brisvegas: day two

brisvegas textures southbank
Dear Brisbane I don't know if you've heard of this new thing... it's called "Winter", when it's colder than other times of the year, and there's less sunshine... all the other cities are doing it, especially Melbourne, they love it. You might want to look into it! All the best, yani.

It's partly my own fault... I mean I dressed for it to be warm, but then we spent a lot of the day out in the sunshine. I didn't end up as bad as after Sculpture By The Sea in Sydney last year... but the combination of heat and a lack of water, never good.

But I'm getting ahead of myself...

I pretty much slept like I was at home last night... thanks to Ma's brilliant idea of bringing one of the pillowcases from my body pillow and using the spare pillows to MacGyver a body pillow.

In fact, I slept so well that for a brief moment when I woke up (and before I opened my eyes obviously) I forgot where I was.

After I got up I lazed around on the sofa for a while catching up on things in Reader and on Twitter and being a virtual whore on Grindr/Scruff (I don't really know why I bother... either nothing comes of it, or else when the time comes I generally exhausted from wandering around all day long) until I figured it was probably time to get ready.

Hotel showers... always shitty, am I right?

Anyway, as usual, once I was ready I went down to Ma's room carrying my shoes (I think I've done it in just about every hotel we've stayed in, even the one where we were on two different floors).

The main plan for today was markets... I knew there were a couple on opposite sides of the city, so we grabbed a map from the hotel desk and headed off.

The only problem was we were headed down to Eagle Pier... and instead of going down Elizabeth Street we headed down Albert Street... not quite the opposite direction, but 90 degrees...

We worked out our mistake thanks to Google Maps... but it wasn't a complete waste of time, we did see the lovely King George Square.

When we finally got down to Eagle Pier our first thought was really for breakfast. I think we would have just gone into the first place we saw had it not been for the boy in the gold jacket doing his very best X Factor audition outside.

So instead we ended up at Stellarossa... not the most amazing breakfast ever, but okay as far as these things go.

Then we wandered around the market. And, can I just say... m'eh. I mean I wasn't expecting a lot, but it was decidedly second rate... plus the weather was being very sunny at me... which was annoying.

After we were done at Eagle Pier (which really didn't take long), we headed across the city and across the Melbourne Street bridge to South Bank.

Again, more sunshine. I kinda get now why fellow Blogger Eddy doesn't really like doing things out in the sunshine... I think I'd be kinda similar if I lived up here.

regional flavours these nice kids were attracting attention for their production of cabaret, and posed for me when i got the camera out
Anyway, we headed down to the Stanley Street Plaza where the Regional Flavours Food Festival was supposed to be... and on the way discovered a Ben & Jerry's van and stand where they were essentially giving away free ice cream... I say giving away because you just had to make a gold coin donation, and they were giving out 375ml containers! I didn't actually have a gold coin on me, so I just gave them $5 (I wish I knew what the charity was though... I really didn't pay attention at the time) and Ma and I ended up with a carton of Chunky Monkey ice cream each. Perhaps a trifle excessive given that we couldn't eat a whole carton on our own and ended up carrying the left overs around until they were Chunky Monkey Milk.

Other than that, the Regional Food Festival was just crammed with people. I should really have expected that I suppose, but it was fairly heaving by the time we got there (it may have been a smarter idea to head there first and go to Eagle Street after, but that wasn't the way things worked out)... and I don’t like that kind of crowd, especially when it's something I'm not especially excited about, so for the most part we wandered along the edges and had a look but didn't really engage.

Plus it was a little hard to get overly excited about food when you have a belly full of Chunky Monkey already.

The only thing we did end up with were a punnet of strawberries (and they were very good strawberries too).

After we'd had a look at everything, we pretty much gave up on the food and wandered back towards the Melbourne Street Bridge along the waterfront... very sunshiny... and a little bit heatstrokey and sunburny...

Only a little bit though.

The other thing that I really wanted to do over on South Bank was to take a look at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), at least from the outside if nothing else... so we eventually made our way down to that end of the precinct. It's kind of an awesome building... and I think that if we'd had more time, I could probably have wasted some of it inside.

Actually I could see myself spending some time in and around a lot of the buildings on South Bank... more the North side of the Melbourne Street Bridge... but there's some great architecture over there.

