Say Something...

In this second in the series of catch up posts, I wish to draw your attention to the way a certain TV show has captured the nation's imagination and made cult figures out of its stars. I wish I was speaking of the Mr. T late night infomercial but no, it's MasterChef. (Personally I was quite happy the filthy beer merchant didn't win, the look on his face during the final was priceless.) The papers could not get enough of the show and took every possible angle no matter how tenuous. The photo below is from The Sunday Age.


I didn't think it'd be too difficult a task to find a photograph where all three judges were in the same shot. It really makes the other two look like shunners and Preston seem like the shunnee. I know, another made up word... I'm sorry. Secondly, seeing as Preston works for The Age I fail to see how they of all people could not manage to find a half decent shot of him that doesn't look like he's about to eat someone whole.


This shot in context seems fine enough without the cropping. It's still a little scary but his head doesn't take up the entire shot so it's not too bad. Or they could use that creepy photoshoot (which can be found on the Matt Preston fan page on Facebook) where he's biting down on a bunch of chilli peppers while trying to be seductive. Either way he's on the list of my new heroes.



Speaking of heroes, I came within half a metre of meeting one of them the other night. I went along with my sister to see Paul Dempsey at the Newtown Workers Club on Tuesday night. I had to apologise profusely for making her wait who knows how long since I was stuck at uni for a bit longer than I hoped and made up for it by buying her dinner and paying for tickets. Never say I don't care, because it just isn't true.

In any case we needn't have worried about getting there on time since there was easily enough space for everyone. We got a spot near the front though so I can't complain. I had no idea what to expect from the set, the only solo material I had heard so far were the two singles and they certainly sounded promising. I wasn't expecting him to play any Something For Kate material but he played 'The Astronaut' and 'Pinstripe' at Glen(n)'s repeated inebriated requests. The rest of the solo material was pretty solid even if I can't remember the majority of the song titles. Paul's live work is excellent, he often puts a different spin on album tracks to give them a new lease of life which makes seeing him or SFK always worthwhile.


As I said before I was came really close to meeting the man, but my idolism got in the way. Potentially meeting a personal hero means near instant paralysis and a shit eating grin on this face of mine, and this usually lasts until that person leaves the room or calls security. It's not really my fault, I'm just scared of saying something incredibly stupid.


I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to write in full the extent of what happened in my studio this first semester, so much happened and yet seemingly so little was produced. Without going into too much detail those who did not have prior bookings to go overseas pretty much stuck behind and worked on this thing on a daily basis with very little time for a break. Perhaps I'm lacking the correct 'attitude' in my approach to the entire thing but there weren't a lot of opportunities to catch up with friends over this past month. So when I caught up with a bunch of non-architecture friends last Saturday I seemed to appreciate the entire thing a lot more than usual.

The day was fairly intensive transport wise, being in transit for a lot of the day zipping from place to place. I had to stop by uni first in the morning (as was often the case over these holidays) to do some work and check on things and that meant jumping on a train at 9am on a Saturday in the middle of winter. On the platform at Heidelberg this crazy old man walked past me holding two bags of shopping, muttering under his breath while making a bold fashion statement by wearing shorts. Perhaps you don't need trousers when you've got a lifetime of bitterness to keep you warm, something I look forward to doing in later years.

After performing my duties at uni I rushed down to catch a train to Croydon just to play cards. I really shouldn't bother going such long distances just to do things like that but there are times when I absolutely need to be playing cards. This was one of those times. The trip from the city to Croydon takes about an hour so I passed the time sleeping or listening to music, my default public transport stance. Cards didn't go too bad, I came third overall and fun was had for all. Afterwards I hitched a lift to the station and jumped on the new bus back to Heidelberg, where the trusty Vengabus was waiting in the car park. I used to catch that bus every day to school, and having a new bus route replacing the bus where I spent many a morning and afternoon wasn't as odd as I first thought. I guess it is only a bus route after all.

For the sake of retaining dignity in the years to come I shouldn't put this into writing but my driving experience is limited at best, and I haven't had all that much night driving time under my belt. So it was probably fortunate that it was dark because I managed to flip one lever too many and ended up with the windscreen wipers on for the entire trip home. Any attempt to switch it off ended up making them just go faster or even worse the water nozzle would trigger, making it just as well the wipers were on. I did manage to get rid of them after I pulled into the garage after fiddling around for a couple more minutes though.

