amphigoric macoronical pointlessness

a port stephens sojourn

a summary for those who get bored quickly and want to skip to the end

* went to port stephens

*night divers go diving (at 10:30pm), rat chooses the beer option. drinks, sleeps.

*saturday morning arrives. berocca, gatorade and red-bull for brekkie. go for walk from shoal bay to fingal bay with cute chicky**. go for dive at fly point, awesome dive. have counter lunch for brekkie at a pub. drink beer, drink more beer. hmmmm beeer.

*sunday morning arrives. berocca and red-bull. don't feel like walking today. give cute chicky bad advice about making web pages on her laptop. (the only good advice i'll ever give is simple. don't use microsuck frontpage. it just sucks. when it comes to sucking, it sucks a lot. suck suck suck) and then we go for a dive at halifax point. run into a few people i know from their trips down our way. as usual, they give me good advice for the dive site. it must be zen timing. i just turn up for the day to go diving, they turn up and tell me where to dive. i'm only 6 hours from home, and they still manage to get here every time i dive here and tell me what to do. legends. great fucking dive. see heaps.

*sunday arvo. drive home

*the end

friday lunchtime-ish finds me running around like a blue arsed fly. brekkie business shit, surf, organise self, ring friend, shower salt off so i don't stink out the car with sweat... and then we're on our way. fortunately the lift was late.

we arrive in port stephens in the daytime. which is a first for us. so we also find the accomodation without the normal screwups that are associated with me and navigation. ok, we did a few u-turns in sydney. well i'm good at getting lost. usually i manage a few u-turns anytime i go through sydney. but i've never done a 360. that's when you do a u-turn, then decide you had it right the first time, and just keep going round. so i take charge of the sydney directory thingy, and get us back on the express-way. i amaze myself sometimes. but we've made up for it earlier at a mcdonalds. we'd decided it was time for a junk-food meal. and i was outvoted. so we went to mc-crap. we were going to eat in. but we screw up driving through the shitty car park and the driver (not me and not me for the 360) end up going through the drive through. this is a first for me. i've done some stupid stuff, but i've never gone through the drive through without ordering. then we go in and order...

drink. sleep

saturday morning and i'm trying to sleep in. when you dive the shore dives at port stephens, you dive at high tide. the tidal current is too strong otherwise, and if you dive at low tide, the viz is crap from the outgoing tide. high tide on saturday is 10:38. so we get in at 10:15. and yet again, we are too early. same thing last year. we got in even earlier and had a great time going with the tide, but a crap time coming back. this year is not so bad, but still too early. stupid tide charts... great dive though, lotsa life. nudibranchs. a big fat numb ray (electric ray) asleep in the sand. wobbegongs, sponges, anemones, bream, flathead. you aren't allowed to fish here. but i loved telling one of my crew mates from the boat, who is here with his diving missus, about the size of this flathead. awesome. but not for you dude hehehe

next we head off for a counter lunch brekkie at the pub. (ok, it's 1:00pm, but it's time for brekkie) and after i have one beer. i want to drink all the beers. we drop off cute chicky at the beach for sunburning, and go shopping for bbq dinner. early nite due to early start. oops.

sunday morning and i give up trying to sleep at around 8:30. get up. sort out camera for dive and stuff around heaps. at the dive site i discover i've forgotten my fucking boots. great. gonna uncomfortable feet for the whole dive. fortunately one of my friend's kids isn't diving, and his feet are bigger than mine. steal booties, go diving. i run into a guy i know in the carpark. deja vu. exact same thing last year. for some unknown reason my friends' dive plan is simple, they're all going to follow me. damn. so this dude gives me a dive brief and i'm saved (2 years in a row, hope he's here next year). and we have the coolest, most awesome shore dive. there is stuff everywhere.

at the start there are these little rocky cairns that some twisted individual has built, complete with stop sign. presumably to prevent divers going back to sure... anyway, we continue. we get to the bommie, sponges, anemones, fishies, nudis. then we turn west for a lil bit. and we get to the coolest bommie. there are schools of fish stacked up over each other. juvenile stripeys, bream, bullseyes, adult stripeys, wrasse. a big fat blue groper cruising in and out whenever he feels like it. the biggest mother fucking drummer i've ever seen doing the same. usually shy in my experience, but this dude was not. estuary cod. life everywhere. you cannot sit on the bottom hardly anywhere as there is so many soft corals, anemones and other fragile thingies. a free swimming numb ray or electric eel. i had to take a photo of it. but i'm trying not to get too close in case the little bastard zaps me.

