The mother of all updates...

Hmmm, well it is actually more like a long lost cousin from the Deep South that your mum didn't tell you about cos it turned out that that side of the family believed staunchly in economies and efficiency, so they decided to combine 4 generations into 3 members of the family, but you know what I mean.

Seeing as one or two of you (ok, so in theory it was actually two of you, and you both know who you are, you sweet, sweet loving individuals - so what do you want from me anyway, apart from my rapier-like wit, my rugged good looks or my wine collection, of course?) suggested I should update my blog, and I am a sucka when a cute girl suggests anything to me at the best of times (although some of the anatomical self-exploration that has been proposed from time to time sounded like more trouble than it was worth), here we go.

So I have bored you lot with the whole renovation plan thing, si? Well, on Sunday, while nursing a slight lack of sleep over some alcohol consumption the previous evening, I spent several hours at Domayne in Alexandria looking at bathroom fittings. Now I had no idea how interesting it could be exploring the multi-faceted world of taps, tiles and baths. Not to mention spouts. Hooowey! So I am liking the dorf (no, not dork) kemi cross range. You have no concept of how fulfilling...

And that reminds me, Saturday night my friend celebrated his birthday. Being the rebellious lad that he is, he bucked several trends and insisted on no gifts. Okeedokee then. AND he insisted on supplying the wine. Hmm, ok. So we may have had (indulge me here, it is my blog after all and at some time in the future I may look back on this with fond or embarrassed nostalgia, so...) some Petaluma Riesling 1997, and then some Bannockburn pinot, also 1997. That was followed by 1995 and 1997 Yarra Yering Dry Red No. 1, and we finished with some Turkey Flat Pedro Ximinez. My life sucks, huh? That wasn't so bad was it? ok, maybe it was, but it is done now.

Have I told anyone that it is bad idea to have a very attractive architect? It makes it really hard to say no to anything. You know, stuff like, well anything that will kill your budget.

Then again I am reduced to having to pick from my married friends to accompany me on my bookings for two to go to Oscillate Wildly. Of course, I could just not book for 2, but where would the fun be in that? There is that pesky issue of needing to book a couple of months in advance...

Have fun, y'all, let's see if I actually get any comments on here any more... cos I used to get heaps.

Flicks, eats and plans...

Boring stuff first... the Renos:

So today I had a meeting with my architect and the Council about my renos. They sound like there shouldn't be too many problems, other than MY problem with having to pay for my architect (fair cop, she is pretty good and a good architect too, boom tish - nope, he ain't lost it), a structural engineer (again ok, since I don't want the pile to fall down after dumping cash into it), and now apparently an arborist (dude, I know they are trees, and I know you don't want me to cut them down. As for not using machinery within a certain radius, does a CHAINSAW count?), not to mention Council's fees. And this is before I actually pay for any work on the house.

Why would you bother?

In the time since I last updated you all, I have vacillated (it isn't a act of self abuse, look it up) over putting in a polished concrete floor or floorboards, and I haven't even begun to try to decide what finishes I want in my joinery, bathroom, kitchen, wall colours, blah blah blah...

Ok, enough of that, flicks:

You may or not recall my enthusiasm for a movie called Nightwatch (alright, I know you don't recall that at all, but humour me here please). I went and saw the sequel called, astonishingly, Daywatch. Yes, it was also a movie about good and evil vampires set in modern Russia (NOW you are interested, I know), and it is also visually AMAZING, with a nice combo of hot Ruskies (not the drink), great action, and even a plot. It is out on DVD early next year, do yourselves a favour. Oh, and the subtitles rock.

Hmm, so maybe that should have been headed 'flick'. Numbers were never a strength...

Alrighty then, the fun stuff... Eats:

I may or may not have gone on a date on the weekend. A lovely girl, very smart, good conversation, did I mention that she is into food and wine, and she is very pretty (dark hair, pale skin, gorgeous blue eyes, you get the idea). I took her to a restaurant in Leichhardt called Bistro Ortolan. French style food.

Wowzer. It has a hat, and largely very good reviews, but I hadn't been before, so you never know. Then again, that is the sort of crazy risk taker that I am.

