Anthony Malloy

I’m going to do the February Fast. It’s meant to be giving up alcohol for the 28 days of Feb although I think coffee would be much harder for me to do but I’m turning it over to you. I know it’s late notice so no coffee tomorrow morning to give you all time.

Let me (and Jen, sorry Jen for the lack of warning!) know below.

I want to wake up to somebody different. It’s been a couple of years now and it’s time for a change, same with during the day as my daytime companion is so far away it can be a bit tricky. Yes, I need a radio station.

Rae rules the bed side radio as she is the one who has to wake up at 6 every morning. For the past couple of years it was Vega, with Dicko, Dave and Chrissie. Now the music isn’t much and I was initially very sceptical but they slowly won me over with their more serious, and interesting, discussions amongst the fluff. Then they went and sacked Chrissie in a classic case of false economy. Now it’s just two boys trying too hard. Before Vega it had always been 774 but Red Symons’ smugness became too tiring and as long as he’s on we won’t venture back.

So now we’re stuck without a morning station. During the day I have BBC6 – the perfect radio station but that depends upon me having access to the net. Perfect music, great documentaries, announcers who know and love their music (G’day Chris). It’s handy when I’m working, or I can have it stream through my iPod Touch and there’s enough PCs dotted around to have it in most rooms but I can’t have it in the car and it’s a bit of a drag turning on a PC just to listen to radio.

I’ve tried JJJ but I think I’ve reached the age where it’s just not that relevant for me any more. 6 Music is like JJJ was when it first started, maybe that’s why I love it so much. Commercial stations music ain’t my cup of tea either so I may have to give RRR a go, or maybe just switch to being a news junkie and Radio National.

Who do you wake up with and should we share?

Sorry Danny the Champion Of The World, I fully intended to revisit you last night but I had to move City Of Cities, The Birth Of Modern London to get to you. Even though I’ve never been there it’s a really interesting read, short little snapshots of life in a huge city undergoing massive sudden change. I’ll get back to you soon Danny, I promise.

I think I read too much over Christmas/New Year. I took a couple of weeks off when Rae was home and we both spent a lot of that time with our noses buried in books. Sure, one of mine was a Stephen King epic (which was a lot of fun) but I think I exhausted myself. It’s been a couple of weeks and despite picking up a couple of books from the beside pile I haven’t been able to get in to anything. I’ve ordered a newy from Book Depository but I’ve decided I’ll go back and re-read one of my childhood favourites to get me back in the swing. Roald Dahl’s Danny the Champion Of The World is now resting on top of the clock radio, I think it’s just the tonic I’m after.

I’ve just discovered my second superpower. My first is that I can tell exactly how long an item will take to defrost in the microwave just by looking at it. (Okay, sometimes I may be off a bit, but generally it’s not too bad). My new superpower is making cars disappear.

For ages now there’s been a little black car parked up the end of the street, sometimes when we’re coming and going in the family mobile I’ll move the red car up to the parking lots we have at the end of the street. I always parked by this car. One day Rae noticed there were cobwebs on the wheels, then I noticed what looked like weeds growing out of it. A further check of the rego showed it had expired in 2008 and the back seat was stuffed with bags. It obviously hadn’t moved in a very long time.

One phone call to the council, a yellow sticker on the windscreen for a week and then wallah – it’s disappeared. The house next to it has been empty for a while and is now up for rent, I wonder if the tenants did a runner and left their car behind?

And now I see that Survivors has also started its second series on BBC. At least I can watch that one when the kids are napping ’cause Rae didn’t watch the first season.

For the last month, like everyone else, we’ve been moaning about the lack of anything to watch on television. It truly is a wasteland, and if you’re not in to tennis it seems particularly bad over the next week and a half. We have a fair bit on our PC waiting to be watched so we’ve made an effort to catch up. So far we’ve knocked over season one of Dexter and are half way through the first season of True Blood (and loving it!).

The problem is that Rae has now gone back to work so day time telly is out and by the time we get everyone to bed and sorted out we can only fit in one episode a night. That’s not so bad but international stations have caused us grief. Big Love season 4 has jut begun and today I discovered Being Human is two episodes in to season 2 on the BBC. Now we have to fit those in to our schedule as well as keeping up True Blood and a couple of movies. Is it any wonder I’m contemplating a larger hard drive for the media PC.

When you’re on a roll, stick with it. We took the twins to their first movie today so that also made it the first time all six of us have gone to the movies (or “sinumuh” as Bert prefers) together. My clever wife won a family, well four person, pass to Princess and The Frog so we all headed off to the local Village and watched it. Not a fantastic film but it did it’s job – all of them were perfect for the whole film, barely a peep, even in the slightly scary parts. Of course Moo had popcorn so she was happy. They’ve all been to the movies now and all of them loved it. It’s been a great weekend.

We take our movies pretty seriously in the Malloy household, if you need any proof just consider that we were married in a cinema, so today was a pretty big day – Bert went to the movies for the first time. I’ve been wanting to take him for a while now, he’s old enough to manage a kids film uniterrupted at home, and with Rae on her last day of holidays today was M-day.

I told him I wanted him to come for a drive with me and we headed off to The Sun Theatre in Yarraville ‘cause if you’re going to the movies for the first time you’ve got to do it right. There was a huge smile when I told him we weren’t actually going to Officeworks, we were going to see a film. We loaded up with popcorn, lollies and a lemonade and off we went to see Fantastic Mr Fox, and what a cool film to see as your first film at a cinema. He was great.. He chose the back row, centre seats without being prompted (must be in the genes) and sat riveted to the screen for the duration. As the credits rolled he looked up and said with a tinge of disappointment “Is that the end Dad?”.

It was a great afternoon and Bert has already asked when next I’m taking him. I hoping just as much as he is that it won’t be too far away.