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Link love (Powered by the Chilis and real chili)

link love nzmuseMy concert-going life is now complete – I’ve ticked off every single band I wanted to see live, and more.

Also, I’m getting too old for that shit. Big gigs are patience-testing and sanity-trying. The sheer number of absolute knobs who attend, and the extent of their douchebaggery, is astounding. It’s like the capacity for human jerkiness is never-ending, yet never fails to amaze me. I realise that by going general admission, you’re opening yourself up to potential injury on the floor, and I accept my personal space is going to be invaded and I’ll have my feet stood on/my face elbowed/my every side bumped from overzealous hop-n-jumpers. That tubby little teenage girls are going to inexplicably park their barely covered asses in front of me. That there’s always a circle of young idiot guys (the kind who scrawl the band name across their back with marker pen and then take their shirts off once in the crowd) who think it’s their God-given duty to expand their circle and smash into everyone around them. As a slight person, I’m not in much of a position to do anything about it, except wield my insanely bony elbows where I can. With T, I have, quite literally, an immovable rock behind me, luckily. And beware anyone who irritates him (his tolerance is non-existent, when he’s not the one moshing with friends, which led to a couple of tense moments).

We spent the first half of the show in the middle, about a third of the way back. Eventually, we moved further back and out to the side, where not only were we away from all the jerks, and I had room to actually move, dance, and jump, BUT I HAD A BETTER FREAKING VIEW. As I say, my concert-going life is now complete, but if I go to a show again, I’m more than happy to chill out on the outskirts.

I went to my first big live gig in 2010 (not counting the Big Day Out I worked at in, oh, 2008?). Between then and now, I’ve now been to three music festivals – another BDO, Homegrown and Coro Gold – and I think another six concerts, Paramore, Metallica, the Foos, Incubus, Coldplay and of course now the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I paid for all of those but one, and as concert tickets average around $150, if not more, that’s nearly $1500 (and you can basically double that as T came to almost all of those). I also have to spew vitriol at the fact parking last night was jacked up to $15, nearly double the usual rate. Sigh.

In other, more financial news:

  • T is STILL waiting for his tax refund from the IRD. Apparently it was paid to his bank account, as it was last year, but hasn’t gone through for some reason. So…it’s stuck in some banking no-man’s-land, and who knows who, when, or how we can put an end to the stalemate.
  • Also, he’s in charge of a stag do (bachelor party) for a friend in the next few weeks. Ouch. I said even though he’s organising this one, he can’t spend as much as he spent on attending the last one (for a different person) – an entire weekend of poorly organised activities that ran each person into the hundreds of dollars.
  • ALSO, we may have to pay for suits for his groomsmen for our wedding. Apparently, not all of them will necessarily have suits they can wear. It will probably work out cheaper to hire them, but we’ll see.

To the links…

I was in this week’s Carnival of Personal Finance!

And Lifestyle Carnival!

Here’s Budget and the Beach on changing your outlook and choosing happiness

Anyone who reads Study Hacks’ Cal Newport will know the concept of passion following competency. Similarly, Afford Anything argues that passion rarely precedes action – do the work and the muse will follow

Straight talk on dream jobs over at Ask A Manager

Young Adult Money shares five lessons learned from freelancing

What it’s really like to organise a conference, by Kommein

Budgets are Sexy reminds us that we’re ALL good at something

A bit of a job searching guide from Grace Boyle

Money After Graduation’s most expensive hobby is FOMO (hell yes)

Mmm. The best foods from around the world, via Untemplater

Finally, Financial Samurai reminds us all of the importance of dreams

3 thoughts on “Link love (Powered by the Chilis and real chili)

  • Reply Grace Boyle January 19, 2013 at 10:10

    Thanks for the link love 🙂

  • Reply Sweet Mama M January 19, 2013 at 10:24

    We used Dorset Suit Hire and it worked out really well. We bought (and had tailored to fit) hubby’s suit, paid the bond for the other boys’ suit hire and they paid the remainder of the suit hire for the day. All the lads were co-ordinated and when Dad went in to hire a suit they were able to put him in something similar but not match-matchy.

  • Reply Untemplater January 21, 2013 at 07:19

    Thanks for the mention. I went to a lot of concerts in 2012 and had a blast. I know what you mean though about being older and having less patience for crowds and tight spaces. I saw Coldplay a couple years back myself and loved it.

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