Liam Finn

Okay, this is a few days late, but there you go.

Tuesday night at the East Brunswick Club in Lygon saw my faith in, and love of, live music restored.
After a nice Thai dinner with Charity, we made our way to the East Brunswick Club to see Liam Finn. Fresh off the plane, with his "manager" in a cell back in NZ for joking that the autoharp was a gun to the stewardess, Liam began at around 10pm.
A small stage, a few hundred folks in a small but very intimate room, Coopers Pale Ale in hand and being there with a good friend, the scene was set. This is what live music in pubs is all about, and it doesn't get too much better than this - up close and personal with the musicians and their music.
Liam put on a great show of his talents, although I'd question some of the tangents he went on. For me (and this is just personal taste), some worked well, while others didn't. Certainly some rough edges to it, and it felt like he is still carving out his niche - to be expected considering his famous father and uncle!! - but those edges are what made the show. This is live music after all, and if I wanted some fully polished production I'd be home listening to a CD. The rawness of it. All there and all good. All up he and 'EJ' were very entertaining with some great tracks and a bit of humourous crowd participation. I highly recommend seeing him if you can.
A top night!!

Monday Morning Homicide!

Well, here's something different for a Monday morning. The new channel 7 police drama "City Homicide" was using my apartment block for a few scenes, and they began filming at just before 7am!! Managed to sneak a quick pic from out the front…

(That's Aaron Pedersen under the mic not that you can pick it that well.)

I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane...

with apologies to John Denver, Peter Paul & Mary, etc... for the above title, but as of today I have my Visa for the UK!!
So it's now "brakes off" for the move (pending certain work dates).

Planned dates of note are;
Sept 15/16 to be last week in Melbourne - expect a farewell night on friday the 14th (hopefully last workday).
Sept 22 most likely same do in Adelaide
Depart for London 28 or 29th sept.

Nocturnal

While the week ground to a bit of a halt due to a nasty bout of the flu, everything seems to be "go go go!!".
I got a message from SM from Perth on Friday to say that he was in town, so lunch in a pub for a couple of hours it was!
That night saw us in the Docklands at Nicko's new restaurant, Bellisimo, for his wife, Riss', birthday dinner. Before this, Brown, Chels, B n I caught up for some "pre-dinner" drinks after work, so as you can imagine we were ticking along quite nicely by the time we got to dinner.
Hat's off to Nicko's team in the kitchen for a very nice dinner and a nice taste of Italy!
Discovery of the night occurred while I was chatting with the lovely Charity, who mentioned that she was moving to London in september. "You don't say? Well..." Chalk up another friend that I will know when I get there at the end of September (if my visa is granted). Handy that she knows how to request some great tracks from the DJ's too!

For the rest of the night, we kicked on to Retro bar to drink and dance til close. We did visit the Croft Institute first, but the less said about that bar, the better! First time I've seen a DJ actively clear a dancefloor by playing some absolutely crap music!
Getting home at 5am meant the following day was fairly cruisey watching the previous night's stage of Le Tour.

Saturday night's "Hornee Hospital" party went well, thanks to the staff at the Burnside Hospital for loaning me a set of their scrubs! I may not have been the only person in scrubs, but I was the only one posting theirs back to Adelaide on monday!!
Top night! Got to catch up with plenty of folks, which is always a good thing considering that it will be some time til I get to see many of them again. This included 'Cuz' (my cousin Vanessa), and Alex who will no doubt remember the night thanks to one brave/foolish fellow - you can ask her about it yourself, but just don't mention anything about rulers...
3am hometime made for another cruisey morning on the couch watching le Tour, and contemplating being one of those nutters on the side of the road as the riders come past.

Funny how nights like both of the above seem to have a little more to them now. Add to that when friends discuss upcoming events and you know that you're not going to be with them for those events... You just make the most of the time remaining, even if that sounds like I have some sort of terminal disease and not long left!
Whilst I may not have finished with Melbourne, I have much to look forward to, with many people to see again soon!

