o.
m.
g.
you'd think that with the number of times i've moved house i'd be practically a professional, but no; in actual fact, i'm no more organised now than i was when i moved from wollongong to sydney on the first of may all those years ago (1994, actually). when it comes to moving, i'm so completely last-minute, it's ridiculous.
in a lot of ways i'm so like that in my life. things i should say earlier on i leave until it's utterly inappropriate (but occasionally i finally have the gall to utter) and other things that i should do i don't until it's almost too late for them to be of any use to anyone. at the moment i'm boxing crap, although, to be fair, there's not much sorting of the crap to do, it's simply a matter of putting said crap into sturdier boxes!
but still... procrastination figures largely in my activity. hence this post!
i've got love actually playing on my dvd player with the commentary track running, which is quite nice since it gives me something to listen to while i'm doing other things.
i have several people coming over for breakfast in the morning, including the delightful couple who are (good friends of mine who persist in the belief that i'm not actually moving, despite the fact they're) driving me to melbourne over the next forty-eight hours. i count myself incredibly lucky to have such wonderful friends who although they don't agree with my choice in this instance nevertheless are very supportive of me making my choice and running with it.
i am so blind to the people around me, it amazes me that i have the friends that i do. they have been so kind, so gentle, so thoughtful, so supportive, so prayerful, so encouraging - so loving, in fact, and despite their protestations to the contrary i can't help feeling that i've been an abysmal friend in return. thoughtless, tactless... they are all the greatest blessings to me from God, short of his Son, of course.
i love my friends deeply and thank God for them every time i think of them. i'm going to miss them deeply while i'm in melbourne and i hope that they will take opportunities to visit, if they ever present themselves. my housemate and i have deliberately chosen our new place so as to keep a spare room, for visitors and blow-ins to stay in.
i haven't made any new year's resolutions this year but if i were to make one then it would be that i want to stay in close touch with the friends i've left behind. five emails a week - one each weeknight to a different friend, perhaps - is do-able, i think. please don't hold me to it but i'll do my best to try.
and none of that yoda rubbish. there is try: it comes before do.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Monday, December 25, 2006
... bah, humbug
i'm not feeling terribly jolly tonight. after coming to the end of my career at my most recent old job (where i've been selling office supplies these last six years) i have been confronted with the vast amount of packing i actually have to do before i move to melbourne. on the plus side i think i have only about 6, maybe 7 cubic mettres of stuff to move. hopefully it's not too late to get that on the truck.
i'm wrapping some presents tonight. maybe write some more Christmas cards in the morning. finish watching a movie, funny ha ha, which i picked up on recommendation from a friend and which, despite being slower than a wet week, is pretty good and totally captures the indecision and false-starting that can so often dog people in (or not quite in) relationships.
i'm off to my old church tomorrow for the Christmas day service, then off on a train to meet my mum and sister for lunch. then back here again for another late night's attempt at going to sleep. then off to camp. and back here new year's day, then down to a mate's place for a trivia night and last catchup before i move to melbourne.
and in amongst that, more packing. to tell you the truth, i can't wait until it's all over and i've moved.
so merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
(i know i sound pretty humbug about all this, and in a lot of ways i am, but in a lot more ways i'm not. Christmas is great. if you want to know why, go to church this morning and find out. if nothing else, it'll put some space between all that chocolate you eat while you're opening your presents and all the food you'll be eating at lunch.)
:)
i'm wrapping some presents tonight. maybe write some more Christmas cards in the morning. finish watching a movie, funny ha ha, which i picked up on recommendation from a friend and which, despite being slower than a wet week, is pretty good and totally captures the indecision and false-starting that can so often dog people in (or not quite in) relationships.
i'm off to my old church tomorrow for the Christmas day service, then off on a train to meet my mum and sister for lunch. then back here again for another late night's attempt at going to sleep. then off to camp. and back here new year's day, then down to a mate's place for a trivia night and last catchup before i move to melbourne.
and in amongst that, more packing. to tell you the truth, i can't wait until it's all over and i've moved.
so merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
(i know i sound pretty humbug about all this, and in a lot of ways i am, but in a lot more ways i'm not. Christmas is great. if you want to know why, go to church this morning and find out. if nothing else, it'll put some space between all that chocolate you eat while you're opening your presents and all the food you'll be eating at lunch.)
:)
Sunday, December 10, 2006
... some cool sites i found
i'm not generally one for posting lists of links, but for an entertaining ten minutes i just connected to some random blog sites and links from those sites... i've found a few i like or am interested in finding out what other people think of them... feel free to comment:
... joke?
i found this on another blog and though it was funny... a good joke in that you can tailor it to your audience - much like the aristocrats...
It started out innocently enough.
I began to think at parties now and then -- to loosen up. Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker. I began to think alone, to relax. That's what I told myself though I knew it wasn't true.
Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time. That was when things began to sour at home. One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's.
I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself. I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here?" One day the boss called me in. He said, "Listen, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, you'll have to find another job." This gave me a lot to think about.
I came home early after my conversation with the boss.
"Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking..."
"I know you've been thinking," she said, "and I want a divorce!"
"But Honey, surely it's not that serious."
"It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as university professors, and university professors don't make any money, so if you keep on thinking, we won't have any money."
"That's a faulty syllogism," I said impatiently.
She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama. "I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the door. I headed for the library, in the mood for some John Raulston Saul. I roared into the parking lot with ABC on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors...
They didn't open. The library was closed. To this day, I believe that a Categorical Imperative was looking out for me that night. Leaning on the unfeeling glass, whimpering for some rational empiricism, a poster caught my eye. "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?" it asked. You probably recognize that line. It comes from the standard Thinker's Anonymous poster.
Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I took out a subscription to the Telegraph, started to watch the news on Ten.
I never miss a TA meeting. At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was "Porky's." Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting. I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home.Life just seemed... easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking. I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me.
Today, I joined the Liberal Party...
