http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/12/2740514.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/12/2741352.htm

Holiday’s beckon.

Hours to go ’till freedom.

Moments ’till I’m back.

Back  at work that is.  As for this blog I intend to be here every day as I embark on another holiday photographic project.  Once again I’ll list the posts for the next two weeks below building a complete snapshot (or several) of the two weeks that will be.

Friday 13th November 2009

Saturday 14th November 2009

Sunday 15th November 2009

Monday 16th November 2009           

Tuesday 17th November 2009

Wednesday 18th November 2009

Thursday 19th November 2009

Friday 20th November 2009

Saturday 21st November 2009

Sunday 22nd November 2009

Monday 23rd November 2009

Tuesday 24th November 2009

Wednesday 25th November 2009

Thursday 26th November 2009

Friday 27th November 2009

Saturday 28th November 2009

Sunday 29th November 2009

 Well for heaven’s sake. It’s another day. They just seem to keep relentlessly coming, one after another after another after another. Sheesh.

Stephen Fry

I was told today by a fellow staff member that they feel I’m not surprised by much.  I guess I’ve been in libraries long enough to have seen most things at least once, but I never considered myself jaded.  There’s lots in life that surprise me, and not half an hour later I was able to prove my point to my workmate.

For several hours, a group of three boys have been fooling around in the park that surrounds the library.  I noticed them at first because it seemed like two boys were picking on a third, trying to kick him while he half heartedly swatted them away.  They ranged all over even climbing up on low fencing around our carpark and leaning up again the window I was looking out of.

They were soon back to their mock fighting, this time with milk crates.  You can imagine how that caught our attention.  I don’t know if a flying milk crate would do serious damaged to one of those meat heads.  Worse still we weren’t looking forward to finding out if one could break our of our car windscreens park right along side.

We never did find out because at that moment another weapon was introduced into the battle…a giant blue plush dice.  You read correctly.  From somewhere, probably one of the nearby charity bins, one of the boys had found a 30cm x 30xm x 30cm blue velvet cube full of styrofoam beans.  It was the surrealist thing I had seen, boys fighting in the park with milk

Serendipity is a wonderful thing

crates and a giant blue dice.

Who says life is still not full of surprises?

Junglist not sexy enough for the gaming audience of ABC?!  Well I loved the guy for his brains not his looks.

Jeremy Ray (A.K.A Junglist) mysteriously vanished from our small screens two shows ago to be replaced by Hex.  The comparrison is pretty obvious and it’s not surprising that rumours started flying that Junglist was replaced because he wasn’t…femmine enough.

But Good Game already has a girl…or hadn’t you noticed?  Rei is a gorgeous gaming chick from my end of the world.  Surely she alone makes up enough of the female quota for ABC to be happy?

My concern with the new look of the show, which was also address by Junglist here , is that the show now lacks the depth of experience that it once had with the hardcore, competitive gaming guru of Junglist and the more entertainment casual gamer of Bajo.

Welcome to Hex, enjoyed the show. I don’t think there was any problem with the show, it was well presented and showed good depth of knowledge on the games.

However, I was surprised at how quickly they replaced Jung. It was very sudden and though I am happy to hear he still has a roll on the show, I am sorry that I will not be sharing my Monday nights with his gaming wisdom. He will be missed

Also, I am concerned with the depth of knowledge the show will now be able to display. As I don’t know Hex’s gaming background as yet, this doubt may well be unfounded. But, there was such a good balance between Barg and Jung, entertainment and hardcore. I fear that we’ve lost that balance, particularly in the scoring of games.

Onwards and upwards. Thanks for a great show.

In a world where female and male in-game characters are just as powerful, leathal or smart as each other,  it’s a shame we can’t say the same about the real life versions.

There is a tension between those who live in New South Wales and those who choose to live in Queensland.  Queenslander’s talk slower, with a drawl that suggests they may be too closely related to their wives.  Every call centre in Australia dreads getting a call from a number with a (07) prefix because they know no matter how simple the reqest there’s going to be trouble.  Yes, I guess us southerners have always suspected that those who live in Queensland are few cells short of a full cerebrum.

But there’s something a little more sinister going on. 

The Undead walk the streets of Brisbane and here’s the photographic evidence.

Though these zombies shuffle and limp for brains it’s all part of a charity walk that gathers thousands of zombies and parades them down the streets of Brisbane. 

Yes, yes, it’s all fun and games until they bite some one and then there in plague proportions and heading over the border.  Well Queensland, we suffer your cane toad and Japanese tourists, but don’t ask us suffer zombies shuffling south.

And just in case you thought it was a new phenomena, there are some brilliant images from 2008.

In light of the movies release in a few days…

I thought I’d look back at the rollercoaster ride the creation of this movie has been.

Firstly, with the sudden death of Heath Ledger many a great movie was put on hold or cancelled, one being the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus directed by my favourite, Terry Gilliam.  This was on the back of another Gilliam movie falling through, the The Man who killed Don Quixote (which I’m pleased to see is now in pre-production).

