Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The Doctor

I said I would blog about this last night, and it has admittedly been a while since I wrote a blog, so here's me being geeky as usual and blogging about some geeky thing that happened to me.

Last night we were at the pub, well Stef, Steve, Brendan and I were, doing our usual tuesday night trivia thing, and sitting at the next table was THE DOCTOR. As in, Doctor Who (although those who watch it will know that his name isn't actually Doctor Who, it's just The Doctor). Some guy who looked and acted amazingly like David Tennant (aka the tenth Doctor) had taken it upon himself to dress like him too. Navy blue single breasted pinstripe suit and red hi tops...I'm *pretty* sure it wasn't a coincidence, although if it was, damn that was a funny coincidence. I didn't have the guts to go up and say something but if I did I would have run up to say 'what, back from Raxicoricophalapotorius already?'.

Oh and has anyone else heard the rumour about a Doctor Who movie!?!!?!! Apparently Rose might come back for it...which I would so love, The Doctor/Rose was the best pairing EVAR. I still haven't seen much of this series with Martha, I've missed most of the middle of it, although I did see Blink and the last three episodes with the Master (although maybe I should've waited, because I didn't get most of the storyline about Professor Yana etc.). And I'm really interested to see this new series with Catherine Tate as the companion...what was her character's name again, Donna? Should be very interesting/funny. Would be wonderful if the ABC would screen it at the same time as the BBC starting with the Christmas Special but I somehow doubt it...

-R

Friday, October 05, 2007

baching it up

Byron and I are by ourselves in the house until the 15th of October as our parents and Kathryn are in China. Unfortunately there will be no wild parties, because we both work weekends, and we're the kind of people who like nothing better than a quiet night in, with a nice dinner and an early turn-in. However last night we had a fun night, had Brendan, Steve, Alana and Pat over for dinner, we did a roast pork and trimmings thing, it turned out pretty well for two people who can't really cook all that well. Also I was in bed by midnight, I like that. I'm still up tonight because I'm waiting for my hair to dry, but I'm this close to going to bed anyway. I worked tonight and I'm working tomorrow, so I need some sleep. I have hot tea to hopefully keep me awake a bit longer though. And a giant freddo, although I might save that for a real emergency.

Tonight I used Skype for the second time ever. I have a good friend/fren Julie, who lives in Texas, USA. She and I have been chatting on msn for more than a year. At first it was your standard tragic fan fare, what's your favourite album, what do you thinkt he lyrics here mean, that sort of thing, which is really interesting to discuss, but there's only so many times you can dissect a song. She and I chat a few times a week and now pretty much just talk about anything. Anyway, she mentioned recently that despite the fact that we've been chatting for more than a year, we don't know what the other person sounds like, so tonight I called her on Skype as a surprise. She answered the phone with 'ma? Is that you?' and I thought 'shit, I have the wrong number,' but it was 7:30am her time, and there's not many people who call at that hour. She has a higher voice than I expected, and apparently I have a lower voice than she expected, but it was great to finally hear each other.

anyway I'm really tired, and hardly know what I'm typing right now. I'm goign to finish my ta and go to bed.

-R

Monday, September 10, 2007

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

The birds were singing and the sun was shining

Wow, wtf is up with the weather recently. Yesterday was crazy warm. My room's messy again because I had to go hunting through the darkest crevices of my wardrobe to find some summer shorts, and I had to shave my legs...I was hoping to get away without deforestation for at least another two months. Lucky I have a new razor which vibrates. I'm not sure how beneficial to the shaving process the vibrating actually is, but whatever.

Anyway, John Butler Trio were absolutely brilliant, although to be honest I expected nothing less. They're three extremely talented musicians. I would love to have a quarter of John's ability on guitar. One of his guitars had this huge scratched area just behind the bridge, and I couldn't work out what the hell did it as it was nowhere near where he strummed, then he played a solo song where he strummed and then hit the guitar in that area with his nails to create a really nice percussive sound. Michael Barker's drumming was amazing, he was playing kit, jambe/bongo type things, timpanis, glockenspiel and one song he was playing kit with his right arm and legs, and using his left hand to hold the mic while he beatboxed a beat over the top. Now that is cool. Mark of a good drummer is when their solo still has a beat and groove you can dance to instead of being a boring rapid succession of bangs and crashes.

Also I have a video up on youtube, I covered a song by The Waifs called Bridal Train. I heard it the first time that morning, learnt it and performed it, which is probably why it's a bit dodge. I bet I got the melody wrong in places, but hey it's all character innit.


-R

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Quick update

Just a quick one...don't really feel like blogging but I guess I have the time right this second so I may as well.

George's birthday drinks was on Saturday....I had an awesome time, from what I can remember. Probably drank far too much and woke up on Sunday with a raging hangover and had to work that afternoon, but it was worth it. There are photos on Facebook (speaking of which, hi Adri...) and I'll probably put em up on Flickr at some point too.

We've now recorded our song that we're entering into the Darebin songwriting contest. I think it's quite good, I hope the judges agree. If we get into the semis we'll have to perform it along with all the other entrants, which makes me quite nervous. Unfortunately I won't have my Maton till well after the competition, so I think I'll play Alana's. Playing so much acoustic over the past couple of weeks has completely screwed my neck and shoulders...can't wait for my guitar!

I'm seeing John Butler Trio tonight, with Steve. We were a bit nervous about the gig being postponed, Canberra's was postponed because their drummer (who is the possibly my favourite drummer, he's awesome) got sick. I'm pretty excited about it, we got the green tickets, fifty extra cents buys carbon credits to offset emissions from the tour and us getting there. Figured it's John Butler, we may as well go in hippy mode. It would be cool for more gigs to offer it actually, I'd definitely take the green option. We've been good little greenies at home, cut our water usage in half the past year, and probably made quite a dent in our energy usage too. I think we're getting the house kitted out with a new type of low energy consuming light near the end of the year, someone we know is developing it nd I think we're guinea pigs, should be quite interesting.

Anyway I better get ready to go...I'm being green/lazy and walking to the station to take public transport to the gig. Steve's taking me home in the 'Gizmobile' as he affectionately calls it (although when I first read it I thought 'Jizzmobile - Steve, that's disgusting.' Me and my dirty mind!).

