There was a cat on my roof the other night. First bats, now cats.

What next…

gnats?

rats?

meerkats? wombats?

They got on at Malvern, and stood together on the train. One dressed like an accountant, one dressed like a student, neither saying much, just watching the world go by. Until Richmond, where the student whispered to the accountant about something on his back, and brushed it off. The accountant whispered thanks back, and they swapped notes on which stations they would each get off at, and chatted about their day ahead.

We rolled into Parliament station. I closed my novel and got off the train. Before he got off too, the accountant turned to the student. He gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “See you tonight.” “Yeah.”

Ah, young love.

You can do everything in the Post Office nowadays. I suppose that’s why they’re calling them Post Shops instead. They sell cards, telephones (mobile and fixed line), music CDs (what’s the point of those year CDs, eg 1970 including hits from 1970? I was born in 1970, but why does that mean I would identify with the music from 1970?), footy mascots, office supplies. You can also pay any of a multitude of bills, get photocopying done, etc, etc, etc.

All of which means I have to wait ten bloody minutes just to buy a book of stamps.

My delayed Valentine’s Day present arrived last night, in the form of tickets to the Paul Kelly concert at the newly re-named Hamer Hall (aka the Concert Hall at the Victorian Arts Centre). A more mixed crowd than your average standing-up gig. A worrying number of oldies. I suppose what you lose on the enthusiasm and atmosphere, you gain in being able to go to the loo or get a drink and not lose your good spot.

I had intended to be a fan.geek and wear my limited edition Paul Kelly t-shirt (”I’m a legend, not a star”), to aid easy recognition by other terminal Paul Kelly fan.geeks. Discovered at the last minute it had various unidentifiable stains on it. They were confined to areas normally covered by a jacket, and given the not overly-warm weather, any jacket was likely to stay on anyway. Not that any of this mattered in the end — none of them spotted me.

Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males played support, and very good they were too. Must chase up their album. Then Paul and his “Boon Companions” (including Dan). A mix of new songs from the last couple of albums, and crowd-pleasing (and obscure) oldies, with the band in superb form. Knowing the context it was written in, I found I Guess I Get A Little Emotional Sometimes a heartwrenching highlight, especially hearing it live for the first time. (You can download it for free here.)

Other highlights for me included Pretty Place (which played live, has an instrumental that builds to a superb crescendo), From St Kilda To Kings Cross (which brings back memories of me, alone on a train in England, desperately homesick and almost tearfully humming the last verse to myself) and Cities Of Texas.

Not one but two encores — so the joke’s on the couple I saw sprinting out to beat the crowd as the “last” song of the set finished. All in all, a terrific concert, seen from terrific seats. Thanks Marita.

Some fans like to sit in concerts writing set lists out. That’s not my thing, but I did have a go at trying to remember all of the songs performed, so if anybody’s interested, the list follows, in roughly chronological order…

(more…)

A couple of the blokes in the office today dared to try what I wouldn’t yesterday: to re-load the photocopier toner. I knew if I tried it I’d end up struggling with it for half an hour before scattering that lovely black toner all over the carpet. So I went and did my photocopying on the fax machine instead.

Whereas these two… well, they only struggled for about ten minutes, before scattering lovely black toner all over the carpet. Oops. But at least the photocopier works again now.

To the guy in the navy blue suit

at Hawksburn station at 8:38 this morning

who ran down the ramp as the train doors closed

because he thought the train with 1000 people on board should be made later than it already was, just for him

and thumped on the door in a rage as the train moved off without him.

Congratulations.

You just proved to the 150 people in that carriage what a complete moron you are.

As if it was going to kill you to wait a few minutes for the next one.

Next time try getting out of bed 5 minutes earlier.

The Cat In The Hat. Not many kids’ movies on at the moment, and Jeremy chose this one to while away some time on ANZAC Day afternoon. A couple of semi-amusing moments that just — just raised a smile, but otherwise it was proof that Hollywood has an uncanny ability to take a classic book and make a crap movie out of it, and this one with too many US-centric references to really work in the rest of the English-speaking world. On the bright side, Jeremy enjoyed it, and I caught up on a little sleep.

Footy tipping: 6 out of 8. Not bad, not bad, though from talking to the barber yesterday, I think he might have done better. At least, he did pick Carlton. Thankfully he’s not in either of the competitions I’m in.

Gmail. Okay, probably not a hoax after all. Those who want to try it out before the masses get to it could do worse than to sign up for a Blogger account — they are currently offering Gmail access to Blogger users. (I dabble with Blogger occasionally).

Tickets for The Who went on sale last Sunday. At $99 to $199. Yikes. I considered booking, depending on whether or not good but cheap seats could be had. But then I found the damn Ticketek web site demanding some long-forgotten username and password (with no hints on the e-mail they had sent me), so decided stuff it, I’ll save my money for a better cause. And as the friend who originally got me into The Who commented, with now half the original band gone, it should be called Who’s Left.

That house I looked at a few weeks ago, the one that required everything under the sun to be done to it (or you could flatten it I suppose), sold last Saturday for $441,500. Words fail me. People say the bottom has dropped out the real estate market, but it seems ludicrous prices still abound. All the more reason for the aspiring first home owner like me to save my $99 and not blow it all at once on a concert ticket, I suppose.

Meanwhile the house next to where I used to live, having sold for just under half a million three years ago, is up for sale again. I’m not sure what the house itself is like because I never looked inside it, but at least it’s on a huge block of land, and hey, those annoying neighbours they used to have next door have moved out now…

Now, if it would just stop pissing down rain before I have to leave the house to go to work, that would be ideal.