General « decoded

January 31, 2010

Party! Party! Party! : January 2010

Filed under: General — decoded_ @ 7:04 pm

Party! Party! Party!

Club nights/events with international techno, minimal, tech-house, deep-house, house DJ/live acts in Sydney…

I made it out to the red ones, thoughts and comments posted soon.

JANUARY 2010…
01.01.10 : Ripperton, Matthias Meyer @ Spice Afloat NYD – MV Lady Rose (Sydney Harbour Cruise)
01.01.10 : Tiefschwarz (Ali Schwarz), Christian Burkhardt, Malente, Derrick Carter + More @ Space Ibizia 20th Birthday Australia – Entertainment Quarter Moore Park
01.01.10 : Arnaud Le Texier @ Bunker NYD – Bunker Bar
01.01.10 : Tiefschwarz (Ali Schwarz) @ Favela
03.01.10 : Pepe Bradock @ Aprés – Tillbury Hotel
07.01.10 : Danny Tenaglia @ One Night Only – Nevermind
09.01.10 : Claude Von Stroke @ Top Notch – Home Rooftop Terrace (Noon – 10pm)
10.01.10 : Pepe Bradock, Matthias Meyer, Theo Parrish, Brennan Green, + More @ Days Like This – Entertainment Quarter Moore Park
10.01.10 : Christian Burkhardt, Matthias Meyer @ Spice – Kings Cross Hotel
10.01.10 : Claude Von Stroke @ Bunker – Bunker Bar
10.01.10 : Hauke Freer (Session Victim) @ Aprés – Tillbury Hotel
14.01.10 : Severed Heads [Live], Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire) @ Sydney Festival – Beck’s Festival Bar – Hyde Park Barricks
14.01.10 : Theo Parrish @ Niche Productions Pres. Mayer Hawthorne – The Basement
15.01.10 : Philogresz [Live] + More @ MITC & TECHnique Present EveryOne – Broadway 202
16.01.10 : Hauke Freer (Session Victim) @ Half Mad / Late Night Shuffle – Good God Small Club
16.01.10 : Gabriel Ananda Vs Marcel Janovsky, Boris Brejcha, Solead @ Decompression / SubSonic Music Festival After Party – Civic Hotel
17.01.10 : Brennan Green @ Bunker – Bunker Bar
22.01.10 : Trevor Jackson, Aeroplane (DJ Set) @ Sydney Festival – Beck’s Festival Bar – Hyde Park Barricks
23.01.10 : Grandmaster Flash + More @ Sydney Festival – Beck’s Festival Bar – Hyde Park Barricks
23.01.10 : Sebo K @ LadyLux – LadyLux
23.01.10 : Miguel Migs @ Zeta Bar
23.01.10 : Shit Robot @ Deep Impressions / On The Fly – Good God Small Club
24.01.10 : Sebo K @ Bunker – Bunker Bar
26.01.10 : Ben Watt, Dixon + More @ We Love Agwa Yacht Club – MV Starship
26.01.10 : Ben Watt, Dixon @ We Love Agwa Yacht Club After Party – Helm Bar
29.01.10 : TBA (Trevor Jackson ?) @ Future Classic – Civic Social Club – Civic Underground
30.01.10 : Recloose @ Becks Bar Mad Racket – Sydney – Festival Becks Bar
30.01.10 : Robert Babicz [Live], Namito, Mic Newman @ Shrug – Civic Underground
31.01.10 : Robert Babicz [Live], Namito, Mic Newman @ Spice – Home – Terrace
31.01.10 : Javier Logares @ Bunker – Bunker Bar

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January 1, 2010

Happy New Year! Welcome To 2010!

Filed under: Clubbing & Gigs,Films,General,Music — decoded_ @ 12:00 am

2010 The Year We Make Contact

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.
USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE.

So is this the year we make contact?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_(film)

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December 25, 2009

Merry Xmas!

Filed under: General — decoded_ @ 12:00 am

Merry Xmas 2009

Merry Xmas everyone, have a great one, take care!

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December 16, 2009

Say No : Government’s ISP Internet Filtering…

Filed under: General — decoded_ @ 1:43 pm

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October 13, 2009

Vegemite iSnack 2.0

Filed under: General — decoded_ @ 8:36 am

Vegemite iSnack 2.0

I’ve been eating Vegemite spread on toast (with butter) all my life, at least a few times every week. I had some this morning infact. I even took some away with me on holiday to the U.S.A last month too, that’s how dedicated to it I am. I didn’t want a repeat of the Vegemite withdrawals I had during my Europe holiday in 2007.

So, it’s all over the web… How could Kraft chose iSnack 2.0 as the winner for the ‘Name Me…’ competition, for the new cheese variety of Vegemite? It’s so lame.

