Reports of my death have been mildly exaggerated.

Blah blah blah, insert self deprecating quip about being a slacker, blah blah blah :)

So, what's being going on? The usual :)

These days I find myself walking around with my head on a swivel, constantly on the look out for a good image, the next perfect photo opportunity. I try to carry my camera with me everywhere, just in case something interesting takes my eye, and on the very rare occasions when I don't have it with me, I see such bizarre and noteworthy sights that it makes me cry on the inside for not having captured them.

In the process I've discovered a lot of very interesting images nestled in amongst the everyday stuff, and it's pretty cool to spot these little things, even if you don't capture the image perfectly, it's still a buzz to notice it :)

Another benefit of being turned into an internet broadcast node for flickr/blogger is that I have made a number of friends in all sorts of weird places. It's kind of weird to think that taking photos is a way to make friends, but it works really well. All you do is share your photos, and take the time to looko at the photos other people have shared. Comment nicely on the ones you like, and especially on the ones that make you laugh, don't forget to be specific if you can, and you'll end up having them comment on yours. You'll end up taking photos to show to them, and they'll take photos because they want you to see them, and it all ends up in abig mess of friends and it's great :)

Photo opportunities:
Airshow - pretty good airshow, the usual collection of boys toys being perused by the usual collection of mullet wielding petrol heads :)
Moomba - didn't get any shots of waterskiing but I did get some great fireworks and night-carnival stuff.
Light and movement - spent a bit of time trying to capture images from moving vehicles, and managed to score a few good ones :)
Dilo - a flickr favourite, capturing a Day In the Life Of flickrites, photographers from around the world, all capturing what they were doing during the day of 21 March 2005.

Dancing opportunities:
Two tribes - A great piece of fun, lots of good music, many great friends, and some spectacular dancing. Had some very very funny moments, especially when a new friend of ours (lilsarah) was getting ravers to show us their spinning around trick where they spin their hat the opposite way so that the hat seems to stay still while they spin underneath it. So funny to watch her work these guys. We laughed for hours :)
Jan Johnson - Went to Room for Kathryn's birthday and saw Jan Johnson perform. She was awesome, singing the vocals to heaps of really good tracks, really a top night. And good to be out and about with Joe, Kathryn and Clare. :)
Belfast - Popped in to the Prince of Wales for the Belfast gig. A great night, some good music and not too crowded.

Social opportunities:
Whitehorse Closure - The Whitehorse Inn on Burwood Rd closed this month. The pub is one of the ones we used to frquent as it's just across the road from Mick & Steph's, and just down the road from me and Katrina, and they have acceptable beer. The pub closed because of an insurmountable increase in their state property taxes. In 1998 Property tax for the Whitehorse was $1400, and this year it was $40000. I challenge any small business to come up with a spare $40000 per year just by snapping their fingers. It's a pretty nasty situation all round, with businesses all over the state being forced to close their doors. The land the Whitehorse is on will be redeveloped and turned into an office block. Great.

a quick woo-hoo

flickr gets mentioned in Focus magazine (2/2)
Originally uploaded by mac steve.

Just a quick entry to blog the fact that technically I have been published in a german magazine called Focus. In an article on Flickr, they published two of my squared circles photos (the I [Heart] Huckabees button and the green Coopers cap). :) Hey I'm famous ;)

usual haunts

Last night was a trip to the usual haunts, yakbar and de biers.
I think our attitude to De Biers has changed a bit since "the incident" (Venue 28) and while it's still basically crap, we now have a much larger scale of crap to rate it on, so it's gone from an 8 to a 2 ;)

So we started at a very busy Yakbar, with Nicole, Joe Leah, Kathryn and some general IT crew. Clare, Erin and Clare's brother Ben and his friend Mel joined us later on and stayed for a bit before heading down to De Biers.

