1. Decided to look for Australian Muslim comedians. About.com has a whole page about Muslim comedy, and some Aussie comedians are included there.
2. Started to watch a video of Aamer Rahman at the Melbourne International Comedy Show.
I laughed a bit at :44. It reminds me of feelings I've had before; and also how other people probably feel when they read my blog.
Some of the Michael Jackson stuff made me laugh as well.
3. Started to watch a video of Nazeem Hussain at the Sydney Comedy Festival.
It took me awhile to get a laugh out of that one, but I like the part at 3:07.
The end made me laugh a bit too.
4. Decided to watch another Aamer Rahman video.
I laughed at the part beginning at about 1:40....Pauline Hanson stuff.
Aamer's accent sort of sounds Jewish-New Yorker to me. It's like how I'd imagine a Jewish New Yorker would sound after they lived in Australia for a few years.
5. Didn't really like the rest of the video. It's more anger humor than self-deprecating humor. I prefer the latter.
6. Didn't like this video either.
I wanted to find a Muslim comedian who's willing to poke fun at himself, his religion, and culture...not one who does angry political rants in the guise of comedy. A mixture of both would be fine as well.
7. Went to bed and dreamed I got an email from my friend Tracey. She tells me she has a pet red fox. I'm thinking that's cute. Then it changes and she has a pet lizard instead. I ask her to send me a picture of it. Later I'm riding this bike-like vehicle and thinking I could have just googled the lizard to see what it looks like. In the dream, googling equaled actually getting the animal. Suddenly I have the lizard on my bike-vehicle-thing. I ride on a hill (in a place that looks like one of my childhood neighborhoods) with the lizard. At one point I decide to part with the lizard. I gently put him down on some bushes.
8. Read James' blog post and learned a Swedish phrase. Min Kompis. It means "my friend". James met up with his Sydney friend while in Stockholm. He says, There was a brief moment when min kompis Graeme and I looked at each other and thought “this is not real”. We have only ever known each other in Sydney and surrounds, but there we were, sitting together in a bar in Stockholm.
When we went to Australia in 2007, our American friend Greg came over from New Zealand. I've known Greg since I was sixteen, and here he was on our Australian trip with us. He juggled Luna Park balls in our hotel room; walked on Bondi beach with me, fell asleep on the bus tour; and fed wallabies with us. It was kind of surreal.
Why is it surreal? I'm not sure.
9. Read a product review on Iwasn'tbloggedyesterday's blog.
It's a skincare thing, and she liked it a lot.
I've done only one product review. It was for our homeschooling blog. It was awkward because I didn't really like the product. I think I was nice, though, about it.
I didn't think it was an awful product; just not something we'd need. It wasn't useful to us. I figured maybe it might be useful to other people. I don't know.
10. Liked what Fruitcake said in her blog post. Both sides – right wing anti-multiculturalists and extreme Islamicists – believe their cultures are mutually incompatible. The fight is not just for power or territory, but for the right to define society they way they believe it should be defined.
I really love her quote before that too, but I don't want to be rude and quote too much. So just please go and see it for yourself.
11. Felt sad for Quick Lamb.
12. Inspired by a Facebook friend's update to look up volunteering vacations. I found this awesome one in Perth. It's at the Roo Gully Wildlife Sanctuary. I want to do it! You pay $800 a month for lodging and then you do volunteer work. That's only $26 a night. It's cheap in money, but not so cheap in labor. It sounds like they work you pretty hard. I don't think I'd mind as long as it was a friendly place and I felt welcomed there.
I think Jack is too young for it now. I think it would be great for us three to go when he's a teenager. Or maybe Tim and I can do it when Jack's grown up. They want you to do a one month minimum, so maybe we'd do it at a time when we can stay at least six months in Australia.
13. Read article that says Therese Rein totally messed up her husband's blackberry. Oops.
She saw that he had twenty-four messages and was trying to listen to them—figuring they were get well messages. She had trouble doing the password; and I guess the security system wiped everything clean.
Hopefully people will see the article and resend their messages.
14. Read article about the Malaysian Solution. It seems the Australian government is expecting some major riots. They have metal fencing, detention centre guards with military training, riot police, and armed customer officers.
Hopefully, all that effort will be in vain, and there won't be any riots.
I also hope that those sent to Malaysia will have better experiences than they're expecting. I hope they're not treated like shit.
