moonlight memories

knights... lego style
And ye verily... never was there a tale such as this.

Once upon a time in the land of myths and legends, there lived two Knights. There was the Pink Knight, who was said to have too much style for one gender, and verily it was so. And there was the Knight who went by many names. The most common of these was "He who searches for the Holy Grail and has found it to be shaped in the form of a redheaded damsel and verily is pleased with that". He was also know as "The Knight who's name most resembles a Meatloaf song" and "The Butch Knight".

And these two knights did often venture forth, slaying those of Tragic Fashion and rescuing Maids and Squires Fair to do unspeakable things to their naked forms with baby oil and chocolate topping.

And they had gone forth to the Sacred Glade in the Enchanted Gardens and had seen the Horror that was Rocky, and verily it was horrible, and they had seen the Fiction that had been Pulped.

But the people were not satisfied. A cry came forth for the two Knights to don their battle garb once more, take up the Holy Blanket and the Blessed Sofa Cushions, and go forth to the Land of the Danone Faeries and the List God and his Magic Rope Circle.

So the Knights did consult the official list, and there was much rejoicing. Yaaaaaaaaaaay.

There would come Breakfast and it would be at Tiffany's. And then lo, there would come to the night following Tiffany, the blonde virgin, and there would be offerings of cars and leather and fifties clothes.

And the Knights did pack up the Sacred Esky and they went forth from The Castle of the Yellow Laminex and verily did see Tiffany and Sandra Dee and all was right with the world once more.

The End.
A little while ago, Tom happened to mention a trip to the Moonlight Cinema... and it got me to thinking...

That's when I dug up the little "story" above... you see, back in the good old days, Raury and I went to see quite a number of movies at Moonlight... it was where I saw Blair Witch for the first time, as well as, I think, Breakfast at Tiffany's (although I could be wrong about that one). And Raury had sent me a particular email asking what we were going to see next... and out of nowhere I just came up with this whole pseudo medieval riff...

However I'm not sure we ever got to see Grease... I think we tried both that year and the following year, and for any number of reasons we never managed it either time.

The whole adventure started out maybe eight or nine years ago with Rocky Horror if I remember correctly... it was actually a trip with me, Raury and Lownee (during the five and a half minutes that the two of them were dating) that started the whole thing.

I remember that we had no idea that first time how the system worked, so we actually had our picnic OUTSIDE, before the opened the gate... that never happened again, I can tell you.... not with the two plus hours to kill between the gates opening and it being dark enough for them to start the movie.

Then the following year, Raury and I went to a few sessions, including Rocky Horror again... and I think it was the following year that we got smart and actually bought season passes so it ended up costing slightly less (and I think that's the year that the story is from) to see about ten or so movies, but we also got to skip to the front of the line because we had them (that was the bit we liked best of all)... then the year after that we added Sheba to the line-up, and had the season passes again... and the following year the wheels had fallen off the whole deal and we never went back. I think we decided to do our own "Loungeroom Carpet Cinema" at Raury's house instead... at least for a while...

I do have some very specific memories of my time laying under the trees on the cushions from my old sofa, watching the crowd (or not, depending on the memory) and waiting for the damn sun to set so we could get started...

I remember, in that final year, the three of us laying on our backs eating Tiny Teddy biscuits... with me passing them to the other two, and we renamed them as we went... instead of Happy, Sleepy, Grumpy, Cheeky, Silly, and Hungry, we had Too Much Sex Bear, Not Enough Sex Bear, Smelly Fart Bear, Blowjob Bear, Buttfucking Bear... and there must have been one other one, but I can't remember what that one was called anymore. More than just naming them, I remember on one occasion after having eaten pretty much the whole packet between us, and me naming each bear as it came out of the packet, sitting up to see people in probably a three blanket radius from us kind of looking at us strangely...

I remember running into a group of fellow Homosexualists at one screening of Rocky Horror, and them choosing to sit much farther back from Raury and I, even though I was quasi-friendly with a couple of them... and in the same evening, when it got to the audience participation section where you throw toast, lobbing various bits of toast around, including one particular piece that fell by my feet right at the end of the lobbing orgy, which I just pitched straight back over my head... only to find out later that the new boyfriend (who I completely hated for various reasons) of the boy in the other group that I had a thing for had been hit squarely in the top of the head with a piece of toast that came flying from roughly our direction...

I remember on another Rocky Horror evening being very annoyed with a group of Year 10 drama students that were sitting a few blankets in front of us, particularly one of the boys in the group (if not the only boy), so when the point came for the water pistols to be brandished, I aimed mine squarely at the back of his head... the poor little love had his newspaper on his head, as you're supposed to, but he was still getting wet and he couldn't work out why...

I remember spending far too much money on goodies and nibbly things for our Moonlight Picnics... pretty much only during the time of Sheba... but then she and I did share a particular addition to food, whereas Raury, not so much.

I remember standing around making as many slices of toast as I could on warm Summer evenings so that later we could lob it around a darkened park (I'm sure the ducks made short work of it the following day).

I remember being told that we couldn't throw rice during Rocky because those same ducks would eat it, it would swell in their stomachs and kill them... but I always had this image in my head of exploding ducks for some reason.

