Day 40- September 30, 2009

Today was Sarah’s brother’s birthday, so we took him to the movies to celebrate. I took quite a few photos today, but beach photos have already been done and hilarious as the photos of Sarah’s youngest brother in massive sunglasses are, I thought this one would be more relevant. Today’s photo is Jo “jumping for joy” (heh lame) at turning 14, especially since he got a pack of freckles from me.

We saw Up, which is the new animated Pixar film about an old man trying to fly a helium balloon-powered house to South America. We thought it was really good. SQUIRREL! (I was stuck with what to say next, but if you’ve seen the movie, you’ll find it funny). I liked the fact that although it was ultimately a children’s film, it managed to be interesting to an older audience without being one of those children’s films that are peppered with innuendo for long-suffering parents.

The rest of the day was spent either avoiding or photographing Sarah’s rather numerous siblings (yay! I don’t have to take photos of the dog!), lazing around on the beach or failing at Scrabble with Sarah’s grandma (I am so cool). I don’t think I was too bad for someone who has never played actual Scrabble (I’ve played a few online games, but cheated in all of them), but ended up bailing as soon as I realised that I had no chance against a pretty seasoned player. I can’t decide whether that makes me a sore loser or just plain lazy. Probably both.

Day 39- September 29, 2009

Watching another installment of Lord of the Rings. Finally onto the third and last film. Woo! (That’s the extended edition). Just saw Saruman meet a somewhat pointy (heh) end and are all now deliberating whether Saruman’s boots would look nice on us.

Also, I finally saw Inglourious Basterds today, which is the new Tarantino film in case you’ve been living under a rock or particularly shady tree. I thought it was pretty good, in typcal Tarantino style with a great soundtrack. I’m pretty glad I finally saw it, as I’ve been blocking my ears and yelling loudly whenever people had been talking about it (reminiscent of Roy from IT Crowd). I’d recommend it to anybody who likes a good film, a good laugh and doesn’t mind a bit of scalping and other forms of nasty (albeit sometimes hilarious!) violence. (SPOILER ALERT: Hitler gets owned).

Apart from that, we spent the day shopping for lunch for friends that never arrived (damnation!), eating somewhat rich mousse cake and having a lot of fun singing at the piano. Family friends of Sarah’s came over at some point with their collaborative project for the children:  a map of the local area featuring 3d “landmarks”, such as the trees and ocean in today’s picture. Anyway, I should go. There’s some drama on the screen involving Gollum. That dude needs dental care…

Day 38- September 28, 2009

Today’s photo is of a deceptively unfriendly dog I dubbed Sargeant Paws. On returning from our trip to Bathurst to visit her relatives, Sarah and I were looking for a place to stop for coffee and came across a town in which everything appeared to be shut (at only 5pm!!). We passed the local police stationa and saw him in the yard. He looked quite friendly, but snarled and pounced when we came near. Obviously, the locals don’t look kindly on “out of towners”. It did kinda look like Twin Peaks… *bass line*

The rest of the day was spent eating Smarties and listening to Bowie; both of which are most admirable pursuits. Sorry for the short post (to whoever is reading this?), but we’re all watching The Two Towers and laughing hysterically.

Day 37- September 27, 2009

Today started like any good day. With chocolate. For breakfast. Which is to say that the chocolate cupcakes that I made last night weren’t overly inclined to leave the comfort of their cupcake tins, and so upon breaking them into several sub-cupcakular pieces, I was forced to salvage them. And this was called breakfast.

We then drove down to Sydney for church, which was good fun considering the soundtrack on the way, which included REM, Maroon 5 (sung in a high voice) and Black Eyed Peas (sung in a low voice with a Rasta accent). Sarah somehow resisted the urge to run over the plethora of cyclists present on the roads due to some sort of cycling event or another (woo!).

After lunch, which consisted of a most classy combination of Boost Juice and chicken nuggets, we drove up the mountains to Sarah’s uncle and aunt’s place (where I am writing this AS WE SPEAK!!). The rest of the day consisted of traipzing around national parks (PHOTO!) with terrible German accents, lazing in front of the fireplace with beer and cheese; and discussing a wide variety of music (all of which made us feel terribly cultured and negated the fact that we stuffed our respective faces with reconstituted fried chicken for lunch).

Day 36- September 26, 2009

Hooray! Grand Final day! I mean, it doesn’t mean anything to me, but since Sarah’s family is “quite” into football (“quite” being a German word meaning excessively), I spent most of the day either avoiding the game (argh! accidentally saw the kickoff! watched sports…) or blowing up red balloons (there were red and blue and white balloons for both St Kilda and Geelong– how egalitarian!!– but I refused to blow up any balloons that could be used to show support for Geelong).

