The Life and Times of Peter Green
Archive: 2 May - 15 May 2011
May 2ndIt feels very strange typing 'May' as the month, didn't we just celebrate Christmas and Easter? Life speeds up..it does indeed.It's a grey old day at Kalorama, my bed is very warm... even Banshee the cat wants to stay snuggled in the Peruvian blanket. We make an effort and stumble out to the kitchen. The trees outside are incredible such golden yellows and rustic reds- I took a photo yesterday and sent it to a few friends. Really because it looked so beautiful. We love living here. We eat at The Deli, all the girls are working today, we joke how appalling the Logie awards were and look the Sun newspapers has even more photos of the Royal Wedding- it's kind of become really boring now. Give us something new please- anything! Well I got my wish. At 12.48 a friend forwarded on a Tweet that Bin Laden was dead... I checked all the news areas and nothing... but 2 hours later I got my wish and the Royal Wedding was well and truly off the front pages. I caught Obama's press conference just by accident on cable and they finally caught and killed Osama Bin Laden- a decade of evading the USA and all it's technology. al-Qa'ida is of course chest thumping threatening "a nuclear hellstorm" - I'm sure it will make him the ultimate martyr but his death will rip straight into the heart of evil al-Qa'ida. Good riddance pity it wasn't sooner. A part of me still wishes I bought the singing dancing Bin Laden doll in Nepal! It was so stupid, customs would of had a field day. It's our friend Warwicks birthday, so I jump in the car and buy a birthday cake and take our small present to his house. I don't know if anyone else got a cake and you have to have a cake for your birthday, it wasn't the best cake in the world and the candles did read "Happy Birthday Girl"!!!! but it was the thought that counted. I think he enjoyed the surprise. Home by midnight just before the mountain was covered in it's shroud of fog. May 3rdI slept really well last night, the nights are getting colder up here on top of the mountain. The days overall have been beautiful and a bit 'crisp' from time to time.The Aussie dollar peaks again, $1.10 against the U.S dollar a new record since it was floated. I hope it holds till July! I call in and see my other Warrick, Dr Chiro, and he works his magic, it sure is busy at the chiro clinic, nearly ever seat taken.... my neck is a bit tense but that could be from jogging- not that I jog on my head but I'm sure all the running shutters the old spine. I'm on the table with my acupuncture pins in my back and electric voltage churning away sending pulses (all sounds a bit sexy)... iPod on.... towards the end I turn it off and enjoy 'silence'! I book in for another session next week, good to stay on top of stuff and it gives me some extra energy. There is a lot of talk about Bin Laden at breakfast, the Deli chatter is always interesting. I hear from Eddie from the Enz who has been working on Guy Pearce's solo album in NZ. Ed sounds good, he's always a funny old bugger makes me laugh. Next email was from Tim Finn, who kindly sent me his set list for the Bob Dylan show where he was special guest. Good to see 'People like us" one of the new songs get another airing. I hear quite a few people were singing along to Persuasion and Six Months. Horrible news that Yvette Vickers who played the main role in "Attack of the 50 ft Woman" has been found dead in her Hollywood home. The worst part is that her body could of been there for a year!!! So terrible that no one cared to check. As many readers would know Neil Finns solo single SHE WILL HAVE HER WAY had it's video clip parody the movie. Terrible news no one should die alone and be left for so long. May 4thGrey grey days still. Miss Banshee sooooo did not want to get out of bed today and gave Mark a nice bite on his hand! Ouch.The state budget is in for Victoria and Ted Baillieu and co are such lame ducks. 100,000 families who get the $300 school start bonus no longer will, I'm sure that money helped a lot for school supplies and uniforms etc, so many other areas of government that are wasteful ad deserve to be chopped, and the Childrens Hospital being built will lose most of it's funding so any construction will be delayed for years.. So usual Liberal cuts-Education and Health. We get a really sweet letter (with cool snaps) from Amy Rose & Emma Angel from their visit with their Mums to Ailsa Craig. It's on the white board in the office, 2 very cool young ladies and our chickens like all the attention too. I see that Liam has 'Cold Feet' available for purchase as a song on the net...I still really really like THE STRUGGLE. 