I remember the List God and the Danone Faeries from the story... the List God occurred during a particular screening of something, I don't remember what, but there was an area "roped off" with a rope basically laying on the grass in a big circle off to one side, and this poor guy with a list (which we worked out later must have been for some workplace social event) had to make sure that people who weren't on the list didn't enter his circle... and since Raury and I had oodles and oodles and oodles of time to watch all these people choose to ignore the rope and this guy have to chase them off or consult his list if they were supposed to be there, it made for some entertaining commentary and our renaming him the List God. The Danone Faeries were part of the ongoing "free samples" that would happen on various nights... actually I think the Danone promotion happened more than once that year. On one occasion we were visited on our blanket by at least two, if not three of the girls giving away the Danone, and by the time the last one came around to us I think we ended up taking her last dozen containers off her hands (in addition to the five or six containers we'd already scored) just so that she could stop.

I remember the night I completely embarrassed myself before we'd really even gotten into the cinema area... I don't remember if that was a Danone night too, or if it was something else, but I was in the lead (complete with giant sofa cushion possibly under both arms if Raury was carrying the esky) and as we went through the little narrow walkway between the garden beds I noticed there were people giving away things and one of them was male and very, very pretty... and I said something vaguely inappropriate (although I can't remember what anymore)... and then Raury happened to catch sight of him around me... and greeted him by name... they knew each other... I've never wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole quite as much as I did at that moment...

I remember when Sheba and I attempted to go and see Grease (after the failure of Raury and I to do so the year before)... while Raury had to work late or something... and once we got there and were confronted by the huge crowd and just decided against it, so we packed up the car again and took our picnic down to the beach instead... while it wasn't an actual Moonlight Memory, it was a hell of a nice night, watching the sun go down and enjoying a picnic on the sand.

It wasn't all plain sailing though... I remember on more than one occasion being highly annoyed with both Sheba and Raury because they were late getting to my place, which in turn made us late getting to the Botanical Gardens, which sometimes meant we didn't get as good a spot as usual. What always made it worse was the fact they were never particularly apologetic about it.

But for the most part I remember the whole experience fondly.

Current Mood:

movies: miss potter

miss potter - the life of beatrix potter is the most enchanting tale of allSometimes you go and see a movie not because you think it's going to be a thrill a minute, but because of the people in it. Miss Potter was exactly that kind of movie.

It was because of Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor that I really wanted to see it. I loved the pair of them in Down with Love and I just think they have good chemistry together. So seeing them together again in this was too good to pass up.

It's a sweet movie... although I supposed, depending on what frame of mind you went into the cinema with, parts of it could be considered a little twee... but, to be honest, I was just left with the impression of a very sweet movie.

Although both Ewan and Renée were very good, and their chemistry was once again perfect for this movie, I have to say that I think that, for me, Emily Watson stole just about every scene she was in. To be honest, I didn't think about it until after the movie, but she was really strong and while her onscreen persona wasn't the most attractive, there was just something about her.

I also liked the addition of the animation for Peter Rabbit and Co. I did wonder at first if it was going to pull you out of the moment, but I honestly don't think that it does. Well, except maybe for the pumpkin coach pulled by six giant rabbits... but then I think that that's also the first time we see the animation.

I'm not sure how much poetic license was taken with the story (as much as with any non documentary biopic I guess), but it was interesting to learn more about Beatrix Potter, who I knew a little bit about, but not a great deal I must admit.

Like I said, not a thrill a minute movie, but a very sweet and ultimately quite interesting one.

yani's rating: 2 Puddleducks out of 5

montage monday: museum

museum 2007Yaaaaay... the first Monday Montage for the year...

As I promised (or threatened, depending on how you feel about it), this is from my trip to the Museum on Friday. Like I said at the time, I was kind of disappointed that the whole dinosaur section that I remember from when I was a kid was pretty much gone (except for the fellow over the Cloak Room, and the T Rex skull, which I didn't shoot, it being in quite a dark spot and all). And the whole thing seemed to be skewed more towards people than animals... or it could just be that the sections they've actually done up at this point are the ones that contain the people stuff... at least on the first two floors.

Oh, and for the record I seem to be much less of the gimp this morning...

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sprinkles!

You Are a Sprinkled Donut


Flamboyant and flashy, you're easily distracted by shiny things.

You're definitely a snazzy number, and you usually catch everyone's eye in the room.

And you've got the goods to back it up your colorful image.

(Though too much of you gives people a stomach ache!)


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random saturday adventures

rigging 2007So now I'm a gimp...

Actually, let me go back and explain that one before anyone gets a whole incorrect Pulp Fiction image in their head.

After yesterday's adventures my left hip was playing up a little during the evening, twinging a little when I stood or stepped a certain way... so obviously I overextended it yesterday with both my normal walk and then the added fun of traipsing around the Museum and Art Gallery. Either that or my body just doesn't like doing a lot of walking in my stylish red sandals... which is a shame, because I quite like them.

So yeah... if I'm walking normally and at speed I'm pretty much okay, but standing, turning, walking slowly, all that stuff, my hip complains. I swear, if my body was a second hand car you'd never be able to sell it... if it's not one thing falling apart and costing money then it's something breaking or seizing up or whatever...

