amphigoric macoronical pointlessness

owing to the influence of the free beer at the x-box welcome party last night (didn't get to play x-box though) i managed to sleep in this morning. feeling just a little seedy...

it didn't take long to exceed the recommended limit for redbull, check my email (ok, i am a computer geek) and get bombarded with information in the seminars.

the first one was pretty good, the next one was really boring, the next one was really fast, lots of messy scribbled notes. missed the last seminar cause they were all too boring, one to go then time for a feed.

so far the typical indications of a computer conference have included broken computers, buggy operating systems, and free stuff. i have, would you believe, apart from heaps of crappy demo cd's and information sheets that i will probably never look at again, a usb power mini-vacuum. freaky

the takeoff over sydney was spectacular. usually when i fly out of sydney you just end up over the ocean and there's not much to see. this time we went over the city and i could see the harbour, all the little bays etc... and as we flew up the coast, until we reached newcastle we were over the sea so i could look out my window and check out the awesome view of all the bays, lakes and harbours. i never realised there were so many waterways.

the sun was going down in the west, and it was at just the right angle so that every body of water from the coast to the horizon would show up, and a certain distance away, as the sun would reflect directly off them, the flashing of and all the bright little specks of water looked like a huge magic opal stretching to the horizon.

it turned out that the lady sitting beside me was from the south coast as well. she was flying up because her husband was in a rubber ducky race (you know, the psycho surf lifesavers) and had one. she flew up for the party. the flight was probably cheaper than some taxi rides i've had...

we flew in over burleigh heads i think, some big waterway below us, the surf was up and a guy on a huge mal was just turning his board around to paddle back out. bastard. then out into the crappy weather (it was warmer in sydney). you could smell the fuel from the engine, and see some smoke fumes wafting out of the rear of the jet. the terminal at coolangatta is a lot more laid back than sydney. across the tarmac to the terminal, and 5 minutes later i'm gone.

now to find some beer and some food...

well here i am heading off to the annual geek conference in brisbane. tech-ed. last time i flew i flew with a different airline (can't remember which one though) and they had some kind of lounge where, for about $5, you could hang around playing play station, xbox, trolling the intermanet and get paged for your flight so you didn't miss it.

i'm flying jetstar, there a qantas lounge, but it costs $600ish to join, and being the jetset traveller that i am, i figure i wouldn't even pay that much each year in flights, let along in a lounge.

so i'm playing on the internet at $2 per 10 minutes instead. how excitement.

you don't get allocated seats either, they announce that we're boarding, then we have a free for all to get the best seats.

oh well, work is paying for it, so i shouldn't whinge too much. got my craptop in my bag, doh! i'm an idiot, i've got one of them wireless intermanet cards. shoulda just used that. but i think i look too much like a geek already, without getting out my own craptop and trolling the net with that...

soccer semi-final tonight. we lost. so it's all over red-rover for us.

oh well, shit happens. a few beers afterwards, organising our trip away, laughing with the other team. it's all good. the rest of the team is gonna be there next week hurling drunken abuse at the teams that beat us this week and last week.

i'm gonna go and give my physio a few more dollars for this cute physio chicky to torture my back and left hamstring again. after my treatment yesterday i felt all hunky dory. after tonight, i want a wheelchair. oh well, i'm not dead yet.

one thing i forgot from last weekend on the boat. it was international lighthouse and lightship weekend. we heard a bit of a report on the radio about the changed lighthouse flashes and the reason, next thing the old lighthouse starts flashing. it was really cool.

the new one is a bit poofy in comparison.

i don't think i'm cut out for mondays really.

but after a physio appointment and a few beers with the folks, i'm holding up ok.

i don't think i'm setting a great example for the troops though. time to lift my game. one of my techs, the jet, has told me he put me down as a reference for a job application he did recently. i'm glad we're open enough that he can ask this, but i wish the job he was doing was so cool that he'd stay.

dunno if that's in my power to fix, but i'll find out.

a huge weekend. i really enjoyed it. i would have enjoyed it more if i'd had a chance to go for a dive on saturday, but that's an occupational hazard.

