Relations with my house mate had deteriorated beyond repair after coming in then storming out of the house twice one afternoon I asked her whats wrong. She said don't you think Gena's staying round a little to much I agreed to live with one person not two. This sounds reasonable until you take into consideration that since I had moved in over a week ago Gena had only stayed over one night and popped over once. Especially as I had confirmed before I moved in that I had a girl friend and would it be ok for her to stay over a few times a week. She was also completely miserable in all her contact with me.
It had gone beyond what I was willing to put up with for the sake of cheapness, if I was pop eye I would have eaten my spinach by now.
Gena's house mates where even worse, and they we actually breaking the lease on her house early and kicking her out next week. We where being persecuted, so in a surprisingly easy decision we spent our eight week anniversary looking for a place to move into together. Its important to note the Gena had been keeping track of the dating time elapsed.
I'm sure your thinking that eight weeks is far to soon to move in with someone and you are of course correct. I understand its way to soon but ... I like Gena ... I like her a lot when I think about all the things I want to experience in the future I kind of like the idea of her being there for them. Considering the amount of stress she was under we where handling things very well
I had managed to go almost four months without living with a women and as much as I enjoyed not having stupid stuff put on my bedroom walls, actually getting to wear my own socks and not having my room look like a make up shop that had just been ram raided it was time to give it another go. Taking all the knowledge and wisdom I had gleamed from the last two times. (by the way 66% of the women I have live with I meet on the Internet)
Who knows, besides everything what else could possibly go wrong?
Lesson learned:
Never move in with women that are single and over thirty especially if they own more than one cat.
Tuesday, 25 September 2007
Friday, 21 September 2007
Comics Lounge
During the week Milly got back one evening looking miserable, she had just been to a hypnotist and sunk $600 on three sessions to give up smoking. I was curious so I asked her questions about it, being very careful not to undo his work and find out what happened. As far as I can tell he did nothing and the only reason she was quiting smoking is that she didn't want to waste $600.
The main reason to use hypnosis for something like this is to make it a lot easier. Getting people to give up smoking is really your bread and butter as a hypnotist and it is incredibly easy to do and most people want to stop anyway. The skill is in making it as quick and easy as possible. This guy just charged $600 for something that I normally just do for free for people I bump into. I've been holding myself back to long its probably time I actually started charging people. As long as I only charge people when it works I see no harm in that.
Anyway Milly was completely miserable and was becoming a pain in the ass to live with, to try and cheer her up we invited her out with us to the Comics Lounge. She re payed us by repeating "You guys make me sick" when me and Gena looked at each other. They where deep and meaning full looks but no physical contact was involved. I am getting very tempted to hypnotise her back into smoking again!
Afterwards me, Gena and her friend Danny went out to town, Danny was hot but single I took it upon myself to pimp for her. As she seemed a little shy to approach blokes I would go up to them for her. I would go up to blokes and get them to go talk to her. Remember shes pretty hot around a seven to eight'ish so with beer goggles on she could easily be mistaken for a ten.
In an attempt to show that I was not gay and hitting on them I tried various openers but because I had over thought this and was a little drunk I abandoned this as I was just making myself look even more gay by opening with things like.
'Do you have a girl friend?'
The guys generally responded in a pretty friendly manner but very few of them where heading over to her, I decided it was time to sweeten the deal a little, by saying things like:
'Shes not after a relationship, she just wants sex'
'She has a twin sister and they've always wanted a threesome'
'Shes decided she wants to lose her virginity tonight'
These seemed to help a bit and eventually a couple of guys went over to her. It was odd nearly all the men that the girls had selected for me to approach on her behalf had girl friends. I very rarely encounter women that have boy friends these days. When one of the guys told me he had a girl friend I responded with.
'Look don't give me that rubbish, I'm a guy too and I know that when it comes to women Men don't run that fast'
His girlfriend was standing next to him her eyes burning into me and I was suddenly reminded of why I have been banned from all of my friends weddings. Part of me wanted to say
'look shes way hotter than that girl your with now'
Luckily I didn't, but now I know thats its really hard to find a good man. So my friends it looks like the prophosized (by sex in the city) thirty year old dating power transfer is upon us.
The main reason to use hypnosis for something like this is to make it a lot easier. Getting people to give up smoking is really your bread and butter as a hypnotist and it is incredibly easy to do and most people want to stop anyway. The skill is in making it as quick and easy as possible. This guy just charged $600 for something that I normally just do for free for people I bump into. I've been holding myself back to long its probably time I actually started charging people. As long as I only charge people when it works I see no harm in that.
Anyway Milly was completely miserable and was becoming a pain in the ass to live with, to try and cheer her up we invited her out with us to the Comics Lounge. She re payed us by repeating "You guys make me sick" when me and Gena looked at each other. They where deep and meaning full looks but no physical contact was involved. I am getting very tempted to hypnotise her back into smoking again!
Afterwards me, Gena and her friend Danny went out to town, Danny was hot but single I took it upon myself to pimp for her. As she seemed a little shy to approach blokes I would go up to them for her. I would go up to blokes and get them to go talk to her. Remember shes pretty hot around a seven to eight'ish so with beer goggles on she could easily be mistaken for a ten.
In an attempt to show that I was not gay and hitting on them I tried various openers but because I had over thought this and was a little drunk I abandoned this as I was just making myself look even more gay by opening with things like.
'Do you have a girl friend?'
The guys generally responded in a pretty friendly manner but very few of them where heading over to her, I decided it was time to sweeten the deal a little, by saying things like:
'Shes not after a relationship, she just wants sex'
'She has a twin sister and they've always wanted a threesome'
'Shes decided she wants to lose her virginity tonight'
These seemed to help a bit and eventually a couple of guys went over to her. It was odd nearly all the men that the girls had selected for me to approach on her behalf had girl friends. I very rarely encounter women that have boy friends these days. When one of the guys told me he had a girl friend I responded with.
'Look don't give me that rubbish, I'm a guy too and I know that when it comes to women Men don't run that fast'
His girlfriend was standing next to him her eyes burning into me and I was suddenly reminded of why I have been banned from all of my friends weddings. Part of me wanted to say
'look shes way hotter than that girl your with now'
Luckily I didn't, but now I know thats its really hard to find a good man. So my friends it looks like the prophosized (by sex in the city) thirty year old dating power transfer is upon us.
Saturday, 15 September 2007
50 year old party
It was my second day at my new pad and my house mate Milly was kind enough to invite me to a party. She works at a school and it was one of the teachers fiftieth birthday bash. I had a feeling this was going to be absolutely horrible so I had to go ... to spice up the blog a bit. I've been pretty happy recently and I'm sure that make for rather dull reading.
Unfortunately this party was probably one of the most rocking I have ever been too, it was in a music venue/pub and the blues, jazz band was absolutely rocking. It was far more rocking than my twenty first. We drank cheap beer and rocked late into the night. Me and Milly where invited back to the guys house with a group of others, this is where things got interesting.
I'm twenty nine (I had written twenty eight first then had to work it out and correct myself) Milly was 31 and then there was around 20 odd years gap between us and the other guests. On arrival a couple of the women returned to being normal fifty year old women and started cooking snacks. The rest of the group did something that I really wasn't expecting ...
They continued drinking and started to take/smoke copious amounts of drugs, I felt relieved that the spirit of youth and rebellion still burned on regardless of age. I found a lot of them very interesting so I pretty much stopped talking and went into information gathering mode. One women particular stands out in my mind as she was telling me about what a nightmare it was to have teenage children, this sounds pretty normal especially as she runs a department at her school. She was holding a glass of red wine and a joint why she told me. She even mentioned that she would have killed her kids if they did anything like what she was doing now.
I had a lot of fun and absorbed many anecdotes, but I left with the taste of hypocrisy in my month. What makes it ok for you to do things that you would punish your children for? As stupid as Drug prohibition is I can understand why some people buy all the propaganda they are feed about it and pass it on to their children. But these people .. they knew better .. they knew the truth ... they knew that most drugs users go out take drugs then go back to work the next day having had a really good time and talked nonsense like you where saving the world for a while. Why did they hold there children to a different standard to themselves?
I'll guess I''ll know the answer when I have kids, but I really deplore hypocrisy and will try my best to avoid it. Or am I just being like the pre pubescent child that swears he will never have a girl friend.
Unfortunately this party was probably one of the most rocking I have ever been too, it was in a music venue/pub and the blues, jazz band was absolutely rocking. It was far more rocking than my twenty first. We drank cheap beer and rocked late into the night. Me and Milly where invited back to the guys house with a group of others, this is where things got interesting.
I'm twenty nine (I had written twenty eight first then had to work it out and correct myself) Milly was 31 and then there was around 20 odd years gap between us and the other guests. On arrival a couple of the women returned to being normal fifty year old women and started cooking snacks. The rest of the group did something that I really wasn't expecting ...
They continued drinking and started to take/smoke copious amounts of drugs, I felt relieved that the spirit of youth and rebellion still burned on regardless of age. I found a lot of them very interesting so I pretty much stopped talking and went into information gathering mode. One women particular stands out in my mind as she was telling me about what a nightmare it was to have teenage children, this sounds pretty normal especially as she runs a department at her school. She was holding a glass of red wine and a joint why she told me. She even mentioned that she would have killed her kids if they did anything like what she was doing now.
I had a lot of fun and absorbed many anecdotes, but I left with the taste of hypocrisy in my month. What makes it ok for you to do things that you would punish your children for? As stupid as Drug prohibition is I can understand why some people buy all the propaganda they are feed about it and pass it on to their children. But these people .. they knew better .. they knew the truth ... they knew that most drugs users go out take drugs then go back to work the next day having had a really good time and talked nonsense like you where saving the world for a while. Why did they hold there children to a different standard to themselves?
I'll guess I''ll know the answer when I have kids, but I really deplore hypocrisy and will try my best to avoid it. Or am I just being like the pre pubescent child that swears he will never have a girl friend.
Friday, 14 September 2007
Moving day
Well it was finally time for me to leave the safety of the young peoples home. On my second day of looking for houses I found a bargain ... for just £45 a week there was a place just 25 minutes train/tram from the city center. She mentioned that she was really looking for a woman flatmate I just made a joke out of it and that seemed to put her at ease.
It was between a supermarket, gym, swimming pool and park. The house was a bit studenty and the woman that lived there seemed a little quiet ... almost to quiet. I would put up with a lot for such cheap and convenient living. I had seen another room I liked in Kensington, it was a little to far out of town but I was very tempted to take it anyway so I could say that I've lived in Kensington.
She took my round the second hand shops and I brought some cheap furniture, for the first time since my arrival I was purchasing things that I couldn't take with me, I guess I'm really living here now. On my first walk to work I noticed something wonderful, it was bin day and in Australia instead of the boring collection of old fashioned Oliver Twist style bin men we have in England the bin trucks have a giant robotic arm on the side that grabs the bins off the side of the road and pours them in the truck. I really wanted a go!
My commute takes me on a train Sandringham which I get off at Windsor, for some reason this always puts a smile on my face. With my own room and a part share in an Internet connection I felt compelled to buy a laptop. Then I did what anyone would do on their first night they had there own room and there own computer in three months ... I looked at porn.
It was between a supermarket, gym, swimming pool and park. The house was a bit studenty and the woman that lived there seemed a little quiet ... almost to quiet. I would put up with a lot for such cheap and convenient living. I had seen another room I liked in Kensington, it was a little to far out of town but I was very tempted to take it anyway so I could say that I've lived in Kensington.
She took my round the second hand shops and I brought some cheap furniture, for the first time since my arrival I was purchasing things that I couldn't take with me, I guess I'm really living here now. On my first walk to work I noticed something wonderful, it was bin day and in Australia instead of the boring collection of old fashioned Oliver Twist style bin men we have in England the bin trucks have a giant robotic arm on the side that grabs the bins off the side of the road and pours them in the truck. I really wanted a go!
My commute takes me on a train Sandringham which I get off at Windsor, for some reason this always puts a smile on my face. With my own room and a part share in an Internet connection I felt compelled to buy a laptop. Then I did what anyone would do on their first night they had there own room and there own computer in three months ... I looked at porn.
Monday, 10 September 2007
Apec Debrief
For most of my life I've been very non political, instead thinking more about myself, individuals and the small groups of people around me. I've pretty much always disagreed with what government was doing but I just kind of left it at that really. Now I'm actually starting to think a lot about these things and this coupled with a twelve hour bus ride results in this rant.
I know I'm the crazy/eccentric one but here are a few things I just don't seem to be able to understand.
A few people have commented that I was silly to go to a protest, but if it wasn't for people making a fuss we wouldn't have a lot of the great things like democracy that we enjoy today.
Money has no intrinsic value, we just made it up ... its a collectively imagined principal that we pay an awful lot of credence to. By and large money seems like a good system it massively simplifies trade but it has some huge holes. Remember we lost the gold standard in the forties so there is more money in print than we have actual resources to justify it.
The environment is a real thing, the major cause of us continuing to pollute it is money, so here we have an imaginary concept that's actually harming our reality. Even if money was real we won't really have much use for it if the human race mostly dies out. CFC's the 100% proven ozone killers are not to be phased out completely till 2040, what kind of crazy time scale is it. By some good fortune we have a protective layer around our planet that protects us from nasty radiation from the sun. Why on earth is it taking us fifty odd years from when we found out that CFS where destroying it to stop using them?
We live in a world full of imaginary lines people on one side of the line can be the richest in the world and people on the other can be starving to death ... to me this is crazy. The reason we are not feeding/clothing and educating these people is basically because its not profitable to do so. Again numbers going down instead of up on some computer screen is causing real harm to the world. Travel and where you are allowed to live/work is restricted based on what random country you happen to be born in. I believe where ever you are born you are a person and deserve the same rights to the planet as everyone else.
The more we can start to become one race of people hopefully the more we can drop all this nonsense about different people hating other people because of something that happened several thousand years ago. The idea of land ownership is just completely stupid ... who are we buying it off? Why do they have any more claim to it than us? What gives someone the right to grab an area of the planet and say its theirs? Just because someone wrote down on a bit of paper a long time ago that the land is theres? An army gives you a means to do it but it doesn't confer a right to do it.
I feel its also worth mentioning all the parasitic humans who just do things like trade shares or currencies they don't actually produce anything just steal small amounts of money off an awful lot of people. When they trade currencies governments and central banks also have to trade to stabilise things, effectively money from the public purse gets given to them everyday. I'm going to include lawyers in this too, they are really only needed as the law has been made completely over the top complex, mostly because it was made by other lawyers. Imagine a law that's written that you can easily understand. Imagine how much easier tax returns could be if they weren't based on deliberately complex laws that artificially create the need for accountants and lawyers.
