5 YEARS SERIOUSLY

That went way too fast, happy belated 5th birthday YeLPar (yeah so I missed it....I was busy)

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SERGEI LARENKOV

Many times I've stood in a street or a square in Europe or wherever and wondered what events had occurred or which people had passed by this very place. It's a bit like walking into a ruined castle and trying to imagine what it was like when people actually lived in it.

It's rare that the reality is as nice as the imagined I'm sure.

Sergei Larenkov has taken a group of photos taken during WW2 and the siege of Leningrad and merged them with present day shots using as exact as possible the same perspective.

You can find all of them here. Fantastic stuff

If you like all of this sort then have a peek at some other similar stuff I posted previously.

WORDLE THIS

Wordle is a fun toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. I've had a play with it using a bunch of different text, some using the most popular tags from my flickr account and some words from using this blog.

Someone say snapshot of your life?

You can make your own here.

my blog

my flickr tags

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KASKADE MOVE FOR ME

Because I'm semi famous and thus by default semi cool, one of my contacts on IMEEM is Kaskade himself and it was he who searched me out on there, thus making me even cooler.

Ha!

Anyhoo he sent me an email this morning with his sort of semi new song/clip attached, with instructions to share it round and and so as not to risk failing at this task and suddenly going back to being dorky and uncool here it is....

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CORALINE

At the risk of stealing Tiffs blog post in its' entirety I give you this lil toy. Nice find Tiff.

You can grab your own here.

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CRUISIN THE INTRAMANET

A quiet Friday night at home wondering why the hell my new phone wont stop sending out reminder beeps when there is nothing to remind me about. I hate this phone.

So I'm just gonna relax with a few brewskies and some char sui chicken wings (my secret shame) and check out some of the 162 blogs I have somehow managed to bookmark, delete the dead ones and post some cool stuff I find along the way.

Starting with this.

I love a good music festival but seriously we do not have anything that can ever compare to Coachella....do we? huh? nup we don't.

Look at this lineup....Paul McCartney, Morrissey, the Cure, Leonard Cohen and My Bloody Valentine. Franz Ferdinand, the Killers, TV on the Radio, Anthony and the Johnsons, Thievery Corporation, Crystal Castles, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Silversun Pickups and Lupe Fiasco. The list goes on. Yeah okay Paul McCartney may be pushin it a bit but it would be cool to say that you saw him once....wouldn't it?

Loving this

Two city construction road signs near the University of Texas were hacked Monday morning warning the residents of Austin that a zombie attack was imminent.

via

And this is why I love flickr so much
Where's Michael

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SUPERSTITIONS IVE HAD A FEW

I don't consider myself a particularly superstitious person, although I may have to rethink that after I write this post. I was just reading the latest post at one of my fav blogs Waiter Rant and it sparked some memories of how I've been sucked into the superstition trap.

The worst of these is not so much the ones you develop on your own, it's the ones imposed upon you by others. Granted I have to be susceptible to allow this but that's just it, at times I can be.

A good example is a few years back I was working with a guy, name of Hads, up at Woodstock Abidos in the Pilbara. We were just cruisin around each day in a Toyota tray back with an iPod blasting away, good times. But Hads had this crappy superstition about how you could not leave the volume level on an odd number. "no way man that's bad luck". At first I laughed it off, but after the 3rd or 4th time I realised he was dead serious, now today a good 4 years later I still have to stop myself from moving the volume to an even number.

Far out.

I used to play a lot of soccer on my weekends in various leagues, mostly as a goal keeper and oh man wasn't that a mine field of superstitious acts. I always had to have my laces threaded through my boots a certain way. I always put my goal keeping gloves on in a certain order and if I punched my left hand with my right fist I had to reciprocate with the right hand and left fist. Exactly the same number of punches as well. If I had a good game, made some good saves I'd look back at things I had done, which song I had been humming in my head, that sort of thing.

Therapy has relieved me of these burdens for now ;) but I just know there's some more "phobias" waiting for me somewhere. So I guess I have been particularly superstitious in my time but god help the next person who dumps one of theirs on me.

