me, did. Which is always nice.

I chatted with Cameron, I chatted with Charlie, I chatted with Josh, I paid for my artwork and then I went home. A fun evening, really.

And we're now officially less than a week away from our trip to Melbourne... although it'll be here before I know it.

Current Mood:

random boy hotness

We're taking a trip to Poland for this week's Random Hotness.

These photos of model Karol Drobniewski are by photographer Whookash Guzenda and prove that a cute shirtless model and a pair of well filled designer briefs work in any language.

Current Mood:

movies: much ado about nothing

In 2011 while filming The Avengers, director Joss Whedon collected together a number of his friends and actors he had previous worked with and in twelve days they filmed a modern, black and white version of one of Shakespeare's comedies...

The finished result is Much Ado About Nothing.

I will admit going in that while I think it's the Shakespeare play with some of the best dialogue, it's probably not amongst my favourites... if only because the plot contrivance of (and here's where I lay down some 414 year old spoilers) Hero's honour being besmirched and neither her father, Leonato, nor her suitor, Claudio, give her the benefit of the doubt or actually bother to find out what the story is before essentially calling her a whore in front of the entire town.

Having said that, the B story (which, honestly, I always think of as the A story) of Beatrice (Amy Acker) and Benedick (Alexis Denisof) is some of the best Shakespearean dialogue... and the mother of all screwball/romantic comedies for all of history.

Acker and Denisof don't perhaps have the same fire as, say, Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson from the 1993 version of the movie, however they do have excellent delivery and they both have some good comic timing.

Along with Acker and Denisof, the cast is full or people that Joss has worked with previously, whether that's in a variety of roles, such as Fran Kranz (Claudio), Nathan Fillion (Dogberry) or Tom Lenk (Verges)... or whether they've just appeared in one of his projects once like Clark Gregg (Leonato), Jillian Morgese (Hero), Reed Diamond (Don Pedro), Sean Maher (Don John) or Riki Lindhome (Conrade). And I have a feeling there were a few of the extras and minor roles that went to people he was working with on The Avengers at the time.

It was a little odd at times, knowing these faces and remembering them as completely different characters, letting go of that mental baggage to accept them as this new person. To be honest the one that took the longest was Kranz, as this is a very different character than he's ever played in the Whedonverse.

Fillion and Lenk steal just about every scene they're in as the bumbling watchmen, but of everyone I found Morgese and Maher the biggest disappointment. Morgese is a little bland, and although I know that that's partly the character, she didn't do a lot to elevate her... and Maher doesn't feel quite as dastardly as he perhaps could have as the evil Don John.  He starts well, but it seems to fizzle out a little... but then that could mostly be Shakespeare.

The black and white cinematography is quite beautiful and shows off Whedon's house (which was designed by his wife Kai) and grounds brilliantly. And the fact that the characters are all in modern day costume never feels weird. In fact, because it's in black and white, I think it lends an air of timelessness to this version so that it never feels weird that they're in modern dress, in a modern era, speaking in Shakespearean English.

It's not perfect, but it is clearly done with love.

yani's rating: 3 false knaves out of 5

chilly waterhouse saturday shopping

Urgh... it's been a properly cold and wintery day today... rain, wind, hail... the lot.

Actually I think the rain woke me up this morning. Or it could have been hail... it's not like I got out of bed to check.

Ma was doing the haircut thing today, so once I got myself organised I headed off to the supermarket solo.

And as usual, when I'm shopping on my own it seems to take half the time of when I'm shopping with Ma. Not that there's a problem with taking longer, it's more just something I notice every time I go shopping solo.

I also headed into Target after I was finished at the supermarket in search of a new scarf... yes, I do have a box full of scarves currently... but I want something long, thick, soft and possibly red.

Wait, does that sound dirty? No, never mind...

I didn't find a scarf, however I did find a beanie that didn't look too bad which will come in handy in Melbourne. And it was on sale, which is always a bonus.

Ma turned up at my place not long after I got back and she brought along with her all of the rest of my books that had been taking up space in her spare room. It didn't take me too long to go through them all, mostly because I only kept a handful of them and the rest went back with Ma to be distributed however she sees fit.

