NDBT

Croc hunter’s daughter meets Dalai Lama. This is awesome, because she comes out holding a koala, and the dalai lama notes that it is a very lazy animal, “just like me” !! I love it.

From Cleolinda:

1800s weapon found embedded in whale’s blubber. A living whale, mind you.

Ask A Cokehead: What’s So Great About Cocaine Anyway? Surprisingly, this is not an article from The Onion.

Brain mechanism explains sense of deja vu. (this is cool)

This: http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/06/08/how-long-till-coconuts/ is great.

And in casting news: John Cusack has announced his interest in playing Nite Owl in Watchmen, and Gerard Butler will probably be in it… somewhere?

Projectionist loses job after writing review of Silver Surfer
A projectionist for the Malco Theatre chain in Memphis, TN has been fired after writing an unauthorized early review — and a negative one — of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer for the Ain’t It Cool News website. He claims Fox was behind the firing, but the studio denies the charge. The incident may mark the first time someone in the entertainment industry has lost a job for writing an early opinion online.

Damn.  AICN doesn’t say anything about this. They do, however, have a great review for death at a funeral featuring Matthew McFayden (AKA Mr. Darcy), Peter Dinklage, and Alan Tudyk. You know how much I enjoy dark British humor…

Did you know Melbourne was originally called Batmania? True.

I am madly in love with this city. It is absolutely gorgeous. So – I left this morning, and wandered through the central business district, which has tons of stunning architecture and sky scrapers and is all lovely and well planned out AND I found a street vendor selling ROASTED CHESTNUTS!!! How exciting is that? Very. Super. I love chestnuts. Then I went walking in the Fitzroy gardens, which is very lovely. Its mostly grass with huge Elms, which are in the process of dropping their leaves – so I got to go crunching through them and do the fall thing. It has a fern gully (Oh wow – I just looked up the lyrics from the movie for a quick quote to put in here, but really – they are all just ASTOUNDING! Check em out: http://www.aquamarine.nu/lyrics/af/ferngully.php). Ahem – it also has Cook’s cottage, which is the cottage that belonged to Capt. Cook’s parents, and transported here (I didn’t go in – it cost money) and a small scale model Tudor village. I don’t know why.

Then I went to the National gallery of Victoria, which is housed in the Ian Potter center, and is totally cool. The whole building is very modern and beautifully designed and almost none of the planes of the building (well, aside from the stairs) come together at right angles. It had a special exhibit dedicated to Australian Impressionists, which was very lovely, although dominated by about 4 guys and 1 girl, some Aboriginal art (I like some of this, but the ones that are endless repeating dots and lines start to blur together pretty quickly), a fashion exhibit featuring some of the ugliest garments I have ever, ever seen, and the traditional permanent art collection, lots of which were donated by one guy. This was cool – because they made a little environmental trail leading through this gallery that gave little environmental factoids by some of the landscape paintings. It also had one painting of a big vase of flowers (it was called something like fabric flower, fable flowers? something like that) anyways, it was exhibited at the Golden Gate Exhibition in 19shmushmu. (39?). I got a photo of it, because I liked it so much.

Then I stopped by the Australian center for the Moving Image, which had a huge collection of short films you could watch, video games you could play with, and AN OSCAR! An actual physical oscar statue that was won by a guy for the best short film in 2003 or something. It was very cool. Shiny. They were setting up an exhibit on pixar, but it doesn’t open for a couple of weeks.

To get out of the arts complex, you have to walk through a giant plastic bubble door thing.

Next I went to the Aquarium, which was very good. Not quite Monterrey, but on par with Baltimore, and very well laid out. They had a local creatures exhibit, featuring sea dragons, a creepy creatures exhibit (and much as I enjoy seeing them – I really think putting tarantulas and centipedes on display is stretching it). They did have coconut crabs on display, which are the largest land crustacean. Next were a touch tidepool, a billabong, with long-necked turtles, which are very cool looking, and a ray and shark display. Then jellyfish (including some cool upside-down jellies), a coral atoll (which had a moray eel and this very cool giant grouper looking thing that was pearly blue), and then the oceanarium, which was a combination fish roundabout and the tunnels you can walk under as giant sharks and rays float over you. They have a grey nurse shark breeding program there, that seems to be quite successful.

And when I got out – the FOG had rolled in from the bay over the river! It’s foggy outside! YAAAAYYYY!!! It is very beautiful.

Also – I quite like my hostel. At the moment I have a 4 bed room to myself (even though it is on the 4th floor). I’m off now to find dinner, and see if I can get cheap tickets from the tkts booth. Miss Saigon is here, which I’ve never seen. Also Spring Awakening – but I think its the play version – and not the musical version that just swept the tonys. Ooh – and the circus! There’s a big top and giant ferris wheel set up south of the river.

I also sent an email to Ross and my parents about this – but I read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman the other day and it is absolutely brilliant (particularly for anyone who has been to London). Go read it! (I know want to read his other novels, including American Gods, which has been on my to read list for awhile). I’m on Lady Chatterly’s Lover at the moment, which is good so far.

That’s it. I love this city – chestnuts! fog!

So - I got up ungodly early to catch my bus to Melbourne yesterday. The ride itself was very nice. They put on a couple of films (My super ex-girlfriend, which you would think would've been saved by the presence ... [Continue reading this entry]

Visited the botanical gardens and the zoo the other day. THe botanical gardens were very lovely - lots of trees, so you didn't have the midwinter problem of lots of dead flowers everywhere. The zoo was good. They had a ... [Continue reading this entry]

I am actually caught up with posting photos. Everything up until Adelaide is up on webshots. I'll retry the youtube videos later (after I go to the zoo). Oh - and I explored Chinatown last night - tons of awesome ... [Continue reading this entry]

So - today it was raining a bit so I didn't go to Port Adelaide. I did however, get more photos up - and 1 youtube video (jwdmeow - its of a fosa). However, it wouldn't let me do any ... [Continue reading this entry]

Okay - travel stuff first: I've uploaded photos from Mauritius (unfortunately all of my photos of the pink pigeon came out fuzzy - but c'est la vie. Some others came out well). They're over on webshots. I'll start on my ... [Continue reading this entry]

I've spent the day wandering around Adelaide, which is very cute. Although lots of things seem to be closed on saturdays, which is a bit weird. This may also be the only city I've been to that has more indie ... [Continue reading this entry]

So much for alliteration. Adelaide -town? The treetop walk was a lot of fun. The tour itself is the longest day tour in Oz (its almost 1000 km during the day) so I was picked up before 7am and dropped back ... [Continue reading this entry]

will update later in adelaide- quick stuff before train: Cleolinda discusses her magpie-like tendencies and ends with, "Basically, the last Potter book--Harry Potter and the Search for Deadly Stuff--is like my dream come true. He's gonna collect stuff! Shiny stuff! Maybe ... [Continue reading this entry]