so me, being the most experienced diver, chooses when we turn back to shore (and i'm running out of fucking air. diving with two girls, and guy with a larger tank than me, and i'm going off my brain and breathing like and air pig cause of all the cool stuff) (and girls use lots less air than guys by the way. want to know the perfect diver, girlies. use less air, carry smaller tanks, more agile and able to look after themselves, and usually a whole lot more interesting to look at in a swimsuit. gibber gibber) so we turn to shore and start swimming in. and there's more stuff to look at. spotted moray, wobbegongs, flatheadd. stuff everywhere. if you're a diver or a snorkeler and you want to see a lot of life. go to port stephens. but be careful.

i know lots of fishermen. most of them are just normal, nice, good guys. they love you telling them what you see underwater. makes them smarter fishermen. but there's some dumb cunts that just naturally have a chip on their shoulder. in nsw at least the law on the water is simple. if you see a dive flag, you slow down and proceed with caution. we're at the southen most end of a channel marked by buoys. the channel is one fucking kilometer wide. we're diving around the port marker, where there is also a sign saying 4-knots. walking pace you fuckwits. out of all the ocean, this particular boat load of mother fuckers choose to come as close as possible to the port marker, too close to the dive flag, moving at about 15-20 knots in a 4 knot zone. maybe they've got a chip on their shoulder. maybe a diver dived in their burley trail once. so they take it out on the people diving no-where near where they fish, on a shore dive. stupid mother fucking sons of a bitchs. if they have licences they got then out of a packets of corn-flakes obviously. glossed over the bit where you are responsible for your vessel. and the fucking rules of the road. i'm a professional boat driver and deckhand. they embarrass me. if i worked for them i'd shove a boat hook up their arses and jump overboard. i hope your chickens turn into emus and kick your mother fucking dunny door down.

**disclaimer** this is just a cute chicky. nice to look at and talk to. not the same as the gorgeous chicky with the blue eyes that makes my brain stop and who i'm totally in denial about. i figure with my track record. i'm better just fantasizing about her and not actually getting involved and screwing her life up for the short period it takes her to work out how screwed up i am...

for a day off it's sure friggen hectic.

i had to be in town at 7:00 for a telstra "Business update breakfast" or something like that. next time i'm going to get there at least 1/2 an hour late. they stuffed around a bit. gave me a few ideas for work. unfortunately for them, nothing to do with telstra though :-) but i do want one of them blackberry doodads

went for a surf, then home to pack for our trip to port stephens. my lift is due here 15 minutes ago. and then a friend messaged me and asked me to ring her. turns out she's got shingles and is home sick. poor doll. she just needed someone to talk to for a bit.

a 30 second shower and i'm sitting around waiting, wondering what i've forgotten. oh well, got my scuba gear, and spare undies. the rest doesn't matter.

with hindsight i should have packed last night. but i'm never that organised. or skipped the surf, but i had to go. sometimes you just gotta go with the flow and don't give too much of a shit about being late. it'll all sort itself out.

avagoodweekend everybody

day 4

72 hours i survived. and then i weakened. round to the folks for a bit of a bonding session, a few beers over the crossword. drat. but then, tomorrow is a day off (except for a poxy telstra communications presentation at 7:00 fucking am!) and then it's the weekend.

my aim is to only drink on weekends, with occasional (very very occasional lapses). unfortunately i've got all the self control of a 3 year old, so if i don't make an effort to bring it under control (and keep the fridge empty of beer) i'll be drunk every night. as i have since before christmas. so i'll be trying to see how long i can go again next week. if i only make it to thursday or friday i'll be happy. (if my lunch date happens on monday i'll be happier).

i'd also be happier to get just a bit fitter, and burn off a bit of my fat tummy. we played shirts and skins at soccer training last night. it was embarrassing!

