Live from Sydney

Australia's TV current affairs show "Today Tonight" showed most of the ST XI trailer footage tonight, and excerpts from TOS and TMP, plus all-new studio interviews with Pine, Quinto, Cho and Abrams, and an interview with Eric Bana in a live (or just-delayed) cross to the red carpet leading up to the Sydney Opera House.

The front cover of Saturday's The Sydney Morning Herald's "Spectrum" arts & entertainment lift-out had a great full page pic of Zachary Quinto doing the Vulcan salute, and the interview with him (and pre-publicity on the premiere), is a double page feature spread on pages 4 and 5.

Let the reviews begin...

By the way, there was also a surprise screening in Austin, TX, with Leonard Nimoy and the writers, before the official one. Fans thought they were attending a retro screening of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", plus ten minutes of highlights of the new "Star Trek" (ST XI), but Nimoy walked out on stage to tell them they'd been punked, and were about to see all of ST XI.

I eventually worked that out, but it wasn't obvious here, in Sydney, when I was seeing all these reviews pop up online (on TrekBBS) before the film had even finished running here - and knowing all the Aussie guests' mobile phones, iPhones and Blackberries had been cloaked by Opera House security.


Star Trek poster in Sydney's CBD this week.

Identity crisis

Okay, I'm mad, and it's only a little bit my fault.

I can't prove who I am. Since the infamous events of 9/11 in the USA, I have been unable to send a package overseas through Australia Post. I always have to wait inside the foyer area of licensed clubs, hoping someone will be allowed to "sign me in" to attend teacher-librarian committee meetings or Teachers Federation strike meetings. I must take bills in my name (or, once, my expired passport) to travel interstate by e-ticket.

And I cannot buy an iPhone from the Apple Retail Store in the CBD, where they already had me booked in a week ago for an appointment to do a "personal shop" tomorrow.

Why?

Because I don't have valid photo ID.

I was told last week, when making the booking, that I should bring 100 points worth of ID (birth certificate, credit cards, bills with my home address on them - after a mild panic on finding the birth certificate, which I hadn't seen buying my first mobile phone two years ago, I easily had 100 points worth, but... because I do not drive a car, I can never prove who I am.

One day, I must to get my new passport. I didn't think, when it expired in about 2002, that I'd need a passport again until I was ready to travel overseas again. But... in this day and age, a grown adult who is not a licenced driver, a university student, or sight impaired, can't easily prove who they are. (Hey, don't laugh, I know someone who travelled to New Zealand once with a picture of himself, in a Klingon uniform and goatee, on his international driver's licence! Mmmmm, now there's an idea...)


Have blaster, will travel?

A few years ago, I caused much hilarity when I had to take my passport to Brisbane so I could identify myself at the then-standby counter at the airport. A passport to travel across an Australian border?

A few years later, I tried to buy my first e-ticket to Perth online, but my first choice, Qantas, insisted I needed photo ID to actually have my ticket processed at the check-in. I quickly switched to Virgin's site instead, and its fine print simply said "valid ID"... so I proceeded with the purchase.

Imagine my horror when the invoice printed out and mentioned "photo identification". With only two weeks until I was to travel, I raced off to the post office. Someone had reassured me they did a "proof of ID" card. I joined a long queue, and made my inquiry. No, they laughed and sent me to the DMR (Department of Main Roads).

But I didn't want a driver's license, nor even a learner's permit. The woman at the post office assured me I simply needed a "proof of age" card, such as used by young people in their early 20s who might pass as underage drinkers in a pub. Mmmmm. Well, at age 45 or so, it had been a long time since I could have been accused of underage drinking.

At the DMR, I filled out my form and waited forever on another long queue. Then they laughed hysterically. A proof of age card could only be made for people between the ages of 18 and 26. I had to take my birth certificate into the city, instead, to the office of Births, Deaths and Marriages, and get a birth card.

This was getting ridiculous. I went in on the train the next day, filled out my forms, joined another long queue, and waited for someone to take my photograph. I could even see the camera set up. This was going to be easy, especially when I noticed a sign saying that, for an extra small fee, my finished card could be mailed within 72 hours. Which was good, because I now had less than two weeks till I had to travel and prove ID with a photo, and there was definitely no time left to go the original passport option.

Ah, you knew there was another road block coming, didn't you?

This birth card, unlike all the other services offered by the Births, Deaths and Marriages office, had to be sent the slow way: to the address marked on my other examples of ID, and would take ten working days. Since this card was also going to cost almost as much as a passport, I wondered aloud why people even bothered with a "birth card". It was for people who had to prove ID but had no intention of ever travelling overseas, the woman explained. What was the point, even? If I couldn't get the card before I travelled, why buy one of these cards if I still needed a passport next time I wanted to travel outside Australia?

