wednesday : 25 jun 2008

"Never take on redheads or abos in a fight, mate, because those blokes have nothin' to lose." – Loud bogan dispensing wisdom to friends while walking up Lonsdale Street

Just a brief entry while the trance CD that arrived today from Germany (Artelligent by Headroom) pumps out off the stereo. Sitting here at the computer, I'm also finishing off a glass of a new drink I invented tonight, just a slight variation on bourbon and coke.

The recipe: Reach under your bed and grab that unfinished bottle of bourbon. Pour a shot into a glass, add Coke Zero, then drop in one pill of Sugarine. Yep, the artificial sweetener. Just drown that little white fucker in the glass and watch how it dissolves faster than Kyle Sandiland's television career. You must use Coke Zero for this to work, otherwise the end result is too ghastly and overpowering. You see, during tonight's Endless Commute, I was brooding over my determination that Coke-a-Cola has to be total shit. I mean, that stuff has got to be made with the cheapest ingredients and processing methods, by below minimum wage factory workers obviously. No shock, there. I thought, if that's a given, then even the artificial sweetener in Diet Coke has to crap – chemically suspect all the way down to the quark level, and probably beyond that to the Planck scale, I reckon. The solution? Add your own choice sweetener to Coke Zero. I like Sugarine because it's not the dreaded alternative aspartame, instead it's sodium saccharine. The result is a smooth and delicious bourbon and coke that tastes better than real Coke-a-Cola coke. It's also an improvement over Jim Beam's own sugar-free, hangover-in-a-can, ACME cola premix.

And the name of my new drink? As I take a few more sips, many options present themselves. Here are a couple – none are quite good enough to stick, though. Let me know if you can think of one and I'll add it to the list, with due credit.

Fake Rohypnol
Fauxhypnol
Bourbon and Zero+
Diet Bogan and Zero
Bourbon and über-Coke
Bourbon + Zero = Won
Bourbon and DIVIDE BY ZERO ERROR

In other life matters, another cruel Melbourne winter has descended upon the city for another year. I don't really mind low temperatures, but do we have to endure wind gusts and icy rain, too? Needless to mention, the weather has kept Your Humble Narrator indoors much of the time, apart from Friday nights spent bar hopping around the CBD, and quick dashes between the supermarket and the cave for supplies. Therefore it's all the more remarkable that I'm going to see The Incredible Hulk with Code Monkey tomorrow night at the local grindplex. Laughably, this remake slash sequel has made less money so far than Ang Lee's original abortive attempt, which may have just earned its budget back, but not advertising and sundry expenses. I wonder how the DVD sales went? You've got to hand it to Follywood.

10:43pm. I discovered a flaw in my bourbon masterpiece. After a couple of standard hits, one may forget to drop the Sugarine if it's not close by.

monday : 16 jun 2008

Continued...

Set off for Transport? More like hobbled off. From Gin Palace, at least it was all down hill. Now, I don't remember if there were bouncers outside T-port. Being a Thursday night, probably not. Plus they're usually laid back there unless it's completely packed inside, which means any sign of drunkenness or volatility is reason enough to block ingress. Luckily I've developed a few strategies for negotiating my way past all kinds of bouncers. Most involve careful control of body language (walk tall, smooth movements, maintain casual eye contact, but not for too long) and if I sense a challenge, smile and try to speak first, clearly pronouncing each word. Sometimes bouncers get patrons to talk by asking mundane questions – thus telling them how sober or drunk they might be, so anticipating this test helps a great deal. The key mindset is simply to 'assume the sale'. Which is to say, be calm and confident about being able to stroll in without any hassles, and the rest usually takes care of itself. You're a regular, a big spender, and you own the fucken place. The sharpest bouncers pickup everything they need to know from your eyes, therefore having an attitude of success should cut through any bullshit. This is the art of bar hopping. Sometimes I'll see a queue outside a snooty club and try to get in just for fun. All right then. So, once inside, you can drop your guard and relax into the comfort and familiarity of the barfly slouch, stumble your way to the men's loo (with the obligatory wrong turn into the women's lavvy) and empty your screaming bladder into the nearest urinal or sink, check your handsome self in the mirror, then say "Heyyyy" with a cheesy grin to every female who passes by on your way to the bar.

