amphigoric macoronical pointlessness

some pics, they're about 150k each, so will be slow on dialup

i swear it's not an isuzu! sitting on the stand, soaking up the sun

woohoo! got home to find my book, the oxygen hacker's companion, had arrived. i've been wanting it for ages, and a week or so ago, i got pissed, got online, and ordered it. (plus another book and a book and a dvd off amazon.com, woops)

i'm as happy as a pig in shit! :-)

one of the problems with being the boss, is you can't get away with saying "someone should do something about that" anymore.

my boss is having great delight in loading me up with annoying problems, the only thing is, i don't know how much more crap i can dump on my guys before they all revolt. some more paperwork and stuff and hopefully we'll be a little closer to fully staffed as well. well back to our usual understaffed level anyway. gimme one more trained monkey and i reckon i'd be right. on well.

hangover monday has come and gone, leaving me reeling in it's wake. it would have been nice to go to the gym and work off some nervous tension, but it's too late now, and i don't feel like it.

gotta get motivated and stuff...

damn, another weekend comes to an end. pissed as a fart, and the mp3's are finding the upper limit of my shitty computer speakers.

it's been a a big weekend. moved one of my mates from kellyville to oathlands (in sydney). had i not been there, i still wouldn't know where either place is. and now, i reckon we've moved from the north-western bit of sydney to the central to eastern, northern bit. hope that makes sense. cause it sure doesn't to me

so anyways, me and me brother are (as usual) team pig. we be the pit crew that does it all. in this case we're moving heavy shit into and out of the 6 ton box on wheels we've hired. saturday was a big day. we busted our arses, then pizza with beer for afters (dinner of kings). in the morning our mate who's moving house, has driven off at 6:30am. keh??

so me and me bro drag our sorry arses out of bed, and chase after. we thought he had to have the truck back by 8:00, but really it was 9:20. but no matter. in anycase we need to be there, loaded and unloaded and returned just in time.

story of my life, always just in time. so i've given up stressing about it. just go hard.

during the drive time (always time for bullshit) we're all nattering about shit. and now i've made myself the 3rd fucking "team pig" rider. admittedly, our no.1 rider is practicing for stardom, and our second rider is just in it for the rush, as am i, but now the rotten bastards are gonna put me on their damn $8000 trackbike, with slicks. on one hand i don't wanna fuckup, on the other hand, slicks are very scarey, but on the other, very very fast.

as usual driving through Suddenly (sydney) i'm impressed with the large amount of people who aren't looking out the front window of their cars. how can you all be so switched off? this arvo i felt close. sleep deprivation helped though, but a coupla red-bulls and a major fear of screwing up helped.

so anyway, some stupid song comes on the radio. and it was particularly crap this weekend. usually you can rely on siddley radio for some cool stuff, but this weekend it was all crap. and on comes run DMC vs aerosmith - walk this way.

i don't mind some rap. a lot of it is crap, but run dmc is ok. so now i'm downloading the damn video clip

blah blah blah, sorry my bad

nearly midnight, and i'm still fucking up. what's with that by jingo?

can't drag my sorry arse out of bed in the morning, but i can stay up later and later. i should take a coupla weeks off and just stay up later and later until i'm back around to where i should be. or take an overseas holiday and really screw up my body clock.

cause that's all better than the alternative. dragging myself out of bed earlier in the morning. yuck

gotta love over 35's football (soccer).

almost none of the guys are there for the game. they are there for the pissup afterwards. 3/4 of an hour after the game, when the last of the opposition had left, we still had enough guys left to field a full team, plus 1 sub.

which probably doesn't make us the smartest bunch of bastards, but we don't seem to particularly care. i've laughed more tonight than i have for the entire week i reckon. they're all taking the piss out of each other, themselves, and the fuckups on the field that you had to see to believe. our goallie was arguing with one of their strikers when the ball dribbled past him into the back of the net.

the opposition started pretty serious, and they had a fairly serious half time team talk, while we got onto the usual talk of sex (like any of us are getting any) racing (who backed a loser this week) and taking the piss out of each other. but by the end of the game they had relaxed and were enjoying the game and the beers afterwards.

