Friday, November 30, 2007

Curry Lovers


Curry Lovers
Originally uploaded by JadeMonkee.

Oh my Gods, I'm so full.
Just had the "Special Banquet" at Curry Lovers in Epping.
It's the same banquet that Hardeeps offers - at the same price.
Fantastic.
I have on my plate Butter Chicken, Lamb Bhuna and Malai Kofta.
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Thursday, November 29, 2007

Prelude to a Proper Post

Fireworks are AWESOME!

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Savion, My Saviour


Savion, My Saviour
Originally uploaded by JadeMonkee.

Oh my fucking Gods.
I'll say it again: Oh my fucking Gods.
We just had the BEST pita in the world. I haven't had a pita like this since Orgasmic Fellafel in Byron Bay.
Holy fuckballs. Absolutely magic.
Leanne ordered the garlic chicken, I ordered the lamb shashlik, and we swapped half way. It was magic.
I will be coming back here every opportunity I have.
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Monday, November 26, 2007

Guitar Hero

Having been playing guitar hero at Tristan's recently has made me want the game SO BADLY! Also, as I am planning on buying a Wii next year, I decided to look the game up. Indeed, it will be on the Wii console.
What has made me excited enough to post to my blog is not only the fact that the guitar is a Les Paul, but the game now has a lot of the original versions of the songs (i.e. not played by a cover band), but the songs that it comes with are AWESOME!
Details here:
http://www.ebgames.com.au/Wii/product.cfm?ID=7650

Note the inclusion of:
The Metal by Tenacious D
Sabotage by The Beastie Boys
Slow Ride by Fog Hat
and, above all
The Fire and The Flames by Dragonforce!!

Oh man. I can't wait to get a Wii...

Listening to: Tosca - JAC (album)

Saturday, November 24, 2007

The Sapphire Coast Trip

From the 13th to the 17th November, Leanne took me on a road trip.
She saved the destination as a surprise, but I was told that it would be down south and near a beach.
But a beach holiday down south? Don't you usually head north for a beach holiday? Well, there is logic behind that: we're about to move north, so this will probably be the last opportunity to head south before it becomes a supreme trek/pain-in-the-ass.
Leanne did a little research, got directions, and on Tuesday 13th November 2007 - after an itchy night from an allergic reaction to Mescal - we headed south to a secret destination.
Now, I was expecting a 2 or 3 hour trip down south, but Leanne had bigger plans; she took me all the way to the Sapphire Coast, near Bega.


View Larger Map


Yup.
Day 1.
Now, what was awesome about Google Maps was that it decided to take us a scenic route in the Kangaroo Valley. I'm so glad it did. This meant that we got to drive by some pretty places:

First Photo Stop: House on the Hill

First Photo Stop: Wide View


The Kangaroo Valley is absolutely spectacular.
During this drive through the valley, we saw a sign for a café, and deciding that coffee and a bit to eat wouldn't be a bad idea, we stopped.
The café was undergoing renovations, so there was no food - we would get coffee and stop for food later. The café was located in a national park. The guy behind the counter asked if we'd seen the falls yet. He said he came here 3 weeks ago and didn't want to leave - he was from Victoria. So Leanne and I finished our coffee, and went for a walk to "the falls."
On the way we passed these:

Fitzroy Falls: What We Thought

and joked that they were the falls. We were very wrong:

Fitzroy Falls: The Falls


Fitzroy Falls: Looking Down


We couldn't believe it. What a perfect surprise. What a wonderful start to a wonderful adventure. Better yet, there was nobody around. It was just Leanne, I and the view. Well, after about 5 minutes, some people walked up, so we followed the path around to the next lookout and stayed ahead of them the whole time.
Oh, this was the next lookout:

