davechan.com - a slice of dave

Power shopping

Yesterday (Saturday) I went to the Paddington Markets with an ex-colleague of mine. We apparently have something in common - we're power shoppers :)

From the CBD, the Paddington Markets is a healthy 30 minute walk down Oxford Street. It was a warm and sunny day, which was great after the shockingly bad weather of the previous couple of weeks.

Paddington Markets is a large collection of small stalls, selling jewellery, homewares, clothing, art, and general market stuff. We started off the day by raiding the stock of cool dip bowls from one stall holder. I was really impressed with the diversity and worksmanship on the homewares, and will definitely be back to buy some more stuff next time.

The clothes were great too. There are lots of independant designers selling their clothes, and there was a real variety of clothes, both for guys and gals. I bought a couple of cool T-shirts, and also a couple of pairs of trousers.

The food is good too, with a nice mix of cuisines, and it all looked pretty good. The smell of waffles and hot dogs was just overpowering. I gave in to the hot dogs, and I'll probably grab a waffle when I go back next.

Alicia bought a LOT of clothes. I do mean a lot. There were lots of stores along the way that we stopped in at while walking back to the city afterwards. When we finally got back to the city, it was about 5:30pm, and about 6 1/2 hours after we started our shopping expedition. We both ended up with quite a few bags and tired legs.

But ah yes, retail therapy. How good it is.

The Carnival Goes On with The Happy Sideshow

Friday night I went with a friend to go see this show at The Studio at the Opera House.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course, having consumed half a bottle of wine before, and half a bottle of champagne during the performance may have helped. My friend and I were in a very happy mood that night.

The show is basically a freak-show with music. The music is provided by "Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen", and is Italian in style. Grandiose, amusing, catchy, and very much playing to the audience. The Happy Sideshow then perform tricks in between music and banter from Mikelangelo himself.

Three of the performances really ripped my head off.

The first one was the sword-swallowing, performed by The Space Cowboy. Watching two swords, each of about 3 feet long, disappear into someone's mouth is a little disturbing to say the least. Especially when said person then flings his arms out to rapturous applause from the audience, leaving the two handles protruding from his mouth.

However, it didn't stop there. The Space Cowboy then demonstrated "The Swordswallower's Nightmare". This time, a sword blade, with no handle, was produced, and he swallowed the whole thing until he could close his mouth.

Oh God.

After more rapturous applause, he opened his mouth, calmly reached inside, and extracted the blade.

No gag reflex at all. None.

The second act that impressed me was the contortionist. On stage, there was a little pyramid, on top of which was a tin can, like the ones that baked beans come in. Captain Frodo then balanced himself on the can, with the can between his legs, and slowly (and excruciatingly) pulled one of his legs up and behind his head. The other leg was then pulled back behind his head too, and for the longest of moments, he was balanced on the tin can with what I hope was not his penis and scrotum (we're talking that general area here), as his entire weight rested on that part of his body.

The third act involved more blades. This time, two hurdle-like stands were brought out. However, the top bit of the stands was not a bar, but instead a rather sharp blade. This was demonstrated by the chopping up of zucchini on them. Shep Huntly then lay down and Space Cowboy and Captain Frodo lifted him up and placed him on the two blades. One blade had his ankles resting on it, and the other blad had his shoulders resting on it. His entire weight was supported by the two blades.

Ouch I thought. Until they brought out a large white block of what was probably chalk. When I say large, I'm talking big and heavy enough to require two people to lift and place it on Shep Huntly's stomach. While he was still balanced on the two blades. Oh my God I thought, that's just freaky.

Not freaky enough. Captain Frodo then came along with an axe and swung it down on the block of chalk, splitting it into two. While Shep Huntly was still balanced on the two blades.

Ick!!!

It's really quite amazing to watch this, and The Studio is a fantastic venue. The stage is just the front part of the theatre, and there were maybe 2 rows of tables of six people each, and then stadium seating behind those, where we were. we would have been only about 5 metres from the action maybe. Definitely close enough.

The show was short, but sweet. I can't tell you exactly how long the show went for, but it felt like perhaps an hour and a half. Not long enough such that your bum starts hurting or that you start to feel bored.

They're on the web too. If you get a chance to, go check them out. Very cool!

Belgian Beer Cafe

Mmm...Belgian beer, or should I say, bier! So yummy and full-flavoured. Oh, and the client paid for dinner and drinks, even better!

Now we're talking serious bier here: the Belgians don't go half-arsed. Who else makes a 12% bier? Heck, most of them were 10.5%! Apparently most of them are brewed by monks. Well, they must have a lot of time and patience. On ya guys!!!

Now of course, when you're with the clients, it's not really good manners to get totally shit-faced. You might say something you'll later regret. So thus I only had two beers. Of course, at 10.5% alcoholic volume, that came to 2.75 standard drinks per bottle. That's 5.5 standard drinks. And we haven't even counted wine yet.

I just have to go back there, what a fantastic place. I believe it's owned by the same people that own the Belgian Beer Cafe in Perth. If you haven't been before, go try it. Even if you think you're only a wine drinker, try one of the fruitier beers. Think Little Creatures Pale Ale, but only much more so, and with lots more fruit and honey.

Amazing.

