why i should never start a business

if i had a locksmiths business on the gold coast it would be called "goldie locks".

if i owned a baby store in the redland shire (or san fransisco) it would be call "bay city strollers".

may the pun reign supreme.

i don't know if i have ever said this and meant it before... but you're a facist

what do you do?
someone i know, who i have to interact with on a somewhat regular basis, in my opinion is a facist. The defining quality for this person is that they just totally ridicule and get stuck into anyone who thinks differently to them. i have tried being nice, but it hasnt achieved anything. so, now i just keep being nice and simply not expect anything. its a bit heart breaking at times to be honest, ive tried so hard. but i guess some people are just like that.
maybe im sounding a tad defeatist, but its been a long time of me just basically being a doormat.
oh well. you cant win em all.

development?

so... i like watching a little show called house. i missed it for the last couple of weeks due to holidays and stuff.
but last night was particularly interesting. i really enjoyed it. it just seems like the charecters are getting more and more depth. House did this funny smiley sarcasm thing that was just awesome last night.
I'm not sure how well it would come accross to american audiences, cause i reckon its just perfect for oz.
anyways... i like it

there's gotta be a better way

well there is
as i mentioned already, i found an easier way to put pics up on this site
i would recomend it to anyone doing this sorta stuff (or even forums or ebay) go to...

a towering achievement

thanx to the help of Christy i have managed to add more photos to my blog, in an easier way.
i added a bunch to the holiday stuff.

i think its been a towering success

pressing pause

so, ive spent the last 2 hours writing up the first half of our holiday.
i will finish the rest tomorrow some time (i hope).

life's great ironies?

not sure if this fits into the category of one of lifes great ironies but here we go

the first chance i have had to sit down and blog since returning from melbourne is now
and right now
im at work

will backdate things to try and fit with what i was doing when and so forth

selling your soul with an audience looking on

Oops wrong Charlie

So, I finally got the chance to watch the new Charlie and the chocolate factory today. I really enjoyed it.

I particularly liked 2 things.

1 – Tim Burton’s directing – just great. I thought it was really within the spirit of the book. I really liked the house. I just thought it matched the idea of who they were… a little cartoonish, and just that slight bit warped… I like it.

2 – Johnny Depp. Just cracked me up. He is an absolutely amazing actor who cannot be overrated. He just takes on his characters better than anyone I have ever seen.

So yeah I enjoyed it, and would recommend checking it out some time.

trust me... im a doctor... a love doctor

ok, maybe that title is a little overboard.
i went out on a limb and bought ben harper's new cd today, based souly on the advise of one Mr Grande (who might i mention is moving house today).

anyways, i will probably write about it at some length later, but i think its pretty good thus far. 2 cds - first one mellow 2nd a bit more upbeat. it seems as though ben haprer is really levelling and maturing as a song writer - his last couple of albums were a bit like lucky dips, a bit over the place - and although they were good, it was bit much at times (who kills snakes with bibles, really).
anyways, thanx grande, and thanx thus far to ben...
thats all for now

pinball and boost

DAY 8.
The plan for today was simply, pack and go home.

a quite amusing obstacle in the way was to roll up the sleeping mat that keen and andrea lent us for makhyah. it was quite frustrating until i realised that we were trying to fit a bit roll into a little sleeping bag bag... durr... it wasnt funny until we worked it out.

we got picked up to go to the airport around 12. and we had a little bit of time to kill at the airport. so i bought makhyah a king william from boost (you'd love that hey mick? he is your godson) and then we played some simpsons pinball (pretty difficult to do whilst supportuing a 2 year old, but we went ok...

jumped on the plane. mj fell asleep near the end... we had to wake him and he was very grumpy.
kristy picked us up and we went home...
the end
of our holiday that is...

kansas, we're not in tho tho anymore

DAY 7.
Cruisy morning.
Then we headed up to highpoint shops. spent a while up there.
trammed it back home. got off the tram too early and had to walk a fair way (not too bad, but any walking was a big deal by this time).
got home to realise we had to leave straight away. makhyah was asleep so we just left him on the front porch (nice breeze actually).

