| GIRL
| ARCHIVE
| BEYOND
| SHOP
ARCHIVE 2003
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so that was christmas. a morning spent witnessing a frenzy of gifting; an afternoon with a few kilos of prawns, a whole baked trout and then a tiramisu-trifle concoction involving panettone, marscarpone, raspberries and white chocololate; a balmy evening being devoured by ravenous mosquitoes in the backyard. i had eaten so much over the course of the afternoon i could barely stand or sit, but still those mosquitoes ate better.
Served on Sunday, December 28, 2003 at 05:37 p.m.
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why oh why oh why am i stuck on a department store escalator with people standing both on the left side and the right side of the step, denying me overtaking privileges? why has the volume of said people tripled in the last two hours? why do they all smell slightly sour?
could it be that i, who don't do christmas shoping, last minute christmas shoping, am participating in this most diabolical of year-end traditions? ummmm... yes.
fueled only by a just-bought package of braune lebkuchen mit früchten und schokoladeboden, and a small bag of mcdonald's fries i got free with the coupon they gave me the last time i gave blood (now there's an incentive to rock up to the red cross with elbow pit bared), i've been riding escalators between floors for ohhh... three hours, trying to find the most classy photo album for 'a reasonable price'. why is it the cheaper the album, the shinier it is?
Served on Wednesday, December 24, 2003 at 06:34 p.m.
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after a day out walking around the city, i returned with a blister on my little toe, the size of my little toe. much as i would have liked to preserve it as a living specimen, i had to drain it the next day to fit back into my shoes. i stuck a needle into it and good lord! it was like the birthing scene in "like water for chocolate".
i think i would like to go for a swim.
Served on Tuesday, December 23, 2003 at 10:07 a.m.
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message received 19 december at 7.20pm:
well well well.
well well...
well... well... well...
[ evil cackle ]
i mean, there is a yakun kaya toast in junction 8.
how can we do?
and there is a tako pachi!
i mean, there is no need to leave the heartland... ever... man.
c'mon let's go! eh, don't be shy.
good bye.
following which, an sms conversation made possible by global telecommunications technology:
nellie: eh
bowb: EHHH!!!!!! TAKO PACHI!!!!!!!
why am i languishing in tako pachi-less sydney? sigh. not for long. woop!
Served on Sunday, December 21, 2003 at 11:54 a.m.
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surely you wouldn't expect it to be a good day when the burgler alarm in your building goes off at 6am (you ignore it because it's just some idiot who hasn't disarmed it before stepping out the door, most likely those horrible noisy people from downstairs), and then when you finally do seriously wake up half an hour later and stretch, your foot goes into a cramp. oh and also, it's forecast to hit 34°.
it doesn't seem so bad at first because you're stuck at your desk post-tea-and-plum-jammed-crumpets, and you've got the fan plugged in, and edie brickell and the jayhawks playing, and the fan causing all these sheets and sheets of proofs you have all over the room to flutter in a most reassuring and soothing manner.
directory job 2 is due at the printers today and you're on the homestretch. so close you could lick it. you could be done by just after lunch, and then you could go outside, a place you haven't been to in such a while that it seems magical and mystical.
and then the calls and emails start. the ones that say "we left a whole bunch of listings out of january... can you insert those?", and "oh, it seems there was a glitch in the spreadsheet that led you to believe a quarter page ad goes on this page, when it's actually a half page ad", and so on. and then when in defiance of last minute hiccups it's finally been burned to CD, just past lunchtime as anticipated, "can you email us PDFs of all the pages with ads on them so we can check them?".
o if such care with checking had been unleashed earlier. so hours and hours and megabytes (32!) later, it washes over you like cold sick that directory job 2 will not be so obliging as to leave you in peace this evening. crap.
+ + +
the entry below was interrupted by the arrival of text to lay out. what i meant to say was, if you have a blender and you chuck in a tin of jackfruit with half the syrup and a handful of ice cubes, you end up with a pretty tasty approximation of a vietnamese fruit shake. at the main market in ho chi minh city you can get a soursop-strawberry shake that's tangy like a strawberry yoghurt smoothie, but the best ones are from a hole-in-the-wall cafe along the main drag in hue. you will see a sign outside that says "the best fruit shakes in hue" and you will be sceptical but only until the shop lady puts in front of you an icy, glistening orange thing. o papaya shake, i miss you so.
Served on Friday, December 19, 2003 at 10:38 p.m.
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on my desk in front of me, besides the receipts, tickets, food labels soaked off bottles and other stuff... ok, junk... are an empty glass of ginger ale, an empty mug of rose-infused black tea, and empty glass of watermelon juice and a very close to empty glass of jackfruit shake --
[you have new mail]
Served on Wednesday, December 17, 2003 at 04:39 p.m.
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last night at the gaelic club, the radio birdman xmas special ROCKED. having only ever seen grainy black and white pictures of the band in their heyday, and only ever heard two of their songs (and even then one of those songs was actually a cover by silverchair), my initial response to the guy venting incoherently into the mic was, 'gee that guy sure looks like doc brown from "back to the future" goin' off.'
subsequently, 'i wonder how old a person can get before it looks odd for him to be wearing those spray-on faded black jeans.'
and then, 'that's so cool someone could be so bald up top and still feel it's appropriate to grow the rest of it out to that straggly length. rock!'
however these ruminations soon dissipated, because it's all about the music, man. old people's music? whatever.
if you like to go out at night for music or beers or whatever, and return with your throat not scratchy and sore, your eyes not stingy and red, your hair still fresh from that pre-going-out shampoo, and wearing clothes that you'll be able to wear the next day without choking on stale cigarette odours, you could go smoke free.
Served on Friday, December 12, 2003 at 11:24 a.m.
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um. so if you cast your eye towards the top right corner of the window -- this window -- you may notice a little person with an inverted rice bowl on his head. clicking it will take you to the bane of my current work schedule: rice bowl journals, a hub of blogs from around asia, or by people of asian descent.
"we speak asian."
it's not all animated tare panda icons and people who think they are manga characters. like, for example, there is this girl, and this girl, and also this girl, who recently posted some extremely [speechless. adjective to come. in the meantime, use "really good"] pictures of shelves upon shelves of exotic cakes and filled buns in a bakery in sarawak. lordy, to have been in that bakery...
so even though i turn on the computer at 7 every morning, suddenly it's an hour and a half later, and there's still just a little too much text formatting to get done. even though the truth is that any amount of text formatting is too much, and any distraction that will take me away from it is worthy.
to this end, last night i saw "lost in translation", which was funnier than i thought it would be, and sadder, and um, really good.
and in the next few minutes i shall have to decide if i want to experience the 3-hour there-and-back commute out to penrith for the launch of my previous directory job. the one attractive prospect about going to penrith is that's where the only krispy kreme outlet in australia is located.
mmm... donuts...
