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Tim Finn, take two
Last month, the Scientist and I attended our second Tim Finn show of the year. We saw him at the end of February at a music club about an hour away. That was a nice show and the support act, Meg Washington, was very good. We came away quite pleased at the time although it wouldn’t rank as a particularly magical one. Fast forward to November 21st and we had tickets to see again him at the Quarry Amphitheatre, a small and intimate outdoor theater near the coast.
We’d never been to this venue but the rave reviews all are well-warranted. We arrived well before the gates opened and stood in line for what seemed like ages. When we finally got in, it was no problem getting right up to the front of the venue for prime viewing. Despite both of us being well into our forties, we were some of the youngest attendees there. I guess the older folks prefer to have more comfortable seating rather than sit on the ground at the front. We managed reasonably well although the Scientist did describe a certain amount of discomfort after the first hour or so. We packed a small picnic dinner to avoid the exorbitant prices of the cafe only to find they had panini at a very reasonable price. Later on we ended up buying gelato ice cream and that was rather dear…but very tasty.
Anyway, the show opened with Andy Bull, a singer/songwriter whose voice still hasn’t completely broken well into his twenties. He addressed this trait early on with great humor and presented a very entertaining set filled with songs and the stories behind them. We like him enough to buy his cd during the intermission.
Tim Finn appeared on stage not long after 8pm and the night became truly magical. I think his performance really benefitted from having a full band this time around as opposed to being an almost solo performance in the February show (with only a guitarist for accompaniment). The songs seemed to really come alive this time. This tour was supporting an anthology album andthe show provided a good mix of all the stages of his career from his Split Enz years to his most recent solo album. Both the Scientist and I were treated to our favorite Tim Finn songs, I See Red and Dirty Creature, respectively. On the three previous shows where we’ve seen him, we’ve had to settle for one or the other. Dirty Creature has always sounded great but this had to be my favorite version yet. It was an outstanding performance.
At the end of the night, we both were quite satisfied and left with a souvenir tea towel, which seems to be in “thing” to take away from just about any Finn related show. It now hangs nicely from the bookcase next to my desk. On the way home, we stopped at the beach for a little while before coming home, which topped off such a wonderful evening.
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Not Too Bored of Board Games
It’s been a couple years since Game Fanatic started playing Dungeons and Dragons and it’s pretty amazing he is still playing. He tends to get bored of just about everything after some time. It’s not so much that he’s still enjoying it but it is his one social outlet during the week. He has lost interest in the game and started looking for some alternatives. Through his favorite website, he found recommendations for a couple games and was very keen to get at least one or the other. The game he really wanted is called Small World and is apparently sort of like Risk, but different. Game Fanatic checked the website of the best games shop in the area and discovered it cost $100. On the same website was advertised Arkham Horror, a game based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthullu Mythos, which also interested him. That was listed for half the price so he was leaning towards that one due to lower cost.
We went into Perth to the shop, discovered Small World had sold out, then looked at Arkham Horror, which showed a price of $110, considerably higher than what he’d seen online. I hadn’t seen the website so decided not to pursue it at that point in case Game Fanatic had misunderstood what was listed online. After browsing the hundreds of board games, we left it for that day. When we returned home I confirmed that Game Fanatic had been correct about the price discrepancy. The following week we happened to be near Perth again, so we stopped at the shop again. We’d been told Small World would be in that week (on the previous visit) but apparently it had sold out quite quickly again. I queried someone in charge about the price discrepancy on Arkham Horror. The guy checked the website and said that the picture and price were correct but it supposed to be for an expansion pack rather than the original and the wrong text had been listed. I suggested they might want to fix that error and left it at that.
Game Fanatic had done research on more games during the week so we browsed several other games of interest. But I felt he really would only have been satisfied with the Arkham Horror so we got that despite the much higher price. When I went up to pay, the shop person gave us a generous discount of $30, which was much appreciated. So it worked out quite nicely for us on that one.
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Bits and pieces
Just some bits and pieces :
- New Year’s Eve was relatively quiet at our house. We were invited to a party this year but didnt go. The boys wouldn’t have coped, which would have made it rather difficult for the Scientist or I to enjoy ourselves. Earlier in the evening we took the telescope out and looked at the moon and Venus. It made for some interesting viewing and Lego Lover had a ball with it. Later we spent a lot of time playing video games. Just before midnight we switched to the television to see the fireworks in Sydney and we drank sparkling grape juice at midnight.
