Fur de lulz.

While we were there, we poked about the place to see what amazingly fun and exciting things were around for us to do. Turns out we were able to keep ourselves occupied for most of the two days we were there! I’m yet to check with the official record keepers, but I’m told we may have made history. On the culinary side of things, we had dinner at a place called Mistress @ Manuka. I didn’t notice any extramarital affairs or submission going on, but there was a back room. What I did notice was the extremely tasty tapas that was placed in front of me. It didn’t last long. The next morning after completing most of the main task requiring our presence there (we’re very efficient) we went in search of a place that served both breakfast and the internet, so as to catch up with the day job. We found a place called Babar in a shopping centre, at which I learned a couple of things. Firstly I didn’t know that if you cook an egg for far too long it goes stiff enough to hold its shape when you pick it up. Seriously, this thing was crunchy. It was especially out of place given that the other egg still had a runny yolk and the bacon wasn’t anywhere near approching having any crispyness to it. The other is that apparently if your menu says banana bread with butter, the butter is special imaginary butter that only exists in some alternative dimension. Disappointing fare, at any rate. Given we had to hang around at that point for a period of time determined by the boss’s ability to adequately sate a particularly annoying customer’s demands, I went exploring the shopping complex at hand. As is the norm with these things, I was drawn into JB’s. What was a nice surprise though was to find a copy of Chrono Trigger DS that appeared to be an actual Australian release. Given that it was likely one of 12 copies destined for the greater AU market, I picked it up. More on that in a later post though. After adding a bunch more CDs to my collection I rendezvous with the rest of the gang to plan out the rest of the afternoon. After rounding the corner however, we came across a Koko Black. We’d seen it on the store directory earlier, but it was tucked away somewhat. To celebrate this fortuitous discovery, we stopped in for a hot chocolate. I had the chilli one, so as to have two kinds of hot in my chocolate. It was most delectable. If ever you find yourself in Canberra (or, and more likely, Melbourne) look it up and partake. Muchly recommended.

At this point in our day of discovery and adventuring, it was decided that we’d visit Questacon. Turns out it’s aimed at school kids, but given how immature I am I fit right in. Nothing much was discovered in poking about, but many installations were interacted with, puzzles were solved and things were affected by gravity, momentum and light in all sorts of interesting fashions. They also have giant microbes for sale in the gift shop, but most of the deadly diseases were sold out. Besides, I already have syphilis. Scum was tempting though.. he’s a cute little chap. It was time to move on however, as we had to complete our Highly Important Task. This was a simple matter of being at a place at a time, so no dramas there. Our mission complete, we retired to our suite for some relaxation time.. otherwise known as fixing one of our mail servers and playing Chrono Trigger.

And now, the recollection of the evening’s dinnerial times and beyond. Our evening’s repast came courtesy of Francisco’s Mexican Cantina. Not sure how authentic it is, but its tastiness cannot be denied. Very much a place to go back to for the purpose of exploring the menu.. if only it wasn’t in Canberra. Still, if you find yourself there then definately check it out. We had to make a booking though, so keep that in mind.. seems a rather popular joint, for the obvious good reason. Outwards from there we found a cocktail bar called The Julep Lounge. Upon decided that it’s a brilliant little joint, we stayed to sample a selection of their wares. If you’re pondering, a julep is a kind of drink.. though more varieties are around than merely the mint, despite wikipedia’s narrow focus. Aside from the selection of julep varieties on offer their rage runs the usual gamut of cocktail varieties that one would expect to find there. Upon browsing the menu we decided that we could build the Left 4 Dead (a game containing many zombies) set, comprised of a Kamikaze, a Painkiller, a Satan’s Whiskers, a Corpse Reviver and a Zombie. Unfortunately, the Painkiller didn’t taste much good at all, so I’d recommend skipping that one. All in all however, a great place to sit around in. It was strangely quiet in there though.. then again, we were in Canberra. Who knows what passes as a great night out there…

Upon awakening the next morn, it was time to pack up and check out. We weren’t about to leave however, as Canberra still had some activities in store for us… breakfast! We headed over to Dickson, as we were told that there was something called Rubees there that required investigation. Firstly though was breakfast, had at a cafe in the middle of a shopping complex. It was not until after we’d ordered out breakfast and coffees that we noticed that most people were drinking some sort of fruit based smoothie with their breakfast. We decided that this may have been a bad sign insofar as the quality of the coffee.. we weren’t wrong. Burnt and disappointing it was, but the food was tasty. Bacon, egg and cheese toasted sammich in foccacia for me, very nice. What followed was a wander about for this mythical Rubees. We searched high, low and in between, but nary a Rubees was found. We chalked this up to a rare failure, and headed on over to the War Memorial. Rather muchly like the museum at Hiroshima, it’s a very objective and neutral look at the people, machines and history involved in the various conflicts Australia has been involved in since world war one. Sombre and reverent, there’s displays of solders’ kit, depictions of battlegrounds and background info on what took place where and some of the why behind it. Although mainly focused on the Australian viewpoint, they also had panels devoted to notable German and Japanese figher pilots in WW2 and other views of the opposing forces. These weren’t to portray them as enemy scum at all, they were simply there to show the full picture. Very well done and very respectful, it’s definately worth wandering through if you have a few hours to spare.

