high up

so today is my last day in melbourne before i head back to dunedin. the fact i haven't been back home in dunedin in a VERY long time is itself a kinda big thing, but the fact that my VERY eventful melbourne trip draws to a close is another biggish thing.

i decided to end my down under experience with something both fun and more important low key!

a trip up a sky scrapper to have a look around the WHOLE city. now i have to say i'm more than a little bit excited by this prospect. i haven't done this since the calgary tower (which was before i had a blog or camera sadly)...

my destination was the eureka tower just across the river from downtown and the aquarium. the first thing that one notices about this building is the fact it is covered in GIANT bees!!!

my first thought, perhaps strangely (i blame my tiny brain), was this was where all the bees from new zealand's parliament building the beehive had gone!

now not that i'm really scared of bees, but seeing insects that big gave me a momentary startle!

once your inside there aren't really any more problems.

though this place has the fastest elevator i have ever been on! your ears and stomach feel really funny and almost sick (but in the most fun way you've ever been sick before) for the mere 20 seconds it takes to go up or down the 88 floors to the observation deck!

once your up in there its just cool as!

the views are amazing...

don't believe just check out these photos.

not only do i enjoy looking at the city from a new point of view, but it was fun to use my imagination.... now i know what melbounre would have looked like to my childhood hero godzilla!

that or a pterosaur cruising the sky above the town...

it was definitely a great waste of the afternoon.

looking back on the city i was kind of sad to be leaving it. at the same time due to the museum quest i hadn't really been back home in dunedin in a LONG time. i was sort of looking forward to going there. if even just for a little while...

in a few days i was going to have to use my hatching day present, a plane ticket back to canada. my first time back home in 2 years... i wasn't sure if i was really excited about that or dreading it...

THE goodbye (the big date conclusion)

today was not how i pictured things going people of the web wide world...

especially after all the planning and imagining i'd done if i did finally get to see lillian again. nope this was not like that at all. though it could have gone a LOT worse mind you.

professor paradigm, earlier today, had ended lillian's current job, leaving her an unemployed and stranded dinosaur. in australia of all places... rather than leave the girl of my dreams to the harsh whims of fortune i decided to take action!

i had entrusted lillian's future with my special talent agent peter bond, but this was not without its problems. i'm paying for it, and not just lillian's part of it either but peter's too. it also means that lillian will be leaving the far south. the worst thing though is that lillian was furious at me for doing this for her.

i was determined though, to be the one who saved her... especially considering the troubles she'd been having due to the pack of the primordial feather before all this. i needed to make sure someone was going to be watching her back, and it sadly couldn't be me, so peter was the only other person i trusted capable of the task .

still lillian wasn't too happy about it as we walked her towards the airport. she wouldn't even walk near me at first.

everytime i'd try to start up a conversation about something we passed, she'd ignore it or worse growl.

it was as we got halfway through downtown the silence finally broke. we went by one of the many horse drawn carriages that go up and down town. "that's pretty neat don't you think?" i suggested to lillian. i didn't particular think through whether she'd find it neat or not. i sure thought it was though.

suddenly lillian finally spoke, and it was not in a happy tone any way you break it down. "how dare you pretend to know what i think!" she accused, taking my wording a little too literally. "the instant my thoughts are as simple as a pathetic runt like yours, i'd rather be extinct!"

"i don't," i matter of factly corrected her . "i don't pretend to know how anyone else thinks." i sadly mumbled to myself. i'd always wanted to be able to think as well as everyone else. how can you pretend to know what they think, when you can't think that well yourself?

"is that so? you could have fooled me," lillian challenged. "if you don't, than why is that you just presumed i would be willing to fly around the world at the whim of some human you know's?!?"

"because i thought you'd appreciate the help," i angrily grumbled. i was getting really depressed and angry at the same time now. not only had i failed with lillian, but now she was just rubbing my face in it. had she not asked her next question in the way she did i probably would have just stormed off, leaving her to fend for herself in australia.

"why would you do that? why would you care if i appreciated it or not?" lillian demanded.

had she not heard me earlier? was she deliberately trying to get me to embarrass myself out loud again... like i didn't feel bad enough already.

"because," i started but paused. the last time i'd said this to her, she tried to eat me! "because i love you."

"what that again?" she said in an unbelieving tone. "i thought you'd out grown that foolish human-like behaviour after that stupid stunt you pulled at the tyrrell."