When we'd had enough we wended our way across the Kurilpa Bridge and finally managed to find a convenience store at which to buy a bottle of frosty, frosty water.

brisbane square high motel at goma
After that we were just generally headed back into the city and ended up following these cute French boys talking French... tres bon! And that led us to Brisbane Square, again for the groovy architecture and seemingly ever present statuary that is all over the place in Brisbane.

Actually, another thing that's all over the place in Brisbane is kind of strange... firstly, on seemingly every single street corner, or at least ones that have traffic lights, the normally little baby blue boxes that stand off to one side and control the lights are all covered with art work. Each one seems to be kind of appropriate to its surroundings (not always but there are a lot that are), and it brightens up an otherwise dull bit of necessary street architecture.

Having said that, other than possibly one piece of lettering work and a couple of lacklustre paste ups, I haven't seen a single piece of street art anywhere in the city. And trust me, I've looked. I don't know whether it's because the whole city is pretty much crammed up against itself, or because large chunks of it get ripped down to start again from scratch, or just because any street art that there is is actually out in the 'burbs (a bit like Sydney really)...

I guess I'm just used to both Adelaide and Melbourne's CBDs where you can find all sorts of aerosol goodies if you look hard enough.

If I'm really honest, I'm actually disappointed in Brisbane overall... it just seems very... well, not artificial, but I can't really put my finger on it... it’s just less than I was expecting I guess. It has some of the downsides of Sydney, but without any of the charm.

It is only the first day though... maybe things will improve during the rest of the trip...

Anyway... where was I... oh yes, after we'd wandered around Brisbane Square we headed back to the hotel really briefly so that we could drop the ice cream and stuff off, then headed out in search of a somewhat late lunch (damn that Chunky Monkey).

Neither of us were screamingly hungry, so we ended up in one of the food courts and had crepes.

We also found those bottles of fruit drinks that we've also had in Sydney and possibly Melbourne (my memory fails me, but I think they do them there too)... I do like them a whole lot, and they're healthy and tasty and all kinds of awesome.

Why doesn't Adelaide have one? Somebody get on that for me, would you?

Anyway, I also indulged my rather serious Mrs Fields cookie habit... so tasty... so very, very tasty, and Ma grabbed some stuff at Priceline, so essentially about half an hour after we'd stopped in at the hotel we needed to stop in again to drop stuff off.

When we came out of the hotel again, Ma said that we should just "pick a direction", so I picked the one direction that we hadn't really been at that point... south west I think...

Which led us straight past Comics Etc (which was on my list of places to go), and led me to grab one of the Kidrobot/Futurama blind box figures (and Ma to get a Character Building Doctor Who blind box figure). I ended up with Sal (the only one out of the whole range I'm not really fussed about) and Ma ended up with Pond... so we're probably going to find one of the other comic book stores tomorrow and/or go back to Comics Etc...

After Comics Etc we kept heading south west and after a brief wander along a fairly unattractive slice of the river bank (and don't even ask me how we got there, I have no idea at all) eventually found our way down to the Botanical Gardens. We probably would have wandered through, but we were pretty much losing the light by that stage and we weren't sure if (or when) they shut the gates on the Gardens, so we ended up wandering along Alice Street and then along the Eagle Street side of the river.

I commented to Ma at one stage that there really wasn't any visible evidence that were we were walking had essentially been underwater at the end of last year... and she pointed out a faint "high tide" mark on the wall next to us. So essentially we would have been up to our hips in water at the time...

We also went past Jellyfish Restaurant... I remember reading something about that during the floods, but once again you wouldn't even know there had been a problem... the only sign was actually a literal sign on the window...

jellyfish jellyfish window
By the time we found our way around to Customs House, the sun had gone down, so we headed back to the hotel along Ann Street and past the Anzac Square Memorial.

When we got back to the hotel we both went and had a rest for about an hour (by that point my feet were killing me... and I almost fell asleep on the couch while fiddling around with my phone, which is pretty rare for me.

Just after 7 I got changed, wandered down to Ma's room and we headed down to Vapiano in Albert Lane for dinner.

Just as a quick side note: Even Sydney didn't have this many retail homosexuals... The guy on the hotel desk and the guy who served us at dinner last night... the guy in Priceline, the guy in Vapiano... I'm sure there are more, but my mind has gone blank. Anyway, lots of retail homosexuals.

Vapiano is an interesting place... they give you a little swipe card thing when you go in and you use that when you order at the counter. You order from the chef, swipe the card and then they make it right in front of you.

