Suck it, Northern Hemisphere losers.

February rocks!

Now when you manage to get out of your parkas and your fingers thaw, go and check out my post on The Greenists today. It’s an extension of our conversation about whaling.

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R.E.M.’s “Reveal” is available from .

Friday:

Boy Z came to ‘work’ with me. On the bus. The bus, apparently, was the best part of the trip.

I’m pretty sure he was convinced that I worked as a bus driver, so it was a bit of a disappointment to him when we got off. Nonetheless, he found the ‘big kids’ at my university endlessly fascinating.

Surprisingly,  I didn’t get much work done, but we did do a fair bit of  ’sploring of the university campus. I like where I work.

That evening, Dr. O’C and I had out big evening out. With grownups. And music.

Saturday:

It is starting to feel a lot like summer in South Australia. So, Saturday marked our first trip of the season to the beach.

Sunday:

No weekend can be perfect.

I don’t think I want to write about football anymore this year.

 But meeting other bloggers has turned out to be good fun in the past and it certainly turned my Sunday around. Brunch with the charming Headbang8 will cure all that ails you.

We lazed the remainder of our weekend away; boys lounging in the first real heat of summer.

I’m really rather fond of this little family of mine.

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Since Friday night, I’ve been listening to Gomez’s back catalog and it really is quite good. “Hamoa Beach” was one of my favourites from the show and is featured on 2006’s “How We Operate”, available from . And if you ever get a chance, they are very good live. They are headed back to the UK for a tour later this month.

-Number of cigarettes smoked: Incredibly, still zero.
-Number of Panadol taken in the vain effort to stop the pounding in my head: 17
-Hours spent wondering just what the hell I am doing: Oh, thousands.

And I was at work for half the day. I made the mistake, however, of taking Boy Z down to what I can best describe as the third circle of hell – Westfield Marion Shopping Center. I learned two things in hell. One, after two weeks of school holidays every Australian parent takes their bored and sugar crazed children to the mall so they can wreak havoc on someone else’s property. Two, I will never go to Westfield Marion Shopping Center again.

You know what else I learned today? To a 19 month old boy, the best way to drink water – the only way to drink water – is out of his Papa’s empty energy drink tin.

Jacob wants a story. My fellow Okeefenokeestani (his demonym, I can’t take credit for something so clever) was enchanted by my ‘literary quality‘ posts of a wee while back and is demanding more. Two problems. One, I only have a limited number of stories unless I start cold making shit up. Two, these literary quality posts aren’t the easiest things to write – they take a little time. More than you get during a typical toddler nap or corporate lunch break.

I’ve actually got a story that I’ve been thinking about telling for a while. But it’s a long one and one that I’m not sure I’m ready to tell yet. One of my goals during this time that I’ve got away from the grind is to sit down and write it out to see how I feel about it. So there you go, Jacob. Hang tough.

For today, however, you get photos. Tomorrow will be our one year anniversary in Oz. I was going through my iPhoto library and was amazed to see how much the little guarana-head above has changed in that year. I was also struck by the amount of time we spend at the beach – that is why I moved here. I can’t think of a better illustration of our first year in Australia than a year at the beach.

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“Everyone, Come Outside!” is the sophomore effort from self-described Cincy art-poppers Pomegranates. The record came out earlier this month and brings to mind some of the Swedish pop that turns my crank. Good stuff. They’re in the midst of a U.S. tour or check out the new album at .

Check back in with me tomorrow, gentle readers.

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Bon Iver’s new EP “Blood Bank” is absolutely beautiful and a steal at $4 from .

After one whole grueling day of work, today was Papa and Boy Z party day. Rather than letting my little terrorist destroy the family home, we hit the road for a visit with the Family Arizaphale. Lunch by the pool and then a trip south to Port Noarlunga was a perfect way to spend an absolutely gorgeous summer day.

Arizaphale’s become one of my favorite people that I’ve met in Australia – charming, gregarious, and an easy conversationalist. Despite her Pommie heritage, she’s characteristic of the friendly Aussie. After four years spent struggling to crack the iron veneer of the painfully reserved English, I find myself almost suspicious when I’m bowled over by affable Aussies strangers. But in general, they’re just genuinely good natured and friendly, much more like my fellow countrymen than their former colonial masters.

