Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Kathryn's sister Dani has come down to visit her for the Christmas/New Years period so we all went out for dinner and a few drinks last night. We actually went to Frostbites, which I would normally consider a sleazy meat-market, and it was pretty empty, so we played pool and joked about and had a good time. She's a good kid, always smiling, and has the same silly sense of humour as her sister :)
Haxxorz!
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Christmas day was again spent down at Mum's house for dinner, with Mum, Dad, Cam, Cindy, Courtney and Krystal. We usually have a bit of fun, laughing at Dad and his jokes (not laughing at the jokes, laughing at him for what he thinks are jokes), and opening Courtney's presents, as we don't really bother exchanging much in the way of gifts these days (Mum still buys me some clothes and I still get her something as well)
The funniest present was one of those 'password' diaries that's supposed to recognise your voice so that even if someone knows your password they can't open the diary. Took us ages to set the password in the first place, because it requires absolute silence and the word has to be said twice in completely identical ways, but then when it comes to opening the diary all of us were able to imitate Courtney's well long enough to open it, so it was pretty funny. :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
(Very Large Christmas Party)
Yet another year at KPMG has drawn to an end, with the occasion marked by a very large Christmas party, held at The Hyatt again this year. This year the themes were Kaleidoscope, Pirate, Matador and Glacier.
The Kaleidoscope room proved to be the most popular, with lots of bright colours, a hula competition earlier in the day and great dance music throughout the rest of it, so most of us spent most of the time there.
The Pirate room was decorated like the set from The Pirates of The Caribbean, but had some pretty crappy music so we mainly stayed out of there.
The Matador room had Spanish music and flamenco dancers and was pretty interesting, so we spent a little time in there.
The Glacier room was the main foyer and had an ice sculpture and a person running around in a polar bear outfit, and we mainly used that for meeting people and travelling between the other areas.
Overall it was a gigantic party as usual, and we all seemed to get smashed. Or maybe that was just me. :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
The Annual Clitus Kris Kringle was held again this year, although funnily enough for the first time it was not held at 1 Clitus Ave as normal but at the Richmond Bowling Club. It was a good night, catching up with some of the guys I hadn't seen for ages and exchanging some funny presents. The funniest was Winston who received a number of framed photos of the English cricket team (Winston was NOT happy about The Ashes being won by England) and some Adult diapers as a comment on how pissy he was over the results :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Myself and a fellow flickrite Kerryn took the trek out to Ivanhoe to view the Christmas Lights on The Boulevard to try and get some interesting shots. I had already been earlier in the month when some of the houses were set up but the official event hadn't started yet, but it was a lot more interesting to go during the proper time. It's a bit of a surreal experience, as some people have very nice and classy displays, and some have the most bizarre and cheesy things up. Once house actually had both, where the house itself (viewed from the side gate) had a very classy set of white lights draped over the main house, simple and classic and very beautiful and stylish, and the front yard (viewed from the front gate) was super cheesy and frankly hideous. Another interesting part of the experience was the way people would pimp out their kids musical talents to promote some cause or other, because they know that hundreds of people are going to be passing by every night.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
The Lectro crew held their Las Vegas party on Saturday and it was definitely one of the best club nights I've been to. The music was fantastic, filled with some phenomenal local Techno DJs and that by itself would have been enough to make it a great night, but the crew added a couple of special extras that seriously upped the ante.
The first special event was a hilarious bout of jelly wrestling. We knew it was going to be a special event when the initial participants didn't just start wrestling each other but grabbed their friends form the audience and threw them in the pool :)
The second major highlight of the evening was a sterling performance by Elvis, complete with sequined jumpsuit.
We laughed so much it started to hurt, and then we dances a bit more and the pain went away. Overall a fantastic evening of fun and frolics.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
You know that the silly season has begun when the regular friday night down at Yak turns into a madcap time filled with craziness and new friends.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
What do you get when you cross a Bus with a Party? A Party Bus! :)
It was Clare's birthday last week and her party was to be held on the Party Bus (one of a few actually).
I was a bit sceptical at first, as I had always heaped scorn and abuse on the party buses whenever I saw them, but figured that Clare and her friends know how to have a bit of fun, so I was willing to be dragged along kicking and screaming :)
I was wrong, it was a lot of fun :)
It's a bit cheesy, and the bars we went to (Flanagans, Frostbites, Icon, de Biers) are also all a bit cheesy, but being with a bunch of people happily getting into the cheesiness really helps. And it's quite amusing to be driving down the city streets inside a small nightclub, having people dancing away while stuck in traffic really helps the time pass by :)
Overall it was a pretty good party, and if you're into cheesy then I'd probably recommend it. :)
Clare seemed to be having a very good time, and winding up at de Biers (their usual hangout) meant that instead of staying there for an hour and then getting the bus home, we just stayed there until the place closed :) They even managed to play some decent tech by the end of the night, and the security guards were the same guys that worked the inthemix.05 gig that Joe and I shot photos for, so we had a bit of a joke around with them and didn't have to worry about being hassled for having cameras :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Well, last Friday was our ITS Christmas party at work and a very good party it was. Although full disclosure requires me to state that I was on the committee, so when I say it was a great party, I'm partly blowing my own trumpet. :)
The theme of the party was The Commonwealth Games, and it was held at Olympic Park, a world class athletics track that will actually host some of the official Commonwealth Games activities. Our games were not quite as official, as they consisted of an egg and spoon race, volleyball, and tug-of-war :)
Everyone seemed to have a good time and a large number of people kicked on afterwards, turning into a very messy evening.
Highlights of the day include seeing our friend Julia riding the back of her new boss like a rodeo star, trying to earn a few bonus points, or catching one of the senior managers cheating at the Egg and Spoon race by the use of double-sided tape :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Well, another very busy weekend to put a bit of a cap on a rather leisurely week. Friday saw a return to Yak for a few quick beverages and to catch up with the regular crew. Had some drinks with Joe, Kathryn, Bec and Pommie John especially before retiring relatively early due to drunkenness. Kathryn had already invited me around to her new flat to check it out and to see her new widescreen LCD TV, which was very nice, so nice in fact that I ended up crashing there as we stayed up too late watching TV. Saturday morning was spent sleeping in and coming up with excuses not to get up and go home, excuses such as watching DVDs and more TV. :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Saturday afternoon it was off to the Retreat Hotel in Brunswick for another episode of aLive. This is fast becoming a traditional day getting very drunk in the ber garden and laughing ourselves silly at the antics of ourselves and our comrades, there's a core group of people from inthemix who go there and they are a very funny bunch of people. The best thing about the aLive gig is that it's all live tech/electro/minimal, so it's local djs/engineers/musicians creating stuff on the spot to a very appreciative audience. It's good to see local guys and girls just creating good music on the spot, using all sorts of crazy gear like old analog synths, laptops, musical instruments like trumpets and clarinets, and lots of hammering on the keyboards :)
After aLive we headed into Honkytonks to listen to some more tech laid down by some very good Melbourne DJs, Mark Callendar and Mathew Jonson. Not that I managed to stay awake long enough to see Mathew Jonson, I was pretty tired and ended up going home at about 3am :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Sunday was another long day, where I headed over to The Flying Duck in Prahran for Lee and Matt's engagement party. I expected to only be there for a little while, but ended up staying until the end and having quite a good time catching up with some mutual friends I hadn't seen in a while. It was quite a nice afternoon, and the beer garden at The Flying Duck was excellent, although there was a group of hairdressers nearby having a "truth session" where they basically bitched and fought with each other all afternoon. A couple of the guys from our group mingled with theirs and apparently they have this session regularly to avoid all these issues festering in the background, so anyone can get said what they want to say without it being held against them outside of the session. It all sounded very civilized once it had been explained, but I don't know if it actually works out that way in reality. It was pretty funny to watch, especially when our friends were clearly starting to go crazy with having to put up with it :)
Monday, the last day of my holiday, was also a nice clear sunny day, so I met Katrina in the city for a few drinks after her exam to help her celebrate the end of her studying for the year, then wandered around to try and take some photos, but nothing really took my fancy, and then Mick, Steph, Katrina and I had dinner at The Elgin and consumed a few more beers. Altogether it was a very beery day, and a good end to my holidays :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Earthcore!