Our time in Canberra was coming to an end at this point. We had heard rumours of a Dinosaur Museum however, so we aimed the TomTom and set off. Unfortunately, when we arrived there it looked somewhat dodgy and not much like an awesome dinosaur mueseum, so we moved on. We did however see a sign pointing to Belconnen… a place that also held a mythical Rubees, so we set off in pursuit. The signage appeared to peter out however…. I kept driving, both in the hope that we’d see something inspiring and because we had no other destination in mind other than home. Fortuitously though it was merely crap signage rather than us missing our destination, so we did end up passing through Belconnen as desired.. and lo and behold, there stood a Rubees. Frozen custard was had. It was like ice cream, only different. Ultimately not worth losing the selection of flavours associated with an ice cream parlour. Still, with all objectives ticked off the list, both primary and secondary, it was time to go home. Fare thee well Canberra, you were just as boring as the rumours suggested. Also, you have a suberb called Downer. Maybe you shouldn’t have a big sign proclaiming it on the main road inbound. Though I guess it is a handy warning. They should put a Caution sign above it.

Also, as is usual for any time I go on a trip, I forgot my toiletries. Still, now I have (further) spares of everything.

Remember men, your wife is a terrible driver. Be sure to fit these tyres, then condecendingly assure her that she’ll be ok driving throught he big scary city at night past roadworks and what not.

Anyway to make up for it, let me direct you to some good tunes. First of all there’s She, who is a Polish artist living in Sweden.. as they do. It’s glitchy, chiptuney electro stuff that’s a lot of fun. It’s free to download from that link there too, so no excuses.. go check it out. Highlighs are Coloris and Destination Luna4 (both off the Coloris album). The other is Ladyhawke, whom I bought today. It’s proficient dancey tunes, quite fun to hear and the cover art for the CD is excellent. Unfortunately either the website sucks, or it’s my PC being shite. Most likely the latter, so check it out and let me know if it’s tops. Highlights off the album are My Delirium and Love Don’t Live Here.

I’ve being playing through GTA 4 again lately. It brought to mind the censorship issues that gamers here in Australia face, as the game had to be edited before it could attain rating and therefore be able to be sold and also to run in consoles. Console manufactureres won’t allow unrated (or in the US, AO rated) games to run, and also it’s illegal to sell unrated games. The stumbling block is that the OFLC doesn’t have a rating above MA15+, so anything that would normally be considered an R18+ thing just isn’t allowed in games. This is ridiculous for a number of reasons, one of which being that the average age of a gamer is about 30. I’m all for keeping inappropriate material away from the kiddies, but I believe that’s a job for the parents. It’s not hard to achieve control over what they’re playing, consoles have parental lockout controls for that very reason that will either prevent a game from playing or have it run in a self censored mode that will remove the more mature content from the experience. The most aggravating thing about the issue are the arguments that people come up with against changing the situation. One I’ve heard rather often is ‘well, the people who want to get around the censorship will do it anyway, so it’s fine the way it is’. Essentially, they’re condoning piracy. This is obviously stupid.

Not as stupid however as situation all this achieves. The main cut from GTA 4 is that you can no longer pull over and pick up a prostitute, watch your car rock from side to side for a moment and end up with full health. You can still shoot people in the face, run them over and have shootouts with the police. You can still take part in street races, drive home drunk and cause general mayhem in the city. Surely, if watching a car rocking from side to side is so bad then the rest of the stuff should be kept from impressionable youth. If there was an R18+ category for the game and others like it, then it would actually be easier to keep the nastiness away from the poor kiddies and have them grow up uncorrupted by the evils of videogaming. The issue’s not about to go away anytime soon either, though what’s more likely to happen is publishers just won’t bother to release games here (Sega have already stated that the lukewarmly anticipated Wii game Mad World won’t be edited for release in countries with stupid censorship issues), thereby ensuring more and more people resort to piracy. It’s all very very silly.

While I was in town today I also bought Fable 2… I’ll let you know how it is.

The correct response to the Irish greeting ‘top of the morning to you’ is ‘and the rest of the day to yourself’.

I wonder if any Irish people even use that anymore…