Hope all your Christmases were as merry as ours. (21st Century Xmas by Skype) (Santa knows what boys want.) (Christmas rasslin') (Redux.) Happy Holidays from A Free Family. ------------- Thanks to Seattle Dad for the tip on Reverend Horton Heat's Christmas album "We Three Kings", which is available from .
Exhausted. We spent all day yesterday packing and all day today moving into our new house. Our new house that we own*. The first house we've ever owned. And if all goes well, the last we ever own. It's a big old rambling 1940s home on a good sized block in the hills about 10 km from the Adelaide city centre. There's lots of room and it is laid out so that even when the boys get older there will be plenty of space for all of us. We're secluded from our neighbours, surrounded by trees [...]
The Aussies were seriously lacking in skullduggery at the Adelaide Test last weekend. But that didn't stop us from having a good time at the Adelaide Oval. Even if it did seem to involve a full day of watching England's mercenary South African batsman Kevin Pietersen spend the whole day smacking Australian bowlers around the pitch. Oh, wait, that was exactly what it involved... I know that most of my readers aren't cricket fans but I choose to believe that this is due to ignorance rather than indifference*. [...]
This will be our third summertime Christmas and I must say that I'm warming to it. I don't know if it is having young kids to enjoy it with or whether the seasonal reversal removes the S.A.D. component of my typical holiday dread, but I find myself looking forward to Christmas this year. If you've known me for any period of time you will know just how surprising a sentiment this is for me. Christmas in Australia is all ass backwards, it's true. There's the expectation of sitting down for a full roast dinner [...]
I've just sent the invoice for three chapters that I wrote for inclusion in a biochemistry textbook. It isn't a heap of money, but it is the most I've ever been paid for writing. It always feels good making money for doing something that I love. Not that it is that common, mind, but nonetheless. Feels good. I think, in fact, that it was the exercise of structured, paid writing that allowed me to catch the blog bug again. When I stopped putting it off and made the time to sit down and write, I thoroughly enjoyed it and wanted [...]
If there's anything on god's green earth better than a fresh Queensland mango, I'd love to know about it. Firm, silky, the taste of a golden spring afternoon. Absolute perfection. They think so too... What hasn't even approached perfection this year is the performance of my beloved Georgia Bulldogs. I haven't been writing about them, and clearly that has taken a toll as they've stumbled along to a 5-6 mark on the season. But they take on the hated Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on [...]
Forget all your politics for a while. Let the color schemes arrive. I knew it would happen eventually. The American Left and the American Right have moved so far apart that they've backed into one another. I heard both MSNBC ranter Keith Olbermann and talk radio screecher Mark Levin shouting about new safety regulations at American airports. I wonder if they know that they agree with one another. American politics: the best reality show Mark Burnett never produced. My Mom asked me why I moved so far away, which I'm fairly [...]
Well, it has been a little while, hasn't it? I sort of had a spell of blog fatigue there coupled with a spurt of seasonal affective social networking withdrawal, but really I've just been too busy. Yeah, yeah, everyone's busy but for those few loyal readers/family members here's a litany of excuses: I have a new job. Well, not a new job per se, but a new contract. A lovely, long term, stable contract. Tenure track. Serenity. With that new job, however, comes new responsibilities and new expectations. Establishing a research program, supervising graduate [...]
From your Australian cousins...
The new dog, in a cyclone of sharp little puppy teeth and a flood of puppy pee, has arrived. Boy Z is besotted, Dr. O'C resigned and Not Max slightly confused. Along with the peals of laughter and declarations of love, however, have been fits of tears. Puppies nip. It's what they do. Not Max has borne it with his typical aplomb. He's spent the first year of his life receiving various injuries and insults from his older brother, so the occasional nip on the ear is nothing out of the ordinary. Boy Z, on the other hand, [...]
Today is Not Max's first birthday and I'm stuck in Whyalla , which smells remarkably like industrial solvents, diesel fuel and government money. Not stuck exactly, but on the other side of the state from my family. Story of my life right now. I love my job but she's a needy mistress this semester, draining my time and energy like a succubus. So, happy birthday from a distance wee boy. Well done on managing to make it through a year despite paternal ambivalence and fraternal abuse. Today is also the first day of Spring in [...]
