Multifarious Ramblings....
It's been about 8 weeks since I've moved to Sydney and now since things have settled down somewhat I really should get into doing some updating.
On the whole SydVegas Experience...
The feeling of total Anonymity in Sydney lasted only 6 weeks. In the same week I ran into someone from post-work drinks the previous afternoon on the platform of Central Station. I went to an excellent house party that night where I met a stack of people. One of those people was working in the juice shop that I tend to frequent when I've gotten up too late to eat breakfast before leaving home. I honestly thought it would take longer before Newcastle style 2-degrees-of-separation coincidences started happening. Like about 4 years.
I'm also surprised how little time it's taken to get used to the whole concept of train commuting. In my first 6 or so weeks I'd get on the train and find it hard not to laugh myself silly as to the stupidity of the situation of all these people packed into this tiny space not communicating, smiling or making any sort of contact with each other. It was hilarious in a tragic kind of way. So I started coming up with theories on train etiquette (Basically the rule is do not under any circumstances look at or talk or make any form of cantact with anyone with the exception of asking 'Does this train stop at XXXX?' lest be dubbed a 'loony'), which later thanks to nickthecheese's observations on the Digweed Coke-head-dancing weekend it was combined with the concept of lift etiquette. The whole thing fascinated me and such was my bemusement of the whole situation that I was already picturing myself as an avid anthropologist on our railways and in our lifts studying the habits of humans which essentially have evolved as social creatures that live in small erm.. [whatever the most amusing collective noun for a herd of humans is] and villages, to having to adapt to being creatures in a crowded urban environment where there are just too many people there to be able to behave in the natural way. Of course I got lazy.. and basically became one of the zombies that only weeks before I promised myself I wouldn't become. It's so much easier and I don't think I have the ability to grow the required facial hair to become the sort of intense sociologist I'd want to be.
I must have used up some major Karma points as the 3 times I have forgotten my weekly train pass, the gates at museum have been unattended and I've been able to walk through unmolested by evil train ticket spotters. I put this down to the 3 years at uni I spent putting daily parking permits back in the vending machines so the next student wouldn't have to dole out the $2.50+ for the right to park. If everyone did that the world would be a better place. <*note: I should not attempt to write things for the public domain whilst in the middle of heat induced insanity as otherwise this drivel comes out>
On work..
I've pretty much settled into the job and managed to break into work social circles to some degree here and attend Friday afternoon drinks with a vengeance! Catching public transport drunk is a new experience I have to say. The environment here is ok I guess - not the loudest but not the quietest like that evil Qmastor place I used to work at. I've gotten used to having no natural light, no windows and being tucked away in a part of the building but I'm still not impressed with the air con at all as it's permanently set to about 27, which for me equals an exquisite torture.
Today I was meant to have the meeting with the big cheese to determine whether or not I got permanent here, I discovered that I will be around longer even if I am not to go perm so it's nice to have that bit of 'security'. This meeting keeps getting delayed and now it's on Friday when we have our Christmas party.
On Living arrangements..
As soon as I know what the deal is with work I'm going to move out of my brothers and sort out somewhere else to live. I like it there but it's a bit weird living with a family and even though I have my own room and everything space I keep feeling like I'm the pesky younger brother that's in the way.
Destiny '06
Woohoo! We made it - so many years of watching bad fitba at the Breakers finally culminated in actually making it into the World Cup. Watching the penalty shoot-out at the stadium was so much easier than I expected and well at the end I was drained. I'll now either be in Germany/Europe for the WC or be doing that living in 2 different time zones routine. Sleep's not all it's cracked up to be.
During the game, just after my brother and myself attempted to get a Spanish Hijo da Puta chant after one of their players was surprisingly diving all over the place, an incredibly cute girl turned around and asked Are you porco??? I was stunned. Porco is the Portuguese word for pork, so porco is a play on words for asking if I was Portuguesian. Never before in my life had I actually been asked this question so it was like really bizarro yet nice in the same way.
I consider myself to be 'Strayan but all my life I've been hit with the 'What nationality are you' question which I find incredibly irritating. The stock response to this question is 'Australian as it irritates the inquirer no end. What they don't realise is what they are essentially saying is You're not Aussie so where are you from? My answer of Australian always never seems to fail to get my desired response of lack of comprehension coupled with annoyance and is often countered with a slightly patronising and slower and more clearly enunciated No, *exasperation* - Where are your parents from? to which I then pretend that the penny has dropped and I finally understand what they really wanted to know and reply with Oh you mean what's my background? then happily launch into it. Then I normally have to explain where Portugal is. Often I have to give reassurances it that it's that western bit tacked onto the knobbly end of Europe next to Spain,and not in South America, and no they do not speak Spanish which is an inferior dialect of portuguesian, and yes they indeed DO Speak portuguesian in Brasil. I really need to type myself up a fact sheet. So that was the first time ever someone has randomly just asked that and it was kinda nice.
