Fatherhood

Alright settle down all of you who read this blog and fit in to the subset of people who constantly badger me and The Wife to have kids, she's not pregnant, not yet anyway. No this is about when we do have kids how i will be ready for the whole gamut of looking after young girls. I assume that with high spa usage i will be unable to have boys.

You see, The Wife, thoughtful and charming lady that she is, has me on a highly tailored and specialized training program for fatherhood. It helps that i am already one of those most irritating of people, a morning person. I also am pretty regimented in the mornings which makes things easier. I have also taken to making up and singing silly songs at the top of my voice to try and raise The Wife from the dead. Doesn't work.

The morning typically goes like this.

Alarm goes off, on a different floor so i make sure i get out of bed. I wander down, squeeze my glass of juice and drink it while i prepare The Wifes breakfast and juice. I take it upstairs to her and at this stage she is training me to deal with a cute 5 year old girl. She mumbles as i shake her and turns away, pulling the covers up over her head and curling into a ball. Ahh, so adorable, I'll give he a little more sleep.

I go off to make my breakfast and first cup of coffee and when i return The Wife has moved onto the thirteen year old training session. Along with bleary eyes and lethargic movements comes the vacant stare and the complaints. "its too early to be up", "it's too cold" and "can you get me a jumper". I pay little attention and read the online papers and the blogs before going and getting the large crowbar and forcing her from the bed.

The final stage is the sixteen year old girl. This is demonstrated by the 45min shower that follows being tossed out of bed. I feed all the animals and iron my shirt before claiming the shower for a quick rinse and I'm off to work. Its quite possible that by the time The Wife leaves for work she has gone back to her true age, but when i leave she is still standing in front of her clothes in a towel, absentmindedly picking at random bits of clothing.

Guess i'll just have to sing louder.

Fit for what

I like being fit. And for the last four years despite a slight resemblence to this fellow


I was quite happy being unfit. I don't really like getting fit. As I wrote a few weeks ago, I had become quite dissatisfied with playing football and sucking, but instead of doing the sensible thing, giving it away and drinking more beer and cooking up a storm, I decided to do something about it.

Something, it turned out, was the gym. Me and gyms have never really seen eye to eye. For one I'm a bit of a music snob and all the bump and grind r'n'b that they play gives me a headache like a speed addict detoxing in a room full of blackboards and chicks with really long nails. Second off I always had the image of instructors being inanely cheerful urging me to "go for it" or "be your best" at every opportunity.

The fact is, I'm a little competitive and I mostly will try and push it a little harder, which in this case means that instead of bitching about the music or the instructor I was more worried about, what's that thing I'm meant to do, oh yeah, breathe.

I'm really enjoying the classes to augment training with the rep touch boys. I've even gone to one or two at 530am. I might even venture onto the floor and do some weights. Maybe not. The one that hurt more than any though was the pilates. Absolutely killed me. Anyone laughing right now can send their comments to this man.


He does it three times a week.

Of course I haven't lost any weight and it's bloody hurting but I'm on the way. Wind back the clock five years, here I come.

Lantanaland from the iPhone

Hottest 100 songs by dead people and Radiohead

I don't know what it is about triple Js hottest 100, I just love it. The debate, the trivia, the memories of share house parties listening to the countdown, it's all good fun. The Twitter during the last twenty songs was particularly a good laugh.

The Hilltop Hoods were my highlight though. Highest ranked Aussie song. Only one of two (?) hip hop songs in the list. A relatively new song amongst all the sudden boom of nostalgia for 90's alternative music.

Back in the day, I ran a small Brisbane live music venue. Rock and pop was king in Brisbane, but through my love of two great hip hop bands, Resin Dogs and Brothers Stoney, I was determined to bring more acts to The Alley to showcase the genre. The night was to be called “Mics Sound Nice" and we kicked off with a cracker, Brothers Stoney and Koolism. Went off. They were followed by The Herd and a couple of the Obese crew, Reason and BiasB. All top shows with a packed room.

One thing I'll say about the hip hop scene, it's dominated by nice guys who are a pleasure to work with. Loved Dan and Hau from Koolism. Bias was like the landed gentry of hip hop. The Herd once backed up for me after a Livid festival. When they walked through the door they looked so worn out I thought they'd be flat out lifting the mike, but they were bouncing off the walls during their set. Len and Lazy from the Brothers and another local, Gav from Miss Brown were always there to help out with advice. In fact one day Len recommended I drop into a national DJ battle to check out the live act that was traveling with them. Pretty good, he reckoned.

The night did not start well. After working during the day I had channel surfed between the rugby, league and AFL only to watch the broncos, wallabys and lions all lose. The lions loss was particularly galling as it was to my second most hated team, Port Adelaide. Not really wanting to go out after that, I managed to drag myself to the Valley to check the guys out. The crowd was pretty thin but they bounced on stage. "our boys thrashed you weak lions tonight, how do you like that Brisbane".

Bastards.