In fact, in most ways Australia is more like the U.S. than the U.K. There’s room for the suburban sprawl characteristic of American cities rather than the claustrophobic crowding of British city centers. Once you get into the countryside, the wide open spaces are reminiscent of parts of the American West. The Aussies love their cars and their sports and their road trips. And their donuts. They are often individualistic to a fault and fiercely nationalistic – like their American cousins. We’ve got all the American chain stores, all the American TV (or Australian imitations) and based on the news coverage during the election you would have thought that Australia had a few electoral votes at stake. Now that the Aussie twang sounds normal to my confused ears, sometimes I forget that I’m 10,000 miles away from my birthplace.

A little while before we departed for the Antipodes, I read a comment by The Prettiest Denny’s Waitress describing going to Australia as “like going to San Diego except the people use some funny words and the snakes are more poisonous”. I bristled a bit at that – surely Oz would be more exotic than a medium sized California city full of retirees and uniformed servicemen. But you know what? If you unfocus your eyes a bit while driving through parts of Adelaide, you could easily be in SoCal – San Diego with the occasional wandering marsupial and fewer Marines.

If Australia had been my first expatriate experience, I think I would have been disappointed. When I left the States in 2004, I was looking for something foreign. I got more of that than I expected in Britain, so much so that I was almost completely overwhelmed for the first couple of years. But four years into my expat adventure, I relish the familiarity that Australia offers. I’m looking for a home and on days like today – with my son, in the company of friends, basking in the sun and surf – Australia’s beginning to seem like just the right place for that elusive home.

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Badly Drawn Boy’s “One Plus One Is One” is available from .

I’m coming to realize this week that holidays (vacations) as I knew them are over. In the past, holidays with Dr. O’C have been leisurely affairs – sleeping late, consuming novels like candy, leisurely walks on the beach, wandering through the ancient cities of Europe, luxurious dinners. Well, with the introduction of a toddler terrorist into the equation things have changed. There is certainly no sleeping in together. We did take a walk on the beach yesterday, but there’s a difference between leisurely and zigging and zagging in a generally backward direction after a toddler who’s recently learned to run. In fact, most of our holiday thus far has been spent chasing Boy Z, making sure he doesn’t take a flying leap off of a jungle gym. Seems to me that young boys are biologically programmed to kill themselves.

The result? Complete exhaustion by Boy Z’s bed time. After that wonderful exhalation that slips involuntarily out of my lungs when I’m sure the boy is asleep, an overpowering weariness sets in – fatigue so strong that I can’t read, write or anything other than cuddle up with Dr. O’C in front of the TV, in fact we’ve become completely addicted to the American version of The Office (on DVD) this week. Don’t know what we’re going to do when we run out of episodes. Oh well, I’m back to work on Monday where I can relax a bit.

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All this preface is just an excuse for being a blogging slacker for the last few days. My intent was to finish my Top 10 list before the end of the year and with two to go on New Year’s Eve, I’ve run out of time. So, let’s jam them in before the deadlie. Here’s where we were when last we spoke:

10. The Hold Steady – “Stay Positive”
9. The Black Angels – “Directions To See A Ghost”
8. Sun Kil Moon – “April”
7. Frank Turner – “Love, Ire & Song”
6. Vampire Weekend – “Vampire Weekend”
5. Jon and Roy – “Another Noon”
4. Frightened Rabbit – “Midnight Organ Fight”
3. Okkervil River – “The Stand-Ins”

Coming in at Number 2 is the latest from one of my favorite bands of the last decade. With two lines from their 1998 debut “Gangstabilly”, the Drive-By Truckers made me a life long fan:

The devil says the only thing that’s buggin’ him
is Hell’s filling up with Republicans…

Alabamans who settled in Athens, Georgia about the same time I did, the Drive-By Truckers built up a dedicated local fan base with their first couple of records of clever, tongue-in-cheek country before garnering deserved national attention for “Southern Rock Opera” in 2001. With this record, the band made the transition from a kind of novelty act to a proper Southern rock band and became the best that genre has seen since the 1970’s. 2003’s “Decoration Day” was the band’s masterpiece, and probably one of the best records of the decade.

The band has been in a constant state of flux since then. They added a third guitarist, the outstanding Jason Isbell, who has since left on a solo career. I worried a bit for the Truckers, as their last album seemed slipshod, but with the release of “Brighter Than Creation’s Dark” earlier this year they made a statement that they are in it for the long haul. It’s a rambling beast of a record and has earned comparisons to The Stones’ “Exile on Main Street” and Wilco’s “Being There”. It is by no means a perfect album, nor is it the Drive-By Truckers’ best album, but it is another great one from a band at the top of their game. Have a listen to the opener and if you like what you hear, buy “Brighter Than Creation’s Dark” from .

