Robot Claw

We’re in Sydney! The drive down yesterday (we hired a chauffeured car) was so comfortable I even napped in the car.

It’s been five years since mum was here, and the purpose of this trip is mostly shopping. We did a few hours of that yesterday, and filled a bag or two with goodies.

Of course we also visited the cathedral. The above shows us learning a new spell from The Pope. The weather here is nice, and as you can see I’m conspicuous in my shorts when even the hardest Oz dude is long-trousered. I guess my cold resistance is at maximum?

I had a kebab in mind for dinner but then remembered the ‘baby’ chicken sushi so I shoveled that in my gullet as I crushed my thirst by slamming down a can of Solo. Mum had the biggest salad roll I’ve ever seen.

Tomorrow we’ll shop more, and mums meeting a friend for a cuppa. I’d like to investigate the new Darling Harbour, but I’ll only have a short time so I may have to scamper down there like a mad ape. As if I’ve not done that before.

Went to Adam’s for the annual card flop fiesta. He had graciously secured all these (and boosters of a fifth set) to play:

This is a lot of magic, and in about 7 hours yesterday we played through Eldraine, Ixalan and Ravnica Remastered. Neither of us had played with any of these before so it was a lot of fun seeing the new cards and systems, and we managed to make half-decent decks with the limited cards we had.

As usual Adam ‘won’ overall (I won Eldraine, he won the other two) but there’s two more sets to play so it’s anyone’s game! Highlights of the games would be the following two cards, both of which won the games every time they were cast (I won two games with the green one, Adam won three with the White/Black one):

We’ll finish the other two prereleases next week, and I’m particularly looking forward to them since they were the first sets with the new booster type (called ‘play boosters’), which may make the games a little more unpredictable than usual.

Tomorrow mum and I are heading to Sydney for a couple of days. My jet lag has (mostly) passed so I’ll be able to explore more than I did the day I arrived. I wonder what I’ll find?

I went to Burger King Hungry Jacks today and ordered the usual: “Whopper Jr meal no mayo no ketchup” and received a burger with catsup on it. Turns out the stripling taking my order didn’t realize I meant ‘tomato sauce’ when I said ketchup.

I cursed myself for becoming an American, and vowed to never make this mistake again. The burger was good though, once they remade it 🙂

More shopping followed. It was much warmer and the rain had passed, as I happily strolled around (ie. walked for 3 hours) between mums and a game/hobby shop and the local (ie. an hours walk away) mall.

I had my second frozen coke of the trip. My first was shortly after arriving, and I froze my brain so much with that one it left me with PTSD. But I can report that I have regained my skill at frozen beverage consumption, and I don’t doubt many more will now follow.

I didn’t buy much. In fact my sole purchases were a tin of beetroot and a lettuce, which should convince you my diet isn’t as horrible as recent posts have suggested. Alas I should have also bought more Chomp bars, since somehow the twenty l bought since arriving are already gone…