Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
I’m just getting over the flu (and a secondary infection which caught me in its grip) so I have been having a lazy weekend. Overdosing on anime dvds as well as dosing on antibiotics (including all of Ergo Proxy, which, like Kim, I’d also recommend.) I took some photos down in the Valley yesterday on one of my trips to the video store I’m rather happy with though.
If you’d like to see a larger image of the photos, click on them then click on “full view” once you’re inside the gallery.
McWhirters by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Prince Consort Hotel by *phenomenologist on deviantART
3 for 20 bucks by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Global gossip by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Wedding by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Shops closed by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Shops closed II by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Empire Hotel by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Hidden paradise by *phenomenologist on deviantART
The orange people are coming by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Saturday – sorted out minor issue with the landlord, had excellent coffee in Leichhardt and spotted a great Mother’s Day present for my future mother-in-law. Did shopping to make dinner for my partner, who had to work part of yesterday. Read a bit more of Joan Didion. Watched a few eps of Weeds on DVD, which I’m loving. Was initiated into Bioshock on Xbox 360. Slept late today, went for bike ride on glorious Sydney autumn day. Now looking forward to dinner at great Thai restaurant in Newtown…with requisite pre-dinner glass of vino, of course!
Those 2 hotels gorgeous.
Had a lovely dinner party last night with friends, drank too much and talked too much as well. Slept in, succumbed to the kitchy retro photocopying craze
http://suburban-gothic.blogspot.com/and am now supposedly gyprocking the garage, between feeding kids and browsing online.Went to Farmers Market int he Adelaide Showgrounds. Picked up 10Kg of ‘2nd grade’ pears for $10. 5kg will become pear butter, 5Kg will become pear mead or ‘peary’
Did some work in the garden, planting kale, brussel spouts and lettuce (getting hard frosts these days in Adelaide so have some hopes of the kale & sprouts.
Then was too tired to start processing the pears. Oh well, tomorrow!
Woke up too early Saturday and rode to the Grower’s Markets in Pyrmont. Picked up enough yummy things to make me forget the early start. Then spent the rest of my day zipping around Marrackville looking for an apartment worthy enough to be my first purchase in the insane Sydney market.
Sunday’s been a fairly quiet and largely domestic affair, though a walk across the Harbour Bridge to enjoy a beer at the Glenmore Hotel feels like a worthy investment. Currently enjoying a glass of plonk while the spoils of my shopping yesterday morning do their thing in the oven.
Started the weekend in the midst of an heroic struggle with the dreaded Lurgi.
Went to look at the toy trains at the Brisbane Ekka grounds.
Juggled my time betwixt three books: The Angel of Grozny, Fisk’s The Age of the Warrior, and volume 2 of the Lone Wolf & Cub manga.
Dined twice in Albert Street’s Restaurant Of The Beautiful Japanese Waitresses.
Avoided mowing the lawn yet again.
Back to work tomorrow arvo, on time-and-a-half.
Went up to Brisvegas for a 40th, and had a ball all round. Great weather! Even saw the Jeffrey Smart exhibition in the Valley.
ummm….where abouts in the valley?
Philip Bacon Galleries in Arthur St, Darin
Thanks
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Had a lovely time doing some pruning in the front yard with the chainsaw yesterday. Those shrubs looked so far apart when my wife planted them all those years ago.
I think they must write those labels for shrubs in Melbourne, because here they often grow three times as big as the label says.
Although I do have some complaints to make about Brisbane developers:
http://bitemylatte.blogspot.com/
Yes, lovely trip to Brisbane, though I do have some serious complaints to make. These are currently listed at my crappy blog, should anyone care to read them.
Well, now that first one is out of moderation, it really does look like an unseemly outburst of blogwhoring on my part.
I suppose one really ought find out the LP policy on blogwhoring before falling foul of it!
I like your pictures of Portuguese forts in Asia, Lefty E!
