red noses

froggy
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Friday was red nose day, so a bunch of the service desk guys at work were getting into all sorts of red nose silliness and shenanigans. Which is good, shenanigans are good, silliness is good. it's all good. :)

DILO

blur-te
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Tuesday was another DILO on Flickr (Day In the Life Of) so I spent a bit of time out and about taking photos, trying out a few new locations and grabbing some new shots of old locations.
I've also spent a bit of time this week watching Coupling, which I rate as my favourite TV comedy show, along with Black Books and Spaced, it's a show I can watch over and over again and it still makes me laugh out loud.

Who's queen?

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Just a quickie blog to talk about something funny that happenned last night. I went to the Astor with Kathryn again to see Beetlejuice and The Goonies, which was a lot of fun, as both movies are timeless classics.
We sat up on the Balcony as we usually do, which has this flat railing thing in front about 15cm wide that people sometimes rest their snacks or what have you, and at the end of the second movie, as the credits weer rolling, the cat who lives in the theatre, often seen lounging on the antique couches in the foyer, strolled along the balcony rail, looking as though it owned the place and was upset that all these noisy people had come ti disturb it. Which is probably exactly what it was thinking. :)

barlife

giant squid and the masai
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

This weekend was very much a blur of bar life. Friday started at Yak (of all places). It started when we ran into an old colleague, Les, on the way to the bar, so he popped in for a few drinks and a few old stories, then another ex colleague Lisa popped in for a catchup drink, and then later another more recently ex workmate Bec showed up with a friend, Mona, from work. We had some good chats with all the involved and managed to get fairly well drunk before going our various ways. I headed off to the Croft Institute where Kate was hanging out with her friend Craig and a few assorted 'film types' who seemed ok but later were found to be a little into their own work and not really much deeper than that. We then progressed onto Loop for a few more beverages and I decided i'd be better off leaving, and taking a few drunken photos on the way home.
The bulk of Saturday was spent in the flat, watching bad TV, flickring and then escaping the bad TV by re-watching some old Coupling episodes (Coupling, like a lot of british TV comedy, rocks. Still makes me laugh uncontrollably after many many viewings).
Saturday evening was an interesting one. Firstly Joe and I headed down to Southbank (cameras in hand) to go to a birthday party for a friend of ours at a trendy-esque bar on the river past Jeff's Shed. The bar (Alumbra, don't go there, even Citysearch think they're over the top) was feeling a little self-important I think, they took a booking for a Birthday party and refused to allow a guest list, told our friend that they start to get strict on the door at about 10, then proceeded to get strict about 8 and even felt 'sorry' for us that we didn't have a guest list. They were obviously trying to generate some coolness by seeming exclusive, and trying to reduce the male/female ratio to somethign a bit more balanced, but weren't willing to state it out loud (which is smart of them, as we'd 'equal op' their asses) and simply told us there was 'nothing they could do' they even told Diana (the birthday girl) that they couldn't guarantee they'd let her boyfriend in. Apparently the place never got that busy, stupid bastards. I was also keen to point out to the bouncer girl that knee high white leather boots didn't really suit her (or anybody for that matter) but it wasn't worth it.
We wandered off down the dock and took a few more photos and then went down to St Kilda to join some crew at the Prince of Wales hotel.
At the pub were Bec, Felicite, Dean, Paul and Sarah, basically the usual St Kilda crew, and not surprising since Bec now lives about 100 meters behind the pub :) We were having a good time, a bit of silliness from Felicite and Bec as they'd had a bit to drink and are usually capable of cracking me up with their silly hijinks. I also spent a bit of time talking to Boaz, an old friend who works security at the POW, who steers clear of the 'not with those shoes' type of security and more towards the 'got some id?' and 'I think you've had enough to drink' type. Which is much much better :)
Sunday was another lazy day at home, watching a bit more Coupling and then later on going to meet Kate to see a movie.
We went to see A Good Woman, which is based on Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan and is a very funny film. Afterwards we went to Brunetti's to have some Coffee/Coke and catch up a little, reading some snippets of poetry from a book she'd just written, a rather pleasant evening.

parking

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

I've been hanging around in carparks a lot lately. For some reason they seem to produce a lot in the way of interesting shots.
Something about the way they're constructed, low ceilings or bare concrete, fluoro lights, red pipes for sprinkler systems, polished concrete floors, plain paint, black, white, cream.
Even their exposure to the elements is interesting. Multi storey buildings with an exposed roof let you get up close and personal with the other buildings, and gives you a different angle on the steets.

