Daryl Korvemaa's 'Not So Personal' Diary

Twenty Eleven

2011-01-01T12:38:00.041+10:00

So as the year transitions over from 2010 to 2011, I have come to a realisation. Alcohol (in quantities larger than a couple of drinks) and myself do not mix together at all. As I say that, I can hear someone out there saying "no shit" as they have just read that statement. Unfortunately it has taken me some time to realise that something should be done about it, but I guess this can now be a New Years resolution.

I did some thinking while sobering up this morning about why I drink heavily in a social situation. When trying to think of the real reason, I guess I couldn't answer it. I do so because maybe something in the back of my head is telling me that it will be a fun night when I am drunk. Truth is though, of all the many times I have gotten really drunk, I can't recall any that I would define as more fun than if I wasn't drinking. If anything, I end up doing something really stupid and end up with a huge cloud of regret hanging over me the following day.

Now as much as I would like to give up alcohol completely, I do like my red wines and it's not something I'm willing to stop drinking. So that is where I will now draw the line. If the situation calls for it (dinner, etc), I will have a glass or two of wine, but I will not allow myself any other drinking outside of that.

So with that also out of the way, my next resolution is to get fit. About June last year, I managed to drop my weight down to 70kg from about 86kg. This was a much needed body change as I was just so out of shape. Unfortunately, I set my goal at 70kg and made it a plan to start back at the gym for weight lifting at that point. I have gained a few kilograms and have built up some more muscle, but I still think there is quite a bit of room for improvement.

So it seems like it is time again to reduce the weight lifting and get back into the cardio. I reckon once I get down to about 63kg, my body should have about the right definition that I am looking for and at that point I can get back into the weights. Despite the mild headache I have, I will have to get the ball rolling by starting tonight.

And last but not least, HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you out there.

So this is a step in the right direction?

2010-06-18T20:17:00.002+10:00

That's right.... I forgot to mention one thing in my last post. About one week prior to the TOCAU Annual Meet, I was stuck in traffic behind a van who was stopped behind a bus that was loading/unloading passengers. While waiting there, the van in front of me decided to try and overtake the bus, but to do this he had to reverse back firstly. Well, you can kind of picture where this is going. Anyways, my car received some light damage to the front and then came the annoying part of having to sort it all out.

After calling AAMI I found that I could drop it off the very next day for assessment so that it could be sent off for repair. Unfortunately, the Annual Meet was getting awfully close so I couldn't risk not getting it back on time. So I cleaned her up the best I could and went on to the meet the following week. On the Tuesday after I got back (14/06), I dropped her off and she is now in the body shop getting the work done. I should expect to get her back around the 22nd.

So for the last week at work, I've just been borrowing my sister's Mazda 3 to drive around in. I'm sure I said this before last time I had to borrow it due to an accident, but damn this car is sluggish. It goes to show how used you get to your own car. Anyways, my sister will be needing her car this weekend so I decided to hire out a Toyota Camry Hybrid and see how they go.

I picked it up earlier today and have given it a bit of a drive so far. First impression are that this car is just weird to drive. Not in the bad way, but in the way that everything just doesn't feel what you would normally be used to in a car. You press the 'POWER' button and the only sign to tell you the car actually is on is the 'Ready' light on the dash. There is no initial hum of an engine running or the sound of an engine starting... just silence.

Then comes the drive itself. Personally I didn't think it would be that noticeable, but the whole 'Hybrid Synergy Drive' thing isn't exactly as seamless as I was expecting. I personally think there is a little bit too much lag in having the petrol engine assist/take over the electric motor. So in moments where you need to accelerate more sharply, it initially feels a bit more sluggish than say a non-hybrid Camry, but because of the way it all ties in, it's hard to say whether it actually is more sluggish.

I'm guessing that it actually isn't, but it's only just the feel of it. As I said before, I think it's just that overall unnatural feeling that makes the driving experience a little odd. Once you are in motion though and travel over varying conditions, the transition between petrol and electric becomes pretty much unnoticeable and everything feels like a normal car. It is an odd feeling though just hearing the engine turn itself on and off, but I guess if you put a little music on, you wouldn't even tell.

Putting your foot down in this car is certainly something different. It sure has more go than your normal 2.4l Camry. Sure this defeats the purpose of having a hybrid, but it's good to know that there is power there when needed. It does take a short second or two to pick up though but when it does, it will keep on moving. About the only issue I would have with this though is the CV transmission. After driving with traditional gearboxes for quite some time, a CV just seems so wrong. When you put your foot down and have the revs build up, you get this massive urge to want to upshift. Instead, you keep on doing as you are doing and the car takes care of itself... despite it sounding like you are over-revving it.

Then there is the fun part of slowing to a stop. Having read about hybrids before, I am aware of how slow and gentle braking is what is usually best for it. All I can say is that a gentle application of the brakes is actually pretty strong for what I was expecting. It's not a bad thing at all... I was just surprised. As far as I'm aware, the regeneration component of it will be doing quite a bit of the braking when you lightly apply it, so this is quite a bit of stopping power this system can hold. If you need to brake in a real hurry though, you can push down further on the pedal, but it starts to feel a bit different when you do that.

When you brake really heavily, there is a clear distinction between the regeneration and the actual hydraulic braking system. When you push the pedal just that little too much, you can feel the point where the actual brake pads start doing their work. I wouldn't say any of these things are an issue. I'm just stating what differences are to be noticed after coming for driving a traditional car.

On the topic of braking, there is one thing that I find pretty cool in a way. When slowing down with light to moderate braking power, as you come towards a complete stop, if you don't have any music on etc, you get that electrical humming sound due to the regeneration system similar to when a train slows down. It's just something you don't expect to hear from a car. And then when you come to that stop, everything is just dead silent. It's just an odd feeling sitting there with cars around you and you feel like yours is off.

I did say some time ago that if the Aurion wasn't produced, I would opt for a Camry Hybrid over just a normal Camry. After driving the hybrid for a little bit so far, I don't think the hybrid would be a car that I could get used to just yet. Despite having less overall power, I think I would still be tempted to get a normal Camry rather than the hybrid.

That said... I'm thankful for the Aurion.

Twenty-three years out in this world

2010-06-17T14:05:00.000+10:00

So just the other night, I met someone online and for some strange reason I thought about this blog of mine which I managed to just abandon and forget even existed. I decided to come back on here (via the public page that everyone else sees) and kind of shocked and amazed myself at the same time. At first I was shocked at how I had managed to write so much crap (as a figure of speech) on here, but then I was amazed because I just couldn't imagine how I managed to do that.

But it did get me thinking though about how I let myself down by giving up on it when it was a good way to store some memories and to help get things off my mind. Then I get the occasional comment from one of my loyal followers (Mitchell) or from other people who I talk to which goes to show that this page actually does get the occasional viewing.

Now let's see... my last blog entry was in September last year and well.... things have changed a little but nothing too out of the ordinary, or so it feels. Updating this on a regular basis would have been the best way to hold memories of all the occasions, but I can't travel back in time yet so I will have to try hard to remember what I can. So to sum up the last nine months without going into excessive detail (otherwise this will probably turn into a novel) I would say the following had occured:

I continued doing more and more travelling for work like I always had been.
I met a girl... looked like it was going somewhere but in the span of a few days, fell to pieces faster than a Jenga tower with monkeys playing.
I did some more travelling for work.
I met another girl. This one looking way more promising than the last. Only problem... she lived in Canberra and certain cercumstances made this difficult to keep together (the fault was on my behalf).
I got Glandular Fever five or so weeks after meeting the first girl. I'm not jumping to any conclusions. That resulted in a good seven or so weeks of hell which I just wanted to end.
I then had to drive back to Brisbane with Glandular Fever so I could finally get some rest and recover.
Spent a month away from work recovering then went straight back into it full steam ahead.
Then continued with some more travelling and work.
Managed to write-off Sam (my red Aurion) and was heart-broken.
Did some work in Adelaide... boy do I love that place.
Got payed out with my insurance and picked up a new car while I was in Adelaide... a silver TRD Aurion 3500SL.
Work conditions then changed and I got employed full time as a Field Service Engineer. This basically meant that all my fun interstate travel had come to an end, but in return I get more stable employment.
Been pretty much doing your usual Monday to Friday 9-5 type of work and that's about all really.
Just had the TOCAU (Toyota Owners Club Australia) Annual Meet in Sydney last weekend. Was quite a fun trip.
And here I am now, sitting in the office waiting for things to finish so I thought I would get a start on this.

So that about sums it all up. There is probably a ton of little things that happened along the way, but if I can remember anything worth talking about... I'll post it here when I remember. In the meantime, hopefully this will be the return of my usual posting. I don't want this blog to just be another failure of mine.
-

Did I say I love driving

2009-09-20T21:04:00.000+10:00

Okay, so about the only thing on my mind at the moment (well there are other things and people on my mind, but that's another story of it's own) is my recent track day at Queensland Raceway. I was going to recap on it all last night but all that driving seemed to had taken all the energy out of me.

It was a fun day out. I really learn quite a lot about my car and just how well it can handle when taken on to a track. When on the track, you are able to push the limits of your car with a reduced risk of breaking it or injuring yourself.

For those out there that are aware of the sprint circuit at QR, my lap time that I obtained was 1:08.6. I personally was wishing I could do better than this, but I guess I can use the excuse that it was my first time there. This is quite a respectable number though given the fact this car is a large sized sedan and is quite a comfortable family car.

So basically that was my Saturday. I will leave a photo and a video of random clips to end this post:

Increase to 500 millijoules!

2009-09-18T22:59:00.000+10:00

Okay okay. I get the point. I really am beyond lazy when it comes to updating this blog. I think I just kept pushing it further and further away until I stopped caring about it. Over the last few weeks, I've had something like four different people mention my blog. This kind of makes me feel bad knowing that firstly there are other people who actually read my blog and secondly, I am putting no effort into it anymore. So before it gets too late, I thought I would attempt to revive it again.

Since it is getting rather late and I should be getting to sleep soon because I have a big day tomorrow, this is here just to force me to get the ball rolling again. Tomorrow I will be heading out to QR (Queensland Raceway) to participate in my first sprint event. After spending so much time working on my Aurion (her name is Sam), I feel that she deserves to have a good run around a proper race track and it will be a fun learning experience for me as well.

With that said, I think I may leave this entry here for now and I will definitely be back soon for a well needed update.

Stuck in the moment

2009-06-29T20:44:00.049+10:00

Start time: 12:31am

I don't think I have ever come across a time where I have sat in front of the screen trying so hard to just start writing a blog entry. I have been staring at this screen for ages (opened up at 8:44pm), walked around my room a few times, went for a run, had a green tea, came back here, and stared at the screen for even longer. I though since the month was coming to an end, I may as well add some contribution. It isn't usually a hard thing to do either. It's not that I don't have anything on my mind, it's quite the opposite actually... I have EVERYTHING on my mind. Or so it feels like that anyway.

It really does feel that my mind is clouded with many thoughts but if that were the case, a simple run like I had earlier would work wonders in defragmenting everything to make it easier to get out of my head. But my mind already feels that it's been cleared. It is that bad I think I will need to throw in the towel now. I really can't make any sense of it all.

Sorry to waste your time.

End time: 01:38am

Listening to: Ercola Vs. Keikki L - Deep At Night

Best to sleep on it

2009-05-31T21:51:00.000+10:00

It is funny how a little bit of sleep can affect what you were once thinking of. For example, as the day comes towards an end, you may have so many things running through your mind that it may be difficult to make sense of it all. You may have a whole bunch of feeling that you want to express, or you may have some ideas that you just feel the need to let others know about. But you don't get around to doing so... and you end up going to sleep, telling yourself that you'll get back onto it the next day.

Then you get up after your few hours or so of sleep and then that thought you had before springs to mind again. This time though, it's not quite how you were thinking about it before. Those feelings that you were so eager to express are now thoughts that are best kept to yourself, or those ideas you had are probably not the best thing to be telling someone else. So I guess this shows how rationally you can see things depending on how well rested your mind is.

But then you also have to wonder; what if the thoughts you had prior to getting some sleep were more rational than when you thought about it again after getting some sleep?

Once upon a time...

2009-05-26T23:28:00.004+10:00

Not so long ago, I would have considered myself to be fairly fit. I'm not talking about Iron Man fitness levels, but my fitness was definitely much better than average. My peak of my fitness would have been two years ago. I remember going to the gym four mornings (weight training only), and running five nights a week. When I did run, I'd easily be able to run non-stop for a distance between 12-16km at a pace averaging 10km/h. I may not have had the most sculpted body, but I sure felt good about the shape I was in.

Fast forward to today. Since that brief period of being fit, I had obtained a desk job and sat around on my ass a little more than usual. I started to get a little more stressed, I got tired realy easily, and I just stopped giving a damn. My gym mornings dropped to three days a week, and I just stopped running completely. Fast food started to become more convenient and late night snacks and sweet cravings became more frequent.

Now I've gained a little extra fat around the lower half of my body and damn it is making me really self conscious. For so long I've been wanting to get rid of all this excess baggage but getting up and putting it all into action has been easier said than done. Food can be so delicious, and cardio is my most hated form of exercise ever. Both of these add up to disaster.

I have finally managed to build up the motivation to finally start working on my fitness again, but damn this is not going to be easy. I can't run non-stop like I used to (and it's going to take a lot to get up to that stage again), and hunger cravings are through the roof. It's things like this that make me want to give up so easily. I guess what makes it even more hard is that I like to see results quick, and something like this will obviously take time, so day by day it looks to me like I'm achieving nothing. But I am determined to get some results this time. I can't give up on myself yet again.

[rant]
Speaking of all this fitness and whatnot, it sucks how there is so much food out there that tastes so great, but most of the time, the better it tastes, the more calories it carries with it. Not only that, you can usually manage to eat a lot before you get full. Why oh why does everything have to be this way? Where is the enjoyment in life if you can't enjoy the pleasures of eating without any side effects. I hate how that works. Sometimes I wish I had a really fast metabolism. Nothing annoys me more than those people who can just keep eating and eating and not even gain a single kilo. They have it so easy. On the other hand, I have a metabolism that is about average, but it also can slow down quite a bit which means that if I need to burn fat, I need to either eat barely anything or exercise really intensely. That's certainly no fun then. Sometimes life just sucks.
[/rant]

Even the smallest changes make a difference.

2009-05-24T23:19:00.000+10:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. I am really lazy and don't really pay attention to this blog anymore. I don't really think it matters that much anymore to me since I have such a (really) small audience, but the whole purpose of this was for my own recollection. Of course updating this everyday would seem a bit pointless, but then if I leave it too long, I forget the events of the past and then they just fade away never to be thought of again.

So if you were to ask me what has been going on over the last 40 days or so, I wouldn't think much has happened. I did read a quote earlier in the week though from Calvin and Hobbes which is so true and makes me realise just how important all the little insignificant events can be. The quote was:

"Day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon, everything is different."

If you think about it, as simple as that quote is, it is pretty true to real life. Changes can happen really slowly and you sometimes fail to notice the events which led to those changes.

Apart from that, just the usual for me really. Work, sleep, eat, then sleep again. I have been feeling quite good lately however, and this has been thanks to a lovely person that I have been chatting to recently. She knows who she is.

As well, I'm really looking forward to the Queen's Birthday Long Weekend. Why? Because I will be heading to Melbourne for the Toyota Owners Club Australia Annual Meet. The plan is to drive down on the evening on Thursday, then drive back up to Brisbane on the following Monday afternoon. That is going to be one wicked weekend.

It's all in your head

2009-04-13T23:27:00.000+10:00

So I've been meaning to type this for ages but due to my obvious laziness, I have never had the patience to sit down and write this up. Last night however, I had a really vivid dream that was induced by massive sleep deprivation, and here I am now finally with the patience to write it up. The topic of choice? Dreams.

I'm not here to go though different theories on why we dream, rather just to talk about the dreaming process itself. Why we dream is a completely separate discussion on it's own, and we as humans still don't know why we really do dream. Personally, I just think that we dream because our brain needs something to do while the rest of our body is recovering so that it is always processing something for 24 hours a day.

The way your brain creates a dream from scratch, or constructs a dream using similar events but still creating a new 'story' is one thing that will always amaze me. Sometimes you may have a boring dream that hardly makes sense and other times you may have a dream that flows like a well told story. It's those dreams that make you really wonder how your brain can be so creative yet if you were to try that while awake, you can not think of anything like it.

Another thing about dreams that also amazes me is how not only your visual senses are aroused, but so are all your other senses. You can smell, hear, and feel things just like you would in real life. You can hear people's voices exactly how you remember them, they act and behave exactly as they do, and this is for words you have never heard them say and actions you have never seen them do. Inside your head, you are able to visualise everything exactly like it would happen in real life.

On the outside, it seems quite amazing how all this can go on inside your head while you sleep, but if you look at it on a more detailed level, it is quite understandable how it happens. After all, your brain does process every sensory stimuli that it receives, so it would only make sense that if it could recreate this stimuli, it would feel exactly like real life. So when you think about it, everything that you see, hear, smell, and feel in real life are all just electrical impulses inside your head, and when you dream, it is the exact thing occurring, just a little less accurate in most cases.

