Delusions of Grandeur, Probably

Posted on November 23, 2016 by admin

Melbourne home stylingI’ve always wanted to live in a castle, so I guess this is my second choice: a house that looks like a castle.

Alright, hear me out. Hear out my brilliant plan that is so very genius that I can hardly believe it myself. Okay, so, we’re selling our house. ‘Selling our house’, wink, nudge. Albert has been talking about moving out for years, but I know he’s not completely serious. Well, I’m about to bring it up and persuade him to my way of thinking. We’re getting older, and with getting older comes a tendency to become stuck in your ways, so drastic measures have become necessary.

So, phase one. We find a company in Melbourne who does home styling. That’s the thing that people do when you want to sell your home: they come in and make the whole place look just…better. Renovations, re-tiling, whatever needs doing to add value. There’s plenty that needs doing, but that’s not my main focus at the moment. Right now I’d like to draft up some plans for castle-ifying the place, such as adding some Tudor beams, adding a stone well out the back and converting the loft room into a turret shape. We need to get rid of that awful blue door we have that looks like it’s made of cheap plastic, possibly replacing it with an even bigger door. An oak door, with everything that goes with a proper oak door. Authentic wear and tear. Giant brass bolts. A door knocker in the shape of a lion!

Albert knows my ambitions, but maybe I can get him to go along with it, being my husband of sixty years and all. It’s not too much to ask to install an actual moat around the house, is it?

Alright, so people who do property styling might not be completely on board with that sort of thing, given that most of what they do is more design-based. And then I’d feel terrible saying we’re going to sell the place and then not doing that.

Does Melbourne have any specific renovators for castles? Or do I have to make Albert do it all himself??

-Alberta

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My Awesome Themed Party!

Posted on October 12, 2016 by admin

kids indoor play centreOh. My. GOODNESS.

Did you see that?? No, not…I mean, that’d be weird if you saw it at the same time as me, because that would mean that you’re here in my room, watching over my shoulder. Yeah, super weird. But what I mean is: have you seen the trailer for Power Rangers? Squee, SO excited! I grew up with the show and I STILL watch it, because it teaches you lessons about nature and how to be a park ranger, and also save the world and stuff. Now they’re making a big budget movie and I’m ALL over the idea. It was just a teaser trailer, but I’m super pumped.

Ooh, I feel an idea brewing. Back when I was…um, like, seven? Anyway, I’d just discovered Power Rangers and it had become my whole world. I was turning eight and I asked my parents if we could go to one of those kids birthday party venues in Croydon that were so big at the time. Hey, I’m not a kid any more…maybe they still are. But I wanted something a bit more. I wanted a Power Rangers themed party! So we’d all choose our favourite ranger and dress up, then the whole venue would become like an obstacle course, like the parks the rangers patrol in search of people breaking the law, and also evil space aliens. So the ball pit would be, like…a swamp. And the big plastic tunnels would be caves. I was just full of ideas! Mum and Dad did really well, too. I dressed up as Trudi, because yellow was my favourite colour and she was the Yellow Park Ranger. I made sure NONE of my friends were Trudi, which is fine because all the girls wanted to be Amberlie anyway. Then we made my older brother dress up as one of the pollution monsters and we had to chase him all though the centre and defeat him with our park ranger weapons. Trudi had the twin tent pegs, obviously.

Gosh, good times. I wonder if that Croydon indoor play centre is still there? Though there are probably more popping up all the time. The internet might be a thing now, but…you can’t beat a good party centre.

-Leticia

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Music for the Funeral and Beyond

Posted on October 3, 2016 by admin

executor of willMusic makes everything better, if you ask me. Nobody ever does, but perhaps they don’t have to, because music speaks for itself. Often I’ll forego saying hello to people in favour of simply waltzing into a room playing actual waltz music. The jaunty air lets everyone know that I want to be there, and I’m clearly doing fine thank you.

