Shoes and Hair

Monday

Hello everyone! It is a fine day here with the temperature a balmy 23c. I have purchased a Gamboy® DS®, which is very sweet, rekindling memories of a misspent youth with Mario!

I think it is time to post my new shoes

Ode to shoes

Oh shoes you are beneath me

Oh shoes you do elite me

Why shoes are you so smelly?

Dang it is toe jam jelly!

So happy is my persona

Cause eyes to glass over.

© Pierre '06

Glory of symbians

What glory is found in the symbian

He always cleans his rubbish bin

When shoes are new, they smell of glue

When shoes are old, they small of mould

Met never the midgets

Who are afraid of digits!

© Pierre '06

And now let introduce the latest addition to the French foreign legion, Pierre

quod erat demonstrandum

more later

Friday!

Friday the 23rd

A special day today, it is the feast of the Sacred Heart! Today started off very nicely, with the Maternal one, Pierre and the adorable Guido all going to Mass at the local monastery, which was great. Coming home, Pierre rather unadvisedly tells the youngest that he would make him a Lego Technic car, a 'really cool one!' with four wheel steering no less!

A few minutes later and the hero is rather frustrated, trying to find missing pieces and answering a plethora of tricky questions that cannot have noncommittal answers hmmm.

After this and it is time for a well earned sleep, and some time spent outside in the sunshine ahhh nice. Then it is time to rebuild the vehicle, that has been stepped on and any time spent protesting is time wasted, then Pierre has another well earned kip, then is most rudely interrupted by his mate 'He-man'.

He-man is of the opinion that men are men and boys are boys, and that a army drill Sargent is the kinda guy to bring up children. The phone conversation is as follows: He-man: "HEY SLEEPY HEAD YOU COMING DOWN THE GYM?!?" Pierre: "say what? I am tired..." He-man "YOU DON'T SOUND LIKE YOU ARE BUSY I WILL BE THERE AT 1600 HOURS" *click* Pierre sighs and wishes that he wasn't such a pushover.

Then down the gym the men are pumping iron with Pierre excelling on the pectorals as usual and his lanky mate working out more ways to hurt himself. Drifting back in the trust Rover, it is time for some food. Pierre's food of choice is some expertly prepared pumpkin soup, dinner rolls and ice-cream.

Now all that confronts us is the hero limbering up mentally for a session with his latest Russian book acquisition good luck

Pierre

Last Leg

Wednesday Today

Yesterday started at around about 7am AEST with everyone slowly waking up on the last morning in Melbourne. Pierre spent the morning going to St Francis for one last visit,and the girls developing some photos (207 to be excact!). At 11am the Skybus arrived and we loaded up for the strech to the airport.

Checking in at the airport was laughable, with none of us needing to show I.D and Pierre managing to smuggle on to his checked luggage a Russian military bayonet!

After a quick meal at the airport Hungry Jacks, Pierre reads his book by Tolstoy, Nee-Nee reading Kipling, Tware reading Hugo, and Princess reading a Cricket magazine.

The flight was uneventful with the hero sleeping the whole time. Dinner was the best ever, with a home prepared spagetti and meatball dish which was excellent, washed down with some of Banrocks finest red, and some icecream!

This morning was cereal and Dilmah extra strong, followed by a brisk walk around the loverly leafy ludicrously expensive Nedlands.

Now lunch is looming, and the final bus ride home is a coupla hours away.

More later

Pierre

Monday 19th

In the name of the Senate, and by the power of the same

Be it known that this was our last full day in Melbourne, a bittersweet moment. Whether 'tis nobler in the Myers to suffer the sales, and bargains of stocks, or to bare arms against the sea of siblings...

Anyway this day in history started like any other last Monday in Melbourne, with the crew waking up at 8:30. Pierre shakes the sleep from his mind, and wonders why his head is a little sore? Then he remembered the giant glass of Hoegaarden and it all made a weird inebriated sort of sense. Two espressos later and it is off to find a little personalized number plater for the little brother, realizing that there is no shop with a number plate with Theodosian on it Pierre decides to go on to the next thing. The hero's Melbourne contact, contacts Pierre on the cell and it is arranged to meet under the clocks at Flinders st station. Giving directions to two lots of tourists on the way, hero meets his contact.

