The Random Musings of the Insane

Writer's Block: Long Nights, Short Poems

2008-12-21T23:35:53Z

It's the winter solstice in the Northern hemisphere, summer solstice in the Southern hemisphere, and Haiku Day in the U.S. Does that inspire you to write a three-line poem with five syllables in the first and last lines and seven in the middle line?

View 501 Answers

Winter in the North,
Summer over southern skies.
No haiku for you.

The Unfamiliar Ceiling report

2008-12-11T13:09:58Z

Yeah, fine, nerd joke in the subject line. Get over it. I can't think of anything else to call it. You try and think of a snappy subject while half-awake in a hotel room in the dark. I'm just filling time until I fall asleep. So this will likely be mindless dribble.

There's something inherently satisfying about turning out the lights. For a brief instant, as your eyes adjust, you could almost be anywhere. Tiny pinpricks of light stab out of the darkness, but they could be the lights of anything. In this case, they're the lights on a router, a TV standby, a clock radio, my phone, and my modem. I know what they are, but they're familiar and yet different at the same time. I could be in a hotel room in Brisbane, or in 'my' bed in Adelaide, it wouldn't make a difference. And in the darkness, while sleep draws close, it actually doesn't.

I'm really enjoying reading "On The Road", which seems ironically suited to staying in another city for work. I'm finding it deeply satisfying to read, and at the same time I feel this pull to ... shall we say, adventure ... while reading it. It's very interesting and I look forward to finishing it. I'm only 1/4 through it at the moment. I'll probably check out the unedited version at a later date if I end up really liking it.

Hmmm, what else. Yeah, really filling time here. Funny how songs can get stuck in your head at times. Contender of the moment, "Ne-Yo - Because of You". Don't ask. Isn't it weird too (well, no, it's not) how music can get inside your head and disrupt your train of thought entirely. Case in point, have music playing on my phone, and at the moment it's invading my consciousness so that before I can put a thought into the keyboard, it's gone. I find my fingers struggling to type because my thoughts are being demolished quicker than I can write them, unlike the usual stream-of-consciousness blogging I usually do. Wait. That's the whole reason I put the music on in the first place, so I could sleep.

I really should do that. I can't hunt for Diamonds in my mind all night.

In QLD...

2008-11-18T20:16:42Z

Back later.

The attack of the 20000 foot blog report

2008-10-18T10:13:32Z

Here's a taste of the unusual for me, I'm writing this from 20000 ft. high, or whatever the cruising altitude of a Qantas 737 from Sydney to Adelaide is. Can't say I know that one off the top of my head, and I can't be bothered to ask the flight attendants. Oh well, whatever. I'm in a plane.

I'm taking an earlier flight back to Adelaide. I've spent the day in Sydney, after flying over yesterday for the “2008 IAG Direct Insurance National Excellence Awards” in which I was a finalist for the “Outstanding Achievement – Individual” award, having won the South Australian divisional award in August. I didn't win the award itself, but I did earn the “Special Commendation” award, which means I do get a trophy, but don't have to give a speech. Fine by me!

Train of thought shift: Why is it that they always play an episode of Mythbusters when I'm flying from Sydney to Adelaide, but it's always one I've seen. This time it's the Mythbusters 100th Episode “MacGuyver Tribute” which is in itself an awesome episode. Oh well, more chance to concentrate on this.

So anyway, it's quite an honour to get an award given at these nights, considering that you're up against the best of the best in a company of approximately 15000 people. Even being nominated as a finalist is pretty huge. These awards are judged by the heads of division, including direct reports of the CEO and members of the Executive team. So, considering that, it's even more humbling to receive a special commendation. It effectively means that people at an executive level are aware of my work, and feel it deserves extra attention. Wow.

As is my custom, I spend the day in Sydney. If the company is going to pay to fly me to Sydney and back, I'm going to choose to take a later flight. What's the point of flying out at 10am, when they can spend the exact same amount on my ticket and fly me back in the evening. And I don't have to pay for an extra nights accomodation. Win-win! Anyway, I've had a brilliant day. I found out that the Art Gallery of NSW was having an exhibition of “Monet & The Impressionists” which was just too enticing to miss out on. How many chances will I ever get to see Monet's and Renoir's and other Impressionist masters up close. So at 9am, I checked out of the hotel, left my suitcase with concierge, and hiked on over to the Botanic Gardens.

Spent an hour walking around the botanic gardens, just taking in the sights, seeing some of the rare plants and trees, and also some of the wild life. I saw one bird with some tiny chicks hopping around the nest in the underbrush, which was so cute. 10am I went over to the art gallery, and showed up just as they were opening the doors. Straight over to the admissions desk, where I purchased a ticket for the exhibition and an audio/video tour guide. A note on the tour guide thingy. It's a small mp3 player like system with a 2inch screen, on which you key in exhibit numbers, and audio commentary guides you through the paintings, as well as showing video where appropriate, such as seeing video of Monet working on some of the paintings that were hung. Very cool, and very helpful for me to gain extra appreciation for the painitngs.

