Remember when kids shows were good?

Thanks to youtube i was just reliving some Alex Mack and some Clarissa Explains it All and some Are You Afraid of the Dark (which fully has Cher from Clueless in it – not Alicia Silverstone, the TV one).

But there were heaps of good aussie ones too. In 5 mins i found Ship to Shore, Johnson and Friends, Lift Off and the crowning jewel of primary school game shows, Amazing. That was the greatest, and now all they’ve got is It’s Academic and GoGo Stop. Kids these days are getting screwed.

and don’t get me started on HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL. lies, i’m secretly hoping someone will ask me to go see it so i can blame them.

WELL

there’s obviously not going to be another blog about my trip, because the last one was 2 months ago and now i’ve beeen back for a week. BUT HERE’s SOME CURRENT AFFAIRS.

Agga’s getting water in his pool soon! (I know when but I’m being stealth for the good of the public) which means pool for summer and hot days half naked and refreshed. Today it occured to myself and Em that we didn’t quite have our bikini bodies ready (her bikini, me boardshort or whatever) but then i was talking to stef later and was like.. who the fuck are we trying to impress haha.. I’ve just spent 3 months eating shitloads of restaurant food every day, sif i’m going to be lean and buff.

Tara and Shaun were talking on 1700 the other day about the wankers who work out for ages to go to the BDO shirtless and how much tools they are. Agreed. Like I can understand if you’ve been conned into a Fitness First membership for howevermuch per month that you’d wanna make it worth it, but there’s no need to show off.

reading back over that paragraph reminds me of the episode of Raymond we watched today.. something about horrible english. SNOT LIKE YOU DONT UNDERSTAND ME SO DONT BE PICKY. rays mum on that show is completely nazi

me and aidan were talking before about how in germany we were like “stop being such a nazi…”
and then we were like SHIT WE’RE IN GERMANY DON’T SAY NAZI haha

Stef and I went out tonight and arguably  got quite pissed (not really arguable, pretty factual fact there) but then i came and claimed by eBay thing that i WON and payed for it. and I know my credit card numbers because i used them millions of times when we were away. SO DRUNK TIM SPENT $165 through eBay .. but who knows, maybe sober tim wouldn’t have… nah, pretty sure he woulda. pretty good deal. the thing i won is worth $399 and i won it for $150 plus $15 postage (cuz i cbf going to thomastown baha) and will turn my iMac into (acronyms ahoy!) an HDTV PVR which will hopefully make it useful once i upgrade next year.

Reckon i should sell any of my shit on ebay? i’ve set up a PayPal thing now because it was easy and now i’m a little excited. looking around my room there is shit all anybody else would want. PIANO? can’t have it’s mine… could probably sell one of the two backpacks now cluttering my floor. the one i just took away is worth like $600 .. or so the chick tried to make us believe after we’d payed $300 for it (sale).

know what i just realised? in my new unemployed state i can BAG TELSTRA HOWEVER MUCH I WANT UNLESS THEY CAN SUE ME FOR LIBEL which hopefully they wouldn’t because such a big company would surely have bigger fish to fry. although it didn’t take much for them to crack down on me when i was an employee. i dunno, i would bag them i guess, but they were alright to work for. looking back, it was easy work that i was good at, they acknowleged my skill. .. there wasn’t really anywhere for me to go with it within the 8 months i was there .. but it was alright. and looking for jobs now, there’s shit all else that’ll pay me $20p/h to be a glorified voice recognition robot.

Em said she saw wicked and didn’t like it. but i’m thinking she’s full of it because everyone else saw it and loved it. SO NEUGH! I think i’ll try and see it again sometime soon

GOODNIGHT xo

Amsterhagelmö

TO AMSTERDAM (after waiting in line some more) on a really cool fast train that had Wifi on the train(!) but we had to swap over in Brussels and we almost didn’t make the second train because we were starving and the guy we bought chips from took aaaaaaages. But we got on. And arrived in Amsterdam in the evening, took another train then walked a mile to the Hostel. I thought I’d booked a 4 bed dorm, but it ended up being for a 6 bed dorm, and there were 7 beds in. 2 of us, 1 other Aussie who came the next night and 4 flabby, obnoxious, loud, late-20s-really-need-to-grow-up British guys who formed part of a larger “lads trip.” rolls eyes. We’d come to discover Amsterdam is covered in lame British men on Stag’s or Lad’s or “We’re Morons” trips looking for Heineken, Hash and Hookers.

