walkin'

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

I was starting to get a bit upset with myself for not going out and taking more photos so I decided to do something about it and do a few photo walks this week. This one is from the MCG. It's not even clear what these things are when you're standing in front of them. They're just these huge oval shapes in the middle of the pedestrian walkway. I suspect that they're there to provide some break in the crowd, to stop people being able to crowd to the edge of the area, but I don't really know. They look cool though :)

meet

Barry finally gets in trouble for his Gangsta ways
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Another Flickrmeet, this time at the Great Britain hotel in Richmond. Met some more flickr people, added some more contacts, and caught up with the usual suspects :)
Barry was there of course, although his latest incarnation as a Gangsta managed to catch the eye of the police, and his chicks had to sweet talk them out of arresting him. ;)

here's trouble

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

It was a pretty big weekend this time around, Two big parties in a row, Technoir on Friday night and aLive on Saturday, with a few bits and pieces in between. Technoir is looking like a pretty regular thing, especially given the quality of music they lay down, and the effort they put into the party decor. aLive was, as always, a great and dangerous messiness wedged into an afternoon and evening. Many shenanigans ensued, Becy played again this time and she absolutely rocked. Vanessa and Kathryn joined us this time and got involved in the various silliness. Spent Sunday morning on the couch watching movies with Vanessa and generally joking around. Such a great chick.

a walk in the park

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Went for a walk in the park near Kathryn's place to take a few photos. Quite an interesting park for such a small place, and Kathry's company is always worthwhile.

Happy Birthday Kate

Happy Birthday Kate
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Went around to Kate's place to help celebrate her 30th Birthday. The theme was that of a children's party, with games like musical chairs and pass the parcel, and cupcakes and fairy bread.
It was a great party, lots of interesting people, all the usual suspects in Kate's crew, plus some new faces I hadn't met before. Sh definitely has a very high calibre of friend, which is to be expected for such a great person :)

photo walk

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Went on a bit of a photo walk with Joe and Clayton down along the Yarra for some night shots. Got some good stuff I think, and had a look at the newly renovated Sandridge bridge.

Anzac Eve

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Anzac Eve we went to The Lounge as it was the last day Luke McD was playing there. It was a pretty good night, had some dinner, saw Funkee Monkee and Grania, hung out with Vanessa, Kathryn and Ryan. I have to say, I have yet to have a bad time hanging out with Vanessa and Kathryn :)

From Web to Wall

From Web to Wall
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

for those of you who don't already know, a bunch of us melbourne flickrnauts are having an exhibition of our work out in 'meat space' :)

The exhibition runs from 24 May to 11 June, Wednesdays to Saturdays, with the official opening from 3-6pm on Saturday 27 May.

If you're able to, please come along and have a squiz at everyone's work, it's shaping up to be a pretty good exhibition, with lots of very interesting works on display. Especially mine :)

Wonder Woman & Friends

Happy Birthday Vanessa
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Saturday was the occasion of Vanessa's birthday, and she held a fancy dress party. She came as Wonder Woman, I went as Dick Dastardly (although I also doubled as the guy from the monopoly box), Joe came as one of The Sopranos, Kim went as Dr Livingstone, there was also a Hunter S Thompson, , 3 Guinness cans (guinNESS for vaNESSa)Cat Woman, Fu Manchu, and Iron Chef (with Iron). It was a pretty good party, lots of decent people and cheap food and drinks, since it was held in a pub, and even though it started early (7pm) didn't finish up until 4am when they finally threw us out, 4 hours after the pub officially closed. :) They are a pretty good bunch of people, which is to be expected given how cool Vanessa is :)

canberra crew catchup

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Friday night was all about catching up with the Canberra crew :)
Joe and I met up with Dean, Felicite, Mick and Steph at Transport, where we had a few rounds of drinks in the crowded conditions, and then headed off to dinner. Joe has recently become obsessed with the Shanghai Dumpling House in Tattersalls Lane, so that's where we all headed for dinner. It's weird having a proper dinner on Friday night, as it's normally just some sort of nasty junk food snack at the end of an evening of drinking :) It's funny to head home at the end of the night and not need to stop in to KFC or McDs for a junk food top-up :)
After dinner we headed into the Lounge for a few choice tunes and then headed home. It's funny because I have been to Lounge heaps of times but never actually went to the bar/cafe part downstairs. It's pretty cool :)

