southwestern street art

On the way back from Marion yesterday I spotted a bumper crop of street art along what turned out to be the Sturt River Linear Park (as opposed to the Linear Park I frequent, which is along the Torrens)... I didn't realise until just now when I was looking things up that on the opposite side of the road was the Warriparinga Wetlands, so I might have to mark that in my To Do list for when the weather is cooler (and, you know, there's the possibility that they might actually be wet).

But I digress (as always)... street art, Marion, bumper... so around lunchtime I headed out with my camera to see what was what.

And it was something of a "challenging", yet productive, afternoon

Sadly, I'd chosen a "driving mix CD" I made some time ago which I think I probably hammered fairly extensively at the time, and it got all scratched up, so the CD player in my car won't recognise it anymore (and I couldn't be bothered going back to the house and getting a functional CD)... hence, no driving music (and no radio thanks to my ongoing lack of aerial)...

When I finally got down to the spot in question and found somewhere to park (and then worked out after I'd gotten out of the car that I could have parked further back under a tree), my next challenge was getting over the fence. Honestly, I should have just grown some cojones and climbed over, but I was a) worried about looking like an idiot to all the people driving past (stupid, I know, but there you go) and b) worried about whether I could actually get over the fence and then get back again.

Instead, I just stood there like an idiot... I faffed about for a while, leaned on the fence for a bit, was figuratively scratching my head when this guy and girl (probably both in their early 20's) walked up to where I was and both just climbed over the fence (okay, he was all butch and kind of vaulted over, but she stuck her foot in the wire mesh and climbed over that way, and I was left thinking "why the hell didn't I think of that?").

So, obviously it was possible, and I didn't want to be outdone by some randoms from the Southern suburbs... so I followed them over the fence. Turns out they were doing exactly the same thing that I was... well the girl was anyway... walking along and photographing the street art. Which is kinda cool, I've never run into somebody doing that at the same time as me before.

I ended up going further along the wall (well, walls technically, of all the "industrial" buildings that back onto the river) faster than they were, so it wasn't like we were in each other's pockets either... but it was kinda weird just as a general situation.

Rather than being "mural" pieces, which tends to be my preference, this was more "New York style", unreadable words done in pretty colours... but there were some cool bits and pieces, particularly a giant (and I mean GIANT) "Seven Deadly Sins" group mural... where seven different artists had taken on a sin (at least I assume it was a different artist per sin)... but they were done in the aforementioned unreadable style, so while they were pretty, I have no idea what they were supposed to be saying... the shot on the left is from the "Pride" sin... and I really liked that little mirror.

I'm not sure if they were "authorised" or not (although I kind of doubt it... there was at least one piece that seemed to be unfinished, so somebody obviously got interrupted), but some of the pieces are MASSIVE, they would have required some sort of scaffold or other ways of getting up that high (standing on a car or a van maybe?), and they wouldn't have been quick... so you'd think people would have seen them... *shrugs*... who knows...

Anyway, once I'd taken all the shots I wanted to, I headed back, spoke to the guy half of the couple briefly and then went to tackle the gate... not graceful or easy, but I got there (obviously).

As I went back to the car, I messaged Rockchick to see if she was in and if I could swing past and pick up the DVDs she borrowed after Christmas... she wasn't in, but she said her housemates would be, and I could stop by. Which I did... rang the bell, knocked on the door... nothing... so I called Rockchick, turns out the housemates had popped out briefly (*grrr*), and I ended up standing on the doorstep chatting on the phone to Rockchick until they turned up.

Now I think I might go and collapse for a while... it's been a somewhat eventful weekend...

Current Mood:

memory lane sauna

Sometimes everything feels like it's very hard work and other times it all just slips into place... computer accessories start working again, you run into people you know.... that kind of things...

Last night, what with it being Valentine's Day and all, I figured I would take myself off to the sauna, get some "V-Day lovin"... which turned out to pretty much be the right plan I think.

When I walked in the door, Marc was just getting his locker key... now, I think I can probably count on one hand the number of times that I've had somebody already being served when I get there... but the fact that it was Marc, well, I figured that it either boded well, or alternatively there was a complete and total disaster of an evening in the words...