Served on Thursday, December 11, 2003 at 02:13 p.m.
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from an email received overnight:
"bowb, DO YOU WANT TO PLEASE THE LADIES???"
why, yes, yes i do.
i didn't actually open the message before hurling it, swearing, into the trash folder, but i'm sure it would have said something about scrubbing the toilet, taking out three weeks' worth of recycling and bringing home cake. because dammit, that's what works for me.
Served on Sunday, December 7, 2003 at 11:51 a.m.
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i just shut down the document i was working on all of today -- text formatting for yet another directory job... four years of design school for this? -- and i blinked, and suddenly my field of vision was like that cypress hill "insane in the brain" video, where it's like the screen is soft and every time someone pokes at it, ripples radiate out. woo.
um. so i was watching "fear factor" during dinner last night, and when i turned it on, what looked like a group of professional wrestlers was in the middle of a dare in which they rolled three giant dice, on which were printed the names of various 'gross things', and whatever they ended up with was put into a blender for a nourishing power smoothie.
as one of the male wrestlers threw his first die, he said, "i sure hope i don't get the fish sauce." which he didn't. what he got instead was spleen, kidneys [addendum: ms amber emailed me that the ingredients were actually bile and mashed brains, which makes it about 89% worse] and... durian. i know the durian's debatable; sometimes when i'm in the mood i will happily eat a slice of durian strudel or a durian popsicle. but! blenderised spleen and kidneys [bile... mashed brains...] over fish sauce? whas?
ummm. so i was watching "gilmore girls" during dinner tonight, and god those girls sure can talk. in great volume and at great speed (the speed is probably to facilitate the volume). and here i am with absolutely nothing to say, to anyone, ever.
Served on Saturday, December 6, 2003 at 09:56 p.m.
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gadzooks! it's the mystery of the diminishing haemoglobin count. i have just returned from depositing some fresh blood at the blood bank, where the concerned nurse alerted me to the fact that at my first bleeding a couple of years ago, my haemoglobin count was a healthy 130, and it has steadily decreased each time to today's borderline normalcy of 118.
furrowed of brow, she asked if i had changed my diet (more red meat than ever*) or if i was straining myself with exercise (ha!), but in the end thought that maybe i was just indulging too often in the bloodletting.
if only fixing it could be as simple as drinking more red cordial, for i have three kinds perched upon the fridge: rose, strawberry-lemon and pacific fruits crush -- an exotic blend of lychee, guava and pineapple.
mmm... red cordial... 
* it was pointed out to me by the other member of this household (who evidently would rather be eating more red meat) that my "more red meat than ever" is still only about once every couple of weeks, which apparently is less than what 'other people' eat... unless they are vego.
Served on Thursday, December 4, 2003 at 03:35 p.m.
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feeling somewhat inspired by last night's spur-of-the-moment "school of rock" excursion, my afternoon stroll to buy tickets for the radio birdman show evolved into a modest, gingerbread latte-fueled shoping spree that yielded the following minifest of rock: a pearl jam "lost dogs" cd, a jet "get born" cd, a bumper billy bragg best-of cd, and, um, the cd single of "hey ya" by outkast... evidently young urban black people are writing music which doesn't suck. could it be that i am even considering that black eyed peas cd? um. i'll get back to you.
the shiny tinsel on my tree of rock is this amusing pair of earrings from sportsgirl. look, there is black gothic type spelling out "rock". a skull and crossbones. two dangly chains at the end of which are a heart and a star. all on the one earring! there is a price tag which says $14.95 reduced to $4.95, which in turn was reduced at the register to $3.95. having threaded it through my long-unadorned earlobe not fifteen minutes ago, i'm now feeling the first allergic reactions of warmth and itchiness around the piercing. it couldn't possibly be more punkrock, yeah!
today's purchases were made possible by the divine miss m, lady captain of the good ship artfiles, who turned around my invoice quicksmart, and suddenly my bank account had grown by like, 40%.
Served on Friday, November 28, 2003 at 06:43 p.m.
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it's just that hamburgers should come with a slice of beetroot tucked into that greasy crevice between bun and meat patty. you shouldn't even have to ask. the tang of the presliced-and-vinegared-in-a-can variety does wonders by lifting the overall stodginess of the burger, but when you patronise a slightly better burger place, say, burgerman, they put in a slice of crinkle-cut fresh beetroot, and burger-enjoyment goes up a notch or four (and if they also put in real horseradish mayonnaise... well!).
but today at lunchtime, when it seemed like it might actually stop raining for more than ten minutes -- the first time in like, five days -- i walked up the street to the local fried food place, and ordered a hamburger with beetroot please, just to be sure, and when i got it home and bit into it, there was no beetroot there.
that is all.
Served on Thursday, November 27, 2003 at 04:06 p.m.
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an unprecedented number of people arrived at this page today, like, 18, when usually it's about four. it would appear that across america, a bunch of people almost simultaneously launched a search for "adventures in good eating", and turned up... me. how very mysterious.
maybe aliens have landed on earth (and just like all those alien invasion movies, landed in the u.s.) and being hungry after the long journey, wanted to nourish themselves before colonisation begins.
ulp.
Served on Saturday, November 22, 2003 at 04:08 p.m.
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off to the zoo!
Served on Tuesday, November 18, 2003 at 10:43 a.m.
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this past weekend my visiting grandmother returned to malaysia. i spent the weekend before at my aunt's house, where my grandmother was staying for the month.
my grandmother makes the best otak otak, and is none too shabby (read: really good) at chicken curry, acar and ang ku kueh, of which vast quantities were made on the weekend. happily, i was the young apprentice, relegated to such tasks as cutting decorative peaks on banana leaf packages and pressing balls of mung bean-filled dough into a wooden turtle-shaped mould, before knocking each little jade green turtle out onto even more banana leaves, for steaming.
everything took hours and hours. everything was damn tasty. when i caught the train back to the city on monday, i had packages upon packages of everything, as much as i could carry. and now i am torn between wanting to eat it all right now, please, and wanting to only nibble a tiny crumb each time, so that it lasts a little longer.
p.s. my grandmother gave me some birthday money, so now i have one of these. thanks, yinma.
Served on Monday, November 17, 2003 at 05:13 p.m.
