looks like we're in the guiness book of world records!

this has been cut and pasted from the news.com.au site


700 in the mood for a record fling
From: AAP
June 11, 2006

THE threat of rain and an icy wind did not deter hundreds from participating in a world record attempt for the biggest Highland Fling at Portarlington, southwest of Melbourne, today.About 700 people took part in the attempt to get into the Guinness Book of Records at the National Celtic Festival about 1.15pm (AEST).
Organiser Una McAlinden said they wanted to break the record of 684 people dancing the Highland Fling for a period of six minutes at the same time and at the same place, which was established on July 13, 2005, at Antigonish, Canada.
"We think we've got the record with about 700 people ... so that means we've beaten Canada," Ms McAlinden said.
"We had a pipe band, we had a few instructors and we had a couple of practice runs and then they kept dancing their little feet off.
"There was four and five-year-olds up to the grandmothers and grandfathers."

The Highland Fling is the oldest of the traditional dances of Scotland and was created as a dance of joy performed at the end of a victorious battle.
Ms McAlinden said they had official time keepers and adjudicators at the event to ensure the attempt was legitimate.
She said the paperwork would now be sent to Guinness Book of Records staff, but she said it could be a couple of weeks before they know if the record has been officially accepted

Not bad, huh? We broke the record. we broke the record. although you can't see it, i'm doing a little happy dance for my computer.

National Celtic Festival

People might have noticed all the pics from the national celtic festival, and the fact that there was no story to go with them.

well... here's the story.

For the Queen Olivia's Birthday Long Weekend, the people of Port Arlington decided to put on a celebration in traditional celtic style, and I was invited along as part of the Barleyshakes entourage. This time I was the official baby roadie, which was fun, because Rory's a cutie. Well, when he's not screaming for an hour and refusing to go to sleep he's particularly special.

We had a lot of fun, as the pics probably show. Because the weather was so ridiculously cold (SLEET, damn it!) we spent most of the time indoors, in handy cafes or bars, and the occasional venue. Because there's so little accommodation in Port Arlington, we were billeted out with families around the area - well, some of us were. poor erin and joe had to sleep in the freezing pub, and joe didn't even have a bed, just a mattress on the ground.

I was put up with Alan and Kristen and Rory in Kevin and Valerie's house, which was great. they kept feeding us, and had a blazing fire 24 hours a day. what more could you ask for in free accommodation? kevin was the most amazingly ocker (how do you spell ocker?) bloke ever in the history of Australia. He rocked, and Valerie was awesome too.

one of the highlights of the festival for me were the go sets. after a weekend of trad irish music, what could be more welcome than a group of young, good looking, celtic punk rockers from melbourne? i danced my arse off, and had a ball.

oh, we participated in a world record attempt at the most people doing the highland fling at one time, but don't think we succeeded.

on my birthday, i had a whole crowd singing happy 31st birthday dear olivia, which shat me because i'm 28 - thanks a lot joe, you bastard!

hanging with joe was actually very cool - he was my saviour on the weekend. when everyone else was playing in sessions, we would sit near the fire and take the mickey out of everyone. it was great fun. i missed his company when i left - by the end of the weekend, he would look at me, and laugh, and hug me and say "i know exactly what you're thinking", usually because he was thinking the same thing.

joe - remember our special friend? i ended up chatting to her quite a bit. she was actually very interesting to talk to...

yes, you know what i'm thinking.

festivals rock.

liv

OK, so we couldn't seem to stop taking cheesy photos. it was fun, ok? 

Gorgeous Rory 

B is HOT 

Joe being fabulous 

the barleyshakes on stage - not the magnificent Belinda Ford on flute. truly a ridiculously talented creature. have stored some of her blood and am having it tested for alien life forms.  

Gorgeous Rory and I - I was babysitting Rory while the barleyshakes were on stage. Note the sexy shirt i'm wearing... I am getting paid to wear that thing right boys? 

yes, mia, the shots are coming

I'm going to be posting lots of shots from Mia's visit, but have to get them from Liz, and she's not home from work, so you'll all have to wait. ha ha ha ha herg... choked on my own glee.

liv

another shot from the pub... there was a definite theme in these pub shots... 

apparently I was neglect in my duties - here is the princess scotty and princess steve tiara shot - aren't they pretty? taken new years (i'm only 6 months late) 

silly drunk shots from the national celtic festival with the barleyshakes 

Facts

Interesting? Facts about Port Pirie

Port Pirie's famous land mark - the Tall Stack, was built in 1979 to overcome air pollution in the town. At 205 metres tall it is still one of the highest stacks in the Southern Hemisphere. (CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research website)

Gross Food Revenue (exc Wine) Port Pirie Region in 2002/03 valued at $208 million (www.safoodcentre.com/facts)
In 1992, the Port Pirie office of the Cancer Council raised $19 666 for cancer research (note the 666 at the end of that figure…) (Cancer Council website)

In 1991 the population of Port Pirie was 14 110. Apparently there is a uranium processing plant in Port Pirie too. (Yahoo Encyclopaedia)

The Port Pirie Country Music Festival is held annually in October and apparently attracts thousands of visitors from around Australia. (Am dubious about the last part of this supposed “fact”) (Planet Ware website)

Wow! Lead poisioning, radiation from the uranium processing plant, and country music! Three for three – I seriously hit the jackpot.

