What's with today, today?

Warning: This post may be less witty than the title might lead you to expect. I have lived in a city for most of my life and I love it. My particular city is Sydney, although I lived for a (very) short time in London and would love to visit New York. Sydney is the city that I know best. Cities have been around for thousands and thousands of years, but I think the concept of what is 'urban' has changed somewhat. Or maybe it would be better to put it this way: cities have changed with developments in technology, the industrial revolution, class changes and so on. The way people relate to cities has also changed. Graffiti may have been around for thousands of years, but I think maybe there is a shift since the 20th century in how people relate to the cities they live in. Or maybe not. Mainly I wanted to share some cool city related things. Psychogeography According to Guy Ernest Debord, apparently the originator of this concept, phsychogeography goes something like this: "the...

In the media and in public opinion there seems to be a perception that currently we are undergoing a rise of fundamental religion, with particular emphasis on the role of religion in politics and so on. In Christian circles, you will more likely hear that we are going through a rise in secularism (?) and militant atheism. For instance, see Richard Dawkins, and I guess the media portrayal of 'fundamentalists'. In a way I think maybe these could be flip-sides of the same coin, if you see atheists as also leaning towards fundamentalism maybe it all makes sense. Maybe one side is right and the other is wrong. Maybe it is the age old lament, 'society's not what it used to be'. Whichever, I am coming from the Christian perspective and constantly provoked by media discussion of religion and its ills, particularly when I feel it is defending Reason in an irrational manner. But that is really for another day. Today I am mostly wanting to talk about an article in the Herald a...

I wanted to write a blog post today, and I wanted to not write about the budget, but as I was reading a few articles in the SMH this morning I found it impossible to resist. But I don't want to talk about the budget, really I don't. Think of this more as a blog about journalism. Or subjectivity. Or similar. The first thing I went to this morning was an article by Ross Gittins, hoping for a good budget summary that would mean I didn't have to wade through too many specifics. Here is an extract: "Swan is worried about the size of the budget deficit and how long it will take to get the budget back under control. Hence his plans to cut back middle-class welfare by reducing superannuation perks, means testing the private health insurance rebate, and cracking down on abuse of the Medicare safety net. Not to mention hikes in the Medicare levy surcharge. The trouble with this is it's all a bit previous, as the Poms say. The recession has hardly go...

The thing is, it's Friday, it's after 5, and I'm going home. But I wanted to do this, so maybe a sketch now and more later... The Impression that I Get- Mighty, Mighty Bosstones Yellow- Coldplay I Must Belong Somewhere- Bright Eyes Man, I can't choose... More later Have a good weekend!

I liked writing that so much I'm going to do another one. Maybe I'll do daily top 5 lists. Maybe I won't. You'll just have to wait and see... I'm not including The Lord of the Rings in this list, you probably all know I love it. I didn't include the Bible in the last list either, but they both loom large. I know that a lot of people look down on fantasy, but I think that this is unfair and unwarranted. I want to make a list of books that will appeal to a range of people and maybe interest any non-fantasy readers out there. Top 5 fantasy books you should read (in no particular order): The Last Unicorn- Peter Beagle This is an amazing book, it's got everything- it's funny, it's sad, it's bittersweet and moving and the characters stay with you afterwards. Read it and we can discuss together what it means... The Wizard of Earthsea- Ursula le Guin Ursula le Guin is pretty great, and so is this trilogy (well, kind of trilogy). These are pretty sad book...

At the moment everyone on facebook is making up lists of their 5 top books etc. for different categories, in a manner reminiscent of High Fidelity , but I really feel that a top five deserves a blog post to be dealt with fully. So here are some top 5 lists of mine: Top 5 most influential books, in chronological order: -Fairytales I don't remember which book. All I know is that for the first half of kindergarten I couldn't read at all, but then somehow I started, and the first word I remember reading is "grandmother", I'm assuming this was 'Little Red Riding Hood'. That was such an exciting moment, and the start of a lifelong love of words. - The Treasures of the Snow, Patricia St. John Reading this book is the first time that I remember really thinking about what I believe and making a conscious decision that yes, I would like to count myself a follower of Jesus. So pretty important for me... -The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien This book pretty much sea...