We stayed for a while at Yak, and I had a flickr friend of mine buy me a drink even though he wasn't there :) Two weeks ago I accidentally ran into Stuart from Flickr, as he's good friends with Pete, the DJ that works at Yak, so he'd come down to see Pete and listen to him spin. I was somewhat surprised to see him there, and we had a bit of a chat, and he took a dodgy photo of me, and I took a dodgy photo of him (mine was too crappy to post). So as I was leaving I secretly bought him a drink via Baz, so he didn't get it until I had left :) So he'd had Pete keep an eye out for me and buy me a beer next time he saw me, which he did :)

The funny part is, that I don't normally drink Coopers, and I already had a Jack Daniels and coke going, but didn't want the beer to get warm, so I started alternating sips, and that's where the trouble started. You see, unbeknownst to me, it turns out that beer and bourbon go exceedingly well together. Or specifically, drinking a wheaty beer like Coopers sparkling ale, and then drinking a nice bourbie, like Jack Daniels and Coke, work extremely well together, each making the other taste significantly better. So you end up drinking a mouthful of beer, then taking a sip of bourbon that tastes almost orgasmic. Seriously, a couple of times I even lost concentration on the conversation around me and just stood there savouring the taste. Then I'd take a few more mouthfuls of beer, the first being superb and finally getting back to the normal beer taste, at which point it was time for another taste of bourbie heaven :) Then again, drinking two drinks at once has even your barman looking at you funny. Oh well, I was a borderline alcoholic anyway…

Then we popped down to De Biers and caught back up with Clare and Erin and the crew there. We were a bit confused at first because where we normally sit was all roped off for a 21st birthday party, and we couldn't see the guys anywhere else. Then Joe spotted Erin over behind the roped off section. They'd talked their way into the party because Clare wanted to watch the footy on the big screen :) Typical Clare chutzpah :)
We hung out with the girls 'behind the velvet rope' and had a pretty good time. Took a bunch of photos of Erin because she's such a crack up (and she loves the camera) and she's such a cutie :)

We kept it pretty low key and left about 11:30, plenty of time for a few slices of pizza and a tram trip home :)

Slacker

Ok, so clearly I'm having trouble keeping up even a weekly blog, and now almost the entire month of February has gone past without a post :)
I take some solace in the fact that at least February is a short month :)

So, what's been going on? Mainly drinking and Flickring :)

Events of note are:

Trader Bar (Friday, 11 February 2004)
We went to this bar because Kathryn had read an article about it in the paper and wanted to check it out. It's not too bad as bars go. It has the obligatory unmarked alleyway entrance, so only people who actually know it's there are going to go :) The concept of the bar is that most drink prices are on a shifting scale, based on demand, so the more people buy of one type of drink the more expensive it becomes, and the things that nobody buys are relatively cheap. Every now and then there's a market crash and everything goes down to base pricing. I think it's all rigged though, becase there was a price crash fro 15 minutes while I was watching and then drinks went straight back to what they were on. Anyway, it's all in fun, and it encourages you to buy a whole lot of different drinks (which we didn't) or you'll spend too much (which we did) :)
Kathryn's sister Danyelle was visiting from Bris-vegas and she managed to fit into our little group rather easily, making fast friends, especially when we met up with Clare and Peta down at De Biers later on.

The Sexy Party (Saturday, 12 February 2004)
Saturday brought a much anticipated event, the Sexy Party!
Kate's friend Kerry and her housemates have this party every year, where the dress is fancy and the theme is sexy. This particular one was special because it's the last one after 5 years of tradition, as they are all moving out into new digs. In fact they were moving house the day after the party, due to circumstances beyond their control, and felt they would have the party anyway as a last hurrah.
The party was a riotous affair, with a large proportion of people dressed up in costume, and sexy-ful activities such as Whip Cracking cowgirls, Classified Personal ads on the wall of the kitchen, Dexter the Love Computer and their Infamous Kissing booth (a friend of ours got dragged in with 4 other people and ended up snogging two people she'd never met before :)
For my costume I went as Abraham Lincoln, just so that when people asked why I could say "what do you mean?" implying that it's obvious to everyone just how sexy Honest Abe is :) Of course that meant I had to spend three hours making a hat, but it came out looking pretty good and I got a lot of compliments, so that was worth the effort :)
Overall it was a very good night, lots of fun, talked to heaps of people and generally had a fun time. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves (some a little TOO much) but you expect that at a party don't you ;)

