Ban-Yobbo, a Geocaching log

What an adventure you lead me through Banyo! On Mother's Day my GeoSisters and I took our mum out for a day of caching, we decided the BanYobbo series would be fun. With us went three of my nephews (7, 11 and 19) and we had a GREAT day. We started with Drinking and then slowly drove from spot to spot, picking out caches as we went. Everyone enjoyed themselves, between the seven of us most caches didn't stand a chance of staying hidden (though a couple were pretty well hidden). It seemed like time whizzed by and suddenly we were at School with all the clues ready to go (I had been smart enough to photograph each clue as we went) but all of us were just struck dumb, nothing we tried made any sense, there was too many of this for that solution, this was missing for that solution (I even went through the cache list three times to ensure we hadn't missed one). We all decided to call it a day with the plan for me to send on the photos of the clues later in the day.

I got home and told my partner (a non-cacher) about our day and how stumped we were with the puzzle. He offered to help me out and I was super thankful, he has a sharper brain than me :) I sent him the photos and suddenly something clicked in my head and two numbers materialised before my eyes! I yelled at my partner to start reading me the clues and when I was able to beat him to the punch on several I knew I had it! I plugged the coordinates into Google Maps and it looked feasible, I'd even ridden my bike to just nearby before! Many of the previous logs suddenly made sense and I was super excited! Unfortunately by that stage it was a little late for me to get back out to it and I hoped to get out the next morning. Of course life was in the way and I didn't really have any time for the next few days.

Fast forward to today, I was in Banyo to see my personal trainer and had shifted my schedule so I would have some time immediately afterwards to go try out my solution. In my car was my caching bag and (thanks to some good advice) my gum boots, as well as some more appropriate clothing (gym shorts and a singlet probably wouldn't be good for walking in the bush). I parked my car as close to GZ as was possible and got changed into my caching outfit and set forth. Usually if I'm caching alone I will jog from my car to the cache because I am so excited to get there. Do not try to jog in gum boots! Slowly I followed the track until I knew I would have turn off soon. Just as I thought I'd have to cut my way through the jungle a path appeared and I was thankful for those gumboots! I clambered my way through the bush, wondering if I looked like a member of the Ministry if Silly Walks as I tried to avoid getting my big gumboots caught. I constantly consulted the GPS on my phone but it was playing the "Go this way, no that way, whoops, where are we?" game I ended up having to resort to stopping, resetting the GPS app, getting a new reading, moving and repeating. Slowly, SLOWLY I approached and circled ground zero (by the way, if it weren't for the mozzies this would be a beautiful spot) and then I glimpsed something! YES! There it was, the Yobbo was mine! Just as I was signing the log I got a message from my other half, seeing if I'd found it yet. I signed, replied to the partner, replaced the cache and stood up. The way I'd come in was kind of round about so I decided I should just set of straight for the way out. A decision I immediately regretted as the entire bottom half of me was suddenly caught up and wrapped in thorny vines. Now, I grew up in Deception Bay and Redcliffe in the 80's, I've seen my fair share of Yobbos and right at that point in time I let forth a stream of words that would have made even the biggest yob blush!

I managed to find my way back to the crossing and headed back to the car. Along the way I managed to get a couple of nice pics of a beautiful butterfly. 

Thanks Pprime for this cache and series! I had the best fun doing it, solving it and finally finding it! Definitely a favourite of mine now!

The Big Bang!

So, the finale of season 5 of Doctor Who has come and gone and the more I think about it the more I need to share my thoughts. Warning- Spoilers (as River would say). SERIOUSLY - do not read further if you haven't seen it!

So 'The Pandorica Opens' ended with all seeming pretty lost. The daleks, sontarans, nestene etc (noticed a Hoix and a Blowfish in the crowd) had joined forces and locked the Doctor inside the Pandorica, Nestene-Rory shot Amy and the TARDIS was being controlled from outside and River was stuck inside as a voice said that silence would fall and then the TARDIS exploded and the universe started ending.

And then we get to the Big Bang. I was expecting great things and while I thought the episode was pretty awesome it wasn't "season finale awesome". Look at previous season finales, season one we have the Bad Wolf reveal, daleks, Jacks death and resurrection and Rose absorbing the time vortex (not to mention the regeneration from 9 to 10). Season 2 we have the HUGE Doomsday with cyberman vs daleks and Roses "death". Season 3 we have the Master, Martha's saga, Jack and the Toclaphane. Season 4 we have the DoctorDonna, Davros and the saddest moment in any episode ever.

Then we have season 5 and I had such high hopes, I mean Doctor Eleven has proved awesome, I love Amy and Steven Moffat has been behind some of my favorite episodes. Instead of being full of win this episode has a SINGLE half dead dalek as the only real enemy and the Doctor totally crosses his own timeline and causes loopy timey paradoxy bull crap. Last time there was interference like that the Reapers tried to purify the wound in time it created (Fathers Day, season 1) but maybe the cracks that were erasing everything got the Reapers. Anyway, it just seems really douchey, I mean if the Doctor did that kind of thing there's really no point to the show, he can never lose cos he can just rewrite time how he chooses. It really was reminiscent of Bill and Ted, remember them getting the cell keys cos they were the ones who stole them days before etc? It really seemed like a cheap and nasty way out. Also, too much was left unanswered! We don't find out what caused the TARDIS to explode, who was controlling it, what the silence was, and how did River get to Amy's wedding and why since she never knew the Doctor in the first place and shouldn't have had the TARDIS journal at all, whether blank or not. Hopefully some of tis will be answered at Christmas or next season but I don't think so much should have been left hanging.

