Robot Claw

Flopping

May 26th, 2022

I went shopping for a while yesterday to the local mall, and things seemed fairly pre-Covid to me. Australia seems to have moved on more than the USA, and mask wearing is almost nonexistent. I’m still wearing mine, if only because I don’t want to risk catching it before I return!

The weather was beautiful, and the walk home from the mall was actually quite warm. Even so the Australians still talk about the cold, and it’s amusing how I seem to have adjusted to real cold compared to the brisk temperatures they find uncomfortable here

And then today, I went to visit Adam for some card flopping!

We played 12 games in total, using 4 decks each made from cards from two sets (Jumpstart and Crimson Vow). This was about 6 hours of Magic, and we’ve still got more packs to open, decks to build and games to play!

As usual Adam won virtually every game (he’s like a Magic AI) but it was great playing the game for the first time in years and catching up, and I’m already looking forward to our next games next week.

It was also relaxing to have a day where I didn’t walk 20,000 steps! It’s not as easy now as when I was a stripling

Posted in Australia, Trip | Comments Closed

Review: BBQ Bacon Angus

May 25th, 2022

I had a discussion with Sue the other day about art, and she stated that anything is art. Therefore let me create a piece of ‘food review art’ and tell you about my dinner the other night, a BBQ Bacon Angus burger!

This is an Australian McDonald’s menu item. Ordering this was an extremely brave and unusual step for me, since as most of you know I always just order the same thing (which at maccas would be a Big Mac meal). But I’m working as Bernard’s proxy here as a taster of new things, and I reckon this was one item he needed to hear about.

Here’s what the marketing photo looked like, compared to the one I got:

It’s a somewhat close approximation, although the cheese on mine wasn’t fully melted and the bacon was invisible from the outside. Peeping under the lid wasn’t promising:

Where’s the bacon?!? (Hidden in the back at the left if you look closely.) It didn’t look very appetizing but I was very hungry and it was time to see how this guy tasted…

At first things seemed promising: the bbq sauce was sweet and the meat tasted like a steak patty on a 1980s-era steak sandwich. But then I hit the cheese which gave me pause (it was a little rubbery) and then the ~~ham~~ bacon which stopped me dead (it was barely cooked and 50% fat).

I was about halfway through when the true horror of this Trojan burger revealed itself. But first let’s take a detailed second look at the official marketing photo:

Look at that white stuff at the bottom. What is it?!? Mayonnaise? Some evil sauce? I don’t know, but what I do know is it tasted awful.

Since my burger wasn’t symmetric, it wasn’t until I was at least halfway through that I hit a large deposit of this white stuff, and tasting it was like a punch to my face. I was immediately full of revulsion (had I eaten some already?) and regret (why didn’t I get a Big Mac?) and I’m sure I set some sort of speed record stuffing the remaining half of the burger into a bag and hurling it into the nearest trash can.

I’ll never eat one of these again, and truthfully wish I’d never had one in the first place. On a scale of 1 to 10, this gets about a -5.

Posted in Food, Trip | 2 Comments »

Baranagarangaroona

May 24th, 2022

Yesterday Sue an I woke early like roosters, and decided to walk over the same bridge that we had climbed the day prior! We wanted to do it for its own sake, and to visit a secret garden hidden just over the other side.

To get there we walked along the harbour walk that winds past Barangaroo, the new casino-that-isn’t-yet-a-casino. The weather was lovely and the new foreshore development was great and I’ll almost certainly do this walk almost every time I visit from now on. It led right to the bridge, over which we then strolled!

That’s the view looking back from the northwest side, and you can see Luna Park on the left. It may look cold and menacing, but it was actually quite comfortable. Right behind us from where this photo was taken was Wendy’s Secret Garden, which is an eccentric fairytale garden designed and built over many years by a Sydney artist.

After the return to the CBD and lunch it was time to head to Newcastle and mum’s, and the long-awaited reunion:

Dinner was meat pies followed by a Toobs binge:

You can bet this won’t be the first bag of Toobs I’ll be inhaling this trip

Posted in Australia, Trip | Comments Closed

Finally, I’ve Climbed The Bridge

May 23rd, 2022

Sue came down to Sydney today and surprised me with a belated birthday gift: we were climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge!

The entire endeavour took just over 3.5 hours including about an hour of setup and safety training. We had to strip to our underwear before donning full body climb suits, a safety harness, two hats, a radio, rain pants and a rain coat. We were part of a group of 14, and by request we were at the front of the line (since I knew I’d have a lot of questions).

We couldn’t bring anything with us which meant no phone, so I grabbed the above pic from the internet just to show scale. At all times you are connected to a rail that would catch you if you fell, and every action is rehearsed in a ‘simulator’ even before you start the climb.

The views from the very top were of course breathtaking (that’s another pic from the net above) but even underneath (the road) or inside the main structure there was lots to see including the harbour about 450 feet below.

There’s me at the top to prove I did it! I loved everything about the climb and highly recommend it if you’re ever in town.

Posted in Australia, Trip | Comments Closed

Sea Legs

May 22nd, 2022

There were pernicious rumors a while ago that I was, shall we say, ‘weak to boats’. To put it bluntly, the rumors suggested I was a jelly-legged half-man that fainted at the first sight of a wave crest when sailing across the briny deep.

I scoff at these rumors, and today was proof of that!

I woke so early it was still yesterday and since I couldn’t return to sleep I read and sorted my luggage until sunup. Then I walked down to the pier at Circular Quay and bordered a ferry bound for Manly!

It’s only a 22 minute trip but for a couple of those minutes the ferry crosses the harbour entrance, which is famously choppy. At this point the boat bounced up and down and left and right and I rode it like a king. My sea legs were as sturdy as ever, and not even for one moment did I faint! And it’s not like the boat didn’t have the potential to sicken: I beheld some green-faced passengers who seemed to be praying for land, and I gave them a steely glance as I inwardly laughed at their pathetic weakness.

It was very early and nothing was open in the Manly shopping street, but the beach was beautiful and I walked it’s length before returning to ride a ferry back to the Sydney piers again.