IMPROV ANYWHERE - THE MUTE BUTTON

Another great bit by Improv Anywhere, these guys do the most awesome stuff

For our latest mission 23 actors and 2 dogs infiltrated a public space and went on “mute” at coordinated intervals. The mission took place near the northern entrance to Prospect Park in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The Mute Button was produced by Improv Everywhere as part of theGuggenheim Museum exhibition stillspotting nyc.

Heaps of pics and more details over at the Improv Anywhere website, go check it out aiight?!

PUPPETRY OF THE SHADOWS

yeah that's our shadows

actually I think it's Indiana Jones and a bunch of Egyptian figurines?

or is it just Yoda

hang on, nah it's the rabbit from Donnie Darko

WEEZER DO RADIOHEAD

Paranoid Android, not a bad version either

TIME TO TAKE A HIKE

Decided that as part of my rehab from my operation I should start walking long walks, so I roped a few friends into my dastardly plan and set up our first hike on Sunday just gone. We hit the old loggers rail line walk through the John Forrest National Park in the Darling Range. A pretty cool walk which we really only did around 12 km's of, it keeps going. May do the rest another time. Some pics from the hike....

this is an old railway indicator or something, not really sure

we stopped at a picnic area with a man made lake (very popular spot at the turn of the century) and had some awesome shortbread biscuits baked by Nells

a long abandoned railway tunnel built in 1895, it was a lot longer than it first looked and almost pitch black in the middle section, you had to be trusting with every step.

oh and stay classy Perth

a bunch more pics from the hike here

LONG TRAIN IS LONG

Always happens,, hasn't been one for hours but just as soon as you approach a rail crossing a train appears. I suppose you could try and count the carriages....but I gave up soon enough

and finally it ends

BACK TO BEIGE LAND

Cos you know I've been there a few times - one and two. This time it was Port Hedland's turn to lay on the light brown and they certainly laid on a magnificent spread....

at least there was some improvement on the other side of the room

and one pretty awesome sunrise to wake up to, we rarely see a sunrise over water here in the west.

nice larger version over at YeLPanorama

THE ART OF BLACK AND WHITE # 11

yeah sure, you think planking is all "cool" and stuff, but back in the day they did the lean

BLAME THE HIPSTERS

Now I know Hipsters cop a lot of flack everywhere but I'm not sure this is really fair on them. Hipsters have been blamed for New York losing billions of $ in funding as a result of a shitty census.

Everyone from doormen to hipsters may be to blame for New York City coming up short in the Census count this year — and they may have lost the city billions in federal funding.

Councilwoman Diana Reyna theorized that “hipsters” may be part of the cause for the inconsistency of the Census numbers, stating that some of them “only want to be counted in their home state.” She also added that they might not participate in the Census because it wouldn’t be “cool.”

The rest of the article is here. That's some funny shit right there, poor hipsters.

edit: clearly on the 18th of March I was drunk blogging because I just noticed these last two posts in draft form. I somehow failed to post them gahhh

A NEW BANKSY

Not exactly, these Hanksy pieces have been popping up in New York lately. Spotted in Soho. 

edit: this post was in my drafts from a week ago, I guess I failed to hit the post button, so here it is...finally

THE HOOD # 128

Just a little further along the rail line from this was all of this

awwww love

I don't usually dig word/graffiti street art all that much but this one mingled the letters in with images of people and I thought that was pretty cool. Sorry I don't remember what it said and I can't tell from this angle

Third eye

SMELL'S LIKE

On the weekend I made my most favourite winter comfort food, always good when I'm cold and a bit down in the dumps (post op healing taking longer than I want). It's seriously basic but all so good. My mum used to make it for us for dessert and I think it's the memory of those times that makes it such good comfort food. Nothing fancy, you simply get a swiss roll cake, the ones with jam only in them, slice it and place in layers in a bowl. Then you pour hot custard all over it and into the grooves between the cake slices. Take spoon and eat. The left overs go into the fridge and this is where it gets really good. It's even better cold, the custard has soaked slightly into the sponge and yum. I even have the very same glass bowl mum used to make it in and I still use it for this dessert and only for this dessert. Then it goes back into the cupboard until I crave it again, probably some time next winter.

