Woody Allen, why he's the the Warren Buffett of the movie industry

It's been a while since i penned (electronically) one of these posts, i have been waiting until the right conditions, namely, rain, and today raining it is.
It's only summer, and it was only 37 degrees two days ago, crazy weather, welcome to Hobart.

So, of the ideas i had a while ago, lights went of in my head as i watched a documentary about Woody Allen, and why?

Well, to get a part on a Woody Allen movie is a big deal, it would actors would do just about anything to get a role in one of his movies, and if you do, you think you've made the big time, and then he might go and recast it and make the movie all over again, with people that act, walk, talk, just like you, will the real Slim Shady please stand up?

Slim Shady?

So, what struck me as odd watching this documentary was how, Woody doesn't do much, per say, he will let you be the best judge of what your doing, he might seem very laid back, but everyone is bending over backwards to please him,  everyone is working hard on set, but when its quitting time or when the Nicks are playing, its tools down and the momentum for movie making will have to wait till tomorrow.

I got interested in Warren Buffet, quite some years ago, i read a few book, read about his ideas, he was part of the reason i plunged myself into the world of buying stocks, and if anything it has been a education in thinking different, basically to most people i know.

Warren sits back and watches it all unfold too, he talks about a concept he learned from Benjamin Graham about 'Mr Market', Mr Market tells him the price of something every day, he's not logical, he's not his friend (is it beginning to sound like a love affair?)

Now Warren, doesn't like dealing with lawyers, when you do a deal with him, you will shake hands, no contracts, no small print, they kill the profit line.

If your first offer is too steep, he will say 'No' and no means no, there is no second chance, since everyone knows this, no one will give him a steep price, because if Warren is in, everybody else will want in.

Since everybody wants to do business with Warren, he is able to operate like this and he is able to protect himself too, if you piss him off, people that follow him wont do business with you, this 

Without boring you to death, i met a guy from France about 15 years ago that was doing his PHD, on Woody Allen believe it or not, and since then he has released his most notable works, another lesson from Woody, don't wait for inspiration, get on with the show, and the show goes on.

Introducing...

Like Carl Cox said last year, Carl is 52 now, well he said, The Rolling stones aren't the best band in the world, but they have a following, I'm not the best DJ, but i have a following, Warren has a following and Woody has a following, you follow?

Do you follow, cue pied piper music... maybe?

36 Chambers, Enter the Wu-Tang, 4 X 9 (a deadly combination) and me too!

Enter the...

Back when i lived in Carlton North, ten years ago, it's in Melbourne to those of you that don't reside there. My new house mate at the time Dan, listened to Rap music morning noon and night, him and the other guy, a guy called Jackson from Perth, listened to it turned up to 10, no joke!

I listened to Jazz, instrumental rock, Metallica, i was a connoisseur in my own tastes, this was new territory to me.

After thinking, this is the worst music i have ever heard, i was promptly told, in three months this would be my new favourite music. Hard to believe, i thought at the time.

And after much enduring this new form of music, i actually found myself liking it, yes it's true, there was Dr Dre, Eminem and then there was the Wu-Tang Clan, well i had a bit of a break from the Wu Tank Clan. The Wu Tang Clan, were a bit extreme for me at the time, maybe i was a bit too white, maybe I'm still a bit white, but not as much.

And then then the Clan pop up into my life again, and all i do is finding myself listening to them, over and over, over and over. Maybe a message is seeping in by osmosis? It's been going on for a while, maybe I'm going through a phase? But, aren't we all sometimes?

A sword fight is like a game of chess, you think first before you move

Now, i googled most influential albums of all time and i downloaded a few of them, one of which was 'The 36 chambers' by the Wu-Tang Clan, so i had a listen.

Further investigation, it turns out the album title was inspired by a movie called 'The 36th Chamber of Shaolin', its the Rza's number one Kung Fu movie, so i downloaded that too and had a look i could be forever living in a life of wonder, and hey presto, Mr download Torrent you answer all questions and pose a few others too!

