E.T. where are you?

As I went through Auburn on the train this afternoon I thought I saw a UFO somewhere over Abbotsford or Carlton. This got me thinking about what would happen if Extra Terrestrials (aka Aliens, Martians etc) visited Earth tomorrow and how people would react. This naturally led on to religion and how the various different ones would react. Naturally for the single (or few) god religions it would cause all kinds of questions to be asked. For philosophical religions such as Buddhism or Sikhism it would cause no great alarm. Then for multi god religions such as Hinduism such an occurrence would probably raise a few questions also, but in the end cause no rift in the faith.

Thoughts naturally led to Scientology, where things could get interesting. Naturally at first they would be claiming they were right after all (not bad for a 30-40 year old movement). Really it all depends on whether the new arrivals accept Scientologists as disciples and servants or eat them for breakfast. All in all I think *Scientology has the most to loose if we are visited...

* I know there's lots of stuff about "thetans" and souls getting spewed out by Hawaiian volcanoes etc as well, but I can't be bothered researching properly now.

The Scottish Comet

Comet McNaught- 24/01/2007

Last Tuesday and Wednesday evenings I took a number of photos of the Scottish comet (aka McNaught). The only problem is that most of the photos were longish exposures of between 6 and 15 seconds and as far as I can tell the longer ones at 15 seconds show the beginnings of star of a star trail effect. Who'd have thought the earth rotates that far in 15 seconds? I'm about 80% sure it's not camera shake, because I used the 10 second timer to trigger the shutter on the camera which was mounted on a tripod on a solid surface, and kept well away while the shutter was open. Basically I think I need an SLR with a pretty fast lens for this sort of thing (a good "pro-sumer" camera would probably produce much better results as well).

Oh right, the comet? It was pretty good...

Ben's Big Day Out

Kasabian

Finally after all these years I made it to a Big Day Out and had a fantastic day. I went with a couple of mates from uni, one of whom lives in Carton so it was a short walk to the venue at Princes Park (right next to the Melbourne General Cemetery, RIP my arse...) from his house.

In no particular order the bands we saw were:

• Muse
• The Killers
• You Am I
• Kasabian
• The Herd
• The Vines
• Little Birdy
• The Sleepy Jackson
• Evermore
• The Violent Femmes
• Tool

I can't really think of any more that we saw. The full lineup is on the Big Day Out website.

The highlight was without a doubt Muse, who performed a killer set. The Killers were pretty good as well. Notable mention goes to Kasabian (I thought I didn't know any of their songs, but recognised quite a few from the radio). The headline act was Tool but none of us are into tthem so we didn't stick around for long after they started. Apparently they had a pretty cool laser show after we left though. Oh well.

The two big mistakes I made were forgetting my small rollon sunscreen and camera. Even though I put some on before I left home I ended up forking out $4 for a small tube of sunscreen. That was $4 well spent, and have very little sunburn, well maybe a few small bits on my arm I missed. I certainly was not lobster red like many people I saw on the train on the way home. Years of airshow experience and very fair skin (did anyone mention freckles?) have taught me that lesson. As for the camera, the reason I didn't take it was because I thought i would loose or break it, but lots of people had them. I did take some dodgy shots with my pohne but got nothing worth displaying in public (one included to illustrate this post, atmospherics etc...). I really regret not taking my camera.

A smaller mistake was not taking a bottle of water. Supposedly they were confiscating water bottles at the gate, but a mate managed to smuggle one in, I saw some “dudes” with a goon bag, so they can't have been looking that hard. I bought a bottle for $3 and stupidly threw it out when I'd finished it. I didn't realise that they had taps where you could refill, needless to say I bought another latter for $3.50, and refilled it several times.

At the outset i said that I was going to buy a T-Shirt. And so I did, a black one with giant blood shot eyeball. Tre chic! It was either that or a Muse T-Shirt. I should have bought one of the counterfeit Muse T-shirts being sold on the footpath outside as well (or “half price” as the man selling them said when he overheard me say counterfeit). I think I'll head in to the Queen Victoria Market and see if I can pick one up there instead.

Australia Day

I don't know what it is about this day, but I'm a bit perplexed about the whole thing. When I was younger it was just a public holiday, a few people I'd never heard of got some awards, and was an excuse for "grown ups" to get drunk and very sunburned. Now there's this nationalistic pride that arises on the day. Where the hell did that come from? Admitedly this year it was helped by the (un)banning of the Australian flag at the Sydney Big Day Out.

