Sydney Trip 2010

Got back from Sydney this week.

On Thursday we did the toursity thing. We took Luke to Circular Quay, the Opera House, the Rocks and Darling Harbour. Found a great pub in the Rocks called the Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel which had some fine micro brews on tap.

On Friday we headed over to Manly, spent the day at the beach swimming and perving. Friday night the guys went out drinking and I went to my friend Lisa and Simon's for dinner. I tried to meet up with them after, but the bouncer at Goldfish wouldn't let me in, claiming I was too drunk. All I had was two beers! The guy was just a fuckhead.

Saturday we went to Bondi. I've been there before, but never swam there. The water was really clear, which surprised me. After swimming we went to the Bavarian Bier Cafe and had Mango Beer and pretzels.

On Sunday was the Days Like This festival.

We got to the Moore Park Entertainment Complex around 12:30, had another Mango Beer, and went in. The venue was small, and there wasn't much seating really, but those were my only complaints.

The Bamboos rocked it at 1:30pm, and must have been hot in those suits! Amp Fiddler was amazing - nice soulful music. We caught the last song of The Swiss which was good, but that stage was running late so we missed Cassette Kids.

Dilated Peoples were great too, but we left early to see Cat Power, who whilst enjoyable was a little too mellow and bluesy for this kind of festival. We missed Ugly Duckling as we couldn't get in to that area again.

Caught Neon Indian instead, who were pretty cool. Roots Manuva was awesome as ever, with Ricky Rankin and a new guy adding greatly to the sound.

We made our way into the "dance" area and caught the end of Joker... all I'll say about that is dubstep sucks even more when you put rnb vocals in it. Bukem and Conrad rocked up late and the sound was horrendous, so I left and saw Nextmen.

Interestingly, Nextmen had a bigger crowd than Bukem, and I loved it, that is until they started playing dubstep *sigh* They even played a riverside dubstep remix *double sigh*

Returned to Bukem via Pivot (I think) where the drummer was thumping like a mad cunt! Conrad's microphone was still too loud, but the sound was much better overall. I guess the sound guy had stopped chatting up the girl he was talking to and actually did his job...

Then Marky and Stamina jumped up and sounded great, with the crowd going nuts to Marky's scratching. Left to see Redman and Method man for about 15 minutes, but the dnb was better, so returned just to see Marky start playing some old house and cheesy hiphop, which was awesome too.

It was a rather small party, but the vibe reminded me of the first BDO in Adelaide - just lots of happy people there who were music lovers, not party goers.

No short shorts on men, no steroid juice heads (although there were a few drunk topless guys... but it was Sydney after all), no women dressed like they should be on a catwalk... just an awesome crowd listening to awesome music.

Would definitely go again next year, depending on the line up.

On Monday we hired a car and headed to the Blue Mountains. A day of dancing followed by a day of hiking nearly killed me. I think my new years resolution is to get a little fitter.

Damo's got most of the photos on his camera, although I took my camera to the Blue Mountains, and will put them online soon.

We had a great time over there, although I am a little sad "the band" has broken up as Damo has headed off to South America for 4 months.

Stupid Survey

Survey:

1. My ex... probably still hates me...

2. Maybe I should... stop spending money on gigs!

3. I love... music.

4. People would say that I'm... better than you.

5. I don't understand why people... don't think like I do.

6. When I wake up in the morning... spend too long in the shower.

7. I lost my... lust for life.

8. Life is full of... broken dreams and unfulfilled promises... luckily none of mine!

9. My past is... full of mistakes and missed opportunities.

10. I get annoyed... often.

11. Parties are... a staple of my life.

12. I wish... I did all this 10 years earlier.

13. Dogs... are good for attracting women.

14. Cats... are selfish cunts - just like me.

15. Tomorrow... can wait.

16. I have a low tolerance... for people who can't tolerate others.

17. If I had 10 million dollars... I would get a ticket into space.

18. I'm totally terrified... I won't ever get to experience space travel.

19. My spouse... will have to be awsome.

20. I'm listening to... everything.

21. Outside... is there for the taking.

22. My car... is waiting to be bought... and for me to get a license .

23. Fish n chips... are best by the beach.

24. Music... is often the only thing worth living for.

25. I completely trust... no one.

26. I am thinking... it's late and I shouldn't be posting this crap.

27. This weekend I am... enjoying my free time. And playing videogames.

28. True love... is like the cake... a lie.

29. Down at the disco... I get my groove on.

30. Before I go to bed I... think about my friends and how much I miss them.

one word answers

OK, Maz sent me this via facebook.

Facebook allows you to import blogs as notes.

As I'm pretty lazy and rarely update my own blog, let alone have another one on facebook via the notes system, I thought I'd do that fancy-schmansy import thing.

So here it goes:

You're only allowed to post one word answers to these:

1. Where is your cell phone? pocket
2. Your significant other? nonexistant
3. Your hair? neat
4. Your mother? elsewhere
5. Your father? nonexistant
6. Your favorite thing? music
7. Your dream last night? coincidental
8. Your favorite drink? beer
9. Your dream/goal? spaceflight
10. What room you are in? computer
11. Your hobby? games
12. Your fear? celibacy
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? there
14. Where were you last night? concert
16. Muffins? occassionally
17. Wish list item? sex
18. Where you grew up? Adelaide
19. Last thing you did? crapped
20.What are you wearing? clothes
21. Your TV? off
22. Your pets? dead
23. Friends? fine
24. Your life? busy
25. Your mood? tired
26. Missing some one? nope
27. Car? nope
28. Something you're not wearing? watch
29. Your favorite store? online
30. Your favorite color? blue
33. When is the last time you laughed? today
34. Last time you cried? forget
35. Who will resend this? GAF
36. One place that I go to over and over? work
37. One person who emails me regularly? spambots
38. My favorite place to eat? everywhere
39. Why you participated in this survey? bored
40. What are you doing tonight? nothing

Friends

Pippa's post about friends made me want to post this, because I've been thinking about friends a lot too lately.