Did someone say "ladder, broken mirror, black cat"
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STAR WARS RETOLD BY SOMEONE WHO ONLY SAW BITS OF IT

So there's this girl who's only seen bits of the Star Wars movies and her buddy asked her to....

Well he did this...

My friend Amanda had never seen a whole Star Wars film. When I asked her if she wanted to watch the original trilogy she said that she would, but that she already knew what happens. So I took out my voice recorder and asked her to start from the top.

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Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.
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RANDOM IMAGES # 20

I'm loving this picture. From the rust in the frame to the speedy cat cartoon to the rolled up jeans right through to the tubby guy with the hottie girlfriend.

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AN ORANGE ON AUSTRALIA DAY

In case you hadn't noticed today was Australia Day or Invasion Day, depending on your background. I've just sat through one of the worst quiz nights I've ever been to. The theme was Australia, natch, however and interestingly the questions were written by a New Zealander. Which explains a bit. Appalling questions, but a bit of fun at least.

I get to go home tomorrow and it's not a day too soon, this ones been a tough one physically, I guess I'm paying for a lazy summer.

I did see something new this trip though, a native orange, someone noticed the flowers blooming on a tree at the side of the road and one of the Aboriginal lads with us said to stop. There were about 8 oranges hanging on the tree and we think this one was almost ripe, so I might sample it when I get back here in 2 weeks time.

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A CRAZY PLACE THIS PILBARA

So all week I've been complaining about the weather and how it's been hitting 50 degrees when all of a sudden this happens....

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....mostly due to a cyclone forming off the coast at the mo. I'm outa here and heading home tomorrow so I'll escape all of this. This part of the world is awesome hahaha.

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THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO SMILE

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T-mobile advert which was filmed at 11am on Thursday 15th January 2009 at Liverpool Street station, London. If this doesn't make you go smile you're dead inside.

Track List
1)Lulu - Shout
2)Yazz - The only way is up
3)Pussycat Dolls - Don't cha
4)Viennese Waltz
5)Kool & the Gang
6)Rainbow - Since you've been gone
7)Millie Small - My Boy Lollipop
8)Contours - Do you love me
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A WEEKEND FULL OF LOVE

First Annie and now this. I so have to get off my butt and get on with licencing my own Vespa.

How awesome is this Vespa in all of its' awesome awesomeness.

Carlos Alberto's hand made wooden Vespa

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HOW GUNS SAVE LIVES

This is my blog and it's meant to be my stories but this is too good not to share.

How playing with toy guns saved my life

• Beryl Bainbridge
• The Guardian, Monday 19 January 2009
• Article history

It appears that Mexico is contemplating banning the sale of toy guns; it isn't, however, thinking of blocking gangster and murder films, or the portrayal of violent events on television screens. I looked up the history of Mexico in one of my reference books, but the index was so complicated that apart from mention of frequent wars with the US, I learnt nothing as to why Mexicans should suddenly start worrying about toys.

I grew up in the 1940s, my childhood filled with the sound of Home Guards marching down to the seashore to enact conflict with invading Germans. My brother, older than me, had a toy gun, but he swapped it for postage stamps. They had stopped making toys in those days, so I made a rifle out of the handle of a yard brush with a drawing of a bullet stuck to the top. With this I ran around the field at the back of my house, happily firing. It didn't make me long for a real weapon, which is understandable seeing that my parents and teachers taught me that shooting someone is sinful.

When I had children of my own I bought a lot of cheap Woolworths guns, made of metal and objects worthy of display. We went to the park and shot Red Indians, something which these days one is not supposed to mention.

I now have grandchildren and 30 or more guns. The children's parents won't allow their offspring to be seen in public with these toys, which means they find it exciting to go to grandma's and get at the weapons.

I think playing with toy guns as a child taught me a valuable lesson that paid off 30 years ago when my mother-in-law graced me with a less than friendly visit. As a mother, she had abandoned her children and in old age had arrived at the conclusion that I was her, and needed punishing. Calling round one morning she advanced up the stairs towards me, drew a handgun out of her bag and gripped the trigger. Used to combat, I flew towards her and jerked up her arm. The bullet thudded into the plaster above and brought down the ceiling.

