A sign of the times...

I used to watch a lot of television as a kid, but it wasn't until I lived purely off TV, movies and the internet around the time that I was at university that I truly immersed myself in the wonders on show.

During this time we watched pretty much everything that we could, and it was prior to the explosion of the shit that clogs up our screens these days...reality TV, but let's for the moment live in Utopia and pretend that type of shit still doesn't exist.

During these days, we'd get a group of guys together, head down the local video store and hire 10 movies, then proceed to lock ourselves in a room and drink copious amounts of booze watching some of the most bizarre movie combinations - and indeed movies - in history.

To this day, I can still remember some of the absolute beauties that we watched in those days, two of which spring directly to mind...

1. Mutronics,
2. Robot Jox.

I doubt there's more than a handful of people that have seen both of these movies, and yes, there's a reason why.

I also recall - with both fondness and embarrasment - that we watched Rocky I - Rocky V in rapid succession, only pausing to change the tape or to take a piss. Many will argue that Rocky V never happened, but I can assure you there were five movies watched on this bizarre night.

Why am I reminiscing about some weird and wonderful times spent in front of the box? Simple really, I watched the second film in a row starring Leonardo Di Caprio and managed to finish my viewing without a) vomiting, b) wanting to punch him in the face and c) offering my soul to the devil to take me away from the viewing pain.

To say that I've never appreciated Leonardo's work would be akin to saying that Hitler never appreciated the Jewish people, and although I never thought to commit genocide - or indeed to use such an inappropriate analogy - it's fair to say that I usually avoided any movie with 'Leo' in it. I mean, have you even seen 'Titanic'? I'm not sure which was more disasterous, the original ship or the movie.

When I heard that 'The Departed' was coming out, I was actually checking the movie listings daily to see when it started at my local cinema - even though Di Caprio had landed a leading role. And you know what? I was impressed! However, after the film had finished, I rationalised that I was impressed because he hadn't totally sucked, and because everyone else in the movie was so bloody good, that it was easy to overlook his shitty acting. I mean really, even Mark Wahlberg was entertaining!!!! Yes, read that last sentence again, and no, I haven't actually sold my soul to the devil.

So I recently see a trailer for 'Blood Diamond' and it shows Di Caprio as a bit of an action guy, and although I giggle to myself, picturing him standing at the bow of a computer generated boat, I'm willing to check it out, because being a cinema member, these are the types of risks we take. I was also interested in the actual backdrop of the movie along with the main plot and a few sub-plots.

Now this isn't the first movie that I've seen in 2007 (I've seen Smoking Aces, Miss Potter and something else that I've already forgotten), but I've got to tell you that 'Blood Diamond' is something that I rate. Really enjoyed every aspect of the film.

So there it is in a nutshell, I'm now able to enjoy a film with Leo in it, but perhaps this is just yet another reason for me to go and add to a post from many months ago listing a number of reasons that could indicate that I am gay.

And no, because I've got a rainbow coloured bumper sticker that says, 'I love having balls in front of my face' does not make me gay! Referring to Di Caprio as 'Leo' however, well that might just be the straw that broke the Camel's back....... I'll let you decide.

Check the movie out though, it's well worth it.

Australia Day Eve...

Have had a pretty shit week at work; one of the deadlines that I've been working for (Feb. 12) was 
unexpectedly brought forward to January 31.  This did not make my week, and it's one of the reasons why it's taken me so long to put something on the blog this week, that and the fact that I'm a lazy and unmotivated smeg, for most part.  So I've decided to give you a quick insight into my day, as I'm already trying to forget the earlier part of the week.

The day got off to a pretty sloppy start, and because I'd been up half the night helping my mother out with computer stuff, I was dead tired and consequently hit the 'snooze' button a few too many times.  Fortunately, my first meeting was 9:30, so my 9:28 arrival to the office was - amongst other things - timely.

The first meeting was about training, and unfortunately my general "how fucking hard it is, why do these muppets need training" approach doesn't quite wash it, and I need to at least attempt to be a little more professional in these environments, but my meeting scared me, and after it at ended there was more apprehension as to our ability to deliver what's required.  Fortunately - for everyone - I'm actually not going to be training people.  Perhaps with this in mind, we do stand a chance after all!!!

