A Culturally Iconic Bowl of Gridiron

America loves its bowls. While most bowls are round, the Americans seem to favour the rectangular ones. They believe their bowls are quite magnificent in their properties and hold things really good. They even go so far as to call them Super Bowls. Once a year, they put all the food and drink in America in a really big bowl and 100,000 people sit there and eat it and cheer on men with footballs. Such great craic.

Such a huge coincidence that I write today of awe inspiring containers typically used to prepare and serve food because that Super Bowl brouhaha has just taken place again - Los Angeles Rams took on the New England Patriots and lost.  There were broken bits of china bowl everywhere. And I watched a bit of it, like I often do, without a darn clue as to the nature of any of those player’s business on the field.

I don’t understand the end game of plays in gridiron at all. What are they trying to do. No-one will tell me. The commentators are really of no help whatsoever. I have to use my knowledge of other codes of football and just assume they are trying to get to each other’s end to secure points by being there with the football.

I don’t even understand what the name of the game means. I’m sure Wikipedia could tell me but I don’t care that much. Okay fine. Wikipedia says gridiron is “a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end”. Oh that’s extremely helpful, Wikipedia. Can you please explain astrophysics to me? Wikipedia also says gridiron is an instrument of torture on which people were secured before being burned by fire back in ye olden days, so that’s lovely. I feel like watching gridiron could also be considered an instrument of torture.

I always say I don’t understand this at all, and then it occurred to me that watching the national sport of another culture is like visiting another culture, so the least I can do is try to understand it.

So how does one begin to understand another culture? Become self-aware of your biases? Oh, I’m very aware that this game is stupid and makes no sense. But why is that? Should I do my own research to try and understand? Okay. I’ve done that. None of the plays make any sense. Should I talk to someone from a gridiron background? Um, the commentators are confusing the fuck out of me.  Here are some examples of their lingo:
 “2nd and 11” - I think this is basic gridiron. I don’t understand what those words mean. 
“Rams converted on their last 3rd downs” - that doesn’t mean anything.
 “62, 345, first of 20” - what. 
“The longest 3rd down the Rams face tonight” - not a thing. Not words that should be uttered in a sentence, because it’s not a sentence that makes sense.

Alright, back to the game. From what I can tell, there is only one footballer with any talent on the field. The quarterback. He’s literally the only skilled employee on the books. The rest of them just run into each other like I do all day if I don’t wear my glasses. Is that unfair to the rest of the players? I don’t know.

Oh now another timeout. The players, coach and Other Unnecessary Sideline People are all going to group together to try and figure out what the actual heck is going on.

I have to say that, culturally, I just don’t find it that interesting. But I get it, you know. The hallowed ground of Superbowl is a cultural place of significance. They have their own language, wear different clothes to sporting teams I’m familiar with, the land markings are different, the crowds have a different vibe, the stadiums are…huge. The stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, where this game is being played could fit 3 Australias in it. 

This is not a stadium; it’s a mothership.

Watching a sport you are not familiar with is like visiting a foreign country or culture, which brings me to the final hot tip to understanding another country’s sporting cultural icon. Travel. Go there. This one I have got covered. I’m planning on going to Disneyland later this year, which won’t help me understand gridiron at all, but it can’t hurt.

DAY 24 The Writing Inquisition - Hawaii is everything.

Repost from 2011. Just in time for my 5th vacay to Hawaii. I am somewhat partial to the place.

Last year I flew to heaven, via economy class. I imagine first class to heaven is reserved for Mother Teresa types and that wonderful man who saved the lives of 12 horses in the Queensland Floods.

I had just permanently borrowed products from my Las Vegas hotel room, including pens, paper, slippers, handcream, shampoo, conditioner and other unidentified items in pretty aqua bottles, so that's probably why I got a seat in air steerage.

Heaven was just as I had imagined, but perhaps the stereotype was a little too cliched. Descending through puffy white clouds, I saw crystal clear waters, sandy white beaches and swaying palm trees. It was either going to be heaven or one of those trashy, indoor beaches they have in Japan.

I've always wanted to get off a plane and receive a colourful Hawaiian lei. My lei made of vibrant purple and blue frangipani was beautiful, but the flowers were wet and the climate was humid, so I popped it into my hotel room fridge and admired it from its new location, away from my neck.

The hotel was very decent, non extravagant and about a block from the all important Pacific Ocean. From the balcony I could see Diamond Head Mountain/Volcano, Waikiki Beach, and some of the Honolulu cityscape, where you could watch the morning and afternoon showers come through like clockwork.

Honolulu is very laid back, and the Hawaiians are extremely lovely. This is likely because they live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world.

Much of my time in Honolulu was spent getting sunburnt in the amazingly warm water of this tropical part of the Pacific. You just never want to get out, even when your suncream is due for a reapply. I swam, waded and floated in the water for hours, and leant on the ocean rock wall watching sail boats drift, and naval ships head in and out of Pearl Harbour in the distance.

The visit to Pearl Harbour was quite moving, and it's understandable that the U.S. decided to enter the war after this attack. I toured Mighty Mo - the U.S.S. Missouri - which wasn't stationed in the harbour in 1941, but is a magnificant floating museum near the naval base, just across from the warships that remain in their watery graves.

I stood on Mo's deck where the Japanese surrendered, and I saw the spot where a kamakazee pilot "dented" the starboard fenders on a suicide mission during the war.

The marines recovered the pilot's body, and the U.S. Government insisted he have an honourable and respectful funeral. He got his funeral, but legend has it they then unceremoniously dumped his body into the ocean.

We also visited Kilauea Volcanic Reserve on the Big Island, Hawaii. Our guide told us the island experiences all of the climates of the world, which may have been a sales pitch.

Although, I think we had about five types of weather that day. The rain drizzled as we walked down to and through the eerie Thurston Lava Tube (underground conduit in which lava has previously travelled), and the sun shone as we watched the cranky volcano plume smoke and ash, before the rain bucketed down again. It was like Melbourne on ice.

