Bit of a cheaty week

I'm cheating this week with two photos that never made the Seven previously, most likely because I forgot about them, but perhaps because I had more than seven that week.

My excuse? I was horribly bed ridden this week and didn't place a foot out of the house on the weekend. Still feeling rather bleargh, but hey, you gotta roll with the punches.

I took this a while back, on the way to the Mint for some event launch. I love Hyde Park, but I rarely ever visit it. I once had a "very serious talk" with a girl I was chasing at the time and ended up in the park afterwards (at least I think it was Hyde Park. My head was a little every where that day). I often wonder where I was sitting, when I think back to it.

The fountain on the other hand, is where I met my friends one New Years Eve. Not the best meeting spot since everyone meets there, and doubly worse on that night, with so many drunken people around.

I was off on my way to Newtown a few weeks back, most likely to eat pie, and saw this down my street. There's quite of lot of this stuff around, if you know where to look. It gets taken down pretty quick, but it also goes up again just as fast, but with as much variety. I never know quite what to expect when I step outside.

Sending my sister off to Europe the other day, I never realised there's a bar on top of this bar. Then again, I never really hang around Marrickville. Or pubs for that matter.

Oh, Mac and Cheese. What's better than it? Mac and Cheese Deluxe. I can't figure out what's so deluxe about it aside from not having to make the cheese sauce yourself. I mean, how do you fancy up Mac and Cheese anyway? Add more cheese?

Which brings me to another questionable item that I purchased last week. I bought some marmalade. I haven't had marmalade since I was a kid, but I figured why not. But what's the difference between Orange Marmalade and Breakfast Marmalade? They both have the same ingredients, both have the same nutritional info, and both look the same (as far as I can tell). Can you not eat Breakfast Marmalade for lunch? Or dinner? Do they make it out of breakfasts? I ended up getting Breakfast Marmalade.

Bastards! It doesn't taste like breakfast at all!

My SO had a giggle when she saw this. It's usually the sort of thing I would laugh at, but I was probably still trying to figure out the marmalade thing. Poor pope. Not that resistant to kinky-ness. At least he tried.

Over in Darling Harbour, this ferris wheel still stands. I thought it was only going to be temporary, but it's probably been there for a few years, I'm guessing. Such a strange place to put it though. Whenever I pass by, no one seems to be on it. I really wonder if there's anything worth seeing from that height though.

Come to think of it, I haven't been on a ferris wheel for years. Maybe it's time.

Aero Cafe on George. This is one of those places I'd probably rather not tell anyone about. It's a nice place to come after a meal for a bit of dessert, or a cup of coffee. Most people don't really know about it for some reason, so there always tends to be quite a bit of space. Their lunch and dinner menu doesn't look too bad though.

In other news, I dug out my old Polaroid Impulse AF that has been gather a bit of dust. Going to see if I can get a bit of film for it and try something different.

Blurry week

Another week, passed in a blur.

I managed to take a lot of pictures this week. I visited a datacentre that had just opened and also went about taking headshots for a volunteer organisation on the weekend. It's only Saturday, but I think I'm going to be buggered tomorrow. For once, an early seven.

Walking past Wake Up! while heading into the city one morning, I happened to be there just as fire trucks were pulling up. There were a group of bleary eyed young girls who had just stumbled out of the fire escape and on to the street in their pajamas and wrapped in blankets. I don't think anyone else in the building really could give a damn.

That would probably be me too. What? I'm on fire? At least it's warm in bed. Another five minutes.

One of our sub-editors at work looking at a selection of our journo's devices. She's why what appears on the site looks amazingly clean. I feel bad for when I hand her horrible copy or when what I write makes no sense. (Like on this blog, I really don't care for flow or sometimes making sense.) If journos worry about people not seeing their by-line, I think they should stop for a moment and think about their sub-editors who only get an obscure mention (if even that).

On our chief sub-editor's desk: motivation in a jar (also diabetes in a jar). I had a lolly jar once, but it kept emptying faster than I could fill it, so I gave up.

I'm sure I must have taken a picture of this before. Somehow I manage to take pictures at exactly the wrong moment. Doubly curious since my phone has a bit of a delay before it actually takes the picture. I wonder if anyone has ever climbed in their drunkenness. Is drunkenness a word? I think our sub-editors would take me aside if I ever used it.

Wow, just realised there's a lot of work-related photos this week. I suppose it's only natural when you're there most of the time. One of my colleagues received this in the mail. It's a USB stick! It's actually pretty heavy considering its size. Disappointingly, it's only 1GB.

Yes, that's also a jar of salsa. Don't ask.

One of my friends' awesome chocolate lighter. Makes me hungry just looking at it. When he handed it to me, he told me that three people had already tried to eat it. So I tried also.

I spent a fair bit of today staring at this while waiting for people to get ready between photo sessions. It was over at Australian Technology Park. There's awesome amounts of light, old machinery, old trains, all sorts of things. The male toilets are a bit weird though. Something weird about peeing into a plastic, waterless trough.

Vegemite

Just the one image this week; it hasn't been good.

Everything passed me by pretty quickly, even though it's been a bit of a slow news week. I guess I go through these troughs every now and then.

