Wed, 27 Dec 2006
Our trip to Hobart comprised the following eventful days:
Saturday
Arrived in the morning, a bit unusual to not be met by the family at the airport...
Quiet highways - lack of pace and bustle a shock after Sydney
Mum very glad to see us
Shopping for BBQ supplies (food and drink) at Purity, getting introduced to a million people. Mum seems to know everyone. Watching the banter between the staff at the supermarket is strange, compared to the quiet but efficient staff (usually Chinese or Indian students) on the mainland
Head up to dad's for his birthday. First look at the place since it's had a few renovations done.
Got a copy of Michael Palin's diaries for my birthday from mum - resolved to write much more detailed and elaborate entries on this site.
Sunday
Sunny day
Day turns to rain about 4pm - heavy rain forces the BBQ under the carport. Seeing Best Man, his woman and his family makes up for it. Darise and Tam turn up late, in time to knock off the remainders of the snags
Test Match makes an appearance at 11pm (brought in from the shed and dusted off), much to Katie's despair. The jet lag kicking in, she wants to go home to bed, not to mess about chasing runs. Note shed also contains the older version.
Monday
Christmas Day
Slept in til 9, mum off to church, so was able to sleep even later. Previous years, she'd be waking everyone up at the crack of dawn to open presents
Lisa, Nicole and John over
Christmas lunch - including first crayfish
Wander down to check out the block of land that Nicole and John have bought. Nice views down the bay, but stormy today. Did I mention the temperature was probably no more than 12C? Oh, and it started raining on the walk back
Dad's for dinner - second crayfish.
Tuesday
Braved the Hobart crowds for the Boxing Day sales. Originally said this ironically, given that Hobart Boxing Day crowds are akin to Sydney everyday crowds, but it did get surprisingly busy
Sun surprisingly warm - it's a balmy 16C today!
Dad's for the afternoon, watching the cricket, saw Warne get his 700th wicket
Wandered down to Frithy's for the Frithyque. BBQs so good there that they are no longer mere BBQs, they are a Frithyque, which is so much better. Got there a little bit early, helped with the preparation, which made us feel less bad about making them come down from Launny specially. Darise, Tam, Sangeet and Cherie also there to make it just like uni days. Stayed outside in the dusk until 9.30pm, talking, eating and drinking.
We've eaten too much food - a BBQ on Christmas Eve, two Christmas meals, a Boxing Day Frithyque - New Years Resolution: no more eating
Wednesday
Retro with Troy and Katie for breakfast. Haven't got a chance to talk to Katie much this trip, so was nice. Retro's usual friendly if ineffective service also a fond reminder of coffees past
Got a parking ticket - $20. Likely to break the bank on that one.
Back home for a final relax before heading to the airport for the return trip home. Seated in front of one toddler, with one each in the two rows in front. Guess what happened.
Good to be back home.
Thu, 21 Dec 2006
We're packing the winter woollens!
Saturday: 11 - 18C
Sunday: 8 - 16C
Monday - 6 - 14C
Wednesday - 9 - 18C
Thursday 10 - 19C
Should be nice!
We haven't been back since the wedding, when it was a similar story, and we spent a week anxiously checking the BOM on the hour, every hour, begging for the ominous "Showers clearing" to be replaced by "Beautiful clear blue sunny skies that Hobart is famous for". It didn't happen, but it didn't matter - it was still the Best. Day. Ever.
We'll be back before the New Year.
Mon, 18 Dec 2006
Where's the love?
On Today Tonight, there was a story about how the frustration and rush of the Christmas season is being displayed in more and more incidents of carpark rage. Angry gesturing, yelling, deliberate damage to other peoples'
cars... surely that's enough reason to just leave the car at home and take the train, bus or your bike to the shops instead.
Geez.
Surely it's not worth it to get stressed out about something as insignificant as a car park...
It's pretty crazy in town today. I'd hate to see what it will be like this weekend.
There's no better feeling than being all set for Christmas a week before, rather than knowing that the 24th is going to be an absolute panic trying to get all those last minute gifts that you know you should have bought in July.
Sun, 10 Dec 2006
On Sunday, we went over to Kris' place to check out her new Nintendo Wii console.
