Author: admin

No Time to Trim the Mullet

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Melbourne hairdresserWhen did life get so unreasonably busy? I’ve been trying to get to the newsagent to fill up my electricity meter for the last week, and there’s just…no time. Simple little thing, and I can’t even do that much. Kelsie’s rabbits need feeding, with is a train and a bus trip away, and I never should’ve said that I can do it. Work needs me to go all the way into the CBD to get flowers for Daria’s leaving party, which took up most of my time after work because the trains were playing up, and then it was my nephew’s play, so…

Okay, so that’s where all the time went. On things I have no control over, cool, great. Guess I shouldn’t feel bad, but it’s hard not to when I see the dishes piling up, or I look at myself in the mirror and realise that I’m skirting the edge of the mullet territory. Thing is, when I was in the CBD picking up the flowers, I saw a hair stylist at David Jones and I thought… ‘fifteen minutes. I’m a guy, my hair doesn’t take that long.’

And then the choking anxiety over not being able to get stuff done sets in, so I just kept walking. Funny how that works. Even the little things just seem to be out of your reach when there’s so much to do already. Fortunately I have a free day on Saturday…besides the rabbits, of course. I shouldn’t pin too much on it though; that’s setting myself up for failure. I’m getting myself hair salon booking, I know that much. So tired of wrangling these unruly locks into something appropriate for work. Chop ‘em all off, weather be damned. Maybe I actually will go into the CBD, see if I can find a good hairdresser. David Jones has a salon that seems to be pretty decent. I’ll spend the rest of the day drinking bubble tea and planning my schedule a bit better. That’s probably all it is, to be honest. I just don’t make enough solid plans.

-Bryce

You Just Gotta Believe!

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office designers MelbourneEveryone can achieve success. You just have to BELIEVE.

I really am a perfect example of a success story, given how I crawled out from the gutter and now own Office Smiles Inc., a company of my own creation that focuses on improving office spaces for everyone. Maybe your workers aren’t cohesive? We’ll send them on a motivational conference. Working in a drab space? We’ll put you onto one of our trusted designer offices in Melbourne, and you can have that pristine workspace for ultimate productivity.

And it’s true: you CAN achieve anything. Just take me, a total degenerate from a disadvantaged home where my parents- a dentist and a lawyer- made somewhat less money than their counterparts in the big city, because they lived in the country. I had to go to a country private school that didn’t even have a pool or horse-riding ring! And when it came time for me to work, my parents lightly pressured me into taking an office job with a business contact, again in a country town so I wasn’t quite used to the fast pace of city offices. But I still made something of myself anyway. All I had to go on was five years of internships and office experience, and also those conferences that my parents sent me on to develop my skills. Still, they only went for a about a week each, and there were only to a year, so it’s not like I was totally set up from the get-go!

I have a great relationship with a whole team of trusted office designers near Melbourne, each with their own specialties depending on what that particular office needs. And then there are the motivational speakers; got a list of them as long as my arm, for every occasion. That’s what Office Smiles Inc. does: we guarantee smiles and productivity. It’s in our company ethos statement! No smile, here’s your refund. But speakers and fitouts generally get the job done.

-Donny Y

From GUILT, and onwards to STRENGTH

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aluminium toolboxes MelbourneAddictions are serious business, and they can strike at any time. One day you’re just going about business as usual, you find a new brand of fruit-and-nut chocolate that you really like, and you decide to eat a little piece every day. An hour later and boom! All gone. And chocolate isn’t expensive, you you get yourself down to the shop to get some more, reasoning that you’ll *probably* go to the gym that day. And then boom! All of it is gone, you didn’t go to the gym, and now you cannot live without a delicious square of fruity, nutty chocolate.

My mouth is watering, so I should stop.

Still, our group therapy class is both helpful and fascinating. I never knew you could be so addicted to such a wide variety of things! I’ve become quite good friends with Ozzie, who’s addicted to ute modifications. He’s always looking to add tool box central locking, or extra under tray drawers…and just last weekend he had some new roof racks and bars fitted, without telling his wife. As our therapist says, these things are not wrong by themselves. Some people take pride in their work vehicles, and that’s a healthy outlet. But it stops being a healthy outlet when it transgresses the GUILT system:

G– Guilt over time

I– Instant Regret after engaging in the activity

U– Uncontrollable Urges to do/eat more

L– Love, but not the good kind

T– Terrible Troubles with friends and relatives.

