October 14th 2002.
I’m afraid to say boys and girls that the first edition in the revamped lair is going to be a bitter one.
Earlier this year I had the pleasure of spending 16 days on the beautiful islands of Komodo and Bali, which was rapidly becoming a right of passage for thousands of young Australians.
Even the most broke of Australian youth could still have a great time in this nook of Indonesia, with an amazing exchange rate and incredibly brutal competition, one Australian dollar stretches a looong way.
And we abused it, during my stay I saw some dumfoundlingly stupid and obnoxious drunken behavior from my fellow Australians, members of my group and myself. I doubt very much that there was a single one of us that got out of the country without typifying a 'yob' at some point or another.
While we unashamedly admitted that we were in the country to take advantage of our favorable monetary situation, we still relentless haggled over amounts that usually were less that one Australian dollar for more than an hour, and regarded most of the locals of Kuta pretty suspiciously.
And every night we partied at the Sari, bought Arak by the bucket-load (literally) until we were having halucinagenic fits and danced our cabooses off.
The Sari club was pretty much a woven roof supported by wooden beams which just happened to house a stage, a huge dodgy stereo system, a massive bar and six security guards at the only entrance. The place was actually a bit of a rabbits warren, with a few different levels of floor mostly just made of bricks that would tear the soles your feet when you took your shoes off to dance. But my group discovered a second dance floor behind the stage on our second night in Kuta, it had absolutly no circulation so by the end of the night you were covered in sweat your own and everyone around you as well. We didnt even realise that it had no roof in one section until the night we got rained on, we would dance most of the night away there, and head back to the hotel at around 6am to swim in the pool.
The thing is that marginally closer to where we were staying was another club and we actually didnt go into this particular one the whole time I was there, even though we did go to others, now that was Padi club. It was a complete building with two levels (so different music) and judging from what we heard as we headed past it the music had a lot more variety, but they let the locals in (Sari doesnt) and one of the guys we met had his pocket picked there one night.
 So its pretty obvious why the Sari club had the biggest bomb in it, now when I think of the uneven brick floor and the woven roof all that really comes to mind is how it would have been a massive confusing fire trap. The bombs used were powerful enough that the damage covers an area larger than a square kilometre so no-one in Sari really would have stood a chance and anyone in the street would have been caught between the two (Padi and Sari sort of faced each other across an intersection). The main problem right now seems to be that the hospitals are in no way prepared to deal with this sort of influx and a lot of the victims are going to be dying from their injuries for days to come.
Im not really sure why Im writing this, there is no way for me to express my sympathy and concern for the people in those clubs who could have so easily been me or my friends, the victims are listed as being from Australia, Britain, France, Germany, New Zealand, Canada, Sweden and of course the Indonesians who died as well. But for me this situation has just moved, literally, closer to home.
Bali's main religion is Hinduism and has in the past been spared a lot of the violence and strife that has effected the mostly Islamic Indonesia, so will this now change forever. Has the Al Qaeda gotten a foothold off our Northern shore, and this threat is now far greater than drunken yobs losing their favourite playgound and a source of cheap housewares, and what about the people of Bali, who rely on revelling Australians as a main resource?
But I think one of the worst things I have realised about this whole incident is just how uninterested most Australians are in the whole attack. Most of the dead are from this country, it may not have occured on our shores but we were the targets and no one really seems to be taking the threat seriously.
If I where a perfectly honest person Id admit to the fact that on more than one occasion I have perhaps given a mocking tone to the rabid flag waving patriotism of our Yankish big brothers, but Id give up a lot right now to see a little of this in my fellow Australians.
Ah fuck, I may have to join the army.
Alright! Given time Im sure Ill stop taking online polls and get some work done but seriously check this out! I get to be Gambit, only the coolest Xman on the planet (and the one thing that damn movie was missing).
I'm Remy LeBeau
What X-Men Character are You?
June 15th 2002
Okay talk about accuracy! they actually got it right at What Muppet are You?
| I am a Gonzo!
You're a bit loopy, and many people have trouble figuring out exactly what you're supposed to be. You take pride in your eccentricity and originality. | |
April 19th 2002
Oh dear I appear to have lost my picture cd's and being the opportunistic procrastinator that I am, I cant write up the Bali trip until then. The people at www.thespark.com however are far mor industriouse, hence my new scoring.....
