Been back from Hanoi for a week or so. Saw Antony and the Johnsons on the night I got back, supported by the very intriguing CocoRosie.
Meantime it's back to the grind. I'll try and have something significant to say next time, but for now, a few pictures from the trip.
A view from the building we ate lunch in a lot, right near the campus where we had a bunch of meetings.
A mystery building in Hanoi.
A delapidated old building as the sun fell low.
One of the lakes.
There are bikes everywhere on the roads. Fucking everywhere.
A shot of the campus.
And another.
Buildings.
Streetshot from the car.
Another streetshot from the car.
Meantime it's back to the grind. I'll try and have something significant to say next time, but for now, a few pictures from the trip.
A view from the building we ate lunch in a lot, right near the campus where we had a bunch of meetings.
A mystery building in Hanoi.
A delapidated old building as the sun fell low.
One of the lakes.
There are bikes everywhere on the roads. Fucking everywhere.
A shot of the campus.
And another.
Buildings.
Streetshot from the car.
Another streetshot from the car.
OK, about to head off to the airport to fly to 'Nam.
But before I go, can I just say, post Friday night's SG Sydney gathering, that we have some fine fine women here? Sexiness abounds, oh my gosh.
I leave you with some animal collective nouns courtesy of TheFuckOffGirl.
A partypack of raccoons.
A linedance of squirrels.
A boyband of chimpanzees.
A riverdance of budgies.
A branchstack of kookaburras.
A bootscoot of centipedes.
A Hills Hoist of fruitbats.
A stagecrew of snakes (in headsets).
Notes:
1. A Hills Hoist is a clothesline, but you can't say "A clothesline of fruitbats."
2. For a collection of snakes to constitute a stagecrew, they all have to be wearing headsets. So they can communicate to each other, of course.
See you all in a week or thereabouts.
But before I go, can I just say, post Friday night's SG Sydney gathering, that we have some fine fine women here? Sexiness abounds, oh my gosh.
I leave you with some animal collective nouns courtesy of TheFuckOffGirl.
A partypack of raccoons.
A linedance of squirrels.
A boyband of chimpanzees.
A riverdance of budgies.
A branchstack of kookaburras.
A bootscoot of centipedes.
A Hills Hoist of fruitbats.
A stagecrew of snakes (in headsets).
Notes:
1. A Hills Hoist is a clothesline, but you can't say "A clothesline of fruitbats."
2. For a collection of snakes to constitute a stagecrew, they all have to be wearing headsets. So they can communicate to each other, of course.
See you all in a week or thereabouts.
Tomorrow night - SG Sydney hook-up thing, with Very Special Guests from Canberra (and maybe one or two from Newcastle).
Saturday - another SGAU jam session in which we might actually work on a proper song!
Sunday - I fly to Vietnam for a week.
Welcome to 2006. Hope yours rocks.
Saturday - another SGAU jam session in which we might actually work on a proper song!
Sunday - I fly to Vietnam for a week.
Welcome to 2006. Hope yours rocks.
No time for the big end of year update I would have liked.
More next time when things aren't so rushed.
Have a great Christmas and new years stuff, you crazy kids. I've met a bunch of you, at home and around the world, this year and it's been a pleasure and an honour to be able to do so. It's been a lot of fun, and may '06 continue the fine tradition.
I'm in Brisbane the next little while (until the 28th). Not sure how much I'll be online in the meantime, so please accept my well wishes now and I'll try to be a good journl-replier when I get back. (Noting that normally, I kind of suck at being a good journaller.)
Cheesy spoiler alert.
More next time when things aren't so rushed.
Have a great Christmas and new years stuff, you crazy kids. I've met a bunch of you, at home and around the world, this year and it's been a pleasure and an honour to be able to do so. It's been a lot of fun, and may '06 continue the fine tradition.
I'm in Brisbane the next little while (until the 28th). Not sure how much I'll be online in the meantime, so please accept my well wishes now and I'll try to be a good journl-replier when I get back. (Noting that normally, I kind of suck at being a good journaller.)