Religion ... I'm not even going to start on this one, sufficed to say that as part of our continuing evolution its really past time to take the emotional nappy of religion off. If your an adult with an imaginary friend please keep it to yourself and don't use it as an excuse to do anything other than making your life and the world a better place. Good Dam it! Jesus Christ! Religion makes me angry ... your continued belief in magic is doing real harm to society and which no longer covers you over my global belief that you can do/believe what ever you want as long as you don't harm another person. Please just stop for a moment and think about how childish and harmful faith based reasoning is, don't let it continue to another generation please. If that voice inside your head when you pray really is god then hes spoken to me too, he said
'Tell the others forget about all the dogmatic religious crap, be nice to everyone and have fun. If you really must worship me, have an amazing and good life. Oh and tell them its best not to mention me in public it makes them look a little crazy'
Why do we put up with this crazy system of voting once every five or so years for someone that's going to lie to us and not even do what the few things that we voted them in for. If only there was some way of collecting every ones opinion together rapidly and easy and using that to shape the future, oh hang on a second we do, the Internet! If a bank system can work why not a voting system? wouldn't it be nice to actually have people involved in the debate and deciding there future? Think about all the great things the Internet has achieved by bringing peoples minds together and start to wonder what else it could achieve.
I believe political assassination should be the standard way of handling wars, if some crazy guy at the top wants to start a war then it makes sense that he should be the one getting shot at.
All the power in the world resides with the people if only 10% of the people in the world own 90% of the wealth then they are exceedingly outnumbered. What ever continues to happen to us on our planet is our choice there is a cooperate machine trying to turn us into a giant dollar sign but we hold the plug in our hands.
I know I'm the crazy/eccentric one but here are a few things I just don't seem to be able to understand.
A few people have commented that I was silly to go to a protest, but if it wasn't for people making a fuss we wouldn't have a lot of the great things like democracy that we enjoy today.
Money has no intrinsic value, we just made it up ... its a collectively imagined principal that we pay an awful lot of credence to. By and large money seems like a good system it massively simplifies trade but it has some huge holes. Remember we lost the gold standard in the forties so there is more money in print than we have actual resources to justify it.
The environment is a real thing, the major cause of us continuing to pollute it is money, so here we have an imaginary concept that's actually harming our reality. Even if money was real we won't really have much use for it if the human race mostly dies out. CFC's the 100% proven ozone killers are not to be phased out completely till 2040, what kind of crazy time scale is it. By some good fortune we have a protective layer around our planet that protects us from nasty radiation from the sun. Why on earth is it taking us fifty odd years from when we found out that CFS where destroying it to stop using them?
We live in a world full of imaginary lines people on one side of the line can be the richest in the world and people on the other can be starving to death ... to me this is crazy. The reason we are not feeding/clothing and educating these people is basically because its not profitable to do so. Again numbers going down instead of up on some computer screen is causing real harm to the world. Travel and where you are allowed to live/work is restricted based on what random country you happen to be born in. I believe where ever you are born you are a person and deserve the same rights to the planet as everyone else.
The more we can start to become one race of people hopefully the more we can drop all this nonsense about different people hating other people because of something that happened several thousand years ago. The idea of land ownership is just completely stupid ... who are we buying it off? Why do they have any more claim to it than us? What gives someone the right to grab an area of the planet and say its theirs? Just because someone wrote down on a bit of paper a long time ago that the land is theres? An army gives you a means to do it but it doesn't confer a right to do it.
I feel its also worth mentioning all the parasitic humans who just do things like trade shares or currencies they don't actually produce anything just steal small amounts of money off an awful lot of people. When they trade currencies governments and central banks also have to trade to stabilise things, effectively money from the public purse gets given to them everyday. I'm going to include lawyers in this too, they are really only needed as the law has been made completely over the top complex, mostly because it was made by other lawyers. Imagine a law that's written that you can easily understand. Imagine how much easier tax returns could be if they weren't based on deliberately complex laws that artificially create the need for accountants and lawyers.
Religion ... I'm not even going to start on this one, sufficed to say that as part of our continuing evolution its really past time to take the emotional nappy of religion off. If your an adult with an imaginary friend please keep it to yourself and don't use it as an excuse to do anything other than making your life and the world a better place. Good Dam it! Jesus Christ! Religion makes me angry ... your continued belief in magic is doing real harm to society and which no longer covers you over my global belief that you can do/believe what ever you want as long as you don't harm another person. Please just stop for a moment and think about how childish and harmful faith based reasoning is, don't let it continue to another generation please. If that voice inside your head when you pray really is god then hes spoken to me too, he said
'Tell the others forget about all the dogmatic religious crap, be nice to everyone and have fun. If you really must worship me, have an amazing and good life. Oh and tell them its best not to mention me in public it makes them look a little crazy'
Why do we put up with this crazy system of voting once every five or so years for someone that's going to lie to us and not even do what the few things that we voted them in for. If only there was some way of collecting every ones opinion together rapidly and easy and using that to shape the future, oh hang on a second we do, the Internet! If a bank system can work why not a voting system? wouldn't it be nice to actually have people involved in the debate and deciding there future? Think about all the great things the Internet has achieved by bringing peoples minds together and start to wonder what else it could achieve.
I believe political assassination should be the standard way of handling wars, if some crazy guy at the top wants to start a war then it makes sense that he should be the one getting shot at.
All the power in the world resides with the people if only 10% of the people in the world own 90% of the wealth then they are exceedingly outnumbered. What ever continues to happen to us on our planet is our choice there is a cooperate machine trying to turn us into a giant dollar sign but we hold the plug in our hands.
Saturday, 8 September 2007
APEC Day 2
The news in the morning was the best I had ever seen, the three hundred million dollar security operation had been breached by a group of Australian Comics named The Chasers who just got three motorcade looking cars put a Canadian flag on the front one and drove through all the security. Once they got outside George Bush's hotel they decided they better turn around before they got in trouble, when one dressed as Osama Bin Laden gets out ... and ... well attracts surprisingly little police attention. Stop now and watch the video in the link (episode 15 if your reading this at another time) its amazing, they really stole the show and I have an incredible about of respect for them. George Bush was on normal form, as he blundered through his speech he called the conference the OPEC conferences and thanked the people of Austria.
This was the day of the big march and I'm not sure how but they managed to find even more police, the route of the march was completely enclosed by police and police buses. I'm not sure how but one protester had managed to get a poster up on one of the buses. For those of you that haven't been on a march yet its really fun, there is a carnival kind of an atmosphere and everyone is having a really great time. Well apart from the police you could see on there faces that even though all of them where here they where still massively outnumbered.
The march carried on with much chanting, lively music and on the way back to Hyde Park, once there the police surrounded the park leaving only one way in or out and it was time for the speakers to do there bit. The speakers where very good but had some very different messages to say. Some would be thanking us for being peaceful and other speakers would try and incite the crowd to go and attack the fences around the CBD. Things remained fun very much like a music festival this was great I didn't really feel like toppling global capitalism today, it was slightly rainy after all you really need a sunny day for that.
The news that evening was great, Australia like England and America has two main political parties the really right wing one and the not quite so right wing one. So the news tends to be polarized to either supportive of the government or against it a bit. Watching the news that evening was great in a small way I had just taken part in history. It was nice to see the new reporting on what we had been doing today. Also for the first time I had first hand experience to judge the accuracy and bias of the news. They all agreed that during the day there had been 17 arrests, mostly for small infractions like spraying tomato sauce on the Pro Bush protesters who where there too. Seems a bit over the top to me, but I'm pretty biased on this one.
Then depending on which channel you watch there where between three thousand and ten thousand protesters and the police presence was described as either completely over the top, aggressive and trying to provoke the protesters or as the good guys that kept Sydney safe from the hordes of evil anarchists. I'll add the press to the list of things that I should fix when I take over the world ... evil laugh
This was the day of the big march and I'm not sure how but they managed to find even more police, the route of the march was completely enclosed by police and police buses. I'm not sure how but one protester had managed to get a poster up on one of the buses. For those of you that haven't been on a march yet its really fun, there is a carnival kind of an atmosphere and everyone is having a really great time. Well apart from the police you could see on there faces that even though all of them where here they where still massively outnumbered.
The march carried on with much chanting, lively music and on the way back to Hyde Park, once there the police surrounded the park leaving only one way in or out and it was time for the speakers to do there bit. The speakers where very good but had some very different messages to say. Some would be thanking us for being peaceful and other speakers would try and incite the crowd to go and attack the fences around the CBD. Things remained fun very much like a music festival this was great I didn't really feel like toppling global capitalism today, it was slightly rainy after all you really need a sunny day for that.
The news that evening was great, Australia like England and America has two main political parties the really right wing one and the not quite so right wing one. So the news tends to be polarized to either supportive of the government or against it a bit. Watching the news that evening was great in a small way I had just taken part in history. It was nice to see the new reporting on what we had been doing today. Also for the first time I had first hand experience to judge the accuracy and bias of the news. They all agreed that during the day there had been 17 arrests, mostly for small infractions like spraying tomato sauce on the Pro Bush protesters who where there too. Seems a bit over the top to me, but I'm pretty biased on this one.
Then depending on which channel you watch there where between three thousand and ten thousand protesters and the police presence was described as either completely over the top, aggressive and trying to provoke the protesters or as the good guys that kept Sydney safe from the hordes of evil anarchists. I'll add the press to the list of things that I should fix when I take over the world ... evil laugh
Friday, 7 September 2007
APEC Day 1
Firstly I know going to a big protest on a tourist visa is a bad idea, its a especially bad idea when the Australian police are all over the news saying how they are prepared for Riots and have a new water cannon so powerful it can kill people (and to think the rest of us in Australia has to take 4 minutes showers because of the drought).
But with George Bush, Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao and Australia's Neo conservative John Howard all in one place at one time who could resist a four for one protest bargain? Well the answer to that is probably most of you. These are the people most directly responsible for making the world a more polluted and dangerous place and when the time comes I at least want to say that I did something, even if it was only add myself to the large numbers of people on the streets saying I don't like what your doing.
Being as part of the reason that I was going was due to environmental grounds me and Gena decided to get the bus from Melbourne to one of its neighboring city Sydney. Flying there would only take an hour but it would make us hypocrites and I'm willing to sacrifice some comfort and convenience to avoid that. A bus ride sounds innocent enough till you get on the bus and realize the trip is going to take twelve hours plus. Australia is huge, really huge and just going to a different state normally involves driving for longer than it would take to traverse the entire length of England. My English mind find it really hard to process the huge amounts of undeveloped natural land in between the cities, this really is the new and almost totally empty world.
To help pass the time on the twelve hour trip they played a movie, that's right one movie in a twelve hour trip ... immediately I saw a hole in their plan. The movie came on and it was a Kevin Costner one ... well at least it was going to be a long movie. Luckily I had Gena sitting next to me and some conversation and shenanigans helped the trip pass much more pleasantly.
When we arrived Sydney was completely empty, our coach was driving through Sydney during rush hour in the morning and only had to stop if we happened upon a red light. It was a ghost town, we walked around the botanic gardens in the heart of Sydney and it was about 10 minutes before we saw anyone. There was a strange eeriness about the city streets and the thought kept recurring through my mind, this would be a great time to film a zombie or post apocalyptic film.
This was till you got to the green/red zone, the Australia government had erected a seven foot tall metal fence with concrete blocks behind it basically sealing off the Sydney CBD, when you got here there was a lot of people, they where all wearing the police uniforms but at least they where people. It was like being on a set of a movie, this obviously would be the bit in the movie where the zombies/anarchist looters attack the area where all the survivors (who in a new tradition have all trained as police) are starting to rebuild civilization.
Its really hard to just describe how many police there were ... near the Green zone whenever and which ever direction you looked there would be at least a handful of police there and a police car or two. I've never felt so safe and so in danger at the same time I got to wondering with this many police here it would be a great time to commit a crime somewhere else. Seriously what are the terrorists thinking about with all the security eggs so obviously in one few square mile basket why don't they attack somewhere else?
Being a veteran protester now ... after all this is my second protest I was prepared for anything ... we went to Hyde Park. Then something I really wasn't prepared for happened ... nothing! There where a few stands, a stage with a few people singing and talking and the normal bunch of anti capitalists trying to sell you things and a couple of hundred people milling around Then at three o'clock that ended and we just ended up doing some sight seeing.
But with George Bush, Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao and Australia's Neo conservative John Howard all in one place at one time who could resist a four for one protest bargain? Well the answer to that is probably most of you. These are the people most directly responsible for making the world a more polluted and dangerous place and when the time comes I at least want to say that I did something, even if it was only add myself to the large numbers of people on the streets saying I don't like what your doing.
Being as part of the reason that I was going was due to environmental grounds me and Gena decided to get the bus from Melbourne to one of its neighboring city Sydney. Flying there would only take an hour but it would make us hypocrites and I'm willing to sacrifice some comfort and convenience to avoid that. A bus ride sounds innocent enough till you get on the bus and realize the trip is going to take twelve hours plus. Australia is huge, really huge and just going to a different state normally involves driving for longer than it would take to traverse the entire length of England. My English mind find it really hard to process the huge amounts of undeveloped natural land in between the cities, this really is the new and almost totally empty world.
To help pass the time on the twelve hour trip they played a movie, that's right one movie in a twelve hour trip ... immediately I saw a hole in their plan. The movie came on and it was a Kevin Costner one ... well at least it was going to be a long movie. Luckily I had Gena sitting next to me and some conversation and shenanigans helped the trip pass much more pleasantly.
When we arrived Sydney was completely empty, our coach was driving through Sydney during rush hour in the morning and only had to stop if we happened upon a red light. It was a ghost town, we walked around the botanic gardens in the heart of Sydney and it was about 10 minutes before we saw anyone. There was a strange eeriness about the city streets and the thought kept recurring through my mind, this would be a great time to film a zombie or post apocalyptic film.
This was till you got to the green/red zone, the Australia government had erected a seven foot tall metal fence with concrete blocks behind it basically sealing off the Sydney CBD, when you got here there was a lot of people, they where all wearing the police uniforms but at least they where people. It was like being on a set of a movie, this obviously would be the bit in the movie where the zombies/anarchist looters attack the area where all the survivors (who in a new tradition have all trained as police) are starting to rebuild civilization.
Its really hard to just describe how many police there were ... near the Green zone whenever and which ever direction you looked there would be at least a handful of police there and a police car or two. I've never felt so safe and so in danger at the same time I got to wondering with this many police here it would be a great time to commit a crime somewhere else. Seriously what are the terrorists thinking about with all the security eggs so obviously in one few square mile basket why don't they attack somewhere else?