15. Looked at photographs from a refugee camp in Malaysia. It doesn't look too pleasant, but I'm not sure that it's worse than the detention centers in Australia.
The Australia government says those sent in the big trade off will get special working and living privileges that the other refugees won't get. Hopefully, that's true. Although it makes me sad for all of those refugees that don't get those privileges, and also aren't part of the four thousand coming to Australia in the trade.
16. Read article about Jack Vidgen winning Australia's Got Talent. I'm curious now. I'm going to listen to him sing.
He sort of reminds me of a Jack I taught in preschool.
I don't like his song choice much, but he has a great voice.
17. Read article about scientists in Queensland making needle vaccines a thing of the past. They're doing a Nanopatch thing. I'm HOPING they get this done by the time Jack needs his next vaccines. He's one of those needle phobic people. I guess the good thing about that is I don't have to worry about him becoming a heroin addict.
Anyway, this seems like a great thing. It's good enough in the fact that needle-fearing people can relax. But there are other benefits. The Nanopatch doesn't need to be refrigerated like other vaccines. That could cut down on a lot of costs. It also prevents needle injuries and cross contamination issues. Mark Kendall the miracle worker says that, in Africa about half of vaccines aren't working properly because of a breakdown in the cold chain.
Mark Kendall, if you get this done you'll be my new favorite Australian.
18. Read scary article that says 1/3 of bats in Queensland have the Hendra virus now. Shit.
The usual infection rate is about 7%.
The bat population has also had a big increase. Some folks are wanting to do a culling. That's sad. But if a lot of experts agree that it's the best thing to do, I'd probably support it.
19. Saw that I have been given my own space on Tallygarunga. That's a huge honor. It makes me so happy. And I'm already very happy today, which is funny because I had to clean up a disgusting batch of cat vomit this morning.
Why am I happy? (besides the Tally thing).
A few weeks ago, I signed us up to go to this conference and I gave them our credit card number. Then a few days later I regretted the whole thing. The problem is they don't allow refunds. You either have to sell your tickets or use them for another year.
Then a week or so we had credit card fraud issues. Tim canceled the card. So.... I got a call yesterday from the conference woman saying our credit card didn't go through. They can't say "no refunds" if they never got the money in the first place. We canceled the whole thing and instead we're going to go to a water park hotel. We'll be spending close to the same amount of money, but I think we'll have more fun on water slides.
20. Found the Tallygarunga story thread I'm going to read today. It's called Rosenrot Rothschild.
The story thread is told through letters.
It says that it takes place at the post office. I'm guessing this is their way of saying that the letters were sent through the Australian post. Or maybe they're actually reading the letters while at the post office.
I wonder why they didn't use owls.
21. Saw that the characters in the story are Professor Remington Arledge and Rosenrot Rothschild.
Remington works for the Department of Magical Transportation, and he's an apparition instructor.
Rosenrot is the Tallygarunga Matron. I'm not sure what that means.
22. Started reading the letters.
The first letter is strange. I can't tell if it's serious or a joke. This probably could be added as evidence to the theory, Andrew heard, about Americans not understanding irony.
Well, all the letters involve bickering. I can't tell if it's in jest or the two characters are serious. I would guess the former, but I may be wrong.
23. Wrote a post for my fictional blog, and it's dated June 20, 1998. That's exactly a year before our nonfictional wedding took place.
24. Started to read the biography of Rosenrot Rothschild.
Her face claim is a French actress of the bygone days—Simone Signoret.
25. Watched a Simone Signoret scene from Room at the Top.
They're speaking English. Is it dubbed? Or is the movie from an English-speaking country?
26. Consulted Lord Wiki about Room at the Top. He says it's a British film.
27. Went back to reading about Rosenrot.
She has big breasts and a small butt.
She likes to wear dresses and not pants.
She curls her hair every night and she wears a lot of make-up.
28. Learned that Rosenrot is sensitive and cares deeply what others think of her. I'm very much like that.
29. Learned that Rosenrot loves large eyeballs. That's very interesting.
Does she like them attached to a person; or is this some kind of wizarding thing?
30. Learned that Rosenrot doesn't like caramel.
I don't think I've ever met anyone who doesn't like caramel. I wonder what she doesn't like about it. Is it the taste? The texture? Maybe both?
31. Learned that Rosenrot hates reading novels. I can't imagine being like that.
32. Started to read Rosenrot's history.
She was born in East Germany and had a happy childhood.