The food was awesome, Australian produce but prepared with a strong French influence. Good flavours (I had a salmon nicoise with quail eggs that was to die for, followed by Barra with marron tails and yabbie bisque), let's just say this place was serving up sex on a plate. Then again it has been a while, so the location of said sex would be the least of my concerns. The wine was nice (a Vouvray from their interesting wine list), the company was very nice indeed - she was backing up from a 3am finish the night before, so I was lucky she even made it - all in all a good night.

There has been talk of a follow up date. Why do I feel like I am 16? For that matter, why is that such wishful thinking (actually 25 is more wishful, more appealing and equally as impossible, dammit).

Oh, and work sucks the big one, although I was away on an executive management team conference last week, so I am equal parts inspired, informed, and behind on all the crap I need to get done by Christmas.

Speaking of which, I am taking weeks off over Chrissie, so how cool is THAT?!

So what is news kids? And no, it doesn't count to tell me the crap that is on your blogs...

Yes yes yes

Yes, I am a slack bastard.

Yes, I should update more, but find myself in a bit of a rut (and not involving rutting, ok, you filthy minded people. What kind of audience do I have here anyway? Oh, that's right, I don't really...)

Yes, I have been on a few dates recently,but no I'm not telling yet.

Yes, I will post more, at least once I get over this hump (stop it, I warned you already, not getting any at the mo, alright?) at work.

In fact, there is quite a bit to tell you - movies I have seen (act like you care), places I have eaten at (ditto), holidays I am taking (no you can't come) and renovation progress.

See, you have missed me haven't you.

Stay tuned kids, shall blog tonight...

Yes, I am showing off...

... and yes that it was that much fun probably goes to show that I should get out more.

I was in Melbourne last weekend for work. I also managed to score an invitation to the races - Derby Day. I am not much of a follower of the nags, but it is a fun day out, so of course I said yes.

What I didn't realise was that this invitation was to the corporate marquee in the Birdcage. Now I have subsequently ascertained that the Birdcage is where all the corporate bigwigs are, and consequently where there are lots of people happy to accept corporate largess. Including me.

SO I had to struggle through the security, trying not to look smug at the wannabes loitering outside, and make my way to the marquee. Then it would have been rude to not participate in sampling several of the beers, various wines, and cocktails that our barman was making us. The canapes that our waiter kept bringing were acceptable too.

It was a bit much when Sandra Sully stopped by to chat with Greg, one of our guests who she knew. I was almost disappointed to find out that she was really lovely, very down to earth, quite chatty but (I subsequently found out) putting a brave face on the awful suicide of her colleague the previous night. It would have been slightly better if she had been a stuck-up biotch.

I had a few wanders, and may have caught sight of one or two attractive lasses. And then about 2,000 more. Megan Gale - stunning. Naomi Robson - surprisingly gorgeous (and not a shoulder-lizard in sight). Jennifer Hawkins - yep, definitely. Oh yeah, and there were lots of footy players, and other blokes that I really didn't give a crap about.

Sooo, after I drank well, not my body weight, but the body weight of that hobbit-like pygmy species of human they found a few years back, in wine, we headed out for dinner at Botannical. Drank a couple of bottles of Felton Road pinot, ate some pretty bloody good food, Naomi Robson rocked up again (I think she was following me, but of course she was too shy to say anything to me), I then met up with some friends, and rounded out the night, hmm, morning, at the Melbourne Supper Club with some rather tasty Auslese.

Yes, I am a complete wanker for blogging this, but I have to say, what an absolute cracker of a weekend. And yes, I was frickin lucky. Indulge me already...

Beam me up, Scottie

Hey all.

Not getting the chance to blog so much lately, what with the internerd nasties at work making life difficult and all that. I mean, are they trying to tell me that my productivity would be better without the sanity saving occasional opportunity to catch up with my dear internet friends.

And very rarely, with you lot.

[I know, quite a lot of work to get to such a lame gag, but you didn't pay any money for this show, think of it as open mike at your local and give me some sympathy claps. Ok, you guys suck...]

So what has been ahppening? Let me think, among other things, in the last few weeks I have:

1. been abused by an ex at a professional function, where she cleverly decided to have our 'discussion' outside, on the far side of the glass walls of the bar the do was on at. Way to go with the subtlety, makes me look like Smoothy McSubtle;
2. met a truly stunning, funny, clever, nice IRISH girl with fantastic taste in music (ie she has heard of some of the crap I love, even likes it) who sincerely wants to be my friend. Yay, I have all manner of friends just now, not so much with the stunning, funny, clever, nice IRISH girls I think are the hottest thing since Ug fell into the fire wearing his best Sabre Tooth Tiger pelt;
3. met with my architect several times, where I think the point is to come up with some great design ideas while seeing how many multiples of my budget we can hit; oh and
4. today I scored a gig for 'work' at Derby Day this weekend, where apparently I get my flights, accomm, meals and our marquee in the birdcage sorted for me.

