No blog entries til Monday (just too tired). For live updates from the festival click the Twitter link above.

Sunday - the final day. I suppose that is the downside of going on short trips, they over of before they start. But I can excuse this - Superman is open today!

The morning started early as we packed up our gear into the car and checked out. I haven’t really mentioned our outstanding apartments (or in particular the customer service) where reception is between 10am and 4pm Monday to Saturday. Of course my mum only found this out when checking in, so when she went to check out and made the phone call to reception, she was told to stick the key in the owner’s mailbox. Like I said, outstanding.

We made a brief stop for breakfast at Harbour Town. After looking at all the cafes lined in a row, we finally chose one where everyone but my sister had the basic breakfast (eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato, hash browns and toast). The meal was standard breakfast fair - good but nothing outstanding. On the other hand my sister had the fluffiest french toast that I’ve ever seen (and the little bites I had tasted pretty good too). Afterwards we checked out a lolly store to get a mixed bag for the plane and I picked up a pack of white chocolate Recees peanut butter cups (even better then the milk chocolate ones).

A short trip later and we arrived at Movie World, with a slightly empty car park. I really wanted to ride Superman Escape, but walking into the park we didn’t see the car launch once. I was just about to walk into a store when I saw it launch and decided it was time. Now there were signs outside the park saying that Superman won’t run in the rain, but it was coming in lightly and a few cars were going in it, so what me worry? My Dad and get near the entrance where people are being turned away for having stuff in their pockets. Mine are completely empty (I still have my pedometer on, but hide it under my t-shirt) while my dad had his wallet in his back pocket. Despite the fact that he will be sitting on his wallet during the ride, this isn’t enough to please the trolls girls guarding the bridge line and he needs to get rid of it. A quick walk to my Mum and sis who are not riding to get rid of it, and back to the queue. Now the rain was coming down as we were just about to get in line and had just stopped as we got back, but those charming girls were not letting anyone ride? Why? Because of the rain, the very rain that had just stopped while the ride was running. Great start to the day so far.

We decided to check out a few shops, but I felt like giving Batwing a ride so I headed to the front of the park with my Dad. The ride-op decides to staple me to my seat and while I feel uncomfortable waiting for the launch, I don’t notice once I’m in the air. While walking we noticed that Superman was back running, so it was straight to that line. Another quick check of the pockets (yes I have nothing) and we were in the line. The queue was about forty people long, so it wouldn’t be long before we got a ride. An asian teen in front of me asks me how fast the ride launches. I tell him, then he asks if he can have stuff in his pockets, before pulling out a mobile phone, keys and loose change. Good ride staff. I explain that he better get rid of it or he can’t ride. He does and comes back a short time later, then realising he has a packet of cigarettes in his back pocket.

With about twenty people in front of us before riding, we noticed that the ride didn’t come back into the station. Staff members were on the phone, overlooking the ride in the window above the station. After about five minutes the ride operator told us that the ride is having difficulties and would not be running for an hour and twenty minutes. Arg! We were told that we can wait in line if we wanted to, or we can leave now. I chose to leave, angry that I am going without a ride. So much for the Asian guy and his locker full of gear.

We meet up with the females in our group and I explain what happened, before deciding to head down to Scooby Doo to get a ride on that. We had been in the park for over thirty minutes and still haven’t ridden anything. We all head around the corner to Scooby Doo to find people being turned away. Sure enough, the ride is broken and the female staff member doesn’t know when it will be open, shrugging her shoulders when being asked how long it will be down for. Outstanding morning so far, can we ride anything?

“Screw it, let’s ride Wild West Falls”. My dad, sister and I head down to the line, which has the longest wait I’ve faced so far at about fifteen minutes. That’s what happens when two of your major rides are shut down I guess. On the plus side, we all skipped that annoying video. Ride was good as usual and I’m convinced that the back row gets wetter then the front. My dad and I decide to see what is going on with Superman. Still not running. My dad has a word with the staff out the front. “We don’t know when it will be running, we were at lunch and it wasn’t working when we came onto the ride” (at 11am?). My dad explains that he saw it running this morning, and the other operator says “It was running for a function this morning then was turned off.” Huh? Is it broken or not? If you’re going to lie, at least stick to your story.