Star Princess

This mother of a ship was docked at Circular Quay, and I happened to have my camera with me, so I took the opportunity to take some photos.

Apparently it's the biggest cruise liner in the world, 3 times larger than the Titanic.

Going cold turkey on coffee

I'm currently trying to cut out my coffee usage. "Coffee usage", it makes me sound like a drug addict. I wouldn't say I'm addicted to coffee per se, but I certainly have a tendency to turn to it whenever I feel tired or sleepy and I have to soldier on. For example, during the day at work.

The reason I'm cutting it out is due to something that someone said to me a few weeks ago. He found that one of the contributing factors to him losing weight was by cutting down his coffee intake to one a week, instead of 5 a day. He replaced the coffee with lots of water, and found that it had a detoxicating effect.

I'm getting my full 8 hours of sleep a day, and yet I continue to be tired at work. I guess it must be the detox process.

Hey, he said it!

Quote from the Sydney Morning Herald:

Mr Werth, 27, a salesman from Sheffield, said his side found the blowing of the final whistle a strange experience. "To be honest, we really didn't know what to do," he said. "We're just not used to winning. You guys just take winning for granted."

Tampon Ads

There's an ad at the moment for some Ultra Slim tampon (can't remember the brand now), and one of the animations that supposedly demonstrate their easy insertion properties is where they show two tampons sliding down between two walls. The Ultra Slim slides down faster than the competing slower sliding brand.

Every time I see that ad (which is always on when I'm eating dinner too, might I add) I can't help but think of underground nuclear missile testing.

Pot Smoking

I'm not entirely sure whether it's a Sydney thing or just an English tourist thing, but also on Saturday, there were three instances of it during the night.

The first was during the first half of the game, when the telltale sweet smelling smoke blew our way. When we turned around, a few English supporters had light up a joint.

The second was during the Whitlams concert. In fact, Tim Freedman made a request between songs for the smokers to put it out because "it's making me hungry".

The third was standing at the bus stop at Wynyard. Yet another group of English tourists had lit up a joint, and the smoke was blowing over most of the people at the bus stop. I know it made me hungry.

Getting Home

This is part two of last night's rugby world cup final post. If you want a complete chronologically correct account of my Saturday night, I'd recommend reading that post first before reading this one.

Onwards...

Wynyard

At Wynyard bus stop (stop Z, there's that many different stops) there were well over 60 people there waiting. At 2:15 in the morning. After a major sporting match. With lots of crazy fans. I don't think I've ever been more entertained at a bus stop ever.

One of the Aussie girls started a mexican wave going, helped along by an English supporter. It was actually pretty good. They were running up and down the middle of the road, parallel to the bus stop, encouraging everyone to wave.

Most of the people waiting at the stop were Aussie supporters, however there was this one standout English supporter who provided lots of amusement. Him and the Aussie supporters started having a few sledges and I heard some of the most animated and creative arguments ever.

The Aussies were predictably dismissing the result, and that we "gave" it to them because we had so many other tropies in other sports. True enough by the way. The Pommie stood his ground, and the Aussies couldn't find a way around the facts.

The Aussies then started on Johnny Wilkinson, saying that the English team is nothing without him. The English team is just Johnny Wilkinson, and that's it. Creatively, the Pommie had a fantastic comeback - "Oh, you mean your entire Aussie team was defeated by one Pommie?". That shut them up. Very good comback!

Anyhow, the entertainment continued with the Pommie guy giving a demonstration of how Johnny takes his penalty kicks. In the middle of the road, he took a generously donated yellow wig from one of the Aussie supporters and placed it on the asphalt. Suitably sticking out and shaking his ass to the laugh of everyone, he then took a punt and kicked it somewhere down the road.

I guess waiting at a bus stop and watching full buses go past isn't much fun for anyone, although the atmosphere was pretty spirited regardless. However, it was getting on the bad side of 3am, and only a handful of people had been picked up by buses.

The Sydney rail system had shut down by this time, replaced by buses which run the same train routes, however they stupidly decided to only run a single bus every half hour to compensate. These buses were already full before they reached our bus stop, and so would just skip our stop.

The normal bus routes were still running, but of course, that late at night, they don't run very often.

After waiting for more than an hour, some of us finally decided to take the trek north across the Harbour Bridge.

Crossing the Bridge

I got chatting with a couple of guys, and they seemed pretty good company, so we headed towards the Bridge, with others following us. It is possible to walk across the Bridge, but there is actually a proper way to do it. If you ever have to walk across the Bridge, here's a tip - walk on the Opera House side of the Bridge. The other side is apparently a designated bike lane. One of the guys I was walking with recalled a story of a night when he was totally blind, and was walking along the wrong side of the Bridge. About three-quarters of the way down, a security guard stopped him and made him walk back.

The Bridge takes about half an hour to walk across.

In all, it took about an hour to walk home. Wynyard to Crow's Nest. I walked into the apartment at about 4:20am.

Walking and talking with these two guys, I found out a few interesting things, including the little tidbit about walking on the right side of the Bridge. Oh, and that Thursday is a good night at the Greenwood, the pub in North Sydney ;)

I'll be there with bells on.

