Notes on a Scandal

Caught this on DVD on the weekend. I think it's safe to say that any time you have a movie starring Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, it probably wasn't my choice. However, I can't lie, I did really enjoy this.


(Spoiler alert)

The plot is as follows . . . Cate plays a new art teacher at an English school, and Judi the older teacher who befriends her. Right from the start Judi seems a little creepy and needy, and as the movie progresses she gets more so. When she finds out Cate is having an affair with one of her 15 year old students, she takes the opportunity to manipulate the situation and separate her from her husband and family, and have her move into her house. Eventually Cate realises Judi is psycho, they have a fights and Cate moves out, and the film ends with Judi chatting up a new woman.

The one thing I found weird was it felt like the movie was building to some act of violence the whole time, but it never happened, it was a little unusual. Although maybe that was all by design. It kind of reminded me of the movie "Match Point", which had a similar sort of feel, but ended with an inexplicable amount of bloodshed, certainly in comparison to what the rest of the movie would have you expect.

Anyway, this was a pretty good film. Definitely kept my attention, although seeing as you pretty much know everything that's going to happen, it may not do the same for you.

We're in the finals!

So this year my basketball team won one game, drew in another, and lost the remaining twelve. Naturally then I was a little surprised to find out today that we're in the finals, starting this week. Not exactly sure how that happened, but I assume it involved a combination of forfeits by the opposition, losses that became wins because the other teams played unregistered players, and teams dropping out.

So we apparently ended up ranked 4th on the ladder, despite the fact that we lost more than 80% of our games.

Our reward is that we get to play the top ranked team this week in the first round, just to prolong our worst season ever a little bit more.

Our chances probably aren't great, even more so since we will be missing two key players, with Wheelie and Jesse having Valentines Day committments. A special Doug Christie jersey is in the post for both of them. You don't see me missing finals games. The fact that my girlfriend is in Queensland this week is irrelevant. Disappointing.

Anyway, I guess we could win, stranger things have happened . . . check back Friday to find out . . .

Shooter

I'd been meaning to watch this for a while, and finally got around to grabbing it Monday night. If you like watching guys get shot with sniper rifles, and people being blown up, I highly recommend.


Mark Wahlberg plays a retired army guy who was left for dead by his Army superiors in an operation gone wrong. He returns to America (alive obviously) and lives a life of solace in a log cabin in the woods. Until some Government guy (played by Danny Glover) visits him one day, and tells him they need him to help them foil an assassination attempt on the President. Except, being the Government, they are all corrupt, and they end up setting him up as an assassin, and the rest of the movie is Marky Mark getting revenge on all the guys who tried to screw with him.

I thought for what it was the movie was really well done, lots of great action scenes, and Wahlberg continues his stretch of awesome movies (Boogie Nights, The Departed, Four Brothers, Three Kings, The Italian Job).

Rating: Somewhere between four stars and two thumbs up.

Big Day Out 2008

Last Friday Muzz and I went to the Big Day Out. For me it was possibly the last time, like any old timer will tell you, music is getting worse, and this is reflected in the lineup. How could I pass up the opportunity to see a reformed Rage Against The Machine though? I couldn't, so I made it to Wayville one last time . . .

We got there around 1pm, and looked for a park in the side streets off Goodwood Road. I knew we'd have to walk a bit, but that wasn't the problem - this year the council had made every single carpark within about a 2km radius of the showgrounds a 2 hour zone. I suppose it's fair, you wouldn't want all the rich people in Goodwood to have strangers parking outside their house for one day in January each year.

We ended up parking a way away at Forrestvile and so were a bit late, and missed the start of Gyroscope's set. They were playing on one of the side stages at 1.30pm and someone must have severely underestimated their popularity, because the place was packed. We eventually got in a position where we could see OK but the sound wasn't the best. And they mainly seemed to play songs from either their really early albums, or their latest album, none of which are as good as the stuff from "Are You Involved"? They were OK, but nothing close to how good they were when we saw them a few months back at Fowlers.

After they finished playing we realised he didn't have anyone we wanted to see for the next six or seven hours, so went to the bar. We had a couple of beers, and laughed at a middle aged security guard who was fighting a losing battle, trying to stop people entering via the exit. I thought he was going to break down in tears at one point. Still, pretty amazing that people don't even listen to security guards these days.

After a while we got a call from Corey, and headed out to the main oval to watch the bands. The Hilltop Hoods were OK, better than I expected, although that might just be in comparison to everyone else. It was pretty funny watching thousands of white people trying to dance like they were black.

We went and got some food, then hung out at a bar some more. After this we headed back to the main arena to try and get in to the D-section up front well in time for Rage.

We got in during the Arcade Fire's set, which was actually a bit of a drag as it meant we had to listen to them play. I counted ten musicians on stage, and yet they still struggled to make something you would describe as "music". Then silverchair were next, and sucked it up real good too. Not only was their music boring, but Daniel Johns just comes across as completely full of himself. He also took the time out to tell us that he wasn't gay, not that anyone actually asked.

Speaking of people who are gay, during Bjork's set Corey started chatting to one of the crowd members, and the guy took the opportunity to try and pick Cors up. He was quite persistent, was good for a laugh, and to distract us from the horrible sounds Bjork was making a few hundred metres away. If you can imagine a musical equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard, that's what it sounded like. It was so bad I actually started to reminisice about silverchair.

So basically that takes us to about 8.45pm, at which point it was officially the worst BDO I'd ever been too. I mean, I knew the lineup was thin going in, but I wasn't ready for it to be this bad.

None of that really mattered when Rage finally took the stage though. From the moment they started with "Testify", they were simply amazing. I think they actually sound better live that on record. You kind of take the sounds that Tom Morello pulls out of a guitar for granted, until you actually see him pull in off live, while stomping across the stage. For four guys they have a huge sound, and it's completely their own - noone else comes close to sounding like they do.

Highlights were Wake Up, Bulls on Parade, Know Your Enemy, Vietnow, and Guerilla Radio. Yep, that's about half their set, they were that good.

They finished at 10.15pm or so, and thanks to the council and their awesome carparking regulations, and music fans who walk about 3km/hour, we got back to the car at 11pm. It was great to see RATM at least once, but I don't think I'll be back to the Big Day Out. Consider me retired.

I still need a PS3

The good, the bad and the ugly

The good

American Gangster - Saw this yesterday at Arndale (the perfect setting for a movie about gangsters). Really enjoyed it, although it took a while to get into, and I don't really think it's necessary for any film to be over two hours long. I don't really like Russel Crowe, but Denzel is great and as always, he's so charming you forgive him the occasional outbursts of violence. However, (spoiler alert), I thought it was a bit ridiculous that in the end his character only served 15 years in prison - even though he did help put away 75% of New York City's DEA for corruption, he did some bad stuff in the film, like shoot guys in the face over monetary disputes. Seems like that would justify a lengthy sentence. Also liked the fact that Stringer from "The Wire" and Saul from "Deadwood" had major roles.