At nightfall, we fought with about 100 other tourists to stand on a rock not much bigger than your average sedan to get the best view of glowing red lava on its slow drip towards the Pacific. It was incredible and quite formidable watching raw, violent mother nature in the distance, and well worth the day trip.

Although, I learnt an important lesson on my U.S. vacay. I was given pre-trip advice which I failed to heed, which is that everything is better from the air. Helicopters all the way next time.

Miss you already, Hawaii - see you again soon.

DAY 22 The Writing Inquistion - Hawaii Lilo

Repost from August 2012, during my 2nd trip to Hawaii. I'm about to make my 5th, but no-one's counting.

It's the heat of the day in Hawaii, and I'm trying to stay out of the sun a bit, to avoid adding to my collection of freckles. It's hard work getting myself banana boated for the beach every day. 

Gratutitous waterfall shot.

In other beach related news, yesterday I bought an orange donut lilo from one of the ABC convenience stores that are dotted throughout the Islands. You can't go five metres without tripping into the doorway of an ABC.

I bought the donut to enhance my aquatic pleasure, because it can often get quite tedious just lolling away the afternoon in the beautiful, temperate waters. Yes, you should feel some empathy for us poor unfortunates trapped inside the hideous ring of Hawaiian Islands.

My donut has proven to be quite handy out of the water as well. I don’t have the finest depth perception, due to my long slash short sightedness difficulties, which means I walk into things a fair bit. My donut has been used on more than one occasion as a buffer for life’s obstacles on the way to the beach, which is just across the road, but w’ever.

Perhaps when I come back to Australia I will tie three of them around me so I never get hurt again. The ultimate bandaid. I’ll get the paperwork for the patent underway on my return.

We have these new fancy high tech elevators at the hotel, where you type your floor into the keypad which is stationed outside the lift, rather than once in the lift. I am in cahoots with these machines, because I have them in my workplace, but I remember what happened when we first moved into the building a few years ago.

It was bedlam as everyone tried to cram into one lift without pressing a button, which allows the computer mainframe or something to sort you into an elevator queue. Sort of like the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter, but mostly not like that at all.

Thus, every day the tourists shove themselves in because most tourists evidently don’t know how to read the big signs in multiple languages posted everywhere. Try cramming yourself into a small lift with ten other people and 6 blown-up lilos. Must go - it's beach time again.

The Twinkie is Sinky

The company that makes Twinkies, the sugary snack that Americans love for reasons I cannot fathom, is going bust.  And, surprise, surprise, it is the fault of a workers' union, after striking workers failed to hit a deadline to go back to work at the advice of their union, and now 18,000 people don't have a job.  A union that costs workers their jobs isn't much of a union.  Which part of the word "union" do unions not understand?

The post-Twinkie world is, unsurprisingly, causing great distress to many folk in the United States because they just don't have that many options of sickly, sugary crap to stuff their faces with.  People in Australia don't really care about Twinkies or their demise.  But I do know what Twinkies are, having been exposed to their mass marketing techniques when I was but a child, and I was just as grossed out by them then as I am now.

My familiarity with Twinkies comes from observing Jughead Jones and Aunt Hilda as they gorged themselves stupid on creamy, sponge cake goo on the advertisement pages of my Archie Comics in the 1980s.  I never felt a need to go anywhere near a Twinkie after that.  And the comic also tried to flog sea monkeys through some ponzi scheme, where you could weirdly purchase a middle-class family of midget crustaceans.  Totally freaked me out.  They still try and sell those things.

While we are on topic, let me tell you what really gets my goat.  American bread.  They put sugar in normal, average, garden variety bread in the United States!  Bread is not supposed to taste like a Twinkie.  It's so distasteful that on my recent sojourn to Florida I was forced to spit that shit out (such a way with words today).  No wonder the United States has a collective weight problem.

I admit that America is an ongoing, moving target of my cynicism and negativity, but, what can I say, it's an easy target.  If questioned I will use the 'Twinkie Defense (sic)", a compelling argument made by a U.S. man who blamed the sugar in Twinkies for giving him depression which caused him to murder someone.  Like I said; easy target.

Shut-Up Money - The new airline customer service

I've just started a complaints process against Qantas Airways, following their brilliant fuckup of my lost baggage in July, which left me fairly disgruntled and devoid of underpants for six days.

I was watching the mainstream news the other night and I spied one of the flying red kangaroo tails in a story concerning airline ticket costs or maintenance or unions or missing underpants or something, and I realised that the mere mention or sight of the airline now elicits a novel type of fury. On my pissed-off scale, qantas angry falls only a few places below road rage.

Following those jerks jerking me around for the first few days of my recent overseas jaunt, Qantas have offered me compensation - which more than covers my emergency costs - for losing then failing to deliver my baggage to me. They have also offered to provide me with a letter for my insurance company so I can recoup what I spent on emergency personal effects, such as underpants and the like.

Well there is a catch, of course. To receive the compensation and letter for my insurance company - which I'm pretty sure I'm entitled to anyway - I have to sign a confidentiality agreement. A secret underpants accord, if you will.

This release absolves Qantas and American Airlines, the other carrier involved in the complex, tangled mess, of any accountability or responsibility or answerability or liability for their indefensible customer service. It's been two weeks and I still can't sign the darn thing. I'm not sure I will be able to. 

I imagine that sounds a little ridiculous, because they are offering to cover my expenses more than three-fold, but I'm pretty pissed off that they want to wipe their slate clean, presumably so they can screw over the next passenger, and then the next and the next. 

I do recall that I was sobbing on the phone to their baggage claims call centre at one stage when I was in Florida out of anger and tiredness and desperation and sheer frustration with their customer service.  So I can't just take their shut-up money. I can't do it.

