Boxing day.
Christmas Day.
Christmas Eve.
Last day of work until jan 3rd!
Sick leave. I'm really tired, and I keep feeling sort of guilty about the amount of money I spent yesterda. Most of me is saying, the hell with it, because I may as well spend the money. I'll still probably manage to put my usual $500 in the savings account. The part of me that knows I only meant to spend $50 max is crining because my rough mental calculations say I spent at least $120, maybe more. My star wars shirt is in the wash so I had no shirt to lounge about in, till I thought I could pull on my new TMBG one. I wish I'd been ablt to get a blue one, this is realy quite a horrid colour. It's also very very long.
I felt fine when I woke up today, and thought I'd be able to go to work, but I may as well take the day off. Hey, I get paid sick leave, so may as well use it. Now I'm glad I didn't try to go because I'm tired. I have to go to the work christmas party tomorrow so hopefully it doesn't go too late or i'll fall asleep. I don't know what it is that I have to bring to the party either. I'll have to buy something on Sat. afternoon at coles, though i don't know if that'll look cheap, like. it likely will but what can i do? nothing. i'm leaving in about a month anyway, so who cares. i'm so tire i can't even be bothered stretching my finger to hit the shift key for capitals, so i should shut the computer down i guess.
I called in sick today, so I could get to TMBG early. Erica had the day off, so we decided we'd hit Stones Corner for the last time before we leave. I wore my brown flared jeans, my sailor moon shirt and obviously my red boots. We got the train to Buranda, walked down to Logan Rd. We tried on clothes in heaps of shops. I got a $20 paisley dress from Table Eight. We got Jordan's $22 christmas present from a pawnbroker: "Star Wars Racer" for N64. I remembered later that he'd played it and didn't like it, but I didn't tell Erica cause it was too late anyway. He'll probably like it anyway. I got a $10 blue plaid skirt from Rockmans, because according to Erica it was a geek skirt, I guess I could imagine Lisa Simpson wearing it so she's probably right. I also got a $16 big leather bag from Endo's, which holds a lot of stuff. I also got a copy of "Soldier of the Emipre" from the stones corner QBD.
So then we headed back to the train station. We went to central, and went out through the concourse, because our tickets said Buranda and we couldn't go through the top. This was around 3:30-ish I think we got to central. We went down towards the bank, but I got distracted. I wanted to buy a new sailor moon shirt cause mine's all faded. I tried some on and decided the one I liked so I went down the bank and withdrew $70 so I oculd go back and buy it. But on the way back we saw a lifeline shop down that little arcade on Adelaide Street. They had a brilliant selection of books, so I got a Nick Hornby omnibus for $9.50 and the Screwtape Letters for $5. Then I decided not to go back and get the shirt cause I'd spent too much already. Then we wandered over to the Elizabeth arcade and looked round the expensive little shops there. I got a $5 rainbow headband from a store called Tomato. Then we went to archives, looked around for a while but didn't buy anything.
I had picked up a 'zine at Jitterbug, so we sat down and opened it up to kill some time, cause the tickets said 8:30 start and it was only about 5:00. And the first thing we see is an ad saying it's 7-11. So we went to sizzler's for dinner, which was $15. I was annoyed because all their pasta sauces had meat in, and I'd wanted pasta. We tried to eat really slowly, and we left at about 6:10. We almost got the same train that we had the night before, the 6:23, but I realised I'd better go to the bank again because if they had shirts and so forth there, I'd need at least $50 on me incase they didn't have eftpos. So I withdrew another $20, bringing my balance down to about $380. I spent way too much money. We got the 6:27 to the valley.
We walked around for a while first, because there was a crowd of yobbos out front of the arena and we didn't want to wait there. We went up to the top of the block and sat on a bench there, at about 6:50. A guy with a Luke Skywalker haircut in a TMBG shirt kept walking around, so we weren't the only ones there early. The doors did open at around 7:10, but we weren't sure if they were open because we couldn't properly see. We went in at around 7:30, and sat down on the bench. They took our water bottles away from us which irritated me, esp. because they chrged $4 for a new one. I went and looked at the shirts, and tried on a large, but got a medium. It cost $35. They had the mousepads there with the skull, but $20 was too much for one. My shirt's maroon and it has "2001 - They Might Be Giants - Live on Stage on Tour" on the front and on the back... the dial-a-song number and "Brooklyn's Ambassadors of love", I know, but I'm wearing the shirt right now (Fri morn) so I can't remember what the back says.
