A weekend of busking

March 23rd, 2008 Matt

I’ve spent the last two days wandering around the Fremantle Street Arts Festival, Australia’s largest street art festival. I reckon I would be lucky to have seen half of the acts. Yesterday I went on my own and went back today with Worlynn (a friend of Cat) and Sara (a friend of Worlynn). In Freo we met up with Elissa, Steve and Kurt.

Steve managed to get himself a temporary job restraining one of the performers with a straight jacket and chains.

The highlight for me on both days was aRTyMs (Theaker von Ziarno), an aerials artist who lives up north in the desert. It wasn’t just her skill with the silks and the static trapeze but her attitude and the positive message she was telling. The silly hat was cute too. Check out her promo video.

Part of the act is the construction of her rig, which is extremely light weight. Apparently it was designed with the help of a local boat builder and it certainly has the feel of boat rigging. The construction requires the help of the audience and the rig is anchored to the ground during the performance by four audience members sitting on the legs.

After today’s performance Worlynn and Sara wanted to talk to her and they got photos together. Theaker also got a big hug while Steve and Elissa played with her flag poi

Worlynn and I got lunch from the kebab shop that Gloria works in at Freo markets which was, as promised by Gloria, excellent.

Photos from both days.

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A case of mistaken identity

March 20th, 2008 Matt

So, Kurt and I were sitting on the wall outside building 599 waiting for Worlynn to turn up and do some juggling and poi with us. We were successfully distracting Gloria from doing her homework by talking about the Bike Hike.

After a while Worlynn came walking up the hill and stopped next to us. The conversation then went something like:

Worlynn: Hi
Us: Hi
Worlynn: So is, er
*pause*
Worlynn: I can’t think of his name
Kurt: Steve?
Worlynn: No, er, er
*pause*
Worlynn: Is Matt here?
Me: Yep, I’m here!

Apparently shaving your head and wearing a bandana and sunglasses is a good disguise Things got better from there and Worlynn did some poi while Kurt and I juggled and unicycled. At one point Mo walked past dressed in a white bunny suit carrying a basket of Easter eggs. An hour in the life of Curtin Uni.

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I win :)

March 18th, 2008 Matt

I woke up this morning to discover an email from the Microsoft Scripting Games telling me I’ve won one of 250 limited edition Dr Scripto bobblehead dolls

I’ve just sent them the shipping details so hopefully I should see it in a few weeks.

P.S. I also get a certificate but that’s not as cool.

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I don’t think I have enough bricks :(

March 17th, 2008 Matt

Just came across this beautiful Lego model of the Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

If only I had the bricks

However, Zac would probably destroy it like he did my Star Destroyer.

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Freeway Bike Hike

March 16th, 2008 Matt

I got up this morning at about 7:30 in order to drive to Steve’s place in Como. From there we rode our unicycles to Canning Bridge Station and caught the train to Perth where we meet up with Colin, Daniel, Kevin and Ben. We then caught the train north to Greenwood where we meet up with Kurt and a young blow-in Jarrah.

At this point we all joined the queue of bikes waiting to start the 10km portion of the Freeway Bike Hike. Every year the southbound lane of the freeway is closed so that cyclists can ride 60km, 30km or 10km up the freeway to Joondalup in the north. We thought 10km was probably the limit for unicycling

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Steve in front of me before he decided to catch up with Kurt and Ben

We set off at 10:10 and headed out of the station car park and down on to the freeway. Unicycling on smooth surfaces is fairly easy but it still gets a little uncomfortable after awhile. We started from the front of the queue and throughout the ride were gradually overtaken by most of the other riders. I was pleased that I was overtaking some people as I rode up the exit ramp at the northern end of the freeway and in to Joondalup.

I finished at 11:00, so did the 10km in 50 minutes which I didn’t think was too bad. I wasn’t the last unicyclist (Colin, Kevin and Jarrah were behind me) and I certainly wasn’t the last cyclist. In Joondalup we met up with Elissa who’d done the 30km ride and then hung around on the grass before catching the train from Joondalup home.

Don’t forget to check out the photos.

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Shave for a Cure

March 13th, 2008 Matt

I just spent my lunch break hanging around Curtin’s Worlds Greatest Shave event. There are a bunch of photos and here is a video of Rusty DJing.

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Do the Test

March 13th, 2008 Matt

Check out this awareness test.

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South Perth Burn

March 5th, 2008 Matt

I wandered down to the South Perth Burn this evening and took some video.
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Geo with the Rope Dart

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Colin Juggling

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Protected: Walkthrough

March 5th, 2008 Matt

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Scripting Games

March 5th, 2008 Matt

Back on Monday the 18th of February I had a day off work sick. However, I was feeling better than I had over the weekend and was getting a bit bored. While reading some blogs I came across the Microsoft Scripting Games 2008 and decided to have a look at the Advanced Division. My language of choice was perl.

In all there were 10 scripts to be written and I knocked them all off in about 5 hours. After checking them the next day for bugs (I found and fixed one) I emailed them all off. The competition actually runs over two weeks but I couldn’t be bothered to submit them individually on the date they were due.

The last of my scripts have now been marked and I got 100/100

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