Going to open houses has to be one of the most frustrating activities. The whole process is terrible because it consumes at least half the weekend. Going from one open house to the next seems easy but in Sydney, most open houses are only open for 30 minutes. Some are as short as 15 minutes. We were trying to see as many houses as possible on Saturday morning. It was a lot like the bushland compass training at Kingfisher Lake I received when I was twelve. There were nine checkpoints to locate in a reasonably small area called the maze. The goal was to plot the most efficient way of hitting all nine in the tight time frame. As a twelve year old, you quickly learned to cheat by partnering up with a buddy to halve the time. This guaranteed victory while the rest of the class was still lost somewhere in the Northern Ontario bush.

Aiva and I partnered up with our GPS and real estate printouts in hand and entered “the maze” that is Sydney’s inner west. Unlike my adolescence, she wasn’t keen to seal the agreement with a spit enclosed handshake. After snooping through four homes that were all approximately $500,000 each, you would think that we would be brimming with excitement as we compared notes about “the mahogany in the west wing library and how the pool tiles match the marble kitchen countertops nicely”. However, Sydney housing prices are quite different to Thunder Bay.

Half a million bucks will buy you a 2-bedroom apartment located directly under every Qantas 747 flight leaving Sydney. If the noise doesn’t drive you mad, banging you knees repeatedly on the corner of your bed surely will because every bedroom is rectangular. Somewhere in your shoebox sized home, you will also smoke your head on the low ceiling so hard that your eyes water and take your mind off the jets. If you managed to survive the concussion and bruised joints, the kitchen will likely drive you straight to the asylum. Full sized fridges are unheard of and counter space is as rare as an albino panda. On a positive note, in the summer heat it could be helpful as you would be able to sit in your fridge and chop vegies on the counter at the same time.

I guess that’s just the way it is in Sydney. You are paying for the weather, beaches, nightlife and big city living in general, not simply a mortgage. I’m sure that if you solely wanted a nice house you could find one in a place like Nipigon for $50,000 but when it rains the air smells like wet dog and going out for a nice dinner provides only two options: the Poutine at the Husky Gas Station or a meatball sub from Subway. Don’t get me wrong, I like both those dinner options so Aiva and I really need to decide on whether we prefer a spacious pulp town or a cramped city.

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I checked my email to find a comment request for this blog from “Damien”. His comment was related to an entry that I posted about an evening out at the Sydney Opera House. Before you read his comment, it would probably be best if you read my entry first if you haven’t already.

"I’ve cried before on reading a review of one of our shows but not tears of laughter. Your eloquent description of the music is beautiful – we should get you to write our press releases. Do you mind if we quote you on our website? Anyway, we’re really sorry we gave you a headache, but I’m sure its nothing an ibuprofen and a good backbeat didn’t cure. Thanks for coming." - Damiem (Co-Artistic Director, Ensemble Offspring)

Well Damien, if you thought you laughed upon reading my blog, I damn near pissed myself when I read your comment. I immediately showed everyone in the office and even accused a few friends of faking it. Next thing I knew, the office was filled with curious staff with earphones plugged in and your YouTube video on their screens. I’m sure their curiosity was partly (read: mostly) driven by the hope that I would be slapped with a defamation lawsuit but either way, you now have an office that all know of Ensemble Offspring.

Feel free to quote or link this blog if you believe that it will help. Send me the link to it and I would be happy to post it here for you.

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Music is the joining of sound and rhythm while sound in the absence of rhythm is noise. This simple fact could have saved me an evening of discomfort. You see, Aiva and I often go to see “shows” at the Opera House without reading any reviews or truly understanding what we are in for…and I guess that’s half the fun. Sometimes they aren’t very good and sometimes they are great but one thing is certain – they never give me a mind-numbing headache. That is, until now.

Kontakte: Ensemble Offspring & Pimmon was billed as “a unique concert bringing together acoustic and electronic music”. I envisioned a DJ pumping out beats with tables or even a laptop, jamming with some classically trained prodigy. To be fair, I got the laptop part right with the exception that it was some guy that looks like Silent Bob sitting in the middle of the stage staring at his screen…that’s it. Okay, looking for a minimalist structure, fine, I get it.

The “concert” started and I honestly looked around to see if there was a technical malfunction because it sounded like that noise in between old school radio stations (to which I later found out is one of Pimmon’s inspirations). I started to laugh because it wasn’t music at all but noise. No rhythm of any kind. You couldn’t tap your toe to it if someone had a gun to your head.

So I guess I was not on the same page as the DJ (or whatever he is called) because I was expecting music. Now, I have been prone to exaggeration in the past but part of the show sounded like I had my head in a fishbowl while someone was using a wet/dry vac to suck up loose change out of a couch…while X-Files was playing in the background in reverse and at half speed. My favourite part was shortly after a break when a new “song” started up. It was a mixture of…jesus, I dunno…80’s lasers and Russian static, when Aiva leaned over and whispered “I think I know this one”.