The bad

Getting robbed - For the second time in 2 1/2 years, I got robbed. This time they took all the regular items (home theatre amplifier, playstation) but also upped their game and took my laptop and camera, with all my photos from the last year. Thanks guys! Now I'm looking at how I can sell up and move to a suburb without so many poor people.

The ugly

Trying to entertain myself last Thursday night in a house with no internet and no dvd player. That pretty much cut out all of my traditional entertainment options. After getting robbed I was too annoyed to read, so I just went to bed.

Weekend in Melbourne

Being the spontaneous, seize the day kind of guy that I am, I decided last Monday to take advantage of $10 one way Tiger airfares to Melbourne and go across for the weekend. That's one of the great things about not having kids, or even a vibrant social life - you're pretty much free to come and go as you please. Of course it wasn't really hard to sell Michella on a weekend of eating and shopping in Melbourne, so I had a travel partner lined up in no time.

We got dropped off at the airport just before 7pm on Friday night, by Michella's mum. Which was great, as it meant we got to save valuable money, which Michella could spend on shoes over the next few days. It did feel a little weird though, like we were siblings getting dropped off at summer camp, or something like that.

We found the Tiger check-in desk (it was their second day flying out of Adelaide, so they hadn't got onto anything like signage just yet), and the nice lady behind the counter must have thought we looked like the responsible type, because she gave us exit row seats. The flight attendant on the plane explained our responsibilities, which led to a discussion about whether Michella could lift the 15kg door in case of an emergency. Eventually she admitted that she couldn't, and I suggested she should tell someone and asked to be moved, but she ignored me.

We sat next to a lovely young man who was heading to Cambodia to volunteer at a hospital as part of his medical degree. If I was to pick one thing that was slightly annoying, it would be that he would often listen in on our conversations, then join in if he had something to add. But I'm not the complaining type, so live and let live eh?

We got into Melbourne at about 10pm, and took the Skybus into the centre of Melbourne (kind of a misleading name, as it unfortunately travelled on the road, much like a regular bus). We then grabbed a taxi, and I told the driver (or indeterminable African descent) "The Sebel at Albert Park thanks". He didn't exactly look confident that he knew where that was, but then he didn't say anything about not knowing either. On the way out of the city it became obvious he wasn't sure when he asked me what route he should take. I felt like responding "You picked me up from the airport and are taking me to a hotel - why would you think I'm a local who knows their way around". Anyway after some trial and error we found the place.

Saturday morning we woke up about 9ish. Well Michella did anyway, pictorial evidence would suggest I was a little slow getting out of bed.


We asked downstairs for directions to the Prahan markets, and the concierge replied "Well, it's a little beyond walking distance." We took that as a challenge and set off on foot. On our way there we stopped at a nice little French cafe for breakfast. Michella had fruit and yogurt. I considered my plan of eating healthy over the weekend, decided to change the play on the fly, and went with a bacon and egg sandwich. One of the waitresses at the cafe was French, and had a great accent. I think you can get away with a lot with an accent - I know girls are big fans of the Scottish accent on guys, and the French one on girls is pretty cool. Not so much with guys though.

After breakfast we walked to the Prahan markets. The neighbourhoods we walked through were really nice, although very gay. I'm not sure if it's something in the water, but there seems to be a lot more men who love other men in Melbourne. The markets themselves were pretty nice, quite small compared with the Adelaide Central Market, but smelled a lot better.


I was surprised to find a shop that sells your stuff on ebay - someone must have watched "The 40 Year Old Virgin" and thought "that actually sounds like a decent idea".


Exiting the markets we came out onto Chapel Street. Over the next few hours we entered about 1,453 shoe stores, 1,325 handbag stores, and a few that combined the two.



Also, I had an awesome burger from TGI Friday's, and Michella had Yum Cha from some Asian Tea House (which I shared in - the weekend of healthy eating continues!). Michella bought some shoes, I bought a black polo shirt from Country Road, and we began the long walk back to our hotel.

After showers and a bit of a rest, we took a cab down to Toorak Road for dinner (no more walking for us). We settled on a nice Italian restaurant called "ecco", and had a rather pleasant dinner. Michella had pasta with oxtail, I had what was basically a meatlovers pizza (although as it was a classy joint, the pieces of meat were few and far between). After dinner we walked to the Jam Factory complex on Chapel Street to see "American Gangster" but it was all sold out, so we had coffee in Borders and read magazines we had no intention of buying. We got back to the hotel about 9.30pm, had a drink in the bar and then went to the pool/gym area. There was already another couple in the spa and Michella didn't feel like sharing water with them so she just waited as I lifted weights for a while, then it was bedtime.

Sunday morning we got up a bit later, and went back to our favourite French cafe for breakfast. On the way we passed an incredibly creepy looking gay man (ie he was wearing a very loose fitting pair of underwear, and a leather jacket, and that was pretty much it). Unfortunately he stopped off at our cafe, rambled a bit, ordered a coke, got up and walked around, then finally left. Luckily he never got within a few metres of us, I'm pretty sure we could have caught something just being in his presence.


We walked back to the hotel, and enjoyed their complementary business centre, where I checked my fantasy team's progress, and was pleased to discover they had banded together in my absence and were kicking butt. At about 12.15 Michella's friend Nat and her partner Geoff picked us up and took us to the Docklands for lunch. Since it was only about an hour since we'd finished breakfast I wasn't exactly hungry, but ordered a main serve of calamari anyway. It was good.



After lunch Nat and Geoff took us to a place called "Misty's Diner" - an American-style diner attached to a car wash - for thickshakes.

After arriving and perusing the menu of American style junk food I kind of wished we ate our lunch here. A couple of Asian waitresses came over to take our order, but only one seemed to speak English. Seemed a bit weird, if you're going to hire waitresses in an American style restaurant that can't speak English, shouldn't they at least speak Spanish? After a bit Misty herself came over to talk to us and take us through the menu.

I chose the Reeses Pieces thickshake, which she said came to her one night late in bed (the idea that is). It was indeed a wonderful shake.


Back at the hotel we had a rest then went for a swim in the hotel pool, and sat for a while in the lukewarm spa. We couldn't really be bothered going anywhere for dinner so went downstairs to the hotel bar. I had a pizza which had a "secret bolognese sauce" on it, and was topped with a rocket salad. It was surprisingly tasty.

Monday morning we got a 5.15am wakeup call, which is, in my experience, too early to get a wakeup call. Grabbed a cab outside the hotel, and got dropped off at Spencer Street station. The fare came to $12.40, looking in my wallet I saw I could make that exact amount so paid him without tip. Needless to say, the driver didn't get out to help us with our bags after that. We jumped on the extremely efficient (if a little mis-labeled) Skybus and found ourselves at the airport just after 6.30am.


