pillboxproductions’ Neighborhood

Out of the 11 of us who went, two have a fear of flying. Both mine. Husband and daughter. And for some reason they both watch air crash investigation religiously.

Sydney-airport-(3)

This was probably the longest day of my life. We were up at 5am one day and didn't get to bed until 2.30am the next day. The trouble with Australia is that its so big. It can be disheartening to realise that you've been flying for over four hours and that you're still flying over Australia. It was an 8 hour flight to Bankok from Sydney. Must give Thai Airways a rap though. Their service was very good. And I did eat the food despite Emjays warning. We had potato salad with shaved turkey, then chicken sliced in red curry with bamboo shoot, steamed thai hom mali rice and stir fried mixed vegetables. Then later we had stir fried prawn with black bean sauce, rice noodles and choy sum.

At Bankok airport we walked about 40 kilometres to get to the transfer point for Phuket. Then it was an hours flight to get there.

Stepping out of the airport it was pretty hot and humid. But easier for us I guess coming from a hot australian summer than people coming from Europe. Taxi drivers everywhere but we had a driver booked and he was waiting there for us and we were soon off on a 30 minute drive to Karon.

I think we broke every australian road rule within the first ten minutes. Speeding, no seat belts, driver talking on the mobile phone, overtaking on blind spots, driving on the wrong side of the road. The roads are mad there. Bikes and scooters everywhere. Not unusual to see three on a scooter and a lot of women have little bamboo chairs tied in front of them where a little kid sits.

We were glad to arrive and get booked in and into bed at last. Daz and I only had a couple of hours sleep before we had a phone call from home saying there'd been a huge storm and my car was hail damaged. They didn't know it was 4.30am. So I couldn't get back to sleep so we went for a walk around the streets of Karon Beach before breakfast.

Karon-(3)

Karon-(4)

Karon-(7)

Karon-(8)

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Karon--(2)

Like I said, everyone rides scooters. You can buy petrol in old vodka cruiser bottles. Just by the roadside there are stalls with rows of cruiser bottles full of petrol. This is the workers car park where we stayed.

Karon--(5)

And there are dogs everywhere. And they all look well fed and most have collars. They're just allowed to roam. But they never bother you. I never had one take any notice of us. We had a look inside a school yard and there were about a dozen dogs just lazing around on the grass. I never saw them fighting either. Always on the beach as well. Even if you're sitting outside eating they don't come up to you. I know that as well as the elephant sanctuary and the gibbon sanctuary there is a dog sanctuary as well though.

Karon--(8)

Karon-(26)

I am grateful for all of those who have added joy to my life over the past year. Support, unconditional love, encouragement, compassion and true kindness have been shown from people who know me and understand me..nothing is better than that. (except the schnauzers, who truly are my best friends)

This year I plan to focus on my art and make it more of a priority. I also plan to do a little more writing. Thank you Lucy for your comments/edits on that last poem I posted and your encouragement of my publishing it. You are and have been such a steady supporter of my art, which is humbling considering the fact that you are a genius of words.

Today I'm going to let the sun wrap her arms around me - she's been hidden for days and has finally emerged. I plan to be outside.

A quote for the new year:

"Live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, drink the wild air..." - Emerson

Happy new year, pals!

Who's Afraid of Y2K? Looper Discography [1999] Up a Tree [2000] The Geometrid [2002] The Snare Read More Looper http://weheartmus... Formed by ex-Belle & Sebastian bassist, Stuart David and his wife, Karn in the late 90s, they fir...

It's hard to believe that it's been a decade since Y2K.

In 1999, the doomsayers predicted the end of the world as we know it - in the form of computers all over the world crashing because of the so-called millennium bug. It never made sense to me, I mean if it were a problem, couldn't you just change the date ?

I spent the New Year's eve in Vietnam, away from civilization. The next day, nothing changed. Not even an incident. All that scare were for thing. But it wasn't all for nothing, the Y2K bug inspired quite a few things - among them, music, televisions, and books.

WHO'S AFRAID OF Y2K?
geometrid.co.uk ♥ myspace.com

There was a period when I tracked down all the projects that were related to Belle & Sebastian, including The Gentle Waves/Isobel Campbell and Looper. Looper was was basically B&S's Stuart David and his wife, Karn, who actually met via penpalism (as told by their song, Impossible Things).

They did garner a bit of fame through "Mondo '77", a really great catchy "binary"-video gamey song (it's been featured in Vanilla Sky, video games, and anti-drugs commercials). But unfortunately, their third (and final?) album, The Snare did not have any really catchy songs. The ruder and darker themed album was due to David's book The Peacock Manifesto (whos character also appears on the cover and songs of The Snare).

Anyway, in 1999, Looper released a double A-Side called Who's Afraid of Y2K? and Up A Tree Again, which I picked up, among other singles, at a Flaming Lips show (Looper was opening up for the band).

