18.5.24

Back in May was Rachel and Hayden's wedding.  Not really sure why we were invited, we've barely seen them in the past 17 years.  Rachel was just a little kid when I left Sydney and I've really only seen them a few times since then.  But we were, so off we went.

It was scheduled for 11:00.  So we got there at 10:30, so we'd have plenty of time to find parking.  We ended up all the way down the street.

They were late.  So the cermony started at 12:00.

!!

It was a lovely service.

After the service was morning tea.  Even though it was 13:00 by now.  And it was raining.  And I was stressing about so many people.  And it was a dry wedding.  I did end up going and talking to a couple of my old friends.  But felt pretty uncomfortable.  And the sweetie just avoided everyone heh.

They tried to get a photo of everyone outside.  In the rain.  Yeah that didn't work.

And there was lunch.  Talked to more of my friends.  Did I mention it was a dry wedding?

There were various family/friends photo shots throughout the afternoon.

And there were speeches.

With bubbles.

Of cider.

Alan wrote a limerick!

And there was cake cutting

Photo shoots carried on

When we finally had a chance to leave Marylon said we should sign the guest book, but you were meant to do a photo booth thing and keep a copy and stick the other one in the book.  But there were lots of people and we didn't know what to do with the machine and it was all very stressful.

And then of course I couldn't think of anything useful to say in the book.  Oh well.

We finally left at nearly 16:30.  Six hours after we got there.  On the way out we saw the MASSIVE car park under the church.  Yeah that would have been nice to know about in advance.

It was a lovely day, but we were both utterly exhausted by the end of it, with a 3.5 hour drive ahead of us to get home.  I spent the next day or so *cringing* over the crap I said because I was so anxious.  This is why I don't socialise sober, people!!  But I think Rachel and Hayden had a wonderful day, so that's really all that matters!

Sigh I just blatted this entry.  Let's start again shall we..

Monday.  9th.  Backdated.  Long story.  

Took forever to get to sleep. Stressing about my database. So a crappy nights' sleep. Then another busy day at work. I was going to try and sneak off a few hours early to catch up with crap but just too busy. Went to Chris's and got some chicken and cooked up some Chicken Tonight, but it was a bit.. gelatinous.. Not bad, just not super epic awesome. Did some culling of Tassie hotel photos. Not that I can post them any time soon.

All the pink and purple crap this week!!

Tuesday. Awake from some time before two til after three. Hurray. Depressed about hosting. Depressed about my health. Everything is awful. Although we did do a prod cutover and noone's screamed yet. Cooked up some mince/pasta for dinner. 

Wednesday. Awake from after 3. Never got back to sleep. Busy day migrating. Got results of my sleep study. Yeah a bit of sleep apnea. Hurray. Depressed and overwhelmed at everything.

Thursday.  Woke up. Wondered what the time was. Estimated about 5:30. Looked at my phone. 5:29. Cool. Busy day of migrations. Nice drinks but only a couple of other people. Made pizzas for dinner.

Then watched Mean Girls. Aww man I don't miss high school one little bit.

Friday the 13th. Slept mostly ok. Feeling overwhelmed at life. Today was ten years ago that we left for our Queensland trip. But I can't post it because my database is still broken. Two and a half weeks later. So this weekend instead of catching up on everything, I have to find a new hosting company for my blog. Because even if Vodien fixed it this time, they'll still break it again in the near future and I don't have the mental capacity to deal with their BS. I'll be putting one star reviews wherever I can find places to do it. Leftovers for dinner, Mash, then I watched TRON, which I think I might have seen once when I was a kid.

Saturday. Slept mostly ok. Did some house stuff then went looking for new hosting.  Went out for lunch and shopping.  Hungry Cracks are doing a parmi burger.  It was a sloppy mess.

The flowers at Jamo were pretty

Saw this in Coles.  I have a mandolin.  It's awesome. But it doesn't have a gaurd.  So I have to be EXTREMELY careful using it.  Yes I have cut myself on it.  No I wasn't drinking.  But I was distracted talking to people.  So it might be kinda nice to have another one for when my current one gets too blunt to use...

Leftover pasta and salad for dinner, Mash, then I watched Tron: Legacy. I didn't think I'd ever seen it, but then where they go into Jeff Bridges' fancy house I was like, that seems familiar.  Weirdly Disney kept changing the aspect ratio.  In some places it'd be widescreen, but others it was much closer to 4:3.  Weird. Oh and there we go - I have seen it.  Yay for dementia and not remembering anything.

