My lack of Midnight Sun

This is completely unrelated to anything Australian but I wanted to make a note about my current favorite series.

Since it was recommended to me by my former educational assistant's daughter, I have been hooked on a teen series called Twilight. For a short summary it chronicles an unlikely romance between a normal girl and a vampire. Yes, for those of you unfamiliar with it I know it sounds cheesy but it's the best thing I've gotten my hands on in a long time. I bought the first book, read it in one day and promptly bought the second, third and then fourth books (which I sped through in similar style). My recent pastimes have included obsessively re-reading all four books.

Apparently the last of the series, Breaking Dawn incited such strong hatred in so many former fans that they attempted to return their copies. I'm sorry, but who returns books that they've already read? It's not like clothing that falls apart after one wearing. I've had the unpleasant feeling of buying a book, reading it, and then discovering that I didn't like it AT ALL. I never once thought about returning such a book. But then, I'm relatively normal. I can't imagine, no matter how rushed an author is, that a publisher/editor would permit them to put out, as it was referred to by some former fans, "garbage." Some people were apparently so horribly offended by this last book that they took it upon themselves to create a website devoted to hating Stephenie Meyer. Yeah, these people were real fans! I went to the website in question and seriously, you have to have something better to do with your time than cultivate hatred. Like hobbies. Hobbies are good, they keep you seated in the real world and help prevent utter devastation from fictional books.

After Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer had planned to publish a 5th tome, Midnight Sun (basically Twilight from the other main character's perspective). It was stupidly leaked and then "proudly presented" by the evil Meyer-hating site, their actual reason for making it available was because they knew she wouldn't have wanted it. The proprietor of the site is probably going to end up somewhere that ends with "double hockey sticks." Now, upon discovery of the leak, Ms. Meyer has put the series on hold indefinitely. This latest news has left me in a funk. A really bad funk. And I know it's going to leave at least one close friend of mine in a similar depression. I love this series and was avidly looking forward to reading a vampire's point-of-view. What am I going to do without my shot of Twilight? I'm like a drug addict stumbling around now, not knowing when or where I'll get my next hit.

I want Ms. Meyer to keep writing dammit! Don't let these idiots get you down. I can understand that fans weren't supposed to see the novel until it was finished. I can understand how betrayed you must be feeling because of this leak. But please don't stop writing, because then you let the nogoodniks win. What I saw of Midnight Sun was beautifully written, I think it's her best work to date. So take some time, calm down, spend time with your family but please keep writing to the fans who adore your work and support anything you create. Ignore the idiots who are, after all, human.

Sticker Shock

While things aren't terribly different between Canada and Australia they are there and mainly in the cost of two BIG (well to me anyway) things. Those being:

1. Internet
2. Coca Cola or other name-brand pop

I will address issue #1: When I lived in Canada, Korea and Japan I didn't know that such a thing as a bandwith cap existed. I figured everyone paid a flat fee and got all the internet their heart desired. I've now discovered, that those down under don't think the same way. Not only are you capped but miniscule amounts of internet are enormously expensive. 400MB per month (which is practically nothing) cost $20. Finding that this wasn't nearly enough we upgraded to 15GB which raised our bill to a whopping $60 (in comparison in Calgary we paid about $35 a month for unlimited high speed). What happens when/if we pass these thresholds? We're slowed right down to a crawling pace at which you can barely check your email. This may seem petty to a great many of you who only use internet for email but for me, it's entertainment and a fountain of information.

Issue #2: Okay, I don't drink litres and litres of Coca Cola a week or anything but WHY is it so expensive?? A regular 2 litre bottle of Coke will cost you, at best, $2.50 (I say at best because this is the price on SALE at a grocery store). I recently bought a 500mL bottle of pop from a convenience store for $3.10. Is all pop imported, is there no packaging plant within Oz? Is Coke so damn popular that they can afford to hike the price as they do? Do they have a monopoly? At least this way I won't be buying pop but once a year or so.


Other things that I've noticed are clothing labels. Let's take Levi's for example. Will loves 501's (even though they're hideously ugly). I think he can get away with paying about $30 or so in the States. How much were they in Melbourne? $110. That's right, we won't be buying Levi's here either. Will and I are horribly cheap people.

At least it isn't as bad as Japan...

After 29 hours of travel torture comes Melbourne

Hello all, I write to you in Melbourne where I have finally gotten access to the internet. I was only 3 days without it but man, it seems like a long time!

I see that I have neglected my blog but with good reason, living in Canada was boring. I love Canada but when you've grown up there and the majority of people reading your blog have grown up there then it's not so interesting to write or read about. But now onto Oz...

I've been in Melbourne now for 3 days and, surprisingly, my jet lag isn't nearly as bad as I'd anticipated. I think partly due to the fact Will did his damndest to make sure I didn't sleep during the day. Usually I'm falling asleep in my dinner or zonking out in front the TV. That usually results in me waking up wide-eyed and alert at the convenient hour of 3 am.

First impressions, it's grey and it rains...ALOT. All 3 days have involved on and off rain and today bizarrely bright sunshine. I've been trying to convince Will that he wants to live in Vancouver. So far I see no real difference, weather-wise that is.

We live in an suburb of Melbourne called "Brunswick West". It isn't the newest neighbourhood out there and our apartment definitely could use some work. There isn't any central heating here so it's cold, though not nearly so much so as Japan where I turned into a veritable popsicle.

Houses here are very Victorian looking. Actually I'm reminded of New Orleans' French Quarter when I look at them. Downtown Melbourne has a similarly decadent feel with a good number of Victorian-era buildings still standing (or at the very least having been restored).

I'm still in the process of figuring out which stores are what and what the equivalents of my favorite clothing places would be. I'll post more later about the Tram system going on here, I still need to figure that out too. Stay tuned for what will hopefully be a more interesting post than this one. I'm begging fatigue as an excuse for the rather boring nature of it.