33. Loved the story of Rosenrot's magical history. It's fantastic. Young Rosenrot is given a stick by her friend and told it's a wand. If she swishes it around and wishes, her wishes will come true. Rosenrot is disappointed when she learns that's not true.
It's such a sad thing for us Muggles to face.—that we're not really magic. But Rosenrot didn't have to live with that fate. Eventually, she learned she really WAS magic.
34. Mesmerized by Rosenrot's story. It should be turned into a novel. As Jack would say, It's epic!
Rosenrot looks like a young woman, but she's in her 90's...or older. A magical mirror keeps her looking young. She lost her son when he was a child, and was reunited with him recently. He's an old man while she looks like a young woman.
A lot of the story takes place during the Holocaust. It could be fantasy-history.
Really. This NEEDS to be a novel.
I would explain more about it, but I can't do it justice.
35. Saw that James is continuing to enjoy his time in Sweden. He visited a farm and says now he'll have to go the customs line for people who declare they've visited a farm.
What really happens when you admit to visiting a farm? Do you get sprayed with anti-farm spray? Do they test you for mysterious illnesses? Are you put in quarantine? Do you get asked a bunch of questions?
36. Looked at this website. They say, Customs officers are charged with preventing agricultural pests from entering the country. Any traveler who has visited a farm or agricultural station may be subject to additional screening, disinfection of shoes and other precautionary measures. If possible, skip the goat farm tour and save yourself some trouble.
But what if you really like goats?
I guess it makes sense in a way. If I really like farms, I should probably just visit one in America. Why go halfway across the world to do it?
But if the farm thing seems really appealing, we can probably endure whatever awaits us in customs.
37. Looked at this forum. They talk about the issue, and it seems the main thing that happens is someone at customs cleans your shoes. One person cracked me up by saying, When we came back from Wales, where we had stayed on a farm, we had to walk through a trough of some kind of solution at US customs and then raise the soles of our feet and have them sprayed with something.
Interestingly, I'm not sure all of us were wearing the same shoes that had actually touched the turf at said farm. Pretty sure some of the shoes were in the suitcase.
You would think the customer officers would ask about that.
Most people on the forum say it's not a big deal and best to be honest about it. The government people are just trying to avoid bad pathogens entering the country.
I support them trying to prevent that.
38. Thought about how The King's Speech led me to Tallygarunga. How?
Because I loved The King's Speech, we watched the Oscars. I don't often do that anymore.
Because I watched the Oscars, I saw the "Tiny Ball of Light" song.
I loved the song, and found a Facebook Page named after it.
I looked at their Likes to find other Harry Potter pages to join. That's how I learned about Magic is Might.
One day the character, I used to comment on the Magic is Might boards, decided to start her own blog.
I got involved with that, and it came to the point where I needed to create my own wizarding village in Sydney. I wanted something connected to the Puppet Shop in the rocks. I googled that and found out it was closed. Then I decided to see if anyone else had created a wizarding village in Australia. Was I planning to borrow their idea? Maybe. Well, I guess it would be no worse than being inspired by the world created by JK Rowling.
I found Koalingo Academy. It looked interesting, but the lack of Australian culture on the site bothered me. I read through it a bit. Then I decided to do a Google search of Koalingo and Bunyip. Don't ask me why I chose that particular Australian thing. I guess I figured if they mentioned Bunyip on the site, it wouldn't seem lacking in Aussie culture.
I searched and this is what Google gave me. It led to this thread on Tallygarunga; The Road Goes Ever On and On. I don't think I actually read it. I clicked around and went exploring the rest of Tallygarunga.
39. Realized that in reality it was really Harry Potter and Australia that brought me to Tallygarunga. The reason I went to see The King's Speech in the first place is because it had an Australian actor; and three Harry Potter actors.
40. Learned that my Australian of the day is James Outram Anderson.
He was a tennis player.
41. Decided I'm going to watch videos from Mousie's database only on the days where I don't already have a lot of embedded videos. I don't want video saturation happening on my blog.
I could have done one yesterday because I had zero videos. But I felt stressed and rushed yesterday. I also wanted to stalk a Flickr account and felt I didn't have time for that as well.
41. Started to read about James Anderson.
He was born in Enfield, Sydney. I don't think I've heard of that.
I'll try to find it on Google Maps.
Here we go. It's out west near Croydon.
42. Saw that James won a lot of tennis things in the 1920's.
When I was in college I knew a tennis player named James. He was from Zimbabwe.
