ragingyoghurt

Category Archives: around town

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out at parramatta yesterday for… ahem… client meetings, i stumbled on the biggest harris farm yet! there were bowls of cheese and little tubs of yoghurt out for sampling, and many exotic wafers and mayonnaises and fizzy. mmm… free cheese. eventually i came away with a little bottle of grapefruit fizzy, a large bottle of apricot nectar and a tub of parsely and almond pesto. slurpy yum! the whole experience made me joyful and so, so wistful. aisles upon aisles of big fresh shiny produce, colourful things in bottles all piled up… and me, never ever in parramatta.

a nap later, there was waikiki, a cute band with really nice graphics, which they sometimes put on stickers that you get with the cd. is it bad to like a band because they have a cool logo? last night at the gaelic club, a lovely venue, they sang pretty and in tune and did shimmery tambourine moves and flicked hair about, and the rhythm section sang along even when they weren’t singing into microphones… but it seemed strangely unemotional, as though they were holding out for the whole show, and not until the last song – “this is our last song” – did they truly rock out. by which time my eyes were too sting-y from cigarette smoke, the floor was too sticky with spilt beers to do a hands-in-pocket foot shuffle, and i was completely over the girls in front of me who kept leaning in to talk during the show, and flicked their long ponytails about, and stood arms akimbo with their elbows sticking way too far behind them. pah. girls.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 15 March 2003 at 9:27 am
permalink | filed under around town, grumble

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sometimes when you see a boy off at the airport, a boy who leaves you his magnificent frostfree fridge to look after while he heads off on an indefinitely long trip overseas, not knowing when exactly he will return, and even though you may well be catching two planes to meet up with him in vietnam or china in six or ten weeks, you have to take two buses home, and scrub down your old cyclic defrost fridge which sits alone down in the garage, so that maybe you can sell it off to someone who doesn’t know its history of being a happy home to many evil little cockroaches.

also, you have to put on a ratcat cd. don’t go now.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 7 March 2003 at 6:05 pm
permalink | filed under around town, boy

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saturday
a little portuguese street fair in petersham. at which i queue at a stall for half an hour for five grilled sardines. there are many people in the queue… in fact there may be three or five queues! or no queue. whatever the case, there are more people than there are grilled sardines. where is jesus when you need him? there is a very stressed out portuguese woman behind the counter, who walks to the pavement out back and talks fast and gesticulates wild to a man with coal-blackened hands fanning a large barbeque on which sit two grilling cages with many sardines tucked inside. the man is very much like nicolas cage's character, the baker, in “moonstruck”, and now he is grumpy and throws his hands about too, and says words like “finish!” and “no sardines!” and “(insert low growling noise)”. but in the end there are sardines, and damn they are tasty and sticky in the teeth with fish oil, and they are devoured quickly except for the strange lung-like things we find inside, and washed down with two bottles of portuguese fizzy, sumol, one orange and one pineapple.

sunday
a two hour ride on the early train up to the blue mountains. sunny and cold! excitement about a tasty hot breakfast we would have! disappointment with the extremely unsatisfying breakfast we got instead! climbing down many steps cut into the mountain to little nature tableaux with such names as “vera's grotto” or “witches leap”! waterfalls! lizards! wondering if maybe the peoplemover back up the mountain would cost, like, $30! deciding to climb back up the mountain! on our puny human legs! feeling my lungs grow to an alarming size, as though they would burst from my chest cavity! thinking that death could not come soon enough! seeing the three sisters! stopping at a bakery and matt choosing a cream donut, a sugar coated thing about the size of a softball, sliced open on top and filled with whipped cream and half a maraschino cherry… and a slice of cheesecake, and me getting a steak and mushroom pie, heavy as a small child! a park, a meadow covered in bright yellow flowers! a scary experience eating the cream donut, so scary we eventually give up eating it and try to feed it to the magpies instead! failing to tempt the magpies, and tearing up the last few bits of claggy dough, and throwing it at bees for target practice! walking to leura! losing our way! finding a short cut! by the side of the windy road, with no proper walking path, and four wheel drives speeding by! it takes maybe twenty-five minutes but feels like two hours! we will never speak of this again! train back to sydney! everything bathed in golden light! a lovely day is had by all!

posted by ragingyoghurt on 3 March 2003 at 11:26 am
permalink | filed under around town, lunch

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a weekend so packed with punch it took me a week to sufficiently recover to construct this new toy. friday: pearl jam at the sydney entertainment centre. it’s been five years since i last saw them, and leading up to the night doubt clouded my mind… was i too old to be this excited about a rock show? would my seats be crap? and other stuff.

all partly unfounded. in the belly of the entertainment center, pearl jam went off.

the staff don’t quite frisk you as you go in, but they did make me empty out my indie rock, strawberry print handbag made for me by one fiona cleverly at work, because y’know, i look like such a terrorist.

