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Year View| Summary| Highlights| June 2005 (Month View)

Feb ‘05 | Mar ‘05 | Apr ‘05 | May ‘05 | Jun ‘05 Jul ‘05 | Aug ‘05 | Sep ‘05 | Oct ‘05 |

01.06.2005 – Wednesday 1 June – COMS4200

• Maz, Sophie and I drove into uni, where another bad day began. I wrote test cases for CSSE3004, and then panicked on COMS4200, racing against the clock to complete everything my group members were supposed to have done but either didn’t or had done so poorly that it didn’t even work. I got an hour’s extension, but still had to submit a partially working assignment. I hate group work. I see no way to do it right except by doing the whole thing myself, and I just didn’t have the time to do that for this assignment. I am very displeased, but unfortunately too nice to mark my group members down, which doesn’t make me feel any better. I somehow feel as though it’s my fault, that I should have managed the group better; forced and encouraged them to work.
  I really am not happy about the pathetic attempt they made, and the way they’ve screwed over my marks in doing so. I put in a lot of time and effort into these assignments, only to consistently be let down by my group members. One group member was supposed to spend two days testing this code, which I thought was essentially finished. I come to the code, a few hours before submission, and after it has theoretically been completed and tested, only to find that it’s incomplete and doesn’t even work. It seems that almost everything my group members wrote doesn’t work at all, and neither of them tested anything. I spent all last night writing up the protocol I designed for this assignment, assuming that my group members had written and tested their code, as they had arranged to do, and then had to spend all today interleaving my own CSSE3004 group work and fixing their omissions and errors. Now I’ll get a poor overall grade for this course, because I don’t go well in end of semester exams and the assignments, where I had a chance to make up some marks, were sabotaged by my group member’s lack of care.
  I also haven’t had enough sleep for the past few weeks, and am beginning to feel rather incoherent. Fortunately, this is the last week of classes.

Night

• To celebrate the end of an awful day, I went and saw “911 – In Plane Site”, a documentary exposé showing at the Schonell. It was quite interesting.

Comment by Maz – Friday 3 June 2005, 2:11 AM

  I would have known some of my code didn't work if enough of the program had been finished so I could test it. Not being able to start testing after the deadline while I was working on something else.

02.06.2005 – Thursday 2 June – Blood, Beer & Bloody SQL

Morning

• I slept in a little too long, missing my train and having to catch the next one. Fortunately for me, I don’t have any classes today – but still had to get to uni by ten o’clock for a group meeting.

12:20pm

• I attended my CSSE3004 presentation, which did not go as well as expected. We lost marks for a superfluous database table left over from a past incarnation, and no one had actually tested the application itself, despite me tabling up sixty or so test cases, so it failed to actually save any data to the database. The lessons are obvious – organise better, and test beforehand.

Afternoon

• Maz, Clint and I drove to UMart where Maz bought a DVD burner. We then had lunch at Indooroopilly with Kieran. I spent the afternoon at Maz’s place, before heading back to work.

Night

• Someone on the train thought it would be a good idea to run randomly up to people, point at them, and scream “blood”. He seemed disturbed. Then, half an hour or so later, someone decided to steal someone else’s slab of beer. The owners weren’t pleased, and decided to attempt to pulverise the thieves into small parts. The guards weren’t pleased either. Fortunately for everyone except those involved, the police were wandering past the station at the time, and happened to have a few spare handcuffs on them. Most of the original owners of the beer managed to remain on the train with their remaining slab but the most violent of them was handcuffed and left on the station, a bit angry. For some inexplicable reason, the scum who had stolen the other slab was also left on the station with the police – and the beer he had stolen. The bloke who had bought the beer was more worried about being killed by his sister when he got home than anything else.

03.06.2005 – Friday 3 June – Last Day of Classes

Morning

• Based on a statistical analysis of a random sample of other mornings this semester, I believe it is safe to say that I woke up before I wanted to, left home later than I had hoped meaning I had to run to the train, and then dozed on the train, only to arrive at uni some time later. Of course, there’s always a chance that this morning was different, but that’s statistically insignificant.

