Monday, December 25, 2006

Merry xmas

Just had christmas lunch, sitting here at the big table with friends and family all around, being told I'm anti-social so I'll keep this short. I'm going to write now before I start drinking- not sure how I am at typing while trashed. I'd probably just sit there and giggle. See you dudes around - will try and post before our NYE luau (how the hell you spell that, I've no idea - you know, hawaiian themed party thing).

-R

Sunday, December 17, 2006

One more, just one more.

Five days of evening shifts is beginning to take a toll on me. I've been working every night from 4pm-closing, with the exception of Friday night when they let me off early, at 9pm. Dark circles, which long ago took up permanent residence under my eyes, are slowly creeping up around my eye sockets too. My back's slowly packing in, old injuries are becoming harder to ignore and new bits which I didn't think could hurt are beginning to. Who knew you could get sore elbows? And let's not even talk about knees and feet. Suffice to say that I think I should be sponsored by Herron Blue and V. Anyway my last shift for the week is tonight, and hopefully next week I'll get one more day off. If not, I'm going to ask Santa to postpone Christmas for a couple of weeks, so I have time to do my shopping, finally go to the bank, get a haircut and go to the physio. I'm only just realising that it's a week away.

-R

PS I'm feeling very vindicated. Triple J has been playing Weekend Without Makeup by the Long Blondes on high rotation. What'd I tell ya!?

Monday, December 11, 2006

Why can't you?

Why do you do it to yourself?

Why do you feel the need to do it?

Why am I always tense when you're around, wondering whether you're going to make a complete fool of yourself and those around you?

Why can't I just relax and enjoy what is meant to be an enjoyable occassion?

Why do I feel a sense of responsibility for you?

Why do I always breathe a sigh of relief when you leave?

I can't do it anymore. I can't be your friend if it's going to be like this. I have my own shit to deal with here. I don't need yours. I don't need your problems to become my problems, just because you for whatever reason can't handle them on your own. I shouldn't be sitting here at one in the fucking morning with no sleep, stressing out over your latest display of appalling behaviour. It's bad enough that he doesn't try and stop you. If anything he encourages you with his laughter. But we shouldn't have to try and regulate your behaviour like a naughty child at a family 'do. You're a grown man, for fuck's sake, take some fucking responsibility for yourself! Don't you realise that while they're all laughing now, when you leave they all shake their heads? I can't even enjoy your company anymore. I spend the whole time worrying. Worrying that you're going to go too far and upset someone, worrying that you're going to offend everyone with your behaviour, worrying that you're going to throw up in my car on the way home, worrying worrying worrying. I shouldn't be worrying about you!

Why do I worry about you?

Why do you do it to yourself?

And why can't I tell this all to your face?

I'm a fucking useless bleeding heart, that's why.

God, I despise myself sometimes.

-R

Monday, December 04, 2006

Brendan just pointed out that I have Autofill in my title box, and how would that be useful at all? I never actually thought about that. It's pretty dumb. He's all excited about having a new myspace even though he only has the one friend (Tom...I think I deleted him...).

I find this often...throughout the day I think of good things to blog about, then when I actually go to do it, I can't think of anything to write...Brendan is trying to hijack the keyboard...he hits those keys so damn hard. They should sue. It would be a class action, he says. It would.

-R

Monday, November 27, 2006

YEEEAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!

*does the happy dance* I got a guitar! Yay, so excited! I went and bought it today. A beautiful shiny lovely wonderful ebony Epiphone Les Paul Standard. I got it for a good price too...the guy in the shop accidentally put through the price for the Epi Les Paul Classic, which was $220 less than the Standard...he very kindly let me keep the discount though as it was his mistake. So even with the amp (a Roland Cube-15, I like the lead channel on it!) and the hard case, I managed to stay under my $1000 budget. I'm very happy. I've been playing it all evening and it's such a lovely instrument. And I can finally play Don't Dream It's Over...yay :D

I also got a strap for the guitar...when I saw Tim Finn in October I liked his swirly black red and white strap, so I emailed him not long ago asking where he got it...not expecting a reply but he told me where his roadie got it and I emailed them and it was waiting for me when I got home with the guitar today, so it was perfect timing. I've been playing bits all night...Electric is way different to acoustic. Going to have to start all over again! Now I know why power chords are so useful. Anyway here are some photos...the computer is being a bit shite and not letting me turn them. Bleh.




-R

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Time For A Change

I've realised it's actually easier for me to record a video with my webcam and upload it to YouTube than it is for me to record something with GarageBand and stream it...so voila. This is one of my favourite Split Enz songs (of COURSE it's an Enz song, I can hear you all saying with much rolling of eyes...). It also happens to be rather easy to play so I didn't have to practise it too hard (at all) to play it...sooner or later I'll get round to those more complex pieces, but for now, here ya go.

Friday, November 17, 2006

I hope you're not squeamish

Yeah, it's been one of those days...you know, one of those blood-soaked, flesh gouging days that you have every once in a while.

To elaborate: It was the middle of lunch rush today where we got a little slammed, and I was slicing lemons with the serrated knife to put into the drinks, and the tip of my left thumb got in the way and was duly sliced off. Luckily it wasn't *too* deep and it didn't completely come off, it's still attached on one side. Now I'm not generally a squeamish person, but seeing my own thumb peel open was not entirely pleasant...it didn't hurt or bleed for about 10 seconds, in which time I thought 'Oh my f'in god, this is going to be so painful' and 'shite, there's food to go out'. Stef said when I walked into the kitchen I was white as her...well, whites, and she didn't realise what was the matter until she saw blood pouring out of my thumb. Of course, it being the lunch rush, I didn't have time to do anything other than chuck a couple of bandaids on and hope they soaked up the blood while I hustled the food out....let me tell you, it's hard to act all cheery and happy when your thumb is throbbing like mine was throbbing. After about an hour when the rush died I ran across to the chemist to get it dressed properly and assessed...thankfully I don't need stitches. She put a little sticky strip across it that acts like a stitch (and it's actually stopped bleeding now which is nice) and I have to leave it on for a few weeks...a few weeks!? Argh. Still, if I have to slice one finger open, that's a pretty good choice, because I can still play guitar.

-R

Monday, November 13, 2006

God, I still have no life, even though I've finished exams. I want to save up some money in my bank acount just in case I end up going travelling next year and also to buy my guitar, so as soon as I finished exams last week I went straight into what pretty much amounts to full time at my part time waitressing job for the summer. To give an idea of my roster - tuesday night, wednesday lunch, friday double, saturday double, sunday double (double being lunch and dinner - 10-3, 7-10 type stuff). 30+ hours. I only worked 24 this week because I only did friday night and the weekend doubles but my feet are still throbbing. I have to get used to it. Kind of jealous after reading Georgina's blog and the fun times she had at Ben's birthday, but o well...I'll be putting around $400 in my bank account each week so that's something. Also I've been offered my house sitting job from last year again. They have a swimming pool and a big plasma screen telly and they live even closer to my work than I do (which is really close, considering I live five minute's drive away - they're like five minutes walk away). So I'll probably look after their place for six weeks which is great.

Anyway I should probably go to bed...it's 3:50am and I'm still up. Just can't bring myself to stand up and walk upstairs to bed. I worked 10 hours today and my feet, knees and back are feeling it. Tomorrow's my day off...hurrah :)

-R

PS what is it with customers at work treating me like I'm an idiot? A lot of tables, when I serve their meals, before I can even open my mouth to ask if they would like parmesan cheese or pepper, butt in and say 'and we'd like some pepper' in that horrible condescending tone that I've come to associate with stuffy upper middle class boors with high opinions of themselves. I had someone order a takeaway coffee and they asked me to top it up with milk...my steaming jug was empty so I went to fill it up and they got all panicky and went 'oh I actually want HOT milk!' and I'm like '...do you think I've never made a coffee before?' honestly. I'm a little embarrassed to say that even though I really shouldn't've, I couldn't help gaping at the lady like she was a born fool as I steamed her milk, because I just couldn't believe anyone would be that stupid.

Monday, November 06, 2006

I am so sad.

I'm sitting here by myself in my bedroom on a monday night, listening to Franz Ferdinand, surfing the net and drinking. Ohhhhhh my Gooood. That's so sad and dodgy.

Okay, I kind of sort of almost have a good excuse. I'm mixing a bottle of Gin and cranberry juice to take to the Melbourne Cup picnic tomorrow, and I'm going to take it in the cranberry juice bottle, so obviously I have to take some juice out before I can put any gin in. So I poured myself a glass and went 'what the hell. I'm not driving anywhere. May as well have a drink.' (an aside: The Arcade Fire is now playing. It's actually making a really lovely soundtrack to my solitary drinking/blogging mode.) I had coffee this morning too. I never drink coffee. It's been a strange day. Actually I had coffee last night at Brendan's (in an affogato) and I had a mocha...somethingorother (it was really an espresso that we made too early and took back, hot milk and chocolate in a tall glass) on saturday at work. It would be handy if I turned into a coffee drinker. It's a better wakeup than tea, I'll give it that.

Anyway I'm going to sit back and listen to more Arcade Fire now...I haven't listened to them for a while and forgot how awesome they are...yey :)

-R

Saturday, November 04, 2006

I'm going to pimp a band.

www.myspace.com/astrotheband

The band's name is Astro. The singer is a guy I chat to occasionally on the net and he alerted me to the existence of his band. They've entered Triple J's Unearthed competition, and I happen to think they're actually pretty fucking awesome. So go to their myspace, listen to their songs...if you like em, go to the triple j unearted site (www.triplej.net.au/unearthed) and register...it takes like two seconds...then go and rate their songs. Right now they're ranked 33 but it would be awesome if they got into the top 25, because the top 25 get a bit of radio airplay.

-R

Sunday, October 29, 2006

I'm kind of glad I don't live in England. Neil Finn played a secret show in Bath a couple of nights ago, new band, new songs. I would've been pretty gutted if I lived in England and missed it. Apparently some bloke was heckling his singing, so they got him up to sing Better Be Home Soon, and Neil deliberately played all the wrong chords to sabotage him. Sounds a bit like what dad did at my mum's birthday, except he was actually trying to play the right ones.

