| I'm so back right now |
[05 Aug 2007|09:18pm] |
Well I'm not sure if people still read/use Livejournal anymore, but I thought it was definitely time for an update and a summary of the trip!
I've finally organised all my photos and uploaded them to the net, so if you want to check them out add me on facebook, just search 'Dylan Chan'.
So the USA... It's a massive country of amazing diversity, with some of the best food you'll ever taste, and some of the largest free-poured shots you'll ever see. I think a large part of the reason why Americans are so insular and provincial is because their country is like a little world in and of itself. The culture of Hawaii is very Asian, but also very westernised and is radically different to that of the South, which again is radically different to that of New York and the New England area.
I guess I ended up doing pretty much everything that I'd hoped for. I swam in the bluest of waters and saw seat turtles off of Kailua beach, Hawaii, rode the trolley to Lombard St in San Francisco (check out the photos of Lombard st!), took in the Penn and Teller show in Vegas and got a photo opp with Teller, fired a 9mm handgun in Texas, watched Jazz in the French Qtr and took a lazy cruise through the bayou in New Orleans, saw the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi, lit fireworks in Pensacola - Florida, ate genuine Southern Fried Chicken in Georgia, and took in a Broadway show in New York.
We managed it all in 30 days... and I suppose if I took anything away from the trip other than a bunch of photos, it's that one of the best things you can do in life is escape the square and the norms that you exist in, and experience how some of the other half live. It makes you truly appreciate how big the world is.
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[09 Jul 2007|06:12pm] |
I'm in New Orleans watching American Pie on the hotel cable tv, and it struck me that it was already beginning to look a bit dated. And then I thought, in another 10 years people will be looking at this movie the same way people now look at movies like 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High'.. like some kind of period classic.
And that was a freaky thought...
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| $avings Galore |
[10 Jun 2007|09:40pm] |
Whoa! If you're trying to book accomodation over in the U.S, can I defnitely recommend you use the www.priceline.com 'deeper discount' bidding system.
You can get some pretty crazy discounts if you do it properly...
I booked a mixture of 5 nights in LA on Hollywood's walk of fame at the Hyatt Century Plaza and Intercontinental Century City. Both are 4* which is equivalent to our 5*, and if you try and book using their respective websites you can't get a room under $310 USD a night. Priceline serves them both up for $112 USD a night!
And you can use it for most cities in the US as well.
Pretty stoked about going o/s by the way! Chance to swap our winter for the beach at Waikiki gets thumbs up from me. At this stage it's going to go:
Honolulu
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Las Vegas
Austin, Texas
New Orleans
Roadtrip from New Orleans across deep south and the Emerald Coast up through to Savannah, Georgia
New York
Hopefully by then if I still have some money left I can get back to Honolulu and my flight home!
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| sleep = good |
[27 May 2007|02:11am] |
The ingenuity of my neighbours and housemates never ceases to amaze me...
We're all pretty close, the Mary Street Massive that is.. and it's not unusual to see the guys from No. 11 and 15 hanging out on our porch drinking and shooting the breeze. Last Friday evening was one of those occasions and we were all just hanging and drinking and chatting and strumming out tunes on Jada's guitar, when Jamie (from No 15) points out that we're about to run out of beer. Now of course any one of us could have gone upstairs to our bedrooms in order to fetch more money to purchase new beer, but that would have involved negotiating our stairs, stairs which can only be described as treacherous and perilous at best.
Now quite obviously the only other option we had in light of this was going to King St and busking for money. So 5 minutes later Andy (from No. 11) is standing outside the Dendy strumming two cords from a Foo Fighters song that Jada has hastily taught him on his guitar, while Jamie is dancing up and down on the spot doing a merry jig and holding out his hat to passers by. I can't remember seeing a funnier sight in my life, but clearly the guys had talent because after 40 minutes or so of the same 2 chords and the same jig they'd raked in $22, including some dude who gave them a $5 a note!
So yeah, it was longneck city after that...
