This one's for willfull , per Twitter request!    This is the song list for the cover band I've been playing with (which is still nameless, despite having had a few gigs at parties).   We haven't actually played any clubs, although we did play a big fancy birthday party at the Powerhouse, which is a cool theatre/art space in New Farm, the "yuppie" part of Brisbane.   Anyway, the guys I play with are all talented and easygoing and they're all dads!  

If you wanna hear what we sound like, my bandmate Steve put the recordings we did (along with his own solo stuff & other band stuff) on his MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/stevedeans  (Our recordings: Hands Open, One I Love,  Are You Still Having Fun).  Since the band hasn't settled on a name, we haven't created a website for it!

The Song list (there may be a few songs missing-- we keep adding more and it's hard to remember them all!)

All Along the Watchtower - Hendrix
And she was – talking heads
April Sun in Cuba – Dragon
Are you having fun (Eagle Eye Cherry)
Better be home soon – Crowded House
Better man – pearl jam
Born to be wild - Steppenwolf
Brown Sugar – Stones
Chasing cars – snow patrol
Crazy little thing called love - Queen
Don’t Hold Back - Potbelleez
High and Dry – Radiohead
I can see clearly now – Johnny Nash
I got you (Split Enz)
I Wanna Be Sedated – Ramones
I'm A Believer (smashmouth)
Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison)
Blister in the sun (violent femmes)
Closing Time (semisonic)
On My Mind (Powderfinger)
Snow (chili peppers)
Long Road to Ruin (Foo Fighters)
Free Fallin (Tom Petty)
Roadhouse Blues (The Doors)
One I Love (REM)
Sweet Home Alabama - Skynrd
Sarah (eskimo joe)
Hands Open (snow patrol)
Weather with you (crowded house)
All for you (sister hazel)
Aint no Sunshine – Bill Withers
Throw your arms around me (Hunters and Collectors)
When I come around (Green Day)
Closer to Free (the bodeans)
all i want is you - u2
passenger - powderfinger
Island in the Sun – Weezer
Jumpin jack flash - Stones
Laid (James)
Listen to the music – doobies
Love the one you’re with – Stephen Stills
Proud Mary (Credence Clearwater Revival)
Real World – Matchbox 20
Rockin in the free world – Neil Young
Satisfaction – Rolling Stones
Seven Nations Army (White Stripes)
Slide – goo goo dolls
Stuck in the middle – Stealer’s Wheel
Sunsets-  powderfinger
Unguarded Moment – The Church
Waitin on the World to Change – John Mayer
Who’ll stop the rain - CCR

So, my relatives from NY & PA arrived on Monday.  I met them for dinner the past two nights and then today we went to the Australia Zoo (which I hadn't done before).  It was okay, although the whole Steve Irwin thing was overdone ("Crikey!") and, now that he's no longer with us, they've started exploiting his children, which is a bit weird.  What I liked about the zoo is that the place is immaculately clean (I've never seen a zoo so nearly poop-free in all my life) and they had about one staff member (or volunteer) for every animal in the place.  They pushed animal conservation quite heavily, which is a good thing, but perhaps were a bit too heavy handed with the delivery at times. 

Anyway, it's been good to see the "rellies" here in Australia and it has really awakened me to the fact that I've hiding in my own shell of a world a bit too long.  I need to get out far more than I have been recently -- just hanging out with the relatives for a few days has made me feel so much better and freer.  With this whole prospect of  possibly moving away again, I'm suddenly finding myself much more relaxed in a "it doesn't matter, I might not be here next year" sort of way about school.  I think I'm really liking the idea of potentially not having to deal with classes anymore.  And the idea of relaxing on the beach and maybe doing some feel-good volunteer work in a third world country is seeming more and more appealing the more I think about it.

Probably right now as I'm typing all of this, S is in her interview in Oxford.  I wonder how it's going?

OK, I am officially a computer geek.  I never really identified as one, but I now have a dual-boot computer with a freshly installed copy of Ubuntu 8.04 Linux.  Okay, I took the easy route and used WUBI, which is a super-easy installer designed for Windows users to instantly create a dual-boot Linux/Windows computer.  But it works like a charm.   Except I had problems configuring it to connect to the internet via my wireless modem (which, by the looks of posts on the web about similar issues, it seems pretty common).  However, as I was researching how to fix it online ( via my Ethernet cable) my laptop battery died and caused the system to crash rather ungracefully.  Miraculously, when I rebooted the system, not only did everything recover just fine, but my wireless card suddenly was getting me back on the internet.  I can only guess that my previous fiddlings only required me to reboot, which I had not done.  I only wish I knew which fiddlings were the ones that actually worked...