A nice curveball was thrown at me, getting quotations for housing servers and applications and these types of exciting things, but since I was getting nowhere fast trying to obtain quotes from the various groups I'd spoken to, I was forced to engage in the help of 'google' and then start ringing people asking about there services.

Now generally speaking, i don't like talking to people unless I know them, they're interesting or I'm really, really drunk and there's a chance they might know of a party somewhere else, so calling a bunch of people and discussing server co-location and begging for indicative costings was not something that i really wanted to do for a minute, let alone the two hours that I ended up doing it for.

Because I'm such a good bloke and karma is always positive around me, the following task was a 3 hour site visit inside Wembley stadium, where I had to not only discuss the operational environments of the hospitality areas, but attempt to map out where things had ended up, and contemplate suicide given their actual locations versus their expected locations.  As Dennis Leary so aptly put it, "this is gonna suck!"

Yeah, three hour site visit.  Good one!  Sometimes I love being me!

Finished the work-day off by organising my transport to Norwich for tomorrow's festivities.  I'm heading up to visit my cousin, whose organised a night out with some of her friends.  Should be a good night, will be great catching up because she's a cool chick, will get to see another city and also meet some more people.  It's good to keep busy now, and given that work is almost all consuming, it will be one of the last times for awhile.

Tonight I was that sick of scrounging around the kitchen trying to create a masterpiece with the likes of an onion, some plain flour and some sesame seeds, that I decided that I'd head down the local High Road to my favourite London Indian establishment.  The place is called 'Kurdiris' and they do probably the finest Rogan Josh that I've ever sampled.  Sure, I paid £9.20 for take away, but at the end of the day, when you love food as much as I do, and it tastes as good as this curry, it's well worth the expense.

DJD decided to have some Chinese duck dish, and no, that's not a euphamism.

Actually, try saying that ten times really quickly.....

Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish
Chinese duck dish

I cut'n'pasted it, so that's really not a substitute.

Anyway, we're having dinner in the lounge-room and we're talking about stupid old television shows, movies and bad things of the 1980's and I remember Alby Mangles.  Alby Mangles was that dumbarse that used to make the 'World Safari' 'movies'.  If you don't know of him, then maybe you should.

Now I'm guessing that my mate DJD never had the fortune of watching any of the 'World Safari' movies...

"Wasn't she in 'Neighbours'"?

Now for those of you confused as the the identities, i've thrown something below for you to consider.  The not-so-great man, Alby Mangles.



I'm still somewhat unclear as to why he wasn't considered one of Australia's greatest sons, but he's a little different to the following hottie....



I guess you had to be there.

Needless to say, given yet more insight into the frightening individual that DJD, I definitely showed some bravery letting DJD cut my hair.  

At this point you'd think that I've hit rock bottom, but the fact that I'm sitting on the toilet typing this would probably usurp it.  The only thing worse would have been if I titled this 'Blog of a log', but I have some class..... obviously.

Have a great Australia Day.

Sunday recovery

Massive weekend has just come to an end, and part of me is welcoming the sobering prospect of work and a week of healthy living, because the last few days have been, in a word, hectic. Kicked off Friday night catching up with some mates for a birthday dinner. It all started off fairly soberly, with a few quiet ales in Clapham, but that soon changed later on in the evening due to a rendezvous with some other mates and a trip to a local Cricklewood establishment. After many beers, the final result was a 3am souvlaki and a bit of a sleep in.

Saturday afternoon brought some delirium in the form of a Liverpool victory over Chelsea, which aided the recovery process no end. By 7pm we were back into the swing of it, exchanging the beers and snakebites of Friday night for vodka and some horrible 58 pence soft drink that DJD has a tendency to buy from Sainsburys.

It wasn't too long before we found some effects, and we headed off to another mate's place, smashed down a few more bevvies, and headed to Piccadilly, to a high class establishment just off of Shaftsbury Avenue.

Prior to entering, we played as American tourists, getting some photos of Eros. Happy days.

We got ourselves in and began to get what is probably classified as 'very fucking drunk'. There was some fantastic dancing, including the crowd favourite, 'The Fruit-picker' which was once again an out and out success.

