just read my high five, i gotta get with the new millenium...all those songs are from the 80s or 90s...

jjj's richard kingsmill used to have, may still have it, a high five from his listeners each week, and while i never had mine played, i did however put one together, now if only i could find it...

it went something like this -

depeche mode - get the balance right (immortal line, 'always remain ultimately selfish')
falling joys - lockit (fav aussie band live, apart from tism)
big audio dynamite - baby, don't apologise ('what you see is what you get, without apology')
now the last two i think i get confused with, there's a song by either, pet shop boys, new order, electronic, monaco or some other brit band.

i have the list on a scrap of paper, and i can remember where it was back in balwyn, but do you think i have any idea where that went???

balmy 21 degrees today, been warmer this week, as i alluded to earlier, but reminds of something i like about this place i call home, (at the moment). a little thing called temparaure ranges. drastic ones.

in melbourne, the temp can range from about 35-40 during summer down to 5-10 during winter, these are daytime highs. calgary is another story altogether, with summer coasting around 28-32 in summer, but dropping to -20 to -25 during winter. we even had a day last year where the windchill brought the temp to around -50 to -60, this is not a temparture you can easily imagine. mind you, i don't think many canadians could take many days in a row over 38 to 40, hehehe.

I WANT A BEACH! i am suffering big time, and have even considered the three hour drive to edmonton where there is a huge shopping centre complete with fake beach, i assume similar to kodak beach in brisbane.

give me waves, the watery ones...

am i the only one who get's the feeling that you are in your home town, when really you're somewhere across the globe? every now and then i'll be sitting in a cinema, or shopping at safeway, body shop or hmv and i'll forget where i am, no it's not the onset of 'oldtimers' (intentional mispelling) disease. is it the onset of globalisation, or perhaps just americanisation? it's just like your watching a film in the local balwyn cinema, you almost pinch yourself to remind yourself where you are.

i must admit i am very lucky to have some friends here who put up with me, or are they just humouring me? they are most impressed with the 'australianisms' that they've learnt from me, or my trusty little book of great aussie slang. now usually you get dodgy stuff in these sorta books, but this one is fairly accurate, sadly. james et al get most amused with themselves calling me 'uncle chester' or 'richard cranium'. james puts on this rather jumbled british/aussie accent, largely based around steve irwin (the crocodile hunter), he wants to get it right for our road trip down under in 2002, but has a long way to go. his francais accent is even worse, sounds like he's italian. the slang book even has, 'gonna see a man about a dog', so it can't be all bad :-)

live from calgary, alberta - where 'bob's ya uncle' makes little sense to the locals...

been gone for 3 days, miss me?

been stuck in a hypoxic tent for the least two nights, so no internet access :-( no 'momento' on thursday night :-( but i get all this interesting and useful data about how my body responds to altitude or more accurately low oxygen levels, that i can use with my training. hit the weight room again after a few months off, but sore, this will pass though. listening to debbie harry now, 'you came', makes it seem like i'm living in the past, but really the choice between 'the world famous cjay-fm' and 'power 107', leaves me little choice but to revert back to the late 80s. one station plays classic and modern rock, the other top 40, what can i do???

there's always live365.com i guess. jjj is available on real audio so if i get homesick and listen to that. on the subject of home...

big news, summer appears to be here again, was out in shorts again today, and the mercury hit a balmy 27, i think. sweeeeet. nothing better than the sight of me in shorts, don't you just love white boney legs. fear not, think i'll be shaving them again soon, getting into this cycling thing in a bigger way than i thought, and honestly, you can't go past a man with smooth shaved legs, he he he. unless of course he has a thing for wearing woman's clothing.

1050 pm here right now, better get to bed, got a blood sample to give at 830 tomorrow, then a cycling test after that and training in the afternoon. possibly seeing 'momento' tomorrow night, a new guy pearce film which is on at one of the three arthouse cinemas here. by the way, the blood sample is for a study i am involved in that is looking at the effects of altitude on athletes. did i mention this before?

well must finish this bowl of cereal i'm eating here, and get some sleep. got a few more things to ramble on about for the next day or so, so i will return...

back for another few blog entries. was on the train today on the way back from apple calgary, went to an 'intro to mac os x' seminar, and jotted down some stuff i thought i could throw up here. is that a sign of addiction?

oh, and by the way, i'm supposed to be updating and finalising the long track web site, oops. slack, hey! i wanna blog.

headed out to see 'shrek' last night, the latest offering from mike myers et al. mixes fairy tales with a twist (roald dahl all over again), and a moderately original concept. highly regarded by audiences here, you gotta be in the mood for it though, comedy that is and not....well never mind. would i recommend it? well yes, on cheap tuesday perhaps.

in the process of applying for funding from the international skating union (isu), as this idea of not having an income here is beginning to wear thin. andrew is waiting for my input, just can't motivated to do it. nothing works better at putting things off like procrastination. meeting with him tomorrow to finish our second draft, and hopefully it will make final version by friday so we can send this puppy off to australia for approval and forwarding to the isu for the six months of consideration it will take to get an answer. meanwhile we slowly starve ;-)

after finding the 'rebecca's empire' tracks on the cd, have been listening to the rest of the disc. how's this for a track collection -

prefab sprout
ratcat
shakespeare's sister
rick astley
real life
saint etienne
the shamen
tall talls and true
the wannadies
voice of the beehive

you gotta love mp3 cd collections...