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
... for whom the bell tolls
one of my favourite metallica songs is for whom the bell tolls - i think it's from ride the lightning - says "time marches on", set in the context of men fighting a war they don't necessarily know the reasons for, and don't even know the reasons for the tasks they are given ("for a hill men, men would kill. why? they do not know...") within the war itself. the men in the song are pushed into a situation they have no control over, they blindly move forward without knowing what they're doing or why. they're a lot like the people i see around me every day.
i'm moving house, moving interstate, moving from sunny sydney to marvellous melbourne. sydneysiders and melbournites alike express amazement and surprise at my decision, both commenting that the usual mode of flight is melbourne to sydney, not the reverse, and certainly not for my chief stated reason: i hate sydney's climate.
the lease has been signed, we have a phone number, i have three train stations, a tram line and a few bus routes all passing within a twenty-five-minutes'-walk radius of the house. i have a very cool housemate, good prospects for work, good friends helping me to move down there.
it's been a plan of mine for some time, around eighteen months to a couple of years, to pull up stumps from sydney and move south to cooler climes. i don't like the humidity in sydney but sometimes i feel like i'm the... focus of circumstances outside of my control.
i know that that is the cosmic truth. the nature of life in a fallen world, properly considered through the lens of the Bible, is that the control we think we have in our lives is at best temporary and at worst utterly illusory. to a certain extent, i'm a victim of my own flesh; to a certain extent, a victim of sydney's (australia's) obsession with "financial security"; definitely contemptuous of the ways such "security" ties people down... something of a golden cage.
who wants to be told they're a prisoner? we fly from one place to another, one experience to another, one opportunity to another... education, business, relationships, experiences... philosophies, religions... all to distract ourselves from the truth that we have no control - we are slaves. "you are a slave, neo."
so i'm flying south...
... for the winter ;)
i'm moving house, moving interstate, moving from sunny sydney to marvellous melbourne. sydneysiders and melbournites alike express amazement and surprise at my decision, both commenting that the usual mode of flight is melbourne to sydney, not the reverse, and certainly not for my chief stated reason: i hate sydney's climate.
the lease has been signed, we have a phone number, i have three train stations, a tram line and a few bus routes all passing within a twenty-five-minutes'-walk radius of the house. i have a very cool housemate, good prospects for work, good friends helping me to move down there.
it's been a plan of mine for some time, around eighteen months to a couple of years, to pull up stumps from sydney and move south to cooler climes. i don't like the humidity in sydney but sometimes i feel like i'm the... focus of circumstances outside of my control.
i know that that is the cosmic truth. the nature of life in a fallen world, properly considered through the lens of the Bible, is that the control we think we have in our lives is at best temporary and at worst utterly illusory. to a certain extent, i'm a victim of my own flesh; to a certain extent, a victim of sydney's (australia's) obsession with "financial security"; definitely contemptuous of the ways such "security" ties people down... something of a golden cage.
who wants to be told they're a prisoner? we fly from one place to another, one experience to another, one opportunity to another... education, business, relationships, experiences... philosophies, religions... all to distract ourselves from the truth that we have no control - we are slaves. "you are a slave, neo."
so i'm flying south...
... for the winter ;)
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
... miracle
5 "Look among the nations, and see;
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
6 For behold, I am raising up Dr Maya Vale,
that strange and lackadaisical fellow,
to march over the breadth of New South Wales,
to find a dwelling in Victoria to call his own.
7 He is dreadful and fearful;
his raucous laughter and twisted humour go forth from themselves.
8 He has no horse, is no swifter than sloths;
less fierce than the overfed koala;
he goes by train, when they actually go.
He travels by bus also;
for one, or two, will take him where he goes.
9 They come every fifteen minutes or so,
all their windshields forward.
No passenger will sit beside him; he rides alone.
10 At ticket inspectors he scoffs,
and at mortgages he laughs.
He laughs at every fortress,
for the repayments and interest rates pile up.
11 Then he moves onto a new lease,
a untrammelled man, whose comfort he carries with himself!"
i don't know. i'm feeling a bit silly tonight. the actual passage comes from habakkuk and is about how God is going to judge his wayward people. he is going to judge them by using the world superpower of the time to do his bidding, but they will take credit for it and he will see them fall for not giving the credit to him, God, who gave his own people into their hands.
i've been reading chronicles on the train on my way to work from the city. 1 chronicles is pretty tough reading and if you ever get picked for a genealogy reading at Christmas, don't complain. rejoice, with great gladness! why? because they're a picnic compared to the genealogies in chronicles. i'm praying hard that God will teach me something from this, but i'm confident that (if nothing else) i will have gained a greater familiarity with scriptures that old testament prophecies tie in with - a good thing, given i'll be helping lead study groups over the summer doing surveys of the old testament. i'd like to read esther, ezra, nehemiah again as well, and maybe daniel, ezekiel, isaiah, jeremiah... (i've studied the last two before, a while ago now, and ezra and nehemiah more recently in church.)
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
6 For behold, I am raising up Dr Maya Vale,
that strange and lackadaisical fellow,
to march over the breadth of New South Wales,
to find a dwelling in Victoria to call his own.
7 He is dreadful and fearful;
his raucous laughter and twisted humour go forth from themselves.
8 He has no horse, is no swifter than sloths;
less fierce than the overfed koala;
he goes by train, when they actually go.
He travels by bus also;
for one, or two, will take him where he goes.
9 They come every fifteen minutes or so,
all their windshields forward.
No passenger will sit beside him; he rides alone.
10 At ticket inspectors he scoffs,
and at mortgages he laughs.
He laughs at every fortress,
for the repayments and interest rates pile up.
11 Then he moves onto a new lease,
a untrammelled man, whose comfort he carries with himself!"
i don't know. i'm feeling a bit silly tonight. the actual passage comes from habakkuk and is about how God is going to judge his wayward people. he is going to judge them by using the world superpower of the time to do his bidding, but they will take credit for it and he will see them fall for not giving the credit to him, God, who gave his own people into their hands.
i've been reading chronicles on the train on my way to work from the city. 1 chronicles is pretty tough reading and if you ever get picked for a genealogy reading at Christmas, don't complain. rejoice, with great gladness! why? because they're a picnic compared to the genealogies in chronicles. i'm praying hard that God will teach me something from this, but i'm confident that (if nothing else) i will have gained a greater familiarity with scriptures that old testament prophecies tie in with - a good thing, given i'll be helping lead study groups over the summer doing surveys of the old testament. i'd like to read esther, ezra, nehemiah again as well, and maybe daniel, ezekiel, isaiah, jeremiah... (i've studied the last two before, a while ago now, and ezra and nehemiah more recently in church.)
Monday, November 27, 2006
... tired
i've been asked a few times when i'm going to post next, and now i'm posting. i'm tired. it's been a really long few weeks - work's really busy with all the stuff that's going on there, getting ready to move to melbourne is taking a surprising psychological toll, and heading into Christmas means getting ready for summer camp which brings with it its own pressures and deadlines.
one of the things i did was go to see a movie the other week. the movie was called trust the man, starring julianne moore, david duchovny, billy crudup, and maggie gyllenhaal. i quite enjoyed it, even though it was rather more of a chick-flick than i was allowed to expect. in the words of a good friend, "it's about how men fail women and get away with it". i suppose that's one way of looking at it. i give it two and a half stars.
hmmm, yes well, that's about it from me for now. more later, maybe. i wan't to try to get into the one-post-a-day thing i did a little while ago. not sure when i'll do it though - evenings i'm barely compos mentis enough to do more than watch tv... which does little for the diagnosis of compos mentis!
one of the things i did was go to see a movie the other week. the movie was called trust the man, starring julianne moore, david duchovny, billy crudup, and maggie gyllenhaal. i quite enjoyed it, even though it was rather more of a chick-flick than i was allowed to expect. in the words of a good friend, "it's about how men fail women and get away with it". i suppose that's one way of looking at it. i give it two and a half stars.
hmmm, yes well, that's about it from me for now. more later, maybe. i wan't to try to get into the one-post-a-day thing i did a little while ago. not sure when i'll do it though - evenings i'm barely compos mentis enough to do more than watch tv... which does little for the diagnosis of compos mentis!
