October 2007 (Month View – Displaying Summary)

 

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01.01.2007 – Monday 1 January – The year of what?

• For the past few years, I have given each year a focus—last year was the year of work, when I got my first full-time job, the year before was the year of Bronwen. I’m not, however, sure what the focus of this year should be—I’m still with Bronwen, I’m still working, nothing much has really changed. I’m planning to do a few small trips this year, and go overseas, possibly next year, but they’re not really the focus of the year. I’ll have to think about it.

Dawn

• Bronwen, Mum and I sit with several thousand other people and watch the sunrise.

Night

• I attend the closing fire ceremony, followed by volunteering.

02.01.2007 – Tuesday 2 January – Back in Brisbane

Morning

• Mum, Bronwen and I got a lift from Woodford to Brisbane with two girls from Woodford. Coincidentally, one of them had lived with Marjorie’s friend Georgie, so knew our place.

03.01.2007 – Wednesday 3 January – Sick & Back to Work

• Off to work. Dinner with Mum and Bronwen at a Thai place at Rosalie in the evening. Feeling fairly sick—throat and neck glands are quite sore. I blame sleeping in the wet, then ingesting kilos of dust, at Woodford.

04.01.2007 – Thursday 4 January – Mum flies home

Morning

• Mum and I caught a train to the city, from where I headed in to work early, and Mum headed off to the airport on her way home.

05.01.2007 – Friday 5 January – Tulani

• I still feel terrible—no better, worse if anything. If I work today, I won’t be able to work tomorrow, so I called in sick.

2:30pm

• I met Tulani in the city. We caught a City Cat to UQ, had a short walk around uni, then headed to Elena’s work.

06.01.2007 – Saturday 6 January – Sick & Working

• I’m still nastily sick—my throat seems perhaps a little less sore, but my nose is running powerfully. I caught an early City Cat to work, and am now here, drinking lemon soft drink, having tried milk and found it to not be particularly soothing to the throat.

Evening

• I slept most of the evening. While I can’t say I enjoyed it, there is something that’s almost fun about lying, semi-delirious, somewhere on the border of thinking and dreaming.

07.01.2007 – Sunday 7 January – Blood Diamond

• I have had a lazy day, lying in bed for most of it. I think my ‘flu, or whatever it is, has mostly gone—now I just have the after-effects—runny nose, cough, and a head that hurts if I move it.

9:35pm

• Clint and I went and saw “Blood Diamond” at South Bank, which turned out to be a reasonable movie, albeit predictable and the same as all the others in its genre.

08.01.2007 – Monday 8 January – Delirious

Morning

• Clint and I moved some stuff from his place to our place and Maz’s place, as he’s moving out. We then grabbed lunch from a patisserie at Rosalie, before he drove me out to work—three to eleven at EB this week.

Night

• Clint drove me home from work, and I went to bed, feeling poorly—my throat was very sore again. I then slept fitfully for a few hours, finally waking up delirious. I kept thinking in circles, which was preventing me from sleeping, but even though I’d woken up—and even went for a walk around the house—I couldn’t stop myself from thinking in circles. I must have eventually got to sleep, but it was not a fun night.

09.01.2007 – Tuesday 9 January – Working Late

• On Sunday I had thought my ‘flu had gone, but last night was the worst night I’ve had from it, so now I’m not sure. Still, I don’t feel too bad now, and despite waking up thinking in circles at all hours of the night last night, I feel normally refreshed this morning.

Afternoon

• I missed the City Cat to work, arriving a little late. Today isn’t as bad as yesterday as I don’t feel as sick as yesterday. I even walk home, which takes about an hour, arriving back shortly after midnight.

10.01.2007 – Wednesday 10 January – Shopping

Morning

• Bronwen took the day off, and she and I went to the city, where I had lunch at Govinda’s. While I couldn’t eat the whole thing myself, it does seem as though my appetite is returning. I took back some shorts I had got for my birthday, which were a size too small, watched a performance of skill and daring in the Queen Street Mall, and then headed on to work.

13.01.2007 – Saturday 13 January – Pan’s Labyrinth

• Bronwen and I caught a bus into the city, went to the art gallery and an interesting display of religious art at QPAC, sat at South Bank for a while, and then caught a train to Indooroopilly, where we watched “Pan’s Labyrinth” at the Eldorado.

Evening

• Bronwen and I finally discussed our Tasmania trip dates, and I got out “Kill Bill 2”. I also found that my bike has apparently been stolen. I’m not sure when—I assume it was there when Clint and I dropped his stuff off, as I imagine I’d have noticed if it wasn’t. In fact, I’d hazard a guess that’s when it was taken—when the garage door was open.

19.01.2007 – Friday 19 January – Comet McNaught

Evening

• After an uneventful day at work, Maz and I drove to UQ’s new Green Bridge, where we met Raymond and watched Comet McNaught set shortly after the sun.

21.01.2007 – Sunday 21 January – Déjà Vu & Apocalypto

Afternoon

• Bronwen and I went and saw “Déjà Vu”, which, while being a typical, predictable Hollywood movie, was actually not too bad. We then caught the bus home, had a quick dinner, caught another bus back to South Bank, and watched “Apocalypto”—which was quite impressive, though powerfully violent.

22.01.2007 – Monday 22 January – Working & Bronwen

Afternoon

• It is extremely hot. I caught a bus to Toowong and had lunch with Maz, before catching the train to work. I’m working late shifts in the fishbowl this week.

23.01.2007 – Tuesday 23 January – Working

Afternoon

• I caught a bus to Toowong, where I had lunch with Maz, picked up a $25 Myer Voucher sent to me registered post that I got for using a Citibank transaction account, and caught a bus to work.

24.01.2007 – Wednesday 24 January – Hot

Morning

• It’s looking to be another very hot day.

25.01.2007 – Thursday 25 January – Hot & Cold

Morning

• It’s hot—very, very hot. Moving is not a thing that one does. When one does have to move, one can at least slide in one’s sweat, which saves having to move the legs. Such is Brisbane in the summer. Apparently it’s raining nicely up north, while using water will soon be a capital crime here. People won’t be robbing petrol stations; they’ll be mugging schoolchildren carrying water bottles. Speaking of schoolchildren, I’m hungry and should eat something so I don’t waste money buying something I didn’t really want when I get to work.

Midday

• Marjorie popped over to pick up a letter.

Night

• I decided to pop up the road to Woolworths for some corn and beans, just before a torrential downpour—complete with lightning, like the old days before the rain stopped. By a clever combination of hiding under eaves, carefully preplanning street crossings, and running, I managed to keep from getting totally soaked. Getting rather damp wouldn’t normally be too much of a problem on a hot night like tonight, but the next few hours, in the humidity controlled and very, very cold fishbowl were, well, very, very cold. I managed to survive by a combination of incessant eating (who would have thought Mexican chilli beans, corn, milk, Milo, cream, custard and muesli bars would be a lifesaving combination?) interspersed with more traditional survival methods, such as shivering, hand rubbing, and visiting the warmer areas of the building.

2am

• I should probably be sleeping, but not really feeling like going to bed. I’ll try soon. In geeky news, I added a dynamics processor to my sound card, which is currently normalizing my music as I play it—meaning I don’t have to keep adjusting the volume each time I play a new song, which was getting annoying. I’m surprised how well it works actually. I’ve now got two physical stereo channels out—one to my headphones and computer speakers, the other to the TV and speakers in the lounge room—and separate (software) outputs for music, DVD’s, and all the other random noises things make. This lets me flexibly mix what goes where—I can play a DVD to the TV while listening to something else at my computer, and I’ve got a six channel mixer, ten band equalizer, parametric equalizer, generic bass and treble booster and am separately routing DVD’s low frequency channel… all on hardware on the soundcard, without using any CPU on the computer. Geeky, but good—and now I really should get to bed.
  Oh, one other geeky thing I’ve done tonight—now that IE 7 is out, and has CSS support for “position: fixed”, I’ve fixed the top menu of most of my nedmartin.org site. I’ll test it tomorrow in IE 6, and convert the rest over if it works.

28.01.2007 – Sunday 28 January – The Blues Brothers

Evening

• Bronwen and I walked up to Woolworths with Maz.

Night

• I watched “The Blues Brothers” with Bronwen, as she hadn’t seen it.

02.02.2007 – Friday 2 February – Day Off

• I have the day off, due to working Sunday.