But it seems shut-up money is the new customer service. I was let down fairly appallingly by a major airline that probably should spend a bit more time providing a level of service to customers that is commensurate with the pricey airfares they expect us to fork out for a seat on a plane that isn't comfortable for ten minutes let alone ten hours.

And when things go wrong, which they invariably do, instead of some type of human empathy, you get a robotic reply from the Qantas Claims office that tells you they are sorry you were inconvenienced, but with no accommpanying explanation for the extensive list of right royal fuckups you experienced while trying to retrieve your baggage.

I suppose I was naive to expect they would bother to look like they care about customer service, but I certainly wasn't expecting a glib, veiled attempt at blackmail. I imagine it is merely a reflection of the litigious era we find ourselves in, so who can blame big business for taking this approach. It's probably standard business practice to them, but it's just more flawed customer service to me.

So I find myself in a bit of a pickle at the moment. I hate when life throws you pickles. Despite my disdain for any type of confrontation, and equal disdain for those who routinely choose to eagerly engage in it, I've decided that I'm going to be morally outraged for a while, push back a little, ask a few more questions about their complaints process, ask Qantas for a review of my complaint and then engage the ombudsman and trade practices people if need be.

What do I want from Qantas?  In a perfect world you'd expect something that vaguely resembles some type of accountability - or some loose explanation - in what appears to be a gaping hole in Qantas policy regarding on-delivery of baggage to cities they don't fly to.  But why would they bother with apologies or explanations when they have shareholders' money to throw at disgruntled customers to keep them quiet.

Am I wasting my time?  I am under no illusion that I won't get stonewalled.  But I can't just sign that thing. 

RIP First Moon Man

I get goose bumps whenever I hear Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldren talk about their mission to the moon; arguably one of the most famous days in history.   Armstrong has just passed away at 82 - much to the devastation of me.

He was a great, humble man, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time recently viewing the extensive tribute to him, his fellow astronauts and all the space missions at the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

NASA have long stopped caring about the conspiracy theorists and the wacky accusations the space agency faked the moon landing in an elaborate U.S. Government publicity stunt.

The so-called evidence base for the nonsensical conspiracy claims were dubious mood lighting, dodgy radiation level readings, the silky, softness of the moon's surface, and impeccable camera angles and footage, all of which have been credibly explained through evidence of the technical variety that lovers of secret plots get all cranky about. 

All but the most passionate conspiracy theorists seem to have put the fake moon landing old wives' tale to bed, what with the fact that it would be practically impossible to cover up and Soviet Russia would have sniffed out a scam a long time ago.

Although in 1982 NASA hired a space writer to definitively debunk the hare-brained rumours but decided against it, because clearly they had better things to do.  Why indeed give the clueless conspiracy nutters any more air time? 

On my recent trip to NASA I noted some compelling evidence indicating an actual moon landing in the grainy footage of all the rocket scientists and engineers at Houston Mission Control, as they tried to hide their complete horror and devastation when communication was lost with Apollo 11 moments before the 1969 landing.

Obviously NASA have a fabulous central casting unit and hired the best actors and extras of their generation for the moon landing because the raw emotion with tears, hair-raising stress and then sheer joy and exhilaration is fairly difficult to fake even if you are a talented actor like Snooki.

Armstrong was instrumental in landing the lunar module without any really useful assistance from Mission Control.  The spot that Houston had programmed in for the landing turned out to be replete with massive craters, gigantic speed bumps and deep potholes.  Obviously the local council just couldn't be arsed fixing the area up.  I guess that's a whole of solar system thing.  Plus it was the middle of the night and there were no street lights or, um, moonlight so he couldn't see very well.

So Armstrong decided to travel a bit further to find a place where he could parallel park without falling into a ditch or being carjacked by E.T.  By the time he landed, there was only about 30 seconds of gas left in the tank, so there was that too.  There isn't a petrol station close to you when you run out of gas on earth so good luck with that on a lunar space mission.  On top of that there was the whole first-man-on-the-moon expectation, so no pressure there.

RIP Mr Armstrong.

The Tart Adventures of Harry & Julian

Oh, Prince Harry.  I imagine one's grandmother is not terribly amused at one's tawdry shenanigans in the skank capital of the entire solar system with a bunch of trashy American hookers or their classy equivalent.  

Seriously, who knew there were so many cheap and tacky trashbags in the world, prepared to whip their clothes off for the international media due to their incessant need for attention?  Oh wait, we did know that.  These women are everywhere, in many shapes and sizes of Kardashian.

I imagine the latest bunch of promiscuous ladettes are employed in professions involving poles and the ensuing dancing around of or else they wouldn't be too comfortable parading themselves so overwhelmingly underdressed in a global public forum in what appears to be a bit of a honey trap. 

And I think we all know what Harry's Scotland Yard detail were doing during the naked hotel room polo match romp or whatever it was.  I imagine the attention to detail was there, but it probably wasn't focused on handing out fines for unladylike behaviour under The Police Act 1827.  I imagine what those boys want right now is an Invisibility Cloak.

In other media tart-related news, embattled Wikileaker Julian 'Sausaage' Assange is still stuck in the middle of a war-torn nation state that is not a signatory to the Geneva Convention.  Or else he's still glamprisoned in posh war-torn Knightsbridge in Ecuadorian Britain on his blow-up camp bed.  I keep getting those two confused.

Assange's Wikileaks reminds me of the wind-up jewellery box I had as a kid, which opens to the sound of ballerina music - with a magnetised ballerina flippin' around like a drunken lout on the mirrored centre stage.

Although when you pry open the Wiki box, you get a garbled lecture from Assange on blah, blah, blah, I'm going to humiliate the United States of Crazy by exposing their secrets, blah, blah, blah.  But much to the chagrin of the wannabe Bond, the United States weren't humiliated; they were just plainly and understandably rightly pissed off.