I’ve added the You-Tube video below so that you can hear it for yourself because I’m struggling to give it justice. Hey, maybe it’s for you. Oh I forget to mention, that the second half included a wind chime/cake tin percussion arrangement and the rare duelling gongs.

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After much debate I have finally joined Twitter. The reasoning is that I am having more difficulty finding the time to write as many blog entries so hopefully I can still keep in touch via Twitter. I’m still working towards putting a blog entry once a week as a minimum. Anyway, to celebrate my Twitter membership, I bought an iPhone.

For the few days I have been playing with both Twitter and my iPhone nonstop and am certain that I have already exceeded my download plan. I have been trying to figure out all the GPS apps so that I can map my bike rides and post the information. The first test will be tomorrow. The first app that I downloaded however was TripView that is basically the Sydney train schedule but updated every minute. This gem has stopped me sprinting through traffic and sliding over taxi hoods just to try and make the next train. For this app alone, the iPhone was worth the price.

So bare with me as I learn the in’s and out’s of Twitter and tinker with my blog over the next week or so. I fully expect to screw up the blog formatting and have to redo it all.

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We bought a bubble, I mean a car. A little 2-door Toyota Echo hatchback. It isn’t much bigger than a refrigerator and likely has the same size engine.

A friend of mine just moved to London for a great job opportunity and had to get rid of her car. Aiva and I decided that we should bite the bullet and get a car for weekend adventures. A test drive was in order but we had a disagreement about who should be the one to drive it. Not because we both wanted to drive but because both of us specifically didn’t want to. Aiva has never driven in Sydney in the 7 years she has lived here and she is rather tentative in traffic (good thing there is no traffic in Sydney). I, on the other hand, have never driven on the “wrong” side of the road and am at risk of being the perfect half of a head on collision.

So basically, two incompetent drivers decided to buy a car but were scared of test driving it. Some highlights of the much feared test drive included me constantly turning on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal, getting lost 4 blocks from where we started and Aiva yelling “This map is wrong!” As a safety valve, I told her to remind me which side of the road to drive on but that, apparently, loosely translated to “I’ve never driven before” so Aiva was kind enough to remind me of my speed, upcoming intersections and when to turn the wipers on before turning. Needless to say, we barely survived - Me, because I’m all over the road and Aiva because I nearly pushed her out of a moving bubble.

Anyway, we now own a car.

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My Uncle Craig came to visit.

I was really looking forward to my Uncle Craig visiting from Sydney – it had been some time since I had seen him and I was wondering if he had changed as much as I had. I was thinking he must be huge because I had doubled my weight since I saw him last. I didn’t get to meet him at the airport because it was past my bedtime. I tried really hard to stay awake to see him but I couldn't because a strange musical light kept shining on my ceiling and I found it impossible to look away but at the same time I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

I could hear Uncle Craig in the morning getting ready to ride his bike with Dad so I decided to get up. I had to call Mum for 15 minutes before she finally came to get me and by that time Uncle Craig and Dad were already out of the house. By then it was 5:50am and there was no point going back to bed so I hung out with Mum instead. Did Mum ever look tired - I wondered why she got out of bed so early if she was so tired?

Yeah, everyone is back from the ride. Wow, my uncle Craig has not grown nearly as much as me – actually, I think he has shrunk. Time to show off. First, I wow him with my twirling – I can go around 20 times without falling, then I show him my splits, I can almost touch my nappy to the floor, and finally I flash him my cheesy grin. Now he’s mine. I’m sure when Mum and Dad are out I’ll be able to get away with anything.

Uncle Craig wants to baby-sit the second night in. My chance has come early - man, what a fool! I’ll start off slow I don’t want to scar him too deeply. I throw out a few basics like spill my milk in three places in three different rooms, knock everything off the table, and turn the TV and stereo on full blast. I have to admit for an old guy he is pretty quick and he does not seem to be tiring. No problems, it is time to bring out the big guns – "KAKA". That stopped him in his tracks; I can see that he is processing what I have said. Does he understand Greek for CRAP? I say it again “KAKA”, this time I accompany it with a Michael Jackson crotch grab. Ah, now he understands. But what happens next I am not sure – everything happened so quickly. I remember being held upside down by one leg, I think he was trying to shake me clean. Then I felt something really cold, I remember hearing the hose and I think we were outside but I can’t be sure. The next thing I know I am all dressed but I am wearing a swimming nappy and my track pants are on backwards. Just then my Mum comes through the door. I sure did miss her - that was one of the longest 30 minutes of my life.

Don’t worry, Unc and I made up the next day. I explained a few things about nappies and high-pressure hoses. I also showed him a thing or two about building a deck. He was building a deck with Dad and frankly I’m not sure either of them knew what they were doing. I have watched Bob the Builder so I was happy to pass on a few pointers. I enjoyed my Uncle Craig’s visit and I am very excited because I will be going to visit him very soon in Sydney.

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