Afternoon

• Clint drove over, and we walked into the city. I picked up some forms from the RTA, bought a bath mat, and some wood glue. I also made the mistake of drinking a milk shake, followed by flavoured milk, then three small Hungry Jack’s post-mix Pink Fanta and Sprite drinks, and eating a Hungry Jack’s veggie burger. Not recommended—stick to hard drugs; they don’t do so much damage.

Night

• Bronwen and I had curry from the Indian place at Rosalie. My site has problems—I don’t seem to have permission to write files, and am not receiving email. The stars are shining.

03.02.2007 – Saturday 3 February – Motor Show & The Last King of Scotland

Morning

• Maz and I went to the Brisbane International Motor Show. I’m not particularly interested in cars, and am not planning to buy one at the moment, but it was still interesting to see. It was particularly interesting seeing the markets the particular manufacturers are aiming at.

Afternoon

• Maz and I went to Kieran’s, then to Umart, then I came back home. My site has problems—an inability to write to files—and my username and password aren’t working. They’ve been making some unannounced changes on the server and I’m not that happy. This has been happening since yesterday evening, and still isn’t fixed. Anger, flamethrowers, napalm.

Evening

• Fought my web server. It sucks.

Night

• Went and saw “The Last King of Scotland” with Clint, which affected me oddly. It’s not a bad movie, reasonably powerful in an emotional way. Normally I wouldn’t be affected by a movie, but something about it triggered my existing mood, and I ended up in a pensive mood all night. Similar to how some music you may have listened to a million times will suddenly take on a strong emotional significance, due to your existing mood.

Late

• I ended up having a late night.

04.02.2007 – Sunday 4 February – Working

• I’m working early shift at EB. I was supposed to get up at six o’clock, but when my alarm went off, I figured I’d die if I got out of bed, so I slept in until seven and caught a taxi.

Afternoon

• Just before leaving work, I got an SMS from Kaitlin to say she wasn’t moving in anymore—she spun some story about her car having broken down and costing her a lot to fix and so on. She had been here however, so I don’t believe her. No more trusting people—it’s a week’s rent up front to secure a room, bond and two weeks advance rent to get the keys. This is a pain as I’ve not been accepting anyone for the room as I was under the impression it had been taken.

Night

• I went for a walk with Clint and Bronwen to Cold Rock where we met Maz, then into city without Maz to put up rental posters on poles.

09.02.2007 – Friday 9 February – Operation Blitz

Morning

• Looking at Lucienne’s laptop. Got a rental arrears notice from the real estate. Paid rent and took over paying it from Bronwen.

Midday

• Went to work. Today was Operation Blitz, cleanup office. There was no oxygen, only cleaning chemicals.

Night

• I was planning to go draining with Maz and Bronwen. Instead, Clint dropped by, he and I walked to the IGA, where we met Maz. Maz and I then stayed up late talking about geeky things. Bronwen went to sleep. Maz and I walked to the city and had Hungry Jack’s burgers for dinner, getting back nastily close to four in the morning.

10.02.2007 – Saturday 10 February – Smokin’ Aces

10am

• Two Asian girls, along with a UQ driver, came and looked at the room, followed by another Asian girl, and then a vegetarian girl—who can read and write (some) Sanskrit. I am suitably impressed.

Midday

• Bronwen and I walked into the city, where we went to K2 to look at sandals. I dropped my Tasmanian library books back to library. It nearly rained on us on the walk home.

Night

• I caught a bus to city and watched “Smokin’ Aces”. It contained lots of unnecessary violence, had an unbelievable (in the bad sense) plot, and ending that really didn’t make sense for the character to have done—logically or emotionally—but it contained lots of action and I enjoyed it.

11.02.2007 – Sunday 11 February – More Potential Flatmates

Morning

• A girl and a couple came around to look at the room, and the second of the two girls planning to move in called to ask a few questions and to confirm that she does want the room.

Afternoon

• Bronwen, Kieran, Maz and I were going to get curry, but the Indian place was shut, so we got Cold Rock instead. Maz, Kieran and I then headed to Kieran’s place, where we spent the afternoon in the air-conditioning.

Evening

• Maz, Kieran, Bronwen and I had curry at the curry place near here. I then spent a while at Maz’s before coming home and remembering I had to finish fixing Lucienne’s laptop before I go to bed.

12.02.2007 – Monday 12 February – New Flatmates

Morning

• I’m sad, because I had a sad dream.

7am

• Lucienne came and picked up her laptop.

10am

• One of my new flatmates came and signed her lease, and we had a forty-five minute philosophical religious discussion. This could be interesting.

Midday

• It rained. Actual raindrops fell from the sky, like in the stories the old folk tell. Wow, now there’s lightning. It’s almost like proper weather. I’m working three to eleven at EB, which I proceeded to do.

14.02.2007 – Wednesday 14 February – Valentine’s Day

• The first flatmate is moving in today, and has been bringing her things over. I’m working as usual.

16.02.2007 – Friday 16 February – Working Sleepy

• I worked until eleven o’clock last night, and am supposed to be working from seven this morning. It was after midnight by the time I got home and got to bed, and I woke up around seven, making it a little difficult to get to work on time. I got ready as fast as possible, and caught a taxi. Fortunately, this turned up relatively quickly, and I got to work half an hour late. I then proceeded to have a relatively bad day, which I enjoyed, being nicely sleepy.

Evening

• Maz dropped by on his way back from work, and we walked to his place, where I stayed awhile. I walked home past Cold Rock, which was a bad mistake as I accidentally bought a small Super Shake—chocolate, natural cream and strawberry, though without my normal whipped cream on top.

17.02.2007 – Saturday 17 February – The Good Shepherd

Morning

• Went through some more Woodford photos, and got some ready to put on my site.

1pm

• Went to Indooroopilly to buy pots and cutlery, and for lunch with Maz and Bronwen. Dropped past Maz’s place on the way home, and am now very sleepy.

Night

• Went to a new café in valley for dinner, then to Indooroopilly to see “The Good Shepherd”. It’s not a bad movie. A little confusing though. Caught a train home sometime after midnight.

18.02.2007 – Sunday 18 February – Shopping

Morning

• It’s raining.

Afternoon

• Met Maz in the city and had lunch. Bought a few house things—a set of saucepans, some cutlery, and another dish drying rack.

19.02.2007 – Monday 19 February – Working

Morning

• Working seven to three in the fishbowl. No job satisfaction today. Not sure why. Seems to be an undercurrent of dissatisfaction amongst the people I’m working with at the moment. Perhaps it’s contagious.

20.02.2007 – Tuesday 20 February – Working

Morning

• No job satisfaction today either. Still unsure why. Technically, it’s been a normal day; I’m just not happy about it. David is quitting for, amongst other things, similar reasons.

Afternoon

• Bought a few house things—kettle, cordless phone and some power adaptors.

Night

• Had a nice dinner cooked by Nadini.

21.02.2007 – Wednesday 21 February – Bronwen Moves

Morning

• Working.

Evening

• Maz dropped by, followed shortly after by Bill, Benji, Bronwen, and her parents. We packed things into Bill and Bronwen’s Dad’s cars and a trailer, drove to Bronwen’s place, and had dinner at her new house. She’s now officially moved out, and a distinct chapter in my life has closed. It will be interesting to see what the future holds. I’m still living the uni-student lifestyle—living in cheap shared accommodation with no commitments, but at some point soon, this stage of my life is going to have to end, to make way for the next stage, which I’m guessing will be expensive. Bronwen has now moved to that stage. I still want to travel first, but to maintain a life without commitments is probably more difficult than committing. It’s a large commitment to remain uncommitted, ironically.

22.02.2007 – Thursday 22 February – Packing

• I have the day off, as I’m working Sunday. I spent the morning packing furniture with Bronwen, drove to her place, unpacked it, attended Garden City twice, and then got a lift home with Bronwen’s parents, who had turned up in the evening. Here is a total mess. I can barely fit in my room—and it’s a large room.

23.02.2007 – Friday 23 February – Rocky Balboa

• Work, as usual. I see “Rocky Balboa” in the evening, at Indooroopilly, with Clint. It’s as bad as expected—what little actually happens, is predictable. There’s no action, no drama, no emotion, and not much else. Still, as with most movies, it was fun to go. When I got home, dinner was served—a very nice curry, rice, dhal and fried bread. I’m very impressed—everything was made from scratch, even the bread. My flatmates are apparently good cooks, and both vegetarian.

Evening

• The charity bins at the train station are gone. It’s the end of an era.

