amphigoric macoronical pointlessness

how's this for a dumb pickup line?

"look, i know i'm not particularly attractive. and i'm sure there's a name for the whole raft of psychological problems that i've got. i'm unco, and i've got classically fucked up timing. "attention to detail" is what happens to other people, along with "planning in advance" and generally "having a clue"

wanna breed?"

sorry. i'm in lust again. it'll be all back to your regular scheduled broadcast of shit, after i, yet again, fuck up and misread the whole situation, and spend a month or so sulking and moaning.

then again, you've seen it all before...
(oh yeah, and people don't usually get it when i'm being subtle, so i'll spell it out, this is exaggeration for effect, well a little bit anyway. don wanna breed...)

and now my energizer bunny batteries are all worn out...

on saturday we paddled from bendeela to tallowa dam. supposedly meant to take about 6 hours. we managed to do it in around 6 hours, but we had huge breaks. stopped for morning tea, lunch, swims, play frisbee, shoot photos all over the place. there's always somewhere i miss with the sunblock. so i've got these randomn red splotches on my legs where i skimped with the sunblock. and they stung in the shower too.

saturday night we camped at tallowa dam. there were people everywhere. i actually brought my tent, but we had so many tents i didn't need it and slept in someone else's. i've had this tent for years now, and never used it. and i'm glad i didn't put it up because i've never tested it in the rain. and we had a lovely storm. first it rained a bit, then there was some lightning and thunder, then it pissed down, then more thunder, then it just drizzled. then it started all over again. the skies groaned and crashed, and the rain went from light drizzle, to downpour.

i thought i'd be last out of bed on sunday morning, didn't get out of bed until about 7:30. the sun was just too hot on the tent to stay inside. but the others didn't get up for a bit after that. it might have been hot in the tent, but it was still overcast. a lot cooler for paddling. but typically it meant that on our way back to the campsite, we were paddling into the wind. i think i need the physio to look at my back again :-)

i felt like a coupla beers, but i'm stuffed. i'm gonna crash presently. which will be a shock to the system. waking up on a monday morning without a hangover and after a full night's sleep...

i amaze myself sometimes. it's the 11th hour, getting ready for canoeing tomorrow. we're leaving a car at our canoeing destination, paddling up to the campground, rescuing the cars, camping overnight, then going for a little explore on sunday.

my air mattress is a sieve. holes everywhere. so i get a new one. and i manage to get one without a fucking bung. un-fucking-believeable. i amaze the shit out of myself sometimes. so i'm up to my elbows in the bathtub fucking around looking for pinholes in my thermarest so i can fix them. the last 3 holes only bleed air underwater when you put pressure on it. (or sleep on it...). so i'm gonna plug them up, if it's still going down in the morning i'll be sulking big time. the worst thing is, it's all my fault, had days to get ready, and i'm still stuffin around.

at least i'm stocked with food and beer :-)

i think i'm just being fractious. is that a word? where's the friggen dictionary.

breathe in, breathe out. it's hard bein an unco fuckup all the time. i mean, i've got standards (low), and it's hard to maintain this level of foolishness all the time, but i manage, somehow, by dint of great effort and stuff.

how can some people be so cool and calm and stuff? i can manage it occasionally, but when i ACTUALLY want to be an altogether cool, calm and collected frood, like to impress someone and stuff, then i come over as my REAL self. which is a bit of a pity really.

disclaimer: don't expect sense. if you've come here looking for sense then ha ha fucking ha

ugh thursday

and i'm feeling it too. we went for a bit of a ski yesterday. and now all the muscles that haven't been used for ages are hurting. ow ow ow

oh well, it was fun. except for all the jelly blubbers in the river. we had to go upriver for ages to try and find a place where there were none. eventually the driver went for a ski, but gave up after getting stung a few times so we went up a bit further. we decided to give up then and just head back, but i wanted to have at least one ski before giving up. so i said i'd ski as far back as i could go, and try not to fall off, and jump off at a beach. apart from the jelly blubbers, and my leg and arm muscles which turned to blubber, it was a great day to be out and about on the river.