I agree that Assange should be able to release anything he wants on his Wikileaks files, but I also think he needs to accept that there are consequences to those actions.  He hasn't got his head around that yet.  Probably never will.

Of course nation states have secrets.  There's nothing wrong with government secrets when you are dealing with sociopathic middle eastern nations.  We wouldn't have the freedoms we do if governments didn't have secrets.  Oh the irony of it all, Julian.  Secrets are how countries negotiate their way through the brutal and bloody minefield that is global politics.
 
Like a game of poker, you keep your game face on, your cards close to your chest and you hedge your bets, hoping the guy on your left who is winning is from the West and not the Middle East.  But you never, ever show your hand, Julian.  It goes a little something like that.

And then along comes the progressive leftwinger windbag who decides to open the damn pandora's jewellery box in the name of open governance.  No such thing as open governance in global political affairs; people couldn't handle the truth anyway, my 'pinion. 

Airline Seat Reclining Charge

I used to love travelling on a plane when I was in my twenties. The thrill of venturing somewhere new and exploring one random dirty, germ-ridden foreign city after another. The excitement when the air hostess brought around the food trolley so you could spend the next 30 minutes trying to open your teensy weensy plastic cutlery bag.

The cramped spaces didn't inconvenience me at all, the detestable passengers weren't on my radar, the waiting around and queues didn't trouble me that much, the seats were comparatively larger (in my mind only, apparently), and I'm sure that the flight attendants were far more affable than the current crop..

I've just returned from a luxurious and often draining month-long holiday to the United States, leaving a trail of seven domestic and international plane flights, numerous shuttles, many bus trips, a few taxi rides and a couple of ferry rides in my wake.

These days I'm rarely a happy long haul traveller. The most recent flight, from Hawaii to Sydney, was particularly frustrating. Flying Law dictates that the dick sitting in front of you will always thrust back their seat in an attempt to be horizontal, thus rendering your limbs useless for a period of around ten hours. If you are especially blessed, they will leave it that way during meal time.

I have found that these passengers are generally the same self-absorbed, whining, whinging morons who demand the air hostess pays attention to their pathetic little requests on an hourly basis. I'm not really sure how flying economy creates a sense of entitlement, but anyway.

On my recent flight home I had a middle-aged Australian women - let's her call her Princess Bitchface - who thought she was in first class and wound back her seat to a completely unacceptable level.  When I politely asked her - through gritted teeth - to put her seat forward at meal time she argued with me that the seat in front was back and she had no room. I stared at it and then told her it wasn't. So she begrudgingly put it forward.

For the rest of the flight I was enormously tempted to remove my scarf, lean over the chair, and put myself out of my misery. But I deemed the plane too cold, so that plan was put on the backburner until it got a bit warmer.

I could have pulled out the old mile high insanity plea at my arraignment. Or just get a couple of fellow considerate travellers on my jury. I'm pretty sure this is the reason they don't allow weapons on planes; because the sky would be a bloodbath.

Jetstar may be a subsidiary of Qantas but they charge you for everything you do, which is the direction most airlines are moving in. Ka-ching, ka-ching. Blankets cost money, water will incur a charge on your credit card and there is no such thing as a free lunch.

I tell you, I don't mind paying more for a non-budget airline ticket if it creates the illusion of customer service. Frequent Flyers paid for this trip, but I ain't flying Jetstar again internationally.

Qantas have said that their reclining seats are here to stay, so I think it is time that they start to impose a seat reclining charge system. Perhaps an electric shock for customers when they push their seat beyond a reasonable level, or a timing system, or a $500 charge on their credit card when they keep it back during dinner time. Welcome to Australia! I friggin' love this idea.

Delta

My flight to New York last week was provided by the wonderful world of Delta, which is less wonderful and more woeful.  Delta is unfortunately named after the symbol in the Greek alphabet meaning slow and inept customer service, or after Australian singing barbie doll, Delta Goodrem.  Either way, not good.

Delta is one of the busiest airlines in the United States.  I don't know why this is the case because they are fairly shite compared to any airline in Australia.  Or maybe it just feels like they're busy when they are really just hopelessly incompetent.

IN other news, I seriously do not know what all the fuss is about New York.  It is dirty and smelly and crowded and noisy and full of brash New Yorkers and other self-absorbed Americans.  What's to like about any of that?

The Great Disney Propaganda Machine

We crept out of the Disney hotel in Florida the other day at the crack of too early in an attempt to escape Brand Disney without detection. We were headed for the concrete jungle of New York City,  where dreams are made of and, according to all reports, bad coffee is brewed.  If I can possibly make it there - and get out of Disney in one piece and without any residual brain washing or damage - then I can make it anywhere. 

The Disney brand even tried to indoctrinate us through videoconferencing facilities on the Magical Express Shuttle Bus on the way to the airport, part of a carefully calculated post-Disney experience no doubt.  Even at the airport you will find Disney and theme park-esque retail outlets trying to steal the last dime out of your pocket.  They will get you eventually it seems; even if you are just passing through Mickeyville.

We sat at Orlando airport for ages and ages, due to a big arse weather system floating in the general vicinity of where we were and were we wanted to be.  I am happy to sit out a monster storm cell, but not so much if the delay is due to a passenger who can't organise themselves to get to the airport on time.

On the last night in Disney we got to see their electrical parade, which is basically an event where all of the most interesting characters and floats are elaborately decorated in humongous chains of Christmas lights and wind up and around Main Street USA, the primary thoroughfare through the park.

I have been trying to scour a good location to view this parade for a week.  Apart from its monotonous brain-spasming catchy tune, it is a pretty decent demonstration of the all-American cheese factory that is Disney.  My favourite float is Peter or someone and his magic dragon or whatever it is, who blows misty fake snot all over the kiddies.  Brilliant.  Perhaps he had Dragon Flu.

