ANZAC

Day off for ANZAC day today, equivalent of our Remembrance day: all ages and genders of former combatant around the place, including hot-to-trot young ladies in elegant evening wear sporting rows of medals, quite an arresting sight. Another: a stooped and limping elderly gent, chest glittering, next to a teenage girl, chest very nearly on display, wearing a ripped 'Material Girl' top and a vacant expression. He fought for her, along with every other member of the generations that succeeded his - nothing wrong with that, just struck me as symbolic of something. Another: a group of sailors standing together on the pavement in the glare of the afternoon sun, staring in through the off-licence window. Some things never change.

Dispatches

Sorry, sorry, usual apologies but in fairness I have been pretty busy - wine (multitudes), women (couple; something's maybe happening now, watch this space), song (loud, drunken), bar brawls and strippers (there's a perfectly reasonable explanation - the girl I was with wanted a lapdance) and nowhere near enough sleep - all a bit more sex drugs & rock n roll than I've been accustomed to. In addition, I have learned the valuable lesson that sometimes $15 on a haircut is a small price to pay compared to the results of trying it yourself - ended up looking like I'd had chemotherapy, not recommended... Karaoke again tomorrow, perhaps more madness over this weekend, perhaps less; everything is a bit less predictable at the moment. More fun though :o) Bye for now.

Footy

But not as we know it (Jim). Went last week to see St Kilda and Melbourne kick off the Ozzie Rules season at the MCG: 36 men in vests and shorts running around, kicking a ball occasionally and running some more. Sometimes they punch the ball or each other mid-run; occasionally they even stop running for 5 seconds while the ball's kicked in, then they're off again. Quite knackering just watching, not to mention bewildering - took me til the 3rd quarter til I had the vaguest idea what anyone was actually trying to do. Quite fun though and at $20 approximately a fifth of the cost of seeing a Premiership match; reckon I might well go again, go Essendon! (My local team, without, I'm told, the slightest prayer of winning the title - ideal, no glory-hunting here.)
Thanks to the vast chunks of my salary blown in the bar afterwards the rest of the weekend had to be pretty quiet; work's still ok. Four-day weekend coming up thanks to Easter, going with some guys from work to see Erick Morillo tomorrow night in town and no doubt get very wrecked; apparently he's very good, I may not be able to remember enough to verify that however. Will try and provide some sort of recap of the night if I have any recollection of it.

The landlady is currently seeing friends back in Japan so I've got half a house to myself for the next week and a half, can't complain. In the time-honoured tradition of tenants everywhere who've been liberated from the watchful eye of the mortgage holder my housemate has proposed a party for this weekend. I have misgivings.

Ooh, how very Australian - a possum just managed to fry itself on the electrical fusebox outside and the whole street's electrics went. Hard little bugger, it just survived several hundred volts and falling 20 feet onto concrete after being shoved off its perch by the electrician. It's probably off for a few tinnies with its mates now. Respect.