Homo CodeMonkius

And another earthquake.

2009-03-18T16:40:00.003+11:00

Just felt another earthquake here in Melbourne CBD on Bourke Street, less than 2 weeks after the last one. Caused a cascade of prairy-dogging as people asked if everyone else felt that.

Confirmed it was felt at the Rialto Towers, and out near Caulfield.

The Age has a 2 line post up noting the earthquake, the geological websites seem to be down again, too many hits I assume.

I'd say it was shorter and weaker than the last one, which was a 4.6/4.7.

Interestingly, we've had a fair bit of rain recently...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13371

My brain dredged up a synaptic connection reminding me of this article. Basically it seems in certain circumstances, heavy rainfall can trigger small earthquakes. I wonder if those circumstances apply here...

Earthquake in Melbourne

2009-03-06T21:24:00.003+11:00

Well, we just had a little earthquake here in Melbourne, very bizarre, it's the first one I've felt, we had one a couple of years ago, but I didn't notice it that time, but this one was pretty strong. No damage or anything as far as I can tell, although The Age's website went down shortly afterwards so I've not been able to find out any news about it so far. Oddly I was sat here on the net at the time, so maybe I got first post on it. :)

9Squirrels

2008-11-06T09:54:00.005+11:00

Well, I finally bought my first domain name this weekend. I am now the proud owner of www.9squirrels.com.

Why 9Squirrels?

Well some years ago, back when I was still living and working England, the country of my birth, a girl who was working reception as a temp, and was studying Japanese at uni, translated all our names into Kanji script. The idea is to pick out kanji that read like the components of our names and put them together.

My name, read in Japanese is KuRiSu (the closest approximation we can get to Chris).

Ku is 9.

Risu is apparently Squirrel.

And so I gained the online name of 9Squirrels. This one is starting to become my favourite Nom-de-net, as ChrisW75 is starting to become a little too obvious and business like, and CodeMonkey is just a little generic.

I'm currently in the process of trying to get the domain name to divert to this here blog, and get myself an @9squirrels.com e-mail address set up, which is proving to be a little more tricky than expected, involving setting up CNAMES and MXNAMES and all kinds of jarong and insider lingo I've not had to worry about thus far.

I worry that A- once I've set it all up and gotten it working, I'll quickly forget how I did it and not be able to even log in to make any further changes, and B- that perhaps that this is yet another sign that I'm getting "old".

Goddammit - Whatever happened to posting chat messages on Talker using raw html tags to change the appearance of your posts?

What happened to Gopher?

It's weird that, as the net has become simpler and more "userfriendly", the stuff in the background has become increasingly complex, if not outright abstruse.

Shit.

I am getting old.

Another sign of age is people's response to the fact that I fell out of a tree at the weekend and badly bruised my ribs (a singularly painful experience, which has not yet reached it's peak as far as I can tell) , and that is "What were you doing up a tree?". I'm 33, why should that automatically preclude a desire and ability to climb trees?

Of course, a younger person would probably have started to heal by now, rather than still being in the "increasingly painful, bruising still developing" stage.

Oh, and finally, congratulations to the Yanks for a successful election, and for choosing the guy who actually seems a particularly intelligent and above all, reasonable man for the job.

Now with added progeny!

2008-09-22T10:24:00.006+10:00

So, now I'm a Dad. It's a bit weird. For the last 3 weeks, Ms Monkey and I have been wandering around the place occasionally stopping and saying "We have a child!". For the first time this weekend, I stopped and said "We're parents!", which suddenly felt alot more real.

Alex (my son, and from now on, Little Monkey), for the record, was born on September 1 weighing 7lbs 3.5 ozs (3.28Kgs) by caesarian, and everything went superbly well. Walking out of the operating room, trailling the paediatrician as he pushed the little cart containing my son was a pretty surreal moment. I was still with it enough to wind up Ms Monkey's mother when I saw her in the hall and greeted her questioning "Well??" with a blank "Well what?" as if I was just having a casual stroll and had bumped into her. A response that nearly got me killed on the spot I think.

Since then it's been a rollercoaster ride of dirty nappies, mild sleep deprivation (he sleeps so well, we're really lucky) and staring at him in equal measures of wonder and disbelief.

Little Monkey seems to be growing well, gaining weight within the guidelines, [edit: I've just been informed that he's been re-weighed and has been hitting almost DOUBLE the usual weight gain for the last week or so, so that's nice] and generally seems pretty happy with his lot in life so far (who wouldn't be? He's got someone to wait on him hand and foot, shoving food in one end and taking it away from the other). He's mostly sleeping well, though has occasional periods of rapid fire feeding frenzies where he ups his intake from every 4 hours to every 2 hours. Apparently this is all normal.

Apparently "normal" covers a very wide range of statuses and situations now.

I'll post again when I damned well feel like it. :)

PS - Two other items.

1 - This weekend I disassembled and reassembled my PC after it stopped working in a pretty serious fashion over a week ago, and it now works just fine. Go figure. (Apparently Jonny 5 would have had nothing to worry about)

2 - I've formed a playlist on my iPod called "Getting shit done", which I can now use as a soundtrack for when I need to focus on my programming. It also make me feel really cool in the process.

-Track 1 - Mission Impossible Theme (Adam Clayton...).

-Track2 - Spybreak! (Propellerheads) AKA the theme from the lobby scene in The Matrix.

- Team Fortress 2 - Theme music from the game of the same name, similar feel to the above 2.

- Playing with Danger - As above.

- On Her Majesty's Secret Service - David Arnold and the Propellerheads - updated and remixed version of the theme music from the Bond film of the same title (crap film, good music).

I need some more tracks for this one I think.

Birth Classes.

2008-07-08T13:31:00.002+10:00

Things are proceeding, as they are apt to do. Last night K and I went to our first birth class, a two hour session at the hospital where we'll be delivering our "bundle of joy" in a couple of months time. Our midwife, henceforth to be named Nurse Placenta, seems a little nuts, but nice and competent, so I'm quite OK with "nuts". She seems very fixated on placentas and all the "wonderful" things that people do with them. Ones she's seen so far include stir frying it, using it to paint on a canvas, and leaving it attached to the baby till the umbilical cord drops off of it's own accord (around 3-5 days). This last is apparently called a "Lotus Birth". Weird. And in a hot climate, not particularly hygienic I'm sure.
We won't be going for any of those options, if I have to pick one, there's options for freezing it for use later, I think it was something to do with stem cells for treating leukaemia in the baby later if necessary. I might need to check that one out again. I imagine it's something that is rather expensive to do.
At one point, while watching a video of some couple from the 80's going through the birth process, K and I lost the plot and started giggling. For some reason the fact that part of my role is to provide "background music" set us off. K had a mental image of me standing in the corner clicking my fingers and singing Sinatra songs, while I pictured the Bazouki player from Monty Pythons Cheese Shop sketch. It took her a while to pull herself together, during which time she had to leave the room for a while. Poor dear.

I'm STILL playing Team Fortress 2, though I've been pretty good at making sure I balance duties around the house with having fun playing games, so it's OK... At least, I'm pretty sure it is.