I don't think she'd played with guns as a girl, and I didn't press charges. A year later she threw herself under a train.

via

ANNIE I LOVE YOU

We have a fairly crappy Foxtel music channel up here in the camp called Max, I shouldn't say crappy because it plays some pretty good old school stuff but at times it's like a moving picture version of 96fmbogan central if you get my drift,

Anyhoo the Eurythmics "would I lie to you" just came on, great song and it reminded me of a teenage crush I may have had on Annie Lennox. Now this wasn't all that cool a thing to admit back then as Annie was a tad androgynous and not your typical sexy pop star. But I thought and still do think she's sensational.

I saw them in concert here in Perth many years ago and I also had a moment linked to them that I wont forget for a long time and well I wrote about that back here

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Annie and her famous red bra live at the Munich Open Air in 1987

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THERE IS NO CRYING IN ARCHAEOLOGY

I try to live by this motto, but today I may allow some tear duct action.

I am going insane.

I don't think I can take much more, I may actually go nuclear very soon.

It's not the 50 + degree heat (and rising) that's doing it either, it's the god damn good for nothing flies, quadzillions of em (It's a word), they are driving my team and myself insane. I've never seen anything like this in the 7 years that I've been coming up here.

Just to prove my point have a look at this pic of Ross's back, then try counting em all, then add to that number the dozens that are constantly flying up/into your mouth, nose, ears and landing on any naked flesh they can find. It's like we're walking corpses who's stench attracts every filthy annoying shitty fly that can smell us.

Insane I tell ya, INSANE.

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NICK CAVE A REVIEW

So I couldn't go to the Nick Cave gig last Tuesday night, due to me being 100km's away from the venue at the time. So I asked karks to send me a full review. Sounded like fun :)

so it started a little something like this.....

song 1> a youngin’ scaled the fence and security were running
through the crowd and he made it into the middle of the mosh
pit before being caught by 5 security guards!

song 2> security conglomerate front row of the mosh pit and try
dragging some guy out. nick stops the concert...and yells ‘leave
him alone’. they didn’t...so he kept yelling ‘fucking leave him alone’
then once it was all over he said ‘since when was it a crime to dance?’
the security guards were consoling each other on the sidelines.

second last song> nick is doing his usual gyrating moves at the front of
the stage and he stops and looks down at someone in the crowd and
says ‘were you touching my cock?’ then ‘jesus, I cant believe I just said that’. with a final comment of ‘I am a fifty fucking one year old!’

very funny. the sound wasn’t great and I thought he played a few too many ‘hits’ but as marco quite rightly pointed out they are all ‘hits’.

So that kinda sucks that I missed all of that, but I'll see him again and again and again......
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THINGS YOU OBAMA

Today was a good day, this dude became President, the world is a changin.

This is a satellite image of the crowds at the inauguration.

click here for a hi res version that you can zoom into.

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SUN ARISE

Another awesome sunrise over the camp this morning. Sadly it masks 45 + degree heat and flies by the millions. Not a bad payoff though...........I guess.

Another shot but in a larger format over at YeLPanorama

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SIGN AWAY YOUR DRIVE

Along the way to Cairns we drove through some stunning scenery, we didn't have time to stop and you don't stop really do you , so i snapped a few pics from the passengers seat. After I noticed that I'd captured a whole set of road signs, well road signs with some fairly awesome backdrops.

UPDATED WITH SPEED

A pic that with an unexpected finish, snapped on my Queensland odyssey last christmas. See it in a larger format at YeLPanorama.

LUNCH SPOTS

This is where I ate my lunch today, with the Fortescue marsh in the foreground and the Hammersley Ranges way over there in the distance (left side horizon). Where did you eat yours?

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A CHILLY START TO THE DAY

Saw this on the news this morning and after a quick flickr search there's some great first hand photos appearing. Flickr is always good for this sort of thing, the one below was taken and posted by a guy called grego and he has kindly allowed others to use it. The original sized pic can be found here - be warned though it's pretty big

What's coolest about this photo is that it was taken just moments after the crash landing and the news services are using ones taken much later.