-R

PS I could've *sworn* it's the 24th.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Sorry I haven't blogged for a while. Everything seemed kind of uneventful after Crowded House :) Trying to remember what happened...I saw Liam Finn again, got a perm, went to Kaiser Chiefs last night, and put a guitar (yes, another one) on layby today.

Liam and the perm are old news, so not going to go into that...there's photos of both on my flickr though.

Kaiser Chiefs last night, man what a gig! It was at Festival Hall and I was with Stef and my little sister and her friends in the all ages section in the stands so wasn't so enthused about our seats, but surprisingly they were quite good, we had a view of the stage (even if we were sitting perpendicular to it). Kaisers are so awesome live, they have a huge presence and charisma. Ricky Wilson should start a cult, we were eating out of his hand. One of Kathryn's friends was getting way overexcited and it rubbed off on me, I was screaming like one of those girls at the Beatles gigs. I have sore shins today, there was not a lot of space between the rows of seats and any time I danced too energetically I hit the seats in front. I can now see why it's called Festering Hole, cold night and it was boiling inside, can only imagine how bad it would be in the summer. The sound was pretty terrible too, very muddy and messy even for Kaiser Chiefs probably because of the shape of the room. Still, it was a fantastic gig so I can't complain.

And today...today I put a (soon to be mine) fantastically superb Maton EBG808CL acoustic guitar on layby at Allan's *dances excitedly* It's such a gorgeous instrument. I played it a few weeks ago when they first got it in and decided I had to have it...funnily enough it's very similar to the model Neil Finn and Tommy Emmanuel play (although mine is thinner and has a cutaway)...hero worship much? lol well the real reason I love it is that it's a smaller bodied guitar which makes it really comfortable to play...also it sounds incredible, bright and big, and amplified...*sigh* The guy who is looking after me in the guitar shop (Neil...not Finn) and I spent ages passing it back and forth and playing it. He wanted to buy it but he's going to have to wait till they get another one in, haha. I'm taking on a couple of extra shifts at work (including sunday night, my least favourite shift because of all the cleaning) to help pay for it, so for anyone who is even contemplating saying 'oh, just take time off work' for me to do something, the answer is a flat no, unless you want to help pay for the guitar :P If everything goes to plan (I'm an accountant's daughter, I wrote down all the dates and how much I'm going to pay) I should pick it up end of October.

So that's what's happening. I'm seeing the Cure on Sunday night with Alana, and John Butler Trio with Steve on the 23rd, both of which I'm very much looking forward to.

-R

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

One Crowded Weekend

I still feel strange writing this, like it hasn't really happened. It seems a little too surreal to be true, although it's beginning to sink in a little bit.

Last Saturday was Live Earth, 'The concert for a climate in crisis' or some such thing. Kathryn and I got there about 8:30 to find a surprisingly large number of people already there (there was a rumour that people had been camping out). Luckily my friend Tabatha was already there so we went and joined her. About 9am everyone stood up and started lining up, which is the last time I sat down until after the gig (not including me crouching in the mosh pit for about a minute at one point during the day). With a man in a panda suit entertaining us, the time passed reasonably quickly until a little after 10:30am when the gates opened. Kat and I managed to score a barrier position at the left of the stage, with Tabatha and Kim right behind us. It was a pretty chilled out crowd, people behind us were sitting in the sun. I was chatting to the security guy, it turns out they're not allowed to look at the stage on the job, which must suck. Suddenly he looked at me and said 'Can you smell that?'
'...Yes, yes I can.'
'That's a bit early, don't you think?'
'I thought there were drug dogs outside!'
'Ah well, must be coming from backstage'.

Surprisingly enough, the concert started on time, I guess because they were broadcasting they had to stick to a tight schedule. First act Blue King Brown got the crowd into the mood to party, Oval A and B were filing up fast although the stands didn't look full until mid-afternoon when Paul Kelly came on, introduced by Jimmy Barnes which I thought was quite awesome. I was torn between wanting to go apeshit crazy for some acts, especially Sneaky Sound System who were surprisingly brilliant, and wanting to conserve energy for the Crowdies, it was a long freaking day and I consumed but one muesli bar and eight sips of water (2 panadol, 2 nurofen, 2 hours between the 2) for my lower back, which was packing it in from not being able to move. Missy Higgins was good, but I was getting so tired I could hardly enjoy her set, which bummed me as I was really looking forward to it. Eskimo Joe were quite good, they're a band I can take or leave but I liked them. John Butler Trio were my second favourite act of the day...Michael Barker's drum solo is something else. The man is amazing. They sound so good live as well...almost regretting not getting tickets to see them at Festival Hall. Wolfmother were disappointing, their sound guy ought to be shot because they sounded pretty shoddy, needed to be a whole lot louder and Andrew Stockdale's singing was a bit out of tune...I did like his shiny turquoise shirt though. Jack Johnson was the perfect prelude to Crowded House, very chilled out and relaxed, I didn't know he was so popular until everyone started singing along.

Finally...felt like a very long day, I was sore and tired and hungry, then Peter Garrett stepped onstage to introduce Crowded House...the cheer that went up was huge. It was amazing to see them live...ripped into a blinding rendition of Locked Out and I forgot how tired I was and just enjoyed myself immensely. The crowd was in fine form and singing beautifully, I could hardly hear Neil at times over us. He sneakily used us at the beginning of Four Seasons when I'm pretty sure he forgot the second line. Halfway through Something So Strong the stage lights flickered and then went out...we all held our breath as the band looked at each other, slightly surprised for the turn of events...They jammed on one chord while Neil said 'It's a message...but I think as long as the PA's working, we're alright,' and invited everyone onstage for Weather With You...'no one can see you anyway' he said. They were the only ones to come out for an encore, Neil picked up his acoustic for (of course) Better Be Home Soon, one for the journey home...we drowned out the band with our singing, then they bowed and it was all over. It was quite hard to walk after not moving my legs for so long, but completely worth it.

Monday was a very surreal day. I was woken up about 8am by the unmistakable whoop of a fire alarm. After realising that it was coming from our block of apartments and seeing two fire trucks pull up outside our window, we threw on our clothes and were all ready to evacuate when they turned off the alarm, turns out it was false, but it certainly got us out of bed early. Weather was a bit shite so we drove straight to the airport, roads flooded, hail hammering down on our car and lying in drifts along the pavement, so we expected some delays. Our plane was only delayed by 10 minutes as it turned out, but there was such a backlog of flights waiting to take off and land that we were stuck on the tarmac for nearly an hour...the longest sydney-melbourne flight I have experienced!

