Sydney & The Goofy Dragon

Sydney Can Sleep Anywhere

Seriously:

Syd's New Home

Syd, our Russian tortoise, was getting a bit cramped in her home, so I built her a new one. Using these plans as a base, I constructed a 4 by 2 pen for her and threw some wheels on the bottom. Syd seems much happier now, cruising around in circles. Here's a clip of Syd checking things out:


A little more on these interesting animals... they're also called the Horsfield's tortoise. Agrionemys horsfieldii.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Order: Testudines
Suborder: Cryptodira
Family: Testudinidae
Genus: Testudo (disputed)
Species: T. horsfieldii

Native to central Asia, around the border of Russia and Afghanistan, these war-weary animals are bred in captivity and make for low-maintenance pets. Unfortunately, many are smuggled into the country as part of the exotic pet trade. If you decide to find a Russian tortoise for your household, make sure he or she had been bred in captivity.


Russian tortoises like to climb and burrow. The bedding, made from recycled paper and cardboard, gives her something to dig in, and we're looking to add some more toys for her to climb on. For now, she has to make do with the tunnel and rock from her last residence:


When people meet Syd for the first time, they're always surprised by two things:
1. Her speed. Lightning.
2. Her compassion. She's the most affectionate tortoise you could imagine.

Here she is climbing over her retreat and then doing a faceplant:


Syd dancing - just a bit:

Syd Eats

Videos from Gasthof Fraundorfer in Garmisch-Partenkirchen

During our lengthy dinner/dancing/drinking in this fine Bavarian establishment in the German Alps, I managed to get a few videos. And here we go...

Walking into the bier hall:


A short clip of the slap dancing. These young guys worked for beer. You could tell how many places they had visited when they came back later in the night!


A John Denver classic in a German bier hall:


Finally, the German Oompa Band plays one of our favorite tunes from Dirty Dancing:

German Sing-A-Long

On Thursday night, Dana and I were in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, staying at Gasthof-Fraundorfer. Dinner here in the Alps was quite an event. There was traditional German music, dancing and plenty to eat and drink. A BMW biker convention was descending upon the town, but some of the other guests were from overseas like us. Here's a slice of the night.

*Warning, this video contains explicit lyrics... well, one explicit lyric. One word, really... but it's the big one. Sorry Mom.

The Greatest Toilet in the World

The Beginning





The Sitting





The Experience

Patonga

Patonga Lite:


Patonga Xtreme:

Echidnas

Echidnas are my favourite land animal in Australia. I've yet to decide if the kookaburra or the pelican take first place for the sky, but cuttlefish definitely take the wet cake.

Is it a hedgehog? Noooo. This bad boy is a monotreme, along the same lines as a platypus... both freaks of nature to those of us the 21st century. These guys are mammals that lay eggs. Freakishly cool.

Here's a couple of echidnas at the zoo:


We saw an echidna in South Australia, on Kangaroo Island, and my dad got out for a good photo. I need to get that photo off of dad.

In the meantime, here's some information about how echidnas mate:

• The female starts cruising down the street
• Males smell that sexy female echidna and follow
• The female continues until she has a long line of contenders
• She leads the train into an open area and walks in a circle repeatedly to form a ring
• The female goes to the centre of the ring and digs in so that only her backside is exposed.
• The males enter a steel cage match
• Each male tries to push the rest out of the circle
• The male remaining crawls into the hole with the female
• And we get baby echidnas

Glenn Hinton Dancing

Glenn Hinton dances at Aaron's place on Anzac Day.

If you can't see the movie, try this.

Anzac Day Antics

"Ohhhh, Anzac Day, Anzac Day, 2-up and beer." You all know that old song. Well, yesterday we had a chance to sing along to this song as well as many others (such as We Are the World) in Rozelle. Aaron & Ben threw a solid party, complete with 2-up! 2-up? Anzac? Little help here.

