You know how I mentioned Damien and I went to see The Chaser being taped? “I’ll bet you they ask me to move”, I said to Damien at one point early in the evening. “Bald heads” don’t look good on television”, I told him. As it turns out, they DIDN’T ask us to move. And despite our initial concerns about being in the front row, we didn’t end up looking so bad as part of the “opener” to this week’s show. Aside from capturing that via iview, it was a reasonably interesting and eventful day. There’s a bit of movement at work at the moment which is always very interesting.

And then after work I caught up with Mark who is visiting from Perth. Mark used to live in Perth, and then lived in Sydney, and now he’s back in Perth, though thinking of returning to Sydney or maybe to Melbourne, depending on job opportunities. Though we had planned to meet at the Strawberry Hills Hotel, we decided against that, as they appear to have refurbished the place significantly. “When did that happen?”, Mark asked to which I replied it must have only been in the last couple of weeks. We had hoped to have one of their great, cheap steak meals. A sign inside the pub, however, urged everyone to the nearby Shakespeare Hotel. When we noticed, however, how busy that was, we moved to the nearby Clarendon Hotel (formerly O-Bar) which does an equally nice, good value steak for $10. After dinner, and as the “atmospheric singer” in the corner of the pub got louder and louder, we retired upstairs.

Upstairs they have some very comfortable lounges which we comfortably settled into for a couple of drinks and a chat. Not far from us was a group of young folk – maybe a birthday party? – who seemed to have control of the music system. Lots of Michael Jackson.