Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

So, we keep asking what is the native food around here, what is the thing that we absolutely have to eat before we leave Australia. I have to admit, I have not got a very satisfactory answer. Yes, you can eat kangaroo, though to the indigenous folks, it is a totem animal so you might not want to eat it unless you would care to be menaced by kangaroos in your dreams. There is abundant and incredible seafood. These giant prawns and langostinos that are a big item in the US, we are told. Tanya has decided that the really Australian food is pies and has taken a liking to this chain operation called Jesters Serious About Pies, which produce good pies with unfortunately cute names that I will not go into. I’m sure they have a pie web site if you are really interested.

For some reason, I have been having a Subway sandwich kick and let me take a few moments of your busy day avoiding your boss to tell you about Subway, Down Under Version. First of all, the usual Subway Combo (sandwich, fountain soda and chips or cookie) only comes with the cookie in Australia! This is Subway sinning, as far as I am concerned because the cookies are the least palatable of all of Subway’s offerings, are loaded with transfat and will knock you right off your lose-1000-pounds-by-eating-Subway diet. And no salty crunchy goodness of chips is wrong, just plain wrong. Otherwise, it is pretty much a Subway experience.
But let me say something about Super Vision, since that might be why you are here. The show last night was Super Weird because guess what happened? The computers in the video department were just not having it for whatever reason (stayed out too late at The Verandah, the festival club) and they just plain quit in the middle of the show! It was very exciting in an utterly nerve-frying kind of way. There we were, all onstage in our Sunday best and everything ground to a halt. Joe bravely assumed control of a microphone and explained to the audience that no adjustment to their set was needed and that they should just chat with their neighbor for a moment. Team Video of Hal and Jeff booted up something or other and switched over to it and we were back on track as fast as was humanly possible and we were off again.

But it was very curious to have the whole thing stop. It did allow me to get through the crossword puzzle I was working on, as my “character”. But it’s strange to think about the show suddenly ceasing to be a show. We forced everyone into our reality and then we kicked them out again (or the computers did) and then we invited them back in again. Lucky for us, they came along without complaint and seemed to enjoy themselves.

Many of us went out for dinner together at an Indian joint over in the little neighborhood called Northbridge, which apparently was really bad once and then got cool and groovy but is now on its way back down. Being an outsider, it all looked just ducky to me. A nice commercial strip with a zippy blend of foreign food restaurants, gay clubs, strip joints and Olde English style pubs. And lots of drunk people! But hey, it was Saturday night.