The Life And Times (Of The Mates) Of JB - Volume 1 ...

This has been a long time coming, so where do I begin? If one was to start in alphabetical order, then Aaron would be first in the book. You may remember when I broke blog convention earlier this year and named the artist formerly known as AC Literally. That was because the guy, who I have called a mate for more than a decade, was going through a torrid time fighting cancer. Well, AC literally has done a Lance Armstrong and showed a lot of guts and lived to tell the tale.

Indeed, his roller coaster year culminated in the news last week that he got engaged in Orlando, Florida. No, not to Donald Duck, but to EI, which I think stands for Extraordinary Intelligence (the happy trio are pictured left at Disneyworld). I cracked up when he told me he bought EI's engagement ring at a place called Berry's Jewellers. Since the founding of Berry's in 1897, the company has apparently been committed to attaining the highest standards in the quality, design and manufacture of jewellery. "This ethos has kept us in good stead for over a hundred years and is still true to this day," their website says. But I especially liked what AC had to say: "I know the name holds integrity." By the other pictures that didn't make the blog, it looked like they had fun in Florida. I want to go Stateside - again.

I can't talk about the Sunshine State without mentioning my main man Murfuoso (five words beginning with the letter M), who can now officially claim to be a Floridian after he and The Jeweller got hitched this year. While I'm not Mrs Murfuoso, I've been hanging out with this cat a helluva lot lately. Last night - Live At The Chapel - we saw Augie March and tonight we are going to see Wolfmother.

In racing parlance, The Jeweller, I understand, is a late scratching, and for the third night in a row I'll be going to a concert. It all started with Angels And Airwaves on Sunday night at Festival Hall. Anyway, Murfuoso went to the Collingwood best and fairest award the other week and got this photo with Magpies coach, Mick Malthouse. It pains me to even mention my most hated footy team, let alone put a picture up, but credit where it's due. Respect.

On the topic of footy (I like how this is flowing), I heard from the self-proclaimed Slugger who saw what many Geelong fans didn't see a lot of this year - a victory. Slugg wrote that he "woke like a kid on Christmas Day, full of excitement about heading to The Oval", where the Cats were to play Port Adelaide. Apparently, the first beer - Cooper's Sparkling Ale - was opened at 10.30am before Slugg and friends found a hotel and then the ground where Slugger managed to get a photo with newly-departed captain Steven King (right). Definitely worthy of a post.

"The sky was grey but hopes were high as the Cats huddled on the ground ... the next few hours (we) saw streakers, high flying attempts, the odd shoving match, the blooding of new players and victory to the Cats," Slugg wrote. "I found out this morning that due to the streakers and skirmishes the game was stopped 10 minutes early ... wouldn't have known this at the time."

Oh dear! After the game there was a bit of kick-to-kick and the day got better when Slugg went back to the pub and saw the Aussies beat England in the cricket, before he - to paraphrase D. Rogers - pulled up stumps and went home to bed.