Songs of the Great Depression Volume 2

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Morning View

City road, 7:40am.

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Nice hat

I have worked at Sydney University on and off since 1998. However, no matter how long I'm there I always seem to be discovering a new place. The other week, I went into an Engineering Building and discovered this guy..


Hey man, nice hat - pity its fallen off. I saw this about a month ago and we've had some pretty wild weather in Sydney since then so I don't think its coming down anytime soon.


The only thing is, that statue is huge so I have no idea how someone got it up there. But then again, it is the Engineering Building so I imagine a bunch of boys and copious amounts of alcohol was involved...

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Drop it like you're clumsy...

When I drop my long awaited hip hop record, this is going to be the album cover...

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The kids are alright...

I'm at that age where a lot of my friends are having kids. Apart from having a valid reason for watching children's television, I can't say I've been that enamoured with the idea... until now! Mainly because the Yo, Gabba Gabba! phenomenon almost passed me by.


Yo, Gabba Gabba! is a kid's show aimed at children aged under 5 and uni students aged 22 with access to hallucinogenic drugs. Not only do they have a vaguely hip hop take on learning, they also have awesome performances by bands like the Roots, the Shins and Biz Markie.

Maybe I should re-think this kids thing... or at least consider going back to uni...


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Easy...

I have a Sunday morning ritual where I walk to the Marrickville Markets and buy a freshly baked garlic loaf (whole garlic cloves caramelised in sugar syrup, balsalmic vinegar and cracked pepper then baked into an organic fresh loaf - worth the trip!). Anyhow, there's two buildings that always catch my eye.


This building on Marrickville Road - front...


- back...


What I like about this little piece of urban decay is that a sign on the side of the building next door somehow survived the construction (I imagine some fifty years ago) and recent destruction of the building above. I can't make out that many words but I still think its pretty amazing its still there...


But my other favourite store is called Muscle Mania which features this representation of two steroid riddled neanderthals. I love that it screams "NO EXCUSES!" Dude, I can think of at least fifty seven excuses not to look like that...

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Daves 4 Life

Sorry for the negligent blogging of late but I've had a belly full of work this week which isn't letting up anytime soon. So in the meantime, I thought I'd mention a website I visit regularly: Passive Aggressive Notes. Working in a university, I see this kind of shit all the time so I find a perverse joy in this concept. So far this is my all time favourite called the "international brotherhood of Daves." If you can't read it, in response to someone stealing his drinks at work, Dave claimed ownership with the note "Is your name Dave?" The small post-it points out that Dave is not alone - "Yes! My name is Dave! Thanks for the free drink! Daves 4 life!!!"

You're a legend Dave...

But if you don't like that, try THIS!

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He's got crazy flipper fingers...

I like collective nouns: a mob of kangaroos, a murder of crows, a smack of jellyfish, a siege of cranes etc... I'm wondering what the collective noun is for a group of nerds...



Today I went to the Australian Pinball Expo and whatever the collective noun is, the nerds were out in force (I'm a nerd myself but even I have limits). A cluster of nerds? A scrum of nerds? Who knows...


What I wasn't prepared for was the noise. A hall filled with about 100 pinball machines being played simultaneously sounds like the low rumble of what I imagine 200,000 ancient warriors in battle would sound like. This video doesn't even come close to capturing the headache inducing noise I heard today...



Anyhow, there seemed to be three classes of pinball machine theme - random sexy one's like Playboy and urm, Bride of Pinbot...





Classic themes like The Rolling Stones, Charlie's Angels, Buck Rogers, the Six Million Dollar Man (man, inflation is a killer)...






And a class purely dedicated to crap action films: Maverick, Johnny Mnemonic, The Last Action Hero, Hook and Lethal Weapon 3 (which was, admittedly, pretty awesome when I saw it at the cinema in 1992 - come to think of it, there was a lot of love for Mel Gibson in the Pinball world).


However, by far the best was the Captain Fantastic Elton John machine which looked great AND he sung pinball wizard - dude had style...

