anzac day : part 2

this morning i was out of bed at 4:40am & out of the house at 5:15am for the dawn service at the east malvern RSL. so here’s how an anzac dawn service goes…

introductions
reading of a poem about how you were there for your mates. how your mates were there for you.
reading of another poem which also included references to their ‘mates’.
trumpet plays (ie the boy plays) the last postas the flag is raised and then lowered to half mast.
a minute of silence (which was really 38 seconds… i counted)
the rouse is played
closing remarks & everyone is invited inside for breakfast.

we stood in the line for a while & then decided we’d head home for brekky instead of waiting for a non-veggie friendly one. the entire ceremony lasted maybe 15-20 minutes & i took a quick count of about 100-120 people there. much more than i figured.

the main dawn service in melb is across the street from where i live (at the shrine of rememberence) & apparently 30k people showed up there according to the news.

around 10a we walked into the CBD for the anzac parade that boy’s band marched in. they end at the shrine so i walked along & then came home to find out the parade was on tv. there were a lot of people out on the streets for the parade. not as many aussie flags as last year but more people. and only 1 anti war protest that i saw (that consisted of 5 people).

the gallipoli dawn service is on tv now. when it’s over they’re going back to live footage of the melb parade. then some more documentaries about the anzacs.

(btw, i’ve heard ‘anzac’ used today to mean much more than just the WWI & WW2 folks but all military)

i guess my big observation of anzac day is how BIG of an event it is. i *think* there’s a veteran’s day parade in nyc. isn’t there? maybe i’m wrong. i’m sure the thing isnt on tv though. here there’s no way to get away from this. and the amt of people who were around today was pretty amazing. there were the old ‘diggers’ (and no i cant explain why they’re called that) who served in the military marching but the crowd at both the dawn service & the parade were generally young & families.

so it’s celebrated more than any military event in the states, it focuses A LOT on ‘mateship’ not the wars and there is a lot of pride involved.

btw, it’s WEIRD watching this service in turkey. theyre ALL wearing big heavy coats with hats & scarves & gloves. weather.com sez istanbul is 6c/about 40f and feels like 3c/about 35f so no wonder but it just looks odd to be bundled up that much.

anzac day

anzac day is a public holiday in AU & NZ. it’s today.

i’ve been thinking of it as the equivilent to veteran’s day but after watching the news today, i think a better comparison would be dec 7, pearl harbour day. anzac stands for ‘australian new zealand army corp’ and, seems to only pertain to WWI & WW2 and even more specifically to a battle in gallipoli (which is in turkey) in 1915.

this morning i saw an interview with a turkish historian who has specialised in this battle. tonight there was a tv program talking about the history, how it was churchill’s idea, how it combined irish, welsh, british, kiwi & aussies and how they all fucked up big time in some way or another. the disclaimer is that ALL i know about gallipoli has come from these 2 tv shows but i’m shocked at how much of a disaster this was.

so i find it surprising that the day is celebrated to this extent. to what extent you ask? well there’s a dawn service at the war memorials as well as prob all local RSL (retired service league… something like that). there’s a parade in melb and all the other ‘capital cities’ (ie the state capitals). there’s a big dawn ceremony in gallipoli. there’s even a cookie named after it! (which i attempted to make the other night. they tasted fine but were more like crumbles not cookies).

tonite the tv was just filled with anzac stuff. 730 was 60 minutes with an anzac story and the ‘revealing gallipoli’ one i watched. following those were ‘love letters from a war’ and ‘anzacs’ (a mid 80s movie w croc dundee!) . tomorrow, until about 3p, 3 of the channels will cover the dawn services, parades, docos on soldiers and misc war movies. thank god they’re not interfering with passions!!

oopps… getting off track. i think the way and the spirit of anzac day is great though i find it odd such a failed battle is celebrated. failure isn’t a trait in the australian culture that’s celebrated. currently there’s a series running on SBS called ’she’ll be right mate’ about the state of the aussie business world and one of their recurring mentions is how once someone fails in business here, they don’t recover. there isn’t any of the ‘well, you failed, you learned, get out there & go!’ mindset. it is definitely a cultural trait i’ve noticed.

ok. there’s more i want to comment on but i’m considering going to the dawn service so i should get some sleep. nite everyone.

scary

soooo….. scary

no 11p news, no 1130 talk show

after having the 11p news followed by the 1130 talk show for years, it was weird not to have that ritual. letterman is on here around 130a but its’ not the same. in melbourne, abc & channel 10 have news at 1030p. channel 9 is 1130p. chnl 7 doesn’t even bother and SBS goes for 930p. except for letterman, there is no late night chat show. the closest there is here is rove live which is on tuesday at 930p.