so... let me now mention the main thing that annoyed me about the house we stayed at. the lace (i call it lattice, but everyone else assured me it was lace - you know that metal decorative stuff hanging from the eaves)... well... this lace was in a perfect spot for me to crack my head... and well... up to this point i had done so on at least 3 occassions, but this was the big one.
BANG!!! my natural instinct to yell was quelled from within for my sons sleeps sake, so i went mental in the front yard kicking and stamping... at this point the neighbors were saying "oh, so thats where our village idiot lives". it hurt so much...
anyways...
get on with it!

we caught a tram into the city, then after almost waiting for one that didnt run til later, we got a tram (or 2?) to victoria st richmond (little vietnam) and went to tho tho (just pronounced to to) for some late lunch, early dinner, linner, dunch... i dunno...
good stuff again.

after that we all jumped on a train, got off at jollymont, walked past the G (or the M if you're me - the MCG that is) and over to vodafone again for the basketball.
saw 2 good games - womens - england vs mozambique (england won - i think it was england, im a bit confused now)... and then the mens NZ vs Nigeria. By the 2nd game makhyah was shouting "GO Mozamgeria!"... he had a ball.
We saw Andrew Gaze (a little too far away for a photo), and had a great night.

we then headed back to the tram and home again. another late night, but not quite such a big day. last night in melbourne... but it was a good way to go out!

from saint kilda to... ascot vale?

DAY 6.
we decided to go down to saint kilda today. we met up with kenn and andrea in there.
2 reasons to go to saint kilda
1 - the time trial in the cycling was on there
2 - cakes

so we went to funky little bakery/cafe for brunch. i should have got the eggs benedict - andrea did and they were just enormous!! anyways, i enjoyed my breakfast. nakari bought some cakes - canoli, caramel slice, vanilla slice and some others.

we watched both the mens and womens cycling for a bit (womens before brunch, mens after) and i got a great photo of Mr lion with nathan oneil (the gold medalist) clycling past - a very difficult photo to get (much more luck than skill trust me).
then after several hours down there, we headed for the tram - via 7/11 to get slurpies - and got a photo of some cops with mr lion (the cops were eating gelato so we thought it was cool).
then we headed home, for what proved to be the smallest day yet.
we wandered back up the road to get noodles for dinner and chilled watching some more games.
so tired by now - conscious decision to make tommorow another small day.

a melbourne lunch

DAY 5.
indulged by another makhyah free morning, this time we overslept a little and headed into the city to meet up with mum and dad (with mj ofcourse). we left home just before 9.

we decided to meet up in the city, as karz wanted to go check out melbourne central, as well as having breakfast at one of the little funky cafes in the old school market style section. we walked up latrobe st, met with mum and dad, and after a little wandering we decided on a little place, that actually was alot bigger on the inside.

let me tell you melbourne food is cheap (in general). This place looked exy, but it sure wasnt. karz and i both got the eggs benedict which were 2 eggs, a heap of ham and stax of holandaise on a huge chunk of toasted turkish bread (with adjectives like that you'd think i'd been doing maccas ads). After breakfast we went our seperate ways... mum and dad off to the squash, us 3 up to myer to get some decent shoes for nakari. we found some good adidas on special, so that did the trick, with me sporting my new brooks beasts we both had much less chance of saw feet and legs (karz had been getting some sort of shin splints).

we then met kenn and andrea outside the men in the window again. after a brief chat we headed off to the state hockey and netball centre whilst andrea hung round the city with makhyah (who fell alseep pretty quickly).

we caught a tram in, and after walking the long way (and doing a lap round the zoo) we got to the hockey. first up we saw the women's - england v barbados. england smashed them, then we saw the means - india vs trinidad and tobago (i thought it was unfair that 2 teams played against one, but india still came up trumps - t&t scored a goal though, so that was good. . at the hockey we ate our home packed lunch. which consisted of lots of turkish bread and 5 different dips (they're listed bellow). yummo!