"what does that have to do with me acting human?" i demanded.

"humans are the only ones who think mating is for life," she stated. "our ancestors never pretended such nonsense!"

that was it. i wasn't being nice anymore! "oh how stupid of me," i mocked. "you're right i should be more like our ancestors, and oh i don't know, join the pack while i'm at it!"

i pushed my point. "what is so wrong with me trying to catch up with the modern world?" i pleaded. "sure i make a lousy dinosaur, but look around you lillian. the law of the jungle died out a long time ago with our ancestors. you can't make it in this world without adapting. you can try to play life like one of our ancestors, but you'll end up where you are now or worse the humans run the show. if we don't play by their rules than they'll let us fade back into just the past..."

"look at me though. i haven't been playing make belief like larry and his goons that this is still the mesozoic. i'm making it on my own. all because i'm pretending to be human," i concluded. much of my anger was gone. though i was left out of steam. if she tried to be mean again i wasn't in the mood to fight back, and i was just going to leave.

instead lillian stood stunned staring at me. it was the most unusual minute or so of my life. to say it was awkward would be to imply her stare was somehow ill mannered. to say it was a natural pause would imply i hadn't just poured my heart out.

finally she responded. not so much in words, but rather with a...

muzzle nudge. the tyrannosaurian version of a kiss!!!

"i'm sorry," lillian said difficultly. for female of her status (or at least former status) to admit to someone so low as she treated me apologizing must have been really hard to do. "i'd never considered you were serious about any of it. i thought you were just a juvenile pretending to be an adult," she admitted, and quickly added. "it is probably just your height and stature fooling me about your age." ouch. just cause i'm small doesn't mean i don't matter!

"it's also," she continued. "i'm not used to one of our kind trying to help me out. at least not without a major cost," she confessed. "can you forgive me?"

hmmm let's see. forgive the hottest theropod i've ever met... haven't been able to stop thinking about her since i was 3 years old... the only other coelurosaurid not too join the pack... most important just gave me a nose snuggle hmmm

"of course i do," i said with great relief.

she cautioned though. "though, this doesn't mean i love you back." i knew she sort of meant. yet there was twinkle in her eye that didn't quite make me think she completely meant it!

"fair enough," i allowed as not to push the subject.

how's that people of the web wide world? my whole first date with lillian the albertosaur didn't end in total disaster. granted it was no ubber success either. i'm not sure what this is.

getting her to the airport, security had a little bit of a problem with a full grown tyrannosaurid showing up unannounced. i'd blog about it, but due to their insistence i not in exchange for lillian's processing onto a flight, i of course can't.

needless to say lillian has left my life once again... only this time i have a feeling i will see her again. than... than people of the innerweb... i swear i'll do all that i can to make her mine!

so it doesn't happen to just me... (the big date part 2)

so you ever noticed in your life, people of the web wide world, how when things seem to be on their way to improving suddenly everything falls apart and its worse than where you started? or is that just how my life goes???

at least that was the question i've always been asking myself since i was laid off by the tyrrell museum. well i finally have someone else's answer... though if you wish to share your take on this question please feel free to leave a comment on this post about it.

turns out i'm not the only one. though sadly this "person's" own life meltdown may have some effect on me too... a huge impact in fact!

so it went something like this people of the web wide world...

remember my first big date with lillian the albertosaur. well today was supposed to be the follow up... and though it happened, it sure didn't go according to the plan. if i thought the first date didn't go according to the plan this one was off the scale of off the plan... come to think of it, why doesn't ANYTHING ever work out like i plan it?

i was supposed to meet lillian in the middle of town, and from there take her to a super surprise destination. aren't you impressed. though i may have blown my imagined perfect date, this would have made up for it. alas things kinda went downhill from the point where i left the hotel to meet lillian.

when i arrived downtown my ears were welcome by a most unpleasant sound...

tyrannosaurid wailing... which to the human ear would sound more like a lower version of a tyrannosaurid bellow, but to me it was definitely crying...

not that i was surprised to see the source of the distress when i walked up to our meeting spot. lillian, the apple of my eye (i guess since i HATE fruit i should say steak of my eye?), was full on crying. tyrannosaur style mind you. there were no tears. not because we're tougher than humans. it's just we don't shed tears is all. if she could have, lillian would have been letting loose a waterfall worth.

of course this wasn't how i wanted the girl of my dreams to be feeling. if anything i wanted her to be happy all the time... but at the same time i saw her current sadness as an opportunity...

