Rock It…..Hard

I look a little worse for wear.

My shirt was dripping with sweat.

Quan looks cool as can be.

He’s a freaking legend.

The Gurge rock my world.

This gig just about topped it for me. Great feel. Great crowd. Just so awesomely fun.

They played about 5 of their new songs and they all seemed to go off well with the crowd.

There are some bands that you can tell, just do it for the fun.

The Gurge always seem to be having fun on stage.

Quan and Seja did an excellent version of “Romance of the Damned”.

Gah. I could gush all day. I want to go and see them at other places on their tour!

If you can. Check them out. You will never be disappointed at a Gurge gig.

New South Wales

The Metro Theatre – 6th of October
Sodens Hotel – 10th of October
The Great Northern – 19th of October
Bar On The Hill, Newcastle Uni – 1st of November
Fitzroy Hotel – 2nd of November
Manly Fisho’s – 3rd of November

Victoria

Peninsula Lounge – 11th of October
Corner Hotel – 12th of October

South Australia

Night Train – 13th of October

Queensland

Southport RSL – 18th of October
The Sands Tavern – 20th of October
The Met – 21st of October
Seven Niteclub – 24th of October
Leichardt Hotel – 25th of October
McGuires – 26th of October
Bombay Rock – 27th of October
Brothers Leagues Club – 28th of October

Tasmania

Siroccos Bar and Nightclub – 9th of November
Batman Fawkner Inn – 10th of November

Western Australia

Indie Bar – 13th of November
The Foundry – 14th of November
Odessy – 15th of November
The Dunsborough -16th of November
Amplifier Bar – 17th of November
The Leopold – 18th of November

Holidays, Houses and BlogMeets

I told you Spring was just around the corner! How nice was the weather today??
Merimbula was fun! Great penthouse apartment. Great location. Great company and mmmm…the oysters.

The weather was pretty good. A little chilly at times and the water was just downright freeeezing, but mostly it was sunny and perfect for lounging around in.

Check out some pics here!

I moved in to my new place yesterday! About bloody time too. It’s been about 3 months since I have slept in my own bed and had my own place. Finally I get to have some space, a bed and somewhere to call home. Hopefully I won’t have to move for a while!

Thanks to Aurelius we have a BlogMeet lined up for Friday at the Wig N’ Pen! I’m glad it doesn’t clash with everything else going on in my life at the moment!

I should be there, baring any unforseen schedule clashes!

Details are here and it looks like Zoe, Enny, Andrew, Stephen, Nick are in and possibly Kirsten. What about Ducky, Dean, Teej?

So…3 more days of the week to go. I like short weeks, but damn. Can it at least go quick?

I wish I was back here…..

City 2 Surf – 2007

We got up at 7.30 in preperation for the 9am start.

It was a sunny day.Wearing shorts to the train station was no problem at that time of day (can’t say that about Canberra now CAN WE?)

Just to add a little more walking for the day, we missed the train to St. James and instead got a train to Central and walked to the start line.

People. EVERYWHERE.

We were trying to meet up with Jay, but somehow ended up stuck in a sea of people stretching and getting ready for the starters gun.

We tried to shove our way through but it was like trying to push a square peg in a round hole.

The starters horn went and the front runners were off. We weren’t even close to get past that start line.

Instead we went and hung at the side of the 3rd group with thousands of walkers, shufflers, Amway people and weirdos

Finally we started. I think it was around 35 minutes after the first group left. Just 5 minutes later the winner of the City 2 Surf crossed the finish line. We had just passed the 1km mark.

It was nice to just stroll along and check out the people around us and soak in the sun.

We saw:

• ATM’s running (and probably sweating their arses off)
• Idol Judges rating the runners
• A Rock Band on the top of a roof
• An old bloke with the skinniest legs you’ve ever seen (wish I had a pic!)
• A guy leaning over his wall spraying his hose at the runners too cool us off. It was damn refreshing.
• More drunk guys with a hose who were aiming at young girls with white shirts
• Lots of BBQ’s, beer and parties that just made us want to finish and EAT
• A few girls singing the “99 bottles of beer on the wall” song. They got to 40 something and we had to speed up to get away from them.
• Running Budgie Smugglers.

65,000+ people were there and you could tell. There was little space to walk. If you stopped you risked getting mowed down by Soccer mums or 16 yr old kids.

Heartbreak Hill was not nearly as bad as they say. But then again, we were just strolling along.

Bondi Beach was definitely a welcome sight as we came down the hill towards the finish line

3 and a half hours after it started, we reached the Finish line.

We were hoping for Sausages and beer at the end.

We got Chicken wraps and Soda water.

Not that I’m complaining! It was a nice day and definitely worth doing.

Next year we RUN! (Yes, LaLa?)

Wombats, Simpsons and Gurus. Oh My!

My last week has been great and it’s time to spill!

(Warning – Photos Galore! but be patient. It took me long enough to upload them on bloody dial-up, so you can just wait a few seconds you impatient bums :))

It started with a delightful weekend in Kangaroo Valley with my LaLa. If you haven’t been, you should. It’s a beautiful piece of the world.

Turn off at Sutton Forest, halfway between Sydney and Canberra and then drive towards Nowra. Stop about 20km away and you’ll discover a little township with about 20 shops, a pub, a bakehouse, a pre-school, a police station, a lolly shop, a couple of hippy shops and wombats.

The weather can also change in minutes as we discovered as soon as we got there being caught in a solid hail storm.