Rugby World Cup Final

Just a forewarning. This post is pretty lengthy, but it does contain a few different parts, and I've emboldened the headings to make it easier to discern the different parts of the night. Feel free to skip to the parts you may or may not be interested in...so bear with me here...

Intro

I'm not really into the rugby. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy watching it when it's on, but I don't follow it and I certainly don't know all the rules.

However, rugby is king in Sydney, and when in Rome...

The city has gone rugby mad, and well it should. The mighty Wallabies crashed a path through to the final, beating many other worthy nations for the prestige. Over the past few weeks, and especially the past few days, everywhere in Sydney there's been signs, posters, banners, streamers, and other paraphenalia cheering the Wallabies on. This World Cup thing must be pretty big.

Today started late in the afternoon with a stroll around the city buying batteries and memory card for the camera ($100 for a 128MB SD card which is expensive, but not horribly so). Walking along Pyrmont Bridge, I saw "Wallabies Headquarters", which is a restaurant/cafe Channel 7 took over to use as their headquarters and where the show "The Cream" is shot.

RWC FINAL

After a quick bite to eat, we went to join the throng. Sydney had set up a bunch of "Live Sites", which were public places setup with a huge screen and the appropriate crowd control personnel where fans could unite to cheer their team on. Our destination was The Rocks.

And boy was it busy! The following photos show just a portion of the crowd gathered at The Rocks to watch the big game.

The atmosphere was fantastic, and there was a real carnival atmosphere. Waves of chants rushed over the crowd and the Aussie and English supporters were doing their bit riling up the opposition. Lots of beer was being drunk (people had both brought their own beer, and beer could be bought at the local pubs and drunk in the street).

We found the other people we were to meet up with, and we jostled for a position pretty far back in the crowd. It was about 20 minutes to the start of the game and I thought it would be a good time to go get a round of beers. So did everyone else. After waiting for about 15 minutes in the queue and getting not very far, I abandoned the idea and went back to join everyone empty-handed. It was the closest I would get to alcohol the entire night.

We split up into a few small groups, and I went with a few people to join the middle of the throng. Even in the middle of the throng, we couldn't really see what was going on on the big screen (this screen stretched across the width of George Street) as at this distance it was a pretty small screen. The first half was pretty uneventful, and we dutifully cheered and booed at the appropriate times, judging by what everyone else was doing. Fun, but we had no idea what was going on.

The bad part though is that standing just behind us were a bunch of fanatical and drunk English fans who not only screamed into our ears, but also rained spittle down upon us. The guy in front of us had spittle on the back of his jacket. Not pretty, so we got out of there at half-time.

Half-time came and we regrouped, and yet again split into different groups. This time I joined Joe, Santi, and Heidi in driving our way forward to the front of the crowd. We got to a pretty decent location, about 10 metres from the screen, and we had a pretty good view. For the first time we could actually see what was going on in the game rather than relying on the crowd reactions! Heck, I could even read the score! Bonus!

As anyone who watched the game or read the new reports, the second half was very exciting, and the atmosphere was electric. It was such a fantastic environment. The cheering when Australia got possession was amazing, and the cheering when Australia pulled level both in regular time and in extended time was overwhelming! I have videos of those two moments, but I can't put them online as they're too big (anyone know of a good video format converter program?) Fantastic!

The biggest problem with where we were was the crowd. It was wall-to-wall people. I haven't been in such a big crowd since China. I literally had my arms pinned to my sides. But hey, the bigger the crowd, the bigger the cheers! And they were loud!

Here's a photo of me with a silly grin on my face during the break after regular time.

It's now history as to the result, and needless to say, the mood was rather sombre after the game, punctuated by the loud celebrations of the surprisingly large English contingent.

It took awhile to get out of there, but we did after a bit.

The Whitlams

The post-game entertainment at The Rocks was provided by The Whitlams, who were playing in the park next to Circular Quay. A free Whitlams concert? Cool, I had to be there! So I went along with some of these people I had just met.

Tim Freedman and company put on a fantastic hour-long show for us rain-drenched rats. Oh yes, did I mention? It was drizzling rain all night.

But really, watching a free Whitlams concert, with the stage on one side, and Circular Quay on the other side, on a balmy summer night, is just fantastic. Okay, so we lost the game, but hey, we can still party on! And what better band to drown our sorrows with than The Whitlams?

It finished up just after midnight, and I made a move onto the train to my next destination...

Latin Night @ Bondi Junction

Joe and Santi had foregone the concert (shame shame) to head off to a Latin night at Bondi Junction. Post-concert, I hopped on a train at Circular Quay and was transported by Sydney's fine public transportation system (more on this later...) to Bondi Junction.

I found the club, called BJ's okay, as it was close to the station. It was pretty easy to find too - just follow the source of the Latin rhythms! Inside, the place was really happening, with lots of people dancing and having a good time. Correction, a lot of beautiful people dancing and having a good time. It was a great place, where I witnessed a whole lot of very funky dancing. It was about 12:30am by the time I got there, and less than an hour later, Joe and Santi decided to go home (they'd been there for a few hours already, of course) and offered me a lift. I politely (and stupidly?) declined, as I wanted to stay and watch some more dancing.