So anyway...nothing interesting to say really. I downloaded this song (legally, off iTunes) by Mark Hart called Lullaby for Channing. It's one of those sublimely beautiful piano/strings songs that make you go all funny inside. I think I'll have to create an iTunes playlist with that name...'sublimely beautiful piano/strings songs that make you go all funny inside'. I know there's a couple in my iTunes that could go in that playlist. I was reading an article on how online sales effect charts these days. ARIA doesn't take data from the Brazin stores - Sanity, HMV and Virgin - which is just madness because they seem to be the biggest sellers. They have their own chart I think. And online sales have really changed buying habits...people rarely buy a whole album, they just buy the songs they like. Which is true, I've only bought one album off iTunes and the rest have been single songs. No point in paying for someone that you're not going to listen to (when you can just download whole albums off torrent sites...forget I said that).

Anyway I'm gonna go get ready for work...see ya round.

-R

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Everyday stupidity...

Last night I was hanging out in my sister's room, as I do sometimes when I'm quite bored and want a human being to annoy. She was rearranging some stuff in her school diary and had stashed in one of the pockets a cute little promo thing from the ANZ. It was a little blue rectangle that was actually a sachet of blue zinc sunscreen which she must've gotten at a sporting event. Anyway curiosity got the better of her and she snapped it open. I didn't want to just throw it away so we decided I'd painthe back of my hand with it. It was quite runny for zinc, I was expecting something thicker like what you get in those sticks, but we painted my hand nice and blue (did I mention that I was bored?). After about 30 seconds I decided I would wash it off before it got on anything. Went to the bathroom and turned on the tap, the water ran straight off as expected, so I grabbed the bar of soap to lather up. Only the soap didn't work and instead turned bright blue, whilst my hand didn't become any less blue. After a couple of minute struggling with the soap which was just coated in zinc by then, I started to worry. I mean it's all good and well to have a blue hand when you're staying at home studying, but I'm pretty sure my work wouldn't be so cool with it. So I raced off to my mum's room to the liquid soap and used about half the bottle, which got most of the zinc off but left my hand looking particularly corpse-like with a rather convincing blue tinge. By this time it was late and I jsut thought 'fuck it. Maybe if I go to sleep it won't be there in the morning.' So after cleaning up all the blue tracks I left everywhere, I went to bed feeling rather sheepish.

This morning. Woke up, looked at the hand. It's still blue. Wtf. Surely a good night's sleep should get rid of a stain like that! (Don't ask). I decided to take it one step further and properly scrub my hand with soap. My hand was bright red afterwards. Good sign. Until the red subsided to reveal my hand was still slightly blue. Not enough to look dead, but enough to look like I'd done something rather silly. So I gave it a real going over in the shower, figuring if I couldn't have normal skin I didn't really want skin at all, and thank christ it's back to normal. Lesson learnt - never wear coloured zinc. Whoever formulated the dye for that is an ass.

Imagine what would've happened if I'd put it on my face.

-R

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Why don't you give it a whirl

I can now say I'm one of the card carrying (badge wearing) Frenz of the Enz (what's the singular for that? Fren?). I joined the fanclub last week and my first set of newsletters and assorted goodies arrived today (prompt responses all round. Thanks Peter). I'll show you tragic Brendan XD

Today was one of those can't really be bothered movin kinda days where you drag yourself through the day like honey. Getting stuff done seems more painful than usual and it would be so easy to go 'fuck it' and lie in the dark listening to CDs. Hot weather does that to me. Amazingly I still got what I wanted to do done - studying of course, went to Springvale and got a haircut, did my banking. Credit card arrived today - duh duh duhhhhhhhhhhh! They gave me an astonishingly high limit. I'll have to watch that. Already planning the first purchase - Tim Finn presales tomorrow. The girls had afternoon tea, Keith's homemade cupcakes (they take me back to my school years...ah the nostalgia). We're having a barbecue for dinner - Sushi (the dog) lying on the kitchen mat eyeing my mum like a hawk while she prepares the meat. I even found time to strum a few bars of guitar and draw some 'robin' designs (Brendan will know what I'm talking about!). Came up with a good one. Surprisingly productive. Ah shit, didn't touch my violin. Some other day!

Anyway I'm going...gonna go get dinner ready, then I'm going out. Trivia anyone?

Monday, October 23, 2006

I am in love

Brendan and I went looking at electric guitars today, just so I know what I'm saving up for. I've decided I'm going to get an Epiphone Les Paul Standard. It's amazing. It feels SO good to play and it sounds great and it's gorgeous and...*sigh*. I'm going to save for another month before buying it. I could actually get it now but I'd like to have some money left in my bank account after. I will probably get the little Roland 15-watt amp that I usd in the store...then I need a hard-case and maybe a footswitch for the amp to turn the distortion on and off. It all adds up doesn't it...Even Brendan likes the guitar...Dare I say that he might understand a bit of my geeking out? The guy in the shop called Brendan my 'friend' too. I don't think either of us know how to give off the relationship vibe while we're shopping...I mean you can't exactly hold hands while you're playing guitar.

Nice day to be out...we went to Shanghai Dumpling for lunch (yum) and went and got gelato...lucky with the parking, didn't get a ticket...all in all a very nice day. Looking forward to more days like this once exams are over.

(the title is a Crowded House B-side - I bought the B-sides CD off some dude in England and it arrived today. It's very very good.)

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Once and Never again

In about 10 minutes I will truly be an adult. No more of this -teen business. It's so depressing. And I can't use that Long Blondes song as my life's anthem anymore...I've got to find a new one.

Turning 20 is such a pain in the ass.

-R

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Damn emos!

That's it. I'm going to have to change my hair. I've seen one too many people with a bright pink streak in their hair just like mine. OK so it was only one person, but she was like a tryhard emo my chemical romance wannabe sixteen year old too much heavy eye makeup looks like dangerfield threw up on her person. Our eyes met and I thought 'if that's the sort of person wearing my dye job, it's time for a change.' I'm not sure what I'll do yet...Whether I'll change colours or just go all black...but I'm pretty sure I'm going to change the style as well. I don't have much to play with anyway but I'll figure something out.

Oh and I wrote a song today. Like a whole song. With verses and a chorus and a bridge and a tune and a chord progression and everything. It sounds kind of...Jebediah-ish to be honest. I'm going to my 90s indie rock roots! It was inspired by this very incident...the words and tune popped into my head while I was in the city, and I made myself sing them over and over until I got home bacsue I was afraid that I would lose it. I'm going to record it for myself so I don't forget how it goes, but I won't post anything until I can get a full band sound going...going to buy that guitar in december.

-R

Thursday, October 12, 2006

The gig review

OK, gig review time before I forget too much.

I met up with some fellow fans before the gig (well it was technically an album launch, but gig is faster to type) that I knew off the 'net. I got to the designated place first, and the second person to turn up was the girl who had organised it. I recognised her, not only because she was carrying a 'True Colours' sign like she said she would be, but also because we used to go to school together! Small world eh. Neither of us could believe that someone else from Firbank would actually have good taste in music, and that we would both happen to belong to the forum, so it was great to catch up. A couple of others turned up and I had a drink before meeting my family out the front. Very different to what I'm used to when going to gigs - I'm used to standing for three hours outside freezing my ass off and getting thoroughly bored. But I showed up half an hour before the doors opened and my family was already there (which shocked me greatly as we're notoriously late) at the head of the queue. There was a fairly even mix of young and old, although at 19 I was definitely in the minority of really young people. Thanks to my family's astounding punctuality, I got a possie front and centre and was soon joined by the girls I'd met up with.

The support act was a girl whose name I think is Emily Ulman. She was nice, but didn't exactly set my world on fire, and her songs seemed to sound much the same, running into each other. Perhaps it was because it was only her and another guy on their acoustic guitars. She played a short half hour set, then there was the usual wait while the roadies set up. It was at this point we noticed the distinct lack of Tim's yellow star-shaped tambourine, which has been a fixture of his live shows for quite a few years. So I wrote a note asking where it was, folded it into a paper aeroplane (another Finn tradition) and Eloise placed it at Tim's mic stand (we were standing right against the stage, which was about hip height).

Before Tim came on, a druid came out to bless the stage and Tim and all and sundry. I can't remember exactly what she said, and at first people were laughing a bit, but by the end everyone was dead silent and hanging off her words. She talked about peace. I remember that much. It was actually a surprisingly spiritual experience, not something you would expect at a gig.

So onto the gig itself. They opened with Six Months In A Leaky Boat, which was a really nice surprise, because he hadn't played it in Sydney or Auckland, and really got the crowd going. At 54, Tim Finn still rocks pretty hard. He either played acoustic guitar or piano or he just sang, and he still dances like a maniac. He has a great rapport with the audience as well...I've read a lot of stuff on Tim that says that his moods are really obvious and he can change the whole mood of a room with what he's feeling. Last night he was jubilant and in a really playful mood. Being a launch, it was mostly songs off the new album, and I really enjoyed all of them. There was one called Resting that I particularly loved, and another one that I can't remember the name of, but had a really great beat to it and an almost-gospel feel. There were also some old gems, Enz songs like Poor Boy and So Long For Now (last song of the set of course). For the encore he played two Crowded House songs, How Will You Go and It's Only Natural. Just before the final song He noticed my note and picked it up. 'Tim, where is your tambourine? Oooh!' He dropped it on the stage and picked up his guitar, but instead of going into 'Still The Song' he started a jam about his daughter being a rock and roll girl who likes to play the tambourine. 'What's a word that rhymes with tambourine?'
'Tangerine!' yelled someone in the crowd.
'Something something something Tangerine...'
'She has melons like a Tangerine!' yelled the voice.
Tim laughed. 'Awesome!'. Then during Still The Song he ditched the guitar and grabbed his drummer's tambourine for a dance. I'm quite proud that my stupid note inspired a jam. Eloise grabbed it off the stage after so I'll stick it up on my wall.

We didn't hang around the stage door after...something to do with a) it being a fairly seedy area (the joke was to get to the door 'turn left at the prostitute and right at the crack addict') and b) not really knowing where it was anyway. However when we went back to the carpark Tim drove out in the standard white tarago (there was only Tim and the driver, but it must be law that if you're going to or from a gig, you must be in a tarago). Then when we got in the car, Gold FM was playing an interview with Neil Finn and then they played History Never Repeats by Split Enz. Which is hopefully untrue as I'll be seeing Tim on his tour in February.

-R

PS photos up at my flickr site...www.flickr.com/photos/worldofcheese. Because I was so close I got some pretty good shots.

