Antique Tech

I know you all know how much i am into technology, well you may also know that I REALLY like old old old tech as well, check out these specimens from a house we stayed in at the York Jazz Fest.

the beard is back

Well, it took just over a week to cultivate a reasonable beard from scratch which is my best lap record to date. Here I am in my new office, check out the pure fancy pictures on the wall (yes, that is a sheet of 3 octave scales on the right, I work'em hard)

Wonderfull Concert

We went to see Stevie Wonder the other night in the burswood dome. He played for two and a half hours straight, amazing gig, the guy has such energy! Here is the view we had from our seats, not as good as the last time we were there.

The Kong Debacle

Ok. Some of you know this story, some of you don't. Here it is, its official. We are the worst neighbours ever.

 
Many of you know the name Kong and associate it with a larger than average gorilla, capable of climbing huge buildings, wrestling dinosaurs and generally being grumpy on account of never being able to find a banana big enough. Well, this is so. Kong is also the name of a dog toy.
 
It is a reinforced rubber dog toy, which you can fit treats into and the dogs spend a bit of time chewing them and getting the food out. We find these things really usefull as the dogs chew these and not our shoes/furniture/clothes/chairs etc.
 
Here we see Fionn thoroughly engrossed with his Kong. Now, occasionally we have been known to shout out things like "Fionn, wheres the kong, wheres the kong, go get the kong, did you loose the kong, go get it go get it go get it gogogogogogo eat the kong, get the kong, Reilly did you bury your kong, dig the kong dig the kong, wheres the kong? eat the kong get it get it get it kong kong kong" etc. you get the idea. Weeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllll this was going well for about 2 years. One day a letter for our back-door neighbours ended up in our letterbox by accident. Our block is sub-divided so we have a neighbour about 2 meters behind us, with their own side passage entrance(see the blog below of the gazeebo, thats his house). We always thought we lived in front of a family of chinese people called the WONGS, oooh nooo noo no, you guessed it, its actually the KONGS.
 
Here is another chinese person looking suitably miffed about his Irish neighbours (and its a blatent crack to get Andy Lau on my blog). We moved in here about 2 years ago and had a house warming about a month later once we settled in. We invited all the neighbors, Liam, Derrick, Wayne etc. and have had them all over since for several parties etc, except the Wongs/Kongs they have always been sort of hesitant/scared of us for some reason. Its because they think we have been training our dogs to eat them. :-0

I often put myself in their place, with them training their dogs to eat the mccarthy, get the mccarthy etc. On a few occasions i have sat in my bar after a beer,kong toy in hand, rationally contemplating to go around the back and explain the whole debacle to Mr.Kong (first name Kinh, i kid you not) but each time i can just picture myself bursting into hilarity as i hold a rubber dog toy and relate his familys inate fear of dogs, specifically my dogs, to a simple co-incidence of names. Whenever they come out the front to get their post or bins they always do it pretty fast. Being asian and only recently moved here from suburban asia, they wouldnt have had much experience with domestic pets so its understandable for them to have some sort of trepidation when it comes to canines, but for them to hear their drunken irish neighbors actively training their dogs to get the kong,eat the kong, bury the kong, thats just out there man, you couldn't write that stuff.

So there you go, the Kong debacle. If anyone would like to comment on this and offer advice/state their amusement/scold me on my manic pseudo-racist treatment of my neighbors then please click the link below.

Get the kong.

beardwatch

 
BEARDWATCH, Day 5. Its been a gruelling week of facial folical cultivation. I managed to get through three gigs looking as scruffy as murphy this weekend. Hopefully i can go the extra mile today and emerge tomorrow much like the butterfly from its chrysalis, as a fully bearded year 9 tutor. Yeah, back to school tomorrow and I need the power of beard otherwise i wont look as intelligent as i stroke my chin and make up answers to their miriad of wierd questions.

other goings-on in the subcontinent

Well, the ol beard is coming along nicely, ill take a picture in a while and blog it. Other than that the last week of the holidays passed by pretty rapidly, back to school tomorrow, for another eight weeks then ten weeks holidays. Oh de life. We got a chance to catch up on a whole heap of jobs on the gaff this last week, got the garden back in order, planted some stuff, which going by our track record with plants, is all dooooomed to die a waterless death. I managed to get a replacement cover for our gazeeeebo and fitted it today.
 
