St. Eutychus

At the start of my Townsville adventure last year I went garage sailing with Craig and Tim (it was a very windy day…). One of the bargains I picked up (and it was a bargain – I talked them down to half price) was a very economically sound set of hair clippers. The $2.50 outlay has saved me about $140 – assuming I would otherwise have been subjected to a $10 hair cut on a monthly basis.

This weekend Robyn’s sister and her husband made the trek (well they flew) to Townsville for some fun and adventure – it turned out to be a weekend full of food and cold weather induced activities (the coldity is demonstrated by the assorted hoodies).

We consumed, in chronological order, coffee at Squires (served in cups the size of soup bowls), dinner at whiteblue (Greek), breakfast/brunch/lunch at the Heritage Tea Rooms, dinner from Masala (curries) and JJ’s seafood (fresh prawns), breakfast at Betty Blue and the Lemon Tart (our favourite breakfast cafe), lunch at Willows Presy – pumpkin soup courtesy of Tori Walker, dinner from JJ’s seafood (fish and chips) and the pizza place at Riverside (pizza and ribs) – that’s quality food from many continents all available right here in Townsville.

Anyway, on Saturday morning before our jaunt to the tea rooms I decided I didn’t like my hair. Specifically I didn’t like the bits that stuck out the side of my head. As seen here…

So I decided to cut them off – with disastrous results… As seen here…

Needless to say – this decision was less than popular with Robyn. She confiscated my clippers – after fixing it (almost) with the obligatory complete shave treatment (there’s no redeeming the #0 on the sideburns I’m afraid). I have since stolen them back. Cutting your own hair is cathartic. I recommend it for the feeling of complete liberation and daring – it’s like feeling the wind in your hair. Only a really strong wind that removes the hair from your head with sometimes personally catastrophic consequences.

We spent last night playing Wii – and there’s this video of Robyn and Justina playing the boxing game that I really want to post – I’ll let you know if I get permission…

* Other titles considered and rejected include: Hair: the musical (uncut) – I may have tried writing that one in verse form…, A hairrowing(sic) story, Bad hair day, a cut above the rest… they’re all bad.

Townsville’s streets are being overtaken by nefarious ne’er do wells who make life unpleasant for the common citizen. That’s a bit dramatic – but you’d be equally disgusted if you’d spent the morning cleaning human excrement of your fiance’s car. That’s right. Some scum of the earth, low life, intellectually impaired, inebriated (one can only assume) excuse for a human decided it would be entirely appropriate to rub their faeces all over a car parked innocently by the side of the road in one of Townsville’s more desirable housing estates. Why? Well, that’s anybody’s guess. People are stupid. People this stupid should be shot.

On an unrelated note, with 96 days to go I’ve decided to start diarising/documenting the wedding planning process for your enjoyment – or to highlight ours…

Invitation lists are a nightmare – how can you fit a lifetime’s worth of friends into one small group, in one small setting? Where do you draw the line? These questions are made all the more difficult when you throw family dynamics and differing philosophies into the mix. How important is it to be invited to a wedding? I’m always slightly offended if I don’t get that coveted invite to the best party in town – it’s stupid. I’d just like to invite everyone I know – but reality is starting to set in. Finding a venue for the ceremony and reception was a process in itself.

So far these are the decisions we’ve made regarding our wedding:
1. We’re marrying each other
2. My dad will conduct the ceremony
3. We’re getting married “on the farm” in Dalby (well technically just outside of Dalby).
4. Our bridal party will consist of 4 people – Robyn’s 2 sisters and two of my friends. I had been keen to produce my side of the bridal party by lotto – I figure any of the guys on the list are good enough to be my lackeys for the day… but that was voted down. Instead I went with “representatives” – my longest friendship and longest serving housemate will represent all my former housemates and all of my friends.

Today’s topic though is the fun part – gifts. Obviously the more people you invite to a wedding the more bounty you come away with at the end. An abundance of toasters, cheese platters and photo frames awaits the disorganised couple. Gift registries were born out of the desire not to have to sort through the piles of toasters to find gems. They’re practical. But they suck. I hate them. I’ve never bought anyone anything of a registry. I now give my Christian friends subscriptions to the Briefing and haven’t really figured out a substitute for non Christians.

Wishing Wells are even worse – they’re essentially an even more practical step than the registry – don’t give us gifts, just give us the cash. It’s impersonal to the extreme but also extremely practical which has some benefits. The pressure to come up with a witty or insightful poem or verse on why someone should give you money is also too much of a cross to bear in the lead up to impending nuptials.

In response to my aversion to both registries and wishing wells I’ve come up with what I believe is the ultimate response – the anti-registry. We’re going to list all the things we already own and people can fill in the gaps. I’ve made the initial web page using google’s page creator – it’s that easy. Now it’s a matter of getting the idea by mums and dads.

