Top 40 Songs of All Time #7

So I don't want to subject anyone - least of all myself - to going through line by line to rank the 40 songs I have in the list so far (bearing in mind we already have a significant number put aside that we know won't make it). So I'll do that song vs. song process we went through in the last post myself and offline, and just publish the results. Perhaps after throwing a few more songs into the mix,

Right, right, right, so this is me sauntering in in March 2020, likely a good 6 months after the last post (above). Yeah, it's all been happening in the meantime and this blog has been one of the many neglected casualties.

Actually, no. This is me sauntering in AUGUST 2020 now, and I am going to publish this damn post today and leave it posted. I just need to put a bit more background into song selection. I am going to post because it needs to be, and I need to move this project on. The end analysis is going to be much different, I can promise you that, but for now, I need progress goddammit!

Echo Beach vs. Galvanise - Galvanise win. EB is a good song, but it's more the nostalgia that gets me when I hear it, not so much the awesomeness of the song itself.
What's Up vs. Echo Beach - WU win. WU is a classic rock song with one of the all-time best choruses. Hard to beat.
WU vs. Galvanise - WU win. WU has more going for it and suits a "hazy" lifestyle such as mine even better really.
WU vs. One Night in Bangkok (Vinyl Shakerz) - WU win. Rock beats house.
WU vs. When I Grow Up - WIGU win. It's been with me for years that song. Those in the know will know why. Frankly probably nobody does, maybe my wife.
Truly, Madly, Deeply vs. Echo Beach - TMD win.
TMD vs. Galvanise - TMD win.
TMD vs. ONIB - ONIB win. Gotta consider my varying tastes.
Invaders Must Die vs. Echo Beach - IMD win. This is an odd choice. IMD is not a great song, but it's infectious and rousing rhythm works on me.
IMD vs. Galvanise - IMD win.
IMD vs. TMD - TMD win. Wow, hard-core electro vs. sentimental, who would have thought.
Oh What A Night vs. Echo Beach. Oh fuck off, who am I kidding, lets go straight to #10.
OWAN vs. ONIB - OWAN win.
OWAN vs. WU - OWAN win.
OWAN vs. WIGU - OWAN win.
OWAN vs. Just A Girl - OWAN win.
OWAN vs. New Sensation - NS win. Sorry, can't beat the INXS classic. Really? At the time, on that night, that was the result. Yet I have skipped NS multiple times on the old iPod in recent months, much less so OWAN. May need a recount.

Time to throw the proverbial cat among those motherfucking pigeons.

Run To Paradise vs. What's Up (yep #10 off the bat) - RTP win.
RTP vs. TALL - RTP win. That's beating the current #5 song.
RTP vs. DAVID - RTP win. Fark.
RTP vs. DYSWIS - DYSWIS win. Finally, the upstart is brought down to Earth!

Do You See What I See is an all-time classic I must admit. But this article is telling me that the notion of an "All Time Top 40" is not going to be an easy one to put together.

Hahaha, it's kind of funny, reading these words, long after they were written, and long after their relevent situation had changed markedly. Wow. But yeah, I still know what I was on about, still resonate with those thoughts, regardless of the level of sobriety or inebriation that may have prompted those words and thoughts at the time.

So here I am in late April 2020, still without music post #7 published. Got to get this done and got to find a better and more productive way of doing this analysis. I don't need to share every moment, just the outcomes, especially considering as we're only aiming for a Top 40. So I am going to post now, and when #8 in this line comes along, there's gonna be a whole lot more in there, without the guff...

Melbourne - Planning A Weekend Visit

So recently we considered a weekend in Bendigo. Wifey and I both have food desires we wish to indulge - her sushi and me yum cha. Bendigo can provide both, although to what standard is a big unknown. Yesterday I looked into booking us a night or two for this weekend, and was shocked to see just how expensive it was! Admittedly, the long weekend doesn't help, but it looks like it's going to be an expensive exercise at the best of times. Plus, that investment does not guarantee a satisfying food experience! Country Asian food is often not particularly authentic.

