Ever Heard Of This Place?

I'd vaguely heard the name before, but didn't know anything about the place itself. It's a small mostly deserted mining community called Centralia, located in Pennsylvania, USA. I found an article about it on Digg.com this morning. The story goes that in 1962, some miners lit some garbage on fire in an abandoned strip mine. Unbeknownst at the time, the fire ignited a rather large vein of Anthracite Coal, and (get this) has been burning and smouldering under the town for the last 44 years. They tried to put the fire out, but obviously had no luck.

Click here for more information (with loads of pictures)

It amazes me though that people still live there, although not many.

Enjoy,

~Frostilicus~

Fruity Toilet Bags and Noodle Glop

Because I have an upcoming journey to take, I decided to get myself a bag for toothbrush, hair gel and whatnot, so I went off in search of a smallish bag to put these items in, and ended up with this gaudy piece of luggage trash:



There was also a pink one, but this one looked a little less obvious.

And yesterday for lunch I made something very strange and no doubt I will not be eating it again because, although slightly tasty, it just didn't sit right:



2 minute noodles with parmesan, basil and mayonnaise.. oh and garlic too. Herby, but rancid. *screws up nose*

KISS ME, I'm Irish! (Or St Patrick's Day, Frostilicus Style)

Ah, being St Patrick's Day today, I went to McCawley's Irish Pub down the road from me. I thought it fitting to have at least one pint of Guinness to celebrate the day, even though I'm not Irish. I've lived near this pub for 3 years and have never even set foot inside it. But anyway, I decided to today. Today's pictures are via phonecam, so the quality isn't that great, apologies in advance!

They have some interesting decoration on the cieling of the pub, one section is like a map of the world...



I originally went down there for 1, maybe 2 pints, then the idea was to do some shopping then come home. Here's the first pint:



And the end of pint #1:



After that I decided another pint was in order, and by then I'd been given my little voucher, and if I collected 4 of them, I'd get a Guinness visor for free. Not too shabby, I thought! My second pint had a dash of food colouring added to it, so the head of said pint was swirly and green:



The food colouring spilled over onto my fingers, too lol:



Which was kind of more noticeable as the glass got emptier...





By the end of pint #2, I decided to have some lunch, so I ventured over to the restaurant counter to see what was on offer. Alas, I didn't go with something traditional and Irish, due to the price, so I had a reasonably priced hamburger and chips (If memory serves it was $6.95, which isn't totally cheap, but not horribly expensive either)...which was nice and edible:



And I also had my third pint of Guinness while I ate lunch, I actually ordered the pint before my burger rocked up, which was Ok, because I was also sms'ing a friend at the same time ;).



By the time I was halfway through the pint, my burger showed up. After that I had pint #4 and got my trippy cool visor!







And because I was answering txt msgs left, right and centre, I forgot to snap a pic of pint #5, but I snapped pint #6, which was my final one before leaving...



And then on my way home through the shops, I snapped this pic of interest...lol



Hehehehe... ;)

Anyhoo, it was a good outing, and I shall have to visit McCawley's again soon!

For more information on Guinness and it's origins, check out the Guinness Wikipedia Page.

Irishly yours,

~Frostilicus~

Belated Pictures, part 2!

The local kebab shop recently started serving curry and rice, in addition to it's usual line of lamb ahd chicken kebabs. I decided to try it one day, with what I'm usually known to get from the kebab shop... a bottle of Coca-Cola, in the original hobbyskirt style glass bottle. Things go better with Coke (an old Coca-Cola company slogan), and Coke always tastes better in a glass bottle.

Oh, the chicken curry was very muchly edible!





There's a new pie shop that has opened near me: "Big Dad's Pies". I went there today to check it out, and while the prices are a bit on the high side (anywhere from $3.50-$4.50 per pie) it's made up for in the fact that they are HUGE pies. I bought a "Big Dad's Special" and a "Smokey".



The Smokey is a frankfurter, with bacon, onion, cheese, sweet chilli sauce and ketchup wrapped in pastry. Quite tasty and VERY filling. The Big Dad's Special is a pie with bacon, onion, cheese and a whole egg baked inside.

Also on the subject of eating places, there's a new Lebanese coffee shop that has been open for quite some time. I've been going there for lunch twice a week for about a month now. They do kebabs, foldover pizzas with cheese plus anything from sausage to meatballs to olives... and they also do a fabulous $5 pizza with the lot, including capsicum, meat, olives, mushrooms, onion and more. Here's a shot (albeit a blurry one) of their "cheese and olive" foldover:



They also sell a lot of Lebanese/middle eastern smallgoods. Halloumi Cheese, Shanklish (which is a type of cheese ball with herbs on the outside), goats cheese, goat yogurt, pita bread, lentils and many many more items. They also have homemade Labneh, which I was informed is a type of sour cream, and a whole array of sticky Lebanese sweets, lady fingers and baklava and such.





And while wandering through The Warehouse while looking for some puzzle books, I found this rather humorous item:



'Til next time,

~Frostilicus~

Belated Pictures and Commentary a la... Me!

Some of these pictures I've had on my phone for a month or two, but have only just taken them off the phone today.

The following pictures are of some humorous t-shirt slogans that I saw in K-mart...









(haha)



This one is so true, back when I was in Perth I was nearly mowed down by some fuckwit chatting away on their mobile phone... on a busy road in the middle of the city!











I also noticed some extreeeeeemely fucking TACKY jewellery in stock as well. Is it just me, or is fashion going backwards 20 freakin' years? I thought big, brightly coloured gaudy shit went out in the 80's. But anyway...





Now how's this for a strange, yet refreshing slogan for a pack of chips? "Showering you with taste and goodness!" Yeah, I'd be skeptical too. But Monsoon chips seem to think it's a flash idea for advertising...



Stay tuned for part 2! ;)

Pics From Brisbane

I went to Brisbane the other day to get my left eyebrow repierced. It was a bit of a cloudy day, and this time, I took my digital camera and took some snaps on the train on the way home. But anyway, first, here's the new addition to my metal-head!



It looks a bit bulgy, because it's been pierced under the original scar tissue. I then went and did a bit of meandering around, before heading for Starbucks to get something to drink before getting on the train home. I had a Banana Cream Frappucino, which was actually pretty damn good.



Mmmm... fruity. And yes I gave them "Frosty" as a name! I started taking pics on the train, so yeah some of these are "action" shots.



Roma Street Station, well, part of it, anyway. I think it's part of the older station that isn't used that much anymore.



This is the William Jolly Bridge that can be viewed from the railway bridge which crosses the Brisbane River. (Click linkage for more information, although short, on the bridge)

And this is an expensive looking boat that I snapped...



I bet the occupants of said boat were having a grand olde time. Right across the river on the south side is the Paul's/Parmalat Dairy, which looks kind of industrial, but churns (pun intended) out all sorts of dairy goodies on a daily basis.



Just past that there's a fish market called Gambaro's, which I've never been to, but probably does some good business, because it looks like they have been there a long time.



The next station on the line was South Brisbane, and the seating I took a picture of had no one on them, which was probably a good thing. The colour scheme of the place is a sickening combination of orange and pink...



And the last picture taken was a flyby of the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, or QPAC for short.



Appypolylogies for not updating in soooo long... But the weather has been crystal clear, except for rain all weekend, but no storms, so no cool stormy-like pictures to be taken... blah. Will be lots to post though soon enough!

'Til then,

~Frostilicus~ ;)