Wednesday, February 28, 2007

I'm a flickr whore

Hmm, I got sucked into upgrading my Flickr account to a pro one...means I can arrange all my photos into little sets, which I guess is handy. I couldve used photobucket I guess, but Flickr is so much prettier and faster and easier to use etc etc etc...I finally figured out how to put links, so you can go to it by clicking said link on the left hand side.

Tonight we went out to the city for drinks, because I can't make it to Ben's farewell on Saturday, and he's leaving for Germany on Tuesday until probably the end of the year, so tonight is the last time I saw him. I made good use of my camera (well, the 'good' bit is probably debatable, but I had fun) and got some nice photos...here is one, the rest are in my Flickr (in the set 'Friends, Countrymen...').

Brendan and me

I also took a video, just 10 seconds of some very dark footage, I have no idea what we're saying/laughing about, but at the end of it is Georgina holding up a bottle of beer with a big thumbs up, and I thought it was pretty funny.


So there's my multimedia thing for the day.

-R

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

I got a digital camera

I was thinking about getting one, so I went to Myer today and they were having a sale, so I ended up buying one, a Canon Powershot A430. It's pretty chunky, an older model, which meant that it was only $150, but it has an optical viewfinder and a 4x optical zoom, so I'm pretty happy. I just wanted something to take odd little snapshots with, and tonight I used it when Brendan and I went to North Melbourne for coffee (he wanted to scope it out for potential living) and we passed this awesome looking antiques shot, and this is my favourite photo from it:

Antique store

hopefully i will post photos a little more than occasionally.

-R

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Yay!

Steve came and fixed our computer/network/whatever today while I was at work. He was like one of those invisible pixies in fairy stories - before I left for work today everything was down, and when I came back from work today everything was working again. So thankyou Steve :)

-R

Friday, February 16, 2007

I See Red!

I went to the Tim Finn gig tonight, and - WOW. It was amazing. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Firstly, I got a bit of a hair trim today, because I've decided I'm growing it out, so I got rid of the longer bit so it'll grow out evenly. I had the tiniest smidge of blonde left, so I dyed it bright pink again, and while that set I decorated the house for CNY, and it looks pretty cool.

Went into the city about 2:30...went to the Howard Arkley exhibition. I know I've been planning to see it with people, but I'm not sure if I'll have time before it closes on the 25th, so I went today just in case. It was pretty awesome. Interesting to see how his style changed over the years - from stark black and white in his early years, through to more complex pieces in earthy tones, through to his comic book inspired saturated colours in his latter years.

So anyway, onto the gig! I met a couple of my frenz at Southbank for dinner, then we headed up to the Forum...there was a surprisingly large number of people already lined up, but we still got a good table, at the front left of the stage. I guess being an older audience (the majority would be my parents age) they're not too fussed with being up the front. We had a young lad and his mum ask to sit at our table, and it turns out we all know each other from the Frenz messageboard. The support act was Josh Pyke, just him and his acoustic guitar and some guy on violin, glockenspiel and tambourine (obviously not all at once). I don't know any Josh Pyke songs but he was good.

Tim came on at 9pm, which I consider early (usually the gigs I go to, the headliner comes on at 10:30) but I wasn't complaining, having taken public transport in. He's still a brilliant entertainer, with a really strong backing band (and a girl bassist, yeah :)). For some songs he played acoustic guitar or piano, and on others he was dancing around in the customary Tim Finn style (ie very crazily indeed), sometimes with his yellow star-shaped tambourine (or 'starbourine'). It was a pretty even mix of songs from his latest album Imaginary Kingdom, a couple of singles off his previous solo albums, a couple of Crowded House tunes (Weather With You and It's Only Natural, naturally) and a few Enz classics. I wasn't familiar with one song, but I knew the rest, and while every song got a rapturous reception, the Enz songs in particular went down very well. We ended up getting two encores (those tables were very handy for noisemaking) and at the very end of the second encore, my wish came true and the band played I See Red, probably the closest to punk the Enz ever got. The crowd had remained seated all night, but with encouragement from Tim, our table got up and started dancing (or in my case, flailing - I've no idea what the hell was going on there. I think it was a bit of the Tim spirit!) and soon the floor in front of the stage was packed and IT WAS AWESOME.

The band finally staggered from the stage at 10:45 and we immediately headed out to the stage door. Apparently sometimes Tim politely refuses to sign anything and just escapes to the car, but tonight must have been a good night, because he hung around, signed things, chatted to people and took photos. I got my guitar strap signed (the one which is the same as his), and either he really did remember that he told me on myspace where to get it, or he's nice and a good liar.

And I still made the third last train home. So all in all, a pretty sensational evening.

-R

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

AAAAAAAARGH!!!!

...FARKING COMPUTERS!!!!!!!

Our wireless network is down, so this one comes to you from the PC. Mum changed the Bigpond password, but the old one is still on the router, and we don't have the router password, so that needs to be reset, which is very frustrating. So tomorrow my bro's going to call the router people and reset the router because I've had enough of talking to computer people on the phone (I spent half an hour last thursday at work on the phone to them and it drives me nuts).

So anyway, this is what I did at work today:
- checked answering machine messages and confirmed bookings
- made a couple of coffees
- polished salt and pepper shakers
- fixed the bindings of the menus
- signed off on all our produce deliveries
- stocked the fridge
- stocked the linen cupboard
- cleaned the glass shelves in the bar
- cleaned out the staff belongings cabinet
- tidied the staionery drawer
- refiled the staff roster folder
- read the paper

...notice anything odd? That's right, not once today in my eight hour shift did I take an order from a customer or even serve a customer. It was all admin/cleaning stuff today, which was kind of good. I got paid to sit on my ass for a good portion of the day doing all the 'sit down' jobs, which is a nice change to busting my ass running around making shit. That's for tomorrow night, when we are fully booked. Bloody Valentine's Day, we're going to get so slammed.

-R

PS We won trivia tonight! I *told* you guys Paddington Bear likes marmalade :)
PPS I nearly got hit by a taxi coming home - I was in his blind spot and he was changing lanes in an intersection without indicating. It was the first time I ever used my horn and I have to say, it sounds pretty inconsequential, but then again I am driving a Honda Jazz, which is not the most assertive of vehicles.

Monday, February 12, 2007

LOVE!

I'm going to work today on my day off. It seemed like a good idea at the time, now i'm not sure I can be bothered, but I've already said I'd go, so I guess I'd better. Our second chef is making the desserts for Valentine's Day today and I wanted to watch (and maybe eat some of them...). At least we're closed so I won't actually be working.

And I downloaded the Beatles 'LOVE' album which a friend emailed to me ages ago. I'm listening to it the first time now and it's *really* good. Plus it has the coolest artwork.

-R