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
... books, film, and a disturbing thought
"as i was travelling to st ives..."
actually, i wasn't. i was travelling home, my seventy-odd minute commute from work suburb to home suburb. i changed trains more than i needed to, and one of my change point was at town hall. i was waiting for my connecting train (due in about ten minute) and i saw a woman reading mona lisa overdrive (by william gibson) in the exact same edition as i have. gibson's novels were one of the reasons i wanted to become a writer; they encouraged my experiments in role-playing games; they were a complete world of escape - they are a complete world of escape. a future (in the cyberspace novels and short stories, at least) extrapolated from a past that didn't quite happen, where the usa had kind of ceased to exist and the soviet bloc had managed to survive the cold war. (gibson ruminates on this in an introduction to an anniversary edition of neuromancer.) i love seeing people read gibson's work, and mona lisa overdrive was a great way to end the cyberspace trilogy. go check him out for yourself.
as i was nearing my destination, a woman sitting across the vestibule from me was reading a book by ann patchett called truth and beauty. it seemed an interesting enough title to me, although what actually caught my attention was a brief smile as our eyes met when i was looking around the train. in sydney, i've noticed, not many people are willing to lock eyes with strangers much less start conversations with them - melbourne's seeming friendliness from my point of view stems in large part from a very positive experience of this kind of thing during my stays in melbourne.
stopping off at a couple of friends' house on my way home, i borrowed one of the books on the bookshelf there: prozac nation. i finally finished dan brown's digital fortress today, and read deception point last week. neither of them filled me with much excitement and to be honest i found them to be a bit east to guess what was going to happen. matthew reilly without the excitement.
i watched a movie tonight called mozart and the whale. the characters are mostly people with a variety of mental illnesses and disorders, and the leads (played very well by radha mitchell and josh hartnett) both have asperger's syndrome. i found myself sympathising with the characters a little too much for comfort.
it made me revisit a recurring... nightmare (?daymare?) where i find that everything i think i know is true turns out to be a hallucination. the kind of solipsistic dystopia the philip k. dick wrote so compellingly, where i wake up on day and find out that all the people i know don't know me at all, have never met me, call and have me arrested. all the phone numbers i have in my phone are disconnected, all the addresses wrong, all the photographs someone else's. a more horrific version of this is that i don't know that i'm crazy; like someone with the kind of aphasia (a kind of brain trauma, i think) that sees them speak volubly, not realising that between their brain forming the words and their mouth speaking them a disconnect has occurred and they have become completely unintelligible to anyone listening to them, i don't know that i'm not intereacting correctly with the world - like the tarot deck's fool, walking along the cliff's edge, utterly insouciant or unknowing of the danger nearby...
actually, i wasn't. i was travelling home, my seventy-odd minute commute from work suburb to home suburb. i changed trains more than i needed to, and one of my change point was at town hall. i was waiting for my connecting train (due in about ten minute) and i saw a woman reading mona lisa overdrive (by william gibson) in the exact same edition as i have. gibson's novels were one of the reasons i wanted to become a writer; they encouraged my experiments in role-playing games; they were a complete world of escape - they are a complete world of escape. a future (in the cyberspace novels and short stories, at least) extrapolated from a past that didn't quite happen, where the usa had kind of ceased to exist and the soviet bloc had managed to survive the cold war. (gibson ruminates on this in an introduction to an anniversary edition of neuromancer.) i love seeing people read gibson's work, and mona lisa overdrive was a great way to end the cyberspace trilogy. go check him out for yourself.
as i was nearing my destination, a woman sitting across the vestibule from me was reading a book by ann patchett called truth and beauty. it seemed an interesting enough title to me, although what actually caught my attention was a brief smile as our eyes met when i was looking around the train. in sydney, i've noticed, not many people are willing to lock eyes with strangers much less start conversations with them - melbourne's seeming friendliness from my point of view stems in large part from a very positive experience of this kind of thing during my stays in melbourne.
stopping off at a couple of friends' house on my way home, i borrowed one of the books on the bookshelf there: prozac nation. i finally finished dan brown's digital fortress today, and read deception point last week. neither of them filled me with much excitement and to be honest i found them to be a bit east to guess what was going to happen. matthew reilly without the excitement.
i watched a movie tonight called mozart and the whale. the characters are mostly people with a variety of mental illnesses and disorders, and the leads (played very well by radha mitchell and josh hartnett) both have asperger's syndrome. i found myself sympathising with the characters a little too much for comfort.
it made me revisit a recurring... nightmare (?daymare?) where i find that everything i think i know is true turns out to be a hallucination. the kind of solipsistic dystopia the philip k. dick wrote so compellingly, where i wake up on day and find out that all the people i know don't know me at all, have never met me, call and have me arrested. all the phone numbers i have in my phone are disconnected, all the addresses wrong, all the photographs someone else's. a more horrific version of this is that i don't know that i'm crazy; like someone with the kind of aphasia (a kind of brain trauma, i think) that sees them speak volubly, not realising that between their brain forming the words and their mouth speaking them a disconnect has occurred and they have become completely unintelligible to anyone listening to them, i don't know that i'm not intereacting correctly with the world - like the tarot deck's fool, walking along the cliff's edge, utterly insouciant or unknowing of the danger nearby...
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
... inspired?
a list after a recent post by the always delightful prue...
1. favourite beatles song: when i'm sixty-four
2. favourite rolling stones song: paint it black
3. favourite doors song: love her madly
4. favourite bob dylan song: hurricane
5. favourite led zeppelin song: stairway to heaven
6. favourite tv theme song: coupling
7. favourite prince song: kiss
8. favourite madonna song: live to tell
9. favourite michael jackson song: billie jean
10. favourite queen song: who wants to live forever / i'm in love with my car
11. favourite motorhead song: ace of spades
12. favourite ozzy song: n/a
13. favourite public enemy song: n/a
14. favourite song from a cartoon: oh susanna (from any warner bros cartoon)
15. favourite bruce springsteen song: i’m on fire / born to run
16. favourite depeche mode song: n/a
17. favourite cure song: love cats
18. favourite song that most of your friends haven’t heard: 100 games of solitaire - concrete blonde
19. favourite rem song: everybody hurts
20. favourite beastie boys song: (you gotta) fight for your right to party
21. favourite clash song: n/a
22. favourite police song: every breath you take
23. favourite eurythmics song: who's that girl?
