Joolz Tells

Four meetings in one day.

2011-06-02T08:56:00.001+10:00

(Modified version of Crowded House song Four Seasons in One Day)

Four meetings in one day
Lying in the depths of your imagination
Worlds above and worlds below
The sun shines on the black clouds hanging over the domain

Even when you're feeling warm
The temperature could drop away
Like four meetings in one day

Smiling as the shit comes down
You can tell a man from what he has to say
Everything gets turned around
And I will risk my neck again, again

You can take me where you will
Up the creek and through the mill
Like all the things you can't explain
Four meetings in one day

Blood dries up
Like rain, like rain
Fills my cup
Like four meetings in one day

It doesn't pay to make predictions sleeping on an unmade bed
Finding out wherever there is comfort there is pain
Only one step away
Like four meetings in one day

Blood dries up
Like rain, like rain
Fills my cup
Like four meetings in one day

Metallica Brisbane 19thOct 2010

2010-10-20T01:12:00.007+10:00

That was just your life: Jumped straight into this as soon as Ecstasy of Gold intro finished. Lasers!
Four horsemen: Boom, lights on, lasers off.
Ride the lightning: crowd goes even wilder! (incl me :) )
The thing that should not be: Oldie but a goodie!
The Unforgiven: trippy acoustic intro; a really sweet version.
Harvester of sorrow: I thought it was Sad But True at first 'coz I was sure SBT was coming.
Disappear: a rare play. I know this song from the Mission Impossible sound track.
Sad but true: There it is! "DO YOU WANT HEAVY?", brisbane RAWRS! "Metallica give you HEAVY BABY!"
4 leaf clover: Another one that I dont think gets played often.
Orion: YES! I was hoping they would play this. This makes up for them not playing Fade to Black. I also think this is the song where Rob mucked around a bit on his Bass on his own for a bit.
One: Obligatory concert song. With much piro.
Master of puppets.
Fight fire with fire. More PYRO... makes sense for the song name sake.
Nothing else matters: Kirk did a strange instrumental, almost spanish sounding.
Enter sandman: They always play this after Nothing Else Matters.

Blitzkrieg: I love their cover of this song.
My apocalypse: Not my fav Death Magnetic song but oh well.

Seek and Destroy: Another tried and true concert song. And the black inflatable balls came bouncing out onto the crowd.

Japan Catchup

2010-09-19T19:10:00.003+10:00

I've been without Internet for the last few days until yesterday. So event memories have run into each other. I'll have to skip the details and just do it in checklist format, because it's all blurred now.

Tokyo
Stayed at Shiba Park Hotel in Minato-ku for first few days.
Visited Ginza, Akihabara, Shinjuku, Harajuku, Ueno, Shibuya... probably more.
Ueno Zoo
Ate lots
Walked lots

Kyoto
Stayed at Westin Miyako Hotel
Ate
Shopped
Monkey Park
Bamboo Forest
Temples/Shrines

Back to Tokyo
Stayed at Hotel Ginza Monterey La Soeur
Tokyo Game Show
Shopped a bit

Ok besides being brief, I think that kinda somes it up.

Tomorrow we head to Odaiba, near the water.
One thing I'd like to say is that "winging it" is the best way to go.
Have a rough idea of what you want to do, but don't plan too much, especially when you don't know the city well.

Things have really worked out amazingly, and it couldn't have happened any other way any other time because things just fell into place seemingly randomly.

Japan Day 2

2010-09-11T21:30:00.002+10:00

Getting lost is still too easy even on day two. At least we've got our JR passes activated now, empowering us with the gift of mobility! After stuffing our faces with French pastries for breakfast it was off to the Ghibli Museum.

Ghibli is a studio that has made anime films such as, Spirited Away, Ponyo, Laputa Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke and Totoro. The museum is a tribute to all that is Ghibli. For more info, check out this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayao_Miyazaki

We got there around 11am, just in time for a screening of a Ghibli anime only shown at the Museum. It was an impressive and entertaining film. Now let me briefly tell you about the museum. Think of a giant house built for kids with stuff to play with made for kids, with lots of rooms and sprial stairwells designed for kids. Don't get me wrong, adults are more than capable of enjoying the museum too but putting myself in the shoes of a child, I could see it would be like heaven. Lots of memorobilia, storyboards, interactive displays populated the rooms of the Ghibli Museum. I particularly enjoyed the displays which cleary demonstrated their animation techniques.

Ok. Fast forward to Shinjuku district in the early afternoon. If Minato-ku was tame and Ginza was posh, Shinjuku would be cool uncle that takes you to the games arcade and brings you along to the strip clubs when you're only 11. (No, I do not have an uncle like this but you get the point). Shinjuku is a little bit naughty in some areas, but full of youthful energy. Just the Shinjuku train station alone is full of department stores targeted at young women; You now the drill, skirts, dresses, makeup, shoes, all that jazz. South of the station are adult shops and entrances to what I can only guess are peep shows. Between this cheeky area and the station is what blew me away. Pachinko-overdose; Shop after shop, each one a multilevel establishment dedicated to the past time of the Japanese equivalent to the Pokies. If you could cross breed a pinball machine with a pokie machine and throw in some video game DNA, you would give birth to Pachinko. Boy do they love it. There must have been at least fifty pachinko parlours there if not more.

