Alright, here I am after a long hiatus.
I hope none of you thought I had been run over or accosted for shooting someone in the street. There's several weeks worth of photos due, I know, and while I didn't quite make the Seven every week, I did try and keep up.
So here's a mega-huge post that I hope makes up for it.
This is one of our IT guys at work. I often think it must be a strange thing to work in IT for a company where most people are tech-savvy. But I guess it means that the bugs and issues just become weirder.
Take this, for example. He's connecting a TV up to our network using arcade-style controls. I think I'm slowly getting used to all sorts of random.
Just prior to Christmas I wandered over to the Fish Markets with some friends. I have no idea how or why. One of my friends needed to pick up some fish and so we tagged along. At 1am or so in the morning.
I really dislike the Fish Markets. Not because I don't eat shell fish, but because every time I go there I seem to get shat on by seagulls. Thankfully there weren't many at 1am, but previously I've been shat on the leg, on the head and even in my ear. I swear those bastards are aiming for me.
One day I'll get my revenge. Come here seagull, I'm going to shit in your ear.
While we were wandering around, we suddenly had the idea of making Bloody Marys. I've never had or seen one before, but I'm not sure it's meant to look like this. It reminds me of this scene from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels:
"I asked you to give me a refreshing drink! Wasn't expecting a fucking rainforest. You could fall in love with an orangutan in there!"
I seem to have a thing for benches. I never sit on them myself, but I like taking photos of them in peaceful places I've encountered. They never seem to be occupied, but I bet many others have sat and contemplated deep, serious thoughts. Me? No, I just giggle and fart and move on.
This is my dog giving her best impression of being an oversized rat. I don't know why, but she's hopeless at being the ferocious German Shepherd Dog that everyone thinks she is. I think I may have mentioned this before.
She's got seriously long legs. I call them supermodel legs. But she's constantly got this look of worry on her face. What's that? You're scratching my head. Oh no! I like it, but... Oh no! We love her anyway.
Christmas means getting fat. I'm not huge to begin with, but I've stopped growing upwards and begun to grow sideways. I'm always at a loss at what to tell people when they ask what I'm doing for Christmas. Lots of people have plans to go away, but me? I always spend it with my family.
Going away sounds like fun, and I'm sure it is, no doubt, but I've always thought it's time spent with those closest.
There used to be a giant sculpture in the Galeries Victoria where an LCD signboard at the top of it could be programmed to read whatever you wanted. I think after being abused, it was quickly disabled and thereafter became something really boring.
I hadn't been in a while but now there's a giant staircase and a series of floating books, presumably from Books Kinokunia. I'm sure it changed a while ago and I'd simply not noticed.
Down near the Regency building, past Chef's Gallery (and no, it's not like Men's Gallery but with chefs), there's a coffee place called Tom'N'Toms. It looks like an Asian ripoff of Starbucks, but I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. The Engrish is amusing, to say the least, but the other weird thing is that they sell pretzels.
The only advice I can give is not to drink the coffee.
I can't remember where this is exactly, but I think it's somewhere nearby Oxford Street and down an alleyway. I don't think it ever really gets noticed, which is a shame, but I wonder what was going through the minds of the designers. I didn't notice any theme among any of the buildings, just one alley-facing wall with flowers.
What I love about Summer is that after work there's still light. I walk past Railway Square all the time and more recently there's been this lovely glowing light as the sun settles down. Although you can't see it for the sun, Central Park is also beginning to emerge on the horizon. It's not yet built to its full height, but there's this giant gap in the sky between the buildings that you can see it will eventually take up.
I'm still not sure whether I approve of the development or not. I guess it's just one of those things I'll only be able to decide on once it's finished and the full effects are known.
Supermarket Mondays. We've changed over to Woolworths for a bit so instead of making fun of the characters and their quotes on Coles Select products, I get to see cats that are either enjoying themselves in the middle of a long one, or are smugly approving of their owner's choice of litter.