Tim Finn live

Too tired to post a review now...I just spent ages posting photos and a lengthy review to one of the Enz forums....so here is a video that I took instead to make up for it. Suffice to say it was a brilliant gig and I loved the songs he played from hsis new album.



And before you ask, yes, that female voice you can hear doing the high harmony is me. I didn't realise that the mic on the camera would pick me up as the speakers were pretty loud, but I guess I was close enough (and I didn't realise you could hear me until someone pointed it out, because I'd viewed it in mute). At least I'm pretty much in tune...so I guess this is kinda a pseudo-recording thing. Awesome, killing two birds with one stone!

-R

Monday, October 09, 2006

I got paid today. I like being paid. In fact I had to pay myself today as my boss went home early, so I was paranoid that I woud miscalculate my pay and get into trouble, but I think I got it right. I'm going to start up an account book again...I used to have one, which was detailed to the point of obsessiveness (as in I wrote down the smallest things, like 'bought a pen - $0.50'.) but was good because I knew exactly how much I had so I could see whether I could actually afford that CD or not. I let it slip though when I lost my job...couldn't handle seeing all my savings dwindle away again. I should start it up though...have to keep track of bills and PETROL now that I drive.

Driving is awesome.

I was thinking today at work while wiping glasses (good thinking activity, although most barwork is really) about the errands I have to run tomorrow...going to the bank, checking the mail, getting a pair of jeans taken up...then I realised I'm thinking like a grown up and freaked out a bit.

-R

Sunday, October 08, 2006

It's ages since I've posted...I seem to go through phases of posting nearly every day, and then being lucky if I post once a week. I'm in a slump phase right now I think. It'll pick up though...I'm going to three gigs in three nights this coming week, so I will probably have a whole raft of long and terribly excited posts for those.

So anyway..,I think I need new feet. The last couple of nights at work have completely ground them to a pulp, especially with the longer shifts I've been doing...yesterday I worked 7.25 hours and tonight I worked 7 hours. I worked Thursday as well, and I'm working tomorrow night...it's all money isn't it. I'm learning more of the floor stuff and I can now handle my own tables which is tres good. And the funny thing is that even though we were really incredibly busy tonight (a booking of 24 plus our usual Saturday night business) I really enjoyed it. I had nice customers though...didn't have to look after the big table either. They were tightwads...the bill was $1,299 so they paid $1,300 cash. A $1 tip. or 0.00077% of the bill. Ha. Still...$25 in tips. We've definitley done better (on Thursday night we took home $54 each and that was after giving the kitchenhand 10% for a job well done) but we've also done worse. It's good...I just use my tips and I can save pretty much my entire wage.

So anyway...still haven't fully decided which guitar I will get. Well actually I'm probably as close to deciding as I will get for this stage (before I get to go to the shop and play and touch them). My dream guitar is a Gibson Les Paul Goldtop (reissue or vintage, I don't mind!) but obviously I can't pony up the $5,499 required for it and that's before I even think about an amp (and there's no way to justify buying a $300 amp for a $5,499 guitar). But I found out a couple of days ago that Epiphone make Les Pauls (Epiphone are owned by Gibson...I've been doing my research), and they are far more affordable than the Gibson ($700 as opposed to $3,200 for the LP Standard). Kind of like how Fender owns Squier who make cheaper Strats and Teles, but in a higher price range. I've read a lot of good - no, amazing - reviews about the Epi LPs too. The other contenders are Korean or Mexican made Fender Stratocasters (which were rec'd to me but I know nothing about), and the Ibanez ARX100 (which I read a good and indepth review of)...all around the $700 mark I think. One month's pay.

Amp-wise I have had the Vox AD30VT rec'd to me...I found out that Neil Finn plays through a VOX AC30 and I obviously love his sound, so that sounds pretty good. I read someone's opinion that you should spend at least as much on your amp as your guitar....which is probably sound advice, but I would rather get the guitar sooner and start playing straightaway while saving up for an expensive amp, rather than having to wait ages to get everything together.

Can't wait to have an electric...I've been trying to teach myself Don't Dream It's Over on acoustic, and it is SO hard, because it's pretty much all barre chords. Although lately I've been finding it easier to play F major...it actually rings a bit! yay :) my goal is to play barre chords by the end of the year, so hopefully once exams finish and I can practice an hour a day as opposed to 10 or 15 minutes every few days, the rest will come more quickly.

Oh and Sarah Blasko's new album comes out the day after my birthday (October 21)...very excited :) I heard the first single today and it's really good.

So anyway, time for bed I think. I might be meeting my wife aka george for lunch tomorrow...yay :)

-R

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

just another day in the office

I saw The Devil Wears Prada last night with some friends. It was actually pretty good, very enjoyable. Meryl Streep was really good. The clothes....my God...I can see how people get sucked into the fashion industry. They were fabulous. and I've decided that I'm going to grow out my hair....I haven't been a fan of long hair on myself since I was about 10...mainly because it's very straight so whenever I've had long hair it's been nerdy Asian girl long hair, not lovely wavy long hair. But in the movie Anne Hathaway has amazing long straight hair with layers and a fringe and everything...so I might try and do that.

Why must I blog when I have nothing interesting to say?

Oh yeah. My workmate didn't show up for work on Sunday, so I was by myself at the front of house. Usually my front duties don't extend past barwork and running food, but suddenly I had to do the whole waitressing thing as well. And we had a very very busy start. Eight tables. I ended up losing one because I just never got out to them. Luckily I was able to call someone in at 7, but that first hour was just horrendous. I was nearly in tears by the end of it, and I'm generally not a stressed out kind of person. Because when you're taking orders on 12, and 15's food is ready, and the phone rings, and a couple appear at the door looking for a table, you realise you are slightly fucked...Then you finish taking 12's order, you seat the couple on 9, take out 15's food, get the chef to answer the phone, and you're slightly under control until 5 (the big table) asks you for a bunch of drinks as you race past. Then you've go to go back to 3 who you've been neglecting and take their order, give 9 menus and water, give 12 and 3's order to the kitchen and do 5's drinks order, praying that you remembered it correctly, and of course not forgetting to write it down on their docket, and the phone rings again....you get the picture. Not cool at all.

-R

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Anything Can Happen

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while...been a bit busy lately. My mum's 50th was on the weekend (although her actual birthday was yesterday) and there are photos and videos from that, so when I get around to uploading them, I'll put them here. It was a blast.

I didn't sleep well at all last night. I dreamt mum and I were moving to Perth and we were driving there, and woke up really stressed about that, then I remembered I was sitting my driving test AGAIN today when I woke up. Not a good start. I wandered around downstairs feeling like I was going to throw up I was so stressed out...even playing some Split Enz couldn't calm my nerves. Had a shower, re-dyed my pink streak on the off chance that I actually passed and needed to have my photo taken. I had an hour and a bit long lesson before the test to try and shake off the ol' nerves. The pressure of sitting the test a third time was really getting to me, but I hadn't told anyone outside my immediate family that I was sitting the test again today so at least there was no weight of expectation. Then waiting at VicRoads...I hate waiting at the best of times...tried to focus on what Toby Puttock was doing with asparagus and mushrooms on Ready Steady Cook. My name was called - the guy failed me last time. Great. Walked out to the car, and I suddenly realised I wasn't all that nervous anymore. Or maybe I finally decided to accept the nerves and get on with it anyway. The test seemed to go really slowly...my slow maneouvre was a parallel park, and thank God mum showed me how to do them really well because I aced it. Driving along, feeling the nerves creep up every so often, singing in my head to push them down again. 'I feel good, de ne ne ne ne ne neh...so good, so good, I got you -Ow!' and Anything Can Happen by the Finn Brothers (ever the optimist). Finally got back to the VicRoads, parked the car, got called inside. Did I pass? My instructor gave me a thumbs-up as I walked in, but I didn't let myself relax until the tester actually said it.

So I have a tension headache, a not very well dyed pink streak in my hair (I was rushing, surprise surprise), and my probationary driver's license. I'm going to go pick up some Ps from Southland with my mum, then have my first drive as a P-plater. Life is sweet.

-R

Friday, September 22, 2006

Into The Dark

A one-take wonder...you can probably tell :D There are some bung chords, but I've only been playing guitar for four months now, so you'll have to forgive me. I would've tried it again, but my left arm is about to drop off from fatigue (I've been playing a *lot* this week!). I think you might have to download it too...it's not streaming for some reason. maybe because it's an m4a file. I have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about.

Into The Dark

Oh yeah, the song is by Ben Lee, from his album Awake Is The New Sleep.

-R

PS The guitar is an Epiphone dreadnought acoustic from around 1970, with light gauge strings which are in dire need of a change.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Everything I do I do for you...

Ah! so happy! Things by Split Enz just came on iTunes shuffle. I didn't even know I had it. Downloaded it with a bunch of stuff and promptly forgot about it. I love it too, one of my favourite Neil Finn-penned Enz songs. It was a non-album single, and a bonus track on True Colours but I bought the wrong version. Maybe I won't have to buy the right one now - Things was pretty much my only reason for considering buying it.

There was no point to this blog other than to express my surprise and delight at hearing Things. It's a little gem of a pop song.

-R

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

I've found it!

I've found THE electric guitar. It's a beauty. Andrew sent me a message on myspace pointing me to Eastwood guitars (www.eastwoodguitars.com). They make replicas of vintage guitars. The Classic 6 is a hollow bodied elctric, the sound is very very nice - lovely warm, clean tones through the neck pickup, and an awesome bluesy sound through the bridge. (they had a demo up on the website). I'm in love. And the best bit is that it's $569 AUD. Granted, the demo was through a '67 Fender Deluxe Reverb, and I don't think my budget will stretch much past a Frontman 15R, but I think it'll still sound pretty.

And I'm very very excited about mum's party on saturday :D I've been compiling the playlist and we went to the venue yesterday and it's great. It's a funny shaped room and at first I thought it wouldn't work, but actually it looks really good. I'm going for a haircut today...my hairdresser's going to kill me for putting the pink in, especially after she expressly told me not to. :)

-R

PS today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. So Arrrrrghhh-harrrrrr me hearties, yo ho ho and a bottle'o'rum!

Sunday, September 17, 2006

My computer never sounded so good!