and it was fucking freezing! i know i've acclimatised to the coast. when i was a young tacker, it was a lot colder than this. but still, i was cold. probably didn't help holding those cold beers and laughing my arse off though...

sport, it's just a reason to sink beer :-)

well, got the results from the interview. i've got the job.

people have been either congratulating me or offering commiserations. now to finish ploughing through toxic thursday.

damn damn damn

it was one of those games that had everything. the evil queenslanders got up in the first half. kicked more goals than you can poke a stick at, then, after a rousing half time chat (inferred seeing as i wasn't listening) we bounced back to be in front 20-19 or something like that. of of them miserable cane-toads scored a field goal to make it 20-20. next thing we know, it's full time.

and we go into extended time for a golden goal. we're our own worst enemies and throw a cutout pass to yet another miserable cane-toad who hops away and wins the frikken game. drat

however, in reality, it was a great game. miserable cane-toads deserved the win. it was only sheer bloody mindedness and a big helping of "diggin in deep" that brought us back. they won the first half, we won the second, but at the end of the day, they won the game.

in other news...

a great day at eastern creek. both our riders have sped up a few seconds a lap, and despite being very unfit and out of shape, even when totally worn out and the end of the day and supposedly going out just to practice lines and stuff, they are still circulating at around the same lap times. one of our riders was suffering from pumped up forearms, so he gave up using the clutch, picked up a second a lap, and he was already worn out from the first 3 session.

our other rider was having a better day, until i was watching him go slower and slower, chasing this guy in dark leathers on a red bike. he eventually got past, then they played pass and re-pass a few times (oops, very naughty, not allowed on ride days) until my rider had a brain fart on turn 9. it's the second of only 2 right handers (if you don't count a bit of a bend) and he was going around the outside so as not to be rude. and the guy he was trying to pass stayed wide so as not to be rude. woops. so they waved and my guy went round, and took off, and picked up about 10 seconds a lap (no shit) to get back to where he should have been. and the guy following let him get about 100 yards ahead, and picked up the pace to stay the same.

i thought that was interesting and mentioned it to one of the other guys. he thought that maybe the guy could follow but not lead. but i thought he was too far back to be gaining anything by following. but i know stuff all so i kept my mouth shut.

turned out the guy on the other bike was Wayne Gardner. he was mostly just playing, plus on a slower bike. hellow reality check.

my timing notes (i mean, uh, randomn notes as you're not allowed to time your laps on these track days) have a few other interesting notes from today.

one rider didn't pass on the main straight on the first lap when i'd expected him to. i figured i'd stuffed up and eventually he came around. turns out he went bush. his comment was: let tyres warm up for AT LEAST two laps when you put on new slicks. oops.

then the other rider went bush on turn 4, got away with it, and later went straight at turn one. as we're talking about it in the garage, plus OVERTAKING Wayne Gardner! (hell, sure he was on a slower bike, and he was taking it easy, but we'll milk it for all it's worth, and more hehehe) and my more aggresive rider casually lets slip that he bashed fairings with one of the other riders (you're meant to overtake with 6 foot clearance on these ride days). then my more conservative rider says, yeah, happened to me too! hehehehe

when i took the bike up for scrutineering in the morning (with loose rear axle etc...) the scrutineer told the guy to push his bike back to the pits or put his helmet on and ride it back. oh&s and all you know. told me nothing. i'd just ridden it the the scrutineering bay sans helmet, and after he gave me my sticker, back i went. too far to push baby. engines are for pushing. gees, it's the pits. i'm not gonna get out of second, nor above about 50kph. maybe i was just ugly enough to ignore. maybe team pig's reputation has preceded ourselves ;-)

commandment number 11 or so:
though shalt not troll amazon.com lookin at cool stuff after drinking 10 beers*


*this is only a recommendation, not a guideline. after maxing out your credit card you are still entitled to enter stupid-afterlife-101.com. but everyone will point and giggle. idiot.

wierd

a coupla weeks ago. wasn't paying any attention to the particular date, something reminded me of a book i read once. it's a book by an american soldier. and despite the contempt we hold american soldiers, i really enjoyed this book. a thinking soldier who would learn from anyone.

about face the review is crap though. maybe it appeals to the north american public. fuck knows.

