A Star Wars Christmas

 

Today we went to the Sydney Christmas Parade. I didn't really understand the theme. Here are the pictures.

Priscilla

Tanya and I just got back from Priscilla: The Musical, based on the movie Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. It was fabulous, but left me hungry for Monte-Christo Biscuits.

Christmas is Coming

Last night the Sydney City Council lit up the Christmas Tree and started the Christmas Projections. Here are the pictures that were used to make the slideshow.

The Dave Thomas Show

I just learned that Dave Thomas, one of the founding members of Carleton's School of Computer Science is giving a talk at the University of Sydney tomorrow entitled Hey! You! Get On To My Cloud. I lost track of him for a while, but it looks like Dave is now Chairman of Bedarra Research Labs. I can't tell exactly what it is they do from their web page.

Bad News from CA

It looks like Bell lobbied the CRTC enough to keep up their anti-competitive practice of throttling third-party traffic based on content. As a result, all canadian homes can continue to enjoy shitty Internet connections without any option for something better.

In related news, Sony, Disney, Paramount et al are suing Australia's second largest Internet Service Provider because they are helping their customers violate copyright.

English Test

Some of you may remember my friend, colleague, and host Joachim Gudmundsson who came out with us on Robbie Burns day a few years ago. Joachim's trying to become a permanent resident of Australia. To do this, he has to take an english test. Here's one of the questions from the test:

The instructions for a grant application say All students who submit a successful application will receive a copy of the Student Handbook.

Question: Will all students receive a copy of the Student Handbook?

a) Yes
b) No
c) Not enough information to decide

This is actually a difficult question. I know the correct answer (and so does Joachim) but it's not at all clear that the test adminstrators do.

Jervis Bay

Here are some photos of our weekend in Jervis Bay aboard the Ocean Trek. There was a definite lack of sunshine and it shows in the photos.

One Shark, Two Sharks, Three Sharks, Forty-Eight Sharks!

Today Pat and I went out for a late afternoon dive to try and get a bit more experience with the new camera before our trip to Jervis Bay this weekend. When we arrived the sun was bright, the water was calm and divers were buzzing with excitement. As I entered the water, I heard Pat groan - "I left the lens cover on the camera." Not normally a problem, unless of course its in a waterproof case and you're already in the water. Oh well, that just means it's bound to be one of the best dives ever. About 15 minutes into the dive we had yet to see anything interesting, so I thought to myself, so much for the best dive ever. About 5 minutes later, I was eating my words.....as we swam over a gully, we saw three then four then five Port Jackson sharks THEN we saw more and more and more. Thirty-two in total on the way into the gully. On the way back out, I counted again this time forty-eight! FORTY-EIGHT Port Jackson sharks just resting on the bottom of the ocean.

Eel Fight!

The underwater case for our new camera arrived on Friday. Today we went out to play with it and were lucky enough to witness an eel fight. Here are some more pictures.

Endangered Bandicoots: Slow Down!

And some more pictures from Manly.

Sydney Aquarium

Tonight, just before the US presidential elections started, we went to the Sydney Aquarium and took some photos.

Gilligan gets off

I picked this up at the discount store on Pitt Street today. I can't wait to watch it.