Gong Xi Fa Cai!

[images via From Me to You]

Happy Chinese New Year! People born in the year of the rabbit are meant to be kind and loving, with grace, culture and have beautiful manners.

I'm not sure how beautiful my manners will be when I call dibs on a seat at the Cinema Alley or when I dance with flamboyant dragons at the Twilight parade - but I'm sure I do it with a smidgen of grace.

Grrr Giraffe

[images via smilebooth]

Most ingenious costume ever? Sure she can't move her shoulders or walk through doorways, but it is just so gosh darn clever.

There were giraffes in the 1950s....

Mad for Mad Men

I'm going to a Mad Men party soon. To say I'm peachy is a bit of an understatement - I love the show so much I would happily enrol in the uni course.

It seems like most major fashion magazines have featured a 1950's/1960's inspired shoot in the last 18 months. But this one featuring Catherine McNeil in Vogue Australia is a show stopper, the styling is a flawless blend of vintage and contemporary references.

I know that there are no rockabilly characters in Mad Men - but I'm sorely tempted to slip into a pencil skirt and prance around with cheeky indifference.

2011

[NYE 1956]

The New Year commmenced in typical Sydney style. A dip at the beach to wash the weary taint of work away, followed by a flurry of fireworks and barbequed snags.

A quick scramble for resolutions somehow evolved into a neat little list of ideas.

Ideas vague enough to convince myself that I haven’t let things fall by the wayside:

1. Smile at strangers

2. Don't use reading a book as an excuse to not accept social invites

Weekend away

Hotel heights

National Gallery

Things I learnt during my weekend away:

- Ned Kelly was occasionally partial to cross dressing and riding side saddle

- Lake Burley Griffin isn't usually so brown

- Don't mix white wine, Champaign and vodka as it induces nightmares and sleepwalking

- Canberra has a bounty of beautiful trees

- Diaghilev put the balls in ballet

- Koko Black create swoon worthy sculptures of Christmas snowmen. nom nom nom

- Going out of state to a friend's housewarming, to avoid participating in your own home renovations is a mighty smooth move

All teepees lead to Canberra

teepee love

Au revoir Sydney! I'm popping down Australia's official capital for the weekend.

pssst you're still the real capital city to me

Controlling clouds

Cloud Control are packing up their guitars, soaring harmonies, drums, ambient synths and folk sensibilities, for the blustery Britain.

I feel like a lovesick teenager, harping over a lost love and pondering deep meaningful thoughts about how to pull off a pensive (yet alluring) pose. Tricky stuff.

Why must you leave the Blue Mountains Cloud Control??

At least they're setting sail in style and not sneaking off with their tail between their legs.

They're throwing a going away shindig - "incorporating bands, DJ's, arts and video over multiple stages inside and outdoors" at The Factory Theatre.

Sounds like an opportunity to re-inact "Pretty in Pink". Perhaps along with my dancing shoes, I'll wear my heart on my shelve and declare my love for Cloud Control during the 'end of school dance'?

From Russia With Love

Are you feeling like Nigel-party-for-one, because you're without any weekend plans?

Never fear, the party people are heading to Russia.

Alexei Kudrin, Russia's finance minister, is making it his countrymen's patriotic duty to light up and get boozy.

"People should understand: Those who drink, those who smoke are doing more to help the state," As the revenue from increased taxes on alcohol and cigarettes will be spent on funding social programs and services.

But what about the exponential rise in hospital beds required with this peer pressured patriotic booze up?

According to Time's John Cloud

[A] new paper in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that -- for reasons that aren't entirely clear -- abstaining from alcohol does actually tend to increase one's risk of dying even when you exclude former drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers' mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers.

This still doesn't account for the inevitable increase in the hospital beds required to cope with the influx of smokers gagging for breath.

Sounds like Alexei got the party started prior to announcing this policy...“Ah that’s just drunk talk, sweet beautiful drunk talk.” ~Barney Gumbal