Urban Frisbee Golf

Back in July at the Meetup 4th of July party, I came in contact with a guy named Ben. Coincidentally he worked in IT consulting with SAP as well and we quickly became friends. Ben is one of those guys that always has something going on. If you thought I was a social butterfly, this guy redefines the term. He's always planning nights out, socials, parties, and events for his circle of friends.

Ben invited me to an Urban Frisbee Golf tournament through Sydney. If you've never played frisbee golf before (technically, I guess it's called disc golf), it's really simple. You throw a frisbee at a designated target, hitting it in the least amount of throws as possible. Yes, there is even a professional league. My brother is really into this and plays on designated courses back home, but our course was set up randomly throughout the city.

Another caveat to our event was that you had to wear golf attire (see picture above - lots of argyle) and take a shot of liquor at every hole. This was going to get interesting... and sloppy.  The only exception was Ben's dad, who wore lederhosen.  Why?  I'm not sure.  I just wore some dress slacks that I tucked into argyle socks.  I didn't have much else to work with, so that would have to do.

We started off around dusk at Observatory Park which had a great overlook of the Harbor Bridge.  There were two different wedding parties taking photos near us, and I'm sure they loved the fact that we were dressed the way we were, being loud, and flinging discs every which way.

We made our way from the park to a tunnel under the bridge, then into Circular Quay where I may or may not have pegged an innocent bystander in a sari. I yelled 'Fore!' What else do you want me to do? We got some interesting looks from tourists in the Quay because of our attire and all of our gear. All of us had drinks in hand, I'm sure it was quite a scene to witness.

The course took us beside the Royal Botanical Garden and through another tunnel where we interrupted a few bums that were sleeping. One proceeded to heckle everyone that had a bad throw - he was such a good sport that Ben gave him a beer. Only one frisbee was lost, and Ben ill-advisedly tried to rescue it by scaling an 8 foot iron fence with pikes atop the bars. Luckily, and I mean VERY luckily, his injuries were minor (and the frisbee was lost).

As we entered Hyde Park we got some grief from security guards about our open drinks. We had been prepared for this to happen all night and we're lucky it didn't come up sooner. We got through about 8 holes and decided to call the rest of the game off. Ben invited us all back to his place for pizza and we spent the rest of the evening on his rooftop.

After tallying the scores, I think I won. I guess that makes me the Southern Hemisphere World Champion (according to Ben's Facebook invite of the title of the event).

T-shirt company

I randomly found this t-shirt company online today.  I think this is Venn Diagram my favorite because it reminds me of Graph Jam.

Rameen and I have been talking about forming our own company for a few years and have a lot of slogans similar in punniness to this site.  I have a list of about 30 that I won't publish now.  If we only had a graphic designer...

//Late edit: I actually saw someone with the platypus shirt in Sydney on a week after I wrote this post.

Local Music

I stumbled upon a band called Alphamama a few months ago when walking through Darling Harbor. Some friends and I walked into the Tokio Hotel Bar to see this all chick band rocking out. They played a lot of funk, soul and reggae covers, including Shaggy, Ginuwine, TLC, Destiny's Child, Erykah Badu, along with some original songs. They were the house band on Saturday nights - I had such a good time that night that the next time I was out with my friend Ann (colleague from BOA), I got her to come with me.

This time I was blown away for a different reason. The guitarist was different this time and could really play well. Oh yeah, and she was smoking hot. I'll try to take a picture with her the next time I'm at a show, but trust me. She got the chance to sing during one of the sets and I was absolutely blown away. Ann kept snapping her fingers in front of my face because I was so taken with this amazing musician.

During one of the breaks the band went to the bar and Ann kept nudging me to talk to the guitarist, who turned out to be named Milan. She was pretty shy but really nice, as were all of the band members. I'd like to get a chance to go to an after party with them, they seem like a pretty fun group.

At the end of the show I got up the nerve to ask Milan for her number. She very sweetly declined, saying she had a boyfriend, but still invited me to see her solo work with her group called Massema a few weeks later. She was playing in a weekly show called Sun Sets Sundays at Fringe Bar in Paddington. Despite what you may think about my intentions, I am really amazed by her voice and promised to come out and see her again.

I found out my British friend Mark, whom I met in Cairns, was in town so I invited him to come to the show. I was glad to have some company because I would've felt pretty weird showing up there by myself. I also invited along a girl from Dallas named Laura, whom I got in contact with through the American expat group on MeetUp.

As I thought, the show definitely lived up to my expectations. She played some covers and a few originals (I thought the ones she wrote needed some polishing, but they were hers and I'm sure had meaning - that didn't take away from the quality of her voice though). Mark was pretty blown away as well. I'd have to describe Milan's voice as somewhat smokey and bluesy, somewhere between Erykah Badu and Norah Jones. I'll try to get some video and post it.

