Big M and the Dinamasorus

I haven't written anything here for a while because things have slowed down a bit. This weekend I did manage to get out of the house for a night on the town (or two) and Monday night I joined many of the Outdoors Club members in celebrating Claire's birthday. But then again, you don't really know any of these people and Mr. Digicam was not along to help you meet them, so you will just have to trust that they are all very cool people and that we had some good times and even a few good rhymes.

Today on my way to the tram stop I met Marvin. Marvin is the kind of wonderful drunk you just love to meet. First he made some keen observations about global climate change as a way of introducing himself from the middle of the road. After that, we got to know each other better when he noticed my accent and slurred, "Yu ara, ummm, Canaadin?" in a half statement-half question. And before I had time to correct him, he went on to tell me that he was quite fond of the city of Canada before he put the icing on the cake by telling me that his father was in fact from said city. Then, through Marvin's marvelous powers of deduction, I was probably a close relative to his father.

"Wotsure name, mate? Yu knew me dad?"

I didn't think it would do any good to try and correct things, so I went with my name and let him know that I didn't think I knew his father.

"Bot, I did knew yu ara Canaadin!"

I smiled and did my best to look intent on anything other than Marvin.

"Yu see, Ima psycic! Thas how I knew yu was from Canaada City!"

I just managed another smile and a thoughtful, "hummm" because luckily, the tram had just pulled up. Marvin staggered on and the other passengers looked at me as if it was somehow my fault that this man was drunker than drunk at 4PM on a Wednesday. And, because we knew each other so well from our time at the tram stop, Marvin (I was coming to think of him more as 'Big M' by then) hung around me like an old chum. It was then that I was to learn just where Big M had been getting his drink on...

"I's ben athe ibrary!" --Everything in Marvin's world is an exclamation.

"The Library?" Wahhh? They have drinking in libraries here? Surely he must have ment a pub called the Library... "Is that the name of a pub around here?"

"NO Cannnnniaadaia man, THE liBRAry! I's ben readin up!"

With a flourish out came a children's book on dinosaurs. I almost couldn't take it at this point, I mean, you can't make up a funnier situation than being stuck on the tram with a drunk Australian psychic convinced that you are from Canada City, the birthplace of his father, and learning he has spent his Wednesday afternoon meaningfully studying up on dinosaurs in the children's section of the library & drinking his face off.

But before I could really appreciate the whole scene, in one dash-cunning move, before I, anyone else, and almost certainly before he himself knew about it, Big M had left me and the tram in an earily quick shamble while sort of mumbling something about 637 million and today's Quote of the Post: Dinamasorus!

Testing. 3, 2, 1, Testing

Alright, this post isn't so much as a post but an adventure in embedding video with Blogger. None of these videos are mine, but each of them is probably worth watching if you have some time to spare.

This one qualifies, as the Aussies would say, "Funny as ..."
Personally, when I hear this I can only think about poor Ned Beatty.
Original here.

NOT A DUP. I don't think google video wanted this one shown
as embedded; the option for code generation was disabled...
However, with a little tweaking...

Original here.

This one is about 2 hours long,
but well worth every minute if you have the time.
Original here.

Hilarious Colbert Report segment.
Bonus: It has Rick Ocasek from the Cars

Daily Show reports how Exxon can afford to send off CEO with $400M package.
Note: No one is getting screwed at the pumps; the $36B
(yes, B. As in Boy, Baboon, and most importantly, Billion)
profit recorded by Exxon last year (despite record oil costs...)
and retirement packages like this are proof.
Originals here.

Ok, well wasn't that just the Bee's Knees (Beez Neez?)? If it wasn't and you have a bent for programming but haven't tried out Ruby, check out this interactive tutorial. It is a marvel of web programming in and of itself.

And, since everyone (including me) forgot about it, we will revive the Quote of the Post: A fine is a tax for doing ill. A tax is a fine for doing well.

