A Year Already!

365 days of wedded bliss already! How to celebrate such a nifty arbitrary milestone? How about... a big romantic bowl of nachos?

One down, lots to go. Rock hates to think what the rampant price of gold will be by the time the Golden Anniversary rolls around. Lucky he hedged himself by going long futures.

Oooo... Things are getting steamy. Especially with the jungle accessories.

Rock's in luck, for once no sign of a couch.

Now that's a room with a view. Hard to believe winter is on it's way when the palm trees are waving in the balmy lake breeze.

It all looks so civilised dear. Just so long as you don't touch the keys.

Elementary my dear Watson. With the simplest of deductions one must surely conclude that the solution to this vexing problem is to order both the eggs and the cereal for breakfast. And the toast. And the yogurt.

A private boat dock. Even the Island Shangri-La Hong Kong couldn't offer that.

I think you're on the wrong continent to find your herd. Try the Serengeti... or Taronga Zoo.

Another addition to the collection of boats Rock doesn't own.

No, this isn't the latest Tibetan troublemaker to being herded around by Beijing. Apparently it's fashionable to look like you just broke out of the local supermax.

Mei takes the opportunity to find out what life would have been like every day had she managed to marry up a bit higher.


Times are tough in the markets. Rock trades his 75 footer in for a second hand tinnie sans oars. At least it will come handy when it comes time to set flee for corporate headquarters in the Caymans.

Despite Rock's best efforts, a 1.5L coke bottle was never going to cut it for this milestone - save that for celebrating the square root of 2 anniversary in only 0.414214 years . Thanks to Damana & Giles for supplying bubbles smooth enough that even Rock managed to get half a glass down.

Mercifully for our avid readers, there appears to be a bit of a gap between the after-dinner bubbly and the spectacular sunrise the next morning...

Clearly the censors are too busy trying to purge the internet of all references to Dalai Lamas, and forgot to protect net surfers from far, far more perverted content. Look away now for your own sake.

Rock knows which part of Bed and Breakfast he likes best.

Hard to summon up the motivation to do anything more than sit around on the balcony. Certainly hard to summon up the motivation to write a decent caption.

More boats. You guessed it, Rock doesn't own any of them. Jeepers, what kind of sucker picked up a boatless bloke in salubrious Sydney?

Cave beach - last stop on the tour. With an imaginative name like that you'd think Rock named it or something.

You can't buy a frame like that. Not even at Ikea. Ok, you probably can. It probably comes complete with some cool name like cäve.

It's April and still hot. So is Mei. Hur hur hur.

Easter 2008: Chocolicious

Dude, where's my easter egg? Rock and Devan eye up the incoming chocolately goodness.

Rock and Devan on a mission to end a devastating hour long chocolate famine. Like most Rock-led expeditions, this one also ends in... a huge bucket of fried chicken.

I'd run too. Rock approaches from a somewhat dubious angle.

Back in the day, an hour of hacky was merely a warm down after biking 20km in driving rain and gale force headwinds. Now look what ten minutes did to these former legends.

Next stop, the Blue Mountains. It's hard to get the whole wilderness feeling when you run into more work colleagues on a bush walk then you do marching up George Street.


Ok, they may not be the Alps. In fact, even the Southern Alps make these look like the Blue Foothills. But hey, when there's a cafe serving juicy steak sandwiches just up the trail, who's complaining?

Alas, the old food cache appears to be all out of chocolate bunnies. Not that that's going to stop Mei from making the best of a rumbling stomach.

Careful folks, this isn't cosy little NZ, where the worse that can happen is the odd sandfly bite. Out here in the real world there are snakes... and giant spiders... and bogans.

This is The Gap. It's a big suicide spot apparently. One suspects Mei has just about driven Devan to the edge...

Bondi babes out in force on a glorious autumn's day.

Forget the chicks, admit it, this is what you've all been waiting for. Heck, at least it beats waiting for a decent caption anyway.

The chocolate may be long gone, but at least Rock's speciality - flame grilled carbon slabs with a rich sauce of artificial bbq flavours - is there to fill the gap. In fact, there's plenty of leftovers as well for some reason.

ACTion...

...or lack thereof. This is the third J00ster post on the city everyone loves to hate - Canberra. To be honest, it's not that bad. I mean, when the biggest gripes are centred around the eerie absence of cars on the smooth wide roads; the fact it's still blazing hot even on an autumn's day; and the sleepy opening hours, you know it could be worse. There's plenty of cities out there with slightly more pressing problems, like the chance to get dismembered by a pipe bomb, or buried alive by molten lava.

And yet... the fact the next four pics centre on a metal orb suspended outside the National Gallery, says a lot.

Rock does his best School of Athens impression.

Plato, inspired by his weighty treatise on The Forms, argues the sphere is the most perfect embodiement of the ideal.

Aristotle, dismissive of reasoning without empircal observation, asserts that the sphere is merely another object percieved through the imperfect window of man's senses.