What can I say. I was able to see some of the most beautiful paintings, learn so much about the Impressionist period, and appreciate these paintings that I may have seen in books previously, but you can never gain such an appreciation until you're standing right in front of them. The real highlight of course was coming to the last room of the exhibit, and you turn a corner, and there hung on the wall is Monet's Waterlilies from 1905. I've seen it in so many books, prints, reproductions, but to turn the corner and have it hung staring in front of you, it was just a moving experience. The way the light fell across the painting, the colours, the brush strokes, the composition, it all comes together and you see this painting in a breathtaking way that you never knew. It was truly humbling to be standing in this gallery with such an important work. Wow.
So I spent a few hours at the art gallery, and then at about 1pm I went off into the city, strolled through the malls, browsed a few shops, had lunch at a cafe and went down to Galaxy World to play Guitar Freaks and Drummania. I can't resist being near an arcade and at least having a quick go. By the time I was done it was about 3pm and my legs were starting to get tired from all the walking around. I decided to grab my bag and head to the airport a little early, my flight being scheduled for 6:25pm, which means boarding at 6:00 and I like to check in around 5pm. So I figured by the time I got to the airport it would be close to 4pm, and I could quite happily spend 2 hours in the airport reading. Certainly wouldn't be the longest layover I've ever had.

So I check in for my flight, and go to check my bags and the attendant informs me (it's about 3:30~3:45) that there's a flight leaving at 4:25, and if I wanted I could board this flight as it was extremely under-booked. Hmmm, fine by me! I hadn't expected it, since my flight was booked as a Red E-deal, which usually doesn't allow changes. But let me put it another way. I'm the only person in my row, the row in front of me is empty, there's 1 person in the row behind me, and of the 12 rows that exist behind me there are a total of 5 people, for 72 seats. (12 rows * 6 seats per row). Extremely under-booked indeed! So bit of a happy accident, and meant that I only had to wait 20 minutes in the airport.

So yeah, back to Adelaide. It's true what they say, the best part of travelling is coming home. Not that I have a 'home' per se at the moment, being as I'm staying with the Hage's until futher notice. Still, it's home enough, and I'm lucky to have such nice friends to give me a space in their home and their hearts while things get sorted out. Speaking of which, things are going pretty well, Hailey and I are sorting through the practical considerations very well and I'm confident that we can salvage a friendship out of this situation. Just a mater of time. I'm feeling much better recently.

Heh. John Mayer just came on Radio Q. Back to You. Of course, John Mayer reminds me of what this blog was originally going to be titled when I drafted it in my head. “The new man / cologne report.” See, in traditional style (ironically or not) I've changed cologne, body spray, etc. For whatever reason I seem to change scent after a major relationship. When I was with Jenny, it was “Imperial Leather”, when I was with Trish it was Phoenix, and when I was with Hailey it was Pulse. Now I've switched to “Dark Temptation”, going the whole hog and getting the body spray, the antiperspirant, the shower gel and the cologne/EDT. So, quite literally “I'm a new man / I wear a new cologne / and you wouldn't know me if your eyes were closed.”

Hmm. What else. Stupid birthday coming up. Hate stupid birthdays. Whoop-de-doo, I circled the sun again. Doesn't say anything about who I am, where I've come, what I've done, or where I'm going. So, why assign a date for which to celebrate a non-event. It doesn't take anything special to circle the sun. We're all doing it, all the time. Anyway, you should all know my feelings on birthdays. So no need to espouse on that.

On that note, we're starting our descent, so it's time to switch off all electronic devices and stow my baggage. Hip hip hooray. Quick funny note: Furby toys are not allowed to be switched on at any time during the flight. I wonder why. What did Furbies ever do to Qantas? Mystery for the ages.

This is Bob, in the full upright and locked position, signing off.

Update goes here

2008-10-04T03:16:20Z

Words go here. They suuuuuure do.

The most awesome rant report

2008-09-10T12:12:36Z

OK so this is a bit soon for another entry from me, I know. But seriously. Was awesome. I'm more recording this for my own sake!

So I'm driving Nessa home today, and we're discussing the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) which you may have been reading about in the news. We've discussed this sort of thing before, and since the two of us recently read and discussed Stephen Hawkings "A Brief History of Time" which mentions similar concepts, we thought some of the discussion in the press. Such as one person who decided that colliding 2 protons was somehow going to create hydrogen. Yeah. Really.