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a bunch of birthday flowers that nellie sent showed up in the arms of the delivery guy, a couple of hours after i returned from birthday breakfast at cafe mint with ms wooster. the breakfast was tasty and good, in the way that a mound of very garlicky hummus at 9.30 in the morning is good.
the flowers were good and surprising, in the way that a four-and-a-half-foot high arrangement of flowers and foliage that surely must have decimated a great swathe of tropical rainforest and dehoused several species of wildlife... is surprising.
the day passed quickly -- a blur of designing order forms (a tetris-like exercise which gives me a significant and strange feeling of quiet pleasure) and print deadlines -- and ended in bbq king with a plate of soya chicken noodles, a plate of chili salt prawns, a hotpot of stuffed eggplant... and then home to an entire triple chocolate cake from david jones food hall, about which all i can say is that they call it triple chocolate, but i counted about five or six.
sometimes a boy can surprise you with a slap-up feed and a whole cake, and a comic book wrapped up in pink stripes and ladybugs, and above all, by miraculously being in the same country, and city, as you, on your birthday.
sometimes a floral arrangement can surprise you by yielding, when carefully taken apart, a vase of orchids for the bedroom, one of gerberas above the kitchen sink, another of birds of paradise for the bathroom, an exotic mix of waratahs, lotus stems and anthuriums for the dining table, and a scuptural mass of the original base of tropical greenery and bamboo (oh yes!) for the lounge.
thirty-one was much better than thirty.
Served on Friday, November 14, 2003 at 11:05 p.m.
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thirty-one.
Served on Thursday, November 13, 2003 at 07:18 a.m.
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bloody hell i've been whingy of late. but look. here, bringing cheer, is an amazing smiling flower biscuit, which came out of a packet that nellie brought me a few months ago. that these biscuits came from nellie is noteworthy, because she generally leaves a trail of smiling flowers wherever she goes.
you see? ... ... ...
however. after i got extremely excited at the sight of amazing smiling biscuits falling out of the packet, it was pointed out to me that in fact the smiley face was just a U with an umlaut over it. i guess it made sense. ülker is a turkish company who make, amongst other tasty treats, a damn fine banana wafer and an even finer pistachio chocolate bar. they sure added a sugary sparkle to those dusty days in turkey all those years (three) ago. [sigh]
despite the fact that amazing smiley biscuit is now just a routine branding exercise, i still feel a bit regretful every time i bite into one; it's hard to eat something with such a happy disposition. they just keep smiling though, the little troopers!
Served on Friday, November 7, 2003 at 10:56 a.m.
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"ok. when i reach C i'll go out and get the paper and some strawberries." "ok. when i reach M i'll make a crumble." today has been broken down into alphabetical subdivisions, because i'm working on (still!) the index for previously mentioned directory layout job.
the directory layout job has taken many turns of late. more accurately, in the last couple of days it has lurched towards being finished, and then lurched to a halt, and then lurched back on track... something to do with deals struck with the sales rep at the printer who went on holidays without telling anyone. to cut a long and stupid story short, it's still due at the printers tomorrow, and when i think about it i laugh and then i cry. then i laugh, bitterly.
and then i get to S and dammit it's time to make that crumble. right now i can smell rhubarb-pear-strawberry-oats-brown sugar-butter-cinammon wafting up from downstairs. when i reach V it may be time for crumble!
Served on Tuesday, November 4, 2003 at 05:49 p.m.
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has tim curry ever worked with tim rice? the thought popped into my spongyhead late this afternoon, while watching my recently acquired "annie" dvd.
(i am in the midst of compiling the index for this soul-destroying directory layout job i'm doing, so every couple of hours i stop looking at the computer screen and go watch tv to refocus my eyes. perhaps this is not what the experts had in mind when they said to take regular breaks and gaze at something in the distance.)
in between singing along to "easy street" and the reprise of "maybe", it struck me that a partnership between the two tims could be promoted as "curry rice":
-- kare raisu, the rice and curry dish introduced during the meiji period to japan by the british, via india. how could they but succeed? in japan anyway, what with the whole celebrity endorsement thing...
yes, my brain has completely jellified. like a boiled up beef knuckle. next year i'll become an illustrator again.
Served on Saturday, November 1, 2003 at 09:04 p.m.
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about 3am, quite a few hours after a mediocre japanese meal, i awoke with a great thirst. the kind where it's like your tongue has shrivelled up into the back of your throat. rurg.
these days, things that are good to drink are: condensed milk (in tea -- makes the most disconcertingly damp-smelling teas warm and friendly), rose syrup cordial, water, apricot nectar and [ahem] vanilla coke.
the condensed milk and rose syrup came together spectacularly about an hour ago drizzled over cubes of coffee-flavoured jelly, and then topped with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sprinkles.
still, i am lost.
Served on Wednesday, October 29, 2003 at 09:55 p.m.
"cake story"
part of an a.i.m. exchange between twinkies in sydney and new york
astelleronimo: oh bloody bloody bloody. i suppose i should be prepared.
ragingyoghurt: i bought a cake from chinatown...
astelleronimo: as opposed to, aggressive,
astelleronimo: be aggressive, B-E aggressive
ragingyoghurt: donch you want to hear about cake?
astelleronimo: i is cheerleader
astelleronimo: TELL ME ABOUT CAKE!
ragingyoghurt: yah, ok!
astelleronimo: sorry, i got caught up cheering
ragingyoghurt: wait till you hear about the cake
astelleronimo: TELL ME ABOUT THE CAKE
ragingyoghurt: it is the swiss roll kind...
astelleronimo: TELL ME ABOUT THE CAKE
astelleronimo: yum!! swiss roll~!!
ragingyoghurt: except instead of the cake just rolled up on itself...
ragingyoghurt: it was rolled around all these other bits of cake...
astelleronimo: was it a rabbit!!!!!!!!???
astelleronimo: oh, sorry.
astelleronimo: yum, cake! not rabbit!
ragingyoghurt: and the other bits were all different flavas, like strawberry, coffee, pandan and YAM.
astelleronimo: was it multicolored bits of cake? pink and green and brown?
ragingyoghurt: yah. and it was all held together with that nyap nyap cream.
astelleronimo: except i didn't see the yam coming
astelleronimo: nyap nyap!
ragingyoghurt: yah! all different colours of the rainbow (if rainbow had brown)
astelleronimo: shit rainbow ah!
astelleronimo: how come you could taste the flavors of the bits of cake? they have that here but it is all sponge cake with coloring only
ragingyoghurt: at first i was a bit disappointed...
astelleronimo: or maybe there is just too much crims and i is get distracted
astelleronimo: whas the disappointment?
ragingyoghurt: but then i realised that it was because i wanted the cake to be better than what i expected, when it was actually just what i expected. and then after that it got much better. i think also because i figured out...
ragingyoghurt: that to taste the different flavours i had to eat each colour separately!
ragingyoghurt: the yam tasted of yam!
astelleronimo: LUCCCKKKKYYYYY!!!!!!!