On Spiro 'the Loved Up Ethical Hippy's Earthcore 2005..
Oh the funness. Massive props go out to the members of 'Team Bat Country' - katmeowster, yobbbo and nickthecheese for making it such a fun and mad event, as well as all the visitors/invaders goonicles, belinka, sdb and others.
The trip down consisted of light car tetris after I forgot my poi and stick an in Sydney and went pretty smoothly. Car tetris wasn't as hard as it was last year with 5 in the car. Managed to secure a spot right next to last years and Bat Country was born.
The Japanese DJ's were mad - loved the psy they were belting out on Friday night and they seemed to absolutely go off when the thunder and lightning kicked in and everyone seemed to be going off. Pity we were trying to save our camp at the time! The Propeller-heads were excellenté too.
I got to have a play on the staff on Saturday at the workshop and managed to get back to where I was a year ago with it and somehow failed to get a nap in during the day. Seeing the Shpongle set was lush and was a perfect start into the night. Siaqua were awesome fun as usual and brought back memories of last years EC when they started off my night - It seems to be that BL musos that I've seen perform have a piss-taking sense of humour that means they take their music seriously but not themselves which comes out in their act so it's always muchos fun to watch.
System 7 was nice and dark sounding and Hallucinogen was an awesome experience. Watching the Posford experience which is about as religious an experience that I can have these days whilst manically giggling and repeating 'CUBES!' at Kat and Nick (James hurt his foot so wasn;t present at that point :\) whilst watching a bunch of posers dance in front of us in circles with glow sticks just did my head in in a very special way. I didn't know where to begin. I kept looking at them trying to reconcile the fact that I was seeing Posford Live at a 'doof' and there were circle Dancing Poser clubbers. Part of me wanted to take to them with a large blunt object and explain in no uncertain terms that this was all about Posford and not about them. Sometimes I hate being anti-violence. Lab 4 disappointed, I'm either not into that whole genre that much or I was not in the mood for them at the time after listening to psy for so long or both.
Did anyone else see the retards with the fly swatters on the dance floor? What was all that about?
Back at camp-site I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to re-arrange stuff as is the way I do things at about that time. I seem to always get into a chaos = bad head-space and had fun moving things from one side to the other whilst actually achieving very little. as it was in hindsight it was a bit silly. Dawn came and Watching Nick in full Festival Regalia was an awesome sight, Bathrobe in the wind behind him, fluffy ears and Sword-brandishing and waving that goes along with it was brilliant to see. Sadly my sword died in an over-elaborate game on noughts and crosses played out in the sand as a 'O' was stabbed in the middle with a terrifying bit of over-acting at the back of the hydra floor with Chris. A fitting burial mound was created. RIP.
I saw Juno reactor and went from thinking meh what're they all that about? to absolute admiration for what they do and their art. I had to see them live to get them and it was amazing being able to pick out individual notes as they were played. After Juno we needed to reorganise camp as people decided to run away for some silly reason and set in for a cruisy afternoon. It was quite good fun meeting Liam/Rachel and hanging out with team bat country and also bel/sdb and Chris and other randoms that popped in from time to time. Memories tend to be a bit non-linear and hazy at this point and a cruisy afternoon was had as my tired brain lumbered after the conversation with the finesse of an inebriated man trying to catch a small hyperactive irritating yappy dog on speed in a room filled with chairs tables and other things that seem to hinder performance well when the need to be highly mobile and have easy kicking/bludgeoning access to irritating yappy dogs is necessary.
I went to sleep that night after I was fed bulb after bulb for Kat's entertainment by Nick. Mille Grazie for that.
The trip back was fun fun fun. Props to the dog on a tucker-box, people in Canberra that stared at the freaks that were taken over by the boogie in our car and James and Kat for doing most of the driving. The tarp decided to only play up on my shift 40 k's out of course. Fun for all. home at 9:30 and then a coma ensued.
I have so much more to rabbit on about but I might save that for next post as a) I'm just typing for the sake of typing due to my earlier caffeine hit and b) this post is long enough as it is and c) i'm sure it's not really that fascinating to anyone except myself..."
