I'll Say This: I Warned Him

Well, if you go to breakfast in Australia, you'll come across Vegemite. I think they make it out of rotten oranges and dead waterfowl, doused in DEET. Apparently it's excellent for warding off scurvy.

Turner:     (spreading vegemite on a corner of his toast) ...You want some?
Ash:         Ah. No.
Turner:     A bite? For the sake of experimentation?
Ash:         Ha ha, right. No thanks. I tried it back in 1992, I have no need to try it again.
Turner:     ...It's been sixteen years and you won't try it?
Ash:         I have a very clear memory of what that tastes like and I will never put it in my mouth ever ever again. ...But you go ahead!

And he did. The result, below:



I think it's safe to say that the Canadian palate isn't "sophisticated" enough to appreciate Vegemite's charms.

Categories: Turner

Comments [7]

Hard To Love

Turner: "I guess if, in a week, the people running Alberta wanted to demonstrate what a bunch of short-sighted small-minded cowards they are [I'll add bullshit money-grubbing, me], these stories would do so nicely."

Demonstration #1:
EnCana's new Bow Building initially lauded as an environmentally designed, community-integrated wonder, now a toothless shell without many of the design features that sold Calgarians on the project in the first place. Via the Globe & Mail.

Demonstration #2:
Alberta's premier and his cabinet just decided to award themselves - without public debate - a 30% salary increase. Via Vue Weekly.

It's bittersweet to be in Melbourne this week. Melbourne, with its public art, amazing public transport infrastructure, public washrooms every 100m, was apparently a boring, empty-downtown'd backwater with a ton of unrealized potential only as recently as the mid-1990s. Then they decided to do things right.

Categories: Calgary | Wurldliness

Comments [1]

New photos on Flickr

Fambily at Sloane's favourite spot in Melbourne: Round three on the ferris wheel!


Climbing! Mount! Mamaaaaaaaa!

More photos now up on Flickr, here.

Categories: Wurldliness

Comments [3]

Next set of Melbourne photos

Our next set of photos is up on Flickr, here. They feature the Werribee open range zoo west of Melbourne, and other city sights. Most are kinda burned out in the highlights, or too dark, or unfocussed. We're still jetlagging, and the time to set light and/or post-edit is basically zero, so they is what they is.

Sloane and I haven't seen much of Turner, but I hear he's knocking 'em dead on the intellectual innovation lecture circuit. Go T!

Categories: Wurldliness

Comments [0]

Arrival Fotoset

First photoset from this trip is now up on Flickr, here.

Categories: Wurldliness

Comments [0]

Melbourne!

Well, I didn't believe it was actually going to happen until we actually landed in Melbourne. But we're in Australia, and we're here for five weeks. Turner's a featured speaker at the Deakin Lectures here for the next ten days, so our first leg has us ensconced at the lovely Grand Mercure Docklands just south of downtown. This is the view from our balcony:



That's the Telstra Dome, where we're seeing the footy on Friday with Garry, our Australian neighbour from Ramsay (who also happens to be in Melbourne this month).

This is the man who picked us up at the airport in a fancy car (note fancy sign bearing Turner's name):



This is Sloaner, jetlaggingly baffled by the weird Australian playground equipment design:




And in case you're in town, here's the program schedule for the lecture series, much of which takes place at Foundation Square right smack in the CBD. Come on down you lucky people! Turner's first talk is tonight in the rural community of Shepparton, and he's on hand in Ballarat for the opening gala on Wednesday. Thursday he's speaking at Foundation Square here in Melbourne, etcetera etcetera. See you there!

Categories: Turner | Wurldliness

Comments [1]

Benefits of the zoo

Life and death, death and life.

The death of basically all of the Calgary Zoo's stingrays last week made national headlines. Here we are at the stingray exhibit just over week ago, when everything was still going well.



It was a cool exhibit. Sloane and I both chickened out when the rays got too close to our hands, though. No thanks for me! I'm still with the "that's a wild animal and it doesn't want me touching it" opinion I had back in 2004, in Australia.

...But also I'm scared of fish n' shit, yo.




Any guesses as to what else we saw at the zoo? I found this little tableau on the coffee table the next day.

Categories: Calgary | Sloane

Comments [2]

Jaipur Bombings

In grief for the Jaipur bombings, which were given all of 8 seconds on Canada's national news broadcast tonight. In 2000, Jenna and I stood in the place where three of the bombs went off, had our photos taken by a street vendor, toured the Palace of the Winds. Thoughts with you tonight, Jaipuris.

Categories: India

Comments [0]

Women Are Not Stupid

Cheers to Ellie Levenson, UK-based freelance journalist and friend of our man JJ. She's begun a campaign in Great Britain to allow women advance access to emergency contraception ("the morning-after pill"). See her site here: http://www.womenarenotstupid.co.uk/.

Categories: Feminizm

Comments [2]

Soundgarden Parenting

I'd been humming Black Hole Sun to myself all morning, what can I say?

Categories: Ash | Mom-ness

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