Fitzroy Falls: Looking Back

Wowsers. There are more photos on the Flickr set that I have created, if you wanna see 'em.
There was another lookout after this one, too, at Twin Falls, but you'll have to go to the aforementioned Flickr set to see that.
Shortly after that, we saw a sign for the "Worlds Best Pies." Not being able to refuse, we pulled over for lunch. They weren't lying. Holy cow. Absolutely magnificent pies. I had a chicken and vegetable, and Leanne had a red wine and steak. Oh man. I want one now. Better than just that, they did great milkshakes (we shared a vanilla and malt) and you could eat it all outside in their lovely herb garden. What a happy moment. This trip was off to a truly fantastic start.
A few hours of driving later, following Google Maps directions, we took a right turn at the Snowy Mountains Hwy. Unfortunately, and for no good reason at all, only a few km after this turn, is another Snowy Mountains Hwy - the one we were actually meant to turn at. This meant we went 40km out of our way (which you can see on the map I've created), and had to turn back. Not all bad though, the drive was very pretty, and we listened to King Billy.
So this meant we were about an hour later than we could have been.
Leanne's research had turned up a few different possible campsites to choose from. The first one we decided to check out was in Bournda NP, and sat next Wallagoot Lake. We pulled in (and saw some roos), but while it had showers, gas BBQs etc, there were a fair few people, and we really wanted one next to the beach, anyhow. So we left and after looking at the list of possible campsites, decided that the Gillards Beach campsite sounded best. We had a little trouble finding it (the GPS on my phone had never heard of Gillards Rd), but eventually we came to the dirt road leading us there.
Oh man. We were SO glad we decided to check it out. It was perfect. Each campsite was surrounded by bush, so you didn't see or hear your neighbours, and our campsite was walking (but not smelling) distance to the toilets, and was huge. There was a shaded area for us and the car, our own fire pit (with billy stand and hot plate) and the tent was set up at the top of the stairs to the beach. Oh yes, the stairs to the beach, we were 6 stairs away from the beach - with our own private access. That's what I mean when I say "perfect."
You can tell how happy we were by this photo:

The Campsite We Chose

After lighting and sitting around the fire for a little while, we explored the beach in the dark, and were struck by two things: phosphor in the water, and three dead birds all in a line. The phosphor was really cool, but the birds were... odd. But we weren't phased. The phosphor was awesome, but didn't make an appearance for the rest of the trip - we caught the beach at a magic moment.
The perfect end to a perfect day. The stars were bright and beautiful that night, and we enjoyed them on our backs and on our knees.
This road trip was going to be absolutely perfect. It was.

Day 2.
We woke, after a fairly uncomfortable (damn roll mats...) nights sleep, but it didn't matter because it was a perfect day, and we were at the perfect spot. We decided to have breakfast on the beach, so we got some fruit our of the car, and headed down to the beach.
Hey ho, what's this?

Dolphin Watching

DOLPHINS!?!

Dolphins at Gillard's Beach




Could this place get any better? Wow!
After revelling in the awesomeness of this place, and after enjoying kiwi fruit and banana on the beach, Leanne and I decided to head for a walk south down the beach.
One immediate thing we noticed: more dead birds.

A Dead Bird

So many dead birds. To solve the mystery for you now, the ranger came by the next day and he told us that it was because they are migratory birds (they even sleep while flying), and this is very near the end of their journey, so a lot of them don't make it. It only happens once a year. Nice. So Leanne and I occasionally had to put up with a bit of stink, but it didn't mar the trip in any way.
There were also bluebottles:

Gillards Beach: Bluebottles II

They were all on the beach though; we only saw one in the water as the tide came in, and we didn't get stung at all. That was all that was less-than-perfect on this trip - and they're fun to pop anyway.
The walk down to the south was the main event of the day. It wasn't that far, but it took us some time because, on top of the dolphins, dead birds and bluebottles, we were distracted by photos, swimming, skinny-dipping, sex, and the beauty of it all.
After we arrived back at the campsite, a HUGE goanna shuffled by our site and into the next. Man, this place is incredible.
But we needed one thing: Fish 'n' Chips. So we headed into Tathra for some. They were fantastically crispy, but - as I often do with fish 'n' chips - I felt a little seedy afterward.
No matter. We ate them by the inlet, and walked to the beach afterward. It was lovely.
After that we drove back to the campsite, and played with fire.