The problem with the expo was that there were more nerds per square metre than machines available so I didn't actually get to play pinball. After half an hour or so, I came home and played it on xbox instead - its a sad world...

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Shouldn't talk about the weather...

There is one kind of weather I hate and that's wind - hot, cold, I don't care, just spare me the wind. So today, feeling kind of sorry for myself and a howling gale blowing outside, I elected to have a home day. I can tell its a home day if I haven't taken off my pirate slippers since getting out of bed...


Nah, seriously, I own Pirate slippers. So I've spent the day finishing my book, reading the paper and listening to music. But in a fit of weirdness I decided to engage in some craft.


About six months ago I downloaded the plans to make your own bobble head Josh Homme and Dave Grohl. I can't find the link now but I thought I'd make them today. I started with Josh first...




It was about half way through that I'd really wished I downloaded the instructions but I think I made a fair fist of it in the end...


I then moved onto Dave who was a bit trickier because smeared glue showed up more on his black clothes...



He came out alright too...


Now I have the complete set of paper rockers. Hopefully they'll start collaborating again and make an album as good as Songs for the Deaf... dreams... I'll just go back to wasting time on yooouuutuuube...

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The absolute last Wire reference (promise)...

Sign around the corner from my house - Westside fo' life...

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Autumn bone

The colours of autumn will soon be gone but the contrast in shades from the back of my work is very pretty methinks. It won't be long until it looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland - gray and dead... Roll on winter.

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You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar...

Apparently, I have a Tyler Durden-esque alter ego who writes the questions for Millionaire while I'm sleeping...

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Wired continued...

The wonderful Katie, who blogs about far more interesting stuff than myself here, sent me this picture of a Wire box set purchased in China. Apparently, the waterfront development from seasons 4 & 5 was far more profound than I first thought - Baltimore is totally transformed...

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The Wire is dead

I tried to stretch it out - I really did but I ended up going on a Wire bender. As Clay Davis says "sheeeee-it!"

Now I know some people are still watching the show so I won't ruin the end (McNulty and Bunk set up an organic food co-op) but without doubt, seasons 1, 3 and 4 are the best. I struggled with season 5 because there was a plot device that I found unbelievable but ultimately, I was satisfied with how it ended.

What I think sets the Wire apart is that there is no easy out and all the characters are compromised in some way - much like life. But I think I need some time to fully digest the whole thing - its a heavy text.

More to come - its all in the game yo, fo sho...

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Wired...

Like everyone else, I've fallen in love with The Wire. Its a strange little community that has formed around this series - everyone goes to great lengths to describe their love of the show and ruminate on particular plot points. However, these conversations inevitably ends with someone talking in street talk - fo sho. A world away from the gritty streets of Baltimore, middle class Australians mimic the language of the drug runners with such verve and endearment. Anyhow, I just got my hands on the fifth and final season so this blog entry might be my last until I finish the series... I was tempted to do a Wire marathon and call in sick tomorrow but I've decided to savour it for as long as it lasts - ya feel me...

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Weird shit...

I just got home from work and turned on the telly to catch 51 year old credit controller Jill correctly guess what the PJ in PJ Harvey stands for on an episode of Millionaire. It seems so weird and incongruous seeing Eddie Maguire ask questions about PJ Harvey - what's that about?

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Today was one of the rare occasions where I wore a suit to work (ala the blog photo above). A number of people asked me "why are you so dressed up?" like I was some strange and exotic creature. Depending on the person, I either said I had a job interview or a court appearance. Strangely, those I told I was going to court were totally convinced it was true: "Oh, that's no good, what for?" - "Good luck..." - I guess I'm a more convincing criminal than I am potential employee...

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Cake walk

Strangely, I've been buying a lot of cakes recently - its unintentional but I'm all about cake at the moment. ANYHOW, when I was buying a cake from a shop in my local area recently I noticed amongst the mud cakes, strudels and pecan pies was a couple of plastic capsicums and some plastic parsley (as this hastily taken, secret agent photo shows). I was tempted to ask for a capsicum cake but decided that would probably only make trouble for myself and make me sound like a jerk... Still, I do wonder what they're doing there...

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