The BlogPost Network

Apparently it’s 2015, or something like that. 

This is how we celebrate New Year’s where I come from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMSkkxK9w10&feature=youtu.be

People are actually dressing like this, it’s weird: 

The more I look at this, the more I think that people actually do dress like this 

Mailbox Peak

This happened last year. Several days ago. 

What a trek.

It was a serious hike, and this coming from an experienced hiker. We cleared the tree line at the top and there was a 45 degree slope (gradient, not temperature) covered in thick snow. This went on for what felt like a mile, and was actually a considerable vertical distance. We literally crawled the last part.

It was a terrible view at the top; there was only this blasted mailbox:

There was indeed a mailbox at the peak of mailbox peak.
And no letters for me.

Buuuuuut it was still a great hike, and I definitely recommend it. Apparently it looks better in summer: 

Here are more photos:

Woods

Omair. Not Liz. Omair.

A bicycle. A bi-icicle. Get it?

NYE

Firstly, we went to a teppanyaki restaurant, Tokyo Steak House. 

This, in a nutshell, was fantastic, although I’m not sure they served nuts.

Basically we sat around a stove while the chef cooked the meal in front of us and engaged us in witty banter. It was very entertaining.

You know how those ninjas in movies can flip and twist a knife in incredible ways that look awesome? This guy did it with a barbecue spatula and fork.

He span an egg on the stove, flicked it up in the air with his spatula, flicked it a couple more times, and then turned his spatula on the side so that it hit the edge and cracked perfectly. What a boss. 

He set a lot of things on fire:

A stack on onion rings on fire. Not onion rings,
but rings of onion

We told them that it was Yujin’s birthday (it wasn’t), and I didn’t think they would do much, but they brought over a couple of drums and played while he danced, and then gave him ice cream. I have no regrets in being responsible for this. 

Happy birthday, Yujin. Your dancing was fabulous.
So was the death stare you gave me

Then we went to a park overlooking the city to watch fireworks. This was incredibly cold. But there was a huge turnout at the park, and the fireworks display, fired from the Needle, was rather good, although if you come from Sydney, it’s low-key at best (to the intern manager who will undoubtedly call me out on this, have you seen the Sydney fireworks? This is a fair call)

The fireworks were, at least, better themselves than the photos I got of them.

Fireworks in the distance

More fireworks in the distance

I played Auld Lang Syne at midnight, as per tradition, on the bagpipes, and then had a few more requests later (but I kept playing anyway).

It was below zero.

I played the bagpipes reasonably well, and hit most of my doublings.

The couple of pipers who read this will understand what a feat that it

It was an enjoyable night and morning.

That’s it for 2014. The Australian government can no longer do bad things in 2014 …… they’ve got a whole new year to screw people’s lives up now! 

Hey Abbott, remember those Millennium Goal things? The ones you were supposed to have done by 2015 …... i.e. this year? How’s that going?

Apparently not so bad in 2013, according to Micah Challenge (http://www.micahchallenge.org.au/assets/pdf/How_Australia_can_Finish_the_Race.pdf), but since Abbott cut a whole lot of foreign aid recently, I’m not sure how he’s planning to finish off these goals.

Still, we have achieved a fair bit on a lot of goals, so not all is bad.

Jon Without a H

So Jon’s this guy, right? And he made a blog. So I’m going to review his blog - the one post that it has. 

Here is the blog -> http://www.jonwithoutah.wordpress.com

Review of “2014: A Year in (film) review”:

Firstly, the feel is nice. The blog looks nice, with nice effects, a good font at a good size. It does not feel cluttered. Off to a good start here, Jonny boy.

The text is accompanied by pictures that are placed to the side of each corresponding paragraph, in such a way that makes it clear which picture is being talk about when, but without being annoyingly explicit about it. 

Before I get into the style, I must say this: I did notice a lot of typos and grammatical errors, mostly involving ‘I’ being where it shouldn’t. Given the connection between all the errors, I put this down to either an idiosyncrasy of Jon’s as he types, or a hardware/software issue. Jon is not that stupid at grammar to genuinely think that is correct.

His style of writing is easy to read and feels very casual, which I think is what Jon was aiming for. I read it in his voice and it worked very well - it felt just like an easy conversation, hanging out at a- … what do people hang out at? I don’t get out much. 

The content flows well. He has some well-placed and worded segues between the sections, and the sections are clearly defined. 

Each film review is sufficiently comprehensive in that you don’t feel like Jon missed a major part of the movie, but short enough so that you don’t get sick of it. 

It is also very clear that Jon knows what he is talking about when it comes to film. He doesn’t say “It got lazors and ’splosions! Rad film yeaaaah!”. He knows what directors aim to do, he knows what actors try to achieve and whether they do it or not. 

And the films themselves - I agree with Jon on most counts, and where I do disagree, I don’t feel annoyed, thanks to the well-placed caveats and the easy casual writing style.

So … 

Godzilla: yes, it felt like Watanabe was only there to say two lines, which, admittedly, he did well.

The Winter Soldier: meh. It felt like just another Marvel action. I enjoyed it, yeah, but it didn’t feel new. 

Guardians of the Galaxy: see above. I did like seeing some Marvel backstory into the infinity stones (context be praised), but still … 

How To Drain Your Flagon 2: Yes. This was a genuinely good movie. Characters did not feel unnecessary, they had changed sufficiently to meet the age gap, it wasn’t predictable and it flowed well. I did enjoy this. One thing though - why are the Vikings Scottish?

Spiderman 2: ugh. They had good effects and sound for Electro, but a weak plot and an extremely irrational Spiderman. I guess it’s different from your perspective, Jon, but I was not a huge fan. And seriously, a rhino? No. 

Interstellar: yeah, agreed. Beautiful music and effects though.

Days of Future Past: I watched this on the plane to America and was not impressed. It was a time filler, mostly. 

The Hobbit: as a fan of the books, one who has read The Hobbit, LotR, The Silmarillion multiple times, I’d better not comment either way.

Anyways … 

Overall, a well-presented, easy-to-read blog that had content that taught me something and left me wanting the next blog post to come soon. 9.5/10 would read again (and did, for this review)

In other news, we’re going skiing this weekend, so watch this space for news of injuries!