been sulking lately as i haven't been for a ski for a few weeks now. been trolling boatpoint looking at nice ski toys. i'd have no problems getting people to fill it let me tell you. next summer i want my own damn boat. so anyway, dropped in at my bro's for a quick gday whilst pedalling around stinksville (the cultural centre of the shoalhaven) this arvo and our friend with the boat rang up asking if we wanted to ski this weekend. damn damn damn. going away to port stephens with the dive club. and the damned wakeboarding championships is on this weekend as well. (this dude is a legend. good wakeboarder, goes to the states half the year at least on the wakeboard tour, a couple of years ago, he brings an event back here. looking good so far) fuck fuck fuck. missing everything! but NEXT weekend we're going skiing. haven't found a new ski yet, or even got a new binding for the old ski yet, but i'm going anyway. i'll ski on a fucking wooden fence paling if i have to. screw the jelly blubbers (with a 300hp engine connected to the prop :-) ) i'll just bounce along them. and whinge about it the next day.

i wanna take a week off to go to stoney park. it's a waterskiing complex up near port macquarie. looks fucking awesome. bet they don't have any frikking jelly blubbers. then i can come back and totally impress everyone with my cool slalom skillz. (as opposed to an occasional good turn, usually followed by an 8 out of 10 stack when i try and repeat it). but i'm excited (big kev, you've got nuthin). should be a lot of skiing to come this winter. i'm sure the other blow ins will give up as the water gets cold. leaving us freaks to light the fire on the beach waiting for our turn :-)

my sister came up with a new word to describe me. "he has some indio-syncracies". very close :-)

day 3

survived another day. unfortunately :-) i thought my mettle was going to be tested with lunch at the pub. but too busy to go. damn. oh well i'll keep counting then and see if i can make it to the weekend. humpdays are pretty hard. getting ground down by the stupid week, then my pay goes in. hmmmm, that'd buy a loverly little box of beer to put in the fridge...

soccer training. found a new muscle that i didn't know i had. or something. right in the middle of my left kneecap. and the coach/captain is jogging around with his left knee clicking and carrying on like a busted sprocket. didn't seem to worry him. but i don't like pain. so i took it real easy. (getting old yeah i know :-p )

back at work to replace a battery backup unit in our server room. someone else had already unpacked it. bits everywhere. anyway i've just about got it in, and it doesn't fit in the old rackmount. here we go. stupid pricks have assumed we were replacing exactly the same model, and left out the rackmount kit. so i bodge it up a bit and get it in. about to plug in the battery and there's a sticker on the plug. "refer to manual".

there's a manual? fuck! so i sort through all the shit everywhere to find manual, new cables, and a complete rackmount kit. pull it all out and start again. finally i get it all in, and going. the back of the racks looks like an explosion in a black spaghetti factory. black power leads going everywhere. fuck it. i've had enough. i'll tidy it tomorrow. maybe.

the worst lifting you can do is sitting down. it's better to lift while bending your back (which is bad anyway) than to lift while sitting. so here's me with my arse on the computer room floor, trying to wedge this fucking thing in the lowest section of the rack. and now i'm slouching (dammit, sit up straight) at my desk making sure no kooky error messages have popped up from the computer that monitors everything.

every now and then someone configures a new computer with the ups power management software. and they leave it at the factory defaults. so the first time there is a power spike or low voltage, it pops up a message on every fucking computer in the domain that's logged in (300-450). and we get at least a hundred phone calls wondering what's going on.

ok, i've blathered enough. this is too much jumping from subject to subject even for me, with my goldfish attention span. time to konk off and go home.

day 2 and still breathing.

last day for the boss today. a bit hectic and frantic. and i'm still tired from last night. why the hell my sleep habits have started screwing up has got me knackered. maybe it's stress from the boss going and me having to do his job. he's leaving because of the stress, so that's got me a bit nervous. at this stage i'm just going to try and wipe some stress out, and if i get offered the job, then i'll make up my mind.

played squash with L after work. she's playing heaps better than last week. good sneakers makes a difference. D didn't want to play as he's hurt his back. but i reckon it's because his new girlfriend is getting all his attention :-) then i thought that seeing i was still all hot and sweaty i'd go for a bike ride. stupid chain jumped the front sprocket and ate the plastic chain guard. grease and chain prints all over my fingers (and my shirt) and i'm off on my way again.

went shopping. then i actually cooked dinner. i think this is the first time i've cooked for myself, and not just because i've got the kids, for over 3 months. i've been extremely slack. it's been 48 hours since my last beer, how much further can i go...

i've just got in the shit from my sis because when i went and did the shopping i bought cherry tomatoes. not gonna cook them, i just eat them out of the fridge. turns out she's got them going feral in the garden. oops.

i've tried watching telly to keep me amused. but it's way to fucking boring. soapies and adds and got knows what. but it's sooo boring. so i'll bore a bit of the world with some meaningless tripe on here. troll some other bloggers. and maybe even tidy up some of my mess. maybe...