Other topics include: Since a black hole's gravity is so massive, light cannot escape it, you'd never see a black hole coming. Since the things we see are light rays (*fine, particles or waaves) reaching our eyes, the light which 'fell' into the black-hole would never reach us, and we'd be inside the black hole before we could see it. So we'd be dead before we knew it. FURTHER, since light takes 8 seconds to reach us from the sun, which is so far away, it would take maybe 2 microns for a black hole centred in Europe to completely envelop the Earth. So... essentially we'd never even know something was going wrong. So if you're not going to know something will go wrong, why care.

Anyway. We're sitting in the car at the lights just down from the tram stop at Rundle Mall. And I get this inspired rant in my head. Now, you have to imagine this being shouted, while trying not to laugh, eventually laughing to the point of tears. Some things are lost in translation, but damn it was funny.

"Well, Nes, see... We can sit here, in our leather lined car, listening to our jazz music, and take comfort in the knowledge that WE, having researched and read A Brief History of Time, that WE know far more than these... these PLEBIANS... with their media frenzy. YES. LOOK AT THEM. The unwashed, unknowing masses. SNEER! They think they know what protons are. I laugh at them. YES! YOU! (pointing at some random guy) AND YOU (pointing at some other random person) WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT PHYSICS! Look at you... waiting for your 'TRAM' ooooh, you think you're so smart with your 'PUBLIC TRANSPORT' well I KNOW about black hole physics! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE LATELY!"

I love being an arrogant ass for comedic effect. Made for an enjoyable trip home after work.

Ok that's it for now.

Bob out.

The "Freaking awesome weekend" report

2008-08-24T13:49:17Z

Ok, so I've had a faaaaaaaaaaaaantastic weekend, and I thought I might even post about it! As I was saying in the car going home this evening, "Yeah, this weekend's blogworthy!"

So Friday night, we had the IAG "Direct Insurance SA Excellence Awards", which essentially amounts to our local awards night, in which the nominees for the national awards are announced. We have a DI National Awards night, in which the winners from the regional awards go up against eachother for glory. Or something like that.

It really just amounts to a chance for everybody to get drunk, have a good time, and hopefully not embarass themselves too much. We've had some fun ones in the past though, with scandalous trysts, and even a punch-up last year! Catfight!! Was hilarious.

Of course, the day of, we rarely get any work done. Motivation is low, as the promise of a good night means that the day passes slowly, and everybody is in a bit of a buzz. Ended up having lunch at the pub with some workmates, which is always good. This was made better by the fact that they had Knight Rider on the plasma screen. I mean, come on! Knight Rider!! You have to love it. And if you don't, the chat about 80's TV shows is pretty awesome too.

So work finished, and "the boys" stay back to have a couple beers at the Office (The actual Office, not "The Office" on Pirie st, which is incidentally not far) before heading over. After that, we head on over (with an amusing "How Deep is Your Love" moment in the elevator down, which is always hilarious) and then get straight into the beers there too, because the night hasn't yet started. So we're enjoying happy hour pints (Mmmm...$4 Coopers sparkling) and watching the Olympics, paying out the Syncronised Swimming and so on, and then it's up to the night.

This year, instead of doing a couple hours drinking, then the awards, which... to be fair is pretty stupid... "Hey, let's have drunks accept the awards!" they got straight into the awards first thing, to leave us with 4 hours uninteruppted drinking. If anything, I had kind of thought to myself "the only thing I've done of any worth this year would be the 'Innovation' award." so I pretty much wasn't paying attention.

"Oh, yay. Customer Service - Face-to-face award. Oh, yay. Assisting People - Internal Support award. Somebody. *clap clap* Come on...get back to the beer. Beerbeerbeerbeerbeer!" ... "OK, Outstanding Acheivement - Individual (essentially, Person of the Year) only a couple to go and then back to the beer." ... "Wait, WTF? My name???"

Yes, it would seem that I have won the 2008 DI Excellence Award for Outstanding Acheviement for an Individual, in recognition of my massive amount of projects, some of which are now being adopted nationally. I'm pretty stunned, to be honest. So, that means that I'll be going to the nationals, whenever they are. Sweeeet! The next 4 hours were spent drinking, laughing, having a good time. According to my handy-dandy-drinks-calculator in Excel, my BAC was only back down under the limit around 6 or 7, and I stopped drinking at 10. I looooove awards nights.

Saturday
Saturday, it was time for another installment of The-Order-Of-The-Nerd; my D&D group. Woke up around 11 or 12... I think, and then went for lunch at Maccas. Got another of those Olympics glasses. I now have 8. ^_^ Hilarious in my opinion. Show up at Flea's place, who has recently had surgery, and she's at the doctors for a checkup and more prescriptions. So we hang around for a couple hours before the game starts. Then we have dinner. Then more fucking around. Essentially, a fun D&D session, with lots of laughter as always. Being "God" is lots of fun for me, and seeing the enjoyment everybody else gets from the game that I've crafted is immensely rewarding. Especially to see the emotional response that I can invoke with my words and my scenarios. To see them react to the characters that I've created, and to respond to my situations in both expected and unexpected ways. Totally awesome.

