Newtown

Just popping in

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3

Greetings from Trogir, yet another coastal Croatian town. Sure, the old town is kind of pretty, but they all start to look the same after a while. Especially when every menu is full of fish and the cafes are all overpriced because you can smell salt in the air.

I’m going to write more about our travels later, I don’t much feel like it now. Boo hoo, no one gives two tosses anyway so what’s the rush, right? Of course.

In case anyone was wondering, my hair is looking splendid. It’s grown past the stage where it appears I have big red ear muffs and now I just look like a messy, bearded hippy. All those private school teachers would be so proud to see me these days. I even walk around in 3/4 pants and wear thongs. If I ever get back to Newtown it’ll be like I never left.

Only a few days to go until we fly to Dublin for 8 hours, then to Tampere in Finland to grab our stuff from Lahti before heading back to Tallinn and another month of toilet cleaning. There’s a dirty rumour that the place is actually getting organised now, perhaps even rosters! So much for spontaneity.

I still haven’t lined up a job in the UK, and I don’t really care. Things could be drastically changing plan, but I don’t like to give too much away. Not just yet, at least. Perhaps I’ll be lucky and manage to coax all three of you readers into a blog cliffhanger. It’s doubtful, but it gives me something to do.

Since I’ve had nothing much else to do except hang around in cafes, I’ve started ordering an espresso and a cappuccino at the same time. The waiters always think it’s for two people. Oh the hilarity. Eventually I plan to make it so common that they come on specially designed saucers, with two cup emplacements. That’s my dream. I’m a sad man.

I miss action ball. I cry myself to sleep over it most nights. Instead, I’ve roped Em into playing chess with me on a small travel set we bought. The fun never stops.

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Near.

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1

Less than two days to go. I got my visa on the Thursday night but I wasn’t home, so technically I could have left on the Friday like I’d originally planned. It worked out better that I’m leaving on the 7th instead, though. I’ve had a bit more time to spend money on coffee and run around doing stuff and seeing people.

The fact that I’m going to be leaving almost everything I know behind for a while is gradually sinking in. I’m not so much scared or worried but I guess just a little upset that this phase of my life (I guess you’d call it) is rolling to a close. I’m going to miss plenty of stuff: the blandness of having nothing to do at times but still feeling at home; Newtown; seeing my parents and putting up with their nagging; seeing Salesi; my mumcar; work; pissing off palmy; spending time with Em; idling on IRC; having Internet access 24/7; pirating shit off the web because I’m bored; procrastinating by flipping through everyone’s journals. Everything.

Yeah, I know… I’ll be having an amazing time overseas and all that. That hasn’t hit me yet because I’m not there doing it. Things will be different by the end of the week but for now, well, I’m just reflecting.

Aww.

Triple.

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33

Alright. I’ve put these all off for too long. Let’s get into it, then. There’s a lot to read about.

Saturday, 21st of January, 2006 – Michael Harris’ buck’s night.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this. I was invited along way back in late August/early September after I caught up with the man I affectionately called “Bongo” during high school for a delicious barbecue dinner. The plan (which was revealed to me approximately 4 days before the actual event) was:

  • participate in a manly session of paintball during the morning
  • clean up and drink beer at a barbecue in Turramurra
  • go to “prestigious” strip club Men’s Gallery
  • continue drinking at bars in the city

I waived the opportunity to attend the paintball and barbecue due to needing the money from work (and being too much of a wuss to weasel my way out of the shift) and went home to change clothes while everyone else was in Turramurra. Having never been to any exotic dancing establishment before that anyone would remotely consider describing “clean” I thought I might gussy myself up as an attempt to make myself appear presentable. It turned out that a collared shirt and non-ripped jeans made me look overdressed.

When I arrived outside the club I was met by my old friend Vincent. He was patiently holding vigil while I walked from the bus stop at the QVB. Following him inside I was slapped by a $50 entrance fee – a sum I was prepared for as I was under the impression we had our own function room hired with some pre-arranged food and drinks. In reality, our function room was a table towards the front with a small “reserved” sign dropped on top of it; the drinks were $7.50 for a bottle of VB and $9 for Toohey’s Extra Dry and the food was four plates of party pies.