When it is put into that perspective, you can then realise how some dreams can leave you wanting more the next day because you have experienced some of the best feelings but as realistic as they felt, they only lasted for a brief period and aren't embedded in your long term memory. It's just not fair that our body has the potential to do this, but we have no control over it. Sometimes the unanswered questions in life really do suck.

* I do realise that there is no flow to all this. I am pretty tired now since I left this till late, and I just want to get the damn thing out of the way.

You can't always expect everything to work out perfectly

2009-03-30T21:23:00.001+10:00

My life is always in a whirlwind. I can never really think straight as a result of that, and sometimes can't even make sense of myself anymore. The last couple of weeks has been spent trying to get my mind back into order, but things just don't seem to be getting much better.

Time and time again I set myself up for disappointment, and by now you would think that I would be used to it. But this is not the case. I just can't help it even if I can see that things will not come to a positive ending. Is it because I am too kind? Is it because I just keep finding people who don't appreciate my assistance? Or is it because I am just too lost within my own mind that I can't see where I am going wrong?

It is in my nature to get fairly close to people. I enjoy listening to others and helping them out when needed. I do this without expecting anything in return except for some level of appreciation that lets me know that my words haven't fallen upon deaf ears and my actions haven't gone unnoticed. A little bit of appreciation goes a long way. Some times though, regardless of how much you try, you may reach a point where you need to just move on and accept that your efforts will just be wasted.

So as this post comes to an end, the best way to sum up what is on my mind right now is the following saying that my year 11/12 physics teacher had once told me.

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink".

I've also mentioned this saying in the past, but it is quite a true saying. Despite how much you try and provide positive suggestions, you can't always make them listen regardless of how important it may be.

Music memory

2009-03-16T00:52:00.003+10:00

While I was working today listening to music play on the radio in the background, it got me thinking again. It is amazing how the mind works and how it makes memory associations. I'm sure I'm not the only one that this happens to so I will talk about it in a broader sense.

What I find amusing is how you can listen to a song many times again and again and not think too much about it, but then you can hear it again in a different scenario and it will forever be associated to whatever was happening at the time. This could be as simple as a sight that you had seen, a certain part of a movie, a person you had met, or a particular feeling you were experiencing at the time. So next time you will hear that song, you will be taken back in time and reminisce on an event, or feel exactly as you felt at the time you associated the song. The song will never be the same again.

Along that topic, I will recall a few songs and the associations I have for them. It is only a selection of the many, many associations I have made over time:

Lux - Northern Lights : The Citytrain TV commercials shown here in Queensland many years back. I wouldn't have found out this song name if it wasn't for Tamara. This is the song that I heard while working the other day which is what led me to typing this post.

Tears For Fears - Everybody Wants to Rule the World : The movie 'Click' starring Adam Sandler

Gwen Stefani - Cool : As above

Justin Timberlake - Sexy Back : Funny story this one. Alex and I were checking out this girl at the bar with an open back dress. She had a well kept figure and well, she looked great from behind. Anyways, about 2 seconds after we looked at each other and agreed, this song started to play. That was a classic.

Youth Group - Forever Young : The 100% Pure New Zealand commercial.

Linkin Park - What I've Done : The move 'Transformers'.

Paramore - Decode : This song just reminds me of Amy whom I met at GE Money. She was really into Twilight and then I went to her MySpace after she updated her background song with this. Now every time I hear the first few seconds of guitar at the beginning, that's all I can think of.

Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me) : This song reminds me of the end of a 'Futurama' episode titled 'The Luck of the Fryrish'. This song was a very good touch to the ending.

Dead or Alive - You Spin Me Round : Roller skating/blading at the Durack Rollerdrome and ice skating at Iceworld Acacia Ridge. There are many other old school tracks that bring back this memory, but this one stands out the most.

Holly Valance - Kiss Kiss : Driving late at night with Candice. Long story that one and probably best not not to go into detail.

Phil Collins - In the Air Tonight : The TV series 'Tru Calling'. Full Blown Rose did a remake of this song for the ending of the series and it was great. Now whenever I hear this song by Phil Collins, I think of Full Blown Rose, which then makes me think of Tru Calling.

Ian Van Dahl - Reason : My first Les Mills RPM session at Fitness First in 2004. That was some intense exercise.

Martijn Ten Velden - I Wish U Would : Having dinner at the Black Dog Cafe in Hervey Bay. This was the first night of the road trip to Cairns that Alex and I did at the beginning of 2006. This was playing in the background and I just had to find out what it was.

4 Strings - Take Me Away : The lifestyle show from channel 9 'Getaway'.

Darude - Feel The Beat : This brings back memories of waking up early to watch Video Hits and Rage on TV when I was younger. Come to think of it, maybe the video of this is what started my love of the Dodge Viper.

Destiny's Child - Jumpin', Jumpin' : As funny as it sounds, this was the very first song I downloaded on Napster (those were the days). I couldn't think of any song so I asked my sister what song she wanted. This was the song she chose.

That's about I can think of now off the top of my head. As I've said, there are many more but I would probably only recall them as I hear them in the future.

Home and away

2009-03-08T22:12:00.010+10:00

This morning I arrived in Darwin after a short two day break back in Brisbane after working at Coffs Harbour. One thing that really stood out on my drive home from Coffs was the way that I usually respond to travelling. I really love to travel to different places but at the same time, part of me likes to stay at home and I usually miss it every time I am away. So when I travel somewhere, I find that for the first few days or so I am really wanting to go back home and I don't really enjoy the place as much, but then I settle into my new surroundings so by the time that I am heading back home, I start to miss where I was staying.

My mind is always messing with me like that and it annoys me because I'm only usually out of town for about two weeks and it always makes the travelling just a little less enjoyable. But I wouldn't give up on the travelling for anything.

The laziness continues

2009-03-03T07:09:00.000+10:00

I have been trying to force myself to make a post to this blog over the last couple of months but as per usual, I have never gotten around to it. This time though, I promised Mitchell that I will post again to it so Iguess it needs to be done now. I'll see if I can get you up to scratch with the happenings of the last two months. I also have a few posts that have been pending for a while in the back of my head so I may need to get around to those later as well.

One reason why I now regret not posting more frequently here is because of my bad memory. From what I can remember though, the last couple of month have been quite busy but mainly routine so it seems like I haven't gotten much done. Key highlights over this period though are:

- 21st Birthday parties three weekends in a row (Amanda, Clare, and Natalie). The first two ended up in a lot of Valley drunkeness, the third was a facny dress... I went as Austin Powers.
- Finally gtetting around to quitting GE Money after 11 months of employment. I had been waiting for that day.
- Starting (continuing) work with DOCOMO interTouch, formerly Maginet. I finally get a majority of my weekend back now which is a relief after working every weekend for 10 months
- Getting a set of Bridgestone Potenza Adrenalin RE001's for my Aurion, LOL. Best tires ever for street use.

Come to think about it, there really hasn't been too much going on. My main chunk of my week is used up by work. Work is quite good though because I can finally work 9-5 (or there abouts) every weekday, and get my weekends off (nearly all anyway). It feels much better than working Friday through to Monday like I was at GE.

At the moment, I am currently working in Coffs Harbour at the moment at the Breakfree Aanuka Beach Resort. I have been here since the 23rd of February and should be out by the 6th of March. I'm guessing there has been a bit more going on lately, but I'm probably not going to remember it now, at least until I return home to Brisbane. Despite the fact that I'm working at the moment, I feel like I am kind of on holiday. Life is great.

... And welcome 2009

2009-01-08T17:32:00.000+10:00

I thought it was about time that I finally make my first post for 2009. Actually, I was originally intending to make a post on the 1st of January, but you know how lazy I can be with this sometimes.

So as I expected, I entered 2009 in a drunken mess. This time however I was drunk on beer. Things were better this time around. I managed to hold myself together pretty well and not make (too much) a fool out of myself. As well, I even bailed on the night at the same time as everyone else which was a good achievement from me. The rest of my morning then consisted of sleep to wear off the tiredness. The 37 degree summer heat and humidity didn't help it either.

In the evening to wind down from the new year festivities, I caught up with Alex and watched Bolt in 3D. This was the second time I've watched a movie in digital 3D and I am still amazed at the clarity. Having animation in digital and 3D is unreal that if you haven't yet had the opportunity to watch a movie in this format, I suggest you do so as soon as possible. As well, over the next few nights I also watched Yes Man and Bedtime Stories. So far it's looking good with my movie count for week one of 2009 sitting at three. I aim to beat 2008 which had a total of 75 movies over 52 weeks.

Apart from that, my first week of 2009 has been just about the same as every other week. There have been some subtle differences however. I feel a little more positive this year and can definitely feel a change coming along. It's only day nine of 365 however, so who knows what the next 356 days will have in store for me. I will make this year exciting.

My farewell to the year that was 2008

2008-12-31T11:21:00.002+10:00

Just like every other year, 2008 seemed to have flown by pretty fast. If I was asked casually if I had achieved or completed much this year, my typical answer would be “I don’t really think so”. After many one-on-one meeting with my team leader at work, I have learnt that I never really notice the little things, and only pay attention to the big picture. So to help me keep a record of the year that has been 2008, I will see how much of it I can remember. It may be difficult to keep in a understandable order, but I’ll see how I go.

I started 2008 in a drunken mess (the effect of the New Years Eve party), and if that was any indication of how I was going to party this year, then it was fairly accurate. Any social occasion this year that involved alcohol usually ended up with me being the token drunk guy. Unfortunately actions and words cannot be taken back, so all I can do is look back over it all and laugh. On the plus side, I have become a beer drinker again. I used to like beer, then I hated it and after taking a break from it, I now like it again. It’s kind of good as well because I’m starting to dislike spirits now. Maybe I just need a break from it.

So speaking of drinking and partying, 2008 was the year of 21^stbirthdays. Being born in 1987 meant that a lot of my friends were born in the same year. As a result, there were countless 21^st birthdays to attend this year. Now this is a good thing because it gives more than enough reason to party hard. The one thing about all of this that got difficult after a while was the fact that there were so many different gifts to buy and unfortunately, creativity slowly decreased over the year and presents got more and more simple. As well, most of these parties occurred on a Saturday night. For the majority of people who had already finished study at the end of last year, this wasn’t a problem. I on the other hand was still at TAFE which meant I could only work at the end of the week and on the weekend. Ever since March, I had worked every weekend which meant dreadful hangovers on most of my Sundays.

This then takes me onto the topic of work. Since I had quite Woolworths in September 2007, I had been working with Maginet in the meantime. Unfortunately, the job required a lot of travel and since 2008 was going to be a busier year at TAFE, I couldn’t afford the time off. So I looked elsewhere for a job that could fit in nicely with my education, and the GE Money call centre happened to be the place. I started training there in February which I then completed at the start of March. Ever since then, I have been working a cycle of Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday (afternoon/evening); with minimal variation in my shifts. One thing always remained the same though; I never got a weekend off. As a result of all that, I burnt out of the job fairly quick because those are the busiest days there, so I hope to move on to a new job in 2009 as I have graduated from TAFE.

On the topic of education, that was pretty much where the other half of my year disappeared to. Being a similar style to school, TAFE consisted of full ten hour days on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Despite the fact that it meant that I was mostly unavailable at the same times each day, it actually felt good having a consistent schedule throughout the year. But after many long days, my course had come to an end in December and now the long road ahead awaits.

In keeping with my little tradition, I always aim to watch at least one new release movie every week. Since 2003, I have kept all my ticket stubs to enable me to keep track of what I have seen. 2008 was a busy year with movies, and this year I managed to watch a total of 71 new movies at the cinema with four of those being watched twice. This equals to 75 trips to the cinema over a 52 week year. Not too bad I say. Luckily I have a student discount, so all up I only spent about $487.50 on the movies alone, and probably another $300 on drinks and snacks. Still quite a bit now that I think about it. For record keeping, I have a list of the movies I’ve watched in 2008 located here.

So that was pretty much the construction of 2008... the events that occurred frequently enough to consume a majority of the year. Now onto some of the little events that happened in between that are worth noting. Not too many events come to mind so I had to go through my photos taken during the year to give a bit of a refresher. Some photos are included at the end of this post.

To start things off, the first major change I had for 2008 was that I started a course of Roaccutane. Prior to this, I had a persisting acne issue and after numerous topical and oral antibiotic treatments did not work, I was just about to give up. I finally got around to getting a dermatologist referral and then was prescribed the one medication that has been known to give great results. After only a month of treatment, results were starting to be seen and you could really see why many people call it a miracle drug. To reduce the side effects (dry skin being the worst), we had decided to continue with a moderate dose for a longer period. Twelve months later and my course of Roaccutane is just about to come to an end (only three days left). I could not be any more pleased with the outcome. My face is clearer, and I feel more confident when going out. I have felt pretty lethargic over the duration of the year and it is hard to determine whether this treatment was a cause or not. If it was, then at least 2009 can start of fresh and I might gain some energy back in the process.

I guess next up would be the opening of Krispy Kreme in Brisbane (Photo 1). This was good news as it meant that you no longer had to travel to Sydney or Melbourne (or find someone coming back from there) just o enjoy them. This also had its disadvantages though.

On the topic of consumables, there are two new things that I tried in 2008 that I am now addicted to, the first being EasyWay Tea. Now I’ve had bubble tea before and prior to this I would only buy from Tea Bar. Once I discovered EasyWay though, I was instantly addicted and have purchased quite a bit of it since. There is just something unique with the flavour. The other thing I am addicted to is Hanaichi. For the weeks that I had TAFE (which was nearly the whole year) we would go to Indooroopilly for lunch and Hanaichi would be the meal of choice. Now that TAFE is over though, I am having some serious withdrawal symptoms.

Next on the list would have to be my new Toyota Aurion (Photo 2). Originally back in 2007, I was seriously planning to get a Nissan 200SX S15. After a trip to the drags at Willowbank, my whole preference for cars changed quite a bit. As well, I realised that I should aim for something more practical and get a car with more usable space. Despite the fact that I like the aggressiveness of a Holden or Ford, I just wasn’t a fan of them as they are just too common on the road. After some searching around, I found the Toyota Aurion. It had the reliability of a Toyota (which I was already aware of with my Camry), yet it had quite a lot of power for a locally made car by them. I was immediately hooked, and after a little bit of waiting, my Dad found one for me and I have been attached to it since.

Speaking of Toyota, I also joined the Toyota Owners Club – Australia forum. This has allowed me to share my experiences together with others and seek advice as well. In addition to that, I had joined in on the weekly Thursday night meets for the Brisbane Toyota owners. It has been a great opportunity to meet new people and I have gained some new friends in the process.

Now as TAFE days grew longer and longer, my mind had a good tendency to wonder. The photos shown for number 3 give a perfect example of how much time was spent bumming around.

I guess next up on the list was the opening of Fitness First at Jindalee (Photo 4). I was looking forward to this not due to the fact that it would only take a third of the time to get there compared to Indooroopilly, but more due to the fact that there the equipment would be newer. Overall, I am fairly impressed with the gym and the mornings still remain fairly quiet which is just how I like it.

This now brings us to about mid-year... my birthday. My birthday always happens to fall on a day when something is going on. During my teens, this happened to be school. For the last few years (including this year), I happened to be working. This year, I not only had to go to TAFE, but then work as well. So much for a relaxing 21^st birthday. My team mates were very kind though and decorated my desk for me (Photo 5).

A few months or so down the track, some female driver (just setting the scene; not criticising) thought it would be fantastic to t-bone me at an intersection (Photo 6). Being such a new car, you could imagine just how annoyed I was. I had to go without my car for two whole weeks, which was so excruciating. In the end though, all was resolved and now I have my car back to enjoy more than ever.

A couple of months later, December kicked off with a smile; in quite an interesting way. Venus and Jupiter just happened to line up nicely with a crescent moon, and Photo 7 shows how it looked. Just looking up at the sky, one couldn’t help but smile back. It was certainly a cheerful way to start the month.

A couple of weeks later once I finished TAFE, I realised that I now had quite a bit of free time available to myself. After listening to Amy at work talk non-stop about the book ‘Twilight’, I thought I would once again try to give reading another go. Luckily for me, Twilight was written in first-person which I find much easier to read. I was hooked immediately and now am going to continue reading the entire series. I’m about half-way through all of it right now, but haven’t had too much opportunity to read much in the last week due to other commitments.

This then takes up to Christmas time which I believe was not really like Christmas used to be. It seems like the Christmas spirit is starting to fade away as each year goes on. It is kind of a disappointment actually. One thing that still hasn’t changed (and probably getting worse) is the shopping centres around that time. It is just way too impossible to go to a shopping centre over the November/December/January period. I guess maybe next time if I sorted my shopping earlier, this wouldn’t be a problem. Though, how many times have I told myself this?

Fast forward a week later and here I am now. Writing my last blog entry for 2008 and getting ready for yet another year. As per normal, 2009 is going to start off with me in a drunken mess but hey; what can you do?

