As the title suggests I saw Tool twice within a week. Last Wednesday in Ireland and then jumped on a plane to London and saw them again on Monday night.

I must say they were awesome, played some old tracks and a lot of new tracks, personally I thought it could have been louder… but maybe that was just me? All the bass and effects might have caused distortion if played any louder?

Anyway there is some vids up of both the Dublin and London show here

Once again I was at the point theatre (same place I saw Muse the other week) here in Dublin and then in London I was at Wembley Arena, which is a pretty damned awesome venue as well! It was about an hour on the tube from Canary Wharf, so just enough time to get some tool cranking on the ipod before getting there!

London was tops, did the touristy thing and jumped on the ‘original tour bus’ and saw the sights, heard the recorded ‘guided tour’ I must say, wasn’t overly impressed with headphones in a socket… but all in all was decent enough, though, Matt and Louise covered 85% of it the last time I was there, still nice to hear the history I suppose.

Obviously, it was good to catch up with Matt and Louise, see a friendly face etc Was good being in London when the Ashes had started, even though it started at midnight and went through until 7am, I caught at least the first session, some times the first two – only on radio though, they didn’t order pay tv just for me to watch the ashes, how rude! Fortunately that won’t be an issue for the next 4 tests, I have sky sports The commentary was actually very pomie biased and this was the bbc, hate to see what others were saying, but still the bbc had some ‘UK’ only streaming content available (highlights packages and days previews and the like) so it wasn’t all bad.

Went into Harrods, what a crazy busy that place is, walked in on Sunday and walked straight out – to many people to deal with plus I am impatient, went back on Monday, when yuou’d have thought people would be working!! still less people then Sunday, bought some ‘must have’ Harrods stuff.

Paid the equivalent of $20 or so Aussie for a pie at some pie shop in Canary Wharf, 7.70 sterling! well it was a pie with mash and gravy and a can of coke… still 20 bux!! maybe I should stop converting??

Thats it for now, when I can be bothered (prolly tomorrow) I’ll sort the good photo’s from the bad and upload.

OK, the videos from Rugby, Int’l Rules and Wolfmother are now uploaded

Rugby can be found – here

International Rules – here

And Wolfmother – here

Tool is on tomorrow night, can’t wait – I’ll post pics and video’s of that in due course, then I am off to London on Thursday and will see Tool again at Wembley!!

That’s all for now.

So I wasn’t expecting to go to the game today, I had one hope for tickets and that didn’t work out…. however I get a call at 3:30pm telling me to get my arse down to Lansdowne Road and I’ve got a ticket!!

What an experience! Pretty damned cold and it was windy and raining – fun times! But it was good to say I’ve been to Lansdowne Rd, it’s officially the oldest rugby stadium still being used! They are knocking it down to redevelope it later this year and this was the second last test to be played there…

The game itself was shit, Australia played crap and we go totally dominated.

Anyway, photo’s are now up for a slew of things, randon Dublin photo’s (under Dublin of course), Wolfmother concert pics, Aus V Ireland in the Int’l Rules and the Rugby today are all up!

I have video from Wolfmother and the two Aus V Ireland matches, I’ll upload over night and let ya know where that is.

I saw Muse last Friday, 3 November at the Point Theatre here in Dublin, I must say this venue is awesome (I’ve just read the website and it says the capacity is 8,500 – it felt allot smaller, very intimate venue) this is the largest indoor venue in Dublin!

Muse were sensational, they played new and old tracks and were on stage for a total of just over 2 hours including an encore. It’s bloody funny how subdued they Irish are at a concert, I was in a seat and NO ONE stood up to clap them on or when songs were played, I stood up a number of times and was told to SIDDOWN – very different to the ent cent back home, even the mosh pit didn’t really mosh!

The show itself was an audio visual masterpiece, with lasers and lighting that looks tops and 2 massive video screens showing live footage of each band member and video stuff.