Cheesy spoiler alert.
I suppose an update is in order.
Dinner with
Blacklamb,
morgannahh
Lissi, and
PlatyPuz last night.
That was fun.
Not too much more to report. Talk amongst yourselves.
Or if you feel the need to tell me something, how about: the best album(s) (between 1 and 5) you've heard that were released this century. I don't listen to enough music that could be considered "new".
UPDATE
Thanks so much for all the warm birthday wishes. And yes, I did change my birthday in my profile to the actual date (day and month at least), since I'd had it at January 1 before that which was just silly.
I'm working through my thank yous and will get to you if I have not as yet.
And then I have to tell the "No timing!" story that shall be the next update. About trying to joke around with TFOG in the car and ending up looking veeerrrrry silly. But you all knew that was coming, right?
Next update. Hang in there.
Dinner with
Blacklamb,
morgannahh
Lissi, and
PlatyPuz last night.
That was fun.
Not too much more to report. Talk amongst yourselves.
Or if you feel the need to tell me something, how about: the best album(s) (between 1 and 5) you've heard that were released this century. I don't listen to enough music that could be considered "new".
UPDATE
Thanks so much for all the warm birthday wishes. And yes, I did change my birthday in my profile to the actual date (day and month at least), since I'd had it at January 1 before that which was just silly.
I'm working through my thank yous and will get to you if I have not as yet.
And then I have to tell the "No timing!" story that shall be the next update. About trying to joke around with TFOG in the car and ending up looking veeerrrrry silly. But you all knew that was coming, right?
Next update. Hang in there.
I'm going to ask TheFuckOffGirl to give me the best of her Japan pictures and I'll post them here, if she obliges.
I hung out with traceelement, and met the lovely Allura and mattblack last night. The plan also involved catching up with Pandie while she was in town but that didn't quite seem to work out.
I haven't put up many fun TFOG stories lately. You might be interested to hear about how she responds when I massage her (which can mean poking parts of her shoulders and back, or squeezing her wrist, palm or the sole of her feet). Words tumble out in rapid fire sequence, unselfconsciously and uncontrolled.
A couple of classic examples: squeezing one part of her shoulder elicited a shout of "Badgers-badgers-otters-and-weasels!"
Another one yielded a loud "I-love-love-love-love-love-men-men-men-men-men!"
And it's true. She does.
I hung out with traceelement, and met the lovely Allura and mattblack last night. The plan also involved catching up with Pandie while she was in town but that didn't quite seem to work out.
I haven't put up many fun TFOG stories lately. You might be interested to hear about how she responds when I massage her (which can mean poking parts of her shoulders and back, or squeezing her wrist, palm or the sole of her feet). Words tumble out in rapid fire sequence, unselfconsciously and uncontrolled.
A couple of classic examples: squeezing one part of her shoulder elicited a shout of "Badgers-badgers-otters-and-weasels!"
Another one yielded a loud "I-love-love-love-love-love-men-men-men-men-men!"
And it's true. She does.
I need to fucking update here, or something.
I got back from an interstate day-trip, the same day TheFuckOffGirl got back from Japan. We both managed to be ill, and I've spent several days lately fairly feverish.
I did get out on Saturday with TFOG and some friends who were up from Melbourne. We live right near.glorious Sydney Harbour but we don't have a view of it. The friends we were seeing were staying with old friends of theirs who live in Kirribilli, which is a suburb just across the water from the Sydney CBD. In the picture, see the roads approaching the Harbour Bridge from the bottom left -- we're talking about an 8th floor apartment in one of the buildings just to the left near the waterline.
Their apartment looks directly back onto the city through a panoramic window -- Bridge on the right, city directly in front, Opera House at left, and further left the suburbs leading out towards the ocean.
We sat and ate and drank and watched the sun go down and a storm brew up.
Fucking awesome. Now pardon my fever. Head still hurts.