*Hold on - women's judo is on TV* ...

LOL accidental head butt. Ok where was I? Ah yes. Finally after wading through all the pachinko parlours, we found the departmental stores. Most of these were still above our budget, but not as intimidating as Ginza.

I'll keep this summary moving. Today we ate Tempura and Okonomiyaki for lunch. It was oishii desune. I'd just like to say Japan rocks, and so far all the food has been cheap and delicious with impeccable service. It is evident they really do their best to accomodate my tatty grasp of the Japanese language.

In the later evening we enjoyed freshly barbequed yakitori (skewers) with some sake on our way back to the hotel. We still get confused at the menus that don't have pictures or plastic food models, but it is definitely heaps of fun doing it on our own and not getting spoon fed on a pre packaged tour.

That's all for now.

Japan

2010-09-11T01:14:00.002+10:00

It is only the first real full day in Japan. Yesterday was taken up by travel. We got up at 4:30am and arrived at Narita Airport, 7pm Tokyo time.

The pilot's landing was perfect. The staff were friendly and the 30$ upgrade to get more leg room was well worth it. Who says JetStar is the "Death Star"!! I was very satisfied with the service.

But boy was it a long day. After arriving at Tokyo, we still had to catch a bus to Tokyo City Air Terminal, *then* catch a cab to our hotel. I was feeling a little culture shock by that stage, compounded by tiredness.

For a country all my friends said, "You don't need to know Japanese", there certainly was a distinct absence of English around. Fortunately, I still remember words like, Hello, Good Morning, Thank you, Excuse me, Dont Understand, Sorry. Some newer words that I've picked up also came in handy like Bill, Receipt, 2 people.

Today, we still had not activated our JR Rail Pass because we are here 16 days while we only have a 14 day JR Rail Pass. So we walked and we walked, and walked and walked and then rested, then walked again.

I don't know if it's me or what, but the Minato-ku area seems to have not much for tourists. Sure theres cheap eats that are easy to be found, and the food is delicious! There's also a couple of things to look at like in Rappongi. But thats not really Minato-ku anymore really. So walking has it's limitations because we can't go that far. We went to Tokyo Tower, which has a couple of observation decks. It's shaped similar to the Eiffle Tower but a little taller. We visited a couple of shrines and temples but things didn't really pick up until we decided to walk to Ginza in the evening.

*Aside* As I type this you certainly see a lot of random things on Japanese TV.

Anyway back to Ginza. It is no short walk to get to Ginza, maybe 30 minutes from Shiba Park Hotel. But the walk was WELL worth it! The bright lights the huge buildings the array of departmental stores all standing proudly street after street after street, criss-crossed with sidestreets of restaurant after restaurant can only be described as mind blowing for a lil' ol' Brisbanite who's never visited a big city.

The main drag was filled with the trendiest shops while even shops like Armani sat humbly 3 blocks behind. We were starving and stumbled across a small sushi bar. A Japanese couple (I assume, because of how they were dressed), were waiting outside to be seated. A waitress advised it would be over 30minutes wait for us. We were tired of walking so were happy to wait with the already waiting couple.

Again, our patience was worth it. The service was impressive. Our waitress new English which was very helpful for us. There were 3 chefs in front of us to assemble our orders. They are very animated and the experience felt very personal and intimate. If you've ever had tepanyaki... that is the kind of chef/customer relationship I'm talking about. And the sushi was the best I'd ever had, but could you really expect any less, it being Japan?

To conclude, pretty awesome first day, and I'm even leaving out a few random good bits that happened throughout the day.

Optusly Annoying - you should know better Optus.

2010-04-18T14:38:00.003+10:00

Received a call on my mobile one morning along the lines of:

O: Hi, My name is blah, I'm calling on behalf of Optus, how are you today?

J: Good thanks

O: Thats good, Optus is offering a number of deals at the moment. Could I please ask are you on pre paid or plan?

J: Um... why are you calling me, do you realise I'm not even with Optus?

O: Yes I understand that you are currently not with Optus. Could you please tell me if you are on pre paid or

J: Well I'm not interested thanks.

O: Well let me put it this way, wouldn't you rather save money on your phone and text messages?

J: I've been with optus and I wasn't happy with them so I'm not interested thanks.

O: Can I please ask what you weren't happy with optus?

J: I realised I could get cheaper plans elsewhere, my friends had also moved to other networks, so I wasnt benefiting from "Yes Time" and after I left, they had continued billing me for a year. So I'm not interested in doing business with Optus thanks.

O: Well we have a number of deals to offer you. Could I please ask if you are on pre paid or a plan?

J: I said I'm not interested thank youu.

O: Let me put it this way, Wouldnt you rather save money on....

J: No. I'm not interested okay? Byeeeee *click*

The Big 3 , 0.

2010-04-04T17:55:00.005+10:00

It's Easter, and I'm not eating easter eggs because I'm looking forward to gorging myself at an all you can eat chocolate buffet this Thursday. The cost for such an indulgent activity? $20. I probably can't stuff myself with $20 worth of chocolate but I sure as hell am gonna try!