Last Sunday saw a trek out to Croke Park (pronounced Crow), what a fkn stadium – it is smack bang in the heart of houses, no shit, houses actually back onto the stadium. The atmosphere at this place was electric and it’s a good viewing ground, at 82,000 capacity it’s HUGE, without a doubt I’ll be back to see some form of sport there before I leave here. The game itself was awesome, lots of biffo and a bit of drama; I thought I’d be lucky to get outta there with the amount of trash I was giving out about the Irish being soft!!

Monday night I saw Wolfmother at Olympia Theatre, dead set would lucky to have held 1,000 people, very, very small venue, again it was a good venue – I had great seats and Wolfmother totally dominated the evening (it was an MTV event, was another 3 bans, but Wolfmother headlined) being a MTV event it might end up on TV at some stage?

All around that I managed to pick up the flu and my asthma has been playing up a little, but it’s all good.

T’was a busy week.

Photo’s to be uploaded soon!

Yes, ’tis true a second update within a week!!

Due to Halloween we had a long weekend! So with that in mind, I headed down to Cork, well Cobh (pronounced Cove!) with a friend from work. Cobh is a little island and is quite a nice place, a quick 3 hour train ride and we were there!

Saturday night shenanigans included heading into a new fancy bar called “Soho” in Cork – the annual Jazz Festival was on this October long weekend, so the place was packed and there was plenty of Jazz music playing… Soho was packed to the rafters and we could barely move, so we headed up to a pub called Costigans, an old Irish pub, again packed but it had an awesome atmosphere. We started drinking mini Guinness (shots! Tia Maria and Baileys – I think) and more shots called Apple Sours (I think this was just apple schnapps, who knows!) So the night started to get a little messy and we had a pre-booked cab arranged for 2am to take us the 25-30 min journey home.

Sunday was a case of driving around Cobh taking in the sites, although no camera was present! And the weather wasn’t too good…. Still was a good day. Headed off to the Rob Roy pub in downtown Cobh – dead set the smallest pub I’ve been in AND this was the largest Cobh had to offer!! Once again we were jammed in and it was hot as shit in there, we ended up moving on to the ‘Commodore Hotel’ where ‘Club C’ is the ‘place to be’ with the locals. As we walked in the Bee Gee’s cover band were walking in to start their gig, I tell ya there was some dodgy dancing as we started bustin’ some funky’s on the D floor. Again the night came to an end around the 2am mark as the club shuts down and it’s all over.

All in all an excellent weekend, met lots of new people – including some Aussies! Met nearly the entire O’Connell clan and their respective houses/wives/kids/pets and most importantly their large appetites and plenty of food!

There will be some photos uploaded eventually.

Another busy week this week with Muse on Friday night, International Rules Sunday and then Wolfmother next Monday, so stay tuned!

Photo’s are available!! here or from the menu on the right

So I’ve been lazy and not updated this site as much as I should!!

The Big news is, I am coming home… well just for a holiday in Jan, flights are booked, I’ll fly out of Dublin the morning of 19 Jan and arrive 20 Jan 7:30pm or so, I’ll have 2 weeks in Syd and head back 2 Feb – can’t wait should be a blast, I’ll be ready for Big Day Out and Australia Day Hottest 100 BBQ!! The steak back home 100 times better then over here!

Lots of stuff happening, going to Cork for the long weekend this week, heading to Kilkenny in a few weeks to have a look around. Going to the International rules match (the hybrid AFL and Gaelic football) with a couple of Aussies and a few Irish, should be a good laugh. Then I have Wolfmother 6 November, then Tool and Muse in the same week here in Dublin and then I jump on a plane and head to London to see Tool at Wembley, though I’ve just found out it’s Wembley ARENA and not the stadium (the bloody thing is still being built!) no doubt it will rock anyway!.

I’ve FINALLY got internet at home, so there should be some more frequent updates, along with photo’s to be updated. There is London photo’s to still go up and no doubt there will be a few photo’s from Cork.

Sutto had a baby girl a few weeks back, mum and bub all well and good – www.chelseajoy.com to see photo’s etc.