Served on Saturday, October 25, 2003 at 10:55 a.m.
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i made an interesting discovery yesterday while walking home through the carpark of the local supermarket with a bag of discounted blueberry bagels in my tote.
i was thinking about elliott smith [sigh], and how he was obviously number three, after eddie and evan. maybe even number two, right after eddie (i guess it depends if you've just come out of seeing an akward evan dando show -- see august 6 entry, below). anyway. it struck me that the top three names on my music list start with "e". and then you could add eels to the list -- the guy's name even is e.
(the beatles probably come somewhere in that cluster, but for the purpose of this exercise we shall exclude them.)
so. "e". spooky.
(englebert humperdinck is *not* on the list.)
Served on Friday, October 24, 2003 at 10:13 a.m.
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what the fuck!? "elliott smith dies, aged 34".
also, listen to the elliott smith j-file at triple j.
Served on Thursday, October 23, 2003 at 08:55 a.m.
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crap. don't you hate when your blog server goes down and takes with it a month's worth of entries? sure, ok, in this case a month's worth of entries was like, three maybe four, but now, all those memories gone.
my spongehead seems to recall recent developments that might have been catalogued here include: boy moves in, dvd player purchased, spirit crushed by mindless directory layout work. oh! and invaluable webresource discovered here.
i could tell you now that yesterday afternoon as i walked down cleveland street to see "kill bill vol.1" at broadway shoping centre, flies flew around my head, and a stretch of the road smelt of elephant dung, but that might make you wonder if it was actually my head that smelt of elephant dung, and where would that get either of us?
"kill bill vol.1" was surprisingly unannoying, and a fine-looking thing to behold. after, stuck in kmart for an hour, all i came out with were a tube of strawberry exploding candy and a couple of jelly pops. the one pictured above is boo, from monsters inc. her entire face is made from flesh-coloured icing sugar.
and now, i must try and find that bit of code i surfaced recently that gives me links with no underline.
Served on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 at 09:14 a.m.
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Served on Wednesday, October 22, 2003 at 08:44 a.m.
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having not been swimming since my last day in singapore, back in june --
it was an extremely hot day. matt and nellie and i decided that going to the neighbourhood pool would be better than hanging around the city being taunted by lunatics at the donut shop in town. the bishan pool looked like when the simpsons get a pool in their yard, ergh, kids everywhere, swimming in all directions. we were swimming along the pool floor, testing lung capacity, when nellie surfaced and said, "i think someone poo'd in the pool". matt obligingly swam off to investigate, returning to say, "i think it *is* poo -- i fanned it and it moved and left a brown trail in the water." speedily we swam, screaming, down to the other end of the pool. we were able to scream because we kept our heads out of the water, but why we were even still *in* the water is something else to ponder. we remained in the pool for another hour until we were wrinkly, scrunching up our faces and making jokes like, "we put the poo in pool!"
-- and what with it being the first day of school holidays and all, i was somehat apprehensive about venturing into cook+philip for a swim. would there be pain? and screaming children? yes, but not too much.
i guess the afl grand final, which apparently is quite an important date in the football calendar, kept a lot of people home. and the food and wine fair across the road kept a lot of people standing in queues waiting to be fed. it was 32 laps of near-empty lane pleasure!
swimming makes me hungry.
Served on Saturday, September 27, 2003 at 04:43 p.m.
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this from our correspondent in new york:
"the national cattlemen's beef association... is hoping to inject some red meat into the american snack food diet with cheeseburger fries. the fries, which look like a squat version of standard french fries, are made of a meat-and-cheese compound that tastes -- as the name suggests -- like a cheeseburger. and while the taste is not distinctly beef, biting into one does impart the lingering flavoring of processed cheese."
mmm... fries. read the complete story here.
Served on Wednesday, September 24, 2003 at 07:24 a.m.
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after a day's delay, breakfast the morning after a magnificent and obscene feast of sushi, sashimi, unadon, agedashi dofu and tempura last night, turned out to be a milky latte (yes, yes, but it really *was* extra milky) and a bowl of sultana-studded couscous, with fruit compote (part of which appeared to be a whole stewed peach), yoghurt and pistachios.
i felt my tastebuds coming alive again.
and then...
sitting in the cafeteria of the city blood bank late in the afternoon, it was a visceral thrill fishing a boiled hotdog out of the brown water in the bain marie, tucking it into a cottony roll and smothering it with ketchup and mustard out of colour coordinated squeezy bottles. the smiling lady behind the counter will make you a strawberry-chocolate milkshake, and you can sit until closing time reading about the worst frocks of 2003.
giving blood and shoping make up a fine post-deadline afternoon, especially when you are shoping with vouchers, and everything is reduced anyway, like two tubs of yoghurt cheese for the price of one, and a blouse the colour of creamed butter. yum.
Served on Friday, September 19, 2003 at 09:02 p.m.
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so the question, after coming off a week-and-a-bit long deadline, where a job to design a cover for a book turned out to be a surprise redesign of a 176 page book, is, "what shall i eat?"
in between the sitting down at the computer before 7 in the morning and then forgetting to look away every half hour 'til 10 or 11 at night, there were such forays into emergency sustenance as the 9pm fried egg and baked beans on toast with leftover beetroot salad and the noon to 2pm apple-and-cinnamon pretzel frenzy.
right now i cannot even look at the screen of computer without my left eye going into spasm and my right arm going numb. the tradition after handing over a bunch of discs to the printers is to buy myself breakfast.
what oh what shall it be?
Served on Thursday, September 18, 2003 at 10:44 a.m.
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i bought a black t shirt recently, which is only a momentous occasion when you take into account that the last black t shirt -- black anything, really -- i bought was like, eight years ago.
this one has a big white puffy-paint skull 'n' crossbones on the front, except the crossbones are actually hearts. it makes me feel like jimbo jones, and also reminds me of when i was fourteen and sometimes wore a big silver ring in the shape of a skull. i bought it along the way, during a highschool art trip through thailand.
the weird thing is that right after i paid for it, these two middle-aged chinese women sidled up to the counter and bought one too!
it goes really well with my red pleather studded belt. i'm so punk rock.
