smoke on the lotus

I wonder if there Japanese find what we do just as funny.

Well that's just Prime

Ok the long awaited keyboard I have been wanting for years is finally on sale. The Optimus keyboard. Each key on the keyboard is an organic LED display 48x48 pixels big allowing compleat customization that would make the G15 shake in it's boots. Now if I only had $1500 to buy it. From the reviews i have read apparently it's a little hard to type on, not advisable for sechritaries and novelists but that's not really what it's for. It's for custom program templates, Photoshop keys or gamers to keep track of all those different hot keys easier. Now which button activated my long range trasponder again, was it j or k? well now you just look at the picture. I can see 1 think wrong with this, the only people who could afford this, the big hardcore gamers who compete for thousands of dollars in prizes in the pro gaming circuit would never take the time in a game to look down. That would waist precious seconds that are being used by your enemy to line you up in his sniper scope. People like me who can't be bothered to take the time to memorize every Warcraft 3 hot key would never be able to afford the price tag.

Dam you, guess it will go down in price in 5 years, at least i hoep.

The Day of Rockening

Last weekend an old college resident and friend of ours Erwin brought his copy of Rock Band into the college. Now there are a tonne of blog posts all over the internet about how awesome rock band is, and it is awesome to the max, so i'm not going to go into crazy detail about it. It's enough to say it is one of the greatest multi player games ever envisioned by Man or Woman. The fender Strat controller is way better (when it works) than any GH controller I have ever used and anyone who thinks differently is a raciest.

In other news, this is why Eurovision is way better than American Idol.

Home Time

Hmm well it's close to 2 weeks since coming home and It's time to write my final thoughts about my trip. It was an amazing experience, Havening gone for a month I really felt like I began to understand Australia. By that I mean understanding it's people, culture, climate ect but it's only the beginning. I have been living in Canada for all my life and there are still things about it I don't understand, like why the French want to separate, don't understand that.

What do I miss the most, well apart form some of the really cool people I met, dive buddies mostly, i really miss pub squash. See Australia is really like Canada in many ways. We are both colonies of Brittan so we have the same roots. I would say Australia is about half way between Canada and Brittan culturally. Because of this It was very familliar to me not a huge cultural shock. Food was pretty much the same, except for their thick non salty bacon and horrid coffee which is not something to miss. Houses where not that much different, except they had clay tile roofs, interesting but not something to miss. Diving was in a new environment, amazing to behold but miss it, hmm maybe a bit but it really just makes me want to try other different places. Drinks through are a different story, they have a lemon drink called pub squash. It comes in different brand names, Solo being the most popular. It is carbonated lemonade, but not that sickeningly sweet lemonade. It is an insanely refreshing drink on a hot day, probably why it's popular as every day is a hot day. It's the perfect blend of tangy, sour, sweet and bubbly. We had a similar drink in Canada many years ago called Wink. I loved wink, drank tonnes of it, way more than Coke and since it had juice in it i felt mildly better drinking it than other drinks. I wish i could still get it. Oh there is something called Wink Twist, but it's not wink. Oh why Oh why can't North America make one damn pop that's not loaded with sugar, something tangy and refreshing. All im asking for is one product out of hundreds of others, you can tell me there isn't a market for it, I found one.

Anyway my point being is that Australian pop although unbelievably expensive, up to 3.50 AUD for a 600ml bottle in some places, is far superior to our own.

Australia is trying to kill you (part 1)

... or at least ruin your vacation. This must be the only country where natural selection still applies, in force, to humans. Africa might be its rival, but overall, Australia tries to kill you in such a variety of ways. Fortunately, most of these dangers can be avoided with a little knowledge, which leads me to believe that Australians are the most nature- and environment-intelligent people on the earth. Here are just a few of the ways you might die while in Australia (or sometime after visiting):

1) The Sun

Our UV-blocking ozone layer has a large hole in it centred at the South Pole. This hole doesn't quite extend up to Australia, but the ozone over Australia is quite thin due to its proximity to the hole. Less ozone means more UV rays get through and that means without applying liberal amounts of sunscreen you will BURN in 20 minutes or less. And this isn't some sissy burn you might get here. These burns can be quite serious and will lead to 2 out of 3 Australians contracting skin cancer. Skin cancer can kill, so you can see that this is quite a problem. The Aussie government subsidizes sunscreen and heavily promotes "Slip, Slap, Slop": Slip on a shirt, Slap on a hat, Slop on the sunscreen. And by Apollo, you'd better slop it on like crazy, and reapply throughout the day. Thankfully, 30+ sunscreen comes in giant bottles with hand pumps there, so you won't go broke trying to hide from the sun.

2) The Ocean

Rip tides, sharks, jellyfish, cyclones, stingrays, octopi, fish, coral, even crocs... Australia's goregeous coastlines are like those sexy female assassins you see in movies. Beautiful and tempting, yet deadly.
The Aussies are taught from a young age to spot rip tides which can suck you out to the open ocean before you know what is happening. Even a prime minister in the 1960s disappeared when he went for a swim in the ocean near Melbourne.
Sharks are easy to avoid. They are not maneaters as long as you don't:

• swim at night
• swim in murky water
• swim if you're bleeding
• throw food into the water
• gut fish on the water
• rub the guts all over yourself and then go for a swim
  

Lastly, it goes without saying: don't provoke sharks. The ocean is their house, so don't be an annoying visitor.
Australia has a jellyfish season, and Shawn and I were smack-dab in the middle of it. Now, I've been stung by a jellyfish before and it is certainly not an experience I wish to repeat, especially here. The sting I received in france felt like thousands of needles had entered my arm. The sting caused painful welts which lasted 5-7 days. The pain was so intense that even the gentle breeze caused significant pain (my dad made me a sheet fort to prevent wind from blowing on me). However, I survived the ordeal without even a scar to show for it. It would have been a cool-looking scar too because it kind of looked like a shooting star/asterisk. In northern Australia, however, deadly jellies drift around the beaches, making swimming quite dangerous. Even a dead jellyfish can sting you, so romantic walks on the beach and collecting shells can be quite dangerous. Oh, and did I mention the deadly cone shells? These could end your shell-collecting hobby permanently.

3) Highways

The highways must be deadly in Oz, or at least in Queensland. Throughout our trip down the QLD coast we must have seen hundreds of signs warning of driver fatigue, encouraging drivers to pull over at frequently-placed rest stops. Some gas stations even offered free coffee (probably a gimmick to get you to stop and also buy gas).

4) Duck-billed Platypus

It's not a myth. Male platypi have venemous spurs on their hind feet. The venom isn't deadly, but it is supposed to hurt a whole lot. While we were at the Sydney aquarium we saw one of the staff, dressed in a full wet suit, enter the platypus tank and, with much caution and deliberation, grab one of the littler ones, presumably for a check-up.


Next issue: Spiders, crocs, snakes, trees, the land.