Ordering drinks was perhaps the toughest thing to achieve effectively, but we didn't let that stop our purposeful march towards inebriation. No, sir! We most certainly didn't.

There were countless interesting occurrences, although the one failure we will not omit here is the distinct lack of mathematical acumen within the place. People didn't even know their 15 times table. It's a crazy world that we all live in.

In the end, we all ended up back from whence we came at around 5am. Yet another successful sortie into Central London.

After some heavy slumber, bed was the scene for the recovery, being vacated at around 6pm, just in time to enable us to head to catch a movie. 'Which movie?' I hear you ask.... It was Balboa, or as some people know it, Rocky VI.

A big slow, a bit gratuitous, but hey, it rests easier than Rocky V, that's for sure.

A new beginning of sorts....

I doubt that I'll be able to get into the second paragraph before I start trivialising important things in my life and get aboard the self-deprecating train and castigate myself purely for the sake of it, but anyway, here are a couple of thoughts - and serious ones at that - which have been circulating in my head for the last few weeks.

Now, without getting into any personal or explicit details, it's fair to say that the last month has probably been the hardest of my life, certainly my adult life. It's been by far more mentally and emotionally draining than it has physically, but as anyone will tell you, the pain of the mind and the soul hurts far more.

I'm pretty much out the other side now, and although there are going to be some scars there for the rest of my life, I'm actually thankful - to a degree - that I've been through this. It's really confirmed so many things that I thought I knew about myself and others, and it's taught me countless other things, not that I'm trying to be philosophical in any way, I'm just trying to move on.

One thing is for certain though, when you have friends and family around you of the calibre that I have, there's never any doubt that things will right themselves in the end.

This is probably a weird post, given that most people wont have any clue to what I'm referring to, but I'm sure I've written weirder. If not, then I've got something to aspire to.

-Me

Expressing yourself...

Since the Ashes whitewash, and the following 20-20 massacre, I keep hearing/reading of the media, former players and critics putting a lot of England's recent putridity down to one thing; the failure of their players to 'express themselves'.

Now, if I was to say that this is one of the biggest loads of shite that I've ever heard, I'd hardly be exaggerating. I think everyone's got it wrong here. I actually think that they are expressing themselves, and it's actually the expression that's the problem.

Each and every English player are screaming out "we're fucking rancid" and I think that is the problem.

Let's face it, when you give someone like Michael Vaughan an OBE and the rabble that follows him MBEs for winning two tests, maybe you need to look at the forms of expression that are evident within your society.

The English and their cricket team make me laugh.

Fortunately, I don't express myself.

Scary thought

Firstly, it's been almost 2 months since my last post, so I thought that I would share a thought that I had yesterday afternoon, but first.... some background.

When I was hiking in the Himalayas, we ascended (via jeep) to about 3,630 metres having started at a far lower altitude earlier in the day at Darjeeling.  Now I'm told that a good rule of thumb when ascending is to rest for 1 day for every 1,000 metres you ascend.  At first, I thought this was a load of bollocks, but rather than risk it, I heeded the words of my far wiser 
travel companion  - Vandit.

That night it was a struggle to breathe and sleep and Newman actually thought he was going to have a heart-attack, with chest pains and numbness in his hands.  For my part, I felt extremely light-headed, feint and thought that I was going to pass out.

So I'm taking a shit yesterday, and I was pushing really hard, and suddenly I thought I was back in the Himalayas again, and it wasn't for the pleasant aroma either.  There should be warnings on toilet doors reminding people of the risks of taking a dump, seriously.  They have warnings for pretty much everything else, so why not?!

If there was, I doubt that Elvis would have had such a ghastly demise, and I wouldnt' have been within a few seconds more of gritted and determined exertion of feinting.

Now, I'd call that a triumphant return to blogging, wouldn't you?

London Calling....

As I mentioned in the previous post, it's been almost 600 days since I arrived in London and a lot has taken place in this time, so I thought that I would list - in no particular order - 20 things that I've done (or have happened) since I landed here....

