Never complain about the weather again
I live in Melbourne now/at the moment, in a suburb in the city fortunately, so well away from the fires.

I grew up in a dreich part of Scotland then lived in Edinburgh before moving out here a couple of months ago. You think the weather in the UK is shitty? Try living in a place where it hasn't rained for months, then the hottest day ever recorded in your state is accompanied by gale force winds. Then people start fires.

Fuck me watching the news last night was scary. People are literally burning in their cars as they try to escape and the wind changes.

I will never complain about the drizzle again.

You can't get an appointment to give blood at the moment because of the overwhelming response to donate, which is excellent of course.

Sorry, not particularly cheery but it's times like these that reality hits home about the triviality of many parts of life, ye know?
(Zutroy started without you, Mon 9 Feb 2009, 23:43, 2 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

I hear ya.
I hate fire season here - they're almost always set by arsonists or someone throwing a burning cigarette butt out the window.
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Tue 10 Feb 2009, 0:01, Reply)

very scary
news.ninemsn.com.au/slideshow_ajax.aspx?sectionid=9016§ionname=slideshowajax&subsectionid=150966&subsectionname=bigfires&rss=yes

Hoping this pic works but if it doesn't then slide 27 shows a satellite shot of victoria - the fires were so large that the smoke was being picked up on a NASA satellite.

EDIT: The official death toll is currently at 173 and is expected to rise now up to and maybe beyond 300.
There are still 700 burnt out homes to search...
(Poppet some assembly required., Tue 10 Feb 2009, 5:49, Reply)