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That just leaves Number 1. My Top 10 list is mine and thus I get to make the choices. There have been a couple of criteria throughout. First, all the albums are by unsigned artists or artists signed to a truly independent label. The Big Four lost my business earlier by clamping down on bloggers in a desperately Orwellian fashion. They’ll get no more of my money, nor will I shill for them for free anymore. The second criteria is simple – albums that I listened to over and over and that made me happy this year. The latest record from the husband and wife team Mates of State is the perfect example of that latter criteria. There’s nothing groundbreaking or original about “Rearrange Us” – it is just perfectly crafted pop music. It’s wonderfully written. There isn’t a bad track on the record. And it’s perfect to sing-along to. Do you need more? The record kind of got panned by the critics. I don’t know why. It’s as close to a perfect pop album as I’ve heard in years and it was my favorite album of the year. I can give you A Free Man guarantee that if you buy this one from you will not be disappointed.

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Oh, and there’s the little matter of the Grand Prize winner – the lucky reader who will be receiving all ten of my favorite albums of 2008. There was a total of forty entrants and to insure complete randomness, I used random.org to generate a random number between 1 and 40. And the winner is…

Heather from Ghost of a Smile!

But because this particular prize won’t cost me any money and so there will be slightly fewer disappointed readers, I’ve decided to pick a couple of other winners

Father Muskrat (thank god, because I’m pretty sure he was going to kick my ass if he didn’t win) and Mickey from The Prettiest Denny’s Waitress. For those of you who didn’t win (i.e. losers), don’t fret. I’m going to try to come up with a little post-New Year’s thank you gift.

Congrats to Heather, Father Muskrat and Mickey. I’ll be in touch with you guys after I’m back from vacation with details on how to claim your prize.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to this:

Starting today and continuing until my karma wears out, I have Mondays free. Which means that Mondays have become the best day of the week. No teaching, no writing, just me and Boy Z free in the world. This was always the plan when we moved to Oz and after six months of hard work, the plan is hatched – Monday is Boy Z and Papa Party Day. Life just gets better.

It’s a sunny and balmy 82F in Adelaide today, any guesses where we’re headed?

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This track, by Philly’s Canadian Invasion, has nothing to do with that post. But it’s catchy pop licks give you a musical idea of my mood today.  And it has one of the best song titles of all time. Canadian Invasion has a new album upcoming, so if you like what you hear, support blogger-friendly artists by buying their music.

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Prince’s “Sign O The Times” is available from .

Biotech on the other hand moves at a speed that your underwhelming correspondent just doesn’t. Every time I pop into the office something’s different – I’ve come in and found a different computer, different project, different desk, even a new office all without any warning at all. (The new office was cool as I went from a windowless cubicle to an office with the view that you see above.)

At any rate, Tuesday afternoon the e-mails came a zinging. Write this, right now. Now most of you probably know just how well that works and it’s a challenge even when it comes to technical writing. Everything had to be done yesterday and I just bore into it with uncharacteristic efficiency and work ethic. And after two solid, long days of it I had the immense satisfaction of kicking my work’s ass and the feeling of a job well done.

My reward? I busted my hump so hard in the past couple of days that I’m caught up again at Job Number 2. The University is off for another week and the weather forecast for tomorrow is 29°C (84°C) and sunny. It is springtime in Australia, I’ve worked myself into a day off and I’m springing the boy from kid jail for the day. You’ll be able to find us at the beach. It’s pretty good to be me.

UPDATE

Apparently I didn’t bust hard enough as I just got another “write this, right now” e-mail at 10 p.m. To be fair, it could wait until tomorrow but I better get to it now if this spring day isn’t going to be spent looking at that view above from behind glass.  Man, it sucks to be me.

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All of the images in this post are a part of my working days.

k.d. lang’s “Watershed” is available from .

UPDATE

Us you and me
River sea ocean
Moving on so far away and dreaming
Quality sea
Mix it to ocean…

When I looked ahead to having the first two days of this week off, I had all sorts of grand plans. I planned to do an insightful blog post on the collapse of American Capitalism. I had penciled in time to get ahead of my lectures for the remainder of the semester. I was going to read through my students’ lab notebooks and make comments on their work so far. I fully intended to knock of a couple of tardy reports for my other job.

But instead, I let all that go and actually took two days off. And I spent them with my son. And we went to the beach (have I mentioned how much I like living on the coast?). And we had ice cream. And I lived in the days. And I’m glad that I did. Days like these are few and far between and Boy Z is growing up faster than I would have ever imagined possible. Got to take the chance when the chance presents itself.

Us
You
Me
Far away
Far away
Let it go
Far away

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Badly Drawn Boy’s soundtrack to “About A Boy” is available from .