Although there are a bag of books that I'm going to donate to the ACSA/GLCS Community Library.

Once I was done with the books I went though and pulled out the last of the VHS tapes from behind the DVDs while Ma went though the DVDs I'd already tagged as surplus to requirements to see if there was anything she wanted to rescue.

By the time we got all of that done and headed into the city it was just before noon.

Our only real destination for today was the Museum for the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize.

Even though I'm pretty sure that we've gone on the opening weekend for a number of years we usually (except for last year) go fairly early... however this time I think we hit just the wrong time and it was much more crowded than I usually like it.

Or maybe it was just that more of the people who were there were of the "Wanky Art Crowd"...

It felt like there was a lot of pieces this time around... or at the very last, the space felt somewhat more crowded. But whether that was from the people or the pieces I'm not sure.

There were definitely more pieces that appealed to my sense of aesthetics.

Amongst those were the pieces on the right... Cristina Metelli's The Fishbowl Effect, Nicholas Pike's Barn Owl, Andrew Hawley's Beggars Into Kings, Sam Vaughan's Diagram for Green Industry and Nadia Parkinson's Yellow-winged Locust Gastrimargus musicus.

Cristina's piece was definitely my favourite... big sparkly transparent wire goldfish... what's not to love. Which is why I nominated it as my favourite piece... but this time around there was also a prize for the piece that was the most scientific (or something, I can't remember exactly), and for me that was definitely Nadia's piece.

One of the things I did notice was, given that I've bought a lot of art in the last couple of years, that I actually looked at the prices of some of the pieces and there were a couple where I thought to myself "hmmmm... that's actually pretty reasonable". Not that I bought anything... but I thought about it.

After we'd done out usual cruise around all the pieces we had a wander up and down the Mall for a bit so I could have a poke around and look at some scarves. Still no joy... I may have to wait until Melbourne unless someone can recommend where I might get my hands on a really long, soft, thick scarf.

We stopped off at David Jones for a drink and a little something to eat, which turned out to be a little disappointing... my iced chocolate was okay, but nothing special... but the lime tart they had was just awful... I don't know what the texture was supposed to be, but it wasn't smooth at all, it was almost curdled... I totally didn't finish it.

As we were headed back to the car, I decided to take Ma on a little detour to show her the window from the end of my Blind Date... and although I'm pretty sure I was in exactly the right spot... there was no window. Nothing... not even a blank wall where a window had previously been. And I'm sure it was the right spot. Which just makes it generally weird and also a little bit magical since the spot has vanished like Brigadoon.

Current Mood:

photo friday: eight

It seems like everybody I know is on holiday or attending something cool.

As we speak, both the San Diego Comic Con and the first Australian PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) are happening, and a number of people I follow on Twitter/Instagram are at SDCC, although only one person I know is at PAX (hey Ponk *waves*) currently.

Another of my Twitter buddies is away in the snow, and H-San and Owl Girl are in Melbourne and Sydney respectively.

Granted I am going to Melbourne for a few days at the beginning of August... but even so, I'm, as the young people say, TOTES JELLY! (Young people do say that, right?)

Actually I'm probably only really jealous of Owl Girl... I mean I'm going to Melbourne in a couple of weeks, and I don't know if I could actually do a big convention thing like SDCC or PAX... but Sydney... yeah, that'll make me jealous every time.

And it doesn't help that she's doing to me what I did to her when I was in Sydney and sending through photos and general commentary.

In non-travel jealously news, I forgot my blogiversary for the second year in a row. Yep, yesterday my blog turned 8 years old. I think that's probably pretty old for a blog... if my blog was a dog it would be 45 in dog years.

Wow... and that's what it's been for eight years... me just waffling random crap for 3181 posts. Thanks and apologies in equal measure to anyone who's been paying attention this whole time.

Normally I would have rushed around either trying to dig up an 8 image or trying to take one, but instead, this year I'll just celebrate with the eight beach dude images in this post. The gift that keeps on giving and whatnot.

