My my… A week has gone by and somehow I am supposed to remember all the interesting things that have happened… well here it goes.

I literally jumped out of bed when my alarm went off on Tuesday morning. Not that I was excited for my first day of work, instead I was lying awake in bed counting down the minutes for my alarm to give me permission to get out of bed. Finally, I head out the door and hop in a cab to head to work. I’m not really that lazy that I need to take a cab to work , but …. yeah, okay… I was lazy and didn’t want to have to figure out how to get to work and get lost along the way for my first day. I try to study the route the driver takes me along. This is pretty difficult when I have no idea where I am and have no clue as to where I am going. 10 minutes and 15 circles around the town later, we get to the entrance of Fox studios. Animal Logic is located inside the Fox studios compound. An area where alot of Sydney’s media offices are (as far as I know). Its across from Moore Park, a nice big grassy field with a mucky pond of stagnant water. To the north of the lot are two stadiums, one for Football and the other for Cricket (I may be making this up). I head towards the gatekeeper and give her my name. She gives me a map and tells me to follow the highlighted path to building number 54. The inside of the compound looks like it used to be some sort of theme park, like universal studios. There are fake storefronts like a film backlot and big sound stages that look like they are converted to offices. After 10 minutes of walking on a very small map I get to what I think is Animal Logic… theres no building number, but my assumption was right. I follow up the stairs where a sign reads “welcome to Titanic, the experience… you must be at least this tall to ride”. I beat the height restrictions with about 4 feet to spare.

Inside the building I was greeted by the receptionist and given a stack of forms to fill out. While I fill out the forms, out comes Phil (from the kitchen). I had worked with him in Toronto about 5 years ago in 2006. We chatted for a bit before he went off to his desk and I finished the forms. I then met Esther, a nice lady that gave me a tour of the building. This building is really huge with alot of levels and circular corridors. Real easy to get lost in. She shows me one of the meeting rooms upstairs.
“that’s one of our meeting rooms, we call it the Tim Ship” she says.
“The Tim Ship”? I remark, not being used to the accent just yet.
“no no, Tim Ship”
“ohh, Team Shit” I say. pretty certain thats what she said.
Its actually called the Tin Shed, I must apologize to her next time I see her. She showed me the kitchen where the in house chefs prepare meals for people that work really hard (overtime) and also provide us with a gourmet meal on Thursdays. mmmmmmmm… Then we head around more circles, showing me other work areas, she showed me the other kitchen where we could keep our own lesser gourmet lunches. The kitchen is stocked with cereals and a variety of fresh bread and fruit for us. There are also a pair of real nice barista machines which I scold my knuckles on every morning making my coffee. Its well worth it.
Finally, I get to my desk. Its set up real nice with a pair of big monitors and a wide wacom tablet. I have TONS of space around my desk, its actually more of a cubicle. I have a chair too! And what a chair. One of those $800+ mesh Aeron chairs I’ve heard so much about. Pretty comfortable stuff. Shortly after I sit down, I’m greeted by Julien who is one of the lead compositors. He briefs me on what we need to do and how we do it, gives me a shot to work on and then disappears. Then I meet with Aaron. He is the compositing supervisor on this show, we also worked together in 2006 on Resident Evil 3. He’s the one that hooked me up with this job, what a swell guy. Later, I eventually get that done and its the end of the day. I run home and pass out pretty quickly. I wake up the next day and do it all over again.

I get to work and start working again, nothing real fun happens until lunch time when Julien tells me about a market that opens up every Wednesday outside the office. I head over and see all sorts of goodies. Fresh fruits and vegetables, fancy cupcakes, grilled prawns, cheeses… all kinds of markety goodness. I pick up some dried figs and a prawn chorizo roll and enjoy my lunch. I head back to work after lunch, work for a little and then attend a sorta boring training class on the computer systems. The next few days at work are pretty much the same. Work and training with a lunch in between. I won’t bore with any more boring work details. I’ve figured out a route to walk to and fro home now. My favourite part of the walk is the walk home. Every evening as I walk home around sundown, the skies fill with bats. EVREYWHERE. HUGE , big bats. Its pretty fun to watch them flapping about and swooping around. I’ll try to catch one next time.

It’s now the weekend…. finally! Much to do! Saturday morning I rush out of bed and figure out my route to the bank to open an account so I can make the monnies. I take the bus to Chinatown and barely miss my stop. I wander around for a bit before I find my bank. This all would be much easier if I had a map… I must try to find one before I get even more lost. Now that I have a bank card, its time for some breakfast. Dim Sum isn’t something that should be eaten alone, but I only figured that out afterwards. Next, off to the beach! I hop on the train which takes me to Bondi Junction where I catch a bus to the beach. The beach is PACKED, but it could be alot worse.

