decoded_ Something for your mind… Something for your mind…

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.

Read more on SMH.

Some cool pics up on Flickr already… Red Sydney Project

September 10, 2009

HBO True Blood Season 2 Finale Teaser Video feat. Depeche Mode – Corrupt

Filed under: Music,TV — decoded_ @ 6:06 pm

September 9, 2009

09/09/09 09:09:09

Filed under: General — decoded_ @ 9:09 pm

09/09/09 09:09:09

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.

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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