The 36 chambers a warrior has to go through to become a Shaolin. Every chambers has a special task the warrior has to complete in order to be able to continue to the next chamber. The RZA said in an interview with Billboard Magazine that there are nine members in the Clan, and each member has four chambers in his heart, which makes 9x4 = 36 chambers.

There are 36 'death-points' on the body, each separated from the other at 10 degree intervals, where the trained Wu expert can cause death at a single blow.

Listen to the '36 Chambers' is here


And guess what else is 36? 36 years young, me! And i thought why this could have to do with me, maybe the fact you have to go and i thought of

 'Every chambers has a special task the warrior has to complete in order to be able to continue to the next chamber' 

And maybe it's how i go from one thing to the next, one place to the next, people thing i travel a lot, but i don't, i don't think i do, I'm just mobile and it's easy, too easy and what have i learnt?

Life is like...

Don't ask me, i just get up every time and keep on going, if life is like the 36 chambers, maybe i got the snakes and ladders version? Maybe I should ask for a refund?

 Want to know more about Shaolin?

Whats going on?

 I was listening to a podcast yesterday about the story of 'Marvin Gaye' and his album entitled, 'Whats going on', it's on everyone list of most influential albums, it was the first concept album, which was news to me, as i thought Pink Floyd's, 'Dark side of the moon' was the first concept album.

A quick google search reveals that the 'Dark side of the moon' was released on March 1973, Whats going on hit the shelves on the 13th of July 1970, the concept idea was out in the universe, Marvin got there first.

Marvin's brother Frankie came home from Vietnam and told him the stories, after this the Motown songs seemed irrelevant for the times. He was interviewed in 1976, he said there was 

....lots of pain, no one talked a lot.

So, his idea for the album? Songs with conscience, the album is a conversation, the songs are all mixed together, there is no let up, he's keeping the conversation going, it is an album for all nations, it wasn't just a bunch of singles stuck together.

He did a song called 'Abraham Martin and John', it was this song that ignited the masterpiece

Sounds cheesy, but it was where the idea started, so it's a bit like eating your peas, it's good for you, so just shut up and listen



While making the album he went into another kind of dimension, he later said he remembered nothing about making the album, which is kind of funny, it would be like climbing up Everest and not remembering a thing a few weeks later around the camp fire, the vibe in the recording studio was calm and pleasant too.

'Whats going on' summed up a common feeling, he go the idea after a game of golf, it was based on people greeting each other, 'Whats going on?' and based on his brothers experiences in Vietnam, indeed

Brother, brother, brother, there's too much dying, in fact he wanted to pass the song on to someone else to do, but decided to record and produce it himself, which reminds me about 'Carole King', she didn't think she had much of a voice, and was encouraged to sing her own songs, oh joy!

Now. whats interesting is to record the album, he got a Jazz band, to get away from the Motown vibe, but for the 'Whats going on' song, he got some footballers in to be talking in the background, footballers are good at talking it up, but he was the guy at the side of the party asking the question, 'Do you know whats going on?'
   


He had David Van DePitte as an arranger writer, most Motown musicians didn't read music, he said...

"As we sat down and started working on these tunes, not only did he not have a concept, but I thought it bizarre that all this material was finished but he didn't have lyrics for all of it," said the arranger. "Then it dawned on me that there were more people involved that I'd been led to believe."

And David  also said...

"Somebody said to me: 'Guess what, you're elected'. After taking a quick poll around the room, I came to find out that nobody else wanted to do it. They had all worked with Marvin before and found him to be such a pain in the fanny,"

When Berrie Gordie (head of Motown records) heard it, he hated it, he thought Marvin was a ladies man and women wouldn't like him singing political songs, and didn't want the album released.
Marvin said, if you don't put the record out, I'm not doing anymore, so they released a single, it was a hit, so the album got released

Much to peoples surprise, the album was a commercial success and went to inspire generations of artists.

One of the messages is 

'If you don't get into your spirit, you won't move forward' 

And he captured his thoughts with the universe, in one of the most inspirational albums ever, and if you've read this far, you might be interested in click on this story about his life


And if your wondering if it all ended well? 

For us, yes, for him no, and if you don't know, now you know........

Kurosawa and me, and you too...

