Day 6 - Saturday 25th
Getting up way too early on a Saturday morning, the four of us made a mad dash for the Roma St Station again, to meet up with our tour group to Fraser Island. We get there, it's almost seven, and the only place open is this dodgy-looking place which I later regretted buying a breakfast quiche from.
Meeting the rest of the tour group, it later turns out that we four are the only Australians in the group - we have some English tourists and backpackers, a French backpacker named Sandra (quickly nicknamed by yours truly to Sandy), some Koreans, and a Canadian. We bundle into different 4WDs, and make a long, long trip down to Rainbow Beach. We also met our tourguide, an incredibly colourful Aussie guy named Paul. He even threw boomerangs and hand-crafted them.
Most of the trip, particularly the first half or so, I was wracked with the worst stomachache from that damn greasy quiche, making me feel so sick I wanted to vomit. However, it quickly faded after we stopped off at a stopover mall-village where we got some travel sickness tablets, and I enjoyed an ice-cream and a can of Sprite.
Fast forward to about 12pm in the afternoon, we're safely arrived at Fraser Island, and have got ourselves set up. It turns out that most of our group are camping, and that only five people are going to the resort - our group and anEnglish backpacker named Emma. Yes, somehow I made a link to Baby Spice (Emma Bunton - but hey, I was much younger then), and thought she was cute.
We take a ride down the beach to see this shipwreck that was originally a ship intended for the Japanese to scrap early in the 20th Century, but instead was stolen by nature and planted on Fraser Island to make it look like the British had stolen the ship back and try to swindle the Japanese. We take some photos, and apparently there are some entertaining photos of myself chasing Jeff along the beach.
'Very romantic.' as Henry later put it.
We then go on to hike towards this really nice creek/lagoon called Elly Creek, which the four of us have a lot of fun splashing around in, running through and swimming upstream in, before we took off to Lake Wobbie - a beautiful, secluded, pristine lake with catfish in them where we swam for a while, having fun with splashing in the pool and sneaking up on others with hands full of sand. We had races down the steep sand slope above the lake, and even a rolling one.
After caking myself in sand at one point, one of the other guys, an Asian-British tourist named Dave pushed me into the water, resulting in a two minute chase along the water before I gave up and went on to plotting and scheming an insidious plot for revenge. I ended up sneaking up behind him, shouting "BOO!!"
It scared the wits out of him. Excellent.
We headed back to the resort, getting together for dinner, where Paul and the other group's tourguide egged us on to eat more food. Afterwards, we went out onto the beach, armed with alcohol, to watch the stars from the beach. We were very surprised when we saw a dingo pass by. Emma had been going on before about how scared she'd be if a dingo came, and how she'd freak out. She didn't even do a tenth the amount of freaking she did.
We later retired back to our room for a night of sweet sleep.
Day 7 - Sunday 26th
On our second day on Fraser Island, we got all our gear packed up and loaded onto the 4WDs that we had spent most of the last couple of days in, cruising through Fraser Island to a rainforested area, beginning a long, scenic trek through the rainforest, to meet Paul playing a didgeridoo at the other end of the path, with the 4WD waiting.
We take another nice drive to Lake Mackenzie. If Lake Wobbie was scenic, then Lake Alexandria was spectacular. A shining lake, golden-white sand, a warm sun, it seemed like a secluded tropical paradise. We spent a good hour or so there learning to throw boomerangs and splash around in the water before we headed off to have lunch.
After enjoying a nice, healthy lunch, we went bushwhacking in the 4WD, Paul deciding to try some "new routes." We almost got lost, and the only thing that stopped him reversing into a tree getting back on track was Jeff shouting "STOP!!"
Fun times.
We get to the beach, and wait for the ferry by having a boomerang throwing competition. Sandy won by the skin of her teeth. I came in second. I let her win, because I thought she should have a memorable memento of her time here.
Our group even came up with a team name - the Boomerangs! We even adopted Queen's "We Are The Champions" to be our theme song.
We left Fraser Island with nothing but good memories, having a commemorative dinner with Jeff and Emma at the Roma St station, and I even gave a little speech ^_^. We parted at there, Jeff going back to Bond, and the rest of us going back to the YHA hostel.
Day 8 - Monday 27th
We left for the airport quite early, splitting there - Henry going back to Melbourne, and Bob and myself back to Adelaide.
Photos and "golden quotes" to follow
Friday, December 22, 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
The Customer Is Not Always Right
The final leg of the Ex-Trip is coming.
I just found an article that I absolutely had to post up. It reflects my views about consumer culture quite greatly. Of course, I haven't had to deal with too many self-important assholes (but I usually get a few on post-megadraw Sundays), but the worship of the mantra "the customer is always right" like it was an important phrase in the Bible drives me mad. Customers benefit from the services WE provide. If they don't like it, then they can bloody well bugger off.
http://www.violentacres.com/archives/59/two-phrases-that-destroyed-american-culture
I just found an article that I absolutely had to post up. It reflects my views about consumer culture quite greatly. Of course, I haven't had to deal with too many self-important assholes (but I usually get a few on post-megadraw Sundays), but the worship of the mantra "the customer is always right" like it was an important phrase in the Bible drives me mad. Customers benefit from the services WE provide. If they don't like it, then they can bloody well bugger off.
http://www.violentacres.com/archives/59/two-phrases-that-destroyed-american-culture
Monday, December 11, 2006
Ex-Trip Day 4.9+5
An explanation for the 4.9 - we end up arriving in Brisbane on Thursday night, and we take the shuttle bus from the airport to Roma St transit station, which I swear is like Brisbane Central or something.
Anyways, after arriving, we get directions to the nearby YHA Brisbane hostel, to which we walk in the muggy evening. At this time, I hadn't realised that the first test of the Ashes were being held in Brisbane, and we pass this English guy who tells us that the place is all booked out - good thing we booked in advance ^_^ We get there, and it seems that they're having renovations being done, what with the construction fences forcing us to maneuver around to the door to reception. After checking in and paying for our time there, we get into our room, to find, surprise surprise, another guy sleeping in there. We freeze at the door, and I'm wondering "WTF why is there some random guy sleeping in our room?"
Snap back to reality, ohp there goes gravity - we realise that it's a hostel, and that we have to share rooms. A quick trip back to reception later we are armed with a padlock for keeping our valuables safe from thieves.
Anyways, after settliing into the (decidedly second-class) accomodation, we make a quick exploration before getting to sleep.
Day 5 - Friday 24th
The following day, after a sleepless night due to the humidity, we make for the train station, making a mad dash in the early morning for the train, taking a long trip down from Brisbane to Robina train station, where we took a bus to Bond University, the home campus of my good friend Jeff.
We get the bus, I take one look at the campus, and then utter a single word.
"Bastards."
The campus is an absolute beauty of a place - big water features, modern buildings, modern architecture ... I suddenly realise how much UniSA lags behind (it's still nice and cozy though, but then so is Bond) compared to this place.
We meet up with Jeff and spend an hour cruising around the campus and surrounding town before returning to Jeff's room so he could finish packing and an essay that he had to hand in before we left.
We take the bus back to Robina station in the afternoon, going back to the YHA so Jeff can check in, and stash his stuff before we hit Brisbane city to check out the nightlife. Being a Friday night, Queen St mall (I swear, it's like Rundle Mall in Adelaide, only Brisbane-ised) is thrumming with people, including rather disappointed Barmy Army members drinking away the horrendous mauling that Australia had been administering to England during the first Ashes test.
We go to see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstatn (that's a real mouthful - and to think that I have it memorised) at the Greater Union cinema in the Queen St mall, which somehow seemed familiar. It turns out that it was the same cinema that my brother and I had visited almost two and a half years ago when we went to Brisbane as a family.
The movie itself is enjoyable, hilarious, and strongly recommended to all, particularly the scene where ... I'll stop here, so as not to spoil it for those who haven't seen the movie.
Afterwards, we ended up wandering the mall looking for a good place to eat (we ended up having Nando's - Jitz's favourite), and saw some interesting things. It's really weird, every 10m or so you walk around in Brisbane city, you'll see a 7-11. It's almost amazing how they can somehow manage to work despite being virtually next to each other.
After a nice conversation at Starbucks over frappucinoes (mine was), interspersed with watching the amusing antics of the nearby mall cleaner cleaning the escalators, we wandered back towards the hostel and our room, stopping to chat up a pair of nice Finnish backpacker girls on the way. I swear, Jeff is a natural conversationalist - we were there for an hour talking to them before we exchanged contact details (with much difficulty), and turning in for an early night.
Soon - our trip to Fraser Island, the best part of the trip in my opinion.
Anyways, after arriving, we get directions to the nearby YHA Brisbane hostel, to which we walk in the muggy evening. At this time, I hadn't realised that the first test of the Ashes were being held in Brisbane, and we pass this English guy who tells us that the place is all booked out - good thing we booked in advance ^_^ We get there, and it seems that they're having renovations being done, what with the construction fences forcing us to maneuver around to the door to reception. After checking in and paying for our time there, we get into our room, to find, surprise surprise, another guy sleeping in there. We freeze at the door, and I'm wondering "WTF why is there some random guy sleeping in our room?"
Snap back to reality, ohp there goes gravity - we realise that it's a hostel, and that we have to share rooms. A quick trip back to reception later we are armed with a padlock for keeping our valuables safe from thieves.
Anyways, after settliing into the (decidedly second-class) accomodation, we make a quick exploration before getting to sleep.
Day 5 - Friday 24th
The following day, after a sleepless night due to the humidity, we make for the train station, making a mad dash in the early morning for the train, taking a long trip down from Brisbane to Robina train station, where we took a bus to Bond University, the home campus of my good friend Jeff.
We get the bus, I take one look at the campus, and then utter a single word.
"Bastards."
The campus is an absolute beauty of a place - big water features, modern buildings, modern architecture ... I suddenly realise how much UniSA lags behind (it's still nice and cozy though, but then so is Bond) compared to this place.
We meet up with Jeff and spend an hour cruising around the campus and surrounding town before returning to Jeff's room so he could finish packing and an essay that he had to hand in before we left.
We take the bus back to Robina station in the afternoon, going back to the YHA so Jeff can check in, and stash his stuff before we hit Brisbane city to check out the nightlife. Being a Friday night, Queen St mall (I swear, it's like Rundle Mall in Adelaide, only Brisbane-ised) is thrumming with people, including rather disappointed Barmy Army members drinking away the horrendous mauling that Australia had been administering to England during the first Ashes test.
We go to see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstatn (that's a real mouthful - and to think that I have it memorised) at the Greater Union cinema in the Queen St mall, which somehow seemed familiar. It turns out that it was the same cinema that my brother and I had visited almost two and a half years ago when we went to Brisbane as a family.
The movie itself is enjoyable, hilarious, and strongly recommended to all, particularly the scene where ... I'll stop here, so as not to spoil it for those who haven't seen the movie.
Afterwards, we ended up wandering the mall looking for a good place to eat (we ended up having Nando's - Jitz's favourite), and saw some interesting things. It's really weird, every 10m or so you walk around in Brisbane city, you'll see a 7-11. It's almost amazing how they can somehow manage to work despite being virtually next to each other.
After a nice conversation at Starbucks over frappucinoes (mine was), interspersed with watching the amusing antics of the nearby mall cleaner cleaning the escalators, we wandered back towards the hostel and our room, stopping to chat up a pair of nice Finnish backpacker girls on the way. I swear, Jeff is a natural conversationalist - we were there for an hour talking to them before we exchanged contact details (with much difficulty), and turning in for an early night.
Soon - our trip to Fraser Island, the best part of the trip in my opinion.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Ex-Trip Day 3+4
DAY 3 - Wednesday 22nd
The night before there was a big thunderstorm, so now it's actually nice and cool in Melbourne. Unfortunately, we're leaving cool Melbourne for steaming hot 36 degree heat in Sydney.
The amusing thing here is that, on the way to Sydney, I manage to lose my boarding pass twice - the first time I think was going through airport security, and the second time I'm not sure. So I end up with some sort of weird docket instead of an actual boarding pass now.
Anyhoo, no other crises came about, and we got into Sydney CBD and head for the hotel. We hit the hotel, Bob, as the "Sydney friend," waits outside while Henry and I go inside the hotel to check in. On asking for our reservation, we find out GASP! it's the wrong hotel! The thing here is that we were staying at a Metro hotel, and there are three in the Sydney CBD. So we get directions, and being the stingy no-money students we are, we decide to leg it across city central to the hotel, lugging all our luggage there in 36 degree heat for about half an hour across so many streets that all seemed to blend together and look the same.
As we get there, we meet Henry's friend and our tourguide Julia, as Henry stated before, who was a "nice girl." I joked about him sounding like he was trying to be a matchmaker. I really got that vibe from the way he wanted to introduce me to the anime girls at JCH - sadly there was only Amy, and this girl named Roxy who somehow reminded me of the female lead from the Korean romantic comedy My Scary Girl.
We all walk into this hotel, lugging our luggage up some steps, and find out that this second hotel too is shock horror the WRONG HOTEL! We end up taking a taxi and somehow navigating our way to the right hotel, down near Chinatown.
We settle into our hotel room, somehow managing to get away with sneaking a third person into a room that was charged for only two people ^_^ hence Bob had to pretend he was the "Sydney friend."
We left the hotel in search of lunch. As we hit Chinatown, I was hit by a desperate craving. I hadn't had yum cha in a while, and so demanded it, and since noone else was offering much resistance, we went with yum cha. And it was delicious! All my favourite dishes got served to us (barring the fried radish cakes, but that's okay), and afterwards, we went down to this museum/exhibition house place called the Powerhouse. We went through this big Chinese history exhibition, and then through this exhibit on television. They even had a Big Brother section, complete with diary/confession room. I took a seat in the chair in time for Big Brother to hear my confession.
"I hate Big Brother." I immediately say, thinking Nineteen Eighty Four as I say this.
Big Brother immediately responds.
"It is futile to try to deceive Big Brother."
At this everyone, myself included, burst out laughing.
After we finish having our fun at the Powerhouse, we leave and cruise along the Darling in sizzling hot weather, and I manage to land a large-sized $5 Boost juice from the stand nearby. Ni~ce ^_^
We return to the hotel room for the evening, before heading out again after getting changed in search of dinner. At this point, Bob has expressed a desire not to have Asian cuisine again, which seemed to rule out about 80% of the restaurants that we passed while we searched for a place that was to Bob's liking. We wander around the city in circles for about an hour before we end up deciding to just go for McDonalds. Yes, it's real haute cuisine ;)
The upside, though, is that we go for Starbucks afterwards. Now, here in Adelaide, there is only one Starbucks cafe, and that's in Rundle Mall, meaning it's always packed with people from interstate and such because there are so many in other cities. So this is a big thing for me - I come in and discover why Starbucks is famous - the frappucino.
We end up walking into Hyde Park afterwards and taking photos in front of something resembling the Washington Monument, and then sitting on steps, which supposedly was against some ANZAC law or something.
We walk into Central Station and try to puzzle out where to go the next day before walking back to our hotel.
DAY 4 - Thursday 23rd
We get up, and make a run for Central Station to catch the next train out to Wynyard, where we were going to see a tour of the Sydney Opera House. We meet Julia, and another of Henry's Sydney friends, a nice girl named Jocelyn, on the way there.
Of course, on the way there, I'm stressing about missing breakfast, which somehow surprised me in a way, because I didn't realise what kind of a health nut I had become. I sate myself grabbing some nuts from a bag of almonds that I had (wisely) packed, as we walk towards the Opera House. The tour itself is pretty interesting, and then afterwards we go on a cruise of Darling Harbour, seeing the sites all around - the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, Kiribilli House (where our esteemed Prime Minister lives when not in Parliament in Canberra), and then afterwards, we wander over towards the Rocks, an old historical part of town, for lunch munchies. While we're there, we get ambushed by a local SBS radio crew, and I graciously grant an interview. I thought it was pretty cool some of the stuff I thought up on the spot when they asked me, until I made a total ass of myself:
"What do you like about the Rocks?"
"I like how all the old stuff has been turned into shopping centres."
Again my big mouth provided plenty of laughs.
We walk down the Harbour Bridge, to see some weird lingerie ad or something being filmed on top of a hotel, and then we end up bumming around Sydney for about 3-4 hours afterwards, visiting parks, chocolate stores, malls, and going in search of "magic toilets," as Jocelyn so eloquently described them, at the QVB mall.
That evening, we head for the airport, to travel to Brisbane after a hearty dinner of fast pizza and Krispy Kreme - to see our good friend Jeff.
The night before there was a big thunderstorm, so now it's actually nice and cool in Melbourne. Unfortunately, we're leaving cool Melbourne for steaming hot 36 degree heat in Sydney.
The amusing thing here is that, on the way to Sydney, I manage to lose my boarding pass twice - the first time I think was going through airport security, and the second time I'm not sure. So I end up with some sort of weird docket instead of an actual boarding pass now.
Anyhoo, no other crises came about, and we got into Sydney CBD and head for the hotel. We hit the hotel, Bob, as the "Sydney friend," waits outside while Henry and I go inside the hotel to check in. On asking for our reservation, we find out GASP! it's the wrong hotel! The thing here is that we were staying at a Metro hotel, and there are three in the Sydney CBD. So we get directions, and being the stingy no-money students we are, we decide to leg it across city central to the hotel, lugging all our luggage there in 36 degree heat for about half an hour across so many streets that all seemed to blend together and look the same.
As we get there, we meet Henry's friend and our tourguide Julia, as Henry stated before, who was a "nice girl." I joked about him sounding like he was trying to be a matchmaker. I really got that vibe from the way he wanted to introduce me to the anime girls at JCH - sadly there was only Amy, and this girl named Roxy who somehow reminded me of the female lead from the Korean romantic comedy My Scary Girl.
We all walk into this hotel, lugging our luggage up some steps, and find out that this second hotel too is shock horror the WRONG HOTEL! We end up taking a taxi and somehow navigating our way to the right hotel, down near Chinatown.
We settle into our hotel room, somehow managing to get away with sneaking a third person into a room that was charged for only two people ^_^ hence Bob had to pretend he was the "Sydney friend."
We left the hotel in search of lunch. As we hit Chinatown, I was hit by a desperate craving. I hadn't had yum cha in a while, and so demanded it, and since noone else was offering much resistance, we went with yum cha. And it was delicious! All my favourite dishes got served to us (barring the fried radish cakes, but that's okay), and afterwards, we went down to this museum/exhibition house place called the Powerhouse. We went through this big Chinese history exhibition, and then through this exhibit on television. They even had a Big Brother section, complete with diary/confession room. I took a seat in the chair in time for Big Brother to hear my confession.
