Finishing up here. You can find me at http://smellslike42.blogspot.com/

Met up with the guys at the London Tavern at 12:30. Grabbed a seat in the sunshine and we had some jugs of beer. The beer would help to cushion the blow of the actual game.

Met Gibbo's wife and dad, they're cool people and didn't mind my screaming too much. I had to do alot of screaming as Essendon played extremely badly. Hardly kicking any goals, except for when Fletcher got a 50m. Awful in the midfield. Lloydy did not very much.

Later found out that at three-quarter time Sheedy asked the team to do it for Hirdy. So they scored zero goals to Hawthorn's six. Completely awful.

Had more drinks after the game to dull the pain and went home. Pen and I went to Nanna's for dinner and scrabble. I managed to win scrabble. Maybe I need to be pissed. Had beer and red-wine also. HoiAn was menacing Kirby and Indy. Little Ho. Had to keep chasing her down. Meal was roast, meat tasted gorgeous. Loved the corn too, very sweet.

Struggled with a hangover on Monday but still rode the exercise bike on Monday night which I'm happy with.

I was pretty excited on Sunday morning. I had a dream during the night that I was riding the bike on the Moonee Ponds Creek track up north. Then I was riding through the streets and into a school that had a bowl shaped ground so I could ride around. Rob Sitch and friends were playing cricket with a tennis ball and invited me to play square-leg. Dream going good until I had to bat. My brain couldn't accept the reality of me playing the ball with any degree of skill and I subsequently woke up.

Pen thought we could go to the Merri Creek bike track so we went that way. Decided to ride for 45 minutes then turn back. Getting to the track scared me. We went up Prospect street, which was uphill, then through some back streets till we hit Gaffney street. Gaffney has a bike-lane but I was still fairly new and scared. I wobbled less than last time I went on a road which I was pleased with. After Sydney Rd., Gaffney goes downhill and loses the bike lane so Pen and I went on the footpath. A car drove past with people screaming at us. I was expecting that sort of thing so wasn't too bad but Pen got a fright and nearly had an accident. Sucks that people do that kind of thing.

I liked the bike trail to begin with, lots of down-hill that I enjoyed. I seem to be getting better at higher speeds but still nowhere near as fast as Pen. Coming back nearly killed me though as there was a lot of long uphill areas. I got to the point where I was pedaling and nearly going backwards, with a person walking overtaking me. So I got frustrated and walked the rest of the way to Sydney Rd. From there I pedalled but I had no power in my legs so felt too chicken to push-off at the round-about or most of the lights.

Coming back down Prospect street was painful too as my ass bounced on the seat for every speed-bump. Pen stood in her bike but I don't feel confident enough for that yet.

At the end I felt like I'd been terrorised but I'm pleased I did it as I need to get better at riding on the road and Merri Creek looks like a fun track too.

Met up with Viette and Michael at the Regent to see this movie on Saturday night. Movie started at 7:10. Before lights came down there was a short intro by the film festival director with the crazy hair and leather jacket he always seems to wear. Also a speech by the director who was from Melbourne and happy about premiering it here.

The movie was alot better than I expected. I've seen stories about migrants living in Australia before and been bored by them. This was alot better though as the story wasn't about migrants settling in. The story was about two kids trying to deal with their mum's bad life decisions with migrating to Australia serving as a backdrop.

At the end I came closest to crying that I've come to for a while. Extremely sad story but really good. It was set in the 70s too and the attention to detail was amazing. Almost too much I thought but Pen and Viette liked it. Some of the TV shows and music served well as helping make things more dramatic or light as needed. I'll definetely recommend it to friends.

After the movie the kid actors and some others came to the stage. Amazing how the little boy acted and we found out he got the role by finding an ad in the Age and calling up about it and making the audition. Both him and the girl, the two kids from the movie, seemed nervous by the attention and it was sweet to see. Nice antidote to actors up themselves.

Afterwards the four of us went to Supper Inn. After a bit of a wait for a table we got chinese sausage, fish with mushrooms, beef with bitter melon and some other food I didn't eat much of. The fish tasted really good which suprised me as I'm not a huge fan of fish. The beef with bitter melon was as wierd as I expected it to be. Also tasted good. Went home after that full and happy.

Nanna Fabb was over on Friday night. Tracey was working so Nanna was over for dinner and drinking and watching the footy. Pen had a bit of wine, half a bottle by the end. Pen was funny. Nanna mentioned wanting a coat so Pen exclaimed she'd find it on eBay and went up to the study. After a while I shouted she could bring the laptop down here and use it. She did and looked for coats.

Then she grabbed the Tim Tam Balls (not as good as maltesers or Tim Tam biscuits) and we both scoffed them all. The carbonara Pen made was really good too. Not enough sauce but still tasted good. I liked it with the spirals but Pen said she'd prefer it with the long spaghetti.

