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Year View| Summary| Highlights| February 2006 (Month View)

Oct ‘05 | Nov ‘05 | Dec ‘05 | Jan ‘06 | Feb ‘06 Mar ‘06 | Apr ‘06 | May ‘06 | Jun ‘06 |

01.02.2006 – Wednesday 1 February – Bribie Island, Mosquitoes & Mines

Morning

• I caught a nastily early train up to Clint’s parent’s place, packed kayaks onto his parent’s car, and drove to Pumicestone Passage. From there we kayaked over to Bribie Island, against a strong wind, lathered ourselves in mosquito repellent, and pushed our way as fast as we could through scratchy mangrove scrub, infested with enough mosquitoes to stop any Japanese invasion. (Meanwhile, back home, the fridge man arrived, and condemned our fridge.) Once through the scrub, we walked along a deserted beach, thankfully mosquito free, and had a look at several abandoned military things—quite run down, and dangerously collapsing, but still quite impressive in their bombproof steel reinforced concrete selves sitting alone amongst the scrub. Fortunately, due to America’s amazing missile targeting technology, we managed to find the kayaks hidden amongst the mud, mangroves and mosquitoes, and paddled back to the mainland. Unfortunately, due to America’s amazing missile targeting technology, we paddled back to the wrong boat ramp; one Clint had set as a waypoint on a previous trip, meaning we had to paddle upstream against the tide, with no wind to help us.

Afternoon

• Clint gave me a grand tour of the area, seeing famed sites such as the “worm man”, “local school”, and “dead end road”. I then caught a train back to Brisbane, and went to sleep feeling suitably exercised, having kayaked around six kilometres and travelled a total of fifteen kilometres through water, mud, scrub and sand—perhaps not quite commando style, but fairly close.

02.02.2006 – Thursday 2 February – Beds, Beer & Joe

• I had a very filling lunch at Govinda’s, and headed, bloated, down to Joe’s for a chat and an afternoon beer. Clint dropped by around midnight, and we went for a walk, finding a queen sized bed, and carrying it several blocks back here. For those of you who haven’t carried queen sized beds several blocks, it is actually extremely difficult, and does not do nice things to your fingers. We carried the bed with the mattress on top most of the way, going ridiculously small distances before having to give our fingers a break, and finally figured out at the end that it was far easier to carry the mattress on our heads, and the bed by itself. I didn’t get to sleep until after two o’clock, which is sorrowfully late for me, now that I’m no longer the exciting nighttime uni student that I used to be.

Comment by Clint – Friday 3 February 2006, 12:07 PM

  All hail Clint, finder and carrier of things useful.

Comment by Ned – Friday 3 February 2006, 6:56 PM

  …and owner of a GPS with old waypoints…

Comment by io – Saturday 4 February 2006, 1:25 PM

  You two are nerds.

Comment by Mum – Saturday 4 February 2006, 8:41 PM

  Good heavens! What was a queen sized bed doing all by itself out on the streets? What a score!

03.02.2006 – Friday 3 February – Fridge, Trains & Striking Scum

Morning

• I got up early, expecting the fridge man around seven, although he didn’t turn up until somewhat later. He brought with him a new, large, second-hand fridge, which seems to get cold and everything that a fridge should. So now Bronwen and I have all our stuff crammed into a small fridge, while our flatmate has her few items in a huge, empty fridge.

Afternoon

• There is a 24-hour flash rail strike, so I decided today was a good day to go everywhere in Brisbane by public transport. I started by going to uni (where I dropped off the BITS subsidy form), then the city, then Indooroopilly, then Mount Ommaney, then back to the city, and then back here. Seeing as there are only a few trains being run randomly and manually by people who tell you they “cannot comment” on anything related to anything at all, and the rest of the transport system is in chaos trying to keep up with the demand left over by the lack of trains, getting anywhere was very slow and uncomfortable. This was helped by today being very hot. I think everyone who travels on trains should, for the next week, say “striking scum” every time they encounter a rail staff member, and Queensland Rail should sack the lot of them, refusing to reinstate them until they sign a waiver that they won’t strike without prior notice, and only when all other avenues of discussion have failed, in future. Additionally, everyone should email statesecretary@afule.org.au something short and sharp, to the tune of “I have no sympathy after your illegal strike”, and perhaps the scum will think twice before intentionally inconveniencing their customers as much as possible, next time.