With all the muggles and minions floating about, I am surprised I haven't contracted some lethal type of cold or flu or meningococcal from breathing in gross, deadly pathogens at DisneyWorld.  Or at least Type 2 diabetes from all the sugar I have consumed. 

Did I mention the toilets here?  They need to be discussed.  At length and right here.  The Big D thankfully favour toilets that have the decency to flush themselves.  If only people in Australia knew how to do that at shopping centres.  I suppose it is quite a difficult feat to accomplish.  Disney also provide paper toilet seat covers in your stall, presumably so you don't contract some hideous bum disease.

After doing your business, you simply flush the paper bum cheek protector down the gurgler.  The toilet in the hotel room, however, is ridiculously lazy, as it can't really be bothered flushing itself.  Perhaps it only lifts its fingers for tips, like everyone else in the service industry in this country.

The result of this is you have to hold down the lever until it is all gone; like I have nothing more interesting to do.  Fortunately these defunct toilets across America may have saved millions of people from a lifelong pattern of leaving grotty loos for the next person to deal with.

Days of Paleontology

That's a big word, isn't it? Paleontology? I'm sorry, I will endeavour to keep my loquacious confabulations to a minimum.  Most people think paleontology is just about the study of Sarah Palin, but this just isn't true.  It's also about the study of really, really old stuff.  I know, I'm a rocket scientist now.  I have a keyring from NASA's Kennedy Space Centre to corroborate this claim. 

I write on the very topical matter of dinosaurs because my Disney hotel in Florida was replete with baby-sized prehistoric, histrionic tyrannosaurus rex'.  They were everywhere.  They run in front of you as you walk the pavements of the hotel and the evidence that they don't always make it to the other side is smeared on the pretty cobblestones of the Port Orleans, French Quarter themed resort.

Ants - who are, on average, very short - probably don't even know that dinosaurs are extinct.  Not that I've seen any ants in Florida.  Or flies.  America doesn't deserve to not have any flies.  Oh wait, I did see a fly; he/she tried to steal one of my fries.  But that was just one fly, and I think the exception proves the rule, no?

Speaking of things that are or should be extinct, one can buy a leg of a T-Rex to eat for your dinner at Disney.  Or they could be turkey limbs; you really don't know these days.  Especially in Florida; land of the nutjobs.  Many people walk around with these repulsive bits of meat hanging out of their mouth like Captain Caveman, and the meat is all pink and raw-looking and still quivering in its dinosaur booties.  Seriously gross.

In other dinosaur-related hearsay - who knew there would be so much - today I ventured out into big, tall, stinking New York City for a day of stuffed creatures at the American Natural History Museum.  It was chockers full of real, fake and real/fake combo dinosaurs, mammals, tigers and other things I've never heard of.  And it was brilliant. I will discuss this at another time because it is now sleep time for me.

Keep Calm and Carry a Poncho

Woah, baby. Why didn't someone tell me that it's best to attend Disney Boot Camp before spending any time at DisneyWorld in Orlando, Florida? Screaming kids, their demented parents, the heat, the humidity and mice called Mickey everywhere.  It's hard work and needs to be trained for, or else you will likely catastrophically injure yourself and/or potentially lose your mind.

Soarin'!

It turns out that I have the patience of people who work with the stupid public for a living.  The place is packed full of Muggles, and I've only wanted to slam people into a wall on a few occasions.

The targets of my mental anguish are mostly American.  I don't, however, think patience is a virtue.  I think hurrying the fuck up and getting out of my way is definitely something to aim for when walking in my vicinity.

Lucky for my fellow Disney goers that the walls at Disney aren't really walls at all; they are generally just a figment of your rapidly deteriorating brain as it grapples with dehydration, one of the early symptoms of the Disney psychosis.

We've been here a few days now and have a routine.  My travelling buddy - who shall not be named because she's scared someone will break into her home in Australia and overwater her plants or dust her shelves or something - love riding Soarin', a five minute simulated hang glider tour of California. 

We love it so much that we get up very early, most days, so we can ride it before the big queues and then we get a fastpass for another go.  A fastpass sort of saves your place in line while you enjoy other attractions in the park, and there are only a limited number given out throughout the day so you have to be quick and organised and efficient and all the things you don't really care to be during your vacay.

Soarin' is the feature attraction at Epcot in DisneyWorld, and we have also been enjoying the caramel treats in Germany in the World Showcase.  If I didn't have travel brain it would have occurred to me this morning that I probably wouldn't usually want to eat a metre squared of caramel topped with milk chocolate. Yeah, that plan shouldn't backfire at all.  Engage brain before eating Disneycrap.

Another thing I am struggling with in Disneytown is sensory overstimulation, so I can't imagine how kids cope with it.  During the evening, especially, there is so much going on and flashing and noise everywhere and bright lights and water splashing and the screaming from rides and screaming from babies and even more screaming from their parents.  It's fucking crazy.  I think the adults are the big ones, but I'm not really sure.

I'm heading to New York City in a few days, which means I'll have to think about more than what I want for breakfast and which rides to entertain myself with.  You don't really have to think at Disney; they shuttle you everywhere if you are staying in the inner circle.

Everything is measured in minutes at Disney.  How long you have to wait for a ride, how far to get here, how far away is the exit, how long do we have to wait until the next fucking shuttle bus.  And Disney minutes are like laundromat minutes, in that they lie, and they take forever to click over.  It's that special magic of Disney.

You are constantly in a holding pattern when you are waiting in queues for rides and they make you weave around and around and fool you into thinking you are actively engaging in pointless interactive games on the walls in the hope that you will momentarily forget that they are stealing an hour of your life for a two minute theme park ride.

And then there's the merchandise. Last week at Universal Studios I bought a hat emblazoned with the theme park logo, because fucking Qantas lost my luggage and I wasn't going to hang out in the hurricane / sunshine state of Florida without sun protection.

