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October 31, 2005
Not Always As They Meme
I got tagged. People usually reveal this with an air of weariness. I am delighted and have been long anticipating the moment when a fellow blogger knew of me and was curious enough to tag me. Fluffy, you're a goddess (and note her exquisite use of the C-bomb).
Thus... 20 Peter titbits:
1. I am tremendously proud of both my brothers.
2. I am scared my astonishingly low boredom threshold and short attention span will prevent me from ever being really good at something.
3. I am the best car boot packer I have ever met.
4. I hate one-on-one conversations, get nervous when one is imminent, and try to avoid them.
5. I cry when I think of The Dees winning a Premiership.
6. I can add columns of times (eg 1 min 30 sec + 3 min 55 sec) really quickly. (= 5 min 25 secs).
7. I wish I played more tennis.
8. Marvin Gaye's What's Going On is my favourite album of all time. By a long way.
9. Me and David Bridie once spent an afternoon at the Merrijig pub drinking beer and watching our Dees beat Footscray.
10. I have been picked up on a bus and taken home by a girl solely because of the jacket I was wearing (she told me this). The flipside of this is being converted to boxers after having my briefs laughed at in a romantic situation.
11. I have composed and refined over a number of years my Best Actor/Screenplay Oscar speech. I will thank the Nomads for teaching me what drama is all about. They know who they are.
12. The Redhead is the most loving and caring person I have ever known.
13. If I don't spend a significant amount of time (at least one year) living in Italy I feel I might regret it for the rest of my life.
14. I have no idea how to look good in photos.
15. I have quite a shocking temper.
16. I wear a mouthguard-type thing to bed to stop me grinding my teeth together. Mouthguards of this style have become universal television shorthand for "totally unsexy and non-romantic" - see, eg, CrashBurn and Six Feet Under Season 2.
17. I can't set foot on a beach without going for a swim.
18. I once snapped cruelly at Jellyfish on Elgin Street. I regretted it immediately but I actually think it made us better friends.
19. I have all the Tintins, many of them in more than one language (I don't even need to speak the language because I know pretty much exactly what's in each speech bubble).
20. I have a lemon tree called Lionel.
Tagging HandcuffedLightning (if only to get her off her arse) and Adam 1.0 - he intrigues me.
Posted by Peter at 04:21 PM | Comments (12)
October 14, 2005
An attempt to download the government's WorkChoices booklet results in an Adobe warning: "There were too many arguments". So why can't the ALP make any?Posted by Peter at 01:10 PM | Comments (4)
October 12, 2005
If you shot your mouth off about coming to see my show (you know whoyouare), now's your chance.Posted by Peter at 03:34 PM | Comments (6)
Late Nights, Quick Bites
Sorry for sporadic bloggage.
When I haven't been doing this:
I've been doing this:
(author, 5th from left)
Or this:
Normal transmission will resume in November.
Posted by Peter at 12:31 PM | Comments (9)
October 07, 2005
Who Gives A Crap Friday
You can almost set your watch to it. Every year, around Spring Racing Carnival time, Barry Humphries pops back home, the Australian need for international validation kicks in and the press fawns all over whatever pithy little one-liners appear at the front of his motorised tie-rack of "wit".
Gather round then, little Melburnians, and let good old Uncle Barry tell you what your city's all about.
Few people know that I always travel with a copy of Melways street directory - an increasingly chubby volume - in my hand luggage.
"How delightful! Even when travelling the world in a lifestyle infinitely more glamorous than ours, he carries a secret little reminder of the quaint little city that hasn't been his home for thirty-odd years. And he's right! The Melways is becoming rather cumbersome. He knows us so well."
At a cafe table in the Piazza San Marco in Venice, or a ski lift in Switzerland, in the garden of a ranch in Argentina or a beach in Denmark, I peruse this well-thumbed guide to my birthplace
"What a marvellously humble man. All those outrageously exclusive locales with their rich American tourists and $14 coffees and all he can think of is Melbourne. Those foreigners don't know what they're missing out on."
and I dream of Hawksburn, Rosanna, Aspendale, Gardiner, Dennis and Spotswood. The still-to-be explored heartland of my favourite city.
"Look, dear. He knows the names of all those suburbs that Judy and Daryl from Canberra had never heard of. He really is just like us, isn't he? Aren't we lucky that such a wonderful fellow thinks our city worthwhile."
He can say whatever he likes, I just don't know why we listen.
Posted by Peter at 03:45 PM | Comments (3514)