1. Read about the plane crashing into the Ferris wheel in New South Wales.
Fortunately, no one was injured.
2. Went to bed and had dreams. In one of them, we're on the plane to Australia. I start to think that this ride hasn't been bad at all. In fact, it's been nice. It's the best long-haul plane ride I've been on. I'm thinking it's because I slept well and had interesting dreams.
3. Saw a glimpse of the television news. They mentioned the Ferris wheel in Australia.
4. Saw that the Ferris wheel incident happened in Taree, and looked it up on Google Maps. It's about 4 hours north of Sydney.
5. Looked at the website of the Old Bar Beach Festival. This is the event that had the Ferris wheel.
The history page says the festival is six years old.
6. Enjoyed looking at Ann O'Dyne's photos of Rosellas in a bird bath.
7. Related to what Andrew said in his post. We also had Baptists as neighbours. I think I may have written about them too. That is the problem when you have been writing for a long time. You become repetitive.
I know I'm repetitive on my blog. I tell the same stories over and over. Sometimes I even KNOW I've already told the story before. I guess I like talking about certain things. Or I feel the need to talk about certain things. I figure, though, that there may be new people reading who haven't heard the story before. Or some people may have forgotten the story. If someone has heard the story, and remembers it, I figure they can just skip ahead to the next thing.
8. Wanted to add that I actually don't remember hearing about Andrew's Baptist neighbours. So if he talked about them before, it might have been before I started reading Andrew's blog.
OR knowing me, I did read about the neighbors and then completely forgot about it.
I enjoyed reading about it now, though. Andrew talks about how, during his childhood, he was best friends with one of the Baptist neighbors.
9. Read Fruitcake's post.
I like what she says here. As whitefellas, one of our greatest fears ought to be adopting a 'weren’t we horrible we should feel guilty' approach to history, instead of adopting a 'this is how we went wrong and this is how we can avoid repeating our mistakes' approach.
We ought to be very afraid of a ‘we said we were sorry now shutup’ attitude.
I think people get the third attitude in order to avoid the first attitude.
It's better that we learn from our mistakes than hate ourselves for our mistakes. That can be hard, though.
In her post, Fruitcake talks about some guy named Andrew Bolt. He accused partly white Aboriginal people of exploiting their Aboriginal heritage to get benefits.
Fruitcake's response is that ethnic heritage isn't always about skin color and genetics. She talks about how she's 1/8 Irish, but Irish Catholicism plays a huge part in her life. I'm, on the other hand, 100% Jewish. At this point in my life, I have very little to do with my Jewish ethnicity. Tim is biologically 100% Korean and Jack is 50% Korean. Both of them have little to do with Korean culture.
Tim was adopted by a white protestant family. They converted to Judaism. Although Tim didn't look traditionally Jewish, and neither do his parents, Judaism played a huge part in their lives.
10. Read something interesting about meat pies and pasties in Benjamin Mee's zoo book. He says you're not supposed to eat the whole thing. They were made so that they could be held by miners with dirty hands. It's biodegradable packaging.
That makes sense.
But what if you're really hungry, and you DO eat the same thing? Will people think you're a total pig?
11. Read a how-to article about eating an Australian meat pie. Personally, I didn't find it to be very helpful. They just said to add tomato sauce and to make sure not to call it ketchup.
What if someone doesn't like tomato sauce?
I want to know more important things like, is it okay to eat with your hands? Is it okay NOT to eat with your hands?
I think I've eaten them both ways. If I'm sitting down at a restaurant, I'd probably use a knife and fork—or just a fork. If we were out in a picnic, I probably ate with my hands.
12. Watched video on how to eat a meat pie.
It turns out you don't use your hands OR a fork and knife set. You need a corkscrew, a drill, and a hammer.
The thing is, though, that's for MEAT pies. I think vegetarian pies are different. We don't need so many tools.
Why?
Because we're special.