Did some housework (not enough) and some work work (not enough) and then went to see The Edge of Heaven, which I thought was a wonderful and very unusual movie. HOWEVER … Has it become the norm for people to just chat away all through a movie? I know children do it, but I was dumbstruck by a cinema full of adults all chatting away and letting their mobiles ring and eating their stinky fake-buttered popcorn. Does this bother anyone else, or am I just being a grumpy-boots?
Yes, and no!
Kim, that would practically constitute a romantic overture over at Bite my Latte, but since you posted it here I’ll just take it as a compliment.
I am quite obsessed with PF ‘n A, yes, though I do tend to think I am a pretty poor photographer.
Incidentally, someone in Vegas told me today that the long-rumoured Spanish Galleon (my money was on Portuguese Caravel, incidentally) at Stradbroke Island was partially confirmed with a coin finding. Ring any bells, Brisbanoids?
Pleasure, Lefty E!
Sorry I can’t help with the Straddy ship. Could google be the friend you need at this juncture?
Dr Cat we went to see the same movie last weekend here in Brisneyland. Quite well attended, and people, well, just watched the movie! I wasn’t aware of them at all.
“Has it become the norm for people to just chat away all through a movie?”
My partner’s mother does this and we don’t see movies with her anymore. The final straw was a sub-titled Mexican film at the Dendy in Newtown. She brought along a friend who, knowing it would be sub-titled, neglected to bring her glasses. They spent the entire film discussing what was going on on screen, and not very quietly either. Several people walked out. After trying to talk them out of it (in stage-whispers), and then suggesting that we leave (this was somewhat louder than a whisper), my partner and I shrank into our seats and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening.
I had assumed that viewing practices were different in Central America, but her friend is from Hong Kong. Perhaps movie-talkers from all cultures are drawn to each other?
Re talking in movies. Once or twice I’ve yelled shut up ar the top of my voice. Seems to work.
Saturday. Another quiet day. Checked up on news about NSW ALP Conference and sent news to people overseas about it. Got some new friends on Facebook. (From Socialist Alliance.) Blogged on LP a bit.
Finished reading Joseph J. Ellis’s Founding Brothers. The Revolutionary Grneration. Sat. night, watched ABC, then the French movie on SBS. Their Saturday night French movies are quite a delight.
Sunday. Watched the usual morning political TV. Bob Carr on Meet the Press really annoyed me. Had a slow walk up to the corner shop to get some cigs. Back home, on LP, then dipped into The Eighteenth Century in Russia ed. Garrard, a collection of articles on the cultural history of 18C. Russia. Continued reading Beabette Smith’s Australia’s Birthstain. the startling legacy of the convict era, which impresses me more and more the more I get into it. Might finish it today. Watched TV. Impressed by Parrots of Australia, especially the stuff about the huge flocks of budgies. If I still had a budgie I think I’d be tempted to borrow a UV light to see if I could see it the way budgies do. Watched East of Nowhere, then, on SBS, Dresden- The Inferno. Watched the end of the Logies – ugh! George Negus is right. (I gather that scary child, Bindi Irwin, won one.)To sleep.
@ 22. Correction. Babette Smith.
Ordered some parts for my stricken beast of a Jeep from the US this week and they finally arrived, although I was too lazy on Sunday to fit them as planned, offering them up to make sure they were the right bits was enough. Skipped the Sunday morning cycle in favour of fitting new tyres to the bicycle. Felt guilty and edgy all day and went out for a quick 25km ride in the afternoon, felt 400% zipping along on those new tyres until overtaken by another cyclist who wasn’t even breathing hard up one of the hills. Tried but failed to stay with him up the remainder of the hill. Saw him in the distance turn at the 10km mark so I did the same to chase him down but had legs of lead not helped by an unfamiliar road and never saw him again. Sore legs and upper body after that effort, must try harder.
Re: Talking in movies. Do you remember ‘Cool Fruits’? They used to be at the snack bar in a little cardboard tin. A well aimed Cool Fruit can silence any movie talker. Guess that could be why I don’t see them any more?
Re: Lazy Labour Weekend
Saturday – The kid’s football which invariably takes up the entire day. My son is signed up to play but apparently that is a written guarantee that the entire family has been drafted.
