Catalina Island, Obamarama '08 and San Diego State Football

Two weeks ago we went to Santa Catalina Island off the coast of LA for the weekend. We went up to Long Beach with Rachel, who I know from work in Chch, and her boyfriend Guy. Rachel organised the trip for her work and there were some leftover spots so we took up the opportunity. The ferry from Long Beach to Catalina takes about an hour during which time I noticed a small design flaw on the vessel, which was that water is channeled back along the roof of the cabin to drench everyone who is sitting outside. Not worth fixing I guess. There are two settlements on Catalina - Avalon, where the rich and famous go, and Two Harbors, where we went. Two Harbors allegedly has a population of 200, but this was obviously rounded up from 27. That said, there was a shop, a pub, a restaurant and plenty of stuff to do there. We spent the Saturday going for a bike ride and lazing around the place. On Sunday the wind came up so we couldn't go snorkeling as planned. We also found out that the ferry couldn't sail that day because it was too rough. A Cook Strait ferryman would have laughed at this assertion but we were forced to spend another night on the island. This was obviously a scam by the locals to keep us on the island for another night, but there was no other option so I immediately panicked and proceeded to reenact the first 3 series of "Lost" and the movie "Alive." I'm not proud of that, but most of the party eventually made it back to the mainland safely on the Monday.


Tamsin (front), idiot trying to attract a seagull (middle rear) and idiot trying to take photo of said seagull (left rear). Idiot number two also managed to stand on Tamsin's foot on two separate occasions before we had left Long Beach which also qualifies him as an oaf.


The allegedly haunted RMS Queen Mary is now a hotel in Long Beach Harbor


Looking back at downtown Long Beach


The Long Beach Port/Industrial region is one of the busiest ports in the world and is a major cause of air pollution in LA.


The view from Two Harbors back to LA with its rich chocolatey layer of smog.


Two Harbors from the ferry. Over 100 movies have been filmed on Catalina (mainly during the silent film era), and "Treasure Island" and "Mutiny on the Bounty" were both filmed in Two Harbors.


There's some interesting wildlife on Catalina, like these deer which we thought pretty cool until we saw this guy...


The buffalo were introduced to the island for the 1925 film "The Vanishing American" and have done quite well since. What you can't see in this photo is me stalking this buffalo with a Bowie knife between my teeth. Unfortunately the photos of me killing, butchering and eating the heart of the buffalo didn't come out, but it definitely happened.


Tamsin with the buffalo


A buffalo gal comes out and dances by the light of the moon.


The patch on the right is some grass and the patch on the left is a group of Channel Island terns, which are also known as "mimic terns". These birds emulate the shape of nearby foliage which apparently protects them by confusing predators such as the California sea lion. I thought this was a rather strange and ingenious method to avoid predation until I remembered that I just made it up.


After that guy stepped on Tamsin's foot twice, I wasn't taking any risks and insisted she wore a helmet at all times.


Sunset over the Pacific

Here are my slightly overdue thoughts on the election over here. First, thank God its finally over. While Obama's rise from from nowhere two years ago to becoming America's first half-white president is amazing, there's still a lot of racists here who wonder whether a Hawaiian is really capable of running the country. Time will tell. There's been a lot of fall-out here in California over State proposition 8, which made gay marriage illegal again. It seems quite strange to me that this passed in supposedly super-liberal California. There have been a lot of protests/parades going on over it since the election. I was initially for making gay marriage illegal again, but as soon as I found out that it wouldn't be compulsory I changed my mind and I think it might help if the proponents were to take out a few ads explaining this. California did pass a law effectively outlawing battery chickens to show they're not completely backwards.

Last Saturday night we went to watch the San Diego State Aztecs football team play Utah. The unbeaten Utah team were ranked number 7 in the country. SDSU might have been ranked number 7 in San Diego if they were lucky, as they are having a historically bad season. The outcome was a formality and the only thing in doubt would be the margin of Utah's victory, or so it seemed. But sometimes things aren't as they seem. This wasn't one of those times as Utah romped home 63-14. But college football isn't just about the teams, its also about the atmosphere with the bands and the cheerleaders being an important part of this. The bands are very cool as they played back forth. SDSU's band was really good, especially the drummers, and the only competitive unit of the night. The cheerleaders on the other hand were vastly inferior to the Utah squad. They had their jackets on by the second quarter, which is very unprofessional in a cheer squad. The Utah squad didn't wrap up at any point and remained in bare feet the whole time. They also demonstrated this thing called choreography. They had a couple of guys who yelled at them while they did push ups too, so its clear they know their role like good Utah girls.
Overall it was very cool, despite the fact that the stadium was largely empty and the team sucked. We both thought it would be interesting to go to a game in one of those Midwest places where the entire city turns out for the games because there's nothing else to do.


A split second before one of SDSU's few bright points of the evening. The Aztecs are so bad, they have white guys on their team.


One of the many bright spots for Utah as #4 scores a touchdown.


A squadron of band geeks went around the stadium playing for particularly vocal sections of the crowd.


The SDSU band at half time doing a rendition of "Who are you?" by "The Who"




SDSU cheerleaders - rubbish at Boggle.



Like the football team, the Utah cheerleaders were vastly superior to their opponents.