13. Decided, from what I'm seeing on Google, that it's traditional to eat a meat pie with your hands. However, I'm guessing if I used a knife and fork, I might not be totally ostracized.
OR maybe I would be.
There's a Facebook Page called True Aussies DON'T eat meat pies with knives and forks.
Ha! But guess what. I'm not a true Aussie. I'm an American tourist. I might not have a fanny pack and white tennis shoes, but that doesn't negate my true identity.
14. Went to Tallygarunga.
Today I'm going to read a story thread called We'll All Be Portions for Foxes.
It's new, and there's only one post. It's by Eudoxia Karras.
The story takes place in the western suburbs of Melbourne.
15. Started to read.
Eudoxia has been fighting with her old friend Thomas.
She's angry because she feels Thomas has been sent by her family to bring her back to Greece.
I'd be furious too.
I don't think people should feel obligated to have physical proximity to their families.
I think it's totally okay if someone is out there, and the family knows they're unhappy and not thriving. Then it would be kind of them to try and call them back to the nest. But if someone is far away and happy, it's very selfish to try and push them to come home.
That being said, I can't remember if that IS Thomas' intent. Was he sent to Australia to get Eudoxia? Or is she just assuming that?
I know Thomas is there because he has feelings for Eudoxia. But maybe Eudoxia's family sent him as well? Maybe that's why he'd agree to the job. It was an excuse to be with Eudoxia?
16. Disgusted with the things Thomas says to Eudoxia.
He tries to convince her that Jason doesn't really care for her.
He says, What you think Jason loves you? You think he knows the little things about you?
And later he says, He doesn’t actually love you and when he leaves you like the rest of them I won’t be there.
I understand that he wants to win Eudoxia from Jason. But his methods are cruel, dishonest, and manipulative.
I think that's one method people use to control others. Make them doubt themselves, and make them doubt that other people could love them.
There's that message. You're worthless, but I love you. Don't expect anyone else to ever love you. And if you want to make a fool of yourself by trying to find love elsewhere, don't expect me to stick around to pick up the pieces.
17. Tried to figure out if my Australian of the day today is related to my Australian of the day yesterday. I think it's possible because they both have the same last name (Annand), and they were both born in Toowoomba, Queensland.
My guy for today is Frederick William Gadsby Annand.
Frederick was thirty-one when Douglas (yesterday's guy) was born. He could have been an uncle, perhaps?
18. Learned that Frederick became an accountant.
He also did military work.
19. Learned that Frederick also did some government work. At one point he became town clerk of Brisbane.
I don't know what that means.
20. Annoyed at myself for not reading carefully enough.
Douglas is the SON of Frederick.
How did I miss that?
Well, my main excuse is The Australian Dictionary of Australia didn't give a link to Frederick's name in Douglas' biography. I think usually they do that. If one biography person encounters another Aussie who has a biography (or is related); the name is usually written in a brownish-orange link.
My other excuse is I'm feeling a bit tired and out of it.
And there's the fact that I sometimes don't read carefully enough. That's what's really to blame here.
21. Developed a new song obsession. It's not Australian, but it's played in a trailer of a movie that features an Australian actress. I'm not embedding it, just for the fact that I've already embedded it twice in my blog.
The song is called "Mad World".
Lord Wiki informed me that the song was originally a Tears for Fears song. Since then it's been done as a cover by MANY people. And it's been featured in numerous TV shows and trailers.
I'm going to watch a few of them.
22. Started to listen to The Red Painting's cover of the song.
I like it.
23. Wondered what song has been covered the most time by professional singers. I say "professional" only, because otherwise we might have to count the Happy Birthday song.
This Mad World song really has had a lot of covers.
Another song with a lot of covers is Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".
24. Listened to Ben McKenzie sing "Mad World". He was an Australian Idol contestant.
I think his version kind of sounds like a Broadway type thing.
25. Watched Ben McKenzie sing "Wonderwall".
Like always, I thought of Lost and Charlie.