Anyhow... Saturday Shopping Adventures™... Ma had her haircut scheduled this morning, so she was down here an hour later than normal, which didn't really mess us up that much (other than not finding a park as easily as usual, but we lived)... we did the food thing, then the Red Circle Boutique thing, where I found this really nice shirt and chinos combo for Stu's birthday dinner at the end of February, and a very cool canvas/leather reversible belt (but not just regular reversible... no, with this thing you pull the buckle away from the belt part a little and it rotates... very groovy), then swung past Cheap As Chips (since we needed to go to the pharmacy place near it). Letting Ma and I loose in that particular store is sometimes a little dangerous... we seem to always find something useful... cheap, not always necessary, but useful. For my part that turned out to be one of those puka shell necklaces (which I'm sure is probably plastic, but it will go nicely with the outfit for Stu's birthday), a big pair of scissors (since my old ones are crappy) and a Ganesha statue in the same vein as my six armed Buddha statue (same colouring and done by the same company I would imagine).

We decided on the way back to my place that we probably didn't really need to go off to anywhere else in a shopping sense, because we didn't really need anything... I think we've both been working on that whole Christmas shopping energy for a while... it's Saturday, must go shopping...

So after some of our patented indecision we decided to go back down the road and check up on this funky looking store we usually drive past on our way both to and from the supermarket (it was okay... some cute stuff, some very pricey stuff... I got some new incense cones) and then maybe go down to Semaphore and grab a late lunch.

We decided to go to the beach via Port Adelaide, and since the Seahorse Farm opens there the second week in February, we figured we could swing past where I was pretty sure that it was and check out the location (so we would know for next time). We did manage to find it eventually, but only because there was a sign out on the footpath... they obviously haven't gotten around to putting up any exterior signage yet. Then we got out and wandered about in the Port for a bit and ended up going to a pancake place for lunch... and we both had what basically amounted to breakfast meals... but still... it was nice, and something different.

And afterwards Ma forced me to take photos of the rigging of the One and All (okay, asked, even though I told her I was sure I'd already done it the last time I had been down there, and she'd been given those shots), since, in addition to the whole seahorse thing she also has a thing for ship rigging... she's an odd poppet sometimes...

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hottest 100 2007 reprise

clockwise from left... hoods, sisters, pbj, lily, monkeys, pyke, lady and lupeAs I mentioned, I didn't stay home and listen to the Triple J Hottest 100 today... I heard the initial couple, then came back in at around number 35 and heard the rest.

My choices came in like this...

3. The Hard Road - Hilltop Hoods
5. I Don't Feel Like Dancing - Scissor Sisters
16. Young Folks - Peter, Bjorn & John
19. Kick Push - Lupe Fiasco
35. LDN - Lily Allen
44. Love Me Or Hate Me - Lady Sovereign
57. Private Education - Josh Pyke
89. Mardy Bum - Arctic Monkeys

I got two more "right" than I did last year... woohoo... and my prediction that at least six of the tracks I picked would make it into the 100 was right too... in fact I would have had nine if it hadn't been for the fact that I actually picked the "wrong" song by Camille... I took a guess because I couldn't remember which song it was that I really liked, and it seems like I guessed wrong... the same thing with the Arctic Monkeys song, but luckily both the one I picked AND the one I liked hit the top 100.

I was also right that Scissor Sisters made it into the top ten... although privately I was kind of hoping it would come in at number one.

And the actual top ten... it looked like this...

1. One Crowded Hour - Augie March
2. Black Fingernails, Red Wine - Eskimo Joe
3. The Hard Road - Hilltop Hoods
4. When You Were Young - Killers
5. I Don't Feel Like Dancing - Scissor Sisters
6. Crazy - Gnarls Barkley
7. Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
8. Hearts A Mess - Gotye
9. Starlight - Muse
10. 19-20-20 - Grates

I like a couple of them (other than the ones I voted for)... and I don't mind the number one song (although the number two annoys the crap out of me now).

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photo friday: australia day

happy australia day 2007HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!

Rather than just hibernating in the house today listening to the Triple J Hottest 100, since it's a Friday, Ma and I decided that we should go out and do something... something that didn't really involve crowds, overly large amounts of flag-waving or anything that resembled an official Australia Day celebration...

So we decided to hit the Museum and the Art Gallery instead. Get some culture and all that...

Turned out to be a very good idea. We haven't been to the Museum in about a billion years, and I haven't been to the Art Gallery in maybe seventeen years (at least from memory). We didn't end up doing the whole Art Gallery (we were running out of time), but we will definitely be going back...

The Museum was quite interesting too... there seemed to be less on display than I remember in some regards, like the fact that the whole dinosaur section was pretty much gone (and the area where it used to be was housing a visiting Da Vinci exhibition), but other parts were just the way I remember them from when I was a kid.

Like the whole stuffed animal section... those poor beasties, they've been there for about a billion years, and a few of them (the lion particularly) look like they were stuffed by someone with only a passing familiarity with what the animal in question was supposed to look like.

And I swear that the Egyptian room, which is actually one of my favourite spots in the whole Museum hasn't been altered in my lifetime at the very least.