Sunday
Sunday we'd made plans with Flea and Q to go to Hahndorf for lunch at the German Arms, so we could get some nice German sausage. Mmmmmm... I love eastern European meats. For extra fun, she made the booking under the name Clarence Carter. Oh shit! Clarence Carter! So we rocked up around noon and cruised up to Hahndorf in style. 80's music blaring, cruise control cruising. Having now done the Princes Highway on cruise control, I am so impressed when I compare it to the Festiva. I was passing cars left right and centre because I was locked at 110k and they were struggling to maintain momentum up-hill. Muahahahaha.

So we arrived an hour early. Ended up walking around (not much, since Flea still can't walk much due to surgery) and checking out a few of the gift shops. The ladies bought some gloves and so Q and I went and checked out a shop selling foodstuffs and chili. He bought a Chili-Punch cordial and some "Black Chili sauce" from Tanunda. I bought some Sarsparilla cordial and a fresh loaf of Sourdough bread. I freaking love sourdough. By the time we finished, it was about time for lunch.

So we head over to The German Arms, and at the reception, I get the lovely chance to say "Good afternoon, I have a booking for 4... Clarence Carter?" with the response "Ah, yes Mr Carter, right this way." Roflcopter. We had a fricking brilliant seat, just down from the piano, right next to the fire, and a window seat. Clarence Carter commands respect! I had myself a trio-of-wursts, which was esentially German potatos, saurkraut, wholegrain mustard and 3 "-wurst" sausages. Huge plate of food. Mine arrived last, yet I still finished eating first. Everybody was amazed I could put it away so quickly. As I said, I love my sausage.

So while we're eating, we decide "Hey, let's go to The Pancake Kitchen for dessert!" since, it seems that Flea has never been before. How odd. At least I think it is. Anyway. So we drive back to town, and head on over. Have myself a nice stack of chocolate pancakes with strawberries and icecream. Mmmmmm... Then we get a call from Kingsley, returning a call we placed from earlier in the day. We knew he'd be on a first date with Tina. So we usher them over, as it seems they're only a couple blocks away at Night Train!

So we hang with them for a while, and then decide we're off to the "Super store" next to Night Train. You know the one. Yeah, that one. So we do a bit of shopping, I drool over some of the more...exotic...items (discovering, to my surprise that perhaps Tina shares an interest in this...?) and settle on a few wish-list items which I'll get at some other time. We make a couple purchases ("Attack of the 'Clone'" for Q hehehe) and head on out, leaving Kingsley and Tina to their date which we assume went well. I entrusted Kingsley with the mission of stealing Tina's katamari shirt for me. Failing that, I have to buy one myself. It was awesome.

So we head back to Fleas for coffee (yes, actual coffee) and then back home where I finish off my day of excess with a bowl of popcorn and a bath/book. You know me and popcorn. All up, this has been a freaking massive and awesome weekend, which I've really needed given how depressed I've been lately. Maybe things are turning around, I dunno. All I know is weekends like this don't come around very often.

-Bob ... out.

B-ored. (Hey. Listen!)

2008-05-27T13:53:27Z

Ok, I'm bored. Ya'll know what that means. "Write a bunch of crap for 20 minutes!"

So why am I bored. Hobowars reset isn't for another 20 minutes. My boss has just signed out of XBox live, and I can't be bothered with A) single player or B) randomly killing people I don't know. While both are satisfying, I've been in multiplayer mode for the last hour, and going back to "mission mode" takes too much effort for 11pm.

Seem to be getting past my depression. That's good. I've been a bit cheerier and less snappy the last couple weeks. Even managed to do a game of D&D last Saturday.

Now here's a story. When I run D&D, I always have an "Alarm" sound for when we're getting off track. Helps reign things back in and keeps control if we need it. Most times I'm happy to get off track, but sometimes we do need to actually play the campaign we're doing. It can't all be jokes! So I discovered the 100% absolute best alarm sound ever. I play it for 5 seconds, and instant silence.

Navi. "Hey. Listen!" Looped. For 10 minutes. At high volume.

"Hey. Listen! Hey. Listen! Hey. Listen! Ley. Histen! Les. Hiyten! Netsil! Yeh."

Instant crowd control. I'm thinking about selling the idea to the police for use in riots.

