Gaffage

Room with a viewish ..

Top Deck .. Presidential Suite

My latest lodgings at 38 Botany Street , Bondi Junction

The Daily Planet

Just a quick update of some of the books/flicks/music I have been reading/seeing/listening to in recent times:

Flicks:

Jindabyne : a "serious" Australian film, i thought it was pretty mediocre, Gabriel Bryne is in it and there is a werid Irish pious religious element in it that really annoyed me, not one likeable character either, at the end i was just glad it was over, the end was as i expected as in no ending, at the cinema i could hear the sigh from everyone else "is that it ?" .. maybe one will have to see it to know what i am talking about.

Kenny : Mockumentary in the style of Spinal Tap or Best In Show, I thought it was classic stuff.

Footy Legends : Rugby league is the football in question. Enjoyable enough in its own way although in the end it descends into fantasy (the local pups made good come up against a team of former legends and beat them, when the camera pans across all the legends are literally twice the size of the lads )

Some Boxset stuff (Is the boxset the greatest invention in the history of the world ?):

Simspsons fifth series : I think i had given up completely on the simpsons the last 5/6 years of simspons have been putrid, but this season on its own is absolutely classic, so many marquee episodes its hard to pick one, Homer the Vigilante/Bobo/Homer in Space/The B Sharps/The Thompsons/Campers Pampers

Black Books : Brillant No other words necessary, can't understand why i had to come to Oz to find out about this classic

Books

Day of the Triffids: I am big fan of the post apocalyptic genre, I think this is a great read, it seems to me to a very accurate and frightening take on the descent into chaos after a massive castrophe.

War of the Worlds : Fabulous SciFi considering it is over a 100 years since it was written, The tom cruise film that came out last year based on the book is a stain on humanity i might add.

Music

Morrissey : Ringleader of the tormentors : Good stuff from Moz although I don't think this album did aswell as he thought it would, I don't remember a strong single being released.

Dan Fogelberg : I heard Same Old Lang Syne on the wireless and thought it was great, so i picked up his greatest hits, its not bad middle of the road type stuff.

Miles Davis : Cool & Collected : In fairness it is pretty good but i have the feeling buying the albums is better listening you probably can't shoehorn a selection toegther like this and make it sound as seemeless as any of the classic albums. A review halfway down the page (Amazon) is spot on i reckon and i am certainly no expert.

They think its all over .. actually it is ..

Why are my legs so pasty white ?

All the lads ... here now .. brazil 1970 anyone ?

seriously a fantastic bunch of guys unfourtunately no medals for us, we left our run a bit late

Check out the state of the pitch .. all the "ovals" are in awful condition at this stage of the year

Hostel Watch : Sydney - Side

Check out the view, you get what you pay for i guess

Bondi Backers : looks kinda funky and retro but pretty bog standard actually ..

As has been mentioned in an earlier blog in recent times I have seen some "Hostel Time", so i have decided to do a sort of ratings blog, hopefully if/when i get to move around this massive continent i can add to it :

I was in two hostels last week in downtown Bondi , Bondi is the number 1 tourist beach probably in Oz not because it is some sort fo fantastic place(it most definitely is not) more because it is the place everyone has heard of and would usually be crammed full of Irish/Eng/Scottich and every other kind , luckily for me this is downtime so i had my choice of establishments.

I think when rating a hostel, in all honesty you really are only looking for value for your dollar so on that basis i am going to rate on price/hyigene also bearing in mind i was in a single room on my own and then give a comment on the overall package

I spent two nights here : Beachhouse

Room: Excellent Room, with a view of the beach

Hyigene: Excellent couldn't fault it, showers and toilet facilites well upto scratch

Price: $70 per night a shocking price

Comment : While everything here is excellent the price is geniuely awful, if i had stayed all week there it would have been just under $500 , for that price i could have stayed at the four seasons in the city.
Because we are rating on value for dollar i will have to stay this is stinking, simply as that.

I spent 3 nights here: Bondi Backpackers

Room : Okay, No View (see pic)

Hygiene : Okay (one of the two showers was broken just aswell there was no one around really one shower between god knows how many people on a floor in peak season would be diasaterous)

Price: $35 per night an excellent price

Comment : while not really of the same class as The Beachouse the price for 3 nights was excellent and you can't say fairer than that.

Springfield Shopper

Once again it seems I haven't blogged for ages, although this time I have a fairly decent excuse ..

my accmodation situation has been quite dicey for a while now .. that is to say the guy i was sharing the apartment with was unstable to say the least .. however things took a rather dramatic turn over the last two to three weeks .. i don't really want to go into to much detail .. it should be enough to say that things had gotten to a level i couldn't ignore and with the help of Chris I moved out by "stealth" last week, the aim being to be gone before he new i was actually gone. It is amazing just how much this type of thing takes out of you, i hadn't had a good night's sleep in about two weeks. Anywhoo on wed i left him the keys
and a note "wishing him all the best for the future" .. The reason for this was just to keep up his petty little pretense of pretending everything was normal .. I saw no reason to change at that stage ..

This week i have basically been hopping around various hostels in bondi .. ironically i missed out on this "pleasure" when i first came here as i shacked up with the boys early doors.

It has been a very tiring week trying to see apartments etc and going to work etc .. I know everyone does this .. but i do have a new respect for people who actually go and buy houses .. the patience required is unbelievable .. agents are always late turning up and kinda don't care anyway. The good news in this story is I have got a one bed apartment near the train stop in bondi junction and we won game one of our double header in the soccer this weekend. If we win tomorrow we might still be in the hat for a semi spot going into the last matches next week.