After walking aimlessly for a few minutes, the consensus is to visit Southbank and 5 minute walk later we find ourselves at the cavernous opening of the Crown casino, venturing in a kebab shop is found, and Pierre is mucho pleased. Alas! Our contact is not well! Feeling and looking faint, our hero's sidekick is taken ill. Finding the nearest taxi rank, he is bundled off back home, for some tea and panadol.

Randomly bumping into the trio of sisters for the second time that day, Pierre makes known his unquenchable quest to find something for his dearly beloved little brother. Marching on a two step beat, we can see our hero skip up the escalator up to the toy section of Myers. After fighting through the throes of Thomas the tank engine engines (for wooden playsets only!) He uncovers the blocks section.

An assets audit of the aforesaid section reveals some great toys, with massive prices to match! Then amazingly spotted out of the corner of his ample eye, fair Pierre finds a model of the Italian constabulary made by a well known firm out of Denmark. Taking the 20% off the price the dirty deed is done... dirt cheap!

Now all that remains is to visit St Francis one more time, and finish off this oh-so-sweet little vacation

Yours unless repugnant

Pierre

Raw deal

Well here we are..

The last night of our epic journey of re-selfdiscovery.

Dinner was planned long in advance, we were all going to be in our Sunday best and visit an eating house. The place decided on before leaving, was the lounge, which had sweet specials on the go and a free glass of wine! Having walked past, however it seemed that is was a slightly seedy joint, with not much to offer our palettes.

The next inspired idea was Nando's chicken, however walking past it seemed like another fried fowl food frenzied festival of fat! Walking up and down, down and up we could not find anything, Pierre said it was the wong night for Chinese, - [sorry - ed.]

Then we were just about to chuck it in and order pizza, when our hero cunningly spies - Gigi Japanese Sushi Bar.. OF DOOM!!! (sorry, but we need readers!) Then devouring the menu, so to speak, we choose our choices for Pierre it is sushimi!! Which for our proletariat readers is fish. Raw fish.

Yum.

Very nice and squishy, going down slimy coming out...lets just keep it G rated. The girls had a selection, including: spring rolls, beef, chicken and miso soup. This out off our system, we enjoy the city night for one last time.

Heading back to camp, we watch Mythbusters which is great, and empty the larder of goodies. Then finalizing packing, we all head off on our tangents, Princess on her latest trick, which is making prank calls the her Indian guy 'friend' cos "You don't understand" to which the resounding answer is: "NO WE DON'T!!".

Now it is time to reminisce in front of the PC, enjoy a cuppa tea and think about the last two weeks....

Nostalgically yours,

Pierre

The day of the Sun

Greetings fellow thrill seekers, greetings

Today was the last Sunday in Melbourne a very good day at that. It starts with the 'princess' and her alarm going off at 5am which is not pleasant at all, especially if you didn't get home till 12 the night before...

After that some quality time with the TV is spent, with Happy Days on, a great show methinks! Then at 11am it is off to the cathedral St Francis where there is the Melbourne symphony orchestra and the pipe organ for a splendid mass, with Mozart's mass in b minor, it was well music to our ears!

Next on this fine, sunny Sunday Pierre dances down to the Acland st precinct in St. Kilda, to browse for some beer of sorts (Belgian namely) picking up the beer of the world pack (Asashi Hogaarten, Corona, Millers and some Brazilian one) the hero heads back to the condo. Dropping off his precious package of goodness, he jumps on the good old '16 and heads down to his favourite haunt, the Belgian beer cafe..

Starting off with a 330ml Stella Artois, Pierre gets in the groove, and listens to some easy live jazz music.

Then it happens, the well known male sickness of beer envy. Pierre see a man with a bigger beer! I just gotta have one!!, Says Pierre. So he did!

Thats all for now!

Saturday at the domain

Saturday.