One thing I did find interesting though... since they'd removed the old clunky elevator, they actually used the empty lift shaft as one long exhibition space for "The Kraken" (ie giant squid), which was kind of groovy, especially since they had the tentacles of the squid going all the way down the three floors of the shaft, and on the fourth floor a piece of glass/perspex in the floor so that you could theoretically have stood on top of the open shaft. Now normally I'm good with heights and whatnot, but I couldn't bring myself to stand at the top of a four storey elevator shaft.

I ended up taking something like 130 photos in the Museum (mostly due to the whole "Minerals" section, I got a little carried away)... possibly come soon to a Monday Montage near you, and the for most part my camera behaved itself... helped in part I think by the Museum setting I have, which seemed to deal with the whole low light thing quite well.

Unfortunately you're not allowed to take photos in the Art Gallery (which I think is just shitty, although I kind of understand why, both with the whole "forging" thing, and so that they can bend you over in the Gallery Bookstore and make you buy things), but it was very pleasant in there too... maybe more so because I've actually done the painting thing I was quite interested in looking at the works close up, seeing how various artists did things close up, then looking at them from a distance.

We only really wandered through the Australian Art section, but there were a few works, more in the 1920-1950's section that I just fell in love with... I need to take a note of their names next time, so that I can see if I can find anything on them online... especially one particular male nude sculpture from, I think, the 1930's that I was particularly impressed with.

Anyway, after we'd done the wander around the Gallery we wandered back to the car and stopped off for ice cream on the way, and I was more than a little surprised to see a poster for this music/dance thing in the window that just happened to have a very naked EnglishX on it (tastefully done, naturally)... luckily they had about six copies of the poster crammed into the same holder thing, so I lifted one. And it's definitely him. Adelaide, two degrees of Kevin Bacon...

And now I'm just waiting for the Hottest 100 to finish up... it's a great day.

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random aussie hotness

Since tomorrow is Australia Day, it's only right that today's Random Hotness (like last year's effort) show off some Aussie-flag-wearing hotness... which is also why this post is later than usual (for Random Hotness posts anyway), I was searching out some appropriate images.

But of course, these things never go according to plan, so in the end I came back to the two images I was originally going to use. There's probably a little more frontal nudity than I would usually show, but what the hell, it's a special occasion.

aussie danteaussie dante

Current Mood: mmmmmm hotness

choose meme

choose lifeI seem to be stealing a LOT of stuff from Tom of late... I think possibly it's because I'm checking his blog before Eddy's blog, and previously I would have stolen things from Eddy instead...

  1. Home theatre or movie theatre? Movie.... preferably Gold Class (keeps out the riff raff).

  2. Hardwood or wall-to-wall? Hardwood I think... except in the case of my upstairs neighbours, who really need wall-to-wall so I don't have to hear the sounds of tapdancing elephants all day long.

  3. Pencil or ballpoint pen? Pencil... since I was like 14 or 15 I've just always preferred pencils.

  4. Digital or analogue? All digital all the time baby...

  5. "Wet" or dry? (and I’m not talking shoo-fly pie here. *wink*) So what ARE you talking about? Saunas (wet thanks, I prefer the steam over the heat)? Martinis (ummm how does Bond have them)? Vacuum cleaners? What?

  6. Hardback or paperback? Paperback for the most part.

  7. Gasoline or electric? I'm assuming this means cars (since it's gasoline rather than gas), so I'm going to lean towards electric, just because they sound cooler.

  8. Photograph or painting? Photographs all the way.

  9. Mountains or shore? Shore... just don't expect me to actually go IN the water.

  10. Curtains or blinds? Curtains.

  11. Shower or spa tub? Shower.

  12. Blu-ray or HD DVD? Honestly I don't care... but I'm SO not going to replace my 250+ discs with whatever comes along, so it all better be backwards compatible or I'm going to sulk.

  13. Paint or wallpaper? Paint.

  14. Thoroughly cleaned and prepped or go with the moment? Is it just me or does this one seem slightly obscene somehow? I'll go with the prepped thing... I still think it sounds rude though.

  15. "Ties" or "loafers" (slip-ons)? Wouldn't Laces or Loafers sounded better... and slip-ons... except for my walking shoes.

  16. Stick shift or automatic? Automatic... me likee point and press driving...

  17. Saturday or Sunday? Saturday.

  18. 15% or 18%? Well, 18% is more... so we'll go with that... I just wish I knew what it was a percentage of... I did wonder if it was alcoholic proof... but I think that just shows how little I know about booze.

  19. Football or soccer? You know, in some places in the world, those are the exact same thing... I could care less either way really.

  20. Lands End or L.L. Bean? Again... could care less since I don't know what the hell either of them are (other than, I assume, clothing stores).
Current Mood:

makes no sense

blaze mardi gras coverOkay, I just don't get this...

Let's say you're a large organisation of some sort... maybe a company, maybe some sort of "community based organisation"... but you're large, and quite well known...

You're running an event or launching a new product or rebranding your existing products in a new way... something that's going to get people's attention...

You've hired an artist or a graphic designer or some kind of marketing wunderkind... and they give you an advertising image, which you're very happy with...

You use the image in your advertising... you make up posters and send the image out to appropriate media outlets...

You also have a website, and at least one, if not a team of dedicated website individuals...

But the new advertising image doesn't show up anywhere on your website, and you don't make any kind of changes to incorporate that visual style into your online branding.

