Chopsticks

The other day I had lunch at Spicy Fish. The young couple sitting at the table next to mine had been speaking in another language the whole time, until my meal arrived and I began to eat, at which point the young man remarked at my chopsticks skills. His companion added that they don't encounter many Australians who can use chopsticks. They both had very thick accents, and I found them difficult to understand, especially when the young fellow started rambling on about the benefits of MSG. I'm not sure if they were tourists or residents, but the fact that they said 'Australians' to imply 'white Australians' was interesting.

Oh, and the missus now has a blog.

Otherwise, I've been listening to The Postmarks, Isobel Campbell, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Edith Frost, and, erm, the Killers.

BookMooch

BookMooch is a book-swapping community. It's more like a little economy, really. There are some flaws in the system, but essentially it's a great idea. You list all the books in your collection that you no longer want, and can then request books from the lists of other members. I received my first 'mooched' book today; Daniel J. Boorstin's The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself.

151 / 1

This is my 151st post, and my 1st using Blogger Beta.

The Rangiriri Hotel

I went to the State Library to study today. After alighing from the tram, I headed to the library to put my backpack in one of their rentable lockers. I then went to Big W to purchase some socks, and then to Safeway to buy a bottle of water, so that I could stay hydrated whilst studying. I then went back to the locker to drop off the socks, before heading into the library itself. When I got to my corral I realised I'd brought the socks in with me, and put my water away in the locker. Such are the interesting tales I have to tell about my life at the moment (you can understand why this blog is somewhat neglected of late).

I'm in the initial stages of writing an essay comparing the experiences of indigenous people from Australia and New Zealand, in their encounters with European colonisers, and asking the question of whether the conflicts they engaged in could / should be considered 'wars'.

I'm becoming a fan of introductions, prologues, and prefaces in books. They're an untapped source of witicisms, insights, and 'delightful' little yarns. This is from the 'author's note' in Peter Maxwell's Frontier: The Battle for the North Island of New Zealand (I think the ending is a overly dramatic, but his point is nicely put):

One afternoon in the summer of 1985 on a drive between Auckland and Hamilton my father insisted that we stop at the Rangiriri Hotel. I accepted the invitation with reluctance, he seldom drank outside the confines of his club and had never taken me to a hotel in his life.

It occurred to me that he had something of importance to say, possibly in connection with our family. I hoped that he was not about to burden me with something I might find embarrassing to discuss. We sat at a window with a view of a neighbouring hilltop. "On the slopes of that hill," he said, "a British naval party was cut down."

I did not understand his terminology. For a moment I literally did not know what he was talking about, but while we finished our drinks he explained. The sailors had stormed the hill from gunboats moored against the river bank he told me, pointing to a line of willows on the opposite side of the highway. Then he led me from the hotel into the nearby cemetery and showed me their graves. I was genuinely intrigued. By what circumstances could three dozen sailors have been killed on a hillside 30 miles from the sea?

For the first time it was impressed upon me that I knew nothing of my country's history. At home I began to inquire, discovering at once that among my acquaintances ignorance of New Zealand's past was universal.

One day in the following winter, during a motorcycle journey through the Waikato, I remembered Rangiriri. Thirty minutes later I climbed the hill in a rainstorm. I remember squatting on its summit in the wet grass listening to the cars on the highway below, certain that none of the travellers knew any more of the events that had taken place there than did I.

The passing traffic symbolised the issue. We were all going... somewhere? But none of us knew where we had come from. There are ghosts on that hilltop. I felt faint. I sank to my knees, then inexplicably - burst into tears.

Blue Grenadier

We bought some blue grenadier from Canals on Nicholson Street.

Thirty Three

Birthday round-up in full. On the night of my birthday, I had dinner at Yu-u with the missus. It was really nice; a Japanese restaurant hidden from the world, seemingly drawing customers by word-of-mouth, as there is no signage ourside its factory-like door other than an A5-sized plaque. The food was beautiful, particularly the scallops and mushrooms cooked in butter, and the gyoza, and calamari, and the chicken yakitori. Two big glasses of Asahi to wash it all down. Nice. Next we went to Madame Brussels for a drink on their fantastic balcony, overlooking the sparkly city.

On Friday evening I had dinner with friends at Woodstock Cafe on Nicholson Street. The word is spreading that this place is overtaking I Carusi as home of Melbourne's best pizza. I'm not much of a pizza connoisseur, but my gorgonzola and double-smoked prosciutto pizza was certainly delicious. Unfortunately, we only managed to coax one friend out of the 11 in attendance to come back to ours for a wine.

Last night I had dinner at Mecca with my family. I went to Mecca last year for my birthday, with just the missus. The menu was totally different this time; gone was the za'atar encrusted lamb, African olives, and Turkish delight. I had spatchcock with bulgar and pistachio - very nice, and a Dalwhinnie for dessert, because I ain't really got a sweet-tooth.

Oh, and presents; from the missus I got a Japanese teacup which is intended as a pen-holder (to replace the jam-jar I've been using for years), a summer dressing-gown, and Peter Watson's From Fire To Freud: A History of Ideas. From friends; wine, records, and an issue of the New York Review of Books. From my parents; a new desk, which I must write about soon, and from my brother; a bottle of Chivas Regal. All up, a nice way to turn 33.