Served on Thursday, September 4, 2003 at 03:20 p.m.
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um. so the really weird thing was that while sitting in the sussex street food centre eating our bowls of happy chef noodles, which are of course the tastiest noodles in sydney, one of the happy chefs went on dinner break and showed up at the next table with a bag of mcdonalds.
Served on Sunday, August 17, 2003 at 07:42 p.m.
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do fried capers make everything better? sprinkled liberally over the tender and bloody veal and mash at dinner, they were crunchy little muthas bursting with flava.
sorry.
the mother's last supper before winging it back to singapore tomorrow. i feel like i've been eating all day, since leftover rhubarb-strawberry-pear-apple crumble with 56% minimum fat cream at eight this morning.
the sister has a week before heading back to new york and there are still many many meals out there left to conquer. "if we live like hobbits for the next week, we'll be able to fit it all in," she says. this does not mean we will neglect our foot hygiene, only that we should have three meals before noon. of course.
Served on Saturday, August 16, 2003 at 10:42 p.m.
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the setting: the gaelic club, where the floor is always sticky. an extremely self-conscious "band" called the kills is artfully jerking itself about on stage. they are tiresome to begin with and then quickly yet gradually improve and then possibly become tiresome again. i lose track. there are many many studded belts in the room, the most i've seen gathered in a single location, except for the accessories rack at sportsgirl.
but we are really here to see hot hot heat. there are many enthusiastic girls up front, one group with ziggy stardust haircuts and sharp tailoring and another in netting and stripy knits. nellie has learnt all the lyrics by heart and is ready to go woo as required. hot hot heat play like a cartoon band, with struttin' and tight jeans and sweat exploding out of hair like a fireworks display, and as nellie says, all the members look like duckie. which is untrue because there is the bass player who has a rockstar thing going and manages to keep his big north american rock hair perfectly bouffant through the night (where "night" is an efficient forty-five minute set).
who doesn't like bass players?
Served on Sunday, August 10, 2003 at 07:50 a.m.
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broadband rawks. as does creamy polenta porridge with mint leaf slivers and stewed strawberries.
Served on Saturday, August 9, 2003 at 10:35 a.m.
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oh momentous moment. i have an adsl connection, finally. i don't actually have a computer right now, but that's another story.
Served on Friday, August 8, 2003 at 04:35 p.m.
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ahhh... evan dando. having seen him play twice before in the last several years or so -- once a poppy lemonheads type show, then a solo amplified accoustic thing where he wore like, a metallica tshirt -- i saw the scariest show last night in which, with a scruffy rocking young band he played a scruffy rocking set (and then a seamless accoustic medley in the middle) but sang without joy. the last time i saw him he was american golden boy with gentle smile. last night he was gaunt of face and hunched and bony. but it's the music that matters right? his voice is second only to eddie's. next cd purchase: baby i'm bored... and the avril lavigne album (!).
Served on Wednesday, August 6, 2003 at 11:26 a.m.
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yesterday, being shockingly wintery (and normally it would not have being shocking, since it is after all, winter, and in retrospect i suppose last week's sunny clear blue days were the unseasonal ones), was a perfect day to buy a bag of hot chips and stroll towards the water, feeling the cold wind raise welts on my cheeks. it was doubly good because in a surprising turn of events, the boy who was overseas decided he'd had enough and jumped on a plane and returned, and strolled and ate chicken salted chips with me.
Served on Sunday, July 20, 2003 at 10:24 p.m.
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you spend a month and a half sweating your insides out in the tropical swelter, waiting for the day you get back to winterous sydney, and then suddenly it's the coldest second of july in twelve years. with nonstop rain to boot.
this made it the perfect evening to walk out of the cinema ("whale rider") and head straight to a table at bar italia where the prompt waiter delivered a plate of veal under a garlicky napoli sauce full of zucchini, mushrooms and chili, and served with a head of steamed broccoli, carrots and herby roast potatoes. yum.
i missed italian food while i was away, and despite all the laughing cow widely available in vietnam, i really missed cheese. in the last three days i have had a four-cheese borek and a greek salad with salty crumbly fetta. i'm looking forward to saturday when i head out to the growers markets and buy a quantity of smoked mozzerella, and maybe some marinated goat cheese. it's time to fire up daisy, my jaffle machine which is also a cow.
scientists have discovered that dairy fat may reduce the occurance of asthma in children.
and then.
after spending almost a decade in the US, pouring money into the university industry and significantly boosting the national retail economy, my sister had her latest visa application rejected. because you need to be outside of america when you lodge your application, she now has an apartment full of cool stuff and a place at columbia to study french lit that she isn't allowed to go back to. the bastards! obviously i will have to stage a boycott by refusing to watch any more of that reality crap they keep sending over to clog up the tv programming. i wasted an hour the other night because i couldn't pull the plug on "celebrity fear factor" where david hasselhoff, donny osmond, coolio, chyna the scary lady wrestler who i'm positive used to be a dude, and two blonde actresses, got their heads locked in a box of worms and scorpions.
Served on Thursday, July 3, 2003 at 06:01 p.m.
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after a six+ hour flight punctuated by only three bouts of minor turbulence, i touched down in sydney at 5.45am and nearly ripped out half a fingernail trying to drag a very large backpack off the carousel.
the sun started to rise as i whizzed homeward in a taxi. the city skyline was sillhouetted against a golden sky and dramatic swooping purple cloud backdrop. it was a crisp 8 degrees. refresca!
everything seems okay.
Served on Monday, June 23, 2003 at 07:30 a.m.
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the other night i dreamt that i had a chocolate camera. at first i thought it was just an ordinary chocolate camera, but just as i was about to have my way with it, it became apparent that it was actually a working camera! i could wind the little wheel on the top to advance the film, and the shutter release button seemed to work. i took a couple of photographs and realised that i'd have to work really quickly before the camera melted into a chocolatey mess; already the film advance wheel was starting to stick. unfortunately the photographic adventure was cut short, because a maniac was trying to kill us, and we had to throw him off the balcony.
Served on Wednesday, June 18, 2003 at 03:27 p.m.
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buried in the midnight slot on channel 5, singapore, is the rather good but tragically shortlived australian tv series, love is a four letter word.
having spent the afternoon cleaning out my childhood cupboards and rediscovering letters from people who have since dropped out of my life, seeing those familiar innercity grunge tv types again filled me with a twinge of wanting to be sometime else.
Served on Sunday, June 15, 2003 at 10:06 p.m.
