The Wizard of Aus

I realise now that I never left a final post. I'm home, I loved australia so much and had such a wonderful time there.

Pictures: flickr Videos: youtube

I think these images speak for themselves.

Bye and thanks.

I've been getting up to a hell of a lot in the past few weeks but I don't have the time to write about it right now. I've put up all the pictures I've taken since coming to Australia in a new place. So drop by and have a look. In a little under four hours I'm leaving Perth for the bright lights of Melbourne. I had hoped to be able to start this post with a date. The date I'd be coming home.

Unfortunately when I rang Cathay Pacific earlier I was told that there was no flights in my class between September 4th and October 18th, when my ticket becomes invalid.

Apparently there's more than one economy class... news to me. Except for business class all the planes I've been on in the last 9 months [ten in all] have had exactly the same seats. I'll think if this as a cross-grade [similar to an upgrade except not]. You get all the benefits of sitting in the shitty DVT seats while having the luxury of paying more.

I just love the way that airlines shaft you.

They've sent a message to Dublin asking how much it will be for a cross-grade because there's "loads of seats left in the other [ie. more expensive] economy classes" And due to the awesome might of modern telecommunications technology this is going to take 48 hours. So now I have a problem. If it costs too much then I have to make my dwindling money resources stretch out for two weeks and pay for another flight back to Perth in order to come home on the 29th.

Oh, and we don't have anywhere to stay when we arrive in Melbourne at about 5am.

Onward and upward. I'm going to miss Perth... but not that much :) I probably won't be able to get online very much when I get to Melbourne which means I'll have to go out and find real people to talk to.

b'bye!

When you're talking about open source software there's two concepts you have to deal with; the definitions of free. The terms coined to help remember these are "Free as in Speech" and "Free as in Beer". Tonight I received something that was "Free as in Kebab". So here I am, filled to the brim with tasty Lebanese fast food, basking in the warm glow of the monitor with my feet resting against the computer to try to get some heat back into them.

I decided that this was as good a time as any to get back on the pony or, more accurately, to start posting to this blog again. It's time to start telling tall tales. I owe it to you; my adoring public. I also need to prove to Ciara and Clara that even the two of them put together can't ruin the buzz. Surprisingly, I'm still getting quite a high amount of traffic to this blog. Go figure!

In order to bring you up to date; here's what's going on right now. It's got cold. We don't have any central heating which sucks and I miss my slippers. In work I've been replaced by my replacement; a qualified chef from Egypt who was trained in a five-star Hilton Hotel [it sounds like a joke doesn't it? It's not]. He can essentially do prep work that would take me three days in a night. He's also the perfect example of what you can get away with saying if you don't speak very much English... It's enough to say that the word pussy comes up far more than is strictly necessary... There's even a song... [Groan!] By replaced, of course, I mean that I still work six nights a week but I've been relegated to directing work in the kitchen and answering phones to whack jobs. One guy threatened to burn down the shop because his pizza was late. It was very late but jeez, have a little perspective. I've saved enough money to go traveling and essentially I'm just passing time until the Redd machine arrives. I'm done with Perth. Don't get me wrong, I still like it but I need to get away before it makes me insane.

The plan as of right now [and by plan I mean a loose set of things we may do]. Is for Reddmondo to buy a camper van and drive me and Se across the country heading north to Broome and Darwin and then straight down the centre past Alice Springs, Adelaide and finally to Melbourne. I hope to be able to see Kangaroo Island too. You never know what you'll get on Kangaroo Island. Me and Reddy made some sort of stupid agreement. She said she'd go shark diving with me if I'd agree to jump out of a plane with her. She doesn't know that I'm going to back the hell out. I'll still go shark diving though. The idea of jumping out of a plane, parachute or no, is just men-tal

I don't have an Australian accent and I have no idea what's going on in Neighbours/Home and Away. I do however have a Canadian accent. I've mentioned it before but recently I've begun being accused of being Canadian again. People look at me strangely when I say that I'm Irish, as if I'm playing some weird Canadian joke on them that they don't quite get.

Oh yeah, and I'm thinking about coming home in August.

May 8

Aren't animals fun? They're crazy, they're scary, they're furry and they do funny things. I like animals. I particularly like the tasty animals. But no animals were hurt during the making of this post... with the exception of some bacteria. But bacteria were never able to get it together enough to have an advertising campaign. No one cares. If you do, piss off; there are some lonely trees out there that need hugging.

After being in Australia for six months and only seeing two kangaroos [one of which was dead] me and Mike went to check out the local wildlife park which was, for some strange reason, filled with ducks. There was also some life sized statues of dinosaurs [and one giant scorpion] made from fiberglass, the reason for which escapes me.