This sounds great in theory, but in practice there seemed to be a lot of people standing around waiting for pasta to be cooked.

More through good luck than good planning I got the Rucola Ravioli, which was pretty much ravioli, rocket and cherry tomatoes... so it took less time that the guy who ordered before I did. Good for me, not so great for him.

After dinner we took a little stroll in search of the Bendigo Bank ATM we spotted last night and then came back here and split the strawberries, half of the remaining partially reconstituted Chunky Monkey and a couple of Mrs Fields cookies... very decidedly om nom nom.

And there endeth our first full day in Brisbane.

Current Mood:

brisvegas: day one

brisbane montageWell, will you look at that... I'm in Brisbane (and my typing accuracy is currently shit courtesy of my netbook keyboard)...

I'm not sure that I'm a huge fan of this "afternoon flight" thing. I'm used to getting up first thing in the morning, getting to the airport when it's still dark kind of deal. What ended up happening was that I was essentially at a loose end for the whole damn day.

I got up at the usual time, was kind of planning to pack my suitcase early, but that didn't quite eventuate due to internet based procrastination... it was still the morning though...

I always seem to get a scary amount of stuff in my suitcase too...

Anyway, once the one actual chore for the day was done and I'd had a shower, I wandered down to the supermarket to get something to eat and a paper... and once I'd done that I was officially bored.

There's nothing worse than knowing you have big plans later in the day and having nothing to occupy your time until then.

I have watched a movie, half fiddled around with my phone...

Eventually Ma arrived, but it wasn't even like we were headed straight out the door when she got there... so there was more sitting around (actually I did some pacing as well) until eventually we just gave in and went to the airport a little earlier than planned (and had a prick of a taxi driver who not only spent most of the journey fiddling with the radio stations, but also didn't get out to help us with the bags... urg).

Qantas has new check-in/bag drop counters... and I'm not sure I'm a huge fan. It's not that they're bad per say... but they're not particularly helpful for people who aren't overly tech savy... even I had trouble with them. It's also annoying that even though I'd already checked in online, I essentially had to go through the same thing again at the kiosk in order to get the bag sticker thing. Surely, if I've already done that the machine that checks my bag should give me a sticker. And the whole point of me using my phone is so that I don't have paper ticket things... but I ended up with them anyway.

It's annoying...

Anyway... The flight took off on time, and it was possibly one of the best flights of any we've taken recently. I didn't even feel slightly weird or nauseous, which is definitely a step forward. Whether that was connected to the afternoon flight thing or not I don't know.

But it was a pretty cruisy flight. I looked out the window for a bit... I watched part of Porco Rosso on my netbook... and the two hours went by pretty quickly. Actually we had a decent tailwind or whatever so we ended up getting into Brisbane about 15 minutes early.

By the time we got in though, the sun had already gone down, so that was something else we can check off the "To Do" list... travelling at dusk/landing at night. It was really pretty actually, but I really don't have any idea yet what Brisbane looks like.

Instead of what we've been doing on recent trips and getting picked up at the airport by a chauffeured car, we opted to just take a taxi this time. And given that we ended up with a driver who really didn't say anything (and who didn't even have the radio on), I think it was a good plan.

What was amusing as we drove in is that we went right past not only a sign for New Farm, but also The Beat nightclub... both of which automatically made me think of fellow blogger Eddy.

My first impression of Brisbane, obviously coloured by the fact that we've only seen it in the dark, is that if something stands still long enough, it will have lights, specifically neon but not necessarily, slapped on it.

Interestingly, the hotel entrance is right between two cafés (or a café spread across both sides, I'm not sure yet), and is trying perhaps a little too hard to look all classy and interesting.

What it mostly feels like is dated. Even with the doors that swing open as you approach and the gay desk attendant (and I'm convinced he's on Grindr... I really would like to message him, but it seems incredibly inappropriate... maybe on the last night hehe) and the obvious refurbishment happening in the lobby (at least I hope so, otherwise the lobby is just a hole).

It's kind of one of those up side/down side deals.

royal albert hotel roomThe up side is that the room is probably one of the biggest I've ever stayed in. And even though it's supposedly just a hotel room, it has a dining table and a desk (which is where I am now) and a sofa and coffee table and a teevee on a stand and a kitchen area with a microwave and a hot plate and a washer and dryer.

