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Australians attending Pax '08
Posts
:oops:
Thanks for the (obvious) pointer, I'll do just that.
One day I'll learn to delay posting on forums until I'm caffeinated enough to read them first O_o
Del.
ash
That said, Australian's aren't all that rare in Seattle. Microsoft tends to hire a lot of us, particularly now that the E3 work visa is available, and has a quota of 10,000 a year. Means that they can easily hire us, since we don't have to fight H1-B visa quotas to get in.
A friend and I are planning our trip right now. EXCITEMENT PLUS.
I mean you're just going to get off your plane and collect your luggage and then you're out of there, aren't you?
When I went through it on my way to SEA, (qantas/AA in, alaskan out), it was pretty crappy to have a 19 hour flight with no sleep (I couldn't get comfortable in cattle class, and since my flight had left early morning I wasn't tired anyway), then have to stand through customs for an hour or so, and then walk all the way around LAX in the september sun, since it seems to be made of a bunch of individual complexes connected by a road with a carpark in the middle.
It's almost enough to make me want to apply for a green card, just so I can take the short line at customs next time. Pity the waiting period for a greencard has almost reached 10 years.
I'm sure killing 9 hours in any airport is going to suck, especially on the back of a 17 hour trans-Pacific crossing but it's almost as if LAX goes out of it's way to make you as uncomfortable as possible to force you to "move along". Even the benches I found had curved seats so they're nearly impossible to lay on without your legs slipping off.
And don't get me started on the Hare Krishnas.
I was doing a bit of trip planning today and It looks like I will be heading through LAX anyway. I say bring on the experiance! I'm so going to be picked for a random search, woo!
For instance, my flight left at around 9am melbourne time (or so). a few hours into the flight, (around 12 noon melbourne time) they served an evening meal (since that would have been 5pm or so in LA), then turned out the lights. They served breakfast shortly before landing (landed at 6am LA time or so, or roughly 2am melbourne time).
If you can wrap your body around the change in time, and sleep for most of the trip, do so. otherwise, be prepared for being awake well past "midnight".
Leaving on a later flight might make things easier (but let's face it, flights that leave in the arvo almost never exist...
I can see myself falling asleep at the top of the space needle doing this.
Then don't sit down.
I can imagine an American V containing 5 x the caffine.
I don't think it does, but I haven't had one since I got here so I'm not sure. But that said, Mountain Dew has caffeine. And there's Root beer. (Which doesn't deserve the name "beer". Or "root" for that matter, if you'll allow me to use some aussie slang of a colourful nature
Also, the name root beer comes from prohibition days, when real beer was illegal.
excitement indeed. la to seattle via vegas. bring it on!
Sorry, didn't mean that root beer had caffeine. I was just mentioning that it exists, and its taste deserves neither the terms 'root' or 'beer', given the high accolades those two terms have in Australia
It depends a lot on where you are in Australia, but you'll usually find one of Carlton Draught, Victoria Bitter, Tooheys, XXXX, or to a lesser extent, Coopers and Cascade. It depends a lot on the target market, and regional differences. (by no means an exhaustive list, mind you, we're a rich, diverse beer drinking nation)
That said, I've never seen fosters sold in large quantities in Australia. Ever. To see it on tap here in Seattle is hilarious.
I'm still a little hazy what exactly is a knife though.
Is this a knife?
Now if only Bart hadn't left his cane toad behind.
I see you've played Knifey Spoony before!
Like i said. Dregs.
So yeah, I'd be up for hitting some pubs and showing Americans how to drink, also destroying them with Black Death (vegemite, man yanks really hate the stuff).
Also I have heard from respectable sources that local Seattle beers can be quite good, particularly the ales?
Not so you'd notice. There's a bakery at the Crossroads shopping centre in Bellevue (close to Redmond) that sells cheesymite scrolls. The staff there love them, and they're American.
<UnAustralian>
Can't stand the stuff myself tho. I'd rather take a vitamin B pill, and then use a salt lick than eat that junk. ugh.
Yeast is for making alcohol and bread, not for wasting on vegemite.
</UnAustralian>
Actually, vegemite is made from a yeast extract which is a by-product of the beer brewing process -
Only Australians could decide that something that is caused by making beer is worth not only eating but making one of our national icons (which is now owned by American company Kraft Foods - go team us!)
Be that as it may, I'm willing to bet that Kraft don't take the leftovers from CUB and use that, they'll be using perfectly good yeast and skipping the beer step, or something else similarly dastardly!
That said, you'll pry my Berrocca out of my cold dead hands! (smuggling it in past customs is entertaining.)
Finally making the trip to PAX this year.
Flying into San Francisco to meet a few other se++ers for a road trip up to Seattle.
An Aussie meet up at PAX would be awesome. Are there any Outback Steakhouses in Seattle?
Yeah, there's one in North Seattle here
That said, the accent they have on the ads just makes me want to find whoever it is and figure out if they're really australian. It's got to be the weirdest sounding sydney-sider accent i've ever heard.
You're better off going to the KangarooAndKiwi pub. I wouldn't call the food great and it's a bit too far away from the city centre, really (actually, not too far from the steakhouse, i think). It's got a fairly heavy NZ bias to the decorations tho, since the owner is a new-zealander.
I'd just as soon go to a local-to-the-event bar, or join into the pub crawl or something.
THEY HAVE NO BEROCCA? What the hell man, what do they do for hangovers when you have to go to work Monday morning?
I'm going through planning my trip with my friends at the moment using GoogleDocs so I have a spreadsheet full of stuff my friends here and there think I should do while there. 90% appears to be eating something or eating at somewhere. I'm making a trip out of Houston to go see Real Life Comics Greg Dean for Texan BBQ. And apparently some friends in Houston are taking me to a shooting range to use a 'hand cannon'. Should I be afraid?
They've got some things that are similar, but they aren't used as hangover cures (or at least, commonly known to BE hangover cures), but they're not as simple to carry around or as effective as Berrocca. Like I say, if you come, bring some, you won't be able to get it here. There are a few places that sneakily import it, but they can't bring much in, because the FDA gets narky, so they're usually out. (Also, even if you find Cadbury chocolate in a retail store, don't touch it, it's made by Hersheys under contract, and isn't as good as the real thing)
I haven't actually gone to a gun range yet, and I'm no-where near Texas (fortunately?
There's a barbeque place here near Bellevue that's pretty hard-core as well. Dixie's BBQ: here is the one I'm thinking of. If you can survive their chilli, you get to put a pin up on a map of the world. There's a *LOT* of pins up, even in Australia.
I've haved lunch there during a workday, so I haven't been game to try it, I'll have to do it on a weekend when I have some time to spare.
No fucking way
If there's an Aussie meet up it has to be at Outback Steakhouse.
I went to the one in Vegas last time I was there and it was the funniest damn restaurant experience I've ever had. The menu is Hilarious - "Brisbane Ceaser Salad!" Not to mention the extra special attention we got for being Australians.
Hm, it would probably be entertaining, but I prefer South African steakhouses to Australian ones. Unless the Australian one is going to serve a massive chunk of Lamb. (Man, a decent rack of lamb would go down well right now, best I can get is a lamb shank or a few miniscule individual chops ATM