The Yearly With Fodder

It's been a wild ride, and now it is time for it to end.

I smashed my previous consecutive blog streak of 120, with my final number being 365. I don't intend on blogging tomorrow, and I'm happy for the streak to die out - to be honest, it's a relief, more than anything else. I did kinda cheat, pre-writing some of the blog posts, to make up for the days in which I wouldn't have time to write / wouldn't have internet access, but such is life when you're working full time and trying to do other things, too.

I've been asked by a lot of people why I wanted to do this. The biggest part was just the challenge - to see if I could. As MrFodder says, I'm the Queen of high effort, low reward activities, and this is definitely one of those, at least on the face of it. I combined this with my challenge to spend at least $400 a month on non-necessities (i.e. not counting rent and bills and stuff), and the idea behind it was to push myself to do things that I wouldn't normally do - things that I either considered "not my thing" or things that I normally wouldn't want to spend money on. I've always thought that people tend to settle in their favourite spot on the couch, and they'll yell at the TV screen how X player is the worst in the world and that they could do better.

But if you're just sitting on the couch, you don't understand what it's like to be in X's shoes. There are so many perspectives other than yours, and unless you push yourself to try something different, you'll be forever stuck in that part of the couch that has moulded itself around your ass, and not grow as a person.

Not that I think this is necessary for everyone, but being able to empathise with people and see things from their point of view is really important to me. As I'm slowly moving out of my comfort zone, and talking to people I thought I had nothing in common with, I'm realising that we're not so different, and getting to know a "jock" who wouldn't touch a computer game with a 10ft pole isn't as difficult as I thought. Not only that, but there are things that I've learned from him that I've taken on board to shape myself into the person that I want to be.

It's been a difficult but interesting journey, and this post is shaping up to be a long one, so despite what I just said above, I'd recommend settling into the moulded shape of your favourite chair.

January

The first month of the challenge, and we spent nearly half of it in Japan. A side effect of this challenge was that I pushed myself to do things other than shopping and eating while in Japan, and we did some cool things, like seeing a samurai kembu performance, and watching a sumo fight. The highlight for me was definitely the chicken ramen instant noodle factory tour, and that brand of chicken ramen has made its way into our home back in Australia. I built my own computer for the first time, and it took a lot longer than I thought it would.

February

Following all the eating from Japan, I realised I weighed a lot more than I wanted to, so I decided to take up running and work towards being able to run 10kms. Michael and I finally had our tartes aux pommes bake-off, and I won, though I really didn't deserve to, as his tart tasted much better than mine, which fuelled me to improve even more. I tried to make soufflé for the first time (and failed). I went to see The Consouls perform, a video games jazz band, and they were amazing. I volunteered at a tech conference, and heard a lot of great speakers.

March

Jal finally solved the Truman chips mystery, and it was nothing to do with race, age or gender, and everything to do with the fact that I don't drink soft drinks. I borrowed a friend's son for 2 hours, and that was probably the most exhausting thing I've done all year, and that includes going to work on very little sleep, and getting up early to run 10kms. I gave my phone number to a stranger who seemed nice, but then asked me a weird question and I stopped responding to her. I lined up far too long for OK doughnuts (a very Melbourne experience). I went to the Arnold Classic, but didn't get to meet Arnie, and I also saw some French movies, including an incredibly bizarre movie that still makes me think, "What the f#$% happened?". I put together a parody of Mean Girls and said goodbye to GD.

April

I saw Rove McManus at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Began the 12 week body transformation fitness challenge. D challenged me to a Dota 2 match, where it would be 3 against 1 (me being the 1). I started training to play mid. MrFodder and I went to the Wonders of the World Lego exhibition, which was amazing (and definitely something old me would have considered a waste of money). I took part in Premiere's Active April again, contributing many hours of workouts to my suburb's stats, and training with Pharmacist at the gym.