But we chatted while he was getting served, and then again in the locker room before we went our separate ways.

I wasn't honestly sure which way the night was going to go... Valentine's Day, anybody that didn't have plans (ie was single) but wanted a bit of action, so the joint did seem to be busier than I've seen it in a while, but by the same token there didn't seem to be much going on (that happens sometimes on busy nights, everybody is so distracted because there are so many "choices" there that they never get around to making a decision).

Eventually I found myself back in the steam room... and who should be in there but Marc... I swear though, that boy has NO concept of "correct time and place", and the steam room isn't really the place to get all chatty and giggly. One thing I did notice was that he seemed to be very tactile and flirty... never a bad thing, but he's kind of kept himself at a little bit of a distance since we had The Conversation... so, of course, I wasn't resisting in the least. I did drag him out of the steam room after a while, partially with the thought of some spa time, but also because we'd completely destroyed the mood in the steam room. But he wanted to go off one way, I went off the other with the intention of coming back, but the spa was full of people so I changed by mind and did the "circuit wander".

Fast-forward to a while later and Marc was in the spa all by himself as I went past, so I jumped in to join him. I won't say that I had a definite plan regarding Marc, but I kinda figured I'd "push my luck" and see what happened... turns out that it was a good plan... helped, as I mentioned before, that Marc seemed to be very flirty (actually that was mostly why I HAD the plan).

Anyway, we were rolling around in the spa and chatting and being obnoxious and whatever, and Marc was sitting on my lap, which I will admit was nice, but wasn't actually doing anything FOR me (you know what I mean *waggles eyebrows inappropriately*) and he was avoiding letting me anywhere near his neck (which is pretty much his trigger spot)... but then, for whatever mental reasoning he used, he just turned his head to the side and let me (in his words) "ravish his neck". Suddenly it was just ON... full on, full snoggage, full frontal, you name it, it was full...

It was all somewhat similar to the last time we rolled around in the spa together, but a little more varied...

I did manage to control myself enough not to leave a mark on his neck (since he's more about the mouth action than the biting/marking)... he, on the other hand, had no such control issues, so I'm sporting a rather nice little mark where my shoulder and neck meet (which I have no problem with at all).

I have no idea how long we were rolling around during the playtime portion of the spa, but it was quite a while, and honestly, what with all the kissing action and just general stress relief, it was just what I was in need of.

Once we were finished though, everything got a tiny bit nostalgic...

Marc was still sitting on my lap when we were joined in the spa by somebody else (actually we'd been joined a few times, but we'd either "scared" them off or they'd just left for whatever reason)... and I didn't recognise him at first, but Marc launched himself across the spa to give this guy a hello hug and I realised that it was Seb. Seb and I used to be, well I'm not sure "friends" is the right word... "acquaintances and occasional fuckbuddies who spent a fair amount of time with each other" is probably more accurate, if a little wordy. Seb is also the person I went to Maslin's (the nude beach) with (the only person I've ever been to Maslin's with actually). And we had something of a falling out, nothing explicit, but we just stopped talking to each other, and I don't think we've spoken until he got in the spa.

Anyway, Seb and Marc and I were all chatting, and then Ginger Bear came up to the side of the spa and was talking to Marc (because Marc is quite literally one of those people who just knows EVERYBODY, so seems to anyway). And Ginger Bear is somebody that I had a tiny little fling with once upon a time... memorable, but I've had pizzas that lasted longer... so suddenly the spa was starting to look like I was being haunted by the Ghosts of Hookups Past... and then Ginger Bear wandered away... but he came back and joined us in the spa, and it really was Nostalgia City (although I'm pretty sure that Marc had "had" everybody in the spa too, but I might have to ask him about that... I don't think that Seb and GB had done the wild monkey with each other, but I could be wrong).

So we just chatted and Marc flitted between the three of us for a bit, then got out of the spa, but me and Seb and GB just sat around chatting about clothes and kitchen gadgets and pool cleaning and getting locked out (of the place you're housesitting) while you're naked (Seb really isn't a shy boy, for all that he doesn't have a lot to show off)... until eventually I was being crowded out by these two far less interesting daddy-types that had joined us in the spa, so once I made the move to get out (which was something of a struggle once gravity took hold of me again... less fun after floating around in the water for about an hour) the other two joined me.