"I hate Big Brother." I immediately say, thinking Nineteen Eighty Four as I say this.
Big Brother immediately responds.
"It is futile to try to deceive Big Brother."
At this everyone, myself included, burst out laughing.
After we finish having our fun at the Powerhouse, we leave and cruise along the Darling in sizzling hot weather, and I manage to land a large-sized $5 Boost juice from the stand nearby. Ni~ce ^_^
We return to the hotel room for the evening, before heading out again after getting changed in search of dinner. At this point, Bob has expressed a desire not to have Asian cuisine again, which seemed to rule out about 80% of the restaurants that we passed while we searched for a place that was to Bob's liking. We wander around the city in circles for about an hour before we end up deciding to just go for McDonalds. Yes, it's real haute cuisine ;)
The upside, though, is that we go for Starbucks afterwards. Now, here in Adelaide, there is only one Starbucks cafe, and that's in Rundle Mall, meaning it's always packed with people from interstate and such because there are so many in other cities. So this is a big thing for me - I come in and discover why Starbucks is famous - the frappucino.
We end up walking into Hyde Park afterwards and taking photos in front of something resembling the Washington Monument, and then sitting on steps, which supposedly was against some ANZAC law or something.
We walk into Central Station and try to puzzle out where to go the next day before walking back to our hotel.
DAY 4 - Thursday 23rd
We get up, and make a run for Central Station to catch the next train out to Wynyard, where we were going to see a tour of the Sydney Opera House. We meet Julia, and another of Henry's Sydney friends, a nice girl named Jocelyn, on the way there.
Of course, on the way there, I'm stressing about missing breakfast, which somehow surprised me in a way, because I didn't realise what kind of a health nut I had become. I sate myself grabbing some nuts from a bag of almonds that I had (wisely) packed, as we walk towards the Opera House. The tour itself is pretty interesting, and then afterwards we go on a cruise of Darling Harbour, seeing the sites all around - the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, Kiribilli House (where our esteemed Prime Minister lives when not in Parliament in Canberra), and then afterwards, we wander over towards the Rocks, an old historical part of town, for lunch munchies. While we're there, we get ambushed by a local SBS radio crew, and I graciously grant an interview. I thought it was pretty cool some of the stuff I thought up on the spot when they asked me, until I made a total ass of myself:
"What do you like about the Rocks?"
"I like how all the old stuff has been turned into shopping centres."
Again my big mouth provided plenty of laughs.
We walk down the Harbour Bridge, to see some weird lingerie ad or something being filmed on top of a hotel, and then we end up bumming around Sydney for about 3-4 hours afterwards, visiting parks, chocolate stores, malls, and going in search of "magic toilets," as Jocelyn so eloquently described them, at the QVB mall.
That evening, we head for the airport, to travel to Brisbane after a hearty dinner of fast pizza and Krispy Kreme - to see our good friend Jeff.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Ex-Trip - Day 1+2
A hello to you from Melbourne, where I've been holidaying in a heatwave.
In case you're wondering what Ex-Trip means, it means Extreme Trip. I didn't make up the name, I just called it the trip, but Henry decided that it had to have some sort of cooler name.
DAY 1 - Monday 20th
I got up early to finish last minute packing, before Bob arrived to hitch a lift to the airport. We caught a plane to Melbourne, and then took a taxi through from Melbourne Airport to our crash-place, the home of Henry's friend Jits (look back several posts - he was there with us the last time I went down to Bob's shack). We ended up going to the wrong house - the house number was 19A, not 19, and what was worse was that they both had the same coloured fence. We ended up waiting out there for awhile before Jits showed up, because his housemates weren't home, nor was he.
So then Jits rocks up, wearing a long-sleeve shirt and a sweater. In 36 degree celsius heat. He claims that the weather tricked him. Anyways, we chuck our stuff inside, before heading off to catch a tram to meet Henry at his (and several other people's) castle, Janet Clarke Hall (aka JCH). We go up to meet him, and then he tries to introduce me to Amy, but she isn't in.
After Henry gave us a tour of his dorms, we decide to hit Melbourne Central for lunch, and go for the very Melbourne delight of Hungry Jacks. In a way it was interesting to eat fast food that you had been having for the past two or three days in a different city. After lunch we hitched a train out to this science centre called Scienceworks, which seemed like what the Investigator Science Centre in Adelaide if it had a lot more people coming. On the way there, we were chatting loudly amongst ourselves and I managed to elicit several weird looks from this old woman who sat near us on the train - my outburst of "I'm not marrying some random girl just because I have a game she wants" elicited a real strange look. At the center, the highlight involved us coming into the big toy city designed for small children and having a play around and just laughing at ourselves looking so weird in a section intended for 3-8 year olds. I will have to upload this particularly hilarious video of Henry and myself dropping foam bricks on Jits' head. We were even approached by a film crew to appear in their promotional DVD, but unfortunately, we'll probably only appear in the deleted scenes section.
We take the train back to JCH, and it is here that I meet Amy, one of the infamous "anime girls" Henry is always telling me about, and the infamous Thrower of the Object of Rage. I know she reads this blog, so I'll be nice :p. She seems to be very photogenic - I wasn't expecting what I saw, namely less oestrogen-fuelled throwing of objects. But then, I suppose, what do you expect when you meet someone you'd only talked to on the internet before? Speaking of which, we head out onto Lygon St, where I meet another internet friend - a fellow DM from the Internode NWN servers. Those of you from there would know him as Nemesis_22. It's amazing, really - we've been good friends for two and a half years now, and only now have we actually met each other in the flesh.
We go and have dinner at this really nice gourmet pizza place that Nemesis recommends, and then wander down towards Southbank, along the Yarra River, from Federation Square (I wish Adelaide had a place like that) towards the infamous Crown complex. We had a lot of fun while we were wandering down there - I swear, Southbank is one of the nicest places to walk along in the evening. There was also supposed to be a flame-show, but it was a hot day, so they turned off the gas.
DAY 2 - Tuesday 21st
I wake up at 6am because I had forgotten to reset my mobile alarm. I shut it off and then go back to sleep. At 8:13am, I get an SMS message from Henry telling me we have to get to Federation Square ASAP. So I have about twenty minutes to get from bed to the tram station. In the mad rush, I end up losing a contact lens to the bathroom floor (later found by the very kind Jits), and spend most of the day with one good eye and one bad eye.
Bob and I end up getting to Federation Square and meeting Henry there at about 9:15am, and get to the platform just in time for the 9:17am train to wherever it was that we were going - to take a cruise through Eastern Victoria on a train called Puffing Billy.
The train ride is relatively uneventful, but for the first half of the journey there, we're stuck in a carriage filled with Japanese tourists. Yes, the stereotype is still very much alive. We end up riding the train all the way to the end of the line, at a small town named Gemsbrook. After getting lunch from a bakery near the train station and enjoying it in a park nearby, we head for a nature trail, and end up emerging about 40 minutes later much further than from where we were before, according to the tourists' map Henry had taken from the bakery, intended for young children, I believe. We walk down the road, and then we see a mechanic's shop. As we get there, I see the sign slowly being spelled out.
SHOP
MECHANIC'S SHOP
EMERALD MECHANIC'S SHOP
Here I groan and think that we've somehow accidentally hiked to a town further back along the train route (name, surprisingly enough, Emerald), but we walk a bit further and it's
GEMSBROOK EMERALD MECHANIC'S SHOP
I breathe a sigh of relief. We board Puffing Billy and head back towards the station we had departed from that morning, all hot, tired, and sweaty. By now my right eye is getting rather irritated, I'm sneezing, and I have a blocked and runny nose (simultaneously). I remove my right contact and subsequently lose it in the Flinders St station toilets, meaning that I am now stuck with one contact lens for the rest of the week. At least today I found that I can wear one contact lens and still have good vision, even if it does get a bit weird if I look out the wrong eye.
We return to JCH for a little bit, before heading out to little Chinatown, on Little Bourke St, by tram. By this time I am most certainly impressed by Melbourne's efficient and modern public transport system, so much more efficient in some ways than Adelaide's. I mean, there are more tram stops and trams in use than buses here, and the tram stops in the city have LCD screens showing how long before each tram that stops at that stop is coming in. We go to this little Chinese place to get some dinner, and then to Borders because Bob wants a book to read. While he's browsing, Henry and myself are reading an interview that Filmink magazine does with Borat, laughing at all his responses.
We return to JCH on foot, walking through this infamous alley in Trinity College where supposedly one girl was murdered and another raped, making people so scared of going through there alone that now they appparently have CCTV cameras and guards nearby, on little golf buggies.
At the moment, I am writing this blog on Jits' computer (another big up to you, big guy), and we are departing for Sydney tomorrow, and another hot day.
Photos to follow.
In case you're wondering what Ex-Trip means, it means Extreme Trip. I didn't make up the name, I just called it the trip, but Henry decided that it had to have some sort of cooler name.
DAY 1 - Monday 20th
I got up early to finish last minute packing, before Bob arrived to hitch a lift to the airport. We caught a plane to Melbourne, and then took a taxi through from Melbourne Airport to our crash-place, the home of Henry's friend Jits (look back several posts - he was there with us the last time I went down to Bob's shack). We ended up going to the wrong house - the house number was 19A, not 19, and what was worse was that they both had the same coloured fence. We ended up waiting out there for awhile before Jits showed up, because his housemates weren't home, nor was he.
So then Jits rocks up, wearing a long-sleeve shirt and a sweater. In 36 degree celsius heat. He claims that the weather tricked him. Anyways, we chuck our stuff inside, before heading off to catch a tram to meet Henry at his (and several other people's) castle, Janet Clarke Hall (aka JCH). We go up to meet him, and then he tries to introduce me to Amy, but she isn't in.
After Henry gave us a tour of his dorms, we decide to hit Melbourne Central for lunch, and go for the very Melbourne delight of Hungry Jacks. In a way it was interesting to eat fast food that you had been having for the past two or three days in a different city. After lunch we hitched a train out to this science centre called Scienceworks, which seemed like what the Investigator Science Centre in Adelaide if it had a lot more people coming. On the way there, we were chatting loudly amongst ourselves and I managed to elicit several weird looks from this old woman who sat near us on the train - my outburst of "I'm not marrying some random girl just because I have a game she wants" elicited a real strange look. At the center, the highlight involved us coming into the big toy city designed for small children and having a play around and just laughing at ourselves looking so weird in a section intended for 3-8 year olds. I will have to upload this particularly hilarious video of Henry and myself dropping foam bricks on Jits' head. We were even approached by a film crew to appear in their promotional DVD, but unfortunately, we'll probably only appear in the deleted scenes section.
We take the train back to JCH, and it is here that I meet Amy, one of the infamous "anime girls" Henry is always telling me about, and the infamous Thrower of the Object of Rage. I know she reads this blog, so I'll be nice :p. She seems to be very photogenic - I wasn't expecting what I saw, namely less oestrogen-fuelled throwing of objects. But then, I suppose, what do you expect when you meet someone you'd only talked to on the internet before? Speaking of which, we head out onto Lygon St, where I meet another internet friend - a fellow DM from the Internode NWN servers. Those of you from there would know him as Nemesis_22. It's amazing, really - we've been good friends for two and a half years now, and only now have we actually met each other in the flesh.
We go and have dinner at this really nice gourmet pizza place that Nemesis recommends, and then wander down towards Southbank, along the Yarra River, from Federation Square (I wish Adelaide had a place like that) towards the infamous Crown complex. We had a lot of fun while we were wandering down there - I swear, Southbank is one of the nicest places to walk along in the evening. There was also supposed to be a flame-show, but it was a hot day, so they turned off the gas.
DAY 2 - Tuesday 21st
I wake up at 6am because I had forgotten to reset my mobile alarm. I shut it off and then go back to sleep. At 8:13am, I get an SMS message from Henry telling me we have to get to Federation Square ASAP. So I have about twenty minutes to get from bed to the tram station. In the mad rush, I end up losing a contact lens to the bathroom floor (later found by the very kind Jits), and spend most of the day with one good eye and one bad eye.
Bob and I end up getting to Federation Square and meeting Henry there at about 9:15am, and get to the platform just in time for the 9:17am train to wherever it was that we were going - to take a cruise through Eastern Victoria on a train called Puffing Billy.
The train ride is relatively uneventful, but for the first half of the journey there, we're stuck in a carriage filled with Japanese tourists. Yes, the stereotype is still very much alive. We end up riding the train all the way to the end of the line, at a small town named Gemsbrook. After getting lunch from a bakery near the train station and enjoying it in a park nearby, we head for a nature trail, and end up emerging about 40 minutes later much further than from where we were before, according to the tourists' map Henry had taken from the bakery, intended for young children, I believe. We walk down the road, and then we see a mechanic's shop. As we get there, I see the sign slowly being spelled out.
SHOP
MECHANIC'S SHOP
EMERALD MECHANIC'S SHOP
Here I groan and think that we've somehow accidentally hiked to a town further back along the train route (name, surprisingly enough, Emerald), but we walk a bit further and it's
GEMSBROOK EMERALD MECHANIC'S SHOP
I breathe a sigh of relief. We board Puffing Billy and head back towards the station we had departed from that morning, all hot, tired, and sweaty. By now my right eye is getting rather irritated, I'm sneezing, and I have a blocked and runny nose (simultaneously). I remove my right contact and subsequently lose it in the Flinders St station toilets, meaning that I am now stuck with one contact lens for the rest of the week. At least today I found that I can wear one contact lens and still have good vision, even if it does get a bit weird if I look out the wrong eye.
We return to JCH for a little bit, before heading out to little Chinatown, on Little Bourke St, by tram. By this time I am most certainly impressed by Melbourne's efficient and modern public transport system, so much more efficient in some ways than Adelaide's. I mean, there are more tram stops and trams in use than buses here, and the tram stops in the city have LCD screens showing how long before each tram that stops at that stop is coming in. We go to this little Chinese place to get some dinner, and then to Borders because Bob wants a book to read. While he's browsing, Henry and myself are reading an interview that Filmink magazine does with Borat, laughing at all his responses.
We return to JCH on foot, walking through this infamous alley in Trinity College where supposedly one girl was murdered and another raped, making people so scared of going through there alone that now they appparently have CCTV cameras and guards nearby, on little golf buggies.
At the moment, I am writing this blog on Jits' computer (another big up to you, big guy), and we are departing for Sydney tomorrow, and another hot day.
Photos to follow.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Thunderstorm Clubbing
I went out with my good friend Ben last Saturday night - the 11th for those of you who are reading this some time after time of writing. South Australia's been going through nasty drought, and we are really starting to feel the pinch now, with moderately heavy water restrictions on and therefore you're not allowed to wash cars with a hose, among other things. I'm sure there are more significant ones, but that's the one I remember. Anyways, this time Ben and I decide to hit Glenelg for a change of scene, and to scope out the bars there.
We cruise down there via Adelaide Airport, and as I pass Adelaide Airport, I see the distant, cloudy night sky light up with lightning.
"A thunderstorm's coming." I say. How right I was.
We get to Glenelg, it's still not raining, so we go and play pool at the pool hall for about an hour. Ben is an absolute god at pool, so he ends up beating me every single time we play. We come out from the pool hall about 9:45pm, and then cruise down the shop-side of Glenelg looking for good bars and clubs. Presto the Glenelg Hotel. At first Ben didn't want to go in because some of the people in there looked a bit scungy, so we moved on, coming to what looked like another bar, and stepping in, only to find out about five minutes later that what we thought were separate bars were simply two different rooms with bars under the Glenelg Hotel complex. There were all sorts there - the elderly, the unwashed and/or bearded, the very young, and the in-between.
Ben and I end up taking a seat opposite this trio - two white girls and a guy, who is busy being caring and boyfriendy with one of the girls, who is being girlfriendy right back at him. The odd girl out, a redhead (I think, and definitely not really that attractive), started talking to us, wanting to find out who we were.
Ben introduces himself, and then I get her to guess my name, with the offer that if she does, I'll buy her a drink.
Ma~n, she was dumb as hell, because I gave her several clues, but she still never guessed my name (Alex, for those of you who don't know me personally). She tried to get me to guess in return what high school she went to, again with the offer of a drink if I couldn't guess, but I simply played silly with those, not really bothering to, particularly when she mentioned that it was in the south. I know sweet FA about the south, but guessed anyways.
"St Peters Girls?" I guessed, knowing well that she looked nothing like the type who'd have gone to St Peters' Girls.
She never guesses my name, the closest guess of hers being Axel. I never guessed her school, but Ben did - Aberfoyle Park. I get up, get her drink, and come back. Presto, it's the wonder-drink we call ... WATER!
After awhile, I tire of talking to this rather unattractive girl, who seemed really shallow and not too smart - not the kind of girl I want to be getting together with - and we promptly left the Glenelg Hotel.
By now, it was simply pouring torrents outside in Glenelg, people everywhere were sheltering under the front shades of various shops, watching the rain and not willing to dash across the open square to the warm shelter of the McDonalds on the other side of the square. Down by the beach, there is the Stamford Grand hotel, with a big-ass line waiting to get in.
'Fuck that,' Ben and I think. We were sure as hell not going to wait in a line in the torrential rain to get into a place we didn't know was good or bad, particularly considering we were pants and T-shirts.
One mad dash through the rain and a drive into the Adelaide CBD later, we come back to our favoured stomping ground of Mansions, where things have really taken off. Here, it was hard to talk to girls because they were all either on the dance floor or in large groups around the bar, so after about twenty minutes in there scoping out the place, we choose to leave and wander along to the Botanic Bar down on the East End of Rundle St, witnessing sporadic lighting, lighter rain, and a few thunderclaps.
Coming into the Botanic Bar, it's dark, dimly lit, and filled with people. Ben and I formulate a battle plan. I come in and talk to this trio of girls (2 nice blonde/brunettes, and one fat girl), while Ben gets us a couple of glasses of water. I sit down, ask them what the deal is with girls having to open their mouths whenever they put mascara on, before asking them a riddle. The girls are sitting at a U-shaped booth, the fat girl in the dip of the U, the other two sitting in a line next to her along one arm of the U, something like this:
Girls
O Fat girl
Ben Me
That's only a rough sketch, but you get the general idea. Ben came in later.