Being a veteran protester now ... after all this is my second protest I was prepared for anything ... we went to Hyde Park. Then something I really wasn't prepared for happened ... nothing! There where a few stands, a stage with a few people singing and talking and the normal bunch of anti capitalists trying to sell you things and a couple of hundred people milling around Then at three o'clock that ended and we just ended up doing some sight seeing.
Monday, 3 September 2007
Take two
This is what I meant to say yesterday before I got stuck on the whole time tangent thing.
Things are so different now than they where when I arrived in fact they are massively more different than at any time in my past. I'm reasonably set up here, I have a girl friend that already has all the qualities I'm after in abundance. I haven't even needed to house train her, change her taste in music or anything. I have a couple of friends. Most importantly I have a plan for roughly how I want the rest of my life to pan out.
I'm sure this plan will evolve as I continue but its wonderful to have something to head towards. The only real purpose of a goal or plan is to inspire you into action anyway. I'm missing a couple of small points like a place to live or a job but these are just small details that I'm sure will work them selves out eventually. I've always know there is a lot of jobs waiting for me all over the world, I believe the skill is in avoiding them rather than finding them.
The is a slight down side in that I'm not adventuring as much as I was, I'm having more fun now than I was but I'm starting to think about possible ways of combining the best aspects of both realities. For example I'm only loosely associated to the people in my hostel, I'm not there very much anymore and I don't feel like part of the community. Now I noticed one evening I was using this not feeling like part of the community as a reason to not go and talk to people, making it a self fulfilling prophecy. I started to wonder just how many other times I've done this before.
There just isn't the urgency to talk and make friends that I had when I started, I've even been sitting in the bar reading and pretty much ignored the girls coming and sitting next to me, even when they tried to start talking. I'm just not used to this feeling of contentment. This is of course all in my mind and if it in my mind it is under my control. Its our life and we can brew whatever cocktail of feelings we wish.
Its just at the moment it kind of feels like playing poker without money, without the risk it really takes the edge off things. I've decided to go on another night out on my own again and spice things up by just doing some more experiments.
Things are so different now than they where when I arrived in fact they are massively more different than at any time in my past. I'm reasonably set up here, I have a girl friend that already has all the qualities I'm after in abundance. I haven't even needed to house train her, change her taste in music or anything. I have a couple of friends. Most importantly I have a plan for roughly how I want the rest of my life to pan out.
I'm sure this plan will evolve as I continue but its wonderful to have something to head towards. The only real purpose of a goal or plan is to inspire you into action anyway. I'm missing a couple of small points like a place to live or a job but these are just small details that I'm sure will work them selves out eventually. I've always know there is a lot of jobs waiting for me all over the world, I believe the skill is in avoiding them rather than finding them.
The is a slight down side in that I'm not adventuring as much as I was, I'm having more fun now than I was but I'm starting to think about possible ways of combining the best aspects of both realities. For example I'm only loosely associated to the people in my hostel, I'm not there very much anymore and I don't feel like part of the community. Now I noticed one evening I was using this not feeling like part of the community as a reason to not go and talk to people, making it a self fulfilling prophecy. I started to wonder just how many other times I've done this before.
There just isn't the urgency to talk and make friends that I had when I started, I've even been sitting in the bar reading and pretty much ignored the girls coming and sitting next to me, even when they tried to start talking. I'm just not used to this feeling of contentment. This is of course all in my mind and if it in my mind it is under my control. Its our life and we can brew whatever cocktail of feelings we wish.
Its just at the moment it kind of feels like playing poker without money, without the risk it really takes the edge off things. I've decided to go on another night out on my own again and spice things up by just doing some more experiments.
Sunday, 2 September 2007
Father Time
I've been in Australia three months now and have made 53 blog posts including this one, that's on average one post every 1.74 days. So far my charity www.sponsorabackpacker.com has raised a stonking £13 or almost 21p per day, I wonder if there is a country where I can live like a king for 21p a day.
I've never really had a good grasp of time, I quite often forget what day/month or even year it is. I remember getting in to an argument with a girl in a pub about how old I was, she was born in the same year as me and insisted I was 27. I was absolutely positive I was 26 after all what kind of idiot doesn't know how old they are? Well ... me, we ended up and getting some paper and a pen out of her bag and drawing it all out, it was a shock aging a year in a moment. Normally you have a whole year to prepare for getting older, your just not expecting it to creep up on you and pounce randomly.
But then again, after that I never worried about birthdays anymore, they seemed very mild compared to that random ageing shock and the truth is you get old a day at a time not a year at a time.
Anyway ... sometimes I feel like I have hardly been in Australia at all, other times it feels like I have lived here my whole life and that twenty nine years in England bit was just a dream. I tend to classify time by which girl I was with during that period, probably an unusual way to navigate the forth dimension, but its the best chronographic land marks I have. I think one of the reasons I have such problems with time is that I changed quite radically from time to time and develop a partial amnesia from my past selves and there activities.
I know I spent six months living in a bed sit above a beauty salon just before I left for Australia but for the life of me I can't remember the room. All I can get is a couple of random memories of going shopping and an argument or two with the land lady. I can if I really try get back is memories of Claire (the girl I was living with at the time). I'm guessing its maybe because I spent most of the last year or so in England doing pretty much nothing. Maybe some things really are worth you remembering to forget once you've learned from them?
Over the past few years things have started to stabilize into more of a general progression than massive swings in random directions. There are still oscillations but they tend to be in behaviour rather than identity.
What do you guys think about time? I'm interested
I've never really had a good grasp of time, I quite often forget what day/month or even year it is. I remember getting in to an argument with a girl in a pub about how old I was, she was born in the same year as me and insisted I was 27. I was absolutely positive I was 26 after all what kind of idiot doesn't know how old they are? Well ... me, we ended up and getting some paper and a pen out of her bag and drawing it all out, it was a shock aging a year in a moment. Normally you have a whole year to prepare for getting older, your just not expecting it to creep up on you and pounce randomly.
But then again, after that I never worried about birthdays anymore, they seemed very mild compared to that random ageing shock and the truth is you get old a day at a time not a year at a time.
Anyway ... sometimes I feel like I have hardly been in Australia at all, other times it feels like I have lived here my whole life and that twenty nine years in England bit was just a dream. I tend to classify time by which girl I was with during that period, probably an unusual way to navigate the forth dimension, but its the best chronographic land marks I have. I think one of the reasons I have such problems with time is that I changed quite radically from time to time and develop a partial amnesia from my past selves and there activities.
I know I spent six months living in a bed sit above a beauty salon just before I left for Australia but for the life of me I can't remember the room. All I can get is a couple of random memories of going shopping and an argument or two with the land lady. I can if I really try get back is memories of Claire (the girl I was living with at the time). I'm guessing its maybe because I spent most of the last year or so in England doing pretty much nothing. Maybe some things really are worth you remembering to forget once you've learned from them?
Over the past few years things have started to stabilize into more of a general progression than massive swings in random directions. There are still oscillations but they tend to be in behaviour rather than identity.
What do you guys think about time? I'm interested
Monday, 27 August 2007
I don't know I've never been attacked by a tree
A great thing happened this morning, I normally get into work as early as possible to get it over with and have as much of an evening left over as possible. The other guy that normally gets in around 8 o'clock didn't turn up and I was getting paid to stand around outside and listen to Music. This was even better then when your getting payed to go to the toilet during work, its one of those things that always makes me smile and helps me through the work day.
It was a brilliantly sunny morning I was awe struck by the three trees in front of where I worked, the greenness of the leaves just seemed so perfectly coordinated with the blue sky. If you look close enough every leaf is a slightly different shade of green It never ceases to just who pretty our perception of reality is. I'm aware that its probably these colours that have been present since we started evolving have probably shaped our perceptions and tastes, but I can't think of a reason why we would gain an evolutionary advantage in finding it so pretty.
I had been reading some Plato during the week, reading philosophy is probably a very dangerous thing for me to do as I almost without fail will try on the ways of thinking and beliefs. The reason I was so fascinated by the trees is that because all three of them looked so different but we instantly recognise them all as trees. Plato noticed this as postulated that somewhere on a non physical plane there existed an ideal form of a tree and its by similarities to these ideal forms that we recognise things.
This may sound odd/obvious/even stupid now but its a wonderful original bit of noticing and thinking a massive jump from every thing is the way it is because of the will of gods. It sounds even better if you change the on a non physical plane part to a concept in your head part. There is a bush outside my work that has a small trunk and branches quite similar to a tree, I started to wonder what makes one thing a bush and one thing a tree. I know your probably thinking size you idiot, bushes are smaller than trees! I'm aware of this, but I was thinking isn't a bush different to a baby tree, a bush can even be bigger than a bonsai tree. How much do you need to enlarge this bush by in order for it to register as a tree. If you get a bush and start morphing it into a tree is there some point in the middle where it is equally both or neither?
Then another guy from work came and let me in.
It was a brilliantly sunny morning I was awe struck by the three trees in front of where I worked, the greenness of the leaves just seemed so perfectly coordinated with the blue sky. If you look close enough every leaf is a slightly different shade of green It never ceases to just who pretty our perception of reality is. I'm aware that its probably these colours that have been present since we started evolving have probably shaped our perceptions and tastes, but I can't think of a reason why we would gain an evolutionary advantage in finding it so pretty.
I had been reading some Plato during the week, reading philosophy is probably a very dangerous thing for me to do as I almost without fail will try on the ways of thinking and beliefs. The reason I was so fascinated by the trees is that because all three of them looked so different but we instantly recognise them all as trees. Plato noticed this as postulated that somewhere on a non physical plane there existed an ideal form of a tree and its by similarities to these ideal forms that we recognise things.
This may sound odd/obvious/even stupid now but its a wonderful original bit of noticing and thinking a massive jump from every thing is the way it is because of the will of gods. It sounds even better if you change the on a non physical plane part to a concept in your head part. There is a bush outside my work that has a small trunk and branches quite similar to a tree, I started to wonder what makes one thing a bush and one thing a tree. I know your probably thinking size you idiot, bushes are smaller than trees! I'm aware of this, but I was thinking isn't a bush different to a baby tree, a bush can even be bigger than a bonsai tree. How much do you need to enlarge this bush by in order for it to register as a tree. If you get a bush and start morphing it into a tree is there some point in the middle where it is equally both or neither?
Then another guy from work came and let me in.
Saturday, 25 August 2007
More Work? zug zug
Work was really starting to become like well ... really hard work. The work itself was dirty but really easy, I could do the job in my sleep maybe this was part of the problem.
I absolutely love listening to music as I walk around, so I normally arrive at work buzzing with excitement and happiness then on the way in I pass some kind of invisible barrier that strips that from me. I get in, sit down and time slows down ... way down. I can sit there for what feels like ten or twenty minutes and only five minutes have passed. I've tried hiding the clock on my computer so I'm not constantly checking it but that doesn't help.
I'm starting to feel every single minute, my chair is getting increasingly uncomfortable, the sound of the fans on the servers next to me grows more grating and I can feel the for sale sign embedding itself deeper into my soul. I'm getting so desperate to pass time that I'm eating a lot more, popping out to the shop next door can painlessly pass a few more minutes almost 10 if you eat what you got from the shop slowly. My lunch partner likes to eat lunch around 12:30 but several times now its got to 12:00 and I've just had to go to lunch, I need to get out of there. Also nearly every lunch hour someone else would be coming to do something on my computer. I have a screen saver that kicks in after 45 minutes and its quite rare for my screen saver to be on when I returned from my hour lunch break.
The onset of boredom and resentment kicked in way quicker that I was expecting it to, I had never been an official developer before I was hoping that would make a difference. When I arrive at work I really do want to work, this passionless way of spending half my waking day really gnaws at me. Its just when I sit down in front of the computer my mind rebels it just struggles to do things it isn't interested in, luckily these days there is an Internet and I have a good stock of mp3's to listen to. I don't know what I would do without them.
I almost walked out today, one of the senior developers that I'm good friends with had a big shouting match with the guy that owns the company. His angry words struck a cord with me as it was all the normal complaints that I have heard and felt over the years, I decided in a moment of solidarity that if he walked out I would too, he didn't.
I know rationally that I probably need a reference from these guys and that earning money is good but ... there has to be a better way. My contract now has run out with them, but they are very keen for me to stay. I've negotiated a four day week which is a splint but I'm not sure how much longer I can hold on there.
I remember it wasn't always like this there where times in the past when I actually really enjoyed going to work, I used to really care about the quality of what I did. Looking back now these tended to be the times when I was creating things, innervating or at the very least thinking and learning.
I absolutely love listening to music as I walk around, so I normally arrive at work buzzing with excitement and happiness then on the way in I pass some kind of invisible barrier that strips that from me. I get in, sit down and time slows down ... way down. I can sit there for what feels like ten or twenty minutes and only five minutes have passed. I've tried hiding the clock on my computer so I'm not constantly checking it but that doesn't help.
I'm starting to feel every single minute, my chair is getting increasingly uncomfortable, the sound of the fans on the servers next to me grows more grating and I can feel the for sale sign embedding itself deeper into my soul. I'm getting so desperate to pass time that I'm eating a lot more, popping out to the shop next door can painlessly pass a few more minutes almost 10 if you eat what you got from the shop slowly. My lunch partner likes to eat lunch around 12:30 but several times now its got to 12:00 and I've just had to go to lunch, I need to get out of there. Also nearly every lunch hour someone else would be coming to do something on my computer. I have a screen saver that kicks in after 45 minutes and its quite rare for my screen saver to be on when I returned from my hour lunch break.
The onset of boredom and resentment kicked in way quicker that I was expecting it to, I had never been an official developer before I was hoping that would make a difference. When I arrive at work I really do want to work, this passionless way of spending half my waking day really gnaws at me. Its just when I sit down in front of the computer my mind rebels it just struggles to do things it isn't interested in, luckily these days there is an Internet and I have a good stock of mp3's to listen to. I don't know what I would do without them.
I almost walked out today, one of the senior developers that I'm good friends with had a big shouting match with the guy that owns the company. His angry words struck a cord with me as it was all the normal complaints that I have heard and felt over the years, I decided in a moment of solidarity that if he walked out I would too, he didn't.
I know rationally that I probably need a reference from these guys and that earning money is good but ... there has to be a better way. My contract now has run out with them, but they are very keen for me to stay. I've negotiated a four day week which is a splint but I'm not sure how much longer I can hold on there.