So, after quite a stint on not blogging, i decided to blog about something today, just do it, it doesn't have to be purrrfect (cat lovers?), just do it and lets see what comes of it.

So, what to do?

Do what you know? Well, i don't feel like i know much these days, but i did see an excellent documentary about a Japanese director that lit a few friendly fires in my brain and if you haven't heard about a director called Kurosawa, i think your grown up enough to know, he started the career of Toshiro Mifune too.

Lets start...

Kurosawa was growing up when America thought it was a good idea to drop a two bombs on them, but lets not get into that here and now.

Giddy up

Back in those days in Japan, if you had any artistic inclination, you were thought to be a bit of a time waster, so lets not waste anymore time, he was branded like this, being an artist was below his caste, oh the shame!!

This was the perception people had, he was young, trying to get into the business, starting at the start, joined a renegade art group of like minded people, oh the shame!!

Translate this Cat

His brother was translating movies from the west, i guess they didn't have subtitles in those days, he free styled it, and for some unknown reason, his older committed suicide with his girlfriend one day, just like that, no reason, which gave him more momentum to step up and follow his path in life, and that was to make movies.

It would appear that in that culture topping yourself an honorable thing to do and justifiable, an example in the movie, a Samurai after making a small mistake would head home after a days work and end it all.

Makes sense? If this was the case i would have died a hundred times last week, next week too!!

In fact, when the Emperor of Japan after his announcement of the end of the war asked the people to go out and end it, it would have ended.  Japan would end, as Jim Morrison would say, ...my friend', where is Jim now, i haven't heard much from him in a while, since before i was born in fact!

The end?


So, to paint a picture, quite bleak, he came from this scene. A Sphinx rose from the ashes, after his first few scripts as an assistant director, he was on his way, he got people's attention. Ahem, do i have your attention?

In fact he when he was asked about writing an autobiography, he said if you take away movies, there is nothing and he didnt want to write a book about movies, he didnt do small talk, weather? Forget it, the talk was always about the next movie.

To put a long story short, he lived while making movies, when he wasn't making movies, he was in limbo.

The second seven

If your a westerner, the first time Kurosawa would have come to your attention would have been maybe watching a movie called 'The magnificent seven', which is a remake of the 'Seven Samurai'.

Clint Eastwood had an idea to make westerns based on the same story line that Kurosawa told, he couldn't get funding, he was told it was a bad idea, so he went ahead and made them anyways and called his production company 'Malpaso', which means 'Bad step' in Spanish, and which ironically was a huge hit for him, good idea for him and it wasn't even his idea!

The original crew, the seven Samuri!!

The story of the 'Seven Samuras' is quite remarkable, he bet everything, the company that made it spent their last dollar, it took two years instead of six months, if the movie was a flop, that was it, everyone out, Hara-Kari all round!!

Hari- Kari

As your probably aware from your own life, success breeds success, if you flop in Australia, you get drunk, in Japan, queue Jim Morrison      ....my friend.

Whats interesting, one of Kurosawa's biggest fans was Francis Coppola Ford (Applause), when he made Apocalypse Now, well, it was a similar story, it was one of the greatest movies that very nearly didn't get made, he needed 50k in the end and had quite some trouble raising it, he even did the Godfather series to raise the dough and the Godfather is a cinematic masterpiece.

It's like someone painting the original Mona Lisa to raise the capital to paint a ceiling in the Vatican.


Epic scene in Ran!

!

One of his movies 'Ran', the last scene the castle burns to the ground, there was only one take, if the actor stumbled out the door, it was millions down the drain, epic scene, very brave risk!!!

Full movie is here

Ran


Whats interesting about Kurosawa is he criticised others for trying to appeal to the West, but when he was just doing his stuff, the west was very much paying attention, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg and that cat Capella Ford, he's another story entirely!!

When Kurosawa was washed up, disgraced, dishonored, of can you feel the shame? Francis Ford Copella stepped up and funded his hero director for his next movie, Copella had a bit of a reputation of doing this, when people are blinded by the lights, when you have a lot to lose, you wont do much, there isn't much of a difference between a rabbit in the same lights, or maybe i'm wrong?