Other than Jamie's jig, nothing too exciting is happening in my life right now. Although perhaps that's not entirely true. Work is exploding before EOFY which is great from a $ perspective, but is also leaving me pretty drained of energy. This month off in the US couldn't come soon enough because I really need to unwind and get away from it all for a little bit. I've also been seeing this girl who is a psychologist, and that is to say whilst I am seeing a psychologist to stop the compulsive habit of biting my nails, I'm not seeing that psychologist in a romantic sense, but rather another psychologist who I am seeing in more of a romantic sense is a girl who's profession happens to be psychology. Which is then not to say that there is much romance there as really we've just been treading water with it all.
Still I've never gone out with someone who is so similar to me in their personality before, and it was always something I thought I'd like, but it's actually kind of weird. I think it's more of a case of me really not having the time or energy at the moment to put into anyone else, because I feel flat out looking out for myself right now. For example, I've been planning to polish my work shoes for 4 week now and still haven't gotten around to it.
I mean... who does that?
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| It's all about your roots... |
[07 Apr 2007|05:11pm] |
I saw this poster up on the noticeboard at my gym and I have to say it looks pretty damn cool..
Eminence Online - A Night in Fantasia
It's a symphony orchestra playing renditions of all our favourite computer game theme songs... Super Mario Bros, Tekken, World of Warcraft, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy etc.. The show comprises of the orchestra, a choir and giant screen showing footage from the games.
Tickets are like $50 so I think at the very least Rui and Keej you should both cast off the old ball and chain :D , and come join me for a night of culture tinged techno-geek revelry!
More here: http://www.eminenceonline.com/anif07/
On another gaming related note, I think the creators of the computer game 'Command & Conquer' should sue the creators of the new movie 'Disturbia'.
P.S. - Has anyone played Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars at all? Thoughts or comments? I'm thinking about downloading the ISO of it but it's 7 gig so don't want to waste the bandwidth if it's ass.
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[15 Mar 2007|03:35pm] |
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50% pay rise. The milky bars are on me!
Im going to stop bitching about my work now.
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[04 Mar 2007|11:40pm] |
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mood |
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music |
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Sound Unlimited - One More From The City |
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I love summer/spring thunderstorms late at night in the city. Throwing my balcony doors open to catch the cool breeze, turning the lights down low, and pumping out some chill music to the backdrop of the bluey white glow from my monitor screens.
I had dinner with my dad tonight. My dad's pretty much of a jerk and I can only handle him in small doses normally, but I enjoyed myself more than I thought I would. We had a drink at the courthouse and played some pool, then went and had Spanish Paella in Liverpool St in the city.
I feel like I've really grown up in the past few months, grown wiser although not older as I see it. I talked to my dad about girlfriends, about mistakes, about my half brother, about drink driving, about his super and about life in general, and it's the first conversation I can remember having with him where I was talking and he was listening... and not the other way around.
I'm being the best person I can possibly try to be, and it's making me more understanding of people. And it's making me more understanding of myself.
Case one to be continued,
Now on to case two.
I'm on the avenue...
I feel the pitter patter of rain on my nose,
Watercolour city lights reflected on the road,
Which way do I turn - which way do I go?
Reminds me of a soul I know
Time rolls on and time rolls faster
In the city it's hard to be master
of ya life, fate and destiny
Ya just one more from the city.
It's a good song.
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[26 Feb 2007|12:15am] |
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fgfgfgy
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| Fuck this shit. |
[17 Feb 2007|02:40am] |
After the horrific new years debacle I made it quite clear that if you were to come up and stay with me that you were not to drink under any circumstances.
You agreed, you more than agreed, in fact you said that not drinking was already part of the plan because you were on detox and you didn't want to anyway.
Everytime I brought this topic up you ridiculed me for going over old ground. That there was no issue because you said you were not drinking and it made you mad that I would bring up something we had already discussed and agreed upon. So I left it alone...