Here are the photos that I was referring to earlier:

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)

If anyone out there has read through this, or even just skipped right to the end here, I would like to wish you a Happy New Year and may 2009 be full of fun and experiences. My year had it's up's and its down's, and it's usually the down's that one remembers the most. I am hoping that 2009 is a happier year for myself and that it is full of many up's and barely and down's. But I guess a balance is required right? Anyways, if your 2008 didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to, I hope 2009 brings you more enjoyment. I will see you again next year.

That was easy

2008-12-24T04:01:00.000+10:00

So Westfield Chermside was open for its usual 33 hour Christmas shift (9am Tuesday 23rd till 6pm on Wednesday 24th), so I decided to take advantage of some last minute shopping. As you probably would have figured, I really hate shopping centres around this time of the year because it is always so busy that:

1) There is traffic everywhere,
2) It is near impossible to get a parking space, and
3) The centres are packed full of people and it is noisy.

I still had a few more presents to buy, so I thought I may as well leave it till now so I can cut a lot of the hassle. And that I did. It took me only 20 minutes to drive there (a usual trip takes about 30-35 minutes), I got a parking space right next to the entrance, and the centre was no more busy than a normal trading day outside of the holiday season. Plus all the noisy little kids were most likely in bed, so that cut down on a lot of noise. With Christmas Eve usually being a really busy day for shopping, I'm quite happy that I've now got all my shopping done without the hassle.

Continuing on from my last post...

2008-12-11T13:17:00.000+10:00

... I hate the Christmas period more now that the cinema's are now packed full of noisy teens.

/rant

I absolutely hate...

2008-12-10T18:51:00.001+10:00

... shopping centres during the Christmas period. It's crowded, loud, and just plain annoying. And don't even get me started on the parking issue. That is all.

/rant

Crunch time

2008-12-06T07:51:00.003+10:00

It has been a quiet five and a half weeks online here, so I guess it's about time to put up an update on things. As it is approaching the end of TAFE which finishes on the end of Wednesday the 10th of December, I have been quite busy to get thing up-to-date so that I will definitely be out of there on time. As a result, I have been quite tired lately and haven't really had much time to get anything else done. I have managed to fit in time though to keep up with all the new release movies though, so that has given me some time-out here and there.

So with only three days left of study, it is getting closer to the time in which I need to move on to a more career-oriented job. This part I am really excited about. As bad as this may sound, I'm more excited due to the fact that I will be leaving my current job. I'm not trying to say that the actual job itself is bad, in fact it is quite a good job. It's more of the encounters you have on a daily basis and the level of stress that comes with it that is the killer. I guess customer service is a field which you need to be prepared to work in, otherwise you will burn yourself out faster than you can recover. I am at that stage right now, and it's really wearing me down. Being mentally tired is such a different and more draining feeling than being physically tired.

As with any job though, you establish connections with other people and the time that you spend together at work can be quite enjoyable. It is this part of the job that makes it really hard to move to another. Of course you would still remain as friends, but you may not really end up seeing them as much as you do when at work. I guess in the end, you need to take the good with the bad and just put a positive perspective on it all.

First things first though; I need to start applying for other jobs. Until then, there is no celebration yet. I really hope that the Christmas period at work is better than I'm predicting. It doesn't take much guesswork to figure how busy a financial call centre would be during the busiest spending period of the year.

Movie time

2008-10-27T23:14:00.003+10:00

To make it an even six movies in six days*, I went out tonight to watch Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D. Not only was this my first movie that I have watched in a theatre that was in 3D (not counting the short 'movies' you see at places like Movie World in 3D) and it was certainly a different experience. At the beginning where most of the scenes were in everyday environments, the 3D effect seemed really odd, but this was due to the fact that the actors were shown normally, and the surroundings were in 3D giving the blue screen effect. As the later scenes came on and there was a lot of CGI involved, the actors appeared more fitting to the environment and the 3D effect was greatly enhanced.

Another first for me in relation to cinema is the use of digital projection. To acheive the 3D for this movie, they have chosen to project it digitally. There were two things in particular that stood out for me with this form of projection. Firstly, and the most obvious difference, was the fact that the images were absolutely clean. They were sharp, clear, flicker free and most of all, had no scratches. The second thing I really noticed was the lack of projector noise. I like to sit a couple of rows down from the back of the cinema and in this position, you can usually hear the clicking of the shutter in the traditional film projector. Now most people would either not notice this or find it annoying. I however find that this, together with the flicker and scratches you get from traditional film projection, adds to the cinematic experience. But with the advantages that digital cinema offers, I guess it would be something that you can get used to over time. It's just not quite the same though.

*The other movies watched were (in order): Burn After Reading, Babylon AD, Saw V, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, and Brideshead Revisited.

Friday morning boredom

2008-10-24T08:00:00.004+10:00

Well after (what felt like) a long two weeks, I now have my Aurion back. When it was first taken in, it was estimated to take exactly 14 days (completion on Wednesday 22nd). About a week in, they mentioned that they needed another couple of days and it would be completed which would take it to Friday the 24th. On Thursday however, I got a call to say that it was now ready and that I oculd pick it up. So that is pretty much it. I now have my car back and am really excited. You can hardly tell it was ever in an accident.

In other ramblings, I headed to the gym the other night, which was something quite different to the norm. Ever since I finished high school, I have always done my workout in the morning at the gym. After going the other night, I realised just how much better it is to make the extra effort to get up early in the morning. In the morning, not only is it quiet but nearly all the people there are focussed solely on their workout. In the evening however, there is a lot more socialising going on than actual exercising itself. I don't know, but when I go to the gym, I want to exercise, not socialise or get held up because people busy doing so are getting in my way.

Slightly uncomfortable

2008-10-17T07:59:00.004+10:00

After driving my sister's car for the last ten days, I have come to realise just how self conscious I can be. Even though her car is a fairly new Mazda 3 in perfect condition, I still feel awkward when other people see me driving it. Even though I am pretty sure that no-one cares when they see me driving it, I just feel more comfortable when seen driving my own car. In my opinion, my Aurion looks hot and when people look at me when I'm with it, it makes me feel great.

This is such torture not having my Aurion. I had a call from AAMI last Wednesday and they confirmed that everything is going on track and it should be ready on the 22nd. It may only be four days away but I really can't wait till I get it back. It's amazing how a person can actually miss something like a car with such feeling. It's a strange relationship.

Man, I'm over this day already. I'm stuck here at work till 4pm and have absolutely nothing to do. If they were kind enough to provide forum access here at work I would be fine; but instead they choose to block them. The internet used to be fun... what happened?

Strange nights

2008-10-11T07:43:00.004+10:00

Have you ever just gotten up in the morning and while lying in bed still worn down, you think to yourself "did that (stuff last night) really happen?". You ponder on it for a moment, only to realise you still have a stamp on your arm or have other remnants from the night before (edit: the smell of women's perfume all over yourself). "Well, I guess that night did happen"... Then you head back to sleep.

Such a pain

2008-10-10T10:23:00.003+10:00

So where do I start? It seems like I have been so busy lately that I have had no time to sit down in front of my computer and add another post. Funny thing is; when I think back over the last few weeks or so, I can think of what I did to fill time. That's either a good or a bad thing. I'm leaning more towards it being a bad thing.

I guess my main reason for coming back here to do a little typing was to write about the little accident that I got into on Tuesday morning. To save from repeating myself, I have written up a complete post over at Toyota Owners Club Australia and you can read it all by going to the following link:

http://au.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17754

I am really annoyed that this had to happen to me, and what makes it even more annoying is the fact that for something that wasn't my fault at all, I am now stuck without my car for two weeks. On top of that, it will just never be the same ever again. But either way, I just want it repaired so I can get back to driving around in my own car. I don't know why it is so difficult for me to drive around in another car. I guess it partially comes down to the fact that I am bit of a show pony. I always like it when I have people turning their heads to check out my car. Heck, even I still stop and stare at my car whenever I get the chance. It is just that sexy... LOL.

This must be hell

2008-09-28T12:09:00.003+10:00

I've said it before; yet here I am again. This time I am feeling about ten times worse.. and I am working a 9 to 5 shift. Why must I do this to myself?

It just never ends

2008-09-14T01:32:00.000+10:00

So I pretty much had absolutely nothing to do this Saturday night. I really do seem to be lacking a social life at the moment. Come to think of it; did I ever really have one to start with? Anyways, instead of completely wasting my night away, I headed down to the cinema to watch Funny Games (IMDb). The best way to describe this movie was that it felt uncomfortable to sit and watch. Don't get me wrong though. The movie was filmed to make you feel a bit like that, and once you really see how everything is happening, it is actually a decent movie.

After that, I was just about to arrive home and somewhat didn't feel that it was quite the time to bail on the night. Since I was already in the car, I decided to keep on driving just to help clear my mind. That turned out to be an epic fail on my behalf. I really don't know what the hell is going on with me, but my mind is not taking the single life so easily anymore. What ever happened to the time when I couldn't really care less about being single? Relationships were never really a high priority when it came to my life as it stood, but now all of a sudden, it's like the priority has gone up. It is really starting to drive me insane.

Anyways, I sort of entered auto-pilot when I kept driving so for the first bit of the trip, I was having a D&M with my own mind. It didn't seem to be going anywhere; which is usually the case. Next thing, I'm driving through the Valley followed by the City. This probably wasn't the best place to be given how my mind was at the time. Afterwards, I headed to Milton Maccas to pick up a frozen raspberry and then I headed to Mt. Coot-tha to chill for a bit. It was surprisingly empty at the time, so I could stand back and think for a bit. After that, I just drove some more and now I'm here. That pretty much sums up that night then.

Now I'm home, and still have a mind that is in a mess. That drive served absolutely no purpose whatsoever except to waste fuel. I guess Mt. Nebo would have been the better option since that trip usually works wonders, but I wasn't up for eating though a large amount of fuel at the time.

Can't quite call it a sleep 'pattern'

2008-09-12T23:46:00.004+10:00

Have you ever stayed up so late at night doing something, then sleeping for such a short period of time such that when you wake up, it feels like everything you did before going to sleep was all a dream? This happens to me quite a bit actually and it can go one of two ways. Sometimes I wish that it was really all a dream, or sometimes I feel quite good knowing that it wasn't. Usually the latter though ends up with me spending the entire day with the thought on my mind and is quite distracting, and doesn't seem too healthy for my mind. This is pretty much how my day was spent.

All this probably sounds weird but then again, I am a pretty weird person. My sleep patterns are so messed up that I can sleep at pretty much any time of the day and can start dreaming in a matter of minutes. I hear this isn't really a good thing, but I seem okay right? Except for the fact that I fall asleep really easily. On top of that, I have many occasions where I have a waking dream. It's kind of hard to explain. It's like I would be lying in bed on my side or stomach with my eyes open, and even though I can physically see my bed/pillow/room, I am still dreaming. It's like a merge between images which is like impossible to explain.

Boogie it down

2008-09-06T21:59:00.001+10:00

So here I am at the Virgin Blue aircraft hangar. A good mate of mine who I haven't seen in ages has invited me along to the Virgin Blue 8th birthday party. 60's theme, free drinks, live bands, 4Play with Jimmy Z, 2000+ people. This is awesome.

Just like the weather

2008-09-04T14:04:00.003+10:00

Without a doubt, I love rainy weather. It is even better if there is thunder and lightning. The one thing however that I absolutely hate about it is that it always seems to carry a gloomy feel to it all. It feels as if I am going absolutely nowhere.

LOL this and LMFAO that

2008-09-01T23:06:00.003+10:00

In the midst of all my browsing and communicating, I came across a trend with the younger generations which has annoyed me a little for quite some time, but only really thought of recently. It all reminds me of something I heard while watching Californication. So to quote Hank Moody (David Duchovny):

"Just the fact that people seem to be getting dumber and dumber. You know, I mean we have all this amazing technology and yet computers have turned into basically into four figure wank machines. The internet was supposed to set us free, democratize us; but all it's really given us is Howard Dean's aborted candidacy and 24 hour a day access to kiddie porn. You know people, they don't write anymore, they blog. Instead of talking they text. No punctuation, no grammar. LOL this and LMFAO that. It just seems to me that it's just a bunch of stupid people pseudo-communicating with a bunch of other stupid people in a proto language that resembles more what cave men used to speak rather than the King's English."

It may seem a little harsh and a bit of a generalisation, but I must admit that this is true to an extent. It just isn't the same when you try to talk to people and they end up communicating back fashion that resembles text messaging. On a phone, I could understand since you have limited space, but is typing on a keyboard really that difficult that you need to type SMS style? I type with four fingers and even then it isn't difficult. It really seems to be killing the English language.

Window of opportunity

2008-09-01T21:08:00.000+10:00

Well I'm glad winter is now out of the way. I was starting to get fed up of all the cold mornings/evenings during that period. I used to really love winter, but the more and more I put up with summer (without an air conditioner) I started to love it more and more. As well, the winter period really messes with my head and no doubt this could be seen when taking a quick glance over my winter posts to this blog.

It may only be the start of a new season but now that winter is gone, it feels so much different. First and foremost, I'm able to clear my mind better and not dwell on any issues. There were many things that I have been dwelling on over the past few weeks and have been having difficulty letting go, but now I am rapidly loosing interest in it. I am now at the point that if something isn't proving worthwhile, I am just going to move on and leave it behind. There is only so much that I am going to wait for, and there is only so much effort that I am going to put in to make things work.

A little quiet

2008-08-30T11:22:00.003+10:00

Isn't this fun? I am sitting here at work and I am the only person in my team working. Every other team has at least three people, but I seem to be stuck on my own. It's a bit lonely here not having anyone to talk to. This would be a perfect time to sit back and have do some searious thinking and head clearing, but funnily enough my mind is pretty blank at the moment. It's always at the most inconvenient and annoying times that my mind becomes really tied up with deep thought. Now I am really bored.

Edit [11:50am]: Yay... Patrick has just arrived. Looks like I'm not on my own anymore.

A fact of life

2008-08-28T19:31:00.000+10:00

... You will always want what you can't have.

Up, down, left, or right

2008-08-27T21:50:00.004+10:00

Today while sitting bored at my desk at work, I learnt a new word which pretty much sums up how I feel every day:

Ambivalence - a state of having emotions of both positive and negative valence or of having thoughts or actions in contradiction with each other, when they are related to the same object, idea or person (for example, feeling both love and hatred for someone or something). The term is also commonly used to refer to situations where 'mixed feelings' of a more general sort are experienced or where a person experiences uncertainty or indecisiveness concerning something.

Why is it that when you try to more on and forget about ~~someone~~ something in particular, you manage to get only so far away before the natural forces pull you much closer where it is even harder to move away. How the human mind surely must be one complicated subject. It's hard to imagine what the hell is going on up inside my head. I'm sure it would be a massive mess right now.

... Man, I'm starting to sound like a broken record. My life seems to be stuck in an infinite loop. I need to find a way to break out of it.

Clone

2008-08-27T09:43:00.005+10:00

While on the topic of transport, I saw a couple of cars today with personalised plates that got me thinking. I'm talking about the ones that have the prestige personlised plates (the AUD$2295 ones than can have any combination of 6 characters) that use numbers to represent letters simply becuase their combination isn't available. One example would be '5TYLE'. Why would you bother spending $2295 on a plate that looks like 'STYLE' when there is already someone out there with that. So much for being unique. Now you just look like a poser.

It is understandable if you have one of the 3 number/3 letter or 2 number/3 letter combinations since they are like five times cheaper at around $395. An example of one of those plates is '57YLE'. That is creative since you are getting a close representation of 'STYLE' for only a fraction of the cost. Sure you would still seem like a poser, but at least you get some credit for your creativity. Either way though, any combination as described above would be quite annoying for the owner who was lucky enough to get the proper plate. I would sure be annoyed if someone out there bought the plate 'DJK0R'. Just how I see things anyways.

Patience

2008-08-27T08:48:00.002+10:00

Traffic... what a nightmare. Getting to work from home is a 15 minute drive with no traffic, and about 30 minutes with traffic and it's always been like that since I started here. This morning however was a disaster, taking a lengthy 50 minutes. Not a good way to start my day. Luckily I aim to get to work around 30 minutes earlier which gives some clearance for anything like this.

There is a lot of roadwork going on around the Brisbane area and I'm pretty sure that this is to blame for this increase in traffic. It is really frustrating at times, and you have to wonder whether or not these changes are really going to help. Sure you can add in extra lanes and what not, but in the end there is always going to be that bottleneck to get through.

I see you

2008-08-24T22:03:00.000+10:00

Webcams. They allow relatives to communicate long distance on a much more personal level, they enable businesses to have a meeting between countries, and allow couples to mess around while in two different locations. Whatever the use that you use it for, I think it is safe for me to say that I am definitely not a fan of this technology. The last few days I have finally gotten around to using the webcam included with my laptop and the experience wasn't exactly how I expected. There is something awkward about it all. Maybe it's the fact that you need to have an image of yourself on screen to be able to make sure you are 'in frame', and there is just something I find odd about seeing that on my computer screen. Or maybe I'm just a little too self conscious.

