Oct/063
Back in the U.S. of A
I'm baaaaack! I got in last night around 9:30 pm. Now I have to unpack and go through the huge box of mail and catch up on all the other stuff. And find a job. How annoying...
Oct/062
The Matrix
So they shot a number of scenes from The Matrix around here. There is a place called Martin Place downtown. It's like a pedestrian mall area. Here’s a link to a wikipedia article about it: martin place. They filmed the scene where Neo is distracted by the woman in the red dress in front of this fountain, but they rebuilt the fountain after the movie was shot. Why would you do that? It’s like redoing the art museum steps after Rocky was filmed. There are probably thousands of examples (I thought of Rocky because it was just on TV here the other night). Actually, I don't know if they changed the fountain. I can't find any pictures that don't look like the fountain I saw today. Someone with access to The Matrix can look at the picture and then look at the scene and tell me if they look the same. Or I can wait two weeks until I get home. It’s not like I’m going to lose sleep over it.
They also filmed the last battle between Neo and Agent Smith, the elevator/lobby gunfight, the helicopter crash into the side of the building when Neo has the cable in that area. They are all buildings in Sydney around Martin Place. Trinity's phone booth escape is not far from here, though I don't know the EXACT location. The corner where Neo calls the machines at the end of the movie is a few blocks away (again I can't remember exactly what it looks like). The scene where Cypher and Agent Smith meet and make their deal is at this restaurant downtown. (We were thinking about eating there, but it's all stuff I don't eat, and it's an arm and a leg.) We are going to take a Sydney "Movie" tour Wednesday and see some of the locations. I hope we get to see the lobby where they shot my favorite scene in the matrix (the big gun battle before he gets on the elevator.) That would be exciting.
Now I want to go home and watch the movie (because I didn’t bring the movie with me) and somehow get "Revolutions" (because I didn't buy any Matrix movie after the first one) and see where it was shot and what I recognize.
They did some scenes from "Superman Returns" in Martin Place as well. I haven't seen that yet. I'm hoping they will show it on the plane or something. It's here on my pay per view, but I can wait until I get home to see it.
The one day we were walking through Martin Place and they were shooting a commercial or something there. I have some pictures of it.
I'm off to find the Imperial Hotel. It's this drag bar that’s in “Priscilla: Queen of the Desert”. I want to take pictures of the outside (because I think it’s closed until 11 pm) and I think it’s only the outside that you see in the movie. I don't need to go inside.
Oct/061
Gas and stuff
First of all, gas is like $1.19 a liter. There are 3.79 liters in a gallon. So that's like $4.50 a gallon. So American's can stop their crying now. Wah. Buy another 8 miles to the gallon SUV gas hog. There should be an SUV gas tax. Especially for Hummers. I hate them. It's like, "Hey look at me I have no penis, and I can't afford a Ferrari or a Corvette, so I got a Hummer. Now I'm a man." LOL. I haven't really missed my Jeep (and yes I realize that I would probably be part of the SUV gas tax). I kind of enjoy taking public transportation and walking everywhere. I would do it at home if the U.S. was designed to take advantage of public transportation. And I can't afford to move to the city, so I am forced to use my car. Anyway, whatever right?
They have most of the car brands that we have. They have Peugeot, Citroen, and MG. They don't have Chevrolet or GM, they have Holden (which is a GM company). I have seen a whole bunch of really expensive exotic cars here. Ferrari's and Maserati's and Aston Martin's. I even saw a Lamborghini, not sure what model though. Lots of rich bastards in this city.
At the supermarket, the rear wheels on the shopping carts aren't locked so the carts go in whatever direction they want to go. At home, the front wheels spin around and the rear wheels are locked straight so you have some kind of control over the cart when you push it. Here, all 4 wheels spin around. So you can hold on to the handle and make a complete 360 degree turn without any resistance. Can't do that at home.
I haven't been able to find a decent tasting brand of ice cream from the supermarket. I have tried every brand and they all are a little off. It's just plain vanilla, nothing fancy. I can't wait to go home and get a Nifty Fifty's shake. And go to Magianno's.
I'm watching the U.S.'s Biggest Loser. When they show the amount of weight lost, they show it on the screen in kilograms. Cuz it's metric here (like we were supposed to be by now according to my 5th grade teachings)
It was cloudy and miserable today. I didn't really go anywhere or do anything noteworthy.
Oct/061
Smoke free
Oh yeah, it's my 11th month smoke-free anniversary. Woohoo. Good for me! Yawn. Marlboro's are $10.50 AU a pack here. It's like 7 or 8 dollars in real money (American).