My mum's birthday party is next week and I've been appointed DJ - it was part of the reason why I got this MacBook now and not next year. So tonight was the moment of truth when we hooked it up to the sound system to see whether it would work, and to our surprise (well mine at least) it works perfectly. Maybe I'm jsut pessimistic when it comes to technology, but I was surprised by how easily it worked. Ok, I was surprised that it worked at all. but it does, which is the main point. And then I was searching through my parent's CD collection to find songs to party to and stumbled across a 'Classic Aussie Rock' CD...The Easybeats, Master's Apprentices, Skyhooks, Cold Chisel, Split Enz, AC/DC, Icehouse, Mental As Anything...etc etc etc. Possibly the coolest CD in my parent's collection (sorry did I say my parent's? I meant mine, of course). And speaking of my parent's record collection, my cousinin Sydney does still have all my mum's old vinyl so he's going to give it to my dad next time he's up there (which will probably be next week). Apparently she has 60-100 vinyls...including Sgt Peppers.

OMFG.

I'm so having a listening party when I get them.

-R

Thursday, September 14, 2006

I found out today that if your pick has gone missing, you can fashion an adequate but temporary replacement out of an expired metcard. Just fold it into quarters and use the folded corner. It doesn't last all that long, but it works ok, and it sounds better than a 10 cent piece.

-R

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

OMG. So, I like totally geeked out this morning.

Apple have redesigned the iPod Nano and shuffle. They're very sexy. Nano's now in coloured anodized aluminium, very much like the old Minis, except Nano-sized. And they're now 8GB. And thinner than the old Nanos. With a 24-hour battery life. I think I want one. The Shuffle looks awesome...it's now this tiny little silver clip, 2GB. And a new version of iTunes, which finds album artwork for your songs...after I spent a good 4 hours over the past couple of weeks looking for it all manually...and a nice new dark blue colours scheme, very sophisticated. You can apparently buy movies from the American store, but the Australian store won't even let you buy TV shows yet. I'm still waiting for them to catch up. Oh and there's dinky little games for the 5G iPods too.

-R

Saturday, September 09, 2006

the old man is snoring

wow. five minutes ago it was sunny, now it's raining really really heavily. fat rain, rivers already forming in the gutters.

george and i decided last night that our band is going to be called The Administrators. now we just have to write some songs. i had a play of her 12-string today. it sounds nice but is very strange to play. i feel like my fingers are on platforms.

-R

GEORGIE IS HERE!!!!!

Georgina is sitting right next to me. My parents brought her home as a surprise present. Even though my birthday's not til next month. But anyway I got all excited, more than I probably should, but it's George and we always get a little too excited around each other. She's reading over my shoulder - well not really over my shoulder, it's only a figure of speech in this case - and giggling. Which is pretty much business as usual. Apparently she has to go home at 8:15 tomorrow morning to AGH the Grates just came on Rage! AWESOME! What was I saying? Oh yeah, George has to go home early tomorrow morning, which probably means neither of us will get much sleep tonight. Hmm. I'm hungry. I might go find food. I'm sure George is up for midnight snacking. I have to find her pyjamas too. And a mattress.

-R

Monday, September 04, 2006

Wow.

Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter) was killed by a stingray this morning. www.theage.com.au-The story headlines there.

-R

Sunday, September 03, 2006

I want to be my sister's best friend

My sister's best friend's birthday party was on friday and apparently the invites went out at very short notice. So being the kind os legend that she is, she got all of Laura's friends to contribute 20-25 bucks, and she went out and bought her an iPod nano.

How cool is that.

-R

Saturday, September 02, 2006

The kitchen where I work is pretty small (we do only sit about 50 people tops) with an extremely large and efficient extractor fan running down one side, and a window at the end which opens out onto the unheated back area, with the back door usually left open. In the winter it's damn near freezing in there (which I know is highly abnormal for a kitchen) and we're usually begging the bar for hot drinks to keep us from completely freezing. So it's definitely a sign that the weather is warming up when I only wear one t-shirt to wash the dishes. We've also got a new cleaning roster (oh joy) which extends our cleanup to about an hour and half from 'closing' to clocking off.

Steve and I were discussing computers last week when I had just got my MacBook and he said that if I ever have problems with it, they will be quite big ones. Well on Wednesday my mac started with the dreaded Random Shut Downs (or RSDs). Apparently, looking at the mac forum, a few MacBook users have been having this issue. On wednesday I was importing a CD and had three RSDs, which scared the bejeezus out of me, and then twice on Thursday. So rather than let it get our of hand, I took it back to Myer today for them to have a look at it and hopefully fix it without having to replace it.. It turns out that having mismatched RAM chips is not a good idea - when I got my RAM upgraded, instead of replacing both 256s with two 512s, I got one 256 replaced with 1GB and kept the other 256 in there. So what I think they said was happening (well they being the Apple technician) was that when I was using more demanding programs like Garageband, it was trying to use both chips and then kind of dying. So I now have two matching 512 chips (okay, I'm calling them chips...I don't know if they're called chips. But let's pretend that they are.) and so far there have been no RSDs, so hopefully that's the end of it. Because other than that I completely adore this machine.

-R

PS actually it was pretty funny. The Apple tech guy asked me if I'd had it customised and I told him about the RAM upgrade, and later on when he brought it back he was telling me what had been done and the guy that actually sold it to me and done the original upgrade was there too, and the Apple tech guy told him what he'd done and said 'whoever did it originally put in mismatched RAM...that was dumb.' And the guy who sold it to me was like 'er...that was me.' LOL. Apple Tech guy got a bit embarrassed.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Let me off uptown

Porridge is a strange food for me. I either really like it or I really don't. Right now I really like it. I had it for breakfast this morning. I think I like it when it's really soupy, rather than all thick and sticking to the roof of your mouth-like. I just ate the rest because for some reason I was starving when I got home, even though I ate lunch. Maybe it was because I went to the gym before uni and I walked home. It's too nice a day to be inside. I was sorely tempted to cut class and go to Fed Square and bask in the glorious sunshine, but my class finished a little early anyway so after going to the City Library to borrow some books and jazz CDs I did just that. Apparently the Deni Ute Muster (sorry, Deniliquin...I had a school friend from Deni, I'm used to calling it that) is coming up, and they had about the blokiest aussie bloke band I ever saw playing on the stage. Blue chesty bonds and flannies and everything. They were good though. There were two seriously awesome looking utes there too. One was this metallic burnt orange colour at the front, kind of flaming down the sides, and cream at the back, with a cream leather interior and the same paintwork inside. Can't remember what colour the other one was, but it had spinning rims (as in, the wheels were spinning even though the car was staionary). I only saw these for the first time last night on NCIS, so it was kinda cool to see them in real life today. I only know they're called spinning rims because a primary school boy who was walking past went 'whoa, check those spinning rims!'.

Ooh. Tomorrow's going to be 23 degrees. lovely.

-R

(pointless enough for you, Brendan?)

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

The camera never lies

Too much time on my hands+digital camera+new macbook=
IMGP3598

My sister was very confused about how I did this. :D Maybe I should've lightened the photo on the screen, but otherwise I think it went okay.

-R

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Parrot Fashion Love

Yes, today is Georgie's birthday. She and I were chatting on MSN last night at midnight so I took advantage of my built in iSight to send her a greeting :D

Mum came back from Malaysia/Singapore yesterday, as usual with an enormous amount of clothing and shoes from JB. We're all very glad to have her back...not least because I can now hand back ironing duties...She says Singapore is encouraging people to move there to live and work. That would be pretty cool. If I can't find anything exciting to do in Australia once (well ok if) I finish my studies I might move to Singapore.

I found this website called CD tracker through last.fm, which is very handy because it catalogues all your CDs (artist, album title, genre, date bought, how much you paid for it, etc etc etc...oh and what you've loaned to other people), and I'm slowly cataloguing all my CD details. Apparently this year I have spent something like $600 on CDs. I didn't even know I had $600 to spend! Very very very bad, Robyn. I can't help it...other girls buy hundreds of pairs of shoes, I buy CDs. I could get them online, but I prefer to spend the extra few dollars to have the artwork and everything.

And I'm contemplating whether to dye my entire blonde streak a pale pink...decisions decisions.

-R

Buon Compleanno

Photo 7

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

Today at work we had a table of 16. And surprisingly, no one fucked up. It went as smoothly as it possibly could, everyone got the right food, no delays, no dramas. We wrote up a big sheet with everyone's seat and what they ordered and all that jazz, so it was all cruisy. I even managed to tally their bill without mistakes (although it did take me nearly ten minutes. Very big bill.) I'm getting used to my hybrid status at work - For the time being I'm both a dish hand and waitress.

Tomorrow I have to leave home at 5 am to pick my mum up from the airport, so I miss the sleep in on my day off. But it's worth it. Tomorrow's weather is apprently going to be gorgeous as well, so I might do something outside. Maybe I can con mum into taking me to St Kilda for coffee or something.

I have to go to Ikea at some point this week...my CD collection has outgrown the one shelf on my bookshelf that I've allocated to it, so I need to buy a proper CD shelf. I was going to custom make one that could also house my stereo, then I realised that I don't know the first thing about woodworking. But Ikea has a decent looking one for $35...at this rate Ikea is going to take over my room. Annoyingly, the one in Moorabbin closed last year, so I have to get mum to drive me down to Richmond. I think it's slightly too large to lug home on the train.

-R

Saturday, August 26, 2006

I will soon post a recording of The Special Two by Missy Higgins. I did a trial recording today and it actually sounded pretty good, except for when I missed a page turn (or rather, turned two pages at once) and as a result kind of fucked up the next two bars, and you cna hear my grandmother in the background telling my grand aunt to be quiet because I'm recording. Hahahaha. The chorus has some notes which are quite high for me to sing in my chest voice, and I prefer to record the whole thing live rather than piano and vocals separately because it feels more natural, so I have to be sitting down. I've worked out though that if I hyperventilate a bit before recording and then take deeper breaths than usual, that the notes come fairly easily, even if I do feel rather light-headed by the end. I need to photocopy the book so that I can get rid of some page turns. Special Two isn't too bad because the left hand is mainly minims, and I can turn in between those, but Any Day Now has an impossible page turn that I can only do by cutting out most of the left hand part, so I'll photocopy that. I will try and con Kathryn into recording Nightminds with me because she sings it much better than I do.

-R

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Head in the clouds

What a difference a day makes,
24 little hours....

