Mickey Mouse

Bought new fish on my way home from work today. I've been meaning to add to my tv-quarium for a while, but it's always the same old things that you see at the aquarium shops. Worse still, they're usually red, which my tank is dominated by. I went to a different shop today, at Baulkham Hills, because I know they have the more unusual stuff & a great variety. I wasn't disappointed. As my tv-quairum houses only livebearers (bar the 2 silversharks & a bristlenose cleaner) I wanted only to add more livebearers. This shop at BH have a lot of varieties of livebearers, saltwater fish, rarer goldfishes, parrots, rabbits, spiders, & even a snake. I ended up buying a pair of platies that I've never seen before - they're called the Mickey Mouse platies, because if you look at their tails from the side they look just like MM's head! I also bought 3 golden swordtails just to balance out the colours a bit more. Videos still uploading... (1) (2)

Shall try & upload some 'smaller' videos from my trips when I'm at a faster connection next wk.

Rustic framing

Having another day-off at home to, umm, 'work' on my thesis. And of course, during stressful times like these 1 has to find ways of unwinding and relaxing. A couple weeks back I finished doing up the classic poster series of a Casablanca jigsaw puzzle & of course have backed it up with backing paper & cardboard. Now it's stiff as. And with the passionfruit vine torn down there are extra lattice lying around in our backyard, & I though what better way to complement the classic poster series than with a rustic frame!?! At first I was just going to go to the shops & buy a frame then 'rustic' it up, but there are any that are big enough. So not to chop down the jigsaw puzzle, I resorted to making 1 up myself. A quick stop at the hardware store to get a mitre box & it's an hour or so in the backyard sawing, staping & nailing up my new frame:

It fits like a glove but alas the rustic look doesn't fit all that well. Now I've painted it sandy yellow with a golden top layer (& a crackling layer in between so the sandy yellow would still come through) to sort of match up with the bought 1 that I have for my Gustav Klimt 'Kiss' jigsaw puzzle which I still have yet to finish doing up. Hmm, project, project...

新年快樂

恭喜發財 & 新年快樂 to everyone!!

NO apols to anyone who can't read traditional Chinese. Tough!

Oh how I love you how I love you ...

For starters, that is the song from a Sydney Swans commercial from a few years back, kind of a retro-link to a Jolson song. And yes, I DO love them heaps. can you imagine anything more exciting than a good-ol' game of AFL (watching of course, I can't play it for peanuts!), particularly a Swans game?? I've been to a few over the years, and like last year we're buying the Telstra package again this year, only this time minus the SCG game (but cheaper!!) Here are my beloved Swannies doing a fan-fest thing at my local shopping centre today. F-ing hell, so many people! I could only get 3 autographs of the 6 that were there the lines were so long! Granted I was there a little later than they had arrived because I was at work. But still, oh Swannies!!!

Electric explosion

The electric substation of the building next to us (at work, not at home) threw a bit of a hissy fit last Thursday. I guess it might be a bit old & it was a bit of a humid day, but soon after lunch (1:30-ish) when Barb came back from lunch she told us that there were black smoke coming out of a roller door downstairs (we didn't know what is/was behind that roller door at that stage), & out of curiosity Faye (who is also our floor's fire warden) when downstairs (to take a ciggy break of all thing!?!?!) & checked things out. By that stage the fire trucks had already arrived & they told Faye that we better start packing 'cause they were evacuating us soon. We did as such, & not 5 minutes the alarm sounded & we were scuttled downstairs, cross the closed-off road, went around the building & went to the assembly area 5 minutes or so away. We're on the 4th floor so naturally be bump into people from lower floors as we went down. By the time we got to the ground floor & crossed the road, the 'thing' behind the roller door start exploding (not like nuclear bomb, mushroom cloud explosion, but loud bangs in quick successions. Much like chinese fire crackers but not as quick in succession). After waiting for a while we were told not to expect to get back in that afternoon, so we all went our separate ways. SOme went home (actually most went home) while I, who is without a ride until 5pm, had plenty of time to kill. Did the library, window shopped, & finally sat down & had a haircut instead. 4-ish & I decided to sneak by to see if there's anyway of going back to the office & surf the net, & the fire trucks were all gone & doors wide open. Great! Spent the rest of the time surfing the net. Lesson of this incident is, while we were praised for our prompt respond to the evacuation alarm, DON'T complain about having to WALK DOWN 4 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS!! Can you actually believe someone complained about having to walk down some stairs!?!?! My typical sarcastic respond was of course, "well then, jump!" No, really.