May

I ordered my first lockpicking set, and tried to soothe rising nuclear tensions in Calm Down, Stalin. I volunteered at BAM. I failed many times at making a sponge cake, but got there in the end. I took part in Melbourne Knowledge Week. I went out drinking and didn't spill any secrets. It was also the first time I threw up due to too much alcohol - not fun. I also got some Shadow Fiend coaching. I lost to D at mini-golf, and saw an art exhibition (Van Gogh and the Seasons).

June

The fated 3v1 Dota 2 match finally happened, and I won! Adam West passed away. I gave up a lot of the most recent technologies, including lights, and had to resort to using candles after the sun went down (thankfully I didn't set the house on fire). Attended the Good Food and Wine show, and also finally hit 10kms! I beat Captain in a choc-chip cookie bake-off, though it was technically a tie. The 12 week challenge ended, and I didn't really get very far.

July

Saw Book of Mormon (very funny in a crude kind of way, check it out if you're in Melbourne!). Made a pact with someone that if I was going to cheat on MrFodder, I'd cheat with him instead of anyone else, which seems like a stupid idea, now that I think about it. Tried to eat on $15 in a week (and failed). Went to an MSO concert which was a tribute to Mozart. Played some sub-900 MMR games of Dota 2 - that was kinda nice, but then became a struggle. Won my first Dota 2 battle cup, with Pharmacist, redbeanpork, MrMoustache and one of MrMoustache's friends. Went to Fiji and avoided signing up for one of those "holiday share" scams.

August

Found Soulcry again, in FFXIV, though we still haven't played Dota 2 together, and I haven't really spoken to him since his hard drive died. Started my multilingual Disney music collection with some French CDs. Saw a couple of movies at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Stalked people for the sake of my nation in Orwell. Got told that someone filmed me watching some "inappropriate adult videos" and they'd release it if I didn't pay them money, which I never paid them (did anyone happen to get one of these videos sent to them, because if they did, I'd like a copy as there was a great video I saw earlier in the year that I haven't been able to find again, and maybe they happened to record it?). I managed to get six MrBrioches together to try my coffee ice-cream. Went to a rally in support of gay marriage. Finally unfriended someone that I've been meaning to unfriend for years.

September

Met some really cool people and destroyed the One Ring™ with them in the Lord of the Rings board game. Had my first HSP... and lived to tell the tale. Went to a Legend of Zelda concert, and nearly cried from the nostalgia. Joined Captain at a VFL finals game (his team lost, but he was happy that he got to see Mason Cox play). Lined up for more doughnuts, and cupcakes on Studio Ghibli day. Got my first sports injury (runner's knee). Went to a trivia night, and lost due to being terrible at the music round. Sent my first not-suspicious suspicious package. Learned a lot about application security at the OWASP AppSec Day. Joined redbeanpork at a Japanese speech contest, and Pharmacist joined us at the NGV for a Hokusai exhibit. Saw a Shakespeare play. Watched the AFL grand final for the first time (spoilers: Tigers won).

October

Bought a mini-SNES, and relived my childhood with MrFodder playing Donkey Kong Country (that game was so much harder than I remembered). Ran in the Melbourne Marathon, making that my first official 10km run! Made a short stop-motion animation with MrFodder at the Aardman exhibition at ACMI. Complimented someone's moustache, and started a long series of awkward events with NiceBeardGuy. Went to PAX (as an attendee, not an enforcer).

November

Added Japanese songs to my collection of Disney music. Went to the Shrine of Remembrance for  Remembrance Day. Nearly broke up with MrFodder over Mario Kart. Nearly melted at the Sweet Expo. Paid off my HECS debt!

December

Saw some movies at the Japanese Film Festival. Sent the second of my non-suspicious suspicious packages, and got a suspicious package in return. Had the next of my awkward encounters with NiceBeardGuy, this time involving bananas. Watched an indoor cricket match, and then an outdoor cricket match (The Ashes on Boxing Day). Was part of the studio audience for The Yearly with Charlie Pickering (MrFodder and I watched the actual show last week, and it wasn't as good as watching it live, strangely enough, maybe because I'd heard all the jokes already). Saw Murder on the Orient Express at the Openair Cinema. Saw Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. Baked a crapton of cookies. And now here we are.

