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Lina*Klar says...

Brrr. Es ist viel kaelter hier als in Thailand. Und ich finde das aeusserst unfair, dass ich dafuer ausgelacht werde, immer zu froesteln. So. Das musste mal gesagt werden. Aber sonst ists natuerlich schoen hier. Es ist mehr als genug Strand fuer alle da und man kann selbst in den dichtbevoelkerten Gebieten sehr leicht ein ruhiges Plaetzchen finden, wenn man bereit ist etwas zu laufen. Aber ich fange wohl mal von vorne an. Untergekommen bin ich hier bestens. Ich wohne bei Ingrid und Manfred. Also fuer alle, die meine Familienverhaeltnisse bis jetzt noch zu durchschaubar fanden: Manfred ist der Bruder von dem verstorbenen Mann der Freundin meines Vaters, also Annettes Schwager. Alles klar?
Ich hab mir in Sydney natuerlich die Oper und den botanischen Garten angeschaut und es sieht so aus, wie es sich gehoert. Schick. Dann war ich noch im Aquarium und konnte mich echt nicht satt sehen. Die haben da ein riesengrosses Meerwasserbecken durch das zwei Plexiglasroehren fuehren, durch die man laufen kann. Die Haie, Meeresschildkroeten, Rochen und das ganze Viehzeugs schwimmen einem also staendig ueber den Kopf hinweg. Es hat aber keiner versucht, in die Plexi-Roehre zu beissen. Dann habe ich noch Ausfluege zu einem Leuchtturm in Palm-Beach gemacht und eine Tour an der Kueste entlang von der Spit-Bridge nach Mainly. Palm-Beach liegt noerdlich von Sydney und man braucht von Manfred und Ingrid, die auf dem Collaroy Plateau wohnen, ca. 1Std. dorthin. Nach Mainly aber auch, nur eben in die andere Richtung. Ich war ein paar Mal im Meer und am Strand und ich habe mir Mainly genauer angesehen und festgestellt, dass man hier auch prima feiern gehen kann. Meine Frage nach der naechsten Bushaltestelle endete in einer Kneipenrunde und einer Party, zu der ich heute abend gehe. Ich bin ja mal gespannt, ob die mich noch wiedererkennen, die Einladung ist bestimmt schon 4 Tage her...
A propos Wiedererkennen: Ich hab mir die Haare abschneiden lassen und bin grad aus dem Stadium ich-fuehl-mich-wie-ein-gerupftes-huhn raus. Jetzt find ichs ganz gut.
Also nach der Party heute Abend werde ich ungefaehr 2 Stunden im Hostel schlafen und dann um 6:30h nach Adelaide fliegen, wo ich dann spaeter Florian treffe (mein Quasi-Stiefbruder) um von dort aus dann eine Tour an der Kueste entlang zurueck nach Sydney zu machen. Weihnachten bin ich dann also wieder hier. Vorrausgesetzt Florians Auto bleibt nicht oefter mal liegen, was es jetzt anscheinend getan hat. Und wo wir grad bei Quasi-Stiefgeschistern sind: Sarah (also beinahe Stiefschwester) und Eike (ihr Freund) sind mittlerweile auch hier angekommen, haben ihren Jetlag ganz gut ueberwunden und erkunden jetzt Sydney. Christiane ist auch in Sydney unterwegs und laesst ihre alten Freund- und Liebschaften wieder aufleben. Wir werden wohl nicht sehr viel miteinander zu tun haben, Zeitmangel. Aber Gruesse leite ich natuerlich trotzdem weiter.

Sodann. Ich meld mich wieder. Das naechste Mal wohl auch etwas eher. Bis danndann
Sandra

                       
Click here to download:
Mir_ist_kalt_tags_Sydney.zip (1753 KB)

Filed under: Sydney

nov0caine says...

http://cuarts.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/blogging.jpgFrom an engagement perspective, it is a well known fact that any website with a blog in practice can foster an online community that centralizes its activity around your brand name. In business, blogging is a great selling point in conveying human qualities to your posts and promoting positive B2C interaction and encouraging feedback. But what about blogging for educational institutions...?

Blogging for your school or university is an excellent way to promote engagement online and also give an insight into life within your school, college or university. But there's no point in trying to convery the success of educational blogging without substance... Let's illustrate this with an example.

