But it can be restrictive.
On 04/05/2005, at 5:02 PM, Charles Hastings (operations@neurocam.com) wrote:
Specific times and your personal transport status are also required.
Sorry Charlie..
Category Archives: Photos
Actually, You Know, I Quite Like Public Transport
Filed under Photos
*aaatch..* Avery, Xul & Urik; Fischer in LA; Moncrief Full Of Shit: Zelle; Vale Aliask and Assignment 5555/01 *..hoo!!*
Been very slack on the bloggage front of late; touch of flu and not much worth reporting. Apologies.
Everything looks exceptionally hazy in Camland at present. The Neurowiki (Wikicam?) appears to be coming along nicely but if its objective is to serve as a source for accurate info, I kind of wonder if it isn’t a doomed project. As is the case more often than not, the line between fact and fiction’s so blurry right now that the distinction seems almost irrelevant.
Avery‘s supposedly arrived here in Melbourne. But with his previous post he seems to have warped into the Xulosphere. (Hi Avery, if you’re reading this and you really are in town. Feel free to invalidate my skepticism.)
Meanwhile I – and presumably others – have received a mail purportedly from Xul’s associate Urik, advising that Mr. Solar has gone into hiding and ceased all internet communications, although he remains “in excellent physical and mental health”. Which is reassuring.
I’ve lodged an enquiry regarding Midnight‘s claims about Fischer’s trip to LA. His latest entry, quoting a mail from Madeline Khan, suggests that there is genuinely something going down there, even if it is just more smoke and, y’know, mirrors.
Gertrude Zelle has told tobyesterhase aka Operative Cronin that Marc Moncrief’s legendary Age article, responsible for introducing many a Melbourne operative (including this one) to the ‘Cam, is “a potentially slanderous fiction, complied by him from half-truths, materials of questionable veracity and blatant lies.” Cronin intends to contact Moncrief about this accusation, which might prove interesting.
In other news, one of my local neuroblogging contemporaries, Aliask (Perception Assessment class of January 3rd – here’s his, here’s a mine.. ah, the good old days etc) has retired; apparently he couldn’t be arsed with Assignment 5555/01, and I don’t think he’s the only one.
But, good little operative that I am, I faithfully completed the bulk of mine on Friday; hopefully I’ll be able to finish it off on Tuesday.
(this space intentionally left blank)
Sullenest cat I have ever seen:
Street I saw it on:
Filed under Photos
Greenaway
I often feel like I’ve been struck by lightning.
I want to watch Peter Greenaway‘s 1980 short Act of God again. It’s a documentary comprising a series of interviews with lightning strike victims. Lightning strike is recognisable as a phenomenon comparable to the mysterious Violent Unknown Event at the centre of Greenaway’s subsequent feature debut The Falls.
I originally saw both films about ten years ago, deep in the bowels of the National Library, where you could watch 16mm prints from the enormous film collection that they used to hold (which I believe now lives at Screensound) on quaint old Steenbeck viewing tables.
I was completely and totally obsessively in love with Greenaway’s work throughout my teenage years. It was the centre of my whole world. I want to get reaquainted with it.
I still possess dodgy VHS recordings (mostly taped off Eat Carpet over the years) of a number of his early shorts (H Is For House, Water Wrackets, Windows, Dear Phone and A Walk Through H), but not Act of God. And I’ve still never even seen Vertical Features Remake.
I really need to get these two DVDs.
I rescued these two books about PG from my parents sinking ship of a house:
Museums & Moving Images by David Pascoe and The Films of Peter Greenaway by Amy Lawrence
If I ever finish The Magus (I’m not going to give up on it now, but like others I’ve found it a tad bromidic) I’m going to read at least the Lawrence one again.*
And if I ever resolve my current deeply unsatisfactory employment situation, I’m going to celebrate by buying this DVD edition of A Zed & Two Noughts that I discovered at Chronicles on Fitzroy Street the other day, which features a director’s commentary track. My sixteen-year-old self would probably have keeled over dead with sheer excitement at such a prospect.
*Sidebar watchers will have noticed that I’m also currently reading Scepticism Inc by Bo Fowler – at work, since The Magus is a bit too bulky to fit comfortably in my pocket. It’s narrated by a sentient shopping trolley. It’s about a man who runs a metaphysical betting shop, which makes a killing because – metaphysical propositions being inherently unverifiable – it never ever has to pay out. These are just two of many great things about it.
Astor
This is the current program poster for the Astor, AFAIK the only dedicated revival house in Melbourne (apart from ACMI, which doesn’t really count). The previous occupant of my domicile was on their mailing list so I’ve been faithfully putting these up on my wall since November, but although I’ve passed by the premises a number of times I hadn’t actually patronised them until last night.