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the day i heard that the daimaru department store on river valley road was closing down was a sad day indeed, even though i'm ever in singapore for a month, max, and the last time i was back here i only went to daimaru once.
that was enough time to discover the pokka gelato kiosk in the basement supermarket, where the scoops are light and milky and the flavours are like, kiwi yoghurt.
so, happy day, i poked my head in the other night to investigate the new japanese supermarket that has inherited the basement, and lo, the pokka geloto kiosk is still there. six words: sweet potato with roasted chesnut bits!
in a little over a week i fly back to the real world. how much gelato can i eat between now and then?
Served on Friday, June 13, 2003 at 07:05 p.m.
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the sky was soft pink when i awoke a little before six this morning. in a few minutes a ferocious wind out of nowhere, and then big spluttery rain. so now everything smells cool and moist and good - i haven't been out front yet, but i expect the downpour even managed to wash away that displeasing catshit smell from the manky strays that sit on the stairs, gazing down on you, imperiously.
for two weeks it's been like, 34 degrees. i've been assured this is not normal, but i guess it's no real consolation to me.
tomorrow morning i get to ride the nice bus ("nice" is the company name!) to kuala lumpur, where grandparents and most extended family members eke out an existence, with my mother and sister. it's a five hour trip punctuated by a stop at a highway rest pavilion complete with many an eating stall where you can get tasty treats like exotic crackers and tea with condensed milk for not much money at all.
i am very very brown.
Served on Saturday, May 31, 2003 at 10:52 a.m.
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and so a month later i find myself back in a place where you can cross the street without fear of being flattened by any one (or more) of twenty million motorbikes going in all different directions. it's not quite the lovely wintery clime of sydney -- though from what i hear, sydney's heading the way of atlantis at the moment -- but at least there's plenty of air conditioned respite from 32 degrees of sticky humidity.
yes, back in singapore where my childhood bed seems even smaller than before, and the (unfinished) mural across the walls and ceiling (and sadly for resale value, splattered randomly across the floor) a reminder of teenage artistic folly. an excursion to the neighbourhood mall this afternoon resulted in a plate of roast duck noodles (i'd been wondering what my first chosen meal after vietnam would be; that it's turned out to be RDN is completely unsurprising), a large cup of bandung, the milky, rose syrupy beverage... and holy crap! a hello kitty badge maker!
i've wanted a badge maker for years and years. of course it is pink. ragingyoghurt badges coming soon.
Served on Sunday, May 18, 2003 at 09:55 p.m.
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no killer virus yet. instead, over the last four days there have been: jackfruit blended ice shake; ice cream with stewed in syrup longans; extreme heat; extreme traffic; a church at sunset, flanked by two lifesize tableaux: mary's grotto, in which mary is nestled in a manmade mounatin cave setting beneath a neon halo and a neon sign the says "ave maria", and a crucifiction scene where at jesus's feet stand mary and mary gazing down at a second jesus, lying in state (thus proving by being in two places at the same time, that he *is* god); a very long wait amidst pushy shovy grannies for a mini bus ride to a bus station, a mini bus that is actually a tin of sardines; a five hour bus trip from saigon down to the mekong delta punctuated by many hawkers coming on board to sell things, including, spruiked by loudspeaker, a set of knives; soursop blended ice shake; extreme heat; a siesta; another soursop blended ice shake; a cantonese congregation temple; a khmer temple; another temple at which a delightful scene of miniature buddha and goddess of mercy statues are glued onto a small concrete mountain; another siesta; a crazy park with decorated staircase-based structures that one could pose on, surrounded by many concrete animals and dangerous merry-go-round rides; a slice of coconut flan; a sugar brioche filled with dollops of kaya; a dubbed-into-vietnamese tv show, which seemed to have been made in italy; a five a.m. awakening; a motor sampan along the mekong to a floating market; a bowl of spaghetti and sliced pork in a tangy pink soup, on the sampan, in the shade of a neighbouring boat; veggies tied to poles; five hours in the sun, in the slowest motor sampan in can tho, travelling through silty brown canals; a jackfruit blended ice shake; a siesta.
Served on Sunday, April 20, 2003 at 04:06 p.m.
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at nine o'clock last night, it struck me that my plane was scheduled to leave at 8 in the morning, and i hadn't yet packed. or scrubbed down the kitchen, or laid out fresh new cockroach bait for the little bastards, so that they would be dead when i got back in two months. it filled me with a sense of urgency.
yes, i have decided to fly into the face(mask) of DSV, so to speak. right now it's 7.30 and i'm sitting in the departure lounge of sydney airport. after a minor panic while eating a large brown pear that i had somehow forgotten to pack my camera (unfounded, but that's what lying awake for four hours waiting for the alarm clock to go off does to you), all i have to worry about now is that maybe my backpack is way too small, and maybe i haven't brought enough shirts, and then even if i did, there won't be space in my pack for me to buy anything.
engh. it's all gonna be bits of paper with pictures of exotic food printed on anyway.
so off i go. remind me to tell you about my popcorn chicken experience one day.
Served on Wednesday, April 16, 2003 at 07:33 a.m.
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today i voluntarily ate rabbit. the last time i ate a bunny was by default, when i was maybe like, 14, and we went to a french restaurant for my mum's birthday, and it was prix fixe, and the appetiser was, from memory, some sort of gelatine engulfed rabbit roulade, which my sister refused by saying, no thanks, i have a pet rabbit.
but today at lunch, the tastiest-sounding thing on the blackboard menu was bucatini with rabbit in a butter, white wine and parsley sauce. in fact it was supremely tasty, which is why danks street depot is my favourite place to eat, which is not to say i go there often, but that whenever i do go i feel happy and lucky (distinct from happy-go-lucky, which i feel, like, never).
i guess for some people out there, eating rabbit is a normal occurance. it's still exotic to me, like some shellfish, and offal.
Served on Monday, April 7, 2003 at 10:27 p.m.
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last night i dined with the effusive and stylish lena at an unusually narrow korean restaurant in burwood. bemused by the sudden wintery turn that autumn took, we had cups of thick murky sweet ginseng tea while waiting for salmon nori rolls and two tofu dishes (pan fried and spicy hotpot). and then, surprise! the waitress brought us pickles: sure, a little dish of kimchee, but then also four other little dishes of chili pickled cucumber, julienned carrots and zucchini in sesame oil, beansprouts in vinegar and sesame oil, and strips of marinated chewy tofu. yum. free pickles.
Served on Friday, April 4, 2003 at 11:10 a.m.