Dad thought I was crazy to go straight to the Corner from the airport at 1:30, but there were already people there...Some guy (Pat) was talking on his phone and when he mentioned Crowded House I couldn't help doing a little excited dance, so his group force fed me hot chips and we became friends. Steve turned up soon after and we actually had an enjoyable time waiting...took turns going to the pub for drinks, food and toilet breaks. Mark Hart walked past at one point and I tried to be cool but my hands were shaking afterwards with excitement. A film crew started setting up across the street, Mark Seymour (Nick's brother and singer from Hunters and Collectors) was involved, and he kept walking back and forth between the Crowdies soundcheck and the filming across the street. We couldn't work out what it was at first, then I spotted Miranda Otto so obviously it was something a little bit major...I commented that the guy in glasses and shirt was particularly lush, then we realised five minutes later that it was Guy Pearce...like I said, a very surreal day.

Before we went in a security guy came up to expressly forbid us from taking cameras in...I didn't want to take my chances so Steve and I hiked up to Burnley station and back to put my camera in his car. My phone has a 3.2 megapixel camera on it anyway so I wasn't too fussed.Doors finally opened a little after 7, and by some miracle, despite the fact that extra people had materialised in front of us in the queue while we were gone, we managed to score a spot right up front, in front of Mark Hart's microphone stand, although the stage is so small that we could see everyone quite well. The support act was Liam Finn, keeping it all in the family, and we has briliant as ever, playing the drums with so much energy that he snapped a drumstick at one point. He was a lot of fun...when he announced the song Wise Man a few of us cheered and after he ascertained that we actually knew the song, said 'trust a bunch of diehard Crowded House fans to know my songs...' Must have been an exhausting night for him as he was also playing acoustic guitar and doing backing vocals for Crowded House.

The boys themselves came onstage about 8:45 and everyone went nuts...first song they played was Recurring Dream, kind of an obscure B-side and the first song Crowded House wrote as a band, back in 1985 when they were the Mullanes, which was a rare treat. They've done it in gigs as kind of a half-arsed jam as a request, but this time they'd all learnt it properly and it sounded amazing. The sound from my position wasn't fantastic I guess, was too dominated by the sounds coming from Mark's amplifier (a very nice VOX), but it made the guitar geek in me very, very happy. As it turns out, I needn't have worried about my camera because heaps of people had brought theirs in, but I was close enough that my phone with its lack of zoom could still take good photos. It was a strange feeling....didn't really feel like a gig, it felt like they were playing in my living room, I wasn't even aware of the people around me and the packed crowd behind me.

Highlights...so many...being a smallish, fan gig, it was loose and relaxed and there were some pretty funny moments...Mark Hart had changed something on the setlist but not written is down correctly on some copies, so there was a bit of confusion about which song they would play at one point...finally it looked like they had decided what they were going to play, they started and Mark looked very confused...no one had told him what they'd agreed on...there was a reference I didn't entirely get, Neil talked about kissing Nick (he did it on Rove as it turns out) and Nick said it was very tender, Mark started playing Tenderly on the keys. He is a quiet guy, but with a sneaky, knowing sense of humour. I commented I had never heard him say 'fuck' before, then when Nick introduced Matt Sherrod, the new drummer, Mark said into his mic (possibly the only words he said into the mic all night) 'best fucking drummer...' Unfortunately I couldn't see him behind his crash cymbal, but he sounded damn good. There were of course a few mistakes, bass 'fluffs' and keyboards in the wrong voice...Neil decided to murder 'Don't Dream It's Over' so they did the first verse as a big cheesy power ballad...second one they went reggae, Neil is a huge Bob Marley fan after all. For the solo Neil wanted a really druggie, 'Junkie Crowdies' version, Mark called out for his lap steel and did this fantastically liquid, molten plastic solo, oozing all over the place. It says something about the strength of that song that it still sounded bloody fantastic. There were quite a few changes to the set list, especially for the encores...at one point they started a song and Liam came flying across the stage, taken by surprise, grabbed his guitar off its stand but it got tangled up, the stand flew off and hit Mark in the leg, Liam ripped off the capo then realised after playing a few very shonky sounding chords that he needed it after all. Neil forgot the words to a few songs, wouldn't be a proper Crowdies gig if he actually remembered what he'd written. I shouted out my request for Born On The Bayou, Neil grinned and rolled his eyes at me, 'pfft, Born On The Bayou' he replied, in a tone that said 'yeah, right!' Ah well, you can't have them all...he did however play Walking On The Spot, I couldn't believe it, I freaking love that song and they never play it live. I think I died and went to heaven at that moment. Four Seasons in One Day, big singalong as always, we got our own chorus at the end, then he went straight into Sister Madly and our collective jaws dropped. It seemed quite cathartic for them, lots of emotion behind it. The last time they played that song at the Corner, Paul was up front on his snare and cymbal with his brushes, dancing around like a madman. It was more of a jam than the full song, Neil letting us take a verse and joining in for the chorus, and when it ended they left the stage after a mammoth two-hour set without their customary bow.

I managed to score a setlist, so I headed out the back with the intention of getting it signed...Neil came out very quickly, I don't think he wanted to face a lot of fans. He understandably looked tired and emotional (in a tired and emotional way, not in a drunk way) and not in the mood to socialise, but he graciously signed things for the few people who had headed out quickly, then left straightaway. Matt came out next and hung around for quite a while, chatting to people, taking photos and signing things and generally being terribly obliging and friendly. I can see why they picked him, not only is he a great drummer but he's also got a great personality, he was talking to everyone. Mark, quietest man in rock, managed to magically materialise (or else he just walked out very quietly). 'That's my handwriting' and 'Thankyou' are about the only words he said to me when I got my setlist signed, but I did manage to take a photo with him. We had to wait a little while for Nick but he came out eventually, looking very stylish in a dark blue velvet blazer. He got asked if he wanted to leave but indicated all of us and said 'I think I should do this first!' which got a laugh.

So, Crowdie weekend is over. I thought I'd get major post-gig depression but funnily enough I haven't really. Maybe it hasn't registered yet. Roll on November!

Crowded House
Liam Finn and Mark Hart
Crowded House
The rest of the Live Earth photos can be found here.

Neil Finn and Nick Seymour
Mark Hart and Neil Finn
Me and Mark Hart
The rest of the Corner photos can be found here.