And following on from the last post, recently I saw The Incredible Hulk, and rather enjoyed it. I don't think they did as good a job as they did with Iron Man, but still a pretty reasonable film and plot, with only a few really odd things that made me think "Noooo! That's crazy!", which when you consider that the main character turns green and grows to something like 5 times his original size when he gets annoyed, and I accept THAT, is pretty impressive.

The year continues.

2008-05-12T11:30:00.003+10:00

Well, I've not exactly been keeping up with my posting have I? So here's a recap of the year so far.
1 - Still going to the gym twice a week, currently weighing in at about 71Kgs, so that's good. It's the heaviest I've been without a beer gut. I'm lifting bigger weights, but a 2 week break for a holiday has set me back a little and I'm hurting like I didn't think was possible. Yesterday I could barely walk, today I can just about manage to stroll without looking like I've had an accident, but running is definitely not on the cards which leads us to...
2 - The aforementioned 2 week break was a holiday to the US (Chicago and Decatur Indiana) to visit friends of K. Decatur needs to be qualified with it's state as apparently there's one in every state in the US, which leads us to...
3 - K is pregnant, so I'm soon going to be a dad. Due date is around mid September and I'm VERY happy. All in all, life is good.
4 - Valve went and released Team Fortress 2, and I'm addicted. Barely a weekend goes past without me dedicating a couple of hours to it. I'm getting reasonably good at it I think, but still not in the same league as these people who spend every waking moment on it. These people are kind of scary, but don't worry, you'll never meet them, they don't get out much. I may have to curtail this habit once the baby graces us with its presence...

Saw Iron Man last night, and it's goooood.

Fitness.

2008-02-25T17:25:00.003+11:00

Well, it's been just over a month since we started heading down to the gym twice a week to be ~~tortured~~ trained by Nick our personal trainer. It seems to be working and my weight is gradually increasing (albeit slowly). The weight I'm lifting is frankly increasing at an alarming rate, and this weekend I was doing squats with 60Kgs on my shoulders. Another 10 Kgs and that would be me lifting ME. During the process of squatting and standing, I was of course glaring intently at myself in the mirror, as I believe is traditional, whilst gurning and sweating. I also noticed a large bulge appearing on each thigh, I've been reassured that these are called "muscles" and that this is in fact, a "good thing".
It's nice being able to look in the mirror and not see a toast rack with a head on top looking back at me, and the morning after pain is no longer crippling between sessions.

At the current rate of increase, I should be bench pressing double decker buses by the end of the year...

Onwards and upwards!

Spam

2008-01-16T12:01:00.000+11:00

My Gmail spam mailbox regularly fills up with "incredible offers" to enlarge my penis, sell me a Rolex or make me a millionaire. The penis enlargement e-mails are the ones I find the funniest, with fantastic subject lines like "Turn your small knob into a huge meat stick!" and "Become a real man increase your male aggregate".
The thing is, it's not free to send these e-mails out, and the costs mount up with the volume that is being sent out. This means that someone out there is actually responding to these e-mails and buying stuff from them.
Now, I don't believe I know a single person who is actually stupid enough to fall for these things, so I'm thinking that the number of responders out there is pretty low. Does this mean that out there somewhere is a guy with an arm load of fake Rolex watches, a dick the size of a cruise missile (or more likely a babies little finger, 'cos the stuff you buy is highly unlikely to work) and a handful of money transfer orders to send a couple of grand to Nigeria?

If it's you dear reader than for pity's sake, STOP! You're only encouraging them.

And while we're on the subject, stop forwarding on e-mails that say something bad will happen if you don't forward it, but something good will happen if you do. Also Facebook posts that say things like "Forward this and see what happens". Nothing is going to happen.

Thank you.

Portentous

2008-01-10T11:28:00.000+11:00

Sometimes I sleep naked. Stick with me here, I'm going somewhere, this isn't just blatant internet exhibitionism, nor am I trying to turn peoples stomachs with mental images of my pale skinny naked body.
Anyway, last night was fairly warm, so I gave up on the shorts and crawled into bed without them. K once again expressed incredulity that I could do something so "out there". "What would happen" she said "if there was a fire?". My somewhat flippant response was that I would run proudly into the street and stand in a manly pose, hands on hips as I watched my house burn to the ground. I demonstrated said pose, eliciting chuckles from her.

At 2:15 we were rudely awakened by the smoke alarm going mental in the hall outside our bedroom. It cut off again before I'd made it out of bed and left me with this half awake belief (strong even in the face of K's denials) that it was in fact the alarm clock trying to tell us something. Then the smoke alarm went off again for another few seconds.

A rapid search of the house found no sign of fire or smoke and a glance out the back door confirmed a complete lack of raging fires out there too. Mystified I examined both smoke alarms and found that they both had a red flashing light on them, a new addition from the standard green light which lets us know they are working (they're wired into the mains). After resetting them both we went to bed and slept the rest of the night without being chargrilled, so I think maybe the backup battery has gone flat and this was just its way of letting us know.

Only on getting back into bed did I remember K's prophetic words "What if there's a fire?"

Spooky.

Apparently I'm skinny.

2007-10-26T14:36:00.000+10:00

Well, I've been to the doctors a few times in the last week, to get some things checked out. Basically, I've lost a little weight.
Now, as anyone who has met me can attest, I have precious little weight to lose, so when I found I'd lost a few kilos over a couple of weeks, at one point dropping almost 2kgs in 2 days, I started getting a bit worried. With Ma being diagnosed with hyperthyroidism last year (which causes weight loss) I figured I'd better get that checked out. The doc weighed me and told me that I was underweight, despite getting a reading about 4 KGs heavier on his crappy old scales than I got on our swanky electronic scales at home, so that was nice. I then booked in to get a blood test on Monday this week, something I wasn't looking forwards to having blacked out last time I was intimately involved with needles. I took it lying down though, which makes it impossible to faint, and then today I got my results.
Everything was normal, except for my TriGlycerides, which is a type of fat. Apparently this means I'm "skinny" according to my doctor. Yes, I go through all that to be told that I need to put on some weight, like I didn't already know this.
Still, this led to some interesting lunchtime web surfing, learning about Triglycerides. Apparently if you WANT low triglycerides (and generally this is the case) you need to cut back on carbs, fat and increase aerobic exercise. I don't exercise, and I eat alot of carbs and fat...
Apparently reducing alcohol consumption also helps reduce triglycerides, so I'll make sure to have a couple of extra beers tonight to compensate.

You are all welcome to hate me now.

The upshot of all this is that I'm going to just keep an eye on my weight, I predict that it'll probably start going back up again when my sleep cycles get back to normal (when we've finished dog sitting) and I'll soon be back to my usual levels of skinniness.

Ciao!

Sleep Deprivation.