Ben soon comes in with drinks, and talks to them along with me. I find out that two of them are teachers, and one a journalist. One of the nice girls is a drama teacher, the other nice girl a journo, and the fat girl was another teacher. I immediately identify the drama teacher as the one I'd like to get a number from. Unfortunately, she leaves to go to the powder room, so Ben quickly steals her seat and chats with her while I chat to the fat girl and keep her attention away from Ben and journo-girl.
She's a nice enough girl, and seemed pretty interesting, but I wasn't that really attracted to her. However, I was extremely curious why anyone in this day and age would wish to become a teacher, knowing what little shits kids can be. Ben gets them to take a photo of us together, before getting a photo of himself with them. They promptly delete the photo when he hands the camera to them so they can admire themselves.
Drama Teacher returns, and is not too happy to find Ben has stolen her seat. She appears to be the dominant one, and Ben challenges her to a thumbwar to win it back. She daggers him, and then he agrees to a duel of rock-scissors-paper instead. She beats him, he moves back to his old chair, and we chat for a bit longer before we bounce and explore the rest of the bar. There's an area with pool tables and couches, and a long corridor with toilets at the end between the pool table area and the general bar. As we're leaving the bar, we try the camera routine again, on this pair of girls sitting near a wall. They take a photo of us, and then of them, before Ben gets me to sit between em, to take a photo of us. Unfortunately, I wasn't ready, and therefore the photo is one of me with each arm around a girl's shoulders, looking down.
We bounce, and then decide to check out some of the other places on Rundle St, getting into this trendy looking place called Fumo Blu. What happens next is arguably the weirdest thing that has happaned to me all month.
I move for the toilets, and as I go there, I see two guys near the toilets, intimately close to each other and making out. They spot me, and look at me. One of em, an Asian pretty-boy, asks me how old I am. I reply
"Old enough." before I enter the toilets. I come back out about five minutes later and presto! There's a third guy there!
The rest of the time spent in Fumo Blu was cool - we talked to these two chubby-looking girls, joking about the pot-plant cocktail there that they had discarded, because they didn't like the taste (it tasted like lime when I tried it). After a little while longer, we left and ended up cruising down Hindley St where this guy on the sidewalk gave me weird looks when he saw me pull my chapstick out of my pocket and use it on my lips. I notice him and I say to him
"Yes, it's a lipstick. I don't appreciate you looking at me like a piece of meat like that."
We walk off, leaving him with a "WTF mate?!" look on his face, and his female companion looking rather amused. We step into the McDonalds on Hindley to get us some midnight snacks, and then I spot the same couple walk in.
They end up eating near us as well, and for some reason, as we leave, the girl who was with chapstick guy waved goodbye to us.
There really wasn't that much else good on Hindley St, so we decided to call it a night and head home.
I told my co-workers about seeing that couple yesterday and today. Amusingly enough, one of them said that gay guys usually like to hit on the masculine guys. I'm masculine enough that gay guys would hit on me? I ask her if she thinks that I'm masculine, she replies yes, but that I have a bit of a baby-face.
Well, the fact that gay guys are hitting on me bodes well for the fact that I'm actually attractive to women, or are on the path to it ^_^;;
Hopefully soon enough I'll be blogging about my merry dance interstate.
We cruise down there via Adelaide Airport, and as I pass Adelaide Airport, I see the distant, cloudy night sky light up with lightning.
"A thunderstorm's coming." I say. How right I was.
We get to Glenelg, it's still not raining, so we go and play pool at the pool hall for about an hour. Ben is an absolute god at pool, so he ends up beating me every single time we play. We come out from the pool hall about 9:45pm, and then cruise down the shop-side of Glenelg looking for good bars and clubs. Presto the Glenelg Hotel. At first Ben didn't want to go in because some of the people in there looked a bit scungy, so we moved on, coming to what looked like another bar, and stepping in, only to find out about five minutes later that what we thought were separate bars were simply two different rooms with bars under the Glenelg Hotel complex. There were all sorts there - the elderly, the unwashed and/or bearded, the very young, and the in-between.
Ben and I end up taking a seat opposite this trio - two white girls and a guy, who is busy being caring and boyfriendy with one of the girls, who is being girlfriendy right back at him. The odd girl out, a redhead (I think, and definitely not really that attractive), started talking to us, wanting to find out who we were.
Ben introduces himself, and then I get her to guess my name, with the offer that if she does, I'll buy her a drink.
Ma~n, she was dumb as hell, because I gave her several clues, but she still never guessed my name (Alex, for those of you who don't know me personally). She tried to get me to guess in return what high school she went to, again with the offer of a drink if I couldn't guess, but I simply played silly with those, not really bothering to, particularly when she mentioned that it was in the south. I know sweet FA about the south, but guessed anyways.
"St Peters Girls?" I guessed, knowing well that she looked nothing like the type who'd have gone to St Peters' Girls.
She never guesses my name, the closest guess of hers being Axel. I never guessed her school, but Ben did - Aberfoyle Park. I get up, get her drink, and come back. Presto, it's the wonder-drink we call ... WATER!
After awhile, I tire of talking to this rather unattractive girl, who seemed really shallow and not too smart - not the kind of girl I want to be getting together with - and we promptly left the Glenelg Hotel.
By now, it was simply pouring torrents outside in Glenelg, people everywhere were sheltering under the front shades of various shops, watching the rain and not willing to dash across the open square to the warm shelter of the McDonalds on the other side of the square. Down by the beach, there is the Stamford Grand hotel, with a big-ass line waiting to get in.
'Fuck that,' Ben and I think. We were sure as hell not going to wait in a line in the torrential rain to get into a place we didn't know was good or bad, particularly considering we were pants and T-shirts.
One mad dash through the rain and a drive into the Adelaide CBD later, we come back to our favoured stomping ground of Mansions, where things have really taken off. Here, it was hard to talk to girls because they were all either on the dance floor or in large groups around the bar, so after about twenty minutes in there scoping out the place, we choose to leave and wander along to the Botanic Bar down on the East End of Rundle St, witnessing sporadic lighting, lighter rain, and a few thunderclaps.
Coming into the Botanic Bar, it's dark, dimly lit, and filled with people. Ben and I formulate a battle plan. I come in and talk to this trio of girls (2 nice blonde/brunettes, and one fat girl), while Ben gets us a couple of glasses of water. I sit down, ask them what the deal is with girls having to open their mouths whenever they put mascara on, before asking them a riddle. The girls are sitting at a U-shaped booth, the fat girl in the dip of the U, the other two sitting in a line next to her along one arm of the U, something like this:
Girls
O Fat girl
Ben Me
That's only a rough sketch, but you get the general idea. Ben came in later.
Ben soon comes in with drinks, and talks to them along with me. I find out that two of them are teachers, and one a journalist. One of the nice girls is a drama teacher, the other nice girl a journo, and the fat girl was another teacher. I immediately identify the drama teacher as the one I'd like to get a number from. Unfortunately, she leaves to go to the powder room, so Ben quickly steals her seat and chats with her while I chat to the fat girl and keep her attention away from Ben and journo-girl.
She's a nice enough girl, and seemed pretty interesting, but I wasn't that really attracted to her. However, I was extremely curious why anyone in this day and age would wish to become a teacher, knowing what little shits kids can be. Ben gets them to take a photo of us together, before getting a photo of himself with them. They promptly delete the photo when he hands the camera to them so they can admire themselves.
Drama Teacher returns, and is not too happy to find Ben has stolen her seat. She appears to be the dominant one, and Ben challenges her to a thumbwar to win it back. She daggers him, and then he agrees to a duel of rock-scissors-paper instead. She beats him, he moves back to his old chair, and we chat for a bit longer before we bounce and explore the rest of the bar. There's an area with pool tables and couches, and a long corridor with toilets at the end between the pool table area and the general bar. As we're leaving the bar, we try the camera routine again, on this pair of girls sitting near a wall. They take a photo of us, and then of them, before Ben gets me to sit between em, to take a photo of us. Unfortunately, I wasn't ready, and therefore the photo is one of me with each arm around a girl's shoulders, looking down.
We bounce, and then decide to check out some of the other places on Rundle St, getting into this trendy looking place called Fumo Blu. What happens next is arguably the weirdest thing that has happaned to me all month.
I move for the toilets, and as I go there, I see two guys near the toilets, intimately close to each other and making out. They spot me, and look at me. One of em, an Asian pretty-boy, asks me how old I am. I reply
"Old enough." before I enter the toilets. I come back out about five minutes later and presto! There's a third guy there!
The rest of the time spent in Fumo Blu was cool - we talked to these two chubby-looking girls, joking about the pot-plant cocktail there that they had discarded, because they didn't like the taste (it tasted like lime when I tried it). After a little while longer, we left and ended up cruising down Hindley St where this guy on the sidewalk gave me weird looks when he saw me pull my chapstick out of my pocket and use it on my lips. I notice him and I say to him
"Yes, it's a lipstick. I don't appreciate you looking at me like a piece of meat like that."
We walk off, leaving him with a "WTF mate?!" look on his face, and his female companion looking rather amused. We step into the McDonalds on Hindley to get us some midnight snacks, and then I spot the same couple walk in.
They end up eating near us as well, and for some reason, as we leave, the girl who was with chapstick guy waved goodbye to us.
There really wasn't that much else good on Hindley St, so we decided to call it a night and head home.
I told my co-workers about seeing that couple yesterday and today. Amusingly enough, one of them said that gay guys usually like to hit on the masculine guys. I'm masculine enough that gay guys would hit on me? I ask her if she thinks that I'm masculine, she replies yes, but that I have a bit of a baby-face.
Well, the fact that gay guys are hitting on me bodes well for the fact that I'm actually attractive to women, or are on the path to it ^_^;;
Hopefully soon enough I'll be blogging about my merry dance interstate.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
We are Men!
I have done something that I feel that one thing every red-blooded man must do at least once in his life. That's right, I've been to a strip bar. Not just one strip bar, but two. Those of you who have complained about my putting sexual material into my posts in the past, stop HERE, and wait for me to blog another day about something that is less ... saucy.
A couple of weeks ago, as of time of writing, I got together with my friends earlier that night, to go cruising bars and clubs for the thing that we young men come out at night for - girls (food doesn't really count)! It being a cold, nasty night, there was nothing good there, although we did hit it off with some nice girls at Mansions. I talked to this pair at the bar, and then went with my friends to take a seat at a table near a group of other people. It turns out that the group was with the girls my friend and I talked to at the bar! What a weird coincidence ^_^
Anyways, we sit there, drinking a couple of jugs of beer between the three of us, chatting about stuff ranging from fat chicks to how to pick up girls to Muay Thai. This girl wants to shift pass myself and my friend Ben, who makes her do something like shake his hand or something to get past. Later on, that group decide they wanna bounce and go somewhere else, and when the girl goes to move, Ben tries to get her to thumb-wrestle him first. To that, her (we later found out) boyfriend just sort of looks at and then away from Ben, going "Mo~ve!"
We laugh about that later on.
The rest of the night is pretty dead, so as a last resort, we decide to hit a strip bar. We go to Club 108, where one of the guys at the door tries to rip us off five bucks, but the bouncer was nice enough to let us in for free. Inside, it looked different to what I had imagined a strip bar to be. There was a "paying customers" lounge where guys who had bought tickets from girls got a lap-dance on the small stage. The girls would wander amongst the (sleazy) clientele, offering lap dances to them, and seeing who would bite. After being there maybe ten, fifteen minutes, it got boring, so we headed out and across the street to the Crazy Horse Revue - perhaps the most famous strip bar in Adelaide.
This place seemed a lot more upmarket than Club 108 - the bouncer let us get in with a discount, and the place was more like the traditional strip bar you see in movies. There was a runway/catwalk thingy like in fashion shows, complete with poles and a bathroom piece at the end with sprinklers, and the strippers would dance and perform along there. Of course, the ones not on stage duty would wander amongst the customers, offering table or lap dances ($30 a table-dance, $60 a private lap dance, for those who are curious). We stayed and watched a few shows, interspersed with watching different girls performing at the pole behind us.
The last two girls that we saw before we left stayed in my head. The first one did her act to ... get this - sci-fi tunes! I'm serious ... she was stripping to the Star Wars theme, Star Trek theme, the Jetsons theme, and the parody Star Trekkers song (you know the one ... "Star trekkers across the universe/Can't go forward, cos they're stuck in reverse"). She stayed in my head purely because of the novelty of stripping to sci-fi anthems like that. If only she did the Babylon 5 or the Stargate themes as well, then it would have been complete ^_^
The second girl that stayed in my mind was the last girl we saw, who was supposedly labelled "Miss Nude Australia." She had this steaming hot act where after she took off all her clothes, proceeded to get a shower from all these sprinklers at the bathroom attachment at the end. She then soaped her hot, nude body off, before walking near the audience and pushing some old dude's face between her legs, pushing a chick's face into her bust, before trying to remove her bra and top. The old dude got a second taste too, the sleazy bastard. In fact, he got favours from a couple of the other girls too -_-
All in all, a lot of fun and a nice night out,despite the fact that there weren't many girls out.
A couple of weeks ago, as of time of writing, I got together with my friends earlier that night, to go cruising bars and clubs for the thing that we young men come out at night for - girls (food doesn't really count)! It being a cold, nasty night, there was nothing good there, although we did hit it off with some nice girls at Mansions. I talked to this pair at the bar, and then went with my friends to take a seat at a table near a group of other people. It turns out that the group was with the girls my friend and I talked to at the bar! What a weird coincidence ^_^
Anyways, we sit there, drinking a couple of jugs of beer between the three of us, chatting about stuff ranging from fat chicks to how to pick up girls to Muay Thai. This girl wants to shift pass myself and my friend Ben, who makes her do something like shake his hand or something to get past. Later on, that group decide they wanna bounce and go somewhere else, and when the girl goes to move, Ben tries to get her to thumb-wrestle him first. To that, her (we later found out) boyfriend just sort of looks at and then away from Ben, going "Mo~ve!"
We laugh about that later on.
The rest of the night is pretty dead, so as a last resort, we decide to hit a strip bar. We go to Club 108, where one of the guys at the door tries to rip us off five bucks, but the bouncer was nice enough to let us in for free. Inside, it looked different to what I had imagined a strip bar to be. There was a "paying customers" lounge where guys who had bought tickets from girls got a lap-dance on the small stage. The girls would wander amongst the (sleazy) clientele, offering lap dances to them, and seeing who would bite. After being there maybe ten, fifteen minutes, it got boring, so we headed out and across the street to the Crazy Horse Revue - perhaps the most famous strip bar in Adelaide.
This place seemed a lot more upmarket than Club 108 - the bouncer let us get in with a discount, and the place was more like the traditional strip bar you see in movies. There was a runway/catwalk thingy like in fashion shows, complete with poles and a bathroom piece at the end with sprinklers, and the strippers would dance and perform along there. Of course, the ones not on stage duty would wander amongst the customers, offering table or lap dances ($30 a table-dance, $60 a private lap dance, for those who are curious). We stayed and watched a few shows, interspersed with watching different girls performing at the pole behind us.
The last two girls that we saw before we left stayed in my head. The first one did her act to ... get this - sci-fi tunes! I'm serious ... she was stripping to the Star Wars theme, Star Trek theme, the Jetsons theme, and the parody Star Trekkers song (you know the one ... "Star trekkers across the universe/Can't go forward, cos they're stuck in reverse"). She stayed in my head purely because of the novelty of stripping to sci-fi anthems like that. If only she did the Babylon 5 or the Stargate themes as well, then it would have been complete ^_^
The second girl that stayed in my mind was the last girl we saw, who was supposedly labelled "Miss Nude Australia." She had this steaming hot act where after she took off all her clothes, proceeded to get a shower from all these sprinklers at the bathroom attachment at the end. She then soaped her hot, nude body off, before walking near the audience and pushing some old dude's face between her legs, pushing a chick's face into her bust, before trying to remove her bra and top. The old dude got a second taste too, the sleazy bastard. In fact, he got favours from a couple of the other girls too -_-
All in all, a lot of fun and a nice night out,despite the fact that there weren't many girls out.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Kids say the darndest things
Well, like the title says, I've been having an ... interesting week. As those of you living in Adelaide know, this week has had some summer-like weather. That, combined with school holidays, really brought in a taste of summer. Wednesday, it's 33 degrees Celsius, Thursday it's 35. It was hard enough getting a parking spot Wednesday afternoon to go to the gym I have a membership of at the Adelaide Aquatic Centre (although surprisingly the gym wasn't as crowded I feared it might be - and a testament to that is that I've been using the exact same public locker the whole week. It's always been free whenever I came in), and Thursday I come in for the first of my two weekly swims to find that the carpark is totally full, and I have to park across the soccer field behind the Aquatic Centre, and then trek all the way across said soccer field, through the carparl, and then right past the line at reception because I have a membership card, into the Aquatic Centre. At least it wasn't hard getting a locker.
I'm changing into my swimming gear, when these two Viet kids and their dad come into the members' changeroom. One of them looks right at me as I pull on my goggles, and then remarks in Vietnamese that I've got glasses. I reply in Vietnamese that I have sunglasses too, which amuses the father.
Later on, I get up to go to the bathroom, and this little white kid comes in with me. We're both standing there at the urinal, and the little kid, for some reason is checking out my package, and then starts asking me about where I got my bathers and board shorts, and that he got his at Target. Dude, I don't even wanna know! What's even worse is that you're making urinal chat, and that is one of the MOST disgusting things that a man can ever do to another man. I do not want to be accosted by some guy while I'm relieving myself, see them checking me out, and least of all for them to try to make some chit-chat because they're lonely. Ugh, at least it was only a little kid doing all that, and not some creepy old guy.
My dad left for a holiday with friends in China about a week and a half or so ago, leaving at home myself, my brother, and my mum. It's sort of weird how, as the (current) oldest male in the house, I immediately gain superiority. My mum then starts being needy because she's left with noone in the house but herself on weekends. Case in point: A couple of Fridays ago it was the night of the Blue and White, which my brother had reluctantly decided to attend. I blame peer pressure. I had drawn early-midnight chauffeur duty, which meant that I had to take my brother to pick up his friend at Magill, and then drive all the way across town to Enfield to pick up their dates. My brother's date was late, so we ended up having to wait an hour before they came back. I spent that hour in the tape listening to stuff on my iRiver.
Interestingly enough, I once accidentally tricked a girl into believing that I had my own radio station. I was driving her back from uni to her place (near mine), and I put on my iRiver, which is connected to a radio transmitter. I tell her that we're listening to 93.3 AlexFM, and then she believes that I really do have a radio station playing Jpop and Jrock that she can tune into. But I digress.