Night

• It’s no wonder English is confusing. Is an undoer someone who doesn’t do, or someone who undoes? Is undoable something impossible, or something that can be undone? Such questions had me reading the Oxford dictionary for a while before bed, as well as walking around the block after midnight, pondering and enjoying the night.

Comment by Clint – Friday 3 February 2006, 8:00 PM

  Hilariously, Peter Beattie is spending a quarter of a million dollars of Queensland taxpayers' money fighting a piece of federal legislation that would have made this illegal strike nigh on impossible.
  
  Watch this space, kids.

Comment by Clint – Friday 3 February 2006, 8:04 PM

  I may as well make the obliguatory Joh and SEQEB parallel here, although I doubt Beattie has the balls to sack a single shop steward.

Comment by Ned – Friday 3 February 2006, 9:47 PM

  But you still won’t be able to find any banana or strawberry flavoured milk.

Comment by io – Saturday 4 February 2006, 1:19 PM

  When are you buying your next milkshake?

Comment by Ned – Saturday 4 February 2006, 6:18 PM

  Soon.

Comment by Mum – Saturday 4 February 2006, 8:46 PM

  On the subject of ridiculousness, people were talking today about a Courier Mail item re making paralysis ticks untouchable, i.e. putting them on the endangered species list, and potentially therefore, not allowed to be killed.

04.02.2006 – Saturday 4 February – Hot, Wet & Not Quite Criminal

Morning

• Bronwen was away, so I had a rather non-eventful morning, sleeping in and overheating, as it was ridiculously hot.

Afternoon

• I went to town and bought the world’s cheapest ironing board and iron.

Night

• Bronwen and I walked to the South Bank peeing pool for a swim. It was surprisingly full, considering the time was coming on midnight. On the way back, we walked past the local charity bin to see if there were any good gleanings. Unfortunately, the police turned up and were rather curious to know whom we be, and what be we doing. We had a quarter-hour long chat with them, over the legalities of taking things abandoned at, but not within, a charity bin. It seems it’s not actually illegal, but it could be contrary to all parties’ intentions, or in other words, there’s nothing the police are going to do if we take things, but they’re not going to condone it either.

05.02.2006 – Sunday 5 February – Sheets, Pizza & Lethal Weapon 4

Morning

• A quiet, relaxing, and rather typical Sunday morning occurred.

Afternoon

• We walked to Toowong, bought three queen bed sheet sets for an amazing $4 each, and one large can of mixed fruit for a less amazing 99¢. We then swapped over to the new queen-sized bed, bought $20 worth of pizza, and watched “Lethal Weapon 4”.

06.02.2006 – Monday 6 February – Noosa & King of the Mountain

• I caught a train up north, meeting Clint, and walking up Mount Cooroora, home of the insane “King of the Mountain” pub run. After this, we went to Noosa and wandered along the beaches, before missing the last train back to Brisbane, unsuccessfully chasing it in Clint’s car, and catching a rail-bus instead, getting home quite late. It was interesting to again see a few of the places I used to see when I lived in the area.

Comment by Mum – Friday 10 February 2006, 8:32 PM

  Pomona. Where Tony lived. We used to go there for Sunday night or evening drives. Remember? A crazy mountain to run up.

07.02.2006 – Tuesday 7 February – Mt Beerwah & Clint’s Car Theft

Day

• I found hundreds of slater looking bugs under my parsley pot, so I put it up on bricks. I then did some washing, hung it out, waited until it began to suddenly and heavily rain, ran back out, got wet, and rehung it in the garage. I then made my way into town and bought fourteen types of blue flower seeds, and planted them out the front.