From there we decide to see if Scooby Doo is ready. Thankfully it is now up, but a forty-five minute wait accompanies it. Where did these people come from, and how come they weren’t here for the last three days!? The wait is pretty unbearable, due to a mixture of being spoilt in the last few days due to the lack of crowds, pushing and jumping in the line, and the annoying looping video that is only tolerable once. My sis and I get a ride in the first car, front seats and the ride seems to have a bit of zip that it didn’t have the last few days, hurting my gut as it zoomed into its drops. Good ride none the less.

My parents and my sister decide to go check out the Shrek 4D show. I can’t be bothered with it, and decide to grab a quick ride on Batwing. The guy next to me is with his son and appears to be a bit of a ride junkie, asking me if I’ve rode Superman yet. I explain that I haven’t and he tells me that the airtime on it is even better then Batwing. Arg. The ride is probably my favourite in the park, quick line without any crap, straight onto the ride and your done. I notice a few guys around the back of Superman standing near a control panel pressing buttons. Pretty soon a car launches out the front. I head over to the Superman Escape area but those two girls from earlier are not letting anyone line up. I decide to take a seat on the bench and watch the cars launch.

After four or five launches, a senior staff member walks over to the line staff and tells them to let the line open. From there it’s a free-for-all, with everyone rushing to get in the line. When four or five people ahead of me get told off for having stuff in their pockets, I worry that I’ll join them. Come on, what damage can a pedometer do? I’m let through after a brief pat-down and I’m riding in the third car after two circuits.

Well Superman.. is it any good? First of all, the seats look damn odd and they are uncomfortable as hell to boot. Then again, you don’t want to go flying off right? The car launches as it leaves the station into a series of s-bends and turns through the subway before Superman stops the train and launches you into the first hill. The floating airtime lifts you out of your seat and feels wonderful before pulling you straight down into an eighty-five degree drop, before turning and twisting you through the course (which features a wonderful head chopper near the end). You return to the exit where I was greeted by another rude staff member who pretty told me to get the hell out now. I know they want to push people through the ride because it’s new and all, but you could be a little bit civil about it.

I decide to go for an instant re-ride, but it’s going to be a little bit longer this time due to the wait. Fortunately the ride-op asks for single riders and I’m suddenly in a middle car again. The rider next to me is telling her friends in front that they just have to close their eyes if they are afraid of the ride before introducing herself. She later tells them that you have to do scary things because they are good. I decide to pipe up, declaring “Lessons to live life by” to which see agrees. The ride is just as good the second time when you know what is coming ahead - those pops of airtime are even better the second time.

I decide again a third ride and walk around looking for my family who should have got out of Shrek by now. I run into my sister, who tells me my dad is looking for me since Superman is running. I find him and we ride Superman again, now with an even longer line. They give my Dad grief about what is in his pocket - a hankie. We end up getting seats in the back car, and the ride is surprisingly worse in the back then in the middle. Six to eight of the riders are yelled at for getting out on the wrong side of the station when we get back.

My Dad and I catch up with the women in the group and we all watch the Stars parade. My mum is a little bit disappointed as the place she wanted to eat at is closed. The parade isn’t bad at all, despite my sister pointing out the obviously lumps sticking out of Marvin the Martins costume and having an ugly Princess Fiona. My dad and I grab another quick ride on Batwing before it’s time for a late lunch. I grab a Steak Burger from Wild West Burgers - it’s a fair bit smaller then I previously remember but is still tasty. My mum and sis have nachos which are awesome as usual.

From there we head on for one last ride on Wild West Falls. Sarah-Ann, the cute ride-op was working on the ride without the poxy British accent today; I guess it was a fake. I get drenched to the bone and it’s decided that we will grab a few last rides before heading out. Scooby Doo is running with a much tolerable ten minute ride and is still running fast. We head back to the store to see the photos but the screens are black - turns out that the server crashed and all the machines are down. Funny.