What did I do? I did what I've been doing the last few years and just gone to the festivities around the Federation Square area. A good excuse for a day out, but I don't get carried away with flag waving (or wearing for that matter). As happened last year we found ourselves at the Ian Potter Centre, although last year it was more to do with avoiding the heat, but it seems set to becoming a tradition. So anyway, there I was minding my own business looking at this (and this), when who should walk up next to me but, this man (but wearing far less makeup than he did in his earlier career) and his son. If it wasn't him then I made a fool of myself, because I freaked out and quite literally ran about two galleries on. I don't handle celebrity encounters very well. Last Australia Day at the same location I saw this man and lady friend in the cafe, only recognising him through his blog and a few brief media appearances.

Other than that time was spent walking around, sitting down on an island eating ice cream and looking at some purple haired woman's house and comparing it to that of not too distant relatives. Didn't bother sticking around for the fireworks though, managed hear them just fine at home accompanied by distant flashes in the sky (said relatives would have had a better view from their home).

Hung Long Video

Now for a long promised contribution from my "blogphotos" folder:

I get the feeling the proprietors didn't quite have appreciation for English language euphamisms when naming their business in down town Box Hill. I'm assume it's the owners surnames? I wonder what "Harvey Norman" means in Vietnamese?

Taken with my eBay bought camera phone. (That gives me an idea for another post, but I'd better not over do myself tonight.)

Hot Hot Hot *

*This title could equally read lazy lazy lazy, or even busy busy busy, more probably just can't be stuffed.

Yes, I'm a bad blogger I know, my reasons for saying this are that (apart from all the other obvious reasons) I don't past much, or very often. So much for the adventures part. My excuse is that I seem to spend all day at work in front of a computer, and just don't feel like doing the same at home (although I am now). I could blog at work, but that would be unprofessional.

This blog seems to be more about procrastination than anything...

Back to the regular blog content...

i.e. nothing.


Good evening.

I know what I did this summer.

I think I've seen as many movies (films even) at the cinema in the last week and a half, than I've seen in the last two years...

It started last Thursday when my mother and myself took my niece and nephew into Imax at the Melbourne Museum to see Open Season in 3D. The next day I went to see Borat. On New Years Day I saw Casino Royale. On Tuesday I went back to work, but took Thursday off to take the niece and nephew (and Nana again) to Flushed Away, followed by lunch at the Pancake Parlour.

2006 + 1 Hoo-bloody-rah...

Where the fuck did last year go? I hate new years eve, my feelings on the matter are pretty much summed up by Steph (via highriser) . I've never really had a good time on new years eve, but maybe that's more to do with the company I keep.

I remember new years eve 1999, dawn of the new Millenium etc etc (little did we realise that the true occasion was the following year). I bluntly refused to do anything I was so ticked off at the whole thing, I spent the better part of the afternoon and early evening playing bust-a-move on the computer while listening to triple j. At some point I was coerced by my mother to accompany her to her sister's, who always holds some sort of shindig for the occasion. I could have gone to a party at a cousins place to a party they were having, and by all accounts it was a good one, especially going by the phone conversation I had with my cousin shortly after midnight (a very difficult conversation I might add with all the slurred syllables coming out of the phone). On second thoughts I should have gone there instead and just got smashed, but I made my bed so to speak.

Last night was much the same, I went to my aunties at about 9pm and ended up playing pool with a cousin for a couple of hours or so while watching movies. One of these films was Independence Day, which my cousin insisted on reciting word for word as we watched, I kid you not (I don't think I've ever used that phrase before). How annoying! Other than that, as usual we watched the fireworks out of the upstairs window at midnight, except this year there was a fair bit of smoke haze, but we could see them clear enough. We got home by 1:30, and I ended up watching rage and video hits for half an hour or so before going to bed.

Brave new world...

No this has nothing to do with new years eve at all (more on that in another post), I just changed this blog over to Google. I have to say I like it. In the first 5 minutes I have changed and added some links, something I've been meaning to do for ages but haven't been arsed, and made this post. Not bad. Hopefully it's gone smoothly.

In other news I'm in the process of posting all previously un-posted but usable images from a folder called "blogphotos" on my hard drive. The post before this is an example of such and there are one or two more still to come.