Thailand

Hey everyone

We're here in Bangkok in this area called Banglamphu. It's really busy with street vendors selling very tasty food and we're staying at a really nice guesthouse. Tomorrow we're going to move onto a different guesthouse an hour away where all the backpackers tend to stay. We went there this afternoon to explore more of the city and it's pretty crazy. The food is just delicious, we've been eating at markets and little street vendors. We took a tuk tuk ride back to where we're staying which was quite thrilling, weaving in and out of traffic on a vehicle with no door. I feared for my life at several points. Good times. We have this room at the top floor of the guesthouse which has air conditioning and boy is it necessary. It's so hot here. We talked to a couple of other travellers and did some reading and we think we might head over to Ko Samet, which is this little island with amazing beaches where we will probably spend a few days hanging out before we contemplate our next move.

It's stange being in a place where English isn't really understood by the locals. We're getting by, lots of pointing mainly. We got some cheap clothes and I got my head shaved in an attempt to deal with the sudden change in temperature. It's busy but it has a pretty friendly vibe to it.

It's taking a while for our minds to unwind and realise that we don't have a job to go to or a tube to catch at any point. It's really, really relaxing being here. There's a lot to learn and it's really exciting. I just learned how to haggle after some practice and got some very cheap memory cards, so photos will soon follow.

Just another day in the news

Ruth and Alex visit

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for photos

Christmas 2: I love sequels

Because all of us here in our little house had to go our seperate ways for Christmas we decided to have 'Christmas 2' which took place here, today. McGee made her 24 hour pork roast complete with goose-fat-roasted potatoes and yorkshire puddings, Liz made Eaton Mess for dessert and also we had lots and lots of booze. Marissa, Damon, McGee's dad and Sophie came round and we did the whole thing, present opening, Brandy Alexanders and also a highly competitive round of Trivial Pursuit. It was better than my Christmas 1 in every possible way. Really fun day. Jezz and Liz got me this pack of international beers which is just awesome, I've had one of them so far and I'll probably finish them off before the weekend is done. I thought it was really sweet, I have no idea how they knew. McGee must have told them or something.

First weekend of the year

Friday was Damon's birthday party at their place. Lots of cards and booze. Good times. It was also pretty sad because Jan & Crezzy were leaving for Perth the next day at 7am. That was pretty tearful, I've become really used to seeing those guys every week, and Jan has taught me so much about the important things in life, like funny things that animals do and also trivial facts about Elvis and why he was the greatest man ever. I'll really miss those guys. They're moving to Fremantl and it'd be cool if you guys hooked up with them at some point. Also Davs, tell your sister that Lucas Cresswell is starting at Freo Hospital in February so she'll probably see him at work.

It's always January...

We've got McGee's dad staying with us at the moment which has been great. Always good having parents around spoiling us and giving us treats. McGee and Liz decided they were going to do some sales shopping, so her dad and I had to entertain ourselves in the city for 4 hours before we met up with them to go see a movie. We decided to go on a good old fashioned pub crawl, sampling a different pint of beer at each pub. Then we went to Pizza Express which is this great pizza chain, really nice pizzas. We ended up going to an impressive number of pubs and then we were too drunk to see the movie but it's okay because I really didn't want to see it anyway. This week at work as been really quiet, there's only three people in my department and absolutely nothing to do so I've been getting into Moral Orel, which I now actually quite like. Watch a couple of episodes if you're bored, it's a pretty clever little show.

Happy 2008

Can't believe we missed out on the final Vines party! You were all muchly missed and it was great talking to people on the phone. It was about 2:30pm here at the time so excuse the lack of new years enthusiasm, I was still in my pyjamas cracking open the first beer of the day. A good decade of getting drunk at the vines, definitely the end of an era. Unless maybe you guys want to give my folks a call, I'm sure they'll be happy to spend a weekend down there with you guys, and I'm sure they'll prove to be as entertaining and decent drinking buddies as Sarah and myself.