 
Here is a picture from a wedding we did on top of a hill along the river the other day, it looked a lot better than that, i have to get a better camera.
 
And here are the two drivers of the wedding, once everything got underway they both hopped into the front seat of the same car with their lunch eskys, two old boys, and had some sandwiches and a sneaky wee drop. Classic stuff.
 
And check this, we all went for a cycle today. James and Mikel from the german party, Jennika the cellist and Jane and I all headed off on a big mad cycle today. It was great. I even had a go of Jennikas racing bike, i never had a go off a real bike before. Now i understand how all those pro's can average such awesome speeds, these things are built to GO!

the mutts

 
Its been a while since i blogged the hounds so here they are. Here is Reilly in her usual "welcome to the strand" pose.
 
And here is Fionn in one of his sedate moments, conteplating where to eventuate his next poo
 
And here are the two of them having a rest in the hallway the other day.

Folically challenged

 
I went and shaved myself a great big novelty german moustache for the oktoberfest fancy dress party (come dressed as your favourite german, oliver came as a certain german dictator). Here is me with Anna. Look at that chin! I forgot i even had one. NOBODY in australia has seen me without a beard. So once the shock factor of that strategic shave wore off half way through the party i went one step further and gave myself the chopper reed look...
 
How wierd do i look now?!?!? Imagine my shock as i admired myself in the mirror this morning and was greeted with that visage! i was teaching about 30 mins later so i had to shave the rest of it off, for the first time in 6, nearly 7 years i can feel the breeze on my lower face area, and i have to tell ya its really disconcerting going to think about something and do my trademark stroke of the ol'beard and find a bare chin!
 
Compare that clean shaven feen with this happy, delighted to be hairy, bearded feen below.
 
As of 1 hour ago i am back on full hair growing mode!

oktoberfest 3

 
This was one of the games, Liam next door was the champion holding his glass for 9 mins and 2 seconds followed closely by James Charles at 8 mins 50 secs.
 
Here is Mikel, Derrick and James sporting the finest lederhosen this side of the rhine.
 
I aranged a few polka's for the polkathon game, where two teams heard the song, then had ten mins to arrange and coreograph a team-polka dance-off. It was hilarious! Thats Bill there on the ooompa toooba.
 
And here are a few guys from team 2 doing 'that' german dance

Oktoberfest 1

 
Yup, twas agggggeeesssss since we had a good ol session here at the strand so last month i decided to organise an oktoberfest.
 
I made three beers, here is me sitting down to name and illustrate them.
 
A nice german lager, a really strong belgian ale which was the favourite of the evening and a clear wheat beer. Lovely stuff.
 
We got through most of the beer in one sitting (almost 90 pints) with much merriment and prosting. More pictures to follow as they get emailed to me.

Culinary miracles

 
I made lemnade the other day. Got a bunch of lemons from our neighbours tree and downloaded a recepie from the internet. Tasted delicious.
 
Jane made a cake for her dad the other night and there was a supernatural event in the upper crust, see can you spot the Marian apparition.

The bikes

 
We went for a cycle the other night, down to our favourite japanese and back again, and I field tested the wine bottle holder. It worked a treat, wouldnt recomend it for champagne though.....
 

Snapshots...

 
We tend to name things here. Our hoover is called Mike Dyson, our fruit trees are Lemony Snicket and Limey, our cars have names etc. This is our dishwasher Miss Victoria Beckham, or Bosch Spice to her friends. Yup, its a Bosch, the finest example of german engineering after the first Vdub. We use it for everything, its without a doubt the most usefull thing in our kitchen.
 
Fennel. Odd looking vedgetable, tastes like liquorice and goes on salad. Fennel.
 
Spitfire, hairy wee things.
 
I ran out of fridge space the other day, so to cool my kegs prior ro carbonation i had to keep them in a bath of iced water overnight, in preparation for my oktoberfest party on monday. It will be an evening of Bavarian antics and German joviality the old fashioned way. Guests can expect activities such as the polkathon, stein holding competition, and kazoo karaoke to a selection of oompaah frankfurtian favourites. PROST!

Bike modification....

 
As you all know, i like 'modifying' stuff (just like the A-team) so see if you can guess what i have added to my bike...


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yup, thats right, its a wine bottle holder. No cycle to the park is complete without a good 06'merlot.