'Cold Feet' is a good enough pop song but The Struggle is such a cool musical ride. We get an email from Greg Skyhooks sister Rilka, she lives in India. Last night we were watching the Beatles Anthology, the part where they head to Rishikesh in India... anyway Rilka's email today had photos attached because she is currently staying in the same area...so there were all The Beatles places that were on the DVD but photographed in May 2011! How odd is that, what a coincidence! Loved the snaps. May 5thI can't believe a faulty air conditioner unit has triggered a shutdown of banking giant Westpac in Australia. From online banking to ATM's, how crazy is that. I glad I called into one last night and took some cash out. It's midday and they still haven't corrected the problem , they make billion of dollars profit but don't have back up systems- how dumb is that?The Deli has coconut ice in stock, yum... childhood flash backs as I buy some. A box but it only contains 8 pieces. I see Obama's polling has jumped 11 points since Bin Laden bit the bullet. Anything to keep the Palin's of this world out of the White House I say. No truth in the rumour that we paid a Bondi Junction teenager to break into the roof of the Acer Arena to throw eggs at Justin Bieber! I did hear eggs are good for your hair (flip flip). I can't believe he was such a bad shot and no direct hit. If you are going to make all that effort at least let one of the eggs fined a target. Spend more wasted time dealing with Paypal, they are so hopeless today , really can't seem to get their shit together. Very frustrating. Oddly enough this all turns around 5 minutes after writing this and one of my 'regular' paypal people- Jenni calls from the States and tells me they have fixed the problem and all ok. Finally...I wave my arms to the stars! Paypal are again back in my good books. All it takes is to deal with a sensible human on the other end of the phone instead of frustrating emails. May 6thI see that Apple has now overtaken Google as the worlds largest brand. Googles value as a brand slipped (the only one in the top 10 that has). The usual suspect brands are in the top 10 Coca Cola, McDonalds etc.The rough date list for Pajama Club's shows arrived, a quick run of shows, 4 to be exact, starting at Byron Bay-The Northern on June 11th... so many tours start at Byron Bay, going way back to The Mullanes. I don't think the album is out till August , it was meant to be late July but I guess the name change and a few other minor bits and pieces have put it back by a few weeks. Still not bad some delays can be many months.... I just want this prject to be a success seeing it's Sharon's first big release. I just worry it will come out while Mark and myself are away for 3 weeks. Planking is in the news- how lame. Plankers rhyme with Wankers. May 7thWith Winter only a few weeks away it's time to add those foods that boost your immune system- all the usual garlic, ginger, seaweed... but this year I'm adding some Miso with it's active lactobacillus, which helps with digestion and strengthens the immune system. Get some Miso paste and keep it in the fridge and just add some to soups and stir fries and even to salads.We were stoked to hear that the footage of our baby orphan elephant Kalama was used in the IMAX movie of "Orphaned elephants & the orangutans of Borneo". You get to see her climbing skills as se stands on her back legs and grabs some food from trees. She is growing and getting stronger each week, looks like we picked a survivor and a star! Do I sound like a proud 'parent' or what! Neil emails and the Pajama Party moniker has gone and they are now The Pajama Club. Someone had the name, not sure why NZ management never checked on that, seems a bit strange but what the hell, it's only a name the music is what counts. So Pajama Club it is. Musically it's bizarre in the office- new albums from Pajama Club, Tim Finn and Liam Finn and none of them released yet! I go out of my way NOT to review any albums on our sites. I prefer fans to do that. I stupidly said I liked 6 of the 10 tracks on Intriguer and someone posted that I gave it a 6 out of 10, which wasn't the case. In fact as the weeks changed so did my liking of certain songs. I just hated being tagged as giving it such a score... so now I avoid reviewing. Not that my views on songs is any better then other peoples..... May 8thHappy Birthday Rebekah... she's away on The Seekers tour so I hope they take her out fora birthday dinner. Not sure if she got the Bowie book on time to take on the road, hopefully , it's a good 'read on the road' book.It's also mothers day, so I call Mum, she is avoiding going out, being anti social mother, as is her way sometimes. I picked a lot of wild flowers from our garden before the harsh weather destroys them, so the house is full of blooms and blood roses. May 9thMiss Kerena gives me her bands new album. I know they were selling them so I decide to come back and give her some money for another cd copy- got to support these small Aussie bands. It feels good paying for a copy, people expect everything for free in 2011. I like not being a sheep.We pick up the repaired cd player at KNOX. Finally music back in the office, yey. I head into Borders to try and get a copy of the wonderful "Cave In The Snow" for our friend Warwick. Like all the other Border stores worldwide they are closing down, so 3/4 of the store is already missing. I look and look, the HELP area tells me they have one copy... but it's obviously been stolen..what bad karma eh, stealing a book on a buddhist nun! *GRIN* So I go and look on the directory for another book store and find there is an Angus & Robertson so I head off to that store