What I saw was; kangaroos. I got to go into an enclosure with them and could wander around in a hardcore back to nature kind of way. There wasn't any of the Big Reds but there was some fairly significantly sized ones there. About as tall as me. Kangaroos come in at least two types; the larger, red Scary-roos and the smaller, gray Scardy-roos. Admittedly not very well named because if someone tells you there's a Scary-roo near by and you hear Scardy-roo you're pretty much fucked. As I was walking around I noticed that the 'roos have one large toe on their feet with a very long, very sharp looking claw on it. It was then that I remembered the story an Aussie told me about how kangaroos are vicious bastards. They will put their hands on your shoulders, balance one their tails and slice open your stomach, velociraptor style. But it was midday and they were all generally asleep. After suffering a panic attack I even went up and petted one who was busy munching on some celery.

Next was the eagles. The eagles were in an open top enclosure. The eagles were about four feet tall. The only thing the eagles weren't was tied to anything. Yikes. I wasn't allowed into the eagle enclosure. They had very pointy heads and big eyes behind which they were calculating how much meat was on your bones. These guys were killers, no doubt about it. There were three of them and while they looked as if they'd have no problems with achieving mach 4 they weren't very bothered. After a few retarded attempts to fly I realised that they probably had their wings clipped and they only thing they were capable of doing was pooing in long plumes of gray-white effluent.

Next, in quick succession were the dingoes who were asleep and are, by the way, the cutest looking little dogs you'll ever see. I guess if you keep them full of babies they probably won't come near you. Then there was more ducks, a bunch of excited peacocks that looked like they were seriously thinking of buying the solitary peahen a few drinks and whispering their hotel room number in her ear. There was a bunch of chickens, one of which looked like it was wearing flares.

The next big stop was the koala enclosure. Just outside I met a small wallaby who seemed content to take leaves out of my hand and bounced away chewing as he went. The koalas were all kept in a little display area. They were dozing away and eating eucalyptus leaves off the trees. They lazy bastards sleep for twenty hours a day but I think some of these guys were slipped coffee to entertain the tourists. I got to hold one. It was the softest doziest little animal I've ever met. Think of a sleepy three year old with lycanthropy. Awwwww.

The next enclosure was the echidnas. They look pretty much like big hedgehogs but much spikyer. They have the auspicious honour of being one of only two species of monotreme. The other one, which I didn't see is the duck-billed platypus These are mammals that lay eggs. Weirdos. These guys were asleep so I will mention another interesting fact to fill out some space. Monotreme means one hole. So called because down at the business end they only have one opening that performs all the functions. Along with the echidnas, in the same enclosure was one little white rabbit and some quokkas. Quokkas are tiny little marsupials that only live in the southern part of Western Australia. They look like a mix between a kangaroo and a guinea pig and are roughly rabbit sized. I liked these guys. They got moxie. They thrive on a small island off the coast of Perth called Rottnest. So called because the Danish explorers who first landed on the island thought they were rats and called the island Rat's Nest. Heart warming!

The wombats put on a very poor show which was very annoying because they look so weird that I was really interested in seeing them. They have such big heads. They're burrowing animals so their enclosure is underground. In each of the warrens there's a window that you can look through. You push a button which lights up the space for about ten seconds. It's a bit like a peep-show except the animals don't take any clothes off. They were, like almost all the animals, asleep. Booooo.

The last guys that I came across were the talking parrots. There was about fifteen cages each with a single bird and a name plate. There was cockatiels and gray and pink galahs mainly. And boy could they talk. Not a single one of them, however, would say pieces of eight or who's a pretty boy then. The biggest let down of the day. One of the cages was empty. The only indicator of it's once-occupent was the name "Pepsi" engraved into a block of wood. When I ask aloud where Pepsi was all the other parrots seemed to shuffle uncomfortably and look away whistling. Pepsi's next door neighbours Roy and Kalla didn't seems like they really wanted to revisit the memory so I took my leave.

And in case you didn't know. Marsupials have two vaginas and two penis'... each.

It's beginning to become apparent what it means to be an Aussie, not withstanding the kangaroo on the passport, the funny accent and the propensity to riot against the Lebanese (See? I can do satirical social commentary). It might shock you to know this:

I'm becoming slowly addicted to coffe flavoured milk [Ingredients: Reduced fat milk, sugar, instant coffee (min 0.5%))]

There's a bone of contention that divides the country as to weather you're a Master's or a Browne's [ingredients: skim milk, whole milk, sugar, coffee powder, percolated coffee, flavour] person. Stating the wrong preference in the wrong neighbourhood can get you whacked quicker than a cricket ball at the WACA (I also do a good line in local idiomatic humor). I've definatly come down on the side of the former which is slightly sweater and has nicer packaging.

But I digress.

The fact is, I quite like the Aussies. They generally seem laid back and accepting of me and my weird Irish ways. They just can't seem to pick up my accent right. In order to describe a typical meeting with a new Aussie I'll need to harness the awesome might of [bad] Narrative. Prepare yourself:

It's hot today. It was hot yesterday. I think it's hotter today. The flies are buzzing around outside like... well like flies on shite. It's not helping that I'm standing by a pizza oven, but what the hell? This is what I signed up for. Maybe I'd like to see some more Kangaroos, and so far I haven't seen anyone throw a boomarang. Not even in jest. I just hate sweating like a fat chick in a sauna.

