Go Socceroos

Went to the G for Australia vs Greece friendly. Pretty awesome. Qualifying for the world cup really captured everyones imagination. It was a capacity crowd and the atmosphere was awesome. Australia took it 1 nil. We are in good form going in. It was also a good excuse for Magoo and I to wear our retro aussie cricket tops.

Tino takes-off

At 3 today my awesome buddy Valentin begins his 5 and a half month round the world adventure. This will be the first time he has ever been in an airplane.
Here is what I can remember from his plans:
UK: London, Ireland, all the major stops in Western Europe down to Barthelona and Greece.
Visiting family(he has never met before) in Croatia and Germany attending weddings and Oktoberfest.
Then off to America Vegas, New York Niagara Falls Hawaii.
I'm super jealous, spastically excited and will miss him ridiculously.
I started a blog for him but doubt he will use it.Just in case check out: tino's travels
Have Fun you lucky bastard!

My mate I've know from childhood Kosmo, left last Tuesday for Poland as well as an extended European tour. And Chicken Magoo is making final preparations for his European adventure leaving 2 weeks from now. He will be blogging ferociously here.

IBAD II

Great party at Pronksters joint. The idea behind IBAD (international booze appreciation day) started when Petey realised we have friends from a lot of different countries of origin, if everyone brought some booze from their homeland it could make for a ripper party. Pronkster took it to the next level by making people dress as something from that country too.

Heres my shots from the night for a larger version click "all sizes" if you want bigger still email me:

Air Guitar, Air drums
Originally uploaded by tommygunns.

lanky poo
Originally uploaded by tommygunns.

Chrissy dressed as a mexican
The host dressed as a jar of authentic canadian maple syrup.
Fun with the letters on Jeffs costume
Shootin the proverbial shit in the kitchen
Julia bustin a move
Chrissy, Sabine and Julia chillin out on the couch
Sabine bustin a move
Laughing at the ridiculousness of it all
Julia
Pete and I
Austrian Veronika she's from the same town I was born in.
Dancing with Boris Yeltsin and a Jar of Maple Syrup
Air Guitar, Air drums
Nick, Jeff and Pete
Nick, Jeff and Bernard
Petey with make up
Pete and Jeff
The beauty of a beer belly
Beer Belly X-Stream
Steve Irwin
Aussie Nick gettin a cap busted in his ass
Aussie Nick bustin' caps in asses
A Swedish viking pouring a jar of maple syrup
Boris doing what he does best
Boris doing what he does best only Better

Coffee with Mark "Jacko" Jackson and Warwick Capper

Saw some unexpected patrons at our usual maltitude morning coffee. The Energizer man got a bit annoyed I got my coffee before him since he ordered first. Spent most of morning coffee just eavesdropping on the celebrity conversation. They hogged all the newspapers as well.

Last Gradiator VBall Match

YMCA Flagstaff Gardens lunchtime corporate competition.Top work coach Murph for organizing the squad for this league. Thanks to our core females Svetlana, Lucy and Nelsie. And the girls who had a hit Jae, Tracy and Julie. Original gradiators who stayed true Libero Jerry, slammin' AB and the K-Jam (who has since been traded to the Brisbane League).

Mountain Biking Castlemaine

Mountain Biking Castlemaine
Originally uploaded by tommygunns.

Thanks Tim for organizing, Grant for transporting bikes and Pete for the lift. Castlemaine has some awesome singletrack. The weather went hail to sun to freezing wind then repeat. Check out a few of the action picks. If you want to download the larger size click "all sizes" in Flickr.

The black forest

Grant chillin out

Aaron snacking

Tim checkin the map

Petey

Biker gang

Biker gang

Pete contemplating the road ahead


Click the images below to see the full size:


Photo Courtesy of Tim's Collection



Photo courtesy of Felix's collection

Photo courtesy of Felix's collection

Stephen K Amos at the Council Chambers

Top work coach Murphy for organizing this.
Lining up outside the council chambers Luke got sidebumped by a big scary black dude who ended up being Stephen K Amos himself.
We sat what we thought was a safe distance away but it ended up being possibly the worst seat in the house nearly everyone of us getting hell. I was singled out by Stephen acting as the Prince of some-African-nation-or-other as being the representative of Germany and was then blamed for the world wars or something. Luke and I were asked our names and jobs and I stuttered a bit and have now officially been granted a new knickname (I'm sure it will die off soon). Possibly the funniest was when Steve D had to go early because his band paradigm shift was playing at the ding dong lounge that night. Steve had to walk right up to the stage to get out. Steve's response to the inevitable questioning was that he had to go to the dunny. Stephen had a gag planned for his return. When he finally lost his patience and asked us where he actually went Stephen went into a tirade about going to a show for only 10 mins and made some rather colourful analogies. At one point he almost convinced the entire audience to rock up at Steve's gig and leave after 10 mins. Very entertaining guy check him out if you get the chance (but sit back a bit further then the second row).