flickr meet and 80's music

next stop please driver
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Instead of going to the movies this thursday I went to a flickrmeet and photowalk instead. The weather was pretty crappy so I only got a few shots, and I actually find I don't work well in a crowd, I find it hard knowing that everyone else is hanging around looking for the perfect shot. :)
It was good though to meet some new flickrnauts :)
After the meetup Kerryn and I went up to RMIT to join Helen Jamieson and some friends to be members of the studio audience for Chartbusting 80's, a locally made video show featuring 80's music videos, trivia, and live bands playing 80's tracks. It's a pretty funny show, with a very over the top hostess named Josie who you can't help laughing with. Anyway, as cheesy as it is, I had a pretty good time :)

Oh Comedy

Fran & Kate
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Managed to catch up with Kate and crew (Nick, Judy, Fran, Siobhan) for some Comedy Festival capers. We went to see The 4 Noels, which was pretty good, although difficult to photograph :) At first it looked like it might be pretty crappy, but then it turned out to be very funny indeed. We also had some time before the show to have a bit of a joke around and catch up. It was pretty good, I really need to spend more time with these people :)

Lectro

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Yet another superb Lectro party has come and gone, with all the usual elements of great decor, fabulous floor show, outstanding people, and this above all else: music music music.
More super electro loveliness was blasted out into our heads, this time by the ultra sweet Nexo stacks at the Mercat Cross Hotel, the new home of Lectro (and also the new home of aLive, making it our new home away form home).
Met some new crew, saw some old crew, dances to some new tunes and bopped to some old tunes, and overall just had a fabulous time. again. If you are considering coming to a party, Lectro is definitely a candidate, trust me :)

meetup

thanks beau
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Time fr another flickrmeet, this time at The Windsor Castle in windsor :) A good bunch came along, lots of new faces, and all the flickr schwag had shown up so there were all sorts of badges and stickers being handed out, which was pretty cool. Elli had also made up a bunch of Barry stickers, so we stuck them around all over the place until we started to get in trouble. When the meetup started to drift apart (due to an overcrowding pub and weather starting to get too cold for the beer garden) Joe, Marcus, Kerryn, Elli and I headed over to La La Land for a few more drinks and general shenanigans :)
These kids are all pretty cool, and the funny thing is that Most of us are really friends due to a mutual third party, Beau. Good people, all of them. :)

Life in a nutshell

Death's seduction
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

After Risque I popped over to the Mercat to check out Nutshell. It was a pretty good gig, with a few of the usual suspects, definitely worth checking out again. Even if future floor shows don't have partial nudity ;)

Risque

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Friday evening was another work social club function down at the boatsheds by the yarra, another night of drunken accountants and trying to enjoy stubbies of VB. Joy :)
Actually it wasn't too bad, since we don't really talk to the accountants much and just hang out in our little clique and laugh at them :)
After the social club Joe, Bec and I headed up to the John Curtin Hotel to check out Risque. It was a pretty good night, with a mix of tech and electro from some guys I hadn't heard before. Met the promoter and hung out a bit with some of the crew and then headed off. The John Curtin is shaping up to be a pretty good location, and i look forward to seeing more events there.

Bec's Birthday

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Saturday Night we went to dinner with a bunch of guys to celebrate Bec's Birthday. It was a chance to catch up with some people I hadn't seen in ages and a damn fine meal to boot. The only problem was that the meal was so good I ate too much and nearly fell asleep on the table :)

aLive.8

sally likes beer
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Well this looks like it was the last aLive at The Retreat, at least until summer rolls around. We managed to have a pretty god time, despite the venue mucking the guys around a bit, chopping off the tail end of the gig, but everyone seemed to have a blast and we squeezed into the undercover section to escape the rain and the cold as the day went along. :)

Rock n Race

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Joe and I were asked to go and shoot some photos at Room680 for their Ferrari pre-race party.
It was a pretty good party, with a really nice vibe, and we also popped outside to get a few shots of the girl in a million dollar dress. The dress itself was made up of small diamond shaped sections of solid gold formed into a zig-zag pattern and interlinked into a designer dress more a work of art than everyday garment. Not everyone wants to wear a 7.5kg dress either :)

Happy Birthday Marcus

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

It seems to be a month of birthdays :)
This time it's the turn of Marcus, aka DJ Mudgutz. Joe and I went out to his place of work in the burbs (Seamus O'Toole's in Knox) to help celebrate his existence and to meet some of his friends, especially his girlfriend Sally, who is very nice :)
It's always a bit of fun with Marcus and this was no exception. The hangover at work the next day was a testament to how much fun we had :)