After gracing my family with my presence for a quick dinner I hitched another lift from a friend and went to what is probably our group's favourite restaurant, The Pancake Parlour in Doncaster. We refer to it as the Stoner Parlour since it never closes and those ads on the radio seem to think stoners are their primary market. I haven't seen many of these guys for the majority of the holidays and it was a bit annoying that uni kept me away from the remnants of my social life for so long. That stuff didn't matter much once we got there though, I regaled them with stories of my triumphant occasionally superior card playing skills over those noobs and they replied by doing parts of the Thriller dance. Seems apt really. Contrary to popular belief the Stoner Parlour is not full of stoners at 10pm, in fact it was full of normal looking folk that made us look like the weirdos, what with our bad singing and pretend zombie movements.

Looking for some time to burn we then went back to my place to watch The Ashes until 1 or so. Haddin produced bye after bye without fail and it was fun watching my friends predict byes with staggering accuracy. This was probably the first time in ages I let people come over to my place. I often have people drop me off but letting them into the House of Chiu is another matter entirely (I came up with that phrase during Year 12 camp while pouring water for friends at lunch). I once had a bunch of friends over my place back in Hong Kong and I had a ridiculous time trying to prevent them from breaking anything. Ever since then I have had this aversion to having anyone over, or at least in large groups I can tame with pepper spray, or a large trap door inhabited by an equally large trap door spider.

I was pretty buggered by the end of it but it was definitely worth it. In the seemingly never ending shitstorm that is my studio, this was the textbook definition of a perfect day.

Join me next time when I drag you to my definition of hell.

This was taken on Lantau Island near the cable car leading up to the giant Buddha. I can't say there's an awful lot to see there since the entire cable car thing is a ploy by the MTR company to attract visitors. There's even a fake Chinese village at the end of the line dressed up like the old olden days where you can buy souvenirs presumably just like they used to hundreds of years ago.

I chose this photograph because I spent a good 30 minutes with my dad here waiting for the rest of my family to find a toilet. There's something about the elderly that requires some of them to report to a urinal every couple of hours, and when several of them congregate at once there is no escape.



Here we have two fine specimens of the ancient and noble order of the Starbuck, a mystic organisation devoted to serving you every possible combination of coffee imaginable, no matter how diabetes inducing or caffeine shake effecting it is.

Here's a nice night shot my sister took of the new fancy casino in Macau. It looks ridiculous during the day but at night it has a strange degree of fascination that attracts the eye. For a town driven completely by gambling, it really is a nice place to visit. I wasn't there long enough to find the seedy underbelly that runs the place but my inner Gamblor felt right at home.

Food in general is fairly cheap in these parts of the world, but being in a casino as part of a captive audience tends to inflate prices somewhat. The silver lining of sorts is that the prices becomes about the same as food would cost back home so you feel slightly not so bad about it... well self delusion was worth a shot.



I visited my old school with an old friend of mine from my old life. It was pure coincidence that we both happened to be visiting Hong Kong during the same week, let alone the same year. Not all of us former Hong Kongers have the chance to head back every year, and indeed not all of us have good reasons or desire to. Being back on old ground means a lot more when there's someone else to experience it with.

I took the next pic at the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. It's a countdown clock letting you know how soon the looming 2009 East Asia Games are. Can't you just feel the excitement building up?




If you could win people at the fairground, I guess they would come in giant human sized enclosures like this. The clamp would really hurt though.

In Hong Kong, missing the train is no big deal. You simply wait 3 to 4 minutes for the next one. It's quick, reliable and most importantly nothing like the public transport system here. No bullshit about the tracks being too hot or there not being enough trains to service everyone, things just work there. Oh, and they have a smartcard system that doesn't take forever to implement.

Seeing this anti-drugs ad while on the train somehow made me think of that Jennifer Garner movie "Suddenly 30", but with a different set of numbers.

(Scene: young Chad, a surly teenager with a lust for sloth visits his grandfather in the nursing home and observes all the equipment keeping him alive.)

"Aww man! Look at all that neat stuff! I wish I could have a machine eat, breathe and extract my waste for me!"