In other news, I'm doing much better things at work. In the last... shall we say 4 weeks? My programming skill has come a LONG way. I've been able to program from scratch, 2 tools which will REALLY help the business. I've been learning a lot more about OLE Automation, and how I can automate objects into interacting. Combine that with some work I'm doing with one of my colleagues in Brisbane, and I'm learning / teaching so much. It's been really productive.

Ummm, what else. I got an XBox 360 since the last time I wrote. Purchased solely for Grand Theft Auto IV. I say "purchased" but it was all RewardHelp vouchers through work. So net cost to me... Nil. GTA-IV totally worth it. And as a result, I've been catching up with my boss, and aforementioned colleague in Brisbane for GTA Rampages. IAG takes Liberty City. So to speak. Has been quite fun. Have also been catching my boss on Call of Duty 3 for the last couple nights, so that's been fun too. Best joke of tonight. He kills me. I respond by microphone... "So, shall I consider that my performance review then?"

Hmmm... let's see. What else. Oooh, I know.

Geohashing. For those of you in Adelaide, go here. http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Adelaide%2C_Australia

Geohashing was "invented" shall we say, by the creator of XKCD webcomic. Totally awesome guy, has some amazingly fun ideas. Anyway. This one. Take your current GPS coordinates (-35, 138) and take today's date + the opening price of the Dow Jones Stock Index, convert them to MD5, convert that to decimal, and then append the decimal to your GPS.

What you end up with is a location, within your area, to go visit. I joined the first ever Adelaide meetup (official XKCD meetups are Saturday at 4pm) last Saturday down near Woodcroft. Was heaps of fun. Just "going on an adventure" was cool. There was one up in the Barossa a couple days ago (the good thing is the coordinates change daily!) which looked great, but alas it's hard to do them during the week. Anyway. Check it out. Join me if you need a ride. I'm happy to hybrid away.

Speaking of Hybrid. As soon as I can afford to, I'm getting CARBN-0 as my licence plate. I've decided that's the coolest I can get.

That's enough for now. And Gabbie, "Yes"

-B

Quick Saturday update

2008-04-05T15:50:13Z

If you are still awake, and not watching Rage, you are SO missing out. The programmer is choosing the most weird and psychadelic videos he can think of. It's freaking awesome. So mayn hilarious videos. It' s awesome.

D&D last night, for the first time in 4 weeks. So much catching up and laughing we didn't start playing until at least 9:30 and even then we were only able to kill one monster. To be fair, this monster could have pretty much killed any one of us in a single hit. Only good tactics saved the group. So I was actually proud of that. The group worked together to come up with a tactical solution to a problem. Even if it came about from knee-jerk reactions to the massive damage it inflicted.

I'm sneezing a lot.

I have decided

2008-03-18T06:00:11Z

I need more good eroge games. The ones with awesome stories. Yes, I like the stories too.

The illness report

2008-03-17T08:05:50Z

Damn my health is declining. I've had so many illnesses attack lately it's like I'm a testing ground for some bio-warefare group or something. Ok maybe not quite that bad, but damn when I get sick do I get sick.

Those who do know me will know that I've had stomach problems for oh.....5 years? Well, I finally went and got them checked out properly. Instead of just the usual symptomatic testing they've done, I got them to run every test under the sun, test for a whole gamut of GI illnesses and chronic conditions. There's a couple that ring true symptom wise (e.g. gluten intolerance has EXACTLY the same symptoms, but I'm pretty sure I deal with gluten ok. Granted, my diet doesn't have much gluten in it anyway. Maybe that's not a coincidence?) but I have to wait another week for the test results (got the tests done a week ago).

At least I'll get to the bottom of it.

All this has of course left me drained and completely lacking in energy. Last weekend I wasn't even able to run a D&D session (the thought of managing a group of rowdy D&D players for 10 hours left me in a cold sweat of dread) which was disappointing. I did try and get as much rest as possible, but I still ended up at a loss at the end of the week.

See, last night, I was in the most excrutiating pain (not stomach related) from about 8:30pm until 7:00am this morning. I only got about 30 minutes sleep in the whole night, which was crap. Left me tired and irritable all day today, and still in residual pain. The stupid thing is, I don't think a doctor is required in this case, as I beleive it was a muscle cramp of some sort. That said, if it returns I'll see a doctor.

In related news, I got my "green card" this week. See, when you're a temporary permanent resident (that being, a PR applicant) you are still eligible for Medicare, but you get a temporary card, which is blue, instead of the usual green. Now that I'm a permanent resident, Medicare have sent me a permanent, green, Medicare card. So I can lovingly tell everybody that I finally got my Green Card. How ironic that this should be the conclusion to all of this.

In other news, you know what's funny? When you've got somebody as ... for lack of a better term, let's say hypersexual ... as me, the complete and utter loss of sex drive is a very amusing thing. I find myself completely asexual at the moment. It's bizzarely weird and interesting at the same time. But that's enough of that.