day one

so far so good. i'm probably still hungover, even after going rockclimbing tonight and driving home. but i've survived 24 hours without a beer. i haven't got the shakes yet. and i'm not yet staring longingly through the window at the bottle-o. but it's early days yet...

had a sendoff for my boss who's resigning. resisted the urge to have a beer, and just had water. mondayitis is still hanging around and i feel flat. rockclimbing, thai dinner. time for bed

ever had one of those perfect days? well saturday was like that. sunny, enjoying wines, pissed...

the clouds were scurrying over, it looked (to my drunken eyes) like they were going around in circles. music. lightning storm, thunder.

and the heavens opened up and it was raining datsun cogs. outside this brewery where we were sitting, the water started to pool, and rise, and straight away we could smell sewerage. yuck. but i'm sitting around under the shade cloth, checking out the lightning show, while everyone else files inside. then the last people tell me that there's sewerage in the water! doh! so i jump from chair to chair to get inside untainted. icky! a quick toilet break and i find that the roof is leaking somewhere. some of the employees have buckets under the water. the is water pouring out of a light fitting, which is still turned on for fuck's sake. one of the group i'm with says he'd better isolate that light. so they turn it off. and this guy (he's an electrician) says, no, it's gotta be turned off. stupid employee says it's turned off at the wall... idiot. we're out of here.

back to the cabins, and there's a blackout. beers into the freezer, candles lit, keep drinking. more rain, more rain, lots more rain. it's not like the north or south coast for volume, but it's pissing down.

and they were having one of those "a day on the green" concerts next door as well. we missed out, tickets sold out. turned out to be a good thing. they had to cancel it, mid show. the next day there were blankets and shoes and rubbish everywhere. what a mess!

sleep in sunday. (i think some of them are still asleep) and drive home. i think it's time for me to follow Jonas' example and try for a dry month. starting tomorrow. made easier by my much busier weeks now. i really need to dry out. the only problem is being sober for so long and i'm gonna be a lot more alert, and energetic and emotional. which may or may not be a good thing. i'm sure if there's a way for me to mess up being sober, i'll find it...

finally, stupid thursday is over. i escaped at about 6:30-7:00. ok, i'm sure lots of people work later than that. don't care. i didn't want to be there. fucking stupid computers.

tomorrow we're up to the hunter valley for a winery tour and stuff. should be great. dad says while we're up there we should check out some irish pub he went to when he was up there. errrr, we'll see...

a mate of mine hoped we'll have good weather. like i care. if the weather is shit, we'll drink indoors. not a problem. as long as the beer is cold, i'll be happy. yes i know, it's a winery tour. i'll try a little bit, and then drink beer.

how do you become as un-cultured as me you ask? years of practice. i'm just looking for a relaxing weekend away with friends. no pressures. no deadlines.

so i'm thinking, maybe i could spend this time tonight packing and stuff. heh heh heh. i think i'll just do my normal trick. wait until tomorrow, sleep in, panic, pack too much shit, then have a redbull or two to wake me up on the way.

humpday - yay!

soccer training has started (that's football for anyone not in australia or the northern american states). so at least i'm working off some of my testosterone or whatever it is, that is driving me crazy. plus i'm gonna be busier than (insert clever saying here). soccer 3 nights a week, plus a saturday. unless i'm working on the weekend. which will be even busier.

so about 12 people turn up for the first night's training. and by the end of the night, after a bit of a muck around game, we have about 6 injuries. i'm trying not to do anything stupid and hurt myself or be clumsy and take anyone out. (getting old) but we had a partially dislocated shoulder, strained ankles, bleeding ankles (shoulda wore shin pads shouldn't he), and a sore jaw from a shoulder charge gone wrong. plus my leg muscles are as tight as a bowstring. there's a few of us feeling like that though. stretch stretch strech.

but that's cool. i need to keep myself occupied or i go nuts. maybe i'll be worn out enough so i'll get some more sleep as well. been waking up at wierd hours and not able to get back to sleep.

the boss leaves in a few days, and i'm gonna be busier at work as well. or perhaps just "more challenges" as our departmental boss is apt to say. when he's just dumped a whole pile of shit on me. that some group director has been hassling him about. they come up with these wonderful ideas. only they haven't let us finish implementing and ironing the bugs out of the last fucking stupid idea.

anyway. enough work whingeing. gotta be good. get up early. do lots of stretches. or else my back is gonna have me back at the physio in record time when my poor posture and poorly stretched leg muscles pull it out of whack again.

orright, that's enough beer and blogging for one night. now my sister has let me at the computer. the rat has left the building...