• Anzac = Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
• Anzac Day = Australian and New Zealand Army Corps Day, so you could also call it Anzacd

This day, the 25th of April, even if it lands on a Wednesday, is a public holiday meant to honour the diggers. Diggers?

• Diggers = Anzac soldiers

Anzac Day starts with a dawn service, about a quarter after 4 in the morning. There are parades all over Australia and New Zealand. Supermarkets are closed until 1PM out of respect for the diggers. Pubs generally open just after the dawn service. Then people play 2-up (two-up). 2-up (two-up?)?

• 2-up = This is a gambling game that is banned every day of the year except Anzac Day. (I know, it just gets weirder and weirder, doesn't it?) The game involves a "spinner" placing two coins on a flat stick, called a "kip". After this, I've heard many variations on the rules. Essentially you bet if the coins will turn up heads or tails. If their mixed, you spin again. A "boxer" oversees bets with the spinner, and other people can place side bets. It's good fun.

The story is that during WWI, Turkish troops saw a group of Australian troops playing two-up. They were too far away to see what was happening, but they saw the diggers' heads bobbing up and down. The Turks decided not to attack because they assumed they were praying. They were not too far off thinking that gambling was an Australian religion.

Back to the BBQ. After the two-up ended and we had a good comb through Aaron's record collection, we hit the 3 Weeds just down the road. It was an excellent day/night, though it made today, a Thursday, feel like a Monday/Friday.

Check out all the good shots here, including wolfman.

We ARE the world.

Go Johnny

Saturday we enjoyed Cory's well-organised cricket match. Sure I wound up with a bruised shoulder and Sam wound up with a bruised face, but we all had fun. Especially these two puppies:


Yeah, they're looking around like they have no idea what's going down.

"What's all the fuss about?"
"Just getting humped."
"[Pant]"
"[Pant]"

I do wish I could get into the heads of those animals. On the other hand I do have this interesting clip. This is what you get when you have a still camera but you take motion picture video:


Summary and 73 photos to come tomorrow.

Sydney Summer Rain

Today was a typical Sydney summer day. Dana and I got up and went for a run, which was interrupted by a pleasant but intense sun shower. As I brewed all day, the sun came and went from behind the clouds, each time changing the perceived temperature by about 20 degrees to anyone exposed to it. Below is a short clip from our balcony. It's hard to make out how heavy the rain is, but the gutters became rivers. And as a man rode his bike the wrong way down a one-way street street without a helmet and in this downpour, I waited to see if he would be taken out of the gene pool before my eyes. Thankfully he was not.


As an aside, this is my 100th post!

Victoria the Beast Cannibal Goldfish

Our friends Jen and Ben (Bennifer) asked us to look after their fish while they were away for the holidays this past December. We would oversee the fish for a few days before heading off on our own holiday before our house-sitting friends Todd & Candice would take over. A few months ago Dana and I picked up Pete & Jim the same day that Bennifer picked up Albert & Victoria. When Ben was scooping Albert and Victoria out (forgive the names, Bennifer is a pom) they accidentally picked out four much smaller fish. They bought the bundle, and we headed out.

Somewhere on the way home, one of the small fish "disappeared". Once home Albert & Victoria's alien freaking heads were poured into a bowl with the remaining three small fish. Shortly after Albert was swimming a bit funny. Bennifer noted that Victoria seemed to be "picking on" Albert. I take this literally given later events. Albert died. Bennifer picked up another bug-eyed fish who was also killed died. I'm not sure what the name of the other unfortunate fish was. George or William or Harry or something. When the fish landed on our table next to the peaceful Pete and Jim, there was billowing Victoria and three small unnamed fellas.

The first night they were here I was typing into my blog and periodically glancing over at them. Victoria seemed to be chasing around the smaller fish. Then I looked over and saw a small guy floating belly-up. When cold water didn't wake him up I flushed him. I didn't think he's wake up since his belly was open.

"Shit," I thought. "First night watching these fish and one dies."

After coming back from the dunny I leaned over the bowl to watch Victoria and the other two. On cue Victoria sucked one of the little guys into her mouth head first. Of course the first thing I did was grab my camera.

