n80

Too long since I posted a photo. I thought of taking a quick snap of the street but after 12 days of rain King Street looks bleak. Instead, here’s the glorious sunset scene from 26 March. Enjoy.

I spotted this sign on a gate in Enmore yesterday. I know how they feel. I think I might get myself one of these signs…

Here’s a closer, colour view of The Man in the Window. I still think he looks a little creepy.

I took this photo with my phone the other night at The Duke Hotel. The man stood at the window in exactly this position for about 15 minutes.

Last night I managed to publish to the Internet while trapped in a stairwell and from a moving train. Tonight I can prove that it also works while travelling at high speed in a moving car.

It’s the same workflow as before — Nokia N80 camera phone, Bluetooth image to PowerBook, then use the phone’s data link to publish back via WordPress. But it’s still fairly clunky because it’s hard to type in a moving car in the dark, and I haven’t set up any actions in Photoshop so everything has to be done manually.

And I hate to think what this is costing me!

So, what do I do for my next challenge? Any suggestions?

As much as one stairway can symbolise imprisonment, another one at Gordon railway station (pictured) is a symbol of Freedom. It’s deserted, but I know there’ll soon be a late-night train taking me somewhere that dinner can be found. Huzzah!

Yes, I really was trapped alone in an office building, with deadlocking doors at the top and the bottom of the stairwell. One of the tenants is Westpac bank, so everything is solid. And I’d already phoned the client’s people but bounced to voicemail each time. I was looking forward to a long night on the stairs. Not.

And yes, I really did post to my website from The Stairway of Imprisonment.

My PowerBook has a battery. It talks Bluetooth to my Nokia N80 phone, and uses the phone’s 3G data link through Vodafone to teh Internetz. I used the N80’s camera to take the photo, and Bluetooth’d it back to the PowerBook for a quick and dirty bit of Photoshop. The photo transfer happened without disturbing the data link too! Impressed.

Luckily, while I was doing all that one of the client’s staff phoned back. I could take the call while still online, too. Hi, Loraine! She only lives 15 minutes of late-night driving from the office, so I was freed soon enough. And right now I’m on a train back to the City. Indeed, I’m posting this story precisely as I cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge!

I arrived after dark last night, had a bite to eat with friends and checked into the hotel very late. So I didn’t really see Perth until I opened the curtains this morning and saw… this! Glamorous, eh?

The food is laid out, ready to eat, but everyone’s waiting for someone else to make the first move.

This photo was taken at the close of the Marrickville Contemporary Art Prize exhibition on Sunday. Eventually the woman in the blue top sliced into the cheese — and suddenly the spell was broken!

’Pong tells me that in Thai, the very last piece on a plate is called “the polite piece” — the piece everyone is too polite to take.

Last night this curious little coven of witch’s hats caught my eye.

This photo was taken on Enmore Road, Newtown in Sydney — as usual with my trusty Nokia N80 pimple-cam.

Some time — when I get the time! — I’ll set up the workflow so I can post this sort of thing directly from the phone.

The N80, like the rest of the Nseries, actually has single-timeline video editing software built in, which means I should be able to make video podcasts directly from the phone.

I know it’s “easy”, but it’s still one more thing to do…

As I sat drinking red wine and discussing politics with the Snarky Platypus yesterday, the lighting on this plant at the Coopers Hotel, King Street, Newtown, caught my eye. Anyone know what it’s called?

For today’s strategic planning session, we booked the executive boardroom at Rydges North Sydney. This was our view. Remember, this is the middle of winter in Sydney. Hello, London.

I took this photograph at Stanmore railway station the other day. It was warmer then.

This cheap but moderately decorative light fitting in an inner-city toilet symbolises the difference between a well-run business and a bad one.

This toilet is in a restaurant — a Thai restaurant on George Street, Sydney, called Crocodile Senior. No website, but great food, fast and efficient service and Thai pop music DVDs on screen. Nicely fitted out too.

Many restaurant toilets seem to come from a forgotten land. Bare bulbs hang from dust-covered fittings. Soiled paper towels overflow the rarely-emptied bin — when towels haven’t run out, that is. There’s a brown stain under every tap — and yes, that is urine you can smell. As you dry your hands on the back of your pants, you wonder where else they’re skimping on the cleanliness.

Did that kitchenhand actually wash his hands after he took a slash?

Green salad, anyone?

You finish your meal. It tasted OK, and next morning you’re moderately certain that your upset stomach is about the eight glasses of red you downed, not the chicken. But Doubt niggles at the back of your mind, and that restaurant drops silently off your list.

Crocodile Senior’s toilet, on the other hand, is fresh and clean. The flowers are artificial, but their colours are bright and there’s no layer of dust. This cheap light fitting creates a little bit of sparkle that helps convey the message: this is a nice place to be.

So many businesses seem to be like the Toilets from a Forgotten Land.

Some businesses piss away three days deciding the colour of the stationery, and $200k fitting out the spectacularly fashionable foyer. The salesman — sorry, “Business Development Manager” — has a PowerPoint presentation with 3D animation and sound effects. But the back office staff struggle because the computers are riddled with spyware and no-one’s paying attention. The driver reckons the truck really should be serviced, but nothing gets done and of course it breaks down the very day of The Important Delivery.

It’s like the slum-lord’s apartment, where wallpaper literally papers over the structural cracks. It’s the aged whore, well past her use-by date, whose sedimentary layers of pancake make-up distract you from the fissures and pustules beneath.

Sooner or later, there’s going to be leakage. And it won’t be pretty.