So as the title suggest I’ve been looking for new outlets…. This idea popped inter me noggin’ and so here we are. Loving food and drink like I do it seemed a no brainer to start with reviews of kind. I’ve decided to review the night as a whole, a more experiential type review….

Anyways long story short Monique suggested she could drill a Parma tonight so off to the Bended Elbow we went.

Much to Roger’s suprise, I arrived bang on 7pm as discussed earlier. Even more to my suprise, Cameron was already there and seated. When I called Roger at 7:03 he hadn’t even left home and mocked me and my sense of time. Big mistake.

Cameron, Monique and myself settled in for a cheeky chat as the sun went down and we awaited the colonel himself…. The cogs started to turn, how could we screw with him?!?! It was decided we’d go with some misleading, yet semi-believable texts.

#1 JAKE to ROGER:  “Jokes on you, just leaving home now and so is Fyfe” “But the reservation is under Fyfe Dangerfield if you get there first”

#2 R to J: “Well Fuck you then”

#3 J to R: “Far off? I’m nearly there…”

#4 R to J: “I’m walking up the hill, no carparks”

#5 J to R: “Yeahthere isn’t, Imightbeat you there yet” (deliberately mashed all into one as if I were distractedly typing away while driving)

So we giggled away as we waited, congratulating one another on our evil geniusii, Roger strolls on in, “DUCK!”, he cruises the venue for a while, goes to the bar and seems to talk to the staff, maybe just oggling, I never know…. Then he goes and sits at another table… I feel bad… Fyfe goes over to find him and the gig is up, ROFLMAO’s all round.

The Gig's up as I sneakily catch Roger wondering around at a speed far too quick for technology to steadily capture.

Anyways we all sat and laughed and got a menu after some time and started to have a look. Roger proclaimed it was time to order after he finished scanning the one and only menu on the table before anyone else had….

As a group we decided no seafood should be eaten for less than $20 a meal.... Especially on a Thursday

So we Three Kings (or males, whichever comes first) would have the Mexican Parma and The Boss herself was to have the Sicilian (which I ummed and arred over having for some time but opted for my old favourite the Mexican).

We ordered away, the staff were very friendly and commended us on stealing the table 51 sign as it didn’t belong on the round tables anyway! The only odd spot was when one of the chefs kept staring at me. I’m convinced this was cos of my cool urban-trench style jacket… Atleast I’m telling myself that cos he had neck tatts and you don’t want someone who has the power to sneak spit into your food disliking you.

Very reasonable pricing I noticed at this point. $16.50 was the charge for the Mexican Parma and a pot of Bluetongue Lager which was well poured, cold and very tasty. 4 thumbs up!

We got back to the table and talked some more shite. Some good tunes came on and then we got onto the topic of PowerFM-spun covers of good classics, Monique was not impressed:

I dare say I will not be popular for uploading this picture. Alternate caption: Anal! I never!

The meals arrived in not much time at all, which was good as I was bloody hungry!

Initial notes on meals: Impressive size and aroma, chips look good, cos lettuce (nice touch).

Somehow some of Moniques meal made it's way to the table.....

The first hiccup was when the shear weight of Monique’s parma became too much for the waitress to carry as she reached over to place it to the corner setting and the Sicilian took a little slide. Crisis averted though, only several chips and food toppings slid which Cameron and Roger swiftly and thoroughly demolished.

The Meals:

So here’s the rundown:

The Mexican Parma Observations:

*Salad: Honey Lemon dressing on the salad, initially not too bad for mine but after about 3 bites, overwhelmingly sweet. Monique and I weren’t huge fans, Stoicly Meaty Cameron didn’t seem to mind. Roger was delighted.

*Chips: Quite tasty, seemingly a little beer battered, nicely salted, healthy portion. Only slight downfall was the temperature, mine were on the cool side, Roger’s piping.

*Main: The quality of the chicken was exactly what I expected for $12 and maybe even a little better.

I was delighted with the coating and cooking of said chicken.

Major points for using real sliced chili, a bitey one at that.

Unfortunately it’s a little downhill from here. The chicken had a topping consisting of cheese, guacamole, sour cream, corn chips, ham and chili. None of us realised there was ham on the meal, mainly because it wasn’t mentioned on the menu. This was a little bit of a bugger for me not being a big pig-muncher, for swine-fiend Cameron a source of great joy.

The Sour Cream and cheese was spot on, guacamole a little heavy on the lemon which I easily countered with enough Salt to clog Steve Moneghetti’s fit arteries up.

I think I may have enjoyed it a little more with some salsa to moisten the experience too as the corn chips really left for a clag mouthy experience in spots.

