In Oz and Wanna Win BDO Artist CDs?
Head to the Arrive alive BIG DAY OUT 10 CD PACK online competition. You have to be 18-25 to enter, so once again, tell your 'young' friends! ;-)

Wanna See Exclusive Big Day Out 2003 Footage?
You should check out this cool footage - and I'm not just saying that because I've been spending all week putting up the videos on the website ;-) If you're an old-school kinda person, you'll want to see the Retro BDO footage.

So...sorry I've been so, I don't know, non-existent lately, both on and offline, but the Big Day Out thang has been crazy. Fun, but stressful. The Cruise to the Big Day Out Comp went really well - we got thousands of entries and lemme tell you, reading through all of them took, well, a LOT longer than I thought it would. But ringing the winners to tell them they'd won 4 tix to the sold-out Sydney BDO and a cruise to Homebush - well, geez, I felt like Santa Claus. I've decided I want a job where I can just call people up and tell them they've won something all day! I tell you, I was absolutely glowing. People screamed in delight, they thanked me profusely, (as if I had anything to do with the purchasing of the tix!) It felt good. It made up for having to read through the gazillion entries! ;-) It was funny, this one girl was in the car when I rang her to say she won. She started freaking out a la Elaine Benis on Seinfeld, going, "Oh my GOD! Get OUT! No way!" She was screaming and squealing. I said, "Um....are you driving?" She said yes and started screaming some more, telling her friends in the car they were all going to the BDO. More screaming. I said, "Um, maybe you might want to pull over?" And she said, "Oooh, yeah, you're right." Phew. Can you imagine? I cringed, imagining the possible news headline, "Sydney Gal gets into car accident due to excitement from being told she won tix to the Big Day Out from Arrive alive." Not good! ;-)

Now, in theory, writing content for Big Day Out newsletters and some BDO band bios/histories, and putting up video footage from this year's shows and previous year's stuff, is all very cool. I do enjoy it - and if it were all I had to do, I'd enjoy it even more, but you know how it is. It's just one of many projects I've been working on at work, so every day has just been like, "CRAP! My to-do list keeps getting longer!" I worked late nearly every night this week and that's helped, but Monday already feels daunting!

Catching up...lately I've seen Fourplay & Sarah Blasko at The Basement. They were absolutely stunning. Do not miss out on either act if you have the chance to go see 'em!

At the Big Day Out, I saw heaps of great bands/artists, including Pacifier, Jimmy Eat World, Queens of the Stone Age, PJ Harvey, Pnau, Jane's Addiction, Foo Fighters, etc. Awesome day, even though I lost all my friends by the end of the night - hee hee. Oh, and I must remember to write about the tools in the V.I.P. section at the BDO. I only ventured into the V.I.P. area after I lost my friends and figured I should give it a shot to see what it actually means to be a "V.I.P" at the BDO...apparently it means you have to act like you've got a stick up your arse. My gig rage was flaring! I'm sure there were some very fine people there, but only the rude ones interacted with me. More about that later.

Congrats to Sydney band The Drugs for not only cracking the Triple J Hottest 100, but for coming in at a beyond-respectable No. 38 with "The Bold & the Beautiful" - I am not at all surprised!

I went to see The Vines for free at The Enmore on Wednesday with the lovely Claudine (Thanks Gav!) It was fun because a) It gave me hope that if these guys have made it big, then I have a shot in hell after all and b) I didn't pay for the gig. I did enjoy myself immensely and I am convinced that with the right audio engineer I'm going to be the 'next big thing' - watch out, Avril! (Okay, maybe not - even the best sound person can't invent a 'range' for me, but whatever.)

Oh, and on Wednesday I encountered the funniest cabbie in ages - and you know that's saying a lot because I've had some real characters over the years - but that's not too surprising - who doesn't have a great taxi driver story (or 12) these days? I'll try to write up the story tomorrow - I've got to get back to work on my many side-projects (i.e. my NON-paying gigs!) ;-)

p.s. Happy Birthday to my lil' cousin Rob. Okay, okay, so he's like a foot taller than me, but he's still my lil' cousin, dammit! I feel so old - can't believe he's 19. If Mum & Dad or Auntie Kate could email me Rob's new number, it would be much appreciated!