On this particular evening, I was still alert after downing two cocktails due to my leg mishap. The venue was sensibly populated: there was certainly no Friday night moshpit around the beer taps, that's for sure. More like a civilised social environment for meeting other sophistos and engaging them in erudite conversation. Clutching a glass of that week's feature brew (last tap on the left), I found a spot with line of sight to all parts of the venue, and settled into people watching. I ended up chatting to several folks over the next few hours (and pints) before heading off to Toff on the Town, aka Cookie level two, which was unfortunately dead. I then ventured across the CBD and lobbed into Robot off Flinders Lane to score a $9.00 bottle of hot sake as I munched a packet of Redrock Sea Salt chips and talked to the owner, who was already packing up. That tells you how late it was. At this time of night, the only remaining option is that place up the escalators on Elizabeth Street. True to form, it was going off. I spent another few hours there talking to students and tourists and buying them drinks, my sore leg long forgotten. Hot food of the fast variety and a barely remembered cab ride home finished off a fantastic peregrination of solo bar crawling.

Checking my pockets and mobile phone the next day, hungover and loathing the universe, is usually quite interesting. There's always a slew of phone numbers entered into my mobile or scribbled on ATM receipts for useless aliases such as "Timbo", "Drummer Dude", "kate2", "Paul (actor)", "tracy@yahoooo", and other mysterious dwellers of this benign netherworld. No doubt my own details have been recorded and deleted many times from SIM cards as the result of these evanescent friendships. Ah, just writing about these nocturnal binge sessons makes me want to indulge and regret it all over again.

wednesday : 21 may 2008

8:32pm. Well, in a rare concession to my traditional sporting allegiances, the first State of Origin rugby league match for 2008 between Queensland and New South Wales is currently playing on my Loewe widescreen CRT. So far New South Wales are up two tries to nil after about 17 seconds of play, thus reminding me of the pointless misery and frustration of following any sporting team. Perhaps a few cans of Beam and sugar-free cola would have helped? It certainly does for half of the low-budget genre movies I force myself to watch, heh heh. Sadly, I try to abstain from the turps during the week in order to detox the old liver-o-matic between Friday night binge sessions. Having a bottle shop right near the train station doesn't help matters. Idea for new reality TV show: The Biggest Boozer.

The only other tempting programme on tonight – besides a post-mortem of the Titanic disaster on Seconds to Disaster at 10:45pm, during which I expect to learn nothing new – is, believe it or not, Paparazzi on the ABC. Not because I once sat beside Darryn Whats-His-Name (pictured left) aka "Mr Paparazzi" on a Qantas flight to Sydney, but rather to see exactly what the cheeky buggers do and how they do it. It's all pretty outrageous, but they're just feeding a basic human need to be voyeurs of lives outside one's normal experience. So as with everything grand and shitty about us, blame the species, not the individual or the culture. Paparazzi presents a fascinating and cringe-inducing glimpse into the "pap" business, and of one person in particular, Darryn, a colourful Aussie character who lives in Geelong and seems to project a façade of pretentious glamour fueled by money "borrowed" from the bank. What the fuck? Think of it as Lifestyles of the Kitsch and Shameless. With his flamboyant clothes, painted hair, potty mouth, broad ocker accent, and gold jewelry, he's appealing in a losing kind of way. But yeah, it's a bloody mesmerising show. Fr' instance, I never knew France had laws against taking someone's photo without permission, and most of the paps under Darryn's employ are ex-rail workers, ex-lorry drivers, ex-students, and so on. Also, in several cases, celebrities allow the paps to shoot them in staged set-ups designed to look accidental. Not so with attempts to get up-skirt shots, a below the belt maneuver even for these bold pricks. All up, it's a good laugh...try to catch it next week.

Anyhow. I was going to start relaying some bar hopping tales. So where to start?

The Long Room. Because of the strict dress code after 8:00pm, high drinks prices, and occasionally screwed up staff protocol that favours serving attractive women over other people who've been waiting at the bar longer, many punters I know don't like The Long Room. This is understandable. But taken on its own terms – the snooty attitudes, overbaked decor, outrageously expensive food, and middle-crust clientele – The Long Room can provide hours of rarified alco-tainment, especially if a speed dating event has just ended, or flight attendants from one of the more 'exotic' airlines are in Melbourne for an overnight layover. Cheers! clink

