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Year View| Summary| Highlights| April 2007 (Month View)

Dec ‘06 | Jan ‘07 | Feb ‘07 | Mar ‘07 | Apr ‘07 May ‘07 | Jun ‘07 | Jul ‘07 | Aug ‘07 |

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.

02.04.2007 – Monday 2 April – Tsunamis, Management, and is “is” is?

Morning

• This morning began early—I’m working seven to three in the fishbowl. It also began a little worryingly—I received a call from Mum—“Hello, we’ve been advised to evacuate, a Tsunami may hit within the hour, got to go”. I phoned Tulani and Silas, finding out that non-essential staff had been sent home from Cairns Base (or at least some on the lower floors, apparently a Godzilla sized tsunami wasn’t expected), leaving the rest to drown, or save those that had, depending how strong the windows there are. As it turned out, nothing happened—the ocean rose about a foot, causing discomfort to a seagull and confusing the seaweed.

Evening

• I’ve done almost entirely nothing. After my stressful, and rather long, day at work, I’ve chilled—eating dinner cooked by Nandini, and getting in my washing. I didn’t even go to Cold Rock, though I am keeping up my exercise schedule—completing fifty sit-ups, push-ups and leg-ups, and concentrating hard on philosophical subjects—my favourite right now being one I found from a hoax discussion the BBC hosted some years back—is “is” is?

Night

• After a little pondering, and a twitch through the Oxford, I found that is is “that which exists”, so clearly, is is; however, this only works if is doesn’t, because if is does, according to the Oxford, then is, as a past indicative, was—which might mean is isn’t anymore—and once we get to the past participial, is is in fact, isn’t, or in the case of the colloquial, ain’t, wa’n’t, weren’t, and basically, never was. So there we have it: is “is” is? According to the Oxford, is isn’t, unless it is—or as they put it, is is “an irregular and defective verb”. And that’s not a question.

Comment by Mum – Wednesday 4 April 2007, 6:08 PM

  I am that I am. Which cometh from the Holy Bible, and is God describing Himself. Or if you prefer, Jesus.s description, much more blunt and to the point in regard to the is "is" is, which was a succinct and overt pointer to finding out if is "is". "GO TO NOW" So, if you want to know if is "is", you will have to go to where Jesus Christ bloody well points you. Which is to go to NOW. I mean, right NOW.

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 to Nandini about life in general, to Roberto about upcoming Stone Easy 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.

07.04.2007 – Saturday 7 April – Waxing & Waning

Morning

• Got a taxi to work—early shift at EB. Bought tickets to Perth, leaving early tomorrow morning, coming back Wednesday night. For some reason, flights back are at a premium—I’m flying via Adelaide. It cost a little over eight hundred dollars, and I expect work won’t be too happy about the lack of notice, but Pop’s operation isn’t going to be postponed for my convenience.

Evening

• So much to do, so little motivation. Instead, I’m putting photos of the Mareeba Motocross on my site. I’ve re-concluded, for the umpteenth time, that while I seem to operate just fine on almost no sleep, it’s actually bad for me. It’s made me emotionally unstable now, which is not particularly fun.
  Fortunately, it’s nothing a little sleep won’t fix. Unfortunately, it’s not looking like I’ll get any sleep in the foreseeable future, what with early flights, traumatic relatives, work, life, etc.

1am

• I’ve packed for Perth, and have to get up in exactly four and three quarter hours.

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.

12.04.2007 – Thursday 12 April – Sleepy & Stupid

6am

• Yay for stupidity. I caught a taxi to work, eating some Easter bunny and iced coffee on the way to make sure I don’t fall asleep, only to find I’m not working until three o’clock. Then, once I got home, I couldn’t sleep. So, instead, I’m gazing blankly at things, wishing it wasn’t so humid here—the lack of sweat in Perth was lovely—and stitching up panoramas of Perth using “autostitch”, which appears to be brilliant, albeit very slow.