I'm going to make popcorn.

-B

Right now

2008-03-12T12:45:39Z

I am SO bored. :S

Also it's hot.

O HAPPY DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY (Insert gospel singers here)

2008-02-28T22:21:10Z

I'm at work, so I can't post much (being as I'm using WorldLingo) at the moment...

But.

I GOT MY RESIDENCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fuck. :'(

2008-01-22T13:05:50Z

Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'( Fuck. :'(

That is all.

The "Christmas, a.k.a 'Nerd habits die hard'" report

2007-12-26T05:35:56Z

Howdy everybody.

Well, another Christmas slowly winds down, and I sit with my stomach so full (my U key is broking! brb, keyboard fix. How the hell did bird seed get UNDER my "U" key!?! >_<) of food that I think I might explode, or finally gain those extra 5 kilos I so desperately need. (Damnit, I need them of muscle, not fat!)

So have had quite an interesting holiday period actually. Ended up getting invited to stay at Nat's house for the whole holiday weekend, since we were already going to spend Christmas Eve there. Here's the story. We'd been invited over to spend Christmas Eve so that we wouldn't have to drive over at a ridiculous hour of the morning to see Erica open her first ever Christmas presents. So we agreed, love spending time there. Then, on Friday we'd ended up buying a new game (side-quest: we play lots of board games when we go over, so we bought Rummikub as a new addition) and started joking about going over Friday evening so we could all play it. Next thing I know, I've got an sms from Nat saying "Mum wants to know if you just want to stay over until Tuesday, since it would mean less driving." So Hailey and I get home, pack up a few days worth of things, make sure the budgies have heaps of food and water, and off we go with the dog.

It was really nice though. Those who know me a bit better know that I'm a bit of a grump when it comes to Chirstmas. Especially with my family half-way around the world, I just find that the whole commercialised aspects of Christmas really piss me off. But I found it easy to get into the Christmas spirit when it was for a little child. Decorating the house, putting up the tree, cooking, etc. Even though she's not yet 1, and doesn't really understand what's going on (oooh, pretties are being put up... why?) it was still enjoyable. Next year will be the big one.

Saturday, another unexpected thing happened. Kingsley (Nat's brother, Hailey's ex) and Krit (Nat's cousin) had been talking for a while about starting up a D&D group, and had been talking to me to see if I would be interested. It's been a while since I've played, but I enjoy it, so I said sure. The topic of who would DM (read: run the game) came up, and it turns out I have the most experience in that area, having DM'd 2 or 3 games. Kingsley has only really done 1. Of course, all my experience is with the "old" (Read: Second edition) rules, and we'd be playing with the "current" (Read: Edition 3.5) rules. So lots of things for me to learn (E.g. our new campaign), lots to forget (THAC0 anybody?) and tools to find. We ended up playing 3 PC's (Kingsley, Krit and Flea (Leanne)) as well as my player (Lothar, of the Hill People) being run as an NPC. It turned out to be a really fun afternoon, and we've committed to playing every Saturday afternoon until the campaign is done. Feedback for my running of the game was good as well, with everybody commenting that it was a really good time.

Of course, since I don't do things by halves, I've spent the last few days getting DM tool software, as well as dice rollers, and reading both the Players Handbook and the DM Handbook (Both 322 PDF pages) as much as I can. That, and "D&D for Dummies" and "Dungeon Masters for Dummies." Hailey's thinking about joining the group, we'll have to roll a character for her though. (Side-quest, Trish sorry I wasn't able to meet up with you, will try and come see you this weekend. See next paragraph.)

Got word that the Prius will be ready to pick up on Friday! Woohoo!!! Really getting excited now, only a couple days to go and it's ours. So this weekend will involve lots of driving around for all the people who want to see it, as well as starting to get the Max-Mobile ready to sell. Have a couple friends interested in buying it, so will see how that goes.

All in all, an excellent weekend / holiday period has been had so far, not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, but oh well. We have fun. I've been finishing off a major report at work, and I finally polished off the final copy last week, so it'll be smooth sailing til the end of the year I reckon. I was on standby to go to NSW for the hail-storm claims situation over there, but I doubt I'll be needed at this stage. I've just been part of the virtual triage team for now, and if I do go it will be in January. That said, I have put my hand up for some major event training, so I'll essentially be on the standby list as soon as major events occur to fly over. It's not really a question of "if" anymore, but a question of "when" and "where". Poor East coast. Never seem to get a break.

That's all for now. I'm still full of food. Maybe a nap. Or card games.

-B

The "Lol, I made OAC famous" report

2007-12-12T08:25:22Z

Today I was browsing News.com.au and I saw one of their blogs for "Best (and Worst) Office Christmas decorations". How could we resist sending in a photo of our tree in OAC.

