Bit out of date, but here are some photos from Australia Day this year.

For New Year's Eve 2006 / New Year 2007 my friends Joe, Cicely and Brian came out for a visit. I am not sure how, but somehow Joe managed to score tickets on one of the boats in the parade of ships which offer the best view of the fireworks.

...a three hour tour. This is the boat that we watched the fireworks from.

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It only took me 22 months to get around to processing these images.

• 23 September 2008 04:02pm: Something for everyone, an opera tonight! First trip to the Sydney Opera House to see them sing and stuff.
• 22 September 2008 02:22pm: I am going to be in New York/New Jersey 4-18 October.
• 22 September 2008 08:29am: City jackhammers are my wake up call at The Point. Is it Monday again already?
• 21 September 2008 10:19pm: On the train ride back from Canberra the kangaroos were scattering in fear as we coasted through landscape. Back in Sydney.

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Me and grandma at the Rocks, Sydney, sometime in the late 70s.

We had some light rain this morning. I had a nap out in the atrium my grandma had built, resting to the pitter patter of rain drops outside. The sun gently woke me up an hour or two later and I watched the clouds scoot across the sky over the neighbours house. It made me really glad that I moved up here from the city^[1].

The rain reminded me of this time when I overheard this kid talking to his mum in Sydney while it was raining and he refused a brolly, saying “guy's don't use umbrellas.” I remember thinking to myself, gosh guys are kinda dumb. Me, I like to be dry, so I guess I am not a guy. Next time a girl tells me that guys are all alike I can say “hey, I like to be dry when it rains!”

1. although, lets just see how much I still feel like that when I wake up at 6am tomorrow to go to work :P

Are the World Youth Drones gone yet? Please? Er. I thought they were going to be gone today, but I saw a few stragglers in the various train stations I was in today.

When Л and I went to the Sydney Aquarium, we kept hearing some of the younger visitors chant “Dory!” while others were calling out “Nemo!” in honour of the Pixar film Finding Nemo. One particularly cleaver youngster declared “It's a Nemo” when he found a solitary clownfish in a tank. All pretty harmless fun; I enjoyed Nemo because, among other reasons, it was partly set in my favourite harbour city. Today I was skimming the Internets and ran into this article

• www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4220496.ece

which says that clownfish populations are shrinking thanks to their demand as pets due to the popularity of the film. Who knows if it is true or not, but after seeing all that, shall we say, enthusiasm at the Aquarium, it certainly seems plausible. Apparently they are difficult to breed in captivity.

Watched Oyster Farmer (imdb). I love this style of Australian filmmaking (Hollywood seems so tired to me sometimes). Had a similar feel in some respects to Lantana and Jindabyne. Oyster Farmer was set on the Hawskebury River, and featured local background colour including bell birds and trains of the Newcastle line which takes me up to Gosford.

On the commentary tracks of The Chaser, they are always talking about how people in Melbourne love it when they go to film there because they get to see places around where they live on TV. I think they must be right, because one of the things I like about the group is that they are almost always pulling stunts around Sydney in places that I recognize. At least part of the appeal to Australian films, for me, is seeing home through another person’s lens.

Next up was the bedroom. I have a two bedroom flat, but I use the larger of the two as my computer room/office. Basically my computers need more room than I do.