drone

I was stalked by a drone in Jacana reserve on Sunday, it was pretty interesting. I know this picture won't show you anything really.

Unless you can actually see there are two men on the hill, with a car with the hatchback with its back open, and the little drone up above the house to the right. 

It was interesting mainly because of the scale of it. I still don't really know what size it was. It certainly wasn't stealthy, in fact if it hadn't been so noisy I probably wouldn't have known it was so close, and small, rather than far away and big. These guys were clearly operating it, and in fact they went over my head - probably figuring I was an interesting feature on the landscape or something. 

They left shortly afterwards. 

Seems a shame not to use this opportunity to publish these very nice pictures of Ferdy and Barry from almost exactly the same time. They weren't afraid of no drone. 

man on train yelling

My mum keeps asking me when will I go for my license when will I go for my license no more asking enough is enough you know how hard?

I will never take the face off anymore

Hey, you’re at work. You’re at work now, alright? DON’T RING ME!

I have a disability, finding a girlfriend is very very hard.

broady february 2014

A Jamie Oliver initiative outside the library promoting healthy food inc. these little garden beds

 The jamievan

 They have taken the fence down from outside the Courthouse.

These flats are still, if you ask me, pretty cool. I don't care if they are full of 75 year old junkies from Carlton.

 Ferdie in the slightly replenished park

 Ferdie and Barry gaze upon another dog (black kelpie) in the distance.

 I have no words for this and it doesn't need any.

Basically, the grass is still brown but at least it's not yellow...

i'd know that face anywhere

iPhoto asking to name a few of the faces it can't quite place in my photographs.

At first it seems funny because a machine sees faces that aren't there. But what about when the robots take over? Will they know our faces? At least Ferdinand will be well looked after (both ends).

a long walk in a dry park covered in flies

Well, it is mid-February, so it's hardly surprising that everything in Jacana is dry and yellow. A bit of rain (promised for tomorrow)* may make all the difference. 

 The current state of the wetlands...

Ferdie here is sniffing at a piece of embedded plastic that was moving in the wind like a creature talking. I can't explain it better than that. My brain was inspired to believe it looked like a moving mouth on a snouted creature. Anyway I thought 'I could film that and put some recorded dialogue to it and it would just look like something coming out of the ground, talking'. Then it stopped.

As mentioned above, there were flies everywhere, though they seemed to be on me mainly and not on the dogs. But Barry & Ferdie went into the water with particular relish. 

Alright, you can tell me that it only looks like Barry's smiling. But I can't believe he doesn't know that this is how he can fake smiling if he wants to trick humans into thinking he's happy. 

Ferdie often gets a little frisky after a dip.

He also somehow managed to get the Ace Frehley look while he was in the water. As a small boy said to his father in Readings Glenferrie Road in 1980 or so, 'the black eyed Kiss has got a long tongue!' This proved to be true.

It was too warm, but there was a slight breeze coming from the south (this is the Moonee Ponds Creek from the south), which blew the cobwebs away. That was a shame as the cobwebs were the only thing protecting me/us from the flies.

*Update 16 Feb: it rained a bit the following day, and heavily the day after. Already the park is looking greener. I would have taken pictures to bore you with but my phone was charging. Also, it probably wouldn't have come out all that well in photos anyway. 

wellington iii

Back in Melbourne just in time for horrendous heatwave #4. Thanks for that. If you want to know what I did on the last day in Wellington (why wouldn't you) see this entry (and the one before it) on my other blog. Also a video I will shortly put up on youtube.

As well as the heat taking 10 years off my life I am full as a full barrel, having just been to Yvette and Lillian's amazing Chinese New Year celebration. They said I was welcome 'any time' so assuming they eat like that every dayI think I'll go back tomorrow.

midnight espresso

This is the cafe I’ve come to three days in a row in Wellington now. It is Midnight Espresso in Cuba st near I think Vivian (or some similar name). I gather it is iconic. Coffee is cheap ($2.50 for pretty good). I am tossing up constantly whether to buy the t-shirt or not. Upside: I need a t-shirt, or some kind of a shirt, to wear tomorrow as I have run out of clean clothes. Downside: it’s fairly exy, it seems like a slightly outre way to be a tourist. Upside: It’s not a terrible t-shirt. Downside: do I need more t-shirts in the scheme of things? No, only tomorrow. And I am really phasing myself out of t-shirt world. Plus Slow Boat Records, over the road, have a pretty good t-shirt too, and it’s half the price. 

I didn’t do a proper survey record of Cuba Street eight years ago when I was last in Wellington but I have a feeling it’s gone a lot more upmarket, and not in a great way. A lot of clothes stores. But Wellington does have a huge amount of bookshops, which is refreshing. It’s like Melbourne 18 months ago in that regard. 

It’s 21 degrees today (61 in Melbourne) but the humidity is high, which means you feel comfortable walking around and then you suddenly are drenched in sweat (you not me. Never happens to me). 

It’s the last day of the conference which means field trip this afternoon and back to Melbourne tomorrow. All works out for me. Although I was THOROUGHLY PISSED OFF to go down to the National Library before 9 this morning to complete my registration as a user (library user), to be told that while the library opens at 8:30 am, the LIBRARY library doesn’t open till 10!!! 

wellington

Greetings from Wellington. So far not much to report. I have a knack for arriving in cities just as they are about to shut down for the weekend. My first New Zealand experience was Anzac Day 1991. That was when I was reminded that it's ANZAC not, um, AAC. It was sunny today. Now all around is dark, perhaps because it's 3 am. There is a new book about AC/DC and I'm reading it. That really is the definition of a glutton for punishment.