Fortunately, half of the group decided to take dear old Bongo into a private show for the pre-9pm price of $65. This provided me with a golden opportunity to achieve my $50 of value from the club by devouring as many party pies as I could before anyone else got back to eat them. I think I got through about $20 worth. Not too bad.

We were inside the place from 8:30pm right up to 11:45pm. It doesn’t sound like long, but when you’re sitting in a room (literally one room, check out the photo on the site) full of silent men (almost none of which you know, let alone speak to often) doing nothing apart from drinking, hiding their erections and waving fake “dancer dollars” around in order to fool themselves that they’re actually appealing individuals it feels like an eternity. Especially when you’re sober, hanging out for your pay cheque that doesn’t arrive for another week and sober since the drinks are ludicrously priced.

Value was added to my experience, thankfully, when Vinnie bought me a scotch and coke and a decent cigar. I’m an easy man to please. Alright, it was fun looking at a bit of flesh, too. There were certainly some sexy women dancing but most of what I would describe as “talent” were just the regular waitresses. Oh well.

After we finally left no one knew what to do next. Everyone was stone cold sober and almost out of pocket due to the cash they’d been throwing around willy nilly. I was strapped and I’d only spent the $50 on entry. All I wanted to do was drink and forget that it had all happened. Instead, everyone bitched and moaned about where to go and we ended up sitting outside Bar 333 for 40 minutes trying to get in, only to fail due to our group constituting what is known as a “sausage fest”. This meant that we had to jump onto the back of a large group of girls that randomly turned up in order to preserve the hallowed 1:1 male/female balance inside the club.

Inside was boring. Boring and expensive. Expensive to the tune of $8 shots. I bought one in desperation and fortunately scored a glass of champagne after someone ordered some for a toast. No one spoke inside the bar, either. I was having so much fun I almost sunk to the new low of going up to unaccompanied girls and starting a conversation in order to escape the sheer and utter boredom of being there. I probably would have, if I was drunk. Instead of getting my mack on I politely (and honestly) told Harris that I was tired and broke and would be leaving. He didn’t seem to mind and neither did I.

As I began my hour long walk back to Newtown, I sussed out every pub and bar along the way to see if, for some unknown and unexpected reason, I should bother going inside on my own. Every single place looked unappealing for various reasons. Eventually I made it back to my flat and ended up falling asleep in my chair for 20 minutes while I maintained my boredom on IRC at 2:45am on a Saturday night.

This Saturday is the wedding. I still have to buy a wedding present.

Thursday, 26th of January, 2006 – Big Day Out.

This day started literally at the beginning of the day – midnight. On a whim, I’d swung by to pick up Benecke, Frank and Byrne from Byrne’s place in Hunter’s Hill after work. I was also driving Andrew as we alternate who drives to work. The lads wanted a lift into King street and were already mildly intoxicated from three bottles of cheap wine. Not one to spoil a party, I happily obliged.

We met up with Kate and Jibby at Kelly’s hotel and continued to drink until the lights were turned on and we were kicked out. Typically, we’d planned ahead and stashed a few empty pint and schooner glasses inside people’s jumpers and hand bags and succeeded in smuggling them outside. The only disappointment in this subterfuge was that our grand plan of concealing the cups inside empty Smith’s chips packets was foiled (pardon the pun) when a waitress decided she’d pick up our bag of glass. God knows why anyone would pick up a non-empty packet, but she did. Bitch.

After a brief encounter with the police outside the Town Hall hotel due to our gang bashing of Benecke which resulted in his shoes being thrown across the road after dumping him on a particularly uncomfortable looking bench, everyone went home. Andrew and I foolishly stayed up playing FIFA 2006 or some other game, I can’t remember. We didn’t get to bed until about 5am. I’m not sure why, really.