As a result, we have abandoned that idea, for the time being at least anyway. Thinking about it more though, I figured, why not just go a bit further and do it in Melbourne instead? The authenticity, variety, availability and price will certainly all be better there, as are the huge variety of place to stay. The thing with Melbourne these days too is that no longer does one need to go to Springvale, Richmond, Footscray or Little Bourke St to find good Asian food - it is literally everywhere! So I figured I'd do some research on some great eateries for wifey and I, some reasonable Asian grocery shopping, some shopping for the kids, maybe some decent playground for them, and of course somewhere reasonable to stay.

I'll start with getting a large-scale map of Melbourne, and shading out the parts I want to disqualify off the bat in terms of traffic and distance.

The line I have put in is fairly arbitrary to be honest, but having been down to Werribee and across to Nunawading/Box Hill recently, I think I understand the limits I wish to travel on those extremities of the city. Plus I don't want to go near the CBD, hence stopping the line a suburb or two to the north. Following this, I went to Google, and looked for reputable yum cha restaurants within the bounds of my line.

There are an absolute heap of them! But I was looking for something specific - the white table cloth, maybe trolley service, but more a place focussed on yum cha than a one-stop-Chinese-shop place that does it all. Maybe that's unfair because even the best of them usually do it all, it's just that at lunchtime, it's all about the dim sum. It's hard to put into words, but after decades of being a yum cha tragic, I know what I'm looking for. In the words of Ron Swanson, "I know what I'm about son..."

So, I flicked through a whole lot of review pages, and came up with two reasonable contenders. Hey there may be more, but this is about a number of contributing factors. Once we're there, if we see something that looks better (and may be so good they don't bother with an online presence) we'll give it a crack. I have no issue with more than one yum cha in a weekend if it comes to that too haha! So here are the two restaurants:

Andy's Yum Cha House - Essendon

Gold Leaf - Preston

Both are from reviews I found on Zomato, which was good enough to categorise reviews based on area of the city. On a side-note, if I do end up in the CBD/Southbank area for other reasons, it looks like there are some absolutely cracking places there still. That thought reminds me of a date at a Chinese place in the city one night while at uni - but that's a story for another time. On with this travel planning quest for now...

So, if we put yum cha second on the list after locality, this is what we end up with. I like it because either way, they are fairly close to each other, with less than 10km by road between them. That gives the weekend a lot of flexibility, if the other items on the search list don't conveniently end up in similar locations to each other (and one of these two of course). Next on the agenda, restricted to the suburbs shown on this latest map, is sushi. Again, there were many places that popped up, but we like more traditional sushi, and certainly served sliced, not in a big solid roll, which seems to be the norm here in Australia. We found two places that stood out:

Chiba - Moonee Ponds

Matsumoto - Brunswick

I won't update the map for each and every step of the process in this post, although I am doing it in reality. Posting these two with the two yum cha places showed that one of each were very close, and so for now I am tempted to go with that option. That is the Essendon yum cha and Moonee Ponds sushi.

This may all be thrown by the next item on the list - our kids LOVE indoor playgrounds, so I am hoping we can find one while we are on this trip. A good fallback, and perhaps something we will do regardless, is go to the zoo, which is not far from this neck of the woods at all.

Tickity Boo fits the bill nicely. Actually there are many such places within a few km of our first two nominated places, but this one is the closest. It is also between the two eateries and the zoo, so for my thinking, it's all coming together in terms of location. Again, if we don't like the look of this joint, we can very easily go elsewhere within a few minutes drive.

Next item on the list is shopping. Wifey and I are ok with anything really, as we are already avid online shoppers. But sometimes it is nice to browse through a mall. This is especially so in the case of the kids, who go apeshit at the sight of a Toys R Us or something similar! So I am targeting this search in terms of a decent toystore. As it happens, there are boutique toy stores near to the target area, but they are small, a little bespoke for my liking, and likely expensive. You can't beat a big one with all the brands, both for selection, but also for the kids fun in searching. So to that end, Toyworld at Highpoint Shopping Centre looks like the go. Plus it's a big mall, so we can satisfy most shopping itches there.

Another shopping must-do is Asian groceries. Luckily, these days this kind of store is ubiquitous, but it still pays to check. As it happens, Yahweh Asian Grocery has stores at both Highpoint and also the sushi place, so we're well covered.