Yesterday when I walked to and from the station and through the city, the weather was *lovely*. Slight breeze, warm sun, very mild for this time of year. I spent the whole day with my nose pointing in the air, staring at everything around me. I've often been asked in the city how long I'm spending in Melbourne, as if I'm some kind of tourist. People need to look around more, you can see some really nice things. There's a patch of really nice lilies growing beside the Sandringham train line just after Gardenvale, heading to Flinders Street.

Today the weather was pretty shit by comparison, raining and windy and 10 degrees. I managed to get a lift to the station but I walked home. Didn't bother me though, I was listening to Lily Allen and so my spirits were high.

And I realised today that I bought the wrong Split Enz album...I was listening to Time and Tide and thinking 'wasn't History Never Repeats on the album after True Colours....how come it's not on here?' Then I realised that I'd accidentally skipped Corroborree. Nerrr, Robyn you retard. They had plenty of copies of Corroborree too so I don't know how I managed to consciously pick Time and Tide. It's the same thing that made me consciously ask Yamipod to skip the duplicate songs on my iPod, and resulted in me spending another hour handpicking them after.

-R
I have a burn on the first knuckle of the middle finger on my left hand and I have no idea how it appeared there. And recently I found a scar on the first knuckle of the pointer finger on my left hand and I don't know how I got that either. I know how I got the scar on my fourth finger - I was on a playground with my sister and she slipped and grabbed my hand, and accidentally gouged out part of my finger with her fingernail. It was really cold so I didn't even notice until we got back into the warm car, and once my circulation came back a lot of blood starting coming out. I should keep a tally of unknown dings and scrapes. A few months ago (last year? can't even remember the time) I woke up with a massive bruise/lump on my head, like I'd hit it really hard, and I still have no idea how I got it. I'd had a normal school evening the night before so it wasn't because of drinking or anything. The last time I managed to get a bruise that big on my head, I was seeing stars for a while (I got up too quickly after looking for something in the cupboard under the stairs).

And for some reason channel ten has started showing old repeats of NCIS. Not that I mind, because I only started watching it recently, but it's a bit weird because I didn't realise the most recent series had ended.

-R

PS I didn't mention the m word once in this post. Not once. So there.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

God help us all, Paris Hilton is bringing out an album. I thought that crime against music was just a once-off. I bought two new albums today, Split Enz's Time and Tide and Lily Allen's Alright, Still. I was meant to get The Beginning of the Enz but I couldn't find it anywhere, and I already have True Colours, albeit the wrong remaster. I might buy the most recent one at the end because the bonus song is Things, which I absolutely love and which never appeared on an album. There will be a review at some point I'm sure, if not here then at my last.fm blog because Brendan says I blog too much about music.

Actually speaking of music I made my first Garageband recording today, but I won't post it because I definitely need to redo it. I'm still trying to do Missy Higgin's Nightminds, but it's foiling me at every turn. Firstly I had to record the piano part about 10 thousand times because I kept making dumb mistakes, or the phone rang, or my bangles fell off the top of the piano and attacked me, and then it was all out of time so I had to play with a click track, and after all that drama, I can't sing it well at all. That song really doesn't suit my voice for some reason. So I might just give up on that one and go for something else. Sound quality's much better than with my mp3 player, but that's using the built-in mic, so I have to go find a proper one somehwere.

OK. One more bit of music talk before the general chit-chat. I got Grates tickets today, so I'm very excited about that. Faker are supporting, plus an unannounced guest. $33 each too, which is quite good, so I can't wake. I'll have my birthday celebration a week early.

So. onto the...what's that word? Minutiae or something? Whatever it is, onto that. Brendan and I went to a swing dance class last night, was very fun. It was a beginner's one and we learned the Lindy Hop, which is apparently the most difficult swing dance. My years of dance classes stood me in good stead and I picked everything up pretty quickly, it's a really really fun dance but we were going slowly. I can't wait to see what it's going to be like when we go faster. At one point Henry (the instructor) was teaching us how to do a 'three-step', or step-ball-change, and I thought he was being incredibly patronising, but here were definitely people there who needed it! I've always had classes with people who can dance and our teacher throwing combos at us a few bars long, and then us doing straight off, so it was different learning things step by step, but it was good, because it's a style I'm not familiar with. I'm too used to the classical style, ramrod straight, butt tucked in, all that jazz. Learning to dance with chicken wing arms (elbows pointing down as opposed to out) is more difficult than I anticipated...One of the intermediate guys stepped in at the end of class because we were short and it was really fun to dance with him because he knows how to lead, so when he spun me around (which is something we didn't learn last night) it all went fine. Last night before I went to bed I tried to do it myself but I don't even know how I got around. The importance of a good leader!

My God, I'm rambling. Marsh's pub crawl was last night and it was a lot of fun. We went to James Squires Brewhouse, The Elephant and Wheelbarrow, some Irish pub, and the Exford. I like pubs, they're so...comfortable, I guess. I like bars too, but pubs are a nice change. Next week for George's birthday we're going to Loop, which is the opposite end of the spectrum.

-R

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Good morning Starshine, the earth says hello

I've figured out pretty much everything on my new computer so I'm happy. I used Yamipod to copy all the tracks from my iPod to iTunes, then restored it to factory settings so that I can updae it properly with a mac now. Time will tell whether I've accidentally deleted somehing I really want. Downloaded last.fm so I can scrobble my tracks here (hooray! No more Corrs, Ayumi Hamasaki or Falling Up cluttering my playlist anymore!), and I've come a little closer to understanding how to get my webcam working with amsn (some kind soul posted a tutorial for idiots with lovely screenshots of everything). Not bad for someone who doesn't know much about computers, I think.

-R

Monday, August 21, 2006

Blogging from the bedroom, take 2

So here we go with my second attempt at blogging from my bedroom. This attempt seems to be much more sucessful so far, not least because I'm using a laptop that can actually handle being wireleslly networked, not least my *drumroll* new MacBook :D It's quite exciting. I've spent most of the evening so far setting it up, which has been surprisingly easy, the basic stuff at least. I found to my annoyance that msn messenger:mac doesn't support webcams, despite the fact that I now have one, so George directed me to aMSN, which is a clone which does. So I'm waiting for someone to come on so I can test whether it works. Also I'm trying to transfer my music from my iPod to my computer...I could just re-import all my CDs, but that would assume that I own all of what I have on CD, when in fact a fair chunk of what I have is from George's computer. So if this transfer thing works I might just restore my iPod so that it works properly with the Mac. 536 of 2197 copied so far...this could take a while.

-R

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Hey, Rollover DJ!

George, Ben and I went to the myspace secret show for Jet on monday night. I kind of forgot to blog about it. I almost couldn't be bothered going but George decided that we were and so we did. I was expecting there to be about a billion people at the Prince of Wales so I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived at 5pm and there were only a few people there. It was much more pleasant than most waiting experiences I've had, because we were sitting on a bench with our gin and cranberries and just absorbing the vibe. Luckily it was an over 18s gig so there were no snotty emo kids hanging about. There was someone wandering around with a camera videoing people and they asked to film George and me answering some questions. I don't think they got anything good out of us though. I'm kind of camera/stranger shy so I barely said anything and spent most of it staring into my drink so Georgina basically had to bullshit her way through the entire thing. It was a good gig too, Jet played two little sets, the first one was all new stuff and the second one was all old stuff. I wouldn't pay to see them live so it was good to see them for free. I quite enjoyed some of the new songs, although George didn't.

Anyway the reason I'm writing about the show now is that I went to the secret shows page today and they had photos up from it. And this photo was up there:
secret show jet
I knew they took a photo of us as we went in, but I never thought it would make it onto the page. Probably because I'm dressed in all black and so I look like a fucking emo. The archetypal myspacer.

So anyway, Byron got an electronic drumkit today. He can already play lots of little bits and pieces which is handy. I had a play and it was fun, but I prefer playing bass or guitar or piano - something with tone. I supppose it's kind of a waste that Byron's playing untuned percussion because he actually has perfect pitch and apparently it's pretty rare. I've always taken his perfect pitch for granted. I love playing a bunch of non-chordal notes on the piano and having him name all of them. I never realised that so few people have it. We were discussing pitch in the car today. Neither Byron nor I can comprehend how people can be tone deaf. I mean we can understand *that* it happens, but not *how* it can happen. I don't have perfect pitch, but I've got a good memory for it, and I always remember songs in their original key and transpose and stuff easily. For me, pitch is really clear, and I can tell if something is off. I guess it's like looking at colours. For me if something is off, it's like the difference between green and red. So I don't get how people can sing out of tune and not realise, because it's like trying to match green with red. Like they obviously aren't the same.

Might go to bed now. I had my frist shift dish handing in ages tonight and I'm knackered. I forgot how much more strenuous it is than bar work. But I'm doing bar work tomorrow. Hopefully by next week my roster will be back to normal and I'll either be one or the other.

-R

Saturday, August 19, 2006

That's all stuff and nonsense

Sometimes I wish I didn't lisen to so much music, because inevitably you absorb all these melodies which then become part of your subconscious. A while ago I was just mucking about on the piano and I came up with this little melodic line which was damn catchy. I kept playing it, repeating it over again and found the chords and was feeling pretty pleased with myself until I realied that I'd basically written Fall At Your Feet, at which point I closed the piano in disgust and vowed never to write again.

I've just started getting into The Arcade Fire, and I finally realise what the (minor) fuss is about because their album is bloody brilliant. I actually saw them live at Lollapalooza last year but unfortunately I hardly remember it, because staying conscious in 47 degree celsius heat was slightly higher on my list of priorities at the time. I love that thier songs have really complex instrumentation and structure, yet you can still hum along with them because they have really beautiful, memorable melodies. I like to think of it as accessible experimental art-pop. I'm kind of disappointed that I didn't enjoy them more than I did at Lollapalooza, which is also why it took me so long to listen to them now (because I've had them on my iPod for months).

Also this past week I've been playing Beth Orton - Trailer Park heaps. She has a great voice and her songs are soooooo good. There's a really good laid-back groove to them. She Cries Your Name and I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine are my favourites. She Cries Your Name is one of the laid-back groove ones. It's quite relaxing to listen to. I Wish I...is just a really beautiful, sad breaking up song. And right now I'm listening to Missy Higgins, because I've been playing her a lot on the piano and guitar lately and I wanted to hear what the originals actually sound like.

