This from my brother - this guy was not someone I ever liked at school.
This from the looney-tunes news archive.
We came joint 4th in the company quiz last night, out of 12 teams. One reason for our downfall : "A smack or smock is the collective noun for which group of water-dwelling animals?" Our answer - hippopotamus. Really.
Other questions, for which we were glad the team was half-local, included "Name 5 of the 7 golf courses in Melbourne that begin with the letter K?", "In the children's story The Magic Pudding, which two animals stole the pudding : possum and koala, koala and wombat or wombat and possum?" and "Who won 4 of the first 5 Iron Man championships, and for a bonus point, what type of vegetable did he farm?"
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Laughter Tracks
It's Melbourne's Comedy Festival this month, and I think this morning's tram driver was trying to drum up support for himself to be part of it. This came on the speaker as we were going past the hospital this morning :
"As you're exiting the tram, please watch out for all the crazy drivers who are in a mad rush to get to work. In the event that you fail to avoid a crazy driver, you may win a free stay at the lovely hotel you'll see to your left. Alternatively, you might win a trip to the coroner's office in a black zip-up bag."
Subtle difference #1749 - my local supermarket has 2 ways into the shopping area.
"As you're exiting the tram, please watch out for all the crazy drivers who are in a mad rush to get to work. In the event that you fail to avoid a crazy driver, you may win a free stay at the lovely hotel you'll see to your left. Alternatively, you might win a trip to the coroner's office in a black zip-up bag."
Subtle difference #1749 - my local supermarket has 2 ways into the shopping area.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Two Englishmen Abroad
Yes, it's true. I was joined for my weekend by another Englishman, who goes by the name of Psycho Hamster when he's not in real life.
We have had an absolutely excellent weekend. The weather's been perfect for all 4 days (including not a single cloud all day Saturday, and just one very small one that followed us for most of Sunday), and it's been in the late twenties the whole time. Great weather for walking in the windy Grampians. This is the autumn everyone's been promising me for months.
First and foremost, I should definitely give special mention to the car. I got a staff discount on the car rental, so went for a slightly higher-end car than I would normally have done, and we ended up with a Mitsubishi 380. Aka the sun mobile, the brightest car in the sky, or the monstrosity. It was a vivid metallic yellow. Not gold, yellow. We think one of the wild wallabies we saw was so confused at seeing the sun come round the corner towards it and brake sharply that it froze to stare.
That wasn't all, though. An insistent beeping was to be heard once we reached the freeway and I could put my foot down. I thought it was my phone saying no signal, but after turning that off, the beeping still occurred, and at somewhat irregular intervals. I finally noticed that it was a speed alarm, on the car! Going over 120 kmh (which has nothing to do with any Australian speed limits - they're all 110 or lower) set off the beeping, and a little indicator on the dashboard. An urgent flick through the manual, and we had that turned off. Back to breaking the law in relative silence.
But there was still more to come from the car. We'd been going about 2 hours, and I was starting to get a little tired, and we'd suggested swapping over shortly when there was a scenic route off through the hills. As if it had heard, the car told me to have a cup of coffee. Seriously. It had a warning alarm to stop you from driving for too long without a break. As I didn't really believe it, I took a photo :
We followed this up a bit later by inventing a tongue twister based on an Australian road sign - "Due to disdaining his doze, Dave the drowsy driver died a dreadful death." It's not very easy to say...
Friday and Saturday were spent walking in the Grampians. There are dozens of walks in the area, of varying degrees of difficulty and length, but a large number are closed at the moment because of recent bushfires. Still, all of the ones in the north of the park are open, so we visited Mackenzie Falls, Mount Stapylton, Silent Street and the Pinnacle. Good Friday came to a particularly good end with an accidental viewing of the Princess Bride and then to a Mexican restaurant in Horsham where they allowed me to pick the hotness of my chilli on a scale of 1 to 10. That was a good restaurant...
Saturday evening involved a spotlighting tour, not something I've ever done before. You go out into the bush with a torch and 10 of your closest (and hopefully quietest) friends, and hope desperately that you see some animal's eyes reflecting back at you out of the dark. It was, somewhat bemusingly, preceded by a Powerpoint presentation showing various animals and the sounds they make, in order to assist with our future recognition of said animals. However, it was not a good night - firstly, we discovered that Orion is called the Saucepan here. Secondly, our tally of animals spotted was :
1 ring-tailed possum
2 bats
5 golden orb spiders
1 wolf spider
I would have preferred to see none at all than the last one! Golden orb spiders are tiny. Wolf spiders are not.
Amazing view of the Milky Way on the way home, though.
Sunday started with us being undercharged for the hotel - $130 (about £55) for two nights. (This made it approximately 1/4 the price of Sunday's motel!) Then a good drive south to the coast via several one- and, in some cases, even no-horse towns. This is what driving in Australia is supposed to be like - perfectly straight roads that take you from where you are to where you want to go without anything else to worry about, like turning your wheel, or other cars.
We arrived at Warrnambool about lunchtime, stopped for a quick pizza, and then headed on to the road again. The rest of the afternoon, driving along the Great Ocean Road on what turned out to be the 75th anniversary of its opening, was a little strange. I've been there before, and 2 years ago, I would never have seriously expected that one day it'd be a 2 hour drive away, rather than a 24-hour flight. I also kept getting reminders of the previous trip, including seeing the same drivers of the bus company I went with 2 years ago, and accidentally eating tea in the same place I'd had lunch in last time. It was as good as I remember it, if an awful lot more busy in places (12 Apostles being a case in point). I'm going to put together a Flickr "Before and After" photo gallery, as the two days are quite a contrast in terms of sea and lighting conditions.