Nothing else really springs to mind at the moment if/when stuff comes to mind I’ll update

So the flight over was with a bargain basement airline, not to dissimilar to Virgin Blue, you get a seat and that’s about it, BUT their tickets are only 1 euro (or at times less) so it’s all good. I arrived at the airport early, so decided to walk around for a bit and found a book store, bought the Lance Armstrong book and I am a third of the way through it, it’s an awesome read so far. My flight was delayed by nearly an hour, due to the Ryder cup the Dublin airport was crazy busy – since I was engrossed in the book I didn’t even realise the delay!

Arrived at London – Gatwick at around 9pm then jumped on the Gatwick express down to London, was an easy enough trip and then I had to encounter the London underground (aka the tube) it’s a massive and complex set of trains and train lines running in and around greater London. I had to move from the Victorian overland platform to the Victoria underground platform, catch it for a few stops into Tower Hill station get off and then walk a little bit to get on the Docklands Light Rail (DLR) catch that for a few stops and arrive at East India – Matt and Louise’s stop and literally only 150m from their front door, handy hey.

Today we went and did the tourist thing, Big Ben, London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Parliament House and Buckingham Palace – walked through St James’s park and finally looked at Trafalgar Square, we saw a few of the old Monopoly places!! Ohh yeh saw No 10 Downing Street – although the public can’t get in. I’ve taken a ton of photos and will upload when I get back to Dublin. Tomorrow I am off to Piccadilly Circus to meet some people, having a pub lunch and probably more sight seeing stuff.

Well I moved into my new home today, its in Grand Canal Dock – I am dead set 2 meters from the water and have a nice water view from my lounge roo – I’ve even uploaded some pictures as I have some internet finally. The pictures are here or click the photo’s link on the left, there is pics of my first place at Sandymount and my new place. I have a bunch more photo’s to put up, I’ll get to those over the weekend. I will also create a contacts page with all my Dublin numbers and addresses etc..

Thats it for now.

OK, so it’s been a while between drinks, with no net access at home it makes it hard.

All is sorted at work (finally) in terms of my logins and email and the like.

I had Rebecca M and her friend Kat over for the last few days of last week, was good to see a familiar face and have someone around at home, it was a bit quiet sitting there talking to myself!

I’ve finally been paid some € so have some money to spend! I’ve also found an apartment, I am signing the lease and doing all the inspection stuff this Wednesday, so that should be good – screening potential room mates on Saturday, bye bye €2700 for the deposit/bond and first month’s rent!!

Found this awesome aussie pub www.woolshedbaa.com where I am going to watch all the NRL finals action LIVE! So I am keeping up with the footy and pretty much all sport at that pub to be honest.

On a travel front, I am off to London next weekend (22-25 Sept) to catch up with Matt and Louise as well as some people from work. I am then off to London again in November to see both Tool and Muse at Wembley!!! Very excited

Well it’s coming on 7pm here at work, so it’s time to go home.

Updates will be more regular once I get some net access at home.

On a sader note, grandad passed away overnight in Australia. R.I.P William Sydney Heard

So I’ve started working, all is going well, aside from a few system glitches (my fkn email is still screwed and my LAN login is somewhat of a ‘drama’). They do things a little different over here; will take some time to get up to speed…. The bloke who is the same level as me and knows everything is on leave for 3 weeks from this Friday, so that’ll be fun, that and the ¼ end distribution occurs while he is away and he has done it all for the past 5 years or some crap – again should be interesting… Releasing a new system over the next few weeks too, so my first month here will be ‘tops’.

On other more exciting news! I’ve just booked tickets to see TOOL and MUSE!!! 50 euro each I was trying to get Bernard Fanning tickets (only 15bux!!) but the server isn’t responding or some shit. I didn’t even know, but I went past a ‘kick ass’ venue on the way home last night in a cab, apparently all the big bands play there, I noticed Pearl Jam were playing 23 August, so I looked their site up etc and that’s how I got onto tool and muse, spewing I couldn’t get tickets for Pearl Jam – they only did one show and it’s sold out.

Still no net at home and it looks like it’ll stay that way until I move, which I don’t intend on doing for another couple of weeks (why not take advantage of free rent!!).