I always seem to find the strangest stuff at the supermarket. My first vegemite? Seriously? I'm worried some unsuspecting parent will pick it up thinking it's baby food and feed their kid the entire jar. I guess then they'll really be a vegemite kid.

I also love seeing stuff that is put back in the wrong place, as if to say, "No, I didn't want this, I want this!" Things like finding candy bars in the health food aisle. Or instant noodles in the vegetable aisle. Or toilet paper in the hardware aisle. Wait, say what?

Food and "family"

When you spend so much time at the office, the people you work with end up becoming your second family. As a newcomer to the work place, I'm constantly finding stuff like this around the place.

We had our half-yearly review recently, which was a lot of presentations, but also a family dinner shouted by the company. Our small edit team wandered off on our own early for a beer. All of us are different in one way or another. Quiet, loud, opinionated, not-opinionated. Diverse is what I'd call it. 

Wandering around Glebe, there's a street with all of these wooden carvings in it. Almost every house in the street has one, all of similar sort of design. Sort of freaky, but sort of cool at the same time.

Later in the week at the office, there's always someone doing something silly.

I made it over to Newtown on the weekend to visit Pie Tin. Really small place, just off of King Street, but the pies there are to die for. Real chunks of meat in them. Apparently the dessert pies are even better. Maybe next week, but I fear I'll put on weight if I make it a habit.

Wandering through my old university, the old library I used to study at has been emptied out. In true engineering style, some student with a sense of humour defaced the sign. I think I like it better this way.

Then close to midnight, Saturday, one of my mates calls me up for a coffee, which ends up rolling around to the early hours of Sunday morning. What else is open at that hour besides Pancakes on the Rocks? It's been a while so it's time to pay them a visit. Breakfast with Coronas? Breakfast of champions.

A week of variety

The weekend of the 16th and 17th was all about me shooting for an anime convention called Smash! -- my more "serious" pics are floating around on Flickr. It's cheating a little to include an image from the previous week, but I made sure not to include any Smash! photos then. =) Anyway, I thought the people on the internet would recognise this guy.

 

Also found myself making my way across to St Leonards to attend a talk. I hopped on a train at Museum station. It must have been about ten years since I last saw it since I'm never on that side of the City circle. It's really a lovely place. Something about having everything underground. I guess they don't call it Museum for nothing.

A relaxing Saturday morning spent out in Ashfield at my sister's place. For some reason we both live in old Victorian-style houses, although hers is in much better condition (and I presently wonder when my bathroom is going to collapse). Equally odd is that we both live in streets named after royalty.

I'm not sure exactly where I was for brunch on Saturday, but I sat outside in the cold with my coffee. I've become so used to Campos that it's a bit of a weird feeling drinking anything else, but this wasn't bad. I liked the tiny teddy. Although he lost his foot. Why is that? When I was a kid I always got the teddies with no arms or legs.

Spent some of Sunday catching up on some chores, but also cleaned up the liquor cupboard and added a new bottle of Jack, not to brush my teeth with. Jack Daniels is one of the only drinks that makes me depressed. Everything else makes me a happy drunk, but Jack? Better watch out.

Don't ask me how it's related, but I also somehow ended up at Ikea and bought not one, not two, but three lamps. One is still sitting in its box. I surprise myself sometimes.

And the inner geek in me took a pic of my computer while it was processing Smash! photos on Monday evening. My specs aren't great, but they're so much better than before. It used to be a case of clicking export and coming back after a cup of coffee or tea, but it's much faster now.

Further adventures in shooting street

It's been a fairly productive week. My camera has been following me around practically everywhere (or is it me following it around?) and I've been a bit more daring when it comes to taking street pics, despite the strange looks.

What I've found though, is that people really don't notice you so long as you've been there for a while and even if they do notice you shooting, it's really easy to just continue looking down the barrel and looking at something else.

I also saw my mentor mid-week. To be honest, when I was on my way there, I felt horribly drained, wondering if the path I'd chosen was really the right one, but after the session, I felt so much more on track, so much more inspired. Anyone that wants to succeed needs a mentor, I think, or at least someone that will put you back on your feet when you're feeling like you don't want to go on.

In the Devonshire Street tunnel, there's a lady that often sings opera. She's been there for as long as I can remember, sometimes singing alongside other people, other times just by herself. I've often wanted to busk in there, but a combination of nerves and being recognised have always stopped me. Christine on the other hand, is completely at home, although she said the first few times were the most scary.

The day I spoke to her was the day she lost her job. She'd been busking for the past five years purely for the fun of it, almost twice a day, so she joked she might have to step that up a bit. She talked about people who would walk past and mock her, but then wouldn't have the courage to stick around, let alone do it themselves.

As we were talking, I also met Kelly, a quiet-spoken American girl who I think had recently come to Sydney. Some of her uni friends were busking simply to try and get those few extra dollars to make ends meet. I'd always thought it was interesting that people often mistook buskers as glorified beggars. Most buskers I'd met didn't need the money. Christine was an example of someone who did it purely because she loved to sing, but after hearing Kelly's story, I'm sure there are some out there that are using busking to make ends meet. 

I guess it goes to show, even when you think you've got it all figured out, life turns around and surprises you again.

Christine and Kelly.

City lights, night life, and happy times

It's occurred to me that I need to visit some newer places. Trying to find time during lunch has been difficult.