It made me think back to my own experience with a bird strike

a heap of others from flickr are here and a blog I read called i'm not sayin, i'm just sayin has created a flight path map of the plane.
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GET YA DAILY NEWS HEEYAH

Okay I think this might be my final post on the beer festival, I'm a bit done with it all and I've managed to have a couple of cold beers since it all unfolded so there's now a renewed balance in the universe.

I do have to post this though, mostly because I'm in it ha! Big thanks to Waz for scanning it (straight) as I'm up in the Pilbara at the mo and no access to this issue of The Voice.

The Voice newspaper Friday 16th January 2009

I also want to share this comment placed here by Chris, you can check out his blog on all things beer at The Alcohol Advisory.

This is an email I got back from Independent Events, after asking their opionion of the festival since they were organising the bars.
_________________________________

Hey Chris,
I’m happy to answer your enquiry and I’ll just state from the outset here that the following isn’t an excuse but a tale of how even the most experienced operator can get caught out.

I can only comment here on the bar service side of things here.

Range of beers

WABA would have been welcome contributor to this event but after a meet with the promoters simply didn’t want to get involved. The event organizers were very disappointed that the industry wouldn’t support them. It’s important to state here that it was the event organizers that put their houses on the line to make this event happen not the Brewers Association. Independent Events also offered the promoters advise based on our experience as event operators but once we have given them that advise we respect that they are entitled to make the final decisions in regards to the event.

The responses varied but as a whole the following organizations and breweries either wouldn’t return our calls or allow us to buy the product to sell at the event. All breweries were offered free tap points at the festival so cost wasn’t the issue.

· Bootleg Brewery
· Colonial Brewing Company
· Cowaramup Brewing Company
· Nail Brewing
· Occy’s Brewery
· Wicked Ale Brewery
· Duckstein Brewery
· Tanglehead Brewing Company
· Mad Monk Freo (Brewery Restaurant)
· Little Creatures Brewing
· Elmar’s In The Valley
· Feral Brewing Company
· Gage Roads Brewing Company
· Indian Ocean Brewing Company
· Billabong Brewery
· Mash Brewing Company
· Matilda Bay Brewing Company
· Blackwood Valley Brewing Company
· Last Drop Brewery
· Ironbark Brewing
· Jarrah Jacks Brewery

They presented at the event every single beer that was available to them which were the following;

DRAFT

· Abbott Ale Draft
· Becks
· Boags Draft
· Coopers Lager
· Coopers Light
· Coopers Pale
· Coopers Sparkling
· Greene King IPA
· Greene King Mild
· Guinness
· Heiniken
· Hobgoblin English Ale
· Hofbrau Dark Lager
· Hofbrau Hefe Weizen
· Hofbrau Lager
· James Squire Amber ale
· James Squire Golden ale
· Kilkenny
· Warsteiner
· Weihenstephan Hefe
· Weihenstephan Pilsner

CANS

· Abbott Ale (500ml)
· Belhaven Scotish Draft Cans
· Boddingtons
· Greene King IPA 500ml
· Heiniken
· Hobgoblin Ruby Beer
· Hobgoblin Strong Dark Ale 500ml
· London Pride
· Old Specled Hen
· Wexford Irish Cream Ale

BOTTLES

· Belhaven Scotch Ale 335ml
· Green Goblin Cider 500ml
· Indian Pale Ale
· Nut Brown Ale
· Old Brewery Pale Ale
· Organic Best Ale
· Organic Lager
· Pheonix 350ml
· Real Belgium Pils
· Rose
· Spitfire

Lines and running out

The closest model we had when ordering and staffing this event is the West Coast Blues and Roots Festival in Fremantle which attracted 14,000 people and draft beer sales were 25% of sales and we had 16 bartenders and 16 tap points in the draft beer stall. The math we applied?

· 25% of that is 3500

· Ticket sales for this event on the Saturday was 3000 so may-be we’ll see 4000 at the most so using this formula 16 taps and 16 bartenders was the minimum requirement.

· To cover ourselves we had 30 bartenders 24 taps on the main bar, 6 taps on the FM liquor Stall (which also packaged), plus the Phoenix Stall and the Lionel Sampson Stall. The event also had a Wine and Slushie Stall open.