Obviously I'm talking about the Mardi Gras... but only because it's the most recent instance of this... I picked up a copy of the SA gay newspaper, Blaze (and don't even get me started on their website direction), on Saturday and there, on the cover, as you can see, is this kickass image for Mardi Gras... and there was also a double page spread in the middle of the paper too... same image, but differently arranged and with lots of text and details about events. I instantly fell in love with it, so I decided to hit the Mardi Gras website, see if they had a copy of it without as much text, maybe some information about the artist so I could dig around for more of his work...

Nada... zip... zilch... bubcus...

Actually, looking at it again this morning, that's not completely true... the green clad drag queen shows up in a 55 pixel high image on the sidebar directing you to the ticketing site.

But, c'mon... look at the image... it's PERFECT for disassembling and turning into various and sundry website graphics (especially if the artist used Photoshop or something similar on it and each of those characters can be separated out from both the group and the background), as well as the little "Objects of Love" (allegedly the name of the campaign or the theme for this year's Mardi Gras, but I couldn't find any reference to that online either) icons in the flag, which actually remind me a little of one of the Mardi Gras campaigns from the early/mid nineties... with the silhouette heads on different coloured backgrounds.

It wouldn't even have taken very much work... just change the colour scheme on the website (I'm thinking the yellow with pink and green accents)... replace the images in the top banner with the image from the poster or some animated version of the love icons... and hey presto, branded and brand new looking website... it's not like you would have to change the site that often... Mardi Gras only comes around once a year, and you could so back to the boring orange design once the whole thing was over.... add the new branding towards the end of the year once you've got it ready...

What's actually worse is that while I've been flicking around the Mardi Gras website, I've found that the Sleaze Ball page has some exactly what the main page should have done... they added a copy of the poster image and told you that it was by the ever fab Glen Hanson... now whether they did that before or after the event itself I don't know...

And given the surge in bloggers and blogging in the past couple of years, would it have killed them to make a few little link buttons/banners that we could have used to link back to the site? Okay, so that one isn't so important, but it they'd come out with buttons for each of those little characters I would have been tempted to add at least one to the site (long shorts at the far end).

But it's not just the Mardi Gras, like I said before... a lot of other organisations do it. They make a brilliant poster ad campaign and you see it out and about or in magazines or whatever, but it never appears anywhere online.

It's called holistic marketing people... look it up...

Current Mood:

right place, right time

the high priestessThe Universe, him be up to something...

Or not... I'm not actually sure...

I do know that when I got up at my regular time this morning I decided it was all too hard and went back to bed for another half an hour... which was weird all on it's own, but it's Monday, so I just went with it...

Then, even though it was kinda overcast and I was running out of battery on my camera, I decided to not only take my camera with me, but also to go for a walk along the river instead of my usual walk... but again, instead of going the same way I've gone the other two times, I went the opposite way, along Lefevre first, then down by the river (clockwise instead of anticlockwise I guess)... which meant that I was coming up the hill around 8am or so (give or take, I didn't actually look at my phone)...

I possibly wouldn't have been, but all the swans seemed to be being particularly friendly this morning... particularly one of them who just kind of stood with me for the longest time... so I hung out by the river for a while...

But of course, everything happens for a reason... so the sleeping in, the different walk, the camera, the battery that stopped working when it did, the swans, all of it... it was all designed to get me to the footpath opposite Carclew when it did... just in time to run into HP...

It's also weird... when I started looking for an image to go with this post, and some pseudonym for HP, I almost automatically gravitated towards the word "priestess"... in fact, I think that was the first work I searched on... which then became "high priestess tarot" when I worked out what I wanted... and I gotta say, there are a whole bunch of people out there who have designed their own tarot cards, with a lot of variations on the theme... but I digress... which I do a lot, I know...

Anyway HP and I used to work together... actually her group was the first temp contract I had as a "web content specialist" or whatever it was that I was mostly doing when I was in that building... and because I reported directly to her we kinda bonded.

And I don't think I would be out of line to say that part of that bond came from or ended up or whatever in something metaphysical... partly because it's something we're both drawn to, but I could almost guarantee that we've known each other in a past life... at least once... and I think some combination of that past life and who she is in this one gets me to the whole "priestess" place. And thinking about it, if I had to go through and make up my own set of tarot cards using the images of people I've known in my life, then I would have to say that she would definitely slot into the High Priestess card perfectly.

It's not the first time I've run into her on my walk actually... I think its at least the third or fourth, but never in that exact spot... and we chatted about this and that for a bit... then she said I was looking good and I ended up telling her a very truncated version of the whole walking story... and she asked, as she always does, about work, so I ended up telling her the story about the possibility of working from home... which was good actually, because it kind of really solidified the thought in my brain, and once I finish this post I have to send the guy an email before I go and do anything else...

And when the Universe has decided it's time for me to do something, I really need to pay attention...

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bipolar or drama queen?

You Are 60% Bipolar


You're a bit moody, and at times, your moods can be a bit extreme.

It's up to you to decide if you're simply dramatic... or slightly bipolar.


Current Mood:

free love, teeshirts, hunks and office supplies

free love 2007God... what a day of shopping...

We left my place at around 8 this morning and got back here finally around 4:30 or so... we did manage to get a lot done though...