Side note: I didn't have a spare post to blog about it in the end, but I tackled soufflé again (with the leftover egg whites from when I made the custard ice-cream), and I did it! My culinary white whale.

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Has it been a good experience? Yes. Has it been a bad experience? Yes. I started out strong, full of enthusiasm, and was signing up for events left, right and centre. I'm not sure when it happened, but I hit a wall. Perhaps it's my introverted nature, and I had exhausted my reserves of human interaction powder, or perhaps it's just because of other life events, but the whole thing started to become a chore.

I also began to notice that I was becoming one of those people that I detest - an Instaglammer (I'm making this word up): someone who only does things in order to give the illusion on social media that their life is so much more glamorous than it actually is. There were a lot of things that I did this year that I found interesting, but I didn't have time to try them again because I felt compelled to do new things so that I could blog about them.

Another question that I often get asked is how long it takes to write a post. I average about an hour, but that's just the writing part of the post, that doesn't take into account the time it takes doing whatever it is I'm writing about, or the travel time, or the time spent finding things to do. It honestly felt like a very demanding part-time job, which was tough to keep up on top of my full-time job. Probably another contributing factor to me running out of steam part-way through, and the relief I will feel once I hit publish on this post.

Overall, it has been a good learning experience, and as much as I grew to resent it over the year, I am glad that I did it. I've definitely become a lot more confident over the year. Maybe it has something to do with getting better at playing mid heroes in Dota 2, or maybe it has to do with the fact that I'm less afraid about trying new things and failing. I've failed a lot throughout the year, and you know what? I'm still here. I don't have people pointing and laughing at me on the street when I walk by. In fact, I've discovered that I have a great support network of amazing people who help me pick up the pieces.

Which brings me to the next part: the thanks. Of course, MrFodder is going to get a huge mention here. Having to do this challenge is a huge burden, not just on me, but on him. The frantic rushes home so that I'll have enough time to smash out a blog post before the midnight deadline. Many hours spent sitting at cafés in Japan, leeching the free-WiFi so that I can publish my blog post. Me disappearing for hours on end, just so I do things to write about. The extra chores he has picked up so that our house doesn't fall over while I write, and so we still have things to eat. He didn't sign up for this challenge, but in a way, he has had to do it, too, and I couldn't have done it without him.

Pharmacist, who has pointed out at lot of mistakes in my posts (ninja mention of QCN who also did the same). Who reminds me when it's getting close to midnight that I still haven't posted yet, so I really need to wrap things up and hit publish. I nearly called it quits a few times, but a part of what kept me going was that I didn't want to let him down. He was always available for me to have short discussions to gather my thoughts, and I'm very lucky to have a friend like him.

redbeanpork - the food master. I feel like I can hardly take credit for a lot of my food adventures this year, since a lot of it is inspired by him. He seems to have this innate ability to find something so delicious that I could have just finished eating a three-course meal, and then I'll open up a recipe he has linked and feel hungry all over again. He is also definitely the source of the more art-y related activities I've done this year, which is something I wouldn't have done in the past, but I'm glad that I did.

Of course, the Dota 2 support from both of them, having to go through my growing pains as a mid player, and all the complaining. Which is where I should mention MrMoustache, who I feel is going through a lot of the same problems I'm going through while playing Dota 2. And it was nice to have someone to nerd out about Star Wars with! He pushed me to compliment NiceBeardGuy, and even though that didn't go very well, it has opened up the world of compliments to me. I complimented someone's T-shirt the other day, and another person's beard, and both of them looked really happy about it.

Over the year, I've become a lot closer to A, and I think we've both helped each other get out of our comfort zones. I think we're close enough now that we're comfortable enough to talk about those niggling self-doubts, and we can have an honest talk about each other's strengths and weaknesses. In particular with running, I don't think I could have made it to 10kms without his support.