One of Kurosawa's movies was a critical flop, so to respond he cut himself 30 times (perfectly reasonable in his culture), with all great artists that are ahead of their time, basically the deal is, people will flat out hate you, critics especially so, only because they don't know any better, it's easier to be critical than constructive, way easier.

Let me give you a few similar examples of artists beyond their time:

• Heavy Metal, that term was coined by a critic after hearing Led Zeppelin play, he said it sounded like metal falling from the sky
• John Coltrane, after reinventing Jazz music (i will always be grateful), the critics said he destroyed it
•  James Joyce, after writing Ulysses, there was a conspiracy to have Ulysses, it was going to destroy the english language, but in fact he reinvented it also)
•  Orsen Wells, Citizen Kane, that movie very nearly was burnt and because of it he was locked out of the industry, it was the movie he should't have made, every project after that project was doomed VIA a telephone call, this is why i dont hate text messages.
• Francis Ford Copella, was driven to the point of insanity, it took him eight years to make Apocolypse Now, check out the documentary called 'Into the heart of darkness'

Now that i think about it,  Citizen Kane killed the career of Orsen Wella, when the Americans occupied Japan after the way, Kurosawa had to wait seven years before releasing a movie he made, it was for fear it would inspire an uprising against the invaders, maybe waiting saved his career?

So, maybe its best to wait, maybe that what you've waited to hear?

 Peace out, till the next time...

Guss who did the Sydney half marathon....?

I have wanted to run a half marathon for quite some years, but how? (....think brain, think!)

I was sitting in 'The pit stop cafe' in Darlington over 6 weeks ago, browsing the newspapers, i saw an advert for the Sydney half marathon, it was coming up, so i grabbed an iPad, signed up and then it was all up to me.

As Hunter S Thompson once said...

If you buy the ticket, you take the ride

Shane or Anonymous, in Sydney....

I was in, coming up to the race, i had a flash back of Shane Crawford coming up to Sydney to do training, he liked the fact that no one knew him in Sydney, so i went to Melbourne.


And there i did some training of my own, swimming and running. I ran about 20kms in 1 hour 35, from Brighton beach to Port Melbourne, to the MCG and up to Fitzroy and felt good, everything felt good, i caught up with my mate Vince, i saw Cassie and her kid and lots of grown up stuff with grown ups too!

You see, Run Melbourne was coming up and a supplement from The Age newspaper had training schedules, i was doing everything correctly, except the long runs, so it was a matter of urgency to get one in and i was in like Flynn!

My time

The first time i did a long run was the bridge to Brisbane, about 2 years ago, then i did 14kms in the Melbourne city to surf and now this, a half marathon, 21kms, a guy at the start line told me it's actually about 23kms with all the twists and turns in the city, lots of people.

As you can see, it's kinda contagious, i like it immensely, running fits in with my budget and if truth be told, my cross training of swimming and Shawn T's 'Insanity work outs' were a big help, you can find some of them on youtube.com


The photos and videos are online too


Interestingly, about 40,000 people paid to run, 18,000 decided to stay in bed.

My advice, a half marathon is a totally excellent way to start a Sunday morning!!!

Sydney fine weather is turning me into a damn word zombie!

How my day looks every day

Hello there,

Remember me? Coz i remember you, i haven't forgotten about you, you see i have been waiting for the bad weather to kick in, and it hasn't much.

 I have been just doing 'other things', taking advantage of the fine weather, making the most of it, of life and not being stuck inside, looking out at people having fun. Sounds good so far, eh?

Well, i thought this was a good strategy, until i start blogging for my IT work related blog and it seems like i haven't much to say, as some pop singer might say

'Words don't come easy, to me'

Strange, it's a bit like getting out of bed and finding out you don't have any legs, strange, they seemed there yesterday, the legs, there was 2 of them.

Brain says:

Help!!! Someone call an ambulance, the police anything!!

So what have i been doing?

I have been going to lots of events, book launches, Sydney ideas lectures, learning as much about stuff n' stuff, totally irrelevant to software testing and that's the point.

Also check Swimming, running, bike rides, reading

Searching for ideas, let me explain...