It has certainly generated a lot of talk and media attention, all focused on the horrible name though. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s all a big P.R stunt. I wonder what it tastes like? I’ve never liked/understood the Vegemite with cheese thing myself.

** EDIT ** 07/10/2009

So with all that media attention, and public dissatisfaction, last week, Kraft dropped the iSnack 2.0 name, and asked the public to vote from one of the following (much more suitable/better) names… My vote is for Cheesybite.

Vegemite Cheesybite
Vegemite Smooth
Vegemite Vegemate
Vegemite Snackmate
Vegemite Vegemild
Vegemite Creamymate

And today we have a winner… Vegemite Cheesybite it is! Although, thinking about it some more, calling it Cheesybite, for a smoother, creamy cheese version of Vegemite doesn’t really make sense.

September 23, 2009

I woke up on Mars this morning.

Filed under: General — decoded_ @ 10:32 am

Photo by Miro Bzduch from SMH gallery.

Wednesday 23rd September 2009, strong gale force winds over night bring in a massive blanket of dirt/dust to cover Sydney.

It looked like the end of the world outside this morning, the apocalypse.

Earlier this morning the sky was an evil red colour, as the sun rose it changed to an eerie orange, which is washing out in colour as the sun continues to rise and struggles to penetrate a thick dusty fog. I’ve never seen anything like it. Probably a typical morning on Mars.

From the bus on the way to work this morning, I saw people walking around wearing surgical masks, dust masks, and bandanas over their nose/mouths. It’s certainly more difficult to breathe outside, with that distinct smell of dust/dirt. Everything is just covered with a layer of rusty red/orange grit, being blown around by strong winds.

September 9, 2009

09/09/09 09:09:09

Filed under: General — decoded_ @ 9:09 pm

09/09/09 09:09:09

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September 8, 2009

U.S.A last week of the holiday…

Filed under: Clubbing & Gigs,General,Live Comedy,Music,Travel — decoded_ @ 2:20 pm

So, jumping in back in time a couple of weeks here. Before I forget, here’s a list of what we got up to in the last week of our U.S.A holiday, in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

San Francisco – 4 days

– Door to door SuperShuttle mini-bus van to/from the airport.
– Stayed at the Orchard Hotel on Bush Street.
– San Francisco Movie Tour – filming locations tour on a mini-bus
– Visited the Yoda statue/fountain at the Letterman Digital Arts Centre which also has the HQ of Industrial Light and Magic, LucasArts & LucasFilms, visited the foyer of LucasFilms, full of Star Wars stuff.
– Saw San Francisco City Hall used in films like A View To A Kill, and Raiders Of The Lost Ark.
– Saw the Golden Gate Bridge.
– Saw the Painted Ladies (houses) in Alamo Square, and Lower Haight.
– Checked out Pier 39, saw the stinky and funny sea lions at early evening one day, and afternoon another.
– Walked up and down hills.
– Rode on the MUNI cable cars, trolley cars, trams, electric buses (trolleybus)
– Ate chinese food for lunch in Chinatown.
– Visited Tweekin’ records, where Sydney’s club Tweekin’ got it’s name.
– Walked up and down Lombard Street, very pretty.
– Shopped in the Westfield and around Union Square area.
– Transamerica Pyramid (where Miles works in Electic Dreams (movie)).
– Saw Miles & Madeline’s apartment 1117 Mason St. from Electric Dreams (movie).
– Had a drink in Francis Ford Coppola’s Cafe Zoetrope.
– Saw TV show Trauma being filmed in North Beach.
– Got annoyed at restaurants all closing their kitchens at 9.30pm when we were ready for dinner.
– Bought Levis jeans, so cheap!
– Walked around The Castro area, saw The Castro theatre, showing Bruno!
– walked up Haight Street, saw the Haight & Ashbury intersection.
– Ate and drank at the Magnolia Pub.
– Saw the Grateful Dead house.
– Saw Janis Joplin’s house.
– Visited the free San Francisco Cable Car Museum.
– Went to M5 Industries (Mythbusters) and took photos outside.
– Rode in taxis.
– Saw John Tejada & Steve Bug DJ at Mezzanine club.
– Saw Washington Square Park (Dirty Harry movie opening scene).
– Saw Saint Peter & Saint Paul Church Washington Square, North Beach.
– Bought Depeche Mode CDs and 12″ at Rasputin Movies & Music.
– Bought more plain T-shirts at Gap.
– Night tour of Alcatraz Island.
– My girlfriend Joanne broke her ankle on Alcatraz Island, an hour into the tour.
– Rode in a San Francisco Fire Dept ambulance.
– Spent hours at St. Francis Memorial Hospital ER department.
– Ate take away pizza at 2am at the hotel.
– Joanne spent a lot of time talking with, e-mailing and faxing the travel insurance people.