so now it's back to reality once more. bleah.

i had the kookiest dream last night. usually i don't remember my dreams, but this one i thought was wierd enough to remember i guess.

arnold swarzenegger, sharon stone, and some other girl actresses i can't remember, who have been in swarzenegger films, were doing one of his movies. only they were doing it as a stageshow, in an old wooden school hall. the good bit was when sharon stone had a "wardrobe malfunction". they were all prancing around, acting and fighting and doing movie stuff.

hmmm, maybe i shouldn't talk about my dreams :-) some psychologist type person will probably work out some interesting thing that's wrong with me from all that. oh well.

hump day approaches...

and i'm as happy as a pig in shit. a mate of my brother's has bought a ski boat. frikken awesome. hello australia day, hello very fucking busy river with crazy pricks all goin skiing.

it's a 19ft hull with a marinised (made ready for marine environment) ford 351. about 50 hours since rebuild (and properly marinising. seems the heads rusted out from the salt water. derrrrr). he reckons it did 50 mph when he was testing it, should be good enough for skiing and footing. dunno about this wakeboard business though. i'll have to give it a go sooner or later i spose. and left hand drive, kooky, at least the foot accelerator is on the right foot. it takes me a bit to get used to a left foot accelerator on a right hand drive ski boat.

so i don't get a sleep in termorrerr. gotta get up, grab brother, skis and assorted ropes and shit left over from last ski boat, and go skiing! woohoo! i'm still gonna have to buy a ski boat sooner or later, but this has put it off just nicely. :-)

monday monday

i hate mondays. i especially hate mondays after being off work for 4 weeks. a lil bit busy, but i survived the experience.

the rest of the crew took it easy on me i think. first day back, ease him back in etc... but tomorrow it's sink or swim. one of us has left for a job in sydney, and another is on holidays, so that's cool. i don't mind working hard to pull my weight. don't give a flying fuck about the employer, but i'm part of a team, i wanna make sure i do my bit. we've got a pretty good team. and thanks to the guy who left (not because he left, but because he was good at team stuff), a pretty awesome team spirit, and i figure the more i dig in with the others, the better it is for us all.

played burnouts 3 on the ps2 for a bit, but i limit my time on it now. otherwise i'll play until i pass out and be mad as a cut snake... so now i'm just downloading songs i like. i thought i liked a song by deep dish, called flashdance. turns out it's a remake of a song on the flashdance soundtrack called he's a dream by shandi. stupid name, stupid artist name, but the original has more balls then the remix i reckon.

i think i've worked out one of my major character flaws. (it's hard to work out which one is the major one, got so many...) i'm frikken obsessive. anything new in my life i tend to throw myself totally at. 6 weeks later i've cooled on the whole damn thing. i wanted to get into little model steam engines. read all about them, bought a few books, trolled the net, and now i'm over it. sure i'm still interested, but i can't maintain that initial enthusiasm. perhaps it's because the only thing i've managed to remain obsessive about is beer :-)

beer is the answer, what was the question. christmas is over. gotta work out a way to dry out for a bit. too many hangovers makes me too grumpy and turns the world grey. 3-4 days off the grog and the difference is amazing. i feel like the frikking energizer battery bunny. but i've got no real incentive at the moment. apart from a beginning/maturing beer belly. gotta sort that shit out or the next thing i know i'll be a slack faced, middle aged, very round person, wondering where the fuck my body went and where all the flab came from.

it's a pity i'm real good at thinking this stuff, but that doesn't burn any fat off. gotta get with the program and start some regular exercise. soccer season is gonna be a major surprise to the body.