From there we decide to grab one last ride, without having enough time to catch Superman we make it Batwing which is great as usual. With that, time is up and it’s time to head back to Brisbane to catch our flight. The drive is fairly uneventful unlike yesterday, and we get to the airport with enough time to spare. I play Virtua Tennis and bust out in the third game despite a comeback in the second set. I walk around the price and laugh at the overpriced Red Rooster and Eagle Boys Pizza menu, before buying a magazine and overpriced packet of Mentos at the newsagents.

The flight is pretty standard except for the girl in front who decided to tilt her seat back as soon as possible. Now I’m sitting the row behind the emergency rows, so what’s the deal here? You already get extra leg room, so how much more do you want!? We arrive at Avalon at about 10ish, walking straight into cold rain. It takes a little while to grab our bags but eventually we are gone, holiday over.

Many people would say that four days isn’t enough when going up for a short trip but I enjoyed the break. The parks were quiet; I had some tasty meals and did a bit of gambling to boot. With Sea World rumoured to get a new ride sometime this year, it will only be a matter of time before I am up there doing it again.

Note: This was originally written on Febuary 18. A lack of internet access prevented me from posting it at the time, so here it is now.

Another day with a familiar park. My dad was flying in Saturday morning so the plan was to pick him up from the airport, do a little shopping then stop by Sea World for a few rides. I ended up getting up around six o’clock, watching some television before getting dressed and leaving at eight. My dad’s flight arrived into Brisbane at nine, so we figured we had enough time to pick him up. Amazingly, the roads were packed up full of cars, it was like being on the Tulla on a Friday afternoon right after work. Turns out that there was an accident which slowed down the traffic quite a bit. We ended up getting to the airport at about 9:30, and then we were on our way to Harbour Town only stopping for some breakfast on the way.

Harbour Town is a shopping centre just near Southport. It’s half standard shopping centre, half factory outlet. Of course that doesn’t mean you’d find items any cheaper in half the stores there, but people seem to go nuts for the fact that it says factory outlet on the sign and figure it’s cheap. I went in a couple of the stores, finally grabbing a discounted jacket from the Nike store. While paying my brain had seemed to fall out of my ear so the conversation with the very bored checkout girl went like this:

“Pretty hot for a jacket today!”
”Uhh… yeah”
“Your not from around here?”
“No.”

I’m clearly the charmer, especially when brain dead.

We spent a couple of hours at Harbour Town before heading to Sea World, arriving at about 1:30. The car park was a bit fuller then on Thursday but people seemed to be leaving instead of going into the park. As my Dad was getting his ticket processed we noticed the person on the gate.. it was Michael from Shrek. I didn’t realise that they cross trained everyone – and actually let them do other jobs rather then sticking them on the same one. We went in and had a look around – the place was lacking people once again.

We decided to jump on Viking’s Revenge as our first ride of the day. While in line my sister saw a friend she went to school with.. what are the chances! The ride had about a five minute wait, not that long but it was worth it. Following the ride it was time for Bermuda Triangle. Bermuda was dead quiet, sending out empty boats quite a few times. For some reason the old women and her daughter seemed to get in a fight with the ride operator (I think they wanted to get their own boat instead of riding with others) and was forced to take the back seats of another boat. As for my ride? Meh.. it has a decent first drop but no working speaker so it was pointless to watch the pre-show video. The young kids behind me seemed to enjoy it and it got me thinking. It’s clear that Sea World tried to create a Disney like ride with Bermuda Triangle. But where as a Disney ride will entertain the entire family, Bermuda’s lame story will only entertain the younger crowd, and that may only be once.

After that it was time for a ride on Corkscrew. I went on as a single while my sister and dad went on together. Due to my speediness, I was able to jump on the ride straight away, getting myself a nice backseat ride. Just as I was done my sister and dad were getting on, but due to the lack of people I rode it again. As I have said previously, the ride is simple yet great. Following this there was a ride on the Pirate Ship with a few others which was enjoyable.

At about this time everyone was pretty tired. We took a small break to have a drink and share some fries before boarding the Sea World Eye where I managed to smash my head right into the cabin while climbing in. Real impressive. The ride again was something that’s good to go on once and that’s about it. My sister and I got in one more ride on Viking’s Revenge before we hit the road for the day.

