ALTO'S ADVENTURE

If you haven't already downloaded this most awesome game then what are you doing with your life? (Probably having one, but that's beside the point). I don't think I have seen a more beautiful iOS game to date. The graphics are exquisite and the game play addictive and fun. It's not free but only a couple of dollars at the App store...

The game travels through a day with sunrise, sunsets, night and day sections. This is the stunning sunset 

Here's a short video of some game play, the player is less adventurous than you can be but I guess they wanted to show a good run, sadly it is only a 2 minute run, so not that good of a run in the end. You'll be going a lot longer and flipping a pile more double and triple back-flips than this in no time.

Jeebus, I feel like I just wrote a paid review, I promise you that's not the case. Just sharing the love, I mean would a paid review allow me to say the word funcklestick? Exactly!

THEY SHOOT ELEPHANTS DON'T THEY

Apologies to the late Sydney Pollack 

In recent days I've discussed the Glenn McGrath "I have a small penis and compensate by killing large animals" incident with a bunch of different people, both in person and on social media. For the most part people agree it is abhorrent to kill elephants and to hunt as a "sport". But a few times during those discussions I have heard the comment, "yeah it's not nice but the money from these hunts goes towards preserving the animals".

I firmly call bullshit on that, especially in this case. McGrath went hunting in Zimbabwe at a time when a loaf of bread cost over a billion Zimbabwean dollars, the money from safaris was not being spent on the conservation of elephants in Zimbabwe. If any money at all was being spent, it was on conserving them to be shot for profit. Possibly still is seeing as the Zimbabwean dollar is currently worth around 3.5 Australian cents.

So I'm not buying that, sorry folks. Peter FitzSimons has a nice quote to back this in his latest piece for the Sydney Morning Herald... 

In response, I quote my friend Peter Allison who has more than 20 years experience as a safari guide in the African bush and is now an author and passionate advocate for conservation. 

"Hunting," he says, "works for conservation like slavery works for economic growth. A guaranteed but morally awful way to achieve a goal. There's an act where a man takes advantage of a woman just because he wants to, and is strong enough that he can. That's not a sport either. We stop kids from pulling the wings off flies because it is cruel, and a worrying way for them to have 'fun'. How is this any different?"

Peter also discusses the argument that hunting is a sport and destroys that nicely too. I mean a sport? Seriously? That's a huge stretch, I played sport for decades and sure sometimes we beat teams convincingly and sometimes we were beaten convincingly. But never was the advantage/disadvantage as wide as wild animal with claws v man with high powered hunting rifle. You can shove the sport theory right up the conservation theories butt hole.

For full disclosure I am not a vegetarian and I enjoy eating meat. But this isn't about that, it's about humans who need to over compensate for whatever reason at the expense of wild animals.

GAS STATION # 29

Spotted this gem while driving back from Canberra a few weeks ago. It's in the NSW town of Holbrook, that of the submarine fame a few posts below. Which explains the random artwork on the side wall. 

Random submarine art that's not so random

Videos

KODACHROME

No filters necessary. How I wish this was the norm again. Not all of these photos have dates or credits but they all have one thing in common, they were shot on Kodachrome film...

Garden of the Gods Park. Colorado 1950's. Kodachrome by Chalmers Butterfield

Hollywood 1959

New York 1953

Rome 1952

USA 1955

They even named a State Park after it -Kodachrome Basin State Park, Utah.

SO MANY CARS

WARNING: The following images contain vintage cars and some images may offend those who do not like cars because this post is cars and nothing but cars OMG so many cars cars CARS!

Okay, seems that up until yesterday I didn't quite realise how much I loved vintage cars, vintage American cars mostly. I'd seen these sorts of cars before, one here, one there but never so many together and there's just something about putting ALL THE CARS in one place that made me decide that yes I do indeed love vintage American (and some Australian) cars. It's not the engines or the torque or the whatever, it's completely the design aspect, such lines, many wow. So, I kinda took lots of pics, so many that they wont all fit into a single blog post, but they do fit into a single Flickr album.

The event was the annual Ballarat Beat Rockabilly Festival which I haven't exactly been paying a lot of attention to (the shows and all) because I suddenly got hung up in my new found passion for vintage cars. Maybe today I'll check out some of the other stuff or maybe, you know, more cars. Alternatively you can check out my girls shots of all things pin-up and rockabilly over at her Flickr album, she is an official blogger for the event and takes rad photos like this one...

You can check out Liana's blog posts of the event over at Finding Femme shortly

Okay car time

Fords and parasols

Buick

Chrysler & Chevy

Thunderbird

Surf Safari

Holden Interior

De Soto

Eldorado

Chevy

Chevrolet

Chrysler

Bel Air

Bel Air Interior

Ford Fairline

So many cars, the entire length of Lydiard St

T Bird Interior

Reflected in the Whitewalls

SO, DO YA WANNA SEE A SUBMARINE?

"Do I ?! Oh hells yes... wait, wot? We're 430 km inland!"

"Well turn in here", so I did and suddenly SUBMARINE! The story goes that a small town in country NSW was originally called Germanton, after a German immigrant, however during World War 1 this was seen as unpatriotic. The town then changed its name to Holbrook after Lt. Norman Douglas Holbrook, a decorated wartime submarine captain and winner of the Victoria Cross. So it only seems natural that they should have a submarine right?! Not what I expected to find driving between Canberra and Ballarat...

RIP KENJI EKUAN - WHO IS KENJI EKUAN?

Don't feel bad if you didn't know, I didn't know who he was either before today. If you did know then kudos for being all up in your designer knowledge of things. (That makes no sense I know). 

Kenji's life sounds quite extraordinary and he designed something that I can safely say you've interacted with more than once or at the very least seen more than once in your life. This perfect piece of design...

Yep, told ya. He also designed Yamahas and the Bullet Train and a pile of other things. A couple of years back the New York Times did a piece on him, you can read that here. 

Just 16 and recently released from a naval academy, Kenji Ekuan witnessed Hiroshima’s devastation from the train taking him home. “Faced with that nothingness, I felt a great nostalgia for human culture,” he recalled from the offices of G. K. Design, the firm he co-founded in Tokyo in 1952. “I needed something to touch, to look at,” he added. “Right then I decided to be a maker of things.”

Kenji Ekun died today at the age of 85. I never heard of him until he died, yet unknowingly I and you had in a way connected with him through that soy sauce bottle, So I figured you should know about him.

VISITING THE WAR MEMORIAL

It just so happened that I was in Canberra over the weekend and it just so happened that I visited the Australian War Memorial while I was there. I've wanted to go there for a very long time. We didn't have much time to spare so what we did have was spent there. Around three hours all up and I think we missed some stuff, we needed about another hour. It's a pretty impressive place and the museum within is one of the best I've ever visited. I'll post some shots of the collection later.

I had a bit of a surprise bonus while I was there. We'd just come out of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and I'd just snapped the pic above, when I looked to my right, without moving a step, to find that I'd placed myself right in front of someone with my surname. It's not a popular surname and as such I'm pretty certain that most of us are related somewhere back along the line. I think through a great great grandfather and his brothers. This is yet to be determined but I was pretty happy to find it and now I have some researching to do. (Which has already begun and massive thanks to my gal pal Claire for her help on this)

Domed roof inside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Looking back out towards the entrance to the tomb

I'm not one for glorifying war but at least this tribute to the lives destroyed by it is extremely well done