None of which are hard to find. We went into town and for a walk on our first day and didn’t realise we’d wandered into the Red Light District, and Aidan was getting the impression that the average Amsterdam street was a canal lined with Sex shops with “DVD Cabins” (ew) and women in windows beckoning. We soon figured out where we were and escaped to somewhere (a little) less seedy.

Overall, Amsterdam was awesome. Very different experience to being there with family. Besides the British idiots and the FEROCIOUS snore of the guy in the bunk under me, everything was great! We walked lots, got yum food (so much to choose from, great stuff), went on a boat tour, did canal bikes (yay!), rented actual bikes, saw Anne Frank’s house, saw the Rijksmuseum, saw Clare Bowditch and Gotye at Paradiso, hung out at the Vondelpark, went to the “Greenhouse” (ahem) and caught lots of trams.

And so we headed north! The night train to Copenhagen was nice. It was attached to a train to Poland at one end and a train to Russia at the other. They must have detached and gone their own ways at some point. To begin with we thought we must have the 6-couchette cabin to ourselves, but as we kept going people kept joining us and it became clear we’d have a full house. Still pretty comfy though, nice to be able to lie down. Met a nice American lass living in Germany selling water filtration devices to the food industry.. She’d heard of Hungry Jacks because her company sells them stuff! trippy.

Copenhagen was so cool. The hotel we were in was right near the station (like 50m) so we walked everywhere and it was a really nice city. The Tivoli Gardens looked kinda closed and were advertising some Halloween thing opening the 10^th Oct so we gave up on that. Walked through the city, saw some nice old buildings and neon signs everywhere around the town hall. Had dinner at this place Mama Rosa’s where we got a Vego pizza and Vego enchiladas.

Almost every meal over here we’ve ordered two things, eaten half then swapped. We’re very good with the sharing. We even shared 3-ways in Paris with Nellie. I haven’t eaten meat since we left. A whole month of proper vegetarianism! I wonder what effect it has had on me. Severely deficient in fruit too. In fact I’ve lost some weight I think, probably because we walk everywhere and sometimes skip meals…

Anyway in Copenhagen we went on a bus tour which took us everywhere including to see the Little Mermaid statue which is pretty much the symbol of Copenhagen. Hans Christian Anderson wrote the fairy tale and he was Danish so they love him. We also saw a cool church and a cool fountain and went for a walk on this old fortress thing that was shaped like a star. Pretty sure we went back to the same restaurant for dinner.

The Danish teenagers do this chav thing where they tuck the bottom of their pants into their socks .. they look stupid.

We took a train across this big long bridge that connects Copenhagen (Denmark) with Malmö (Sweden) and ticked off another country! We were staying at a hostel a bit out of town, just a bus ride. Malmö was pretty cool, they had nice shops and squares and a really nice park.

SWEDISH BURGER KING PUT THEIR FOOD IN BASKETS! Like not on trays, in little baskets! So cool.

We also went to this mini chocolate factory/museum/cafe thing and had the niiicest praline chocolates and iced chocolate type things. It took a little while to communicate what an iced chocolate was, but she got the idea and it ended up being called something like “glassdryck” (ice cream drink).

We wanted to go back there and to this vegetarian place on our last day but EVERYthing is closed in Europe on a Sunday. Everything. Except a couple of things but yeah, no dice unfortunately. We just chilled in the park and used the internet in 7-11 and waited until our train at 9:30 to Berlin!

Which was a really nice ride. We treated ourselves to “sleepers” which meant the two of us got our own cabin with a sink and mirror and power and niiiiice comfy beds. It was great. If only it was a longer trip! We arrived in Berlin at 6:04am. And that’s where I’ll leave this entry because I need to wake up Aidan and have a shower.

Love and hugs etc, xo

a Little Britain plus Paris

Argh, the longer i leave this the more there is to catch up on. And internet is too expensive in this hotel so i forget what i said before..

Last couple of days in London.. we did the Tower of London then came back to the hostel to sleep haha (Aidan was still kind of dying at this point) and for dinner we had ridiculously expensive, ridiculously average pizza from British Domino’s. It was like £13! Which is more than A$25 for one pizza, and it was shit, and it rained.

Then we went to Oxford for a day, then on a coach tour with a bunch of annoying Americans to Stonehenge and Bath. We had dinner at this Indian place with tables outside but they wouldn’t let us sit there.. they were like “sorry but there is a problem. we’d prefer you to sit inside, it’s cold outside.” ..i thought the customer was always right? then they sat us inside and watched us eat and they were weird.

Our last day in London was jam packed, we went with Jacqui to the Camden Markets and the British Museum and the London Dungeons then after tea she had to go but me and Aidan went on the London Eye just after the sun set and it was soooo nice. Absolutely canes the daytime view.

For somewhere we expected to be easy because everyone speaks our language, there was a really annoying language barrier between us and the food staff, they spoke much better english in Amsterdam. Shame on you london! Nah, kidding, go multiculturalism.

Caught the Eurostar to Paris and met this guy at our apartment which we were paying a lottt of money for which was meant to include cable TV, free phone calls and free wifi. All we got was a french cell phone (that ran out of credit on the first day), the wifi didn’t work, the TV had rabbit ears and crappy french TV and there was no landline. Jibbed! But the apartment was in a really good spot and it was nice to have some privacy.

Our 10 days in Paris included lots of walking, lots of metro-ing and lots of Orangina and cheese! Separately. We ended up in McDonald’s a lot, not just because it’s really hard to find vegetarian food in Paris (fries are reliably non-meat) but for free Wifi!

The day after we arrived, we got straight into it and did a big walk through town and along the river and hung out at the Champ de Mars then went (slowly) up the Eiffel Tower. We lined up at about 5 and took the lift up to the second floor, but we decided we wanted to wait until it was darker so we went back down and hung out on level 1 for a while. They have these lay-back wicker chairs which were nice. When we ended up at the top it was just after sunset and was reeeally nice and pretty.

Crêpes are really good in Paris. And unless you’re feral and get like cheese and ham ones, they’re vego We had them so many times and most of the time they were done fresh for us, one time they heated up ones they’d already made and .. they weren’t as good. Tip: if its actually a kebab store and they only do crepes to cash in on the tourists, move on, there’s always a better dude around the corner. On our last day in Paris, we got some from this guy and he was making them fresh at peak crepe time so we had to wait but it was sooooo worth it. The way he did it was all fancyy and he didn’t skimp on the nutella like some do. Nutella and banana crepes. Best ever.

Other things from Paris: nibblies in the Jardin du Luxembourg; breakfast with Nellie & Aria; pasta dinners watching Gossip Girl; the Louvre for free; Matilda’s Bar (the Australian embassy social club); Montmartre including Sacre Coeur, Moulin Rouge (the outside), le Petit Train AND crème brulee at les Deux Moulin (where Amelie works); fake deaf mutes scamming money out of us; the Catacombes (underground tombs from when the cemetries overflowed, see photos); yum vegetarian dinner in le Marais + icecream…

DISNEYLAND! haha yes, the least french thing get its own paragraph. On the way in I learned that Aidan had never been to Disneyland! Which isn’t that odd, most people wouldn’t have I spose. But for some reason I’ve been spoilt and this was my 4^th Disneyland visit. And it was still fun! Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, It’s A Small World .. great stuff. It was nigh impossible to find vego food there though, we had chips and a weird cheesy pizza and some crap microwave pasta and yeah, disappointing. Half the restaurants were closed and pointed us to other restaurants (and some of them were closed too..) either because it was a monday or just out of peak season. That also meant that instead of fireworks we got some lamo dance-routine 15^th birthday finale. But OH well, still buckets of fun.

We decided to ditch Brussels because we couldn’t find hostel beds there and everyone’s said it’s very dull. And we ditched Prague because for whatever reason our EuRail passes don’t like Czech Republic, or they Czech don’t like us. That spared us like a week so we decided to head north in search of Sweden! Which meant going straight to Amsterdam.

To make a train reservation in Paris we had to line up for more than an hour. The ticketing staff are being mostly replaced by automatic machines, but there’s a whole bunch of stuff the machines can’t do, so the 4 or 5 real agents were handling like 100 people. That was to make our reservation to Amsterdam. We got to the front and I was like “do you have to validate these EuRail Passes?” and she was like “on ze date you travel.” SO we had to line up for over an hour AGAIN just to get the Passes dated. blerghe.

When we were up on the Champs Elysees, we heard this yankie lady on the phone and in her ridiculously loud obnoxious american twangy voice she was like “we’re near the ARCH of TRIUMPH” … Aidan and I looked at each other in horror. It wouldn’t be so bad that these Americans are so loud if everything they said wasn’t so stupid. The Arc de Triomphe doesn’t have an english name, its a french bloody monument! Just because we say Eiffel Tower instead of Tour Eiffel doesn’t mean we have to translate every name.

We also did a bus tour thingy, saw Mamma Mia with french subtitles (where they change absolutely everything..), visited Oscar Wilde’s grave in that famous Cemetery, bought art from the left bank and walked though the Tuilleries gardens. AND got the best crepes of our trip from the guy previously mentioned.

Aidan’s been really good writing postcards and buying presents and stuff but I’ve been crap. I am missing home though, mostly my bed. home soon.. almost 4 weeks in.

Amsterdam/Copenhagen/Malmö to come next

xo

Oh, we saw Wicked too.

Completely left that out of my last entry. We lined up at the  Box Office in the morning and scored two ‘Day Seats’ -  front row for £25. The show was still amazing, but some of the performances seemed a little tired. G(a)linda really hams it up and Boq has the cutest northern accent. Some bits they did better than in Melbourne, but a lot of it really missed the mark. Definitely worth £25 but wouldn’t have paid full price.

Sitting in the front row is good and bad. The end of Act 1 looked so much cooler from down there and you feel a lot more connected to the action. But you can sometimes see too much. Like tape holding their wigs on and the actors looking to the condutor; at one point during the opening they screwed some timing up and the conductor was right in front of us and he smacked his forehead and shook his head and yeah, sort of ruins the magic. It also seems funny seeing their over-acting so close. They’re performing for over a thousand people, but I couldn’t see any of them so it kinda felt like “no need to shout, I’m right here” lol..

But still good. Front row in Melbourne would be great. If only we had such cheap tickets!

bye now xo

Lost in London

Flying to London is like death. 9 hours to Hong Kong (or ‘Honkers’ as Dad put it) then another 13 or whatever to London. Even on a nice airline with lots of movies etc it’s still awful being crammed in like that for so long, trying to sleep all contorted in your seat .. blergh

But at least I’m not sick. Aidan is quite sick, the poor boy. He’s taking Codral and Strepsils and antibiotics daily but it’s persisting. We think he’s getting worse before he gets better, something like that. Hopefully it goes away soon, we are only at day 2.

London is quite cool. Everything is so old. You begin to appreciate how boring and new everything is at home. Like nothing in Melbourne is over 200 years old, and here there are thousand-year old churches etc all over. Amazing.

The Youth Hostel is right near 3 tube stations which is awesome. We walk 10 minutes to Oxford Circus as more lines go through there. They have these Oyster cards here, which is exactly what Myki is meant to be, except it actually exists and it works. As if just not get the exact same thing put in Melbourne, why does this planet need so many individual smart-card transport ticketing systems?..

So far we’ve seen Buckingham Palace and Changing of the Guard, Big Ben, London Eye (haven’t been in or on any of these, just walked by haha) as well as parks and shopping and stuff. Lots of walking, I can feel the burn haha, London is fun but we’ve been lost twice now lol..

Caught up with Bec yesterday and Jac today, very odd so many of us being here at the same time. Becs friend got us half-price lunch which was reeeeeally nice and included a Pimm’s and lemonade which is this cocktail full of fruit, it was great.

Tomorrow we’re gunna go on a Big Bus Tour to see some more of town. Still trying to fit in day trips to Oxford and Stonehenge/Bath, only 4 more days in London then to Paris! yay hehe

goodnight xo

PS: the weather here is annoying aas hell. Hot, rainy, sunny, freezing… and the tube is really stuffy. And right now there are loud drunk foreigners out the front downstairs.

So we’re leaving.

It’s now 1:56pm. In 6 hours we’ll be arriving at the airport, in 9 hours we’ll be on our plane and in 32 and a half hours we’ll be arriving in London. I’m excited and scared and I’m sure there’s a lot more I should be doing in these last hours than sitting at the computer eating cookies. How fat do I sound! haha

I think we’ll be sufficiently entertained on the plane; iPod, PSP, EeePC, then the plane has 60 movies, 100 TV shows and billions of songs etc. Let’s hope Qantas are nice to us. I haven’t flown them international in 11 years. You should see my Frequent Flyer card, it says “member since March 1994″ baha if that’s not worth an upgrade I don’t know what is.

I can tell already I’m not going to want to come home after this trip. When Marianne and I were sitting outside Hahndorf’s yesterday and it started pelting down hail out of nowhere, much to the dismay of the disgustingly anglo couple next to us, I realised just how little of the world you see spending your whole life in the eastern suburbs. Europe is going to be amazing. YAY!

Au revoir Melbourne, see you in December.

Panic! Cobras at the Academy.

On Saturday arvo me and a considerably large contingent of SYN folk went to Rod Laver to interview Cobra Starship, The Academy Is… and Panic At The Disco. And we also got free tickets to the show yay! Read on for all the excitement including EXCLUSIVE pics (because nobody else had my camera haha) and info on how to win signed shiz!

Ryan Ross

+ Spencer + Brendon

+ Keyboard dude + Jon

Laura texts me at 6:50am from Sydney Airport where they won’t her fly because of an hour-long nose bleed. And she has no voice after screaming her way through the Brisbane and Sydney shows (that’s dedication .. to a ridiculous extent maybe). SO I had to play risk control and got Tineka out of bed and on board to do the IVs instead.

So we met, we chatted and we left for Rod Laver. Now, Google Maps agrees with my way of getting between SYN and Rod Laver Arena (RLA) but Rohan and James decided to go allll the way to Hoddle St, alllll the way to Swan St then around the dumb long way to get to our car park. But they found us eventually.

We ended up having 8 people with us. That is a ridiculous amount. With 10 more minutes to set up, a mic stand and more batteries, we could have done the same job with 4 people. Provided the band didn’t move out of the wide shot. But it ended up just being an excursion of fans. And when the label guy was like “now anyone without a role needs to come out of the room for Panic, they’re a bit pedantic about that, lots of people and that” EVERYONE was scrambling to make themselves useful haha. Laura wouldn’t miss them so stole the wide shot from Kirsty and she was like “.. so what do I do?” baha lordy.

signed CDs and the 20c coin i caught (Brendon Urie threw it)

But anyway, all the bands were really nice. From Cobra Starship we talked to Ryland (did most of the talking), Alex and Nate. From The Academy Is… we spoke to William Beckett (this is where you gasp and fawn because he’s ridiculously goodlooking or so I’ve heard) and Michael Guy Chrislett (token Aussie.) AND from PATD we spoke to Brendon Urie and Jon Walker. AND THEY SIGNED THINGS!!

All 3 interviews went about 15 mins, Panic a bit longer and within the next few weeks they will be airing all together on a 1700 special WHICH YOU MUST ALL WATCH. I’ll keep you posted when the air date is final. And as a bonus, you can win (!) the above signed copies of Pretty Odd and The Academy Is…’s album Fast Times at Barrington High.

The 20c coin in the pic was thrown by Brendon from Panic into the crowd during the show after it had been thrown at him (“Hey I got paid!”) and me being tall and rude for being in the front caught it because I could reach much higher than the teenies surrounding me. Although, just today my ribs have started to feel the damage done by all their little elbows. Good thing was, because I was taller, I could stand on my toes and get some air above the crowd. Like a snorkel. Clever innit.

James was a shit and didn’t want to come to the concert. But that was good! As that meant I could give his ticket to Aidan GUESS WHAT! This time in a week me and he will be on a plane somewhere over NSW (I’m guessing) on our way to London and beyond. So excited. Booked the Eurostar today. Pumped. YAY!

Bed time. Have to get up and slay the dragon that is full-time work in the morning. Wish me luck compadres!

xo

Hurry up already

So I haven’t blogged all August haha.. that could be because I’M GOING TO EUROPE IN 10 DAYS and there’s been stuff to organise. Or maybe because we’re INTERVIEWING PANIC AT THE DISCO THIS WEEKEND and that’s required some time and thought (close to 45 Basecamp posts in one thread). Or maybe, just maybe(!) because I almost GOT FIRED because of this blog! It has made me a bit wary thats for sure.

I don’t intend on writing a lengthy summary of the last howeverlong because a) that would not be interesting and b) I can’t remember what happened haha.

On Saturday we’re interviewing Cobra Starship, The Academy Is… and Panic(!) At The Disco at Rod Laver Arena for 1700. Exciting stuff! But scary and stressful and nerve-wracking stuff too. On the upside, we all get free tickets to the show yay! We’re interviewing Brendon and Jon from PATD, no Ryan Ross *sniff* but still, exciting and fun! I’ll be able to say “don’t worry guys, not EVERYONE hates your new album, i quite enjoy it while driving “

Tonight I saw Faust at school with Ming, it was grand. Good to see kids having fun in a production again! Not like grandiose egofests run by the devil and littered with her offspring.

Should I resign when I go on holiday next week? Or should I come back and work over summer and make lots of money and resign before uni? I don’t know what to do!

So this blog will be where I ramble about my travels when I’m away. AND if you want to talk to me while I’m gone, call (03) 9005 8465 and it will call my Skype account If I’m online I’ll be able to talk to you! For the cost of a local call! And if I’m not online you can leave me a voicemail haha how cool is that? Designed to help with calling home but enables anyone to harrass me at any time. And I don’t care that the whole world has my number because it’s not an actual phone so neugh

Is it bad that I can remember my credit card number? But I don’t remember the security code so I still can’t do much without the actual card. hmmmmm.

I’ve had enough, goodnight xo

Psycho!

Sitting on the tram, this chick just got on and had to walk around another passenger (gosh) and so mouthed abuse and gestured at being so put out. I thought it was a bit extreme. Then she got to her seat and pulled a book out of her bag: “The World’s Most Evil Psychopaths.” Maybe she ’s been inspired.

This thing is crap (WordPress for iPhone), I got all excited when it recovered my unsaved edits so I kept typing. Then I went to save of my own accord and it reverted to the version without the edits! Bah I say.

In brief, I wrote of the exhausting week I’ve had. Starting from last weeks 1700, I almost lost my job, I was awake from 6am Friday until 6am Saturday without rest, I wrangled my folk for this weeks 1700, I worked 7:30 shifts Mon, Tue, Wed, put on 1700 again today AND saw Hamlet (a bloody marathon). So now I’m dead.

But what brought out my smile of the week was Ali and Pab both complimenting today’s show with words to the effect of “one of our best shows.” YAY!

I never posted about Friday night, so we went at 5 to the Prince and did the IV after soundcheck. It was outside and not in the best light but it was pretty good. But we may or may not have .. rubbed over half of it .. I blame Rohan! haha nah kidding.. but I think it’s good that happened. We might not have bothered organising the audio feed for the performance, or filmed so much backstage stuff (none of which ended up in the package – stupid drunkard bands!) or got the second interview which looked much better. So in the end we were there until about 1:30. I was dead and I was Rohan’s lift so I made him leave with me haha. But yes, it ended up looking great on the tele! When Rohan chucks together an Online version I’ll post it here for your perusal.

When they’re really famous I’m gunna be all “I had dinner with them, I stole Matty’s chips!” and people will be jealous The Psychopath link is that the Galvatrons are psycho.

The Players in Hamlet, including Sarah Blasko (the chick)

Saw Bell Shakespeare’s Hamlet tonight with Aidan and Brogan and Tegan. It was grand. But really longgg after such a long day. Hamlet is a Psycho! Thankfully I had bought a V (in fact, two for $4.50) beforehand so that helped me stay awake a bit. It was really good though The guy who played Claudius was really familiar, his name is Colin Moody. The only thing I can see that I’d recognise him in is Return to Jupiter (90s kids show) but somehow I don’t think that’s it. Oh well.

Tim's sexy new shoes.

Tonight I got home (at about 12) to an empty house with lights on in the lounge, dining room, kitchen and playroom, and both TVs on! Therefore, Simon is a Psycho! My family come home on Friday, thank god. And they’re bringing their loot from Maddy’s friend’s dad’s Nike staff discount – Nike own Converse, I got two pairs of shoes including these ones, how cool are they.

Time for bed, goodnight.