43. Learned that James had a large toy kangaroo, and he'd bring it on the tennis court with him. Maybe it was his good luck charm.
44. Found a Flickr account to stalk. It's Faun070. He's a performing arts teacher from Amsterdam.
His favorite painting is The Seating Demon by Mikhail Vrubel.
This website has a copy of the painting.
Faun070's favorite cities are London, Sydney, and St. Petersburg. He also likes Mackinac Island in Michigan. That's where the movie Somewhere in Time takes place.
45. Saw that Faun070 has a whole album of parrots. Awesome! And I think he has Alex's parrot on there!
46. Decided that Faun070 is worth two days of stalking...maybe even three. He has a lot of Australian albums. I don't want to rush through them. I have a feeling I'm going to want to savor my time with Faun070.
47. Amazed by all the traveling that Faun070 has done.
48. Started to look at Faun070's first Australia album. It's of a park in Western Australia called Nambung.
Lord Wiki says it's north-west of Perth.
Faun070 took his pictures in July 2009.
I love the ocean in this photo.
49. Wondered if this is Faun070.
He does look kind of like this child featured in Faun070's set of classic photos.
50. Loved this photo. It looks Asian to me for some reason.
51. Loved this picture of The Pinnacles. I think I've heard of that before.
The scene looks like it belongs on another planet.
Lord Wiki says they're made of limestone.
52. Thought that this kind of looks like a penis.
53. Started to look at Faun070's album of Kalbarri.
I think that's one of the places we're planning to go on my imaginary trip.
Let me check on my calendar.
Yep.
We're going to pretend we're there on May 20. AND I see we're also going to be in Cervantes, which is where Nambung is.
54. Wished our pretend trip was a real trip.
Maybe one day it will be.
I hope so.
55. Saw Faun070 having a Storm Boy moment.
56. Loved this photo of pelicans.
57. Loved this photo too.
58. Thought that Faun070 and his partner seem very happy together.
Well...actually. They might actually be married. Gay marriage is legal in the Netherlands. Lord Wiki says it's the first country to legalize it.
Married people are partners, though. Right?
59. Thought it would be funny if Faun070 and the other guy were just friends.
I doubt it though. I get a romantic vibe from them.
60. Saw a picture of Alex's parrot.
It might really be her parrot because although she got Harry in 1998, this website says they have a lifespan of up to 50 years.
Maybe Harry ends up leaving Alex; and maybe he flies over to Western Australia.
I hope he doesn't do that though. Alex really loves him.
61. Loved this picture of Faun070 bonding with a cockatoo.
62. Amazed by Jack's memory.
Tim started reading Evil Genius the other day. I was looking at our bookshelves to see if I had the second book in the trilogy. Jack asked what I was doing and I told him. He told me we didn't have the book, and that I got the second one from the library.
How does he remember stuff like that?
63. Started looking at Faun070's photos of Shark Bay. I think that's near Monkey Mia. Or maybe Monkey Mia is in Shark Bay?
Well, I can see on Google Maps that they're right next to each other.
64. Learned from Lord Wiki that Shark Bay has a lot of dugongs.
And he says that Monkey Mia is a national park inside of Shark Bay.
65. Had Monkey Mia ruined for me with this photo. I don't want bunches of tourists there!
I want it to be Jack, Tim, me, and a bunch of dolphins.
66. Thought this picture reminds me of something out of a Jaws movie. It would be in the beginning with the happy music....before all the scary bloody stuff happens.
67. Wondered what's in this tank.
68. Wondered if the shark is biting the other shark in this picture.
69. Thought this photo looks classic Australian. Although it also sort of reminds me of the desert areas of California.
70. Started to look at Faun070's photos of "Geraldton to Perth"
They really liked this Irish Sun dial statue. They have a lot of photos of it.
72. Started to look at Faun070's photos of Rottnest Island. I wondered if it reminded him of Mackinac Island. Both islands are car-free.
73. Saw a photo of Faun070 with a quokka. I think Rottnest is known for those.
I'm going to admit it. The quokka doesn't really appeal to me.
I'm not a quokka girl.
74. Saw that Faun070 is not wearing his bike helmet. He's very naughty.
75. Started to look at Faun070's Perth pictures.
76. Saw that Faun070 and his husband/partner met up with friends in Perth. Are they Australians or also tourists? Or maybe they're Australian tourists.