And now, since docking at Disney, two security guards, a ferry captain and a Disney character have commented on my hat and its lack of Disney identification.  But I ain't getting one, because too much choice is a prison.  It doesn't help that my rain poncho - built to survive a violent hurricane - is also Universal merchandise.  It's anyone's guess how we haven't been evicted from Disney.

The toilets are called restrooms, but there is no time for rest in there.  The good part is you get to cover your seat with a paper toilet seat cover which you flush down the toilet, providing it doesn't stick to the back of your legs in a half flush reverse pike move.  And even though it only has one job to do, the hotel loo doesn't flush by itself, so you have to hold the lever until the bitter end.  I thought you needed to know that.

Disneyness

Just completed day five in the world of Disney and I feel like the little mouse has burrowed into my brain and left his ears logo etched onto my amygdala.  I am possibly suffering from a psychological disneyorder, if you will.

The amygdala plays a primary role in the formation and storage of memories associated with emotional events which is probably why I can't stop thinking about this: how the hell do Disney take all the taste out of food? How do they do that?  They magically make an appetising-looking cheeseburger taste like nothing.  We'll never know.  It's the magic of Disney.

We are having a night in from the big D tonight, because it's bloody hard yakka and we forgot to go to theme park boot camp before we came over here.  But it's just a temporary disneychantment; we'll be back out there tomorrow.  You need a lot of stamina to get through the day here.  So, instead, we did some laundry this evening.  I'm sorry if that's not interesting enough for you.

When I was walking back after picking up my clean clothes - so they can get drenched again in Florida's daily torrential downpour/hurricane tomorrow - I could of sworn I saw Mickey's ears in the sky, a la the Batman sign.  See, it's carved into my amygdala.  I don't have any scientific evidence to prove that this is a thing, but I imagine that if anyone can do it Disney will nail the shit out of it.

The one thing that they can't do is keep all the kiddies out of the parks.  Who in their right mind would take children to Disney?!  I can't imagine anything more horrible.  Children are highly annoying, and they completely ruin your day.  And why, for the love of god, do people allow their five-year-old to steer a pram?  For fucks sake.

Every day we are shuttled to any Disney park we want from our hotel.  Driving around the whole Disney complex - highways included - you get the idea that the whole of Orlando is purpose built by the uber multinational, as a snug little home-away-from-home for it's star, Mickey Mouse.  His east coast abode.

Disney don't do dirt. Or cigarette butts on the ground.  Or trash on the side of its highways.  They go above and beyond to keep the place picture perfect.  And it is very much appreciated.  Every tree, every road, every overpass is artificially created, and it seems that nothing is actually real, but everything is in fact very real, just very manufactured.  I actually love this place.

Kids may love Disney, but parents not so much.  I think I witnessed the early warning signs of divorce on at least five occasions today.  Mummy and daddy travelling to crowded theme parks in summer with four kids and the mother-in-law will do that to you.  The Disney staff, however, are so friendly that I suspect they are Disneybots.

I have been fond of Disney since I visited Disneyland in Anaheim two years ago.  It's a brilliant business model; market your company as the happiest place on earth and then people will desperately want to return, even though their pockets are being drained and they become devoid of anything resembling sanity.  Theme park madness, it is.

I've been NASA'd

Last week I went to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, which makes me more of an astronaut than you'll ever be.  I had been summoned by NASA to undertake some astronaut training and also to channel my extraordinary engineering abilities.  I have a keyring that says rocket scientist to prove it.  They don't just sell those things at the merchandise shop, you know.

As I walked through the door at Kennedy I was bombarded by a real-life fake astronaut at the entry to the facility.  He so desperately wanted to have his photo taken with me, so I obliged.  He was a great big ball of fun but his space backpack looked like a 24 pack of toilet rolls covered in white paint. Hmm.

The first thing budding astronauts do on arrival at Kennedy is jump on the tour bus.  But of course.  We headed on over to the LC-39 Observation Gantry, which is just a fancy name for a rather high tower made of steel, ladders, elevators and ice cream stands that one climbs to take a gander at the launch pad in the distance.  The launch pad area is fairly awesome, even though it is a good few clicks away.

Just near the gantry is the Crawler Transporter, which is just a fancy name for the sandy, gritty road that is used to roll space shuttles along on the initial stage of their journey to the moon.  Or on their journey to test piloting if their flight commander only got 99% in their astronaut entrance exam.  The concrete underneath this road is apparently 16 inches thick, which is helpful as the contraptions that carry the space-going machines weigh, like, a shitload.

We also saw the Vehicle Assembly Building where they put all the nuts and bolts together in a hideously complicated fashion.  This building is massive, but fairly non-descript, if you discount the Starship Enterprise-looking thing hanging around inside it. 

Just kidding, you don't get to see Space Shuttle Atlantis at all.  They just tell you it's in there and you are supposed to act all excited as if you can see it.  The final mission of Atlantis was July 2011, the last flight of the now defunct NASA space program. Good one, Obama; you tool.

To be honest, the whole Space Centre is filled with the same boring, beige concrete structures that house Bureaus of Statistics' in government cities, and the only thing that makes them vaguely interesting is the NASA logo.  Although many of them have cool names, like Integrated Booster Retrieval Area.  I made that one up, and I don't even know if that's a thing, but it sounds legit and spacey.

I then popped on over to the Apollo/Saturn V Center, where you can stand underneath the rather humongous Saturn V rocket that hangs off the ceiling.  It was the backup for the famous moon mission.  I guess NASA did a how-to-hang-a-rocket-ship-on-your-ceiling Saturday morning workshop. 

I can't get bluetac to hold my Christmas tinsel on the walls in my workplace so kudos to them.   Maybe I shouldn't have dropped out of Advanced Aerodynamics at university.  At this point of the day I was fairly confident that my trip to the moon was just around the corner.

Me walking in Neil Armstrong's moonboots.