Hajj

I have made my pilgrimage to Mecca.

Well, not exactly, but I have just been to a Mecca of sorts; more specifically, the climbing kind of Mecca: Mt. Arapiles. Mt. Arapiles, affectionately known to climbing enthusiasts as Araps, is perhaps the most popular climbing spot in Australia. Containing over 2000 climbs, many of them absolute classics, and less than 4 hours drive from Melbourne, it is little wonder why. Needless to say, I had an absolute blast. I would be remiss to say it wasn't the best Easter ever, despite its conspicuous lack of pagan symbolism superimposed with Christian suggestion. Peter Griffin knows what I'm talking about. (Damn Longears)

Without further ado, we should cut right to the pictures; they tell it better anyway.

Shot of one wall of Araps. Tell me this wasn't made for climbing.

It is somewhat of a popular spot, especially over Easter.

Nick beginning to lead our first climb, "Mantle" (14/5.7), with a
pretty good shot of the famous "Watchtower Crack" in the background.
Note the other climbers on this face...
this one was one of the less populated areas.

Matt at the fun overhang on the top of "Sexless Sue" (13/5.6).

Me top roping on some enjoyable 14/5.7.

I played around on this 15/5.7-5.8 quite a bit.

Don't remember the name of this one either.

Tim gets started on the very pumpy "Little Thor" (20/5.10b-5.10c).

I give "Little Thor" a try.

But I pretty much got stuck here.
Too bad, would have been a personal best.

Nick serves up some humble pie by taking it down clean. Bah!

I think that is pretty much it for decent pictures. We had a stellar time despite getting rained off the rock the entire first day. Weather was a bit on the cold side as well, but hey, you can't ask for everything and I certainly don't have any complaints. If you want to see more pictures, check out my Flickr account which has all of my pictures from the trip. And for some better shots of Arapiles and climbing there, check out this site. I am guessing that even some non climbing folk out there have seen photos of people climbing "Kachoong" that can be found there.


In other news, Melbourne International Comedy Festival is in full swing right now, so I will get back to all of you with some reports on that. I have been to two shows so far and one has to have been the worst comedy performance I have ever seen, including some of the sketches from Mrs. Krall's junior high variety nite. Honestly, I'm not joking. The other was a very clever, extremely tight written one man musical act. More to come, so keep coming back for more!

An Internet Star is Born

Alright, I am off to Mt. Arapiles in a few hours for four days of climbing and camping over the Easter break. So don't expect any updates until next Monday... but the next post will probably have tons of pictures from the trip!

On other site related notes, this weekend I went over my 100^th unique visitor. It also looks like there is a pretty steady contingent of about 5 returning visitors a day. So apart from my parents and my very own stalker, there are at least three of you out there interested in my every action. At this point, I am just going to consider myself a star.

Oh, and thanks to Travis for pointing out that there was no RSS link on the site. There is now, so for you three salivating over my next post, you can know within the update interval of your RSS reader when it happens. Normally, Travis' action would have landed him a permanent link in the vaunted People I Know and Like section of the page with its one distinguished member, Jason, but until he gets a site up, we will just have to leave a placeholder prompting T to get his ass in gear.

Bells and Whistles

This is something I have been putting off for a few days mostly because I don't want to think about it, but I should say a few words about my former Algebra instructor, Mrs. Kay Janzen.

I had some very bad news this weekend. Mrs. "Bells and Whistles" Janzen passed away after a short, and what I presume to be horrible bout with an extremely aggressive brain tumor.

It hasn't even been 4 months since she found out she had a brain tumor.

Mrs. Janzen was the first to show me the quadratic equation, how to multiply polynomials, complete the square, and solve conics. I remember them all to this day because she taught them so well. If it was only for those things, she would have my eternal respect, but there was much more to her than that.

She was my favorite instructor, not because she could have taught rocks to solve for X (and she could have, too), but because she gave a damn. I can still hear the distressed strain in her voice when she talked about students falling behind and the distinct note of pride when they succeeded. She couldn't have had more concern for her students had they been her own children; this is a fact, because sometimes, they were.