Enjoy.

-R

PS Guess who learnt how to do HTML tags!!!

Monday, June 25, 2007

Woot! I had a great weekend.

I went up to Brisbane this weekend, for Renee's 21st. It was totally awesome to see her, as we hadn't seen each other for four years. Was kinda wrecked on Saturday, Alana and I finished our demo EP on Friday (just) and went out on Friday night to her uncle's CD launch (Spectrum Part One remastered, from Aztec Records), to give it to a bunch of useful people (Spectrum, Ross Wilson, Ross's manager, someone from Aztec Records). We still need to find a drummer and bassist too, so these demos will be handy to show people what we're about. Anyway I got home at 1:30, fell into bed, and was up at 5:30 to go to Brisbane. Brisbane was COLD! wtf. Cold and rainy, although nowhere near as cold as Melbourne. I got to meet Ian, Renee's lovely boyfriend, and we all went to decorate the venue with hundreds of balloons, and I fell asleep on a bench...got to have a nap that arvo though which set me up for the night. Renee really knows how to throw a party. Usually I really don't like big parties, but her friends are really nice people and I had a blast...had to give a speech which was about 2 minutes long and full of cliches...and then got stuck into the bar, which had basic spirits on the tab :) got introduced to those Smirnoff black drinks. They are quite strong. Also had a Jam Doughnt shot up at the main bar after the party finished, and lots more drinks, and dancing with everyone, and getting hit on by a random man in a red t-shirt at the bar. He put his hand on my shoulder during the Grease megamix, then right on cue, sang 'You're the one that I want'. I have a feeling it was a move he'd practised. A lot. It was funny nonetheless. We got home about 2:30 and slept about 3:30...for some reason I woke up at 7:25!!! Felt a bit cheated. We picked up Renee's friend Craig, who is backpacking from Canada, and went to Surfers Paradise for the day. I walked around all day with a huge grin on my face, enjoying the warmth and sunshine. We also went to Timezone and found out that I am scarily good at shooting games. Sadly I had to come home last night...felt a bit wistful on the plane, having to say goodbye to friends that I've made, who I'm not likely to meet again for a very long time, and saying goodbye to Renee. Hopefully it'll be less than four years till we're together again. The guy next to me on the plane took exactly the same flights as me to and from Brisbane for a wedding. That was quite coincidental.

Here are some photos:
Glenn, Renee and I
Nathan and I
Craig and I
Me at Surfer's

I took them with my new fancy phone too...they are quite good aren't they!

-R

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Yes, she's a happy girl.

YAY!

OK, so at the beginning of this year, I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I would never get to see Crowded House live, that I had definitely missed that band, and anyway I was only 10 when they split up. Then they reformed, and I kind of refused to believe it for a week, thinking that maybe it was just a sick job. But of course it wasn't, and they came back, and they've got a new album, and of course are touring. The first date announced was for Live Earth, and I of course got tickets to that, so suddenly I'm seeing a band I never dreamed I would, and that makes me happy.

Then, last night, I was procrastinating instead of logging off and going to bed, and just before I did, I got an email. 9th July. Crowded House. Playing the Corner. My favourite band, in my favourite venue, and when tickets went on sale I would be in the car, taking my grandmother to the airport. So I put the box office number on my phone and slept badly, and at 9am today (talk about short notice!) I started hitting dial and redial... and got through at 9:10, to buy two of the last tickets (despite the short notice, they were all gone by 9:11). All I can say is, thank God I'm a procrastinator, or I would've missed both the email and the ticket sale.

So I've gone from thinking I would never see them, to seeing them twice in three days. I'm still pinching myself.

In other news, I got a fancy new mobile phone, a Sony Ericsson K800i, this week. It takes funky panoramic shots so here is one:



-R

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

...right.

Your Celebrity Boob Twin:

Kate Moss


...well, that's all very good and well, but lest we forget, Kate Moss is probably about ooh, half my size, so therefore her boobs would look proportionately twice as large as they do on me. So fat lot of comfort that is for me.

-R

Friday, June 08, 2007

I'm happy

Woot! I had such a good night last night. We went out for dinner to Shanghai dumplings, and I finally got to meet Rhona, who I think is now fairly convinced that I am in fact a real person, and we went to karaoke at some seedy looking place that actually turned out to be quite cool (depsite the lack of soft furnishings as Brendan pointed out - I guess it makes it easier to clean). Steve and I sang Better Be Home Soon with some nice little harmonies courtesy of moi :) and I got pulled up at various points to sing other songs (I think Eternal Flame featured somewhere in there, and A whole New World, although I got out of that one), and had a great time dancing...I decided I didn't give a shit how stupid I looked, and then they played Close To Me by The Cure (fast becomign my favourite song of theirs) so I cut loose on the dance floor and had a blast. Then I did I Want You To Want Me by Cheap Trick with Rhona...a good night was had by all. Sure, I woke up with morning with a cold and no voice, but I think my new, fitter and stronger body is fighting it off okay so hopefilly by work tonight I'll look pretty normal.

-R

Monday, June 04, 2007

It was 60 years ago...well, on Friday it was anyway

So yes, last friday was the 40th anniversary of the release of Sgt Pepper's (and before anyone points out that I got my maths wrong, I'd like to alert y'all to the first line which goes 'It was 20 years ago today...', meaning that 40 years later, it would 60 years ago. So there) and I would've forgotten had it not been for my nerdy interweb forums :) anyway someone posted a link to a BBC documentary that had some bands using the original equipment to record covers of some of the tracks from the album....bands like Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, Bryan Adams etc. The link is here -> http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/events/60sseason/documentaries/sgtpeppers_video.shtml you'll have to copy and paste it because I can't remember how to actually turn it into a...thingy...a hyperlink, or whatever it's called. There's some awesome covers (never thought I would say this, but Bryan Adams was awesome) and some woeful ones (hello Magic Numbers). Not sure how long it's up for.

Anyway in other news...hmm...can't even remember what I last wrote. I'm going up to Brisbane on the 23rd for Reneé's 21st, that will be mondo exciting.