We wanted to go back for a swim in the pool, but the afternoon rain prevented that. Instead we sat back and watched some television before heading out to Cav’s Steak House for dinner. The process was pretty simple, choose a menu item, then go up to the counter and choose your piece of meat and how you’d like it cooked. I got the Caribbean Rib Eye with king prawns and a spicy mash. The steak was great while everything else on the plate was just an afterthought. The wait staff were pretty lacking, bringing us a room temperature bottle of water when we weren’t sure of what we wanted to drink (I noticed that our drinks waitress did this for another table too), then screwing up our drinks entirely before offering us drinks from another table.

While leaving we noticed the couple behind us – the guy was breaking up with his girlfriend and she was not taking it well. I don’t mind a bit of people watching but we couldn’t get away from it this long. While heading to the car there was another couple having a fight outside, Cav’s – The Home of the Breakup? We headed back to the apartment where we watched Iron Chef. I went to bed at about 9:30 and I’d say I was lucky if I was awake fifteen minutes later.

Sunday – our Final Day. Warner Brother’s Movie World is on the menu with Wild West Falls, Batwing, Shrek 4D and hopefully Superman Escape. As I haven’t written it yet, expect it some time tomorrow.

Note: This was originally written on Febuary 17. A lack of internet access prevented me from posting it at the time, so here it is now.

After a loaded day one it was time to continue with our next park on the map – Warner Brothers Movie World. I rose at about 6am with sun shining through the blinds and decided to go for some more sleep. At nine I finally got up and saw that my sister wanted to go for some breakfast. Time for a warm shower, and since I wasn’t at home I could have a little bit of an extended one for a change. The downside was that the shower was shaped for a small elephant, low and high pressure. Felt like Kramer when he got his shower head replaced – you know, the head that is used for circuit animals. After I was done I lazily got dressed and surfed the net.

McDonalds was the plan for breakfast, so off we went. But because of my laziness we ended up missing out on the breakfast menu – sort of. My mum and sis were able to get hash browns but that was it, with mother taking a vanilla thickshake and a hot apple pie. Meanwhile I checked out the McCafe area and got an extremely nice Iced Chocolate with a apple and cinnamon muffin. My sis mixed and matched – frozen coke and a crosseon.

After the meal it was a short trip to Movie World. The carpark looked about a third full but Batwing Spaceshot was shooting riders into the sky. No lines anywhere, simply scan that ticket and in we went. Deciding to ride Batwing later in the day, we walked through a few stores before finally deciding on Scooby Doo’s Ghost Coaster as our first ride of the day.

The sign gave a ten minute wait, but it would be lucky if the wait was five. My sis and I grabbed the back seats of a car and away we went. The ride has not dated at all and is still the fantastic wild mouse with that killer first drop in reverse. Following the ride it was time for our first of many trips on Wild West Falls. After getting off Scooby Doo I noticed an influx of people coming into that area of the park and feared their would be a bit of a wait for WWF. Once through the queue it was clear this was non-existent, as we skipped through the long waiting area, right passed the non playing video (awesome, I hate those things) and then straight into a short line.

We grabbed the back row and placed that lapbar down. The boat was full of adults and sped through the course, finally delivering a great drop drenching me all over. But it wasn’t enough, so right through that queue again and we were off. This time we grabbed the second row and really got wet, catching most of the water shooting from that final drop.

It was time for lunch but we needed one more ride to dry out on – Lethal Weapon it is. I hate the ride myself but my sister seems to love it, so I’m prepared to suffer a little pain in the meantime. The queue was probably the longest wait we faced all day at about fifteen minutes, but the line jumpers ahead of us didn’t help matters. While the ride had a cute ride operator (even with a really odd British accent), it banged my ears around as if I was in a boxing match and I didn’t really enjoy it.

We had some lunch at Dirty Harry’s Bar and it was on to Looney Toons Village. We were going to give the river ride a go but they were only running it on the hour for some odd reason – so we gave Road Runner’s Roller Coaster a go. Not enough people in the line? That means I get my own car.. nice! Went around once and it was a blast so let’s go again? What’s this? Three people total in line? Instant re-ride without even moving.