24.02.2007 – Saturday 24 February – Glow Worms

Morning

• Today was my sleep-in day, where I recover from a week of early shifts. But instead, I walk to Tomato Brothers, where I meet Cam, and drive back here. Things are packed, and driven to Bronwen’s. Things are unpacked. Things are eaten. I get a lift home.

Evening

• Clint, Maz, and I drove to a glow-worm cave at Natural Bridge, via Bronwen’s place to pick her up. We were fortunate to arrive between organised tours, and got to have a look at an impressively glow-worm-lit cave with a waterfall flowing through it, shortly before hundreds of Asians arrived.

25.02.2007 – Sunday 25 February – Raining, Sunny, Sleepy, Work

Morning

• It’s a lovely day. A rain shower has just passed, and now the freshly cleaned sun is shining down on the newly washed earth. It’s a pleasingly brisk temperature—not too cold, but not yet too hot. It’s the perfect day not to be inside, in front of a pile of computer monitors. Unfortunately, I’m not yet independently wealthy, so can’t yet retire.
  I slept in this morning, missing any public transport options to work, so called a taxi—“Honk honk, we have your address recorded as blah, press one if you are ready for a taxi”. I pressed one. “Vroom, vroom. A taxi has been dispatched”. Fifty seconds later, there’s a business-class cab at the front door. Service like this would normally be great—had I been expecting it, and wearing clothes. As it turns out, I can get dressed in sixty five seconds, and the rest I can do in the cab. The air-conditioning even dried my feet before I had to put my socks on.

Work

• The bakery had both olive and pineapple pizza rolls. I have three types of chocolate—dark with macadamia, rum and raisin, and “Peppermint Affair—a layer of crisp peppermint crunches covered by a layer of smooth, cool peppermint crème”. Music is pumping. Screens are glowing. Not too much is breaking. Work is good, for the first time in a week.
  I didn’t get enough sleep any night last week, because I’m stupid and never go to bed early enough when I’m doing early shifts, and I didn’t get my expected sleep-in on Saturday—so I’m running on an average of around five and a half hours sleep a night, across the past week. It’s a liveable level, but means I’m probably running quite well right now—unnecessary parts of me are sleepy, but the vital parts seem to be functioning at peak efficiency. Either that, or the bits that tell me I’m going well, are actually sleeping and just left up “You’re going well” notices so I wouldn’t know they’re slacking off. I’m still a great fan of the theory that I’m naturally overwrought and need relaxing sleepiness to achieve my peak performance.

Evening

• I took my VoIP phone to Maz’s to test, as he’s been having issues with his.

26.02.2007 – Monday 26 February – Work Insanity

Morning

• I had a Chantilly Mille Feuille and milkshake for breakfast from Michel’s in the Myer Centre, which nearly killed me. I then bought a broom, and attempted to not move for the rest of the day, as it was ridiculously hot.

Afternoon

• I’m working three to eleven at EB, which was rather insane today. There’s usually only the two of us there, seeing as everything else is done remotely, but tonight for some reason many changes were being made, and many very sleepy people turned up. It felt like an all-nighter in the labs at uni, with similar levels of happy insanity.

Comment by anon – Sunday 27 May 2007, 1:17 PM

  I'm not surprised it nearly killed you. Alot of food and drink at the myer centre contains ghb!

27.02.2007 – Tuesday 27 February – Gloves

Morning

• I had a bit of a sleep in, though not enough after my late night last night. Once awake, I bought a new ADSL modem from Umart (Billion 7300 something or other), which I’ve now installed and seem to be using successfully, as per how it should be. I’ve also noticed that there are seventeen white gloves hanging on the clothesline. Not seventeen pairs, just seventeen gloves. Am I living with a disabled caterpillar? How peculiar.

Afternoon

• Two hot dogs and a few cups of juice later, and I’m feeling nearly ready to take on the world, provided it’s air-conditioned, and comes at me one at a time. Thus encouraged, I make my way to work, boldly sweating.

02.03.2007 – Friday 2 March – Packing

Morning

• I’m very, very sleepy after not sleeping much down at the Gold Coast.

Afternoon

• I had lunch with Maz.

Night

• Maz picked me up from work with Clint. The theory was that this would be much quicker than walking home, and as I didn’t finish work until near midnight, had had very little sleep up until now, and had to pack for my flight early tomorrow morning, I could get more urgently required sleep. In practice, however, we ended up driving all over the place, stopping at South Bank for a while, and it was approaching the wee hours of the morning by the time I got home and began packing. It was well and truly into the wee hours when I got to bed.

03.03.2007 – Saturday 3 March – Cairns, Tulani, & Silas

Morning

• I caught a Virgin Blue flight to Cairns. Tulani picked me up from the airport and we had breakfast at a coffee plantation near Mareeba.

Afternoon

• I had lunch at Tulani’s place, and went and saw “The Illusionist” with her at Cairns City Cinemas, which turned out to be an unexpectedly good movie, and an expectedly uncomfortable cinema.

Night

• I had a pleasant dinner at an Indian place with Tulani, before heading to Silas’s, where I spent the night.

04.03.2007 – Sunday 4 March – Silas, Mossman Gorge & Moonlit Pizza

Morning

• I spent a pleasant morning chatting to Silas. I’m far too slack keeping in touch with my friends.

Afternoon

• Silas and his girlfriend went for a walk somewhere. Tulani and I went to Mossman Gorge for a swim, followed by a walk along the Esplanade.

Night

• Tulani and I had a pizza dinner at Trinity Beach. It was quite scenic—sitting watching the moon rise over the ocean, silhouetted by palm trees—and was quite late when we left, returning me to Silas’s, where I again spent the night.

05.03.2007 – Monday 5 March – Cooktown

• Tulani drove me to General Aviation, from where I flew to Cooktown in a small eight-seater Cessna Titan. Dad and Mum picked me up from the airport, and I spent the day in town with them.

06.03.2007 – Tuesday 6 March – The Family Thing

• I spent the day with my parents in town, meeting my sister and Vince, and generally doing the “family thing”. It’s nice to be back, but I don’t think I could live here—not at this age anyway. It’s just too small.

07.03.2007 – Wednesday 7 March – Rossville

• I drove out to Rossville, dropping Dad at the Lion’s Den Hotel on the way, and headed out to Home Rule. I stopped at Craig and Mandi’s for a chat, before walking up to the Home Rule Falls. It was nice to be in the rainforest jungle again, where everything is wet and there’s a huge amount of spider web across the track, and subsequently my nose. On the way back, I stopped and had a chat to Ric, before heading up to Dad’s, where my old caravan is stored, filled with all my old junk. Sadly, the time has come to get rid of that junk, so I went through it all, collected a few things I didn’t want to leave behind, and left the rest there, to be disposed of as my parents see fit. It’s a little sad, but I haven’t needed any of this stuff in the past few years so I’m unlikely to ever need it.

08.03.2007 – Thursday 8 March – Rain

• It’s raining here in Cooktown. I pop down to the post office to lodge a few documents, and head up to the Top Pub to chat to the publican about a website she wants me to build. I then spend a quiet evening with my family.

09.03.2007 – Friday 9 March – Cairns & Kebabs

• I was very tired when I left Brisbane, from working late shifts combined with staying at the Gold Coast, and I haven’t had much sleep since, so I’m now spastically tired. I had a nice lunch with my family, drove out to the airport picking Sarah up from work, and flew to Cairns in a 32- or 36-seater Dash . We all waited at the aerodrome for quite a while, wondering why the hostess hadn’t called us out to the plane, only to find when we were out there, that they’d been waiting in the plane wondering why the ground staff hadn’t sent us out to the plane. All the seats on one side of the plane seemed to have been allocated to two people, and none of the seats on the other side.

Evening

• Tulani picked me up from the airport, and we bought kebabs for dinner at the Esplanade, and watched emergency crews recover someone who had fallen off the esplanade onto some mangrove and mud covered rocks.

10.03.2007 – Saturday 10 March – Shan & High Humidity

• I spent a quiet, but very hot and humid, morning with Tulani, before being dropped at Shan’s, where I spent the night. It’s absurdly hot and humid in Cairns. Moving—even thinking about moving—results in sweat.

11.03.2007 – Sunday 11 March – Mareeba Motocross

5:30am

• Shan, Kylie and I got up quite early and drove to Mareeba, where we attended a Motocross event. I bumped into Clayton, Jake, Amos and Justin, took many photos, got sunburnt, got wet when a thunderstorm blew across, and watched the carnage. One man broke his hip when his bike landed on top of him, and a few others were carried off on a stretcher. The rest just broke their bikes.