The down side is kind of two fold... partly it's because I think the walls are fairly thin... somebody just sneezed next door and I heard it (and I think they're doing something in the wardrobe now)... and partly it's because the décor of the room (not to mention the eye bleeding colours out in the hall) is somewhere between faux French brothel and Dallas/Dynasty chic.

Don't get me wrong... I love that I could host a rugby league team in here... it's just that it's all kinda ugly.

After we'd unpacked (and I'd stalked Desk Guy on Grindr briefly) we headed downstairs to find something for dinner. This is the first trip Ma and I have ever taken together where we didn't go to an Indian restaurant on our first night... but I'm okay with that because we kind of ended up doing almost the same thing on our first night here that we did on our last night in Sydney last year.

While it wasn't Wagamama (actually it was a place called Peony Asian Fusion), we did end up just having a bit of this and a bit of that instead of getting a big meal... but what we did get was edaname! Woohoo... I love those little green salty beans! And for the most part we picked things off the kind of yum cha menu... some pork buns (which were really, really good), some dumplings, some spring rolls (which came sliced up, oddly enough) and some spicy tofu thing.

All in all, very tasty.

On the way back we dropped into 7 Eleven to get some bottles of water (and some munchies to try and stop either of us from going anywhere near the mini bar)...

And that's about it really... I'm looking forward to tomorrow though, and seeing Brisbane in the daylight!

Current Mood:

photo friday: japanese rope bondage rabbit

japanese rope bondage gift rabbitI'm not sure that this would be the first time ever in human history that Japanese rope bondage has been used to secure a stuffed animal to a baby gift (which is a weird phrase in itself... baby gift... like a really tiny gift), but I'm guessing the list wouldn't be overly long...

It's amazing what you can learn on the internet.

Almost all of the gift for Tink was rabbit themed actually... given that the baby is going to be born in the Year of the Rabbit. Which worked out nicely given that the main part of the gift was a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit... along with the rabbit mobile I got at Bowerbird and a rabbit card. The only non-rabbit thing was a CD from Rock A Bye Baby Music.

The day before you go on leave is always THE! LONGEST! DAY! OF! YOUR! LIFE!

Hence today was somewhat the longest day of my life.

After I got to work I realised that I'd left Tink's baby gift with the aforementioned bondage bunny at home... so at lunch I walked out of work, got on a bus, came home, picked up the gift, turned around, got back on a bus, grabbed some lunch and went back to work.

It's equally disturbing to me that a) it was remarkably easy to do that and b) it took almost the whole hour.

But other than that today was remarkably dull. A bit of fiddling around finishing up loose ends, but lots of waiting for the day to end.

Eventually it did though... woohoo!

And then it was Haircut Time... double woohoo!

I swear Tink is soooooo big now... it's always amazing when somebody you know grows a whole new person...

Anyway... hair, essentially the same as last time... very, very short around the sides... very, very blonde on the top. And she really liked the present, which is good.

Afterwards I picked up a few last minute toiletries (razor heads, appropriately sized toothpaste, condoms I probably won't have an opportunity to use) and a little container to put my vitamins in.

And I couldn't be bothered making anything for dinner, so I stopped and got pizza...

I think I'll start packing tomorrow... not sure I can be bothered right now... maybe I'll just clear out my Crumpler bag.

So potentially this will be it until I get back from Brisbane.

See you on the flipside!

Current Mood:

random brisbane hotness

Since we're off to Brisbane on Saturday, it seemed appropriate to have a Brisbane themed Random Hotness...

The old trick of following links eventually led me to the work of emerging Queensland photographer, Denis Dwan.

I may have to revisit Denis's work at a later date... he really does have some great models.

ben zaine
luke e tauhou
robert danny n
Current Mood:

travel plans

evening coat hanger melbourne laneway
cathedral door tamarama boy
Herein there are discussions of travel plans... hence the Melbourne/Sydney photos...

There are two and a half days (give or take) left before we head off to Brisbane.

The nerves kinda officially kicked in yesterday... or more specifically, the "we're going somewhere we haven't been before" nerves... because at this point, going to Melbourne feels like wearing a comfortable (if hipster-eske) jacket... and Sydney almost feels like coming home. But Brisvegas is an unknown quantity at this stage. But it's only when I stop and think about it that I get all jittery...

I've made my packing list... my big silver suitcase is taking up space in the bedroom currently... and I'm rocking low level butterflies.

