Thunder Down Under

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

Embarking on the second day of Armageddon Convention. A few days ago I thought Armageddon was coming as, upon nightfall, blasts of flame erupted along the street and I thought someone was blowing up Melbourne. But no, it turns out to be a nightly show involving natural gas displays.

All the comic book guests are seated in a row for much of the day in the dealer’s room, signing away. Morning was busy; afternoon less so. Fans are uniformly friendly and appreciative that we’ve made the trip down here (in our case, a six hour flight cross country followed by a fifteen hour flight cross globe.)

Caroline has discovered a new fascination: Wrestling. They have a ring set up and pro wrestlers put on demonstrations every few hours. Kathleen was thinking of taking Caroline to some local gardens today that are supposed to be magnificent. Caroline will have none of it; she wants to go back to the convention to see the 11 AM wrestling demonstration. At one point yesterday a wrestler, in character, snarled at her. She snarled right back, baring her little chompers with the front teeth missing, and totally caused the wrestler to break character and start laughing.

It’s also interesting to read the local newspapers to see how Americans are viewed. The columnists seem to be rhapsodic about Obama.

PAD

18 comments on “Thunder Down Under”

  1. “It’s also interesting to read the local newspapers to see how Americans are viewed. The columnists seem to be rhapsodic about Obama.”
    .
    About 20 years ago, my sister went to England for a year during college. One of the things she was surprised by was how much they knew about American politics. Not just the President, they knew enough about Jessie Helms to hate him. Us being from North Carolina, it seemed weird for her to go that far away and still find people who knew that much about Jessie Helms.
    .
    Other than the heads of state, I can’t name one politician from one country other than the USA.

    1. I’ve been living in Belfast for the last two years and have found that not only do they know an awful lot about American politics but they also want to know what YOU (as an American) think about American politics. And I normally keep myself out of the political talk.

      But every time my wife says ‘this is my husband, he’s American’ I can almost count down… three, two, one. ‘Oh my, what do you think about this peace prize thing?’ (or whatever else is going on back home)

  2. I want to see a picture of Caroline snarling with her little no-front-teeth bared up close.

  3. “It’s also interesting to read the local newspapers to see how Americans are viewed. The columnists seem to be rhapsodic about Obama.”

    Well, the country’s biggest-selling national newspaper, The Australian, is generally right-wing in tone (the paper is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Limited) and its foreign editor, Greg Sheridan, is a conservative who’s been quite critical of Obama. Unfortunately, in Western Australia, the only papers that are generally available to us (in addition to The Australian) are our one daily state newspaper, The West Australian (which has strong conservative leanings and is pretty much a populist tabloid rag) and the Sunday Times (ditto). The Eastern States – New South Wales, Victoria, etc – have a greater variety of more politically diverse newspapers. WA’s kinda desolate by comparison! Small wonder I get most of my US news from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report…

    Anyway PAD, glad you made it to Australia and I hope you enjoy your stay down under!

  4. Glad you’re enjoying Armageddon and my home town!
    I’ve gone to the con for the last 2-3 years, and it’s always been fun. It helps that I have friends who work at one of the comic stalls, since it’s always a lot of fun to help them out and banter around with people, and generally goof off and call it work.

    Sadly I’ve missed it this year since I’ve been so heavily dosed on antibiotics for the last few days, it’s a tough enough experience attaining mobility, much less commuting to the city. It would have been really great to attend the writing panel on one of the days too.

    But anyway, thanks for coming down to Australia, and I hope you make the trip again sometime in the future.

    Also, the botanical gardens really are worth seeing, but I may be a bit biased.

    -M

  6. “Embarking on the second day of Armageddon Convention.”

    That’s going on now?!?

    Man, right at the same time as the Deep Impact Convention!

  7. Trying to find a schedule for the Auckland event has been quite bothersome. Are you coming over for that too?

    1. PAD is coming to the Auckland con. Problem was he’s a last minute guest and got left off all the official schedules.

      1. I say. That’s quite excited. You’ll be able to recognise me as the grown man who is to nervous to say hello and walks past about 6 times.

      1. It must be because I’m at work!

        I get nothing there! I know that you would never provide me with false hopes Richard, so that mustbe it. I shall have to go home at once!

  9. Pad…

    while you are there you should try a soda called Solo… Love the stuff and they have it no where else… One called Lift will do in a pinch…lol

  10. “Caroline has discovered a new fascination: Wrestling.”
    .
    Showing that, if I remember her father’s past comments on pro-wrestling correctly, that she already has much better taste than her dad.
    .
    There is still hope to be found in the future generations.
    .
    🙂

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