after leaving the hockey we caught up with andrea and makhyah again. kenn and andrea needed to do some shopping (or something, i cant remember), so we went to the fed square ampitheatre and saw 5 angry men - the bells. it was amazing! these 5 guys put on this street theatre show which was them jumping around like they were pulling on giant bells (the ropes had bungee in them or something)... it was pretty full on - one of them dies in the show. but makhyah wasnt scared and really enjoyed it (mj was aking for days - "want to see men jump now... wanna see jumping men". he enjoyed the photos when we got home.
as we hopped up to go, we saw geoffrey rush... unfortunately he was in too much of a rush, and mr lion didnt get a photo.

we then wandered a fair way down swanston st, and ate a this funky vietnamese place. nice and cheap again - how surpising - i got rice paper rolls. after dinner we wandered back towards fed square... i performed an amazing trick on the way back. kenn had left his water bottle on top of the stroller, it slipped out and began rolling towards the road, so i decided to try and stop it with my foot... applying a little too much downward pressure i stopped the pump water bottle but also managed to spray it out everywhere, almost hitting an unsuspecting pedestrian. about 5 groups of ppl walking all stopped and laughed. at this nakari and andrea also laughed, and laughed some more. it was rather amusing i guess. i recomended to the crowd to try the rice paper rolls and we continued to walk.

around this time i got another photo of mr lion with some atheletes this time mens triathaletes from the solomon islands. pretty cool.

after that we had a bit of a wander across the river, and went down to see the show with all the fish.
makhyah enjoyed this too (we saw the show go off at 9pm and 10pm). we then went and got coffee - but i got juice - emma and toms, a brand that i was not familair with, but will be trying again. i trusted the lady behind the counter, took her recomendation and tried green power - it was nice - looked grosse, but tasted great.

after that we stumbled on a tram and headed back home. we arrived home somewhere around 11.30. a very big day.

Excuse me... let me freak you out for a second

DAY 4.
After a slow start. We jumped on a tram back to the city to meet up with Kenn, Andrea and Makhyah, at Gloria Jeans at the end of the burke st mall. After catching up for a bit, we wandered over to the myer windows, where 4 guys are living in the window space for 2 weeks. Its so cool. The space was done up with 4 rooms (left to right) - kitchen, dinning/multi-purpose, bedroom, bathroom. And you could see everything (they had the toilet tucked away and some strategically placed vinyl over the shower screen. they were just getting going on the lazy sunday morning, but one of the guys had a bit of dialogue (?) with makhyah, which he thought was cool. just a really interesting concept...
After that we wandered for a bit. We stopped for a while at the corner of swanston and spencer where the marathon was running past. we cheered, and got a photo of Mr Lion there. M?J was requesting for the rest of the day "i wanna say go runners". after leaving kenn and andrea round lunch time, we went down to alexandra gardens, watched the big screen for a while, had an ice cream, said "go runners" a couple of times, and jumped back on a tram. we jumped off just up the road (other side of the city) to go to the vic markets again.

we had to go to furgeson plaire to get more custard tart (they were out) and also some more dip. I bought Spicy morocan lentil, sundried tomato and feta, and pine nut and spinach. yummo. At the market, i scared the living daylights out of 3 atheletes from namibia. i wanted to get a photo of them with Mr Lion. I realise now, how scary i am to 3 female gymnasts (the oldest may have been 17). Anyways, they were happy to be in the photo.
We jumped back on the tram, back to ascot vale.

once home we got ready to go out for dinner. right about now i found out that iu would be the only guy there. all the others had bailed, so it was basically an all girl high school catch up. i reluctantly continued as planned. we dropped mj off with my mum and dad on the way, and then went to the moskito bar at clipton hill.

it was a good night. the only let down was that one girl that everyone told me i would get along really well with... didnt show up (thanx bianca, whoever you are). i managed to have a chat with one of the girls about music, so i was happy. another one was a chef, so that was nice to talk food (we didnt talk for too long, i think she was a bit over the whole food thing). so it wasnt a late night. I had the rissotto again (lamb and rosemary this time), and we called it a night about 10pm. We went home via Alaysia (spelling) to get turkish bread. and crashed out after another big day.

