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