if i could be the one to cheer her up, well that'd make me all the more likely a mate for lillian! it sounded good in my head at the time, but i have to remind myself that my head isn't filled with the biggest of thinking machines though...

walking up to her i found that cheering lillian up was not going to be easy. every approach i tried. consoling, joking, chatting, and even crying myself (due to so many failures) was only answered with more crying.

granted i want to emphasis (unlike what i said about humans not being whimps compared to tyrannosaurids crying... i was trying to be nice to my human readers out there... you are still not a multi ton carnivore full of emotion) that lillian's crying was both powerful and terrifying! though i may be a tyrannosaurid, i did grew up among humans, i found lillian's distort howls of pain quite intimidating. unlike normal, probably due to my desire to help lillian, i was not overcome with my usual chickeness and did not try to run away.

all the humans within earshot on the other hand were keeping a VERY safe distance from lillian, and i think the police were called at one point. i had to calm her down before they became involved... i've sadly had enough run ins with the police not to want another!

finally lillian calmed down enough to at least tell me the cause of her sorrow between wails. she'd gone in to work to make an appearance in the morning (as we were meeting up in the afternoon) only to have her world turned upside down...

before she'd even gotten through the museum's lobby she was intercepted by professor paradigm. now i don't remember the professor well at all (having only met him during my infancy as far as i can recall), but he rubs me the wrong way at the best of times. if he was trying to track me down specifically i can't imagine it going well... meaning i already dreaded what lillian was about to tell me about her run in with the professor.

the professor informed lillian to not bother to checking in at work. as of effective immediately she was no longer working for the annex corporation. naturally lillian was a little shocked, and not quite believing what she'd just heard. when she asked paradigm how and why it was him telling her this and not her supervisor.

lillian's telling me her story fell apart for a few tries here. she didn't word it in a way i could understand. it had something to do with paradigm reaching beyond a normal palaeontologist, but i didn't understand lillian between her sobbing and this wording... what did the reach of his arms have to do with this is thought. that was till it hit me. of course, he may not be just an ordinary palaeontologist...

boom and rang leaellynasaura had been obsessed with a conspiracy theory that pegged paradigm as the supposed head of something called palaeo-central. now those two hypsilophidonts are convinced this palaeo-central is real, but my boss ms. rhonwyn who works for a whole bunch of museums (it turns out!) is equally certain no such organization could exist within the museum world...

to be honest i'm not sure who to believe, but when i mentioned that possibility to lillian her answer puts me in the leaellynasaura camp oddly enough.

lillian immediately agreed that paradigm was way more than a PHD should be. though to be honest she did not once say anything specifically about palaeo-central.

lillian thought paradigm was in league with the pack of the primordial feather! (though based on my run in with his dinosaurian assistant lance, i'm personally certain paradigm has nothing to do with the pack!), and that his interference was another attempt by them to ruin her life.

i tried to convince lillian that the pack wasn't involved. it didn't help me prove it though that paradigm told lillian she still technically had her job with annex corp. he just said if she did not voluntarily leave their employ dire consequences would fall upon her. it sounded like the pack alright, but the player was wrong. sure the vague ominious threat screamed the pack, but a human professor. he just didn't fit the bill.

in both my experience and lillian's the pack had always approached us directly. why now send a human palaeontologist to do the dirty work (especially when that was the part the other coelurosaurs enjoyed so much?!?)?

i put my curiosity and conspiracy thinking on the back burner. the point was lillian was very very upset. why shouldn't she be frankly?

coming back to my question at the beginning of the post people of the innerweb. lillian had lost everything back at the tyrrell when the pack had made her lose her job (like me!). after a year of dead end job after another, and little hope she'd finally put her life back on the path she'd wanted she finally had a big break. only to have it robbed from her again today!

i tried to talk her through the idea of just looking for a new show or museum. this only made things worse. as she explained it to me several times it became apparent lillian had definately tried many times to find other venues to be a star in. they'd all been dead ends. annex corp. had been a miracle, they'd approached her with the ultimate deal. honestly she wasn't going to find another one better in 65 million years. in fact she'd already looked, and not only was the sweetness of the deal made clear but she'd been denied all the lesser positions to boot... what was she going to do now...

after a moment of thinking i had an idea, but i didn't like it. i didn't like it one bit! it was almost certainly going to cost me the chance to be with the girl i'd longed for so much. yet it was her best shot at happiness... what was a tiny t-rex to do?

