This is a tree and a sky. It symbolises colour and loneliness simultaneously.
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
It's not a hiatus, I'm just bizEH
Which means photo posts!
This is a tree and a sky. It symbolises colour and loneliness simultaneously.
This is a tree and a sky. It symbolises colour and loneliness simultaneously.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Sontag Blogettes
Things I love about being a meat eater: I arrived home after hockey this week to a house gushing with the taste-bud aching smells of Mele's family pasta sauce recipe. I can reveal for purposes of this story that she puts osso bucco and pork spare ribs in there. I can also reveal for the purposes of this story that Mele had a face like a kid with a mouthful of Brussels sprouts.
"Come with me!" she cried, the moment I stepped through the door. "I've got something I have to show you!"
She dragged me into the kitchen and pointed to the chopping board. On it was a small piece of white gristle. "What do you think that is?" she asked. The gristle was a piece of skin carved from the edge of one of the pork spare ribs. On the piece of skin was a small raised nodule.
"A wart?" I guessed.
"It's a nipple!" she moaned. "I want to die!"
I tried to talk her into the fact that nipples tend to have boobs under them, but she insisted that it was neither wart nor beauty spot. It probably was a nipple. I love eating meat. I've reached a stage in my life where I'll eat or at least try anything that's put in front of me and the thought of seared, dripping blue-cooked steak reclining on a plate in front of me fills me with the animal hungers.
At least it wasn't a tattoo.
***
A blog ye muste alle reade: I've only just discovered Myninjacockle's The Loaded Blog and it's the only non-comic site that I've felt compelled to go back and trawl through every single post because each one is an excellent little vignette. The author has either had a lot of practise blogging and discovering what works and what doesn't and what holds an audience, or is one of those talented arseholes who gets it right without even trying. Sceptical? I present for your delectation Exhibit A and, if that's too highbrow, Exhibit B.
***
Blurry photos: I've tried to defend my penchant for blurry photos in the past, but I'm beginning to accept that it's probably one of those things that will be appreciated only when I'm dust in the dirt. Or never. People love dat focus stuff yes suh.
However, being how this is my blog and they're my photos, I can do whatever the hell I like. Moify and Ms Moify-To-Be's engagement party was last night and I took a whole bunch of real blurry ones - YEAH!
I hope it is many years before they get around to drinking the wine we gave them because I wrote on the label "All best for your beautiful journey together". Hopefully they decide to drink all their engagement wine in one hit and get to ours last so they don't have wonder too much about why a man who claims to be a writer thought that omitting a "the" would be poetic.
***
A photo from the archives: For reasons that will become clear in a future blog, I was digging around some old travel photos from a ski-trip to New Zealand. The following photo was taken after probably the worst night's sleep that either Triton or I have ever had. We got a cabin in the woods somewhere and rugged up for cold night. We weren't too worried because we had a double-barrelled bar heater. At two am, the bar heater died. At 2:15am we both woke up with the feeling that we were both going to die. We considered writing a last will and testament but movement was mostly out of the question. Let the record also show that even with the spectre of death from hypothermia looming large we did not declare prison rules and share a sleeping bag.
The next morning we shouted at the manager and were given no refund for our Night of Icy Doom. There was nothing left to do but go to Glenorchy and sit in the sunlight while drinking pitchers of coffee and dining on a cubic foot of baked beans, nine-egg omelettes and half a pig each, nipples and all.
This is the photo I took of the frost shadows outside the Glenorchy Bar and Restaurant.
"Come with me!" she cried, the moment I stepped through the door. "I've got something I have to show you!"
She dragged me into the kitchen and pointed to the chopping board. On it was a small piece of white gristle. "What do you think that is?" she asked. The gristle was a piece of skin carved from the edge of one of the pork spare ribs. On the piece of skin was a small raised nodule.
"A wart?" I guessed.
"It's a nipple!" she moaned. "I want to die!"
I tried to talk her into the fact that nipples tend to have boobs under them, but she insisted that it was neither wart nor beauty spot. It probably was a nipple. I love eating meat. I've reached a stage in my life where I'll eat or at least try anything that's put in front of me and the thought of seared, dripping blue-cooked steak reclining on a plate in front of me fills me with the animal hungers.
At least it wasn't a tattoo.
