Suddenly there was a change

There's been a bit of hiatus in blog posting recently, which has been mainly due to me breaking my loved camera. About time I got another one though. We had been through a lot - my FujiFinepix and me...including drunkenly leaning against a hotel counter and shattering the screen, so it looked like a freeze frame of travelling incredibly fast through space or a static version of the explosion of streams of light at the very start of the Futurama intro. That's what my camera screen looked like.

When I got home after the MotoGP in Phillip Island, near Melbourne, I was immensely tired and wanted to sleep. 

But before sleep, I wanted to put a wash on, have a quick sleep for an hour, get up and hang washing out. So in my tiredness I just took all my dirty clothes without checking the pockets or anything, heaped them all up in a big ball and dumped them in the washing machine. Put powder in, put it on a medium-hot water setting, then went to lie down. Before I did I pottered about making a bit of food and checking if I had anything on my laptop to watch before sleep. Eventually I got to my room with a ham and cheese toasted sarnie and Father Ted on the go. Mmmm lovely.
Then I saw some pics on my laptop desktop and reminded me of the MotoGP pics. Better just check my camera and take the memory card out. Best do it now in case I forget. Uh...where's my camera? Shit shit shit, did I leave it in Melbourne or on the plane?! Oh fucknuts......that sounds like something I'd do.....oh wait, no - I had it on the train, I was looking at the pics. Crap. Where did I put it... Suddenly I had a huge heart-in-throat moment. IT'S IN THE WASH MACHINE!!! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!...and I ran to the washing machine.
Luckily the washing machine is a top-loading one so you can just pull off the lid anytime you want...and without stopping the wash I threw my arms into the fetid, murky, soapy dirty-clothe soup and rooted around for anything that was camera shaped. I pulled out a pair of shorts, with a square shape in the pocket. Viola. My camera.
I took it out and water just poured from it! Now, after drying it out for a while, it is still totally and utterly screwed! 

So I needed to get another camera before I go to Thailand (Mid December...), which I got only a few weeks ago. MotoGP was in October....
There are some awesome photos of our MotoGP adventures, courtesy of Chris B on his Picasa page;
 https://picasaweb.google.com/117305577761842066187/MotogpPhilipIsland

Since writing this, I did purchase a new camera too.

Anyway, there's been quite a few things happening these past few months, and there have been no blogging activity. Naughty me.

A few days ago, I accidentally got the wrong train, and as I got jumped off the wrong one and looked for the right train, I was hurrying along the platform squinting into the distance at the information screens, showing the destination and how many minutes til the train left (in the situation shown in the picture it was less than 0 minutes...the train had left, so the time wasn't displayed) Windows 98 style critical alert popup on the timetable. If you look closely, it's a problem with "Avd", whatever that is. A "Server Error in '/' Application" would be more interesting though. A bit geeky I know, but as I was walking back down the platform (I walked the wrong way to start with), there was a guy that also had his camera out and was taking a picture of it! Geeks unite! I nearly missed the correct train too.

There was a lunar eclipse at the weekend. I took some very blurry, under-focussed shots of the moon. There was a bit too much cloud where I live too...it sounds like a better excuse. But here is a brilliant pic from a colleague of mine. For more visit his website.






This month the Mysterious Trombone Player made a comeback. Walking back from lunch one day again, I heard the now familiar parping and warbling of his copper and zinc lung powered-instrument! I ran to film him, but as I did, a tree got in the way, so I ducked to avoid it. As I was avoiding a sharp, leafy collision, the trombone player turned, looked at me and gave me a wave! The video is here, but it's not very good. Anyway, I am still interested in a quick interview next time I see him. I now know his "secret" practice location!