Cameron’s meal had a whole chili stem in it too which was a bit of a bugger:

I think it's a delicacy in Mexico

The Sicilian Parma Observations:

This ones a bit harder as I didn’t eat it, so I’ll just use poetic licence and what Monique said.

*Salad: Monique unmoved by diversity of veg in Salad and Honey Dressing.

*Chips: Got a tick from memory. This is the issue with being so indulgent and not really listening to what other people say sometimes…. You just have nothing when it comes time to recap…. No Thumbs Up for Jake on this one….

*Main: Chicken ok. Coating far too abrasive, roof-of-mouth-cuttingly-so. Topping, not bad, olives tasty but far too salty. Jake at meal: “Saltier than a Seamans Sprog? Is that a saying…?” Monique: “Yes…. and no it isn’t a saying… Thank Christ.”

All in all it can’t have been too bad…. She ate 60-75% of it…. I thought it looked nicer than mine…

Conclusions:

Cameron:

Cameron put the meal right in the middle of the pack.

Monique:

Monique was not quite as impressed.

Roger:

I didn’t take a photo of Roger…Or ask his opinion….. Let’s say it was cos his head turned red and he seemed bewildered after a bitey slab-o-chili. Truth is I forgot… But here’s one I prepared earlier….

Roger is astounded by the sounds, bright lights and hot chili.

Jake:

I didn’t take a photo of me to sum up the meal….. So lets skip straight to the

SUMMATION!!!!!!!

The meal was perfectly acceptable for $12 for mine. The music was good. Service was quick. You can also get a $10 jug of beer with a parma (VB or Carlton Draught I think) so that’s a good value option. You could do much worse.

The staff were friendly and polite and as a high point, Stacey was there at the end looking positively radiant and leaking from her wet pussy…

….

…shots….

Ahhhhhhhhhhh see what did there you perverts! She really was carrying 3 tubs of wet pussy shots and 1 was leaking…..

Anyways.

Would I take a girl there on a first date? No.

Would I recommend it to others? Maybe.

Is it good value for money? Bang on par. $12 worth of food. That said, I’ve had worse feeds for $20.

Would I eat there again? Not the same meal, but yeah I would.

Overall Rating: 1 thumb up and 1 down, constituting 1 thumb up out of a possible 2.

- When Nick says “I give to you” it’s as good for me as when David Bowie says “Seven”.

- Warren Ellis reminds me of Animal from the Muppets. This is a great compliment.

- The backing vocals in concert are just as good, if not better than on the albums, which amazed me given the vocal range in them.

- On no less than two occassions I had a direct eye-contact-tunnel with Nick, it was intense and as if time stood still and nothing mattered or existed outside that held gaze.

- The second one of these moments we shared was when there was silence and I begged them to play “go tell the women”, upon hearing this Nick turned his head, eyed me and smirked as if to say “Oh how I’d love to but not tonight”.

- We saw a brilliant homage to Nick in the form of a 20 something year old gent who had the hair, gauntness and complexion of Cave perfected. He even strutted a little when going to and from the bar.

- Nick can still power-kick the air with the best of them when hitting a dramatic note on the axe.

- I’m absolutely disappointed I didn’t take my camera… I thought I’d be too far away and the lighting wouldn’t be good enough, neither of these fears came to fruition, lesson learned.

- The disappointment, the band didn’t play “Go tell the women” and instead closed with the rather indulgent “Grinderman”. While they played “Grinderman” better than I thought it could be played, it left me feeling slightly robbed.

Summation: I am dying to see The Grinderman outfit again at the BDO and will bust through the crowd to beg for “Go tell the women”. Try and stop me. Going for eye-contact-tunnel #3.

I’ve noticed a few things in myself of late….. The more I work in retail / sales the more condescending and patronising I get… I need to clean that shit up! I’ve developed my go to move inadvertently in the “patro-thumb” which is like a normal thumbs up but more stinted and with the thumbs pushed as far forward as possible.. “Yeah good on you pal, have a good one *patro-thumb*”. This is all good and well but problem is I can’t shake it and now I seem really condescending without meaning to, it’s becoming a muscle memory condition… Hmmmm…

The other one I have been doing is continually asking people “How did you go with that one?” as if they were so incompetent that they weren’t able to complete whatever menial task they were performing without me there to hold their hand…..  So I’m going to clean my shit up and get my words and actions back in order with my faith for mankind. Cos people aren’t always as dumb as they’re given credit for… That said, if one more person writes “than” in the place of “then” I might just flip and patro-thumb the jibletts out of everyone…. Proceed with caution…

2010 was marked as a year of indulgences, exploration and other general wankery. I clocked up some 14ish odd countries, blew in excess of 30k in the process and finally allowed myself to unpucker my asshole.

