2010

Well the new year here in Melbourne certainly went off with a bang, with thunder and lightning all through the evening and past midnight. A very impressive show.

I’ll just skip back though, as I had some time off work this year, which was quite pleasant. Although I did have to answer a few phone calls and emails during the three days, it wasn’t as bad as I had initially thought, and nothing that couldn’t be solved!

The main reason I was taking time off was that a friend of Jes’ was getting married on 27th December and although it was an evening wedding, I didn’t like to rush getting ready (or recovering!)

It was a beautiful civil ceremony at The Deck at the Prince Hotel in St Kilda. A fairly casual affair, but everyone made an effort, ourselves included. Jes had been asked to take the photos and he obligingly accepted, but then asked me to help out. I was only too happy to help, but mostly just took some casual and back-up shots on my Olympus OM-1N with Ilford HP5 Plus. Most of them were bit hit and miss (as film can be with larger groups – someone always blinks!), but I did manage to get a few keepers.

The next day I spent developing the rolls of film from that wedding, as well as some other outings from previous days. The temperature was warming up though, so after the tap water was too warm, I gave up on that and just tried to keep myself cool in my rapidly heating house!

New Year’s eve dawned hot and sweaty, but a fairly nice day besides. Jes’ friend, Jes and I were going out to shoot the family fireworks at Docklands that evening, hopefully before the storm came in. We had a few cool beers and something to eat then our friend arrived (with two young kids in tow) and we headed down to Docklands while a shelf cloud came in and the wind picked up.

The cool change came through on the way down there, but the storm arrived about an earlier than originally predicted – before the family fireworks. After dithering around a bit about whether I should get my camera out and try and shoot or protect the camera and just watch them, I did get the camera out as soon as they started and shot off about fifty frames or so. Of these, only ten or less are keepers, but it was still worth it. Unfortunately none of us managed to get shots of the frequent lightning down there.

None of our cameras are any the worse for wear with the water, and we spent midnight watching the fireworks from Jes’ balcony. We could see 120 Collins and the reflections of Docklands, all without getting wet (well, any wetter!)

Since the new year, I haven’t been doing too much. I made the snap decision yesterday of getting to buy some things for my approaching trip to Laos and Bangkok. I booked my tickets just before Christmas, seeing a good price. I’m flying out in March for nearly three weeks. Next I’ll start to book flights for Laos from Bangkok, and the accommodation in Bangkok, so I’m not stuck when I arrive!

I picked up a money belt, day pack and sleeping bag, all in a decent sale. The day pack and sleeping bag are both from Pinnacle Outdoors, where I bought my larger bagpack in March last year. The service has been fantastic both times, and this time the prices couldn’t be beaten either! I’ll be heading out again in my lunch break this week to see about a mosquito net and whatever else I have forgotten! I’m hoping to get most of it in the sales, being a tight-arse. There are some good bargains to be had, and thankfully I didn’t hit too many crowds.

Last night I had tickets to see Biffy Clyro at the Hi-Fi Bar, but coincidentally after walking past the venue and not seeing the show listed, I looked it up on the Hi-Fi Bar website and saw that it’s been postponed. Despite being frustrated about it being postponed, I’m frustrated that I didn’t find out until yesterday! I’ve written an email to the Hi-Fi Bar asking why they didn’t at least have a notice up on their door yesterday – if I hadn’t been able to check the website then I would have been standing there at 8pm waiting. Hopefully I can get the refund, but I’m still quite disappointed – I’ve been looking forward to it for months!

Myki

Years late and billions over budget, the Myki ticketing system was finally – sort of – launched yesterday. People in Melbourne can either travel out to other towns that have it already (Geelong, Bendigo etc), or can now register for a card online. Bear in mind, you won’t receive it for seven days though. Also, when you receive it, the top-up machine at your local train station might already be vandalised beyond use.

I only recently found out that they have decided to only have a changeover period of approximately six months before discontinuing the Metcard. I can understand that the contract relating to the Metcard is already well overdue thanks to the latecoming Myki system, but I’m shocked at how quickly they are planning this transition, especially considering the Myki system is nowhere near fully functioning yet!

The Myki cards can be used on trains (if they’ll work), but not on trams and buses. For me, this means I’ll still have to carry around a few different tickets. In the mean time, I will keep purchasing the monthly Metcards, as at least they work, to an extent.