Living at the laundromat

19 June 2006 6pm

There's a man staring at me again. I'm beginning to wonder if this is a Melbourne thing, since it's happened here more frequently than in any other place I remember. I'm in the laundromat, yet again, soaking up the atmosphere while my clothes soak up the suds. I was almost out of underwear again, which is generally my cue to go to the laundromat. Some of my clothes were on the 3rd or 4th wear (that's t-shirts - jeans could be on their 3rd or 4th week, who knows?) but the nice thing is, none of them were really smelly at all. You just don't sweat here. Even when I'm dancing I barely seem to break a sweat. Sometimes they smell of smoke if I've been hanging out in too many pubs, but other than that they seem fairly inoffensive. I've also discovered I can easily go 4 or 5 days without washing my hair, a feat never accomplished without significant grief (and oily grossness) in Qld. So anyway, as far as laundry is concerned, life's ok.

As far as socialising is concerned, our lives have been incredible lately. Qld people we've seen in the last month include:

Mia, Luke, Mel K, Mum, Dad, My dog Doc, Belinda, Alan, Kristen, Erin, Joe, Scotty, Keir, Steve, Em, Kate, Paul, Ming, and Aimee (technically from Tassie, but we'll count her). Not a bad effort for a month.

I know I've already mentioned Mia's visit, but I don't think I've really begun to say how much fun we had with her. Luke, Mia and I went on our own funny little winery tour and I took some little shots of us all throwing leaves all over each other.

We also went to a fantastic Greek restaurant named Stalactites, and learnt that apparently vegetarians eat octopus.

"Why is there octopus on the vegetarian platter?"
"Duh, it's not meat, it's seafood..."

We saw our film being screened at the 15/15 film festival (nowhere near as bad as I'd thought - actually the soundtrack really suited at least some of the scenes, although the plot was confusing, I must admit. Damn french films.)

We got frocked up and went to a school, and sat on the floor with the kids to watch the fantastic Mel Adams perform the Magic Flute with Opera Australia's schools company. Mel really does amaze me. I'll be watching her career closely because she rocks (in an operatic sense, if that's possible).

Anyway during Mia's visit, we danced, and laughed, and completely exhausted ourselvess throughout the week(ish) that Mia was here, and it was worth every bit of the crabby, overtired poopiness that followed.

Yes, poopiness is now a word.

Because I said so, all right?

All right.

The apocalypse

6/6/6 7:50pm Armagedon day apparently. How does one spell armageddon? armaggedon? armhagedhiounnh? The end of the world. you know, the biblical thing. armagedon.

Difficult to know where to start this entry.

I've already started mentally removing myself from Melbourne and the attachments I have here, so this entry will probably come with an oddly detached tone, because that's how I'm feeling.

Yesterday our house went into a bizarre sort of emotional overload. It was discovered that one of the members of the house had been lying about a whole range on things that were upsetting to all, but particularly hurtful to one of the members of the house. That person was immediately thrown out which started a chain reaction of other fairly destructive events.

I think Liz immediately took sides, but more because of her own (unrelated) biases than anything else, but I and one of the others are trying to stay neutral and uninvolved as much as possible. difficult when both sides try to involve one, but we're trying. unfortunately both people involved are in a total mess at the moment.

Magnificent Mia

1 June 2006 6:12pm

Sitting at the Rubicon waiting for Liz to finish work so we can go for a drink somewhere. It's been ages since the two of us just hung out together - our lives have really separated since coming to melbourne.

the whole house is going out for dinner with mia tonight. i think it's the first whole house outing, so i'm looking forward to it. Liz, Ange, Luke and I go out together a lot but Steve rarely joins us, so it makes it a bit special when he does.

This last week we've had a crazy blonde whirlwind enter our house, and shake the cobwebs from everyone's tree. we all ended up playing like kids for days. we ate, and drank, and laughed more than we have in quite a while.

it helped me to see that as soon as we arrived in Melbourne Liz and I both started seeing the world in far too serious a light. We let all that ridiculous anger and fear stop us from having fun.

I have about 4 more weeks here in Melbourne then I'm moving on. I wonder how I'll be affected by my time in Port Pirie. I certainly think I'll be living the quiet life for a while...

liz is free. gotta go drinkies

Unconditional Love

18 May 2006 9:45pm

I believe in unconditional love

A very special friend and I were recently arguing about the meaning of the term unconditional love, and it has made me think a lot about what I mean when I use the term.

Up until a few years ago, I don't think I was capable of love of any sort really. I certainly was not able to love unconditionally - my heart was chained, locked, welded, hidden and drowned like a kitten, and for a long time I believed there was no key (bolt cutters/ resus kit/ crowbar) but finally I allowed myself to feel, and for some time after that was overwhelmed with love for my fellow human beings.

Then my love was tested, and I had to decide whether to love completely and without condition, or to shut off again.

I believe unconditional love means to love someone no matter what. It doesn't mean you don't want them to change. It doesn't mean the things they do don't hurt. It doesn't even mean you have to trust them. You just love them. That is all.

You love them no matter what they do or say.

Whether you're together or apart.

When you love them so much you think your heart will burst.

When you're so hurt you think your heart will burst.

When you're so bored you think your head will implode (and your heart will burst).

When you still love them, that's unconditional love. You don't have to be in a relationship of any sort, you just love them.

Loving someone doesn't mean you have to like what they do.