in vietnam, after serving in world war two and others, he learned from the vietnamese, and then the australians, earned criticism and fire from above (when they found out) by sending his officers to serve with our grunts. and was very successful

so tonight i remembered again and decided i'd find this book, probably on amazon.com. where else? the usual search shit wasn't working so i rang my friend who i borrowed it off and we yacked for a bit. finally got online for a sticky-beak and found it.

goddamn if he didn't die on may the 5th. dunno even what day of the week that was. i'm sure it wasn't the day i was thinking about his book and that i wanted to read it again, and sure, he was 74, so i guess he wasn't surprised, but i hadn't read this book in 10 years, but bits of it kinda came back and burned their way in, if you know what i mean.

consult calendar, it was a thursday, no way was i thinking war shit on a thursday. soccer on thursdays :-) stupid conversation topics are on sundays at mum and dad's.

i kinda thought that was wierd though. but life is full of wierd coincidences. i didn't cry though. unlike when i found out that John Candy had died.

cool runnings

i'm now procrastinating. my interview is tomorrow morning (so i can't even indulge in a hangover monday) and i need to re-read the job application so i can bullshit properly in the interview.

and, as usual, i've left it to the last second! dammit. oh well, spose i'd better have a look

breathe in, breathe out.

a grand day.

saturday is definitely my favourite day. for starters, if i'm not working, i get a sleep in.

monday is interview day, and despite not really giving a shit about winning or losing, the stress is starting to build. bought some new dacks, a shirt which i hate already, and a new tie. actually i don't like the trousers either. they're fucking ridiculous, i'm standing in front of the mirror trying to adjust myself so you can't see my dick. i'm gonna have to wear shorts underneath!

well my dad says it pays to advertise, but i'm not that forward.

anyway. bought some new clobber for the interview, and a pressie for my son. it's my dad's birthday party tomorrow, but seeing as it was my son's birthday a few days before, he gets two parties, one at his mum's and one here. i don't mind spoiling them. they're old enough now that it doesn't matter and they know they're important.

and yet again i find i've been telling everyone he's a year older than he is. woops.

played soccer, a 2 all draw. a fun game for me. but seeing as i hadn't played on thursday, i was all hyped up and by the end of the game i didn't get to play enough. usually i'm exhausted and happy. today, still happy, but wishing i'd played in the halves instead of the backs, i need more running. i like interchange. you don't have to pace yourself, you just run around like and idiot, then sub off. but in the backs i don't get tired, i sub off to give the others a go.

our opposition played better than the last time we played them, but so did we. they had about 4 shots, and scored twice, we had about 500 shots, and scored twice. heh. well i laughed. we've got a lot to learn. our few quality players are easily frustrated by the rest of us, but you get that.

sport, i love it. wouldn't be dead for quids. i've finally worked out how to enjoy it, so i'm enjoying it as much as i can

poets day again.

finally friday is over, accomplished nuthin. all to do again next week. fuck it

coupla beers after work with some workmates to celebrate the end of the week. it's a good tradition. then off to soccer training.

i figure seeing as we're playing tomorrow, i don't wanna train hard. so a 2 beer handicap isn't a bad thing. a reasonable turnout, work up a sweat, and we're all looking forward to tomorrow. should be fun.

couple more beers watching the blues brothers. a classic movie. fair dinkum.

avagoodweekend crazy people

ps: and i had a few beers over at mum's, they were talking about haircuts and bein bald and stuff. i said i don't do bald, it's not a pretty look. got a lumpy ugly skull. so mum started going on about how if you shaved your head it didn't matter what you looked like as long as you were good on the inside (this from a person who used to tell me to pull my socks up and look presentable) so i said well in that case, it's ok if i have a purple mohawk...

next thing we're talking about double mohawks and stuff, and i couldna resist it, had to tell the joke.

there's this old geezer, and a young bloke with, as fate would have it, a multi-coloured mohawk. the old geezer is staring at the young bloke.

finally the young bloke gets the shits and says "weren't you ever young and did something stupid?"

the old geezer looks at him and says "yeah"

"fucked a parrot once, i was wondering if you were my son"

i get the distinct impression that i'm at a turning point of my life.

past relationships are gone. i've always known that, but knowing it and feeling it are two different things. and i'm a creature of emotion. at this moment, i feel that i've finally crested the summit and i'm on the other side.

