One of my birthday presents (aside from the piano, which was from me to me) was a barbeque for my balcony. Perfect for having people over. After setting it up, every time I tried to use it it was too windy. I persevered and eventually was able to cook some home made chicken kebabs despite the rain one evening. The taste of BBQ’d chicken is quite different to other styles of cooking. Along with the chicken I had capsicum, carrot, eggplant and pineapple – the cutting and skewering of which was a somewhat time consuming process – all covered in a Nandos Morrocan curry sauce. Turned out quite nice and simple!

I look forward to some balmy summer evenings on the balcony with some friends and some snags cooking up.

So the new piano arrived Friday morning, sans a few pins and screws. They are apparently being mailed through to me. The sales person made it fairly audible that I had ruined his day when I called that morning and said it was missing some parts.

Even in its incomplete state, the piano (Roland RG-3) wonderful and inspires me to play again.

The above is my new piano. I bought around 5 weeks ago. Digital. Expensive. Thankfully not debt inducing. So what is it like? Well… I don’t know.

This purchase has been the worst customer relations shemozzle since, well, Coogee Bay. That makes it sound easily beat, but I wouldn’t be entirely surprised to see a tossed turd when I lift the lid when I get it. If I get it.

I’ve experienced it all. Lack of communication. Lying. Rudeness. Not disclosing important facts like, oh, I don’t know, they weren’t selling me a new unit. When I deduced that they might be selling me floor stock and confronted the sales person, they said “Oh, I thought I had told you.” Right – and that would be why I’m paying full price for a display model?

After ringing around and getting a few other prices from retailers who were dying to sell it to me, including one who would sell me their display model for a significant discount, I went back to sales person (who is also the manager of mail/online sales for this large chain), and eventually got an equal discount. Cue sulky whinging; “We aren’t even making any money on this sale any more.”

It took a month to move the piano from Melbourne to Sydney. It has now taken over a week to get delivered from Sydney to me. And I still don’t have it.

I told my (new) boss that I’d need a day off when the piano is delivered. I’m DESPERATE for this day off!

In other news, The Producers went smashingly, audiences loved it and I had a blast on stage and wish I were still doing it. It’s currently production week for Nuncrackers – we open Friday – and I’m leading the band on stage. And I need sleep really badly, which is pretty much the reason for my non-blogging. That and the dishes. My goodness, I need to stop eating or otherwise eat everything off paper towels with my hands and drink from the carton.

The whole apartment has been re-painted now and looks great. It has become my home now. And occasionally the home of giant cockroach or two (thousand).

I have promised myself a break when Nuncrackers is over because I’ve been running around like crazy for months and months now. It’s not a nice feeling that it will probably take me another month to get to watch a Kubrick doco I EyeTVed last night. I’m also in the middle of at least 3 films (while I fear I’ve probably seen the better half of Get Smart, I very much enjoyed Wall-E and look forward to cranking up the 5.1 to watch The Dark Knight again). I even have a brand new popcorn machine thanks to Amy! Now to get that Icee machine! In just another 3 weeks I hope to return to more normal programming and get back into my photography.