Random musings

Tony Abbott becoming the Liberal leader. Possibly the best way to secure Kevin '11 for the Labor party, following on from the success of Kevin '07?

In other thoughts, with John Brumby saying Metro's start is "average," is anyone surprised by them not being the brilliant saviour of the train network in Melbourne? If they're working with the same lines and equipment, are there really going to be huge changes in the way the trains work?

Or maybe there will be. We'll just have to wait and see.

But I didn't mind Connex too much. Maybe that's just because my previous train experience involved CityRail (aka: Sh!ttyFail) in Sydney, which is priced outrageously and the majority of times I caught trains to go anywhere up there, you had to take buses instead because of track work being done. Which made me wonder whether they were pulling up the tracks and re-laying them every single week just so people had something to do.

Update: Oh Lord, I thought the thing about removing seats from trains had gone away. And now it's back. Gaaaah. How is that going to improve things?

Flying

^ The top photo is of the dust and smoke we flew over leaving NSW yesterday. The others are just your usual 'plane pix.

Inlet

Because it made me think of The Mighty Boosh

"...basic back-comb structure, slightly root-boosted, framing a cheeky fringe..." - Vince.

Thursday's travels

Misc. overheards

Nerdy teen guy to his equally nerdy friends on the peasant wagon: Out of all the guys we know, who would you do? *awkward pause, friends stare* If you were a girl! Or actually, who would you turn gay for??

Primary school teen girl: Yeah, I let him know that I didn't dump him because of Twilight. I mean, he always knew I didn't like it, but it was cool if he did.

Random teen: He's pretty cool for a 'ranga.

Small child, after another small child who had talked incessantly and very loudly for the entire trip from Southern Cross to the station where he fiiinally got out exited the train: I'm glad he's gotten off the train. He was a little shit.

Food pix

Summer fruits and salad-based things are the main things that are good about hot weather. The other things like the heat and fire risk and all of that, meh.

Well, that was certainly unusual...

For today's dose of bizarreness, I present:

Christian side hug.

I think I can safely say it's the weirdest, most insane, most surreal, most "are they serious? They can't be serious? Can they? Is it mocking? I can't tell! I think... my goodness, I think it actually is serious!" thing I've ever seen on teh intermawebs.

Floating

Black and White

Melbourne food

^ Photos from the other weekend with Elyse and Clare.

Still mourning Red Nine *sigh*

Saturday morning storms

^ A still from a video I took of the storm on Saturday morning. Some strikes were near the house, which was a little weird.

Morning things

Halloween pumpkins at Safewoolworthsway. UGH.

My three most salient points on this matter:

A) Oh-my-flippin'-gosh-is-this-America?
B) $24. FOR A PUMPKIN!?
C) If anyone comes around trick or treating, I'll be breaking out the inner misanthrope.

The mutant strawberry

^ The biggest stick insect I've ever seen. Totally made my day.

Walk

Candypink

Rosey

Things that make the world better (this weekend)

1) Rammstein's new album Liebe ist für alle da. Amazing. Again. Although maybe that's just because I've been looking forward to it all year and that excitement has expressed itself in loving pretty much every single track. Althoug Mehr doesn't really do it for me. But the rest are good and I like how there's elements of previous albums hinted at. Although there's not quite so many little trick phrases that can have many meanings that I've found. Yet. I'm sure they're in there, but I've just been focusing on enjoying it rather than getting into serious meanings at the moment. The track I like most is Haifisch. Not sure why, mostly it's the chorus. Roter Sand is gorgeous, too.

It's seems a fair bit darker than previous albums, but it's in a rather absurdist way. And yet it's logical, because it's progression from previous albums (and just a progression from what they've already done otherwise apart from that - they're all about pushing buttons). Quite a few songs reminded me strongly of others - in particular, Wiener Blut made me think of Spiel Mit Mir.

Anyways, it's dark, it's hot and it's amazing.

And I apologise to the neighbours for playing it so loudly, over and over again.

P.S: Rammstein, I love you, please come to Australia!!!

2) Dinner with friends. Made the most awesome potato bake ever, and a couple salads that I'm definitely going to have to make again in future. It was nice to have a relaxing meal with people I love spending time with :) I'm not so fond of cleaning up, which is why the glasses were still out this morning...

3) Bed and sleep. Which I think I'm going to go do something about now!

Ewww...

My least-favourite train station...

Exhibitionistic

Pompeii

^ Went to the Pompeii exhibition today and wore impractical shoes again, just like I did with the Dali exhibition. You know, I had thought, "Oh, it's impossible that I'll be lining up for an hour to wait to get into the exhibition!"

What happens?

We couldn't get in to see it until an hour after we got to the museum.

So we took the opportunity to look around the rest of the museum, which was surprisingly small and had surprisingly little. Maybe I've just been spoilt after seeing a couple of museums in Berlin that you could get lost in?

That aside, they did have a gorgeous small display dedicated to stones (photo below). That was my absolute favourite thing there. Although the bug exhibit was pretty awesome too. Even though it had a number of ENORMOUS live spiders. Have made a mental note to never go to Sri Lanka based on the size of one of those spiders alone.

The Pompeii exhibition was crowded, but the artefacts were amazing. I fell in love with a fountain fixture that was shaped into the bust of a satyr and wanted to bring it home to install in the bathroom. It was so intricate and beautiful. There were also some small god and goddess statues that were just amazing. They also had alabaster cremation jars, marble tables and a beautiful double lamp stand.

I was surprised to find out more information about what actually went on when Mt Vesuvius exploded and that it wasn't really a sudden thing. There had been earth tremors in the days following up to it and there were quite a few hours between the first erruption and things going to absolute bollocks. Apparently, all but 2000 of the town's 10,000 to 12,000 inhabitants left the area.

However, there were the people who died.

And what a horrible death it must have been.

There were a number of casts of people and animals who had died because of the erruption and been buried in the ash. I got about half-way around that display before a lump appeared in my throat and I couldn't help crying a little (thank God it was dark in the room). I don't know why, but it made me think of Black Saturday and when I closed my eyes, I had images of some of the burned-out cars and homes turn up so vividly in my mind's eye. Couldn't help thinking about the people who died that day and how there was no warning.

I know I was incredibly lucky to live in a town that survived the fires, even though they got pretty close in the end. There were those surreal days where my town was on the front cover of newspapers because they didn't expect it to be there by the end of those particular days. So as much as life has gone on, I don't think I've really gotten over all of the Black Saturday stuff totally. It was a nightmarish time and yet I feel really selfish saying that because compared to so many other people, things ultimately ended up being okay for me and my town. It wasn't the case for so, so many others, including some friends of friends, the neighbour's parents' neighbours, a family I interviewed...

Anyway.

Some pictures of pretty things:

Devil Kitty

Devil Kitty mucking around in a cardboard box outside tonight.

Bud