And because this is the way these things go, Marc happened past just as we were getting out, and he was calling it a night, so I figured I might as well split too and after all four of us stood around gasbagging in the locker room for a while, and then Marc and I did some random chatting and low level flirting with the guy working the reception desk, we headed off into the night (and opposing directions).

So I'd say that was a pretty good result for Valentine's Day, wouldn't you?

Current Mood:

it's back

You honestly wouldn't read about it...

I'm not counting my proverbial chickens and whatnot just yet, but guess what... my external hard drive is working again!

I was sitting here when I heard it make the "hard drive doing things" noise that it makes sometimes when you access data... I must have plugged it in the morning without thinking about it (I honestly have no memory of doing it, but that doesn't mean much) and I was going to unplug it, but it was actually making with the vibration and the "proper working noise", which it hadn't been doing the other day when I was talking to J about it. So I thought what the hell, and plugged the USB cable in...

And it worked!

Like I said, there is no poultry inventory and I might just copy some things off of it onto the hard drive before I switch it off again... but woohoo!

Current Mood:

valentine's day shopping

Now let me just be clear... today was shopping that happened to be on Valentine's Day... not in any way shopping FOR Valentine's Day... because, really... pffffft...

Also, we're solidly in that whole "post Christmas, pre anything interesting" stage of the year when we kind of don't quite know what to do with ourselves on a Saturday... or at least we kind of were today.

We started, as always, with the Supermarket Safari... and you know what, it's kinda sad that it's a highlight when you get a checkout chick who can actually pack things appropriately... and I always know when they're doing a good job, because Ma isn't repacking the stuff as they go, or taking over...

After our usual wanderings around the place, we took a little detour down by the Torrens so that Ma could see the "disaster zone", although we never stopped the car and got out or anything... and we also took another detour past there on the way home and it looks like they've gotten in there and pulled the car out of the mud... how, I have no idea (although there were about three tow trucks there from what I could see)... but I'm sure there will be something in the paper about it tomorrow.

Since we really didn't know what else we wanted to do, we headed down to Marion for the second week running, mostly so that we could return Ma's parasol... and of course, because we'd been in last week and seen the girlie who served us and remembered us... she wasn't there this week. But even so we changed over the parasol with no problems... woohoo (okay, not really woohoo, but this gives you a feel for about how exciting my day was)...

Other than that we didn't do a whole hell of a lot... looked at DVDs as usual, wandered about, then decided to head off.

And there's nothing quite like being able to play Good Samaritan and offer somebody the car park you're about to vacate (before you even get to the car)... particularly when the person in question is SMOKING HOT, driving around without a shirt on and may possibly have been involved in skating or BMX or some other "urban youth" past-time (going off the stickers on his little van). Seriously, the guy was highly spankable...

After that we stopped off at one of those slightly dodgy "discount importer" places on the way home... lots of questionable merchandise of indeterminate overseas origin. A few halfway interesting things, but nothing that really got me fired up.

Our final stop, mostly for shits and giggles and because until recently I didn't realise that there was one near me, was the Rite Price Grocery Clearance Store, which is about as interesting as it sounds... lots of stuff that's technically past it's "best before" date, but still fine and a lot of 4 for $2 action. A good place for picking up some cut price munchies, but a little dodgy otherwise.

And that, as they say, was that... nothing of great interest or importance, that was just the day that was...

Current Mood:

photo friday: drained

A fault with weir gates on Adelaide's River Torrens has drained most of the water from the city's Torrens Lake.

City officials today said a fault with the automatic mechanism to open and close the weir gates allowed millions of litres of water to flow out to sea.

Maintenance crews had since shut the gates manually and locked them closed.

The incident left the lake's muddy bottom exposed along with debris.

Yep... that's how the Torrens has looked since Thursday morning... I snapped a few shots on my walk this morning (actually I wish I'd had my camera with me yesterday because now they've put big ugly fencing up which blocks the view and a lot of photo opportunities, dammit)...