Firstly the food shopping, which is never particularly interesting, so the less said about that the better... then, on the way back to my place we called into Officeworks... and I still can't decide if that was a big mistake or not... both Ma and I can shop for stationery until the cows come home... the cows, the pigs, the chickens, the horses, the farmer... the whole farm basically... and combine the whole "back to school" thing with the whole "cheap" thing... and we managed to spend more than enough money and time in there... possibly on things that neither of us really, truly needed...

Although I did get a cool mini Sharpie on a lanyard (not that I need a Sharpie on a lanyard really) and this set of too, too cute highlighter pens with little anime characters on them... one of which I'm sure is a cute little gay couple...

anime pens 2007See... look... could the two boys on the orange pen be any gayer (although Ma did try to tell me that the one in front was a girl... so not!)... awwwww... too cute... it's like an anime version of Eddy and Sam hehehe... well, if Sam grew like a goatee... and, I dunno, was standing on a box or something...

Anyway, too cute... my personal fave is the blue one though...

Oh and there were two other pens with girls on them, but... you know... girls... so.. yeah...

So after the shop-a-thon in Officeworks (and we've now declared that neither of us is allowed in an Officeworks store between January and March ever again) we went into town, mostly so that we could get my teeshirt from the nice lady at the Markets... we went, we saw, she had the teeshirt... I'd asked her to get it in an appropriate size that I figured would fit me, given the sizes of the tops that I've been wearing since Christmas... and the freaking thing was the size of a small circus tent! Seriously... it was HUGE... bigger possibly than the tops I was wearing this time last year... so I didn't get it, and the nice lady said that the purple haired girl had said that if I didn't want it due to the sizing then she was going to use it as a nightie... so now I just have to wander down to the teeshirt printing place in town and work out which is the right actual size for me... then let the nice lady know... *sigh*

Why are these things never simple?

Next we hit Borders very briefly and I picked up a cheap "Hunk A Day" desk calendar (which I'm still not sure where to put), which is a little cute, and a little tacky... and might make an appearance as some sort of Random Hotness montage thing at some point (since I essentially have about 310 guys to choose from... the weekends get one guy for two days)... some of the ones I've seen so far are a bit generic for my tastes, but it'll be amusing...

So after hitting a couple of Christian book stores so that Ma could try and find this particular book for her best friend (although to be honest we hit non-Christian book stores too), and I tried not to actually touch anything in said stores just in case, you know, I burst into flames or anything... we headed off to West Lakes... the wisdom of said decision I'm still not sure about...

Although I did get the "Free Love" pendant (yeah, that's me wearing it in the photo... along with the last of my new tops from Christmas) at Kmart (of all places)... and it was on special (woohoo)... I am kind of wondering if I could disassemble it and remove the "love" portion... but overall I quite like it since there's a fair amount of weight to it (and it was under $5, so you can't really argue with that)...

We also got Ma a nice new pair of sunglasses... which actually ended up costing more than about all her sunglasses ever added up (or mine either possibly)... okay, maybe not... but from a woman who intentionally buys really, really, really cheap sunglasses, laying down $50 is saying something. They're nice though... and polarised like mine.

Other than that we kind of wandered about aimlessly a bit... halfheartedly looking for a mini tripod for my digital camera (not the really, really little ones, but something small enough that I can throw it in my backpack, but large enough that I can have the camera at a reasonable height)... but they were all around the same price, and we were mostly looking for a bargain of some sort.

I also scored some moisturiser from The Body Shop... and although I specifically went back to the store where they gave me such good service last time... they didn't have the Face Scrub I wanted... so I was less happy about that.

And for the most part we managed not to get rained on (well, a little tiny bit when we were leaving West Lakes, but not much)...

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photo friday: raindrops

raindrops 2007I figured I should probably take something new today for Photo Friday... especially because I haven't really taken that many shots since the beginning of the month... year... whatever...

So I ducked out earlier when it was raining and snapped this shot of the bougainvillea that's creeping over the fence from next door. It's sufficiently abstract I think, and I'm quite fond of it.

You would think that with the big morning of rain we had that the temperature would be sufficiently cooler... but no... it's gone all humid and icky this afternoon... less fun...

Oh, and this shot just happens to be the 4000th shot that I've taken with my camera... I know this because the file name ends in the number 4000... only I also know it's technically not true, since I've taken a few panorama shots, and they get numbered independently... and lightening the shots also uses up new numbers... but my camera thinks it's up to 4000...

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quick quiche

quiche 2007I have to say that I'm actually quite fond of quiche... the whole "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche" thing notwithstanding... although, as a gay man, is liking quiche playing into the stereotype... who the hell knows... and honestly I don't even think it matters anymore...

Where was I... oh yes, quiche...

For whatever reason I seem to be going through all my favourite "family recipes" of late and either reintroducing them to my ongoing repertoire or else making them myself for the first time... and I'm up to my old favourite, the Quick Quiche... a lot of the things that stuck around in the family cookbook were things that generally didn't take a whole hell of a lot of time or effort... there are some exceptions to that rule, but a lot of it is actually quite simple to make.

And anything where you throw all the ingredients into a bowl, mix it up, then throw it in the oven sounds good to me...