(Chad then goes home to his closet and breaks out the jar of fairy dust that's been sitting on his doll house. Chad's a confused, lazy kind of sloth who will grow up to become the lead singer of Nickelback but of course he's skipping it all, thank Christ for that. He proceeds to sprinkle a liberal amount of fairy dust on himself.)

(Chad awakens 53 years later in the closet, only to stumble out and fall down the stairs and dislocating his hip in the process. He later finds out all his friends are dead and he can't afford all those nice things his grandfather had and has kidney failure from his days as a propagator of bad stoner rock music. On his way back to the house to gather the fairy dust to return him to his adolescent state, he is attacked by a mob of former PoWs who were tortured by the US government with the use of his music and the theme to Sesame Street, which he also somehow wrote before he was even conceived.)

Ok, so it starts out like a screwball comedy but ends up like a tragic drama. You might think that this is the worst script idea ever and that it'd never work but then they did make Hancock. I just need Will Smith to play Chad.


And this brings us to the end of this long winded journey, definitely worthy of the 100 post milestone. Thanks to everyone who even bothers visiting this site every now and then, I look forward to writing the next 100 posts.

Join me next time when I buy a new record!

The best part about going overseas is living in hotels where you never have to clean up after yourself, as they always end up fumigating the room the moment you hand your keys in at the front desk. Anything you weren't allowed to do at home is fair game, from eating in bed to operating your own meth lab using the contents of the complementary bathroom products and the minibar.

In Hong Kong we had the luxury of staying with family, which is almost like staying at a hotel except for the fact that soup and fruit are served immediately after each hearty meal. As a result I am now allergic to fruit and Chinese style soups. The first hotel we stayed in was The Venetian in Macau, a massive complex built on the opposite side of town away from the main casino district. In a town like Macau you need a gimmick to attract visitors - the end result may still be the same but each casino comes in different packaging. Some have bright lights, some are shaped like stuff, and The Venetian shifted a city block of Venice to your hotel doorstep.


A lot of detail has gone into this recreation. The style of building, the canals and the gondoliers are all there waiting for you under a perpetual blue sky. The ceiling isn't bewitched as described in "Hogwarts: A History" but if you look close enough you can see the smoke detectors. Suppressing my inner architect took a bit of doing, the strange reproduction of the streetscape follows details closely but of course lacks the authenticity of a city that is far older than this. But as I said before, all this stuff is just to get your sad sorry arses through the door - after all, you're all here to 'win' money. I am proud to say that as a family unit we actually managed to make 400.25HKD on the pokies using just the complementary credit generously provided by the casino. Is this to become our new family bonding experience? Time will tell.

The following collage tells the story of our odyssey from the entrance of the casino to our room. One thing we noticed during our stay is that getting from Point A to Point B is never as easy as you might think. Even the most direct points consisted of us walking through long winding corridors built to resemble a maze, and don't think that getting back to the lobby of the hotel tower is the end of that chapter. Unfortunately for us our rooms were at the far end of the floor, and when each floor is shaped like a very large letter 'C' you can begin to imagine what the scenery will be like. It's like being stuck in that hotel from "The Shining" - just add blood. My only real complaint is that the place doesn't seem to be fully staffed, as it took them an extra three hours for them to get our rooms ready for check in. These problems may be ironed out in time but it may deter me from going back there again.



After heading back to Hong Kong for a day to rest and repack we were off to Taiwan for five days. I covered a lot of what we saw there but the hotels we stayed in are worth mentioning (to me) just because they steadily got weirder and weirder as the tour progressed. The general idea behind these moderately priced tours is that your accommodation starts off being fairly cheap then gets more and more impressive near the end. This first place in Kaohsiung was pretty basic but it had plumbing fixtures that were seemingly installed just for me. Ever seen an elephant faucet?



Join me next time when I dig up a few more holiday pictures for you to fall asleep to, just like when the distant relative you never liked brings around his/her holiday snaps and forces you to sit through each photograph in agonising detail. Before long you're attempting to end it by cutting yourself with the edges of the photos, and then you realise you're watching a digital slideshow. Just one of the many downsides of the modern age.