-R

PS I did write a song this week. It was a horrendously sweet, ridiculous cutesy throwaway piece of bubblegum pop, something simplistic and cheesy that an eight-year-old could've written. It would give cavities on the first listening. I hate it. I can't believe I came up with that tosh. It's so immature and simple.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

There may be trouble ahead

I had posted a very cathartic response to a message earlier, but then after 5 minutes of it being up, I decided that was catharsis enough so I took it down. Well, in reality I'm a complete wuss and I was afraid of what might happen if the person that it was intended for read it. However, it felt rather good to type it all out. I'm not generally a mean person but that was one rather harsh post.

Aaaaaanyway I went to see The Boy From Oz tonight with my family and IT. WAS. AMAZING. Hugh Jackman is so talented. He acts well, he has an amazing voice, he dances, and he is also such a good entertainer- somehow he connected with an arena of 9,000 people and made them feel like old friends. I had a very very good time. Georgina's going on the 18th I think so this will make her excited. Oh and George, he's even more good looking in real life.

-R

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Come On Baby Light My....Fibre

My brother just brought home the fucking coolest thing ever from work for me - a fibre optics lamp! Only in hospitality, eh!? The base has lights that change colour so I have a rainbow of light dots dancing around. It's bloody awesome. I have to take photos at some point. Now I just have to find a place to put it.

-R

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Even educated fleas do it

Today I discovered the joys of the City Library. It's been sitting under my nose right in Flinders Lane, but I'd never heard of it until a couple of weeks back. So today I had a bit of free time and remembered that I meant to go check it out. It turns out that membership is free, and as well as books, you can borrow CDs and DVDs from them. I like that. You can't borrow CDs from Rowden White at uni (probably because they want to prevent copying). I borrowed three albums - Travelling Made Easy by the Icecream Hands (which has long been on my list of 'oh, I should listen to them some time' albums), Beth Orton (ditto), and Ella Fitzgerald (well, obviously). And yes, I'm importing them as I type...aren't I just the naughty one. I can't afford to keep buying CDs! They have the DVD of 7 Worlds Collide too, which is a concert that Neil Finn did with members of bands like Pearl Jam, Radiohead and The Smiths. I have the CD and it's awesome.

Oh yeah. I nearly got hit by a taxi crossing Flinders Lane. I used the pedestrian crossing, and made eye contact, and stepped out, and he didn't stop. Until his bumper was about 10 centimetres away from my right leg (I'm serious, it was really freakin close). So that was my litle brush with deat for the day. I didn't think anything of it at the time, other than muttering 'idiot!' under my breath as I kept walking, but now I'm a little freaked out. I nearly got hit by a freakin car! Shit. Anyway, I was walking up degraves lane and it was one of those times I wish I had a camera on me (hmm, I know I've heard that phrase in a song.) The dark stone pavement was all wet because it had been raining, but there was a shaft of sunlight poking down through the buildings and making everything look shiny, and catching in the steam billowing out of the little noodle shops, with people bustling about because it was lunch hour. It was really beautiful. (I know where I heard it. It's a Crowded House song. er....I feel possessed, I think).

And I really like this Icecream Hands album.

-R

PS I bought the remixed/remastered/expanded 'Frenzy' yesterday (I'm keeping on track with these Split Enz albums). It blew my mind. It sounds SO much better than the original. Give It A Whirl used to be a mess. Now I can actually hear the different instruments. It's awesome.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Notpron

Notpron

This game is seriously addictive. You have to figure out riddles and everything. the background music's a bit freaky but it cuts out after a few levels. It's keeping me from going to bed so it must be pretty good.

-R

Sunday, August 06, 2006

What table am I going to?

I don't really know why I'm updating as pretty much everyone who reads this blog is currently at Ben's houseboat (damn them. Damn them all) and most probably drinking and playing Brendan's Truth or Dare. Well, drinking. Whereas I on the other hand absolutely busted my ass at work today, and consequently I'm finding it very hard to sit down now. Okay I jest. I speak figuratively, not literally. But work was very busy. Firstly lunch was apparently very busy so when I got there at 4pm nothing was done and insead of doing my usual saturday afternoon thing of setting the tables and sitting and reading (and getting paid for it) for an hour and a half, I actually worked the two hours. Setting tables takes a surprisingly long time. There's something like seven items per setting...and I set up for 46...so that's 322 items. Plus salt and pepper, candles and flowers. And relaying paper where it's dirty, and sweeping, cleaning the bar, stocking for the evening, taking reservations, etc etc etc. We were fully booked tonight and actually had a few turnovers so we were busy the whole way through. I got $50 in tips, which is a good indicator of how many tables we had (usually on a good night I'd get $30). I really don't like the Saturday shift. It's just so long. Theoretically because I start at 4pm, I should leave early, like 10pm, but I always work til closing. So there's my bit of complaining for the day. It wasn't all bad I suppose, we played Kylie on the stereo while closing so that was quite fun.

Oooh and the census form has arrived. It just spotted it on our rather cluttered desk. How exciting.

-R

Thursday, August 03, 2006

But you don't really care for music do ya?

Hooray! I learnt a song on guitar today. As the title implies, I learnt Hallelujah, well the Jeff Buckley version anyway. I downloaded the tabs and they turned out to be completely wrong, so I had to sit at the piano and figure it out for myself. Thank god for years of music theory at times like these. I was quite excited because I had a strumming rhythm going and I was making the chord changes okay and everything. And I even sang a couple of times. Very exciting. My mum called down from upstairs 'You've gone all religious all of a sudden!' and I was like 'no, it's originally a Leonard Cohen song' and she's like 'Well derr, I know that. I have all his albums on vinyl.' and I'm like 'WHAT!!!! WHERE!?' Turns out they're with my cousin in Sydney, so I've assigned dad the mission of bringing them back. Apparently my mum has great taste in music. I wanted to keep playing because it was so much fun to make all the chord changes, especially something I figured out myself, but a) it was getting rather late and b) my fingertips are on the verge of bleeding, so I suppose I'll have to wait until tomorrow.

-R

You probably couldn't see for the lights but you were staring straight at me

Tonight George and I finally got to see a gig together on Australian soil! YAY!

We went to see Arctic Monkeys, with support from The Grates, at the Palace. Byron and I got there just before 5pm, and there were surprisingly few people there. When we went to see Franz in January, at 5 there were already quite a few people queued up. I suppose the cold weather kept everyone away. We stood there shivering in the wind and made friends with Ingrid and Elkie. They're very nice :) made the three hours pass slightly faster. Georgina turned up around 7:40 and I had to bail her out with parking...fucking expensive down at the Palace. Lucky Byron and I got a park on Acland St for free.

Thanks to Byron's and my earliness we got a very very good possie, at the barrier just to left of centre, and I proved yet again that I'm completely and utterly spoilt for the front. The Grates were scheduled to come on at 9:15 and I was practically hyperventilating when I saw a flash of silver sparkles which indicated that Patience (who, by the way, I'd totally turn for) stuck her head out for a peek. at 9:15 on the dot the lights went down, the cheers went up and Patience, Alana and John took to the stage...and immediately launched into Trampoline. Which is like, my most favouritest Grates song. So that pretty much made my night right there. Patience, apart from being fucking adorable, is incredibly energetic, jumping and dancing around like a maniac. She'd give Ricky from Kaiser Chiefs a run for his money. Now there's two bands that I'd like to see play together. They were just so much fun. Joyous is probably a more accurate description. They all obviously take joy in performing, and it makes them so marvellous to watch. Elkie said I had a big grin on my face for their entire set. I hope I can see them live again soon. George said I should call Brendan during Science is Golden but I couldn't reach my phone.

The Grates finished at 10pm sharp, and Georgina and I scored one of the setlists, which was very exciting. Then Arctic Monkeys roadies started setting up, and suddenly it was like there was a giant magnet on the stage drawing everyone in, because it suddenly became extremely crowded. I commented that a mosh pit is probably the only place where I wouldn't particularly mind having a complete stranger's sweaty crotch pressed against my backside. I'm pretty sure someone copped a feel too but you get that. The press photographers turned up, and I felt like telling them that they really missed a good opportunity to get some excellent gig shots of The Grates. They were also blocking our view but assured us they would only stay for three songs.

Soon enough the lights dimmed and the chant started up: 'MOOOONKEEEEYS, MOOOOONKEEEEYS...' and just when I thought I couldn't get more compressed into the barrier, suddenly I was beginning to seriously worry about the state of my ribs. Then four (surprisingly short) Northern English boys walked out onto stage, doffed instruments and began with Riot Van...which is my favourite Monkeys song. So that pretty much made my night again. The crowd sang along with every word. Without pausing they segued straight into The View From The Afternoon. 'Anticipation has a habit to set you up for disappointment in evening entertainment but, tonight there's gonna be some love, tonight there's gonna be a ruckus regardless of what's come before'. A pretty knowing thing to sing.

It would be fair to say that Arctic Monkeys are the most hyped band of 2006. I for one think that they lived up to that hype. They may not be as charismatic as say Franz Ferdinand, but they're a bunch of boys who are my age, so that's kind of expected. They sound fantastic live, really tight. I'm not sure of the name of the bassist who replaced Andy Nicholson, but he's darn good. Alex was wearing a black t-shirt with the words 'I LOVE YOU WILL U MARRY ME' scrawled across in white, which I think was just asking for it. Georgina yelled 'The answer's yes!' but I don't think he heard. He's a bit young for her anyway XD Funnily enough, there was no encore. It could be either because Alex was a bit pissed off with the crowd (we had two dickheads standing right behind us yelling things at Alex all night) or because they honestly weren't going to do one anyway. There wasn't one written on the setlist so I think it was probably the latter.

So, the gig was great. I came away happy and sweaty and I'm bruised pretty much everywhere, and feeling rather tender everywhere else. Byron scored Alex's pick so he's very pleased, and I tripled my band t-shirt collection by buying Grates and Monkeys t-shirts. Admittedly the Monkeys one was a bootleg...but $10. Seriously. Call me tight but I already shelled out $66 for the ticket. And George and I finally saw a gig together! Hopefully it's something that we'll do more of in the future.

-R

PS George blogged about this too. Go check it out.
PPS George and I split the Grates setlist and we're both going to put them up in our rooms. Beats a silly friendship necklace any day!

Sunday, July 30, 2006

would you like cracked pepper with that?

