100 Years of Dust

Sydney Town Hall was opened to the public after renovations last weekend.  The waratah in the photograph is part of the brass staircase.  It was easy to miss as the staircase is dominated by a stunning stained glass window (definitely not a macro photo). 

The light inside the Town Hall was tricky and it was only when I viewed this photo at home that I realised that the Council had not been wasting the taxpayer's money on cleaning.  I can't blame them.  I wouldn't dust it either.

The Waratah is a flower native to the Sydney region and the floral emblem of New South Wales.

Enjoy some more macro photography at Macro Monday

Exercising the Vocal Chords

I've had several attempts at writing this blog but I'm struggling to describe something that you have to see to believe. Imagine you are in a room with hundreds of nuns, a Nazi, a few goats, boys in lederhosen and girls in white dresses with blue satins sashes all singing Edelweiss as if their lives depended on it. Is this a nightmare that haunts my sleep? No, this is Sing-a-long Sound of Music. The best fun you can have with someone elses clothes on.

I have a dark secret. I love the Sound of Music movie and it's nice to know I'm not alone.  This movie brings out the the closet Maria fans and they are willing to dress up for their night of nights.  Some of the costumes were astounding, particularly one woman who wore a bridal dress.  The dress was so big the ushers had to help her when she moved around.  I hope she didn't use public transport to get home.

This is an interactive show. You don't get to sit back and hum My Favourite Things under you breath while watching Austrian scenery. You're part of the show. As we sat down we were given a bag of tricks to be used during the movie and a quick training session on when to use them (as if we didn't already know!!)

• Flash cards to wave in the air during the song How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria.
• A piece of curtain material to wave around while shouting “behind you!!” at Maria while she worries about the children's lack of play clothes.
• An invitation to the Captains Ball - the social event of the year.
• A plastic flower to wave while singing Edelweiss.
• Streamers for when Maria and the Captain first kiss.

You must also:-

• Hiss when the Baroness appears
• Boo the Nazis
• Go “Ahhhh” every time Gretl speaks
• Bark like a dog when ever Rolf the Telegram Boy appears. (This one makes more sense when you are there) I never liked Rolf. I always thought he was a bit slimy and Liesl could do better.

Most importantly you have to sing.

We sung every Do-Re-Me, yodelled along with the Lonely Goatherd and tries a bit of Latin with the Nuns. The audience was out of key and never in time and it must have sounded brilliant. My voice was a little worse for wear the following day.

We are already planning out costumes for next time. I read about a guy at the San Francisco production who went covered in black balloons. Apparently he was the Lonely Goat Turd.  We have to top this.

Arrival of the Queen

Sunday afternoon yacht races were interupted when Queen Mary 2 cruised into Sydney Harbour.  It's difficult to convey the size of this ship with photographs but she is too big to fit under the Harbour Bridge.

Other Scenic Sunday posts can be viewed here.

Macro Monday

I love photography but lately I haven't spent much time with my camera lately. Bad Vicki. I was admiring the Shelle's damn fine photos on Fair Dinks and saw she posts macro photos to Macro Monday.


I also noticed a tiny bug happily munching his way through my herb garden and now I have my first Macro Monday post. 


A word of advice for this hungry little hopper ....
 

Dude, you're eating my garlic chives.  There will be no lov'n from
the ladies if you eat these.
  You're gunna stink!

 

The flowers are about 1cm across and the grasshopper was tiny.

Check out other Macro Monday posts

Reflections

Someone stole the last two days of February.  I thought I had plenty of time before the Blog This Photography Challege was due to close.  I looked at my calendar this morning and, damn, March happened while I wasn't looking.  I hate it when that happens.

It may be a little presumptuous of me but I couldn't decide which picture to use so I am entering three photos taken around the same time.  I took these photos late one afternoon while on holidays in Papua New Guinea.  At low tide the locals collect shellfish on the mud flats.  The sunset caught the clouds of a thunderstorm building in the distance and there wasn't a breath of wind to ruffle the water.  

If you would like to see other entries in the Photography Challenge or to cast a vote visit the Blog This site.

Little Bag of Horrors

I've been thrown a life line. I have been devoid of blogging inspiration for almost a week and today wasn't shaping up to be any better. I'm sitting at my computer today thinking I'd like to blog, but I got nuffin. Zip. Zilch. Zero. What a joy (and relief) it was to be tagged by Caz at The Truth About Mummy to reveal the contents of my handbag.

I have two handbags

Classy stylish hand-crafted handbag I use when I'm looking to impress.

Grubby brown sloppy thing covered in beer stains that has seen me at my worst and may have carried me home more than once.

Logic (and dignity) screamed “use the nice bag!” but when I looked at the contents I realised that I wasn't going to get far with lipstick and a squashed Mintie.

My brown handbag … oooo … things go into this handbag and never come out. It's like a black hole sucking matter in with it's gravitational pull. If I dig into it's contents am I going to find the Starship Enterprise or a herd of bison which may have wandered to close? Only one way to find out …

Here goes....

