Category: Pets

Fish Wizard

There are few corners of this planet over which I hold no influence, but ironically one of those is the biggest corner of them all.

The Big Blue. The Great Green. The Endless Ocean.

It has always been a frustration of mine, but finally I have a remedy! I present… (drumroll)… this:

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Yes indeed my good friends, for the first time in æons I once again sport a watch. But not just any watch, for this is the legendary Fish Master 5000.

Let’s get the basics out of the way quickly: stopwatch, countdown timer, thermometer, alarms, world times and phases and age of the moon. Simple stuff. Oh, and it tells time as well.

But this watch takes timekeeping into a hitherto unexplored dimension in that it gives the wizard that wears it (that would be me): supernatural knowledge of fishes!

Let’s take a closer look at the face:

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Look just above the time, just below the center. See those fishes? Well the watch keeps track over a countless amount of incomprehensible (to humans) “fish variables” and distills the necessary information into a four point scale. It then displays the output as a number of fishes on the face of the watch. In the above image, what I shall call ‘fish power‘ is currently at 50%

This fish power is dependent on the location of the wizard wearing the watch, and this can be set by changing the longitude. It is also influenced by the time and age of the moon, as well as (no doubt) other mysteries that (those arch-wizards at) Casio are unprepared to reveal. All this magic in such a tiny package! Steve Jobs would be proud 🙂

The effect of having this device on one’s wrist is to make the world of fish no longer impenetrable to the wearer. As soon as I put on this watch it was as if my eyes had just opened, and I immediately knew everything about fishes.

For instance, a quick glance at my Fisher King 9000 tells me at this very moment, were I in the vicinity of Addis Ababa, I may be heading to the nearest lake with a fishing rod in my hand.

No longer – I could finally say – could any fish hide from me. Never again would I fail to know where (or when) all fish are, anywhere on this great planet of ours. At first, like a child, I reveled in this newfound power. I would swagger around the house bellowing such comments as “Try hiding from me now you scaly little bastards!”, or “I am the God of all fishes!”. But after some time a strange calmness began to descend upon me. I became reflective,  and began to realize that what this device had given me was not dominion, but invitation.

Perhaps – I came to see – my destiny was not to rule the fish. Perhaps my destiny was to join them. At last – I ultimately realized – my world and theirs has finally intersected. At last I have become one with the fishes. Truly I am now a brother to every fish. Into their scaley little hearts I have been welcomed, and all because of the power of this magical device.

For the Fish-a-Tron X-9 is so much more than a timepiece: it is a ticket to a fuller existence – a land where the barrier between man and fish has broken. Where the endless depths of the ocean are no longer a mystery, more a promise.

And where the ancient silent song from sunken R’lyeh has never been clearer…

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Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!

The Impossible Dream

It started in Sydney, when my departing plane was delayed by two and a half hours due to a ‘malfunction’ (never fully explained to us). Boo to United for poorly informing us, since at one point (on the board) the flight was described as ‘cancelled’.

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That’s how I feel right now, +1 day after finally getting back here, jet-lagged and very tired. I just finished the most essential class-related work, and am going to go rest soon.

Upon our late arrival in Los Angeles the plane departing for Chicago was delayed as well (due to ice in Chicago). This meant I was able to make the connection, although even then it was known the Albany one had no chance.

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I think that goat will remember me for ever. “Never”, did he think, “did I think a human would ever pick me up!”. And for that simple act he came to love me 🙂

United put me in a hotel in Chicago. A spiffy one, better than anything I’d probably pay for myself. And yet it was lost on me for I had no clean clothes and simply washed what I had in the shower and went straight to bed. Only I didn’t sleep, just playing DS all through the night and drying my clothes with the hair dryer.

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Even now, +3 days from leaving Oz, do I recall the delicious taste of grilled – always fresh, not frozen – chicken sandwiches. Many things change in life, but that memory will remain always.

The flight from Chicago the next day was similarly delayed. As it turns out our first plane broke, and we had to wait over 3 hours for a replacement. Then we were detained further still. I spent almost 5 hours seated on planes just yesterday, and only 80 minutes of that was actually in the air. When I finally got home to Albany, I almost thanked God.

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I must make a correction – I inaccurately described these guys as Rosella numerous times on this blog. They are in fact a different type of Parrot – a Rainbow Lorikeet. I originally described them as both in the video, thinking the two names were synonymous but they are in fact different birds (google Rosella to see how equally beautiful they are). At any rate check out this guys plumage.

If any bird described to be called Rainbow surely this is the one 🙂


Long Walk

Finally I walked the entire Fernleigh track from Adamstown to Jewells! It was long and hot but I managed to finish the ~20 km trip (including from my parents place to the start of the track) in a little over 3 hours.

A couple of notables I saw on the trip:

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This walk, which diverts from the track just beyond Burwood Road near Kahibah, leads all the way to Sydney! Although I love walking, I’m not one for multi-day hikes. That said, I’d love to walk to Sydney from Newcastle!

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If you’re looking for spiders, walk Fernleigh. I must have seen about eight-hundred zillion this morning and this guy is a nice example. He’s a Saint Andrew’s Cross spider, and measured about 6 cm in length. I saw some spectacularly big webs this morning as well, spanning the entire width of the path (ie. meters). I can only imagine the size of the orb weavers who created them (in one night!)

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This was an ironic find. Many, many years ago I was walking (with a few friends of mine) on the old rail line that has now been turned into the Fernleigh Track. We came across a tiny old shack that contained a single chair and a wooden box. In the box was a collection of very old – but well preserved – magazines (I can remember some Playboys, Family Circles and some train magazines) and some unopened – and also very old – tinned vegetables. It was a bit creepy because we wondered who put it there and why, and also how long it had been there, presumably forgotten. So we just put it all back and left.

Cut forward ~20 years and imagine my surprise when I found the shack again on the track about five minutes north of Whitebridge! As you can see it was very overgrown, so I didn’t explore. But it certainly brought back memories of that strange find many years ago.

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Dad was to meet me in Redhead for the final leg of the walk to Jewells. I got there early though so strolled down to the beach. It was very, VERY hot (easily over 30, with no breeze) and I couldn’t believe the amount of people out sunbathing. It was all I could do to stand out in the sun just to take a few photos.

Also near Redhead I found this on the track:

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Oh the memories! That’s a used firework, probably brought home illegally by someone who holidayed in another state. I could (and one day, will) do an entire entry on the fun Bernard and I had with fireworks in our youths. Before they were banned in our state 🙂

I had seen and heard countless birds along the way, including kookaburra, cockatoos, whip-birds and bellbirds (common between Whitebridge and Redhead) but down in the north Belmont wetlands dad and I were treated to a fine performance of bellbird song:

After we finished the track we bussed to Charlestown for some lunch and quick shopping. Both of us were pretty tired by now, so I debated the madness of getting off the bus home on Beaumont Street for one last look at the used bookstores. How fortuitous I did though, for I was able to get two more gamebooks I didn’t have, that were – the attendant told me – just sold to the store yesterday!

Two last shots:

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Pretty mannequins! Why do I always take photos of mannequins? In this case I like how they are all different…

Yesterday I bought my parents Scrabble. The new version includes an incredibly complete rulebook, that contains advanced rules (“Don’t think about using the X unless you can make at least 30 points…”) and a dictionary of all legal 2-letter words. Fun stuff, but this next shot shows what can happen to a game when such a dictionary is available:

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Tomorrow I shall bid my parents goodbye and take an early train to Sydney. I’ll have 2.5 days left to amuse myself. Hopefully I shall make them productive!