Why

2008-08-23T12:29:00.008+10:00

Sometimes I just wonder why I bother posting to this blog. Not in the sense of not getting the satisfaction of others reading it, but more along the lines of why I'm actually willing to write down whatever is on my mind onto a public space. Many times I write stuff up on here and then hours later, kind of regret what I wrote. Why? I don't know. Maybe it's because everything I write is completly pointless and sounds stupid. I don't even know why I'm writing this specific post. It's a bit of a weird thought now that I think about it.

Today is a bit of a strange one. I kind of feel all worn out and in need of something to refresh myself. There just seems to be something missing right now. Just like when you leave for a holiday and know you forgot something, but just can't quite pinpoint it. Right now I'm sitting like a tea light candle on it last stages of burning; it's still burning, just very dimly. So best said, I feel quite dim today. Sitting on the phones here at work talking to completely random people in a professional manner isn't quite helping the situation as well. I need to get out of here and find someone real to talk to.

By your side

2008-08-23T01:39:00.002+10:00

Friendship: co-operative and supportive behaviour between two or more humans. It is a bond which can be hard to break. You always try to support your friends to the best of your ability and in some cases, you may also be influencing their own decisions. This all becomes sub-conscious and even your friends don't notice it as controlling as that's what true friendship is all about.

So one of your friends may be doing something that you may not completely agree with. You stick by their side trying to steer them away from their actions. What you are doing seems completely like parenting. You are very protective of your friends especially in a group scenario. Every attempt you have in trying to change their mind is not working. What you don't realise though is that despite your own opinions, each and every one of us is entitled to make our own decisions. After all, if we make the wrong choice, we need to learn from our mistakes.

It makes you feel bad having to walk away in the end but realistically, your not the one making the final decision for your friend's own actions.

Trying to understand

2008-08-22T00:41:00.002+10:00

I am having so much trouble getting to sleep right now, so I'll vent my mind and try again. Let's see... So one of those things in life that one will never understand is what someone else is really thinking. You talk to someone, you ask questions, you get answers in return, and then you get a better understanding of them; or so you believe. You can make assumptions, but realistically you could be completely off track.

You feel like saying things in return which you believe is what they may want to hear, things that you yourself want to say; but you know better than that. Logic and past mannerisms take over and you say what would be more appropriate. You get nowhere now and regret making the wrong decision... or did you? This is one thing you will never know. Now it's sitting in the back of your mind and your losing sleep over it. The voice at the back of your head: "Nice work dumbass!"

I'm going to try and get to sleep now.

Weekly clean

2008-08-21T14:23:00.002+10:00

I'm a very picky person when it comes to keeping my car clean. It is really hard for me to put up with my car being any less than what you see in the photo above. That was after waxing it with Meguiar's NXT Generation Tech Wax. It is a really good quality wax that really brings out the depth of the colour, but unfortunately it loses a lot of its quality after a wash. Which then brings me to today.

Thursday seems to be the only day I have each week in which I have no other commitments. TAFE is over for the week and my typical work days are Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. I usually have nothing better to do during the day, so I use the majority of my day cleaning my car. It's at the time now where I am waiting for the wax to dry. I usually let it sit for at least a few hours, cleaning the wheels, engine bay, and interior in the meantime. I like to do the waxing and buffing by hand so at this point I am fairly worn out.

I think I take this car cleaning thing way too seriously. People keep saying that at this rate if I keep buffing at it more and more, I'll wear the paint off. They probably aren't joking either.

Serious thinking

2008-08-20T18:42:00.002+10:00

While sitting at TAFE, surfing the net on my phone (as I usually do), I stopped for a moment and thought about things as they are. You know when someone asks you where you plan to be in the future and you give an answer which is fairly sketchy? Then some time later you ask yourself that question, finding that you can't even answer it yourself. Well that's where my mind was today. Sure, I know I want to be working on electronics in the biomedical industry, but I have the faintest idea on how I'm going to get there or who I could expect to work with.

I should probably put my head down and start researching further because before I know it, the end of the year will be here and it will be time to move on. I guess part of me doesn't want this change to happen and is holding me back.

ROFL

2008-08-18T23:44:00.003+10:00

A pretty average day in general. Just TAFE followed by work as per my usual Monday routine. To top the night off however, Alex and I went and saw an advanced screening of 'Tropic Thunder' which is due out this Thursday. To simply sum it up; it was hilarious. I thought it was going to be one of those movies where the comedy would get quite repetitive and lame after a while; but I found myself laughing all throughout the movie. As well, I never thought I would find myself laughing at Tom Cruise in a movie ever again, but I have been proven wrong.

Looking back

2008-08-17T19:03:00.003+10:00

In the boredom of today's shift at work (in no way am I saying that is a bad thing; quiet time is good time) I ended up having a quick read through all the posts on my blog. It was quite interesting being able to take a step back reminisce on all the different events that have happened in the past. It may only be a few years worth of memory, but it sure was an overload of memories. As well, it was funny to see just how the format of my blog changed over time.

When I first started on my blog over at my MSN Space, I had roughly the same idea that I have at the moment which is writing in a diary style. Then somewhere along the line I decided to change my style to a technology blog style. I guess at the time I was interested in trying to have at least one post per day and when I ran out of ideas to keep it going, technology news seemed to work. I guess I soon realised that this was kind of pointless since there are already sites out there for that kind of stuff, and I doubt people out there are bothered to read my blog. In the end, writing my blog in a diary style proved to be a useful way to get stuff off my mind, and such as today, would give me the ability to take a step back in time and look at my past.

So what have I learnt? Well apart from the fact that I still can't maintain a regular update schedule for my blog despite the numerous promises I have made, I have learnt that my life is still relatively boring. I'm sure others out there will disagree with that statement, but I believe that there hasn't really been that much going on in my life. There is the occasional major happening, but it isn't really much of a regular occurrence. It's not that I am complaining about it or anything; it just seems like I could be doing so much more. Then again, I am also quite lazy when it comes to taking care of myself, so it really is my fault for it all.

As I look through it though, I realise that there are so many events that I have not written up about here. My idea of this blog was to let me maintain a type of diary and having a lot of empty space in it isn't going to be of much use. I think this time, I will try again to make a regular posting to this blog at least once a week. My mind is always full of crap so to speak, so it would probably be beneficial if I utilized this space to clear it out to make way for new stuff.

Will this day ever end

2008-07-20T12:10:00.003+10:00

I have only been at work for 40 minutes and this is a serious endurance test. I say it numerous times; "I will never have a big alcohol fueled night out on the town when I have to work the next day". Then Saturday comes along and what do I do? Forget everything that I told myself not to do. The question is; was this self inflicted torture worth it?

When things get tough

2008-07-07T20:32:00.001+10:00

I don't know what en earth is happening lately but recently I have had so many thoughts running through my mind that one moment I can be feeling on top of the world, but the next I can feel the complete opposite. It's when I feel really low however that everything gets really tough. It leads me to do stupid things that later I regret which adds up to making the situation even worse.

Trying to recover and feel happy again takes a lot of effort and anything I do only seems to be a temporary fix. I have found however that there is one way that will never fail in helping me clear my mind. That is driving. No matter how much I have on my mind or how bad I'm feeling, the moment I sit behind the wheel, I am able to take my mind off all my worries and truly relax. After taking a long drive, I usually find that I am then rather worn out, but once I sleep on it, I wake up feeling more alive than ever. There is just something about sitting behind the wheel that manages to put my mind to ease.

On a side note, I thought I would also try and take up reading again. Some time back I thought it would be a good idea to start reading since I had never really read a book in the past. Sure thing, I managed to get though a novel, but it was not something that I was able to do again afterwards. I then got my hands on some non-fiction later in time and found that it was more enjoyable for me than fiction. After finishing a book titled "Where is my Jetpack" a month ago reading mostly at work, I thought it would be time to start on another.

A workmate suggested to read a book titled "The Game" by Neil Strauss, so on my way to work today I picked this book up and started to read it in my spare time at work. So far this book has got me hooked and now I have the urge to finish it. It is written in autobiography style and follows the journey of Strauss' transformation from an average guy to a legendary pick-up artist. Definitely a fun read.

No different to anyone else

2008-06-24T21:49:00.002+10:00

So you find someone that you feel like you can get along very well with. At first it's just infatuation, then as you get to know the other person more, you feel like there is some kind of bond. You then seem to pursue further in the hopes that you may be able to get to know this person more and more, and establish a relationship. When you take a step back to look at yourself you will see that you are probably trying way too hard; but it's your own fault, you got yourself attached and now you are finding it hard to give up.

You start to think to yourself about what it is that is making you so unsuccessful. You're trying so hard, but you feel that you aren't going to get any further than a friendship. Then when you come to think about all of this and have a good look at yourself, you will probably remember other situations where you were in the other person's shoes, this time not showing any developing interest in someone who believes that they have that special bond with you. You then realise; "I'm not different to anyone else". I guess it's just the order of things.

Just another day, yet another year older

2008-06-17T19:06:00.010+10:00

Well I'm sitting here at work, sort of on my own. The rest of my team has finished their shifts so I've pretty much got the whole area here to myself. It's a bit quiet at the moment since everyone else is a bit of a distance away and the level of calls has dropped quite a bit; like one call every 15 to 20 minutes. So while I'm sitting here, I though I would just post a photo of what my team members have done for me today. It's simple things like this that make me smile.

Looks good; probably didn't feel like that though.

2008-05-26T23:10:00.003+10:00

Capturing video at a really high frame rate can really produce some interesting clips. Just check this one out. It's pretty funny, and quite interesting at the same time. That's my entertainment for today.

Action Figure Slow Motion Punches (YouTube)

Not as easy as I thought

2008-05-15T17:16:00.002+10:00

Well today I learnt why a professional cut and polish can cost $200 or more. See, when I got my car, the paintwork wasn't 100%. Due to the water restrictions we have here, I'm guessing the previous owner probably used one of those car washes that use the broom method for scrubbing the car. As a result, there were swirl marks all over the car. In most situations, or from a distance, these swirl marks are hardly noticeable. However once there is some bright light and you are catching the reflection off the car, they are very noticeable and really subtract from the overall appearance of the car.

I was going to get my car professionally cut and polished, but since I already have an orbital buffer at home, I thought I would give it a shot. I used Kitten Cut & Polish, and after like 100 passes, I've managed to reduce the swirl marks by about 75%. It took me all day to do that, and all I've managed to cover is the bonnet, roof, and boot. It looks like this is going to be a long process. Due to my TAFE and work commitments, I only really get one day per week to get stuff done; Thursday. So from the looks of things, I won't have the paintwork at 100% for at least another two weeks.

I could have used a more abrasive cutting compound, but probably run a higher risk of runing my paintwork. I think I'll just stick with the lighter abrasive and just keep running over each surface again and again until it finally clears up. The swirl marks are rather light, so this cutting compound must be pretty weak. As I said, it would probably be better to be on the safe side. So next week I plan on cutting and polishing the doors and side panels, which I should be able to get to a 100% perfect finish. Then I guess the week after that, I will go over the bonnet, roof, and boot yet again and try to get that to 100%. I want my paintwork to look as close to new as possible, so this is going to be a long task. I guess it will all be worth it in the end though; so long as I take extreme care when washing and drying it in the future.

Won't be doing that again

2008-05-09T14:26:00.002+10:00

Oh the wonders of alcohol. It can make a night really fun and interesting; but then it can also make the next day crappy and miserable. Anyways, I went out last night with the intention of getting completely wasted, and that I managed to do. However, I had to start work today at 8:30am, and I think it's safe to say that I'm not going out drinking again on a night before work. Unfortunately for me though, I seem to be working every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, which pretty much means that I won't be going out drinking for quite a while then.

But partying without alcohol... where's the fun in that?

Busy, lazy, or the combination of the two

2008-05-05T22:48:00.005+10:00

So yet again it has been rather quiet on my blog, but I have had less time available to sit down and do some more writing. As you may expect, if I had some free time, chances are I would have been out driving. Now that I have settled into my car quite a lot (and that I have run out of places to drive to), I now have some spare time to myself. In the 26 days that I have had my Aurion on the road however, I have clocked up a total of 2553km on the odometer; that's nearly 100km a day of driving. I really do enjoy driving and it is even more enjoyable in the comfort of a new car.

But that's only driving. Certainly that wouldn't have taken up the majority of my time for the last few weeks. I wish there was a good reason to explain why I have been so busy lately, but unfortunately my life isn't really that entertaining. When it all boils down, my life is actually quite boring. With that said, it has been pretty much TAFE for the first half of each week, followed by work for the remainder of the week. In addition to the weekly outings to the movies and for bowling, there have been a couple of interesting things that have gone on why I was absent from here.

Firstly, on Tuesday the 29th of April, Krispy Kreme opened up nice and early at 6:30am. I was tossing up whether or not to show up to get some doughnuts, but in the end I went to the gym instead. My sister was on her way through the city around 7:30am though, so I got her to pick some up on the way. It's kind of funny now though. Now that we have a Krispy Kreme locally, I somehow no longer crave them. I guess it's because they are so easy to get now, whereas before you needed to travel interstate just to get them. Either way, they are still great doughnuts and taste absolutely delicious.

Secondly, on the 1st of May, Fitness First Jindalee had it's grand opening. I was there bright and early (actually it was still dark) at 5:30am and was one of the first people to do my workout there. My first impressions of the place was that it is massive. It is definitely an adjustment moving to the Jindalee gym after going to Indooroopilly for the last four years, but with time everything should seem like normal again. I just need to give it another week or two for the equipment to wear in a bit. At the moment, all the weights and equipment feel a little oily since it's all brand new. Once it gets used for a bit, that should all wear off.

Apart from that, the only other event worth mentioning is the Vision Generation Masquerade Ball that was on the 2nd of May. Nothing much to it except for the fact that it was a Masquerade Ball and that it had an open bar. It was a fun night however, and was certainly enjoyed by all.

That pretty much sums up the happenings of my life over the last few weeks. Before I go though, one thing that I really should mention is that I watched Iron Man last Thursday and if you haven't already seen it yet, I demand that you do. That move was f*cking awesome and there is nothing else I need to say about it. You just have to watch it. It is THAT good. Enough said.

The game has changed

2008-04-13T21:01:00.005+10:00

So I have been promising a post for a while, so here goes. I NOW HAVE A TOYOTA AURION!!! Can you tell that I am excited? The following post will explain a majority of my silence for the last couple of weeks, so here goes.

Back on the 18th of March, ManheimFowles were auctioning off some flood damaged vehicles. There was a 2007 Wildfire Sportivo SX6 (FYI, Toyota no longer offer the Sportivo's in Wildfire) there that hadn't travelled too far and barely had signs of water damage. The engine bay was completely clean with no signs of water getting past the guards at the bottom, and the inside had only the faintest smell of dampness. This car would be perfect. All without me knowing, Dad was there bidding on the car and managed to get it for a great price. I was surprised later that night when the car was parked outside when Dad asked me to go out there.

So now came the fun part of taking it all apart to clean it up. With a little help of the service diagrams, the interior came out pretty easily and the carpet was then taken out and given a good wash. The car was given a good clean inside then left out to air for a few days which completely got rid of any smells. Also, since the air bag light didn't turn off after the car was turned on, the air bag module was checked. It appeared to have some corrosion on the terminals, so that was replaced. Quite surprising as well, the air bag control module only cost $137 which was 1/4 of the cost that I was expecting. It even surprised the guys at Southside Toyota when they had to look the part up. I swapped it over and the system self tested fine after that.

While the interior was in pieces, I also took the chance to run cables for my sub/amp which I was to put in once I put it all back together. So once all that was done and the carpet was clean, I layed down some new under-felt (which I was able to obtain free of charge), put the carpet back in and re-assembled the interior. It was just like a new car again. I got a safety certificate on it and then booked it in for a Written-Off Vehicle Inspection; and what a wait that was. There were so many cars that they had to inspect so I had to wait one and half weeks just to get it inspected, followed by the 48 hour minimum inspection time. It was so hard having it in the garage and not being able to drive it. That was such a hard wait especially when I had to spend long days at work.

On the morning of Thursday the 10th of April, the inspection was complete and I was excitedly on my way to pick the car up and have it registered. I got it registered then headed home to install my subwoofer, all my LED interior lights and HID headlights. Also that afternoon, my personalised plates arrived, so I headed back to Queensland Transport to get them fitted to my car. So now my car is pretty much complete. Now all I have left to do is get a window tint for it as non-tinted windows just aren't as good looking.

I am quite impressed with how it all turned out. It is just like a new car again, and for the price I was able to pick it up for, it is perfect. After driving a '91 Camry for the past three and a half years ever since I got my license, the Aurion is quite a change. I have to get used to parallel parking all over again and get used to going easy on the accelerator, but it's all fun. With the Camry, I would be giving the accelerator quite a workout, but on the Aurion, I just have to lightly push on it. There are even some situations when putting my foot down in the Aurion just scares me and I would back off pretty quick. It's certainly a different feeling.

I love my new car.

It's all starting to fall into place now

2008-04-09T17:11:00.002+10:00

Without going into the specifics, all this waiting I have been doing for the past couple of weeks is finally coming to an end. I know it is a bit pointless writing this entry if I'm not going to say what it is about, but I guess you will just have to wait and see.

