Andrew and Kathleen

It was a very busy Easter weekend for us. My mum came up from Hobart for a holiday, so we spent most of the time taking her to see some of the touristy sights of Sydney.

We had lunch at the Fish Markets on Good Friday, probably the worst time of the year to decide to go to a place specialising in fish. We went to Katoomba and the Blue Mountains on Saturday - and even took her on a small bush walk to Wentworth Falls.

We were lucky we had such beautiful weather out there, given the forecast for Sydney was so awful we were about to change our minds and go shopping instead! We even got to take some great photos of the Three Sisters, which I'd only ever seen in print form before.

We only travel to Hobart once a year, so its nice when relatives can come to us for a change!

I never realised going to the footy was such a physically dangerous pastime. I managed to come home from the Sydney vs Hawthorn game with Ivan and Stef with bruised ribs and a sprained finger after two separate incidents after the match.

At most AFL grounds, they allow the spectators onto the ground to kick their footballs after the players have left. This means that 10,000 people suddenly swarm onto the ground, and what seems like about a billion footies start flying through the air. You have to watch your head, because not everyone can kick a ball 15 metres accurately.

You also have to watch out for little children, who have a tendency to step right in your path as you run to take a mark. Often your eyes are on the ball, not any stray kids, and so it was that suddenly I find myself on the ground, landing awkwardly on my hand, while behind me a four year old kid wasn't sure whether he was going to cry after I tripped over him.

That was injury number one.

Injury number two was incurred when two Swans supporters, completely out of the blue I might add, decided to tackle me. It might have had to do with the fact that I was wearing a Hawks guernsey and was holding the footy at the time. I came up slightly winded, and by the next day my ribs were aching. Thanks, you anonymous buggers.

There was a third injury, but that was self-induced, and involved a pub nearby to the SCG.

I didn't get any sympathy for any of these injuries at home, either!

Kris is excited about REM's concert in Sydney tonight.

Personally, I haven't forgiven them for Up, especially since it came out after New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Automatic For The People, two of my all-time favourite albums.

Since the whole Terri Schiavo thing currently going on in Jesusland is just so bloody bizarre, and because there is no real reason for me to actually take sides (I don't really care, after all), I figured I'd let other people do my reasoning for me.

• Whitehouse.org announces President Bush's "66 Uses for Persistent Vegetards".
• Terri Schiavo's blog. Sample entry: "nggnugh".
• An economist takes a punt at working out, economically-speaking of course, what the best course of action for Terri is, in the wistfully-titled Imagine If Terri Were A Toaster.

If I throw out a toaster, and you want to retrieve it from my trash, there's a net economic gain. If Michael Schiavo essentially throws out his wife's body and her parents want to retrieve it, it seems pointless to prevent them.

• The WWF's Ultimate Warrior attempts to explain why she should be allowed to die. At least, I *think* that's what he's saying.

Off work crook today. Some weeks are better than others for being sick - when you're so far behind, or under a bit of pressure to finish a project, you just can't afford to take any time off. Luckily, this week's relatively OK, and I'd rather have one day off now than get sicker and have to take more time off.

So I stayed inside, finished watching one of the weekend's three-day-rental DVDs, and drank Kathleen's magical home-made vegetable soup.

It's pouring with rain outside, so I'm glad I don't have to face walking home!

Since the weather has cooled down a bit, today marks the first time since last year that I've worn a suit and tie into the office.

The last time I did so, I was unmarried. Now, I find myself checking my reflection in the mirror - complete with wedding ring.

Yep - definitely older and more mature.

When doing the grocery shopping after football, if you don't take your wallet, at least take a credit card so you can actually pay for the stuff. It's important that you have the card on you before you take everything out of the trolley and put it on the conveyer belt.

Thank you.

Please don't scare me like that!

I'm not sure whether having a beautiful sunset is worth having summer overstay its welcome by a few weeks.

I'm sick of the heat. I need some rain. It's not healthy to be outdoors on the weekend all the time!

My wife's brother's fiancee's brother-in-law came over today to take a mattress off our hands. He brought his son Jack with him.

Jack is a top kid. He's six, and has two settings - fast-forward and hyper-fast-forward. Anyway, he found our Mr T-o-matic.

So there's Jack pressing the buttons and trying to repeat Mr T's words of wisdom, twenty years after they were first uttered. His favourite?

"Don't make me mad!! Grrrr!"

Surely there's some sort of cosmic irony at play there?

From the decadence of the Mardi Gras...

... to a lazy Sunday in the park.

If it weren't for our friends, three couples of which have had children in the past year, I wouldn't know about foremilk/hindmilk imbalance.

If I had a dollar for every time someone has said to me today, "You look like you got a bit of sun on the weekend" I'd be... well, maybe not a rich man.

At the least I wouldn't have to pay for any of my coffees this week.

Lisa was quite perturbed to find that we don't have the dictionary of two letter words for use when playing Scrabble. I'd like to think that our superior vocabulary precludes the need for said dictionary. However, it's more likely that we are just under-prepared.

My sister Lisa is in town at the moment, checking out Sydney with the short-term view to moving here from Hobart. She's been having a great time - as you can imagine there's always the excitement that goes along with moving to a new place, but also because Sydney is bloody bigger than Hobart.

Last night we went to the Mardi Gras, along with Steph & Eva and Cousin Elaine, which was excellent. The crowds lining Oxford St were huge, and we had to buy cheap plastic stools to stand on in order to be able to see anything.

I took a bunch of photos, but hardly any turned out at all well. I seriously need to practice nighttime photography.