Let it be known throughout the land for all to hear: I never want to hear Wham's "Last Christmas" ever again. This may seem like a perfectly normal thing to wish for, but this is especially true when each and every department store you walk through is playing its very own version of said song, each cover more flimsily assembled than the last. This happens to be part of how I spent my time away in Hong Kong these holidays and just so happens that this is particularly difficult to convey in my usual photo plus text format. I just wish I had recorded it, like I did when I went to see the sun rise at five in the freaking morning in Taiwan.

There's nothing better to break the monotony/peaceful calm of a sunrise by informing the visitors about the many goods on sale over a megaphone. This bizzare treatment of tourists must be some sort of tradition amongst the Taiwanese. In a completely isolated incident our tour group was hoarded into one of those tourist traps where they take you to a shop and sit you in front of this man who claims that eating ground up pearl powder can cure any ailment, or consuming deer foetus soup gives you the ability to fly, or counting the number of strokes in your name can mean the difference between life and death.


Unfortunately for us, we fell for the last one. Well kind of. This place specialised in selling jade products to ward off bad spirits or draw them in, I can't remember which. The nice man took our names and applied his numerology magic to them and concluded that mum needed some good luck by exchanging money for a little piece of jade. At this point in order to welcome in the good spirits he starts shouting some incantation real loud and clapping his hands to the point where the other shop staff joined in. This led to the rest of our tour group (previously unaware of our transaction), doing what you would normally do in such crowd mentality situations and join in the applause. This was easily the most embarassing yet wonderful experience I took from Taiwan, one I shall hopefully cherish forever.


I wish I had time to talk about all the crazy things I saw, like the septic collection truck that plays "Fur Elise". Kids are really into some weird stuff over there. But then I would have to go on and on and on... I wish I wrote all this stuff as I was on the road...

Chances are a fair few of you have seen this in my list of possessions before. You know, the bag that starts many a jingle and brings joy to many if not all mankind. That's right ladies and gents, its the bag known as Timberland. Give it up y'all!




However, nowhere as many have witnessed this other bag in my collection of goodie holders.


I think the joke writes itself at this point. The funny thing is that I've had this bag for about three months yet never really made the connection, must've been because I've been so busy humming the bass line to "The Way I Are". Having said that, my two bags will be embarking on a national tour but are only really capable of performing one song. The good news is that there are several hundred remixes to "Apologise" so it'll still be a four hour long concert.


And on that dour note it's time for me to sign off for the time being. I'm about to fly off to visit friends, relatives and sights back in Hong Kong for the next few weeks so posting might be a little light. I've been informed my grandparents' apartment has wireless internet access so posting might be a little more frequent. Why they have net access is beyond me, maybe my uncle managed to hack into the neighbours' wireless or something. Regardless it'll be good to catch up with old friends, it really seems like another lifetime ago. Getting into contact with a couple of my friends has become easier in recent years, a nice benefit of being part of the Facebook generation which mostly offsets all the annoying parts about being part of the Facebook generation, such as its tendency to constantly recommend dating sites whenever I try to leave a note on the wall of a female friend.

For those unfamiliar with the term and this oddly recurring topic on this blog, please refer to the chart below. I love a good pie chart joke, in fact almost as much as my love of Venn diagram jokes. This probably means I should get out more and go find myself such a friend in need...



In other news, at the risk of sounding incredibly out of character or indeed gender, the last few days have been extraordinarily bad for my health. No, I haven't taken up crystal meth (too expensive) or joined a parachute optional skydiving club (it messes with my hair), I've simply been eating more junky foods. (It's that easy?! How do I sign up?)

On the Thursday past I went to the Game On exhibition at Fed Square with Darren, Marcus and Ken. It's kind of like the history of console gaming, from the earliest version of Pong to Pokemon. A lot of the early games were really cool to see and play, including the text game version of Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy and this strangely addictive Dreamcast game involving a girl on a broomstick trying to dodge little rocks in her way. Street Fighter and six player Bomberman on a giant screen were great fun, but I failed to see the point of including Guitar Hero and Halo 3 since half the people attending will have played them before elsewhere. Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take pictures, otherwise I would have found you an image of a promotional poster for that awful Super Mario Brothers movie.