I remember it wasn't always like this there where times in the past when I actually really enjoyed going to work, I used to really care about the quality of what I did. Looking back now these tended to be the times when I was creating things, innervating or at the very least thinking and learning.
Wednesday, 22 August 2007
Thai boxing
It was Caroline's last weekend in Australia, I had meet her way back in the beginning when I was doing the pub quiz on one of my first nights in Melbourne. It seems like such a long time ago now, its one of the problems of living in a hostel is that most the friends you make tend to move somewhere else pretty quickly.
As is traditional here and in England we all went out for a drink. Me and Gena headed out early to get some food first, one of the main problems that me and Gena have is that neither of us has any sense of direction what so ever, we have even managed not to find entire suburbs before. For us both to always pick the wrong direction their must be some part of our brains that knows the correct one and then deliberately changes it. Otherwise we would sometimes pick the correct route.
When we eventually found the pub, we received a message saying that there was a change of plan and they where now in a different one. The night was fun, there is a worrying trend that all of my female friends seem to very quickly prefer Gena company to mine, its very interesting watching her talk to other women, she acts like they are best friends already. To me it kind of looks like shes flirting with them. Seems to work really well. I was tempted to try the same strategy for talking to other men, but I'm not sure its a good idea, and I definitely won't be using it on Martin just in case.
I was worried the night would pass without a bloggortunity (its my word I can change the spelling if I want) but luckily a crazy American guy attached himself to the group and started ranting away. He asked me how comes I was the only guy with five women, then explained in great detail how had had failed to pick up women even when he had cash and was in town where prostitution was legal.
Firstly he had some how missed that that one of my male friends was standing just a foot ... sorry half a meter ... must remember we are metric here or so away from me. I let this pass and explained that his first rule of thumb should be to start conversations with people and not talk about how even prostitutes rejected him. He did talk some more, I'm sure he did, but I didn't make any notes at the time so I can't be accurate about what else he said.
As is traditional here and in England we all went out for a drink. Me and Gena headed out early to get some food first, one of the main problems that me and Gena have is that neither of us has any sense of direction what so ever, we have even managed not to find entire suburbs before. For us both to always pick the wrong direction their must be some part of our brains that knows the correct one and then deliberately changes it. Otherwise we would sometimes pick the correct route.
When we eventually found the pub, we received a message saying that there was a change of plan and they where now in a different one. The night was fun, there is a worrying trend that all of my female friends seem to very quickly prefer Gena company to mine, its very interesting watching her talk to other women, she acts like they are best friends already. To me it kind of looks like shes flirting with them. Seems to work really well. I was tempted to try the same strategy for talking to other men, but I'm not sure its a good idea, and I definitely won't be using it on Martin just in case.
I was worried the night would pass without a bloggortunity (its my word I can change the spelling if I want) but luckily a crazy American guy attached himself to the group and started ranting away. He asked me how comes I was the only guy with five women, then explained in great detail how had had failed to pick up women even when he had cash and was in town where prostitution was legal.
Firstly he had some how missed that that one of my male friends was standing just a foot ... sorry half a meter ... must remember we are metric here or so away from me. I let this pass and explained that his first rule of thumb should be to start conversations with people and not talk about how even prostitutes rejected him. He did talk some more, I'm sure he did, but I didn't make any notes at the time so I can't be accurate about what else he said.
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
Shark 'n Chips
Now starting with the most important discovery of today, whenever you buy fish and chips in Australia you tend to get a fish called flake, after several portions of flake I inquired as to what it was. The Lady at the shop looked me dead in the eye and calmly replied Shark as if it was a normal and every day thing to eat Jaws. As much as I enjoy eating animals that by all rights in the natural world should be eating me it just seems a little odd. Surely fish are easier to catch then sharks are? Even if Australia's waters are completely Shark infested surely they must be equally fish infested in order for the multitude of Sharks to feast.
Tonight me and Gena were heading out into town to meet Martin the recruitment guy, I had warned her about him and was actually kind of worried that he might act more normal under the pressure of an audience. This in turn would make me look weird ... I needn't have worried. He was with a girl from work and his girlfriend who wasn't present was texting him about how annoyed she was at him for going out and not inviting her. He was showing the messages around like a kid with a shiny new toy ... till one message contained the words.
'Go find a girl that you actually want to have sex with'
Well it was something very similar to that, it probably had a 'u' instead of a 'you' I can't be sure as the moment we got to that point in the message, Martin in a move so quick that David Blaine would have been proud of moved his phone back into his pocket. Martin was making me feel very uncomfortable he would kind of commentate on me and tell me things like 'your quite a character'. It reminded me of that kid that follows Bruce Willis around in Die Hard 4, I'm much more comfortable with people teasing me. The evening passed pleasantly Gena made the mistake of telling Martin that I was looking for a place to live, he instantly replied
'oh he will live at mine'
Notice the word 'will' there, that word scares me, normally people would use the word 'can' or at least ask me if I wanted to live at their house. Not just assume that I will live there like it was my destiny, this fact is even more disturbing given the recent coming to light of evidence that he didn't seem to be very interested in sexual relations with women. After a few to many beers me and Gena made out excuses and left. You can tell we are a proper couple now, we are leaving early and everything.
The main reason that I agreed to meet Martin again is that my contract was that my temporary job was coming to an end and it was past time to find a new job. Unfortunately since that night Martin has tried to get me to go forward for one job. A $100,000 a year job! I really like what hes done with the $100,000 thing, I like that, I like that a lot but I get the feeling it would be a really short interview.
Interviewer: 'Have you you got 5 years experience running an IT department for a company with over a thousand employees?'
Me: No
As tempted as I was to give it a go I think even my tricks wouldn't cover over that one.
Tonight me and Gena were heading out into town to meet Martin the recruitment guy, I had warned her about him and was actually kind of worried that he might act more normal under the pressure of an audience. This in turn would make me look weird ... I needn't have worried. He was with a girl from work and his girlfriend who wasn't present was texting him about how annoyed she was at him for going out and not inviting her. He was showing the messages around like a kid with a shiny new toy ... till one message contained the words.
'Go find a girl that you actually want to have sex with'
Well it was something very similar to that, it probably had a 'u' instead of a 'you' I can't be sure as the moment we got to that point in the message, Martin in a move so quick that David Blaine would have been proud of moved his phone back into his pocket. Martin was making me feel very uncomfortable he would kind of commentate on me and tell me things like 'your quite a character'. It reminded me of that kid that follows Bruce Willis around in Die Hard 4, I'm much more comfortable with people teasing me. The evening passed pleasantly Gena made the mistake of telling Martin that I was looking for a place to live, he instantly replied
'oh he will live at mine'
Notice the word 'will' there, that word scares me, normally people would use the word 'can' or at least ask me if I wanted to live at their house. Not just assume that I will live there like it was my destiny, this fact is even more disturbing given the recent coming to light of evidence that he didn't seem to be very interested in sexual relations with women. After a few to many beers me and Gena made out excuses and left. You can tell we are a proper couple now, we are leaving early and everything.
The main reason that I agreed to meet Martin again is that my contract was that my temporary job was coming to an end and it was past time to find a new job. Unfortunately since that night Martin has tried to get me to go forward for one job. A $100,000 a year job! I really like what hes done with the $100,000 thing, I like that, I like that a lot but I get the feeling it would be a really short interview.
Interviewer: 'Have you you got 5 years experience running an IT department for a company with over a thousand employees?'
Me: No
As tempted as I was to give it a go I think even my tricks wouldn't cover over that one.
Sunday, 19 August 2007
Cave Paintings
For the first time today I actually read some of my blog ... its very odd. I would just like to clear a few points up
My intention isn't intended to show off or anything of the sort, if anything its here to entertain ... much as I would do in person if I was talking to you. Translating my life to written form is fun, and as bizare as some of it sounds its all completly true. Weird stuff always seems to happen to me and crazy people head to me like moths do to a light. I'm dreading the day when I meet someone and they explain to me that the book (well my blog) of my life is better than the movie (well my life). Also its nice to contribute something to the Internet for a change.
Its best to look at this blog as you would a child just showing off a painting its really happy with to its parents. One of the main things that happens when you fly off to the other side of the world on your own is that all of your habits become null and void. Your brain likes whats familiar but it learns from whats new, very quickly new habits start to establish themselves in the clearing. They starts as very small things like always ordering the same thing at a fast food place or always walking on the same side of the road on the way to work.
I'm sure left alone they would grow back into the huge habit forest that was my normal life. As an experiment I have been weeding any habit as soon as I notice it. So far my brain seems to be responding very positively, before I recommend this practice its probably best to let me do it for a while longer to see if there are any unexpected side effects.
One of the benefits of escaping the physical habits is that your habits of thought change too. I notice my mind is going in exciting and new directions and I'm figuring out a lot of things that you guys already knew and take for granted. I had always spent a lot of time thinking about the big important/abstract things but now I was actually figuring out a lot of the small stuff that you guys already seemed to intuitively know. Stuff like maybe you shouldn't dump the woman you love to get engaged to a random stranger because your magic eight ball told you to do it.
As I look back with my new perspective I think the person in my way of my life being beter was myself and if anything I was actually running away from my destiny.
My intention isn't intended to show off or anything of the sort, if anything its here to entertain ... much as I would do in person if I was talking to you. Translating my life to written form is fun, and as bizare as some of it sounds its all completly true. Weird stuff always seems to happen to me and crazy people head to me like moths do to a light. I'm dreading the day when I meet someone and they explain to me that the book (well my blog) of my life is better than the movie (well my life). Also its nice to contribute something to the Internet for a change.
Its best to look at this blog as you would a child just showing off a painting its really happy with to its parents. One of the main things that happens when you fly off to the other side of the world on your own is that all of your habits become null and void. Your brain likes whats familiar but it learns from whats new, very quickly new habits start to establish themselves in the clearing. They starts as very small things like always ordering the same thing at a fast food place or always walking on the same side of the road on the way to work.
I'm sure left alone they would grow back into the huge habit forest that was my normal life. As an experiment I have been weeding any habit as soon as I notice it. So far my brain seems to be responding very positively, before I recommend this practice its probably best to let me do it for a while longer to see if there are any unexpected side effects.
One of the benefits of escaping the physical habits is that your habits of thought change too. I notice my mind is going in exciting and new directions and I'm figuring out a lot of things that you guys already knew and take for granted. I had always spent a lot of time thinking about the big important/abstract things but now I was actually figuring out a lot of the small stuff that you guys already seemed to intuitively know. Stuff like maybe you shouldn't dump the woman you love to get engaged to a random stranger because your magic eight ball told you to do it.
As I look back with my new perspective I think the person in my way of my life being beter was myself and if anything I was actually running away from my destiny.
I know our brain is basically a giant pattern matching machine, even taking this into account based on my life's experiences I've come to one of two conclusions:
1 (the unlikely one)- I am the luckiest person in the world.
2(the probably right one)- We are all constantly surrounded by opportunity and its just a case of noticing its there.
I'm really putting my money on the second one ... wonder what the easiest way of noticing all the opportunity is.
Recently I've been going out and doing stuff everyday, next week I'm going to take it easy and catch up on my reading and writing. Going to come up with a plan, I have a few ideas but it needs some more thought and discussion. All in all, baring unexpected Blogertunities or epiphanies the blog will be pretty quiet next week.
Friday, 17 August 2007
Bleach
I spent Friday night with Gena, now as much as I love this blog it does have a habit of killing any relationships described within it very dead indeed ... so I will tread carefully ... for more information your going to have to email or skype me off the record. Wow! I'm being censored by myself, I'm going to have to do something about that.
I had moved over to my Australian bank account, but my English credit card was the one registered to my phone and that was safely back in my hostel. This meant that for Friday evening I only had enough credit to send three text messages. I loved this limitation, with only three I would have to use them wisely, it was a really fun game.
I spent Friday night with Gena, I like her a lot, which is why I'll be dancing a little light on detail here. Suffice to say I had a lot of fun and Friday night quickly turned into Saturday evening, I wasn't intending to hang around ... we were just having a lot of fun. After returning back to base I cancelled my other dates, it felt a bit odd unloading them all, I probably could maybe even should have kept dating other people but for some reason it didn't feel right this time, besides I'm travelling and trying new things.
I had moved over to my Australian bank account, but my English credit card was the one registered to my phone and that was safely back in my hostel. This meant that for Friday evening I only had enough credit to send three text messages. I loved this limitation, with only three I would have to use them wisely, it was a really fun game.
I spent Friday night with Gena, I like her a lot, which is why I'll be dancing a little light on detail here. Suffice to say I had a lot of fun and Friday night quickly turned into Saturday evening, I wasn't intending to hang around ... we were just having a lot of fun. After returning back to base I cancelled my other dates, it felt a bit odd unloading them all, I probably could maybe even should have kept dating other people but for some reason it didn't feel right this time, besides I'm travelling and trying new things.
Thursday, 16 August 2007
Texas Vultures
I had always for some reason assumed that making male friends was a lot harder than making female girlfriends. When I caught myself thinking about this I noticed myself using a lot of the rubbish thinking processes and fuzzy logic that I would normally pick someone up on and challenge.
So I picked myself up on it and recently I have also been collecting the phone numbers of some of the cooler guys that I have been meeting recently and this Thursday we where heading to town for a night of drunken mischief. The group split fairly early, Dave an Irish guy who reminded me a lot of Dylan Moran had brought one of his room mates along some guy named Bo from Texas.
Normally the Americans that are out and about traveling the world are good people the same as you or I, its the ones that hang out in the middle playing banjos and voting Republican that you need to be worried about. There was something about Bo that didn't quite compute, he was introduced to me as a football coach I joked that our version of football deserves the name more after all it was not only historically existed first but we actually use our foot to kick the ball for the entire game. This annoyed him and I backed off.
I walk a lot, I like walking especially with my ipod because then I can either learn something or kind of dance while I'm walking to the music. I enjoy both very much. Its only a 10 -15 minute walk to town. I've just noticed that a 10 minute walk sounds short but a 15 minute walk sounds long ... interesting.
Anyway a couple of minutes into the walk Bo asked why don't we get the tram, I replied because its only a short walk, Bo grumbled, I added besides by the time we wait for a tram at this time in the night we might as well have walked there. This flagged as strange the drunk Irish guy who had never done any exercise ever was happy to walk but the super fit American wanted to get the tram.
When we arrived at the pub (the Joint) the machinations from the Bo guy just didn't sit well, the people I had hand picked for tonight where on the whole very smart, funny and kinda lent to the left politically. Somehow George Bush got mentioned and Bo proudly said I voted for him.
... A silence griped the assembled table ...
