Melbourne Loft

I just spent the morning with Scott (pictured) and Greg shopping at Myer.   The Christmas sales are coming to an end now.  Usually at the end of the sales they reduce all the sale stock even further…   so you end up with $10 t-shirts etc.   But the shop assistant informed us that the sales have been extended by one week.    Anyway, it’s probably the last time I’ll go there these sales because I already have way too many clothes at home…  many that I haven’t even worn yet!    I took this photo above to remind how much I would love one of these couches.   This particular one is so comfortable!

I’ve had Greg and Scott here from Sydney over the past few days.   They always come around this time of the year to see the tennis and check out the Midsumma Festival events.   Yesterday it rained on and off during the annual Carnival.  But that didn’t stop a lot of people from heading out.   It was actually quite a good day.    As you can see the boys bumped into this 48 year old man posing as 16 year old “Corey”   (see post below).    I’m sure we’ll be seeing a “Corey” entry in this year’s Mardi Gras parade….  it’s funny how much we idolise the Aussie party yobbo.   Since the story of his house party broke a week ago he has risen to some level of fame in the Australian media.

I love this story today.   It’s the story of Corey who advertised a party at his parent’s house in the Melbourne suburb while his folks were on vacation over the weekend.    Well apparently he had all good intentions but then 500 people turned up, the police turned up, and bottles were hurled at the police by the alcohol fueled teenagers.   It almost makes the suburbs look like fun!   But what struck me the most was the fact that Corey has spent the past day and a half at home alone with his mates taking on the media pack lined up on his front lawn….  and even funnier that he spent the time going to and from the house half naked!   He actually made the main news story tonight!    It was just a kids party!

I can’t wait to see the photos of Corey’s parents arrive home as that drive over the beer bottles in their driveway.   The full news story from the spicey Courier Mail is below the shot below.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Melbourne teenager who threw a wild party while his parents were away is facing a $20,000 hangover as police prepare to bill him for the mayhem.   Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon said the cost of breaking up the 500-strong crowd of drunken youths in Narre Warren South on Saturday night was about $20,000, if not more.  About 30 officers, a police helicopter and the dog squad were called to the party in Galloway Drive about 11pm (AEDT).  Teenagers pelted police vehicles with glass bottles and damaged property. Ms Nixon said the behaviour toward police was appalling. She said police were considering billing the boy, to spare the community the cost.

“I’m very unhappy about it, watching police officers treated in that fashion,” Ms Nixon said.

“That young man invited hundreds of people to his house, not responsible at all in any way, 500 people turned up and caused great harm to the community, a great deal of expense to Victoria Police.’  The crowd eventually dispersed and no-one was arrested.  The boy, Corey, told Channel Nine he knew he had invited a lot of people but could not remember how the party started.

“I was just off my head,” he said.   He said he had notified his neighbours.

“We warned them, we said the party would be finished at like 12(am) and they were like ‘sweet, sweet, sweet,’ but then they called the cops anyway, so we were like ‘oh, damn’,” he said.

Ms Nixon said she was disappointed the youth seemed to have shown no remorse. “That young man didn’t even seem like he was repentant,” she said.  “I think he needs to learn a lesson and one way or another, we’ll do that.”  Ms Nixon said police occasionally billed members of the public.

“In this case, our cars have been damaged, it will be difficult for us to determine exactly who damaged the cars, but that young man called the party, invited people there and has a responsibility,” she said. Victoria’s Acting Premier Rob Hulls said he had been told the parents were unaware the party was being organised and were “horrified” and extremely apologetic when police told them what had happened.

“I certainly wouldn’t want to be a fly on the wall when mum and dad arrive home,” Mr Hulls said.

Okay…  another reason why I have been so quiet lately is because I’ve been hooked on the HBO Jersey mafia series The Sopranos.   I love this show!   Maybe not as much as the West Wing but it’s still pretty dam good.  I love the way that the final series are shot more like an independant movie than a TV series…   and the acting is superb.   I sit there watching episodes in a row waiting to see who gets whacked next.   I’m on the last series now where just when you think everything is falling apart things seem to come together again.   If you haven’t checked out the Sopranos I suggest you do…  and start at series 1 so you know what’s going on.   I think watching the Sopranos is having some affect on me…  I’ve started paying for my lunch with cash in envelopes.