Everyone who has been in the vicinity of a Latin groove knows what I'm talking about here. It's impossible not to move and get that ass shaking. I was very happy there, bopping away on the spot while watching people on the dance floor. I really wished at this stage that I'd done more salsa dancing, because everyone was having so much fun on the dancefloor!

There was an older couple that I was watching in particular. The gentleman, who looked about 50, had a really bad dress sense, with possibly the ugliest tie I've seen in a long time. He was dancing with a female partner, who I assumed to be his wife. Now despite his lack of dress sense, he looked to be having a fantastic time with his wife, and I thought to myself, "Yeah, I'd love to be able to just go out with my wife for a night of dancing like that too".

Thus I'm going to return to dancing lessons! I'm very motivated now.

Oh, and yes, there were a lot of hot chicks there...but if you can't pull of the moves, what's the point? Another incentive!

Anyhow, after a bit, I too left, and caught the train back to Town Hall (Sydney CBD).

Getting Home

By this time, it was getting pretty late, around 2am. I had a fleeting moment where I thought about heading down to Cockle Bay Wharf to see if anything was going on, but I thought better instead and decided I might as well go home.

To get home to Crows Nest, I usually walk to a bus stop on Clarence Street, part of the Wynyard bus station network. I got there, and there was about 60 other people there, obviously having also been to the rugby and then out for a few drinks, wanting to get home. This bus stop services buses going north over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and to the North Shore suburbs.

By now it was about 2:15am, and I just wanted to get home. However, it wasn't going to happen that easily...

But by God it was fun...

To be continued...

I Hate Telstra

So now that settlement has gone through, I've now been organising electricity, water, gas, telephone, and internet.

With telephone, I found out although the complex is connected to the exchange, I still have to pay $209.00 for a techie to come out and "connect" the service. So I organised it all, and luckily there was a cancellation so I could get an appointment for today. I was kind of happy, and emailed Carmen to arrange for someone to be at the apartment between 8am to noon for the techie to come. This was Wednesday.

Today, Carmen had organised for her colleague to take a half day off from work to wait for the Telstra guy. By the time mid-morning rolled by, Carmen emailed me to ask me to confirm with Telstra that a techie would be out today. I called up Telstra again, and found out that...my order had been lost! I've no idea how they've done it, but there was no trace of the order I'd placed two days ago, and therefore, no techie would be coming to install the phone line today.

Needless to say I was pissed off. How the hell do you lose an order??? Anyway, they did, and what can I do? Not much, except make another order and appointment. I hope that it doesn't get lost this time.

Holy...

I just called up Optus to change my mobile phone plan, and since my bill is still directed to Perth, I asked how much the bill for last month is.

$175.71.

I've set a new personal record.

AI - We have a winner!

Well, Australian Idol is over for 2003. The best man has won.

Guy Sebastian beat Shannen Doherty (or whatever his name is) to be voted Australian Idol. According to the announcers, it was a close race. Pffftttt! Just a way to get the punters to shell out 50c to vote.

Congratulations to Guy, but to be quite honest, with the two performances last night, I actually thought that Shannon was the better performer. Guy seemed very, um, restrained with his performance. The three judges were still cheering wildly, but I think that that's really just for show. After all, they don't really care now that it's all over.

Stay tuned ladies and gentlemen! Now that Channel 10 know they're onto a good thing, they will be bringing us (aka subjecting us to) American Idol 3!

Bloody hell...

It's like at home when my mum or grandma buy a new food, and then they ask Carmen or me if we like it. If we say yes, then guaranteed that particular food will appear at home in bulk and in quantities enough to feed an army for a month.

Guaranteed.

That's why we are now very ambivalent about our opinions on food. "Yeah, it's okay." is a very popular response.

Mortgage Slave

Settlement has gone through for my apartment. I am now officially a slave to my mortgage.

Woohoo!

MGF

Have you ever had a song which you just have to listen to again? You love it so much that it is just on constant repeat.

Well for the last few days, I've had *two* songs like that!

"(Let me be your) dirty f#!@ing whore" and "Rollercoaster" from Machine Gun Fellatio have been played 8 and 6 times respectively (according to iTunes) over the last few days.

The first one is just damn funny, and the second one is so poppy that I can't help but bop along to it in my chair.

As usual, Dave is late with his listening tastes (I think it was a few years ago now that MGF was hot) but I get there in the end.

"You're like a rollercoaster, toaster...."

New bloggers

My friends Amie and Allen have both started up their own blogs. Yay! I'm not the only geek! :)

Karen's also maintained a blog for awhile, and she's got lots of pictures on her website (her bub is just soooo cute).

Links to these blogs can be found on the right hand side sidebar under "Friend's Homepages".

Tiredness

For the last few days I've been feeling really tired. I've always had a problem with tiredness, but that's always been due to a lack of sleep. This morning, even after 8 hours of sleep (more actually), I still feel tired, so I don't think it's that this time.

Perhaps its diet? I wonder if my iron intake is low. I haven't been eating fish for the last few days (made a big batch of chicken and mushroom risotto on Sunday and still going through that), and no nuts or spinach. What else gives you iron? Besides from iron tablets that is.

Or is it the weather? It's been pretty shitty weather here the last few days. It's been either raining, or very dreary. Definitely not spring weather.

Whatever it is, I don't know, but I'm getting very tired of always being tired. I want to be perky!

