Happy Feet - Oscar Nominee!!!

Wooohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This morning the Academy Awards were announced and while I'm really happy that Leo got nominated for Blood Diamond and hopefully Scorsese will finally win for the amazing The Departed, I was most excited that the film I worked on in Australia, Happy Feet was nominated in the Best Animated Film category!

Congratulations to George, Daniel and everyone that worked on this and put in the time and effort to make it what it is!

Surfers Paradise and the end of Oz

OK, so I'm shit at updating this thing. I know it's been almost three months (!!!) since I left Australia and if I was any good at the blogging thing I'd be current and tell you about the squash game I had this week or snowboarding with Hopkins last week... but I'm not so you can read about those events in another 4 or 5 months! :P

ANYWAYS... So I left my good friends from work in Byron and went back up the coast to Surfers Paradise for a weekend of auto racing, the Indy 300. I've been going to Champcars races in Vancouver since I was 9 so this was a rather big deal for me. The first time seeing them live and NOT at that horrible False Creek circuit. The Indy weekend is said to be the 3 biggest "party weekend" in Australia behind New Years and the Melbourne Cup (horse racing), and it definately didn't disappoint! I met up my fellow Canadian friend Krysta (see previous posts: ie Noosa) and her Swedish :) and Farrow Island roommates and we killed it every night! Well, except the night Krysta ditched us to go to the Ralph (Aus version of Maxim) Party with some highroller VIP she met. I'm just jealous. That party appearantly had heaps of celebs! Another thing Indy weekend is famous for is girls flashing their tits from balconies in the skyscrapers. It's the funniest thing! I'm sitting there in the stands watching the cars go by and wondering why these old guys around me have binoculars... I mean the cars are RIGHT THERE!!! Then all of a sudden somethigns grabbed there attention and they whip the binocs up to their eyes and point em to the heavens. I look over and sure enough there's two naked chicks way up in an apartment building. And then another balcony.. and another... all I gotta say is, I need a better zoom on my camera! Oh, and the racing was good too!

Me and Tess (one Swede)

Krysta and Petra(the other swede)... man, Krysta's gonna kill me for posting this!!!! But how could I not!

The Swedes and ze German (can't remember his name)

There's a naked girl somewhere there... trust me

Mini cars that run on motorbike engines.. super fun to watch.. there was like 60 of them!

Champcar!

Surfers Paradise, as seen from Q1, the world's largest residential building and 20th tallest building overall.

After the weekend I went and spent a night with friends of my parents in their beautiful and watched the bats come out and search for berry trees. It was unreal, like it was straight out of the Lost Boys or something!

I flew back to Sydney and spent the last few days there saying goodbye to my mates and getting my shit sorted out. I also came back to the 3 week period where Sydney is infested with flies. TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE stuff. Almost ruined my whole memory of the place! I spent the last night catching up with my ex-girlfriend Marcelle (haha, I told you that I would eventually mention you in my blog babe!) and at 12:30pm on Monday October 30th, 2006 my plane took off and my Australian experience was over... for now!!!!! I shall return!!!!!