Quiet time

2008-03-26T20:39:00.002+10:00

So things have been pretty quiet lately on my blogging side of my life. Quite a bit has been going on lately and as of now, I'm not quite ready to post any details. All I will say is to watch this space. In about a weeks time, I will have a blog post to put up here that dates back all the way to the 18th of March. I just have a couple of things to sort out, but once that is done, I'll definitely be posting about it here.

Extraction

2008-03-14T12:47:00.002+10:00

Well I'm sitting here at home, wide awake, unable to speak, and with nothing to do. I just got back from the dentist after having all four of my wisdom teeth removed. Lucky for me, all my wisdom teeth were completely out so all that was required was a simple extraction. The procedure itself was actually quite quick. In total, I was in and out of the dentist in a short 20 minutes. The extraction itself took about 10-15 seconds per tooth, and each one came out without me feeling a thing.

At the end of it all, they gave me my teeth to take with me and looking at one of them, I can definitely see why I have had quite a bit of pain when chewing on one side of my mouth. Two thirds of one tooth was decayed quite badly. So hopefully once all this heals up, I will be able to chew properly on that side of my mouth again. Now I just have to sit back and wait while this anaesthetic wears off. I'm pretty sure it isn't going to feel as nice as it does now when that time comes around.

Look what's coming soon to Brisbane

2008-03-13T12:40:00.000+10:00

After many months of waiting and several flights back from Sydney or Melbourne with numerous boxes under your seat, Krispy Kreme is finally coming to Brisbane. Today at the Myer Centre was the launch of the Queensland Krispy Kreme where they announced that they will be opening mid to late April on Albert Street. They were also giving away Original Glazed Doughnuts which attracted a pretty big crowd. I can't wait till they open.

A great combination

2008-03-09T22:48:00.000+10:00

Earlier today I thought I would put my PDA to good use. My PDA, a Dell Axim X50v, doesn't really get that much use anymore these days since I now got a phone that is relatively powerful for general productivity. It has been sitting on my desk for quite a while and earlier today I got such a great idea, I was wondering why I didn't think of it sooner. For quite some time, I have had a set of Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers set up in my room to listen to music. Sure 500 watts may seem like overkill for a stereo in your room, but they are such a great set of speakers. But that's beside the point of what I was talking about.

Back when I got my speakers, I had a desktop PC in my room. This meant that my speakers could easily be plugged into my PC and all my music playback could be done from there. When that was the case, I used to listen to music pretty much every day. Later down the line, I ditched my desktop and started to live off my laptop instead. The one problem that arose from this was that the audio jacks on my laptop are at the front and this led to a messy cable arrangement. As a result, I stopped using my speakers and didn't really listen to music anymore in my room.

While looking into buying an internet radio player (since that's mainly what I listen to in my room), I realised that I could save money and use my PDA instead. Since my PDA has wireless access and the house is a broadband hotspot, I tested to see whether or not my PDA could receive ShoutCast streams. Sure enough this wasn't a problem and there were no buffering issues, even for the 192kbps streams. So after a bit of cleaning and cabling, I have a setup as can be seen in the above photo.

Now I can listen to any internet radio station or MP3, located either on an SD card or on my shared network drive, completely independent of my computer. It's just those litte things that make everything more seemless and make life that little bit easier.

Slept in

2008-03-06T20:47:00.000+10:00

So in the course of writing up yet another entry last night, I was starting to feel a little drowsy, so I lay down on the bed and shortly after, I was out like a light. As a result, I had a party typed up entry on my PC still open, so I will just edit it a bit and post it for today. Speaking of sleep however, Tuesday was rather interesting when I got home from work. I got home around 6pm and pretty much hit the bed straight away. I was woken for dinner later in the evening but was so tired, I put it in the fridge and went back to sleep. I didn't get up until around 5:30am the next day for the gym, so I had a good 11.5 hours of sleep. Usually I never get sleepy to that extent, so I don't really know what went on there. Either way, I'm feeling pretty refreshed now, so I guess it was for the best.

Anyways, it's now six days now into Autumn and the mornings definitely feel like Summer is no longer around. I got up in the morning (in this case on Wednesday, since I accidentally slept in for Thursday) to head to the gym, and when I stepped outside, the weather felt like it was May already. It did get rather warm during the day, but that was mainly just in the sun. I guess this cooler weather ain't so bad since it's not too hot, but neither is it too cold. When you come to think about it however, our Summer passed by pretty quick and without many scorchers. I guess it rained so much that it was always quite cool. That was quite a bit of rain we got; I've never seen it rain for so many days around here.

So after today's sleep in and late gym session, I headed over to Chermside to do some gift shopping. I think I ended up buying more stuff for myself than actual gifts. I firstly had to get myself a DVD, 'Futurama - Bender's Big Score' since that was just released here in Australia. I will probably watch that after I finish this entry. I didn't really intend on getting anything else for myself, but I managed to pass by Depot and noticed they had a sale running with all shirts for $30 or less. I just couldn't help myself and had to pick up a few. At least they were on sale, so I have reason to justify my purchase.

About the only other thing I did was watch the remaining episodes of 'Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles'. I'm pretty sure that I have finished the entire season one, so now I am kind of stuck waiting for the next season to come along, if it manages to make it. The series isn't that bad actually and once you start to get into it, it's not a bad series. So apart from all that, there isn't anything else that I have to mention. Usually my mind is full of all kinds of weird things to say, but it looks like all I have to say are my observations and just describing my day.

Sitting bored

2008-03-04T09:55:00.002+10:00

Well it's now the sixth week of TAFE, and man does it seem more boring than ever. Since I've got nothing to do during my smoko, I thought I might type up another entry to waste some time. So the funny thing with TAFE at the moment is that despite being the sixth week, and that I missed three weeks of TAFE while I was training for GE Money, there isn't really that much that I have learnt yet I have pretty much caught up with everyone. At the moment at TAFE, there seems to be quite a bit of wasted time and it looks like the last five weeks didn't have anything going on. I guess that's probably the reason why TAFE is so boring right now.

That's that out of the way for now then; I just thought I would get that out of my head. So onto a different topic. You know how sometimes you write up an email or an SMS, then realise that you probably should have done that AFTER you have sent it. Yeah, it happens to all of us. Anyways, when I woke up this morning, I had a thought that was something along those lines, just a bit delayed however... by like five hours or so. This then got me thinking. See, when I type up my blog entries, I never read through them once they are posted. The only time I will read over what I write is when I'm typing it up, just to make sure it flows decently.

With that thought in my mind, I thought I may just have a quick skim over my blog just for a little fun. Well, if I was to say one thing about most things I have written, I would have to say "what was I thinking?". When I write up these entries, I guess I am just in a completly different state of mind. I don't usually think twice when writing, I just write down the thoughts running through my head. So I guess this explains any reasoning behind my entries. If I think they look a bit weird after looking through them, I'm pretty sure that many others will probably be thinking the same. Regardless though of how the entry may turn out, it does help to clear my mind and I usually feel good after writing them, so I guess as long as I don't read over it again, everything should be fine. After all, you may think what I write is strange, but I'm not forcing anyone to read it am I?

Feelin' great

2008-03-02T07:25:00.003+10:00

Sunday morning after such a big night, and her I am doing some writing. I am so drowsy yet I just can't sleep any longer, I've got an incurable thirst (for water thankfully), my lips are a deep shade of red which I can't explain the reason for, and I've got the smell of fruity chick drinks stuck in my nose. So I guess that then gives you an idea of how I'm feeling at the moment. To put the icing on the cake however, I have work in a couple of hours and it is going to be a busy day [shakes fist at Harvey Norman and their 40 months interest free promotion].

Last night was quite a big night to say the least. My tendency to drink myself to a stage where I'm completely off the walls and then push it one step further didn't seem to get in the way last night. Usually I end up doing some pretty stupid things then regretting them later the next day, but today I actually feel pretty good, with respect to that anyways. From what I remembered, I managed to open up and let it all out. It was great though. I was able to resolve a little 'conflict' that has been sitting in the back of my head for a while, which turned out to be a bad judgement from my end anyway.

So I'm really starting to like how everything is turning out now. My drinking habits from the past haven't changed, but the way in which I approach it all has really seemed to have taken a turn. Instead of feeling really bad the next day and regretting the things I have done, I am now feeling really great the next day as if I had just taken some extra weight off my shoulders. Sure the photos and videos may be extremely embarrassing, but hey, what can you do now. I guess the best approach is to just point and laugh at yourself since you ain't gonna change the past.

Some crazy night

2008-02-24T15:47:00.002+10:00

So last night was Chris' 21st Birthday Party. Lets just say that I got completely trashed. That's not to say that I didn't have a good time. It was an awesome night and everything happened so quickly. It was also a good opportunity to just brush off all the problems from the week before and I must say; I certainly do feel so much better today. Usually the day after such a big night, I have all kinds of strange feelings about, but today I'm in a pretty positive mood. It is quite good, because I was feeling the complete opposite around this time yesterday.

I ended up getting home some time around 5am I think, I'm not really too sure. So after a short three hours of sleep, I had to get up and get ready for my first day of work outside of training. Despite the fact that I was still feeling a bit drained from the activities of the night before, I was ready to start work not knowing what the day will be like.

Training is over

2008-02-23T09:08:00.002+10:00

Been a while since I last posted here, so with some spare time available to me today, I thought I may get this out of the way. In case you weren't aware, three weeks ago I started working for GE Money and have been in training since. Yesterday marked the end of the third week which means training is now over. Overall, the entire training experience was very fun and enjoyable and will certainly be something that I will miss. Another thing about training that I am really going to miss will be all the time we spent on the phones in academy.

In academy, all of us were placed together in the one group to take calls and it was really fun since we were always together. Now that we have finished training, we will be moving off to our respective teams so we won't see each other as much as we were during training. Working with everyone has been so fun and we have all formed such close bonds with each other. It all feels kind of sad in a way.

It's a four letter word, and it's sometimes complicated

2008-02-22T21:55:00.003+10:00

So what is it that attracts us to one another? I'm not talking about physical attraction (even though that does have it's part) or any other form of attraction that is influenced by our sensory system. I'm talking about the attraction that takes part on a much deeper level, the type that you just can not explain. It's that feeling you get when you are in their presence, whether or not you are in direct contact with them. It's what makes you feel just how they feel even if you are nowhere near them.

In my case, you can take a birds eye view and see that you shouldn't be feeling this way, but as much as you try to feel the opposite, you just can't change how you feel. You can convince yourself that things just aren't meant to be and you try to look at all the differences; and even if there are many differences, that doesn't seem to get in the way. It's just like the law of physics; opposites attract. You try to tell yourself again and again to just get over it and move on, but it is just impossible. The more you try and let it go, the more painful it gets. Love truly is complicated.

Edit: If you were paying attention, you may have noticed this post disappear a few days after it was posted. Out of all the entries I have posted, this has been the only one that I have thought about afterwards, which then led me to take it down. A lot of crazy things were going on at the time, so this entry seemed a little too crazy to publish. I then figured, I had already written it, and whatever has been said, has been said, so I have republished it.

The possibilities

2008-02-11T19:32:00.000+10:00

So I managed to make it through the first week without any major issues. This week started off a bit more practical with practising on the phones within the classroom environment for pretty much the whole day. Tomorrow though is when all the fun really begins however. This is the day that we will start to take live calls. It's all good in the training region because if you make a mistake, it is quite easy to learn from your mistake and correct it. In the live region however, there will be less room for error and it is going to be quite interesting to see the results of it all. Oh well; you have to start somewhere. They did say that it will get easier though; it's just the first call that will be the most difficult.

One thing I think I need to mention here is a big thank you to Taila, who is really making each day at work that little bit more enjoyable. Now work at the moment is quite enjoyable as it is, but it's the interactions you have with others that helps make your day. I'm a pretty big believer in fate, and every so often when I give my brain some free time to wonder off, I tend to think about the "what ifs" of life. Just before, I pondered on the idea of "what if I didn't start working at GE Money on the 4th of February". As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was interviewed for the job towards the end of last year and had the opportunity to start in December. I was travelling to Japan at this time however so wasn't able to start then.

Had I have started then, I probably wouldn't have met Taila (and everyone else that was recruited at the same time as me for that matter) and all the fun that we are having at the moment wouldn't have happened. It makes me wonder what it would have been like starting at a different time with a different group of people. Would I still have enjoyed the training as much as I am now? Would I be interacting with everyone the way I am now? It's quite interesting to think how things could turn out. That's just the start of it though.

Had I have started at a different time, I still would have been in the same job and position. This leaves the opportunity to meet those people that started with me on the 4th of February. For example, some of those people may have ended up on the same team as me. How would that affect how we would then interact? Then there is the possibility that I would have failed the interview and wouldn't have gotten the job all together. In that situation, I probably would never have met anyone that I am working with at the moment, and for that matter, I probably wouldn't have thought of the possibilities of having fun with them. Would I have then met them randomly some time in the future? Would I pass by them, take a quick glance but never think twice? There are so many different things that could happen. To put it all quite simply, there are many different ways life could take you. The alternative possibilities make for some interesting thoughts if you have a big enough imagination. Like I said earlier though, I am a pretty big believer in fate and I believe that the paths that life leads you along are all part of your destiny. It's just like one giant story slowly unfolding itself.

On a side note, on Saturday I headed over to Harbour Town at the Gold Coast to stop in at the Polo Ralph Lauren Factory Outlet. With a little bit of extra money in my bank account, I decided on getting a couple of shirts for work. The shirts were priced at $79 each which was quite a saving over the Recommended Retail Price of $149. My main reasoning behind getting some shirts from here was the quality. When I tried on the shirt in store, it didn't seem like that much of a difference to any other shirts, namely a cheaper one, but after wearing one for the whole day today, I can say that I was mistaken.

The best way to describe it is like being wrapped up in my bed sheets. I have high thread count Egyptian cotton bed sheets which are so silky smooth to lie on and be covered up in. That is about the same amount of comfort I'm getting from these shirts. I guess that you really do get what you pay for.

Wow. Was my day really that boring that I ended up writing two paragraphs about a shirt. That truly is sad.

Four days in

2008-02-07T17:29:00.000+10:00

So today we started to get through a bit more practical work in training at GE. The work itself doesn't actually seem that bad at all. The only main problem that I can see is trying to remember all the different screens that we need to go to to complete each task. As with anything else though, practice makes perfect and it seems like all it will take is time. So far I've got a pretty good grasp for all the major things I need to know and even though there is more to learn, I reckon by the end of next week, things should be going much smoother.

A new start

2008-02-04T22:29:00.000+10:00

This is just going to be a quick one since I am feeling a bit sleepy right now and should probably head off to bed ASAP. So today was my first day at GE Money as a Front Line Associate. I kinda like the sound of that; sounds a bit better than 'call centre operator'. Anyways, the next three weeks will consist of full time training, and from the looks of things, it seems like it is going to be a really fun time. In addition to all that, I met some really nice people today which is definitely a good thing. This is going to be a really fun job.

So with all that being said, everything today went pretty smoothly. I did however encounter one little distraction today though. See I'm a sucker for sweet scents and unfortunately for me, I came across one that just wouldn't get out of my nose. It's just amazing how a particular scent can trigger certain feelings in one's brain. Either that or there really isn't too much to the workings of my mind, and it shows how something so simple can influence such a response in me. I'm thinking the latter; I am a pretty weird person I think.

Party all night

2008-02-02T13:17:00.000+10:00

So last night I headed out to celebrate my friend Clare's 20th Birthday. What a night that was. It all started off with some drinks at her place followed by a taxi into West End for some more drinks at Sling Lounge (http://www.slinglounge.com). If I was to say that this place was excellent, that would be a bit of an understatement. This is one bar in the Brisbane area that you can not afford to miss. The extensive range of cocktails and the friendly and knowledgeable staff really makes the experience that extra bit more enjoyable. You have to go there.

Just as for an idea, some of the cocktails available (ie. the ones we ordered) out of their 250 or so are: Apparition, Victoria's Secret, Polish Prince, Bang Lassi, Loyal Grape, 10,000-Mile Journey, Fog Cutter, Braveheart, BBQ Margarita, Yin & Yan, Zombie, Poppy Seed, The Cane Toad, Potato Salad, Ergo, and Long Island Iced Tea. Judging from everyone's responses, all were very delicious.

Anyways, after quite a bit of drinking and socialising, we headed into the city for one of our favourite nightspots; The Port Office Hotel. At about this point, the next four hours or so were taken up by dancing and more drinking at the Porto, followed by Jade Buddha's Shadow Lounge, then The Met. Determined to party until sunrise, we kept dancing till some time after 3am then we headed over to the Pancake Parlour to have a snack. By the time we were done there, the sun was starting to come up and we were pretty tired. We caught a taxi back to Clare's and that was it for the night.

From all that above, it doesn't look like too much happened, but that's about as much as I can piece back together. It was one fun night, and considering that it has been quite a while since I had been out with Clare and everyone else, it was extremely enjoyable.