I decided to grab a quick ride on the School Bus. It was simple fun for a few minutes. At this stage, it was decided that we would ride Batwing. Line? As if! We only had to watch one group ride and then we walked straight on. As for the ride, it was incredible. Amazing launch with a beautiful piece of airtime just before a freefall back down, followed by another smaller boost then drop. I couldn’t get enough of it and went for a re-ride straight away. The rest of the afternoon was spent re-riding Batwing, Scooby Doo and Wild West Falls.

We did take in the Shrek 4D show which was very entertaining and a fair bit better then the previous show. Michael, the ride operator clearly enjoyed his job, going around scaring riders and constantly cracking jokes. It was everything I liked about a day at a theme park: Little to no lines, decent but not overly warm weather and people weren’t pushing over each other to move around the footpaths.

We went back to the apartments at about 4:30 and watched some TV before going out for dinner. We decided to head down to Broadbeach for dinner and some low limit gambling. After parking we chose Valentinos and had an excellent meal, with some of the best cooked pasta that we have all eaten (I stuck with a veal parma which was pretty damn good too).

It was then on to Jupiters. After a mix-up at the monorail station where we managed to walk through the entire shopping centre without boarding a train, we finally got on. Just before getting on however we saw the weirdest office to see up here – a Crown Limited office! Decked out in the standard Crown look, it was totally out of left field, I guess they try and comp the guys who fly in from Asia and bring them down to Melbourne.

A short trip later and we made it to Jupiters. It doesn’t quite have the spectacular entrance that Crown has but I could deal with that. There was a show going on in the lobby with a few trapeze artists which we watched for a few moments before heading onto the gaming floor. We headed in and I looked around. The place is tiny, tables in the middle with poker machines all around the place. A lot of tables were just opening too, which chips being counted out.

I found the poker area. Four tables, all playing 5/10 Limit. There was a waiting list for 1/2 Pot Limit, plus 10/20 Limit so I decided to watch a hand or two before deciding not to play. First, instead of a rake there was a $1 fee for each hand, so all players seemed to have a stack of ten to twenty one dollar chips which I wasn’t a fan of. Also the play didn’t seem too crash hot so I figured if I was going to buy-in, I’d have to buy in at the max as I’d barely have enough for one hand. Six to seven players seeing a flop, with four to five players seeing a hand through to the river chasing draws before folding to a minimum bet. Not my kind of scene.

I walked around some more before sitting down at a Jupiters 21 (Spanish Blackjack) table. I read up on the game online and it seemed to pay out better then the standard game, mainly due to the dealer not taking a down card after dealing every player’s second card. $10 min bet, so I bought in for $100 and stuck to the minimum.

For some reason the dealer wouldn’t deal until their was at least three players? A few locals sat down and we were off. I go up and down for a yo-yo most of the night but I never drop below $70, setting myself a limit – if I get to $50 I’ll stop regardless. I get aces to a dealer’s five and ask if I can split – I can but I only get one card. I go through, get an three and a five, and of course dealer hits twenty. The player to my right tells me that I was unlucky and made the right play.

A local bets $2.50 on every perfect pair square, and hits it at least fifteen times, something I’ve never seen before. I get kings and queens twice in a row, and when I decide to stick $5 down on a perfect pair, I get five with a three. Rats. The same guy makes a boatload of money playing two hands when he hits two perfect pairs at the one time, plus a blackjack. Insane. For some reason I lose concentrating, hitting on soft eighteen to give me twelve, then sitting!? Dealer hits twenty anyway. A young Asian guy sits down near the end of my session and bets half his chips (about $30-$40) on the one hand. He gets six with a five and doubles down for the rest of his chips – out jumps a jack. My sister tells me later on that security were watching him, perhaps a bit of card counting was going on. I have enough and leave on my final hand with a blackjack and head out $55 in profit – two thirds of dinner paid for.

I cash in $150 of my chips and decide to keep the other $5 to go put bet on one spin of roulette. My sis throws in the other $5 and I ask her, “Red or Black”. She picks red, the ball spins.. 0. Rigged! With that done we head out of the place and I can’t complain that much, $50 in a session is pretty good for a game that requires no thinking.

We head back to the unit and watch some television to end the night. Everyone is tired, another full on day. Tomorrow we return for a half day at Sea World as my Dad flies in, with some shopping in the morning.