***
A blog ye muste alle reade: I've only just discovered Myninjacockle's The Loaded Blog and it's the only non-comic site that I've felt compelled to go back and trawl through every single post because each one is an excellent little vignette. The author has either had a lot of practise blogging and discovering what works and what doesn't and what holds an audience, or is one of those talented arseholes who gets it right without even trying. Sceptical? I present for your delectation Exhibit A and, if that's too highbrow, Exhibit B.
***
Blurry photos: I've tried to defend my penchant for blurry photos in the past, but I'm beginning to accept that it's probably one of those things that will be appreciated only when I'm dust in the dirt. Or never. People love dat focus stuff yes suh.
However, being how this is my blog and they're my photos, I can do whatever the hell I like. Moify and Ms Moify-To-Be's engagement party was last night and I took a whole bunch of real blurry ones - YEAH!
I hope it is many years before they get around to drinking the wine we gave them because I wrote on the label "All best for your beautiful journey together". Hopefully they decide to drink all their engagement wine in one hit and get to ours last so they don't have wonder too much about why a man who claims to be a writer thought that omitting a "the" would be poetic.
***
A photo from the archives: For reasons that will become clear in a future blog, I was digging around some old travel photos from a ski-trip to New Zealand. The following photo was taken after probably the worst night's sleep that either Triton or I have ever had. We got a cabin in the woods somewhere and rugged up for cold night. We weren't too worried because we had a double-barrelled bar heater. At two am, the bar heater died. At 2:15am we both woke up with the feeling that we were both going to die. We considered writing a last will and testament but movement was mostly out of the question. Let the record also show that even with the spectre of death from hypothermia looming large we did not declare prison rules and share a sleeping bag.
The next morning we shouted at the manager and were given no refund for our Night of Icy Doom. There was nothing left to do but go to Glenorchy and sit in the sunlight while drinking pitchers of coffee and dining on a cubic foot of baked beans, nine-egg omelettes and half a pig each, nipples and all.
This is the photo I took of the frost shadows outside the Glenorchy Bar and Restaurant.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
This Sim is Unhappy!
I have just been to one of the more poorly-organised festivals that I imagine I will be attending in my life. The OzAsia Moon Festival was, at the outset, brilliantly conceived: a gentle night of family entertainment and cultural enrichment on the banks of the still-not-so-stinky-you-can’t-ignore-it River Torrens. Lanterns, music and food were promised and banners, posters and television commercials have heralded its coming for quite some time.
Jokes ahoy
The little book shall go to Jono for his multitude of number puns. Ever since embarking on this joke book I have come to two theories. 1. There is no clean joke, suitable for children that is not in some way a pun. 2. There is no lower form of joke, gag, whit or humour than the pun. It has often been posited to me that sarcasm is the lowest form of humour, but I am here to tell you now that at least sarcasm has a bit of worldliness about it. The pun, the putting one word in place of another, contains humour surely no more deserving of laughter than putting your gloves on backwards. Since reading a large collection of joke books published for children I believe that I have truly discovered the most depraved forms of humour and whimsy. I am devoid of hope for those who expected to get more laughter out of these jokes than from twisting the stalk from an apple or looking right when crossing the street. Behold:
What has fins and buzzes?
A fish gnat (fish net).
Which bugs should you hire to build your house?
Carpenter ants.
What corn do spiders make?
Cobwebs.
I see why the authors rarely put their names to these joke books. Could I do better? No - this is about as punny as it gets here in Writing.
What did the pun say to the egg?
Is this a yolk?
GTH
The point goes to River for playing on to win and playing creatively at that.
***
Update
My faith is restored! While trawling joke sites for inspiration (read: stuff to plagiarise) I came across this little ripper on a site where all the jokes are submitted only by kids from around the world:
How many ADD kids does it take to change a lightbulb?
You wanna go ride bikes!?
If you weren’t in Adelaide this evening, I also need to confirm that it was a balmy summer evening of perfection. Neither too sweaty or breezy. Perfect.
However, someone forgot to organise the festival. I counted three food vendors, including the mooncake shop and the over-priced, over-worked Festival café. The lantern parade was less a spectacle than a school pageant. A somber announcer read out the names of each school and informed the increasingly puzzled 3000 attendees that the children had been making their own lanterns from paper and that some particular schools actually had a few students who were from Asia itself. The undoubtedly excited kiddies paraded around the edge of the park past a parental guard of honour that was just enthusiastic enough to block the view from everyone else. I did mention music. That was also provided by the junior members of local Asian music societies and was, I’m sure, brilliant for people that age.