Meanwhile, the substation is still being fixed. I walked by at least 4 times yesterday. 8:30 - arriving at worl. No one was working on it. 12:30 - out to lunch. Workmen standing by it talking about something electrical. 1:30 - back from lunch. More workmen turned up to sit around the burnt substation having coffee & snack. 4:30 - going to post office on way home. All workmen, including the van, were gone. Roller door pulled down, presumably so that can't tell if any work had been done on the substation. Today (1 week post-explosion) - roller door area still cordoned off, no sign of workmen, again.

Good night out, good work-out

The made-up holiday of Valentine's Day is coming up yet again which means that Robson's birthday is also near. This year we went to a favorite haunt of ours - the Heritage Belgian Beer Cafe down at the Rocks - this past friday. It was a great night out as I decided not to do anything during the day either except clean up bits and pieces & clear out some stuff from my hard disc to DVDs. I bus-ed in early to the city to have a bit of a walk around, window-shopped at the Rocks & took some photos (which I still haven't downloaded onto my laptop...). The beer, food & company were al very good, & we stuck around for 5 hours! Well, I stuck around about 5 hours. Some stayed on after I'd left to catch my bus home at 11:30.

The following day it was time for a good work out. Physical work out. I've been planning this for months and now it's finally the right time. The trellis that my passionfruit plant has been leaning on for the last few yrs is/was all brittle & keeps falling over, so yesterday morning (after sleeping in, naturally) I spent a couple of hours collecting the remaining fruits & chopping the whole plant back to its barest. A quick stop for lunch, then it was building the new metal arches that it now climbs over, forking out compost, sugarcane mulching, & some power composting (lawn-mower over the passionfruit vines that I chopped down, pressed down by a heavy layer of chicken shit). I was thoroughly soaked through halfway through that work out (we're unseasonably humid at the moment). Now it's looking all bare & naked. Hopefully it'll fruit again at the end of the year (1 vines produces about 100 fruits a season, which is more than we can handle in this household. I've had to resolve to making passionfruit muffins & cookies before they spoil!). Still no flowers on my guava trees though...

Chinese New Year dinners this coming friday & saturday.

How excitement!

It’s been a bit of a strange week so far & today I took a turn for an even stranger ending to the week. Locked myself in the house for both Sunday & Monday to finish rewriting Ch 6 before a day at uni on Tuesday. Tennis as usual that night & didn’t play well. Back again at uni on Wednesday which threw me off pattern a bit seeing that I haven’t spent that much time at uni in any week for a very long time. I was there to meet an academic who is based in ADFA (Canberra) but was travelling up that day for his own meetings. He squeezed me into his schedule to talk a bit about finishing off my thesis (unfortunately not ‘for me’, but more like ‘help me finish it’ kinda thing). Kev (supervisor) & I had talked about bringing him on board as a co-supervisor also so the more reason to meet with him. Now the end is finally very near. There’s just some paperwork to do next week to sign on the new co-supervisor & get on with it. The worst bit, though, is that I still haven’t had from someone who had they were going to give me an answer about 3 weeks back & I don’t know where I would be/how much time I would have in the next few months for the thesis. It’s simply unsettling. Hassled the guy again on Tuesday via email but still no reply. Is he off his nuts or just ignoring me & put me on the blocked list? Must investigate more next week.

