Here I am finally in Soul Francisco. My mate Steve, who I stayed with in Carmel, loves to say how much he finds himself “noticing the little things”, like the hummingbirds in his backyard. Steve, his son Jack and I sat in the yard for 15 minutes the other day watching two hummingbirds trying to rip each other’s throats out. It was un-frakking-believable. I’ve never even seen a hummingbird before let alone seen two of them fighting like Yoda on speed.

Anyhoo, I checked into my broom-closet-sized room in SF this arvo (after catching a ride up from Santa Clara with Aussie journo, blogger and all-round good bloke Brad Howarth) and opened up my laptop to take advantage of the hotel’s free wireless. I flicked on my iPod and guess what track came up on shuffle? “Soul Francisco” by Tony Joe White. What are the odds? I have 3310 tracks on my iPod and this one comes on the moment I arrive in SF. Come ON???!

This morning I chatted with a dude called Adam that Richard from Austrade put me onto about the process to get an E3 Visa which allows Aussies to work in the USA. By the way, I’ve decided that an Aussie who works over here should be called an aUStralian. Get it? And if Australia moves any closer to becoming another satellite state of the US we should just change the gaddam name of the country to aUStralia and get it over with. As they say, stick a fork in our ass and turn us over, we’re done. David Lawson, the Consul General, was telling me over a Corona last night that there are 10,000 of these E3 visas available to Aussies wanting to become aUSsies every year, one of the few good things to drop out of the recent Free Trade Agreement, and there are plenty to go around. Spouses of E3 recipients are allowed to work as well.

Went out to dinner last night with about 25 folks from the ANZA Tech conference to a place called the Lion and Compass. David Evans from In The Chair was spreading the rumour that our waitress was in fact the daughter of the guys who created “Lara Croft : Tomb Raider” and that the restaurant is owned by the family. I didn’t confirm it with her though. If anyone can confirm or deny that let me know.

Just a quick shout out to my peeps Nik and Chris from Touchstone who upgraded their hotel room at ANZA so I could get a pull-out sofa to sleep on. I gave them a lot of shit over the last few days but they knew I was joking. Right? Right??? Anyway, you should check out the latest build of their application. It’s very cool and the boys are going to end up filthy rich out of it.
Okay gotta go record today’s showBUZZ. You listening? And have you subscribed to Today In Music History yet?