The International College of Management Sydney is a great example of educational blogging, click on the link and open up the site page. Let's run through step by step as to what makes the ICMS blog so ubiquitous and effective:

  1. Posts are written by student and staff - Now, from a reader's perspective, you really can not get much more genuine than this. Having the posts written directly by the staff and students of ICMS allows the readers to directly relate to the writers, with a subsequent inclination to learn more about the college. Now, not only is this a good tactic for building rapport with other students of the college, it also makes potential students and college prospects feel more welcome - an outcome of which all educational institutions strive to achieve.
  2. The posts add value - One common element you will encounter when trawling the vast expanse of the internet for decent reading material is the self-aggrandizing tone of business blogs, intricately laced with corporate jargon to the point where reading the first sentence will have that particular product or service ingrained in your mind forever. It is common with businesses, yes, but some educational institutions have also been notorious at blatant self-promotion. 

    What you will notice about the posts on the ICMS blog is that each adds value to the reader... But how are they adding value? That question is easiily answered. If the students and staff are not offering college advice or tips, they're adding value by making posts pleasurable to read. No post on the blog burdens the reader!

  3. Visual Appeal  - The design of the blog does not divert the reader's attention away from the blog posts, but still maintains an amiable visual appeal. The brand name is bold, and college imagery is also displayed throughout the header. The effectiveness of this? The campus is visually marketing itself, but subtly, which is ideally what institutions should aim to achieve.
  4. Call to actions - Any educational institution can benefit from social media, however in order to make these channel prevalent they need to be exposed wherever possible. By placing social media call to action buttons in an easily accessible place within the college blog, ICMS i effectively utilising the blogs function as an engagement hub and social media conduit.

 

So there you have it... In black and white, the illustrated benefits of running a blog for your educational institution. It's a great way to encourage engagement within your digital assets whilst subtly market your institution as genuinely as possible.

 

Filed under: sydney

Fine Diner says...

Aki's is an Indian restaurant with a difference. Besides having a great waterfront location - Kumar combines traditional indian cuisine with a modern twists. Besides the dishes below we also had the Quail Chetinand, Duck Mappas and Patiala Goat curry - all definately worth having again! The Duck is a keralite dish with the duck cooked in 3 extracts of coconut milk. The quail is with chetiyar masala and is cooked with dry spices. The goat curry is a slow cooked dish with cardamom, mace and nutmeg...

radish raita with fried aggplant

Crab with iddiappams - a southern delicay of shelled blue swimmer crab tossed with black mustard seeds, fresh tomato, ginger with traditional tamil brown rice string hoppers and a coconut broth

full tandoori snapper

wattalappam with palm sugar, coconut, cashew, cardamom and vanilla ice cream

Strawberry and passionfruit sorbet lined with mango and berry coulis

Filed under: Sydney

Fine Diner says...

Ormeggio is one of the latest Italian restaurants to open in town - near the spit bridge. Chef Alessandro Pavoni is from the northern Italian region of lombardia and prior to this was at the park Hyatt's harbour bar and kitchen. This is his first own restaurant and what a gorgeous waterfront location.

sardines panfried, wrapped in prosciutto with pine nuts and sultanas

Agnolotti stuffed with ricotta and 3 years aged bagoss cheese, tomato, basil and olives

Seafood risotto: made with rice aged for 1 year...

Wholemeal hand rolled pici pasta with rabbit ragout, porchini mushrooms and fresh peas

Filed under: Sydney

Fine Diner says...

Formaggi Ocello in Surry Hills has won the title of the best cheese shop in Sydney for 2010. What a shop!!!! Fell in love with it and did not want to leave the cheese room!!! They have over 200 varieties of local and international cheeses. Great staff and an amazing cheese room. They also do cheese and wine tastings on Mondays! We bought the Truffle Brie, Goats cheese (won the best australian cheese for the year), stilton, a lovely soft blue and a cheddar. Sensational!!!!

           
Click here to download:
Formaggi_Ocello_-_Sydney.zip (4184 KB)

Filed under: Sydney

Fine Diner says...

Adriano has just launched his new summer collection of desserts for 2009/2010. More berry flavours for summer rather than chocolate! Divine and inovative as always.

Clancy, the rains are coming: corn and mango salsa, vanilla saffron creme brulee, salt sable, mango jelly, pain d'epice and citron punch

Is anybody working? - apricot mousse, avocado creme mascarpone, tonka bean mousse, creme citron, poached fruit and juice

5 6 7 8 - pineapple palm sugar sous vide, lemongrass pandan and vanilla creme legere, coriander creameaux and peanut sable

weekend in the cross - pistachio pate sucree, rose brulee, rhubarb compote, fresh watermelon and raspberries with watermelon powder

Alessia, i like big buns - pate a choux, dukkah sable, pistachio creme mousseline, dijon mustard creme anglaise, pistachio crunchy and fresh raspberries

macaroons - black sesame, pineapple coconut, lychee, mint and lemon verbena, peach and raspberry bellini, mano and sticky rice...

cakes - chocolate walnut and blue cheese, flourless pistachio and olive oil cake with rhubarb and strawberries

searching for cherries in a black forest - vanilla cherry compote, mexique ganache, burnt vanilla brulee. fresh cherries

Filed under: Sydney

Judd6149 says...