24. favourite beach boys song: god only knows
25. favourite cyndi lauper song: she-bop
26. favourite song from a movie: the time warp / sweet transvestite (the rocky horror picture show)
27. favourite duran duran song: view to a kill
28. favourite peter tosh song: n/a - who????
29. favourite johnny cash song: i walk the line / don't take your guns to town
30. favourite song from an 80’s one hit wonder: video killed the radio star - the buggles / mickey - tony basil
31. favourite song from a video game: theme music for galaga
32. favourite kinks song: lola
33. favourite genesis song: i can’t dance
34. favourite thin lizzy song: boys are back in town
35. favourite inxs song: just keep walking / falling down the mountain / anything from "kick"
36. favourite weird al song: smells like nirvana / pretty fly for a rabbi
37. favourite peter gabriel song: sledgehammer
38. favourite john lennon song: ewwww... n/a
39. favourite pink floyd song: brick in the wall
40. favourite cover song: stairway to heaven, covered by the doug anthony all-stars and barry crocker
41. favourite white stripes song: n/a
42. favourite dance song: re-jigged 80s stuff usually does it for me... not that i actually dance :)
43. favourite u2 song: all i want is you
44. favourite song from an actor turned musician: confide in me - kylie minogue
45. favourite disco song: ymca - the village people
46. favourite power ballad: love bites - def leppard
47. favourite guns n’ roses song: welcome to the jungle
48. favourite the who song: pinball wizard
49. favourite elton john song: crocodile rock
50. favourite song, period: probably a love song or something sappy... we learned to sing "touch the wind" in 3rd grade and the few lines i remember still make my eyes tear up
51. favourite ryan adams song: n/a
52. favourite green day song: good riddance (time of your life)
53. favourite alanis morrissette song: your house
54. favourite jamiroquai song: virtual insanity (is that the track name?)
55. favourite foo fighters song: monkey wrench
56. favourite david bowie song: ground control to major tom
57. favourite metallica song: nothing else matters, and anything on "rise the lightning" and "master of puppets"
58. favourite jeff buckley song: lilac wine
59. favourite pearl jam song: n/a
60. favourite grateful dead song: n/a
61. favourite def leppard song: let's get rocked
62. favourite dixie chicks song: changes
63: favourite cowboy junkies song: n/a
64. favourite james brown song: i got you (i feel good)
65. favourite barenaked ladies song: one week
66. favourite creedence clearwater revival song: down on the corner
67. favourite garth brooks song: n/a
68: favourite chuck berry song: you never can tell
69: favourite willie nelson song: on the road again
70. favourite tom petty: n/a
71. favourite van halen song: jump
72. favourite old school soul song: i gotcha
73. favourite song that totally kicks righteous ass: love shack - the b-52s
74: favourite song of yours that everyone else hates: sweet transvestite - the rocky horror picture show
75: favourite zz top song: legs
76: favourite ac/dc song: thunderstruck
77. favourite blondie song: heart of glass
78. favourite bob marley song: buffalo soldier
79. favourite violent femmes song: the country death song
80. favourite alice in chains song: n/a
81. favourite wallflowers song: n/a
82. favourite james taylor song: n/a
83. favourite counting crows song: n/a
84. favourite blues traveler song: n/a
85. favourite drinking song: anything you can karaoke to
86. favourite hendrix song: all along the watchtower
87. favourite break-up song: simple twist of fate - concrete blonde
88. favourite allman brothers song: n/a
89. favourite rusted root song: n/a
90. favourite dave matthews band song:n/a
91. favourite elvis costello song: she
92. favourite beck song: n/a
93. favourite muse song: n/a
94. favourite radiohead song: creep
95. favourite stone temple pilots song: the big empty
96. favourite the eagles song: new kid in town
97. favourite janis joplin song: mercedes benz
98. favourite coldplay song: n/a
98. favourite soundgarden song: black hole sun
99. favourite 70s song: dancing queen - abba / bohemian rhapsody - queen / heaps of karaoke tunes!
100. favourite joan osborne song: dracula moon
1. favourite beatles song: when i'm sixty-four
2. favourite rolling stones song: paint it black
3. favourite doors song: love her madly
4. favourite bob dylan song: hurricane
5. favourite led zeppelin song: stairway to heaven
6. favourite tv theme song: coupling
7. favourite prince song: kiss
8. favourite madonna song: live to tell
9. favourite michael jackson song: billie jean
10. favourite queen song: who wants to live forever / i'm in love with my car
11. favourite motorhead song: ace of spades
12. favourite ozzy song: n/a
13. favourite public enemy song: n/a
14. favourite song from a cartoon: oh susanna (from any warner bros cartoon)
15. favourite bruce springsteen song: i’m on fire / born to run
16. favourite depeche mode song: n/a
17. favourite cure song: love cats
18. favourite song that most of your friends haven’t heard: 100 games of solitaire - concrete blonde
19. favourite rem song: everybody hurts
20. favourite beastie boys song: (you gotta) fight for your right to party
21. favourite clash song: n/a
22. favourite police song: every breath you take
23. favourite eurythmics song: who's that girl?
24. favourite beach boys song: god only knows
25. favourite cyndi lauper song: she-bop
26. favourite song from a movie: the time warp / sweet transvestite (the rocky horror picture show)
27. favourite duran duran song: view to a kill
28. favourite peter tosh song: n/a - who????
29. favourite johnny cash song: i walk the line / don't take your guns to town
30. favourite song from an 80’s one hit wonder: video killed the radio star - the buggles / mickey - tony basil
31. favourite song from a video game: theme music for galaga
32. favourite kinks song: lola
33. favourite genesis song: i can’t dance
34. favourite thin lizzy song: boys are back in town
35. favourite inxs song: just keep walking / falling down the mountain / anything from "kick"
36. favourite weird al song: smells like nirvana / pretty fly for a rabbi
37. favourite peter gabriel song: sledgehammer
38. favourite john lennon song: ewwww... n/a
39. favourite pink floyd song: brick in the wall
40. favourite cover song: stairway to heaven, covered by the doug anthony all-stars and barry crocker
41. favourite white stripes song: n/a
42. favourite dance song: re-jigged 80s stuff usually does it for me... not that i actually dance :)
43. favourite u2 song: all i want is you
44. favourite song from an actor turned musician: confide in me - kylie minogue
45. favourite disco song: ymca - the village people
46. favourite power ballad: love bites - def leppard
47. favourite guns n’ roses song: welcome to the jungle
48. favourite the who song: pinball wizard
49. favourite elton john song: crocodile rock
50. favourite song, period: probably a love song or something sappy... we learned to sing "touch the wind" in 3rd grade and the few lines i remember still make my eyes tear up
51. favourite ryan adams song: n/a
52. favourite green day song: good riddance (time of your life)
53. favourite alanis morrissette song: your house
54. favourite jamiroquai song: virtual insanity (is that the track name?)
