Tonight it’s the Deb Conway gig at Tony & Rae’s house. Saturday the Belle & Sebastian concert. S’gonna be a very musical weekend.

But on a completely topic, down at Southbank, by the same people who did the Doctor Who drawings, are the good Doctor’s 6-7pm ABC stablemates…

The colours might be a little skewed - I had to do a lot of adjustment to make up for the bright sunlight. Thanks to whoever it was who told me they were down there.

More teenage funsters on the train this morning. What is this, the school holidays?

They got into the rear cab of the train, and apparently found the button to work the microphone, if nothing else.

A very half-hearted attempt to do the impersonate-the-terrorists bit. Too much swearing to be plausible.

Rather than “You f—ing motherf—ers, there’s a bomb on your f—ing train”, they might have done better with something about Western infidels or something. As well as choosing a spokesman whose voice wasn’t breaking.

And of course you should speak clearly and not shout into the microphone if you want your diatribe to be clearly understood.

As it was, nobody took any notice.

“Are you seeing them in concert?” asked the JB Hifi lady as I paid for Belle & Sebastian’s startlingly named Dear Catastrophe Waitress. The bloke in front of me in the queue had bitched and moaned to her about trying to return a CD he’d already played, so I was glad I wasn’t feeling her wrath.

“Yep. Got good seats, miraculously.”

No joke. I went looking on the web on Sunday night. Nothing but row X of the dress circle. Up in the rafters. Pondered it, then decided given the cost, I’d give it a miss. On a whim, had another look on Monday night. This time it was row G in the Lounge, which if my reading of the seat map is right, is about 20 rows closer to the stage than row X. It seems better seats had come available. Either that or I’m woefully misreading the map, and it’s so far away you need binoculars to see a set of specs dancing around on the distant stage.

“Where is it — at the Forum?”

“No, the Palais. This Saturday.”

“THIS Saturday? Two, no three days from now?”

“Yep.”

“Oh. I was hoping for free tickets. I’d better make a phone call.”

Yeah, good luck lady. Just ‘cos you work for a big CD-selling record shop chain. Some of us have to pay real money for tickets. And as yet I don’t even know if this Belle And Sebastian mob are any good. Somehow they passed me by until now, but on being assured they are very good, observing certain parties mourning about not being able to go, I chased up the tickets, faxing a copy of them through to the aforementioned certain parties yesterday as a surprise. Which it was. Hopefully they’re as dazzling as I’ve been told. Buying the CD was merely an investment: to put it on high rotation for the next few days, thus being familiar with the music I would hear in concert.

While the card transaction went through, JB Hifi lady grabbed her phone/PA. “Someone from CDs, call Philimina when you get a chance.” She handed back my credit card, and the bag with the CD in it. “Thanks for the trigger. Enjoy the show.”

Having spent up on tickets and the CD… I certainly hope so!

In the train at Flinders Street platform 6 on Tuesday afternoon. Two teenage boys are skylarking. “I got stuck on a train once”, says one as they joke, walking through the carriage. The other sits down. They are headed elsewhere, but the train is going nowhere for now.

The first stands outside, pushes the door closed and mimics “beep beep beep beep”. Much hilarity.

They change their minds about the hilarity when the doors really close. From opposite sides, both try to re-open them, but the train driver’s not having it — he’s running late already.

The train full of people — with one who doesn’t want to be on it — starts to move off. “I’ll meet you back here”, he shouts to his mate, before sitting down to wait for the first stop.

I chuckle quietly, smirk and go back to my newspaper.

Isaac asked me this the other week, and I had to think about it for a moment: How many cars have you driven?

I probably drove more cars while learning to drive than subsequently:

My driving instructor’s white Corolla - André from the RACV Driving School must have nerves of steel, and his car a clutch of Kryptonite. Few cars on the road would get stalled more than his. I remember the first day, I got the steering okay, but dealing with the three pedals was murder.

My sister’s red Lancer - she was driving a manual car at the time, so we drove to the Caulfield station carpark and drove up and down and up and down and stall –whoops– and up and down… Strictly speaking she shouldn’t have let me drive it, since it was a work vehicle, but she reckoned it would have been okay to just swap seats and blame her if we’d crashed into anything. Fortunately we didn’t, though she didn’t let me drive it to and from the carpark, only within it.

My sister’s boyfriend’s red Turbo Laser - We went on a long long drive down Dandenong Road to some godforsaken spot in Mulgrave, then back along the freeway. Got almost all the way back when we discovered the L plate had fallen off the back window. Oops.

A friend’s ancient boxy Magna - one of the rugly ones with those horrible louvre things on the back. Euch. It was an auto, and the bloke wot owned it (knew him for a short time back in 199x, but have forgotten his name now) let me drive it to Chadstone. In the rain. Almost had a prang on Dandenong Road when some twat two lanes over decided to move right without indicating, while I moved left with my indicator on.

My sister’s Camry - auto. I’d driven it once with her and the L plates (”it doesn’t seem to accelerate very fast” “That’s because the handbrake is still a bit on”), then she left it in my car space when she went on holiday. Well, I thought it was my car space, but it wasn’t, and I was subsequently asked to move it into a different space. The girl from flat 3 must have wondered why I looked so terrified, just me in the driver’s seat, worrying that I was an unqualified driver and might crash a car I didn’t even own, trying to manoevre in the not very expansive carpark.

A bit after that I got my drivers licence.

A Magna for sale - went car shopping with a work buddy and test drove a Magna. I’d decided on a post-93 Magna because at the time they had the highest safety rating of any Australian-made car. Wondered why it seemed a little sluggish taking off, realised later I’d started it in 3rd gear.

My very own Magna - bought from some guy in Ferntree Gully, we drove it around that area one evening in 1998. Decided it would do, bought it, have driven it ever since. Newly on my P-plates, it took a lot of practice to master it, including a couple of lunchtime sessions in hilly streets close to work, practicing hill starts. My car turned 10 last year, but it still runs all right (bloody should do, the engine got replaced not too long ago) so cars not really being my thing, I’m in no hurry to upgrade.

A girlfriend’s white Laser - it felt all wrong at first, the pedals seemed too loose, and I stalled it a time or two, but got used to it eventually. Though I never got used to the ugly louvres on the back windscreen, and the lack of aircon.

A hired Nissan X-Trail - on the camping trip to Cann River early last year. The 4WD mode was certainly very welcome on the off-road bit down to the camp site.

Hmm. I think that’s all. Nine, by my count. More than I thought, actually.

On Friday, rather than the dull conventional: Go to office / work / eat lunch / work / go home drudgery, I had a little excursion to the warehouse in Dandenong. I was to meet some colleagues there at 10:30, and since my home is not too far (in the grand scheme of things), I decided to go straight from home. In other words… a late sleep-in!

So, I dawdled to bed on Thursday night, finally hitting the pillow at about 12:30 (don’t ask me what I was doing; I have a knack for filling time with useless activities), with my mobile phone turned off, but set to wake me at 8:30. (No, the new alarm clock hasn’t shown up yet).

The whole plan was foiled when the home phone rang at 7:10. 7:10! Bloody, bloody. No sleep-in for me. Was it important? Hmm, moderately I suppose.

Anyway, my task at the warehouse was to fix up a computer that wouldn’t boot. Why wouldn’t it boot? Long geeky explanation follows.
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Here is my… front door. Usual deal, mouse over bits for notes. Do yours and leave the URL in the comments/trackback.

Donnie Darko (DVD). That ending… whoa.