I put the shirt on because it wouldn't fit in my bag, which was heavy and full of my stuff as well as Erica's. Then we went and sat down against teh barrier. The opening band, Lazaro's dog, were pretty awful. Actually, I accidently typed 'bad' rather than 'band' just now, and it's more appropriate. It actually was kind of funny, because the guy singing - a real pillock - made a comment about how the front row was going to start a riot, cause we were all just sitting still. They finished at about 8:30. We all stood up as soon as they'd finished, because the place was starting to fill up a bit. I put my bag on my feet and they went numb. They went numb because I was standing still for a bloody hour waiting for TMBG. It was a long delay. Most people seemed to be thinking it was because the ticket actually said a second opening band, who weren't there. But the 'zine only mentioned one, so who knows. The muzak was annoying.
We watched the guys set up. One got the setlists out and taped them to the floor, and I saw that "Angel" was on it before he put a towel over it. I was standing right in front of Linnell's keyboard. The drums were centre back, and there were a few mic's on the stage, and I counted five guitars. When the guy put the setlists down, that was when it really hit me. I was finally seeing these guys that I've been listening to for - three, maybe four years? The way it does, you know.
So, finally, at around 9:30, they turned the bloody muzak off and... TMBG came on stage! The two Johns and the three Dans. It's strange, because I've seen filmclips and stuff of the giants, but they look... real... in real life. Sounds daft, yes, but that's just it. Linnell looked kind of smaller but happier than I'd thuogh he did, and Flansburgh was skinnier.
Notes in general: The accordion was pretty, all marbly red. I was, at one point when Linnell was playing it, reminded of that Jane Goldman book where she raves about his forearms. Frankly they were a little bit freaky, his veins stuck out "like a rock family tree", "if you know what I mean. And I think you do." (Belle and Sebastian, and Robert Rankin). Flans was wearing black boots, and a long sleeved blue shirt with camel stripes down the sleeves. Linnell was in an orange shirt with green trim round the sleeves and neck, cargo pants I think and black skate shoes. Weinkauf and Miller both were wearing TMBG shirts, which I thought was weird, and Hickey a plain orange shirt I think.
Now, I could see the setlist, since Linnell kicked the towel off it. But I couldn't always tell what the writing said until they'd started the song, because of the angle it was on.I could see a few names now, though: "Angel" and "Shoehorn", but I wasn't staring too hard at the setlist, rather the Johns. About five songs through, I started kicking myself taht I'd not got my paper and pen out to write the songs down, but since I didn't, I have only my memory of the set. The numbered ones are ones I'm pretty sure about the order of, just at the start and end. The numbers with question marks instead of stops are ones I *think* are right, but I'm not certain. Same deal with the **? ones, except I haven't any idea of the actual order of them, I think they went in the sequence though. The ??? are ones I've really no idea about. The *** are ones that certainly followed each other, but not necessarily the other ones around them, if that makes sense. It's a bit of a mess, but:
01. James K. Polk - bit of a surprise to me. that was when it occured to me I hadn't really thuoght about what I wanted them to play. The confetti gun went off during this, which delighted me. And I was trying to stare at Linnell, but it seemed like everytime I looked at him, he looked back at me, so I watched Flans instead.
02. Cyclops Rock - I think before they launched into this, or possibly after, they snuck around the stage. It was without the funny little Cerys Mathews bit, which is a pity because it would have been cool.
03. Bangs - Linnell explained that bangs were a haircut - apparently a Moe haircut, whatever that is.
04. Dead -
05. She's Actual Size - Flans spent this song making a little pilgramage round the stage. He went over the the right hand side of the stage near the speakers, so I couldn't see him then. Linnell, Weinkauf and Miller left the stage. Flans went over and did a drum thing with Hickey: "If you want to hear ... press or say 4." and so on, and Dan would play. He got up to about fifteen I think. Then he came down to the front of the stage and got down on one knee to sing the "she's got all the money..." bit. I don't think that the others came back out on to the stage until the end of the song.
06? Spin the Dial - This may possibly have been 7th, and Ana 6th. Flans explained the concept, twisted the dial, and got the news. I couldn't really understand it, it sounded almost as though it was in a foreign language though I could be wrong. Flans looked at it, turned to the audience and said "This is dedicated to all the people who think this part of the show is fake." Then they got a pop dance sort of song, played along for a minute or so, then stopped to let Flans adjust the dial again. He hit something that sounded like JJJ, certainly it was rock music anyway, but went back to the classical station. He kept twiddling the knob between the two, settled on the classical, and looked at Linnell. He grinned, shook his head and said "No." So then they stopped Spin the Dial.