Wedding Jitters

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Leah and David asked us to shoot their wedding and we were somewhat nervous.
The shoot ended up going pretty well, although we made a few mistakes, we got the shots we needed and had a pretty good time. I must admit though, at the end of the day I was knackered from spending so much time looking through the viewfinder :)
Apart from that the wedding and reception were great, just a good simple ceremony in a very beautiful old Bendigo hotel and then out to the open spaces of the Bendigo Aero club for the reception. Pretty good party too :)

new heights

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

An old friend was in town for a week for work and invited a bunch of us up to his suite to have some dinner and catch up. His suite was on the 17th floor and had some magnificent views of the city and surrounds. Needless to say, I took a butt-load of photos :)

Lectro Labyrinth

The Goblin King
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Another fantabulous Lectro party at Brown Alley, where Shez presents a crazy party of costumes and antics. You haven't lived until you've seen Chestwig and Grania dressed up as David Bowie (The Goblin King in the movie Labyrinth) and the head goblin, prancing around to 'Dance Music Dance' cheesy 80s classic :)
A real fun night, with a real fun crew.

Happy Birthday Kathryn

Happy Birthday Kathryn
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Friday we went out to Room680 to celebrate Kathryn's birthday by seeing Jan Johnston perform. Jan is the first angel of trance music, with a truly beautiful voice, and we had actually seen her last time she was out here, which was also for Kathryn's birthday last year, so it seemed fitting to return again for her birthday this year.
Joe had to go home early because the music was so loud it was damaging his ears, but Kathryn and I stayed on until the early hours of the morning, listening to Jan sing a few times and generally just having a bit of a dance around :)
I was also shooting the event for inthemix.com.au and while I was there Nat from Room680 asked if they could also get a copy of my shots as the photographer they had hired hadn't shown up for some reason. This meant that they gave me access to some other areas of the club to try and get a better angle, and I think it helped me get some great shots. But this is a shot of Kathryn, it was her birthday after all :)

Kosheen

Sian
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

I had my first ever paid photo assignment, courtesy of Sara the photo editor for inthemix.com.au, who had been asked to provide a photographer for a product launch that evening, where Kosheen would be playing a set. The gig itself was pretty interesting, and I think I got what they were looking for, but I was just rapt to get to see Kosheen perform, especially to be able to get some shots of Sian belting out the tunes with her golden voice :)

Earthcore in the Park

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Another day in the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, but this time for Earthcore in the Park, same size crowd but a much more relaxed and enjoyable, not having to walk all over the hill for starters, and hanging out with Joe and Vanessa just mucking around all day. Good Stuff :)

Kiss my Grass

cheeky monkey
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Local radio station KissFM held a fundraiser event at Sidney Myer Music bowl to help increase awareness of the station and raise some funds.
This event attracted pretty much every local DJ of any note and filled the bowl with thousands of people and a wide variety of music.
I had the official photo gig for ITM, and wore myself out marching up and down the hill what seemed like a million times, but it was all worth it to hear so much good music and photograph so many people having a great time in the sunshine :)

Happy Birthday Kate

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

On Saturday Elli (pictured) invited us to come help celebrate her friend Kate's birthday at Union Bar on chapel st. We had a pretty good time, Elli is always fun to hang out with, and we met a few of her friends and generally mucked around :)

Technoir

Tronikelesch
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Well, this is the first time i've been specifically requested to shoot a party, and I have to say, it was a pretty good party. Technoir at the Mercat Cross hotel, some of our old friends like Bubble 'n Squeak, Heath Myers and Elektra (my favourite electro dj, trying a techno set for the first time), and some new friends, Ranjit Nijer and Tronikelesch. Some very good music being played and some swish decor turned this 'favour' into a new compulsory event on the party calendar :)

Flickrmeet

joe and baz go way back
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Yet another Flickrmeet with all the old cronies and some very special guests indeed. Shooz and jrg_ were in town from the UK and wanted to meet some local flickrenos, so we organised a meet.

Also in attendance were new faces snork maiden, knicole7, and barrybear, and despite barry (picture above with joe) losing an ear in the proceedings, it was a great day :)

Happy Birthday EJ!