26. Listened to Nathan Brake sing "Mad World".
He's another Australian Idol contestant.
I like his version too.
I'm really loving this song.
27. Started to watch a video with Bobby Andonov singing "Hallelujah".
That's not from Australian Idol. It's from Australia's Got Talent.
28. Wondered if Bobby Andonov won the competition. The judges are so enthusiastic about him.
29. Consulted Lord Wiki.
Bobby Andonov didn't win, but he was one of the eight finalists.
The winner was a dance troupe called Justice Crew.
I'm not usually into dance performances; but that's pretty amazing.
30. Started to look at more of Baroo42's Australia Flickr album.
I'm on the last page today.
Tomorrow I'll have to start looking for a new Flickr account to stalk.
31. Liked this beach picture.
32. Thought this photo would make a good scene in a zombie movie.
It's something about the car door being open like that.
Maybe someone could be trying to escape.....after their car broke down.
33. Looked at this picture and thought these people are total slobs.
They'd fit well at our house.
Our house is such a mess.
I clean a little each day. But for us to look like we're not total slobs, I'd need to clean it a LOT each day.
What's the point though? It would just get messy again—probably within a day or two.
I wait until we have guests on the horizon. Then we do a lot of cleaning, or at least a medium amount.
34. Wondered if this bear is going #1 or #2.
It's probably none of my business.
35. Liked this shoe rack photo.
I took a photo of our shoes lying about when we were in Hawaii.
36. Wondered what these people are making in this photo.
It looks interesting.
Here we go....this might be the finished product. It looks like some kind of pie, but not the type you can pick up with your hands.
37. Saw that baroo42 has uploaded more Australian sets. It looks like he and his friends really saw a lot of Australia.
There's three more sets— Darwin to Perth; Perth to Melbourne; and Australian Tassie back to Sydney.
Tomorrow I'll decide if I want to continue looking at Baroo42's photos, or find another account to stalk.
I'll probably stick with Baroo42.
Fortunately, no one was injured.
2. Went to bed and had dreams. In one of them, we're on the plane to Australia. I start to think that this ride hasn't been bad at all. In fact, it's been nice. It's the best long-haul plane ride I've been on. I'm thinking it's because I slept well and had interesting dreams.
3. Saw a glimpse of the television news. They mentioned the Ferris wheel in Australia.
4. Saw that the Ferris wheel incident happened in Taree, and looked it up on Google Maps. It's about 4 hours north of Sydney.
5. Looked at the website of the Old Bar Beach Festival. This is the event that had the Ferris wheel.
The history page says the festival is six years old.
6. Enjoyed looking at Ann O'Dyne's photos of Rosellas in a bird bath.
7. Related to what Andrew said in his post. We also had Baptists as neighbours. I think I may have written about them too. That is the problem when you have been writing for a long time. You become repetitive.
I know I'm repetitive on my blog. I tell the same stories over and over. Sometimes I even KNOW I've already told the story before. I guess I like talking about certain things. Or I feel the need to talk about certain things. I figure, though, that there may be new people reading who haven't heard the story before. Or some people may have forgotten the story. If someone has heard the story, and remembers it, I figure they can just skip ahead to the next thing.
8. Wanted to add that I actually don't remember hearing about Andrew's Baptist neighbours. So if he talked about them before, it might have been before I started reading Andrew's blog.
OR knowing me, I did read about the neighbors and then completely forgot about it.
I enjoyed reading about it now, though. Andrew talks about how, during his childhood, he was best friends with one of the Baptist neighbors.
9. Read Fruitcake's post.
I like what she says here. As whitefellas, one of our greatest fears ought to be adopting a 'weren’t we horrible we should feel guilty' approach to history, instead of adopting a 'this is how we went wrong and this is how we can avoid repeating our mistakes' approach.
We ought to be very afraid of a ‘we said we were sorry now shutup’ attitude.