Pre event it appeared that we had all bases covered. As it turned out this wasn’t the case. There wasn’t a 90 minute wait for a beer as you state below but initially it was 45 minutes, which is totally unacceptable. We called in another 20 staff and by 6.00pm the wait was 15 minutes and by 7.00 or 8.00pm the queues had gone and we had regained control of the venue. We then worked through the night and installed 7 more bars and the following day there was no queuing at all.


Warm beer

Again no excuse but to respond to your enquiry I can offer the following explanation. The beers were cold all day except for a short period of time in the in the Pheonix Beer Stall. Here we went through half a pallet, which we had stored in our cool room on site for 4 days, in an hour which we simply weren’t prepared for. We had warm back up stock in our warehouse which we bought onto site and it took about an hour to get down to temperature. It was during this time that the Pheonix bottles weren’t cold. The bartenders told everyone that it was warm and some of the punters, out of desperate need for a beer, put ice in the cups. I probably would have done the same thing if I was in 35 degree heat and had been queuing for a drink for half an hour.

My understanding of the beer festival in Fremantle was that it was a financial disaster and they also had mass queuing. I actually boosted the tap points and staff determined not to have the same happen at this event but still had huge issues. We’re as disappointed as anyone about the start of the festival but we quickly regained control of the event and any mistakes learned won’t be repeated if given the opportunity to do this style of event again.

Craig happy to talk about any aspect of the event from our side of things should you wish to discuss it further. My office number is 9328 1841.

I hope this offers you some insight on what happened from our side of things.

Regards

Marcus

I've posted this so that all sides get a chance to speak. Interesting info in there. I have nothing more to add except that i hope they manage to do it better next year. Good luck.

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RANDOM IMAGES # 19

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PERTH BEER FESTIVAL UPDATE II

Email arrived this morning

Stuart,

Thank you for your feedback. Acos Events apologises for your disappointment.

Please forward your banking details for a refund.

Acos Event Management

So a success of sorts. But I'm still not totally happy, why, because it really wasn't just about the money. It was a heap of other things, not least of all the feeling of being taken for a ride and mostly the disappointment that again Perth just doesn't get it right.

Fingers crossed that Perth does get it right one day and fingers crossed those that put these things on learn from it. But when it all comes down to it.........it's just beer and we shouldn't get sad about beer, beer is a happy thing, well at least the first 4 usually are ;)

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GIDEONS BIBLE

Sing it with me

Now somewhere in the black mining hills of Dakota
There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon
And one day his woman ran off with another guy
Hit young Rocky in the eye Rocky didn't like that
He said I'm gonna get that boy
So one day he walked into town
Booked himself a room in the local saloon
and Rocky Raccoon checked into his room
only to find Gideon's Bible

So I've arrived back up in the Pilbara for a few weeks rest and recreation, I mean it's hard work enjoying xmas and the new year, so work is gonna be a welcome respite. Imagine my surprise when I get back to my room at the mining camp to find a brand new plastic wrapped bible wedged between my fly screen and front door.

Huh? I said.

So the powers to be at this camp must have decided that us heathens needed saving, either that or this is managements newest plan for getting the company through the Great Recession of 2009. Everyone pray.

Jokes aside I'm a bit surprised they've done this. I mean this isn't the 1950's, Christians are in the minority in this country aren't they? We have so many other religions in our midst these days not to mention the atheists like me. Can they do this sort of thing? What if I was Jewish, or Muslim, how insulting would this be. Surely they could just put out a memo that there's free bibles at the main desk if you want one and maybe throw in a few korans for good measure.

I'm returning mine tomorrow, it would only be hypocritical of me to keep it.

Call me Rocky Raccoon

INTRODUCING DIRTY SWEET

Some new music fools. All part of my plan to broaden all of your horizons in 2009. Relax you're safe in my hands. They be from California.

Dirty Sweet - You've Been Warned from chris vanacore on Vimeo.

TILT SHIFT FUN

Big thanks to Brian over in Ireland for sending me a link to a this tilt shift tool. I threw a few of my pics in there and this was the best of the batch. I think I'll play with it again when I have more time.