Earthcore Earthcore Earthcore! :)
This weekend saw the arrival of another Earthcore, held in the nap of country Victoria, at Undera just outside of Sheparton.
This was my fifth Earthcore and the third one at Undera, and it just gets better every year.
We drove up at about lunchtime Saturday, and were delayed due to an accident on the hume but got to the site about 5pm, had a bit of a wander around to check out where the various stages were, hit the bar for a few drinks and then started to tour the floors picking up various sets and running into old and new friends along the way.
From a music point of view we heard Morph, Simon Posford (Shpongled Dj set), Beka, Shangri-La, Siaqua, Dark Soho, Hallucinogen (more Simon Posford), Scott Alert, Lab 4, Tsuyoshi Suzuki and Mike Callander. We heard bits and pieces of a few others, but those were the ones we spent some time with. It's a bit hard at a festival like this, you can't be too locked in to seeing 'everyone' because it's just about impossible to spend more than 15 minutes with each performer, which doesn't give you a real chance to be taken up on the highs and brought down on the lows like a good set can do, besides, some of these people are so good that you get drawn into it and it becomes a part of you, and that's not something you voluntarily choose to end. In fact while we were listening to Mike Callander on the Market Stage on Sunday morning, I actually watched people try to pass by and just get drawn across into the dance floor, the tek was too good to let go :)
As usual I spent most of the time on the Hydra stage, the music was absolutely top notch, which is to be expected on the Psy Trance stage of a festival started out in with Psy roots. Highlights of the evening would include Dark Solo, psy trance created live by two guys each playing electric guitar and also messing with keyboards and synths, ripping up the stage big time, especially funny when an inflatable electric guitar materialised in the crowd and a few of us had a grind on the axe until one girl took it up on stage and jammed with the guys, so funny, I can't remember laughing and dancing so hard at the same time, except maybe when Simon Posford played a track with a sample from South Park of Cartman talking about hippies being an infestation. Joe and I nearly lost it as we'd seen these new episodes playing now but nobody else seemed to fully get it :) Another highlight was definitely the tek stage on Sunday morning. Not only did we run into Becy, but the music was fantastic and her crew were so much fun to dance with, really put it all out there and therefore allowed us to do the same.
Techno is a very interesting style of music, and Joe and I had a big discussion about it on the way home, it's not as hard or as freaky as some of the other styles, and in some ways it's kind of older and not as 'hip' or 'cool', but there's something about it that draws you in, forces you to dance and lets you really express yourself. The layered sounds and beats in good tek let you choose what level of commitment you want to give to the music and let you do a simple set of movements taking a main thread, as well as letting you push out and explore the sub-threads running through it, it's also very good for bonding with the people near you (as is Psy) because no matter how you're dancing to it, you're running along the same beat lines as someone else on the floor, whereas other styles like NRG or house only let you take the main beat, or half it or double it, and if you're not on the best then you're not in sync with everyone, so there's no space for you to be a little tired, or a little hyped up, no room for mellow on the same floor as charged up, no room for foot tapping and whole body dancing on the same floor. Tek has space for all of these in the same track, and it's pretty special to watch and be a part of. I know that sounds a little weird, but that's the way I see it, so too bad :) Another funny thing about tek is that I often start to hear things in the music, little words of phrases attach themselves, or parts of other songs make a pattern on my brain with a specific sound repetition in a tek track, so I'm often running nonsensical lyrics through my head, while my feet dance to one beat and my body and arms each dance to something slightly different. I dunno. It's just a lot of fun, especially with a good bunch of people on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning :)
By the time the stages had started to wind down, around 11 - 12 on Sunday, we were starting to get a bit tired and had done the traditional trick of moving our chairs to the edge of the dance floors so you can sit down for a bit in between dances and still listen to the music. Then once the whole thing was all said and done we hit the campsite to try and get some sleep before driving home. The original plan was to stay as long as we needed to, possibly overnight until Monday, but by about 6pm it was time to go, so we struck camp and headed down the road, getting slightly lost on the way out, but managing to find the main road again fairly easily, we then had a fairly uneventful drive home except for the complete morons on the Hume. Sheparton also played host to the Spring Nats that weekend, so there were a lot of hotted up cars on the road and a few people who were probably a bit too tired or drunk to be driving yet. Like when we came across a clump of six cars, three in each lane, each about two meters behind the car in front and all going the same speed, with one or two of them occasionally weaving across the lane a little bit then harshly correcting themselves. It was an accident waiting to happen but they were all too scared to speed up over the speed limit and too pig headed to slow down the space out or to allow one lane or another to get in front. We ended up just hanging back in the left lane until someone eventually decided to change the situation. There were a few other examples of sheer stupidity, but just suffice it to say, we're happy to have gotten home alive :) I still need to finish unpacking the car :)
Oh, I chose the above photo as I've had a running theme here of attractive girls in my blog entries. This girl wanted a photo with me and then wanted to take a photo of me, and once more, I was not interested in denying a cute girl her request. I guess I'm just a soft touch :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
I Just spent three days up in Sydney for work, and managed to make the most of the time by catching up with a couple of friends. On Monday I met up with Tash, aka quirks from flickr and inthemix, and we had fun chatting away and filling a few gaps that hadn't been covered online. It was good to meet her in person and i'm sure it will make it easier to speak online.
The highlight of the trip though was getting a chance to catch up with Beata. We have been friends for many years now, well over a decade, and while she still lived down in Melbourne it was a very strong friendship indeed.
The last time we saw each other was almost two years ago, and the previous time was many years before, so there was quite a bit of catching up to do, even still, the time seemed to go very quickly and it seemed that we had only managed to share a few stories before I had to head off. Beata is such a clever and kind person, it's quite refreshing to talk to her, and she has quite a silly streak that appeals to my sense of humour :)
Of course she is also incredibly beautiful, and has become more lovely over the years, as her self confidence and strength of character has grown. Anyway, she's a very good friend and I was very happy to have been able to spend some time with her :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Friday night was my first ever gig as an 'official' photographer for In The Mix (ITM) at their Inthemix.05 party featuring Canadian DJ Tiga and a bunch of big name locals such as Ajax, Dave Pham and Mike Callander. The ITM website runs on contributions, so I signed up as a photo contributor, because in theory I might get into some gigs for free. and here we are :) The Tiga gig was kind of on our list as a 'maybe' anyway, but it wasn't looking likely until I get the regular weekly contributor email stating that their selected photog pulled out, so I replied that I was interested, and asked if a fellow photog (Joe) could join me.