(well ok, the room with the computer in it anyway)

woops. was gonna be good. but after trolling through Troppo Armadillo's Troppo Top 20 rock/pop poll i got inspired again. and i finally found it. underworld's space kitchen (or rubber ball). i know i've got shit taste. but i don't care :-)

ok, nothing exciting to say (like do i ever). but i'm kind of getting self conscious about having cupid's corpse near the top of the page. (i wouldn't get self conscious sitting alone with a pot plant, like Arthur Dent, but two pot plants...) so over the next few days i'll babble heaps and push him to the bottom of the shitheap

the weather: it's raining. can't decide whether or not to piss down. so we're just getting big fat confused raindrops. they kind of hit the ground, looking for a party, and every now and then, another pissed raindrop spears in as well. then they kinda seem to think that the party is happening somewhere else. so all the other little pissed raindrops bugger off somewhere else for a while. but then i guess not much partying going on, on a tuesday.

so i thought i'd put some new wiper blades on. again. getting sick of the cheap and nasty shit from autopro. (usually very good for other stuff though) and i went and bought genuine. from frikken holden. must have rocks in my head. when my airconditioning blew up they were going to charge me $1200 for a compressor, plus labour, plus whatever else they could find. ended up costing me $450 including whatever else the totally cool local auto electrician could find. (he's bailed me out a few times before as well)

so i buy these damn wiper blades. $18 for the set. even the girl who sold them to me at holden is looking at me, as if to say, "you're not gonna spend $18 on wiper blades are you?". fuck (i don't say). i just pay and walk out. do you know the worst thing. they are totally worth it. i've put on brand new cheapo wiper blades, and they've been shit from day one. these ones actually work. they don't smear, squeal, smudge etc... even though i don't usually fill the washer reseviour/resoviour/reservour (where's the dictionary) reservoir myself, preferring to wait for the 10,000k service, there is still washer fluid in there and the windscreen is now clear and beautiful.

gees. in a month or so i might wash the damned thing... (where's the kids. want some pocket money?)

disclaimer: "how can he be going on about wiper blades?" you ask
well if you've come here looking for reason and sense, har har de fucking har.

well i wasn't gonna whinge, and i wasn't gonna sulk. woops. and i was gonna go without beer until this weekend when i go on a winery tour. oops. i've got all the self restraint (and good sense it appears) of a three year old. and the attention span of a goldfish.

mondays suck. valentine's mondays suck even more. clear sunny mondays where the wind doesn't start blowing until after lunch, and the surf is up, and the river is flat (ok, forget the jelly blubbers for a bit) really really suck.



well anyway. hope all you romantic souls who are actually in relationships had a great time spoiling your other halves. i'll just be over here in the sulking section. the worst thing is, only got myself to blame.

now that really sucks... oh well. shit happens. gotta laugh at me-self. until they drag me off screaming to the nuthouse that is...

happy valentines day peoples

regular whingeing postponed until tomorrow :-) have a great day!

at work, bored out of my nut, trying to escape.

kids turned up this morning, we had planned to go skiing. but new-boat-owner thought the weather wasn't up for it. so i just nicked dad's boat and took the kids for a drive up the river instead. jelly blubbers are still everywhere. i musta been just lucky not to get stung the other day. so instead of trying to teach D to ski, i taught both of them to drive the boat.

got a little way to go though. L just doesn't want to go fast (maybe this gives the wrong impression. she just doesn't want to go fast, she wants to go REAL FAST). she still isn't to switched on about the channel markers and stuff like that. she just wants to push down the throttle and steer. D is a little more switched on, and a little more cautious. some skiers were waiting for us to get out of the way as we cruised back down so i just told him to steer and pushed the throttle for him so we'd get out of the way. managed to get 40 knots out of it, which i thought was impressive for this boat. pity it won't go that fast with a big fat skier on the back.

and the water was so glassy. woulda been a great day for a ski. damn gotta get both of the kids to get their licenses (plus age one more year) so i can ski while they're driving/observing :-)

it's only sat'day. another one to go.

