Jason Oakley : The life of an Aussie geek!

 I saw Ladytron live at The Tivoli with Mil, Jason and Josh.  We had a fantastic time. The support bands weren’t all that brilliant but it was well worth it to see them live.  I’d seen a song on channel 10′s Video Hits show or something and when my parents were visiting I saw a clip playing in-store in Myer.

Last weekend Chris, Jo and Caitie came to visit. They arrived Friday night after I picked up Sienna from Bec’s and we ordered some pizza. Sienna ate a ton of it. She really loves pizza. hehe.  The next day we went to the Amberley Air Show. We got stuck in traffic for about an hour so gave up and came home, got our swimmers on and went to the local pool. It was a very hot day and we all had a fantastic time.  Today is raining, so not really a good day for that.

They headed off Saturday afternoon as they had other plans.

Last Thursday night I went with Mil, Jason and Josh to see Covenant play live at the Step Inn.  I’d never been to that venue. Although the stage was tiny, it was still a great show.  The night started out with Tycho Brahe — a Brisbane band. Mil & Jason are good friends with all the band members so they got me on the door and I got in free. Sweet!  Unfortunately, Qantas had broken Tycho’s electronic gear and after 3 false starts they had to give up.  I’ve seen them in concert a few times, but it’d still have been nice to see them again.  

After that, Destroid played. We’d never seen him before, but it sounded okay I guess. Nothing interesting to me, however.  

Following him were a German band I’d never heard of called "Diary of Dreams". None of us expected much from them, but I think we were all pretty much blown away by the music. I know I was! And the others had favourable remarks about the band. Wow!  I just had to buy a CD there and then!  I picked up their Dream Collector cd and also Covenant’s live tour DVD "In Transit".

Covenant were the last to go on stage and didn’t the crowd go WILD!!!  They played 20Hz and Greater than the Sun near the start and ended the night with the wonderful Dead Stars.  I really enjoyed the show.  They seemed to be winding down when Mil left so I made my purchases and then they had another song so I stayed to watch that. It was about 1am by this time so I headed out the door only to see a guy I’ve worked with walking back in the door. We were both surprised and Matt said "I wish I had known you were here and we could have talked!". Unfortunately it was so late (early?) so we had a quick chat and I headed off.  I was breathalysed by the police on the way home, but fortunately had only been drinking two Victoria Bitters and two Hahn’s Light beers.

Friday night I picked up Sienna from Bec’s and brought her home.  We had dinner and watched an episode of Dr Who then she had to go to bed. The school teacher had given the kids a bear called Felix to take home when they were picked to be "Star of the Day". They had to write a little story of the adventures Felix went on with the kids and put in some photos.  

We got up in time to take Sienna to swimming lessons at 8am.  We opened the car door and inside was a black and white cat!  Sienna said "That’s FAIL!".. well the cat’s nickname is "VAL" but she calls him Fail.  Since we didn’t have time to take him home or put him in the house he came for a trip to the swimming pool.  Sienna had fun swimming while Felix and I just watched her.  After swimming we came home and I put Val in the house and gave him some tinned tuna I had in the cupboard.  We left him at home while we went out to the Coffee Club for breakfast.  Felix had a nice adventure out there too..

We came back home and watched "Invader Zim" until it was time to take Sienna, Felix and Fail home again.

I dropped the trio off and filled my car with petrol then headed to visit a friend north of Brisbane.  Intertek programs an emulator for the VZ-200 and VZ-300 computers called "VZ’Em".  We had planned to try porting it to the Mac OS now I have installed the Kalyway 10.5.2 Mac OSX on my PC, but instead we got pizza and beer and watched his new 50" plasma TV hehe.  We watched Space Cowboys and Alien vs Predator.  It was a pretty good night and I left around 11pm.

This morning I got an email reply from some people on Freecycle to my query about two bowling balls they were giving away.  They live in Ipswich and said I could have one of the balls as the other was promised to another person.  I drove out there and knocked several times. No answer. I walked around the back and they were working in the garden.  They let me pick a ball so I chose the 10lb gold one for Sienna.  I knew she would be thrilled as she absolutely LOVES ten pin bowling.  Every time we drive past a bowling centre she asks me if we can go in and bowl.   Well, we got to talking while I was getting the ball and she said the other person who wanted the other ball sounded rather rude and only emailed to her "I WANT THEM!!!".  I mentioned the 10lb would be perfect for Sienna, but I use about a 14lb ball.  She said "Well, you could always take the other one as well!". She thought it better to give them to me and tell the other lady they had already been taken.  It pays to be nice to people hehe.  So now I am the owner of two new bowling balls.  I will wait until next weekend to tell Sienna and I can take her out for a couple of games.  She will be so excited!  I am, as well, since I love bowling too and even to buy these second hand they would be expensive.