Home Improvement

I spent most of the weekend doing handyman work around the house. It was a rather frustrating experience.

For example, in my experience, nothing ever goes right for me (in handyman terms, that is). I had to put a new doorhandle (which I bought three years ago) on a door, and after digging it out from my shed, realised I had lost a key part of it. I spent about half an hour looking around the shed, to no avail, so went to the hardware store. Since they only had one size of this particular part at Mitre 10, I assumed it was a one size fits all kind of thing. I was wrong. I got the part home and realised that I must have non-standard doorknobs, and my new standard part didn't fit. So I had to use my trusty angle grinder to grind it down to the correct size. Half an hour later it was done, and a job that should have taken me an hour to complete (ie one a qualified tradesmen would have finished in 15 minutes) took me an entire morning.


This scenario was repeated several times on Saturday and Sunday. And I realised that being a handyman isn't in my blood. I can usually complete most tasks, but not quickly, and certainly not well.

I can't wait to move . . .

We lost in the finals!

Well, we forfeited anyway. Jess and Wheelie had to woo their women, and Ash had to go to Sydney for work leaving us with four players, and ending our season.

It's unlikely we would have won (see previous post detailing our fantastic win/loss record for 2007/08) but it would have been nice to at least give it a go.

I'm not sure where this leaves us. I suspect our team has played its last game together, I think I'm ready for some time off at least. As you get older everyone starts to go their separate ways with wives, kids, careers and it gets harder and harder to get a full team each week (although having none of those three things, I'm usually pretty reliable).

Now all we're left with is the memories . . . Boris getting suspended for a season and then having to move the team to Port Adelaide to get around this, losing every year to Jarrad until we conviced him to join our team, the season Mike played for us and never learned how to do a lay-up, the Jamie era, Jimbo filling in and trashtalking to Jarrad, and Jarrad responding by kicking our butts, sharing a single jug of complimentary beer and a pizza after each grand final appearance (regardless of whether it was a win or a loss), winning in the finals, then within a year losing 90% of our regular season games . . . ahh, so many memories.

Valentine's Day

Being the romantic guy I am, I chose to celebrate Valentines Day yesterday by spending the night alone and indulging in a mindless action movie, called approproiately enough, "Shoot 'Em Up".



I can't compete with the plot recap posted on wikipedia, so I won't try . . .

The film follows Smith (Clive Owen), a down-and-out squatter with both an extensive military background and a fondness for carrots, who wants nothing more than to be left alone. Smith finds himself embroiled in a complex political conspiracy once he aids a pregnant woman who is being chased by a hitman. He takes the baby and goes on the run with a lactating prostitute (Monica Belluci). The unlikely family is trailed by the intelligent and ruthless Hertz (Paul Giamatti) and his army of thugs. A myriad of elaborate gunfights ensue, between which Smith pieces together the plot. A United States Senator who strongly supported gun control had been breeding babies for bone marrow to cure his cancer; a prominent gun manufacturer contracted Hertz to kill the babies, effectively killing the Senator. In the end, Smith, the prostitute, and the baby survive.

Yep, that's right. "Fondness for carrots", and "lactating prostitute" - not exactly mainstays of your typical action movie. It was good though, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact it was basically a 90 minute long gunfight. I quite liked Clive Owen in this, and even that annoying wine guy from "Sideways" was quite good. If you've got a night to yourself, or your loved one isn't averse to copious amounts of blood, you could do a lot worse than this for a quiet night in.

For sale: One brothel

Found out this week that our neighbourhood brothel (or so I'm told) is for sale. I always wondered what it looked like inside one of these places, and now I know. Although I have to say, just looking at that bathroom makes me feel ill . . .

As Corey pointed out, the key to the previous owners is in the first line of the descriptive text . . . "Unique 2 Storey Residence That Can Be Utilised For Various Purposes. In Need Of Urgent Sale - Vendor Relocating Interstate" . . . Corey said replace "various purposes" for "pimping" and it all makes sense.

I'm really enjoying the latest season of The Biggest Loser. Shannan is undoubtably the highlight, he's what Steve Irwin would have been like if he went into body building instead of crocodile hunting. There are many other characters which grab your interest to though, both good (Cosi from SA) and bad (Racheal the lazy punk lesbian).

I've been listening a lot to the Juno soundtrack lately, and have decided I really like it. Totally different from the stuff I'd normally listen to, most of the songs are pretty folkish and a bit child-like. It's quite good though, and fits in perfectly with the movie (which I also recommend).

Finally, there's a lolly shop in the city that sells Jelly Bellys by the flavour, and I've become quite a fan - I especially recommend the peanut butter ones.

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.