Mr Lion

Right about now i need to quickly mention Mr Lion.
Mr Lion is a stuffed toy from Makhyah's kindy.
They get anyone who is going on holidays to take it with them and have some photos of it (at landmarks and stuff like that).
So, we took Mr Lion... unfortunately we didnt have him with us when we saw Lisa Curry, but oh well... So... I will mention him sometime im sure... just so we know who we're talking about yeah?

let me just take them to the car... nudge nudge, wink wink

DAY 3.
A cruisy saturday morning was short lived by the suggestion that we go to DFO (those factory outlets that are popping up everywhere).
So Tammie and Karz shopped while MJ and I ate some stuff and wandered. Karz showed me some bags she liked, so i said i'd buy her one of them and just take it to the car. ofcourse... i bought all 3 (its ok to go overboard on holidays yeah?) and karz also bought some shoes. we rapped up DFO in a little under 2 hours i think and then headed back to tammie's.

Around 1, we met up with Courtenay (who i think rocks) at a little cafe called lomah on union rd (ascot vale). the 3 of us (karz, mj and i) shared a pumpkin rissotto and some fat chips (which were just tops - with this lime mayo). Great catching up with Courts again - shes at uni now as well as working, pretty full on, but she'll get there.
Something interesting i noticed (well karz noticed it really) was on the menu - $25 to buy seeds and farming equipment for 3rd world countries (thru tear). it was worded in a great way - really reminded me of Steve Sjogren stuff. then we noticed that lomah was an acronym for land of milk and honey. pretty cool i think. it wasnt in your face, just subtle, but there... i liked it anyways.

So, after lunch tammie gave us a ride over to where kenn and andrea were staying. andrea took makhyah for the night and kenn, karz and i went into vodafone arena which for advertising reasons was only refererred to as the multi purpose venue (i insisted on calling it vodafone though, just to stick it to the man).

Our seats at the velodrome were a bit crazy. pretty scary to get to anyways. we were right up the back in a corner. but suprisingly they were good seats. we could see everything without hassles.

so we saw the mens (ryan bailey won) and womens sprints (the mears girls got silver and bronxz) - started at the semis and went all the way thru to gold medal - the drama of it was awesome. And also saw the mens team pursuit (the poms smashed us). It was much better value for money than the swimming (not that we paid for the swimming, but it was over twice the price for half the entertainment). they also had a victorian juniors race (the one with the sprints every 10 laps). good night in all!

So we caught up with Mum and Dad on the way out (they were at the gymastics at rod laver), and went and had coffee at Southgate. We rocked back over to spencer and elizabeth and caught the tram home. another big day...

let me mention this now

when you stay at friend's places theres somethings that maybe are a little substandard... but hey we were saving a huge amount of money on accomodation, so we didnt even mention it. i mention it here because, its worth mentioning here...
the bed we slept on is dead set art.
a futon
a futon that has the worlds craziest mattress on it.
if you sleep on the left side its ok, a little hard, but nothing too bad.
on the right however
the side is really high, so you roll into the middle
the only way to avoid this (i found), was to sorta hug into it sleeping with your back towards the middle.
we took turns at the dodgy side of the bed. when makhyah got in with us it made it particularly interesting.

its all part of the adventure

look at who you're sitting next to!!

DAY 2.
Running a bit late this morning, which would well prove to be a theme for our time away.
We managed to just miss the tram, but its no biggy in melbourne, i think the next one was about 8 minutes away. We caught the tram to swanston st, carlton to meet up with Mum and Dad (mine this time) for the first time in melbourne. Mum and Dad had offered us some tickets to go see the heats of the swimming that morning, and they would look after makhyah. sounds good to me...
so we had breakfast at this little place on swanston st. I had the obligatory smoothie (blueberries, yum) as well as some various things with cheese and ham on them. So... breakfast was short lived as we had to get to Albert Park for the swimming.

So, how many trams does it take to get from swanston st, to albert park. Thats a very interesting question. Look... can you blame me for picking on nakari about this, she pretty much gets things like this right all the time, i may as well have some fun with it... anyways... 6 trams later we got to melbourne park (my favourite was when we got off a tram, jumped on one that went back round the same corner we just went round - good stuff)...

