Puppy Fat

The sunset on the walk home.

Well I don't feel like I've been away for almost 3 months, but it's true. It could be my hopeless memory or just the fact that I'm having so much fun that time feels like it's just melting away.... unlike my body fat. It, on the other hand, is on the rise. I've measured myself several times since arriving but after getting confused by the absence of the metric system I always gave up or forgot the figure before working out the conversion. I finally popped on the internet and low and behold - I've gain 4.5 kg's! In 2 months. Here's me in three months writing a blog titled "a Fridge too far.."


It's extra relevant because I can't afford a hair cut..and I write my blogs naked.

So I'm thinking it's time to get out the running shoes. You see - my horrible eating habits in Australia were always complimented by a ready supply of veggies and fruit - and maybe the last scraps of puberty helping my metabolism to trudge through the 5 servings of mi goreng a day. But alas - the microwave chicken nuggets / chicken wraps / Chinese take out and of the other processed sludge foods of America have finally broken the proverbial camels back. But to look on the up side - maybe now my disproportionately large head will be more in tune with my body, considering that it will be only as large as my mondo-mega belly. They'll be friends.

In other design based news, I went to see a lecture by well known designer Vince Frost about 2 weeks ago. It was great as it was my first lecture in NYC, and I got to meet people and hear about Frost design - generally soaking up what I came here for - learning stuff. He ran through some of his projects which were all inspiring - he has recently relocated his studio from London to Sydney - baffling the international design community. He showed heaps of photos of his neighbourhood in beautiful Bronti (where sister Sarah has recently moved) and raved about Australians and the weather etc. One thing, besides the work, that I loved about the lecture was when he talked about 'Try(ing) to find an idea inside a project - Never force(ing) your idea onto it'. Here's some of my favourite pieces from the lecture. I was also lucky enough to have chatted to Vince's office manager before hand - she was lovely - we swapped details and I'm going to visit the studio when I come back to oz. That's the one thing that I find most exciting about this city - the chance to meet people. All sorts.

So I have finally made a trip to a NYC museum - this weekend just past, with the lovely Julia. I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in central Park (a.k.a THE MET). Was greashhh


Pretty paintings


Thinking Halloween costume?


Although..I didn't like all the work.


(A poorly timed - self timer) Julia and I enjoying a whole food lunch in the park on a beautiful 24 degree day. Clear skies, good company (a throbbing hangover) and a great band of 70 year old Jazz musicians. Bliss? Bliss.

New York idiosyncrasy no.1

You can't drink in America till your 21 years young. (unless your crafty) It's weird and cruel. They will let you Drive - vote - even die for your country - and you can’t even have a beer. It's been really getting to me cause poor old George wasn't blessed with a birth-date as crafty as mine. And I've been hanging out with some younger people that have the same problem. So getting to the idiosyncrasy - it's that the liquor stores (that close at 9pm) - they don't sell beer. They only sell wine and Liquor (spirits). But beer gets dished out at any old bodega (milk-bar) Weird...especially with all that crazy strict law surrounding it's consumption.

My room has been a dump of late - lack of furniture has meant that piles of collected crap and garbage have been slowly growing around the only piece of furniture - my desk. See?



I know - how could something as beautiful as this blog be produced while skwatting around such an unholy mass of junk? I wonder the same thing, while throwing garbage on the ground around my desk.


The silver cup sign I see every morning on the way to work from the train...


The view of Manhattan from the 7 train.


(man walking around central park) Say it, Grandpa.


Skywriting near work.


Our Guard Cat - Pinky.

At work - it's great to get inspired by my colleagues. We have inspiration sessions every Monday - and this little doosy popped up. These men appear at Victoria Gardens Trains station in Melbourne - how cool. The first "Crete man" was actually placed at the end of Cubbitt Street in Richmond.




The "Queens" that we've put up for the party - celebrating being in Queens. Long live Queen Lizzy.

So my second celebrity spotting happened out side of the Frost lecture. This guys from OZ. (Dean WInters ) Yes - not at the super A grade yet - but I'm working on a few leads and think I may be able to groupie style some real pics this weekend. I hope.


Dean Winters plays Ryan O'Reily - for those of you who watch it.

