I can't get no sleep......

Ok, I thought I'll detract from my regular posts to leave you with a very rare video from 1993.

This is one of the early house music classics from Masters at Work, with the lovely vocals of La India; who IMO has one of the most beautiful voices in the world.

House music and La India were a match made in heaven.

Enjoy!

Saying goodbye to a great housemate

Yesterday marked the end of a great era of shared accommodation; Lisa, one of the best housemates I've ever lived with moved out of our lovely ground floor, 3-bedroom apartment located in the lush, green suburb of East Melbourne. So for the next 2 weeks, its just me and Pat left living here before the new housemate moves in.

I've lived with Lisa for almost a year now, it was around November last year I was making the rounds looking for sharehouses offering a room. This was the last home on my list that I was going to check out. From the moment I walked in the door, Lisa and me just hit it off from the get go and got along like "peas and carrots" (to quote a scene from Forrest Gump).

You see, in my 4.5 odd years of living abroad in Melbourne shared accommodation, I have enough horror stories of bad housemates to hold a candle to the book - "He died with a felafel in his hand".

A list of my bad housemate experiences:
accidentally blew the kitchen up from a pot of burning oil forgotten on the stove;
refuse to clean the house;
refuse to wash any dishes;
move the only TV into their room;
refuse to buy any living room furniture, so we only had one couch in an empty living room;
moving out of the country while we still had 3 months on our lease;
trying to rip me off for money;
crack the shits at me for hugging a cushion;
crack the shits at me for snacking on the couch;
pretend that I'm not there and ignore me;
leave the gas stove on while passed out drunk;
throw up on carpets;
throw up on balcony;
throw up in bathroom;
throw up in garbage bag;
bring weird men home;
finding weird man in our shower taking a bath;


So compared to my previous nightmares, I think that Lisa is simply one of the nicest individuals I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. We have never ever had a single argument in our household and I've been so lucky to live in a warm and family-like environment.


Lisa is moving in with her partner, David; whom we all reckoned is such a fantastic guy that we couldn't help but love him to bits too.


On one hand, I'm really happy for her that she's moving on to the next big step in her life, while the other part of me is left with a pretty empty feeling that comes along with losing someone dear to your heart.

***Deepest sigh***
I think I'm starting to become kinda depressed of late, with my heart getting broken recently and losing a great flatmate shortly after. No wonder I just can't seem to hold my thoughts together the past 2 weeks.

Enough blogging for now, I'm going to turn in for an early Sunday night and sleep this empty feeling away...

Andy

In the blink of an eye

Picture this: two strangers huddled together, feverishly exchanging undercuts and jabs. At the sound of the bell, each disengages.

No, I'm not talking about boxing, and the punches landed aren't of the physical kind. I'm describing speed dating, the latest fad to seduce singles in search of love.

Created by a Los Angeles rabbi as a method for marriage-minded men and women to swiftly evaluate potential partners, speed dating has swiftly spread throughout the free world.

There goes one more item I can check off my mental list of things & experiences to try out before I die.

At the behest of my girlfriends Nicki and Lisa, the 3 of us recently-heartbroken singles attended a speed dating event organized by Blink Dating at the Lustre Lounge last night.
The handsome price of $59 will give you the possibility of meeting that special someone 15 times over, in 4 minute intervals.

We arrived early, the bar was dark and back lit in a deep crimson red. Sara, the ever so cheerful and robust host greeted the 3 of us as we walked in promenade style, arm in arm. Drink cards and Match cards were distributed out like stacks of lotto scratchies from your local newsagent, along with sticky tags with our first names scrawled across with black magic marker.

Observing the pockets of people standing around the venue, I could clearly see some single men standing around awkwardly holding a drink, the women came in groups of 2 or more and stood around giggling amongst themselves.

The rules were clearly explained to us:
You get 4 minutes to talk to each person.
Each person has a number next to their name tag, the women sit at the table which matches their tag number.
The women remain seated in their seats while the men walk up to each table in an ascending order.
You get a sheet of paper to take personal notes and a scorecard to mark a Yes/No response on whether you'd like to see the person again.

I found the experience rather exhausting and at the same time an interesting social experiment as I got to talk to a sample out of the population of women out there.

First impressions rarely count from past experiences in life. However, in this meat market setting with only 4 minutes to let your charm shine through, the rules of the playing field have been re-written to be all about making an impression - fast! If you ever get the chance, have a browse through Malcom Gladwell's - Blink; which explains what goes on in our heads the first 2 seconds of looking at someone.

Out of the 15 women, 5 of them went straight to the "No" category in my scorecard within the first minute of meeting them due to poor grooming, bad breath and excruciatingly boring conversation amongst some of the reasons I mentally gave myself.
Another 4 eventually found their way into my "No" pile while the 6 "Yes" I ticked were interesting people that I wouldn't mind meeting again.

After the event, Lisa and Nicki told me about their experiences with the other men. 2 of them just were plain creepy, a bunch of the others were lacking any decent social or conversational skills while the rest seemed to be decent blokes.

Would I return for an event like this again? Probably not.
This probably could work for really busy individuals or people who just need to short circuit their routine of hanging out with the same social circle and be forced to meet to different people.

However, I personally feel that this takes the thrill out of the chase, the game, the pickup. Whatever you may want to call it, the art of seduction has been around for centuries and for a good reason - it works.

Perhaps I'm just an old fashioned guy in modern world...

One that got away

Melancholy and the infinite sadness.