anyway, back to obsessive compulsive. there's this girl. (isn't there always?) i seem to have a knack for screwing up relationships. so i'm totally obsessed.but i'm afraid as well. the only part of my life i haven't fucked up is my relationship with my ex's kids. i certainly contributed my fair share to stuffing the marriage, but i was determined to keep it all cool with the kids. everyone has got to have aims in life i'm told. well i'm a directionless, windblown fool. no idea where i'm going, where i've been, or what i really want out of life. but kids are important, they changed my life lots. it must be a boy instinct thing. they made me responsible and brave and trustworthy (well some of the time at least). i used to sleep like the dead. but when i became a dad i started sleeping very lightly. if one of the kids farted in bed i'd wake up and wonder why i was awake and wander round the house checking the windows and wondering what was going on. if L had a nightmare i'd wake up in her room after having jumped out of bed and run there.

good at beating round the bush aren't i?

so there's this girl. you know when you meet someone interesting, they are all you can think about. i'm trying to be cool calm and collected, but it's not really working. after the mess i made last year, well, i'm a bit cautious as well. i really enjoy spending time with this girl. and i don't wanna fuck it all up like i did last year. so i'm trying just to keep it cool, spend time and don't get up to any mischief. but i'm going fucking insane.

the only thing keeping from making a fucking idiot of myself again is hindsight. when i look back at the wreckage of my life, i'm determined not to do that again. it's ok for some people to go out on a limb and take risks. but you've got to have a fucking clue in the first place...

fuck my life. sulk sulk, moan moan. but then, there's millions of people who'd kill to swap it with me, so i've gotta keep it in perspective. healthy, well fed, happy (when i'm not sulking). the worst thing is, when the drive to make a stupid fuck of myself goes away, i'll probably wish i was young (ish) and full of hormones again. gah! permanently fucked timing.

thus ends the rant for today. don't panic, i'm just venting. i know i'm a clueless fuck, i'm over it. just moaning. sometimes writing it down puts it in perspective and i can address the issues properly, or at least realise what's bugging me. but not today. perhaps i haven't been honest enough with myself, i dunno.

holidays

i love having holidays. i love doin cool and exciting stuff for holidays, but also you have to find a happy medium. the more cool or exciting things you get up to on your holidays, the quicker they will go. if you are bored out of your brain, then holidays take forever. so i'm always looking for the happy compromise.

just before the pagan xmas festival i went down to melbourne to visit my sis, xmas day at her outlaws, then a bit of melbourne stuff, new years at my sister's, before travelling home for the cricket. lots of sleep in days, stuff around, do nuthin. fucking fantastic.

every year i take a week off in january so i can have the grots over during their holidays, so i thought i had it sorted after a bit of negotiating with my ex. but it turned out she'd been a bit vague when i organised my holidays (must have been her turn :-) ), and we both had the same week in mind for having the kids. oh well. i'll have them the week after. but i couldn't bring myself to cancel that week off. so i slept in a lot, stayed up late, reading, drinking, watchin movies. hello, sloth is my name. taking the kids for afternoon surfs a few times. turned out to be a bit of a painful week in their household, the kids' mum's partner is having heart trouble and gave us a bit of a scare. but it's all cool now.

anyway, so i get the kids this week. they have to go home a few weeks because their mama bear doesn't sleep well when they aren't there. went surfing a few cool places. daughter L is no longer interested in surfing, which is a bit of a pity.but son D and i make up for it while she watches from the beach, then we go and do something that the daughter will like. i'm just an entertainment organiser i sometimes think.

dad. what are we doing tomorrow?

dunno yet. ask me tomorrow.

dad, what's for dinner?

dunno, ask me when we're eating.

dad, can we go to the mall?

what!?!?!? damn. ok. (dad buys a new ps2 game, woops)

but i loved havin them over. and they said they weren't too bored. saw some stuff, went surfing, stayed up late, slept in until they felt like gettin up.

hmmm, looks like the application of beer and talking with my sister has caused me to lose the plot. dunno where i was goin, nor do i care. monday is gonna suck.

another big weekend on the boat. and now i'm trashed. gonna be another hungover monday, i can see it now...

and now i've got sore paws, skin off, and a sore back. but such is life. occupational hazard. one of the more fun occupational hazards are the girls in bikinis. a mate of mine was watching from one of the day boats, signalling me rude ideas and ways of getting my face slapped. so i contented myself with enjoying the scenery.