Evening

• Tulani picked me up from Shan’s, and we had dinner at a restaurant on the wharf.

12.03.2007 – Monday 12 March – Brisbane & Virgin Hilarity

• I spent most of the day with Tulani—Shan and Silas being at work—doing some shopping at Cairns Central and trying not to move too much because of the heat. She dropped me off at the airport in the afternoon, from where I caught a flight back to Brisbane.

4:30pm

• The flight back was interesting. The plane itself was blue, and had people’s names alphabetically printed all over the inside—Virgin Blue’s special fiftieth plane, apparently. Ironically, I’d had a conversation just prior to leaving about hostesses, and how Virgin’s hostesses are more attractive than Jetstar’s, only to find that this flight had three male hosts, one of whom was in his forties, and a single female hostess—and it was her first day.
  It doesn’t sound quite as funny after the event—you really had to be there—but it was the funniest flight I’ve ever been on. It began by the older host telling us that this was a special flight and a special crew, as he was flying with his wife—the young female hostess on her first day. He then said that the second male host was her ex-husband, and that the way she’d been looking at the third host, he was likely to be her next husband. At this, all the male hosts couldn’t stop laughing, preventing them from performing the safety announcements.
  A rough transcript of the normally comprehensive and boring pre-flight safety announcements was “There is a serious side to flying [pause for laughter]. We have life jackets, doesn’t [the female hostess] like them? [Points to the female hostess and breaks into uncontrollable laughter] And they have whistles [male host performs an impromptu ditty on his life-jacket whistle, followed by most of the aircraft laughing]. You can blow in here, and [a pause for more laughter], and there’s exits, if you see me running and screaming, exit after me”. Almost everyone in the plane was laughing, and while it was probably illegally brief, it was by far the best pre-flight safety announcement I’ve ever had.

6:25pm

• I arrived back in Brisbane, to find it wasn’t anywhere near as hot and humid as Cairns, and was in fact somewhat overcast. A slow train journey later, and I was home—very sleepy, somewhat traumatised, emotional, sentimental, stressed, and generally worn out, as per most relaxing family holidays.

13.03.2007 – Tuesday 13 March – Working

• Well, here I am, back at work. I’m not very happy—too tired I think. I’m working seven to three in the fishbowl, though Wade was there today for some reason, so I worked downstairs with everyone else.

14.03.2007 – Wednesday 14 March – Chez Tessa

• I’m much less sleepier now, despite having to get up before six to get to work on time. Maz printed a few photos for me today, which I’ll have to post off to my parents.

Night

• Maz and I caught a bus to Chez Tessa, and had our traditional uni dinners, just like old times.

15.03.2007 – Thursday 15 March – Cold Rock

Work

• I had a generic day at work, other than attending some new training sessions they’re putting on at the moment. They’re all very positive—we’re the best there is, apparently, making me one of the best of the best in my field, or so they’d have me believe. I suppose the figures speak for themselves, but I don’t feel like one of the best of the best right now.

Night

• I walked to Woolworths with Maz, via Cold Rock and a cookies and cream, vanilla and chocolate super shake with whipped cream on top. I’ve decided to add photos to my journal more frequently. It seems a little silly keeping a daily journal, and carrying my camera around with me, but not putting photos in with my journal—so I shall.

Late Night

• I should really be sleeping, but I have to get this Stone site up and running.

16.03.2007 – Friday 16 March – Sleepy

• I’m really quite sleepy, but nothing cashews and Milo can’t fix. Work went by in a delirious haze of sleep-induced efficiency. Evening came and Maz and I walked into the city, as a bus through the traffic on Coronation Drive would have been slower. I bought a slice from Michel’s and a veggie baguette from Hungry Jack’s, filling myself with their refillable post-mix, and feeling suitably sick.

17.03.2007 – Saturday 17 March – Breasts, Power Failures & The Computer Crocodile of Death

Morning

• So, like, there I was—just sitting there, you know, trying to get something done? And, like, there they all were, just watching, like hungry crocodiles; not helping, not doing their job—making fun of me. So, like, I just stared back, sullenly, defiantly—but not giving in, you know. You have to be strong; they’re waiting—they’re waiting for you to give in, and once you do, they will laugh. They will all laugh, and that’s the worst thing. But, in the end, the crocodile of death, he got me—he waited, and he won. You can’t win, when the crocodile of death comes. You can’t win, when the crocodile of death is in your computer.
  It all began when I noticed I had no volume on my primary Windows output. I reset the sound card, which BSOD the machine, as usual. Crocodiles one, our valiant hero, nil. To make matters worse, I was halfway through an interesting conversation, and my computer, being the dinosaur machine it is, takes a long time to do anything, particularly when there’s crocodiles around. I figured this could be related to hard drive failure due to a lot of disk related errors in the event log. Then Bronwen came over to get a copy of the photos I took of her new house, and I discovered that ACDSee wouldn’t work, no matter what. Crocodiles 2, our extremely intelligent and rather attractive hero, nil. Needless to say, had I not urgently needed to use ACDSee, it would have worked. Much crocodile hunting later, our now thoroughly disgusted hero left for work.

Evening

• I don’t mind working on the weekend. Working on the weekend isn’t too good—but the work itself I enjoy, because I’m by myself and in charge of a lot of expensive things. Tonight was interesting, as we had a series of brownouts, switching over to generator power several times. For some reason, every time the power failed and everything switched to panic mode, the immortal phrase “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” came to mind. I’d seek psychiatric evaluation, but I’m too sleepy.

Night

• It appears to be the patron saint of alcohol’s birthday. The tract of vomit between the city and the valley is covered in legged-breasts, closely followed by drunken staggerers. I’m reminded of when the Pied Piper de-ratted Hamelin.

18.03.2007 – Sunday 18 March – Photos & Hot Fuzz

Morning

• I slept in a little, but not heaps. I picked 59 photos, took a few pictures of my flatmates, Maz came over, and we went and printed them for 15¢ each at Harvey Norman’s. There’s thousands there—they won’t be ready until Tuesday, they reckon.

Evening

• Maz and I pulled Nandini’s laptop apart to see why it didn’t work. As it turns out, it’s a miracle it is working. It’s rusty, and everything is physically broken—actually snapped, cracked or missing. I then watched “Hot Fuzz” at South Bank. It’s quite entertaining and amusing, in a British-humour sort of way. They’ve installed a new water feature at South Bank, complete with a rather odd water-tipping thing. Due to our foolish water restrictions, all the water has been imported from outside the Brisbane catchment area, apparently.

19.03.2007 – Monday 19 March – Pop Unwell

Morning

• It turns out it wasn’t crocodiles. It was lzx32.sys. It’s apparently a root-kit known as Backdoor.Rustock.B, which no doubt tries to do bad things, and results in the computer dying. I’m not sure how it’s being installed, but turns out it’s easy enough to remove. I then put some photos on my the-i.org site, ordered a new torch, and caught a bus into the city. I tried to pick up Maz and my photos from Harvey Norman, but they’re not ready yet. I then bought a Canon 75–300mm f/4–, which must be about their second cheapest lens at a guess. It’s listed at $249, but with a $100 off deal, cost me $149. It’s not as crappy and plastic as I was expecting either.

Evening

• I’m the only one in the fishbowl tonight. Mina is sick. I got an email that Pop has been to the doctor and isn’t well, which, at his age, is not what one wants to hear.

20.03.2007 – Tuesday 20 March – New Torch

Morning

• It seems I still have lzx32.sys. I suppose I’ll have to figure out how to entirely remove it at some stage, but that sounds like a lot of effort. In other news, it’s hot and my torch, a Fenix L1D CE, has arrived. It’s a bit hard to say when it’s not dark, but it seems it’ll satisfy my peculiar torch craving for a while—it’s over twice as bright on its brightest setting as my current torch, and lasts over twice as long on its dimmest setting, which isn’t much dimmer than my current torch. In other words, it’s over twice as efficient. It’s amazing how far torches have come really—this will run on a single rechargeable AA battery for nearly twenty-four hours at a brightness that’s better than a mini-Maglite, or burn away phenomenally brightly for an hour and a half. It’s also got a strobe setting, which isn’t particularly useful but might be fun—and all in something half the size of a mini-Maglite.