Working conditions

2008-01-23T21:52:00.000+10:00

So here I am at Rydges Esplanade, Cairns in my room on the top floor and with a view like that from my balcony, who could complain? Just like my room I had at Rydges Tradewinds towards the end of last year, I have two double beds which seems like a bit of a waste. At least my accommodation is paid for so I don't need to worry about that; it just feels unnecessary. This job really is fun, and it is a shame that I won't be able to do jobs like this more often during the year since I have TAFE commitments. Looks like I will have to stick with call centre work with GE Money for the time being. At least that job fits in well with my TAFE hours.

This is now the ninth day of work with respect to this block of work with Maginet and I am now on the home stretch. My work with Mantra Trilogy is complete and I am approaching the half way mark with my work at Rydges. I have a limited time span to work in so the days are long, but at least it is getting done. I plan to fly out of here on Friday at 1:30pm, so things are looking pretty good. I've got mixed feeling about going back on Friday though.

One part of me misses all my friends and the company I have when they are around, but the other part of me is going to miss living in a resort/hotel room where things are maintained for you. Which reminds me, I left my room in a huge mess when I left Brisbane. It's going to be a bit of a let down to return to a messy room. House keeping is such a luxury when you think about it.

That's about all I can get out of me for now. There is nothing too much to it these days. You just wake up, get dressed, and you are already at work. Not too much to encounter during the day.

Progress

2008-01-20T19:06:00.000+10:00

Late Sunday afternoon, and I have finished my work for the day. I'm sitting outside here on the balcony of my apartment here at the Mantra Trilogy listening in on everyone enjoying themselves at the pool below; there is even a faint smell of chlorine in the air cause there is so much activity going on in the pool. It was yet another scorcher here today at 34 degrees, but thankfully the temperature has dropped a bit and it is now bearable. The humidity is still about the same at 86% and is certainly far from comfortable.

There is a good advantage to the really hot and humid weather though. I find that I don't feel hungry at all at any time during the day so I have been able to get away with just light fruits for breakfast and lunch, with a small meal for dinner. That's also good because there is this delicious gelati place across the road from here which I reckon has the best gelati that I have ever tasted.

In addition to the fact that I am eating less without feeling it, I have also managed to do my cardio every night, something that I don't usually do when I'm away from home. Thanks to the rowing machine and exercise bikes in the air conditioned gym downstairs, I have been able to do other forms of exercise instead of running (which I am really tired of now), especially outside here in the humid and hot weather. With the exception that I am doing work during the day, it actually feels as if I am here on holiday. Being a resort, there are so many people around at all hours of the day and it makes you feel like you're not here for work.

So I've only been working here for five days now and in comparison to other installs that I have done, this one seems to be moving along pretty well. I have estimated to have all rooms installed by 3pm tomorrow afternoon which will leave plenty of time for the follow-up work. I was also lucky enough to sign a job over at Rydges Esplanade for three days (most likely Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) which will earn me quite a substantial amount of money. Lucky for that since this year is going to be an expensive year with lots of my friends turning 21.

That's about all I have to say for now. Not too much else that I could discuss unless you wanted to hear about work. One more thing though, if you ever go to Cairns and are near The Esplanade, make sure you stop in at Rattle and Hum. Not only the food nice there, it is staffed by backpackers, many being hot European girls. Thought I may add that in.

Just another working vacation

2008-01-15T13:30:00.000+10:00

Well it seems like I’m back to my usual self and leaving this blog to just sit idle. Once again, I’m on a flight to Cairns for yet another MagiNet job, this time at the Mantra Trilogy (http://www.mantratrilogy.com.au), so I thought I would take the opportunity now to write something up. I’m still on holiday from TAFE and have had quite some time to relax... a little too much actually. I have found myself sitting at home for a majority of my week with absolutely nothing to do. That’s the drawback with this job; you’re not always working. In the past week though, I was lucky enough to get a call from GE Money asking if I was still interested in a position with them.

Towards the end of last year, I was given a call by their recruitment staff who then gave me an over the phone interview. Unfortunately, because I was leaving for Japan the following week, they weren’t able to accept me for that recruitment round and said that they would give me a call back in the New Year since they were always looking for new staff. After the New Year, I was starting to wonder whether or not they would call back, but last Thursday I got a call from them which was quite a relief.

I went in yesterday for my interview which consisted of two role play scenarios and an interview with two GE Money employees. The role play was a bit daunting at first, but once I got the call, everything seemed to flow pretty smoothly. I did hesitate for a bit in the parts that required calculations, but I don’t think it affected me too much. An hour later after the role play and interview, I was told that they would review the candidates then give me a call either later in the day or early the following day.

After sorting all my stuff out for my trip to Cairns this morning, I received a call from GE Money. They said they were very satisfied with my interview and that I have been selected to work with them. I will be starting my paid three weeks of full time training on February the 4^th and will then be contracted to work 25 hours per week afterwards. I am quite happy that I got this job as it now means I will have a steady source of income which doesn’t constantly vary like MagiNet does. This also means that once I settle into this job, I will be able to buy my new Toyota Aurion since I will have guaranteed income.

It’s going to be quite different working in a call centre. Every job that I have had has involved some kind of physical labour. It always feels that I really am working for my money. It’s just going to seem weird earning money without breaking a sweat. Oh well, I guess I’ll see just how well I can handle a desk job. That’s about all for now. My laptop battery is nearing the end of its useful life and as a result, is running flat.

Edit [9:42PM]: I guess this job does have its perks. I’ve got myself a nice self contained apartment all to myself for the duration of my stay (mind the panoramic photo; it’s a bit hard to take it in such a fashion). There is also a pool and gym downstairs so I don’t have to worry about breaking my fitness routine while I’m away from home.

A brief summary

2008-01-06T11:50:00.000+10:00

Well I promised a post later in the week and depending on what you consider to be the start of your week, I may or may not have fulfilled that promise. Either way, here I am now writing up that entry that I said I would. To get things out of the way first though, yesterday Alex and I headed down to Willowbank to Nightfire Top Fuel Spectacular. After raining for the past week and a bit, it was great to have a bit of a break just in time for the races. It was a hot and humid day however, but this did not take away the fun of the day. At the end of this post I have included a video of the Top Fuel Dragster final between Aaron Lynch and Phil Read. If you have never been to a Top Fuel event, the video doesn't really capture what it felt like to be there. If you have been to one before, you would understand what I am talking about.

So now I'll rewind a little bit to December the 4th 2007. I am going to be rather brief about this holiday since I chose to keep a diary of my holiday with pen and paper and unfortunately it was a one off piece of work. After writing that diary, it feels extremely difficult to write any more about the holiday. I was originally planning on scanning the contents of it and uploading it, but as I was writing it, I got a bit carried away and started to write it on a more personal note. If you would like to get a bit of an idea of the trip through my eyes, I have uploaded all the photos of the holiday to my MySpace. Yeah I know you need an account to access them, but it was the most convenient way for me to upload them for free.

If I was to describe my holiday in one word, I guess the best word to use would be 'alright'. I say that because I went on this holiday with my Dad. Now if that alone doesn't explain why, then let me just say that the age difference was just a bit too much of a barrier. I would have rather gone on my own, but since he was offering the trip out of his own kindness, him coming along was part of the deal. Let's just say that if I was given that opportunity again, I will have to definitely say no. The entire holiday was just one long roller coaster ride. When not focusing on the bad side of the trip, the whole two weeks were actually quite enjoyable. It was a good break away from home and I did have a fun time nevertheless.

Thanks to the Japan Rail Pass, we were able to travel around Japan for a reasonable cost. Unfortunately though, it was only a 7 day pass since a 14 day pass would have cost too much. Nights 1 to 6 were spent in Osaka, night 7 was spent in Nagoya, night 8 in Mt. Fuji, nights 9 to 12 in Tokyo, and night 13 and 14 back in Osaka... with night 15 in a seat of a Jetstar Airbus A330-200. In addition to traveling to our major destinations for accommodation listed previously, we were also able to travel to make a day trip to Hiroshima on day 7 and Kakunodate on day 11. Excluding all the JR trains taken to travel around each destination, the Shinkansen fares alone came to around 81000 yen (approx. AUD$843). Considering the rail pass only cost 28300 yen (approx. AUD$294), the savings were quite massive. If you are ever traveling to Japan and plan on moving around a lot, the Japan Rail Pass is a must.

Not really much else to the holiday really; it was just a lot of traveling around combined with a lot of sightseeing and a lot of walking. One good thing about the length of the holiday was that at the end of the two weeks, I felt alright to return back home. The two week mark left enough time to fit in all the sightseeing that I wanted to do without seeming too long or too short. It was a great break from everything back here at home and I would love to do it again some other time... just somewhere different... and without my Dad.

When I returned to Brisbane, it struck me that it was only six days until Christmas and I still had some shopping to get done. Luckily I managed to get a majority of it completed while in Japan, but I still had other presents to buy. The Christmas period in 2007 wasn't as busy as it was in 2006 though which was quite a relief. I managed to get all my Christmas shopping completed by December 22 without any hassles. The following week was quite a relaxed week, mostly just being spent at home with the occasional outing with friends or by myself to keep myself entertained.

New Years Eve 2007 flew by fairly quickly and I'll leave it at that; and New Years Day 2008 was quite an interesting day, which I will leave it at that as well. The following days were also spent like the days following Christmas, though this time around I found myself getting out of the house a bit more. I firstly had to get a birthday present for my Mum, who's birthday is today... HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM... and had to fix up some odds and ends here and there. I also noticed a bit of pain when I was eating my lunch on Thursday, so I felt around with my tongue and felt something quite odd on my lower right molar. When I got home I looked in the mirror and found that I was missing a corner of it. I heade down the road and booked in with the dentist who was luckily available the following morning.

I was kind of dreading this trip to the dentist since it had been about three years since I had last been to one. So the following day, I got the grilling of him that I expected, got my tooth repaired and was told to get an x-ray done so that he can assess my teeth a bit better. I have to see him again on the 30th of January after which he will go over what needs to be done. While I had nothing to do on Friday, I decided to scoot down to JB HiFi at Indooroopilly to see if they had, or could order in, a copy of Candice Alley's new self titled album. Unfortunately, neither option could be satisfied, however he did say that the Brisbane City store was reporting two copies in stock, with only one other JB store in Australia having the last copy.

I quickly and eagerly headed into the city store, and after a good few minutes, I found the one and only copy that they had. I felt really good that I now had a hard copy of her new album, and quite possibly the last copy in Queensland. I was quite satisfied.

To complete my day, I headed into the city with my mates to watch '2 Days in Paris' at the Dendy on George Street. It was actually quite a good movie and a great way to end the day. That day then came to an end which then brings us to Saturday, which was explained at the beginning of this post, and today which is just a quite day at home for now, which is why I'm here finally typing up this entry. So all that kinda sums up everything that has been going on. It was quite brief, but like I said, I've written a majority of it once before and can't really take on the challenge of doing it again.

January 5th Night Fire - Willowbank

Happy New Year

2008-01-01T10:04:00.000+10:00

I know I haven't posted an entry here in a while, but I promise I will get onto that later in the week. In the meantime, I just have one thing to say.

I am to never ever, EVER, touch another drink again. I am sick and tired of having to apologise for my behaviour, and most of the time an apology will never be enough. I just can't put up with myself for any longer.

Be back in a little over two weeks

2007-12-01T18:18:00.000+10:00

I thought I may take a moment now to take my mind off studying and clear my head for a bit. Actually my studying hasn't really been that successful in the fact that I have been constantly falling in and out of sleep while at my desk here and have probably spent more time asleep than awake.

Anyways, I have been back in Brisbane since last Sunday night and in the time between then and now, I've been either doing exams for TAFE or catching up on sleep. The job in Cairns was way more fun than having to do all this work right now, and I would actually prefer to do that over TAFE right now, since this semester has been more theoretical and less practical. Oh well, at least I can say that it is nearly over for the year.

Speaking of TAFE nearly being over for the year, the last day is actually Wednesday the 5th of December, but I'll be finishing on the 3rd. This means that whatever exams I have left to do, I'm going to have to get it all done on Monday which means that this Monday is going to be quite hectic. In case you may not remember me saying, I'll be leaving for Japan on Tuesday the 4th, which is actually not that far away. My flight is at 7am arriving in Sydney at 9:30am, then departing Sydney at 12:00pm, arriving in Osaka at 8:00pm. I'm really looking forward to this holiday and it certainly will be fun. I've heard that Osaka has recently had lows of around 5 degrees Celsius, so that will be interesting.

So that's about all from me for now I guess. Despite the free broadband internet available where I am staying, I have still chosen to abandon my laptop and anything internet related for that matter (so no internet cafe's etc.) and make this a proper holiday. Also, I will be picking up a SIM card over there, so if you try and text me on my local phone number, I will not receive it. Since I've pretty much finished everything I need to on this computer, I am going to shut it down now and get some sleep, then hit the books tomorrow, do my exams on Monday morning, pack my stuff in the afternoon, then leave for Japan on Tuesday.

I fly out of Osaka at 9:20pm on the 18th of December and will be back in Brisbane on the 19th of December at 7:15am. I'll write about it all when I get back. Look forward to a post from me some time in the evening.

Before I leave it there, I will leave you with a video that I just watched earlier. It is of Kellie Pickler, a 2005 Idol series finalist, on Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader:

Not the best flight, but at least I can now unwind

2007-11-21T23:49:00.000+10:00

2:41pm: I just got on the flight it Cairns and realised the one thing that I should have done just before I left. I forgot to load my laptop with the episodes of Bionic Woman that I just finished downloading. Recently with the extra work that I have had to do for TAFE (the work that I thought would be a great idea to leave to the last minute) in addition to the extra tiredness thanks to an increase in cardio and decrease in energy consumption, I have just had no time to catch up on all the TV shows I have downloaded.

After taking off, which is about the only reason I love to fly, I realised that it is actually quite boring just sitting here. Add that to the fact that I have some noisy toddler in the seat behind me kicking my seat and screaming, and you soon realise that additional entertainment would be really useful. So now I have time to finally catch up on Bionic Woman, yet I didn't bring the episodes with me. What about study? How about no. That's the last thing I really want to think about right now. Looks like I have to resort to typing this blog entry up and listening to music.

On the topic of work, I'm not really looking forward to this job. Don't get me wrong, I love the job itself, it's great work and it pays well. It's just that being a temporary/contract based job, there are longish periods where you aren't doing any work, and if you manage to settle down to much like I did, it becomes a bit of a shock again when you go back to work. I guess it's my fault really, so I can't really complain about that too much. I'll just have to remember that next time.

One surprising thing about this trip however is that the idea of the hot and humid weather in Cairns is not worrying me. After working and travelling in the region in both winter and summer, I know to expect some some undesirable weather conditions. I think though that the fact that I will be working within the confines of an operating hotel has subconsciously told my mind that it shouldn't be a problem. Oh well, this job is only going to be five days worth of work, so it should be over reasonably quick. Unfortunately though, when I get back to Brisbane, it's going to be exam week at TAFE so there is no relaxing afterwards. That also means I'm going to have to study up here in my spare time.

Well that's about all I can get off my mind at the moment. I think I have said all that I can say. It appears this kid behind me has finally shut up, though I'm still getting these kicks in the back of my chair. I think I may sit back and try and get a quick powernap, though I'm highly doubting that is going to happen since I wasn't ale to before, which is why I'm writing my thoughts here.

Edit [3:00pm]: I just found the pilot episode to "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" sitting on my storage drive. Shame I wont be able to watch it however since my laptop battery didn't fully charge before I left. Just what I need.

Edit [3:17pm]: This flight is getting just that little bit more crappy. There seems to be other kids on board that just wont shut up, mainly the one behind me though. I'm starting to get the feeling that catching a Brisbane City Council bus is actually more comfortable than this flight. What a great way to start my work day.

Edit [5:25pm]: Well I just got to Rydges Tradewinds and am much relieved. Thanks to MagiNet and Rydges, I have myself a nice spacious room all to myself on the executive level where I can unwind. Now it's starting to feel less like work and more like a vacation.

Old habits never die

2007-11-18T16:39:00.000+10:00

I guess that the statement in the title stands true to myself. I have been in this situation one too many times and just don't seem to learn from my mistakes. Here I am again, wanting to get all my study and assignments done so I can get it all sorted out this week, yet I am having difficulty staying on the topic. It's just funny how I am managing to waste time on other things (such as this blog entry) when that time could easily be well spent doing the job I am supposed to be doing.

I had all week to get this sorted out, yet I chose today/tonight to get it done. I also knew I was going to be busy partying last night for Tamara's birthday and that I wouldn't feel like doing any work today. Speaking of the party; it was great. The surprise dinner was pulled off really well, and the night out dancing at the Porto was fun. I did however (and still do) feel a little strange at the moment. It's that weird depressed feeling that I had mentioned in an earlier blog entry. This time though, my night didn't involve any alcohol, so I'm guessing that there is a bit more to this strange feeling than just the regret for my drunken behaviour from the previous night.

So anyways, this blog entry is coming to an end and I still don't feel the desire to continue doing any more TAFE related work. To make things more fun, I just checked my phone and got a message from Sarah telling me about the advanced screenings of "The Heartbreak Kid" that is on tonight. Since I'm going to have to go for my run before that, it looks like I won't be doing any work until at least 11:30pm tonight. I guess it's going to be an all nighter for me. Why do I do this to myself?