When you meet people outside your industry, you get ideas, hopefully ideas that no one else gets, you connect the dots in your head, the jigsaw puzzle starts to fit together, you might do something that might make a difference and who knows? Maybe your neighbour re-things his opinion of you and maybe after doing some long sums in his head you might not be such a bad fellow after all, even though his cat somehow digs up the fish heads you bury at the end of the garden.

Intellectual fish head

So, my promise to you (grave digger for fish heads), dear reader is i will be making a more consistent effort to write more, only to avoid the word zombie that has somehow sucked all the useful words out of my head. 

Sounds like a plan? 

Nunsploitation a beginners guide, maybe everything you wanted to know and was afraid to ask google?

Flash back to my youth....

I remember being in Russell's music shop in Cork when i was 16.

A guy that worked there at the time was telling someone about how the owner was an extra in some movies, big deal you might be prone to say, but no dear reader, it was a big deal, i was all ears!!

An artists impression of my ears

You see the shop owner was once an extra in a movie where nun's were whipping themselves and described a kind of plot an Irish 16 year old could hardly imagine, now I'm 36 years young things have certainly changed, i don't need to try, I've seen it, i believe!!

You might say I've changed too, now that i am a little bit older and sometimes wiser, maybe still loyal to the game?

 Last week on good Friday (or was it great Friday?) a Friday that started off with a meat pie and later  a movie in Sydney's finest movie theatre Mumeson archive.
I was introduced to a cultural term that puts this story a little bit of credibility, that term is Nunsploitation.

Guess what the Arochist in me reached for on Good Friday?

Now what's the basis of all this you say, well Aldous Huxley wrote  a book called 'The Devils', the movie was directed by Ken Russell based on historical fact (but really reader, the cats out of the bag now and there is no was that cat is going back in any bag)

It would appear these kind of movies were made in Mexico, Poland, Italy and lost in translation Japan

The Thirsting 2006


There was a clip from an Italian nunsploitation movie i can hardly believe i laughed at (forgive me god, it was funny), and your in luck, youtube has a whole section devoted to the nunsploitation genre

What was really funny was the Japanese nunsploitation movie, you see they arent so much into the religion, but the sex scenes? Definately!

One scene, let me describe it to you, two nuns are going for it, a priest is watching them he's sweating profusely and it's not an angry sweating either, he comes in and starts whipping them, the dialogue goes

Nun 1: I sinned first, whip me
Nun 2: No, i sinned first whip me
Nun 1: Whip me harder
Nun 2: No, whip me harder

I was stunned, I am also a pacifist, but i would have whipped harder and harder!!!

Later on, i was thinking if people were raised with a proper religion like Buddhism, this might sound pathetic and stupid, so anyway the appeal of this sort of stuff i just not my fault, blame a childhood of having to go to mass

Do you know Nunsploitation inspired BDSM take a look at some BDSM photos

Oh lord, even bears are getting in on the fun!!

Now, when i was in Arequipa, i went on a tour of the Monasterio Santa Catalina (blue) monastery

Blue Monastery

Excerpt from the Australian.com

The Monasterio Santa Catalina was founded in 1580.
It's a treasure-trove of winding passages lined with pastel-painted doorways.
Even today, there's a community of about 20 cloistered nuns who live an austere existence in one corner of the compound.
But it wasn't always this way.
The rich widow who founded the convent was very selective about taking only the daughters of the wealthiest families.

They paid a substantial dowry to the church and lived the rest of their lives in hedonistic luxury.
Each nun had several servants, often treated no better than slaves, and the convent became known for its lavish parties, replete with Peru's best musicians.
Sounds like my kind of convent.
Of course, the good times didn't last. Eventually Rome got wind of the shenanigans and, in 1871, sent a Dominican sister to sort the whole thing out. Most of the wealth ended up back in Rome but at least the slaves were freed.

What ever your tastes in movies are, how can you not appreciate a movie called 'Nude nuns with guns', after all the title conveys two important messages

1. Religion
2. Guns

Freaks only
One for the road....

Deadly Sins (1995)


What more can i say?

Carving memories into stories

Paddys day nails and every other day too!!!