So we have food, entertainment, and shopping ticked off the list. That pretty much just leaves accommodation. Normally I look at hotels, well historically I do anyway. But in the last couple of years, we have had some awesome success with AirBnB, mainly in KL, but also in Geelong. The thing is, even with just the five of us, we need two rooms, and outside Asia, that gets expensive real fast. But when we stayed in KL, both during Christmas 2018 and June school holidays 2019, we intended for wifey's family to come stay with us - that's another four adults and three kids! So we went the AirBnB option. The first one, in Mont Kiara, was bloody awesome. An older condo for sure, but walking distance to shops, restos and bars, and a quick drive to hawker stalls. We then found another place in June 2019, outside the main areas, and cheap. It ended up being a good option, even though I probably wouldn't go there again. To be fair, that probably had more to do with the three week stay than anything else.

Anyway, yet again I digress. So in our experience, this style of accommodation is perfect. So I did a search today on properties in our target area. As expected there are many, but most are quite dear. Hey one can't really expect much under $200 a night in Melbourne, but I don't want to spend too much. In the end I found a place close to Chiba, for a total of $525 for a 3-night stay. Sold!

So, that pretty much sums up the planned weekend, assuming we get to do it sooner or later! Here is my final starred map:

PFG is the closest location to the apartment that I could star, literally only metres away. According to Google, it's a 2.5 hour drive from home. Now that's what I call a nice and easy getaway. The only other thing I might like to add to that list is perhaps a Malaysian restaurant. Once again, due to the magic of Google, check this out:

Plenty to choose from, much of which sounds awesome I have to say. I reckon we leave early Friday morning, plan to get to Highpoint by lunchtime, eat there, get the kids some toys and us whatever tickles our fancy, check in, chill, dinner at sushi place. Next day, morning at playground, lunch at yum cha, arvo chill. Dinner maybe Malaysian? Next day, morning Zoo or maybe movies, arvo whatever we feel like, evening another place we have spotted. Next day home. Three nights away, plenty to tick off the food and shopping and experience list that we just can't get here. I'm sold. Just need for this virus to bugger off so we can do it. I am hopeful for Spring...

My Family History - Part 8 - Omi & Opi

Omi and Opi. Rosa and Fritz were their real names, but always Omi and Opi to us. They were a major institution in our family for a very long time.

I believe after Opi finished his stint in the Snowy Mountains Scheme post-war (he was an electrical engineer), and perhaps a little after that, they relocated from the Snowy's to Cobram. At least I think that was what happened. Ma or V or Peter will confirm. Either way, pretty much my whole life, and certainly from HK onwards, that's where they lived. And following them, or perhaps preceding them, I'm not sure, were Heidi and Carlo, and Brig and Greg. So when we came home from first HK and then Sing when I was a kid, Cobram was always on the stop list. I loved it.

I reckon the photo below was circa 1980, an event that we commonly refer to as Omi's Do. I think that was an Aunty Heidi-ism, that was how she spoke, bless her. It was their 50th wedding anniversary, an absolutely remarkable achievement. They really were the elder statesmen of that side of the family, loved and respected by all.
I

Haha, that night still resounds with me to a degree. If it was 1980 I was about 8, and my cousin Mark 11. I don't remember a whole lot, but it was held in some kind of school gym hall. The floor was those kinds of polished / lacquered wood floorboards that used to adorn school basketball court floors. I remember that fact because Mark and I danced the night away! Well, I stood there and kind of stepped backwards rhythmically, one foot at a time. For an 8yo, that was quite a feat, and it certainly seemed to resound with many of the ladies that were there. Obviously in adult hindsight it was just "cute", but hey at the time I was Lionel Richie!

Apart from that one event, for our visits and when we lived in Cobram (for me from 1988 to 1989) there were two staples that stick in the memory. One was going to Omi and Opi's (or just Omi's by that time as dear old Opi had passed on when we were living in Sing) for morning tea on a Sunday. The other was the Christmas Eve party there each year. But let's start with the morning tea.