07? Ana Ng - I'm pretty sure this was seventh. One of my favourite TMBG songs, actually the only one I'd hoped they'd play. I didn't mind what else they played, I just wanted to hear Ana.
08? Lie Still, Little Bottle - requires audience participation - we had to click for the first half and clap for the second. My hand cramped up with the clicking, but I could manage the clapping. Linnell had the saxophone for this one, he looked so funny playing it.
??? The Guitar - long jamming bit in the middle.
??? Particle Man - the lights went triangle shapped when Linnell sang "triangle man".
*** Drink - strted off with Flans introducing it as "a song for all the alcoholics out there". This got a huge cheer from the crowd - "I think we're playing the ratio".
*** the Famous Polka - with "Hey!"'s but not the verse.
??? Fingertips - a real surprise! This was great fun. All of them were done by the John's, except the actual ones that say "fingertips", which were Miller. Got a huge cheer when Flans introduced it.
??? Yeah Yeah - Flans jumped about a bit here, I think.
*** Robot Parade - This was cool, cause I hadn't heard it before. Flans strted singing halfway through "John, I think we're losing the audience... they need something more familiar... something like a glockenspiel... everyone visualise the glockenspiel... visualise the glockenspiel. G-l-o... ckenspiel! G-l-o... ckenspiel! G-l-o... ckenspiel!" and the roadie guy (John Carter, I think Flans introduced him as) carried out the glockenspiel.
*** Shoehorn with Teeth - Dan Hickey came out to play the glockenspiel. I vaguely remember Linnell standing behind the keyboard in this one, though he could have been holding the accordion at the same time. Dan hit the glockenspiel precisely three times throughout the song, and everyone laughed each time. That was great. They carried off the glockenspiel when the song was done, and Hickey left the stage.
**? Older - This was brilliant. Linnell was behind the keyboard, and Flans and the two Dans with their guitars, Hickey on drums. The three guitarists did this bit where they all faced the back, and when they played, they faced the front and swung their guitars in the air. Then Flans faced the back and the two Dans faced the front - one left side, one right - and did a sort of Brady Bunch swapping positions.
**? Man It's So Loud In Here - I think this came after Shoehorn, because I think as they carried off the glockenspiel, Flans went over and turned on the drum machine. Which makes sense cause Hickey I don't think was at his drums again yet. The lights went dark, and the bright white lights came on. Linnell was keyboarding.
**? She's An Angel - this was 6th last, as I remember it written on the set list, though I may be remembering it wrong. This was accordioned by Linnell.
**? Dr. Worm - Linnell- "this is a song about a worm". He had the accordion and one of the Dan's (Miller I think though I didnt really look) took the keyboard. Got an enormous cheer, both at the start and at the end.
**? Boss Of Me - got a big cheer, with lots of singers along to the chorus. I'm pretty sure that this was third last.
**? Why Does the Sun Shine? - everything on the sun is gas, including... all sorts of junk. Linnell - "Including that boomerang we got at the airport John?" "Yes. That would be a gas. Also the didgeridoo. That is a gas." And the sun was "a huge atom smashing machine. This news just in... the sun is a huge atom smashing machine. The heat and light of the sun are caused by reactions between estrogen, estrogen, estrogen, and more estrogen!"
23. Birdhouse In Your Soul - we got the standard "we can play this with our heads chopped off because we know it soo well, the knowledge is stored in our brain stem". It was funny anyway, because i'd read it before, but never heard it. And I do love Birdhouse. It got a huge cheer when he started.
24. New York City - Flans gave the 'this is a song about where we're from, originally recorded by cub' spiel and they played, then left the stage.
Encores: there were two. Encore 1:
Mink Car -
Twisting - couldn't understand what he said her record was in the first verse, but the 2nd one was just Young Fresh Fellows.
Encore two:
Istanbul - Miller on guitar and Linnell on sax for a while, then the others came back out and they played it with Linnell on keyboard. Cool.
It was around 11:30 when they left the stage the last time. I stood around a bit, hoping for a setlist, but the security guy had lots of people asking him and he shook his head at them, so I gave up. It just occured to me now, I should've gotten out my pen and written down the setlist while I oculd still see it then. Live and learn, I suppose. I picked up a handful of confetti and threw it in my bag, then we left. There were heaps of people going to the train station, and since we'd missed the 11:20 we had to wait till 11:57. We got that train, and called mum when we went through woodridge station. It was probably about ten to one when we got home. I dumped that bloody great heavy bag on the floor, brushed my teeth and fell asleep. It's now 11:17 am on the friday (I called in sick) and I'm feeling very heavy-eyelidded.
