b r a v e c r e a t u r e s

There will be Blue Birds over the White Cliffs of Dover? The bluebird isn't native to Europe or the UK. Some stupid american songwriter came up with that one. An early example of the US foisting there culture (and animals) on the rest of the world.

In Australia, any bird stupid enough to sing just because its happy gets eaten by the giant, incredibly toxic, jumping spiders - unless its covered in inch long, razor sharpt spikes.

This should tell you everything you need to know about the emotional life of my homeland.

12 months.

12 months I have been in Europe. I arrived here last year just in time for Europride in Madrid. I came here from Melbourne, from winter and darkness, sadness and woe. I came with my self esteem just reconstructed after a dire few years.

I came here to Madrid, one of the proudest, most regal cities in the world, to sunshine and summer, friends and excitement and warmth of all kinds.

And since then I have been happier than I can remember.

Oh not mindless, unexamined happiness. There have been ups and downs, annoyances, trouble and a little strife. But the abiding impression I have is of happiness.

So this year I have come back to Madrid to celebrate the anniversary of my arrival here, on this continent, in this new life. My return from the moon where I had allowed myself to be cast out. My return to myself.

Last night I had dinner with a few of the people who greeted me to this new life of mine. New friends and old. We ate and laughed; joked and teased each other (as is the way of my clan); flirted and lavished physical affection.

Now I am back from outer space. I love it here, and I intend to stay.

I have had a bit of a break from travel.  To be honest, Rio was a little extravagant so I needed to let the cash build up again. But now I am back on my ramblings.

This time to Brussels.

Now everyone I told was a little puzzled that I was going to Brussels for Easter. Apparently its the Canberra of Europe - a manufactured capital city whose only real export is legislation. The difference here is that they ALSO export some of the best chocolates in the world.

Whats not to love?

After my trip to Canberra in 2006, I would have liked to take the time to see the European legislature - but it was a quick trip and over Easter so I didn't get a chance. What I did do was look around the old city and it's compact, charming and picture post card perfect. My tour guide also did a lot to make things great. Good conversation goes a long, long way to making me happy.

Apart from just seeing the city, another reason for my trip was La Demence, a regular party in Brussels. Apparently it was off the hook for New Year so I really wanted to go. Well worth the trip. Music, fab; crowd, handsome and international; venue, meh - a flat surface would be nice, and whats with the glass. the floor was COVERED in broken glass. Oh and the french in particular have no idea how to move through a crowd. They are way too pushy and use their elbows way too much. But all up I had a great time.

The best bit however was laying in my hotel room at the Be Manos on Monday morning, with the sun streaming through the windows and snow falling. While its horrible to be out in, for and Australian boy like me, this was one of the most romantic things I have ever seen.

Long story short - Brussels is well worth a quick visit, and La Demence is a great party. I am thinking of going back in July. Yes that good. 

If you are interested there are more pictures of Brussels in my dot mac web gallery. 

I thought it would be worth while to reflect a little on the past year. I set myself a few goals for 2006 so lets have a look at how I did.

First and foremost

> Be happier

Definitely!

After the appallingly unhappy years of 2004 & 2005, '06 has been MUCH better. I have been caring a whole lot less what other people think, been concerning myself with my own stuff and living within my own limits. I had put a lot of pressure on myself to be perfect, get everything right and not fail at anything I do, and that's just not possible I am afraid. I think the biggest thing I am learning is to forgive myself my weaknesses and worry about the things that I can effect and control rather than all the things outside my control.

With a new job has come some opportunities to affirm my capabilities to myself. The last job I had in the US was pretty draining in the end, and with all the other things that were going on behind my back - lies, betrayal, infidelity - my confidence was pretty shaken. This new role has allowed me to regain some of my strength, while the year of so off has taught me to not value myself for my work alone.

> Learn Spanish

Not quite.

Having met quite a number of Francophone's at the start of 2006 I went for French instead.

J'ai étudié French pour six mois avec L'Alliance de Francaise et je jouis l'expérience. My french classes are all of Saturday morning, about 4 hours each week. Its pretty draining, but I like the mental challenge. Apparently I have a good accent and my construction is good, but I need to work a little more on my vocab. I suspect I will try studying a different way this year as I appear to be spending a lot of time shuttling to Sydney on the weekends, which is difficult if my Saturday mornings are taken up.

I am enjoying it a lot though so I don't plan to give it up. I would really like to spend some time in France soon, as I suspect that would really help. I am thinking I might need to relocate for a while to Europe so I can get some immersion.
 
> Physical Adventures

I work out a lot, and mostly I enjoy the exercise, but I feel that gym work is a bit limited and unreal so this year I wanted to do some more physical things. While I didn't get into a really regular routine with anything, I managed a few adventures.
In January of this year I went diving on the Great Barrier Reef with a mate from France, and had a fantastic time. I learnt to dive after visiting the Maldives with Stephen in 1996. I got my certificate after that and went diving a couple of times, but dating an (unadventurous) asthmatic put a bit of a crimp in that so I hadn't been diving for years.