I'm not sure if the boats in the shot are the two exact boats that I photographed back in January last year or not, but it kind of gives you an idea of how much water was lost.

It was something of a shock yesterday morning to wander down my usual path and find myself confronted with a severely reduced Torrens... but at the same time, really really interesting... especially given all the aforementioned "debris"...

There's enough old abandoned bikes to stage a mini Tour Down Under... an army of mud coated shopping trolleys that have been sent to a watery grave... and a collection of discarded chairs that probably could have serviced a small garden party (and quite a number of them were down near the University Footbridge, so I suspect drunk uni students had a hand in that).

But the pièce de résistance has to be the sunken car.

Yep, that's right... a whole entire car, buried in the mud about halfway up it's windshield. And it's right in the middle of the river, so I really want to know how it got there...

Also up for special mention is what seems to be an umbrella that was sitting right-side-up in the mud... weird.

Of course everybody is now playing the blame/finger pointing game... but it does look like they're not going to be filling it up any time soon, and with all the current drama about water here in Adelaide, they would have to be mad to even try it.

There's also been a lot of talk about how unattractive it is, and what an eyesore and stinky this and shame that and blah blah blah... and sure, it's not something you're going to turn into a postcard, but it's kind of interesting, especially if we're now looking at the original course of the river.

Plus the birds are loving it... there's all sorts of things for them to eat and all this new ground for them to hang out on, which could lead to some decent photo opportunities.

And, you know, I have quite often walked along the Torrens and wondered just what might be lurking at the bottom of the riverbed... now I know...

Current Mood:

random dominic hotness

I would say that today's Random Hotness was "one from the vault"... but I no longer HAVE the vault... so basically these are just some of the remaining shots I happened to still have lying around.

And beyond the fact that the model's name is Dominic, I don't know a damn thing about these shots... great lighting though...

Current Mood:

lost data

I don't know how long or short this is going to be... I'm trying not to think about this whole situation at all, but writing it out may actually help.

When I think about this logically, it's completely trivial, it's nothing, it's unimportant (especially when you compare it to what's happening around the country right at the moment), but at the same time it makes me want to cry... or throw up... or both.

My external hard drive won't connect with my computer.

Let me back up a bit... on Sunday I connected the printer to the computer and the external drive seemed to have a little hiccup (which it's done every now and again) where it thinks that it has only just been connected and it threw up a couple of messages, one that I didn't really recognise, but it didn't seem to be a problem... printer worked, hard drive worked... everything groovy.

Monday, when I powered up the computer the external drive never connected, I let it reboot, went for my walk, came back... still nothing... so I unplugged the drive, plugged it back and it worked fine.

If I knew then what I know now, I would never have turned the computer off on Monday night.

When I went through the same process on Tuesday it wouldn't connect at all... it would come up with it's usual message saying that the device was connected, blah blah... but nothing. So I switched it around to a different USB and I got a perky little pop-up message that the device had failed or that the computer didn't recognise it (one or the other... or both, I don't know anymore). Today I even tried using a different USB cable, just in case that was the problem. It wasn't.

Almost every single piece of electronic information I own is on that external drive. I put it all on there so that if my significantly older PC happened to give up the ghost I wouldn't lose anything.

Every single one (bar the most recent 100) of the 8000+ digital photos that I've taken in the last three years is on that drive, including all my photos from my trip to Sydney (okay, most of them will be the easiest to recover, I made CD copies for Ma).

All the electronic versions of any writing I've ever done (excluding the blog) is on that drive.

The Photoshop files, not to mention all the original scans and finished images for all my pre-digital photography are on that drive.

Plus in addition to a somewhat staggering amount of pornography/art photography (seriously, there's a difference) and a number of photos of myself... there are any number of irreplaceable images (well, collections of images to be honest) that I've gathered over the entire length of time that I've had a computer... so, you know, the last decade give or take.

And currently they're all trapped inside that obnoxious little grey paperweight.

If I'm being completely honest, I don't care about the "porn". I do care about all of my digital (and non digital) photos (including the ones of me), and my writing and some of those irreplaceable collections of images. And right now there isn't a damn thing I can do about any of it.