Life aint so bad folks. What is news. And no, I don't ask that cos I can't be arsed to read your blogs, indeed some of you have even locked me out of your blogs, but I just need to invite some comment here. Lordy knows we needs the traffic. I gotta put kibbles in the doggies bowls. Ha mercy, gimme some traffic, just some spare traffic..

Ok, stopping that now. Sorry.

The motor show

Evenin all.

I went to the motor show on the weekend. A mate of mine and I have made it an annual event (somewhat fortunate as it is only on once a year), so we dutifully headed off.

One slight change is that he now has a wife and a 5 month old little girl. Good news is that his missus is more than happy to come along, no doubt partly humouring we boys, but also cos she doesn't mind checking out the motors. Anyhoo, we wander around, taking in the best of the Mercs, Bimmers, Hummers, Lambo's, TRD's, Veedubs, and of course, the ovlovs.

Last year at the motor show was the first time that I saw the C30, and now, as you all know, I got me one of those suckers. This year of course I wasn't in the market, but it is still fun to see what is coming out soon. Or even never, which seems to be the case with the 'concept' cars. Sadly this year there were not all that many interesting cars to check out, other than not-so-fascinating numbers like the latest Commodore and the Ford Mondeo. Wow.

Then (and yes, you were waiting for this) there are the pretty girls. Now we all know that these poor things are paid to stand around in outfits varying from rather fitted lycra bodysuits (such as the Bufori girls, whose g strings were almost as obvious as the pimply teenagers taking their photos) and cleavage showers like the Mitsubishi girls who seemed to have to spend most of their time with far-too-excited boys, while the self-same girls sported barely disguised disgust. Then you move along to the Audi girls dressed by Collette Dinnigan, who are usually awesomely gorgeous. Actually, they weren't so hot this year, although they weren't what we would call beaten viciously with the ugly stick, but their dresses were really nice.

So we found ourselves at the Volvo stand. I was looking over a tricked out S40, when one of the lovely Volvo ladies came over and asked if I had any questions about it. Now the Volvo girls were dressed quite casually, wearing nice shirts and jeans. Don't get me wrong, they looked mighty fine in them jeans (name the quote). She starts chatting with me, after I explained that I didn't have any questions, and that I have a Volvo C30. She then asks me about it, how I like it, I mention that I took it for a drive down the coast last weekend, turns out she spends a lot of time down at Gerroa...

About 5 or 7 minutes later (but for some reason clearly not 6) I am getting a little concerned about my friends and their slightly restive 5 month old. They have wandered off, but I felt a bit slack stranding them like that. Another minute or 2 later, I excuse myself to go and find my friends. I tell my new friend (let's call her Jess, cos that is her name) that it was lovely to meet her, and she reciprocates. By this time I am wondering whether it is cool to ask a woman who is probably hit on about 50 times a day for her number.

Did I mention she looked to be in her mid to late 20s, she had amazing hazel eyes, and was quite capable of having a conversation. Yep, I didn't ask. So my friends, immediately upon my catching them up, ask if I got her number. Nope. They were disgusted.

So let me ask you - this girl is paid to be nice, if not flirt, with silly buggers like me so we will buy the cars they are flogging - so despite the fact that she clearly continued to chat with me for some time after she knew I had just bought one of the cars she was flogging, is there any chance at all, and I am willing to consider something akin to a snowball's in Hades, of:

1. this very attractive girl doing anything other than her job, and
2. it being cool to ask her for her number?

And if not, would I not have received that look had I asked. You know the look, the one that is a combination of pity, horror, abject denial, and wondering what a barbarian in a loincloth possibly wants with a Volvo...

Sometimes, I just don't get it

Hey there folks. Welcome back, please remember to close the tent flap behind you so others can make out the screen.

I won't complain again about how crap it is that my workplace have cut access to both facebook AND blogger. oops. Ok, next time I won't complain - about how much that sucks.

Oookeydoookey. On to other things: sometimes I just don't put 2 and 2 together. And not just when I want 4 of something. Sometimes I just don't figure stuff out.