Afternoon

• BITS ran their last BBQ for the semester, so I got a free veggie burger and bought a can of coke, while chatting to Maz and Jervina about exciting and highly relevant things.
  I went and saw Mark Schulz to complain about the non-release of what I consider to be essential course information for CSSE3004. He took down the details of my complaint, and said he’d get back to me when he could, but that he was leaving for America on Sunday.
  I demonstrated my INFS3202 component. As far as I can tell, it all worked and nothing went wrong, but the whole demonstration was a bit confusing and not amazingly well organised, so I’m not entirely sure what happened.

Evening

• I worked, uncovering an obscure bug in one of the control systems. Other than that, nothing overly exciting happened.

Comment by io – Friday 10 June 2005, 8:41 AM

  I am disappointed, sad and emo that you forgot that I was also at the BBQ with yourself, Maz and Jervina.

04.06.2005 – Saturday 4 June – Banana Cake

• I spent the morning lazing in bed recovering from uni, now that classes are over for the semester. I spent the evening wandering around the city recovering from the morning, before heading back home. The train home wasn’t running all the way, so I got to sit on the articulating part of an articulated bus, which connected with a train that rattled happily past my station without stopping, leaving me to sit on a cold metal bench and wait for another train back.
  Due to my clever and fulfilling bachelor student lifestyle, the only food I actually had was a banana cake. It was quite a fine banana cake, but I wasn’t sure Bronwen would share my excitement about a purely banana cake based diet, so ended up ordering takeaway from The Curry Inn.

05.06.2005 – Sunday 5 June – Jaffles & The Gold Coast

• After a busy morning eating breakfast and discussing bowls and the differences between Brisbane and Logan with respect to free dump trips, Bronwen and I headed down to Surfer’s Paradise. We spent a pleasant evening wandering down the beach and meeting a local astrophysics genius and his associated giggling Parisians, before training back into the city. The night was filled with jaffle creation, where we attempted to make jaffles the same as Mum makes them, except with a sandwich maker.

06.06.2005 – Monday 6 June – Indooroopilly & Cold Rock

• Clint and I bussed into Indooroopilly, where I ate some green goo. We were tentatively considering seeing a movie, but nothing worth watching was showing, so we went to Cold Rock instead. We then waited for the bus back to uni, which never came – even though four Great Circle buses came and spent half an hour sitting at the stop. After waiting a ridiculously long time for the bus that didn’t come, we caught the train to Toowong and a bus from there – saying it was going to the city and driven by a driver who wasn’t charging his passengers and seemed happy to drive them wherever they wanted.
  I am now the proud owner of a litre of custard and half a litre of pure, unthickened cream and a mars bar. I’m not sure about the mars bar, but the rest complement my banana cake fantastically.

Comment by io – Friday 10 June 2005, 8:45 AM

  Where did you get the green goo from? I thought the place you got it from was replaced by Subway now?

Comment by Ned – Friday 10 June 2005, 9:36 AM

  One place was, another was not.

07.06.2005 – Tuesday 7 June – Bunti aur Babli

• I had a pleasant sleep-in, catching a train into uni after midday. I haven’t really begun studying yet, but I am trying to get my mind into the mood. I’m now the proud owner of half a litre of custard and a quarter of a litre of pure, unthickened cream and a mars bar. Unfortunately I no longer own a banana cake.

Afternoon

• I went up and saw Philip Machanick over my complaint about the non-release of course information for CSSE3004. It doesn’t sound like anything will happen – he said he’d have a talk to Ken, but that the way in which the course is run is up to Ken’s discretion and that there have been few past complaints and good results from last year’s exam, so he assumed that overall the course has been successful and students happy.

Night

• I shared a “Lollobrigida” (5 types of cheese, oregano, semi-dried tomatoes) pizza from the Schonell with Bronwen before heading into the city and watching “Bunty aur Babli” at the Regent. Despite being one of the poorer Bollywood films I’ve seen, it still managed to beat most things Hollywood, earning itself 8 xXx’s, or one True Lie.

Comment by Lucas – Thursday 9 June 2005, 11:17 AM

  Few complaints? Students happy? What the?!
  
  We complained till our lungs were sore last year about not being adequately prepared for the exam in last year's course, and of course got nowhere.
  
  Still got an ok grade though, but it would have been higher if it wasn't for the stupid grade capping from the exam. Are they still capping grades based on the exam result this year?

