Adelaide; it's not that bad

Mels been visiting me in Adelaide right now! We've done lots of fun stuff, but i only have photos of the first night. I picked Mel up from the airport, then a spot of shopping, home for a nap, beer and shower then off to the boat and glenelg (the city beach) for some lounging around and some star gazing.











mel and i with my cousins.


















Glenelg foreshore















Glenelg foreshore again

















Glenelg Jetty












Pretty sunset

...its climate change

oh oh, on another note. i was watching the american news the other day on sbs and heres how the story goes:

somewhere in backwater USA a family home was struck with a strange kidney shaped objects with metalic qualities. its got a fair bit of momentum and its quite heavy, so it flew straight through the roof, landing on the floor of their loungeroom. the object is quite small, with a crystal-shaped, sparkly, metallic look about it.
so, in a quest to find out what it is the reporter hits the streets and asks some of the locals what they think it is.

Small Boy: "Its aliens, their sending us a sign!"
Middle-aged Woman: "Its something to do with climate change, you know, heating up and that"

at this time i was making a cup of tea and literally had to stop and listen to this woman properly.
"shes not serious" i thought to myself, "naa...noone is that stupid". but newsflash, YES THEY ARE! it looks like all of our efforts to try and convince people that climate change is actually happening has had some effect. they've even gone so far as to blame climate change for weird metal objects falling from the sky! good work american lady, your real switched on!

just reminds me of that southpark episode where climate change is blamed for the dam getting wrecked and they all lock themselves in the gym because, if you go outside, it chases you down and kills you! hahahahahaa

ok, ill stop writing blogs now

the human zoo; a disappointing philosophical experiment

here in adelaide, a young up and coming psychologist has noticed that there's one animal the adelaide zoo does not possess. one fascinating species that she devotes her academic energy to that is not detained behind 1-inch perspex, surrounded by fake plastic trees and barkchips. Homo sapiens...



















Figure 1. Carla Litchfield looking sexy with her laptop. Fine example of human use of tools.
so what does she do. in a quite obvious publicity stunt (both for the adelaide zoo and herself), Carla Litchfield has put the call out for adelaidians who would like to spend a week in the zoo, being laughed at, poked at, having the glass tapped incecently by 4year-olds yelling "monkey, HEY MONKEY! come over here, i want to look at you" or swooning mothers who assume whenever two animals are near eachother, or touch, its some kind of love gesture.





















Figure 2. Grooming behaviours of the homo sapiens
upon hearing about this endeavour i was surprised. what a bold philosophical statement, one that should have been made a long time ago. we are just animals, why should we not have an exhibit (as the adelaide zoo staff call their artificial habitat + animal of choice areas, like an ART exhibit! ha) for the most dominant species on the planet. maybe, i thought, it will get people thinking about the nature of their relationship to all the other animals in that place, how they're just an animal as well, and how just because they can write books, keep accounts, work shitty jobs and walk bipedally, it doesnt mean they're the be all and end all of evolutionary progress; that there are plenty of perfectly adapted forms around that are way better suited to their environment than we are.
so, i gather together some of my friends and we toddle off to the zoo, pay our $13.50 admission (BAH!) to go take a peep at this interesting experiment. upon seeing the whole horrible arrangment all of my philosophical hopes are dashed. they have microphones, a SPA, advertisements posted anywhere and everywhere...its like bigbrother, but in the zoo! you are even expected to VOTE for your faourite human! HA, i think to myself, why dont they apply this to all animals in the zoo.
This week, vote for your favourite otter. Do you like Sqidgy; the lovable playful otter who loves chewing the heads of fish, or Sully; the angry, resentful otter whose always got a chip on his shoulder and a lesson to learn, or what about Lilly; the cutsy otter who everyone knows is sleeping around. VOTE NOW! And tune in next week when the otter you choose to evict is returned to the wild where he is not completely incapable of surviving and will probably cease to exist.
they even get to go home at night! its like a day job! come 8 o'clock they pack up their bags and head home!














Figure 3. Humans in their natural body adornments.
oh well, i guess it just re-enforces to me the role that zoos play. its like a fun fair, where you can go, and stare and laugh at the freaks, eat some popcorn, buy some stuffed animals and go home!

岐阜: I've been doing some research

Being in Adelaide again, and having unlimited access to the internet, copious amounts of food at my disposal and a severaly reduced number of friends, I find myself doing some research on my new home for 2007. Here is what i have found kiddies (lets hope if convinves you ALL to come visit me!).

Before the prefectural system was established, the Gifu prefecture existed as two seperate provinces: the arable plain-land of Mino and the mountainous Hida. Historically, this region was renowned for sword-making, but now its major industries are fashion and aeronautical engineering (wooooo...i like the swordmaking better).