We checked in, then walked over to the main domestic terminal to get some breakfast. Unfortunately Hungry Jacks at Melbourne Airport don't serve a breakfast menu, so I was faced with a dilemma - go elsewhere or order a Whopper with cheese for breakfast. I don't think I need to tell you which way I went. Although I did wash it down with an orange juice, which was rather breakfast-y I thought.

The flight back was rather uneventful, other than the fact that we didn't have exit row seats this time, and I possibly would have had more space on one of those Africa - America slave ships. Also, there was a minor issue with a tap in the toilets that I couldn't turn off. Got into Adelaide around 9.30am, and got a lift into work with Dad. All in all a good trip, and for $20 return I certainly can't complain.

At the movies with Darren

Last Monday I believe (New Year's Eve) it was, as I recall, ridiculously hot, so the girl and I decided to stay cool and grab a DVD during the day. We settled on "Lucky You", which I thought would have something for both of us - it's a romantic comedy (for Michella) starring Drew Barrymore (for me), and also about poker (me again). Also, Michella picked out some really dodgy movie starring Michael Keaton and Brendan Fraser which I knew she wouldn't actually watch. The funniest part was watching her reaction to finding it, plus her reaction to my comments like "Michael Keaton AND Brendan Fraser, that's amazing - how the hell were they both available?!?!"

Anyway, we sat down to watch "Lucky You", and it was a pretty big disappointment. Eric Bana plays a professional poker player who falls for Drew Barrymore, treats her like crap, steals her money to gamble, realises he's made a big mistake, tries to get her back, fails, somehow gets to the final table in the World Series of Poker, realises that winning isn't everything and lets his Dad (a fellow poker player) beat him, and then of course wins Drew back since she's inexplicably travelled back to Vegas to see his big game. So it's not really that surprising or original.

Last Friday night we decided would be a "date" night. Not sure really how this differs from a regular Friday night, other than the fact that I had to spring for a nicer restaurant than normal. Anyway we had dinner at Cafe Eros, which was pretty disappointing. You would think that in a Greek cafe, you could get a yiros or something similar, but there was no such option. I went with the "mixed grill" which was like a regular mixed grill I suppose, but being Greek, much more oily. Michella had some sort of pastry thing and salad. We shared some pita and dips which were pretty good, although that's pretty hard to stuff up. The worst part was we were on a tight schedule - we had a 5.30pm dinner reservation, and 6.40pm movie, and didn't get our mains till 6.30pm. I stress out a lot over stuff like that so was pretty wound up by the time we finally got our food.

The movie we decided to see was "No country for old men". I thought it was brilliant. It's directed by the Coen Brothers (Fargo, The Big Lebowski), and is about a Llewellen Moss (played by Josh Brolin) who comes across $2 million in cash in the middle of the desert, in the midst of what appears to be a drug deal gone bad. Later that night his conscience gets the better of him, and he returns to the scene to take some water to a dying man who was injured in an apparent gunfight, but when he arrives he finds the man is dead, and that the owners of the money have also returned, and give chase. The rest of the film sees a psychopathic killer Anton Chigur on Moss' trail, while the local Sherrif (played by Tommy Lee Jones) tries to keep up with the two of them, and keep Moss safe.

The guy who plays Chigur does a great job - he's one of the creepiest movie characters I've ever seen. Woody Harrelson is also great as a rival hired killer who shows up in the middle part of the film. The best part of this is the direction though - the cinematography and music are tremendous, and create an incredibly tense mood throughout. Because of this, Michella wasn't a huge fan. In fact, I think she may have described it as the worst "date" of her life. Nevertheless, I had fun.

Finally, last night we watched "The Bourne Ultimatum" on DVD. People seem to love these movies but I'm a bit ambivalent. I can see the appeal - exotic locations, spectactular car chases, violence . . . but I just kind of lose interest. Maybe it's because I'm not a huge Matt Damon fan. Who knows. Anyway this was OK, but at the end of the day, I think I'd rather watch a James Bond movie. So if you like Matt Damon and think it's conceivable he could be a lethal killing machine, go see this. Otherwise, don't. It's up to you.

Extras Christmas Special Trailer

Ricky Gervais in the eighties

Mistaken identity

There is someone else who works in our office named Darren. Except he spells his name with an extra n. Also, he is Scottish. Because of this the girls think he is adorable. With the accent and all.

Anyway, last week we all got an email with the heading "Social: House for Sale". Now from time to time people in here will send out emails with the word "Social" in the subject line, either to promote some cause (today Darrenn sent us all one trying to get us to save the whales), or sell/give away tickets to an event. However, noone to the best of my knowledge has ever used the medium of internal email to try and sell a house before. Until now . . .

Anyway, this would be mildly amusing on its own, but yesterday I got caught in a conversation in the kitchen with a colleague. It went something like this . . .

Her: "Did you get much interest in your house?"

Me: "That wasn't me. You're thinking of Darrenn in Events".

Her: "Oh" (slight pause). "Where did you and your wife move to?"

Me: "I didn't move anywhere. I haven't sold my house. You are thinking of an email from Darrenn downstairs. Not me."

Her: "Oh, right".

Man sometimes people are dumb.

Poker at the Palais

Hadn't been down to the Palais for poker night in weeks, perhaps months, so when the invite came from Muzz and Ando to go last night, how could I say no? The fact that Corey would be there for the first time only sweetened the deal.

We were planning on getting there early for dinner before the game, but some unfortunate tardiness from Ando and Devs meant it was after 7pm by the time we ended up registering. So we ordered our meals, but the waitress says "If we do them now, you'll probably get them before the game starts but you'll have to rush them down - do you want to wait till the first break?" Everyone agreed that this sounded like a good idea, and so I didn't really have a choice, even though I was crazy hungry.

So come 7.30 the game starts, and Murray, Ando, Cors and I all sit in a row on the same table. It's tempting to spread out so you don't knock each other out, but then that kind of takes the fun out of it. For the first fifteen minutes of so I mainly got rubbish cards, so focussed on catching up with Corey. I started to get hands a bit then, and cleaned up a few times without having to show my cards after getting Ace-rubbish.

I spent most of the first session dreaming of my chicken schnitzel in dianne gravy. I've never been so hungry playing cards before, or as relieved when the first break finally came.

During the second session we got split up and I ended up on a table alone. The blinds were starting to knock me out, so down to 1,200 chips I went all in and doubled up. As the final break approached I realised that the rest of the guys were all out of the comp, so decided that I was either going to go out in a blaze of glory on that hand, or come back from the break with a whole lot of chips. I went all in with King - Six, and had a few people call. Despite hitting a six on the flop I was still down until a third six came up on the river, and I cleaned up.