Afternoon

• Bus to near Harvey Norman, up 2 escalators, collect Maz and my photos, down 3 escalators to the eatery, vanilla milkshake, punnet of potato bake and pumpkin pasta, punnet of dhal and curry, up one escalator, walk across road, catch bus to work. Work. Chocolate, milk, biscuits from Woolworths. Walk contemplatively home.

Night

• Quite humid out. Walking home results in sweat. Just cooling down now, before bed. Greatly impressed with new torch—very bright. Low setting could be a bit lower, but is better than my other Fenix. Funny how strongly attached to certain music memories—and their associated emotions—can be. Rammstein’s “Du Hast” reminds me of “Pulse FM”—a local Cooktown radio station—a few specific incidents there, and that period of my life in general. Almost all of Metallica’s earlier work reminds me of the numerous nights I spent out in the Mary Valley with Aaron, camping in a caravan in the corner of his parent’s small farm, getting up to crazy pyrotechnic things and running around the bush in the dark. I still think Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” is one of my favourite songs (along with a myriad other).

21.03.2007 – Wednesday 21 March – Uneventful

• I had a quiet morning, doing a bit of work on the Stone site, heading to Toowong for lunch with Maz, and heading to work from there. Work was uneventful, as was the walk home, and now I’m cooling down for bed.

24.03.2007 – Saturday 24 March – Coomera Gorge

• I got up at five o’clock, and was ready shortly after half past. Clint arrived a little after six, having already picked everyone else up, and we drove a couple of hours south. Our walk started easily enough—Clint, Maz, Eddie, Bronwen and I walking down a well-marked track, but we soon left this, bashing our way through the wait-a-while and stinging trees. Maz, Clint and I managed to get stung. As the sides of the creek we were approaching began to get steeper, it became increasingly difficult to claw our way through the prickles, so we made our way to the creek and began to walk up the gorge. Once we’d got used to the feel of walking in the water, it was actually quite refreshing—it sure beat the normally dry, hot and sweaty clamber up some death-defying rock.
  Roughly four hours of sliding up the creek on rocks later, and we arrived at the base of the falls, where we could see, far above us, the lookout easily attainable by an hours walk on a marked track. An icy swim later, and we headed back down the creek, spending another four or so hours pinching our feet between concealed rocks and trying not to fall in the water, destroying thousands of dollars of camera equipment. The hour or so walk back up the steep, but marked, track to the road was probably the hardest of all, on tired legs.
  All up, it was a very enjoyable walk—I much prefer rainforest to the drier “Australian” bush—and I managed to stay less injured than the rest, only getting two leeches, falling only a few times and not badly, and getting stung by one stinging tree. My jungle-skills from up north prevented me from becoming stuck in the wait-a-whiles that attacked everyone else, and even though very sleepy, I’m more used to navigating rocks.

Night

• Too exhausted to even consider making dinner, I had Thai from the nearest Thai place, and fell into bed.

25.03.2007 – Sunday 25 March – Relaxing

Morning

• I had a quiet morning. I’m a little achy, after my walk yesterday. Interestingly, my shoulders are bruised from my pack, which hasn’t happened to this extent before, even though I’ve carried it far further and when loaded far heavier.

Afternoon

• Feeling guilty for sitting inside all morning, despite being a bit sore, I caught a bus into the city with a view to take a few photos and get some lunch. Typically, as soon as I got to South Bank, it began to rain, though I managed to get a Hungry Jack’s Veggie Baguette and a bus home, without getting too wet.

Night

• Maz and I had curry from the Indian place near here for dinner.

28.03.2007 – Wednesday 28 March – Sleepier

Morning

• I woke up shortly after the city cat would have left, again having got around four and a half hours sleep, and again, had to catch a taxi to work. This is getting to be an expensive habit. I then worked, while other people sailed.

Evening

• I walked to Woolworths with Maz, where I bought his groceries, he having forgotten his wallet.

Night

• I decided that I must get to bed early tonight, so as to avoid abject conjunctive liver and kidney failure, or whatever it is that happens to people that work more than they sleep, but things happened, and when they had finally finished happening, Clint needed to do an emergency food grab from the IGA. By the time I got to bed, it was again after midnight.

29.03.2007 – Thursday 29 March – Sleepiest

Morning

• With minutes of sleep now valued higher than chocolate biscuits, I decided that the fifteen-minute walk to the city cat is an inefficient way to get to work, so caught a bus that’s only a minute from my door. I then proceeded to get lost, walking a long way in the right direction, only to find that it was a different right direction to the actual right direction. For some reason the city planners built the city pointing in the wrong direction here.

Lunch

• Today I learnt that it takes a little over three times longer to make extra cheesy spaghetti as hot as extra cheesy baked beans, in the especially angry microwave here at work.

Evening

• Fixed an annoying problem where IE displayed white “speckles” or seemingly random pixels in the opaque resulting image from the image-fade-in loading script I’m using on my journal.

Night

• I got to sleep a little after midnight, which was not what I should have done.

Comment by Maz – Monday 2 April 2007, 3:46 PM

  Make a new label for it that says "Radiation king" or something?

Comment by Ned – Monday 2 April 2007, 6:39 PM

  Exactly why it has that label I don’t know. Nearly everything is labelled. That’s what happens when you let people work all night and leave labellers lying around.

Comment by Maz – Thursday 5 April 2007, 11:23 AM

  Yeah. We have a few Dymo labellers here and have a similar problem but people don't have such a sense of humour. Or I just don't get the insider jokes.

30.03.2007 – Friday 30 March – Work, Complaining & Cold Rock

Night

• I dropped past Cold Rock on the way to Maz’s, before heading up to Café E, for a pasta dinner.

Comment by krait – Sunday 1 April 2007, 11:51 AM

  Hmm, your rss feed said come here to read the article because of the addition of photos, but I don't see any... Additionally, the length of the entry is actually *shorter* than the message in your feed redirecting me here ;)

Comment by Ned – Sunday 1 April 2007, 10:56 PM

  That is true. No photos here explicitly, but photos in various entries now, which, mostly due to needing cookies, can’t be put into RSS. Also, I enjoy the design of my sites, and RSS defeats the purpose of that.

Comment by Maz – Monday 2 April 2007, 3:45 PM

  RSS would only defeat the purpose if by reading it, people were not encouraged to visit the site for some reason or another. Perhaps you should have something that says [image removed] or something so people come here to see the images.
  Maybe having something that says more than "Went to cold rock" too? And as Krait has shown, the rss actually gets people to visit the site, (thus not defeating the purpose of design).

Comment by Ned – Monday 2 April 2007, 6:38 PM

  That is essentially what it does now–it basically says “image removed”. If nothing else, it’s an experiment, and, not to sound provocative, the reason today’s entry is so short is that the rest is hidden as it involves work. People with a login can read it.

31.03.2007 – Saturday 31 March – Crazy Gothish & Missing People

Morning

• I finally had a little bit of a sleep-in, though probably not as much as I should have. I got up sometime after nine o’clock, walked up to the real estate to deliver a request for maintenance form, and caught a bus into the city to post photos to Mum. The crazy Gothish seem to gather in the mall now that their park has been turned into a bus-tunnel-construction-zone.

Afternoon

• I wandered slowly home via the Botanical Gardens, where the SES were hunting for a missing person, and South Bank markets, where I couldn’t resist taking a photo of a “no photos” sign.

Night

• I have had a relaxing, albeit somewhat geeky, night chatting online and fighting the JavaScript that lets me add photos to my journal. It’s a horrible mess of child nodes nested in child nodes, and wasn’t handling the case where an acronym was contained within an image link, which was itself before text where another image link was to be added. It’s crying out for some amazingly clever recursive function, but I dislike JavaScript and hope to never have to look at it again. Now I should consider getting some sleep, so as to be recovered for next week.

01.04.2007 – Sunday 1 April – Zombies

Morning

• Ned had a pleasant sleep-in.

2pm

• Ned and Maz and caught a bus to South Bank, and walked back to the Roma Street Parklands, where many zombies were gathering for their annual walk, through the city, past Queen Street Mall, and on to the botanical gardens. The police were out, ostensibly to keep traffic out of the way of the zombies, but overall it was a well-organised collection of, well… zombies. Maz had one zombie bite his ear, and I had one throw a bottle at me, but I also took 551 photos—getting to well and truly test my new 75–300mm lens—and had a great time.

Night

• Ned dropped past Maz’s, managing to get to bed with enough time to sleep for nearly six hours. Dreams of zombies not permitted.

03.04.2007 – Tuesday 3 April – Pizza

Morning

• The day progressed. I worked. I had a look at the hole they’ve dug for the new Inner Northern Busway. The day continued progressing.