In the suburbs I learned to drive And you told me we'd never survive Grab your mother's keys we're leavin'... In my younger days, when the stress tide was rising, I used to pop on my favourite record at the time, crank the volume up to maximum and bathe in an anodyne sonic sea. Cheaper than Valium and a bit better for someone of my addictive nature. I've been a bit tightly wound these last few weeks and the release of The Arcade Fire's new record, couldn't have been better timed. [...]
For their grandparents basking in an American sumer. Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR . --------- One of my favourite albums of 2010 so far is Sun Kil Moon's latest "Admiral Fell Promises". Unreal acoustic guitar accompanied by Mark Kozelek's plaintive vocals, perfect for the Australian winter. Buy it from .
I think I have to stop fooling myself. At some point every day I decide that I'm going to take some time and, damn it, blog. But it just doesn't happen. I've spent three days planning to write this little snippet of a post. Life is full. And priorities change. And time is spent, better or not, in other endeavours. But this space nags at me like a sore tooth. I feel obliged to update, obliged to put myself out there. But I want to be somewhere else. So this post is punctuation. An official recognition [...]
I don't really have time to write - it's exam marking time - but I can't stand seeing that beanie wearing, budgie smuggling, buffoon every time I open Safari anymore. So here's a photo of Boy Z putting the moves on a cute blonde at a wedding we went to last night. Because nothing brings that paternal pride cascading to the surface like watching one of your sons successfully executing the lady killing skills that you've been so carefully teaching him. [...]
Without an election, or even much drama, we have a new prime minister today. Julia Gillard, who will be Australia's first female prime minister, took over from Kevin Rudd in a " bloodless coup ". Not as exciting as it sounds - it was actually a planned leadership vote in the Labor party, and Rudd stood down quietly to allow Gillard to take power. Not exactly a Carribean coup d'état. It's probably a good thing, especially for a middle class socialist like myself. Rudd was plummeting in popularity - he was ineffective in getting the Labor message out [...]
I totally forgot that yesterday was Father's Day in much of the Northern Hemisphere* until I saw PostSecret's " Father's Day Secrets ". And then I got all sappy and teary-eyed. As you do. Especially over these ones: That last one, in particular, got to me. I've noticed lately, particularly with Boy Z, this primal need for recognition from his Dad. We do swimming lessons on a Sunday morning. After the rush of pride over seeing him swim [...]
I was feeding Not Max his dinner last night listening to some music, as you do, when the inimitable opening chords of "Free Bird" came on the iPod stereo. "Free Bird" is currently on my iPod because I've been watching the outstanding, if slightly raunchy, ' Californication ' lately on my commute to work. The song plays a pretty pivotal role in one of the episodes in the second season and since then I've had a hankering for some Skynyrd. But when it came on last night I was reaching to skip the track, thinking that [...]
Allie Larkin is a blogger and the co-founder of The Greenists . She's also a friend of mine in that sort of odd, social media generation, never actually met her sort of way. More auspiciously, however, her debut novel "STAY" is being released this week by Dutton . I got my review copy last week but before I could get into it, Dr. O'C snatched it up and devoured it over the weekend. She declared it an ideal beach book, so good timing for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere. [...]
It is winter in Australia which means that it is football season it Australia. And by football, I don't mean steroid stuffed giants in full body armor standing around for three plus hours, nor overpaid Brazilians kicking a round ball around for an hour and a half in the quest for a nil-nil draw. No, I'm talking about that odd game that you may have seen during a spell of insomnia that involves thirty skinny Australians occasionally kicking a rugby ball in between bouts of beating the crap out of each other. Ah, footy. [...]
A Free Man
The Weeknd - Kiss Land
Holy Ghost! "Dumb Disco Ideas"
Franz Ferdinand - Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action - Album Trailer
Action Bronson - "Strictly 4 My Jeeps" (Official Video)
Kanye West - New Slaves
Listen to Daft Punk’s “Horizon”, the Japanese bonus track for Random Access Memories
Diplo Clarifies His Thoughts On Daft Punk’s ‘Random Access Memories’ Via Lengthy Facebook Letter
Daft Punk – “Horizon” (Japan-Only Bonus Track)
Listen: Matt Corby – Resolution
