The waiting is over.  Dal is now the proud owner of Guitar Hero World Tour.  What have I let myself in for?

It’s been18 months now since Dal has been strumming on her guitar playing GH2 & GH3.  Since then Rock Band has come and gone, Rock Band was never released in Australia but then it was always going to be second best compared to the original Guitar Hero brand.

Costing $278 (£120) yeah believe it or not is actually cheaper here than the UK.  Its not a bad investment.  The package contains the game, a shiny new wireless guitar with more features than the original, microphone (all we need is a wanna be Bon Jovi) and an electronic drum kit.

This game is selling like hot cakes, I phoned around 12 different vendors this afternoon, they were all out of stock and didn’t know when the new stock would be in.  Perserverance paid off and I found GH World Tour at my local BigW.  We had to get this ready for chrismas holidays so we can play in our cinema room and pump some tunes through our new system.  Forget summer concerts at Hyde Park, not when you got the Nahals at Craigieburn.  Enjoy Dal, the smile on her face said it all.  Looks like i’ll be doing the cooking over the next few weeks

Today Pal is celebrating his 25th Birthday with his whiskey bottle and Little Surj, who is barely off the starting line, is celebrating his 3rd with no doubt his own favourite bottle.  Cheers to you both have a good one, wishing we were there for the fun.

Anyway, moving on with the day we decided to take the rest of the day off work and take a trip to Hoppers Crossing to again look for furniture and ideas for the house.  Merrily going down the Princess Highway at 90kph in the 4th lane.  All of a sudden I realise the accelerator isn’t doing anything.  PANIC! On momnetum alone manage to get the car to the left lane but just missing the slip road by a couple of meters which would have taken me to a service station - damn! “Do we have breakdown cover?” I ask Rum.  “No” he says - damn, damn! “Who do we call?” I say. “Ghostbusters”, he says - damn, damn, damn! So we get out and go to the service station, get the number for RACV (Victoria’s Roadside Recovery), and call them up.  As we don’t have membership we are in the middle of processing this and the phone cuts out! Back to the service station to get more credit for the phone… back on the phone to RACV.  Incidentally, in the UK the first thing the RAC ask you is your mobile number, even before your name, just incase you do get cut off, they ring you back.  Now thats service!

Rum completes his membership and back to me now to let them know where we are.  I give her an exact address that was provided by the service station rep, but RACV have no idea where we are!  A service sation on a major freeway… can it get any easier?

Anyway, luckily for us, the car has restarted and we decide to take it further down the Freeway and see if we make it to Hoppers Crossing.  We just about make it to the next exit before the car cuts out again.  This time we make it to another station and again I have to call RACV and try to tell them where we are.  Success eventually after I tell them the road name intersection! (Mental note, to always give crossings).

So now we are sitting there waiting for the RACV guy.  Rum has checked the oil, topped up the water and put air in his tyres.  RACV guy turns up, asks us what the problem is, takes the car for a drive and tells us it is ok.  Thats it!  No inspection, no tools, no nothing and not even a smile. Rum asked him if he would follow us just across the road to the shops but he was too busy and he sped off.

We managed to get to the shops and had a look around for a while. Didn’t find anything much but we were tired and a little annoyed by this point.  I nervously drove home thinking the damned car would cut out again at any minute.  In my non thinking, panic state I took the wrong turn and ended up on a toll road which are all electronically tagged here in VIC.  The signs aren’t the clearest and if you are new to driving around VIC then its easy to take the wrong turn off a freeway.  I was on this road for a maximum of 2km and got off straight away at the next junction but I can expect a letter through the post charging me for using the toll road and a fine for not having a pass! The car on the other hand was fine the whole way home, its a mystery.

Totally pissed off by now, we got home and decided we were better off going to work!

Us Brits have a set criteria when we’re abroad, alcohol, tea, fish n chips and someone who appreciates the British sense of humour.

Our dear friends Kate and Gerald, who are born again Brits from East London were very exited when telling us about there experience at a fish n chip shop that they came across in Brighton. (Melbourne also has a Brighton not quite as forward and extravagant, if you know what I mean

So to set the scene… it was a beautiful sunny day, Dal and I walked down to the station to meet Kate and G. We were early so we ducked into the near by pub (Young and Jackson) for a quick pint, as you do and were soon in the mood for a greasy fish n chip, lovely jubbly.

Took the train down to Brighton, if it wasn’t a Sunday Dal and I would have taken our hip flasks, oh well next time. Once in Brighton Kate took us to the chippy via the scenic route, Beautiful houses, lovely lush gardens, automatic gates, definitely dream homes for us.