Blowing the Flames

But not before a visit from a wallaby and her joey. So cute.
Soon enough, it was time for bed.

Day 3.
Leanne and I decided that today would be a day of exploration. So we popped in the car and headed south. We ended up visiting (and spending most of the day) at Bournda NP (across the lake from where we were originally going to camp).
What a beautiful place.
Driving in will take you past Wallagoot Lake:

Wallagoot Lake: Me on the Pylons

Which is beautiful in itself, but the road leads to a beautiful picnic area that has a walking track down to Turingal Head and Wallagoot Gap.
The walking track itself was spectacular. The trees that surrounded you gave the area a surreal Sleepy Hollow feel. Take a look:

Bournda NP: Path Back to Picnic Area


Bournda NP: Wooded Archway

As if the path wasn't beautiful enough, it led to this:

Bournda NP: The Stairs Down to The Beach
Wallagoot Gap.

Holy fuckballs, I am in love with the Sapphire Coast.
We sat at the Gap for a little while, then followed the path to the head.

Bournda NP: Death's Scythe


Bournda NP: Turingal Head Beach

I think the photos speak for themselves.
After lunch at the original picnic area, we continued south to this strange development at Dolphin Cove. In the middle of nowhere, down an unsuspicious street, was this little nugget of new, large houses. Just about all of them looked funky. It was very cool. It was built around a golf course, and surrounded a beach. A strange place. I'd actually quite like to spend a couple of years of my life there.
But onto greater things.
Driving home, Leanne and I passed a sign for "Tathra Oysters" and couldn't help but stop in. We also bought some wine and headed down to the "Historic Wharf" to enjoy them. This led us to a fenced off (for vehicles at least) collapsed road. It was cool. You could see old tarmac and gutters down on the rocks below, while little segments of road still existed up where we were walking. We settled on a rocky outcrop, poured the wine, and slurped the oysters. The ocean surrounded us, and spread out forever. It was all very lovely.
After the oysters, we stopped at the general store to buy some bait as we were planning on fishing - something I've never done (beyond a reel), and something Leanne was excited to show me.
Unfortunately, however, the waves were too strong and started too far out to enable our bait to stay far enough out in the water, so we weren't able to catch anything. More unfortunately actually is that we didn't get the opportunity to fish again. Well, I guess we will just have to make another trip sometime soon.
After cheese & fruit, another fire and more animal interaction, we went to bed, satisfied with the day's events.

Day 4.
Today was to be our last day at Gillards Beach. Sad times. Because we hadn't walked north up the beach yet, that was the thing to do today.
It was so wonderful, and I was so excited by it all that during the walk I ran to the water excited as a schoolboy.

Gillards Beach: Another Leap Into The Surf

I wouldn't let the fact that this was to be our last day get me down.
It didn't take too long to reach the pointy rock at the head that could be seen from the beach in front of our campsite, so we kept walking past it.
Moving around the head opened up another secluded beach. This meant another opportunity for skinny-dipping! Weee! (no photos to show you...)
After a fun little frolic, we kept heading north to the rocks we could see jutting out of the sand up ahead.
Leanne did a fine impersonation of them, if I might say so myself:

Gillards Beach: Lilly as a Rock

And I looked mighty sexy posing against them, too:

Gillards Beach: Lookin Sexy

Hell yeah.
The rocks were a very soft siltstone (it could be engraved with your nail), and many other people had engraved little messages, so I took it upon myself to add a little one of my own:

Gillards Beach: My Engraving


Walking back to camp, some surfers appeared (lucky we had our clothes back on), which gave me an opportunity to show off my sun-safe headgear:

Gillards Beach: Headgear

Sexy, no?
Once back at camp, we made some lunch, and a wallaby came by to say hello:

Gillards Beach: Wallaby up Close I

Cute little fella. He/she came SO close! I could hold the camera right up to it, and it would sniff it. So cute!
After all of this, Leanne and I both came to the same conclusion; we needed a spliff. So I rolled two super thin joints. We smoked one at the campsite, and then went down to the beach for a second one. We had chips:

Gillards Beach: About to Party


saw a crazy bug:

Gillards Beach: Up Close Bug


talked shit:



and went swimming for 45 minutes. Swimming was the most amazing experience. We made our own martial arts (Tai Sea) and were amazed at the worlds-within-worlds aspect of all the waves. It was incredible. I fell in love with the sea all over again.
Tiring ourselves out, we took a much-needed nap, before cooking dinner; it was pasta tonight. Simple and relatively tasty.
But all things move toward their end, on that you can be sure.

