Here, here to the volunteers ...

It's been a big week for me, the JB. Last time we spoke, I was about to go to the shooting range with my brother, Rogan Josh, outside of Little River where we unloaded on some poor, defenceless and endangered cans and bottles. No animals were harmed, except for a pair of rabbits that were printed on a piece of paper attached to a target. These two empty cans of Johnnie Walker and Cola didn't fare well. We were later told off for shooting at targets that "were not approved".

From there, I went back to work on Monday and was sent to the Commonwealth Games Thank You Parade for the athletes and volunteers in downtown Melbourne, which is where this picture was taken. I was interviewing many of the volunteers, including this lady, for an article I wrote about the "aqua army". She thanked me for her "first professional interview" and asked if I would get in a photograph with her. I happily obliged. It was heartening to hear her talk about how being a volunteer gave her the confidence to go out and try new things and the parade was a fitting end to a wonderful two weeks of competition and goodwill. I also managed to interview some of the successful athletes, including "Drama" Jana Pittman and that crazy cat, John Steffensen, who was mentioned earlier on this blog. I told him that he was true to his word by delivering on his promise of winning two gold medals. He replied that he would never do any predicting, of any sort, ever again.

This has sounded like a huge exercise in name-dropping and for that I do apologise. But it continued on Tuesday when I had to write an article about The Footy Show. And to do that, I went up to Sam Newman and James Brayshaw after a launch for Triple M Football down at Docklands. The other JB was nice but I wasn't sure what to expect with Sammy. It was pretty smooth except when I asked him, or rather assumed, that he was excited about a new year. He said: "You think I'm excited, do you?"

Ouch! Back at the office, I spoke to Garry Lyon and Eddie McGuire (again) on the telephone. I told Eddie that I met him last Saturday night at the Commonwealth Games media lounge when he was returning his chicken-looking tofu dish. "Yeah, good on ya," was his reply and that was that. We commenced the interview. To paraphrase Tenacious D, I was "off to a bad start" with both of my discussions with Sam and Eddie but all's well that ends well.

On Wednesday I went to a Ferrari press conference and had to introduce myself to Formula 1 ace Michael Schumacher in front of a crowd of 200 so-called VIPs to ask him specifically if he would be disappointed if Melbourne lost the right to host the Grand Prix because of a ban on tobacco advertising. I was pretty nervous. It was meant to appear in this story, but didn't. Luckily, I was able write a piece on the colourful nature of the event.

Anyway, this blog posting has been very self-indulgent, but hey it's The Life And Times Of JB and this is my life, which will be very miserable for a week if Geelong lose on Saturday. Go Cats! But first, I have another day of work.