Sunday. Spent much of the day trying to fix my blog. Had leftover raclette from Chris on toast for lunch.

Then.. OMFG TRBC is closing down!!!!!! Drank one of the last of three we have in the house. Stu is drinking one of the others. The other is a dark lager so Stu will drink that. I'm half tempted to do a sneaky trip down for one last visit. But aint noone got time for that.

Roast beef for dinner but overdid it :( (1.75 kg in 1.5 hours).  Stu liked it though. And I guess it will do well as leftovers.  Then watched the 2018 version of Freaky Friday.  Wait, what, it's a muscial?  Lolz.  Only 3.8 on IMDB too heh.  I think there's one more version I still need to see.

I wanted to have a hanami party this year.  I messaged Nat and Andrew ages ago but they never got back to me.  Then I was going to invite Chris and Glenda (they're going to Japan in October).  But with all the stress and drama going on, I just didn't feel up to it.  You know I'm not doing well if I pass up an opportunity to have peeps over for a little party ...

Sunday.  18th.  When we were in the butcher we asked about the "rump cap" they had in the fridge (I'd never heard of it).  Like would you slow cook it or roast it.  He said to roast it.  So we did.  And it was amazing!  So tender and flavourful.  Loved it.

Then watched Iron Man 3.  I would argue that anyone with a huge house like that in such a prominent location, the owner would probably be "public knowledge".  ie, giving out your address would be a bit pointless because any sort of basic search would probably turn it up.  I could be wrong of course.  Also, the movie failed with its assumed knowledge.  There were mentions of "New York" but the last time I saw Iron Man in New York it was for his expo.  I think there was one mention of aliens.  But yeah pretty much a fail in terms of filling people in that had only seen the first two Iron Man movies and none of the rest of it.  I still have no idea what happened to him.

Monday.  Stu had another nosebleed overnight but this time it went *everywhere* :(  Didn't sleep well after that.  Another busy day.  Toulouse sausages and salad for dinner.  Spent two hours uploading Tassie html to the blog.  Was hoping to get it all done.  Only got half way.

Tuesday.  Slept mostly ok.  Another busy day.  Finished getting Tassie photos online, well at least the day photos, not the food/hotel ones.  I still need to fix the style sheet and scripts on all my blogs so it's hardcoded https so they'll render properly.  In my copious free time.  Sigh.  But @kapgar and @blogography have both managed to post comments recently, I thought they'd either stopped reading or given up posting on my broken site heh.  Hi!!

Wednesday and Thursday.  Bit of a blur.  Super busy days at work.  We did sneak out for a Lighty lunch though.  Their caesar salad is pretty epic - more bacon and cheese than lettuce!

Friday.  Slept like crap.  Busy day trying to catch up on tickets.  

After work was Dark Matter in the Pub with EB. 

It was interesting but OMFG Too. Damned. LOUD!!  We used ear plugs.  I think I should keep some in my bag permanently.

See!  I'm not the only one that thought it was too loud - three or maybe four other people in view blocking their ears as well!!

Saturday.  Slept mostly ok.  Finished culling Queensland photos.  Finished doing Tassie food photos.  House and Lego stuff.

Kievs for dinner (that I got from Coles during the week).  Watched Miss Potter.  I had no idea what it was going to be about.. until I saw a picture of Peter Rabbit heh.  Quite a sweet movie.

Sunday.  Slept mostly ok.  Felt totally flat all day.  Didn't feel like doing anything much.  Sigh.  Didn't turn the heater on this morning, it was 17C when I got up.  Did some photo stuff, Lego, music, food shopping.

Sunday Neil and I went to see Twisters.

No relation to the original.

Well other than the title font and some of the producers.

It certainly had some of the vibes of the original.

So yeah, a bit of silly fun really.

I would argue that people in Oklahoma would be all too aware of what they needed to do during a tornado. 

And could a tornado *really* form without *anyone* noticing it when the whole area was literally full of tornado chasers?

We both enjoyed it, for what it was, popcorn Hollywood fluff.

Although we had choctops, not popcorn.

;) 

  

Sunday.  4th.  Cooked a nice potato bake, kalettes, veggies and another perfectly cooked head of garlic, to go with some leftover pork.

Monday.  Awake around 4 for like an hour or so.  But over eight hours sleep I guess so not *quite* as tired as yestrday.  Logged onto work and saw I might have broken stuff on Friday.  But couldn't figure out what.  Con eventually figured out what it was a bit before lunch.  Guess their post change testing was flawed.  Annoyed at myself for not figuring it out sooner though.  Dinner was a bunch of stuff that need using up in the fridge - mushrooms, bacon, feta, shallots, cream and basil.  Yummy but very salty. 