Meanwhile, after pretending to be sick (mentally, obviously) so I could go to uni yesterday (some strange logic here, but it’ll make sense if you read on) I returned to WESTIR today for ‘work’ work. Still no word from freaking Penrith Council, i.e. can’t start on the new project --> sitting around without much to do. That part of my life has turned out to be a real boring drag, ‘cause you see there are only so many relevant websites & report that one can visit and, more importantly, endure. Without the go-ahead for this new project, we don’t have much to go on because the new Census data won’t come out for another 8 months. But luckily, as far as I can tell we’d get some answers from Council early next week & start delegation immediately. Have not been this eager to be given work in a long time.

But just as we were all settling back into the mundane boredom after lunch today an unexpected excitement came along. Barb was coming back from lunch & she saw black smoke coming out of a roller door next to out building’s entrance. Soon after the fire brigade arrived & Faye, who was taking a ciggy break at the time, was told by the firemen to get ready for an evacuation. Evacuation! Not a pretend 1, but a real thing! Haven’t had that for a long time! The smell of the smoke was not very pleasant anyway so it was better to be out than in. The alarm finally sounded & we made our way down the fire stairs & out the building. Stupid thing was that roller door wasn’t that far from our fire stair exit (probably about 20m, 25m max) & the smell of that smoke was just overwhelmingly intense as we exited & were rushed to the left (roller door on right). We haven’t even been out of the building 5 minutes, & needless to say haven’t even half finished joking about the situation (eg, “must be some disgruntled fatties trying to bomb Jenny Craig”) (Jenny Craig was the 1^st shop next to the roller door) than the roller door started exploding!! OK, so it wasn’t like the-plane-crashed-into-the-World-Trade-Centre kind of exploding, but a more like a quick succession of loud pops that went on for maybe 3-5 minutes. We were of course hurried off by the fire brigade to get away. The floor fire wardens stuck around to find out what was happening & we were told we wouldn’t be able to get back into the building for an hour or 2 (mind you, this was only ¼ past 2 even after all that excitement. It’s taking me longer to type this up than to live through the whole thing!). We decided it wasn’t worth it to wait around so an early mark for everybody! Yippy! Seeing that my ride wasn’t getting off work until 5, I had a bit of time to kill. I checked out stuff at Westfield, went to the library, checked out stuff at the mall, I even had time for a hair cut before finally decided to go pass the office again at ¼ past 4 to see if it was safe to sneak back in (It was). Oh my beloved Internet, how I missed you! Thus ended the excitement of the day.

Curtains.

The end.

What's that smell?

OK, so by now probably everyone on earth knows that Federer won the Aus Open again in pretty convincing fashion. Naturally I have to put my 2 cents in it, & I'm gonna have to back track a bit. Back to the semi finals late last week. Any boy, were they over quick. I took a pit stop at the end of the 1st set of the Federer-Roddick semi & by the time I'm back from the toilet they were already (as much as I'd like to say 'slogging it out' but we all know that weasn't the case) going at it in the 3rd set! That was some beating. At least Roddick can say Haas won 1 fewer game than he did & his (Haas') conqurer was a (comparatively, but who isn't when you're compared to Federer?) lesser opponent. I didn't head down south this year but you just gotta feel for those who bought those expensive tickets for the 2 semis. Don't get me wrong, they were very spectacular matches, but they were over WAY too quickly. There were hardly any contests in them.

Meanwhile, swtiching the focus onto the women's final. It was only going to go, at max, 3 sets so naturally you wouldn't expect it to go for very long. The 2 men's semis were already short enough (both around the 1.5 hrs mark), the women's final was even shorter - by 1/2 hr actually (so if you do the math they actually work out to be about the same per set. Anyways...) That was an even worse beating, with the lower ranked beating the crap out of the regained world no. 1 & reigning US Open champ Shriekaova. For a second I though we were going to beat last yr's record & that match was only 8 games long when the soon-to-be divorced Henin-Hardenne (I guess it'll be back to Henin from now on?) forfeited. Digression: little psychic ol' me guessed right! Some in my little circle guessed 'pregnancy' but the 1st & only thing that popped into my head when she annouced that she wasn't coming to Aus was marital problems. If there were odds on that I maybe should've put some Euros on that. But I guess that could be interpreted as bad taste in some odd ways...