the right thing of course. if that was what it was going to take to make lillian happy so be it. i'd take another one for the team (which as far as i can tell is just me! some team huh?) and give that possibility of happiness to lillian...

the sound of approaching sirens brought me back to the present. which was just as well. my plan was going to need some slight set up anyway. i might as well try and appreciate this time with lillian. cause it might end up being a long time before i'd get to go out with her again...

i told her we had to get moving... if for anything not having a run in with the police... and it would help get her mind off her problems. i'd take her to my big surprise... i had been hoping it would have helped serve as a romantic setting... but the best laid plans of oviraptors and triceratops eh. my surprise is also is a good place for cheer ups... which is just as well. looks like i'm going to need that second function a lot more today than the romance option...

with the police on the look out for a "freaking out" dinosaur, i decided we'd take a round about and most important hidden route to our destination. alleys and side streets. which though easy for me due to my small size, were not necessarily quite as easy for lillian to navigate on account of her being a full grown albertosaur.

not that i minded having to wait for her, or slow down. it just gave me more of a chance to gaze upon her beauty. just look at that photo people of the innerweb. so hot!

the cool thing about melbourne is that it has a lot of BIG shopping malls. big enough even for a 8 meter long tyrannosaurid like lillian to wander through. so i'd take short cuts through them whenever possible to keep the authorities from tracking us down (though to be honest i think they stopped looking for us a few minutes after we started moving... how can we be a "threat" if we're not there?).

lillian wanted to take a break in the third food court we passed through. which suited me fine, but not the human shoppers sadly. so they all... uh how does one sugar coat this?... frankly i'm having trouble not making the people sound mean... ran away. i mean come on? why really?!? we were just minding our business. stupid tyrannosaur(id) stereotype! at least that didn't seem to bother lillian.

yet as we sat there lillian looked like she was going to get upset again... so to keep her mind off it, i told her she wasn't alone in her feelings... being the tough female tyrannosaurid that she was she tried to pretend admitting to emotions was just a guy thing... she also added there was no way she could know how it felt.

which is funny, because as you know from my (mis)adventures on this blog, if there is one thing i know about its broken dreams.

i spent a good hour recalling and telling lillian about my life of the past 2 years, and apart from the bit with whiro that she thought i'd made up, she was slightly moved. which i don't think she was expecting. i only say this because she said how surprised she was at being impressed and saddened by my ordeals. she thought her problems were the only in the world, but it turns out she's not alone.

doesn't everyone know that people of the innerweb? that everyone has problems...

anyways i think it constituted what TV or the movies would call a moment.

so a bit after this we resumed our trek to my surprise destination.

want to guess where that was people of the web wide world?

me and lillian are going to it. you could come too? (that's the only hint i'll give you. see if you can guess where we went?)

to be continued...

THE BIG DATE!!!

i can't believe it people of the innerweb... really i can't.

today was the big day of the my actual date with lillian the albertosaur!...

the only thing is it really didn't go quite according to how i imagined it...

at least it wasn't a disaster like my first attempt at courting her back in drumheller!

the problem is despite all the planning and imagining i'd done on how to make this first date with lillian perfect, there was one problem (well and many smaller ones too... who knew translating dream into reality would be so hard!)... whatever professor paradigm did to me during that "check up" yesterday (i'm thinking the magic test!) it made me tired as...

i crashed the instant i got back into my hotel, and slept in till just before i was supposed to meet up with lillian!!!

i barely had time to comb my teeth and brush my scales! worst of all i had no time to prep or gather up any of the stuff for my perfect date...

while i scurried around trying to get ready, and simply NOT be late... across town, melbourne australia was getting quite a shock. a full grown albertosaurus wandering down the street. though not as impressive as say my cousin larry walking down the road, lillian still isn't something to blink at. being 9 meters long and weighing over a ton lillian was not something the average car wanted to run into!

that and the average aussie (much like the kiwis) had never dreamed of seeing a live breathing tyrannosaurid wandering down the street! there were a lot of traffic reports on the radio about anywhere lillian passed through this afternoon...

at least unlike larry, lillian was fully aware of traffic rules (like stop signs and red lights) so technically none of the accidents that happened around her were actually her fault...

not that that did much to make the melbourn(ians?) any happier with us tyrannosaurids...