While my friends might binge on alcohol and spend far more than $20 on a night out, I think that this chocolate challenge is similar in terms of self abuse. I'm gonna eat and drink chocolate and I'm gonna be sick and I'm gonna keep eating and drinking it 'cause I want my money's worth damn it... and like my friends who enjoy getting smashed by the nectar of the gods, I'm gonna later regret it. You're never too old for chocolate... unless you have diabetes.

Speaking of older, I turned 30 last month and you know what my supportive workmate said to me? He said, "They say 30 is the new 50". Thanks Dan. I actually celebrated by having a 60th birthday party. You see, my old schoolmate turns 30 in the same month, so by combining our celebration we had ours 60th themed. Guests had to dress up as old people and to top off the theme, we held the do at a lawn bowls club. Despite all the fun we had, I hope didn't offend the genuine senior citizens at the bowls club. Soon after the event I said to my gf, "I feel old", to which she nonchalantly replies, "But you are".

Xtra Normal

2009-06-08T14:33:00.008+10:00

Check it out...

This time I've done a video blog using Xtranormal.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090608003245564

Mind Map

2009-03-15T21:56:00.002+10:00

bubblus_090315_Blog
Originally uploaded by telljoolz

I normally use http://bubbl.us to mind map if I cannot sleep. This is my blog this time. It's in mind map form just to be different.

If you look at it, I'm sure you'll get the drift.

Does anyone blog anymore?

2009-02-24T00:16:00.001+10:00

squiggle_me
Originally uploaded by telljoolz

So it's 11:45 right now, I'm sipping a hot chocolate and remembering that a little funny thing happened at work today that made me wonder, "Does anyone blog anymore?" and I'm not talking about the technical DIY, How-To type of blog. I'm not talking about the money making google optimised blog thats been computer generated with lots of popular keywords to generate enormouse internet traffic type blog. I'm talking about the venting, ranting, look at me look at me, self-shrine, public diary type. That's what it was all about right?

So it's 11:46 now and for me that is normally still a little early to put thought to paper..err keyboard. Usually it's when your logical left brain shuts down and the right brain kicks in; you know, just before you are impaled by the point of exhaustion, creative juices start flowing, that blogging actually feels right.

It feels right when you had a good night out; a late night out, the buzz of post clubbing activities is still ringing in your ears and its preventing you from dropping into solid uninterrupted slumber.

If the ringing in your ears occurs any earlier, I think you may be suffering from Tinnitus.

Or maybe you've had your fair share of happy peeks in life this month so today you were long overdue for an emotional trough. Those are personal blogging moments don't you think?

So tonight I'm shifting the clock forward and attempting to do this archaic practice of blogging way way early, with nothing newly significant happening in my life that I deem really worth blogging. Let's see where it goes eh?

As I stated in my intro - does anyone blog these days? Or are we busy with constantly updating facebook/twitter statuses?

Maybe the ADD/ADHD generation only has time for a quick one liner now. "Julian is speaking in third person to announce what he's doing to his friends". Today we Twitter it, Vlog it, youTube it, FaceBook it, Flickr it and we speak in third person.

There was a time when if you didn't have a mobile, you might start to feel out of the loop with your friends. There was a time when if you didn't have email, you might start to feel out of the loop with your friends. These days, instead of "whats your number?" it's not "What's your email?", it has become, "Hey are you on facebook?, I'll create an event and invite you so we can have lunch."

So I'm being slightly sarcastic but no, I'm not complaining. I'm just asking the question. Am I getting old if I still blog once in a while?

Maybe in future we wont have to tag photos in iPhoto, rate songs on iTunes, update our online 'statuses' to let everyone know what we think and do. If we don't have time to reflect and introspect now on a blog, maybe in future we wont have time to do all that social networking stuff either. We'll just have a chip that reads our thoughts and updates it into an online virtual brain so we're connected to all our friends and we won't have to say/type/write anything. Like bees, we will have a giant hive mind of collective opinions and desires.

Woh, what was in that hot chocolate?

Very Naiise

2008-11-30T22:28:00.003+10:00

On Friday night, my friends and I went to a new club in the Valley. I must admit I was a bit reluctant. This new club replaced the old Sunbar and I never did like Sunbar.

I thought it was pretentious, snooty and dull. The Sunbar was one of those places that just seeped snobbery, drudgery and try-hardery.

So when I heard that Sunbar had gone and an even flashier club had come to take its place. I expected a purer, demonic, distilled form of door bitch fashion police evil.

I expected some sort of metro, camp, buff modelesqe Adonis at the door with some stupid hair, looking down his upturned nose ready to greet me with a "Sorry mate, looks like you've had too much to drink", even though I had had none that evening. "Please move away from the entrance".

My slightly cynical expectations were booted down a jagged cliff to dark dark oblivion by a leathery Spartan sandal. I approached the red carpeted entrance to friendly door staff. We were accompanied up the staircase by a tall, blonde, female staff.

She looked like she was about to sit me down for a game of Sale of the Century. Perhaps I could have been the carry over champ and tonight I was about to win the car, jackpot and holiday. "We offer full table service", she announced.

The place looked plush. The lighting set a relaxed yet exciting mood. We sat at an extravagant studded leather sofa with carved wood frame. "Not bad", I thought.

