Local Market

My dad and Annie think I need to get more out of the house so I decided today I would go to the local market. It is about a 10-15 minute walk from where I will be working. (yeah so I more or less got the job if that wasn't already written here somewhere). It's called paddy's market. The bottom floor is a huuuuuuuuuuuge flea market (imagine the picture up top but 12-15 rows more). Tons of Asian stuff. The 1st floor is a mix of factory outlets and eateries. The 2nd floor is factory outlets and the 3rd floor is eateries and arcade.
There were alot of really interesting things there. I want to buy sean a croc hat, made from real croc leather (preferably with teeth). I know I'll have to get other people things but that is one thing that stuck out that I think Sean would really want. I ended up finding a wallet for myself. it was $60. Ironically it was more money than I wanted to put into a wallet but oh well, the last one lasted me 7 years-ish. As the colors fade and the leather has been stretched and stained, its probably time to retire it.
I got a chance to play Street Fighter at the arcade (since they are no arcades back home that have anything worth playing really) and even though the joystick controls were really rough, I whooped some serious butt against random other people.
Classes start tomorrow, it is gonna be so rough its not even funny. I have a feeling like Im not gonna be prepared. I have no idea what to expect, for all I know it could be like Hogwart's School of Magic like from Harry Potter.

Oporto

Expanding my pallet I tried some Oporto after my interview today. The interview went well. Next I will have to do some online orientation and then i will have a trial/training period. It will be in the Darling Harbor, which is a beautiful harbor. It was cloudy today so I didn't take pictures but I will when it is nicer.

The chicken was pretty good, oporto specializes in chicken sandwhiches, wraps, and salads. The very tasty grilled chicken came as two breasts on a sandwhich with little bit of mayo and chilisauce. Yep chicken and chili. Other than that, it wasn't that fantastic of a day, it was pretty wet out. Not alot to see.

Levi

The 18 day old Levi is sick. Levi is Irma's grandson, through her son Lee. He is currently hospitalized. He stopped breathing at one point for 2 minutes. The entire family was rightfully hysterical. Irma is with Lee and his wife Sarita over in Perth. If things get much worse, I imagine that Lorenzo may take a leave from work and go visit.

On a bit of brighter news: A restaurant called "The Meat and Wine Co" called about an interview for tomorrow. It is owned by one of Irma's siblings so she put in a good word. It's near Darling Harbor and it's about a 35 minute bus ride away.

Percy Jaskson

I started reading this series called Percy Jackson and The Olympians. If you recall, a movie was just released. Considering the movie was based on a book and reviews mentioned the movie did not do the book justice I decided (in some of my spare time) I would read them. I've gotten through 2 of 5 books and these are my thoughts:

Unfortunately for the movie, it comes out after the immense success of Harry Potter, and as such, it is more than likely going to be judged by the Potter series. At first it seems a bit harsh to put the book up to Potter's standards but Riordan, the author, copies many ideas that Potter, and books before it, used much better.

Percy is your ordinary, everyday failure of a 6th grader. He gets in fights; he fails his classes; and always seems to be getting himself expelled. His educational failure is attributed to being ADHD and dyslexic, which is a good moral for children: "If you are failing classes then its not your fault!" But actually most children don't find out their father they have never met is actually Poseidon. That's right, the book says that being dyslexic and ADHD is attributed to his brain being hard wired for Ancient Greek and Battle. Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure. Being the son of Poseidon he has insanely overpowered water-based abilities. They then go on to tell you that his entire life is more or less a series of lies to try to mask his heritage.

One of the main problems of the series is the lack of decent story telling. Sure the writing is very vivid and captivating, but at the end of book you are left with a "that's it?" feeling. Not a "oh wow! I'd love to read more!" kind of thats-it but rather a "what the heck kind of story was that?!" Throughout the book Percy undergoes trials which is typical of adventure stories, however in Percy's case, the word "trial" is very liberal. Most challenges he near immediately know how to solve and does so without and difficulty. The entire book is just a cake walk for this 6th grader. Foreshadowing is one thing, but its too blatantly obvious when Percy has a trial ahead of himself. He is either walking to a fountain, rain, toilets, river, bridge, water park, another river, the beach, and yet another river. His enemies are too stupid to fight him AWAY from water.

One of the biggest problems I have with the series is that the author is always force-feeding you morals. In the second book, percy gets a retarded half-brother who is a cyclops and a spoon full of "mentally hand-capped does not mean he isn't physically capable and a good friend too!" I near wanted to vomit. Among all of the "America is so great" propaganda, obeying authority, and dad always knows best (even if he never has seen you before you turned 13) I tried very hard not to vomit.

Of course once you get passed all of the bad story telling and unbearable morals, the book IS actually enjoyable. The characters (besides Percy) are more or less believable. The author is very good at description and the books are very easy, fast reads. Is it worth buying? no, not really, but if you have a friend who has a copy and you aren't watching a good tv show then its a decent read.

Art post

This post is an art post. I'm not entirely sure what that means. Perhaps I will post more pictures as I draw them. But this particular picture is part of something I've been working on. I was debating on whether to post it but it turned out alright. The original sketch was a bit messy, It was obvious that I need to get back in to drawing if I can. Fortunately I'm still pretty darn handy at photoshop so minor adjustments the crappy eraser would not allow, I was able to do. Not much is happening lately since I've been mostly at home all week but as you can tell I've been finding ways to keep myself busy.

ps. full size looks a million times better.

New Shoes

So I FINALLY got around to buying a new pair of shoes. I wasn't able to buy a pair in the U.S. before I left because I the amount of money I had didn't make the purchase feel that safe. After going to several shoes stores I finally went to one of those stores that analyze your stride. Apparantly my stride rolls in towards the ankles which is rediculously common. The woman was a very knowledgable salesperson, and I needed shoes, so I ended up buying these Asics. Here is the kicker. The shoes were $209. Yep just like everything else in Aus, shoes were double price also. I am currently looking into methods of mailing something from the U.S. to Australia so I can try to save a bit of money but haven't had fantastic luck yet. If I find a way to mail things here, I'll keep you posted. (hee hee get it? mail? Posted? I kill myself sometimes)

Wicked

I finished Wicked and the AvP campaign. Wicked was very good. Although I felt the ending seemed a bit rushed, the writing was deep and vivid. Wicked is about how the Wicked Witch became known as such. Contrary to her name, she barely new magic. She actually studied life sciences. The witch's name was Elphaba. The story follows her birth, school years, and rise to infamy. The story also delves into how the Wizard of Oz wrested control of the entire kingdom and appointed himself as Emperor, ruling all of Oz with a greedy iron fist for over 40 years, finally leaving only because of fear of a coup de'tat. I won't spoil anything for you. Only that scarcely in the world is there any such thing as good and evil. Labels as such are placed as propaganda to incite hate and prevent humanization of characters.

Is a man who walks into an office and shoots the chairmen of a multinational organization evil? What if I told you that the chairman himself was responsible for entire villages in 3rd world countries burning to the ground in the name of profit and as a result hundreds of people died? Now who is evil?

When you are driving down the road and an extremely inconsiderate driver cuts you off and nearly causes you an accident do you spurn them? What if I told you that studies show that if aggressive driver were out of the picture that more accidents would occur and traffic would be more problematic and slower.

Is such a thing as evil then? Are people capable of evil? To this I would say that children are a perfect example. On one hand they burn ant hills with magnifying glasses, but on the other they grab/steal things from one another with merely the purpose that "I wanted it" and did not truly consider the consequences of their actions. This I would say is not truly evil but merely adolescent ignorance. I guess the key here is perspective.