Today started in a terrible fashion, with the princess's alarm going off at 5am! Then she proceeds to turn the computer on, not turning down the sound with the 'Windows' noise resounding through the apartment. Meanwhilst she is giggling and laughing inanely with her Indian guy 'friend'. Not impressed

After this, Breakfast (happy to see me!)

After this, it is off to the Victoria markets, with Pierre picking up a great shirt and a bag (pics to follow). Quickly dropping our gear off at the ranch, we jump on the city circle tram, and head to Docklands for the winter festival. A joke, completely and utterly $3.50 entry, when they should be paying you to come in! A PR firm ad, a slide, bouncy castle and a merry-go-round pffffftt.. The sister go ice-skating, Pierre nicks off and receives a phone call from his mate and then they catch up!

A 40 minute train ride later, Pierre his mate, and his new mate (cousin of the first mate) arrive at the station, a quick bus ride later (thank you metcard!) and we are at the family residence.

A very nice, kind family, that made me feel right at home, with a birthday party going on! We went down the footy ground, to laugh at a Frenchman kick a ball that is not round!!

After all this fun, we all jumped into the troop carrier and headed to docklands, with some going to the rugby..

Now a beer in the fridge, the Eagles on tv I am signing off!!

Fishy Friday Food

Hi team!

We have had our dinner now, with the youngest having tuna sandwiches, Pierre having fish and the others having baked beans and tuna. The fish was prepared in record time by the master chef, Pierre. Here is the evidence

From my experience fish is always better in theory then in practice hmmmm.

For tomorrow, Pierre is looking for a weapons cache down the market, and spotted a spiffy che bag thingy, and the girls are going ice-skating at the winter wonderland.

Yawn sleepy after all that walking today... Bye!

Friday = Frypan

Trains, Trams, etc

Today was a very uneventful day, with no events eventuating.

We started off in the morning, jumping on the '05 to find Chadstone. We wound up in Armidale, in suburbia with nowhere to go. Taking the '05 back to Chapel St. Walking along Chapel St. was kinda interesting and long, so eventually we took the '08 back to the city.

Then we had lunch, with Pierre having some tomato tinny-tin-tinned soup out of a tin, and the crew going to some religious cult food place.

By this time, it was about 2 of the o'clock, and the hero nicks off to St Francis for a while.

After this the trio of the three older siblings take the train to Chadstone. Then walking 15 mins in the wrong direction, we turned around, and finally found Chadstone. A big complex full of the nuovo riche, and teenie boppers. Not really Pierre's cuppa tea.

Now the females are at the local grocery store, buying some fish for Pierre.

And that is it!

The workers, united

Socialists, students, bananas

On the way home from the bourgeois capitalist institution that was lunch, I trotted on down back to the home base, and bumped into this:

What a joke... Unemployed? The man got you down? Anarchist? Fruitcake? Banal? Then this is your life! To think that these people talk to your children, work at your shops and sweep your floors.

You be the judge.

Gourmand == :)

Full body, full mind

Having just returned from Lt Collins st, Pierre is a happy man.

Vue de Monde is a very good place to eat, if you can afford it. With prices ranging from a basic $48, to a massive $250 ($65 extra for wine) it is somewhere that most of us can't frequent.

After gaining kind permission from the owner, Pierre is allowed to take photos. Unfortunately this permission was not granted till the second course.

For the first course, there was Scallop Ceviche, which is scallop, with a apple and pumpkin base, truffle mayonnaise set on a squid-ink covered plate, finished with yarra river salmon roe!

Second for our critic is the Ferron Arborio risotto infused with ceps (mushrooms), which was my favourite dish which was cooked in a wine jus.

Third on the menu was a Fois Gras, which was prepared in a fois gras and yogurt mousse, with ox tounge and breadcrumbs, this also was divine

For number four (sorry) there was the Crayfish Linguine which was a hand twisted linguine wrapped in a Spanish ham topped with a partially poached quails egg, and surrounded be crayfish pieces. The egg itself was poached by the hot sauce poured on to it!

After this there was some tomato juice with dry ice, to cleanse to pallet.