So back a couple of months ago I mentioned that I was going to the Gold Coast with family for a few days of non-stop theme parks. Then a family emergency came up hours before I was set to leave and everything had to be cancelled. About a month later plans were made to actually go on this trip, and this finally started today. Currently I’m in an apartment glancing at Sea World into the distance, typing on the best wireless internet provider in Australia (good ol’ DLINK, you never let me down!). Here is day one in a nutshell.

Rather then flying out of Tullamarine straight to Coolengatta, it proved cheaper to fly out of the horrible little Avalon airport to Brisbane and drive the hour or so to the Gold Coast. We decided to get the most out of our days this trip by having an early start, going straight to a “world”, then checking in. Cheap flight was at 9am getting in a 10, meaning we’d get to the park around 10:45 or so. I was woken this morning at about 5:45 and flicked the television on to hopefully get me out of bed. Rather then the familiar Full Frontal that greats me every morning (and prompts me to turn the other shoulder and go back for more zees), a Conan repeat was on. After watching him make fun of Eva Langoria for a little while, I got up and threw on a shirt and shorts. Trip begins now.

The drive to Avalon was standard, fair bit of traffic for six in the morning but no major hassle. We got to the airport at about twenty past seven, with check-in closing in ten minutes we figured there’d be no major issues, most people would have already checked in and we would simply rock up, check the bags and be on our way. Wrong! Greeted with a major line, a lack of staff and numerious customers with issues (they have a weight restriction for a reason, no they are not going to wave the fine) we slowly progressed through the queue before finally checking in. A quick trip through security then straight onto the plane.

The flight was pretty uneventful (how you prefer it I guess). A little bit of turbulence mid way though but nothing crazy. Everyone in my party had forgot to bring gum, mentos or a pillow to chew on through take off which was a little annoying, but to my surprise my ears were fine. Arrived in Brisbane on time. I haven’t been to many airports, but I will say that Brisbane Domestic is the nicest one I’ve seen. The place is laid out really well and it looks quite nice to boot.

With the bags in the boot, our next stop was Sea World. We drove past White Water World, Dreamworld, MovieWorld and Wet’n'Wild, noticing new and classic attractions. Playing the fool, I pointed out most of the stores that were familiar, and many that were not. “Sizzler!”, I shrieked. We finally got to Sea World at about eleven and I noticed that the car park was about a third full. This was going to be a good day.

After having our passes processed, we walked around, looking at the shops only stopping for a few charros to tide out food cravings. We went for the Bavarian Cream and the classic Cinnamon, both of them quite good (I preferred the Bavarian myself). We looked at the rides and noticed the humoungus Sea World Eye observation wheel. It really towered over all in the park. Despite this, my sister and I went for a ride on an old favourite, flume ride Viking’s Revenge.

This is where the day really became good. Went to line up.. no line!? Well.. not quite, there was a one boat wait. You don’t hear me complaining. To make things better, we found that no-one else wanted to ride, so we were given our own boat. Ship it! Two minutes later we were soaked, and I realised that wearing a light blue tee wasn’t the greatest idea if I was going on water rides. The weather was great however, not too hot but just warm enough to dry me off.

With that bit of acceleration in our stomachs, the next ride had to be Corkscrew. So we go up to the queue, sure enough - two people are ahead of us. Awesome. What made it even better was the super cool ride-op who was allowing re-rides without re-queing, provided that those in the queue got their first pick on seats. After the people in front decided to take seats 1A and 1B, we went to the back and took the seats in 11A and 11B, back car front row. Now the Corkscrew isn’t the most amazing coaster in the world but it’s a damn lot of fun, and you are kidding yourself if you disagree. I had a lovely pop of airtime over the loop and another on the second corkscrew. With that done, we went straight for seats 3A and 3B on a re-ride to see if sitting down the front was better or worse. While the ride doesn’t give as much in the front as it does in the back, the speed rush makes up for it.

From there it was time for a quick ride on the Pirate Ship. For a ride that would have a total capacity of about sixty, the five of us that boarded had a ball, yelling and screaming like fools (even if that was mainly me). I was loving this - it was like we had our own private theme park ready for us to ride at any time. Lines? What on earth are those!?