Sara and Jay from inthemix were happy for us to do the gig, and arrangements were made. The only tricky part is that you have to be there for the whole gig, from 10pm onwards, and you have to make sure you get the stuff they want.
So we get there a few minutes before 10 to meet up with Jay, get our AAA passes and our instructions: Ajax, Tiga, whatever other DJs you happen to get, the staff, and punters punters punters, lots of punters. Later modified to: lots of hotties too :)
So we oblige him, getting what I think is a whole lot of really good shots. Joey's working the 10d and his A510, and I've got the 5d going strong, using the new 50mm for the DJ and arty work, and running the flashgun hot, thanks to the new diffuser.
I have to say, it was kind of a drag sometimes, but having full backstage access is really nice, having the security guards and bar staff smile and nod hello when they see you, and being able to push your way through the crowd a lot easier because of the camera on your shoulder more than makes up for it.
One thing that really makes up for it is the amount of times I was stopped by incredibly beautiful girls and asked to take their photo. Some were very keen to know who I was taking photos for and when they would go up on the site, but some were just interested in getting their photo taken regardless of what it was for, and one pair was actually keen to pose in 'whatever way I wanted' but I was too dumbstruck to push the envelope too much :)
Overall it was a pretty good night, although after walking out of the gig into the rain at 6:30am I was knackered :)
"You can't stand next to the tree with a camera"
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
There I was, in Federation Square, camera perched on the crook of my arm, waiting for my SMS to come up on the Optus display boards, when I hear the finest piece of security work I've ever been witness to:
"excuse me sir, but you can't stand next to the christmas tree with a camera"
"what?" I ask, not sure I heard correctly
"You can't stand next to the tree with a camera"
awesome. just awesome. I'm stupefied by a mix of confusion and disbelief.
"how far away I need to be?"
"about ten feet"
"can I take a photo of the tree?"
"yes, that is fine"
"why?"
"orders"
"does it seem strange to you? we're standing in a large tourist area, next to a giant tourist attraction, but I'm not allowed to have a camera"
"are you going to move sir?"
So I kowtow to the greater authority and move to the designated distance, and stand there with my camera, satisfying the needs of the security guard, and all is now safe and happy in the world.
Of course, fed square is private property, so they have a right to expect me to follow any legal directions or leave the premises if I don't like it, but I didn't feel like getting kicked out of fed square, and that's how it was looking.
So I emailed them and this is the response I got:
From: "Peter Middenway"
Subject: Policy re photography at Federation Square
Scott, Thank you for your e-mail in relation to your contact with
Security at Federation Square last night. It has and always be the
policy of Federation Square to encourage photography within our
precinct. I am afraid that on this occasion, a guard new to the site,
made an incorrect decision based on newly acquired training in relation
to suspect behaviour.
I apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused and will ensure
that in future all security guards are aware photography is encouraged
on this site.
Regards,
Peter Middenway
Manager - Security & Services
reclined
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Ever noticed how sometimes the unplanned evenings are the best?
on Saturday Mick and Steph sold their house at auction and so we all popped out for a quick drink to celebrate. As is often the case, our quick drink turned into a long night out, mainly due to the search for somewhere to dance. We started drinking at The Bridge, popped down to Hubcap for a boogie, didn't like to music so headed in to Stellar Bar to see if mikey or luke were there, they weren't and the music was dreary, so we sifted over to loop where the music was fantastic. Lovely stompy psy and some great window-box seats on a sultry night led to the perfect end of the evening.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Friday saw another Flickr meetup roll around, starting at The Mitre Tavern then heading off to E55.
The Mitre was pretty crappy, although we did meet a very cool spanish couple, Bruno and Arantxa, and they followed us along to E55. They were very cool people, in town for a little while in the middle of their 3 month honeymoon, a very nice couple indeed. We were also joined by our usual friday night drinkin crew, so it was quite a funny night, especially having started at such a crappy place like The Mitre ;)
The Rollcall:
barbfi
s2art
pappalicious
Donina
F o u t u g r a p h e
The Cardinal (aka Joe)
byte
Dj MuDGuTz
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Well, a whole afternoon/evening at the Retreat Hotel in Brunswick for aLive, a live music/dj gig run by some inthemix.com.au guys. The whole day in the sun, enjoying some great tunes and some great beer, kicking back with some very cool people, taking shitloads of photos and getting very drunk. Later heading to Bridie O'Reilley's for Nikki's birthday and then heading into the city for some more tunes at Stellar bar, then down to Chapel street to hear some more at Playpen, basically a very large evening, drunk as a skunk. It was great :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Well, I managed to succumb to the great mammon and bought myself a new camera, the Canon EOS 5D, a serious upgrade form my 10D (which is now on loan to Joe).
The 5D and the extra accessories I've bought are to help me create some of the images I see in my head but couldn't quite get into my camera. So hopefully we can expect a lot more night work, long exposures thanks to a timer remote, cleaner bar shots due to a faster lens, truer colours due to better white balance, and better flash work due to a decent diffuser.
Hopefully. :)
Monkey!
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
This would have to be one of the best DVD purchases I have ever made, the complete boxed set of Monkey!
Monkey is based on the story of the origins of Buddhism, but the main part is that it's the story of cheesy costumes, bad dubbing, and fighting demons for Buddha :)
Amber brings some laughter down from Sydney
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
This weekend was a large scale catchup involving six distinct circles of friends :) There was the Friday night dinner with Lee/Clare/Kylie/Matt, followed by some drinks and dancing with Kathryn/Amber/Jarrod/Matt, Saturday started with some Flickr related fun with Joe/Colin/Mitch which then segued into some Joe/Steph/Mick/Usha/David fun, then some Joe/Dean/Felicite shenanigans, then Sunday saw a little Joe/Mick/Steph/Katrina/Dan/Cath BBQ at Mick & Steph's place, then Monday night was some Joe/Trudy/Helen/Rose related drinking for Trudy's Hens night followed later by aJoe/Kathryn/Mudgutz/Usha/David dancing spectacular at the John Digweed gig. No wonder I was too tired for a Colin/Gavin/Stuart catchup on Tuesday night :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
one of the things that Photography has done for me is to open my eyes. Every day we walk down the same streets, pass the same things, often pass the same people and we don't really notice them. Something about the way the human brain works and it's method of hiding the details that you don't really care about, means that you pass by these places and don't really see them. You might 'know' what they look like, and you definitely recognise them when you see them, but you probably haven't looked at them for years. One trick that all this photography has given me is the occasional ability to reset those details back to 'default' (or 'tourist') level, so you start to notice them all over again and start to see things that you hadn't realised were in there. You have to be in the right frame of mind of course, you have to have your 'mojo' flowing, otherwise you can't turn your eyes on properly, but when you do it's really quite amazing how many interesting things you can come up with.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
There's something very relaxing about playing bowls. It's quite an interesting game in itself, fairly easy to learn, quite simple to feel like you're progressing in skill, and yet hard enough to master that you know it'll take a while to get there.