1. I've become engaged,
2. Have been to 15 new countries,
3. I've lost 13 kilograms,
4. I was abducted in Oslo,
5. Attempted to learn Afrikaans,
6. I've been to an NFL game,
7. I've had the mumps,
8. Listened to Joe Dolce's 'Shaddupa your face' 100 times in succession,
9. Caught up with Tucker Max and his mates in a bar in NYC,
10. Went Ice-Fishing with some Latvian natives,
11. Crept closer to 100 games, completing game 98,
12. Have been detained by US border patrol on Canadian/US border,
13. Managed to get photographed with both Chip & Buster Bison,
14. Used an AK-47 in a former Soviet army bunker,
15. Seen Liverpool win the most exciting FA Cup ever in Cardiff,
16. Watched George Bush be driven to the White House,
17. Finally chose a tattoo to get,
18. Was involved in a riot at the opening of Emirates Stadium,
19. Went three months without going on a Bacardi binge,
20. Wrote the worst blog ever.

So there you have it, a very brief insight into my London life over the last 600 or so days....

Riveting stuff, I know....

Counting down...

Have you ever noticed that we live our lives by numbers, or is the inexplicable absence of consciousness towards the notion due purely down to the fact that we simply accept it, and move on?!

Don't worry, I'm not going to go and get all existentialist or start to regurgitate crack-pot theories of conspiracies, I was just articulating my thoughts....

So yeah, counting down.....

I weighed myself this morning and I noticed that I have now dropped down to under 80 kgs, which is the lightest that I've been since I was about 23-24. It's a far cry from the halcyon days after blowing out my knee when I managed to balloon up to 94 kgs, and do a fairly handy impersonation of the Michelin Man in the process. It's not so much the weight that I find interesting, more so the constant scrutiny that I have on the numbers themselves. I need a second opinion (set of scales), because I don't know how I could be 78kgs, but hey, when in Rome.....

Counting down.....

Since booking a trip in March, I've been keeping a daily counter on my whiteboard at work, which I use as much of a reminder of when I'm due to return back to Australia as I do a means to piss off my colleagues and to drive their jealousy. Thing is, given the current work climate and that I'm now engaged, I wont be able to head back to Oz for probably another year, and if that's the case, I'll have been here in the UK for almost three years without a return home.

Counting down.....

Today would have brought me within 40 days....

40 days...

Geelong can blow a season in 40 days....
Lent apparently lasts 40 days....

In essence, it's a short time given that I've now been here in the UK for 592 days - and counting.....

It's all about the counting.......

Not before time.....

It's not like I'd forgotten this place or was averse to throwing a few lines together, but as most people know, the last six or so months has seen a major change in my life, culminating in my recent engagement with the beautiful Linda, who I'm sure you'll hear and see a lot of in the future.

Originally, this blog was a means for me to keep in touch with people, do some writing and generally kill a couple of birds with a single stone, but that seems to have gone by the wayside in recent months as my life has been fairly busy with other things.

Anyway, I'll hopefully get back into the swing of things soon and keep everyone updated as to what's happening over here in London. I've included a picture of Linda and I in Paris (Notre Dame), perhaps that will explain part of my absence...

Let me think about it, write a blog or spend more time hanging out with Lin......

Probing questions...

I'm not a particularly intelligent guy, and any confession about lacking knowledge is hardly going to be a startling revelation to anyone, but that still doesn't dissuade me from continuing my ongoing quest to answer the important questions, and the current crop is as probably as intriguing as the lancing of a cyst, but I'll plough right in, anyway.

*Why do some people insist on keeping the tags on their baseball caps, and why are they predominantly B-people?
*Why does the Transport For London marketing campaign have the last two letters of 'London' in red?
*Did Pete Doherty really get one away with Kate Moss? If so, how?
*Is 'Test Drive My Girlfriend' the most ridiculous 'reality TV' program in history?
*Why do 'reality TV' shows anger me so much?
*If I was to draft Nick Dal Santo into my Fantasty Football Team, would he instantly have a long-term injury like Hadley and Darcy managed within days of me 'drafting' them?
*Does my drafting genetically alter people?
*Does anyone else have any idea about what I'm babbling about?
*How does Ricky Ponting fail to defend 434?
*Who would win a fight out of Pauline Hanson, and the band Hanson?
*How can the Brits be giving me shit about the CommGames when we doubled their medal tally?
*Why do the French riot every other month?
*Why doesn't Hugh Heffner answer my emails?
*Is 'Brokeback Mountain' a bad film to watch with another bloke?

