General update

Busy busy busy. Liv Tyler's character in Empire Records once said "my dad always said that there's 24 usable hours in every day", but she didn't spend 7.5 of them trying not to punch the Marketing Director in the face for his incessant tuneless whistling as he walks through an open plan office. This really affects my productivity in more ways than one.

Meditation is not so far helping me deal with such every day stresses, but that's probably because I'm still not in the swing of it. I need to commit to a dedicated time and space to do this, but the routine bothers me. I'm fumbling my way through it, some days more successfully than others. The bath seems to be a good place for me. I'm trying to find some good websites and maybe download some mp3s, but it has been too insane to properly spend any time on this yet. Jaimi also said she'd lend me some meditation material from when she was taking classes, so that will help too.

We've had visitors for the past 9 days and I'm going to see Jonsi tonight (from Sigur Ros! Much excitement), and nothing is really going to calm down until after the 13th, so I might as well just keep fumbling until then.

I've almost hit my target for the Sydney to Gong bike ride donations, which was $250 (the minimum required to be able to enter). So I upped the target to $400. After pay day I'll give everyone a little reminder about it... I'm feeling a lot less scared about it now but I wish it would stop raining and being so dark so I can get some practice on the new bike. There are maps available on the website so I can even check out the early sections of the route.

I have also done research on the break dancing, horse riding, licence-getting, gospel choir-ing, and TV game show-ing, but nothing solid is locked in yet. There are only so many weekends in a year and I need to plan mine pretty tightly.

The day is slipping away. Having all these visitors is excellent fun, but it's not helping me conquer my challenges right now. Gotta find time to write some songs before the 22nd too... oh boy.

Make 'em Laugh

One of my challenges involves making a random stranger laugh every week. It has now been 8 days since the 29 Before 30 challenge began, and I have outright failed in Week 1. It's not for lack of trying. I'm just not very good at it yet. It's all a bit daunting. I thought children would be a good starting point, so I began pulling faces at youngsters on the train. This didn't work. I did a dance for the little Asian lady in the sushi store. She beamed and nodded supportively, but nothing that resembled even a chuckle. I even asked a guy at the patisserie what time it was when Sean Connery went to Wimbledon, and he said he didn't know, and I said tennish, and he looked at me blankly. I was a little disheartened after all of that.

Craig, I'm hoping that after tripping on the starting line, I am allowed to average my 52 strangers out over the course of the year to give me a chance to catch up. I'm going to find a way to do better at this, I swear...

My 'good deed a week' challenge I have sort of merged with this one, but in my defence, Jacob did set me 4 challenges instead of one. However I did exchange a five dollar note for some change for a lady who needed it for the parking meter. Does that count?

A message from (one of) our sponsors

We be riding a bike fo' charity, yo!

So, in rising to the challenge of one miss Carly-le, I have just registered for the Sydney to the Gong ride bike for MS. I was initially very excited about this, but my current emotional state on this latest action is wavering somewhere around the 'so terrified I might vomit a little bit' mark.

If you're feeling generous, you can donate some money here on my fundraising page. It will give you a sense of enormous well-being! In Australia, over 20,000 people currently have MS, but this figure is increasing as diagnosis methods become more advanced. There is no cure, so hopefully my pedal power will go a tiny way towards funding the research to finding one.

Still think I'm going to vomit... oh dear.

When you say 'snow'...

Cider, then vodka, then beer, then champagne? When was that ever going to be a good idea?

Thanks are due to the charming folks from Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem for their hospitality last night, even if I did cop abuse for being boring. James dripped with disdain. "Oh I get it. You're gonna bail. Who are you? I'm going to remember you as you were back then. I don't want to hear about your stupid boring office job. I was there when you first saw snow. You were running around like an infant. It was special."

A conversation then ensued where Ben interpreted the word 'snow' to mean 'cocaine' for its entirety, when what it actually meant was 'snow'. I don't think anybody noticed. It was funny in retrospect.

Here's a picture of the original moment as proof of my innocence, Munich, 2007:

The band claimed to be slack and still thinking of a challenge, but Pat promised to get it to us before the year is out. He asked if I knew how to surf, which I don't, which makes me slightly nervous.

I didn't get a chance to meditate yesterday, unless dance-meditation counts. According to something that popped up when I typed that phrase into google: "The goal of meditation is communion with the Spirited Self, and while in our body-mind we can feel this inner Spirit enlivened while dancing, as we hold positive thoughts and caring feelings for ourselves and all." Justification enough for me.

Dance Yrself Clean

Tonight: LCD Soundsystem and Hot Chip go head to head at Hordern Pavillion. Excited, much? It'll be Ben's first time seeing a band at the Hordern and the first time I've seen the band play live since the three weeks I spent on the Tour Bus of Love circa 2007. Not sure if I'll get a chance to say hi, but fingers crossed. They owe me a challenge and while James already told me they were up for it, receiving such things as postcards while on tour, are a challenge in itself. Frankly, I'll take what I can get.

Lots of other things to say, but no time to say them in, so in the meantime just enjoy this ridiculous video of James, Pat and Nancy being beaten up and abused by evil pandas. It's a bit hilarious.

Break it on down

For those who just arrived, please allow me to explain, video style.