Tom Is A Blog Neglector This is a great site, it's not like I'll update it or anything.

3 more pictures

The first one is the view of Sydney from the Opera House steps.

The second picture is of pieces from various old buildings and bridges that were demolished.  They are arranged on the lawn as a "sculpture" as a reminder of the buildings etc that are now gone, and the craftmanship that went into carving the stone.  Something like that.

The third one is of a Holden UTE, or "cartruck" as I call it. They are very popular here. (Notice the steering wheel on the other side.) Holden is their Chevrolet. It's the El Camino that never died...

Click the picture to make it bigger.

Mall

So it was raining pretty heavily today and I noticed that my cell phone lost it's digital signal (I couldn't send or receive text messages and the like.)  The rain stopped and the digital signal returned.  Coincidence? Hmmm.  Could it be that the rain affects the quality of their cell signal? Or is it just because I'm a foreigner with a foreign phone connected to their network? (My phone says "Yes Optus" on the screen where it usually says "Cingular")

The clock has been wrong on my phone since I got here.  It has California time.  So in order to find out what time it is here, I add three hours to the time on my phone (to make it eastern standard time) then I add 14 hours to that (just add two hours and flip the am to pm or vice versa, since I'm here and I know if it's day or night).  So I guess I could just add 5 hours and flip the am/pm.  it's essentially what I'm actually doing, I'm just making it long and tedious.  I could just go buy a cheap watch.  Or not worry about it.  I mean, where do I have to be? What do I care what time it is?

Yesterday I took a walk in the opposite direction than I usually go.  I usually walk towards the harbor and the city, but I'm sick of all the asian stores and restaurants etc. (When I say 'asian' I mean Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean, all those languages where you draw pictures instead of letters). I live a few blocks from Chinatown so all the closest stores are in Chinatown, and to get to anything I want to see, I have to walk through Chinatown.  It's fine and I have no problem with that, but I'm just sick of looking at it.  All the stores are either a "Sparkly" store (full of sparkly things like necklaces or gold trinkets or cut glass etc), or a convenience store (selling cold drinks and international phone cards), or an internet cafe, or an over-stocked clothing or shoe store, or a cd/dvd store (with bands and movies I never heard of, and cd and movie covers that I can't read), or some flavor of asian restaurant or take out place with whole ducks with their heads still attached in the windows.  That's all I ever see. Lol.  So I wanted to know what was in the OTHER direction, AWAY from Chinatown.

So anyway, I walked down a few blocks and I found a big mall! With movie theaters, and a food court with food I will eat!  And none of the food had a head still attached! And there were stores I would go into! And they have a Kmart!  A freakin' real live Kmart!  They are getting a Target there too! (I don't know how well that will go having a Kmart and a Target in the same mall).  This mall was the closest thing to being at a mall at home.  Most of the "malls" I have seen so far have been small and full of crappy stores (see my store descriptions above) and kinda dingy.  They are kind of like the old Bizarre was at home. The malls have had terrible food courts too.  All asian food and fish. Terrible. Gag. So I was really excited and happy to find this mall. 

Ruined

Even in Australia, idiots are compelled to take a perfectly good car and ruin it.  I mean, that whole "fast and the furious" thing is SO over, and just gay.  How could you do that to THIS car? It's not like it's a Cavalier or a Honda Civic, it's a $30,000 car!  I don't understand...

Shutterfly link

Here is the link to my shutterfly page. http://www.gr8pmkn.shutterfly.com/  There are only 5 pictures up there so far, all of them of the apartment.  You can leave comments about the pictures, it says it's a new feature!  I'm not sure if I like shutterfly.  It makes the pictures small and you lose a lot of the detail.  I have to look at other free online photo albums.  Anyone have any suggestions? I guess I could just put them here, but I like the option to have just photos without having any of my previous writings available. People might read these pages and get the wrong impression.  