Comment by Ned – Thursday 9 June 2005, 12:23 PM

  But did you complain officially? Everyone I know who is currently doing this course has a complaint, but I'm willing to bet none of them has actually put their money where their mouth is, and done anything about it. According to Ken, I was the first person to complain personally to him this semester, and according to Philip, there had been few or no other complaints. People have no problem talking, but few actually do anything. IRC is the perfect example.

08.06.2005 – Wednesday 8 June – Haunted Washing Machines

Morning

• I venture uniwards, passing Michel’s Patisserie where I am sorely tempted and stop to eat a slice of cake with ice cream before purchasing a six-inch “Veggie Delite” from Subway to eat on the bus. I then figure that I should indulge myself with a healthy, calcium-enriching thick shake from the ice creamery at uni to counteract my unhealthy breakfast. I wouldn’t normally have bought one, of course, but this is my eighth in a row and hence free, so I figured I should.

Evening

• I’ve done very little study, but on the positive side I’ve half implemented a JavaScript calendar for my journal, eaten Mix Veggie Satay from Chez Tessa, chatted to Corrosive and Clint, put holds on textbooks, and still have one of the two yoghurts I bought from Coles left. It’s now nicely dark outside, and feeling somewhat guilty at my lack of study, I shall head home.

Night

• My phone cable arrived, but isn’t currently working – it seems I need different software for my phone, which I’ve now downloaded but can’t be bothered rebooting to try it out just yet. This living in a haunted house thing is starting to get to me, which is odd as I’ve never been bothered by it before. I put my washing in the machine, and sat at my computer working on getting the new calendar in my journal working – which it now is. I then went down to see if my washing was finished, and found that the machine was spewing out water all over the place, and all the knobs were set to unusual positions – positions they couldn’t get to by themselves. I fixed that, and as I was hanging out my washing, outside in the dark, I began to think... and the more I thought, the worse it was. Fear feeds off fear, and no logic can requite my imagination. I wasn’t sure if looking behind me was facing my fear, or admitting that something might be there. I tried reasoning with common sense – I’ve lived here for ages now, and only once before been afraid, so it’s silly being scared now. It seemed like good logic when I began to think it, but halfway through it occurred to me that the washing machine has never spat out water before either, and the very fact that I’ve never been worried before, but have now been worried the past few nights I’ve spent here, is actually more worrying than I had originally worried. Why the sudden change, or shouldn’t I even be contemplating that? And now, how can I ever get out into the hall to get to the bathroom to brush my teeth?
  Then I spilt my cream all over my seat. I had to go to the kitchen for cleaning things. I had no choice. The fact that it’s a quarter to three isn’t a good thing either, as I have to be up ridiculously early.

Comment by io – Friday 10 June 2005, 8:51 AM

  To the dark side young Padawan, fear leads.

Comment by Mum – Tuesday 14 June 2005, 9:07 PM

  Is no problem. Light incense, blitzkrieg the area with Mahamantra, make the sign of the cross through your self, and relax. Repeat at night and morning, especially before bed (dont really need the incense) and have faith. The Name of the Saviour sufficeth.

09.06.2005 – Thursday 9 June – Masala Dosa

• I went and saw Dr Zimmerman (actually one of his assistants) at Prince Charles Hospital. He said that I should now be back to normal.

• So basically I went to this place where I was told to do things and did them and saw someone about something. They said that the thing I saw them about was okay now and that I need not worry anymore.
  After that I was at this place where I was for a while. I had to go see a person about a report I had submitted for a course they are running. They talked to me about it, and I talked to them about it. I then went and saw somebody about a course they aren’t running yet and we talked about it. Later I went with somebody else to a tutorial for an upcoming exam. I also saw someone about my complaint about a course that is running. They said they had talked to someone else and had a discussion with them and discussed my complaint and talked about it. They told me several things about their discussion.
  I then went to this other place with these people who took me to the other place, and stayed there for a bit with the people who took me there. We did stuff at this other place, and then one of the people who took me there dropped me off at another place. I didn’t stay there long and went to another place where I met another person; this other person and I went somewhere and did this and that before going to another place and doing other things. I then went somewhere else with somebody where we did something else. I think that about sums it up.
  The Masala Dosa was nice too.