The latest dotmaen, RenoZuken, or Dylan, or Dilly Bag, or D-Train, or various other D names was due to arrive around 9am or thereabouts. He was on time. This meant that palmy and I had to get up, shower, purchase vodka hip flasks, purchase leukoplast tape, purchase sunscreen and make it onto the train bound for Strathfield in order to get to Homebush at 11:30am in time for the festival. We were on time. Everyone we were meant to meet there wasn’t.

Eventually we all got our tickets (thanks, nachos!) and pushed our way into the front of the queue to enter. This was a success. Another success was smuggling in the 11 standard drinks worth of vodka that we had purchased that managed to remain strapped to our legs under our shorts, courtesy of some tactical leukoplast wrapping. The failure came when we lost most of the hair on our upper legs when the time came to remove the tape. The moment of sadness was brief as palmy and I both finished the entire contents of our vodka bottles within 45 minutes. Most of the day after this (ie, practically all of it) was a blur. He’s a rundown of the key events that I can recall in another convenient list (I reserve right to have the events out of order due to the fact that I was off my tits):

  • dancing in the boiler room (this is where we drank our crunk juice)
  • running around drunk trying to get to the front of the mosh pit for Mudvayne
  • having my shoes nearly ripped apart halfway through Mudvayne’s set (which I was thoroughly enjoying, mainly due to the fact that the alcohol had made everything other than the beat of the music incoherent – perfect for moshing!)
  • going back to the boiler room to dance on my own for a bit since my shoes wouldn’t have survived re-entering the Mudvayne pit and no one else had left
  • waiting around the Wendy’s to try and find people and instead having 3 random people ask me to do them completely different small favours (all unfortunately non-sexual)
  • eventually having to hunt down who I was looking for at the other end of the showgrounds
  • trying to keep palmy alive after he almost passed out from jumping around too much at Mudvayne
  • getting 2 beers at a time from the Toohey’s Extra Dry tent
  • standing around the outside of the green stage for 30 minutes during Sarah Blasko’s set waiting for Jibby to find me whilst I drank both my beers and spoke to a lady about her camera
  • getting more beer at the Extra Dry tent and finding that a chicken burger had revitalised palmy
  • going off to see the Kings of Leon and scoring a dubious cigarette
  • squirting sunscreen over half of the crowd and getting away with it, bar the fact that a security guard held a hose on me for 20 seconds (this may have been during a different band, I can’t remember)
  • running off to catch the last part of Henry Rollins’ spoken word at the green stage and being upset that I didn’t get to see Soulwax
  • going back inside the main arena and queuing up for Franz Ferdinand while they were already playing then being at the front of the line to get into the mosh pit for what would have been the White Stripes (Iggy was playing on the other side)
  • leaving the queue in boredom only to return again and push up to the front of the non-moshpit crowd for Iggy and the Stooges
  • going back outside and falling asleep for an hour, missing the White Stripes
  • blindly following palmy’s green shirt towards the boiler room through the crowd in the dark after being awoken
  • dancing topless inside the boiler room until the place closed down
  • having my shoes finally ripped completely apart whilst boarding the train :(

When I say it like that it sounds like I didn’t really do much. It felt like a lot at the time. I’m sure more things happened, I just can’t remember but I suppose I was rather out of my head, so I can live with that. After we got back to Newtown we returned to Kelly’s and stole another 3 pint glasses then stayed up for a few more hours in the flat.

By the time I went to bed, I’d already turned 23. It was a very happy Australia day.

Saturday, 28th of January, 2006 – palmy’s housewarming.

Originally, palmy wanted to have his housewarming the very first weekend that he moved in. I told him no. Instead, we had it this night.

Both of us had work that day (I always work Saturdays) during the morning and early afternoon, so I frantically began cleaning up after we got back to the flat (virtually a solo effort, naturally). I can’t be bothered listing all the names of the people that came, but there were a considerable amount.

I suppose I may have still had a lot of alcohol sitting in my system from Thursday. Either way, I managed to deceptively get myself very drunk off white russians (what else?) or perhaps it was from the beer I sculled with some others from our newly-acquired pint glasses. Fortunately I didn’t get so drunk that I became sick. Just the way I like it.

