The amazing weekly update of interesting stuff....and aahhmmmm....stuff

Hello blogfans. Been another hectic week of music and fun. A few gigs here and there, got booked to do some outlandish contemporary music stuff at the end of the month and we demolished our fence and put up a pure fancy new postbox. Our white picket fence was infested with white ants (who eat wood from the inside out till it desintegrates) so it had to go. I had great fun tearing the fence down, it was like a mr. bean sketch. It was raining and i was between gigs, we had a skip which was being collected the following morning so i put on a hat and gloves and went for it. I pulled off the first two pretty easily so decided it was time to increase my productivity and try kicking the pickets down, so i took aim at the picket at the far left, big kick, it stayed put, but about 10 pickets at the far other side of the fence went flying onto the road, a kinda 'slam the door and the boot opens' scenario....well twas hilarious at the time.

Second on todays amazing update is this bunch of beers that Jane picked up for me at a fancy beer shop near our place. Look at that bottle on the far left, its in the shape of buddha. They were all pretty good, a really nice honey wheat beer and a puerto rican ale, but none were equal to my most recent stout, which has been named ambrosia (not the rice pudding, but the drink of the gods)

For the first time ever, i have two stouts on tap. Both are my best recepies, and both are pretty good, but we 'pepsi challenged' them simultaneously the other night and the one on the left won hands down. I even dropped a pint of it up to our neighbour 2 doors away, Liam from Offaly, who has been regaling to his buddes for about a year of how his neighbour, a cork lad, has improved on guinness. Well, one sip of the good stuff last thursday night and Liam was convinvced, so much so that he had to come round for a few refills. Below we can see the two lines, both loaded with a bounty of the black stuff ready to serve.

Well, thats about all for this week, sorry for the lack of updates this month, been really busy and away from the computer for days at a time. School holidays are coming up in a few weeks so regular service shall resume soon. Signing off for now, this is Perth correspondant Charlie Mc Carthy, weather and sport is up after the break, the time os 9:52.

The hounds

I was minding Fin the other morning, playing with his trains and stuff, and when I turned around the dogs were on the ground posing for their next blog shot.

And there is Fin in the background, he had a sleepover the other night, twas great fun and a great excuse to watch loadsa kids cartoons on the telly. We were all sitting around the table on saturday night having a roast and we are pretty sure he said "charlie". He says all sorts of things now along with their respective sound effects. Things like "Duck, quack", "car, vroom vrooooom", and my favourite "pirate, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarr".

Testing the new equipment in the field..

Here is my violin and pint holder getting field tested at a classical gig last week. Both items passed all expectations and gained full operational status.

Here is the "cockpit" settup again, the only way this could get any better would be with another drink holder.

From dawn till dusk

This is a photo of the dawn sky over my gaff, thats the moon there.

And here are a few redish clouds over the house around 645am

then later that evening, leaving one of my schools at 545pm. MORE pink clouds

this sunset over the sports field (ovals they call them here, despite them being square) was pretty spectacular

The Fin Man

I had to post this. Chekc out Fin with his pram, apron and ice-lol.

New Toys

I treated myself last week and went and got me a few gig accessories. A pint holder (pictured here with some sort of transparent non-alcoholic fluid, some form of hydrogen-bioxide compound apparrantly) and a violin/viola holder. Everyone should remember my pint holder form Ireland, well its the same one, and i have a habit of giving these things away as presents so I got myself two. They are both K&M so are as reliable as most other german technical products. I have only done one gig with them so far and the envy from the other string players is detectable from across the stage.

Not much happenned this week

Yup, a pretty regular week here in Perth. Lots of teaching, a few late nights and a few gigs, the usual really. I did manage to have a supercalafragilisticexpialladocious competition with my year 3's (8 year olds) to see who could play it and then spell it the quickest, this was the winner clocking in at 1 min 48 seconds.

And this is a photo from the euro-sweet section from our local 24 hour shop, the good stuff you cant get in other shops.

Red Ring of Death

So i sat down the other day to get stuck into a few hours of gaming on the xbox and this happenned. The Red Ring of Death. So one 20 min phonecall to microsoft later, i have to post the thing to sydney and wait a few weeks for the replacement. It is a design/hardware fault and microsoft are up the walls dealing with the constant lawsuits and replacement fees. The playstation 3 is looking pretty good right now....

De Lads

Ah, good aul podge and rodge. We got a loan of these dolls of a friend for a few weeks. They are like Ireland’s version of tickle me Elmo. Squeeze their tummies to hear such charming phrases as “You scuttering gobsheen!” and “What in Satan’s armpit is going on?” etc. I have them near the front door and they impart vital wisdom as i head out to work in the mornings.

Tales from the pit

Here is the pit of the Blood Brothers show, well its not really a pit, its the side of the stage with a black divide around us, but it does feel like a pit.

here is a clearer view (apologies for poor cameraphone images)

And here is my settup, violin case on a chair right under the stand. Not as fancy as the saigon desk/cockpit but similarly set out. There are 34 movements and I am in about 6 so i have a great time circulating limericks about the show, reading books, sending emails etc. the way shows SHOULD be.

New Show

Yup, only just out of the pit of saigon and another show has begun. Blood Brothers, one of the longest-running works of musical theatre in history is showing in Perth for a few days next weekend and I am the only string player.

Some interesting parts, for this movement i have to make haunting screaching sounds for 8 bars.

23, thats how many pages it was, 23, a fraction of the miss saigon part AND most of it is just tacets with printed ques of what the other muso's are doing. Finally, a show where I can expect to get through a few books ;)

The Finn-Casa

Finn called around yesterday to check out his new townhouse. He loved playing in the thing. I am thinking of retiring (again) and getting into the kiddie house fabrication industry.

Here he is getting some books from his window box

He really liked being in there with the door closed, keeping the dogs away from his toys

Finns New Gaff

Remember that clothes dryer we bought last week? Well a few beers, some duct tape and a knife and this was the end result. Tis a wee home away from home for Finn. Check out the inner shelves, the outer window box/book shelf and the tennisball for a doorhandle

Then i took it out the back and used some old spray paint we had hanging around from when we painted the vegiepatch (in the background there). Then i printed out a load of photos of the lot of us, and some thomas the tank engine etc and stuck them outside and in.

Add a few toys (note silver letterbox and silver key in the door) and taaa daaaahhh

And this is the interior, with a back door, a selection of jenga bricks and a keyboard. I am going to get one of my old handleld PC's and load it up with episodes of his favourite shows and then stick it inside a cardboard cutout of a telly and tape it to the wall, he is gonna love the thing, and if he doesnt like it I'm moving in!

New stuff at the Strand

Well, the day eventually arrived. The good 'ol telly i got from that old lady up the road for $20 bucks, which is nearly as antique-ly cool as Margarets Bike finally had to go. It was a great telly, with many hours of sitcoms and at least 1 eurovision song contest displayed on its cathode ray tube of ionizing radiation. It was time to replace it with one of these

A pure fancy flatscreen yoke with all sorts of fancy features and it has loadsa buttons and everything.

And here another new item, a dryer, it fits neatly on top of our washer in the laundry/brewery room (and thanks to the dryer it now periodically becomes a sauna)

And the last item of interest from this weeks new stuff is our chiminea for our vestibule, seeing as how the cold harsh Perth winter is looming on the horizon we need somewhere outdoors to sit with our gin'n'tonics