This will hurt me...

Today's feature photo was taken yesterday in the early evening. I ended work slightly later than the norm, and made my way due north, towards a birthday do thrown in honour of one Master William Hunt, a keen young musician that I happen to know. Worth noting perhaps, his birthday song is "Bump N' Grind" by one R. Kelly (one hopes he doesn't pick up Mr Kelly's filthy habits ). Nice try Will, but as fun and bumping and grinding may be, it falls some way short of Hotel California! ANYWAY. The sun was setting, the moon already high and I'm running a little late. But presented to me was an opportunity to snare a halfway decent shot (for once). Yet I knew that the camera's batteries were low, very low . Could I possibly be audacious enough to try? What about the filthy graffiti that I would be bound to find on my journey? But the light is going and the colours are bleeding from the sky quickly. So I tell myself I must take this chance, I have a very import...

Inspired (dismayed?) by the efforts of the Salamanca graffiti artists that were featured a couple of days ago, Sue, this blog's Melbourne correspondent, has decided to try and trump the Tasmanians with a feature of some of the graffiti doing the rounds in Williamstown , one of the well-to-do suburbs of Victoria's capital city. Personally, I feel that this need to compete is a Melbournian trait that can be traced back to the fact that the city was itself was founded by Tasmanians . Consequently, they have always struggled with petty jealousy. No doubt this is the key reason behind refusing to grant us a team in the AFL. History lesson aside, the examples presented today are pieces of graffiti that can be found on the walls of factories in the Williamstown/Newport area. The photographer is a young up and comer Zac McCracken (no, not the star of the criminally underrated computer game of the 1980s), who has been compiling some work for a portfolio that will one day take him to ...

I’ve been very lazy today and posted a photo taken about five minutes ago from my office window. I've only been able to have it open for the past twenty or so minutes due to the ongoing jam session of a god awful talented up-and-coming local musical act playing their dire innovative interpretation of the sort of 'space rock' not seen since Hawkwind or Marillion. As usual in Hobart, Mount Wellington dominates the background. It’s a nice day today, and I hope that this is a nice mix of built-up areas and natural scenery. Hopefully it is more pleasing to the eye than yesterday’s snaps .

Every year people just get sillier and sillier here in Australia in the lead up to ANZAC Day . I had hope that with John Howard out of office, we might be able to just calm down a little when it comes to ANZAC Day, but it seems not. This year there has been yet another kerfuffle, with the Australian Capital Territory Government has been accused of "delivering a massive insult" to 'Diggers' (veterens), with plans to launch dozens of hot-air balloons over the capital on Anzac Day. Here is poor old Brendy (Federal Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson), who likened the tale to an April Fool's Day joke: "Our attitude is that Anzac Day is a day of commemoration of sacrifice made in our name, not a day for celebration. You can never underestimate the stupidity of the ACT Government when it comes to these kinds of events." On a similar front, the always good for a laugh Returned Services League's national secretary Derek Robson thinks that it offends the decen...

As promised yesterday , I set out in my lunch break to try to capture some ‘urban grit’. I was thinking broken glass or piles of rubbish, but I work in Salamanca , which has people lurking about picking up the rubbish and sweeping away the broken bottles as soon as they happen. Therefore, although I was unable to deliver exactly what I wanted, I turned my eye towards graffiti. However, unlike other parts of Hobart, again Salamanca has proven a surprisingly graffiti free area. I did manage to snare four examples of ‘writing on stuff’ (the technical name for ‘graffiti’). The first features the universal language of sad teenage vandals, the nasty nickname and a hastily drawn penis. One imagines that similar such images grace the finest cities of the world! (As well as Devonport.) The second is perhaps by the same fragile and uncertain hand of the author of the first. Again, it appears to be a marking of some sort, a message to rivals (like dogs leaving their mark on telephone poles, and a...

To be honest with you, I didn’t really envisage another instalment of Baseball cards that I like , but another has emerged! It seemed unlikely to me that Rusty Kuntz could be topped, but today’s star of yesteryear may have done that. So, without further ado, I present: [I wonder if this qualifies as cussing?]

Created by OnePlusYou Around 0.6% of the pages on your website contain cussing. This is 93% LESS than other websites who took this test. Anyone who knows me can testify that I am a clean living, well spoken and immaculately presented young (ish) man. I have excellent manners, a warm and welcoming disposition, and I shall not bother you by waxing lyrical about my boundless humility and grace. Nevertheless, I will be honest with you; even I am surprised by the low level of foul language on this blog. I have obviously been a good boy and keep a family friendly show here!