Eventually, I rang Virgin and explained my plight. I did have Department of Education and Training professional journals with my captioned photographs and editorials in them? There! A new use for Scan! (No, Scan was not "valid photo ID" either, I was told.) virgin explained they'd happily accept two credit cards with my signature on them. Ha! (And the joke ended up being on them; I'd accidentally cut up my new card the night before, and thus picked up my e-ticket boarding pass to Perth on an expired credit card.)

Of course, since that comedy of endless errors, the DMR has changed their rules, and I now can go and apply for a new proof of ID card, which would have a photo on it. (I'm sure I'd need photo ID to apply for one, so I didn't bother.) And then, this morning, I learned I could not buy my iPhone from Apple after all - because I again couldn't prove who I was. 100 points might be 100 points, but one of the items from the prescribed list still has to have a photo on it.

Did I have a shooter's licence?, the woman asked over the phone. For a second there, I thought she was inferring that I'd gotten too frustrated with her, and was planning some kind of ultimate retribution. No, she just meant that shooters' licences had photos on them. Or, for just $23, I could "drop in" to my local DMR and get a learner's permit. Easy!

Here we go again. You know what's really frustrating? The Penrith DMR is so out of the way, you need a car to get there!

You know what else is frustrating? You now have to sit a computer test about road rules to even get a driving permit with a photo on it! Like I'm going to do a crash course in the rules of the road just to get an iPhone tomorrow?

Anyway, to make a long story as long as it ended up being, my existing phone service provider let me have an iPhone today using only my birth certificate. Thus, all the homework I'd done studying various plans, carriers, best deals, etc, was misguided because I still can't really prove who I am. I should have, instead, spent the time applying for a passport. Several months ago. (I won't mention the length of the queue today in Telstra's phone shop. The only reason I was served as early as I was: three people in front of me stormed off in frustration.)

I hadn't bothered doing anything with the passport application yet because my plans to travel to Las Vegas, to see the "Star Trek Experience", ended when they closed that attraction at the end of August. How was I to know that my mobile phone contract would run out at the same time as I was ready to upgrade the iMac into a MacBook Pro?

I'm really going to have to track down that old, expired passport and get the new application form sent off. Dammit. Then I need to use the passport to do some travelling, and give me my money's worth. (What's the name of this blog again?)

Ah sweet irony.

I can see the excuses now: I'd have the money to travel if I didn't have this iPhone bill to pay.

Shopping for Apples

I'm just home from the Apple Retail Store in the CBD with my new laptop (and next week, I collect my iPhone!).



Well, the bank account wasn't looking too bad and, since I've spent a number of recent days uploading photos to Facebook, I'm hitting the "rolling beachball of death" way too often on my now-antiquated, lampshade-base iMac. I was told it'll be tricky (plus over $500) to get the memory upgraded sufficiently to take the latest operating system upgrade. And even then, no promises.

So... a laptop was becoming an essential requirement. It'll be able to handle all the new capabilities, and the iMac can take up the slack on simpler things. I may even take the even older PowerMac dinosaur into school/work and stick a few games on it for the students - we are a PC-only school. (Ick.)

Simultaneously, my first mobile phone is on its last legs; my original phone plan ran out last month, so I went for a double act today; I have a few days to master the laptop, before I collect the iPhone next week.

I also got a new scanner/printer, and the new-fangled "Time Capsule", which allows care-free full back-ups. Yippee.

When you enter the big Apple Store (in the CBD) intending to buy, they sign you up for "personal shopping" experience. I was booked in for two appointments: the laptop purchase, which I could do immediately, and the iPhone purchase, and I elected to make the iPhone appointment for next Thursday. It would be too bamboozling to buy too much hardware at once!

Now I have time, theoretically, to investigate the various plans available, and to find out how many ID points I'll need, since I don't drive and my passport has expired, and I can never prove who I am - even to post a parcel overseas - these days.

I'll probably buy the iPhone outright, but at the Apple Store they have an upstairs area where all the providers (Telstra, Optus, etc) are available to help you switch into a new plan when you buy the phone.

Great company, glorious weather and fireworks to boot

Despite the massive Australia Day crowds at the Waterfront Bar (which started an entry surcharge of $5 per head about an hour after Nate arrived there), and the throngs on the Old Pyrmont Bridge when they opened it up to let the endless flotilla of ferries go through!), we had great company, new Star Trek friends, old Star Trek friends, glorious weather, and fireworks at our front door.

Baia San Marco's food was excellent as usual. They did not hurry us, despite being so busy, and that left lots of room for chatting - and dessert. When we couldn't get free access to the Waterfront, Baia even let us have our table one hour early!