2007-10-01T19:20:00.000+10:00

Well here we are again after another excuseless hiatus.
This last week has been pretty rough on me, we're dog sitting again. Looking after K's parents little terrier. It's a lovely dog with a sweet personality, and not as yappy as alot of small dogs frequently are. However, she's used to her routine. More than that, she's used to there being people around almost all the time. The situation at home right now means she's alone for about 8 hours a day now. This does not sit well with the little darling that I have now renamed Tweak, after the nervous kid in South Park.
Tweak will not settle down at night, and I'm an incredibly light sleeper. I need a good half hour of peace and quite to fall asleep, the gentle tap tap tap of claws trotting up and down the hall way do not help. The other night I tried closing the door to our bedroom. This resulted in her lying on the wooden floor outside our door, and occasionally lifting her head up then putting it down again so that her dog tags rattled against the floor.
In the end, I think she settled down at about 2 in the morning, I had ear plugs in by this point, and it was K dealing with her, apparently so that I'd stop jumping out of bed and waking HER up.
This morning I woke up so tired that I couldn't eat, even drinking a glass of juice required me to concentrate on not chucking up (I REALLY get in a bad way without sleep). In the end, K persuaded me to stay home, and I logged on to my work machine and worked the day in comfortable clothes able to take breaks out in the sunshine and have a nap at lunchtime without fear of waking up with a mustache drawn on my face.
It ended up being a productive day, my laziness didn't really kick in, and I think I probably was more productive today than I was on Friday in the office. I reckon I could do this on a regular basis quite happily.... I wonder if the boss would go for it.

Oh, and I feel alot better too, though I'm looking forward to getting in to bed tonight.
With ear plugs.

Alas poor Fern.

2007-08-08T15:54:00.000+10:00

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a nice Maiden Hair fern to sit on my desk at work. The idea being that it would spruce up the rather spartan, dead environment I spend all day in, thereby cheering me up a little. For two weeks it's sat on the shelf above my desk looking all green and healthy, I've had to water it alot due to the dry air-conditioned atmosphere, and I've stood it on a bed of pebbles in a dish of water to keep the air around it moist (a tip I picked up off the internet). With the AC off over the weekend, it was able to survive adequately till Monday morning, especially as I'd give it a good soak before I left on Friday.

But.

Last Friday I forgot to water it before I left.
And I was in Adelaide on Monday, not the office.
By Tuesday, my fern looked like it was barely making it through an extended drought. About 75% of the lush foliage is now crispy and dead.
So much for making me feel better, now I feel worse, my poor little fern.
I think I need to reconsider my choice in plants for the office.

Flat out like a lizard drinking

2007-07-19T11:06:00.000+10:00

Well, things have been pretty hectic lately, work is unbelievably busy, for both me and K. Last night, the first time K didn't bring work home, I did. We've both been working ridiculously long hours and stressing a bit. I'm currently going nuts trying to get some data processed for someone here at work to produce a stats model from. I was due to deliver it this morning, but it didn't work out. I worked on it till 10:30 last night, and ate breakfast in front of my PC at home at 6:30 this morning trying to get it sorted. In between the two times, I made a poor attempt at sleeping.
I'd only just come out of a low week, where everything had been getting me down when the current crunch started to bite, and it really doesn't help. Blah.

In totally unrelated news, I've finally found a radio station I can wake up to which doesn't jolt me awake. It's a local AM radio station called 3CW. It's in Chinese. From listening to this, I've deduced that the Chinese don't shout, and don't have annoying jingles. They don't even seem to play much music, except occasionally the sort of weird whiny/violin-y music you hear in movies like Crouching Tiger, which I find quite peaceful. All in all it beats waking up to Triple J. The only downside is that the reception isn't great, so there's a bit of static. I quite miss my old radio alarm from England, which I gave away when I left. It turned on quietly, and ramped the volume up to it's set level over the course of about 20 seconds, giving me a much smoother introduction to the day.

Also, twice this week I've been subjected to smelly people on the train. This wasn't just mild BO at the end of the day (a smell which really doesn't bother me too much being tall enough to get fresh air on even the most crowded train), this was full blown "I haven't had a shower this month, and I've worn the same clothes for the last 4 weeks" smells. One (surprisingly) was a woman who seemed reasonably dressed, but was fat enough to take up 2 seats on the train, so perhaps the smell was from those regions of her body which she could no longer reach to clean. The other was a mumbling rancid-fat-smelling guy who rocked onto the packed train with 2 dogs. The dogs didn't smell, as they obviously had higher hygiene standards than him. In both cases I was eventually forced to move away from the smell, in the latter case I moved to different carriage. Honestly, how do people get like that? How can you not notice? I get paranoid after a stressful day at work, and I shower every morning and wear antiperspirant.

Anyway, here's hoping that work will let up soon and I can take a day or two off to de-stress.
I'm thinking maybe a Friday and a Monday so I can have 2 short weeks as well...

How about you guys? I know there's a few of you out there, I can see the blips on my graph (though it's been steadily dropping off since my last post).
Laters
CodeMonkey

Who are you?

2007-06-20T12:20:00.000+10:00

I signed up to Google Analytics recently, a free service which reports on access to your website. And I have to say I've found the results absolutely fascinating. I've been checking in fairly regularly to see what new results are available, an have been impressed with the detail of the data.

Obviously this is a small blog, and not many people visit it, but I'd been curious for a while as to exactly how many people DID visit it. I now know the answer. Since the 7th of June there have been 17 visits to my site. A number of those are going to be me using it to link to other places, but a decent number of them aren't. Google Analytics allows you to drill down on a map a see where your visitors are from, of the 17, 11 are from Melbourne, most are probably me, however, 3 are from Perth, 1 is from Montreal, 1 is from somewhere in SE Asia (but Google was unable to specify exactly where) and 1 is from London (possibly a friend from back home).
So that's kind of interesting. Welcome to our foreign cousins!

The other report that is interesting are the sources of these visitors. 7 came direct, those will be people who've got me book marked, and a number of those visits will be me, possibly all. I got 5 referrals from Blogger.com, which I think is possibly me checking a post after I've published it. I also got 3 from Rods site, cheers mate! The final 2 were from Google, and from there, I can get the search terms used to find my page.
First up
all dressed backed potato
Which alerted me to a typo in one of my Peru posts, as obviously that should be BAKED potato. Strange that someone else made the same typo in their search, and somehow found my site because of it. My page wasn't the first in the list though, so they obviously had to work their way down to me. I wonder what they were after? Baked potato recipes perhaps?
The second search string was
tablets to stop you pooing
Which I guess took them to the post on Peru and the stuff we'd packed. I was a little surprised by that one when it popped up this morning. To the person who found my page from that search term, I sincerely hope you found what you were looking for, and I'm sorry my comments on "tablets to stop you pooing" weren't more informative. Perhaps I should have included some brand names and a location to go to buy them. I can't comment on effectiveness as ultimately I didn't need them.

In total, I've apparently had 7 absolute unique visitors to my site, a number from which I'm sure I can grow... if I can just keep up the pace of posting... Obviously I need some more good search phrases in my posts, and possibly more discussion on pooing...

Fear the Geometry!

2007-06-19T09:25:00.000+10:00

Following on from yesterdays post concerning the shooting here in Melbourne, police have apparently identified the shooter and are tracking him down. The age had this to say:-

"Hudson, a member of the Hells Angles bikie gang, is known to police in Queensland after being involved in a shoot out with rival gang the Finks in March last year."

Ah yes, the Hells Angles, a little known geometric faction of the Hells Angels gang. Well known for having Pythagoras theorem tattooed across their knuckles.

Original story here

Also I noted a story saying that Kara, the apparent intended victim of the attack enjoyed "living dangerously", a thrilling deduction apparently made after reading her MySpace profile. In my brief look this morning, I didn't see much that seemed particularly dangerous, beyond the usual idiotic tendency of MySpacers to put up every detail of their social life up on the web for all to see, including where they're going and when they're going to be there. Frankly, to me this seems to take all the challenge out of stalking someone. With all the gate crashed parties and attacks going on as a result of MySpace posts, I wonder how long it'll be before people wise up and start injecting a little anonymity into their online personas...