So, an explanation of the title - what's that smell? I guess it depends on which angle you're looking/smelling at it. Was it the sweet taste/smell of success, or was it the stench of rotted game plans & poor execution? No, more like the latter judging by the scorelines...

With the tennis finished for now, it's back to 'normal' TV viewing. Yay! Luckily I'm finishing my studies real soon (right, better do something about that) 'cos there're just way too many programs I want to watch. Apart from the old faithfuls D Housewives, Grey's & Lost, there are of course the newbies of Bros & Siss, Heroes & Ugly Betty. So much to watch, so little time. Thank God OC is finishing soon so I'd have 1 fewer program to chase.

Meanwhile, the seamail that I sent back from Honkers had arrived 2 weeks early! Yippy! My winter clothes are back! Not that we'd need it, back up to 37'C tomorrow. But there were also other little bits & pieces in that seamail, like the anatomically-correct squeeze-a-toy thingy (obviously a Japanese thing) that blushes & shivers if you, well, squeeze it; my moomin bowl & spoon set; my Snoopy & Charlie Brown coffe mugs set; and my trip stuff - maps, etc. Now, where can I find room to put them...

13%

Lately, for reasons unknown to most of you, I have been taking advantage of the post-xmas sale here in the land of Aus. Ok, Ok, so I have bought plenty already while I was on my recent trip to East Asia. Too much, in fact, that I am having difficulty finding storage for some of my newest conquests. While still feeling unmotivated about working/studying (although I finally re-started my studies again earlier this week) I have yet to go around to spring cleaning out my closet. The short sleeve sections are getting chockers, the winter wooly section is getting chockers, my pants sections are getting chockers … The list does on. But I digress. Back to post-xmas shopping. My latest addition this week can be found in either the gadget or health category. It is none other than the scale. Not just any scale, ‘cos otherwise why would/could it be considered a gadget. It is a DIGITAL scale. And no, that’s not what makes it gadgetry either. It’s the fact that it has the memory capacity of storage the basic info (height, age) of up to 5 people (FIVE!!!), and with a simple switch, measures your body fat % also. That’s me, 13%. Needless to say I’m on the ‘thin’ side of the scale (it has 4 categories – thin, normal, stout, & obese), but only borderline. For a person under 30 years of age (which fortunately I still am) the ‘normal’ body fat % is between 14 & 20. Shall measure regularly, but given how I eat & what I eat I doubt that number would fluctuate much.

Still looking all over for 阿信的故事 DVD boxset. It looks like A$400 for the Taiwanese version. OK, so there are nearly 480 episodes in the 7 boxsets that make up the entire series, but still it's a little much. Must keep looking.

Summer of tennis/tannist

It’s January and of course it’s tennis time. First with the Hopman Cup on day & night way over in Perth (& on TV on Aunty), followed by what has become out annual pilgrimage to the Sydney Olympic Park – the former adidas International – Medibank International. I cannot remember for how years straight I’ve been going to the tournament in a row, but definitely for at least the last 3 years, possibly 5. The attending field differs from year to year, of course, but this year the women’s field is particularly strong. Prior to the withdrawal of the current world no. 1 (Justine Henin-Hardenne), 18 of the world’s top 20 were scheduled to play here, including 9 of the world’s top 10 (barring the grunt-maestress, the 1 Maria Sharapova). We usually buy the Australian Tennis Magazine which used to have a free ground pass included in its January edition. But this year, that very promotion no longer exists, so we had to shell out $$s to buy actual tickets. Luckily, Medibank is running a BOGOF promotion (for non-Aussies, BOGOF is of course Buy One Get One Free), so we bought 2 centre court tickets, & seeing that I still have student concession until end of March, a concession ground pass. Like usual, lots of running around scouting out the hard workers who come out to practice on the various courts, as well as occasionally (stress ‘occasionally’) sitting down to watch smidges of matches while either (1) when feeling hungry, or (2) when feeling tired. Autograph hunting was much more fruitful (ha, fruitful ^_^) than last year’s Aus Open where I only got 1 (yes, 1) autograph, that of the sour-grape Davydenko (see here for reasons of sour-grape status). Amongst my victims included soon-to-be retiree Kim Clijsters, defending Aus Open champ Amelie Mauresmo, Nadia Petrova, and on the men’s side the very hilarious Dmitry ‘Dima’ Tursunov, the smiling assasin Marcos Baghdatis … All that running about also doubled as a good tanning session, which hopefully I can keep up for a little while. Maybe I should stay outdoors a bit more, but it's so hot …