 Then, a group of friends got together to finish what their mate had started.  This would be a cool story if they were just finishing a house or restoring a car.  But Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farell finishing the work that their mate Heath started is tear jerking gold.

“Don’t feel entitled to anything you didn’t sweat and struggle for.” Marian Wright Edelman once said and I think that Terry and all those who have been on the Imaginarium journey with him can well and truly say they own this movie.  But, at least a small part can surely belong to those of us who have followed the journey, feeling the pain of loss and the joy of realisation and fulfillment.  Those who can empathise with the loss of a friend and the satisfaction of having made a difference.  Maybe I don’t feel entitled, but privledged to have been along for the ride.

Looking forward to seeing you at the movies!

Humpback Whale off Sydney Head, Sunday 18 October 2009

The day did not start out well with scattered showers.  We thanked forethought and the advice given on the whale tours for insisting we brought a good warm coat as it looked cold out on the water.

It looked even worse as we left the Darling Harbour.  I wished I thought to bring a simple plastic bag to protect my camera with as it looked like we’d be shooting in the rain.

My fears were unfounded as we slipped through the head the day showed it could be kind to whale watchers and broke up the sky enough for us photographers to take our eyes off the sky and put it on the ocean, searching for signs of whale.

The tour guides had been tipped off on a pod of four whales making their way down the coast that they hoped to intercept as they travelled past the heads.  Unusally for this time of year it was a group of four adults as individuals and mother/calf groups are more common.

There was a two foot swell outside the heads which doesn’t sound like a lot until you have to find our footing, hold onto breakfast and keep an eye our for whales all at the same time.  All this became particularly hard when the whales were spotted and the captain manevoured the boat so it was side on to the waves.  Now instead off just going up and down the boat seemed to roll in lazy circles taking my stomach with it.  But I was too busy to pay any attention to rolling stomach’s as the whales surfaces maybe 2oo metres from the boat.

I understand we spent two hours following the pod as they zig-zagged their way down the coast as far down as Bondi.   I can honestly same I don’t know where the time went.  Before I really felt the desire for land the captain turned the boat back to the heads.  There another pod, this time a mother and calf.  Like the captain, they seemed to be in a hurry to get where they had to go and didn’t hang around to look at the boat.

Though not a dramatic whale watching experience, it was impressive to see these animals up close.  To say they are big doesn’t describe them.  They are the largest animals that any of use are likely to see, and too think they go straight past Sydney’s doorstep is incredible.

I think I should like to go out and wave g’day to them again when they make their trip north next April.

If you want to see some mighty impressive whale shots or read the whale blog by Jonas the Photographer click on the image below.

Posted in Photography, Sydney, whales ]]> http://miztres.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/whale-sunday/feed/ 2 miztres Humpback http://miztres.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/your-honour-i-text-my-case/ http://miztres.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/your-honour-i-text-my-case/#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:31:37 +0000 miztres http://miztres.wordpress.com/?p=890 ]]>

I was reading an article on teenagers and text speak recently and nearly laughed out loud…which is a bad thing as I was reading at work and I work in a library.

Not at the almost unintelligible number, letter and symbol combinations.  Many of these are clever and I wish I’d had them when I’d been a teen so I could have text my friends in our secret code.

It was the third last on the following list that caught the laugh in my throat:

2MI Too much information

4EA3 Forever and ever

AAS Alive and smiling

AOTA All of the above

B/F Boyfriend

CD9 Code 9 (parents are around)

F2F Free to talk

LMIRL Let’s meet in real life

n00B Newbie

OL Old lady

OOTO Out of the office

POS Parent over shoulder

PTMM Please tell me more

RMMM Read my mail man

ROTFL Rolling on the floor laughing

SPST Same place, same time

SWMBO She who must be obeyed (wife or partner)

T+ Think positive

:@  What!! 

:@  is right!  What is a phrase like “She who must be obeyed” doing in a list of hip sayings like T+ or CD9?!  Instantly I hear Leo McKern in the  sharp and cranky tones of  John Mortimer’s Rumpole of the Bailey growling about the latest restrictions enforced by the formidible Hilda, the aforementioned  and original “She Who Must Be Obeyed”.

That a pudgy little middle aged man with the wit as sharp as a teenagers fashion critic could possibly be on the cutting edge of teen pop culture makes me ROTFL.

TTFN SPST

I smell a conspiracy theory…

… and it smells like yeast extract.

A certain brown substance has been making news lately when a competition it ran to name its new product failed to produce a name that appealed to the Australian public.  In fact, we hated it. 

It made it into mainstream newspapers

Ebay is awash in brown as people sell cases of the rejected product all over the world.

Even the evening news commented on the backlash.  It was a national scandal!

Now the company claims it was not a publicity stunt.  That it honestly thought they’d found a good name for their new flagship product. 

Really?  

If  all this is not a publicity stunt using one of Australia’s iconic symbols as cannon fodder, can I assume that the judge were all from the land that felt secure with huge lending bodies with the farm friendly names of  Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac and be happy to call computer game consoles after bodily waste?

I’m really hoping for the conspiracy theory myself.