job interview monday, the chance to make some changes, move some wheels and have some fun.

the trick, the real trick, is to not stress out too much and somehow make sure i still have a shitload of fun. gonna be a challenge. we shall see.

i amaze myself sometimes with the shit i reveal on here. but then i look inside, and there's a lot of stuff i keep hidden. unfortunately too many people that i know have, due to carelessness by myself, picked up on it. don't wanna get dooced, nor do i wanna share any dark shit with people that i know. it's very cathartic releasing inner demons here, but that could easily change to, errr, catastrophic (looking for another "c" word). but life's like that. always looking for balance.

no matter where you go, there you are (meaningless end phrase that just sprang to mind)

murphy's law

nothing exciting to report. a blackout at work today. and with typical "murphy's law" timing, one of our machines blew up.

ordinarily it would have just been annoying. i had to rebuild it from a backup, which was 8 months old. the backups of this particular box hadn't been working. and the job i was working on, at the very moment, was checking up on, and reorganising, the backups of this particular group of machines. another 30 mins and i'd have found that it wasn't backing up, backed it up, and it would still have been annoying, but a lot less.

so i rebuild it, 8 months old, and dig out some documentation that would bring it back to how it was about a month ago. turns out the boss is fiddling with the fucking thing a couple of times a week. but never bothered telling me. thankyou very little.

another day without a lunch break, stressing over broken shit. and yet another day when our it department looks like a couple of monkeys fucking a football.

however it's not that bad. only affecting mail coming in and out from the net, and anyone trying to browse our websites. we'll have to really outdo ourselves to beat our biggest fuckup. i won't rehash it except to say that if you are ever looking at a document management system, steer clear of tower software's trim. it's a pile of stinking offall. and should you ever wish to integrate it with microsuck word, you can buy some software called "easydocs" from shedsoft. should be called shitsoft.

one of the people from our records department, who use this software the most, throught the guy who wrote it was an ok guy, and he just had a little trouble. my poor little stressed out techs would have gladly stabbed the prick with a screwdriver. i had to apologise to everyone one day because i was walking up to the security door and i let the stupid fuck in.

we're at this meeting, talking about the latest (broken) version of this shitty software, when one of the records people said that we couldn't get any more help (and i use that term extremely loosely) from him, as he'd taken a job somewhere in canberra, and wasn't contracting anymore. i asked if we'd written a glowing reference to get rid of the stupid prick. which went down like a lead balloon, but i think they started to get the point.

i've fucked up a few things in my time, broken a few computers, and generally been an IT nazi. i've not broken as much stuff as my boss, but there's still time. anyway, despite how much stuff i've screwed up, and how big a bunch of nazis we are, this software is the single most embarrassing, stressful pile of fetid toxic waste we have ever installed. compared to this shit microsuck looks like lassie the fucking wonder dog, danger mouse and luke fucking skywalker all rolled into one.

anyway, now that i've had my "wonder sulk". tomorrow is another day. hump day. gotta pick one of my stressed out victims and get them to make a better way of backing up and restoring this shit. something very fast. then gotta look at some more battery backup units.

poor buggers are starting to revolt. we're getting there but they're getting stressed out on the way.

another fun weekend.

despite shitty weather, the swell being up (and me being on a diveboat instead of on my surfboard) and crap vis, it was a great weekend.

the bosses had been running a mid-week charter, with school kids, all week. so they said they'd be pretty stuffed and i've have to run things on friday night. at about 1:30am on saturday morning i refused another rum and coke from one of them and excused myself to go and sleep. if he's staying up late tonight, he won't be tomorrow...

saturday was pretty good. found a few nice dive spots. the divers seemed to be having fun. no major hiccups. after lunch i got in and tested out my new fins. very good. my photos on the other hand were very shit. one good one though. well, let me rephrase that. one that i liked. it's probably shit, but i liked it.

strangely, on saturday night the bosses disappeared very early. fortunately most of the divers crashed early too. only the non drinkers who'd been diving on nitrox were showing any staying power at around 12:00. and not too soon after, they went to bed and i tried to catch up on some sleep. my promised nap had evaporated, as some morons bleated meaningless rubbish over the radio.

