It's been a rather heavy few weeks work wise. The hotel is undergoing a change of branding, which has meant a lot of closed door conversations for the last few months & confidentiality agreements galore. Everything had to be kept quiet to avoid backlash from the group we are leaving & now it's all out in the open, the relief is evident amongst a few of us who were trying to maintain the secret.
The detail of the changeover was in the paper last week & there will be a fair bit of advertising in coming weeks with the rebadging occurring officially at the start of August. I could have broken the news here ages ago & I'm pretty impressed with my own will power to hold back. However, think the motivation to not lose my job over a blog was enough!
Before that date, there is so much work to be done, including signage, publicity & stationery, etc. All the printing has been a massive job. Essentially, everything which has the old branding on it has to go & since every piece of paper which moves through the place has it printed on it, we won't be a favourite of too many tree-huggers when we start throwing it all out!
In other news, rescheduled dates for U2 have come through for Australia & New Zealand. I'll have U2 on the Thursday night & then Pearl Jam a mere five days later on the following Tuesday. For fans of both bands in Hawaii, Pearl Jam will be playing a support slot for U2 in December!!! When was the last time Pearl Jam played support?!? Crazy!
My sister is trying to arrange tickets to Billy Joel in Melbourne, also during November. Tickets in the gold section are $188 each, but the first twenty rows are going for $374.95!! Crazy x 2! Think we'll try for row 21 & save $186.95!
"Has anyone ever done a body count for Jack Bauer?". That was a question which passed through my mind after the last episode & then I googled it. Seems, quite a few people have a rough tally, somewhere around 112 direct kills over five seasons & a virtually countless indirect slaughter total.
At what point does a US Government agent cross the line from patriot to mass murderer??
I can't believe a week has passed by since Something for Kate played live at Jive in the heart of the Kingdom. It was a gig for those who pre-ordered or bought on the day of release, the new album "Desert Lights" , so it was quite an exclusive little affair.
The set went for an hour & included a stack of material old & new, with a couple of acoustic numbers from Paul to end it. The band signed stuff afterward but I didn't think quick enough to grab one of the posters off the wall like a few others did!
I admit to not being blown away with the new album, even after a few listens, but in the flesh is where SFK come into their own. The new stuff is brought to life & I've listened to the album since in a whole new frame of mind & I'm sure quite a few tracks will be huge at future concerts. This is a good thing because I bought my ticket for their next show in September on the day of this gig!
I scored a nice position upstairs for a few happy snaps with my new phone.
Whilst my new Sony Ericsson W810i has a 2meg camera, the shots at night are rather noisy, but for the purposes of all things blog related, it's pretty good.
I snapped a few more times on the way back to my car & out of all the blurry ('cause I was moving) photos, one caught my eye as being half decent.
As far as art goes, I have a soft spot for this little house of bricks in the Uni SA grounds. Of course, it's completely impractical (as is all university student housing) but gets some very cool lighting at night which I'd never noticed before!
After a couple of minutes, the guy cutting my hair asked "what number did you say again?" in reference to the clippers which replaced the scissors & comb in his hands. I replied "I hadn't actually said anything!"
The hairdressers I go to have had quite a number of trainees over the years. Normally, the trainee will start cutting someone's hair but not really do anything major & let one of the others take over & finish the job. It's normally not an issue & I feel quite okay about them using my head to practice.
That's what I thought when I got in the chair & this guy just started cutting away. It was only when he asked the question that I became concerned.
He apologised & then proceeded to tell me he had just had a fight with his brother & wasn't thinking straight! It was at this point I noticed he was quite shakey.
I did my best to talk about other things such as the soccer (since he was Italian) to take his mind off things. The last thing you want on your weekend is an angry guy with a razor in his hand!
Thankfully, I've lived to tell this tale & despite his trauma, he actually did a pretty good job.
Another Shuttle has been launched into the nothingness of space & if anyone remembers, I was completely obsessed with the last time Discovery went up.
It wasn't the risk of another catastrophe which roused my interest, but the fascination of people venturing beyond the confines of air, gravity & all those things which we generally depend upon. These are astronauts venturing into a void which is bigger than imagination can cope with. I have wondered, if you think about it hard enough & actually work out the meaning of life, does your head explode??
I promise to be a bit quieter on the subject this time, unless it gets too exciting for me to hold in!! Yes, it's very lame, but let's move on...
From one rocket to another, North Korea has done its own launching of rockets, but of a nastier type. We still await what action might be taken by other countries & whilst there are the doomsayers who keep talking of impending nuclear war, let's face it, there seems to be a lot of "look at me, I have big weapons, look at me, are you looking at me??... Please look at me!" from North Korea.
For some reason, everyone considers them to be less of a threat than they would really like to be!
Of course, maybe it's just a case of everyone deciding to celebrate the 4th of July & Kim Jong-il was just joining in on the festivities!
Thanks to my last post, traffic around here has been off the scale as everyone looks for the fun & frivolity which is "turkey slapping". For a while there, I was at the top of Google for the search query & I have no idea why!?!
Someone finally got around to slapping Camilla from Big Brother! It wasn't quite what everyone was expecting & as a result, John & Ash have been removed from the house.
Apparently, it's known as turkey slapping. Ash used his appendage to beat Camilla around the head while John held her down. Turkey slapping has happened in the house during previous series but no formal punishment of the housemates occurred on those occasions.
It's time the rules of Big Brother were enforced & the result of their removal is entirely appropriate & should be applauded.
The various critics of Big Brother have instead called for the show's immediate removal from the airwaves & since they achieved in ripping the Adults Only version from the screen, they may yet be successful. Imagine the ratings for the AO show if Gretel was able to present this new incident!
I wonder though, what would have happened if Big Brother had glazed over the matter & not removed the housemates. I suspect we would have all been none the wiser & only a few of the internet viewers who were watching the live feeds at 4:30am on Saturday morning would have known what went on. Let's face it, those same people are only watching at that time for one thing anyway.... & they got it.
It was the night before when I picked up the folks from the airport that the yellow powder was found on baggage from an international flight. I'm thankful that I didn't have to wait around for six hours getting decontaminated like the poor souls who got caught up in it all. I'm pretty sure my folks wouldn't have been too thrilled about wearing those blue hospitalesque gowns.
I mentioned the airport's travelator earlier which seem a bit pointless. Well here it is. Draw your own conclusions!
I again had trouble getting out of the car park due to the crappy ticket machines. Last time it tried to steal $10 when it got caught in the machine. It also took me every note in my wallet before it accepted the lucky last one. This time, that same machine was out of order & when I walked over to the next one with a hand full of coin (not bothering with the note saga again!) there was a guy feeding coins in, which would constantly fall into the reject tray!! He eventually got his ticket back but was a bit embarrassed by the line up behind him. We all had the same issue with the machine refusing to accept either notes or coin!!
Today, being the first day of the new Financial year, I had to drop into work & fix a few things up before all hell breaks loose next week end. I'm not sure I was thinking too well when I wrote down the date after looking at my watch as 31st June 06. D'oh! Spot the Financial Controller in the house!
Something for Kate's new album "Desert Lights" came out today & while its a fair bit shorter than previous efforts, there is quite a number of songs which will be great for singalongs at their concerts, which is good, because I also picked up a ticket to a show next week. SFK play at Jive which is a great little venue & since tickets only go to those who have pre-ordered the album, everyone who goes along will surely know the songs inside out! I've got ticket number 125, so hopefully it's a small but vocal crowd!
