GigglingCorpse

I don’t know if I ever mentioned this, but a while back i put together a senorspine.net design for Shaun that I really like. It’s just some links to a few of his game profiles and his blog, so it’s not like an actual website, but it’s a good use of the domain name.

May 19, 2008 —

A bus pulls up. I board it.

Hobart passes. So does a brewery, a church. The bus winds up a steep, black road, making sharp turns as the road switches back.

I don’t know where to get off of it.

The bus has nowhere left to go. It has finished its route. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where to go. I watch the bus turn. It goes back the way it came.
I pick a direction. Start to walk.
The sun is bright but it is very cold. It is pretty in a Vancouver-Island sort of way. There is a rainbow in the distance. It arcs over Hobart.
Rain falls.

The road is narrow, and there is no sidewalk. Blind corners are stressful.

Tread marks in the mud lend me little confidence.

Time passes. I come upon maybe a town centre. A cylindrical stone hut sits by the side of the road. I don’t know what it wants. There is a convenience store, across from it a pub, and not much else. It must be Fern Tree. I’m probably in Fern Tree.

I turn left. There is an entrance to a trail. I follow it. It leads into the woods. Branches and leaves distract some rain. There are fern trees here. They are like trees, but topped by ferns. So weird.

I see markers commemorating distance or death, naming trails. A bench made of stump. The rain stops and starts with twisted, liquid logic. The forest divides. I am on a sort of dirt-road. A pipe runs up it, a little left of centre. I play walking-games, and jump from stone to stone.

I leave the trees behind. I walk now on grass. Past picnic benches, and a parked car. There is a vertical and covered trail map. It tells me where I need to go. I don’t ignore it, but do not trust it. I choose my direction accordingly.

It is said that the Organ Pipes walk forms a loop. The trail map said it.
But the lower trail is closed. Something about a fallen tree.

I conquer a five foot step to a grassy plateau. Below are tree covered hills, Hobart, and the ocean. Above a drop of rain.

At times the path is forested, at others stone-covered slopes where the trail becomes slightly smaller but no more evenly arranged rocks. At times it is open.

I perspire, not much at all. Still, it feels strange with fingers numb and extremities tingling from cold.

It is 2:20 pm, but it is winter. The sun will set early, not long from now. I’ve reached the end of the trail.
I’ll have to hurry to beat the dark.

I run down the mountain, stepping only on outcropped rock, and walk in turns. I come as close as I have in years to turning my ankle (it’s not very close) but have at least a drop and loose rock to blame.

I pass the picnic benches and find once more the wide-dirt-and-piped-path. I come out on a road. Not at all where I’d been before. I should really organize my time better.
It’s go back or follow the road. Going back is for quitters. And the road leads downward.

The road ends at another. I don’t know where I am.

Personal, Travels Australia, Design, Shaun

Guys I am so full of three emotions right now. But enough of that. Here is an unrelated post. It also contains no useful, technical, or interesting information.

May 18, 2008 —

I don’t remember much of the flight. There are some vague memories of cloud fields pale and blue, and then I was getting off the plane. It was 8 am and both the people I’d met so far had been friendly and even helpful. Probably because it was so early. You know how people love mornings.

I explored Hobart. Everything was closed and there was no one to bee seen. I thought this strange.
Where was everyone?

And there in the distance I saw a gathering; a mass of people so dense and deep I found myself backing cautiously away.

It was 8:32 am and I’d decided that Hobart was a pretty sweet city. But will it still be sweet when its presumed occupants magically appear?

I smoked my head coming out of the internet room. It was a doorway meant for midgets.

Personal, Travels Australia, Rants and Stories

When I got on the ferry my sunglasses were whole and intact. Sometimes I’d have to bend them back into shape, or pick up and pop back in a lens or two, but over all they were functional and stylish. I wouldn’t ask for anything more out of a pair of sunglasses.

Guys, that was not at all the case by the end of the voyage. It wasn’t even the case by the time I got off the deck and into the heart of the ship. One arm fell from its socket and would not re-attach without the assistance of an adhesive. But no one I asked seemed to have duct tape.

It wasn’t long before the matching arm detached. At least everything failed at around the same time. That is the wonderful mark of an uniformly produced product.

I don’t know how you feel about the search for new sunglasses, but I strongly dislike it. I buy cheap glasses – from gas stations, drug stores, and the like – and treat them poorly. By the time they break I’ve usually become attached to the point where I want basically the same pair. And such specific desires lead only to disappointment and frustration.

It was in the midst of dread when I remembered how I had come by my now broken aviators.

I was in Australia, working and living. My sister was there, for a time, and while I spent my week malnourished and hard at work, she traveled to and experienced the far off land of Cairns where the sun shone bright and long, and her without sunglasses. She bought some, but in her pride not from the children section. And so she passed the time with glasses too large to fit comfortably on her head.

A trip to Australia required it, and so I had sunglasses of my own. But when she returned she gave me hers, and I promptly retired my prior pair. The ones she had purchased were so much cooler. Who knows, maybe she doesn’t even buy sun glasses from gas stations?

The important thing being that I have a backup pair, and, even better, I remember exactly where I stored them!

Good news, it looks like I won’t have to buy a new pair of sun glasses just yet, after all.

And to compare:

Personal, Uncategorized Australia

I stole this from Facebook because I thought we could all learn valuable lessons from it.

So I was sitting on a picnic-styled bench in Australia city when I look to my right only to see a Taco Del Mar! But then I realized it wasn’t so much a Taco Del Mar as a pizza place featuring design elements similar to those of taco del mar, except more green and yellow to taco del mar’s blue and yellow.
Basically had my hopes raised and my heart broken, but then I woke up because that is what happens at the end of nightmares.

This is a lesson to us all re: brand theft and also that delicious is Taco Del Mar’s middle name.

Some people came over the other night for zombies and cake – a delicious combination. It was an exciting night, and even a few ninjas met their match.

Also I slept for like 15 hours last night. :S That is not at all our style, and I don’t know who to accurately blame. It was snowing when I woke, which subtracted from the confusion and disgust in a negative manner.

Oh, I ordered business cards. Mostly to appease those who kept asking about them. What will we talk about now?

I’ve made a horrible mistake.

They should arrive at around the 13th of March. Fitting?

Uncategorized Australia