Those are the signs! And so many people miss them. One week you’re just making an innocent modification to your toolbox, and then boom! Your garage is absolutely stuffed with the best Melbourne aluminium toolboxes money can buy. That’s how Ozzie told it, anyway. And then there’s me, with my computer desk covered in Bradbury’s Fruit-and-Nut chocolate wrappers. However, we’re working on moving past our GUILT, and onto STRENGTH. That’s:

S– Strength to resist

T– Try not to do the bad things…

-Tatiana

Just Find a Mechanic You Trust…

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car service RingwoodWell, that’s the very last time I get my car service done at Sharky Joe’s Mechanic Emporium. I know the whole thing was done online, a guy came to pick up the car and drop it off, thus meaning that I was even less involved in my car servicing than usual…but it seemed like such a good deal. Fifty bucks for a full service! And then I got a call from a guy who said that they COULD drive my car back, but unless I shelled out an extra five-hundred bucks for parts, then the whole vehicle could just expire at any time.

And I can’t contest that, because I know nothing about cars, so…I said no. I will have my car back, Sharky Joe. I’ll have it back, and not do anything until I’ve found a local mechanic based in Ringwood who I can talk to face to face.

They always say that, don’t they? I think I have found a place that offers the best car servicing Ringwood has to offer.  They seem to be an honest place, with professional mechanics to talk to. Mechanics with whom I may interact, anyway. So if I have a problem with log book servicing, or there’s an auto-electrical problem, then I can be there and they can explain it to me. I can find out how serious it is, and whether it’ll cause mild irritation or just make my entire car go bust on my morning commute, endangering my life and the lives of several other motorists.

Sharky Joe’s may have been cheap, but they’re clearly trying to rip me off because I wasn’t involved in the car process at all. Well, no more. Definitely no more, because I just called Sharky Joe’s to give them a piece of my mind and their number has been disconnected.

Time to head over to Ringwood, car mechanics who are honest are not easy to find.  This place comes well-recommended, so I’ll go with them instead. There IS something to be said for the human touch rather than deal hunting online…

-Kelly

Possible Extra Benefits of Oxygen…?

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Melbourne oxygen therapySo as it turns out, inhaling oxygen does not give you a deep voice. That’s sad.

I kinda figured that if helium gave you a high and squeaky voice, oxygen might do something similar, but in reverse. Alas, it doesn’t really seem to do much of anything. All that time and money spent in pursuit of Melbourne’s best hyperbaric medicine treatments, and it turns out that all it does is help you to breathe. Disappointing. Well, not if you have any breathing problems, or if maybe you need to recover from a sporting injury. But if you’re looking for a naturally deeper voice than the one you were born with, then oxygen therapy isn’t for you.

I’m really just wasting the time of experts in hyperbaric medicine, which I acknowledge, but seriously…people with breathing issues have hyperbaric treatments. What do I have? I could take up smoking, but then I’d be the one with trouble breathing. Then I’d have to go and get oxygen therapy, and it’d just be a really silly, foolish and cyclical process where nobody wins and everybody is made to feel foolish. Or rather, I’d be made to feel foolish. I’ve heard that drinking scotch on a daily basis makes yours voice deeper, but I don’t particularly like the taste (or the social implications).

Unless…okay, so I take up smoking, but just enough that it changes my voice to something a little bit deeper. I might not even need hyperbaric medicine at that point, but I’d go and get it anyway because it pays to be careful. I mean, if there are places in Melbourne offering oxygen therapy, then I might as well repair any damage from my brief foray into the world of cigarettes and tobacco. If it turns out that my voice stays low and husky, then great! And if it doesn’t, well…the search continues, I suppose.

-Mark

The Supreme Inspector…Has Spoken?

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kids birthday party venue AdelaideThat settles it: we need better standards for children’s entertainment. In REAL LIFE.