April 11th 2002
Hey there cats and kittens, well Im back from Bali feeling a little resentfull at being stuck in the desert again. The weird thing is that on about day four we all felt like we weren't going to make it through the 12 days (dont ask) and then the next thing you know they threw us on the plane back to Darwin. This strange lapse in the time space continuum was due no doubt to generous glasses of Arak (uaaagh my stomach just churned writing that word) and the company of some of the loveliest people I have ever had the good fortune to meet.
And boy am I missing them now.
For all that I did come back more exhausted than when I left (I think mostly due that I refused to let a raging case of bronchitus and one of the wickedest cases of conjunctavitus known to man stop me from going out on the piss every night and hitting the tourist scene ever day, why yes I am a fool) we had an outrageous and (for me) surprisingly insightful trip.
Why insightful? I hear you ask with an eager and curious glint in your collectivly adoring eyes (pardon my imagery). Well Im not sure if you've noticed this or not but Im a girl (not to be mistaken for a girly girl) and I embarked on my latest adventure with a group of five guys, two of which I had never met and for most of the two weeks we where all marinating in Arak.
Pity the young men of Alice Springs, because now shes not only armed with charm and cynicism but pretty much has the male mind butt naked and prone naked on the slab (more fun with imagery), and its a pretty unpleasant picture.
Oh Im kidding, for the most part the guys were great, and while it was a case of one step forward and two steps back,I think that the time spent with them has gone a long way to redeeming the male population in my opinion so they did finish ahead.
Now in relation to the site, Ill do a better write up (promises promises) once I get on a computer that will let me load pictures and have internet access, I somehow (and I honestly dont know how) managed to read a couple of books over the break, but more importantly I got my mitts on some fantastic pirate videos so lots of reviews, stay tuned party people and until then......
Feb 14th 2002
Yikes, I havent updated the Bite me section yet this year, fear not I have a whole bunch of double shifts this week meaning Im working here (computers) all night and Reptiles all day...... lots of material, fear not! Oh and you might want to take extra precautions if you spend some time exploring the site, I seem to be making everyone I know who has sex fall pregnant (seriously) so stick to the latex, especially today.
Now go and read the review of Someone Like You because I spent all night working on it to get it up for the 14th so you get to witness probably some of the worst sentence structures and spelling ever to grace the internet...
See I even got some into here.
21/12/01
It finally hit me today that not only do I have five days off from MIS over new years (yaay) but I havent had a New Years eve off in about five years (ah hospitality you are a harsh mistress).
But then I remembered that this morning I agreed to work on New Years Eve for the reptile centre (and then there was an example of some world class pouting I can tell you).
But I decided I had better see what this dirty dried up little town had to offer in the way of revelry for the countdown, and I must say the lineup is pretty grim!
There was a slight buzz about a Hookers Ball which are always good (prostitution being such a joyfull profession and all) but when I called the Hotel.. eh hem ... Resort it is usually held in no one knew anything about it. So Im tempted just to spend the early hours of the 31st just sitting in the Plaza carpark watching the spectacle of the bellboy try and deal with dozens of fishnet clad and deeply inebriated (theres a tendancy in the Alice to get yourelf really juiced on cheap booze at home before going out, thus requiring less of the expesive drinks from the bar, picking up is the second most popular pasttime in the Alice, you dont want to know what the first is...My parenthesis is getting a bit long winded)wanabe partiers who "know for a fact mate!" that there are thousands of nubile wannabe hookers inside just waiting for them to light their fire.
However I will not be stopped, and I am also not willing to leave this night to chance, so its off to the ball I go Girls, minus the pumpkin I hope.
Oh yeah! I finally won a bid on a Laptop on PCAuction (its Australian) !! And I was so totally stoked, they said it was all ready to ship and would reach me in seven days so Yay! This was on the thirteenth, so I called themn yesterday for my consignment number because I wanted to find out if it was in the territory, they finally get back to me today to tell me..... it may or may not be leaving their warehouses this afternoon!!! Man, I gave this guy an ear blistering he'll not soon forget, actually I got my consignment number and told him I was disapointed, I mean it hadnt left the building yet, it was not Elvis, they could have kicked it or something, it may be under warranty but Id rather save the anxiety. So now it wont be here till after christmas so its no longer a source of exitement, and I must find something else to instill a feeling of youthfull giddyness.
24/11/01
Okay just between me and you, I was looking through sites in relation to 80's cartoons (see the links page) and I came accross the guy I cut my man hungry teeth on...... Jason from 'Battle of the Planets' (or G-force depending on your local geography), what is it about the broody ones?