We rocked into the swimming just on time. Mum and Dad said that they thought we would get good seats, as they bought them thru qantas. Well we had great seats, very front of the spectator section (the others we for teams and ppl like that). So we climb the grandstand, and nakari headed for our seats. I muttered something like "hey look who we're sitting next to". karz missed it, and sat down oblivious. "look who you're sitting next to" i whispered in her ear a little more clearly (diction aint my fortay sic). Karz had sat down next to Lisa Curry! Wow! We didnt talk to her, I thought she'd get annoyed. But we had a bit of a spy at times of her running sheet which has way more info than the normal program. So anyways... we watched a bunch of heats including the women's 100 free (go libby), and then headed off...
the line for trams was huge... but flowed extremely well... a real credit to the organisation of it all... a line that we were told would be about 45 minutes only took about 20 to get thru.

So it only took as 2 trams to get back to swanston st, where Dad and mj had just woken up from a nap. We went and got some lunch in Lygon st - i got chicken rissoto, yummo! (karz got gnochi - which she doesnt normally like, but it was dead set terrific). So after lunch we hit a supermarket for some awesome chilli red dip (its chilli, capsicum, cashews and parmesan - just terrific), then went home to chill for a bit.

Kenn and Andrea came round, and along with Greg and Tammie we had a bit of a barbie. definately needed by this time. Andrea bough some turkish bread from Alasia (spelling?) and with the dips we had it was just awesome. We crashed out not too late.

big day... you can say that again

DAY 1.
"big day" there you go i just did

this morning we awoke arround 3.30, to leave for the airport by 4, as we had a 5.15 flight.

rock into melbourne at about 8.30 melbourne time.

caught a cab from the airport to tammie and gregs place in Ascot Vale. On the way I managed to get into a discussion (not an argument, but a discussion) about God with the cab driver, who was (ofcourse) muslim. Its all good, I was very diplomatic, but we obviously take things in very different ways and i hold on too tightly to what jesus taught, to swap over to the koran. no disrespect for those who are islamic, its just not for me.
enuff theology... where was i?

so, we basically got in, unpacked a few things and then jumped on a tram into the city to meet up with Kenn and Andrea in the city (at the markets).
before kenn and andrea got there we found this little farm set up. mj enjoyed that...
The markets were good, as they always are. I bought nakari some babaganoush (egglant dip) and kenn bought makhyah a hat to wear while working at the college (an akubra style i guess). Chowed down some spanish donuts (the long straight ones) and enjoyed some lunch at the little food courty bit that they have there - i got some indian.

we then went for a fair bit of a wander. Went to a couple of motorbike shops - i discovered the sad truth that i will never be able to ride a scooter - even the big ones, im just to uncomfortable. I think i would be best on an easy rider. Not sure, may never even bother, the main reason im interested is just that it will be much cheaper to get everywhere by bike than lugging the commodore around. So... we wandered round the city for a while then back to where Kenn and Andrea had parked. Some idiots put old parking tickets on their bikes (which freaked them out for a second), they took off and we headed back for the tram.

By the time we jumped back on the tram at elizabeth st, we were all pretty hammered. Makhyah fell asleep pretty quickly, and karz and i werent far behind. We grabbed a charcoal chicken for dinner and crashed out reasonably early (after watching some games action). Tammie and Greg were out at the Gymnastics (i think) so we didnt catch up with them just yet.

Great day, but huge...

short lived?

nah...

just a quick post to say that in less than 24 hours we will be in the air heading to melbourne for the commonwealth games. i imagine that i will have some stories, so i will backdate them when i get back.

i changed my mind

ok... im over this...
i've been pretty busy yeah, and i think i would find it pretty difficult to keep blogging at the same level as i was say december or january, but thats ok. blogging anonomously just isnt working for me (not that i was).
Anyways, I've deleted a few things to cover certain things - like the school i work at. So... that should be right for now.

really have no idea how often posts will show up here, but thats ok. im back, and can actually put some thoughts up again.