in the end i was able to make it to our meeting spot in front of the museum with in the end 6 minutes and 13 seconds to spare... but whose counting? (okay i can't LIE to you people of the innerweb! i was counting!!!)... before lillian showed up.

the single moment of my life i'd dreamt of the most was finally here... and man it was over quick! seriously people of the web wide world... you picture and imagine it so much that you think the moment will last equally long as your wait for it, and instead. ZIP its gone in a flash...

like that i was in the presence of the girl of my dreams, and rather than the smart cool line i'd imagined saying (i couldn't tell you what the exact quote is... stupid fake cool factor of the imagination leading me to think those lines are easy to come up with on the fly!) i instead said. "hello."

fortunately lillian didn't seem to mind or notice, and returned the greeting in her very elegant, but yet usual cold manner. that's the thing with big star dinosaurs, they're usually ridiculously guarded as they don't want anyone else (as in dinosaur) to find a way to scoop away their position in the human world. so their usually pretty gruff and unapproachable. thus making lillian a tricky one to read.

lillian asked if i had anything in mind for the day... i told her the truth about how i was going to come up with the perfect day, but the professor's magic test had put me to sleep all night.

"magic, i see," she regarded me oddly. "and this was going to be the source of a 'perfect day'," lillian stated back slightly sarcastically.

oh man. females are tough... which i mean in a real sense people of the innerweb. in tyrannosaurids it is the women who are the tough macho types.

also have to remember that maybe when it comes to screwing up a date, don't tell the truth about how you mucked up your plans. rather lie, and pretend you know what you're doing presenting it as a surprise. than you'll look pro. or at least so i figure now after the fact.

i suggested we wander the city in place of my non-plan. neither of us had had much of an explore of melbourne and today seemed like as good a day as any.

the melbourne museum is surrounded by the carlton gardens. which is a pretty nice place. especially when you're strolling down it with the most pretty archosaur in the world...

during this walk we had a quick catch up about our lives since last we saw each other at the tyrrell... mercifully lillian avoided the subject of my awkward courtship attempt.

my story you already know people of the innerweb through this blog of course...

lillian's went something like this.

about 6 months after i was fired, she was too. though the tyrrell museum claimed it was because they were going in a different direction with their displays, in reality it was due to the pack of the primordial feather's interference. the only proof you need is that lillian was simply replaced with a bunch of different albertosaurs... not even a different type of tyrannosaurid! these albertosaurs were pack affiliated ones though... which was the point.

lillian was thus exiled much like i had been, but unlike me she had much further to fall. i'd been the lowest dinosaur on the museum's totem pole (come to think of it why wasn't i squished?). lillian had been the jewel of the crown. for her being ejected from the museum was much harder. especially given the competitive nature of the other dinosaurs in town. they all hated her due to her former success, and the pack went out of its way to make things more difficult for her.

lillian bounced from dead end museum gig to desperate theme park appearance all across north america, only to be told shortly after starting her services were "no longer needed". they claimed it was due to her lack of popularity, but seriously an albertosaurus' nearly identical appearance to a t-rex is the most sellable dinosaur you can get. it was the pack following up on their vendetta with her, and following her place to place ruining it for lillian everytime.

just about a year ago lillian was approached by a museum related company called annex co. that was putting together a travelling dinosaur show. it was too good to pass up. not only was she to be the star, but lillian was given a more than competitive contract, and more importantly guaranteed protection from the pack. lillian thought it was a little funny how these people knew about the pack. they also knew her full background, and as she'd never sent them a resume or approached them at all this was strange. still she was desperate at that point. no one would go near her out of fear of the pack exhorting its influence, she had to take the job.

it was at this point as we grew close to the end of the garden that lillian turned to me earnestly. "you traumador," she seemed to address me as mere former co-worker... not potential mate... bummer. "there is much talk amongst the dinosaurs of the world of your confrontation with the pack. tell me more about this."

i'd already told her the story. what more did she want to know?

"you actually told your cousin larry no to the pack's invitation. is that seriously true?" lillian asked.

"well, yeah," i answered unsure of what the right answer was. why would i tell her that if it weren't true.

"amazing," she sounded really really impressed. a good thing on the date so far?... i seriously don't know people of the innerweb. this whole dating thing is new to me. anyone want to let me know if i did the right thing today...

"why's that?" i asked confused. "didn't you tell them you didn't want to join too?"

lillian eyed me deeply from high above me... like a saurian angel. well okay from my vantage... from her point of view apparently she was absorbing my naivety. "no-one tells the pack no," lillian informed me sincerely. "at least until you."

