Birdstrike!

I love Eddie Izzard. In one of his shows (I think it was "Glorious" but it may have been "Dressed to Kill"), he talks about the phenomenon of "birdstrike" - when one or more birds gets sucked into a airplane jet engine.

I laughed at his routine of a bird summoning up his friends with the challenge "Come on guys! Let's all get together for a birdstrike!", as if they intentionally wanted to die. I laughed at it - but never thought I'd experience it.

We were on the plane leaving Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu. It had been a great short vacation - full of heat, sunshine, tropical rain, swimming, snorkelling, drinking, gambling and my Gran's rocking 80th birthday party. Even the tribute film I spent hours and hours on went down well.

Anyway, we took off, and heard this sound - the sound of something going through a blender. It didn't seem that unusual though, and we seemed to be flying without any problems. The captain then came over the PA and said "We struck a flock of birds on take off - we're safe, but will be returning to the airport to check the engine". Oh, I thought. Bugger. Oh well, a bit of a delay but nothing too long.

Hmph! Within minutes of landing and disembarking they'd told us the flight was cancelled. Woah! I've travelled heaps in my lifetime, but this had never happened to me before. However, if I had to be stuck anywhere, Vila's a bloody good choice. It was especially good when we realised we would be put up at the Le Lagon resort (one of the nicest and most expensive hotels in the country)! But the high was followed by the annoucement that the plane would be leaving around 3am. Bugger! We wouldn't even get a night's sleep in the air-conditioning! As it was, we were woken up just before 2am, taken to the airport at 4am, then finally took off around 6:30am. I could have had a bit more sleep!!! Turns out they had to have a Lear jet flown up from Australia with a set of new engine blades.

It was a stroke of good fortune - not just because we survived, although that was a plus. My uncle, a Cathay Pacific pilot, informed me a birdstrike on take off was one of the most dangerous things to happen in the air, and the Air Vanuatu pilots would have had to shut down the affected engine. I commend them for their calm and professionalism, because at no stage was anyone on board panicked or worried.

But it also was good fortune because my family were having the birthday dinner for my Gran and brother (both 24th Jan) at one of my favourite restaurants in Vila, "L'Houstalet". I had been really annoyed I hadn't had the chance to go there for some top French nosh. Our delay meant we could go! I was so pleased. I luxuriated over my "beuf de fillet dauphinois" with potato gratin. Yuuuuuummmmmmmyyyyyy. I also had two slices of sponge cake. Pig! I've got to get back onto Weight Watchers - the play starts in a week!

Argh! The play. Because of our delay I missed Monday night's rehearsal. The Australia Day rehearsal went OK. However one of the actors is still a major problem. He's just not capable of the role he's playing. It's hard to say that because he's such a nice guy - but that's part of the problem. The character is a real sleazeball and this guy is just incapable of NOT being polite. He's only new to acting too, so he hasn't the experience or teaching to improve as quickly as he needs to. I hope the situation resolves itself....apart from that it's a great show and people should come and see it!

Tonight I died my hair black in preparation for the play. I hope it turns out OK. People are always telling me to go black but I fear it washes me out and makes me look a bit like a try-hard goth. Nothing wrong with goths of course......just try-hard ones. ;)

Also seriously contemplating whether to discontinue this journal. Ironic after a ball-crushingly long post. I just figure no one's reading, I'm boring, everyone else with an online thingy is on livejournal and that whole thing just shits me - mainly because I fear I'm wasting my life reading that stuff instead of doing fun stuff to put in my own. Truly, sometimes I think I'm the most boring person alive.

I was reminded of this by the Triple J Hottest 100 - looking through the list there weren't many songs I recognised. I'm just not trendy. I love music and will listen to pretty much anything, but I don't follow music trends, or bands etc. And now that I'm working in AM radio, I don't even hear music subliminally. Old before my time.

Anyway, that's enough. A shout out to anyone who may have sat through this post!

Nat.

The Scourge Of Gastro

Ugh.

Well, I'm sick. A sore throat on Monday night has now developed into fully blown gastro-enteritis. I don't know where or howI got it, but oh well.

So I'm at home, sucking on lemonade icy poles. The doctor gave me a shot of something to help ease my nausea and vomiting. It's really helped - this morning I couldn't lie down or sit up straight without feeling (or being) sick. So that left me kind of hunched over crossed legs. Very bizarre.

Anyway, this is probably far too many details for my dedicated readership. Yeah, right. What readership? ;)

The good news is I've finally finished the DVD project I've been working on. It didn't burn properly the first time I tried it (actually the first two times), but after fiddling with data speeds and burn rates it seems better. I now have to burn it onto DVD-R, DVD+R, and VHS to make sure I've got all equipment covered!

Cheers all, Natalie.

Roll in 2005

Hey all,

Man, I wrote that last post just after the disaster happened. There was no idea of the scale at that point. I remember writing my first story about the quake and tying it in with 12 months since Bam. Then about a half hour later another story came through on wires saying there'd been flash floods through Sri Lanka. I thought, "I wonder if that's anything to do with the quake? Nah, couldn't be, too far away". Apparently, and unfortunately, I was wrong.

The only heartening thing is the aid I pondered about in the last post has come through and then some. It's great to see so many people giving - at a time of year when most people are strapped for cash after Christmas etc.

Other things that have been happening - I am making some headway with all of the technical projects I have on. Most notably, video editing and so forth. Things are starting to slowly come together but I still need to learn how to edit properly!

New Year's tonight - we're going bowling. It should be a fun-a-rama!

Ciao for now - and for 2004 I guess! Here's hoping 2005 will be a corker!

Cheers, Natalie.