Logically it's all just 1's and 0's and if it is gone then there isn't a damn thing I can do about it... but it's all those memories, all the places I went and the adventures I had, all the things I've seen, it's all potentially gone.

Fortunately I keep all the stuff that's been posted (or that I planned to post) on the blog on the actual computer, so at least I still have the original copies of all that stuff.

It just seems like every time I take a step forward, I have to take three steps back... and every time I've fixed something on this stupid computer, another two things break. My mouse was on it's last legs, I replaced it and my keyboard... I had a "this hardware may not work" message about the keyboard and mouse for a couple of weeks (which I never bothered fixing because they did work, plus it was too hot to bother about), then when I finally did fix them, my external hard drive goes down like a $2 hooker.

Add to all that is my ongoing gripe that my "tech support" lives in London... and given the vast majority of the contents of the external drive, I don't want to take it to just any Joe Fix-it (yes, I know, my own fault for collecting too much porn, or for storing all my eggs in one basket). With any luck I'll be able to get J's brother T to come and take a look at it, maybe plug it into a completely different computer, see if it is the drive or not.

But I may be, as they say in the classics, completely and utterly fucked.

Current Mood:

movies: milk

I know I say this quite a bit, but I wasn't really sure whether I was going to enjoy Milk...

I'm not a fan of Sean Penn... for no particular reason, it's that that visceral reaction when you haven't really seen very much of a person's work, but you have no desire to. Like Adam Sandler...

But since it was Movie Day, there really weren't many movies we wanted to see, I'm not working and Ma's on leave, we decided to head into the city, grab some lunch and go and see Milk.

In some ways the movie is a little bit like Titanic (without that whole "Heart of the Ocean" nonsense obviously)... but if you know anything about the Harvey Milk story, you know how it all ends (actually even if you don't know a single thing, the movie tells you within the first couple of minutes), so you're kind of waiting for the iceberg...

But, having said that, it's actually a really good movie. While I can't say how "true" Penn's performance is compared to the real Harvey Milk, it feels very real and very natural. To be honest, all the actors are excellent, and probably the only person who stuck out to me a little was High School Musical alum, Lucas Grabeel... not that he was bad... just that everybody else was either people I didn't recognise or else seemed to really exist as part of that world. It's more about my perceptions than his performance though.

James Franco also kind of stood out, partially because even under the 70's hair and (actually quite cute) moustache he's still gorgeous... but also he's really a fantastic, natural actor.

A few of the events in the movie I knew about, most of them I didn't... and the movie seems to concentrate more on the facts of what actually happened than try to "invent" the motivations, the inner thinking of the characters. Occasionally it comes across, but there's a lot of stuff left unsaid and unexplained... and I found myself having to make the occasional "leap of faith" regarding why the characters were doing what they were doing. Part of that might be the use of real archive teevee footage, whether it would have been jarring to switch between the authentic 70's footage and some sort of internal character monologue, I don't know. And really it only felt lacking to me when it came to the reasons for why Harvey had to do what he does (on a personal level, rather than the grand political ideals), or why Josh Brolin's character does what he does. You get the general idea about it, but not that internal explanation.

Whether you need that to make the movie work or not, I don't know... it's still a very affective, as well as affecting movie (okay, so I cried at the very end). And actually one of the most affecting pieces is a tiny little scene with Sean Penn's character and the teenage boy played by Daniel Landroche (who I thought had a name in the movie, but is just listed as "teenage boy" in the credits)... whether it's true or not, or whether it's a distillation of any number of incidents, I don't know, but it was certainly touching.

But even with it's few minor flaws it's still very much worth seeing.

yani's rating: 3 political activists out of 5

unconscious mutterings 315

I've been totally "stuck in my head" this morning... no grand dramatic reason, there was a lot of thought and random chatter going on in there first thing, and a lot of that dropped away, but I've still been a bit internal...

And now... Unconscious Mutterings of a different sort...