Heading home

After almost 5 weeks, It's time to go home. Yes, it's been 2 days short of 5 weeks since I left the Aussie shores, & so much has changed since then. I'm (personally) about 2-3 kilos heavier, probably A$2,500 poorer (which is still a bargain considering the travelling & shopping that I've done), have a job interview lined up 6.5 hours after I land, & most of all not quite as healthy. Pooping (sorry for the faeces talk) has been irregular for pretty much the entire time I've been away, only for the last week or so (since Beijing) I've been, well, 'watery'. Now I'm even flu-y. I wonder if I'd actually have enough fitness for the uni meeting & interview tomorrow.

On brighter news, my camera is fixed. I was trying to stuff it into my carry-on luggage just now & as usual it beeps just as much as you try to move it. In case it starts beeping again mid-flight, I was going to take the battery out when the stuck lense decided to retreat & function normally again. Great. It gets stuck for a week & stopped me from taking pictures of the Great Wall & the wedding from MY camera, & now just as I'm leaving (checked in, arrived at airport, bought duty free, about to board & all) it decides to function again. At least I don't have to send it out to be fixed when I get back. I fewer thing to do on my already stuffed schedule for the week.

Moving on to sad news, received email that my co-supervisor's mother has passed away over the weekend. That makes 2 funerals within a month. And refering to my earlier post (http://ragdearyme.blogspot.com/2006/11/three-weddings-funeral.html) it is no longer 3 weddings & a funeral, but 3 weddings & 2 funerals. But, having said that, I've heard that this comign funeral is family only, so probably still only going to be just 3 weddings & a funeral for me.


Ergh, feeling so sick...

Meanwhile, here is a selction of my Beijing photos:.

Beijing tour, in English

I went for a long weekend tour of Beijing with Angie (my cousin) this past weekend. As those of you who follow would know, I usually open each blog with a related pic or have a link to some uploaded photos of the said trip. Alas, I can't do it for this post. At least not yet. Reason shall be revealed asap.

I was going to go to Beijing by myself & on an airfares + hotel package, but seeing that Angie is also back & she is also interested, we decided to join a tour instead. Reason being we were both a bit worried about the transport situation - not that we thought Beijing would not be easy to travel around, but that the traffic would be rather crazy & that we'd more likely be run over 3 times crossing a street than anything else. So we joined a 4-day tour, which started very (and I stress VERY) early last Friday morning & finished Monday night. How early? We needed to be at the airport by 6am. We ordered a cab for 5:30, but because I had a pretty big dinner the night before & lots of tea, I couldn't sleep at all that night. Luckily I had a job appliction to do so that killed some time. Anyways, we knew Beijing was going to be cold, but because we have been in te temperate to warm weather of HK for a while, the freezing coldness of Beijing kinda came as a shock. Daily temparatures ranged from -5'C to +5'C, but for some reason it felt colder. Despite the fact that I brought along a down jacket that I borrowed from my uncle my legs & feet were still freezing. It was so cold that the 1st chance we got we went to the shops & bought underlays (long johns) & wore that everywhere for the next 3 days until we reached the airport.

We went to lots of tourist attractions. The 1st day after lunch we went to the Temple of Heaven (天壇) followed by free/dinner time at 王府井. Day 2 we spent the morning at (頤和園Summer Palace) & the afternoon at 紫禁城 (Forbidden City) with silk shopping snugged in during the day. Day 3 was jade shopping, traditional chinese medicine, 十三陵 (Ming Dynasty Tombs), & the best part of the tour - 萬里長城 (Great Wall). I'd show you pics, but unfortunately my camera broke while we were at the jade factory (the lens refuses to go back in when I was trying to turn it off. So there aren't any pics of the Great Wall on my camera. Luckily I went with Angie so all the pics from then on are on hers. I'm still waiting for a reply form the Canon customer service to see how I can get it fixed. So, for now, people, you just have to wait until I get the pics off Angie or I go download my own pics when I get home. Hopefully I get my Great Wall pics soon...