I was reading an article today about posters which have been popping up on lampposts in Melbourne and entertaining the local populace by saying things like: "I like doing stuff but I always end up doing the same stuff again and again. I'd like to meet up with people who like doing stuff, preferably different stuff to my stuff..." And signing it 'Craig' Some think it was an ad for a classifieds website. But it turns out there was (already?) someone in New York doing the same thing and signing off 'Chris'. You can find out about it here: http://zoomdoggle.com/2009/03/honorary-doggler-chris-not-craig/ These people believe that the originals were a spoof of the website. Anyway it's pretty random and the website made me smile, so I felt I should share it. I saw an unusual poster on the corner of Enmore Rd and Stanmore Rd last night, but didn't get a chance to get a proper look. I all can really say is that it was up pretty high, and I think it involved ...

I thought this would be an appropriate way to herald in a new year of blogging: with a meme stolen from Ronni: 1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before? Got married! Graduated from university. Got a full-time job and held it down for three months. An eventful year really... 2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I'm not sure whether I made any... But this year I have. Not too sure that I'll keep it though. 3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No, although some people I know got pregnant. 4. Did anyone close to you die? No 5. What countries did you visit? None, I stayed in Australia the whole time. 6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? Organisational skills. A clean house. 7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? 5th April- my wedding day. I hope that it remains etched in my memory because I'll have to remember it for anniversaries and so on. 8. What was...

He came down to earth from heaven, Who is God and Lord of all And His shelter was a stable And his cradle was a stall. With the poor, and mean and lowly, Lived on earth our Saviour holy. - Once in Royal David's City, C.F. Alexander Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people ... to rescue us from the hand of his enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. - Zechariah's Song. Luke 1:68, 74-75

It has come to my attention that there is trouble afoot in the world. All is not as it should be. Yet what can be done? I refer of course to the correct method of abbreviating the word 'saint'. In the course of my university degree, concentrating as I did on the Medieval period, I wrote a number of essays about or including saints. After receiving many of these essays back with numerous corrections I came to the conclusion that the abbreviation of saint was 'St' with NO full stop, which distinguishes it from 'st.' which has a full stop. The reason for this, which I may have made up in my own head, it's hard to tell, is that 'street' is shortened, and the front two letters used to form an abbreviation, while 'saint' is contracted, with the middle removed, and the first and last letters removed. So the full stop in 'st.' stands in for the missing letters, which wouldn't make sense in the case of 'saint'. This seems like a fa...

I have some new webcomics up on my sidebar! Mostly to make them easier to navigate to, and an attempt to update the links a bit. They are 'A Softer World' and 'Pictures for Sad Children', both are slightly whimsical with a disturbed edge. I recommend this from 'A Softer World' as commentary on our economic condition.

On Friday night I went to see Cloud Control at the Hopetoun Hotel in Surry Hills. Now Cloud Control is a small local band that I've been following for a while, cos I know one of the members, and I like their music, and the Hopetoun is somewhere that I've always wanted to go, so it promised to be a good evening. And a good evening it was! The support act was lots of fun, they were called 'Philadelphia Grand Jury'. There was another support act but we missed it because we were eating dinner upstairs (it was mexican). Their music was pretty good but they were very entertaining. They had a song called "I don't wanna party party, but I'm gonna cos you're fantastic" (which was also the chorus). It was quite silly but enjoyable. At the end the keyboard player unplugged his keyboard and walked out the door. Then after much fiddling with sound and instruments and setting things up generally, and a mad scramble to the bar by me through a fairly solid crowd w...

It's been a busy few weeks, what with starting a new job and all. When leaving my old job I got a little bit nostalgic, since everybody was saying good-bye. I was thinking "this is the last time I'll mop the floor" etc. I started wondering whether or not regular customers would miss me, or even notice I was gone. All those people whose orders I remembered by heart, who I used to exchange a smile with when they came in, I remember them, but I wonder if they'll notice I'm not there... I started worrying about a regular elderly man who comes in and sometimes seems confused. He never knows how to order. I hope they look after him. But then it was all over, and I said good-bye to the world of fast food and hello to offices and Excel. The world of high-finance and rush hour commuting and so on. Currently I don't mind getting up in the morning so much. All the sunshine helps, as well as the person who went around tying inspirational quotes to trees with ribbon. I...

Tagged by Ronni, who has livejournal. 1. One movie that made you laugh: There are many. For some reason the only one I can think of right now is Pirates of Penzance , which hardly counts as a movie really but I remember watching it when I was younger with my mum and my sister and literally rolling on the floor in merriment. Good times. 2. One movie that made you cry: I always prided myself on not crying in movies, although I get teary pretty easily in real life, but Atonement defeated me. 3. One movie you loved when you were a child: The Disney Robin Hood , with the foxes. Absolutely loved that one. 4. One movie you’ve seen more than once: I'm going to give two, for balance, When Harry Met Sally and Star Wars . 5. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it: Many romantic comedies, or dramas. I really enjoyed P.S. I Love You . 6. One movie you didn't like: I love criticizing movies I don't like, so there is always a positive. I'm going to say Super Troopers ...