Its a really beautiful and peaceful experience.

Even my overactive cognition slows to a putter when I am underwater and my head is full of only the sounds of my own breathing.

I also went rock climbing a few times, which TOUGH but great. Its made harder for me given that I am nearly 115kgs and that's a lot of weight to dangle from your fingertips. I think there are also some technical skills that I need to learn because I was pretty crap at it, but I think I might go on an adventure weekend this year and see if I can pick a few things up.

Gliding is not exactly a physical adventure, but it was a blast none the less. I had developed over the long dark tea time of the soul that was '04/'05 a bit of an aversion to heights and flying. I found I had gotten really anxious about it, so I figured the best way to deal with that developing fear was to face it.

Gliding is an amazing sensation, peaceful and not at all scary - which surprised me a bit. I didn't go in for any acrobatics, unlike my adventure partner, but next time I will. And i am sure there will be a next time.

I am working my way up to parachuting, but one step at a time I think.

> Finish my Masters

Oops. Didn't get this one done. But you cant do everything. I have until the middle of next year so I still have some time up my sleeve, but I need to get a wriggle on.

> See more of Australia

After travelling in America, I decided that I need to make sure I had seen more of my own home country before I stepped outside again.
This year I managed Cairns, Port Douglas, the Daintree, the Reef, Batemans Bay, Jarvis Bay, Canberra , Byron Bay, Lismore and the Yarra Valley. I want to do some more short trips this year coming and I REALLY want to get to Uluru. I have not seen the desert interior of my country and I want to. I would love to cross the Nullabore on the  Indian Pacific train, or go to Darwin on the Ghan. We will see how those plans come along.

All up I think I did pretty well for 2006, so now its time to start thinking about what's on for 2007. I will make a more definitive list by my birthday in mid January, but for now here are some opening thoughts.

> Plan less, be more in the moment
> Become more financially stable
> Save the deposit for a apartment for my mother and purchase said property
> Complete my Masters thesis
> Disconnect myself completely from my ex (there is still some peripheral entanglement, but I am chipping away at it)
> Travel overseas again
> More physical adventures
 - Abseil
 - Parachute
 - Rafting
 - Snowboarding

As a final note on 2006 I think I will remember it as the year that I learned my heart hadn't grown cold and hard. It seems as badly hurt as I was by my ex, my capacity to be open and trusting was only set aside, not forsaken. While I have been proving this to myself, there is someone who as been a catalyst. I don't know where things are going with him, but I do know that  I am enjoying it and I have missed him a lot while we have been off on our separate, long pre-planned, Christmas getaways.

Things have been a little busy here lately, what with one thing and another, so I (clearly) haven't been writing.

My trusty N80 has a few partial blog entries in it but nothing is complete.

The concern my absence has caused has been palpable here at Brave Creatures where the phone has rung and a letter flooded in.

A concerned neighbour even popped past, although that was to ask me since the Eurovision Song Contest is now sadly past for the year, to stop playing Anna Sahlene. Or at the very least to stop singing along.

So now I am back writing - "fearlessly journaling unchampioned minutiae" is our catch cry‡ here at Brave Creatures and we don't want to disappoint our faithful reader(s?), or at least no more than normal.

So tonight its all about media players in the news. 

In a deal that smacks of about-time-ness and which will have teeth gnashing up at Kiamo Ko Castle, the Seattle lair of the evil empire, the relentless march of the iPod continues for the as the seemingly ubiquitous, byo entertainment device.

The story is that Apple is teaming up with Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM and United to provide a hookup  between your iPod and their in-flight entertainment systems. These airlines are going to offer passengers an in-seat connection which will power and charge iPods during flight and allow the videos to be viewed on the seat back displays.

Woohoo!

For me the next step is kiosks that let you purchase video or music at the airport and sync it to you ipod without using your computer as an intermediate.

Now lets jut compare that little piece of marketing genius from Apple to their, well, "competitors" is a strong word in this case, lets just say "alternative".

Poor Microsoft, and the sadly names "Zune " - the self proclaimed iPod killer. They are managing to underwhelm whole continents of people - without even being released. Most of Europe appears to be getting in ahead of the Christmas rush, and  have started ignoring the Zune now before demand gets too high.

If you haven't heard anything about it yet, in short Zune is MS's new music player and online music service. Its big, its boxy, it not backwards compatible with MS's old music services, it comes in ugly brown, it has nearly pointless WiFi in it and the music store wont be available outside the US until late 2007 - which is basically forever in marketing terms.