I've also kinda fallen into that "Week Before Holidays" mode at work... as in, I really can't be bothered doing much work. Which nicely coincides with me not having a lot on my plate, so it all works out well. And the fact that we went out to lunch today helped fill in some extra time... and of course eating pizza and having a beer at lunch does not make for an overly productive afternoon.

We haven't even gone on this trip and we're already planning the next one. In fact I think this is the first time that we've made any kind of definite plan for the next trip before we've even taken the upcoming one.

But when Stephen Fry comes back to Australia and beings the QI program (and Alan Davies) with him, what is one supposed to do... you can't not book tickets.

It all came together in reasonably short order really... I heard about it on Monday, then pretty much forgot about it until someone mentioned Mr Fry again on Twitter yesterday.

Then the time between investigating ticket prices (expensive, but doable), having a quick planning conversation with Ma and buying said tickets (not the greatest seats ever, but you get that booking online) was really, really quick.

So quick in fact that I forgot about the fact that we're going to be a man down in The Nut House at that point anyway... so that's going to be something H-San gives me crap about for the next three months.

I did have a minor panic attack yesterday though, because I thought that the ticket I've had for since late last year for Holding The Man was actually for the same night as QI Live. Thankfully though Holding The Man is actually the Friday before, otherwise that would have been a whole world of drama.

We're definitely going a step up with this next set of travel plans... we were planning to go to Sydney anyway around the beginning of November to see the Sculpture by the Sea again... but since QI is happening in Melbourne, we'll head over that morning, spend the day wandering around, see QI (which is a two and a half hour show... so I'm guessing they may be filming two episodes back to back), spend the night (hopefully in the same hotel we stayed in last time), then jetting off to Sydney...

My first two stage/state/city holiday... feels terribly grown-up or something.

But that's next time... first stop, Brisbane!

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 443

What madness is this? A movie review on a Monday and Unconscious Mutterings on a Tuesday? It's a world gone mad I tells ya!

MAD!

Or something...

Unconscious Mutterings...
  1. Stewart :: Patrick
  2. Leafy :: Suburb
  3. Ridiculous :: Obsession
  4. Constipated :: Cod Liver Oil
  5. Bullied :: School
  6. Permanent :: Marker
  7. Surgery :: Doctor
  8. Mosquito :: Net
  9. Meat :: Market
  10. Stupefy :: Harry Potter
Current Mood:

movies: harry potter and the deathly hallows part ii

harry potter and the deathly hallows part ii - it all endsI should have realised that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 wouldn't make me cry anything like the first half... after all, I don't think the latter half of the novel affected me as much either.

But I did get choked up a few times... oddly enough, mostly when references to the previous movies was made... but then I have just finished watching them all essentially back to back.

And of course, the whole "19 years later" scene got me.

Mostly though I thought it was a worthy climax to the last ten years worth of movies... but like pretty much all of it's predecessors, the issue is always what they have to leave out in order to make a movie that stands on it's own and is the required length... unfortunately that has a tendency to either excise entire subplots or just leave the barest threads of them around the main story.

It does tend to mean that the movie bounces along at a rollicking pace... especially because the majority of the action in the original novel takes place in the latter half. But if often feels like there isn't really enough time to catch your breath between action beats.

The other thing that makes the movie feel speedy is the parade of former cast members who show up, sometimes only for long enough to prove they were actually there before they disappear again... I think the only one who doesn't show up is Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart...

We saw the 3D version.... which was possibly neither here nor there really... in fact I kinda stopped noticing it after a while... but for the most part, other than perhaps a brief broomstick/flying/fire scene, the movie looked really good and lacked some of the "rubbery CGI" that have appeared in most of the previous films.

But other than those few minor quibbles, as I said before, it's a fitting climax to the series.

yani's rating: 3 horcrux out of 5

travel prep saturday

travel prep for brisvegasToday was completely without form and plan... other than the normal Saturday morning stuff... or at least it started out that way and then kinda grew organically... but it ended up being useful (if slightly costly) for sorting ourselves out for heading off to Brisbane in a week's time.

Given that I now have the digital SLR which has it's own bag, I was a little concerned about carting that AND my normal red Crumpler bag AND my laptop bag over to Brisbane... it all seemed a bit much really.

Whether I can actually fit the camera bag inside my Crumpler bag or not remains to be seen... but since Ma had also been weighing up the pros and cons of carting her own laptop around, we decided to head out to look at netbooks...

