Realistically, assuming you maintain yourself as not being a whackjob in my eyes, you'll come out with me for a few beers sometime, and I will show you the beauty of Australian brewing in person.

Fantastic.

Aussie beer is generally less than impressive. You'll have a hard time finding imports or microbrews in most pubs. The two I really liked are Small Creatures pale ale and anything made by the brewery that puts a lot of writing on the label.

I cant speak for Victoria (where Josem is) but in Sydney theres a few good pubs with import beers on tap, some are well priced while others are ridiculously dear..

Aussie beer isnt that bad, I prefer drinking Tooheys to Heiny's or Becks etc.. That could be just because I've grown up on it - I sure as [censored] wouldn't consider myself a beer conissieur

Contrary to public perception, much "imported" beer in Australia is actually brewed locally. It is only the brands themselves that are imported.

See http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...750168516.html for more info.

More broadly, there are some great (in my opinion) boutique and microbreweries beyond the mass (VB, Carlton Draught, Tooheys, XXXX, etc.) and premium (Carlton Premium Dry, Pure Blonde, Crown Lager, Tooheys Extra Dry etc.) stuff.

The boutique brands, such as Little Creatures and Matilda Bay (which are actually linked to Lion Nathan and Carlton & United Beverages) are great beers, and increasingly widely available. This sector of the beer market has been experienced some huge growth in recent years.

The micro-breweries (In Melbourne: Mountain Goat in Richmond; Portland Hotel in Melbourne CBD; Place in Albert Park who's name I forget off the top of my head - Brewhouse?, amongst others) offer a series of distinct tastes. Incidentally, for my housewarming (linked above - www.michaeljosem.com/fosbytour) we're going to visit a couple of local breweries - Rutherglen's Bintara and Buffalo Brewery, with also the Bright Brewery local to me up here in North-East Victoria. A google search for Australian breweries should pop up a long series of results.

the tooheys brewery at lidcombe (mentioned in that article) is about 2 mins drive from my house

while im in here i might as well ask a question you'd probably be able to answer Josem

heading down with a few mates in the first week of november for spring carnival - no doubt we will be hitting up crown quite frequently, any idea what sort of poker action they have down there and what limits etc?

im guessing it wouldnt differ much from what star city has to offer, but thought id ask

djakofhearts,

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Number=10380293


more info at http://www.google.com.au/search?sourceid...woplustwo%2ecom


edit: corrected link. helping someone else with a similar answer solving methodology

the first link you provided - did you mean to link that :O?

From another thread, to avoid a hijack of it:

Correct.

However, if you are tertiary educated in another sector, you may fulfill the points process on another criterion.

Incidentally, depending upon the size and nature of your poker bankroll, you may be able to qualify on the basis of investment and/or business streams which are also detailed at www.immi.gov.au

'cause it's the Australian Government's policy that since Australia is obviously a high demand destination for immigrants, Australia may as well choose the "cream of the crop" as it were when it comes to determining who comes here.

To look at it another way, there's very little extra cost to Australia being selective about who it chooses to allow migrate, when the benefits are quite significant.

I suspect that ensuring that migrants are highly skilled and have good English skills also helps migrants participate in Australian society more fully, and also helps to maintain community support for a very large (by per capita world standards) migration programme.

I have previously heard that there is something in the order of 6million enquiries about migration to Australia per year. 140,000 or so are successful. It makes sense to choose those successful people in some sort of methodical way, which is currently on the basis of three main categories - skills, family reunion and humanitarian migration.

It seems like an obvious policy for a Government to follow - if you're going to have 3% (or whatever percentage) of prospective migrants successfully come to your country, you may as well have the 3% "most desirable" folks come along.

Thanks Josem. I figured it wouldn't be easy for poker players. It seems our best option would be to get a Visa by being hired through a firm (in an unrelated industry) then apply for permanent residency once we've worked there a while. Unfortunately I had that opportunity in the past but passed on it because I was finishing my degree at the time.

That second comment was a tongue-in-cheek dig at current state of our immigration policy here in the U.S. I wish our elected officials would use your logic and common sense but our current president is moving this country's immigration laws in the exact opposite direction.

I appreciate all the help you've provided in this thread.

i suspect that there may be a small opportunity for an enterprising lad to investigate this further.

i wonder what the definition required by the immigration department is for a potential "employer." presumably (and I have no expert knowledge of this, this is not legal/migration advice, etc.) it is possibly for someone to come here on a commission based employment arrangement.

it would seem logical, therefore, that there may be a vehicle to essentially "import" poker players to play as part of a "collective" (for lack of a better word - not to imply colluding in the normal sense, but conceptually working together to share strategy and resources. i also don't mean collective in the sense of a group where everything is shared like in a communist collective)

If you are still entertaining questions, I have one. What part of Australia would you advise for a first time solo traveler in November/early December? My interests are the outdoors -- dayhiking, camping, wildlife viewing, photography, possibly backpacking. I assume it's pretty easy to meet up with wildlife viewing tours over there? As far as snorkeling, I'm pretty bad at it, but am willing to give it a try once in a while. Will have a decent budget.

there's stuff all over the country.

central australia is an obvious option.

so are the kimberley's/kakadu up in the north.

then the third option in my head would be the australian alps down between melbourne and canberr, or a visit to Tasmania.

then, add in some queensland stuff in the north east, and you'd have a nice little circuit.


be aware that the later into december (and then january) you go, the hotter it will be in australia, with the risk of bushfires in south eastern australia from about december onwards.

Thanks, friend. Don't worry, I have every intention of avoiding fire season and hurricanes/cyclones. I've "enjoyed" enough of both in the U.S. to last a lifetime. It is a bit difficult for me to get a grip on a country the size of Australia, but I'll look into these suggestions -- Tasmania was already short-listed. I do have a microbiologist friend who worked in Australia for a few years some time back in the days of the dinosaurs, but whenever I ask him questions, he gets off onto stories of poisonous spiders and snakes and never quite gets back on track. So I gave up on asking him anything.

hey- my wife is aussie. we are visiting dec-jan. can she vote in the upcoming elections? if so, how does she go about it? register? oh, and when exactly will they be held?