MichaelDudikoff

I got surprised and was taken on a weekend to Tasmania.

Stayed in a cottage outside Peppermint Bay, went to Salamanca Markets, spent the day at MONA, argued voiciferously about MONA afterwards while getting boozed, got outrageously hammered and cooked a shitload of meat and stayed up till all hours watching a doco on Stax records and talking shit.

Plus, we drove through Snug multiple times listening to Cradle of Filth.

Unfortunately Striborg did not deign to make an appearance.

It was fucking awesome. Take note.

This record is totally excellent.

The more the band clean up their sound, the more they have to offer. Very few bands achieve that. I look forward to the inevitable, chart-breaking full-on pop record to come.

That line about making a record better than Diesel and Dust might just prove much more realistic than they ever thought ...

Do not go near Bar Lourinha. Ever.

After Mrs Dudikoff booked a pre-wedding dinner there, today, three weeks out from the function, they refused to accomodate the booking. The owners did not want it, apparently. For reasons unspecified and unknown.

This is of course the discretion of someone who owns a business. It's understandable, but in the first instance any concerns or problems should have been communicated to us. Instead, they told us that the person who organised the function for us two months ago no longer works there. Which, of course, has nothing to do with the problem we now face, three weeks out from a date which people have booked from interstate to attend.

Secondly, any attempt to broker a compromise (wherein we would do whatever they wanted for the function to go ahead) was met with a steadfast ''no'' - no discussion, nothing. When asked why, the answer was again ''the owner does not want your business''. Bizarre, to say the least. All that had occurred at this stage was that credit card details had been given and the booking secured a few months back.

I'd speculate that a better offer for more people in the Christmas party season came along - but that would never happen now, would it ?

Matt McConnell and ''the owners'' were apparently in the back room, and refused to come out or even acknowledge us.

Instead, it was left to the hipster doofus fuckwit on front-of-house to deliver the message.

It was tolerable at best (he was after all merely the unfortunate messenger) until he too launched into a self-serving rant at the end about how it ''had been a waste of Bar Lourinha's time too''.

When, of course, we still wanted to proceed with the function.

But we were being prohibited from doing just that. For reasons completely unknown.

I chose the better path at that point and just walked out. I am still bewildered as to what the fuck actually went on.

Regardless of the quality of their food (and I have loved my experiences there in the past), it's apparently a a pretty appallingly run organisation apparently premised around cowardice (''the owners have decided'' ... well, the owners who are sitting on their ass can come and talk to us perhaps ?) and avarice.

Worth remembering next time you're considering dinner in the city.

As much as I love a lot of people at The Age, and think many people are trying their hardest to lift it out of the doldrums, the simple fact that for almost an hour today a headline on a lead article on the website read ''Naper forced to apologise'' which should have read ''Newspaper forced to apologise'' (it was about Bolta) was just sad, depressing and infuriating in equal measure.

So many basic, elementary fuckups. Mess and Noise is better with subbing now !

And then of course there was The Kiss from last week, given appropriate lambasting by Media Watch.

God knows how you keep fighting the good fight, Chris. I'm thankful for it, that's for sure.

The Pacific-Northwest-via-Manchester thing suits them very, very well.

I just always assumed the album name was an amalgam of the James Baldwin novels ''Go Tell It To The Mountain'' and ''The Fire Next Time''.

Good album.

Damn you all - I hope it is amazing !

Anyone stayed in the Kailua-Kona area of the Big Island ? Thoughts ?

Future growth industries are food, retirement homes and funeral parlours for the coming demise of the baby boomers

It's funny cos it's true.

Fucken a.

Given that this was my preferred (read: only) style of playing bass in my mediocre modern rock band, I heartily endorse this thread.

I always loved the simplicity of specific Swervedriver bass parts - She weaves a tender trap is great.