The WiFi feature is particularly dumb, it smacks of Seattle bound geeks who have no social skills trying to design a sales channel and attempting to disguise it as a social networking tool. Like a giraffe in high heels - its fun about once, and then it wears completely thin.

And probably has PETA chasing you with a cease and desist order.

Another of its features-not-faults is that it doesn't work with Windows Vista or Windows Media Player 11.

Just pause to absorb that for a second.

It doesnt work with Microsofts own latest generation operating system and media player/management tool. But then why would it, they are only from the same company and are intended to be the hub of Microsofts new media strategy. You have to use the specific Zune software to sync with it - because we needed ANOTHER media management tool.

Oh, and the Zune is incompatible with Microsoft's own PlaysForSure digital rights management standard too.

And it doesn't support podcasts. 

Finally lets just talk about how you "purchase" music - if you ever make it that far. Just to prove that nothing can't be made unnecessarily complicated, the Zune "Marketplace†" doesn't use money. Well not directly.

First you need to buy Microsoft points, the very same ones I haven't managed to spend yet on XBox live yet. The Marketplace only accepts these Points, with an individual track typically costing the equivalent of the iTunes-standard 99 cents.

By forcing users to buy blocks of Points (with a $5 minimum), the Marketplace only has to pay one credit-card processing fee. Nice for them, but clouding the cost from us, since a point isnt worth exactly a dollar.

Points will also persumably make it easier for the Zune Marketplace to institute variable pricing. The music industry wants it desperately. The industry has been pressuring Apple to abandon its flat 99 cent pricing and start charging more for "hot" tracks, but apparently Job is standing firm against the high pitched whining of the media execs.

All up the Zune appears to have been exclusively designed by a committee of marketers from the record companies - and so underwhelming a product that even reviewers cant keep focused on it for more than a few seconds. 

‡ that or either - "what is she wearing" or "you can never have too many hats, gloves or shoes. We're still trying to decide.

†perhaps "Bizaar" would be a better term here than "Marketplace".

On the spur of the moment and with my bosses blessing - nay almost her direct instructions - I am off to stay in Cairns for the weekend with visiting friend from Europe. So don't be looking for sassy blogs from me over the weekend, although the cameraphone will come with and so "Wheres Wobby" should get a workout. Don't miss me too much. Stories and piccies when I get back.

After a smashing nap the witches of East-Lismore, aka Tony, Gil and Rob, were raring to go to the Tropical Fruits Pool Party in downtown Lismore. I have to say, more than usual this party had its share of personalities. Fun and frolicsome as it was, there was a fair amount of strangeness around to behold, but you do get that the day after a party. Some of the characters are well worth noting.

Mr and Mr’s Messy - I don’t think I have ever seem two people who managed only to stumble, never actually walk. They had been like this at the party, and things hadn’t really changed by the time they got to the pool. Word has it they are actually quite bright and sensible under normal circumstances, but G they were having a good time on New Years Day.

Mr Amazing - a 300 year old party godfather who was apparently part of starting it all in Sydney. Certainly his longevity and indulgence are apparent as this is someone who looked like Dorian Greys portrait. Rumor has it he has been in Europe for the last few years.

According to Gil, and who am I to argue, he is some sort of Disco God and an amazing character to boot. If you ask me however there was certain Lestat look about him. I suspect he has been in Paris (or similar) sucking the life force out of barely post pubescent rent boys and stealing their designer eye ware. To my certain knowledge, he was wearing at least four different pairs during the day.

Victorias Secret - If you have a fantastic backside, and killer leg you can probably get away with wearing lace panties to a pool party, but in this case the wearer was more Veronicas Closet/Fat Actress than Hiedi Klum. Fashion violations are a serious offence in some parts of the world and this one would have gotten young Victoria hung drawn and quartered. It didnt help that he was doing the super model walk up and down the side of the pool.

Kate Moss - Now I know I was that young and skinny once, but please tell me I didn’t go out in public with that amount of dirty undies showing. This pretty young thing, with unfortunate novelty hair, was giving the heroine shiek thing a good whirl, but all of that country air and sunshine was thwarting his plan. He was in great, if barely post pubecent, shape. But the underpants - I mean, really. What was more distrubing was seeing him out again that night - same outfit, same dirty undies showing.

Fashion comments aside, it was actually a beautiful day. The sun was hot and bright, the pool was cool, the music was fabulous and the people there were on the whole relaxed and having a really good time.

I was lucky to meet a bunch of really nice people including Craig and Tony (hello gorgeous ones), Wayne and Doug, Anthony and the Hobbit. The day was spent laughing, dancing and floating around on the many pool toys and/or handsome men. I personally spent a good hour or so sailing around the pool on the “manage” barge, and I couldnt have been happier

Wonderful.

At the end of it, Tony, Gil and I got back on our broomsticks and headed back home for dinner and a nap before our third party, evening after recovery started.