77. Felt the grass was too green here. It looks like a golf course.
2. Started to watch a video of Aamer Rahman at the Melbourne International Comedy Show.
I laughed a bit at :44. It reminds me of feelings I've had before; and also how other people probably feel when they read my blog.
Some of the Michael Jackson stuff made me laugh as well.
3. Started to watch a video of Nazeem Hussain at the Sydney Comedy Festival.
It took me awhile to get a laugh out of that one, but I like the part at 3:07.
The end made me laugh a bit too.
4. Decided to watch another Aamer Rahman video.
I laughed at the part beginning at about 1:40....Pauline Hanson stuff.
Aamer's accent sort of sounds Jewish-New Yorker to me. It's like how I'd imagine a Jewish New Yorker would sound after they lived in Australia for a few years.
5. Didn't really like the rest of the video. It's more anger humor than self-deprecating humor. I prefer the latter.
6. Didn't like this video either.
I wanted to find a Muslim comedian who's willing to poke fun at himself, his religion, and culture...not one who does angry political rants in the guise of comedy. A mixture of both would be fine as well.
7. Went to bed and dreamed I got an email from my friend Tracey. She tells me she has a pet red fox. I'm thinking that's cute. Then it changes and she has a pet lizard instead. I ask her to send me a picture of it. Later I'm riding this bike-like vehicle and thinking I could have just googled the lizard to see what it looks like. In the dream, googling equaled actually getting the animal. Suddenly I have the lizard on my bike-vehicle-thing. I ride on a hill (in a place that looks like one of my childhood neighborhoods) with the lizard. At one point I decide to part with the lizard. I gently put him down on some bushes.
8. Read James' blog post and learned a Swedish phrase. Min Kompis. It means "my friend". James met up with his Sydney friend while in Stockholm. He says, There was a brief moment when min kompis Graeme and I looked at each other and thought “this is not real”. We have only ever known each other in Sydney and surrounds, but there we were, sitting together in a bar in Stockholm.
When we went to Australia in 2007, our American friend Greg came over from New Zealand. I've known Greg since I was sixteen, and here he was on our Australian trip with us. He juggled Luna Park balls in our hotel room; walked on Bondi beach with me, fell asleep on the bus tour; and fed wallabies with us. It was kind of surreal.
Why is it surreal? I'm not sure.
9. Read a product review on Iwasn'tbloggedyesterday's blog.
It's a skincare thing, and she liked it a lot.
I've done only one product review. It was for our homeschooling blog. It was awkward because I didn't really like the product. I think I was nice, though, about it.
I didn't think it was an awful product; just not something we'd need. It wasn't useful to us. I figured maybe it might be useful to other people. I don't know.
10. Liked what Fruitcake said in her blog post. Both sides – right wing anti-multiculturalists and extreme Islamicists – believe their cultures are mutually incompatible. The fight is not just for power or territory, but for the right to define society they way they believe it should be defined.
I really love her quote before that too, but I don't want to be rude and quote too much. So just please go and see it for yourself.
11. Felt sad for Quick Lamb.
12. Inspired by a Facebook friend's update to look up volunteering vacations. I found this awesome one in Perth. It's at the Roo Gully Wildlife Sanctuary. I want to do it! You pay $800 a month for lodging and then you do volunteer work. That's only $26 a night. It's cheap in money, but not so cheap in labor. It sounds like they work you pretty hard. I don't think I'd mind as long as it was a friendly place and I felt welcomed there.
I think Jack is too young for it now. I think it would be great for us three to go when he's a teenager. Or maybe Tim and I can do it when Jack's grown up. They want you to do a one month minimum, so maybe we'd do it at a time when we can stay at least six months in Australia.
13. Read article that says Therese Rein totally messed up her husband's blackberry. Oops.
She saw that he had twenty-four messages and was trying to listen to them—figuring they were get well messages. She had trouble doing the password; and I guess the security system wiped everything clean.
Hopefully people will see the article and resend their messages.
14. Read article about the Malaysian Solution. It seems the Australian government is expecting some major riots. They have metal fencing, detention centre guards with military training, riot police, and armed customer officers.
Hopefully, all that effort will be in vain, and there won't be any riots.
I also hope that those sent to Malaysia will have better experiences than they're expecting. I hope they're not treated like shit.
15. Looked at photographs from a refugee camp in Malaysia. It doesn't look too pleasant, but I'm not sure that it's worse than the detention centers in Australia.
