Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Scoring a Century

Just wanted to point out that we've reached... cue sound of trumpets heralding... 100 posts! here on the ol' Oz-blog. Thanks for all your kind words and encouragement in helping us reach this milestone over the past seven months. Shout-outs to our frequent (there are some of you out there, I can sense it) readers, posters and commentors. Not to mention tormentors.

If you have any ideas on features, content or postings that might be interesting, let us know. What do you want to hear more about? We're running out of insects to complain about!

posted by ncawthon at 11:02 PM

That Bird has Flown

Well, the airfare wars have ended disappointingly here in Oz. The government subsidized airline, Qantas, maintained near-monopoly on their trans-pacific route in which each and everyone of our dear loved ones have flown on to visit us (Sorry Thomas).

Singapore Airlines made a strong bid to try and gain access to this route, citing fair trade, increased tourism and open competition as being perfectly viable reasons. Yet, given that the LA to Sydney route accounts for nearly 40% of Qantas profits and has roughly 40,000 jobs at stake in Australia, no dice. Admist somewhat racial overtones, the government said 'hells naw'. They've opened up the route to Canada Air (which is just a rebadging of the existing United routes) and have mentioned that Virgin Blue may get consideration in 2007. Do you see a trend here, especially since Air Emirates also wanted a cut? Meanwhile, prices will stay as high as ever.

Funniest part about it, (funny in a sadistic, I have no more money kind of way) the government official who took undoubtedly a tidy little bribe from Qantas and the union of aircraft mechanics, stated after the announcement, "perhaps Singapore Air and Qantas could merge to alleviate this conflict". What??? Both airlines looked surprisingly at each other and said that there was never any merger plans even remotely in the works. It's like saying because Iran and Israel cannot agree on an issue, perhaps they should just merge to solve it.

Qantas has promised further discounts on this route, but we'll believe it when we see it. We're United folks anyhoo, but were hoping that the increased competition would have helped our commute costs somewhat.

Buggah!

posted by ncawthon at 11:01 PM

Monday, February 20, 2006

Spiders from Mars

Peggy hath returned from her sojourn back to her state of origin, enjoying her time away. The tales from her consumption of Mexican food has made me greener than guacamole with envy. Each dish has been itemized and recounted.

We are still in a late summer here, what we would call an Indian summer back home. Not sure if they use the same terminology by labelling an 'aboriginal summer'. Humid and hot is the name of the game, but quite often a thunderstorm will roll through and wash everything thoroughly.

During my time alone the past two weeks, I came to notice a great deal more spiders in the trees and bushes around our house. I'm not sure if these spiders are seasonal or not, but I have never seen them bigger and in number then they are right now. I was awoken to a Huntsman spider crawling up the wall last Monday morning - a spider about the size of a fist. Luckily, we had encountered one of these before at Uluru and I knew it wasn't poisonous as I removed the Huntsman from our apartment. This blog is quickly becoming an inflated version of my various workingman herorics. Next week - how I paid our taxes!

So, that brings the tally of insects and animals that tend to plague Sydney at various points in time to four. We've had cockroaches, flies, bats and now spiders. Things just seem more alive here.

posted by ncawthon at 8:34 AM