New phone

2007-11-14T00:30:00.000+10:00

I was meant to post this yesterday, but was caught up with other arrangements and never got around to it. Anyways, on Tuesday, after waiting and waiting for it to be released, the Sony Ericsson K850i was finally available for purchase. I was sitting in class at TAFE around 10am and decided to check the Three website to see whether they had the phone yet. To my surprise, they had updated their sit to now include the K850i. I waited impatiently in class until lunch at 12pm, then quickly headed to the Three Store at Indooroopilly in the hopes of upgrading my K800i.

When I arrived there, I noticed that it wasn't on show yet, and was really hoping that they had them in stock. Luckily they had just received a delivery of them earlier on, so I immediately went ahead and asked if I could upgrade. After signing a bit of paperwork, I was soon out of there with a new phone. I returned to TAFE to continue with my classes for the day, but ended up spending a majority of my time playing around with all the features of my phone. Needless to say, I practically got no work done at TAFE for the remainder of the day.

Being a fan of Sony Ericsson, and after owning both a K750i and a K800i, getting used to my new K850i was a breeze. Most of the time spent playing with it was to have a look at the new features that it has to offer. Overall, I am really impressed with its feature set. The main feature highlights that I find the most attractive are the 5-Megapixel camera with Xenon flash & LED illuminator, TrackID (more on that later), the addition of an accelerometer (motion sensing), and an improved media player.

As with my other two Sony Ericsson phones, my main reason for buying the K850i was the quality of the built in camera. This model steps up from the last in both resolution and features. The xenon flash is extremely useful in dark scenarios (it seems even more powerful than the one on the K800i), and the addition of a white LED is a great extra. The other thing about this phone that I'm really satisfied about is TrackID.

Originally being reserved for the Walkman line of phones, TrackID enables you to record a short sample of a song, after which, the phone will upload to the internet and shortly after, give you the name and artist of the track. You can see an example of the service here. For my K800i, I had a web url which allowed me to access this service, but it wasn't long before Sony modified the site so that my particular model of phone (which didn't come with this feature) could no longer use the service. I was highly disappointed, and had came across so many songs afterwards that I could not name. With this feature as standard on the K850i, I am now happy that I have this handy little function with me whenever I am out.

There are many things I could go on about in detail about this phone, but overall I would say that it is a great phone. I have always loved Sony Ericsson phones from the first time I used one, and I doubt that is ever going to change.

Happy Birthday Tamara

2007-11-12T00:00:00.000+10:00

I can predict that I am not going to have anything to write about in relation to my day, so I thought I would use this space for something better.

HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY TAMARA!!!

Tamara has been such a great friend to me. Out of all my friends, Tamara is always the first person I can turn to when I am up late and have no one to talk to. Luckily for me, Tamara shares some of the same bad habits I have, such as staying up late and procrastinating to the full extent of the word, and therefore is an excellent person to chat to. It is also really easy to open up to this girl.

Thank you for being there when I had no one around and needed someone to talk to, and thank you for helping me keep my head up when I was down. The following song pretty much sums up my appreciation for your friendship.

Groove Armada - My Friend:

A blank mind

2007-11-09T23:33:00.000+10:00

Once again I have managed to avoid publishing blog entries throughout the week. The reason for this is that my life has been just about as interesting as watching grass grow. I just thought I would post an entry in case anyone out there is wondering what is going on. Now that I have started writing this, I have just run out of things to say. Sorry guys. My mind is seriously that blank. I'll leave you with a Youtube video that a friend of mine (Manda), sent to me earlier tonight. Maybe that might give you something more interesting to look at rather than this crappy entry of mine.

End of the week

2007-11-04T11:22:00.000+10:00

Well it seems like it has been a while since I last posted something here, so while I have a lazy Sunday, I thought I may take the chance and do so now. So now lets rewind for a bit. Tuesday and Wednesday was TAFE which was boring as usual, but Wednesday night gave me the opportunity to go out and have a bit of fun. The whole Halloween celebration thing hasn't really picked up that well over here in Australia but nevertheless, if there is a party going on, why not go. Not really too much that I can go into detail about since I think the occasion kinda speaks for itself. I took lots of photos on the night and posted them onto both my Facebook and MySpace. Since my MySpace is public though, you can view the photos on there if you would like to.

So that was my Wednesday night all catered for. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday wasn't quite as eventful like the past month but it gave me the chance to relax for a bit. As you may or may not know, I really love to go to the cinemas and catch a flick. So on Thursday night I went to the cinemas with my closest friends and watched "The Game Plan". We had a bit of difficulty deciding on what to watch, but in the end selected that movie. Despite being a kinds/family movie, it was actually quite good in that Disney movie kind of way.

I usually like to watch all the new movies that I'm interested in on a Thursday, but since I didn't get around to that, I chose Friday to be my movie day for this week. So I headed to the cinema and watched "Death Proof" in the afternoon and "Eastern Promises" in the evening. Both of these movies were great and I was not disappointed. Death Proof was very interesting in the way that it had a really old cinema look to it, with scratches and subtle defects all over the film stock and irregularities in editing. In addition to that, there was an interesting mix of old and new. For example, in one scene the environment was completely old fashioned, from the old design beer bottles to the vinyl jukebox in the corner. But in the same scene, they would be using a modern colour screen mobile phone. Everything was done so well though that it really added to the style of the film.

Eastern Promises was also another great movie. Acting was great, especially by Viggo Mortensen. His character in the movie was played extremely well. There were a couple of moments during the movie that were a little bit graphic, but I don't see why it got a R18+ rating here in Australia. I reckon it would have passed for an MA15+ rating after seeing some of the movies out there that pass for that rating. Anyways, if you are after a drama/thriller, I'd highly recommend Eastern Promises.

Saturday was also another quiet day. I didn't really get up to much, just had dinner with my parents then hung out with some of my closest friends once again and watched a DVD. Sometimes the most simple things in life can be the most enjoyable.

New gear

2007-10-29T19:12:00.001+10:00

With the exception of TAFE, I have spent most of my day playing around with my newly acquired camera; a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T200B. You wouldn't think that a camera could provide so much enjoyment, but you'd be surprised at how much fun it can be to a geek. Without reading the manual, I think I now know all the features this camera has to offer. No I just need an even so I can go out and start testing it all. Luckily Halloween is this Wednesday so I should have lots of opportunities to snap some photos.

This camera may be small, but it sure is packed with features. The two most significant features that I noticed when I got it was the massive 3.5 inch touch screen LCD coving it's rear end, and the 5X optical zoom enclosed within the tiny package. It is such a difference considering the digital camera that I have been using for the past 7 years is a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S70. My S70 may be an old, slow, and bulky camera with only 3.3 Megapixel resolution, but it has stood strong for all these years. The combination of great optics together with a well constructed package, meant this camera has taken such great photos that it rivals some cameras on the market today.

Unfortunately though, the slow and bulky part of the S70 meant that it is time for me to upgrade my gear. Especially with the Japan trip coming up, a compact digital camera would be the best solution. So far, the T200 seems like it has everything that I need, so with some more testing over the next few days, I guess I'll see if it can really stand up to my expectations.

Addiction

2007-10-26T22:48:00.000+10:00

I had to clear some room on my table and came across a whole pile of receipts for clothes I have purchased in the last two months. I thought I'd add them all up and was quite shocked with the result. In the past two months, I have spent $2099 on clothes. I think I may be a little bit addicted to clothes shopping. It's just so fun though to go out an purchase more clothes to add to your wardrobe. I think I'll take it easy for a bit... until I get my next pay check from MagiNet; then I'll go crazy again.

Well fed

2007-10-26T21:11:00.000+10:00

Come to think of it, I really can't remember what I did today before midday. I was awake since 9am, so I must have bummed around or something. After about that, I watched bother episode 4 which was recorded last night, and then caught up with some cleaning that had to be done around the place. I also ran down to Australia Post to sort out my passport, which expired last year, so that I will be ready to go to Japan in December. Once I had all that sorted out, I lay down for a bit before heading out for dinner.

Since I haven't been to Lone Star in a while, I decided to eat there tonight. I had been there quite a few times in the past and have seen the place change progressively. There are a few things I miss about the place from when it was still in its opening stages however. The first was the bucket of peanuts that they had on every table and the ability to just throw your empty peanuts on the floor, just like a real steakhouse. Due to some regulations, that doesn't happen here anymore.

In addition to that, they no longer include a complementary loaf of damper as an appetiser. It's just the little things like that which made the overall dining experience a little bit better. There is one thing however which hasn't changed, and it is the one and only reason I love to go to Lone Star. You just can beat their BBQ pork baby back ribs. Words just can't describe how delicious they are; they really are that good. So yeah, I can say I had a pretty satisfying dinner.

Once I got home, I was pretty full so I sat down in front of the TV and watched the next episode of Bionic Woman, which I downloaded since the US is one episode ahead of Australia. This one was rather entertaining cause Jamie (Michelle Ryan) had to put on a British accent, which I found pretty attractive (I do love the accent) when in actual fact, it's her native accent. I don't know why, but there is just something about the British accent that I find really hot. So now I've seen all the Bionic Woman that has been aired in both Australia and the US, an now it's another week long wait before I can watch more.

Oh yeah, I knew there was something I was going to mention last night. During the trailer reel prior to 'Good Luck Chuck' last night, I saw the first screening of the trailer to that upcoming movie by J.J. Abrams codenamed 'Cloverfield'. What surprised me though is how long it has taken for the trailer to reach Australian cinema. For those that are aware of it, this trailer was first talked about when it was screened in the US during the trailer reel prior to 'Transformers'. Shows just how slow Australia is at these kinds of things. Anyways, from the looks of it, I reckon this will be a good movie. Hopefully J.J. Abrams will have done a good job with it.

I guess I should probably have an early sleep now. I am going to spend the whole day tomorrow cleaning all the carpet in the house with one of those Britex carpet cleaning machines. Should be an interesting day.

Just another Thursday

2007-10-25T23:31:00.000+10:00

Yet another Thursday, yet another new movie day. Actually, there were two new movies out today that were on my list to watch, and I managed to fit both of them in. I don't get up to much on a Thursday (if I'm not working), so I usually take the opportunity to watch any new movies that are out that I'm interested in watching. Today the movies were 'Saw IV' and 'Good Luck Chuck'. Just after lunch, Saw IV was the first movie for the day. I had previously seen Saw, and Saw II, but never actually got around to watching Saw III. I didn't really feel like spending any time to watch Saw III beforehand, so I went ahead and watched Saw IV.

It feels like there were some details out of Saw III that would have helped a bit with the understanding, but after watching the fourth instalment, I still didn't feel the desire to go back and catch up on some details. The movie had a fair bit of gore in it, but that seems to be about all it had in it. The storyline just seemed to be lacking a bit and it didn't really entertain me as well as it could have.

After taking a bit of a break, Good Luck Chuck was my final movie for the day, choosing the late night session at Chermside. The one thing I like about the Chermside Megaplex is that the seats are larger and more comfortable, and the layout of the cinema has a different feel to it, it's like the way a cinema should be. Anyways, this movie was just as funny as expected. I wouldn't go too far as to say it was hilarious, but it definitely was funny. Can't really think of too much to say about it really.

That's about all there was to my day. I did fix a few things up around the house, and I did buy a couple of shirts to add to my wardrobe, but apart from that, it was just another typical Thursday.

Aftermath

2007-10-24T21:35:00.000+10:00

After Linkin Park on Monday night, I was pretty active for the rest of the night/morning. I only ended up taking a quick 30 minute power nap before heading off to TAFE on Tuesday, and surprisingly, I managed to stay awake for the day. Throughout the day though, I had some mild pain in my left arm and shoulder, which was most likely from the night before. When I got back in the evening, I jumped online and chatted on MSN for a bit. It was around 9pm and I was just about ready to go for a run, but then tiredness struck me like a Mack Truck. I lay down on the bed, closed my eyes, and immediately fell asleep. I woke up around 3am this morning, and have managed to stay awake all day once again.

This morning though, I could start to feel the after effects of all the moshing from Monday night. The pain in my left arm and shoulder remains about the same, but now I have a sore neck an it feels like the area around my rib cage is bruised. It hurts the most when I walk at a faster pace and whenever I twist my body. I can't really complain really, since I was the one that got myself into this much discomfort. Hopefully it should clear up a bit tomorrow so that I will be able to go for a run in the evening. That's two nights so far that I have had to pass on that. This fat isn't going to just disappear on its own, so I really need to keep up with the running.

Linkin Park

2007-10-23T01:39:00.001+10:00

*If you are viewing this via my flash widget on my MySpace, I just realised that it is having issues displaying this entry correctly. To view it properly, go to my blog at http://djkor.com and read it there.*

One word is all I need to describe this performance; AWESOME. Despite the fact that I had been drenched in not only my sweat, but the sweat of 20 or so other people, having smelt and tasted the sweat of about that many people, being pushed, shoved, elbowed, and crushed, that was the best live performance ever. Initially I started off in the second row of moshers, which I managed to hold for about ten minutes before being shoved to about the fifth row by some skilled moshers who have probably done this many times. After that, I managed to hold my position quite well, which required every bit of energy I had. Progressively though, I managed to make my way to being in the third row back, which wasn't too bad in the end.

I tried to take many photos and videos, but unfortunately it was a pretty wild crowd out there, so it made it a bit impossible. Out of all the photos, I managed to get four usable ones, which I have posted on my MySpace. The video's didn't turn out too bad either; those have been posted on my MySpace as well. Boy that was one wild mosh pit experience. It certainly wasn't comfortable, but it was highly enjoyable. What an awesome show that was.

And to top the night off, my best mate Alex scored himself one of the drum sticks. So here is a photo of him with his prized possession, and while I was at it, I thought I may as well get a photo of me with it:

And here is a quick video that I took while I was there. Most of them turned out shaky, but do you expect, I was in the mosh pit.

Cloud of thoughts

2007-10-21T22:25:00.000+10:00

Another night, another tiring run. I know I have stated it many times before, but cardio really sucks. Unfortunately though, if I'm going to want to get down to that 7-8% body fat that I so desire for summer, it looks like I'm going to have to deal with it. What's interesting though is the way I hate it. Twenty minutes into the run up until the point that I finish, I love running. Any other time however, my views are the complete opposite. Which brings me to my point of even starting this entry.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who goes through this every time I run (or do any form of cardiovascular exercise for that matter), so this would relate to others as well. Initially, up until a particular point (about 20 to 25 minutes for me) there is a moderate level of pain, more mental than anything. After that though, things start to change. Breathing patterns start to emerge, the music that I'm listening to starts to slowly fade away into the back of my mind like background music during spoken dialogue in a movie, and my mind starts unleashing all kinda of thoughts that have been sitting in there from the day.

It's kinda like some kind of deep trance where you're body subconsciously takes care of your interactions with the surroundings, avoiding traffic and keeping yourself travelling in the right direction, while giving you some one on one time to go over all the thoughts that you have in you mind that may have been bothering you earlier. What's even more interesting is that you can be thinking about something one moment, but can easily switch to something else the next, completely forgetting what you were just thinking about. In a way, it kinda feels like you are talking to yourself, only with more depth and meaning. In the end though, your mind feels so revitalised and much more relaxed than it did before.

So despite the fact that I really do not enjoy cardio, I guess in the end I'm killing two birds with one stone. The fat burning goal of my running isn't going to be easy, but at least every time I run I can clear my mind and anything that may have been stressing me during the day. It truly is a love hate relationship.

Inactivity

2007-10-21T13:38:00.000+10:00

I'm not a huge fan of having no work to do during the day on Saturday and Sunday. I just find that the day's are then quite boring, and I end up sleeping or something completely unproductive to waste the day. Come night time it's a different story, but during the day, I just find that there is nothing interesting to do. Even just working for a few hours on both days seems to make a difference to the day. When I was working on the Marriott renovation last month, I would finish around 12pm on Saturday and Sunday which left me pretty active during the day. Now that that job is done, I find myself sleeping up until that time, and find the remainder of my day feeling a bit strange.

In addition to that, after many years of late nights and all-nighters, my body clock seems to be reversed permanently. If I don't keep myself active during the day, my body slowly starts to shut itself down, and next thing I find myself asleep. That's pretty much what I find myself doing on my weekends during the day now. Sleep isn't really a bad thing, I enjoy it, and with the amount of sleep debt that I'm in, I'm pretty sure I need it. It's just that after sleeping during the day, you feel like you have wasted so much of it, even is you do a fair bit of work during the night.

To put things simply, I'm a pretty active person, but unfortunately due to some past behaviour, my body sometimes doesn't agree with that. It's just like one argument that is going nowhere but in circles; all happening in my head. Oh well, everything seems to just balance itself out, so I guess it's all okay for the time being. Now I can't be sure if anything I mentioned above makes any sense. I refuse to proof-read my writing here, and besides, I know what I meant. I'm busy chatting on MSN at the moment, so this would just then be proof that I can't multi-task.