The girls come in, I make comments about them being late, and I start driving to the before-party, which is conveniently located near the school, where the Blue and White formal is being held. As I drive there, I tease the girls about the stuff they talk about (one crashed her car while she was busy checking herself out in the mirror, the other crashed hers while she was looking for a minty), I could swear, my brother's date kept tapping me on the shoulder. If that's not an indicator of interest, I don't know what is. It might be more due to the fact that I drove them there in my nice Skyline rather than any other personality trait I might have, but meh, I haven't seen her again since that night.
Later that night, I end up picking them up, driving them back to the house of my brother's friend's date (what a mouthful), so they can change for the after-party, and drive my brother's date home (in Mawson Lakes no less).
Thankfully, I didn't have to pick them up from the after-party at 2-3am in the morning. My mum did.
I went out clubbing last weekend.
Friday night I went out with some net friends to Mansions in the city, near Rundle Mall. It was a big, noisy place, because there were a couple of pubcrawls going there at the time we came in - one from Flinders, and the other from gods-know-where. I come with my friend and we introduce ourselves to this group of girls. He got "claimed" by the big fat girl. I ended up getting this chubby girl who wasn't too bad herself, but was getting overly ... intimate. I'm sure it was her choice to get closer than normal rather than any desire to do anything else, like posing for a photo, but it was nice. I tried talking to these other girls, but unfortunately, they looked like internationals, and could not understand the gist of what I was saying to them.
Time goes on, we find that Mansions is getting boring, so we decide to take a 5 minute walk and hit Church. Again, nothing really good there, everyone else is out on the dance floor, and I'm not partial to the press of bodies that constitutes the dance floor at that time. Again, I see some other girls I walk up to and talk to, but it seems it must have been Foreign Legion night for me, they were international students too! They didn't understand what I wanted either. We end up walking down through Rundle Mall to Hindley Street to get something from Hungry Georges, which is unfortunately shut.
During our cruise through Rundle Mall, we find an empty troll. Not one to leave things like that alone, I grab it, run forward a bit, and then haul myself up off the ground, leaning on the trolley as it careens under its own power through the mall. My friend Dragos gets on, and then my other friend Adam starts spinning it around and around, to see if he can jump out and land on his feet. Lo and behold, as we're doing this, a cop van shows up, and we're all like "shit, the cops, better stop now," and then Dragos has to come up to the cop van to have a word with the good officers of the law.
He comes back to us afterwards.
"Thanks a lot you guys, now I've got a criminal record!"
Needless to say, this left us cacking ourselves. Unfortunately, nothing else happened that night.
Saturday night I come out to Empire Pool Lounge, to meet up with those same friends and then hit HQ soon after. Nothing really good at Empire, but the one thing I have discovered: it's a big Asian haunt. I'm not too surprised, considering most young Asians like to play pool, and Soul Bar isn't more than about ten minutes walk or so from there.
We come into HQ, nothing good, we come back out, questioning the door chick as to whether our UV-sensitive inked stamps actually worked, and demanded new ones. After stuffing around a bit, we come back in, and boy, ten minutes sure can be surprising. The club is packed, lots of people everywhere. My mates and I post up in a corner near the bar, and then about ten minutes later, this promo chick comes in. The first thing you see isn't her face, nor is it the skimpy dress she's wearing. It's her absolutely massive breasts. I swear, you look at a pair like that and think "watermelon," which instantly leads to thoughts questioning whether they're organically grown or genetically modified (or cosmetically modified in this case) melons.
Trying my hardest to keep my gaze away from her bust and on her face, I see this promo chick is an Asian girl. She talks to us about signing up for some VIP membership for the club which is free, and then my friend Ben starts making chitchat with her. He asks her if many guys crack onto her, she replies it's normally asking her "are they real?" Now I chime in.
"Since we're on the subject, are they?" I ask. The promo chick claims they are, but if you look at a bust that size, it is nigh-impossible to believe that they are real. She claims she's not Asian, but instead some islander chick.
Later on at HQ, we come across this trio of girls. I walk right up to them and talk to them. One of the girls immediately asks me "What nationality are you? Asian I know, but which one? Are you Japanese?"
It's very surprising the first one she happens across is Japanese. It might be because of the way I was dressed at that time (dark Diesel jeans, white belt with safety-buckle belt buckle, dog tags, black singlet and open black short-sleeved button-up shirt), but honestly, that she went Japanese first immediately set off some alarms. I reply that I wasn't, but I spoke it. She wants me to prove it. So I do.
ME: あなた は おたく です か？ (translation: Are you an otaku?)
HER: あれ は なに です か？ (translation: what's that?)
I then explain to her that otaku means nerd, and that I asked her that because almost all the Japanese speakers I know are nerds/geeks (truth). All this time the three of em are smoking, blowing smoke in my face, and I wave it right back into theirs with a cheeky grin.
They then try to guess my nationality. They can't work it out until I hint that it starts with a V. Yes, that's right. They guess Vietnamese. They want me to teach them some, so I teach one of them how to say what their name is. I then get the quick learner to get me a drink (water, so it's free), promising to teach them how to swear. She does, and I do. Unfortunately nothing came out of that.
At about 2am, me and my friend Ben have come out of HQ, having had enough of clubbing for one night, and hit Marcellina's for some late night pizza. We're sitting there, chatting about stuff, when this girl comes over to our table on a dare to get Ben to agree to come home with her. He really makes her work for it, and all this time she's being really desperate and not wanting to be there, just wanting to get it overwith as well. She sort of spurns me (the bitch), and then Ben goes "sorry, I don't do girls who don't help my friends." (correct me if this wasn't what you said).
She replies "I don't do threesomes."
I reply "what about foursomes?"
Certainly an interesting end to a fun night.
My dad comes back from China this Sunday, so hopefully my mum will stop medicating my brother and myself with food to try to get over her anxiety of being alone. I mean, honestly, we have had so much rich food, I almost feel sick. Quiche for breakfast, sausages for breakfast, pancakes for breakfast (I rarely eat those anymore because they are very bad on the waistline), this really nice Viet dish called Bun Cha (grilled pork, fish sauce and rice vermicelli) for dinner, and today, we went to Cafe Primo for a rich-as Italian meal, topped off with what was the thickest pancake that I have ever seen, complimented by a small bowl of maple sauce and a small bowl of cream.
I was going to try dieting this week, going back on the soup, but the first night I do, my mum goes on the full guilt-trip thing about how she cooked all this food and that I didn't eat it and now it's such a waste, etc that I dropped the diet after one day and decided to wait until my dad got back before trying it properly again. I swear, she claims to buy all this fatty food (biscuits, chips, ice cream, soft drinks) for herself, but she never eats it. My brother and I do. She knows this. I think it's a subtle form of mind control, to keep us dependent on her, which is why she's so against me moving out - she wants to hold onto me as long as possible. On the other hand, I want to move into a bachelor pad where I control fully what I eat, when I eat, when I go out, when I wake up, and so on. It's also handy to bring girls back to, because then they don't have to do a walk of shame past the breakfast table to the door, or try to avoid the parents.
Till next time!
I'm changing into my swimming gear, when these two Viet kids and their dad come into the members' changeroom. One of them looks right at me as I pull on my goggles, and then remarks in Vietnamese that I've got glasses. I reply in Vietnamese that I have sunglasses too, which amuses the father.
Later on, I get up to go to the bathroom, and this little white kid comes in with me. We're both standing there at the urinal, and the little kid, for some reason is checking out my package, and then starts asking me about where I got my bathers and board shorts, and that he got his at Target. Dude, I don't even wanna know! What's even worse is that you're making urinal chat, and that is one of the MOST disgusting things that a man can ever do to another man. I do not want to be accosted by some guy while I'm relieving myself, see them checking me out, and least of all for them to try to make some chit-chat because they're lonely. Ugh, at least it was only a little kid doing all that, and not some creepy old guy.
My dad left for a holiday with friends in China about a week and a half or so ago, leaving at home myself, my brother, and my mum. It's sort of weird how, as the (current) oldest male in the house, I immediately gain superiority. My mum then starts being needy because she's left with noone in the house but herself on weekends. Case in point: A couple of Fridays ago it was the night of the Blue and White, which my brother had reluctantly decided to attend. I blame peer pressure. I had drawn early-midnight chauffeur duty, which meant that I had to take my brother to pick up his friend at Magill, and then drive all the way across town to Enfield to pick up their dates. My brother's date was late, so we ended up having to wait an hour before they came back. I spent that hour in the tape listening to stuff on my iRiver.
Interestingly enough, I once accidentally tricked a girl into believing that I had my own radio station. I was driving her back from uni to her place (near mine), and I put on my iRiver, which is connected to a radio transmitter. I tell her that we're listening to 93.3 AlexFM, and then she believes that I really do have a radio station playing Jpop and Jrock that she can tune into. But I digress.
The girls come in, I make comments about them being late, and I start driving to the before-party, which is conveniently located near the school, where the Blue and White formal is being held. As I drive there, I tease the girls about the stuff they talk about (one crashed her car while she was busy checking herself out in the mirror, the other crashed hers while she was looking for a minty), I could swear, my brother's date kept tapping me on the shoulder. If that's not an indicator of interest, I don't know what is. It might be more due to the fact that I drove them there in my nice Skyline rather than any other personality trait I might have, but meh, I haven't seen her again since that night.
Later that night, I end up picking them up, driving them back to the house of my brother's friend's date (what a mouthful), so they can change for the after-party, and drive my brother's date home (in Mawson Lakes no less).
Thankfully, I didn't have to pick them up from the after-party at 2-3am in the morning. My mum did.
I went out clubbing last weekend.
Friday night I went out with some net friends to Mansions in the city, near Rundle Mall. It was a big, noisy place, because there were a couple of pubcrawls going there at the time we came in - one from Flinders, and the other from gods-know-where. I come with my friend and we introduce ourselves to this group of girls. He got "claimed" by the big fat girl. I ended up getting this chubby girl who wasn't too bad herself, but was getting overly ... intimate. I'm sure it was her choice to get closer than normal rather than any desire to do anything else, like posing for a photo, but it was nice. I tried talking to these other girls, but unfortunately, they looked like internationals, and could not understand the gist of what I was saying to them.
Time goes on, we find that Mansions is getting boring, so we decide to take a 5 minute walk and hit Church. Again, nothing really good there, everyone else is out on the dance floor, and I'm not partial to the press of bodies that constitutes the dance floor at that time. Again, I see some other girls I walk up to and talk to, but it seems it must have been Foreign Legion night for me, they were international students too! They didn't understand what I wanted either. We end up walking down through Rundle Mall to Hindley Street to get something from Hungry Georges, which is unfortunately shut.
During our cruise through Rundle Mall, we find an empty troll. Not one to leave things like that alone, I grab it, run forward a bit, and then haul myself up off the ground, leaning on the trolley as it careens under its own power through the mall. My friend Dragos gets on, and then my other friend Adam starts spinning it around and around, to see if he can jump out and land on his feet. Lo and behold, as we're doing this, a cop van shows up, and we're all like "shit, the cops, better stop now," and then Dragos has to come up to the cop van to have a word with the good officers of the law.
He comes back to us afterwards.
"Thanks a lot you guys, now I've got a criminal record!"
Needless to say, this left us cacking ourselves. Unfortunately, nothing else happened that night.
Saturday night I come out to Empire Pool Lounge, to meet up with those same friends and then hit HQ soon after. Nothing really good at Empire, but the one thing I have discovered: it's a big Asian haunt. I'm not too surprised, considering most young Asians like to play pool, and Soul Bar isn't more than about ten minutes walk or so from there.
We come into HQ, nothing good, we come back out, questioning the door chick as to whether our UV-sensitive inked stamps actually worked, and demanded new ones. After stuffing around a bit, we come back in, and boy, ten minutes sure can be surprising. The club is packed, lots of people everywhere. My mates and I post up in a corner near the bar, and then about ten minutes later, this promo chick comes in. The first thing you see isn't her face, nor is it the skimpy dress she's wearing. It's her absolutely massive breasts. I swear, you look at a pair like that and think "watermelon," which instantly leads to thoughts questioning whether they're organically grown or genetically modified (or cosmetically modified in this case) melons.
Trying my hardest to keep my gaze away from her bust and on her face, I see this promo chick is an Asian girl. She talks to us about signing up for some VIP membership for the club which is free, and then my friend Ben starts making chitchat with her. He asks her if many guys crack onto her, she replies it's normally asking her "are they real?" Now I chime in.
"Since we're on the subject, are they?" I ask. The promo chick claims they are, but if you look at a bust that size, it is nigh-impossible to believe that they are real. She claims she's not Asian, but instead some islander chick.
Later on at HQ, we come across this trio of girls. I walk right up to them and talk to them. One of the girls immediately asks me "What nationality are you? Asian I know, but which one? Are you Japanese?"
It's very surprising the first one she happens across is Japanese. It might be because of the way I was dressed at that time (dark Diesel jeans, white belt with safety-buckle belt buckle, dog tags, black singlet and open black short-sleeved button-up shirt), but honestly, that she went Japanese first immediately set off some alarms. I reply that I wasn't, but I spoke it. She wants me to prove it. So I do.
ME: あなた は おたく です か？ (translation: Are you an otaku?)
HER: あれ は なに です か？ (translation: what's that?)
I then explain to her that otaku means nerd, and that I asked her that because almost all the Japanese speakers I know are nerds/geeks (truth). All this time the three of em are smoking, blowing smoke in my face, and I wave it right back into theirs with a cheeky grin.
They then try to guess my nationality. They can't work it out until I hint that it starts with a V. Yes, that's right. They guess Vietnamese. They want me to teach them some, so I teach one of them how to say what their name is. I then get the quick learner to get me a drink (water, so it's free), promising to teach them how to swear. She does, and I do. Unfortunately nothing came out of that.
At about 2am, me and my friend Ben have come out of HQ, having had enough of clubbing for one night, and hit Marcellina's for some late night pizza. We're sitting there, chatting about stuff, when this girl comes over to our table on a dare to get Ben to agree to come home with her. He really makes her work for it, and all this time she's being really desperate and not wanting to be there, just wanting to get it overwith as well. She sort of spurns me (the bitch), and then Ben goes "sorry, I don't do girls who don't help my friends." (correct me if this wasn't what you said).
She replies "I don't do threesomes."
I reply "what about foursomes?"
Certainly an interesting end to a fun night.
My dad comes back from China this Sunday, so hopefully my mum will stop medicating my brother and myself with food to try to get over her anxiety of being alone. I mean, honestly, we have had so much rich food, I almost feel sick. Quiche for breakfast, sausages for breakfast, pancakes for breakfast (I rarely eat those anymore because they are very bad on the waistline), this really nice Viet dish called Bun Cha (grilled pork, fish sauce and rice vermicelli) for dinner, and today, we went to Cafe Primo for a rich-as Italian meal, topped off with what was the thickest pancake that I have ever seen, complimented by a small bowl of maple sauce and a small bowl of cream.
I was going to try dieting this week, going back on the soup, but the first night I do, my mum goes on the full guilt-trip thing about how she cooked all this food and that I didn't eat it and now it's such a waste, etc that I dropped the diet after one day and decided to wait until my dad got back before trying it properly again. I swear, she claims to buy all this fatty food (biscuits, chips, ice cream, soft drinks) for herself, but she never eats it. My brother and I do. She knows this. I think it's a subtle form of mind control, to keep us dependent on her, which is why she's so against me moving out - she wants to hold onto me as long as possible. On the other hand, I want to move into a bachelor pad where I control fully what I eat, when I eat, when I go out, when I wake up, and so on. It's also handy to bring girls back to, because then they don't have to do a walk of shame past the breakfast table to the door, or try to avoid the parents.
Till next time!
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Nightbringer no yuutsu
At the moment I am stuck in a rut. From the list of activities that I can do at the moment, I don't really want to do any of them, and most of the things that I can do, I can't due to various reasons - I can't play my newly purchased Kingdom Hearts II because I have to dodge parents (really just my mum at the moment because my dad's in China with friends), which is hard because I have to work most days, and Monday being a public holiday didn't help. Tuesday I ended up sleeping in and then spending most of the day on the internet. I can't use my airbrush while my mum's around because then I have to deal with her going off at me getting lung cancer because I'm airbrushing with non-toxic paints. This means I usually do it at night so that she's sleeping and doesn't complain about the smell of thinner or giving myself throat cancer.
What I need at the moment is a bit of direction and some focus. I would take my models, because I have so many that I have to build and I'm always buying new ones, but again, parental issues forcing me to do it at night means that I can only actually do it once or twice a week.
The fact that I do not know when my mum comes home means that the contraband PS2 that I got my hands on is at risk of being found out if I do play when I get home, so I don't risk it.
For the trip around eastern Australia, I'm supposed to be saving my money, so I can't really be spending too much (and on what? I don't really have anything I want at the moment, although impulse buying will probably see to draining my funds).
Otherwise, I end up with things like this - blogging a bit after midnight when I should be sleeping because I'm supposed to be attending a staff meeting at 8:30am the next day, most probably about me eating in the shop.
What I need at the moment is a bit of direction and some focus. I would take my models, because I have so many that I have to build and I'm always buying new ones, but again, parental issues forcing me to do it at night means that I can only actually do it once or twice a week.
The fact that I do not know when my mum comes home means that the contraband PS2 that I got my hands on is at risk of being found out if I do play when I get home, so I don't risk it.
For the trip around eastern Australia, I'm supposed to be saving my money, so I can't really be spending too much (and on what? I don't really have anything I want at the moment, although impulse buying will probably see to draining my funds).
Otherwise, I end up with things like this - blogging a bit after midnight when I should be sleeping because I'm supposed to be attending a staff meeting at 8:30am the next day, most probably about me eating in the shop.
Monday, September 25, 2006
The Pulse of Life
We finally hit the magical 50th post ^_^
In the past three weeks since I've posted, I've been doing a fair bit of stuff. This month has seen things really coming together for me. I stated before that I was trying a soup diet, involving nothing but the soup and lots, and lots, of exercise. The first time, I didn't do as well due to things such as an unexpected barbecue three days in and generally being tempted by biscuits that my brother was eating.
