we're all going to the zoo tomorrow

I've been lazy; I'm aware of that. I haven't written anything in ages, and I feel consternation
at losing touch with people back home. I'm not busy at the moment, but
there have been some interesting things in Manly.

For what good it did, there was a paddle-for-peace, where around 300 surfers formed a peace logo in the sea. It took around 20 minutes for us all to paddle out and form up, when we then sat around, bobbing on the waves for another 45 minutes. I think the organisers were expecting hoards of press in helicopters to fly over, and for our pictures to be splashed across the front of The Australian, along with a breaking news report at 5pm. In reality, it made the back page of the Sydney Herald, and front page on the local rag, the Manly Daily. I have a feeling that John Howard was far from quaking in his shoes when he heard of a bunch of surfers protesting, and I doubt he rang Blair or Bush to warn them of the impending revolt.

It crossed my mind that while those who were in favour of the war said that at least we were able to protest about our governments actions. I wonder what good it does when despite living in a democracy; the majority is not listened to. Oh, what is the point of thinking about it?

We had a little incident at the place where I'm staying. One Friday night, between one and 3 am, the power was turned off to the place, and some people broke into the back garden, and stole some clothes off the line. In the end they discarded most things and only took my wetsuit. Annoying to say the least. Fortunately, there was a sale at the surf shop down the road, and I picked another one up with 30% off the price. Good deal. I have to say I look rather fetching in it.

The work situation hasn't really changed much. Blake put me onto an agency where I had a chat. Nothing much has come of it yet, but it has kept my optimism up for a while. So what do I do? While Cathy goes out and earns an honest living, I wax my board, put on my new wetsuit, and head to the beach. To be honest, I still spend maybe two hours a day searching the web, ringing agencies and making my CV the sweetest looking CV in the world.

On top of the job hunting and surfing, I'm starting to invest time in indoor activities, an example being modelling, of the plastic rather than flesh variety. It started when Cathy got me a small model of a Mirage, and the latest has been a Harrier GR3. Most exciting. I think one is allowed to regress into ones childhood, when you don't have a job.

There have been a few birthdays recently; we went out for a surprise meal and a bit of boozing, when Lisa had her birthday. I somehow ended up in a very sorry state, but of course it was all for the sake of Lisa's birthday you understand. Last Monday, the 7th was Cathy's birthday, and her birthday treat was the day off work and a trip to the zoo. We had heard some good things about the Taronga Zoo, which helped me as neither of us are too keen on zoos if they are a bit 'eastern European', but we like them if they are anything like Marwell Zoo. It's a crap theory because at the end of the day all zoos are the same. Taronga has some amazing exhibits. Actually, what do you call a cage or pen of animals? There are examples of native bats, spiders, red kangaroos, grey kangaroos, rock-hoppers, platypuses, emus, water dragons, and all kinds of native birds, plus some excellent areas for gorillas and chimpanzees. All of these animals looked really happy. The animals that didn't look happy were the arctic leopards (not surprising when it's a hot day), the very bored or drugged lion, the equally bored or drugged Siberian tiger and the red panda. All the big cats were in an area the size of the average back garden, which obviously isn't natural and the red panda had just been moved from one enclosure to another, and had the unenviable position of being the target of screaming kids. Still, it's a nice zoo and they are improving the place all the time, plus they have some excellent breeding programmes running, and it has one of the BEST views of the harbour.

Eddie should arrive sometime today and it will be nice to see a face from home, although Cathy and I have no idea what we are going to do to occupy him. To be honest, I don't know what I do to keep myself occupied. Well, I have to admit that I do spend a few evenings a week at the internet café playing CounterStrike on the net, where I go by the name of 2zer0, but that's another story.