From Norway with love...

We all know that the only thing better than a zombie is of course a Nazi-zombie!

So this Saturday Barnes and I are going to join with Struggers in showing our solidarity with the beleaguered Melbourne International Film Festival who have been having lots of issues with JB's mates over in China lately.

We are off to see the acclaimed arthouse film from Norway called Dead Snow. Like all good arthouse films I expect to see lots of scantily clad Scandinavian babes, snow and of course chainsaws, blood and gore...

I think that this film will probably deliver and Barnes is getting very excited.

Of course we will have an appetiser at the local LAN games place with a couple of hours of Left 4 Dead which Struggers is proving frighteningly adept at these days and may even be able to grab a beer at the Festival bar before our movie.

So what is the catch - after all there is always a catch isn't there...

That's right the bloody film starts at 11.30pm and is quite literally the midnight session and then at 9.30am the next morning my dad is lobbing into town on a plane expecting to be collected, chauffuered and entertained all day on Sunday.

It will be good to see him as he hasn't been down all year but how the hell am I going to get out of bed...

Archealogical remnants

An old friend of mine posted this on my Facebook page - a scary piece of ancient history from about 1987...

Now some sort of weird collectors item?

Burger night out in Melbourne??

I have a confession to make - I have already seen Terminator: Salvation and thought that it was pretty damn good. Admittedly there were a few plot holes which we can discuss at another time but in general I enjoyed it as an example of BIG LOUD FUN... with some explodey goodness thrown in. However I understand that Barnes has yet to see it? So in order to rub in the fact that he hasn't seen it I think we need to all get together and see that other example of fine film-making Transformers 2 as an entre, find some Chinese food nearby to wash down with Tsing Tao beer and then follow up with a dessert of Left4Dead LAN action?

Of course over dinner we will be able to tell Barnes all about how silly it is that Skynet is able to identify the young Kyle Reese by his image when he has lived his whole life in a post-apocalyptic junkyard, question why earlier versions of Terminators would be human-shaped when the great big gatling gun they have instead of an arm is possibly a bit of a give-away in an infiltration unit and query the liklihood of undertaking a heart transplant in an open-air temporary medical facility.

So at present the plan is to get-together at Melbourne Central Cinema for the 6.15pm session of Transformers on Wednesday 24 June before heading over to Dainty Sichuan or somewhere similar for some cumin ribs and other treats before heading over to MC Internet on Russell Street to play some silly games...

Let me know what you think?

There goes the neighbourhood...

Someone has obviously decided to write the final chapter of the Underbelly saga down at my local Ville... lucky we may have found a new place to throw our hat into the ring for. But I don't want to get too confident, last time it all ended in tears...

Catching up

This past weekend for some reason we Australians celebrate the birthday of a woman who rarely if ever thinks about or comes to visit our country. In true Oz style we celebrate in the most appropriate way possible by having a holiday!!

So for the Queens Birthday long weekend Sweet Thang and I packed up a range of gear into our little automobile and headed out to the country.

An old friend of mine has a house on a small block of land in Sutton Grange which he ocasionally makes available to friends. If you don't know where Sutton Grange is you won't be alone but it is a stunningly gorgeous part of the world between Castlemaine and Bendigo. in the heart of good shiraz country here in Victoria.

So off we headed for the land of low clouds, gold rushes, bushrangers, cold nights, red wines and wood fires known as central Victoria.

On the way we dropped in to Kyneton to see some old friends and check out their house and baby, who has grown enormously since we last saw him. Then we arrived at the place got the fire going and then headed off to the Railway Hotel at Castlemaine for an amazing meal accompanied by Bress wines. I had the venison sausages with a beetroot mash and Sweet Thang had the best parma to be found in the state. For some reason chicken parmigiana has become the definitive pub food here in Melbourne and this one put most that I have tried to total shame...

Driving back to the house the 20 minute journey became quite a bit longer as we had to slow right down to get through low lying clouds on the winding road, but we got back to a wood fire and few more drinks for the designated driver (myself).

The next day we headed into downtown Bendigo to wander around and see what was on at the excellent Bendigo Art Gallery. It turned out to be the artistic circus which is the annual Archibald Prize. I have seen this show a few times at the AGNSW in Sydney and it always draws a crowd of people who want to see a range of portraits that are huge in scale and mediocrity. It was interesting to see that the former husband of Hughesy was featured there, a friend of mine called Ian Smith usually enters a portrait of the big man himslef, but this time it was another artist who got selected.

For a former gallery person like myself it is always a treat to visit the Bendigo Gallery - it was one one the original regional galleries in Australia, well over 100 years old by now and has had soem very good renovations over the years. The two former directors both went on to direct the Queensland Art Gallery and it has always been a place I would have loved to have worked at. Seeing it packed to the gills with visitors was actually pretty exciting too, any Director would love to get those crowds in the door.

Bendigo is a great old town that was made rich by gold in the 1800s and now puts a lot of time and effort in to attracting tourists for its art, food, wine and history. So we had a great wander around and then had an excellent lunch at an old bank that was chockers of wine. Then we picked up some provisions and headed back to our little shack for a big pot of Spag Bob...

We also managed to visit the excellent Sutton Grange winery which has never been open on previous visits and buy a bottle or two.

After a freezing night in the shack we had to pack up and head home the next day, but it had been a great trip away from the big smoke and has renewed our debate about whether we could make a 'tree change' and live soemwhere like Woodend or Kyneton and commute to work...

Which is probably the last thing we should do, but it is a nice idea!

Poster boy for the apocalypse???

Well who would have thunk it?

I walked into the local newsagency and started browsing through the most recent issue of The Monthly - the vanity publication of the chardonay socialist set according to Chaz's comment in my previous blog - and the cover article is by none other then our own JB!

However the Rhino sized kick in this article is that it is all about our very own Mr Havock! I can hear the screams from over the water already. However it does tend to show us a kinder, gentler and LESS LOUD Havock then we are used to.

If you want to you can even read it for free HERE...

Is this guy a spotty nosed precocious little oik?

Those of you who follow JB's various online incarnations will know that he loves nothing more then getting stuck into the members of the so-called Generation-Y, hence some of the recent carry-on over at the Blunt Instrument and the many frequent barbed comments by readers, bloggers and the man himself on the topic.

So I just can't help but wonder whether he will be following Gideon Haigh into the wilderness after the announcement of the new editor at The Monthly, a 23 year old reputed 'genius'. As JB has in the past been known to write the occasional column in The Monthly and can be fairly regularly found making a few 'learned' remarks - I was wondering whether he will still be writing there in a few months.

Of course I am probably betraying my own generational angst and leanings when I wonder whether he will be able to take direction from a 'numpty nump' whose only experience of a 'left-wing' leader in Australia was Paul Keating and then only beacuse he could see the television from his cot? However I am sure he is a nice guy as well.

Of course it all just a storm in a teacup as The Monthly is effectively the Australian media's version of a vanity publication. But it has made good reading in the past and my Dad did actually enjoy the gift subscription I gave him last year for Father's Day...