Interesting Day.

2007-06-18T13:16:00.000+10:00

It's been an interesting morning here in Melbourne. A triple shooting took place a couple of blocks from my office this morning, about 8:15/8:20. Early reports suggest that it may have been following on from an altercation in a bar nearby where a guy (possibly the shooter) tried to drag a woman out of the bar by her hair (nice to see a return to the traditional Neanderthal pick-up techniques there) he was stopped by some other drinkers. Sometime later he was seen trying to drag her into a cab out on the street, and when 2 guys stepped up to help her, he shot them, and then apparently also shot the girl. One of the guys is dead, and the others are in hospital being treated.
I actually arrived at the office with no idea anything untoward was happening, but shortly afterwards there were police outside our building and we got a call from one of the other workers saying that he wasn't allowed into the building, there was an armed guard outside the building, and a cadre of police armed with shotguns and machine guns had entered the building. Us drones inside the building of course saw and heard nothing of this, and would have been blissfully unaware of the chaos unfolding around us in the CBD were it not for phone calls from staff saying they couldn't get in, or were going to be late because of disruptions to trams or blocked roads etc.
The prick with the gun is still at large unfortunately, though he has apparently ditched the gun at a nearby building site, and it has since been found. We can only hope that he didn't get his prints off it which would make it just a matter of time before the police nail him. The fact that they've not picked him up yet though suggests that he's got away from the city now.
If you want more details, just head over to www.theage.com.au and see it splattered all across the main page.

Back in Oz, and working hard.

2007-06-07T16:11:00.000+10:00

Yup, I'm back in Oz (and have been for 2 weeks now) and working hard once again. The holiday was just absolutely awesome, and I'll share some piccies via this blog soon. The flight home was long, about 30 hours of travelling + waiting at airports all up. There were issues with the luggage as well, poor communication from LAN staff (really at an international airport, why put someone who speaks poor English on the help desk?), and unhelpful check-in staff. K's luggage ended up arriving home several hours after us.
Other than that though it was pretty cruisey. Saw plenty of films (The pursuit of Happyness, School for Scoundrels, Man of the Year, Deja Vu, Night at the Museum, some of these were on the out bound journey though) and read alot. And slept, so I was reasonably fresh when I returned home.
I'll post more when things have settled back down, but for now, it's just good to be home.

Still Alive!

2007-05-19T04:44:00.000+10:00

I´m in Machu Picchu having survived 4 days hiking from Ollantaytambo to here, arriving yesterday. Sunrise at the famed SunGate was a washout due to heavy cloud, but it was still pretty amazing being there with about 200 other hikers.
The Llama count has gone off the scale now, even discounting Llamas being led by various Peruvians trying to get you to take a photo of them (for a small fee of course). We even saw a chinchilla yesterday in Machu Picchu which was hiding from the tourists on top of a rock right next to the Condor altar surrounded by oblivious tourists. It´s been a good trip, and I´ve seen stacks and stacks of things, the scenery has been amazing, the wildlife spectacular (that portion of it that wasn´t trying to feast on my blood anyway), and the plants are just out of this world.
The hike here pretty much gave you a view to go "Wow!" to every 20 minutes or so, it´s just been amazing.
That said, there are some things I´m looking forwards to when I get home
- Clean clothes
- My own bed
- Door frames I don´t have to duck through
- Being able to drink water from the tap
- A decent hot shower
- having a solid poo
- Food which arrives pretty much as expected
- Food with flavour.

Thi last one is possibly a little unkind. In the jungle at the lodge, the food was all great, and local dishes. On the hike, the food was great as well, and every meal was different. Thing is, Peru just doesn´t seem to do good restaurants. Every meal we´ve had from a restaurant here has been pretty bland and samey, with the exception of one meal we were led to by a friend of K´s who moved here a ferw months back. It was in a tiny little place about 6ft wide and 12 deep that you wouldn´t have been able to tempt most tourists in without the glowing recommendations that we got from Matt. K got the Chicheron (pork boiled for several hours, then deep fried and heavily salted served with a baked potato and the local sweet corn) and I got the Adobo (a casserole made with the same pork I think which had a huge chili in it), and both dishes were fantastic. Absolutely awesome stuff.
Well, we´ve got a couple more hours to kill here in Machu Picchu before we catch the train back to Cusco. The train takes about 4 hours to get there, so it´s going to be a long boring ride I think. The start will obviously be good, but after 4 hours, I imagine that it´ll get a bit tired.
I´ll be back home in 4 days, I´ll check in again then.
Hasta Luego!
CodeMonkey

Santiago

2007-05-06T07:25:00.000+10:00

Been going for about 24 hours now, had a couple of hours sleep on the plane, but not enough, still, thanks to the dateline, it's still Saturday afternoon, so we'll be cramming abot a day and a half into 1 day. 2 hours till our flight, another 3 to Lima, then we get driven to the hotel where we can collapse for the night.
If you're ever in Santiago for a long time between flights, I recommend the Mistral Lounge at 25 US dollars, there's internet, food, drink, and most importantly of all, a hot shower. Fantastic!
See yas!

Less than a week to go.

2007-05-02T14:29:00.000+10:00

In just 3 days, I'll be on a plane to South America, Peru specifically. The idea is a little scary I think, however, I am now starting to get excited about the trip. My backpack is mostly packed now, pretty much everything I'll need (except for underwear) is in there, and I've got all the equipment and drugs I'll need. I laid all the drugs out on the bed the other day, while packing, and I tell you, it looked like a pharmacy stock take. We've got water purifying tablets, tablets to stop you pooing, tablets to stop you throwing up, tablets for malaria and tablets for headaches. Sachets of electrolytes to counter dehydration in case of diarrhea (I guess in case the anti-pooing tablets aren't strong enough) wet wipes (for after the pooing) anti bacterial handwash (which in conjunction with the water purification tablets will hopefully prevent the need for about half the previously mentioned pooing related chemicals). On top of this there's a bunch of other assorted bottles, insect repellent and washing gels. Today I also bought mosquito nets for over our heads.
One thing I think which would have been better if organised differently is the fact that we're going to both the Amazon Rainforest (hot and humid) AND into the Andes (cold and probably dry), thus requiring two entirely different types of gear. Still, this gets both trips out of the way in one go, and 24 hours of flight time (each way) to go somewhere isn't something you want to be doing too often if you can help it.

One great thing about this holiday though is that it's allowed me to feed my craving for gadgets, and I now own a headlight, and the special cold weather merino clothing is practically gadget-like, and there's the down sleeping bag as well, and the new backpack. I've also had plenty of opportunity to browse through all the camping gadgets in various stores without being dragged away by K, I've been almost... encouraged. :)

Caffeine is not my friend.