I also touched some black lunar rock, which raised my suspicions, what with the moon being white and all.  Maybe NASA were pushing the affirmative action thing.  This is America after all.  Or is the moon black?  Or grey? I don't know. Who cares.  I'm sure I'll know it when I see it when they send me up.  The Americans have been there many times, so I'm sure they've put up welcome to the moon signage and a Starbucks.

I was super busy for the rest of the day, such is the life of a rocket scientist slash astronaut.  I bought freeze-dried icecream balls, which were completely disgusting.  IMAX is there too and provided two amazing presentations, with actual footage of the Hubble telescope and the international space station in 3D.  Incredible.

As well as being an active space facility, Kennedy is also a theme park so there is the obligatory theme park ride.  Of course.  The Shuttle Launch Experience tips you upside down and tries to create zero gravity and that's a bit of fun.  I didn't get to go to the moon after all.  Maybe next time.  By then perhaps the next U.S. President may have reactivated the NASA space program.

Universal Orlando

Have just spent three days at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.  Lucky it was only a brief visit, because I don't have the stamina for theme parks.

That place is packed full of big mobs of people - mainly Americans and loud, shrill South Americans teenage tour groups with matching pink, yellow, red, blue or green backpacks - oh no, it's the backpacks!  These girls don't do quiet.  What's so fucking hard about being quiet for five seconds?

Due to Florida's unfortunate geography, it's also jalepino hot and more humid than a sauna. And just when you think the weather has reached its peak in grossness it starts raining and ligthning all over the place, so you have to put on your plastic poncho in the 30 degree sauna.  But it's awesome, providing rollercoasters, hotdogs, old Hollywood and Harry Potter are your thing.

Too tired to blog about the awesomeness of Universal tonight - it's past midnight and I've spent the last hour trying to get Qantas to send me my luggage, which they lost somewhere between Canberra - Sydney - Los Angeles four days ago.

The idiots have now found it, and sent it to LAX, but apparently it's all too difficult to put it on a plane to me.  FFS.  How is this company such a popular airline?  Their customer service is appalling after they lose your stuff - or "delayed" and "late" luggage as Qantas prefer to call it.

City of Dirty, Bronze Stars

Los Angeles.  Meh.  In a couple of days I will spend about four hours in Los Angeles Airport, in transit to Disney World in Orlando, Florida.  I spent a couple of days in L.A.two year ago - well, Beverly Hills and Anaheim - and I really have no interest in venturing into the city again.

L.A. certainly doesn't live up to its hype.  But why should it?  The wannabes transition through it, much like I will be I suppose.  They just stay a bit longer.  And bleach their hair and teeth a bit brighter.  And get paid a lot of money to act like someone else.  Or get paid a lot of money to act like someone else and take their top off.  We all make our choices.

The whole city reminds me of a large suburban industrial estate, like anywhere you'll find in Australia, except the people are prettier and the cars are flashier than in Fyshwick.  L.A. doesn't have a homely feel to it; I guess because no-one really lives there. 

Its inhabitants are there to get famous, infamous or to make money off people who are already famous and/or infamous.  I imagine one can lead a fairly lonely, empty existence if that is your goal.  It's all about posturing, knowing who knows who in the zoo, and becoming the next Home Improvement girl or Kardashian layabout.  Like, you know, totally.

When I arrived there two years ago I had high expectations for my travels around glamourous Hollywood.  I wanted to see a glittering studio city town, paved in red carpet, movie stars, child actors who should be in school and Lindsay Lohan shooting up on Sunset Boulevard. 

Apart from the Lohan bit - she was due in Beverly Hills court house when I was there - the reality is somewhat different.  I remember getting off the hop on-hop off tour bus in a rundown street and being told it was Hollywood, and I was standing on its iconic Walk of Fame. 

I looked down at the dirty cracked pavement and saw a faded bronze star of some celebrity I had never heard of.  Tom Cruise or something?  A metaphor for the industry that holds 'em close then spits 'em back out and turns them into fanatical cult members.  Welcome to Hollywood.

Evidently the area has been largely refurbished over the past ten years, so one can only imagine the horridness of it all in the 90s.

The Vegemite Black Market

I am travelling to the United States of Crazy on the weekend and I plan to take in a jar/tube/bucket of vegemite, because I can't survive without the glorious brown yeast extract for a whole month.  Contrary to my previously held belief, vegemite is evidently not banned from entering the United States.  *cue happy little vegemites cheering all over the place* 

Word on the street was that Australia's beloved dark brown goo was not allowed to show its face at U.S. Border Security under section blah blah of the Bioterrorism Act, or something, or because it's not white enough, or something.  And people say Australia is racist.  Turns out the ban is just a bit of an urban legend, spread by someone who doesn't like to spread vegemite.

The legend lived on last year, when Australia's Foreign Minister, the splendidly coiffed Kevin Rudd, took the highly unusual step of making himself the news, again, by having a bit of a larrakin knockabout with U.S. Customs officials in Washington - as you do - as he was trying to bring in a jar of the stuff to the States. 

Turns out the whole spectacle was contrived by Brand Rudd.  Who would have thought?  And it also turns out he was just trying to ingratiate himself with the media.  Again; who would have thought?

What the U.S. really should ban is that vulgar peanut butter.  Dreadful substance.  As if peanut butter wasn't enough yuck, the United States of Crazy deemed it necessary to come up with something else disgusting to accompany PB on rye, because it's just not gross enough on its own in a sandwich.  Jam that has evolved into a jelly substance; what a good idea.  Gross.

Eat My Beach Shorts

Deciding what to pack for an overseas trip can be a right nightmare. Contrary to popular belief, being in a land far, far away doesn’t give you licence to wear nothing.  I imagine such impertinence is fine in places like the Netherlands, but the United States has standards, people.  I know, it surprised me too. 