A couple of pictures

Centrepoint Tower as seen from Hyde Park

Archibald Fountain in Hyde Park

Some crazy bird in the park

Sydney Opera House

My attempt at an artsy picture of the opera house

Opal museum

I went to the Opal museum today.  It was pretty cool.  On the way I cut through Hyde Park, and stopped to watch a chess game.  The museum was neat.   opals are soo awesome.  they look fake, like luminescent. (however you spell it)  like fire contained in rock (i guess thats why they are called 'fiery'. lol)  so awesome.  so expensive. 
    when i go back i will get pictures.  I found a coupon for a free gift for overseas visitors. i need to take my passport and ticket stub to get it.  god only knows what the free gift is.  probably a coupon for 10% off purchase. 
    they have an opalized dinosaur fossil.  it was pretty cool.  the stomach contents were even fossilized.  its not gemstone quality opal, its the non-precious type. (my precious!) it still was neat.  according to the museum, i can go to the mountains where they find opals and go prospecting and maybe find opals.  I can even sift through the mine's "rubbish" dirt to see if i can find any opals the miners missed.  That can be my new career. 

TV

Today I decided to stay in and do some stuff on my pc and what not.  I turned on the TV for the first time.  I get like 18 channels.  Most of them are movie channels.  I think the movies are free, and they seem to play all day long.  Not sure though.  There are two adult channels.  One is called "european erotica" and another is called "Klimaxx Collection".  (They are each 14.95. lol.)  The other movies are Shaggy Dog, Eight Below, Take the Lead, The Ringer, Match Point, and X Men 3.   Then there are 4 channels that are "Foxtel" channels and they cost $4.00 a day if you want to watch them.  So that leaves me with 5 channels that I can watch.

It's funny to watch the news or Australian tv shows and hear the accents.  I'm mesmerised by the commercials.  Australian Idol has just recently started too.  They are down to the top 20.  I was watching some surfing show and now I'm watching the simpsons.  The simpsons rule.  I wonder if the simpsons are in every country. (well country's that have tv) Also, it's weird because there are american shows on here, and there are WB and FOX and ABC shows, but they are all on the same channel here.  So it doesn't look right when they show the ads. 

A commercial was just on for a toilet cleaner.  I can't even remember the name of the product.  It "creates a barrier to prevent stains from sticking between cleanings". The whole time there is an animated stock car driving around inside the bowl.  Then the driver slams on the brakes and starts to slide sideways and the voice over says, "Product name" helps prevent nasty skid marks.  I couldn't help but laugh.  I guess it would be funnier if you saw it.

I'm going to have to do a "things that get on my nerves about living here" post.  I will have to write them all down because there are many things.

Amazing elephant story

A young man was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from university.  While he was walking through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed so the man approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot. There was a large thorn deeply embedded in the bottom of the foot. As carefully and as gently as he could he worked the thorn out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man and with a rather stern look on its face, stared at him. For a good ten minutes the man stood frozen -- thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away. The man never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later the man was walking through the zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to where they are standing at the rail. The large bull elephant stared at him and lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times, all the while staring at the man. The man couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. After a while it trumpeted loudly; then it continued to stare at him. The man summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. Suddenly the elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of the man's legs and swung him wildly back and forth along the railing, killing him.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

I made it! (First post from Sydney!)

I made it to Sydney!  I got my internet situated and once I get unpacked and settled I will begin my picture posting.  I walked around today taking pictures of stuff so I should have something to post everyday.  Hopefully.  I will write more later.  Just wanted to touch base and say that I'm still alive. 

Here's a picture of my apartment building.  My room is on the very top, second window on the right of the corner. My balcony is above the little green street sign looking thing. You need to have the picture actual size to see the green sign.

For those who don't know, click the blue word above to open the picture.  Once the picture opens, you can put the mouse in the bottom right hand corner of the picture and an orange square may appear.  Click this square to make the picture its full size.

I will post more pics and write more later!

Ugly sheep

Australia wants its farmer's to report ugly sheep.  Is this so the other farmer's know where the ugly sheep are, so they don't waste time in those fields looking for a "girlfriend"?  Everyone wants to go where the HOT sheep are.  Baaaaaaaah! Hopefully I won't end up in an ugly sheep field.

16 hours until I leave.  No I'm not packed yet.