2007-04-26T13:36:00.000+10:00

So, Prior to my trip to Peru, I decided it would be a good idea to wean myself off caffeine, in case I can't get my regular morning cup of tea while I'm over there. Sounds simple eh? I'd cut my intake right down since Christmas, just having 1 cup of regular tea in the morning, then 1 or 2 decaff teas during the day and I've not been eating much chocolate, and no energy drinks. So, Sunday, I get up and make tea using decaff tea bags. Sunday evening I start to get a bit of a headache. Monday morning, I still have it, and it's worse. I took Neurofen and it didn't touch it. In the afternoon I hit the chemist up for some serious headache tablets, stuff for migraines that has paracetamol AND codeine in it. That took the edge off, though it was still detectable. Tuesday, still got a headache, but no where near as bad, Wednesday, still got the headache, just. Today, I feel fine, however, I ate a fair amount of chocolate yesterday, and that's got caffeine in it, so I may have just reset myself, and be set up to suffer some more headaches in the next few days. I hope not.
Going cold turkey is not fun. Not in the least. One cup of tea a day shouldn't leave me this addicted, but obviously it has. I'm now considering not going back to regular tea when I get back, just so I never have to go through this again.

Funny Ha Ha.

2007-04-18T20:17:00.000+10:00

Went to see Tim Minchin last night at The Capitol theatre, part of the Melbourne Comedy Festival line up. A damned good show, the guy is damned funny and can sing and play the piano pretty damned good too. I'd say the guy is a genius, but the word is overused.

I've managed to get over my GW induced bad nights sleep from Sunday night, and am feeling pretty good, the cold which seemed to be looming yesterday seems to have been beaten back into submission, and I'm feeling good. Monday night, despite planning to spend the evening indoors with K, having spent the whole of Sunday evening ignoring her playing Guild Wars, I ended up on the computer again, this time playing PC Support to my dear mum up in Queensland. On that note, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Microsoft from the bottom of my heart for introducing the remote assistance tool, meaning I can just log straight on to her machine, find the problem and fix it without having to talk her through the complex process over the phone.

Yawn.

2007-04-16T09:13:00.000+10:00

I feel like death this morning. After meeting up with Dr Curses and The GM last night for a round of Guild Wars, I made the mistake of going straight to bed. A three hour Guild Wars thrash cannot be purged by lying down and closing your eyes. In fact, spending that long concentrating on something, then going to bed is a sure fire way of making sure that you dream about it, and think about it all. night. long.
Consequently I had a very restless nights sleep.
I did however get to speak to the lovely Sam over Skype last night for a few minutes, though we had to use text because she couldn't find her mic.

The gorgeous K and myself had a pretty productive weekend, she painted the floor of the front porch a dark blue-grey colour which finishes it off beautifully...

I gave her a hand with the second coat on Sunday morning, having spent the first coat in bed on Saturday morning. I then dived into some gardening, mowing the lawn and doing some weeding and pulling up all the half dead daisies from the back of the house, and replacing them with fresh new (soon to be half dead) daisies which I took from elsewhere in the garden where they'd self-seeded.
A productive weekend, which, thanks to GW, will probably be followed to a long tortuous unproductive week.

Oh My God! It's Slack Bastard!

2007-04-12T14:06:00.000+10:00

OK, so I've been a bit slack lately in the updates, it's been almost exactly 1 month since my last post. I've been really busy here at work (I'm currently waiting for someone to call me back) for the last few weeks, flat out like a lizard drinking. We have a major project running which should be ending sometime around yesterday... So, I've had no time to put in little updates at work, and by the time I get home the last thing I want to do is formulate complex thoughts and bash them into the computer.
Not a huge amount to report either really. There was one big event, a fancy dress party I attended as Austin Powers, with my trusty assistant Felicity Shagwell (K). A Fantastic evening, with everyone making a pretty decent effort to get dressed up.
Oh, and apparently a skinny Austin Powers just doesn't work...

So there you have it. Next time I'm going as someone skinny, I should be able to pass that off pretty easy. I'm thinking either a reprisal of my Crow costume or possibly Bruce Lee for a laugh (will require some makeup to make it look like I've got muscles obviously)... maybe The Preacher from Poltergeist... or was it Poltergeist 2?

We also spent half of this long Easter weekend repainting our front porch, to cover up the botch job done by the "professionals" hired by the previous owner. They'd obviously not bothered treating the knots in the timber, so the whole area was covered in brown blotches where the stain was leeching out. It looks fantastic now.

K's birthday yesterday went well, and was rounded off by another fantastic Thai meal at Thai Saffron in Church Street, Brighton. Fan-bloody-tastic.

Long Weekend - Beach Wedding.

2007-03-13T14:21:00.000+11:00

This weekend was a first for me, my first ever outdoor wedding ceremony. K and I went to a friends wedding down on the beach at Brighton on Sunday. The weather was pretty windy, and kind of overcast, though it brightened occasionally. The beach was full of kite surfers and I was hanging for someone to crash into the wedding party, but it never happened.
The after-party (aka Reception) was pretty good. I was dropped onto a table with a bunch of the brides workmates, while K performed some arcane bridesmaidly duties up at the head table. This worked out quite well as I got on pretty well with the people at my table and had a great laugh with them. All in all, a good evening.
The rest of the weekend rolled by in a pretty unassuming fashion. I had a chiro appointment to get my aching back straightened again, got a few hours on Guild Wars with my 3 characters, and also bought a copy of New Scientist which has kept me amused in any quiet moments between.

I think New Scientist might become a regular read for me now. My thirst for science literature has been increasing lately, but I've been stumped by the cost of books over here, and the problem of not knowing if the book is well written, or even current. I've bought a few books lately which I've found too hard to read, and have started noticing a few contradictions between different authors on topics such as String Theory. Perhaps a weekly journal, where the articles need to be kept at a reasonable length, and are by their very nature, up to date, is a better option. This weeks articles had me reasonably hooked, with 3 major stories (Is the universe fractally shaped, how skin pigment is decided by genes and some insight into Carbon Offestting) which kept me interested, as well as one smaller story, which was also interesting, but far more scary, concerning how a long report into climate change was edited by a non-scientific, government led board, to soften the impact of a number of statements concerning how dire the situation currently is. It's horrifying to think that there is a shadowy layer out there which is filtering the bad news, trying to hide the awful, inconvenient truth from us.

Oh, and we also watched An Inconvenient Truth on Saturday night which I will heartily recommend to everyone. Go see it. you owe it to yourself and everyone else in the world. Al Gore is a very good speaker judging from this doco, entertaining and informed. Exactly what is needed for this kind of subject.

Hope everyone out there is good.

Fitness wise, this weekend wasn't too hot, though I did 10 minutes of fast walking on the treadmill as well as my new weights routine.

Pain.

2007-03-07T11:58:00.000+11:00

I went for another run this morning, but I think this might be the last one for a while. My back really hurts now, it's a constant ache that I can relieve, and it's driving me nuts. I only got it straightened out a week ago. My right knee also feels sore where I bruised it a couple of months ago. That's been getting worse the last couple of runs.
I'm thinking that cycling might be a better alternative, as it's lower impact, and I've never had any back pain after cycling.
God dammit! I thought getting fit was supposed to make you feel good??? I'm quite a bit fitter than I was a couple of months ago, but I feel like crap.

