I'm outta here!
31 December 2004, 17:24
Yes, sod you bloody Melbourne lot with your reported 32 degree NYE, today we’re off to where the sun don’t shine. Hobart.
Our friends Andrew and Kathleen are braving the Tassie “Summer” and hitching themselves to the Marriage Wagon on Sunday. Brave, brave people indeed.
And when you’re sinking your third martini tonight, reminiscing about what a great year you’ve had (even if you haven’t - alcohol is a truly wonderful thing…), please make a donation to any of the great causes providing relief to the Tsunami-hit regions. We donated to the Red Cross, but lots of others- Oxfam, Doctors without Borders and World Vision also do awesome jobs.
Oh, and George W, while you’re filling your presidential spa with ill-got oil (said to be very good for the complexion) why don’t you channel some more of your country’s money into Tsunami relief? $35million? Australia’s given $27M, Canada $32M, for countries mere economic shadows of your great nation.
Oh, sorry, George, I forgot - there’s no oil to be had in Indonesia or Sri Lanka or India… I guess you can start 2005 with a clear conscience then…
Happy New Year to everyone else!
Permanent Link | Comments [13]Moment Capturer's Anonymous
29 December 2004, 19:45
Maslin’s Beach. Not the nuddy bit
I have a sickness. One cannot put a camera in my hand for one minute without me snapping something. Anything. Everything. I am obsessed with capturing every. single. moment. You know, just in case I kill all my braincells in a single bender and forget everything I did. I need help.
Some say this condition prevents one from enjoying the moment, but at least I have photographic evidence of the moment, even if I am fart-arsing around with focus and composition.
I took about 300 shots when we drove back to Adelaide for Chrissy (to visit the in-laws/out-laws). 300 shots in 5 days.
We Three Kings of Glenelg, are…
We had a brill Chrissie - spent Christmas Eve wine-tasting in Maclaren Vale and frolicking in the ocean at Maslins Beach. Maslins is apparently v. famous as get-your-kit-off-and-prance-around-in-your-nuddy-wares, but we didn’t go quite that far. Matt did go for a “jog” up there (to get some exercise, so he reckons) and all he saw were gravity-challenged Greek men prancing (though not holding hands, much to my disappointment).
Sun and alcohol never were a good match for Kinki
Christmas Day we had to wait until 11am to open pressies. 11am??? Would have been blasphemous in my family, being a bunch of early-rising sickos, but we had to wait for McG’s Nanna Joyce to get out of bed, finish smoking her pack of ciggies and pop in the shower before we could pick her up. Good. Old. Nanna.
Christmas Lunch was at Husband’s Brother’s Fiancee’s Folks place - got soused on champers and Cooper’s Vintage Ale, doused in the pool and much to my excitement, Jude broke out her new pressie - Playstation karaoke Singstar. Oh. My. God. Was I in drunken heaven or what???? Spent the arvo going to head-to-head with Husband in Singstar battle mode and polishing off several large helpings of homemade chrissie pudding (made with a few bottles of brandy), brandy butter and brandy cream. Lordy. No wonder I managed to pass out around 7pm and not rouse til the next morning. And stack on 10kgs overnight.
On Boxing Day we took the car over to Kangaroo Island, one helluva unique place. We saw quite a bit of wildlife, most of it roadkill, but I fit in sightings of a few kangaroos, fairy penguins, New Zealand Fur Seals…
“Dud ya put ma fush in the chulli-bun?”“
...and a strange-lookin’ super-hero, Cape YoungHusband, unique to grottos around Cape YoungHusband on the south coast of K.I…
A rare sighting of the indigenous Cape YoungHusband
The only shot I didn’t get, which would have been priceless, was my saving an echidna from becoming roadkill (seems Husband is not similarly afflicted with capturing the moment)...
We were driving back to our B&B from Penneshaw around 10pm, when McG spotted a fat little echidna stepping onto the highway. He braked about 2 metres from it, and I got out and tried to shoo it back into the bush. The interaction went something like this:
Kinki: Go-orn! Git! Git then!
Echidna: [grunt. waddles a couple of feet]
Kinki: GO-ORN!
Echidna: [grunt. waddles a couple of more feet]
Kinki: GO-ORN![waddles behind it until it scampers into the bush]
It did finally disappear into the scrub, no doubt to become roadkill for another lucky camper. Never been so close to those funky creatures, though - very special and highlight of the trip.
Penneshaw shows us her pink bits
Not so great was watching footage of the Tsunami on the ferry back to Cape Jervis, particularly worrying about our buds Kat and Daz, who were getting marriaged in Thailand over New Year’s. Thankfully they are OK! I will never complain about bad weather ever ever again. I swear.
More photos of Kangaroo Island (from 200 photos down to a mere 21!)
More photos of Christmas in Adelaide
Weekend in Pictures
20 December 2004, 16:25
Georgia reprises Little Drummer Girl for the masses…
The Boulevard Christmas Lights in Ivanhoe were a (bumper-to-bumper) sight to behold, but alas, a difficult one to photograph…
Kinki finally sends her felt flower pin to Evonne in L.A. If you’re reading this Evonne, sorry I spoilt the surprise. Surprise!
Permanent Link | Comments [1]Photo Friday "Tacky"
18 December 2004, 18:10
Tittie Purin, Tokyo
Permanent Link | Comments [1]Flip-side
18 December 2004, 17:33
Bagged and tagged gifts for the Smith Family Christmas Appeal yesterday.
It was a well ordered affair - around 30 volunteers came, some from anOther Bank, who shall remain nameless (although they’ve had some nasty affairs of their own to deal with this year) which made for some interesting banter.
We set up in the top floor of a warehouse, with tables scattered around the edges, each table for a different age-group. Donations were unwrapped, sorted into age-groups, then bagged - one “big” toy, 3 smaller toys/novelties, and 1 book.
Lots of things couldn’t go into bags - religious toys, table tennis sets (likelihood of v. poor family having table tennis table being v. slim) and really big/expensive toys - gift envy is still rife out there (hey, didn’t you compare your gifts with your brothers/sisters gifts when you were kid? I almost whipped out my calculator for Christmas analysis during the troubled-teen years…)
My anal-retentive nazi side kicked into 5th gear when I saw bags with 5 books in them. What were these volunteers thinking? I mean, how pissed would you be if you were a kid and you got 5 books, when your neighbour got a Spiderman suit, Incredible Hulk action toy and Formula One leggo set? I soon got a rep as a bossy boots which was not my intention, but at least things got done right.
It did amaze me the gifts people donated - x-boxes, bikes, cd players… those gifts are used for special cases throughout the year, not as part of the Christmas Appeal. For example, if a mum or dad has cancer and a small army of kids, they will give the kids an x-box while the folks are in hospital. Their neighbours would hardly have gift-envy of super-gift, given the situation.
On the flip side of this generosity are the scumbag(s) who stole $17,000 worth of donations from the Starlight Foundation. What sort of mother-^&*$%#@ assholes would do something like that? Shit, go rob a Bank with a truckload of robbery insurance. Oh that’s right, it’s easier for cowards to steal from a charity than a big armour-guarded bank.
I’d like to think the altruistic contingent is bigger than the asshole one. I think that culturally, it’s quite different in Japan, where probably fewer people give to charities/do something to help the homeless or poor, but at the same time, would never steal from a charity. I think the extremes are more defined in Australia. The Japanese seem to be very generous (tied to obligation? I’m not sure) amongst their “own”/their “superiors” etc. but the stigma of being poor or helpless or homeless is still very real and the current of volunteerism is still a bit retarded (although getting better, I understand).
Am I off the mark here?
Permanent Link | Comments [4]