Midnight

• Clint arrived. We walked up to the charity bin to discuss life, then half an hour later or so, drove up to Mt Beerwah. We left for our walk around 3 o’clock. There was supposed to be a moon, but due to thick cloud cover, it was pitch black. Clint climbed ahead, with a headlamp that randomly turned itself off, without any guarantee it would ever come back on—although with suitable banging, it always did. I followed behind, with my mobile phone in my mouth—not the brightest light, and probably not very good for my mouth or the phone, but it worked. We stopped frequently to discuss exciting and relevant topics, not wanting to get to the top hours before the sun came up. Once at the top we sat, slowly freezing, until the sun began to rise, and then climbed back down.

7am

• We found the rear quarter glass on one of Clint’s car doors cleanly removed, and his sunglasses and my bag missing. The car itself was nicely locked and didn’t seem unusual, apart from the missing quarter glass. Despite having intentionally removed all the valuables from my bag before leaving the car, it still had my keys, some clothes, and toiletries in it. Even more annoyingly, and somewhat stupidly, upon reflection I couldn’t guarantee that it didn’t also contain my address, as I had an envelope with a few jotted down notes I had written in my bag, and while the envelope itself wasn’t addressed to me, it may have been redirected via my parent’s, in which case they would have scribbled my address on it.

Comment by Jojo – Friday 10 February 2006, 10:25 AM

  oh. thats unlucky, i hope they are not university trained and thus unable to connect the keys and address and dump it after thier next fix.
  
  Damn thieves, they should cut off their hands like they use to....

Comment by Ned – Friday 10 February 2006, 6:55 PM

  It’s highly unlikely that my address was anywhere within my bag, but as I can’t guarantee it wasn’t, and as it’s not just me on the line—I live with other people—it seems better to be safe than sorry, which is unfortunate as changing the locks was more expensive than anything I lost.

Comment by Mum – Friday 10 February 2006, 8:41 PM

  Yes. Change the locks. Then rest easy. Jojo, a mob who lived in an Arab country had this poverty stricken fellow who house worked for them and one day stole something like a teaspoon, and this mob, thinking they were doing the right thing, dobbed this poor bugger in to the cops of the region. They cut his right hand off. For a teaspoon. This is a true story. The family were so distraught, but it was too late. This poor bugger got his right hand totally cut off, and that was that. Ever stolen a biscuit?

08.02.2006 – Wednesday 8 February – Beerwah Police, Chips & Shopping

Morning

• Clint and I drove to Beerwah police station, reported the break and enter, found perhaps the cheapest restaurant in Australia, in Nambour, ate half of the huge bowl of chips they gave us, missed the train back to Brisbane again, unsuccessfully chased it again, and again caught a rail bus, connecting to a train at Caboolture. The train ride wasn’t that pleasant, having had my spare clothes and toiletries stolen, I was covered in dust, dirt, chalk, blood, sweat and mud.

2:55pm

• I phoned Mum, who gave me the brand of the pack that was stolen, which I forwarded on to the police. While highly unlikely, if anyone does find my pack, I may now get it back.

Night

• I bought new essential toiletries.

Comment by DM – Thursday 9 February 2006, 11:21 PM

  Sounds to me that whoever "found" your pack won't be handing it in.

Comment by Ned – Friday 10 February 2006, 8:00 AM

  I assume you’re right, but he may have dumped it as soon as possible, and someone might find it and alert the police… but it’s pretty unlikely. Still, it doesn’t hurt to try.

Comment by Jojo – Friday 10 February 2006, 10:27 AM

  Why were you covered in blood? i can understand sweet sweat and mud, dust, dirt and chalk - but where is the blood coming from?

Comment by Ned – Friday 10 February 2006, 6:53 PM

  I wasn’t covered in blood. I was covered in a mixture of the aforementioned substances, some of which was blood. For what it’s worth, very little blood was present on the outside of me, and what little was there was because of some rather prickly bushes, which appeared to be life saving trees in the dark.

09.02.2006 – Thursday 9 February – Changing locks

• I changed the locks, on the off chance that my address was in my stolen pack, along with my keys, and the criminal would switch from motor vehicle break and enter to the far more serious house break and enter.

• I applied for a few telecommunications jobs.