Anyways, yesterday I picked myself up some parts to build a Jacobs Ladder. For those of you that don't know what that is, this YouTube video will show you. This one though is just a smaller 12V powered version that is driven by a VN Commodore ignition coil. I just wanted a smaller one I can sit on my desk without the danger of a neon sign transformer version. So far, I have built and tested it and it works quite well. Still very noisy despite its size, but it does give off some juicy sparks. All I need to do now is mount it on something solid and probably put something around it to protect the surroundings from a potential fire hazard. Since my day seems to be pretty unoccupied, I guess I have time now to do that then. Can't wait to have it finished.

A well spent Friday

2007-10-19T23:21:00.000+10:00

I'm currently typing this as I'm watching a time-shifted (recoded from earlier tonight) movie 'Hide and Seek'. I initially started to loose interest in watching this movie since I'm starting to get a bit tired, but I just noticed that Famke Janssen is in this movie (amazing how easily I can change my mind), so it looks like this blog entry is probably going to take a bit longer to type. It's probably going to make no sense at all since I am more focussed on the TV and I never bother to proof-read and my blog entries.

Anyways, at the moment my dad and sister are in Shanghai on a business related issue, so it's just me and my mum here at home. Today was quite a great day spent with my mum, and we manage to get quite a bit done (that rhyme was unintentional). We started the day off by fixing a few things up around the place before heading over to Chermside to have some sushi for lunch. Afterwards, we headed to the cinema to watch 'Rogue Assassin' which was quite a good movie. It had a really good twist at the end. Afterwards, we did some clothes shopping while we were there at Chermside before heading into the city to do some further clothes shopping. Once I had my shopping fix, we headed back home to have some dinner, before sitting back and watching some recorded TV shows.

Considering that I never get up to much on a typical Friday, I reckon today was spent really well. Plus I have some more new clothes in my wardrobe which is never a bad thing. Probably many other things I could have mentioned here, but my attention is slowly drifting away as 'Hide and Seek' is playing on the TV right in front of me. I think I will put my laptop down now.

Funtion over style

2007-10-17T20:34:00.000+10:00

Okay, you may or may not have heard about my plans to get a Nissan 200SX S15 sometime this year. I originally wanted to purchase it around June or July this year, but have found myself delaying it time and time again. All this delaying though has given me time to give some serious thought to the situation. Why did I choose the 200SX in the first place? Cause it's one hot car with potential to be highly modified. Just the feeling of having a great looking car which can beat anyone off the line (I was going to tune it for drag) was enough to make me want to get it. It's 'bang for you buck' factor was also another selling point.

But recently, I have been thinking to myself whether or not I really need this car. Sure it looks great and is fast, but that's probably all it will be useful for. I'm going to need a car that can actually carry stuff and not just be something that would be typical of a weekend driver. After doing a bit of searching around, I have come to the conclusion that a Toyota Aurion would probably be my best bet. For it's price, the Aurion packs quite a lot of features and had a reasonably powerful naturally aspirated engine, yet is still quite fuel economic.

I guess it wont be a head turner like the 200SX will be, but realistically, I just need to reconsider my priorities. I'm quite happy with a car like the Aurion. I've been driving a Toyota Camry for the past few years, so a non sporty car doesn't bother me too much. The only thing that is making this whole decision difficult is how I imagine people viewing me. I'm kinda like an attention whore. I feel that by driving a 200SX, I will have people looking at me and the car more, and there is a great deal of satisfaction from that. However, driving an Aurion around, I just feel that people will just see me driving a family car. Looks aren't really that important right?

Man in the mirror

2007-10-16T20:32:00.000+10:00

Nothing beats and ice cold shower immediately after a long and tiring run... So I just got back from running and man that felt great. I have managed to get myself back on track with my running schedule, but that doesn't mean I enjoy it any more than I did before. It's just something I can't really say no to at the moment, since every time I look at myself in the mirror, I just can't stand to see the image that is being reflected back. I just can believe that I let my body get into such a mess over winter. Just before winter, I managed to get my body fat percentage down to 9%, but once winter hit, I can't really remember what happened, but I definitely didn't keep it at that level for too long. Now I'm back to a very disappointing 16%. On the plus side, I think I have gained a bit of muscle in the process, but that still doesn't make me feel any better. So it looks like I've got a tough six weeks ahead of me.

About that Saturday night/Sunday morning that was mentioned in my previous entry, I'm still in the dark about what went on. It seems I kind of just disappeared when my conscious half shut down. At least my subconscious manages to take good care of my body and it would seem I didn't get up to much trouble; I did make it back home safely after all. Funnily enough though, after all that, I actually felt so much more better the following day than on any other night that I had gone out. Usually I feel really bad the next day, but on Sunday morning, I was feeling quite satisfied. Strange.

Usually I'd have quite a bit to say, but it seems like it's getting to that time again where about the only thing I would have to mention would be TAFE. With that said, I really do have nothing else to say, so I think I will finish this entry here.

Blackout

2007-10-14T09:06:00.001+10:00

It's amazing what alcohol can do to you. It's 9am on a Saturday morning and here I am typing up a blog entry. Now that doesn't seem out of place, but after I got a reading from my breathalyser, it now does. My breathalyser is giving me a reading of 0.40% BAC (the highest it can read), which considering the time of day, I think is pretty high (considering my last drink was estimated to be around 2am). What actually surprises me though is that usually at this level, I'm completely off my head and out having a good time. But instead, here I am at home typing up this entry. Well, I can't really be out partying now can I... I think all that died off hours ago.

Anyways, I have seemed to have forgotten what the hell went on last night. The last thing I remember was dancing (yeah, that's right, I manage to dance when I'm drunk) at the Port Office, then next thing, I'm lying in bed in nothing but my underwear. Usually I only get blackouts of this proportion when I drink Bundy, but it seems to me that I overstepped my mark and drank a little too much bourbon last night. It is such an awkward feeling. It feels like I did something completely wrong but I don't know what it was that I did wrong. Right now, the alcohol is blurring any emotion, so it ain't so bad, but I'm pretty sure I'll be feeling it later.

I really don't know why I just typed up that entry. I guess I found it kind of interesting how I can still have a high BAC, yet be in a different state of mind to what I'd usually be in. Either that, or the fact that the last thing I had to drink was seven hours ago and I'm still overloading my breathalyser. Either way, now comes the long journey of trying to piece together the final hours of my night.

[Edit: 1:10PM] So it's just past 1pm and my BAC is slowly going down. Currently I'm sitting at 0.24% so I'm not going to bother driving down the road yet to get some Berocca. Not that I have a hangover or anything; I just reckon my body would appreciate it. Anyways, I just had a Yum Cha lunch and damn that was a fine meal. I'm feeling quite full now, kinda tired, and I can't sleep. I just had a think about it; judging by how much money is left in my wallet, I didn't really drink as much as I usually do on a typical night out. Also, from experience I know that Bundy is the only drink that will cause me to have blackouts, and even still, they are only short. So this has really got me thinking now. What the hell was in my drink?

Technology can be so f*cking sexy

2007-10-11T22:13:00.001+10:00

Pictures of the Playstation 3 just don't show how sexy the machine actually looks in person. The console looks great in photos, but until you hold one in your hands, you just won't understand the beauty of it. It is a work of art, stylishly hiding its powerful interior. So that's pretty much what I have been playing with for most of my time this evening. The afternoon was spent watching a movie and sleeping; I'll get to that later.

The main reason for buying it though wasn't actually for gaming. Since we have a high definition projector, simply upscaling DVD's wasn't enough. The next step up from there then is Blu-ray. Unfortunately, Blu-ray players are still quite pricey, but with the 40GB version of the Playstation 3 released today at AUD$699 RRP, now was a good time to upgrade. Luckily Dick Smith was selling them for $678, which after my Wollworths staff discount (yep, I still have it for another couple of months) came down to $644.

Once running on our projector, the quality of the image is unbelievable. It is really amazing how far technology has come these days. Even the upscaling feature of the PS3 seems to do a better job than some upscaling DVD players out there. This was certainly money well spent.

In addition to just watching movies, I thought I wouldn't put such a great unit to waste, so I also went out and bought Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas. After being a PC gamer for many years, playing on a console again was definitely different. The last Playstation I owned was a PS one, and even then I didn't have a great deal of games. So after gaming for many years with a keyboard and mouse, gaming with a controller was quite difficult. Because I enjoy first-person shooters, when you are on a computer, aiming with the mouse is quite easy, whereas trying to use a joystick on the Playstation is quite a different story. At the moment, I'm working my way through the first level very slowly so that I can get the hang of it. After time, hopefully I should be up to scratch with my console gaming skills.

So apart from everything Playstation related, I didn't get up to too much today. When I got home after picking up the unit, I headed to the cinema's to watch "Resident Evil: Extinction". Now prior to this, I had heard that this movie was pretty bad, so I went into the cinema with this in mind. The movie wasn't completely as bad as I had heard it was, but some parts were just crap. By the end of the movie, I had realised most of my time was spent watching Milla Jovovich looking hot while kicking some ass; definitely can't complain there. So when put into that perspective, the movie was good. After watching that, I pretty much spent the rest of my afternoon sleeping like I usually do during the day. I planned on watching "The Brave One" tonight, but got a bit carried away with gaming, so I guess I'll watch that tomorrow instead.

Sweet

2007-10-11T10:34:00.001+10:00

Look what's sitting on my passenger seat, getting a lift back home. I so can't wait to set it up and play with it.

Good Charlotte

2007-10-10T20:25:00.000+10:00

Now I was planning on typing this up last night, but then found myself feeling a bit worn out when I got home. Unfortunately I have been at TAFE all day and then I decided to go for a run when I got home, so only now am I able to get around to finishing this entry off. Lucky I went for a run when I got home though. After my run, I had a cold shower straight away and when I got out, it was raining outside. Talk about great timing. Anyways, back onto the original subject of this post.

As you may have gathered, Good Charlotte was playing last night, and I was there to watch. Overall, it was a great performance and even supporting acts were great; especially Kisschasy. Despite Paul busting his ankle during their performance, they still managed to keep up a good performance with a solo from Benji, an acoustic from Joel and Benji, and then taking Paul back out and seating him on a swivel chair so that he could still play for the remainder of the show. Funnily enough though, I don't have Goo Charlotte stuck in my head today, but Kisschasy instead; specifically "My Bible Is A Scrapbook". I just can't seem to get that one out of my head. Oh well; at least it is a good song.

Like I mentioned above, I decided to go for a run today. Actually, I decided it was about time I get up off my ass and do something about this extra body fat that I have gained during winter. For the past few weeks, I have been staring at myself in the mirror and have been extremely disappointed with the state that my body is in. I went for a run just before I ha the x-rays done on my back, and that didn't turn out too well, which is what had turned me off from running lately. During that run, my lower back and shoulders were killing me. After going to the chiropractor and physio though, my back has been feeling so much better, so I thought I'd give running another shot. The run turned out quite well, so it looks like my back is on the road (no pun intended) to recovery. So it looks like I'm going to have to work hard now to get my body back into shape. At least I have a good seven weeks left of spring, so if I work really hard, I should have a beach ready body for summer.

There's no doubt about it; CARDIO SUCKS!

My bad

2007-10-08T18:47:00.000+10:00

Before I get started on today's entry, I promised I would mention it, so here it is. In my post "The way it should be" (link), I failed to give credit to those that deserve it. For all those great nights out that I have had, it wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for Clare, Nick, Amanda, Rach, and Kylie. A big thanks to Clare; if you didn't ask me to come out partying in the first place, I probably wouldn't have discovered cheap drink Saturday at Union Jacks and the Port Office.

With that all sorted out, today was the end of my holidays and the return of TAFE. Having to start at 8:30am wasn't so fun, probably cause I had a bit of fun last night and didn't get much sleep before hand, but I guess it's better than starting at 8:00am which is what every Tuesday is going to be like. Today's units weren't so bad though; they didn't seem difficult at all... yet. As usual though, PLC's was as tiring as it usually is and I was finding it hard to stay awake during that lesson. Oh well, only another nine weeks left to this semester.

Last night, and just a couple of hours ago, we had a storm pass over our area. Nothing long lasting, probably lasting just an hour or two; but damn they were great... considering we haven't had anything close to one in ages. Last night it was just a bit of lightning and heavy rain, and just earlier today, there was some pretty strong lightning and thunder. Both were quite nice to watch and listen to. There were a couple of loud cracks of thunder; one had this strange high pitch noise that came just before hand which sounded quite cool. It all just seemed out of place since it was so warm and sunny during the day without a hint of what was to come. Anyways, it may have been brief, but we haven't had anything like that in ages, so it was certainly nice to have.

Well tomorrow may be a crappy early start and a late finish, but at least I have a ticket to Good Charlotte in the evening, so I guess my day will end on a higher note. This time though I'll be in the stands so there won't be any moshing there. Which is all good though, cause I'm really saving that all up for Linkin Park on October 22nd. That concert is going to rock.

So sleepy

2007-10-05T23:07:00.000+10:00

Just when I thought I had restored my previous sleeping pattern of being awake during the day and sleeping at night, my body decides to return back to its vampire ways. I managed to sleep last night for eight hours from just past midnight to just past 8am. Despite that, I still felt really tired throughout the day. This isn't the first case of this happening though. Over the past few months or so, I've been trying to sleep earlier at night so that I can get a full night's sleep before a full day ahead. I have had a bit of success with that, but have occasionally found myself still feeling tired during the day.

I don't see why I would still feel tired during the day though. Like I get a good sleep the night before with no forceful method of waking up and I still feel tired. I have found though that if I keep myself active, I can manage to stay awake without any issues. But still, I should be able to sit down without falling asleep right? I don't mind sleeping though, it's not like its uncomfortable or anything. It's just after I have a short sleep, it feels like I have wasted time that could have otherwise been used for something more productive.

So I guess that kind of explains what I was doing today. It's my last Friday of my two weeks off and I managed to waste it. Here I am typing a blog, feeling really awake, and don't really feel like sleeping any time soon. Come to think of it, I'm forcing my body to sleep when it isn't tired, and forcing it to stay active when it is tired. Maybe that could be contributing to it. Unfortunately though, I have TAFE during the day now, so sleeping during the day isn't really an option.

Apart from sleeping today, I managed to watch the next episode of Bionic Woman. After watching that, I can definitely say that this will be one show I will watch at least the first season of. Now I need to wait another week to get the next episode. It seems like such a long wait. Oh well, I guess once I go back to TAFE, time should pass by a little bit quicker.

Things may seem the same

2007-10-03T21:01:00.000+10:00

I thought I may get an earlier start on this blog since I have found over the past couple of nights, writing a blog entry so late at night keeps my mind in gear making it rather hard to get to sleep. Anyway, so it feels like I am back on track with my original blogging habits. Unfortunately though, I've been able to write quite a bit more than usual because interesting things have actually been occurring lately. As much as I don't want my writing habits to fade, I'm afraid that they unfortunately are going to once I return to TAFE again next week.

I really do enjoy writing here even if there is no real gain out of it. Well I guess there is some gain out of it cause after typing up an entry, I seem to be more relaxed than usual. I would like to write something on a daily basis, but unfortunately my life isn't always that entertaining. Either way, I'll see how it goes. If I need to clear my head I'll type up an entry, otherwise I'll just leave it as is.

So today nothing interesting except that I watched some ~~downloaded~~ episodes of Californication and Bionic Woman. Firstly, I have managed to get myself hooked to Californication. Usually I don't watch much TV, but this show has got the right style. Also, today I got to watch the first episode of Bionic Woman. Despite the lacking CGI (I can be quite picky), this show looks like it has got some potential. It does in a way remind me of Dark Angel, but then again Dark Angel could have gotten some of its elements from the original Bionic Woman. I'll wait till some more episodes of it air before I consider adding it to my list of favourite TV shows. Now all I'm waiting for is season five of Nip/Tuck to start. That show rocks.

Not quite my scene

2007-10-02T23:13:00.000+10:00

Well after a pretty rough start to my day, I headed into the city for an interview with a recruitment agency. Now you're probably wondering; if I'm working with MagiNet, why am I after another job? Well since I left my stable employment at Woolworths due to back problems and MagiNet is only temporary/contract work, I am now searching for another part-time job to supply a stable source of income. Anyways, so my Dad dropped me off into the city, and since this is the first time I have gone into the city wearing professional attire, things just felt odd.

In my opinion, I really don't believe that a CBD based job would be for me. It's hard to explain how it all felt, but everything just seemed for professional; from just walking around to get to where I needed to be, to the insides of the actually buildings themselves. For now, it just seems like I do not fit in to that kind of crowd. So anyway, the assessment went alright; I don't think I messed anything up. Hopefully now, they will be able to find a job for me, while at the same time I keep searching elsewhere for another. Whichever comes first I guess.

Apart from that, I didn't really get up to much else today. When I got home I just sat down for a bit, then around 1:00pm, my energy level just dropped drastically. It just knocked me out cold. I ended up waking up for a bit in the late afternoon, but soon fell asleep again only to wake up around 10:30pm. I don't know what went on there, but it was like my energy level went from about 80% down to 5% in an instant. Either way, I got some sleep to recover that energy, but I think I may hit the bed again soon to recover just a little bit more.