The Australia government says those sent in the big trade off will get special working and living privileges that the other refugees won't get. Hopefully, that's true. Although it makes me sad for all of those refugees that don't get those privileges, and also aren't part of the four thousand coming to Australia in the trade.
16. Read article about Jack Vidgen winning Australia's Got Talent. I'm curious now. I'm going to listen to him sing.
He sort of reminds me of a Jack I taught in preschool.
I don't like his song choice much, but he has a great voice.
17. Read article about scientists in Queensland making needle vaccines a thing of the past. They're doing a Nanopatch thing. I'm HOPING they get this done by the time Jack needs his next vaccines. He's one of those needle phobic people. I guess the good thing about that is I don't have to worry about him becoming a heroin addict.
Anyway, this seems like a great thing. It's good enough in the fact that needle-fearing people can relax. But there are other benefits. The Nanopatch doesn't need to be refrigerated like other vaccines. That could cut down on a lot of costs. It also prevents needle injuries and cross contamination issues. Mark Kendall the miracle worker says that, in Africa about half of vaccines aren't working properly because of a breakdown in the cold chain.
Mark Kendall, if you get this done you'll be my new favorite Australian.
18. Read scary article that says 1/3 of bats in Queensland have the Hendra virus now. Shit.
The usual infection rate is about 7%.
The bat population has also had a big increase. Some folks are wanting to do a culling. That's sad. But if a lot of experts agree that it's the best thing to do, I'd probably support it.
19. Saw that I have been given my own space on Tallygarunga. That's a huge honor. It makes me so happy. And I'm already very happy today, which is funny because I had to clean up a disgusting batch of cat vomit this morning.
Why am I happy? (besides the Tally thing).
A few weeks ago, I signed us up to go to this conference and I gave them our credit card number. Then a few days later I regretted the whole thing. The problem is they don't allow refunds. You either have to sell your tickets or use them for another year.
Then a week or so we had credit card fraud issues. Tim canceled the card. So.... I got a call yesterday from the conference woman saying our credit card didn't go through. They can't say "no refunds" if they never got the money in the first place. We canceled the whole thing and instead we're going to go to a water park hotel. We'll be spending close to the same amount of money, but I think we'll have more fun on water slides.
20. Found the Tallygarunga story thread I'm going to read today. It's called Rosenrot Rothschild.
The story thread is told through letters.
It says that it takes place at the post office. I'm guessing this is their way of saying that the letters were sent through the Australian post. Or maybe they're actually reading the letters while at the post office.
I wonder why they didn't use owls.
21. Saw that the characters in the story are Professor Remington Arledge and Rosenrot Rothschild.
Remington works for the Department of Magical Transportation, and he's an apparition instructor.
Rosenrot is the Tallygarunga Matron. I'm not sure what that means.
22. Started reading the letters.
The first letter is strange. I can't tell if it's serious or a joke. This probably could be added as evidence to the theory, Andrew heard, about Americans not understanding irony.
Well, all the letters involve bickering. I can't tell if it's in jest or the two characters are serious. I would guess the former, but I may be wrong.
23. Wrote a post for my fictional blog, and it's dated June 20, 1998. That's exactly a year before our nonfictional wedding took place.
24. Started to read the biography of Rosenrot Rothschild.
Her face claim is a French actress of the bygone days—Simone Signoret.
25. Watched a Simone Signoret scene from Room at the Top.
They're speaking English. Is it dubbed? Or is the movie from an English-speaking country?
26. Consulted Lord Wiki about Room at the Top. He says it's a British film.
27. Went back to reading about Rosenrot.
She has big breasts and a small butt.
She likes to wear dresses and not pants.
She curls her hair every night and she wears a lot of make-up.
28. Learned that Rosenrot is sensitive and cares deeply what others think of her. I'm very much like that.
29. Learned that Rosenrot loves large eyeballs. That's very interesting.
Does she like them attached to a person; or is this some kind of wizarding thing?
30. Learned that Rosenrot doesn't like caramel.
I don't think I've ever met anyone who doesn't like caramel. I wonder what she doesn't like about it. Is it the taste? The texture? Maybe both?
31. Learned that Rosenrot hates reading novels. I can't imagine being like that.
32. Started to read Rosenrot's history.
She was born in East Germany and had a happy childhood.
