Sunday, January 23, 2005

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

three and three quarter stars

just booked hotel for kate and i on internet for next weekend, hope it works. should be fun. if kate still likes me. or even recognises me...

went to the antica ciocciolata cafe with susan at the end of our after work shopping foray, got a couple of little cakey slice things;
susan, with first bite of cake in mouth; "pfwargh! holy shit, these things are fucking brilliant!"
they made us happy...
bought shoes, got new grown-up looking seiko watch, saw super-parka; amazing furry hood the size of iceland, $800 on sale though...tempting..


broadband internet on tomorrow, so more efficient blog and correspondence pix etc.

went to less love, cool.
best sushi and sashimi i've ever had (not had much) at sushimitei; susan say as good as tokyo.

three and three quarter stars

just booked hotel for kate and i on internet for next weekend, hope it works. should be fun. if kate still likes me. or even recognises me...

went to the antica ciocciolata cafe with susan at the end of our after work shopping foray, got a couple of little cakey slice things;
susan, with first bite of cake in mouth; "pfwargh! holy shit, these things are fucking brilliant!"
they made us happy...
bought shoes, got new grown-up looking seiko watch, saw super-parka; amazing furry hood the size of iceland, $800 on sale though...tempting..

broadband internet on tomorrow, so more efficient blog and correspondence pix etc.

went to less love, cool.
best sushi and sashimi i've ever had (not had much) at sushimitei; susan say as good as tokyo.

Sunday, January 16, 2005

south of the border

west of the sun... just read the haruki murakami book of that name, existential love story, good but bleak, but perhaps not as bleak as sartre's nausea, mb that book is doing you no good, ronan; to much intensity and hunting for that stripped back raw existential reality, not enough amusing hypocritical frivolity.
There's plenty of existence but less love here; there is actually a bar called less love, susan and lisa found it and then lost it and then rediscovered it but it was closed... very poetic really

Things are a wee bit windswept and wintery here, sun low in the sky, pale winter sunlight diffused through the smog that drifts in from factories of Zhuhai. The bitey wind blowing in from wherever, biting... that sort of thing. I almost bought a parka the other day, an ok "i can see myself in the wintery streets of some cold but culturally inspiring and fun european city" sort of coat (perhaps i have too much invested in the coat...) however, as i crossed the street to get a second opinion , a woman came up and bought it for her son who obviously didn't, and would never ever fit into it (in cantonese- "you'll grow into it.") bastard coat weasels.. anyway, i'm sure there will be another one.

things are not really all that bleak, kate arrives on the 28th and DJ krush is playing at club ing on the 29th so i will get some leave and spend a few days in HK with her (wooing) shopping (at goods of desire, perhaps) and looking....

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

pie in the sky

we had the sanderson's annual appreciation dinner the other night, usually it is the christmas dinner, but everyone was a little busy then. The dinner was held in the 26th floor revolving restaurant of the hotel grandeur. tasty food, some interesting people, very loud karaoke. I played mahjong and learnt various useful things, such as the meanings of some of the characters and how to pronounce the names of the pieces.

some people fared better than others in the alcohol consumption stakes..
rachael rang me at 12:15 ; "simon, I'm at home, but i think maybe i should go to Bex (bar)...just for a little while..."
"I think you should go to sleep. I'm already in bed, i was just about to turn off the light ..."
"how did you get home and in bed so quickly? alright,.. maybe i'll stay in"
the next day Earl, one of the painters, rang rachael at work
"rach? I'm in china somewhere...I'm so drunk....oh, rach, I owe ya one..i don't know what happened"

out from out where...

The strange thing about extreme situations is how quickly they become normal; by the end of the golden dragon job it began to feel odd if our working day didn't last at least 14 hours. we are now working eight hours a day; we finish during daylight and have time in which to pursue leisure activities, i played basketball with suwan and susan and the went to the cinema and saw kung fu hustle (stephen chow; v.funny). The trouble with all this time is that i then have time to be aware of my situation; stuck in a country smaller than ballarat missing my friends, working in strange soulless environments, I find that i finish work and wonder what to do...no wonder the people that stay for a long time become a little odd...

i have copied most of my music onto the ipod now, so my alienation has a soundtrack. it's nice, it makes everything seem less meaningless. the shuffle function is cool, like having the perfect radio station; odd songs pop up out of context. i have been enjoying naming music categories, since the itunes ones (pop, rock etc.) are so inadequate, i've, now got melancholy, with guitars, blip/click and icelandic as well as others more obscure. I now have a 2 1/2 days of music on a thing the size of half a slice of (thick) toast

bought lullatone "little songs about raindrops" cute and xylophonic. it may cheer me up. perhaps i should look at squirrels. i have my camera now so i will try to post some photos, mb even of squirrels, on the blog

on the waterfront

I spent three days painting the colliseum spelling? next to old spain and morocco. kind of surreal. a little bit scary, climbing up a three storey bamboo scaffold and hanging around with paintbrushes and buckets trying to simulate sandstone. I didn't fall off though. After finishing Golden Dragon we have been banished to fisherman's wharf, a huge collection of buildings that will become a casino/entertainment precinct taking up about as much space as the flinders st-lane-elizabeth st-swanston block, with a volcano, venetian canals, babylon and various other misplaced wonders of the world. It seems that this will be our home for the time being and our time will spent carving bricks wood and rocks, kind of soothing/boring.

We may be in exile for the rest of our time here as there have been (well substantiated) rumours of dissatisfaction with the work of the australian carvers being of poor quality, this is reasonable in some ways as there were some things that looked really bad, however some of the problem lay in designers giving us terrible drawings; anatomically incorrect figures and bad multiple figure compositions as well a odd squiggles that worked to fill up the paper, but didn't translate into 3d carving particularly well. Some of us recognised these problems and corrected them more capably than others. Being used to working alone, I'm used to being judged on my own merits and so it's upsetting to feel that my work been lumped together with work that is of a much poorer standard, (there is some other great work, which is cool...) i feel like i have no control over my reputation, and that could be difficult if i needed a reference from this job. I need to round up everyones photos of my work, so i've got some record of what a spent the last two months on...we will see what happens. it would be nice to have a straightforward discussion instead of hearing all these secondhand comments...

on the waterfront

Monday, January 03, 2005

dancefloor crimes

went to honky for new year.
dell, you would have been amused
rachael and i had too much fun
i committed terrible dancefloor crime but fortunately memory is hazy
let's just call it "honky new year rampage.."

still love you all but the whips are being cracked and the overtime piled like pancakes
got my computer and ipod though..

will post more soon
have sent cash to all needy. sorry about delay..