Listening List

Music makes me happy.

Darwin at Work

Stacker: A remotely operated conglomeration of metal structure and conveyors, mounted on rails. Controlled from a central location, the stacker moves without warning to pour out coal into different stockpiles as it is recieved by train at the dump station. As the ships arrive, the coal is reclaimed by another machine and moved by a series of conveyors over the road to the ship loader.




Plover: Candidate for natural selection.

State Library

Oh, the State Library. It's in a gorgeous section of Sydney right next to the Botanic Gardens, just up from Parliament House and not far from the Art Gallery of NSW and also the pointed beauty of the harbour and Opera House.

Forget about the surrounds - you could spend days in the library itself. I've only been twice, to see exhibitions they've put on, and regret not budgeting enough time to settle in for a while each time.

Last time there I spent a bit of time staring at the wonder of the reading room and then got down to business. First... Where the hell are the toilets here? But on my way down the halls I got a little distracted...



Why on earth do we have such a nice set of doors down the end where the toilets with the crappy pebblecrete dividers are? Let's stop and have a closer look. Click on the picture and you might be able to read it.



Ahhh. The Shakespeare Library. Fantastic! The plaque beside it says it was refurbished as a gift from some kind concerned person for the bicentenary of the colony back in 1988. I was excited at the thought of holing up into a room with such a beautiful door to read Shakespeare. I don't think many others have shared the same excitement (or maybe they have had too much excitement in the past?), because the doors were locked solid. I tried to peer through the keyhole, but did not get much of an idea of the space beyond.

I hate that the efforts of restoration cannot be shared by the general public. All I got was a few photographs and the dubious experience of being seen squinting through a keyhole in the vicinity of the public toilets.

And the Winner Is...

Oh, Sydney.

We just went to visit our capital city for a few days. Since I don't know my way around at all I was being driven around this city by my partner, my head virtually hanging out the window to soak up the mish-mash of cultures, people, smells, and architecture. I'm still feeling queasy from a dubious experince in Chinatown. Or maybe it was a combination of that and memory-deleting amounts of alcohol at a gay bar on Sunday night. My legs are still sore from the mammoth walk we did along the harbour, looking at light installations and people and fire shows. My mind is overloaded with snippets from exhibitions and sights and wonders.

Could I live there? I don't think so. Maybe. I think that mash of people would send me insane.

Could I visit, as much as possible, indefinately? Hell yes. I don't ever want to tire of looking up at the struts of the harbour bridge while we drive over it. I don't want to lose that amazement of somanybuildings and so MUCH sandstone. I think I probably would if I was a "local".

Anyhow, some picures from the light festival should pop up here within the next couple of days....

Holy Cow

I stopped dead in my tracks to gawk at him. Holy Fucking COW was the pathetic line that escaped me.

His name is Fonzy. He is 1.885 metres tall. He is a Canadian Holstien. He is one hell of a big boy.

The Stripe Project: Day 1

I decided I needed a new challenge. The colour projects I did a while ago were great for opening my eyes to different perspectives. Thinking about that this morning, I've decided to challenge myself away from the idea of colour and into a favourite land for me: geometry. In particular within this category this time it is stripes.

I don't know if this one will last a week, ten days, or a fortnight. Who knows? So far, (on day one), it's been pretty exciting to see things in a new analytical light again. To tear things apart visually in search of a useable pattern. You'll see if I get bored because I'll go off and do some thing else.

I've managed to con my sister Kat into joining in. If anybody else is game for it, drop me a line in the comments.

Anyway, here goes.
The Stripe Project #1:



Let's be clear on the terminology here.
No, they are not sandals.
They are not to be referred to in their onomatopoeiac form as flip flops.
These beauties of Australian culture are known as THONGS.

A thong is not some flimsy piece of material you wedge into your arse and call underwear. That is a G-string. Consider that the epitome of the range of thongs is the highly regarded double plugger. The statement "I just bought another pair of double pluggers because my old ones gave up the ghost" becomes a little too suggestive when it's confused with flimsy material bits.

So get it right, yanks.

The thong is footwear, the double plugger is king, and the G-string goes up your arse.