I actually added a couple of cups of grated vegetables to mine... a carrot, a zucchini, the aforementioned onion and, although I know Tom will be making that face, mushroom. And after observing that the whole thing puffed up quite a bit during cooking, I did actually wonder if maybe I had added too much... but it never spilled over the edge and it seemed to calm down once it came out of the oven. It did seem a little less solid than usual once I cut into it, but it wasn't bad overall.

If you're just doing the "plain" version, you can add some tomato slices to the top of the quiche (over the cheese) which finishes it off nicely.

Quick Quiche

3 eggs
1½ cups milk
¾ cup pastry mix
½ cup chopped bacon or ham
1 chopped onion
½ cup grated cheese
parsley, salt and pepper

Mix eggs, milk and pastry mix together until smooth, then add all other ingredients (except the cheese) and combine thoroughly. Pour into a greased pie plate or quiche dish. Sprinkle the cheese on top and then bake for approximately 40 minutes at 180ºC.

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random curly hotness

This may actually be one of the more random Random Hotness posts... I got these shots via email, but I have no idea where they are originally from, although I would guess they're from some kind of profile or homepage or something. I do have a slight weakness for the whole "naked guitarist" thing though...


Current Mood: mmmmmm hotness

is(something)j

Seems like everyone is doing this one... okay, so technically two people isn't everyone...

Interestingly, when I did this earlier I got a completely different answer, and one that seemed so wrong to me that I didn't even bother posting it... interestingly the second time the result wasn't that different from a similar test I took once before... only that time I was ISTJ... obviously, like Tom, it's just the T and the F that switch (thought versus feeling? right?)...

You Are An ISFJ

The Nurturer

You have a strong need to belong, and you very loyal.

A good listener, you excell at helping others in practical ways.

In your spare time, you enjoy engaging your senses through art, cooking, and music.

You find it easy to be devoted to one person, who you do special things for.

You would make a good interior designer, chef, or child psychologist.

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movies: arthur and the invisibles

arthur and the invisibles - adventure awaits in your own backyardOne of the downsides to writing up these little movie "critiques" is that sometimes when you over analyse a movie or look at it too much after you've seen it, even though you really enjoyed it while it was happening, you kind of realise that there probably wasn't a whole hell of a lot TO the movie...

Even if it happens to be a movie aimed at kids like Arthur and the Invisibles...

Now don't get me wrong... I very much enjoyed it... in some ways it reminded me of a movie I used to like when I was a kid, The Incredible Mr Limpet, insofar as it starts out in live action, turns to animation (although in Arthur's case it's CG versus Mr Limpet's traditional animation) and crosses over at various points between the animated and live action "worlds"...

I have to say this about the CGI too... with the possible exception of maybe a little lip sync issue at the beginning, the animation in this movie can best be described in one word... LUSH! From the Minimoys themselves with all the hair and freckles and big pretty eyes, to the world around them, everything is super detailed and super realistic... so much so that in a couple of shots involving water I'm still not sure whether it was a mixture of live action and animated water or just 100% animated... and according to the experts, water is one of the hardest things to do... so I was singularly impressed.

There's also some solid acting, both voice-wise (so much so that there were four quite well known actors voices used who I didn't recognise at all), as well as in the live action segments... and, I have to say, Freddie Highmore has some serious acting chops... I thought it in Finding Neverland, I thought it in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory... and this movie hasn't changed my opinion one tiny little bit... particularly his ability to turn on the emotion at a moment's notice... if he manages to be one of those child actors who develops an adult career, I think he's going to be a dramatic force to be reckoned with. Although it was a little bit of a shock at first to see him starting to sprout into a teenager with much longer arms and legs... it shouldn't have been that shocking when you stop and think about his age I suppose, but initially it was a slight surprise.

So the acting was good, the CGI was amazing... but on reflection, the story was a little weak in places... actually, when you stop and look at the story as a whole it was something of a mix of various plot ideas from things like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Antz, Legend, and bits and pieces from the whole Arthurian legend (although only slightly really, and not overly surprising given the name of the main character)... but there were a few parts that either felt tacked on (the whole scene with the Max character in the "dance club" for example) or else weren't resolved properly (the fate of the villain at the end of the movie). Possibly the ending was left a little open in case they decided to do a sequel, but it just felt like sloppy writing more than anything else.

But, as I said, visually the movie is quite stunning, and, to be honest, for the most part you really don't notice the lack of any real plot until you think about it afterwards.

yani's rating: 2 Minimoys out of 5

sims are evil...

evil little pixelsI'm totally blaming you for this Larry... yup... all your fault... not my fault at all... nooooooo... all you... not me...

After seeing yet another of Larry's Sims inspired posts on Saturday, as I mentioned, and the fact that I was at a loose end... I decided to dig out my copy of the original Sims and see if I could install it on my wondrous external hard drive...

Turns out I could (although whether it's a good plan or not I'm not sure... it may be a bit on the slow side)...

I remember now why, in addition to the fact that I was running out of disk space, I was happy enough to uninstall the The Sims from my computer.

The freakin thing is addictive!

And since I have an addictive personality in all things... and the fact that it's really, really, really easy to make time disappear (both in and out of the game) while you're playing it... I say again... Sims are evil...

Plus, with the items and decorations that come with the game, there's only a finite number of combinations of things I'm willing to make... I won't do fugly interior design (for the most part anyway)... I just won't...