I lived near London and although never had one, was introduced to and familiar with the Oyster card system. It’s a similar ‘touch on touch off’ card which can be topped up with credit. However, years later, you can still purchase the traditional Metcard equivelant – which is plain common sense. Granted, not something we usually associate with the Poms, but it makes things much easier for people who might not travel there often and could lose the Oyster card or the older population who are uncomfortable with the technology.

It seems odd to me that London, with their huge transport system managed to bring this out. No doubt there were teething problems, as well as delays and budget problems – it’s still organised by politicians so it goes without saying – but if such a huge city managed to do it, why is Melbourne having such a problem?

I’m sure there are answers relating to arrogance and ignorance of politicians here, but the mind still boggles. When they said that Myki would be launched by the end of the year, I don’t think that anyone believed them, but there was no need to try and prove us wrong by launching one-third of a problematic system which most of us still can’t use immediately.

Christmas Time

Just like every year, Christmas has snuck up on us all. A few weeks ago we had our first Christmas party, which was dinner with the admin girls and the IT boys. Altogether there were eight of us, including our colleague who went on maternity leave in July. It was great to see her again, and I think she was just as glad to get away from the house!

On a Friday evening after work we went into the city to a place call Gaylord, an Indian restaurant in Chinatown. I’ve been there a few times and it’s been great, so I suggested it for our small group dinner and it was welcomed by most – and those that didn’t, didn’t say anything until it was too late! So that we could try different things, we each ordered a curry and shared, with rice, roti and garlic naan. The lamb saag, butter chicken and a prawn curry were the favourites of the evening. It was very enjoyable, mostly because it’s a relaxed atmosphere where you can be noisy and have a good time.

After dinner, my manager suggested we go to a cocktail bar she likes, called 1806. I’m not a big cocktail drinker – I enjoy a martini and a margarita sometimes, but mostly, they’re too sickly and too expensive! This place had a good atmosphere, pleasant and knowledgeable wait-staff and was quite quiet. We stayed for a few drinks (I enjoyed the martinis) before we both called it a night and headed out into the rain.

The next Christmas party was a lunch organised by the heads of the department. A larger group, of about 20 people, fit into the large and stylish Hu Tong Dumpling House in Market Lane. I hadn’t been there, but a colleague recommended it, and I was happy to try real dumplings as opposed to those as Shanghai Dumpling House! Sharing a banquet meal and some wine (for those that weren’t lab staff), we were able to try a variety of dumplings and meat dishes – including a Sichuan style chicken dish with plenty of chilli. All in all, it was an enjoyable meal, and because it was reasonably priced, I’ll probably be returning.

The last Christmas party was last night, and that was for the whole of the department. Altogether about 60 people has RSVP’d in the positive, but only about 50 went. It was held in the Fad Gallery in Corrs Lane, also in Chinatown (sense a theme here?)

As I know that just two doors down there is a delicious Sichuan restaurant, I tried to round up some people to come to dinner with me beforehand. Due to forgotten lunch parties and family illness, only one person actually came, but it was no less enjoyable. We shared the potato threads and tofu with leek (he is vegetarian, and those dishes are delicious), which filled us up nicely before we headed back to the party venue.

The Fad Gallery is an interesting place, with a variety of artwork throughout upstairs and downstairs. We had the upstairs are to ourselves (after last year where we shared a room with another group) and a bar too.

The music was supplied by ourselves, and games were played, with prizes, and then was the time to dance the night away. I headed off early, not feeling so great (the dizziness isn’t help by noise, alcohol and dark rooms), but I must say it was a good night. I managed to take a couple of hundred photos, as requested by the manager, which might be ready to go on the network on Monday. I decided to keep it simple with digital, and try out my new lens, the 28mm f/1.8. It’s fantastic, wide enough for confined spaces, without distorting. The speed was very useful in the dark bar too.

In the week coming up, we have our work Kris Kringle party, and then that’s about it until New Year. I’m looking forward to a quiet Christmas and a short break until the New Year.

Bat-lame-ia.

Today Jes and I headed to the City Museum for the second last day of their Batmania exhibition. I haven’t head too much about the place, but was of the impression that it was a reasonably sized museum with Melbourne history. This was fairly wrong and it actually only consisted of a few rooms (upstairs, the gold vaults cost extra downstairs); the Batmania exhibition was two rooms plus some hallway. The information was fairly boring and poorly written (with many inappropriately placed apostrophes), and very few things to look at (a few notebooks and drawings). The other rooms had some mildly interesting items relating to the founding fathers and the immigration. There were several references to the gold mines and men who made their fortune on it. I don’t think I learnt very much about anything.