Oh right, right. English tour. We joined a HK tour company, but most of the people on the tour with us came back to HK from overseas (to live, to study, etc). Seriously, who would have time to go on a holiday tour at this time of year but OS residents? More still, the 4 girls sitting behind us were exchange students to HKU from various places in N America, there was a Englihs-born HK woman who married a Scot who now both live in Bordeaux (yes, French-land), 1 extended family of 8, with both of the guys my age born & grew up in the US... In the end, I ended up speaking English more than Cantonese, let along Mandarin. I think that was also the most English I have spoken since leaving Aussie shores a month ago. Great acclimatisation for my return-home trip :)

HK is finally getting cooler for winter (down to low teens by weekend). Only 5 more days for me before heading home. Have sent revised Ch 1 for meeting next Thursday. Hopefully I will also have a job interview lined up as well.

White people withdrawal symptom

It has barely been two weeks since I left Sydney & I have been suffering from white people withdrawal symptom for about a week. It's just weird. I've been too used to being surrounded by white people in everyday situations that constantly being surrounded by Asians (Honkies mostly, but also Filipinos) has been a little unsettling. Going to the more touristy places like 'Moh Loh' Street (摩囉街) helps a bit. Yesterday's trip to Macau helped even more, because even though there were hoards of Chinese-Chinese there from across the river, there were also relatively more white and white-ish people/tourists. I wonder what I'd feel like when I head north to become a 好漢 & visit the Great Wall next week...

Shopping

East Asia is such a shopping haven. With the high exchange rate (approx. A$1 = HK$6, and A$1 = NT$24), everything just seemed so much cheaper. I bought this pair of Converse (on sale) for just HK$159 (you do your own calculation). I can't get anything like this back in Aus for twice as much!?!?!? Almost bought another pair (red tartan) in Taipei for NT$690 (use a calculator you lazy asses!) but they didn't have my size. Fine! Spoiled my plans for having 5 pairs of red shoes. Guess I'd just have to get by with 4 pairs only :P

Things were even cheaper in Taipei. These were of course my half-day shopping in Dan Shui (淡水). The Snoopy board game you can see, for example, was only NT$300, & it's an official merchandise!!! I've bought more (other stuff I mean) since, but simply couldn't be bothered to take more photos. If only I can bring home all my shopping in First or Business Class luggage allowance & still pay only Economy fare......

Macau tomorrow. Well, if no rain.

Still need to do my SmartID.

Three weddings & a funeral

As most of you who have been following my blog would know that I've already attended 2 weddings this yr - once as a groomsman & once just as a normal guest. On top of that, I would also have alerted you to the fact that there is a third wedding coming up (in about 4 weeks' time), which makes it 3 weddings in the 1 year. The 1st 2 were in & around Sydney, & this 3rd is in HK, so, in an effort to try & make myself finish the blooming PhD quickly, I booked my flights early to arrive HK 5 weeks before the wedding just before the prices started to go up. As such, I'm here (HK) already. Alas, writing being writing thy just come & go at will (not my own will) so needless to say I still haven't submitted the darn thing. In fact, I've brought along Ch 1 with me to fix up while here in HK. Anywho, that's beside the point. I arrived late Wednesday night (re: previous blog entry) & by Friday (yesterday) morning the '3 weddings' turned into '3 weddings & a funeral'. My cousins NG's & Clara's grandma was involved in a traffic accident - she was hit by a school bus while crossing a suburban street & was killed instantly. Sad news, sad news. I've met her quite a few times throughout the years, always a kind lady. Shall be sadly missed. Actually, come to think of it, it is getting awfully similar to the plot in 4 Weddings & A Funeral, where there were 3 weddings, then a funeral, & then the botched 'wedding' between Hugh Grant & Andie McDowell. Hmm, who will be the permanently engaged '4th wedding' in this episode?