55. favourite foo fighters song: monkey wrench
56. favourite david bowie song: ground control to major tom
57. favourite metallica song: nothing else matters, and anything on "rise the lightning" and "master of puppets"
58. favourite jeff buckley song: lilac wine
59. favourite pearl jam song: n/a
60. favourite grateful dead song: n/a
61. favourite def leppard song: let's get rocked
62. favourite dixie chicks song: changes
63: favourite cowboy junkies song: n/a
64. favourite james brown song: i got you (i feel good)
65. favourite barenaked ladies song: one week
66. favourite creedence clearwater revival song: down on the corner
67. favourite garth brooks song: n/a
68: favourite chuck berry song: you never can tell
69: favourite willie nelson song: on the road again
70. favourite tom petty: n/a
71. favourite van halen song: jump
72. favourite old school soul song: i gotcha
73. favourite song that totally kicks righteous ass: love shack - the b-52s
74: favourite song of yours that everyone else hates: sweet transvestite - the rocky horror picture show
75: favourite zz top song: legs
76: favourite ac/dc song: thunderstruck
77. favourite blondie song: heart of glass
78. favourite bob marley song: buffalo soldier
79. favourite violent femmes song: the country death song
80. favourite alice in chains song: n/a
81. favourite wallflowers song: n/a
82. favourite james taylor song: n/a
83. favourite counting crows song: n/a
84. favourite blues traveler song: n/a
85. favourite drinking song: anything you can karaoke to
86. favourite hendrix song: all along the watchtower
87. favourite break-up song: simple twist of fate - concrete blonde
88. favourite allman brothers song: n/a
89. favourite rusted root song: n/a
90. favourite dave matthews band song:n/a
91. favourite elvis costello song: she
92. favourite beck song: n/a
93. favourite muse song: n/a
94. favourite radiohead song: creep
95. favourite stone temple pilots song: the big empty
96. favourite the eagles song: new kid in town
97. favourite janis joplin song: mercedes benz
98. favourite coldplay song: n/a
98. favourite soundgarden song: black hole sun
99. favourite 70s song: dancing queen - abba / bohemian rhapsody - queen / heaps of karaoke tunes!
100. favourite joan osborne song: dracula moon
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
... my ticket has been maxed
yes, today i went beyond the bounds of my 1+2+3 weekly metcard ticket - i had to pay an extra $8.40 for a return connection from werribee to geelong. pretty bloody inexpensive, i reckon, and i was very impressed with how cushy the v-line trains are. or at least the ones i caught.
attached to this is a tale of two eateries. the first eatery was a hotel bistro at apollo bay. the second was the wharf shed cafe at geelong. one impressed me greatly. one did not.
i had what i felt to be a delicious porterhouse steak with even more delicious mashed potatoes (and i love good mashed potatoes... just ask, i don't know, anyone who's seen me eat at sizzler (although that might descend into a comment like, "doesn't he take a dinner plate to the chocolate mousse section of the dessert bar?") or perhaps at my mum's place when she's cooking rissoles - and hers are par excellence), along with some stir-fried vegetables and a delightful peppercorn sauce. all-in-all, scrumdiddlyumptious. the table-clearing was pretty damn efficient too, i might add. the meat was cooked so well that i thought i may well have to explore the other meat-cooking categories one or two south of my usual "well-done". not blue, or bloody... but maybe medium-well-done, or medium.
i also shared a pizza with cheese, pineapple, and chunks of virginia ham. it wasn't very big, and while it tasted delicious i didn't think the size or quality warranted the rather inflated price-tag attached. what put me off more than the price (and i paid almost twice as much for my steak meal, so please don't think i'm being a cheapskate... in this particular instance!) was the service. i really felt like i shouldn't have been there, and i felt like i didn't earn enough to be there. given the prices they were charging for the drinks on the menu, and given a reasonable guess as to the cost prices of those drinks, i think they could have spent more money on water jugs so that any table that wanted to keep one on their table would be able to. i was singularly unimpressed by eatery #2 and will not be returning.
i'll leave you to mix and match which goes with which.
p.s. i also got to see the remains of the twelve apostles. (part of the reason for the road trip from geelong.) very cool. the long and winding road that is the great ocean road, however, needs regular stops for replacing of... ummm... convenience bags. excuse me...
attached to this is a tale of two eateries. the first eatery was a hotel bistro at apollo bay. the second was the wharf shed cafe at geelong. one impressed me greatly. one did not.
i had what i felt to be a delicious porterhouse steak with even more delicious mashed potatoes (and i love good mashed potatoes... just ask, i don't know, anyone who's seen me eat at sizzler (although that might descend into a comment like, "doesn't he take a dinner plate to the chocolate mousse section of the dessert bar?") or perhaps at my mum's place when she's cooking rissoles - and hers are par excellence), along with some stir-fried vegetables and a delightful peppercorn sauce. all-in-all, scrumdiddlyumptious. the table-clearing was pretty damn efficient too, i might add. the meat was cooked so well that i thought i may well have to explore the other meat-cooking categories one or two south of my usual "well-done". not blue, or bloody... but maybe medium-well-done, or medium.
i also shared a pizza with cheese, pineapple, and chunks of virginia ham. it wasn't very big, and while it tasted delicious i didn't think the size or quality warranted the rather inflated price-tag attached. what put me off more than the price (and i paid almost twice as much for my steak meal, so please don't think i'm being a cheapskate... in this particular instance!) was the service. i really felt like i shouldn't have been there, and i felt like i didn't earn enough to be there. given the prices they were charging for the drinks on the menu, and given a reasonable guess as to the cost prices of those drinks, i think they could have spent more money on water jugs so that any table that wanted to keep one on their table would be able to. i was singularly unimpressed by eatery #2 and will not be returning.
i'll leave you to mix and match which goes with which.
p.s. i also got to see the remains of the twelve apostles. (part of the reason for the road trip from geelong.) very cool. the long and winding road that is the great ocean road, however, needs regular stops for replacing of... ummm... convenience bags. excuse me...