As I was demolishing this dish I started thinking about how not only the taste of this dessert was comforting but the smell of it too. That got me onto thinking about all of the smells I remember from my childhood that I rarely if ever smell any more. The smell of things used to be a big part of my life back when I was a chef but over the years my sense of smell pretty much left me. Food had to be really aromatic for me to notice. I still had the sense of smell, it's just that I got really used to certain smells. People would walk into my kitchen and go "wow what's that you're cooking? It smells awesome" I'd often be surprised by that, I couldn't smell it. Since I stopped cooking professionally though I've started to regain some of that sense of smell and I guess this weekend I remembered the smell of this dessert and that's what got me thinking of old smells that I hardly ever get to smell anymore, like....

• The Jarrah woodpile we used to have out the back of our house, especially when it got wet.
• My electric train set and the smell of the oil used to lubricate the wheels and all of the other moving bits.
• Model aeroplane fuel, it's pretty unique.
• Linseed oil on my cricket bat, even though I usually only hit tennis balls with it I was told to look after my bat and soak it in linseed oil every now and then
• There were these giant gingerbread hearts that us kids used to get every Oktoberfest, I'd hang it on the wall until it had aged slightly and then eat it. Always age your gingerbread hearts peeps. Take that tip away with you and think of me whilst you enjoy its' aged goodness.
• Buffalo grass
• Wet bitumen, yeah we get that now but back then it was different and better.
• Sawdust, my dad was a carpenter so he had a huge shed out the back and one of my chores was to cut up pieces of douling for him to use at work, before plastic plugs they used to push douling into drilled holes and then screw skirting boards into the doul.
• This black tar substance which everyone used to put on wood that was to be buried in the ground (eg: fence posts) to stop white ants, curasoak? or something like that.
• And to close it out the open fire in the lounge room, using up the not so wet Jarrah.

Good Times

SITTIN ON A CORNER

Plans are well under way for our trip to the US of A. Waz, Gaz and I headed down to CNR (James and Lake st's) in Northbridge for some brekky. This funky lil place is tucked under and behind the big screen in the Piazza. You have to look across the grassed area to notice it. It was completely empty outside when we arrived, no doubt due to the crispness of this morn. Finally some cold weather in Perth. It didn't take long to for others to fill up most of the outdoor area though, a perfect spot if you have a dog, we had two with us.

Free WiFi for all in the outdoor area, so we set about finding somewhere to stay for our 6 days in New York. We started off thinking apartments but then we found some awesome deals on hotels and ended up booking the Distrikt Hotel, which is a cool funky space in the Meatpacking district near Hells Kitchen.

Somewhere in amongst all of the where shall we go along Route 66 and should we go to Disneyland talk, we ordered some breakfast. Waz and Gaz had the corn and zucchini fritters to which Waz added some poached eggs. I had poached eggs and bacon with toast. Coffees and one of the best freshly squeezed juices I've had in Perth for a long time to close out the order. I really stand by the poached egg as a measuring stick for how good a breakfast a place does. Happy to report that they are done very well here. Word from across the bench was that the fritters were good too. 50 odd dollars all up for brekky for 3 isn't too bad either. The dogs even scored treats from a lady in the crowd. Pretty sure I recall a small whippet like dog doing clown tricks next to us too!? Maybe I had too much OJ!

The service is fairly simple at CNR, with all orders taken at the counter, but the staff delivered everything promptly and with a smile. Definitely heading back here again

Happy to find a nice breakfast spot, especially after my last attempt at somewhere new.

7 performing dogs out of 10

THE HOOD # 127

A bit wrong but I laughed

This one was a bit hard to get to due to high fences all round

some background info for non aussies

THE HOOD # 126

These were all a bit further down the wall from these

while I was snapping these pics a pigeon lands at my feet and starts given me the old "what the f#ck do you think you're doin" face.

MY KINGDOM FOR A SMOOTH DRIVE HOME

I awaken to fog/smog/clouds/smoke brought on partly by the good folks at the Dept for Environment and Conservation and then I get to drive home in rain brought by mother nature. Sadly Perth peeps don't get to drive in the rain very much any more and hence they're fairly craptastic at it. So my usual 20 -30 minute commute took 1 hour 35 minutes. But as I passed through the city (yep that's actually a short cut in Perth, all the traffics leaving so you enter, fools em every time) I managed a few snaps from my car to cut through the boredom....

It glows at night

so does this

come on in, we sell bikes

THE PERTH SOUP

Pretty damn foggy out there this morning, so much so it's completely erased my view of the city

this is what it usually looks like

and my buddy Michael is up high in the city right now above the clouds/fog and he snapped these, those are the cranes centre of pic above