A photoblog and other things

I’m completely and utterly exhausted. God knows how I’d be if I actually *lived* here. It seems that just about every weekend a damn hurricane hits Florida and it’s back to the bunker. What ever happened with hurricanes hitting *during* the week?

Hats off to the Power for winning the grand final on the weekend. I know a few bogans who would be pleased with the result. I was actually watching it live with a few Aussie mates in an English pub on Friday night. We were trying to explain the rules to a few other American people in the pub. They thought it was pretty cool how free flowing the game was and how there was a bit of biffo every now and then. I hear that there was just as big a celebration in Adelaide as when the Crows won a few years back so that is good. I saw little Johnny in the crowd at one point and said “look, there’s our PM!” The Americans couldn’t pick him out – he sorta blended in with the crowd. One thing I couldn’t explain to the Americans there was the pre-game entertainment. I know the people who organised this were probably taking the piss out of footy, but I found it hard to explain the following to the Americans in the bar: a bunch of gay-looking guys wearing AFL uniforms; a slew of Human Nature wannabes (c’mon guys, aim higher than that); Kath and Kim; and of course Guy Sebastian.

I actually went to see a baseball game last week, and that was pretty cool. It was the Marlins vs the Phillies and the Marlins went down 2-4. I nearly got the opportunity to catch one of the balls that the outfielders threw into the crowd. It landed a couple of rows in front of mine. I’ve got some pictures from it that I took with my camera so I’ll have to get my butt into gear and post them. It wasn’t a packed stadium but it was still a great atmosphere and I could see how people would get hooked on it.

I’ve fallen in love… with my camera. I’ve been pretty much non-stop taking pictures with it and annoying the heck out of a lot of people. I love the fact that I can turn it on and instantly take a picture. When I press the damn shutter release button, a picture gets taken, just like a film SLR. I don’t have to wait and completely miss the shot. There’s nothing really to look at yet picture-wise coz they’re all test pictures with varying apertures and exposure times and so forth. I have decided though that I do need a zoom lens however, and the Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF Zoom-Nikkor fits the bill perfectly I think. I’ve seen it advertised for 1/2 the price these days, thank God. But of course, this is one of those ‘lofty dream’ things I always have. Give me some time and I’ll probably settle for something more reasonable… or I might not. Heh. I need to take some photography lessons at some point too. I’ve found this site to be quite handy for photography stuff so far.

Ok, got a farewell lunch to go to. Check yaaaaa.

Whoa! I’m in a sleep deprived state of mind at the moment. Another hurricane is heading this way (apparently), which I don’t really give a damn about anymore. A group of women in their mid thirties are in the aisle next to my cube giggling about what singles bars are good. I’m trying to listen in but I’m just so spaced out at the moment I can’t really understand what they’re saying. I’ve been advised that taking Melatonin for a couple of weeks could help me out a little with this sleep problem. Oh God, they’re getting really loud now. A guy has joined the group. I bet he thinks he’s the bomb. Hats off buddy, and whatever.

Last night could have been a good night of sleep… if not for the guy who was up at 7am using a BLOODY CHAINSAW! I tell you what, bugger the Texas chainsaw massacre – there would have been one in Florida if he kept it up. Then there was the annoying ‘tap tap tap’ of hammers after that, like that drip drip drip into the sink of a leaking tap that you can never really bother to go stop but which keeps you up for hours.

Hmmm, I glanced over at my previous post. I was a bit angry yesterday…

This has been really, really bothering me lately. I am getting sooooo pissed off with the two completely and utterly different worlds that exist in America. I believe that the American media can be given a huge pat on the back for most of this. I thought Australia was getting a little bad, but over here it’s ridiculous.