I'm going to say right now that going to see the nice blonde geek woman who works at Good Guys is generally very dangerous... she's the one I bought Beast from... she's the one Ma bought her laptop from... so if anyone is likely to get us to buy things (without really trying terribly hard I have to say... but then she does also give us the best deal she can), it's her.

All I really want from a netbook is it being easy to transport, the ability to play the odd movie, somewhere to store photos while we're travelling, somewhere to type up blog posts and the ability to connect to the net would be nice.

Oh, and I didn't really want to spend more than about $350...

Anyway, we looked, she showed us a couple of options, but we figured we'd head down to JB HiFi at West Lakes to see what they had... the short answer to that was "pretty much the same thing".

Oh and I picked up a new tube of Face Protector from the Body Shop since mine is getting a little low and a little grotty.

On the way down I was commenting on the fact my current pencil case (yes, I have a pencil case, get off my dress) and had decided on a plan of heading down to the Smiggle in the Mall during the week to buy a new one... except we weren't that far from Harbourtown... and they have a Smiggle...

Cue one brief detour where I bought the exact same pencil case, just the half as long version.

Really, today was pretty much about driving from one place to another...

Anyway, I was kinda still weighing up my options regarding getting a netbook now versus getting an iPad later... or getting a netbook now, using it for this trip, then giving it to Ma when I buy an iPad from The Temple Of Shiny during the Sydney trip in November.

But really, I was thinking about it, and while I can kinda see a use for the iPad here in the house, I don't know how often I would actually take it out of the house... and would I really want to write long rambly blog posts (like the travel ones or like the ones I do at Christmas, since I could use it for that too) on an iPad... I could, but then there's stands and keyboards and blah blah blah...

So I figured I would let destiny make the decision... they only had one unit left at JB HiFi, so if they had more than one unit at Good Guys, Ma and I would both get one... if not, Ma gets it and I struggle through with the laptop this time.

acer aspire one d257... but in blackSay hello to Beast 2.0... or possibly Mirage... or maybe Shockwave... I haven't actually decided yet.

It's a 10" Acer Aspire One D257... sadly though it's not all sexy faux-Mac white... or even the cool blue they have... it's just black (but it was on special, so what do you expect)... and the ripple pattern on the lid, that's real and it's actually a physical ripple in the plastic lid.

And no, while it's very cool, that wasn't actually what made me buy it.

It's not really, really, really tiny... but I'm also not going to have to cut off a couple of fingers to be able to use the keyboard effectively.

I also grabbed a copy of Microsoft Office 2010, since I only have Works on Beast (and pretty much never use it). And since it's the three license version I can put a copy on Beast, a copy on Beast 2.0/Mirage/Shockwave (I really am running out of good Transformer based names for my electronic gadgets) and have a copy left...

And that was about it...

I think I've now officially spent my tax refund though...

Current Mood:

photo friday: noble city keeper

sam evans - noble city keeperThis is a beautiful detail from a gorgeous piece of Sam Evans artwork called "Noble City Keeper" I bought from the Paper String Plastic gallery at lunch today... Sam was having a sale, and this one just spoke to me.

And it's on an envelope...

I really am turning into an art collector these days... who knew!

Other than that, today was something of a clusterfuck.

We went out for breakfast this morning to Kappy's on Flinders Street to celebrate some changes at work, and I don't know that I have EVER had such appalling bad service, or lackluster food.

Firstly, they didn't have the "ingredients" to make pancakes because they were popular yesterday... I'm sorry, you've had twelve hours, there's a supermarket in the Mall and another at the Market... sort yourself out.

I was apprehensive enough when the girl taking the orders seemed kind of all over the place...

Then the drinks came out in no particular order, and even though I was the third person to order, I was the second to last to get my coffee (and it was a good long time after I'd ordered). In fact, two people who came in about fifteen minutes after us got their coffees before I did.

When the first breakfast was brought out, the girl who had been taking the orders didn't seem to know the difference between "scrambled" and "poached" (always dangerous)... and after the first breakfast arrived nothing else came out for a good 25 minutes.

ITS EGGS AND BACON AND SAUSAGE AND TOAST... NOT FUCKING ROCKET SURGERY!

Speaking of toast... toast should have some colour to it or some indication that it has come into the presence of heat... it should not be bread that appears to have gotten a mild sunburn.

Then, as the useless girl ran past the table at some stage she supposedly mentioned that they'd lost two of the food orders (one of which was mine), but I didn't hear it as I had my head in my iPhone tweeting my displeasure.