Omi was a superb cook, and some of her staples were and are still, legendary. What springs to mind for me is her berlinas (not sure of correct spelling, but they are small, deep-fried, sugar-coated, jam-fillet donuts). OMG they were to die for. Another was her bienenstich cake, as well as her chocolate oats sponge cake. Wow, just superb, and to be gotten nowhere else. Mind you, Auntie Brig is producing a pretty fine facsimile of the choc oats one these days. She also always had sliced hard-boiled eggs, anchovies, a nice tuna mix, crackers, and various other nibblies, available at any time. Sunday morning was always the busiest, but we would visit at other times too, and Omi would immediately shuffle off to the kitchen area in her little flat to make coffee and ensure there was a plate of food in front of whoever was there. Omi was quietly spoken, and would often sit in her chair and just enjoy the company and chatter, as the various families in the wider Brown / Hundt / Allemand / Schneider families caught up at Omi's more often than anywhere else. I also remember Omi's poodles, that she had later in life. First Benji and then Charlie. Charlie particularly, was a nervy fellow, and you could hear him howling as soon as we entered the gate at Brig's and were making our way to the backyard and Omi's flat. Omi was constantly shushing him, and once we were all settled he would stand on the arm of her chair at attention for a few minutes, until he begrudgingly settled, always with one eye on the intruders.

The other memorable event that occurred each and every Christmas Eve was the family BBQ, held in Brig's backyard to both serve as a wider family get-together, but also celebrate Omi's birthday. I used to have a couple of photos of it, but none I can lay my hands on right now. I will update this post if I ever come across them again. One of these days I might need to raid Mum's photos. I did that years ago, hence my folder of family photos, but I am older and have a broader scope of family meaningfulness now (whatever that means), so I may covet others that bring back some good old memories too.

Anyway, so this event was like a 5pm - 9pm affair. Only once did I stay later, and that was when I was visiting back from the west not long after uni I think. But when I was a kid was when these events were in their heyday. The crowd would often number close to 50, uncles, aunts, cousins, family friends, many of whom I only ever saw on Christmas Eve. Even Gunter and Robyn would attend and be cordial, as much as they seemed to make themselves the odd ones out. In the late 80's and early 90's, these events went smoothly, and while not everyone was close, all were well-behaved for Omi's sake, and I for one really enjoyed them. I liked my cousins on Brig's side, and hardly ever saw them outside of this environment. I ended up working for Craig a few times in uni breaks and even played cricket with him for a couple of summers. But I digress. Apart from the BBW and socialising, we, for a number of years, had a secret santa kind of deal, where everyone would buy for one other person. Carlo would be Santa, and this ensured everyone received a gift on the night. It was a great idea in principle, although I am not sure how many of the gifts were that well-received! One exception was that of Buffy (Anita - she hates the name Buffy, but that is what we called her in those days). One year she got a big box, all wrapped up. In it, to her surprise, was a large brick. But under that brick was an envelope with a plane ticket for her to go visit her family in QLD. She was rapt.

Omi loved these evenings. They were really just a big extension of the weekly visits to her little flat, but with everyone there all at once. Omi would sit quietly and chat to whoever came over to sit with her. She loved watching the kids play and run around, and always met your glance with a beautiful grandmother's smile. She truly had a heart of gold and was a gentle, happy woman. As was the case for much of my youth (and frankly my adulthood as well), I was never good with smalltalk, and really could have made a lot more of my relationship with her. With her being so quiet, well our conversations were always quite simple, but yet I did enjoy her company, and in hindsight I am happy to think of how much she loved her visitors, family in general, and the effort people made to see her.

Omi entered a home about 5-6 years before her passing in 2009. The annual BBQ's had stopped a few years before that I believe, as her health made it harder for her to participate. She was really the glue that held the larger family together, and with her not being so much in the picture, well I guess we had less reason to see the wider Allemand family, the Hundt's family friends, the neighbours, etc. It's kind of sad really, as while all have their issues, well nobody is perfect, and I have no qualms in spending a few hours with any of them. It is a pity that those days are gone.

The photo below is of Omi and I when I visited her at the home in Yarrawonga (I think that's where it was). At that stage, while struggling with basics like bathroom activities, cooking and the like, she was still quite alert and had her memories and thoughts intact, and it was a pleasure to see her. I was living in West Wyalong at the time, so not that far away, after about 12 years in the west and up north.