Evening

• I had a chat Nandini about life in general, to Roberto about upcoming Stone site changes, and an otherwise relaxing evening consuming pizza, it being cheap pizza Tuesday.

04.04.2007 – Wednesday 4 April – 300

6am

• I’m already up, and about to head to work. I am, naturally, sleepy, but I will have a reasonable day at work.

Evening

• I walk home from work, then on to Coles at Toowong via the unlit park with scary shadows and hidden tripping rocks, hunting for mythical “Pluravit” multivitamins—the best there are, according to a Choice study Clint dug up. My new Solid Internet account is finally enabled.

3am

• Going to the midnight premiere of “300” at Indooroopilly was probably not a good idea, but I had no choice. At about twelve to nine, Clint asked if I wanted to go see “Bra Boys” at ten to nine, which of course, I did. Unsurprisingly, however, once we got there it had already been running for some time; and of course, as we can never retreat, never submit, we bought tickets to a midnight premiere instead.
  It turned out to be quite busy, quite violent, and overall, quite good. There was a very disturbing start, with a good-looking girl sitting alone in the row in front of us, and clearly looking for someone. Clint and I couldn’t help wondering what fine specimen of manhood would come to claim this damsel, but the man—and I hesitate to use the word—that eventually eventuated, wasn’t, well, much at all—and to make matters worse, the instant the credits started, he left, leaving her there alone. However, this horrible injustice aside, the movie was good, I had a litre of chocolate milk and a block of peppermint dark chocolate, it started at midnight, and had slow-motion fight scenes and an oracle with nipples. What more could one want from the movies?

4am

• Time appears to have progressed. I need to be up in a little less than two hours, so shall fall into bed for a patent pending power nap.

Comment by Maz – Thursday 5 April 2007, 7:53 AM

  Yet Clint and yourself returned, single. Typical. :P

Comment by Ned – Thursday 5 April 2007, 8:25 AM

  I want an oracle with nipples. One that can predict Lotto results.

05.04.2007 – Thursday 5 April – Awake

5:20am

• Nandini and Georgia arrived home, waking me. Having had just over an hour’s sleep, headed off to work. I took chocolate, bought chocolate milk, and was given much more Easter chocolate.

Evening

• Had a sleep when I got home from work. Not sleeping is fun, but I have too many things to do, and need some semblance of normality to do them.

Night

• Popped around to Maz’s for a bit. Maz suggested writing something that’d send all the photos from my site to flickr. This wasn’t something I had planned to do, but as soon as he said it, I began thinking of ways to do it—which means I’m doomed, and have to stay up all night until I get it done.

4am

• Here’s hoping my evening nap gets me through, because this has not turned into an early night. Still, I’m suitably impressed with my flickr integration thing—it builds a queue of images, and slowly sends them through to flickr, complete with tags, titles and descriptions. It seems as though it might even work.

06.04.2007 – Friday 6 April – Rainbows & Relationships

Morning

• Woke up early but went back to bed, and managed to have a bit of a sleep in. Hurrah for a badly needed day off work.

3:30pm

• Eerily windy. Industrially framed rainbow, right over the city.

4:30pm

• Raining a little. It’s miraculous. Water is actually coming from the sky, as in times of old.

4:31pm

• That wasn’t very much rain.

Evening

• Booked flights to Perth for Dad.

Night

• Curry with Maz and Loki. Found out flickr only displays 200 most recent photos on free account, so all my effort writing my thing that sends all my photos to flickr was essentially useless.

1:30am

• Bed. Working tomorrow. Suspect I’ll be sleepy.

Comment by io – Sunday 8 April 2007, 6:11 AM

  Wow I saw that brief rainbow at that time too; although it wasn't so pretty from the UQ Tennis Courts. Unfortunately, msngirl couldn't see it through the trees and thought that I was trying to distract her when I said "Look rainbow!". Random fact: some rainbow website tells me that (horizon-horizon) rainbows aren't actually that common - makes sense cause you need sun to be low, and rain to be in front of sun, and sun to be beneath cloud.
  
  All that said, very nice pic - what settings did you use? I think the last time I tried to take a photo of a rainbow; I was about 12 and wasted a bit of film on the reel.

08.04.2007 – Sunday 8 April – Perth

Very Early

• I got up and caught a train to the airport, arriving late, bypassing the queue, and going straight to boarding. Qantas really is better. No waiting. No missing the flight.

8:20am

• A Boeing 767-300 (2-3-2) flew me to Perth, uneventfully. I was planning to sleep, but accidentally got engrossed in the movies—“The Holiday” and “The Pursuit of Happyness”—a silly romantic movie followed by a feel-good movie, which really wasn’t what I needed in my current sleep-deprived and emotionally traumatised state. The movies, as crappy as they were, passed the time well, and combined with what wasn’t a bad breakfast and the lack of hard sell, made flying Qantas much more pleasant than Jetstar or Virginblue.

11:40am

• I arrive in Perth, where I’m picked up by Lois. It’s quite nippy. For some reason, I always think Perth is roughly the same latitude as Brisbane, but of course, it’s more in line with Sydney, so much cooler. The lack of humidity is very nice too—no sweat. It seems Yellow Cabs and Black and White Taxis have lost out over here—they have Tri-Colour Cabs. It also seems that everyone here has personalised number plates, and those that don’t have random ones—there must be at least twenty different standard templates, including town- and sporting-team-specific plates. I meet Laurie and Jill at Lois’s place.

Evening

• Lois and I go to hospital to see Pop, who looks unexpectedly healthy to me, but is a bit vague. Once back at Lois’s, I meet Bryce, and we drive to the airport to pick up Dad, who only just made it due to his Cairns to Adelaide flight being delayed due to an aircraft swap.

09.04.2007 – Monday 9 April – Pop

Morning

• Lois, Dad and I go to see Pop. Jill and Laurie, and then Bryce, turn up shortly after. Shirley is already there.

Afternoon

• Lois, Dad, Jill, Laurie, and I spend the afternoon at King’s Park. The grass is much greener over this side of the country. Despite having perpetual water woes, they’ve stated that a non-green city wouldn’t be a “city for people”, so refuse to ban sprinkling, unlike the morons over here who are busily tearing up all the water fountains. I heartily support this attitude, as water and greenery is more important, if anything, when there’s a lack, though “Perth—a city for people” is perhaps one of the worst mottos ever.

Evening

• Lisa drops by Lois’s, on her way to see Pop.

10.04.2007 – Tuesday 10 April – Pop’s Surgery

6am

• Lois and Shirley go to see Pop. The hospital doesn’t want visitors at this time of day so no one else goes.

9am

• Pop has his operation.

Morning

• Laurie and I drive to Lisa’s, so I can check for email from work, and then on to Centro Galleria—the largest shopping centre in the Southern hemisphere when it was built. Lisa and one of her sons, along with Bryce, Dad, Laurie, Jill, and after a while, Lois, are now at Lois’s, nervously filling in time.

Afternoon

• I walked down to the Galleria, and caught a bus into Perth. They have the smart-card based tickets here that Brisbane has been trying to implement, and they seem to be working well. I wander around Perth, ending up at King’s Park, finding lots of steps, and an internet café, where I again check my email. I had forgotten how sandy Perth is—what they call “soil”, we’d call “sand”.

6pm

• I head back to Lois’s, where Lisa and her husband, along with their kids, are.

11.04.2007 – Wednesday 11 April – Brisbane

Morning

• Dad, Laurie and I drive to Fremantle, via Dad’s childhood house, for a bit of sightseeing, before dropping me at the airport.

1:55pm

• I fly to Adelaide on a Boeing 737-800 (3-3). It’s an uneventful flight. I have mushroom ravioli for dinner. The movie is again “The Pursuit of Happyness”, so I don’t watch that, watching instead some of the finalists from this year’s Sony Tropfest.

6:15pm

• I arrive in Adelaide, where, unlike Brisbane or Perth, they recommend not drinking water from the toilet bowl. At least they’re not pumping it back into the dams, as Brisbane is going to, I suppose.

7:15pm

• I emplane another Boeing 737-800, this time to Brisbane. Once again, it’s an uneventful flight, though this time I have a specially ordered Indian meal for dinner, complete with four pappadums.

10:05pm

• I deplane back in Brisbane, where it appears not much has changed. I catch a taxi home, and listen to the driver complain about how the school holidays are going to ruin him, along with the tolls, and the stupidity of the new cross-city tunnel they’re constructing.