Jal and Michael have contributed to so many interesting discussions, and there are quite a lot of blog posts that started because of something I talked about with them. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing that Jal seems to treat my stalker nature as a challenge, as I showed him my notes on him and he seems to be encouraging it by saying mysterious statements that are almost a challenge to find out more. D helped by being the subject of a lot of posts, though I don't think he knows yet.

All the people who helped me take pictures, or posed for one: MrFodder, Special K, D, Jal, TS, Chris, Pharmacist, redbeanpork, Michael, TH, a random person at Fed Square, the pottery lady in Kyoto, Goaty, GD.

Finally, here are my stats for the year.

As of the time of posting, I have 5257 views (only Wordpress lets me see yearly stats), across 2982 unique visitors, with 5 likes and 26 comments.

My most popular post (not counting the home page), was the Java 7 certification exam post I wrote a few years ago, followed by the second certification exam post. The most popular post I wrote this year was "Bad Brother is Watching", about the adult video recording scam.

There were 62 posts that I categorised as having done something new that I wouldn't normally have done. That's about 1 new thing every 6 days. I made 46 posts about things that I had cooked / baked.

Unsurprisingly, my top category (other than "365") was food, with the top 6's stats as follows:

1. food - 73 posts
2. around-town - 67 posts
3. work - 29 posts
4. geeky - 28 posts
5. games - 27 posts
6. dota2 - 26 posts

I attended 15 different talks throughout the year.

I averaged 783.2 words per post, with the shortest post being 47 words (Road to 10k), the longest being 4068 words (Kiev Major - Main Event: Liquid vs Newbee, Game 1), and a median of 654 words. Here's a chart of my word count over time.

Thank you for joining me on this adventure. Let's hope I don't do anything stupid like this again for a while.

A Stardew Valley is Born

When it comes to reviewing the year, it would be remiss if I didn't mention a game other than Dota 2 which has eaten up a large chunk of it. Given how much I have to say about the game, it's worthy enough of its own post.

This game was one of the games club's monthly review games, but I didn't have time to go to the meeting that month, unfortunately. The game is based on the Harvest Moon type games, as the creator said he wasn't happy with the way that series was headed, so he decided to create his own version of the game, trying to deal with some of the issues he saw in the franchise. As you can imagine, farming plays a large part in the game, as well as getting to know the local townspeople (along with trying to find a partner). The only Harvest Moon games I played were the one on the Gamecube and the PSP. I really hated how tedious farming was in the GC version, and I barely got to interact with the townspeople, because my entire day was spent tending to the farm, and so I got quite bored. The PSP version went in the opposite, as eventually, you unlock a robot who does all the chores around the farm except harvesting and selling the plants, so I got quite bored.

I can't remember who it was, but I was talking to someone who mentioned how easy games are these days, because there are walkthroughs / guides for every little part of the game. There's no sense of exploration and discovery anymore. It becomes a matter of looking up the most efficient path from A to B, and in games like this, learning which of the crops has the best cost-to-income-to-time ratio. The game stops being about playing the game, and just becomes an exercise of you executing someone else's set of instructions on how "best" to play the game. So I decided to go into this game mostly blind - which meant I couldn't look anything up, and the only help I could get was from talking to other people who had played the game (that ended up mainly being MrFodder and IP).

Of course, being me before I hung up my hat, I had to start building dossiers on people, because you pick up quests to do things for the townspeople, and I have a horrible memory for faces.

Even worse, because I couldn't look things up, I had to write down things to save myself from constantly having to walk somewhere to find information. (I later found out that you can access the community centre info from the pause screen. I also didn't realise that not every task in the community centre requires you to get everything, so I could have finished them a lot earlier if I had known!)

I found the game really pleasant, though slightly repetitive in parts. Fishing is fairly straightforward in this game, and you don't need to use bait if you don't want to, so it's one less thing you have to keep track of. To catch a fish, all you need to do is keep the fish within the green bar.