A few dragon boats with a Chinese lantern fixed to their bows punted up and down, but mixed with the now-incredibly-attractive reflections of the streetlights from War Memorial Drive. When the martial arts demonstration began, Mele and I decided it was high time to high-tail.
I felt particularly sorry for the poor women behind us who defended every inch of their turf from the encroaching crowds. ‘Don’t sit on that jacket please!’ they would politely call. ‘We have seven other people coming!’ Saving festival lawn-space without a blanket is no picnic. Heh. Shameful jokes aside, the bitchy looks they got from every pusher-carrying dad and hamper-toting mum were enough to win a little bit of my respect. And my pity when the seven people finally turned up. They hugged, apologised for being late (the traffic was a nightmare), sat in their long-fortressed area, craned their necks to glimpse through the gloom nothing but the backs of about a hundred proud parents of primary schoolers, declared the event fucked and left.
Jokes ahoy
The little book shall go to Jono for his multitude of number puns. Ever since embarking on this joke book I have come to two theories. 1. There is no clean joke, suitable for children that is not in some way a pun. 2. There is no lower form of joke, gag, whit or humour than the pun. It has often been posited to me that sarcasm is the lowest form of humour, but I am here to tell you now that at least sarcasm has a bit of worldliness about it. The pun, the putting one word in place of another, contains humour surely no more deserving of laughter than putting your gloves on backwards. Since reading a large collection of joke books published for children I believe that I have truly discovered the most depraved forms of humour and whimsy. I am devoid of hope for those who expected to get more laughter out of these jokes than from twisting the stalk from an apple or looking right when crossing the street. Behold:
What has fins and buzzes?
A fish gnat (fish net).
Which bugs should you hire to build your house?
Carpenter ants.
What corn do spiders make?
Cobwebs.
I see why the authors rarely put their names to these joke books. Could I do better? No - this is about as punny as it gets here in Writing.
What did the pun say to the egg?
Is this a yolk?
GTH
The point goes to River for playing on to win and playing creatively at that.
***
Update
My faith is restored! While trawling joke sites for inspiration (read: stuff to plagiarise) I came across this little ripper on a site where all the jokes are submitted only by kids from around the world:
How many ADD kids does it take to change a lightbulb?
You wanna go ride bikes!?
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Overheard in Adelaide
True, you don't seem to hear quite as many juicy tidbits of hilarity in Adelaide as you do in New York, but in the spirit of cultural research (eavesdropping) here is a conversation I was privy to at the latest meeting of The Gun Club.
Power-lifter #1: Hey, I brought my muscle-shirt along today!
Power-lifter #2: Yeah?
(Power-lifter #1 removes jumper to reveal baggy white Everlast wife-beater and flexes considerably large muscles for Power-lifter #2)
Power-lifter #2: Oh, I thought it was going to be the one that made you look gay.
Power-lifter #1: Eh?
Power-lifter #2: You know - that tight, red one. It makes you look gay.
Power-lifter #1: Nah - I wore that yesterday.
Such are the wonderful things one overhears (eavesdrops upon) in the company of muscular young man. It was a wonderful day for listening in, because after my own gun-related workshopping, I overheard this little ditty:
Gunshy* undergrad (talking to friends next to sit-up machine): So she's like "I've got stomach cramps and I've missed my period".
Friend: Oh man!
Gunshy* undergrad: I know! And he's like "I'm not worried, whatever". That's bullshit, man. I don't care how tough you are, any man hears "stomach cramps, missed period" is going to be worried.
There were then various speculations about the virtuousness of the lady that I won't get into here because they were rude.
I don't think anyone has noticed, but I'm instituting a new theme to celebrate both the embracing of Blogger and the Having a Talk with tBlog. The theme is basically, for every new post I post, I will change the background image of the title header. Last post it contained a genuine Yorke Peninsula alpaca, for this post it is an attractive Yorke Peninsula-caught-and-killed Blue Swimmer (see video below). Every time I write a new post, I will put up a new header so that those without RSS know-how who check back every day and sometimes twice a day just to see if I've written some new self-centred polemic on popular-culture or posted another mildly embarrassing episode from my childhood will get that extra thrill of excitement when they see the new photo strip in the header.
But wait - there's more!
I will also be holding a little competition - guess where the header is from! Points are given for creativity and geographic proximity. Google Maps locations will be richly rewarded. With what? With kudos. Nothing more than net-related kudos. I have already ruined this post's by giving it away, so the (minimal) fun begins next time. Thematic clues will be hidden within the post. And so, here is the crab, getting the way we see it above:
Speaking of themes: here is an artsy photo I took last weekend in Yorke Peninsula.
