I LOVE PHO

Feeling a bit under the weather the past two days but not all that bad tonight so headed on down to Simply Pho in William st for a bowl of Pho. Great little place, the waitress was fantastic and attentive. And we got to eat Pho, a first for me, basically Vietnamese noodle soup with either shredded chicken or raw beef that cooks in the broth while you eat it.

Their entrees, like the stuffed chicken wings (pic below) are all around $5 - $6 and the Pho comes out for a mere $9 a serve. Simple, tasty, cheap and comforting winter food. I'll definately be heading back. Good stuff, check it out.

After dinner we dodged the rain and slid down the street for a block and into Bar 399. It's just opened in a building that used to be a video game parlour, you wouldn't know now. So mulled wine for 3 warmed us up big time. Definitely be heading back there again.

Highlight: The Pho

Lowlight: That they may go broke charging so little

Score 7.5 soups out of 10

JOY DIVISION

Keeping with the 80's theme

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YEAH I REMEMBER THE EIGHTIES

Barely. A huge part of my life. So much fun you often wish you could do it all again. I was scrounging through some old pics the other day to share with some Melbourne friends from that period. They had all moved over here in the 80's to work at Steves and Clickitys and I haven't seen them for like 20 years, we recently found each other again through facebook. So I think I'll share them here as well cos they are a huge laugh.

I worked at Steves Hotel in Nedlands doing my chef apprenticeship for a good slice of the 80's and Steves were involved in setting up a bar/restaurant in Cottesloe called Clickitys. That place went nuts in its' heyday and most of these pics are from a NYE party there which we all worked. How good are the fluro shirts? and the Nike Hi Tops?

The dude in the pic above is Roger. I can honestly say that I have never met as big a party animal since. This guy just kept on keeping on. He honestly would be the last guy out of any club. Completely insane.

I love this pic, mostly because of the sunglass switch and our hair and because it's Thea and she was one of the coolest chickies I ever knew. We had a very tempestuous on again off again relationship. I really do miss her. Oh and the oversize Stuart Membery shirt hahaha.

Orphans xmas party at the Cottesloe house with the Melbourne crew.

Am I the only person who never smoked in the 80's? A heap more in my flickr set.

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TEA? DEVONSHIRE PLEASE

I don't even drink tea but I do eat warm scones with lashings of homemade strawberry jam and cream (I ate them so fast I failed to get a pic) so Nells and I raced up into the hills this afternoon to indulge. I remembered driving past a sign on my way to Araluen a few years ago so I hoped it was still there. And it was....

I have to say though that when I was learning to speak Italian I'm pretty sure it was spelt cappuccino.....or am I wrong?! And as far as tearooms go it was fairly ordinary. The cafe faced out onto a massive jarrah filled valley but when you sat down at your table to enjoy the view the bottom window frame was above head height, so effectively you could only see the tree tops up the other side of the valley. One word to the owners, redesign!!

I have to laugh every time I have a Devonshire Tea anywhere in the world (I'm a bit pro Devonshire you see) and I always ask for one sans the tea, maybe a juice instead. This seriously throws those who work in the Devonshire Tea industry into a tizz. It just does not compute. I' m often met with blank looks and a quizzical "Huh?" Today was no different, "I'll just check with the manager, hang on" Sigh, chortle.

The other thing that really annoyed me was how loud everything was in this place, it echoed like a banshee. The waitress was walking around the tables with a plastic tub (always a good look) collecting cutlery and plates and dropping every second item along the way. Add to this, three generously proportioned women on a table behind us with huge mouths that....just....kept....bellowing....laughter at everything each one of them said. Even as we we're leaving we could hear them from the car. Ahhh my ears. At least they were having a good time.

Even little things like when we wanted to walk down to ^that^ pond and have a looksee had to be abandoned, as we met Do Not Enter signs at every turn, ahh well I'll just take a pic from up here then shall I. Okay that's enough whining, I'm afraid it's put me in a "why does Perth just suck at everything it does mood" I get spoilt when I go east. At least the scones were good and the drive into the hills awesome. I think I might retire there one day and open a tea room .... with a view.

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REASONS TO SLOW DOWN THE INTERNET

#732 : The death of a pop super star

It really is struggling at the moment, I guess everyone's home from work and devouring the news of his death.

I can't say I've ever really been a huge fan of his music. I did appreciate his talent though, but for me the only time I really related to him was when I was a kid, so it's Jackson 5 only for me. I just checked my music collection and found ... well nothing really, I've never owned an MJ song. But I have managed to upload these two R&B funkalicious tracks.

MJ and J5
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A TALE OF TWO CARS

P. Diddy has moved into my house, or at least his posse is hangin in my street. It goes a little something like this....back in August last year I purchased for myself a very nice new car. Then last week my employer approaches me with the news that I am to have a company car, I have X amount of dollars to spend, choose what you want only do it by the end of the week. Sheesh, I am not anywhere near to being sick of my new car yet, I mean it hasn't even been a year.

So I simply bought the same car. Hahaha yep. I added a few nice features but it's basically exactly the same only the 09 model. So now I have two shiny black Jeep Cherokees out the front of my house and I'm thinking of hiring them out as wedding cars.........no not really.

Anyone want to buy a near new Jeep?

