After the semi-seriousness of the last post I felt I should bring things back in line.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtbjH8Tm4fM]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tXsO35TQ-0]

I did have a lot to say about this year’s elec­tion. I’ve wiped this notepad file clean twice already, delet­ing thoughts on Howard’s gov­ern­ing skills, and my ini­tial ideas of the vot­ing process. All I really want to say is: it’s about damn time.

I was wor­ried though. Wor­ried that every­one else in Aus­tralia would take the easy path, and let Howard con­tinue his unimag­i­na­tive stew­ard­ship of our coun­try. Walk­ing through Chi­na­town last night I spot­ted a crowd of peo­ple hud­dled around a strate­gi­cally hung plasma tv. As I passed them they let rip with a roar of approval as the pre­dicted loss of Howard’s seat flashed up on the screen. If this dis­parate group of drunken Mel­bour­ni­ans was any indi­ca­tion, then we’d be ok.

And I think we will be. I’m also pre­dict­ing that sto­ries of the union and high tax boogy­men will prove to be just that. Sto­ries.
At the very least it’ll be nice not to have hastily con­structed adver­tise­ments invad­ing my wak­ing hours.

Two years ago yes­ter­day Ange and I went on our first date. One year and one day ago I wrote about the great changes that the first year had brought.

This year it’s all been about learn­ing to live together. I like to think we’ve reached a happy equi­lib­rium in the house­hold. Though there are still occa­sional bouts of toilet-seat-upright (me) and toothpaste-tube-left-open (her).

Given that the tem­per­a­ture was hov­er­ing around the high to very high 30’s there was no way either of us would be cook­ing. So we headed up to the local RSL for a quick counter meal. Except that when we got there we dis­cov­ered that the bistro was closed and the only option was des­ic­cated mys­tery roast. We wisely decided to pass.

As pretty much every­thing in the north­ern sub­urbs is closed on Mon­days (a tra­di­tion I still don’t under­stand) we were glad to see that Atami had decided to buck the trend and stay open. After our lit­tle cel­e­bra­tory feast of sushi, dumplings, fried rice and chicken we popped into Ange’s cousin’s house to say hi before head­ing home to relax in the air con­di­tioned glory of the house.

Well Done — An Annual Report that has to be cooked first. Still more nutri­tious than a Big Mac.

A nice list of book cov­ers for 2007. Yes, appar­ently you can judge a book by it’s cover.