it's nice when your friends take your feeble, ignorant raves so well ;-)

blog on to amsterdam...or go get a job

so it's victoria day here today, another public holiday for the province of 12 public holidays a year. that's more than the state formerly known as jeffville. todays break was to celebrate something about queen victoria. don't matter much to someone who has no job, and no visa to remain in the country for that matter. spent the day riding around town thinly disguised as training.

hoping to go see 'momento' with guy pearce and carrie-ann moss, at the uptown cinema tomorrow night (tuesday is cheap night) no other plans other than to get back into proper training this week, we even have weights to lift, can you believe this?

last night went to a bbq at our coaches house, and had the joy of seeing 'pumping iron', a docu-drama on arnie and lou ferregno (sp), the incredible hulk, and their bodybuilding days. interesting, this is all i can say...

after some searching i found 'my heart sings' by rebecca's empire. another cd full of music, untitled and track title-less.

it is a good track, but can i suggest the 'atomic electric' ep? in particular a track called 'wasting time'.

while we're on rebecca's empire, i must say that i was sooo impressed by this band that i had never seen when i happened upon them supporting my beloved falling joys at the prince o' wales, that i went out and bought their current cd the next day.

shane o'mara, a guitarist's guitarist

prompted by another ned blog, here are my blog ethics for what they're worth.

i do not change content once the publish button has been pressed, except if i see typos or a sentence that actually makes no sense, usually this is where i have dropped a word out altogether as my slow two finger typing falls behind my speedy thoughts. i do not remove entries, or change the intention or meaning of text. at the same time i don't go back over previous blogs entries so i don't really know if there are too many mistakes in there anyway. i will fix any broken links that i post tho'

are these all fair blog rules to live by?

from ned's blog - can something be more than timeless?

well i once asked a similar question, someone described themselves as being more than impressed by something, so i ask the question, what happens when this occurs? well as it turns out, you become slightly out of focus, this is just one of the insanities of life i guess...probably came from NID.

everybody should have a national irrelevance day (nid)

i type a lot of bollocks sometimes

new places i gotta go, and these are not all my ideas i must admit. not in any order, really.

iceland
greenland
easter island
most parts of asia
the arctic circle

i know there's a bit of a theme there, guess you can tell why i like speed skating, most of those places are damn cold. the artic circle is there as antarctica is just a little harder to get to :-)

top fives are cool, and as always should remain fluid...

i must admit also, to a love of the apple isle, or is it known by some other name??? i know it's an isle at least. of note for future tasmanian trips should be, coles bay, stanley, the tour of the cadbury factory if only for all the samples, and many other things i'll be reminded of when i get around to putting some of my old photos in albums (online and offline ones). salamanca place is a great place to stay and wander about though.


flinders island which is off the north-east coast of the isle is also a great trip. the fresh crays off the boats, the crystal beaches, ahhh. will get back there one day, along with all the other places i say i must get back to.

what is more important, getting back to the places you love or going to new places?

reading al's blog has reminded me of something i saw last week in downtown kensington. kensington being calgary's best attempt at a part of town for all the cool kids, you know lotsa coffee shops, hip clothing stores and skateboard shops. they pull it off pretty well, with an arthouse cinema there too.

was downtown taking my beloved mountain bike in to get the frame replaced, as after 4500 km, the frame had developed a crack in it. 25 year warranty on it, and they were happy to replace an aus purchased bike, so no big deal.

the original reason for this blog entry was this - i saw a tim tams sign in the window of a candy store there, and initially thought nothing of it, i'd seen enough of them in my time. then it dawned on me, i was on the streets of melbourne, i was in a place very unfamiliar with signs for these chocolate delights. unfortunately the store was closed. i have sworn to go back and buy a pack or 7, like any out-of-place aussie in calgary should do.

the good things in life, that you can't readily buy here, are often the most chocolately...

well, been busy for the last 40 minutes setting up my old blogs in the archive, and setting up a template that actually shows them, think i have it running ok now. may move the index of archived entries to the main page, will see how i feel ;-)

that's it for the tech talk for tonight, time to sleep now...this week, how the usa ruins the english language

so, i'm thinking of putting a link in my sig on all my e-mails to this blog page, is this overly egotistical? i'm using this thing as much as a journal, as i am a way to get news out to my corners of the globe

well i check the blogs of others tomorrow for an update of opinions, now i must really read the blogs of other to see what's been going on

("i'm a bogan, baby, always was" - TISM - Fosters Car Park Boogie)

now this discussion was probably a bad choice with a poli sci/eco degree student, but i tried anyway. her opinion was that unemplyment was necesssary, and that it would always exist. apart from the people who have to pay out the unemployment benefits being very bored, and perhaps becoming unemployed themselves, i can see few issues...

so now, flame me on e-mail and on your own blogs if you wish, unfortunately i won't be giving you the pleasure of responding to your childish flames :-p

hahahaha - it's nice to be back here.

getting very slack at posting , i know, i'm back now tho'. we'll see how long this return lasts.

just searched through all my mp3 cds that i made before i left aus, the ones that all my cds are on. found my tism ones, so long no tism in my ears. well fixed that today, listened to every tism song i have - woo hoo! what's been going on, i hear you mutter....

friday night went and saw a play called 'the drawer boy', at the martha cohen theatre in downtown calgary, with a friend from who is canadian and danish, what a combination! good play, moderately funny, well acted, nicely lit, good production design....makes me want to go back to working in theatre, but that's another story.

had a discussion with this friend about unemployment, and thought i might put my opinion here and see whether i can illicit any response from any of you. my theory is basically that there'd be no unemployment if those that had no job just went out and got one. i believe that anyone can get a job if they want one, they are basically too picky, they want to start at the top or near it, as that's where most of them have been or have just come from....