Mrs. Janzen was an absolute treasure of a woman. She was kind, understanding and upbeat to a fault. I have never met anyone who has faced what she has and will certainly never again meet someone who could keep laughing (and keep us laughing) through it all.

Mrs. J, you will be missed. The world is a darker place without your light.

Prevaricator, the Jive Turkey

I have changed my name to Prevaricator, the Jive Turkey being that I am a cad full of codswallop. Or am I a cod full of cadswallop? After promising everyone I would relate the rest of my wonderful weekend on the marrow, the marrow came and went and no relating was done. I feel as if I have betrayed all three of you...

Sunday consisted of a trip to Ballarat with the entire Irving clan. We spent the whole day touring Australia's Leading Tourist Attraction! Sovereign Hill is a flat out crazy recreation of a circa 18 HundredandSomething's goldmining town built in the place of, get this, an 18 HundredandSomething's goldmining town! But no, seriously, it is the most fun and expansive museum type recreation thing you could ever imagine. Actors in full old-school-Aussie-goldmining-town-citizen regalia operate all the old-school-Aussie-goldmining-town shops. Plus there are underground tours and fun machinery and contraptions running all over the place. And best of all, all the great stuff that would have been closed down in the states due to asinine "saftey concerns" is still going strong. There are dark passages, slippery floors, working pnumatic drills, and an underground rail ride where if you stood up, you would probably die a sudden violent death! If I were 8 years old, I would have ran away to go live in Sovereign Hill ten minutes after getting home.

After the day at Sovereign Hill, we got dinner at the only place that was open in the town of Ballarat on a Sunday night: an Irish Pub. Yep, that clinches it. One weekend, two dinners at two fine Irish Pubs. I passed up the Bangers and Mash this time for the Dublin Burger, a charred hamburger served not on a bun, but on a potato pancake. This meal demanded that I accompany it with Guiness or it would start trouble in my colon. IRISH trouble.

Oh, and quite naturally, there were about 7 gnarly guys playing traditional Irish music live. And three young people with them that were dancing along RiverDance style. Probably the most fun I had had at a pub since, well, the night before...

Bill & Ted's Wicked Weekend

So it is 11:30 Sunday night and unless something terribly tragic happens in the next half hour, this weekend might go in the books as one of the most awesome in history. Well, my history anyway. And to top it all off, it began with a terribly boring Friday night. If you look at the timestamp on the last post and do a little math, you will realize that I spent the night at home, updating this page. Excitment.

BUT early Saturday morning it was off to Wabbit Wocks for climbing. I have some shots which you will have to wade through below to get to the rest of the post. I will let them do the talking, because I don't much feel like it. However, if you haven't figured it out, it was a pretty sweet day of climbing.

Random Climbing Shot.

My first climb of the day.
Don't remember the name, rated 18 (5.9-5.10a).

Claire on "The Thin Edge of the Wedgie" a 16 (5.8)
that would be my second climb of the day.

Great shot of "Inquisition" and people sitting/climbing around.

My "Inquisition" Climb. It is just a 14 (5.6-5.7) but hella fun.

Get together at Pug's Irish Bar and Grill back in Melbourne.

So it was a great day of climbing. Two of of my climbs, "Thin Edge of the Wedgie" and "Inquisition" had stars. Stars are bonuses for the climb being particularly enjoyable. One star for a very good climb, two for great climb, and three for an absolute classic. Thin Edge had two stars and Inquisition had three, all of which were well earned in my book. My first climb of the day was a personal best (18!) so every climb yesterday had a bonus for me.

After getting back to town, most of us went out for dinner at Pug's and then went off to some clubs. Oh and get this. I danced. Right, me + dancefloor. And not just for a little while, no, like hours and hours. Normally this would violate some core principal of being an awkward nerdy type guy and would make small children cry, but last night it was alright and no one was harmed. I still don't know how this happened, but hey, it was cool.