Weather

I don't know if I'm coming or going. It's November, supposedly spring, and yet since Sunday it has been bad weather, with rain and winds.

We had a fine spring day on Saturday and I was hopeful it would stay the same for awhile, but alas. When I got home Sunday I found that the balcony door of my bedroom hadn't been locked properly, and leaves and water had blown in. Luckily only a few inches of carpet got wet, and there weren't that many leaves, but it kinda freaked me out when I first saw that the curtains had been drawn apart (the open door had pulled one side of the curtains to the side).

Rainy weather is good for cuddling, but with no one for that, it's not good for much more!

Homesickness

For the past few days I've had little pangs of homesickness. Mostly it's food related.

I tend to cook mainly Italian/Western food, for two reasons. One being that I love Italian food and I don't normally get Italian/Western food at home, and the second being that if I really wanted Chinese food I'd just pop down to the restaurant. That is, if I was back in Perth.

Which I'm not.

For me, food is very comforting, and certain foods are very much comfort foods. Beef brisket comes to mind. It's a stew-like mixture of beef and beef tendons in a thick, rich, fragrant sauce. It's very yummy served with either rice or ho fun noodles.

Whenever I feel a bit down, I'll go down to the restaurant and have that. It makes me feel really full afterwards, but it's just so nice.

Joe and his girlfriend took me out to this little Chinese restaurant out in Chinatown last Friday. The cuisine was Northern Beijing, and the food was fantastic. You knew the noodles were fresh because you could see the noodle guy making noodles through a window in the kitchen.

The place was really dingy though, and reminded me of the streetside hawker stalls (I hestitate to call them "restaurants") in Hong Kong. I wanted to take some photos, but was afraid that the owners might think I was a health inspector or something.

Oh yeah...oh...fuck

Went to a great party last night, and after imbibing myself too much, I crashed on a nearby couch.

Anyway, I was drifting in and out of sleep, and in a moment of heavenly sleep, I could feel a wet tongue licking me on the mouth. Now although people at this party get up to interesting things, I thought this was a bit strange anyway. I didn't reciprocate, instead opening my eyes to see what the heck was going on.

Well, the host has a very cute little dog called Lily, who had been hyperactive all night...

Kodak CX6330

I came to Sydney without bringing a camera with me. In hindsight it was a stupid move, as I'd like to take a visual portfolio of my sojourns. I could have borrowed Carmen's Canon S45, but I thought that she would like to use it. I should have brought my old 1 megapixel Kodak, but I didn't think of it.

So I basically had the little camera on my phone to take photos, which is shit, or I would have to buy a new camera. It's definitely a stake in the heart of film when considering my options, I didn't even think of buying a film camera. Definitely digital baby.

In light of this, a week or so ago I started browsing the electronic stores and camera stores. I've loved the Casio Exilim Z3 and it's sister, the Pentax Optio S, and I saw the Pentax on special for $599! Soooo tempting! There was also the Canon IXUS II for $599! All three cameras are 3 megapixels with 3 times optical zoom.

However, now that I'm a homeowner with the megamortgage to match, I knew I had to be conservative, and blowing $600 for a digicam is just not conservative. So I did a bit more research.

Finally, after a lot of soul searching (mmm...IXUS...mmm...Optio S...) I put my demons to rest and said goodbye to the IXUS and Optio S dreams. I've let go.

Instead, I saw that Ted's Photographics had Kodak cameras on special! The DX6340 looked a bargain at $499. It's a nice looking 3 megapixel camera with a 4 times optical zoom through a nice lens.

However, the one that did get me excited was the CX6330, a modest 3 megapixel camera with 3 times optical zoom. At $399 from Ted's, it was a bargain! Okay, so it's housed in a plastic case, and the buttons and dials have a slightly flimsy feel, but it does boast the same specs as the other cameras I've listed above.

Not only is it housed in a plastic case, and it has flimsy buttons, but also a pretty small screen on the back, and it uses AA batteries.

Here are the good points though! It's still a 3 megapixel camera with a 3 times optical zoom and flash. This means that the zoom is being achieved through the lens rather than through digital interpolation, which results in much better close-ups. The lens itself is pretty much silent when it moves. The first few times I had to check to make sure it was on because I didn't hear anything. The plastic case makes it nice and light (although it's not as small as the Casio, Pentax, or the IXUS) so easy to carry arround. The screen, although small, is very sharp. The fact it uses AA batteries can actually be a good thing, because I'll never be stuck without batteries - just nip into a shop and we're set again!

Besides the picture shooting horsepower, it's also got a movie mode with sound, limited in length only by the size of your memory card. It takes SD memory, and no card comes with the package, although you do get 16 MB built-in. Being a consumer Kodak, there are very few manual options, and it's basically a point and shoot. Oh, and again because it's a Kodak, it's very very easy to use. No need for a manual!

Finally, picture quality? Pretty good! Colours come out Kodak rich, and the auto-focus system works pretty well, even under low light, although a bit slow. Dithering is present in low light conditions, but still not too bad.

Bearing in mind that I've only had a few hours to play around with this camera, I'm still impressed at what it can do. Easy to use, takes good pictures, and for $367 from Harris Technology, it's a steal.