The people who don’t have any trouble packing stuff are those annoying, anal souls who bore you to death with an itemised itinerary of their every toilet break on their vacay and a list of all the things wrong with their hotel room, like anyone cares.  But me, I say packing up your clothes in your old kit bag is trouble, trouble, trouble, and definitely doesn't make me smile, smile, smile.

I like to think that when I travel I will miraculously evolve into a person who suddenly dresses all stylish and hipster, thus I pack so-on-trend clothes that I have previously bought for some inexplicable reason but have never worn, usually because they have proved to be completely useless when it comes to walking about, highly uncomfortable, or just not moi.

This time I'm laying down the law - throwing down the gauntlet - when I pack my bags. Challenge accepted; but possibly already failed. The clothes I never throw on are staying at home in the trailer park, while the garments I wear and worship are travelling with me/on me to America, land of the supersized brave and free.

On the whole, I am all for stereotyping and labeling stuff. Stereotyping may hurt people's ideal world views at times, but gosh darn it, they generally always have an element of truth to them and make identification easier and more convenient for everyone else. Viva la pigeonholing. Having said that, I really don't care for the labeling going on in the fashion industry.

I bought some shorts today that are entirely suitable for hanging around Waikiki beach. Yes they are. But the fashion industry has labelled them mix and match sleep wear separates, like I’m supposed to sleep in them or something.

So now the self-determination of my little shorts is tarnished, through the attachment of one little label. Which I cut off. No-one, but no-one, will take away my shorts liberty and freedom. I have no intention of sleeping in them, but every intention of wearing them on the beach. Take that, fashion industry biatches.

Debby does Orlando

I do believe that this post is just another in a long line of hurricane-related blitherings on my part, or a conga line of suck holes, as Australian politician Mark Latham so eloquently put it. I’m pretty sure Latham was referring to the temperament of major storm cells during hurricane season. I suppose I have been a little preoccupied with the almighty weather surges of late.

I guess it might have something to do with the fact that my travel agent told me months ago that "Orlando doesn't get hurricanes", and I recklessly believed her, and now Hurricane Debby is having her way with Florida, and heading towards Orlando, just weeks before I fly over there.  As long as the tempestuous little minx doesn't start doing Disney.

I was told that this time of the year is called "Hurricane Season". It turns out that "Hurricane Season" means a season of big arse hurricanes. I really wish they would be clearer about these things and not provide me with wishy-washy jargon like "Hurricane Season". I'm sure this climatic mumbo jumbo will catch a lot of other people out too. I guess they are up to D, so only another 822 hurricanes to go.

I am always excited about travelling abroad - 16 SLEEPS! - but equally as thrilled about skipping a month of the hostile, glacial season in Canberra.  I despise the cold, more and more every year.  "The weather's not that bad. It'll get better", someone said to me today.  Okay, great. Well right now it sucks. So unless you can make it better now, keep your irritating optimism to yourself.

I'm heading into a violent hurricane season just so I can avoid the arse-end of Canberra's big freeze, where I might get sucked into a spirally whirly thing made of precipitation and cows and suffer some catastrophic injury to my lumbar area when I’m tossed carelessly into a rural farmhouse and then develop some rare, untreatable type of staph infection, so don't tell me it's not that bad.

Zombies, hurricanes, aeroplanes

It's perfectly natural to feel some degree of anxiety before one goes a'travellin on a jet plane. Perfectly normal. I don't get angst from the thought of flying on a plane, although I am prone to a touch of claustrophobia, and I am not especially stressed over having to spend 24 hours hanging out in airports - or Dante's fifth ring of hell as they are commonly referred.

But I am a little uneasy about visiting a place that has a hurricane season. Not the odd tempest; a hurricane season. Florida started its hurricane season three weeks ago and is already racking up the major storm cells - number four, Tropical Cyclone Debby, is doing Flo Rida at the moment.

Florida is one of the prime targets during the Atlantic hurricane season, and is also the holy mothership of big, scary roller coasters.

On the rare occasions when the current nanny state Australian Government isn't telling me what not to view on the interwebs, what I shouldn't eat for breakfast or otherwise intruding into my personal space and business, they are bleating and harping on about not mixing these two things together. If I had a dollar for every time they told me not to ride a roller coaster in a hurricane blah blah blah. W’ever.

But what the hey, I'm gonna do it, because I'm on holidays. I'm sure the locals know what they're doing. Even though most Floridians are probably of the opinion that space aliens are sending coded messages through their fillings, I'm just going to trust that their roller coasters have been grounded.

Apart from the hurricanes, everyone has been warning me to be careful of the lightning. Um, okay. I'll make sure I do that, as opposed to my usual habit of leaning on tall, pointy, metal structures during a violent storm.  And then there are all the face-eating zombie attacks that have been occurring in Florida lately.  Zombies, hurricanes, lightning - I don't know how to pack for any of these occasions, and Smart Traveller is fairly useless for information on anything other than things that explode or pick-your-pocket.

I'll be spending a couple of weeks near Orlando, in Downtown Disney, which is pretty darn ginormous. There are around 20 major hotels in the "complex", each with a few thousand Mickey Mouse themed boudoirs, so Disney need to shuffle around a minimum of 20,000 people all day, every day, via their magical little carpet ride shuttle buses. It’s like rearranging a couple of suburbs worth of tourists, each of who don’t have a car or a clue.

People often ask me how I am going to cope with the crowds and the noise and the mouse ears everywhere at Disney World. Well Disney are in fact quite exceptional at crowd control. They have to be. They can't have any off days. If you are a mad crowd control enthusiast or revel in all manner of organisation, regulation, neatness and order then go to a Disney theme park.

And they also excel in a quite excellent way at time management. I imagine a key requisite to getting a gig with Disney is the ability to tell the time in a timely fashion, as well as the obligatory infectious good nature. Even at 11pm.  Even in the presence of ghastly tourists.  Rules me out then.