So i’m looking through my list of drafts for this blog.. going back to early June, and there’s about 14 posts i’ve started and not finished.
Really interesting things (i think), like the Melbourne film festival, the funeral of Martin Martini and the Bone Palace Orchestra, the day i juggled listening to St Kilda get whalloped by Essendon.. outside the Corner Hotel while legendary Melbourne band The Ears were setting up inside. Plus.. the time that i sang with the very amazing fIRST cHORUS choir at the Victoria Hotel Brunswick.
So much culture, and so little finished blog product. How totally slack. Must be the hibernation thing.
Roads were full of trauma on my way home tonight.
Gilbert Rd., Thornbury.
i shouldn’t have looked, but i saw a car sandwiched between 2 big trams.
Scrunched up to about half its length.
Ugh.
Police cars everywhere, paramedics, the fire brigade.
Here is my artist’s impression of the event.
Last week Tim and i hit the city for an early movie ..
11am in the central place, the new beginning/ prequel version of star trek, with Sylar Guy as Spock.
xkcd is funny.
One day i went to drop off some of my ex-boxes, and discovered the Reservoir Tip computer recycling facility. Masses of old rubbishy broken machines, and one smashed up MacBook Pro!!
i thought maybe Tim could use the parts so i surreptitiously grabbed it and drove off. Sure enough, later on that night we took it to pieces, and found the hard drive and the battery were still in working order.
Working enough to find out that somebody had left all their data on the drive. So Tim gets all the data off and then does the decent thing, contacting this person and asking if they need the backup.
Turns out this person, whose identity shall remain secret, had taken the laptop to the shop. The mechanics had said, “Can’t do anything love, it’s broken. Can’t get your data off, but don’t worry we’ll make sure noone else does either.”
What kind of computer shop doesn’t know how to get the information off a working hard drive??
The moral of this story? Don’t trust a computer shop with your data.
And don’t sit on your macbook pro.
Oh thank heavens i’m back home. G Love and Special Sauce is on the stereo, Sam’s getting fish n chips from the new place on Sydney Road .. and the massive heat wave faded away just before i arrived. Tim and Nathan are here, with beer.
Life is perfect.
Sometimes you can have enough of a foreign place and living out of a backpack. Phnom Penh is beautiful in its way, but the poverty gets to me (not as much as it affects the locals obviously), my comfort zones are stretched, the heat and dust wears me down. i needed the comfort of home.
mmmm .. off to Victoria St to get me some frozen lychees.
.
photo credit: roboppy
i’ve been very lucky with the bike lately.
The front gear thing was out of whack. (The derailleur.) So i took it along to Lygon Cycles, where they said .. “oh, you want a service? Well everything needs replacing, so it’ll cost you around $360.”
“But you can get a new bike for around $400.”
Ouch. Not so convenient. i start looking for new bikes, and the one i want is over $1000. Maybe i’ll budget for that.
..in the meantime.. i take the bike down to Ceres on a Saturday morning and have a go at fixing the derailleur myself. The great thing about Ceres is that if you try to mend it yourself, eventually an expert will swing by and give you advice .. or in my case, roll their eyes, take the tool and do it themselves.
But within a couple of weeks, the thing’s broken again in a different place, proving the Lygon people correct. i’m riding around in the lowest gear imaginable, my legs pumping 3 times faster than they should.
Then one day i’m riding along the Bicycle Highway (Canning St.) into the Edinburgh Gardens, and there’s a couple of people with a sign saying “Free Bike Maintenance”. What about that for good luck!
“Are you with Ceres?” i ask.
“No, just a couple of nutters,” the guy replies. “Speak for yourself,” his partner cuts in ..
Within a few moments, he’s done an emergency procedure, told me about the best bike shop in Melbourne (under the Richmond station .. lots of second hand parts he says), and given my pedal power back to me.
i feel so much better on the roads now. Thank you heavenly bike-mending angels !!
(So, now i’m looking for more bike stories. What about you post one on your blog, and link back here .. or leave me a comment? Where’s the worst place you’ve broken down? etc. Hello, x
So in the great tradition of “cheese sandwich” blogging .. here i am in a cafe in the city. I’ve just had the biggest and best big breakfast in the whole wide world, and i’m luxuriating in the free wireless net connection of blue point cafe, opposite the watch-house in Russell Street.
Yes, i’ve got the day off work, Tim doesn’t start his sergeant role for another couple of hours, and this is my first access to internet for non-work reasons in months.
Off we go to wander through the city and search the computer shops for gadgets. End up in a liquidator shop on Swanston St called “Arthur Daley’s Lock-up”.
Gloves for three dollars Yah!
Tim’s gone to rehearsal, so i head across to Minotaur, to get the latest copies of Buffy Season 8, in comic book form. I can’t wait. Apparently Buffy meets Fray, the vampire slayer from the 24th century.
Last i heard, Buffy and Giles aren’t talking to each other; the tricky “Twilight” crowd are dividing Buffy from Willow, and Dawn is still a giant.
How lucky am i! Jude and Jody invite me over for a sumptuous lamb kofta experience, followed by dripping-down-your-front apple and strawberry strudel. Yum.
So we watch the US Dance show, and we agree that Katee and Joshua are the best. This piece, choreographed by Mia Michaels, made me gasp.
Then Jude pulls out the Will Ferrel classic, “Anchorman”. Talk about cheese!
Time to go home and devour Margaret Cho, the best comedian in the world.
Life is wonderful.
Margaret Cho – Assassin! (part one)
image and photo credits: licensed under creative commons at flickr: Thanks very much: cowtools
So i had a go at playing indoor soccer. The boss got a team together, and joined us into a competition at the council. We were so bad, we lost again and again, eg 13 goals to 3.
The other teams played rough, although it was supposed to be friendly, and they had skills – which we did not. Rohan could do a fair simulation of Maradona, Maria kicked a major goal, and Nick the coach was a real player, but i could barely stay upright. Massive hand bruises thanks to falling on hard gym surface. Ouch.
Trying to drive later on, had to get Louise to operate the gear stick. Too friking painful. That’s it, i’m over sport for ever.
xo michael (image, The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick by Gertrud K. at flickr, thanks)
i’ve had another buckwheat experience ..
Saturday night was so great, Madame Zu Zu was in fine form, and the Open Studio crowd so much more into her than at Bar Open the week before. Dancing everywhere. Lovely vibes, happy people.
..but then i tried one of the new crepes.
i was so looking forward to it. and i tested for buckwheat reaction before diving in; but i really should have asked. i must be healthy at the moment because it took three mouthfuls to set me off. so i went home, and fortunately had a couple of Finurgen tablets left over from the time i had to go to hospital after my birthday pizza night last year ..
The tablets stop all the symptoms and allow me to sleep. Good. but, oh boy, a couple of Finurgen tablets would knock out a horse!
The next morning i couldn’t move, i could barely talk. Tim and Sam came around, wanting to take me out to breakfast, and all i could say was “Bbbckwhhht lllst nght, ca’nnt mmmv” .. and i’m still feeling groggy monday morning;
PS Later that month: the new sign reads Crepes (Buckwheat). Thanks.
xox, michael
(image: hi dad by tashland at flickr)
