Category: Miscellaneous

Going The Distance

January 1, 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:

No-Sun Bears

January 1, 2011

Bears hate sun, even sun bears. And therefore we saw none yesterday. So here’s the bear-iest shot of the zoo 🙂

Happy New Year

December 31, 2010

Today, we went to the zoo. This meant a ferry trip across the harbour:

During which Adam wisely avoided the sun and spent the time reading rec.games.mud on his phone:

The zoo was quite different from even four years ago, with many animal enclosures either changed or in the process of being changed. It’s turning from a great zoo into an even better zoo though, and virtually none of the old-type enclosures (ie. concrete boxes) remain. Here is a selection of the beasts we beheld:

Here’s a sleeping wombat:

And a kookaburra sitting in an old gum tree:

And some crazy dude astride an elephant:

As you may be able to tell, the weather today was incredible. As in incredibly hot 🙂

The sky was cloudless, and this was taken advantage of by various factions:

The first is a skywriter in the middle of writing “marry me”. Presumably, somewhere in Sydney a girl was about to be told to ‘look up’. The second is a helicopter (!) dragging a massive banner advertising headache medicine. This was no doubt targeting the numerous revellers already waiting on their boats in the harbour in position for tonights fireworks:

The zoo closed early due to the fireworks, and by the time we got back to Circular Quay the crowds had started to mass. This was a full ten hours before midnight – and in the blazing sun no less. We hopped on a bus and headed home. Both of us had gotten a touch of the sun, it was obvious we wouldn’t be heading back to the city for the fireworks tonight.

Here is some spectacular graffiti on the back of a bus seat. I’m no expert, but this looks like a rendition of Ptilonorhynchus Violaceus to me:

And here, should you be interested, is a number you can call to buy Chicken McNuggets in bulk:

Yep, that’s an ad from the classifieds in todays paper. My guess is only McDonalds lawyers called 🙂

Robot Claw