I got back from an interstate day-trip, the same day TheFuckOffGirl got back from Japan. We both managed to be ill, and I've spent several days lately fairly feverish.
I did get out on Saturday with TFOG and some friends who were up from Melbourne. We live right near.glorious Sydney Harbour but we don't have a view of it. The friends we were seeing were staying with old friends of theirs who live in Kirribilli, which is a suburb just across the water from the Sydney CBD. In the picture, see the roads approaching the Harbour Bridge from the bottom left -- we're talking about an 8th floor apartment in one of the buildings just to the left near the waterline.
Their apartment looks directly back onto the city through a panoramic window -- Bridge on the right, city directly in front, Opera House at left, and further left the suburbs leading out towards the ocean.
We sat and ate and drank and watched the sun go down and a storm brew up.
Fucking awesome. Now pardon my fever. Head still hurts.
The weekend involved quite a bit of social activity of various forms.
Satruday: Steven, lowroller and I got together to mess around musically, as part of our contribution to the slowly-moving Member Music Project. We got another two ideas in train. I'm not quite sure how any of it is going to end up, but the point is it doesn't really matter. It's fun just to do it -- it's about the journey much more than the destination.
Saturday evening, we kicked on at the Townie in Newtown and met the lovely morgannahh, Blacklamb, and JaneMillicent who were inaugurated into SG Sydney drinking fun, with hellfaerie (and her fella Benny) and Sknow and PlatyPuz along for the ride. A subset of us partied on at a nightclub in town which led to bad late-night dancing from, well, me.
Sunday was a family day, with my folks being in town. Then my brother and I went out to see an evening of theatre, for a one -off show aimed at critiquing the proposed new sedition laws. Seriously, dude, what the fucking fuck?
The audience certainly had its share of movers and shakers, and my brother is a bit of a mover and shaker in his own right so he spent his time waving and chatting to various people. It's been a while since I've had that kind of status anywhere, and I certainly don't have it in Sydney, having only been here two years and mostly being shacked up with TFOG. Oddly enough though, I knew two of the people performing, and managed to catch up with one of them later, which was nice.
Gerry Connolly did his impressions of the Queen and of various Aussie prime ministers, but it's his Joh Bjelke-Petersen that had me almost in tears. If you've never heard Bjelke-Petersen speak, imagine the kind of cornpone Ronald Reagan / George W Bush speaking style, and then imagine it in completely broken English, with rambling sentences that don't ever quite finish. Connolly fucking nails it. Genius. I was in tears.
After the show, I caught up with my friend from the show, well, one of them. The other one, Chas Savage, I haven't seen for a good few years. He's not really a performer, but he was there to read this (and if you click on the link, be sure to read both pages). He didn't come out from backstage, or if he did, I missed him, sadly. But I hung around for a bit and got to meet Andrew Denton for about ten seconds.
I didn't really get a lot of sleep this weekend. But it was worth it.
Satruday: Steven, lowroller and I got together to mess around musically, as part of our contribution to the slowly-moving Member Music Project. We got another two ideas in train. I'm not quite sure how any of it is going to end up, but the point is it doesn't really matter. It's fun just to do it -- it's about the journey much more than the destination.
Saturday evening, we kicked on at the Townie in Newtown and met the lovely morgannahh, Blacklamb, and JaneMillicent who were inaugurated into SG Sydney drinking fun, with hellfaerie (and her fella Benny) and Sknow and PlatyPuz along for the ride. A subset of us partied on at a nightclub in town which led to bad late-night dancing from, well, me.
Sunday was a family day, with my folks being in town. Then my brother and I went out to see an evening of theatre, for a one -off show aimed at critiquing the proposed new sedition laws. Seriously, dude, what the fucking fuck?
The audience certainly had its share of movers and shakers, and my brother is a bit of a mover and shaker in his own right so he spent his time waving and chatting to various people. It's been a while since I've had that kind of status anywhere, and I certainly don't have it in Sydney, having only been here two years and mostly being shacked up with TFOG. Oddly enough though, I knew two of the people performing, and managed to catch up with one of them later, which was nice.
