Oct
23
2009

Furniture & Vegemite

...Just Not Together

(Add / View Comments) (0)Friday, October 23, 2009 - 08:20:07 pm
(Posted Under: Livin' In The USA Livin' In The USA)
Waking up at 7 this morning was nice, to give us some time to enjoy the apartment somewhat, straighten up a bit, and still get out too look at furniture reasonably earlier. Which is how we spent most of the later morning and early afternoon. While we made no purchases at this point, it was certainly a worthwhile endevour. Which we'll no doubt pick up again tomorrow.

By 2 we were both absolutely starving (and parched - go figure, the desert and all [wink] ) and so I elected the resturant to fix our hunger should be non other than Fuddruckers. Rather than go to the new Mesa one, we headed out to the one in Scottsdale. And absolute awesome decision on my behalf as a Fuddrucker's chicken sandwich was exactly what was needed to calm the raging hunger! At the moment I am completely in love with two inanimate objects - our new fridge, and Fuddruckers chicken sandwich. My love for both is probably a tad unhealthy. It's fine, I can admit it! [wink] (I've had a sordid love affair with the former for quite a while of course).

After the late lunch we decided to check out Tempe Market Place, the new complex (well, newish in the last few years) that I'm largely only familiar with because of the usual suspects (particularly Violet Wild) who have played shows there over the last few years). It was also new to Katie (the landfill cleanup only just starting while she was still here), and we were both suitably impressed. Quite large, and not half as creepy as say, Desert Sky Mall. The sheer size of it also brought an immediate thought to mind - fuck off the corporatization of Mill Avenue, do all your retail here and return Mill Avenue to an arts / music location. Look out, another Mill Avenue rant. Speaking of which, it was interesting to see that Ruby Tuesday has moved down here - the last time we were here we figured that it had shut up shop when we noticed the empty building on Mill and University last month.

In anycase, we picked up some great cactii at Target on sale for the apartment. I'm pretty happy with them! We're going to need more, but these two were a great start at a great price.

Next door was World Market, a store with foods from around the world. So of course, we had to check it out. It was pretty cool seeing Australian food that I haven't seen for a while. After a little while, we hit the jackpot. It was incredibly cute how excited Katie was when she spotted that yellow jar - yes, Vegemite! There had been somewhat of a search party keeping and eye out for some in the midwest, which turned up nothing. And hence I haven't had a single bit ever since I left Australia. Which I've handled quite well actually, put by about the third month I'd have some minor cravings for it here and there. So it was pretty glorious! And...expensive! US $8.99 for one of the little 200g jars (surprisingly the majority of other stuff was a lot closer to Australian prices). But of course, there was no way we couldn't purchase some, especially given the difficulty we've had finding any thus far.

I completely forgot about this product (oh the shame) it took Katie to remind me - savory shapes. Unfortunately they didn't have any (nor Salada, which is another thing I wwouldn't mind to taste again. [smile] ). In anycase, there was joy throughout the land at finding Vegemite (which ironically I'd been talking to Aaron (Mr. 'hooked on Bunderberg Ginger Beer' ever since he went to New Zealand).

After this, and then another Target to pick up a vaccum cleaner we found last night on sale, we headed over to the storage unit to pick up more stuff. With the plants in the car we didn't have enough room to clear it out tonight either. Honestly, doing the unpacking of it and moving it to apartment, I'm actually surprised with just how much stuff we got moved here with only our car. It's really quite impressive! Many things were well executed with the move, one of them being how room we gained using the overhead bag to transport our clothes. One more trip to the storage unit and we should be done though!

In half an hour we're heading out to see Scotty play. Woo!
Oct
23
2009

Arizona Is My Climate

(Add / View Comments) (0)Friday, October 23, 2009 - 08:35:08 am
(Posted Under: No Category)
So, I feel remiss not to announce (aka brag about) the current weather conditions in my new home town. It's the middle of fall here in the US. In my mind, back in the midwest it might have well already been winter (of course, I'm a light weight when it comes to shitty weather, and know it's going to get a hell of a lot worse out there).

It's currently 8:30 in Tempe, and the temperature is at 70F (or 21C) and there ain't nothing but sun and clear skies out there. Just another reason why Arizona is great!

Driving down here, parts of Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico were quite freakin' cold. One gas station we stopped at in Texas was particularly horrible weather wise. It's such a lovely contrast here. We had the AC on and off through yesterday and I worked up a sweat moving things into the apartment.

It was also really nice going out last night, because it was quite mild (not something that I'm that familiar with here, because I've always been out here in right before summer). It's certainly a nice time of year out here weather wise.

