Early Xmas Acknowledgement

Last night when I was working back late, my iPod played Last Christmas by Wham! on shuffle. My personal rule is that I don't need to acknowledge Xmas until I hear this track by chance. I think this is the earliest ever!! It is not even December yet!

Not that the lack of December has stopped anyone else from bringing Xmas madness to our eyes and ears all month. The Xmas tree in the centre of Ballarat has been up since around Melbourne Cup Day, and I definitely heard hideous carols over the speakers at the supermarket a couple of weeks ago.

However, getting a little closer this week, which may be more acceptable, when I drove home late, late on Sunday night, the lights on the trees and the reindeer and their sleigh had been switched on down Sturt Street, which also included red and green faces on the Town Hall clock.

I had to be careful staking out for these pictures, because these decorations, and also the tree near the Bridge Mall have been recent targets for people setting them on fire, and acts of vandalism such as bauble stealing.

I read news that it's snowing in London, so that's cute!

Brisvegas: Ashes

I picked Melissa up on Friday night from work, and we drove out to the airport for our flight to Brisvegas for the weekend. Following regular, alarmist weather warnings coming over the radio all afternoon, we found that the airport was in a bit of chaos as a result of the thunderstorms - which resulted in a 2 hour delay for us, easily wasted in the Qantas Club.

With all flights seeming to land at the same time just before midnight local time into Brisbane airport, a mammoth line for a taxi greeted us, before we could make our way to check in, and crash for the night.

The next morning, however, we were up early and down to the river to catch the City Cat, to get to the 'Gabba for the day. Too easy. Finding a pub with a BBQ set up for punters on the way to the cricket, we grabbed the perfect breakfast for the day ahead. We met Belinda at the gate, and then found our seats in the front row ready for the days play.

Sitting and soaking in the sun, and the Aussie batting display, Melissa and I popped across the road for cheeky full strength beers at lunch, at the Aussie Nash, with a bunch of the Barmy Army. We were also treated to a cracking partnership by Hussey and Haddin for the day.

Starting to hear of a rumour that there was a Pimm's bar on the other side of the ground, Melissa, Belinda and I went to check it out, to find Clive was spot on. Pimm's, including the added fruit bits and mint leaves, were perfect in the humid Queensland heat.

At the end of play, we went to the Pineapple Hotel for a few drinks, before Melissa and I managed to get back to the river and the City Cat took us back to our hotel. Up again the next morning we did it all again, including the breakfast stop, but for a much less exciting days cricket!

Our weekend of cricket and Summer ended with a few jugs at the German Club, before getting a cab back to the airport for just a 30 minute delay on our flight this time!

Today, being back in the office, the news as it feed through my screen showed that the pattern of good day, rubbish day, good day....continued, with the day, and test, ending with a handshake.

The Train To China

Another massive night, this time after all swearing we would have an early night after the final night in the Ger, put the success of catching our train in jeopardy, but MG somehow got us there in time. Dancing to totally random Mongolian pop and techo music in the bar at the front of our hotel, after being booted out the back door from one of the many Irish bars, we all seemed to get very carried away. Such fun!

A whole lot of napping started out this leg of our train trip from Mongolia to China, before we came to darkness with the timezones and the sheer distance covered. This also meant that the true Gobi Desert passed us by in darkness, which is a shame. The border crossing this time consisted of passport checks, but also a wheel change for the whole train...while we were on it.

Quite a bit of shunting around, and waiting, our carriage was eventually rolled into a shed where we where lifted up, and the wheels below were replaced with a different size, to fit the Chinese rail lines. It was quite bizarre seeing the section of train next to us being raised, or merely being noticeably lower than us when we were raised, with travellers that we had met waving to us from that disconnected part of the train.

A few rounds of vodka shots, our last of the Chinggis batch, saw out Mongolia for us.

Not thinking we were being inconsiderately loud this night, and given the fact that we were being displaced onto a new set of wheels at midnight, and therefore everyone was still up and about for the experience, we were totally bemused by the group of French tourists in our carriage waking at some ungodly hour and singing hymns (or something) at the top of their voices, imitating our group's laughs and voices, before they got off the train a few stops before us. The French are funny buggers, aren't they!

This leg of the trip was actually the least local mingling of the train trip, with large groups around our 2 allocated cabins this time. Nevertheless, we were excited to wake in a new country, ready to explore a new city.

*This post was meant to be published yesterday for NaBloPoMo, but no chance to be anywhere near a computer! NaBloPoMo fail!

Mongolia

After our late, late night out watching the World Cup, we had all thought that the early morning hour long bus ride would be a chance to have a nap. Oh, how wrong we were - one of the bumpiest rides of all time had us leaving Ulaanbataar for the countryside, and our destination for the next couple of nights. Passing several large tourist camps almost an hour in, we were hoping that we were not in one of the over commercial.

Vodka Train proved to us, with our small, tucked away camp with just 6 ger tents, that this tour group really was made for the independent traveler with some travel experience criteria. Over the hill, but out of sight was a bigger camp, in which we could access for meals and somewhere to hang out, but our little camp was pretty genuine in that there was no electricity, no running water, and each had a little potbelly stove in the centre, used to heat the tent at night.

Out here in the Mongolian countryside, there was nothing around but vast mountain ranges, and green lush land. This was quite the experience!


One of the highlights was a visit to one of the nearby nomadic family's ger tent, and having the woman of the house serve us foods she had prepared that day, including yogurt. We got to meet her two children during the visit. We had stopped off to buy gifts when we were still in town, and Harris' water spray, which seemed ridiculous to the rest of us, was such a hit with the young boy. Of course, jumping around and playing games with Harris would also be a delight for any 4 year old! He had meet his match!

