Pic of the day April 30, 2006

With winter here we decided to put the fireplace to use again last night.

Pic of the day April 29, 2006

More food! Thanx Matt...

Pic of the day April 28, 2006

A suprise visitor!

Pic of the day April 27, 2006

Pic of the day April 26, 2006

pic of the day April 25, 2006

pic of the day April 24, 2006

Pic of the day April 23, 2006

Pic of the day April 22, 2006

Pic of the day April 21, 2006

This guy's stencils are too funny!

Pic of the day April 20, 2006

Pic of the day April 19, 2006

A Spending Spree!!!!

Finally after nearly a year of hunting, dedicating every Saturday morning to scouring the Domain section of the paper, running around the city this suburb and that, we have found a new home!!! After discouragingly stepping over holes in floors, pushing open rickety doors and staring at the cloudy sky through gaping holes in leaky roofs...after being handily eclipsed at auctions week upon week by wealthier, eager young buyers, we have finally been blessed with a golden opportunity. Our foot is finally in the door!



Granted, it's a bit cozy and the back garden view is more suited for exhibitionists than a private young couple...still nothing a bit of tall bamboo or terraced vines can't fix. Yes, we've bought a house in Melbourne!!!

It's not exactly as close to the city as we've been trying for but we don't yet have the budget for those neighborhoods. What it is exactly is 9.5 kilometers (6 miles) from the very heart of the city and just off the main road to Sydney

So Mauzi took her parents around at 10 am to get their seal-of-approval, which frankly means a whole lot to me and doesn't come all to easily from a couple of protective Irish immigrants. In fact this is the first and only house that has been given the (Isle of) green light. By 10:30 Mauzi had made an offer and left to spend the day with friends in Castlemaine, two hours north of Melbourne. Needless to say, we spent the rest of the day texting back and forth, "Have you heard anything yet? No, have you?" I won't bore with the details of house negotiations but there were many more phone calls, counter offers and finally I found myself in an office in Ivanhoe writing out the biggest cash cheque of my life and signing my name and endless stack of forms.

With Mauzi and her friends off in the bush celebrating our new acquisition over a bottle of wine and pasta I took myself to a quiet little Maylasian place and had a wonderful, warm bowl of noodles. As I walked out into the street and gazed up to the warm, orange glow of the melbourne night I found myself smiling, happy in the knowledge that I have finally found contentment at last. Not only have I found myself in a city of never-ending adventure, I now have a home and a new and exciting neighborhood, and best of all I have a wonderful partner and best friend to share it with. All down here at the bottom of the world.

Check out all the details here:

http://realestateview.com.au/cgi-bin/view.pl?OID=735664&rev=on

HOW A FUN NIGHT WENT HORRIBLY PEAR-SHAPED

After bidding our friend Wazza goodbye this Friday night Mauzi and I decided to head down to the Corner Hotel in Richmond to catch Nevile Staples and a reformed version of the Specials.

We skanked the night away like we were teenagers agian. Thankfully most of the crowd around us was filled with similar aged punks, mods and rockers so we didn't feel so ancient. Still we drank, danced and sweated our asses off. These days I'm getting a bit old for this kind of late-night excursion but it was a hoot and I had missed my afternoon run anyway.

Having heartily partaken in the celebratory grog over the course of the night we decided that it would be better that we leave the car where we'd parked it, take a cab home and leave it for me to ride down and pick up in the sobriety of the morning. Great plan, very poor execution.

Standing on the corner of Hoddle and Swan streets waiting for a cab in the wee hours of the morning is no easy task. If one gets distracted for a moment, unexpected events can quickly unfold. As it happened, Mauzi decided it would be wise to leave the tram stop (my obvious choice to hail a cab-unfortunately they were a filled with fares from other clubs) and call a cab from in front of local residence. This turned out to be an appropriate yet fatally flawed decision as the cab came nearly immediately but in the haze of her brilliant revelation, Mauzi left her bag and all of its invaluable contents sitting in the tram stop at one of the most heavily trafficked intersections in the whole of Melbourne.

So oblivious to our folly we chatted away in the cab, planning our next day's fantastic adventures. It wasn't until we arrived home, twenty minutes later that Mauz realized her bag was missing...confusion...Shock...PANIC!!! Thankfully, at the club she had given me her remaining cash (with which I was paying our driver) and the blank cheque we were going to pay the deposit on our (hopefully) future house (see next post). As we sat their stunned and confused our cab driver, and Indian IT student took pity on us and offered to drive us back to the corner for whatever cash we had left. This suited everyone as we didn't have much cash left and he got to pocket it off the meter as he was heading into the city anyway.

As this was all unfolding and unbeknownst to us, some kids from the burbs found the bag and had the sense to try and get in contact with us rather than let us sweat out the night imagining the worst: outrageous credit card bill; keys copied and all of our things emptied from the house while we were away at work or even worse, asleep in our bed; stalkers... Yes these resposible little clubbers leafed through Muazi's address book and called a friend who in turn called us about two minutes into our trip back into the city. Deb (and Vance-Thank you both) passed their number on to us and we arranged to meet them at their suburban playpen the next afternoon.

To make a long story short we found ourselves back where we started, a little more stressed, completely broke and only a little more sober than when we left the club. Certainly in no condition to drive home this night. Nothing to do but pull a couple of blankets out of the boot, put the seats back and drift off to sleep convincing ourselves that we'll laugh about all of this in the morning.


By the way, here's a picture of the boys that picked up Mauzi' bag. Thanks to their generosity and quick thinking, they're $50 richer and we didn't have to cancel our credit cards or change the locks. And you gotta love kids these days. These guys were so honest that they even used our camera to take 15 photos and a video of themselves in their car with Mauzi's bag, their number plates clearly visible...just to prove how trustworthy and innocent (or drunk and ignorant) they are in the burbs these days.

Anyway guys, THANKS! Tell your mums they should be proud of the way they raised you. And don't forget...if anything strange shows up on our credit card bill or anything dodgy happens around our house...WE KNOW HOW AND WHERE TO FIND YOU!!!

Pic of the day April 15, 2006

Pic of the day April 14, 2006

More strange food from the city.

Pic of the day April 13, 2006

Mmmmm...menthol flavored gum fortified with caffine AND nicotine!!!

Truly "Hi-Technical" flavor.

What will the Japanese think of next???

Pic of the day April 12, 2006

A finger says a thousand words part two: I take the flag as an exclamation point?

Pic of the day April 11, 2006

A finger says a thousand words part one: "And if we're an arrogant nation, they'll view us that way, but if we're a humble nation, they'll respect us."*

Hmmm...I wonder which one he'll choose?

*Excerpt borrowed without permission from the 2000 presidential debates.

Pic of the day April 10, 2006

Never let a crab loose in the kitchen!

Pic of the day April 9, 2006

Pic of the day April 8, 2006

Pic of the day April 7, 2006

Pic of the day April 6, 2006

Pic of the day April 5, 2006