I was lucky enough to be able to help her with her lunch, and sit with her for a while, telling her what I had been up to. I visited her in the home another time with Mum, Heidi and Rita, but by then she was slowly slipping away, mentally as well as physically. It was sad to see her deteriorate - it's debatable which is worse, losing someone as a sudden shock, or seeing them slowly go over many years. At least Mum and her sisters got to spend a lot of time with Omi, and I know Vicki spent a lot of time caring for her too.

Omi went to be with Opi in late 2009, not long before she would have turned 100. At 99, she was the longest-living person in our family by a long, long way. She is greatly missed, fondly remembered, and her recipes will remain legendary in our family for all long as those of us who tasted them remain. I will never forget how she never lost her thick German accent. "Help yourself" she used to say, while shooing Charlie for barking, and then pouring coffee. Rest peacefully dear Omi.

I can't sign off without a small footnote to Opi. I didn't get to spend much time with him, but I do remember him being a typical grandpa, teasing, always making a little joke, and always in a jovial mood, even when he was old and frail. I remember him having this stand where he kept all his pipes, and I always loved the smell of his tobacco. I don't remember myself, but Mum spoke about how he would goad Dad in jest, about religion and politics and the like, and how Dad would always bite. I can just picture Opi doing that, even though I never witnessed it myself.

I never met my other grandparents - Nanny and Grand-dad Bob, on Dad's side, both of whom passed before I was born - me being the accident that I was. I can refer you to my cousin Phil's book on HK for a better description of them and their lives than I can muster. May they all rest in peace.

Dear Lala

Dear Lala,

Today is your eighth birthday! Happy birthday my big girl! I hope you have the most wonderful of days. Of course you will, because you have a wonderful, positive outlook on life, and you almost always look on the bright side of everything. For your age, you are very wise, very mature, and someone I admire greatly.

Why am I writing to you on here? Well, for posterity I suppose, and hopefully if this blog survives into the future, perhaps you'll find this and other posts about you and the rest of our family. And hopefully those memories will make you smile, knowing how loved you are, and how wonderful life can be.

My life is certainly better for having you in it. I have been looking at old photos recently, and found some showing your first birthday! I'll put one in of us together here.

Being a parent is not the easiest thing in the world, and as you know, your brothers do like to test their boundaries, bless them. I know sometimes I can be an angry and scary dad, especially if someone is being defiant. We have figuratively bashed heads on occasion, but very rarely, and you do respond very well to logic. I know things don't always seem fair, because I do expect more from you. But you deliver more, time and time again - you love and protect your brothers, you are a wonderful daughter who always loves a hug, and you just enjoy people. You are inquisitive, like to make a fun situation from everything, enjoy good food, like to push yourself, and love to learn. These attributes will take you far in life my dear girl.

In case you're wondering, when you do one day read this, no I didn't get your birthday wrong. I wrote all the above on the day, but only published it today (having to change computers to get the photo I wanted).

I guess if there's any piece of advice I can give you, it's to not focus too much on having things. I know you love your toys, but I am also glad to see that you're always the first to be ready to donate them too. Toys are fun yes, but as you find with your nono island game on pillows, or treasure hunt with bits of paper, the fun is what you make, not what you have. You have a vivid and wonderful imagination, so I encourage you to focus more on experiences than things, and on growth and learning, rather than having. Hey I'm not saying become a monk or anything - it is nice to have some treasured possesions; books you love (like my Steven Brust collection), toys you love (like some great Lego sets or your Baby Alive). If you inherit the Brown gypsy gene, you'll know what I mean about having too much stuff - moving around with a big household is a pain and expensive too. We have given away SO much stuff over the years it's amazing. It's nice to give, but it's probably smarter to perhaps not accumulate so much to begin with (I'm talking about me mainly here).

The other piece of advice is to always tell the truth, and mainly, always tell the truth to yourself about how you feel. Be very careful not to kid yourself, not to be too hard on yourself, and to make time for yourself, always. Yes, the mantra I tell you guys all the time: treat others the way you want to be treated, holds true always. But that includes you too! I'm not saying don't live a big life, especially when you're young. I'm just saying be careful, put yourself first, and choose to be happy, because remember, how you feel is always your choice.