See how easy it is? All I have to do is carry my portable speaker bar with me everywhere I go, and I’m totally golden to express my emotions without having to talk, because music has power. It worked just great at Great Auntie Clarabelle’s funeral, where I sat at the back with ‘Danse Macabre’ playing the whole time. Quietly. And then we travelled elsewhere in Melbourne, last will and testament to be read out at a specific location chosen by the old girl herself, and I managed to keep everyone spirits up with a rousing tune of ‘On the Beautiful Blue Danube’. In my opinion, it’s a piece that gloriously proclaims the joys of this life, and how we should move on from death and embrace the time we have left. The only problem was the solicitor telling me to make it a bit quieter because he was trying to read out the will. It wasn’t even that loud! Anyway, Auntie Clarabelle left me her record player and all of her records, which was thrilling. I know it’s terribly cliche, but there’s a certain sound to vinyl that is simply titillating to the ears. I’d carry a record player around all the time, were it a feasible option. Instead, the reading of the will had to be accompanied by a modern speaker. I suppose they do their best…

Speaking of which, the entire affair really had given me pause for thought. I need to find my OWN executor of will in Melbourne somewhere, because right now nobody knows what to play at my funeral. I have the playlist in my head, of course. We’re starting off with ‘Waltz of the Snowflakes’, naturally. I will make them feel the emotion of my passing!

-Gustav

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I cannot adult

Posted on October 3, 2016 by admin

clearing blocked drainsOkay so I probably don’t have any right to be mad about this, but the funny thing about being mad is that it isn’t always “rational”. So SUCK IT UP because I am about to go on a rant.

One of the worst things about becoming an adult is that no one really tells you what you’re supposed to do. It’s complicated as all hell but doesn’t come with an instruction manual. I mean, there’s school, but how’s linear algebra going to help me pay my rent on time?

The simple answer is: it isn’t. School prepares you for uni, sure, but not for life.

The reason I’m particularly mad about being thrown into the deep end of adulthood is because I’ve done something kind of stupid and I don’t really know how to fix it. I realise there’s an obvious answer here, all I really need to is look up ‘plumbers in Melbourne’ and give one of them a buzz, but thing about being a part of a generation raised texting people is that I hate to call anyone. For anything. If there was someone burgled my house, I’d probably just cut my losses. There’s no way I’d call the police.

The thing is, I don’t really think there’s another way to fix this problem. I have to call someone. Blocked drains in Melbourne don’t just fix themselves, and I can’t live with the constant flooding any more. I just can’t. At this point, my carpet is so mouldy there’s no going back. Why didn’t they teach basic life skills at school, like how to fix a lightbuld or unblock a drain? Last time I tried to fix a lightbulb, I BROKE IT. There’s a light in my place that’s always off because I broke it. Seriously, I need help here. I am not qualified for this.

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Careful of the Dating…

Posted on October 1, 2016 by admin

Last willIt’s real tough, working in an office and always forgetting the current year. Most people spend the first part of January with this problem, but I get to September and I’m still struggling. Just yesterday I was supposed to sign off on some postage, and I asked the guy if he’d put the date in wrong. He looked at me like I was some kind of dimension-hopping alien and said that nope, it was definitely 2016. 2015 was over half a year ago. Embarrassing!

I sign off on more important stuff too. Like, someone files their last will and testament in Melbourne for safekeeping with our office (in Melbourne), and I have to note when it was received. That sort of thing can really get you in trouble, because some people amend their will constantly. Like, you have a family member giving you grief, the daughter refused to show up for the reunion, a grandson who had his wedding day on a time when you were supposed to be on holiday…all kinds of reasons. Obviously the latest version of the will takes precedence, but it doesn’t really work if it’s been stamped with a wrong date. We don’t deal directly with wills in our office- we’re just paper pushers- so I don’t feel like I really need this extra responsibility.

