UNDER THE BRIDGE UNDER THE NARROWS

Back in the sixties the Narrows Bridge was built over the Swan River.

Last weekend I went underneath her and snapped a few pics of her underbelly.
Up close it really is an impressive structure.

some bigger versions over at YeLPanorama

CARDS

I scored some good birthday cards this year....









back of the above card



so very true

IT'S JACARANDA TIME AGAIN

Hyde Park has gone purple again, check it out at YeLPanorama

FLASH MOB BONDI STYLE

This'll make you smile

Over 100 dancers surprised Bondi Beach with a Flash Mob on Sat Nov 14th 2009, organised by DJ Dan Murphy and starring one of Australia's most famous & delicious drag queens - Joyce Maynge

CLEMENTINE - WASHINGTON

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Clementine by StuRap
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LETTERS FROM KURT

One of my fav authors is Kurt Vonnegut and one of his best books is Slaughterhouse Five. I've just stumbled across this letter Kurt wrote back home after being freed as a POW in WW2. It makes for a good epilogue to the book.

continued here

365 DAYS WEEK 1

As I blogged a week ago I am determined to take a photo every day for the next 365 days purely for this project. So far so good, even though it's only the end of week one I had to push myself to remember/make an effort on a couple of the days. The results so far...

Complete set can be seen here

THE HOOD # 96

Psycho in Highgate

FORGOTTEN SOLDIERS

Yesterday Jack Sue died. Many people wouldn't know who Jack Sue was but you can get some background here. I sure knew who he was, he was a bit of a childhood hero of mine even though I didn't really know his full story until I read his autobiography Blood on Borneo a few years ago. He truly was an amazing person.

This got me thinking about my own family members and their service during the two big wars. I'd done a search of the National Archives for my grandfather Bill's WW1 service record a while ago. He managed to rock up near the end (due to his young age) and then roll his ankle whilst diving for cover during a bombing raid at the village of Merricourt in France with the 4/43rd Battalion. The torn ligaments were enough to have him shipped back to England where the war ended before he was fully recovered. A lucky so and so becuase the French battlefields were hell on earth.

But Bill's brother in law and nephews also did their bit in WW1 and WW2, so last night I did a bit of a search on them all. First up my Great Uncle Charlie who was in the Z force commandos like Jack Sue, but his record hasn't been reviewed yet so I have to wait 90 days to get a copy, if they will release it at all. Likewise his older brother Alfred, a 90 day wait. I was able to find my Great Uncle Berts record though.

Bert signed up at the outbreak of WW2 and sailed for the middle east on the Queen Mary with the 2/43 Battalion. He managed to survive the whole war, his left forefinger wasn't so lucky though as he had it shot of in the Battle of El Alemin.

Then I found my Great Great Uncle Thomas's (by marriage) WW1 record. Thomas sailed overseas in 1915 with the 11th Battalion and spent the next 2 years and 10 months on active service until he was finally killed in action at 2pm on 1oth August 1918 which is just a lousy 3 months before the war ended. I can't imagine how it would have been for his wife to receive this letter.

He did seem to have a propensity for being shot in the buttocks though with his record showing 2 incidents/woundings. Perhaps he liked showing the Germans his butt in a larrikin Aussie way, I'm not sure, sounds like a good story though.

Then one day his wife Marion received all of his personel bellongings, which amounted to a wallet with some pictures, his body buried in France, it wasn't a whole lot to hold onto was it?

Oh sure he got a few medals for turning up like the rest of them but they don't count for much when your husbands dead in a field tens of thousands of miles away does it? War.....what is it good for?

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BIRTHDAY BOWLS

A perfect West Aussie day of sunshine, 15 of, and almost all of, my best friends, cold cheap beer, a set of bowls and away you go. This is Sunday afternoon bowling. Celebrated my birthday a couple of days after the actual day this year and gathered everyone together at the Mt Lawley Bowling Club. The nicest people run the club, so helpful and genuinely happy to see a bunch of younger people using the grounds.

