RobotBlogger

Sooo things are pretty grand. I've had a week at work and am into week #2. The company is great. Wow, such contrast. The team is a bunch of superstars from all over. Not that many Australians actually! (not that they're not superastars, they most definitely are) Canadians, Americans, Brits, French, all over. A very cosmopolitan team.

A funny thing happened. I went downstairs to get a coffee (they have this automated espresso machine that's AMAZING) and opened the cupboard to grab a mug. I lifted the mug out and put it on the coffee machine. It said 'BC Tel'. I thought: WTF? i come half way around the world to find a freaking BC Tel coffee mug in the cupboard? I presume some other Canadian left it there. The world is a small place.

The weather is great. It just started to get warm, then all this weather came in and it rained like i've never seen before. Massive torrential rain making rivers in the streets. Rather unbelievable actually, it was the heaviest rain i've ever seen in my life. Fantastically loud! That cooled things off a bit and added some green back to the vegetation, which was getting a little brown from the drought. It's still warm, and very nice in the evenings. About perfect actually - you guys would do just fine - not too hot, not muggy, perfect really. For now..... :):)

Kirk, Kathryn Kai and i took a trip up to Bribie Island and Noosa. Pics of it here

I'm living in the London Woolstore - a converted warehouse made into loft apartments. Nice. The neighbourhood is very trendy, much like Yaletown, only bigger.

Things grow, from what i can tell, like crazy. Plants don't know to stop growing and some get mind-bendingly huge. There are Aloe Vera plants and Jade plants all over, growing wildly it seems. The main drag in Fortitude valley has jade plants down the sides. Palms everywhere of course. It's the Aloe Vera's that are pure madness (i think that's what they are). They grow HUGE. No, that's not right.... They grow to such an unbelievable size that you won't believe me when i say it, so i'm going to have to take pictures. There's this one i pass on the way to work that's as big as a smart car. You know those small smart cars? It's as big as one of those. I'm absolutely not kidding when i say it's 10 feet across and maybe 6 or 7 feet tall. SCARY huge.

Most trees are either eucalyptus or a something-gum-tree (can't quite figure out what people are saying... i get embarrassed to ask for the fifth time..) They have bark with nice little spots a bit bigger than Dalmatian spots and instead of black and white, they're green/tan tone-on-tone. Very pretty. Similar proportions/design to an arbutus, a little bigger perhaps. They're apparently near the top of the 'heaviest wood' category - not far under lignum vitae. Density of 1100 something-or-others, which is very very high, apparently. So, it's mostly those, eucalyptus, and palms. Eucalyptus EVERYWHERE.

There's signs on the roads outside of town saying watchout for Kangaros and Koalas. They must be around once you get out of the city a bit. Wallabies too, and they're dead cute those guys.

You could grow tomatoes all year round. If this is as bad as 'winter' gets, you could garden 24-7-365 with a bit of shade and watering. I'm sure people do.

The tropical plants are insane. EVERYWHERE, and i keep seeing new ones. No idea what any of them are, there seems to be a limitless variety and some really weird ones. They're all over like weeds. They probably ARE weeds. Very pretty flowering weeds growing anywhere possible. I'll take some shots on my walk to work tomorrow (walking now, the 4 min bike ride is too short!!)

I signed up for 'alternate' powersources - electricity that comes from wind and solar (mostly, apparently). It's cool you have the option here for that. It's a good chunk more, and we might regret that a bit when summer rolls around and the AC is on. The other side of that thought is if people like me don't do this stuff - good jobs and environmentally aware - then who will?

I keep falling into peculiar traps of misunderstanding with the locals. You'd think that since the queen is on the money mostly everything transfers over, but that's a gross misconception. Some guys from work took me to a burger joint for lunch yesterday. They didn't have any veggie burgers, so i bent and ordered a normal one. I thought: what the hell, get a burger with the works. So, i ask for a 'Cheeseburger'. let me type this properly for the effect

"Can i have a cheeseburger?"
"What?"

"A Cheeseburger"
"A what burger?"

"CHEESE burger - you know, a hamburger with cheese on it - it says that you have cheese as an option on the menu, and i'd like that option, so a hamburger with cheese on it please"

"OH a hamburger with cheese. ok, yes, right away"

I then looked at my friends like 'what just happened?'. They were laughing. They were locals. Apparently there's no such thing as a cheeseburger. You order a 'hamburger with cheese' Truncating that to 'cheeseburger' is clearly not interpretable in any way.

I asked them why 'cheeseburger' wasn't, you know, kind of absolutely self-explanatory in every obvious way possible. They responded that no, it wasn't, because the correct term is 'a hamburger with cheese'. And that is when i decided to let it go - like the washer and refrigerator! - because you need something stronger than logic to compete with situations like this.

Some drink names are perplexing and are seemingly designed to prevent them from being purchased. Take the beverage called 'SARS'. All in capitals. I had to order one.

"I'll have a SARS please, i hear the flavor is infectious" i said, maybe a little too confidently, waiting for laughter. Nobody laughed. "You know, SARS, the sickness thing..? on the news a while back? Cough Cough?" i reasoned. All blank stares.

"Yeah, we know, some people got sick and died" One guy responded.
"Sooooo isn't it kind of funny that there's a drink called SARS, with a big SARS written on the front
of the can???"

"SARS is like root beer. I don't really like it" That same guy said, leaving the question unanswered. Clearly understanding the logic, but failing to see the humor. A brief uncomfortable silence befell the table while - and i'm sure of it - we each thought the other a tad weirder.

For an entire day i thought i came down here with no pants. 'It's hot, i don't need pants, that must be why i don't have any pants. Stupid - i need pants - it's not THAT hot at night and i'd like pants now since everyone wears pants and what if i have to go out for a nice dinner or something??' Then i realized i brought 4 pairs of pants down, i just folded them and put them away. Where was the memory of THAT before i had an argument with myself about pants? Jetlag. I think i even wore pants the day before, which was really embarrassing for myself once i figured that one out as well.

Another foxbat sighting. They are the craziest things. Picture a flying cat with wings, about the size of an ironing board but with significant creepy added. They're that big. You'll say 'Oh, what a cute exaggeration, bats aren't as big as cats'. Yes they are. Foxbats are freaking extremely freakishly huge and they're everywhere at night. They chatter in the trees, squeaking noises, fighting sounds. The nighttime trees are alive with these screechy monsters. Nobody notices them.

There's giant lizards too. Adam Mackay has some at his place. Apparently they're not dangerous, but they're big. If you go after one they're rumored to thrash their tail at you which can cause cuts, but no poison or anything like that, just a scrambly defense. Fair enough. It's weird to walk around a corner and BOOM! there's this giant lizard right in front of you. Hi lizard! you say, and walk around it. I can't think of a Canadian equivalent.

Can you believe i've seen only one spider, and it was just in it's web by a building...? No red on it's back. Just an average sized spider like you'd find anywhere. This is a good thing.

Some Aussies have asked me about bears - "have you seen one?" "are they really in the forests like near cities?". I proudly responded that i've seen quite a few bears, a number up close, even ran into one prompting growls. That some are very near town, just up on the north shore mountains, i explained Encouraging ooh's and ahh's followed.

Right there it's clear that wonder-factor and exposure basically have an inverse relationship.