My (almost) 15 minutes of fame on RocKwiz!

Hi boys and girls,
Christy and I went with our friends Huw and Amber to a taping of the show RocKwiz last night, and it was about the funnest thing I've ever done (and I have a lot of fun). For those not familiar with the show, RocKwiz "is a music trivia quiz show that will rock your socks off. It's an entertaining mix of music, quiz, chat, musical guests and contestants drawn from the live audience, who play off for nothing more than the honour of winning!"

RocKwiz is easily my favorite Aussie tv show, and I've hoped to join the live audience ever since I learned it is taped here in our fair city. It's shot at a place called the Esplanade Hotel in St. Kilda, the nice beach suburb. The 'Esky' as its known is a historic venue, having opened in 1878. It was a small miracle we even got tickets; although they don't cost anything, they are definitely in high demand, so when I got the e-mail about getting tickets, I crossed my fingers and sent in my request. Much to my surprise, not only did I get tickets but I scored us seats at one of only 12 tables (all the other poor suckers are standing room only, and it was super packed and about 100 degrees, so we were ultra grateful to have been so lucky). And there's one other huge benefit to having a table seat: a shot to be one of the contestants.

Being rather scruffy these day, I was told that I looked like our table's best chance to pass the first preliminary round of questions. Suddenly, before I know it, I find myself on stage (unfortunately we didn't have our real camera, only our phones - I'm on the right, just to the left of camera base)!

Well, as you probably guess by the title of this post, I didn't make the cut, but man, it was still a riot - buzzing in, answer questions, the works! Ironically, the answer to the first question I nailed was Lionel Richie, and Christy was absolutely kicking herself that she wasn't wearing her new 'all night long' Lionel t-shirt! I think I got one or two more right and definitely a few wrong. I'm almost scared at thinking how much ribbing I would have gotten as a yankee on this show (after one of my answers the host made a comment about my 'interesting accent').

Anyways, it was a really great night - below are some more pics, a video shot by us from the crowd, a link to an episode of the actual show (the one taped last night won't be on for a few weeks). At the very least, make sure and watch the first 5 minutes or so - it rocks!

Cheers,
Sweany

Having a bite and some beers with our mates our front before the show

Christy is definitely ready to rock with her 'RocKwiz groupie' shades





Watch an episode of RocKwiz online - special guests this week are country music sensation Catherine Britt and soul music legend Max Merritt. : http://player.sbs.com.au/programs#/programs_08/fullepisodes/latestepisodes/playlist/Rockwiz-Ep-71-Max-Merritt-and-Catherine-Britt-Full-Ep/"

October 2008 New Zealand Pictures

Hi all. Here are some pictures from our recent New Zealand adventure - Enjoy!




We had the opportunity to do an amazing glow worm cave tour & river tubing trip while we were there as well - here's the link to look at some of those photos if you're interested: http://www.caverafting.com/showset.asp?folder=2008-10-20_UR_Afternoon

Cheers!

New Zealand and Moving Back to Portland (via Honolulu!)

Hi everybody~
Hoping this finds you all well and surviving the continued US Presidential Race & Wall Street drama. It continues to be interesting for us to watch these topics unfold from a somewhat outsider perspective. What an incredible impact the US economy has upon the world. I had honestly never really considered this idea before living here and watching the news, day by day, as they just wait to see what will happen dependent upon the US market. The Aussie dollar has dropped by about 20cents against the US dollar in the past 2 weeks, so we figure we may as well spend most of our earnings while we're here, which is always pretty easily accomplished for us. And we mailed our US Absentee Ballots off to the states early last week, so our votes are in.

So, we've got 3 big news events to report upon. First, as you can see from the picture, Andy received his Four-n-Twenty Magic Salad Plate! What a treasured Australian souvenir this will be for us to own.
Second, Andy also received a job offer from a company in Wellington, New Zealand. Which, after quite a bit of debate, detail examination, soul searching, and a few tears (me, of course) we decided to pass on.
Which leads to our third big news topic, barely even 60 minutes old - we have purchased a portion of our return flights for moving back to Portland! We will be leaving Melbourne for good on Thursday, May 7th, and making our way back via a stop-over in Honolulu. We plan to stay in Honolulu for possibly 4 or 5 days before flying direct from Honolulu to Portland, so we will be back in Portland by mid-May 2009! Crazy! If anyone would like to plan on spending a few days in Honolulu with us, just let us know!

Everything else here is good. Spring weather comes and goes by the day. Spring horse racing is a hot topic again, and we've been getting ourselves organized to attend the big Melbourne Cup day on November 4th this year. Well, I've been getting organized - Andy mostly just has to put on his suit and get on the train. I've had the pleasure of attempting to create an entire ensemble (dress, shoes, hat, purse, accessories) on a reasonable budget, which is a challenge in trendy Melbourne. We'll let you know how it turns out. We leave tomorrow morning for an 8-day holiday on the southern island of New Zealand, which we are really excited about. So the next blog will certainly be filled with tons of cool NZ pictures, no doubt.

Fun wishes to our Portland peeps as everyone celebrates Steve & Marnie's Portland Wedding Reception this weekend! You all know how much we wish we could be there to join in the festivities, but we will certainly be there in spirit and I'm sure "Cheers!ing" you from New Zealand. And we'll be seeing most of you via webcam for the annual T*%s-n-Stache party the following weekend I hear :)

Australian Quote for the day:
We're a nation of punters and party-goers.
-Paul Hogan

Cheers!

Love, Christy