Lightning Sydney trip

As part of my half an hour of fame (I think I've been afforded an extra 15 minutes), I got to fly to Sydney for a night. I was immediately struck by how pretty the place is, and set about taking photos of nearly every street I walked down. This happens to be right near Trent's place, where I was kindly put up for the night.



We wasted no time and headed to the Shakespeare Hotel (Trent was shocked I hadn't been there before) for a business meeting over a $12.50 steak lunch. I went a little hard on the English mustard.



After lunch, we headed over the road to 'Shaky bowl' for a skate. It's a tricky one to adjust to, but hilarious and quite enjoyable indeed. Trent is good on the board.



Speaking of good on the board, Joseph showed up! It's been a while between drinks - Joe is now a dad and runs his own art game. It was great to see him. After about half an hour, it started pissing down rain. It was not to stop for the rest of the time I was in Sydney.



Another street, on my wanderings. Maybe it's because I'm reading the new Murakami book, but I felt like I was in Japan. The funny thing is - I've never been to Japan.



I entertained idle thoughts of relocating and living in this hippie-ish abode.



The main objective of my trip was to attend an exhibition of photographs from the Sony campaign. I got there early and checked out the scene. it was a tad surreal!



I met Mark Drew, who was also a part of the whole thing. We had our photos taken and I felt uncomfortable.



My big three prints



Things heated up later. These guys came along, as did Doug and Kashi. Good laughs. I was also involved in heated talks with Sony and marketing people, who had been staring at my face for the past month or so and wanted to meet me. They liked me, which is nice.



I gave Doug his red shorts that I had attempted to put a pocket in many moons ago.



This is me with Jamie from Vice magazine. My lordy we got drunk.



Morning debrief with Kashi



I wandered around in a hungover daze, walking in the rain to a gallery, which was shut.



This is where it all happens.



These purple flowers are from the Jacaranda tree (I think). They are absolutely beautiful and don't make me sneeze like the trees in Melbourne.



Here's Trent in his office, making calls, being nice to me even though I was a bit sick on myself and his couch the night before. Thanks Trent and Nadia! Sorry!



Ah, Doug. Look at him! He picked me up and drove me to the airport. What a champ.

Me me me

Plenty of other stuff has been going on, but I had to report on this development. I'm on a tram stop!



We checked it out last night. It's the product of this thing I did for Sony, where they gave me a sweet camera and some $$ to take photos for them.



You can see all the photos and a clip here or whenever you're waiting for a tram. In this shot, I'm explaining to Tom how good the deal was from Sony.



We were in the city to see Amber's opening at Utopian Slumps and also the opening of Lou's new window gallery called Chapter House Lane.



'Twas the golden hour.





In less narcissistic news, I finally met Charlie, the product of Anna and Ben's unholy union! He's been alive for about two months and he is cute!

Torquay clip

An audio-visual accompaniment to last week's coverage of the Torquay trip. There's a crazy storm here right now! I had a funny experience at a day spa yesterday. Bye for now!



Rest in peace Todd

Long weekend

Guess what? I went away for a crazy weekend with the lads, skateboarding and the like. Here's a group shot that Jay insisted on taking. I'm glad he did.



Here's Jay, the Torquay local, along for the ride even though he had a shoulder operation a few days previously.



This is Eddie, eating a mango next to the sink, the crazy bastard.



That's Jason, catching up on my infectious journalism in the Sunday paper. Nice one, Jase!



That's Dave.



Dion, ever the businessman.



And grandmaster Pete, having a bit of a skateboard.



Marty also came along for the ride, driving us about and such. He's quite a funny character.



He's also quite handy on the board. This park was great! We called it the botanic gardens. It has a forest in the middle of it!



It has a massive bowl that is fantastic fun. I convinced Dion to have a go at it, a move that paid off with dividends.



It was quite hot. Dave was concerned he was getting sunburnt. It's funny to think of Dave wearing a hat. It just doesn't seem like something he'd do.



Dave is good on the board.



Here's Marty again.



Dave, fs air after I fell on the left side of my bum for the first time.



Dave again. I'm besotted.



This was funny. Dave went over to have a chat with Jay and Eddie, but our new (rather drunk) cohort Jordie went ahead and skated between them.



Eddie and Jay, telling asian jokes.



Here's Dion's first 50-50, pretty cool!



We all stayed in a house that Pete had organised. Jason and I shared a room, which meant I took photos of him while he slept, amongst other things.



Breakfast of champions



Dave led us in a yoga session, which made me able to walk, and eventually skate, in spite of my extremely sore bum and everything else.



It was wet, so we visited the DC mini. It's a pretty decent mini ramp in a shoe shop! It made me like DC a bit more. We even joked about buying some shoes on the way out, but thought better of it. There were loads of kids skating the ramp, whom I studiously ignored (uncharacteristic!), but Dave coached with aplomb.



Eddie somehow pulled down the safety net, rendering the ramp illegal and the session over. Hilarity ensued.



Here's the ocean! No surfing this time round.



Jay managed to get us a session at this private ramp. It was awesome and fast. It was also where I fell on my bum for the second time, rendering me useless for several days.



What a terrific barbecue we had that evening!



This was one of the most hilarious moments of the trip. A few of us decided it would be funny to take lots of photos of Pete soon after he retired. Dave got the best shot, on Eddie's camera. Oh how we laughed!



We stumbled home and I managed to limp to Rosie's dance recital, which she and her friends have been preparing for for months. It was spectacular! They came out dressed as mummies, dancing to Walk Like an Egyptian. Half way through, they transformed into Egyptian queens and kings!



Celebrity judges.



All the teams were amazing, but I thought the 'Tomb Raiders' should have at least got the best costume award. Ah well, dancing was the winner on the night, etc!