After that we decided to go to the Ricky Swallow exhibition at the NGV in Federation Square. This cost twice as much, and was worth every cent. The carvings were of amazing detail (and size). They were accompanied by the usual over-the-top descriptions but the pieces themselves were interesting and beautiful. It was inspirational to see something which had obviously taken time and talent to complete.

The afternoon after that was completed in pleasant laziness. We had a beer at Beer Deluxe (I had Warsteiner – a refreshing, flavoursome lager and a Sinha Stout – something different but tasty) and then headed for some lunch. After the first choice of a Chinese restaurant was shut, Shanghai Dumpling House beckoned and provided us with cheap food.

This evening we went out to see the new release, Zombieland. It was a movie that certainly didn’t disappoint. It’s a comedy, which was genuinely funny against what is usually a horror or drama background. There were only a few characters, which helped to develop each character, but followed one in the narrative, leaving some about the others a mystery. Abigail Breslin (of Little Miss Sunshine fame) was one of the characters and, as with her other movies, was fantastic. She’s a great little actress, and certainly has grown up since I saw her in Nim’s Island! The other three were definitely not a disappointment, including Bill Murray in a cameo role!

The movie was refreshing, even with the predictable love story worked into it. The ideas were nothing new, but it was brought out as something new. Best movie I’ve seen in a while.

I was in a tram crash!

OK, so it wasn’t actually a crash, it was more of a small bump.

I had missed a connecting train, so stayed on the tram into the city. When I changed onto a tram going up Collins Street, I figured I’d make it to work in a reasonable amount of time. However, at Swanston Street, we were waiting for the tram in front to move and our driver started ‘dinging’ insistently. This was much to the confusion of the passengers, until there a was a sudden bump – the tram in front of us had rolled backward.

No one was hurt, but of course there were no announcements from the driver nor the staff on the tram platform. The people at the front of the tram realised what had happened, but no one was sure whether it would be a quick fix or not. After just a few minutes, most people got off the tram and started to walk. By the time I had reached Spring Street, there tram from in front of us had passed me (now ‘Not in Service’), but the other tram was still stopped at Swanston Street.

It was interesting, if not surprising, that the new tram operators (although the same drivers I note) were the same in not providing us with details or estimations – despite there being several members of staff on the platform supervising the disembarking passengers.

As one of my previous posts indicates, I had a few issues with an electrical shop after the purchase of a new bar fridge. The fridge is now doing a fine job of looking after my photographic film and alcohol! It’s also great to have the extra space for ice cube trays.

I wrote to Consumer Affairs for advice on the issues I experienced and they suggested that taking matters further would be of little gain, due to the efforts and small amounts involved. I agree, and more to the point, I’m too lazy to do too much about it! However, they did suggest that further correspondence with them could be of benefit, and I feel I will put this into action even if it has been a while since the purchase.

On a loosely related note, a couple of weeks ago now I experienced a three-carriage train for three peak hour services in a row on the Upfield line. Now, I know we expect little else from Connex (their last scheduled service will actually be a replacement bus), but I felt I needed to vent. A quick look on Google and I found their website and contact section. I wrote rather long, sarcastic and slightly ranting complaint about their service. It’s obvious that little can be done about it now with Metro coming in next week, but it made me feel better!

I feel a shorter and slightly less sarcastic letter could help me feel better about the fridge situation as well, as the only contact I have had with them has been on the phone and I know I’m not at my strongest on the phone. If I’m given time to compose and set my points out logically, I’m much more confident.

So, for all those in doubt about what to do about injustices, write an angry letter! Even if little is gained from it, it’ll make you feel much better having vented and detailed why they are wrong and you are right.

Bodyjar and Beer Deluxe.

Friday the 13th was far from unlucky for me. Bodyjar are currently on their farewell tour (not a la John Farnham), and I had tickets to go see them at the Corner. A quick dinner at our regular spot Gigi in the city and Jes and I headed out to the Corner.

Supports weren’t off much interest, but we did see most of 28 Days’ set, as my friend recommended them from the night before. They weren’t too bad, but I was itching to see Bodyjar more than anything; it’s been a fair while since I’ve seen them perform.

The set was, of course, filled with their hits, as well as some of their older tunes. The crowd loved it, even if they were aging slightly. I definitely enjoyed it, especially as I had perched on the smaller stage and could still see.

I ran into a friend from Sydney I don’t see often too and now that I know he’s in town, we’ll arrange to catch up properly.