We got up the next day to go to St Andrew's Market. I'd never heard of the suburb but its in the far north east of Melbourne. Took us an hour to get there. Up in the hills and very pretty. Little bakery and pub and the market. I got a latte while we waited for Andrea, Shayne and Renee. We met up with them at the pub and then walked through the market. The guy selling CDs and records was funny. On telling me he sold DVDs to shops for $20 and that they sold them for $30 I retorted that it was a rip off. He gave me a look and told me it was capitalism. Later I was looking at John Lennon DVDs so he grabbed a box of live Beatles performances and plopped them in front of me telling me they were good. I mentioned that I'd heard the Beatles couldn't hear their own music over the screaming fans. He glared at me and muttered "you can hear a couple" and snatched the box away. Renee was looking at Perfect Circle CDs. Never heard of them but she reckoned they were good and was looking for Shayne to try to convince him to buy it for her.

Pen and I got some plants for the garden. Also met Gibbo wandering around and made sure he was coming to watch the footy. There were some guys laying around with one reading a book. Book sounded a bit physical, but we had to move on. They also had funny t-shirts with star-wars pictures. eg. Darth Vader pruning a plant to look like the death star.

Went to the pub, they had live music which was relaxing and good. I had the chicken camembert which tasted good. It was small but filling. I also had one of Pen's rissoles which put me over the edge. Couldn't even finish the chips.

We saw Andrea and Shayne's wedding album. Well put together with all size pictures organised nicely. Pictures on the bridge looked great. We went home after that pretty happy with our day.

96.5. 96 point farking five. Not happy, felt like I've lost more than that. Feel good so not too worried, plus it was the morning after a kebab. I seem to be steadily losing weight. I thought it would be faster. I'm set on riding the exercise bike tonight so that should help. MIFF is involving alot of sitting around too which likely doesn't help. At least I'm not gaining.

This movie is part of MIFF but Pen and I didn't see a MIFF screening. We saw a preview at the Kino via a double-pass we won from RRR. I knew nothing about the movie and neither did Pen. The billboards and card for the movie made it look like a sexploitation type movie. Didn't turn out to be too far off the mark.

Movie was at 6:30 which caused problems. I left work early to get there, Pen drove in from her work. She was running late and couldn't find parking. I found out that Collins Place parking could get validated at the Kino. Unfortunately I didn't know how to get into the parking so I couldn't give her instructions on the phone. I was getting worried and wondering if the movie was really worth all this fuss of Pen navigating city traffic jams. Starting to figure we could watch something else. She ended up parking elsewhere. We met up and went in. We were late but the movie hadn't started yet and our seats weren't too bad, not up the front.

The movie was cool. It was very sexploitation, with a Christina Ricci (Rae) wearing little clothes and often taking off even that. She had issues so when her boyfriend (Justin Timberlake) goes to the army she starts rooting around. She gets beaten up and left at Samuel L Jackson's (Lazarus) house.

He chains her up (of course) to stop her running and to teach her to be a good girl. It sounds pretty bad when you look at the plot and there was alot of sex screnes. the movie's saved by Samuel L Jackson being a cool mofo, and the side-characters being interesting and funny. Cool blues in the movie that Jackson seems to really play and sing.

It ends by the characters admitting they're fucked up, but willing to work through it which I thought was a good message. Not quite happily ever after which it nearly was, but with a proviso. You're left not totally convinced the future will work out.

I liked it, so did Pen but we agreed there was a hell of a lot of sex in it. It was less violent than Pen thought so that was good too.

We ended up getting kebabs on Sydney Rd at Aylasya (sic) which we've bought at before. They were awesome kebabs, choc full of meat that Pen ended up sharing with HoiAn as we ate them at home.

Another Kim Ki-Duk movie on Tuesday night. Pen and I met up with Glenn and Linda at Choclate Buddha. Had some shockingly priced asahi and good food. Large serves there makes you happy. Though Linda didn't like her prawns. Conversation was a little slow, from my part mainly because it was a Tuesday and felt a bit tired. Noticed the boy-girl ratio was firmly with the girls in that restaurant. Wonder why? Maybe because its quality food at expensive prices, and lots of buddha statues. Men like me would just go, too expensive, and go somewhere else. Also the bar is small and easily crowded.

We went to Greater Union. Thought we'd be late but the line was still there. Had to shove through the crowds to find the line. This one had a lot more talking in it that Breath, the other movie we saw last week. It had funny dialog. Again I liked the repetition of certain places and scenes that work well to get you to feel close with the characters. Especially important here as its about a strange couple that've been together for a couple of years. The girl is insanely jealous of the guy and thinks he wants something new. So she goes and gets plastic surgery to be someone new. To me it seemed it was more her wanting something new as she recreated scenes from their relationship, especially in sculture park. In the end she's thwarted when he still loves her past self.