2pm

• Off to work—again. Taxi home. Stay up late. Zombie mode on.

13.04.2007 – Friday 13 April – Normal

Morning

• We sleep in. We’re now back to normal, we think. But is it because we’re thinking, that we think we’re normal, when perhaps we’re not normally normal, but how we normally think, is how we think normal is, making it all a little more confusing than normal?

Afternoon

• Work. I’m the only one at EB. Walk home. Lots of people in city. The police are hunting drink drivers, and messing up the traffic in the process.

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.

16.04.2007 – Monday 16 April – Mondayitis

Morning

• Up at a quarter to six, out the door by ten past, buying a milkshake at a quarter to seven, and in the fishbowl, complaining about everything, by ten to seven. Making an entire room out of glass is not a good idea when it’s sixteen degrees. Nor do mice work on the glass tabletops. Glass rubbish bins are a bit odd too. Still, I suppose it looks good and impresses prospective clientele.

Afternoon

• I went well for half the day, then Mondayitis struck. The rest was a struggle. I tried eating beans, drinking various flavoured milk and soft drink, eating a chocolate bar, and eventually feeling terrible and vowing never to eat sugary things again.

Night

• I had an evening snooze, which made me feel somehow guilty. Reheated palak paneer (पालक पनीर, apparently) from last night made a nice and suitably un-sugary dinner.

1am

• The girls have finished watching their DVD, and I’ve finished listening to music and avoiding doing things I should be doing, and am off to bed. Last.fm and Pandora make having one’s own music collection essentially pointless. I guess it’s the modern equivalent of advertising-supported free-to-air radio.

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.

18.04.2007 – Wednesday 18 April – Chocolate Milk

Morning

• I went to sleep at a reasonable hour last night, yet I’m sleepier today than I was yesterday. It seems there’s little, if any, point going to bed early. I seem to be more efficient when tired. I seem to be less tired if I don’t sleep enough. I’m sure something there doesn’t make sense.

Day

• I went to Woolworths to buy corn chips, spicy Mexican dip, Mexican chilli beans, corn, and a small carton of chocolate milk. Regrettably, three litre bottles of chocolate milk were on special, and it seemed rather silly buying a small carton of milk when it actually cost more than a large bottle… so all day I’ve been drinking chocolate milk and eating corn chips with dip. I think that covers at least two food groups.

Night

• The search for the mystical Pluravit multivitamins (and a need to escape from being inside) took me to their alleged source—Coles at Hawken Village—however, they managed to maintain their mystical status, being nowhere to be found.
  There’s a third girl staying here at the moment—a friend of Nandini’s—and I’m avoiding doing things I should be, so I watched a variety of junky television with her.

Comment by Mum – Saturday 21 April 2007, 12:22 AM

  For goodness sake. You wouldnt need the bloody multivitamins if you gave up the toxic chocolate milk and the mexican dip and the etc etc. Why dont you get yourself one of those papers which actually tell you what the toxins and additives are in all that crap you are eating. One cannot hope to maintain reasonable health whilst eating all that crap.
  As far as the sleeping hours go...It is like a coiled spring. When one is overtired (or stressed) and one finally gets an early night, the coils begins to unwind, but it takes a little while....so one oft times feels more tired after "an early night" but is only the beginning of the unwinding.
  Is always best to try to have as early a night as possible as the mind and also the spirit are more alive so to speak in the early am. It is also a time when one can have a little china blue slice of solitude in the hectic ness of city life.

19.04.2007 – Thursday 19 April – Not a lot

Morning

• I made a semi-conscious decision to sleep in a little longer, arriving at work just slightly late.

Night

• Some of my called mates went and saw the movie I wanted to see, without telling me they were going, after I’d already asked them if they wanted to see it. I’m not particularly impressed.

Comment by Maz – Thursday 19 April 2007, 9:47 PM

  You never asked me if I wanted to go see it. So if anything I should feel left out.