Within this prefecture there are many towns and cities, the most notable of these is Gifu City (Gifu-shi). This is where i will be working and living.






Like many cities, Gifu-shi has symbolic representations. Most of them are quite boring, though i like their symbolic animal: the Rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta).








Apart from being home to these fellas, Gifu also welcomes many local and foreign guests for its many festivals and attractions. Some of my favourite that i have learnt about so far are:

Cormant Fishing (Ukai): Gifu is renowned for a special tecnique of fishing practiced in the Nagara Kawa called ukai (or cormorant fishing). The method involves three fishermen who have trained their pet cormorants to fish using a system of leashes. This method is only used at night. You can watch the ukai from April to October every year!







Tejikara Fire Festival: The festival of a local shrine, held in April, sounds pretty exciting. I'll give you a quote from the Gifu Tourist Website: "a firework cascade suspended 20 meters above the shrine precincts is set off. Then with the sound of firecrackers echoing all around them, men wearing only loincloths make portable shrines, which they bear on their shoulders and dance wildly. These shrines also shoot streams of fire high into the air." Yay, loincloths and wild dancing, sounds like me!



Nobunaga Festival: On the first Saturday of October the people of Gifu celebrate the legacy of Nobunaga Oda, who aimed to unify the world based around the momumental Gifu castle. Ambitious man!










How exciting! More Gifu updates as i come accross them...

Is Hell exothermic or endothermic?

The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of
Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one
student was so profound that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the
Internet, which
is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.













Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic or endothermic?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following: First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell.

Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities: 1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over. So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you, and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting Oh my God.

join us

the time has come, Renee did say,
to talk of many things,
of departures, goon and politics,
of debauchery and flings.













inspired by jeff and liams oh so witty t-shirt we at woodstock are painting the house red; the political kind that is. come to our place about 7 on the 17th of december dressed as your favourite communist and party hardy....














the movement seems to be moving away from facial hair these days, but a good beard will not be turned away...



















this guy might be there...




















these guys said they might come...








there may even be some romance on the cards...

hope to see you all there

changes.....an ode to all that may never be again

i've been planning to write this blog for sometime. you can feel it in the air, as you walk around all the old haunches, that change is coming, that things will never be this way again. maybe i have avoided it because i dont want to think about the way things may be next year, or what we are about to loose. but then, i think to myself, thats always been the way. friends are always being replaced, residences change, occupations shift, and with each change you accumulate more experiences. but what about the familiarity of the last year, it seems to me, that nothing really changed, we were all around the place, always accecable, always contactable, rarely changing in the extreme nature of those drastic changes just mentioned above.

though, i then say to myself (as bergson writes) 'no experience can be the same', for even if you view an apple you have placed on the table (hmm... apple), leave the room and return, whilst the apple remains untouched, unmoved, unchanged, its not the 'same' for now, you have a history of accumulated experience in regard to this apple. so really, things were never the same, they were ALWAYS changing. but still, the familiarity of lots of things that occured over the last year leave me nostalgic (dont worry, the touch facade will return, this is only a lapse! haha) and perhaps, that nostalgia is related to this accumulation of exeperience. whilst i will continue to accumulate experiences, and whilst all those new experiences and people added to the pile will most likely also be amazing, i somewhat feel this last year has been one of the best yet! thus, an ode to all that may never be again:


G.C. picnics and Stuck in the Mud: a few weeks ago we all sat in the great court, as we have all semester, scoffing liams homemade scones (oh wait, was that just me), playing hack, talking about uni and how hungover we all are/were/plan to be, and nothing seemed amiss. but now that i recall the event, i feel there is a good chance that it was the last? so to begin, an ode to Stuck in the Mud, to G.C. picnics and to bumming around either between or during lectures! goodbye Stuck in the Mud G.C. picnics.



next, but not least.
CLARENCE! this pivotal household will be sorely missed. my clarence highlights, in no particular order:

WEEKENDS AT STRADDY: and the shennanigans entailed (remember makeout weekend kids...i dont even WANT to know what happened on that tennis court!)






























TEA: somehow there is always good tea at clarence!!! hmm....tea

PARTIES: i think i may have experienced nearly every window break in the clarence house, first at the mercy of aruns elbow, second the result of uncle tobys' consumption of wine. good times.

THE FRONT STEPS: more of a recent addition but always chilled, always comfy true clarence styles.


THE KRAMERS: where again am i going to find a household who would do this to themselves!

MOST IMPORTANTLY, THE INHABITANTS: the kids from clarence will always be my favourite, even if you are not residing in its hallowed walls that house contained some very special people who will be sorely missed!!! Goodbye Clarence.





