Cloud Fishing

Because I work in a giant call centre I commonly have to fight for a microwave in the kitchenette against overweight people. At lunch today while I waited to stick my tupperware tub into the next available oven a larger woman next to me said something I hear often when I have my lunch out.
"Wow, that looks healthy!"

What she was referring to was my fry up of chicken, capsicum, celery and four bean mix, on a bed of Basmati rice. And the only reason people think it "looks healthy" is because it has beans in it.

"I never eat beans," she said. "I didn't know you could have beans, in like, meals. I thought they only went in salads."

I believed that. Then she left, and I microwaved my lunch for five minutes and thirty seconds on medium-high.

Later, I left work for the 500 metre walk to my car - because paying $40 a month for an uncovered car park in the middle of summer just seems call centre lazy. And, I figure if there is a day it looks like bucketing permanently then I'll work from home.

Once my eyes adjusted to the light the part of my brain which keeps prattling on about becoming a photographer pointed out to me how nice the clouds looked. They were like individual, suspended round blobs with rain that I'll never see giving them a nice shading around the bottom. Clouds are really important when taking photos of landscapes, because otherwise a third of your photo is super boring.

I drove home and then did some run throughs with Vanessa under an artfully cloudy sky. Next I did bunch of stretching and finally I emerged with my camera to take some photos with clouds in them. At this point I discovered the clouds had gone. Where did they go? I don't know. In the sky there was only cloudy streaks left, like the finished tray of self-saucing chocolate pudding. Except not brown.

The moral of this story is that if you decide to rush somewhere to take a photo of sunset clouds you should have an idea of a good place to go beforehand. Because racing around in a car trying to beat nature may feel a bit like being in Twister, but most times it won't get you a very good spot to take photos from.

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Today I did everything that I wanted to do.
Except make a todo list, which I was planning on doing this morning but I never got around to.

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Salary Cap

I'm excited about football.
The Western Bulldogs called me today. They wanted money. It was nice to speak to them.
I looked at the odds on Betfair for teams making the Top 8. The Bulldogs were 1.22, and assuming they make it payout would be at the end of August which is just under seven months. That seems way better than a term deposit. But there's always the risk they don't make it.

I think the only way they won't make finals this year is if I bet all my money on them making it.
They're playing an intra-club match on Saturday. If I could bet on them winning that I would.

Also I'm going to put it out there, not joining Fantasy Footy is like the best thing you can do to give yourself more free time over winter.

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Unfinished Projects

One of my biggest weaknesses is that I too often start projects or hobbies that I never finish. All too often I'll have a brilliant idea, jot down some notes or start compiling some objects or mp3s into a folder and then forget about it.

Yesterday, while trying to find 8GB of free space to install Call of Duty 4 on a hard drive bursting at the seams with unfinished projects I stumbled upon the directory C:\Users\Brad\Pictures\Digital Camera\potemp\Rangas at Music Festivals.

I now present a highlight reel of bloodnuts and carrot tops I saw at music festivals between December 30 2007 and April 2 2008.

For the most part I was documenting red heads subtly. I'm not sure how I pulled off this one.

"I know! I'll hide my red hair underneath this red hat."

I think I saw this guy in Rundle Mall like a week after I shot this. And he gave me this look, like he was saying "I know you have an album of red heads at music festivals on your hard drive."

Stealth Ranga. Busted!

At this half way mark I want to say I have over three red heads as friends on Facebook, so I know they're real people too.

Two!! You'd probably believe how much I giggled after taking this.

Hiding in the shade.

It's funny after you think about it.

An artistic shot: a single ranga glowing in the red light of the Big Day Out D barrier.

This guy for some reason I actually talked to about my quest, and he found it interesting. He even offered to help me out in any way he could. So I took his photo.

Finally, the biggest ranga at a music festival of them all, Josh Homme.

I'll admit that was a little weird.

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Dear Pepsi Max

Why do you taste so awesome out of a can but so terrible out of a bottle?

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I Had These Thoughts Today

- People who video songs at rock concerts on point-and-shoot cameras with pissy microphones - what are they thinking? Do any of these people shoving their cameras into my eye-line seriously go back and watch these videos? I have a theory that this videoing is only done by short people so they can use their camera's LCD screen like a periscope to see above the crowd.

- I think it would be funny if there was a show about a single mum and her sons. And one of them became old enough to shave so she had to teach him. And the first thing she did was pull out a Venus Razor.

- I don't reckon a single straight dude has ever picked up a hairdryer belonging to a girl in his house, or while in a hotel room, and not immediately assumed that because they're a dude they'll need to use it at full power.

- Don't waste your time or time will waste you!

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Troubled Sole

I made a split second decision that I didn't want to get my shoes sandy, so I'd just walk through the car park barefoot to get to the beach.

If I'd gone the other way on this I probably wouldn't be posting an entry titled 'motherfucking fuck my shoes are sandy'.

Now I have a great big blister on the bottom of one foot, and a great big popped one on the other. I didn't pop it intentionally.. I Googled whether I should or not and I couldn't get a straight answer. I guess I will have a verdict in a day or few.