Enjoy the perving, compliments of my blogiversary.

This week hasn't really been overly complicated, however there are a few things just to jot down for posterity, although there will be varying amounts of vague...

• Sometimes to get exactly what it is you need, you need to pay top dollar for it. Which doesn't exactly lead to buyer's remorse, more buyer's introspection.
• The roast I bought last weekend and then ran out of time to cook on Sunday turned out to be perfect for Monday night's dinner, and the leftover chicken also made it into Tuesday night's soup which was also Wednesday's lunch and Thursday's lunch. Thrifty yet tasty.
• I finished reading the Batman Court of Owls storyline last night... the art by Greg Capullo is amazing, and while the story is great it did perhaps feel a little too "quick"... maybe it made more sense in the original monthly comic books, but all together as graphic novel volumes it felt perhaps a little rushed or perhaps not detailed enough, I'm not completely sure. They were good, don't get me wrong, but I was definitely more of a fan of the art.
• I saw the first image for Series 11 of the Lego Minifigures this morning (I think it showed up at SDCC)... once some better images show up I'll do a whole post about it, but my first thought was, to quote The Godfather 3 "just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in"... dammit. I may have to investigate other storage solutions though.
• I kind of started looking at other apartments for rent this week... well I very nearly went to an open inspection, but decided that while I definitely need more room (and an airconditioner) I'm not sure that I actually need two bedrooms... both due to the cost and what would I actually do with a second bedroom?
• While I've been through all my DVD's and pulled out anything that I no longer want, I have the feeling that I may end up going through again at some stage and being really hardcore about it... really cut down my collection... we'll see.

Current Mood:

random historical hotness

Back in 2002 a young Calvin Klein model with a great body and some well packed briefs was making a splash all across the internet.

Earlier this year the History Network series, Vikings, premiered in the US and I started seeing some images of the cast around the place.

But it wasn't until I saw an ad earlier this week that I realised that the long haired model from 2002 and the bearded Viking from 2013 were one and the same... today's past and present Random Hotness, Travis Fimmel.

Current Mood:

movies: epic

I actually can't remember the last time I fell in love with the visual style of an animated movie the way I fell in love with Epic.

Sure, there have been movies where I've been wowed by the animation, and yes, Epic is gorgeous from that standpoint, but it was more than that... it was all the character designs and the armour and the backgrounds and everything about the way this movie looks that hooked me in.

The story isn't anything particularly groundbreaking... it's FernGully and it's Arthur and his Invisibles and it's any of those movies where a human is transformed to help restore the balance of nature.

But in this instance it's done quite well, with a lighter touch to the underlying messages than some of those movies generally use and some genuine surprises. Although I will admit that the overall story feels a little darker than a regular animated movie.

Add to that characters who were more three dimensional (and, for the record, that isn't due to the fact the movie has a 3D version, since we saw it in 2D) and a voice cast that really puts personality into the characters.

With Colin Farrell put his beautiful Irish accent to excellent use, Christoph Waltz doing a wonderful turn once again as the villain (without going over the top) and Beyoncé Knowles filling the Queen of the forest with such a lightness and warmth alongside Josh Hutcherson and Amanda Seyfried as the two leads.

It's not a perfect movie... as I said, for the most part the plot is a little thin and I really could have done without the comic relief slug and snail as they very definitely fall into the "crazy animal sidekick" category.

But the things I enjoyed about the movie more than made up for it's problems.

yani's rating: 3 Leafmen out of 5

art, cars and bookshop saturday shopping

Today has been a very long, very emotionally draining day.

Technically it shouldn't really have been emotionally draining except for the fact that I wasn't feeling 100%, so that took it's toll.

The day started unexpectedly at around 2am when I woke up with the taste of, I'm guessing, bile in my throat and having a little trouble breathing clearly. I have no idea what the hell was going on... but it wasn't pleasant.

And it took a while, and a spoonful of icecream before I could get the horrible taste out of my throat, given that water didn't do a damn thing. Fortunately I did manage to get back to sleep reasonably easily though.

