Yearly Archives for 2006

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I had a great Christmas with (half) my family. My best sister, Michelle, was the host and she put on a great spread. Sampson, my beautiful 16 month-old nephew, was the centre of attention - the day was really all about him. He loved it and has already worked out that he can control us: all he has to do is clap his hands and all nearby adults immediately join in, including me. My contribution for the day, apart from the general awesomeness of my mere presence, was that I cooked a stamppot. I don’t think it was the best one I ever made but, of all the food served, the stamppot was the first to run out. Sampson loves it. I am glad. My stamppot kicks the arse of any Dutch stamppot.

On Boxing Day afternoon I sat down for a bit of coding that I had been thinking about for a while. It is nice to have an opprtunity to geek out alone without the nagging responsibility of client work. It was not to be, however, as walkingrek called me and invited me to her house. She was about to crack open a bottle of wine that I had bought for her the other day and wondered if I might join her.

Photo0051Fifteen minutes later I was in Stanmore with walkingrek, sitting on her porch in the sun and enjoying a nice drink. During my Christmas shopping with Stacey I had been in a Reject Shop and bought for myself a safety baseball/softball bat and ball. They were in my car.

We walked up to a local schoolyard for a game, it was great fun. We both kicked arse. When retrieving the ball from one of Bek’s awesome hits we both noticed a “graf” wall, and it was imperative that I take a photo. God bless the camera phone - it takes shit photos but at least it is always with me.

It is safe now to publish that Bek has asked me to move in with her. It is safe because I don’t have to worry about my landlord finding out I am looking, and pre-emptively evicting me. I don’t have to worry about this because yesterday both Sonia and I were kicked out of the house. I was told in a “oh, by the way…” fashion, with much less seriousness than if I had wasted electricity by leaving the hall light on whilst in the bathroom. Sonia was told by SMS. The news had no emotional impact on me at all, except perhaps a feeling of relief. Melvin’s reign of terror is over.

I have been hanging out with walkingrek quite a bit lately, reconnecting. It has been good. We are both grownups now and it makes a difference. We have always been very close, had a special understanding that others lack. Perhaps we interact best on the dancefloor, unspoken. We both see the same things and look at each other at the same times. I can mess with her without words. We like very similar music and feel it, I think more deeply than the average suburban punter. It is good to have her as a friend again.

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ten of the best

  • Lateralus Tool
  • Thirteenth Step A Perfect Circle
  • OK Computer Radiohead
  • Homework Daft Punk
  • Appetite for Destruction Guns N Roses
  • Blood Sugar Sex Magik Red Hot Chili Peppers
  • Is This It? The Strokes
  • Aenima Tool
  • Rebirth of Cool Phive Various Artists
  • Angel Dust Faith No More
  • Paul’s Boutique Beastie Boys
  • Moon Safari Air
  • yes, I already know.

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    I love summer

    In the last three or four weeks I have been very happy, and I attribute this to Summer. The weeks around Christmas are always fun and full of parties. It is warm. I can go to the beach.

    I just saw the first Christmas Beetle of the season. Jasper jumped on it and ate it. Happy times.

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    things that tasted good today

  • the falafel pita that I got from the hebrew pita shop in Rose Bay. Best EVER! Nicest bread, tasty falafel and hommus. Good range of salads. I need to get the name of the shop. I am tempted to remotely stuff up the nearby client’s computer systems so I have an excuse to visit the area. It was sooooooo good.
  • the Laphroaig whisky that I am sipping right now
  • Vitasoy soy milk. Mel got me onto soy milk in London and now I cannot drink cow milk, it tastes horrible. Vitasoy is the only good brand, the others I have tried taste…chalky. Chee-Ho gave me some Chinese soy milk and that was good, but not in a milk-substitute sort of way, you couldn’t put it on your cornflakes.
  • My beloved Coke Zero. I drink so much that it is my “neutral” taste.
  • Popularity: 3% [?]

    fun (test of myspace video posting)

    Harbourlife 2006 Party People Posse #1

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    Harbourlife 2006 Party People Posse #2

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    Popularity: 59% [?]

    a duck!

    I just noticed Swampy’s comment. He wins the competition, some floating volcanic rocks are on their way to him right now.

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    wotam

    On Friday night I got a flight to Hobart, Tasmania, for a weekend away. I flew JetStar, the plane was an A320 (we like Airbus). Inside it was comfortable and shiny.

    I stayed at the Hotel Grand Chancellor, a midrange hotel on the water, not far from the touristy Salamanca area. I liked my room, it was on the corner so I had windows on two sides, one facing towards the sea and the other looking across the Derwent River via the bridge. Looked really good at night. I had a king-size bed, as requested and it was luxury to sleep without either curling into a fetal position or hanging my feet over the edge. There is something that always pisses me off about hotels, and it is this: they never have an extractor fan in the bathroom. In this bathroom, they did. Ten points just for that.

    I had paella for dinner. I guess Tasmanian scallops aren’t so expensive in Tasmania because my meal was full of them. I love scallops.

