monday : 26 feb 2007
It's 11:08pm and Your Humble Narrator is watching the Academy Awards ceremony. Or rather, trying to watch it. Featured just then was a medley of gawd awful soul singing by the cast of Dream Girls – 'Patience' indeed. Thank fuck that washed up lesbian won it, hahahaha. Take that, sistaz! No I have not been drinking, although I did have a shot of straight Wild Turkey last night during A Very Long Engagement; I took it neat because there's no mixer in the house. Unfortunately one quaff of liquor tends to induce thoughts of slumber, making the experience a bit dreamy. Anyway, the significance of the Academy Awards, assuming they had any to begin with, seems to be fading each year. Having ample access to photorealistic image quality on DVD at home has dulled the 'mystique' of The Movies – an example of the scarcity principle in action.
sunday : 18 feb 2007
That weekend was a tad...warm. Today I spent it at the local retail bio-dome watching two movies, but when I emerged at 5:00pm, it was still like a furnace outside. Does Andrew Bolt still think the global warming problem is overstated? A rhetorical question, to be sure.
So at home I watched a bit of TV, including the BBC Horizons documentary called Saving the Twin Towers. It focused on the fire fighting aspects of the 9/11 disaster and how an electronic surveillance system could have given a 30 minute warning about the collapse. It was curious how the programme totally ignored the collapse of Building 7, which wasn't hit by a plane – to date no official inquiry has adequately shown why it collapsed. Also puzzling was a computer animation of a Twin Tower collapse that showed the floors pancaking on top of each other, yet leaving the 47 core columns standing. Another simulation, showing steal beams weakening due to heat, did not show the core columns at all. Nor did it mention the molten steel found beneath all three buildings weeks after 9/11, or explain anomalies such as the speed of the collapses ("Less than ten seconds" a fireman admits) or the pulverisation of the building floors into fine debris. The logic of the fire fighting system to close doors when it detected a fire wouldn't give fleeing inhabitants much comfort, either.
Do not take this kind of disinformation at face value. Think it over. I once believed the conclusions of the well made documentary Why the Twin Towers Collapsed, but looking back at it, the whole premise ignored the supporting effect of the 47 core columns, claiming that both buildings were hollow steel tubes that became unstable when the cross beams distorted and weakened. Near the end of the show, this claim was demonstrated with a wooden model of one tower. It held weight on the top level easily when floors below were in place. When lower levels were removed, the model quivered and collapsed. Of course, this model also ignored the existence of core columns. We must also remember that steel is an alloy used in various applications for its strength and resistance to high temperatures. Your stove is made of steel, as are steam trains, strip heaters, and so on.
Kami the 'drunk poet' from Adelaide hit Melbourne on Wednesday night. He had lined up two bars/pubs to review for Ralph, 6 Links on Flinders Lane and Roo Bar on Franklin Street. Dressed for the occasion (Ben Sherman shirt no tie) I rocked up in an expectant mood to meet him and two friends at that joint on the corner of Flinders Lane and Elizabeth Street, up the escalators. At 6:00pm we headed up to 6 Links, a trendy basement venue similar to Zanzibar in Collins Place. They had Crown on tap, so we threw down a few rounds just for the novelty value. It was at this point that my mobile phone went crazy. Two of my own friends were up for some soothing post-work brewskis, and was I up for it? Little did they know! Code Monkey was also having a surprise birthday night on the town. What ensued was a manic bout of social co-ordination on – a mobile that had little battery juice or credit to spare – to shepard my mates to 6 Links, and then arrange the rendezvous with Chris and his coterie at 6:30pm. Well, I was two hours late meeting up with Chris. We had a quick drink in the Asian venue below street level on Hardware lane, where lesbians kissed and the hostess tolerated my attempts to charm her. Happy 32nd birthday Code Monkey.