Moving the stuff yesterday I did think how our time in Missouri was well placed, and the fact that we moved in after the heat of the summer sun actually worked out pretty damn well - especially since from what I've heard it was a particularly hot one this year.
Oct
23
2009

Christening Operation Desert Rock

(Add / View Comments) (0)Friday, October 23, 2009 - 08:24:25 am
(Posted Under: Operation Desert Rock, Tempe Music Scene Tempe Music Scene, Music Music)
When you've got an operation, such as "desert rock" that's almost completely executed (although it really is, I guess I'm waiting on sorting out a job before considering it completely done), you really need to christen the desert rock part, which we're wasting no time on (although technically going out last night - if something cool was happening would have really been wasting no time - but there was no way that was going to happen, even if something was going on). And to christen that will be Scotty Johnson in Snottsdale tonight. I'm looking forard to it a lot - it's going to be the first tim I've seen Scotty play outside of the Blossoms since 2006!

Strange Young Things are also playing tonight at the Sail Inn in a competition to open for Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers at the Marquee on Halloween. I'd really love to go, though it'd be a stretch, and the cause (while I'd love to support SYT sits kinda oddly for me)

Tomorrow night Domo (with a new album in toe) are playing at Hollywood Alley, so we're going to to be there with bells on. And on Sunday we'll being little Scotty Johnson again at The Vig.

Who said rock's fuckin' dead, right?!? [smile]
Oct
23
2009

The Apartment

(Add / View Comments) (0)Friday, October 23, 2009 - 07:37:12 am
(Posted Under: Operation Desert Rock)
So I didn't get to get into it much yesterday, and I'm sure there is going to be some interest about it - the apartment.

First off, I can say it's pretty glorious at 7am. All our windows face east, so there is no shortage of the bright desert sun at 7am. With all the blinds closed it's still super bright. I'm down with that!

On getting here yesterday, I was more or less immediately reminded of what sold us on the place - it's as spacious as hell for a one bedroom. That alone made me very glad that we went with this place, rather than the one further south. The layout is a living room, the full width of the apartment when you walk in, then the kitchen and dinning area adjacent to that, again running the full width of the apartment, and then the bedroom and the bathroom at the back.

We've got a huge balcony which makes Katie's old one look tiny. The only downside is that it's a little less private when it comes to our neighbors. But we're going to get some plants, which should sort that out more or less. There's also a storage area out there, but considering that we've got everything put away in the roomy storage areas inside, I'm not sure that we're going to need to us it.

Photobox ImageOne of the nice things is the really big kitchen, which we can both move around in at the same time comfortably, which wasn't true in many of the other apartments we looked at. Added to that is the relatively new and sexy appliances (oven, stove, dishwasher, fridge and microwave), which again, weren't always that nice at the other places we looked. What really blows my load is our huge ass fridge. I am totally in love with it. And I bet it won't ice up on a daily basis! [wink] I've really got to say that this whole American standard of apartments being decked out with appliances thing is pretty fantastic! I also really like the granite counter tops.

Photobox ImageThe size of the bathroom is quite nice, as is the bathroom itself, especially in comparison to some of the ones we saw. The major coop for me however is - a glass shower door / divider. It seems that America has a love affair with shower curtains, which a while ago I declared that I was not going to have once we brought a house. I'd resided to the fact that I was going to have to live with one for a while when we moved into an apartment. The fact that we don't is just glorious to me!

Our parking spot is right outside of the apartment. The one downside is that the hallway entrance doesn't face the parking lot and is segregated with a small fence, which would be a bit more convenient if you could walk right out to the car. Needless to say, yesterday's unpacking saw us handing all our stuff over the fence to take it upstairs rather than walking it around. Unlike Katie's time at Meridian Corners (which is now 'Haven Luxury Apartments' - a change that had started when I was here in 2006 - they'd already changed the sign out the front. And from what we've heard / read, doesn't actually live up to it's name), this complex has carports, which is nice that we get to shelter Pepe from the harsh desert sun. And additional the complex is gated.

The exterior of the apartments is the obvious Tempe standard - brown adobe / stucko, which again works for me a lot. The one strange thing about the apartment, which is so far from an issue during the day, is that it barely has any light fixtures. Katie noticed it when we were first here. There's a light in the kitchen, one in the ceiling fan in the dinning area, one in the bathroom and that is it. None in the living area nor bedroom, which is really weird for me. Hence our looking at lamps last night at Ikea! While we haven't brought any yet, the lamps Katie had in storage were enough to get us through last night.

And so that's our apartment in a nutshell. I'll update this with some photos later today.

Edit: Here they are...

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