Easter 06

Photo courtesy of Gez's collection

cocktails
Originally uploaded by tommygunns.

Thanks Gez and Rishika for organizing the crazy Phillip Island Holiday House Easter weekend. The house was awesome. The backyard easily accomodated a 3 on 3 frigby match.

Here is the Wiki we used to organize things.
Good Work Jezza for starting it up and hosting it.

There were Weird and wonderful cocktails.
ALDI(c) Calamri and barbecues (unfortunately no big name draw card meats made it).
Singstar and Drinking Games.
Dancing like a retard.

Jay and my trivia Easter Egg hunt was sobotaged by the Wodka Wodka team stealing the spotlight (so to speak).

Dave has some funny and embarrasing video footage and is currently in the process of combining it into a movie. I will link to the trailer when its ready here also.

Here is Gerard's corroborating blog entry with some cool aerial photos from the houses kick arse balcony using the 5X optical zoom camera.

De La Soul

De La Soul
Originally uploaded by tommygunns.

I had been waiting for this for months but couldn't find people that wanted to go. So you can imagine my excitment getting a phonecall from Megan the champ that she had some free tickets from Diana L for me and Ed.
Awesome night I had a ball as did the other punters who scored free tickets Sal and Lizzy.

Commonwealth Games Closing Ceremony

Went with the whole family to the G to see the Commonwealth Games closing Ceremony a Christmas present from Mum.The scared weird little guys did the pre-show entertainment the highlight was the mexican wave of camera flashes awesome.
Saw a poor little Formula 1 girl lose it on a corner popping out of the car costume. Reminded me of Go-carting the day before and some of those sharp bends on the Port Melbourne track- congrats dave on taking the title for that. The footy club ballerina costumes were also cool. Similar fireworks to the opening however this time I noticed they launched some off the deathstar.

Commonwealth Games Mountain Biking

Commonwealth Games Mountain Biking
Originally uploaded by tommygunns.

I had been waiting a whole year for this.
Thanks Gerard H for the tickets.
Having ridden most of the track myself I cannot imagine how hard doing several laps in the scorching heat must have been.
We set up at the top of the rock. There was a mauritian rider who hesitated at the top looking pretty freaked out, when he finally rolled down he managed to smack straight into the tree at the bottom. Pete got it on video. Also saw an Isle of Man rider take a tumble in another section. And a Welshman go off the track snapping the barrier ribbon then he just rode through the ribbon again to get back onto the track.

Pubgaine

RMIT Outdoors Club Bi-annual Pubgaine.
A pubcrawl race what could possibly go wrong?
We had 2 hours to visit as many pubs on the prescribed list as we can. To prove you made it there you had to answer a question about that particular pub. If the entire team drank at the pub that gave you double points.
Team boozé (Pete (NZ), Jeff (CAN), Ed (SL) and myself (PL when the comm games arent on)
thought running between pubs was silly so when the starter pistol went off we began our leisurely stroll to the first pub. When the countdown approached our competitive urges kicked in and we started running between pubs (it may have been more to do with our need for more sanctioned drinking). Needless to say we didnt place but had a great time and when I get the photos from the after race shennanighans I'll post them here.

Commonwealth Games Swimming, Triathalon and Marathon

Thanks ayresie for the discounted ticket for the Commonwealth games Swimming on Saturday it was awesome. I realized how much of a nerd I was getting more excited by the robotic cameras than the world class athletes. The highlight was definitely the inspirational elite athletes with a disability. Once again I was more interested in the logistics than the amazing athleticism on display. Of special note was the blind Canadian swimmer whose coach would signal he was nearing the wall by banging him on the head with a giant q-tip. After the swimming we rode to St-Kilda to catch the end of the tri-athalon. It was really fun riding the width of the Nepean Hwy since they sealed it off from vehicles. I was supposed see the Marathon go by Sunday morning but slept in - I feel a little bit guilty that I lacked the energy to walk 20m to cheer on these guys and girls who by that point had done 10km and still had 30 to go.