So spending a sunny afternoon down at the bowls club, drinking good beer at low prices, walking on the green in bare feet and having a roll and a laugh with your friends is a pretty good way to pass the time.
The Statesman speaks
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Mick is now old, well, not really old, not like, as old as me, but he's past the mythical 35 year boundary, that we used to think about like they used to talk about the sound barrier, as an impenetrable wall, with kids on one side and old people on the other side. ok. to be honest, 35 was only the 'magical barrier' when you're already past 30, and you have convinced yourself that 30 is still young, but that 35 is old.
Well now Mick is over here with me and we're looking at 40 like it's some kind of 'magical barrier' (you know, like the sound barrier)
I'm sure Mum is looking around thinking about 65 as this 'magical barrier' :)
geektron 2000
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Friday came around again, after a very busy week solving all the world's problems I was very much in need of a drink, but forced to limit myself to below my normal alcoholism levels due to the fact that I was On Call this week.
So after work we headed down to our new favourite little bar, E55 on Elizabeth street, for a few choice beverages. It's a very good bar, with cheap prices, good service, and jam packed with cool people and good music.
The other aspect of the bar, it's internet cafe persona, also came in handy when the On Call pager went off, because I was able to pull out the laptop and connect to work and sort out the problem, upload a quick snap to flickr, then go about my business :)
Of course it was a very public display of geekiness, but you get that on the big jobs :)
shoulder to cry on
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Friday night was pretty much a non-event. Having spent the entire day trying to fix an urgent problem at work without much success, I wasn't really in the mood for much, so I went and had two drinks down at Yak, Managing a very quick catchup with Lee, who just got back from a holiday in Europe, having got engaged and just having had a birthday there was a bit of catching up to do and not really much time, so we'll need to catch up a bit more at her birthday dinner next weekend. Then I went back up to work, then went back down to meet Bec and her former flatmate Rachel and went with them and Joe and Pommie John to Cherry bar. After another two drinks there everyone went home and I went back to work to keep slugging away at the problem. After working until 11:30pm I finally gave up and went home, anticipating a long day at work the next day, but when I woke up the next day I had a little brainwave and also got some suggestions from a colleague and managed to get it all fixed up without going in to the office, much to my joy :)
Friday also brought a piece of happiness in the form of my prizes for that photo competition. Some new sunnies, new goggles, a 2-day lift ticket and a voucher for some Mountain Designs gear. So on Saturday, after being reprieved from a day of gloomy work in a chilled computer room environment, Joe and I went into the city to do a little shopping and I bought a new jacket.
Saturday night saw us out in the city to catch up with Clare, Peta, Erin and Nikki. Joe and I met up in the city a bit early and went to check out a bar called e fifty five on Elizabeth st, some place that DJ mudgutz was always keen on, which turned out to be a pretty good place. Underground, nice crowd, good bar staff, great music, cheap drinks, and apparently free wireless internet as long as you're there drinking.
On the way to the bar we ran into a guy on the street who was looking for some directions to a particular hotel that he had accommodations for but had forgotten the address. We spoke for a minute or two and he was a bit drunk, having just gotten out of Goulburn jail after nine years, and was having trouble finding the place he was meant to go to. He had it written down on a piece of paper but had the paper wadded up in his pocket and it had gotten wet at some point so it was basically just a big wad of slightly discoloured paper with no chance of getting an address of it. He seemed a pretty happy drunk, not even a hint of violence or danger, even after learning that he'd just gotten out of jail. I think he was a little disappointed we weren't more scared, and he'd obviously spent most of his freedom so far in the pub and only left when his money ran out, so we each gave him a few dollars to get a meal. I hope he found his hotel, he didn't seem to be comfortable out and about on the street, seemed a little nervous and kept repeating himself, but I'm sure he'd have found his hotel, as we were only a block away at most.
After our time at e55 we went off to meet up with the girls at Pugg Mahones. We get to the bar and find it filled with a Uni Football team in an advanced state of loudness, singing along to the two guys playing guitar and belting out aussie pub classics. A bit concerned about the size of the pub, the lack of our friends and the lack of a dance club upstairs as described to us, we finally get a hold of the girls to discover that the "going out in the city" actually translates to "going out in carlton" and that there are in fact two Pugg Mahones. We jump into a taxi out to Carlton, very happy to be out of that place, and wind up at a much better version of the same pub, with a band playing modern dancy hits interspersed with a DJ placing some decent tracks without too much top 40 :) The girls are all there with a bunch of other friends and we all settle in for a fairly large evening.
Later on our friend Sean joins us, as he's down from Brisbane for the weekend, and despite not having met the girls before they were soon all hitting it off like old friends. Overall it was a pretty good night, lots of silliness and fun and drinking of drinks :)
Sunday was a fairly lazy day, waking up at lunch time and then going over to watch a movie with Kate. She was over in Box Hill house sitting for her boyfriend Nick while he was off on some flying trip around the country, and her previous lunchtime engagement had fallen through so she invited me around for a catch up and to watch Young Adam on DVD. It was good to see her as I hadn't seen her much in the last month and was missing hanging out with her. The film was interesting, a rather morbid tale set on the Scottish canals following the life of a man working on one of the barges during the 40's, played by Ewan McGregor. All the scenes were rather pale and dreary and Ewan ended up having sex with just about every woman he came into contact with, to the point where we were joking that it was Scottish Soft-Core pornography. It was quite a good film despite that as the story was quite interesting, and it took a while to work out if he was having flashbacks or fantasies every time he drove the barge into a tunnel. It was also very good to see Kate again, especially since we are catching up on Tuesday anyway to see a film :)
s2art stage #1
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Today was another Flickr Meetup for members of the Melbourne Flickr Group, meeting at what we've dubbed our unofficial home, Transport at Federation square.
It was a good day to be sitting around drinking and chatting and taking photos, and I managed to catch up with the guys and meet a few more of the flickr crew. They're a pretty good bunch of people and we usually have a good laugh.
There was a funny moment when some girls sitting near us seemed to take up a little 'camera fever' after we'd been all snapping away and they started taking photos of each other with their mobile phones, only to look up and realise that 4 photographers had joined them and took a photo of the pair, which made them laugh :) The funny part was that one of them was a photographer as well and had her own flickr account :) small world, she made it to the flickr meetup and didn't even know it ;)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Saturday was pretty busy, with a trip down to Williamstown for a bit of a photo shoot and some fish and chips, and then later on that night Joe and I went in to Stellar Bar to listen to some friends DJing.