"what? that makes no senses. you're not a member too aren't you?" i wondered out loud.

"it is true what they used to say about you at the tyrrell. you never were the most associated in the bonebed," that's a dinosaur way of saying i wasn't very smart. lillian was sounding more and more like a tyrannosaurid. insulting and mean... i grew sad for a moment.

"no traumador," she addressed my question. "technically i am a member of the pack."

"what?... you are?... that doesn't make any?..." i spurted out loud. how could lillian, the very essence of hotness in my meagre little existence, be part of larry's little coelurosaur only club?!?

"i joined when they first approached me on my 4th birthday. i thought it would get them to stop bothering me. at first it seemed being a member of the pack was a fancy title only," lillian reflected. "than suddenly they came to me wanting me to do things for them."

"like what?" i wanted to know. the pack's motives and purpose were a complete mystery to me...

"nothing to serious. just for me to use my position and clout with the tyrrell to pressure it into hiring more coelurosaurs. when i refused to help them a few times they stopped asking me. i get the impression they would have asked me to do more, but i wasn't 'enough with the cause'. whatever that meant. so they instead worked on cultivating their own influence in drumheller with which to pressure me into cooperating with the pack," lillian answered.

"larry told me that i was fired due to his efforts to get at you," i said aloud trying to connect what lillian was saying with what i already knew.

"that makes sense," lillian pondered for a moment. "the pack doesn't have any actual power within the museum. they just negotiated with the tyrrell's executive."

"members of the pack aren't allowed to find their own postings and jobs. the pack handles all of that, and thus museum's have to approach teresa and her matriarchs to try and work out coelurosaurs for their displays," lillian informed me. "the tyrrell, being in alberta [former home to many tyrannosaurids in the cretaceous], wanted to try and get more tyrannosaurids to attract more visitors. however the pack wouldn't negotiate with them so long as 'the non member tyrannosaur' was allowed to work at the museum."

even with my brain the size of a peanut i saw what had happened. due to the pack's poor wording. "the museum's executive obviously thought that was you, and let you go. teresa was furious to say the least, but there was nothing that could be done. you disappeared almost immediately, and there was no way to contact you. the museum would have given you back your job."

WHAT?!? i could have gotten my job back at the tyrrell!!! why did i have to learn this... sure i probably would have lost it shortly after i refused the packs offer had i still been there (if i'd refused come to think of it... i've seen enough sci-fi movies to know that changing something like that in the past would change everything else!), but i could have avoided that whole period of pain after my being fired.

than it occurred to me. i'd disappeared trying to find the 65th million block in BC (british columbia for the record). while in vancouver i'd run into larry. why didn't he redirect me back to the tyrrell if it was in the pack's interest?

lillian told me as though i was a hatchling. "this is larry we're talking about, traumador. it's not exactly a secret he doesn't like you. he probably was hoping you'd stay gone..."

"than why did he visit me a year later," i asked as though lillian would know. she was right. larry didn't like me. his visiting me was way out of character, what with his trying to be nice and not be a JERK!

"traumador, larry is a male like you. neither of you could be in charge of the pack even if you wanted. his mate teresa is both his true master and the pack's," she rebuked slightly annoyed at my question. "she wished you in the pack, and thus she sent emissary she could trust. who more trust worthy than the father of her offspring. the bonus being he has a close connection to you."

"as for me," lillian carried on, though to be honest i hadn't asked her to talk about herself yet. i wonder why she did that? "the pack came back after your termination and offered the museum a troupe of lesser known albertosaurs to replace me. the museum's executive jumped on it when the pack offered the four for only a slight increase in my pay. with the various movie exploits of the tyrannosaurs and raptors of their ranks, the pack has no shortage of resources."

this long kinda heavy discussion led us both to be a little thirsty. so we took a quick stop at a nearby pond to rehydrate. hydration is key after all!

while lillian continued to drink after me, i after all being 1/10th her size didn't need anywhere near as much water, i gazed upon her beauty. i mean just look at the picture people of the web wide world. SO hot!!!

however i had worries. despite how well this interaction with lillian was going compared to those i'd had with her at the tyrrell, it wasn't what i'd hoped for.

than again i'd never been on a date before, nor had i liked any theropod but lillian. how was i supposed to know what to expect.

i just couldn't help but feel lillian still thought she was better than me. in more ways than one.