The waitresses had Alice in Wonderland style dresses, except in deep red and black hues. One pointed us to the cocktail menu book sitting on the coffee table in front of us. The drinks ranged from 17$ to $1800. I had a Pegu Club Cocktail which had gin, curacao, some citric ingredients and other spirits which I can't remember. It was good.

All sorts of eccentric eccentric characters provided patronage to the club. A super styled grey-suited camp/gay gentleman (we shall call Molly) leaned against the bar with his hip contorted in such a way it appeared as though he was trying to attract members of the same sex with his jutting hips. Molly later disappeared with another guy into the function room.

A tipsy lady (we could call Rainbow) danced around the stage, attempting to befriend all the older gentleman. At one stage she was dancing on her knees as she crawled to more men who were sitting down. Rainbow reminded me of a Woodford hippy but in evening wear.

A couple reaching the top of the stairs caught my attention. He was elderly and white haired. She was in her late thirties, platinum blonde, slim and wearing a very open dress. So open that her right breast actually decided to wander out to take a look at the club on its own. She, lets call her Janet, ran to the lady's.

Speaking of toilets, the men's had a doorman, automatic taps and complimentary cologne (I didn't see which, but it looked like expensive stuff).

The band played a blend of funk, soul and rap while the singer tried his best to be hot and sexy. This was probably one of the most amusing components to the evening. His cheesy gestures to the audience sent one of my friends into a fit of unstoppable laughter.

I could go on with the eccentricities but I think that will do. Summary: Plush decor, good vibe, funny characters, a huge variety of cocktails, friendly staff, Very Naiise.

Oh I nearly forgot to mention what the club was called; Zuri.

Kate Miller-Heidke

2008-11-21T01:12:00.003+10:00

There once lived a boy. This boy went to Race Course Road Street Festival about 5 years ago. There he saw for the first time an unusual, yet attractive and talented performer. This performer lived in his home city of Brisbane.

She had a great stage presence, even on that humble road. Her songs sang about events and places that occurred in Brisbane. ..Paddington, the Valley. The crowd could easily relate to her and her familiar stories. She had operatic training and unbeknown to him at the time she had already won many awards.

As well as original songs sung by her. She did the odd cover song as well. Imagine the TimeWarp done in a kinda hybrid pop/opera or popera if you will. Notably, overly, intensely, certifiably excellent. Very noice.

One might call her quirky, but the boy later found out in a local paper that she hates being called quirky.

He was impressed. She left an impression that 5 years later drew him into her latest CD launch concert at the Tivoli in Fortitude Valley.

Of course within those five years she had released other CDs, performed at Woodford and supported other music artists at other concerts, many of which the boy had attended.

But 5 years later, most of his friends still didn't really appreciate her like the boy did. "Not really my kind of music", they would say. "She's weird".

But that's the point isn't it? She *is* a little bit different and that's what makes her stand out. If she makes it big internationally, she will have defined a new kind of genre of music.

So, 5 years later, that stage presence is even grander. She knows how to warm the crowd, tell a funny, she still does a random cover here and there. This time she did The Voice as performed by John Farnham.

As mentioned earlier, no one he knew liked her, so he had trouble finding someone to go to the concert with him. As bad as it sounds he kind of guilted his girlfriend to come with.

The night was awesomely enjoyable. The set list was perfect. She performed the boy's favourites; some from old some from new. The crowd was loud and crazy and sang along. Her band was as zany as she was. Holding his girlfriend, the boy was in perfect company.

The Tivoli is a beautiful venue. Anyone who has not been there is definitely missing out on a great experience. This night in particular was a great experience and for $32.50 per ticket the boy and his girlfriend had a special night.

That boy of course, is me and the performer, as the title suggests, is Kate Miller-Heidke.

Her latest album is called Curiouser and my favourite song from it is "God's Gift to Women". I think she's gonna be big. Mainstream just doesn't 'get it' yet.

Spring is coming

2008-08-31T11:19:00.003+10:00

Heya people.

Well river fire was amazing wasn't it? We've all seen fireworks before but last night I had the best vantage point I had ever had.

Thanks to the kind hospitality of Cindy's friend who has an apartment in Kangaroo point we got to see every sparkle of pyrotechnics Brisbane had to offer. The view was magnificent and made even more special by the fact that we could see the 'plebes' below, all squirming for a window of the sky action. Mu haha

Anyway, back to the title. Spring is coming and yesterday was an amazing day. I went to the Pasifika Festival at the Powerhouse. This festival is a celebration of island culture. The weather was awesome and I honestly couldn't get over how beautiful the day was. It sounds kinda airy fairy doesn't it? la di dah beautiful day, theres lots of them in between the grey days, so whats the big deal?

I don't know, maybe sometimes its just great to stop and say "Wow, what we got is awesome!" We're all probably used to the clear blue skies in sunshiney Queensland that it seems like nothing. But its far from nothing. Good weather certainly boosts people's moods and I just couldn't stop going on about it yesterday.

Maybe it just means I need to get out of the office more, or maybe Spring is coming...

Break Through to Success

2008-04-20T21:09:00.004+10:00

Hi. I thought this was worth documenting. This weekend just gone by, I attended a seminar with Melee. It was a 3 day course.