Ahhh…  the Sapphire Princess…    This cruise ship pulled up outside my window as I was working at the AMP building in Circular Quay earlier this week.   It was my last day in the office and it’s arrival seemed to mean something for me…  I’m not sure exactly what.   It was the first time in that office that I couldn’t but to stare out the window.  
After a few minutes of Googling I learnt that the Sapphire Princess and it’s twin, the Diamond Princess were build just a few years ago in Japan and now sail around the world for P&O cruises.    I’ve never contemplated having a cruise before…  but these amazing looking super structures could change my mind.    This ship carries 2600 passengers, is 11 stories out of the water, has 750 cabins with their own balconies, 4 swimming pools and a wedding chapel!  
It would kinda be interested going on a short cruise and doing nothing but lying around a pool for a few days in the middle of the ocean.   The places they go to are pretty interesting too….    they go everywhere from Fiji to Alaska.  I was hoping the ship would pull out while I was there so I could see the streamers and hum the Love Boat theme.
Does anyone know why they have jets that look like aeroplane engines on the roof?

Between Christmas and New Year I got to spend some time at the beach down south of Melbourne and on the south coast of NSW.   As well as my burnt back I got some pretty great shots for the private room.   I now have to catch up on some editing and get some more updates happening.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty difficult.   Not long after I brought home the new Mac Pro and Macbook Pro I headed off for a 2 week stint of working in Sydney with the new laptop….    with nothing set up on it.   So luckily I ended up in my friend Tyson’s hometown.    He helped me get set up with programs suitable for Mac and suitable to continue editing my websites.   It’s amazing how many programs I needed to do what I do…  and that many of them do not come standard when you buy the machines.   Now that I am at home I’m introducing the new software to my desktop as well so that I can do the same things on both machines.  My next major step will be to settle on a movie making program.  I’m not completely happy with iMovie.

I haven’t been updating here much lately because my day job has been pretty crazy since I arrived back from my vacation in October.   I have been covering for a person who resigned suddenly in Sydney as well as doing my own job.  I have been working on a project to allow people in India to work on projects ran out of Australia.   Of course this means we get cheaper labour to onsell to our customers.   But the system changes are causing a lot of problems at the moment.  I’m really looking forward to the Christmas week to have a few days off.   Then after Christmas I’m heading to Wollongong to spend New Year’s Eve with my friends up there.

I had actually set out to buy the white Macbook.   But when I compared them side by side the Macbook Pro looked so much nicer, and the programs on it opened much quicker too.   It’s larger and heavier then my previous 12″ laptop.   But I think I will use it a lot more with it’s larger 15.4″ wide screen, 2.2 Ghz dual core processor, 120 GB hard drive, 2 gig or ram and a seperate 128MB graphics card.   The guy at the store convinced me that the seperate ram for the graphics card would make video editing much easier.   And so far I really love this machine!    I am concentrating on getting the Mac Pro set up first and then I can replicate those programs to the Macbook to use during my travels.  

There’s no denyng that this is the daddy of Macs.   I could tell by the looks I got as I wheeled it home on my trolley from the My Mac store up the road.   Now this is a pretty amazing machine with its 2 x 2.66 Ghz Intel Xeon dual core processors, 750GB hard drive and 5 gig of ram.    The guy at the store assures me that there’s nothing I can’t do with this machine.   It took a while at first to figure out that it did not have leopard installed when I got it home, but it came with a drop in disk.   The guys at the store had also mistakenly put in a much smaller hard drive than the one I had ordered…  oops! 
It now has the internet connected and I have installed Parallels so I can run my existing Windows based programs on it until I learn the new Mac programs.  The next step will be to start bringing files across from my PC.   Oh…  and it puts out quite a lot of heat from the back of the box….    that will come in handy for winter.