Hectic

2007-03-06T14:18:00.000+11:00

It's been a hectic week, and there's no sign of let up just yet. On Friday night I had the ever-fun Workcover Social Club Harbour Cruise around Melbourne Harbour, and caught up with old colleagues as well as meeting my latest replacement in the team, an attractive female SAS programmer, a species believed to have been hunted almost to extinction.
Saturday night we went over to our ex-next-door-neighbours house for dinner after hiking the 1000 steps again. Sunday we went out with the Curry club to a local Indian restaurant and last night we went to our current neighbours going away party.
Tonight it continues with a friend popping over to buy our current (and soon to be ex-) neighbours fridge, tomorrow night I'm over there to rebuild their computer, and Thursday night we've invited them over to ours for dinner, as by then they'll have packed everything away as they leave on Friday.
Saturday I think is reasonably clear, though Kye has to go over to a friends, Sunday is the same friends wedding.
Monday is a public holiday, and thank whatever you hold holy that it is, because we'll have had enough by then I think.
Besides all this, not alot of interest is happening. I am keeping up the fitness lark, though I've yet to see any real benefit for it, beyond being able to run all the way to the station yesterday morning without coughing up a lung. I don't actually feel any more energetic or alive. I feel a little ripped off. I do think my body looks just a touch more... buff(?) than before. K claims to not be able to see any sign of this though.

Jabs

2007-02-27T19:09:00.000+11:00

So, K and I headed to the doctors this lunchtime to get our jabs ready for the trip to Peru. I was a touch nervous, I'm really not keen on the needles thing. It's not a major issue, I just don't like people stabbing my in the arm with lengths of surgical steel.
When the doc was walking out the door to retrieve the THREE sets of injections we'd be needing (Yellow Fever, HepA + Typhoid, Tetanus) he asked if either of us was likely to faint, we laughed, said no.
We were wrong.
K had her jabs first as she reasoned that watching me be nervous about having mine would make her more apprehensive, so she had hers like a little trooper. I watched the door, you know, in case it decided to attack while we were distracted. No problems. My turn. He pulls out the needles for my set and asks again if there's a problem, I tell him no, it's not that bad, I'm just not that keen. I go back to watching the door as he swabs my arm (you can't be too careful, Killer Doors can attack at ANY time!). Jab 1, Yellow fever, no probs, barely felt it. Jab 2, Hep A and Typhoid, really stung. Jab 3, no probs, but hurt when he pushed the stuff in me. All done, everything is cool. The doc gets up and throws the needles in the needle bin and we chat for about 1 minute about how that wasn't so bad. Then I get this feeling like a head rush from standing up to quick. I manage to say "I don't feel so good" before I'm transported away to another world where I'm riding on a train through the African Savanna (I met someone in the waiting room who was telling me about this trip he was going on next year). Next thing I know I'm lying on the floor sweating profusely, feeling extremely hot, K is looking very worried and the doc is leaning over me telling me not to worry, to just relax, it's just a reaction to having 3 jabs at once.
Yeah, I totally blacked out for about 20-30 seconds. Soon afterwards that brief respite was just a happy memory as the adrenaline my body had kicked into my body in response to the loss of blood pressure (hence the sweating) kicked off a bunch of other reactions including a moderate amount of vomiting. In the end, the lovely doctor had to give me a 4th injection just to stop me from throwing up.
In all, it took about half an hour before I felt OK to leave the place and have K escort me home on the train. It wasn't a pleasant trip, the last 2 stops were torturous, as I started feeling sick again. When we got home, I slept for about an hour, and I'm feeling human again now. Not a well human, but a human nonetheless.
K bless her has been fantastic all afternoon looking after me. I think she got a bit of a scare. She even cooked me lasagne for dinner tonight.
I think I'll avoid future injections where feasible.

Fitness is overrated...

2007-02-25T17:50:00.000+11:00

So, yesterday, I got up, and thought "I'm going to go for a run", and I did, and I ran further than the previous runs, so this is a step up. When I got back I went through a set of press ups, sit up and dimly remembered kata (kama no kata and the kion hapo) from Ninjutsu years ago. And alot of stretching. It felt pretty good.
Then, we were walking around Southland, and I thought to myself, hey, I'll get myself some weights, so I can do some weight training, sort out my shoulders and strengthen my back a little in the process. I find a cheap pack of weights, 20Kg, that looked about right for me to get started with.
I hurt my back.

I didn't even make it to the cash register.

The weights are sitting in our spare room now, pristine and ready to be picked up and put down multiple times. But I can't bring myself to do it just yet.

At least today I can bend at the waist without grunting. Still, I think I'll be giving my chiro a call to see if I can get an appointment this week.

Oh, and I've racked up about 5 hours of gaming on GW this weekend, what with Kye's bridesmaid duties on Friday and Saturday night. Nice.

UPDATE:
I got my chiro appointment yesterday. It was actually the most painful treatment I've ever had, even worse than when I fell down some stairs, or injured myself doing gymnastic while drunk (both pretty serious injuries). Some muscles in my back (apparently I do have some) had spasmed and Kevin, my chiro, loosened them up for me by driving his thumbs into them. Paaaaiiiinnn. I couldn't even do my usual trick of breathing through it because the pressure he was putting on my back kept forcing the air out of me. When I got home I put an ice pack on it and had a beer (s'ok, alcohol is a muscle relaxant). Felt much better after that! I can resume my ewxercising Thursday apparently.

All links Friday.

2007-02-23T12:02:00.000+11:00

Not much going on at the moment, I managed another run one morning this week, so I'm kind of keeping up with that, though probably not at the rate I should be. I've noticed that my legs feel a bit chunkier when I'm walking after a run, it's a strange sensation, like someone just strapped a bunch of water bags to my thighs when I wasn't looking.
I've got a big gaming weekend lined up, K is off to dinner at a friends tonight, and a hens night for the same friend on Saturday night... Rather than spend my time rounding up some mates and going out on the lash, I've decided to spend some time grinding away on Guild Wars instead. OK, it's a little sad and geeky that I'm spending Friday and Saturday evenings sat in front of the computer, however, most of you would probably have got a movie out and sat in front of the TV. At least this way I'm actively exercising my mind a bit.

So, I've found, in my daily trawls, a number of interesting sites (well, interesting to me anyway), so I'm going to add them up here.

Comic: Looking for Group - Fantasy/Roleplaying themed comic. Very amusing, looks to be WoW based mostly.

Comic: Extra Life - General computer game/geek culture related comic.

General Interest: Damn Interesting - Random articles that really are pretty damned interesting.

Geeking out.

2007-02-19T16:07:00.000+11:00

I'm spending today, my birthday day-off (almost a week late due to work pressures and obscenely hot weather where I figured it would be better to be in the office than melting at home) playing Guild Wars and geeking out in a fairly big way. Though I did go riding in Lysterfield park this morning so I don't feel like I've totally wasted the day.
Yesterday ended up being a pretty full day, despite the almost unbearable 38 degree heat. It's been damned hot the last week or so, with virtually no let up, and over night "lows" hanging around the high 20's. It makes pretty much everything tiring, and there's no escaping the heat unless you feel like spending your days hiding in the shopping centres. K and I hit the local shops and bought blinds, 2 roman blinds for the back doors on the inside to block the sun there, and a external roll up blind for the kitchen windows. I then also bought more blinds to go on the outside of my study windows, as the temperature in there was unbearable by about 8:30am on Sunday morning I installed all of them. I guess some people back home in England would kill for weather like this, but trust me, it starts to take it out of you after a while. :-)
Lysterfield was fantastic this morning, it was cool, with a fine drizzle coming through towards the end of my ride, I saw tons of Kangeroos, some very large ones, standing only a few feet back from the path as I rode past. One was almost as tall as me and stood looking me in the eye as I stared back. I really wished I'd taken my camera along (I'll remember next time, and there'll be no kangeroos). At one point while riding through the trees, I heard a crackle next to me, turned and saw a kangeroo crouched no more than 2 feet from the path on my right feeding. It barely glanced at me before it carried on eating. Absolutely beautiful. It's amazing how they blend in with the dead grey tree stumps and fallen branches. Definitely a great start to the day.