Rock reckons it looks a bit like the Deathstar. Truely, this is an intellectual battle being fought on an elevated plane.


A big fountain and a big ball. What a city!

Rock reckon's he has what it takes to fill that empty space in Path to Abstraction gallery between the Mondrian and the Kandinsky.

The autumn colours may be out in force, but I'm noticing a decided lack of autumn chill in the stiffling 30 degree afternoon.

In Canberra you have to make your own fun.

Careful, with shots like this you're ruining Rock's my-city-is-better-than-yours cynicism.

Rock still fancies his chances at artistic glory. "Composition No. 27 with Two Bars and Tower" is a searching examination of mankind's innate imprisonment behind the rigidity of our megre perception.

Pop quiz - name the artwork mimicked in the snap below. Luckily for the uneducated out there, there's always wikipedia.

From master painter to master sculpture. Is this the next Michaelangelo? Well, it is until it's time to roll out the male nudes...

Just to make Canberra look a little cooler, they build this bizarrely named village of Queanbeyan next door. When the biggest excitement there is standing in the a depressingly deserted car park with a nostagic tear in the eye, you know you've achieved the impossible - found somewhere that makes you want to turn around and head back to Canberra as quick as a straining 1.3L Toyota Echo can chug along.

But wait, who would have thought a little gem of a Thai joint would be hidden in an old federation house in this depressing hamlet. Even more remarkable, the joint actually made the Qantas inflight magazine... and not just in a poll of the least likely new Qantas destinations.

BBQ Bloggage

Scrolling back through the archives of this humble journal reveals that the "Official Pyrmont Trailer" made its debut back in August 07. So calling a BBQ in March 08 a flatwarming is a bit like calling Obama versus Clinton a friendly rivalry.

A glorious autmn day in the harbour city. This is the view from the balcony before Rock's Weber induced smoke screen.

Looking North over the harbour towards suprise, surprise North Sydney. For most of us, there's some sparkling glimpses of water; for Mei... well if you look really really hard you can kind of see a reflection in that window across the way. Next time try high heels...

North-west out over Balmain.

This is what the real estate agents call "intimate ANZAC bridge views". Rock is hoping to avoid similar views of the old-timers who are moving in to the new building next door...

I hope this is quality NZ lamb. Not that you'd taste the succulent subtleties after Rock's flame thrower approach to grilling.

Before ADLS 2+, people communicated by smoke signal. Rock goes back to his cowboy heritage and pings the 192.168.1.1 tribe from across the harbour with a few well directed puffs.

No Mei, this one's not for BBQing. Thanks to Sanson and Heidi for bringing cutie Chris along.

Back in the old days, people would go to a bbq, stuff themselves, drink way too much, and then go home. These days, people go to a bbq, stuff themselves, drink way too much, and then go home to re-live it all on some obscure blog. Gosh, where would we be without the internet?

Mmmm... cupcakes. Thanks to Damana and Giles for these freshly delivered goodies. Mei tells me the frosting was really, really good.

All good things come to an end. At least there are leftover m&m's to fuel the cleaning rampage.

All quiet on the western front. Who woulda thought you could fit 11 people into a shoebox... he says conveniently glossing over the fact one was 7 weeks old... There's a place for you yet in the Real Estate institute.

A sneak peak for Jared and Devan of their holiday accomodation. No, I don't mean at the same time - hey, you thought it, not me. Sickos.

Anchors Away!

Is there a better way to start a magnificent Sydney Sunday then with the aroma of sizzling chicken wings and freshly brewed coffee? Ok, ok, so that's a slight hyperbole - but this is a blog, which by definition means the trivial is sensational. Another suicide bomb in Iraq. Ho hum. Violence in Pakistan. Yawn. Free trade negotiations break down again. Yeah and? Britney Spears institutionalised again. OMG!!! No way! Have they got any photos!?! That's unbelievable!!

And anyway, "...the acrid stench of carbonised bits of poultry and watery luke-warm instant coffee" doesn't sound quite so poetic, does it?

With the mighty Cunard sisters Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth 2 in town, it's hard to want to be anywhere other than out on the sparkling harbour. Here Capt'n Rock, taking a brief interlude from meeting and greeting the rich and famous, shows off the bridge of his mighty vessel.

Uhm... I hate to break it to you, but you're not going anywhere very fast. At least with those sunnies she fits right in with the Eastern Suberbs wanke... I mean beautiful people down at Rose Bay.

Harbour patrol has spotted a beached whale on a beach. Now some bright spark go and find us a stick of dynamite.

Gosh, lucky you have a life jacket on dear, why that water is at least 3 inches deep!

Now that's weird - I could have sworn I moored my superyatch just here...

The mighty engine room of this majestic queen of the sea. Hang on, perhaps a poor selection of phrase with the Mardi Gras in town...

Come on, less posing, more paddling! And no, next time we aren't going to do this with a blue screen.