And finally, the main course, which was a roast lamb scotch fillet, with veal sweetbreads and creamed kipfler potatoes, with a sherry reduction - very nice!

After this, there was a not so large espresso and assorted petits-fours .

What is the verdict? After being waited on by the head waiter, and head waitress, they made a special menu just for me and knew I was partial to the finer foods. No holds barred recommended *****

Thursday already?

Should we have cloning?

Well it is a case of nature imitating science, with this morning being an exact clone of yesterday, caucus meeting and all.One hastily prepared espresso and Pierre is ready for action.

A shower and hair brush is all that is required to visit one of the snootiest restaurants in Australia, the food should be divine.

The rest of the crew, meanwhilst have headed off, with the vote 2-1 in favour of the museum, so that is them taken care of.

I have been trusted with the entrustment of the trusty camera, as to take nifty pictures of the menu today - am I the most trustworthy guy ever?

Now I am off on a quest to find St Augustine's bye!!

Dinner for four

Dinner on Lt Bourke st

Noodles. Sauce. Dinner.

At about 4:00 this arvo, The crew rung, and asked what I thought we should have for tea.

I said "whatever" and so it was. Shortly after that, a ten pack of noodles and some low-fat sweet and sour sauce. They were cooked for two minutes and mixed with the sauce. I ate way too much, and am now off noodles, except in the pool.

After that the feminine female friends decided to have some weird super-sweet Indian sweets (no thanks!).

Meanwhile, Pierre decides to have a brew or two! Here is a picture of the Holsten cap, Holsten bottle and Hofbräu cap

HB Cap

Holsten bottle

That is all I can think of for now.

Greetz to $pud, Guy and the Olds. Hi to the Anthillmanz - you guys rock!

Cold spaghetti!

Hello again!

Today, in Melbourne, The crew and I woke up at 8am. I had breakfast (see below), and then we had a council of war.

Issues on the table were:

• What to do today?
• What to do tomorrow?
• Shall we use the milk (limited) for cuppa's or cereal?
• Who shall have the first shower?

With these important matters settled, the team votes to visit the Captain Cook cottage gardens.

On the way there, we stop off at the treasury's gardens (see below) and pose for a picture.

Next we visit the Conservatory another beautiful place, with nice flowers! (see below)

A historic 1700's house transplanted from the UK complete with garden! A really great place to visit! (see below)

Next on the itinerary we cruise through the gardens, with Princess Mary looking at all the leaves in neat piles, and commenting "I love kicking over these leaves!" Pierre replies "I bet the guy with the rake doesn't like it!" Then we see the fountain (careful not to fall in!)

And then it is a quick stop at the Tudor village.

After this Pierre goes to mass at St Francis church, and searches for the fabled Vue de Monde French restaurant. A quick discourse with the firm, and it is settled that Pierre will pay a visit tomorrow at 12pm, the chef has been advised to have the fois gras ready - this should be great!

And then it is back to the condo for a quick lunch, after a search of the fridge, our hero decides on some tinned spaghetti. Mmmm tastes great!

As to allow housekeeping to keep the house in order, then Pierre stops off at the Royal library for a look at the Victoria parliament exhibition, which is quite spiffy methinks, especially the mace.

A detour to the 6th level of Myers, and mine eyes behold the Archibald prize, which is cool bananas. The great thing about seeing art live, is admiring the texture of the painting, and seeing the sheer size of some of the pieces!

Well that's all I guess.

Espy, The Prince and Pellegrini's

Greetings All

The end of another day in the annuls of life.

Well post 1630 today Pierre takes the good old '16 down to Fitzroy st. and stopped off for a stella at the Prince of Wales hotel - a quaint little joint, with rock paraphernalia and a cool retro arcade machine will classics such as DigDug, Pacman, Space Invaders and others, there was no retro price though, instead of the expected 20c it is $1 per go! When will they learn? The bar itself was fairly cool, having a chat with some old bar stalwart about HMAS Melbourne and others.

