enter the goatlady

Picture: The Forum in Rome. I’m going to Rome. Next week. Heh, did I neglect to mention that? No?

As of this month, the Aussie Bloggers’ Forum has been up and running for six months. Congratulations to the admins – community building is an art and they’ve done a great job of nurturing this one.

The Aussie Bloggers’ Forum is open to anyone with an interest in blogging – not just Aussies! There’s areas for WordPress, Blogger, Moveable Type and other blog platforms, as well as monetizing, blog pimping and using social media. But the real fun is in the Kaos and Mayhem forum, where pretty much anything goes. Some of the longest (and still) running threads are about what you’re cooking for dinner, TV shows like Dexter and how your day is going.

I have a soft spot for forums and for me, sometimes it’s nice to hang out online with people who are geeky enough to have blogs and visit forums, but who are not web developers. Not that I don’t love all you web developers.

Just sayin’.

Last week I asked for help in naming my new Siamese Fighting Fish. I got lots of good suggestions, both on the post and also on Twitter and Plurk.

In the end I decided to go with Al’s suggestion: Bruce Dickinson. It just seemed to fit – I was talking to them while I was dangling wriggly worms above their heads (yes, that’s absolutely normal) and he seemed to respond to Bruce. No really, he did. Seriously.

Bruce is now well adjusted to his new home, and Rob is not looking sad any more – it took a few days, but now they are flaring their gills at each other in mock displays of bravado for hours at a time. So cute.

For Christmas last year, my good mates Al and Gem got me an awesome present: a tank with two Siamese Fighting Fish.

I named them after metal legends: Rob Halford and Ronnie James Dio.

Sadly, Ronnie passed away a few weeks ago. Rob (above left) seemed kind of bored with no one to pull faces at through the glass, so yesterday we went and got him a friend.

The new, as-yet-unnamed fishy is purple (like me). Although fish are a pain to photograph his colour actually comes out quite nicely, although a bit bluer than in reality, unlike poor Rob who is rather iridescent and always looks weird in photos.

He’s a bit smaller than Rob and I can’t decide what to call him. At one point I thought of calling him after another metal frontman also called Rob – either Rob Flynn (Machine Head) or Rob Zombie (who needs no introduction). However, as the new arch-enemy of Rob Halford, I could call him Ripper Owens (who replaced Rob Halford in Judas Priest between 1996 and 2003).

Or I could call him something else entirely. Any suggestions? I would like to keep with the metal theme. All I can tell you about his personality thus far is that he enjoys showing off his fins and eating worms, particularly the lively kind that need to be chased down first. Kind of like every other fighting fish, actually.

So, this has been my evening: we went to see Sebastian Bach play at Burswood Theatre. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant show…. stupid, stupid, stupid venue. There were seats for crissakes (we had second row). And bouncers attempting to keep people in their rows, if not sitting down. Fortunately as soon as the guy closest to us turned his back to deal with some other dangerous person daring to stand up at a heavy metal show, I grabbed Dave’s arm and pulled him around the end of the row and to the centre front, where a group of enthusiastic fans were showing their appreciation the old-fashioned way.

The show was nuts - Baz is a total showman. Dave got some awesome video which I’ll get onto YouTube. I got a hand slap…  Yes that’s right bitches, I touched Sebastian Bach. Twice.

Tired and sweaty, we finally get home… and I decide to do a quick RSS feed check before crashing for the night. And what do I find but the official announcement that Judas Priest are touring Australia in September and coming to Perth (September 16), which I actually already knew as it is a FasterLouder Presents gig and I’ll be reviewing it… but what I didn’t know is that Cavelera Conspiracy - Max and Igor Cavalera, founding members of Sepultura, reunited after 10 years and making awesome old school thrash together - are going to be touring with Judas Priest. Seeing as I’m a huge Max Cavalera fan - the only two wall adornments in our lounge room are two Soulfly blockmounts - this little bit of news nearly sent me over the edge, into some kind of metal overload coma.

In fact, I have only just managed to get this blog post written up. I’m off now. But I’ll leave you with this little story: yesterday when I found out that Judas Priest were coming to Perth, I called my mate Gossy - at 6.30am. Now admittedly she lives in the Northern Territory which is an hour ahead of us… but it went to message bank anyway. I left a message along the lines of “call me when you get this, I have the singlest most massive piece of news I could possibly ever give you” and so when she returned the call (and the favour, at 6.30am this morning) she immediately suggested the two most far-fetched and preposterous things she could imagine: “either it’s Judas Priest or you’re getting married”. Got it in one, mate - JP it is.