Comment by Mum – Friday 10 February 2006, 8:45 PM

  Good

10.02.2006 – Friday 10 February – Joe & Jackie Chan

• I trained out to Joe’s to pick up some mail, buying a watering can (that leaks) and toothbrush holder on the way back. Bronwen went and saw a movie with a friend, which I, being homophobic, refused to go see, instead watching “Jackie Chan’s First Strike” here on DVD. Filmed in Australia, a lot in Brisbane, and dubbed from Chinese, it is really rather odd. It had scenes such as channel seven reporting Jackie Chan as a wanted criminal in Brisbane’s Chinatown, closely followed by a man eaten to death by what appeared to be sea urchins, shortly before the Russians turned up in submarines and helicopters. Keep in mind that this is after Jackie switches from working for the CIA to the KGB, after escaping on a snowboard in Czechoslovakia and waking up in Russia, and then catching a submarine to Australia, where he had his very own real live koala…

Comment by Mum – Monday 13 February 2006, 6:23 PM

  Go Jackie!

11.02.2006 – Saturday 11 February – Google Earth

• A walk to Toowong to return a DVD and do some shopping precluded Bronwen’s disappearance to a friend’s party, and my aimless wandering in search of iced coffee, and the meaning for it all. Shortly after midnight, we went for a walk to the South Bank peeing pool, decided we didn’t need to pee (or swim) when we got there, and instead bought a slurpy for greater health and lesser prosperity. Getting back from the peeing pool around twenty past two meant it was already a late night, but I then stayed up until twenty to four playing with Google Earth, making for a proper late night.

12.02.2006 – Sunday 12 February – Blade Trinity

• After a pleasant sleep-in to recover from last night’s lack of sleeping, we went for a walk around the city, bought a doormat, wandered past some of the restaurants around here, getting their takeaway menus, and finally watching “Blade Trinity”, before sleeping peacefully.

13.02.2006 – Monday 13 February – Plumbing & Takeaway Menus

Morning

• Plumber calls while I’m still in bed, and comes shortly after. Breaks one tap, digs hole in my garden, makes kitchen taps worse but recommends they be replaced, and fixes bathroom washbasin taps but makes them more difficult to turn off.

Afternoon

• I decide to build a photo-viewing web page for use on this computer. Bronwen comes home a bit early; we walk around some of the restaurants here getting takeaway menus. I get Cold Rock and feel sick but happy.

14.02.2006 – Tuesday 14 February – Nothing Exciting

• Worked on my local website. Went to town. Bought a grater.

Comment by Mum – Friday 24 February 2006, 7:03 PM

  Grate

15.02.2006 – Wednesday 15 February – Clint, Uni & Geekiness

• Clint arrived back in Brisbane and came around just before midday. We drove in to uni, where I put up some room ads and got a blank smartcard swipe-card. I did a bit more work on my local site, feeling geekily enthused with the puzzle solving it provided, making it bad people proof, using one-time photo URL’s and a per-click based authentication system.

16.02.2006 – Thursday 16 February – Syriana

• There was some rain last night. I finished off my local site. I headed into town in the afternoon, meeting Bronwen but not doing anything much. Clint came over later and we watched the late night screening of “Syriana” at South Bank, without driving the wrong way up any one-way roads.

17.02.2006 – Friday 17 February – More Nothing Exciting

• I slept in, heading into town to buy cow manure when I awoke, and avoiding the heat for the rest of the day. Two blokes had a look at our room in the afternoon, one Frenchman and one Chinese, along with a girlfriend. It turns out that cow manure, which should, in theory, be almost odourless, actually smells worryingly like blood and bone.

18.02.2006 – Saturday 18 February – April, Lissa, Chris, Someone, Kieran, Marcus, Brian, Tim, Clint & Rainworth

Morning

• Some people came around to look at the room. April, a female UQ psych student; Lissa, a UQ research assistant recently up from Melbourne; Chris, a male QUT science student; and another bloke—whose name I neglected to remember—who turned up with a mate a bit later, who wasn’t in any hurry to find a place as he was currently living with his parents.

Afternoon

• Kieran and Marcus came over while the people were looking around, and we went to Indooroopilly for lunch, meeting Brian and Tim there. They’ve shut down my green goo shop, which is the second time my favourite Indooroopilly eating shop has been closed. We went back to Kieran’s place and Clint came over.