It was as if a steak had just been thrown into a pack of hungry dogs, there was a pause, the calm before the storm so to speak as everyone just process they had received from there senses. Even though we had only consumed a couple of beers by this point we seemed very ready to blame Bo for pretty much all the problems in the world. It really wasn't a fair fight we outnumbered him five to one, and he would continue to make matters worse for himself by saying some really uninformed things like George Bush is obviously really smart. I was temped to phone Gena and tell her that one of her country men was embarrassing himself and she should come down here to fix him. Very shortly Bo left and conversation returned to normal.
In fact a little to normal, the guys wanted chicks, I said a few things they called bullshit and I was called open to demonstrate my dukedom. They would point out a table of women I would go over there and start talking, then far to rapidly the entire of team Mike would bundle over mob handed and pretty much spoil everything. It was like trying to fish with a bunch of angry toddlers jumping in the water shortly after you cast your line.
I was quite happy to feed them women in fact I was enjoying the social status but they were getting a little to veracious, and the whole table charging in just wasn't working.
I went for a new tactic I would speak to individual or small groups, and them pass them off one at a time to one of my friends. But like a Vulture, one of them would swoop in the moment I disengaged for more than a second with any women that I happened to be talking to. This seemed better, but not ideal. Anyway it was about three in the morning by now and I had to be up for work in four hours. I left them at the pub and got a taxi back home.
So I picked myself up on it and recently I have also been collecting the phone numbers of some of the cooler guys that I have been meeting recently and this Thursday we where heading to town for a night of drunken mischief. The group split fairly early, Dave an Irish guy who reminded me a lot of Dylan Moran had brought one of his room mates along some guy named Bo from Texas.
Normally the Americans that are out and about traveling the world are good people the same as you or I, its the ones that hang out in the middle playing banjos and voting Republican that you need to be worried about. There was something about Bo that didn't quite compute, he was introduced to me as a football coach I joked that our version of football deserves the name more after all it was not only historically existed first but we actually use our foot to kick the ball for the entire game. This annoyed him and I backed off.
I walk a lot, I like walking especially with my ipod because then I can either learn something or kind of dance while I'm walking to the music. I enjoy both very much. Its only a 10 -15 minute walk to town. I've just noticed that a 10 minute walk sounds short but a 15 minute walk sounds long ... interesting.
Anyway a couple of minutes into the walk Bo asked why don't we get the tram, I replied because its only a short walk, Bo grumbled, I added besides by the time we wait for a tram at this time in the night we might as well have walked there. This flagged as strange the drunk Irish guy who had never done any exercise ever was happy to walk but the super fit American wanted to get the tram.
When we arrived at the pub (the Joint) the machinations from the Bo guy just didn't sit well, the people I had hand picked for tonight where on the whole very smart, funny and kinda lent to the left politically. Somehow George Bush got mentioned and Bo proudly said I voted for him.
... A silence griped the assembled table ...
It was as if a steak had just been thrown into a pack of hungry dogs, there was a pause, the calm before the storm so to speak as everyone just process they had received from there senses. Even though we had only consumed a couple of beers by this point we seemed very ready to blame Bo for pretty much all the problems in the world. It really wasn't a fair fight we outnumbered him five to one, and he would continue to make matters worse for himself by saying some really uninformed things like George Bush is obviously really smart. I was temped to phone Gena and tell her that one of her country men was embarrassing himself and she should come down here to fix him. Very shortly Bo left and conversation returned to normal.
In fact a little to normal, the guys wanted chicks, I said a few things they called bullshit and I was called open to demonstrate my dukedom. They would point out a table of women I would go over there and start talking, then far to rapidly the entire of team Mike would bundle over mob handed and pretty much spoil everything. It was like trying to fish with a bunch of angry toddlers jumping in the water shortly after you cast your line.
I was quite happy to feed them women in fact I was enjoying the social status but they were getting a little to veracious, and the whole table charging in just wasn't working.
I went for a new tactic I would speak to individual or small groups, and them pass them off one at a time to one of my friends. But like a Vulture, one of them would swoop in the moment I disengaged for more than a second with any women that I happened to be talking to. This seemed better, but not ideal. Anyway it was about three in the morning by now and I had to be up for work in four hours. I left them at the pub and got a taxi back home.
Monday, 13 August 2007
We're gonna need a montage (Montage!)
There is a girl in my hostel named Lauren, she's very nice and I've shared a couple of drinks with her and some light funny text conversations. All well and good except her boyfriend is a complete over protective possessive psychopath, I was about to find this out in my own special brand, head first Blogortunity way (aka the hard way).
Lauren was due to meet Mr Psycho outside the hostel and was a couple of minutes late due to talking to me. Her boyfriend stayed in the car outside and sent a couple of lackies in to pick her up. They arrived in the bar, looked pretty shocked when they found her with me and told her that her presence was required outside. This reminded me so much of Mafia movies I couldn't help but notice and ask them, how do you become henchman? I've always thought I would have use for a couple.
They smiled and explained that they were only coming in because ... well they where scared what Jay would do if he came in and saw Lauren doing ... well exactly what she was doing. Somewhat relieved that I hadn't just flirted with the God Fathers girlfriend I set about having another drink or two with the other people that frequent my hostel bar.
Later that night Lauren phoned my almost in tears after the inquisition she had just suffered, I was really shocked to find out that she had only been with him about three weeks and she didn't even really like him. Its just he didn't really give her and choice and she was already scared.
I explained that things where only going to get worse and pointed out a few things and this and that would hopefully help her realize that. Basically, even though I was somewhat biased because of her blond attractive nature I decided she would be better off without a crazy person in her life. She agreed and we stopped the conversation with her ready to call it off (I recommended in a public place)
I didn't see her for a couple of days, then one night I walked past her in the corridor shes looked really worried and scared. I said hi she said I can't stop now hes waiting outside for me again. That morning at about 05:00 am I was awoken by a text from Lauren, I wouldn't normally answer a text at five in the morning but this one might be an emergency.
The conversation was as follows:
L: 'Are you awake?'
M: 'I am now, are you ok? You looked really worried when I last saw you, at least 10 years older than normal'
L: 'Why would I be worried I was with J'
M: 'Because hes a psycho hose beast thats going to kill you one day and wear your skin as a suit'
The texts stopped, that evening I happened to bump into Lauren again and she denied all knowledge of the text messages, I showed her them on my phone and she had them on her phone too. Thats right her boyfriend had got up at five in the morning gone through her phone and pretended to be her. Thats also right, hes crazy and stupid because he didn't even delete the messages on her phone. Yeah right again I had just sent a text message to a nutter saying that he was a psycho hose beast that was going to skin and kill his girlfriend ... D'oh!
The next evening I get a call form Laurens boyfriend from her phone.
'I've got some questions to ask you, Why are you calling my girl? I would like to speak to you outside'
In my mind the words outside normally mean that the talking would involve a little more physical contact then normal. I decided to test the situation and see what the stakes where.
'What happened to you to make you so crazy?'
He exploded, my unconscious took control, I vaguely remembered some Sensi telling me once that the angrier a person was the more they wanted to fight but the less well they could do it because of how tense they would be. My minds auto pilot seemed set on testing this. I to be honest was getting worried and the phrase 'your egos writing checks your body can't cash came to mind' But the rational brain was in the back seat by now as the raging cave man part of my brain ... high on adrenaline was on a mission to beat up the bad guy and save the girl.
The phone call ended, I talked to my unconscious,
'What the hell was that?'
It responded by turning my mind into a Rocky movie montage like thing, it was scanning through all the fights I had even been in all the trainings I had gone to. It was working stuff out at a speed that I wasn't really able to grasp. Kind of reminded me of a computer program loading in very old software. I just started stretching and warming up, I went down stairs very calm and waited. I guess this was one of those times I was going to be tested.
About forty minutes passed, I gave Lauren a call, she said the words 'Hes Coming ....' the phone then went dead. Yes! The phone went dead while she was mid sentence... boy my life had just turned into a Quentin Tarantino Movie! I waited another hour it was one in the morning by now, I sent a text saying look I'm off to bed if you decide to show up call me. I barely slept that night my mind was still high on whatever man juice hormone fight or flight cocktail it had brewed for the occasion.
I got up in the morning my mind was still thinking about fighting, I did as much exercise as I could to burn off the hormones and get my brain back to some semballence of normallity. That helpped a lot. This leads us to where we are now, I text Lauren about once a week to check shes still alive and this seems to be the end of the matter ... or is it?
Lauren was due to meet Mr Psycho outside the hostel and was a couple of minutes late due to talking to me. Her boyfriend stayed in the car outside and sent a couple of lackies in to pick her up. They arrived in the bar, looked pretty shocked when they found her with me and told her that her presence was required outside. This reminded me so much of Mafia movies I couldn't help but notice and ask them, how do you become henchman? I've always thought I would have use for a couple.
They smiled and explained that they were only coming in because ... well they where scared what Jay would do if he came in and saw Lauren doing ... well exactly what she was doing. Somewhat relieved that I hadn't just flirted with the God Fathers girlfriend I set about having another drink or two with the other people that frequent my hostel bar.
Later that night Lauren phoned my almost in tears after the inquisition she had just suffered, I was really shocked to find out that she had only been with him about three weeks and she didn't even really like him. Its just he didn't really give her and choice and she was already scared.
I explained that things where only going to get worse and pointed out a few things and this and that would hopefully help her realize that. Basically, even though I was somewhat biased because of her blond attractive nature I decided she would be better off without a crazy person in her life. She agreed and we stopped the conversation with her ready to call it off (I recommended in a public place)
I didn't see her for a couple of days, then one night I walked past her in the corridor shes looked really worried and scared. I said hi she said I can't stop now hes waiting outside for me again. That morning at about 05:00 am I was awoken by a text from Lauren, I wouldn't normally answer a text at five in the morning but this one might be an emergency.
The conversation was as follows:
L: 'Are you awake?'
M: 'I am now, are you ok? You looked really worried when I last saw you, at least 10 years older than normal'
L: 'Why would I be worried I was with J'
M: 'Because hes a psycho hose beast thats going to kill you one day and wear your skin as a suit'
The texts stopped, that evening I happened to bump into Lauren again and she denied all knowledge of the text messages, I showed her them on my phone and she had them on her phone too. Thats right her boyfriend had got up at five in the morning gone through her phone and pretended to be her. Thats also right, hes crazy and stupid because he didn't even delete the messages on her phone. Yeah right again I had just sent a text message to a nutter saying that he was a psycho hose beast that was going to skin and kill his girlfriend ... D'oh!
The next evening I get a call form Laurens boyfriend from her phone.
'I've got some questions to ask you, Why are you calling my girl? I would like to speak to you outside'
In my mind the words outside normally mean that the talking would involve a little more physical contact then normal. I decided to test the situation and see what the stakes where.
'What happened to you to make you so crazy?'
He exploded, my unconscious took control, I vaguely remembered some Sensi telling me once that the angrier a person was the more they wanted to fight but the less well they could do it because of how tense they would be. My minds auto pilot seemed set on testing this. I to be honest was getting worried and the phrase 'your egos writing checks your body can't cash came to mind' But the rational brain was in the back seat by now as the raging cave man part of my brain ... high on adrenaline was on a mission to beat up the bad guy and save the girl.
The phone call ended, I talked to my unconscious,
'What the hell was that?'
It responded by turning my mind into a Rocky movie montage like thing, it was scanning through all the fights I had even been in all the trainings I had gone to. It was working stuff out at a speed that I wasn't really able to grasp. Kind of reminded me of a computer program loading in very old software. I just started stretching and warming up, I went down stairs very calm and waited. I guess this was one of those times I was going to be tested.
About forty minutes passed, I gave Lauren a call, she said the words 'Hes Coming ....' the phone then went dead. Yes! The phone went dead while she was mid sentence... boy my life had just turned into a Quentin Tarantino Movie! I waited another hour it was one in the morning by now, I sent a text saying look I'm off to bed if you decide to show up call me. I barely slept that night my mind was still high on whatever man juice hormone fight or flight cocktail it had brewed for the occasion.
I got up in the morning my mind was still thinking about fighting, I did as much exercise as I could to burn off the hormones and get my brain back to some semballence of normallity. That helpped a lot. This leads us to where we are now, I text Lauren about once a week to check shes still alive and this seems to be the end of the matter ... or is it?
Friday, 10 August 2007
Friday
Well well well, Friday night again. I was so up for this weekend, after my first full week of work it was party time. I have a girl that I'm really quite fond off (by the way it might not be you! ;o) Stop being noisy and reading my blog, you should be studying for your masters!) , I thought it would be nice to enjoy a few quiet drinks without the compulsion to go and gather phone numbers.
I went to The order a nice place, but like a lot of the cooler bars in Melbourne it didn't fill up to later. If your on your own in a bar you really need other people there, there where a few groups of people scattered around but only two groups of women without a male escort. I got a beer, stood by the bar ... and ... well ... drank some of it ... something was missing ... I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I decided something odd might be going on and it would be best to check with unescorted women group one. Safety in numbers and all that.
They where pretty cool, I was very impressed with myself not getting their phone number, but I think that kind of disappointed them. I decided to leave before they tried to force it upon me.
Now unlike the photos linked above The Order its really dark inside and just as I was leaving unescorted women group two happend to be leaving too. I asked them casually if they knew any good places to go to and they kind of kidnapped me. Once we got to the less dim lights of the streets I noticed that I have just been kidnapped by a middle aged group of women.
The true horror of this fact sank in when I was in the taxi with them heading to a pub outside Melbourne.
'Well you see for every seven single women in Melbourne over thirty there is only one single man'
There where 4 of them and one of me, almost half their normal odds, I was deep in enemy territory and surrounded, part of me wanted to jump out of the car while it was still moving, part of me wanted to stay this out to the end so I could write about it in my blog. you guys don't realise the sacrasies I make for my readership, this may be an ammusing read to you but to me it is my life! I decided to keep my composure and continue our dialog.
'Was there a big war or something that killed all the men?'
The taxi pulled up in the middle of nowhere, we queued to get into a bar, then once inside the bar we queued again to get upstairs. At least for the inside queue we had drinks. One of the women had developed this habit of backing into me, I would be standing there then she would stand in front of me and reverse until she touched me. I moved away every time she did this, but she retested every hour or so in case I had changed my mind.
Luckily one of there younger friends was upstairs and I got talking to her, her name was Sue and she owned horses. I parked myself by the bar to protect myself from random reversing and set about trying to get free horse riding lessons. Sues relative youth seemed to project a protective aura that kept my kidnappers at bay. They would stop by form time to time to give me a drink but then move on. When she went to the toilet they all started to approach again. If they captured me again they might not let me escape ... I dashed off to the one safe place I could think of the men's toilets.