When my alarm finally went off I just felt generally not right. I had a bit of a headache, I was a little nauseous and my brain felt a little like it was operating from a long, long way away.

And it's not like we didn't have a whole bunch of things to do and places to go today... so that was helpful.

Once Ma arrived it started with us getting my recalcitrant car battery started... which fortunately didn't take as long as I feared it might, and then we drove down the road in separate cars so that I could drop my car off at the mechanic for a new battery while we were shopping.

By the time we were finished shopping my car was ready, and actually started when I turned the key, which is always nice.

When we got back to my place, I went through the boxes of my old books that Ma had brought down to see what was headed off in search of new owners. Which turned into a whole saga on it's own...

But before that we packed up the car full of books and the artwork the framing place put the string on the wrong way up plus the extra prints that Ma wanted framed and headed off to the aforementioned framing place.

I picked up the "art doll" I bought a while back from Espionage Gallery which I'd dropped off to be framed when we picked everything else up last time. It actually looked fantastic... there was a little text blurb that came with the piece when I bought it and the guys at the framing place suggested that they could do that as a little gold plaque at the bottom and it worked out really well.

Once I have everything sorted out with my books and bookcases I'm definitely going to need to go through and photograph all my artwork, maybe create a private blog or private Tumblr for them.

I also took over a tiny bit for the two pieces Ma was having framed... the guy was going with something that was "safer" than I thought the prints needed, so I stepped in. If Ma had objected I would have butted out, but she was happy for me to put my two cents in.

And to think that the first time we went in and had a ton of stuff framed the girl said something like "well that's your framing done for the year then"... little did she know.

I wasn't completely sure exactly where I wanted to take all of the books to sell, but there was a bookstore we visited somewhere in Unley last year that I figured would be a good place to start... so we headed there... it was gone, replaced by a beauty shop.

Not a good beginning... but thankfully I had the technology to go looking for other second hand bookstores.

And we found one that wasn't that far away and headed over there... but the woman there was "only looking after the shop for the day" and couldn't buy any books.

At that point we were two for two and I was getting a little annoyed. So I sat in the car looking other bookshops up on my phone and ended up calling them to check that they were a) still there, b) were open and c) could actually buy books...

The first place I tried was a "book exchange" but didn't buy books (sorry, WTF?), the next place only wanted to buy two small boxes/bags worth (I had four boxes and two bags in the boot of the car, so no joy there), the next place didn't buy it only took donations.

By that point I was more than a little frustrated... firstly with the fact I couldn't find anywhere that would take the books but also because it was difficult to even find places online to try. Or at least it was difficult using my iPhone.

Eventually I managed to find a place on South Road, which was basically down the road and around the corner from where we were sitting. And they at least said that they would look at what I had and make an offer.

Hallelujah!

I mean I know the proverbial arse has fallen out of the book market, but seriously, I didn't know it was THAT bad!

Although the place I called did look more than a little dodgy... there really wasn't room to swing a proverbial cat... in fact there wasn't even room to swing a very small book about cats. There didn't even seem to be a counter... it was just a fairly average sized shop crammed from wall to wall with as many bookcases and books as humanly possible.

The older couple who ran the store were quite sweet if a little bit bordering on bibliophilic... and they ended up taking more books than I was expecting, but at the same time they left some stuff that I thought they probably would have taken due to the fact that they already had copies.

By the time we came to talk about cash moneys I wasn't really expecting a lot... to be honest I was just happy to find somewhere that would take the books and give me any amount of cash.

While we'd been going through the books Ma had been wandering around the rest of the shop and had found a couple of books she wanted, so we threw those into the deal, and I still walked away with $40, which was better than a kick in the face.

And because I really couldn't be bothered bringing the books that they didn't want back home, we headed into the city to the Oxfam Shop and dropped them off as donations. The girl looking after the shop was very grateful, and they're now officially out of my hair.

Then we headed down to Arndale to go and see Epic at the movies... now I know that it's school holidays, and a Saturday and an animated movie... but what the hell is with parents not controlling their children at the movies? Or in public generally I guess... but specifically at the movies.

