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!

Never Fold

Hussey and Joy with Jess' friend Garreth
Hussey's shot of (L to R) Garrith, Jess, Amanda, Joy and Tegan. Note the background poker game with Andrew, me and Troy
The poker game out of focus. I am almost out of chips. (Andrew, Rueben, Owen, Troy and Me.)

Party! Joy and Hussey got the visa application in and that's as good a reason as any to celebrate. I had a party in my apartment. The Phillips sisters (snail and cat) ran in to the city for the party from Camberwell (~10K). The Barr brothers did give them a ride home. Tegan, (here in front of Uluru) the resident parasitic pathologist PHD/pastry chef made a wonderful chocolate cake with peaches which we devoured. We also watched an AFL game (Essendon Bombers v. Brisbane Lions) as preseason of that is on again now. eeee!

Later we played some poker, where I brought my patented, "never fold" strategy to the game and stayed in longer than you would expect.

Status update: As usual I've been working, cycling, and playing disc. I'm playing league on Sebb Barr's team (X +1) Cheers For, where X= the number from the team name from last week. Team Box has just started mid-week training on Thursdays, in a Melbourne suburb appropriately named Box Hill. I'm staying up late at night to watch episodes of season 4 of The Wire. About a month to Italy.

I seem to have some throat thing going on. I am drinking tea and making soup.

Dinner tonight for Jacko's birthday at Shakahari. Some pub crawls /breweries on the weekend. Team Box training SUnday. Clap Your Hands on Monday at the HiFi.

Mail bag: Thanks to Paige, Marc, Moose and O for my Christmas tree! (You have to love the Australian mail service, mate.) Also to Mom for the Valentine candy and T-shirt. (Special to Lucas: I am promoting the Leopards down here in Melbourne!)

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!

haircut: sub optimal

oh well. i tried.

i got a new hair cut.

i wanted something clean and edgy.

when am i going to learn? i am about as edgy as a beach ball.

see?

my inability to take a photo of my self is previously documented. nonetheless, you get the idea.

i look like dorothy hamill on a bad day. ew.


oh well.

also, i've discovered that once i've blogged about something, i'm pretty much unwilling to recount it. if you want to know how my Christmas was click here, but don't ask me. i won't tell you. leave me and my puffy head alone.