You know sometimes when you go up to the urinal and you just can't pee and its really embarrassing because your just standing there not peeing? Well its worse if you only went to the toilet for protection and stood up next to the urinal and tried to pee out of habit rather than actually needing to. After a few more drinks Sue gave me a lift home my chastity intact, I really should be more careful, that was a close one I dread to think what would of happened if she hadn't been there.
I went to The order a nice place, but like a lot of the cooler bars in Melbourne it didn't fill up to later. If your on your own in a bar you really need other people there, there where a few groups of people scattered around but only two groups of women without a male escort. I got a beer, stood by the bar ... and ... well ... drank some of it ... something was missing ... I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I decided something odd might be going on and it would be best to check with unescorted women group one. Safety in numbers and all that.
They where pretty cool, I was very impressed with myself not getting their phone number, but I think that kind of disappointed them. I decided to leave before they tried to force it upon me.
Now unlike the photos linked above The Order its really dark inside and just as I was leaving unescorted women group two happend to be leaving too. I asked them casually if they knew any good places to go to and they kind of kidnapped me. Once we got to the less dim lights of the streets I noticed that I have just been kidnapped by a middle aged group of women.
The true horror of this fact sank in when I was in the taxi with them heading to a pub outside Melbourne.
'Well you see for every seven single women in Melbourne over thirty there is only one single man'
There where 4 of them and one of me, almost half their normal odds, I was deep in enemy territory and surrounded, part of me wanted to jump out of the car while it was still moving, part of me wanted to stay this out to the end so I could write about it in my blog. you guys don't realise the sacrasies I make for my readership, this may be an ammusing read to you but to me it is my life! I decided to keep my composure and continue our dialog.
'Was there a big war or something that killed all the men?'
The taxi pulled up in the middle of nowhere, we queued to get into a bar, then once inside the bar we queued again to get upstairs. At least for the inside queue we had drinks. One of the women had developed this habit of backing into me, I would be standing there then she would stand in front of me and reverse until she touched me. I moved away every time she did this, but she retested every hour or so in case I had changed my mind.
Luckily one of there younger friends was upstairs and I got talking to her, her name was Sue and she owned horses. I parked myself by the bar to protect myself from random reversing and set about trying to get free horse riding lessons. Sues relative youth seemed to project a protective aura that kept my kidnappers at bay. They would stop by form time to time to give me a drink but then move on. When she went to the toilet they all started to approach again. If they captured me again they might not let me escape ... I dashed off to the one safe place I could think of the men's toilets.
You know sometimes when you go up to the urinal and you just can't pee and its really embarrassing because your just standing there not peeing? Well its worse if you only went to the toilet for protection and stood up next to the urinal and tried to pee out of habit rather than actually needing to. After a few more drinks Sue gave me a lift home my chastity intact, I really should be more careful, that was a close one I dread to think what would of happened if she hadn't been there.
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
Pay Day!
I had forgotten the joy of pay day, for the first time in over a year my bank account actually went up! That's such a nice felling, I had almost taken it for granted before. I know its just number on a screen but looking at those numbers go up put a big old smile on my face.
I also had my first moment where I felt Melburnian, someone asked me for directions and I actually knew the way.
Out of interest I went to a Socialist Alternative meeting again, for about half the meeting I was bored and the other half I was cringing at how bad these guys where at public speaking. What they where talking about was a really interesting subject, important things that happened in history that are almost being covered up by the education system/media. Its just they presented it in such a bad way I struggled to stay focused.
They tried to get me to give them $150 dollars to get on a bus to go to Sydney with them, they also wanted me to buy lots of over priced pamphlets and because of my salary donate $80 a week! I get the feeling I was about the only non student or pensioner there and they wanted me to bank roll their cell. Well that's not me, I agree that the current system has some pretty big holes in it, but it mostly works. I really don't think having a revolution and starting again from scratch will help much.
There will always be people that seek to exploit whatever system we have as John Lennon said If you want to learn to lead you need to learn to smile while you kill.
I also had my first moment where I felt Melburnian, someone asked me for directions and I actually knew the way.
Out of interest I went to a Socialist Alternative meeting again, for about half the meeting I was bored and the other half I was cringing at how bad these guys where at public speaking. What they where talking about was a really interesting subject, important things that happened in history that are almost being covered up by the education system/media. Its just they presented it in such a bad way I struggled to stay focused.
They tried to get me to give them $150 dollars to get on a bus to go to Sydney with them, they also wanted me to buy lots of over priced pamphlets and because of my salary donate $80 a week! I get the feeling I was about the only non student or pensioner there and they wanted me to bank roll their cell. Well that's not me, I agree that the current system has some pretty big holes in it, but it mostly works. I really don't think having a revolution and starting again from scratch will help much.
There will always be people that seek to exploit whatever system we have as John Lennon said If you want to learn to lead you need to learn to smile while you kill.
Monday, 6 August 2007
Job Daze
It was strange to be working again, because of this and that I hadn't had a job for over a year. Boy did working again hit me like a ton of bricks!
It was seven o'clock, not the nice seven o'clock when you meet people for dinner or drinks its evil morning twin that I had completely forgotten about took me by surprise. My alarm was ringing and I was distraught I didn't want to be awake yet, I could feel the warmth of my sheets, I was under a cosy sleepy malaise. I panicked what could I do, I had to get up for work, but I wanted to sleep more.
SNOOZE. Holly mother of God! I had forgotten about the snooze button, the thought of the snooze button united ever fiber of my body as it resonated to a truly great feature of human engineering at its very best. Yeah the Egyptians built some giant triangles, the Chinese put some bricks down in a line, but the snooze button rocks way more than they do! Elated I pressed it and settled down for another glorious 9 minutes of sleep. Having been removed form this habit for a while I was surprisingly aware of the internal negation that went on during this time.
Ring Ring ... I don't need to shave, and why brush my teeth I haven't eating anything in hours
9 minutes later
Ring Ring ... I don't need a shower I had one yesterday.
9 minutes later
Ring Ring ... Breakfast? The most important meal of the day? Not today pal.
Seriously can you imagine skipping any other meal like that.
'Michael dinners ready'
'Don't worry about it I'm just going to sleep for 9 minutes instead'
But anyway its was my second day and by lunch time the novelty of being at work again had worn off and I was bored, really bored. I had promised myself I was going to actually work this time round. I had perfected slacking off while appearing productive to such a degree that I would normally do less than an hours actual work a day in my prime. I once spent two weeks doing nothing but playing Tetris, I enjoyed my brief stint as a profession Tetris player, far more than the high pressure week I spent trying to complete Spider Solitaire on hard.
I had promised myself to reform, but well this job was dull and the Internet is interesting. Working doesn't suit me and I seemed to be more productive in my hour than most people seemed to be in a day anyway. Maybe I should find a job that interests me and engages my mind. I've slacked off so much in the past I'm actually bored now of slacking off, in fact thinking about it, I'm going to find an interesting job!
It was seven o'clock, not the nice seven o'clock when you meet people for dinner or drinks its evil morning twin that I had completely forgotten about took me by surprise. My alarm was ringing and I was distraught I didn't want to be awake yet, I could feel the warmth of my sheets, I was under a cosy sleepy malaise. I panicked what could I do, I had to get up for work, but I wanted to sleep more.
SNOOZE. Holly mother of God! I had forgotten about the snooze button, the thought of the snooze button united ever fiber of my body as it resonated to a truly great feature of human engineering at its very best. Yeah the Egyptians built some giant triangles, the Chinese put some bricks down in a line, but the snooze button rocks way more than they do! Elated I pressed it and settled down for another glorious 9 minutes of sleep. Having been removed form this habit for a while I was surprisingly aware of the internal negation that went on during this time.
Ring Ring ... I don't need to shave, and why brush my teeth I haven't eating anything in hours
9 minutes later
Ring Ring ... I don't need a shower I had one yesterday.
9 minutes later
Ring Ring ... Breakfast? The most important meal of the day? Not today pal.
Seriously can you imagine skipping any other meal like that.
'Michael dinners ready'
'Don't worry about it I'm just going to sleep for 9 minutes instead'
But anyway its was my second day and by lunch time the novelty of being at work again had worn off and I was bored, really bored. I had promised myself I was going to actually work this time round. I had perfected slacking off while appearing productive to such a degree that I would normally do less than an hours actual work a day in my prime. I once spent two weeks doing nothing but playing Tetris, I enjoyed my brief stint as a profession Tetris player, far more than the high pressure week I spent trying to complete Spider Solitaire on hard.
I had promised myself to reform, but well this job was dull and the Internet is interesting. Working doesn't suit me and I seemed to be more productive in my hour than most people seemed to be in a day anyway. Maybe I should find a job that interests me and engages my mind. I've slacked off so much in the past I'm actually bored now of slacking off, in fact thinking about it, I'm going to find an interesting job!
Saturday, 4 August 2007
Revolution, Revolution!
It was Sunday, I didn't have any particular plains today, so for fun I went the Anti Nuclear march, I'm not particularly against Nuclear power or weapons it just I've not been to a protest before. Its a hot topic in Australia at the moment as it contains about 25% of the world Uranium reserves, but doesn't have any nuclear power stations or weapons.
To make things more heated they have just discovered vast amounts of Uranium under the small tracts of land the already heavily persecuted Aboriginal population owns. Apparently John Howard the Australian prime minister (Ultra right wing, think Margaret Thatcher meets George Bush) has just sent the army and police in to take control of the areas.
I joined the march, their was a contingent in the march waving red flags and they had some drummers with them. I marched with them mostly because I really liked the drumming, they also gave me a red flag to wave, I've never held a flag before so I waved it with a lot of vigor ... I was really enjoying myself marching to the drums waving my flag, chatting to the odd person.
It was interesting to hear lots of people chanting different things, but occasionally a single chant would catch on and the crowd would unite as one to chant it. I didn't join in, because well I really wanted my flag waving and marching to do the talking. This was noticed and a couple of other red flag bearers came up to me and asked why I wasn't joining in. In an all to typical moment I had to think of an intelligent reason as I didn't think my flag waving would cut it. Especially under the circumstances, they might take my flag away and I was becoming really rather attached to it.
'I don't really know enough about whats going on to chant, I'm not the type to just chant just because other people are'
For some reason they where really impressed by this, and set about trying to recruit me for their movement. I probably should have just told them about the flag and drum thing. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse, they where meeting in a pub after the march and offered to buy me a drink if I came along. The other thing that really swung it was I got to send a text message to whatever girl I was meeting on that day saying.
'Sorry can't make it today, I've joined Socialist Alternative we are going to fix the world!'
She didn't reply ... ever again! Oh well, it was worth it, how often do you get to send a text like that?
The meeting started off fun, lots of lively debate, I seemed to be stuck in the role of devils advocate. Some people would make wild claims that just didn't ring true, I know language well enough now to tell when someones trying to pull a fast one. I think they welcomed having someone to get annoyed at.
Anyway for an anti capitalist organization they tried to sell me a lot of stuff, as the meeting progressed and more beer was drank, talk turned to the Socialist Revolution, this is where they lost me really. For starters I'm a big fan of Capitalism and all its many benefits, besides am I allowed to start a Revolution on a 417 working holiday visa?
To make things more heated they have just discovered vast amounts of Uranium under the small tracts of land the already heavily persecuted Aboriginal population owns. Apparently John Howard the Australian prime minister (Ultra right wing, think Margaret Thatcher meets George Bush) has just sent the army and police in to take control of the areas.
I joined the march, their was a contingent in the march waving red flags and they had some drummers with them. I marched with them mostly because I really liked the drumming, they also gave me a red flag to wave, I've never held a flag before so I waved it with a lot of vigor ... I was really enjoying myself marching to the drums waving my flag, chatting to the odd person.
It was interesting to hear lots of people chanting different things, but occasionally a single chant would catch on and the crowd would unite as one to chant it. I didn't join in, because well I really wanted my flag waving and marching to do the talking. This was noticed and a couple of other red flag bearers came up to me and asked why I wasn't joining in. In an all to typical moment I had to think of an intelligent reason as I didn't think my flag waving would cut it. Especially under the circumstances, they might take my flag away and I was becoming really rather attached to it.
'I don't really know enough about whats going on to chant, I'm not the type to just chant just because other people are'
For some reason they where really impressed by this, and set about trying to recruit me for their movement. I probably should have just told them about the flag and drum thing. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse, they where meeting in a pub after the march and offered to buy me a drink if I came along. The other thing that really swung it was I got to send a text message to whatever girl I was meeting on that day saying.
'Sorry can't make it today, I've joined Socialist Alternative we are going to fix the world!'
She didn't reply ... ever again! Oh well, it was worth it, how often do you get to send a text like that?
The meeting started off fun, lots of lively debate, I seemed to be stuck in the role of devils advocate. Some people would make wild claims that just didn't ring true, I know language well enough now to tell when someones trying to pull a fast one. I think they welcomed having someone to get annoyed at.
Anyway for an anti capitalist organization they tried to sell me a lot of stuff, as the meeting progressed and more beer was drank, talk turned to the Socialist Revolution, this is where they lost me really. For starters I'm a big fan of Capitalism and all its many benefits, besides am I allowed to start a Revolution on a 417 working holiday visa?
Thursday, 2 August 2007
Job hunting
Well even after my five hour interview ordeal I didn't get the test consultant job. It was a really strange rejection though, a week after the interview the HR girl phoned me and said (exact quote)
'I'm sorry were really gutted but we can't offer you a job'
Then went on to explain that the reason they took a week to call me was they where trying to squeeze me in somehow. Any how it was time to look for a new job, it was about half eleven and I had just walked into a job agency in Melbourne.
'I'm sorry you need to phone and make an appointment first' said the receptionist almost angry that I had dared to walk in uninvited.
'Ok, do you have the phone number of who I need to call? Are they busy at the moment?'
I got the number and he wasn't seeing anyone so I phoned him up and explained that I was in reception and would like speak to you about getting a job? To the receptionists dismay he agreed and we had a nice chat, he was shocked at how rude the receptionist was to me. I was just happy that I had phoned him from reception in front of her. It reminded me once of when I was in a curry house and they where taking so long to bring our food we phoned the take away number and placed our order again. They where very shocked to hear our address was table twelve.
The next recruitment place was even better, I walked in and the receptionist was just in the middle of sending me off explaining that they don't normally do IT jobs, as one of the recruitment agents I would latter get to know as Matt came in. The receptionist paused and looked at him as he said.
'Do we have any IT people on the books?'