I think I'm a bit lonely in Melbourne. I've noticed it's really hard to make friends here. I would call my flatmate and a few people at work "friends", and that's about it.

In Adelaide it seems I went to a few gigs, meet a few people, and then became almost life-long friends with them. In Melbourne I'm lucky to meet the same group of people twice when I'm out.

I met this girl at a wedding in Adelaide, and yes, I won't deny there was an attraction (at least one way) but we went out together the next day, and had a ball together. I met some of her work friends, and I could tell pretty much instantly that if I was back in Adelaide, these people would become my friends.

Nothing like this has happened in Melbourne except with workmates. Which is fine, I work with some great people, but it's just weird to me it's like this. It's something I didn't plan on encountering when I moved here. I expected to go out, see the same people, hang out, get friendly and become part of "the group".

Yet it hasn't happened.

It's like that episode of Seinfeld when he's talking about making friends with people when you're older.

"When you get in your 30s, it's very hard to make a new friend. Whatever the group is that you've got now, that's pretty much who you are going with. It's as if you're not interviewing, you're not looking at any new people, you're not interested in seeing any applications for new friends. The fact of the matter is they don't know the places, they don't know the food, they don't know the activities. If you're introduced to a friendly guy at a club or a gym, it's like you want to say to them: Hey look, I'm sure you're a very nice person, you seem to have a lot of potential, but I'm just not looking for friends now.

Of course when you are a kid, you can be friends with anybody. There are almost no qualifications required. If someone is standing out in front of your house now, that's good enough, You walk out say hello -and before you know it you're jumping up and down on the bed! As children you can have almost anything at all in common and its good enough for a friendship - You like coke? I like coke. Great let's be best friends!"

This, and the fact I can relate my life to an episode of Seinfeld kinda freaks me out...

Another year been and gone!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all that.

My Christmas was pretty much a debacle, again.

I wanted to have Christmas with my mum and my aunt Laurine (her real sister) and my blood cousins.

On the hour long train ride to Gawler to meet my mum, who now lives in Saddleworth, my 4 year old reliable companion, my iPod, decides to die.

As an aside I also think it was stolen from my bag at the airport - but sucks to be them for getting a broken ipod!

Going on the old train line to Gawler Central brought back a load of memories - it's one I used to be intimately familiar with - but I was amazed at the amount of change that has occurred in the last 10 years too.

On the way to Ardrossan my mum tells me my cousins won't be coming... which annoys me no end as I could have caught up with my other family instead! So I had Xmas with my mum, my aunt, and my aunt's crazy friends - all about 60 years old and with whom I had nothing in common with. They were nice people, but still, I obviously would have preferred to be elsewhere.

I stayed at mums on Xmas Day eve, and the next day she went to drive me back to Gawler so I could catch the train back to Adelaide. She had little petrol, so we did the normal thing and went to the petrol station. However, the petrol station had no petrol either, and wasn't expecting the trucks to arrive until Mid morning. And the nearest petrol station was too far away to risk driving to, because there would have been a good chance it would have been closed for the boxing day holiday...

Worse still, I had to be back in the city by midday for what I consider my REAL Xmas celebrations - the ones with my friends from school, the ones we do every year with this year being even more special as one of whom was back from the USA and another over from WA...

Luckily the one bus which runs every two days from Far North SA to Adelaide just happened to be coming at the same time in the morning - If I had chosen to go any earlier or later I would have been stuck in Saddleworth.

I got on the bus, paid $20 and arrived 2 hours later in the city, then had another half hour trip to where I was staying...

Then, when I went to Stef's house for that Xmas, the Metroticket people who I had phoned earlier to enquire about buses told me the wrong number, and I had to walk for about 20 minutes from the wrong road to the right road!

Luckily, the rest of my trip to Adelaide was fucking awesome.

Renee & Paul's wedding was splendid, and I met a really nice girl there too! We went out again after that, and had heaps of fun with her and her crazy workmates. It was weird being in Adelaide and hanging out with a bunch of people I didn't know at all, but heaps of fun at the same time.

I also cuaght up with pretty much everyone I wanted to catch up with at Summer Break - lots of people I didn't expect to be there were there. It was awesome drinking, dancing and chatting with friends there.

That's my only issue with Melbourne - I don't have a regular crew here. There's a few guys from work I hang out with, but they're not as passionate as I am about music and gigs. So I always go out by myself - which I don't mind - but sometimes it would be nice to have friends here who had the same passion for music and gigs like I did in Adelaide.

A week in Adelaide

I just spent 10 days in Adelaide.

Every single day was over 38 degrees... and I didn't get burnt once! YAY!

I went over for Womad, which was very hot, very dusty, but a lot of fun. Highlights included Mojo Web, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Billy Cobham, John Buttler Trio, Soul Jazz Sound System and Nickodemus.

I caught up with most of the people I wanted to catch up with, and spent most of the time either watching TV and drinking, or at the beach and drinking, or in the park and drinking.

There's no pictures because I forgot to take my bloody camera :(

RIP James M

A friend of mine passed away in Adelaide this weekend.

"James M" as he was very affectionately known, was a funny bastard, very entertaining and always up for some fun.

He was a risk taker and it sadly caught up with him.

Really sucks being away from everyone back in Adelaide right now.

I'm hoping to get back for the funeral, even if it's just for the day.