Finished culling my Tassie photos which is a bit of an achievement.  Watched the fourth part of the Olympics opening ceremony.  In some ways more people saw the ceremony .. but actually most people saw a lot less.  You had to be at the right spot on the Seine to see any of the performances, which means probably most people only saw the athletes on the boats.  And only a very small number of people actually saw the official bit.  Also bwhahahaha they put the flag on upside down!  #fail

Tuesday.  Super busy day.  Had a marathon call with a contractor on how to do some stuff.  Went into town after work and met up with Luc for a couple of drinks at Molly's.

Luc's Bijou and my Vieux Carré

Luc's Boulevardie and my whisky sour

Pretty impressive for a three second exposure

Then dinner at Bar Rochford.  

I had wagyu, but I was expecting some sort of vegetation, and Luc had three little entrees.

Lovely catchup, mostly talking about travel.

Wednesday.  Slept mostly ok.  Another busy day.  Neil and I tried out Uyghur Cuisine.  We had the kung pow chicken and sizzling beef.  We could have easily had just one of those dishes with rice and be done.

Had drinks with Neil, Jim and Taranii after work.  Dinner, backup computer, suddenly it's bed time.

Thursday.  Another busy day.  Good drinks.  Quick dinner at Badger (empandas).

Then to see Beethoven's 9th.  It was excellent.  Enjoyed it a lot more than last time.  And because I know a chunk of the words to it now I was singing along quietly.  Not quietly enough though it seems, apparently it was "a bit offputting".  Sigh.  That's it.  I'm done.  Thank you.  The end.

Friday.  Awake from 3am. 

Busy day again.  Finished writing up my doco on the migrations work. And in the afternoon we actually migrated two machines ourselves.  Chris promised kievs this week.  And he would have had them.  Except the supplier picked up the wrong thing.  Sigh.  His theory is they never had them, but gave him something else anyway.  So we had pizza for dinner.  Mash, rss feeds, early night.

Saturday.  Slept mostly ok.  Super busy day, but behind schedule all day trying to do All The Things.  Went into battle with Super this time.  I need to find out how much work put in so I can figure out the whole nonsense of claiming a deduction for the extra I put in.  Can't find anything in the portal.  Nothing was emailed.  Nothing was posted.  So went to fill in a contact form and a knowledge document comes up that says "Most statements will be available online from mid-August to mid-September."  Seriously WTF??  Cooked the fourth turkey roast we didn't use for the club Christmas in July with some veggies.  Probably overdid it a bit.  Might have eaten another head of garlic.

Mash (GW Bailey from Police Academy!) then watched the first part of Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War.

Sunday.  Took ages to get to sleep then had thermoregulation issues.  Busy day again.  Realised it'll be six months next week that we left on our Tassie trip.  Reckon I can label 1500 photos by then? hmmm.  Managed ~350 today.

15-17.5.24

Some more photos from my May Sydney trip.  Miscellaneous wandering around photos.  Although the second day was a bit more determined!

Day 1

Museum station, where we got off to go to the Museum

Big bullets? Shell casings??

Reflections in the pond in front of the War Memorial in Hyde Park.

View south down George Street

View north up George Street

Queen Victoria statue outside the QVB

Statue if Islay, Queen Victoria's dog

Day 2

Tram at Circular Quay

Customs House and new buildings at Circular Quay

Customs House

They've gutted the old AMP building .. not sure what they're doing with it..

Façade on Customs House

I only found out recently that a) you could even just go into Customs House and b) that there's a super cool model of the CBD in there.

Carnival Splendor was in town

The Eye!  Secret World of a Starlight Ember, Lindy Lee

Cadman's Cottage

Argyle Cut

Do you know how long I had to wait till all the damned people got out of the way for this.  Seriously this group of people just stopped half way down the stairs and wouldn't MOVE.

Garrison Church

North Sydney from Observatory Hill

Crown Sydney and observatory

Sydney Observatory

Crown Sydney from Observatory Hill

Aircraft, Glebe Island Bridge aka Anzac Bridge, Sydney, from Observatory Hill

Sydney Observatory

Cahill Expressway cutting

View towards Town Hall

Waterfront at Barangaroo

Barangaroo

Harbour Bridge and a finger wharf.  This whole area of Sydney used to be a "dead zone" when I was growing up - all industrial and nothing intersting to see.