3am

• I go to bed.

14.04.2007 – Saturday 14 April – Relaxing

Afternoon

• Had a fairly quiet evening at home, snoozing for a bit, dropping around Maz’s shortly after midnight to pick up some panorama software, and getting to bed shortly thereafter.

15.04.2007 – Sunday 15 April – Saucepans & Milkshakes

• Went shopping at Garden City. Bought three saucepans and a milkshake.

Night

• Had curry for dinner with Maz.

17.04.2007 – Tuesday 17 April – Pizza & A Large Balloon

Morning

• I woke up just a little after my bus left. Fortunately, I don’t believe in time. Unfortunately, work and the public transport system do. There was a large balloon frolicking. The connection is not immediately obvious.

Evening

• I visited Cold Rock and Maz, who made me a banana and chocolate super shake and is reinstalling Windows on his new server, respectively.

Night

• It being cheap pizza night, cheap pizza was had.

20.04.2007 – Friday 20 April – Working

• I worked. It wasn’t very exciting. The Holden Blimp is back. I thought it had been banned.

21.04.2007 – Saturday 21 April – Relaxing

Evening

• I’ve had a relaxing day, and now a pleasant curry dinner.

22.04.2007 – Sunday 22 April – Relaxing

• It’s been quite hot. I’ve had another pleasant, relaxing, day.

23.04.2007 – Monday 23 April – Work

• I worked late shift at EB. That pretty much sums up my day.

28.04.2007 – Saturday 28 April – Bronwen’s House Warming

Morning

• I had a quiet morning.

Night

• I attended Bronwen’s house warming, where a pleasant night was had.

29.04.2007 – Sunday 29 April – Curse of the Golden Flower

Evening

• I watched “Curse of the Golden Flower” at South Bank. It’s rather tragic. I even managed to find and photograph an extremely rare golden flower.

30.04.2007 – Monday 30 April – Working

Morning

• Here I am, working 7 to 3 at EB.

Night

• Maz and I engorged ourselves on Curry from the local curry place.

01.05.2007 – Tuesday 1 May – Ned’s House for Homeless Vegetarians

Night

• My place has been a little chaotic recently. A girlfriend of one of the girls needed a place to stay while finding another place, so she moved in for a few days, and is now in Melbourne for a week's holiday. One of the other girls was down in Port Macquarie doing modelling photo shoots, trying to become a model. The other was spending the weekend at a girlfriend's place, and I was out for the night. So, with no one home, I get a late night call from another girlfriend of one of the girls, who had recently moved into share accommodation with a guy she didn't know, and had her food drugged and needed to get out of her place immediately. I guided her over the phone to the hidden spare key, and now she's staying here until she can find another place. I suspect the girl in Melbourne will arrive back while this new girl is still here, as it is difficult to find rental accommodation at the moment. And they’re all vegetarian.
  If nothing else, it’s not boring.

02.05.2007 – Wednesday 2 May – Night

Morning

• My bus missed its connecting bus, by only a few moments. I caught a taxi, which then picked up another lady going in the opposite direction. She was very angry.

6:30pm

• I watched “Shooter” at South Bank. It wasn’t too bad, for a generic Hollywood action movie.

03.05.2007 – Thursday 3 May – Relaxing

• I had the day off due to working this coming Sunday. I went shopping. I bought new pillows.

Night

• Curry and Cold Rock with Maz, meeting Clint.

04.05.2007 – Friday 4 May – Reclining Thai Style

Morning

• Work. Only just made the bus. Only just missed the City Cat. Story of my life.

Night

• Dined at Tara Thai in the valley, discovering their upstairs reclining area.

05.05.2007 – Saturday 5 May – Flickr & Buddha’s Birthday

Morning

• I walked down to Coronation drive, meeting two Flickr people taking photos of the Brisbane sunrise. I then caught buses that weren’t supposed to come when they did, to the West End markets, again meeting Flickr people (and a lizard), and walking to South Bank with them, taking photos along the way, and finishing with lunch.

Evening

• After a housemate-cooked dinner, I headed back to South Bank to watch the fireworks.

06.05.2007 – Sunday 6 May – Working

Afternoon

• Here I am, working at EB all by myself, on a Sunday. Fortunately, I brought my camera.

07.05.2007 – Monday 7 May – Working

Morning

• I attempted to see Spiderman 3, even managing to arrive on time, only to find that it’s booked out.

3pm

• Working in the fishbowl.

Night

• It has rained a little bit.

09.05.2007 – Wednesday 9 May – Spiderman 3

• I saw Spiderman 3. It’s a dismally poor movie, as expected, but for five dollars, it was worth it. Now, work.

12.05.2007 – Saturday 12 May – Dawn on Mount Coot-Tha

4:45am

• I didn’t get home from work until after midnight, and didn’t get to bed until after one o’clock, so getting up horribly early wasn’t much fun. However, up I did, and off to Greg’s place I was, then to the city to pick up Shaun and a friend of Greg’s who is down from PNG, and up Mount Coot-Tha to watch and photograph the surprisingly cold dawn and sunrise over Brisbane.

Morning

• Greg picked up Nikhi and three more friends down from PNG, and all eight of us drove to the West End Markets, where I had a nice breakfast, and bumped into Bronwen.

Evening

• I had a relaxing evening, snoozing for a while.

13.05.2007 – Sunday 13 May – Carindale Billycart Races

Morning

• I attended the Carindale Billycart Races. It wasn’t at all what I expected. They’d billed it as “Brisbane’s Biggest Billycart Races”, which is probably true. I’d naively coupled this with Cooktown’s June Weekend billycart races, and figured it’d be bigger, harder, more dangerous, more daring, more Crusty Demons of Dirt style. I mean, people used to travel up from down south with fibre-carbon carts, and Cooktown hasn’t been able to get public liability insurance for theirs, ever since a few blokes entered a beer-powered power pole as their billycart. An entire power pole—the things that hold up the powerlines—with car wheels. It must have weighed half a tonne. The hill they race down isn’t small, and it’s lined with people, and halfway down they got up the wobbles, nearly wiping out several hundred people, before thundering through the hay bales at the end, narrowly missing the police car, on down the street, through the mangrove swamp, and into the crocodile infested river.
  The Carindale Billycart Races were more of a subdued family affair—the average age of the carters was somewhere around seven. It was, however, absolutely hilarious—and everything was free. I went to buy chocolate milk, and was given it. A man was walking around with a freshly squeezed orange juice dispenser, giving out free drinks. An ice cream man was wandering around offering people ice creams. I was impressed. There was also a huge orange walking around, who later managed to crash his cart. The funniest part was when they loaded a turtle into a cart, and raced him. He managed to flip onto his back, as turtles do, and couldn’t get up. Then they raced a ten pin, versus Crazy John. The ten pin’s neck bent backwards in the most hilarious way, and as he couldn’t see a thing, he managed to skittle himself quite well—also unable to get up without help. It really was funny. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting, but the hilarity made up for that. They even had cheerleaders.

Evening

• I met Maz in the city, and we wandered around, eventually ending up back at Rosalie, where we had curry from the fantastic Indian place, along with Bronwen.

14.05.2007 – Monday 14 May – Chez Tessa

Morning

• Working, seven to three, supposed to be on level five, but in the fishbowl today.

Evening

• Maz and I are both curried out, and at a loss where to eat, when it occurred to us that we hadn’t been to Chez Tessa in a while. A short bus trip later and we were both eating our standard uni fare—cheap, probably nasty, but filling. Catching the bus back seemed a little too easy—and it was actually waiting to depart when we arrived at the bus stop, making it far too easy, so we walked to the new “UQ Lakes” bus stop and caught a bus into the city via the new Eleanor Schonell bridge, the first time I have.

