2009, overall has been a most triumphant year. As always there have been low points, but these have been more than balanced out by a few awesome adventures, the awesome people with with the adventuring has been had, and some pretty big and excellent changes. I thought I’d take this opportunity as the year draws near to a close to take a look back at a few of the awesome things that happened.
Like many good stories, this one includes — and in fact begins with — pirates. We all know pirates are the greatest thing since sliced bread, and so they made an excellent theme for the surprise party we held for Cara’s birthday near the start of the year. We got a great turn out with some excellent costumes, and a good time was had by all.
William and I gave Cara a ticket to SoundWave ‘09 as her birthday present. ‘Twas the day of rockening, and we both dared and won. A most excellent day filled with many awesome bands. William spent almost 2 hours (or was it a little over 2 hours?) in the merchandise line to score some t-shirts, and Cara was nearly trampled; not in a mosh-pit, but whilst sitting around having a drink.
A few of us had a random trip to Queensland when Steve found some cheap airfares available and booked for all those who replied quickly that they would come and had a great time visiting theme parks and just generally being tourists and not working for a few days. Points of interest included an ibis trying to steal my hotdog and seeing Vanilla Ice at the Hard Rock cafe.
…and still much more of the year, and some very awesome stuff to come. Part 2 to follow soon…
A few of a recently took a random (random in that we went largely due to the availability of cheap airfares when we hadn’t been considering travelling at all let alone the particular destination; a certain amount of planning did go into the trip after initial conception of the idea) trip to Surfer’s Paradise on The Gold Coast in Queensland.
Flights were reasonable, no major difficulties were encountered and the accomodation was excellent; a good time was had by all.
Day 1 - getting there:
9 of us meant multiple drivers to reach the airport. I drove one car, picking up Nat, Tyle, Brooke and Ro on the way and parked in long-term parking at the airport. Thanks to Steve’s mum for dropping off (including picking up Sean from work on the way) the others at the airport. We were pre-checked in for this flight and avoided most of the potential queueing involved with flight as a result. Upon arrival we settled into our two rooms on the top floor of the Centre Point Hotel, purchased a few supplies — mostly of the alcoholic variety — and settled into one of the rooms for some drinking games and general hanging out before heading off to bed for the night.
Day 2 - Dream World:
First full day there we got up in the morning, got some coffee for a few folks and headed off to catch the bus to Dream World for a day of awesome rides. An Ibis tried to steal my hotdog at the themepark. That evening we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe for an excellent dinner and drinks before heading back to our rooms to have a few quiet drinks and watch people we could see in the windows or on the balconies of neighboring hotels; slightly creepy, but entertaining none-the-less.
Day 3 - Wet ‘n Wild:
Second full day there we headed to Wet ‘n Wild (where the picture above was taken) for another day of cool rides and a bit of sunburn.
Day 4 - Ice Ice Baby:
Last day we checked out of our rooms in the morning and left the majority of our stuff in lockers at the hotel before heading out for some exploration. Vanilla Ice was doing a little meet-and-greet session at the Hard Rock Cafe, where Sean, Nat and Brooke got photos taken with him. Benjamin and Ro tried a “slingshot” ride, and a few of us tried a fantastic contraption given the alluring name of “The Vomitron”. The flight back was very mildly turbulent, scared a couple of people with louder-than-normal engine noise on take-off but was largely uneventful.
All in all an excellent trip with a good mix of chillaxing and awesome rides, etc. We must do it again sometime, perhaps with a few of those who didn’t attend this time tagging along.
Video Games Live have just announced a bunch of new tour dates, and although the actual date and venue are currently TBA I noticed there’s a Melbourne, Australia show on the list. The show comes very highly recommended even for those who aren’t into videogames and includes the experience of seeing a live orchestra, interactive show, and pre-recorded videogame footage matched to the live show, as well as pre-show entertainment and meet-and-greets in an optional festival made available to ticket-holders at no additional cost. You can read a review by Drew ‘Gaiiden’ Sikora for a bit more information as well as checking out the official website. It comes highly recommended and I’d really like to go - is anyone interested in joining me assuming the dates and cost aren’t a major prohibitive issue once announced?
Update 23/5/09: I’ve been informed that a number of the performers we saw are no longer with Circus Latino. It is therefore likely that the following review may not reflect any future performances of the circus.
For our weekly tradition of not-so-random-Wednesday the girls and I visited “Circus Latino”, a circus we’d spotted setting up last week next to the fire station in Frankston. While a night at the circus was a nice change and gave us something different to do for the week I could not recommend this particular circus to others at present; Silver’s Circus is apparently also in the area and — in spite of not having seen them for several years — given the good experiences I’ve had with their shows in the past would guess they may be worth a look instead. (EDIT: For an alternative point of view you can also find a more positive review of an older Circus Latino performance linked by one of my commenters here. Note that the current performance sounds significantly different to that described in the linked review.) So, why wasn’t I impressed with Circus Latino’s current act?