From there it was a 100m walk along the water to the Espy - for the uneducated the Espy is where the SBS program Rockwiz is filmed every week The price of beer had gone up, but so had the decor, with leather couches, authentic wood fires and great music. For all dudes reading from Vic, they have a concert on the 24th with all proceeds going to the sacred heart mission, it would be great if everyone could make it!

Then our main man takes the '96 back to Bourke st, however it is the west end, so Pierre walks a kay or so to no. 66 Pellegrinis. Using facial expressions, gestures and waving cash, he manages to get some food, a splendid pasta with basil, oregano and southern style red sauce. Highly recommended After all this a short stroll is all that is required to arrive back at the ranch, with the smell of chicken curry in the air our hero decides it is high time for a chilled beverage.

Unholstering the Holster [Bad pun - ed.] we try the latest acquisition to the cellar and it is a qualified success. A crisp, clean taste with a smoky after taste, this beer rate highly on the drink ability scale, with a nice calamari ring it does nicely.

Next on the menu is dessert, with a plethora of purchased pastries washed down with a nice cup of the finest Ceylon tea, the critic decides to sample the HB (Hofbräu) See below.

Mmmm, ooohhh, ahhhh. We have found the benchmark lager. A blonde beer, with a cultured head and oh-so-smooth manner it is no wonder we can call this the greatest lager to grace the gizzard of our Perfect Pierre...

A side note to all this is the crew, which is listening to the survivor radio, because of the non performance of ch. 9 here at the hotel ha ha.

Whilst we are on the subject of hotels and beer I saw a sign, which I found rather funny it goes as follows:

CATHOLIC BOOK SHOP (and underneath) OPEN 7 DAYS!

What is our world coming to? not even I can answer that one.

Till next time :)

What? swim? us?

This day in history, we took the '16 to Albert park, and then trekked a few kay's to the pool. arriving at the largest multifunction sports complex in the southern hemisphere.

After changing in the nearest phone box, our hero jumps gung-ho into the competition pool. Then a few laps later, he realizes his knee is sore from all the walking, and absconds to the leisure pool. The leisure pool is why everyone goes to the center, with a wave pool that operates 5 minutes every half hour.

With a swell of 90cm it is good fun for all. Our hero decides to set a precedent and body surf the waves to 'shore', which seemed like a great idea, until Pierre clocks someone in the head! After this and a brief changing session among the English rugby team, the crew decides to head back to 'kilda .

Taking our good friend the '16 we head to acland st. Whilst the women folk buy lunch at the noble shop of coles, Pierre goes off to frequent his favorite shop, Acland st liquor. A quick chat to the store man and his email is added to the mailing list, and opens the possibility of mail order beer!

The brew discovered today was Holsten Lager, which looks good and comes with a free bag all for $12.95! I will let everyone know how it is later on.... For myself? oh yes lunch was some chicken and nacho kebabs - don't they look great?

So tonight, Mr Superhero is heading to the Prince of Wales hotel in 'kilda and checking it out - on some nights there is professional wrestling on yay! After the Price, Pierre is heading of to the famous Pelligrinis cafe/bar for tea!

Well thats all for know - Will let everyone know how we get on!

Melbourne, Melbourne That's the place where I want to be!

Hofbräu - Hofwhat?

Well tonight was a rather uneventful yet rather satisfying dinner which started of with the '16 to St. Kilda. After disembarking from the tram, we set about on the serious business of finding out where to eat.

Roaming around the Acland St. precinct nothing could be found except a few carnival people, and stale tobacco smoke. The hero of our story fell in love with a liquor store claiming to sell 300+ boutique beers, but more about that later.

From here to there, and there to here nothing of the right cuisine/value mix could be found. The crew then decided to take the tram back to the CBD, but agreed to wait after a cry of anguish from the hero mourning his lost beer shop.

Pierre hastily hastens to the beer shop seeking out the elusive perfect brew, picture the clock ticking, our hero running towards he one true love BEER!

The tram is racing towards the station, and Pierre is left slowly browsing the beers! Found it! The perfect brew! Hofbrau lager aahhhh. Whilst our hero is eloping with the lager, his big sister calls on the cell phone "We are near Luna park come quickly!" Pierre runs back, just in time to see the tram leave, minus the crew and Pierre, the crew give our hero looks of unmitigated anger and loathing.