16.05.2007 – Wednesday 16 May – Feelings, Thoughts, & Water Fountains

• The problem with my journal is that it’s boring. The idea was to keep an accurate record of my life, and in that respect, I think I’ve done a fairly good job. Unfortunately, day-to-day life—at least mine—is not actually very interesting, and when it is, I’m often not at liberty to publish publicly the juicy titbits, making it even more boring than it otherwise would be. I actually enjoy writing, and enjoy playing with the English language for some unknown reason, but no longer get the free time needed to build up the motivation needed to feel like sitting down and writing. It’s not really that I don’t get free time—in a purely mathematical sense, I probably get more than the average full-time worker—it’s more that the free time I do have isn’t mentally free. Even if I don’t have something I’m busy doing, there’s something I should be doing, and if I’m not doing that, it’s because there’s some reason I can’t, and for that same reason, I don’t feel that I can sit and relax, building up the required laxness needed to enjoy writing. For example, when I get home from work at the moment, I should be designing a website that I’ve put off for far too long, but I’ve been working all day in front of a computer, so don’t feel like it, but because I can’t do the site design, I’d feel guilty doing something else, so I don’t. Instead, I sit in front of a computer, and design my own site. It’s not very logical. Probably, I’m just tired.
  Anyway, the point I was meaning to get to before I went off-track, was that my journal, as a day-to-day factual record of the physical events that occurred in my proximity, is rather boring, and I’m wondering if I should branch out into recording more than mere physical actualities. After all, our physical state is meaningless without the associated mental state—perhaps what I thought today is just as relevant as what happened—not that either are actually relevant to anything other than, perhaps, me. So, before I ramble off-track again, let’s try this for a few days and see how it goes. And, in the silly way I find playing with English interesting—I’ve already begun.

Morning

• Yesterday morning I slept in. This morning I intentionally got up later than I usually would, and should have been just able to get to work on time—perhaps five to ten minutes late—had the bus not failed to stop at work. In what’s becoming frequently more common now that I’ve decided to buy a car, I’m finding myself frustrated at the seeming ineptitude of the public transport system here—buses anyway. I think they should advertise some method of complaining, so if nothing else, they can gauge public opinion, or hopefully identify and attempt to correct the problems plaguing buses, and the reasons why people don’t like them. They just fail to turn up, or they’re late, or they go somewhere they shouldn’t, or fail to stop—to put it simply, they’re unreliable and annoying. I ended up half an hour late at work, though five minutes of that was picking up my morning milkshake.

Night

• Maz walked here, and we caught a bus into the city. He had KFC; I had a veggie baguette from Hungry Jack’s. I currently fail to see any reason to cook. I can quite easily afford to eat out, all the time, and despite what Mum would no doubt think, it’s not necessarily any less healthy than home-cooked food. A curry meal from the local Indian restaurant sets me back about sixteen dollars, and provides enough leftovers for another meal. That’s eight dollars for a chef-cooked dinner. There’s no point in me competing with that.
  After dinner, we walked to South Bank, to take photos of the new water feature they’ve placed there. It’s pretty crazy, and I’m actually quite impressed now I’ve spent some time examining it. There’s these water-jets with lights set under them. It’s a bit hard to explain. They shoot a perfectly formed arched jet of water, and the light shines through them, bending with them, as it would in an optic fibre. The jets pulsate, seemingly randomly, the light tracing through them. Standing close, you can see small, perfectly formed detached “chunks” of the arc flying through the air, as it turns on and off, and the light bending through the water turns them into something akin to a light sabre. Placing a hand into the arc causes the light to break out. Really quite impressive.
  Then, fifteen minutes or so into photographing things, it suddenly, and without warning, began to rain—and thunder, and lightning. Then it announced that we should stand clear, as the doors were closing. We began to run to shelter, fearing we’d been caught in some apocalyptic flash-storm, when we realised this is a feature of the water feature—apparently it’s artistic. It randomly begins to rain, while speakers play thunder and lights fake lightning, then random sounds—I think picked from around Brisbane—play, the lights dim, mist effuses from unusual places, the fountains stop, and the strange arts-grant noises stop, and everything starts up again. It’s realistic enough to fool anyone into thinking it’s beginning to storm. Having it suddenly start raining on what must be around five grand worth of camera equipment isn’t particularly great though.
  Funnily enough, what made me think of trying to write a little more than my usual boring “had a milkshake”, was telling a story to Maz on the way back, and having him tell me I should write it in my journal, rather than what I’d done. It was the fake rain—it made me think of a post apocalyptic science fiction scenario—one that’s becoming scarily feasible—where it simply doesn’t rain, and people have set up places where they can go and show their children what it used to be like in their day. “Back when I was a youngster, water used to fall from the sky just like this, and it would thunder, just like that”, and they’d all stand in the rain, in awe, and then they’d go home and drink their recycled, chemically enhanced, government approved water.
  To contrast with my bus experience this morning, there was a bus just about to depart as soon as we got to the Cultural centre bus stop, getting us home in good time. I walked to Maz’s with him, buying the obligatory Cold Rock (vanilla, banana and coconut, seeing as you asked), feeling suitably sick after, and am now back here, in theory going to bed, so I can get up at the proper time tomorrow, and get to work without being late. In reality, however, I’ve just read Clint’s latest journal entry, which was quite interesting without mentioning anything at all that he’s done or doing, and that’s enthused me to write. So, if I’m late tomorrow, I’ll blame Maz and Clint.

12:30am

• Turns out I’ll have to blame Loki if I’m late tomorrow. I’ve just finished knocking up a quick website layout template for him, and it’s somehow become half past midnight.

Comment by Mum – Friday 18 May 2007, 5:06 PM

  Anyone ever seen an old movie called "Soylen Green" or perhaps "Soylent Green"? With Charleton Heston?? Was a futuristic movie, wherein everything was kaput and when older folks or anyone at all, wanted to "out" they would be taken to this place and as they were dying or being deaded, they would get a glimpse of this lovely planet earth with waterfalls, green grass, birds, etc. which did not exist (in the movie) and then they were "out". This movie scared me half to death. But I did not know about God then.

Comment by Ned – Friday 18 May 2007, 5:17 PM

  I have seen that.

Comment by anon – Tuesday 26 June 2007, 7:01 PM

  I hope it wasn't kfc from the myer centre, because the chicken there contains ghb!

17.05.2007 – Thursday 17 May – Yoghurt & Capsicum Dip

Morning

• Welcome to Ned’s daily living tip #428: “How to ruin your day before 9 AM”. First, begin by eating yoghurt. Throughout the centuries, man has treasured fresh milk, along with women, beer and football. All was good, the sun was shining, cows expressed, and your favourite team was winning. Enter microbes, viruses and bacteria, and all of a sudden, you have the bubonic plague, smallpox, Ebola, and yoghurt. You also develop heartburn, a sore tongue, and an unquenchable thirst.
  Second, open your bag to find your jumper, because it’s extremely cold and dry in the fishbowl, and discover that your only cure from yoghurt poisoning, your corn chips and spicy capsicum dip, are in your bag—rather than in their containers. Not only are they in your bag, but they have taken the liberty of trying on your jumper, which now has a pleasant capsicum smell, somewhat akin to baby’s vomit. This will mix with your internal yoghurt wars in a pleasing and satisfying way, happily ruining your day, before 9 AM.

10am

• To correct aforementioned problems, apply large plate of fresh cream filled lamington.

Midday

• Note that the abovementioned solution does not work. In fact, I strongly discourage the use of fresh cream lamingtons, as their medicinal properties are, at best, doubtful. I am now going to try green curry Thai vegetables and rice.

Afternoon

• The Thai curry cheered me significantly, but not enough for my happy mood to survive our gloomy weekly meeting. I’m now having a bad day at work.

Evening

• I headed to Indooroopilly with Maz, meeting Clint, Kieran, and his new cat; and enjoying my Hungry Jack’s veggie baguette dinner.

Night

• Nandini’s boyfriend stayed over, along with the four other girls. I had a multivitamin before bed, despite the warning not to as they’d keep me awake. I wasn’t happy about work. I then went to bed earlier than usual. One or a combination of these meant I had trouble getting to sleep—tossing and turning, fighting the sheets, and failing to set myself into a nice contemplative daydream. I usually really enjoy going to bed, as it gives me time to think, time to design and plan out all the crazy, and mostly unrealistic, things I’ve been mentally working on ever since I can remember. But tonight, I couldn’t fix on any one idea—they refused to gel.

Comment by io – Thursday 17 May 2007, 1:10 PM

  Welcome to io's daily living tip #4228: “How to exacerbate your stomach's flipping after not-enough-sleep”. First, begin by reading this above entry.

Comment by Ned – Thursday 17 May 2007, 5:37 PM

  What comes next?

Comment by Mum – Friday 18 May 2007, 5:22 PM

  Mum comes next! Yoghurt, spicey whatever, followed by lamingtons? Lamingtons? LAMINGTONS? Holy mackerel. Who in their right brain would even poke a stick at a lamington? The yoghurt would have been curdled by the spicey whatever, the corn chips would have been nothing which is what they taste like, but the lamingtons.....well.