    After dinner it was time to go to the pub, and I found myself in a room full of ferals watching a peculiar performer wearing a leopard-print fez perched atop a mexican wrester’s mask. An unusual show. Being Tasmania, they of course had Cascade on tap. So, naturally, Cascade was what I drank. Oh, and also vodka. Once I had finished with drinking it was off to the next stop, a bar not far from my hotel. Only one drink in they turned on the fuckoff lights so back to the hotel it was.

    On Saturday I had a cup of coffee for lunch at a café/laundromat called Machine. I wasn’t feeling the best after that so I went back to my hotel room and slept until almost dark. It was time to go out!

    I started at Isobar, only because I had heard of it and knew where it was. There was a hen’s night on and I was targetted to help the hen complete her checklist. She now has my number and the dollar she earned by selling me a kiss. My next stop was an “Irish” pub. It was a sausagefest and my beer was served in a plastic glass. I didn’t even bother to finish my drink. I finished up at some other nearby sandstone pub, where some guy told me that it had been snowing on Mt Wellington (the mountain over Hobart) that day. For my Northern readers, in Australia it will be Summer in eight days. Right now in Sydney it is 39°C.

    Sunday I got up for a noontime breakfast of eggs benedict, once again at Machine. This was the first thing I had eaten since the paella, as I had forgotten to eat on Saturday. Afterwards I went to the Parliament Lawns (? or something) for a live music festival thing. They had wine for sale, packaged in small thin cans like Red Bull. The music wasn’t thrilling me, although I did get up for a bit of a dance to a reggae band.

    Something I noticed in Hobart, possibly related to the freezing temperatures: there were a lot of people coughing everywhere. The pubs are all non-smoking, so that was not it. [update: it is because of germs, I now have a Hobart cold]

    All too soon it was time to go home. When I arrived in Sydney I was hit by a wave of hot and humid air. It was like the experience of getting off a plane in a tropical country, what I felt in PNG or Malaysia. In two days I had acclimatised tot he cold of Tassie and my own city seemed tropical. I got over that pretty quickly.

    I shouldn’t have gone.

    Popularity: 3% [?]

    my invention

    DSC01935A few months ago I was at the slounge with Bek, Dan and the other no-longer-randoms. It came my time to buy a round so I decided to get something interesting. After consultation with the barman I developed a very tasty drink:

    • 1 shot vodka
    • 1/2 shot gin
    • 1/2 shot absinthe
    • apple juice
    • ice
    • splash of sprite

    I mostly forgot about this until yesterday afternoon. I was out with my sister Michelle and some of her friends, celebrating her birthday with drinks in the sun. I decided that she would need a special birthday drink and this immediately sprang to mind.

    Someone suggested that we need a name for the drink, so I put it to the group. After some heated discussion there were two clear favourites: Yoda’s Piss or Yodameister. I am not completely happy with either name, but the herd has spoken.

    Yoda’s Piss.

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    innocent like a sweet little lamb

    What a day! What a night!

    Regular readers will no doubt be aware that I am a massive fan of fun, and likewise am significantly pro-adventure. Lucky me: I got them both in abundance over the last 20 or so hours, and an exciting time I had. I love missions, and I love cool people and dancing.

    I am not going to go through a blow-by-blow because, frankly, I have to think of my fanbase. I don’t want to corrupt your poor innocent minds. I had a fucking fun time. Ha! Now you ARE corrupted because I used a bad word.

    If you are inner circle you can ask me about what happened, and I will tell you. If you aren’t, well why not get on myspace and add me? If we become friends then I might tell you. I am buypresentsfordarryn.

    JohnBoy tell me not to overthink things, but thinking is my specialty. I got some new stuff to think about last night, I met new people. I love my life, it is never boring. Something cool always happens.

    I am not gonna give shout outs because there are well over twenty people who made my day rock, and the list would get boring and dangerously exclusive. If you were a part of it, then you are almost certainly reading this anyway. Thanks.

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHELLE AND JOHNBOY!!! Two fucking Scorpios. As Shell always told me, beware the sting! JB, as if you have a sting.

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    we like the moon

    for SpongBo

    We like the moon
    coz it is close to us
    we like the moooon!
    but not as much as a spoon
    cuz that’s more use for eating soup
    and a fork isn’t very useful for that
    unless it has got many vegetables
    and then you might be better off with a
    chop-stick
    unlike the moon
    it is up in the sky
    it’s up there very high
    but not as high
    as maybe
    digibles or zeppelins
    or lightbulbs
    and maybe clouds
    and puffins also I think maybe
    they go quite high too
    maybe not as high as the moon
    coz the moon is very high
    we like the moon
    the moon is very useful everyone
    everybody like the moon
    because it light up the sky at night
    and it lovely
    and it makes the tide go and we like it
    but not as much as cheese
    we really like cheese
    we like zeppelins
    we really like them
    and we like kelp and we like moose
    and we like deer and we like marmots
    and we like all the fluffy animals
    we really like the moon

    from Rather Good

    Popularity: 3% [?]