I enjoyed my day out at the farm and thought I should be more of a tourist in my hometown, so last week I picked up 'The Heritage Guide' and thought I would visit the Brisbane CBD and look around the same area Halfasheep shot his video (below)ina few years back.
I saw that there was a tour at the Queensland Masonic Memorial Centre every Friday at 2.00pm, so last Friday I headed into the Brisbane CBD to be a tourist in my hometown and to take that tour.
I paid the $17 daily rate and parked my car at a Southbank parking station and walked in 36 degree(Celsius)heat to the top of Ann Street to do the 2pm tour, but there wasn't one. The doors to the centre were locked tight Friday afternoon.
So much for the tour, so I headed down to the Eternal Flame and was going to check out the room under the flame and walk around the square like Halfasheep did in his video.
But no, the square was being dug up and the room under the flame was closed off.
When the hell did this happen? I read the newspapers and watch the local TV news, but I never heard about this revamp happening.
I thought how is this work going to be finished before Remembrance Day(Nov 11th)? Well, I've since learned from watching the news all this week that it won't be finished and a lot of people are mad about it.
OK then I thought I'll head down to City Hall since I haven't been in there since it was refurbished.
I thought I would take a look in the main hall and maybe then ride the elevator up to the top of the clock tower.
But no, the main hall was more or less closed, as some group had booked it out and were having something like an Amway conference inside. And as for the clock tower, there were signs telling you to take the elevator to the 3rd floor if you want to go up the clock tower, but every elevator I got in had the 3rd floor locked off , so I gave up on trying to get up there before the clock struck three. As I'm walking out off the CBD and back to Southbank I hear the clock striking three like a big "up yours" to me from City Hall.
A bin chicken (ibis) walking out of the State Library
Thoth, Writing, Books, Magazines and SubSCRIPTions? I thoughtI'd pick up my free mystery gift for being a GOMA member from the GOMA store and my free exhibition ticket and see the latest exhibition on at GOMA. Turned out my free gift was a crappy library bag with coloured dots all over it (which I gave to my mother) and that there was no exhibition on at GOMA at the moment. Kind of wasn't surprised by now to tell the truth.
At least I found the Bohdi tree and wrote this post after seeing it on Friday - The BrizVegas Bohdi Tree?
I thought what a waste of a day and $17 parking this day turned out to be, so I decided to walk down to the Southbank cinemas and see what was on at this time of day.
Turned out not much that I wanted to see, as I had just missed getting there in time to see the new 'A Star is Born' and my choice was either 'First Man' or the new 'Halloween', which I had just seen the night before with my sons.
I heard 'First Man' was getting rave reviews, so I bought a ticket to see it, even though I didn't buy the story of Armstrong being the "First Man" - First Man? My rating of the film? 4 yawns.
On the way back to my car I saw a bunch of people wearing masks and didn't know if it was a reenactment of a scene out of 'V for Vendetta' or 'Eyes Wide Shut'.
Either way, with the way my luck was going that day I wasn't about to ask them.
Turned out to be about the most interesting thing I saw all day, apart from the bin chicken I saw walk out of the State Library and the Bohdi tree.
I'd like to see Chris Hemsworth sell that day out in Brisbane back to me again:-(
Gold mining town's Halloween tradition still alive after 110 years I'm not sure if I have ever heard of the small Queenslandtown ofRavenswoodbefore, since while I have lived in Queensland nearly all of my life I have yet to venture any further north than Mooloolaba(yeah, I know I need to get out more, right?-) Which is probably a bit weird, since I have driven right down to the bottom of Tasmania and back, but never much further north than where I have lived for most of my life. Even Rainbow Beach is further north than anywhere I have ever traveled in the state that I live in. But I have that black can of paint in the back of my car now and am ready to visit those Rainbowstairs I wrote about the other day, so keep an eye out in Rainbow Beach for any suspicious blue cars with Queensland numberplates parked around those stairs if you live in that town - A Town's War Over the 'Rainbow Staircase': Get Over It Maybe?
How the future of the Rainbow staircase will look:-)
But I'm sure you guys will GET OVER IT once I've modified the stairs;-) I probably shouldn't joke about doing that to the staircase in case somebody does do it and then points the finger to this post.
Anyway, forget about Rainbow Beach for now and let's get back to Ravenswood the town, not the TVshow or movie.
I thought Halloween celebrations were just a recent commercial pop cultural venture in Australia, but it looks like I was wrong about that. No ghost town Ravenswood has been celebrating Halloween for about 110 years it seems.
I wonder if Gordon White knew about Ravenswood's yearly celebrations?
Oddly enough, I've been reading my copy of Gordon White's book 'The Chaos Protocols'and yesterday I had just read the chapter 'Armies of the Dead', where Gordon writes about the last 100 years of NDE data. I don't mind reading about magick, but I'm more into shamanism than ye old magickways of yore. To me it's a bit like reading books on yoga. I find yoga interesting to read about, but I can't see myself ever donning yoga pants and practicing it seriously. But whatever floats your boat, I guess. I think my own form of shamanism is just as effective as Gordon's idea of magick. But maybe we're both delusional when it comes to woo-woo? Or should I say woo-who?
I do find it amusing that Gordon mentions St. Bartholomew in that 'Armies of the Dead' chapter, as my parents had me baptized at a local Church of England(AKAThe Anglican Church)St.Bartholomew's Church, not that my parents were church goers or believed in anything really when it came to religion. I was always kind of pissed about being baptized in a protestant church, because at school most of my friends were Roman Catholic and when we had to go to religious instruction at school I had to go to the Church of England class and my friends went to their Catholic class and when they came back they would nearly always come back with a saints medal or some trinket, which I always thought was cool. I'd go home and ask my parents if I could convert to Catholicism like Nan was and my dad would tell me it was all just manmade BS anyway and to forget about it. My other Gran would take me with her when I was a child to the local RC Church to play bingo and I would look around at the horse racing pictures on the church hall and think no wonder Nan was a Catholic and what a cool church it looked like compared to the church I was baptized in. Life's a gamble, right?-)
But I tend to agree with Paul Cox when it comes to religion, as I believe "God" is bigger than any religion.
My Halloween door-knocker's stock of goodies for the kids
Today is All Saints Day and I still have a bowl of lollies and chocolate(candy as Americans say) left over from last night, as no children came around knocking on my front door(insert cricketschirping) and since I'm on a non-dairy vegetarian diet right now I can't eat those chocolates without breaking my diet.
Looking at those chocolates is like an ex-smoker looking at an open packet of cigarettes, but I can't be tempted to eat those chocolates after a year of being off them, so I'll have to give them to my sister and her family to eat.
The choc-lolly that's over a year old in my pantry
I actually still have a 'Fantales' in my kitchen pantry that I wouldn't be game to eat, which was left over from last year when I was eating and drinking dairy products.
I kept it to remind me to write a post that has been on the backburner for nearly a year now, which I still intend to write at some future point and then I'll toss the lolly into the bin before someone finds it and eats it:-)
That scene from the movie 'Caddyshack':-)
Tomorrow is'The Day of the Dead'and I was thinking I wonder if Ravenswoodever thought of holding a three-day event, which would include Halloween, All Saints Day and then a