Robbie Mc (and Herbie) Ride Again!

so there goes one of the more quieter weekends thanks to the flu...

Started the weekend off well enough. Spent a really nice friday evening after work with a friend. Some bar hopping through the Melbourne rain, a nice dinner in one of the very european Degraves Street cafes, some more drinks and good conversation - all good.
Thanks B. ;)

Then came saturday morning and the flu, and out the window went my last chance to do the Melburn-Roobaix, a road riding event through the cobblestoned streets of Melbourne's northern suburbs in an ode to the Paris-Roubaix race. It also meant that Sunday's planned ride with some mates got canned too.

Thankfully the Tour de France began this weekend meaning that once I moved from bed to the couch I had something of interest.
Okay, so 'Herbie Rides Again' got a watch, as that was the best of daytime viewing, but the less said about that the better.
And Thanks to Robbie McEwen for keeping me entertained with one of the most amazing rides I've witnessed - incredible!!!

No Dirt Crits tonight. Yeah... slack I know, but feeling a bit snuffly so with the forcast being still cold and wet, I'll pike and stay indoors thanks.
Although, this little definition/quotation brought a smile to the dial today!

"Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

Chase The Sun

After a brief chat at the Tri-X adventure race last week, Damien and myself decided to enter today's Chase The Sun 5hr Enduro. Nothing like a late entry and bugger all preparation! On the topic of preparation, getting completely hammered at the June30 "festivities" didn't help either!! But what the hell, we were only in it to have a fun day of mtb riding, and spent it with some of the folks that regularly ride the dirt crits with.

Some of our merry little band - Damien's on the left.

Mother Nature did her part in completely soaking Melbourne for most of the week as well as giving it another good go Saturday night!! As you can imagine, Lysterfield was a tad damp to say the least. Add to that about 370 riders all out there on the one track and it soon became pretty messy. Good Ol' Ma Nature did cut us a break and keep the rain away for the event itself, so some parts of the 11.7km course did have a go at trying to dry out - not that there was a sun to chase all day…

Quick rundown of how enduro events work: teams of 2 (or 3 or 4) do relay laps of the course, and the teams with the most laps in the quickest time after the time limit expires wins. This one was for 5 hours.

Damien led off with the first of our 7 laps amongst the mass start of nearly 200 riders (he's in there somewhere!), and came back spattered with mud. Then came my turn to have a go through the course that's now had a couple of hundred riders chew it up a bit. Not the easiest course I've ridden as staying upright while your wheels are sliding about makes life interesting, and so do other riders on the course! One poor fellow went over right in front of me, and while I went around a tree off the track to avoid him, he ended up in rather large puddle! I'd have laughed, but I was too busy with what I was doing, although I did shout out if he was okay to which he thankfully said 'yes'. If you check out the picture on the left you'll get an idea of what some parts of the course were like - you might even notice the "slide" of the rear wheel too. (click on Erin Francis' pic to see it better)

As the day wore on, it became harder to get around the track, and not just because the course was deteriorating, but I think a complete lack of previous fitness on my part may have had something to do with it! (Also getting Billy Idol's "Dancing By Myself" stuck in my head on the last lap was a little disconcerting)

All up, a top day out riding bikes in the mud - who wants to grow up, really? And to come away from the event without coming off was an added bonus! I've not been one to think too highly of Lysterfield's tracks, but this event has given me a healthy respect for them!

Another of Erin Francis' pics.

On a side note, here's who you don't listen to about presentations!
Just before the presentations started I was chatting with one of the guys in our group. I asked how far away until presentations, and he said "not long". I asked if I had enough time to take some stuff back to the car, and his response was "yeah, you should be fine", so off to the car I went.
Only when I get back I found out that my name was the first out of the hat for the major prize of a new Bike!! Except that because I wasn't there to claim it, they drew out the next name. Apparantly, they had to draw out 7 names til they had a winner - you guessed it, the fellow who told me I had enough time to pack some stuff up was that 7th name!!
I really was just too tired to care...