The cool thing about the console is that the controls are motion detected, so when playing, for example, tennis game, you actually swing the controller, both forehand and backhand. This contrasts with the traditional way of using gamepads, where there's a directional pad (up/down/left/right) and buttons. The Wii way is a lot more intuitive (once you break out of the habit of a lifetime by trying to press the 'Action' button) and a lot more fun. There's a boxing game that has you holding both controllers, one in each hand, as you punch into the air, a fishing game where you cast a hook into the water and drag it around to catch the fish... it was a lot of fun.
Kris seemed pretty keen to remind us that we had to wear the wrist-strap. Guess she's taken the horror stories about throwing the controller through the TV screen to heart...
One of the other cool things about the Wii is that you can create little avatars that represent you, so the games you play have cartoon representations of your appearance - sort of like a cute mini-me. They stay stored in the console, but you can take them and plug them into someone else's console and play with them there. Since I've now passed the point of understanding how new technology works, I'll just say that it's by magic.
So while you're selecting the little avatar (called a Mii!), you can see other Miis, created by other people who've also connected their Wiis to the internet, wander around the screen. Again, magic.
But if you're looking for a 'realistic', simulation-type experience, you probably won't be getting a Wii. We had trouble suspending the disbelief when Kathleen's Mii wore her glasses into the ring in the boxing game.
Steph and Eva sound as if they're keen, but I doubt I'd get Kathleen to go for it. We have enough trouble sharing the TV between her TV and my Playstation as it is.
Then, Rod put on a BBQ for a late afternoon lunch and a few beers. What a relaxing day.
For my birthday I had a group of friends go out for a few drinks at the Crows Nest Hotel. We stayed for a bit after the band started, but then went back to ours for cake and more drinks.
Considering the late notice, it was a nice night with a small enough group for everyone to be involved in the conversation.
Birthdays are a pain to organise in December though. Seems everyone has a work function, a Christmas party, or is too tired from the above two to go out.
Next year's my (our!) 30th. Another milestone birthday.
Wed, 06 Dec 2006
Last week, we went and saw The Prestige, a movie that seems to have passed by without showing up on the radar of most people.
Last night, we went and saw Borat, a movie that you need to have been living in Wollongong to not have heard about. Unfortunately, you're probably like us and saw most of the good scenes in the trailer, or heard about the other scenes either on the Internet, through reviews, or reading about the various lawsuits that are in the process. Actually, thinking back, every scene in the movie, I knew the punchline. And it was really an 80 minute version of the Borat segment from the Ali G Show. The only so-bad-its-good-and-i-have-to-watch-it-through-my-hands scene was the naked wrestling scene (you know the one I mean). The rest were a little amusing, but overall sort of meh.
The Prestige on the other hand was incredible. It has Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as nineteenth-century London magicians with a professional rivalry that leads to the death of one of them, but with enough twists, turns and time shifts to be a fantastic whodunnit. Halfway through, Kathleen, who'd heard absolutely nothing about it before I took her to see it, leant over and whispered, "This is such a great movie! How did I not hear about this?!" Seriously, it is one of the best movies that I have seen in a long time.
She managed to pick David Bowie as one of the characters, but I picked Andy Serkis. Be careful with the link above though - it has an FAQ for the twist at the end!!
So spend your Borat money on The Prestige instead, 'cause otherwise you might as well have set fire to it.
I was so yesterday. The previous night was just one interruption after another and I hardly got any sleep.
The strong winds last night howled through the balcony causing the metal support struts on the awning to bang against the wall. I had to get up and wedge a hastily-constructed padding - a wadded up bit of paper - in between. This was after listening to the sporadic, not-regular-enough-to-be-background-noise banging for twenty minutes hoping for it to stop so I wouldn't have to wake up, get up and fix it. And remembering Kathleen telling me about it when I had got into bed earlier that night and me telling her not to worry, the wind will stop.
One of the neighbours downstairs decided that the front door of the apartment block - almost directly under our bedroom window - is a great place to finish off that 10 minute conversation with his friend. I got up (again!) and slid open the balcony door to ask him nicely to STFU. The sound of the door was enough to get my point across. Cool - I don't do confrontation that well.
