MELA INDIAN

Karks, Marco, Perry, Annie and I hit Mela Indian Sweets and Eats in Northbridge tonight. I needed to discuss the house arrangements for my trip to Bali in April. I'm staying at Perry and Annie's luxurious villa for 7 days. More on that next month. So any excuse for all of us to hook up for a meal.

P&A had been raving about this place for ages and I was keen to try it out. It's in William st and directly opposite the Mosque. What a great place, very kitch Bollywood inside. I'd heard stories about the service being average but ours was fine. We all ordered a Thali, vegetarian and meat, a great way to eat and so cheap - $15.00 each and that included some corkage on our wines.

So if you're looking for a cheap Indian that isn't overly spicy check this place out.

PICTURES THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ALBUM COVERS # 1

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BUSHFIRE GRILL

My brother Justin is in Cairns at the moment and sent this through. A couple of things to deal with here.

Firstly the name...Bushfire Flame Grill? Crappy timing I know, but even if we didn't have the tragic bush fires of a few months ago fresh in our memories why would you call a restaurant that? All I picture is charred native animals carcasses strewn across the landscape. Does this place serve cooked roadkill?

Secondly, a Brazilian inspired Aussie BBQ? How does that work exactly? Maybe Giselle Bundchen lookalikes serve the food, I could dig that. I know that Brazil has a BBQ tradition with their Gauchos and all but I picture half cows on a large BBQ when I think of that. Maybe that's what they do, couldn't imagine I'd take a hot looking girl like the one in the pic to an all the cow you can eat restaurant for a romantic date......she'd have to really love BBQ.

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LLOYD COLE

I don't usually post this much music in one hit but I've been feeling pretty musical lately and finding some great stuff. Anyone who made it through the 80's would remember Lloyd Cole and the Commotions and you'd have that classic album Rattlesnakes, I have the original vinyl and it's one of my prized possesions.

Doesn't appear to be any Lloyd Cole and the Commotion clips available on YouTube for embedding so it'll just have to be links. Two of the finest though....

Rattlesnakes

Perfect Skin

Lloyd Cole is still putting out music. Spotted this over at The Opening Acts complete with the link to the mp3. I'm pretty sure my readership wont crash the download quota. Grab it cos it's classic Lloyd Cole...

Lloyd Cole - Travelling Light

Now I'm gonna go see if I can buy the album somewhere.
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THE MONKEES FOR REAL

If you know about the Monkees then you know how they weren't really playing their instruments and they were really frustrated that they couldn't be musicians in their own right. So knowing all of this makes watching this even funnier.

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FEVER RAY

Thanks for showing me this Shari
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SOTO SNOTTO SONOTS

Whatever you want to call it - Soto Cafe - this morning we had breakfast there, well second breakfast for me kinda. What with the toaster exploding whilst heating a hot cross bun and all early today.

Clinton is in town and I hadn't caught up with him since 2005, so scrambled eggs and pancakes for all to celebrate.

Then the iPhones came out and everyone compared Apps, it's a guy thing "who's apps are bigger" you get the idea. Not to be outdone Clinton, who is iPhoneless, quickly warmed to the wonder of technology that it is and had us all downloading stuff in a frenzy as well as locating us on Google maps. It was confirmed, we were all in the same cafe, Google said so.

Waz decided we all needed to see his Transformers transformation process, we pretty much saw a guy raise his arm and bend over. I think it was avant garde, either way we laughed in politeness hehehe (bloody hilarious actually and we were all sober)

Clinton suddenly announced his discovery of the greatest iPhone app to date, the Old Booth. Take a pic of someone then copy them into a mode of yesteryear. I know you're all stunned at how much fun we have on a Saturday morning aren't you. You can join us anytime.

We laughed so much my tooth fell out....yep my tooth fell out, I felt like a junkie for a moment. Doesn't hurt that much really, dentist bound though. See, have you ever laughed so much your tooth fell out? I didn't think so.

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NO TWITTER NO YES

My bother Justin (lilbro) is at this very moment doing the dreaded road trip from Brisbane to Cairns. The very same trip he and I did last Christmas. Click that link and you'll see all the sugar cane on the sides of the road, sugar cane we laughed about because beyond every bend we travelled we were welcomed with "more bloody sugar cane". Well not so much anymore it seems....

The MMS pics started coming an hour ago....

Justin: Devastation!

Me: I think I preferred the sugar cane.

J: When there is no cane...the drive...it is boring.

M: It looks like a wasteland :(

J: D Day has hit Gin Gin.

M: Ha, looks more like Stalin's scorched earth policy.