I’ve never put the wrong date on someone’s last will and testament though, honest. I know how important those things are, and the solicitor would probably come for me in my sleep if I screwed up. What that means is that whenever I have to deal with someone’s will, I ask the person next to me what year it is. The first couple of times they thought I was joking, but I managed to get it out of them anyway. I can’t keep using that excuse. I guess there are executors of will in Melbourne who could do this job far better than I could, anyway…maybe I need to get a job as a calendar salesperson instead.

-Aubrey

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Grease on the Netting

Posted on September 21, 2016 by admin

sports nettingSometimes it seems like I’m constantly balancing my love of bacon with my love of sport. They’re my two main loves, to be sure, but they don’t have a lot in common. I go to squash on Wednesdays, soccer on Fridays and then Netball is most Saturdays, plus on Mondays there’s cricket practice even though I’m not in a league. Sounds simple, right? Well, I just have to come back and have my bacon. It’s like my treat for playing all that sport, and there’s no better time to eat something unhealthy than when you feel all fit from exercise.

But it’s lately started to take over my life. I need bacon, all the time, so much so that I’ve started to carry some in my pocket during sports games. There was recently a giant scandal regarding the new cricket nets that our local sports centre purchased, in which they had to be removed due to people finding patches of grease all over them. So now they have new netting, and I’m starting to realise that I’d been absent-mindedly wiping my fingers all over them during our practice. Well, you can’t bat OR bowl with greasy fingers. I had to get rid of the grease, for the sake of the team! And I’m wearing whites, so just brushing it all off on my trousers isn’t an option.

Oh, what to do? I can’t just carry napkins in my pockets, because I need a LOT of bacon while I’m playing and it would just get greasy and useless. And yet, I can’t keep committing this terrible transgression against sports netting. And I just know my other sports are going to suffer, because I need bacon for all of them. Sometimes I don’t even think I NEED the sports, if I can have bacon. I’m probably going to need to offer a donation to my local club for new soccer netting. I think that is a worthy sacrifice for the deliciousness…of bacon. Why play sport at all, in fact?

-Porkins

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The rich and famous

Posted on September 20, 2016 by admin

wedding video productionI just had the strangest experience. I mean, it was a wedding, so I guess in many ways I expected it to be a little on the odd side, but this was just unexpected. It was funny though, and actually weirdly kind of nice.

About, maybe two hours ago, I got home from Aunt Hilda’s third wedding. That woman is a black widow of impressive proportions, so it was no surprise when she announced she was getting hitched again. Anyway, party-lover that she is, her weddings are always impressive affairs of opulence and luxury, and this one was no exception. I went in there expecting to be impressed, and I was. What I didn’t expect, however, was the camera crew. That’s right, a camera crew in Melbourne. Wedding videography has sure come along way since the shaky-camera home videos of the old days.

It was weird though. Kind of like being in a documentary, or maybe on reality TV, I guess, except that instead of trash talking Hilda in the asides, I had to be careful to wish the happy couple all my best for the happy years to come. Yeah, happy years … all three of them. Let’s be real, Hilda’s going to hightail it the second poor Mark stops paying the Prada bills. But by the looks of that Melbourne wedding video crew, that moment isn’t going to come any time soon. I mean, just the food at the wedding alone would have cost more than my rent for a year.

I realise I’m probably coming off pretty sour here, but let’s be honest, you know I enjoyed the hell out of the whole thing – it was all just one pretty fascinating look into the lives of the rich and famous. Can I help it if I’m a cynical onlooker?

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Any Camera Guys Want to Help?

Posted on September 11, 2016 by admin

videographers at workGetting a camera crew for my show has been tougher than usual. It was tough to begin with, to be honest, but eventually I managed to find a likeminded group who truly shared my vision. Sam Slashes Selfies took off on channel 63, and it consisted of a hidden camera show in which I exclusively went around famous places, ruining people’s selfies and shaming them for doing such a thing. Creatively. That is, I did it creatively.

