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Recently, I was wracking my brains for a gift for Amanda's 40th 20th birthday. While thinking about this frustrating subject, I was sitting in front of a computer screen - a not uncommon occurrence with me - when I got an event notification from last.fm.

This is a pretty cool service that among other things, recommends musical events to you based on your previous listening habits. And the event was John Butler live at the Enmore Theatre.

Well, while I'm a fan of John, Amanda is a big fan. So I got a couple of tickets and we went to the show last night. W00t! Great show! I forget how good a guitarist John actually is, especially on the lap steel.

Great lights, great sound, great band, great seats. It couldn't get much more great :-)

The trio played a mix of old and new, for two freakin' hours. Talk about get your money's worth.

One of the funnier bits of the night was when the support act's guitarist broke a string, borrowed one of John's guitars, and knocked out the riff for "Zebra". Cracked the crowd up.

Great night. Did I mention "great"?

I spent last night watching the fireworks down on East Esplanade in Manly with the usual suspects. I left pretty early, having decided I needed to go and watch the main Sydney fireworks on the TV at midnight. So I collected myself and some food, got home, and promptly fell asleep, missing the event. Oh well, at least the Manly show was good.

Happy new year to you all. May this year bring the fulfullment of your wishes, and peace and happiness to you and yours.

Merry Christmas! A quiet day spent with family and seafood.

That was a busy weekend. On Friday night, I went to the party for the closing of the Manly Rugby Club (that's the licensed club, not the football club). I've been associated with the club for a number of years doing sound work and a few computer things for them. It was fun and sad at the time time. Who knows, perhaps the phoenix will rise from the ashes.

Secondly, the Aussies won the third test against the West Indies in what was a bit of a nail-biter.

And lastly but not leastly, Amanda had her 40th 20th birthday party Sunday evening. It was nice to meet her relatives and family, and to catch up with all of the group. Drinks where had by all and I was a good boy and went home early as I came down with the summer cold on Saturday that everyone seems to have at the moment.

Possible photos of the party posted here if I can talk Ms A out of some :-)

Sydney bus drivers all went out on strike today. Seeing I am now working near Macquarie University, I'm rather reliant on taking the 140 bus to get there. A quick rethink this morning saw me catch the Manly Fast Ferry to Circular Quay, a train from Circular Quay to Wynyard, and a train from Wynyard to Macquarie University, and I still arrived 30 minutes late.

My normal bus fare is $10 a day (and I have to figure out a reasonable travel ticket deal once I stop having to go to Gordon on the odd occasion, which will reduce my fare below this figure). Today, I'm going to end up paying approximately $32.

This hardly makes me sympathetic to the bus drivers' cause. As a matter of fact, this sucks. The idea is to get a lever on your employers (i.e., the government). Running the buses and not collecting fares would accomplish that and not piss off the commuters.

Last night I went to see Dream Theater at the Horden. Wow, what a show. They were supported by Pain Of Salvation, a prog metal band from Sweden, and while they were good, the lighting and the sound for PoS was a bit of a letdown. Half the time the lead vocalist and guitarist were in the dark, and the sound was, to put it mildly, crap.

However, that all changed when Dream Theater hit the stage at 9 PM. The set list was pretty mindblowing, with a great mix of stuff from the new album and in typical Portnoy fashion, an awesome selection from the back catalogue.

Lighting, sound, atmosphere, a hyped up crowd, and the Horden - a venue I've always liked - all combined with some virtuoso playing from Portnoy, Myung, Petrucci, and Rudess, fronted by LaBrie, made for one hell of a memorable gig.

If they come back to Sydney, I'll be there.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that as the stage was being cleared after PoS, the sound guys put on some great acoustic covers of Dream Theater songs done by a French couple named Pipo & Elo. If you're a DT fan, you should really check them out. Their covers are available on their website for free.

For the cumulation of the Manly Surfing Festival, Brian Cadd and co put on Morning of the Earth live up at North Head in Manly. Through a connection of mine, I know G. Wayne Thomas, who wrote a bunch of music and produced the soundtrack for the film, and we were his guests on the night. Wow, what a production. I nearly didn't go as I had to work the next day, but it was certainly worth it. A great night.

Last night, Steve put on a party for his 50th birthday. This sounds like a doddle, but bear with me as I give you some background. For a number of years, Steve lived in a place down in the industrial area in Brookvale. The place with a little house surrounded by a bunch of factories, leading to the ability to get a large PA system in and put on live music, usually done by Steve and a bunch of his muso friends.

But about six months ago, Steve had to move out of the place in Brookie. We had a last huge bash the night before, as you can probably guess.

Anyway, when the 50th was coming up, another mate of Steve and myself said to each other that there was no way he was going to get by without a party for the big five oh, and so we started researching places for him to put a do on. All this was behind his back. Unfortunately, the other mate is Steve's flatmate, and the secret didn't last too long.

Once Steve found out, he ran with it himself, and ended up inviting about 150 people to this bash which he arranged at a local pizza place that has a large function area attached.

My contribution was to do the sound for the bands on the night. We had three hot acts, all of which were great. Unfortunately, this made it a really long day for me, starting at about 3pm and finishing at 3am the next morning, but gee it was fun stuff.

A top night, which we might just have to repeat with any minor excuse.

As there are a number of things to celebrate for us in the beginning of September, we went out to dinner at Milson's Restaurant in Kirribilli. Surprisingly, we all ended up ordering the same things, which is fairly unusual,

A nice little amuse bouche was served up just after we ordered: oven dried (but not too dry!) cherry tomato, crème fraîche, with fresh thyme on a small pasty. The tomato was intense.

Entree was pork belly with braised pork cheek cannelloni with sauteed mushrooms and speck with celeriac puree. Fantastic! Especially the cannelloni, which was just a taste sensation. The belly was cooked to perfection, with the pork fat just melt in your mouth.

We followed this with the hiramasa kingfish served with mussels, asparagus, confit tomato and leeks with mussel broth. Again this was wonderful, with the broth making the dish.

And the meal ended with another nice surprise: blood orange sorbet.

I selected a bottle of 2004 sauvignon blanc semillon from Cullen's winery in Margaret River to go with, and I must admit, I think this was the meal of the year so far.

Lee Kwiez and the team over there certainly deserve their ongoing acknowlegement from the SMH Good Food Guide. Keep up the good work guys!

Amanda and I went to eat at Out of Africa tonight. Mmm the food was good. I've eaten here once before, but we were rather rushed and where sitting outside on the concrete steps. Tonight was a bit better.

I started with the soup special, which was just awesome. Chick peas and preserved lemons and more. A great starter in winter. Followed up by the chicken tajine, which was again bursting with the standards of preserved lemon, olives and spices. Amanda had the char-grilled vegetables, and said it was great. We selected a bottle of shiraz from Shottesbrooke which carried the spices perfectly.

All in all, a very enjoyable meal. My only complaint was I was too full afterwards *g*.