New Poll: What comes to mind when you think of “Australia”? I’m down here challenging my pre-conceived notions, so therefore you all should too. 🙂

Two items of note:

  1. I slept under a mosquito net for the first time last night. It wasn’t quite as fun/romantic as I expected. But hey, at least the buggers didn’t bite me in my sleep.
  2. We may have found an apartment! While waiting for a late real estate agent at an apartment complex yesterday, another one (from a competing agency) came out. We asked her if she had anything in our range, and she ended up showing us another unit in the building. It was SUPER NICE. Just a one bedroom, but clean and new and with lots of shiny appliances. And it had a big balcony that we can barbecue on. We’re going to apply today, so cross your fingers!

You know, I realized the other day that I have feelings of guilt about the turn web-goddess has taken. It used to be a fairly even mix of journal stuff and random web links (I thought), but the move has really tilted everything in favor of autobiographical content. Does that suck? Because really, if you think about it, it was always about my daily life. It’s just that my daily life was spent surfing the Net. And now I’ve reached a point where a lot of my family and friends use this site to keep tabs on me. So what I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry if you’re a web link fan disappointed in the site recently. The fun stuff will come back, but not until I have the time to spend in front of the computer. For now, daily life is enough of a task.

WE MADE IT!
Wow, after all of the planning and anticipation, we’re finally here. Snookums and I touched down in Sydney without any problems and we’re now bunking at his sister’s place. We started the house hunt today and though we saw some great places (with harbor views!), they were a bit out of our price range. We hope to find a place soon though. Tomorrow we’re heading into the more grungy, college student-type areas. (I’ll have to break out my Chuck Taylors.)

Is it cold where you are? It was over 80 degrees here today! *grin* The climate change has definitely helped my cold, which is improving. I’m handling the heat better than I anticipated, though I think I got a bit sunburnt on our house hunting expedition.

That’s all for now, folks. I hope to be back to my regular posting schedule just as soon as we find an apartment. Ooh, I didn’t even tell you about Boudicca II, my new little iBook. She’s wonderful! We’re going to have a lot of fun posting about our adventures in the future. Stay tuned!

One more flight to go!
Well, we made it out of Indiana and safely to Los Angeles, though we seem to have brought the crappy weather with us. As usual, the stress of traveling has killed my immune system and I’m suffering from the nastiest of colds. Thank God for Nyquil. Anyway, tonight the Snook and I board our last plane for the long haul – 16 hours to Sydney. I’ll probably be lynched long before that though, by a gang of passengers incensed by my hacking cough. Next time you hear from me, I’ll no longer be a resident of the Northern Hemisphere. Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving!

Just checking in! We made it to America and now we’re sitting at my aunt’s house watching the Macy’s Parade. Security on the international flight was actually pretty lax; other than a dog sniffing me there didn’t seem to be much out of the ordinary. My sister claims that domestic flights are much worse, so we’ll see how that goes when we take off for L.A. next week. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Shh! I snuck online on Nick’s computer but don’t tell Snookums. He’s trying to see how long he can go without it. Anyhoo, thanks for all the kind words below. We’re just about ready to go. My computer Boudicca was sent off to live with her new family, and 90% of the rest of our stuff left with the shippers on Friday. (We sent TEN big boxes!) Now we’re down to a suitcase each. It’s very liberating. We leave Tuesday at noon and we should land in Chicago that afternoon. The next time you hear from me I’ll be home in the U.S. of A.! I can taste the Mountain Dew now…

This is it, folks. Boudicca (my lovely iMac) is leaving me to find a new home with my friend Kingsley. Not only that, but the Snook’s computers will be packed up for the shippers tomorrow. As a result I shall be without access to the Internet until we fly home next week and I can pick up my new iBook. A frightening proposition, isn’t it? I haven’t gone cold turkey on the Internet in seven years. Wish me luck, and I’ll see you next week.

Would you pay a penny per page to visit this site? No, I’m not contemplating a new revenue model. This scheme is supposed to be the great solution to getting compensation on the web. The ensuing Slashdot discussion points out some of the big problems. What exactly constitutes a page? Would I get charged every time I refresh? Wouldn’t this result in sites breaking down content even further to spread it out over the most pages possible? Additionally, I’ve gotta wonder how well this approach would translate internationally. I’m moving to Australia but my own websites are hosted in the U.S. One U.S. cent is probably going to constitute a larger portion of my income there than it would in the States. I imagine it would be even worse in developing nations. So is this really the best solution for making the Web globally effective, by setting up an economic barrier to those who might benefit from it the most? What about students and teachers? Most of my Dahl site visitors log in from schools or libraries. Should they have to pay per page too? I’m not gonna lie to you; I like the idea of being able to make a living off my hobbies. But as a surfer myself, I can’t believe this is the best step forward.