Good weekend. Wipe Out and Pack Up!

This might be a good opportunity to explain why, as you might have noticed, updates on this blog have been pretty short and sporadic of late:

Since March 2005 I've lived in a Melville house that's fondly referred to as "Lothbury" by myself, Matt and Shawn, the awesome boys I've shared the house with over the past 6 years. Those 6 years have undoubtably been the happiest of my life. And while Lothbury can't take credit for Secret parties, Kidofdoom shows, acoustic gigs in Canned Applause, geek outs in Outer Limits or so many late night danceathons, these special moments were almost always followed up by a return to my place for a pleasant cup of tea and episode of Look Around You.

Thanks Lothbury. Thothbury.

But, as I'm sure you've guessed by my nostalgic tone, the Lothbury era is over. As it stand right now my keytar, projector and mac are in my car along with a suitcase of clothes. Everything else I own has been put into storage and I'm technically homeless until I can find a new place to live. During this period of vagrancy Annette and Patrick, like the great friends they are, have offered me their couch till I find a place. With Lothbury becoming a cluster of offices, Matt, Shawn and I are all pretty much in the same boat and while I couldn't be more excited about entering into a new chapter of my life, packing up my old life away this weekend was pretty damn sad. This was in pretty damn stark contrast to how my weekend began; kicking off in the most un-sad way possible with Wipe Out!

Rain on Friday evening meant things got started a little later than usual. This meant that Professor Mystery (the surfiest of this month's high five DJs) played to a dancefloor of only a handful of enthusiastic High Fivers. I took over from him and happily witnessed more and more people arriving at the party. As I could have predicted, I had the best time, highlighted by leaving the DJ booth to rock out to Wavves on the dancefloor. Another highly memorable moment from my set involved playing Hot Club De Paris covering Call Me Al and seeing it full the floor. By the time Ri took over from me the party was well and truly rocking out and while we didn't see the venue reaching capacity like it did at the Hi5 launch, the party was a serious spazzing success.

Ri discovered he'd forgot his CD of surf songs burnt especially for the party, yet (just playing out his bag) delivered a super swinging set of fun that the crowd went nuts for. Marc Latilla took over from him and, spinning a set centered and his own re-edit of the Trashmen's "Surfin Bird", tore the floor apart. Oliver Twisted took over and proceeded to totally funk things up. When I headed home at 3AM, he still had the floor packed, grooving away to the most perfectly soulful outro to a night of maximum rock and roll.

I headed home. For one last TIME I rocked my post show ritual of busting a shower and climbing into bed with a comic book, choosing my dear friend Fone Bone for this final Lothbury session. Saturday was an entire day spent packing. My highlights for the day involved droppping by Latilla's place to give him his cash from the night before, and swinging by Outer Limits to pick up a copy of Jamie McKelvie's "Suburban Glamour" that I ordered a few weeks back. But other than those little breaks, the whole of Saturday was one big pack fest. By 11:30, considering that the next day I'd be packing the old boy up, I decieded to take the rest of the night off with my X-Box. Having taken advantage of my last days in a house with uncapped internet I had downloaded 4 new Arcade titles on Thursday. Luckily I decided to start with The Undergarden, which was a godsend; honestly the most perfect thing my brain could have asked for in that moment. Earlier this year, when listing my favourite video games from 2010, I ranted about how disappointing it is that the genre has just come down to games about shooting people in the head. Playing The Undergarden felt like blinding bit of light at the end of this dark tunnel games seem to be going through; a beautiful, completely original experience that put me in the best mood after my day of packing. Sunday wasn't much different to Saturday. Pack pack pack pack pack. At least I had this to look forward to this weekend.