That's probably enough rambling from me sweetie. I have other letters I have written to you electronically some time ago, so I might post them here sometime too. I do hope you find this blog one day, as if I get the chance to write down everything I want to, it will tell you a whole lot about your background. Because I am the youngest, there are so many people you won't get to meet in this life, like my dad, but I want you to know about them.

I love you Lala, and I always will. I'm so proud to be your dad, you make me a better person. See you in the next letter!

Dada

Noodling4 - Lots of Coins

Frankly, my first week noodling and recording on here was an absolute cracker!

150 - CBA Kerang
50 - ANZ Kerang
150 - ANZ Cohuna
200 - ANZ Echuca
100 - NAB Echuca
300 - Worker's Club Echuca

Where else? Not Cohuna, not CBA Echuca. Haha, well I already broke that rule, but won't again, as I could see the teller was like "WTF, this coin guy again!" so I'll go easy on these small branches.

So ANZ Echuca, NAB Echuca, Westpac Echuca, Bendigo Echuca will be the go. Plus Swan Hill when possible and maybe Rochester if I have time. Melbourne when I go down there too.

Places to and from Melbourne are also possible. Although bearing in mind that most collectors will be urban-based. Still, most coins will be the same, so it's a trade off. Either way, I need to spread it out. I guess I also need to be mindful that seeing as 100% of my coins are currently going to Echuca CBA, maybe I shouldn't get new coins from there, as I could quite possibly be re-noodling the same damn coins. I think that's a good point!

Right, enough rambling. So we ended up with a continuous noodle of $950 this week, which is awesome, and an improvement on last week. Next week I doubt I'll go as hard, unless I can visit different banks, in which case I'll still have a crack.

Ok, so you have read the first bits of this post, thinking that it has been a long time between drinks for my noodling. The fact is, it's actually been a long time between noodling posts, not the noodling itself. It's now April and not only have I noodled my butt off for months since my last post, I have also sold a heap of coins for a very nice profit.

I have labelled this post at Broken Hill as since my last post, that's the furthest I have been from home while noodling. Actually that's the furthest I have been full stop. The last few months have been really busy and I have been having a great time, so I'm kind of spewing I haven't posted at all. The journey has been good. I guess my first noodling posts were very detailed, and I soon realised that it would be too difficult to keep that up.

This whole virus thing has kind of delayed my noodling, as I am not keen to go into physical banks so much. But maybe next week I'll get some. Then again, this weekend being the first I haven't noodled at all, I was actually able to make some good progress on here, on photographing and listing other coins, and just stuff in general. So perhaps another weekend or two of no noodling won't hurt in terms of getting other things done.

That's about it for now. I wanted to get this finished and done, and the next time I do a noodling post I'll make it more relevant to the time frame since this last one. The only other thing I'll say is that I am loving noodling!!!

Wish List

This post started out as something of a temporary checklist, as part of getting all the crap off my old phone, ready for it to return to factory settings. I had these things in a "Wish List" app, not for others reference, but for my own. Now that I reflect on them, well a couple of them have a significant history with me, so they're worth mentioning in more detail. So in the end, this temporary parking of a checklist in my blog drafts has ended up becoming a full-blown post. Funny how things work out sometimes :)

So here I am in April 2020. That first paragraph was written back in January, or perhaps last year. A lot has happened in the meantime. Firstly, I got promoted! Yee-farking-hah-baby! I hope that doesn't sound facetious, it was actually an absolutely superb occurrence and I am SO happy about my new job. It's my dream job, for a dream company, close to Mum and home base, so many many positives. Yeah life is still throwing a few spanners in the proverbial works, but I suspect that may well have happened regardless, so it's probably just as well it happened here and like this.So let's talk about the wish list.