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in the last few weeks... i traded in a bunch of frequent flyer points - amassed over several years of flying between sydney and singapore and new york - for a ticket to vietnam, china and singapore. i quit my job. i got my passport organised. i stepped past falungong protestors outside the chinese embassy - rain or shine - to get a shiny chinese visa in said passport. i bought a lonely planet guide, heavy as a brick. i got a polio vaccine that left a dark tasting trickle down the back of my throat, and a shot for tetanus that kept me from moving my left arm or sleeping on that side for three days. i bought some grape flavoured yoghurt sweets to take along. i saw myself eating ice cream and pork baguettes and pho, and swimming in halong bay with the boy who left me his fridge (see previous entry).
and it is quite possible that i will not be going, thanks to the mystery killer virus that seems to be sweeping through the region (and beyond) like some vile european dance music tune. no. not an april fool's joke. my disappointment is far more bitter than that polio vaccine.
the one good (ha) thing about this experience is that i have become well-acquainted with the world health organisation's website, which issues a daily update on the virus as well as a daily cumulative infection and death tally. it surely makes for compelling reading.
Served on Tuesday, April 1, 2003 at 09:44 p.m.
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my new material possession, which i purchased from the sunday markets in the shadow of (depending on the time of day i suppose - in fact there was no shadow while we were out there, blinded by midday) the sydney opera house, after the lovely little puppet show "a world of paper", in which, around a little japanese actor playing a small child, two japanese puppeteers clad in black ninja gear bring to life all manner of washi paper bird, butterfly, squirrel, tortoise and horse. and raincloud! and fire goblin! the lady puppeteer was quite inscrutable but the guy would put on a facial expression that matched the animal character he was... becoming. when he operated the prancing horse, he had a horse face! and they scurried about the floor on their tip toes while crouched on their haunches! so light and quick! how did they do it? i just tried, and besides feeling like an ungainly, waddling duck, i think i also put my knee out. ow.
Served on Sunday, March 30, 2003 at 09:42 p.m.
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snow pea shoots are really good stirfried in an oyster sauce thickened with cornflour, with the fried puffy tofu that soaks up half the gravy before disgorging like a sponge in your mouth.
i was standing by the chinese vegetable stall at paddy's market, clutching a box of them and looking for someone i could give some money to, when the chinese vegetable auntie came up to me and pressed a longan into my hand. $2, darling, she said, smiling. don't need a bag? good girl.
swiftly unpeeled next to a pungent rubbish bin, the longan was sweet, a wobbly globe of juice.
Served on Friday, March 21, 2003 at 03:46 p.m.
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a year and a half ago, on my way to work, i passed through a food court to get a blueberry sugar bagel for breakfast. the multi-tv screen display was showing over and over footage of planes flying into the world trade center buildings.
this afternoon, by coincidence, i went into the same food court after a trip to art express at the art gallery. lunchfolk gathered around the tvs; missiles had just fallen in... on iraq. oddly, a reuters cameraman was there filming the tv footage -- maybe he had missed the plane to the gulf, or flunked out of the military-run media training sessions.
i asked the girl i was having lunch with if she would go to the rally on sunday (12.30pm, belmore park, sydney), which led to a discussion on whether or not war was the right thing to do, and why we shouldn't just accept that these things happen. i was having trouble following her argument on why "collateral damage" was, y'know, fine, when the bombs would get rid of an evil dictator in the end. obviously it was fine because it's an anonymous bunch of dusty, brown people on the other side of the world who don't hold western values.
i said, it's like when you were at school and there was this one bad girl in class, and the teacher punished the whole class for something the one bad girl did.
the girl i had lunch with said, oh! well when you put it that way...
Served on Thursday, March 20, 2003 at 08:27 p.m.
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tonight the moon is a great white circle, so bright it hurts to look at it.
Served on Monday, March 17, 2003 at 10:13 p.m.
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two hours into "the pianist", after the pianist has just been cast out of his latest hiding place by nazis with flame throwers, something that sounds like an air raid siren goes off. and goes on and on. eventually it becomes clear that it is not part of the film, and is actually coming from outside our cosy cinema. no-one seems too fussed, though some guy down the front heads out into the corridor to investigate, and returns to his seat like everything's all right.
the pianist clambers and falls over a wall into a deserted street, flanked to the horizon by pale shells of previous buildings. the air raid siren continues. does anyone else feel a little ill at ease? the screen goes blank and the lights come on. for an audience who up till now seemed unperturbed by the siren, we sure stand up really quickly.
polite and orderly, everybody files out the fire exit, through the concrete bunker that is the belly of the multiplex. i'm thinking that maybe the war has begun, and maybe we weren't in first with the bombing, but then beyond these last doors there is clear blue sky. out on the pavement we wonder what has happened.
on the other side of the world missiles and men (and women) wait for an order; a mystery epidemic sweeps through south east asia, baffling the experts; i'll have to sit through the first two hours of "the pianist" again, to find out how it ends; not even ten minutes after hanging out a load of laundry under clear night sky, it starts to rain...
Served on Sunday, March 16, 2003 at 09:16 p.m.
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out at parramatta yesterday for... ahem... client meetings, i stumbled on the biggest harris farm yet! there were bowls of cheese and little tubs of yoghurt out for sampling, and many exotic wafers and mayonnaises and fizzy. mmm... free cheese. eventually i came away with a little bottle of grapefruit fizzy, a large bottle of apricot nectar and a tub of parsely and almond pesto. slurpy yum! the whole experience made me joyful and so, so wistful. aisles upon aisles of big fresh shiny produce, colourful things in bottles all piled up... and me, never ever in parramatta.
a nap later, there was waikiki, a cute band with really nice graphics, which they sometimes put on stickers that you get with the cd. is it bad to like a band because they have a cool logo? last night at the gaelic club, a lovely venue, they sang pretty and in tune and did shimmery tambourine moves and flicked hair about, and the rhythm section sang along even when they weren't singing into microphones... but it seemed strangely unemotional, as though they were holding out for the whole show, and not until the last song - "this is our last song" - did they truly rock out. by which time my eyes were too sting-y from cigarette smoke, the floor was too sticky with spilt beers to do a hands-in-pocket foot shuffle, and i was completely over the girls in front of me who kept leaning in to talk during the show, and flicked their long ponytails about, and stood arms akimbo with their elbows sticking way too far behind them. pah. girls.
Served on Saturday, March 15, 2003 at 09:27 a.m.
