Dude!

MIND. OFFICIALLY. BLOWN.

Negative

Signs that you are officially old:


1. You're at a dinner party.

2. The youngest person there, by a significant margin, is 23.

3. He asks what "negative gearing" is... and six of the eight people at the table can tell him.

4. And four of those six speak from experience.


Sheesh.


My only consolation is that I was one of the two people who had no idea.

iNew

Over the last few weeks my old iPhone 3G has started crashing, especially when asked to do something more taxing than show a text or call up a map. And over the last few days it's been doing it more and more often. On Saturday I tried to video something on my TV - spasms in the digital signal were autotuning an infomercial for Roombas in a way that was singularly hilarious - but each time I tried, it crashed not just the program but the entire operating system. After checking that it was indeed running the latest software, and getting a second opinion that it was probably a hardware issue, and fearing the prospect of having to function without Whatsapp and Shazam for more than half an hour, I bit the bullet and bought a new iPhone 5.


I'd like to tell you about how awesome my new iPhone is, but to be honest I have no idea because it's still in the box at home. That's because iPhone 5 uses a nanoSIM, and the iPhone 3G uses a normal SIM. The Apple store offers to swap SIMs for customers free of charge... but only for customers on the big telcos like Telstra, Optus and Vodafone. So until my service provider mails me out a new nanoSIM (in the post, which feels a little like getting a software update by carrier pigeon), my iPhone 5 is basically a phenomenally expensive and cranky iPod, one which only performs basic functions and constantly bewails the fact that it doesn't have a SIM.


Ironically, ever since I bought the iPhone 5 on Sunday, the iPhone 3G has been running perfectly. It even shoots flawless video. It's like a slovenly spouse who suddenly cleans up his or her act when you say you want a divorce.


Too late, bitch. I've moved on.

Fruitful

Although the climate in which I live is not condusive to apple trees fruiting, mine has done its darndest this year to give me apples. Unlike my nectarines, which were so stunted I suspect they may have been smoking, and my oranges, which were fibrous and really only suitable for juicing, my apples were as big and tasty as the ones I buy from the greengrocer.


In fact, some of them were considerably bigger.





Normal apple on the left. Gigantic mutant apple on right. It's supposed to be a Pink Lady, but it's more of a Pink 50 Foot Woman.


It was also delicious.

Worlds

I spent my last day in Bali chatting with friends and shopping for pirated DVDs in Bali's remarkable pirate DVD supermarkets. Pirate cinema is such an organised industry in Bali that it makes legitimate businesses look shoddy by comparrison. The supermarkets are clean, orderly and airconditioned. The prices are set and there is no haggling. You can get a basket in which to collect your merchanise as you browse, and once you pay you get a receipt. If it weren't for the fact that the DVDs only cost a dollar, and some of the special features don't function properly, you'd think that this was some legitimate form of retail.

I also took one final opportunity to simply walk around and do some exploring. The back streets of Bali follow the same random urban planning principles as the main streets. When I wanted to reach my friend's luxury villa, the instructions were, "walk down this alley, past the garbage dump with feral dogs living on it, next to the open sewer, and then around the corner and over the road from the unlicensed scooter repair place."

But soon enough it was time to leave. One of the things that impressed me about the hotel was the fact that they took care of their guests even after they'd checked out. They had a lounge tucked away at the rear of the site, with couches, a TV, bathrooms, showers, storage areas, and even a minibar and hot snacks, all free for guests waiting for a late flight. Unfortunately while it was empty when I dropped my bags there at midday, by the time I returned from shopping and exploring it had been taken over by a large family of bogans. There was Overweight Dad, Overweight Mum who kept nipping outside for a smoke or eleven, and several Overweight Kids who whined constantly at Overweight Dad about getting Foxtel. They were slumped over every available seat, so I grabbed some spring rolls and a Diet Coke and returned to the pool bar, so that I could spend the last of my rupiahs on a mojito and update my travel journal in relative peace and quiet.

Grumpy Sumo was sad to leave cheap booze, and so was I. But we had to get to the airport for our evening flight.

The new Denpassar Airport is a vast, brilliant, billowing white cloud of glass and steel. But until it opens in 2014, we're stuck with the old Denpassar Airport, which is ugly, rundown, smelly, badly lit and poorly serviced. It doesn't help that it's packed with the feral Australian tourists I've managed to avoid since arriving in Bali.

"OI! TYSON! JAXON! KRYSTELLAH! IF YOU DON'T GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW YOU WON'T GET ANY RED BULLS! DON'T MAKE ME COME AFTER YA!"

Ugh, I'd only been at the airport twenty minutes and I’d had enough of noisy Australians, their hair braided into cornrows and their fresh Bali tattoos bleeding out from under the bandages.

Still, bogans notwithstanding, it was a very enjoyable trip. Except for the humidity Bali is lovely, with beautiful landscapes, an exciting design aesthetic, affordable luxury at every turn, and more cheap booze than you can poke a cocktail umbrella at. As I told the ever hopeful taxi drivers, I'll be back. If only to replenish the duty free essentials.

Mortal

I have no idea how the Balinese people ever get things done in the heat and humidity. It’s bearable when your agenda for the day consists entirely of wallowing about in swimming pools and drinking. But for anything else, it’s horrible. I guess that everyone simply adapts to being sweaty and clammy all day and night. Or they just die. Which at least will cool them down.

Beached

In my continuing mission to keep the hell away from authentic Balinese culture, I spent most of the day at Waterbom, a modern, high-tech water park in the middle of the busiest part of Bali. It could be anywhere in the world.





Even so, there was one thing that struck me. It occurred when I was recuperating on a lounge next to the children’s area after my sixteenth or seventeenth screaming plunge down a waterslide. As I lounged, I watched one of the male, 20-something lifeguards playing with the children. He had a three year old tourist boy in his arms and was tossing him into the air then catching him, both of them laughing delightedly.


Something seemed wrong about this scene. And it suddenly occurred to me… why wasn’t there a mother having hysterics somewhere nearby? Why weren’t there people calling for the police to arrest this obvious pervert who was actually touching another person’s child? Heck, where were the park’s OHS officers to discipline him for risky behaviour?


But there wasn’t any of that. There was just a guy making life more fun for the little kids under his supervision. Whether it’s the humidity or just the culture, people don’t get all precious and prissy about things here. Getting upset takes energy better directed to fanning oneself and sipping ice-filled drinks.


Lord Vader took the opportunity to catch some sun and work on his tan.








I'd already had enough sun at this point and was turning an unfortunate shade of pink, so I just snapped some photos of the oversaturated colours of Bali - the BLUE sky, the GREEN trees, and those ubiquitous RED beach umbrellas.