Solvang: the Hottest Viking Town ever

It was  a struggle to get up but we walked down the street to the bus to get the car. It was already hot out. On the way the stupid homeless guy saw me again and asked for money for a burger. I am now known as 'Australia Guy'. We then had to walk past the seedy Grog & Groc store to pick up the car from U-Save. I thought it was proncounced Grock not grose. Sherry doesn't like this Suzuki car we picked up this time. She can't wind the seat up enough to see over the 'hood'. We went back home to pick up a now hopefully charged camera and GPS.

I then drove for the first time this trip! I was nervous before I started, but once we were moving I was loving it. So much easier than it was the last time I was here. It just felt way more natural this time around. Last time it was hard just driving on the big interstate to Phoenix. But yeah, now apart from the intial 10-15 seconds driving is pretty easy. We drove up the 101 along the coast to Solvang. You can either go along the coast, or up the 154 through the hills. The coastal route is about 5 minutes longer.

Saw some beautfiful views of the coast and also went through a tunnel as we wound our way through the foothills, We then got off the 101 and headed past a blueberry patch to the Nojoqui Falls. There werent many cars in the carpark.

We soon worked out why. California has been in drought for 3 years. The waterfall was barely a trickle. Maybe if we'd seen a mountain lion it would have been more exiciting. Nah actually it was pretty cool. One guy there said 'its cool, we can just Photoshop the water in later'. We tried to get creative with the photos, maybe to make up for the lack of water there, standing right under the water holding the camera on all sorts of angles. I don't know if our shots made up for the lack of water.

Just add water

We then drove to Solvang, and it just full Danish. Apart from the heat i guess. But yell it feels like a town where you should be yodell ay eeh hooing and skiing. But the heat. Sherry and her hangover were not doing well.

Hullo - we are on our way to holland!

We ate at vikings, had a cool smorgasboard with swedish meatballs (my favourite), lots of variations of mash, steamed cabbage, curried cauliflower, i even made a full vegie sandwhich with ham, turkey, tomato, beetroot, cheese. oh yeah - and pate cheese and crackers.

We then walked around - and found a cool Penny Passport to keep all of our flattened pennys in. Sherry bought a bottle of water that cost '3 bucks' - and then the guy tood me how it was the best and most purrest water in the world.

The mission was Ok. Good views all around and the cross cemetary thing was interesting too. But i kind of got the feeling that the only people who should be going to these "mission' places are those hard core religious belt people from Utah and Memphis.

We also looked at Hans Christiann Anderson Museum. Man that sucked. Sherry looked in a shop that sold Pandora jewellery. I had a quick chat to an ex-army guy who was telling me how he could sleep but still be aware of what was going on around him. Pretty cool stuff. he can sleep for 15 minutes yet stll sense what is going on and then feel like he has been asleep for 3 hours.

We were pooped so bought some pastries 'raspbery danish, and blueberry bowl' (shudders thinking about my yankee girl accent). We drove back to Santa Barabara along the mountain route. Saw some really wild scenery, I should have stopped to take more photos. We only stopped at the Pointo Vista or whatever it was, the views weren't great there. In the 4wd next to our car kids were sitting there mashing their PSP's

Then on to Seers and Vons - bought some component cables so we can now watch DVD's in proper colour. Bout Newcastles beer from Vons - got signed up and it saved about 30% which was mad. Got home and we were both pretty knackered. I fell asleep on the couch watching Penn State Lions offense crumble underr pressure from the Iowa Hawkeye 's defense. Penn State were up 10-0, but from there on they were in trouble. First giving up a safety (almost a TD on the fumble).

Im going to eat my pastries and watch James Bond 'Dr No'.

MOVIE REVIEW - JAMES BOND

Dr No - hahaha. Pretty good for a first James Bond film conisdering it was made way back in the day, 1962 in fact.

BASIC PLOT - MI-6 - A special government secret service division working for the Queen - send top 00 Agent James Bond to Jamaica to investigate the death of a missing colleague. His investigations lead him to an island feared by the natives and home of the mysterious Dr No who is on a mission to destroy the US Space Program.

Excellent use of tension in some scenes. Especially in the first Dr No - Professor in the chamber scene where all you can hear is his voice speaking into a cahmber. Making rthe Professor sit in a little chair really exemplified the power Dr No had and belittled the Professor exceptionally well. Unfortunately for better or worse - Dr. No was very much an abstract figure for the first 3/4 of the movie and then in the final quarter when Bond was on the island, Dr No's chracter seemed weak and only relied upoon the aforementioned abstract power to really give him any sense of presence or power. They could have made more of that i think in the rest of the movie. Still I guess it was one of the first 'Evil Genius' films so you can't run before you can walk. My favourite part of the movie was when the patrol boat is shooting at them and then yells 'Your not coming out??? Okay! We're leaving!! But we'll be back!! with Dogs!!!"

This first movie really shows 007's paranoid side and kind of shows the life of an agent as one of caution, with him beign very suspicious of everyone and everything. It does give perspective as to why he is a closed off character who shields himself from emotion - something I'll be interested to look for in following Bond films.


You can also really see how Bond evolved as the sexist hero throughout the series. He basically verges on rude in this movie and jsut orders people around. I guess that's how it was in the late 50's. Also the ideas of women in the work place can be explored throughout the series and contrasting this movie to a later Bond film you understand a lot about society and culture.

But even with Honey Ryder, the famous 1st Bond Girl, you do see a trend in that all Bond girls do have a raw sexy energy as well as their own independant power which makes them strong - although Bond doesw end up bossing her around in this one. But you can see comparisons between Honey and Halle Berry's Jinx character who also portrayed the famous 'bikini out of the water' scene some 40 years later.

Also the use of special gadgets, Q was not present in this, but the upgrading of guns in the scene with M was where it all stemmed from.

Favourite Line - 'You're not coming out??? Okay! We're leaving!! But we'll be back!! with Dogs!!!"

Bond Girl - Honey Ryder
Villian Power - 6
Bond Gadgets - None

Overall - 7 out of 10

A great introduction for the James Bond character. Given when the film was made it's a great exploration of themes and the protagnist / antagonist similarity - with Dr No. offering Bond a role within SPECTRE.

I think it was this night - it definetly wasn't Grand Final Day. Nah it was thats right. I had a really mean game of Pinball Fantasies 'Stones and Bones'. I got the top score of 125,000,000. But the game froze and wouldnt let me input my intials so its not permantly in the records. Oh well! Thats good - means i can go and do it again officially and ensure that it wasn't a fluke. But yeah got up to the "orange ghoul' feature where every target is worth 1 million. Pity i only hit one target and then died. Damn! But yeah - i got about 3 extra balls - first for 10 screams, then for the 3rd green opoltergeist feature, then for beating the previous top score of 100 million. The vault was worth around 2.8 million a hit, and I had it up to about 24 screams from memory. What a game. Its tough to choose between Pinball Fantasies and Metroid Pinball as favourite pinball game of all time. And that is even without bringing Psycho Pinball into the equation. Can't wait for that to come to Iphone.