Case in point. Some of you may have noticed that there was a rather large release in the last couple of weeks - Halo 3. So far, it has sold in excess of $300 MILLION worth of games. For those of you who didn't know, welcome back from your month long ocean cruise to hell, I hope you tanned but didn't burn.

Now I have hidden it well, but I am a bit of a geek deep down, and I have an XBox 360. Yes, it is hooked into my surround sound system and my LCD TV. Yes, it sounds and looks freakin hawt. I also may have pre-ordered Halo 3, and been quite looking forward to its release. I justify this by the fact that it was actually $10 cheaper if you pre-ordered. Yep, that is my excuse and I am sticking to it.

So a few days out, I was getting rather keen. The store were running a midnight launch, however seeing as the launch was on a Tuesday, I am far too old and sensible to go and pick it up at midnight, cos I know full well that had I done that, there would have been no sleep, and then WJ would have been a rather unhappy camper for, oh lets say, about forever.

Finally the big day came, and I went at lunchtime and dutifully picked up my copy. I got home from work, and then went to trivia at the pub, as friends are more important even than Halo (ok, so I had to think long and hard about it - nothing wrong with that, I am human after all. Massively ripped barbarian yes, but also human). I came home from triv, went straight to the tv and loaded it up. turned on the X Box, the surround sound, and the theme music started pumping. Not as much as me though, I was psyched to kick some alien butt.

I picked up the controller. It was at this moment in time I remembered that I have a BUSTED THUMB! For the uninitiated, you use two thumbs on the controller, one to control which way you face and one to control movement (wake up! this is interesting and important!). In other words, you can't play Halo with one thumb. A few words come to mind, most of them involving between 3 and 5 letters (not inclusive), but others such as 'gutted', 'idiot' and 'if I cut it off will it grow back faster than this bone will knit?' also featured.

I still haven't been able to play. Er, much.

Why don't I get it?

Gluttony for punishment and other non-S&M matters

I have just watched the AFL Grand Final - mixed emotions. I wanted the Cats to win, but not in the bloodbath that just took place. A good mate of mine, a mad Cats fan, booked a ticket to Melbourne about 8 weeks ago, in light of the season that Geelong were having, but didn't have a ticket to the game. Apparently he was going to paint a sign making it clear that he would do anything for a ticket, and hang around outside the Gee. Not sure whether he would do ANYTHING, but he is pretty keen, so hopefully he will just get himself incredibly drunk afterwards so he doesn't remember the price he had to pay...

I recall that I posted about this long weekend last year, but I know damn well that none of you will either remember or be arsed looking it up, so why not tell you exactly how fun it is. The AFL Grand Final, tick.

Tomorrow is my mate Gary's Oktoberfest party, where everyone brings their beers AND a bottle of schnapps. This shindig starts at 12, so there are more brews than you could point a pretzel at, and about 25 BOTTLES of schnapps. I am subtly using caps for emphasis here. The even better news is that Graeme, the normal Evil Scientist of the schnapps shooters, is away. Therefore I am Head Mixologist. Be afraid, be very afraid. (OK, it isn't like any of you will be there, but just work with me and be at least a little apprehensive. please?) It is a skill, being able to combine various schnapps. The plum with the sour apple, the Gletchereise with the Butterscotch, the Jagermeister with, well, that crap doesn't deserve to go with anything, true. You get the idea though. It will be a long, hard day, but someone's gotta do it. May the sauerkraut be with me.

The other news of no interest to any of you is that I am going to do some renovations. At least, I have appointed an architect (that a mate from work recommended) to draw up some plans. My place would be awesome with a bit of a rework, but from what I hear, it may be easier to just get a nice new drillbit and put my hammer drill through my left eye (apologies to anyone eating, but really, why would you ruin a good bowl of Corn Flakes with this shite? Unless it is dinner time, in which case your Special K deserve better). Then there is the comfort I draw from knowing that I will have to give not only my first-born but a mortgage over my left, er, leg to the bank.

Anyone else have any horror stories they can share to make me feel better (about renovating, not about putting your drill through your head. Don't get me wrong, if you have put your drill through your head, feel free to tell me about it, but come on, take a long hard look at yourself - unless the drill went through your eye, in which case, get someone else to take a long hard look at you and tell you EXACTLY what they see...)

Have a great weekend all.