I think people get the third attitude in order to avoid the first attitude.
It's better that we learn from our mistakes than hate ourselves for our mistakes. That can be hard, though.
In her post, Fruitcake talks about some guy named Andrew Bolt. He accused partly white Aboriginal people of exploiting their Aboriginal heritage to get benefits.
Fruitcake's response is that ethnic heritage isn't always about skin color and genetics. She talks about how she's 1/8 Irish, but Irish Catholicism plays a huge part in her life. I'm, on the other hand, 100% Jewish. At this point in my life, I have very little to do with my Jewish ethnicity. Tim is biologically 100% Korean and Jack is 50% Korean. Both of them have little to do with Korean culture.
Tim was adopted by a white protestant family. They converted to Judaism. Although Tim didn't look traditionally Jewish, and neither do his parents, Judaism played a huge part in their lives.
10. Read something interesting about meat pies and pasties in Benjamin Mee's zoo book. He says you're not supposed to eat the whole thing. They were made so that they could be held by miners with dirty hands. It's biodegradable packaging.
That makes sense.
But what if you're really hungry, and you DO eat the same thing? Will people think you're a total pig?
11. Read a how-to article about eating an Australian meat pie. Personally, I didn't find it to be very helpful. They just said to add tomato sauce and to make sure not to call it ketchup.
What if someone doesn't like tomato sauce?
I want to know more important things like, is it okay to eat with your hands? Is it okay NOT to eat with your hands?
I think I've eaten them both ways. If I'm sitting down at a restaurant, I'd probably use a knife and fork—or just a fork. If we were out in a picnic, I probably ate with my hands.
12. Watched video on how to eat a meat pie.
It turns out you don't use your hands OR a fork and knife set. You need a corkscrew, a drill, and a hammer.
The thing is, though, that's for MEAT pies. I think vegetarian pies are different. We don't need so many tools.
Why?
Because we're special.
13. Decided, from what I'm seeing on Google, that it's traditional to eat a meat pie with your hands. However, I'm guessing if I used a knife and fork, I might not be totally ostracized.
OR maybe I would be.
There's a Facebook Page called True Aussies DON'T eat meat pies with knives and forks.
Ha! But guess what. I'm not a true Aussie. I'm an American tourist. I might not have a fanny pack and white tennis shoes, but that doesn't negate my true identity.
14. Went to Tallygarunga.
Today I'm going to read a story thread called We'll All Be Portions for Foxes.
It's new, and there's only one post. It's by Eudoxia Karras.
The story takes place in the western suburbs of Melbourne.
15. Started to read.
Eudoxia has been fighting with her old friend Thomas.
She's angry because she feels Thomas has been sent by her family to bring her back to Greece.
I'd be furious too.
I don't think people should feel obligated to have physical proximity to their families.
I think it's totally okay if someone is out there, and the family knows they're unhappy and not thriving. Then it would be kind of them to try and call them back to the nest. But if someone is far away and happy, it's very selfish to try and push them to come home.
That being said, I can't remember if that IS Thomas' intent. Was he sent to Australia to get Eudoxia? Or is she just assuming that?
I know Thomas is there because he has feelings for Eudoxia. But maybe Eudoxia's family sent him as well? Maybe that's why he'd agree to the job. It was an excuse to be with Eudoxia?
16. Disgusted with the things Thomas says to Eudoxia.
He tries to convince her that Jason doesn't really care for her.
He says, What you think Jason loves you? You think he knows the little things about you?
And later he says, He doesn’t actually love you and when he leaves you like the rest of them I won’t be there.
I understand that he wants to win Eudoxia from Jason. But his methods are cruel, dishonest, and manipulative.
I think that's one method people use to control others. Make them doubt themselves, and make them doubt that other people could love them.
There's that message. You're worthless, but I love you. Don't expect anyone else to ever love you. And if you want to make a fool of yourself by trying to find love elsewhere, don't expect me to stick around to pick up the pieces.