I attended 2/3 days of the Break Through to Success seminar. Work got in the way of day 1, so my first day at the seminar was Saturday, but Melee started on Friday afternoon and left the same time as I did on Sunday. The seminar was hosted by Universal Events.

The main speaker was Chris Howard. He struck me as well researched and well trained as a speaker in motivational, financial and personal growth areas. He told lots of life experiences and a bit of name dropping here and there. eg. Hanging out with Richard Branson, quoting The Secret, 7 Habbits, that Jewish Concentration Camp survivor book (ill remember the name later), Warren Buffet (spelling?) and provided lots and lots of testimonials.

During the seminar he works through a number of activities, looking at what you want in life, your life values, looking at your goals, techniques for goal setting, limitations you have set in your mind etc. Then he looks at ways to reprogram your brain to overcome the mental limitations, touches on rapport building techniques and ways to change your attitudes into positive ones. There are a bundle of topics but I just listed a few. As well as these techniques, his topics also provide a means to plug all his additional material and courses which, unlike this free seminar, cost money.

The focus visibly shifts to techniques in neurology midway through the course. Topics include NLP, imprinting, breaking through negative emotions, visualising your past present and future self in new constructive ways. After completing the tool of 'Anchoring' and applying this to ourselves, we are taken back to our goals and values again to see how these have changed as a result of the neurological tools we learned.

The style of presentation was high energy and typically 'American'. It reminded me of the modern day charismatic church style of content delivery. There was a clearly evident degree of hype that seemed to infect some of the audience who rushed to buy extra courses, cds and dvds whenever Chris mentioned the products and special deals.

I am definitely glad I went. It was very interesting. I had never been to anything like this before but having heard of Anthony Robbins, I had always wanted to go to something like this. I will document a review of sorts on my experience. My approach to the course was skeptical yet open minded I hope and my approach to writing the review is slightly cynical but fair I hope.

This is my summary. More to come...

March is like the like you know like the best month like eva!

2008-03-28T16:38:00.005+10:00

Sorry guys. It's already March 2008 meaning you haven't heard from me in a long long time.

It's gonna be unpossibelievably impossible for me to recap whats been happening. Suffice to say I had a House Warming, Easter, Birthday, Iceskating Bash on the 22nd of March. Which should subtly answer any questions you may have had about the title of this post.

It was my birthday, and I have a house now.

Lots of good friends came, we ate, we drank, we skated.

It's been about a month of home ownership now and it feels good. Damn good. Besides the 30 years of debt.... I think some feeling of pride is most definitely justified.

On the 23rd, the government kindly issued me a yellow birthday card, congratulating me on my speed on Ipswich Road on a portion marked 60 km/hr where I happened to be clocking a ludicrous 11km over. This card entitles me to cash in a negative sum of 100$. Thank you boys in blue and your fancy shmancy radar gun.

I cashed in my yellow voucher today and feel a tad lighter in the back pocket. Oh wellz, if you speed and get caught, you aren't doing it right ;)

Happy belated easter.

Vote 1 Melee!

2007-06-25T19:04:00.001+10:00

melee2_msn.jpg
Originally uploaded by telljoolz

Earlier this year Melee attended a greens party meeting. So sometimes now, when theres an appropriate context, I say "VOTE 1 Melee!"

Like today.

Why today? because 2 weekends ago I was doing a little role play with her. I pretended to be an interview panel and we ran a little mock interview in preparation for a real one. She had applied for a job at QUT and it looks like her preparation payed off because today she got confirmation that she got the job!

YAY vote 1 melee!

So for non selfish reasons, I am happy for her that she got the job. Also for selfish reasons I am happy she got the job. Selfish because I get to see her more and we can do lunch sometimes or even catch the same train home.

Pink Supre bags!

2007-06-23T23:53:00.001+10:00

meleeb_msn.jpg
Originally uploaded by telljoolz

Hey so its been about 6 months since I last wrote. Well I'm not sure how to fill you in on everything thats happened since then so I'll start off with a little thing thats been on my mind for a while and then I'll move on to what I did today.

These days, you can't take a walk through the city without spotting at least one girl carrying a Pink Supre bag. Nearly every girl has one! They look like those green bags you get at the supermarket except they are hot pink and say Supre on them in white.

I swear every one has one! Even my friend Fook, who is a guy, has one! Martha, Fook's girlfriend has tonnes of them. Kirstin has one! My girlfriend has one!

Wait, what did I just say? Did I say girlfriend? Yeah I did didn't I? Well I wasn't wrong. That cutie there in the picture is Melee and we've been going out for a month now and things couldn't be better.

In the last month, we've gone to the Eskimo Joe concert, Doomben Races, continuing Latin, started Hip Hop classes, iceskating, went to the colour wheel art cafe, cooked for melee while house sitting at uncles, celebrated our one month anniversary, went to the moreton bay seafood festival, rosalie wine and cheese festival, reopening of the powerhouse with comedy, and then went to a latin dance party that same night, properly met melee's mum and dad and had lunch with them and her brothers, saw shrek3, saw Essentially Dance which was a contemporary dance performance by QUT students at the Gardens point theatre, did a mock interview with melee in prep for her real interview, went to the Evermore concert, went to Springbrook National park, had a picnic, saw gloworms and tomorrow we're going to comedy again and after I go to a friend's bday party.... and thats just all the activities related to my GF and i!