After like 100 years the sandstone under this fence has been eroded away quite severely

Couldn't find out what this thing was.  Constructed c1880, reconstructed 2008.

Under the Harbour Bridge

Sydney Opera House

Light setup for Vivid

Carnival Splendor and other boats at Circular Quay

Hummer at Circular Quay

Circular Quay

Day 3

State Theatre lobby

Dudley House.  Last photos of it before it gets demolished.  Mum took me inside and pointed out where she used to work when it was a bank.

George Street

Great couple of days of wanderings!

Sunday. 28th.  Leftover club food for dinner.  Watched some more of the Olympics opening ceremony.  I reckon the commentators really had no idea what to make of most of it.  Also.  Minions??  WTF??  I did like how it showcased Paris though - got to see a lot more of the city than just the inside of an arena.  So that was pretty cool.

Monday.  Went to bed/sleep a bit early, but then woke up around 3 for like an hour and a half.  Sigh.  Frustrating day being pushed to make a change before anyone had communicated any of it to anyone.  I think it's a dumb change in the place, but whatevs, but at least TELL PEOPLE about it.  Nearly rage quit at one point because apparently we're being "inflexible".  The whole thing just made me super angry.  

For lunch I fried the skewer ingredients (tomato, olives, bocconcini and basil, with glaze) which was pretty awesome.

For dinner I fried up some leftover pork from the club.  This meat was attached to the bone in the core of the roast, and because slowest oven ever, it wasn't quite cooked through in the middle.  So after John carved most of it I chucked it back in the (off) oven to deal with later.  And then promptly forgot about it.  Til 5 the next morning.  Whoops.  Chucked it in the fridge and later brought it home.  Cut it up and fried the heck out of it.  I feel like I was tempting fate, but then I was almost half hoping I'd get food poisoning so I could take the next day or two off work.  

Photo culling then watched the Lego Masters USA season 3 finale which was pretty cool.  Turns out there's another few episodes after, some celebrity/holiday specials!  Cool!  Will watch those after I finish watching the Olympics opening ceremony.

Tuesday.  Early night.  Woke up at like 3:45 thinking maybe hurty, but it wasn't, but I was awake then, and stayed awake for like an hour and a half.  Sigh.  Zombie tired, even worse than yesterday.  Meh day at work.  Went for a walk at lunch and saw my magpies.  Leftovers for dinner then Queensland photo culling, but too tired to watch anything.

Wednesday.  Took forever to get to sleep, then woke up at like 4:30.  But must have slept ok in the middle because I didn't feel as tired today.  Busy day at working doing All The Things.  Had lunch with Neil at No. 10.  Their $17 Express Lunch special isn't bad (although the calamari isn't as nice as Lighty's), and Wednesdays is a free glass of wine or beer, so wine for free!  Winning! 

Mum photo picking after work, and computer backups.

Thursday.  Slept okish.  Busy day.  Had lunch with Jim/Con/XL at Ikko.  The others all bought starters to share and if I'd known they were doing to do that I would have too.  But then probably would have instantly regretted the over supply of food.  As it was I took nearly half of my karaage chicken curry home as leftovers.

Agadashi tofu

Edamame

Gyoza

My karaage chicken curry

Stayed til the end at drinks because didn't have the sweetie anxious to get home.  Quick dinner then bed, but was still awake when the sweetie got home!!!  :)

Friday.  Slept okish.  Super busy day planning then actioning decom of a whole bunch of telephony/chat crap.  Stu wanted pizza for dinner so we got that.  Then Mash, a bit of Olympics opening ceremony but just crashed for an early night.

Saturday.  Awake from Dentist Time to 5.  Sigh.  Went into battle with organisatons for tax crap.  One for our shares doesn't give statements til like the end of July (wtf??) but when I went in on Saturday they were down for "scheduled maintenance".  wtf??  Then our health insurance was giving 502.3 Bad Gateway errors trying to download our statement.  Fricken hopeless.  And their chat widget on their website was all "chat to us .. oh but not on the web, you have to use whatsapp or imessage or some trash".  Utter BS.  Super tired, achieved a bit, but could have done more.  Passed the accident at Florey when we went out to do food shopping.  I still don't understand what happened.  From the looks of the damage on the cars it looks like the Toyota went through the stop sign and got hit by the Falcon.  But if that was the case, why would the Falcon driver have fled the scene (and was later arrested)?? Makes no sense.  The only other thing I can think of was the Ford driver was turning right onto John Cleland and hit the Corolla travelling northbound on Coulter.. but then why would the Ford driver have ended up so far to the right.  hrmmm.  I'll probably never know.