I cannot believe how censored the media is over here. Every swear word, no matter how tame it is, is “beeped” out. I watch a few shows on the comedy channel where the sound channel is nearly a constant “beeeeeeep”. There is no blood shown of incidents for where there should be lots of blood. They’re very careful not to show that because that would indicate, heaven forbid, that someone could have died. Most importantly, no-one seems to be pointing out enough that Iraq never had any weapons of mass destruction… which is the whole reason why innocent civilians and Americans over in Iraq are getting killed right now, isn’t it? Where is the media asking the hard questions to get the people thinking? Why has president Bush got such a high approval rating at the moment (47%)? Are these people who make up the 47% doing their research? Are they really analysing why Iraq was invaded? They were lied to!!! The Bush administration itself says they were “misinformed” (or so they would like us to believe). That’s a big f%$ken cock-up. Now they’ve got a hell of a mess to clean up. But take a step back and look at the situation: they went and invaded another country WITHOUT APPROVAL FROM THE UN. These people in Iraq didn’t pose a threat to them. North Korea poses more of a threat by saying “look here – we have nuclear weapons!” but they’re silently ignored. American has killed thousands and thousands of innocent people in Iraq and they’ve gotten themselves killed in the process. Do the people back in America realise this? Do they really believe that by being in America they’re doing the right thing? Do they really believe the bullshit that Bush is saying? Sure, some would believe that ousting Saddam Hussein was a good thing. Was it America’s right to go and do that? They have replaced him with a US puppet. A lot of people are pissed off because these Americans have come and invaded Iraq, because they don’t believe America’s reasons either and they want the US to get the f*$# out of their country. Howard decided to support the US because they’re big and powerful and if in the future Indonesia or someone opposed to us decided to attack Australia then we could say “hey we helped you in Iraq, remember? … help us”. Oh, and then there is that free trade agreement thingo too. It’s just a big game of chess.

So where does this 47% approval rating come from? I think it’s partly because Kerry doesn’t seem like the best alternative either. I wish there was an Al Gore there or another Clinton. Kerry seems smart – but anyone would be against Bush. Kerry seems to lack a really big spine. I dunno – I get a feeling that if there was someone like Clinton going for President then the 47% would be a lot, lot lower. I think the general feeling over here is that most people are opposed to Bush, but they’re not too fanciful of Kerry either, so they say “well, maybe Bush will realise his mistakes and make some changes…” yeah, right. Don’t give a nitwit like that another chance to f$^k up the world for another four years. People don’t generally perceive you as being that great anymore, America.

Which gets me back to the point of media censorship. Continually there is news that people are getting killed by some terrorist. There is news that more Americans are getting killed over in Iraq. Well, all that translates to over here is a concerned looking news presenter with censored images playing in the background. SHOW THE REALITY! People die from this sort of stuff! If people see what is really happening – pictures of corpses, limbs, everything, they’re going to make more informed decisions because they’ve been given a dose of reality. They’re going to think “gee, war is a really bad thing. It should probably only be used as a very last resort” NO FRICKEN DA! The war in Iraq was not America’s business. It is the business of GREED. America made the middle east their business, so some extremists made America their business.

I dunno, I’m pretty fired up about a lot of stuff here. It’s my blog, my opinion, but I just had to get it out there. I’m getting so frustrated that not enough information is getting out to the general people, and it’s the media who should be doing that. Everything seems so corrupt. Everything IS so corrupt.

I HOPE people choose Kerry for president. He’s not the most enticing candidate but he’s the only one who isn’t Bush. Bush and his administration are very, very dangerous people. America should realise this.

Down here in south Florida there are a lot of rappers who are trying to get this exact point out. They are trying to get people to “slam bush” and are having anti-bush demonstrations and urging people to vote, and vote against Bush (as far as I’ve heard, it’s all anti-Bush). There is a debate coming to Miami University between Kerry and Bush at the end of this month. I’d love to try and get to see that… we’ll see.

signing off for now. I’m tired.

This is probably the one thing that makes being on the other side of the world really suck. My mum called up this morning to say that our family’s cat had died. His lungs had filled with fluid, the vet thinks this may have been due to cancer, so it was decided that he had to be put down to save him from any more pain. Up until the last couple of weeks he was still being the larrikin cat he’s always been, but his condition deteriorated rapidly.

He was a charger of a cat and had a real personality – much more than some people I’ve met in my lifetime. He outlived a lot of other cats by nearly making it to 15 years old. Some people may think “dude, it’s only a cat, get over it” but it’s the memories I associate with him that make it all the more painful. I’m very big on memories and I get extremely attached to things, so I spent the whole day reminiscing about the time from when we first got him (when I was in primary school for crying out loud) up to this point. I just wish I could’ve said a last goodbye to him before he went.

He was a cat model I reckon. If he hadn’t been neutered all the girl cats would have been forming lines blocks long for a chance to see him, and I would have had to tell them to just leave the poor guy alone for a few minutes.

RIP, and thanks for the memories…