The job was as a VB developer not my normal area of expertise, I explained that I had done some in college (it was only 8 years ago) and if he gave me a computer for a couple of hours I could learn it well enough to pass an interview. He lent me a training computer I downloaded VB 2005 express and set about teaching myself the language I would need to blag an interview. I then went straight to the interview still wearing my jumper that by now had some slight Chinese stains on it from lunch. I passed the interview on the spot and was due to start work the next day on a three week contract.
After Matt finished worked he call me and took me out for a beer, he was pretty amazed at what I had just pulled out of the bag, in fact a little to amazed to be honest. I basically did my normal conversational trick I use with guys of saying pretty much nothing apart from nodding yes or asking a question about their last sentence or two. Within an hour he was asking me if I would like to be the computer guy on a possibly very lucrative science project he was working on. Not content with this he also asked if I wanted to live in the extension he was just about to finish on his house and would I like to buy his car very cheap. I thanked him politely and left before he started stalking me. Its really weird how well people get on with you when you don't say anything.
'I'm sorry were really gutted but we can't offer you a job'
Then went on to explain that the reason they took a week to call me was they where trying to squeeze me in somehow. Any how it was time to look for a new job, it was about half eleven and I had just walked into a job agency in Melbourne.
'I'm sorry you need to phone and make an appointment first' said the receptionist almost angry that I had dared to walk in uninvited.
'Ok, do you have the phone number of who I need to call? Are they busy at the moment?'
I got the number and he wasn't seeing anyone so I phoned him up and explained that I was in reception and would like speak to you about getting a job? To the receptionists dismay he agreed and we had a nice chat, he was shocked at how rude the receptionist was to me. I was just happy that I had phoned him from reception in front of her. It reminded me once of when I was in a curry house and they where taking so long to bring our food we phoned the take away number and placed our order again. They where very shocked to hear our address was table twelve.
The next recruitment place was even better, I walked in and the receptionist was just in the middle of sending me off explaining that they don't normally do IT jobs, as one of the recruitment agents I would latter get to know as Matt came in. The receptionist paused and looked at him as he said.
'Do we have any IT people on the books?'
The job was as a VB developer not my normal area of expertise, I explained that I had done some in college (it was only 8 years ago) and if he gave me a computer for a couple of hours I could learn it well enough to pass an interview. He lent me a training computer I downloaded VB 2005 express and set about teaching myself the language I would need to blag an interview. I then went straight to the interview still wearing my jumper that by now had some slight Chinese stains on it from lunch. I passed the interview on the spot and was due to start work the next day on a three week contract.
After Matt finished worked he call me and took me out for a beer, he was pretty amazed at what I had just pulled out of the bag, in fact a little to amazed to be honest. I basically did my normal conversational trick I use with guys of saying pretty much nothing apart from nodding yes or asking a question about their last sentence or two. Within an hour he was asking me if I would like to be the computer guy on a possibly very lucrative science project he was working on. Not content with this he also asked if I wanted to live in the extension he was just about to finish on his house and would I like to buy his car very cheap. I thanked him politely and left before he started stalking me. Its really weird how well people get on with you when you don't say anything.
Wednesday, 1 August 2007
The Truth, you cant handle the truth!
Because the contents of this post may come back to bite me in later life it has been classified. Simply send me an email an I will send you your blog entry if you have the security clearance.
Monday, 30 July 2007
All Nations Comedy
Again what I did during the day escapes me, I'm assuming it can't have been very interesting or I'm sure I would remember it.
This evening I went to the All Nations Backpackers stand up comedy night, it was a very tough night for the comics the bar was tiny but still managed to look completely empty. The yokels that where present seemed to have the attention span of ... well ... in future I will always say the attention span of an Ozzie Yokel, so I might as well start now.
The comics had a novel solution to this, they phoned their friends and very soon a small contingent of comics arrived to watch, laugh and be merry. My friend from last Sunday Anna Joy (I'm assuming that's a stage name) introduced me to them. They where a really great bunch of guys, the bar was supplying the comics that where gigging with free drinks all night which they Robin Hooded around the other comics and myself. We watched comedy, joked and philosophized and joked some more I was making friends, male friends at that, my first since I had arrived in Australia.
The show ended, but the free drinks kept coming, as we got later into the night people started to leave eventually there only three of us remained. Me, Andrew and a guy that looked very much like Steve the Pirate from Dodge ball after he cleaned up. It got to about three o'clock and the bar closed, we pondered where to go next. They seem pretty set on going to a strip club, I told them that I wasn't to sure I've never been to one before and I didn't much feel like being exploited.
They explained to me that a strip club was just like this bar we were just in except that the beer costs more (well I assumed it wouldn't be free) and that naked women dance around. They had twisted my arm, admittedly it was somewhat rubbery on this issue. We headed to Kings Street, Melbourne being the very organized town that it is contains all the Strip bars on one street. Starting with the most expensive at the top working its way down rapidly as you move towards the bottom. On our travel we meet a crazy guy, who wasn't allowed in either but was laying siege to the place sating 'I know pretty women will be coming out soon'. We wished him all the best and moved on.
None of the gorillas on the door would let us in, not even the cheap places! This was strange we where obviously intoxicated, but the nice intelligent and funny intoxicated. We took this as a sign that we looked so bad ass that the bouncers knew they wouldn't be able to handle us if we started some trouble. Then I did something I wasn't very proud of, but in my defence it was four in the morning and by this point and I was very drunk. I went to McDonald's. It was full of very drunk 18 year old girls, all carrying their shoes by this point. They swarmed like locusts around us either trying to eat our food, or grab it and throw it over the balcony.
It the drunken McDonald's conversation I agreed to write a five minute stand up set and do a comedy gig with them. I've been looking for another creative outlet and this seemed like a good idea ... besides sink or swim the blogortunities would flow.
This evening I went to the All Nations Backpackers stand up comedy night, it was a very tough night for the comics the bar was tiny but still managed to look completely empty. The yokels that where present seemed to have the attention span of ... well ... in future I will always say the attention span of an Ozzie Yokel, so I might as well start now.
The comics had a novel solution to this, they phoned their friends and very soon a small contingent of comics arrived to watch, laugh and be merry. My friend from last Sunday Anna Joy (I'm assuming that's a stage name) introduced me to them. They where a really great bunch of guys, the bar was supplying the comics that where gigging with free drinks all night which they Robin Hooded around the other comics and myself. We watched comedy, joked and philosophized and joked some more I was making friends, male friends at that, my first since I had arrived in Australia.
The show ended, but the free drinks kept coming, as we got later into the night people started to leave eventually there only three of us remained. Me, Andrew and a guy that looked very much like Steve the Pirate from Dodge ball after he cleaned up. It got to about three o'clock and the bar closed, we pondered where to go next. They seem pretty set on going to a strip club, I told them that I wasn't to sure I've never been to one before and I didn't much feel like being exploited.
They explained to me that a strip club was just like this bar we were just in except that the beer costs more (well I assumed it wouldn't be free) and that naked women dance around. They had twisted my arm, admittedly it was somewhat rubbery on this issue. We headed to Kings Street, Melbourne being the very organized town that it is contains all the Strip bars on one street. Starting with the most expensive at the top working its way down rapidly as you move towards the bottom. On our travel we meet a crazy guy, who wasn't allowed in either but was laying siege to the place sating 'I know pretty women will be coming out soon'. We wished him all the best and moved on.
None of the gorillas on the door would let us in, not even the cheap places! This was strange we where obviously intoxicated, but the nice intelligent and funny intoxicated. We took this as a sign that we looked so bad ass that the bouncers knew they wouldn't be able to handle us if we started some trouble. Then I did something I wasn't very proud of, but in my defence it was four in the morning and by this point and I was very drunk. I went to McDonald's. It was full of very drunk 18 year old girls, all carrying their shoes by this point. They swarmed like locusts around us either trying to eat our food, or grab it and throw it over the balcony.
It the drunken McDonald's conversation I agreed to write a five minute stand up set and do a comedy gig with them. I've been looking for another creative outlet and this seemed like a good idea ... besides sink or swim the blogortunities would flow.
Saturday, 28 July 2007
I see dead people
During the day I went to see The Amazing Human Body Exhibition, it was created by a Chinese guy that used to work for that German guy that plastifies bodies. I was going with 'Pretty but Odd' -I'm getting tired of re-asking people there names so I'm just going with descriptions these days if I forget. We had arranged to go to this last night, I'm not sure how the conversation got to wanting to see disected dead people, but it did. By some coincidence I was on her as 'English Guy' we made an agreement to go as long as we could without knowing each others names.
The exhibition was really interesting, luckily the plastification process made most the bodies look like really good models rather than the real life cadavers that they actually where. I think my brain processed the exhibition strangely, in much the same way that when you are on a plane your so high up your brain doesn't really know that your up high. I just don't think our brain has evolved to know to be scared when your that high up or disgusted when you are seeing plastified internal organs.
This was apart from one body where they had dissected it to various depths to show the muscle system worked, this one had squares of skin on it. There was something about it having skin that made me sick to the core, and I moved away very quickly. Overall a very interesting experience but don't bring your children, as a lot of parents at the exhibition where finding out the hard way.
Saturday Night on a recommendation from 'Pretty but Odd' I headed to the Cherry Bar. Melbourne follows the bar law that the harder a bar is to find the cooler it is. I'm fairly sure it must be one of the coolest bars in town. It was in a small dark alleyway slightly out of town, with no sign about the door or any indication that there is a bar there apart from the bouncer hanging around outside who to be honest just looks like your typical alleyway resident.
The linked website description lied, don't get there early it doesn't even open till 9:30, I arrived at about 8ish and found a couple of girls standing in the alley way trying to work out if there was a bar here. As the bouncer wasn't around yet. They adopted me and we went and had a couple of drinks, while they made some calls to see what was going on. They had both lived in Melbourne for over a decade, but I seemed to know my way around better than they did.
They where meeting their friends there later for a leaving do. Over the drinks I got them to clue me up on their friend, so I could arrive separately later and pretend to be psychic. It's a fun joke I really recommend doing it if you get the opportunity.
I normally avoid talking about hypnotism and NLP these days as it makes conversation far to easy and I was getting bored of saying the same things, but my new adopters we both psychologists and arguing with them is just to much fun. One of there boyfriends wanted to get me in to interview for a Test/Project manager position at his company. I'm always pleasantly surprised by how much the universe seems to pretty much always provide me what I need. Thank you Universe. Apart from that it was a pretty normal night out in a great rock bar.
The exhibition was really interesting, luckily the plastification process made most the bodies look like really good models rather than the real life cadavers that they actually where. I think my brain processed the exhibition strangely, in much the same way that when you are on a plane your so high up your brain doesn't really know that your up high. I just don't think our brain has evolved to know to be scared when your that high up or disgusted when you are seeing plastified internal organs.
This was apart from one body where they had dissected it to various depths to show the muscle system worked, this one had squares of skin on it. There was something about it having skin that made me sick to the core, and I moved away very quickly. Overall a very interesting experience but don't bring your children, as a lot of parents at the exhibition where finding out the hard way.
Saturday Night on a recommendation from 'Pretty but Odd' I headed to the Cherry Bar. Melbourne follows the bar law that the harder a bar is to find the cooler it is. I'm fairly sure it must be one of the coolest bars in town. It was in a small dark alleyway slightly out of town, with no sign about the door or any indication that there is a bar there apart from the bouncer hanging around outside who to be honest just looks like your typical alleyway resident.
The linked website description lied, don't get there early it doesn't even open till 9:30, I arrived at about 8ish and found a couple of girls standing in the alley way trying to work out if there was a bar here. As the bouncer wasn't around yet. They adopted me and we went and had a couple of drinks, while they made some calls to see what was going on. They had both lived in Melbourne for over a decade, but I seemed to know my way around better than they did.
They where meeting their friends there later for a leaving do. Over the drinks I got them to clue me up on their friend, so I could arrive separately later and pretend to be psychic. It's a fun joke I really recommend doing it if you get the opportunity.
I normally avoid talking about hypnotism and NLP these days as it makes conversation far to easy and I was getting bored of saying the same things, but my new adopters we both psychologists and arguing with them is just to much fun. One of there boyfriends wanted to get me in to interview for a Test/Project manager position at his company. I'm always pleasantly surprised by how much the universe seems to pretty much always provide me what I need. Thank you Universe. Apart from that it was a pretty normal night out in a great rock bar.
Friday, 27 July 2007
Night Live
I'm sure I did something during the day on Friday but for the life of me I can't remember what it was maybe I've been overdosing on the hypnosis tapes.
That evening I was to meet Caroline, her friends and her friends softball team. Caroline invited me and when I was already on route pulled out. I decided to continue anyway and meet a bunch of people that I either had seen once briefly or didn't know without the protective presence of my introductory friend. I was told to arrive at five but they got stuck at work so didn't they arrive till about 6ish. I only had Caroline's number and she wasn't there so we communicated via indirect sms.
I found another group of people and asked them to adopt me till my (using the term loosely) friends showed up. Me and one of the girls got on incredible well it was liked we had known each other for years. But for some reason she didn't reply to my text today :o(
Once they arrived we shared a few drinks and moved to a very hip and trendy club in Melbourne named CQ, the downstairs bar was nice, but as the group was nearly completely comprised of females the inevitable edge to dance took them upstairs. As soon as we moved upstairs I was instantly demoted ... I had gone from someone that could captivate several of them at a time, to ... well ... the most boring person in the place. I even tried to dance ... it didn't work. It was about midnight by then and I already had a healthy crop of new phone number so I headed back to my hostel with a smile on my face.
I'm not sure which numbers to call, as these girls all know each other. Especially as two of the numbers from girls I have sit next to each other at work in reception and are sisters that live together. Part of me is really tempted ... thinking of the possible blogortunities to just date them all in what will inevitable be some blaze of glory scenario. The other part of me is thinking maybe I should actually focus on making my life better for a change. Guess we will see what happens.
That evening I was to meet Caroline, her friends and her friends softball team. Caroline invited me and when I was already on route pulled out. I decided to continue anyway and meet a bunch of people that I either had seen once briefly or didn't know without the protective presence of my introductory friend. I was told to arrive at five but they got stuck at work so didn't they arrive till about 6ish. I only had Caroline's number and she wasn't there so we communicated via indirect sms.
I found another group of people and asked them to adopt me till my (using the term loosely) friends showed up. Me and one of the girls got on incredible well it was liked we had known each other for years. But for some reason she didn't reply to my text today :o(
Once they arrived we shared a few drinks and moved to a very hip and trendy club in Melbourne named CQ, the downstairs bar was nice, but as the group was nearly completely comprised of females the inevitable edge to dance took them upstairs. As soon as we moved upstairs I was instantly demoted ... I had gone from someone that could captivate several of them at a time, to ... well ... the most boring person in the place. I even tried to dance ... it didn't work. It was about midnight by then and I already had a healthy crop of new phone number so I headed back to my hostel with a smile on my face.