Gerry Connolly did his impressions of the Queen and of various Aussie prime ministers, but it's his Joh Bjelke-Petersen that had me almost in tears. If you've never heard Bjelke-Petersen speak, imagine the kind of cornpone Ronald Reagan / George W Bush speaking style, and then imagine it in completely broken English, with rambling sentences that don't ever quite finish. Connolly fucking nails it. Genius. I was in tears.
After the show, I caught up with my friend from the show, well, one of them. The other one, Chas Savage, I haven't seen for a good few years. He's not really a performer, but he was there to read this (and if you click on the link, be sure to read both pages). He didn't come out from backstage, or if he did, I missed him, sadly. But I hung around for a bit and got to meet Andrew Denton for about ten seconds.
I didn't really get a lot of sleep this weekend. But it was worth it.
My delightful friend Rachael puts me in my place.
Yahoo IM conversation earlier today.
Rachael: I, sir, am celibate borderlining lesbian these days.
TFOK: jeebus
TFOK: am I still allowed to call you..???
Rachael: well, yes.
Rachael: it's YOU
TFOK: man thing that I am
TFOK: whew!
Rachael: I don't think of you as a man...
Rachael:
TFOK: ahem
TFOK: excuse me
Rachael: you are merely a male-like object I keep around for my amusement
TFOK: *flattered, despite himself*
Rachael: who I chat with like a girlfriend
TFOK: hahahahahaha
Rachael: all we'd have to do is go shoe shopping, and you'd be a woman in my eyes.
TFOK: if it meant hot lesbian sex, I'd be ok with that
Rachael: no sex!
TFOK: dammit
TFOK: I saw the word lesbian up above and my mind just ran away from me
********************
So, anyway, I've been travelling lately. Met some lovely Perthians in Perth last week. The divine missellie, the charming ampersand, and the inimitable Jaquelin_Mecca or whatever he's known as today.
And TheFuckOffGirl has deserted me and headed off to Japan for a few weeks of vacationing in her favourite country.
Here's her email, just received.
Yahoo IM conversation earlier today.
Rachael: I, sir, am celibate borderlining lesbian these days.
TFOK: jeebus
TFOK: am I still allowed to call you..???
Rachael: well, yes.
Rachael: it's YOU
TFOK: man thing that I am
TFOK: whew!
Rachael: I don't think of you as a man...
Rachael:
TFOK: ahem
TFOK: excuse me
Rachael: you are merely a male-like object I keep around for my amusement
TFOK: *flattered, despite himself*
Rachael: who I chat with like a girlfriend
TFOK: hahahahahaha
Rachael: all we'd have to do is go shoe shopping, and you'd be a woman in my eyes.
TFOK: if it meant hot lesbian sex, I'd be ok with that
Rachael: no sex!
TFOK: dammit
TFOK: I saw the word lesbian up above and my mind just ran away from me
********************
So, anyway, I've been travelling lately. Met some lovely Perthians in Perth last week. The divine missellie, the charming ampersand, and the inimitable Jaquelin_Mecca or whatever he's known as today.
And TheFuckOffGirl has deserted me and headed off to Japan for a few weeks of vacationing in her favourite country.
Here's her email, just received.
well, im here. ive been searching the city for a payphone that would take something as old school as coins, but no luck. and havent worked out how to buy a phonecard yet.
anyway, tokyo is only 2 hours behind sydney so you can call me... look up the inns phone number at www.blahblahblah and ask for room 666.
nearly eaten my weight in sushi!
love you long time
tokyo rose
The inn's website is full of wonderful Engrish-isms.
Convenient Location.
"Of course, access to every place in Tokyo of **** located at the center in Asakusa is also very convenient for the Asakusa sightseeing!"
(I don't know what the stars denote.)
Free Internet.
"The personal computer of an Internet connectivity is in each part store. He can look at various information from the room. I am allowed to serve the newsboy of each part store and morning and evening editions for nothing."