It made me want to stand up at the start of any movie where the audience is largely children and give a presentation on how we behave at the movies. We do not talk during the movie... if we do have to say something, we whisper. We sit in our chairs and don't run around. We do not under any circumstances behave like we're in our lounge room.

But it's not really surprising the children don't know how to behave when the adults seem to be easily confused by the simple combination of a letter and a number denoting their designated seats.

And as much as I dislike the concept of assigned seating (I think it's so that the cinema companies can force people into booking tickets online and therefore they can decrease the number of frontline staff they employ, and reduce their costs... all of which means that the quality of service to the customer is greatly reduced), if you're assigned a fucking seat, you damn well sit in it until the movie starts and they if you really want to, go find another seat.

Because if you sit in a seat you weren't assigned, especially in one of the small cinemas, then the people who were supposed to sit in that seat have to find another seat, which means the people who were supposed to sit there have to find another seat... and so on and so forth.

Anyway... after the movie we headed into the city (again) to pick up the artwork I couldn't bring home on Thursday... and to look at the artworks that had just come in for the show in a couple of weeks, which is one of the perks of being such a good customer. I didn't end up choosing anything other than the one that I "bought" on Thursday without seeing it in the flesh. But it really was gorgeous, and once again it was the only male themed piece in the whole show, so I had to own it.

Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time to hang around and chat with Josh due to only having a short term carpark, and when we got there there was a random dude chatting with Josh already so we lost some time there.

By the time we got back here it was about 5:30... which, given that we weren't going out anywhere this evening, was a very long day for us. And I really am both physically and emotionally worn out.

Current Mood:

photo friday: sharp to soft

I think this week has been a textbook case of "it gets worse before it gets better".

After the horrible week I had last week, things actually got worse on Monday... like really, really worse. Okay, not people dying, buildings falling down or losing a limb type of bad... but pretty bad as these things go.

But I'm not sure if the very fact that it had been a somewhat nebulous and internal issue and even though it becoming a concrete issue made it about a hundred times worse it also made it solid, so it could be worked around and examined and looked at, rather than being a big mass of neuroses in my brain.

And yes, I'm aware that that is all incredibly vague and not very specific, but a) I don't really want to go airing all my dirty laundry, and b) I'm hoping that at some much later stage I can look back on this and be all "I have no memory of what I was talking about there, which is good because it sounds rotten".

I think that I also managed to put a few of my mental houses in order a little bit, since while it took me almost the whole week to feel most of the way back to normal (and even not completely then) it did mean that a bunch of other things that would normally have frustrated the living daylights out of me ended up under the "not as bad as X" column in my brain.

That included having my next door neighbours inform me on Monday night when I got home that they were throwing a party... but at least they told me and other than standing around outside at midnight talking a little too loudly for a little too long, it wasn't so bad. And a cinema full of people who either couldn't find their seats or were sitting in other people's seats and just standing around looking vacant.

Add to that a couple of random guys contacted me via online means purely to call me names... one of whom got one of my "think about your behaviour" replies that usually takes up a whole iPhone screen. I need to just write one of those and store it somewhere for the odd occasions that I need it. Granted, I'd prefer not to need it. I mean, seriously, why would you go out of your way to insult someone online... someone you've never spoken to before... I just don't get that.

Anyway...

The last bump in the road, as it were, happened last night when I was headed into Espionage Gallery. I got in the car, turned the key, and nothing. Goddamit! Every winter, without fail, the stupid car battery doesn't get used for a couple of weeks and goes into fucking cardiac arrest. I nearly gave up on going into town at that point, but instead decided to just go and jump on a bus into town, with the intention of getting a taxi home since I was picking up some artwork.

It turned out to be a good decision, since Josh had a couple of other people helping him out so he and I stood in his "office" area and had a big long conversation while everyone else did the running around. I also pretty much bought an artwork from the next show without seeing the completed piece... but it's an artist that I love and it's a gorgeous piece... so why the hell not (other than the fact that I don't have space for anything). And it turned out that one of the pieces I bought at the previous show was much bigger than I remembered it being, so I left it there to be picked up tomorrow and walked home instead.