I’ve been advocating for children’s entertainment to be better on television for years, even before my own kids were born. It all started when I accidentally flipped onto a channel that showed two puppets hugging in a way that i thought was a little bit too intimate. No A-frame, and they held the position a little bit too long, plus it was a boy puppet and a girl puppet so you can’t just shrug it off as being a bro or girly thing.

From that moment, I decided that someone needed to stand up for the children and their innocent little minds, and also provide them with something educational. The world depends on it.

That’s why I appointed myself Play Centre Inspector Supreme, roaming from place to place, every single birthday party venue in Adelaide (and sometimes those outside the state when I’m feeling vigorous), making sure all the kids are getting something truly wholesome and wonderful. And educational; that’s also important.

That’s why Funky Franklin has me in such a tizzy. He goes from one birthday party venue to another, teaching children things. That part is great. If he’s entertaining and also teaches kids how to not stick a fork in a toaster, then he gets a certain amount of points.

But he also delivers his messages via rap, which is an inherent evil that corrupts the minds of young people. You can see why I’m having a problem, because kids party venues are already keenly hunting for people to do some entertaining, and the educational aspect IS there. But then…rap. Do I tolerate rap within the hallowed halls of the indoor play centres for hire in Adelaide? If I was really the Play Centre Inspector Supreme, I’d know the answer. I have to be decisive.

Rap…or education. Education…or rap??

-Erin

The Room of Zero Emergencies

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oxygen therapy MelbourneOkay, there’s officially nothing to watch. How unfair is it that all the shows go on hiatus at exactly the same time, anyway? There are a bunch of emotionally-exhausting season finales, and then…silence. They couldn’t just spread them out a little bit more?

Since Jack of All Trades and The Great Australian Trade Off both wrapped up, I’ve had nothing. I’m reduced to watching old reruns of ‘NER’ (that’s Non-Emergency Room), and I’m really wondering why they bothered to make the show in the first place. It’s really just a bunch of attractive people having relationship dramas while tending to patients with small cuts on their fingers, or slightly worse-than-usual colds.

The one time they did anything adventurous was with that episode about the portable hyperbaric chambers. Available for hire in Melbourne, it almost seems prophetic, but this was in the nineties when this thing aired. Basically, the main drama of the episode was that Linda got involved in hyperbaric medicine, and her parents thought it sounded a bit strange. Also, they really wanted her to continue with her cardiology course, but they were won over by the end of the episode and said that Linda could make her own decisions. So Linda went to study hyperbaric medicine, and that was it. Nobody is going to change her mind once she sets it on a goal. 

Wow…this show really WAS boring. If Week of Our Lives ever tackled an oxygen therapy episode- and let’s be honest, they probably have by now- it’d be something totally wacky and bizarre. So I guess Melbourne’s oxygen therapy got a more respectful treatment in this show from the nineties, even if they did the same thing they do with everything else and made it dull as ditchwater. Maybe that’s better, or perhaps the opposite. But dull or not, I can’t stop watching. Maybe it’s the ultimate in comfort television, because nothing ever happens.

-Moira

Animation for Kids…Too Kiddy for Me

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kids party venue hire CanberraThe greatest downside of my life at the moment is that there aren’t enough hours in the day to watch new anime. If it were up to me, I’d divide my time quite specifically: the hours of 9am to 5pm are for normal, boring life stuff. Break for dinner. 7-9pm are for watching current or ongoing series, then 9-11pm are for sampling and reviewing new ones. I’d stay up later, but Mum would be really angry. She hates it when I go to bed too late.

One I’m really considering writing a strong review about at the moment is ‘Castle Dream Kid Squad!’, which everyone is going on about online right now. I don’t really see the appeal.

You’ve got find kids party venues for hire close to Canberra, and they all look pretty normal, like a standard play centre. The story is about a bunch of really young kids who, when they go to the play centre, transform into adult knights and go on massive adventures. I’m only on episode four, and one thing I do kinda like is how you can’t tell if it’s just their imagination or actual magic. I remember being a kid…like a few years ago. I used to go to a play centre, and I sometimes genuinely managed to convince myself that I was Drago-tron, Ravager of Dimensions, Lord of Torment and He-Who-Eradicates-Goodness. None of the other kids wanted to play that specific game, so I just played myself. But play centres are cool

Still, I’m not sold on the plot progression. They don’t GO anywhere. They’re always defending this one castle against mutant elephants and the Parental Devastation Squad, armed with coffee bazookas. It’s really kid-friendly, with long speeches about friendship and how awesome ball pits are.

