I'VE BEEN A BIT BUSY LATELY

Busy having a fricken awesome time. So I haven't been blogging. I'll try and correct that over the next few days. A quick update on my travels, we spent the weekend in Vegas where we rode a helicopter into the Grand Canyon, what an incredible experience! Then Gaz and I visited a gun range and got to fire a fully automatic MP5 machine gun and a pistol. Again a slightly scary but great experience, guns still scare the shiit out of me and probably more so now that I've fired some, but great fun. 

Vegas is both an awful place and an awesome place, especially when you win $300.00 on the roulette table like I did. Did it in one of the old school original casinos too, the Golden Nuggget. We stayed at New York New York, it's looking a bit tired these days and I think if I was to come back to Vegas then I would probably look for one of the newer spots to stay in.

Yesterday we left Vegas and drove along Route 66 to Flagstaff Arizona, I managed to photograph almost every 1950's style motel sign and garage/diner. This morning we woke to a thin layer of snow, which seek g as I have oh seen snow 3 times before I was fairly excited. Today we've mostly been hiking in the mountains around Sedona, Arizona. Stunning scenery. That's  a small snapshot of the past few days. There's so much more but l'll detail that soon I hope, Internet permitting.

USA USA

Day  two of the big trip and i'm still having trouble finding descent internet coverage to post much so it's  been a bit quiet here. will make the most of what I have right now to get a post done  (excuse any typos)

We survived a long haul from KL to LA and picked up our hire vehichle, now nicknamed Eddie. straight away we tackled a drive down to Anaheim ro get some sleep before we hit Disneyland the next day (yesterday) . Had an awesome time and managed to go on each ride at least twice, sometimes  thtree, benefit of going to Disney on the off season. Downside, a few attractions atrwe closed  for upkeep ect .

Today we started our cruise down Route 66 and made it aas far as Barstow where we hit the outlet stores and grabbed some serious winter gear for when we hit up New York in a few weeks. Grabbed some fantastic stuff and so cheap and I mean stupidly cheap.

Well the shitty internet situation is making it haro load my pics to flickr, so I only have a few done, hopefully when i'm in my Vegas hotel I can rectify that. So just a few for now and i probably wont be posting all that many pics and will just link here to Flickr for now
Holiday USA 2012 pics
Tomorrow it's  the Mojave desert and then Vegas

Disneyland 

LOOK OUT USA COS HERE WE COME

Stay tuned for some adventures from the road as we travel route 66 and attack Vegas and destroy New York City. Maybe a little Italian adventure on the way home....

New York City

The Grand Canyon

Not far to go then

Old Route 66

Vegas town

GREATEST ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIND EVER

I'd do the same 

FLASHBACK 2009

A tweet on twitter just reminded me of this post back in 2009 about the bouncy ball advert made in San Francisco, where they bounced 100,000 super balls down a street, good times....

SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW

Somebody That I Used to Know - Walk off the Earth (Gotye - Cover)

YOU WONT HEAR OF WATCH A BETTER COVER VERSION OF THIS SONG

yes I wrote that with caps on

HEY MARGARET HOW ABOUT YOU GO SHUSH NOW

Strongly religious people need not read any further for you WILL be offended.

Or the day I offended Margaret Court

Poor old Margaret Court, a true champion tennis player who became a born again Christian and then a bit of a gay basher. Well she isn't bashing the ones she cures of this "illness" in her church, she loves those homosexuals. Actually she says now that she loves all homosexuals it's just that they aren't equal in society like her and her fellow brethren. Look, Margs (I'm sure she wont mind me calling her Margs, cos we used to be neighbours you see, more on that in a moment) is as much entitled to her opinion as we all are. But she really shouldn't keep going on about how it's just cos the bible says it's wrong that she opposes homosexuality. That book also tells people to kill their neighbours and bash their wives and sodomise cats doesn't it? - yeah cats, pretty sure that's in there too. So it's not a good example really is it?

Anyway she's about to cop an eyeful of the colours of the gay flag during next weeks Australian Open, so that should be nice for her. I believe she has stated that colours are Christian and can be looked upon, Just not two people who love each other (wide arching comparison there I know but you get the point).

