Happy Boys-day

Happy Birthday Damien!

I hope you're having/had (I can never remember the international time ... I think it's now the day after the day before, er, you know what I mean, or if you don't then, well maybe you're me) a brilliant day and enjoy all your gifts and (more importantly?) the attention *wink*. Did you enjoy (wait, that is definitely NOT the right word!) appreciate "An Inconvenient Truth"? We're going to look out for it in the local Indy (that's Indy-speak for "Independent", Mum and Dad *even cheekier wink*) cinema.

How old are you now, little brother? Twenty-six or something equally ridiculous, no? I can still remember all our childish misbehaviour -- He-man vs the Ninja Turtles, battling it out in either Castle Grayskull, the TMNT Sewers or that place where Hordak and his goons hung out, what was it called? I remember painting Superman black to make him an evil Superman (your Batman toy had so much more anghst, dang!), and how the Transformers could kick butt over regular Matchbox Cars every single time, despite Matchbox's superior numbers. Ah, good times.

And that was just last week on your podcast. (Hey, there's a topic for next week!)

Anyway, Cheryl said you got your pressie, and so did you from work the other day, so enjoy! Thinking of you tonight as I have 一献 of sake. Mmmm, sake. Tell me again when you heading to Japan? How many bottles of delicious rice-wine are you allowed to smuggle bring back completely legitemitely? (Yes, I just found the strikethough button in this editor. It's cool!)

In other news: today, whilst looking for some gym shoes, I got Dee a guitar.

It's nice, too -- a black acoustic Fender, sweet tones, came in a beginners pack which included a tuner, set of strings and DVD. I also got a stand for it, so it can sit out in our lounge-room and tempt us to play, or at least attempt to play.

We've watched the first lesson on the DVD, and have been practising E5 and A5. I'm sure all the guitaristas out there are probably laughing, but it's a start for us -- I can't wait to get some tablature and have a good ol' jam some time in (probably) a couple of months. Maybe she'll even go for an open mic night somewhere? I'd be in for that, provided I could do vocals ... and got plenty of time to practise!

As I say, it's some time away. Not maybe places, even in Edinburgh, will let you play a gig when you only know two chords. Well, maybe Bannerman's Bar, but that's a student haunt I think (put enough beer in students, or "suits" for that matter, they will clap anything ... as any purveyor of open mic knows all too well).

I didn't find my gym shoes of course. It's always the same -- you go looking for a particular something, guaranteed you will find something else equally compelling.