Basically it was just a fun party with the odd highlight here and there. Some to do with me, some without. I’m not going to spoil the fun and fess up to my antics – that’s what everyone else can gossip about ;). Instead, I’ll mention that Simba somehow broke my computer chair in the most amazing way I have ever seen. He ripped the handles clean off as if they were cut with a laser. I was so impressed I wasn’t at all annoyed. I suppose it helped a little that he handed me $50 out of guilt, too. Nothing else was broken, no one fell off the balcony, no one threw up in our bathroom (I think people threw up in Joel’s next door) and palmy finally got to fully christen his new bed.

In the morning, after everyone else had left, Ross drove me to McDonald’s for breakfast. During our meal we challenged each other to take our shirts off and continue eating. We sat there quietly, topless, chewing away when a young man walked in from outside and gained our attention by calling to us. We turned to face him only to find that he, too, had removed his shirt and joined in on our fun. He then proceeded to offer us both ice and coke. Unsure of how to react to any aspect of this situation, we smugly said, “no, thanks”, before returning to our food. To apply a little icing to our stupidity of eating in Mickey D’s shirtless, I returned to the counter and ordered some hotcakes for Ross and I to share (I’d had a craving for weeks; I think I’m pregnant).

As we left I decided to test out the local drug dealer and asked him if he really had any ice and coke. He held up his drink cup and let me have a sip of his ice and coke. Ironically, the ingredients in Coca-Cola’s post mix are probably more brain-damaging than most other illicit substances. I smiled as I drank because thinking of this made me feel like a hard man.

It took me two days to summon up the energy to clean the apartment. We still haven’t taken the trash out.

End of stories!

What a long entry! I wouldn’t have bothered reading it all.

P.S. we killed the biggest, meanest, toughest fucking wolf spider of all time tonight. Eventually. It only took half a can of Pea Beu, one dozen splats with a floor swiffer, eight twists and grinds with aforementioned swiffer and a lot of courage and patience to finally kill the bastard. We dropped him off the balcony.

P.P.S. I’d like to mention that I’m no hater. I don’t mind insects as long as they stay outside. They’re only fair game for murder when they come inside. This is my territory, after all.

Woot.

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13

I’m going to have to do a spot of Christmas shopping this week. God damn it. On top of that, my beard’s back and it’s a little itchy. Life is hard.

This week has been pretty fun. My Finnish-friendly Newtown tour guide abilities have shot through the roof and I even found a few shops myself that I didn’t know existed in the area. I guess that’ll help with the shopping. I’m sure we’ve magically watched about 300 hours of television and movies throughout the week. Somehow we managed to make it out on the town on Thursday and Saturday nights, too. I was expecting them both to be able to drink considerably more but at least rapid inebriation means you save money on alcohol.

Today I have to get my Amelie DVD back from a uni friend. I exchanged it for Fight Club, since I’d never watched it from start to finish properly before. It was only about 2 months ago, giving me just enough time to scrape in a viewing. She’s going to be near Broadway getting enrolled into a religious order. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? She gets to wear a scapula and probably learns a secret handshake. I think it may also entitle her to discounts at various retail outlets. Personally, I’d prefer a customer loyalty card but whatever.

Ross got back on Thursday night. I was going to pick him up from the airport but I was already drinking in Newtown when he landed. He got home via the miracle of public transport and seemed to survive, so I didn’t feel so bad. I made up for it last night when I walked home from the Cross (again) with tofu (again). That’s at least the third time I’ve achieved that. Each occurrence makes me feel just a little bit more like I’m a man. Eventually I’ll have the courage to do it without wearing a skirt and holding hands with tofu the whole way back for warmth.

Lately I’ve lost my appetite. There’s no particular reason for it that I can think of. I just have. This is good because I’m trying to spare some cash. I only ever feel slightly hungry but never enough to make me really want to chow down, so I’m getting by very easily on just one meal a day or so. These last few days that one meal has been somewhat dodgy and heavy-sitting in my stomach, so maybe that’s why I’m coping so well. I would give it all up for a good savoury crepe. I’ve been craving one for months but I never find myself in a food court at the right time in order to get one and we all know that the only places you can get crepes are from food courts in shopping centres.