Another day at office
14/11/01
Okay, party people how's it going out there.
Im hyped, thats what happens when you spend the morning up to you elbows in filth, like fertilizer for the fingernails and uplifting for the pysche. I kid you not, when Im not working here (Ill get to where here is later) im working with the critters at the Reptile Center, and for free no less (yes mr tax man Im a volenteer:). You see I used to spend about four or five (or six or seven depending on the need)days of the week there in addition to my shift work. Which was extra special fun when in the middle of a eight day stretch of graveyards. But eventually I realised that not only was I not a very nice person but in the unlikely event of anyone coaxing me into a conversation it would inevitably turn to how much sleep everyone was getting, in a pretty scary way. Which is, needless to say, excruciatingly boring. Theres a full timer there now (hi Rene) and Im down to filling in again. Now normally this situation suits me fine except that there seems to be some loss of communication as to how often things need to be done even though the boss is still there.
Keeping a large amount of reptiles also entails keeping a lot of food items, luckily all the rodents and other snake foods are shipped in frozen. But most of the smaller lizards need a constant supply of insects as well as meat and vegetables. We use woodies, Australian cockroaches that are soft bodied, dont fly even when they develope wings and couldnt survive in an Arid environment. That last bit is important when you get in a shipment of 3000 woodies and a parent loses track of one of their kids on a tour. Put them in a bucket or plastic box with a mesh lid and fill it with egg crates and paper rolls, chuck in the occasional carrot, and hey presto, food. I used to clean out the containers about every two weeks, to get out all the crap and dead bodies (very high altrician rates in insects).
Currently woodies and other feed arthropods are in short supply, we've now been waiting for about a month for our shipment. As containers begin to run low you just chuck the remainders in with the next box. We were down to one box, and I noticed a strange smell in the back prep room at the Center... that was getting worse. So I decide that as its a slow day, Ill clean out the back room and find the smell. When I got down to the cockroaches it was bad, about two inches of dead bodies with a fine textured filler of frass (insect poo for regular people. Now normally this would be no problem as we sit at 0% humidity most of the time out here, so the bodies hollow out and dry. But it had been raining for about the last eight days, so everything had rotted, and the flies had got into it and layed eggs I had the added pleasure of maggots, lots of maggots. Ever noticed how white maggots are, I mean really its obscene.
Dont ask me why but maggots make everything smell worse than they normally would, and I had to go through this mess pulling out all the live oh-so-precious woodies to feed the guys later. The sorting took me about an hour, but once I had all those gratefull survivors running happily around their nice clean eggcrates, I at all the plump little maggots running around their slime and thought......jeez the Striped skinks would like those, but luckily I could use tweezers to get them. Sometimes I think working with reptiles has left me a little skewed.
But I think the worst thing about my little diatribe is that it wasnt the worst smell that Id had to deal with when working with the reptiles. Not even when Scarlett, one of our three metre long Olive Pythons (BEST SNAKES IN THE WORLD) had a tummy bug and very nearly did a huge watery green and rancidly fetid shit over the poor guy who was holding her. All this pales in comparison to what happens when you leave a certain food item under a heat lamp for too long.
Im talking total rodent meltdown.
All of our snake foods have to be frozen Ill go into why in some other section, but because we have morning shows and we like to feed the animals when its still nice and warm we often want the little dudes defrosted by around 11am. So we usually stick them under a heat lamp in order to start the defrost...... and occasionally we forget about them. The heat lamp is usually placed around 22 cm above the miceicle or ratcicle in question for about 15 minutes and then flipped, the light is turned off while the animal in question is still cool and stiff, because if you wait until it is warm the chances of the internal organs being perforated and leaking through the mouse (creating tummyaches and worse in the feeding animal). But thats nothing compared to when an extra six people walk through the door, or your caught in the Perente pit and cant get out because the 2meter long lizard has decided its his job to guard the ladder or just something distracts you for that all important five minutes or ten to meltdown, because as soon as the warmth hits those internal organs, they liquify and melt all the body fat so all thats left is a watery sack of thin skin just waiting to rupture.
Walking into the prep room and catching that first rancid whiff is, I imagine, similar to the inkling the damned must get as they approach hades. Forget Brimstone - Hell smells like a heat liqified rat wrapped in melting plastic.
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