Night

• Bronwen and I went for a walk to Rainworth to check out a fish and chip shop, followed by a walk to the charity bin, and bed.

19.02.2006 – Sunday 19 February – Grass Clippings, Room-Looking Women & Gaps

Morning

• The bloke next door kindly dropped off his lawn clippings, and I spent a hot half hour digging them into the garden, managing to hurt my back on the underneath of the stairs, blister my hand, and develop a fashionably dour outlook. Two girls came around to look at our room, one, a white Indian, who arrived nearly an hour early, catching me while I was semi-nude, having just de-sweated and removed the grass clippings from myself, and the other up from Lismore with her parents, and having to find a room by tonight.

11:30am

• Clint arrived, we drove to Maz’s, and the three of us then drove out to some gaps in the middle of nowhere, where there’s mountains, cows, horses and very little else, with the aid of an inverter, a laptop, a GPS, and some rather cool mapping and tracking software. This filled up the afternoon nicely, and I feel as though I’ve done something a little out of the ordinary.

20.02.2006 – Monday 20 February – More Potential Room Renting People

Morning

• I showed a British female masters student, a first year female health sciences student from Canberra, and a third year male economics student from Brisbane, our room, before heading into uni with Clint. I discussed options regarding fee payment and deferral with ITEE, EPSA and the honours coordinator, before heading to Toowong and then the city with Clint, where I bought some shirts and a bike helmet.

Afternoon

• I showed a girl from channel nine, a bloke doing an education diploma at UQ, and a Brazilian man, our room. I also called back some weirdo who, when they first called, had wanted to see the room but hadn’t wanted the address, and who now claimed it must be a wrong number and that they had no idea what I was talking about.

Night

• Clint came over to use the Internet, and we went for a walk via the charity bin to a shop that still sells ice cream after midnight.

21.02.2006 – Tuesday 21 February – BITS BBQ & Shopping

Morning

• I went to uni with Clint, attended an ITEE inauguration and orientation session, which was apparently a compulsory thing I was supposed to have attended when I first went to uni, and watched Clint give a short talk about BITS, before standing around the BITS BBQ for an hour or so. There was a huge line-up of people queuing for student ID cards, shuffling past the BBQ, but due to a sad lack of advertising, no one really knew what the BBQ was for, and so mostly only the usual geeks bought burgers.

Afternoon

• Clint, Scruff and I went shopping for the BITS Market Day BBQ tomorrow. We bought tons of bread, meat, lettuce, onion and soft drink, having to go to several supermarkets to find enough stock. It is mildly amusing buying two shopping trolleys full of bread and having the checkout chick ask if you’re buying it for any particular reason. They’re not known for their insightfulness.

Night

• Three girls came and looked at our room, all turning up at once. They were so similar that I had to tell them apart by the colours of their shirts, which was somewhat funny. Clint turned up a little later, covered in onions and having lost most of his wits, staying until half past midnight, at which point he and I collapsed into our respective beds.

22.02.2006 – Wednesday 22 February – UQ Market Day

Morning

• Clint came around fairly early, and I headed off with him to join in the panic. We rushed to Flash’s place, picked up disgusting amounts of chopped onions, tomatoes and lettuce, and dumped them at the BITS stall in the Great Court at uni. I then went for a wander around the various market day stalls, coming back to find that the BITS stall was a haven of quiet amongst the busy throngs. As nice as this solitude was, it wasn’t what BITS were aiming for, so Maz and I did our best to turn a horribly geeky normal-person-avoidance area into a normal-person-attracting stall, painting a few more signs, chatting to real live women and actually making eye contact with people. This seemed to work, and the stall became very busy as lunchtime drew nearer, with quite a few people joining BITS because of Maz’s evangelism, and his un-BITS-like lack of fear of the female of the species.

Afternoon

• Clint and I went for a walk after the exhausting BITS Market Day saga, ending up at Maz’s later in the night, and having a look at many of his American photos.

23.02.2006 – Thursday 23 February – Disposal Store Shopping

• Clint and I went disposal store shopping. We didn’t actually want to buy a disposal store, looking more for a backpack and ponchos for our upcoming walk through rainy mountains. Clint ended up with an American army poncho, while I ended up with a five-dollar glorified garbage bag poncho from BigW, along with a twenty-dollar Kmart backpack. A pox upon thieves who steal packs from secluded national parks. Two packets of two-minute noodles, some muesli bars, and lollies later, and we felt suitably prepared.