Why do they call it litter anyway, isn't cat crap meant to be litter? Putting litter in your litter? Litterception?
Don't think I've ever seen one of these before, nor one that's been spray painted. To be honest, I don't really know how to interpret this one. Golden child? I'm also curious to know who is removing these. I don't think it's council because a lot of others don't go missing, but they don't really last long either.
This is a Black House spider that had been living in our laundry for the past few years. Venomous, but not agressive and generally not a biter. I'd known it had been sitting in the same place for a while and we'd lived relatively harmoniously, but only under the condition that it never venture further into the house.
Unfortunately after several bouts of rain it decided to creep right into the house and we had to get rid of it. It's probably the most tolerant I've been with a spider since they tend to scare me the crap out of me unless I've grown accustomed to them (like hiking in the bush for several days).
I went to an Asian grocer the other day and bought a cleaver. I don't know why, but it felt rather weird carrying one in a shopping basket. When I was a little kid, there was a white elephant sale at my primary school. One of the things for sale, I think for a dollar, was a cleaver.
I have no idea what possessed me to buy it, but I did. And without questioning what I would do with it, it was sold to me. I ended up giving it to my mum, who also never questioned how I got it. I doubt that would ever happen today.
I couldn't decide if I really wanted these biscuits or not. I mean, I could eat stoned cars or sexy stoned monkeys.
What do people think when they design these things? Or do they?
I actually went to Sydney Festival first night by accident. I felt like stretching the legs so I wandered out into town and discovered this in Martin Place. There were people dancing in the street.
I've got to say that Sydney puts on a pretty good show. If I were a tourist visiting over the New Year I'd certainly think that it is one of the best cities in the world. I mean, you come around for what are arguably some of the best fireworks, then they throw this party for several weeks and now it's Chinese New Year and they have all sorts of other stuff on.
This guy climbed a light pole to see the guys that were doing acrobatics on poles. I like that no one around him really cared.
Social experiment? People kept moving these lights and I was curious as to why people at times would avoid walking between them or stroll through either not noticing or not caring.
There's only really one reason I took this pic.
That is all.
I've noticed this is a thing Sydney does quite a bit. When in doubt, make your trees technicolour. I'm not quite sure if this had any significance, but I'm with the majority with throwing reasoning out the window. It just looks frickin' cool!
This is one of those times where a fast photo results in this, a slow photo results in a mess and neither really show what is going on. You know when you look at those optical illusions of banded together lines and it makes your head spin. That's a good approximation of what this moving pattern achieved, but on the scale of being building-sized.
Let's gather around the TV, children. There's not enough room in the Domain to house everyone, so there's an obvious solution. Close the road, bring in a huge-ass screen on a crane, wire up the street with giant speakers, and turn off all the street lights.
Looking down towards Kings Cross. I still haven't got my technique to walk across the street, snap, and run before the lights change, quite perfected yet. I rarely venture into the Cross. The last time I went drinking there I don't remember how I got home. I do remember convincing a girl to make out with one of my work colleagues and something to do with an aerosol can.
And meanwhile, here's a pineapple wearing a disguise. Could have fooled me. It's at the cafe attached to my gym. I somehow know the first names of most of the baristas at cafes I frequent, but I'm more impressed when it's the other way around and I haven't struck up a conversation.
When I was working in The Rocks a while back, I used to regularly order lunch from a little shop attached to the Shangri-La Hotel. The lady there knew my name and what I usually ordered. It was actually a little more expensive than other places nearby, but customer service like that kept me coming back. Everyone wants to feel special.
So anyway, I'm sorry for not posting in such a long time. I was on such a roll too! I know some of you are keen photographers, so I have something that might interest some of you. After attending the Google+ photowalk, I've found myself with a Google+ camera strap that I've realised I'm never going to use.
Rather than see it collect dust, I'd be interested to know if anyone would be interested in having it, even if it is re-gifted? Leave me a comment below or send a Tweet to @mukimu, preferably with the tag #7inSyd to catch my attention.