Anyway, I'm like a kid with a new toy and wondering why I hadn't done this a long time ago.  It's so nice to be (at least temporarily?) freed from the reigns of Microsoft...  The only downside is that WUBI installs the DESKTOP version of Ubuntu, not the server edition, which is what I wanted, so that I can try installing CakePHP for my eCommerce class project.  I didn't realize there were two versions!  Thankfully, Ubuntu finds the stuff that's out there for you to install and makes it easy for you to pick and choose what you want and install it.  So... I'm doing that right now...

In other news, I finally posted a "part 1" blog about our trip to Tonga, and more importantly, I also posted photos.  You can read about it here: http://barckhoff.blogspot.com/

!@#()&^#$(@!@$^&@#$%

Telecommunication services totally suck in Australia. 

Now I must do school work.  Stay tuned...

So my poor laptop hard drive is starting to give up the ghost and I've gone ahead and ordered a new one.  As an IT student at QUT, I have access to various Microsoft (evil) software products for my personal use, which includes both Windows XP Professional (I'm currently running Home Edition) or Windows Vista Business.  Since I'll have to install some sort of operating system on my new hard drive, I figure I might as well upgrade to one or other of these while I get 'em for "free" (with the cost of tuition).  I'll probably need IIS running on my PC next semester anyway, as I'm taking a web application course (they're very Microsoft happy at QUT).

But...do I want to bite the bullet and go ahead with Windows Vista?  I haven't really heard great things about it so far, so I'm a bit apprehensive about it.  Or... do I play it safe and stay with Windows XP.  Hmm...

Yep, I'm still alive, keeping busy and being lazy about blogging these days... Nonetheless I have an overdue update with some photos.

You can read it here:  http://barckhoff.blogspot.com/

Oh, hi.  I just got done writing a portion of a paper for a group assignment.  I don't like writing portions of papers because I don't really know exactly what the other people are writing.  Oh well, I'm done with it... for now.  Until we have to put it all together and then figure out how to make it a cohesive academic report.

ANYway... so I just thought I'd write something cuz I'm sure folks are wondering where I've been.  Still in Brisbane.  Susan and I recently got mountain bikes, so we've been doing a few weekend biking excursions here & there.  Last weekend, we went for a ride along the coast near Redcliffe. It was nice.  There are plenty of biking trails in and around Brisbane, but not really any mountain biking trails that are easily accessible by bike or public transport, so ironically, we are now car shopping.  Well, we just want to be able to get out of town and it would be nice if I could take my bass amp and stuff to gigs when I get them...

Oh yeah, I found myself a burgeoning band to play with.  An Aussie guy on keys/guitar/vocals and a Scotsman on guitar.  No drummer yet, but I'm hoping for a South African or some other transplant from a different English-speaking country.  Also, the Australian guy is married to an American woman from New Jersey.  She was quite keen to talk to me.  Anyway, the band is sort of psychedelic rock, but I've only played with them once so far and they've just started the whole thing, so we'll see how it all evolves. It'll be fun to be part of the creative process with them.

Well, I'm feeling a bit punchy from writing & researching all day, so I will now amuse myself (and perhaps others) with a list of Australian slang terms that I've learned so far.

Arvo - afternoon
Rego (pronounced "rej-o") - registration, as in car
Muso - musician
(are you sensing a pattern yet?)
chemist - drug store (okay, not really slang, just different)
hoon - one who drives like a maniac for fun
Esky - cooler (I think it's actually a brand)
popper - drink box
Brissy - Brisbane

Hmm.... I'm sure there are more, but my brain seems to have given up.  Oh well... that's all for now!

So, last night, Susan and I went out to check out the GLBT scene in Brisbane, by going to a popular gay bar called the Wickham. They had advertised a Drag King show, and since we always enjoyed seeing the Cuntry Kings in Durham, we thought this would be a good introduction to the Brisbane lesbian scene.

We decided to go beforehand to Chinatown for dinner (which is very near where the Wickham is) and fought through the throngs of people out and about for the Chinese New Year celebrations and finally found a place where we could get a table that looked like it had decent food.  We finally got to order our food and then discovered that the servings were GIGANTIC and proceeded to stuff ourselves silly.  The food was pretty good, although not something to "write home about" (so I'll stop there).