The Istanbul on King kebab shop has me confused. They make quality kebabs but their falafels are poor. This totally destroys my otherwise consistently correct theory that you can gauge the calibre of a kebab shop based on the strength of their falafels. To fudge my results, I’m going to write that experience off as an outlier and assume it was just a bad batch and never buy a falafel from there again.

Tea.

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25

Behold a different icon for once!

I’m drinking what I think is my first Earl Grey. With milk. No sugar. Is that protocol?

Tea isn’t my thing, really. I’ve never really been into drinking it. Sometimes I have odd cravings/curiosities about it, like today, so I drink a cup. I have to use coffee mugs as I have no teacups in my cupboards.

My highlight for today is that I don’t have to go to court tomorrow due to there being a guilty plea. The lady on the phone said I may need to still do something next Tuesday, but that’s alright. Whatever.

My highlight for yesterday is that the man from Mantech contacted me with a new job at the Australian Stock Exchange. It’s some kind of helpdesk position but it is 24/7 with weekend shifts, too. It could be real hard work but really fun, or at least interesting. “Mantech Mike”, as I like to call him, will take care of it for me, he said. Hurrah!

It’s started to disturb me that it seems 90% of the listed IT jobs are based in North Sydney. What’s the deal with that? I wouldn’t mind so much if it wasn’t such a bitch to get there from Newtown. If I get this ASX job it’s irrelevant, I know, seeing as it’s on Bridge street and all. Still, there’s clearly some conspiracy going on. I’ll crack it one day. When I care.

Tonight I’m meant to be going to a 20th at the Lowenbrau. I feel so old. Last weekend I went to a 21st so everything’s going backwards. Perhaps the world is letting me catch up for lost time. Or fate or destiny or some other guiding hand. Maybe it’s just because I have more younger friends these days. That could be it. Good thinking, old man Ollie.

The Electric Lady website is trickling along on the wheels of progression. I’ve been teaching myself PHP as I go. Most of what I’m doing is very basic but I suppose if you’re teaching yourself that’s how you start out. Jolly good.

I’ve just noticed I seem to have a weird habit of finishing my inane story paragraphs (ie, all of them) with some short sentence that almost looks like I’m talking to myself, or checking off each statement as I go. I don’t know if this revelation is important or not, even indicative. I don’t really enjoy reading over what I’ve written while I show this particular tendency, so I’m going to make a conscious effort to stop. Unless, of course, I realise that I have no other way to neatly finish off each paragraph.

See, that last one just feels like it’s hanging. I need my “full stop statement”.

Even that one seems cut off. Argh, this will be a challenge!

Just to show I’m not all class with my fancy pants Earl Grey, yesterday I finished off my last can of KB for lunch with some sickening Maggi noodles. I even whacked in a wee bit of sesame oil and soy sauce when I cookd them but I think the flavour sachet is what kills me every time. I’m going to throw the rest out if I can summon the courage/energy. I suppose I really should confess one more thing: I drank the KB out of a beer glass. Yes, I poured it out. That probably makes the whole event a little classier, unless it’s considered as a tacky action, seeing as it’s only KB.

I’m scared. I think my RSI-afflicted arms are going to haunt me forever. Pain is bad. :'( It hurts to use computers. How ironic. I think it’s irony. Let’s pretend.

By the way (I know none of you care, but I’ll mention it anyway), I made a last.fm account for myself. I left TISM playing overnight just to be stupid. I wanted to pump up their presence on the site. What a dedicated fan I am.

:O

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5

Well, I just woke up.

I haven’t slept in this late for a long time. I woke up at 3pm and that’s the time I’m meant to leave for work. Whoops.

I think I’ll be a little late in today.

The report for the project has been done and should have been submitted today. We had our client demonstration yesterday as well and it seemed to go smoothly. They’re very keen on us doing well and seem to genuinely want what we’re building. It’s a little creepy but it’s still encouraging. It’s fabuluous that now I don’t really have to care all that much about the rest of the course for the semester. Of course, I’ll have to know my stuff for the oral exam but that won’t be too challenging. The same goes for our final presentation. I just want to finish it. Whee.

