quicko: the ABC

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation.  I don't think it actually comes in at my place (the TV is a confusing machine, full of complexity and ambiguity.  I generally let it show me whatever it wants, but if it's not Big Bang Theory I turn it off.), but it's one of those channels I think I'd actually watch a bit of if I could find it.  It's kind of along the lines of PBS, but without such an emphasis on kids.  Or maybe it does cater to them during the day, I wouldn't really know ...

update: the fringe

The Sydney Fringe is just finishing up now and I went to see my second, yet final, show of the season.  It was a showcase of 8 stand-up comedians and was pretty funny.  There was the standard smattering of smut, but some pretty genuinely funny stuff, too.  I'd recommend it ... but I'm pretty sure it's over now.  Sorry.

(Oh, and incidentally:  there were 53 (53!!) different offerings on at the Fringe today.  Isn't that amazing?  On this one given day, I could literally have chosen from 53 different shows.  Not bad, Sydney.  Not bad at all.)

photos: manly jazz festival

quicko: help, i'm a tourist in sydney*

First off, this really isn't a problem.  In fact, it's a ridiculously good thing.  Let me help.

The most important stuff:
--the Opera House
--walk across the harbour bridge
--walk from Bondi to Coogee
--Watson's Bay
--ferry to Manly, then:
     --hang out in Manly (easy adventure)
     --walk to Shelly Beach (reasonable adventure)
     --walk to the Spit (harder adventure)

If you have enough time:
--add in a day trip to Palm Beach/the other northern beaches -- spectacularly beautiful beaches
--the Blue Mountains -- if you're a mountains person
--Featherdale Wildlife Park -- you can pet the koalas and let the kangaroos eat right out of your hand
--Taronga Zoo -- the most scenic zoo I've ever been too
--Royal National Park -- beautiful scenery
--Cremorne Point -- swim in the harbour pool!
--Cronulla Beach -- the Manly of the south side
--whatever current festival/event is on

*Again, this post is for my mother's friends.  Regular readers, please bear with us.  Mother's friends, please enjoy Sydney :)

update: bus bloopers

These are pretty much just par for the course, but they seem to be happening to me a bit lately, so just for the record:

--You can JUST miss the bus and know it.  For instance, you're walking up to the stand from the direction it's going to be going and it flies right past you.

--Alternatively, you can JUST miss the bus and not know it.  This one is a more devious option.  There you can be sitting, safe in the assurance that you're two minutes early, thinking that your bus is just running a few minutes late and will be here momentarily.  It's when it's been about 15 minutes, though, that you start thinking, actually, that bus must have been three minutes early.  And thus you wait a full half hour for the next scheduled one to come.  Cruel and unusual punishment!!  Particularly when you are transporting milk and in the afternoon sun.

quicko: peroxide

Growing up, peroxide was always my family's first line of defense against infection, but here no one seems to think twice of it.  Particularly the medical professionals I'm friends with.  I explain to them how I've sustained a minor injury and put peroxide on it (peroxide that I bought when I was home in America) and they go, oh, yeah, well, okay, if you feel like it I guess it won't hurt.  This is peroxide!  The mighty warrior of the medical cabinet!  It cures ... well, everything, right?  How the average bathroom here doesn't stock it is utterly beyond me -- what do people use??

quicko: hungry jack's

Mondays have been really tough lately ... tougher than usual Mondays, for various reasons.  It isn't exactly the fact that they're Mondays, more that the wrong things keep happening on them.  Plus they are Mondays.  They're rather wreaking havoc in my life, which is my best excuse for why I've been eating so utterly poorly on them.  Looking back, I meant to write this post three weeks ago now, which means I've had a succession of 4 pretty rotten Mondays.  Well, I mean, I suppose it's all relative, but rotten for me.

The first one was so bad, though, that I had Hungry Jack's.  I must point out, I've been in Australia for over four years and it was my first time.  Surely that's saying something.  It all came down to bad timing, really.  I had somewhere to be at 5:30 that was going to eat up my evening solidly through to 10.  Having just caught up with a friend earlier in the afternoon, I was persuaded to give it a try.  It's nothing I'll be inclined to try twice.

I can't really remember what happened on the Monday after that (it must have been a shocker though) and the next on I had had such a rough day (gosh, what is happening me?!) I split a KFC meal with another friend.  Today it was leftover pizza and a candy bar.

Gosh, I really hope the rest of the week is better.  Salads and celery here on out ...