Feeling a bit queasy, we decided that it would be time for some proper lunch and decided to go up the front to watch the water ski show and grab a bite. I stuck with a very nice Club Sandwich, while my sister had a over-cheesed and over-priced personal pizza with my mum having a salad roll. Similar to the pizza was the over-cheesed water ski show Waterski Wipeout (although this was intentional). A few laughs (and I mean a few), a few cute girls and a few cool stunts, although I’d be happy to sit their and watch the guys on the wakeboards go at it for twenty minutes.

After that it was time for a few more rides and a look at the attractions. We had a look at Dugong Discovery, where I saw a string ray trying to attack the glass (as opposed to a guess, I guess). After a quick ice cream, a quick ride around the Sea World Railway was done (which I swore previously had commentary). From their, we decided to hit the Sea World Eye where we ran into our first line of the day. Fortunately it was short, and we were locked in our cabin five minutes later.

The views that the ride gives are great, but to be totally honest it didn’t seem that high despite being so large. Also, while the views are great by the third time around I had enough of it (as did the Kiwi boy riding with his parents). Something that’s great to ride once, and never again. From their we went to the now-operating Bermuda Triangle. The ride was down for some reason in the morning, but with the fire shooting out the top it was time to give it a go. With that said, the ride still sucks donkey balls and is much better when you pretend the plot is about Scientology and give it a Mystery Science Theatre 30000 style commentary (somehow whenever I ride BT, the speaker in the boat never works. Today was no exception.)

At this stage, everyone was tired and had enough, despite the time only being around two. Most of the crowd seemed to agree meaning that rides were left on their own. I was able to jump straight onto Viking’s Revenge despite being a single rider (and getting my own boat to boot), and Corkscrew was a one train wait with any choice of seats I wanted (I ended up going for 11B and stapling myself in the process, giving me the uncomfortable ride). At about 3:30 we left (along with most of the crowd) and headed to our apartments to check in.

Everyone was stuffed. Early start combined with a long day of activity doesn’t work great together, so we were all ready to curl up for some sleep. Despite this, we went out to the local shopping centre to see what was nearby and stock up on a few groceries while we were at it. Going out for dinner wasn’t an option, it was going to be take-away and it had to be good. I grabbed myself a four-pack of Absoult Cut at the cheapest price I’ve ever seen it at ($10, not even on special - oh ship it!) and look at the potential choices for tea.

Despite Nandos being in the complex (and Nandos is only second to Oporto as far as fast food chicken goes), we decided to pick this hidden away Chinese place that the locals seemed to be flocking to - with good reason. I won’t go into all the details of the dinner, but the curry puffs and the long and short soup were very very good. Thumbs up from me.

Tomorrow we will be attacking Warner Brothers Movie World with full force. Superman is down for maintenance but with Batwing, Scooby Doo and Wild West Falls in action, I can’t see myself having a bad day, and if Sea World was any indication we made not have to wait a while to jump on each of them either. See you soon.

Big Day Out 2007 is coming to Melbourne this Sunday along with a semi-decent line-up. If someone gave me a ticket I’d happily go and all, but the only act that I really want to see would be Lupe Fiasco (and I’m going to see his sideshow this Friday). So I’m reading the street press which I usually do lunch time Wednesdays, and notice in Beat Magazine’s competition section, a contest to win a double pass to the event along with CDs for each artist on the show. The challenge? Create your dream Big Day Out lineup. But it had to be realistic, so you couldn’t have Jimmy Hendrix close the show with the Beatles singing backup.

With this in mind, I got to work creating a timetable along with a press release. After a lot of tweaking, reading, researching and writing I finally finished late last night and submitted the thing. I’m pretty happy with how the two came out. Take a look at the timetable by clicking the below image. You can read my crazy-long press release under the cut.

So sometime at work Monday I was checking my RSS feeds and came across a story about Rage Against The Machine getting back together for one night only. Back in the Napster days when I was getting into music I tried to find as many Woodstock ‘99 sets as I could. I found the few name artists that I knew, then asked a few mates to suggest some artists. One told me about RATM and well as they say, the rest was history. Not until I came across Jurassic 5 a few years later was I stunned to hear such a unique, original sound. Tom’s hard guitar with Zack’s aggressive rhyme style was just mind blowing to someone who grew up on The Living End, Hunters & Collectors and the Beastie Boys. I guess when they broke up I sort of regretted never seeing them live.