Umm, yeah, this is getting kind of long, so I will cut it short here. I will tell you about today tomorrow. And even if you normally don't read comments, check the ones from last post... there are some beauts in there. And for your viewing pleasure, a shot of the bangers and mash I had at Pug's. They were awesome beyond compare.

BANGERS AND MASH!!

From the 56th President of the United States

If the last post left you with a feeling of malaise and vacancy, I apologize. It was just that I really had nothing to write about, but felt something had to be written nonetheless. Although it defies intuition, today I had even less happen than the last few days, but have more to write about. In part, this stems from my recognition that the word 'blog' is derived from the combination of 'web' and 'log.' So today, I extend the finest pickings of my web logs.

It began innocently enough, I suppose you could say, with some innovative arcade style games over with the hydrocarbon based Martians. It is very easy to find oneself addicted to their take on Breakout. Next was a check in to the Uncyclopedia, a hilarious parody of Wikipedia. It was there that I discovered that I was the 56^th President of the United States. Who knew?

After that, the irreverence machine was in full gear and I couldn't help but go check out how to install linux on a dead badger. This of course went down hill on a badger theme until the point where I was brought back to the ever popular, always annoying Badger loop. Snake! Snake! Oh, its a SNAKE

Oh, and then there was this pretty cool set of photos, taken from Hastings, NE in 2004.

Apart from the surfing of the information kind, today was mostly just a prep for tomorrow's day trip climbing at Wabbit Wocks. And no, that name is too good for me to just be making it up. For any climbers out there, you can start being jealous, umm, now.

And of course we can't for get the newly established quote of the post, which will be addressed, for no particular reason, to my unwitting stalker,209.0.51.23, a technogeek message most of you won't get but can infer: "There's no place like 127.0.0.1"

//Please leave comments as to why this should have been ~/ instead of 127.0.0.1

My fourth post and I am out of material already.

I think the title says most of it. I did the sanctimonious initial "I don't really want to be here" post, then the clever play on words/chemistry post, and, for those of you with extremely fleeting memories, yes, I did the "I don't have time to post, so here are some pictures" post.

So I guess that leaves us with the only thing remaining in the bag, the "I don't have anything worth posting" post.

I could let slip that Jason and Mary's wedding invitation reached me today. But then again, relating that as the high point of my day discloses a bit too much of how boring my exciting life can be. However, kudos to them for spending the US$1.80 to send that all the way out here when they know quite well that I can't make it. And to show my appreciation, I will put a link to Jason's site under the new subject area off to the right entitled People I Know and Like. This is, of course, contrary to the dreaded People I Know and Don't Like section and contrapositive to the not-so damning or populated People I Don't Know and Don't Like category.

AH!! I just saw the stat counter move up by one!! There are people out there that actually read this garbage!! Here's to you IP-209.0.51.23, you have renewed my faith in humanity. Wow, and you come here every day... more than anyone except my parents actually. I mean I always though about having a stalker, but this is kinda creepy...


//Creepy AND AWESOME

This post made me late for class... oh, darn.

Busy catching up after the weekend, no time for a proper post. Here are some pictures to satiate your exigency for information about my life instead.

A Huge Huntsman Spider

A look up at the face of Mt. Difficult and our climb called 'Queen B.'
Queen B is rated 15 or about a 5.8 for any climbers out there

First ledge on 'Queen B'

Second ledge on 'Queen B' where I stood for
about an hour belaying Anita while she lead.
My foot for perspective.

Anita leading me on 'B Line,'
rated a 12 or about 5.6-5.7

View from the top of Mt. Difficult. In the far distant center is
Mt. Arapiles where I plan on climbing over Easter.

Some super-stud on top of Mt. Difficult

Everyone from the trip (minus me) at George's Fish and Chips
on the way home

Wallabies!!!!