33. Loved the story of Rosenrot's magical history. It's fantastic. Young Rosenrot is given a stick by her friend and told it's a wand. If she swishes it around and wishes, her wishes will come true. Rosenrot is disappointed when she learns that's not true.
It's such a sad thing for us Muggles to face.—that we're not really magic. But Rosenrot didn't have to live with that fate. Eventually, she learned she really WAS magic.
34. Mesmerized by Rosenrot's story. It should be turned into a novel. As Jack would say, It's epic!
Rosenrot looks like a young woman, but she's in her 90's...or older. A magical mirror keeps her looking young. She lost her son when he was a child, and was reunited with him recently. He's an old man while she looks like a young woman.
A lot of the story takes place during the Holocaust. It could be fantasy-history.
Really. This NEEDS to be a novel.
I would explain more about it, but I can't do it justice.
35. Saw that James is continuing to enjoy his time in Sweden. He visited a farm and says now he'll have to go the customs line for people who declare they've visited a farm.
What really happens when you admit to visiting a farm? Do you get sprayed with anti-farm spray? Do they test you for mysterious illnesses? Are you put in quarantine? Do you get asked a bunch of questions?
36. Looked at this website. They say, Customs officers are charged with preventing agricultural pests from entering the country. Any traveler who has visited a farm or agricultural station may be subject to additional screening, disinfection of shoes and other precautionary measures. If possible, skip the goat farm tour and save yourself some trouble.
But what if you really like goats?
I guess it makes sense in a way. If I really like farms, I should probably just visit one in America. Why go halfway across the world to do it?
But if the farm thing seems really appealing, we can probably endure whatever awaits us in customs.
37. Looked at this forum. They talk about the issue, and it seems the main thing that happens is someone at customs cleans your shoes. One person cracked me up by saying, When we came back from Wales, where we had stayed on a farm, we had to walk through a trough of some kind of solution at US customs and then raise the soles of our feet and have them sprayed with something.
Interestingly, I'm not sure all of us were wearing the same shoes that had actually touched the turf at said farm. Pretty sure some of the shoes were in the suitcase.
You would think the customer officers would ask about that.
Most people on the forum say it's not a big deal and best to be honest about it. The government people are just trying to avoid bad pathogens entering the country.
I support them trying to prevent that.
38. Thought about how The King's Speech led me to Tallygarunga. How?
Because I loved The King's Speech, we watched the Oscars. I don't often do that anymore.
Because I watched the Oscars, I saw the "Tiny Ball of Light" song.
I loved the song, and found a Facebook Page named after it.
I looked at their Likes to find other Harry Potter pages to join. That's how I learned about Magic is Might.
One day the character, I used to comment on the Magic is Might boards, decided to start her own blog.
I got involved with that, and it came to the point where I needed to create my own wizarding village in Sydney. I wanted something connected to the Puppet Shop in the rocks. I googled that and found out it was closed. Then I decided to see if anyone else had created a wizarding village in Australia. Was I planning to borrow their idea? Maybe. Well, I guess it would be no worse than being inspired by the world created by JK Rowling.
I found Koalingo Academy. It looked interesting, but the lack of Australian culture on the site bothered me. I read through it a bit. Then I decided to do a Google search of Koalingo and Bunyip. Don't ask me why I chose that particular Australian thing. I guess I figured if they mentioned Bunyip on the site, it wouldn't seem lacking in Aussie culture.
I searched and this is what Google gave me. It led to this thread on Tallygarunga; The Road Goes Ever On and On. I don't think I actually read it. I clicked around and went exploring the rest of Tallygarunga.
39. Realized that in reality it was really Harry Potter and Australia that brought me to Tallygarunga. The reason I went to see The King's Speech in the first place is because it had an Australian actor; and three Harry Potter actors.
40. Learned that my Australian of the day is James Outram Anderson.
He was a tennis player.
41. Decided I'm going to watch videos from Mousie's database only on the days where I don't already have a lot of embedded videos. I don't want video saturation happening on my blog.
I could have done one yesterday because I had zero videos. But I felt stressed and rushed yesterday. I also wanted to stalk a Flickr account and felt I didn't have time for that as well.
41. Started to read about James Anderson.
He was born in Enfield, Sydney. I don't think I've heard of that.
I'll try to find it on Google Maps.
Here we go. It's out west near Croydon.
42. Saw that James won a lot of tennis things in the 1920's.
When I was in college I knew a tennis player named James. He was from Zimbabwe.
