What the fuck is wrong with Dymocks at Broadway?

Gosh, how times have changed. It's been quite a while since I last browsed the Dymocks at Broadway. Once upon a time, that wondrous space (in the old Grace Bros building, now Broadway Shopping Centre) was home to a very classy Collins book store. It had an intra-store Gloria Jeans and as many uni students working behind the counter as you could poke a stick at. They knew what you were talking about when you asked for a particular author or title, the range of books and categories was exemplary and as a consequence shopping there was a very pleasant experience.

A few years later I wandered in for a browse to find the shelves almost completely bare, even though the doors were open for business. Bugger. Bankruptcy. In its place, after some time, came a Dymocks. Oh well, I thought. Its a great space, they are bound to treat this as a second flag ship store. But no, no, no this was not to be the case. On the rare occasions I browsed there I found the staff to be only a fraction short of hostile and not at all short of ignorant and the layout and range of books hopelessly compromised.

But until my visit today (to spend a gift voucher), I haven't had an occasion to visit any other Dymocks stores for a very long time, but I can't imagine that their business model could have changed so radically. I never saw them as anything more than a suburban chain store, selling a pretty limited selection of titles, but this! The visual merchandising is appalling. Books are laid out on bargain tables, the shelves are dishevelled, everything is muddled together with racks of tacky knick-knacks and worst of all some sale items and subject categories are marked with badly hand scribbled labels on plain paper sticky-taped to the shelf.

So many questions, so few answers on the website. Doesn't the Dymocks franchise owner provide standard maroon and white signage for the stores? Are other Dymocks stores now like this? Who owns the Dymocks Broadway franchise/store? And what the fuck are they thinking???

Long live Gleebooks, Better Read Than Dead, Elizabeth's, Ariel & Berkelouw I say!

The Ark Project aka Fabulous But Unnecessary Purchases Part 1

Actually, the 'Part 1' in the title of this post is a little misleading. There are just so many unnecessary purchases in my past, and like past lovers, so easily forgotten when something newer and shinier comes along ...

A few weeks ago I wondered into Mag Nation on King Street, Newtown. My attention was immediately drawn to a fantastic illustrated book/magazine, 'Ark: an Illustrated Animal Bible'. So cool. The idea behind the Ark Project, as the name suggests, is to gather animals from all over the world and 'save' them in the Illustrated Animal Bible. More than 200 illustrators/artists contributed to the book, each providing an illustration of an animal from their part of the world. Australian contributors include Christopher Nielson, Nior, Monaux, Rinzen, Jeremyville, Drew Funk, Cupco and Ghostpatrol.

This afternoon I cracked and muttering something to MBH ran out and bought The Ark book. I just know this time it'll last.

Melissa Shoes

Attention! Attention! We at FTLOASD have a truly exciting discovery to report! Just this evening I have stumbled upon the wonderous loveliness of Melissa Shoes*. How I could have lived in ignorance of these divine shoe-beings is completely beyond my comprehension. I think its best if I just show you some purty pictures (borrowed with thanks from Fat4 and some other site) and some mouth-watering video.

The shoes above were done in collaboration with practically the only fashion designer I actually like, Vivienne Westwood.

Watching the video is imperative.



Chicka-bow-wow!

* the truly madly deeply fabulous thing about Melissa shoes is ... nothing had to die to make them. Sure, some petrochemicals were inconvenienced but its a great result overall. Yay for that!

Two Thousand and I Don't Think So

Ordinarily I would start a film review post with a spoiler alert, but honestly, the only thing that would "spoil" your enjoyment of 2012 is if you paid money to see it. Luckily, one of my besties paid for my ticket, so the only thing I lost out on was those 2+ hours of my life that I'll never get back.

We saw a preview for the new suped up, hollywoodified Sherlock Holmes movie. On the plus side Robert Downey Jr plays Holmes. On the very, very, very minus side that movie ruiner Jude Law plays Watson. On balance Law sucks more than Downey Jr shines, so I shan't be writing a review of Sherlock Holmes any time soon.