It's part of an old amenities block for an industrial thingy that we've only ever seen from the road when we whiz past and think 'I wonder why that shed is on the top of that pole? I really must stop and take a look'. This time we did stop and take a look and were none the wiser. It appeared to be some kind of smelter or heat-based apparatus. Anyone who could enlighten me as to its function will be greatly appreciated. It might even post a few more photos of various bits of it if that would help.
You can't really see the bottom from the road, so it does look a bit strange. Bear in mind that it's the only thing taller than a tree for kilometres in every direction.
*Gunshy - one who wears a long-sleeved t-shirt to Gun Club
Power-lifter #1: Hey, I brought my muscle-shirt along today!
Power-lifter #2: Yeah?
(Power-lifter #1 removes jumper to reveal baggy white Everlast wife-beater and flexes considerably large muscles for Power-lifter #2)
Power-lifter #2: Oh, I thought it was going to be the one that made you look gay.
Power-lifter #1: Eh?
Power-lifter #2: You know - that tight, red one. It makes you look gay.
Power-lifter #1: Nah - I wore that yesterday.
Such are the wonderful things one overhears (eavesdrops upon) in the company of muscular young man. It was a wonderful day for listening in, because after my own gun-related workshopping, I overheard this little ditty:
Gunshy* undergrad (talking to friends next to sit-up machine): So she's like "I've got stomach cramps and I've missed my period".
Friend: Oh man!
Gunshy* undergrad: I know! And he's like "I'm not worried, whatever". That's bullshit, man. I don't care how tough you are, any man hears "stomach cramps, missed period" is going to be worried.
There were then various speculations about the virtuousness of the lady that I won't get into here because they were rude.
I don't think anyone has noticed, but I'm instituting a new theme to celebrate both the embracing of Blogger and the Having a Talk with tBlog. The theme is basically, for every new post I post, I will change the background image of the title header. Last post it contained a genuine Yorke Peninsula alpaca, for this post it is an attractive Yorke Peninsula-caught-and-killed Blue Swimmer (see video below). Every time I write a new post, I will put up a new header so that those without RSS know-how who check back every day and sometimes twice a day just to see if I've written some new self-centred polemic on popular-culture or posted another mildly embarrassing episode from my childhood will get that extra thrill of excitement when they see the new photo strip in the header.
But wait - there's more!
I will also be holding a little competition - guess where the header is from! Points are given for creativity and geographic proximity. Google Maps locations will be richly rewarded. With what? With kudos. Nothing more than net-related kudos. I have already ruined this post's by giving it away, so the (minimal) fun begins next time. Thematic clues will be hidden within the post. And so, here is the crab, getting the way we see it above:
Speaking of themes: here is an artsy photo I took last weekend in Yorke Peninsula.
It's part of an old amenities block for an industrial thingy that we've only ever seen from the road when we whiz past and think 'I wonder why that shed is on the top of that pole? I really must stop and take a look'. This time we did stop and take a look and were none the wiser. It appeared to be some kind of smelter or heat-based apparatus. Anyone who could enlighten me as to its function will be greatly appreciated. It might even post a few more photos of various bits of it if that would help.You can't really see the bottom from the road, so it does look a bit strange. Bear in mind that it's the only thing taller than a tree for kilometres in every direction.
*Gunshy - one who wears a long-sleeved t-shirt to Gun Club
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An explanation of The Joy Division Litmus Test
Although it may now be lost in the mysts of thyme, the poll below is still relevant to this blog. In the winter of 2008, Mele and I went to live in Queensland. In order to survive, I bluffed my way into a job at a Coffee Club.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.
It was quite a reasonable place to work: the hours were regular, the staff were quite nice, it wasn't particularly taxing on my brain.
There were a few downsides: In the six weeks or so that I worked there, there was about a 90% staff turnover (contributed to by my leaving). This wasn't seen as a result of the low pay, the laughability of staff prices or the practice of not distributing tips to staff, rather it was blamed on the lack of work ethic among Bribie Island's youth.
However, one of the stranger aspects of the cultural isolation that touched our lives during our time "up there" was the fact that nobody at my work had heard of the band Joy Division.
The full explanation is available here.
But please, interact a little further and vote in my ongoing poll. The results are slowly mounting up, proving one thing: people read this blog are more well-informed about Joy Division than anyone who works at the Coffee Club on Bribie Island.