On the whole SydVegas Experience...
The feeling of total Anonymity in Sydney lasted only 6 weeks. In the same week I ran into someone from post-work drinks the previous afternoon on the platform of Central Station. I went to an excellent house party that night where I met a stack of people. One of those people was working in the juice shop that I tend to frequent when I've gotten up too late to eat breakfast before leaving home. I honestly thought it would take longer before Newcastle style 2-degrees-of-separation coincidences started happening. Like about 4 years.
I'm also surprised how little time it's taken to get used to the whole concept of train commuting. In my first 6 or so weeks I'd get on the train and find it hard not to laugh myself silly as to the stupidity of the situation of all these people packed into this tiny space not communicating, smiling or making any sort of contact with each other. It was hilarious in a tragic kind of way. So I started coming up with theories on train etiquette (Basically the rule is do not under any circumstances look at or talk or make any form of cantact with anyone with the exception of asking 'Does this train stop at XXXX?' lest be dubbed a 'loony'), which later thanks to nickthecheese's observations on the Digweed Coke-head-dancing weekend it was combined with the concept of lift etiquette. The whole thing fascinated me and such was my bemusement of the whole situation that I was already picturing myself as an avid anthropologist on our railways and in our lifts studying the habits of humans which essentially have evolved as social creatures that live in small erm.. [whatever the most amusing collective noun for a herd of humans is] and villages, to having to adapt to being creatures in a crowded urban environment where there are just too many people there to be able to behave in the natural way. Of course I got lazy.. and basically became one of the zombies that only weeks before I promised myself I wouldn't become. It's so much easier and I don't think I have the ability to grow the required facial hair to become the sort of intense sociologist I'd want to be.
I must have used up some major Karma points as the 3 times I have forgotten my weekly train pass, the gates at museum have been unattended and I've been able to walk through unmolested by evil train ticket spotters. I put this down to the 3 years at uni I spent putting daily parking permits back in the vending machines so the next student wouldn't have to dole out the $2.50+ for the right to park. If everyone did that the world would be a better place. <*note: I should not attempt to write things for the public domain whilst in the middle of heat induced insanity as otherwise this drivel comes out>
On work..
I've pretty much settled into the job and managed to break into work social circles to some degree here and attend Friday afternoon drinks with a vengeance! Catching public transport drunk is a new experience I have to say. The environment here is ok I guess - not the loudest but not the quietest like that evil Qmastor place I used to work at. I've gotten used to having no natural light, no windows and being tucked away in a part of the building but I'm still not impressed with the air con at all as it's permanently set to about 27, which for me equals an exquisite torture.
Today I was meant to have the meeting with the big cheese to determine whether or not I got permanent here, I discovered that I will be around longer even if I am not to go perm so it's nice to have that bit of 'security'. This meeting keeps getting delayed and now it's on Friday when we have our Christmas party.
On Living arrangements..
As soon as I know what the deal is with work I'm going to move out of my brothers and sort out somewhere else to live. I like it there but it's a bit weird living with a family and even though I have my own room and everything space I keep feeling like I'm the pesky younger brother that's in the way.
Destiny '06
Woohoo! We made it - so many years of watching bad fitba at the Breakers finally culminated in actually making it into the World Cup. Watching the penalty shoot-out at the stadium was so much easier than I expected and well at the end I was drained. I'll now either be in Germany/Europe for the WC or be doing that living in 2 different time zones routine. Sleep's not all it's cracked up to be.
During the game, just after my brother and myself attempted to get a Spanish Hijo da Puta chant after one of their players was surprisingly diving all over the place, an incredibly cute girl turned around and asked Are you porco??? I was stunned. Porco is the Portuguese word for pork, so porco is a play on words for asking if I was Portuguesian. Never before in my life had I actually been asked this question so it was like really bizarro yet nice in the same way.
I consider myself to be 'Strayan but all my life I've been hit with the 'What nationality are you' question which I find incredibly irritating. The stock response to this question is 'Australian as it irritates the inquirer no end. What they don't realise is what they are essentially saying is You're not Aussie so where are you from? My answer of Australian always never seems to fail to get my desired response of lack of comprehension coupled with annoyance and is often countered with a slightly patronising and slower and more clearly enunciated No, *exasperation* - Where are your parents from? to which I then pretend that the penny has dropped and I finally understand what they really wanted to know and reply with Oh you mean what's my background? then happily launch into it. Then I normally have to explain where Portugal is. Often I have to give reassurances it that it's that western bit tacked onto the knobbly end of Europe next to Spain,and not in South America, and no they do not speak Spanish which is an inferior dialect of portuguesian, and yes they indeed DO Speak portuguesian in Brasil. I really need to type myself up a fact sheet. So that was the first time ever someone has randomly just asked that and it was kinda nice.
