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Hello all. Did ya miss me? I knew you did.

Well I’m back from a two week jaunt into the outback and I’m here to tell you all it was just smashtastic! Nothing but fun fun fun rain fun. Nothing I like better than spending two weeks in a tent with another man running from place to place avoiding torrential downpours. I’ll start from the beginning, I was back from The Great Ocean Road and up at Lonnie’s oldies place…

After packing the car choc-o-block full of crap crap and more crap we felt that we were ready to hit the road. So we struck out bravely eastward. First stop: Seppelt’s Winery about half an hour from Lonnie’s house. After such a long and extensive journey we felt that it was time to settle in for a bit and sample their wares whilst we rested our aching tushes from the ride. For those of you not in the know, this winery is the largest producer of Sparkling Wine in the southern hemisphere so we felt quite fancy running around checking everything out. After a brief tour, that was quite good as they have around a million bottles of Sparkling Wine in underground tunnels, we tried some of their wares. Not too bad was the overall verdict, but even the thought of consuming lots of that stuff gives me a hangover, and Lonnie had to drive, so we decided to move on. To Adelaide.

Fortunately for our wallets, Lonnie had some family friends there that we could stay with so we arrived at their place and crahsed on the couch for a chat. A word about this family. They rule. Their names are Milt and Gloria, and every 15 minutes or so Milt would pipe up and say “another beerie boys?” Not sure why he kept asking since we never said no, but I loved the fact that he added and extra syllable to beer in order to give it a shortened form. Classic. The only negative to the whole Adelaide experience with Milt and Gloria was the dog. As far as I can tell, this dog figured that anything that breathed was also able to throw a ball and bloody well would throw the ball or goddammit they wouldn’t escape alive. Wouldn’d have been that big of a deal except that the dog was a 100 lb Rottweiler cross. A beast to be sure. After awhile I wondered how much this dog would like to play fetch with a bowling ball and me aiming at its head, but then I reconsidered because it might actually like it and then I’d be locked into to chucking a 10 lb bowling ball at this dogs head all day.
We spent our days in Adelaide wandering around town (a rather pretty, but unremarkable place with lots of parks) and touring the regions extensive wineries. You could hardly walk down the street without bumping into all sorts of wineries. A version of heaven I assure you, though a little hard on the head the next morning.

After we had consumed our fill there it was time to head north to the Flinders Ranges (yes it has an “s” on the end)to see the famous Wilpena Pound.

Ages ago a huge meteor crashed into the earth here, scattered rocks as far away as Montana and shrouding the earth in cloud for ten days, causing a premature ice age. At least, that’s what I think happened. All the books and the rangers seem to think that it’s just a result of natural erosion due to differing types of rock or some such crap but I know better. I think I may have found the missing link in the dinosaur extinction theory. Anyway, the classic highlight of that trip was our first night there. It began to sprinkle a bit of rain. I looked up and like a boob proclaimed for all to hear.
“I’m from Vancouver and we get lots of rain. This won’t last.”
28 cms (12 inches) of rain later the entire damn campground in under two inches of water and the freakin kangaroos are breaking out their scuba gear. It was all good though as we had an under cover area where we all proceeded to drink away our problems. Woke up in the morning and discovered that the campground was infested … with roos. Nutty, the bloody things were everywhere. Couldn’t spit without hitting one. Over the next few days we did the sights, lots of bush walking (all the roads were washed out), saw some aboriginal art, some valleys and such, and generally had a good time. But decided once again, to move on…

A fellow that we had met in the Flinders Ranges had recommended Burra as “a unique mining town with history coming out of its ass”, his exact words, I swear. How could we say no? So the next day we backtracked south, determined to, if nothing else, see the ass end of a town. What we discoverd was actually a pretty cool little old mining town. In 1870 it was the biggest inland city in Australia, but come 1880 the mine was mined out and everybody moved off to Broken Hill. Leaving a virtual ghost town. Pretty cool. The best thing was that you go to the tourist office, give them 10 bucks, and they give you the key to the city. You use this key to get into all sorts of sights around town. It lets you into the old jail, the old brewery, some miner’s caves, etc. Neato! I tried some old ladies house but it didn’t seem to work. Lonnie said maybe it was built after 1880 and that seemed to make sense to I tried a really old place and that didn’t work either. Whatta gyp. Still, worth the trip. But, the time came when we had opened all the doors we could and we must move on, to Broken Hill!!

Yes, the actual filming ground of Mad Max II (aka The Road Warrior) was now our stomping ground. Life was good. From town you could see the hills that were used. All around you nothing but wasteland. Ahhhh, I felt like siphoning some gas. We made an excursion to the actual filming grounds of the movie, and then to Silverton where large segments of the chases were filmed. It was awesome. If you really want a good taste of where I was go here, it’s the best Mad Max site I’ve seen and worth a look around. Also, he made the same trip I did and took many of the same pics.

However, in addition to being the former stomping grounds of Mel Gibson, Broken Hill had a very unexpected surprise. Art! And lots of it.

