Sunday, October 27, 2002
Brisneyland Adventures
Tuesday
Got into Brisbane around half three, had dinner with the family before catching The Bourne Identity with Paul up at Chermside (I wish they had cinemas like that down here). Couldn't sleep so turned on Question Time in the Senate, normally guaranteed to put any viewer to sleep, and caught my minister answering the questions that I'd had to work back Friday and Monday to prepare for. At least now I know that the material I prepare gets used.
Wednesday
Up early to check out a bunch of Rugby World Cup 2003 merchandise that was on display for wholesale buyers at Ballymore; there're some decent looking scarfs & beanies that I might pick up when they come out, but my gut instinct tells me that everything will be overpriced and pitched at corporate sponsor buyers anyway.
Late morning met up with Andy from school (his visit from London was the reason for my trip) and headed down to Palm Beach. Dumped our stuff in the apartment and drove down to the beaches along the border looking for something a little more protected from the wind than Palm Beach. Decided on Rainbow Bay & hit the surf. Topped the day off with a few beers and dinner at the Palm Beach Surf Club & ended up crashing just after The Panel .
Thursday
Andy's brother Paul, Paul's new wife & 18 month old daughter were also staying in the apartment. The little one had crashed at about 8 the previous night, so was up and tearing around at 5.30, thus so were we. Watched the early news that comes on before the Today show & then attempted to make some sense of the bio-pic Ali but failed.
Hit the surf again before lunch at the surf club, then headed back to Brisbane sometime around three. Back to Andy's old place to pick up some stuff, then to my place on the other side of town so I could change & we were off again to check out the refurbished Regatta Hotel & catch up with old mates. Only Daniel made it, which was a bit disappointing, but with the late notice I guess that's to be expected. It was pretty quiet there before picking up about 11 when all of the talent started to show. If you get a chance, go check out the novelty bathroom; the urinal is a giant two-way mirror - mirror from the outside, window overlooking the restaurant from the inside - it's a bit freaky at first. I think I got home somewhere around 2am...
Friday
... and was dragged out of bed at 7.03am to be the third person in Mum's car so that she could drive down the transit lane & not get booked. One of the new Brisbane radio stations was running a competition to win a trip to NZ that was a big scavenger hunt, so when the last three items were announced Mum discovered that she had all 15 items and had to race over to the other side of town to the radio station to try & win the trip. All the stress was for nought though, we were the second group to arrive & sat around for 40 minutes waiting to see if any other contestants would show up. Just before the 8.30 deadline another two groups showed up with all of the items, so then it was into the studio for the on-air pick-a-bag competition.
While Kylie - the breakfast show producer - seemed to be very organised, when we got into the studio the on-air people, Paul & Dani, threw her plan out the window & opted to pre-record rather than go live-to-air, chatted a little with each of the contestants and then rather than get each contestant to pick a bag & get them to open them all up at the same time got the contestants to pick a bag & open it up straight away. The whole thing was over pretty quickly as the first person actually scored the main prize, so they did a wind up & Paul got to edit out some of the dead air & it was all recorded and edited in the eight minutes that other songs were going to air. Radio stations are so cool. I asked, but they wouldn't tape a shout-out to the WTBN crew for me, oh well.
Met up with Ashley just after 10 for a late breakfast. He didn't have much news, but was very interested in my recent adventures. We wandered around the mall for a bit looking at all of the changes since last summer - there've been lots - and ended up in Borders where I used up my new media allocation for the fortnight with a book (Tolkien's Unfinished Tales) and a CD (John Mayer's Room For Squares). That's where Ash left me, so I killed time by wandering around some more and visiting one of my favourite bookshops, Folio Books, and pushed my new media budget with the collection of essays The Simpsons and Philosophy that got to me through my love of The Simpsons and pop-philosophy.
Met up with Chuckie for lunch at Sachi on Edward; if you like Japanese give this place a go. It just so happened that some of his old workmates were having some sort of celebratory lunch there too, so we joined them and had a good old time getting too much Saki into one of their crew. After lunch we wandered up to Irish Murphy's & sat out on the balcony for a good hour or so catching up. Finished off the afternoon looking at evaporative coolers at Myer & CD's at JB's.
Dinner with the uncle & auntie down at Earth 'n' Sea in Wilston was nice; I'm the worst pen & paper correspondent & only marginally better at phone calls, so I don't keep in touch with them as well as I should. It was really good just hanging out there & it was a relief to not have to repeat the 'stabbing / taxi-driving pimp / jail' trilogy of adventure stories. Gorged on giant pizzas we headed home to a quiet night in.
Saturday
Finished off a few things I was doing for Mum & Dad before saying my goodbyes & heading for the airport. Mum would've liked to come out to the airport to do the hugs & kisses at the gate routine, but had to get ready for work so we had to settle for the driveway instead. I would've liked another day or two up there to hang out with the family, but that would've pushed my airfare up a couple of hundred dollars and I'm going back at Christmas anyways.
Was seated next to a young couple (early 20's I'd guess) on the plane on the way back; chatted about everything & nothing, so the flight went by really quickly. Pawnstar* was good enough to pick me up from the airport. We headed into Kingston so I could drop off my bags** before meeting up with the gang to hear the post-game reports and BBQ the afternoon away over at Snewin's place with petanque, backyard cricket and an all-meat-no-salad feast that ended with a game of pass-the-parcel with a tetra-pack of Silver merlot that featured Louise in control of when the music started & stopped and consequently me consuming most of the pack and coming very close to painting the lounge red.
All in all an excellent trip.
* Now aka Quentin - think of the little guy who always appeared on A Current Affair in the 1980's - and/or Chalky B - short for Chalky Boned ...
** Cheers to Ms S for the backpack - it was exactly what I needed.
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