Interesting things thus far

Craig here!

Well, blow me down, it turns out some people are actually reading this blog, and here we are, not writing anything! We're well chuffed that we're receiving hate mail, demanding more entries!

Without a rockin' overseas trip, full of adventures, new people and junk food, the content is gonna be a little thin. But if you're reading this at work, then hopefully it won't matter -- anything is good to pass the time. Bam.

So here are a few more things I've noticed in our time in Melbourne:

1. The dark mornings can be a little odd. I'm looking forward to the lighter mornings as Spring approaches, as 6.15am still looks like nighttime. So much so that after a small sleep-in on the weekends, I wake up feeling like I've left a light on. We've passed the shortest day, so it all gets lighter from here on in. And hey -- we get daylight savings again (whereas Brisbane, our old home, chose not to). Much light ahead -- TOOTOOOOT!!!

2. In the past, when I'd say, "I'm going to go play guitar with Greg this weekend", people would say, "Oh yeah" or something like that. These days, the first question people ask is, "You mean Guitar Hero, right?" Looks like plastic Playstation instruments have won the war.

3. "Lord of the Fries" is a really popular hot chips and burger place, with two outlets near Flinders Street train station. And there's something special about it... it's vegan! This probably only interests the veggos, but after finding that the Hungry Jacks/Burger King "Veggie Burger" contains animal products (and when questioned about it, the owner of the whole chain just said, 'well... we never said it was vegetarian, so... meh!'), it's nice to know that things can swing the other way. So yeah -- all the burgers contain 'patties', but they're not meat. Yay for there being oil-rich fried crap that we can actually eat between Friday night beers at work and the train trip home. Hoorah!

4. "The King of Kong" is a cool documentary we watched today, about a guy who takes on the World Championship Donkey Kong player. It's really good, and even non-gamer-nerds will like it. We laughed! We cried! We yelled out abuse at the stinking dirty prat!

In other news, I've extended my contract at Krome Studios, helping out Simon with the game design work on AN UNANNOUNCED PROJECT. I'll leave it at that to make it sound MYSTERIOUSER AND MYSTERIOUSER.

But enough about me -- tell me about you!

Hai!

Craig

Signs

Cripes, the new blog's been up for ages and I haven't been adding to it at all! Okay, here I am. Craig here. Let's see what's been happening...

I got a job! Working a contract for Krome Studios. Designing games and all for a secret project (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, CRYSTAL, IT'S SECRET!!!) I'll be there a little longer, the contract has been extended. The weird part? It's the same building I used to work in years ago. Beam became Infogrames became Atari became Krome, so it's REALLY WEIRD working back there again. Only the tshirts have changed.

Hey, here are some HIGHLY MATURE signs that I've noticed on my walk between Flinders Street Station and work near Albert Park Lake.



In other news, I bought a Mac. Hoorah! And I only found out yesterday (thanks, Callaghan!) that the laptop has a motion sensor. Which means that someone has made a REALLY STUPID lightsaber program that makes lightsaber battle sounds when I swing my computer around wildly! This might be my last blogpost... I might have to ask Crystal to post pictures of me, weeping over my shattered laptop. But not yet! MWOW... MWOW... PSHH... PSHH...!!!

Craig OUT!

1500 new pets, winter onset & a quick trip north

Blogging without the aid of exotic locations proves difficult!

But we persevere.

Craig finally accepting his admin/author invitation for this blog does take the pressure off me somewhat, although at this stage it isn't clear when he'll be finished tinkering around with the settings on his new Macbook–I'll leave it to him to fill you in on the various joys of crossing the pooter floor.

So, what's been happening in our world?

We got ourselves some pets! 1500 in fact. In line with our environmental wankiness, we bought ourselves a worm farm. Our local council actively encourages composting around the home by offering discount vouchers for worm farms and other composting systems. So we're now the proud custodians of a bunch of little critters who happily eat our food scraps (that don't make it to the stock bag) and coffee grounds.

The first 500 go in!

We made a very brief trip to Brisbane last weekend for our friends Lorien & Nathan's wedding. Good times:


You can see more photos of the day here.

We also managed to squeeze in a quick lunch with the fam and a brief visit to Jane's to meet her sister and new nephew, Noah.

And while we were away, winter began here in Melbourne. It's getting progressively colder and greyer, and we're both realising that these sunny early winter days we've been lucky to have will soon be distant memories... eep! We've both had to start sleeping in flannelette pyjamas (sometimes with singlets underneath), and I've discovered that my Brisbane outerwear makes great Melbourne underclothes... brr!

Not much rain yet though, although we have managed to wreck three umbrellas during the last few rain periods. This frustrated Craig to the point where he bought us a couple of Knirps umbrellas:

Sex sells umbrellas too.

Yet to test these spiffy umbrellas, but no doubt you'll hear when we do :)

Baptism of Ice

Written by: Crystal

Really chilly this morning–4 degrees–feels like the warmish-weather honeymoon is really over, and we're most definitely heading for winter.

Kudos to Craig, who, in fine carbon-conscious form, braved the freezing cold to hang out the washing. Respect (I was about to put it all into the dryer).

On my walk to the station I noticed it was also quite foggy. It was good to see this didn't stop the two older exercisers, who attacked the crisp conditions with some short, jerky kicks while waiting at the train crossing–a change from their usual routine but seemingly more appropriate for the conditions–in fact, with their hoodys up, they could almost have been mistaken (from behind) for a couple of younger hip-hop aspirants. Word.

Commuting

Written by: Crystal

I'm really enjoying the morning commute at the moment... it's getting chilly, but not freezing, and I catch glimpses of the pink morning sky on the way.

Then there's the sights:

• the older couple out for their morning exercise, who awkwardly-yet actively-stretch their calves while waiting to cross the train tracks
• the guy from the cafe who I've struck up a "good morning, how are you?" ritual with... it took me several mornings of replying with "good thanks, how are you?" using different intonations before I realised his English was limited, and this was why he did not reply.
• and this, my favourite piece of graffiti:

It's really quite well thought out... or maybe just drug-induced stream of consciousness.
In any case it remains my fave.

Melbs!

Packing the tent up in the freezing cold AM, at Yass

So, here we are, we made it! Melbs. Bocco. Yes.

We've settled in to our new place in Box Hill (we call it 'Bocco', not sure if anyone else does though), and as of tonight, we've both got jobs! I've been temping for the past week and a half, and Craig is about to start a new contract tomorrow (which is a blessing, because the daytime TV was making Craig go something-something) :)

So yes, just a quick post to announce our arrival back on the blogosphere.

Much more, soon!!