J: True lol

J: At least I have Armin

J: and Java & Allens

M: Haha you SHOULD have Twitter, this is Twitter with pics lol

J: Yeah but I only wanna share this with you and not another million people. I only share with the people I care for man. You've done this drive recently, you feel my pain.

M: Oh I feel your pain. Sorry but I'm blogging these pics, but it wont be viewed by millions, just hundreds ;)

J: LOL you bastard.

MOO

A cool package waiting for me when I returned home this week, my order of MOO cards had arrived. I've ordered these before but back then I didn't have enough worthy photos on my flickr pages so I got 4 copies of 25 pics. Different story this time, I selected 100 from the 2963 pics I now have.

They are so cool, I had Stu says.... printed on the back of each one and now that can be used for everything. Stu says.... Happy Birthday, Stu says.... lets do dinner, Stu says.... get your car off of my lawn, the options are endless.

If you have a flickr account you can order them through your flickr page.

WELCOME HOME MAYBE

Home a day early due to hurting my lower back a few days ago. Treatment tomorrow should sort it all out. They say it comes in threes....bad luck that is. So lets call that number 1

#2: I walk into my apartment after having been away for 2 weeks and straight away I sense something's not quite right. A quick look round and I can't put my finger on it. Meh, I'm being stupid. Well I thought I was until I heard the sound of water falling in the bathroom, hmmm tap mustn't be turned off fully. Oh no, not the tap, there's water coming through the ceiling. Horror flashbacks to a similar incident back in the past, (wow my place looks different now HA!) thankfully this time it's in the bathroom and a plumber will be here tomorrow to fix it. Upstairs pipes must be rusted through.

#3: Mopped up the mess in the bathroom and then started checking 2 weeks worth of mail. Opened my phone bill and had a mild heart attack from seeing the numbers $1575.16 in the place that usually says $79.00 (or similar).

Don't panic, it must be a typo, must mean $157.50, yeah that's it a typo. Ring Telstra they'll confirm it. So I ring, yes they confirm that's the amount. No no no, it can't be. After 30 minutes of terror we work out that the new data plan I had set up on my phone 2 weeks ago was done incorrectly their end, entirely their fault and thus all bar a hundred or so will be waived. PHEW!!

That's it though yeah, that's three? Well seeing as the third one kinda worked itself out then maybe it isn't....oh god.

EDIT: Birds have been eating berries in the tree above my car and now my car is covered in purple bird shit. I think that's the real #3 right there.
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BATHTUB IV

Keith Loutit has done it again. Another awesome tiltshift video.

Bathtub IV

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Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.
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SO YOU KNOW SUSHI

I love sushi, pretty sure you love it too, but the etiquette, do you have the etiquette? There is some you know, truly. I can't say I was aware of all of this before I read it but this guy has a pile of it. Have a read it's pretty interesting.

It's not your fault. The finer points of sushi etiquette are largely unknown outside Japan.

The absolute biggest no-no for nigiri is dipping it rice-first into the soy sauce. That's because the rice has already been perfumed with a mixture of rice wine vinegar, sugar, salt, a cooking wine called mirin and kombu or seaweed. The chef wants you to be able to taste all that. The sushi chef has also packed the rice by hand so that it falls apart when it hits your mouth. If you dunk it in soy, some stays behind in the dish and makes a soupy mess.

But never, ever eat pickled ginger on top of your sushi. It's a palate cleanser to be eaten in between different kinds of fish.

So much to learn grasshopper, so much to learn
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YEAH YEAH YEAHS

I'm lovin this new song and clip from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, partially because it has a real 80's feel to it and partially because Karen O reminds me heaps of the first girl I ever fell in love with - Saturday morning schmaltz ;)

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THIS WEEK IN ARCHAEOLOGY # 1

"So Stu, what's been happening in the world of archaeology this week" I hear you ask. Well the easiest way to answer that is to move right on from Insect Week to Archaeology Week here at YeLPar. Get set for a riveting archaeological expose....

My team and I salvaged a pile of Indigenous archaeological sites up in the Pilbara, cataloguing hundreds of stone artefacts.

Somebody using Google earth found a Norman fish trap off the coast of West Wales.

The unique shape of the rock structure helped the Normans trap fish without boats or anything at all. All they had to do was wait for the tide to go out and hundreds of fish would be trapped behind the rocks.

These structures were so effective that their use in rivers was actually banned in the Magna Carta.

Egypt will open the inner chambers of the Bent Pyramid in Dahshur. So says the most camera loving archaeologist in the universe, one Zawhi Hawass....

"It is amazing because of a maze of corridors underneath this pyramid — the visit will be unique," said Hawass, about the pyramid of Amenhemhat III, who ruled during Egypt's 12th dynasty from 1859-1813 BC.