We didn't know they'd put it on the front page. :O

http://blogs.news.com.au/christmas/index.php/news/comments/best_and_worst_office_christmas_decorations/

I lol'd.

-B

The obligatory McPia post.

2007-12-10T13:20:09Z

I should start using my new userpic. ;)

It would seem I have just been described as "like pizza with extra cheese." Given my taste in pizzas, I am greatly amused.

Epic win. Epic, epic win.

You see, back in those days, rich men would ride around in Zeppelins, dropping coins on people, and one day I seen J. D. Rockefeller flying by. So I run of the house with a big washtub and… hey! Where are you going?

... Anyway, about my washtub. I’d just used it that morning to wash my turkey, which in those days was known as... a walking bird. We'd always have walking bird on Thanksgiving with all the trimmings: cranberries, indian eyes, and yams stuffed with gunpowder. Then we'd all watch football, which in those days was called "baseball"...

...there are too many leaves in your walkway!

For Sale: 1 Max Mobile, plenty of memories. Slightly awesome.

2007-12-08T12:33:34Z

Yup. That's right. My car, is now officially on the market. Granted I haven't decided what I'm asking for it, and I need to repair the right-rear qtr panel dent (insurance FTW) but that's stuff to be decided at a later date.

Why should it be for sale?

Yup, we did it. On order from the factory to deliver to Peter Kittle on Main North Rd is 1x Toyota Prius i-Tech.

Very excited.

More on this later. I need to get to sleep. Buying a car is exhausting. :)

-B

A thought

2007-11-26T02:37:03Z

I really really really want an NBA Jam Tournament Edition arcade cabinet.

The "I, for one, welcome our new Parliamentarian overlords" report

2007-11-26T00:39:17Z

So, my weekend hey.

Woke up at some ungodly hour on Saturday (7am DOES NOT EXIST ON SATURDAY PEOPLE!) and got ready to roll to the Modbury West polling station. Slip on my ever-so-sexy "Vote 1 Nick X" shirt and baseball cap, a cream pair of shorts and off we go.

Show up at the polling station, and there's well over 100 people lined up before 8am. I couldn't beleive it. And that line stayed at about 50+ people waiting throughout the morning. E.g. if you showed up, you had a 15-30 minute wait, just to get in the door. Talking with some of the other volunteers (who had done it before), and it was unprecedented. But anyway.

Slap on that sunscreen and it's off to work! "Good morning, Nick Xenophon." "Good morning, vote for Nick." "Good morning, Nick Xenophon?" Seriously. Non-stop for 4 hours. It was interesting seeing the election from the point of view of a volunteer. Especially a non-voting one. To see the complete apathy some people had towards voting, indeed even hostility! A woman dragging her kids along going "Come on you two, we gotta f*ing do this stupid s*it so stop whining!" Perhaps she should take her own "advice."

I support the idea of compulsory democracy, for lack of a better term. When playing the political simulation "Nation States" there was a good way of putting this debate. "If you force people to vote, then it's not truly free." "If you don't force people to vote, then it's not a true representation." And so on. I beleive that everybody should vote. HOWEVER, I also beleive that in a system of voluntary voting, if you don't vote, then you don't get the right to complain. The only people who get to complain are those who voice their opinion. That goes for life as well.

So, yeah. 4 hours of handing out How to Vote cards. I feel really really good about it. I was so pumped afterwards, it was awesome. Even though I could feel I had sunburn (on the 1 spot I missed because the shirt I was wearing slipped down my shoulder) and my throat was sore, and I was starting to sweat, and I was tired, I felt so rewarded and good about having helped out. I'll certainly be up for doing the same in the future.

Other thoughts re: election.
Bob Day didn't get into Makin. Good.
Labor got an overwhelming win. Sorta good. It leaves the lower house unbalanced.
Nick X / Greens got into the Senate. Excellent. They'll hold the balance of power. Balance is good.
With 79% of the vote counted, Johnny has lost his own seat. History making hilarious.

Let's see. Apart from politics and sunburn, played video games with Brad/Nes Saturday, spent the afternoon playing scrabble with Nat and playing with Erica on Sunday. Didn't get to go Prius shopping on Saturday, which was a bummer.

Yes. You read right. I am Prius shopping. Meaning it's time to go... Max-Mobile.

That's all for now. I'm home sick.

-B

The "Doin' my bit" report

2007-11-22T12:06:11Z

Just a quick one before bed.

So, as ya'll know, I can't vote. Non-citizen thing and all that. But there's an election this weekend. And I'm quite politically minded and interested in local issues and such. How can I make my voice heard, if I can't cast a vote.

Shock. Horror. Oh. Wow. What?

