Archive for May, 2006
Manne manney man.
Robert Manne was always one of my favourites at Latrobe uni, and his article in today’s Age is good to see (Oh, to be so morally complacent, The Age, 23 May 2006)It’s just a pity he has to drag out Iraqi opinion poll results. Opinion polls mean shit all in this country so I wouldn’t imagine they would carry much weight in Iraq.
Fitzroyification.
Tonight I went out to the Sushi Station in West End. It’s Brisbane’s best all-you-can-eat joint as far as I’m concerned. Nice food, clean and friendly. Our dining party could’ve rolled home after parting with $22 each in order to allow us to eat unlimited amounts of sushi rolls, fresh prawns (shells on), octapus, pork trotters (Japanese?), teriyaki chicken, rice and miso.
Than came the interesting part. Going for a nightime stroll down Boundary St to walk off some of the 5 kilos of food we each had eaten. It was the first stroll down Boundary Street that all 5 of us had taken in many years. The last time any of us had walked down there it was under the influence of alcohol or something other. This time we were just full of food.
A decade ago West End was pretty poor. Almost all the shops were run by the local Greek born population. There was a huge indigenous population and cheap accomodation was for lonely elderly gentlemen. Now there’s neon signed bars with polo necked bouncers. The cheap hostels have turned into boozy backpacker dorms. Expensive organic grocery stores stand where there was once cheap fruit and vegies. Fashion didn’t exist 10 years ago in West End but now it’s a catwalk - complete with $200 000 cars parked against the kerb.
I watched slowly from the late 90s until late 2005 as Melbourne’s inner city became somewhat spoilt by money moving in. Don’t get me wrong, money is good for the locals, it’s just not good for locals who don’t happen to own a house/unit. It is also a matter of time before beautiful inner-Brisbane suburbs begin to enter an evil phase that I like to call Fitzroyification, where small drinking holes turn into wine bars, where what used to cost $2.50 starts costing $5.50, and being seen in the right clobber in the right place is more important than just having a genuine good night out.
Or maybe I’m just getting older and not coping with change like I would’ve 10 years ago?
She’s back!
Momo is back in da house.
It’s the cooler for you Hogan!
Winter’s well and truly on its way. This being my first autumn in sub-tropical climes (Brisbane) for 11 years, I’m finding it unsettling that I can’t walk along the footpath and kick piles of dead leaves and admire bare branches of oaks, elms and plane trees. That was my favoutite part of autumn in Melbourne and London over the past 11 years.
It has an upside though. I don’t have to rake up nearly as many leaves in the backyard and there’s not many old Italian men in Brisbane that burn the leaves in their front yard, letting them smoulder for hours making the whole street sneeze and wheeze and causing everyone to have to wash their freshly dried clothes a second time.
After nearly six months living here in Brisbane I’m finally getting used to it. Weather is a very important part of wherever you live and cool weather keeps me sane. From October until March the weather in Brisbane is not fit for human beings. It’s only good for insects, reptiles and fat, sweaty people who enjoy being fat and sweaty. At the moment the weather is fantastic. 10-14 degree nights and low-20 degree days. Nice! It’s really funny too seeing people wearing beanies and gore-tex™ jackets on their morning walk at 6am as I drive to work with my windows down while wearing a t-shirt and shorts.
Fun-wise, moving to Brisbane isn’t something I recommend. Hundreds may disagree, but this city is shithouse as far as live music, bars, pubs and food is concerned. Everything is sanatised and family oriented. The city centre doesn’t look like a city either. It looks more like a fucking shopping centre.
I’d better go now because I’m starting to whinge again.
Breed.
There are no children in our house yet.
It’ll be a couple of years until there is. And I will enjoy those years after what happened this weeknd just gone.
I have one tip for everyone. When your friends baby is sick with a gastro bug - don’t go near it, don’t play with it and don’t touch its toys or anything it has touched. Run. Run far. Stay far away. Baby viruses suck bigtime. I have never spewed or crapped so forcefully in my life (sorry).
See ya Grant.
Shut the fuck up.
The ABC carries an article claiming that some employers are inserting anti-blogging clauses into employment contracts.
No big surprises there. If there’s any evidence that self publishing has great value, just look at the attempts to muzzle even the most trivial of information…blogs.
As an aside, I work as a casual contractor for a very large governmental body based in Queensland (I’ll give you one guess as to what body that is smartarses) and in many cases my employer restricts access to an intranet only. That’s very bad for blogging and even worse for downloading music, reading the papers or searching for important technical information relating to my work.
Slow lane.
Last weekend the good lady and I drove to Sydney for a wedding. The drive was well worth it because I got to attend one of the best weddings/receptions I have ever attended. Our good friends Steve and Mewi (and the unborn Baron Von Stroopie) had a magnificently laidback ceremony followed by mountains of homemade food and of course, lots of beer and wine. The wedding was held in the backyard of a 160 year old mansion in the centre of Windsor. I wish I had some photos but the digital camera’s batteries failed 2 minutes into the ceremony. Ain’t that the way!
As for the drive from Brisbane to Sydney, 12 hours for 1000km is pretty good going. Especially with the amount of wee stops made for Bea (my wife). One of the best wee stops along the way is a little town called Nabiac, about 280km north of Sydney. Good meat pies can be found there at the local bakery and I wish I had a deep freeze unit in the Corolla because rump steak was about a third of the price compared to Brisbane. My rating of a town/city’s livability revolves around the price of meat. If meat’s cheap, life must be good. Sorry vegetarians. I’m amazed that my wife puts up with my love of meat. You see, she’s vegan. They say opposites attract!