I think I'm sun burnt, pretty sure I'm dehydrated but all up a great day.

measuring is serious business



better call in the officials for a ruling



check out Waz's action

















Bigger, better and a few different ones over at YeLPanorama

EMU LAGER, THE DRINK OF MEN

Ages ago I found a few pages of an old copy of the West Australian newspaper, dated July 5th 1952. It's yellowing badly and becoming very brittle so I thought I'd start scanning some of it's adverts and sections.

First up is this awesome advert for Emu Lager beer which is hilariously ironic. For years "soccer" has been mocked in Australia as being more of a girls game than a game men would play. "It's just for sissys and girls, all the kissing and hugging, you're all poofters". I've played soccer since I was 9 or 10 years old and how many times did I cop those words at school. It was un-Australian to play the Pommy game. So I'm pretty stoked to see a 1950's advert extolling the virtues of the game and an Australian beer company happy to connect their product with it. Would this happen today?

A BIRTHDAY

I had another birthday yesterday, they seem to crop up each year. No major celebrations on the day as everything is focused towards tomorrow (more on that later). But someone special made my birthday morning fun and gave me a great prezzie...

Then after realising I had put all of my efforts into Sunday and had nothing happening on the actual day I called up one of my besties, Gen, and we hit Cantina 663 for dinner. Food and wine there is always great.

So a quiet day but a good day, looking forward to tomorrow.

365 DAYS

So I've decided to do this; I am determined to take a photo every day for the next 365 days purely for this project, other photos wont count.

They wont always be of me and in fact rarely of me completely as I am way too self critical of self portraiture, but they will be related to me, what I'm doing or where I'm at. I don't know the full criteria exactly. I just have one rule and that is 'to be creative'

It will test me, but I have 2 cameras; an Olympus FE-240 and a Canon 400D and I need to use them more. Occasionally my iPhone cam will have to suffice but I have some cool photo apps on it now so lots of creative opportunities there.

Some days I wont be able to post the picture and that's purely because my job (archaeology) requires a lot of travel to remote parts of the country and I simply wont have access. I will take the picture though and it will be posted eventually.

I've chosen to start today simply because it's my birthday and I figured birthday to birthday was a pretty cool parameter.

Looking forward to seeing how this evolves.

If you feel the need to follow it just click here and you'll find the set (all of 1 pic at the mo) and an RSS feed if you're super keen

SO CONFUSED RIGHT NOW

I think the trees in my street are a bit confused. They seem to think it's autumn and not spring. Oh My God it must be climate change. This was the sight that greeted me this morning when I went out to my car.

THE WORLD GOURMET CENTRE

LIVE - OVERCOME

Such a song.....

AHHH THE WAR, IT WAS A GAY OLD TIME

I stumbled across these pics a few days ago. Genuine adverts for a brand of towels back during WW2. It was obviously popular and patriotic to use the military in an advert and to associate your product with the military.

"If it's good enough for the boys in green it's good enough for us" right?

Hmmm I do wonder however just what message they were trying to portray with these adverts. It sure looks like the soldiers were having a merry old time of it doesn't it? I especially love the look on the Islander dudes faces ....

"What the hell are those 'happy' white boys doin in our canoe and how come they're posing like that? Why is that guy holding that palm like that? .... Damn, there goes the neighbourhood"

20 YEARS AGO TODAY

Private travel into foreign countries can be requested without conditions […]. Permission will be granted instantly. Permanent relocations can be done through all border checkpoints between the GDR into the FRG or Berlin (West). — Günter Schabowski, November 9th, 1989

A wall came down in Berlin. I vividly remember watching it on TV. Throughout the 70's and 80's I had grown up hearing about the evil communist state of the USSR and how it threatened our lives. We were told there were enough nuclear weapons to blow the world off of its' axis if both sides let rip at the same time(there still is), they could invade at any moment. The reality was very different.

