Month: August 2007

I’ve just finished watching Airport 75 courtesy of Bigpond movies  (with DVD scratches of course).   I’m now hooked on the Airport movies.   77 was pretty good…  but you must watch 75.   “The stewardess is flying the plane!”    That’s right…  after a smaller plane runs into the cockpit of Columbia 409 both the co-pilot and Erik Estrada are sucked out the hole and the pilot was glassed in the eyes….  leaving Karen Black to fly the plane!   But strangely… she decided to go back and comfort the flight crew first.    But it’s not long before Charlton Heston and his big yellow teeth arrive in a helicopter to save the day.  
Airport 75 was obviously low budget.   The painted black spot on the side of the plane wasn’t fooling anyone.   But the emotion on Heston’s face and the overacting in the back of the plane was enough to keep us all distracted.   Of course the plane was packed with Hare Krishnas, nuns, alcoholics, a stowed away dog and a little girl needing an urgent kidney transplant.   
This is a must see from the 70’s Airport series…   I read it’s the funniest of the lot too.

Does anyone know how to make screen captures from Windows Media Player or VLC player?  Snagit and Ctrl-PrintScn doesn’t seem to work.

So I picked up the new scooter from Scootacity on Elizabeth Street yesterday.   It took me forever to navigate my way around the city to end up back at my place.   The traffic was really bad.  I guess a more experienced rider would have weaved through the traffic.
And I found the most perfect secure parking station o keep it in too!   All went well riding it over the weekend.  I did accidently end up on the Eastern Freeway but quickly got off at the next exit.   And today I had a terrible experience…  as I zoomed across the intersection of Flinders and Swanston Streets my top box fell off in the middle of the road.  I hadn’t secured it correctly.   Luckily a passerby ran out in the road and grab it for me.   I’m glad it didn’t cause any accidents.   During my learning period I’m being very wary about not causing problems for other road users.   Living in the middle of the city it’s a bit hard to avoid traffic.
As I get more experience I will start to venture further out of the city.

The Bolwell VS125 came into the store on Elizabeth Street yesterday.  So I hoofed over there during lunch today to check it out.  I didn’t intend to…  but before I knew it I was hoping the skinny girl in the store would get off my bike…  and I was putting down a deposit.   This afternoon they are registering the bike and fitting a top box to the back of it.  Then I can pick it up tomorrow.   I chose the white out of the grey,black and red because it would be more visible at night…  and it looked really nice!   It’s forecast to be a beautiful sunny weekend so I intend on doing a lot of riding.
I’ll post more pics from the weekend on Sunday night.    I’m so excited!

I’ve sat through a bunch of movies from Bigpond this week.  And the best one had to be Airport 77.     I thought I had seen it before, but it must have been anotehr movie.    After all the talk lately about the fitout of the new A380 Airbus I can’t help to think the designers may have watched Airport 77 for some inspiration. The old Boeing 747  (so old that it had no door on the upper deck)  was decked out as a half precious cargo carrier, and the other half a space for a big cocktail party.    Apart from the lounges there didn’t appear to be seats for everyone…   so I don’t know what positions they all took when the thing took off.    But I do know the positions they were all in when they crashed…  standing with cocktails in one hand.
It was the seventies…   so it was okay to have a black barman and a blind man playing the piano  (and I think he regained his sight just before he died after being crushed by his piano).   The plane was magnificent !   In all it’s splendid 70’s psychadelic patterns it still looked like a swank party house as it sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor.   This movie is a keeper…   someday I want to fit out an apartment in brown shag pile carpet and psychadelic wallpaper….  and have flight attendants scampering across it as oxygen masks drop from the ceiling.

This is a bit spooky.   Last night I got onto Bigpond Movies after being sent a promo flyer about their DVD delivery service during the week.   It’s been years since I actually rented a DVD because movie rental stores just don’t exist here in the city.   Anyway, I’m on a trial of 15 free rentals.  Last night I got onto the site and picked out a bunch of movies.   And the spooky thing is that one of them was in my PO box this morning!   Did they actually rush my first delivery?   It’s really weird that it came so quickly.
So tonite is movie night in the Loft.  We’ll be watching Jonathan Caouette’s documentary about his life called “Tarnation”.

I loved this piece of news when I read it this morning.  Apparently there is a dedicated bus tunnel somewhere in western Sydney where the bus drivers are drag racing each other through the tunnel.   The camera shots are of the buses shooting out of the tunnel.   Now let’s get some reality here…  the tunnel has a 20 km per hour limit.   These guys are doing 75 km / hr through the tunnel.   Not knowing the tunnel I don’t know how hazardous this could be.   But 75 clicks is not really that fast.   I remember hour excited I would get when my school bus would pick up speed in crowded areas.    But that’s just me.  There is one shot of a bus hitting the wall there.
Oh dear god I hope they  have video footage of these buses on A Current Affair tonite.  I’ve really got a thing for bus racing now.   Apparently the guys were also photographing themselves racing….  I want the photos…  and hopefully there’ll be some video too!   They also complained of bad backs because of speed humps in the tunnels…  and had them removed!   I love these guys!
Now get yourself over to Google and type in Bus Racing.   You will be surprised…

It’s true…   check out Plushie’s deepest thoughts HERE.

I’m having a lot of fun with my photography now playing with the new lights mixed with natural light.   I tried using the large black backdrops in my last shoot but thet seemed to make it look like I was trying to be professional…   which I don’t really like.   So I’m going back to using natural backgrounds  (like th kitchen in this case).   I might use the backdrops to hide the junk corner.   This is French student Luc.  His shoot will be posted in the Private Room shortly.

There’s those who talk and those who walk….   and I’me doing a bloody lot of talking about this scooter and not a lot of walking!
I have been sweet on the Vmoto Monaco since I test rode it in South melbourne about a month ago.   But I have been suspect of the quality of the bike.   It seemed to run a little rougher than Dart’s Bolwell Shark.   So I have been waiting for something comparable to come onto the market.  I have been waiting a while now for the Bolwell VS125 to come to Australia.   I’d only ever seen a short video advertisement of it…  and it does look like a sexy kinda scooter.   It’s also a 125cc.   The difference is the Bolwell comes from Taiwan while the Vmoto hails from China.   Dart assures me that the Taiwanese work is better.   So ScootaCity on Elizabeth Street tells me that they’ll have them in stock this weekend.  So I’m hoping to get a test drive.   I forgot to mention that the 2 bikes are exactly the same price.   So who knows….   I might be walking this weekend.

Here is the Vmoto Monaco again so you can compare the looks of the two…

The report below is taken from the Animal Liberation Victoria newsletter to promote their new website.

Since McDonald’s launched their massive “Name it Burger” campaign to name the new McDonald’s burger, their website has been inundated with suggestions like ‘Murder Burger’, the ‘Obese Burger’, the ‘Animal Abuse Burger’, the ‘McColonCancer Burger’, and the ‘McDeath.’ Sadly, it is unlikely that McDonald’s will ever make these brilliant suggestions public. So in the interests of letting the public know what people really think the new McDonald’s burger should be named, ALV has launched NameItMurder.com. If you want to let the world know what you really think of the new McDonald’s burger, please visit the site and enter our Name it Murder competition (the competition ends in one week so get your entries in soon). Please also forward a link to nameitmurder.com to as many people as you can! While you’re at it, feel free to visit the McDonald’s site NameItBurger to directly let them know what you think of them.