The Canberra Connection

Hydrant
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

This past long weekend was spent in Canberra, checking in on The Canberra Connection and making sure Mick get's his fix of Kingsley's Fried Chicken.
We went up there for Usha's Divorce party, celebrating a very happy occasion that lead to a large number of hangovers on Sunday morning :)
Drove up to Canberra on Friday with Kate, which was as much fun as an 8 hour trip can be in the pouring rain after a long week at work :) we had a fun time singing along to cheesy music in the car, and she didn't object too much when I stopped at Holbrook to take photos of the submarine buried in the ground :)
While in Canberra I stayed at the home of Therese and Edmund, who are very nice and generous people, and they treated me very nice, cooked me breakfast and didn't get too upset when I interfered with their dog Sammi's training by playing with her when they were trying to get her to be still :)
Saturday was raining too much to take photos outside, so Mick, Edmund and I went to the Australian War Memorial to avoid being trapped shopping with the womenfolk ;) Therese's brother Martin was not so lucky, as he's just moved out of home (that morning) the girls dragged him around all the homeware stores to determine what he needed. Poor guy :)
Saturday night was Usha's party, with a large crowd in attendance, and a good time had by all. At one point the guest of honour had to retire due to drunkenness, but soon rallied and got back into the party :)
Sunday was a good day to be at Therese and Edmund's, as they made steamboat for lunch, and a whole bunch of people came around for us all to tuck into some very good food. Tender morsels of meat, fish, seafood, cooked in a spicy Tom Yum soup. The only problem was working out when to stop, I ended up eating for about an hour and a half :)
Sunday was a very nice day, so after lunch the guys went off to play golf and I drove around the city a little and took some photos. Sunday night was off to Steph and Katrina's parents house for a big roast dinner.
Now one of the cool things about Canberra is that they still have fireworks on Queen's Birthday weekend (which was this weekend, for the overseas readers, I know it's not the actual Queen's birthday, it's just a holiday thing) so Ger had some fireworks and we let them off. Never mind the fact that we weren't actually in the ACT, as the suburb they live in is over the border in NSW, we let them off anyway :) Steph was pretty funny, as she was not very comfortable around the fireworks and was very keen to move away when they went off, a process that often involved fleeing in panic :) The funniest part was when one of them flew up and over the neighbours fence into their yard, Steph and Katrina's mum laughed so hard I thought she might be going to pass out. We were all laughing ourselves silly at that stage though :)
Monday was fairly boring, mainly involved with driving home, this time with Katrina in the car, the both of us laughing at the people driving who were too competetive to let anyone pass them, but too scared of speeding to actually go over the speed limit by more than afew kph when overtaking to get back in front, so they'd come up fast behind, pull out into the next lane, then drift past at a miniscule rate :) morons :)

Weekend Hijinks

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Well, the week is almost over, with very little time spent at work, only two days out of five, with the rest spent doing ITIL training (which was pretty cool)

Off to Canberra this weekend for Usha's Divorce party, so I won't be posting any pictures or Blog entries, but there'll be a bunch after I get back.