Yesterday was the 100 day mark in the countdown to my wedding. That’s 2400 hours, 144,000 minutes, or 8,640,000 seconds – not that anyone’s counting… well Robyn’s school children are, they have a counter on their blackboard. That’s a milestone by anyone’s reckoning. It’s not every day that there’s a century of days until something – in fact by time’s very nature every day marks a period closer, or further away from something. I’ve never been big on celebrating milestones like this. But my beautiful fiance and I celebrated in style. We went to a financial planning seminar full of useful information on how to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle in retirement. The seminar was in an opulent office space filled with free coffees (cappuccinos – but I did spy International Roast in the kitchen which I assume must be for staff on regular days), light snacks and dinner. In fact everything is free right up until you actually invest your money with them. Free advice, free consultation, free budgeting and then almost free wealth. I have a number of problems with the overt greed peddled at this seminar. I don’t necessarily philosophically agree with the concept of retirement let alone the concept of a luxurious retirement as opposed to “comfortable.”

The finance people did raise some issues associated with our aging population – which is all the baby boomer’s fault. I have this new theory that involves putting the baby boomers out to pasture when they hit 65 – not retirement but “retirement” – that way they wouldn’t be freezing up assets like property, jobs etc – or being a burden on infrastructure and services. Seriously though – there were a few cool government websites they brought up during the presentation including this one (a population tracker), and this one (a cool pyramid thing where you can watch Australia’s population break down since 1971 (and see why we’re getting top heavy with old people). So I use this to refute Ben’s stance on childcare – if we can’t provide affordable childcare to entice people into the workforce and generate tax dollars – these pensions will bankrupt us. That sounds like irrefutable economic evidence to me… I’m sure I’ll get an email shortly.

I managed to score myself a free spin on Fly Scenic Townsville’s DH82 Tiger Moth. It was the most exhilirating thing I’ve ever done, and the coolest work perk I’ve scored in my time at Townsville Enterprise. We took off at about 9am this morning from Townsville Airport – amidst chaos and confusion caused by the military excercise Operation Talisman Sabre (a joint exercise with the US military). My pilot – Rowan told me that he was going to take me to 5,000 and give me a good bash. He didn’t disappoint. After circling Magnetic Island we rose to the “acrobatic” altitude and he put the 70 year old plane through its paces – a complete “loop the loop”, a banking turn and a barrel roll – and then a combo of the three in quick succession. I’ve included a link to the photo album from the trip at the bottom of this post.

Tiger Moth Flight

Robyn gave me a stupid challenge to use the words ebullient and stupid in this post and adventure in the title… I win. That was pretty easy.

I’ve never been one to shy away from referring to myself in the third person. I think, despite how the SMH’s resident idiot left wing sports commentator Peter FitzSimons (living proof that Rugby players can be as apelike as their league counterparts) derides it on a weekly basis.

I’m sure you all want to hear about my exciting adventures with my party of five intrepid travellers. The group included my flamboyant Tourism Australia co-host Kristian, and journalists from Australia, Denmark, France and the United States.

For some random pictures from the trip go here…

Island Tour

Magnetic Island was good fun, I love driving the mini mokes they feel as indestructible as a tank and the handling is probably just as good. We ate like kings and queens at some spectacular restaurants on the island (Le Paradis, Barefoot: Art, Food, Wine). Had a modern Australian breakfast at Bungalow Bay – including fresh honeycomb. I love it. I’m wondering if dipping a candle in honey would artificially create the flavour.

Our sunset sailing tour turned into a debacle when a couple of our journos turned a literally sickly shade of green. I had to skipper the ship while the owners tied down the sails so that we could chug back into port on our own steam while our journos were steaming as they chucked all the way back into port.

On the way up the Great Green Way (the section of the Bruce Highway between Townsville and Cairns) we stopped at Frosty Mango for thickshakes and ice cream, the Hotel Noorla for High Tea and Port Hinchinbrook for lunch. They now have the biggest restaurant north of Brisbane. Kristian drove our sea sickness sufferers up the coast to catch the ferry to Dunk Island while I took the more adventurous half of the group on a game fishing boat ride to the Dunk via Hinchinbrook Island.

Dunk was incredible – although it rained the whole time we were there. I had a massage, rode a jetski, ate steak and drank cocktails – all in the name of work. I can’t stress how much pleasure I take from being able to take a long bath while technically “at work.”

Here are the vital statistics from the trip:
Animal species consumed: 9 (cow, sheep, pig, chicken, crab, prawn, fish, squid (calamari), green ant (in tea))
Steaks eaten: 5
Beers consumed: 11
Dollar value of 4 night’s accommodation: $1600
Experience: priceless…

It’s the hard-knock life for us! – Did I mention that I’m spending the next 5 days on the tropical islands Magnetic and Dunk…
It’s the hard-knock life for us! – all expenses paid, during work hours (or over the weekend which I’ll get to take work days off as replacements…)
Cotton blankets, ‘Steada of wool! – well probably satin actually.
Empty Bellies ‘Steada of full! – Well I’ll probably be quite full.
It’s the hard-knock life!