This time, things are different. Despite it being September, noone has any birthdays on (although many of my friend's friends have their birthdays this month and he doesn't like that), and I don't have to worry too much about buying gifts. Crunch time came and went, and I have spent a huge load of money on the trip (granted the others paid their contribution, but that is still a large chunk of money >_< ). It should be a very memorable trip, and I hope to bring back many photos. After a hard week of dieting and exercise (5 of the 7 days I was on the diet!), I have discovered that I am now down to a nice, slim 80kg. I have really noticed the change in myself - I've dropped two pants sizes from a ballooning 38" waist to a slimmer 36. If I push things, I can get a size 34, but then the legs in jeans would be stuck to my legs, which don't seem to have shrunken as rapidly. I read something interesting a previous issue of Men's Health magazine recently - supposedly if you lose weight around the waist and groin region, there's this pubic pad of fat that shrinks as well. If that shrinks, something else gets longer ;) It's been a lot of fun shopping for smaller jeans - I feel much better in general. In all, something of a landmark for the year I think - I am now actually lighter than my brother.
In the past three weeks since I've posted, I've been doing a fair bit of stuff. This month has seen things really coming together for me. I stated before that I was trying a soup diet, involving nothing but the soup and lots, and lots, of exercise. The first time, I didn't do as well due to things such as an unexpected barbecue three days in and generally being tempted by biscuits that my brother was eating.
This time, things are different. Despite it being September, noone has any birthdays on (although many of my friend's friends have their birthdays this month and he doesn't like that), and I don't have to worry too much about buying gifts. Crunch time came and went, and I have spent a huge load of money on the trip (granted the others paid their contribution, but that is still a large chunk of money >_< ). It should be a very memorable trip, and I hope to bring back many photos. After a hard week of dieting and exercise (5 of the 7 days I was on the diet!), I have discovered that I am now down to a nice, slim 80kg. I have really noticed the change in myself - I've dropped two pants sizes from a ballooning 38" waist to a slimmer 36. If I push things, I can get a size 34, but then the legs in jeans would be stuck to my legs, which don't seem to have shrunken as rapidly. I read something interesting a previous issue of Men's Health magazine recently - supposedly if you lose weight around the waist and groin region, there's this pubic pad of fat that shrinks as well. If that shrinks, something else gets longer ;) It's been a lot of fun shopping for smaller jeans - I feel much better in general. In all, something of a landmark for the year I think - I am now actually lighter than my brother.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Come one, come all! It's SHOWTIME!!
I just got off a soup diet last Friday, and I must say, I am really glad that I toughed it out. Starting the previous Friday, all I was supposed to have was a vegetable soup that tasted somewhat like tomato soup, and one ham-cheese-tomato sandwich a day, supplemented by exercise.
It was really hard. The day after I started the diet, I come home from work in the afternoon to find my brother snacking on fat foods. No problem, I'll just not touch them, I think. And then I go to open the pantry to look for a snack (force of habit, that's all it is. What? Why the raised eyebrow? I'm serious!), and find that my mum, in addition to making me the soup, and knowing that I was on the diet, went and bought FOUR boxes of savoury biscuits (you know, the "X in a biscuit" things), simply because they were on special. It was hard to resist.
Sunday, I end up having to go to a birthday BBQ for my grandma. Now just WHY a vegetarian has to have a barbecue, which consists mainly of char-grilled meat and few actual vegetables escapes me, but I ended up breaking the rules many times :(
Anyways, fast forward to Friday, and I've lost at least two kilos. I'm quite happy with this, considering that I broke the dietary rules several times during the week. I'll attempt it again in a week or two.
Being the beginning of September, the Royal Adelaide Show was on again. Having not gone for several years, this year I wanted to go. I ended up arranging to go with my good friend Jon and his family.
It was a bit of a saga trying to get there. I get off work on the Saturday, come home, get changed and ready, and then call his place to find out that he'd already set off. I accidental call again before I realied I had to call his mobile ^_^;;
Finding parking was an absolute bitch. Cars were parked almost everywhere, and what parking I did find cost an arm and a leg.
I enter through the X Zone area, looking for where to meet Jon and end up wandering around for about fifteen minutes before finding them near the Ten building.
We had some good times there - mainly wandering about, buying showbags and food.
A visit to the Barnyard Animals area near the Royal Banquet Hall where I take some of my exams had some interesting things. For you female readers out there (yes, I know there is at least one of you), a treat:
A sleeping wombat. Isn't he adorable?
And now for something (not so) completely different:
Yes, that's right. A yellow chicken and a blue chicken! There was also a pink one but it was in a photoshoot with a little kid, and I couldn't get a good photo of it.
Arguably one of the centerpieces of the Show was the Ferris Wheel, set just behind the main entrance.
It was a pity that I wasn't taking a girl along - I'm a hopeless romantic, and think that one thing that I'd HAVE to do if I was at the show with a girl was to take her on the Ferris Wheel.
Jon while we were shopping for showbags. Mmm ... Bertie Beetle chocolate bars ...
Watch me spring into action. 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... HOOO!!
And finally, for no reason whatsoever, me threatening the cameraman with a plastic pitchfork.
Keep your eyes glued to the blog when I make that monumental 50th post!
It was really hard. The day after I started the diet, I come home from work in the afternoon to find my brother snacking on fat foods. No problem, I'll just not touch them, I think. And then I go to open the pantry to look for a snack (force of habit, that's all it is. What? Why the raised eyebrow? I'm serious!), and find that my mum, in addition to making me the soup, and knowing that I was on the diet, went and bought FOUR boxes of savoury biscuits (you know, the "X in a biscuit" things), simply because they were on special. It was hard to resist.
Sunday, I end up having to go to a birthday BBQ for my grandma. Now just WHY a vegetarian has to have a barbecue, which consists mainly of char-grilled meat and few actual vegetables escapes me, but I ended up breaking the rules many times :(
Anyways, fast forward to Friday, and I've lost at least two kilos. I'm quite happy with this, considering that I broke the dietary rules several times during the week. I'll attempt it again in a week or two.
Being the beginning of September, the Royal Adelaide Show was on again. Having not gone for several years, this year I wanted to go. I ended up arranging to go with my good friend Jon and his family.
It was a bit of a saga trying to get there. I get off work on the Saturday, come home, get changed and ready, and then call his place to find out that he'd already set off. I accidental call again before I realied I had to call his mobile ^_^;;
Finding parking was an absolute bitch. Cars were parked almost everywhere, and what parking I did find cost an arm and a leg.
I enter through the X Zone area, looking for where to meet Jon and end up wandering around for about fifteen minutes before finding them near the Ten building.
We had some good times there - mainly wandering about, buying showbags and food.
A visit to the Barnyard Animals area near the Royal Banquet Hall where I take some of my exams had some interesting things. For you female readers out there (yes, I know there is at least one of you), a treat:
A sleeping wombat. Isn't he adorable?
And now for something (not so) completely different:
Yes, that's right. A yellow chicken and a blue chicken! There was also a pink one but it was in a photoshoot with a little kid, and I couldn't get a good photo of it.
Arguably one of the centerpieces of the Show was the Ferris Wheel, set just behind the main entrance.
It was a pity that I wasn't taking a girl along - I'm a hopeless romantic, and think that one thing that I'd HAVE to do if I was at the show with a girl was to take her on the Ferris Wheel.
Jon while we were shopping for showbags. Mmm ... Bertie Beetle chocolate bars ...
Watch me spring into action. 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... HOOO!!
And finally, for no reason whatsoever, me threatening the cameraman with a plastic pitchfork.
Keep your eyes glued to the blog when I make that monumental 50th post!
Friday, August 18, 2006
My precious ...
Recently, things came to a squeeze. I was given the choice of either buying the 1989 Prelude I have been driving for the past three months, or returning it. An automatic, and starting to show problems, lead me to saying no, after finding that converting it to a manual would cost more than it was worth.
So through the trading post I go, looking for a suitable car. I had been doing this for the past couple of months, mainly looking through the sports and performance cars section and circling cars I'd like to get. My first choice was a Nissan Skyline R34 GT-T, but even second hand those things are expensive ($25-$36,000AU). I spotted a Supra while driving home from work late one Thursday night, and found that I rather liked their curved, sleek design.
Unfortunately, although still cheaper, their prices are still out of my range, even though they're much easier to find than an R34 Skyline. The answer (although I didn't see it as such at the time) leaped out at me when we went out to eat at the Windmill a couple of months ago. An R33 Skyline!
Within the last couple of weeks, I went trawling through the Trading Post and online for R33 Skylines, my dad being picky eliminating all models that were white, and pre-1993, and mine eliminating all non-manual ones.
So as of Monday 14th August, I am the proud owner (sort of - it's in my mum's name) of a 1995 Nissan R33 GTS25T Skyline. That's right. It's turbo baby!
After driving it around during the week, I have come to the following conclusions:
1) It is very fun to drive.
2) Turbo-charged driving is scary (in a good way).
3) The turbo means that insurance costs you an arm and a leg, and since it's an import most insurers won't touch it.
4) It is very responsive
5) It drinks fuel like water, and only takes premium. Coupled with this, I want to make sure that it gets only the best premium fuel, meaning BP Ultimate.
Unfortunately, BP don't do discount dockets, instead doing a credit card. Oh, the lure, the lure.
As far as modifications go, I don't think I'll do too many - insurance would shoot through the roof if I put too much power into it. Maybe after I start paying for insurance myself. At the moment, all I have planned are some custom decals, and maybe a custom number plate and body kit modifications.
Some photos of my new baby to finish off.
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Car/Unmoddoedrearangle.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Car/Unmoddoedrear.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Car/Unmoddoedfrontangle.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Car/Unmoddoedfront.jpg
So through the trading post I go, looking for a suitable car. I had been doing this for the past couple of months, mainly looking through the sports and performance cars section and circling cars I'd like to get. My first choice was a Nissan Skyline R34 GT-T, but even second hand those things are expensive ($25-$36,000AU). I spotted a Supra while driving home from work late one Thursday night, and found that I rather liked their curved, sleek design.
Unfortunately, although still cheaper, their prices are still out of my range, even though they're much easier to find than an R34 Skyline. The answer (although I didn't see it as such at the time) leaped out at me when we went out to eat at the Windmill a couple of months ago. An R33 Skyline!
Within the last couple of weeks, I went trawling through the Trading Post and online for R33 Skylines, my dad being picky eliminating all models that were white, and pre-1993, and mine eliminating all non-manual ones.
So as of Monday 14th August, I am the proud owner (sort of - it's in my mum's name) of a 1995 Nissan R33 GTS25T Skyline. That's right. It's turbo baby!
After driving it around during the week, I have come to the following conclusions:
1) It is very fun to drive.
2) Turbo-charged driving is scary (in a good way).
3) The turbo means that insurance costs you an arm and a leg, and since it's an import most insurers won't touch it.
4) It is very responsive
5) It drinks fuel like water, and only takes premium. Coupled with this, I want to make sure that it gets only the best premium fuel, meaning BP Ultimate.
Unfortunately, BP don't do discount dockets, instead doing a credit card. Oh, the lure, the lure.
As far as modifications go, I don't think I'll do too many - insurance would shoot through the roof if I put too much power into it. Maybe after I start paying for insurance myself. At the moment, all I have planned are some custom decals, and maybe a custom number plate and body kit modifications.
Some photos of my new baby to finish off.
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Car/Unmoddoedrearangle.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Car/Unmoddoedrear.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Car/Unmoddoedfrontangle.jpg
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Car/Unmoddoedfront.jpg
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Another emo rant
Ugh ... I hate having to combine work and family. Whenever you seem to finally get a break, fate comes along and kicks you hard several times in the nuts.
I've talked in the past how I've been a disappointment to my parents due to my "average" academic performance, and now it seems everyone at work seems to be fine with me to my face, and then are talking shit about me behind my back. Hearing back from my own mother about how other people are complaining about my attitude/quality of work recently, I have to come to the conclusion that although they may be right, they could at least tell me to my face. Therefore, if they have to talk shit about me behind my back (and judging by my very raw and recent dressing down by my mother), they have a lot. As Eminem said in one of his earlier songs - "your friends aren't what you think are your friends/they're really your enemies with secret identities" really applies here - substituting friends for coworkers. My boss is a total bitch and control freak - she can do things like put on music that the owner wouldn't like, answers her mobile whenever she wants - all because she's the boss there.
I've copped flak from her earlier this week about improper financial management. Yes, I've been budgeting, and she saw the lists I've been writing down. I have listed down the things I want to buy, (most of which she feels is unnecessary), as well as living expenses.
I have been nothing apparently but a big disappointment to my parents so it seems - academically, I've underperformed (I even have to forge my results so that I could lie and make them happy so I don't get the whole you did shit, you must try harder and we are going to make your life more miserable to make you study better - such a great guy, aren't I *sarcasm*), recently, people have found warrant to talk shit about me behind my back, and this whole getting a car thing is really stressing me out.
Firstly, I have to return the current car I'm driving, which creates a need for a car of my own to get around in. Since I only have a little bit to spare (I've only started saving recently) at the moment, my mum has been just lecturing me again and agian and doing the whole loudly complaining to herself thing about my "profligate spending" and how my hobbies won't feed me. Then there's my dad being fussy about getting the car - it has to be a recent year, it has to have low kms, it has to be something he considers masculine/classy (which changes everyday - goddamn it), and obviously, it has to have a good price. My mum is even worse - it has to be as cheap as possible, the fucking tightass.
She lectures me about not telling her when I'm going out to a friend's or how long I'm staying. I'm twenty fucking years old! I can look after myself! I don't need to inform her of every single fucking movement I make! Do I have to tell her if I need to fart or go to the toilet to take a piss?!
And then she goes on about how I stay up late. Again, I'm twenty years old! I have become acclimatised to not sleeping before midnight! And I like it that way! She won't be able to change it unless she really forced it.
All this brings up to the surface questions of my own inadequacy. What is it that I'm good at? Writing fiction (and even then, not good enough for an author). What else, in a practical sense? I'm still physically weak, I'm fat, and said mother says a lot but does nothing to stop it - keeps buying sweet foods for "others," despite the fact she knows that I will eat it - like she medicates me with food.
I don't go out much, my university "friends (enemies with secret identities)" regard me more as an unwelcome outsider at worst, or at best, "that nerdy guy who's always hanging around us, let's freeze him out of our activities." My high school friends are all far away in different universities (or hard to get into contact with), and my online friends ... well what can they do but talk to me? It's not like I can go out on the town with a buddy from MSN.
I wonder what am I to do? I'm trapped here until I find another good-paying job (which will be hard), and a car, and have amassed some money. I have just spent a good fifteen to twenty minutes screaming into a pillow and crying - just what kind of choice and control do I have? I have to be what my parents want me to be, I have to do what they say or think (even if it is unspoken), and even my own room is not safe - they can invade it whenever they feel like it, because it costs too much to get a lock.
Obviously, at the moment, thoughts of suicide are flowing through my head, but I know I won't go through with it, because it's just an impulse, and I have so much more I want to do - reinvent myself, become a ladies' man who can get girls eating out of my hand, I want to get a girlfriend, go down to Glenelg with said girlfriend and watch the sunset on the beach in the summer, I want to travel to Japan, sample the girls there, live overseas/interstate for a few months or years, travel the world, climb Mount Kilimanjaro, I have many things I'd like to do, so I wouldn't want to off myself in the prime of my life.
But just what can I do at the moment?
I've talked in the past how I've been a disappointment to my parents due to my "average" academic performance, and now it seems everyone at work seems to be fine with me to my face, and then are talking shit about me behind my back. Hearing back from my own mother about how other people are complaining about my attitude/quality of work recently, I have to come to the conclusion that although they may be right, they could at least tell me to my face. Therefore, if they have to talk shit about me behind my back (and judging by my very raw and recent dressing down by my mother), they have a lot. As Eminem said in one of his earlier songs - "your friends aren't what you think are your friends/they're really your enemies with secret identities" really applies here - substituting friends for coworkers. My boss is a total bitch and control freak - she can do things like put on music that the owner wouldn't like, answers her mobile whenever she wants - all because she's the boss there.
I've copped flak from her earlier this week about improper financial management. Yes, I've been budgeting, and she saw the lists I've been writing down. I have listed down the things I want to buy, (most of which she feels is unnecessary), as well as living expenses.
I have been nothing apparently but a big disappointment to my parents so it seems - academically, I've underperformed (I even have to forge my results so that I could lie and make them happy so I don't get the whole you did shit, you must try harder and we are going to make your life more miserable to make you study better - such a great guy, aren't I *sarcasm*), recently, people have found warrant to talk shit about me behind my back, and this whole getting a car thing is really stressing me out.
Firstly, I have to return the current car I'm driving, which creates a need for a car of my own to get around in. Since I only have a little bit to spare (I've only started saving recently) at the moment, my mum has been just lecturing me again and agian and doing the whole loudly complaining to herself thing about my "profligate spending" and how my hobbies won't feed me. Then there's my dad being fussy about getting the car - it has to be a recent year, it has to have low kms, it has to be something he considers masculine/classy (which changes everyday - goddamn it), and obviously, it has to have a good price. My mum is even worse - it has to be as cheap as possible, the fucking tightass.
She lectures me about not telling her when I'm going out to a friend's or how long I'm staying. I'm twenty fucking years old! I can look after myself! I don't need to inform her of every single fucking movement I make! Do I have to tell her if I need to fart or go to the toilet to take a piss?!
And then she goes on about how I stay up late. Again, I'm twenty years old! I have become acclimatised to not sleeping before midnight! And I like it that way! She won't be able to change it unless she really forced it.
All this brings up to the surface questions of my own inadequacy. What is it that I'm good at? Writing fiction (and even then, not good enough for an author). What else, in a practical sense? I'm still physically weak, I'm fat, and said mother says a lot but does nothing to stop it - keeps buying sweet foods for "others," despite the fact she knows that I will eat it - like she medicates me with food.
I don't go out much, my university "friends (enemies with secret identities)" regard me more as an unwelcome outsider at worst, or at best, "that nerdy guy who's always hanging around us, let's freeze him out of our activities." My high school friends are all far away in different universities (or hard to get into contact with), and my online friends ... well what can they do but talk to me? It's not like I can go out on the town with a buddy from MSN.
I wonder what am I to do? I'm trapped here until I find another good-paying job (which will be hard), and a car, and have amassed some money. I have just spent a good fifteen to twenty minutes screaming into a pillow and crying - just what kind of choice and control do I have? I have to be what my parents want me to be, I have to do what they say or think (even if it is unspoken), and even my own room is not safe - they can invade it whenever they feel like it, because it costs too much to get a lock.