As a result of relaxing and being more willing to put my pride on the line a little more I’ve gotten a bit more artistic. I’ve taken some photo’s that I’m really proud of. Here are some of them below:

And look admittedly that’s not all the shots I’m proud of but they were the first ones that jumped to mind.

Besides all this I have made some stuff too which has been fun. Clocks, books, etchings of sorts and other tid bits. It’s nice to let the creative streak out once in a while.

And words still fascinate me too. “Disco” and all it’s variations as well as “shit bloke” getting a rehash. Apparently (according to Stavey and Bilney) I gave “gorgeous” too much of a bashing in January. I haven’t used it since til now.

So that’s all that jumps to mind immediately. Guess I should go with some kinds of resolutions. Lets keep it simple:

* More drive.

* Kinder to my body.

* Write more.

* Be happy no matter what.

and most importantly… * Finish things I start no matter how it seems.

Chat soon

Why?! What?! How?!

We got to the station, ate a chocolate croissant for 30 Kc each and I sculled 600mL of water, not taking any onto the train was a major oversight on my behalf. So we ate, debated exchange rates and bought a map. 76 Francouzka (pronounced Fra n- shooj – shka as I would find out my next trip while smugly ordering a cab to “76 FRAN COOZ KAR”), the Czech Inn was our desired destination. Half an hour later and quite a testing walk and we were Checked In. I had to will myself not to say “I’d like to Check In please”and instead asked for our reservation under Harris. Helpful staff, amongst which an Aussie from Sydney. The room is amazing, by far the best yet. The showers are large over-heads, as if a watermelon cut in half and leaked hot rain. Divine. Anyways, I could speak of how much I wanted to dick the Czech Inn at this moment but I shant. We dumped our shit and headed to the free tour by Sandemans in the “New Europe”series. Really Swell.

Our guide, James from Northern Ireland, had all 70 odd peoples complete attention for the better part of 3 hours. We took in sites such as Starometska (spelling?!) : Old Square, Novemetska: New square, the Jewish quarter and much much more. Fascinating place and made even more so by easily the best tour guide I have come across yet. Totally man crush worthy. What a freakin DreamBoat!

Anyways we did this, thoroughly impressed. We decided to pub crawl with the company for 375 KC. First, it was time to eat, SSS and nap.

We ate dinner with Kirri, a Brisbanite travelling alone that we picked up on the walking tour, also the Americans Josh and Logan who happened to spot us mid tour only five minutes after they got to their hostel. Rustika in New Square, sort of, half way up to old mate Wenceslas, we are at. It was ‘Authentic Czech’ fare. I had Goulash with bread dumpliongs and a litre of “Kozel Dark” and then a cheeky half litre of Pilsner Urquell, an affair which would prove to thoroughly scare the Americans: “Who the hell just casually drinks 1.5L of beer over dinner?!?!” I didn’t see the big deal. Good times. So yeah, dinner was about 240 Kc for me, about $13 AUD at the time including beers. Freaking Awesome prices!

So yeah, we napped, cleaned up and headed pubwards. The Power Hour was on the verge of starting when we got there and we were keen. There was maybe 25 people but beer and shots for 50+ people waiting, my kind of party. I sat with C., Arnetto – a Uruguayan and Louis – a Columbian who just finished his MBA at Sydney Uni. From here it was beer pong, American taunting and so much free booze. I maintain it was watered. I drank the better part of 2L of beer (Budvar I think) and 7-10 Absinthe shots. I wasn’t naked, bawling and feotal so the Absinthe was definitely watered. We drank and chatted for what seemed like forever but in reality, it was only 90 mins and a little bit, Facts from here shall once again have to suffice:

- I spoke ‘art’ and quitting good jobs for a good chunk of time with a stunningly good looking Czech girl.

- I left for a drink and ended up coming back and chatting with a Canadian, Natalie Rosnecky whom I confused for the Czech girl from behind as they both had dark curly hair, no matter, she was a good sort too.

- Josh left early, Logan mauled a beast.

- I posed for several photos with some guy off his dial.

- I had the worst G&T, Beefeaters gin, 3 or so shots, 1 shot tonic…. 180 odd Kc… Poison.

- Got home maybe 3 or 4.

- There were 2 more guys in our room who weren’t there before (we were in a 4 berth so we spread out when there was only 2 of us), how I didn’t wake them up I have no clue.