My first experience with gift-giving was this:

So for the most part, I gave up on gifts, and becoming friendly with the townspeople, because it seemed like too much effort, and I'd be better off doing it all at once. But I slowly became more friendly with them by doing quests for them, and as you become more friendly, you unlock cutscenes with them and find out more about their personality. I decided I was going to make Leah my waifu (because the game seems to allow you to develop romantic relationships with people of either gender), but I guess I was being too creepy.

I thought I should back off a bit.

The people of the town are growing on me though, and I really want to see what happens to them. (Plus, there's an achievement for becoming good friends with all of them..... *sigh* The things that motivate me....)

I also made the mistake of doing far too much farming, which left me very little time to go to the mines and get metals to upgrade my stuff.

This means I was even more disadvantaged later, as I didn't have the crafting materials required to build enough sprinklers, which saves time and energy as you don't need to water your plants every day (I have one in the above screenshot, which waters 8 plants at a time). MrFodder said it would have been far more efficient to have a smaller farm and just explore the mines in the early game. We both started a farm at around the same time, but he was already mining gold in Winter, whereas I was still in the upper copper levels.

I do find the seasons tend to drag on a bit, but it's probably a necessary evil, as most plants only grow during certain seasons, and some plants (like grapevines), only need to be planted once, and will continue to produce fruit all season. Those plants wouldn't be nearly as viable if it weren't for the 28 day seasons.

It is becoming a bit frustrating not being able to look up people's likes and dislikes, but I do feel that it is a bit more "authentic", as if I were to befriend people in real-life, I can't really look up a guide on what they like or don't like (or is that untrue, as a lot of people have their "likes" on Facebook....?). It is pretty exciting to discover new things though, like when I find an NPC I haven't seen before, who sells seeds I haven't used before. I'm tempted to do this for more games, at least to start with.

I find Stardew Valley is an enjoyable game, but I don't think I'd be able to play it if I didn't have Netflix to watch in the background. It's a nice relaxing game, and a good way to wind down before bed, but at this point, not engaging enough to capture my entire attention. I still really enjoy it though, but if it weren't for Netflix, I'd probably only be able to play it a few in-game days at a time, and probably only for a couple of real-time days at a time. It is one of those games that makes you want to play it whenever you're not playing it. Whenever IP brings it up during lunch, and talks about the latest things he has done on his farm, I feel that compulsion to play again.

It is definitely a huge improvement over my experience with Harvest Moon games. I love the sprinkler system, as I still feel involved with my farm, and I love that you can build a stable to get a horse to ride around on (and I also like that, even though it's cruel, you can leave your horse behind anywhere, and it'll be back in its stable the next morning).

Le Fabuleux Destin

I wasn't planning on ending up here, I actually stopped by the Haunted Bookshop first, but it was closed, so I walked around looking for lunch, and noticed some pictures on the walls.

As hipster as this is going to sound, it's not too unusual to see artwork on the walls of an alley in Melbourne. I followed it around the corner, and came across this sign.

It's a mini-exhibit, where some local artists have been given one of the characters from the latest Star Wars movie, and asked to create something. Porgs are also included...

I thought a lot of the artwork was really cool. There are limited edition T-shirts (I was told that only 100 are printed of each design), with the artwork printed on them, which you can buy in the store for $75 each. If you head upstairs, you can see some of the original art that was created, and some other art, including this clever neon sign (the first half of which is today's photo).

I think this picture of Finn, by Adnate, looks awesome, but the price tag is a bit high for me ($8,500). The picture is tinted red because of the lighting in the room.

This picture of Kylo Ren, by Anthony Lister, is $17,500. I don't think I'll ever be able to afford pieces of art like this and hang it in my house.

There's also an app you can download, and there's some AR stuff with the images. I didn't check it out, because I'm not really a fan of downloading random apps to my phone, but if you are, and want to use your home's WiFi to do it, the app is called "EyeJack". Anyway, this was on the corner of Bourke St and McKillop St, if you want to check it out.

I've found a lot of weird stuff walking around on my lunch break.

Here's an ad that I never answered...