I've decided to join Nick Xenophon's campaign volunteer team and help out at one of the polling booths, handing out "how to vote" cards. Hailey has also volunteered, so from 8am to Noon, we'll be dressed in our spiffy "Nick X" T-shirts and caps, doing the good thing.

Sometimes, I surprise myself.

-B

The "No longer a Telslut" report

2007-11-16T15:08:01Z

Who'd have thought. After 6 years being on Telstra prepaid, with the SAME BLOODY SIM CARD for the whole time, going through 4 different phones (all of them crappy) I've finally gone to a 3G phone on a different network.

Let me explain.

Yesterday, Hailey accidentally put her phone in the washing machine. Not the first time she's done that, as this particular phone was an insurance replacement for exactly the same thing. Or something like that. No, wait last one was dropping it in a glass of milk while sneezing. Anyway. The phone's not dead, but the speaker is pretty much gone. So I was looking at phones for her today while at work, on the Three website. I saw something that caught my eye.

Three have released a new "Skypephone." They're bringing them out around the world, and essentially what it is, is a phone that has built in Skype (internet phone, so to speak) connectivity. Wow! So, get a Skype-phone, and you can make free calls to other skype accounts, and free skype chat (instant messaging).

Practical upshot? Get 2 Skypephones, and you can make free calls to them, and chat for free between them. Since 99% of my calls and messages are between me and Hailey... that makes a HELL of a lot of sense.

So we bought 2 of them. They're so brand new (only arrived in the shop today) that we could only get them in 1 colour (white w/ blue stripe) so we've had to buy a little dongle so we can tell them apart. That, and mine has a screensaver of a YTMND animated gif of Batman running with a bomb. ^_^

I find myself oddly amused by finally having a 3G phone. No longer limited to midi files as ringtones (and having to get those from a homemade WAP server no less!) I spent the good part of an hour trying to think of suitable tones. (General ringtone: Overture II from the We <3 Katamari soundtrack :D) And because it's 100% USB (even charges by USB, and has a USB dongle wall charger) it acts as a hard drive on the PC. Using the 512MB microSD card that it came with (256MB more than the UK gets! Suckersssssss) I actually have an incentive to use it as a portable music player.

So many things to do with it. Which reminds me. I just spend the last 30 minutes in the PC Sync software updating my address book, since I have no way of transferring my contacts from "Ye Olde Phonee Shoppe". Anybody who wants to confirm their current contact details, please drop me a line. (E.g. I had 6 numbers for Trish, and 4 for Gabbie. I KNOW that's not right.)

Hmmmm, what else. I was going over the finances recently, and I'm thinking... It may be... *bigger shock* time to trade in Max. With the financial position Hailey and I are in, I feel we'd be capable of getting the car we both want (Prius. Go hybrids!) with room to spare. So it's almost worth trading in the Festiva before it depreciates too much further. I think it's book value would probably only be $3000-$4000 at the moment. Not much when you consider it'd be going towards a $50000 new vehicle.

New phone I'm just getting used to. I don't know if I'm ready for 4 doors.

CRAP! Is it really 1:30? :O Where does the time go.

Outta here.

-B

Cal Band- Video Game Show 2007

2007-11-14T11:29:12Z

Well worth a look if you have the time.

Reticulating Splines...

2007-11-10T14:03:55Z

If you know what Reticulating Splines means without Google or otherwise. You win. Otherwise, The first one to eat a million, wins!

Ok, that takes care of my nerd culture references.

I finally got my PVR computer set up properly today / yesterday. It's excellent. Boots up and auto logs in to my account, then boots my PVR program first up. So, by powering on the computer (by remote) and turning on the TV, the first thing you see if a full screen, blue menu with "Live TV", "Recorded TV", "Local Videos", "Local Audio" etc. Then using the remote control, I can scroll through the menus to find what I want.

It was so great today to boot up the PC from the couch by remote control, scroll to Local Video, scroll to TV, choose Scrubs, choose Season 7, and then choose Season 7 - Episode 3. *Bing* There it is, on the TV. So simple, so easy to use. It's really centralised the media so that digital entertainment isn't relegated to the office anymore. Now I've got my internet radio, stored audio, DVDs, TV shows, everything from the one point in the living room. I even spent a few minutes running a hard cable to the PVR instead of having it on the wireless channel. Yes, I know, it could be wireless, but I wanted the speed and stability offered by a cabled connection. Trying to copy from the laptop to the PVR turned out to take far too long with them both on the same wireless router.

Ok so that's about it for my nerdy post of the evening. I should get to sleep... I have poker in the morning. But I'm not tired. :(

-B

P.S. Playing Civ IV on a CRT TV is awesome funny.

I lol'd.

2007-11-03T02:51:00Z

http://www.hqcomplex.com.au/Photos/Events/Sun%2021st-Live@HQ-Klaxons/target25.html