Who knew. I guess that there really isn’t all that much to do there so they paint to pass the time or something, but there are more art galleries per capita in Broken Hill than anywhere else in Oz. So we visited all sorts of places and I’ve now seen more Aussie art than one really should. Then we headed south…

Home! Back to Lonnie’s Dum and Mad. Hung out there for a day to recharge our batteries, then passed through Melbourne and on to Phillip Island!! and penguins!! Damn the little buggers are cute. It was pretty neat they have a little seating area where you can watch them come in at night….

And so they came. Out of the darkness by the hundreds. Pouring down onto the concrete steps that had been built for just that purpose. Each struggling with the others, trying in vain to fine just the right spot to settle in and make themselves comfortable for the night…
Then I got bored of the tourists and turned around and got ready for the penguins.

There were 35 bus loads of people there, and that’s considered low season. But the penguins did come, and woooeee it was great. They like to travel in packs to get by the seagulls. I’m not sure what the seagulls would do if they got a hold of a single penguin but I get the feeling it’s the sort of thing that Nature would delight in showing. But they all made it up the beach and into their little cubby holes for the night. Some of them were especially fat as they were going to molt and this requires them to be on land for two straight weeks. Ahhhh. The rest of the island was pretty cool to but you can’t beat those penguins. Now I’m back in Melbourne trying to get myself organised and to see what’s next. Whew.

Sorry it was soo bloody long but damn it was some good times. A little too much time in a tent though…..

The Mullet of the Week….

I was abducted by aliens yesterday. Most people don’t ever think this will happen to them. “Aliens, pfft. Whatever,” most humans scoff, choosing to waste their time raising offspring and paying off mortgages instead of worrying about the very real danger of alien abduction. I was one of those people until yesterday. I was outside the Cambie pub, smoking a joint after having enjoyed 8 pints of Canadian, when suddenly space aliens in a warp-powered flying saucer from the Andromeda Galaxy dropped from the sky. My buddies said they weren’t space aliens, just some Surrey girls in a Ford Durango. I knew at this point that my companions had already fallen under the aliens’ mind control. Resistance, as they say, is futile, and in a disorienting haze of cheap perfume and acid wash jeans I found myself prone on their hyper-fusion powered cryogenic stasis field surgical table (a vinyl couch, my companions later claimed). I fell unconscious.

It wasn’t until this morning that I returned from what I believe to have been another dimension, having found myself at the wheel of my car, driving west on Marine Drive to my workplace, with a splitting headache and a feeling in my throat that was reminscent of eating the playground as a child. I do not recollect how I had got there.

When I tell people this story, they look at me like I’m insane. I don’t care. Let them think that. I’ll show them. I’ll find my Andromeda Galaxy Surrey girls – uhm, I mean aliens – and prove my sanity.

My friends, help me in my quest. Join the Seti@Home group called Slanty.net and prove my sanity. I thank you.

That’s me.
Well, let’s see. Canada’s money is looking less and less like Monopoly money – (although the value hasn’t changed) – the pink $1000 bill is being withdrawn from circulation over money laundering concerns. For paper money, then, that gives us the blue $5, the purple $10, the standard green $20 and the red $50. Pretty soon, betcha they’ll be taking the $5 out of circulation too, replace it with a big honkin’ coin. (I mean, what, with toonies and loonies, you can get quite a bit of loot in your change jar pretty quickly – until you spend it playing poker, like I will this Friday.)
Feel like an overworked knowledge worker? (Whatever the hell that means?) You lazy ass. Your boss claims that you only work about thirty-something hours per week. Thank god for this rebuttal. (Errr…Emacs…still pulling that nasty OT?)

The winner of Worldwide Millennium Painting Competition is using the prize money to buy a motorized canoe for is tribe. Some dude who lives in the amazon rainforest beat out 22,000 other compeditors to win, even though he only learned it was possible to create an image in color 7 years ago. Check out more details here.

Want to fit in with the masses? Don’t like being an individual? Well if you want to search for the same items as everyone else on the net check out the Lycos top 50. It’s a site that keeps track of the 50 most popular search terms used on Lycos every week. Some of them are pretty odd, like tattoos? Apparently for the last 13 weeks, it’s been in the top 50.. maybe everyone is looking for Fantasy Island Pages

“His ideal valentine”

“His SWAT team”

“His favourite bullet”

Since moving into my new house, I’ve watched CONSIDERABLY less TV then I used to. At first I attributed it to my manic work on my new house, or perhaps catching up on my social skills since coming back from North Carolina….but then I had a realization. My cable box remote has been broken for the last few months…..it only had the ability to scroll down through the channels, decrease the volume, and a couple random numbers on the numberpad worked….a real inhibitor to channel surfing. But NOW, I’ve got the universal remote from HELL! It slices! It dices! It controls the TV, the VCR, the stereo, the cable box, and YOUR SOUL!!! “Now why”, you may ask, “with all those features would you call it a remote from Hell instead of a remote from Heaven?” And I’d have an answer for youà..CAUSE EVERY TIME YOU PUSH A BUTTON IT GLOWS BLOOD RED!!! I now fear for my life every time I need to change the channelà..

Satan and The Man or in liege with each other, and they control my remote.