Before that, we went to Nando's for lunch where my eating odyssey began. I suppose a light wrap was the best choice for me in the context of things, but things became interesting when we decided to mix the remainder of Marcus' Coke with some peri-peri powder. Darren, the master brewer took a taste and surprisingly didn't explode ala Mentos and Diet Coke. I take that to be a good sign.

Our next meal came after six when we made a dinner stop at Hungry Jack's (I know, at least Nando's pretends to be good for you). There I had some sort of bagette looking thing and it was there I remembered why I don't order those things: they're as thick as a brick wall and probably twice as solid. In fact I don't see why we don't send those things to developing nations as a food source and building material. Everybody wins! Here we also got into the topic of new reality game shows. My memory of this conversation is kinda hazy but at some point I suggested something along the lines of "Australia's Next Top Bogan" or "Australia's Got Hobos". The list really does go on.

The next fast food serving came the next day when my sister brought back Macca's for lunch. I would've ordered the McAfrica burger if not for the irony implied in such a meal. To add to the dangerously high irony levels, the McAmerica bagel that came the week before is a lot smaller and probably not suited to the North American palate. I mean, that hot dog eating champion would leave that joint one very dissatisfied customer. To be fair I haven't had the chance to try either one but I'm guessing the Africa would be somewhat larger even though I'm sure they hire dwarves to hold the burgers in those glamour shots to make the most out of the visual scale difference.

Then when you thought the foodening was all over, the next day we went over to Darren's place to play cards and ended up having pizza for dinner. We also had fried rice for lunch but that doesn't count as junk. No, you could never put fried rice into that category. Saying that must count as some sort of sacrilege I imagine. I'd attempt to resist more junk at home if not for the sack of 'deformed Boost bars' my sister brought back from a friend's place. Mutant chocolate should not be shunned people, they like all other chocolate should be allowed to fulfil its destiny, the purpose for which it was created. Who am I to argue?

...And if you know the rest of that line you're clearly living in the past like me. Who needs Timbaland when you have the majesty of Hall & Oates?

Hmm let's try and start that again...

Hello one and all, and welcome back to Say Something for another calendar year. I'd have something prepared for the coming financial year but a hundred accountant jokes really leaves little to the imagination. It's great to be back after the break but a week at work really makes you forget you had been on holiday at all and on Thursday I was telling myself I needed a holiday. The coffee shop down the street is still closed for the next week or so which is bizzare given that no one is capable of living without one during the workday so I had to grab one at the Coffee HQ at Flinders. I tried the large version which costs $4.20 and is big enough to drown yourself in. They do make a fine gallon of caffeine though, I'll give them that much.

Over the new year's I flew up to Brisbane for a couple of days with a friend from high school. When he asked me about a month and a half before, I wasn't really doing anything and being away for a while was a really good idea, so I happily agreed. I usually cop a bit of flak for having anything to do with him in general because he can get on people's nerves somewhat. Those who know how I'm on about are free to ask me in person then keep their mouths shut if they so wish. These days my general inclination is to just downright lie and say I'm with someone else. At this point you're probably wondering why I'm typing all of this, especially when anyone can read and report it but I figured this is a great chance to see if it will indeed get back to him.

The real purpose of this post today is to just show you lots of silly photos from the trip. Explaining and describing everything would take too long and could be lengthy enough to fill several Year 9 standard B+ grade essays riddled with a combination of British English, American English and whatever it is Canadians speak, eh? Instead you have the leisure of experiencing my joy in photo form. If a photo tells a thousand words, this would merely result in me handing in extra essays before being marked down for writing over twelve pages double sided.


The scene up in 'sunny' Brisbane was really set when we got off the plane. Light drizzle greeted us as we set off onto the tarmac and at first I found it real odd when everyone there was in yellow raincoats and not the thongs and cheap Hawaiian shirts I was expecting. Clearly I've been watching the wrong shows. Getting to the city was surprisingly quick, as Brisbane is a fairly small town but is also a real treat to visit. It's kinda busy but not that busy, it resembles parts of Melbourne well enough with its gridded streets but has a bit of Sydney with its greater integration with the riverfront.



'We would like to welcome you on board Virgin Blue and hope you enjoy your flight. My name is (insert name here) and I'd like to introduce you to your ridiculously good looking cabin crew today...'