Here's something that I wanted to follow up on, but never remembered, and I feel like it's too late. Sadly, part of the ad seems to have been ripped / spray painted over, but here's what I can make out.

Found on the 26th June, 2017:

... for funny guy met last saturday
...!!!
...lous or weird to some people, but I'm searching for a
...... not remember his name, started with M ->
... ?) All I know is that his birthday is at the end of
...), he's about 1,93m tall, athletic, has blond hair
...... a sandwich kid). I met him on my way home
rk.... Victoria Markets. He works as a constructor at
...lding... ment (Queen Street). We spent the night
...r at ... nders Station, Victoria Bridge) and heaeded (sic.)
... my h... ts located at A'Beckett Street (Nomands
... ackers) 

...ome reason h... phone and we didn't exchange facebook
... cts... 

...body knows him, works with him or if he sees this himself,
...ntact me!!!

I found it near the corner of Queen and Bourke St, and there's a building that's been under construction there for what feels like forever. I kinda guessed that since the paper is so torn up and spray painted over already, that it has been there for quite a while (this is why you should put a date on your notes!), given that the surrounding posters were pristine.

I really wanted it to work out like it does between Nino and Amelie in Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, where she picks up a photo album he leaves behind. He puts up a lost sign, with his contact details, which she sees the next time she's at the train station.

She calls and ends up calling an adult shop (which happens to be where Nino works), which puts her off. She goes to the shop to try and find Nino, but he's not there that day, as he also works at an amusement park.

Rather than actually leave the book at the store, or meet up with him like a regular person, she leaves a photo telling him where to be, starting a series of events where she leaves clues on how he can find her, eventually leading him to where she works, only for her shyness to take over, and she finds she's unable to actually talk to him.

I really don't like the Love at First Sight trope, but there's just something about the way that it's done in this movie that's so endearing. Probably because creating a silly treasure hunt for someone to follow is exactly the kind of thing I would dream up as the only way I could tell someone I have romantic feelings for them.

Unfortunately, even though I've been keeping my eye out for a follow up sign, I haven't seen one. Which either means the person found the guy they were looking for, and didn't feel the need to follow up (my preferred version of the truth), or it was yet another missed connection.

Vanilla Custard Ice-Cream

I tried using the vanilla custard from Donna Hay's vanilla slice recipe (minus the cornflour and water) to see if it can be turned into ice-cream. And the answer is... no. I think it needs a bit more sugar so it isn't as hard when it's frozen. I also changed it a bit, because cream and milk comes in 200ml cartons. Maybe that's why I needed more sugar.

Ingredients
400ml milk
400ml single cream
60g unsalted butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
150g caster sugar
6 egg yolks

Method
Heat milk, cream, butter, vanilla and sugar until just boiled. Whisk mixture into egg yolks. Allow to cool for at least 4 hours in the fridge, but make sure to keep whisking every now and again so the butter doesn't settle on top. Churn in ice-cream machine.

The result...?

It's just vanilla ice cream....

But I made it because I know MrFodder loves custard. And ice-cream has origins in custard, so I thought it would be nice to make this as an accompaniment for Christmas pudding. I never knew what the difference between vanilla custard and vanilla ice-cream was, and now I know: vanilla ice-cream has been churned and frozen.

You're welcome, everyone.

Michael gave me the recipe for the custard he made for his tarte aux pommes, so I'll try that as an ice-cream flavour, as I think it'd go really well with apple-pie. Mmmm...

Anyway, the Christmas pudding had unexpected alcohol (cider and brandy), and I'm full of turkey, pork, duck and ham, so that'll be all for today's post. I made it past halfway to 500...

Training Day

When my mum wanted me to buy one of those off-the-plan apartments in North Melbourne, I remember one of the selling points being that it would be really close to the soon-to-be-developed Parkville station. That was nearly 8 years ago, and there is still no Parkville station (though to my mum's credit, the apartment probably would have made money since it's so close to Melbourne University and not too far from RMIT Uni's CBD campus, so I wouldn't have had too much trouble finding tenants).

