My great friend SFL (here’s her twitter) is defending her dissertation and earning her PhD in physics today!
I believe that true understanding of what it is like to earn a PhD is difficult without having done it yourself, so you’ll have to take my word that it is difficult, thankless, seemingly-unending, endlessly frustrating and very, very often makes a person doubt themselves. To finally finish is no small endeavour!
So congratulations Florence; you’ve done it! You’ve killed the PhD beast, earned enough experience, and now can level up to ‘Doctor’ 🙂
It was Yossie’s birthday last week (she turned 4!) and yesterday her gift arrived. Here’s a photo of it before it was opened. Can you guess what it is?
Not sure? Here’s a shot of the bits and pieces when opened. I bet you can guess now?
Immediately, Yossie Emi was interested!
Here’s the gift one-third built:
The pieces went together well. Nothing but the best from Armakat!
That piece is rope was an immediate hit with Yossie Emi. Here’s a shot of the finished product. It’s over seven feet tall!
Luckily, the birthday girl took to her new gift immediately:
Especially the topmost perch:
But in the end, it was the little goblin who reigned supreme on Yoss’s new cat tree!
Here’s the rest of the older videos I felt worth sharing. Apologies to AW for revealing his darker side to the world at large (in my defense it was the least embarassing AW video I had…).
As for my hairstyle… I have no defense 🙂
For starters, here is Dad drinking the world’s worst smelling beverage:
Jump backwards in time 8 years to see dad show off his new Gameboy. I wonder if he’s beaten that high score (5087) by now:
Here’s mum in the same year, never thinking this particular video would ever be publicly available worldwide:
We’ll call this next one the segue to the two left to come. Notice mum laughing in the background:
And then there’s this video for which I take no responsibility since it was shot by my brother:
Ok, ok I have to comment. What were we watching Adam? Was that wrestling? And were you referring to the wrestler Raven? It’s interesting how empty your shelves are…
By the way if you’re wondering about that hair, I present the official 0th worst photo of me ever taken, which was a self-portrait taken during that 2000 trip to Australia:
Word’s sort of fail me now, so I shall let my 2000 self do the talking in this last video:
The other day Florence reminded me of ‘drop-bears’, which in turn reminded me of an almost-promise I made over three years ago. It’s funny how the mind works, isn’t it?
So today I keep that promise in spades, with two blog entries consisting of video recorded on two different Australian trips dating in 2000 and 2008. The video from 2000 is quite crude, recorded as it was on an early digital camera that had a maximum video time of 15 seconds!
In this post I’ll put the animal videos. In the other I’ll put the other stuff, including two that short the unusual hair style I sported in January, 2000 🙂
Here’s the running Koala video, which was recorded at Blackbutt reserve. I believe this (January 12 2008) was before the storm that heavily damaged the bird and koala exhibit.
Here is a video recorded the same day of myself failing to feed a curious kangaroo. I like how I start insulting at as my efforts continue to fail! (And who calls kangaroo’s “kanga” anyway?!?)
Some stick insects at Australian Wildlife World at Darling Harbour:
Here’s Cheeky the wombat, at Gosford reptile park (this is from 2000):
And lastly (for this post), Lucky the cat at his filthiest. Prior to this he was no doubt digging around in the garden:
It is a source of some frustration to me that in these days where everything seems to be available online and video formats are more or less a thing of the past, that the 1978 Japanese TV show ‘Saiyuki’ (known as ‘Monkey’ to Australians) has never been made available in the USA.
Monkey was based on the classic chinese tale Journey To The West, published more than 400 years ago in China. It told the story of a Buddhist monk who sets off for India to receive some sacred Buddhist scripture. Accompanying him on his journey is the powerful and brave Monkey King and Pigsy, a once-heavenly general reborn as a pig-man. Hijinks and adventures follow, and you can take my word that the novel is a good read even today.
Back in 1978 the Japanese made a TV show about the legend called Saiyuki, and it went on to become a big hit not only in Japan but also in Australia, the UK and other European countries as well due to a wonderful BBC translation. Here is a compilation of scenes from the show:
It was played non-stop during my youth and in fact up until me leaving Australia. I saw every episode countless times and loved them all. Sadly no NTSC version has ever been made available, and although someone (the BBC?) still holds the rights to the English language version, they’ve never put it on iTunes or any other download service available to Americans.
I’ve been thinking about the series a lot recently because I recently finished the excellent PS3 game Enslaved, which is also based on the same tale (a futuristic take this time). In fact Journey To The West has been inspiration for quite a few movies, manga, anime, TV shows and video games over the years, not the least of which is the famous manga series Dragonball.
Here’s Monkey himself in various guises, including the well-known Goku:
Here’s the good monk Tripitaka, who was so famously played by a woman in the original series that all later incarnations seemed to become female!
And here’s Pigsy (known as Oolong in Dragonball):
Those Enslaved graphics look almost too good to be true don’t they? Well they are not, and it’s easily one of the most beautiful and well-animated games I have ever played.
Monkey, Dragonball and Enslaved: 33 years separate these three very different – but all great – versions of a 400+ year old story. I’m sure there will be many more versions told in the future.