-R

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

One year of rockin out

so, today I have been playing guitar for one year. I celebrated by vacuuming the rehearsal room (like my mum always said, a clean rehearsal room is a happy rehearsal room) and setting it up properly, which meant getting out all the random non-music related junk and organising all the random music related junk, setting up the digital drum kit (it's really my brother's but he's incredibly lazy and I figure this is the only way I can get him to play, plus if we can't find a drummer for our demos I'm going to have to do all the drumming and bass too), putting amplifiers in nice places and making sure we have enough power outlets (we don't, I need another power board - I thought eight would be enough, but we have three amps, digital drums, the keyboard, my computer, the mixer, speakers, a lamp and a stereo). We still have four guitar cases taking up a ridiculous amount of floorspace, but considering it's a small area (it's half the front lounge) there's not a lot of storage options. Now all we need is a rug and a column heater (that room gets freakin cold in the winter) and we're talking. I'm meant to be going to the gym, but I'll also squeeze in a bit of guitar, and I'm seeing Liam Finn tonight - woot!

-R

PS Goddamn. I just bought two t-shirts from threadless.com for $50 australian last week, and now they have a bloody sale on. I could've saved myself $15. *sigh* i might just have to buy a couple more then...heh.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

I am an uber fan

I got my second edition of the Franz Ferdinand Fan Club (FF:FC, it's much more compact) magazine in the mail today. I was flicking through it and came to the page where there were lots of photos of Fans and Franz and saw my photo of me with Paul and his fake baby at the Do You Want To shoot in NYC in 2005, which was quite exciting. I'd sent in the photo about eight months ago, so hadn't expected it to make an appearance.

Oh and in the car after the gym today mum and I had Vega on and they played the new Crowded House single, Don't Stop Now.
Despite the fact that it only started to get airplay last firay, I have heard it that many times (thanks to my bootleg of the webcast) that as soon as the first note played I did the little squeal of excitement and know most of the words...and tonight in Soul Mama they played Close To Me by The Cure...I have heard that song lots in the past few days. It's a very good song.

And I have Ballroom Blitz stuck in my head.

-R

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

A few guitar things to yay about

I'm teaching one of kathryn's friends guitar. I thought it would be a bit like the blind leading the blind, but until this afternoon she hadn't even picked it up, so I can definitely show her a few basic things. It's nice to be able to show someone stuff, and good incentive for me to improve my technique at the same time. Steve came over tonight and fixed my Epiphone (I hope) and played the Gretsch. Now I'm going to bed because the past few nights I've been staying with Brendan while he house sits, and going to bed around 11 to wake up at 7...good habit, but I'm knackered now, up past my bed time.

Monday, May 14, 2007

A few changes, and general stuff

Fall Out Boy is on channel v right now and I just realised that the acronym for their name is FOB (it's in big light up letters at the back of the stage). I wonder if they know what a fob is. That is hilariously unintentionally un-PC. I'm trying to work out if they're singing 'thanks for the memories' or 'thanks for the mammaries' because there's a girl with big tits in a dress in the video.

Anyway, enough blabbing on about whiny shit American bands, and blabbing on about my own not whiny but pretty rough sounding Aussie band. We've got a song up on our myspace now, called So Young, but the url will change pretty soon, because we found out that there's an LA band with the same name as us. We'll probably decide on a name tonight. Work yesterday sucked big time, I just wasn't in the mood and I really hate working sunday nights at the best of times, but it's especially bad on mothers day. Lots of cleaning at the end of the day and changing all the menus around. eurgh.

Oh and Kathryn's school band won their division at the festival at Mt Gambier, which was a pretty big shock to all involved. The judge of their division was some dude from the Cat Empire apparently. I've just come home from the gym so after lunch I'm going to put my muscles to good use and help her put the keyboard and amp back in the music room. I need food.

-R

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

OMGYAY!!!!

Crowded House are playing Live Earth. *implodes with excitement*

It was officially announced today, but like everything to do with Crowded House lately, it was leaked last week (albeit by Neil himself at Coachella). Missy Higgins, John Butler Trio, Jack Johnson, Wolfmother, Eskimo Joe, Paul Kelly and God knows who else are also playing, so I'm going to do my best to score a ticket. My mum once again proved that she is majorly cool and said she'll drive me up there. So I'm a wee bit excited.

-R

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Bring the ROOOOOOOOOOOCK!!!!!!!

I broke my first guitar string today. I feel so rock and roll. The high E on my Epi Les Paul, snapped while I was strumming quite hard. It kinda stung when it hit me. Lucky I have the Gretsch home now, because the LP is out of service until I buy another set of strings next week. Still not looking forward to breaking a string on the Gretsch...I have a feeling the Bigsby will make replacing strings interesting, to say the least.

Unfortunately we're not ready to upload anything to the net just yet...we worked hard at recording though, and we've got a couple of very rough cuts to work on.

-R

Thursday, May 03, 2007

sorry sorry sorry

Hey,

I know I haven't blogged for so so long...apologies. Stuff has happened, and when I've wanted to blog, the bloody net has been down. Anyway I'll fill you in on what's been happening. Life is going along as usual, nothing out of the ordinary, except for the band stuff, which is all getting rather exciting now. Alana and I have been getting together most weekends for rehearsing/writing sessions, and we've picked 6 songs we'd like to demo to put up on myspace or give to friends or whatever, so the past couple of weeks have been spent getting those songs good. Today I went and bought a Behringer mixing console from Melbourne Music on North Rd and have spent all afternoon setting it up. It's finally all set up and working properly, except I'm missing a few things, namely a microphone stand and lead which Alana will get for me tomorrow, and the big headphones which I know are around somewhere...probably buried under piles of crap in my room! Ummm what else...oh yeah, finally told my mum about the Gretsch, we rehearsed last night and my parents came to pick me up, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to finally bring her home. I'm still not used to playng with her but hopefulyl that will change. Technology permitting, we'll record one, maybe two songs this weekend to put up, so yay.

-R

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

So, Stef's birthday last night :)

Last night was great, really really enjoyable. I mentioned the pinata already, but it was a small part of the evening. I got there early to do Stef's hair and play hairdresser/stylist/makeup artist:

The hairdresser

and the end result:

Stef

and a couple of the rest of us:

The schoolgirls

the Botticelli girls

Sorry, but I'm too tire to think about writing. I did wake up hungover and 'irritabel' this morning, and actually had to check the blog because I had a feeling that I'd written something, but wasn't entirely sure whether I'd managed to post it. So there you go. We're doing our usual tuesday night thing tonight but I won't be drinking because I feel like a zombie.