Felicite and Dean's wedding (Saturday, 19 February 2004)
The other wedding of the century in our group :)
The wedding and reception were held in at Red Hill Estate, in front of a small group of about 60 friends and family, with a backdrop of a beautiful view of the winery and out to westernport bay. The weather was a little grey, but the rain stayed clear and it wasn't completely freezing :)
The ceremony was very nice, with some unique touches. At the start of the ceremony, as the bride arrived the groom met her and they walked down the aisle together. Then they each presented a single rose to their mothers, prior to the main ceremony commencing. While the celebrant was speaking and they were saying their vows the wedding rings has been tied together with silk and were being passed around the audience, for everyone to hold them and make a little wish for the happiness of the couple. Felicite's mother and Dean's mother and sister all had a little speech as part of the ceremony, and we all had to vow to keep supporting them in their relationship. At the end we pronounced them husband and wife, rather than the celebrant. Overall it was a very sweet little ceremony, full of little touches and niceties.
Felicite looked very beautiful, of course, and the bridesmaids Bec and Clair were also looking lovely. The guys looked very spiffy too, but then it's usually easier for guys ;)
The reception was a lot of fun. Heaps of food in a Tuscan style, so it was all laid out on platters in the middle of the table, so you could grab as much of anything that took your fancy, so we all ate too much :)
The speeches were touching and funny, and there was a lot of dancing and talking and general good times.

Bec's last day at KPMG (Friday, 25 February 2005)
This day saw Bec's last day at KPMG, she's secured a position running the project office for a big SAP implementation down at Medibank Private, very similar to a role she had in our SAP implementations, so she should do very well indeed.
So we all gathered at Misty and had a few drinks to celebrate her good fortune and to commiserate ourselves for not having her around the office anymore. It was a pretty good night, got to chat to a lot of people, met a new person from work, Leah, who is pretty cool and will probably be joining us again for the Friday funnies.

Heroes in Tyrol (Saturday, 26 February 2004)
Kate came around on Saturday and her, Joe, Steph and I watched a movie she has called Heroes in Tyrol, an austrian musical that is so funny it's unbelievable. Just a quick note to say that if you ever get the chance, watch it.

Venue 28 and beyond...(Saturday, 26 February 2004)
Ok, so if anyone ever asks you to go to an over 28's night, because it will be fun, your answer should always be in the form of: NO.
Any variation is allowed, and certainly any emphasis, such as "Hell No", "No chance", "No fucking way you psycho!"
So, here we are, sitting around watching a very funny movie, and Steph says "So are we going to an over 28's or not?" this was our chance, the one opportunity to redeem ourselves, to remain pure of spirit, to not be corrupted. We chose not to take that opportunity, and believe me, that was a mistake.
Off to the shoppingtown hotel we go, the location of Venue 28.
I guess we were expecting a slightly older crowd, maybe people in their mid-thirties, and a few older and a few younger, a few people to secretly make fun of and only a few 'cool' people like us to share conspirational winks with. What we saw in fact was a large group of people, a few in their thirties, a lot in their forties and fifties and sixties, and ALL of them with a predatory gleam in their eyes that started to make you feel a bit dirty after a few minutes. Watching them circle each other like a school of hammerhead sharks was bad enough, but watching the dance-floor was even worse. Some of the sharks liked to dance and were just out there having a good time, but some of the sharks wanted to attract a few bites themselves, so they were out there flaunting what they had and hoping to star in a feeding frenzy. If you can't imagine it clearly, start thinking about all of your mum and dad's friends out at a dingy club, sleazing and groping all over each other, dressed to the nines in their best open chested shirts and shiny slacks, chatting up each other and generally angling for a quickie in the parking lot.
Anyway, needless to say, we won't be going back there again on pain of death, it was quite unpleasant and we were not enjoying ourselves, so we had a few drinks and left.
We came back into the city, breathing a sigh of relief as we left suburbia behind and entered the glitzy world of our own sleazy dives :)
We started back at Alia in Fitzroy, but nobody was dancing and we were having trouble re-adjusting to society where what you see across the room is ACTUALLY what you se up close, and the trendythons were too jarring after what we'd been too, and there was no dancing to lose ourselves in until we readjusted.
So off we traipsed to The Builder's Arms up the road, which we knew for a fact would have dancing going on, and which would be sufficiently pink-polo-shirt free also :)
The night ended well and we were all happy to be back to normality (at least our version)

Tropfest (Sunday, 27 February 2004)
Sunday I went with the incandescent Kate and her friend Kerry to watch the finalists for Tropfest, which was also an excuse to lounge around Alexandra gardens and have a picnic etc. The films themselves were pretty good, and Kerry's friends seemed pretty cool, although I mostly spoke with Kate and Kerry, as we were all sprawled out across a few rugs and it was harder to get up and move around with 50,000 other people sprawled out in the same area :)