10.06.2005 – Friday 10 June – Mr & Mrs Smith

Morning

• I am tired and do not feel like studying.

10:17am

• I am still tired and I still don’t feel like studying. I suppose I should wander up towards the CSSE3004 exam preparation tute.

Later

• I sat through the exam preparation, which hopefully prepared me for the exam.

Evening

• Clint and I city-catted into South Bank, where we bought Cold Rock and saw Mr and Mrs Smith, equalling The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at three quarters of a True Lie, although inflationary imagination stretch means that three quarters of a True Lie today is not the same as three quarters of a True Lie back when Cat Women came out.

Comment by kathryn – Tuesday 14 June 2005, 12:42 PM

  i'm tired and don't feel like studing either. It's been a long time since i visted this site and it's comforting to see not much has changed. The side calender is cool. I have animal physiology and development exam tommorrow and i feel so under prepared and generally stupid. I cant wait for some much need holidays as well. I hate group work too. Good luck with it all.
  kathryn

Comment by Mum – Tuesday 14 June 2005, 9:18 PM

  Am only typing this as it seems the only way to get a word to you as cannot get any emails to go. Anything that goes (this eg) will be in triplicate. Sigh. Hope all is well with you dear one. Will have to communicate via old fangled tellie phone until you get up here. Love Mum.

11.06.2005 – Saturday 11 June – Relaxing & Amanda’s

• I slept in – something I badly needed, and spent the rest of the morning relaxing. I trained out to Amanda’s in the evening, and spent a relaxing night playing cards with Rodrigo – who won.

12.06.2005 – Sunday 12 June – The Incredibles

• I watched “The Incredibles” on DVD, headed into uni to study, did very little study, and headed back home again.

13.06.2005 – Monday 13 June – Psychology Study

Morning

• I slept in a little longer than I normally do, but still arrived at uni before midday – even after eating my breakfast subway.

Afternoon

• I tested my mobile phone cable with Maz’s laptop, and it worked. Maz and I then met Bridget at the library and spent the rest of the evening trying to study PSYC1030.

Evening

• I went to Kieran’s with Maz, and later to Bronwen’s.

14.06.2005 – Tuesday 14 June – Advanced Information Technology Exam

6:30am

• My alarm went off. This is a bad way to start the day.

Morning

• Here I am at uni, trying to start study, but checking the internet first, in case it’s changed. I went to the bank and deposited my Adsense Cheque. I also found out what the mysterious new account was. I then went to Coles and bought yoghurt.

5:20pm

• Now going to exam soon – panicking, have not done enough study.

5:45pm

• I sit my CSSE3004 exam. We’re only allowed one piece of pink scribble paper – this is strictly specified. Some people had their calculators taken off them because they had too many buttons. We are only allowed the most basic calculators. People look sort of funny, all serious and third year, but with their younger sister’s primary school calculator.

Night

• Maz gives me a lift back to Bronwen’s, where I spend the night.

15.06.2005 – Wednesday 15 June – Introduction to Psychology: Developmental, Social, & Clinical Psychology Exam

6:40am

• Ned’s alarm went off ten minutes ago. Ned didn’t hear it. Ned’s alarm goes off again. Ned wakes up. Ned is confused – his alarm has gone off ten minutes late. Ned remembers that Maz is coming any time after seven. Ned runs to the shower.

Anytime after Seven

• Maz comes. Maz’s driver-side windscreen wiper has cleverly stopped, and his passenger-side windscreen wiper obligingly hasn’t. This causes a regrettable conflict between the two, leaving Maz and Ned with a blurry and inaccurate worldview where cars loom suddenly into sight, only to disappear again when their brake lights go out.

8am

• Ned attends his PSYC1030 exam. He sits in the purple section, and answers half of his sixty four multi-choice questions by the end of perusal. Due to there being no logical answers for any of the remaining questions, Ned uses clever techniques such as imagination and “What would Clint do” to answer them, and leaves twenty minutes into the exam. He finds out later that Maz used episodes of Law and Order to answer his, so perhaps this technique is more standard than he originally thought.