We went to Jan & Crezzy's house party which was really awesome. It's a 4th storey apartment down the road from us here in Arsenal. There was a dj, a kitchen full of booze, everyone was dressed in neon and had glowstick attire (which was the theme) and there was this mattress/pillow land going on in one of the rooms. At midnight the place looked like a club, it was really insane, I think I took photos which I'll put up. I walked home the next day at 11am, it was a really good party. All four of us spent the rest of the day lying on a big mattress in the living room. It was kinda weird, having only half the people from last year's celebrations present, and in a different country. Good times though, this year is going to be full of change I suspect. Bet Sarah and Brant are excited about moving to Melbourne! That's definitely our next move.

Seasons Greetings

Festivas for the rest of us

Having just gotten home from a boozy last day at work, I'm settling in for some nice holiday time that'll take me into the new year. I believe we're celebrating this occasion with beer and Trivial Pursuit, which Liz bought for £15 yesterday at her office party from a colleague who didn't think it was a decent enough secret Santa gift. On Sunday we'll be heading over to McGee's mum's place and we'll be there till Christmas Day when we'll head over to Marissa & Damon's place to carry on the festivities. It'll be my first Christmas away from home and we really miss everyone a lot more than usual, hopefully Brant will get more drunk and offend a few people to make up for my absence. On boxing day while you guys will be living it up Breakfest style, we'll be going to pick McGee's dad up from the airport which will be awesome, then we'll probably get him nice and drunk at our place.

Miss you all loads and loads, have a great one and Ruth don't forget to make Spunky wear his reindeer ears, he loves it.

I love being transported like cattle

I'm feeling the consequences of an open bar at a swanky cocktail venue. I went to the work Christmas party last night which was a lot of fun. There's less than 30 people in the entire company and I think the oldest person is 36. It's very quiet here at work today and I'm just trying to keep my breakfast down at the moment.

There was a lot of train delays today which happens now and then, so my train was obscenely packed. When it got to my station people slowly started to get off as I made my way to the door. There was this guy in a suit on the platform trying to get in, shoving his way against the traffic. Anyway the "doors closing" announcement came up and I was still in the train with this douche pushing against me. I became very anxious, I didn't want to get trapped in there and miss my stop because this guy didn't learn about how being patient and courteous makes the world go round. I folded my arms in front of me and shoved him out the door and against the wall on the platform as the doors closed. He yelled at me, something about an aunt, so I told him to go fornicate himself with razors. The transportation system really brings out the worst in people. They're like animals being herded, poorly.

32" of happiness

The quality of our lives has increased a lot since receiving our 32" LCD TV.The EBay seller we purchased it off accidently sent us two of em but don't worry mum, we sent it back and now someone owes us lots of karma, preferably in the form of electronic goods. This weekend we went to my cousin Marissa's 28th Birthday Party which was awesome, definitely up there in the list of 'best house parties ever'. I've never seen so many people packed into a flat, it was just so much fun. The recovery day was spent watching legally acquired movies. You know when you watch a film you haven't seen yet and it's actually surprisingly good? That happened on recovery TV day, twice. And it's been a while since I've seen a movie that I enjoyed thoroughly. Children of Men followed by The Bourne Ultimatum, both blew me away. Loved it. We then tried to watch this movie in which Adam Sandler and that douchebag from the show King of Queens are firemen because it was aparently written by the guys who wrote Sideways. We gave it five minutes and then sent it on its way to the recycle bin.

Still here

Hey everyone, if you guys are still reading. It's been almost a month with no new posts. Basically in that time we've been enjoying our place, hanging out with people a whole lot, bumming around etc. I got a couple of photography gigs and I've got a few more lined up which is great, and also started a job as a 'Video Producer' (I edit mainly, it's just a fancy name) for a nice little company that does work for Turner, I'm in charge of the Adult Swim stuff for Cartoon Network. I basically put promos and stuff together for shows (this week I'm doing Harvey Birdman, Sealab, Orel Moral, Squidbillies and AquaTeen). It's a really nice little office and the people I work with are nice, geeky and film makers like me. Hopefully it'll lead to me weaseling a job at Cartoon Network or something eventually. Anyway I'm still alive and there'll be more posts this weeks with all new photos! Hope everyone is well