on friday nite i went to bed early (12:30 ish) so i would have enough rest to potentially stay up late on saturday night. the trip back tp the mooring was sensational. 4 dolphins came to ride the bow wave, and for about half the trip, the bioluminescence in the water was a bright blue. you could see the blue bubbles streaking off the dolphins as they rode the bow wave. it was kinda like what they'd look like in a wind tunnel.

i was cold, but didn't want to leave my spot in case they were gone when i returned. every now and then they roll onto their sides, still being pushed along by the wave, as if to look at the wierd humans on the boat.

saturday night the skippers went to bed early-ish, leaving me in charge. so i'm sitting there, yacking with our new cook, (who used to be the bed-making-fairy) when this drunken idiot barges into our conversation, addresses her, and ends his statement with "you bitch". our new cook fairy, and i, exchange glances, as if to say, "did that stupid fuck say what i thought he did?". yes, he did. i try to express my unhappiness to said fuckwit, but the glazed expression told me all i needed to know. he started to get a bit louder after that, but rather than start a confrontation, i figured i'd play my ace and see if fuckwit wanted to bluff it out.

so i went and woke up the boss and filled him in. i said i reckoned the best way to diffuse the situation was to announce the imminent generator shutdown, he agreed so he went down, told them it was too late and the generator was goin off, and i shut it down.

turns out the stupid fool carried on for another hour or so, annoyed some of the female customers who were trying to get to sleep, and generally made a complete dick out of himself.

this shit never happens. all our customers behave, even the pricks. it was very mother-fucking-annoying. i spent an hour or so talking with the cook, but she's made of sterner stuff, she wasn't bothered. i hope so, she fits in well with the team, the right kind of kooky humour.
anyway, up until then, saturday had been buzzing, after that, it was dead boring.

the weather turned it on for today (sunday) and it was grand. the previous night's fuckwit took a few rounds of abuse from his mates, and hopefully learned a lesson. but i hope he doesn't come back. i prefer happy drunks. got issues? feel like starting a fight? go somewhere else for it.

at the end of the weekend, despite fuckwits impression on saturday night, i enjoyed the weekend. i'm completely stuffed, but it's physical, not mental. after a big day at my normal job, i'm mentally screwed, after a weekend on the boat, i'm physically screwed, suffering sleep deprivation, and grinning like a cheshire cat.

i don't do my weekend work for the money. 4 hours overtime at my normal work pays the same as fri night through to sun evening, i do it because it's fun, and i get a coupla cool dives out of it. the new relationship is suffering i think, i'm trying to find the right moments to express what i think.

i didn't want to be in a relationship, i wanted to stay single, now i am no longer single i envy my single time, but this girl's companionship is very nice. i'm completely clueless at this shit. something will screw up, i enjoy company, but i can't do intense. we shall see.

finally friday

at risk of boring you with yet another soccer roundup...

we lost the first semi final last night in a penalty shootout. fortunately we thought ahead, and after extra time, when we still hadn't broken the tie, they subbed me off so i didn't have to take part in the shootout. the final score was 2-2, the penalties we lost 6-5.

i shouldn't whinge, but they reserved, for us, for the semi-final, the worst referee in the entire competition. there are bad refs, and there are incompetent refs (which is why i don't referee) but this guy is the best of both. as usual, by the end of the game, both sides were looking at him incredulously, wondering how someone could be so dumb.

so now we have to play the winner of the game preceding ours, next thursday, to see who goes into the grand final to play against the team we played last night. we're quietly confident, which could be our undoing :-) whatever, i'm just in it for the beer.

flexi day today. slept in very late, lunch at the pub, then tidying some of my extreme mess and packing my dive gear and stuff for a weekend on the boat. first weekend on the boat in months, so i'm sure i'll screw a few things up. i'm taking my dive gear, but seeing as i haven't shaken the flu properly yet, it's unlikely that i'll be diving.

avagoodweekend everyone

geez, i finally accomplished something. i paid off a credit card and closed it. it was one of those ones you are constantly bombarded with in the mail, cheap rates on balance transfers...