ABOVE LEFT (clockwise from left to right): Sonia, Djura, Ben, Chris, AdamJ, Iarfirithwen and Caprica_Six. (After a few merlots, and with all the dark lighting, the photos are a bit fuzzy.)


Where would we be without mobile phones? They seem to be the only way to triangulate a group of friends coming together these days:

"Where are you guys? I'm in the queue at the door."

"We're over here. Table 38. We're waving at you now."

"Hey guys, I've been trying to get across the pedestrian bridge for 70 mins. Have you started dessert yet?"

"Where did you go, mate? I thought you only stepped out to see the fireworks?

And so on.

Thanks to all thirteen members who weathered the crowds and supported the first re-energized Sydney Star Trek Meet-up at Baia restaurant, plus the extra members who caught up with us after dinner.


ABOVE (from left to right): Ben, Chris, Therin of Andor and Paranoid Tailor.

Feeling uninspired...

... so here's a red elephant. You don't have to go far in the Australian countryside before you drive past something bizarre or completely incongruous. (I took it with my mobile phone on the way to Toowoomba, in Queensland, last year.)

This blog isn't a white elephant yet, but sometimes it feels a bit that way.

Over recent weeks I've discovered a number of blogs by friends of mine. Mostly, they are abandoned blogs, where the blogger leapt in with gusto, posted several times every day for a few weeks/months, got little or no feedback from loved ones... and their blog just gets locked into limbo.

Oh well...

The Bluetooth, the whole Bluetooth and nothing but the Bluetooth

Ah, the wonders of modern tech. My mobile phone comes with Bluetooth, a supposedly wonderful wireless connection that enables my phone to share data without the cost of a phone call, and to communicate with others people's phones and even my computer. If only it was easy to do.

Actually, my phone has been able to pick up several friends' phones with Bluetooth - just not my friend's mobile of the same make and model as mine, which was bought on the same day, in the same shop! Anyway, I've since downloaded a batch of very nice high resolution photographs (that were way too large to send by email), but last week, after several head-scratching attempts to read the manual and learn how to make the phone talk to my iMac, I was able to Bluetooth my Big Brother 2006 House collection of pics to another friend's PC... and have them emailed across town to my computer! Phew!

See them, at last, here!

Party mix

Okay, so I bought a big bag of Kenman's Party Mix lollies (candy for the US readers) - and they're 99% fat free - but they are not the expected traditional varieties. No snakes, no bananas, no black cats, no strawberries-and-cream. A few jelly babies, sure, but the rest of them are quasi-fruit jellies in "party" shapes: little chocolate ice cream cones, cupcakes, drink bottles, shooting stars, life-sized lips, mobile phones(?) and decapitated clown heads. And you know what? Those clown heads taste funny. Boom, boom.



On Friday a parcel arrived from Amazon. About two months ago, I finally tracked down a cute little Christmas ditty that Baz & Pilko (Barry Ion and Tony Pilkington) used to play in the late 80s on Sydney radio station 2UW's breakfast show, now the home of MIX 106.5 FM. Every Christmas, little comedy guest voice, "Peter Plus", used to introduce a song, supposedly sung by his kid sister, "Personality". (Personality Plus, get it?)

The song concerned someone, strongly suspected of being Santa Claus, who was stuck in the chimney on Christmas Eve, and met his demise up there, and was still stuck a day, then a week, then a month, then a year later. "Plussy" (voice of Barry Ion, IIRC) never gave a lot of notice that the song was about to be played, so taping it off-air was impossible. At the time, and over several years, I tried to find out the details of the song, since I suspected it was a commercial track from the USA. Rummaging through the Comedy Section of many record shops didn't bear fruit. A friend, who knew one of the 2UW on-air personalities, music guru Gary Jaegar, also drew a blank. Gary had told us the song was probably someone's old demo track and therefore not available on record. So I stopped looking.

Well, thanks to the wonders of Google and the Internet, typing in Santa "stuck up in the chimney" brought me, not only the full song lyrics to "The Chimney Song", as sung by one Lorna List, but also a link to Amazon and the CD version, on which the song is available as Track #2. And so "Twisted Christmas" (1987), by the Bob Rivers Comedy Corp, arrived at my place - after a short delay while Amazon restocked (in time for Christmas, I presume) - but missing my Midwinter Christmas party by a full two weeks. Sigh.

Gosh! The coveted lyrics are now available as a ringtone, and even as a little window for a web page! Isn't technology marvellous?