Fast forward to Monday and this announcement. Once again, minds blown. Are they going to tour the world? Is this the end of Audioslave? Is Zack going to do stuff with DJ Shadow again (the answer to that one is no). So I’m reading the article about how they are only playing one night only at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. But that’s not all. Also appearing on the bill - The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Air, Arctic Monkeys, The Roots and Tiësto (who my mate saw at Love Parade in Germany and said was really awesome). A really damn cool line-up, and hey it’s got three of my headliners from my fantasy BDO lineup, pretty cool but I guess I’ll just stream the webcast.

So this morning I come into work and check up on it. The full line-up is announced and my jaw just drops.

Faithless. DJ Shadow. Peaches. Busdriver. The Good, The Bad, The Queen. Travis. Ghostface Killah. Peter Bjorn and Paul. Girl Talk. Kaiser Chiefs. Placebo. Soulwax. Jose Gonzalez. Klaxtons. Tapes n Tapes. Lupe Fiasco. The Coup.

And those are just the artists that I’d pay to see if they came to Oz.

The full line-up is available at the Coachella website. It’s as if someone said “Let’s create a festival far away for that guy who’s blog no-one reads”, and that guy is saying “I think I might just go”. I’ve been thinking about it almost non-stop for the last two days. I figure it’s just so rare to see a festival jam packed full of bands that I like a lot right now, so I am seriously thinking of spending a ton of dosh and making the trip over. Would it be a great value for money trip? Probably not. Would it be worth it to see a whole heap of my favourite bands at one time, in the one place? I think so.

I think it’s time to fire up my Live At The Grand Olympic Auditorium dvd. Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me..

Read the rest of this entry »

So sometime in September 2005 I decided that I was going to lose a bit off my gut and start walking the recommended 10,000 steps everyday. As a bit of motivation/geekness, I tracked how many steps I took every day to make sure I could say I reached a goal.

On January 1 2006 I decided to change the times I counted steps from midnight to midnight rather then counting them from whenever I got up to whenever I went to bed (at that stage, I was usually getting up at about 10am and going to bed at 2). I managed to walk every day of 2006 except for two (where my pedometer broke and I didn’t buy a new one for a few days). So a year on I have some full figures, some averages and the like. Obviously the numbers are not 100% accurate, but they are good enough. The figures tell the following..

• I walked at least 10,000 steps for 319 days in the year (87.39% of the year)
• I walked more 11,000 or more steps for 59 days (16.16%)
• I most often walked 10,000 steps on Tuesdays (48 of 52 weeks, or 92.30% of the year)
• I most rarely walked 10,000 steps on Sundays (39 of 52 weeks, or 75% of the year)
• The day I walked the most steps was Friday, November 18 where I walked 20,807 steps
• The day I walked the fewest steps (not counting days that were marked as 0 as the pedometer broke) was Tuesday, January 17 where I walked 2,408 steps
• The week where I walked the most steps was the week of November 13-19 where I walked 82,310 steps
• The week where I walked the fewest steps was January 30-February 5 where I walked 45,952 steps
• I walked the most steps total on Sundays, walking 549,784 steps.
• I walked the fewest steps on Saturdays, walk 513,673
• On average, I walked 10,142.52 steps per day
• On average, I walked 71,018.21 steps per week

Okay, here is the big one. I was required to walk 3,650,000 steps during the year to clear at least 10,000 steps a day through the year.

In total, I walked 3,702,018 steps!

Yeah, you read that right, 3.7 MILLION! Pretty scary when you think about it like that.

As for this year? I’ll continue throughout the year walking at least 10,000 steps a day. This year however I’m going to try and clear at least four million steps, this may be a bit hard but I’m confident. I’m also going to hit the bike for at least 30 minutes every day, something that I’ve been doing for the last few weeks already.

As for the weight off the gut? It’s not totally gone, but I’ve made a considerable improvement over the old me, that’s for sure.