The chippy wasn’t much to look at but it certainly had that well used look which can only be a good sign of tasty fish n chips. We received our fish n chips in a cardboard tray wrapped in paper the smell was just like home. As soon as we got ours we ripped through the paper to reveal a lovely golden battered fish and freshly peeled cut chips. So they certainly looked the part and They tasted like home too. All four of us had a smile from ear to ear, even the weather felt the need to accommodate as it started raining, we could have been sitting in Brighton, UK.

Freshly cut potatoes, fried and served with salt and vinegar! Yes, it sounds easy but they use frozen chips over here and they have white vinegar instead of malt vinegar! The fish wasn’t cod but was good never the less. Batter was nice and it wasn’t too greasy.

Stuffed and happy we moved to a ‘romantic’ walk along the beach in the rain, which was picking up by now and soon pouring. Brollies were out, the beach was totally empty and even the colourful little beach huts were shut tight. Looking behind was a beautiful view of the city but unfortunately we all forgot to bring a cameras! We continued the walk back to the station through the expensive rows of housing, only to find a bra on one of the street corners… what’s that say about Brighton hey?

Final stop was a beautiful cafe where we enjoyed dessert and a cuppa. Gerard and I made the wise choice and opted for scones. Dal went for a Chocolate Truffle and Ice cream (which she had some serious difficultly with), while Kate had a lemon tart and mint salad (the mint salad was two pieces of tangerine in a mint dressing)!

Thanks to G and Kate for the lovely day out. We have decided to follow your trend and get a Sunday saver pass and explore every Sunday. For $2.90 it’s an absolute bargain.

Flatheads Brighton (fish n chip shop) has easily scored 3.5/5 and is definitely worth visiting. So where can this chippy be found? Flatheads Brighton, 230 The Esplanade, Brighton.

Click “View larger map” and check out street view.

View Larger Map

Well it’s been over a year so we thought we would update the blog theme, something different for the eye.  However we had problems installing and uploading the new wordpress software.  At one point the website stopped working and fell apart, those of you who visit regulary would know this.

We used firefox FTP to upload wordpress rather than the FTP software that came with Windows Vista.  I would recommend not to use the windows FTP as it just doesn’t have the bells and whistles and is a lot slower causing timeout issues.

Now we have wordpress working we are experimenting with various themes.  We have chosen Abstract Green Waves though we just need to tweak it.  Dal and I don’t quite have the know how but were learning slowly.

Bye for now, lets see what else we can tweak

As a birthday gift from Parm and Sian this year, Rum and I received a popcorn maker for the new house.  The idea was we wait until December, have a movie night and enjoy some freshly made popcorn.  Well we couldn’t wait.  It was a nice idea but we simply couldn’t hold out till the house was ready, we had to use it!  It took Rum about a minute to get it out of the box and to plug it in.  Lights on, camera running and action in about 5 minutes.

We let it run for about 3 minutes for the kettle to warm up, added 2 teaspoons of oil, 1 scoop of popcorn and that was it. Popcorn was popping out of the kettle and the room was smelling like a cinema foyer. Two scoops later we had half a bucket of popcorn and a very smiley Rum!

Cleaning it was no big deal, one wet wipe and one dry wipe.  Job done and ready for next time :)  All we need now is to get some popcorn oil and popcorn flavours… this time it was salted… my favourite. Right, I am off to find a toothpick!!!  View video below.

Not quite the same when you not at home in the UK, having a few drinks and home made somosa.

However Dal celebrated her birthday at work.  As you can see from the grin I think she ate most of the cake.  Thanks Mae for making a lovely cake.

All the best for the future

We have been thinking about the first few films that will “showing”.  First films for sure will be the Alien Trilogy and Terminator 2 somthing that will test the 12″ sub woofer.

The Xbox360 will be talking up most of the airtime.  Dal will be jamming on Guitar Hero whilst i’ll be at my witts end playing Bioshock and Forza.

Bollywood movies? yeah we’ll have to put a few of these on.  Sholay a must and Devdas just to see the beautiful sets that were so colourful and detailed.

There are may other which we will have to buy, we have already made a couple of trips to JB Hi Fi and some of these titles include Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan and Snatch (don’t get excited boys it’s not that kind of film ;)  We are looking for movies with good soundtracks and visual appearance (as well as storey line)!

So how about it guys?  In the comfort of you own home faced with a screen as big as your wall and great sound clarity, what would be your first home cinema experience?

So there you have, now you know what its all about. To my brothers in the UK …  Parm, Chany, Rav and Mick.  I haven’t sent any Rakhis this year, but I am thinking of you all on this day, more then any other.  Hoping you are all well and all planning to come visit some time soon

Rum would also like to thank his sisters for thier well wishes and thoughts.  He still has your rakhis from last year in his car.