Afternoon

• Ned and Maz go and visit Kieran. They all go to Indooroopilly, and look at large televisions at Harvey Norman. Ned is hungry and orders Green Goo with Hungry Jack’s Orange Juice. Kieran has removed all the keys from his keyboard, and neatly laid them out in rows. He then spends the entire afternoon putting them back in, one by one and some upside down. Ned reads a computer magazine and watches Maz playing Xbox. Maz plays Xbox and watches Ned reading a computer magazine. Both of them occasionally watch Kieran putting keys back into his keyboard.

Evening

• Ned goes to Govinda’s for food. He then meets Bronwen, who is cold, and they head back to her place. Ned had not originally expected there to be any trains running today, as they had planned a rail strike, although as it turns out, this was resolved.

Comment by io – Monday 20 June 2005, 1:47 PM

  Haha, so Kieran doesn't know where his keys go without laying them out meticulously in order?

16.06.2005 – Thursday 16 June – Ned Does Not Have a Good Day

Morning

• Ned awoke to find himself facing a large, rather blue, dilemma: To get up at half past six when it’s horribly cold, sit on a cold bus, head to a cold uni, and sit underground in a computer lab surrounded by scary, unintelligible geeks... or to cuddle up to a beautiful, and nicely warm, woman? The answer, as usual, is wrong – so here he is at uni, trying to thaw so he can type with more than one finger at a time.

Afternoon

• Ned went to the Ville to get Subway for breakfast, mint patties for energy, cheese ball chips for yellowness, and yoghurt for whiter, stronger bones and teeth. He accidentally bought vanilla yoghurt, which is not as good as strawberry yoghurt. He then began his study of INFS3202 by going to POD, where he found that he didn’t know the password to print lecture notes. This didn’t surprise him, as he wouldn’t expect anything to work out right. When he got back from POD, he found that his computer – the one computer in the almost empty lab which was locked, had been unlocked and was now occupied by an Asian flash game player, ignorantly playing his flash game. Ned considered fire-extinguishing the offender, but restrained himself and instead accidentally restarted his own computer while determining whether remote rebooting was really blocked. This made Ned angry, so he went and sat in level five and ate his cheese ball chips, feeling utterly yellow.

• Bronwen phoned – she is in bed tired.

Evening

• Ned wanted to see “Madagascar”, but no one else did, so he headed to Indooroopilly alone. Once there, Ned ate some food and considered seeing a movie, but no times did not align. This did not surprise Ned as he had not expected anything to go well, but he bravely decided to make the best of a bad situation, and got Cold Rock. This made him cold while he sat waiting for the train, which did not arrive for ages. He nearly froze. The train door made loud hissing noises. No one except Ned could stand the noises, and all moved. Ned felt superior and looked down upon the other weak people. Ned nearly froze again in the city waiting for the bus. Ned has not had a good day.

17.06.2005 – Friday 17 June – Procrastination

Morning

• Another half past six morning left me cold and at uni remarkably early. Had I actually done any study, this might have been a good thing, but instead I slightly redesigned the front page of both my sites, read several friends’ sites, and generally avoided study entirely.

Afternoon

• Maz and I headed to the Ville for food, and then I headed back to the labs to pretend to do more study.

18.06.2005 – Saturday 18 June – Batman Begins

• I had a lazy and relaxing morning, after having had to get up early all week. This was followed by a pleasant walk around the city, the ubiquitous Cold Rock Super Shake, Pasta, and “Batman Begins” at South Bank – which I quite enjoyed, equalling “Mr & Mrs Smith” and “Revenge of the Sith”, at precisely twenty seven cat women.

19.06.2005 – Sunday 19 June – Sleep, Rain & Study

Midday

• It’s raining. I’ve had a lovely sleep in, and am now heading into uni to study INFS3202 with Clint, as its exam is tomorrow.

Night

• For inexplicable and illogical reasons, or quite possibly a total lack of reason, I stayed up until half past four doing almost nothing. This could make me a little more tired than usual tomorrow, and could mean I don’t feel as enthused about waking early and heading into uni to study as I might otherwise have felt. Looking on the bright side, I feel as though I may have had a pleasant night, even if I can’t actually think or remember anything about it.

20.06.2005 – Monday 20 June – Web Information Systems Exam

• Staying up until half past four last night ranks as one of the more stupid things I’ve done recently – right up there with eating a whole banana cake I bought on special. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I didn’t feel all that enthused about getting up early and heading to uni, but as my INFS3202 exam loomed fearfully close, I had no choice.