Of course not all the activities were just us two. My core friends were there in some of them as well or sometimes with Melee's friends. But Melee's the big news in this post. Not Supre bags :)

Ok so that was the last month not last 6, but hey, how much do you really wanna read!?

Dec 06 and Jan 07

2007-01-21T12:21:00.000+10:00

mii_me_msn
Originally uploaded by telljoolz.

Although its late. Happy new year and all that jazz.
Hope you had a great Christmas and rocked off your NYE celebrations to bring in zero seven.

What did I do?
The painting in my previous blog entry is one of the things I did. I called It Reflectrospect because the boy is looking back and reflecting on life and ideas he had.

What else did I do?
Well sometime before Christmas I thought I might buy one of those new gaming consoles - the Nintendo Wii. Little did I know that stocks were running out all over Australia at about the same time I was thinking of getting one. I hunted all around Brisbane in search of one only to hear the same response from every shop assistant whether it be EB Games, Myer, Games R Us, Target, Big W, Game Traders etc etc. "Sorry we are out of stock, you'll have to wait till February next year before we get more stock"

What impact did this have?
Well... of course I wanted one even more now. Up for the challenge I searched high and low just incase some store had the last Wii for me.

Eventually through a friend who knows someone, I got one! I unboxed it on 03 Jan. WOO!

What else was happening around this time?
Around this time a friend I didn't know well asked me to go to Melbourne with her for the weekend. I wasn't sure and said I have project work todo when the new year kicks in and probably can't go. But she said please come, I'll pay for your flight, 2 dinners and maybe one lunch. It sounded like she really wanted me to come so I said I'll talk to my boss and see if I can get friday off. So when work started, I checked and it was cool so that Thursday night I was set to go to Melb. So I just got my Wii and couldnt really play it 'cause I was leaving on a jet plane.

How was the trip?
I might edit this entry to tell the story better but lunch is waiting and getting cold so I'll give you the key points.

Turns out my 'friend' is having a lesbian relationship with a girl she went down there to meet. I had met this girl before she is quite good looking. The weekend got more and more random and strange.

When I got back, the friend didnt wanna speak to me anymore 'cause she reckoned I hit on her girlfriend.

Oh and for more randomness I went to Ramsay Street (where they film Australian soapie Neighbours).

Reflectrospect

2007-01-02T16:03:00.000+10:00

Reflectrospect
Originally uploaded by telljoolz.

Reflectrospect

Titled 'Reflectrospect' - Acrylic on canvas.
I painted this piece on 3 canvasses such that the end (far right) canvas can moved to the front (far left). This ability can be done over and over, changing the situation of the subjects in the painting and thus changing the mood of the entire work in 3 different arrangements.

Arrangement 1: The boy looks up at the moon thinking about his life ideals. His reflection on life is symbolised by the pond, which also shows his ideals. His life or reality is the tree. Note the boy, the pond, the moon and the tree are all blue, because they are all a part of him. His reality casts a shadow. The girl cannot help but notice this shadow and is about to turn away from his life.

Arrangement 2: In this arrangement, the girl is not turning away from his life. Maybe she turns away from her own. Or maybe the boy has changed. In either case, the girl is coming towards the boy. The boy still looks for ideals but this time he is not alone. They can look at life together.

Arrangement 3: The tree is in its most complete form in this arrangement. But idealogy has split. The fact that the boy has his back turned away from the girl in this version seems more apparent. Is he shunning her now? Or are they both abandoning a past life?

This is my first painting on canvas and I haven't really done many other paintings ever in my lifetime. Maybe a couple in grade 8 art class but thats about it. I enjoyed working on something tangible as opposed to I.T. or digital media.

Now I just have to buy more canvas and tubes of paint. I think my next piece will also incorporate the dynamic canvas concept. This first work was experimental and I just wanted to test my idea of the tile-able painting. While taking these photos to upload the different arrangements I realised that the dynamics of the painting was further enhanced by lighting. The natural light the photos were took under, was generally brighter on the left and slightly darker on the right. As a result, in each photo, the natural light had illuminated the 3 paintings in basically 3 different ways, enhancing the shift in moods for each arrangement.

Halloween Part II

2006-11-06T12:27:00.000+10:00

So as I was saying, the other day, I have a halloween party to go to.

Well as the events of that day played out, I ended up going to a different Halloween party. In fact it was a Latin Halloween Dance Party.

Now as you would know if you religiously read my blog, I am fairly new to the whole Salsa thing. So I danced a little bit. I do stress a *little*.

But can you imagine 60 or so lil devils and witches and zombies and what not doin some Meringue and dancing their tails and pitch forks into the night?

Quite a fun sight it was.

We then went off to the Valley to check out the clubs for the rest of the night/early morning.

I don't have time to recall my activities in great detail... just for my own benefit I'll jot them down for future reference.

Went to Comedy
Saw Arj Barker
Went to Training Course
Went to Halloween thing

Halloween

2006-11-04T11:24:00.000+10:00

halloween_me_msn2
Originally uploaded by telljoolz.

So it aint Halloween any more. I don't care I'm still going to a Halloween party tonight.