-R

druk bkig

i just got backfrom stefs 21st and wante dto post hptoso, but i thinki had too much fro drink and tis a bit beyong me right now.we had a rakly good night, it was catered with food and ther were waiters and a pinata. isumi wore a kimono which toojk half and hour to put on and she was ecited by the pinata. i did stefs hair and it looked really nice, ther will be potos tomorro when i am hungover and irritabel. i alo habe to write a gofdamn song. tpuing with me eyes shut now because i can't kee them opoen. ime to sleep now. click lcik.

-r

Monday, March 26, 2007

Brilliant!

Oh, today was such an awesome day.

This morning, Brendan took me out to Elsternwick for brekkie. It's always good to see him, for some reason we hardly seem to be seeing each other at the moment. We had a bit of time to kill after so we ended up going to Southland to get his mum a present, some nice earrings (don't anyone tell her though).

I decided to drive to Alana's today, because I was bringing my macbook because we were *meant* to record something. Yes, sorry, we didn't quite get around to it, because I spent too much time fooling about with the Gretsch, and suddenly came up with what I think is a pretty brilliant chord progression. Here's me with the baby, learning how to use the bigsby (at the time I was playing another song of Alana's):

Me with the Gretsch

Anyway today we cut rehearsal short so we could go see Adam Hills do the last of his trial shows at 6 Links. I've waited five years to see him live and two weeks ago (only two weeks!?) he was sold out (which is when we formed The Little Ones), so this time we were extra early and the first ones there. We made our first true fans in the line - that is, people we didn't already know and who therefore were not obliged to like our music (despite the fact that they of course have not heard anything yet). Below we have from left to right Britt, Adele, Lizzy and Alice, with me peeking over the top:

Our first fans!

there were quite a few flashes going off with lots of people taking photos, and I joked that the people at the back of the queue were probably wondering whih famous person was up the front. Quite a surreal experience.

So when we got inside, much to our dismay, Britt couldn't get in as she was underage and they were checking IDs for the first time (she had gone pervious weeks with no problem). This is where the already good evening became an experience I'm unlikely to forget for quite a while. Someone jokingly suggested going up to Adam Hills and asking him to try and get Britt in. Well someone did actually go and ask him, and while he couldn't get her in, what he did do was persuade the staff to leave the foor open and set up a stool for Britt, so she could sit just outside the bar and still see the stage:

The comedic exile

Throughout the evening he kept coming out to her (and us when we were hanging with her in the breaks) to make sure she was ok.

Now, this is where I make people jealous that they weren't there. This was meant to be a trial for Adam to try his new stuff out on an audience, and he's been doing it for the past eight weeks. However, over the past eight weeks, the same 'regulars' have kept coming back, and Adam's been getting their stories out, and it's turned into 'some kind of weird cult' in his words. So instead of havign any of his new material, tonight all the loose ends of the past eight weeks were tied up. It was truly remarkable, all sorts of objects were onstage from audience members coming back and being asked to bring things in (if I were to go into detail I would be typing all night) and he seemed to remember a remarkable amount of names and stories. It's become such a big thing, that in a few week's time there will be a 'reunion' show for all the people who went to his trial shows (which I will definitely be going to - by the end of the night I felt I was among friends). Of course there were heaps of laughs, and Adam proved himself to be a pretty aweosme performer, able to turn any situation that was presented to him into some pure comic gold. At the end of the show, when I had a massive headache from laughing so much, we headed out the door and waited with Britt. In due course he came round to us to say hi, and Alana and I got to tell him our story of forming because his gig was sold out. He was duly impressed, and I'm gagged by my bandmate from saying anything further, suffice to say The Little Ones seem to be getting a remarkable number of lucky breaks given our two week existence. Anyway we did get a photo with him:

The Little Ones with Hillsy!

I think we all have sore faces from smiling, but how can you not. I will have to go to his show now because I didn't actually see any of it tonight, but it was such an experience, and I'm glad we got to go.

-R

PS two weeks!? I can't believe it's only been two weeks! And today was only the fifth time Alana and I have met in person, and I feel like I've known her all my life. The others couldn't believe it when I told them how recently we'd actually met.
PPS the other photos from the day are on my flickr, and at some point I have a couple of videos of Hillsy to put up somewhere too.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

She's Love

She's a Gretsch Electromatic Duojet with Bigsby, and her name is Love. The guy dropped her off on Wednesday to Alana's house, where she currently resides. Can't even remember if I've written about the wonderful experience of playing her for the first time, but she plays like a dream, thanks to her being set up properly. I'm playing her again tomorrow and can't wait, although my Epi (which still needs a name - suggestions, please!) has no need to be jealous because she's still my primary guitar - Love's living at Alana's for a while.

Love

playing Love

-R

Sunday, March 18, 2007

We Are The Little Ones...

..that is, Alana and I and our yet-to-be-determined-but-possibly-related-to-me rhythm section are The Little Ones. I'm still at her place, she's cooking dinner (she can cook! hurrah)and blogging and taking a break from guitar because I played non stop for nearly three hours and my fingers hurt, but I'm gonna go after this and practice the song we wrote this afternoon before I forget how it goes. We have a myspace now (www.myspace.com/thelittleonesmusic) but there's nothing up there yet. Alana's going to make it look pretty and hopefully we'll get round to recording something to chuck up on there soon. Today we worked on two of her songs, All I Could Wish For and Don't Let Go, and the one we wrote which is still missing a title, and I tried to play her the one I wrote last week, but I of course forgot to bring the lyrics and chords with me. It's looking pretty good, the songs are sounding good, and we write together pretty well. I decided to buy the Gretsch, so it's being delivered to Alana's next week and will probably live there for a while.

-R

Friday, March 16, 2007

can't sleep

I'm meant to be sleeping right now but I just had a strong cup of tea and I'm contemplating buying another guitar so I'm a little freaking out over here right now and I can't sleep.

