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Within The Four Seas All Men Are Brothers

Monday, January 3rd, 2011

Today I went shopping in the city. I bought a few items, including something cute for KLS, something practical (also cute) for SFL and something silly (and a bit cute) for myself. I also put money into UFO catchers and watched as nothing (cute) was won, had Oporto for lunch, and failed the find the latest issue of Bastard!!!! at Kinokuniya.

I haven’t eaten Donuts or a Kebab yet. Still a few things to scratch from my list 🙂

I did not buy anything at Peter Nathan Toy Soldier, a very unusual store in the QVB that just sells hand painted toy soldiers. Here’s a shot of a selection of their Egyptian range, but they also had soldiers from many countries and many wars throughout the centuries. Very unusual, very expensive and very mysterious how they stay in business!

Today was a public holiday (the deferred Jan 1) but the city was mobbed with people. I had fun just wandering around, but my feet are starting to complain and since the rains were moving in I was back at Adams by about 2.

Tomorrow we’re off to the cricket. The fifth test started today but was washed out. We’re going to the second day tomorrow, but the forecast is bad and rain looks likely. I guess we shall see what happens tomorrow.

That’s all I have for today 🙂

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Going The Distance

Saturday, January 1st, 2011

This path is part of the walk from Adam’s to the local shops:

A gaggle of rosella’s lives in and around the trees here, and they always cry at me when I walk past as if I am intruding. Here are a few of them on the roof of one of the apartment complexes (there are at least 7 in this photo… can you see them all?):

This morning they were less worried about me, and more worried about this guy:

See how his mouth is open? He was eating something, or rather trying. It was hard to tell exactly what it was, but it was obvious it was giving him trouble. Then he just sort of spat it on the ground and flew away. I went up and was surprised by what I saw. Here’s what the kookaburra failed to swallow:

Today, dear friends, was a day for the races. So off we headed to Royal Randwick to bet some money on the fillies.

There were 8 races in total today, and each of us bet on every one. Being a scrooge, I bet only $0.50 each way on one horse per race, with Adam betting ten times that. I ended up with two horses placing, and Adam had 2 wins and 2 places. My net loss was therefore $6.10 on $8 total bet, and Adam had a net win of $3.50 on $80 total bet.

Obviously his betting skills far exceeded mine 🙂

And what does a man do with a healthy $3.50 profit? Adam bought this:

This is a $4.50 ice-cream so legendary it actually comes in a box! A mixture of normal and white chocolate, delicately shaped like a moebius strip of deliciousness, Adam’s five word review is “Small treat in good package.”

As for me, well I would realize a bit later that I have actually eaten the same dinner every one of the five nights since I arrived. That meal is pictured here:

Given the caloric input I am experiencing, It’s a good thing I can still get this on my pedometer:

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Good-Looking Men About Town

Thursday, December 30th, 2010

The above photo shows a graffiti mural not five minutes from Adam’s apartment. It shows a mural of images from Bollywood films, including one particularly disturbing blue-skinned evil naga zombie girl.

I have it on good authority that the local cats love it.

The weather today was tremendous (as it has been since I arrived). Not a cloud in the sky and 28 C, it was a day to walk and sweat and revel in being a man. And that we did, as we headed into the city for a bit of chinatown exploration.

Our first stop was the Wildlife Photographer Of The Year exhibit at the Australian Museum. It was as impressive as ever, with many remarkable photographs on display. And yet it left us both contemplative and a little saddened by the reality of the effect mankind is having on the planet. It was as if the judges had a mandate to choose images that illustrated the negative effect of man’s actions on the animal kingdom. Many photos were simultaneously superb and disturbing, and with no obvious way to stem the wave of extinction, it is depressing to think that sooner that we hope many of the wonderful animals on display today will exist only in photographs.

At the risk of being glib, all the animal photos made us hungry, which brings me to a photo dedicated to my brother:

What this photo doesn’t spell out is that it was the second time I had eaten Oporto. Yes, good people, it was dinner and then lunch the next day. As it is quite literally the best chicken burger that is not only being made today, but has ever been made or will ever be made, I can assure you I shall happily eat much more.

And then we walked and we shopped. Asian bootleg DVD shops. Cute good shops. Game shops. Arcades. Comic stores.

I bought quite a bit of stuff, and will likely return before I leave Oz to buy more. I did not, however, buy the Japanese Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (which I did see). But I may have bought the hint guide…

Here are the two best signs-in-the-windows I saw today:

Which is your favourite?

And here is an item seen in the window of a store in the Randwick shopping street:

They are each apparently fashioned of old car parts. They are very cool, if a bit pricey.

But then everything here is a bit pricey. Or, to be honest, ‘makes me cry’ expensive 🙂

Tomorrow we’re off to the zoo. Will we both be dead by 6 pm, or will we venture out before midnight to see fireworks? Time shall tell…

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Enough With The Monster Hunter Posts!

Monday, December 20th, 2010

This is a Tigrex, one of the many beasts in Monster Hunter:

And here’s a snapshot of a fellow with the true soul of a man:

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The 200 Club

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010

I made a strange Tweet last night, that no doubt confused some of you.

I was jubilant (and for once, I am not being hyperbolic there) when I finally killed this guy in Monster Hunter Freedom Unite:

It’s name is Yamatsukami, it’s bigger than a house and it’s the monster you have to kill to get to the highest level in the game, HR9. He took me four tries, during which I had to learn and get used to his one-hit-kill attack. Once I knew what to look for, he’s not so hard to survive. He’s got massive HP though, so I beat him with less than a minute left. I look forward to going back and killing him some more with better weapons.

So now I am at the highest and most difficult rank of the game (G***) with the hardest-to-beat quests that give the best rewards. How long has it taken me exactly to get this far? I wondered, and I checked. These next three images are the save files of the three PSP Monster Hunter games:

The times are not cumulative, because when the old save file is imported it resets the clock. Turns out I played MH Freedom and MH Freedom 2 much less than I thought I did, and this is partly because they are very, very solo-unfriendly (guild quests are multiplayer only). As you can see, things changed with MH Freedom Unite.

So the total time played in this series is about 404 hours. Impressive!

And I still have much more to accomplish in the game, including (finally) some multiplayer with SFL 🙂

Monster Hunter isn’t the only series I have played like a mad-man this year. Here is a shot of the save-file from Dragon Quest IX on the DS:

And here’s a shot (grin) of the save file from Monster Hunter Tri (the Wii version):

I’m too scared to do the math myself, but I urge you all to get out your calculators and verify that in the past ~36 months I have spent almost a month just playing Monster Hunter games.

What’s scarier: that I did this, or that I am proud of it?

Posted in Family, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Tech, The Unknown | 1 Comment »

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