I need to know these things...

I'm going to hell.....

DJD:- "Man, there are a lot of blind people around here. [Wembley]"
CBJ:- "You're right, I saw one this morning actually! But he didn't see me."
DJD:- *Laughing* "Shut up, you can't say that so loud, she [the blind woman] will hear you!"
CBJ:- "It's ok, she wont know who said it!"

Dog'o'rama...

It seems that most - if not all - of my predictions were somewhat incorrect, but there was definitely some success in the evening, even if it was geared around Doc throwing off his Barcelona form and displaying a surpisingly refreshing team mentality!

In the end though, getting out-drank by a Polish girl was not the most stellar of performances, but having been hilariously rejected by some English bird a few hours earlier, it was in perspective. It's kind of like Australia losing the Ashes, bound to happen every now and then, but to be fair, there were mitigating circumstances.

Predictions of tonight...

It's like 930pm and I'm about to head to the best club in London, the Spotted Dog in Willesden Green. This place is renowned as a hot-spot for English and Antipodean talent, and I am making the following predictions about tonight.

*DJD will pick up and shag the type of girl that you need a team of sherpas if you wish to attempt to ascend.
*BTLC is wearing a shirt reminiscent of scouts and/or truck drivers from the US Highway crew. He will Stockholm-up and do some dodgy girl down an alley, and I'm not referring to a street location, type alley.
*Doc will be moody, awaiting for some Iranian to assault him.
*CBJ will get into a random brawl with either a drunken Pom or some Doc-moody-making-Iranian.
*TheShearer will be angry for not being a part of the festivities.

How do you spell 'ominous foreshadowing'?

An update will be given tomorrow as to the outcome of tonight's activities.

Fact!

Back in the saddle...

It's almost the three month anniversary since my last post, and although I was really hoping I could achieve this landmark, the avalanche of emails begging me to start posting was the impetus for this phenomenal return.

I've thrown in a ludicrous picture of me standing in the middle of the Daugava river, in Riga, Latvia. As you can see, not only have I morphed into a cone-head, but I've also mastered the 'ridiculous pose'. It takes a lot of application to be able to perform to that level.

Random musings...

Just a few questions and ponderings I've been recently having...

*Is there anyone happier than I am, seeing England being completely destroyed by Pakistan?
*Speaking of Pakistan, why is there significantly little press about Yasir Arafat being in the team. Surely this is going to cause instability somewhere in the world?!
*If Andrew Flintoff fell over in a forest, and Kevin Pietersen wasn't there, would we believe it?
*How many more failures can the rancid Andrew Symonds have before he's dropped from the Australian test team?
*Apparently some of the recently arrested 'terrorists' "spoke of killing the PM" - haven't we all?
*Seriously though, when can we have a change of government in Australia? I'm sick of the increasing strength in the Australian dollar, and I'd really love it to crash so that my GBP is worth something. This is insane! Get Labour in power, there's no surer way to fuck up the economy and bring the Australian Rupee back to how it should be.
*News article "Snowy hydro sale plan worries Brumby" - does anyone else find this funny? Where's Clancy? Is Tom Burlinson gearing up for another movie on the basis of this? I need to know these things!
*Nauru is fighting to save having it's only Airplane from being repossessed as they are behind on their payments. Does hilarity have no bounds? Surely this is the perfect time for Australia to step in and trade them some payments for them housing some of our troublesome population?! "Nauruan Government Officials could not be contacted late yesterday" - Perhaps we can help them out with their phone bill, too.
*The Romans managed to bring infrastructure to Bath almost 2000 years ago, and yet even now the streets of London stink and there's refuse (and not just antipodeans) laying everywhere.... you'd think some lessons would be learnt?!
*'The Office' is the best TV series I've seen for quite awhile, but then again, it doesn't get any better than Slough, really, it doesn't.

Travis who???