spent my saturday very cheaply. slept in until about 11:00 when my brother woke me up. dunno what he wanted. went for a bike ride in a poor attempt to burn some beer off my gut. then round to my brother's to drag him out for a few beers at the pub. the plan was we take him out for a few, then his missus would organise the surprise party (valentine baby) and we'd bring him back and he'd be, like, surprised and stuff.

so we go to the pub, play some very bad pool, get picked up and go back. we drive past his house and there's a car in the driveway. so i'm thinking everyone else has hidden there cars. and surprise is that 2 people have turned up. oops. oh well. bit of a bbq, and head off.

tomorrow is skiing. should be fun. early night tonight so i can get the gremlins tomorrow morning and launch

friday! beer oclock!

finished almost nothing i've started. and my boss has resigned. so i'm acting supervisor until we get a replacement. i'm in two minds (well two more than usual) about going for it again myself. i don't reckon the extra money is worth the headaches. but if it's someone new, that could be painful too. bleah!

oh well. it's the weekend. i don't have to think about it. beer is the answer. what was the question?

i never can get the hang of thursdays.

for some reason thursdays are a bit of a minefield. so i'm just treading carefully, trying not to screw anything up. i need to come up with a name for thursdays. mondays are hangover days. wednesdays are hump days. trauma thursdays? screaming-heap thursdays? not really catchy.

and there's this girl. i'm trying (still, and unsuccessfully) to be cool, calm and collected. make no stupid moves, relax and be myself. well not my unco normal self that comes to the front whenever i'm interested in someone. but my relaxed and laid back self that cruises through life without a care (ok ok, without a clue)

but just looking in her eyes during casual conversation causes my brain to lock up. i know i can't multi task. walking and chewing gum at the same time is my limit. but looking in her eyes and thinking at the same time seems to be a problem.

breathe in, breathe out. repeat. (make fool of self, cringe, repeat...)

up to sydney today for microsoft indoctrination. sorry, i mean an informative seminar that doesn't bang microsoft's drum every 30 seconds. ha ha fucking ha.

there were a coupla good speakers who didn't blow their own trumpet and force feed us m$ doctrine. so we got a bit out of the day. maybe even enough to justify getting up at 5:00am to get up there late for the first session. but it was the keynote introductory thingy anyway. think of it like days of our drearies (days of our lives if that's too subtle). you only have to see one keynote every few years and you can fill in the blanks yourself.

typically they have three "tracks" or something like that. it's kind of like a theme. if you are an "evil empire" developer (or stupid empire, you pick) then you go to the msdn one. if you're one of the poor bastards who have to clean up each time the evil empire releases a new piece of trash, then you pick one of the other two lines, or just switch randomnly between them like me.

so i got a bit of a run down on exchange 2003 and how you can use the tools to deal with spam. then we stopped for morning tea (yum) and signed up for a few junk mail lists to check our spam filter with. i mean we put in entry forms with email addresses to win xboxes or a mini-mal with a goddamn msdn logo all over it. if i win that there'll be gorilla grip from arsehole to breakfast on that deck let me tell you...

sorry i apologise. don't click that stupid link. as soon as you "enter" the site the stupid fuckers open a new window, complete with music. gorilla grip good. stupid web developers must be part of the evil empire. it's just some shit that you glue on your board if you don't wanna use mys palmers mighty mounds board wax (smaller harder nipples, satisfaction guaranteed)

anyway. another fun day in the wierd world of a rat. at the end of the day we were trying to choose between two particularly pathetic topics for the last seminar, when the boss said, how about we just piss off early. fucking good idea.

an old and stupid game

i like confusing the people who ring me. answer the phone with the russian word for hi (priviyet). or say "mortuary spare parts" or "ballina taxis".

anyone who knows me probably recognises my voice, but they are still confused. and confusion is good. maybe that's why i work in computers. for something that is supposed to be so logical and sensible, they can be almost as illogical as a smart woman can be, when she chooses. with computers logic will sometimes work, and then, sometimes jumping to conclusions works as well.

unfortunately, there the analogy breaks down. any analogy applied to a woman's behaviour is doomed to failure. just pull your hair out and be done with it.

back to my stupid phone answering. tonight i had an unexpected bonus. phone rings. probably mum, or dad, or me bro. so i pick it up. "goulburn taxis" i say. "oh sorry, wrong number, thanks, bye." says the telemarketer. hmmm, how interesting. of course they will end any call where they aren't getting anywhere as quickly as possible. until now my aim was to wear them out, waste their stupid telemarketing time without a sale.