Pierre is blissfully unaware admiring the German script on his beers. Finally the tram arrives and the crew take it back to the CBD, ending up at their favorite joint, the Addix cafe/bar. Eating two chicken parma's two risottos, and two fish and chip combos, the mucho satiated team retires to camp.

Now the scene that confronts us, is Pierre sipping on a German imported, cold beer with a dopey grin and a happy face The End

A day at the park

On this day we trotted on down to the royal botanical gardens, taking the no. 67 tram.

A multitude of plants, herbs, trees and bamboo awaited us. After spending an hour or so the author stepped into some dog excrement and left the park. Heading along Toorak rd, admiring all the pizza joints the aforementioned hero takes the train back to Melbourne central. Here at the veritable institution of coles, he picks up some canned soup, kebabs (on special!) and also the obligatory bacon and eggs.

And now all that awaits is buying some liquor (maybe) and going to st. kilda to eat fish and chips tonight!

And that's all she wrote

Greetings from the big smoke again!

The latest outing was to the Carlton gardens in (funnily enough) Carlton. The hall itself was great, being a world heritage site it was amazing - the sheer size of has to be seen to be believed.

Here is a picture taken by yours truly.

Till next time

Why David Jones is scary!

One man's city trek turns ugly

Whilst a large multi-storey national retailer may seem like seventh heaven for some, our hero in he latest episode found the experience somewhat scary!

Our story begins with our hero (the aptly named Pierre) setting of on yet another epic adventure of great gravity and honour. It starts with the manly man-like quest of negotiating some of Australia's prime retail estate in the quest for.... *SPIFFY SHOES OF FATE* after conquering the Myers mensware, battling the Basement and ascending Aquilla, Pierre decides to goto the final frontier (David Jones).

Pierre had heard lots of things about David Jones, and decided to see what the fuss was all about! After steaming through the manchester section of Myers, our cunning hero has a flash of divine inspiration and decides to take the pedestrian overpass to David Jones.

Imagine Pierre's discomfort when on close observation the entire first floor is cosmetics!! Not one to be disheartened he strides on towards the lift and then on to the second floor. Harken! What is this? An entire floor of feminine female flowery fragrances!

Scratching his head in un-manlike fashion Pierre decides to go all the way to the forth floor, where he finds a plethora of female tops, underwear and other undesirable items. With matters going from bad to worse our hero performs a hasty about-face and ascends to the penultimate level of the complex.

Still seeing only members of the fairer sex Pierre noses around inconspicuously around the department, only to find it is full of womens jeans, and high heeled footwear

But alas! This is too much for our fair hero, his outlook changed, his countenance downcast, he heads for (or so he thinks) the nearest exit. With strains of The Great Escape in his ears he saunters to the elevator and suavely pushes the top floor key. Chewing an imaginary piece of tobacco the confident hero disembarks only to find that the only exit on the top floor is the fire exit, he decides to have a quick look around. The picture that confronted him was a deserted, ramshackle floor with old pallets and discarded marble busts with contrasting shade lighting. This floor had obviously not seen humankind for many moons!

So Pierre makes his exit! How you ask? well if you read this story from the end to the beginning, you can start to see how it goes. Resolving never to buy David Jones shares, or recommend it to any friend of the male gender.

At last! The exit! With a manner redolent of the wild west heroes of yore, Pierre wishes bon voyage to David Jones, and shaking the dust from his sandals leaves the building a shaken, moved, less confidant character then ever before.

The End

Escargot?? Yes please!!

Hello everybody - I have been to the Belgian Beer Cafe in Bluestone today, A quaint little bar serving some of the best beers in the city Beer cafe_link and tried some ...ESCARGOT!! For the un-educated escargot is french for snails (as in the common garden variety) they tasted great with a smooth melt in your mouth texture, and a garlic aftertaste, all washed down with a glass of Hogaarden, Luffe blonde, and Stella Artois (which in my opinionated opinion is the best of the lot)