I just scored tix to see the UK premier of "It Might Get Loud".  It is going to be at the, star-studded, mind you, Hammersmith Apollo on the 15th December

Do you know of it?  It is a documentary about three guitar players from three generation and three very different backgrounds. Maybe you heard of these guys: Jimmy Page, The Edge & Jack White. The scene is set for these three gun slingers to meet on an empty sound stage, start talking about their own story about how got into the guitar and then, [cue the spontaneity] hopefully a three-pronged jam will breakout.

Here is the trailer:

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I like rock documentaries much better than I like straight-up rock concert films. I want to learn something when I watch music. I love the stories behind songs and albums and artists. I sued to love the Behind the Music series on VH1. Even when they had an artist on I didn't particularly like, I still watched for the story.  Too bad it got drunk on hubris. I kept watching until I could no longer stand to see its show formula dry hump the legs of the performers until it turned into a parody of its former self.

Rock-Docco best done by someone who is passionate about the subject. Taylor Hackford is a great rock-docco/film director. He did Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll, the biting look the life and (fucked up) times of Chuck Berry.  He did his best to make a glory film about Chuck even thought Chuck gave him a shit fight of a time. The deluxe version has loads of great interviews with rock and blues legends.  

There is a GREAT interview with a very, very drunk...absolutely shitfaced...Jerry Lee Lewis on the deluxe version that is worth the extra bread (couldn't find it anywhere on the web).

Scorsese is another one. While I didn't really like all that he did with his latest on the Stones ("Shine a Light"), he has done some damn good work, a la The Last Waltz" and  the Bob Dylan docco, "No Direction Home".

If you want to see a PHENOMENAL music documentary, watch "Respect Yourself: The Story of Stax Records" RIGHT NOW! If you don't fall in love with this, you have no soul. Here is a promo clip for it.  When I saw Steve Cropper & Duck Dunn (remaining MGs) in Sydney two years ago, they played this clip from the movie before the show. The MGs were opening for this young Aussie wanker-pop-star. He went to Memphis to blood suck the soul music legacy to supplement his lack of creative song-writing talent. Cropper produced his album and was supporting it on this punk's Aussie tour. 

I guess you know who I was there to see.

They showed this to make sure the Aussie audience knew that they knew just who the hell was up there...MUSIC LEGENDS. My old buddy Nev, owner of Mojo Music in Sydney, used to say about Cropper (one of his heroes): "Steve Cropper...never played a bumb note in his life. Agreed, Nev.

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Here is a list of all of my music DVDs. You'll see that the majority of them are rock-doccos:

(download)

Filed under: Sydney

Lina*Klar says...

So. Jetzt bin ich wohlbehalten, vielmehr heute morgen um halb 7, in Sydney angekommen und hundemuede. Als erste Unternehmungen bin ich von Christiane und Viv (Freundin von Christiane) durch Sydney zu den wichtigsten Aussichtspunkten gefahren worden. Ich hab Standup-Paddler am Bondi-Beach gesehen, war Fish and Chips essen und habe einen Blick aus der Ferne auf die Oper und die Harbour-Bridge geworfen. Meine Schultern habe ich am Strand direkt ein kleines bisschen verkohlt. Nun bin ich bei Ingrid, Manfred und ihren suessen beiden Toechter, satt gegessen, zufrieden und extrem muede.
Also. Mehr erzaehle ich dann einfach morgen. Bis danndann.

     
Click here to download:
in_Australien_tags_Sydney.zip (547 KB)

Filed under: Sydney

/craig. says...

Took this shot on the way home yesterday by simply taking firm grip of the camera strap, holding the camera out the window and hoping for the best. I ensure I keep two eyes on the road at the same time, but reflecting back it might be time for me to give up these shots - although I say I concentrate, I wouldn't be as much as if I wasn't taking a photo.

/craig.

Filed under: sydney

Judd6149 says...

It was somewhere close to 11:30pm, we had been drinking all day and my apartment was full of chicks. Well, let me qualify that for you: the chicks  were actually my wife and her four best girl friends. We did in fact drink all day, out on a boat on Sydney harbour....and in a string of bars...and, finally, back in our apartment. 

As was the case, and as I am want to do in situations like that one, turned to the stereo.

Usually when I kick-off a late night song splurge, I pour myself a tall glass of Wild Turkey with plenty of ice. The occasion in question though called for something with a little more moxie: The Grievous Angel.  