Monday, October 23, 2006
... swm seeks impetus
i'm a little bit tired. haven't been sleeping fantastically, but that's hardly surprising given where i'm staying. i think the reason i feel so blurgh today is that i have to do (finally) my washing. oh the trials of life!
Sunday, October 22, 2006
... slow news day
well, it's a slow news day today. it's about 8am and i'm getting ready to go down to elizabeth st to pick up my morning coffee at hudsons before i wind my way out to surrey hills. i was recommended to go to surrey hills presbyterian by a friend in sydney, so i figured what they hey. who knows who i might meet? (after my brush with fame last sunday!)
i started to do a small 'zine last night that i'm hoping to photocopy before i go and leave at sticky on or before friday. if nothing else it gives me something to do in my downtime besides watch tv here at the yha. the people running the place here are very nice.
there is a small child... if you know my definition of a small child you know this could be anyone between the ages of 12 months and 12 years - this small child is toddling around and definitely bends more towards the 12 months limit.
there is a small child wandering around behind me in the internet cafe here at the yha. she's as cute as a button, with funky grandparents who are looking out for her while her parents enjoy a holiday here also. the grandparents are doing a great job, and it strikes me as a pretty cool way to holiday. you can have a family holiday with the kid(s) and your folks, or a second honeymoon with your spouse and leave the kids with the doting babysitters. everybody wins!
sigh... i probably need more sleep. toodles!
i started to do a small 'zine last night that i'm hoping to photocopy before i go and leave at sticky on or before friday. if nothing else it gives me something to do in my downtime besides watch tv here at the yha. the people running the place here are very nice.
there is a small child... if you know my definition of a small child you know this could be anyone between the ages of 12 months and 12 years - this small child is toddling around and definitely bends more towards the 12 months limit.
there is a small child wandering around behind me in the internet cafe here at the yha. she's as cute as a button, with funky grandparents who are looking out for her while her parents enjoy a holiday here also. the grandparents are doing a great job, and it strikes me as a pretty cool way to holiday. you can have a family holiday with the kid(s) and your folks, or a second honeymoon with your spouse and leave the kids with the doting babysitters. everybody wins!
sigh... i probably need more sleep. toodles!
Thursday, October 19, 2006
... late night in
well, tonight (wednesday the 18th) i decided to have an early night in. i ate some things that are bad for me for dinner, and i don't think i'll be feeling the ill effects of them until about 8am or i have a myocardial infarc, whichever comes first.
i'm up late because the yha had channel ten showing in the lounge and i was hoping (foolishly) that i'd get to enjoy my wednesday night viewing. ncis was ruined by noisy people playing pool and battlestar galactica was ruined by noisy asian poker players about six feet away in the dining area. i'm glad i called mum anyway, not least because (hopefully) she taped both shows for me tonight.
today i visted pakenham. it was pretty much what i expected, reminds me a lot of dapto when i was growing up, but with more shops (rather like warrawong or cronulla now). the area itself (surrounding pakenham) is very dry and kind of country. mum says someone told my sister it's a bit like campbelltown; i don't know if that's socioeconomically true, but it feels like it might be. i grabbed a bunch of flyers from the library along with a copy of the local rag and posted them home - i hope my sister can make some use of them.
i also got to visit one of my favourite shops in melbourne: sticky, a community resource for people involved in small press stuff, 'zines and what have you. every time i go there i spend at least twenty bucks and today was no exception. i must have spent about $38.80, give or take. one collection of books, from the states, is called caboose and if you want to find out more about it you can email the writer, liz saidel. (i don't know if that link is going to work, but try it and see!) very cool stuff. i hope that once i move to melbourne i'll be able to somehow be involved with what sticky are trying to do. city library here in melbourne is also trying to help out zinesters and small press peeps by getting a 'zine library up and running: good on them, i say, and i hope to get involved with that too.
hmm, what else? i may have to move rooms tomorrow. apparently there have been a lot of school groups through here recently; this is the reason that the wine and cheese night last night never eventuated. alas.
i'm up late because the yha had channel ten showing in the lounge and i was hoping (foolishly) that i'd get to enjoy my wednesday night viewing. ncis was ruined by noisy people playing pool and battlestar galactica was ruined by noisy asian poker players about six feet away in the dining area. i'm glad i called mum anyway, not least because (hopefully) she taped both shows for me tonight.
today i visted pakenham. it was pretty much what i expected, reminds me a lot of dapto when i was growing up, but with more shops (rather like warrawong or cronulla now). the area itself (surrounding pakenham) is very dry and kind of country. mum says someone told my sister it's a bit like campbelltown; i don't know if that's socioeconomically true, but it feels like it might be. i grabbed a bunch of flyers from the library along with a copy of the local rag and posted them home - i hope my sister can make some use of them.
i also got to visit one of my favourite shops in melbourne: sticky, a community resource for people involved in small press stuff, 'zines and what have you. every time i go there i spend at least twenty bucks and today was no exception. i must have spent about $38.80, give or take. one collection of books, from the states, is called caboose and if you want to find out more about it you can email the writer, liz saidel. (i don't know if that link is going to work, but try it and see!) very cool stuff. i hope that once i move to melbourne i'll be able to somehow be involved with what sticky are trying to do. city library here in melbourne is also trying to help out zinesters and small press peeps by getting a 'zine library up and running: good on them, i say, and i hope to get involved with that too.
hmm, what else? i may have to move rooms tomorrow. apparently there have been a lot of school groups through here recently; this is the reason that the wine and cheese night last night never eventuated. alas.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
... surprisingly tired
funny, you know. i was pretty tired before i left for my holidays and guess what? i'm still tired! add to this that this morning i rolled over (my patented roll-over-and-get-another-thirty-minutes-of-sleep rollover) a good three or four times and i was up at 7:30!!! what the...?
so the last couple of days have been cool, very relaxed. i feel unhurried, which is nice, although the side tasks i allotted myself for while i'm here (find a job, place to live, for january) are starting to weigh in on me a touch. that being said, i feel that i'm likely worrying over nothing.
yesterday i did a lot of wandering around. visited two or three cafes here in the cbd, including my little alley-oop, which is still there, even though i have a sneaking suspicion that susan isn't running it anymore. i'll have to check again. found a great cafe that was almost literally a hole in the wall - i though alley-oop would have been the smallest eat-in cafe i'd been in, but this little one (whose name escapes me, something starting with a "p"? tiled steps leading up from an alley near some fashion shops, like bathroom floor tiles?) definitely gave it a run for its money.
i also stopped in at word bookshop in the port phillip arcade. that was pretty cool, and i always enjoy the very brief wander around that it is. i have a sneaking suspicion that they have more music than koorong. maybe it just feels that way. i don't know. i may go back and pick up one or two bargains, but until my last friday i'm trying to hoard my money a bit.