I woke up from a dream and, stupidly, got thinking about a problem at work that there was no point thinking about since I couldn't do a thing about it until I was back at my desk. And the more I thought about it, the more uptight I got. And I couldn't fall back to sleep.
Then, at 5 in the morning - like always at this time of year - the flamin' lorikeets decided at start squawking at the kitchen window. Then the currawongs* began to join in. And just in case that wasn't enough to wake everybody up, the mynas/miners felt they needed to be heard. At least it was a natural wake up call, rather than a man-made one.
* I thought currawong was just the NSW term for magpies, but it turns out they are actually different. And the ones that live around here are currawongs. There you go.
Mon, 04 Dec 2006
So, I was at the Officeworks in Parramatta during my lunch break today.
The main entrance is via a small set of stairs. I was coming down the stairs on my way out, when I noticed this bloke in a wheelchair trying to get my attention. The poor guy had cerebral palsy, and being in a wheelchair was in no state to be getting up and down stairs.
No problem - Officeworks have a ramp off to the side of the main entrance just for these type of occasions.
Except the automatic door at the top of the ramp was locked.
And taped to the door is a sign. It said, and I am not making this up,
Please notify staff for access.
Now tell me this. How on god's green earth is this poor bugger going to be able to notify the office staff to let him in when he can't speak and can't get up the stairs.
So I went back in and told the attendant at the "service desk", who didn't seem at all interested or apologetic as he unlocked the door from his control console. As I left, my new friend waved and smiled as he went up the ramp and into a shop that didn't seem that eager to get his patronage.
I couldn't help but feel how humiliated I would have felt in his position, sitting there waiting for someone to come and help in a situation that shouldn't have required it in the first place. The company have gone to all the effort of making a ramp for accessibility and then for some stupid reason locked it. They may as well not even have the ramp.
Officeworks in Parramatta - nice one.
Sun, 03 Dec 2006
We went and saw Mamiya Brothers on Saturday as part of the Japanese Film Festival. Seeing it brought back to mind some of the mannerisms we observed when we were in Japan - people playing jankan (rock paper scissors) whenever there was a decision to be made, excessive politeness, the parties that are held to observe festivals, and the obsession with baseball. In fact, obsessions with everything - the story is about two brothers who live together and lead seemingly fulfilling (or at least busy) lives. When they decide to try and meet girlfriends, things start happening at such a pace that they start to wonder whether they weren't happy enough before.
Viva otakus! If Train Man was a sympathetic look at Japanese otakus, then Mamiya Kyodai (a.k.a. The Mamiya Brothers) fully romanticizes the seemingly go-nowhere lives of thirty-something year-old guys suffering from arrested development. Sasaki Kuranosuke and Tsukaji Muga are Akinobu and Tetsunobu Mamiya, two brothers with decidedly dead-end jobs - one is a beer taster and the other a school janitor - who nonetheless live mostly fulfilling lives. After each day of nine-to-five drudgery, the two retire to their shared apartment, which doubles as a shrine to their pet obsessions, and entertain themselves in various otaku-familiar ways. Movies, manga, crossword puzzles, sports - life is a hobby-filled paradise for the Mamiya brothers.
However, there's also love - or the lack of it. Both brothers still maintain a healthy interest in the opposite sex, and find targets in the form of teacher Kuzuhara (gorgeous J-drama queen Tokiwa Takako) and adorable video store clerk Naomi (idol Sawajiri Erika). The Mamiya brothers make their move, but all manner of obstacles crop up, including romantic rivals, work issues, and just plain bad luck. Can the Mamiya Brothers get the girls, keep their hobbies, and live the ultimate otaku dream?
-- YesAsia.com
The movie was funny, but probably dragged on a little too long. And then, towards the end, one of the reels dropped out, so there was a few minutes while the projectionist had to reset the film. Finally, the ending seemed very abrupt - I'm not sure whether the final reel was missing.
Afterwards, we went down to Chinatown for dinner, and managed to find a pirated copy of the DVD for $15 - the cost of one of the tickets. In fact, the shop seemed to have copies of virtually every movie in the film festival!