17. Tried to figure out if my Australian of the day today is related to my Australian of the day yesterday. I think it's possible because they both have the same last name (Annand), and they were both born in Toowoomba, Queensland.
My guy for today is Frederick William Gadsby Annand.
Frederick was thirty-one when Douglas (yesterday's guy) was born. He could have been an uncle, perhaps?
18. Learned that Frederick became an accountant.
He also did military work.
19. Learned that Frederick also did some government work. At one point he became town clerk of Brisbane.
I don't know what that means.
20. Annoyed at myself for not reading carefully enough.
Douglas is the SON of Frederick.
How did I miss that?
Well, my main excuse is The Australian Dictionary of Australia didn't give a link to Frederick's name in Douglas' biography. I think usually they do that. If one biography person encounters another Aussie who has a biography (or is related); the name is usually written in a brownish-orange link.
My other excuse is I'm feeling a bit tired and out of it.
And there's the fact that I sometimes don't read carefully enough. That's what's really to blame here.
21. Developed a new song obsession. It's not Australian, but it's played in a trailer of a movie that features an Australian actress. I'm not embedding it, just for the fact that I've already embedded it twice in my blog.
The song is called "Mad World".
Lord Wiki informed me that the song was originally a Tears for Fears song. Since then it's been done as a cover by MANY people. And it's been featured in numerous TV shows and trailers.
I'm going to watch a few of them.
22. Started to listen to The Red Painting's cover of the song.
I like it.
23. Wondered what song has been covered the most time by professional singers. I say "professional" only, because otherwise we might have to count the Happy Birthday song.
This Mad World song really has had a lot of covers.
Another song with a lot of covers is Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".
24. Listened to Ben McKenzie sing "Mad World". He was an Australian Idol contestant.
I think his version kind of sounds like a Broadway type thing.
25. Watched Ben McKenzie sing "Wonderwall".
Like always, I thought of Lost and Charlie.
26. Listened to Nathan Brake sing "Mad World".
He's another Australian Idol contestant.
I like his version too.
I'm really loving this song.
27. Started to watch a video with Bobby Andonov singing "Hallelujah".
That's not from Australian Idol. It's from Australia's Got Talent.
28. Wondered if Bobby Andonov won the competition. The judges are so enthusiastic about him.
29. Consulted Lord Wiki.
Bobby Andonov didn't win, but he was one of the eight finalists.
The winner was a dance troupe called Justice Crew.
I'm not usually into dance performances; but that's pretty amazing.
30. Started to look at more of Baroo42's Australia Flickr album.
I'm on the last page today.
Tomorrow I'll have to start looking for a new Flickr account to stalk.
31. Liked this beach picture.
32. Thought this photo would make a good scene in a zombie movie.
It's something about the car door being open like that.
Maybe someone could be trying to escape.....after their car broke down.
33. Looked at this picture and thought these people are total slobs.
They'd fit well at our house.
Our house is such a mess.
I clean a little each day. But for us to look like we're not total slobs, I'd need to clean it a LOT each day.
What's the point though? It would just get messy again—probably within a day or two.
I wait until we have guests on the horizon. Then we do a lot of cleaning, or at least a medium amount.
34. Wondered if this bear is going #1 or #2.
It's probably none of my business.
35. Liked this shoe rack photo.
I took a photo of our shoes lying about when we were in Hawaii.
36. Wondered what these people are making in this photo.
It looks interesting.
Here we go....this might be the finished product. It looks like some kind of pie, but not the type you can pick up with your hands.
37. Saw that baroo42 has uploaded more Australian sets. It looks like he and his friends really saw a lot of Australia.
There's three more sets— Darwin to Perth; Perth to Melbourne; and Australian Tassie back to Sydney.
Tomorrow I'll decide if I want to continue looking at Baroo42's photos, or find another account to stalk.
I'll probably stick with Baroo42.