It was so nice to get away and play some board games…(it wasn’t ME who did the rude word!)

2 all at Trivial pursuit isn’t it dear?

The next day we went on a walk down to town and saw all sorts of delightful sights…

Musically Talented Ants,

Over Friendly Horsies,

Pretty Flowers…

and a retro Postbox.

It really is a lovely little place.

We also took in the footy at the pub on Sunday (bloody Manly) and had an scrummy Roast Lamb on the Saturday night. (Cooked perfectly!)
Sunday morning, we indulged in a extravagant BBQ Brekkie. Eggs, bacon, Tomatoes, Mushrooms and Snags. YUMMO.

We took in Fitzroy Falls, Tallowa Dam and, on the way home, Berry, including some cute little letterboxes. (tired of linking pics now. Check out my Flickr page.)

Overall, it was just a great, relaxing, peaceful and fun Birthday weekend.

Oh yeah, and we saw a wombat!

I’ll call him Wally.

After a little nap and big hugs, I left my girl back in Sydney (mope) and headed home.

…

Not being content with that being the end of my birthday week celebrations (we all get a week don’t we?), I took the kids out to the Simpsons Movie on Tuesday night..

It was really really good. I was getting worried that it might be disappointing, but how could I ever doubt Homer & Co? It was funny, exciting, different enough to the show to make it worth seeing at the movies and just the fact that we WERE seeing it on the big screen made it awesome.

It was sort of strange actually seeing The Simpsons in public when we are so used to having a chuckle in our own lounge rooms.

You’ll be humming, “Spider Pig…Spider Pig. Does whatever Spider Pig does…” all the next day 🙂

To top off a kick-arse week, I saw the Hoodoo Gurus last night and finally met the engaging Aurelius. It was really nice to finally meet, pick him up and have a bit of a chat (ie. discuss politics, music and blogs) before the gig, because after the ear-piercing guitar playing of Brad Shepherd…

and Dave Faulkner…

We really couldn’t hear much afterwards.

What more could a 31 yr old need?

(besidesafuckinghousetolivein)

African Translations…

Follow the leader. They might not know where they’re going, but at least they’ll take the flack

Look Forward. There’s no point in looking back. You can’t change it anyway.

Look into the storm that is coming. That way, when it hits, you’re not surprised.

Big or small. Young or old. Remember that family are the closest that you have.

If you can get a leg up. Take it. There’s no shame in it.

Photos taken from here.

Lest I forget my headache or forget them

So, once I woke up and discovered my Carlton Draught headache of doom, I grabbed the kids and headed out to Anzac Parade for the ANZAC Day Memorials and march.

Had a really nice time, watched the march and wandered around the parade ground.

There was a big big crowd. I decided against the dawn service, purely because I didn’t think it was something the kids would appreciate just yet (mainly the 3 and 5 yr old). Next year I will try and take the then 9 and 6 yr old along. As it turned out it was probably better a bit later as the weather warmed up, there were lots of different things to see and we saw the plane fly-by.

Here’s some pics from the day….

No Pyking. Just no response!

Fine then. I’ll go by myself!

I have never been to a concert alone.

Just like I have never been to a movie alone.

Maybe I’ll run into people I know. I mean, it is Canberra after all.

Well, it will give me a chance to take some photos without worrying about who I am there with.

I am obssessed with the Boudist at the moment, and other great band photographers.

I think I want to do that.

Parra, Punching, Pork and Balloons

‘avagoodweekend?

Yes indeed I did!

The Eels had a great win on Friday night. I was all pumped up to watch it with my kids (one goes for the Panthers, the others go for the Eels.) I was jumping around when the Eels hit the lead and giving my son high fives, but then the Panthers came back and my daughter started grinning.

As the game got more exciting into the 2nd half, I turn around and all the kids were snoring on the couch.

Oops. Guess they were tired! I’m surprised they didn’t wake up from my yelling at the TV as the Eels went on to get 3 in a row. WOO!

Went to a Karate lesson on Saturday morning with my lil’ girl. I have never really been a martial art fan (when doing it myself), but I found it was quite fun and challenging. It’s was my daughters 4th lesson and she was starting to get a hang of some of the moves and the great yelp on the 10th punch, kick or block! (Kee-hai or something?) I was picking it up as we went (apart from starting on the wrong side all the time) I am sure I stretched and used muscles that I haven’t in 10 years as I could feel it yesteday…

An older Asian man ran us through a series of punch and block moves. Can’t remember what it was called, but it was a fairly long thing that I am sure I won’t remember! The funny thing was, this guy had a kiwi accent. It was sorta weird seeing this brown belted karate expert teaching me moves whilst saying, “Now spin around to your lift and block with your right hand.”

Had a delicious roast pork dinner on Saturday night. (The best of all roasts) with piles of crunky pork skin (I LOVE crackling) and stacks of good company. Early to bed to get up at the arse-crack of dawn..

 to go and see these things…

There were some novelty balloons for the kids (and there were enough of them there!)

None of the balloons actually took off from the lawns of Old Parliament House yesterday, (because of the wind direction that might take them towards the flight path at Canberra airport. Wimps.) but there were plenty of inflated balloons on the ground and then a few drifting above us and landing as we left.

It was a beautiful morning though and when the sun was out and the coffee was in the hand, I started to feel human.

Finished off with breakfast by the lake at Black Mountain Peninsula.

Lost Indoor Soccer, but shaved my sons head, so all good 🙂

How was yours?