I was supposed to play basketball against people tomorrow! I feel like the universe is trying to work against me sometimes. Not just this, but I almost severed my left pinky (exaggeration) last Friday, and then a couple of days ago I almost broke my left pinky toe.
I'm going to hero it out tomorrow. Then suffer through Tuesday in a pool with some beers.

The universe can't be against me, I walked into Footlocker on Saturday and they only had one pair of size 14 shoes and they were perfect for me, and in my old team colours.

No Fate.

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One Long Distance Call From Retirement

I saw an ad today for a romantic comedy titled "It's Complicated". This comes a year after "He's Just Not That Into You" came out.

I'm sensing a theme here. I've put my entrepreneur cap on for a moment and come up with some movie ideas, and I'm willing to negotiate a selling price for the following titles. If you're from a major Hollywood movie studio just use the comment form below.

Tom Cruise, Drew Barrymore and Jack Black in the delightful We Need To Talk

Ben Stiller, Roseanne Barr, Kathy Bates, Jennifer Lopez and Dustin Hoffman in the hilarious Does This Make Me Look Fat?

Julia Roberts, Amanda Bynes and - in his most serious comedy role in years - Jim Carrey star in Is She Prettier Than Me?

Bill Murray, Kirsten Dunst, Seth Green, Elisha Cuthbert, Will Arnett, Keanu Reeves and Julia Louis-Dreyfus head an all star cast in the riotous I Don't Want to Ruin Our Beautiful Friendship

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Bulktenber

Let's be honest the pun/call-back in today's title is justification enough for an entry.

I've set myself some unrealistic goals this year, one is to bench press 1440 kilograms on my 26th birthday (August 25). I did this for the first and last time on my 24th birthday (3x 6x 80kg) and it felt good. Not like "discovering the meaning of life" good, but more "endorphins are blocking the part of my brain that cares about finding meaning in life".

I've set myself a little path to get there (BULKTENBER!), it's a triangle offence that combines the predictable "chest exercise" with core strengthening and wrist rehabilitation. I managed to bench 15kg today! I used two 7.5kg dumbbells. I'm 18.75% of the way there! I also did 24 push ups (with a wide grip and on my knees like a lady) which was exhilarating! A fortnight ago I was struggling to manipulate 2.5kg with my left hand. Assuming I don't plateau I should be doing 80kg reps in about two months. More likely I'll be doing 6x 6x 40kg on my birthday.

But seriously, the full push up barrier is one I'm getting closer to breaking and I feel good about this. It will give me confidence going into the chin-up nightmare. It's this reoccurring dream I have where I'm just reaching the top of my first rep when I hear a rip and I look up to see my left hand still on the bar and slowly succumbing to gravity, falling past me on its way to the ground.

To Do:
- Find a gym;
- Eat lots of protein powder for no reason.

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Tropicality

There were extremes of Summer today.

It was cold enough at one point to wear a jumper! (Either that or close a window, effort).

But then later I bought a rockmelon AND a watermelon for less than four bucks!

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Writing Tips

Good writers read a lot. I got taught that in high school, but it's so true.

Mainly because it's hard to be lazy and read a lot. A few decades ago it wasn't, but in today's buffet of instantly gratifying, bite-sized entertainment morsels reading for hours on the daily is tough as. Obviously writing a lot is even harder, so if you're too lazy to read it's not a good start.

Perhaps more specific to me, reading something a lot tends to flavour my own voice with hints of theirs. Which seems to give some spice to otherwise bland writing. That's what I noticed today, after reading this for a few hours yesterday I then naturally wrote some Simmonds style Rip It Up reviews tonight. And then I looked through some older ones and found my Bill Bryson reviews, some Malcolm Gladwell reviews and a lot of no reviews. All these no reviews were from times I wasn't reading!

I'm not saying that all the reviews I write are rip-offs - the stylising is usually pretty subtle - and I'm pretty aware of my main voice. However I think this is an effect that helps make writing easier, especially about post-punk bands I don't really like. Thus something bland becomes more rewarding and therefore doing it is more appealing!

Also, a few weeks ago after seeing one too many FaceBook profiles with "Books: i dont read books lolz" I decided to add my favourite authors to my profile. This was a slightly out-of-character decision because aside from pictures of me at parties and weekend plans I try to keep private information off FaceBook (and instead push it into bradism.com!). But my little list of authors is something I like now, because it makes me feel smartish and better than people. And also because it encourages me to read more so list doesn't stay so piddly.

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Increasing Sunshine

Weatherzone published today's forecast as "43°C Increasing Sunshine" which seemed a little understated.

It's pretty freaking hot, and as bland as it is to simply discuss the weather I'm going to make some observations about it seeing that I've pretty much spent the day hiding from it.

First thing I did when I woke up was hang all the dark sheets I could find over our main windows. Our blinds are supremely average and the bed sheets add extra cover, but don't reach the whole way down. So after that I laid some towels down over the tiles to insulate them, and stacked piles of pillows and mats over the rest of the gaps. This worked for me until around lunchtime, then I turned on the air conditioner. Mainly only needed because I decided to make a curry...

With all the doors closed the sight of a wall of sheets and pillows in the living room made me feel like I was in an adult sized blanket fort. And that's where I stayed the day, going to the study once to check if running the stove exhaust fan would help cool the house. It won't, and running the bathroom exhaust fan won't work either.

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