2 more to go. it'll probably be a lot easier if i stop using the damned thing though...

how soppy am i?

there's a movie on. the sunday special. designed to keep drunken idiots like me watchin the telly and ads when we should be sleeping before work on monday.

sweet home alabama.

i know nothing about northern american culture. or do you say the culture of the people of the united states? their country doesn't have an easy name. it's not like saying australian culture, or austrian culture, and you can't say american culture, as the continent of america holds a lot of countries that aren't the united states. they should pick a name for themselves and be done with it. most countries are made up of states, they can call themselves the yankees or something.

anyway. it's a nice, feelgood movie. they play some music, and all the characters (apart from the unhappy mother-in-law to be) end up happy.

i liked a line from con-air. when they are cruising along in a plane they have hijacked, listening to the song "sweet home alabama". from Wikipedia:

'Garland Greene, defined irony as "a bunch of idiots dancing around on a plane to a song made famous by a band that died in a plane crash".'

thus ends my drivel for the night...

oh no it doesn't. just remembered another thingy. sitting at the club, having a few drinks, spinning drivel with the others, and we were talking about two of my friends who were present, who'd just got married. someone remarked how the guy was married now, which was why he was a bit skint (broke), and welcome to the club. one of the other lads chirped up and looked at one of the other blokes who was present with his girlfriend, and said not like you pair, and then said oh, but you do know, you've done it three times. the guy has been married 3 times before.

ok, it's a geographical joke, you had to be there. we all thought it was hell funny at the time. and so did the guy.

don't reckon i could get married again. i kinda empathised with the, ah, dichotomy, or something like that, that the girl was feeling in the movie. that isn't the right word, it'll come to me, in a week or so.

that day, the day of my wedding, was, all at the same time, the most stressful, happy, painful, beautiful day of my life. guys don't talk to other guys about their feelings a lot. but i've come to relax about it a bit. from little snippets of information, we release our feelings a little bit. one dude in a movie "three men and a baby" let something out that helped, he said he was still in love with the first girl who punched him. probably because she was frustrated with him or something.

i'm finally beginning to learn what a fuzzy place the world is. it's ok to still be hung-up over your first wife. she's not the same girl now, so you can fondly remember her, and casually talk with her now about the kids because she's not the same girl.

i've had a few relationships since then, but it's not the same. had a great argument with a mate of mine. he told me that the girl he was with was not a long term relationship. they've now been together 15 years and have 2 kids. i'm very emotional. if you've ever read the book "the godfather" you'll recognise the bit where one of the characters travels to greece or italy or sicily or somewhere in the mediterannean, and gets hit by the "thunderbolt". my marriage was like that. but unfortunately that was about all it had going for it.

my wife was as headstrong and difficult as me, but we timed it badly. at first i was a headstrong pain in the arse with no clue, finally she got the shits and the tide turned completely the other way. there was no middle ground. but the thunderbolt. i have never before or since felt that way about a girl. and i find that very annoying and painful.

my last relationship was too demanding. when i couldn't be there or turn up, i felt guilty, when i said the wrong thing (cause i am a clumsy idiot and that happens a lot) i felt worse. i retreated and ran away.

this relationship is a lot more relaxed. i'm trying to keep it like that. but i still feel guilty for wanting to be by myself occasionally.

but no thunderbolt. do i only get one shot? have i screwed up my one chance?

sorry, my bad, beer and soppy movies is a bad combination.

i've bought myself a third share in our racebike. i've found that scaring the shit out of myself, and playing soccer until i can hardly move, are great ways to exorcise my personal daemons.

next step for the racebike is a coupla days at phillip island. next step for soccer is the semi finals. only 1 game a week now. time to go hard. real hard. slick tyres and speed, running hard, no fear. play hard, run hard, go for broke. that'll keep the demons at bay for awhile anyways...

an interesting week

soccer is meant to start at 12:15. i was running kinda late, ok, it was all my fault, but i did get there at 12:10, to see the damned game already in play. doh!

we ended up winning 3-2, but missed out on the semis anyway, we needed another team to have either a scoreless draw or lose. oh well, shit happens.

but it's been a big week. played last saturday, then a catchup game for over 35's on monday night, we won. played the 3rd grade version of the same team on wednesday night for the 3rd grade catchup, a 2-2 draw. played thursday night and drew. if we'd won we would have been the over 35 minor premiers. damn. oh well. then played today.

and work. forget it. i'm over it. work sucks. thank god for weekends

another bloody monday

i'm exhausted

spent wednesday to friday last week pretty much in bed the whole time with the flu.