WasteofSpace

It's my birthday today! I'm 33. Full report later.

Despite my wariness and general confusion, I've been poking around Myspace over the last few days. At first I planned on only 'adding' people I know, but as practically none of my friends are on Myspace, my profile was looking pretty sad. So I started adding people I knew of, or people I had met briefly through mutual acquantances, or people I had threadbare connections with via the old fanzine days. Then I started wondering what the point of doing this was - I'm never going to see or speak to most of these people. Then I read this article about the history of Myspace, and how it's just one big marketing enterprise.

I understand the buzz about a lot of (useful) internet things; blogs, RSS, social bookmarking, podcasts, wikis, tagging etc. I really love wasting time at sites like Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Livejournal, Digg, Reddit, ILM, Rate Your Music, IMDB, Metafilter, Flickr, and many blogs. But I've never quite got Myspace. So at the moment, I'm on the verge of de-activating my account and disappearing from the Myspace world.

MySpace

After repeated prompting from students at work who wanted to 'add' me, I finally set up a MySpace page. Now that I've been poking around it for a few days, I can report with confidence that I still don't 'get it'. The interface confuses me, nothing's clear-cut, and almost every user-page is a CSS mess. I don't understand what you're supposed to do with it - apart from 'add' as many people as you can. People seem to use it to communicate, but I'm not sure how it's any better than good ol' e-mail. As for the blogging function, I can't understand why anyone would use it over proper blogs with RSS feeds. And they call individual posts 'blogs'! A post is not a blog, it's a post. So when MySpace asks if you want to create a new 'blog', what they mean is a new post to your blog. Confusing.

I sent out a group e-mail to varioous friends and acquaintances, to see if anyone I knew had a MySpace page. The universal response was 'no'. Anyway, should you wish to add me, my MySpace is here.

Anyway, I love dinner on Friday nights...

Cathies Lane

Fathers' Day was spent at my folk's house in the Dandenongs. My brother, whom I only really see at family functions, has a much better long-term memory than me. He can recall all the teachers from high-school, and many students from primary school. Whenever the tinge of a childhood memory enters my mind, and I need to solidify certain facts, I can often depend on my brother to provide me with obscure names from the past.

Just now, I was remembering the time we lived in Scoresby, when I was aged 8 to 15. In particular, I was thinking of a section of bike-path that ran between High Street Road and Knox City; and how that area used to feel slightly creepy to me. But it wasn't as creepy as Cathies Lane. Although it's been radically altered since I was growing up in the area, Cathies Lane was once a lonely, deserted stretch of unmade road, dividing the '70s housing estate from the sliver of farmland East of Jells Park. One of the kids in the neighbourhood told me that it was named after a girl who was murdered there.

I was looking it up on Google Maps, when I noticed a section of Ferntree Gully Road has been named 'Masterful Brendon Road'. Here's a link. Google reveals no results for "Masterful Brendon Road". Curious.

Natural Tucker, Maria's, Brown Sugar

Yesterday we had breakfast at Natural Tucker Bakery on Nicholson Street. Service was pretty unenthusiastic. I had to wipe-down my own table. The missus had French toast, which looked good, but I can't eat sweet stuff like that for breakfast. I had poached eggs with mushrooms. It was pretty good, but nothing noteworthy. It's not the most comfy place to sit and eat either. I don't think we'll go back.

We then dropped into Maria's Coffee House to buy some chocolate for Father's Day. I'm a huge fan of Maria's, and regularly stop by on the way home from work. It's a great place to buy beer, cheese, preserved meats, chocolate, and nougat. Somebody told me that the guy who runs it, the older man with the bone-dry sense of humour that I love, is the guy who used to own Grinders, before he sold the business to Coke. I've been looking for information on this, but can't find anything.

After Maria's, we continued down Nicholson to Milawa Cheese Shop, to buy some cheese for Father's Day. Bought some camembert and smoked cheddar. They had some samples out on a table - I tried a creamy cheese called "'Ol Stinky Milawa Gold" or something. Fucking superb. Will have to go back and get some next weekend.

Later on, we attempted to go to Thai Nee for dinner, but it was booked out, so we figured we'd give Brown Sugar, another Thai restaurant on Lygon, a try. I'd heard bad things about this place, but we thought we should make our own mind up. Alas, the service hovered between terse and rudely abrupt. The meals took an absolute age to arrive, and when they finally did, they were nothing special; the Pad Thai looked limp and lifeless, the chicken panang curry was pretty average. We had to ask for our roti a couple of times before it arrived. The table next to us was having all sorts of problems with their order, and ended up having to amend the bill owing to missing items. The lesson here is; if you want Thai in East Brunswick, head straight to Thai Nee, if you can get a table (and don't give me any of that Thaila Thai advice - that place is over-rated).

Then we went to the video shop and hired The League of Gentlemen Apocalypse, which was tons of fun.

Exam Over

The exam went well. Two short essays - one on British critical periodicals of the nineteenth century, the other on Australian post-war alternative press. I'm a little unsure of what to do with myself for the rest of the afternoon. I'm trying to get my head around TiddlyWiki at the moment, which appears at first quite mystifying, then brilliantly simple, and then outright frustrating. Nonetheless, it might be an excellent way to manage little chunks of ideas and information.