One of my New Year Resolution’s (not that I normally have any) was to see more live acts. So last night I managed to catch Supergrass perform at the Arena. The support acts included Melbourne-based band Rocket Science and the Sydney-based The City Lights.
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My Bike Turns 2000
Well kind of… Today (or more accurately at about 4:57pm this afternoon) my bike officially reached its first 2000km. Last year for my birthday (sometime in October *grin*), the family got me a Cat Eye cycle computer. Although I had been riding it to work for a couple of weeks before then and many times without the Cat Eye, I now have visual proof of this significant (at least for me) event.
To give you a few ideas of exactly how far this is:
- A little over the distance driving from Brisbane to Sydney and back again. (1964km)
- Approximately the same length as the Great Barrier Reef coral strip
- It’s a little over halfway between Los Angeles and New York City (3933km) – I’m not too strong on US geography so I have no idea where that is
- 40, 000 laps of an Olympic sized pool
A breakfast at point blank
I’d heard a fair amount of good things about the Gun Shop Cafe at West End from a number of people and thanks to Sarah, was finally able to experience all these good things today. Try to get past all the things that might actually detract from your experience such as having to wait for a table (they do not take bookings) and the not-so-attentive wait-staff because the food is definitely worth it. The menu was a simple, printed menu, something that we all joked about (maybe hoping) it being an indicator that they changed regularly.
Riverconcert
Each year Brisbane has a Riverfestival and this year’s marks the third that I have been around to actually witness. Some of the more interesting events that they do for this event include:
- Riverfire: The kickoff event that stars the Riverfestival including lots of fireworks and an F111 fly by, followed by a spectacular dump and burn that pretty much ends the night.
- The Riverfeast: The city council close down both the Queen Victoria Bridge and (I think) the Goodwill Bridge to make space for a number of the best restaurants in Brisbane. Each restaurant probably hosting around 30-40 people each then runs a killer banquet based around a theme for the night. Although this year’s one got rained out, this event is usual pretty well sold out.
- The Great Brisbane Duck Race: Imagine over 10, 000 yellow rubber ducks floating down the Brisbane River, each vying to beat each other to the end of a 200m stretch pretty much sums up this event. This charity event is run for the Surf Lifesaving Foundation where the winning duck (costing a measly sum of $5) has the chance to a win a new car.
- Riverconcert: A free concert sponsored by Telstra featuring four excellent Australian artists.
This year’s concert was hosted by DJ Sharif Galal and featured one of my favourite artists, Endorphin. Last year featured a number of bigger names including Groove Terminator and Paul Mac.
I saw Endorphin at The Zoo two years ago and his gigs are very impressive considering it’s electronica in nature. The visuals that are projected during his set are complemented by the dancers and the costumes that he has on stage for each song. It’s a bit difficult to explain the awesome nature of his act, so I’ll let the pictures do it this time (click on them for bigger versions):
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What more could one ask for?
Although today’s society appears to be driven by a capitalist economy (where short-term gains appear to be outweigh long term objectives), there is something that I find enticing about a company that attempts to balance the conflict between making money and doing good in the world.
Read on only if you actually care about working in a place that you enjoy… Read more “What more could one ask for?”
Happy Birthday Stickfly
Tonight I celebrated the passing of yet another successful year in the life of Ben with of bunch of his mates at the Aspley Lonestar! Overcoming the short notice of the gathering and the ‘how-the-heck-do-I-get-there-with-those-directions’ issue, I still managed to turn up (within a reasonable timeframe) for a great dinner with some great people! Happy birthday Bender!
Brisbane: A Lifestyle Capital of Australia
I spent this Saturday up in Brisbane as I was heading out to one of the best Indian restaurants in Brisbane (Punjabi Palace). The great Brisbane weather meant I could sleep in and yet still go for a ride just before lunch on a perfectly mild winter day. Though I was wishing during my 40km ride for some sort of Camelbak hydration system, the places in which I did stop to drink from my bottle of water gave some great photo moments. Brisbane has a pretty good bike way (despite a number of them simply being ‘quiet’ streets) and combined with the good weather makes it an awesome place to just go for a casual ride.
Perhaps I could have cycled further had I a road bike…
Check out some of the photos I took with my Canon Ixus II (highly recommended):
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Elcaro Catch Up
Tonight Ben, Michelle and Karen came around for dinner since I hadn’t had to chance to catch up with them for ages. Although I ran into Ben and Michelle last week at Jorge farewelling another friend of mine, Katherine, we didn’t really get a chance to chat that much. Catching up with Karen was also long overdue (especially since I was looking forward to seeing her at our last visit to Koh-ya). Though we talked about old times at Elcaro, it was good to hear everything was going well in their current state of events.
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