Just thought I'd write a post in between shifts. What a difference a week makes - last sunday I didn't finish at work until five pm, we were absolutely packed. This week was more your average week and it was pretty chilled out from about two onwards. I think I prefer regular sundays. So I'm sitting here with my bowl of penne verdure (penne with vegetables) before I go back to work. Not working in the kitchen at all this weekend, which is strange. We're short on floor staff so I'm out there again, mainly doing bar work. Surprisingly it all came back pretty quickly. I'm churning out those coffee orders just as fast as I used to.

And now that I'm on I can't think of anything to write about. Typical. I wish I could somehow electronically record my thoughts while I'm working. I'd come up with some pretty interesting posts then. Hmmm...Oh I'm going to buy the new Apple MacBook. I'm quite excited. There's a few questions I have to find answers to, like whether my iPod will work with a mac after being used with a PC and whether I can use our house's wireless broadband with a mac (can you tell I don't know much about computers?) but I'm pretty much decided. It's surprisingly cheap too, $1550 with the student discount. I can't wait to have a functioning laptop again. My trusty Acer Travelmate finally died this year when we networked it, it couldn't really handle all this new stuff.

I'm kind of tired too...I blame a certain someone for keeping me on msn about an hour longer than I intended.

-R

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Here We Are At The Transmission Party

One year ago today, Georgina introduced me to Franz Ferdinand (literally). It still stands out as one of the best days of my life. So I thought to celebrate a year I'd relive some of the fantasticness of that day.

On the set
Pyro!
Mannequins
George, Alex Kapranos, I
George, Nick McCarthy, I
Paul, I, Fake Baby
(Oh and Paul and his wife Esther very recently became parents for the first time. Congratulations :))
I, Bob Hardy, George

*sigh* what fun times we had.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

He won't deceive you, or tell you the truth

It is with much trepidation that I present to you my first recording. With apologies to Neil Finn, here is my version of Not The Girl You Think You Are. I had to change the vocal line which was too low for me, and am really unhappy with how it starts, but I haven't managed to find another starting note. Also the sound quality is shite because I don't have any proper recording equipment (which also means I did it all live - no recording piano and voice separately for me!).

Not The Girl You Think You Are

-R

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

A look of afar, A secret smile

I bought Second Thoughts today and have listened to it once so far and absolutely ADORE it. The songs on this that are the same as Mental Notes (Walking Down A Road, Titus, Stranger Than Fiction, Time For A Change) are different versions, and for the most part they're better. This version of Titus absolutely kicks the Mental Notes version's ass. The solo is now trumpet instead of guitar I think and it sounds much better. It's also a much richer sweeping sound in general, living up to its full grand potential. The remaster sounds excellent, I just had a huge grin on my face while listening to Lovey Dovey as it sounds so damn good now, even through my shitty mono computer speaker. I'll take it downstairs for a listen some time. Ohhhh and I nearly forgot, the last song, Woman Who Loves You comes complete with a Noel Crombie spoon solo! When I recognised the song I was like 'ohhhh pleeeeeaaase have the spoon solo' (I have it live ont he DVD) and when it came on I jumped out my chair and did a little cheer :D It's fucking legendary. I was going to get Second Thoughts and Dizrythmia this week as I worked quite long hours on the weekend and got good tips, but there was a Beatles T-shirt on sale for $10 so I got that instead. It's white, with the 'HELP' semaphore logo in black across it. It made me laugh. I just realised I think it's my first band t-shirt too. Not bad then! I'm wearing it tonight to trivia.

Hmm I seem to have lost my paragraphing ability. In a bit of a hurry cos Brendan's gonna pick me up soon.

-R

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Winter Lovin, that's the best kind of lovin

Well, I'm not too sure about that, Mr Freedman. It's been bloody cold, even for someone like me who claims to enjoy cold weather more. Well, it was bloody freezing this morning at any rate. My sister had rowing at 6 am at the yarra (if it's not swimming it's rowing - when will she learn to choose a sport that's conducted at a civil hour!?) and I stupidly offered take mum to breakfast this morning. So at the highly improbably hour of 6am I found myself sitting in a freeeezing cold cafe at the Queen Vic Markets. I've never seen that place so empty. It was about 5 degrees this morning. Unbelievable. I was wearing a ridiculous amount of clothing and it didn't do all that much actually.

So I'm being a bit lazy tonight - so tired after being up so early. I was meant to go to a Something for Kate secret gig at the Evelyn (well it's not a secret now but it's on now, so it's not like I'm ruining it for anyone) but it's so cold and I'm so tired and I don't like them enough to bundle up and head out again. I only know a few of their singles anyway, so this prevents me from feeling guilty about passing up such an opportunity. Trust me if it were a secret gig for Jebediah or something I'd be the first one there.

So anyway there has been new music this week, which will become a weekly thing. There's the Split Enz re-masters to buy so I'm buying one a week in chronological order (apart from True Colours, which I bought first because it was really cheap). This week I bought the first album, Mental Notes, recorded in 1975.

I don't have a lot of un-remastered tracks to compare to the remasters, as my only other Split Enz album is a best of, but from what I do have off Mental Notes (Titus and Time For A Change)the sound quality is markedly different. At first I thought Eddie Rayner (Enz keyboardist and now producer) would just tweak the mix, but he's gone back and used different takes, and the result is very impressive. In terms of sound quality it's superbly clear, like the tracks were recorded yesterday, and the tracks now probably sound more like how the band wanted them to sound like in the first place. The first track, Walking Down A Road (and one of my favourites from the album) really shows off the superior sound quality, the drums and bass really clear and popping out. There's also two bonus live tracks on the end of the album, 129 (Matinee Idyll) and Lovey Dovey, which is my favourite Split Enz song at the moment, with a quirky little chorus and Eddie's *fantastic* piano, especially the bridge. In the live version the band calls out 'Come on Eddie, if you please, play that bridge on the ivories'. I cracked up when I heard that. Eddie is a seriously talented keyboardist/pianist and his use of synthesizers to add colour to the songs was really something too (I could write a whole lot more about this album and the band members' individual instrumental virtuosity but let's leave it at one lengthy pragraph).

I also bought 'She Will Have Her Way - The Songs of Tim and Neil Finn', which is a bunch of Aussie and New Zealand singer-songwriters covering Finn songs. It's kind of a mixed package with some good covers and some...well, crap ones. I personally believe if you're going to cover a song then you should give it your own flavour. Therefore Natalie Imbruglia's cover of Pineapple Head pisses me off because it sounds *exactly* the same as the original, but with a chick singing. I'm also not a huge fan of Renee Geyer's Into Temptation because it was a really cheesy sounding electronic drumbeat. Surpisingly I actually kinda like Kasey Chamber's Better Be Home Soon, very simple arrangement with just acoustic guitar and violin. And her backing vocalist sounds EXACTLY like Neil Finn (although the liner notes say it's someone else). My favourite cover on the album however is Sophie Koh's rousing version of Charley, a classic Split Enz song. The original is an almost mournful, heart-wrenching ballad but Sophie and Co (not pun intended) have upped the tempo to a stomping, feel-good indie pop gem that the disaffected 'yoof' in me loves. That's my idea of a cover right there.

My sister borrowed the new Muse album, Black Holes and Revelations, from a friend today but I haven't listened to all of it yet, so a review on that next time. I like Muse but haven't really taken the time to hear all their stuff. My siblings adore them, so it looks like we're all going to the Big Day Out to see them next year. I have to say I really dig Supermassive Black Hole. It's so damn funky and so unlike their other stuff. So stay posted for that one.

Anyway an early night for me. I have to be at my sister's school tomorrow at 9am to accompany her on Missy Higgin's Nightminds. Geez, am I her slave much? Haha. She'd better sing it well.

-R

PS I'm really excited about buying the second Enz album, Second Thoughts, next week, even though it is kinda like Mental Notes Mach II as there are a few duplicated tracks. But it has Matinee Idyll, Sweet Dreams, Lovey Dovey and Late Last Night, which I all *love* and can't wait to hear the remastered versions of. So expect a lengthy review about that one!

Monday, July 17, 2006

A three hour blink, and I'm back in the game.

Hmmm. Last post was my 100th post to this blog and I didnt' even realise. I was going to do something big for the 100th but these things tend to not get noticed at whatever ungodly hour I was typing.

I managed to break my record for least amount of sleep on a working weekend (Saturday night, Sunday double). I think I slept a little less than three hours. Surprisingly I felt okay yesterday, I just started to get a little sleepy towards the end of the dinner shift (where thankfully I was back in the kitchen, in my element). It was a quiet shift and standing around twiddling your thumbs can lead to drowsiness. But a good thorough cleanup changed all that. Ten minutes scrubbing the oven doors clean and I was back to normal (and those oven doors have never looked so good).

The fed square thing turned out to be a huge waste of my time that could've been better spent sleeping, but at least I got to catch up with Den and finally see his apartment so it wasn't a total loss. It was a Video Hits thing so you can imagine the type of people that turned up (let's just say that at nearly 20, I felt rather old). It was bloody cold too. Shit happens though. At least it didn't rain.

Anyway I'd better go do housework before my parents return from Fiji (Ohsnap!) tonight. I think I'm going for coffee with George :) And probably some form of mischeif in the city.

-R

Saturday, July 15, 2006

I'll never learn

I'm at Den's place in the city. We're going down to fed square in about...four hours for a free gig of Something For Kate, Wolfmother and Augie March. It's four AM. I'm working a double tomorrow. Today.

Whatever happened to me never doing satuday night again? I'm not out I suppose. We've just been chatting and catching up for the past couple of hours. George and I didn't get here until 1 anyway.

Anyway I think we're going to try nd get some sleep before heading out to find food. We're all kinda starving but it's too bloody cold to try and head into the city right now.

Four AM! What the fuck is wrong with me.

-R

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Holiday snaps

I've been so used to not using the computer while on holiday that I've only bothered to get on today. I got back on monday so it's been sitting here within my reach but unused for three days. It's been nice not going on the computer actually.

I still have my cold but I'm slowly getting better. I'm hoping to be feeling better tomorrow night because work put me on the floor this weekend. I'm kinda shitting myself because I've forgotten how to waitress. Maybe I can just do bar stuff but I doubt it. The menu's changed too so I have no idea what's for eating.