The USSR was almost bankrupt, oil prices had fallen drastically and they simply didn't have the income to compete with the US military machine. Reagan knew this and as soon as Gorbachev was elected he pressed him. Thank god for Gorbachev and his sanity and lack of vanity. He took one on the chin and the wall came down. Some still wish it was up.

Okay, thehistory lesson ends here, albeit the abridged history of 'communism and the fall of the Berlin wall', but it is what it is. There are some great pics in this flickr group of life in Berlin between 1961 and 1989 if you're interested.

OVERDRIFT STAGE 2

A couple of years ago I posted the original Overdrift and I know you've all been hanging out for the sequel...hang no more. I highly recommend watching the first one and getting the background on Initial D before you watch this.

"The Vulcan huh? 50k uphill, 70k downhill, 40 hard turns, 5 of which are hairpin and the last 3 kilometers all on top of an active volcano. It's practically a non-stop drift from start to finish with only a 15% chance of survival. Yeeeeaaah I remember that one"

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and whilst I'm on the topic of drifting check this out


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THE HOOD # 95

Another piece added to the long haired girl, at least we now know where the parachuting babies come from.

CHOOSE JESUS

Chris and Caz's housewarming last night, best housewarming gift ever.

Creation versus evolution....don't get me started

THE MAGNIFICENT ONE

Akira Kurosawa has at least one fan on the Gold Coast, I know it's a small stretch from the Seven Samurai to a modern day gun belted Japanese chef but it's a stretch I'm prepared to make. My brother Justin sent through these pics today of his lunch at a Japanese restaurant on the Gold Coast. Check out the dudes bullet belt knife belt. Love it.

LOVE WILL TEAR US APART

Not that I am in anyway feeling morbid about my earlier post tonight, far from it, it was actually a bit cathartic. It's just that I'm not one to ever let a good segue go to waste and thus I now present you with Joy Divisions Love Will Tear Us Apart

BE NUMBER 4000

I have another blog called YeLPanorama and it's where I post my pics in bigger and better versions. I think some pics just deserve a larger format. It's been going since April Fools day 2007 and it doesn't really attract a whole lot of visitors, which is fine by me. But if you hurry you can be the official 4000th visitor to the site. There is no prize other than the personal satisfaction of a win and hey maybe you've not been winning of late and thus this easy win will perk you up or you'll get there and be the 4001st visitor in which case this will be another failure for you and so it's probably best if you don't go there.

Okay then.

I TAKE THEE (I THINK)

Lately I've watched a number of relationships disintegrate, people I didn't really know and some I did and just today someone very close to me (whom I shall not name for their privacy) ended a very long relationship. So it's got me thinking and I'm just gonna dribble on some here and get some thoughts down.

I've had my fair share of breakups including two 10 year long relationships. It hurts when they end, painful painful hurt. I'm pretty damn sure that I don't want to feel that pain again, I definitely do NOT want to feel the pain I felt with the most recent long term break up. But it comes with the territory right? Us humans need partners, both sexually and for companionship, so the physical and the mental. Or do we? I've been single for 7 years now but in that time there's been a few short term connections and for various reasons they haven't worked out. But I miss having a partner from time to time and not just for the sexy time, there's just a pile of things in life that you do that you really should share/experience with somebody else.

I guess my question is, are we supposed to mate for life? Our parents or at least our grand parents did. What changed? Is it that we're too selfish these days and we put ourselves first more often or is that we've managed to become more self sufficient and we don't need the good woman or good man to stand by our side as we trek through the perilous journey called life.

We need to produce offspring to survive as a species, but more and more people choose not to have children or like in my case circumstances just never allowed it. I guess I still have plenty of time to do that but then I require a partner that I feel is good enough to raise my children (there's that selfishness again yeah?). Hey, maybe tomorrow I will meet the one who makes my everything great and loves my tastes in music and movies....whoa look out, but then again do you really want to feel that pain again....one day? Yeah you probably do because it comes with the territory.

Aint love grand ;)

Christ, when did I become Carrie Bradshaw?!?