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New York, 10:19 AM
Mon Nov 30
21 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
02/09/09
You should hear the little six-year-old avocado singing 'I like drinking Irish Tea... with a little bit of Lapsang Sushi...'.
02/09/09
"Out beyond the white breakers, where a man can still be free. Or a woman, if you are one."
Watch out for sharks!
02/09/09
"The lyrics are about an Australian traveller circling the globe, proud of his nationality and about his interactions with people he meets on his travels who are interested in his home country, Australia."
02/09/09
HA! Believe it or not, I recently supped with Colin Hay (Men At Work's lead singer) and his lovely wife Cecilia. He's a close friend of a friend. Great bloke. Really, really great bloke.
02/09/09
Thanks a million, VSSS. You guys have your fair share of natural disasters - what with the volcanoes and earthquakes.
It's only touched me through friends' experiences. Tonight, I found out that a friend of mine was travelling to her cousin's 18th birthday party in Whittlesea on Saturday night, when the family called and said that they were cancelling because it was all getting a bit hairy. My friend found out the next day that her 18 year-old cousin, and her aunt and uncle all perished in the fire.
Fucksticks.
02/09/09
It's crazy to think that the same heatwave we enjoyed here all weekend was burnin' up bodies, homes, and lives in the next country over. Kind of unnerving to see K. Rudd just about lose his shit, too.
DA, SydneyGal, and others, I hope that you and yours are safe from any harm, and my thoughts are with you.
02/08/09
02/09/09
Thanks, mate.
02/08/09
There's a joke in Australia, that if there's an emergency, you don't ring the police, you ring talk back radio... The reason being - if your neighbours are listening, they'll be able to get there quicker.
02/08/09
[www.theage.com.au]
02/08/09
[www.theage.com.au]
May your news be good news, Brian.
Crap.
02/08/09
02/08/09
People are saying it is like a fireball, or as one person described it - as if a sun jumped out of the fire-front and landed on his house. Bushfires are a way of life here. But this one is something else. There's no way to fight it.
02/08/09
My heart has been breaking over the past two days as stories about friends (and, strangers, for that matter) make it out of the war-zone that these fires have created around Melbourne. But what's been particularly striking about the victims is their quiet determination and ability to keep things in perspective. And to see bleak humour in the most grim circumstances.
So, in the great Australian tradition, snark on, if you must Gawkerites. I know you do so with lashings of love. And say with me... "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie... oi, oi, oi!"
02/08/09
02/08/09
I dunno - I kinda liked M. D'Ouchestache's pop-cultural reference. Now, if only he'd been able to work in a reference to Ms. Kidman's flaming red hair!
02/08/09
02/08/09
Heh! Droughts and flooding rains, indeed.
02/08/09
02/08/09
02/08/09
I live in inner city Melbourne, so am physically untouched by the horror. But the sense of shock in the community is palpable. The fires started on Saturday - the thermometer in my garden (yes, I am a weather nerd) read 48 celcius. Which converts to 119 Fahrenheit. It felt like the end of the world was nigh.
And for at least 108 people in these small, beautiful mountain communities, it was.
02/08/09
02/08/09
That was just the air temperature, unaffected by the fires. It was the hottest day in Melbourne on record. It's not unusual in summer to have a few days over 40 (105 or so), but this was one out of the box.
Accompanied by gale-force north winds, hot off the desert, no rain for over a month = tinder-dry forests. It was just waiting to explode. Imagine being the firefighters, clad head to toe in heavy fire-fighting gear, battling flames in those conditions.
And as for the homicidal fucked-up-beyond-all-belief pus-buckets who lit some, if not all, of these fires, on a day when the entire state had been warned that conditions were likely to be the worst possible for fires... there is talk of legislating so they can be tried for murder, rather than manslaughter. I say, just put them in a room with some of the survivors who've lost family members.
02/08/09
02/08/09
Thanks, X. Much appreciated. I believe there's a couple of your big, gutsy planes over here helping out. A couple of years ago, during another fire, they were filling their tanks from a lake near my house in the inner-city. It was very strange to watch. But they sure are effective.
02/08/09
02/08/09
To clarify the clarifictions for those unsure of Aussie geography, Australia is a big, big country.
The fires in Victoria are where the death and majority of home loss has occurred. The fires in NSW are separate, unrelated fires (1000's of kilometres away) and they are mostly contained in non-residential areas. This can of course change with a gust of wind but I'm in Sydney and we are not under threat (although we can smell smoke in the air from fires just North and also controlled burning).
Bushfires are common in Australia at this time of year and our foliage is very combustible...eucalyptus trees, full of 'oil' almost explode in severe conditions. The problem with this situation has been the speed with which it has taken over and winds have meant in some towns they have fire approaching on all fronts....nowhere to run.
In the meantime, Queensland (in the north) is suffering severe flooding.
02/08/09
02/08/09
02/08/09
Hey, mate. 'Tis indeed merciless. But according to reliable survivor accounts, there isn't a whole lot of licking and fawning going on. Rather more akin to a nuclear blast, apparently.
02/08/09
02/08/09
Fear not, Hangnail - you didn't sound at all glib. I loves me some Plath.