"Twenty-five years ago, I went to enter this pyramid, and I was afraid I would never come back, and I had to ask the workmen to tie ropes around my leg so I wouldn't lose my way," he recalled.

Whilst in Italy they unearthed a female vampires remains..........huh? Hang on, a what now?

ROME – An archaeological dig near Venice has unearthed the 16th-century remains of a woman with a brick stuck between her jaws — evidence, experts say, that she was believed to be a vampire. The unusual burial is thought to be the result of an ancient vampire-slaying ritual.

Oh....okaaaaay.

EXOSKELETON

It's insect week here on YeLPar, sorry about that. Spotted this in a tree yesterday, caught my eye because of the legs wrapped around the branch. It literally grabbed hold and crawled out of its' skin. nature is amazing isn't it?

Crispy clear larger version over at YeLPanorama

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BED SPIDER

Not something you really want to wake up to every morning. Made me jump though, pretty sure it's harmless but who wants to hang round and find out. Plenty of creepy crawly insects up here in the Pilbara though, so to be expected occasionally.

I read once that everyone swallows a certain number of spiders whilst sleeping in their lifetime. God knows how I would have gotten that one down without noticing :)

Hairy

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LOSING MY RELIGION

Russell Brand,you know him right? No, well you should, this guy is hilarious. I so have to get his autobiography My Bookie Wook. I mean with a title like that it has to be brilliant.

So I've been scouring YouTube for some clips of him, so many brilliant moments. A few of them below....

An advert for BBC 2

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The Secret Police Mans Ball
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RANDOM IMAGES # 23

I'm diggin this dudes threads and sunnies

GUIDO BEACH

My love of the Guido is eternal. I mean who wouldn't love these people.

My fav line is...."My name is Jon Kuppo, nobody knows my first name it's just Kuppo"

It doesn't get any better than this, I give you Guido beach.

Edit: Tiff suggested I share this vid and she's right ahahahaa, only turn the sound down in case you are subjected to possbly the worst song since that damn frog.

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LUNCH WITH A BOG OR TWO

Another day in the Pilbara, another lunch break by a creek. One of the upsides of the rainy season is views like this whilst you eat....

One of the downsides of the rainy season is the muddy ground near the creeks. One of the wagons in our convoy found a soft bank and needed pulling out....

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After that we all started to leave when the same car, this time a different driver, managed to get into an even more awesome bog. Only a few more degrees till topple over time....

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Good times.

STUFF

So I've decided to return to Twitter, not really sure why as I had forgotten about it for like 659 days (proof in the sidebar there). A few peeps I know are using it and a blogger from Canada I read every day started following me today (how she found me I don't know) but with people regularly signing up to follow me I figured I should provide something to follow. So to give this experiment a fair go if you use Twitter start following me and I'll reciprocate. I may tire of this soon but we'll see.

So in other news: I have finally come to turns with not being in Perth when Armin Van Buuren plays next June, however my fellow Armin devotees, Waz and Steve will be in Ibiza visiting numerous clubs at the time (mucho jealouso on that point) and Gaz will be travelling back from Spain and will be way too jet lagged to go. So I wont be alone in missing this, still sucks a bit though.

Oh how's this, I'm watching late night with Jimmy Fallon on TV at this very moment and they are doing a piece on Twitter....they found a dude in the audience who was new to twitter and has 7 followers. They just printed his name (Bryan Brinkman) on the screen and asked everyone to start following him to up his numbers and beat the most followed person on Twitter, one Barack Obama who has 422,423 followers......................just searched for Bryan and started following him and hahahahahaha I'm now the 21,444th person to sign onto his page ahahahahaha. He's on his way.

What else? Oh yeah, I almost saw something last Tuesday I did NOT want to ever see and hope I still never do. I was driving down William St towards the city when I spotted a young boy, maybe 10-12 years old walking down the footpath and then straight onto William St without breaking his stride. The thing is he was looking straight ahead at the ground and not at the traffic, he walked out to almost the width of the entire first lane. There was a taxi in front of me and he wasn't braking, at this point I started to go all wide eyed and think ohhhhhhh fuck, suddenly the taxi noticed him and swerved away which made the kid look up and jump, I slammed on my brakes and actually made my tyres smoke.

That kid came so close to being hit, this was the luckiest day in his to date very short life and he knew it too, the look on his face as I drove off was one of "holy shit". I'm so glad it turned out the way it did, I never want to see the outcome of that situation when it doesn't pan out this way.

Hey it's not a crappy way to end a blog post, it's a good ending ;)
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COTTESLOE BEACH ART

Simply too nice a day today to NOT dip into the ocean somewhere. Seeing as the beach art comp was on again at Cottesloe the choice of dipping venue was made easy.

