Been another busy few nights… guess it must be Christmas, although I’m only really understanding that because I just spent a few days wrapping presents and sending them off to my family in all their various locations. Should all arrive in time the Post Office tells me…

Apart from wrapping presents the start of the week was filled with watching the final few ResFest films. Pretty intense watching 12 hour and a half long film sessions in fairly quick succession and have been on a film related ‘come down’ ever since (which was partly alleviated by watching a Chinese epic movie called ‘Hero‘ in the meantime – very good indeed in a Crouching Tiger stylee). Highlights of ResFest – the Michel Goudry retrospective, a short called ‘Japan Tradition: Relationships’ and a animated ‘Letter to Mr President’ done by painters on a large board filmed by above. Michel Goudry is the guy who did the Kylie video with many Kylies walking along roughly the same route, which is a culmination of many years of playing with how we perceive time variations. Amazing visual sense.

Had a fun session out on Tuesday night with Vera and Dom trawling from St Kilda back to the CBD where found a nice new bar called East 88 on Elizabeth Street and took some cool photos using a mix of their camera flash and my camera with no flash which I’ll try and post onto My Photos soonish under Aussie Friends. Big shout out to Sarah the bartender for topping the polls on most friendly barkeep in Melbourne thus far.

Last night was again busy – first watched a bit of the queues to get into Robbie Williams at the Telstra dome, since didn’t have a ticket to go see the man himself. Hugely busy. Then my friend Irene had an opening at Ivy Hope for her ‘Iggy and Lou Lou’ range of porcelin jewellery. Beautiful pieces, with a mix of animals, faces and more gothic elements. ‘Iggy’ is actually Irene’s nickname and Lou Lou is her friend Louise (who makes awesome t-shirts), originally they were working together but it ended up just being Irene – the name stuck however. Irene also makes these great kids plates, so both of these businesses are keeping her and her boyfriend Peter rather busy at the moment! Good to catch up with them both again though.

From there, fuelled by the opening’s free sparkling red wine we popped briefly into Robot before I heading on the No.6 tram down to Bar 116 to meet Holly and her pals. Last time I was at 116 it was to see Holly play guitar, but tonight she was just out to play. Lovely evening, meeting piles more of her friends and taking some more cool piccies. Also heard some more amazing music – a solo guy playing Irish whistle which was beautiful and this highly intense solo woman with guitar who had everyone in the room enthralled by her intense, passionate PJ Harvey/Gypsy style playing. Think all the boys in the room (and probably a lot of the girls) were in love with her by the end of the set she was so emotional and intense as she attacked the guitar and swayed back and forth singing her lungs out – I certainly was!