Everyday Interesting

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.

Going for a roll

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.

Mick is now old

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' :)

public geekery

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 :)

right pub, wrong place

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 :)

flickrmeet

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 ;)

stellar

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 :)

friday shenanigans

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 :)