I've also received the Diana camera that I bought off DRP, so I'm taking it to Canberra to see what sort of shots I can come up with. Should be fun :)

In other news Berley has had the baby! :)
Baby Max was born late Thursday afternoon, weighing in at 3.5kg, Mother, Father and baby doing well, and hopefully she can finally ask him if he really sent her those emails from the womb. ;)

Training

Canine Couriers
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

I'm at a training course this week for ITIL Service Management Essentials. It's going pretty well so far, and of course I like the fact that I'm not at work. It's also located down near the shrine, so I'm spending half my lunch break taking photos. The other half of my lunch break was spent eating the free lunch, because it's free, you know? :)

Bec and Deepdish

toto and the cardinal
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Saturday night I went to see Starwars again with Mick and Steph, and then we met Katrina and Tanya for dinner at Penange Coffee House, where everyone had Laksa Lemak except me. Apparently it's the best in Melbourne, so if you like that, check it out, it's on Burwood Rd near Swinburne.

Later on we went over to Bec's new house in St Kilda, just behind the Prince of Wales. We had a fun night, me, Joe, Steph, Bec, Lorna, Felicite and Dean, sitting in her new loungeroom just talking crap as per usual :) They're such a good crew, I'm a very lucky person to have so many good friends, pretty much everyone I hang out with is a really special person.

Later that night Joe and I went to see Deepdish at the Metro. The music was fantastic and we thorougly enjoyed ourselves.

Dance parties can be very high in serendipity, lots of times a random piece of luck occurs that shouldn't normally happen. There also seems to be habits that we form when we're out at these parties, so we end up dancing in the same sorts of locations all the time, we don't conciously end up up the front, or off to the right, or whatever, but somehow manage to end up in a similar location for particular types of music.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. One the left we have Toto (I'll explain the nickname later). Now we haven't seen toto in a while, over a year I think. An we didn't know he was going to this particular gig. But we used to go out on the same crew years ago, so we have the same dance patterns, the same feel for where to be on the dance floor. So in the middle of the gig, in a crowd of a thousand or so, I turn around and Toto is dancing behind us. He hadn't noticed us before, it's just where we ended up and where he ended up. I know it just sounds like a coincidence, but it has happenned many many times. In fact one of our friends, Doddsy, went through a stage for a dozen or so gigs where he always just stumbled over us :)

Toto is so named because he plays soccer at a local club, as does his older brother. His older brother used to wear red soccer boots and got the nickname Dorothy, so when his younger brother started playing at the same club...

What I did on my autumn holidays - Friday

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

The day itself was spent in repose. In slackness reposing my ass on the couch all day, which is fine and acceptable and anyway it's not your job to judge me! ;)
It was actually a strange and unusual friday for me, because I didn't drink, owing to the need to travel out to a party at East Malvern, I decided that driving was going to be easier all round.
Dropped into Yak to catch up with a few of the guys, meet Kathryn's other sister, then off to East Malvern it was.
The party at East Malvern was Mitch's birthday party, and it was a chocolate fondue party! All deserts, no main meals at all. Some great cheeses, some quince paste (which I absolutely love!) and lollies, biscuits and fruit to dip into the fondue. The food was very yummy, and there were three puppies at the party running around amongst the guest's legs all night, which was very funny to watch :)
I also had a chance to speak with a friend of Mitch's that just bought a Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II, which is the top of the line Digital SLR from Canon, and even got to fire off a couple of shots. Man, that's one snazzy camera. On the way back into the city afterwards I snapped a few pics at a music shop near the Rivoli, as evidenced above :)

What I did on my autumn holidays - Thursday

peek-a-boo
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Thursday was Zoo day. I went to the zoo a couple of sundays ago with Joe but we didn't get time to visit all the animals, so it needed a bit of a re-shoot.
Two of the areas that I was especially keen to try and photograph were the Reptile and Frog exhibits. It was pretty hard to get the right shot sometimes, but the varieties of frogs and reptiles is amazing, and I could easily stay there for ages just looking at those guys. Some of the frogs were only as big as a thumbnail and one of the Giant Pythons could definately swallow a small child.
The Zoo rocks, go to your local zoo right now :)