- Last Tuesday we were startled in the middle of the day by a loud noise that sounded to me a bit like the car hitting the fence across the street a few years ago. About thirty seconds later we heard a car screeching away. I had a quick look out our side door and noted nothing out of the ordinary but later on I discovered what had happened. We have a roundabout (traffic circle)Â near us and a car must have been going around it too quickly. Presumably the driver lost control and went right through the fence of our back neighbours and hit their clothes hoist, which went through the back fence through to our yard. It’s a small hole, in one of the panels that was replaced after a storm damage last year. We don’t know whether it can be repaired or will have to be replaced as yet. This damage is quite unlucky for our neighbours who now have a rather huge area of fence that is broken. But they were lucky that the vehicle hit the fence where it did because the fence runs just along the side of the house and it easily could have been the building that was hit.
- The Scientist and I are again thinking about taking a cruise, either at the end of this year or early next year. There’s one on offer right now for a reasonable price that goes from either Fremantle to Adelaide or vice versa. The only hitch is we’d have to fly one way and Lego Lover is terrified of that possibility. We do have the alternative of taking the Indian Pacific one way but I’m not sure if it will be as cost-effective as flying.
- Lego Lover got a new mattress at the beginning of the month. He’s been using the same one for many years now and it’s not terribly supportive for a bigger kids so we got a new one that hopefully will last well into his teen years.
- We have several upcoming appointments in the near future with two this week, one for each of the boys. Otherwise our schedule is pretty empty. I’m hoping to get together with my friend K and her kids some time soon but these days we find it harder to coordinate our schedules than we did when the kids were younger.
- I’ve seen some really interesting programs on television lately, mostly screening on ABC1 or ABC2, as I recall. It’s nice to have such wonderful programming in the midst of our generally listless summer programming on the commercial channels. New Year’s night was especially memorable with:Â The Story of 1, presented by Terry Jones and tracing the history of numbers; Destiny in Alice, about the large lesbian community in Alice Springs and presented by mock anthropologist, “Destiny Attenborough”; and Happy News Year which presented a less conventional look at news events of 2008, presented by The Chasers’ Chris Taylor. All were entertaining, yet informative programs.
- Our washing machine requires a repair. We have an LG front loader and it started making thunderous noise while spinning the other day along with shreds of rubber showing up in the finished laundry. Repairers won’t be here until the 20th. We used my MIL’s machine on Saturday while there for a family lunch but she lives too far to make it time, cost or fuel efficient to use that machine. I suppose a laundromat visit will feature into this week along with some handwashing.
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Meh!
I’ve been wanting to post but then I haven’t been able to be bothered. I seem to be endlessly having too many thoughts and not enough focus lately. It’s a feast or famine when it comes to writing here. Was going to try to do a whole month of writing every day but that’s obviously not going to happen. :)
We are having flashbacks to winter with wet and windy days lately. I think we’re getting a break and it’s going to warm up over the weekend. I was sitting on the sofa in a short sleeve t-shirt while playing a game on the Wii and I was literally shivering. I’ve taken to wearing slippers and and my warm robe again. It kind of reminds me of when Game Fanatic was a few weeks old and his crying seemed to go on and on no matter what we did. Came to find that he was cold. Usually November is pretty warm but there are some days that are chilly, of course. Felt so stupid at the time for not realising he was cold but probably shouldn’t have since I was so new to taking care of babies and all.
The homeschool moderator is coming out in two weeks and I still don’t know what I will show her. Nothing ever seems to go to plan, even the more viable ideas. I will come up with something and it will just have to do. Will have to go out and buy the workbooks for Lego Lover for next year. Won’t buy too much because we didn’t end up using very many of them this year. As he gets older, I am sure we will move away from the book work completely.
The Scientist and I went to see Augie March on Monday night. I enjoyed it very much but I found the crowd way too silent. It was so quiet you could hear the rain on the roof of the theater in-between songs. The crowd became a bit more livelier around the time of the encore but it was still pretty quiet. Musically I thought it was great aside from one song that really sounded too much like the recording. While I really enjoyed myself, I must admit it wasn’t that awe and wonder I’ve felt at other shows. It’s been suggested it was the Monday night show problem. Just not a good day for concerts in Perth. As it was we were feeling rushed to leave by the end to pick up the boys from my friend’s house.