Last Thursday night, two quiet glasses of Rooftop Lager with Mike at Cookie turned into a bar hopping marathon that ended sometime after 3:00am. Still criminally early when Mike went off to a dinner appointment at 8:00pm, I lobbed into Long Room to scope the scene. Thanks Melbourne's chilly autumn temperatures, it was relatively quiet. Since I wanted to compare LR's black Russian's to Toff on the Town's, which are made with coffee liqueur, premium vodka, and garnished with two cherries, I ordered Long Room's equivalent and began the taste test. Unfortunately it was nothing special, although an average black Russian is still quite enjoyable to my sweet-biased booze palette. Anyway, half way through my treat, I decide move off the stool near the bar and sit on one of the lounges behind the screens to better position myself for watching a potentially bored party girl (Indian, curvy, big boobs) stuck on the outer conversation zone with two friends. However, on my way to the pit, my left shin bashed into a heavy wooden side table that's barely 30cm high. It didn't really hurt immediately, but after five minutes I knew the bruised area on the shin could become crippling. It would at least make jogging difficult. Having the dreamy ambience of the Long Room compromised somewhat by my shattered lower limb, I drained my glass and exited...

...straight into Gin Palace around the corner. Needing both a cocktail upgrade and anesthetic to dull the pain in my leg, I negotiated advice from a barman to try a negroni, his favourite drink. That may be the case, but I found it too tart and too dry. Definitely one for martini lovers. I also ordered an icepack, which was delivered promptly, wrapped in a towel, no questions asked. Now that's what I call excellent bar service. A well-dressed couple sitting nearby who looked like they were on their first date did enquire after a spell. I fired back Mike's brilliant "Karma Sutra injury" line, which got the expected laugh. It took 45 minutes to finish the negroni – I was in no hurry because you really need to hold an icepack on for a while to constrict broken blood vessels and therefore minimise bruising. (Checking my war wound at home revealed that the edge of the side table actually drew blood.) Still, as well as I was treated at Gin Palace, I didn't stay for a second round, and set off for Transport.

To be continued...

11:54pm. Shit, it's late. Oh, by the way. I don't know who won the State of Origin match, and I did learn something from the Titanic documentary. Apparently the fatal flaw was not human error or brittle hull plate steel, but instead wrought iron rivets that contained too much slag. Because wrought iron is not as strong as steel, slag was mixed with the molten iron to form crystals that strengthen the iron. But too much slag creates critical microscopic weak spots. It was calculated that Titanic's rivets sustained a force of 14,000 PSI when it hit the iceberg. Tests at NIST (US) showed that replica rivets failed at just under 10,000 PSI. And these replica samples contained less slag than rivets recovered from the Titanic itself. Snapped rivets broke the previously water tight seals between hull plates, letting in more water than the slight impact damage alone would have allowed. Fascinating stuff.

tuesday : 20 may 2008

I'm back online. My ISP had a meltdown over the weekend, which prevented me from posting new changes to Toxic Waste. Accessing any Cosmos website with Internet Explorer may have caused that browser to crash, as it did to me at work yesterday (proving once again that Microsoft suck shit), while Firefox merely burped politely at the inconvenience.

monday : 6 may 2008

I just flew in to Melbourne after spending ten days in Brisneyland. The occasion was a surprise birthday party for someone I know there that was held on Saturday April 26th. I took the Thursday off and caught a Qantas flight up on Anzac Day. I couldn't post an entry here just in case the person in question read this weblog.

The party went off. The guest of honour's expression was priceless – if you've been to such an event, or had one thrown for you, you'll know what I mean, heh heh heh. It was an 80s theme party, but I barely had time to pack and get myself organised, let alone find a costume and then cart it with me 2000 kms. In the end I managed to have my hair spray painted pink and lime green. In turn, I gave the family dog (a pure white samoi) a pink racing stripe. Anyway, with beer on tap from in refrigerated kegs and plenty of quality food, it was a great night.

The rest of the trip was spent on quality time with immediate family members. Dad was even in town, so I got to see a plenty of everyone. Let's hope they didn't get sick of me? By the way, the weather was sheer perfection. Brisbane in Autumn is just magical. Actually, the whole city is maturing more and more each time I go back. There's lots of cafés now (as expect) and interesting retail franchises that don't exist in Melbourne. One shock was property prices for apartments: they're basically the same as Melbourne, except that you might get a slightly larger apartment for the same money, but there are fewer properties on the market for some reason.