Oct/061
Shows etc
I went to see 2 musicals last week. I saw "Priscilla: Queen of the Desert - The Musical" last Tuesday. It was really good. It is based on a movie by the same name. The musical is almost identical to the movie, without Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving, and Guy Pearce. It did have Michael Caton, who is an iconic Autralian actor. Good movie if you have never seen it. Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving, and Guy Pearce play transvestites who travel to the Australian outback on a bus named Priscilla. It's one of the most famous movies to come out of Australia.
Then on Thursday I saw The Pirates Of The Penzance at the Sydney Opera House. It was really good. The Pirate King did a Captian Jack Sparrow impersonalization, which annoyed me, but other than that it was really enjoyable. I was excited to see a show in the Opera House. I had a pseudo-celebrity sighting at the Opera House. The final 7 Australian Idol contestants were in the audience. When we were leaving the opera house they were walking next to us.
A word about Australian Idol. Its identical to American Idol, without the talent. Well I guess thats not entirely true. There are maybe three of them who don't suck. I doubt any of them would make the top 12 on American Idol. And the talented people don't get the votes. Its the "good looking" ones that are getting the votes, even though they are terrible. Here's the link to the Idol website: Idol They still have two hosts. Both are as annoying if not MORE annoying than Ryan Seacrest. I can't stand either of them, as much as I can't stand Ryan Seacrest. The judges are annoying as well. I don't know why I am watching it (it's on right now.) There is this chick who is SO BAD. She sung Blondie's "Heart Of Glass" and it was so flat and monotone. It was soooo bad. And she didn't get sent home.
There is a British TV show on here called "The IT Crowd", about an IT department at some company. It's really funny. I will have to try to find it online when I get home.
I went to this outside market place to buy a picture from this photographer. I saw the picture at the Opera House store, but it was too small. I had to get it bigger directly from the photographer. Exciting I know.
I'm going to try to find the hotel from the Priscilla: Queen of the Desert movie. It's like two miles from here. There's a few other things I want to go see or take pictures of before I leave. There is an ice bar here that I want to go to. Everything is made of ice. Sounds pretty neat.
I don't think anyone even reads this.
Oct/060
Awesome Ads
These are ads for Carlton Draught, a beer made here. The "Big Ad" is awesome. Love it. The "FlashBeer" is pretty funny. Try to let them load before playing them for the maximum enjoyment.
Oct/061
Catching up
Nothing too exciting going on lately. Last weekend we rented a car and drove up to the mountains. They are the Blue Mountains. It was kind of neat being on the wrong side of the car and the road. Went to Wentworth Falls, which are waterfalls. We walked around there for a while and then went to the Jenolan Caves and took a tour of Lucas Cave. It was awesome. The road down to the cave was nuts. The speed limit was way too high for that road. At home it would be 45 mph at the most. It has some crazy sharp turns, and got very narrow as you got closer to the caves. And the assholes coming in the other direction were going way too fast and hogged up way too much of MY side of the road. Damn foreigners! We blew the horn a lot. That was funny. In some areas there was only a crappy wooden guard rail between the car and a sheer drop off (that I don't even want to know how far down it went.) At one point we had to back up so a bus could get around this corner. I was stressed out by the time we got to the caves! Lol. I'm glad I wasn't driving.
On the way back it was dark and I saw some animals on the side of the road. I thought they were deer, because that's what I'm used to seeing on the side of the road at night in the mountains. They weren't deer, they were kangaroos. That was neat to see. I didn't know they lived in the mountains.
Last night we went to the Sydney Observatory for a night viewing. They pointed the telescope at stars and nebulas and planets and the moon, and then watched a 3-D movie about stars. It was a good time. I like it there. It's a neat old building. Maybe I will go photograph it tomorrow.
The astronomer guy was saying that Uranus looks blue from the high levels of methane gas, which he pronounced "mee-thane". Lol. My next post I will list some other weird stuff they say here.
Oct/060
Trees
Now I know that you are saying "Oh how exciting! No posts for a long time and now a post about trees?", but they really do have some neat trees here. I have uploaded a bunch of pictures for your viewing pleasure. There is no sense of how big these trees really are. No perspective? No human scale? I can't think of the right word. Sorry if the page takes forever to load. I don't feel like resizing the pictures. I don't know how to do it fast and easy. Yes I really am that stupid.
This one looks like a horse head. 
Scary looking tree.
This is a huge tree. 
This root is as high as my waist.
Two more. 
I think it's the same tree. Again there is nothing to give you the sense of scale, so take my word for it.
These two have interesting roots. 
