Bored and loud.

So it’s been an odd few weeks since I last updated this. Not last Thursday, but the Thursday before, my friends, my housemates and I were all devastated with the news that one of our friends had finally been defeated by cancer, after several years of fighting. We’d been told in December that he had 24-48 hours left, and as we spoke to him when he returned home we slowly regained confidence that once again he was defying the doctors’ predictions and fighting strong. He was looking forward to coming back out with us all, completing his education and getting a job. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, and he was told he had cancer again and his liver, kidneys and lungs were failing; there was no hope left. So after a quiet and hard weekend, it was back to work and a routine before his funeral last Wednesday. There were so many people, that with the chapel full, many more had to remain in the waiting area, watching it via a video link. The service was very appropriate, but no less devastating. The wake followed at his house, although us ‘Living End people’ didn’t stay so long – it was a long drive, and we wanted to leave it to the family.

On Wednesday evening, Trav and I went to Kim and Toni’s place, where Luke and Kristen were, and Jerri and Kylie who had come from Queensland. Hugo hadn’t been able to make the funeral, but he came to help us celebrate his life. Several drinks were had, memories shared and just trying to get through it with each other at our sides.

Love ya Jawny, always will.

Despite this hard time, Kat, Amber and me went to see Adam Rosenbach, and I saw Antti Hakala – the good and the bad. They went to a few more shows, but I was seeing the ugly, Flogging Molly and the Currency (ok, perhaps not so ugly!) The show was fantastic, The Currency were well received by the crowd, and it was an enjoyable night.

This weekend just past, I got a few things done. Friday evening I went out to take some photos with the borrowed tripod again, not so successfully. I then spent a relaxing night watching ‘The Fountain’, which wasn’t so impressive. Saturday dawned bright and early and I went to the city to take photos of the State Library of Victoria, something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, and headed to QV where there was an afternoon of skateboarding, BMXing, trailbiking, breakdancing, parkour..a whole assortment of urban-based sports. A very small set up, it reminded me of the Sprite Urban Games, the annual event in London. On a very small scale though! And for only several hours rather than over 2-3 days. So I got my share of photos before heading home for another relaxing afternoon and evening. Sunday brought something to enjoy – Brunetti’s! Amber’s birthday being this week, we decided to do something different and headed to Brunetti’s for lunch, gelati and cake. Pricey, but delicious and rich, and was much enjoyed. Another relaxing afternoon and evening brought an end to what had been a lovely, slow-paced, healing weekend.

With the Melbourne International Comedy festival well under way, I still have nearly all the shows I’ve booked for to come!

I attended my first show solo on Tuesday night, ‘Edinburgh Festa Besta’, featuring three comedians who have performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The MC for the evening, a Teddy someone, was not to my taste and I also noticed many of the audience looking clueless when he was pausing for laughter. In an all male show, the first one out was Dave Grant, and a Melbourne bloke who based many of his jokes around a recent trip to Darwin – with much success, a very amusing guy! As Teddy announced a short break and warned everybody to be back in time for the next act, I was shocked to hear it was Nik Coppin. Being friends with Toni, I’ve heard endless comments about him and have been eagerly awaiting his arrival at Comfest. Having booked a ticket for this, I also booked one to his solo show next week, not knowing he’d be at the Festa Besta! When he emerged I was relieved to find he is fantastic, very entertaining with a fresh look on the world – including his home country of England, and thankfully not in a pompous, arrogant way that so many do. So that was fantastic, and I was left to eagerly look forward to the ‘headliner’. Unfortunately, an American with a poor sense of humour (and dress sense) emerged and I was left to half-heartedly laugh my way through it, with just a few good giggles to be had.

Comedians make most of their work from making amusing observations of life and the world around them, often exaggerating them or delivering them in a comical way. Unfortunately he’d missed Comedy Class 101 and simply made the observations and relayed them to us in a rather unfunny and overly American way – very in-your-face, me Tarzan, you Jane way. But as the great singer Meat Loaf tells us, two out of three ain’t bad!

Next up I have Josh Thomas over the weekend, which is the ‘biggest’ name I’ve gone for. Following that, Nik Coppin’s full solo show and a Finnish comedian called Antti Hakala who has some good reviews. I may end up going to a couple others, but it’ll be spur of the moment and probably due to my housemates or friends telling me who we need to see - they’re all much more clued up on comedy. Hopefully this’ll keep me giggling away for a little while at least!

With Saturday came the ever-popular Earth Hour idea, of switching off lights and un-used appliances for an hour. As it approached 8pm we were still waiting for our take away to arrive so the doorbell stayed plugged in, but after making the last cup of tea for an hour and turning off lights, we settled down to some delicious Indian food arriving at 8pm on the dot, lit the candles and spent some quality time together (we being Kat, Trav and myself). After I’d eaten my dinner I headed to see if I could get any photos of the city, lack of tripod proved the main problem here. However, the view was impressive, with most of the taller city buildings switching off their buildings including the Eureka building and Rialto towers (although apparently viewing platforms were both open during this time – presumably packed full of people). Some houses in our neighbourhood had switched what seemed like all their lights on, but the majority seemed to be doing their bit. I came home to find Kat and Trav playing Uno by candlelight, but both cheating and finding that green and blue cards looked the same!! Checking the colour by candlelight also proved dangerous, so instead we moved the iTouch next to the deck so we could see!