but now i have a new idea. if i can convince everyone i know, and those i don't, to answer the phone "ballina taxis". it'll fuck them all up. ok, sure they'll work it out sooner or later. and still be the frikken pests that they are. but just think. some marketing pain in the arse, who thinks it's ok to annoy a whole bunch of people to make A sale, might just realise how many sales he or she is driving away. charities might realise that they are now blacklisted due to being pains in the arse. but then, maybe they'll just change their tactics. but as long as it annoys the fuckers my mission is done. because they annoy the living shit out of me.

i'm always up for new ways to torture telemarketers

another weekend has gone, leaving me behind in it's ruins.

the kids stayed over on saturday night. didn't do anything exciting. just watched a movie or two and relaxed. but i had to get them up early on sunday and take them home so i could meet up with some friends and drive up to sydney for the second final in the cricket.

a good day of drinking beer and watching the cricket. well light beer anyway. yuck. the usual fools and loons but nothing too annoying. i thought the pakis were gonna roll us but we got away with it by the skin of our teeth.

then we walked back to our motel, our navigation was less than excellent but we got there eventually. i not only didn't have a clue where i was going, but i didn't know where i was after about 5 mins anyway. we stayed at some poxy motel in kings cross. poxy, but cheap, and good enough for a few hours. so we decided to go for a wander around kings cross. i woulda been happy with any bar that sold beer. but we ended up in some dumb strip club. they must have seen us coming i reckon. me and one of my mates weren't too keen to go in, but the others all wanted to and the annoying person who they were negotiating with said we could go in for free. then some wierd woman brought me a beer, $6.50. fuck. doesn't look like an airport. then she asks for a tip. HA. then i find out that it's some .5% alcohol wierd beer anyway. not 5%, .5%. and the show? nasty. so me and me mate headed out in search of a bar with less wierd people and left the others to their own devices.

with my usual forward planning, i wasn't dressed appropriately, so we only managed to get into one bar, and it was pretty boring. had a few beers and decided to crash at around 2:00am. the others got in afterwards. apparently they crashed into our room and scared the shit out of me mate. but i was out to the world and didn't hear a thing.

in the morning we knock on the door of the other room to tell them we're off and seeyas later. they open the door and another guy from our room goes to walk in and nearly throws up. they'd been having some kind of farting competition. and it stank. a wall of stench came out to greet us in the hall so we waved and ran. ick!

time for some sleep and to dry out a bit.

ok, i'm just another arsehole without a clue. i usually avoid any political statements, as i'm way too un-educated or ill-informed about this shit to offer anything even remotely helpful. but this crap really begs me to offer my stupid opinion. first caught a clue of this on Gianna's blog, and she referred us all to Crazybrave.

i guess if we all sit back and keep our mouths shut, the newspapers will rev up a bit of a storm, and the knee-jerk pollies will come up with some new shit.

our current solution is as good is we can get it i reckon. but i still dream of going down to the clinics where some morons hang out at the front abusing poor girls from all manner of situations, and smashing the stupid fucks to a pulp.

sorry, my bad. a few tales that won't be told, as we all have. stupid fuckers making decisions about other people's lives, about which they don't have a clue. screw drive by shootings. how about we just drive straight into the stupid fucks and save a few bullets.

here's my dumb, and surely ignored, email (partly copied, because it was a whole lot better written than what i'd say. i'm sure you can guess where i start adding stuff though....):

Dear Senators and Members

I am writing to express my appreciation of your public comments supporting the right of women to choose to terminate a pregnancy. I am not a Liberal supporter, but I believe it is important that those who value women's ability to access safe and affordable abortion services stand together when that ability is under threat.

i further believe that the maternal instinct leading to the mother's choice, is probably the best indication of whether or not a lady should choose, or not, to continue her pregnancy.

some fat arse blowing off to the media (eg: Alan Cadman), is less of a reliable representative of the people in my opinion.

regards
address and name removed in the dumb hope that everyone doesn't know who i am...

didn't want to get out of bed this morning. had a few beers at the pub after work. (gotta love it) then ended up having a few beers and watchin the cricket at a mates place. many ales and much bullshit later and i've gotta go home for an early-ish start saturday.