Hump day

It’s hump day and, no, there’s no hump in any sense. Right now I’m in the departure lounge of the Sydney International Airport waiting for my flight to Honkers. I’m off for 5 weeks to see family, do yet another wedding (that’s #3 for the year. Thankfully no more for a little while :P), and travel through East Asia for a bit. By East Asia of course I mean only Taipei & Beijing. Got the Taipei trip booked, just need to do my China travel document when I arrive & I can go & book my Beijing trip. Back home in time for another blisteringly hot Xmas. Yes, I’m a sucker for torture :P

Now that I think of it, there was a little hump. Flying Virgin Atlantic for the first time & as I found out they’re not very lenient with the luggage situation. Everyone’s allowed 23kg, but because of the weighty souvenirs & gifts that I’m bringing with me (mostly food – 2 x 3kg tubs of premium honey, a dz of Tim Tams (bar original flavour)) I ended up being overweight (well, my check-in). Also, they have a lower carry on allowance (6kg instead of the normal 8kg), so when I got to the counter I was asked to move some of my carry on into my checked in, which pushed it overweight (I was 26.something to begin with. The move pushed it to 28.something) & they charged my $60 for it!! That’s like half of my TRS gone! Even the old trick of 'but I weigh next to nothing' didn't work. Must stock up on duty free on the way back !?!#(!%*

Great, more humping. We were already on the runway when the captain announced that 1 of the wheels' cap was loose & we had to turn back & have it re-fastened. An hour's delay. That's why I only just arrived an hour late. A quick shower, & it's already 4am Sydney time. Some zzz might do me good.

Melbourne Cup 2006

It was that time of the year again & of course everyone has to have a little bet. I was no exception. It is the only time of the year that I actually gamble (well, apart from the occasional lottery tickets, hee hee), but unlike last year there wasn't a hot HOT favourite like Makybe Diva last year. Not really a horse person myself, I obviously had little/no idea on what to bet on this year. For some reason, Pop Rock stood out, & with my usual tactic of 5-&-5 on 2 horses, I need a second horse. Given that I had pretty good luck with the hot favourite last year I went with the favourite (Tawqeet) at the time. Not that I thought that it would win with that shoe problem, but there was still hope of placing, so I went with it. Back to the office, the office sweeps started going. Not wanting to feel left out, I went in on a couple of bucks as well. & which horses did I get? Land 'n Stars &, wait for it, Pop Rock! On the tiny, snowy TV in our conference room, we watched the race as we were still dishing out the snacks. Pop Rock, Tawqeet and Land 'n Stars did not feature anywhere in the front pack. Great, $22 down the drain. But wait, it's coming back, it's coming back, it's catching up... Ah crap, half a nose! Bloody Japanese horse Delta Blue won by half a nose over Pop Rock! Well, at least I won some back from TAB & the office sweeps.


Absolutely exhausted right now. Brutal tennis session last night, playing in light drizzle. The balls were so much heavier & so much harder to move around & slide around. Luckily I had 2 leftover bananas when I got home so the recovery session is going well.

Finalising 1st year marks in 1/2 hour. After that am done with teaching. Oh wait, there's still the marking of the 3rd year online tutorials. Hmm, can't wait to get out of here & do some packing that I said I would do last wkend...

Floored

It's Halloween, the make-believe 'holiday' that celebrates, well, the make-believe. But true to the myth, it has been a rather strange day today. It's phato-essay marking day for this year's 1st year course, and normally these are easy as chips & should be able to chewed thru with no trouble what so ever. it was a 9am start, & because there wasn't really any breakfast at home I got up even earlier so I could stop by Mecca's to pick up a McMuffin & McHash Brown before parking & jumping (literally) onto the express bus. A couple of stops after I got on, this Armani-clad guy (& I don't mean just the suit, it's the whole works, complete with Armani shades & briefcase) got on. By now the bus was already pretty full of ppl express-ing to the city for work, so he had to stand, & he stood not far from where I was sitting (thus I had a good scan of him). As soon as the bus got going again, he pulled out a rosary from his pants pocket & started praying quietly. Because it was peak time trafiic, he had pretty much the whole bus trip (there was an accident on the Gore Hill Freeway so we were delayed even more) which ended up being about an hr & 40 mins long. But I guess stranger things (than praying Armani guys I mean) have happened I suppose.

