Nepalese Government considers Everestland theme park

The Nepalese Government has lodged a planning application to turn the sacred site that houses Mount Everest into a massive theme park, complete with a summit roller coaster, an inflatable north face, and eventually a 5-star hotel on the Chinese side of the jumbo-sized mountain.

Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on the planet and has long been considered a symbol of adventure and exploration, so it is no surprise whatsoever to anybody that it is now being slated for conversion into a big, western, capitalist cash cow.

Everestland will operate much like the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral in Florida, where a working space centre somehow operates in tandem with fun theme park rides and character astronauts.

Journeying to Mount Everest is a right of passage for many adults who are suffering a mid life crisis and need an existential / transcendental / embracing of their own mortality experience to make it through the rest of their lives.

A spokesman for the Nepalese Government said, "people can still come here to question whether their life has any purpose, meaning or value, but they might have to queue for a bit. Although if they come between 2 and 3pm they will be able to access a fastpass to get up to Existential Corner before the evening onslaught".  
 
The Everestland brochure recommends that anyone in this position plan their midlife crisis for the off-peak season.  Alternatively, they can purchase the Everestland Existential Crisis Package.

Prolonged isolation is a thing of the past for expert seasoned mountaineers, as they will soon undergo an excruciatingly long climb past hordes of screaming overtired sticky children, and pass through the centre of themed restaurants serving deep fried glacier sticks and frozen pizzas, on their way to the Summit Cafe at the peak.

The spokesman said, “this is part of the attraction. Diners want to see people haul themselves up dangerous slopes and across gaping crevasses when they are eating their cheeseburgers, fries and coke. This is real entertainment”.

The spokesman added, "we will be dealing with the lack of oxygen issue at a Planning Meeting next month.  We are thinking of rebranding oxygen as Everest Air or something like that and charging our guests for the right to use it, sort of like the model they use for wifi in Australia. 

Also, we don't want parents to think that their child might die at Everestland through altitude sickness. It's not really something we are worried about though. The American theme park tourist well run deep".

It is believed it will be left up to parents to decide whether they think their child will be okay walking around a mountain at the cruising altitude of a 747.  

Other planned attractions and experiences include a cliffhanger ride, wave pool, glacier challenge and the Hunt for the Yeti.  There will also be character actors dressed as Sir Edmund Hillary and sherpa Tenzing Norgay, the first climbers to reach the peak of the world's highest mountain.   

The icing on the cake, so to speak, will be the ice sculptures immortalising these two pioneers at the  highest point of Everest, sort of like twin angels wedged atop a Christmas tree.

While there are currently only two main routes to the summit, tourists will soon be able to access the peak via an endlessly long travelator. Guests will be given a sleeping bag when they embark as it will take approximately 16 hours to reach the top.

But for the clients who have paid mountaineering companies exorbitant amounts of money to get them safely to the summit, some up to USD$250,000, it's the suffering that really counts. 

The Nepalese Government spokesman has confirmed that no-one has had the balls to tell China about any of this yet.

Easter - the Chocolate Religion

It is the fairest - and my favouritest - season of them all, which involves four consecutive days where conventional thinking dictates that you will gorge yourself silly on hot cross buns and chocolate eggs, or you're simply not doing it right.

Who the hell knows how an animal with floppy ears and a basket of foiled chocolate eggs came to embody the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s one of life's many ambiguities that I don't care to question because I think everyone wins when the upshot is chocolate.

As it turns out, I do think about more than chocolate eggs at Easter time – it just seems like I’m shallow and one-dimensional. Although, if you do break the surface, you’ll find that your original suspicions about me were in fact correct, and there really is no need to delve any further or you’ll hit a sub-zero, infinite pit of nothingness.

So, Easter is also about other stuff apparently. I went to Sunday School when I was a wee bonnie nipper with a bunch of other kids, but I can't say that I ever go to church as an adult. I'd feel like a bit of a fraud; plus I don't understand any of the hymns and churches don't do reverse cycle air-conditioning so well and that doesn't really work for me.

I have my views on God, but you'll never hear me preach about it. It’s not because I’m being considerate of your beliefs; it’s most likely because I think you are beyond redemption, salvation or any sermon on morality. Um, no offence. 

I know a few people who are dedicated church goers, but it's ironic that the only people I know who fanatically preach - and are completely preoccupied - with religion are atheists. They always seem to be enraged about it. Tell someone who cares, atheists. Just let me eat my chocolate in peace.

I went to Brumbies rugby. Naturally I blogged about it.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, in ancient 1996, people in the Southern Hemisphere decided that there just weren't enough gladiatorial sporting competitions involving balls so a new one absolutely needed to be created forthwith. Thus, the dawn of the Super Rugby.

There were originally 12 teams involved in this new rugby ball tournament and thus it was aptly named the Super 12. And then more teams wanted to play with the balls so it became Super 14. 

And then some smart minds decided this was a bit silly, wasn't it, so best call it Super Rugby, which means 18 billion more teams could participate if they wanted to with no name change required. There's a lesson in there for everyone.

Watching rugby union is my new shiny thing. Who knew it was so entertaining.  Here's how it goes: there are two teams, and one wins. The other loses. 

There are no encouragement awards for the losers. They just have to get back on the horse and give it their best shot the next week. Because that's how life works. Sometimes you win; sometimes you don't.

Speaking of horses, my local rugby union team is called the ACT Brumbies. A brumby is a free roaming feral horse that roams the Australian alps. With that in mind, the ACT Brumbies are remarkably good at ball control and passing in general with all those hooves getting in the way.

I understand about 3.7% of the rules of rugby union, but I appreciate that my home city is very good at it. For example, I've been to two games and they have won all of them. I have heard a vicious rumour that they don't always win every game, but I call that out as conjecture until I see this loss situation take place.

I have worked out that the aim of the game is to get a ball from one end of a field to the other while grunting and piling of top of each other. The rules of the game seem very complicated but I guess I will begrudgingly learn them because they seem important to the fans who yell about them loudly and endlessly to no-one in particular.

Things I noted:

• My heightened awareness of my condition - of being unremarkable and ordinary.  No-one expresses such approval of being entertained when I send an email at my work in the Australian Public Service. No-one wears a business shirt with my name on the back of it. There's no-one on the sidelines yelling at me to send the email straighter, you goose.

• The brumbies running around the paddock are built like double-brick stables constructed to withstand a herd of marauding wildebeest. Next time I need to lift my jumbo jet and store it in the overhead aircraft hangar I'm calling the ACT Brumbies.

• Abs City (see above).

• It doesn't matter if you don't know the rules of rugby.  As long as you show your support for the home team through fist pumping and random heckling of the opposition players, occasionally your own players, the referees, the team doctors, the ball kids, the TV camera guy, the guy who carries the camera guy's cord, the guy who carries the camera guy's microphone or the guy who rides a quad bike out to deliver a little sand castle for freekicks (which is never not hilarious), you are accepted and acceptable.

• Never, ever look at the bright paddock lights above you to see how bright they are. They are brighter than the sun (if you are from England, see picture. This is the sun).
  

• I thought there would be many interesting and varied peoples who would attend rugby union matches but, on the whole, they were well civilised and not one soul tried to pick a fight with me, probably because they have jobs and aren't on parole like football fans from other codes.  It's also possibly because I'm just like a scary bikie, except without the muscles, anti-social behaviour, sleeve tatts, criminal rap sheet, harley or drug dealing ways.  I did give two panadol to a colleague the other day, but she swore she had a headache so I was just administering some light first aid.

• The hot chips from the catering are strangely delicious. Life continues to smack me in the mouth with it's darn surprises.