It looks like my plans to purchase my own penthouse in the clouds will have to wait until I can afford at least 20% of the asking price, due to mortgage insurance guidelines for inner city apartments. This was all confirmed when I put an offer in for a 16th floor apartment and started to go through the approval process. Oh well. A few more months of salary income will do the trick. Fingers crossed that prices stay level...or drop. Melbourne's overall increases have been 4% this year, but that's obviously an average across all areas and types of property. So, failing all that, Plan B involves getting two 25 year old female flatmates to share the rent, among other things. Save water: have communal showers!

monday : 21 apr 2008

Greetings neomammalians. Greetings also to any paleomammalians who skipped a grade and are able to comprehend these squiggly lines. Speaking of matters cerebral, guess who just got back from the 2020 Summit in Canberra? Yes, I was invited up to contribute my two cent's worth + GST on various national issues and concerns. Here are my key recommendations. And they are not negotiable, Kevin07.

1. Make quality alcohol available for free at public kiosks. Alcohol may also be consumed in any public space.
2. Sake is to become the national drink.
3. All women must wear mini-skirts or mini-dresses, even in winter.
4. No censorship of movies, books, magazines, music, the Internet, television, comics, radio, fine art, thoughts, sky writing, bumper stickers, sand sculptures, etc.
5. Laser pointers of any power rating are to be allowed in the country. Lasers you can see are futuristic and therefore loads of fun.
6. People who own barking dogs and mean dogs are to be summarily executed. Also, dog owners who do not pick up their mutt's crap – straight to the gallows.
7. Other new capital crimes include: leaving chewing gum anywhere in public, smokers who drop cigarette butts anywhere in public, being part of the executive management of Connex, not standing left on escalators, and having poor taste in interior decoration.
8. Government funding for the arts, especially fringe and underground arts ventures, is to be $100 billion per annum.
9. A free optical fibre network will be installed by 2020, with a pilot roll out commencing in Melbourne during 2009.
10. AFL, beach cricket, lawn bowls, Formula One racing, and other silly sports are to be banned from television (free to air and pay-TV).
11. More coverage of sports such as drag racing, poker, and extreme ironing is to be mandated for all media.
12. Distribution of 9/11 conspiracy literature to all households. Saturation of all media of the facts and mythconceptions will commence until the truth is accepted.
13. Fashion TV is to replace sport shown on all plasma/LCD screens in pubs and bars.
14. Addendum to new capital crimes list: not showing content on flat panel displays in the correct anamorphic 16:9 ratio.
15. More licenses for pubs and bars will be granted. Furthermore, every church will be converted into a pub or bar.
16. Gordon Ramsey will replace all celebrity chefs on every cooking programme and reality TV show that features kitchens, restaurants, or the consumption of food.
17. All religions are banned. Atheism is the new spiritual standard, and Richard Dawkins will be retained as an expert consultant.
18. Christmas will be replaced by a lavish ceremony for the Annual Darwin Awards, during which stupid people (surviving and deceased) are comprehensively shamed and ridiculed.
19. The embarrassing TV Week Logie Awards are to be abolished.
20. TV Week is to be abolished, along with Big Brother and Australian Idol. This is not censorship, it is common sense. It is to ensure the survival of our species.
21. Arnotts will be forced to produce BBQ Shapes at their original pre-corporate takeover seasoning specifications.
22. No more drama shows are to be made in Australia, period. Any existing drama shows will be canceled with immediate effect.
23. The release of movies in cinemas is to coincide with US and European release dates. Same goes for DVDs.
24. Two new national anthems will be written, one death metal song (with lyrics) and one progressive trance track (without lyrics) timed at about 130 BPM.
25. No more daylight saving ever for New South Wales and Victoria. This edict only becomes null and void when (a) the sun goes nova, or (b) planet Earth's rotation slows due to gravitational drag so that one side faces the sun. When either condition is met, a review of this conformance may occur. Entities persisting in virtual reality are, of course, exempt.
26. Advance baby bonus payments may be claimed by bachelors who say they might have kids at some point in the future.

I had many more suggestions and ideas to put forward. By this stage, however, the security guards at Parliament House had strapped me to a trolley Hannibal Lecter style and were wheeling me off the premises.

wednesday : 16 apr 2008

You've heard of a three-dog night, when it's so cold outside you need sleep with three dogs to keep warm. Well, I've just had a three cans of Jim Beam White and sugar free cola night. It's quite heartening to know one can get tipsy – not drunk, so relax, just buzzy – on exactly $10.00 worth of pre-mix turps. It certainly beats the hell out of blowing $100.00 for the same effect over a bar. As far as enjoying the social therapy of running with the herd goes, there are plenty of garrulous brute beasts lurking on the world's more reputable IRC chatrooms.