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

And while we were travelling through drunkenness after the Screw you Alive party we stopped into Bridie O'Reilly's in Brunswick for Erin-Jade's birthday.

We were drunk, they were drunk, we nearly got thrown out for taking photos, then we left and went back to the Screw you Alive afterparty :)

Screw you Alive!

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

What a momentous occasion, the combination of the Screw crew parties and the aLive crew parties, Screw7 & aLive7 joined into one event, crazy electro/tech upstairs and live creations downstairs, all on a boat steaming around the bay.

What a fantastic party. Both of these crews know how to throw a good party, and together they managed to throw a phenomenal party. The best party I have ever been to, ever. period.

There's something pretty special about drinking vodka all afternoon, dancing to some of the best music , on a moving floor, using the motion of the boat to add to your moves, watching the sun go down over the ocean and just plain hanging out with a damn good bunch of people.

Sean's Wedding

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Joe and I shot our first wedding today. A friend from work was having a small registry office ceremony on the weekend and he asked if we'd mind coming along and getting a few snaps. We were more than happy to oblige since Sean is a good bloke, and we also needed a little practice for a wedding we'd been asked to shoot later in the month.

Shopgirl

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

We went to another session of Moonlight Cinema, this time for Leah's birthday. We had a good time, mucking around as usual, but I have to say, don't ever go there if you haven't seen the movie. We went to see Shopgirl, which I hadn't seen before, and it was really annoying because you can almost never see the whole screen, and everyone around you talks and laughs and it just gets too annoying :)
Lovely night though, and it's always nice to see the city skyline at dusk and enjoy one of the last warm spring evenings.

Two Tribes

Candy Kids going off tap :)
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

It was time again for the Annual excursion to Two Tribes at Melbourne Park. Again this year the event covered Rod Laver arena and Vodafone arena and the area between them, as well as rooms in the Cafe and Conference centre, a total of 8 stages and heaps of international DJs. I got a Media pass from ITM which was basically a free VIP pass, so that was a bit of fun to walk around with, and even better, one of our all-time favourite DJs Elektra won the ProDJ competition and had a DJ set at Two Tribes. She was pretty stoked, and played an awesome set, as always.
Two Tribes was huge and crazy as always, people everywhere, everyone dressed up to the max and everyone seeming to have lots of fun.

Lounge and Infusion

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

This weekend was shaping up to be a big one for the ITM crew with a bunch of out-of-towners coming down for Two Tribes, so there was a bit of a meetup at The Lounge on Friday to catch up with everyone. Suffice it to say that this turned rather quickly into a crazy drunken express train. I didn't stay too long for the shenanigans because I had to go shoot photos of one of my all-time favourite bands, Infusion.
This local group of three guys won an ARIA for their recent album and has been touring the US and Europe very successfully. It was an awesome gig and I really enjoyed myself, especially since I got in for free! :)

Beach blanket bingo

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Another beach party down at Elwood, with the usual crowd of ITM malcontents and reprobates. It was a good day, with some excellent music, and ended up fairly early, which was good because it was also very tiring :)

combination

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Friday drinks, combining flickr and work friends, along with that all important 'work funded' portion of the evening. Lots of funny shenanigans ensued :)

model behaviour

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

This afternoon the Victorian Finals of the Miss Universe contest were held in QV. It's an interesting process to go and watch, for a pageant that is solely judged on beauty (talent, intelligence, etc, they're not interested), they certainly didn't seem to be able to judge beauty very well. The girls they chose for the finalists were mostly very attractive, but there were a couple that were honestly not particularly attractive. Of course there were a few that were simply stunning.

multi-party

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Saturday was one of those nights that are becoming very frequent lately, where we have multiple parties on one night. The start of the evening was Leah's housewarming/birthday party out in Maribyrnong. This was an interesting party, since Leah's housemate is a police officer, we ended up with a party that had 6 people from Leah's side (Leah, her boyfriend Graeme, me, Joe, Kathryn and Diana) and then the other 10 people were pretty much young female police officers. :)
The next part we attended was at ABar in prahran, where some of our usual crew of ITMers were congregating to listen to a friend DJ and check out a new club night. That was a bit of fun for a while, and then we decided to head into the city to get some Electro fun at the Mercat Cross hotel. We arrived just in time to hear Luke McD starting his set, and spent the next few hours being forced to groove to Luke, Luko, and Pro Tool pump out some seriously good tunes. Afterwards we went back to Ryan's place (because it was very close, and we were very tired) and hung out for a bit before heading home to sleep the sleep of the dead :)

alcohol driven

pretend I'm saying something funny
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