Soon we will begin the Summer Fridays. This is apparently a done thing in NYC - were a nominated 5 Fridays or so are days off over the summer. Mine are luckily on my 21st Birthday (August 3rd) and then the day after a massive concert with Daft Punk and the Rapture. Woot! Can’t wait for the 3 day weekends. Can. Not. Wait.


Elise and I with Georgie - partying on my roof and admiring the distant view of the Island, last weekend.






Villa de-Nick


Partying with room mate Danny, friend Adirel. With wigs. Danny has a lot of wigs.


What the?

Watch this - it's relevant because it's about New York.




This is my new jacket. And another excuse to take another photo of myself.


(f*ck yeah)


Don't call me Baby.

I’m also very proud to announce the arrival of my new beautiful niece Poppy Eve Murfett McDonald.



She's currently my favorite family member. All other family members may increase their ranking by sending money or commenting this blog.

Keep writing comments, all - I'm a needy girlfriend and want your cyber affection.

NL/NY

New, Novel, Brand spanking

Before I arrived at MSLK, the home office had undergone a year long renovation to transform the top floor into a small working studio. The party to celebrate it's completion (it was all finished only a week before I started) is on this week. The party has been in the works for a long time and finally the food, alcohol, music and supplies have all been gather and organized for it's unveiling.

Here's the video that was sent out showing the whole process from the same corner of the floor. If you look closely you can see me at the end sitting at my desk - gives you a better sense of the office. Enjoy..



as a side note - I had an awesome weekend. With a trip to the Met - a big bottle of Bacardi -some productive uni work - some very interesting new friends and a new jacket - but that's for another blog - another time. I know it's becoming a bit of a running theme - but I have to sleep.

Central Parkness.

No time to write. Must Sleep. So shut your gobs and comment on my blog dammit. I'm blogging myself to the bone here with NO NEWS FROM HOME. I feel like I'm blogging into the ether here......so comment the bloomin blog.


Nick Elise and Georgie in Central Park






















Day out in Williamsburg with the girls (nest day ever) saw heaps of store - a band rocking out on the roof of an apartment building - and other creative inspirational young type shit. Including this view of a the east river. Noice.


Also got to see Rent - finally. FINALLY - I knew every word and was thrilled to see it all on stage. Incredible. It was also great to realize that it was all set in places that I had been to (Avenue A and B etc) And yes, I had a little teary as well. To recap - I saw a broadway musical set in east village and cried with my two girlfriends. But I'm still all man.







Must sleep...will fill in the photos with captions and other goings on later....

NL/NY

Sacrilicious

This is a quirky little find that was on the ground outside the Queens post office. It's wrong on so so many levels that I thought it deserved it's own post.

Nizzle Le Mizzle in Nezzle Yozzle

It's been a while I know. The delays been partially caused by a weekend without a camera (and thus a feeble brain unable to recall what has happened over the past week) and partially because Uni work has reared its ugly head and has been mercilessly eating up my spare time. And it hasn't finished snacking so I'm writing this on my lunch break at work.


Carpet that covered the 'side-walk' while I was walking to get lunch from work. I got the 'beige floral' carpet treatment.

So to decipher what is blog-worthy I've sat down to create a list of the mondo mega amount of stuff that’s happened over the last, say, three weeks. I'm just going to give short descriptions and it'll all probably culminate in an antidote free - self centered blog - thoroughly devoid of all intelligent structure or witty rhetoric. But tuff titties, this is New York time.


This is the mr.whippy that circles my block and plays green sleeves and other nursery rhyme top 10's - well the trucks are clearly a front for a drug syndicate. Makes sense - I mean how much business can and icecream truck get at 9 at night? Not much. I wonder if they've got pictures?

So way back after my last post - I woke to find two feral cats sitting in my kitchen. Had to hiss them out the window - washed all the stuff just incase it had cat piddle on it. But hey - maybe they're the lesser of two evils - if I had seen two feral rats I’dve started some drama. I don’t want no drama, drama.



