Newcastle Knights 1997 GF!!

   What do you say about the gutsy endeavours of a sporting team that united a town and region in celebration of working class success!! No seriously... community groups,businesses, even non sports fans were gripped by celebration of a team with a handful of world class legends, an 'immortal' and the will to be there in the moment the match would be won or lost!! Remember the red and blue weatherboard house that was reclad for free after the celebrations!!
   Sport teaches about life [it just shouldn't be our only lessons]!! Mad Monday, Team partying, Ticker tape parade... but before that 60 Sid Fogg Coaches to and from the game.... a last minute speculator try to Darren Albert, set up by Andrew and Matthew Johns!! People stepped onto the F3 to stop the bus and high five the team... and a few of my mates go to the front of stage at the Workers Club, with thousands outside... when someone standing near them started "New Car sull" New Car sull" and thousand of people chanted a team onstage who stage dove and shouted themselves silly!!
   Pride was the main thing... beating Manly helped!! Lots of surprising people had red and blue hair, bought these t-shirts by the truckload [literally]!!
 

"Spectacles"

   I spent $400 on spectacles last year and both pairs were 'they're nearly right' frame choices in how they 'fitted'... both ended up after repeated adjustments, bendings and frustrations... being no good and leaving me with fuzzy vision around the edges. It wasn't my eyes, the lens sizes, the higher script etc etc... just poor choice from a limited range!! How do I know it wasn't all those things.... this years new frames are great!! Just as well as they were the only choice available to me... they just so happened to my favourite frames of the last decade!!
   They look almost exactly like this red bubble t-shirt [designed by blast from the past FB friend, Steve Dunkley, graphic designer and musician, most likely known to Newcastle pub rock patrons as a member of local band 'Incognito']...
   So, these frames will very soon fall from favour with hipsters everywhere as they realise "if that bloke is wearing them, they are definitely no longer fashionable" which is my mission in life as far as clothes and accessories are concerned... well done Big W Vision!!
 

"I'm BATMAN"

   This week we have a new addition to the t-shirt cupboard!! Another redbubble.com 'no sweat shops' design as a bit of fun... Let's face it if Ben Affleck can get the Batman gig, well...
In all seriousness I think he could be good at it... it's a stunning orange colour and is designed to stand out under a winter jacket or to generate fun conversation at the local coffee shop... It's a small reward for keeping up my swimming 3 or 4 times a week for nearly the last year. It's fittingly arrived as I have a week or two out of the pool because I need to be at home at the moment. You'll see a few others from my latest order in coming weeks!!
 
   
 

U2 'Go Home' Slane Castle

   There's a U2 album due out, predicted and in completion... such has been the standard U2 media machine hype for maybe 12 months... they haven't finished recording it yet, but anyone annoyed by that is no U2 fan!! This is just standard angst from a creative force who strive for music that people want to hear alongside their own drive to tell a story nobody else is telling. They are over hyped, so 80s, and yet find a way to produce songs like 'Ordinary Love' for the Mandela bio pic [albeit with Chris Martin's help to finish it]!! I love this band and the way that despite ample material for lampooning, for people to get sick of them and their classic rock n roll excess... they find a way to critique the times, to share a story of faithful wrestling and speak into the mass population about their 'following' of Jesus and their fallible humanity.
   This t-shirt represents lots of things... on the one hand it's a concert that yielded one of the most moving live DVDs I've seen as they returned to the place they had been a support act 25 years earlier, cranking out their first song and then a stunning album and concert with huge screens, the usual and powerful themes and what some see as a huge ego but I see differently!!
   Alongside that however, this t-shirt was also a favourite as I set about the task of losing weight to better fit into it... actually 32kgs in 2007/8 to be precise... My ruptured kneecap tendons in 2003 were catching up with me and lack of ability to jog/run well, walk downhill really... It's only possible when you have enough energy or desperation to focus, priortise and stay committed... results for your efforts are a bigger part of it!!
   And yep, sadly I began to slip from almost reaching my goal to putting 27 of those back on and have been engaged way less successfully in the ask of turning that around over the last 24 months. I'm swimming 20-30 laps 3-4 times a week and was cycling 45mins a day before that... BUT not quite able to cut back enough of the wrong stuff and apply sufficient discipline... I haven't given up!!
   All that said, this t-shirt is a reminder it's possible... I just don't have a strong enough connection between the action of eating and the consequences... enjoying the food is the burnt out fuse in between.
   This t-shirt shows the four band members much as they were seen on giant screens in their show which included an eliptical heart shape with fans inside and out and an ability to run/walk around that stage, to do 'unplugged' at the front and to change up the tempo and vibe of the concert. The screens allowed images and lyrics, messages and historic clips to augment the songs. Later indoors, whole songs were projected onto the audience as well... eventually leading to the need to invent a staging 'claw' to go even bigger but stay even more intimate...
   You get reminded of all that emotion and theatre, just wearing a  type t shirt. I look forward to U2's new disc... 2014-2015???????