On the way back yesterday, we stopped at Kennet River, a place I'd seen koalas here in 2005. Sure enough, they were still here - 10 or 12 of them that we saw. Then to Erskine Falls ("best after rain" - they weren't wrong. Since it hasn't really rained here for about 3 months ... well, "Falls" was probably false advertising.) Aireys Inlet was a random stop, which became much more rewarding when we found out the lighthouse we'd decided to visit there was where they filmed Round the Twist. We also tried to go and see the surfing championships at Bells Beach, but as it was such a calm day, there was nothing happening.
And then back home, for about 5 pm, leaving Psycho Hamster to drive the monstrosity back to the airport and thence catch his plane home to Sydney.
We have had an absolutely excellent weekend. The weather's been perfect for all 4 days (including not a single cloud all day Saturday, and just one very small one that followed us for most of Sunday), and it's been in the late twenties the whole time. Great weather for walking in the windy Grampians. This is the autumn everyone's been promising me for months.
First and foremost, I should definitely give special mention to the car. I got a staff discount on the car rental, so went for a slightly higher-end car than I would normally have done, and we ended up with a Mitsubishi 380. Aka the sun mobile, the brightest car in the sky, or the monstrosity. It was a vivid metallic yellow. Not gold, yellow. We think one of the wild wallabies we saw was so confused at seeing the sun come round the corner towards it and brake sharply that it froze to stare.
That wasn't all, though. An insistent beeping was to be heard once we reached the freeway and I could put my foot down. I thought it was my phone saying no signal, but after turning that off, the beeping still occurred, and at somewhat irregular intervals. I finally noticed that it was a speed alarm, on the car! Going over 120 kmh (which has nothing to do with any Australian speed limits - they're all 110 or lower) set off the beeping, and a little indicator on the dashboard. An urgent flick through the manual, and we had that turned off. Back to breaking the law in relative silence.
But there was still more to come from the car. We'd been going about 2 hours, and I was starting to get a little tired, and we'd suggested swapping over shortly when there was a scenic route off through the hills. As if it had heard, the car told me to have a cup of coffee. Seriously. It had a warning alarm to stop you from driving for too long without a break. As I didn't really believe it, I took a photo :
We followed this up a bit later by inventing a tongue twister based on an Australian road sign - "Due to disdaining his doze, Dave the drowsy driver died a dreadful death." It's not very easy to say...
Friday and Saturday were spent walking in the Grampians. There are dozens of walks in the area, of varying degrees of difficulty and length, but a large number are closed at the moment because of recent bushfires. Still, all of the ones in the north of the park are open, so we visited Mackenzie Falls, Mount Stapylton, Silent Street and the Pinnacle. Good Friday came to a particularly good end with an accidental viewing of the Princess Bride and then to a Mexican restaurant in Horsham where they allowed me to pick the hotness of my chilli on a scale of 1 to 10. That was a good restaurant...
Saturday evening involved a spotlighting tour, not something I've ever done before. You go out into the bush with a torch and 10 of your closest (and hopefully quietest) friends, and hope desperately that you see some animal's eyes reflecting back at you out of the dark. It was, somewhat bemusingly, preceded by a Powerpoint presentation showing various animals and the sounds they make, in order to assist with our future recognition of said animals. However, it was not a good night - firstly, we discovered that Orion is called the Saucepan here. Secondly, our tally of animals spotted was :
I would have preferred to see none at all than the last one! Golden orb spiders are tiny. Wolf spiders are not.
Amazing view of the Milky Way on the way home, though.
Sunday started with us being undercharged for the hotel - $130 (about £55) for two nights. (This made it approximately 1/4 the price of Sunday's motel!) Then a good drive south to the coast via several one- and, in some cases, even no-horse towns. This is what driving in Australia is supposed to be like - perfectly straight roads that take you from where you are to where you want to go without anything else to worry about, like turning your wheel, or other cars.
We arrived at Warrnambool about lunchtime, stopped for a quick pizza, and then headed on to the road again. The rest of the afternoon, driving along the Great Ocean Road on what turned out to be the 75th anniversary of its opening, was a little strange. I've been there before, and 2 years ago, I would never have seriously expected that one day it'd be a 2 hour drive away, rather than a 24-hour flight. I also kept getting reminders of the previous trip, including seeing the same drivers of the bus company I went with 2 years ago, and accidentally eating tea in the same place I'd had lunch in last time. It was as good as I remember it, if an awful lot more busy in places (12 Apostles being a case in point). I'm going to put together a Flickr "Before and After" photo gallery, as the two days are quite a contrast in terms of sea and lighting conditions.
On the way back yesterday, we stopped at Kennet River, a place I'd seen koalas here in 2005. Sure enough, they were still here - 10 or 12 of them that we saw. Then to Erskine Falls ("best after rain" - they weren't wrong. Since it hasn't really rained here for about 3 months ... well, "Falls" was probably false advertising.) Aireys Inlet was a random stop, which became much more rewarding when we found out the lighthouse we'd decided to visit there was where they filmed Round the Twist. We also tried to go and see the surfing championships at Bells Beach, but as it was such a calm day, there was nothing happening.
And then back home, for about 5 pm, leaving Psycho Hamster to drive the monstrosity back to the airport and thence catch his plane home to Sydney.
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