Comment by Ned – Thursday 19 April 2007, 9:48 PM

  Yes I did.

Comment by Mum – Saturday 21 April 2007, 12:30 AM

  Grow up. Both of you.

Comment by Maz – Wednesday 25 April 2007, 12:44 PM

  He started it!

Comment by Mum – Friday 27 April 2007, 7:30 PM

  Oh,well. Things collapsing over the planet hither and yon. One does not want to agitate over nothings. A missed appointment....oh sorrow....?? Has either of you lost a limb. I mean, get real.

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.

24.04.2007 – Tuesday 24 April – Work, Romanians & Toc House

• Up at a normal time. Into the city to find a macadamia nut cracker. Then off to work. Chatted to the cleaning lady, who it turns out is a Romanian lawyer, who had to go on a hunger strike to get out of the country. There was a nice sunset over Brisbane.

Midnight

• I stopped past Toc House’s ANZAC day event, at the Eternal Flame, and didn’t get to bed until after half past two.

25.04.2007 – Wednesday 25 April – ANZAC Day

10am

• I attended the ANZAC Day parade, the one day in Australia when there’s a lot of Australian flags. I managed to catch up with Joe.

Afternoon

• Work.

Night

• I was approached by a gent near Roma Street, with “you can help me, or you can call the police”. Twenty dollars, and several minutes, later, I left, feeling somehow guilty for giving him money, but also guilty for not giving him more. I then witnessed two backpackers attempting to kill each other.

Comment by Mum – Saturday 5 May 2007, 7:12 PM

  What? Twenty dollars and several minutes later. If this is artistic license, designed to make your journal "interesting", well.... Your Mum reads your journal, and it gets up my nose that you write these things which worry me, as if they are just ordinary things. You ought to feel guilty for writing things that are potentially horrible in an offhand and casual manner, just to make you "cool" whatever the hell that is. I am very cross with you. I can only assume the 2 backpackers you saw attempting to kill each other werent besmattered with blood, although if they were it might have made your journal today a little less bland. And a little more interesting to the mob who log in or on or whatever it is that people log onto who have nothing more interesting or educational to do

Comment by Mum – Saturday 5 May 2007, 7:13 PM

  Get a life.

Comment by Mum – Saturday 5 May 2007, 7:16 PM

  All of you

Comment by Mum – Monday 7 May 2007, 5:26 PM

  Sorry. An extreme reaction. Just scared me a bit. I live in the most beautiful part of Australia, where no one locks their car or even their house, well, most of us. Is a bit scarey the things that can happen in the big bad cities. Anyway, Mums will always be Mums and who of you do not stiffen when Ma uses "that" voice. You should not have stolen all those biscuits and sneaked out that night, etc. Did you really think Ma did not know, having " been there, done that". This is addressed to anyone who reads this. Is okay. Is actually love and concern for all you ratbags who have Mum at home, worrying, loving. Thank goodness that He can erase any of my comments that embarrass him. This will, no doubt, be one. Peace

26.04.2007 – Thursday 26 April – Network Failing

• Things were left out of a compile on my web server, stopping my site from working. I went to work. We lost our nicely redundant local link to the valley—something to do with Cisco not being very good, and our own redundancy killing us. Chris and I sat around not working for hours. This was fun for about half an hour, and then it got very boring. Funnily, everything routes via Sydney when both links to the valley go down—outbound calls even have a local Sydney number.

27.04.2007 – Friday 27 April – Working

• I worked on the Cooktown Hotel site. I then worked at work. I walked home. It’s always interesting walking through the valley and city on a Friday night.

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.

Dec ‘06 | Jan ‘07 | Feb ‘07 | Mar ‘07 | Apr ‘07 May ‘07 | Jun ‘07 | Jul ‘07 | Aug ‘07 |

Year View| Summary| Highlights| April 2007 (Month View)