Both are excellent songs, although there were two remixes of "Up A Tree Again". I normally don't like remixes, but these were pretty different from the original album (which actually sounds pretty stale compared to these upbeat mixes). The "singles mix" of "Up a Tree Again" was interesting to say the least, focusing mostly on the "la-na-na-na" section and DJ-scratches, while the Chocolate Layers remix was pretty much only the "la-na-na-na" section.

Looking back, I suppose "Who's Afraid of Y2K?" song was a bit of novelty. Ironically enough, the song was awashed in electronic quirks and beats - all the things that Y2K would've destroyed supposedly.

Currently, Looper's on hiatus. I haven't heard much in terms of a new David novel or Looper release. Most of the recent releases were made free on their website, geometrid.co.uk.

BRAVE OLD WORLD
dccomics.com/vertigo

I thought the concept behind this William Messner-Loebs-written Vertigo mini-series was interesting enough: a group of computer hackers working on a solution to the Y2K bug at the end of 1999 - only to find themselves in 1900.

The series explored some interesting concept, like what would you do, if you had all this computer/understanding of technology, only to be trapped in a world that still operated via candlelight? The women in the comics had it worst, let's face it, women didn't exactly have freedom back then. And if you were doing something strange, you're a witch and killed, etc.

So what's the group to do to try and back to 2000? They had to build a computer, by "inventing" their own technology.

Like I said, a very interesting concept. It sort of got a bit boring towards the end (by the last issue, I didn't really care for the characters so much).

Vertigo comics has yet to collect this in a trade, I suppose after the Y2K fiasco, it probably wouldn't be worth reading. I mean, we all know as fantastic as going back in 1900 would be, it didn't happen - just like the Y2K didn't happen. Still, if you want to re-live what it was like, or what Messner-Loebs was thinking back in 1999.

PREPARE YOURSELF FOR Y10K

Chances are, I'll be dead, so I wouldn't care so much what would happen. Wikipedia thinks it's a problem, but I suspect by the year 10,000, that our computing technology would be so advance, it wouldn't amount to anything.

Until then, have a great New Year. Take care of each other. I'll see you in 2010.

 12/31/2009 22:29:36 ♥ vu () ♥weheartmusic.com♥twitter.com/weheartmusic♥news.weheartmusic.com

We had to be at the airport at 6am the day we flew out, so we spent the night before in Sydney. We stayed near China Town.

Darling-harbour-(4)

Which is near Darling Harbour.

Darling-harbour-(35)

Which is a real tourist hot spot. Nice place though. Right in the middle of the city. Those buildings are the city centre, so you just walk over a little bridge and here you are, on the water.

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We had a meal at a seafood restaurant that cost us about the same amount as all our meals combined for a week in Thailand.

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Darling-harbour-(15)

Then Jem and I played in the toilets for a while.

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I could have done with this survival pack on the plane. But of course we'd packed it in our check in luggage.

Darling-harbour-(27)

And then it was time to go home and have an early night because we had to be up at 5am.

But we didn't. We went to another bar and discussed plane crash strategy.

We decided we should have a common song to blow on our life jacket whistles if we crashed so we would all be able to meet somewhere. We first thought jingle bells was a good idea but then someone said deck the halls. But we decided all that fa la la la la - ing would be too taxing on our energy. So then we thought three blind mice was a good one because it was nice and easy. Jem was confused by then and we said that we'd all be 3 blind mice-ing our way towards each other and we'd hear this little lone jingle bells whistle tune and we'd all go - no, thats not one of our group.

Darling-harbour-(39)

A heartfelt, "Happy New Year" to all my vox neighbors.

May 2010 be your very finest year yet.

Ron & Cheri

Not going to list every single event that has occurred over the past year because many of the events are already on my blog. Overall it's been a good year. I've learned some lessons, that is for sure.

So, randomly noted:

Tay is away this week and it's been lovely

Appetite has increased for the most part - which means getting some curves back.

Have done a bit of new photography. Self portraits but on the sensual/erotic side... therefore I can't post them (or rather,, I'm not willing to).  Maybe there are a couple that are post-able...I'll have to look through them. The experience of doing them has been very liberating. It's about merging the sacred and sexual 'temple' (body) without shame involved.

Don't want to take down Christmas decor

Trading books with dad - must mail today. He's sending me the bio of Mark Twain and I'm sending him Lincoln's Melancholy and another one . Yes we're geeks.

Must get the damn pics selected for the photo contest for the Adirondack Review. (they were actually the first to publish me long ago)

My libido is in overdrive.

:-)

Hello all!

MELT COWL

HOOD CAPE

HOOD CAPE

SLEEVE SCARF

SLEEVE SCARF

SLEEVE SCARF

SLEEVE SCARF

MELT SLEEVES (grey tweed and thick)

MELT SLEEVES (grey tweed and thick)

MELT SLEEVES (black and thin)

MELT SLEEVES (black and thin)

SKIN SCARF

SKIN SCARF

CHAIN NECKLACE

CHAIN NECKLACE