this is one of our favourite groups. a sydney diveshop called dive 2000. they always bring on a fun, easy going crowd. they keep us busy though. they usually use nitrox (or enriched air), which is a little more time consuming to fill, plus every second person has a camera in an underwater housing. one dude had the biggest housing for his digital video camera (i thought these things were sposed to be small!). about 50 cm long and 30 cm diameter.

after a late friday night, i thought i'd be safe on saturday night, and everyone would crash early. unfortunately i was the last one left of the crew, so i had to stay awake to turn off the generator, got to bed at around 1:30. then an hour later i'm roused out of bed because the southerly change has come, about 18 hours earlier than predicted, so i've got to raise the anchor and help keep a lookout as we go for a middle-of-the-night cruise to the other side of the bay to find shelter from the wind.

needless to say i was a little under the weather this morning. the vodka shots then drambui drinks didn't help either. woops. oh well, i'm not the brightest drinker in the herd.

i'll have to take my camera to work tomorrow so i can download the pictures off it and check them out (i mean, work very hard catching up after being off work for a month....)

home again.

amusement, excitement, boredom, stupidity. such is my life.

took the kids up to canberra to check out questacon. about 30 seconds after i left home i thought it would be a good idea to find out where i was going, so i went home and looked it up on the net then we left again.

we also checked out the war memorial. saw heaps of cool stuff, bored the kids shitless. my favourites were the gallipoli dioramas. having seen it in person and heard the difference between what we were taught and what the turks have to say, looking at the mad hills they had to conquer. the kiwis could have done it for us. but the poms didn't give them enough rope or have the balls to hold what the kiwis took. in my ignorant opinion anyway :-)

they've got a _big_ lancaster bomber and one of the midget submarines that entered sydney harbour. you know i thought the lancaster would have been bigger. and the submarine was an experience in claustraphobia. anyway, i enjoyed it. a few things i remembered from a visit when i was younger. and the large aircraft displays i thought were very cool. the only thing i thought was a bit lacking was a bit more of a navy presence. but you get that.

we were going to check out the aquarium and zoo. but got there at about 4:00pm. for the 3 of us the cost would have been just over $50, for 1 hours amusement (shuts at 5:00). we just wanted to see the aquarium. wankers. i'll take the kids to sydney next time. so we went up black mountain tower. probably the kids third visit now. oh well. next time we go, we are going go kart racing, then gonna hire some canoes and paddle boats and paddle around in the lake.

i highly recommend questacon. the war memorial is ok. next time i want to visit the museum. i also highly recommend staying over at a mate's house. drinking, playing burnouts 3 on the playstation and falling asleep late and sleeping on the couch. their 2 year old loves to sleep in. bliss! now mine are 14 and 17 they will sleep in, but at that age they were little morning people. get up early and let everyone know they were awake...

ok, it's beddie bye time. i'm trashed. work next week is gonna suck

big fat glassy surf. just lightly brushed by the southerly breeze (offshore). fatter and fatter as the tide came in until only the shoredump was breaking.

very confidence boosting for an unco father trying not to drown his son whilst going for a bit of a male bonding surf :-)

i love surfing... hardest fucking sport i've ever attempted. so you can count out skydiving, any kind of high diving, the jamaican (or oztralian) bobsled team (apparently someone has been inspired by the movie "cool runnings" and has a team for the winter olympics. rather than what i do, which is watch the movie repeatedly and get pissed a lot...) and that downhill as-fast-as-you-can-go skiing bizzo.

i love drinking, and i hate hangovers. damn.

today was a beaty as well. finally, i'm feeling over it. i don't think i'll be installing another one anytime soon now. (famous last words). fortunately the other "party victims" from last night were feeling similarly under the weather today. (misery loves company)

a surf today would have been fantastic, and probably fixed me up heaps. but where i wanted to go was blown out, where the surf was good was too big for taking grot D, and probably for me as well, besides it was absolutely packed and i'd never have got a wave anyway.

notes for self:

- sculling your bourbon and coke because you want to leave and go home because you're feeling under the weather is not a good idea