Every year an old school friend of mine hosts a Halloween party.
Every year it gets bigger and bigger.
Every year I get the pleasure of seeing old faces with the added bonus of to meeting new ones.
Every year.... it rains on halloween, or at the party anyway.
Oh some unexpected guests have popped in. I'll Blog you later.
Stay Tuned !

No Mondayitis!

2006-10-02T10:32:00.000+10:00

I thought I'd have Mondayitis today. I don't usually dread Mondays but the weekend was fullon as many weekends have been of late so I thought I'd end up at work a little drained. But no. All systems go. I feel alert to bust through the first day of the week.

Day off work

2006-09-29T17:01:00.000+10:00

The day is almost over since my last post and although this morning's incident still bothers me slightly, I did not let that stop me having a productive and fulfilling day.

Met a couple of friends for lunch. That was nice.
Got my friend to test and format a hard drive thats been giving me problems.
Bought a new USB case for the hard drive and now problems are gone.
Bought Madagasgar the animated movie.

So a bit of retail therapy and a social component.

Now to watch that movie and play with my new USB hard drive :)
Who knows I might still have time to go out tonight as well.

Playin the Blues

2006-09-29T08:56:00.000+10:00

monet_joolz_msn
Originally uploaded by telljoolz.

I'm feeling a bit down today. I don't really wanna talk about it suffice to say that I had planned something today and it didn't work out. So now I'm feeling a little bit 'meh'.

Not that it worries me. It's ok to feel down sometimes. My strategies for combatting the blues include the following:

Firstly if you got something bothering you or pulling you down be sure that you avoid dwelling on it. Self analysis can be a killer that spirals you back or further into a low.

Cover your body's basic needs like good food, be well rested and freshen up.

Psyche yourself back up in preparation for something to do. Even if you don't have anything to do that day, get outta those PJ's and put on some going out clothes and be ready to greet the world. Part of psyching up is music.

Play some angsty tunes, some melancholic tunes and then some good vibes to raise your energy levels so you can enjoy the day on a high.

Finally DO SOMETHING! Something social is best but it doesn't have to be. If you set your self a goal or task and you accomplish it. You can feel good about your achievement.

Ok have a nice day! I know I will :)

Momentum

2006-09-22T16:15:00.000+10:00

board_me_msn
Originally uploaded by telljoolz.

The last week and a bit has been busy for me. Let's see. It went something along the lines of:

Friday: Salsa at Southbank
Saturday: 1degree Cafe
Sunday: Livewire comedy
Monday: Latin
Tuesday:Latin
Wednesday:Nacho Libre
Thursday: Fearless
Friday: Valley Fiesta
Saturday: Tim and Craig visited
Sunday: Livewire Comedy
Monday: Latin

Ever since Latin started and Comedy, the momentum of activities building up has been really consistent. This weekend will prove to be fully booked as well.

So why the snowboarding picture I hear you ask... Well I guess life's like snowboarding in a way... the more you do the more you try the faster it all goes and it just builds up momentum.

But the less you do the less further you travel and you dont get very far or do very much.

The trick is to find the edge of the board so you can control it a lil better and make sure it doesnt get outta hand or stop completely and guide it where you want before it goes too fast and you got no time to take a break. Otherwise you might stack it.

Will expand/refine on this metaphor later. As you can see I'm big on the metaphors.

Taking the Lead

2006-08-30T15:24:00.000+10:00

Hey there.
I've been meaning to tell you that I've started attending latin dance classes. I've also been meaning to slip in somewhere on this blog part of Julian ethos. I believe that everything in life is a lesson. That annoying guy who thinks your're his friend that just shives you the gits; he is a lesson. That time a mate or girl treated you bad; that was a lesson. Maybe it was a situation you put your self into, or maybe you had no control over the forces that be. All of these, IMHO is a lesson. The good times are also lessons but we tend to notice the bad stuff more. Whether you choose to take the lesson or even see it as a lesson is up to you.

I also think that these 'lessons' are things that once you learn, hopefully can be applied to various contexts that may be totally remote from the original source or experience of the lesson.
This is where I bring my rant (for those still listening) back to latin dancing.

So yeah, at dance class, apart from some of the obvious benefits such as fun, social, learning new skill and meeting new people theres that lesson thing I was talking about. The first class was great, I learnt the basic steps and then danced with a partner and rotated partners to get used to dancing with different people. The challenge at this point being such a newbie, is remembering your steps PLUS (being male) learning to lead. Well I found that even though I learnt my steps and was executing them correctly, if my parter doubted or stumbled with the steps I was put off and lost my count.

Being in a leading role, you cannot afford to do lose your count. You have to be confident that what you are doing is right. You have to be so confident that you can even signal with your arm, hand, head or simply eyes so that you can effectively communicate to your partner what you are about to do next and what you want her to do also.

Like any emotion, or state of mind, this confidence can be felt and transferred into those around you. In the context of dance, she will trust that you know what you are doing and harmonise with you much more smoothly.

But its not just about confidence either. Its about knowing what you want in life and knowing where you are going. If you know these things or at least confident that you have a rough idea, people will be more interested in sharing that journey with you.

