good old brissy

It's stinking sweaty head foggy hot. The economy is not what it once was, and I don't have any work on the way as of yet. Darcy and I are hanging around the house, and he is tying up loose ends and doing what work he can before everyone shuts down for Chrissy.

A lot of things have happened this past month. But I have been too hot to spend a lot of time on the computer, and for about 10 days we had no internet so this entry will try to make up for a bit of time.

It was weird not to have the internet. In addition to it being the main way Darcy and I communicate with people for work, I realized it has also become our main tool for distraction throughout the day, reading BBC and NYTimes and blogs and VFX stuff, as well as window shopping. Without it, I felt lost the first few days. But then it was good. I read more, and was more productive. I listened to the radio. I have found a station that plays oldies, but from the 60's and 70's. I can sing along, and spend all day in some sort of weird time warp, re-living little events throughout my childhood in Manchester NH while Crosby Stills Nash and Young or Fleetwood Mac plays in the background. I can't listen to it all day; first it's fun but then it gets too weird.

We went to the Cricket. Australia vs. New Zealand. It was my second time attending a Cricket match. The first time was last year, when India was here playing Australia. That was a heated time, with India's star player accused of making racial remarks towards a black Australian player. Australia wanted him to be dismissed, India threatened to leave and cut the season short, and as a result the final match was tense and full of angry crowds.

I can't remember the rules exactly; they are different depending on whether the game is a one day match or a 5 day match. In either case the game starts at 10 and ends at 5 or 6pm; there is a tea break mid morning and an hour lunch break and then another tea break in the afternoon.

Contrary to baseball, tickets on the ground level are the cheapest, and the crowd is rowdy. People will spend the whole day at the cricket, and many drink beer from the time they arrive until they leave. As a result, by about 2pm, the crowd turns a little ugly and aggressive from all the drinking, and inevitably fights break out, and people streak across the field. In the game against India, The crowds were divided along racial lines, and we sat surrounded by Aussies on either side and behind, and a group of Indian people about 5 rows in front. One of the girls was waving an Indian flag. It obscured the view of a lot of people, and by the evening those people were not happy. They started yelling at the girl to put the flag down, which made her angry and more determined to wave it. Then a man in front of us reached over and tried to pull her flag down. It almost started a fight. Then, later on, when an Australian batter got out, a big fat white Aussie turned to the Indian crowd with big wild eyes and screamed "YOU'RE A BUNCH OF FUCKING CHEATERS!" and threw beer on them. When they turned around to yell at him, he got up and started that whole "you wanna go?" kind of thing. The police are everywhere at cricket matches, and by the late afternoon they are throwing people out.

This last time we went, it was Day 2 of the match, and New Zealand wasn't even at bat the whole day (that is not good). Australia are the better team, so it is not much to watch, unless you just want to see Australia win regardless of the competition. Darcy had a good time. He really likes Cricket. I think I don't mind it in a live setting, before the crowd gets drunk.

We've had mad storms. 2 weeks back, they were so fierce that they blew people's roofs off, destroyed people's homes, and even killed some people. We were very lucky here on the south side of the city - all that stuff happened on the north side. I was sitting alone in the house when the first one struck. No one in the news said it was going to be so bad. It came in and rained pretty hard. Then the wind started whipping through. The thunder and lightning felt like it was circling me, ready to go in for the kill. The whole house started shaking. I had to lock down all the windows and doors and then I couldn't see out the window from all the rain. It went on like this for an hour, then tapered off. It happened again the next day and then the next and then the next. Now we are back to the standard afternoon thunderstorm to break the heat. But the people who have lost their homes - I really feel for them. That is no quick recovery.

I left this post too long. I can't remember anything.

hmmm...

I've been walking around the river. The river is one of the big selling features of Brisbane, which is funny because it is brown and murky and full of bull sharks. You can't swim in it and at low tide if you are near its mangroves it smells a little. But people who have a home on the river are millionaires at least. Everyone wants to be near the river. To be honest, if I had a million dollars to spend on a home, I can think of a few other places I would rather have a house. But it's not as simple as that, I guess. You have to be somewhere you can work, maybe you grew up here and want to be near family, maybe you love muddy river life and would rather be here than on the beach somewhere. If I had a million bucks I think I'd buy a home somewhere else though.

But the river is still good. People rock climb its cliffs, boat around it if they have a boat. Some people live on boats in the river. One day I took some photos so you could have some sense of the city via the river:

here is the muddy water.

here are boats that people live on.

here I am crossing from south side to north side on the pedestrian bridge.

here I am crossing at the other end of the CBD back to the south side, in the late afternoon.

On the north side of the pedestrian bridge there is the Brisbane Botanical Gardens. I say "is" and not "are" because despite the fact that there are gardens it is just one park. It's a nice park, full of pretty trees and some flowers. When we first moved here, it was all green and great. Now there is a brown patch in it though, because Darcy and a bunch of other guys play soccer on it:He has fun.

Last Tuesday I said "AHHH! It is too hot! Let's rent a van and go up to the beach!" We rented a van, put our tent and surfboard in it and got on the road. Then it started to rain. Then the radio said severe storms were on the way. The the rain was so heavy it was hard to see. So we decided to turn around and go home. We stopped at a grocery store to buy some groceries. We got back to the van, and Darcy had accidentally left the lights on, so the battery was dead. We had to call someone to come and start us up, because no one around us in the parking lot had jumper cables. It cost us 90 dollars. We finally got home, and by 10pm were sitting on the couch, tired and hot, watching tv. I guess for now we just have to deal with it.