speaking of which, the rally at hyde park on sunday was somewhat bigger than i thought it would be. so crowded in fact, that when everyone moved off the park to march the streets, the volume of bodies immediately filled the entire route, causing a gridlock standstill for, like, hours it seemed. half a million people rallied across australia, all of whom have now been condemned as unaustralian supportors of saddam hussein by mr howard. onya!

this year… where will we go?

posted by ragingyoghurt on 21 February 2003 at 8:20 am
permalink | filed under around town, soundtrack

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Goodbye sweet youth,
gurgling down the drain

Yesterday I turned 30. Given the liberties I’ve taken with the word “weekly”, you may be reading this a year later when I’m actually 31, but right now it’s 14 November 2002.

My mother came over from Singapore to buy me presents: a new vacuum cleaner, a new spongey mop, and a new square bucket that the mop fits neatly into. Also, several bottles of cleaning products, all boasting ways to make cleaning easier. Thanks mum!

The point is, no cleaning would be easiest of all. Couldn’t she just have given me a self-cleaning house? I know they exist – I saw one on tv.

I made a birthday rhubarb-pear-apple crumble for breakfast, and bought myself a bunch of lotus flowers at the growers market. The sweet smell of them reminds me of the cute Japanese-made erasers I had as a child.

I got my passport extended for another three years, while I decide if it’s better to be a Malaysian (“civilised” nations look upon you with suspicion because you might be a Muslim terrorist) or an Australian (Muslim extremists want to kill you because you support George Bush II in the war against them).

sigh.

I bought the new Pearl Jam album. How could it be 11 years since I found them?

I ran away from XXXXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX that was exactly the same as last year, and was another thing that reminds me I’m in exactly the same place I was exactly a year ago.

At the end of the day, my answering machine had been sung Happy Birthday to five times. Thanks friendly voices! I feel much better!

– – –
before i had a “blog”, i used to write a sporadically updated letter on the front page of my website. this is one of them. i am consolidating it into these archives, because i can.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 15 November 2002 at 9:10 am
permalink | filed under around town, cake, drawn, soundtrack

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I think I read somewhere, some magazine for modern women probably, that the best way to not break new year’s resolutions was not to make any. On the other hand, maybe I just made that up right then. Whatever.

Despite the obviously sound advice, I did make up a small list which included the dependable classics, “watch less tv” and “be more motivated”. There was also “learn to drive” (third year in a row, never fulfilled or even attempted), “cook meat and fish” and (possibly related) “give blood”. So far I have accomplished two, but only really one, if you count the fact that it’s been non-ratings tv for the last couple of months. Let’s see what happens when I get back from my forthcoming overseas jaunt and new seasons of everything are back on.

Anyway. One afternoon, I finished work early and walked into the city, taking a route I knew would lead me past the blood bank. Stepped inside, filled in a form which asked quite a lot of personal questions about intimate details, received a sticker in the shape of a drop of blood which said “my first for life”, and got told to sit in the waiting room and drink several cups of water.

After a screening session with an engaging elderly nurse who asked all the questions in the form I had filled in 20 minutes earlier, I was sent ’round back (“follow the blue line on the floor”). There I was put in a comfy chair with hydraulic pump action, my blood pressure taken (120/80), and a very large needle inserted into the crook of my arm. Such a large needle that the attending nurse thought that my vein wouldn’t be big enough to take it.

Gulp.

Fortunately it was maybe some kind of first blood donor initiation joke, because after a bit of fist clenching and the like, the vein popped up. Needle goes in – it looks like when Keanu’s just been reborn in The Matrix and has all these tubes sticking out of him.

Cool.

470mls later, I get ushered into the cafeteria where the nice lady on duty comes up and asks if I want a milkshake. Chocolate-banana, please. Before you can say “whizz whizz”, here it is. And a plate. Help yourself to the lavish spread: DIY hotdogs with little gherkins and pickled onions. And for dessert, a bowl of blood plums donated by the stone fruit growers of Australia, savvy in the ways of cross promotions.

In ten weeks I get to go back and have another half litre of blood pumped out of me. This time I believe I shall have a strawberry-banana milkshake.

– – –
before i had a “blog”, i used to write a sporadically updated letter on the front page of my website. this is one of them. i am consolidating it into these archives, because i can.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 29 January 2002 at 9:20 pm
permalink | filed under around town, drink, snacks

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The other night I woke up screaming… well, whimpering, keening, with Evil Cramp From Hell in my left calve. Damn it hurt. After it tired of gnawing on my leg, it settled down into a low growl for the rest of the night. And way into the following day.

Such an odd juxtaposition of sensations as I sat on the northern end of Hype Park eating pineapple and rockmelon, warmed by the sun. If I had a job to go to, I wouldn’t be lying in the grass like this, all happy with fruit and wincing with residual cramp.