Things really branched out from there, and the title was taken to mean all millennial activities. I’d knock smartphone-obsessed people’s phones into the river, drop water balloons on people’s tablet computers and get millennial phone numbers just so we can watch them panic when they receive a call instead of a text. But my camera crew left, went off to their own things. I had to look around Melbourne for video production people, but a lot of them worked with me once and never wanted to do so again. Isn’t that weird? I know my content is bold, but a videographer has to film whatever I’m doing, because they’re getting paid. Seriously, dudes. Stick to your guns. Cameras.

It got to the point where I filmed an amazing stunt sidling up to people wearing skinny jeans and cutting them open with scissors, and the video production people I had on the job quit right there and then, calling me a ‘psychopath’. Wow, talk about hitting a nerve. Sure, I didn’t tell them what I’d be doing, but my brief was ‘point and film’. Pretty simple, folks! Anyway, it’s left me a bit short on people to film. If things get any worse, I’ll have to use the selfie camera on my phone to film my pranks, and that feels weird, what with the title and everything. I’ll just have to work my way through Melbourne videographers until I have none left. And then…eh, a rethinking of the premise?

-Sam

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Australian Cleaning Legends

Posted on August 30, 2016 by admin

tile and grout cleaningWhy it that people always get so excited when they hear a film is being shot in Australia? Wow, big whoop. We live on a massive island; you are not going to be making an appearance, I can guarantee you that. Not to mention that the setting almost certainly won’t be Australia. They just want to use and abuse our natural scenery, and sometimes that big tower in Sydney for some reason. So let’s not lose our marbles over Yaival DuMesque coming to film his latest, greatest project in Sydney. It’s probably just going to be America-centric like the rest of his movies.

We should be paying more attention to Australian productions, which do so much more with a far lesser budget. There was this independent film, Scrub, which was truly brilliant. It was about a lady belonging to a place that did carpet steam cleaning, and her steady descent into madness. I’m very house-proud, so I could understand the subject matter. What’s more, a lot of the amateur actors they had running around in the background were actual carpet steam cleaners. I knew as soon as I saw it that they were professionals who knew how to work those machines, and that’s all the acting I really need.

See? That’s the level of detail and thoughtfulness that should be present in pretty much every movie. I know DuMesuque does his research, and his films really are quite artistic, but I can’t help but look at those carpet cleaners in the background and think…’gosh, such a realistic setting’. It helps me become immersed, which is as much of a big deal as it sounds.

No, I don’t think that we need a feature-length film purely based around the Melbourne tile and grout cleaning industry. There are some things that just work better in real life. But it’s the detail…that’s what breathes life into art. Detail and passion that shows.

-Jayne

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New life direction: Specialist Makeup

Posted on August 2, 2016 by admin

makeup coursesBefore I came to Australia I was a little directionless. I was hoping I would be inspired by new surroundings and meeting new people. I was right! The last few months have been pretty crazy but I am now a student! I am studying to be a special effects makeup artist. It just all fell into place. I got a part time job at a theatre working backstage with the props department. I ended up spending quite a bit of time socialising with the theatre crowd and got to know a few makeup artists who worked in theatre and movies. It sounded like a pretty cool job, there is great earning potential, excellent travel opportunity and it is a true, artistic skill. I did some research into various makeup courses around Melbourne and found the one for me. I can do it in 58 weeks part time or 32 weeks full time. I think I’ll go part time so I can work around it to fund myself to study. It would be a little while before I was getting well paid jobs but I figure within two to three years I could be in an excellent position. The course code is Cuf50407 and actually includes designing and applying specialist make up which is what I eventually want to end up doing. It is also an excellent transferable to skill to have that could take me anywhere in the world! Who knows, maybe one day I will be painting the faces behind the scenes of the Rio carnival or touching up ballerinas for a performance of swan lake. I am currently trying to save up to invest in a fancy set of makeup brushes to do the course with. Everything I have read has told me my brushes would be my best tools going forward.

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