For the complete effect click here to see the full sized version
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ETTY BAY

We travelled down to Etty Bay in Queensland last month to be welcomed by a great little tucked away spot amongst the hills and trees oh and the plastic palms, yep plastic palm trees. Why? What? huh? Exactly, why would a place like far northern Queensland have plastic palm trees? It wasn't confined to Etty Bay, these suckers where popping up everywhere. It seems one of the southern states sent sea containers full of them to FNQ following the cyclone a few years back. They figured it would cheer the locals up.

ahuh

The government put them up a few years after they arrived at some considerable cost and immediately the locals went nuts "WTF do we need plastic palm trees for, we have millions of the real thing?"

Exactly, so now the government in all of its' wisdom is going to pull them all down at some more considerable cost. Gotta love it.

Meanwhile Etty Bay just sits there peacefully being Etty Bay, a place where the lifeguards don't have to do all that much except read a book.

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PERTH BEER FESTIVAL UPDATE

Well this little gem just keeps on giving. Between this blog and The Worst Of Perth there has been a huge outpouring of pissedoffness (it's a word) regarding the organisation of this "International Event". This little corner of the internet has gone from around 40 hits a day to almost 400. I seemed to have nailed the local vibe ha!

Frank has kindly passed onto me, via TWOP, the Beerfest Proposal extracted from the Perth City Council minutes of 7 October 2008. It's a pretty large document so I'll just post a few extracts here, if you want it all then go here. Everything that I consider to be a highlight I have presented in bold

At its meeting held on 5 August 2008, the Council approved an application for the ACOS Beer Festival to be held on Langley Park on Saturday, 10 January and Sunday, 11 January 2009 subject to the applicant meeting requirements of the Approval.

The event organisers are now calling the event the Perth International Beer Festival 2009.

The event will be ticketed and promoted to attract families. The organisers have estimated over 50,000 people will attend the event over the two days, with a maximum capacity of 10,000 patrons at any given time.

The event will showcase a selection of national and international beers being on sale in over 40 marquees. Non-alcoholic beverages, water stations and food will also be available.

Entertainment and activities will be provided during the event, including:-
. car and boat displays;
. fashion parades;
. live entertainment;
. live radio station broadcast;
. tourist information stalls;
. children's play area;
. carnival rides;
. side show alley;
. sports arena including competitions of volleyball, mini cricket and mini soccer.

The organisers aim to invite local sporting celebrities to participate in the sport competitions to encourage attendance by families.

Free shuttle buses to and from the city centre, city train stations and bus port will be provided for attendees.

The event organisers estimate that over 50,000 people will attend the Perth International Beer Festival. The event will increase visitation to the city and add vibrancy to the foreshore.

The event may or may not be cultural or arts based

Acos Events Management was established in 2007. The Perth International Beer Festival will be the first event Acos Events Management has organised in Australia.

The director of the company previously organised similar events in Serbia

Now that is some champagne comedy right there aint it? The council was also considering providing funding towards the event for the next 3 years. It might be time to tap our good lady mayoress on the shoulder and have a word to ensure they stick to their decision not to.

I wonder what happened to the shuttle buses, perhaps they where being used to shuttle in more warm cartons of James Boag from the nearest Liqourland outlet.

Does anyone have a contact in Serbia? Perhaps you could call them for a review of their last beer festival and let us know hahaha.

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THE HOOD # 77

Ghost People

Spotted on the back of the proverbial dunny door at Little Creatures, Freo. They sure spent a bit of time and effort in that cubicle. Better than reading a newspaper I guess. Excuse the crappy exposure - phone cam pic.

AZZURRI CREATURES

Well today turned out to be a much better day for all things beer. After yesterdays' debacle it was nice to go somewhere that was actually able to serve a beer and some nice food and provide a nice atmosphere all of which where unavailable at that sad sad beer festival.