As previously mentioned, most of the day was spent avoiding the Grand Final, so we went to the beach in the afternoon (today’s photo! who would have thought?!). The water is still too cold for my delicate tastes, so we just climbed on and sat on rocks; watching “the resident bogans” (Sarah’s words, not mine) chase their children and their dogs, taking several thousand boring photos of sand in the process (postmodernist much?). I’ve just realised that I’m starting to use a lot more parentheses than I used to, but I won’t apologise and will instead call it “stream of consciousness” even though it’s clearly not.

After that, we came home and made quite a bit of food. And mess. That is still to be cleaned up. Argh! (But blogging comes first). Actually, that’s a lie. We cleaned up the mess, but I thought it would be more dramatic that way. I’m sorry. So. Food. In addition to making meatballs for dinner (which somewhat failed, but then were resurrected in the form of food), we made lots and lots of small cupcakes. Cupcakes of apple and chocolate, which is to say, two types of cupcakes. Unfortunately, a lot of the chocolate ones fell apart, the key ingredient being Nutella. And by unfortunately, I mean that we ate a lot of chocolate cupcakes. Whoo!

Day 35- September 25, 2009

Today was spent in Sydney, which is to say Sydney Sydney, as opposed to “up on the Central Coast” Sydney (which isn’t really Sydney at all, but… never mind).

After being thoroughly confused on the train (“NOBODY NEEDS TWENTY THREE PLATFORMS!”), we went to the Powerhouse Museum, which was pretty much my childhood (and Sarah’s, as she is eager to add… this whole collaborative writing thing isn’t working out for me; perhaps I’m not suited to Web 2.0). After oohing and ahhing at expensive chairs and ugly dresses, we spent about half an hour being lectured on the intricate working of a rather large clock, which, among things, told you the time in six major cities, the “moon age” (struggling to avoid making Bowie reference here), and depicted several French kings and Satan (for some reason).

We then went down to the childrens’ section, which was fully amazing for me, because it pretty much hadn’t changed since 1996 (my sixth birthday was teh shizz). Today’s photo is of me attempting to look nonchalant and non-stuck (cf. Pooh Gets Stuck) in a “Designated Childrens’ Zone”. It was awesome. There were Teddy Bears having picnics, a Homer Simpsonesque walk-on piano and a pedal-powered fire engine, off which I almost fell. (And I also “rode” a Penny Farthing… Woo!)

Lunch was pancakes, which is to say, super-chocolatefied pancakes with cream and chocolate icecream (not to mention strawberries with chocolate sauce). So, basically, all the major food groups. Being a total embarrassment to myself, I managed to pull off the Major Tourist look with some ease, taking several thousand photos of Circular Quay (while smiling at other photographers who had Nikons and scowling at the Canon and Sony folk). And then a walk through the CBD, during which I took another fifteen million (actually probably about fifty, but that sounds nowhere near as impressive) photos, mainly of buildings “which looked cool”.

After a brief stroll through the Botannical Gardens (which ended at closing time when a man in a little vehicle with a flashing light evicted us), we met up with some friends for dinner, which involved the telling of several crazy stories (did I mention these friends were half-Russian?) and the freaking out of our poor waiter (who managed to come into choice conversations such as: “so I put in heaps of mayonnaise to kill the old people”).

Then, while sitting by the Quay, we were approached by a group of scavenger hunters, who needed an “awkward third-wheeler shot”. We happily obliged, but forgot to ask them to email it to us (O! What A Loss For The Blog!). Then we got coffee and tea and went home. The end. (I can so not form sentences and/or spell at 2am, especially when Sarah’s keyboard is set to UK for some reason and is confusing)

Day 34- September 24, 2009

Well, today’s airport drama was slightly less epic than last time. A flight delayed one hour is SLIGHTLY better than one delayed about seven (lol Sarah), even if it meant standing in a check-in queue that literally went about five hundred metres (through the domestic check-in section, out and through the food court, through all the lines in the international departures and back into domestic… sigh).

One Boost juice, several noisy children and a few bumps to the head later (they make plane ceilings too low for people like me), I arrived in Sydney. I took some shots in-flight (mainly too fuzzy/washed-out, except for some sweet ones I took landing in Sydney), but I’ll upload them later since Sarah’s internet is being somewhat of a bitch, and it’s all I can do to upload one photo. Today’s photo is us on the train, obviously. It was that or me drinking fruit juice. It was pink. And I drank it through a straw. But I’m entirely heterosexual, I swear!

The rest of the day was spent at the beach and helping a friend with a massive television that could barely fit in the van (how is he going to fit it into his house?). The latter activity entailed travelling to the Kmart dock, attended by a surly fellow whom I nicknamed Patches McGee (on account of some strange patch he had on his face). He seemed very reluctant to deal with customers (otherwise known as emerging from his lair), and this was signalled by the fact that the “service bell” was hidden behind approximately fifteen tonnes of crap. More like a DISSERVICE bell, if you ask me. Heh.

So we’re watching Lord of the Rings now. The extended one. I’d keep writing, but this is all pretty hardcore. So yeah. Mwah.