You came up to Sydney and you got drunk. I told you at the venue that I was not happy that you broke the contract that we had and you left in huff. You went back to my house, banged on my front door so my housemate would let you in. I found you passed out and naked on my bed and I asked you to leave because we had agreed that you would not drink, and I did not want you staying with me... not after the mess of new years and the promise you had made about not drinking.
You refused to leave, I told you that I had cleared it and it was ok for you to stay in Redfern. You refused to leave. I told you to leave. You told me that you would sue me and bring a paternity suit against me?!?!?! I told you to leave. You got your mobile and rang 000, asked for the police. You told the police that you were involved in a domestic violence dispute, you had marks around your wrist and that I was not letting you leave.
You rang and blatently lied to the police that I physically assaulted you. You wasted their time by making them come to my house, and I had to give them a statement about what happened. You lied to the police and accused me of assaulting you, when I did not lay a hand on you.. all I did was ask you to leave because you had broken our agreement re. you drinking, something you knew was very important to me if you were to stay at my house. But you told me you'd try and pin any fucking thing you could on me, you rang the police and accused me of assaulting you and not letting you leave when all I wanted was for you to go. You told them you had marks around your wrist. But there are no marks around your wrist because you made the whole fucking thing up you sick fuck.
You then subjected Bec, Fiona, and some dude I don't know to a drunken fucking tirade at the top of your voice before Bec hauled you away...
Whatever our history and whatevever the problems of the past, and I have made plenty of mistakes... to ring the police and lie to them, accusing me of assault when I did no such thing is an absolute disgrace. An absolute fucking disgrace.
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| Of Mice and Men |
[05 Feb 2007|01:52am] |
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mood |
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apprehensive |
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music |
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Herbie Hancock - Dolphin Dance |
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I haven't posted in a while, I think perhaps because while there's been a lot going on, very little of it has needed to be said. New Years was horrific, but the 7 days or so I had in Sydney after New Years were really relaxing and let me wind down (a little) from the year that was. It's nice being able to commit large chunks of your time to the satisfaction of you yourself only, and to be honest I've been really ambivalent to the whole dating scene since I broke up with Sonia. Nonethelss, I think Im drawing closer to the point where I'm ready to devote some time to someone else again.. although I'm not quite at that point yet. I have too many other things going on right now. My work seems to lurch from one crisis to another with alarming regularity. The two top Senior planners in the business who account for maybe 60% of the total Group's revenue are leaving in two weeks to set up their own business, probably taking most of their clients with them - they're also owed maybe $600k in unpaid commissions. This presents interesting opportunities for people remaining behind such as myself, but also throws serious questions into the air about the ongoing viability of the Group as a whole. Either way I'm pushing forward and I'm really enjoying work, although I'm going to be asking for a pretty hefty pay rise as I'm currently being underpaid by a fair margin. They won't be able to argue with that, but they may pull the old "well we don't have the money to give you a raise" line, which seems quite likely given no one in the company has had their super paid in the last two quarters. At that point I'm not sure what I'll do, but I'll probably leave. The sad thing is that Ark is actually a really great place to work for. The kind of freedom I have to do things with my clients is unparalleled, and there are very few companies in the industry that do what we do. It's a way of creating wealth that I strongly believe in, but at the end of the day I'm not going to hang around and do it just for fun. I really don't want to leave, but I'm afraid that I'll be forced to...
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| Well she don't even know my name, but I think she likes me just the same... ;-) |
[04 Jan 2007|01:06am] |
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Tonight my housemate and I played the game where we keep our bedroom doors wide open and try and sync up MP3's of the same songs on our computers, so that they're blasting out through the house from our respective rooms totally in synchronisation with each other.
Huey Lewis and The News - It's Hip To Be Square. This was a total cinch. We yelled out the countdown together and hit our mouse buttons exactly at the same time. There was no echo or misbeat, it was a perfect first attempt... we had that shit nailed and on lockdown..