Last night was the Winesoc Red & White Ball/Formal/Dinner. I got to don my new tux. I think I looked somewhat dapper in the good old traditional black tie style. I have some shitty photos that I took with my shitty camera in to a shitty mirror after I got dressed so I’ll upload them later. That is, as long as I don’t look shitty.

Yes, the dinner last night was great. We’d booked out a Greek restaurant so there was the odd bit of plate smashing alongside a tonne of food and wine. I managed to convince Benecke and Byrne (who needs first names when you could have surnames like that?) to come along with me. I think they had a good time even though they disappeared without saying goodbye (which they did according to Byrne). I even saw JJ, Bal and Chunky there. Guess the nicknames out of that lot.

So we danced and drank and ate and mostly didn’t have to feign merriment until we got kicked out. I wasn’t particularly drunk at the end of the event as I’d spent quite some time standing around outside talking to people and looking after sad drunks so that by the time I returned indoors the bar had been closed. Disappointing. I still managed to score some baklava for the trouble, so it was worth it.

Afterwards a few of us ended up wandering down towards Oxford street. I think we went to The Columbian until they kicked us out and then those of us who were left were unable to get in to some other predominantly queer club because the girls were wearing “open toed shoes”. That’s a new one. It was probably for the best as it meant we could sit in some other pub and get cheaper drinks and all be accosted at once by a rather repulsive drunk lesbian/bisexual who asked us all if we were “going to drink or just sit there looking pretty all night”.

To cap off the night, I scored a cold falafel and managed to share a taxi back to Newtown. I think my clothes survived any real damage, too.

All in all a good night.

Quiz.

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Yeah we’re on a $10 prepaid dialup plan, waiting for Telstra to process the ADSL line fault that dearest Larry submitted on my behalf last Tuesday. The things we do.

Went to a barbecue at home last night and saw David and Clare again. Actually got to speak a bit more to Clare as well, which was nice. Had plenty of food and even more sugar for the weekend. I’m going to be diabetic in the near future, I feel.

1. What did you do in 2004 that you’d never done before? Trip to the Middle East, failed to get less than a credit in my uni subjects, moved in to Newtown.

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don’t do resolutions.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No.

4. Did anyone close to you die? No.

5. What countries did you visit? UAE; Qatar (that’s where Bahrain is, right?), although it was just the airport; Oman and Singapore.

6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004? An erection. LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLno. Maybe an ADSL line in the flat at Newtown. An IT job instead of data-entry would be nice too. Perhaps the knowledge of my graduation and an invite to honours as well, just for fun.

7. What dates from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory? Etched sounds more much dramatic than it is. Just boring things.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Cruising through uni part-time for a year and actually doing pretty well compared to the amount of effort I put in.

9. What was your biggest failure? Being .1 off a distinction average for my uni subjects… But that’s ok I can try and make up for it when I do the rest of 3rd year next year… Whee.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Still got RSI plus all my other niggling ailments.

11. What was the best thing you bought? Maybe my new PC. Or my Troma movies. Or TISM stuff.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration? Whatever.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? Not seeing Al and Benecke’s cocks at my housewarming.

14. Where did most of your money go? PC, DVDs, miscellaneous.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Spider-Man 2.

16. What song/album will always remind you of 2004? Nothing, really.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier.
ii. thinner or fatter? Thinner.
iii. richer or poorer? Poorer today, maybe, richer soon.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Winning, sleeping.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Losing, working.

20. How will you be spending Christmas? Same way I spend every Christmas, hanging around Bev’s for a barbecue and being a little bored.

22. Did you fall in love in 2004? I AM TAKEN KTHX.

23. How many one night stands in this last year? 0.

24. What was your favorite TV program? Smallville’s the only thing I really follow, but there’s other shows I like/would like more if I bothered watching them.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? No.