So yes, this whole band thing. Last sunday I was meant to go with my friend Alana to see Adam Hills in the city, but he ended up being sold out, so we went to a pub for dinner then her place to watch some DVDs. She's a songwriter/guitarist and has written some pretty awesome stuff, so we decided to have a bit of a jam as she hasn't been able to find anyone to play with. As it turns out, we jammed together pretty well, so we decided to form a band. She happens to know a lot of very very helpful people in the music industry who are keen to help her out, which is good, and we ended up writing some stuff together as well, which is also good. Although I think I may have stolen her mojo because she was telling me that she hasn't written a thing this week and I've gone from not having written a song to having written two and a bit in five days. So we were chatting on msn again tonight and she pointed me to an ebay auction. This guy bought Gretsch Electromatic Duojet with Bigsby (in a sparkly silver finish) for over $1,000 and doesn't need it any more, so he's selling it, and the buy now price is $650. This is why I can't sleep. Do I buy another guitar already??? It is a truly awesome deal. But it's also a fair bit of money (although to be fair, I did set up an ING account for things like this, and I can afford it). I just don't know whether I can justify buying my second electric so soon. Aaaaaaagh. Anyway I'm meeting her tomorrow to look at keyboards, and hopefully they'll have a gretsch that we can have a play around on. It would sound truly awesome, and the Bigsby is a big selling point. But I'm thinking maybe I should buy a single coil first, like a strat or something, cos I already have the LP. God, this is a nice dilemma to have. And I do lust after those Gretsches like nothing else.

We'll see. I'm sure my mum would be thrilled to see me with another guitar to clutter up her living room. Although it must be said, she's being awesome about the band thing. I thought she'd freak but instead she offered to do the catering if and when we toured. My mum is so cool.

-R

Monday, March 12, 2007

Too much to blog about

I'm really tires, having not had any sleep the past few nights, and events have been ocurring like crazy, and I really want to write a detailed blog about them but I'm about to fall asleep right now so for the time being, dot points will suffice.
1. The Whitlams were awesome. There's a set of photos on my flickr (link on the left hand side of the page) with captions explaining the best bits of the evening so no more needs to be said.
2. I'm in a band.
3. I wrote another song.

I promise I'll write more about 2 and 3 because it's really freaking exciting, but right now I need sleep.

-R

Friday, March 09, 2007

OMG I am so so pumped

So tonight Kat and I were fooling around with guitars and basses in the music room, and she said 'oh, by the way, I wrote some lyrics today in english,' and went and grabbed them, then gave them to me and said 'you do the music' and went and heated up apple pie. So I sat down at the piano, noodled around a bunch of chords, plucked a few likely sounding ones out of the mass and suddenly we have a song. A song with words, verses, chorus and a bridge, and *music*. Considering I've been trying for more than a year to write music with very little success, it was a little annoying how easily everything came tonight. And to top it all off, when Kathryn learnt the bass notes, I did my first successful bit of piano soloing over the top of it. I'm a little astounded right now. So hopefully we'll record this sucker and put it up some time. I think it's actually a nice little song so I'm curious to see what other people think.

-R

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Had a good day

Steve came over for a jam today which was a lot of fun. We looked at a couple of Crowdies songs, but lots of them have rather...esoteric chords, so we kind of gave up on them. I think in the end we played Opportunity by Pete Murray, Under The Milky Way by The Church, and arsed around a lot on various other instruments. Oh and Don't Dream It's Over. I played the Hammond organ solo on my melodica, which perhaps lost some of the dreamy quality, but it was kind of funny. We also had a go at Heard It On The Grapevine, and I'm thinking that Byron Kathryn and I could make a pretty good go of that.

And this evening I had a proper go at Photoshop, and changed that dodgy looking photo of Brendan and I from this:
Er...

To this:
no hands

Friday, March 02, 2007

Umm

I'm listening to the Fiery Furnaces, and it just occured to me how similar they are to the early Split Enz stuff. Not obviously in terms of visuals and that, but more in the sense that their songs seem a bit schizophrenic, changing moods and time signatures and keys mid-way, flying off on musical tangents, with strange instruments and synthesizers making up the bulk of the sound. However even with all the weirdness, the songs are filled with beautiful little melodic hooks and ideas.

Just thought I'd share.

-R

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

I'm a flickr whore

Hmm, I got sucked into upgrading my Flickr account to a pro one...means I can arrange all my photos into little sets, which I guess is handy. I couldve used photobucket I guess, but Flickr is so much prettier and faster and easier to use etc etc etc...I finally figured out how to put links, so you can go to it by clicking said link on the left hand side.

Tonight we went out to the city for drinks, because I can't make it to Ben's farewell on Saturday, and he's leaving for Germany on Tuesday until probably the end of the year, so tonight is the last time I saw him. I made good use of my camera (well, the 'good' bit is probably debatable, but I had fun) and got some nice photos...here is one, the rest are in my Flickr (in the set 'Friends, Countrymen...').

Brendan and me

I also took a video, just 10 seconds of some very dark footage, I have no idea what we're saying/laughing about, but at the end of it is Georgina holding up a bottle of beer with a big thumbs up, and I thought it was pretty funny.


So there's my multimedia thing for the day.

-R

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

I got a digital camera

I was thinking about getting one, so I went to Myer today and they were having a sale, so I ended up buying one, a Canon Powershot A430. It's pretty chunky, an older model, which meant that it was only $150, but it has an optical viewfinder and a 4x optical zoom, so I'm pretty happy. I just wanted something to take odd little snapshots with, and tonight I used it when Brendan and I went to North Melbourne for coffee (he wanted to scope it out for potential living) and we passed this awesome looking antiques shot, and this is my favourite photo from it:

Antique store

hopefully i will post photos a little more than occasionally.

-R

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Yay!

Steve came and fixed our computer/network/whatever today while I was at work. He was like one of those invisible pixies in fairy stories - before I left for work today everything was down, and when I came back from work today everything was working again. So thankyou Steve :)

-R

Friday, February 16, 2007

I See Red!

I went to the Tim Finn gig tonight, and - WOW. It was amazing. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Firstly, I got a bit of a hair trim today, because I've decided I'm growing it out, so I got rid of the longer bit so it'll grow out evenly. I had the tiniest smidge of blonde left, so I dyed it bright pink again, and while that set I decorated the house for CNY, and it looks pretty cool.

Went into the city about 2:30...went to the Howard Arkley exhibition. I know I've been planning to see it with people, but I'm not sure if I'll have time before it closes on the 25th, so I went today just in case. It was pretty awesome. Interesting to see how his style changed over the years - from stark black and white in his early years, through to more complex pieces in earthy tones, through to his comic book inspired saturated colours in his latter years.