Anyway, so we go to the upstairs of the Wickham, where the Drag Kings were supposed to be and we hung around and took in the scene.  We got there early, so there weren't many people at first, but it started to fill in and there was a woman sitting near us that seemed to be by herself.  So, she starts up a conversation with Susan and we tell her that we just moved to Brisbane and that Susan is from NZ and I'm from NC.  The woman tells us that she's on vacation in Australia and she's visiting from Durham, NC!  So, the very first night that we went to a gay bar in Brisbane to check out the local scene, we ended up meeting and hanging out with a woman visiting from Durham, NC.  Not only that, but she and Susan decided that they had both been working at Duke around the same time, even though they hadn't met at that time.   Egads, it's a small world.

Today, I ran over a gecko with my toaster.

I didn't mean to! Really, it's not something I'd ever aspired to do or would even think was possible in one's lifetime. But I did it.

You can read the rest here:  http://barckhoff.blogspot.com/

Yes, we have landed safely in Melbourne, Australia -- just got in the night before last.  It's about 9:30 AM on Thursday here now (16 hours ahead of EST).  The weather is warm, but not quite sunny yet.   Yesterday, there were a few sprinkles of rain mixed in with sunny spells.  This morning we're getting some nice thunderstorms (I do like a good summer thurnderstorm).  Yesterday, we wandered around St. Kilda, where Susan's brother Joff lives. It's a nice little section of Melbourne with it's own beach --  the water is quite calm and there weren't really any waves coming in. We didn't go swimming, but it seemed the water is quite warm, the way folks were just standing around in it.   We sat along the beach for a picnic lunch and had dinner at a veggie restaurant called Soul Mama that Joff's girlfriend Min reccommended.  You choose a bowl size and then go to this buffet and get to select a number of items (depending on which size bowl you bought) from the buffet -- it was hard to choose and it was all very good!  I had a nice ale (Mountain Goat Ale) to go along with it.   We're still a bit jet lagged, so had an early evening. 

So far, I'm liking it much better than Liverpool.  Good food, real coffee (I had some really bad coffee experiences the last few days in England), real beer, and we've seen more lesbians here in one day than we did in the entire three months in Liverpool!  Ah... it's good to be in a normal environment again!   Today, we'll venture into the city and get some SIM cards and some cheap flip-flops for me (I have no sandals here). 
No pictures yet, but I'll try to take some after the weather clears up a bit.  In the meantime, here's a link to a website with some pics:  http://www.melbourne.com.au/stkilda.htm.

Just a little update for those who care (or who don't, but just happen to be bored).  

The good news is that we've received word from our liason in Brisbane that our shipment has finally arrived and was picked up mostly without a hitch, aside from being delayed in Hong Kong for awhile.  The fees and taxes or whatever only came to AU$135, which we were also quite pleased about.  It's just a relief to know that it made it there without some crazy hangup in customs -- which we were quite stressed about.   So, Dr. Suze's colleague is now storing the stuff in his house, she is SO going to have to do that Ph.D. with him, whether she wants to or not. ;)

Also, in the past week, I've applied to three schools in Brisbane for a Master in IT degree.  I'm really hoping that Central Queensland University likes me because they're my first choice.  It is the longest of the programs (2 yrs. as opposed to 1.5 yrs.), but it's still cheaper than the other two schools and they seem to be quite chummy with the Australian Computer Society, who will ultimately decide if I'm worthy of a skilled independent visa, if I should go that route for work in Aussie later.  Anyway, I hope one of the schools likes me and will let me be a student with them.

Last weekend, Suze found a cool website that lists all the neighborhoods in Brisbane and gives demographics, average housing costs, etc., which is very useful and got us excited about where we're going next.

In other, more practical news, the internet connection in our house isn't working and the owners are away in France this week.   Hopefully, the owners will call the DSL providers to try to get it fixed next week.  So, I'm currently hanging out in the local pub which seems to be the ONLY place that has free wireless.  More Guiness for me...

I thought that you folks here on LiveJournal would appreciate this article I just read...  Some anti-war protesters claim to have seen robotic insects that they think the US Homeland Security is using to monitor the rallies.  Hmm...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801434.html

Personally, I think it may be true that they weren't real insects, but perhaps not planted by the US government.  Maybe the aliens are spying on us.

Something to consider, anyway.

 I'm only here because I have friends who swear by LiveJournal and who insist that I must be assimilated.  I have a blog on Blogger at http://barckhoff.blogspot.com .  For now, that's where I'll write.