It's a really good bar and Mike and his mate are really good DJs, happily throwing in all sorts of weird tracks like a remix the the theme from "Different Strokes" that we heard the last time we went or the remix of the theme from "The Muppet Show" that we heard last night. Not something that you would think of off the top of your head as a track to play, but they worked really well nonetheless :)
children today worship a new god
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Last friday was another usual day, where much time was dedicated to drinking of alcohol. Now, this friday we had an official occasion and everything, since one of the team at work was moving to a secondment in another section and another member had just become permanent, so don't panic, it's all official, we were celebrating. :)
Given the nature of the evening we didn't even hang out at Yak, but instead went down to Manchester Lane with a fair sized crew to have some drinks down there. The night progressed well and ended up with Joe, myself, Clayton, Kathryn, DJ Mudgutz and Matt as the stayers, lasting until we were all quite silly-drunk :)
Clayton was very funny all night, happily walking up to complete strangers and asking to take their photo, usually very attractive women. It must be something about being married :)
woodchop
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
This weekend was fairly quiet. With me on Lates and Joe in Sydney there was no real impetus to go out and get drunk on Friday, so instead I had a couple of quiet drinks with a colleague who was down from Sydney and then headed home at a reasonable hour.
Saturday I was ken to avoid any entanglement with the footy Grand Final, so I decided to head off to the Royal Melbourne Show and see if I could find a few photo opportunities. The show was quite small this year, particularly because of renovations occurring on the main showgrounds, so only half of the showground and grandstand were actually available, the rest being fenced off. The show itself has only a few things worth seeing, the events such as woodchopping, equestrian, dog showing, livestock judging, etc. Then the showbags, which as a kid were the main draw of the show but as an adult can be seen for the garbage they are :) Lastly the show has all the usual array of carnival rides and games of chance. Every tent had its own tout with a microphone hooked up to their PA shouting out to the crowd about how their game of chance is the best to play and how they are the ones giving away all the big prizes. As a rough count I saw about 6 'water race' games, about 4 basketball hoop games, 3 'magic ticket' games, 3 laughing clown games, a few ball toss games, one shooting game, and that's about all. :)
A highlight was overhearing a carny explain to a pair of twenty-somethings how the laughing clown game works, and the smirk on her face as she wondered the same thing I did, how you get to be 20+ years old without ever seeing the laughing clowns before :)
The rides had a few new faces this year, basically all working on the round-and-round-up-and-down principle, and most of the same old things like dodgem cars (three sets) ferris wheels (two) and roller coasters (two) were still there.
I went back later in the evening for some night shots and basically photographed everything there was to shoot at least twice :)
Sunday was spent on the couch watching crappy tv :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Been on the late shift all last week, which gets kind of boring towards the end of the week, but at least it gives me the chance to wander arounf the city shooting some night shots, which is becoming a bit of a tradition with me when I work lates.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
I have won a photography competition! Woo Hoo!
This photo has been judged Best Action Photo from amongst 1500 other images vying for Best Action, Best Landscape, Best Personality and Best Overall photo in the Victorian Alps. The Competition was run by the Vic Snow Report website and winners were just announced and I won Best Action!
In true Scootie style, I just submitted some entries and went about my day, not really thinking about it, even when their mail systems stuffed up and lost a few entries and we had to resubmit, and even after they sent out an email saying the judging was delayed etc, I didn't really think about it, because frankly, how could this really apply to me? In fact I didn't even notice I'd won, but was asked by a colleague "did you win an amateur photo competition" to which I replied "I don't think so" because I couldn't think of any I'd entered. Turns out another KPMG person had entered and was keen to see if they'd won and one of my friends was looking over their shoulder at the time and recognised my name.
I'm pretty happy that I won (still a little stunned) because I am very proud of this image. I had to stand in the snow for hours, freezing my fingers (and ass) off, despite wearing gloves (yes, shooting in ski gloves, I love my gloves, they rock, but that's another story) and I was shooting on Manual exposure and Manual focus, because the action was too fast for the camera to react properly, and I knew I'd gotten some really good shots at the time, and had a few "Eureka" upload moments when i put them on the computer. Add to that the fact that I nearly lost all these images when my HD crashed!
Also, in other related coolness: this ski trip I had come to the conclusion that my goggles were stuffed, as the foam was finally going, and they tended to fog up now, and also that my sunnies were in need of replacing, as they were slightly scratched (titanium lenses, very hard to scratch) and the rubber joints were disintegrating, and the lenses were out of position and needed to be refitted, and especially the fact that I lost them on the way home, all added up to Scootie spending some hard earned moolah on new eye wear before the year was out. But no! for Scootie has just won some prizes, including new Bolle sunnies and Goggles. Now technically, I'm an Oakley man, but who in their right mind would knock back free sunnies? not me, that's for sure :)
So there you go, lucky to get the shot, lucky to keep it, lucky I was able to resubmit it, and lucky to have won, luckily winning something I really needed!
Of course, my luck is now officially all used up :) But you get that on the big jobs.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Saturday was a special day, with the arrival of Earthdance 2005. Earthdance is a global event where simultaneous events are held in over 200 cities in over 50 countries, where everyone is dancing to the motto: Give Peace a Dance.
The Melbourne event was held in Fed Square and attracted a few thousand people by the time the day was over. The weather looked a bit iffy at first, and even rained a bit earlier in the day, but this didn't really do much to discourage us hard-core types :) Sure, a few people drifted away when it started to rain but most of us just tucked down a bit more into our coats and stayed where we were. I don't even think the hackie-sack game was even interrupted by the rain, although they did change to a dryer hack when the rain stopped.
Overall the day was fantastic, really good music, lots of good people and a pretty good mini-crew of flickrites. Joe was there of course, as was DJ Mudgutz and I even met up with WenDee from flickr too :)
The highlight of the day for me was seeing some of the costumed capers that are quite common to this event and to Earthcore, such as three people dancing on stilts, two dressed as trees and another dressed as a mermaid, dancing around a large sun while red painted jugglers danced with them. My favourite of all these was three girls 'breaking free' from their urban confines, dressed in ragged suits and ties that had started to become entwined with nature, sporting leaves and tree branches, all the while elevated on stilts made out of milk crates. One of them is pictured here and they were obviously having so much fun it was infectious :)
The Music was top notch and the dancing great fun and we just had a blast. Being the neo-flickr event that it was, we even ran into s2art as we were walking away, as him and his wife Nikki were heading out to dinner for Nikki's birthday. They were going to Transport but we suggested it might be a bit loud with all the DJing going on and that they might try elsewhere. :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Last friday was fairly standard fair. Started at Yak for a few beverages, managed to convince my team mates to come along for one or two and also met up with DJ Mudgutz which is now considered normal and won't be commented on especially.
We had a few at Yak and then headed off to The Long Room to meet up with a few friends of Mudgutz's, which turned out to be rather attractive women, so we stayed for a drink or two there until the overpowering scent of pretentious people (not our friends, but most of the other people there) was too much and then skedaddled home for a fairly early night.
kate shakes her booty while the cardinal entertains the foreman sisters
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Saturday night was the evening of Tania's housewarming, and quite a big night it was :)
Tania has bought a nice flat in Kew, just near the Cotham Rd/Burke Rd corner, which is a very roomy, 70's built, two bedroom apartment, with quite a nice view out towards Doncaster.