In round 1, 1984, Gary Ablett made his senior debut for the Cats, and those of us there were wondering how some midfielder had captured our imagination more than Mark Jackson, who booted 9 goals that day. Not only did Ablett give us Geelong supporters real hope, but he pretty much guarenteed that most of us had the famous number 5. Since Ablett's retirement, noone has pulled on the number 5 down at Kardinia Park (and it'll always be Kardinia for us), and it's pretty much the way we like it. Aside from Nate or Junior pulling it on, it should be retired, not to be given to some young muppet called Travis Varcoe. Sorry Trav, you're probably a good lad and maybe some day you'll be good enough to do well in the AFL, but not wearing a number 5.

Hopefully I'll be wrong, and Travis Varcoe will be the 'next big thing', but I get the distinct impression that this is going to end very ugly and that I'm going to be enraged further, particularly when Travis plays his first game and someone refers to him as 'an excitement machine'.

It can only end badly.

News from the homeland...

For most part, I enjoy being ignorant, and for those of you that know me, this will not come as too much of a surprise, but recently I've actually checked the news once or twice every few weeks, and since I'm now living in the UK, it seems only natural that I would concentrate on what is happening in Australia, since it's obviously the most relevant.

However, after having read that Jelena Dokic was 43.9% welcome to play for Australia again, I bypassed the Australian news, because - quite frankly - such lunacy makes me angry. Not as angry as Leigh Colbert, but seething with rage, nonetheless. As such, I was news-derived-rage free for a short period of time, until I recently heard about the riots in Sydney. Initially, I thought that it was going to Redferne kicking off, or some latte sipping Bondi natives attacking Manly beach in a jealous rage. But when the real reason was revealed to me, I literally punched my desk.

I have very strong objections to this kind of behaviour, and if these people (and by 'these people', I'm referring to all the rioters) cannot live within the framework of our country, then they can just fuck right off. If you're against Australia, two words - fuck off! Go back to your 'homelands' or - if you're some redneck hillybilly Australian, then you should be sent to either Maralinga, or Moe. There should be no place for these people.

Perhaps - and I'm just thinking out loud here - we should send them all to Nauru. I had a mate that once lived there, and he turned out OK. Hmmr. Or if we can't send them to Nauru, how about some real Reality TV?! Leb & Redneck Running Man! And what's more, I'm completely serious about this. Not only would we soon sort out our 'racial issues' but we'd generate enough television revenue to be able to counsel our entire population.

Happy days.

Jelena Dokic

I was checking out the Herald-Sun website (mainly because I can't understand the big words 'The Age' uses) and I noticed there was an internet poll. The question was;

"Are you happy for Jelena Dokic to play for Australia again?"

I was stunned!

Not only did I wake up my house-mates screaming, 'NO FUCKING WAY!' but I started shaking, shaking violently.

Obviously, I voted no!

I then checked the results. Has the country gone mad? 43.9% of voters are happy for her to. Read that sentence again (and not merely for the amusement value of my grammar)!

This is like Hitler lobbing up in Tel-Aviv and having 27% of the Jewish population give him the thumbs up for residency. This is madness.

I'm angry now!

I'm grateful, however, of the new drinking laws here in Britain. I think I'll join the rest of the British population, get incredibly inebriated, and fight in the streets.

Five reasons people suspect I'm gay...

I'm going to be honest here, it's been awhile between drinks, so to speak, and although I'm not referring to my tardy posting, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what it is I speak of.

Anyway, I was talking to a chick at a club on Saturday night, and she asked me if I was gay, and unlike the previous time, I wasn't in the midst of an all-male orgy, so it wasn't instantaneously obvious why she'd be asking me, so I've compiled five random facts of my recent life (in no particular order) that could well shed some light onto this shocking claim/question.

1. I listened to Robbie Williams' 'Tripping' twice in a row, of my own free will.
2. My room has been neat for two weeks in a shared house.
3. I'm wearing a scarf to work these days.
4. I don't want to head to the USA for a business trip next week.
5. I had a guy say, 'And that's a good arse!' when seeing my naked rump!

Personally, I don't really understand people that think this, perhaps it's their aversion to Asparagus.

Iran...

Apparently Iran reckon that Israel should be 'wiped off the face of the earth'.

I'm so glad that Iran are trying to build a nuclear weapons program, it's these kinds of issues that make the world such a vibrant place.

Question is, what will the West do if the Israeli's decide to lay waste to Iran?

No doubt the UN will keep it all above board. ;-)