They didn't offer us another beverage for free, they didn't do very much of anything really.

And when my food FINALLY came out (by which point I was completely over it, and yet ravenously hungry since I'd skipped my normal breakfast), not only did it not look like the previous order of exactly the same thing, but it was stunningly tasteless and lackluster.

If the service had been excellent but the food had been a little lackluster, I possibly could have forgiven them, but I find bad service unforgivable.

The food was actually worse than lackluster thought... I don't quite know what was wrong with it, but it sat really heavily in my system for the rest of the morning. Maybe that was just the side order of incompetence it was served with.

I am never, ever setting foot in Kappy's on Flinders Street ever again!

Moving on to nicer things...

I got my tax refund back on Thursday... yaaay... actually they stealthed it into my bank on Monday and I never got a letter about it until today, but I noticed it yesterday. Between that and the big bag of gold coins I took to the back, I've topped my bank account all the way back up to where it was before all the recent spending.

I think I've said before that I find it completely impossible to spend less than half an hour in the Paper String Plastic gallery... I get talking to the owner and time just evaporates. Although partially this time it was because there weren't any prices on the artworks and I had to wait unit Sam got there.

The downside of that was that I didn't actually have time for any lunch... helpful really...

I also picked up a little "Post It" piece of Sam's artwork that featured a snowman, which is going away for Ma for Christmas.

Oh, and as a quick update on my glasses... you know, the glasses that I ordered on July 5... I got a call yesterday saying that they were ready for me to pick up (again)... but as I was on my way to pick them up I got a phone call from them to say that they'd developed a stress fracture FOR THE THIRD TIME.

Thankfully this didn't happen today, otherwise I would have been all kinds of tired and emotional and may have spat my proverbial dummy. Three times they've come back and three times they've had a stress fracture.

Which, frankly, is kind of getting beyond a joke.

I'm more worried really that if they do come back this week and they're fine and I do pick them up finally, that they break while I'm away in Brisbane... because then there isn't a damn thing I can do about it until we get back.

So that's the state of my life currently... on the up side, although my appetite has been slightly spotty over the last few days (and today's breakfast adventure didn't help), I am feeling better. I piked on the gym for the majority of the week, but I think I needed the sleep more than I needed the exercise.

Did I mention that in a week's time I'll be packing for Brisbane?

Current Mood:

random blooming hotness

Do I really need a reason or an explanation for this week's Random Hotness...

Orlando Bloom, in a suit, undoing his pants and showing his boxer shorts.

*fans self*

orlando bloom orlando bloom
Current Mood:

feel like crap

not feeling greatIt has not been a great 48 hours...

Yesterday morning the in-seam on my dress pants tore after I came out of a meeting... I dropped them into my dry cleaners last night only to find that the woman who does the repairs is going on leave, so they won't be ready for an extra week or something.

So I wore jeans to work since I don't have a spare pair of dress pants at the moment.

This morning I woke up at 6:10am, which meant by the time I would have gotten ready and walked to the gym it would essentially have been time to turn around and come back again.

By the time lunchtime came around I was starting to feel less than stellar and everything I looked at for lunch seemed really gross... so I had a Boost Juice for lunch and just proceeded to feel worse all afternoon.

Fortunately the only phone call we had pretty much all day was a wrong number...

Now I feel all achey and both cold and hot... in short, shithouse. And although I haven't really eaten anything since breakfast, I don't really feel like eating anything.

Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow... it's probable that I'll be the only one in The Nut House... and in ten days we're jetting off to Brisbane... have to be better by then goddamit.

I blame my co-workers... always bringing germs and shit into the office... I managed to avoid it all for so long...

Urgh.

Current Mood:

unconscious mutterings 422

I really, really need a vacation...

Someone I follow online, one of the personal trainers at the gym and the bus driver all managed to get on my nerves before it was even 8am...

Fourteen days until Brisvegas!

Unconscious Mutterings...
  1. Puzzled :: Expression
  2. Ordered :: List
  3. Unusual :: Archeology (sorry, I'm watching Time Team)
  4. Speculation :: Financial
  5. Tutorial:: Video
  6. Dangerous :: Killer
  7. Second :: Banana (mmmm... I miss bananas)
  8. Evidence :: Body of
  9. Course :: Training
  10. Reason :: Season or Lifetime
Current Mood:

sixth blogiversary

yaniblog's sixth blogiversarySix years, two thousand five hundred and ninety four posts, three thousand and one comments, forty two thousand five hundred and ninety one page views (since July 2009 anyway)... it's my sixth blogiversary!