Then it got worse. The normally easy breezy photo-essay turned out to be a crap bunch this year. The quality of the 1st year essays were simply appaling, with less than a handful (out of 100+ students) really hitting the mark & getting close to 100%. With the bad quality, everyone just slowed right down, feeling horrid for having to read the stupid things & laughing at the outrageousness of what 1st years come up with (my favourite remain the loin-cloth wearing Aboriginals from last year's bunch :D) (for non-Aussies, the funniest part was of course the Austn Aboriginals never wore loin clothes; they went about starkers). It ended up taking the 5 of us 7 hours to go thru the lot, which I'm guessing had a 60% average. Thank God I don't have to do that ever again with me so close to submitting my own piece of sensationalised writing early next year. Oooh, can wait to get that monkey off my back & move right on.

Sydney Food and Wine Fair

When better then lunch time to blog about the Sydney Food and Wine Fair. It was of course Anne's birthday on Friday & I went with her to the Sydney Food & Wine Fair at Hyde Park on Saturday to sample to g-o-o-o-o-o-o-d food from some of the finest restaurants in Sydney. We met at the corner of DJ at 11:30 & waited for her Japanese 'friend of a friend' who was relatively new in town (Kei, see below). We got there early (Fair 12noon - 2pm) so we could have a bit of a walk around & gawk at what we could get before lining up for tickets, but unfortunately 1/2 hr was still not early enough as the line for tickets were already long. As such, we didn't actually get to the ticket booths until probably 20 past, & after more queuing at the stalls finally got to sit down by the fountain for some real food. I took pictures of everything that we had (bar the quail, which I only remembered that I forgot to pic after I have already devoured it) - smoked salmon with truffle aoili, duck sald with pear, mushroom hamburger, fried bananas, chili quail with lemon, & of course a dessert favourite, mango & passionfruit pavlova, all washed down with 2 glasses of champagne. Yes, there were only the three of us, so what better way of walking all that food off afterwards than a stroll around the nearby Royal Botanic Gardens. It was such a nice day as well, warm-ish but not hot, sunny. A great day.

Finally bought my new JVC Everio GZMG37 digital hard disk camcorder. Well, actually bought it a couple of weeks ago. Have already animal-tested it on the dog, & will try it in a real event 1st time this coming sat for Anne's birthday party & to record birthday messages for Nat. More events coming for recording - there is of course the wedding in HK & my related trips, back in time for geog xmas lunch, & NYE!! Alas, the still image function of the JVC is not good, so I shelled out & bought a new Canon PowerShot S70 as well (been meaning to upgrade the digital cam for a couple of years now, finally found a great bargain at Bing Lee - $600 off 'cos it's the 2nd-latest model & last 1 in stock!!). So many things to claim back GST on way out ...

When Harry met Ed

Ok, so that title is a bit misleading. Harry didn't exactley meet me & I didn't exactly meet him either, but hear me out & this is the gist of my story:

Monday morning, good weather, so when better to stroll down the city & pick up more things that I need to take with me to HK on my way to uni. As I was walking past Town Hall there was this strange looking man with what I thought was white stockings underneath his casual shorts. So naturally I had to take another closer look, & that's when I realised the slightly chubby man was in fact Harry Kewell (yes, the soccer player) & those 'white stockings' were in fact 1 of those skintight things that stops u from having DVT. (Yes, he looked chubby for an athlete, but only just. Maybe 2-3 kilos. Probably from lack of exercise/game time) Anywho, as I made my way across Town Hall to go to DJ Harry K was on the mobile from what I can gather asking for directions. He disappeared just after waiting at the lights @ the corner of QVB & Kinokuniya.

Ha, gist my ass!