On Saturday afternoon, a group of us from Flickr met up at Beer Deluxe in Federation Sqaure to discuss an idea for an exhibition we have. The discussions were relatively productive and many ideas have been tossed around, but now we have to get down to work. Just as a side note, if one wants to spend an afternoon drinking, Beer Deluxe can get very pricey.

Beer Deluxe is a place that Jes and I have visited frequently in the past few months. It’s conveniently located near to ACMI, where we find ourselves every few weeks or so, and serves such a wide variety of beers that we are pretty much working our way through the menu now.

The beers aren’t cheap, but as most of them are imported or from microbreweries, one doesn’t expect them to be. There is an extensive range of dark beers, lagers, tap beers and trappist. One of these days I shall use the menu online and complete a list of those that I can remember having and what I thought of them. In the mean time, I’ve definitely tried these two.

As it comes into hotter weather, I often feel like a light larger or wheat beer. The wheat beers I’ve picked recently have mostly been too sweet for my liking though. The Erdinger Dunkel was a tasty, heavier version that I’m used to. On Saturday I also tried the Erdinger Weissenbrau, which is new on tap, and that was fresh and light, without being too sweet.

In the cooler weather, the ales and darker beers are to my taste. Again, I’ve had a bad run picking the sweeter ones, but there have been a few gems in the list. Birra Moretti La Rossa and Timothy Taylor’s Landlord have both turned out to be winners.

There will obviously be many more to come, and I will have to start notes on which I’ve tasted – a bit like with the books last year!

That’s Hot.

As Melbourne continues to heat up for the sixth day running, I thought it was about time to vent again.

I like the heat. I like summer, sun, warm weather and everything that goes with it, including going inside where it is slightly cooler. Apparently our place isn’t like that, and summer is going to be quite uncomfortable.

This week when it rose to 35 degrees outside, our third (and top) storey apartment also rose to 35 degrees. With the curtains shut, windows open and fans running to try and move the air even a little, we might have got it down to 34 degrees. Even outside there was a slight breeze, but nothing inside. As I said, I enjoy the heat, but when it gets so that you can’t even sit still without sweating, it becomes an issue. Yesterday afternoon it was down to the early 20s by late afternoon, and I had hopes that this would transfer to our house as well. It dropped to around 29 degrees inside. Our place isn’t too old, I think from the 60s or so, but the insulation is non-existent. Of course, because we’re renting, the landlord and real estate agents have little care for our comfort, so it would be up to us to purchase air conditioning. Unfortunately, the portable air conditioning units are expensive to buy and run, and chew up electricity – which leads to a vicious cycle with climate change and emissions.

Now, obviously one early season heatwave itself doesn’t indicate climate change, the fact that it’s becoming more frequent, particularly in areas where it’s been unusual (far north or south of the equator), raises the questions of climate change and whether we are eternally doomed because of our pollution and emissions.

I believe that yes, there is such a thing as climate change and we are experiencing it, if only in the early stages. I believe we should be doing a lot more to stop the damage that is occurring and the irreversible changes. Just yesterday there was someone from a wilderness charity who stopped me in the street. She asked if I cared about the forests – and the obvious answer is yes, yes I do. However, if we’re going to save the planet, you’re going to have to do a lot more than tell us the forests are dying and can we please have a few dollars a month.

Every little bit helps, I believe that, but we’re at the stage now that without major support from the governments, we are in big trouble. A lot of the deforestation and water pollution that has occurred already is irreversible, and to prevent any more damage will take a huge amount of money and effort.

Talking and Comedy

On Friday 30th, after a sunny day off work, my friend Jes and I went to see our last event of the Hello Darkness mini-festival, a talk and slideshow by Ken Warner about his photographs of Halloween from San Francisco.

I hadn’t heard of him before, but a quick search online found some photographs of high interest and good quality. He visited or lived in San Fransisco for twenty-odd years, and photographed the Halloween street parties which were based around the gay community there. He discussed how the parties came about, what people thought about it and some of the experiences he had while there. He showed us colour photos, as he had published a book of black and white photos and felt that the colour photos were something new.

There were some very interesting images involving people with costumes that were certainly worthy of some analysis. The highlight I think was the man who, apparently year after year, wore a costume consisting of pads and tampons with blood-red paint (at least I hope it was paint).