I'm still a little shaken from the cycle in to work. Aussies haven't seemed to have grasped the concept of indicators. Maybe they just want to see how soft and squishy cycalists are. Who knows? Indicators just don't seem popular in a country where the long empty roads stretch on for thousands of kilometres and the only way to test the roo-bars are to bump into 'roos.

"G'day mate, how ya goin'?" someone said, knocking me out of my thoughts of quickly popping into the cold room.
"Yeah not too bad mate. What can I get for you?" I replied to the big monster of a man who just pulled up outside in his battered Ute. His reddy-brown skin, pretty much the darkest that white guys can go, was shining like he'd just had a fresh, all over, spanking, and mirrored the fresh Australian dirt that sat under his fingernails and crusted the wheel arches on the dirt bike in the back of his ute. With his blonde mohawk and old vest he looked like an extra who just walked off the set of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Tired and dusty after a day of chasing Mel Gibson through the desert.
"Ah yeah, I'm bloody starvin', gimme a large supreme, minus the anchovies and a garlic bread."
"Cool, that's $17.90 altogether and'll be about 20 minutes."
"Eh?"
"Seven... Teen... Ninty... Please," I repeated to the thousandth Aussie, as slow as I possibly could without causing offense.
"Ah, yeah, too easy mate!"
He could've just left it there but, instead, carried on.
"So, you're Canadian, hey?"
Wanker
"Nah I'm Irish." I said with a smile. The one that says I know what's coming next and I'm only humoring you because I'm in work. Not that I mind Canadians or anything but I sound nothing like one.
Don't say it, don't say it, don't say it.
Please don't say it.
"Ah really? How's it go? turty tree and a turd?" he says in his best Tom Cruise Far and Away accent and then laughs.
Fuck it, he said it. One day I'm just gonna freak-the-hell-out.
"Yeah, ha. Good one," I said like a pro, like I've never heard it before.
Of course I had.

-Fin-

In a brief comedy aside, me and Mike went to have a look 'round his old university, Curtin University where he studied computer science. All the computer science stuff goes on in the New Technologies building. Or to put it another way:

Curtin
University
New
Technologies

...building. If I didn't live by a strict code of conduct I might take this opertunity to say something like "Mike spent a lot of time in the C.U.N.T. at university." Of course I do so I won't. And just to belabour the point there's also a Curtain University Netball Team.

Your Superhero Profile

Your Superhero Name is The Warrior Giant Your Superpower is Radiation Your Weakness is Water Your Weapon is Your Thunder Pitchfork Your Mode of Transportation is Unicorn

So I haven't posted in a while. Meh! Get over it. I'm sure my three regular readers can find something else to occupy themselves.

My picture essay blog seems to be doing quite well for itself. It's getting an average of four page views a day. I admit that those numbers aren't going to let me to sell advertising space on the site and live like a king but since I haven't registered the site with any of the search engines I thought this was pretty awesome. I was interested in how people were getting to my site and so looking in my page stats I was quite surprised when I found out what keywords people were using to find my page. The number-one keyword search, to get to my blog, that shows pictures, is from the msn search engine, and the keyword is... you'll never believe it: spanking. And as of a few days ago the number-two keyword search string was SPANKING.

Then I figured it out.

When I announced my picture essay blog I remembered that I used the words "brand spanking new picture essay blog" and as such msn in their idiotic way have used "spanking" as a keyword that links to my page. In fairness, if someone was looking for spanking pictures and they came across a site called pictureessay.blogspot.com they'd think "ka-ching".

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions about how I could maybe raise my rankings. The site normally appears around page 12 so for right now my goal is to become msn's top ranked spanking website without having any spanking pictures or using the word spanking once. If anyone with a webpage would like to link to http://pictureessay.blogspot.com using the word spanking as the link text I'd really appreciate it. You can check my blogger profile to show you that I really do own the other site.

I'll be posting some stuff about my various trips really soon.

And I should mention that Ciara Byrne has set out to find her inner Nimoy. So go check it out. (you'll geddit when you see the banner).

Finding Nimoy

for the record:

in the past 24 months I've visited

4 continants
8 countries
14 cities
15 airports
and have crossed the equator 3 times

I've traveled 72,313 km's by air (which is close to twice around the earth)

I've been away from home for a total of 9 months

I've had 2 visas to work 4 jobs in 3 countries
and currently have the stamps of 3 countries in my passport

I've been as far as 115 degrees east
and 122 degrees west
53 degrees north
and 31 degrees south

at the moment I'm jet lagged; waiting for the rest of me to arrive

but am I happy?

yes

I have a fan. And I brought her home for the first time on Love Day. I {heart} her to bits. She's white, about five feet tall, very cool and makes a lot of noise in my bedroom at night. Here's a picture of her. Isn't she beautiful?

Happy Love Day everyone. (The picture's slightly disturbing... no?)

It looks like it's going to hit 40^o today. I reckon it's nearly frying-an-egg-on-a-rock day. Since the hottest recorded temperature on earth happened on July 10th, 1913 in Death Valley, California, where the national weather service recorded 56.7^o, it hardly feels as if the weather's trying. I'm a little disappointed. Australia, you used to be cool.