Earlier in the week, I told a workmate that (shock horror) I occasionally drink at home alone. Himself a non-drinker who's pedantic about maintaining peak liver health and general organ longevity, he responded to my frank co-worker bonding admission with, "You drink...at home?!" I had to laugh at that. Or was it the uncomfortable kind of laugher designed to mask my own shame? Naahhh, I concluded happily. What a silly conceit. The simple fact is that I enjoy drinking: it's fun. So...cheers!

Also tonight, besides venturing into cyberspace, I just finished watching that very excellent, highly praised (by Toxic Waste if nobody else) TV series called Seconds to Disaster. This episode examined the calamitous sinking of the $1 billion Russian nuclear submarine, circa 2000. Sitting on my leather lounge, drinking in the various engineering minutia along with slugs of Jim Beam, I realised that my other favourite show about mechanical failure causing accidental violent death Air Crash Investigations was made by the same outfit responsible for Seconds to Disaster. Outstanding. I think these people deserve their own 24/7 television channel.

friday : 11 apr 2008

"Say no to Emo" – Sticker on back window of Toyota Corolla

7:18am. Good morning. TGIF and all that. Last weekend I deliberately didn't go out bar hopping, seducing, and binge drinking. Yes, on Friday night...I went straight home. Why? Lack of sleep was the main reason, as well as just detoxing – giving the liver a rest. The wallet, too. At 10:00pm I received a call from Steve on my mobile asking, "Where the bloody hell are ya?" I had to admit I was power lounging in the cave watching Friday night telly. What a pathetic specimen of bachelorhood I was, betraying the troops like that. But tonight it's back on. Let's hope the promised precipitation doesn't water the night down, like adding too much mixer to a drink.

In terms of Toxic Waste, I'm gearing up to do a massive Chopping List update to clear a backlog of titles. A real domain name and the visual renovation of the whole site are also planned for two double oh eight. But, right now, I've got to give myself a hair cut, put on some clothes, and then 'piss in the direction of off'. Have a good one.

monday : 31 mar 2008

I'm feeling better after a strange little detour into the realm of bodily dysfunction: a glimpse of what's in store for old age, one supposes? Anyhow, I saw way too much television during numerous marathon sessions of power lounging. Toxic Waste updates, book reading, and even basic movie watching dropped off dramatically. At one stage during the Easter long weekend, I found myself obsessively channel surfing the digital TV airwaves, scanning for cooking shows of all things. Needless to say, the rancid Ready Stead Cook was a depressing way to get my cuisine viewing fix, like doing drugs that are cut to buggery. Luckily the fabulous Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares made up for it in the evenings. P.S. Anyone who complained about the profanity in this show can go fuck him/herself.

One activity that did not suffer was music listening. My Zu Mobius cable for the Sennheisers lost its right channel after being yanked accidentally one too many times as I shifted positions reaching for books or comics or something, I forget what. Its replacement arrived just before Easter from the USA – it's a brilliant six foot cable by ALO Audio, the 18G Cryo. This sucker provides more detail and separation than the Zu Mobius (itself no slouch), so much so that I spent countless hours listening to familiar and favourite albums to hear sonic nuances I never noticed before. Right now I'm listening to Megadeth's Countdown to Extinction on the speakers, remastered and remixed (read: Mustane's vocals are louder). I probably should be watching the Oxfam Comedy Gala on Channel 10, but I'm seeing Daniel Kitson this weekend, so I'll get a laughter fix that way. Anybody want to see Henry Rollins with me on April 18-21st, assuming he's not sold out?

On Sunday I caught the Game On expo at ACMI with Code Monkey. It presented a neat history of computer games and featured many playable arcade, console, and PC games. Playing the original Asteroids, Missile Command, and Donkey Kong was a major nostalgia trip. These are games I drooled over in bowling alleys years before I could afford to play them. Not surprisingly, the game play doesn't hold up compared to modern titles, and I found myself getting bored very quickly with these silicon relics from yesteryear Of course they had Pong set up, but I couldn't be bothered twisting the controls for more than 10 seconds. Upon leaving, a pang of sadness went through me as I realised that, more than likely, I'd never play those classic games ever again for the rest of my life. After all, they're the reason I have a great career in IT.