9:45 - 5:08. I didn't have to do my appraisal after all. It's on next Tuesday instead, and I'll have to tell Chris I'm leaving. I walked out the door at 7 past 5 so I could get the number 3 bus into the city. It luckily came on time, so I made it into the city around 5:50, ten minutes earlier than the timetable actually says. Go figure. Anyway, I walked over to Erica's QBD shop and got stared at by the other workers, because we're twins. And I waited on the steps across from there, then we went down to Central and got a 6:23 train to the Valley. Walked out to the Village Twin, got there at about ten to seven.
A Hard Day's Night started late, because the lines were out the door. Instead of the usual muzak, this swing sort of stuff, they were playing the Beatles. I thought that showed thought and foresight. I got a list of posters for sale from the girl at the candy bar, and High Fidelity was on it. So I asked for one and she said she'd go and fetch it during the break. Anyway, it finally starts. The bit where that woman falls down the hole - one of the funniest moments ever on film - everyone knew it was coming and were laughing in advance. I'm glad I got a chance to see it on the big screen anyway. During the break, I went down to pick up the poster, but she'd forgotten so I had to wait while she went to get it, it was $6 and it's cool. High Fidelity was actually funnier than I'd remembered. Though I didn't find it as funny as the people in front of me, who laughed every time that Barry was on the screen whether he was doing anything funny or not. That annoyed me. Anyway, it finished at about 10:40 - annoying.
We'd asked Mum to come and pick us up, cause we were told it'd let out at 11:10, which meant we'd miss the 11:20 express and have to wait till the last train at 11:57. But mum drove up just as we went outside, and a good thing too because it was raining. So we got home around 11:30-ish.
Went to work today 12:45 - 8:08. I have to do my appraisal tomorrow, damn and blast.
Decided it's about time I started keeping this thing up to date again. Haven't bothered since june, i don't think. Anyway, I've been spending the past few weeks packing and cleaning up junk, I've got it down now to just a few boxes. What's left is just stuff I haven't gotten around to sorting out. I've done a good job on the computer too, got my stuff down from about 90mb to around 6mb left to sort through. The infernal machine is playing up drastically, making a strange noise and being unable to write data to c:\, so a new one's in order when we reach melb. one good enough to play rogue squardon on, hopefully.
Recent news, of sorts: Have discovered some brilliant new authors: Robert Rankin and Philip Pullman. Rankin writes more like Douglas Adams than anyone else, and Pullman, he's just brilliant. I cried at the end of "the amber spyglass", and I can't think of the last time I cried at all, let alone at a book.
I have to go watch Malcolm in the middle now, shall do this later. Which reminds me, Francis is going to be Legolas in LotR. That just gives me the giggles.
There's only two weeks until I start holidays! Wed is the showing of "A Hard Day's Night" and "High Fidelity", and Thurs I'm going to see They Might Be Giants. Sunday we're going to dreamworld. the week after that, I'm going to get the train from work down the coast, to see the goldings. we're going up to woodford on boxing day. So it's a busy time for me. It's all happening! When we get back from woodford, I work for two/three more weeks then we go to melbourne. I'm excited, but still apprehensive, I suppose. I mean, it's a long way away. If anything goes wrong, we'll be hedgehogged, as Pterry would put it. But I can't make myself really think too hard about it, my mind slides onto other things.
We've got acceptance letters from La Trobe Uni, so we're guranteed a place at least, which is a real load off my mind. I'm still worried I'll not get into Uni of Melb, which would be favourite. I think I'd prefer LaTrobe to Monash, though. It's so confusing! And I don't get a chance to actually look around at all until we arrive, which I don't like. Maybe La Trobe's a hole, or maybe the transports unreliable or anything.
I'm joined up with Terra Group for the sequel to Project Boussh, but if it starts during Jan/Feb, I'll probably have to quit, since I'll have no net access, or computer for that matter. That bites. I wanted so badly to be part of it. I'm trying to write a story, but I can't get words on the page the way I can in my head. The sentences go on too long, and I change the plot/characters/locations, and have to fix everything before, and then do it all over again. I should make a defenite story plan and stick to it, which I'll try to do ver the next few weeks. I read some of my school stories recently and they really aren't all bad, I don't think. I'd love to be able to write a book, and I guess there's nothing to be lost in trying. My problem I think is tat I'll inadvertantly plagarise my fav authors. And gods know my typing could use some improvement. It's fast, but not too accurate. There's a hundred mistakes in this, which I guess is to be expected since I'm not trying very hard anyway.