Having said all that there WAS a LOT that was awesome about this episode...

The revisit to Amelia's prayer, I loved it the first time. Also the return of Amelia :)

The Fez, "Fez's are cool"! And the way Amy and River deal with it.

Speaking of River, she was awesome. Can't wait to see more of her and glad she didn't die.

The Doctors dance moves, hilarious!

Rory! Oh Rory! I've loved Rory since episode one when he revealed that he used to dress as the Doctor for Amy when they were kids. Nestene-Rory was sweet, the way he punched the Doctor, him staying with the Pandorica as the Centurion. Being Mr Pond, lol!

The reveal about the fate of Amy's parents. I suspected but was nice to have confirmation. Her Tiny Dad! Rofl!

Everything about the wedding! The phone call before, Amy's dad not being ready etc

The story and the saying. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue! LOVE it!!!

The Doctor accidentally proposing to River.

The fact Rory and Amy are both on board for the trip to the Orient Express (in space)

There's more but GNW is on and my hands getting sore.

So, here's my first attempts at crochet/amigurumi...

I started on Thursday with some tutorials on the net, never having even touched a crochet needles before. On Friday evening I started my first amigurumi project using the pattern found here http://cthulhucrochet.blogspot.com/2008/05/tiny-cthulhu-free-pattern.html Aside from the wings I was finished by late Saturday. Today is Monday and thanks to a little coaching I got the wings made and completed and here's some pics...

First attempt...

He ended up being a little loose and see through as I am a bit of a noob AND completely misunderstood the basics of crochet and had been crocheting through the back loop the entire time. I call him Camothulhu.

Second attempt. This time I used a smaller needle (3mm), crocheted properly and was very tight. I think I stuffed up during the body because it came out a lot smaller than the head. Also I have not yet added wings but here's the progress...

Also, I doubled the length of the chains on his tentacles cos I thought the ones on Camothulhu were a bit short, unfortunately because he turned out so small the tentacles turned out fairly disproportionate. Soon I plan on adding his wings but thinking I'll skip arms on this one.

(PS. More pics will be posted when I get a chance)

How does Superman cut his hair?

Seriously! Is he like a saiyan and it just stays one length forever? Does he have like a pair of kryptonite scissors to cut it and wouldn't the regular exposure eventually weaken his head? He couldn't like rip it out or cut it with his nails or something because that would mean that his hair/scalp is weaker than the rest of him and therefore a vulnerable point that his enemies could exploit. Maybe he uses his laser eyes to cut it, but that would mean his laser eyes could hurt him so all you'd need to defeat him would be a mirror. Man, I'm going to be pondering this for ages now!

District 9 - an Ukh review! (may contain spoilers, and nuts)

Just cos I have nothing else to blog about and I saw this on the weekend!

When I first heard the premise for District 9 I was keen to see it, then I saw the previews and it became something I could've either seen or not and not really cared. Now that I've seen it I'm glad I did.

Ok, so it's very predictable from the start what's going to happen but somehow that's ok because instead of being a standard actiony sci-fi kinda alien movie the story it tells is actually quite interesting and touching in bizarre ways. Of course you know from the start that Wikus is pretty much screwed and he's going to be the cliche "hero" who is against the aliens to start with but ends up seeing their side of things and sorta becomes a champion for them. Of course you know that 99.99% of the humans are going to be portrayed as evil money grubbers with not a care about the aliens and of course you know that there's not going to be a "happy ending" but somehow you get sucked in and start caring what happens.

The movie's main failing is that it doesn't QUITE get you to care enough and that's because it can't seem to decide what kind of movie it's supposed to be. One minute it's action, one minute it's drama, next minute it's comedy and the next it's a buddy film.

Where it succeeds however is when it shows the casual callousness of the humans and the plight of the "prawns", especially "Christopher" who seems to be the only prawn with a personality aside from his son who appears mostly for cuteness. The attitudes of the humans towards the prawns who they treat worse than a mongrel dog really does get to you a bit but because "Christopher" and his son are really the only vehicles in which to explore this it doesn't quite reach the level I think it was trying for (though I did feel sorry for the one who didn't understand what an eviction was). Admittedly I was sitting there going "You have to go back for Christopher!" so evidently it got to ME enough anyway. Also, I really liked that Wikus was VERY human and he didn't have a change of heart where you'd normally think it'd be in the movie, it actually took him time and experience as if the character was a real person.

For the most part it's not a real "special effects movie" that you NEED to see on the big screen but the climax is quite good in the special effects department and was actually quite fun.

All in all I really liked it and will definitely be putting it on my "will buy on DVD" list. In fact, if I was offered to go with a friend I'd probably go see it again at the movies. You know those movies where you walk away thinking "What happens next?" this was not one of those for me, I KNOW what happens next, I believe Christopher will keep his promise. Maybe not in the time frame given as their planet is said to be much larger than ours so I'm guessing it's either further away from their sun or their sun is bigger so maybe their years are longer but either way he'll keep that promise.

I can has blog?

Yes, yes I can apparently.