you don't get up to lot of interesting (or even boring) things to blog about when you're sick with the flu. or maybe that's just me. i was so bored i was working on a few of my projects from home. not getting anywhere mind you. just getting frustrated enough to annoy microsuck about it today.

the weather was nice saturday, so i thought i'd brave the playing field. i love that unlimited interchange. run on, run around for 5 minutes, run off and cough my lungs up. after that it was off to see friends of mine get married. afterwards girls i know were asking me what the wedding was like etc... well, errr, they got married. (if you want the girl version, how purty the bridesmaids were, what colour they were wearing, what was the colour of the leaves of the flowers the 3rd groomsdude had... then ask a girl who went who actually pays attention to detail)

afterwards was the good bit. the reception. i thought i'd just take it easy as i was still recovering from the flu, but by about 7:00 i realised i was getting stuck in, hadn't had anything yet to eat all day, so i'd better slow down or i'd pass out before dinner. it was a pretty good night.

the less said about work today the better, bleah!

tonight was one of the many catchup games as we've had a few rained out. it could have been colder i spose. run around, cough cough, hack hack, run a bit more. the poor guys we were playing only had 10 players. they still gave us a pretty good run for our money though. we only scored with about 15 minutes to go. after about 500 shots though. we play the same team in 3rd grade (with some younger lads as well) on wednesday night.

by the end of this week i'm gonna be a screwed unit. as it is i think i'm going to the physio tomorrow

behavin' like an idjit at the snow

finally managed to leave work about 1-ish on thursday and escape for a long weekend. got up there around 6 to find that one of my mates had injured himself, but they were all having fun. by about 10:30 we were all passed out from drinking.

friday looked bit bleak, but we thought we'd drive up to the snow (staying at jindabyne) and check it out. not great, but i've been out in worse, and i'm so amped i'd have gone snowboarding if it was hailing. only probably not for very long.no-one else in my car, or the cabin i was staying in, ended up buying lift tickets, they all bailed out. so they all reorganised cars so they could leave me behind (thanks guys!). only a few other people out of the 30-odd people that were in our group skiied at all that day.

i didn't care, by lunch i was stuffed. i finished up at about 2. freezing my arse off but grinning from ear to ear.

we had a few drinks, went to the local pizza joint and ate some pizza (plus took home some for brekkie, yum!) and drank more beer. all good.

saturday looked a lot better. so we went adventuring. i lost the group i started off with, but ended up with another group from the same mob of people that went up. we went up and down and round and round, and generally they spent a lot of time laughing at my stupid stacks. but you get that. then we caught up with some of the others, changed around groups a bit, the girls went off with the girls and the idiots went off to try a run my mate liked. goddamn. what fun. through the trees, over a jump, survived! kept going through more trees, round motorcross-like-burms (do you say burms or burns?) falling on my arse all over the place. round the last burm and into a bumpy bit, and surprise surprise, i fall on my arse. my two mates are waiting at the bottom of a little hill, between a little jump they've just gone over (presumably successfully) and a big jump on the right. what the hell, i ain't dead yet, i hit the big jump. woohoo! and land on my arse. my mates piss themselves laughing.

we did that run another 3-4 times, i hit that jump everytime, and not once did i survive the landing. it was hell funny though.

we eventually get back to the front valley, meet up with our lifts and drive back. i'm exhausted and sore and bruised. we go to the jindabyne hotel to watch either the "inside sport" magazine model search, or a snow bunny party, or something like that. there's 30 seconds of my life i'll never get back. gotta be the quickest model search thingy i've ever seen. only this is the first one i've ever seen (is that sad?!) so maybe they are all this lame.5 girls in bikinis quickly, one at a time, walk up on stage, walk around to 10 seconds of whatever song, then off for the next one. 3 minutes later they do it all again, wearing jeans.

how excitement

whatever. by about 11:30 i'm feeling fairly trashed (what a stayer eh!) so i go back to the cabins, wake someone up, and crash. at about 1:30 the rest get back, wake everyone up, and generally go feral. a bit later some of them crash out, and one of the dudes grabs some unsuspecting victim's mobile phone and starts sending out messages to randomn people in his address book. one of the guys in the other room got a message at about 3:30. "missing you, wish you were here, your angel....". he got a few interesting replies the next day, and didn't have any credit left :-)

sunday was a bit sunnier than saturday, but a bit windier at the snow. surprisingly some people didn't feel like going boarding/skiing today. they were feeling a bit under the weather. we went and had a blast. went up mount perisher, and froze my arse off. it had to be done though. it is such a cool run. only you have to get over there to the bottom, then take the cold lift to the top, then do the run, then take the damned lift back up so you can ski off back to the other valleys.