Obviously, at the moment, thoughts of suicide are flowing through my head, but I know I won't go through with it, because it's just an impulse, and I have so much more I want to do - reinvent myself, become a ladies' man who can get girls eating out of my hand, I want to get a girlfriend, go down to Glenelg with said girlfriend and watch the sunset on the beach in the summer, I want to travel to Japan, sample the girls there, live overseas/interstate for a few months or years, travel the world, climb Mount Kilimanjaro, I have many things I'd like to do, so I wouldn't want to off myself in the prime of my life.
But just what can I do at the moment?
Monday, August 07, 2006
Krankski cheese shot attack!
I think I've grown somewhat in the last couple of weeks as a person. Both physically and mentally.
I was shopping around for clothes at the Tarocash store near where I work, and trying on size 38 pants, and the clerk asks why not try size 36 pants?
So I did, and presto, they were much more comfortable than the last time I cared to try wearing size 36 pants. The same thing happened with trying on a medium instead of a large. I'm now a rather large size Medium ^_^
This is definitely proof that my time at the gym has been time well-spent. I can't begin to describe the feeling of joy at the realisation that I could now fit into smaller clothes (not to mention being able to actually wear clothes that I could buy off ebay - Diesel brand gear is going pretty cheap when I checked).
I had a hair-cut last week - got it cut really short. Although my parents didn't like it, I didn't care. They never liked my haircuts since I started going to a new hairdresser way back in April. I went to the gym the next day, and got some good eye contact with some cute Asian girls at the gym - definitely a good sign, although I think it's more than just the haircut.
I think that I'm changing in a way - becoming more the authentic real me, the me who doesn't take shit, who isn't afraid to voice my mind, and the me who does whatever I want, and to hell with the consequences.
A few interesting things happened the last couple of weeks. For one, while I was at work the weekend after AvCon, my mum came in and cleaned my room (uninvited, I must insist), and discovered some of the gourmet pocky that I had bought at the convention. She tried some, and loved it so much she ate some more. Then when she finds out that it costs $5 a packet, her stingy side comes in. She says she wouldn't buy it, but I would, so she'd be willing to eat candy she wouldn't pay for. Moocher.
Another thing that happened with said moocher was that the Wednesday after my paycheck came in, I bought some nice, fashionable (and expensive, but on sale so it's okay) clothes. I come home, take said clothes upstairs, and guess what she asks me?
Her: "Did you buy some for Andrew (my little brother)?"
Me: "WTF you talking about?? Why should I have to buy expensive clothes for him??"
Her: "Because that would make you a good brother."
What kind of brother goes out and buys expensive clothes for his little brother? Particularly since he has no idea of said brother's fashoin sense? I'll tell you. A friggin sugar daddy.
Something amusing that happened earlier today was some interaction I had with a customer. Now, I don't particularly like my job too much, but the one thing that stops driving me insane from sheer boredom/tedium is the social interaction between customer and shop staff, the power relations between the two, and what I can get away with saying to customers. Since we're just coming out of a Lotto megadraw, I've been amusing myself by reading the prize money amounts to customers in cents intead of dollars. So it would go along something like this:
Me: *scans ticket, machine says is a winner* "We have a winner!"
Customer: *Eyes widen in surprise*
Me: "You have won ... two thousand, seven hundred and sixty ... cents."
Customer: *deflates at the mention of cents*
And now back to plotting that merry dance across eastern Australia ... I'll end with a Japanese quote:
人生 は 冒険 - Jinsei wa bouken (translated - Life is an adventure)
I was shopping around for clothes at the Tarocash store near where I work, and trying on size 38 pants, and the clerk asks why not try size 36 pants?
So I did, and presto, they were much more comfortable than the last time I cared to try wearing size 36 pants. The same thing happened with trying on a medium instead of a large. I'm now a rather large size Medium ^_^
This is definitely proof that my time at the gym has been time well-spent. I can't begin to describe the feeling of joy at the realisation that I could now fit into smaller clothes (not to mention being able to actually wear clothes that I could buy off ebay - Diesel brand gear is going pretty cheap when I checked).
I had a hair-cut last week - got it cut really short. Although my parents didn't like it, I didn't care. They never liked my haircuts since I started going to a new hairdresser way back in April. I went to the gym the next day, and got some good eye contact with some cute Asian girls at the gym - definitely a good sign, although I think it's more than just the haircut.
I think that I'm changing in a way - becoming more the authentic real me, the me who doesn't take shit, who isn't afraid to voice my mind, and the me who does whatever I want, and to hell with the consequences.
A few interesting things happened the last couple of weeks. For one, while I was at work the weekend after AvCon, my mum came in and cleaned my room (uninvited, I must insist), and discovered some of the gourmet pocky that I had bought at the convention. She tried some, and loved it so much she ate some more. Then when she finds out that it costs $5 a packet, her stingy side comes in. She says she wouldn't buy it, but I would, so she'd be willing to eat candy she wouldn't pay for. Moocher.
Another thing that happened with said moocher was that the Wednesday after my paycheck came in, I bought some nice, fashionable (and expensive, but on sale so it's okay) clothes. I come home, take said clothes upstairs, and guess what she asks me?
Her: "Did you buy some for Andrew (my little brother)?"
Me: "WTF you talking about?? Why should I have to buy expensive clothes for him??"
Her: "Because that would make you a good brother."
What kind of brother goes out and buys expensive clothes for his little brother? Particularly since he has no idea of said brother's fashoin sense? I'll tell you. A friggin sugar daddy.
Something amusing that happened earlier today was some interaction I had with a customer. Now, I don't particularly like my job too much, but the one thing that stops driving me insane from sheer boredom/tedium is the social interaction between customer and shop staff, the power relations between the two, and what I can get away with saying to customers. Since we're just coming out of a Lotto megadraw, I've been amusing myself by reading the prize money amounts to customers in cents intead of dollars. So it would go along something like this:
Me: *scans ticket, machine says is a winner* "We have a winner!"
Customer: *Eyes widen in surprise*
Me: "You have won ... two thousand, seven hundred and sixty ... cents."
Customer: *deflates at the mention of cents*
And now back to plotting that merry dance across eastern Australia ... I'll end with a Japanese quote:
人生 は 冒険 - Jinsei wa bouken (translated - Life is an adventure)
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Proof that videogames don't rot your brain or body
From Men's Health Australia, August 2006 issue (edited to be less cringe inducing):
"PLAYING AROUND
Bad Habit: Been fiddling around with your joystick lately? Your pupils dilated and strangely square? A picture of Lara Croft in your wallet? Sounds like symptoms of (video/computer game) addiction - the bane of your (loved ones') existence.
Make it good: Tell (them) that we said it's okay. In moderation. Video games can improve hand-eye coordination, memory and the ability to form strategies and process visual information.
For example, while driving down a residential street, you may be more likely to pickout a child running after a ball than a non-(gamer). And speaking of life-and-death situations, in May this year, New York researchers found that doctors who play videogames to "warm up" before laparoscopic surgery perform faster and commit fewer mistakes than their non-playing counterparts.
Not removing a gall bladder anytime soon? No problem,you'll still benefit becaues gaming also burns kilojoules.
University of Miami scientists recently discovered that competitive (games) raise blood pressure and heart rate and uses as many kilojoules as brisk walking or cycling. Another university study has suggested that "sporting and fighting" games produce a dramatic level of pain distraction.
So long as it doesn't impinge on your everyday life (or cause severe withdrawal symptoms), play the game."
I wonder if this would apply to PvP in World of Warcraft - battlegrounds would be like some sort of virtual gym or something. I can just imagine playing an 8 hour session of Alterac Valley being something like an 8 hour ride on bike or something. Obviously no substitute for the real thing, but for light exercise, I think this would be cool.
Someone should get Blizzard to tout this! I can just see it now:
"World of Warcraft PvP: More fun than riding a bike, and less work!"
"PLAYING AROUND
Bad Habit: Been fiddling around with your joystick lately? Your pupils dilated and strangely square? A picture of Lara Croft in your wallet? Sounds like symptoms of (video/computer game) addiction - the bane of your (loved ones') existence.
Make it good: Tell (them) that we said it's okay. In moderation. Video games can improve hand-eye coordination, memory and the ability to form strategies and process visual information.
For example, while driving down a residential street, you may be more likely to pickout a child running after a ball than a non-(gamer). And speaking of life-and-death situations, in May this year, New York researchers found that doctors who play videogames to "warm up" before laparoscopic surgery perform faster and commit fewer mistakes than their non-playing counterparts.
Not removing a gall bladder anytime soon? No problem,you'll still benefit becaues gaming also burns kilojoules.
University of Miami scientists recently discovered that competitive (games) raise blood pressure and heart rate and uses as many kilojoules as brisk walking or cycling. Another university study has suggested that "sporting and fighting" games produce a dramatic level of pain distraction.
So long as it doesn't impinge on your everyday life (or cause severe withdrawal symptoms), play the game."
I wonder if this would apply to PvP in World of Warcraft - battlegrounds would be like some sort of virtual gym or something. I can just imagine playing an 8 hour session of Alterac Valley being something like an 8 hour ride on bike or something. Obviously no substitute for the real thing, but for light exercise, I think this would be cool.
Someone should get Blizzard to tout this! I can just see it now:
"World of Warcraft PvP: More fun than riding a bike, and less work!"
Sunday, July 16, 2006
AvCon Hoooo!!
Well, I've come back from AvCon.
It's a pity that I couldn't get any of my otaku friends to come along, as I'm sure they would have enjoyed it. I was going to go with one (we had even agreed to it months before), but he's gotten heavily into WoW in that time and didn't want to disrupt his raid schedule. I respect his wishes, and more power to him for that, but it was still a bit of a pity, as I think he would have enjoyed it a lot. If you're reading this, you know who you are.
Not letting that get me down, I still went with a friend, and had a great time.
I had plenty of fun, despite the drizzle and the rain - lots of good quality anime being shown in the various cinemas at the con, like Initial D 4th Stage (although it was 2 years old), Fate/Stay Night, Keroro Gunsou, Tsubasa Chronicle, the two Mai HiMEs, HiME and Otome.
A note in advance - my digital camera was running low on batteries when I went (and I had forgotten to buy more), so some of the photos came out weird.
AvCon Hooo!!! Me trying to pose like Hard Gay Razor Ramon:
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Photos/AvconHooo.jpg
The theme this year was Pirates vs Ninjas, and there were quite a few of those around. Cosplayers turned out in force for the con, and although I didn't see too many absolute cuties like they have in Hong Kong or Tokyo, there were still some pretty nice girls. I saw plenty of maids, one girl in a rather short kimono dressed up as Fuu from Samurai Champloo (apparently her boyfriend or something was there as Mugen, but I didn't spot him), and a guy cosplaying Luffy from One Piece. Damn, Luffy would have been cold, wearing nothingbut shorts, a vest, thongs and the straw hat. I saw some guy cosplaying Athrun, complete with bright blue wig (I hope it was a wig) and ZAFT red-coat uniform, as well as some Asian dude cosplaying I think Shinn - I didn't get to see the front of his uniform to see whether he had the top lapel open like Shinn does.
Cosplay photos:
A random School Rumble girl: http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Photos/SRgirl.jpg
A trio of cute girls dressed up in maid costumes: http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Photos/Maidgirls.jpg
One of the maid girls by herself:
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Photos/Gothloli.jpg
A girl dressed as Yuna from FFX-2, in Gunner dress-sphere mode: http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Photos/Yunagirl.jpg
As well as the cosplayers and the anime (all in Japanese, thankfully - no sign of crappy English dubs there, always a good sign), they had some interesting things, like game tournaments, and various panels. I went to a rather entertaining panel called Iron Artist, which, obviously, is a parody of Iron Chef. The rules are simple - you have half an hour, one concept and three key words which are randomly selected, to draw a picture.
The words were "Homoeroticisim," (prompting remarks of the various Gundam boys from Gundam Wing being together - such as Heero x Duo ... shudder), "Happy" and "Mecha." There wer five contenders, each given a colour as is the proper thing for a sentai team (like Power Rangers) - we had red, blue, yellow, pink, green and yellow Iron Artists. This was presided over by a couple of guys, one who was a commentator, and another dressed up as a ninja, called the Cursed Ninja. He pretended he was Sub Zero at times, and made various cutting comments about the artists' drawings. Some of the resulting drawings were rather entertaining. One involved Naruto and Kakashi ... well, I imagine anyone who's watched enough Naruto knows about the One Thousand Years of Pain.
While we were waiting, they got people from the audience to be a 2-minute Iron Artist, including this guy wearing black that the commentator and the Cursed Ninja teased, calling him an "emo kid," and this rather cute girl in some sort of goth loli cosplay outfit.
The Cursed Ninja stole the cap from the guy on the far right in the grey trenchcoat (that's right, the one next to the Jack Sparrow lookalike), and pretended he was a Communist ninja.
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Photos/IronArtist-1.jpg
The 2-minute Iron Artist challenge with the goth loli girl (she got Schoolgirl as a key word to draw):
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Photos/IronArtist03-1.jpg
One of the other ups that I had at the convention were meeting my friends from Shintokyo at the Shintokyo stand - plenty of looking around, chatting with them, and so on. I got a real kick out of the fact that one of the guys told me I was the most fanatical Gundam fan who came to their store. I even joked I should get a badge - "Shintokyo no ichiban Gundam fan" (Shintokyo's #1 Gundam fan).
I'd go again next year - this time with more people! And then I can run around and spout random Japanese at people, because I'll be proficient enough in the language for that then ^_^
It's a pity that I couldn't get any of my otaku friends to come along, as I'm sure they would have enjoyed it. I was going to go with one (we had even agreed to it months before), but he's gotten heavily into WoW in that time and didn't want to disrupt his raid schedule. I respect his wishes, and more power to him for that, but it was still a bit of a pity, as I think he would have enjoyed it a lot. If you're reading this, you know who you are.
Not letting that get me down, I still went with a friend, and had a great time.
I had plenty of fun, despite the drizzle and the rain - lots of good quality anime being shown in the various cinemas at the con, like Initial D 4th Stage (although it was 2 years old), Fate/Stay Night, Keroro Gunsou, Tsubasa Chronicle, the two Mai HiMEs, HiME and Otome.
A note in advance - my digital camera was running low on batteries when I went (and I had forgotten to buy more), so some of the photos came out weird.
AvCon Hooo!!! Me trying to pose like Hard Gay Razor Ramon:
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Photos/AvconHooo.jpg
The theme this year was Pirates vs Ninjas, and there were quite a few of those around. Cosplayers turned out in force for the con, and although I didn't see too many absolute cuties like they have in Hong Kong or Tokyo, there were still some pretty nice girls. I saw plenty of maids, one girl in a rather short kimono dressed up as Fuu from Samurai Champloo (apparently her boyfriend or something was there as Mugen, but I didn't spot him), and a guy cosplaying Luffy from One Piece. Damn, Luffy would have been cold, wearing nothingbut shorts, a vest, thongs and the straw hat. I saw some guy cosplaying Athrun, complete with bright blue wig (I hope it was a wig) and ZAFT red-coat uniform, as well as some Asian dude cosplaying I think Shinn - I didn't get to see the front of his uniform to see whether he had the top lapel open like Shinn does.
Cosplay photos:
A random School Rumble girl: http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Photos/SRgirl.jpg
A trio of cute girls dressed up in maid costumes: http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Photos/Maidgirls.jpg
One of the maid girls by herself:
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Photos/Gothloli.jpg
A girl dressed as Yuna from FFX-2, in Gunner dress-sphere mode: http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Photos/Yunagirl.jpg
As well as the cosplayers and the anime (all in Japanese, thankfully - no sign of crappy English dubs there, always a good sign), they had some interesting things, like game tournaments, and various panels. I went to a rather entertaining panel called Iron Artist, which, obviously, is a parody of Iron Chef. The rules are simple - you have half an hour, one concept and three key words which are randomly selected, to draw a picture.
The words were "Homoeroticisim," (prompting remarks of the various Gundam boys from Gundam Wing being together - such as Heero x Duo ... shudder), "Happy" and "Mecha." There wer five contenders, each given a colour as is the proper thing for a sentai team (like Power Rangers) - we had red, blue, yellow, pink, green and yellow Iron Artists. This was presided over by a couple of guys, one who was a commentator, and another dressed up as a ninja, called the Cursed Ninja. He pretended he was Sub Zero at times, and made various cutting comments about the artists' drawings. Some of the resulting drawings were rather entertaining. One involved Naruto and Kakashi ... well, I imagine anyone who's watched enough Naruto knows about the One Thousand Years of Pain.
While we were waiting, they got people from the audience to be a 2-minute Iron Artist, including this guy wearing black that the commentator and the Cursed Ninja teased, calling him an "emo kid," and this rather cute girl in some sort of goth loli cosplay outfit.
The Cursed Ninja stole the cap from the guy on the far right in the grey trenchcoat (that's right, the one next to the Jack Sparrow lookalike), and pretended he was a Communist ninja.
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Photos/IronArtist-1.jpg
The 2-minute Iron Artist challenge with the goth loli girl (she got Schoolgirl as a key word to draw):
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f327/nightbringer360/Photos/IronArtist03-1.jpg
One of the other ups that I had at the convention were meeting my friends from Shintokyo at the Shintokyo stand - plenty of looking around, chatting with them, and so on. I got a real kick out of the fact that one of the guys told me I was the most fanatical Gundam fan who came to their store. I even joked I should get a badge - "Shintokyo no ichiban Gundam fan" (Shintokyo's #1 Gundam fan).
I'd go again next year - this time with more people! And then I can run around and spout random Japanese at people, because I'll be proficient enough in the language for that then ^_^
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Work, work
Well, my exams finished today last week ... and I was free. Or so I thought.
I believed I was free to do whatever I wanted to do (within reason - I'm not going to become an arsonist simply because I don't have to study for nine months), and had even planned out parts of my first few weeks of freedom. They were quite complex plans:
Thursday 29th - Sleep in, play World of Warcraft, work at night
Friday 30th - Go to work from 9-5, go out with cousins from interstate at night
Saturday 1st - Work 9-2, go to friend's house, bum around, go to another friend's BBQ, then go clubbing
Sunday - Lazy day in
Monday - Work, then go to the gym after work
Tuesday - Work, go home @ 4, play, sleep
Wednesday - Work, go home @ 4, go to gym, cook dinner, play, sleep
Somehow, things went pear-shaped.
Thursday and Friday went by nicely enough, particularly Friday night.