rove does skits and interviews famous folks. he also has segments he uses over & over (like ‘what the…’ which is the same as leno’s send wacky headlines to me gag). if rove were in the states, he’d have a community tv show – probably airing right before robinbyrd on time warner cable. here he’s the most famous chat show host in the country.

anyway, the reason i’m telling you this is because today rove shoved a microphone in my face. before work this morning i was going to the post office (on bridge rd for u locals) and i noticed 2 people walking down the street. rather i noticed one person & the large tv camera he was carrying. as they got closer, and i mean CLOSER, i realised the other guy had a big microphone. that he put in front of me & said something like ‘do you have a minute?’. my reaction was the same as if someone was trying to hand me a flyer, avert eyes, turn, ignore. maybe say ‘NO’ in a commanding voice. so it wasn’t til i was about 2 steps away that i realised the guy with the mic was rove.

on the way from the post office to work, i walked past them again though this time they were recording a victim. watch the show tomorrow night & i might be walking past in the background. i’m sure it will be my big break

slimey white house folks

some folks have named three new beetles after the current slimey administration – george, cheney & rumsfeld.

they claim they named them after them ‘out of admiration for their principles, not because they look like the beetles’ but i prefer to think they did it as a way to call them slimey insects for eternal.

comedy festival

melbourne has a huge comedy festival – much like the edinburgh fringe. last friday night i went to see mike wilmot, a canadian who likes to drink and say fuck a lot (yes, even more than i do!!!). he was pretty good.

i thought the cultural bits were really funny. cultural in terms of how australia & canada are both commonwealth countries and comparisons btwn the 2 (like how aussies are the criminals & they got sent to this beautiful weather and canadians were kiss ass & got sent to ‘the freezer’). of course he doesn’t like george and did i mention he sez fuck A LOT?

i saw bits of rich hall on tv & might try to check him out this wknd. or at least see something…

The architect of your destiny is yourself.

Christy’s tuesday nite chinese gave her this: The architect of your destiny is yourself.

i had to borrow it because i’ve been thinking about this a lot the past few days. i’ve finally started thinking about what i want to do when i’m done with the mba. or rather, not when i’m done but what i want to do with my life. this could be another way to procrastinate about my thesis but it is something i need to consider. and i keep going back to building software. in a bill gates monopoly kinda way.

this wknd was a ‘i hate melbourne’ one. i wanted to pick up a book about thesis writing (yes, another procrastination). actually there’s 2 books i was looking at. amazon had them for about U$25. i check the big bookstores here. Most don’t have it but they can order it for me which will take up to 4-6 weeks because they have to order it from the states. yes… because there’s no way of getting anything here faster than that, right? argh. also, all of the shops have the same price: A$50 for the one book & A$35 for the other. bend over kids.

and of course, this is an exercise in the mindfield of customer service here. one chain shop informed me they didnt have the book but one of their other shops could. and no, they can’t check that for me because they don’t have access to the other shops inventory. this is the equiv of borders saying sorry, call every shop we have.

btw, i did get the book and it’s been incredibly helpful in helping me actually move things from my brain to the computer.

i’ve also decided that the gov’t here needs to add a new position. currently there’s a minister of health, a minister of transportation (which is another one of my goals. wouldn’t it be surprising if public transport here actually worked?), minister of finance, etc. i’ve decided there needs to be a minister of customer service to get this country up to speed. and yes, of course, i’ll put my name in for this.

…… chinese food…. can someone fedex me some broccoli in garlic sauce?????

10 more minutes of writing and then bed. nite.

may 1-june 27 travel

on qantas LA to sydney is U$790. this deal isnt as great as the air nz one i posted the other day b/c this one has date restrictions that come w price changes.

u have to book by april 15

commutes, cookies, communication

at least one out of every 25 people in NJ and NY have a commute of 90 minutes or more. the census folks call this ‘extreme’ commuting. ny times article.

if you haven’t ordered ur girl scout cookies yet, you can do on this website. yum!!! thin mints! somoas! did you know it’s the 30th year of somoas??!!! for those of you in the city, you can pick up your cookies at their HQ on 23rd street (and bronx, brooklyn, queens, SI). pickup schedule here.

i’ve had a sony ericsson T61 for a couple years now. it has never been my fav but it was small & tri-band. a few months ago, the screen started going but what really tossed me over the edge was the ‘5′ key STOPPED WORKING. yes, i could not dial a number that had a 5 in it. nor could i type a txt message that had JKL in it (i know… how ironic). i’ve been pricing phones, watching ebay & finally had enough friday. i now have the nokia 3220. it is funky. take a look at this pix. see those little bumps on the side of the phone? they light up!!!!! remember that game u had as a kid, called simon??? it’s a simon phone!!

ok. tired and lame….. nite.