Also if you or your friends lose their way, you have the confidence and knowledge from within, to help lead them back on the right track without unwanted force. So I gained a lot from my first latin dance class. Met new people, learnt some basic steps and a life lesson. It is a life lesson because you can apply this to other situations. Its ok to know what you are on about, but you have to show it in how you talk, how you move, how you lead.

Melbourne

2006-08-16T17:41:00.000+10:00

I just came back from a trip to Melbourne. Boss said I had too much holiday leave accumulated and that I had to use some up.

So Melbourne it was. Actually I was born in Melbourne but I don't remember anything since I moved to Brizzie with my family when I was 4.

This time round, I met up with a friend of mine who happened to be studying there for the week.

Melbourne is rich in culture and beauty. There is plenty of interesting things to see and and plenty of delicious food to be et. Getting around is very easy thanks to their quaint trams and excellent city layout.

Self Massage

2006-06-17T14:56:00.000+10:00

monet_joolz_msn
Originally uploaded by telljoolz.

As sus as the title sounds, its not as dodgy as you might think. Get your mind outta the gutter. Pfffff.

You are probably sick of hearing about neck pains.

But after I said it was gone it came back a little the next day.

This site helped me get through these tough times.
http://www.coolnurse.com/massage.htm

Work in progress

2006-06-17T14:12:00.000+10:00

jhgb
Originally uploaded by telljoolz.

Do you know the USA is having a little competition within their scientific labs to produce next generation Nuclear Bombs?

Don't believe me? here is the article.
So whos got WMD's now?

The picture shown is a little cartoon I'm workingon. At the moment its neither humorous nor witty, but it conveys a message I want to get across.

On a related note here is my favourite Bushism.

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004 (Watch video)

For more bushisms, http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushdumbquotes2.htm

Neck Pains continued

2006-06-14T23:29:00.000+10:00

kirby_msn
Originally uploaded by telljoolz.

Usually on a wednesday I go to Hip Hop class with a few of my female friends. Kirstin (shown in picture), her sister Nadine and another uni friend, Cindy.

Well Cindy is in San Francisco and Kirstin and Nadine didn't bring casual hip hop friendly clothes today.

Coincidentally Kirstin too fell victim to neck pains. So Hip Hop was really not meant to be this Wednesday for either of us. Instead Kirstin, Nadine and I had a few drinks and some dinner at a near by pub/club/restaurant called the Brewhouse.

All in all a pleasant evening but what made it that much more pleasant is that as I walked to the train at the end of the evening, I realised my neck pain had gone.

So relieved I called Kirstin to share the good news and discovered that her pains had gone too. So there ya go, a painful morning turned into a pleasant evening.

Neck Pains

2006-06-14T09:16:00.000+10:00

suit_me_msn
Originally uploaded by telljoolz.

My blog is tiny and I doubt anyone reads this so I don't expect a response from my cry of help. If anyone is out there and knows a great solution for a sore neck/back, please help. You know that pain if you sleep wrong and then you wake up and it hurts to turn your head?

Well I'm at work now and I got that neck pain thing and its shiving me the gits. I'll add to this blog entry later when I get home. Oh the pain.

World Cup Soccer

2006-06-13T18:58:00.000+10:00

soccer_me_msn
Originally uploaded by telljoolz.

It was about 1Am. I was just about to turn off the wretched television in disgust at Australia's sad loss. There was a mere 6 minutes to go before the end of the Australia Vs Japan match and Japan had scored 1 goal. I grabbed the remote. I pointed the remote at the TV. The finger tip of my index finger applied pressure on the off button, but before enough downward force was applied to that little red button to shut down the tube, it happened. Australia scored. Australia scored again and a third time before the jaw dropping match was over and I could crawl into bed with some patriotic pride salvaged.

Chinese New Year

2006-01-31T10:07:00.000+10:00

Happy Chinese New Year . I wanted to wish everyone Happy New Year again and the fact the Chinese calendar follows the moon instead of the sun allows me to do that. 2006 is year of the dog. Gong Xi Fat Choi! No thats not the name of a green vegetable you'd expect to see in your local chinese takeaway stir fry. Its how you say happy new year in chinese. Yeah see, I am in touch with my Asian roots. I have spiky hair and like Yum Cha. ;) If you don't know what Yum Cha is, then shame on you. You are missing out.

Back to work

2006-01-03T18:14:00.000+10:00

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Today was also the first day back to work for 2006. Surprisingly, I started off the fresh day with eager enthusiasm, but as the minutes clicked over, the novelty of cubicle office living, soon wore as thin as an American Pie film plot. The mystical database administrators had to do some load testing which meant that code monkey developers such as myself had to stop being code monkeys for a while. The next logical step was to go home. Which I did.

So here I am, recalling that they have this thing called blogging for the Internet now. It is amazing. Back in my day, we had to walk ten thousand shoe destroying miles through blood, sweat and bones, jagged rocks and mind numbing boredom before we could reach a blog site.

Oh I think I better go have dinner. Happy New Year + 2.

A Lot Like Love

2006-01-02T19:47:00.000+10:00

Right now, I'm watching a sweet film called "A Lot Like Love". It is one of my favourite romance comedy flicks. For a guy to watch a romance, the film needs to have sufficient comedy to keep it interesting. "A Lot Like Love" has just the right amount. I recommend it, especially if looking for a movie to watch with your lady friend.