One of my cousins on my mum's side was in from interstate (Victoria, Melbourne, of all places!) for a few days, and not having seen her in a year and a half (along with another cousin I don't keep in contact with much), I decided to party. We went out for karaoke, along with some other cousins on my dad's side - including my boss (she works under my dad), making reservations at a well-known karaoke place on Hindley street. We get there at the appointed time, and what do you know - you need ID to get in. My long-lost cousins didn't have ID, so we ended up cruising Hindley street for another karaoke place - about five to six hundred metres down the street.
We sing there, have lots of fun (one was when we did Love Shack, and I somehow managed to spank my boss), and gross out people by singing love songs at the other guys. The best one though, was for some reason the Backstreet Boys songs we sang (Everybody and As Long As You Love Me), being old school songs that I remember knowing waay back in year 6. Others included scaring family with how high my voice can go while singing the Bee Gees' "Staying Alive," and trying to do the YMCA while making an ass of myself.
We went to that pancake house off a side street of Hindley street after - loads of fun. The night ended with me taking the long-lost cousins back to their place, in Parafield Gardens. Walking to the carpark, I play games with them, seeing who could stuff a napkin down the other's back the best, and generally acting like a horny git - acting like they were the guy and I was the girl. The scary thing is that I'm more silly when I'm sober and it seems less when I'm drunk - at least that's what I've observed.
I end up getting lost trying in Parafield Gardens during the stormy night after dropping them off, driving around aimlessly for about 15 minutes before I find myself back near Tea Tree Plaza. Good thing too, I was scared that I'd spend the night lost in the hills of Parafield Gardens.
Saturday came and went - people wanted DVDs of stuff from me, so I ended up bounding out of the house to my car in the morning and back in because I forgot the DVDs. Having no time to hunt out cases to store them in, I just stuffed the whole folders into my car boot (the aforementioned spanked boss wanted House seasons 1 and 2 from me, and a friend wanted some DVDs of his returned).
I get ready for the friend's BBQ, and then find out enroute that it was Friday night, not Saturday night. Looks like Lean Cuisine for dinner, and then a bit of me-time before I headed off to Soul Bar.
Not too much happened, although I did meet a couple of cute Japanese girls who were studying at Adelaide Uni.
A note here - the shop I work at is going through a shop refit, so the whole place is (as of this blog) a big mess, so I pretty much spent most of the day at work each day shifting things - be it glass panels, boxes of stock, or mounting brackets - from one area to another.
Tuesday - I wake up, it's 9:55am, and my shift starts in five minutes. It's a half hour drive to West Lakes. You can do the math. Somehow, to punish me for being a half hour late, I have to stay until closing time - an extra hour. The boss claims she needs me here, but towards closing time, I spend more time hovering around the dispensary looking for work to do or waiting for her to finish with the computer so I can jump on and surf the internet.
Wednesday (today) - more of the same, it seems - shifting stuff around, serving people, generally being the hired labour and shifting things about. Ugh, somehow, moving all that glass today makes me feel like I've been working out at the gym - that combined with having to shift heavy-as boxes of brackets around.
Here's to keeping my sanity intact as I work the rest of the week up to Sunday. It should be all nice from here - no more 6+ hour shifts.
I believed I was free to do whatever I wanted to do (within reason - I'm not going to become an arsonist simply because I don't have to study for nine months), and had even planned out parts of my first few weeks of freedom. They were quite complex plans:
Thursday 29th - Sleep in, play World of Warcraft, work at night
Friday 30th - Go to work from 9-5, go out with cousins from interstate at night
Saturday 1st - Work 9-2, go to friend's house, bum around, go to another friend's BBQ, then go clubbing
Sunday - Lazy day in
Monday - Work, then go to the gym after work
Tuesday - Work, go home @ 4, play, sleep
Wednesday - Work, go home @ 4, go to gym, cook dinner, play, sleep
Somehow, things went pear-shaped.
Thursday and Friday went by nicely enough, particularly Friday night.
One of my cousins on my mum's side was in from interstate (Victoria, Melbourne, of all places!) for a few days, and not having seen her in a year and a half (along with another cousin I don't keep in contact with much), I decided to party. We went out for karaoke, along with some other cousins on my dad's side - including my boss (she works under my dad), making reservations at a well-known karaoke place on Hindley street. We get there at the appointed time, and what do you know - you need ID to get in. My long-lost cousins didn't have ID, so we ended up cruising Hindley street for another karaoke place - about five to six hundred metres down the street.
We sing there, have lots of fun (one was when we did Love Shack, and I somehow managed to spank my boss), and gross out people by singing love songs at the other guys. The best one though, was for some reason the Backstreet Boys songs we sang (Everybody and As Long As You Love Me), being old school songs that I remember knowing waay back in year 6. Others included scaring family with how high my voice can go while singing the Bee Gees' "Staying Alive," and trying to do the YMCA while making an ass of myself.
We went to that pancake house off a side street of Hindley street after - loads of fun. The night ended with me taking the long-lost cousins back to their place, in Parafield Gardens. Walking to the carpark, I play games with them, seeing who could stuff a napkin down the other's back the best, and generally acting like a horny git - acting like they were the guy and I was the girl. The scary thing is that I'm more silly when I'm sober and it seems less when I'm drunk - at least that's what I've observed.
I end up getting lost trying in Parafield Gardens during the stormy night after dropping them off, driving around aimlessly for about 15 minutes before I find myself back near Tea Tree Plaza. Good thing too, I was scared that I'd spend the night lost in the hills of Parafield Gardens.
Saturday came and went - people wanted DVDs of stuff from me, so I ended up bounding out of the house to my car in the morning and back in because I forgot the DVDs. Having no time to hunt out cases to store them in, I just stuffed the whole folders into my car boot (the aforementioned spanked boss wanted House seasons 1 and 2 from me, and a friend wanted some DVDs of his returned).
I get ready for the friend's BBQ, and then find out enroute that it was Friday night, not Saturday night. Looks like Lean Cuisine for dinner, and then a bit of me-time before I headed off to Soul Bar.
Not too much happened, although I did meet a couple of cute Japanese girls who were studying at Adelaide Uni.
A note here - the shop I work at is going through a shop refit, so the whole place is (as of this blog) a big mess, so I pretty much spent most of the day at work each day shifting things - be it glass panels, boxes of stock, or mounting brackets - from one area to another.
Tuesday - I wake up, it's 9:55am, and my shift starts in five minutes. It's a half hour drive to West Lakes. You can do the math. Somehow, to punish me for being a half hour late, I have to stay until closing time - an extra hour. The boss claims she needs me here, but towards closing time, I spend more time hovering around the dispensary looking for work to do or waiting for her to finish with the computer so I can jump on and surf the internet.
Wednesday (today) - more of the same, it seems - shifting stuff around, serving people, generally being the hired labour and shifting things about. Ugh, somehow, moving all that glass today makes me feel like I've been working out at the gym - that combined with having to shift heavy-as boxes of brackets around.
Here's to keeping my sanity intact as I work the rest of the week up to Sunday. It should be all nice from here - no more 6+ hour shifts.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Robbed
Australia's been knocked out of the World Cup. And in the most dishonourable, cruel way possible. A last second penalty by Totti through the net.
I am personally disgusted by such a blatant fall by Grosso - it was clearly a deliberate trip over Lucas Neill, and as such, means that the Italians retain their reputation as Olympic gold medallist divers.
The game was such a good one until it was soured by that penalty too. Back and forth across the field like a pinball (of sorts), both the Socceroos and the Azzuri making shots at goal. Granted Materazzi's red card was harsher than it should have been, the fact that referee Contalejo decided to even things up by perhaps giving the Italians a shot at goal for the supposed fall Grosso took after falling over Neill.
If the game had gone into extra time, then I am quite confident that we would have gotten through to the top 8, to play against Ukraine.
As with many Aussies around the nation, I am up in arms at this outrage. The only consolation I have is that Australia comes home showing it is a force to be reckoned with in the world game, while the Italians, winning in such dishonourable measures, will have lost the respect of (world) football afficiandos around the world.
I am personally disgusted by such a blatant fall by Grosso - it was clearly a deliberate trip over Lucas Neill, and as such, means that the Italians retain their reputation as Olympic gold medallist divers.
The game was such a good one until it was soured by that penalty too. Back and forth across the field like a pinball (of sorts), both the Socceroos and the Azzuri making shots at goal. Granted Materazzi's red card was harsher than it should have been, the fact that referee Contalejo decided to even things up by perhaps giving the Italians a shot at goal for the supposed fall Grosso took after falling over Neill.
If the game had gone into extra time, then I am quite confident that we would have gotten through to the top 8, to play against Ukraine.
As with many Aussies around the nation, I am up in arms at this outrage. The only consolation I have is that Australia comes home showing it is a force to be reckoned with in the world game, while the Italians, winning in such dishonourable measures, will have lost the respect of (world) football afficiandos around the world.
Friday, June 23, 2006
The World Game vs Exams - 1-2 exams' way
Dear god (I really should say Buddha, or Unknown Cosmic Force, depending on what phase I happen to be in), like most other students, I hate exams. Thank heavens that I've done two out of three of them!
I know I shouldn't whine, because my comrades have an exam every day starting Tuesday, their last one for the week being earlier today. I feel glad that I actually managed to pass Microbiology last year - I avoided a second 8am lesson and a Tuesday exam.
Wednesday - the day of my first exam and a whole field of laughs pre-exam. I wake up late, realising I had forgotten to properly set my alarm, bound out and am ready to go by 0830 hours - teeth brushed, showered, shaved, clean clothes, liquid breakfast. I arm the alarm and rush out of the house. I quickly start up the car, reverse it out onto the driveway, only to find that I hadn't realised that my mum was still in the house when I armed the alarm system. I drive out behind her car, toot the horn, and then she has to come out to the front to clear the driveway. She comes out, and feeling lazy, simply gives me the keys while she finishes her beauty treatment, demonstrating herself as one of those types of women who take forever to get ready. So, not much time left, I squeeze into her car, drive it out across the (busy) street, taking care not to cause accidents with (parents of) late Wilderness students, before quickly getting in and zooming off in my car after clearing the driveway. Great - I lose ten minutes. I am told later that my mum didn't realise that I had armed the alarm system, and it went off about ten minutes or so after I left, and she was left to explain to the security man that it was a misunderstanding.
Feeling that I could try to take a shortcut and avoid the traffic, I decide to try driving all the way up and around the Adelaide CBD, driving onto Greenhill Road to the Showgrounds for my exam. Unfortunately, many others had the same idea, resulting in twenty minutes of stop-and-go. Lots of fun.
I end up arriving ten minutes late and five minutes into reading time.
I feel that I studied better this time around (plus a better grasp of the course material and the SRB teacher's tendency to recycle half of last year's exam), because this time, I actually did the questions and knew how to do most of them, unlike last year. Looking back, I feel that somehow I've grown. Maybe, at least, I've developed better study skills.
The World Cup is on, and like many others in this great country we call Australia, I've gone World Cup mad. Granted, I probably went a bit mad about the world game a few days prior to the Australia vs Japan game. I wonder if it was the fact that I played soccer in high school (albeit with a less-than-sterling performance). In any case, I've been one of those nutters who have been getting up at ungodly times of the night to watch the live telecasts of the Australian match - much to my brother's annoyance.
The game Australia vs Japan I was going for both sides, so when Japan scored that first goal, I shouted out "Nihon banzai!" This woke my dad, who didn't know what the hell was going on, and annoyed my brother. I similarly cheered when Australia scored their goals, screaming "YEAH!" at the top of my lungs and punching the air.
The game vs Brazil was obviously more tame, but I was still going "go go go!" whenever the Aussies were scoring and looked like they were going to shoot, or whining at the ref. Honestly, the ref was showing such obvious bias in that game.
The Australia vs Croatia match this morning ... it was just a glorious game. Hard fought on both sides, shots here and there (mostly down the Croatian end of the field), and the fact that it was at 4:30am just annoyed my brother - he told me later that he got woken up by me shout of triumph when Craig Moore scored the first goal, and then just as he was getting back to sleep, I noisily come up and brush my teeth at half-time. Then my cheers at Australia's scores later on annoyed him further on, to the point where he just gave up trying to sleep. The ref was just so stupid though - as many have complained, just missing things like a very obvious penalty, awarding three yellow cards before red-carding, although I have to admit, his bad reffing meant that Harry Kewell's equalising goal wasn't disallowed, so I suppose it's not all bad.
GO AUSSIE GO!!
I know I shouldn't whine, because my comrades have an exam every day starting Tuesday, their last one for the week being earlier today. I feel glad that I actually managed to pass Microbiology last year - I avoided a second 8am lesson and a Tuesday exam.
Wednesday - the day of my first exam and a whole field of laughs pre-exam. I wake up late, realising I had forgotten to properly set my alarm, bound out and am ready to go by 0830 hours - teeth brushed, showered, shaved, clean clothes, liquid breakfast. I arm the alarm and rush out of the house. I quickly start up the car, reverse it out onto the driveway, only to find that I hadn't realised that my mum was still in the house when I armed the alarm system. I drive out behind her car, toot the horn, and then she has to come out to the front to clear the driveway. She comes out, and feeling lazy, simply gives me the keys while she finishes her beauty treatment, demonstrating herself as one of those types of women who take forever to get ready. So, not much time left, I squeeze into her car, drive it out across the (busy) street, taking care not to cause accidents with (parents of) late Wilderness students, before quickly getting in and zooming off in my car after clearing the driveway. Great - I lose ten minutes. I am told later that my mum didn't realise that I had armed the alarm system, and it went off about ten minutes or so after I left, and she was left to explain to the security man that it was a misunderstanding.
Feeling that I could try to take a shortcut and avoid the traffic, I decide to try driving all the way up and around the Adelaide CBD, driving onto Greenhill Road to the Showgrounds for my exam. Unfortunately, many others had the same idea, resulting in twenty minutes of stop-and-go. Lots of fun.
I end up arriving ten minutes late and five minutes into reading time.
I feel that I studied better this time around (plus a better grasp of the course material and the SRB teacher's tendency to recycle half of last year's exam), because this time, I actually did the questions and knew how to do most of them, unlike last year. Looking back, I feel that somehow I've grown. Maybe, at least, I've developed better study skills.
The World Cup is on, and like many others in this great country we call Australia, I've gone World Cup mad. Granted, I probably went a bit mad about the world game a few days prior to the Australia vs Japan game. I wonder if it was the fact that I played soccer in high school (albeit with a less-than-sterling performance). In any case, I've been one of those nutters who have been getting up at ungodly times of the night to watch the live telecasts of the Australian match - much to my brother's annoyance.
The game Australia vs Japan I was going for both sides, so when Japan scored that first goal, I shouted out "Nihon banzai!" This woke my dad, who didn't know what the hell was going on, and annoyed my brother. I similarly cheered when Australia scored their goals, screaming "YEAH!" at the top of my lungs and punching the air.
The game vs Brazil was obviously more tame, but I was still going "go go go!" whenever the Aussies were scoring and looked like they were going to shoot, or whining at the ref. Honestly, the ref was showing such obvious bias in that game.
The Australia vs Croatia match this morning ... it was just a glorious game. Hard fought on both sides, shots here and there (mostly down the Croatian end of the field), and the fact that it was at 4:30am just annoyed my brother - he told me later that he got woken up by me shout of triumph when Craig Moore scored the first goal, and then just as he was getting back to sleep, I noisily come up and brush my teeth at half-time. Then my cheers at Australia's scores later on annoyed him further on, to the point where he just gave up trying to sleep. The ref was just so stupid though - as many have complained, just missing things like a very obvious penalty, awarding three yellow cards before red-carding, although I have to admit, his bad reffing meant that Harry Kewell's equalising goal wasn't disallowed, so I suppose it's not all bad.
GO AUSSIE GO!!
Sunday, June 11, 2006
No worst, there is none
Just who am I? What am I? I have been asking myself the same question over and over for the past couple of hours. What have I done that is of note?
The answer to the third defines the answer to the first two. What have I done? Nothing at all. I have not won any particularly prestigious awards, I don't excel in any particular area, nor am I successful with the ladies. So therefore, this in mind, what am I?
The only thing I can think of as I turn these questions over and over in my mind is nothing. Or trash. Whichever one you take. Trash sounds more interesting. My academic record is VERY mediocre, I'm nothing good to look at (testament to the fact that the majority of my friends are guys), I don't have money (in fact, as of this post, I am broke), nor am I physically fit. So what am I? Useless, worthless trash. Domineering parents steer my every move, invade my privacy, arbitrarily control almost every move I make. I can't break out of this house because that requires money, and I have none. I have no transport, so I can't escape this house. Almost everything that makes me happy my parents disapprove of, my friends are distant and either simply leave me alone, or seemingly forget about me until I remind them that I'm there. I don't blame them, since I've been doing the same thing - not talking to them through MSN or trying to arrange to see them more. I've grown apart from them, in some ways, I suppose, and now my social web (as well as my mental web) is cracking.
Escape is one of the only things I know I want to do, but am unable to, due to the fact I have no money, nor do I think that I have any friends who'd willingly let me crash at their place for a few weeks. The escape that comes from the slash across (or down, I can't remember which) the wrist seeems appealing, yet when I raise the knife to do it, I find my resolve falters. I'm so weak. I can't even escape that way. In the end, all I do is trace the knife up and down my wrist, leaving faint red lines along them and maybe a white one from the gentle press of the knife.
I look to the window, and think perhaps simply dashing my brains on the cement might be good. But no, I can't even bring myself to get up and even open the windowsill. My resolve is not iron, but brittle.
My so-called "mother" acts the victim, constantly moaning that she does all the housework herself, and that noone helps her. Why not ask my so-called "father" to help her? All he does is sit down and watch TV or tend to his business in one way or the other. Not like he does much aside from working outside the house to earn money. Oh wow, he works like a dog to earn money, pay the bills. Well, fuck you. Noone ever asked you to do the housework, it's something you do yourself. You are controlling, domineering, pontificating, hypocritical, materialistic and opinionated as fuck. On good days, you pass for tolerable. On bad days, you are nothing but a bitch with a axe to grind on my head.
To "father:" you are prejudiced, spiteful, patronising, so fucking high and mighty, and act as though your shit smells like fucking perfume. On good days you might pass for "nice person." Usually, you act as though you are fucking God, and that your word is gospel, and that you know everything there is to know about everything. Well, guess what. You know NOTHIHNG at all about your so-called "son." You have never ever supported him, never ever encouraged him, never ever turned up to give positive support. It's always "Why couldn't you do better? You MUST do better, or else I will do something bad to you!"
