Their new material was especially enjoyable, I look forward to their new album later this year.

I really enjoyed his latest Mickey Haller novel: ‘The Fifth Witness’, and find it especially interesting that he writes courtroom fiction so well having never been a lawyer.

From the Suitcase Rummage site:

It’s a simple idea. Fill your suitcase with your wares, and travel to our designated spot on the day. Sell your wonderful goods old style. No hassle. No fuss. Good ol’ fashion markets.

It was a really cool idea, and was suitably popular. We saw some cool stuff being sold by some cool people.

It’s on the first Sunday of every month in Brisbane square, so next month you should check it out!

I really enjoyed the combination of art, furniture, collectibles and bonsai. The bonsai that Faye has grown and displayed are amazing, some of the best I have ever seen. She has an amazing old fig for sale that I would love to buy but I think it’s out of our price range.

The show is on for the next couple of weeks (until October 5th) and Monique and Faye are planning on conducting some art and bonsai classes, which can be arranged via moniquedobson@hotmail.com. Check it out before it disappears!

On the topic of renting, I still stand by my view that Australian real estate is grossly overpriced, which has been continually confirmed by The Economist Magazine, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, and Chairman of one of the world’s largest funds managers Jeremy Grantham.

It’s easy to observe the craziness when you compare total cost of renting to total cost of buying.

For example, there are four brand new townhouses around the corner from us at South Brisbane. They plan on selling them one-by-one, but in over three months, they haven’t had any luck even selling the first! They reduced the price of the first townhouse from $2.85 million to $2.79 million, or $60,000 less, but still can’t sell it.

They’ve recently listed it to rent, and in a month have dropped the weekly rent from $2200 to $1600. To put the $1600 weekly rent into perspective, at current rates the repayments on $2.79 million are just under $5000 per week. If interest rates rise 1% over the next 12 months, the weekly repayment rises to just under $5500 per week. Plus there would be other costs involved in owning such as rates, water and property maintenance.

Renting this place for $1600 per week is well over 3 times cheaper, just on repayments, and taking into account other expenses and interest rate increases, would more likely be 5-6 times cheaper! And people still think we don’t have a house price bubble. Crazy.

It’s all ages, and since kids aged three and younger are free, we’re taking Junior Pixels to his first music concert! We’ve already bought his Gwyneth Paltrow inspired earmuffs to protect his sensitive little ears. Tix are about $48 include booking fees, and available now, but I’d hurry, I am sure they won’t last long.

I live here now since October 2008 and I still haven’t a house but I didn’t expect this to happen anyway.

What concerns me more is that I had to over think my decade-long statement. Where is [sic] the Aussie lifestyle gone to?… Nowadays Australians are under a lot of pressure seems to me that they now live to work as well. And no wonder – look at your prices – one example :

• I live in a Mango tree town – they are just everywhere – why does Wollies sell them for 2 Dollar each?

In fact I have a lot of “why” questions!

• Why do healthy things like Broccoli cost 8 Dollars a kilo when MacDonalds gives you the Supersize-me deal for 4.95?
• Why did Australians overtake Americans on the scales?
• Why is everything “mobil” (phones, internet) so expensive?
• Why can I buy things “No Deposit – No interest – till 2015″?
• Why is Joyce Maine and Harvey Norman shouting at me in their ads?
• Why do the Good Guys not dance when I step into their Establishment?
• Why do I have to drive 130 km for a simple Ultrasonic scan?
• Why are houses priced and not valued?
• Why can Australians afford so much with so little pay?

I love quotes lie this because it shows how quickly we’ve lost our shoshin and have forgot to question things. An example is how stupidly houses are in Australia. While the world laughs at us, we just accept that houses are ridiculously expensive, instead of asking why, and doing something to correct it.

It won’t be too long before people clue-on and find somewhere where things make sense.

Buddha’s birthday is the most significant day of the year for Buddhists, with celebrations for the birth, enlightenment and death of Sakyamuni Buddha, the Founder of Buddhism. The Buddha, a crown prince in Northern India, lived from 563BC to 483BC.

~ Buddha Birth Day Festival – South Bank Parklands, Brisbane, 30 April – 2 May 2010

One of my favourite rituals is drinking jasmine tea in these beautiful little cups we bought in Kuala Lumpur, and in the case of this photo, enjoying freshly cut watermelon with it too. Good times.