A photoblog and other things

Well the one at 8249 W Sunrise Blvd does anyway. I’ve been trying to locate a power supply for my piano (yep, I’m still talking about it) because the power supply I have from Australia can’t run on 110 volts. I went to a piano store today where I got some extremely good service and I bought at very good prices a heavy duty keyboard stand as well as a 12 volt 2 amp power supply for a technics keyboard. This is exactly the voltage and amperage that I required! However I knew I’d have to change the plug for it so that it’d fit into my digital piano. No problem – I thought I’d quickly pop by a Radioshack and get a DC plug adapter kit or something similar.

Queue bad assumption.

I went into the Radioshack store and after waiting 5 minutes whilst the attendants crapped on about nothing I was finally served. I explained my dilemma to an attendant but only got back an impatient blank stare. He said it couldn’t be done, to which I called bullshit. He said that the plugs they had were only rated to 1000mA, which he kindly pointed out was 1 amp, which, thank god, he also pointed out was less than 2 amps. This guy was really, really good! I was also thinking the statement that the plugs were only rated to 1 amp (or 1000 mA, which by the way is less than 2000 mA, 2000 mA being equal to 2 amps) was a bit of bullshit too. I’m pretty sure the plugs could handle a few amps at the very least. The amp limitation with such small scale situations would be with the transformer wiring that the plug is connected to. But anyway, after the attendant “helped” me he moved over to a keyboard/microphone setup and started playing random notes and attempted to sing. Both the keyboard playing and singing were absolutely terrible and nearly caused my eardrums to burst. I got out of that place quick smart. It sort of felt like I was in the twilight zone or something similar. A very, very surreal experience!

Goldberg is a champion of drinking, there is no doubt in that. For his size I just do not know how he stays upright. I guess the only explanation is he has had a lot of practice.

This story begins with the wedding of Adam and Emma. Matt was drinking hard at the reception and was getting more and more drunk. He came to me at some point and said “hey dude… doooo ya reckon youuu can dddrive me into town tonight?? ?? I need a liffffft in becosh I’ve been drinking a little too mussh.” (ok, it wasn’t quite that bad). I had no problem with this as I wasn’t really drinking at all (if you don’t know why then read back a few posts).

What happened for the rest of the night is just amazing. We drove into the city later on and he drank about 1/2 a bottle of Sambuca on the way. We went to the Stamford Plaza on North Terrace. I don’t know why we did, that just felt like the thing to do. Anyway at some point I noticed a grand piano down in the Cascades lounge and said to Matt “you gotta go play that!” About 10 minutes later that’s exactly what he was doing. Remember that at this time he was completely and utterly off his face. The waiter approached Matt and said “can you play this” and Matt said “yeah, of course”. After Matt had been playing for a while the waiter began bringing him free drinks! There were some other people there who were clapping and cheering Matt on too. What happened next was just weird. A few people had congregated around the piano requesting songs.

Not long after that a person equally as drunk as Matt started breakdancing to a bloody piano, or at least attempting to. Bear in mind we’re listening to some of Matt’s original songs, songs by Ben Folds and other songs by Billy Joel.

A guy wearing a kilt sat down next to Matt and started playing. He was a pretty good piano player too. This was when I heard Matt say to him: “You’re pretty cool for a guy who wears a kilt!” I can’t remember why the guy was wearing a kilt at 2am in the morning, but he was a percussionist (and it seemed a regular muso too since he could play piano) and had taken part in the Edinburgh Military Tattoo at least once. Here is a pic of Matt and the Kilt dude to Matt’s right playing the piano.

Matt also plays in a band called “Bernee”. I took some pictures at his latest gig which he’s put up on the Bernee website. I wish I could have used my new f1.4 lens but I had to make do with what I had. Eventually I’ll get around to putting my edited pics up on Flickr. Big emphasis on eventually.

If someone could tell me what the hell happened in the last 2 weeks (well, it wasn’t even that) then I’d feel a little more at ease at the moment. I really do not know what the hell is going on. I entered my apartment last night at 2:30am, slept until about 6pm and then have been wondering around in a daze for the last few hours. It certainly does not feel like I was just on a holiday.

I did not catch up with everyone I wanted to, that is a fact. Next time I do something like this I know how I’m going to do it differently. From the get-go I can name a few people who I didn’t get around to catching up with (Frosty, Matt F, Guy, Paul K) which makes me a bit disappointed in myself. Sorry guys, I was completely and utterly out of time and frustrated at the fact that I didn’t have more.

Anyway, I’m back here now. I know I’ve got a ton of work to do – god knows how I’ll get any of it done but I’ve also got a couple of interesting stories from my trip back. I’ll be posting them soon.

One thing you won’t hear me talking about anymore is me trying to purchase my digital piano. I now have one! Yes I bought my Kawai ES3 in Sydney and now it is sitting here with me in my apartment. I thought for a while there that I would have to fedex it back or something which would have cost me upwards of $800. Ouch! Fortunately I was able to take it on the plane for free. I just went on a quick trip to Walmart to see if they had any 12V/2 amp AC-DC converters so I could play it but no luck. I also have to buy a heavy duty stand for it too. More $$$.

Anyway the daily show starts pretty soon so I have to catch up on that.

Ok. My heart rate has hit rock-bottom now. I’m now in the town where I grew up: Loxton, South Australia. It’s a country town about 250 km out of Adelaide with a population of around 7000. It’s a nice and tidy place to be – and I had my first schnitzel in over 8 months last night at the Loxton pub!

I’m not feeling weirded out today like I was for the past few days. I’d say that I got over my jetlag but I never had any to begin with. Now I’m just wondering how the hell I’m going to be able to visit all the people I want to see while I am back here down under.

I fixed the flickr problem with not being able to see the larger versions of pictures. That was a stuff-up on the configuration settings on my part. Now you just have to look to the right hand side of the picture where the photo info is and it’ll say ‘view larger versions’ or something like that. Of course, I’m going to have to put some interesting pictures up for anyone to give a damn about looking at them!

I’m also using a computer at the moment that has instant messenger on it. I hate it. Yes, it can be useful for work but outside of work I just think it’s a bloody annoyance (actually, when you’re at work it can be an annoyance too which is why I have to switch it off sometimes). It is especially annoying if the people who try messaging you have names like: “my name ain’t elmo but you can tickle me if you like” and “RIP Kahmatah MC Hydro Donnix she got that flow that makes your head spin like you’re on antibiotix” – which by the way they’ve changed to “new york who” in the last 5 minutes because it’s cool or something and they’re trying to carve an identity for themselves but they’re actually just giving themselves stupid f$&ken names that are the size of short novels like everyone else. Whatever.

Anyway, I’m off to eat a decent piece of bread, something I haven’t been able to do for the past 8 months. I’m also going to have some Weet-Bix for breakfast – another ‘luxury’ that I’ve been missing out on.