If you watch the clip you can see her chewing on the fish that is way to big for her to swallow. At first she seems to hide it, but she's a fish, so she quickly realises she has no consciousness and there is nothing to gain in hiding it, so she flaunts it. She flaunts it so much. The next morning the little fish was at the bottom of the bowl, headless.



I can hear her. "Look at me. I am a goldfish sucking on the head of a fish I perceive to be lower on the food chain. Yes I know I'm supposed to eat those flakes, but this head is so goddamn tasty. Guilt? I'm a goldfish. I already forget what this thing in my mouth is." [suck] "But it's tasty. Who are you?"

Epilogue
I saved the last little guy and put him in our bowl. He is named Survivor. Pete and Jim were ambivalent towards him, and he's still doing well. Sadly, Jim died last week. I know he's just a fish but it still upsets me. I can't figure out what could have caused it except that he had been tipping to one side for a few days. I assumed he had gas like Pete used to. Victoria returned to her apartment at Bennifer's on the 46th floor of Century Tower where she lives out a lonely existence, cut off from all other fish. Pete and Survivor are doing well.

Jazz in the Domain

A couple of weeks ago we settled into the Domain, a public park here in Sydney, for a day of hanging with friends, eating, drinking and listening to some fantastic jazz. "Jazz" is a loose term here. The music was great but I'm not sure if the didgeridoo backing up a Brazilian whistle and drum band is jazz to many people. It sure was exciting music though. Glenn, Chris, Fiona and I got there at about 1PM to claim a good spot. A large good spot. Dana and lots of friends filtered in through the afternoon and into the evening, filling our space appropriately. Some buggers did show up at the park at 7 and later expecting to sit right up front. I was very territorial and told them to get lost before they got too settled. Seriously though we put in a good effort holding down the fort for many hours. These peabrains can't show up just before the music starts and expect to sit anywhere besides the back. We had laid out our space well and peed out a perimeter, so I was confused how any other human could think it was unclaimed land. Once the undesirables were scattered we continued to have a grand ole time. If you live in Sydney and have not been, go. And go early or sit in the back.Check out the amusing photos here, and hear Stiffy describe the legends here:

Some other vids from the event...

Weekend At Benny's

A couple of weeks ago, our good friend Ben Waud had some of us over his (parents') place for a BBQ. It was a solid night of grilling, eating, drinking and wrestling. We started off at the beach and moved back to the Gosford house from there. Ben had an excellent spread for us, and we all enjoyed a fantastic night... especially after the crazy eights and Jaggard that went along with it. Midnight bocce became midnight wrestling, with me, Glenn and Brett beating each other on an absurdly small sheet that Ben laid out for his officiation. My shoulder still hurts. Bowie the dog made a good showing. And thanks to Sam and Lana for lift up and Heat Miser (pictured right) for the lift down.

View all photos here.

Bungy!

Diving with Sharks

Diving with grey nurse sharks in Maroubra, just outside Sydney, was a thrill I had the pleasure of experiencing a few weeks ago. The dive site was at Magic Point, a short boat trip from shore. Though no one mentions it on the boat, we're all a little worried about seeing other sharks besides grey nurse. Great whites, bronze whalers and bull sharks could be in the area and would not be a welcome sight. Hammerheads may be around but they are fine as long as there is no blood in the water. Grey nurse sharks are very safe all the time as long as you don't pull on their tail or something. When the first shark swam up to a little more than an arm's distance away I didn't think about pulling about pulling on it's tail... I kind of freaked out and ascended a bit.

These animals are beautiful. My buddy Wade and I descended and found their cave very quickly. We sat tight and watched them swimming majestically around the area before exploring. There were about seven large grey nurse sharks at this location.

A blue groper took a liking to us and followed us for the rest of the dive as we passed coral, nudibraches, starfish and heaps of other fish. Wade also spotted a mask and snorkel combo that had already become part of the natural environment.

Photos from this dive here.