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STUFF I'M DIGGIN # 2

And they said the 80's would never return, haha yeah gone like the 70's huh? I give you O Children with Dead Disco Dancer.

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THE HOOD # 86

Black and White on Green

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MRS BROWN

Dropped into a small and cool wine bar down in Nth Freo tonight called Mrs Brown. Marco, Karks, Linda, Gen and I found a spot by the front window and peeled off our layers of warm clothes and scarves to take in a couple of bottles of nice red wine. Perfect weather for it.

The place is filled with old second hand couches and chairs (nice ones, not crappy tatty numbers) and if you feel the need to eat something the burger place next door called Flipside will deliver some funky burgers and fries to your table. Not your regular addition to a good bottle of Shiraz Grenache but it was the business tonight. Go and visit, great atmosphere, wine list is pretty small and is hilariously printed inside some old Enid Blyton type kiddie book covers with a pretty good variety amongst the 20 or so on offer. Good times.

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RANDOM IMAGES # 27

Seeing as I have made 8 flights in the past 3 weeks I figured it was pretty apt to post this pic about now. I've had it for ages and it's a bit of a fav.

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COMMIT NO NUISANCE

I tried not to, seriously I tried....

Laneway in Melbournes Chinatown.
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THE POWER OF THE TWEET

Personally I enjoy the way the internet is changing the face of the planet. Be it blogs, social network sites like facebook and twitter, whatever. I've been writing this blog for four and a half years now and it's not like I'm changing anything, all I'm doing is documenting a life in a fragmented kind of way. But it's a bit more than that, in documenting my life I'm also partially documenting the lives of a heap of others. This story is interwoven with their lives and they need merely click on their tag at the bottom of any particular post and they suddenly see their lives unfolding for the same period. That's the past of course and who knows when I'll stop blogging. I'm not sure myself, not soon at least.

But that's just me and I live in a peaceful enough country where very little happens so it's not an action packed, dangerous or horrific life, this isn't the case though with many others. Take those protesting in Iran right now. At this very moment, as I write these words, thousands of people are standing in front of heavily armed police and some are dying. Bombs are exploding and the world is mostly oblivious to the exact happenings. In this technological world the free press cannot report on this story because of the internal Iranian crackdown. But they can't crack down on everything and this is where the Tweet is reigning supreme.

"140 characters is a novel when you’re being shot at." unknown

Have a look at this Twitter feed for example, they are posting Tweets every 60 seconds or so as the events unfold. Also check out this blogger, awful stuff. It's getting worse by the minute too. In fact I've just refreshed the blog page and it's getting really bad....

6:35
HUNDREDS OF IRANIAN SECURITY FORCES INJURED IN RECENT CLASHES
6:42
Hard conflict in Enghelab Sq,Shooting directly to the people
6:50
Basidj leaving after being confronted with the masses of people!
6:53
polices & basijs are Launching Tear gas to people intermittently
6:55
injured protestors have nosebleeding due to gas used by police
6:56
Tehran protesters coming in waves, will go on till dark and beyond. This no longer rally but street fighting.
6:58
hey shoot at people and take those wounded with their vans
7:00
Tehran full of fire and blood
7:01
People gathering at Vanak SQ
7:02
Plain cloths bikers attacking non-protesters near Vali-asr sq
7:03
They shoot at people and take those wounded with their vans
7:04
Shiraz: Intense conflict in Alam sq
7:05
Gunfire/sirens heard Tohid SQ
7:06
forces dont let ppl use cell phones. they beat anyone with a cell phone in hand
7:07
1 young man shot dead near Vali Asr Cr
7:08
Basij in EVERY square in Tehran

Tomorrow I think will be very interesting for all the wrong reasons.
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GOODBYE BANKSY TOWN

Goodbye Melbourne, always a pleasure. I failed to achieve most of wanted I wanted to do yesterday due to my inability to recover from Thursday night. But I did manage a walk around the city and eventually found myself in Flinders Lane. Last year I stumbled upon a Banksy in this street so I decided to check it out again.

Sadly it's no more, somebody poured silver paint all over it. Why? I know it's just street art and I don't care that people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for his work these days, I just prefer to see street art succumb to the elements and just fade away. This was just malicious....

The pic I took back in Feb last year

All that remains today

Full story here

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LIES ALL LIES

There are a number of scurrilous rumours currently circulating Melbourne that suggest I may have been drunk last night. In that mix is a suggestion that upon stepping out of a maxi taxi in front of the Supper Club I stumbled forward and executed a combat roll onto the pavement. It has also been suggested that I allowed a girl to apply eyeliner and lipstick to my face in a bar in St Kilda. Again I reject these lies as nothing more than lies. I also do not care that numerous phone cam pics may or may not confirm all of the above.

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MELBOURNE TOWN

Having a ball, so little time to blog. last night we caught the Aus v Japan game at the MCG. So cold over here but I kinda love that, makes a nice change. Sadly none of my clothes are suitable for this weather so I'm wearing layers.

This morning it was a late and I mean late breakfast at the European followed by a wander down Brunswick St in Fitzroy for some window shopping and lunch at Melbournes' version of Little Creatures. Small but pretty good. Then onto a very cool wine bar in Fitzroy called Eno teca where we polished off a few reds. On to St Kilda tonight for dinner.

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