Really freaky scene where she writes a letter signed from her pre-surgery self and she wants him to admit she loves her new self and not the old one. He refuses and goes to meet the old self. So she's sitting there with a mask of her old face from a black and white photo. You're not expecting it so the effect is unsettling.

He's also unsettled and gets in a fight. The girl goes back to her surgeon wanting to be changed back. He follows her and gets himself changed too. Then we see the girl going through the uncertainty the guy did. This bit of the movie dragged a little as it was a copy of what happened before and we got the point fairly quickly.

She's inviting people into her home just to see if its him. Eventually she thinks she's found him and chases him through a train station. A recreation of what she did to him. Difference is he gets run over which drives her even more mad. She gets her face changed again.

Strange movie! Liked how its open to interpertation. Linda thought the guy that got run over was definetely the boyfriend. I preferred to think the boyfriend just moved somewhere else and dropped the crazy bitch out of his life. Probably not though as the surgeon tells the girl he'll come back into her life. Unsettling movie.

Went up to Ballarat on Saturday in the Falcon to go to Adam and Donna's engagement party. Adam is Pen's cousin so we scored an invite. Went up to Pen's parents and went in her parents car. We were half an hour late to the bowling club hall the party was held at.

When we got in our party of four managed to double the people at the party. Bit of a worry. I'd heard mention of a jukebox and thought it a joke. Sure enough in the corner was a small video jukebox with a screen too small to see from the tables. Seemed to be too many tables for the people. More people turned up but not as many as expected.

It was an OK night. Music was awful, and eventually Pen's other cousin Ty monopolised the microphone and was singing along. Too much food also. Little money-bag food and sausage roll slices and chips. Good stuff. Had to pay for beer though.

Next day was Pen's dad's 60th birthday party. Pen and I went in my car with the cake and picked up Jarrod, Tony and El. Party was at the Bended Elbow pub. Warm place with a window looking down onto a refurbished club that looked very dodgy. Heard stories confirming dodginess. That was a bit of fun too. Ate the lasagne which was good. Hadn't had that for ages.

Felt very sore from the bike ride. We got the barmen to put on the plasma screen onto the footy too. Had a few drinks, was good to yak a bit. Went back to the car to hear the score, all even at 70 points.

We watched most of it at the pub and ended up finishing late. Only finished when Pen shouted it was time to go which made her feel bad. I don't think anyone else was going to leave though as the footy was on. We already knew Essendon had beaten Adelaide. Their skills looked much better than recently. We went back to her parents. Realised Franky was pissed on the red wine. Need to remember that. He unwrapped pressies. Novelty cards with Happy birthday by Stevie wonder and lights were sung with which was funny. He seemed to like the pressies mainly. We all got some almond chocolate things. Pen drove home as I was exhausted and a bit pissed. Needed her to stop at a servo on the way home to have a piss cos I was busting.

We got home and went to bed pretty soon after.

Had dinner with Sylv and Craig at the Anglers on Friday night. Was good to see them, Sylv had her first driving lesson that day. Impressive stuff. Craig was driving a BMW he's selling for work. Also seems like he's doing really well in his job, getting a better office and stuff.

We talked footy and life, then went to their place to play Trivial Pursuit. That was fun too, team of boys versus team of girls. Boys won just, probably connected to Sylv falling asleep.

On the Saturday Pen and I planned to ride the bikes. Question was where? I suggested Docklands but with a bit of fear as its far. We went. I handled the hills much better than last time, was able to pedal up most of them in second, third or fourth gear. Only needed to go to first once. The creek is pretty closer to the city too, like a little swamp. The path also goes under the waterline which is cool. We had coffee at Meccah Bah. Also had a couple of entrees, spicy lamb pastries and some stuffed silvebeets. Tasted beautiful, well worth it. Pen and I resolved to eat there sometime. Everyone there was well-dressed so we stood out in our trackie dacks. Didn't mind though. We got a seat by the window and a good view of the water.

Walking back to the bike I could feel my t-shirt and it was drenched. The ride back was difficult, did most of it in a lower gear than I did getting there. Managed to go down and up the big hill on the path just before home which I didn't think I could do. Still panicking on the road when a car is overtaking, especially on the gaffney street intersection. Better than last time though. Was late when we got back, 3pm, so by the time we showered we were rushing to leave for Ballarat.

Pen and I saw Breath last night by Kim-Ki Duk. Movie started at 7:15. My train was late so I got there at 7 and we grabbed a burger from HJs. Pen wanted fish so she got the ocean catch burger. It was awful, just a stale tasting fillet. My burger was good so Pen got a big bite out of that. We ate the burgers while lined up at the Capitol Theatre.