I looked at the surfers and imagined how frustrated they are catching a wave and then having to dodge a sea of heads. At this point nothing will stop me from tasting salt water, so I get changed and hop in. The water is wet, its is also salty. It is the ocean. I get nailed by a few body surfers catching waves and in turn I also nail other people while body surfing.
“sorry” I say as I woosh by them, but they are underwater so they can’t hear anyway.
The next moment my leg and hand get tingly, then a little stingy. I guess a jellyfish tried to eat me and failed. I ask the person beside me if they would pee on me. They start crying and calls for their mom. Next thing I knew I was being handcuffed and put into a paddy waggon. Actually, that part was a lie. I would never ask a stranger to pee on me.

Feeling accomplished I weave my way out of the water and wander around the area for a bit before the sun goes down. On my way back home I stopped at a few mobile phone stores to try to get cheaper internet. Good god, its like the internet here is from the stone ages. For $50 I got 3 gigs of bandwidth to use within 30 days. Hell, I sneeze a gig of bandwidth! I had already used up my hotel’s 2 gig limit within 6 days while moderating myself and I didn’t even download a single thing! This is going to get expensive. (keep this in mind Canadians!! http://openmedia.ca/meter !!!!) After buying more internets I went to the grocery store for the rest of the things that help keep me alive. I bought a few staples, some OJ, yogurt, crackers, mint aero mousse, deodorant (after I dropped mine in the toilet). Then came the wall of cheese. What a variety and I had no idea what most of them were. I stand by and watch which one most of the people go for. Tastystrong cheese it is. I think others had the same idea as me, as if they were all waiting for the first person to go for the right cheese. Heres something new, Vegemite. THE Australian spread I’ve heard so much about. I had to get it. I come home and hit the bed hard again.

I woke up again! who woulda thunk it? Today I’m going to hit up the aquarium, but first, time for breakfast. Crackers, cheese and Vegemite… This oughtta go over well. I open the Vegemite, looks like a jar of tar / molasses. Okay, I spread it on a cracker. Not too thick, just a taste. GUHAEHAEAEHAEH@RT#… holy salty! This is terrible! I down a glass of OJ and neutralize my taste buds with some Tastystrong cheese. “ahhhh”, much better. I try again, this time I spread the Vegemite as thinly as humanly possible. Nope, still just as bad. At this point I feel like my life was a big joke and Vegemite was the punchline. Good one universe. At least I know who my real friends are… cheese.

At the aquarium there was a massive line, I reluctantly stand in it because thats what I came here to do dammit! 10 minutes later I was set free inside the aquarium. Look at all the fish! i see a cod and another type of cod and a trout, more cod… I check my ticket to make sure I didn’t just pay $36 to walk around a pet store. Oh here we are, a big, gigantic, animatronic great white shark! Pretty cool I guess, but what was cooler was the life size shark make out of lego. There was a lego exhibit going on, what a treat. Eventually I stumble across a couple jellyfish tanks, some coral, a small octopus, a few different kinds of seahorses and seadragons and a giant cuttlefish. Further down below is a glass tube you can walk through and see all the sharks and rays swim all around you. Thats pretty neat, but all this is doing is making me want to go diving instead. Boy did I wish that I was diving instead. Down the hall there were a pair of Dugongs.
They kinda look like Manatees, but they are not. I hear that these are what sailors saw and though to be Mermaids. I can see the confusion… woozza wozza. Further up the exibit was a big lego moby dick with an amazing lego mural behind it. Pretty remarkable for something that isn’t a fish. The next room was pretty fantastic. I can hear the music coming down the hall. Camille Saint-Saens’ Aquarium movement from The Carnival of the Animals suite. I enter the room and come face to face with a 20ish foot tall glass wall with all sorts of groovy fish swimming about in. I got goosebumps, the glass wall with the music made it feel like I was walking into some weird dream.

That was the end of the exhibit. Fueled by fish I wandered through the gift shop in search of a few pieces of lego to play with at home (curse their superliminal marketing techniques!). Not one single set of lego appealed to me. Every set they had was made up of custom parts. What happened to the old sets that just came with plain blocks and a few wheels. What a bummer that was.
It then started to rain. I went to a mcdonalds for shelter, lunch and to steal some internet. I got myself a small cheeseburger meal. For $4.75 I got a cheeseburger, fries, drink and a sundae! what a deal! I wandered about a whole bunch more, visited some shopping centres and looked at all the expensive goods. The shopping centres here (arcades) are real nice, or at least this one was. Shiny, gold, carpeted and vertical. I stopped into a hobby shop and looked at some toys that I knew I didn’t need. I then dragged myself out of there kicking and screaming because I didn’t get the remote controlled helicopter that I wanted.

Then off I went, back home to sleep. My head was throbbing, I blame the high salt content in Vegemite and the sun. I drank 5 glasses of water and took a Tylenol to no avail. I then cursed myself to sleep, that seemed to have worked.

I’m sure I’m missing alot of fun details now, its been a week and my memory sucks. Next time I promise to keep it short!

avi later

ps. check out my latest pictures from Australia on the left hand side…. click for more photographs!