On the topic of the festival, my blog on that topic today gathered a whole lot of attention on the internet, which I admit was the idea, I felt the need to spread/maintain the rage. This was helped along by The Lazy Aussie over at The Worst Of Perth, who kindly ran my story. Fitting as it really was a worst of. Traffic to this lonely corner of the internet was almost 10 times higher than it normally is with people finding it via google and TWOP. Looking at the comments I managed to help someone save $300, allowed another to no longer feel sorry for themselves for missing it and generally allow people to vent along with me. Lets hope those responsible take a hint and next year they get it right.

So enough of that

Today was a new day and it saw the arrival of Claudio and Marco from Italy. You may remember Claudio from the Vespa workshop in Biella Italy. Awesome to see him here even if I wont see much of him as I'm away for the next 2 weeks with work, eh what can ya do?

So we all met up at Little Creatures down Fremantle way for some food and drinks and generally had a buzz. That place is huge now and the boys in the Azzurri where a bit blown away by it all. Australia is a bit more full on when it comes to drinking spots than Italy is. They loved the place.

I'm not sure if Claudios thumbs up is for Aussie beer or Aussie girls, I'm gonna go with the later though.

PERTH BEER FESTIVAL

AKA Perth You Suck Festival

Perth you so so seriously suck. You would think that a city in Australia, a beer drinking powerhouse, would be able to organise a beer festival and do it well. You would wouldn't you? Yeah you would. But no.

$20 a ticket, which mind you gives you nothing more than admission, sure there's a few live bands but no one to write home about. That's the first atrocity but we were willing to get past that, it's Perth and not much happens here so you have to support stuff like this, but to arrive and then see this...

Seriously?!! We have to line up for almost an hour to get in? No fucking way. Why is there only 2 small gates in and those at the same entrance? Why are you searching everyones' bags? I mean it's a fucking beer festival, no body is going to pay you a $20 entrance fee and then sneak their own beer in. The whole point of the exercise is that we want to sample the exciting exotic beers you have on offer, you do have exciting exotic beers on offer don't you? Don't you?

Well no, not exactly, they had about a half dozen (if that) beer tents and when I say "tent " what I mean to say is they had a table with some servers behind them and a small tent like awning over those servers so that the servers weren't affected by the 36 degree heat and full sun, everyone else on the other hand had to line up without any awnings to get one of these beers and then when you arrived at the end of that line YOU ARE HANDED A WARM BEER. Yep they ran out of cold beer at this particular "tent" 2 hours into an 8 hour event. Oh and to the organisers, I can get Boags, Becks and Heineken beer anywhere, it's no longer exotic. If you are going to have an international beer festival maybe source some lesser known overseas, beers not something I can buy at my local tavern and at half the price. Oh and to the organisers, this is what a beer festival looks like okay.

So let's recap here, $20 admission, almost an hour standing in the full sun waiting to get in, then another half an hour in another line to be given a hot beer, apart from maybe one beer everything on offer can be bought anywhere, oh and did I mention the whole event was in a fenced off area no larger than say, oh I dunno, roughly 300m x 300m in size, maybe. My local pubs beer garden is bigger than that, well maybe not, but you get my point.

Lets not be too critical on the organisers here, too late you say? True, but they did provide some rides for the kiddies, downside being that the rides took up a nice slice of the miniscule compound and then they charged $10 for those kidlets to get in and then made the kidlets pay to ride the rides. Brilliant stuff, I hope you win some kind of event or tourism award for this cos you're awesome. Although I might ask why you are enticing kids to a beer festival, but you already have enough questions to answer at this stage. Also, so glad we did the responsible thing and did a 45 minute sweaty walk into the city to arrive at this debacle, the pay off meant to be an ice cold beverage or 3 .... if only.

The decision was easy though, no way where we going to suffer all of the above, so we messaged the crew already in there and headed off to the Queens where we were welcomed with these big icy cold beauties....

Beer festival that my son.

Saw this bad boy out the front of the Queens, owner was a helmet-less green haired girl. There was an element of Ghost Rider about it all, only no flaming skull and no leather jacket and no Nicholas Cage, but apart from that it was ALL ghost rider.... kind of.

On a final note and it may well have been the beer and the sun talking and none of us are true fashionistas, except maybe Macca, but none of us really thought this outfit worked, what do you think? Personally I think it needs more checks.

Perth YOU ROCK.