I am being lazy here and AGAIN going back to the waterfront. Yes, you've seen the Derwent here , here , here , here and here , but hey, I live right by the river! I know that I have promised a bit of variety, but I really liked the way the colours have come up on this one. The orange boat that you can see there is L'Astrolabe, as previously featured on this blog. It would have been about 7:50 am, brisk morning on the walk to work. I will try to capture some ‘urban grit’ tomorrow! Maybe a broken bottle or blood trickling down the gutter. Maybe even some old cigarette butts floating downstream. That'd be nice.

Here is one from this morning of a random bloke walking to work. He's pictured outside of the Tasmania Parliament, but I'm not sure if he works there. Whether or not he has important top secret documents to be shredded, or has a bunch of shredded documents to be unshredded in order to see if they are important top secret documents, I am also not sure. It was a good day today. I got to leave work early and celebrate my wedding anniversary. And it didn't rain.

Now, I do appreciate the sentiment expressed in today's ad, and (as ever) context is vital. When you're in the middle of a war a certain liberty may be taken with expression, so the jarring notion of a blonde, curly-haired scamp - let's call him 'Chip' - talking about "Jap kids" (in a strange and foreign font, no less) can be overcome. Yet what really concerns me about this ad is the odd lens through which the Sparton company have chosen (in 1943) to define what it means to be a "free American boy". Free speech and action, yep, no problemo. "Free American boys" should experience those delights. "Warm comfortable homes". Well, homes are a good start, and I guess you wouldn't want it cold. Comfortable? That surely is in the eye of the beholder? But yeah, comfortable is good, I guess. "Automobiles and radios by the million"? Yeah, you're starting to lose me here Sparton. "Electrical machines to keep and c...

Did you know that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) can dish out a PG-13 rating for a movie that features an "intense depiction of very bad weather"? Well it can. All Movie has an entertaining little article today on some interesting wording choices by the ratings board when rating films. Thus, rather than a simple but bland "containing violence", the MPAA allows for a bit of flair to warn viewers that the classic 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up doesn't just feature any old violence, rather "non-stop ninja action". And after reading that, I want to now see the Ivory and Merchant biopic on Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson in Paris . I mean, it's far too rare an event these days to see a good, old-fashioned bawdy puppet show ! Bawdy enough to rate a PG-13.

Here is a tree in the city on Murray Street. With the afternoon sunlight and the colour of the leaves, you can tell it is Autumn.

Here is a quick link to a very interesting commentary by P.J. O'Rourke on the Vatican's recent listing on the all-new, brand spanking Seven Deadly Sins. I think that O'Rourke is onto something here. Those new Vatican sins are all over the shop and contradictory. I think that I like his list far more.

Here's a cool little thing to try. This website records the #1 song in the United States - according to Billboard magazine - on any given date. I've already  touched upon  the songs that were playing during Henry's birth, but here are the charts! Of course, me being me, I've had to check my own birth date out, and compare it with the other mugs loved ones in my family to see who's song best matches them, and more importantly, who is the best , and who are the losers ! First, we'll do Henry, as he was born last and is the weakest. Number one when he popped out was the hit by that dirty southern rapper, Ludacris - featuring Pharrell (Colin Pharrell?) - "Money Maker". In this song, Mr Ludacris claims that he is a "bedroom gangsta”. Well, Henry does like to make noise in his bedroom, I've yet to see any gunplay, but it's early doors yet! The song also has a touch of the oldest profession about it with the line: "Shake your moneymaker. ...

Here is a picture from inside a moving vehicle (passenger side!) approaching the Tasman Bridge from the Eastern Shore. This is a pretty regular sight for me, but it still impresses me how high it goes. The weather wasn't really as dodgy as it looks in the photo. I'll attempt to get one coming the other way.

In what promises to be a very short series, here is the first installment of "Baseball cards that I like". I'm not much of a baseball fan, if there is a bat and a ball, for me the game has got to be cricket. However, I am a fan of some of the colourful names that seem to emerge from America's Pastime . Perhaps none more so than today's focus: My last name is 'McCracken', which draws its share of sniggers. Yet I really have to wonder how Rusty makes it through each day? You'd struggle in Australia with that name, I'd wager!