Which meant that I caught the bus into town twice and walked home twice yesterday. Not exactly how I planned the evening to go, but it worked out okay in the end.

Although because I forgot to change into my sneakers when I left work I think the combination of walking home twice in "the wrong shoes" (once last night and once tonight) did a bit of a number on my little toes... so, ouchy!

All of the drama of the week made me look at the fact that if both my work life and home life are equally stressful then I need to find ways to reduce my stress, and I really need to look at finding another place to live. Having said that, that is so much easier said than done, especially since I haven't dipped my toe in the real estate market for probably ten years... although maybe a little less.

Firstly everything seems either really manky or really expensive or both. I'm sure I'm asking a lot anyway, especially given the rent I pay now (which, if anything, is further proof that my landlord is a fucking moron, given what we could be paying versus what we are paying). And doubly so given the fact that I really would prefer to live in the city or North Adelaide still... although other suburbs surrounding the city are on the table too. But after a cursory glance it's not looking promising in my current budget.

This week was the first time I've looked however... so who knows.

As with seemingly everything in my life at the moment, we'll see how things take shape.

Current Mood:

random dreadjack hotness

Meet this week's Random Hotness, 22 year old British reggae musician and sometime model Jack Roth, also known as Dreadjack, for obvious reasons.

Although I think he could easily adopt the name Abjack or Eyesjack just as easily.

Current Mood:

movies: despicable me 2

When I saw the original Despicable Me I was surprised by how sweet it was and how well the story worked.

While I don't think that Despicable Me 2 is anywhere near as well written a movie, it is a really funny movie.

In actual fact, the plot is a bit of a mess... they tried to cram to many things in, side plots that don't really add a whole lot, and the main plot isn't as clear cut as the first movie.

Fortunately that can somewhat be overlooked due to the number of laugh out loud funny moments. Most of them involve the Minions who I think play a much larger role this time around.

As with the first movie, the best characters are Gru himself (voiced by Steve Carell) and Anges (voiced by young Elsie Kate Fisher)... Anges is definitely where all the heart lies in both movies.

I can't say that I was overly enamoured with either Gru's love interest or the eventual villain.

And while the visual style wasn't on the same level as a Pixar movie, it's still a good looking movie, especially the hair/fur effects which look outstanding.

So while it's not the best animated movie I've seen in a while, it delivered the laughs I needed tonight.

yani's rating: 3 lipstick tasers out of 5

short grey saturday

Not all that much to report from today... fortunately because I tidied up my apartment yesterday I really didn't have to worry about rushing around this morning. Which was good, because I stayed in bed longer than I should have.

But I still managed to be ready by the time Ma arrived.

Then we did the usual supermarket routine... same old same old... and headed home managing to mostly avoid the rain.

Neither of us had any particular plans, but Ma wanted to track down some cross-stitch thread for a project, so we went into the city to see if we could find what she was after.

Which turned out to be harder than expected, but we did manage to track down a substitute that should work.

While we were in the city I also wandered into JB HiFi on the lookout for Young Justice on DVD... but unfortunately they only had one disc... and I kind of want both seasons as a boxed set, although I'm not completely sure if such a thing actually exists.

And other than a quick poke around the Crumpler store to check out their new "women's range" and a brief stop at a sausage sizzle stall down by the parade grounds, we called it a day.

So not especially exciting... but it has given me the whole afternoon to myself.

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photo friday: grey friday

I have had a week that, if I described it as "shitful" would be a massive understatement.

So much so that I took a "mental health day" today and didn't go into work. I can't remember the last time I had to do that. And I think I missed a chiro appointment, I certainly missed a call from them this afternoon.

Shit does indeed happen, and currently seems to be happening to me.

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random fourth hotness

Given today's date and it's significance to The Land of the Free and The Home of the Brave, this seemed to be the right way to go with Random Hotness, even though I featured the same model about three weeks ago.

Plus, onesies seem to be a thing right now...

As with his last appearance, the model is Tony Dracke and the photographer is Erion Hegel Kross.

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