Los Angeles – 3 days

– Upgrade to premium economy class because of Joanne’s foot/splint from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
– Because of Joanne’s foot, she got assigned an airport security person to push her around in a wheelchair and we went to the front of every line/security checkpoint.
– Door to door shuttle mini-bus van to/from the airport.
– Stayed in the Hilton Checkers in Downtown, very nice! Great staff too.
– Saw Inglourious Basterds at Laemmle’s Grande 4-Plex theatre.
– Pushed Joanne around in the hotel’s own wheelchair, which we borrowed a few times.
– Caught up with an L.A based Internet techno friend Greg Riot Nrrd for Japanese lunch, in Little Tokyo.
– Saw the Disney Concert Hall.
– Ate a lot of room service, and at the hotel Checkers Downtown restuarant.
– Went to the Laugh Factory (West Hollywood), laughed for 4 hours, went to see secret guest stand-up comedian Jeremy Hotz (thanks to his Facebook update), and got the awesome surprise bonus of Dane Cook turning up. Other comedians performing on the night: Neal Brennan, Bobby Lee, Sebastian Maniscalco and a bunch more I can’t remember.
– It cost us almost $100 in a taxi to get from Downtown to West Hollywood and back, not cheap!
– Joanne spent a lot of time talking with, e-mailing and faxing the travel insurance people.
– Bought space invader key chains from the MOCA shop, didn’t get to visit the MOCA gallery/museum.
– Had a look around the downtown area we were staying in, walking by some filming locations of the movie Collateral.
– Pushed Joanne to/from Macey’s Downtown in a wheelchair, for some last minute shopping.
– Ate spanish food for late lunch, early dinner before heading to LAX.
– Travel insurance arranged for Joanne to fly home in Business Elite class, I stayed in economy.
– Bought a bunch of Godiva chocolate, perfume/edt, and alchohol duty free at LAX, so cheap!
– Watched on-demand movies on the flight home: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Matrix Revolutions, The Soloist, Pride & Glory.

More as I remember it.

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September 4, 2009

Back home in Sydney via Los Angeles…

Filed under: Clubbing & Gigs,Films,General,Live Comedy,Music,Travel — decoded_ @ 9:45 am

Hello, just a quick update, sorry for the lack of info. We arrived back home in Sydney mid last week. It’s sad the holiday is over, and it’s no fun to be back at work. I miss being outside, walking around, doing and seeing new stuff.

So, as you may have heard, we had some drama during the last week of our holiday, my girlfriend broke her ankle on a tour of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco. She’s doing ok, much better now that she has a proper cast on (done here in Sydney this week) that she can walk on, to replace the temporary splint. She had to wait for all the swelling to go down from the injury and from the flight home before a cast could be put on. She got a little bit of DVT too, it’s all being looked after. Travel insurance should cover all the U.S.A medical, hospital, and ambulance $ costs. She got an upgrade to business elite class for the long haul, Los Angeles to Sydney flight home, allowing her to keep her foot/leg elevated, but not the best way to experience an upgrade is it. I have to say, everyone we came into contact with when it happened, and for our last days of travels and accomodation in the USA, was really helpful, friendly and genuinely concerned.

Being on crutches didn’t stop Joanne going to see Steve Bug & John Tejada DJing at Mezzanine in San Francisco, on our last night there, and then having 4 hours sleep before flying to Los Angeles. John Tejada was great, similar set/sounds to what/how he played in Chicago, starting with more deep-house/tech-house sounds, then getting into tougher, percussive and jackin’ techno beats in the middle, and then ending with some of his trademark melodic styles/sounds. We’re loving his remix of Bomb The Bass, due out soon, and his rework of Opus 3/Orbital’s Fine Day/Halcyon that he’s been ending his sets with recently. Steve Bug was great for the first 40 minutes, but then I kinda lost interest. Cool club though, great crowd, they know how to tune/run their Funktion One systems over there, that’s for sure. Smart Bar in Chicago had the same.

So, after San Francisco, we were in Los Angeles for 3 days, staying in downtown. We didn’t get up to a whole lot there, we ate a lot of room service. Made it out to the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood one night, and saw 4 hours of stand up comedians, with special secret guests Jeremy Hotz and Dane Cook! Laughed till we hurt, enjoyed that a lot. We decided to do that instead of seeing Steve Bug @ Avalon, and from what I heard after about that party/crowd, we made the right choice, too many people not there for the music I heard. We also got out to the movies on the other night, to see Inglourious Basterds, it was good, but not one of my fave Tarantino movies I have to say. Not sure if I mentioned, whilst we were in Chicago we saw a couple of movies there too: District 9 and Public Enemies, I loved District 9, was disappointed in Public Enemies, expected more from Michael Mann, Johnny Depp was great though. On the flight home to Sydney, I really enjoyed the new Robert Downey Jr and Jamie Foxx movie The Soloist, fantastic, go see it.

