A New Home, Social Events, Unitarian End-of-Year Concert

[tcpip]

Last night caseopaya and I visited an estate agent and made an offer on a three-story townhouse in Willsmere, the former Kew Asylum. A few hours later we received a message from said agent that our offer had been accepted. So over the next few months we'll be making the move to our new abode, which is still being advertised on realestate.com.au.

Last week was txxxpxx's biennial Christmas party. As with previous affairs this was a huge night; about ninety people in attendence of the usual suspects. Spent most of the night chatting to our recently published fashion historian, frou_frou, and local council environmental manager recumbenteer and our favourite artist severina_242. Last Saturday had horngirl and alchemon over for dinner; afterwards we made it down to "The King of Tonga", a delightful bar on Tennyson St.

On Sunday attended the end of year concert at the local Unitarian Church. As is often the case at such events Therese Virtue's world music choir provided an exceptional contribution. Close to $1000 was raised for the Humane Society of International. As usual, I was given the task of doing a brief speech describing the organisation and the work, along with a few motivational lines; I compared mechanist approaches that considered animals as automata (Descartes, Malebranche) to utilitarian approaches (Bentham, Singer) which emphasis capacity to suffer.

Comments

[melbournian.livejournal.com]

I saw you yesterday while I was at work, though I didn't get the chance to say hello.

While going along Victoria St I saw four geeky looking guys walk out of a building and along Victoria St towards Lygon St (maybe going to lunch?) and realised one of them was you.

[mr-figgy.livejournal.com]

Good to see things are going well in Melnibourne.

[severina-242.livejournal.com]

I miss the King of Tonga - what a excellent bar, with the added bonus of never getting so crowded that you can't carry on your conversation.

[severina-242.livejournal.com]

Oh and congrats on the purchase - you'll love having your own space, it's so different from renting.

[discordia13.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the new place =)

[omnot.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on your house! The security of owning a home is something I'm feeling unexpectedly keenly, and I hope you enjoy the subtle and less subtle impacts of living in a place owned by nobody but you (and the bank).

[mr-e-cat.livejournal.com]

welcome to the mortgage set.
mort = death gage = a measurement device ergo mortgage = a way of measuring how close you are to death. :D

[shadow-5tails.livejournal.com]

Well, there you go - Asagwe and I were considering looking at both of the places you linked to (169 and 225) and thinking we should check them out if we got the chance. We're not looking to buy for some months yet if not longer, but I'm entertained that you've ended up with one of the things that made our rather picky shortlist!

Congratulations, and I hope you find it a good place to be. We'd be very interested to know your thoughts on the complex and what it's like living up there, once you've settled in...

(The lack of public transport in that corner of the suburb is one of the things that concerns me a bit, but there're a couple of buses not too far away, and the trams as you've noted down at the Junction. And while I hope it's changing, for the moment I'm only occasionally well enough for public transport anyway, so it may turn out to be less of a consideration for me/us than I'd expect...)

[frou-frou.livejournal.com]

Congrats to you both Lev - that's exciting about the new home! Great location, pity about the crap PT, disappointing considering it's Kew, it should be very well connected. And a three bedroom house too! I envy your space - Tim and I are still living the 1940s dream in the Flemington war baby. One day we'll get it renovated, really.

[kimeros.livejournal.com]

Yay for house excitement!

[sebastianne.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the house! It looks wonderful :) I was looking at that complex when I was buying but the lack of PT put me off as I really dont want a car- though apart from that it really does seem a perfect place to live :)

[zey.livejournal.com]

Three levels! That'll get you fit! :)

Congrats :)

[pollyanna-n.livejournal.com]

congratultions lev, it looks beautiful

[cluebyfour.livejournal.com]

What, no one made the obvious comment about how fitting it is that you're moving into a former asylum? ;-)

Just kidding; looks like a nice place. Has the economy had any affect on housing prices there? As you probably know, real estate values have cratered in a lot of markets in the States.

[beingfrank.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on the new place! It looks like it will be great.

[delicious-irony.livejournal.com]

A former asylum, huh? I guess it'd be soundly constructed then. Congrats on the new digs! When do you move in? It looks great!

As mentioned further up the page, a spa might be a good thing, for when you would like to soak without neighbourly company. :P

The fuzzies will be so happy!

[loreleilove.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the new home! That's really exciting!

[evil-genius.livejournal.com]

DUDE, Congrats!

[belegdel.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the house!

We came so close to jumping on the mortgage bandwagon earlier this year, but the maths didn't thrill us (not enough for decent deposit, thereby occasioning some hefty additional fees).

Let me know if owning really is noticeably better than renting. All my calaculations seem to come down to how much that is worth :)

"Capacity to Suffer" sounds like a great band name.