24.02.2006 – Friday 24 February – The Steamers

• Clint and I drove as near as we could get to Mount Steamer, and proceeded to walk the rest of the way. It was quite wet, our ponchos proving to be remarkably useful. Clint looks surprisingly like a ghoul in his. The weather’s annoying habit of clearing up only after we put our ponchos on was a bit of a pain, but having them sure beat walking wet. We spent a few hours walking along old, and at times unmarked, tracks, before heading up a steep incline and spending the evening weaving our way around the base of a cliff, with a reasonably deadly drop to our left. We managed to make it to the top just on nightfall, and set up camp surrounded by small dead trees, with 150-metre sheer cliffs on either side.

25.02.2006 – Saturday 25 February – Mount Steamer

• Clint and I woke around nine, heading off shortly later. We climbed up to the summit proper of Mount Steamer, and then headed down a ridge, which really wasn’t much more than a glorified mountainside to start with. We experienced such delights as an hour and a half of eight-foot high bracken, cleverly interlaced with raspberry bushes, hidden fallen logs and collapsed tree stumps. Fortunately for me, Clint went ahead so I could hear his curses when he fell over hidden logs, and managed to avoid most of them myself, although the raspberry was a little harder to avoid. An interesting trivia fact learnt: it is possible to see nearly one foot through bracken fern in normal daylight, but it is not possible to see raspberry bushes until they have entangled one in their nasty sharp barbs. Other highlights included pushing our way down a very steep hill through prickly seed laden scrub, having the rain bucket down as soon as we emerged from the forest, walking through ankle deep water, running out of drinking water and fantasising about lemonade, and getting a lift back to Clint’s car with a friendly local and finding the car still intact. All in all, it was a successful expedition, and the chips and milkshake we had on our way home were well worth the effort.

Night

• We drove home via a small windy road, getting back not long before midnight, and I quite enjoyed my shower and sleep, despite my stinging legs.

26.02.2006 – Sunday 26 February – Computer Markets & Sony Tropfest

Morning

• Clint, Kieran, Maz, Lisa and I went to the Computer Markets, which were rather geeky and not overly exciting, other than nearly dying in traffic on the way there and again on the way back.

2pm

• We showed a Hawaiian girl our room, before heading off to Sony Tropfest with Clint and Maz. It turned out that the short films were ridiculously bad, the seating in Suncorp Piazza horribly uncomfortable, and rain killed the satellite feed from Sydney, cutting short the ceremony, but it was still interesting. Clint, Maz and I then walked to Maz’s place, via 7-11 for a slurpee, and from there, I got a lift home.

27.02.2006 – Monday 27 February – Amanda’s

Day

• Two men, one a little younger than me, and the other in his forties, and one woman probably also a little younger than me, came to look at our room.

Night

• Amanda visited, and I had dinner and spent the night out at her place. It rained heavily.

28.02.2006 – Tuesday 28 February – Miracles & Centrelink

Day

• I showed two men and one woman our room, before heading off to Centrelink, only to find I had to call Queanbeyan, which I subsequently did, only to find out that it is a miracle and the impossible has occurred. After lunch at Indooroopilly with Kieran and Maz, another trip to Centrelink with Maz confirmed this miraculous occurrence. Maz and I then picked up Clint from uni, and headed to my place, where I awed Bronwen with my tales of miracles.

Night

• Bronwen and I showed an Indian girl our room. Clint and Maz walked to the city to take photos. Clint, Maz and I drove to Clint’s via KFC, Clint and I drove to a random servo somewhere for ice cream, having found both the Indooroopilly and Rosalie Cold Rock’s closed, and then onto my place where I went to sleep.

Oct ‘05 | Nov ‘05 | Dec ‘05 | Jan ‘06 | Feb ‘06 Mar ‘06 | Apr ‘06 | May ‘06 | Jun ‘06 |

Year View| Summary| Highlights| February 2006 (Month View)