that being said, i did lash out tonight on the best pumpkin risotto i've ever had. the pumpkin soup which precursored it still wasn't a patch on mrs thoms' pumpkin soup (the quality of which, i think, may never be matched), but the risotto tonight was amazing and i got the biggest glass of lemon, lime and bitters i've ever drunk. (ironically, a british girl who's here for a year on a working visa was working at the same shop earlier today!)
i will be buying up some 'zines once i get to sticky when it's open (they trade wednesday to friday from 10 until 6) and if i'm really lucky i'll be able to get "a is for..." which is a 'zine i spotted last time i was there but which i wasn't able to get that time. it's a rather subversive little text which uses crimes and other... distasteful thing to illustrate letters of the alphabet.
i'll be dropping into sticky on the way back here, however, after my day to the end of the zones: my 1+2+3 weekly ticket allows me to travel right to the very edges of civilised melbourne society (i don't think it takes me all the way to geelong) and tomorrow that edge will be pakenham. my sister has got a job there (cue irrepressible cries of "huzzah!" and thunderous applause, thank you very much) and i thought i'd check out where exactly it is that she's going to be working. i'm told that it's a growing place, no longer a sleepy little hamlet at the end of a train line but rather the thriving hub of a vibrantly growing collection of housing estates. i can't say i'm expecting to see many trees.
lots of people have been asking me if i'm liking melbourne. i am. that being said, i have noticed one or two little quirks about melbournites; in particular, melbourne drivers.
i know i don't drive; i feel that i've been passenger in cars often enough to have some measure of skill spotting good drivers from bad ones, and at least being a passenger means i'm not necessarily supposed to be looking where i'm going while i observe said drivers in their automalconduct.
melbourne drivers don't seem to spend much time shouting at each other. they do seem to be quite willing to curse pedestrians. this interests me, i suppose because trams (and, by default, pedestrians) figure so heavily here in melbourne. there are generally more people in the roadways sharing space with cars that maybe drivers feel they have no choice. i remarked that in sydney drivers shout at other drivers and simply run over pedestrians. that is a slander and a slur on the inimitable and unparallelled skills of sydney drivers.
trains run more on time down here than in sydney. more explanations are offered than in sydney. far fewer people use them here than in sydney. i heard that some had to stand in the train for three whole stations before they could find a seat. oh my.
more later, i guess. the road goes ever on and on, the road goes ever on...
so the last couple of days have been cool, very relaxed. i feel unhurried, which is nice, although the side tasks i allotted myself for while i'm here (find a job, place to live, for january) are starting to weigh in on me a touch. that being said, i feel that i'm likely worrying over nothing.
yesterday i did a lot of wandering around. visited two or three cafes here in the cbd, including my little alley-oop, which is still there, even though i have a sneaking suspicion that susan isn't running it anymore. i'll have to check again. found a great cafe that was almost literally a hole in the wall - i though alley-oop would have been the smallest eat-in cafe i'd been in, but this little one (whose name escapes me, something starting with a "p"? tiled steps leading up from an alley near some fashion shops, like bathroom floor tiles?) definitely gave it a run for its money.
i also stopped in at word bookshop in the port phillip arcade. that was pretty cool, and i always enjoy the very brief wander around that it is. i have a sneaking suspicion that they have more music than koorong. maybe it just feels that way. i don't know. i may go back and pick up one or two bargains, but until my last friday i'm trying to hoard my money a bit.
that being said, i did lash out tonight on the best pumpkin risotto i've ever had. the pumpkin soup which precursored it still wasn't a patch on mrs thoms' pumpkin soup (the quality of which, i think, may never be matched), but the risotto tonight was amazing and i got the biggest glass of lemon, lime and bitters i've ever drunk. (ironically, a british girl who's here for a year on a working visa was working at the same shop earlier today!)
i will be buying up some 'zines once i get to sticky when it's open (they trade wednesday to friday from 10 until 6) and if i'm really lucky i'll be able to get "a is for..." which is a 'zine i spotted last time i was there but which i wasn't able to get that time. it's a rather subversive little text which uses crimes and other... distasteful thing to illustrate letters of the alphabet.
i'll be dropping into sticky on the way back here, however, after my day to the end of the zones: my 1+2+3 weekly ticket allows me to travel right to the very edges of civilised melbourne society (i don't think it takes me all the way to geelong) and tomorrow that edge will be pakenham. my sister has got a job there (cue irrepressible cries of "huzzah!" and thunderous applause, thank you very much) and i thought i'd check out where exactly it is that she's going to be working. i'm told that it's a growing place, no longer a sleepy little hamlet at the end of a train line but rather the thriving hub of a vibrantly growing collection of housing estates. i can't say i'm expecting to see many trees.
lots of people have been asking me if i'm liking melbourne. i am. that being said, i have noticed one or two little quirks about melbournites; in particular, melbourne drivers.
i know i don't drive; i feel that i've been passenger in cars often enough to have some measure of skill spotting good drivers from bad ones, and at least being a passenger means i'm not necessarily supposed to be looking where i'm going while i observe said drivers in their automalconduct.
melbourne drivers don't seem to spend much time shouting at each other. they do seem to be quite willing to curse pedestrians. this interests me, i suppose because trams (and, by default, pedestrians) figure so heavily here in melbourne. there are generally more people in the roadways sharing space with cars that maybe drivers feel they have no choice. i remarked that in sydney drivers shout at other drivers and simply run over pedestrians. that is a slander and a slur on the inimitable and unparallelled skills of sydney drivers.
trains run more on time down here than in sydney. more explanations are offered than in sydney. far fewer people use them here than in sydney. i heard that some had to stand in the train for three whole stations before they could find a seat. oh my.
more later, i guess. the road goes ever on and on, the road goes ever on...