- scoffing a huge plate of some kind of mince which my sister says is "spicy" because you've got the midnight munchies is a fucken stupid idea

- laying on the bed and spinning out, and then making an appointment with the porcelain telephone is no fucking fun

- passing out watching the cricket on telly is good

- leaving the surfboards in the car, as the car heats up, letting board wax drip all over the place is bloody stupid. however it was a good excuse to scrape it all off so i can try this new wax my brother gave me. mrs palmers mighty mounds (do not eat or chew). smaller harder nipples, satisfaction guaranteed hehehe.

i felt like i was breaking the code though by taking off the old wax. the guy who taught me to surf told me you never remove the wax. you just keep adding. leave any sand, gravel, sticks, whatever on there. it's all grip. however i like wax better than gorilla grip. i ripped off the front grip and just left the back foot grip.

when i got the board made the guy asked me what design i'd like. i said i hadn't thought of that but we worked something out. i figured after he went to all that trouble i'd like to see the design rather than putting grip on it.

- don't sing karaoke. i really suck at singing :-)

ps: what makes esky lid riders go the wrong way on a wave? it's a frikken right hander, and i'm closest to the breaking wave, so i've got right of way, and he's goin left for chrissake. i try and go around him but fuckup like normal. end up ditching so i don't spear him with my weight behind it, and he runs over me. sure we're all good natured and sorry dude and stuff, but i've never understood it. if the wave is goin right, go right, unless you've cutting back or whatever. seen hundreds of them do it.

oh yeah, and if you aren't standing up, then it's not your wave. that goes for goat boats (waveskis) as well :-) we used to love revving up one of my mates who surfed with a waveski. do you know you can surf up behind them and jump on the back? pisses them off immensely. funniest thing i ever saw though was my mate trying to get off a wave. he's paddling out to sea, going backwards over the falls of a 4 foot dumper. ever seen them kayak dudes doing eskimo rolls? well he could do a half eskimo roll, the first half. then he had to undo his seatbelt and get off

**usual disclaimer**
if you came here looking for sense and interesting stuff, then ha ha ha

it must be hard to be a dipshit all the time. but i seem to manage.

i get home tonight, after, yet again, makin a complete dick of myself doin karaoke. (look out idle oztralians, yer got nuthin on me) and i'm famished. so i hook inter some mince left over from my sister's last taco mix. it's all way to hot for me (the only thing lower than my tolerance for hot food is the ground). but i'm hungry, spinning like an idiot, pissed as a git and as co-orinated as the united nations. tomorrow is gonna be an interesting day.

so my mouth is burnin, and i'm lookin for relief.

help

termorrer is gonna be a big day. gettin the kids at sparrow's fart for a surf, then round to me mum's for a bbq. i think a nap in the meantime is gonna go down a treat.

it must be hard bein this dumb all the time, but i've got a loverly knack for it

well hello.

the cricket: during which we managed to beat the windies. they've nearly got their shit together, but not quite. brad hogg had a fuckin blinder takin 5 for something or other. go you good thing.

lara did a pretty good post-match interview. a lot better than the likes of show-off aktor. don't get me wrong, i don't hate the dude, but he should avoid talking to the media. whatever...

afterwards however i was subjected to unforseen abuse. i'd only previously heard mention of it on the tssh's poll for unnecessary covers (or in my opinion, covers for which the singer should be shot. but i digress...). i refer to "idle australian's" shannon numb, attempting to sing "come on aussie". unknown deity help me please. this sucks so much. afterwards my sister said "yeah he's pretty bad but that other guy who won that tv show was worse, he's not so bad." and also mentioned that our aunt loves shannon numb because he's a boy from the bush, and therefore can do no wrong. well i'm sure he can't, and i'm no authority on singin, but please stop it all now.

shannon numb and gay sebastion may have been top dog on "australian karaoke", but just between you and me, i'd rather listen to drunken japanese try and sing elvis songs at a karaoke bar. at least they already know they suck and don't give a shit. they're just pissed and lovin it.