Nico told me about some new stations that would be built, and that was also years ago and still hasn't happened. But it seems that we're finally getting a resolution to one of the biggest problems our current train network has: all roads lead to Rome - or in this case Flinders St Station / the city loop in general.

Here's the current map, which I grabbed off PTV's website today: https://www.ptv.vic.gov.au/getting-around/maps/

If you look closely, you'll see that all the train lines join up in the middle, with Flinders St station being a giant bottleneck.

Even the game Mini Metro has an achievement for it.

A lot of the infrastructure around Melbourne's train network is quite old, and it's not that rare to have various faults on some of the train lines. When one of those faults is in the "city loop" (Flinders St, Southern Cross, Flagstaff, Melbourne Central, Parliament), the entire train network experiences significant delays for hours.

And that doesn't even touch on the problems that you have co-ordinating trains going in and out of the loop - so one train being delayed can cause a butterfly effect of issues, depending on which line it is, as many of the platforms at Flinders St are shared between multiple train lines. I've lost count of the number of times I've been waiting for a train at Flinders, only to be told to run to another platform, because my train has been moved there. Because I'm usually reading or something, I normally miss the initial announcements, so by the time I'm at the other platform, the train is gone, and I end up having to go back to the original platform and waiting another 20 minutes for the next train. #firstWorldProblems

So when I heard about the new Metro Tunnel that's being built, I was super happy.

Despite North Melbourne station being renamed to West Melbourne station, to make room for the new North Melbourne station that's being constructed, I'm really excited about the new stations. And look, that Parkville station that was mentioned to me years ago is back on the map!

The idea behind it is to offer an alternative route through the CBD for trains. Passengers can cross from one to the other via Melbourne Central - State Library, or Flinders St - Town Hall, and having a station near St Kilda Rd will be really nice as there are a lot of companies located around there (though I don't think the train station is quite that far down St Kilda Rd), not to mention a couple of large high schools.

Based on my extensive civil planning skills (*cough* playing Cities: Skylines *cough*), train lines make people happy!

(If you ignore the part where building a train station makes the people in the immediate vicinity unhappy, due to the noise pollution.)

It was definitely one of the most important factors for me when choosing a place to rent / buy, as I don't particularly like driving places and I don't like how hard it is to predict when a tram / bus is going to arrive.

Sadly, there were some casualties in this project. The Swanston St KFC had to close down, but also the Swanston St McDonald's, which has always been an icon for me. I don't know how long it has been like this, but the sign above it actually says "Macca's", because that's slang for McDonald's in Australia.

I've spent so much time there, and at the KFC a few stores down, it feels weird not seeing them there anymore (the whole area is boarded up at the moment, I assume to build the tunnel between Flinders St station and the new Town Hall station). It's all for the greater good (the greater good), so I can't complain. Melbourne is growing, and it would be nice to have a train system that grows with it.

Day at the Cricket

M was the first one who convinced me to go to a Boxing Day test match. All I remember about it is that I had a chocolate shortbread Christmas tree melting away, and I kept confusing seagulls for the cricket ball. Oh, and it was hot. Really hot.

Over a series of years, I've learned enough about going to Boxing Day test games to avoid getting sunburned, and enough to actually follow the game. It still confuses me that everyone wears baggy whites, but at least I know that the ones holding cricket bats are the ones on the batting team. But I'm still not able to pick out any individual person - I have no idea how you can see anyone's face from this far away without binoculars. Maybe people just remember where each fielder is standing. Or some people may have distinctive hair / hats / sunglasses.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I failed to get regular tickets this year, and only had standing room tickets. It wasn't too bad though, as I got there early enough to get a good spot where I could lean on the railing, and when nobody was behind me, I could set up on the railing to rest my legs.

The view wasn't that bad either. If I stood up against the railing, this was my view:

I opted to stand a bit further back though, as I struggled to stand comfortably against the rails at the front.