I'm not sure which numbers to call, as these girls all know each other. Especially as two of the numbers from girls I have sit next to each other at work in reception and are sisters that live together. Part of me is really tempted ... thinking of the possible blogortunities to just date them all in what will inevitable be some blaze of glory scenario. The other part of me is thinking maybe I should actually focus on making my life better for a change. Guess we will see what happens.
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
Do you really think so?
During the day I went to the Pixar exhibition unfortunately no photos where allowed inside, which is a shame is it was jam packed full of really amazing stuff. There was surprising little computer stuff there, all of the Pixar animation starts of as hand drawn art, then sculpture which is then finally scanned into a computer.
The quality of the art was second to none, I can honestly say there artists where on a level with any the great artists even the renaissance ones that I had ever seen. They also had a zoetrope that was really interesting to watch. I was almost constantly amazed by just amazing artistic these people were, if you get a chance to see it do.
Reinvigorated by the exhibition I promised myself to have a go at drawing again, but now I had more important things to do. I was meeting Emi a Japanese girl that looked very much like an Asian version of Angelina Jolie! Her English was just about passable ... kinda ... maybe sometimes, you could almost speak to her but there where times I was honestly unsure if she was speaking English or Japanese. Several times she would talk to me in Japanese slowly and repeat herself several times but it didn't help. She reminded me a lot of my previous Turkish girl friend Ozlem, very attractive but conversation was limited to the basics.
Dinner was really funny, we had pizza and she was barely able to use a knife and fork, I know you don't need a knife and fork for pizza but I insisted that she used them claiming it was the height of rudeness in England to eat with your hands. It was nice to see this the other way round after all the people I've seen struggle with chop sticks. But then again I think eating pizza with chop sticks would be even harder. You would need to cut the pizza into small pieces by pushing the chop stick down into the pizza repeatedly in a line then pick up the chunks and eat them, I'm sure that will be messy.
I find it interesting how well you can get on with someone even with a language fence (like a barrier but not as high) we seemed to somehow get on well and made each other laugh quite a lot without the aid of actually understanding each other most of the time. It was very much like a slap stick date, mostly concentrating on physical comedy like hiding her drink when she went to the toilet. She had a computer that could translate words and I had a lot of fun using words like 'dichotomy' completely out of context and watching her translate them just to get even more confused.
At one point in the evening she drew a fake Japanese tattoo on my arm in pen, I don't know what it says but it seemed to amuse her greatly so I assume it says something bad, this is made worse by the way that it won't wash off. Sadly Emi was leaving Melbourne tomorrow morning at seven, that's a shame I would really like to see her again. I have her email so I might do a traveling thing and actually go and visit another part of Australia that shes might just happen to be in.
The quality of the art was second to none, I can honestly say there artists where on a level with any the great artists even the renaissance ones that I had ever seen. They also had a zoetrope that was really interesting to watch. I was almost constantly amazed by just amazing artistic these people were, if you get a chance to see it do.
Reinvigorated by the exhibition I promised myself to have a go at drawing again, but now I had more important things to do. I was meeting Emi a Japanese girl that looked very much like an Asian version of Angelina Jolie! Her English was just about passable ... kinda ... maybe sometimes, you could almost speak to her but there where times I was honestly unsure if she was speaking English or Japanese. Several times she would talk to me in Japanese slowly and repeat herself several times but it didn't help. She reminded me a lot of my previous Turkish girl friend Ozlem, very attractive but conversation was limited to the basics.
Dinner was really funny, we had pizza and she was barely able to use a knife and fork, I know you don't need a knife and fork for pizza but I insisted that she used them claiming it was the height of rudeness in England to eat with your hands. It was nice to see this the other way round after all the people I've seen struggle with chop sticks. But then again I think eating pizza with chop sticks would be even harder. You would need to cut the pizza into small pieces by pushing the chop stick down into the pizza repeatedly in a line then pick up the chunks and eat them, I'm sure that will be messy.
I find it interesting how well you can get on with someone even with a language fence (like a barrier but not as high) we seemed to somehow get on well and made each other laugh quite a lot without the aid of actually understanding each other most of the time. It was very much like a slap stick date, mostly concentrating on physical comedy like hiding her drink when she went to the toilet. She had a computer that could translate words and I had a lot of fun using words like 'dichotomy' completely out of context and watching her translate them just to get even more confused.
At one point in the evening she drew a fake Japanese tattoo on my arm in pen, I don't know what it says but it seemed to amuse her greatly so I assume it says something bad, this is made worse by the way that it won't wash off. Sadly Emi was leaving Melbourne tomorrow morning at seven, that's a shame I would really like to see her again. I have her email so I might do a traveling thing and actually go and visit another part of Australia that shes might just happen to be in.
Sunday, 22 July 2007
The Divine Comedy
I headed out at to Robarta in St Kilda to meet Caroline and friends, it was a great pub, there was this really good jazz band playing in the background, and every few minutes someone would bring a tray of food out to pass around the bar. It was exactly the kind of cool relaxed place that Brisbane wasn't, Caroline was late but by another coincidence I had sat on the table with her friends while I was waiting for her. They where fun and I got invited out to see them again on Friday. Caroline asked me which one I was going for I said 'all of them' but she knew me to well enough by now to hear that I wasn't really joking. I had to leave early as it was stand up comedy night at my hostel and I wasn't going to miss that for anything.
The comedy nights at my hostel where always a winner, one of the comedians was named Anna, she said in her bit that she was single and guys always seemed to scared to approach her because she was a comedian. Well I decided to go talk to her, I was absolutely terrified! I've never spoken to a comedian before and was really expecting to get completely embarrassed. As I walked up time seemed to slow down and my head started to run lots of scenarios none of them particularly pleasant. Every foot step seemed to take an eternity, to make things even worse she was standing with a group of the other comedians that had gigged tonight. It was to late to back out now I had been spotted, I think this is how Christians felt when they where being thrown to the lions.
To my surprise it went very well, comedians are not as funny as you would expect when they are off stage. She was funny, but not really any more so than a normal funny person. This was strange as her half hour on stage was so funny it almost hurt to continue to laugh, I guess that's a very well rehearsed and practiced half hour. The conversation was going pretty well, very different to the boat smashing on the rocks scenario I had been imagining. In fact she was very easy to talk to and to be honest pretty easily amused, even with strange jokes that wouldn't normally work seemed to have her in stitches. So the moral of the story is don't be afraid of comics they are easier to talk to than normal people. Shes putting me on the guest list for her next show, it was free entry but she insisted on putting me on the guest list anyway.
The comedy nights at my hostel where always a winner, one of the comedians was named Anna, she said in her bit that she was single and guys always seemed to scared to approach her because she was a comedian. Well I decided to go talk to her, I was absolutely terrified! I've never spoken to a comedian before and was really expecting to get completely embarrassed. As I walked up time seemed to slow down and my head started to run lots of scenarios none of them particularly pleasant. Every foot step seemed to take an eternity, to make things even worse she was standing with a group of the other comedians that had gigged tonight. It was to late to back out now I had been spotted, I think this is how Christians felt when they where being thrown to the lions.
To my surprise it went very well, comedians are not as funny as you would expect when they are off stage. She was funny, but not really any more so than a normal funny person. This was strange as her half hour on stage was so funny it almost hurt to continue to laugh, I guess that's a very well rehearsed and practiced half hour. The conversation was going pretty well, very different to the boat smashing on the rocks scenario I had been imagining. In fact she was very easy to talk to and to be honest pretty easily amused, even with strange jokes that wouldn't normally work seemed to have her in stitches. So the moral of the story is don't be afraid of comics they are easier to talk to than normal people. Shes putting me on the guest list for her next show, it was free entry but she insisted on putting me on the guest list anyway.
Saturday, 21 July 2007
Return of the mac
It was so nice to be in Melbourne again, by returning to somewhere familiar I've fooled my brain into not being home sick at all anymore. By some amazing coincidence as my bus arrived at the train station from the airport so did my friends Caroline's bus from the great ocean road tour. Then literally a couple of seconds after we bumped into each other my other friend Bret walked past. It was very odd my two best friends from Melbourne spontaneously appearing but that nice friendly welcoming odd. I took it as a sign that I had made the right decision. A few beverages where drunk, we caught up and Caroline invited me out to meet her friends from work and her softball team the next day.
After Caroline left me and Bret found some nice girls playing a very intricate drinking tapping game, where everyone placed there hands in the middle of the table and tapped out different things. It was really fun, and every round a new rule was added just to make sure everyone was drinking a healthy amount.
One of the girls tried to recruit me to collect money for charity on the street again. I explained to here in great detail why I would never do it again EVER! She really didn't want to take no for an answer claiming that I would be great at it, and they would pay me to train them up. I get the feeling there is some kind of pyramid charity worker collection thing running, that means they get some money for every dollar you raise if they recruit you, its the only reason I can think of to explain how zealous they are at recruiting.
After Caroline left me and Bret found some nice girls playing a very intricate drinking tapping game, where everyone placed there hands in the middle of the table and tapped out different things. It was really fun, and every round a new rule was added just to make sure everyone was drinking a healthy amount.
One of the girls tried to recruit me to collect money for charity on the street again. I explained to here in great detail why I would never do it again EVER! She really didn't want to take no for an answer claiming that I would be great at it, and they would pay me to train them up. I get the feeling there is some kind of pyramid charity worker collection thing running, that means they get some money for every dollar you raise if they recruit you, its the only reason I can think of to explain how zealous they are at recruiting.
My Physics unification theory
I had a long flight today so had time for a bit of thinking and here's the result. Which I am submitting to you for peer review before I send it off to be published and collect my Nobel prise.
Highlander or H Theory.
The ideal solution to a problem is the most elegant one, many philosophical and logical devices like Occam's Razor support this. Simplicity is a beautiful thing, any fool can solve a problem in a complex manner but it takes an artist to solve one simply. The more we unify the equations from the different fields of physics the more we can describe greater proportions of the universe with progressively less and simpler equations.
In 1861 when Maxwell's unified the forces of electricity and magnetism to form electromagnetism a force that could be fully explained in a set of four simple equations, physics suddenly leached propelled by this new perspective. Imagine ... all things to do with either electricity or magnetism could be expressed in just four equations. It was wonderful but unfortunately physics has been moving in the wrong direction of late and there are now 'loads' of equations for 'everything'.
I feel the sciences tendency to a top down approach is directly responsible for this unwanted complexity and will now steer science correctly back to its correct direction. The direction of explaining as many things as possible using as fewer rules as possible. In this bottom up approach we just have to find the simplest solution that fits all problems and this must be the ultimate unification equation. Because the unification equation is just one of all possible equations.
Lets start with:
x = 1/y
This may seem like a random place to start but as will be proved later the initial equation is irrelevant. This is a fairly simple and elegant equation you might say, now I think this is made unnecessarily complex by containing a 'y' in a small jump from traditional maths lets simplify it to:
x = 1/x
Now the solution to this is x = 1
Or even more simply put 1 = 1, now we can even further simplify this by getting rid of the unnecessary equals sign and one of the 1's.
1
Any equation when fully computed can be expressed in terms of 1, so the initial starting point is completely irrelevant. For example we will use Newtons 2nd law of motion - Force (F) = Mass (M) x Acceleration (A).
If the car has a mass of 700kg and a driver pushes the car with an acceleration of 0.05m/s/s
Then:
F = MA
F = 700kg x 0.05m/s/s
F = 35kN (kiloNewtons)
Now simply divide both sides by 35kN and you get:
F/35kN = 1
or more simply put 1 = 1 or 1.
Now some of the intermediate solutions to equations can be useful for things like sending spacecraft to the furthest reaches or our solar system or building computers. So these other fields of physics should continue, hopefully reinvigorated by a new directions and knowing where all their equations will ultimately lead them.
Now no scientific theory is worth its salt unless it can be used to make some predictions, so here are mine.
There is one universe.
Every particle in the universe is unique.
NB Notice how this theory works on both the galactic and atomic levels.
Highlander or H Theory.
The ideal solution to a problem is the most elegant one, many philosophical and logical devices like Occam's Razor support this. Simplicity is a beautiful thing, any fool can solve a problem in a complex manner but it takes an artist to solve one simply. The more we unify the equations from the different fields of physics the more we can describe greater proportions of the universe with progressively less and simpler equations.
In 1861 when Maxwell's unified the forces of electricity and magnetism to form electromagnetism a force that could be fully explained in a set of four simple equations, physics suddenly leached propelled by this new perspective. Imagine ... all things to do with either electricity or magnetism could be expressed in just four equations. It was wonderful but unfortunately physics has been moving in the wrong direction of late and there are now 'loads' of equations for 'everything'.
I feel the sciences tendency to a top down approach is directly responsible for this unwanted complexity and will now steer science correctly back to its correct direction. The direction of explaining as many things as possible using as fewer rules as possible. In this bottom up approach we just have to find the simplest solution that fits all problems and this must be the ultimate unification equation. Because the unification equation is just one of all possible equations.
Lets start with:
x = 1/y
This may seem like a random place to start but as will be proved later the initial equation is irrelevant. This is a fairly simple and elegant equation you might say, now I think this is made unnecessarily complex by containing a 'y' in a small jump from traditional maths lets simplify it to:
x = 1/x
Now the solution to this is x = 1
Or even more simply put 1 = 1, now we can even further simplify this by getting rid of the unnecessary equals sign and one of the 1's.
1
Any equation when fully computed can be expressed in terms of 1, so the initial starting point is completely irrelevant. For example we will use Newtons 2nd law of motion - Force (F) = Mass (M) x Acceleration (A).
If the car has a mass of 700kg and a driver pushes the car with an acceleration of 0.05m/s/s
Then:
F = MA
F = 700kg x 0.05m/s/s
F = 35kN (kiloNewtons)
Now simply divide both sides by 35kN and you get:
F/35kN = 1
or more simply put 1 = 1 or 1.
Now some of the intermediate solutions to equations can be useful for things like sending spacecraft to the furthest reaches or our solar system or building computers. So these other fields of physics should continue, hopefully reinvigorated by a new directions and knowing where all their equations will ultimately lead them.
Now no scientific theory is worth its salt unless it can be used to make some predictions, so here are mine.
There is one universe.
Every particle in the universe is unique.
NB Notice how this theory works on both the galactic and atomic levels.
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