Happy Birthday.

2007-02-14T12:18:00.000+11:00

Yes, once again, another year has rolled past as they do. Traditionally this is a time for navel gazing and trying to work out ones place in the universe, and the wisdom of various decisions taken thus far in life. I'm not really into that sort of thing myself. I made the decisions I made because they appeared the best choices to make at the time. I always make sure that at every fork in the road, I take the path that seems right over the one that seems wrong, the one that seems fun over the one that seems boring, the one that seems rewarding over the one that seems empty. This leaves me no cause to go back and say "If only..." because with what I knew then, I made the only choice I could make. No point digging up old ghosts.
Yes, some of those decisions could have been handled better with more information, and with the benefit of my now much longer experience, but hey, if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't be in a position to make those choices then, and now I wouldn't know whatI know now, having not made those choices and learned those lessons.... I think.
Besides, I'm happy where I am right now, and changing the past in any way, would probably not lead me to where I am now. I'm in love with a wonderful woman, who loves me right back, I have a nice house, a job that is actually reasonably rewarding, a hobby that keeps me occupied in between, without costing me all my money, and a number of good friends with whom I can share my happiness. Really, there's nothing else I need in this world.... Everythign else is just "stuff".

I did have cause to ponder on some deep and meaningful thoughts this morning, while packed into a train bearing the wonderful aroma of stale urine, presumably from last night. I thought back to a conversation with a guy from work about single friends and potential matches for them, which occured yesterday afternoon. He asked me what my friend was like, and I had a hard time explaining. How do you sum a person up in a few sentences? You really can't. I thought more about that this morning, and about labels people apply to other people, and how ridiculously futile that is. I describe myself as a geek, but that isn't all of me. It occured to me how often we describe people by the groups they are in, by their religion, sexuality or culture, but really that's like describing Constables Hay Wain by saying "It's a bit brown".
I think we'd do well to remember that, when casually slapping a trite label onto them and also when describing ourselves. We're all masterpieces, not just "a bit brown".

I promise I'll avoid such philosophical musings for the forseeable future.

PS - In binary my age is now 100000. OK, that's my geek bit out of the way.

2007-02-09T15:59:00.000+11:00

There are days when I question the sanity behind my "choice" of career. Days when I find that no matter how fast I run at the goal, whenever I get to where it was, I find some bastard has moved it elsewhere, or tagged it with a note saying "This is not the goal you are looking for" or have decided to play a different game entirely.
Today is just such a day.
I've had more false starts on this current project than real ones, everytime someone gives me data, it's always followed by an update, everytime I think I'm done, someone says "Hang on, that's not right, here's the proper data" and I start again.
I'm due to deliver some data to people in 1.5 hours, and the data providers are off checking things on the input data.
It's looking like it's not going to happen.

Third run...

2007-02-08T09:34:00.000+11:00

I went out again running this morning, still didn't feel that comfortable, but better than Tuesday, not as stiff, still not as fluid as I remember.
Perhaps my mind is playing tricks on me, but I remember running through the countryside like a graceful, lithe gazelle, whereas right now I'm running like a poorly animated Pinocchio. Maybe running first thing in the morning isn't the best move, my back is always pretty rigid in the morning, it takes a while for it to loosen up.
Currently I'm running for a bit short of 10 minutes, then doing some press ups, sit ups, weights for my shoulders and stretching, I'm planning to up the stakes this weekend with a bigger run. I'm hoping I'll get my stride on with a longer run and not look like I'm running in a back brace. This will depend how I feel after Saturday mornings chiropractor appointment. If have a major adjustment, then no running.

I have already noticed an improvement in the bulge though, it's easier to hold it in, and flatter when I'm not concentrating.

By coincidence, The Biggest Loser is currently on TV, it started this weekend. This gives me plenty of opportunity for feeling superior as well as laughing at the pain of the beached whales rolling around in the gym sobbing because they've been asked to push their bodies for the first time in years. Really they get no sympathy from me. I love the program, because, unlike most other "Reality Shows", EVERYONE gets something out of this. Even if the participants don't win, they get put on the path to a better, healthier life, and viewers get motivated to try to improve themselves too. However, the ones who crack the sads before day 3, because the trainer is pushing them to exercise their fat, flabby arses harder than they've ever exercised before, who sob uncontrollably every time they get on the frikkin walking machine, well, I just have this to say "Cry me a river tubby. If you hadn't been eating enough food each day to sustain a third world family for a week, if you'd got off your fat arse 20 years ago and done a little exercise, you wouldn't be there now, sweating, screaming and crying on TV, just so you can lose enough weight walk through a doorway without having to turn sideways. Suck it up!".
I hope that one day these words don't come back to bite me in my expanding arse... Judging by my progress thus far though (183 cm tall, under 70Kgs, 31cm waist and just shy of 32 years old), I think I'm pretty safe.

Edit: I should point out, that it's only a few people on the show I'm being this spiteful about. For the most part the people sweat it out and make a personal commitment to improving their lives, and most continue to do so, even afer being voted out of the house fatties house. They sometimes still sob, but I'll accept that, being the magnanimous, big hearted person that I am.

Battle of the Bulge

2007-02-06T12:08:00.000+11:00

Managed to drag my arse out of bed this morning and go for another run. If I can keep this up a couple of weeks, maybe it'll become less painful to do.
It didn't feel as comfortable as Sundays run, I was still aching a little I guess, feeling very stiff and inflexible.
I'll have to check my weight tomorrow morning and make sure it's not having too much of an impact, I can't really afford to lose weight, I just want to move it around a bit and get fitter.

Exercise Scmexercise

2007-02-05T16:46:00.000+11:00

We (K and I) are off to Peru in a few months to hike the Inca trail. It's 4 days hiking at high altitude, so I'm thinking I need to do something to get my fitness a little ways above it's current level (which is to say my "baseline" fitness level, carefully honed by spending extended periods sitting still in front of a computer both at work and at home, I'm really dedicated).
To this end we've done a couple of short hikes up in the Dandenongs to get used to the idea of walking in hilly areas, and this Sunday I went for a short 10 minute run around the block followed by some push ups, sit ups and weights. I felt pretty good after all that and ended up doing a number of small chores around the house without prompting.
Last night Rod came over for an impromtu BBQ and we had a few beers (South American beers for me, got to get in training for that too!) and a bit of a natter over our burgers.

This morning I woke up with a double whammy hangover. A sore head from the beer, and a sore body from the exercise. I've been monitoring my recovery process and found that I have gotten over the booze faster than the exercise. Proof that it's better to go out drinking than it is to go to the gym!
You read it here first people!