So anyway, onto the gig! I met a couple of my frenz at Southbank for dinner, then we headed up to the Forum...there was a surprisingly large number of people already lined up, but we still got a good table, at the front left of the stage. I guess being an older audience (the majority would be my parents age) they're not too fussed with being up the front. We had a young lad and his mum ask to sit at our table, and it turns out we all know each other from the Frenz messageboard. The support act was Josh Pyke, just him and his acoustic guitar and some guy on violin, glockenspiel and tambourine (obviously not all at once). I don't know any Josh Pyke songs but he was good.

Tim came on at 9pm, which I consider early (usually the gigs I go to, the headliner comes on at 10:30) but I wasn't complaining, having taken public transport in. He's still a brilliant entertainer, with a really strong backing band (and a girl bassist, yeah :)). For some songs he played acoustic guitar or piano, and on others he was dancing around in the customary Tim Finn style (ie very crazily indeed), sometimes with his yellow star-shaped tambourine (or 'starbourine'). It was a pretty even mix of songs from his latest album Imaginary Kingdom, a couple of singles off his previous solo albums, a couple of Crowded House tunes (Weather With You and It's Only Natural, naturally) and a few Enz classics. I wasn't familiar with one song, but I knew the rest, and while every song got a rapturous reception, the Enz songs in particular went down very well. We ended up getting two encores (those tables were very handy for noisemaking) and at the very end of the second encore, my wish came true and the band played I See Red, probably the closest to punk the Enz ever got. The crowd had remained seated all night, but with encouragement from Tim, our table got up and started dancing (or in my case, flailing - I've no idea what the hell was going on there. I think it was a bit of the Tim spirit!) and soon the floor in front of the stage was packed and IT WAS AWESOME.

The band finally staggered from the stage at 10:45 and we immediately headed out to the stage door. Apparently sometimes Tim politely refuses to sign anything and just escapes to the car, but tonight must have been a good night, because he hung around, signed things, chatted to people and took photos. I got my guitar strap signed (the one which is the same as his), and either he really did remember that he told me on myspace where to get it, or he's nice and a good liar.

And I still made the third last train home. So all in all, a pretty sensational evening.

-R

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

AAAAAAAARGH!!!!

...FARKING COMPUTERS!!!!!!!

Our wireless network is down, so this one comes to you from the PC. Mum changed the Bigpond password, but the old one is still on the router, and we don't have the router password, so that needs to be reset, which is very frustrating. So tomorrow my bro's going to call the router people and reset the router because I've had enough of talking to computer people on the phone (I spent half an hour last thursday at work on the phone to them and it drives me nuts).

So anyway, this is what I did at work today:
- checked answering machine messages and confirmed bookings
- made a couple of coffees
- polished salt and pepper shakers
- fixed the bindings of the menus
- signed off on all our produce deliveries
- stocked the fridge
- stocked the linen cupboard
- cleaned the glass shelves in the bar
- cleaned out the staff belongings cabinet
- tidied the staionery drawer
- refiled the staff roster folder
- read the paper

...notice anything odd? That's right, not once today in my eight hour shift did I take an order from a customer or even serve a customer. It was all admin/cleaning stuff today, which was kind of good. I got paid to sit on my ass for a good portion of the day doing all the 'sit down' jobs, which is a nice change to busting my ass running around making shit. That's for tomorrow night, when we are fully booked. Bloody Valentine's Day, we're going to get so slammed.

-R

PS We won trivia tonight! I *told* you guys Paddington Bear likes marmalade :)
PPS I nearly got hit by a taxi coming home - I was in his blind spot and he was changing lanes in an intersection without indicating. It was the first time I ever used my horn and I have to say, it sounds pretty inconsequential, but then again I am driving a Honda Jazz, which is not the most assertive of vehicles.

Monday, February 12, 2007

LOVE!

I'm going to work today on my day off. It seemed like a good idea at the time, now i'm not sure I can be bothered, but I've already said I'd go, so I guess I'd better. Our second chef is making the desserts for Valentine's Day today and I wanted to watch (and maybe eat some of them...). At least we're closed so I won't actually be working.

And I downloaded the Beatles 'LOVE' album which a friend emailed to me ages ago. I'm listening to it the first time now and it's *really* good. Plus it has the coolest artwork.

-R

Friday, January 26, 2007

Time On Earth

Firstly, happy Australia Day...not feeling so festive mysef as I had work all day (and the lazy buggers buggered off on the stroke of 3, leaving me to deal with the customers they'd just seated and set up for dinner). I got all paranoid and called Brendan to pick me up from work, as there was a bunch of drunks on bikes with Australian flags carousing and getting into a brawl with the police on Church St (Church St! The last bastion of conservative gentrified upper-middle class society! What is the world coming to, I ask you that).

Secondly, next time I should probably try and make sure that I have more than one thing to say the next time I start a blog with 'firstly...'. I'm at Brendan's now, he made roast beef and I had dinner with his family. At one point his phone rang and it was my mum, then Georgie - apparently they're having dinner and no one told me. I feel so loved.

Lastly, eeeeeee!!!! So excited about Crowded House reforming. I'm still finding it slightly hard to believe as Neil Finn was always so adamant that without Paul Hester, there would be no Crowded House. I'm afraid that tomorrow I'll wake up from a week-long dream. The new album is called Time On Earth, and they auditioned drummers in Melbourne this week. First date's Coachella in April, lucky buggers that get to see them then!

-R

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Back & Forth

I did some filming this morning as an extra. I'm not allowed to say for what show or where it was because I had to sign a confidentiality agreement, and I have a feeling they take those quite seriously, so I'll probably be able to spill closer to the airing date. I will say that there was a special guest involved, which was rather cool. Anyway. We got there at 6:00 am and had brekkie (surprisingly good food, too. I guess they want everyone to be happy) then we went up to where they were filming...and waited. Luckily it wasn't nearly as long as the Franz shoot, and we actually did a few things. Us extras were filling in the background (which is what extras do, I guess) and walking back and forth a lot...there weren't many of us so we all had to walk back and forth a few times. I guess you don't really pay attention to what's happening in the background. The good thing was that we were told that it would finish up at 9:30am, and lo and behold we were done at 9:32 (unlike Franz...'Yeah, you guys will be done at 5'...famous last words!). Which means that I could probably have gotten to work on time, but bugger that, I'm having a day off. I think Liz and I'll go hang around Chapel St and see a movie.

Oh and in exciting news, Crowded House is reforming, and I can't type how excited I am, but you can all probably imagine.

-R