Foreigners: every year we seem to accumulate a healthy bunch of exchange students who shape our experiences considerably. even though each year brings replacements for the previous years losses, none of them can ever be replaced! this year, we recieved the Dong (andrew) and Wanton (Anton), and whilst we still retain the Dong i am saying in advance how sorely missed they will be! Ill wait until andrews gone to devulge all his dirty secrets, instead some Anton-based highlights from the last year:

THE PLAYBOY INCIDENT:
Renee: "hey anton, can i borrow your camera?"
Anton: "yeah sure, its in my room, on my desk"
Renee: "sweet (toddles over, lifts the floormat, squeezes through the corner of jims room)... where? whats this? PLAYBOY! Pluhoy anton, PLUHOY!!!!!"
Anton: "Oh, playboy, its not what you're thinking, i promise!"

ANTONS FIRST DAY: fresh off the plane, innocent little anton strolls up the miskin st stairs to find me, meatbag and steve drunk out of our brains in the loungeroom. i stumble to show him around, and he sits with us for a while to chat and see if he really wants to live with these hooligans. from there, it all goes downhill. suddenly the house is swamped with people; the kenmore boys let themselves in as usual and start practicing kendo in the backyard, some of steves mates wander through etc. etc. and whilst all this occurs Liam is shoving beers into antons hand and proceeding to pay him out for not drinking fast enough. and now look at him.
i dont know why he decided to move in, but boy im glad. but wait, theres more. due to an indiscretion on renees behalf anton moves into the dongs room (the cupboard), then gets kicked out and has to sleep in the destination till grace is out. he writes about it on his blog, READ IT! its gold!

CHAI AND CAKE TIME: a recent woodstock addition, i loved the little ceremony anton and i had drikning chai and eating cake! yay!

THE WANTON VOICE: cant write it, but you all know what im talking about and you all know you do it! how are we going to explain that without anton on hand?

MEETING THE NEIGHBOURS: i come home one sunny afternoon to a postit on the fridge 'Neighbours: June and Claude (thats not the names, i cant remeber the names)' and im like, "hmm..ok?". Anton comes out and proceeds to tell me the story of how he decided to go and introduce himself, on a whim, to our new neighbours. It seems, he discussed their life stories over a glass of brandy and happily returned home to recite the tale!

Theres plenty more but i dont want to fill the whole blog page, the most important point to glean here is that Anton is amazing! He will be missed! Over the time he was here, ive watched our little anton change so much. When he first arrived on our doorstep he was no naive, so innocent, and somehow hes just absorbed every experience offered to him whilst he was here, digested them and somehow assimilated them into what still is, essentially anton! his ability to just do things, without deliberating or talking himself out of it will continue to inspire me. as well as his incredible ability to trust anyone and EVERYONE, always give people a chance, always meet new people and never hestiate to help people out. WHAT A LEGEND!

The Basement and JFS : when again will i live in a basement? come on?! when it rained i had a moat, when people rolled around on wheely chairs or skateboards it sounded like a jet engine taking off, the windows were missing, the floors was bare concrete, there was only one powerpoint and no light! somehow, however, i loved this room and i will never forget it! i think the reason for this, mostly is the good times had in it, particularly the spooning! 2006 was the year of the spoon, no matter what you anti-JFSers want to say, and ill miss my spooning posse!

thats all for now i guess, there are plenty more stories to recite! just look back on all of our houseblogs to see the amazing year we have all had, and although everything is going to change, it always has been, and always will, and everyone around me now will never be lost, only added to the accumulating pile of experiences i am accrueing over my life! you will all form a very colourful, energetic and exciting part of that pile, i am sure!!!

its on

everything works well in the end...i've booked us in at Jakarta Indonesian in New Farm on recommendations from the loverly Haylo...looks nice, not too expensive. The address is:
Unit 2/ 702 Brunswick St New Farm QLD 4005

come to ours before hand if you dont know how your getting there and well work it out.

Also, i have the projector! WOOP! so movie night is on! see you all either tuesday or sunday suckers!

BON VOYAGE WANTON MY FRIEND

bon voyage wanton:
i think you all know anyway, but goodbye dinner for our lovely wanton, this tuesday the 14th, at an address yet to disclosed (i.e. when renee gets off her ass and makes a booking). probably Thai, most likely West End...let this anton photo montage be a reminder of how cool he is, how boring life will be without him around, and how much YOU will miss him! be there or be on Antons death list!haha




























































additional get-togethers: anime night as miskin...i havnt asked jeff about the projector yet but, fingers crossed i dont have to change any dates...lol



















Admirer 1: "That Renee, shes so organized"
Admirer 2: "yeah i know, this is a fine example of her ability to get off her ass and organize things properly before inviting people to them"
Admirer 3: "BAM!"
Renee: "pfft...and this is only the half of it....baby...s?"