Its a nice theatre, we sat on the side slightly next to a lade doing Sudoku and a guy that would hush Pen during the movie for talking during silent bits. The projector was clicking loudly which I found annoying. I'm suprised the guy didn't tell it to hush.

The movie started slowly, but the actions of the actors really got you into their characters so you'd empathise. Husband cheats on wife. Wife visits death-row inmate. She creates wallpaper to recreate a scene from her past and she sits there and sings pop-songs at the guy who slowly falls in love, or lust, with her.

Also a fellow prisoner also feels attached to death-row guy and gets upset. I enjoyed the movie, wasn't sure if Pen would as its pretty silent. She did enjoy it too. I like how Kim Ki Duk has all these bizarre things happening. Then grounds it by having the wife do washing or walking in the park. The park reminds me of a scene that could be in Melbourne and helps empathise even more.

Walking to the station afterwards I was worried about getting beaten up. Mainly as Pen was commenting on girls not wearing enough a meter or two away. Thats my upbringing, mum saying not to say things as you could get in trouble. We got home fine.

Weighed 96.3 this morning, nearly changed yesterday's amount but figure its punishment for eating heaps on the Wednesday. I'm fine with it.

Interesting that Robert Pirsig states that Quality is the beginning of everything and we interpert things as a result of being affected by quality in our relationship with other objects. So we measure reality through the use of quality. Not observe. I gleaned this from the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that I was reading on the train this morning.

See ya

Just chucking old stuff out of the files at work. Found a flier for Movin' Melvin Brown for his shows in September and October 2002 at the Chapel Off Chapel. I went and saw him on my own after finding out about Dad having cancer, having had it for a while and that my parents hadn't told me as they didn't want me to be emotional. Well how do you react to that? Not be emotional. Especially after the doc tells you your dad has months to live.

Dad's still alive thankfully. Still kicking around. I haven't been back to the Melbourne Hospital to ask the doctors about it. Its like some magic spell that you don't want to look into so that it won't break. Dad still goes to the hospital for checkups. He tells me that they just ask him questions and thats about it.

So I felt a bit down and didn't feel I could tell anyone about it. Its a hell of a thing to dump on anyone. I'd heard on RRR about Movin Melvin Brown, that he could make you smile and he'd tell you his life's story.

I'd never been to Chapel Off Chapel and went. Felt a little akward as all the seats were at tables. So I bought a beer and sat scratching at the beer label. He came out and it was a little cheesy. He'd talk a bit and then break into a song and tap-dance. Yep, he tap danced. I don't remember much about it, but it made me smile. It made me feel that other people had worse problems and were able to work through them so I should cheer up about it already. So I did.

Its something I think about every so often, so I'm writing it down to pour it out of my head. Have fun.

Found this interesting article today. Its about why we even need the concept of dying in a game.

Eg. in World of Warcraft you go back to the graveyard, its a minor annoyance. I had an image in my head of it being replaced with a medieval version of an ambulance, with two paramedics and a stretcher bundling a tauren into the ambulance and into a hospital. Cute I thought but the article didn't go there.

Interesting also that in second life there's no dying. I did a bit of second life last night. Bought a dalek shape/skin for myself. Looked cool. Tried to make something but didn't get anywhere so I watched a youtube vid on how to do it.

Funny feeling with Pen in the lounge-room, doing cross-stitch on a real thing with me in the study trying to work out how to create a virtual thing. Maybe I should try to make the bear sleeping on the moon image Pen is cross-stitching for Jo. Need to get some skill first. Only one way to do that and its practise. Not totally convinced I can be bothered either. I'll give it a bit more of a try.

Also downloaded a whole heap of comics that took ages to put onto the DS. So of course today I'm playing Etrian Odyssey instead and starting to get into that. Got to be careful not to be sucked into virtual amusements too much. There's still the garden to take care of and cooking and washing to be done.

Argh. I'm pretty sure they said 97.3 which I thought was good. But I was under 97 last week. When I saw that on here I felt like not making an update and remeasuring myself. Tough titties though. Thats what I get for two helpings of bolognese last night and not bothering to ride the bike like I promised myself I would.

Not too unhappy given how I loaded up the night before, but I was pooing so much on Sunday I was sure I'd lose some weight. Will have to see next week. Got the food under control, eating soup for lunch without bread. Just got to do more exercise, not just killing myself on the bike on Sundays.

Feeling a bit down about sheedy getting the arse from Essendon. This article cheered me up.

The main thing that made me smile was the statement that being inactive is 20 times more dangerous then the health risk in an accident caused from riding a bicycle. Have to remember that while riding to be less scared. Also it was generally praising cyclists. Made me happy to think we rode to me parents instead of going in the car.