I guess sometimes it seems like my life is fuelled by alcohol. Friday was another of those times, drinking with a mixed group of ITM and Flickr friends, laughing and joking around, then Kerryn and I went on a little drunken photowalk. I know from past times that it's still a lot of fun without drinking, but it's also a lot of fun when you are drinking :) There's certainly a lot more jokes, the ones that are only funny when you're brain isn't working properly :)

Sandy

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Sandy was in town for a few days so I went to meet up with her and Kate at Polly in Fitzroy. It was good to see them both again, especially Sandy as I hadn't seen her for many months, but I also hadn't seen Kate for ages either. As such, Kate actually gave me my birthday present while I was there, which was a very cool AFI yearly membership, which means cheap movie tickets, access to special screenings, and being able to vote in the AFI awards. It's pretty cool stuff :) It was great to see Sandy again and have

flickrmeet

meta meta meta
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

What is it about flickr meetups that makes them always occur after a big night out? I can't remember the last official meetup I went to that I was sober when I arrived. Maybe the first one. granted i've never been sober when I left, but that's a different story :)
The february meetup was help at The Standard hotel in Fitzroy, and was frequented by a number of new people and even a foreigner or two :)

Carl Cox

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Saturday night it was time to hit The Metro for the much awaited Carl Cox gig. Carl Cox is one of the grand masters of dance music, has been a world class DJ for decades and is still capable of creating a fantastic set of music. There had been some concern early on about my ability to take the camera into this gig and use it to shoot photos for ITM, as the promoters, Hardware, have a policy of no media access except their own house photographer, and had already denied ITM a media pass, so it was possible that I wasn't even going to get the camera in, and I definitely wasn't going to be able to blag better access to the DJs once I was in.
We hit the gig in good time, Joe, Nettsu (Michael) and myself and didn't get any hassles at the door. Once we actually showed up at the gig I started to worry less, as the security was being run by the same guys who did it for the TIGA gig, and I knew they'd recognise me and Joe from previous events. Once We were inside the gig it was a bit early and there wasn't much of a crowd gathering, so we did a quick once-around to see where the various stages were set up and then settled into the main room near the bar and started drinking :)
We were joined shortly thereafter by some other friends, Ashley from work, Trashy from ITM, and Fee (Fiona) and her friend Brina, who are old friends of DJ Mudgutz's (pictured above).
The music on the night was excellent, with a room thumping performance by Honeysmack and a huge set by the man himself Carl Cox. I was taking it fairly easy, still being on call, and spent a little bit of time wandering around taking shots, trying to at least get some decent shots of Carl Cox and also a few of Luke McD who was DJing upstairs in the Electro lounge portion of the gig. Poor Luke got the same timeslot as Carl Cox, so there was not that many people in the room while he was playing except a few dedicated Electro freaks :)
After the gig we were all a bit tired, so Joe, Brina, Fee and I headed back to Fee's place in Carlton to crash and talk crap, which was really good, we were cracking each other up consistently until my pager went off and I had to pop home to sort something out. Fee even gave me a lift as they had to go sort out some stuff in the city :)

Alive Alive-o

twice as fun, for twice as long
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Well, another month another episode of Alive.

This one had the usual mix of great music, crazy shenanigans and meeting new people. The music a these gigs just keeps getting better and better, I think every Alive I've been too has had better music than the last, usually from the same artists just pushing and pushing even more, and this was no exception. I don't think there was one moment all afternoon when I wasn't moving to the music, and some points when all conversation stops and everyone looks over to the 'dj' area in awe. (not that they are actually playing records, so not really DJing). The shenanigans were up to scratch, with Becy getting her book of stupid pick-up lines back off Ryan, Sally modelling a plaque stating "twice as fun, for twice as long" on her chest, and Ryans girlfriend Liz showing that she can actually touch underneath her chin with her tongue. The new people met this time were two of Sally's friends who were actually at Rainbow, we just didn't see them, some mates of Becy's from Sydney and Ryan's girlfriend Liz. Just a fantastic time as always.

