another very long saturday

waterhouse natural history art prize 2009Lordy, lordy, lordy... it's been another very long Saturday...

I mean I knew it was going to have to be because we had the movie at 3pm, but I "overslept" this morning, so I was only just dressed by the time Ma got down here and didn't get much of a chance to do anything else (thank goodness I actually wrote my blogiversary post last night), so I felt a little behind the 8 Ball.

But there also seemed to be a lot of "spouzdas" going on today (that's "supposed to's" by the way)... We were just spouzda be where we ended up when we ended up there, so that was nice.

This morning's Supermarket Safari was as painless as supermarket shopping ever is and contained much discussion of So You Think You Can Dance (it's going to be a theme for the next seven or eight weeks, a bit like me settling down on a Friday evening to watch it after finishing my Photo Friday post). Oh, before I forget... Baker's Delight Cranberry and Fruit Loaf... yummy!

Then, after unpacking and suchlike we headed into town to check out the Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize exhibition at the Museum. I'm not sure if it's on earlier than normal this year or what, or if we just haven't gotten around to it until later the last two years, but we didn't go and see those until August...

Once we finally got into the gallery (there was a whole thing with Ma putting her cloakroom token into the turnstile instead of the token... blah blah blah *rolls eyes affectionately*) there seemed to be a lot more entries than what I remember from previous years (although I could be imagining things), but I don't know that the quality was as high. And oddly there wasn't any one or two entries where I could automatically say "that's my favourite" (because that helps with the filling out of the People's Choice entry form)... it was more, for both Ma and me, a case of "well I like these ones"... but nothing outstanding. But there were also a number of entries that seemed extremely below average, and I did wonder why they were picked as finalists.

It's like the winner... none of the entries that have won the major prize for the last three years has really been that great in my opinion... and this year there were definitely a ton of entries that were so much better than the piece that won.

Neither of our People's Choice picks are in the image at the top of the post... mine (Little Red by Simon Ward) had a crappy photo that wouldn't have cropped well and Ma's (Totem for the Transient II by Roh Singh) didn't photograph all that well. But the top three shots are from my "runner up" choices, while the bottom one was one of Ma's faves.

Once we'd finished wandering around the exhibit and had dropped our People's Choice entry in the little box we headed back to the car and tootled down to Marion (since it was the only place that was showing Red Cliff this weekend).

Actually we didn't go straight for the shopping centre, we stopped off at the Marion Cultural Centre (which is a photography excursion just waiting to happen... the building is amazing) to take a look at the exhibition in Gallery M. I'd seen it advertised somewhere, but only paid enough attention to work out where it was, I hadn't actually paid that much attention to what the exhibition was...

Turns out it was the Blake Prize (Exploring the Religious and Spiritual in Art)... and to be honest the Gallery gift shop was kinda more interesting than the exhibition...

Anyway, I think it was close to 1pm by the time we finally got into Marion, leaving us a couple of hours to wander around before the movie. Perfect.

And wander we did... Ma found a new watch with a big clear face and big visible numbers (woohoo, finally!) from one of those $20 watch stalls... I found (actually Ma found it but I would have gotten there eventually) a classic Soundwave teeshirt (woooooohooooo! It's actually the same image as the Gen 1 box art image on the Wiki page, although much paler... and yes, I am indeed aware of how monumentally dorky I am), some black and red striped real live actual authentic football socks to wear with my Croc boots (I know, how butch, right? *grin*) as well as finding, completely by accident since it was a case of "should we go up to the cinema now, or look in this bookshop first... oh let's look in the bookshop" a book of male nudes photos by Francois Rousseau (he of Dieux du Stade fame) for under half price!

Interestingly it was also Redheaded Guy's Day Out... I swear that somebody left the cage door open because there were a plethora of redheaded guys of varying ages at Marion... it started out with one in Big W with deathmetal hair and then I kept seeing them everywhere... and mostly true redheads too... none of this strawberry blonde or dark auburn crap. And we all know how I love a cute Ginger... so I was a very happy camper.

Then it was time for the movie... which, as usual, I will prattle on about in another post in a little bit. I will say though that I'm not completely sure why it is that the inhabitants of Crazytown seem compelled to come to the same movies as Ma and me, but I wish they'd stop! Also, who sits through two and a half hours of a two and three quarter hour movie and then gets up and walks out about fifteen minutes before the end? Seriously!? Enquiring minds really want to know!

Once the movie was over we headed down to Spago to get some dinner (mmmm I have not had tortellini alla pana in the loooongest time) before driving back here about eleven hours after we started out...

Granted it's not the longest Saturday we've had in recent weeks, but it has to be up there...

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