1. Cups :: Tarot
2. Brilliant :: Finish
3. Disobey :: Anarchy
4. Abstain :: Sex
5. Daily :: Planet
6. You make me :: Want to hurl
7. Hurl :: Chuck (and I hadn't realised this was next when I wrote the last one)
8. Intensify :: Pain
9. Fuck! :: Off!
10. Race :: Around the world

Current Mood:

hot and cold

Woohoo... the cool change is finally here, we had thunder and lightning and rain and cool, cool air this morning... and I don't have either of my fans running for the first time in like two weeks.

But it's actually a different kind of "hot and cold" that is on my mind right at the moment.

So this would be the point where we cue the rant...

Seriously, I just, flat out, do not understand men... obviously I'm specifically talking about other gay men, and given the whole "hot and cold" theme, I'm talking mostly about the way that I can be having a good old chat online with somebody one day and getting on like a house on fire, and the following day (or sometimes even later that same day) suddenly it's all about disappearing offline in the middle of a conversation, or suddenly there being this whole other vibe going on. It's like the person I had been talking to went away and had a personality transplant...

I mean, to some degree I get it... I've done it too... I get into a zone and maybe start thinking with other pieces of my anatomy, and then there's a break and there is time to think about what I've been doing and suddenly I'm all "what the hell was I thinking" (or else I get that "this whole thing is a world of yanking my chain and not in the good way" feeling, which usually means that I run in the opposite direction). But what really annoys me is the general rudeness of breaking off a conversation halfway through... it's not something you would do face to face with somebody, who in their right mind just stops talking halfway through a conversation and walks away, so don't do it online, it's just rude. Even a really lame "I gotta go" or "Sorry, not my bag baby" is better than that. I'm a grown up (allegedly), I can cope with rejection.

But then there are the guys who almost seem to be bipolar... they're hot one time I talk to them, then cold the next... then suddenly they're hot again. Grrr. They're also usually the ones who break of a conversation half way through and when you next talk to them they act like nothing happened.

Almost as bad as the guys who just have this ability to string me along... granted that's more my fault than theirs... I let them do it, sometimes I get to the point where I just go "fuck this" and delete them from all my contact lists... but there are other guys who only need to throw me a fricken bone (no pun intended) once in a while, and I stay hooked (of course sometimes its a combination of the two, but I know I'm being tragic when that happens). Which I will admit, is not a particularly flattering or positive character trait on my part.

Actually, while I've been thinking about it today (and for part of yesterday) I came to a not terribly pleasant conclusion. If this kind of think keeps happening to me, well then it must be something about me that encourages it or causes it or gives them reason to want to do it.

Not every guy out there can be a total basketcase, so maybe I'm too eager, or eager in an inappropriate way, or too pushy, or maybe I just have the "relationship skills" of a dead seagull. I'll freely admit my experience in that particular genre is fairly limited. And I know from what people have told me that I can come off (in other instances) very differently from the way that I think I'm coming across (and, you know, not necessarily in a good way). So maybe I'm like the elephant in the room... the one nobody wants to talk about (or, for that matter, too)...

Or maybe I'm just overthinking this whole thing and the guys that I'm dealing with are just shallow and it's more about my outward aesthetic than it is about my personality... or maybe I've simply used up all the available and sane talent in Adelaide. Or maybe the two weeks of extreme heat has melted my brain and it ran out of my ears during the night.

On a slightly related note, I tend to pride myself on my reasonably good memory when it comes to random scruffage... or at least seemingly ongoing random scruffage... but I was talking to a guy yesterday (who doesn't, as yet, seem to fall into the above categories) who said that we'd hooked up a number of times quite a few years back... and the face isn't familiar, and the name isn't familiar, but he seems to remember a fair degree of stuff, but the facts just don't seem to fit the only person I thought it could have been (which doesn't mean that it's not that particular guy, just that I have a better memory for the specifics then he does). Which of course then makes me suspicious, and the untrusting part of my brain wonders if the whole thing is some sort of elaborate set up (hello, welcome to paranoia)... but as usual, I'm prepared to give the guy enough rope to see if he hangs himself. It's just weird.

So maybe that's why guys back away slowly...

Or it could just be that they're not being invited to the pity party I seem to be throwing for myself just at the moment...

Current Mood: