Corrie's Birthday, O.A.R. and the Cheese Bandit

Well if nothing else, last night was an interesting one in more ways than one. Let me start from the beginning.

Corrie's Birthday Dinner

June 21 is the birth date of my beloved friend Corrie Miller. To mark the occasion a group of our friends gathered at "The Keg" on Hornby Street. Wine flowed, fine food came and went, and many laughs were shared.

O.A.R. @ The Commodore

It was a great way to kick off the night which continued onto "The Commodore" in town where a dozen or so of us (I was so stoked with the turnout for a relatively unknown band) caught a fantastic show put on by US reggae rock outfit "O.A.R.".

I have been a massive fan of these guys (O.A.R. stands for "Of A Revolution") since I first discovered them on Pandora a good year and a half ago. Since then we have seen them perform down at "The Gorge" with the Dave Matthews Band and I think I have got my hands on every one of their albums so far. Yes, I love them lots!

They played an amazing set which I know that Michelle, Ryan and I, at least, absolutely loved. Despite the events which were about to follow which potentially tarnished the entire night for me (I'll get to them in a minute), it's hard to see how I'll be attending any concert this Summer (with the exception of DMB down at "The Gorge" again in September) topping this one.

 

Their set list was a nice mix of old and new tracks from the boys... it looked something like this:

1. City On Down
2. Dareh Meyod
3. Destination
4. The Stranger
5. The Fallout
6. Anyway
7. Love And Memories
8. Delicate Few
9. Living In The End
10. Lay Down
11. About An Hour Ago
12. Heard The World
13. Hey Girl
14. See You Cry (Marc Solo)
15. That Was A Crazy Game Of Poker
16. Night Shift (Encore)

I would have loved to post some video of the performance on here, but it doesn't look like anyone was able to capture anything from the night (well there's nothing posted on YouTube anyway), so here's a good example of what the guys are like - this one being a performance they did on the David Letterman Show.

So you're probably wondering what the whole "cheese bandit" reference in the Blog entry title is all about? Well you're about to find out - this is the part when the evening got all messed up.

The Cheese Bandit

Michelle and I had walked back to my place following the concert. For one reason or another, we chose to go to Michelle's parked car out the back of my place first then walk around to the front to get inside. After passing through the gate on the laundry side of the house we were more or less blocked off by a bike that was left on the path. We thought it pretty unusual that there would be a bike left in such a spot at that time of night (about 12:40am) but didn't think anything of it and we continued around to the other side of the house where my front door is.

Rounding the corner we found some scruffy, homeless looking guy standing outside my door kind of hunched over and looking somewhat mysterious. My first assumption was that he was indeed just some homeless guy kicking around looking for cans or something so I asked him if there was something I could do for him. It was at this same time that I noticed the bag slung over his shoulder... my snowboarding bag complete with Aussie flag patch.

Yup, the mongrel was just coming out of my apartment after having ransacked and attempted to rob me blind. I could tell by the shape of my backpack over his shoulder that he had my laptop computer and there was EVERY chance that he had all my photographic equipment stashed away somewhere as well so the first thought that entered my mind was to get the bag off him.

I lunged at him and wrestled the bag off him only to be met with a grunted warning that he would pull a knife on me. The next thing I wanted to do was to dead set put the bugger through the side fence but in a split second the threat of a knife made me hesitate.

By this time Michelle, who incidentally is the greatest crime fighting side-kick ever, was calling for us to calm down, calling the cops and grabbing the attention of two of my neighbours from the apartment complex across the road all at the same time.

Meanwhile, the mongrel starts fidgeting around with a bum bag he had around his waste. Considering how clumsy he was being, I took that as a sign that he didn't have a knife on him at all and again went for him. As I did this time, however, he produced a small can of bear spray (basically the same thing as the pepper spray that the cops use) and proceeded to empty it into my face from about 2 feet away. All I can say is that that stuff is some nasty shit. I was rendered useless as soon as it happened which gave the guy the chance to get to his bike and attempt a getaway. The neighbour that was walking up the street with his partner
attempted to give chase but he, in turn, was also sprayed and that was that.

What happened after that is all a bit of a blur for me. I wasn't able to open my eyes for a good half an hour during which another neighbour who I have never met, and to this day have still not even seen, took me into their apartment to help me flush my eyes. The cops arrived followed by the local fire fighters and finally an ambulance crew. The other guy who got sprayed was pretty bad and couldn't stop throwing up. The ambulance guys prescribed "no more tears baby shampoo" to try and counter the effect of the spray on our skin and in our hair, but that only did so much.

Michelle, bless her, dealt with all the Police inquiries and we were pretty happy to learn that, at first glance anyway, he hadn't gotten away with anything substantial at least.

The place is a complete mess now, and we're not allowed to really touch anything in any of the bedrooms until a CSI guy comes and dusts for prints tomorrow, so we're left sleeping on the futon on the Kitchen floor tonight. That in itself leaves us feeling a little weird considering the mongrel took the time to help himself to my bagels and cheese slices from the fridge, making himself a little snack before he left. Add to that the block of old cheddar that I only bought yesterday... that seems to have disappeared.

Grrrrrr... now I'm going to have to take tomorrow off, time that I can't afford to take, to deal with CSI guys and lock smiths. Double Grrrrrrr...

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