The morning of the second day, our group went horse riding, out there on the Mongolian plane. Scary, as I don't remember when I had ridden a horse last, these horses kinda know the drill with taking groups, but would still take off at the slightest encouragement. On the race back to the starting point, when each horse just seems to take off independent of anything the rider may do, Jess took a tumble off, and whilst ok, scored some ripper bruising!

Here at the camp, our group got to hang out with the group going the other way, and here we each tried the famed mare's milk. Like fizzy yogurt...ew. This night proved to be quite a big night inside one of the gers, with beers and vodka shots all round. Such fun.

These couple of days out at the ger camp was one of the most amazing, and real experiences I have ever had.

Escape and a Third of MSW Down

I am just about to hit the road to drive my last 2 essays for the year down to the submission box. These are the final assessments of my 2 subjects from this semester, after completing 2 last semester also, doing my MSW part time. Amazing, considering the pop-in-my-head idea this return to study was!

The tunes that have got me through this past month of essay hell have come from a mixtape I received in the mail, as part of a birthday swap through the group, Love Is A Mix Tape. For this swap, I submitted a picture, and was matched with someone who made the mix accordingly. The reply I received stated that my mixer had based her compliation on the idea of Escape, to be listened while working/studying, with no prompts, which is pretty awesome.

Here is the track list:
1. Breeze - Apollo Sunshine
2. Ernie - Fat Freddy's Drop
3. Island In The Sun - Weezer
4. Perfect Day - Lou Reed
5. Hong Kong - Gorillaz
6. Talihina Sky - Kings of Leon
7. King For A Day - Jamiroquai
8. Reminising - Little River Band
9. Paper Planes - M.I.A.
10. Golden Brown - The Strangers
11. I don't know what this track is! No lyrics, so it's not searchable, but works in with the playlist.
12. Somewhere Over The Rainbow - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

Love it. Some new tracks and artists to me, has worked it's magic.

Cracking Start: Ashes

Waking to the belting rain here in Ballarat, I was home this morning to keep chipping away at my final essay for the year, which just happened to coincide with the start of the Ashes series. Having the coverage on in the background in the lead up to the start of play, they re-played the opening ball 4 years ago to the day, which just built the anticipation even more.

The anthem had me focused completely, and seeing Dougie there in the line-up as 12th man, with his hand and his baggy green on his heart reminded me of the essence of the pride and passion of our team. As they showed the team prepare to run out, it felt more exciting than Xmas!

Sitting in front of the telly for the first ball, the excitement of the beginning of the series we have all been talking about had me glued. Third ball, Hilf had the English captain out for a duck. Cracking start!

Deciding to leave the house, knowing that I would not get any essay writing done, and feeling envious of everyone at the 'Gabba, I ran a personal errand and got to my desk at the office just as Watson got the second wicket of the day. Nice.

After a couple a fast hours in the office, watching the score tick over as I worked, I needed to hit the road for an hour long drive to a country town for a worksite review. Rewarded for my concentration as the rain bucketed down in patches through these forest lined country roads, I heard Siddle get the big wickets of Pietersen and Collingwood in consecutive overs.

Finishing one meeting, then another, and all things going well, I was left in a head manager's office while his staff tried to locate him for my next meeting. I tried at this point to check the score, but alas, my new phone is not very compliant. This manager eventually returned, and I made a comment of being occupied trying to check the cricket score. He turned bright red and confessed that he was actually off in the boardroom, and just watched Siddle get a hat trick! I was delighted and jealous all at once!

Getting back to the car after a pretty good meeting, I heard the immediate aftermath of Siddle's 6th for the day. Wow! The hour drive back had debutant Doughty get his 1st and 2nd test match wickets, wrapping up the innings. 774 then played the replay of the hat trick, wicket by wicket. What a day!

Can't wait to get up there and feel part of it for the weekend.

Top 5: Play Counts This Year

My obsession with play counts continues! Since last year's post, my iTunes play count was refreshed with the transfer to the new laptop, and I think it's interesting that one band still features within my Top 5 bands for the last 12 months, but the rest are all new artists to me during this year. These 5 bands span my 10 most played tracks.

Florence + The Machine takes number 1 spot as most played track, with Howl, but also finds the Drumming Song and Between Two Lungs in the top 10-top 5 artists spread (8 and 9). I know I played this album a lot when I first discovered it, and we played it a lot on the train this year too....but it's dominance in my most played list had made me conscious not to play it as much! Of course, I listen to my iPod on shuffle most of the time, so there's no control there! Love Florence, and I thank Jessie for sending her album over to me as a recommendation from London!

Hush by Angus and Julia Stone is next at 2, being the artist from the previous count, but these tracks from them this year are from the new album. Big Jet Plane (from Down The Way, not Lady Of The Sunshine's version, even though it's on the 'Pod) and the beautiful Santa Monica Dream come in at 4 and 5 respectively.

Have You Fallen Out Of Love? comes climbing into 3rd most played in the last 12 months, and Bats at 7. Love this album by Paul Dempsey.

Another recommendation from Miss Jessie, again sent from London during a USB swap of tracks, is Feist's 1234 at 6. Can't get enough of this one!

Gossip's Your Mangled Heart rounds out the top 10 songs, but top 5 bands - another late discovery for me this year, after the kids were raving about this band last year! The delay a product of not listening to the radio, ha!

This measure of most played appears not to be a very valid measure, however, after checking my profile on last.fm. According to that my top 5 played artists, cumulative, in the last 12 months are: Powderfinger, The Basics, Angus and Julia Stone, The Whitlams, and The Decemberists.