So it’s been a year since I partook of fulltime emplyment, and I’ve arrived at these conclusions:
1. Fulltime employment isn’t all it’s made out to be. 

2. I’m a really lazy person. 

Of course, I mean that in a good way.

Nonetheless [and bearing in mind a card I got last birthday which said “welcome to your late 20s”] time is running out, and soon one of them technology-savvy seventeen year olds who knows how to code Java will be on the speed dial of… someone who needs a boffin, and I’ll be… not. It doesn’t matter that even now I’m not a boffin, or on anyone’s speed dial – anyone who’ll pay me big money anyway, but dammit! it’s the sentiment that counts.

I haven’t isolated the sentiment yet either, but bear with me.

So over the next year I’m gonna draw lots more pictures. Drop by occasionally and see them. Also, I’ve just embarked on a Tuesday night foray into the world of website workshops, which means that I have to set the VCR for Heartbreak High and Party of Five. But maybe more importantly it means I’ll soon know how to use a HTML editor and won’t have to write this all on Simpletext.

One more step away from ludditedom.

It’s gonna be wonderful.

– – –
before i had a “blog”, i used to write a sporadically updated letter on the front page of my website. this is one of them. i am consolidating it into these archives, because i can.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 16 September 1999 at 9:26 pm
permalink | filed under around town, blog, werk

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I am with bike.

A funny story really. A couple months ago a deepfried seafood place opened up down the road. They sent out a glossy brochure with tempting pictures of various combinations of fried fish, calamari, scallop, prawn and potato, and a cautionary tale of how it was scientifically proven that three fish meals a week reduced yer chance of heart disease, and how eating at OceanMaster with all the goodness of marinelife sealed into their golden fried batter, would improve yer health no end.

On the back of this missive was one of those competitions where you say in 25 words or less why OceanMaster is you favourite taste of summer.

I bought a package of fish ‘n’ chips and wrote a poem: 


Fishy friends from waters blue 

Deepfried golden like the sun 

Summer’s taste so strong and true 

Warmth in each bite, every one

What can I say? I was inspired by the sublime balance of crunch and salt. I was never expecting to win. I was – dare I say – mocking.

But y’know, maybe they missed the irony. Maybe… they were even craving it. Whatever the reason they gave me this HotRod BMX, I am truly thankful. I love my new bike. I love the thrill of sharing the road with crazy motorists who would gladly have mowed me down when I was merely a pedestrian, and see me as fair game now that I’m on wheels. I love when other pedestrians step out in front of me at the traffic light in their efforts to get me to swerve into the path of the oncoming delivery truck. I love the plastered-down flair of helmet hair.

It’s all good.

And if yer ever in the neighbourhood, drop into OceanMaster at the Surry Hills Shopping Village and plonk down a bunch of money for a Fisherman’s Feast. You’ll be doing yer coronaries a favour.

– – –
before i had a “blog”, i used to write a sporadically updated letter on the front page of my website. this is one of them. i am consolidating it into these archives, because i can.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 6 June 1999 at 9:03 pm
permalink | filed under around town

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I found a can of soup (cream of chicken and mushroom, no less) in the kitchen cupboard the other day. It wasn’t even originally mine and the person whom it used to belong to’s been gone for over a year. So it’s pretty old soup (and cream of chicken and mushroom, no less), but I was feeling in a particularly self destructive mood.

Even so I wanted to make it a worthwhile dining experience, so I walked over to Coles and got half-baguette (and the Sterrah can tell you a funny story about half-baguettes) and started to queue at the deli counter for some grilled and marinated artichokes.

And so I’m next in line and all of a sudden a wave of old people show up, and have they qualms about jumping queues? Not one. Of course the counter people are no help either; either they just go up to the nearest old person, or they say “Who’s next?” and some other old person puts their withered and spotty hand up.

At this stage I had to leave because I was really quite livid. Not just because of the old people at the deli counter, but because once again the only tomatoes available were hard, unripe, orange and dented.

Why didn’t I abuse the rude and inconsiderate old people? Do they deserve respect just because they are old? Perhaps they think so, and this is why the ignore me when I’m obviously waiting in line for artichokes. Sometimes I think that maybe they should be allowed to jump queues, not because they seniority deserves it, but because their lives will soon be over and they shouldn’t have to spend what’s left of it standing in line so that they can hurry home and torment their grandchildren.

Sigh. Sometimes old people suck.

And then when I got home and called Matthew, he said that soup in a can probably has a use-by date, and 2 years was probably pushing it a little. Just the baguette after all.

– – –
before i had a “blog”, i used to write a sporadically updated letter on the front page of my website. this is one of them. i am consolidating it into these archives, because i can.

posted by ragingyoghurt on 6 June 1999 at 8:41 pm
permalink | filed under around town, boy, grumble, shoping
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