Having inspected the crew myself while boarding I was really in no position to argue. It may be a statement of fact but there's really no need to rub it in our faces, and even if they could they would do so by wearing a very thick glove to prevent us fuglies from contaminating their flawless qualities.

I'm not sure why, but I never seem to get tired of flying. I've done it tens of times (count them, TENS!!) before but looking out the window flying above the clouds always does it for me, fluffy innocent looking clouds raining death and destruction upon the flooded.... no, don't go there!

Waiting in my super economised seat I had the suspicion I was on the cheaparse flight from hell when Maroon 5 started blaring away on the PA system. Knowing that I couldn't switch on my iPod due to the off chance that Hall & Oates could be partially responsible for the demise of us and the other 200 cheapskates on board I decided to grunt my way through the audible torture much like how the prisoners at Abu Graib have to sit through a playlist made of Metallica, Sesame Street and James Blunt. The last one is made up, but I had you for a second there, didn't I?

Incidentally Blunt was next on the cabin PA. To the emergency hatch we go!



Here I am on a ferry. This may seem somewhat unremarkable to most, and may even come across as arrogant. What is this guy thinking, as if catching public transport is worth bragging about?! Stuff this, I'm off to watch Two And A Half Men! Well that's where you're wrong my friend, as it may surprise and shock you when I tell you I was on a decent public transport system.

That's right, just soak that statement in for a second.

Coming from a place like Melbourne where us plebs are taken for granted, going to a place like Brisbane where things actually run on time is quite nice. They even had dedicated bus lanes and tunnels so that no idiot drivers can possibly get in the way with their talkback radio show fuelled aggression. It really felt like we were 2nd class citizens, a nice change from the 4th class cattle we're used to back home. Come on, it's not even a premium kind of beef.




Evoking my college humour avatar, I ran into what appeared to be the roots of something real sinister. Having encountered an ANL House back on St Kilda Road, I thought it was just an isolated incident of an unfortunately named company. How wrong was I. From this evidence it seems clear that this is not just a case of an ANL company in an ANL building. No, this suggests there is an ANL empire, an ANL multinational running (or rather walking rather awkwardly) company spanning the seven seas! How very sinister and uncomfortable. Or it could be a society of really pedantic unlikable people. I'm sure they'd be too happy being amongst their own kind to even notice.



At some point during proceedings we went sightseeing (or at least tried when it wasn't pelting down) along the river, alighting and boarding as we saw fit. Eventually we got off at the end of the line at the University of Queensland where it was like a deserted town except there were no town drunk cadavers or abandoned whore houses to visit. Anywho, along the way we the saw the poster above. Now if you're not that familiar with this proud 'publication' you should probably refer to this. Otherwise, all I have to say is that even Queenslanders have heard of it. Why haven't you? Argh, if only I had been allowed to do gestures...



Upon returning to Melbourne I only had the night to rest before setting off on the road again, this time with the family down the Mornington Peninsula for some sun and air conditioned accommodation. As long as you're inside, you're more than free to enjoy the bay views and sun, that's how I see it. We were off to some spot named Cape Schank where I had eventually come to refer to it as Cape Schnaky-Schnaky-Schnakiieee after that annoying ringtone. I had a pretty good idea of where we were going and which general direction we'd be heading but nothing really prepares you when you wake up from a 15 minute back seat passenger power nap to discover you're suddenly in Frankston.

I found this odd looking sign at the resort at the entry to some function room. I keep staring at it and none of it makes any sense. Fanning could be some sort of person, but unless I'm mistaken there can only be one Bowie and he wouldn't be likely to accept an invitation to perform with Bernard Fanning in some coastal resort down in Victoria. Something tells me that if I bothered doing some research and checking my facts that would be some sort of mechanical services room, but I choose to think I could open that door and enter a fantasy world where David Bowie and Bernard Fanning can sing beautiful duets together... Ziggy Stardust wishes you well. If only I had audio input here... I do a mean Bowie singing the chorus to Wish You Well (I like to think it's a good impression).


Well that's all the photos I can upload for now. Hopefully that was more exciting than your idiot uncle talking you through his holiday pics taken on his trip to the SPC factory. Speaking of which, I must ask Keyur how that went. He says he didn't go there willingly but I'm not so sure...