DKNY Men, the long bottle (there are a few versions, this one from mid-2000's):

Ah, the memories this evokes. Hey and not all good ones either. I guess this scent comes from a formative part of my life. I found this back in probably 2000-2001, not long after I broke up with Fi, and when I was in North Perth with Kero, and living the strip club life. Yeah, yeah, judge not, and all that, but that's what it was back then. I explored parts of me that I needed to explore, and emerged a better person because of it. But in the midst, I was a regular in the strip club and nightclub scene in Northbridge, Perth. I was there within an hour of flying in on break, and there most nights. I remember going to my favourite club - The Red Windmill - at like 5pm one day because they were open to service the yank sailors who were in town. Of course being a strip club, it didn't exude much in the way of enticement during daylight hours, so I was largely there on my own. I was enjoying the attentions of some amazingly gorgeous lovelies, and I didn't care. Only now, as I look back do I realise how much cash I blew - not just that day but in general from 2002 to 2004. Oh well, as I said, formative years. But it was later on at the Universal Bar (a fucking cracking and awesome bar if you're ever in Perth) that this memory comes from.

There were a group of yanks at the bar, and I was enjoying talking to a few of them. One particularly loud guy was saying that Aussie commandos were so fucking crazy that they went out of a chopper head-first, and trying to copy them copped him a bullet in the arse. His point was that it was these antics that cost him. I pointed out that had he not been arse-up in the same situation, he may well have copped the same bullet in the face. This drew ire from him but guffaws from his mates.

Hey, it's my blog so fuck it. I am going to take relevant timelines are go with the flow. Talking about the Uni Bar evokes more memories - like sitting there early in the evening (as is my wont) and talking to one of the guys about their awesome music. It was St Germain, and I immediately bought an album, which I play to this day. Instrumental only, chilled, rhythmic and relaxed music. Very cool. And a great bar, especially at that time of day. It was fun later in the evening when the music was live too, but I preferred it earlier. Plus it mainly attracted a lower percentage of knuckleheads, which suited me just fine. As I was alone most of the time, I was wary in some spots of standing out to those looking for trouble.

You could take this further, and talk about the Brass Monkey, and hey why not, I will. The Brass was the other pub in that vicinity that I often went to. In fact I usually started at the Brass while waiting for the Mill to open. I had a usual spot, in the smaller side section of the front bar, in front of a TV that played music videos. I would sit there quietly, enjoy a few pints, and watch music. It was solitude while being among a crowd, and frankly, I liked it. I also had numerous beers with Luke at the Brass on days we met for Dim Sum back in the day. Great memories. Alas the Brass has lost its allure for  me now - last time I was there with Dean back in about 2014 it was run down and had no issue with very poorly behaved people there during the day. A pity.

Anyway, so I digress - a lot. The DKNY scent is a citrusy kind of thing, crisp, masculine, and I loved it. I wore it each and every time I went out. The long bottle is not easy to find any more, but one can still see it online. I bought a cheap bottle a while ago though, and when compared to my lone old bottle, it wasn't the same. Must have been bootleg. So hopefully one of these more reputable online stores will help me out, it would be a shame to lose that smell. A scent that evokes memories long-past. It's not a past I yearn for, in fact I yearn for no past, I love my life as it is now. But nostalgic feelings can be quite pleasing ones.

Merrell Solo shoes, size 8.5 UK.

Holy mother of God. This is one of the best products I have ever owned in my entire life. I LOVE these shoes! I am probably about halfway through the life of the second pair I have owned, both the style and colour as shown above. They are so comfortable, easy to wear and great to walk in. I have owned another style of Merrell before also, but didn't like them anywhere near as much as these. The second pair I bought cost me a bomb, and I kept them under wraps for a long time, in order to prolong their existence. But of course that's really nonsense when it comes to shoes, so eventually they came out, pretty much when we moved to Barooga in 2016 I think. 2020 now and they're still going strong. Makes me want to go for one of my long Damansara walks....

That's a whole other topic, and early on in this blog you can find reference to some of the many walks I did back in 2015/2016 before we left Malaysia, when I was twiddling my thumbs during ASN's fall from grace. What a life. Such walks are not as fun here, even though it's far easier to walk around in Australia. I guess without knowing what hawker stall / restaurant / bar / whatever you are going to come across, Kl walks were a whole lot of fun, and usually ended with me filling my belly in some regard, haha!

So there were a couple of other products on this list, but only those that had entered recently. In terms of longevitiy, well these two are the only ones that matter. If I can keep using them for the rest of my life I will, let's hope I can continue to find them.