I also stopped by the Specsavers stall to pick up a USB fan (pretty cool. It says it's micro-USB / lightning, but it looked like it was USB-C compatible). I didn't end up needing it, as the standing area is under cover, and seems to be air-conditioned, as it was pretty cool. I also stopped by the ASICS stand to pick up a radio to listen to the commentary (ABC radio).

Australia won the toss and elected to bat.

Just before the first ball, it was crazily packed outside with people waiting to get their bags checked so they could come inside.

I think the commentators said the crowd was going to be 80,000 people today. It didn't feel that crowded where I was, although at about 11am, the area I was in was full. Strangely, nobody wanted to stand next to me, but they did seem to think that the area I was standing in was a dumping ground for empty beer cups.

Pretty sure anyone walking by would think I was an alcoholic! (Spoilers: I had 0 cups of beer spilled on me this year - hooray!) This English guy asked me to mind his tray of beers. I got called "love" a lot, surrounded by English cricket fans. I was in heaven.

My current top 5 list of favourite accents are:

1. Russian
2. English (but not cockney)
3. Irish
4. New Zealander
5. French

I really liked the fact that there was such a specific penalty for trying to get onto the ground ($9,5145.20). They didn't want to round it down to $9,500? Maybe they thought the extra $14.20 was where most people cracked and decided, "It's not worth jumping onto the ground.".

I was determined to join the Barmy Army today, and I thought the fact that I bumped into these people on the way to the 'G was a sign.

One of them asked if I wanted to take a selfie with them, but I declined, because I don't like selfies.

Then person I was standing behind in line was this guy.

Unfortunately, I saw where the Barmy Army was sitting, and it wasn't near where I had tickets. Also, one thing I should mention about the standing area is that it's an echo chamber. So hard to hear anything, and sadly, I couldn't hear the songs from the Barmy Army (btw, they even have a website for their songbooks! I think they're quite clever). It's weird because I remember the cricket being really quiet, except for the odd cheers whenever something happened. That wasn't the case today. At all. There was a dull hum of conversation the entire time, and wow, when the no ball from heaven was declared for David Warner, I nearly went deaf. 

I meant to film it, but I noobed up and just took a photo.

I guess all the English supporters left, because everyone there was cheering their heads off. My legs were getting tired, and so I decided once Warner was out, I would continue my mission to join the Barmy Army. I also got to hear the famous Jimmy Anderson song that Pharmacist prepped me on (here's one with good audio, but the video might make you throw up, and here's one where the video is fine, but parts of the audio overlap), including some history between him and, Michael Clarke and George Bailey (YouTube video).

It seems that a bunch of people had left by then, maybe to get ahead of the traffic. TS told me that the Barmy Army tend to stay around until the last ball, so I walked into that area, pretending that I was looking for my friends. I managed to get this close.

But then I felt bad, as I hadn't paid for a ticket here, so I shouldn't be sitting there, and went back to the standing area, but this time behind where the Barmy Army were sitting, so I could do more English accent eavesdropping.

I finally understand why there was a push to ban the Mexican wave. I couldn't see it from where I was standing, and so every now and again, there would be this loud, "Booooooooooo" from the crowd, which I thought meant I missed something happening on the field, but I later realised was the Mexican wave hitting the MCC section of the stand (MCC = Melbourne Cricket Club, which is an exclusive club that you pretty much need to join the waiting list when you are born to get in before you die, but does give you access to reserved sections of the MCG). But from the players' perspective, they're probably in the zone and suddenly hear some booing from the crowd. You have to have some pretty good mental resilience to tune that out. 

Speaking of, booing is a disgusting thing, in my opinion. If someone on the opposing team plays well, there's no need to boo them. If you are sad that it might make your team lose, then just don't say anything at all. These players are some of the best in the world, and they deserve better than that.

Lastly, a shoutout to the people who keep the green so wonderfully manicured. Look at those straight lines, and that perfectly mowed lawn.

I didn't get nearly as much reading done as I wanted to because I was mesmerised by that lawn.