Two thumbs up.

Chatswood

Tonight after work I went up to Chatswood, which is a couple of suburbs up from me. Chatswood is like a little town centre, a miniature version of Sydney.

So it was kinda like Perth.

Remember that Dialogue with the City city planning event I went to a few months ago? Chatswood was like the "town centres" they described. One of the ideas floated (and voted for by most people) was the concept of having multiple town centres around Perth. Town centres are like little cities, where there are shops, government departments, work, cafes, restaurants, and all the other things that you associate with having to go into the city for.

The idea is that most people would be within 15-20 minutes of their local town centre, and this would lessen the need for everyone to have to travel to the city all the time.

Chatswood is serviced by a bus and train interchange which is integrated with Victoria Avenue, part of which is a pedestrian mall, much like the Hay Street or Murray Street mall. Like these two malls, there were things going on tonight (late night shopping) like a high school band, and lots of little food stalls selling pancakes, crepes, caramellised nuts, etc. It's a very family oriented atmosphere, although there were also lots of young people around too.

There's a Westfield shopping centre off Victoria Avenue, but unfortunately, it's just like any other shopping centre.

Fortunately though, there are a quite a few restaurants around the streets, including one called Chatswood BBQ Restaurant where I stopped by for dinner. I ordered the same Chinese barbeque dish as I did on the weekend in Chinatown, and this time it was a hell of a lot better. Two thumbs up.

More laundry drama

I washed and tumble-dried the bed sheet on the weekend. It's now extremely creased. It's so creased that I'm afraid to put it back onto the bed lest I wake up with crease imprints on me.

Now, this is a queen-size bed (ahhh the luxury) and so this is a frickin' big sheet, and that's one small iron.

This has led me to keep one very creased sheet on the couch outside. It's a good thing I don't get many visitors. (Only had one so far!)

Shopping fetish

I seem to have a fetish for shopping at Woolworths. After purchasing some stuff there yesterday, I returned again today.

I'm forever finding stuff that I think could be good. So far I've been pretty good - I've pretty much finished everything that I've bought. The only exceptions were the pate and about 1/3 of the 2L milk I bought.

Which also explains why I wasn't feeling too well Sunday and Monday. You see I eat cereal with raisins in it, so I'm used to a slight sour taste. I just didn't realise it was the milk!

Stoopid Dave

Walking home from work today, I decided to take a different route. For almost the entire length of one street (about 15 minutes), I was walking alongside with this girl. I eventually had to ask for directions, and we got chatting. It turned out that she was heading to the pub which is up the road from me to meet some friends. We parted ways, but I didn't get her phone number.

I didn't get her phone number. What the hell was I thinking??? I obviously wasn't!!! I was just about to, but then my phone rang. It was my colleague from Perth asking about a problem. Damn it.

After a moment's thought, I went back to the pub she was going to to try and find her, but no luck.

I think I'm just too shy for my own good. I need to get some more courage.

I think I'll go down there after dinner and see if, perchance, she's there.

Postscript: No luck. Oh well.

Late night

I stayed at work late tonight to try to finish off a document. Staying back late doesn't necessarily work, because sometimes you just get too distracted, like I was tonight.

Either way, after leaving work, I just could not be stuffed cooking dinner, so popped down to Woolworths again to buy some groceries, and just made a sandwich for dinner.

Working back late all the time could be bad for me, as I'll be too stuffed to cook, and thus probably eat bad stuff. Uh oh.

Australian Idol Redux

Watched Australian Idol on Sunday night. Wow, it's already the last show! Down to just Guy and Shannon.

Now, I really don't like Shannon, but really, all credit to the guy, his performances on Sunday were fantastic! The Cold Chisel song was perfect for him, and so was the Bryan Adams song.

Guy's interpretation of "I'll Be There" was just great, and his performance of Beyonce Knowles' "Crazy In Love" was just so awesome!

Both did really good versions of "Angels Brought Me Here", and I liked both of them.

The two are very very different in terms of style, and last night they both impressed me with their range. I wrote off Shannon a few weeks ago, but maybe he does have a bit of talent.

I still hate his nasal voice though...

Weekend

Whew!

It's been a big weekend. Of course, on Friday night, I went drinking with Sheldon and co, covered by a previous post. Saturday day was spent recovering from that.

Saturday night was a party which I also attended with Sheldon. Wow, awesome, Sydney people are definitely way out there. I had a fantastic time. I didn't get home until 4:30am. Which was a slight problem because I'd arranged to meet Joseph Sunday morning at 10am! Good thing he was coming to pick me up...

After about 4 hours of sleep (5:30-9:30), I woke up, threw some water on my face, and some clothes on. We drove around Sydney for a bit, while he showed me around some of the suburbs and areas, and we ended up at DFO. DFO is a shopping complex which has around 40-50 clearance outlets. Stores like Morrissey, Rivers, Giordano, Roger David, Polo Ralph Lauren, Vicheroy & Boch, Sheridan, and Oxford. Basically, shopping heaven! I know it's definitely high up up Carmen's list of favourite places in Australia :)

I have to admit though, that I'm definitely a sucker for bargains too. Today I was light on, purchasing only a shirt and belt. My credit cards thank me.