It was Amazon's second recording miracle in recent months. My dog, Jack, accidentally broke a friend's precious 78 RPM record of Spike Jones and His City Slickers singing the novelty song, "Wild Bill Hiccup" (1949). This was a song from Maria's childhood - or, more likely, her mother's childhood - which the family played on her grandmother's antique, hand-cranked record player - and Jack destroyed the 78 in one, ah, record leap onto a chair (after the stack had been moved during some renovations to their house). Good ol' Amazon. Look what I found with a little diligent searching. Now, I'm sure my friend won't need to hear "Wild Bill Hiccup" on CD all that often, but at least I know that she can, if she so desires, and without thinking black thoughts about Jack-be-nimble and his mountain goat-like feats.

Deja vu all over again

Cheers, everyone! Here I was scratching my head trying to think of something inspirational for the blog and I quickly reached Writer's Block - only three days into it and already I hit a wall? So I cleaned out my wallet, as you do. (You know, all those ATM receipts and scraps of paper with phone numbers, and half remembered names of people you should remember because you once bothered putting their phone number on a piece of paper...)

There was my aunt's mobile phone number! One that I hadn't transferred into the mobile's handy dandy phone book. I typed in her name and number, and quickly and proudly sent her a perfectly typed text message, "This is ian's mobile!" OK, so I haven't quite got the hang of CAPS yet. Just as fast, the reply turned up: "I think u have wrong number." (Hmm, maybe it wasn't her number after all? Or she changed numbers at some point? Would my aunt be tech savvy enough to text "u" when she means "you"?)

After dinner I rang her on the regular phone - and it had been her. She'd figured it wasn't me because... "Ian doesn't have a mobile."

Dammit. I've had the rotten thing for two weeks now and I've sent messages to everyone I know with a mobile - but no one is replying because they don't realize it's really me, or it might be a junk call, or they might get a virus, or somesuch. Someone, please ring me! Otherwise how else do I test if my ringtones work, dammit?

Anyway, while my aunt and I were on the (real?) phone, we shared several old and new instances of deja vu. One involved a friend of mine who'd once asked me to duck out and post some business envelopes containing bills for the customers of his florist shop. I recognised one of the addresses as being a house directly opposite my place of work, but a good two suburbs away from his shop, which is why he was posting it.

"Don't put a stamp on that one," I said. "Leave it with me and I'll put it in their letterbox on my way home from work tomorrow."

"No," he replied. "Just post it with the others."

(Did he not trust me to remember? Highly likely. And I'd probably have forgotten it in the depths of my backpack, knowing me...) I decided it wasn't worth arguing, so I posted it.

The next day, as I was walking home from work, I found that still-sealed envelope, now with its stamp cancelled by Australia Post, lying in the street! So I had to pick it up and deliver it to their letterbox myself... "Spooky!", as Dame Edna would say.

Which brings me to the wacky deja vu anecdote that I was going to use for this blog entry! And, typically, I've waffled on far too long, so maybe now I'll just save up the story of the freaky-little-old-man-with-Coke-bottle-glasses for another time...?

Have Phaser, Will Travel

It's been a very nostalgic couple of weeks:

* My nephew, Brian Jr, turned 21 - and I took my friend Leonie, but it only seemed like a few years ago that Leonie and I were at the 21st birthday party of my brother, also Brian, who was born in 1964 and is Brian Jr's Dad! Where did that time go?

* "Superman Returns" opened in cinemas (it filmed here in Sydney and I had watched a scene being lensed in Martin Place last year) and in so many ways the director achieved his aim of connecting with "Superman: The Movie" and "Superman II", wonderful films I saw in my teachers college days in the 70s;



* I've been helping out the producers of the upcoming DVD edition of the 70s Aussie soap opera phenomenon, "Number 96" (coming to Australian DVD outlets on 10th July from Umbrella Entertainment);

* and I've been adding names, phone numbers, addresses, URLs, emails and birthdays of all my friends and family to my brand new, first mobile phone - and realizing that it's been so long since I've made contact with a few of them that their details are probably incorrect. I seem to spend more time chatting with new (online) friends - and complete strangers - than the people I used to spend such a lot of time with in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Since I spend so much time online anyway, usually hanging around "Star Trek" bulletin boards, or adding little details to my "Number 96" and "Star Trek" websites - when I should be writing substantial slabs of first draft for my various (skeletal) book projects - I thought that finally signing myself up to a blog would be a way to make myself write more often - or at least waste more time more constructively.

You can expect that this blog will frequently wax lyrical about: my adventures in science fiction media fandom over the years; perhaps some funny school stories (I'm a primary school teacher and teacher-librarian); my efforts to get some halfbaked story ideas turned into books; and anecdotes about Andorians, superheroes, "Star Trek" toys and Jack Russell terriers.

So, please enjoy!

This has been Therin of Andor. Or is that Loquacious of Borg?