During the break I tried not to get too far ahead of myself. Murray told me there was $500 prize money for first place tonight, and I tried to resist fantasizing about what I'd spend the money on. I was getting advice all over the place - generally the consensus seemed to be play your game, play smart hands, don't try and get too agressive.

When we came back from the break I had about 11,000 chips, which probably put me up in the top 10 of remaining players, maybe higher. As the blinds climbed though, I started to lose . . . I saw two all ins against pocket pairs where I had two overcards and lost the race both times. Down to 2,200, I finally went all in with Jack - Queen suited. Was still in it till the river with an open ended straight draw, but didn't come off. Think I finished about 16th out of 70-odd players in the end, and avoided making any really boneheaded decisions all night, so I can't complain.

A few final thoughts:

It was great to spend the night just hanging with Corey, Murray and Ando. I realised then how infrequently we do that, just the guys.
Some of the players at my table were recounting the game they played in last night, which is held at an Adelaide strip club. I've never been to a strip club, but I would imagine it is not the kind of environment that is condusive to playing cards . . . or concentrating in general.
Some of the guys at my table needed to spend a little less time playing poker, a little more time showering.
There was an older guy there who Murray reckoned looked like Alan Kloot (an older South African guy who goes to our church). Murray explained to the guy who Alan was, and then called him Alan Kloot all night (using both names). Amazingly, the guy didn't seem to really care.

Great wedding video

You have to wait for a minute or two though . . .

31st BBQ Breakfast

Today was a good day

Woke up this morning and I was 31. Not sure if that feels old or not, I don't think it does.

I did few odd jobs around the house, then drove to Michella's place. She handed me my gift, and said "don't get excited by the shape, it's not what you think it is". As I unwrapped it I noticed it was a shoebox shape, and so figured it probably wasn't the November Rain limited edition Nike SB Dunks that I had been coveting. Anyway, it was all part of her plan to throw me off the scent, because tearing off the gold wrapping paper I found a gold Nike box with these awesome shoes (or "kicks" as they are otherwise known) inside.


Best present ever.

Anyway . . . after that we drove down to Star of Greece at Port Willunga, where Chella was shouting me lunch.


I'd never been there before, and it was very nice - great views of the coastline, and really nice food. The decor isn't really what you'd expect for the price you're paying, although some would say that's part of the charm.


I had the locally caught squid with lemon mayonaise, and then rump of lamb with purple gnocci, cherry tomatoes and green beans. Perhaps it was because it was my birthday, or perhaps just because she had the same main, Michella mainly left my food alone this time.


After coffee we got up to leave and approached the counter for the bill. When the waitress handed it to me I turned and gave it to Michella, and the waitress reacted with a horrified look on her face, like "You're the dude, you're not meant to do that!" I tried to explain that it was my birthday and not a regular occurence but she seemed pretty surprised still. Ah we still have so far to go in terms of gender equality in our society.

On our way back to town we stopped off at Colonades to try and find a dress for Michella. Unfortunately there was nothing in Myer and the rest of the place seems bogan central so came away empty handed.

We got some alcohol for my birthday breakfast at Dan Murphys there, picking up a slab of Coopers Pale and Coronas. Also grabbed a few bottles of champagne - Michella tried to get me to class it up with the $60 bottles but I figured it was a waste, especially since I don't like champagne and it would just be other people drinking it.

We drove back into town and headed for the markets, looking for food for the next morning. I like the idea of shopping in the markets, but it's just so tiring - trying to avoid people walking too slow, people not watching where they are going, and people with prams who might possibly run all over my new sneakers. Was glad to get away and finally home to relax.

The Darjeeling Limited

This is a bit of a belated review, but I thought it was important that I post it, if only to save other people from watching this film.

Last Thursday night we went to the first night of Moonlight Cinema for the summer in Botanic Gardens. I got some tickets through work, and was looking forward to seeing "The Darjeeling Limited", the new film from Wes Anderson (The Royal Tennenbaums, The Life Aquatic).

We got there a little after 7pm with our take away Thai food. For me, this is one of the best things about Moonlight Cinema - even if the movie is completely crap, it's a nice excuse to eat great food in a picturesque location surrounded by pretentious yuppies (more on that later). I can't complain about the food, it was great quality. The only downside was that I ordered the Red Beef Curry, and Michella ordered some all-vegetable dish. And then wanted some of my meal too. It reminded me of how when you go to a party and they decide to order pizza, and everyone asks for all of these weird things, and you say you just want a bbq chicken one, and then when it comes everyone just eats your bbq chicken. I hate it when that happens.

Anyway, as we were eating dinner, we noticed a group of young people sitting across from us who looked like they were out at a day at the races. The girls in particular were all dressed up in summer dresses, despite the fact that in about an hour it was going to be freezing cold. There was a photographer for The Advertiser taking photos, and she spent quite a lot of time with this group, getting different combinations of them together. Once she finished up there she walked past us to the next group of people, and started taking their photo. I'm guessing we missed out because a) we were dressed appropriately for a movie in the open air late at night and/or b) we were stuffing our faces with Thai food.

Onto the actual film itself . . . it was preceded by a short movie starting Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman, playing two ex-lovers who meet again in a Paris hotel. It was kind of interesting, but nothing to write home about.

The main feature then commenced, with Jason reprising his character, playing the brother of Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody. The movie is basically about three brothers who go on a train journey across India, to "find themselves" or something like that, following the death of their father.

I was talking to Mirjana today who told me that the luggage they all carry throughout the film is meant to signify the baggage we all carry through our lives. That kind of explains the pseudo-depth they're aiming for with this. Mainly I found it boring. There were a few good Owen Wilson lines, but overall it was more of the same from the director - if you've seen any of his last few movies you know what to expect. Lots of quirkly dialogue, deadpan delivery, awkward silences, that kind of thing. I kind of enjoyed it for a while but two hours was way too much. Michella said she liked it but she fell asleep about an hour in so I don't think that really counts.

Disappointed

Last night Muzz and I caught Rob Zombie's remake of "Halloween" at Arndale. I was disappointed.

I was really looking forward to this - Rob Zombie has made two of my favourite horror movies, and so I didn't think he could screw it up. But he did, it just really wasn't that scary.

Maybe it's got something to do with the source material - back in the seventies the original Halloween was probably pretty scary, but these days, a big man wearing a mask and lumbering around killing people isn't that terrifying. In fact, he looked more comedic than scary most of the time. There were hints of his earlier movies, in terms of some of the white-trash characters, especially in the first half of the film. But the second half (when Michael Myers is an adult) was just like any other horror movie remake.

Perhaps the best thing about the movie was the casting - Zombie uses the same actors from movie to movie, so it's kind of fun to pick out all of the regulars, sometimes in quite different roles than they usually play. I also enjoyed the doctor from "Deadwood" as the Sheriff, and Ari's boss from "Entourage" as Dr Loomis.