When his party ended at 10:30pm, I perambulated up to Roo Bar where Kami and Jeff were marinating themselves with more beer. This is a backpacker's pub, hidden away where else but down in the basement. You'd never know it walking past on the street – I certainly didn't. Upon arriving, the atmosphere was more schoolies week, with young foreign backpackers filling the space with the tang of their accents. Kami took a few photos of slightly tipsy girls who were only too happy to pose for shots with their shots. Speaking of shots, we had a few interspersed between heavies. I wasn't on Alcodol, either. Although the booze meter stayed at moderate levels, I knew there would be repercussions the next day. All up an excellent night out. I may be in one of the photos Ralph publishes, but the attractive women will no doubt take precedence, as they should. The last thing I want to see in Ralph is my own mug! Finishing at 2:00am, the taxi ride home wasn't without incident. I fell asleep and the prick started taking me the long way. I woke at the half way point and jumped out, giving less than half the fare, then caught another taxi.
On Friday night I attended the work social club function at the Copacobana Club on Smith Street, Fitzroy. This is a Latin restaurant with a Brazilian theme which includes a floor show and dance music. The food was tasty: help yourself salad bar and a selection of meat served at regular intervals to your table. Basic but utterly delicious. It's been a while since I ate that much meat. The floor show was high NRG; I couldn't see many specific details without my glasses, which I never wear nowadays. Anyway, four hours later the Latin fever was getting on my nerves, so I bailed with Paul at 11:45am to grab the last train back to the cave. On this occasion I stuck to light beers, left the CBD before midnight, and woke Saturday morning sans hangover. Perhaps the destructive boozing cycle is broken?
DVDs purchases made between sessions of The Good Shepard and Smokin' Aces:
Paris, Texas – striking new 16:9 transfer, $32
Frankenstein Legacy – four movie boxed set, $13
Dracula Legacy – four movie boxed set, $13
Tears of the Sun – Willis and Bellucci war film, director's cut, $13
friday : 9 feb 2007
An extremely busy week just flew by, and it's still going. There's no real news to report except the push to read more books and drink less booze this year continues, although Kami's visit next week could affect both goals. One can only hope! Last Friday I was home by 11:30pm – simply unheard of.
A few gigs are coming up: Slayer with Mastodon at Vodafone Arena in April (I have my ticket, $77 each) and Suffocation a the Hi-Fi Bar next week. Drinking with friends from work the other evening, the topic of favourite concerts came up. They all rattled off the names of familiar mainstream acts. When I mentioned a few of mine choice gigs – Fear Factory, Metallica, Pantera, Killing Joke – the glazed look in their eyes was classic. Needless to say, I soon shut my mouth and occupied myself with smiling at cute girls walking past our table.
thursday : 1 feb 2007
Two nights out in a row drinking light beer, against all of my genetic and cultural programming. Something had to be done, because last Thursday night, January 25th, I had an all nighter on the town which started innocently enough with a friend's birthday drinks at the newly renovated Carlton Hotel. So, a quiet session of sippy socialising 'somehow' morphed into me standing on Swanston Street at 4:00am kicking and thumping a taxi that picked up passengers at the wrong end of the queue. You see: not Friday night. No Nightrider service. This only dawned on me and the other vagrants outside KFC when the 3:30am came and went with nary a sign of safe and free passage home.
Now, there's no prizes for guessing that Your Humble Narrator was nuked all of the next day, national pride day, the holiday celebrating Make for Glorious Nation United States of Australia. Which means I had to bail out of the two promisingly super events booked for that afternoon, constituting 100% of my social calendar for the long weekend. After arriving home at 6:00am, I wasn't so much hungover and staring into the Abyss only to find it staring back with bloodshot eyeballs – for I had taken my Alcodol pills dutifully, thus avoiding 90% of the alcoholic equivalent of the Bends – but rather, extreme fatigue kept me horizontal for most of the day, either reading about 9/11 in bed, taking random cat naps, or propping one heavy eyelid open in order to absorb one type of phosphordot absurdity or another. In actuality, Dr Phil was an excellent show that preached dating tips for tragic female singles, while Oprah exposed two incredible cases of spousal treason.
Therefore, the upshot is more frequent responsible drinking, with the occasional trainwreck allowed for exceptional circumstances such as my birthday, getting sacked, being dropped by a girlfriend, a planned social function, or seeing Diktator George W. Bush's simian face on TV warmongering about invading yet more countries.