After I had an earlyish night on Saturday, I woke up early enough to go for a swim on Sunday morning. Around lunch time I woke up Trav so that we could go to the Game On exhibition at ACMI in Federation Square. A range of arcade, console and computer games from 1960s to now. At $15 for entry it seems a little steep, but being able to play them all for free was fantastic! After I beat Trav in most of the street-fighter-esque games, he beat me at Ms Pacman, which is only a little embarrassing. I then persuaded him to play Pro Evo 2006 with me, and after I scored a penalty (from his violent tackle in the box), I only mocked him a little bit. The guys behind us waiting found it quite funny too! Quite a good exhibition really, a good range of games – including portable games like Game Boys and PSPs. There were some information displays, but the majority was interactive based, which was great! Any people who believe that Earth Hour is contradictory and pointless will be glad to hear that plenty of electricity is in use for this exhibition.

Had a busy few weeks! I’ve seen a certain ‘secret’ Melbourne band, known as the Longnecks, 4 times (3 shows plus St Kilda festival), Iron Maiden at Rod Laver Arena due to a spare ticket and Daughters of the Rich.

It all started with Iron Maiden. A friend had a spare ticket, so I accepted it and Thursday evening started with him leaving his car at my place as we walked over to Rod Laver Arena (my house is in a prime location!) The show was phenomenal; easily one of the best live shows I’ve seen. There was pyrotechnics and fireworks, but not overdone; costume changes by Bruce, but quick and simple (usually a jacket change); a changing backdrop and a moving light-frame. Oh, and the 3m tall Eddie. It’s no wonder they needed their own plane with the sheer scale of the show. It was no ordinary metal concert, and to top it off, they played Monty Python’s ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ as we exited.

So Friday dawned far too brightly for my tired eyes, but after a hard day of work, it was back out again! Over to Kim’s place where I’d meet Kristen and Beth for Kristen to drive us all to her home town of Ballarat. The first time I’ve been there, and I saw very little of it bar the venue! A tiny little place, the Karova lounge really went off when the Longnecks came out. Smaller than the venue I saw them at in London, it was steaming hot but just so happy. I really enjoyed it, and managed to catch up on sleep on the way home.

Saturday was a regular morning, I tried to sleep in and failed! However, I rested up and just relaxed as I knew I was going out again that evening. Now, all of my house was meant to be coming out to see the Longnecks at Geelong, but Trav claimed he was sick, and Kat finally resigned to the fact she was too sick to go, so it was just me and Amber on the way out there. Thankfully I managed to make use of one spare ticket by getting Luke to come out – he was slamming the front door shut on the phone to me! By this point I’d been standing for too long and my joints just weren’t accepting it, so I tried to lean or sit for most of the evening. As far as I could tell, it was a really good show though.

Sunday..a day of rest, surely. Well, a little. In fact, I was headed out to St Kilda (for the first time in daylight!) to attend St Kilda Festival and see both the Longnecks and The Currency. So I caught the tram down with Toni, as the day warmed up much more than I’d planned – regretting the jacket now! After some food, a quick walk around and our first and last warm beer of the day, we found a spot to watch the Longnecks. Another great show, even if it was a bit shorter than the others. This time, being all ages (well, not in theory), the crowd was even more excitable and many more hung around afterward to try and spot the band. We headed off and found some ice cream and cold drinks before settling to watch The Currency. We caught the end of a gyspy-folk-odd band..it was very good. The Currency put on a very tight show, despite recently losing the accordion and tin whistle. Great fun for all, and stayed around for a chat.

Finally, I could go home and sleep, and sleep I did. Ready for work on Monday!

At the end of that week (Friday just past), I caught Daughter’s of the Rich at Pony, which was really good. Having had trouble sleeping, it was a bit hard to keep my eyes open after, but I managed to get home and into bed safely. Saturday brought a friend’s birthday meal and my last Longnecks show. Saturday afternoon and I had to go into the city to meet a friend on a flying visit from Cairns. Met fine and headed out to North Fitzroy on the tram (her first tram trip!) The meal was at a delightful restaurant called Red Olive – fantastic food and beautiful interior. After that, a group of us headed back into the city for the rest of the festivities. It was ridiculously hot (only one fan that I saw) and very much sold out, but it really went off! Had a quick chat to them afterward, before heading outside to meet another friend. After dithering around for a short time about what to do, said friend drove us all home (thanks again) and I tried to get some sleep.

Sunday morning, 8.45am. Alarm goes off. Having had carpet cleaning booked for a couple weeks, at $60 it was a bargain I wasn’t going to miss and this was the only appointment available. Together we moved the furniture out the lounge and woke up a little bit more for the cleaners. 9.45am, no sign of them so I call up. I’m told they’re on their way, probably just held up somewhere. 10.30am, still no sign, everyone else has gone back to bed. I call again and find out that there was emergency flood damage and a double-booking problem, so they won’t come until 1.30pm. After all that, I try to have a nap and can’t, so I drag a dining chair into the lounge – which is looking very forlorn – and watch some TV. The others start emerge (minus Trav of course), and finally the carpet cleaner turns up. He did a very good job, and it looks much better, but after having so little sleep, I was just a little cranky!

And so dawned another week. No big plans – that was a big fortnight for me! I’m planning to go to Adelaide in the week of the 10th of March, to visit an old friend and my grandma, that should be good. I’ve just ordered myself a new laptop, a Dell Inspiron 1720 with a top spec. I’m still waiting for a hard drive and casing to come from another site. I’m also looking at a new digital camera (just a compact) to replace my recently deceased Canon Powershot A550 – at the moment considering the A720 IS, or a G7 or G9. However with all that money spent, I’m not sure when that will be purchased – or paid off!!