A couple of days ago I bought the new album by Conor Oberst, the singer/songwriter from Bright Eyes. I am always impressed at how each of his albums has a sounds distinct from each of the others, and yet they all have a common thread, mostly due to Conor's voice and lyrics I think. I have four of his albums and this is true for all of them, including this latest one. The thing that first struck me about this latest one is how conventional it sounded, more tuneful I suppose. Getting further in I have revised my opinion, it is not conventional as such, it just has a style that seems very firmly rooted in the music of the '60s. This is where I feel a lack of musical knowledge, I'm sure that there are others who could tell me if this was correct and give me more precise information, but the drums and guitars just shout to me of some decade from the late 20th century. Conor Oberst's music has always struck me as somewhat 'old-fashioned' in this way, but while his pre...

So Viv has tagged me, and this is what I have to do: Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!) Find Page 123. Find the first 5 sentences. Post the next 3 sentences. Tag 5 people. Not sure if it's the nearest book or not, but the book I've been reading is 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (although a week of skiing has distracted me from reading much at all). Let's see... And Rebeca did take a casual look toward the wall and was paralyzed with stupor, barely able to react and wave good-bye to Arcadio. Arcadio answered her the same way. At that instant the smoking mouths of the rifles were aimed at him and letter by letter he heard the encyclicals that Melquiades had chanted and he heard the lost steps of Santa Sofia de la Piedad, a virgin, in the classroom, and in his nose he felt the same icy hardness that had drawn his attention in the nostrils of the corpse of Remedios. I like this book, but that would be a very confusin...

Life does feel busy at the moment, with social engagements and plenty of shifts at work, all of which distracts me from job hunting and cleaning the house. I have written the last in case any of you come over and judge me on how messy my house is. Although I suppose a busy social life is not an excuse, you will only judge me for being terribly frivolous and bad at time management. Speaking of which I did spend most of yesterday afternoon napping, and to be perfectly honest I spend a large proportion of my time asleep. So where does that leave us? Well now you have a short summary of my life I can now write about whatever I like. And today that is a list of some of my favourite bars in Sydney, for your edification. I was thinking of this topic as I sat in Zeta Bar on Friday night, sipping a delicious cocktail in funky surrounds, having actually managed to grab a seat. I was also able to carry on a conversation with Andrew at the same time as the music was at just the level where it was ...

Well, it's been a while since I wrote a new blog posts, sorry to y'all. I know this happens periodically, usually when I don't have internet at home. As is the case at the moment. Since it's been so long, I'm not sure what to write about. I could write about the wedding, but most of you were there, and those who weren't have probably already read about it. I think that that any description I could write would be inadequate, since I was in something of a daze at the time. So perhaps it would be better to write about the honeymoon, since none of you were there and I haven't even had the chance to say much about it. Just mentioning a few moments, since it was pretty long for one blog post... After the wedding we stayed at the Sheraton on the Park, and spent a day in Sydney buying a new hairbrush, taking the lift to the top floor of the Sheraton and admiring the view all the way to the harbour and visiting the Australian Museum (good old skeleton room). Not to m...

I feel terrible looking at this blog and seeing that there are no posts at all in March. Which means I guess that there are not many people reading at the moment? You have all probably given up on me. It makes me sad because I do check the blogs, and I like a nice regularly updated blog to keep me entertained and up to date. It's just that with moving house, organising a wedding, and not having home internet, it has been a little hard. Happily I now have some spare time. Well, it's not exactly spare, but printing things takes a long time and it's the computer that has to do all the work, so I'm free to update! Yay! And what's news? I'm getting married in two days! Which is pretty crazy. Andrew and I have been running around like mad all week, and I'm sure not everything we wanted to do will get done. Note for others, when getting married, doing everything yourself to save money may sound like a good idea, but may also drive you crazy. And therapy doesn't...

I had a very eventful weekend, I moved house. Well, not completely, there's stuff still to be packed and moved but I'm living in Stanmore now. Unfortunately this house does not have internet access as yet, and since my laptop has been broken for some time I'm not sure when internet access will be forthcoming, so no regular internet access for me. :( So this blog will likely be even more neglected... But it's kinda exciting anyway, and I also got to see Merry and watch Juno (which I recommend, by the way! Also liked the soundtrack). Hi everybody by the way! Also I have been shopping for wedding shoes and I find that my feet are too big and practically nothing fits them. Stupid feet.