In short, wait for the DVD, or don't bother.

A few quick reviews

Reign Over Me
Sunday night watched the Don Cheadle/Adam Sandler movie "Reign Over Me". Normally I'd steer pretty clear of Adam Sandler, but this was one of his "serious" movies, and received a good review from Forcey so gave it a go. Basically, Adam Sandler plays a reclusive ex-dentist, who lost his family in the 9/11 plane crashes. One day his old college room mate, played by Don Cheadle, runs into him on the street, and they rekindle their friendship as Cheadle trys to help Sandler deal with post traumatic stress, and face the world again. A pretty good movie, although a little long, and Liv Tyler's role as a psychiatrist is probably the most ridiculous casting since Denise Richards played a nuclear scientist in that Bond movie.

Wu-Tang Clan - 8 Diagrams
Wu-Tan Clan's albums have been getting progressively worse since their debut but I downloaded this one yesterday and have actually been enjoying it quite a bit. Especially the song they do where they sample The Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

Arrested Development
I borrowed the first season of this off of a colleague and am quite enjoying it. It's not great, or always laugh out loud funny, but it is cleverly written. And for me these days, that's enough.

Temptation

A couple of months ago I got turned onto something called Chester Slice, that they sell at the "Ned Kelly Bakery" around the corner from me.

I'm not really sure why I chose to try it, because it doesn't look all that appetising. It's basically a vanilla slice bottom with icing on top, but instead of custard in the middle there is a type of dark fruit cake. Anyway, it is delicious, and now I'm hooked.

Until now this hasn't posed a huge problem to my waistline because the only place I could get this item was around the corner from my house, limiting my consumption to weekends. But this week I found out that the Price's Bakery in Southern Cross Food Court sells them as well.

This could pose a problem for me, it's kind of like how Robert Downey Jr would feel if they opened up a cocaine shop next door to his house. I've had two this week already, the most recent one being about half an hour ago. And I think I need to set myself some limits here, or all the trips to the gym in the world aren't going to help me. Why is everything that is tasty so bad for me? I don't understand things like that.

Songs I love

I've been getting a lot of questions about the playlist for my upcoming 31st birthday party. I wasn't going to release any of the details, but what the hell . . . if you're in my backyard on the morning of Satruday 8 December, you could probably expect to hear a few of these songs . . .

The Dropkick Murphys - I'm Shipping up to Boston
I first heard these guys when this song was featured in "The Departed". I haven't taken the time to listen to much of their back catalogue since, but this song is a winner. It's got it all - heavy guitars, banjo, some accordion. Basically it sounds like a bunch of pirates getting together to form a punk rock band. From what I can understand, the lyrics are about climbing the top mast. A great song.



The Gallows - Abandon Ship
Because really, you can't have too many punk rock songs about sailing.



The Killers with Lou Reed - Tranquilize
This is the first song off the new Killers B-sides album. I'm not sure about the rest of the CD yet but I love this song, it might be my pick for song of the year. I love the western sounding intro, it kind of reminds me of the Dandy Warhols during their "13 Tales from Urban Bohemia" era. My colleague reckons it reminds her of Jon Bon Jovi during his "Young Guns" era, but I think she's just trying to piss me off. Bonus marks as well for the backing vocals from the little kids, a la "The Wall". I love that The Killers seem to be mixing in these classic rock influences into their sound, hints of Pink Floyd and Queen as well as the eighties stuff. Partygoers will definitely be hearing this one.



Radiohead - All I Need
I kind of gave up on Radiohead after OK Computer, but this song is fantastic. Really chilled out but still with a driving beat. And like, an actual melody, which they don't seem to care too much about these days.



Ryan Adams - Down In A Hole
I heard he was playing this Alice in Chains cover on his latest tour, and was hoping we'd get it in Adelaide. No such luck, as he played the bare minimum before ending the show rather early. Anyway, he's recorded a studio version of this song and released it on a new ep and it's pretty cool. Quite a bit of Alice In Chains' acoustic stuff has a country-ish feel to it anyway, but the slide guitar is definitely a welcome addition.

Go Sixers!

Saturday night I attended my first Sixers game for the season with a few friends. We've had a pretty terrible season so far, and have now lost Maher, so expectations aren't real high. However, the team has won a few in a row now, and was taking on the second year South Melbourne Dragons, who were one spot below us on the ladder, so I thought we might pull through.


We started pretty well, with new import Adam Balinger doing whatever he wanted offensively. I'm with Forcey on this one, he might be my favourite Sixer ever. He reminds me a bit of Dusty Rychart - a big, fundamentally sound power forward with a nice shot, but a willingness to work hard inside. I wasn't such a huge fan of our other import Mike Chappelle - not sure if I've been scarred by the Willie Farley experience, but I'm not really into import guards who mostly just shoot the ball. And not always well.


Still, the lack of offensive firepower on the team became evident, especially with Maher out - at one point I realised of their 52 points, 27 were from Balinger, 10 from Ng, 10 from Chappelle, and the rest of the team had a combined five.

Anyway, as we went into the fourth quarter up by 20, I started explaining to Michella that if this was the NBA, Balinger would spend much of the final period on the bench, enraging his fantasy owners. Not long after though South began their comeback, eventually cutting a twenty point lead to 1 point. There were a couple of causes - the Dragons played a pretty good trap in the final period, and Davidson had a bit of trouble with it (Maher would have been handy here). Also, Heal and Ingles took over, Ingles in particular hitting two huge step back threes.

It took two made free throws with about 5 seconds remaining from Balinger to seal the deal and give the Sixers a three point win. A great game, and I'm a big Adam Balinger fan now.


A few other random notes:

Nicest jersey I saw - A brand new Boston Celtics Ray Allen
Worst tattoo - The guy who had a tattoo of Ned Kelly on his bicep. You know, the one with the bucket on his head.
Biggest disappointment - The umpiring was horrible, with the Sixers getting tackled a few times in the last quarter. You just knew a Boti Nagy column was coming on Monday.
Worst nickname - The Ninja (Darren Ng) - am I the only one who finds this borderline racist? Why not call him "Fried Rice"?

Postgame

After coffee and cake at Evida's at Henley, we weren't quite ready to call it a night, so went to McDonalds at Fulham for a Big Mac. We talked ourselves into it by remembering that it was McHappy Day, so at least we'd be helping the kids while piling on the kilos. Anyway, the Fulham McDonalds is a hole these days. Not sure if its being remodeled but it was a mess inside. So we grabbed our burgers to go, and noticed that outside there were a whole heap of cars full of young teenage men. Cruising is what they call it. Just driving around, playing music, every now and then yelling at people in other cars. I don't understand the attraction, seems pretty gay to me. But I noticed as we were driving home these people were pretty much everywhere. Mostly driving Commodores and Skylines. It's weird, I don't remember this being a big thing when I was younger. Sure, sometimes, we'd drive down to the Quix to get frozen cokes, but I don't think we ever spent the night just cruising around. Kids these days . . .