sunday was nice. frantic as usual, but all good. due to the swell though, we had to try out some areas we don't usually dive. and on the way back to our mooring for lunch we passed by one of the big grey boats (navy). ideal photo opportunity. it wasn't until i looked at them later, the crew by the stern, hats off and heads bowed, that i realised we may have intruded on some ceremony. it's not too long back that we lost some people in a helicopter crash overseas. it could have been some kind of rememberance. i reckon most navy people in our area knew at least one of them, they're a small group. a subduing (is that a word?) thought.

i value my privacy, and felt bad about being near them whilst they were perhaps having a special moment.

life is for the living, and life goes on. today was the birthday party for my nephew's 6th birthday. a lovely kid, really. when i see my brother's kids i glow. also my son's 16th birthday. when i got there he had his girlfriend with him. of course his mom asked me to look at some computer shit for them... you know, i don't think i try hard enough. i've just been thinking. i wouldn't have minded at all if we'd ended up with our own kids. my two are step kids. and i love them lots. and i think that if he was my biological son, (and i was still married to his mother) i'd have been there. so now i feel guilty, because i regard these two as my own. if i'd had the weekend off, i'd have been there. so it's just a matter of better organisation, half a brain, and priorities.

when we get next years roster i'll take that weekend off, for both of them. endure the inevitable discomfort, and do my bit to make sure they know how much they're loved. kids are too special for work to intrude...

but i'm not down. he was grinning like an idiot (his girlie was still there) and both he and his sister gave me a hug.

life is good. i wouldn't be dead for quids.

ps

the onlypicture that worked. the rest were even more crap. it's a juvenile grey banded rockcod, about 4 cm long. never seen one before.

sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse in the darkness

dunno where that originally came from. but i'm reading terry pratchett again. it's a mother beautiful quote...

yet more boring drivel about being old and playing sport...

after training last night, my quads have been killing me all day. and i was starving after work, so i got some junk food. so i knew i wasn't gonna be in the best condition tonight. if i eat before playing, for some reason i slow right up and my endurance (limited as it is) drops off as well.

fortunately i'm just a numbers guy, they don't want me for my skill or speed or endurance anyway. i may be the youngest on the team, but my main contribution to the team, apart from drinking the beer and laughing at the jokes, is making sure we have a full team.

at half time we're 1-1. over 35's is usually fairly easy going. we play hard but fair. but this stupid prick i was playing against for a bit of the game is a fucking loony tune. he thumped me once in the head (dunno if it was an accident or what as i was lookin the other way), then dived at someone's feet and slid sideways, rolling at him. what. the. fuck. are. you. on. you stupid prick. i think the only reason the ref didn't blow the whistle for dangerous play was because he couldn't believe anyone could be so fucking stupid. and we ended up with the ball anyway. fucking wierd.

then i think he wanted to be my boyfriend. everytime i was near him running for the ball he was grabbing me and pushing me and stuff. fortunately he played even worse than me.

at half time everyone is talking about the game. which is a little unusual. so i say to the sweeper (i spose he's the captain, but we don't really have a captain, we just all yell at each other...) what's goin on with the team talk? what did you get upto on the weekend?

the first game i played with these guys someone starting going on about soccer at half time, and this dude (sweeper) has said "fuck that, who wants to talk about soccer? who got a root on the weekend?" we went on to play an inspired second half and win the game

anyway, so tonight he says "well, i backed a winner, but i didn't get a root". someone else said that was just like every weekend, and he said no it wasn't, he doesn't usually back a winner. it kinda went downhill after that. much more like our usual halftime chat.

by the end of the game the clueless fuck that was trying to get friendly with me, managed to foul someone in the 18 yard box, giving away a penalty. their keeper stopped it (which was fairly impressive) and then, not wanting to stop on that, he tried to foul someone else and took his own stupid self out.

we won 2-1. but i reckon we outplayed them, especially when i was on the sideline, and not on the field screwing stuff up. last time we played this team i made sure i showered first so i could relax and enjoy a beer, but they ran out of beer. so i said screw that, tonight i'm getting a beer. about 30 mins later, we all had a beer, had a shower, and had another beer, and almost all the other team had left. almost all our team was still there. must be the secret of our success :-) screw training and skills and stuff. we laugh at each other's stuffups, drink, joke, and generally have a fucking fun time.

