Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Perverse delight, ugly bird and icypoles


It's bloody hot in my part of the world. The mercury hit 43 degrees (about 109F) in Melbourne today. It's 37 as I type this at 9.45pm, which is not gleeful, but I admit that the freakishness and novelty of the extreme weather does bring me a small amount of perverse - insane? - delight. And at least it makes the weather a worthy topic of small talk!

I imagine my perverse delight will melt quickly in the next few days which are also forecast to hit 43 degrees. My flat will be like an oven when I get home from work tomorrow, but at least I have air conditioning in my bedroom.

I went to the St Kilda Open Air Cinema last night, which is on top of the St Kilda Baths right on the beachfront. It was hot yesterday too, but it was pleasantly balmy down there and nice to see the sunset over the bay.

I went to the cinema with my friend Anthony who is...he wouldn't be pleased with the description "bird fancier" even though I kinda like it, so I'll just say that he is interested in birds. Anyway, he told me about a strange and unattractive bird called a shoebill. Check it out below. Nature is so bizarre sometimes, isn't it?



I had my first potential flatmates come and look at the room tonight. I really clicked with the first guy, but maybe it was the box of icypoles that he presented me with that did it?


How are you coping with the heat (if you're in my part of the world)? For those of you dealing with cold and snow, does it help to think about how hot it is over here...or does it make it worse? Anyone seen a good movie lately (outdoors or otherwise)?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi there,you poor little crisp !
The movie I watch when it is hot is The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, lots and lots of SNOW, somehow the brain sees all that COLD and the body doesn't register too much heat.
Hang in there....I will be thinking of you from the top of the cool mountain tonight.

Anonymous said...

icy-poles as a gift, and he was only coming to view the place. that's either impressive or weird. hmmm.

:)

stay cool girly :)

p.s. that is one ugly bird!

dam buster said...

It is hot. too hot. Everyone is grumpy at work.

icypoles and zooper doopers do work though.

Fantastic Forrest said...

I am utterly fascinated by the fact that it is warm where you are while we are coping with snow and ice in the Pacific NW of the US. It truly boggles my mind. We'd contemplated taking sabbatical in NZ or Australia. It was so strange to think how our seasons are backwards from yours. So do you call this time of year "summer"?

Icypoles sounds vaguely perverted, quite frankly. No idea what they are.

Okay, I looked them up. I'm assuming it's what we call popsicles. The other definition in the Urban Dictionary would mean your flatmate applicant was awfully forward.

Jayne said...

Hey Abbeysmum. The rest of my flat is roasting, but I am typing this from my bedroom with the ac and the fan on, so I've uncrisped a little. It was hellish out there today, especially on the tram home. It was hotter on there than outside, and it was about 43 outside! I envy you and your cool mountain, that's for sure.

There's not much relief in sight so I just might have to nip out and hire The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe yet.

Hi Victoria. Bear in mind that it's a bazillion degrees down here at the moment! I thought it was really sweet of him. We opened them up and had one straight away.

The bird looks a bit like a dinosaur in that pic. Maybe it's not very highly evolved.

Hi db. I had actually bought myself a packet of Zooper Dooper type thingies before the guy showed up with the icypoles!

Hi Fantastic Forrest. Um yes, like you, we do call this season 'summer
(and we have spring and winter, but we say autumn, not fall). I can't really get my mind around below zero temps and snow! Melbourne is considered a cold place in winter by other Aussies, but it almost never snows.

Yes, popsicles! Sorry, I forgot to de-Aussiefy again! And I'm intrigued about what the other meaning is....Oh, it's not as R rated as I thought it would be, but yes, it still would have been quite forward of him

Julian said...

A box of icypoles is a definite plus. At the very least, it shows that he understands bribery. ;)

Speaking as a person who grew up in Canada, I'm not handling the heat very well at all! ;P I'm trying to stay indoors as much as possible, but that's been kind of hard this week with everything that I've had on. We left the aircon on all last night, which meant that we slept well, at least. :)

That's definitely not the world's most attractive bird, and I think I can see how it gets its name! An outdoor movie sounds good: what did you see? I went to see Burn After Reading at the Royal Botanic Gardens Moonlight Cinema, which was pretty good. It's the 2nd time I've been, and the idea of having the movie momentarily interrupted by a helicopter flying by overhead still amuses me (it's happened both times).

I enjoyed Madagascar 2, and I'm really looking forward to Monsters vs Aliens, which is an animated movie coming out about halfway through this year. This was one preview clip that managed to hook me in with no nagging doubts!

Another movie I saw as the second of a double feature at the Astor recently was Sabah. A romantic comedy, I guess, which was really good!