I have also found out that my area is actually the home town of Jay - Z and little Kim. "In his neighborhood, Carter was known as "Jazzy", a nickname which eventually developed into his stage name, "Jay-Z". The moniker is also a homage to his musical mentor Jaz-O (a.k.a. Jaz, Big Jaz) as well as to the J-Z subway lines that have a stop at Marcy Avenue in Brooklyn." The JMZ line is right next to my house Bit of trivia for you.


Ghetto

I have also now purchased my first NYC tour tickets to see Feist in early June. I'm so excited - and a little scared that the world of internet purchasing has been opening to my feeble checking account. I have also managed to buy a ticket to a lecture this Thursday by Vince Frost which should be rather exciting - give me something to talk about to Uni people.

Feist:




I have been out many times over the past weeks, too many times to write anything that isn’t horribly repetitive. But highlights include - seeing Tim Howey play a dj set somewhere in Soho, Heading out to les (lower east side) with the lovely Georgie Barrett, a night at a club with more celebrity photos on the wall and beautiful people on the seats than I could believe and other drinking and dancing adventures that I'm sure I wont remember in a month - but were fun all the same.


Some artwork at the train station

It's warm now - with the occasional chilly day - but it's warm. Green leaves are out and spring’s in swing. Thought I should add that.

I finally did Central Park with Julia last weekend. Had a proper walk around the grounds and saw so many cultural points of reference - that's was in Stuart little - sex in the city - that's where John Lennon was shot and killed etc. It felt like I had escaped to Dalesford but was still in the middle of Manhattan. Without too many of the buildings in site, it's a real contrast to the surrounding metropolis.


Random lady in Queens - sadly, she's at the cutting edge of queens fashion. Given that she has a photo of herself on her t-shirt.

So at work over the last month - I've been organising the details of the MSLK New Studio relaunch party (getting the food organised, the beer, logistics etc) and it's all starting to take shape. The food is going to be great - working off a Greek theme I've been researching all the local produce and fine tuning the menu. You can see the studio's transformation at www.mslk.com/newstudio


Lunch out back with my nanna/work mate - Ellen.


The eerie thing about ground zero was the abundant sunlight - in the middle of a very over shadowing bunch of skyscrapers. It was a little hard to take in the enormity of 9/11 - aparently they're still finding remains in the wreckage.


Statue of Liberty (squint)

So Georgie Barratt is in New York at the moment - has been great to have her to do some of the naughty tourist stuff that should have been done already. Had a great day in Manhattan with her - saw Ground Zero and did some shopping - also saw (albeit from a distance) the lady her self - Miss Liberty. (tick). Georgie's attracted some interesting characters on the street. Mainly men telling her she's beautiful (tis true) - but it made me wonder why nobody stops me in the street to tell me I'm beautiful. Perplexing.




(night out in Lower East Side)

Had a nice lunch in New Jersey with her and her boy James. New Jersey being the state across the Hudson - of Soprano’s fame. Let's just say the men were massive beef cakes and the ppl were interesting. That may be the first and last time I cross the border.


Hoboken - New Jersey. Frank Sinatra was born here. But playing monkey bars on sculpture was probably the funnest thing going on.


These trees smell like cum. It's gross.

I also caught up with Sophie Mallia for a night out on the Lower east side - more fun - randomly ran into Paul Currie in Soho and later this week my bestest buddy Elise is coming for the weekend. So I hang out with a lot of Australians.

In other news I'm very excited for the birth of my next niece of nephew in the next couple of days - I'm moving out of my little room at the end of this month hopefully into a nice room in Greenpoint, waiting to hear back from the roommates - and I'm trying my darndest to get some of this uni work done (the due date is looming)

Oh! And I have also had my first job interview at a 24 hour restaurant – see how it goes. Will try and look for another – if any one knows of anyone – anywhere. Let me know.

And just tonight I had an interview for this great apartment in Greenpiont (a Polish community closer to work - very pretty and cool) Heres some pics of the view from the end of the street.









Random video about Greenpoint:



The bike riding at the end of the video is in the street I'm hoping to be placed in (pray to the rent gods)


Cool artwork makes Nick a happy boy - neighbourhood gets the big tick. Let's pray that the other people they interview aren't good fits.


My stunner of a nephew Oscar - doing what generations before him have done. Wish I was there to double bounce him.