and find, it has also gone and replaced by a shoe store- gee Knox really needs more shoe stores!!!! NOT. Book stores are becoming extinct, sad that, the wonder of paper books, will such when they are gone forever.... May 10thPM Gillard will be turning on the first test area of the National Broadband Network next week. New England district gets it first. I wish it was us, I can not wait, it's great for business, education and health. Thank christ we are not forced to go with Tony Abbott's 2 soup cans and a string version, the Liberal party always going for some piss poor version to save a few bucks with no vision for the future. Australia is huge as far as the land size, something like the NBN will help remove some of that remoteness for many.I see the Murray Valley Encephalitis has already hospitalised about 6 people in Western Australia. It's a mosquito borne virus and I don't think it has a cure. Some people develop anti bodies to fight it but many die... I think this has happened a few times before and always around the same region. Horrible really. May 11thWell my birthday and it's cold as I lie here in bed. Mark and Banshee sing, we open the drapes and IT'S SNOWING- in Autumn! Maybe senility has set in. No it's real, feather like snow falling- just brilliant- though weird for May! I have so many cards, emails and presents today, I am SO feeling the love. Just a great day, great birthday week! Some people send stamps, truly they are a great present, especially with what we do, so huge thank you. Lately postage has been so insane I was thinking of finishing up- but these little piles of stamps arrived and just rallied me on. So thank you to the people do sent me some, you rock... stamp donations will keep us going.Mark takes me to Ranges for breakfast with it's open fire. It starts snowing again while we are inside and the tourists get way too excited and scream and run to the door with their cameras. Remember snow is a novelty in parts of Australia. On the way home it starts snowing again, none of these are large falls but just funny to have the 4WD covered in white. It looks like a rockstars nostril there is so much white! It's Cathys birthday too, I bet she doesn't have snow. Chris Lilleys "Angry Boys" debuts on ABC tonight so we watch that and have a chuckle, it's made for America but I'm sure America wont get his humour. May 12thI'm jogging late tonight, twilight jogging in my little short shorts, any shorter and I'd be arrested! Thank god my white calvins keep all body parts in the shorts! Yieks.The oval is a great place to jog those tall silent trees and so few people, this time at night none, except for the lady in the car who is perving at me, maybe she's dead, I keep her in sight out of the corner of my eye looking for the slightest movement to tell me she is still alive... she wiggles- she is. The iPod is great for this, I pick up speed depending on the song..... every so often I sing along but I wonder how loud I really am singing! What a tool I am. Trying to jog every evening. May 13thOh Mark corrects me on the royal wedding, it actually cost $80 million not $18 million, good grief $80 million could feed a lot of starving people. I like the 2 kids getting royally hitched but honestly that's such a waste of money- how much is from the public purse I wonder ?May 14thI'm woken up very early by the Fedex guy, we must be the first on his list on the mountain. It's a present... see even I get excited at 7.00 in the morning, it's from NYC and is the MOZIPEDIA-the encyclopedia of Morrissey and The Smiths. It's amazing, I thought it was a small book but this is GREAT... makes me feel like I am 13 again, I just sit and read it... so cool, so much information on Morrissey. Also a pile of USA stamps- big thank you Jennifer for remembering, I suck with peoples birthdays. I'm always saying I'm sorry I've missed it again..... anyway this help start my day in such a nice way... love presents where people make an effort and they 'get' you- this one is cool.I see Lady Ga Ga bumped Oprah off the top spot of the Forbes entertainers list by earning $91 million last year! Phew that's a lot of loot. Had a nice evening, Rosemaree cooked and Tania and Warwick dropped in, so fires a blazing, some serious and not so serious pool playing. Good food, quite a few drinks and a bit of weed. What a nice night. Thank god Warwick was here to help with the fire wood, several trips to the garage to restock- ok he did build a fire that warmed half of Kalorama. So this was nice... thanks guys. So nice to have my iPod playing in the kitchen on that special prezzie from my better half. May 15thWe watch the end of season 3 for Sons Of Anarchy- what a great ending. Can't wait for season 4 to start which is later this year. Such a well written show, Kurt Sutter is an excellent writer- I love his characters. It's fun that he is married to Katey Sagal yes the notorious Peggy Bundy. But she just shines in Sons of Anarchy as Gemma Teller. She's such an underrated actress, and her life is bizarre- I remember Gene Simmons from Kiss asking her to sing backing on his solo album way back in 1978!Well that's it for another fortnight. be good to yourselves PG |