Back to 2012. The lameness begins in the first scene when we meet Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a geological scientist, watching the earth's core bubbling up through a manhole in India. The plot gets less plausible from this point. Woody Harrelson plays a hillbilly conspiracy theorist maddy and John Cusack, who I'm sure we all agree is a lovely chap, plays the unlikely hero who has been thrown into the eye of the catastrophe movie storm.

The plot goes like this: bigger than usual sun spots are superheating the earth's core and causing the earth's crust to break up. Along comes Adrian Helmsley with an urgent report for one of the US government's top men. For some reason they take him seriously straight away and start building big ships in China. Meanwhile, John Cusack takes his kids camping at Yellowstone and runs into Woody Harrelson, which is bad enough, but Woody's character turns out to be a plot device and tells John about the fate of the planet and that the go'ment is trying to cover it all up. John Cusack decides the best course of action is to round up the family and head to China! What else? Danny Glover plays the President, who goes down with his ship/country and there is a pointless side story about John's character being a writer. Yawn. It's the other annoying touches that really finished 2012 off for me, like one of the characters is a British scientist who wears a lab coat and walks with a limp and a cane. Cliched much? Anyway, they all get on the boats, run into the Himilayas and a month later the earth has reconfigured itself and they all sail off into the sunset.

There are annoying kiddies, dull heart felt moments and the most unbelievable plot since Roland Emmerich's last crockbuster. He also directed 10,000BC, The Day After Tomorrow, The Patriot, Godzilla, Independence Day and Stargate. I haven't seen 10,000BC or The Patriot but as with the rest of Emmerich's films you really don't need to. Having said that, I really quite liked The Day After Tomorrow but I may have been distracted by that dishy Jake Gyllenhaal. There are touches of The Poseidon Adventure and every other disaster movie I've ever seen, and basically its The Day After Tomorrow all over again but with fire instead of ice.

My friend and I exchanged "this movie really sucks' " several times during 2012. And for anyone who has seen it, the line "no more pull-ups" had me retching into my handbag. Recommended for ... well no one!

Further Shiny Objects (to line my nest)

I bought a totally shmick-oh new compact digital camera last week. It's the top of the range digital compact from Fuji. It's got all kinds of fanciness that I don't really understand and couldn't be bothered explaining, so instead here's a picture. Shiny.

The Greatest Show on Earth (Episode 3)

Apologies for the delay in posting my response to last week's episode of ALTL. Things have been moving pretty fast around here since MBH went back to work. In fact Episode 4 has whizzed by without me even watching it, which is lucky 'cause I'm over ALTL now. The delicious cringe value has turned to pity and that ain't no fun.

Here are the basic notes I jotted down from Episode 3:

Young Kelly made an impression this week with her proud assertion that "by the end of the night I've drunk myself stupid and I'm either abusing someone or chucking up in a gutter".

Some of the cutaways are witty. Jessica is told to turn to Mrs Shrager or Mrs Harbord if she gets nervous mc'ing the fashion show. Cut to a rather mad and severe looking Mrs Harbord. Titter.

Shiny Objects

Here is something pretty I'd like to get my mits on:

This is the La Sorrentina coffee maker, a reproduction of the Atomic Coffee Maker imported into Australia by the Bon Trading Co from the 60's to the 80's. According to the Bon Trading website the Atomic is still being made, but it is the opinion of some that none have been produced since the factory in Milan burnt down many years ago. Apparently, "new" Atomics are usually cheap knockoffs made in India and lack the quality and attention to detail of the genuine machine. Who knows the truth? Certainly not me. I have had my eye on the La Sorrentina, which is a licensed reproduction but still costs about 450 bucks, which ain't as much as the second hand Atomics!

After much agonising about whether to invest in such a lovely shiny thing I decided not to make the purchase. This is rare for me. MBH calls it having "a bee in my bonnet" but sometimes when such an objay has taken my attention I find it virtually impossible to resist. Somehow, this time I decided on a com-pro-mise and bought a perfectly lovely Bialetti Moka Express instead. Octagonal-y. As you can see, the Bialetti is no slouch in the lovely shiny thing stakes either:

Coffee anyone?