It is such a good feeling climbing out of the ocean isn't it? I forget how much lI ove being gritty with sand and salt. Maybe when I buy my house later this year it should be closer to the beach....but I do love living near the city....errrr dilemma.

I can't really say I loved any of the entrants all that much, but these were the coolest. Plug is a bit predictable, life savers fun and the pencil with the line in the sand was probably the winner for me. That wire hut maze would probably look better if some kidlets were playing in it.

Larger versions over at YeLPanorama

ABBEY ROAD

A video set to music of people crossing the famous crosswalk from the Beatles Abbey Road album cover. I'd be keen to see the accident stats for this piece of road, surely a few tourists get whacked by cars here every year. The funny thing is that judging from this a lot of people take the picture from the wrong side so the end result wont look anything like the original.

Pay particular attention at 1.34 of the vid.

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The song is Blame Ringo's first single "Garble Arch" from their new album, "Lucky Number 9"

MESSAGE ON FACEBOOK

Waiting in my inbox this morning was a question from a girl who wasn't on my friend list

Carolyn: Stu from Perth WA?

Me: erm yes, sorry I can't place you though???

C: Did you go to Wilson Primary School and Bentley High.

M: haha yes I went to Wilson primary but not Bentley high, we moved after grade 7. So we went to primary school together yeah? wow you have a good memory lol. Is this your maiden name or married?

C: We were friends from grade 1. I stole a marble out of your desk in grade 4.. hahahahah felt guilty all this time

M: Oh so that's where that marble went, Oh man I really don't remember much from primary school, I have a class photo somewhere I'll dig it up and send you a link to it later, then you can point out who is you :)

C: hahahaha bloody hell that will be a very attractive photo of me...lmao thanks...Well I am feeling very unimportant at the moment knowing that you don't remember me. Do the names Graeme xxxx, Brett xxx, Michael xxxxx sound familiar?

M: haha sorry and to make it worse for you I do remember those guys, esp Michael, we were best buddies. I blame being under 12 at the time and girls not being as important to me as they are now lol

C: hahahahahaha great!Seven years of my life I shared with you and I am not even a distant memory.... I bet good ol Michael will remember me! maybe.... i hope...

I still have no idea who she is. Her powers of recollection are almost superhero like. "Memory Woman to the rescue."

JAZZY ITALIAN BIRTHDAYS

"How about Da Brunos?"

"Awesome, I'll book a table for 4"

So we were all set to celebrate Karks birthday, Marco, Karks, Gen and me. We tried to surprise Karks with the venue but the gig was up the minute the cab turned left down Beaufort st.

What a great restaurant, the food is to die for. I had the best veal and porcini mushroom fettuccine I have ever had in my life. 4 courses and a bottle of champers, 2 bottles of red and one bottle of dessert wine later we stumbled out to try and find the new Jazz club that opened this week.

"What's it called?"

"Not sure"

"It's at 119 Beaufort st....no wait 191 Beaufort st....no wait..."

"We'll ask the cabbie"

He knew exactly where it was and wow hello Perth, welcome to the rest of the world. Finally a cool jazz club with a great atmosphere, staff that smile at you, are friendly helpful and fun. The music was great, jazz mixed with some scat, blues and R&B. You get to sit at small stage side tables and soak it all up.

Actually I remember taking a photo of the building it's in, boarded up, a few years ago. I wondered back then what it would be turned into.

Drinks were pretty easy to get, plenty of bar staff. They do need to get some post mix happening behind the bar though, bottles of soda don't cut it, they go flat too quickly, thus all of our vodkas over 2 rounds were flat and had to be sent back. Luckily we like beer as well hehehe. Small gripe, everything else was perfect. Unlike my head this morning and my rabid facebook posting at 4.30am, so have to set up a system that does not allow me anywhere near the internet when I'm drunk. Sorry gang. Hahahaha

THE HOOD # 81

Robot guy? Lego guy? Japanese robot lego guy?

Girl?




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FROM THE "YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS" FILES

# 1 : Lately I've been seeing more and more of this. People parking their cars across two bays so as to lessen the chances of it being scratched or dented. I mean seriously are you for real? I forsee so many instances of this back firing on them when irate people who can't find a park take to these cars with a tyre lever. Luckily for him/her I was able to find a spot, not that I would have done the tyre lever thing...........or would I? hmmmm depends if I'd had breakfast or not ;)

# 2: Spotted this for sale at Fresh Provs this afternoon. Good old Wolfgang Puck, or Voolfie to his pals, the celebrity chef extraordinaire has infiltrated my local store with what appears to be the most expensive chicken stock, sorry broth, in the universe. Sorry Voolfie but only the worst foodie tragics would pay that for that. Everyone else just boil up some chook bones with a few vegies and you'll have the same if not better result.

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