Photo’s will come as soon as I can, I am still not sure of how I’ll upload them, don’t want to do it from a net café or work really… so stay tuned.

Not sure where to start…

 Checkin Sydney, bag weighed just over 30kg’s – attendant was a little abrupt and said you’ll need to give me your qantas club card, to which i replied i am flying business… the whole tone and everything changed, “sorry mr heard etc etc” hehe

Business Class, its the business!! Only way to travel (if I could afford it!) so much service and what not, the seats are AWESOME, everything was great..

The flight itself suxs, long distance flights are shit, qantas in flight entertainment system sux ass too, movies are only replied once every 2.5 hours, how the fuck is that “on demand” Emirates have got them covered adn then some… that’s provided it works too, it went down more often then a $2 hooker…

Left my bloody mp3 player on the plane at Heathrow (London) and that was the start of a shitty morning for me… had to check a bag, that was meant to be carry on, was yelled at by the crazy pom security people, lots of fun hehe

No net at home at this stage, so it’s sporadic updates for netcafe’s and work (if i can access the site). first day in dublin had a few pints, so all was not lost

That’s it for now.

Yes, Yes, comming in LIVE from the Qanatas club lounge

Everything has been said and done and its time to jump on the plane, sitting back with a wild turkey and coke, that was FREE

More to come from other destinations

Mum and dad, moreso Mum are stressed!! Final packing has occured, double and triple checks are in place…

We won’t leave anything behind, I don’t think!!

If I get a chance I’ll post from the Qantas lounge

So they decided to attack some planes just before I head overseas, bastards! Anywho, just about to start packing today (Tuesday) and have confirmed I will be flying out tomorrow (Wednesday) as per my original itinary. On the news this morning they have lifted the carry on baggage restrictions! Which hopefully means I can take my ‘expensive’ stuff onboard i.e. laptop, digital camera and MP3 player, which is good stuff…

So yes, lunch today with grandparents then going out for a family dinner tonight, a good nights sleep and then on the plane – can’t wait

Only 2 weeks until I fly out! Lots happening in the last little bit, moved back into parents place….started getting some of my shit together….

So I saw Wolfmother on Thursday night at the Horden Pavillion – they were tops, what I found incredible was their ability to reproduce the sound off the CD into a live gig. All those effects and shit were there, then some… the live experience was tops.

Steve-O and the jackass crew were there for some reason or another, they apparently are going to be in the joker and the thief film clip, though when I went to the pissers pre-show, they were filiming in there and Steve-O was pissing on people…. not exactly quality entertainment in my eyes…

Anyways, the show was tops – highlights were Dimension, Minds Eye, Woman and Joker and the Thief. Will deffinately see them again some day..

An interesting Saturday night.. get a call from a mate at 1:15am to come pick him up – he was blind drunk and couldn’t get a cab, so being a good mate, said sure why not – where the fkn hell are you?!?! With not alot to go off I embark on a mision to collect a drunk mate, 20mins later with some dodgy directions i’ve located him. Next stop macca’s – needs some late night anti-hangover feed, fairy nuff, except dine-in is closed, so we go drive-thru, grab the foods and sit in the carpark, me being a tool, turned the car off, left the radio, air con and lights on, so 20mins later when we wanted to head home, the battery was flat. Found some random bloke who had jumper leads and we were off… so a quick rescue turned into a freaking hour and a half saga…

Today is 16 July, which leaves a month before I depart for Ireland.

Flying qantas now….

jesus christ it’s $6k for a one way ticket to Dublin… that’s alot of $$$

Made the booking today, fly out Wed 16 Aug, get into Dublin at 11am 17 Aug – plus I lose the day in time limbo too or some shit, dunno will have to look into it more later….

So I’ve got me a job over in Ireland, Dublin to be exact. Lots to do before I leave, haven’t done shit….

My last day in the Sydney office will be 11 Aug and my first day in Dublin office is 21 Aug. I am having a farewell on Sat 12 Aug at the races (Randwick).