After DFO, we drove around some more posh suburbs, looking at some new developments and chatting about real estate. Sydney is a very expensive city to buy property in at the moment. An apartment similar to what I bought in West Perth would easily cost well over $450,000. Ouch!

The city centre was buzzing too. Lots and lots of Sydneysiders and tourists (me!) milling around. Some of whom were pretty good looking! In fact, thanks to Joe, I'm not writing this from a hospital bed. I was busy checking out one of the fine local specimens on the other side of the road, and she crossed the road. For some reason, I thought I that I too could cross the road and stepped out onto the road, not seeing the oncoming traffic, before Joe quickly pulled me back. I'm glad he wasn't quite as obsessed as I was :)

Laundry

Speaking of firsts, I'm putting through my first few loads of washing now. Unfortunately, in my haste, I poured the fabric softener on the towels instead of in the little basket provided. What will this do?

I hope it doesn't have any detrimental effect!!!

Ah yes, the joys of laundry day...mind you, it's a relaxing, soothing activity to do whilst recovering from too much alcohol :)

Drinking

Last night I went out drinking with a friend Sheldon from Perth, and his sister and cousin. It was a good night, and we went bar hopping around Sydney.

It got to about midnight, and we were all geared up and ready to go dancing the night away, so Wendy and Danny were plotting out where to go. Unfortunately, what was going on last night??? There were no places that were buzzing at all!!!

I loved the places that we did go to, but unfortunately, all of them weren't as busy as we would have liked. Bugger.

Still, ended up drinking more than I have for a while, and meeting and chatting with some good people. My first "big night" out in Sydney.

Darlinghurst

Tonight I went out for dinner and coffee with some friends in Darlinghurst. It's my first time out at night in Sydney, and I really quite like that area. It's quirky and the people are friendly.

It's kinda like Mt Lawley, but bigger, better lit, and more active.

I think I'm going to really enjoy Sydney!

CEOs

Yesterday we had a staff meeting, and the presentation was given by the CEO of our company (at least, the CEO of the Australian division).

Now, like most people, I have a pre-conceived idea of executives. They're dressed impeccably in a suit, the hair is perfect, their presentation is neat, and they're articulate. Our CEO was none of these things.

The guy had big hair (think "Dicko" from Australian Idol, but with glasses). He had a paunch, which was forgivable, except he really let himself go, and kept scratching the side of his stomach, as well as occassionally gripping the waistband of the back of his trousers. His shirt was partially hanging out, and his top button wasn't done. His tie was dangling loose and the narrow end was splayed alongside the wide end.

To top it off, he looked like he was drunk, and spoke like he was too, slurring his words and mumbling incoherently at times.

Stunned, afterwards I asked some of my colleagues whether he really was drunk, but apparently he's like that most of the time.

Astounding. This man must be good since he's orchestrated some pretty big deals for our company, but the adage of "never judging a book by its cover" has never rang so true.

Newspapers

I was having a leisurely bath last night, and attempted to read the Sydney Morning Herald in the tub. Which idiot invented the "large enough to use as a picnic rug" sized newspaper? Let me tell you it is next to impossible to turn the page whilst drowning in a hot tub with lots of suds.

Incidentally, yesterday was Tuesday. I was still reading the SMH from the weekend. It costs $2.20, but provides days of reading. I pity the poor people that have to deliver these big thunking things, they're huge!

Sea Salt and Vinegar Snakatas

These things rock. They are sooooo nice. I just can't stop eating them....!!!!!!!

Dave Does Domestic

So far this week I've been shopping 3 times and my shopping bill is about $200. A lot of the stuff were things like tissues, glad-wrap, and dishwashing liquid (there's a dishwasher, but I don't know how to and don't really want to, use it) which are one-off items (for the next few weeks anyway) so it's not as bad as it sounds. It's a lot more than what I thought though.

Gee, living away from home is more expensive than I thought! At this rate, it might be cheaper for me to just eat out.

Work

Last Thursday it felt like I was leaving a company again. Second time in two months. I'd only just started to get to know people's names, and now I would have to do it all over again!

And I really suck at remembering people's names. Faces and names just don't stick with me. I think I would suck at being a contractor because I wouldn't be in a place long enough to remember people's names.

First day at work in LogicaCMG Sydney yesterday was like first day of work at LogicaCMG Perth, and for that matter, ADI Perth. Lots of reading.

I think I need some coffee. Oh, at least they have a pretty swanky kitchen and dining room. There's even a fancy espresso/cappucino machine, and they use *real* coffee!

More Sydney

Yesterday (Sunday) was spent walking down to work, to see just how long it takes. 15 minutes. It was a pleasant enough stroll, and North Sydney seems a nice leafy area, but it was rather dead on a Sunday. I caught a train into the city, and walked around there instead.

Walking around a city by oneself is pretty boring, like wandering around a cave lost and just stumbling forward. I didn't really have any objectives for the day, except to just soak up some Sydney atmosphere and get used to the transport system and layout of the city somewhat.

I ended up finding my way to Chinatown, and there I bought some fish and groceries to cook for the next few nights. Yet again, I applied the theory of, "if you can't carry it, don't buy it". Yes, I wanted that 1.5L of iced jasmine tea with honey, but damn it was just so heavy! And why don't companies make smaller bottles of Chinese cooking wine and oil? Okay, the cooking wine was something like $1.70 for 700mL, but still...it's heavy!