I went to a double of Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby (I quite liked his previous effort Mystic River) and Hotel Rwanda (as endorsed by Operative Li).
It looks pretty run down from the outside… and it is. But the facade doesn’t do justice to the interior; it’s wonderfully grandiose inside. It has this whole faded glamour thing going. The auditorium is beautiful.
Seeing as how I was ten minutes late for the session and had to be torched in I couldn’t quite muster the nerve to ask them to give me a job. But they’re high on my list…
Tampons
I found these on a footpath today. The plastic wrapper is entirely intact. Score!
Tempted as I naturally am to break them out and line them up on my desk next to a glass of red cordial, in which to dunk them before lobbing them at people passing beneath my window, I have decided instead – being of an intrinsically giving disposition – to send them to someone. The question is: who? Readers are invited to submit short pitches (no more than 100 words, please).
Dogs
Sam, slightly bewildered indoors
Sammy the retarded keeshond will be coming to live in Melbourne soon, at my sister’s house in Fitzroy. I don’t know how he’ll cope with the change. He’s pretty fucking senile, and there’ll be a lot less space there than he’s used to. It’ll be great to be able to hang with him a bit more often, though. I think upon encountering me the other week it took him a while to remember who I was.
Sam, somewhat disoriented in the garden
Here is a 35mm picture I took of him in 2003 (so long film, nice knowing you etc) and printed at Photoaccess:
Back in the day, long before my folks inherited Sam from my Mum’s cousin in 2003, we had a much loved black kelpie labrador cross called Sally, purchased as a puppy from the RSPCA in about 1988. I came home one day in 1996 to find her lying in the sun by the study window, a favoured spot of hers, unexpectedly stone dead. She was only eight. She’s under the compost heap now.
Moment of silence for Sally. I wish I had a picture of her.
Urk
Sorry about that last post.
Look, I just boiled some eggs:
I like a nice boiled egg of a morning. They’re full of protein you know. Mmm, protein.
And now I have to go to work. I’m gonna be late.
I wonder if I should post about work.
I could take some photos.
Or not.
Decisions, decisions..
Toasts, Assing etc
Toasts to Maxwell:
Lady J toasting me toasting Li toasting Midnight toasting Constance, Avery & Lady J toasting Maxwell.
Gigabane toasting Cheshire Cat toasting Tobyesterhase toasting me toasting Li toasting Midnight toasting Constance, Avery & Lady J toasting Maxwell
Back in late February there were some murmurings about schisms & double-crossage in the upper Neuroranks from Jojo & Tript, amongst other sources. In serialising the background to his recent dismissal, Avery seems to be throwing more light on these rumours, and it’s shaping up as quite the expose.
Bridge & Charlie- who’d a thunk it?
And another neweuroblogger: Simon Blackmoore.
There’s Nothing Like Procrastination For Getting Things Done
I bounced out of bed at 6:30am this morning. I’ve done cardio at the gym, gotten myself a haircut, done a few miscellaneous errands, made and consumed a novelty cooked breakfast (pictured, above), had a driving lesson, and done a load of warsh (pictured, below). And taken some pictures and blogged them, self-evidently enough. And it’s only just gone 1:30pm! Can this frenetic pace be maintained? Will the momentum of this morning’s industry carry me through the dreaded but highly necessary CV-rejiggage scheduled for this afternoon? Stay tuned! (Or don’t! See if I care! Screw you, hypothetical reader; hope you die!)
(Not really.)
The Post Office Post
I haven’t shaved for a week. I left my toiletries behind in Canberra.
My folks posted my stuff back to me. I bought a new toothbrush to tide me over until it arrived, but not a new razor.
Notification of a parcel arrived on Friday.
I went down to the post office off Acland Street to pick it up today.
More observant readers will already have anticipated that this was in fact the wrong post office. My parcel was being held at a post office which is actually a newsagent on Fitzroy Street.
After stopping at the supermarket, and also making an appointment for a haircut tomorrow (the hair on my head is getting a bit unkempt ‘n’ all), I walked over there.
I passed this milkbar just off Grey Street. Bizarrely, directly across the road, there’s a sign indicating a different milkbar 20 metres down the street in the opposite direction. One can only assume the City of Port Philip has some kind of grudge against the proprietors of this particular milkbar.
I arrived at the post office which is actually a newsagent just before they closed at 5:30pm and retrieved the parcel.
I came home and found, to my substantial surprise and delight, that the phone and leckie bills had both arrived – conveniently reminding me that I really need to get another job.
I unpacked my shopping: I bought tuna, tomatoes and apples.
And I opened the package. In addition to my toiletries, it contained a wayward pair of socks I didn’t even realise were missing.
Here are some more photos I took today for the purposes of not working on my CV:
The kitchen sink & the bathroom sink, respectively
The space directly to the left of my tv