I believe my throat hurts. Example is the checker to the key.

A lot can kill you here in Australia. They have killer snakes, great white sharks, killer spiders, crocodiles on every river and even killer jellyfish. As another example, I have just snatched life from the jaws of what is typically a fatal Aussie cold. Everyone has it here and there are kangaroos pulling carts though the Melbourne CBD calling , "bring out your dead". The cold lasted about 20 days and there were a lot of tears and contemplation of throat amputation. It is a good thing they took away my pocket knife at the airport in the security line. Despite all odds, I persist.

When we left off, dear reader, I was about to go to Jacko's birthday. Here's some pics of that.


We had a great time. Mama, Cath Matthews, Liz and Hussey were there, and heaps of other folks. Shakahari had great food again, and terrible service again and I won't go back there. Also the night ended for me in tears of throat pain, and with Mama earning a black eye in her campaign to educate us all not to drink and cycle. Learn the lesson people!

The whole send-up reminded me of my 21st, which I spent in Dublin with Amy. I think we died my hair blue and then went out to the Foggy Dew for cider. Why did I drink so much cider?

Other than that, last week, I ate a lot of soup, blew my nose a lot, went to a doctor in a mall (no help), slept, worked and watched more of The Wire.

The Wire season 4 is awesome. The Omar prison scene is one of my favorite ever. Even though Oz was one of my favorite shows of all time, I feel like this 90 second scene says everything you need to say about prisons in the US. "They got Honey Nut Cheerios in here?"

By the weekend I was feeling a bit better. On Friday, Mama and I saw this tiny street busker break dancing. You can't really tell this from my crap phone video, but he is about 6 and about 3 feet tall. Mama thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Then we went out for some really crap Chinese food with Cath. Oh well. I guess it is the year of the Rat.

On Saturday I went to the Melbourne Food and Wine festival at Fed Square. It might have been called the Food and Wine festival but all I remember is beer. Beer after beer. We started out scoring the beers on a scale of 1-10, but by the end I was giving 10s out like the French judge at a figure skating competition.

I went there to meet Nicole from work, her partner Steven and his mate Andrew. From what I can recall, we had a blast.

On Monday, after league I went to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah again with Mama at the HiFi. They were okay. I think he was wearing the same hat as last time.The crowd seems a little dead and the show was a little flat. Still Yankee Go Home! is always good to see live.

Tonight I ran around the Tan, with my buddies the bats (flying foxes). I also got to hear the Shakespeare in the Park cast booming out Romeo and Juliet. That was a nice diversion.

Congrats to both Tegan & Reuben and Sarah for adopting dogs from the shelter in the same week. Welcome to Wilson (a black lab) and Annie (a beagle mix, search for Didi). I cannot imagine what fool let either of these dogs go, but I am glad they are home for good now.

This week will involve Team Box training on Thursday and Sunday, and a scrimmage against Honey to get amped for regionals coming up in about two weeks in Adelaide. Get amped now!