Morning

• I bravely trained to uni and spent the morning studying INFS3202. “Studying” is perhaps not the right word – I simply indexed the lecture notes and tutorial answers. I didn’t have time to try to understand anything, and as I haven’t attended a single lecture or tutorial for this course, there was a lot that I didn’t understand. The theory is that, as the exam is open-book, if I can develop a comprehensive index, I should be able to look up anything fast enough that I can work out the answer during the exam. This is probably not the best study technique out there, but it’s the only one I know that doesn’t require a lot of time or effort.

Afternoon

• Clint, Maz, Kieran, a girl I met in the library, and my fantastic self, tried studied past exams for a while but actually spent more time arguing about decidedly irrelevant things.

• Kieran recommended me to Marius, and I got asked if I wanted to tutor COMP3502 next semester.

5:45pm

• I sat my INFS3202 exam. I’ll have to wait and see what result I get, as I can’t predict how well I went, but my index worked well and I finished the exam with twenty minutes to spare. I had two questions I was unable to make sense of, and a third that had almost no information about it in the lecture notes or tutorials. I got the first struck from the exam as it actually was nonsensical, the second I was told I’d just have to “pick one” so I’m guessing my understanding was at fault, and the third I guessed and may get part marks. One questionable advantage of getting almost no sleep is that I couldn’t be bothered to stress or worry, or even check my answers.

Night

• Clint, Kieran and I drove to Indooroopilly, where nothing was open, and then back to the Ville, where we bought dinner. I then wasted some time with Clint until I noticed how late it had become. I got the second last train home, arriving well after midnight, which won’t leave me with a lot of sleep tonight either.

21.06.2005 – Tuesday 21 June – Sleeping & Studying

Day

• I had meant to get up at a reasonable time and head into uni, but didn’t get out of bed until after midday. By the time I got to uni, saw Clint, went to the Ville for food, checked that the internet hadn’t changed, and printed my notes for COMS4200, there was no time left to actually study so I went home again – stopping by JB HiFi to buy some blank DVDs.

Night

• In my attempts to get this horrible phone connection cable I’ve bought to actually work, I downloaded Oxygen Phone Manager – which seems to work just fine apart from being a kind of crappy and confusing program. I suppose the problem is Nokia PC Suite’s intentional lack of support for third-party cables (or the fact that the cable I bought is some dubious clone, depending on which way you look at it). It’s also somehow become one o’clock, so heading to bed I shall be.

22.06.2005 – Wednesday 22 June – Studying

• After my abortive attempt to study yesterday, I figured I’d better make sure I actually got some study done now or I’d fail. With this in mind, I actually managed to get to uni by around ten o’clock, where I spent half the day studying, interspersed with procrastination. I discovered Google Maps, which are good but use up the limited download quota we’re given in the labs at an alarming rate, went to the Ville for food, visited Clint, read forums, newsgroups, emails... To prevent ourselves from overstudying, Maz and I went to Kieran’s in the evening, where we discussed important concepts, such as how to seduce women in computer games.

23.06.2005 – Thursday 23 June – Networks II Exam

Morning

• I set two alarms just to make sure I didn’t sleep in, and then managed to sleep in anyway – fortunately for only ten minutes or so. Joe drove me to the train so I wouldn’t miss it, and skimmed my COMS4200 lecture notes on the way to uni.

11:15am

• I sat my COMS4200 exam. It wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, although I finished with only minutes to spare. I felt that I had gone well in the mid-semester exam, and then got an awful mark, so I’m not going to draw any conclusions from this one until I see the results.

Night

• It was very, very cold. I walked to a nice and warm Indian place for dinner, but nearly froze getting there.

• I spent the cold night warm with Bronwen, at her place.

24.06.2005 – Friday 24 June – Not Packing

Morning

• I semi-woke at six o’clock this morning, dozing semi-asleep under a warm doona, which was very nice until a quarter to eight when I had to get up and out into the icy cold. I then made the mistake of buying a slice of cheesecake in the city – it seems I can’t eat a whole slice anymore. I then headed into uni to pick up some stuff and finalise a few things, backup my data, and lock my PC for the break.