This whole event reminded me of how for a few years back in the 80's, when I had just become old enough to partake in the devils drink, I actually lived across the road from Margs over there in Nedlands. Her mansion/big house was down the end of the long driveway of the house across the road from ours....got that? Well the house across the road from ours was where we were going to hold a party one night in 84. A themed party, with "Back to the Bible" as that theme. Dress as your favourite biblical character was how the invites read and to create an atmosphere we set out to tart the house up all biblical like. The jewel in the crown of the decorations being our half naked doll nailed to a cross....

But the best bit was when sometime mid afternoon my house mate and I decided it was time to erect the crucifixion and as we were pushing the cross upright who should turn into the drive way at that exact same time? Old Margs of course and gathering from the look she gave us she was less than impressed that we were crucifying helpless children's toys right in her back yard. Ahh well, never mind, it was going to get worse once we cranked up that devil's music later in the evening, a little Malcolm McLaren or The Clash to kick it all of eh?

Tim, Brian and a dude who I really wish I could remember the name of. It looks like Tim is drinking Passiona there doesn't it? That's cos he is, I think penicillin and alcohol are a bad mix yeah? That's our Timmy

The big guy himself decided to drop by, no doubt somewhere between crucifixion and resurrection. Tim and the sunglasses at night guy seem to approve

ahhh Liz, that's all I'll say about her <3

getting our drink on

we actually thought these were really funny at the time, I think our senses of humour have developed since

and now girls

NOT AN AWARD WINNING POST

 just some pictures

KITCHEN TALES # 6

It's been a while since I reminisced about my days as a chef, I guess it's just getting further and further behind me and I rarely think about it any more. Today though I read an article that got me back thinking that way again. It was titled...."Do Restaurant Chef's really spit on food?" Oh not that old chestnut again. This is the article....

A waiter at Per Se, one of New York City's top-rated restaurants, reveals secrets and debunks some urban legends surrounding food service culture:

 "Then you have the couple that goes and has sex in the bathroom—that happens quite a lot. You have people who throw up—they throw up a lot. There was one woman—it was a VIP tasting menu, I remember this: She just threw up on the table, in the middle of an extended tasting menu. They cleaned it up, and she 'boot-and-rallied.' She finished the meal." 

The anonymous waiter also reveals that when drinking wine at a restaurant, the cost of a glass is often what the restaurant paid for the bottle. "That's the only way that we make money on it," the waiter tells New York Magazine. And thankfully, one of the least appetizing restaurant rumors, chefs spitting in a diner's food, is more imagination than reality, at least according to the source: 

"[T]he cooks work 70 or 80 hours a week and make next to nothing, but they work because they want to cook. And to do that to something, to spit in prep work that someone has spent eight hours of work on—blood, sweat, and tears and all—it's just not done." 

There is at least one heart-warming anecdote as well, on how a special trip out to eat can be memorable for the waiting staff as well: 

"There's nothing more fun than to wait on someone who is genuinely interested in the food. You'll get a couple that comes in, and this is their one time a year, and they're just so happy to be at the restaurant. There was this kid blogger, he was like 16 or 17, and he had blogged about how he was saving up his allowance to come to Per Se. And he did. He came by himself and had lunch."

So the anonymous waiter from Per Se has cleared that all up for us and he even threw a couple of heart warming stories into the pot as well. Look, anonymous waiter dude is right, chef's just don't spit on food. Why would they? You wouldn't get to see the person eat it, so where's the fun in that? Plus you'd have to answer to every other staff member in the kitchen who had a any sort of morals or ethics (hard to believe chefs had these I know but it's true.). In an 18 year career as a chef, in numerous kitchens across the world, I never once saw a chef do anything like that, well only this once, but I'm still not overly proud of that moment even today.

Yell at you, yes. Tell you to get the fuck out of his restaurant, yes. Tell you to get the fuck out of his kitchen, oh yes. Throw a meal across the kitchen, yes. Call you every name under the sun until you start to tear up, yes. But spit on your food, not unless it becomes the new way to make a foam, no.

Random pic of a sweaty little French Chef I was apprenticed to for about 6 months. He only knew fairly classical dishes so it wasn't long before a) he had nothing more to teach me and b) management let him go. Nice guy though. This was New Years Eve 1983/84 (Steve's Hotel, Nedlands)

WHEN STATS ATTACK

I love this time of the year, it's around the time of the Improv Everywhere's No Pants Subway rides. They happen all over the world but mostly in New York. I did a story on it back in 2008 which you can read here. What happens is my visitor stats go off the wall because people start googling for images of the event and this pic, which I posted with the 08 story, pops up in google images....