The party officially started at 8pm, and we arrived not long after that, a bunch of us having met up at The Palace beforehand (Mick, Joe, Steph, Dan & Cath). The party itself was fairly small, with us, Tania, Katrina, Kate and her new boyfriend Nick, and some friends from Tania's work, etc, all in all about 16-17 people. The party started with the usual amount of milling around in the kitchen, then slowly but surely headed towards a mad dance party in the lounge room :)
The party steamed on, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.
It was good to finally get a chance to talk with Kate's new boyfriend Nick. I'd technically met him at the Sexy Party but we hadn't really chatted that much. He's a pretty cool guy and didn't seem too phased at being thrown it at the deep end and being grilled by so many of Kate's friends :)
After much drinking and much dancing, the official party ended up about 1am, with taxis called to ferry away the party guests, leaving myself, Joe, Tania and Andrea (from Tania's work). We decided that we needed to go out and headed into the city to Brown Alley where Joe and I had planned to go to hear Superpitch DJ.
We arrived in good stead and had no trouble getting in due to Joe having arranged for a spot on the guest list. I hadn't been to the club before and I was pretty happy with it. The layout is a bit weird, with only a tight spiral staircase between the three levels, but we hit the main dance floor downstairs and there was plenty of room to manoeuvre. Not long after arriving Tania and Andrea left, looking for some 80's music, so Joe and I stayed on and later met up with Becy and some of Joe's other friends from the In The Mix forums.
The music was great and we danced until about 5am when I was finally too tired and had to leave. We jumped a cab home and I spent a very lazy sunday at home surfing the net and loading songs onto the iPod mini I'd bought the day before (they're cheap now that they're being discontinued in favour of the iPod nano)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Yet another friday, passed into oblivion this week, as all time goes once it's been used, it's destroyed, forged into the ashtrays of the future, or whatever happens to time when it's used up.
The day turned into an amusing end, with a little more time spent at Yak and Lustre with some of the usual crew. The original intent of the evening was to spend more time with Peta and Clare, as we hadn't really caught up in previous weeks, merely been at the same places, so Lustre was designated as the official meet point, with intention of heading to The Lounge or to Loop later on. But, as Robert Burns wrote, The best laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley, and we actually started out at Yak. There were various reasons to do with the timing that Clare finished work, and the need to meet Mick and Steph and 'Teen in a place easy for them to find, and so we started at the usual, where we were joined by Clare, Peta, Mick, Steph, Mudguts (from Flickr), and more than one or two alcoholic beverages.
We moved on down to Lustre at about 6pm, and who should we run into down there but Felicite and Sarah, almost like a mini copy of the previous week at Lustre :)
So we settled in for a few more drinks, and were joined over time by Erin, Stuart (Flickr), Dean (had been working late) and some friends of Clare and Peta's. After a few hours the crew started to break up and go their separate ways, so Joe, Mudguts and I eventually headed over to De Biers for a few minutes to say goodbye to the girls. It was very hard to maintain to Mudguts the concept that we hardly ever go there when we greeted by one of the barmaids like long-lost friends (she used to work at Yak), and also happen to be up on the photo wall of fame (the manager and Joe went to high school together), so I don't really think he believed us :)
On the way home I did the usual drunken stop at Macca's, made more difficult by the occasional spouts of torrential rain from the severe thunderstorm we were in the middle of, and while walking back home I spied Mick, Steph and 'Teen over in The Bridge having a drink. I popped in for a quick pot and then went home and managed to get some very nice lightning shots off the balcony.
The funny thing was that with all the people that ended up showing up, we didn't really get much chance to catch up with Peta and Clare :) oh well, maybe next time.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Last Saturday was the New Zealand Te Kotahitanga (Unity) Festival at Federations Square, including the launch of the Te Karangatahi Waka, and due to the fine efforts of fellow flickrite Kiarobro, we were on the list as official photographers for the whole day's festivities.
The day started early with preparations for the arrival of the Waka, a hand crafted boat which were traditionally used to move between the islands and invade other territory. The crew of the Waka disembarked on Federation dock and were greeted by the elders of the Wurrundjeri tribe, the traditional owners of the site.
Later the day saw a whole lot of New Zealand and Polynesian/Maori celebrations, including some traditional dancers and some more modern fare.
There was also an attempt at the world record for the most people performing a Haka outside of New Zealand. The previous record was 505 people, and this event had over 2000 registrations, so they are likely to be awarded the record after Guinness scrutinise the video of the event.
It was a great day and we took a lot of photos, that are to be cut to a DVD and given to the organisers, but otherwise we've gotten some fabulous stuff for Flickr :) I really enjoyed myself, despite being a rare aussie in the crowd, everyone was so happy and having a great day that even my cheering the Wallaby's was met with good natured boos and hisses :)
(this is something I just whipped up in am email, to tease a friend who we're trying to convince to move to Melbourne from Canberra)
Congratulations on your choice of moving to what many refer to as "The World's best everything ever". In order to smooth your transition into this multi cultural melting pot that is the great City of Melbourne, the following questionnaire has been prepared to help us, help you.
Please be sure to answer all questions as it is necessary to fully profile your Melbourne experience to meet your needs
Desired Future Living Area:
(a) Central: CBD, Melbourne, North Melbourne, East Melbourne
(b) East: Richmond, Hawthorn, Camberwell
(c) South: St Kilda, Brighton, Elsternwick
(d) West: Footscray, Kensington, Williamstown
(e) North: Carlton, Fitzroy, Brunswick
(f) Non-Cool: all other locations
Originating Area:
(a) Melbourne Outer Suburbs (section (f) above)
(b) Country Victoria
(c) Other: Please don't specify, we're not that interested
Reasons for travelling to Melbourne:
(a) Always wanted to move there
(b) Work transfer, plus always wanted to move there
(c) Backpacker, plus always wanted to move there
(d) Homeless, plus always wanted to move there
(e) I've always been a heavy drinker
Marital Status
(a) Married, but looking
(b) In a relationship, but looking
(c) Single, and interested
(d) Single, and easy
(e) I've always been a heavy drinker
Please also rate the following sports on the scale provided:
Footy (the good one) - Really Great \ Great \ Good \ Willing to learn
Footy (the meathead one) - OK \ Stupid \ Pointless \ I support the All Blacks
Footy (the round ball one) - Good \ Boring \ Confusing \ I Don't watch SBS
Please also rate the following beer brands on the scale provided:
Tooheys - OK\ Poor \ Bad \ Very Bad \ Just Like Emu Bitter
Four X - Really Bad \ Very Bad \ Extremely Bad \ Never tried
Carlton - Great \ Good \ OK \ Good \ Great
Boags\Cascade - Great \ Great \ Great \ Great \ Good
Please indicate which of the following activities you are likely to participate in while in Melbourne:
Drinking Heavily - Yes \ No
Watching Footy - Yes \ No
Riding Trams - Yes \ No
Going to Fed Square - Yes \ No
Visiting the Shrine - Yes \ No
Driving up and down Chapel st - Yes \ No
Going out to clubs/bars - Yes \ No
Going down laneways to drink - Yes \ No
Eating Chinese food - Yes \ No
(please note that a 'No' answer to any of these does not automatically
preclude you from moving to Melbourne, it merely means we may need to
interview you further)
Birthday Girl
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
So what have I done since skiing? Well, I spent a week at home sick. I won't go into the details, but whatever I had, you definitely don't want. It was one of those things where I didn't even have any appetite, so I didn't go out and shoot photos or anything because I didn't have any energy. I think that from Sunday night until the following Saturday I at the sum total of: three serves of toast, 5 biscuits, and about 10 potato chips. That's it. So I spent the whole time on the couch, or doing a little work from home on the computer, although the motivation was very poor indeed.