she constantly was pointing out how much smarter than me she was, and would correct or scold me when i made one of my trademark errors in logic. also lillian wouldn't stop with pot shots at my size, and the things she could do with her larger height, weight, and strength that i couldn't.

it was a real downer... i'd hoped out of all the other dinosaurs out there lillian would understand me... not because i have a killer crush on her... but because me and her have so much in common. we're both exiled and hated by our own kind. we both lost the only home we'd ever known, and the same former home to boot! we both have had to fend for ourselves in the tough human world, living in the shadows of proper tyrannosaurus rexs...

yet it didn't feel like we connected on any level the entire day. that is till just before we departed.

we'd made it to the harbour front, and had a glorious view of the cityscape. despite what i'd imagine to be a very romantic setting, lillian was clearly getting bored and would wander away to look at things by herself. i was losing hope...

just as she was going to go off on her own again, i sighed a loud. "i guess i should think about something to eat."

suddenly lillian perked up a bit, and turned towards me. "what do you have in mind?"

wait what? she wanted me to suggest something for dinner... together?!?

i'd meant food for just me, since i figured she wanted to call it a da(te...)y. instead she thought i meant food for both of us.

i'd given up hope however, and didn't think i could salvage anything from today. lillian the albertosaur, the apple of my eye for some many years, only thought of me as someone she used to vaguely know from a time long gone...

"oh i don't know i guess we could get a cow or sheep," i half heartedly suggested. i was fighting off crying in front of her.

"really?" lillian responded in disgust. causing me to snap out of my self pity. "you seriously eat live animals like the other savages in the pack?" she asked.

"no," i responded honestly. "i just meant stopping by a butcher shop or grocery store. how could a little thing like me take on a goat, that alone a cow? i'd have no idea how to hunt something if my life depended on it."

"me neither!" lillian exclaimed excitedly. "i received no end of grief from both other theropods about my not killing my food. even some in the tourism department at the tyrrell wished i'd take up hunting so they could have public showings of me eating..."

"ew," i responded. "don't get me wrong a carnosaurs got to eat and all, but to kill something like that yourself. it just perpetuates the tyrannosaur stereotype."

lillian was intrigued as to what i meant by the tyrannosaur stereotype. i explained to her my theory on how we tyrannosaurs, though perfectly evolved to be killing machines, have to adapt to our new reality 65 million years later in the modern world and move beyond our killing past. otherwise the humans will constantly fear us, and as of such never accept us as equals and worse keep us contained within confined realms like museums and theme parks.

lillian was really impressed. "you honestly thought of this yourself?" she voiced her last bits of doubt.

"yeah," i said modestly. i was expecting some harsh come back, and a jeer about how i was wrong and how much smarter she was than me.

"i'd never thought of our problems that way before," she digested what i'd said. "do you think about such things often?"

"well, come to think of it. hey, pun intended!" i joked off my own wording. lillian giggled at my bad pun (well okay growled... we dinosaurs don't really laugh naturally). "i do think about human dinosaur relations a lot. i just really wish we could all get alone better, and that we dinosaurs could be given a chance to prove ourselves in this new world!"

"i'd love to hear more of your thoughts on the subject," lillian insisted.

what you know people of the web wide world. a date that looked like it was about to crash and burn any moment ended up going several more hours. in the end we ordered a lot of chicken wings... a LOT of chicken wings... to be delivered to us there at the harbour front. lillian hunkered right in, and we talked till both of us had to go...

it turns out lillian isn't such a typical tyrannosaurid afterall. her constant exposure and interaction with humans in the tyrrell had given her new insights on the tiny mammals that none of our other carnivorous relatives had had. a large part of her resistance to the pack was the sense she got that the coelurosaurs regarded humanity with hatred and loathing.

not that lillian didn't have her qualms with them (i know that honestly i do too), but she didn't see her being stuck in a museum as them oppressing us. rather it was the circumstances that caused this arrangement. our time on this world was supposed to have ended millions of years ago, but some unknown mechanism allowed a few of us to make it into the present as "vivus-fossils" to intrude into the human world. what were they to do? we couldn't be given the world back for any number of reasons. some right and many wrong, but still it couldn't be done. where else to put us but with the rest of the past...

lillian confessed to me that she'd always struggled with her affinity to humans. all the other tyrannosaurids of the world had mocked her for her weakness when it came to people. even the herbivorous dinosaurs taunted her prowess due to her lack of visible aggression (something the plant eaters expected a scary theropod to show). every now and than she had pondered abandoning her yearning to coexist with humans and give into the tyrannosaur stereotype. she'd wondered if perhaps she were insane or defective due to no other dinosaur sharing her viewpoint... that was till today.

