Of Toys, Pirates, Shotguns and Frogs.

Friday night (lots of my entries lately have started like this. I mean to blog about the rest of the weekend, but usually it takes me the rest of the week just to get one night down. For example, failed to blog about the sneak preview I saw a week or so back of the new all-aussie Macbeth) evildoom_bunny and I started the evening having drinks in a bar with a friend o' mine.

One of her former colleagues was telling an amazing story about a shoot-out that took place in front of his house in Brighton. Here's a tip kids: when people are driving by firing shotguns at each other, probably a good time to head back inside...

We headed off to Bar Open, a bar (who'd have guessed) to see Toydeath, the infamous toy-utilising band from Sydney. I said hello to G.I. Joe (also known as Nick) who was pleasantly surprised that I recognised him. I bought 'em a talking barbie doll on Ebay about six months back, of course I remember 'em.

They were their usual manic selves. Dressed as toys, dancing around, playing toy guitars. They have new toys! A talking George Bush doll, and a magic wand. They used it to cast spells on the front rows of the audience. Later they used the Incredible Hulk fists to hit some other audience members. These things are padded, I should add.

Bumped into Richard, who's another mad fan, and who appears to be largely blogless.

We were still hungry, despite the rather interesting egg white omelet we had in the city, so we popped into a kebab joint. Sitting next to the door were three Pirates. They were Pirates Lite, their swords made from rolled up paper, their large hoop earrings held on with bulldog clips. None the less, I said "Aaaaaar me hearties!" as I went past. So they challenged me to a sword fight! I borrowed a paper sword, and dueled with a (seated) pirate until evildoom_bunny intervened, or threatened to, with her Frog umbrella. The pirate I was duelling with said "So what's your favourite frog?" Of course I answered "The Bumpy Rocket Frog". I mean, if you're going to like a frog, how could you go past one with such a cool name? This stumped the pirate, till I explained it was a sub-tropical, not a Victorian frog. He was still impressed.

Turns out there was a pirate party on somewhere near Brunswick Street, we came across a whole lot of other pirates on the way home. Seems to have overflowed - too many pirates!

Tried to catch one of the new fangled after midnight trams, but it didn't show, so we caught a cab the two kilometres to my house.

Eastern Beer.

Saturday arvo, after a serious amount of sleeping and a quick lunch of Saganaki and calamari (note to self - stop eating out) we headed out to a mates place - anyone who invites you over to drink his homebrew is officially a "mate" - out in Blackburn somewhere.

I tried a new experiment on his dog, and our friend's chocolate labrador "Barton" which was visiting. Basically, I wanted to see if there was anything he wouldn't eat. Barton was the main subject. He ate cold KFC chips, crisp potato chips, dim sims, pistachio shells - basically everything we threw at him, aside from lemon peel. Then slobbered all over my jacket. That'll teach me.

Some of Dan's cow-orkers were a bit, well, fashion tragic. Lots of wrap around glasses and wearing of thongs on a coldish day. Bizarre. They were capable of conversation, so I'll give them some credit. And given that my look could best be described as "Inner Urban Scruffy" I suppose I can't talk :-) Note to self two: time to get some new t-shirts that don't have holes in them. The did also disappear inside to watch something - I believe it's called Football - on the telly. So they lose points there as well :-)

Dan makes homebrew by the keg! He had a new brew, which needed to sit a little longer, but seemed quite drinkable from the few sips I had. I brought some fortune cookies, which are always fun. Some of the utterly bizarre fortunes we got:
"You are courteous, diplomatic and affable, and may find happiness is politics and public service"
and
"A sly rabbit will have three openings to its den"
There was considerable amusement at that second one... Sly you say? Openings you say? Sounds like the subtitle of a really bad porno.

Eventually we dragged ourselves home and somehow managed to make a very edible Butter Chicken.

Damn, this all sounds so damn middle class. Time I went off on some weird tangent involving living in a box for six months just for the heck of it.

Da Da Daaaaaa, Dum Dum Dum Dum Dum Daaaaaaaa Daaaaa Daaaaaa

The Astor had a mighty special screening on yesterday (Sunday). A lovely 70MM print of 2001. They'd even dragged along the two main stars of the film (no, not the Monolith) to do a Q&A after the screening.

Now, not sure that actors are necessarily the best one's to be talking about a film - I'd prefer to hear from the writer and the director. But Kubrick being dead and Arthur C. Clarke being more or less confined to Sri Lanka, that gets a bit hard. Still, it was kinda cool to see the (oddly named) Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood. Pity HAL couldn't make it :-)

The film itself looks GREAT on the big screen. If you ever get the chance - the Astor shows it a couple of times a year - go see it. Something was a bit buggered with their projector on this particular day, it would seem, and there was an annoying jiggle in some sections. Either that or my brain and eyes are broken :-)

The place was heavy with Nerds - not that I can talk - because apparently this was all done in conjunction with some kind of Sci-Fi convention. Hmmmm.... nerdy.

Anyway, this chewed up a good six hours of my Sunday, having Brunch with a friend chewed up another couple, watching the hail fall on High Street on the day of the street festival happened in parallel to drinking my second chai :-)

Open the pod bay doors please Hal.

Amazing Space Picture...

Hey all, this featured on the Astronomy Picture of the Day a few day's back. Click on it to go to the page, which has a description and a larger version.



Can you guess what it is? That's International Space Station Alpha and the space shuttle Atlantis, silhouetted against the Sun... Cool.