I ask myself again. What am I? What can I do best? What will I amount to? The answer to those three questions appears to be nothing. I can't even end my own existence, I'm so worthless.
Oblivion and fading away looks ever more enticing, but how ...
The answer to the third defines the answer to the first two. What have I done? Nothing at all. I have not won any particularly prestigious awards, I don't excel in any particular area, nor am I successful with the ladies. So therefore, this in mind, what am I?
The only thing I can think of as I turn these questions over and over in my mind is nothing. Or trash. Whichever one you take. Trash sounds more interesting. My academic record is VERY mediocre, I'm nothing good to look at (testament to the fact that the majority of my friends are guys), I don't have money (in fact, as of this post, I am broke), nor am I physically fit. So what am I? Useless, worthless trash. Domineering parents steer my every move, invade my privacy, arbitrarily control almost every move I make. I can't break out of this house because that requires money, and I have none. I have no transport, so I can't escape this house. Almost everything that makes me happy my parents disapprove of, my friends are distant and either simply leave me alone, or seemingly forget about me until I remind them that I'm there. I don't blame them, since I've been doing the same thing - not talking to them through MSN or trying to arrange to see them more. I've grown apart from them, in some ways, I suppose, and now my social web (as well as my mental web) is cracking.
Escape is one of the only things I know I want to do, but am unable to, due to the fact I have no money, nor do I think that I have any friends who'd willingly let me crash at their place for a few weeks. The escape that comes from the slash across (or down, I can't remember which) the wrist seeems appealing, yet when I raise the knife to do it, I find my resolve falters. I'm so weak. I can't even escape that way. In the end, all I do is trace the knife up and down my wrist, leaving faint red lines along them and maybe a white one from the gentle press of the knife.
I look to the window, and think perhaps simply dashing my brains on the cement might be good. But no, I can't even bring myself to get up and even open the windowsill. My resolve is not iron, but brittle.
My so-called "mother" acts the victim, constantly moaning that she does all the housework herself, and that noone helps her. Why not ask my so-called "father" to help her? All he does is sit down and watch TV or tend to his business in one way or the other. Not like he does much aside from working outside the house to earn money. Oh wow, he works like a dog to earn money, pay the bills. Well, fuck you. Noone ever asked you to do the housework, it's something you do yourself. You are controlling, domineering, pontificating, hypocritical, materialistic and opinionated as fuck. On good days, you pass for tolerable. On bad days, you are nothing but a bitch with a axe to grind on my head.
To "father:" you are prejudiced, spiteful, patronising, so fucking high and mighty, and act as though your shit smells like fucking perfume. On good days you might pass for "nice person." Usually, you act as though you are fucking God, and that your word is gospel, and that you know everything there is to know about everything. Well, guess what. You know NOTHIHNG at all about your so-called "son." You have never ever supported him, never ever encouraged him, never ever turned up to give positive support. It's always "Why couldn't you do better? You MUST do better, or else I will do something bad to you!"
I ask myself again. What am I? What can I do best? What will I amount to? The answer to those three questions appears to be nothing. I can't even end my own existence, I'm so worthless.
Oblivion and fading away looks ever more enticing, but how ...
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Biotech Careers Night
Went to a biotechnology careers night yesterday (see title - I feel stupid for saying the same thing twice in as many lines now -_- ). It was pretty interesting to see the kinds of work I might be doing for honours. I wasn't originally intending on doing honours, but after finding that biotechnology is very interesting in itself, the upside was that I ran into some of my friends from third year. It was great fun ^_^
I spent the first half hour or so (after walking through absolutely nasty weather) cruising the various stands, before sitting down for a presentation. It was interesting (when I could stay awake - keynote speeches and lectures share many things - including how boring it could get. I got woken up by the sound of a mobile - my immediate neighbour's).
The best part though, was meeting up and chatting with my 3rd year friends, since I don't see them much these days. There was my friend Matt, a white boy with some of the funniest eccentricities you'll see (say schmoo to him and he'll act like the Hulk trying to restrain his anger), and my other friend Jason - Malaysian and just plain random.
And then there was my other friend, who does the biochemistry stream. I'm going to call her Toujou, because well, that's who she looked like at one point. No, not General Hideki Tojo, wartime (WWII) prime minister of Japan, but Aya Tojo, the innocent, clumsy and attractive female lead from Ichigo 100%. I am serious. We were at exams, and my friend pointed her out to me. From behind, the two are almost indistinguishable. It also happens that day she was wearing her hair tied into two pigtails - like Tojo did sometimes.
That's what made my friend like her ^_^;;
Anyways, Tojo is a pretty big otaku (in some ways bigger than me - she is very fangirlish), and from what I could infer, had really taken to getting broadband (it's been about a year since she got it - I remember asking her about what plan she was on, because I'm on the same ISP), and has what I like to call the stun-gun effect. Every so often, when you talk to her about something, she's so hyper that she'll jump up and down on the spot. It's actually quite amusing to watch.
Funny enough, Tojo was one of the two girls I tried to ask out last year. She seems to take comfort in the fact now that I'm a bigger otaku than she is, but I dunno, I think maybe she's changed her opinion of me a little. I'm beginning to wonder whether it may be time for a second round.
I spent the first half hour or so (after walking through absolutely nasty weather) cruising the various stands, before sitting down for a presentation. It was interesting (when I could stay awake - keynote speeches and lectures share many things - including how boring it could get. I got woken up by the sound of a mobile - my immediate neighbour's).
The best part though, was meeting up and chatting with my 3rd year friends, since I don't see them much these days. There was my friend Matt, a white boy with some of the funniest eccentricities you'll see (say schmoo to him and he'll act like the Hulk trying to restrain his anger), and my other friend Jason - Malaysian and just plain random.
And then there was my other friend, who does the biochemistry stream. I'm going to call her Toujou, because well, that's who she looked like at one point. No, not General Hideki Tojo, wartime (WWII) prime minister of Japan, but Aya Tojo, the innocent, clumsy and attractive female lead from Ichigo 100%. I am serious. We were at exams, and my friend pointed her out to me. From behind, the two are almost indistinguishable. It also happens that day she was wearing her hair tied into two pigtails - like Tojo did sometimes.
That's what made my friend like her ^_^;;
Anyways, Tojo is a pretty big otaku (in some ways bigger than me - she is very fangirlish), and from what I could infer, had really taken to getting broadband (it's been about a year since she got it - I remember asking her about what plan she was on, because I'm on the same ISP), and has what I like to call the stun-gun effect. Every so often, when you talk to her about something, she's so hyper that she'll jump up and down on the spot. It's actually quite amusing to watch.
Funny enough, Tojo was one of the two girls I tried to ask out last year. She seems to take comfort in the fact now that I'm a bigger otaku than she is, but I dunno, I think maybe she's changed her opinion of me a little. I'm beginning to wonder whether it may be time for a second round.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
The straw that broke the camel's back
Yes, another parent rant.
I've been putting up with a lot of shit from my parents. I have been for years. Whenever they feel it is to my academic benefit, they simply confiscate things. In primary school, it was perhaps reasonable - as a kid, you obviously don't know much about restraint, and usually the most important thing on your mind is how to have fun. It was stupid, but was just something you learned to put up with. They kept up with this until now, punishing poor grades by taking away things I like to have fun with, and then holding onto them and letting me play only at select times of the year (namely holidays).
Now, as I continue to perform under their expectations, it has gotten worse. And I have continued to put up with more and more shit from them - sneaking into my room and taking my books, constantly violating a place I believe my own personal sanctuary. They come in, demand I clean it up because they think it's a mess, and an eyesore.
It may be a mess, dammit, but it's an organised mess. I know (or at least have a rough idea) of where all my stuff is, I have an appropriately cleared workspace on my desk, perfect for noting, reading, watching stuff on my PSP, putting my laptop in, and so forth.
It's only now that I've settled down enough that I can actually think about what happened and write about it.
My mum comes into my room, finds a mass of model sprues and such on my desk, and automatically assumes the worst - I've been assembling models instead of working for the past several hours and probably was going to do so for the next several hours. So up comes my dad, and starts to trash the room! He grabs models that I had been spent weeks, if not months, workign on, and simply lobs them into the box he kept! He reaches under my bed, and starts throwing their empty boxes at the door! All this time I'm standing here, powerless to do anything but watch as the angry powers-that-be destroy months of work that I had been pouring my soul into! And to think one of the first victims was something I'd just finished the night before! Even thikning about it now makes my blood boil ...
What gives them the right to charge into my room and take things that I have paid for, spent countless hours working on, simply because it's their house? What makes them think that I will just take all this lying down?
This establishes one thing - my parents hvae me by the balls (they've psychologically conditioned me against rebelling openly against them), and that I must move out as soon as I can. Although that probably won't be until the end of the year or until next year, but ... I will be out of this house within two years. I will become my own man, master of my own destiny!
If I choose to do pharmacy (not likely at this point in time), then I will find a job at a different pharmacy, not affiliated with my parents' one. If I don't, well that's that.
If I choose to be a biotechnologist, then I will be one!
If I choose to be a writer, then I will be one!
How much money you make in a job does not matter! It's whether you enjoy your work or not!
I've been putting up with a lot of shit from my parents. I have been for years. Whenever they feel it is to my academic benefit, they simply confiscate things. In primary school, it was perhaps reasonable - as a kid, you obviously don't know much about restraint, and usually the most important thing on your mind is how to have fun. It was stupid, but was just something you learned to put up with. They kept up with this until now, punishing poor grades by taking away things I like to have fun with, and then holding onto them and letting me play only at select times of the year (namely holidays).
Now, as I continue to perform under their expectations, it has gotten worse. And I have continued to put up with more and more shit from them - sneaking into my room and taking my books, constantly violating a place I believe my own personal sanctuary. They come in, demand I clean it up because they think it's a mess, and an eyesore.
It may be a mess, dammit, but it's an organised mess. I know (or at least have a rough idea) of where all my stuff is, I have an appropriately cleared workspace on my desk, perfect for noting, reading, watching stuff on my PSP, putting my laptop in, and so forth.
It's only now that I've settled down enough that I can actually think about what happened and write about it.
My mum comes into my room, finds a mass of model sprues and such on my desk, and automatically assumes the worst - I've been assembling models instead of working for the past several hours and probably was going to do so for the next several hours. So up comes my dad, and starts to trash the room! He grabs models that I had been spent weeks, if not months, workign on, and simply lobs them into the box he kept! He reaches under my bed, and starts throwing their empty boxes at the door! All this time I'm standing here, powerless to do anything but watch as the angry powers-that-be destroy months of work that I had been pouring my soul into! And to think one of the first victims was something I'd just finished the night before! Even thikning about it now makes my blood boil ...
What gives them the right to charge into my room and take things that I have paid for, spent countless hours working on, simply because it's their house? What makes them think that I will just take all this lying down?
This establishes one thing - my parents hvae me by the balls (they've psychologically conditioned me against rebelling openly against them), and that I must move out as soon as I can. Although that probably won't be until the end of the year or until next year, but ... I will be out of this house within two years. I will become my own man, master of my own destiny!
If I choose to do pharmacy (not likely at this point in time), then I will find a job at a different pharmacy, not affiliated with my parents' one. If I don't, well that's that.
If I choose to be a biotechnologist, then I will be one!
If I choose to be a writer, then I will be one!
How much money you make in a job does not matter! It's whether you enjoy your work or not!
Friday, May 19, 2006
Good week, bad week
What an ... interesting week it's been.
At the beginning of the week, I discover that I got a really bad mark for a recent test. Great, just great. What I needed. Still, there was some consolation in the fact that the lecturer later changed the maximum mark so that it was out of 20 instead of 22, which eased the pain somewhat.
Payday hits, and somehow, I spend almost all of my pay in roughly 5 days (damn you soaring petrol prices!) - now I have to tighten the belt for a while until payday hits again. Not to mention internet and phone bills come in ... ugh. It'll hurt less when the stuff I bought on eBay comes in. Expect another Nightbringer's stuff photoblog in future ^_^
Remarkably, on Tuesday, coming in too early for my liking (as you do if you do Biochemistry N/P 200 - 8am lecture, double ugh), I end up parking next to what looks like a crashed car. It looked really dodgy - the front was all smashed up, one of the doors was smashed open, there were children's seats in the back, empty. The glove compartment was open and had spilled its contents all over the front passenger seat, and the passenger side front door was wide open. Amazingly enough, it had been left unchanged when I returned to Victoria Drive to renew the parking on my car - everything had been virtually untouched. Most likely it had been the getaway car for some robbery committed the night before, but I hadn't heard anything about it. I check back on Wednesday and the car was gone.
Wednesday I come back from the gym (and my friend's place) and I end up losing my newly accessorised phone-strap. It was amazing how much energy I wasted looking for it. The rational part of my mind kept screaming "It's just a phone-strap! Deal with it!" but my emotional mind wouldn't let me stop until I found it. I looked everywhere that I had been, retracing my steps - the car, calling up my friend to see if it was at his place (twice), before finally discovering my phone-strap (and chibi Yakumo-chan, attached to said strap) lying in the front driveway. Meanwhile, nasty thoughts had run through my head:
What if I had dropped it on the footpath in front of my friend's place and some random dude had picked it up?
What if I hadn't found it and I found it the next morning after poor Yakumo-chan was now one with the cement driveway?
What if I got bit by a snake while searching through the high weeds in the middle of the driveway?
Thursday was something of a highlight. Feeling too lazy to waste a bus ticket trip for a one hour lecture, I instead round the Victoria Drive-Frome road area twice looking for parking before ending up parking next to the Botanic Gardens and walking up to the Hetzel building (the big new gray UniSA one on Frome road for those Adelaidians of you reading) for the lecture.
Surprise surprise (or not, since it was semi deliberate), I end up walking back down to my car with Forbidden Fruit (if you're reading this, you know who you are) and a friend of hers (I think I dawdled around a bit, hoping to catch her as she left the Hetzel building). I offered her a car ride, which she accepted, and down Frome Road we walk back to my car. We chat about various things, and somehow things turn to my girlfriend (more accurately, lack thereof).
FF: You don't have a girlfriend?
Me: No, I don't. I'd ask you, but you were taken. *Laughs*
At this point, FF looks at me for a second, seemingly astonished.
FF: That's ... direct.
And so goes the glorious confession that I had planned meticulously in my head goes up in flames. I had originally thought to wait until our last exam, and then tell her all I felt before disappearing for six months, and avoiding any awkwardness that we might have had to share for the other semester, while I'm out earning money to move out and for a trip to Japan. Surprisingly enough, there was no awkwardness, instead I continued to lament my lack of a girlfriend, while FF and her friend tried to dissuade me a little on getting a girlfriend by listing off the cons.
I drove them home, more comfortable than ever with them, before driving off to work, for some reason on an emotional high.
Maybe it's because that I've finally told her how I felt (sort of), or I got to spend more time with her outside of class and talk to her. In any case, one thing's for sure - For every Thursday until the end of lectures this semester, I'm driving to uni ^_^
At the beginning of the week, I discover that I got a really bad mark for a recent test. Great, just great. What I needed. Still, there was some consolation in the fact that the lecturer later changed the maximum mark so that it was out of 20 instead of 22, which eased the pain somewhat.
Payday hits, and somehow, I spend almost all of my pay in roughly 5 days (damn you soaring petrol prices!) - now I have to tighten the belt for a while until payday hits again. Not to mention internet and phone bills come in ... ugh. It'll hurt less when the stuff I bought on eBay comes in. Expect another Nightbringer's stuff photoblog in future ^_^
Remarkably, on Tuesday, coming in too early for my liking (as you do if you do Biochemistry N/P 200 - 8am lecture, double ugh), I end up parking next to what looks like a crashed car. It looked really dodgy - the front was all smashed up, one of the doors was smashed open, there were children's seats in the back, empty. The glove compartment was open and had spilled its contents all over the front passenger seat, and the passenger side front door was wide open. Amazingly enough, it had been left unchanged when I returned to Victoria Drive to renew the parking on my car - everything had been virtually untouched. Most likely it had been the getaway car for some robbery committed the night before, but I hadn't heard anything about it. I check back on Wednesday and the car was gone.
Wednesday I come back from the gym (and my friend's place) and I end up losing my newly accessorised phone-strap. It was amazing how much energy I wasted looking for it. The rational part of my mind kept screaming "It's just a phone-strap! Deal with it!" but my emotional mind wouldn't let me stop until I found it. I looked everywhere that I had been, retracing my steps - the car, calling up my friend to see if it was at his place (twice), before finally discovering my phone-strap (and chibi Yakumo-chan, attached to said strap) lying in the front driveway. Meanwhile, nasty thoughts had run through my head:
What if I had dropped it on the footpath in front of my friend's place and some random dude had picked it up?
What if I hadn't found it and I found it the next morning after poor Yakumo-chan was now one with the cement driveway?
What if I got bit by a snake while searching through the high weeds in the middle of the driveway?
Thursday was something of a highlight. Feeling too lazy to waste a bus ticket trip for a one hour lecture, I instead round the Victoria Drive-Frome road area twice looking for parking before ending up parking next to the Botanic Gardens and walking up to the Hetzel building (the big new gray UniSA one on Frome road for those Adelaidians of you reading) for the lecture.
Surprise surprise (or not, since it was semi deliberate), I end up walking back down to my car with Forbidden Fruit (if you're reading this, you know who you are) and a friend of hers (I think I dawdled around a bit, hoping to catch her as she left the Hetzel building). I offered her a car ride, which she accepted, and down Frome Road we walk back to my car. We chat about various things, and somehow things turn to my girlfriend (more accurately, lack thereof).
FF: You don't have a girlfriend?
Me: No, I don't. I'd ask you, but you were taken. *Laughs*
At this point, FF looks at me for a second, seemingly astonished.
FF: That's ... direct.
And so goes the glorious confession that I had planned meticulously in my head goes up in flames. I had originally thought to wait until our last exam, and then tell her all I felt before disappearing for six months, and avoiding any awkwardness that we might have had to share for the other semester, while I'm out earning money to move out and for a trip to Japan. Surprisingly enough, there was no awkwardness, instead I continued to lament my lack of a girlfriend, while FF and her friend tried to dissuade me a little on getting a girlfriend by listing off the cons.
I drove them home, more comfortable than ever with them, before driving off to work, for some reason on an emotional high.
Maybe it's because that I've finally told her how I felt (sort of), or I got to spend more time with her outside of class and talk to her. In any case, one thing's for sure - For every Thursday until the end of lectures this semester, I'm driving to uni ^_^
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