My Beloved New Toy

I recently acquired an X1. Although I haven't had time to figure out the manual settings, the automatic still gives a picture your character. The lack of zoom function is immensely frustrating, as is the inability to take close ups, but otherwise, it's beautiful. Here are two of my first shots.

How everyone should feel when eating ice-cream

Greenhouse

I stood for 2 hours in the dark, behind a young couple with a 2 year old kid to dine at Greenhouse by Joost. To while the time away, we alternated between waiting in line and seeing who could get drunk the quickest off $16 dollar cocktails in jars from the rooftop bar.

When it was my turn to wait in line by myself, I struck up a conversation with the bloke in front of me. His kid was understandably going bonkers from hunger, running around in circles and dodging mum. I asked the man what TV shows kids watched these days.

Greenhouse by Joost

Dad: In the night garden. It's insane.

Me: What do you mean?

*Mum finally catches her kid*

Mum: (panting heavily) It's the ninky nonk!

Dad: She means it's crack for kids.

Back in my day, we had Playschool and The Trap Door. Even as a 4 year old kid, I thought Drutt making fart noises was weird, but current children's tv is a whole new dimension of whacked up. Take Yo Gabba Gabba for example.

After a particularly hard night clubbing, my mates and I found ourselves at someone's home. It was around 8am so we were either still inebriated or massively hung-over, but too pumped up to sleep. Someone turned on the TV and all we could see was a man in Orange surrounded by colourful monsters shaking and singing. It was like we were on drugs. We were mesmerised until a monster swallowed another whilst dancing. Let's just say, the contents of our intestines were almost more colourful than the show.  

What's the freakiest kid's show you've seen lately?

Another year, another Mardi Gras

As proven in my first post, last year's Mardi Gras was the best ever. Although many people did shed their clothes this year, it was due to their preferred social lubricant, not a certain Mr. Tunick. As I sauntered down Oxford St, I noticed this...

 Art curators are usually kooky, snobbish creatures that favour being separated from us plebs. This glass partition does the job perfectly whilst allowing her to exhibit her pirate shimmy. Partying in shops seemed to be quite a trend because then I found this guy

Look closer at the bottom left hand corner and you'll see that this is no art dealer, druid or extra from eyes wide shut. 

Yep he's from NAB, the only bank honest enough to name themselves after what they're really going to do with your money.

Aussie Aussie Aussie!

I have just finished a two month internship overseas. All I can say is, I am incredibly lucky to be an Australian citizen because:

- OT is paid or illegal

- sleep is permissible

- your superiors can only berate you in one language

- minimum wage is…minimum wage exists!

When I saw this: http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2004/s1247577.htm my head nearly rolled off. We Aussies can't appreciate how lucky we are. Technically, I was meant to get off work at 5:30. The reality was, the earliest I ever knocked off was 7 and that was only because I was sick. Let's not get into the times I did not even finish work, or when they hired a hotel room for me which I left untouched as I was stuck in the working office for 48 hours.

Enough of my complaining. I'm back in mother country and I've duly kissed the floor.

The Name Game

On the radio, I always hear about celebrities naming their progeny after different types of fruit, or giving them six names, usually with a 'Hope' or 'Sparrow' chucked in the middle. Why? Do they love their own flesh and blood so much that they willingly condemn them to many a school pummelling?

My old man is the campest-suspect-closeted bloke around. He has great style, sense in fashion, furniture anything, but never rely on him to fix a broken shelf (once part of my Ikea bed broke and I slept on the couch for a whole week until my uncle fixed it). So how did this fruit loop come up with utter crap names for my brother and I?

Dad always wanted girls. He wanted his firstborn aka me to be called…

wait for it….

Phyllis.

Could you imagine the playground taunts? Never ever name your child something that rhymes with an STI. ' Phyllis has syphilis doo da doo da' Thank god my drugged up mother had enough sense to name me the most popular and bland name of the year.

If you thought Sheryl was bad, my father was able to boganise it even more. Unlike those sad, sad people hyphenating their children's names, he decided to go one up on them and ditch the hyphen altogether. Hence, the monstrous portmanteau 'Sherilyn' was chosen for the second child. Luckily, Sherilyn escaped this moniker by being born a boy. Fittingly, my brother is named after the devil.

If your name is Sheryl, Sherilyn or Phyllis, I apologise profusely. I am sure you are well adjusted people with many friends. However chances are, you aren't reading this anyway. 

Where do babies come from?

Taken Australia day 2010 under the Harbour Bridge

Why you should sell your soul

Remember the days when you were young and thought you could change the world? I used to think I had a stance on everything, strong opinions and more importantly, strong morals. Then…life happened.

Everyone has a price. We do things our distant self would never dream of for cash or comfort.. If you believe this only applies to gold-diggers, strippers and whores, think again. You could be campaigning for a political party you would never vote for, promoting PETA and eating fois gras on toast for breakfast, selling sustainable energy and driving home in your gas guzzling SLS AMG Gullwing, sucking up to your cretin boss or doing your enemy a favour.

It's alright because on the other end of the spectrum, when a CEO is dealing with a dickhead client, they're also selling a part of their soul. Why not just piss the client off?

We become crawlers in anticipating that one day, it will be the other way round. We do morally atrocious things, we are wretched human beings in the hope that eventually, we'll be in the position where someone else will kiss our arse. Until then, is it so bad that we keep selling pieces of our soul?