i'm glad i'm an old prick. i like playing on weekends, but this is awesome fun.

do you know what would be good? the sense to go to bed early. i don't seem to have it.

i wake up in the morning trashed. i can sleep for 30 mins at lunchtime no worries. but i'm completely unable to put myself to bed before 11:00ish.

oh well, flexi friday. if there's one thing i can do, it's sleep in. unless i can con someone into going for a ski. in which case i'll sleep when i'm dead.

cause i'm into, errr, cool sports on the water....

humpday. hooyaa. mumble mumble...

i just walked past the telly. they are doing some kind of "happy days" 30 years after the show or something. not watching it though. i've just finished soccer training. i don't need any more reminders of how old i am.

so i finished my book instead. one of my favourite authors, terry pratchett. more fun evading reality in a book than a crappy old telly show. even though i keep going out and looking at it, just for a lil bit.

now my sister, who has been watching it heaps, has been filling my head with stories. apparently the happy days cast and crew used to tour as a sort of social softball team. and do embarrassingly well.

enough happy days. it's just scarey. besides if i hurry up and finish i can go watch some more.

another day with another few kooky things going wrong at awkward times. unfortunately it's time to load up the crew with a few more projects. they aren't going to like that. so i'm gonna try and impress them with the big picture. which unfortunately doesn't end up with us all lounging around getting fed grapes by cute chicks with fans, but will be a little less chaotic anyway.

i'm having a meltdown moment. i just hope i can remember all the things which keep leaking out my ears, and not _actually_ meltdown. gibber gibber

mellow shmellow

was gonna sleep all day. but at 8:15-ish (i was awake anyway unfortunately) one of my guys rang up to say he had to take the day off. in a moment of weakness i figured that we don't have enough people at work, so i drag my sorry self outta bed and rock on to work.

probly shouldna. didn't accomplish much. i'm aiming at friday off now. so i've got 2 days to really work some magic.

there's this "inspirational" poster up at work. turns out it's a thought of the general manager. it totally sucks. it's got a pageload of lovely little sayings like "i can't do that", but you have to convert it into "i enjoy a challenge" and then the afterwards is "i achieved so much sucky shit" or something like that.

pity it didn't also say that too much of "i can do that" turns you into a freaked out stress puppy with no social life doin extra hours trying to achieve psycho goals you agreed to when you were on a burst of feel good shit from some arsehole poster left over my fucking dilbert cartoon of the day. my boss kinda agreed, he's a stress puppy. taken on too much, hasn't learned how to tell people to get fucked yet.

i don't care if it comes from a god. (i'm not picky, pick a god) here's the parameters. we're working on it, it's a fucking difficult job. don't like it? here's the expensive solution that will probably be cheaper and easier in the long run.

gah! i was chillin listenin to gorillaz - feel good inc. nice bass. now i'm thinking about work. how screwed is that!

i hate mondays. i was soo tempted just to stay in bed and not go to work.

so anyway. i'm at work, plodding along, and the boss comes up to my desk and says casually that his calendar just told him that i was on a flex today.

fuck fuck fucking fuck. (where's your cousin. fucking?)

so i'm awake and i'm at work. no point going home now. drag myself through the rest of the day. accomplish a little bit. look at the calendar. can't take a flex thursday cause i've got a meeting with a rep, plus lunch at the pub. friday is out because i'm covering the helpdesk for one of my high achievers. in any case it's friday the 13th. i'm doing nothing out of the ordinary and hoping i don't get hit by lightning. wednesday is some other shit, so tuesday i'll stay home, sleep all day, do some chores, and wish to the gods of skiing that i win lotto.

i'm sure people wonder how i can be such a clueless bastard.

only partially connected with reality. permanently connected to a case of beer, my kids and watersports. hmmm, i think that can be my motto :-)

news in brief

party was good. ended up playing boche until about 2:00am. and for the first time i slept inside my friend's house instead of waking up at 5:00am on the lawn.

left divots all over his lawn, because we thought it would be more fun to chuck the boche balls from the second level of his house. hehehe

the theme of the party was travel. so i turned up with some turkish gear on, and a turkish pide from the hot chili food house. bloody lovely. only who'd a thought someone else would be wearing a fez! bastard!