Remembering the Spice Girls

So last night I went to tea at Michella's cousin Sharna and her husband Dave's house. After a delicious meal of roast chicken we settled down to a game of "Battle of the Sexes". For those who might not know about the game (like me before last night), it involves teams split by gender being asked general knowledge questions skewed towards the interests of the other sex.

For example, Michella, her sister Rhianna and Sharna got questions about lathes and Rugby Union, while Dave and I got questions about sewing and cosmetics. And the Spice Girls.

We were asked to name all of the Spice Girls, and I took up the challenge . . . and surprisingly I managed to name all five. The names came slowly at first, but as I rattled them off one after the other the impressed gasps turned to laughter. It was an exhilarating and then slightly awkward moment, as I could see the "We're so breaking up after this" look in Michella's eyes.

I actually have no idea at what point I learned the names of the Spice Girls. And obviously it worries me a little that the information is still hanging around in my head. At least I was able to make use of it, if only to amuse my friends.

Inflation

So I stop off at my favourite Vietnamese bakery on the way into work this morning, planning on grabbing one of their sultana muffins.

I request the muffin, count out the $1.40 from my wallet, and the lady responds "That will be $1.95 thanks".

"Huh?"

"$1.95. Prices go up today."

So I stepped back, took a look at the cabinet, and sure enough, prices had gone up. And not the usual amount of 10% or so. Choc donuts - were $1.60, now $2.40. Basically everything had gone up by 50%. It was like someone had told her how much baked goods were currently selling for, and she was unaware as she's spent every day for the past ten years in her little shop from 7am-5.30pm.

The thing she probably doesn't realise is her wares really aren't all that nice. The low price is a key selling point. If she's going to charge the same as everyone else, I may as well go elsewhere. And I probably will.

Gyroscope

So Sunday night I went to see Gyroscope at Fowlers Live, my final concert for 2008.

We (Narelle, Murray and I) arrived at about 8.15pm, and found out it would be another two hours or so before Gyroscope took to the stage. We saw a bit of the first support act, but skipped the second for a trip to the West Terrace Maccas. Murray said he hadn't had tea, so we got some burgers, although I found out the next day he'd actually enjoyed a dinner of fish and chips, but had just forgotten about it. I was shocked to discover that a hot apple pie now costs $2.25. Daylight robbery if you ask me.

We got back to the venue just as the second band were finishing up their set, and waited another half an hour or so as Gyroscope set up. They finally got on at about 10.15pm, and played for about an hour. It was a great show, with most of the hits from their last album, "Are You Involved?"

A few things weren't quite right though . . .

1) It was too loud. My ears were ringing for five minutes after leaving, and I heard Murray's still were the next day. I like loud music as much as the next guy, but if you've got one instrument drowning out everything else it's a waste, I'd rather they turned it down a bit and worked on the mix.

2) It was an all ages show. Kids are more annoying these days than they were 15 years ago. Examples of their behaviour included the guy who was jumping around in the mosh pit, and then coming back to kiss and hug his girlfriend every few minutes, and the two teenage girls next to me who sang the lyrics to each song loudly while staring lovingly at each other. Weird.

3) Sunday nights aren't ideal for a rock concert, when you have a job.

Still, all in all it was a really good concert. The band were a lot tighter than when we saw them at the Uni Bar last year, and they definitely put on a really energetic show. Highlights were "A Slow Dance", "Beware Wolf" and "Snakes and Ladders".

Next up - Big Day Out and Rage Against the Machine.

Rogue Assassin plus Death Proof

I was planning on watching "Rogue Assassin" at the movies. But then I found out I could watch it for free on the internet, and so I just did that.

I reckon there was probably something lost watching it on my laptop, but even still, it wasn't very good. It stars Jason Statham as an FBI agent who is trying to track down "Rogue", played by Jet Li. "Rogue" killed his partner (FBI partner, not the other type) in a flashback at the start of the film, and now Jason wants revenge. There was also a plot about a war between the Triads and the Yakuza in San Francisco, but I couldn't really understand that since they all looked the same to me.

Anyway, you don't watch a movie like this for the plot. The trailer promised lots of shootouts, car chases and kung fu fighting, and it didn't really feel like the movie delivered here.

I like Jason Statham a lot. He was great in "Snatch", and the first "Transporter" film. Most of his other movies have been pretty rubbish though, especially that "Crank" movie, which was just ridiculously bad. Sadly this seems to follow in that tradition. I really wanted to like this, but I couldn't.

I also saw "Death Proof", the Quentin Tarantino-directed half of "Grind House" recently. Again, I wasn't a huge fan. I'm starting to notice a pattern with Tarantino's films. After the masterpiece of "Pulp Fiction", he turned in "Jackie Brown". He followed that with the brilliant "Kill Bill", and now this. It's like he takes every second movie off.

Anyway, this mainly consists of a psychotic stunt car driver (Kurt Russell) chasing down women in his "death proof" car, which he's modified so that he can crash into other cars and still live. It's split into two sections, with each focussing on a different group of girls. Most of the time though is just them talking about girl stuff, and while the dialogue is usually great in his films, it's rather boring in this.

So overall I wouldn't recommend this. Hopefully "Planet Terror" is an improvement, because this was a bit of a let down.

TV on the internet

About a week or so ago I had my internet connection upgraded from 256kps to 1.5mbps. The difference seems about the same as when I went from dial up to broadband. Which means it is much, much faster.

The major benefit of all of this speed means I can now watch internet video without waiting for it to buffer. So I've spent a little more time on youtube, mainly checking out basketball highlight videos. This is great, but there is only so much you can take of watching 3-4 minute clips.

However, I've come across another site which I'm loving - www.watchtvsitcoms.com

Basically it's a youtube type page where you can watch entire TV shows in real time eg you don't need to bother downloading them first. There's a limited number of shows up there, but you've got all your major hits - The Simpsons, Prison Break, 24 etc. There's even a few movies, which is pretty cool. I'm looking forward to watching the remake of "Halloween" some time soon.

I wouldn't be surprised if this gets shut down soon, but until it does I'll be a regular.

Scrabble, basketball, and weathermen

I've started reading a book on the world of competitive Scrabble playing, called "Word Freak" by Stefan Fatsis, which I borrowed off Penglis several years ago. It's pretty good so far, although I'm not really learning any special techniques that will help me with my game. It's amazing the difference though between social games and competitive ones - if I'm playing I try to not use words that I couldn't put in sentence. Or at least give a definition for. I can honestly say though that I've never heard of 90% of the words that are used in the professional games described in this book. Words like "fustian", "eloiners", "oxtering" and "filariid".