What I did on my autumn holidays - Wednesday

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

This was the official lazy day of my holidays. It wasn't scheduled as a lazy day, but basically when i got up I couldn't be arsed doing anything else :)
You know how it is, youw plan for something, make some decisions about how things are going to go and then procrastinate your heart out until it's far too late to do anything at all :)
Spent some of the day watching movies, spent some of the day watching episodes of Family Guy, and basically doing stuff all. Got caught up in Flickr a bit, although I'm still well behind in all the photos I 'should' be looking at, but I'm staying afloat :)

Some good news is that I won the bid on Duane's auction for a Diana camera. Duane is one of my flickr friends that is a bit down on his luck at the moment, so he's selling off a bunch of his stuff to try and get back on the up. Included in this stuff was a bunch of old camera gear, including an unused Diana, still in the box.
Now the appeal of this is that it's almost impossible to get a 'perfect' picture with this type of camera. The lens is made of plastic, the bosy usually leaks a little light, so it creates some very interesting images and I just can't wait :)

What I did on my autumn holidays - Tuesday

High Voltage
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Tuesday was another good day, as most days are when you don't have to go to work.

Met up with Kate for lunch, down in Southbank near her new employers premises. We had a very nice lunch at The Malthouse (I had bangers & mash) and then I wandered around taking a few photos, as I have a tendency to do.

What I did on my autumn holidays - Monday

blurred and bright
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Well, I've been on leave all this week, so in theory I've had heaps of time to update the old blogerino, but then again, here we are :)

Monday was a pretty easy day, slept in ofr a bit and then went into the city to shoot some photos, most of which didn't really make the cut :)

Monday evening I went to the Astor with Kathryn to see a movie. The original plan was to see Flashdance, but in reality, it wasn't playing, so we ended up seeing Fame instead. Now, Kathryn hadn't seen Fame before, but had really enjoyed seeing some 80's movies the other week that she hadn't seen before, so was still looking forward to it. I had seen Fame before, but was willing to 'take one for the team' as it were. The movie was ok, still the same movie, and Kathryn even asked at one point "Why would they all go dance in the street like that?" so her soul is safe. The second movie playing was Breakdance, which Kathryn also hadn't seen, and I believe I acted in true friendship to ensure that she still hasn't seen it.

rack off!

rack off!
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Definately an action packed weekend, big nights both Friday and Saturday, each followed by lots of eye and brain work Saturday and Sunday in s2art's Photoshop Workshops, which I thoroughly recommend to anyone interesting in doing more with their photographs, I got a lot out of it, although I expect I'll spend a lot more time working on my photos now :)

Cath's 40th was really good. We have a lot of good nights out, but this was one of the best parties I'd been to in a while, with a lot of people I hadn't seen in ages, and even some cheesy dancing :)

superstar dj

superstar dj
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Last night at Yak was a special occasion, with Hayley working her last shift. Hayley has worked at Yak for some time, since her father Mark took over the ownership of the place. Hayley is a pretty cool girl, and will be moving on to run her own place, so we'll probably pop down there once it's open :)

Today was also a good day, as it was the first day of s2art's Photoshop workshop. I wasn't sure how much I would get out of it on the first day, if it was going to be a lot of time covering the stuff I already new, but we went straight into some interesting work and pretty much the whole day I was learning new bits and pieces, and tomorrow looks promising too.
But tonight it's off to The European Bier Cafe for Cathy's 40th, so that should be a bit of fun.

bored

bored
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Here's some news for you: Late shift gets boring :)

So what are we supposed to do? well, one option is to spend our time on flickr and blogging, so I'm doing that, but it's not as much fun when you're sitting at work doing it.