Watched A Night To Remember, which I think I saw a long long long time ago.  Couldn't help but compare it to the James Cameron version.  

Sunday.  Slept mostly ok until about 5 then awake stressing about All The Things.  Sigh.  Photo stuff, getting annoyed at BS, scanning etc etc.  Lots of veggies in the oven for dinner.

Sunday.  21st.  Roasted All The Veggies for dinner, and had that with some leftover beef.

Monday.  Slept okish, bit restless, kept waking up hot.  Took out the recycling tub to the bin outside and noticed behind it a big stain on the side of the pantry from a stream of dirty water.  Seems I must have overwatered the plant on top on Friday night.  Sigh.  So then had to spent a bunch of time before work wiping it all down and having a sad that the chipboard had swelled from the water.  Sigh.  Busy day doing some migration work and paperwork.  Into Mash season 8.

Tuesday.  Dunno, no notes.

Wednesday.  Had a big lunch at work.  Well, it was big in that there were lots of people, but lunch was super small on account of heaps of people turning up without being catered for so they ran out of food.  Whoops.  At least I did get something. 

In the evening Team Blank accidentally won the trivia night.  Sigh.  Only by two points too.  It was generally pretty fun.  My only main gripe was some of the questions were either half points for two part answers, or two points.  And it wasn't consistent.  Which wouldn't have been a problem except they weren't marking them centrally, they got us to swap with other tables.  So that was bit annoying. 

Anyways.  Looks like I have to plan another trivia night.  First since pre covid.  Someone suggested getting AI to write it.  Wonder what sort of questions it would come up with.  

At least there was mulled cider.

Thursday.  Slept mostly ok.  Although awake from after 4 til 5 after the sweetie got up to pee (he'd been awake for hours stressing about All The Things).  Dealing with All The Problems during the day.  Then pizzas, Mash, Lego Masters.

Friday.  Slept ok.  Morning was just dealing with crap and tidying up and crap. 

The turdburgers are back to eat the house

Knocked off at lunch then did some club dinner prep and food shopping and more prep including making a peppermint slice.  Frustrated with LibreOffice formatting.  I have a random line in one of my documents that I literally cannot delete.  Give me Notes formatting any day.

Here's all the shopping for the club Christmas in July night.

Dessert.  After I'd started making up the peppermint slice

Presents

It's times like this I really miss the little brother...

Chris *promised* me kievs this week.  He lied!!  He did say I could beat him over the head.  So had to have some other random chicken stuff instead to go with the kalettes.

This is some of the peppermint slice cut up 

Saturday.  Not much in the morning.  Stu decided he was too stressed to go out to the club so I went out by myself.  

All my bags of crap

After I dumped everything in the fridge I went for a wander and had a chat with Chris and Geoff and Tammie and Brenton.  Then watched a demo of the log splitter and had a go on it.  Then it was into the kitchen to wash up everything and start prepping dinner.  Which took all afternoon.  Note to self: start closer to 12 than 1.  There were a couple of minor disasters.  Firstly I forgot to take out the small wooden skewer sticks so I couldn't make up the Christmas Skewers (Chris suggested putting the bits out in bowls but they didn't really get eaten much).  Then the door on the little oven was a bit bent so it wasn't closing properly, so when I opened up the foil on the turkeys they were nowhere near done.  John hacked the oven door and got it to close properly and so I cranked the temp and waited a bit longer.  All good cause the other oven was still super slow even with less food in it.  So dinner was a little later than I planned but it all worked out.  It was also a fairly quiet night, only like 20-25 peeps.  And I also missed getting photos of a lot of the food cause I was concentrating too much on getting it organised.  Whoops.

John and some turkey

Coles winter salad

One of the potato bakes

Minted peas

We only did one pavlova because of so few people

Eggnog overload!!  With actual real eggnog from last Christmas, that had been in the freezer at home since January

Went to bed a little late but not too bad.

Sunday.  Happy birthday Dad.  Woke up quite early and never got back to sleep.  Eventually got up and went up at 7:30 to clean up the shed, and was totally amazed to see snow!  Will post pics separately.  After making it past the snow, then spent half an hour taking down Christmas decorations, had some breakfast, then spent an hour doing washing up from last night.  hmmm.  Definitely not part of the plan.