I had a pretty negative attitude all week, especially since my external hard disk died on the way back from the snow, so I didn't have access to any of the pics I took until Georgie burned them to DVD for me (I'd kept a copy on his laptop). Even without pictures to upload, all of that time should have led me to a frenzy of flickr activity, but to be honest, I was completely unmotivated to do anything except sit on the couch, half asleep, watching DVDs.
The next week was a bit more exciting, being back at work and all :) although it was actually a lot better, what with being actually able to eat and everything :) The week was ok, started getting my socialisation back on track, went to dinner with Kate on wednesday night, to a nice little Thai place near her, although I forgot we were supposed to be going to dinner so I brought over some chips, much to the amusement of her housemates :)
Friday I was up to my usual antics, drinks at Yakbar with Joe, Peta, Clare and John, where we were joined by fellow flickrnaut DJ Mudgutz. We had a few drinks at Yak and then moved on to Lustre lounge to meet up with Felicite and the crew for her birthday drinks. While we didn't officially meet up until Lustre lounge, I actually accidentally met up with them at the ATM between bars, which was funny because they didn't realise they were standing behind me until I turned around. As well as Felicite we also had Dean, Bec, Julia, Paul and Sarah, plus the crew we dragged down from Yak.
We had a number of very fine drinks, although I was on call so I had to curb my beverage intake somewhat. After some time at Lustre we headed off to get some noodles at a very good (and very friendly) noodle shop next to Robot and The Deanery, and then headed over to Pony, and since the music wasn't what we were looking for we headed to Loop. That's where I left the crew, as I had a photog gig on Saturday, but more about that in the next entry :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Well, the time for the annual ski trip to Falls Creek has come and gone, so I thought I'd better get around to posting an update. This year's trip was pretty good, with a few variations on the regular themes, enough to keep things interesting. The crew this year was as follows: Myself, George, Sharon and Adrian Hillier with their kids Zach, Cassie and Jade, Chris and Danielle Cawood with their kids Tamara and Nathalia, Chris and Tamara Stillwell with their kids Colin and Cayley (and pet rat Angelina), John and Jo Novak with their infant son Nicholas, Phillip and Liz with their son Nathan, and Warwick and Jackie. So that's 14 Adults, 9 kids, and one rat.
One of the variations on this trip was that we had the majority of our groceries and alcohol delivered up to our lodge for us by the supermarket in Mt Beauty. This meant that we didn't have to lug a whole lot of boxes of food and drink up through the oversnow and seriously reduced the amount of gear we had to carry up and back. Another variation was that George and I caught the bus up the mountain from Mt Beauty, along with the Cawoods and Novaks. This is something the Cawoods have done in the past because they haven't had a car themselves (they live in Perth, and fly in to stay at Chris' parent's place in Albury and get a lift down to Mt Beauty). We did the sums and it turned out to be cheaper for the two of us to buy bus tickets and park in their undercover parking, than it was to pay for a week's resort parking and chain hire, not to mention the fact that we didn't have to fit chains and trudge through the snow to the car. The only slight drawback was waiting half an hour longer for the bus on the way back home, and that was really because we booked our oversnow early enough to allow for delays. Also, this year, due to the large number of people, we had actually spilled over into a second lodge, which also gave George, me and the Cawoods a place to escape when it all got a bit too busy at the main lodge :)
The skiing itself was very good, Sunday we arrived during a clear sunny day, with lots of snow on the ground and blue skies overhead. Monday was our first day of actual skiing and despite the heavy falling snow, high winds, occasional sleet, and near total whiteout near the top of the mountains, the snow was pretty good and we got a decent morning's skiing in before deciding to go back to the lodge and give in to sanity :)
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were all bright clear days, blue skies and sun, excellent skiing all over the mountain, and to be honest, some of the best days I have had in the mountains. I was very happy with the snow, extremely happy with my gear (especially the new ski pants that were warm and dry in the blizzardyness and still cool enough on the sunny days. I skied my favourite runs at the Summit, powering down the steeps like a absolute champion. At least until my thighs were burning and my knees were calling me all sorts of bad names, when it was then time to return to the lodge (a short ski away) for much needed refreshments :)
Tuesday night was the first part of the extreme sports (apart form skiing itself) that we would get to witness this year, where some motocross riders were putting on a show of jumps and tricks in the snow outside our lodge. This was the second year they'd had this event and it was till a lot of fun to watch, especially the big finale which was one guy doing a backflip followed by fireworks, which seemed to be going off just outside our lodge, needless to say we are very happy with our choice of accommodation :)
Friday it rained and I did not ski, instead we sat in the lodge and watched DVDs, played games with the kids, and watched the rain try to wash away all of our beautiful snow.
Saturday was lightly overcast, but mainly clear, a bit cold, which meant the snow was excellent, and it was another day of great skiing.
Saturday evening saw the Big Air competition on the summit slopes about 300m in front of our lodge, with a large number of skiers and snowboarders going over a 55 foot kicker jump to compete for prizes such as Biggest Air, Best Trick, Best Costume, Best Old School trick, etc. I went out and stood in the snow for a few hours to get some good shots, and was chatting to the kids next to me and generally having a good time freezing to death in the snow at night :)
Sunday was the day to come home, and just as well since it started to rain again and was not the most pleasant of days to be in the mountains, so we left :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
As requested by Peta and Joe, here is the 'breast shot'.
Peta was going on the prowl later, so stopped by Yak for a few drinks first. I was helping her to determine the effectiveness of her top in attracting men. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Sunday was filled with a great variety of activity and emotions.
The day started (at 12pm) with a BBQ around George's place. Some old friends of ours were in town from Perth for a while and took the opportunity to arrange a big get-together of all the old gang from the late 80's :)
As it turns out, most of them have been spending their time having children :) lots and lots of happy children. It's quite funny, because you don't really think about it, until you're in one room and realise that 1-3 kids per couple, and 5 or so couples, ends up being a lot of kids :)
Can anyone ever truly say that kids aren't cute? I guess it's a survival trait or something :)
The whole thing was excellent, and I was able to spend a lot of time catching up with people and seeing what everyone's up to. The food was sensational, thanks to George's three skewer spit, so it was spit roasted lamb and chicken and home-made dips :)
Sunday evening I went to see a movie at Fed Square with Kate. It was part of the Melbourne International Film Festival, and it was a film called Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire and is a documentary about the UN General who lead the peacekeeping force into Rwanda and was there at the time of the Genocide portrayed in the movie Hotel Rwanda.