Alphamama was also playing there that night (I didn't know that when I decided to go), so Milan played back-to-back. I said a quick hi to all of them after the show and that was it.

This past weekend I was out with a bunch of people I met through Ben (from the American expats group) when we found ourselves in Darling Harbor on Saturday night. I steered everyone to Tokio to check out Alphamama and we ended up staying there for the entire night because everyone was having such a good time. I saw Milan during a break between sets and had about a 10 minute conversation with her. She remembered me, which was a plus, but was REALLY shy and totally insecure about her talent. I gave her a good ego boosting pep talk and she promised to rock out for me. I guess I'm a groupie now?

I've really got to get some video of a live show and I'll let you judge for yourself. To be continued...

El Dieciocho de Septiembre

My friend Jaime invited me to celebrate Chilean Independence Day with him and his friends yesterday. He was born in Australia but his parents and sister, Veronica, were all born there. I spoke with him a few times about my experiences in Chile and looked forward to seeing how their independence celebration differed from ours.

I wore my Colo-Colo jersey that I bought at the game I attended last year to try to fit in as well as I could. I was surprised at the amount of Chilean nationals at the Coogee Beach barbies - many weren't with our party, they just also happened to be there.  Pictured at right are Jaime, our French friend Helene, Jaime's sister Veronica, their cousin Annabel and myself.

As more people joined us and we were introduced, most everyone was speaking chileno Spanish (which involves dropping off letters and entire syllables - muchas gracias becomes mucha gracia).  One woman actually thought I was chileno (although she hadn't heard me speak yet).  She went on to explain that in southern Chile there is a strong German influence, so she thought that I was from there.  I got a good kick out of that. She had two kids that I could actually have a conversation with in Spanish and I spent a lot of time kicking a soccer ball with them.

Veronica performed La Cueca, a traditional dance, with a guy from a neighboring set of picnic tables. As she explained it, there are no set steps, the whole point is that the female is trying to run away and the man keeps preventing her (see the video in the link). She said to think of a chicken trying to get away from a rooster.

Annabel explained to me all of their traditional dishes, including sausages, some variation of potato salad and of course Carménère, a wine made from grapes exclusive to Chile that I fell in love with last year. It was nice to get to practice some Spanish, eat food with friends by the beach and experience some chileno culture. It really brought me back to my time there.

Oh yeah, and I got to play with this guy that reminded me of Zabba (when I could get him away from his bone).

Random Wednesday Post

I just got back from a run along the coast and was surfing the web.

First, check out this awesome cover song by Lizzie, a friend (Samya) posted it on Facebook.  I'm a big fan of Kid Cudi and though I've never heard of this girl before, I think I'm a fan.  She kind of reminds me of Florence and the Machine with a bit more grunge.



Second, see the map below.

No, it's not a view of the US from space.  It's a map of McDonald's restaurants across the US.  You're now sitting no further than 115 miles from the closest Big Mac. Mmmmmm.

PS - Aussies love "Mackers" more than we do based on how many people I see in there around 3 am on the weekends.

On the Pitch

Back in June I was jogging through Coogee when I saw some guys practicing soccer at the Coogee Cricket Oval. I asked them if it was open for anyone to come play and one asked in a thick British accent "Are you any good?"

My response: "Well, for an American I'd say I'm not bad."

They invited me to come out and I told them I would whenever I could (but their early start times on both Tuesdays and Thursdays sometimes interferes with work). When I went back to the US I picked up my cleats and showed up.

After the first practice I got the distinct impression that this was a serious soccer team. First of all, everyone was British, Scottish or Irish. The team is called Phoenix and their first team ended up winning the Eastern Suburbs Football Association.

We spend the first 45 minutes or so doing only conditioning training. The coach (yes, this is an adult team with a coach) mixed things up to keep it fresh and didn't try to get in the way too much when it came to playing. All of our small sided games had a two touch maximum and I can see and improvement in my overall skill level from then to now.

Unfortunately they were too far into the season to add me to the roster, but I was happy to just get out there one or two days a week and kick the ball around. They were interested in how long I was going to be in Sydney, but their next season starts right around the time that I am leaving. I'm sure I wasn't good enough for the first team but was glad for the playing time while it lasted.

I just wish that my club back home, Pelicans FC, devoted the same time to training as these guys. It definitely makes a difference.

I've also been playing on Saturdays with a bunch of Russian expats in Centennial Park. It gives me an excuse to not stay out too late on Friday nights as it's a nice 15 minute warm up jog from my house to get there. Add two hours of playing on a half field and I end the morning fairly exhausted.

It's fun to watch the Russians get frustrated at each other and argue in their native language. They don't get to serious, although their sense of humor is... very Russian. I told one guy "I must break you," and he didn't even crack a smile. I don't know if that was because he didn't get the Rocky reference or he didn't like the joke.