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i bought a loaf of fruit bread the other day: sour dough with whole figs and dates studded through, so that when you cut into it, you sometimes got a whole cross-section of succulent fig in your slice. also the clever bakers had thrown a handful of mixed seeds and nuts into the bottom of the baking tin before filling it with dough, so the loaf came with a crunchy base of sunflower seeds and almonds.
this morning i made myself a pot of bush tea, cut myself a slice of magic fruit bread and crumbled some marinated fetta over it. seven minutes under the grill, the cheese was bubbling and the bread golden with the oily cheese marinade. it was a great start to the day.
which only got better because: i had one of those phone conversations with nello where you start talking and then suddenly it's two hours later; i got a cheque in the mail for a job that isn't even over yet; walking home from cashing said cheque later in the afternoon, i got rained on very heavily by something that went from light drizzle to blinding torrential downpour in about forty seconds.
i felt cold hard raindrops indenting my head and shoulders.
i felt happy to be alive.
Served on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 at 08:58 p.m.
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sometimes when you see a boy off at the airport, a boy who leaves you his magnificent frostfree fridge to look after while he heads off on an indefinitely long trip overseas, not knowing when exactly he will return, and even though you may well be catching two planes to meet up with him in vietnam or china in six or ten weeks, you have to take two buses home, and scrub down your old cyclic defrost fridge which sits alone down in the garage, so that maybe you can sell it off to someone who doesn't know its history of being a happy home to many evil little cockroaches.
also, you have to put on a ratcat cd. don't go now.
Served on Friday, March 7, 2003 at 06:05 p.m.
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when i first knocked this blog together, i wasn't really sure what i'd be writing about. as you can see, the first entry is all like, wah maybe i'm too old to be going "woo!" at a rock show, and wah maybe war is a bad idea. unsurprisingly i have slid into this groove where maybe i'll tell you a little story about my day, with an emphasis on tasty (or otherwise) treats i encountered along the way.
so the new title of this page is "adventures in good eating", which is a well-lettered sign i took a picture of on the outside wall of a restaurant in seattle when i made a grunge pilgrimage there in um, 1999, when i thought grunge was dead. and now, 2003, it obviously isn't! hurrah!
today's tale is: don't eat those new strawberry ripes whose advertising campaign is in overdrive. the original cherry ripes are so much better.
Served on Tuesday, March 4, 2003 at 09:45 p.m.
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saturday a little portuguese street fair in petersham. at which i queue at a stall for half an hour for five grilled sardines. there are many people in the queue... in fact there may be three or five queues! or no queue. whatever the case, there are more people than there are grilled sardines. where is jesus when you need him? there is a very stressed out portuguese woman behind the counter, who walks to the pavement out back and talks fast and gesticulates wild to a man with coal-blackened hands fanning a large barbeque on which sit two grilling cages with many sardines tucked inside. the man is very much like nicolas cage's character, the baker, in "moonstruck", and now he is grumpy and throws his hands about too, and says words like "finish!" and "no sardines!" and "(insert low growling noise)". but in the end there are sardines, and damn they are tasty and sticky in the teeth with fish oil, and they are devoured quickly except for the strange lung-like things we find inside, and washed down with two bottles of portuguese fizzy, sumol, one orange and one pineapple.
sunday a two hour ride on the early train up to the blue mountains. sunny and cold! excitement about a tasty hot breakfast we would have! disappointment with the extremely unsatisfying breakfast we got instead! climbing down many steps cut into the mountain to little nature tableaux with such names as "vera's grotto" or "witches leap"! waterfalls! lizards! wondering if maybe the peoplemover back up the mountain would cost, like, $30! deciding to climb back up the mountain! on our puny human legs! feeling my lungs grow to an alarming size, as though they would burst from my chest cavity! thinking that death could not come soon enough! seeing the three sisters! stopping at a bakery and matt choosing a cream donut, a sugar coated thing about the size of a softball, sliced open on top and filled with whipped cream and half a maraschino cherry... and a slice of cheesecake, and me getting a steak and mushroom pie, heavy as a small child! a park, a meadow covered in bright yellow flowers! a scary experience eating the cream donut, so scary we eventually give up eating it and try to feed it to the magpies instead! failing to tempt the magpies, and tearing up the last few bits of claggy dough, and throwing it at bees for target practice! walking to leura! losing our way! finding a short cut! by the side of the windy road, with no proper walking path, and four wheel drives speeding by! it takes maybe twenty-five minutes but feels like two hours! we will never speak of this again! train back to sydney! everything bathed in golden light! a lovely day is had by all!
Served on Monday, March 3, 2003 at 11:26 a.m.
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that decadent ice cream, magnum, now comes in 60s flavours. the one i really want, "cherry guevara", has thus far eluded me, but i have tasted "guava lamp" (where the guava strip running through the vanilla has an unexpected marshmallowy texture... well, you'll expect it now) and "choc work orange", my first experience of which was walking up the street and seeing an empty wrapper lying in the gutter and instantly wanting one.
it turned out to be pretty tasty - milky chocolate ice cream inside orange-flavoured white chocolate shell - although almost outdone by the fine bit of taken-too-farness on the back of the wrapper:
Served on Thursday, February 27, 2003 at 12:54 p.m.
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having recently spent like, $311 on new spectacles, which the shopgirl ("frame consultant") assured me were *very* fashionable and just what everyone was wearing in paris at the moment, and which ironically made me want them less, and which obviously in the end didn't matter because I got them anyway... i was kinda hoping that my level of blindness would stabilise for a while. and i think it did. but this week, with noise kicking in for the year, and print deadlines growling, baring fangs and schwiping claws at me from every direction, i feel helpless against the pulled-tight eye muscles that reward me at the end of each day. living in soft focus isn't quite as romantic as it sounds.
Served on Wednesday, February 26, 2003 at 09:07 p.m.
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a weekend so packed with punch it took me a week to sufficiently recover to construct this new toy. friday: pearl jam at the sydney entertainment centre. it's been five years since i last saw them, and leading up to the night doubt clouded my mind... was i too old to be this excited about a rock show? would my seats be crap? and other stuff.
all partly unfounded. in the belly of the entertainment center, pearl jam went off.
the staff don't quite frisk you as you go in, but they did make me empty out my indie rock, strawberry print handbag made for me by one fiona cleverly at work, because y'know, i look like such a terrorist.
speaking of which, the rally at hyde park on sunday was somewhat bigger than i thought it would be. so crowded in fact, that when everyone moved off the park to march the streets, the volume of bodies immediately filled the entire route, causing a gridlock standstill for, like, hours it seemed. half a million people rallied across australia, all of whom have now been condemned as unaustralian supportors of saddam hussein by mr howard. onya!
this year... where will we go?
Served on Friday, February 21, 2003 at 08:20 a.m.
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