On Spiro 'the Loved Up Ethical Hippy's Earthcore 2005..
Oh the funness. Massive props go out to the members of 'Team Bat Country' - katmeowster, yobbbo and nickthecheese for making it such a fun and mad event, as well as all the visitors/invaders goonicles, belinka, sdb and others.
The trip down consisted of light car tetris after I forgot my poi and stick an in Sydney and went pretty smoothly. Car tetris wasn't as hard as it was last year with 5 in the car. Managed to secure a spot right next to last years and Bat Country was born.
The Japanese DJ's were mad - loved the psy they were belting out on Friday night and they seemed to absolutely go off when the thunder and lightning kicked in and everyone seemed to be going off. Pity we were trying to save our camp at the time! The Propeller-heads were excellenté too.
I got to have a play on the staff on Saturday at the workshop and managed to get back to where I was a year ago with it and somehow failed to get a nap in during the day. Seeing the Shpongle set was lush and was a perfect start into the night. Siaqua were awesome fun as usual and brought back memories of last years EC when they started off my night - It seems to be that BL musos that I've seen perform have a piss-taking sense of humour that means they take their music seriously but not themselves which comes out in their act so it's always muchos fun to watch.
System 7 was nice and dark sounding and Hallucinogen was an awesome experience. Watching the Posford experience which is about as religious an experience that I can have these days whilst manically giggling and repeating 'CUBES!' at Kat and Nick (James hurt his foot so wasn;t present at that point :\) whilst watching a bunch of posers dance in front of us in circles with glow sticks just did my head in in a very special way. I didn't know where to begin. I kept looking at them trying to reconcile the fact that I was seeing Posford Live at a 'doof' and there were circle Dancing Poser clubbers. Part of me wanted to take to them with a large blunt object and explain in no uncertain terms that this was all about Posford and not about them. Sometimes I hate being anti-violence. Lab 4 disappointed, I'm either not into that whole genre that much or I was not in the mood for them at the time after listening to psy for so long or both.
Did anyone else see the retards with the fly swatters on the dance floor? What was all that about?
Back at camp-site I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to re-arrange stuff as is the way I do things at about that time. I seem to always get into a chaos = bad head-space and had fun moving things from one side to the other whilst actually achieving very little. as it was in hindsight it was a bit silly. Dawn came and Watching Nick in full Festival Regalia was an awesome sight, Bathrobe in the wind behind him, fluffy ears and Sword-brandishing and waving that goes along with it was brilliant to see. Sadly my sword died in an over-elaborate game on noughts and crosses played out in the sand as a 'O' was stabbed in the middle with a terrifying bit of over-acting at the back of the hydra floor with Chris. A fitting burial mound was created. RIP.
I saw Juno reactor and went from thinking meh what're they all that about? to absolute admiration for what they do and their art. I had to see them live to get them and it was amazing being able to pick out individual notes as they were played. After Juno we needed to reorganise camp as people decided to run away for some silly reason and set in for a cruisy afternoon. It was quite good fun meeting Liam/Rachel and hanging out with team bat country and also bel/sdb and Chris and other randoms that popped in from time to time. Memories tend to be a bit non-linear and hazy at this point and a cruisy afternoon was had as my tired brain lumbered after the conversation with the finesse of an inebriated man trying to catch a small hyperactive irritating yappy dog on speed in a room filled with chairs tables and other things that seem to hinder performance well when the need to be highly mobile and have easy kicking/bludgeoning access to irritating yappy dogs is necessary.
I went to sleep that night after I was fed bulb after bulb for Kat's entertainment by Nick. Mille Grazie for that.
The trip back was fun fun fun. Props to the dog on a tucker-box, people in Canberra that stared at the freaks that were taken over by the boogie in our car and James and Kat for doing most of the driving. The tarp decided to only play up on my shift 40 k's out of course. Fun for all. home at 9:30 and then a coma ensued.
I have so much more to rabbit on about but I might save that for next post as a) I'm just typing for the sake of typing due to my earlier caffeine hit and b) this post is long enough as it is and c) i'm sure it's not really that fascinating to anyone except myself..."