Remember remember that movie V for Vendetta

Across the past 4 days people have been celebrating Guy Fawkes day by blowing lots of things up. There's fireworks shooting off constantly after about 5pm daily. We went down to the park on Saturday evening to partake in the awesome legalness of blowing things up in public. On the way we stopped by a corner store who's banner boasted 'discount fireworks! sold here!' It was really crazy to see that many explosives for sale, all wrapped up in exciting packages with a brief description of what you can expect from it like "spins into the sky and erupts in a celebration of colours!" We got the lot- cherry bombs, fireworks, launchers, spinners, sparklers and some mysterious ones that we just lit, ran and hoped for the best. We had a wholesome evening in the park with champagne while taking turns in some very juvenile antics. We even managed to coordinate a few impressive displays. Any direction you looked, fireworks! Very fun indeed.

Our house

Here's some pictures of our place in Arsenal.

[ click here ]

There's a fox under my bed

The other day we did our first big supermarket shop except we did it online to be delivered to our place. The delivery charge was free because we spent over a certain amount and it sounded awesome in theory. They delivered a completely incorrect bunch of stuff. Bags and bags of someone elses groceries. I realised this initially when I saw a jumbo pack of diapers. Anyway a couple of calls to their incompetent support staff later and they said they would re-deliver our missing items (most of our order) and asked us to politely re-bag and return the stuff they sent to us that was clearly from someone elses shopping. I put a bunch of token stuff in there, some canned goods, the diapers, a jar of pickled cucumbers. Jez and McGee got home and started picking out stuff that I had selected for return. We briefly discussed the moral issue involved and whether a heartless multinational corporation deserved to have their wrongly sent goods back. Later that evening as we enjoyed some baked goods for dinner that we didn't pay for we admired the ridiculous amount of stuff that we had to look forward to for the coming weeks. Lots of organic fruits, tortilla ingredients, chocolates, juices, that mistake was the best thing to ever happen to us. I kinda regret returning the pickled cucumbers though they could have been delicious in a sandwich maybe. But we're good people. We care.

So this morning McGee woke me up, frantic, saying she heard something under our bed. I looked underneath it while fearing for my life and didn't see anything. Then I went to the bathroom and when I returned she assured me that there was in fact something under the bed. We made lots of noise and 'it' darted out our very open window. It was a fox. A massive, adult fox. And he was just starring at us. Then he did a crap and started peeing, while still looking at us, like he was upset that we'd interrupted his slumber. As you might know it has been my life-long dream to have a fox as a pet, and I asked McGee if we could keep a cub if say we stumbled upon one that was injured, without its parents, looking like it could really use our help. Then we could take it home and nurse it back to health and buy him a collar and all the rest of it. She said no.

A visit to a goth club's bondage night

We went down to the Purple Turtle in Camden, a goth nightclub to see a friend's band which is called Rapid Fiction. He maintains that he answered an ad and that the band name had already been in place. I suggested Vapid Friction. Anyways it was very dark with DJ Fruityloops playing stuff he had cooked up after doing some basic tutorials. He played his generic crap while getting into it way too hard, with embarrassing results.

Each of the bands attempted/wished to be Robert Smith in their own special way. That was pretty much it. There was a terrible striptease that was literally 'your mate who decided to read an online guide on stripping 'and give it a shot. All the patrons were dressed up as either a poor man's David Bowie, Marilyn Manson, Robert Smith or combinations of those three. The ladies were trying to wear as little as possible while attempting not to look self conscious. Everyone was really polite and friendly though. I guess that's what happens when goths grow up and get jobs. My favourite was this synth pop goth band with the front man who dressed up like Billy Corgan except his clothes were clearly made by his mum. He was doing these hilarious dance moves while just doing more of a spoken word than singing, featuring such memorable repeated lines as 'The clown can no longer laugh... laugh'. Genius. I on the other hand laughed, and laughed. It was a good night out.

I am extremely jealous that you guys went to spring in the valley and had an awesome vines adventure in my absence. It was awesome to talk to you eventhough I was on 27 hours without sleep at the time, and I apologise for not being with it. I sure do miss the vines.