This weekend is looking pretty busy, I'm spending Saturday and Sunday in a Photoshop Workshop, Learning a bit more about manipulating my images so they come out how I want them to. Saturday night is Cathy's birthday party at The European, so that should be a bit of fun, and next week I'm on holidays!
yay hooray for me! :)
I have no fixed plans, probably going to spend some time on the couch watching movies, and some time on the computer looking at photos, and I'm hoping to spend a lot of time out and about taking photos until my eyes bleed from accidentally hitting them with the viewfinder. Which I did last night for the second time in my life. It hurt less this time, maybe I'm getting used to it, becoming accustomed to ramming a piece of black rubber into my eye.
Ooh, I wonder if there's a club I can go to where people will do that for me, perhaps Georgie can help me out there...
And here I am blogging about boredom when Kate sends me an SMS saying that she is waiting for a Tram and that she's bored. Small world :)
(small and sometimes boring)
Not that YOU people are boring, but you aren't around at the moment, so I'm bored.
I'm the chairman of the bored.
(as per Iggy)
that's all
end transmission.

Late shift = Night Shot

Flinders Lane North
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Well, I'm on the late shift this week, so that means skulking around the city taking night shots. The only difference this time is that I'm so far gone on this photography thing that I'm brining the tripod in with me on the tram so I can still use the SLR :)

Movie Madness

clone wars?
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

It's been a real week of movie madness, with a viewing of Revenge of the Sith with Georgie on Thursday, and another viewing with Eleanor and Richard at Gold Class on Sunday, then on Monday I went to see a double feature at the Astor with Kathryn, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Breakfast Club. Kathryn hadn't seen either movie, and by the sounds of the audience, that was a pretty common theme. Kinda freaked me out a bit, because the concept of not having seen these movies is something that just never occurred to me :)
As for Star Wars, I guess everyone who was gagging to see it has seen it now so I can give a mini review.
I liked it a lot, but then again it's a Star Wars movie :)
There were a lot of really cool things in it, like the development of the spacecraft and other vehicles to start looking more like the stuff we've seen in episodes 4-6, so you see a progression of the technology. The CLone uniforms start to take on more of a Stormtrooper look too, which I liked. I felt that some of the dialogue could have been a bit better, but there are no complaints about the fight scenes or any of the big action sequences.
I would have liked to have seen more about Anakin turning to the dark side, as there was only a hint of his justifications, although the expression on his face when he pledged his allegiance to Sidious was very tormented. I would have prefered a little more divulgence, especially in the scene where Sidious nearly gets killed, I'd have liked to have seen more argument before Anakin just decides to attack in his defence.
But overall, a damn fine movie, even if they did chop off everyone's arms :)

Zoological Hijinks

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Sunday was spent very pleasantly by going to the Royal Melbourne Zoo with Joe for a bit of a photo shoot. It was a lovely afternoon and we saw some very nice animals, but we spent so much time dawdling through the zoo, communing with seals and monkeys that we didn't get to see all of it, including missing the elephants out and about. So we'll have to go back again I guess :)

another YakBar friday :)

patronage
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Yet another friday at Yak, drinking the evening away :) The night started out with Kathryn, Joe and Daimo, and then later Bec and Julie joined us for a few more drinks. We even accidentally met Steph's boss Kristen, as she was there drinking with som friends of hers.
It's funny, because we often talk about not going there, about going out to some other bar, then we find that some other people are going to Yak for a few, so we 'pop in for on or two' and end up spending the rest of the evening there :) Technically we also went to The Purple Emerald last night, but that was literally only for one drink, so that doesn't count. :)

Tradition

tradition
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Today was Julia's birthday at work, and was the first time in years I've seen the return of an old tradition, the decorating of someone's desk on their birthday. The guys in her team had decided to revive it and did a pretty good job of making it obvious to everyone else that it was her birthday, without actually making it impossible to do her work :)

the lens in question

the lens in question
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

well, as requested, here is a shot of the lens I've been raving about. ok? :)

And Melbourne is better than anywhere else in the world, for many different reasons:
- I live here.
- my cool friends live here
- my slightly less cool friends want to live here
- I said so

:)

last light

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

I'm on early shift this week, so I've been trying to get some shooting done using the last of the light. Did I mention the love affair with my new Lens? this shot was taken hand-held, and is still crystal clear and sharp as a tack. man I love good optics on a cheap lens :)