I'm lying on the grass overlooking an oval the other day, sipping a beer in the sun, people young and old are playing on the oval, two girls are walking around and round the oval and i'm thinking they put on exercise outfits to walk?

The grass is just perfect and very green, my nails were pretty green too, maybe the beer is kicking in? In fact i'm sure it was

So far the day has gone without a hitch, this included

Running 7 kms
Going to Yoga
Free lunch in the Bower
Going on a huge bike ride up the Cooks river and then back
Getting a call to inform me that i won a $50 door prize
Meeting Jay Katz and being informed of his movie night, boom!!!!

Basically, i felt like i won a million $$$!!

I got great memories with Sheryl Crow's 'Tuesday night music music club'


So i'm on the grass, gravity assisted, just killing time before going for a $5 steak (add that to the list too bitches!) on Parramatta road and then on to an awesome underground (up the back stairs of King furniture king) called Mu-meson, hosted by Jay-Kats and miss Death.

On Jay's bio it says

To Katz, this music has no worth unless it is given back to the people with the same energy with which it was recorded in its day

Sounds interesting?
 I start listening to one of my many pod casts, one of them was an interview with Neuroscientist Daniela Schiller's, she says

Speaking your stories aloud, she believes, protects the memory by making it public. "If you want to keep a memory as is," she explains, "you carve it into a story."

Interesting, maybe that's the reason the bible was such a hit?

I got memories associated with PJ Harvey


I'm thinking of the Gettysburg address, by Abraham Lincon, why? Probably because it was before the time of amplification devices, the speech works better when if you read it out loud and now i'm thinking about Trainspotting, that book works better when you read it out loud too.

Maybe the words become effective when you activate another sense, your ears?
She goes on to talk about how the memory works and how we can change the associations

"A memory is only as good as your last retrieval of it,"

Maybe if you think something is traumatic and you have to talk about it, maybe a Pina Colada might ease the burden?

In fact, i think that is called 'Happy hour' all over the world?
A special hour to recant and catch up on stories? 

Then i get some flashbacks of why i started off blogging in the first place, i started it to preserve my memories, it's suprising how much you can do and later on down the road not think you've done much?

Creating content, gives you a sense of achievement, ask any farmer dammit!!

On my previous site, i have too many memories captured like a fly in a venus fly trap and tere they will stay, take a look for yourself.

I will take a peek myself when i'm finished tapping this out like a mad monkey in searching for the perfect Shakespeare sonnet and i've been learning a little bit about Shakespeare too, but that another story, it will not the kind of story you will read anywhere else.

Anyways, take a look at Daniela, you can even tell me what you think, if yea like

Sydney is winning me over, well sort of...

Well, it was time to do the thing i love to do most and the thing i don't seem to do much of these days, and that dear friends is to do this and that and this and try to punctuate it all (spelling too!) and put out the good words in the form of a blog post.

Sounds like work, right? But i like it, strange huh?

And all for you, the big dick head with nothing better to do than read this, in other words, my dear, loyal and trusted reader, i can see the stats, i know who you are, the city you log in from, i can even tell that browser you use, nifty eh?

So i have been back in Sydney since October and life dear friends has been going along swimmingly, time flies when your having fun and let me tell you, i feel like the days are zooming by, i don't seem to have much time and work is a bit of an inconvenience.

Buck Rogers and his little robot friend, having a laugh

Life is going by and i need to create content, other wise how will i measure just WTF i have been doing with myself and already we are mid way through March, the year is 2013, sounds like an episode of Buck Rodgers, in case you don't know who that fellow is, he was blasted into outer space, and woke up in the future, sounds like me alright, but i want a robot friend!!

I didn't get any ink done, can you believe it?

As much as i like the future, i would like time to stand still a bit more, maybe like yesterday at the tattoo convention, i arrived at noon and after walking around for one hour, it felt like four hours, time was crawling by.

The easiest thing to do about now, would to give a few Sydney highlights since the last blog posting

1, Yesterday in the bus i realised how hilarious it is to listen to teenagers, I never take the bus, but I heard this today, on a bus going to the tattoo convention

Guy 1: Turn off the music, it's Sunday, I want to study
Guy 2: Ha, typical Asian, it's Sunday and I want to party!