What is the Grievous Angel?  It has only two ingredients: Mango Gatorade and Jose Cuervo (your mouth is watering, isn't it?). I only break out this particular libation for creating late night stereo vibrations. It's origins date back to living in Florida, playing my tunes at top volume, hankering for a mood alteration and only having only the two aforementioned ingredients on hand.  

Like they say, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with..."

With drink in hand, I started to pull songs from my vast collection in hopes of turing the girls on to new stuff.  Once they were knee deep in a serendipitous sound sampling, I decided to throw 'em a (country) curve: Willie Nelson. 

"Willie Nelson?!", they yelled out in unison. "Please don't play Willie Nelson. If you are going to play country, at least put on some Brad Paisley or Keith Urban".

[silence]

After they picked me up from the floor and wiped away the blood that tricked from my ears, I attempted to teach them a lesson about country music. 

"Country music," I told them, "comes in four flavours: Willie, Johnny, Waylon and Merle. There is no room in country music for candy-assed cowboys, "guyliner" or GAP ad posers. Just because you sing about your truck, heartache and BBQs doesn't mean you are fucking country singer".

They laughed at me: "What do we want with that craggy ol' country fossil anyhow?" 

Surely the drink had gotten to them. They were delirious, crazed from the heat, strung out on hubris...but, they persisted.

"What makes you think Willie Nelson is going to be able to sing anything that'll make us swoon over him? He looks like his horse has been riding him for all these years. He was lucky Julio Iglesias let him sing with him". 

Things were getting out of control and really staring to amuse themselves. I had to put a stop to it and there was only one thing left to do...take a deep swig of the Grievous Angel, give the gals a steely look and pull out the big gun: "Song for You"

Do you know this song?  It was written by Leon Russell in 1970. Aside from Willie's version, it was most famously covered by Donnie Hathaway (another personal fave performer of mine). Here is a wikipedia link for the song if you want to see who else covered it (please, I BEG of you, forget the fact that Michael Buble covered this song...in fact, forget that Michael Buble ever existed).

"Song for You" is a flat out heartache no matter who sings it (aside from "you know who"..."MB"). I love the Willie version best.  If you didn't know it before, after listening to his vocal, you know that that his voice is one of the true treasures of American music. It is not just country, it is Country; USA...pilgrims; pioneers; patriots.

For my my money it is one of the best straight vocal performance ever put on record. It is such a clean vocal. It has depth and sincerity and feels like an apology, a love letter and a pleading, yearning request for forgiveness and appreciation.  Seriously...I am not overstating this. Really...

The girls decided to give me and Willie one shot to win them over. I played "Song for You" for them. I quieted the room, turned the lights down a bit, moderated the volume to give the vocal the right effect, and I hit play....

Have you ever had a good cry?  The ones that make everything right and cause you to laugh out loud? You're not really sure why you are crying, but you feel the need to just emote. Yes? No? Well, this is what the room felt like at the end of that song. The girls that had never heard it (my wife excluded) sat quietly until sniffles and tears gave way to smiles and call-outs to "play it again...in fact, don't stop playing it".

I knew it would work.  We played the song over and over again until one by one they started to nod off. I had tried to play other Willie tunes, but it was too late...they had been sweetly seduced by the Redheaded Stranger. 

They swooned for Willie.
_____

You should have a listen to the other two versions I recommend: the original version by Leon Russell (again, he wrote the song) and the incredible, soul-drenched version by Donny Hathaway:

Also, you MUST watch this video of Leon, Willie and Ray Charles do this song on one of Willie's primetime TV "Willie & Friends" specials. Ray was in bad health and there was question if he could make the show. He ended up not only making the show, but stealing it with his performance here.  

Watch Willie get lost in Ray's presence as he tries to hold back his own tears. Shit, I just stopped writing to watch it again...son of a bitch choked me right up. Whew. Powerful.

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_____

Post Script: 

When these girls flew from the States to visit us in Sydney in 2008, they all stayed at our apartment. Four women visitors, a wife, two dogs and me in one apartment. Can you imagine the shit-fight I would have had trying to get into the ONE bathroom?  

I was a bit scared about this..until my wife approached me with one of the best ideas she has EVER come up with. She said, "Would you mind if I just rented you a small hotel room in the city while the girls are here?"  

Reason #108 why I love my wife.  

Ah the bachelors life...just like riding a bike. I felt like I was in my Boston apartment again: no TV, only beer and water in the fridge and music playing 24-7 (minus all the other stuff...because playing bachelor is much different that actually being one).

Here are some snaps of my (temporary) home-sweet-home.

     
Click here to download:
The_night_I_witnessed_Willie_N.zip (1534 KB)

Filed under: Sydney