Probably also a good time to talk about Melbourne, and how good it is. It's pretty good. :)

silliness

silliness
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Had lunch today with the Bulbous Berley and the Shocking Shazzie, which was a lot of fun, as they are both such giggling gerties, and full of good ideas about everything. In fact the best thing for all of us to do is to ensure that we follow their instructions at all times. Things go better that way, believe me ;)

Kate's Farewell

bar staff #1
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

This friday the drinks were proudly in honour of Kate (incandescent), who left her job at OUP for pastures greener. Drinks were at the very trendy little bar called ST Jerome's, but check out the ponytail on the guy to the left! I thought those days were over ;)

Living Loud

getting louder
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Loud shirt day at work today, so the photo is one of the ITS finalists, Donna and Leah. Donna's pretty cool and usually writes a lengthy email every week inviting people to Cake Friday, which are usually quite hilarious. Leah is also cool, and is also a Flickrite :)

Mother's Day

of course there's cake
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Well, it was Mother's day, so of course I went down to visit Mum :)
I also stopped off on the way there and on the way back to get some photos, and took a few family shots as well, with the winner being this very nice shot of my niece Courtney, waiting to help blow out the candles on the Mother's day cake. It was actually pretty good to see the family, cop a few jokes from dad, make some silly faces with Courtney, helping Cindy make a few jokes at Cam's expense, and helping Mum with the list of computer and AV problems she'd accrued since last time I was down there :)

See How They Run

peta is shocked
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

The reason I bought the new lens, apart from the fact that I wanted it, was that we were going to see Peta in her latest play, a performance of See How They Run by the Eltham Little Theatre. The play was extremely funny, but don't go and see it, because it's finished now :)
But we laughed and laughed and laughed. on account of it being very funny. Peta rocked, of course, as she usually does. :)

Jas Drinks

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

This friday was spent drinking. ;)
It was the last day for Jasmine, from Facilities, as she was heading off from the wide accountant-see (accountancy, monthy python, trust me it's funny). Drinks started at Yak then moved on to Lustre Loung, which has been the scene of many farewell drinks actually :)

Another super dooper piece of news from today was that I bought a new camera lens, which is very fast so it's really good for low-light work like this, and good for close ups and portraits. In fact i'm in love with it and it's hardly been off the camera since I bought it :)

Kate's Birthday - Part two

princess
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Just another gratuitous photo to show what a cool friend I am, since part of my present to Kate was a tiara, which I think is cool. :)

A Day In the Life Of

do you want to know more?
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Today was a big day for Flickr, another DILO or Day In the Life Of, where Flickrites try to take a buttload of photos :)
It was also the day of the Glenferrie festival, and believe me, where there's a festival where little kids are handed guns by the army, or being draped with snakes, I'm there!

Kate's Birthday - Part one

blanc
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Went out this friday night to celebrate the birth of the Incandescent Kate, with a dinner at Vibe (which I didn't attend, except for the cake presentation) and then around the corner to Yelza. now this is an interesting bar, because it seems like a small quaint place from the front, and then as you head out back there's a HUGE beer garden :) A good time was had by all, especially the ex colleague that Kate was flirting with all night ;)

Anzac Weekend

fading light
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Well, this weekend was completely dominated by work. work work work. Specifically a restructure of our computer room, moving 200 systems three feet to the left, with round-the-clock shifts and blah blah blah :)
Before my first shift started Joe and I went to the botanical gardens to shoot some stuff, and I got this very nice shot of the sun through the trees. If you haven't gone and checked out Joe's stuff, I suggest you do, he's pretty good :)

exhibition

tricolour
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Went out for a bit of a night shoot, which is one of my favourite things to do on a clear night. And decided that the Royal Exhibition Buildings would make a good subject. The funny thing was that I spent ages aroung the front, including some lovely shots of the fountain (go have a look for yourself)
And then just as I was about to go, I thoguht "hey, maybe one quick shot of the other side" uh huh. yeah. Hey Scootie you idiot, they light up the other side :)

Format Change

ok, ok, ok. Clearly, I'm a craptastic blogger :) My Ability to update the blog is woeful, due to my nagging addiction to the captured image.