Once they started their set though, all football was forgotten. They had killer beats and a raw bounce to their delivery. Monday morning I rang PJ, their manager and booked a date, any date.

Their show was madness of the best kind. I have no idea how many I packed in but it was too many. The Alley was literally a concrete box so it was oppressively hot. But they absolutely smashed it. There was no security or crowd control but everyone was there to have a good time and listen to some top tunes, nothing else. I doubt there was a better gig at The Alley and we saw a lot of good gigs.

They broke big on the Js after that but still honored a commitment to come back and headline a three day hip hop festival I ran. They all came, The Herd, Reason, Koolism, Bias, funkoars, cause they were all top blokes. That's why I'm so happy that the Hoods got in the top twenty. They are that good and they deserve it.

PS. All through the Lions glory years I never let the Hoods forget that we were winning premierships while they were choking. Of course in the fourth quarter of the Port-Lions final when it was obvious that we couldn't come back I got a phone call from the boys. They rang me from an Adelaide pub. All I got was "ready, one, two, three, FUCK OFF BEESO".

Bastards.

Lantanaland from the iPhone

Infrastructure

A very lazy weekend rolled by in which the definite highlight was "Prognosis Death", Girlclumsys improv comedy gig. Seriously if you live in Brisbane go and check it out, it is side splittingly funny. However I didn't get anywhere near enough done on an extra pen for the ducks and chooks. The medium chooks and the guinea fowl are outgrowing their super secure digs and they are big enough to go into more mature digs and eventually free range.

This is one of the blessings and curses of Lantanaland. When we came here, there was nothing here, just acres of lantana and a small house. Compare that to the other house we looked at while house shopping. It had an established orchard, stable, chook pen, fences and an easily accessible dam. The down side would have been if I hadn't liked the way any of that stuff was set up, it's a bit of a waste to pull it down. Mind you, chicken mesh and star pickets don't come cheap, which is why today I started my bamboo poles in concrete experiment.

The new run also had a recycled screen door and a chook house made from pallets that work was throwing out. It's not just the chicken runs though. Getting a cow will mean repairing and adding to the run down fence I have before stringing the electric lines up. It all costs money but sitting in the spa watching the misty rain roll in over my new pen I realized, it's also a heap of fun.

Thanks to Pol for helping out today, it's so much easier to do stuff if you have someone to hold the star picket straight or hold the door while you drill.

Lantanaland from the iPhone

The Jesus Phone

I'm a bit of a tech geek. Not a full member, I failed the Star Trek written exam and I play and watch far too much sport. But I do have the new iPhone, but unlike probably half the iPhone users out there I am really interested in seeing how far I can push this little device.

I already write all the blogs with the phone. Now the new one has a half decent camera as well. So what, says half the Nokia owners out there. Well, this, for a start.


That was all done from within the phone. It also does basic video and video editing, with direct upload to YouTube, so now I can add video to the blog, like this,


without having to jump back on my MacBook. Pity i forgot to frame the right way, but the buggers were pecking me! I still have to do that from the web, but an app will written soon enough that will add the video before accessing the web. The next app I expect to see now that has let developers have access to the camera is the ability to record voiceovers.

Ok. Now imagine you are a foreign correspondent. In one device, you have a wifi and mobile enabled camera, phone and video that will let you shoot, edit, voiceover, write your article and send off to your site or editor.

In fact I wonder if it will accelerate a trend where the best freelance guys will have their own sites, rather than selling to a paper to get it out on the web. Have a look at a guy like John Gruber, who writes some of the most insightful articles on tech from his site, Daring Fireball. Even Birmo, who gets more traffic to his various journalistic work from his personal site than through the actual media gateways. The thing is, I trust certain writers, journos and podcasters, much more than I trust a brand like the SMH or The Australian. In fact every bad piece written in a paper makes me wish that journos like Kathleen Noonan or Annabel Crabb had their own sites.

The Jesus Phone is not for everybody, but the chances of me carrying round a big digital video camera or SLR all the time while I work and shape lantanaland are pretty bloody slim. And if i was away from the laptop i would have to wait till I got home to edit and upload what I was thinking or seeing. As the guys on one of the podcasts say just about every time they discuss a new camera "the best camera is the one you have with you".

Well the best way for me to write, do photo and video and edit is with me all the time.


Lantanaland from the iPhone

Four meats in one day

Had a cracker of a day. Up early so I could get all my calls done so I could make it to lunch with all the burgers and my mate Ryano.

Started with the buffalo wings, then progressed to the rib platters. It was a tasty meaty lunch, the high point being Girlclumsy reading parts of "swank" magazine in her beautifully modulated newsreader voice. From memory. Wow, The Wah is a lucky man.


After that I picked up a few loaner books (thanks mate!) and did a bit more books before hitting the gym for some boxing to burn off at least the buffalo wings. I then resisted the urge to have some salad for dinner and completed the day with some tasty lamb.

But now I am very tired and can't decide which book to start.


Lantanaland from the iPhone