and this rotten woman wore a french maid's outfit. it didn't help either that she was drop dead gorgeous. you shouldn't perve on another guy's missus, so i'm trying to behave. but she kept moving. everytime that black satin type dress moved it just screamed at me "woohoo!" and then she's wriggling her shoulders at her mates, hamming it up. fortunately she got changed before i started drooling.

round to mum's for a bit of backyard soccer, watching the v8's and a bit of wog ball as well on the telly. and liverpool is in to the semis! woohoo! ambrose and skaife had a coming together on the first corner of the race i watched. skaife ended up stranded in the kitty litter. not a happy camper. ok, it's a good safety feature for the cars, but it fucked him up for that race big time. i reckon he's sticking pins in his marcus ambrose voodoo doll tonight.

i still hate the kitty litter though. i will curse it everytime i see it on a track where bikes race until the gods of racing smite the arseholes who leave it there instead of lovely slick grass that you can slide and slide on. mother fuckers

the only problem with playing 3rd grade is the games are a bit earlier. making it a bit harder to get there on time when hungover.

someone had to ring the coach and the striker to get them out of bed. and now the game is over i've gotta stay sober for a few hours so i can drive up for a friend's 30th birthday party tonight.

might go and watch one of the other games or something.

just another shitty day in paradise.

work sucks. like really really sucks. things are tough, and they aren't going to get easier in the short term. and if i get this dumb job, it'll still be hard but perhaps it won't take so long to replace me, and we'll be back up to full strength fairly soon.

i'm having mixed success at work. some of my guys are doing the hard yards, and with only a little prodding, achieving success. i like to think that by giving them the room to achieve this time, they will continue to do so. one of my high achievers is going on leave, so she doesn't need much in the way of a reward except for me to handle things well that i've promised to (and busted my arse to). my other high achiever i've rewarded with the chance to play with a blackberry. admittedly he has to setup the software on one of our servers and setup the other 3 for some test users in the organisation. (sorry for the telstra plug, but it's cdma and they've got the whole setup tied up at the moment)

but it's a pretty cool project, i wanted to do it myself. but i need to get it done so i can do my uber-geek project. plus i wanted to hand him a fun job.

my other guys are working hard. they've got hard projects, and shitty workloads, just like the other 2. but i can't load them up with anything new just yet. which is a pity. cause i've got a lot of dominoes lined up that need to be pushed over...

anyway. thursday was a big fat piece of shit.

so i knockoff at about 5. it's only an hour past my usual knockoff, so i should be happy. go home, get some stuff done. a banana, gatorade and redbull for dinner. over 35's soccer tonight. we have a great game. play the best we've done so far this season i reckon.

of course it helped heaps the amount of substitutes we had. we played pretty strong last week, but less subs and a few injured players running around didn't help.

and afterwards, we're giggling like idiots, drinking a few tooheys new after the game. (i shoulda done the official website, but it just cracked me up that someone rated a beer by what frikken foods it goes with! beer IS a food)

anyway. the ultimate stress relief. i couldn't give a flying fuck what happens at work. tomorrow i can go back to being a stress puppy, worrying about all sorts of shit, and having surprise, mother-fucking, rush jobs dumped on me, that we didn't fucking budget for. oh fucking goody.

another toxic day in the salt mines.

i saw the funniest show on telly last night. unusually for me i was perched in front of the telly, trying to read my book, when fat pizza came on!

they were in napoli, the bethlehem of pizzas, looking for a pizza joint called "brandis". supposedly the birthplace of pizzas. dunno how true that is, i'll google it later. but it was fully sick mate

then on came this john safran versus god. he is one funny prick. he went to some zen buddhist joint and some monk belted the shit out of him with the discipline paddles for fidgeting while he was meant to be meditating.

anyway, i thought it was funny. i'll have to turn on the telly next monday and see if fat pizza is on and maybe check out this john safran if he's on again.

soccer for the daughter tonight. between picking her up, driving to the game, driving her home and driving me home, i've done about 160km tonight. time for a beer and a pass out. (after googling pizzas in napoli that is...)

humpday tomorrow. gotta be better than today...