Day 5.
We woke a little later than planned, but still caught what could be called a sunrise. And after waving goodbye to our most wonderful campsite, we headed home.
We stopped at Narooma for some breakfast and some coffee. I like it strong, and I asked for a mug of strong black. He asked how many shots, me thinking a mug was going to be large, asked for 4. It wasn't large, so the coffee was stronger tasting than I expected. A lesson was learnt here: 4 shots of coffee is a LOT of caffeine.
***VIDEO COMING SOON - for some reason, YouTube won't encode the video, so I will have to encode it myself and then upload it again***

On the way home we stopped off at Jamberoo to say hello to Jill.
And that's about it.
That was my trip down south.
Thank you for reading.

I might add that we were both keen to stay down there (and are both keen to go back down), but we had to come back for Claudia's engagement party, and Mickey's "I've sold my house" party, both on that Saturday night.

Listening to: Fez Dispenser - 2: This is Trip-Bop (album from CD Baby) along with just about every other CD I bought from CD Baby - it took me that long to type this mofo up...

Friday, November 23, 2007

CD Baby Package Arrived

My package from CD Baby arrived yesterday. I've not yet listened to a full album, but I've in part listened to Passafire (ska reggae) and Pfilbryte (something else... kinda pop-rocky). I'm actually a little disappointed with the Pfilbryte album, as it doesn't (immediately) sound as good as his other album, Imperfection. The Passafire album, however sounds hot.
But neither of those sound as good as the one I'm listening to now: Audiopharmacy. Holy shit. This CD is fucking amazing. Fucking awesome and amazing. It's reminiscent of NZ's dub/reggae/hip-hop scene, but they're from the US, so there is a strong American vibe to it. Fuck man, I haven't heard hip-hop this smooth in some time. It's blowing my mind.
Highly recommended.
They're on my MySpace friends list if you wanna check them out.
They're awesome.

Listening to: Audiopharmacy - Spare Change: pre-released prescription (album)
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Awesome Guy On Flickr

Leanne showed me this guy on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/people/merkley/
This is a link to his "about me" page. Read it. It's awesome.
Then check out his photos. They, too, are awesome (and sexy).
Go have fun now.

WEEN!

I just bought my Ween tickets!
Woohoo! I've been waiting YEARS to finally see them, and now I get to! Thanks for comin' out, guys! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Because I'll be livin in Brisbane when they play, I decided to buy both the Brisbane and Sydney tickets. So I get to see them TWICE!
Brisbane will be Friday the 29th, and Sydney will be Saturday the 1st.
Gonna be the best weekend ever.

Oh, and yesterday I bought Amon Amarth tickets. They play on the 6th Jan. Best warm up to a birthday ever.
So happy!

Listening to: Amon Amarth - With Odin on Our Side (Album - just gettin myself in the mood. Hell yeah.)

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Congrats, Mickey!


Congrats, Mickey!
Originally uploaded by JadeMonkee.

Mickey's house sold at auction on the 17th November, 2007. While it is sad to see it go, Coogee will rock.
Lilly and my constant cleaning was worth it too, as they received a good price for it in the end, and the people who bought it are apparently a really cool family.
Good news all round, really.

Monday, November 19, 2007

A Day in the Park


A Day in the Park
Originally uploaded by JadeMonkee.