So the Great and Powerful Shazzie has come up with a solution: turn it into a photo blog.

So here you go. What I'll try and do now, is grab one photo from each upload to Flickr, and blog a quick paragraph about it, which should equate to an update every 1-3 days. in theory. if I do it :)

So stay tuned...

15-17 April

The big news about Friday night was that Mikey green, filmmaker extraordinaire and husband to the Ebullient Shazzie, had a film as a finalist in the Comedy Channel's Short Film Festival, so it was hyper-crucial to go down to fed square to catch it on the big screen. It was also rather important as an occasion to catch up with Shaz and Mikey. The film was superb, really funny, and actually based around an amusing plot, rather than just filming a single joke. Don't get me wrong, all of the films were really good, but I believe that Mikey's short was a cut above the rest as far as story and concept went. Unfortunately the judges didn't agree, but it was still a big kick to see them up at the finals.

The rest of the evening, wrapped around the viewing of Mikey's creation, was spent in bars with other friends :) The beginning of the evening was in Cherry bar helping our friend Elissa celebrate her birthday, and after the film viewing I went up to Yak to meet up with a few stragglers form Cherry and to meet a fellow flickrite called Stuart (s2art or flickr). So as people came and went hung out a bit with Joe and Kathryn and Daimo, then Hung out with Daimo and Elissa, then Daimo, Elissa and Stuart, then Stuart and Kate and Kerry. After some time at Yak, chatting away and drinking, Kate Kerry and I moved on to greener pastures, which weren't really that green :) Let's just say that Kate's desire to get a Pash-n-Dash resulted in us attending De Biers for some cheesy dancing, some bad drinks, and me giving Kerry a quick lesson in how to be a 'wing man' to avoid Kate's targeted boy from leaving when his friend got bored without someone to talk to.

Sunday afternoon was time for a impromptu picnic at the St Kilda botanical gardens with Felicite, Dean, Bec, Joe, Julie, Liam and Fiona :) It was a pretty nice afternoon to lay around on the grass talking shit and watching the world go by. It was such a lovely thing to do, and those guys are such great people that the afternoon soon flew by and we had to head back to Becsie's place for more fun and games. We all lolled around on the cushions in the conversation nook and chewed the fat, and Felicite and Bec gave us a dancing demonstration to their favourite tune, some of the finest cheesy dancing I've ever seen. :)

misc & other

Been a pretty busy week at the house of joy, making for a very slow week on flickr and therefore even slower in the blogsphere. Not that I could get much slower without being arrested for loitering ;)

Socially the week has been pretty good, Tuesday was spent with the illuminating Kate, where we went to see a show as part of the Comedy Festival. We couldn't get tickets to the guys Kate actually wanted to go see, so we ended up seeing The Bedroom Philosopher and he was pretty funny. What I like best about the comedy festival is going to see an obscure comic that I've never really seen or heard of before, and laughing my ass off :) This guy was doing a great 'dork' act, brown suit and all, butby far the funiest moment was him reading out his grade 10 diary, when he thought it was important to provide a ranking system for the hottest girls in his school, tracking them week to week and offering other awards such as "Most Improved" or "Best Face" or my personal favourite "Most overall ability to appear Hot". It was a very funny moment as we joined him laughing at how sad and dorky he was in high school :) It was especially touching when he showed us the week he got a girlfriend and she ranked number 1 with the other top 5 spots marked as "not important" :) it was hilarious.