With groceries in hand, I found Central station, and caught a train back to St. Leonard's. Now I had thought previously that this was the closest station to home. I would now be proved wrong, and suffer for it. It was actually close to 20 minutes walk, and by the end of it, my fingers were crying out mercy after being strangled by the handles of the plastic bags.

Which brings me to another point. Unlike in Perth, where the recent trend has been for supermarkets to push the use of reuseable calico bags, in Sydney there was nought to be seen. I use calico bags in Perth, and they're really good, since I don't accumulate so many plastic bags (already have more than a dozen in Sydney and I've only been here a few days) and the handles don't dig into your fingers when carrying them. Oh, and there's less chance of the bag tearing and dropping your groceries all over the street.

I'm going to try and lose weight and get a bit fitter while I'm here. I'm going to be changing my diet (now I have the cooking power...mwhhhaaa!!!) and try to get some exercise (walking to and from work, and the apartment complex has a lap pool and some gym equipment downstairs). The only problem with this is that the gym and pool room are located downstairs in the underground level, and you have to go through all these narrow twisty, dark, and non-ventilated passageways to get there.

Ugh...scary!

Sydney

Well, it finally happened. I hopped on a plane and left for Sydney.

In true Dave style, I left all my packing until 11pm Friday night. My plane was due to leave 9:45am Saturday morning. To be fair, I'd spent a big chunk of Thursday night sorting out my desk, filing away papers and clearing away junk from the previous 6 months. I finally got to bed at about 3:30am.

The next morning, Carmen took me to the airport, and yet again, in true Dave style, we didn't leave the house until about 8:40am. We got to the airport about half an hour later (yes, Carmen drives like me) to find out that my plane was delayed until 10:30am. Damn Virgin Blue!!!

The plane ride was of no consequence, as I slept on and off through the whole trip. The off bits were caused by the cramped and totally uncomfortable seats, as experienced by travellers everywhere, inflicted by the evil airline companies. The landing though, was so good that I slept though it and didn't wake up until we were taxiing along the tarmac.

I'd brought 56kg of luggage, and this was all stuffed into two large suitcases. Now there was only one of me, and there was no way I could wheel around two large suitcases in addition to my carry-on around Sydney Airport, even though the luggage carousels are only about 20 metres from the taxi rank. Thus my only alternative was to submit to the evil airport corporation's tax of $3 for a baggage trolley. What a rip-off. I've no doubt that soon supermarkets will charge for the use of *their* trolleys too :P.

At the airport, walking out of the gate, it's pretty sad when you look around at all the excited faces of people waiting for their friends and relatives, and knowing that none of them are looking for you. *sigh*

I made it to the apartment okay, and it's a very nice 1 bedroom apartment. It's on the 5th floor, and I've got a small balcony outside with a couple of chairs and a table, and views to the river. Gorgeous. Unfortunately, try as I might, I couldn't get the phone service to work. So no Internet from home for Dave just yet.

I was pretty buggered by now, and so I flipped on the TV to enjoy some audio-visual entertainment for the first time in ages. The TV was set to SBS, and I sat down to a show called "Iron Chefs". First of all, this show is Japanese, and translation is acheived via a combination of subtitles and bad American voiceovers. The premise of the show is that it is a cooking challenge. A challenger is selected by the show's MC, and the challenger then selects one of the three "Iron Chefs" to challenge. The "Iron Chefs" are apparently masters of a particular type of cuisine, and there's an Iron Chef for Chinese, Italian, and French cooking.

The introduction of the Iron Chefs is very amusing, as they rise to the stage from elevated podiums. Lots of smoke and dramatic music.

After the challenger selects which Iron Chef to challenge, the MC then announces the showcase ingredient. The ingredient that night was cabbage. I was thinking, "What the...?" because cabbage isn't the first ingredient I would have thought of for a showcase ingredient. However, I was impressed by the creations that the chefs came up with.

I was very impressed with the show itself as it was very amusing and as I said I was impressed with the creations that the chefs came up with in an hour.

After watching the show I strolled down to the Woolworths (supermarkets close late here, about 10pm) which is literally about 5 minutes away from my apartment. I bought some necessities, and returned home. Unlike in Perth, one thing that I had to keep in mind while I was shopping was to only buy what I could carry back.

I'm in an area called Crows Nest, and it seems to be in the middle of a college area. After dumping the shopping at home, I went for a wander around the neighbourhood, and within about 5-10 minutes walking distance, there were over 20 restaurants, a pub or two, lots of convenience stores, and most importantly, 3 or 4 liquor outlets. There were lots of young people walking around (mmm...), and one clearly lost Asian guy even stopped to ask me directions. I also saw a middle-aged Chinese couple having an argument, something about women and money, but obviously didn't stop to listen too much. I will say this though, don't incur the wrath of a Chinese lady!!! My God she was screaming like a banshee in pain.

I'm currently tapping this entry out in an Internet cafe in the middle of Sydney as the phone service doesn't yet work in my apartment. When I get the Internet all up and happening, I will do more blogging.

Work starts Monday.

For now though, au revoir!