Five Minutes :: "Hey, You Know Where the 'Hooters' Is?"

(I wrote this post this morning while eating breakfast and waiting for my hire car to be readied, but haven't had Internet access until now. I've been in Brisbane since Tuesday evening, for the record.)

First things first: yes, I really was asked the question in the title last night while walking back from the Muse gig at the Riverstage. Apparently when I'm with my mate Ian, his sister and her partner, I look like the sort of guy who (a) is a local and (b) would frequent Hooters. Maybe a career playing the sleazy guy in porn awaits.

Before the Muse concert last night, I spent the afternoon hanging with Ian and checking out Brisbane City and Southbank. The last time I was here was in 1993, and although my memories of that trip are more focused on the Gold Coast portion, I remember enough of Brisbane to know that things have really gone ahead since then, particularly in Southbank. The progress is a lot more pronounced than Perth's over the last fourteen years, too, and it reinforces just how much we've wasted our mining fortune and our foreshore to date.

Muse were awesome! As I mentioned last week, I thought they were a little off their best in Perth, but they were astonishingly good here in Brisbane -- I'd say it's the best set I've seen them do. Bonus points for the esoteric set list: Fury, Microcuts and Ruled by Secrecy in rapid succession confused some of the teenyboppers.

Other bits and bobs:

The very first conversation I heard when I got here was while perusing the menu at an Italian restaurant in Fortitude Valley: two young women were discussing Oxford Street. In Leederville. In Perth. At that point, I wondered why I'd just spent four and a bit hours on a plane.
Be careful when organising hire cars through Webjet. Although I was careful to select Brisbane CBD as both my pick-up and drop-off point, they managed to book me a car on the Gold Coast. I got lucky -- the Hertz in Brisbane was flat out, but the helpful woman behind the counter was able to rustle up a car that I gather wasn't even on their computer.

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