Sunday, October 15, 2006
... touch of fame
i had a pretty great day today.
i rounded it out with my friend barb at koko black on lygon street, where i enjoyed a pretty amazing hot chocolate (frothier and lighter, not as heavy as a hot chocolate from max brenner's - not better, just different) and used their toilet (adequate to requirements). while i was there i took a picture of my hot chocolate with my mobile phone and tried to send it to my friend dave. i don't know if he got it because i've had no reply and i've only just this last week has mms messaging activated on my phone, but i thought with all the photos of coffees he takes perhaps he'd like one of a hot chocolate.
in the evening (before koko black) i went to a... retelling of the book of esther by a group called backyard bard (there's a website, i think it's backyard bard dot com but i can't quite recall right now and i have three minutes left to write this entry). it was fantastic. if you get the chance, go see 'em.
visited my friend sue ellen's church, which was ok and reminded me a lot of my old church in dapto.
and the touch of fame?
lunch at the chiswells'. you know? the chiswells'? graham and nicky? well, i know a lot of you who read this (i.e. the maybe dozen or so friends who read this) probably have already met them, i know dave knows them quite well, erika too, i think. but it was big for me.
and now? on to sunny melbourne!
i rounded it out with my friend barb at koko black on lygon street, where i enjoyed a pretty amazing hot chocolate (frothier and lighter, not as heavy as a hot chocolate from max brenner's - not better, just different) and used their toilet (adequate to requirements). while i was there i took a picture of my hot chocolate with my mobile phone and tried to send it to my friend dave. i don't know if he got it because i've had no reply and i've only just this last week has mms messaging activated on my phone, but i thought with all the photos of coffees he takes perhaps he'd like one of a hot chocolate.
in the evening (before koko black) i went to a... retelling of the book of esther by a group called backyard bard (there's a website, i think it's backyard bard dot com but i can't quite recall right now and i have three minutes left to write this entry). it was fantastic. if you get the chance, go see 'em.
visited my friend sue ellen's church, which was ok and reminded me a lot of my old church in dapto.
and the touch of fame?
lunch at the chiswells'. you know? the chiswells'? graham and nicky? well, i know a lot of you who read this (i.e. the maybe dozen or so friends who read this) probably have already met them, i know dave knows them quite well, erika too, i think. but it was big for me.
and now? on to sunny melbourne!
Saturday, October 14, 2006
... fifteen degrees cooler
i'm now in melbourne, enjoying temperatures fifteen degrees cooler than in sydney! yahoo!!!
the plane left sydney at 13h15 and when i was crossing the bridge earlier on the bus i checked the temperature and time on the kyocera building in north sydney - 36 degrees. so glad to be enjoying cooler weather here.
enjoyed a hudson's coffee as soon as i could arrange it and getting from the airport to the yha couldn't have been easier. checking in was also a breeze. i'm going to pick up some shopping at coles, brekkie cereal and milk, maybe some bread and cheese for lunch.
i have my weekly travelpass thingie, and i'm going to spend my holidays wandering around melbourne, getting a feel for it...
i feel relaxed already!
the plane left sydney at 13h15 and when i was crossing the bridge earlier on the bus i checked the temperature and time on the kyocera building in north sydney - 36 degrees. so glad to be enjoying cooler weather here.
enjoyed a hudson's coffee as soon as i could arrange it and getting from the airport to the yha couldn't have been easier. checking in was also a breeze. i'm going to pick up some shopping at coles, brekkie cereal and milk, maybe some bread and cheese for lunch.
i have my weekly travelpass thingie, and i'm going to spend my holidays wandering around melbourne, getting a feel for it...
i feel relaxed already!
Friday, October 06, 2006
... friends
hey, i don't know what kind of friends you have. i'm sure they're great and all, but i am fairly certain i have the best friends in the world. God has blessed me with awesome friends and while i don't show them the appreciation i should always show, or pray for them as often and as earnestly as i should, or keep in touch with them as closely as i should, i don't think i've ever felt like i'd be better off without them.
and heaven will be better than my friends! wow...
and heaven will be better than my friends! wow...
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
... the (not) ugly (at all really)
to the woman who was sitting in the second car of the hornsby train that left central at 6:29; on the vestibule seat on the left side of the train, nearest the connecting door to the next (my) car; with amazing fair skin, strawberry-blonde hair, freckles and smiling eyes...
you quite took my breath away.
you quite took my breath away.
... the bad
a brief note on escalator ettiquette.
the "keep left" signs are there for a reason. not everyone wants to wait an extra three minutes watching you get lovey-dovey with your other half - some of us simply want to get past.
functionally, escalators are there to move people up and down stairs faster than they would simply on foot. like a moving walkway, they are not there as a comfort accessory - they are not there for you to have a rest after your long, weary day sitting at a desk in an office or sitting in a train from [fill in the name of a station here] - they are there to get you from a to b without having to actually say "to".
if you must rest, read the above section on keeping left.
the "keep left" signs are there for a reason. not everyone wants to wait an extra three minutes watching you get lovey-dovey with your other half - some of us simply want to get past.
functionally, escalators are there to move people up and down stairs faster than they would simply on foot. like a moving walkway, they are not there as a comfort accessory - they are not there for you to have a rest after your long, weary day sitting at a desk in an office or sitting in a train from [fill in the name of a station here] - they are there to get you from a to b without having to actually say "to".
if you must rest, read the above section on keeping left.
... the good
i went to black stump last weekend. i'll blog about that another time.
tonight i went to see the devil wears prada. yet again, i wish i'd held out and read the book first, because i think that it'll be hard to get the performances of the actors in this film out of my head for some time. (this is one of the reasons i haven't seen memoirs of a geisha yet, and that's already out on dvd!)
prada really was good. i laughed out loud in more than a few scenes, and while in some respects it was fairly cookie-cutter fare, in others it had some quite good stuff in it. the style of the film was very cool and while i (as anyone who knows me will attest) know nothing about fashion i thought that the calendar-flip-style sequence of andy sachs' fashion evolution was quite nifty. stanley tucci demonstrates once again how incredibly underutilised he is.
anne hathaway is an actress to watch, i feel. i get an intense audrey-hepburn-esque impression from her; she is very clean, even when her characters aren't taking the moral routes they should be. i am confident that she will be in the industry for a long, long time; not a bad thing (unlike, for example, gary busey or eric roberts) and i hope that she will lend hollywood some of the class it has lost since the heydays of actresses like lauren bacall, rita hayworth, bette davis, audrey hepburn, and katherine hepburn.
tonight i went to see the devil wears prada. yet again, i wish i'd held out and read the book first, because i think that it'll be hard to get the performances of the actors in this film out of my head for some time. (this is one of the reasons i haven't seen memoirs of a geisha yet, and that's already out on dvd!)
prada really was good. i laughed out loud in more than a few scenes, and while in some respects it was fairly cookie-cutter fare, in others it had some quite good stuff in it. the style of the film was very cool and while i (as anyone who knows me will attest) know nothing about fashion i thought that the calendar-flip-style sequence of andy sachs' fashion evolution was quite nifty. stanley tucci demonstrates once again how incredibly underutilised he is.
anne hathaway is an actress to watch, i feel. i get an intense audrey-hepburn-esque impression from her; she is very clean, even when her characters aren't taking the moral routes they should be. i am confident that she will be in the industry for a long, long time; not a bad thing (unlike, for example, gary busey or eric roberts) and i hope that she will lend hollywood some of the class it has lost since the heydays of actresses like lauren bacall, rita hayworth, bette davis, audrey hepburn, and katherine hepburn.
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