Day 33- September 23, 2009

After cleaning up my room (long overdue…), I headed into the city to buy some presents. Well, I was really using “buying presents” as a pretext for “photo odyssey” and ended up taking over 300 photos today (45 of which ended up on Flickr). Oh, and I had a really awesome sandwich for lunch. Don’t laugh. It was spicy panchetta and it was the most amazing thing ever. I can hear sniggers…

Anyway, so I went in looking for some presents, since I’m off to Sarah’s for a while and needed a thank-you present for her parents and a birthday present for her brother. After about an hour of taking photos, I remembered that I was meant to go looking for stuff and ended up getting chocolate from Haigh’s. I always spend ages there because there are so many different things to choose from. Heh.

Anyway, so most of the day was spent taking a plethora (my favourite all-purpose collective noun!) of photos; starting from Flinders Lane, and going through Centre Place (where Today’s Photo was taken) to Collins Street, and then through Block Arcade and Block Place to Bourke Street. I then went across to Swanston Street and up Flinders Lane to Russell Street. I took quite a few shots of graffiti and even managed to get this sweet rainbow. A funny photo I took was of an employee at Supre putting up pink lovehearts in the shop window. Heh. Supre is laaaame…

Later, I met up with Josiah, who had just come up from filming a zombie movie trailer (apparently that explained why his hands were red and why he had corn syrup all over his shirt). We checked out the new Lindt cafe on Collins Street and their quite rich and delicious hot chocolates. While we were there, I was taking photos of the inside of the building, and the snooty Lindt man asked me not to take “wide angle photos” inside. When I explained that I was in fact using a telephoto lens, he gave me somewhat of a greasy faux-French (cartoon-style) look. Here’s Josiah enjoying his hot chocolate. Heh.

Well, that’s it from me in Melbourne. I’m off to Sydney for about one and a half weeks, leaving tomorrow morning (in the unlikely event of the flight actually being not cancelled). I’ll take heaps of photos and keep updating the blog from there, so keep reading! (Dramatic 60s tv show cliffhanger-type music)

Day 32- September 22, 2009

Whooo! The blog is one month old today! Thank you to everybody who reads and comments. It’s very encouraging. Special thanks to anybody who links/reposts/promotes the blog, even if it is just yelling “READ THE BLOG!” over and over again. And finally, anti-kudos to anybody who accuses me of blog whoring. I’m looking at you, Mother.

Anyway, it was quite a boring day. I spent most of it doing my essay. Some wank about hegemonic masculinities and power relations between gendered subjects. Gah. So did not sign up for anything involving feminism… BUT IT’S OVER NOW! I finished that essay, and am now quite free, my only piece of assessment for the remainder of the semester being my music essay. If anybody has suggestions for topics (has to relate to 20th century popular music), please let me know. Topics involving David Bowie or the Beatles especially considered.

Today’s photo is from JB. Sorry, boring, but that’s pretty much all that happened today. I would have taken a photo of the woman pulled over for drink driving before lunchtime, but my hands were greasy from Maccas. I’m sure you understand. So I went to JB today to get a CD player as a birthday present for my aunt. And that’s where the photo is from. No exciting story, I’m sorry.

And now I must go to help Dad with our case for the court case against our neighbour. All free legal advice and vigilantism gratefully accepted.

Day 31- September 21, 2009

Ok, so Josiah’s party was last night. But it went past midnight, so this totally counts for photo of the day! It’s (part) of James Crow, the guitarist for Where’s Grover, who played at Josiah’s party. They also consist of Andrew Hazi on bass and Nathanael Cardwell on drums. It was pretty cool to have a band play at the party, especially when they played Herbie Hancock’s Chameleon, joined by James Coley (trumpet), Ruby Lulham (sax) and Andrew Langmead (guitar). There was also a pretty sweet blues jam, featuring me on piano (but there’s no photo of that, sorry).

It was a pretty sweet party, featuring some Kanye West-esque glasses and plenty of dancing and pulling of faces (oh dear Lord). Heh. We all had an awesome time and are awaiting Josiah’s next shindig (no pressure). The rest of the photos I put on Flickr are up here. Not all of the ones I took made it online (there’s some that are too blurry/dark/unflattering), and not all of the ones I put on Facebook are on Flickr. But if anybody wants better quality copies of any of the images, I’m happy to email them to you.

Apart from that, I went to the gym without my camera (on account of already having a photo for the day) and missed out on the opportunity to photograph these dudes dancing around with samurai swords to Oriental music. It was pretty sweet. Heh.

OH. AND MAXIM GOT INTO VCASS! In case you didn’t know, VCASS is the secondary school of the Victorian College of the Arts, a highly selective performing arts college. It’s pretty exciting, because he gets to start year 10 there next year and be in an environment which is a lot more music-oriented with a whole bunch of other music virtuosoes. Whoo!