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!

Out of Africa

Back in December, I was in the Pilanesberg National Park, in South Africa. You might recall me blogging about my Elephant Safari. Well, part of the Elephant Safari is that they take a video of you so that you can show your mom when you get home. It is a full service deal.

The original is two hours long. Lucky for you, I work with this very friendly and extroverted fellow from Accenture's Sydney office named Alex. Alex is learning to use his new video editing software and was able to cut this down to 6 much more bearable minutes. Alex gets director and producer credits on the video above.

In other news, this week I worked a lot and went to Team Box training. The Team Box nationals squad for 2008 has been announced and I am on it. I am super psyched to be on the team again this year. The team is top notch and we should be a force.

Saturday night I went to a party at Mama's house, dressed at outer space.

Also, Jesse sent me season four of The Wire, (the best show ever made) so I am watching that compulsively. I wasn't sure I would even like this season with Stringer dead and Avon gone, but I never should have doubted David Simon. As long as Omar is in, I'm in.

Also in the mail bag was a postcard from Mara (hi Mara!) from Spokane an a save-the-date for Jen and Chip's wedding where I'll be a bride's maid.

I'm 5 weeks from regionals in Adelaide with Team Box and 6 weeks from going to Italy.

eeeee!