No matter how many times I've been through this before , heartbreak will always feel as painful now as the first time your heart got broken.

She was the epitome of a nurturing, kind and giving feminine essence. She was simple, honest and uncomplicated. She wasn't afraid to call me on my shit. She was old school and rolled her own cigarettes. She swore a blue streak when pissed off. She made me laugh. She loved the same music as I. She was much older.

She was the sort who had to give all her heart and soul to someone to want to be with them. Anything less, she considered a lie to herself and couldn't bring herself to do it.

Alas, I wasn't that someone, even though sparks flew and moments of intimacy were shared, it was not to be.

Sunday night, I left her place with my heart broken and she gave me a kiss along with the longest hug and didn't want to let go... we just stood there for a brief eternity; god I loved the smell of her hair...

Then we parted.

I smiled and said everything was going to be alright and turned to walk away.
Deep inside, we knew something has changed and we'll probably never be the same as before.

Lee Burridge

I have a confession to make: I'm totally in awe of Lee Burridge at the moment.

Anyone who's been in the club scene for as long as I have would have had their fair share of disappointing nights and know never to really expect much for anything. Especially when its in a tiny venue like Ffour.

However, just once in a while it is the rare gems that sneak right up behind you unexpectedly like a thief in the night, suddenly surrounding you in a sensual and intoxicating melting pot of tech-house and techno that leaves you sweaty, gasping, pleasured and still craving for another hit.

The most memorable gig I had with Lee had to be back in 2001, Zouk club, Singapore where he played back to back with Craig Richards as the indominatable tech house duo known as Tyrant. That left a really high benchmark which subsequent solo gigs by Lee would never again quite seem to cut it.


Incidentally, Saturday also happened to fall on the birthday of Prog-Girl.
If any of you have been paying any attention, you'll recognize that Prog-Girl popped out of the darkness of Sunny into my photos and my world during the Anthony Pappa gig in July.

How did the nickname come about? Well I haven't exactly figured that one out either, but somewhere between saying hello and hitting it off like peas and carrots; realising we both love progressive house, she must have entered her number into my phone under that alias, and so it stuck.



A major milestone that I managed to achieve that night was polling and getting more people to join my initiative of starting the "We hate Phil K" club. Vicky (pictured above) and Prog-Girl are the newest members to join Di and myself. No doubt this initiative will grow rapidly once people out there realise that Phil K seriously kills the vibe on any dance floor as attested in my last visit to Sunny.



It was a fair sized crowd who lapped up everything Burridge was throwing out at them


The sweet spot of sound at Ffour that night for me was standing right about here, near the front and next to the speaker column to be able to feel the bass kicking your heart around in your chest


Burridge hard at work


Both of us clearly having a great time


and with that, I'll leave you with a parting shot of the night.....

Pictures from Falls Creek

Its been a pretty full on week since the weekend that just past.

We left for Falls Creek at 4.30am on Friday morning to make the 5hr drive up.
It was almost 10am when we got there amidst pretty bad weather of strong wind and rain which meant the ski lifts were closed for most of Friday.

The accommodation was ok, with the 2 couples getting the better end of the deal with their own rooms equipped with queen sized beds.
Greg, Marika and myself had the honour of sharing the dorm room with double-decker, single sized bunk beds; I probably haven't slept in such uncomfortable conditions since I was in the army, not that we really got much sleep anyway with the excitement of a weekend away together and way too many Jägermeister and red bull shots during the first night

Irregardless, it was a tough challenge to learn how to snowboard. Nothing could possibly feel more unnatural being strapped into a board and having to use your body, knees and ankles to set the direction you want to head in. First lesson we learnt was that whatever your body feels it should do, ignore it! Its like learning to walk all over again.

I had a smooth start on the first try and forgot to secure the snowboard strap to my leg before I got the bindings on which resulted in a deadly runaway projectile snowboard zipping down the mountain and almost taking out a group of skiers before crashing into the village.



The view from the balcony of our apartment


Bad weather conditions of rain, wind and hail on the first day meant the ski lifts were shut. So we walked around the resort instead


The village center up in the snow


Getting ready to hit my first beginner run


Somehow did survive the run with the exception of some spectacular falls that sprayed snow everywhere


Group shot of the entire team


Me and Marika getting ready to hit a blue run on our third day of boarding


Just managing to skid to a halt for a quick photo before zipping off again


Pat who's a very experienced snowboarder cruising along taking a video of us

I survived the weekend of snowboarding to arrive back in Melbourne around 10.30pm on Sunday night, then I had to get out of bed the Monday morning at 5am to make a 7.05am flight to Brisbane for work! I swear to god, it felt damn bloody good to get back home on Tuesday night and sleep in my own bed for the first time in days.

Chasers War on Everything vs APEC !

This is the most fucking hilarious prank I've ever seen!!!!

247 million dollars spent this week at the APEC summit at Sydney, and the pranksters from the Chaser's War On Everything managed to get within metres of the hotel that George Bush was staying at.
They hired fake limos with tinted windows, had the Canadian flag flying from the cars and one of them dressed up as Osama Bin Laden in the back seat! All the while having fake security guards in suits running outside the car with fake IDs.


The amazing thing was they got through 2 checkpoints before realising they were going too far with the prank and decided to make a U-Turn back which was where they got caught.


See the complete news report. Shows you the outcome of 247million dollars well spent for security and hosting this crock of shit.

The clip at the bottom was their weekly program this week warming up to the APEC summit jokes