The room it took place in was on Brunswick Street, in an upstairs open-plan place. It seemed like the ideal place for a party, and although we headed off early, it seemed that a party would go on into the night. I even managed to sit on the hard wooden floor for the few hours it lasted. The crowd was an interesting mix of friends of friends of people who organised it, artistic types who were interested in the photos and quirky gothic types who just wanted to go to everything Halloween themed. I’m not sure where I fit in, but I was wearing plastic mini jack-o-lantern earrings.

The longer weekend was fairly quiet and lazy. Saturday afternoon consisted of an impromptu pub crawl and the evening a delicious dinner at the old Dainty Sechuan in Chinatown. Sunday was again, lazy, and involved watching
Flesh Gordon 2: Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders’. We’d seen the first earlier this year, and this was significantly worse, but still amusing and lightly entertaining.

Unfortunately I had to work Monday, breaking up what could have been a five-day weekend. However, Cup eve evening was spent eating good food, drinking good beer and watching good comedy. We had dinner at Red Pepper at the top end of Bourke Street, a tried and tested Indian eatery. At only $6 for a veggie curry, and slightly less for an alcoholic beverage, it’s a great bargain.

Next up we headed over to Spleen, where there is free comedy on Monday nights. Although I’ve had the intention of going many times, this was the first time I actually managed to attend. Adam Rozenbachs was acting as MC and there was a huge set of other small-name comedians. Adam used a lot of the material he had at the comedy festival and when I saw him at the Comedy Club, but had added some new bits and delivered the old stuff in different ways.

Otherwise, Sammy J was fantastic, Felicity Ward was great and Troy Kinne was fairly good too. They were the highlights, but the others weren’t all bad. I think I’ll have to make an effort to go again, but not when it’s too warm – the air-con wasn’t very good!

Melbourne Cup Day was an enjoyable public holiday, and to avoid the racing rabble we headed to the cinema. We saw ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’, which I suppose is also called the movie that Heath Ledger was making when he died.

Overall, I liked it. It wasn’t amazing, and Heath Ledger didn’t get much of an opportunity to show how great he was, but it was an enjoyable movie and done well, particularly when you take into account what happened. I understand that they had to re-write chunks of it to enable three other actors to fill in (Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell). I can’t say in comparison to how it was before, but the re-write definitely worked and the other three actors stepped up to the mark and did fantastically. Tom Waits also deserves a mention; I think I’m becoming a fan of his.

Otherwise, the movie is a long one, but doesn’t seem it. The story is interesting, if a little confusing. The special effects are beautiful and the costumes are especially impressive.

After that, it was all downhill and back to work today.

The other day after work, I headed down to Parliament train station where I was expecting a ten minute wait for my train. As the time approached, I started to hear announcements regarding platform two (I was on platform three), about delays and cancellations and what the next train would be. However, as my train should have been arriving, I noticed the screen listing the next train as a Cragieburn one – I was waiting for the Upfield train. Waiting, waiting, more announcements regarding trains on platform two, the time for my train passes, more announcements about platform two and finally, the Upfield train is listed on the screen. The man announcing all the trains on platform two then briefly mentioned the Upfield train (before going back to his other, obviously more important trains). So I did finally get home, even though my train was running 5-10 minutes late. Would it really have been that hard for this guy to check his little screen and make a quick, ‘Apologies for the inconvenience’ announcement? He was doing for every other train that was delayed or cancelled.

This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed inconsistencies with the recorded and manual announcements at Parliament. When I first started taking the train to and from work, I was waiting for my train home when there was a manual announcement that it had been cancelled. Fair enough, it had already been delayed so I decided to sit it out until the next one. Some people left the platform, presumably to find another way home. Another train comes through, then the recorded notice that the next train will for the Upfield line. Of course, this causes some confusion. There is then another manual announcement that another train has been delayed and that the next train will be the Upfield. No mention of the fact that just 1-2 minutes ago, the very same person had announced that it wouldn’t be coming at all. So those people that have gone to get a tram or bus home could have potentially waited and had a quicker journey home.

I can only hope that when the new companies come in to run the trains and trams, we’ll have slightly more reliable information available to us. Even in London they weren’t that bad, although they did experience the wrong kind of snow and leaves on several occasions…

Everyone at the moment seems to be holding out hope that all the problems that Connex have will be ironed out with the new guys, forgetting the fact that they’ll be working with the same government, the same amount of funding, and the same basic infrastructure. It would take a complete overhaul (and some more lederhosen) to make it as prompt and reliable as the German train system, which I’m sure we all know won’t happen.