The next alive is being held in conjunction with the Screw Crew and will be held on a boat, can't wait for that one. :)

Yak and Docklands

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Friday saw a return to old fashioned values by having a few drinks at Yak with Kathryn, Leah and a few of the guys from Kathryn's team. It was a fairly low key scenario, as they weren't drinking that heavily and I was On Call. The highlight of the time at Yak was teasing Kathryn about her meeting up with Anyhony whom she met at Rainbow Serpent. Friday was their second date, after a lunch date during the week. Anthony is pretty cool, so I stayed around until he'd been there a bit before saying my goodbyes, to help give Kathryn some support (as I am the only other person there he knew) and to not seem like I was leaving as soon as he showed up.
After Yak I took a bit of a trip down to docklands to see if I could get some shots and to see if any of the boats from the Volvo world race were in port. I got some great sunset shots and managed to see the boats, although it was too dark by that stage to get any decent shots of them.

Rainbow Serpent

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

We finally managed to go to the Rainbow Serpent festival, and I have to say it was one of the best, if not THE best parties I've ever been to.
The crew list was as follows: Joe, Sean, Nick, Kathryn, Kim and Vanessa (friends of Nick), and as per our usual crews, everyone was as silly as humanly possible :)
We had a good camp setup, with Joe, Sean and I having a tent each, so it was definitely Camp Comfort :)
The gig itself was awesome, some simply fantastic music, great visuals, great staging.
There were lots of silly shenanigans, brides stripping down to their underwear, guys in suits with clipboards checking the quality of the sand and tsk-tsk-ing then moving on to another spot, lots of people with wings, crazy hats, gorilla masks, everything you would want.
Friday night was fun, Saturday afternoon good, Saturday night simply awesome, mind numbingly fabulous music, Sunday morning was great, superb techno rolling into a fun Sunday afternoon.
Basically, it was good, I liked it a lot, will be going again, wish I was still there :)

Australia Day

run bec run!
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

This year Australia day was an absolute scorcher, so we had to make sure wherever we went, it was well air conditioned.
The location of choice was Felicite and Deans place, where they promised us a BBQ and a chilled lounge room.
It was a great day, hanging out with Joe, Felicite, Bec, Steph, Sarah, Paul and Dean. Dean 'took one for the team' and cooked the BBQ out in the 40 degree heat, which was especially arduous since their aircon also exhausts it's air straight under the BBQ. We all did a stint out there to keep him company, and it was bloody hot :)
It's always a lot of fun to hang out with these guys, as they are just plain silly.
For example, after it cooled down a little, the girls went exploring on the roof outside the apartment, running across it and going down into a sunken air conditioning vent and pretending it was a pool, popping their heads up as if swimming and diving, making us all crack up.

Mudgutz meetup

mini meet
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Sunday was slated for a meetup with DJ Mudgutz, and given the excessive heat (40+ C)we had to take some special precautions. The original meet-point was Transport at federation square, because it's easy to meet at and very well air-conditioned, although the drinks are expensive, especially on this day since the beer taps weren't functioning :)
After some discussion we decided to try E55 as we knew it was cheap, and it was bound to be relatively cold, being underground.
All was going well, we were joined by some more friends and were having a bit of a drink and a bit of a surf and so forth.
The drinking and surfing was interrupted when the lights went out.
At first everyone just laughed, we'd all heard that there had been brown-outs throughout the warm weather and just put it down to that, at least for the first 10 minutes. Most of the guys got their cameras out and were flashing away up until one of the bartenders asked s2art to stop because it was really annoying :) and I see his point, trying to fix a problem at work in the pitch dark and all you get is constant flashes :)
We ended up having to relocate and made our way to The Elephant and Wheelbarrow, which is nasty, but they had decent food and good A/C :)
By the time we finished up the cool change had come through and the wind was blowing a gale through town. Melbourne :)

Berley's Birthday

Kim's new skates
Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Berley's Birthday

As Saturday was Kim's birthday, Rik had made arrangements to have a surprise visit to go roller skating with a bunch of friends. Kim had just received a new pair of Nike hockey skates for her birthday and still hadn't realised that this meant she was going skating on the day as well :)

The skating was a lot of fun to watch, and the rink was very well air-conditioned, which is a bonus on such a hot day, and I managed to get a bunch of good photos.

After the skating we all went back to Rik and Kim's house to hang out, play a little XBOX Karaoke (hilarious) and soak up their extremely good air-conditioning. Dave cooked up a storm on the BBQ and the kids had a bit of a frolic in the spa but I was happy to just be in a very cold room on a very hot day :)