Sitting in a park in West Ryde with Leanne and Mickey. A glorious day.
I haven't yet been home to write about the trip down south, but will try and get all the wonderful details online soon.
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Saturday, November 17, 2007

La Cucaracha

I made a copy of La Cucaracha for the road trip (I also threw King Billy on at the end...), and we listened to it a few times on the way down and now on the way back home, and I must say it's really growing on me.
Just thought I'd let you know.
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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

The Kangaroo Valley

The Kangaroo Valley (and the drive to it) is possibly one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.
Just amazing.
Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos on my phone, so I can't upload any right now.
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Monday, November 12, 2007

The Outside Lift


The Outside Lift
Originally uploaded by JadeMonkee.

I've been passing this building probably my whole life and I've been wanting to ride in that magical external lift for just as long.
Today, I did.
What a glorious day.
Unfortunately, I didn't think of taking a picture when I was inside (I was too excited to think of it).
It was everything I had hoped for.
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Saturday, November 10, 2007

CD Baby

CD Baby actually is the best site on the interweb.
There is no end to the CDs, it's like a CD cyclone. A waterfall of CDs. A golden shiny path of CDs.
A spiral into a magical, musical world.
I love it.
Best. Website. Ever.
I just bought 13 CDs, and it only cost me AU$130 delivered. I rest my case.

...and to make them even better, they have a no DRM policy. You guys are... brilliant.
Go there. Consume. Enjoy. Revel.

Friday, November 09, 2007

NSW govt may terminate T-Card contract | Yahoo!7 News

NSW govt may terminate T-Card contract
Ooooh... glad I left before it FELL!
Hahaha! Even the lowest workers knew that it would FAIL!
Silly TCard.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Jaiku Killed My Blog

When I signed up to Jaiku, I thought it would be a neat way to filter out the many small posts from my blog. Rather, it filtered out almost ALL the posts to my blog.
It's just so much easier to post a tiny status update to Jaiku rather than writing a full blog post.
But I'm going to start getting back into it.
I'll be moving to Qld in January, and I intend to start using the blog the way I used to. I'll even try before that.
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Monday, November 05, 2007

Big Breakfast


Big Breakfast
Originally uploaded by JadeMonkee.

Just finished.
I feel dirty.
Simon doesn't like big breakfasts as much as he used to. Silly Simon.
Simon wishes he got Leanne's salad.

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Sunday, November 04, 2007

New Albums (500th Post)

As you may or may not know, both Underworld and Ween released new albums this month (and as you should know, Underworld and Ween take two of the top 3 slots in my "best bands ever" list).
The Underworld one, Oblivion With Bells, is pretty freakin hot. I like it (thus the song of the moment). I heard the first single Crocodile a month or two ago, and liked it straight off (as evidenced by my - now seldom updated - MySpace profile song). It still rocks my socks, and it's one of those songs that enter your head, and you just have to hear again. The second track, Beautiful Burnout, flows very well from the first and has the same "must hear" quality. The album is, like all good albums, growing on me the more I listen to it. Well done, Underworld.
The Ween album, La Cucaracha, is not as good. I've listened to it, and it's growing on me (like it should), but it still isn't as good as, say, quebec. My favourite track at the moment is Blue Balloon (I really like it actually, but then again, it's no King Billy...). I don't know why, but the album doesn't punch me in the face - or even slap me.
Don't get me wrong, it isn't bad, and I know it will continue to grow on me (as it did for Boggle).
I do like their usual medley of styles across the different tracks, and I do like hearing Dean Ween bustin' out a track. I do like the tracks, and it is undeniably a Ween album - but it doesn't blow my mind. Saying this, however, I do remember not really liking Underworld's Beaucoup Fish when I first bought it (and I fucking love it now), and as I said earlier, the best albums do require a few listens before they become truly enjoyable, and ultimately, favourites. I wonder if it's because the albums are so fresh that the brain has to rewire it's "aural palette" before it can process the new sounds enjoyably.
I don't know.
Let's just hope it continues to grow, but at the moment, Underworld is the clear leader.

Listening to: Underworld - Oblivion With Bells (I listened to La Cucaracha earlier this morning).