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The trouble with some Facebook applications…
What has been one of my favorite applications on Facebook has had a major overhaul. It’s almost a completely different game now. I don’t know what to make of all the changes just yet. So far, I’m finding it almost impossible to play and I’m not even being affected by some of the glitches being reported by many others. It certainly doesn’t feel like it will be as much fun now. I’m going to wait for the major fallout from all the changes to try to make up my mind.
I do have big concerns about one issue though. Before the new version came out, my only friends that showed up on the application were those that had installed it as far as I know. Now, all my friends seem to be listed and I clicked on some cards for the application listed under a few of the friends to see what was up with it. I didn’t actually do anything with anything but now those people are listed as particular friends for this application. I’m hoping this is a glitch and will be cleared up because to use this application requires going through sets of cards for all the “friends” on the app and I would hate to be involving non-users in the application unknowingly.
While I’ve not run across the same situation on other Facebook applications, there are others that have similar issues where I’ve discovered I’m “playing” with friends who aren’t actually using the applications. This is even worse than the expectation of so many applications that you will invite all your friends to join in so that you can progress further in the game.
As much as I have been enjoying Facebook for nearly a year, this particular aspect is one of the unappealing ones.
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Finished, but not completed
Two year ago, we bought the Wii console when it came out as a family gift for Christmas. We bought the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess with it and started playing on Christmas Day. Yesterday we finally finished the game after clocking at least fifty hours of game play. Obviously we took rather long breaks from the game, which necessitated backtracking several times to figure out where we were. It was a fun game for all of us and even Lego Lover joined in some of the time. Game Fanatic eventually took over almost all of the controls, just because he’s much better at them than we are. The rest of us just helped out solving puzzles and watching the game play. While the game is technically finished, there were several quests that we didn’t complete. Game Fanatic saved a copy of our game before the final battle so that we could go back and try to finish everything. So it may be a while until it’s completed.
Meanwhile, we have moved backwards in time to the previous incarnation of Zelda this evening. Surprisingly, Lego Lover decided to take over controls for a while and did quite well. It’s interesting to see how his skills on the games are evening out with his brother’s, and sometimes surpassing him.
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Augie March
We are off to see Augie March play as headliners for a concert next month. Last year we saw them open for Crowded House and while we loved the set, we were left wanting far more. We’re hoping the next show will go further to satisfy our listening pleasure.
Meanwhile, I’ve heard rumors that Crowded House may be playing some shows before a festival in December. I don’t know if Perth will be included but I am sincerly hoping…I should have more information before long.
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On to the film
I finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird recently and wanted to see the film again so I could compare. By chance, one of the cable movie channels was showing it tonight so I had to watch. I would prefer to see the dvd because the version show on tv wasn’t a widescreen version and I’d really like to see that. I still loved the movie but I couldn’t help noting the bits of the book that had been left out and the adaptation of the story that was done. It still works, but having the book freshly in my mind made the omissions and changes obvious right now. I had a variety of distractions during much of the first half of the film but it had my full attention for the rest of it. I definitely would like to have a copy of both the book and the film.
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Quiet day
Today was rather quiet compared to yesterday. The storms have moved out and we cleaned up some of the mess from the broken fence. We also cleared out some mess from what originally was the no-dig garden (that never got going). The Scientist cleared out a bunch of rubbish in the area so it looks less ugly than it did. Without the cloud and rain, it’s now been quite chilly and will drop to nearly freezing tonight. Brrrr..
Earlier in the afternoon, we went to a music shop to take a look at guitars. Game Fanatic has wanted to try playing for a while. He really wants to learn to play bass but decided he would learn the acoustic guitar first. With the help of the Scientist’s younger brother who met us at the shop, we found one that was suitable with a reasonable price so we decided to go ahead and get it. The salesman tried to give us the floor model because they were out of new ones but we declined and had him order another one in.
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Wet days
Today was yet another very wet day in our neck of the woods. It started in the latter part of the morning and rained steadily all afternoon. The weekly newspaper deliveries have been delayed until tomorrow in homes of a break. I believe we will have an early and rough allergy season ahead of us in the spring.
I went on a search to find a dvd of To Kill a Mockingbird but have had little success. It seems it will be necessary to purchase this one online. I will note that I found a two-disc set that seemed like a brilliant deal until I realised the dvd was in 4:3 rather than widescreen. The slightly older release has fewer features but I can live without them if it means I get the widescreen version instead.
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