Faith No More - Easy. This was anything but as the name suggested. Perhaps we had grown cocky with our earlier Huey Lewis success, perhaps it was the fact that Jada was syncing his version from an .mp3 on his computer, and I was trying to sync mine from a "Hit Machine '93" cd spinning on my component DVD player - whatever the reason, this song proved to be a bitch to get playing together in harmony. After several aborted attempts where we were wildly out of beat with each other, and some others where I had the wrong song cued on the cd, and instead of Faith No More, Jeremy Jordan - It's The Right Kind of Love came belting out, we actually got it synchronised pretty well. Still, it was a sobering wake up call for the both of us after our earlier hole-in-one that we'd taken for granted.
Phil Collins - Susudio. We thought this would be a fairly easy assignment, but it was early on in the piece when we discovered that Jada's version of the MP3 had an extra one second delay before the song would start playing than mine did. How were we meant to use a countdown when Jada's would always start a second after mine? After some discussion it was decided Jada would press his play button on the count of "2", and I would play mine on the count of "1" a beat later. Imperfect I know, but we got fairly close on the first go; after some inter-room dashing back and forth to compare each others timing, and some remedial taps on the pause button on Jada's computer, we had that baby harmonised nicely.
Satisfied with the nights work and giddy from our achievements we opted to chill-out, freestyling with a musical mish-mash of our own separately chosen tracks, and I pulled another cone.
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| England.... |
[05 Dec 2006|12:02pm] |
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mood |
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amused |
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ahhahahahahahahahha!
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| I just got hot chili sauce in my eye |
[28 Nov 2006|11:10am] |
Hey I don't know what you bitches are up to this Friday night, but The Suitable Few have their new single launch this Friday at Bar Broadway... Anyone interested in coming down and checking it out with the Vanilla Dilla Chilla?
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| As the wind.. carries every dove away |
[06 Nov 2006|11:53am] |
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mood |
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excited |
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music |
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Jamiroquai - Don't Give Hate A Chance (Freemasons Remix) |
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I think I must be getting old... people have been using the word 'emo' in sentences with me and I don't really have any idea what they're talking about. Rather than let on, I just usually nod and try to affect a cool pose, maybe saying, "Oh yeah definitely.. that emo shit is lame man!"
So anyway I looked it up in Wikipedia so we're all good.
In other slightly more dignifying news.. Newtown Festival is this Sunday!!!
Festivities kick off at my place from around noon. I have the 260 litre Simpson Tuckerbox chest freezer as my latest addition to the kitchen, so there's plenty of room to keep your alcohol cold. If the weather is 35 degrees like it was last year, I'm gonna fill that fucker up to the brim with water and soak in it jacuzzi stylez..
The plan is to party on down on the balcony to some funkin breaks and head over for random forays into the festival as whim permits. It's going to be thrillin and most 'illin, so head over to 13 Mary St where all the cool kids'll be chillin'. JUMP BACK!
I hope you're all coming (Karla I'm specifically directing this comment at you)!!
Yarni, can you please post this in your journal as a reminder for those who aren't in my LJ friends list but are still lookin at heading down :)
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[01 Nov 2006|01:31pm] |
Wow, well apparently The Bank Hotel has reopened.
I took a look inside from the street the other day and you would not recognise the place. The layout, the colour scheme, everything is different.
Im going to head in on Friday night with the 13 Mary Street Massive and check it out if anyone wants to join. We're gonna have that place on lock down, YEAH!
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[17 Oct 2006|12:12pm] |
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mood |
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calm |
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music |
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house |
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Firstly, I would like to voice my extreme displeasure that that poxy bitch who was taking photos for In the Mix didn't put our shots up on the ITM website. Aided in no small part by Andge's European summer tan, as a group we were clearly the best looking people in place, and I find it inconceivable that such a gross and reckless omission could occur.
You know what the problem is? I'll tell you... ITM has become too big, too commercial and too arrogant, and the photo editorial standards have clearly become the first casualty.
I remember when ITM used to be cool...
Other than that Saturday night was great. Awesome to catch up with everyone again, I'm really surprised at how much energy I had. I think i consumed just the right mix of pot, vodka, and fiery mexican food an hour before I came to to put me in the right mood for a big night :)
Newtown Festival party is going to go off....
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