and at this stage let me insert disclaimer: got nothing against japanese (and other asian karaoke victims i've seen in karaoke bars. keep goin dudes. y'all having more fun than a, errr, bunch of ticklish people in a feather, ticklish, thingy factory) fuck it. i don't make sense anyway. their sense of humour must be at least as stupid as mine, or else they'd never attempt karaoke. however my sense of humour must be stupider, because i know how bad i sing, and how bad i dance (ever heard the expression "a frog in a sock?") but i keep on going. people who have seen me attempt to sing on stage, while pissed (how else?) will attest to this...

the original version of "come on aussie" wasn't really that exciting or that well done, but it was a whole lot better than that.

oh yeah, the point. shannon numb, and gay sebastion, you guys really suck. if you're gonna make it in music and stuff, find a fucking band and learn real music. yer fuckin useless... i'd rather listen to any of the really cool pub bands i know. they do good covers, their own stuff doesn't suck a lot, and when in doubt, they play really loud with drums and stuff.

i love having a few beers and watching the weather (ok, or having a few beers and watching telly, reading a book, weeding the lawn etc...). and it looks like we're gonna get a bonsa little storm.

just dropped into the bottle-o for restocking. they've got a plastic tub full of ice and beer. the label on the front. "ice cold beers $2". i couldn't resist. the beer out of the cool room isn't gonna be that cold. at the moment i get a beer and put the next one in the freezer. then replace them as i go. otherwise they aren't cold enough. so an ice cold beer was (actually is, drinkin it now) just perfect. the perfect temperature for beer is about 1 degree above freezing. if you leave it in the freezer and ice forms, you've waited a coupla mins too long. the only way to get it perfect is to put in an esky all day with ice. the ice cold water is just perfect, too much water and you've gotta get rid of some and put in some more ice. keeps you amused for hours :-)

didn't get a surf today, the wind beat me up (8:30, damn thing musta been listening to my alarm, i won't hit snooze termorrer) and the only place that was sheltered, had no waves. the only place that had waves that i found, was yucky. so at sparrow's fart tomorrow i'm gonna be up (again), grab grot D and head for somewhere that should be working. the ne swell is up a bit more, and it should be blowin south until sometime or other, when we can switch to backup spot if the swell is still a bit higher. good theory, tomorrow well tell.

so today was just chores and boring shit. plus playing burnouts 3 on the playstation as well.i might have to stop playing that game. i'm running out of swearwords to hurl at the telly when things don't go my way or i smash into randomn traffic. oh well.

so it's time to crack a few ice cold ones and read my book until the storm hits :-)

i love being able to look at the weather online. this morning the ne swell was being stuffed up by the ne wind. but it was 2-3 foot so surfable if the winds swung around. woohoo, the forecast is se-sw 10-15 knots, so i just waited until it said it swung around then went to cool little surf spot down the coast.

holiday traffic is just everywhere, but you get that. i just wish they'd sit on the speed limit instead of 20 km's under it. they inspire some hideous overtaking manoeuvres. a couple of back roads to dodge some traffic, and hopefully the highway patrol, and i'm there.

woops, forgot me sandals, burning the shit out of my feet on the hot sand. but it's worth it, after a 10 min walk i'm through the dunes (cursing people with 4wd's who park almost on the beach) and at the beach. a couple of cool little waves, some unco manoeuvres, fall off some new and stupid ways, and i'm as happy as a cheshire cat.

now if only i can drag my (doubtlessly hungover) self out of bed tomorrow morning before the wind comes up so i can do it all again. then maybe another travel and surf if i can work out somewhere else good. i love havin holidays. the only thing better would be if some of the group i used to surf with was still around and i could drag a few of them out for a bit of a session. oh well, got the kids next week. instant surfing companions :-)

it's a stinking frikken hot day here again today. no wind, just damn hot. yesterday was the same. went to the beach where the nor-easter was blowing and it was nice and cool, but blowing the surf to bits.