Thursday night was reserved for the anti-social behaviour of taking photos :)

Wednesday I managed to catch up with Clanga, Vlad and Dutchie at the Napier to help celebrate Vlad and Michelle's new baby boy Isaac (Zach, Issy, etc) and have a general catch up. I think in many ways these guys are my kindred spirits, as they are all so artistic and expressive. Clang and I used to do club visuals together as IT/Multimedia guys with a bit of an eye for an image, and now Vlad has taken up the mantle, having always been a phenomenal graphic designer and stencil artist, so his stuff makes us look like little children :) Dutchie is also a designer, doing graphics and fashion, about to head off around the world for a quick tour of the fashion capitals. We always end up in deep conversations, redesigning the ugliness around us and coming up with crazy and kooky ideas. In the light of day these ideas never hold water, but it's great fun :) For example, one great idea of the night was to line Dutchie's club with mirrors on all the walls, then project Vlad's visuals onto the reflective surfaces from multiple points and angles, allowing it to reflect all around, creating a mad kaleidoscope of silhouettes and imagery. Of course, anyone who has ever actually tried to put sound into a mirrored room would tell you straight away that it's a nightmare, as the reverb and feedback is insanely difficult to deal with. So it'd look phenomenal, but nobody would see it because the cacophony of noise would drive them out!

Friday was a large-scale catchup session, with time at Yak to see Joe, Kathryn, Kate, Pommie John and Mark (fellow flickrite). Then off to BearBrass to catch up with Mick, Steph, Tanya and Katrina. Then Kate, Katrina and I went to a few more bars to try and see what we could find. Not much actually, as most of them were crap or closing, or both! ;) Much fun was had traipsing across the city looking for something interesting, chatting with Kate and Katrina, but the original plan of Kate and I hanging out and chatitng it up and dancing up a storm all night didn't eventuate, so we'll probably have to try it next week. :)

Saturday was wasted at work. Ten hours of my life spent doing a three hour job, so that's seven hours down the gurgler :)

movie madness and sexy becsie

Movie Watch: went to see Hotel Rwanda with Kate and her mum. Pretty good movie. Obviously it's a bit of a tear jerker, but not as many scenes of horrendous violent as I thought it might have. It was quite interesting to see how the main subject was treated, most of the message was carried by the reaction of the main characters, rather than simply showing what they were scared of. It was a very effective technique that also allowed them to show more fear and less gore. Kate's mum is cool, but then so is Kate, so that's to be expected :)

Also saw The Pacifier with Vin Diesel. Not too bad. A bit predictable in some ways, but still managed to draw a few laughs. Not quite in the same league as Hotel Rwanda, but it was never meant to be.
Recent DVD Viewing includes Donnie Darko, Twin Town, Pushing Tin, Broadcast News, Even Cowgirls get the Blues, and I'm currently watching Judge Dredd on TV. I know it's a bad movie, but it's a pretty good bad movie ;)

I think I'll always be a big movie fan. I can happily go see two movies a week and watch a few DVDs and still miss out on some good stuff. There are so many good movies out there it's just not possible to see everything that's worth seeing.

I'm having the same problem with Flickr at the moment, too many really really good photographers and I'me having trouble doing justice to their streams. My preference is to view each photo in its full page, stepping through each in turn, commenting as required. It's taking up a lot of my time and making me spend a lot of time looking at great photos and talking to friends. oh wait. that's a good thing! :)

pretty good weekend so far, started on Friday with a trip out to Point Cook for a friends Bucks turn. Photos will probably not be posted on Flickr ;) I'm sure you understand, and to be honest, I don't know if you want to see them. Point Cook is a funny place. It's one of those housing estates, but not for entry level housing, for the people who have enough to buy a small house closer to the city, but want something larger to raise a family in. As such there's a lot of really nice houses and heaps of families, just not much else in the way of social life.

Saturday night was spent around at Bec's place for her birthday party. Pretty good party, but then Bec is a pretty cool chic, so that's kind of to be expected. There were a few 'gate crashers' who were actually friends of a friend of Bec's flatmate, but it was still funny because they were a little paranoid about being there uninvited, but they were a good bunch of people, full of interesting conversations, so they were very welcome :) The party continued on a bit later at a nearby club, but I had to go home about 1am as I was very tired from the night before.

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 :)