firecrackers have been going off all fricken day in my neighbourhood. yah i get it, its chinese new year. isnt a parade enough? now its time for quiet.

more news from the six oclock hour on a sunday. the footy went to dubai very recently. the first story covered the fans and the many ex-pats attending the game, including how 420 (brand) pies were shipped to the middle east for people to eat. and the disappointment at the complete lack of beer since its banned in the country.
the second story covered why the games was played. business. victorian companies expanding their business into the lala land that is dubai. economic oppurtunity. the tallest resdential tower is being building by australians in the city. the 107 story princess tower. i dont know whats #1 at the moment, eureka is always promoted as the tallest in the souther hemisphere.

this morning a few sections of the sunday age were sitting on the dining table when i got up. mainly the entertainment non-news sections. there was an article covering heath ledger's funeral in perth and of course the mass of celebrities that were there. then the writer went on to criticize how the media has been covering the untimely demise of the actor non stop since it happened. i dont watch a lot of tv so i dont what exactly the coverage has been. on free tv in australia there are 5 channels. zero of them are 24 hour news or 24 hour headlines or anything of that sort. perhaps the media here is more respectful of tragic incidences (although i doubt it) or its not sport so it doesnt have the same influence. but, i can only imagine what kind of crap has been on cnn headline new for the last 2 weeks. the last time was unfortunate to watch that channel (in NZ) it was ALL celebrity gossip. such trash.

anyhow..

in the hopes of getting tourist activities accomplished in the next 3 week, M and i went to the immigration museum yesterday. it was pretty interesting. my mom had hyped it up when she went a year and a half ago and it was one of those things that i just didnt get around to doing since i live here. once exhibit displayed the evolution of the ships that left britain (and then southern europe in the later migration waves). the 1850s style ship was a sailing ship that took months to arrive from the UK. the navigators of the era must have been on top of things since they took a sub arctic route to make use the winds that are south of RSA and Aus. the later ships were steam and it looked like the accomidations were much better. even as of 1901 there were onboard games and activities on the 5 week journey. it probably wasnt quite shuffleboard and bingo, but it would have been more comfortable that previous travelers.

on my travel front i have to sort of maybe decide soon what im going to do with all my stuff. i put zero effort in so far weekend into get anything organized, maybe tonight. i tried to get greta from the lab to come pack up all my stuff, but she declined. she is moving back to ballarat and lucky for her and put everything in coles bags. we joked about how id need a whole bunch of coles bags (mesh/ fabric bags from the grocery store) to get everything in them. although, i have seen people use them for domestic carry on.

i finally got around to watching the first two episodes of lost. i dont know if im liking seasons 4 yet. its better than 3, but 3 was shit so thats not saying much. im kind of over most of those characters now too.

i know my internet is not supposed to be capped. but i dont think that its the entire truth. this morning i was getting speeds almost at 100kbs. for a whole minute. then it fell to around 70kbs. but it was still fast. when i saw that i thought, oh its the first of october, its been reset.

on saturday i watched my first grand final AFL game (thats the equivalent of the superbowl for the non-australians). after much ado about nothing i met up with dawn on the tram and we headed to sonia's place together. dawn was super nice awesome and waited for me. we were a little tardy but got there before the game started. i have never been to or watched an AFL game because i am basically indifferent to sports. i can watch them and enjoy a game but i dont care who wins. anyhow, sonia was all about "go, the power" which was cute but then they lost so it, um, yeah.

things i found out about the AFL: A. they play quarters. i learned this when sonia said that the hot food would be coming out at quarter time. B. there is some sort of half time show. i dont know what it is because in our semi drunken state we went outside to kick the footy.. oh yah,, you heard it here, i kicked a footy on grand final day! yeeeeh!!1! its not like kicking an american football, which i used to be very good at. C. they dont gain many points for kicking a goal. is it 4 and 1? or 6 and 1? whatever. D. sonia makes awesome sangria, but that has nothing to do with footy.

some point after the half time show and us kicking the footy i fell asleep. im pretty sure i saw the end of the game, but i really dont remember since i was busy socializing for the majority of the time anyways. so i took a nap. but i was listening to my silly friends for most of the time.

sonia has this poster up in her kitchen.. tres awesome, especially since that venue had been burned to the ground. and oh my shit fuck the tool poster from january is now available. this was not up two days ago. i saw that poster at a store in williamstown in april for $150, framed. the guy in the store tried to tell me what a bargain it was because the poster was over $100 itself. wrong. it was $25 at the show. dear mayjay: please announced those december, or maybe november dates you were talking about in january so i can decide 48 hours beforehand that i want to go.

on the topic of concerts, if i was smart i would have bought 10 tickets for the rage against the machine shows here (melbs + sydney) in january. but no, i thought, why would i want to see them.. thats so eight years ago. audioslave = two thumbs down. and zach who? pass on that reformation shit. so then i find out tickets are easily going for $600 each on ebay. thats a $500 profit. i could have taken another vacation with that fast cash.

aww.. i was going to post my subiaco oval icon, but i just deleted it. haha. the only thing that moderately relates to football (and pearl jam) and i got rid of it. whoops.