IMPORTANT: The following journal is intended for the use and viewing of approved persons only and may contain information that is confidential, privileged or unsuitable for overly sensitive persons with low self-esteem, no sense of humour or irrational religious beliefs. Any dissemination, distribution or copying of this work is not authorised (either explicitly or implicitly) and constitutes an irritating social faux pas. Unless the word ‘absquatulation’ has been used in its correct context somewhere other than in this warning, it does not have any legal or grammatical use and may be ignored. No animals were harmed in the creation of this journal and a minimum of Microsoft software was used. Those of you with an overwhelming fear of the unknown will be gratified to learn that there is no hidden message revealed by reading this warning backwards.

Year View| Summary| Highlights| Month View| Wednesday 8 October 2003 (Day View)

Sat 4 Oct | Sun 5 Oct | Mon 6 Oct | Tue 7 Oct |   Wed 8 Oct   Thu 9 Oct | Fri 10 Oct | Sat 11 Oct | Sun 12 Oct |

08.10.2003 – Wednesday 8 October

• I didn’t wake up until after two o’clock, and even then only because Joe woke me up to see if I’d died or not. I then spent the evening procrastinating, and the night trying to do my horrible COMP2302 microcontroller assignment.

Le Connoisseur

• A friend wrote “A guide to things that resemble food on the UQ St Lucia campus”. It is the most accurate survey of campus food since Whitlam, so I have decided to steal it in its entirety. Seeing as I am a purist who does not allow his journal to be polluted with HTML tags, the closest I can give to a link is http://www.clintfelmingham.com/

Main Refectory, Union Complex

• Run by the UQ Union, this eatery has a guilt complex over charging you. This is good price-wise (although do remember that you’re paying for this with your compulsory union fee) but not overly fun when you’re trying to put sauce on something. In order to put sauce on your recently purchased item, you must first cut through the people using the free hot water dispenser to heat up what looks like old socks in a bowl, then line up whilst the people in front of you squeeze all the tomato sauce into Tupperware containers for usage at home. The only food I’ve had here are buckets of chips, which are okay despite having the texture of hard-boiled eggs. This can be remedied by emptying half a bottle of the free vinegar on them and squeezing out the remainder of the “liberated” tomato sauce.

Physiology Refectory, near Centenary Drive bus stop

• Much the same as the main refectory, although they also sell apple slices that are about as thick as a business card. Proceed with caution.

Biology Refectory, near Mayne Hall

• Possibly the crappiest of the refectories. Last time I went there not only did they not serve me for an aeon or two, but the sausage roll gave me leprosy. It’s probably safe to eat here though, because bio students presumedly know where your organs are and can carry out MacGyver-style surgery with pens. Also the site of union propaganda that informs you that without the union, tomato sauce will not exist, so beware.

Wheel of Death, Floor 1 GP South

• A bizarre electronic dispenser of all sorts of things used in combination with a microwave that is believed to be broken. Expensive AND dangerous, only for IT students who need a snack at 2am whilst doing projects in the labs.

Vending Machines, everywhere

• These are great, because a) the union staff haven’t touched them and b) It’s not the Wheel of Death. Ignore all the morons that tell you that Cherry Ripe + Fanta isn’t a healthy lunch.

UQ Lolly Shop, Union Complex

• Overpriced but safe, as everything they sell is in sealed packages. See Vending Machines for further advice.

Colleges

• If you know someone from college, they may be able to get you in for a casual meal for about $4. This is either good value or bad value depending on what is being served and how many weeks ago it was cooked. If it’s in the form of a hamburger it was probably originally served as steak in 1982.

The Red Room

• Don’t know if they serve food, but they serve beer, which is far more important.

1:23am

• ARGH! I have read innumerable pages of microcontroller datasheets. This “Computer Organisation” assignment really sucks. We have to answer a set of sixteen questions about four different microcontrollers, the idea being that we’ll learn a lot about microcontrollers in doing so. I guess I have learnt some things about microcontrollers, such as their inability to have good datasheets written about them. The overhead in searching through the datasheets, trying to figure out what means what and where it’s likely to be all but makes this assignment nothing more than an understanding datasheets exercise – I don’t like it.

BBC

• “The founder of an animal welfare group which campaigns for the protection of grizzly bears is killed by a bear in Alaska.” “Park rangers later killed two aggressive bears they discovered at the campsite and closed the park.” Somewhat ironic.

1:52am

• Time for sleep. My lip is quite annoying now. It has this horrible big white flabby blister sort of thing, which has partly fallen off, and is quite raw and sore, and I instinctively go to lick it all the time.

Comment by cf.com - news – Wednesday 8 October 2003, 5:04 PM

  I feel like SCO, you thief!

Comment by anonymous – Thursday 9 October 2003, 9:31 PM

  the red room does sell food. above average food (for uni students anyways) at reasonable prices. and you forgot the pizza cafe, and the sushi and noodle bars

Comment by bv – Saturday 11 October 2003, 12:53 AM

  I only reviewed places i've been. The pizza cafe disturbs me because it's run by the union and hence all their pizzas are named after various pinko revolutionaries and I live at college so uncooked fish is pretty easy to come by.

Comment by Ned – Wednesday 15 October 2003, 3:16 AM

  I think they’re actually named after famous Italian actors.