26. What was the best book you read? I never read enough. :(

27. What was your greatest musical discovery? Why listen to music when you can listen to TISM?

28. What did you want and get? Spider-Man 2.

29. What did you want and not get? Dresden Dolls tickets. hehe

30. What was your favourite film of this year? Spider-Man 2, a few others. I like lots of movies.

31. What did you do on your birthday? Worked. Just like my 18th. Vanessa gave me an Oporto chip, though.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Making MEGABUCKS.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004? Fashion?

34. What kept you sane? Procrastinating.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you like the most? Die.

36. What political issue stirred you the most? All the elections, the war, Honi Soit vs the Union Recorder (or not).

37. Who did you miss? Flare. hehe

38. Who was the best new person you met? Dunno.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004. Lemon gelato wins hearts.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. If you’re ugly, forget it.

ARGH.

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1

Still no net. Hi home.

I need to find out Dad’s special rent account number so I can deposit all of my cash and be poor again. :<

Larry the exetel man says to try a few more things tonight and see what happens, if that doesn’t work he’ll lodge an ADSL fault complaint with Telstra for me, or some crap. God knows.

Stupid ISP only having office hours open during business hours. It’s not fucking good for either me or Scott as we both work outside of and through exetel’s business hours, so there’s only 1 or 2 days a week where we’re home to go through all their bullshit.

I bet the pricks bill me for the first month, too. Real fair. Especially when Larry himself (hallowed-be-thy-name) admitted he wasn’t even sure what the problem was. Hopefully I can fix it tonight, otherwise what’s another few days.

It’s just the convenience of the net that I’m missing. Having to drive home to do netbanking and check my email etc is pretty annoying. I can do most of the basic things at netcafes easily enough, but no fucking way am I doing any actual monetary transactions or banking from one of those places.

So what else have I been doing, then? Hmm.

Well, Scott and I have been checking out a few restaurants up King street, most are alright, bar Guzzle Tandoori opposite us. Totally shit. Lou’s been coming along now and then too. This week I’m gonna try and starve myself a bit because I feel like I’m overeating again and I want to lose some more weight. If that doesn’t work or I can’t handle it I’ll fire up the kick-start diet again and try that out. Yeah, just in time for Christmas. That’s ok though, I don’t really like Christmas food much.

Speaking of food, I think I’m going to Kylie Kwong’s (Kwan? Kwon?) restaurant with Lou and her parents next week… I think. It’s either tomorrow or next week. Hrm. That’s Asian-y food anyway, and if it’s Chinese I don’t particulary get off too much on that either. Still, I’m sure it’ll be fun.

Saw Garden State with Lou last week, very good and enjoyable and it didn’t feel Hollywood-bastardised, which is refreshing for an American movie. Much like all my Troma videos that I’m still ploughing through. I think I’m starting to convert Scott to both TISM and Troma. Look out. He seemed to enjoy the 10 year old TISM video I converted to DVD about some of their exploits. Jolly good.

Last weekend was the Christmas party for where I work. We went to the same place again: Harold Park Paceway (gotta love the trots). The food was alright, very RSL/bistro-y. I didn’t eat any of the seafood, of course. The beer seemed to be watered down but at least it was free. My costume (a “Christmas present”, ie a cardbox box with shoulder straps made of tinsel and wrapped in wrapping paper) fell apart when the wind blew the paper straight off it, so I ditched it. I couldn’t be fucked carrying it from Newtown to Glebe or wherever the Paceway is, I walked 35 minutes to get there.

After the party I decided to go to Newtown, instead of Oxford street where some of my other colleagues went. It turned out another girl I knew from work was hitting up a pub on King street so I met up there with her and more work people I’d never spoken to before. It went well enough. I then had to escort a girl called Alecia around the back streets of Newtown to find the Imperial where some more “upstairs” people from work were hanging around. No one stayed there long though as it was getting a bit late and no one was drinking enough to keep it going. I managed to fluke my way through the back streets and found my apartment really easily. Go me.

On Sunday, Deny came around to pick up his paintings and mum and dad came round to check up on things and help me with a few handyman style jobs. Scott and I were rather amused that orphic never bothered calling or dropping in. I’m sure she’ll have a good excuse. hehe.