It's pretty much beyond something I even really think about anymore... it's just routine and what I do...

No grand pronouncements this year... just the observation that my day at work was predominantly concerned with social media in one form or another... seems appropriate somehow.

Current Mood:

short and non specific saturday

supermarket sweepA generally non specific shopping day...

The only real difference to the usual routine this morning was the fact that we took my car to the supermarket rather than Ma's... just to make sure it would still start really.

Which it did.

Once we'd done the shopping thing and the unpacking thing we headed into the city to go and see the Waterhouse Art Prize at the Museum.

It also seems like the days of the really, really cheap Saturday on street parking have come to an end. From 30c to $1 for three hours... a bloody cheek, I say. Of course I'm half kidding... $1 isn't so bad, but it's just a bit of a hike and a surprise.

Anyway...

waterhouse art prize 2011While I never seem to agree with the piece they choose as the winner for the Waterhouse Art Prize, I think the standard of entries this year was better than in the last couple of years (or compared with last year at the very least).

But at least this year there were a couple of entries that I really gravitated towards... but as soon as I saw the six foot tall, shiny aluminum Icheumon Wasp by Colin Rogers (at the top of the image on the right) I kinda fell in love.

Although, for possibly the first time ever, one of the entries in the Youth Art Prize section very nearly got my nod for the People's Choice Award... Blue Swimmers by Vela Noble (the second one in the image on the right)... so free and beautifully rendered.

And possibly because I've been buying art and things in the last couple of years and because a few of the works had those distinctive red dots next to them, that buying something could be an option. I didn't... everything in the right price bracket that I liked was already sold anyway. But it would have been nice.

What wasn't so nice was some of the people wandering around... or it could have just been that people in general were getting on my nerves... and I still don't understand why you would bother bring kids to an art exhibition where you have to spend the whole time telling them not to touch things and not to wander off. But that's just me.

Once we were done with the exhibition we wandered over to the Mall and were the very epitome of wandering aimlessly... we stopped off at OPSM briefly so I could show Ma the frames for my glasses, but oddly they didn't have the frames in stock any more.

I swear, my luck with that particular pair of classes is just shitty...

Anyway, we only really stopped off at Haighs and Smiggle... and then stood around watching some kid buskers who were playing a big PVC pipe instrument (I'm sure it must have a name, but I have no idea what)... they were pretty good actually.

And that was about it... we were back here by about 2pm...

A short and non specific day, but it ticked all the appropriate boxes.

Current Mood:

photo friday: transformer room

more than meets the eyeThis is obviously where they keep Optimus and Bumblebee...

This week has been one of those ones where you spend most of it just wishing for it to be over and going through the motions. Of course people seemed to be determined not to let me do that and wanted to meet with me or ask me things much more than normal.

I'm not sure whether I've started counting down days until our Brisbane trip and that's why I kind wish July would hurry up.

It's now been 10 days since I went to see the optometrist... after 6 days they called me to tell me that my glasses didn't meet quality control and had to go back, and today they messaged me to tell me that my glasses were ready to be picked up. But when I went down there they'd somehow magically developed a stress fracture in the lens. What the fuck? So it's going to be at least another four days before they come back again. Which is unfortunate, because I'm heartily sick of the old broken glasses.

On the plus side, it looks like they're going to let me take advantage of the RAA discount... so that's good... of course, if the glasses aren't right next time, then even that's not going to placate me very much.

Current Mood:

random sytycd hotness

Today's Random Hotness features my three favourite dancers from Season 7 of the US version of So You Think You Can Dance.

From left to right... 19 year old Contemporary dancer, Robert Roldan... 20 year old Contemporary dancer, Billy Bell... and 18 year old Contemporary Jazz dancer, Kent Boyd.

robert roldan billy bell kent boyd
Kent was like an adorable puppy you just want to pet... eager and sweet and excited. But when he was given a serious routine, he generally danced the ass off it.

Robert was so humble and yet so talented...

But Billy is my favourite dancer of the three... he's a God Of Dance in his own style, he just didn't adapt to the different styles on the show as well as the others...

robert roldan kent boyd
billy bell
Billy's body really does things that a human body really shouldn't be able to do... and looks amazing doing them.

Current Mood: