Life on Mars

For those in the UK this will be old news but for us on the other side of the world the TV show "Life on Mars" finally aired on Sunday night.

This is a show my mum told me about probably a year ago now so when I saw it advertised on the ABC I had to tune in.

The show is about a 21st century copper who has an accident and wakes up in 1973. He can't determine if he is in a coma and has a very detailed and vivid imagination or if he really is in 1973. He finds himself Detective Inspector at his normal 'nick' in Manchester on a murder case with startling similarities to one he was working on in 2006 (but without the help of mobile phones, DNA evidence or computers)

Sam: "Where's my PC terminal?"
1973 copper: "You need a constable down here?"

The contrasts between the two eras were very interesting. Everyone smoking in the office, woman officers treated like tea ladies, having to use an operator when making a phone call. I thought the best line of the episode was from Sam's boss "Hey you kids! If anyfing 'appens to that motor, I'll come over to your house an' stamp on all your toys. Alright?". Hehehe. I really enjoyed it and will definitely be tuning in next week.

Names & Dates

Ok, this has to be at least an 8.5 on the cacky handed witch scale - Steve, your opinion please as you're the only one who reads this blog :)



The cocky cow even re-tunes mid song! Hehe.

Ps. The 'cacky fingered old witch' phrase comes from a very amusing story by the very amsuing Jack Dee.

32 Flavours

Check out the rare live TV performance by Ani Difranco - playing one of my favourite songs "32 Flavours"...

Chad Vader strikes back

Thanks to Steve for the heads up that Chad Vader episode 7 is now available on youtube. Will Chad get back the Day Manager's job? Looks like we'll have to wait for episode 8 - doh!



Best line: "Shut up! No!! You shut up!!" Hehehehe

Pink!

Last night we went to see Pink at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. We met up with our concert companions at Donna's place in Surry Hills and were introduced to Michelle, Julie, Trish, Steph and Bronwyn.

We all enjoyed a few drinks and nibbles before heading into Chinatown for a bite to eat (and to avoid the support act) before the show. I've never been to the Emperor's Garden before but the food was fresh, yummy and cheap so chances are I'll be back! We got to the Entertainment Centre at about 9pm and Jo and I took our fantastic central seats, unfortunately not sitting with the others who had seats elsewhere.

Pink kicked off her "I'm not Dead" tour to an extremely enthusiastic and noisy crowd to "Cuz I Can" and the got the entire place rocking.

Pink struts her stuff

She dazzled the crowd throughout a 2 hour energetic show that saw her display huge amounts of flexibility in a net 30 feet up in the air and talk to the audience in an intimate mini acoustic set. In between she was dancing around the stage, voice strong and always with a smile on her face. The entire show went so quickly but was so packed with energy you certainly didn't feel short changed and definitely left feeling fully entertained.

Donna had arranged for us to get free entry into the Shelbourne Hotel after the show for a few drinks and a dance. As suspected, our little dance turned into a long one and we eventually left at about 3:30am!! I blame the "retro" theme of 70s, 80s & 90s and my quality air-guitar :)

Still, I paid for it in the morning as there was a server upgrade at work this weekend that didn't go to plan and I had to have a tele-conference at 9am to decide what action to take. Eurgh.

My Humps

Fergie: "Check it out!"



It really should've been like this originally and Fergie should've done the cover! Hehehe.

Hungerford Hill

Jo and I took our first trip this year up to Nelson Bay to visit Jo's Mum for her birthday. We left early on Saturday morning and arrived at about 10:30. We had no plans of what to do for the day but inspiration struck and we decided to go to the Hunter Valley for the day.

We were off shortly afterwards and decided to stop into a winery for a look around as even though we had decided on our destination we still had no idea what to do once we got there.

We entered Hungerford Hill and saw people having a very nice lunch out on the terrace, well that was that. We were sat at a table in no time looking at a delicious menu that was to turn into Mrs B's birthday lunch treat :)

The head chef is Darren Ho (yes, brother of Lisa) and his asian influenced menu was delicious. We were all treated to a complimentary

Mrs B and I started with the aylesbury duck won tons with roast duck jus, blackwood fungus & pickled vegetables while Jo had the sea scallops stuffed with water chestnuts on sautéed garlic chives & sauce vierge.

Jo and I then had the beautiful fish of the day and Lyn had the waygu beef cheek slow braised with hungerford hill shiraz, on braised witlof & paris mash potatoes, served with béarnaise sauce. Yum!!

If that wasn't enough, we had already had a plate of mixed bread before the entrees and after we treated ourselves to gelato at a place down the road! Pigs!

Missy's Back

I went to see Missy Higgins showcase her new album "On a Clear Night" at the Enmore Theatre on Friday night.

We spent the first half an hour trying to "sell" a spare ticket we had by a late cancellation but with a lack of touting skills we ended up giving the ticket to some French tourist who seemed pleased enough!

We arrived in time to get a drink and take our seats to watch the support act. Leroy Lee played about 5 songs, a simple acoustic set that was reminissent of Jack Johnson mets John Butler.

Missy arrived on stage at about 9:40 and the crowd awoke and burst into cheers as the catchy but simple riff from "Secret" emerged from behind the curtain. The album was only released about a week before the concert but I've been lucky enough to listen to it for free for the past week via Claire's website :)

"Secret" is one of my favourite tracks on the album, probably because it consists on 3 notes on 1 string so I should be able to play it on my guitar hehehe.

Missy in action....

Missy played a great set mixing new with old favourites from the ever popular "The Sound of White". True to form she stuffed up the opening lines to no less than 3 songs but her innocent charm means she can get away with it with the crowd laughing along as say blurts out "Ahh! Those are the wrong words!" then mentally backtracks to the beginning to start over again.

Points have to be awarded for effort though when she gave up her trusty piano and guitar to simply sing, although you can tell she finds it extremely awkward and you want to shout "That microphone does detact from the stand you know!". Once again, a very enjoyable show from someone who improves everytime I've seen her.

Work, work, work

It's official, I'm in training coma.

Not only am I in a new role, in a new team, with a new technology, with 1 technical person to support 3 production applications with about another 10 on the way, I seem to spend my life in training courses.

First there was the Project Management course going back a few months, this was backed up with the conference in Queensland (sounds like a junket but wasn't really), followed by a dose of "Emotional Intelligence", then came my LSI training (I can't even remember what it stands for but they plot stuff about you on a circumplex, that's about all I can recall), now I am on a "Resilience" course that is for 2 hours a week for 6 weeks. I think. I have an exam to take in July and the rest I'm trying not to think about!

And to top it all off, it was announced today that my team is going to be split away from my current manager into a separate team. As much as I'd love to apply for that role, I'm not sure I'm ready to manage a team of 15! Fingers crossed whoever lands the role will do a good job and not be a twat.