Last night I was watching Max (a music channel on cable) and they had a half hour of clips from their 'sessions' where they get musicians to perform a 'live and intimate' set in front of a small audience. I stuck a tape in to record it, luckily, and got an amazing version of KD Lang singing Hallelujah. The last song was 'Won't Give In' by the Finn Brothers, then I was going to hit the stop button, but before I could, Do You Want To by Franz came on, which was cool, then the next one was It's Only Natural by Crowded House. Two of my favourite bands. What are the odds? It's kind of strange watching DYWT now, it actually takes me a while to remember that I was there.

Anyway yes, I have some holiday snaps to put up. I should get a photobucket because Flickr sucks when it comes to organizing photos, but I can't be bothered.
At Seaworld
Ice Cream
Superman Escapes
Lethal Weapon Ride

Obviously there are more but I can't be stuffed resizing all of them, then uploading them, then linking. I might break it up into parts or something.

-R

Sunday, July 02, 2006

I can't think of a title. I'm on holiday.

So here is an unexpected update. Trust my workaholic dad to bring his wireless enabled laptop on holiday. Actually he's not really on holiday. He goes into work during the week. Last week he was in Mt Isa, which is further away than I thought. Apparently it's the same distance away from Brisbane as Melbourne is, but in the opposite direction.

Anyway the Gold Coast's been very nice this week. It's not exactly hot, but it's pleasant enough during the day. The sun's been shining all last week, but we're getting showers this week, so tomorrow we're going to Wet and Wild for the last bit of sunshine (can't believe I'll be running around in my bathers in the middle of winter). It's been pretty restful, which is always nice on a holiday. I've got a bit of a sore throat but otherwise my cold is pretty much gone. The only danger is that it's been ricocheting around my family so as soon as someone is better they catch it straightaway again.

Other than that, nothing fantastically interesting to report. I'll be back in Melbourne in a week and I'm looking forward to getting home and my own bed again (at the moment I'm sharing a sofa bed with my sister) but I'm enjoying myself here too.

Oh and it's exactly one year since george and I went to the US. Sigh. Good times, good times. The year's gone so fast!

-R

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Sleep when you're dead, or something.

I should never go out on Satuday nights. I know that now. But I had to last night! Marika's friend Nick is down from England (he's a champ), and at lunch yesterday we decided we would take Nick on a bar hop after Stef and I finished work. I've never been out in the city on a saturday night before, it was really cool. Marika, Nick, Stef, Brendan and I headed out about midnightish. Went to Robot first and luckily a group was just leaving so we got a spot to sit down. Funnily enough every single time I've been to Robot (and I've beena few times), I've always sat in exactly the same area. Two girls that I know were sitting close by, but there were so many people milling around that I didn't get to say hi.

After a drink (and some freaky guy coming up to me and offering me cigarettes/lung cancer - he was just strange) we headed to Gin Palace, which is my favourite bar out of the few I've visited. Again we were lucky, there was a little spot with a couch and some armchairs free around a couple of tables, so we settled in. I had peach schnapps and lemonade for the first time. It was very good.

We stayed there until closing at 3, then headed out to find food...wandered around a bit in the freezing wheather...took photos at a blakc and white photo booth at flinders st...(sorry for the vague posting, I have to go eat dinner and go back to work real soon)

anyway it was a great night, and I got home just before 5, so got about 5 hours sleep before work today. I was hoping for a quiet day, but no such luck. Front of house were one short so when Iw asn't washing dishes I was out at the bar doing their glasses. I even got sent out with food at one point, and had to revert back to waitress mode for a few minutes. Seeing as I'd had a very bad night's sleep and I have a cold, I think I did okay.

anyway I'm off to eat and then work (yay). I'm going to Queensland for two weeks tomorrow and I won't be going out of my way to find a computer, so there might not be a blog for a while.

-R

Friday, June 23, 2006

It's hip to be detached and precious

Haha I should stop underestimating the Socceroos. Well done lads. Although they're playing against Italy yet...even the more optimistic fans can't fail to see the likelihood of them losing there...But it's good to have them in the second round.

Yay for holidays! It's nice, doing whatever you feel like, no plans. Let's wander aimlessly around and just drink in the view because we don't have to be anywhere.

Oh shit! I was going to write a fairly hefty entry but I just realised I haven't packed yet. Haha go me. Hopefully I will be able to write another entry before I leave for Queensland.

-R

Monday, June 19, 2006

La di da da

I'm listening right now to this Bob Evans song called 'Rocks In My Head'. I LOVE the chord progression in it. It's G Bm Bbm Am C. There's something about that - that semitone drop from B to Bb then A, that just makes me so happy. I've played chord progressions like that on piano, in old jazz songs and such. I think there's a little three-quaver progression in 'Try A Little Tenderness'. Every time I play it, I think to myself 'Damn, that is a GREAT chord progression'.

Haha. I'm such a nerd. I was actually pretty proud of myself because I figured out the chords from watching Bob play at the instore - I can recognise a few chords now! hooray. Still can't play bar chords though. Le sigh. I just need stronger fingers. Acoustic guitar looks comically large on me too, like the bass guitar. My sister's decided she wants to learn bass, so I've decided I'd better learn guitar. And I've also decided, hard decision it was too, that instead of travelling I'm going to buy myself an electric guitar and laptop. I'll still learn bass though. The guitar will just be to jam with my family. I think it'd be awesome to play with Kathryn. She knows nothing about guitars but she has an ear for music. Today I was singing along to a Crowded House song that she'd never heard, and she came in perfectly with the harmony. Once her voice has matured a bit she will be a force to be reckoned with.

I went to the ballet last night, it was 'Giselle'. It's tragic and I wish I hadn't worn mascara because it was hard to not cry at the end of both acts. I'm a sucker, I always cry when you're meant to, those horribly emotionally manipulative moments with the strings soaring away and all the drama swirling. Pass the Kleenex please.

-R

PS Australia lost! I'm not surprised. They've got no hope against Croatia. Ah well.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

I went out to see if I could fall in love again - that was my mistake

I haven't blogged for a while. I know. I haven't even bothered looking at my blog to see if there are comments telling me to get my lazy arse into gear. So here is a new one. And it may be a long one, just because I haven't blogged for a while.

First point of business: I saw Split Enz on monday night (hence the lyrical title). Evermore were the support act, and were pretty darn good. The only song of theirs I knew was 'It's Too Late', but I'm a fan now. My dad joked about booing the support act off - so he hasn't entirely lost his rock and roll roots! But anyway, onto the headliners.

Geez. Awesome doesn't even come close to describing it.

I'm not going to try and gush about how fan-fucking-tastic they were; It'd take me all week. I feel incredibly priveleged to have seen them perform (especially considering that they disbanded 2 years before I was born). It is telling of their collective songwriting talent, especially that of the Brothers Finn, that the songs still sound so fresh and exciting today. It was everything we could've hoped for and more. They came onstage under a shiny silver blanket, revealing typically strange suits (although sadly nothing on Eddie Rayner's red one-shouldered number) and a number of surreal backdrops. It was a long gig, something like 25 or 26 songs over two hours. Neil Finn pulled out Titus and really put Eddie on the spot for the keys solo, which he performed admirably for someone who hadn't played it in years. 'We'll have it down by Perth'. Tim Finn still dances like a maniac, arms and legs everywhere. Eddie and Neil had a frisbee throwing contest, which Neil won convincingly with a throw that soared over the court area of Rod Laver Arena and into the stands on the other side. Noel Crombie showed everyone how it's done with the spoons (and I've decided that's my next instrument). Of course Six Months In A Leaky Boat got the biggest cheer, but my personal favourite was the beautiful Message To My Girl. Strangely, or perhaps not very strangely, I wasn't on my own in the Generation Y stakes. The majority of the crowd were baby boomers but not by much. There were heaps of young adults and kids with their parents (like me), and groups of young 'uns there by themselves, testament to the legacy of Split Enz and perhaps also the Finn brothers.

Second point of business: On tuesday Brendan and I went to JB HiFi to see Bob Evans (AKA Kevin Mitchell from Jebediah) do an instore. Brendan learnt to never let me loose in a record store as I immediately snapped up a copy of the Crowded House promo vids DVD (well it was $11!) as well as the second Bob Evans album, Suburban Songbook. I really like his stuff, which is surprising as you can definitely hear some country influences in his simple acoustic guitar pop, and country's usually lower on my list of preferred music. Maybe part of the reason I like him so much is because he's Kev from the Jebs, and therefore was my reason for existing from the ages of 14-18. Nice bloke too.

Brendan decided he would hide at the back. Because that doesn't make him look strange at all...

Guitar's coming along surprisingly well, both bass and acoustic. I can actually do chord changes (albeit with simple chords like G, A and D major) now, rather than stopping for 5 hours to put my fingers down in the right place. I still can't play a bar chord to save myself, but a few weeks ago I couldn't change chords to save myself, so hopefully that'll come too. I'm wearing deep grooves into my fingertips, or at least that's where the skin hasn't come off yet. Bass is happening slowly too. I just discovered today that I can actually play off a real score when I found the bass part from 'It's Only A Paper Moon' (probably from my sister's short-lived stint as keyboard bassist in the school's stage band). Piano of course is going how it always is. I've got a song that I could probably record and upload any day now but I can't find the damn mp3 player that records things.

Actually that reminds me of something I was thinking when I was watching Tim and Neil Finn jumping around onstage together and bantering on Monday night (at one point Eddie and Neil were pretending to argue and Tim was breaking them up - 'look at everyone else, can't you at least act professional for just one night?!' lol) and wondering what it would be like to be in a band with one of my siblings. Either one of them could feasibly do it. Byron's very fucking coordinated and is good at pretty much anything he lays his hands on, but Kathryn's got the rockstar persona, man! She's 14 and probably more streetwise than I am. Not bad on a piano either, nice little voice and that...now if only we could somehow steal the Finn's songwriting ability, then we could make a go of this.

We were arseing around the living room tonight, walking using the same arm and leg, then tryign to skip, then running (which is really hard) then doing 'jazz runs' and basically cracking each other up. It was quite silly but I haven't laughed like that since God knows how long.

Shit, my wrists hurt. Too much guitar! I'm going into the city tomorrow. I might go have squiz at that bloke who's trying to set a world record for the world's longest DJ set, 100 hours or something. Be interesting to see if he makes it.

-R

(how's that for a post, suckers)