A visit to the London Jazz Cafe

We met Jezz at the Jazz Cafe last night to see this event called 'One Taste'. The idea is that about 3 - 4 bands play a short set of about 4 songs each. After that they get on the stage together to play some improvised stuff followed by an interval, and then the three bands perform a short set each again, in a different order. Really interesting sounds. This one group had a pan drum, sax, drums and double bass. Some great music, was really refreshing to hear. The venue is excellent - it's quite small and dark with one bar and a small stage. There's a staircase that leads up to the restaurant where you can eat while watching the bands perform below. Pretty intimate setting, the people performing are right in the middle, close to the audience and the acoustics are excellent. Bonobo have a 1 week residency there next month so I'm really looking forward to that.

The worst job ever (but we're back on the internets!)

Hey everyone,

Literally got the internets back up and running minutes ago in our new place. Turns out ENVY is the biggest crock ever. They actually lied about having positions as editors, they don't! All the editors that work there are freelancers or are working for other companies. It was all very dramatic with this girl that I started with (who was getting 60k a year working in real estate) walking out after crying. A bunch of people left and so they called this emergency meeting type deal. Turns out they hired a whole group of new people myself included because their existing staff left after a very short inning as well. Basically there was really no possibility of getting a decent post production job and being there meant not editing and adding to my portfolio. Then they decided that the newest people would have to take the new shift of 7pm - 6am for two months, 6 days a week. I got the hell out of there. I was able to speak to some senior editors during my time there who assured me that the way to getting into film is to do exactly what you want to do, now. So I got a contact for an agent who actually got back to me and will be finding me editing work. Aparently you start off with reality tv and crap like that but still, stuff to add on my show reel. I'm told that being a runner just gets you a labeled as a poorly paid shitkicker. If they're looking to hire an editor, they're probably going to pick the guy with a showreel that shows steady progress rather than some guy who can prepare an editing suite really well and fast. So lesson learned. In the meantime I'm doing part time design work which is always functional.

Anyways we're in our new place in Arsenal and it is completely awesome. Pictures to come. Hope everyone is well.

New house, new (new) job

So today is my last day here at Wall, and next Tuesday I was to start a new job f**kin* ages out of central London. Seriously, like really far away. It was some mediocre job as well animating and designing menus for DVDs. I was mostly dreading the commute. Like 90 minutes each way taking 3 different trains and a bus. BUT a couple of days ago I got called in for a trial day at ENVY Studios UK which is this really high profile post-production house that does a lot of BBC and Talkbalk Thames TV shows, as well as movies. I really love a lot of the programs that these people make so I was nervous about the trial, it's an actual 'start your career in the TV industry' job. The position is literally at the bottom. Poorly paid, you get to be everyones' bitch but you can move on up in a pretty direct fashion. Get in there anyway you can, meet people, learn what you need to know and then move up until I'm editing or shooting a cool TV show would be the plan.

So I went in on trial yesterday and impressed people and I start on Tuesday, which I'm really excited about. I'm gonna be really poor but I'm working in film & tv, for real. And it's in central London, REALLY central. It'll take me under 30 minutes to get there, one train followed by a 2 minute walk. Also while I'm there in that position, you get to pick two things that you will get trained in, as their way of enticing you to stay within the company. I'm going to pick cutting tv drama/comedy and music production.

Tonight Marissa & Damon are having a going away party for us because it's the last couple of nights we'll have living with them. I have some idea of what that's going to be like. We're moving some our stuff over on Sunday and we move in on Monday. It's a really nice little house and I'll put lots of pictures up next week. The weekend is going to go really fast and I'll be serving angry film people Soy Mocha Lattes with a hint of coconut in no time.

Bye mum & dad

My folks were here over the past few days on their way back home from France where they'd been living it up drinking champagne and eating finely produced baked goods. It really was awesome to have that time to hang out with them. They took McGee and I out to dinner at fancy restaurants every night they were here and there was much champagne to be had by all. They sorted me out with lots of new socks (and then dad disposed of my old socks safely utilising a gripping device) and stuff for our new house (wooh new house!).

Anyway they had to leave on Monday which was sad but made slightly easier for all of us by the big thing of fried rice that mum left us. I guess now they'll return home and make fried rice for Brant, who will have no competition for leftover lunch the next day. I hate that Brant Maitland. We miss them loads, also my siblings and friends. Come visit us already.