I'm a celebrity, get me outta here!

The culture of celebrity is a fickle one. I can somehow take solice in the fact that I am not one myself and that I can take the rubbish bins out in my trackie dacks and not be photographed and thence have a 4 page colour spread on the topic in a trashy mag. However, I can take some guilty pleasure in reading these trashy mags myself, no thanks to Miss Rs penchant for Hollywood gossip and who leaves them lying around the house. A few years ago I joined an on-line celebrity stockmarket called "Celebdaq" run by the BBC (www.bbc.co.uk/celebdaq). Basically, you have an imaginary 10,000 pounds to invest in celebrities. Their prices go up the more printed exposure they get. This was easy to do whilst living in the UK where reading about celebrity trash was a daily ritual. Once I moved back to Australia though, the culture of celebrity was markedly devoid. I let my membership lapse. I don't want to blow my own trumpet here, but hey, I managed to get into the top 100 traders back then. I was pretty good. So, after a 3 year hiatus, I have re-joined. It is far trickier keeping up with celebrity goings on from the other side of the planet, but I'm getting by. But what I want is some competition, so if you're reading this and you decide to join up, let me know so we can start a league. It's all a bit of harmless fun, but by god, it can certainly help you clock up some serious internet time.

So, when I mentioned in my previous entry that it would appear that people don't follow road rules on the weekend, my observations were very nearly vindicated. So this is an open piece of abuse to the 18 year old Commodore driver who very nearly wrote my car off at the Preston safeway carpark. Mate, firstly, to do 80kph on the open road is all well and good, but in a carpark?? Your logic defies belief! and hey, maybe you might want to look left AND right when exiting said carpark. Your car is a piece of shit commodore executive 6 cylinder shit heap. It is so far removed from a race car you have no idea. Thank goodness MY car has decent brakes, unlike your 1960s engineered flinstone mobile. Get your license last week? Good on you, how much did you bribe the assessor?? If you see a car exactly like this one, doing laps up and down Preston High Street, please, feel sorry for the poor lad. It won't be long until it is crushed into a cube and sent to Simsmetal after trying to occupy the same point in time and space as a truck.

I don't get road rage, you're just a fricken goose....

During this past week I have had to drive to and from work as I am working out at a site on the other side of the city. I have realised, quite categorically, that driving really REALLY isn't a good start or end to the working day. And yet, as I sat stuck on the Western Ring Road surrounded by other automatons of society, I realised what a mess we are making of this whole reduction of carbon emissions business. But I digress.... Can I just ask people, please, switch your brains into the "on" position when you get behind the wheel of a car. For instance; some genius in a land cruiser (more like land whale) just sitting in the middle of the road waiting to turn right when , hello, there was definitely no traffic coming! Or, the collective genius of people driving down St Georges Road at 50kph in a 70kph zone and wonder why we keep missing the green light sequence. And man, what is it with weekends?? Are people aware that road rules don't just apply Monday to Friday?? And is it really that hard to use an indicator when approaching a round-a-bout? Also, a general rule of thumb when driving is that if you can't see the back of the driver's head from behind, give said car a wide berth. The person driving can barely see over the steering wheel and, ergo, have limited reach to the pedals. Which is why these drivers drive SO FREAKIN SLOW!!! Plus, we're living in the 21st Century now...shouldn't we all be driving hover cars like the Jetsons?

Inflation? What inflation?

Reservoir has another feature that I have not previously mentioned; it has an RSL. And this is not your run-of-the-mill garden variety RSL with an empty hall and a kitchenette attached. Oh goodness no, this is two storeys of pensioner heaven, a miniature version of a NSW north coast leagues club. The sad fact of the matter is that Miss R and I have tried on two occasions to sample the wares of the bistro, to no avail. It was either closed because it was January, or it was closed because it was 8:30pm and all the customers had gone to bed. So it was with great trepidation that Miss R, her sister Super J and myself ventured up to the RSL. It was 8pm....on a Saturday.....we were pushing our luck. We asked the man at the front desk (yes, this RSL even has a front desk) if the kitchen was open. He paused for a minute and my heart began to sink, but praise be Hallaullia, the kitchen was OPEN!! and as an added bonus, there were even seats for us and a free floor show! So we signed in and climbed the stairs. Nothing can fully prepare you for the wonders of the suburban RSL. Stepping through the glass doors it was if we had stepped out of our De Lorean time machine and into 1986, and we were by far and away the youngest people in there. The floor show was essentially and female singer with a man accompanying her on bongos with pre-recoded music - mostly ABBA and the clientele were resplendent in the finest K-Mart apparel. But it was the food we had come for. The menu was basic, but there was not a thing on it I would not have eaten. None of this fancy quail or duck stuff, no sir it was chicken, lamb or beef. Served with vegies and chips, salad and chips or, of you were feeling healthy, salad and vegies. The simplicity was staggering. Unfortunately Miss R is a vegetarian, so her selection was limited to a plate of vegies and chips (no salad mind you). I opted for the rissoles and Super J the monolithic veal parmagiana. Talk about a fair old feed. Even went to the bar, bought three spirits for $13.60. Bonus! The total meal and drinks bill for the three of us totalled not more than $50. You can't go wrong, seriously. After gorging ourselves and thus feeling slightly on the bulemic side of sanity, we could only gaze in amazement again at the rest of the people in there. The music was terribly loud, likely for the rest of the people with hearing aids. It didn't matter. The oldies had a good old knees up and they looked to be having a great time. Good on them. Apparently the floor show went until midnight, but none of us were game to hang around that long, and to be honest, I don't know how many people would have been left there by then.

What's so great about.....

St Kilda? In light of the last weekend's St Kilda festival, here are my, rather cynical thoughts on this suburb of Melbourne:

What's so great about.....

Johnny Depp and Sarah Jessica Parker?? Can you tell I'm procrastinating now?

The wonders of grease......

It may come as a bit of a surprise to many of you out there, that despite my fitness regimen of an hour of bike riding a day and regular visits to the local gym, that I have an unfortunate penchant for really, really quite unhealthy food. I couldn't begin to count the number of times someone has said to me "Bloody Maccas, I would never eat that shit if my life depended on it," and secretly inside I'm saying to myself, "Geez, I could really go a Big Mac right about now....with fries and a big bloody chocolate thick shake.....yeah." And then I justify it by saying to myself, "Well, it's only 2 all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onion on a sesame seed bun, that doesn't sound all THAT unhealthy does it?" And I guess it isn't. Seen that movie "SuperSize Me" where he interviews that stick thin guy who eats like 10 big macs a day? The secret to that was that he never ate the fries. I tucked into a yellow beige concoction put together by my local fish and chip shop last night. As a society we have been doing this for decades, I remember as a kid going up to the local fish and chip shop and standing around in the cold with 20 other people on a Friday night. Some things change, some things stay the same........except that there might be more mercury in the fish these days. Noice.