Big Day Out

2007-01-29T10:46:00.000+11:00

I hope everyone enjoyed the Australia Day Weekend (those in Australia anyway, the rest of you would hopefully have had a good weekend as well, just not an Australian one). I managed to pack a fair amount into the available 3 days, a trek in the Dandenong mountain range as preparation for the upcoming Inca Trail hike in Peru in May, a 5 hour stint on Guild Wars to finally finish a quest which has been bugging me for a few months now, and yesterday, The Big Day Out. The Big Day Out for those not in the know is a huge day of concerts with lots of big acts, most of which could command large crowds of adoring fans all on their own (such as Muse, Jet, The Vines, The Killers, The Presets, John Butler Trio, You Am I, Violent Femmes, Tool and so on). It's a long, busy day out in the sun with about 40,000 other people of varying ages and levels of intoxication. All in all, a good day. Some stand out moments for me were:-
- Critiquing other patrons choice of clothing with K. Always a fun passtime for me, these events always generate plenty of fodder, from multitudes of goths and emos, to the just plain weird, like the couple that turned up with her dressed as a nurse in a pink uniform, and him dressed as a schoolgirl, despite having a long scary looking beard.
- Seeing two large, scary looking guys bump into each other, each apologise, grin and say no worries before carrying on their separate ways, such a nice friendly crowd.
- Noticing a number of people (one might call them "youths") who had written on themselves "BDO" along with various other scrawlings. I wondered to myself several times if this was to remind themselves which particular event they were at...
- Getting on the wrong escalator at Melbourne Central Station rushing for a train that K said we'd "never make", then jumping the railing to get to our platform off the descending escalator in time to get on our train.
Ultimately we enjoyed it, but decided that next time my office offers to send us to a show to say "Thanks for the hard work" we'll take a comedy show, or something with seating. I think we might be getting old.

Sweet Dreams?

2007-01-25T09:48:00.000+11:00

Last night I had a dream that Melbourne was being blown up by Al-Qaeda using small (and apparently pretty ineffectual) nuclear bombs. I was in my office, but much higher up and looking out to the north of Melbourne when the first one went up. No flash or bang, just a huge mushroom cloud. The next one went off closer, the 3rd closer still, the 4th went up right outside my office (see what I mean by ineffectual?) close enough that the stalk of the mushroom was rushing up past the windows, which blew in, in a kind of half hearted fashion.
I was already heading to the basement by this point where apparently we had a secret access to Melbournes suddenly sprawling (and very London-like) underground system.

I think the repeated nuclear blasts may have been suggested to me by playing around with Zombie Infection Simulator, which allows you to kick off a bombardment to rid your city of zombies.
http://www.sothisisacomic.com/Zombie/zomb3.html
And if you go there, I suggest you don't read the "comic" it's absolutely appalling.

Naked Dreams

2007-01-18T11:47:00.000+11:00

I had a dream the other night that I was naked. Naked out in the streets. Sitting out the front of a cafe with K, enjoying a cup of tea. I saw a group of people walking towards us at the same time as I realised that I was naked.
You know when people talk about nightmares where they've dreamt that they turned up to work, then realised they were naked? Well, this was nothing like that. I didn't freak out, I just tweaked the blanket that was draped over my knees so that it covered my "bits" and continued enjoying my cup of tea. I didn't feel the least bit embarassed either, the blanket was more for other peoples sake than my own apparently.
I wonder, does this say something about me that this didn't cause me to wake up in a cold sweat? I seem to remember that a dream about finding yourself naked in public is a sign that you are insecure, but what does it mean when you don't care? Am I secretly an exhibitionist? Am I that self confident, that the sudden discovery that I'm naked in public doesn't cause me a moments concern? Am I ... arrogant?
Ironically, I woke up soon afterwards, and I was in fact naked, in a bid to remain comfortable despite an overnight low of 29 degrees celcius, the blanket was half over me, so I guess I'd really grabbed it afterall.

In other non-naked news, my one day teaching course went well that same day, so I was pretty happy about that.

Hitting the big time!

2007-01-12T09:29:00.000+11:00

It looks like yours truly will be teaching a course at the almighty SAS Institute next week. This is a very big deal for me, being that standing up and talking in front of a group of people is the sort of thing which normally turns my legs to rubber, and leaves me with the verbal eloquence of a deranged chimp. However, as I'll be talking on a subject I know a fair amount about, to a bunch of people who know very little about it, my confidence levels should be a bit better than usual.
That said, I'll probably need to dose myself with Immodium beforehand.

Lesson Learned...

2007-01-10T12:14:00.000+11:00

... never take DAY tablets from a day/night cold/flu remedy pack if you're planning on sleeping. I think I only averaged 2 hours of sleep at a time last night. That said, I still feel pretty good, touch wood, but it seems that the dreaded lurgy left by two pommy friends has been beaten into submission by a combination of drugs, vitamins and an improvement in my healthy food to junk food ratio.
Sooo, yes, Christmas has been and gone, and a very busy time it was too. The first batch of friends, Richard and Marleen arrived on the Wednesday before Christmas on the Melbourne leg of their round the world jaunt, and wouldn't you know it, their plane was delayed by 2 hours. It was listed as delayed about 4 hours before it was even due to take off, which is never a good sign. Then me and my lovely lady took off up to Brisbane on the Saturday to spend time with those family members who were in the area, before heading back to Melbourne.
Things got interesting when trying to work out when the second batch of friends were due to arrive as I found that they hadn't sent me flight details beyond a day and time, and after some phonecalls to mutual friends, the date turned out to be inaccurate by 2 days. This actually worked out well as it gave us a day to chill, and then a day to play tour guide to R&M with a trip up into the Dandenongs before they left. The day Batch 2 arrived, we dropped R&M at the bus station then continued on to the Airport to pick up Alan and Paul. Wht followed was a whirlwind tour of various sights of Melbourne, taking in the SummerDayze festival on New Years Day, a night at the RoofTop Cinema above Cookie, a BBQ for New Years Eve (something which is unthinkable in England let me tell you), and a surfing lesson in Torquay. This was interspersed with visits to more local beaches and such like.
P arrived with a cold, which took A down almost immediately. Kye fell victim a couple of days later, but I managed to hold out for a full week before waking up in the night with a sore, raspy throat. After 9 days we dropped them back at the airport, said our farewells and rushed home to collapse in a heap. It was great seeing them and having them stay, but we were knackered by the end of it, and glad to have the place to ourselves again. They're off in NZ at the moment, touring around there, having more fun, and I'm sat at work. Bastards!

2006-12-22T13:30:00.000+11:00

Well it's Christmas, probably not the best time to re-kick start my blogging, the last one was pretty devoid of entries even at the best of times. As I'm bouncing around the country this Christmas, there'll be plenty to tell, and bugger all time to tell it, so I'll have to promise myself that I'll update after things have settled a little.
I'm also going to be testing out Picasa and a number of other little widgets and apps to integrate some photos, with correct links for once.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone!

2006-12-21T09:38:00.000+11:00

I just finished reading Marley and Me by John Grogan on the train ride in this morning.
Do yourself a favour, go out and get a copy, take the phone off the hook and read it. Keep tissues handy though at the end, it is profoundly touching, as only a story about a family and their faithful dog can be.
[I know, not exactly earth shattering as a first post is it?]