I’m thinking this really is an anime just for kids, and also the parents watching with them. Maybe it’s supposed to make people think back to when THEY used to go to kids parties around Canberra and remember their childhood, and the imaginary games they played. But I gotta be cruel. 4/10, needs more magical girls and dream explosions. Not cute.

-Dylan-kun

I Object…To People Not Watching This

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Melbourne property solicitorsKAWAII.

Sorry. I just had to express my excitement at the amazing discovery I’ve just made. I thought I’d pretty much watched every single anime of 2017, even if I dropped most of them after the pilot episode for being inadequate. When there are so many around, you can’t afford to get too invested in those that aren’t up to scratch. Everyone knows that.

But then my tomodachi sent me a link to Hai, Objection!, which didn’t win any awards and thus totally passed me by. I was blown away, for real. Hai, Objection! is slice-of-life, a genre I’m not usually too interested in due to the lack of dragons and magical explosion battles, but it was a recommendation from my nakama. And if there’s one thing us otaku cannot ignore, it’s that. And gosh, as soon as I saw the opening scene- protagonist-san, rushing to school, with a piece of toast in their mouth- I was bowled over by the animation budget.

And I’ll tell you what: I’m learning a lot about commercial law in Melbourne, because that’s what the show is all about. Who knew establishing an animation studio in Melbourne would produce such quality content? Anyway, it’s all about protagonist-san and their quest through law school to become an esteemed business lawyer and…conduct business law, I suppose. It’s been their dream, ever since their father died in a freak sentencing hearing explosion. Already, the backstory is all there, along with the motivation.

Apart from that one explosion, it’s mostly been dialogue, and the occasional lecture on the nature of solicitors and their role in the legal system. Still, protagonist-san as plenty of misadventures outside of class, like when he accidentally got himself into a situation where the girls thought he was a pervert, and the many other times that happened in the first couple of episodes. Also, they hosted a cultural fair. I didn’t even know legal schools in Melbourne had those, but there you go!

All I know is that if I ever need help with understanding the role of a property solicitor, in Melbourne, I’ll get all I need from Hai, Objection! and its totally-accurate depiction of law school, and cat-human hybrids. Apparently it gives them the edge in a court of law, probably because most people don’t have tails. Pshh…they need to watch more anime.

-Dylan-kun

Coming Soon: The Phantom Artisans

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decorative glassMelbourne’s art scene is great and all, but I say it can be loads better. So, SO much better. That’s why I’d like to introduce the internet to the Phantom Artisans. You’ll probably be getting to know us by our work in the very near future, but here’s a handy guide about us for anyone who wants a bit of insider info.

Now, look…there’s a lot to love about our great city of Melbourne. The interesting weather. The historical buildings. That hot beverage that everyone likes that in my opinion is a little bit overrated. But a true city of the arts should look a little different, in our opinion.

This whole thing started when one of us did an apprenticeship with a company in Melbourne that does office decorative glass. Some company that needed their glass to be tinted orange in an attractive pattern…and what an excellent colour, I might add. Now, they might have gotten the idea, but take a walk through the city centre. There might be sculptures of sorts, and a few dedicated areas to artistic pursuits, and there’s also that giant battery. That’s…fine. But the office buildings are all the same: uniform, metal and glass, the same colour…boring. How can we call ourselves a city of the arts if THAT is what people see from a distance?

And so, our aim is to steadily transform the city, and show that even the world of business can benefit from a touch of colour and life. We’re seeking to transform culture, basically. Obviously the old commercial decorative glass industry can help us out there. Got a window that needs replacing? We’ll be there, with a gentle suggestion that instead of boring regular glass, why not add a dash of colour and make something truly unique? That’s going to be our starting point, anyway. We have quite a few other projects in mind other than window tinting. But it’s a start…and you’ll be seeing a lot more of us soon.

-Donatello