....so my blog gets 100's of hits a day, hilarious. I admit it's a nice pic but I was hoping they were coming here for my charm and wit. Alas no, proof yet again that the Internet is just for porn and funny cats hahaha

FORGET 300

Try 30 versus 30,000. This video made by the BBC shows 30 deadly Japanese hornets attack and destroy a 30,000 strong European honey bee nest, all synced to epic battle music. The version featuring the BBC commentary can be seen here, that version explains exactly what's going on and why 30 can wipe pout so many. In some ways this is a sad clip or you could just think of it as mother nature being a complete bitch. Either way there's some excellent kick arse filming techniques involved here.

Once a Japanese giant hornet has located a hive of European honey bees it leaves pheromone markers around it, that within a short time attract nest mates that quickly converge on the hive. A single hornet can kill forty European honey bees in a minute and a group of 30 hornets can finish off an entire hive containing 30,000 bees in a little more than three hours. The hornets not only kill the bees, but also dismember them, leaving heads and limbs behind, to finally return to their nest with the bee thoraxes which they feed to their larvae

ON ANY GIVEN SUNDAY

I try to do as little as possible, but not this Sunday, oh no. Last opportunity to use up my free ticket to the Princely Treasures Exhibition at the Art Gallery. So I strolled over to Nells (who loves that stuff more than I do) and hit up a bit of culture. Passed some mods on the way (err not since the late 80's I think)....

Then down through Hyde Park because it's beautiful and because I love lamp....

cruised through Northbridge towards the gallery, where I noticed a keyboard ....up there

culture time

Feeling cultured yet? I was feeling seriously hungry so we hopped across a couple of blocks and hit up The Tuck Shop on Newcastle st and had a pie. Not an ordinary pie, a Tuck Shop pie. Nells had the Beef and Stilton and I downed this beauty, the Chicken and Tarragon with a side order of hand cut chips. Delish, try one soon, you'll thank me for the tip.

Then it was time to walk off all that wonderful puff pastry etc etc, back through Hyde Park where all the red bits are falling off now that Christmas has come and gone. I'm still full from that pie.

HERE ARE THE YOUNG MEN

The series “Here are the young men”(The Netherlands – Afghanistan, 2009-2010) show photos of Dutch marines deployed to Afghanistan. These marines are young boys, full of excitement and expectations who are being sent to a war zone. There they are confronted with pain, sadness and death.  

Will something appear on their faces of these experiences? To find an answer to this question Claire Felicie photographed the marines of the 13th infantry company of the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps, before, during and after their deployment in Uruzgan.

Before-During-After

You can catch more from the series and a heap of other great pics here at her website

SINGAPORE SLING

Nic got some good air out front of Universal Studios in Singapore just the other day

For the rest of Nic's awesome jumping pics click here

IS THAT A LION IN YOUR BED OR ARE YOU JUST PLEASED TO SEE ME

As you do; Living with a Lion, 1970s

All images by Michael Rougier / LIFE archive

My thoughts? Insane, it's a friggen lion. I've tried to find a story behind these pics but have failed completely. if anyone has a link please share. I really have to know if it snacked on any family members ever....

WHEN I GET TO NEW YORK IN 3 WEEKS

This probably wont happen...

okay- what you are about to watch is a true new york experience. what originally started out as a typical nyc subway ride turned into an awesome performance by two people who have never met before. i captured the whole thing on video.

but I really hope it does

FRIDAY ARVO MUSIC

Play loud and use at your own discretion

MYER'S IS MY STORE'S

I'm guessing the advertising department at MYER is kicking someone fairly hard in the butt about now. So many banners printed with a very bad typo. Grammar nazi heaven really.....let's get's it right MYER.

Somebody was sent around with bits of black tape to cover up the mistake, but I kind of feel the gap this created looks worse. I guess they didn't have a ladder big enough to reach the one in the first pic.

So what is this sign saying now? That S is the right size? This is so discriminatory against the M, L and XL's amongst us!

OLD PERTH # 14

A then and now moment

An old trolley bus, photo taken by Lindsay Bridge in September 1966



A Flickr member shared this pic with me and left this comment

It's at the terminus in Louth Rd, Floreat Park. The location is virtually the same today, albeit that the house on the right has been tarted up a bit. A group of us posed a modern bus in the same spot on a tour marking the 40th anniversary of the closure of Perth's trolleybus system.