We had a great weekend in Sydney over the weekend just passed. We hadn’t been up since Christmas, so it was good to catch up with the family and hang out together. We also managed to get into the city to catch up with old friends (well, old friends of Tim’s – new friends for Tegan) and to do some shopping, where Tim got to order a new Apple 15″ Powerbook, which, due to a special promotion Apple have on at the moment, meant that we got a new 20gb iPod as well for only $99 – bargain! So now, we’ve got one each, which is good for going to the gym, or when we’re travelling separately (like on Tegan’s upcoming trip to Hong Kong).
Mum and Dad also took us to the “Twilight at Taronga” concert at Taronga Park Zoo, which we immensely enjoyed.
This was a fantastic little outdoor concert, kind of like last night of the proms, but overlooking Sydney harbour and with a picnic. Basically, we took our own antipasto-style food, some wine, picnic rug and low chairs, sat in the open air and listened to some relaly good music from the Sydney chapter of the Australian Army Band with a couple of decent vocalists to boot (the soprano, Margaret Orr, was particularly good). And like the last night of the proms, the audience sang along with the prom-style classics, like ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, ‘Jerusalem’, and ‘Rule Brittania’. As you coul expect, Tegan carried the singing for our section of the audience, which didn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated by the people around us.
Unfortunately, back to reality and back to work today. But only a week and a half until we’re back in Sydney, ready for Tegan to fly to Hong Kong!
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/23/1079939647250.html
Saw this very interesting article in the SMH today, that the sword that Francis De Groot used to prematurely open the Sydney Harbour Bridge has been ‘found’ in Ireland. I always found this incident to be one of those very quirky pieces of Australian history, although I never quite realised the wider social significance that was drawn out in this article. This, like running gun battles between drunk parliamentarians or snide remarks to journalists (see about half-way down that page) are the some of the best (i.e. funniest) things about Australian history.
http://www.apple.co.jp/quicktime/trailers/casshern_large.html
Saw this trailer, courtesy of a link from Penny-Arcade and, like those guys, I reckon that this movie looks absolutely awesome, but I have no idea what it’s about.
All the information on the official site about the plot, characters, etc is in Japanese, but I did find one site (courtesy of Google), at this site which gave more information. It seems to be based on an alternate history situation, where WW2 didn’t end with the defeat of Japan, but ended up as Asia vs Europe, with Asia eventually winning (what else would you expect from a Japanese film). However, as Asia/Japan is about to finally invade and conquer Europe, problems emerge and there appears to be a riot among their robots. All in all, it seems to be one of those movies with an apocalyptic setting and corresponding philosophy to boot. But, by george, the action looks fantastic.
Here’s hoping for a well-done dubbing into English or, perhaps better, a well-subtitled English release.
Playing in iTunes: Crucify (Remix) from the album Crucify [EP] by Tori Amos
Just sitting at home writing a Bible Study on Luke 23:26-56 (the crucifixion) and while I was at it, listened to a Tori Amos EP based on her song ‘Crucify’. That was actual pure coincidence, unless it was a subconscious thing.
I think it’s one of the saddest moments I’ve had in a while, although that is due primarily to the song (and the thoughts it conjures) rather than the Bible passage. Funny that the overall of the message of the two couldn’t be further apart.