Silverback. Not entirely sure what this is, but resize the window to see some coded brilliance. How to recreate the effect.

Now that our rental lease is officially up Ange and I have been dedicating a bit more time to checking out the real estate market. Last weekend (for the first time) we went out and the northern edge of the city looking for a possible new residence. We looked at a handful of houses that ranged from decent to down right disgusting. One house in particular smelled like a grungy pub toilet. And the smell wasn't coming from the moldy, carpeted bathroom.

While I'm on that, if you're going to hold an open house inspection you need to make sure the occupants will leave the house. We walked into one house in Reservoir to find the elderly tenants huddled around the television in the front room. This meant that:

a) we couldn't get a good idea of the size of the front room as it was chock full of Slim Dusty brand tilting armchairs;

b) we kept waiting for one of the oldies to turn around and tell us off for touching their dusty, disused memorabilia.

It didn't help that the house was swarming with piles of garbage either.

The last house we saw was back in Pascoe Vale, about 400 metres from where we currently live. From the outside it looked pretty good, all red brick and arches, but once we got inside it was another story. Of the two and a half bedrooms only one had a wardrobe that only opened when I threw my shoulder into it. Plaster joins in every room were cracked and a lot of the door handles were broken or just not working right. The house seemed to be held together by luck and good intentions.

The bathroom was big enough for a bathtub, a sink and not much more. The laundry, on the other hand, was twice the size of the bathroom and featured a toilet! In short that place was going to need a lot of money poured into it to be liveable.

Once we were back in the front yard the auction began. The auctioneer went through the usual waivers and cavets, talked up the house and block and then started the bidding. Except nobody would start. I suspect most of the people there, like us, were bystanders. Just there for a sticky beak.

Eventually the auctioneer decided on a starting vendor bid of $400,000. The crowd, which had been a quiet murmur went dead silent. Everyone was thinking the same thing. Was this guy insane?

Of course nobody put their hand up and it wasn't long til the auctioneer began to look worried. Then it happened, some guy to my right, maybe a little crazy, maybe a little bored put his hand up.

"$410,000."

The auctioneer smiled. He waved his arms around, trying to squeeze more bids out of the crowd. He had us now, or so he thought. Nobody budged. Maybe he figured we thought the house was too cheap because he threw in another vendor bid. The house was now going for $420,000. The man to my right put in another bid: $421,000. The auctioneer sneered and asked him to stop playing games. Collectively we, bystanders and bidders alike, were thinking the same thing about him.

The man bid again: $425,000. The auctioneer accepted this bid and set to working the crowd up again. After three calls and no more bids he finished off the auction.

It was then that he let the ball drop: the house hadn't reached the intangible reserve price. I think we were all beyond caring at that point. The crowd dispersed and we all went our separate ways, while the lone bidder "negotiated" with the chain-smoking owner.

It was later that night that Ange pulled up the house's listing on domain.com.au. The house was still listed, but the page had been updated with the reserve price: an incredulous $465,000!

To me it was obvious that the real estate bubble has burst. The Sunday Herald Sun even pointed this out on the front page. The market is shifting. It just seems that everybody except the agents recognise this.

Breathtaking Typographic Posters. Smashing Magazine brings the goods again.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Teaser. Do I really need to comment?

6/365, originally uploaded by The BlueBoy.

The real estate/landlord cancelled last weekend's house inspection 30 minutes before they were due to arrive. They've rescheduled for this weekend, so now we're going through and giving the house a quick once over just in case they decide to show up this time.