so i'm trying to spend my time productively (which i hate), fixing bits on the crapmobile, tidying up the huge mess i've made in the house, and generally doin boring stuff. might try for a surf again this arvo to eradicate all that crap from my head.

damn, can't procrastinate any more... (unless i get out the playstation and play burnouts 3 again hehehe)

after my disasterous year with relationships last year, i've got it figured out. stay single. so far, so good. the girls have always seemed to understand this and keep their distance ;-)

but now i find myself taking a girl to lunch occasionally, and out for drinks. i've always been attracted to her, so now i'm wondering if i can maintain this singleness that keeps me happy.

expect sulking post soon when i (as fucking usual) screw up everything again. i'm just trying to remember, and stick with, my dad's advice. which you can use for all occasions. when in doubt, remember the third option. when faced with 2 choices, you can always opt to do nothing.

although i like mae west's quote as well (from my usually, stupidly boring desk calendar). "when faced with two evils, i usually like to choose the one i haven't tried before".

and when i thought i'd managed to end up with no-one i know missing as a result of the tsunami in asia, it turns out that a friend of mine may be somewhere in thailand (but maybe safe, she doesn't check in very often) but two acquaintances of mine were scuba diving in thailand and are still not accounted for. fuck

more frikken computers, and i'm on holiday for chrissake!

finally repaired my desktop computer at home. so i can get back on the net and do my daily blog and comic surf, posting moronic experiences from my unco life :-) i've still got a broken laptop computer, but it's a work computer so if i can work out how to get out the hard disk i'll get work to buy a new drive and i'll fix it myself, as it's unfortunately out of warranty and too useful for me to be without. and tomorrow i've got a computer job for the local video shop...

i'm enjoying the holiday experience though. getting out of bed at 10:30 at the earliest. last week after flying in to sydney i went to the cricket. the second day of aust vs pakistan. after being in melbourne for 10 days i saw trams, watched people do them kooky hook turns and no-one was killed, but never actually got into a tram. when i get back to sydney the easiest way for me to get to star city, where we were staying before the cricket, was a train then a tram.

the cricket was great, beer in the sun, watching us take on the pakis. i never thought i'd say the seats in the scg are luxurious, but after the mcg, i reckon they're pretty good. you gotta laugh at some of the morons though. i mean what are they thinking? a policeman comes over and tells a drunken idiot (who's been abandoned by his partners in crime) that they're watching him. all he has to do is nod and shutup. but he says he's not doin nuthin. blah blah blah. they say they've got cameras all over the place, been watching them make a beer snake, so he says, wanna see a snake? and flops out his old fella. 30 seconds later the cops are dragging him out. well done einstein. two other losers went streaking across the field. i wonder what makes them want to do that?

the next day i'm back at home, drop off the pressies for the grots, merry christmas and happy new years little dudes. then the boss (from the boat) rings me. 2 hours later i'm on board the boat for the rest of the week. we had pretty good weather, good diving, and they were a pretty good bunch. easy going people, including 2 families with teenage kids, which is a little unusual. but they fit in alright and on the last day we had a big water pistol fight. they ganged up on me and one would shoot me from one direction, then the other one would open up on me with a super soaker when i retreated into ambush.

back home, unpack, make a huge mess (which i've yet to clear up), go out for dinner at an italian restaurant, then sleep in late the next morning.

the kids came over for saturday night, more staying up late and sleeping in :-) they're back home now. their mum has this week off so they'll be home, i've got them the following week. turns out i've got a few computer jobs to do anyway. oh well, i can do with the extra dollars, i've given the credit card the usual xmas bash and now i've gotta take it easy for awhile.

nearly hometime. i think i've just about worn out my welcome (and my liver). after new years eve drinking and staying up, i finally managed to drag my sorry self out of bed at around 12:00. a few beers and dinner at a mexican restaurant (with usual, wimpy, non-spicy food) and was feeling a lot better.

today they are sending me off with lunch at a bavarian beer garden. supposedly there is some surprise about how the beer is poured or something. as long as it's cold, i'll be happy.

tomorrow is another day's drinking in the sun at the cricket. should be good :-)