"you give me hope traumador," she eagerly informed me in the middle of our heart to heart. "i am not alone in feeling this way. i feel i have someone else i can confide in."

she found my take on dinosaur to dinosaur interaction refreshingly similar to her own. not that i was as ground breaking here. she'd come to the conclusion long before i hatched that we surviving dinosaurs were a competitive lot.

it was midway through this conversation that we realized is was going into the evening and that we both should depart. however lillian insisted we met again tomorrow evening for another "get together", and continue our conversation than.

as a conclusion she noozled the top of head. the tyrannosaurid equivalent of a kiss on the cheek!!!

can believe that people of the innerweb?!?

not only did i have a date with lillian the albertosaur, but i have a second date with lillian the albertosaur!!! i think i'm going to pass out thinking about it!

chinese new year! (down under part 2)

(Production Note: Yes we are aware it is not February anymore when these pics were taken, but we've fallen a bit behind schedule)

so here i was in the new country of australia, in the new city of melbourne. i'd just gotten a call from ms. rhonwyn to meet her at the melbourne museum, and so that was where i was going to go.

along the way i bumped into some fun festivities...

as i tried to cut through chinatown (i always thought china was a country not a town? and how do you get a town in the middle of a city?!?) on my way to the museum there was a HUGE crowd.

something big and, by the sounds of it, fun was going down ahead.
so i decided to take a few extra minutes to check this out. its not like i had an evil god chasing me anymore or anything!
there were tons and tons of booths and kiosks. some try to sell stuff, others advertising it. this nice lady was giving out pamphlets for a chinese opera, but it wasn't playing while i'd be in town (or at least i hoped! the show was in 2 months, and i'd like to get back home before than).

from around the street corner came the sound of approaching drums and fire crackers. suddenly a progression of drummers and a really fluffy monster came dancing/marching towards me and the surrounding crowd...

now i'd taken on whiro maori god of darkness one on one (and though i maybe didn't beat him by myself) a fluffy creature wasn't really all that scary in comparison. so for the first time i can think of people of the web wide world i wasn't frightened by such a sight!

well okay i may have let out a slight eep when it turned straight towards me and opened its mouth...

it was a chinese dragon making its rounds for the chinese new year!

neat.

i have to confess i don't understand why humans made or keep track of years. that alone why you can't all agree on when they should be. new years was a while ago, but yet here these guys (and dragon) were celebrating their new year.

this dragon had a pretty great group of keepers. not only did he have a dragon clown (just like those rodeo clowns at the stampede in calgary!) but a whole band of drummers who provided him with his own soundtrack everywhere he went!

i have to say my lack of getting freaked or scared at the dragon turned out to be smarter than i thought for a few reasons. first he was a herbivore, and wandered eating the lettuce that seems to grow rampantly on the front of every store in chinatown... funny as i've never heard of urban lettuce before!... and second of all he's so lazy that part of his keeping staff has to carry him around on their backs. look at them there lifting him up to his food!!!

well with the dragon wandering away down the street, and my having looked at all the kiosks it was time to go meet my boss for the first time since she'd sent me on the museum quest...

across the ditch (down under part 1)

okay so this is a little crazy to say people of the innerweb. i thought i was going home here at the end of the museum quest, but boarding the plane i realized something was wrong... at least with home as the end destination. cause you see...

i'm in a totally different country!

it turns melbourne is in australia...

now don't get me wrong. i'm not complaining. just looking at these photos of the place its awesome! it's just not what i was expecting at all!!!

i've always wanted to get out and see the world... and australia the land down under has always been near the top of the list. so here i am, and ready to check this place out!

granted its a lot more civilized than many movies would have lead me to believe. this city is HUGE. way bigger than either auckland or calgary! more on par with vancouver in size.

well it just goes to show how much my horizons have expanded since i was fired by the tyrrell!
so rather than wander aimlessly around melbourne, i do have a specific thing to do while here. i need to meet up with ms. rhonwyn. both so that i can be debriefed on the museum quest, and more to the point so that i can get home to dunedin!

again not that i'm in a rush. as melbourne is a huge place i want to check it out a bit...