Broken purse well past it's use by date. Clip and zip both broken. Hints given at Christmas about it's advance state of deterioration were ignored. (What have I got to do??? Draw a map?)

Copy of Clockwork Orange. Always handy to read this book on a train. Nobody wants to sit next to someone who is reading something as messed-up as this book.

Cricket Australia Official Fixtures Guide 2009-2010. (stolen) (never used) (seemed like a good idea at the time)

A lens from a pair of broken sunglasses. Ah ha! I've been looking for that.

Keys to the convertible. Ok, it's a Holden Astra convertible but it still rocks!

Lip Balm. The really serious stuff that you have to use when you have wind burnt lips.  Ouchie!

iPhone. How did I become so addicted to this little baby?? I once hated phones and resented having to carry one with me for my work. Now I get withdrawal symptoms if I leave it at home.

Head phones. Doomed, as I seem to break a set of these every few weeks.

Mints, because we can't go around with onion breath. (truth is I don't care about onion breath, I just like the taste of them).

Hairbrush. I'm not sure why I bother as I have disobedient hair that ignores any attempt to make it respectable.

Two Golf Tees. No idea why. One should be enough.

Memory stick. You never know when you need to copy international secrets you can sell the Russians

Lipstick. 24k Pink. Sparkly and pretty.

Various Stationary:
           Three and a half pens (two purchased, one stolen and the half … dunno)
           Highlighter (stolen)
           Two Pencils (both stolen)
           An eraser (stolen)

15c Would this have fallen out of the broken zip on the broken purse? I think so.

I'm a little surprised it's not worse. No spaceships and only a few small bison that didn't rate a mention. What does this say about me? It tells the world that I nick stationary. Oh well, gotta have a vice so it might as well be practical.

The joy doesn't end here folks!  There's more!

Caz has really made my day by flicking a Sunshine Award my way. WooHoo!

I'm passing these two gems onto my newest friend in the blogo-universe:

Mr TransAM 76 at Reef Adventures.

Mr TransAm 76 (AKA the delightful Robert) has bought much sunshine into my life this week by assisting me in extracting a chunk of money from the Government.  Yay for the good guys!

Come on Robert, I want to know what you have hidden away in your handbag.

The Hurt Locker

Have you heard of the film “The Hurt Locker”?  No?  Me neither. So it came as a bit of a surprise yesterday when I found myself watching the opening scenes. How did I get here?

Good question. It was one of the more painful trips to the cinema. Off to a bad start, we were late leaving and it was always going to be a rush to get there. Five minutes to go before show time we were in sight of the cinema and only one thing stood in our way: The Mardi Gras Fair. D'oh! Traffic ground to a standstill and there wasn't a parking space for miles. Bugger. There was an upside: - anything to do with Mardi Gras is great for people-watching while being stuck in the largest traffic snarl this side of the moon.

Switch to Plan B. With no way of being able to make the 4:50pm session we decided to try a later session at a cinema in the city. There was always parking available in the city on a Sunday. What could possible go wrong? Chinese New Year Parade. D'oh! After several laps around the city we found a parking station with spaces available. They, however, failed to mention that the last remaining spaces were actual barricaded off and were part of a construction area. D'oh!  It was about now I had a spectacular sense of humour failure. There was no construction occurring at 5pm on a Sunday, so to the delight of the line of cars behind me who were equally screwed, I got out of the car and removed the barriers. Viva la revolution!

Kung Hei Fat Choy to
all the tigers out there

Having secured a car park, we were left with one small hurdle: we were on one side of the road, the cinema was on the other side of the road and the Chinese New Year Parade was in the middle. D'oh! One of the great things about Sydney is, in an attempt to squeeze as much real estate value out of a single piece of land, there is always an underground shopping mall that can be used if you need to dodge the traffic.

While the journey to the cinema was very exciting, this blog posting is actually a film review. The Hurt Locker is a war film set in Iraq. I've seen a number of these types of films lately but this one was different. It refreshingly didn't take sides or push the anti-American “you really screwed this one up” stance. The focus of the film is on a team of bomb disposal unit technicians. They are nearing the end of their tour in Iraq when a new team leader joins the unit. The new leader, Staff Sergeant William James, has a different approach to bomb disposal which leaves him at odds with the rest of his crew. This creates tension in an already impossibly tense working environment.

Image from here

Is James a bomb disposal genius or is he a reckless red-neck who is endangering his team? As the film shows you more of his character you begin to see the complexities of the situation and you begin to wonder how these men can ever return home to live a normal life.

At times this is difficult film to watch, but like many difficult tasks, the rewards are great. I felt I was watching a modern-day game of Russian Roulette as these men daily face death while clearing bombs. The suspense makes it impossible to look away. The screen writer is a journalist who spent time embedded in a bomb unit while in Iraq and there is an authentic look and feel to the film. It's one of those films that you find yourself thinking about a week later. The Hurt Locker made an enormous impact on me and, if you are looking for a film to make you think, I recommend it.

If I had to compare this film to a food it would be Wild Salmon – top shelf brain food.

Check out the film website if you want to know more.