So yeah I won’t be blogging for a couple of days.

Vegetarians have struck a blow for good taste and Mars have backed down from a controversial decision to revisit a traditional method of chocolate making which involved the use of animal products in their chocolate bars – the anti-animal crackers* have stormed the offices of Mars Inc demanding they cease and desist – 6000 complaint calls were made from the UK’s estimated population of 3 million vegetarians and vegans. Methinks Mars would have saved themselves the trouble if they’d included a “May contain traces of cow” warning on their label and listed the ingredient rennet as “cow stomach” right from the beginning.

The powerfully stupid lobby group known as the general populace (also known as the audience of Today Tonight and A Current Affair) have struck a few blows lately with the Howard Government introducing a fairness test to placate those voters who are worried that the new IR laws will lead to a decrease in working conditions for ordinary Australians. Does anybody actually know anyone who has been personally disadvantaged by the IR laws? There’s plenty to suggest that employment has gone up since their introduction – and only anecdotal and occasional news stories about the abuse of the new IR freedoms. Labor and the unions have been peddling their idealistic opposition to the IR platform like a deviant drug dealer dishing out dime bags of dope to school children – repeating the mantra “a bridge to far” like a group of monks hell bent on hypnotising the electorate.

Crikey contained a very interesting opinion piece on politics today which made some good points about the way the government seem to be unable to get their fairly compelling message (a good track record of managing the economy) across to the electorate. I guess their handling of the “emotional” issues like climate change, David Hicks, the war on Iraq and other hot topics (a little climate change joke there…) has overshadowed any other achievements they may like to hang their hats on. I’m still not convinced that wall to wall Labor governments is in our best interests. One look at water, health, infrastructure and education – areas the State Government is meant to look after suggests Labor aren’t doing their job at a state level – and they’re all the one party people… Maybe I just don’t like Rudd – and maybe it’s because everyone else seems to (a little like my disdain for U2) and maybe it’s because the Prime Minister called me an “enterprising Townsvillian” when I met him last week, but I don’t like the idea of the polls translating to actual success on election day.

Anyway, one last thing for all you conspiracy theorists out there – the Townsville Bulletin ran a small ad on page 3 today which has uncovered what I believe is a very scary possibility – the existance of a Secret Government Agency (SGA) dedicated to creating an army of psycho psychics who have no qualms about murder and other unconscionable crimes. Brian Pedder was a human lab rat who was regularly abducted by this SGA – for some reason he now remembers the atrocities he committed while under their power. It’s compelling reading, but a little scary that this guy paid for advertising space in a regional newspaper seeking anyone who he may or may not have committed crimes against in the past. I can only wonder if it’s not some sort of viral marketing campaign for these web designers. But I think he thinks he’s for real…

* At the very least they don’t like animal crackers in their soup…

I have a disability – I don’t know if you know this, and I don’t really tell many people (except now I’m potentially telling the world) – but I am one of the 5% of males worldwide who suffers from colour blindness. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I don’t really notice. I don’t really notice lots of things actually – red flowers on green trees, the difference between traffic light colours (that one’s a joke, I can tell the difference between extremes at each end of the red and green spectrums). Colour blindness is a profound philosophical issue – do we all see the world the same way? How would you describe a colour to a completely sight impared person? Colour can be a pretty abstract concept – particularly if you’re unable to make the distinction between two binarily opposed colours (red and green for example). I can never truly be sure if an outfit is colour coordinated, or what ball I’m actually aiming for in pool, or which wire to cut in a dramatic scene involving a ticking time bomb. It’s ruled me out of careers in the military, the electronics industry and the design industry. And now I can comprehensively show you why. This is a purpose built picture I put together in photoshop – featuring tones from the red and green spectrums – I see simply green… I know there are two colours there because I made the picture using a colour palette function. I can work out the distinction between the colours if I stare at them for long enough.

Now, thanks to the miracle of the internet – you can understand how I see the world with this colour blindness simulator.

It doesn’t quite do it justice – I see more a blurring of the circle with the background and if I really focus on it I get a headache. But this Ishihara diagram will probably help you to see the difference in what I see… unless you’re Joel.

You’re supposed to see a 6 – and I now believe it’s there because I played with the saturation and hue settings in photoshop and I could see it. If I look really hard at the unedited image I can now see where the six is, but I’d have no chance if I hadn’t cheated.

The avid reader will notice that this post has been edited – this occured after I met John Howard and shook his hand – there will be more on that in a later blog.