Anyway, will update this with more travel memories soon.

Will start blogging about Sydney’s techno/minimal scene again soon too. Some sh*t has gone down, looks like no more Lost Baggage, and those who were involved, have split and are doing separate things now. There are a heap of house/techno/minimal internationals coming to play down under over the next few months… Audion[Live], Oxia, Dave Aju, Omar S, Ame, Robert Hood, Michel Cleis, Slam, Steve Bug, Johnny D, Butch, Umek, Format B, Erol Alkan, Aeroplane, Henrik Schwarz, Glimpse [Live], Move D, Junior Boys, Alter Ego, DJ Pierre, Kolombo/Mugwump, Miss Kittin & The Hacker, John Dahlback, Laurent Garnier, Jamie Jones, Marco Carola, Nick Curly and more. No doubt many will be on the same night, which is always annoying. I hope to get out to a lot of them.

More soon, hope you’re all well.

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August 20, 2009

San Francisco…

Filed under: General,Music,Travel — decoded_ @ 6:34 am

Hello from San Francisco. We’re having a lazy, sleep in, late start today, something we’ve not done much of at all so far on this holiday.

I’ve just been updating the previous couple of posts on my blog, and Googling around for some details of things we want to see and do here in San Francisco. We plan to take it easy, and only do a few things here. Later this afternoon, we’re doing a mini-bus film/TV tour thing again, we’ve really enjoyed doing these, a nice way to see around a city, see sights and entertaining filming locations for many of our fave films and TV shows. They have video systems on the bus, so you get to see clips of the actual location you’re visiting.

The hotel we’re staying in here, The Orchard Hotel, is really nice, probably the nicest, largest, quietest, most comfortable room of our trip so far, and one of the cheaper ones too, go figure. Joanne has done a fantastic job of researching and booking all the places we’ve stayed. They are lower end hotels, affordable, and have all been clean, safe, modern, quiet, comfortable, well serviced, and located close by to all the things we’ve wanted to see and do, makes for a very enjoyable holiday.

So yesterday was our first day here, starting late in the afternoon. Door to door mini van from airport to hotel. After checking into the hotel, we ventured out and had a walk around. We see cable cars, buses powered by overhead electricity, and… it’s colder here! About 10-15 degrees cooler than the east coast, a cold wind, no humidity. We finally get to use the jackets we brought.

They don’t have meals on flights here (well not with AA economy) across U.S.A. So we had nothing to eat for 5-6 hours, between breakfast and late afternoon, choice of food on the flight, for purchase, is nuts, potato chips, crackers and cheese. Hungry! We ate some Chinese food from a dodgy looking place in Chinatown, that had a bunch of people inside. The food was great, we over ordered but ate it all anyway. We’re staying close to the Chinatown area, so I can have… Big Fun In Little China!

Speaking of food, over the last few weeks it seems we’ve eaten from all over the world: Chinese, Italian, Japanese, French, Spanish, American, Modern American, Modern Asian, and Korean. I think we need to find some Thai, Greek and German restaurants now. We did try to find the Halo Berlin carts in New York but failed. I guess we could add Australian food as well, we brought along a jar of Vegemite, and had it on buttered muffins and bagels in Chicago for breakfast at the hotel one morning.

So anyway, here in San Francisco, yesterday afternoon, we had a look around Chinatown, saw the Transamerica Pyramid, and then ventured to Market Street, checked out the Westfield, saw Union Square, did some shopping, ventured up Powell Street, came across a massive, multi-level, new and second hand movie and music shop, called Rasputin Music & Movies, spent an hour in there looking at CDs, DVDs, and Vinyl. I bought some more old Depeche Mode albums on CD, ‘Some Great Reward’ and ‘People Are People’, brand new for $7 each. Had a quick look in the vinyl area, and found and bought a 12″ of Depeche Mode ‘Personal Jesus’, which I didn’t have. I seem to be buying a lot of Depeche Mode music this trip, I wonder why? Speaking of Depeche Mode, Joanne and I can’t seem to empty our heads of the Depeche Mode song ‘Shake The Disease’, I think we heard it at the after party, more than 2 weeks ago… “You know how hard it is for me… To shake the disease… That takes hold of my tongue… In situations like these… Understand me… Understand me…”

Anyway, must wake Joanne, and get into our day. Thanks for reminding me of Tweekin’ records Matt too, shall check it out.

Laterz

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