Sunday – Watching DVDs. Hayao Miyazaki marathon, followed by a BBQ in Bardon.
Monday – Writing the essay that I have been putting off on the social impact of blogging and how it affects existing media which led me here to this wonderful site.
Sweet procrastination… My lazy Sunday has led to a panic-stricken Monday.
I went to the MCG to watch my beloved Freo Dockers help Melbourne end their losing streak. I’ve never been so dismayed, and I lived through the Damien Drum years. Also, I have a pretty badly bruised hand, and there is a seat near the Punt Road end that needs a new back.
I lives in Adelaide for a few years and I have to say I think that talking through films is more prevalent than in Melbourne. Dunno why.
The main criminals, in both Adelaide and Sydney, seem to be eastern suburbs matrons with a sense of entitlement. They just don’t understand SHUTTING UP!
My experiences at the Centro in Brisbane would also suggest privileged elderly matrons are big offenders! So much for the courtesy of the aged compared to the rudeness of the young…
Lefty E @9, when does the Jeffrey Smart exhibition finish? Love his work.
Spent my weekend making curtains for the bloody kids. If anyone even breathes curtains, I won’t be responsible. Had to buy a new sewing machine because I left the foot for mine home and 350kms was too far to run back to get it. Gggrrr!!! Then had to drive home in the dark through the Coorong with eyes bolting out of my head looking for roos and deer. Thank god they’d all gone to bed.
Last weekend was excellent, though. Went to the Landscapes from Turner to Monet exhibition at the National Gallery and was wowed. Also the obligatory Parliament House and the War Memorial. All fab, then a very respectable dinner at Cape Cod, then off to Sydney on Sunday to gawk at Handbags through the ages an excellent margarita pizza and a 2 hour cruise on the harbour all in glorious autumn sunshine. Then back to Adelaide and those bloody curtains.
Today down to earth packing octopus and buying stinking crayfish. What a let down. Sigh!
Nice to have you here, Trevor N!
Oh,yeah. Port shellacked the bombers. Yay!
Nice to be here Kim, thank you.
Re: 27 and 28 – agreed, though my worst cinema experience was when seeing Brokeback Mountain. I did make the mistake of seeing it at a multiplex which is teenage central. Three teenagers talked and snickered all the way through, and despite complaints to staff from several others besides myself, the staff claimed they couldn’t do anything unless they “caught them in the act”. They gave us free tickets for the cinema afterwards (only, I think, because they were besieged by cranky patrons), but I don’t think we ever used them.
Re 25: Maltesers and Jaffas work well too
Sorry to miss having a beer with you on Friday arvo, Lefty E, because of the freakin flu! Glad to hear you had a good weekend though!
Paul Burns: “Re talking in movies. Once or twice I’ve yelled shut up at the top of my voice. Seems to work.”
Something that used to always work pretty well, instead of saying Shut Up, was to yell “Silence!” in the same loud, booming tone that Thomas Dolby used for the word “Science!” in that old “She Blinded Me With Science” song; it was goofy and the whole theatre would laff, and the perpetrator would usually pipe down without there being any overt hostility or confrontation like Shut Up might generate. Nowadays, though, I bet it wouldn’t work b/c there wouldn’t be enough people in the room to get the joke. Ah well.
Eheu, fugaces labuntur anni (cantique).
That puts me in mind of the Circle of Corrupt Robot Elders that ruled the anti-human planet on Futurama, Japes.
Leela: “Okay, so how do they feel about humanoid aliens?”
Prof: “They’re not fans”
I’ll try SILENCE in future in place of my perhaps-too-earnest “look mate, can you just shut the fuck up?!”. That one works, but maybe less apt watching The Little Mermaid.
No worries Mark, managed to rustle up some other drinking pals.
Frankly, I hadn’t realised how serious your condition was – till you passed up a Friday arvo sesh at the Story!
Hope its getting better.
Thanks, Lefty E!
Very nasty bug going round Brissie at the moment and I picked up a secondary infection so haven’t been well. I’m starting to feel better if feeling better constitutes just having a really bad cold!