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Monday, 27 March 2006 - The Commonwealth Games Athletes
The 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne finished up last night, with the Aussies taking out a whopping 221 medals including 84 gold making them easily the top Commonwealth nation (while New Zealand finished ninth taking home a total of 31 medals including 6 gold, but hey who's counting - go the Kiwis! :) Anyway, like I did for the Winter Olympics, I thought I'd do a little dedication to the games - this time to the athletes...

Each winning athlete seemed to have their own unique style of celebrating and thanking the crowd. Some opted for the 'praise Jesus' style...		...Some showed off their halitosis...
...Others just pointed and let out an "Oh yeah!", or a "You're getting lucky tonight!" to their partners in the audience.		This guy also pointed, though I'm not so sure he had a clue what he was pointing at. I'm not so sure he passed the drug test that followed either.
Then there were those, such as Aussie swimmer Lisbeth (Libby) Lenton, who went into a retarded fit.		Some of the facial expressions were also pretty entertaining. Libby stuck to her best and looks like she just pissed in the pool...
...He looks like he's getting chased by the police...		...And she looks like she's giving birth in mid-air.
Meanwhile, some of them just sulked on the sidelines.		Anyway, it was 11 days of some pretty entertaining telly :) This is the MCG during the closing ceremony. I saw some Kodak-moment face-plants in the gymnastics too but couldn't find any photos of them.

Saturday, 1 April 2006 - April Fools' Day

The fuel prices are on the rise again. Aaron's solution: buy a bicycle! Almost 4000kms so far and $0 spent in fuel ;) Be that as it may, it still costs money in the way of new parts (it's showing signs of the 4000kms it's done so far). It's been in the shop for most of this week having surgery, and despite assurances from the shop that I'd have it back before today (so I could head to Noosa) I didn't get it back until this afternoon. April fools huh (bastards).		So, as I needed to catch en early train to give me plenty of time for the 130-kilometre Noosa slog, it was now far too late. Instead I headed for Cleveland - a sea-side suburb 25km south-east of the city. This shot is for the Bro Town fans back home - "Morningside for life!" ;)
En route I eventually made it to Manly - 11kms north-west of Cleveland. Mo and I came here nearly a year ago now.
Much of the trip from Manly down to Cleveland includes cycle paths, and mangrove boardwalks that you're not really allowed to bike along, but hey I see people walking along bike-only lanes on cycle paths all the time (hence I bought an air-horn for the bike), so fuck 'em.
This path even had a ford hehe - fun!		This bit was completely flooded, but despite there being a road directly above that would've been far easier to cross, this chick edged her way through it, got her shoes soaked, and then bitched about it all as she passed me haha!
After 50-something kilometres (and a breather at a random softball game I came across), I reached Cleveland.		Cleveland and its surrounding suburbs are easily the nicest I've found so far - a stark contrast to the filth of Inala a week ago! Big houses, big boats, expensive cars - hopefully a lot of these people work in IT (like me ;)
Some of the houses do, however, look like Lego gone wrong, and a lot of the street names are pretty wanky, but I could live with that! Anyway, I caught the train back to reality, and by the end of the day had added another 65kms to the odometer. As for Noosa, well, maybe next Saturday (again!).

Thursday, 6 April 2006 - Hooray for e-mail forwards!
E-mail forwards - I love 'em! Everything from pictures, to PowerPoint slides, to Shockwave Flash files, to intelligence quizzes, to games, and so on. So I've collated some of my favourites that I've received over the years and will put a random one up every so often. Today: Smack The Penguin. (If you have something random that I could put up, email it to me! :)

Saturday, 8 April 2006 - To Noosa (finally!)
Well, after three or four failed attempts (due to the weather and the bike needing repairs), I was finally off to Noosa! Mo and I were here just over a year ago for Easter weekend. My plan was to catch a train to Woombye (some 100kms north of Brisbane), cycle east towards the coast for around 15kms, before heading north a further 40kms along the coast to Noosa, and then take the same (or similar) route back to Nambour (the next train station north). All up I was expecting to do around 130kms - by far the greatest I've ever done in a day. As such, I was up at 5am to catch a 6am train to get me to Woombye by 8am, and give me a 10-hour window of light so I could take my time (as I has no idea if or how I'd handle 130kms) and still get at least a couple of hours in Noosa.

It didn't take long to find some carnage - just 20 minutes in fact ;) This hunk of junk slammed face-first into a big road-side ditch - hence all the greenery sticking out the front hehe.		This is Sunshine Castle in Bli Bli. I don't know squat about it, other than it's closed for renovations. Quite impressive looking for a castle on the Sunshine Coast of all places.
One of the advantages of biking along the coast is the terrain is mostly flat and, when you're aiming for 130kms, not having to contend with hills and mountains like this is a relief!		I didn't see any - neither alive nor splattered on the side on the road.
This is Twin Waters - another wealthy area with massive water-side homes, expensive cars, and wanky street names ;) Bloody nice though! Novotel also have a 4-star or a 5-star or a something-star resort here somewhere. On the main road running through it I saw one guy walking his cat hahaha - weird!
This was taken atop the Coolum Beach cliffs looking north, and gives a good indication of how far I had to bike!		Three hours and 60kms after leaving Woombye I arrived at Noosa - and I was pretty hungry ;)
Hastings Street. Running along the back of the beach it's full of clothes shops, surf shops, cafes, restaurants, hotels, and so on.
Noosa's main beach is about 1.5kms long, with Noosa National Park at its east end. Nice :)
By the way I thoroughly recommend this bakery on Hastings Street - it has absolutely everything under the sun! Among other bits and pieces I got a lemon tart, and they'd even written a chocolate "Lemon" on it (or at least tried to :)
The view looking west over Noosa from Laguna Lookout, Noosa National Park.
I managed to get three-hours worth of lazing at the beach, window shopping, and riding around Noosa. On the way back my odometer clicked over to 4,000kms, and a little later my trip meter clicked over to 100kms. The wind picked up a little in the afternoon and gave me a back-wind for the whole trip back. That, and the lack of hills along the coast, meant I wasn't as exhausted as I had been after the last two times I'd done a 100kms in a day.
The photo above of my speedo showing 100kms was taken at the southern border of the Sunshine Coast Airport. Right after I took the photo the plane on the left flew literally right over my head only a few metres above me! I didn't even hear it coming, and damn near shit my shorts! As you can see the fence bordering the airport isn't very high, in fact it's shorter than me, obviously to allow for low-flying planes but too bad if a big truck was coming down the road!
I was sure this pelican was lining me up to crap on me, but he didn't ;)		On the way back I found road signs pointing out a shortcut that saved me around 10kms and half an hour, so I made a small detour to Sunshine Plaza in Maroochydore to check out today's brain teaser. I figured this one out in about five seconds flat. Incidentally, the answer to the last teaser was 'Envelope'.

When I eventually got home I'd racked up 130.36kms (so 130kms was a pretty good estimate) spread over five hours and 50 minutes of cycling, and I was fucked! It was a good ride though, and I love Noosa, but next time I think the bus will be fine ;)

Sunday, 9 April 2006 - Fiji
I was looking through all the photos on my computer and came across a whole wad from my holiday in Fiji with Mo in 2004, and decided to make a page out of it. Click here if you're interested :)

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