Totally excellent to listen to teenagers!! You cant make up the things they say (and i wish i could!!)

2, It was like something like out of a Tarrintino movie....
The other night 2 chicks were talking on my left about a couple, on my right 2 guys were having a conversation about something else, i was supposed to be in the 'something else' discussion, but i was listening to what the 2 chicks were saying on my left, now i don't know if its because i haven't been listening to much electronic music recently, but i started mixing both conversations, as you would if you were a DJ, conversation on the left and on the right.

You with me?

The 2 chicks on the left were telling the story about one of their friends that had a boyfriend in England, he had to go to LA for work, he was getting some action with a chick in LA, he wasn't supposed to, but he was (sounds normal?)

The girlfriend found out (uh oh!) they broke up, they got back together, broke up, by this stage i'm suprised that people would spend a perfectly good night talking about this, so of course i had to listen just to find out what women spend their time thinking and talking about, i was half amused truth be told, the conversation on the right is going on too, two guys, and i'm listening to that too and both groups stop talking at the same time and everybody from two separate conversations look at each other and start talking.

It was so brilliant, i couldn't say anything, i should copyright the idea, if you saw the idea in a French movie or a Tarrintino movie, you wouldn't be surprised, in fact i was a bit like the scene in the movie Trainspotting

Gail, Lizzie: What are you two talking about? Spud, Tommy: Football! What are you talking about? Gail, Lizzie: Shopping!

Conversation from Trainspotting, 'What are you talking about?'

Theatre i damn expensive here in Sydney, but since i started doin an acting course, theatre seems to be everywhere i look and turn.

Of course, this all amounts to entertainment (for me) which leads on to suprise that i could actually be enjoying life in Sydney at all?

The wheel from hell and other such things....

 
So, it's been a bit of time since i've posted anything, anybody would think that i've been too busy, too busy to do this and that's true and quite false too, let me explain.

I'm back in Sydney, i have a bike, it's been broke, fixed, broke, fixed, it goes on and on, and thats another story, maybe i will write something serious about it some time and make a million $$?

The bike was a lot of drama, and guess what else is drama?

Acting!!

So, there is lots of things on, I'm now doing an acting course on Saturdays and I'm doing it, that means i get out and about, Saturday and every other day in between and i've moved to a posh hostel and now i'm too busy to look for a normal house, and i dont really care, maybe i should care?

Maybe it's me, maybe i grew up on a farm, maybe i like making hay when the sun is shining and shine, it certainly is, but not for long, the Sunshine that is.

So the rush is on, i want to squeeze every last bit of sunshine from the sun!!

I'm anticipating the times when i'll be looking out the window (just like school) and a crow is coming into land, swooping down on a bit of bread, a teacher once said i would get a job in flight control at the airport and my life isn't over yet!!

So about 6 weeks ago i started getting punctures, and when it rains it pours and it rained a bit too, it was like a torrent of punctures (and rain), i rose to the challenge, when i started getting punctures on the inside of the wheel.

I knew something was up, after repairing 4 of those, i just came to the conclusion that the wheel was from hell and the sooner it went back there, the better, after repairing 12 or so holes, it was game over, i was done repairing, i was on a path of destruction, hey if you cant beat them, join them.

It would have been less maintenance having a monster truck!

It would seem like a simple task, to replace the wheel, but on further investigation, i concluded buying a new wheel in Sydney can cost anywhere from $100 up to as much as you like, in $$$.

Strange that, the bike cost me $86

The bike, complete with new back wheel

The first day i had off, i went to the bower, in Marrickville and in reverse garbage, i found a wheel, tube, and tyre, all for $5 and put it on myself, then i realised since the old wheel was old, and the chain was old, i would have to get a new chain.

This was proving too much, so i had it professionally done while i drank coffee across the road.

There was one a time when having a bike was cheap, but sometimes i'm not so sure, it seems to cost about the same to service a bike as it did to service a car about 13 years ago (back when i had a car and i thought it was cheap to have a car)

Look, a happy ending, i think my bike got a girlfriend!!!