After my rant about how all music sucks these days, I found something new that I like, an ep from Maynard Keenan's new project Puscifer. It's no Tool, but it's pretty good nevertheless.

If you're looking for quality basketball videos on youtube, check this out. http://www.youtube.com/groups_videos?name=truehoop

This was my personal favourite . . .



Also, Bill Simmons took a break this week from talking about baseball and football on his podcast to talk about the NBA with Charles Barkley. Definitely worth listening to.

I got the first issue in my subscription to "Esquire" this week. I'm really enjoying it so far. There's a few too many ads for $10,000 wristwatches, but it does feature Chuck Klosterman as a regular columnist. And there's a really interesting - and quite lengthy - article on Kobe in this issue. Plus pictures of Charlize Theron. No down side really.

The Kobe story is up online if you want to check it out . . .

http://www.esquire.com/features/the-game/kobebryant1107-2

I got a phone call as I was walking into the office yesterday morning from my old buddy Keith Martin, at the printer with his almanac, checking a few last event dates with me. He asked me when the Barossa Under the Stars and Big Day Out were going to be. I had to fight the urge to say "Are you serious Keith? You don't have your Big Day Out tickets yet? Rage Against the Machine are playing! You can not miss this show!"

Just another reason why I need a PS3

Is music getting worse?

I think it is.

Over the last month or so, I've aquired new albums from the following bands: R.E.M., Jose Gonzales, Eddie Vedder, Thursday, Radiohead, and PJ Harvey.

From these six albums, I think I really like two songs - Jose Gonzales' cover of the Massive Attack song "Teardrop", and the Radiohead song "All I Need". Not a good success rate. And yet if you were to ask me what kind of music I like, names like R.E.M, Pearl Jam and Thursday would probably get bandied around a lot.

I'm not sure if these bands are getting worse, or my taste is changing. If it's the latter though, shouldn't I be liking new and different music? Probably the only new band that I've added to my listening rotation in the last year has been The National. And that's mainly because they sound like Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen, two artists that I've liked for a while.

So if anyone has any suggestions, I'm open to them (Paul, I've heard of the Foo Fighters, and Michella . . . the Michael Buble thing is not going to happen. Sorry)

Anyway, while I'm on the topic, here are a few quick thoughts on the above albums, just in case anyone is interested in checking them out.

Jose Gonzales - In Our Nature
This is OK, although not much of a development from his last album, Veneer, which is great background music, and always makes me feel suave and urbane when I listen to it. The best song as I mentioned is the cover. Because he has such a unique style he generally does covers pretty well, his version of Springsteen's "The Ghost of Tom Joad" is the best I've heard.

Eddie Vedder - Into the Wild
This is a soundtrack to some movie, so it kind of gets a pass, because who knows, maybe it works as background music. But overall I just found this a little dull.

Radiohead - In Rainbows
This is probably my favourite Radiohead album since OK Computer, which isn't saying much. They released it via their website, and told their fans they could pay what they wanted. I chose nothing. But given some of the crap they've released the last few years, I kind of feel like they owe me money. What's even funnier than this sliding cost schedule though is they are also releasing a deluxe copy, with all this extra crap, which sells for $80 or something. So they are simultaneously looking after their fans, and trying to completely screw them over. Weird.

PJ Harvey - White Chalk
Instead of playing the guitar, she sticks mainly to the piano on this album. And instead of singing in her normal voice, she sings mainly in an unusual falsetto. Why? I have no idea.

Thursday - Kill The House Lights
This is a collection of live songs, demos and unreleased material. The overall quality seems to be pretty bad - the band broke up earlier this year so I think they just grabbed whatever was still lying around and threw it on here.

R.E.M. - Live
This is a live album from their last world tour (which Alen, Narelle and I took in at the Entertainment Centre a few years ago). I actually quite like their last few albums, so this is OK - the tracklisting includes "Walk Unafraid", "Drive", "I Took Your Name", "Boy in the Well", and of course the hits like "Losing My Religion" and "Everybody Hurts". It's just that there's nothing really here to distinguish the songs from the studio recordings - they're not really reworked, and there's not an overabundance of energy. Worst of all, "Country Feedback" is somehow ommitted, which is really inexcusable.

Rogue Assassin

Anyone want to go see this with me?

Book review

I haven't been reading a lot lately. In fact, I've always suspected I like books much more than I like reading, and think my recent dry patch has been evidence of this. Back living at home though means I'm back taking the bus to work every day, and so I feel like I should read something during my daily commute.

A few weeks ago I picked up a book called "Freakonomics" by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner. You could tell immediately that it was going to be semi-intellectual, given that both authors used their middle inititials, as smart people often do. Flipping through it though it looked really interesting and accessible, so I committed to reading it.

The main guy behind the book - or the ideas contained in it at least - is Levitt, described as a kind of "rogue economist". Which means that most of the writing doesn't apply to what most people would describe as economics. It's kind of more social science really. He uses data to answer a range of questions, which range from "Why do most drug dealers still live with their Mum?" to "What do real estate agents and the Ku Klux Klan have in common?"

It's interesting stuff, and makes you think about the world in a new way. Some of their claims can be a little disturbing - like the chapter in which they argue that more than any other factor, the Roe vs Wade decision which legalised abortion in the US was responsible for the drop in the American crime rate in the 90s - but you can't fault their logic.

If you're interested in this stuff the authors keep a blog on the New York Times website here http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/ which is worth a look.

I read it over a few weeks, but it only took me a few sessions - it's really easy to read, funny, and you feel approximately 20% smarter after finishing it. So, yeah, I recommend it.

Big Day Out 2008

Usually I leave Big Day Out tickets to the last minute. I figure that with the capacity of the Showgrounds and the size of Adelaide's population, there's little chance of missing out.

This almost backfired on me last year, when I delayed getting tickets and the first allotment sold out. We only ended up getting tickets because I waited in line the week of the show for a last minute release.

Anyway, my plan was again to hold back a bit this year, and wait till my cashflow situation improved a bit. But when I heard this morning that the BDO website had sold it's allotment of tickets, I figured I'd better get to it. Ten minutes later I was on venuetix, and had secured tickets for Muzz and I.

Part of me is pumped about the show, and part of me isn't. That's because, despite featuring the reformation of one of the greatest bands of all time (Rage Against The Machine), the 2008 Big Day Out lineup is almost entirely rubbish.

Bands in the first announcement include Bjork (whose music sounds like fingernails on a blackboard), Grinspoon (cliched, plaguarised alternative rock), Arcade Fire (overhyped and boring), Hilltop Hoods (rap music from and for bogans), Billy Bragg and Paul Kelly (is this A Day on the Green?), and a bunch of other bands that I don't know or don't care about. Seriously, outside of the headliner, this has to be my least favourite BDO lineup yet.