I would show off more of my design handiwork (although I did kind of design the outfits on the two in the picture... well... recolour and accessorise them really), but I just demolished the whole neighbourhood because it was bugging me (especially because I couldn't get these two to actually meet in the previous game I was playing, and the dark outfitted one was all sulky because he had no social life)... so I have to start the whole thing again from scratch... but that's okay, because I've got the "nudity patch", the "free money" cheat and the "move immovable objects" cheat... I'm all set...

What I don't have are the several hours of my life I spent playing it yesterday...

I'm just glad my computer isn't up to speed enough to be able to play Sims 2... what with the breeding and the improved graphics and the whatnot... that would be bad...

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i'm a warlock...

warlockYou scored as Tremere

You belong to the Tremere bloodline, the sorcerors of the vampire underworld. The Tremere command a terrible power over the blood of others. Many Tremere could pop a human being like a pimple with a wave of their hand. For this reason, many other vampires are wary around these cold, remorseless kin. All their time spent studying, however, has left them severely lacking in the physical department.

Tremere - 67%
Nosferatu - 54%
Gangrel - 54%
Toreador - 46%
Malkavian - 46%
Ventrue - 42%
Brujah - 17%


What White Wolf vampire clan do you belong to?

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at a loose end...

Okay, that's the second time this week that I've lost a post... only this time it was due to my own fault (although why making hidden folders appear should make all the browser windows refresh is beyond me)... Grrrr...

Anyway... as the post title suggest, I'm at something of a loose end today... and it's been a very weird day... not that anything has actually happened, far from it... it's just felt weird...

Ma has a couple of weeks off, both the week just gone and this coming week, and she's actually been away with her bestest gal-pal for the past week... doing something or other... she did tell me, but I wasn't paying that much attention... but it does mean not only that I haven't spoken to her at all for the past week, which is weird all on it's own, but that we, obviously, aren't doing Random Shopping Adventures today...

It also meant that I didn't have to up and dressed and ready to go super early this morning, so I kind of got to have a leisurely day... I played around online for a while this morning, then wandered off to do a little shopping... and for whatever reason the shopping felt weird... but I suppose that was because it was just "not the usual"... different shops, different means of getting there (walking instead of driving), different amount of purchases...

And since then I've been pretty much at a loose end... I watched the commentary on Shrek 2... had some brunch/lunch... read the paper... then came to play on the computer for a bit... went looking for something in my image archives to kind of match up with the theme of this post... blogged the same thing twice thanks to the unscheduled refresh... waited for my virus checker to finally finish after what seemed like at least four hours worth of checking (no exaggeration). I mean I know it has to check both hard drives and all my folders and images... but c'mon...

I just had a slightly Larry inspired thought... I think I'm going to try loading The Sims onto the external hard drive... since I now have all that room to play with... maybe play around with that for a while...

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photo friday: sunset

sunset 2006sunset 2006sunset 2006sunset 2006These were all a spur of the moment capture two days before New Years. I went to take down the sheet I use to block out the afternoon sun from my bedroom, and realised that the sky was the most intense orange colour. I took a couple of shots through the window, and then decided to grab some shoes and toddle off down the road to take a few more shots... which all worked out quite well... very intense and very orange. I do have to say though that the colour was made all the more intense because I used the "Sunset" setting on my camera.

I used the sheet because the actual curtains in my bedroom window were probably original 60's issue when the apartments were built and were basically falling apart and useless... partly because they were just that old (or if not that old, then they've at least been here for the ten years I've lived here), but also because they were two pieces of fabric, one rather flimsy backing piece and a kind of crocheted front piece... and the backing fabric had been aged to death by the sun and just tore like paper... in fact probably worse than paper... and they didn't do much of a job at keeping out the sun. Plus I only really use them in the afternoon for the sunlight hitting my bedroom... once the sun has gone down I tend to open them up again.

But after my trip to the dentist and during my Firefly marathon on Wednesday I got inspired (although I will admit that I'd had the thought at an earlier point) and I dug out the dropcloth I've been using while painting, which is actually a piece of kinda ugly but thermal lined curtain fabric that I picked up cheap at Spotlight (because of it's lack of attractiveness I would imagine)... it's also very, very long and very very wide... probably about the right width for the windows in my bedroom but miles too long (the windows take up almost the entire 3m length of the room, but are only about 50cm tall), so I took out my trusty scissors and made up two slightly uneven (with the exception of the top edge I don't think there's a straight line on them) but functional curtains... took down the old ones, threaded the hooks into the new fabric, hung them up... they worked like a dream... so now I have kinda ugly green mottled curtains in my bedroom...

We won't mention the fact that I've actually had this fabric for at least two years and this is the first time really that this plan occurred me to...

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random poolside hotness

Today's Random Hotness is a little more random than normal... It's been fairly hot here the last couple of days, and although I've been managing pretty well, the thought of splashing around in a pool, naked or otherwise, does hold a certain appeal... preferably undercover somehow though, since I burn rather than tan...

But enough about me... I don't actually remember where I got these shots... although I suspect it was via email. I'm pretty sure they had already been cut down to "censor" them before I ever saw them, and I'd kind of be interested to see the full versions... so if anyone has them, drop me an email.

poolboypoolboy

Current Mood: mmmmmm hotness