Came home but was zombie tired so didn't feel up to doing anything useful.  I did make some drawer dividers for our implements drawer out of reject Lego of Vic's (worn/yellowed stuff).  And watched an hour of the Olympics opening ceremony.  Then took the sweetie to the airport, then came home for photos/blogging etc.

Sunday.  14th.  Vive la France.  All the roast veggies with leftover lamb.

Then Mash, then I watched the second half of the Pretty Baby documentary on Brooke Shields.  Although I was a little disturbed that Disney suggested watching The Kardashians next.. 

Monday.  Awake from some time after 2 to some time after 5.  Hurray.  Zombie day.  Cooked lemon pepper chicken for dinner which was quite nice, but too tired to do anything useful in the evening.

Totally winged it with the lemon pepper chicken.  Some leftover chicken, some mushrooms and cabbage that I fried up first, an eschallot, lemon juice, chicken jelly, cream, salt, pepper and shallots.

Tuesday.  Even though I was super tired and went to bed early, didn't get to sleep til like 11.  Sigh.  Feet too cold, too restless, too TIRED to go to sleep.  Busy day.  Pondering a problem with our migration work.  Did some music after work.  Leftovers for dinner.  Queensland photo culling.

Wednesday.  Slept mostly ok.  So two weeks ago when I was staring at my NRMA crap, they were wanting extra info about the car, which I filled in.  It was supposed to reduce our premium by $100.  Except whatever I did never actually saved.  I never got any confirmation of the change or an updated premium notice.  Today I went back to it to pay.  Sure enough, nothing had been saved, so answered all the questions AGAIN, then paid on the spot.  *Eventually* they sent through email confirmation this time.  Another busy day.  Leftovers again for dinner.  

Thursday.  Slept mostly ok.  Another busy day.  Another day pondering problems.  Ramen-O for lunch!

Quiet drinks.  Pizzas then Death in Paradise 10.2.

Friday.  Had an early night, but then an early wakeup.  Busy day.  Again.  Leftovers.  Again.  Mash, then Lego Masters.

Saturday.  Slept mostly ok.  Busy day doing All The Projects.  I have about five of my most urgent projects going at the moment, which means I get about an hour each on them each day of the weekend.  I don't have time to go to work.  Windy and rainy and sunny all day. 

Before dinner watched The Movies that Made Us, on Friday the 13th.  I was utterly traumatised by this movie when I was about 11.  I honestly thought someone was going to come and murder me in my sleep.  Well as it turns out, it was actually Friday the 13th Part 3 that I saw at a sleepover that night back in ~1984.  I looked up the methods of murder, and it was actually part 3 that matched what I remembered.  The Lawrences should be ashamed of themselves letting a bunch of little kids watch this.  

TV dinners for dinner (trying to clear out the freezer), then we watched Barbie.  I had no idea what to make of it, it was utterly absurd for most of it.  

Sunday.  Slept mostly ok until 4:30 then never got back to sleep.  Busy day doing All The Projects.  As well as some food shopping for next weekend.  Coles used to have additive-free turkey roasts.  But now all they have is "marinated" ones that contain milk and soy - no good for people with allergies!!  So bought them from Woolworths - which at least only contain soy and not milk.  Pissed that I can't get a plain turkey roast anymore.  Three trips in and out of the mall for three different shops.  And didn't even get booze.  Probably got covid though.  Sigh.

In other news, yesterday I watched the "launch" and naming ceremony for Spirit of Tasmania V.  I did have to wonder what happened to III (since we've been on I and seen II, and the new ones are IV and V).  Turns out III was only in service for a few years before being sold back to Europe.  It was kinda cool but a bit amatuer hour on the cameras!

15.5.24 Australian Museum, Sydney

You would think a weekday afternoon would be quiet at the museum.

You would be wrong.  

Even though it didn't feel crowded on the outside, you're first led into a room for a short film.  Which meant as soon as it was finished, everyone entered the first room all at once.

I got this as we were leaving the theatre room because I was first out.

Then you end up in a small dark room with artefacts all around and through the middle and everyone is jostling and there's no flow and people were just standing right up in front of things listening to their audio guides and NOT MOVING and within minutes I was super stressed out and just wanted to snap photos and get the hell out of there.  

It was not pleasant at all.

And that wasn't the only place there was a massive bottleneck.  Further along the path goes literally through the middle of another place where they're playing a film, so you can't even get through without pushing through because people are just stopped there watching it.

Hate hate hate hate hate.

Here's some of my hastily taken photos.

So yeah, while it was a cool exhibition, it was super expensive and super stressful and I really didn't enjoy/appreciate it.  Sad times.