Hopefully there is some relief in the second announcement - The National are scheduled to do Brisbane and Melbourne pub shows here in January 2008 so I guess they're a possibilty.

I just hope that RATM can hold it together for a few more months, if they break up again before February I'm screwed.

I want a PS3

What's going on

If you're ever at the video store, and everything you want to see is out, and you see there's still a copy of the new Bruce Willis/Halle Berry movie "Pefect Stranger" in stock, and you think "Hey, it can't be that bad", don't pick it up. Trust me, just walk away.

After a long winter hiatus, I've started cleaning up the garden a bit. On the weekend finished the front yard, although the backyard still needs a lot of work. To call it a jungle would be kind of insulting to jungles.

Some team-specific basketball blogs I've been enjoying . . .

http://3shadesofblue.blogspot.com/

http://bucksfans.blogspot.com/

http://www.blogabull.com/

http://shamrockheadband.blogspot.com/

Two weeks out from the start of the season and I'm already checking our fantasy message board constantly during the day. Not a good sign.

Queenstown crime update: In the past week at 122 Spring Street we've had one bin stealing, and two car eggings. Although anecdotal evidence would suggest 2am burnouts on the street outside my bedroom window are down by 25%, so that's encouraging.

I'm loving the return of Entourage to Foxtel, but am lukewarm so far on Prison Break. First episode was great, second not quite as good, and the third is still waiting on my DVR.

Bathroom renovation update

Thanks to Murray Huber, I now have a working toilet in my house. Which means I don't have to pee in the backyard anymore.

A song about Tyson Chandler?!?!

Cool highlights though. And I'm more than a little excited about having him on my fantasy squad this season.

Week in review

It's been a pretty busy, interesting week.

Last Saturday Michella and I left Adelaide at the early hour of 7.30am to travel to Cape Jaffa. We only decided a few days before that we wanted to go away for the weekend, and apparently every caravan park in SA outside of Cape Jaffa was booked. Anyway, it had pretty much everything we were looking for (proximity to beach, cheap accommodation, solitude), so we went for it.

We stopped off in Kingston for lunch, and ate at the pub. I had salt and pepper squid, and it was pretty ordinairy. The plan was to stay and watch the grand final, but there were too many bogans, so we left for Cape Jaffa.


After settling into our budget cabin, we found our way to the common room to watch the game with everyone else. Most of the other guests were Geelong fans, although there was one quite vocal Port Adelaide fan. The game was obviously terrible, but the people were nice, and shared their food with us, including some delicious chicken wings.



At night we tried to go for a walk, but it was blowing a gale, and raining, so that didn't work out so well. We played a few games of Scrabble, and I won. Michella took it well.

On Sunday we drove into Robe for lunch (Cape Jaffa is basically a caravan park and a few isolated houses). This was a much finer dining experience than we had the day before. We travelled back to the caravan park via a couple of wineries, and picked up a bottle to have with dinner.


After tea we had another game of Scrabble (man this rock and roll life I lead is pretty full on). This time Michella won. She figured she might not do this again, so took a picture of the board to remember the occasion.


The next morning we left for home, stopping in Meningie for lunch. Unfortunately, I experienced a horrible pain in my tooth, which I vowed to fix on my return to Adelaide.

We spent the evening at a get together at Murray and Amanda's house. A couple of the hours from the evening are missing from my memory, but apparently I played Taboo (quite badly I presume) and headbanged to Rage Against the Machine (also, most likely, quite poorly).

Tuesday morning was my one day this week in Adelaide, and I rang the dentist first thing to get my tooth taken care of. It was a crown I had had put in only six months ago, so I was surprised I was feeling pain. The dentist tried to tell me everything was OK to start off with, then he realised the crown had broken and was coming loose. He took it out, and promised to put in a new one for free in a few weeks time.

Wednesday I was again up early, this time at the ungodly hour of 5.30am to take a flight to Ceduna for work.

We got in about 9am, and held our monthly Regional Marketing meeting in the Ceduna council chambers.

When we went to America a couple of years ago, Alen told an airline employee at the Seattle airport that her town was a hole. Whether this is true or not is debatable, but I'm guessing he wouldn't have said this if he had been to Ceduna.

As we drove into the town we passed six or seven indigenous youth walking along the road. Carrying rocks. This is not a town in which I would feel safe.

After the meeting we went to an Aboriginal art gallery. I'm not really a fan of dot painting, in my admittedly non-expert opinion it seems to be one level up from paint by numbers as an art form. So I didn't like this much. After this we had lunch at the Ceduna Hotel, loaded up on booze and drove to Fowlers Bay.

Fowlers Bay is a weird town. It's kind of an outback town, but on the coast. There's a permanent population of 14 people. And the town in surrounded by these really high sand dunes.

Our host Reg took us over the sand dunes in the back of his 4WD, and it was an amazing experience. I couldn't believe that we didn't roll his car, the dunes were so high and so steep. But I suppose he had done this sort of thing before.



We had a barbecue dinner on the beach which was great, and then stayed the night in an apartment.



The next morning we were up relatively early and drove out to the Head of Bight to see the whales.

It was kind of cool, but I'd be lying if I said I was the kind of guy who gets really excited about this kind of stuff. We then drove out to a Nullabor Roadhouse where a couple of my colleagues went on scenic flights, and I leaned against an outside wall for about two hours straight.


The Roadhouse seemed to have a pretty good deal going. They took whatever the normal price was, and doubled it. You want a coffee? Five dollars thanks. Hamburger with the lot? Eleven fifty. Plus it's mainly a cash business so you pay whatever tax you feel like.


After this we drove four hours or so to Streaky Bay, where we stayed the night.



Here was the view from my room in the hotel . . .


We had dinner at a place called Mocean. I had the squid, panfried in garlic butter, with shaved parmesan on top. It was amazing.

Yesterday morning we spent the morning driving around Streaky Bay in a bus, visiting various beaches. They mainly looked the same. We had lunch back in the town, and Matt told me about a local place where we could get a $25 hamburger than was bigger than the plate it came on. Unfortunately they stopped making it earlier this year though so I settled for a schnitzel.

After lunch we did a tour of an Abalone farm, then an Oyster production facility, and I was bored out of my mind.

Finally, we drove back to Ceduna to get our flight home. At 8pm we were about to take off, but the pilot couldn't get the second engine started. At this point I would have been happy to fly with one engine if we could, I just wanted to get home. He turned all the power off, tried again in another ten minutes, and an hour or so later I was dragging my tired body through Adelaide airport.

It's good to be home.

Hmm . . .

Sting just seems to keep finding new ways to sell out. Supporting The Police on their 2008 Australian Tour . . . Fergie?!?!