Evening

• I stopped via Govinda’s on the way home. They were really full and out of tables. Tonya and her boyfriend are here, so Joe and we had Thai food and a quiet celebration of my completion of another semester’s studies, during which Joe scratched a winning scratch-it, having already won some cash and a stereo last night.

9pm

• I ate too much chocolate and now I feel sick.

1am

• I had planned to pack things for heading up north, but have decided to treat it as the simple holiday it hopefully is, and just throw some clothes in a bag tomorrow. The most time consuming thing will be putting my spare HDD and this DVD drive into the computer and copying data I might need across.

Comment by io – Wednesday 29 June 2005, 3:55 PM

  You have a DVD writer now? Which one?

Comment by Ned – Thursday 30 June 2005, 12:52 PM

  The latest LiteOn-IT/JLMS – I forget the model number.

25.06.2005 – Saturday 25 June – Packing

• I slept in considerably longer than I had planned, and copying data across to take up north also took longer than I’d expected, meaning I didn’t get into the city until later than I’d hoped. I’d figured that packing clothes wouldn’t take long, which it didn’t, but I didn’t take into account just how long it can take to remove a CD drive, install a new DVD burner, and find, backup, compress and copy a hundred gig or so of data across to another hard drive – in small and confusing chunks. Michelle and Michael had also arrived back, so talking to them took up some more of my time.

26.06.2005 – Sunday 26 June – Cairns & Home

6am

• We all woke up and got ready, leaving for the airport shortly after half past.

7:45am

• Our Virgin Blue Boeing 737-800 executed a successful takeoff, flew for a couple of hours, and successfully landed in Cairns.

10:15am

• We met Shan and Kylie at Cairns airport, picked up our luggage and drove to Cairns Central for a milkshake and breakfast. Unfortunately, Cairns doesn’t seem to have any good milkshake places, so it was a small, expensive, and rather average milkshake. I then bought some shoes.

Afternoon

• We drove home via the coast road. This was perhaps not the best idea, as the creek crossings were only borderline passable for a conventional vehicle. Fortunately, we didn’t actually have any problems – lightly hitting some rocks and taking on a little water but nothing serious.

Night

• We went for a quick walk down to the Home Rule Bridge and then spent the evening talking to Dad and Mum.

27.06.2005 – Monday 27 June – Cooktown

• After a pleasant sleep in and waking to birdsong, we drove into Cooktown where we had a quick walk along the main street, did some shopping, ate nachos, and then headed home again. We went for a walk out the Home Rule road in the afternoon, before a eating a nice dinner and watching “Pirates of the Caribbean”.

28.06.2005 – Tuesday 28 June – Relaxing

• We’ve had a lazy morning, sleeping in until eleven o’clock. It is lightly misting, but hardly enough to make the trees drip. I’ve managed to connect Bronwen’s Macintosh to this machine, so we’re all online and suitably geeky. The midges and mosquitos are annoying though.

Evening

• We went for a walk down to the pump and along the creek. Bronwen went swimming in the icy cold water – apparently it’s nice, but I wasn’t falling for that.

29.06.2005 – Wednesday 29 June – Walking, Climbing & Terrible Movies

• We slept in, going for a walk up to the Home Rule Falls and then down the creek from there to the small waterfall and back home again – making for a pleasant, although somewhat exhausting, evening.

Night

• We went up to Shan’s and watched “100 Mile Rule” with him, Kylie and Ella. The movie was remarkably bad, but the night was good.

30.06.2005 – Thursday 30 June – Cooktown, Snakes, Kickboxing & The Flat Dog

• After a quiet morning broken only by the necessity of pumping up – braving, as Clint put it, “500km [...] over 3 chasms filled with sharks”, we headed into town with Shan and Kylie. Bronwen bravely held a snake while Shan installed antivirus software, and later bravely tried kickboxing – sparring with Vince while I bought sweets at the supermarket. To celebrate such tales of bravery and survival we bought a pizza from Joe’s and splattered Kylie’s burger all over the road before running over a dog on the way home.

Comment by io – Sunday 3 July 2005, 4:12 AM

  Oh gno a dog!? How was the woof-woof?

Comment by Ned – Sunday 3 July 2005, 11:25 AM

  We never saw the dog after running it over.

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