we went over to midstation to meet the others for hot chocolate. but we missed them. so we had gatorade's instead as we were feeling a little dehydrated. later someone said "oh yeah, being on the snow and all that exercise can really dehydrate you". yeah, sure, only not as much alcohol the night before hehehehe

then we headed over towards our run through the trees. rang our mate who showed us the way the previous day, and about 30-40 mins later we arrived at the top for another few runs of lunacy :-) the first jump had me unstuck, then my mate who was following fell over trying to avoid me. then down the burms and hit the jump at the bottom and onto the bruises left on my arse from the previous day. we thought that was pretty silly. so we did it again. emboldened by a few successfull jumps (like, i hit the jump, land on my feet and go "woohoo! landed on my feet" and then i fall over) i hit the big jump again at the bottom, land on my board, and then my arse. later i try another jump even harder and ring my bell big time. back of the board, arse, head, crunch. oooooo. moan a bit, giggle, pick up beannie and sunnies and head off again.

i decided i wasn't gonna stay all day and drive home exhausted in the dark. so i left around 1:30. stopped every hour or so to get out, drink a red bull and go again. stopped for a piss at cooma, came back to the car to find the passenger asleep, with the passenger door open. i close my door and it scares the shit out of him and he wakes. i think he was gonna get out and stretch and fell asleep with the door open. i got home at around 6:30pm, unpacked the car, which was full of everyone else's gear (somehow i ended up being the pack mule as i was leaving early), and passed out by 8:00, after only half a beer

get through queenbeyan just in front of some mad accident that apparently, according to the radio, ended up with a car on fire. we musta only just missed it because we hadn't reached the hume highway when an ambulance rescue vehicle and a police 4wd screamed past us the other way. then we heard about it on the radio. a group of our friends skiied until lifts stopped then left, and drove home in the dark. somewhere around cooma was another big accident and they got diverted. they got home around 12:00. screw that.

anyway

it was bloody great fun. did some stupid stuff, got away with it. bruised, sore, tired, but i'll live. gotta go again...

Gianna had an interesting post on scripture today. kinda brought back memories of my childhood.

my parents found out that scripture was being taught in my school when i was in year 1 or 2. i'd been kicked out of scripture for asking difficult questions. ok, maybe i was one of them painful, curious kids.

my dad found out and went mental and asked them what they thought they were doing by putting me in scripture without his permission (only not quite that politely)

so the teachers complied with his wishes, and excused me from scripture. they thought to punish me by making me spend the whole scripture lesson outside the infants (or whatever the lower half of primary school is called) principal's office. in front of a bookshelf full of books. it was then that i found that i loved reading. now that i think about it, i think i was the only kid in that school who didn't attend scripture. and for teaching me that i love to read, i think i owe the moron scripture teacher a permanent debt. the teachers i had after that, who caught me reading in class when i was meant to be listening, can send hate mail to the same stupid individual.

interlude

in primary school, 5th class i think, my teacher was waxing lyrical about some shit, and i was reading my book under the desk. i kinda came to, to see the whole class looking at me, and the teacher saying that if she didn't know better she'd think i was reading the whole time she'd been lecturing me for not paying attention (she was right). i think i was about to turn the page then noticed the quiet.

/interlude

for the second half of primary school (4-5-6 classes) i was at a new school. for the first scripture class they just kicked me out and i wandered round the school. after that they told me i had to go to the library. heaven. there was only one other kid in there the whole rest of the time that i was at that school, through 4th to 6th class, that didn't attend scripture. he was chinese.

my parents told me that they thought religion was a very private thing, and that it wasn't for me at school, or something like that. so when i was asked by idiots at school, i repeated that back at them. fortunately they didn't tell me that they just didn't believe any of it or i'd have repeated that and got my head punched in even more times by the arseholes i had to go to school with.

my highschool was fortunately a lot more sensible. i could go to scripture if i wanted to, during my lunch hour...