We arrived at the rather stunning old church built on Sailor’s guilty hooker money at around half ten and in we went for €6.50 each with our FOAM discount. There was some striking and memorable images, mainly of human atrocities: Phosphorus cones over Gaza in a university area, a man being stoned to death in Africa under newly re-introduced tribal laws (adultery was his crime from memory) and sheeplets (heh) looking in on freshly killed, skun and hung sheep carcasses. Well worth the trip[, very thought-provoking.

We finished there and snacked then off to Van Gogh.

Not the snack I ate that day but a delicious meal in Amsterdam nonetheless

At €14 each I was hesitant but in the end well worth the cash and effort to go through. Some 200 paintings of his housed there made for fascinating viewing. I found much of his earlier work a bit drab and for want of a better term “underexposed”. Also colourless. It didn’t seem moody either, just plain. Once he coloured up though shit got interesting. Some truly striking imagery. His disregard for conventional perspectives is admirable to say the least. I bought a moleskin notebook too, a purchase I hope shall pay dividends.

The afternoon had now arrived and so we grabbed a coffee and sat in the park out front the Rijksmuseum overlooking “I Amsterdam” and Queeny Beatrix of the house of Orange while discussing Patriotism, Racism and other heavies. Hours passed and it was now once again station time.

I ate some pasta in a box, quite the novel experience even if slightly underwhelming in flavour. I bought some Ryvita rip-offs for €0.69, a solid investment and off we went to collect bags and board.

One last Amsterdam shot

Initially we were set to share our “Couchette” room with four Chinese Gents. They relocated to next door though with the rest of their travelling party. I was secretly a bit disappointed they left, well part of me was, I was keen to drink Vodka with them. Nonetheless we were all alone in a classic backseat European train. Finally! Cameron and I were giddy like schoolgirls at the notion of this. After an hour or so of slow movement we decided it was time for the discotheque to begin. Pepsi and Vodka was the order. A few heavily poured, classically shaped glass bottles from the dim (Cameron’s take on him) snack attendant man and we were away. The Pepsi and Train Juice coupled with a few Yacht Club DJ set’s, dry biscuits and we had ourselves a party. Decided to crash about half 12.

Lumped Sleepy out of bed and ate, then to Anne Frank Huis. The queue was tolerable this time and in we went for €8.50, bags to the front please! Anne Franks was extremely moving and thought provoking. Cruelty of man to man and all that… Wow. I found it interesting too at the end to see an interactive poll of peoples thoughts on iffy subjects such as Neo-Nazi symbols and the banning of certain books and para-military groups. Most people covered their voting pads and then were fascinated by the groups collective output. I didn’t vote on any as I felt they were questions better pondered on first.

Also! The rubbish was gone!! Well some. As if the bags were giant berocca’s which dissolved in the rain ala crackfox mighty boosh. It made me happy anyways.

Anyways we had dinner, I had a delicious Mixed Grill which confused Logan no end with the naming convention of the thing. We found Vondel Park, very nice. We also hit up the Rijksmuseum and the big “I Amsterdam” sign. Very cool.

We then hit up some internet, repacked and here we are. Our train tickets are booked for the wrong night due to clerical error, this worries me… Shall have to amend tomorrow in the AM.

Not the shot by Ari..... One of mine...

After this we strolled some more and ate dinner, we both had large nights in mind but just didn’t have the vehicle to arrive at our desired destination. Enter the American, screen left. They had been on a free walking tour which mentioned a pub crawl for €18, sure, why not? Josh and Logan (The Americans) hadn’t eaten so we headed to a wok to Walk across the road with Christina (Kristina?!) who would soon depart. We ate; they ate, discussed our collective negative drinking cultures on a national level and then proceeded to binge hard. Classy.

We hit the pubcrawl, which was just up the road, found an Australian – Sam from Sydney, a meek chap travelling alone who seemed easily influenced and on a ‘rite of passage’  of sorts to manhood via the trip. Nice enough lad.

Again from here facts shall have to suffice:

• Warm Vodka shots
• Met real life Harold and Kumar: Vishal and Un-named Asian-American friend from NY who studied Brain Cancer, I only really spoke to Vishal.
• Three more slightly aggressive, meat headed Americants appeared. One took me on as his unwilling wingman. I requested and supported no such thing.
• The Americans from our room went quiet.
• I again offended someone enough for them to turn face on me, I can’t remember what it was but I know, I just know, it would have been crass and funny.
• I spoke South African for an hour, badly. Had some Aussies convinced though.
• I had the worst Absinthe I have ever tasted – “Vincents”; Experience the drink that send him wild.
• I was thoroughly inebriated, Cameron was no better.

Got in by about 0300 by all accounts.