it's about a 30 min walk from his house to my house. but i get bored when i'm walking home pissed. so, as usual, i ended up running home. a little sore and sorry this morning. wasn't so keen on the idea of going water skiing. but when i finally dragged my sorry arse round to my mate's place who has the boat, i got kinda enthusiastic.

still a little rusty, and got no endurance. but we're getting there. the jelly blubbers aren't so bad now. not as thick as they've been. with a bit of luck they'll all fuckoff or we'll get a big flood and the fresh water (that usually runs down the river when the fucking river mouth isn't closed) kills them. we had to be back by 1:15 for one girl to get a lift to work, and me to pick up the grommets. besides they're back out tomorrow and mr new-boat-owner was stuffed :-) so i said i'd ski back to the wharf like we used to. crap, took me 6 goes to get up, 5 mins later i'm exhausted and ready to drop off. my bro was following with dad's boat. the plan was when i fell off (like an overripe fig from a fig tree) he'd pick me up, so the girl who needed to get back in time, and who was in nbo's boat, would make it.

and then we hit the smooth water, for the first time today. wind shift. wahoo! god i suck at skiing. all my lovely big arcing turns which were meant to spray water ect ect... were really sucky stop go turns. gotta get new bindings for my (well another mate's) ski.

looking forward to winter now. afternoons after work skiing. noone on the river. ski back to the ramp and get put on the whip. i ski through the 4 knot zone at about 45 knots and try to make the wharf. ive only got away with it once. the driver has to put you on the whip at the right time, in the right direction ect.. fun to try though :-)

the kids all had a blast. on the ski biscuit, bouncing round like i dunno what. they're still giggling about it. pity i didn't have my kids this morning, just nbo's and my bro's. they'd have loved it. next time grommets...

i've said it a thousand times, and i'll say it a thousand more. fuck i wish i'd bought my mate's ski boat when he sold it!

another fucking thursday without a clue

started out innocuously enough. hell i was having a blast by 2:00pm. and i'm thinking: "this can't be thursday, thursdays suck". oh well, enjoy it while i can.

and i'm glad i did, because then the wheels fell off. the evil curse, microsoft-fucking-isa server. "how to completely fail to integrate with applications from any other fucking software company". mother fuckers.

so my thursday afternoon went down like the hindenburg.

going to a microsoft technical seminar thingo next week. i wonder if they'll be searching us for weapons...

on a completely unrelated side note. James is going to be interviewing Bruce fucking Campbell!. How cool is that? think up some cool questions for him to ask and get over there and suggest them to James. Army of Darkness is one of my favourite movies. and of course anything with Xena in it ;-)

humpday

well it's all back to normal. as usual i completely misread the situation. i thought this cute girl was interested in me. so, as usual, i spun my wheels a lot, was a complete pain in the arse, bothered her too much, and generally accomplished nothing. turns out she wasn't interested at all. or if she was i drove her away.

it's hard work being this clueless all the time.

climbing at the gym tonight. stopped at the beach a few times on the way up to check out the swell. and it's big. gotta get out tomorrow and see if i can get a wave or 2. after climbing we went to the "hot chili food house" and had turkish pide. yum yum.

talked to a friend of mine on the phone. she's just broken up with her boyfriend and needed someone to vent at.

just another stupid day in the life of a rat...

i probably shouldn't be on the computer. we're in the middle of the coolest storm. it's just started banging and crashing and raining. and the lights are going dim and bright and stuff. i really should buy that damned ups soon. especially with the weather we've been having.

it must be hitting something good. everytime we have a storm my adsl drops out every few minutes. but i can understand it today. it sounds like something huey gurgling or clearing his throat through a giant drainpipe

but then it's either sit in front of the computer with a few beers, or do something constructive. i was good today, went for a bit of a bikeride so i could have an excuse for a few beers. which is better (slightly) than just drinking and not trying to burn it off at all...

but i've finished getting back up to date with schlockmercenary (thanks Ruth). i used to read it, but it went kinda wierd for a while and i stopped, so i've spent a few days reading the last coupla years worth. unfortunately now i'm up to date i've got no web comics to read! i'll have to troll round a few others... oh will you look at that, weekend warriors has been updated again! (update links...)

today also seems to be the day of broken-home-computers. 3 people now have dumped home computer crap on me to try and fix. sometimes i have laptop days, sometimes i have every computer i own fucks up and dies (laptop is still dead, burial later this week), including my damned dive computer, sometimes i have cluster-fuck days, today is broken home computers

fucking computers.