43. Learned that James had a large toy kangaroo, and he'd bring it on the tennis court with him. Maybe it was his good luck charm.
44. Found a Flickr account to stalk. It's Faun070. He's a performing arts teacher from Amsterdam.
His favorite painting is The Seating Demon by Mikhail Vrubel.
This website has a copy of the painting.
Faun070's favorite cities are London, Sydney, and St. Petersburg. He also likes Mackinac Island in Michigan. That's where the movie Somewhere in Time takes place.
45. Saw that Faun070 has a whole album of parrots. Awesome! And I think he has Alex's parrot on there!
46. Decided that Faun070 is worth two days of stalking...maybe even three. He has a lot of Australian albums. I don't want to rush through them. I have a feeling I'm going to want to savor my time with Faun070.
47. Amazed by all the traveling that Faun070 has done.
48. Started to look at Faun070's first Australia album. It's of a park in Western Australia called Nambung.
Lord Wiki says it's north-west of Perth.
Faun070 took his pictures in July 2009.
I love the ocean in this photo.
49. Wondered if this is Faun070.
He does look kind of like this child featured in Faun070's set of classic photos.
50. Loved this photo. It looks Asian to me for some reason.
51. Loved this picture of The Pinnacles. I think I've heard of that before.
The scene looks like it belongs on another planet.
Lord Wiki says they're made of limestone.
52. Thought that this kind of looks like a penis.
53. Started to look at Faun070's album of Kalbarri.
I think that's one of the places we're planning to go on my imaginary trip.
Let me check on my calendar.
Yep.
We're going to pretend we're there on May 20. AND I see we're also going to be in Cervantes, which is where Nambung is.
54. Wished our pretend trip was a real trip.
Maybe one day it will be.
I hope so.
55. Saw Faun070 having a Storm Boy moment.
56. Loved this photo of pelicans.
57. Loved this photo too.
58. Thought that Faun070 and his partner seem very happy together.
Well...actually. They might actually be married. Gay marriage is legal in the Netherlands. Lord Wiki says it's the first country to legalize it.
Married people are partners, though. Right?
59. Thought it would be funny if Faun070 and the other guy were just friends.
I doubt it though. I get a romantic vibe from them.
60. Saw a picture of Alex's parrot.
It might really be her parrot because although she got Harry in 1998, this website says they have a lifespan of up to 50 years.
Maybe Harry ends up leaving Alex; and maybe he flies over to Western Australia.
I hope he doesn't do that though. Alex really loves him.
61. Loved this picture of Faun070 bonding with a cockatoo.
62. Amazed by Jack's memory.
Tim started reading Evil Genius the other day. I was looking at our bookshelves to see if I had the second book in the trilogy. Jack asked what I was doing and I told him. He told me we didn't have the book, and that I got the second one from the library.
How does he remember stuff like that?
63. Started looking at Faun070's photos of Shark Bay. I think that's near Monkey Mia. Or maybe Monkey Mia is in Shark Bay?
Well, I can see on Google Maps that they're right next to each other.
64. Learned from Lord Wiki that Shark Bay has a lot of dugongs.
And he says that Monkey Mia is a national park inside of Shark Bay.
65. Had Monkey Mia ruined for me with this photo. I don't want bunches of tourists there!
I want it to be Jack, Tim, me, and a bunch of dolphins.
66. Thought this picture reminds me of something out of a Jaws movie. It would be in the beginning with the happy music....before all the scary bloody stuff happens.
67. Wondered what's in this tank.
68. Wondered if the shark is biting the other shark in this picture.
69. Thought this photo looks classic Australian. Although it also sort of reminds me of the desert areas of California.
70. Started to look at Faun070's photos of "Geraldton to Perth"
They really liked this Irish Sun dial statue. They have a lot of photos of it.
72. Started to look at Faun070's photos of Rottnest Island. I wondered if it reminded him of Mackinac Island. Both islands are car-free.
73. Saw a photo of Faun070 with a quokka. I think Rottnest is known for those.
I'm going to admit it. The quokka doesn't really appeal to me.
I'm not a quokka girl.
74. Saw that Faun070 is not wearing his bike helmet. He's very naughty.
75. Started to look at Faun070's Perth pictures.
76. Saw that Faun070 and his husband/partner met up with friends in Perth. Are they Australians or also tourists? Or maybe they're Australian tourists.
77. Felt the grass was too green here. It looks like a golf course.