It was quite an open portrayal of an extremely disturbing incident in history, where human beings performed inhuman acts to one another, and Dallaire was tasked with doing something about it without being given any of the things like authority and manpower that he needed. Dallaire himself is quite a likable person, and you can't help feeling his frustration and horror at what was happening around him and his inability to do anything real about it. It eventually led to his breakdown and he is still not completely recovered, but it was heartening to see the reception he received in Rwanda, where the people there were clearly aware of how much he was actually able to do, despite him personally discounting them compared to what he felt he was required to do. Kate and I had seen Hotel Rwanda and so we were very interested to see something more factual. Hotel Rwanda itself was a very good film, and did give you a sense of the atrocity that was going on, but at the end of the day it was a fictional piece, based on reality, whereas this film was a documentary of Dallaire's return to the country on the 10th anniversary of the genocide.
Needless to say it wasn't a "fun" movie, but it was very moving, and made me get a little angry at myself for not really paying enough attention to what was going on at the time. I guess this sort of thing happens a lot, but that doesn't make it right.
Anyway, I think it's an important movie, and it helped to improve the characterisation of Dallaire after Nick Nolte's version of him in Hotel Rwanda, although that wasn't too far from the truth, it didn't do the man justice I think.
flickr-meet
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Saturday was the day of the first Melbourne Flickrmeet at Fed Square. This was a great event, with a really good bunch of flickrnauts showing up and chatting away, talking about cameras and photography and flickr, but also talking a lot about Melbourne and every other possible topic under the sun. There were a few cries of "Geeek!" (mainly from ziz) but all in all they're a pretty cool bunch of people. I think that I would be happy to have any of them in my circle of friends even if we didn't all have the photography/flickr thing in common. Those in attendance were Donina, Oz Lomo, WenDee, make.money.fast, The Cardinal (aka Joe), F o u t u g r a p h e, ziz, barbfi, Eyecatcher, lonely radio and s2art
I had a great time meeting everyone, I think we need to do it again. next week :)
clare and peta
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Friday saw some traditional drinking shenanigans :) It started out with a few drinks with Clare and Peta at Yak. I hadn't seen Peta in a while so it was good to catch up a little. The girls were heading down to De Biers afterwards, as they were very keen to get some gentlemanly companionship and De Biers has never disappointed them before. Come to think of it, I think I recall Kate and Kerry doing the same thing back in April, specifically targeting De Biers for this :) After Yak I headed out to The London in Richmond for John's birthday drinks, managing to get extremely drunk by 11pm and catching a taxi home with Joe. :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Did you realise that I seem to start most of my blog entries with "Last weekend" and follow with "haven't seen them in a while"? It's almost as though I only exist on the weekends, and that I never catch up with anyone. My week tends to be filled with work and discussion of work and stuff around work and spending time with people from work, near work. It has been my intention from the beginning to not discuss work to any great extent, hopefully not at all, within this blog. So that's a large part of my week already taken away from blogspace, and the rest is mainly weekends and drinking. This week for example, I actually spent some time on Monday night with Joe going to see the Spirit of Tasmania and did a big shoot of the boat, beach and port.
bollywood
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Saturday night was the night of the annual KPMG Ball which is usually filled with pomp and pageantry, and this years was no exception. My date to the ball was Leah, who wanted to go along and wasn't a social club member, so wasn't interested in paying $150 for a ticket when members and their dates only pay $85.
The theme for the ball this yeah was "Bollywood" so the room was decorated like a Bollywood musical and almost all of the entertainment was Indian themed, including some traditional style dancers, some modern dance numbers, some traditional music and one snake charmer/dancer that was quite interesting.
I have been to the ball seven times over the last nine years, and it's generally a lot of fun, although like anything, it depends on who you hang out with :) This ball was probably the second best one I'd been to, and I had a significant amount of fun and managed to catch up and have a dance with some people I hadn't seen in a while. I had a great time dancing and chatting and laughing it up with everyone.
The one part of the entertainment that wasn't really Bollywood themed was the dance music. The DJ played a bit of Indian styled dance and then when the 80's cover band came on it kinda blew that out of the water, so it went straight to western dance music after the first 80's set. :) The band was the same as last year, and a really good 80's band for a dance gig, playing all the old favourites like Jessie's Girl and Mickey :) The DJ was pretty good too, playing mainly mainstream dance, but not any of the super super cheesy numbers that some clubs play, so it was deemed 'acceptable' by me :)
Everyone seemed to be having a good time and I finally ran out of steam at about 1am and headed home. It's always a long queue for a cab at Crown, so I usually walk up to flinders st station to get one. It's always a fun experience walking around the city in a tuxedo, for some reason everyone looks at you funny :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Last week was fairly low key, having been on late shift all week, which usually makes me a bit slow around midday and cranky all week, at work anyway. One benefit is that come 8pm, I'm wide awake and ready to go, with enough energy to be out and about for a few hours easily. This has of course lead me to do a couple of night photo runs, walking around the city looking for shots and generally just wandering about. I finally managed to get some shots of the flames at Crown Casino that I'm happy with, and generally just made a nuisance of myself around town, looking like a tourist and taking photos of things that normal people don't take photos of. :)
A lot of time was spent in the rest of the week doing some html coding for the Flicky Awards for Excellence in Photography on Flickr (of course)
Friday night started out fairly normal, with the usual plans to only have a few drinks, not have too large an evening, etc. It began with meeting Joe and Steph down at Yak for a few drinks after I finished at 8pm. It was good to catch up with the both of them, as Joe has been on convalescent leave after his ear operation two weeks ago, and I don't see Steph as much as I used to, since she used to be my flatmate :) We had a few drinks and a bit of the usual chat and laughter, although the crowd at Yak was quite loud, and managed to get all caught up. Then it was off to Pheonix to see Kate and as it turns out to partially rescue her from an ex who was making eyes at her, another guy flirting with her, and a girl who was after the ex making a point of ignoring her :) So we breezed in and they left and we all had a bit of a laugh about it :)
mid-mallow
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Sunday was my neice Courtney's eighth birthday, so it was time again to venture down to the family in Rosebud.
The day was pretty good, there were two activities planned, bowling and rollerblading, both promising to add up to a big photo op, plus the usual amount of general silliness that manages to associate itself with the Sandars family, and believe me, Courtney is no stranger to silliness :)
I have to admit that there were times when the squeals of 5 little girls was making me wish I had ear plugs, it was still a lot of fun, despite having to scramble at the last few frames to not get beaten at bowling by an 8 year old :)
look, in the sky, it's a bird!
Originally uploaded by Scootie.
Friday was a pretty busy day, and yet not one filled with photographs, which is kinda weird for me, but there you go :)
The socialising started early when Kim, Shaz and Max met me for lunch. We had a pretty funny time, taking a few funny photos of Max and trying to work out what the heck he was trying to look at :) still don't know for sure, but probably colour and movement of some kind :)
The evening started off slow but ended up quite well, especially since I spent it in the company of a group of very beautiful women. :)
After work I twisted Kathryn's arm to go down to Yak for a drink, where we were joined by the incandescent Kate and her friends Georgia and Fran. All four of these women are truly beautiful and I was very aware of the fact that I am a lucky man to have hung out with them :)
We started at Yak and then went to St Jerome's, Cookie and Crofts. A great night, spent with some really cool chicks, and I didn't take any photos at all, still not sure why :)