- Entry was a bit costly for my liking at $25 for a general-admission adult ticket. I havn’t visited a circus in several years and so have no idea of the average pricing but had been expecting cheaper. Although unexpectedly high I might have considered the fee worth it if the show itself had been better. Family and concession (with a fairly limited definition of concession) discounts were available but not relevant to us.
- The performance was a little clown-heavy for my liking. This particular circus had only a single clown — I don’t personally particularly enjoy clowns other than in smaller doses, your opinion may differ — but still had almost every second act on stage some sort of caper involving him. I also use the word “act” in the case of the clown particularly loosely; he twice came out with nothing but a large ball which he repeatedly threw into the crowd and made people bounce it back — a trick which doesn’t work particularly well when most of the seats are empty (but admittedly may have been better with a fuller crowd) — once was fine, but twice simply seemed uneccesary. These acts may have been more popular with children, although my friend Heather tells me the girls she looks after for work would have been terrified of the act with the ball.
- The audio was terrible. The Ringmaster’s (note there is a stage rather than a traditional ring at Circus Latino) microphone failed to work numerous times, and the music distorted and/or suffered from random interference sounds throughout the show. This is unfortunate given an excellent choice of music to support the performance and the fact that this was probably beyond the control of the circus; if however this is a regular occurance and not a one-off something should be done about it.
- Only one of the three people who attempted juggling as part of their act actually succeeded. He still dropped a couple of things, but I personally think that’s fine as long as it happens less than the actual succesful juggling, and his act was otherwise quite well performed and entertaining. The other two performers who attempted to juggle however didn’t succeed at all and ended up simply giving up on it.
- At one point a performer came out with bubble mix and various rings and pieces of equipment for making bubbles. They failed to make any however, and after several failed attempts and much apologetic shrugging the performer simply gave up and left. This may have been less of a problem if the performer had given up sooner when it became obvious the trick wasn’t working, but rather than doing so they proceeded to attempt the entire act, including calling a little girl from the audience on stage to help with yet another failed trick. This potentially cool act was unfortunately one of the biggest negatives of the performance.
- Some of the costumes were incredibly inappropriate for the body-types of the performers wearing them.
All that being said, there were some impressive acts and if you happen to particularly like clowns you might enjoy the show more. Definitely don’t let this review stop you from giving this circus a chance if you happen to stumble upon it at a later date, they definitely had the potential to put on a much better act with some more work.
Alrighty, Bluenote’s end of year concert will be on the 13th and 14th (that’s a Saturday and Sunday; the second weekend) of December. Unless things are for some reason changed up drastically (which is extremely unlikely) there will be a Saturday afternoon show which tends to have most of the younger kids, solo acts, etc.; a Saturday evening show which tends to have most of the big band acts; and a Sunday arvo concert which has all the leftover stuff.
Come along for a look if you wanna see William, Shazzie and I performing, tickets are cheap and we’d appreciate the support.
Managing a pizza store - not for me. I wouldn’t mind the longer hours if they were timed better rather than taking up all my evenings and pretty much killing the weekend, but rostering like that doesn’t really seem achievable so I’ve decided I shan’t be signing the contract.
Nothing else of interest to report right now.
I really am quite the disgruntled employee at times. It seems we’re seriously short staffed again with one shiftrunner sick and another who just quit, and we’re supposed to be reopening Chelsea again this week. How irritating. As a result of this, I’m working during karaoke time this week — most heinous. We also had an instore quit because the manager kept hitting on her, thankfully he won’t be around much longer.
I am not a mother duck/hen/goose/whatever. *glare*
Cara, William and myself went to see Opeth play at the Palace (formerly Metro) on Friday night. The performance was most triumphant. As time of posting interested parties can find a video of the performance on YouTube, although unfortunately the quality is extremely lacking and doesn’t nearly do them justice. For reference, the song in that particular recording sounds like this on the album. The support band were quite good, the venue was quite reasonable and not overly crowded, and the late night KFC after the concert was most enjoyable.
Next up for concerts is DragonForce in October.
Tropic Thunder was quite good, and we had the most unusual experience after seeing it of candle-lit dining in Nandos due to power failure. Fortunately for us they were already mostly done with preparing our food, and we’d long since escaped from the cinema (out of which many people were streaming).
That is all for now.
//ADENDUM: Some random guy taking photos at the Opeth concert got a shot of Cara and I that you can see here (full gallery). As usual I look terrible. Ah well.
Monitor #2 appears to have a dead pixel, stuck on red and very near the centre of the monitor. How irritating.