As for work, well, I’m simply working too hard (as usual, of course) and I’m getting my RSI symptoms back again. I can only type for a little while before it starts to burn, but I have other odd jobs to keep me going for my 3 ten hour shifts a week. Good times, yes.

Hopefully I’ll be able to work my way in to the IT department after Christmas. Hopefully. We’ll see what happens.

Anyway I suppose I’ll get a wriggle on and get back to the flat. Oh maybe I’ll pay dad first and bust my bank account. Medicare still haven’t paid him his money for about the 6th time this year… Yes, Medicare owes my dad $30k from this year, and still haven’t paid up. They keep saying the forms he submitted must have been lost by Australia Post. Unfortunately for them he’s always delivered them by hand to Medicare’s office drop boxes. Bad luck on the excuses, you pricks.

So, that’s why he wants my money, now. :S

Whee.

Oh yeah, getting up at 5am for work fucking smokes it.

-_-

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FINALLY.

Finished my ISYS3000 assignment.

2500 words later (I think it’s a little over, it’s meant to be 2000, but that’s including the headings and references too).

Thank CHRIST.

No more assignments for the year! Wheeee!

Nothing for 3 weeks, when I have my exams! Wheeee!

Got Lou to book a holiday house in Noosa for Lloyd, Eri, Lou and I earlier this afternoon. The silly boffins couldn’t decide on a place, after throwing about 500 links around for the last few days. Of course, with my masculine hunter-style mind I managed to peruse the thumbnails of available locations near Hastings street and we ended up booking the first one that I picked. ;)

$275 each for 7 nights. Less than 1km to Hastings street and it’s got its own private pool and beach, along with nearby restaurants and a bus stop. It’s also decked out with facilities such as TV & DVD, even a dishwasher. It has this funky blue kitchen counter and it’s tiled through and even has ceiling fans! Yay for nice and cool floor with air flow during what will probably be the hottest and most humid time of the year!

It should be really good fun, I’m looking forward to going there with the guys.

Can’t remember if I posted earlier or not, Lou missed out on the job at Coke. :( She’ll have to go work for Pepsi now just to get the ultimate revenge.

Spoke to FallenAngel/Brendan, a dude from WAY back on austnet IRC (circa 1997). He randomly messaged me on Trillian’s ICQ (as I wont use normal ICQ) tonight as I was writing up my report. It was good to catch up with Prong Brother 1. Mmm hmm.

Looks like I’m most likely moving out to Newtown in a month or so! Holy cow! Deny (pronounced Danny, but he’s stupid) reckons he’s moving up to Queensland somewhere and he wants to sell some of the furniture/appliances that are already in the flat for some extra cash. Mum said she would probably buy it or something (?? but that suits me) so I can use it. I’m probably getting a flatmate too but I don’t know if that’s meant to be a mystery yet or not and I can’t be stuffed checking.

As usual, I’ve stayed up later than I need to in order to write in this journal. I don’t think I’ve got it in me to a) regularly write; and b) write at a reasonable time. I’ve coped for this long though so it can’t be all bad.

I’ve been playing the World of Warcraft closed beta. It’s pretty fun, I think it’s actually fucking good for an MMORPG (even though I promised myself I’d never play one again). I’m still undecided as to whether I’ll be buying it when it goes retail or not. I’ll have to see what my situation is at the time.

I do have some hot photos from it, though:
Picture one.
Picture two.

Very, very hot.

Olympzzz.

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I’ve never been that in to the olympics. Big whoop I say. I’d be more interested if it was pro-doping just so I could see some freaks owning everything. Oh well.

I haven’t written in here for a while, I’m in a winter-lazy mood. Yes, that’s even lazier than my regular lazy mood/lifestyle. Yes. Bubs wont shut up about the China versus Cuba women’s volleyball either. ><

Uni work is starting to build up its pressure on my conscience. Maybe I should start doing some. :s

Winesoc dinner tomorrow night. In Newtown at Thai Land. Should be good. $30 for a good meal with wine included. Quite a few friends coming too so it should be a fun one. Fortunately I have uni in the morning on Friday as well! YES!

My arm hurts I cbf writing more. Ladedah.