A Computer and Me

Danger, High Voltage!

2012-01-30T21:38:00.000+10:00

I've hade this video stuck in my head for at least a week. So I then went to youtube to listen to it, and now I've seen the video. It's ... interesting. I can't decide whether I like it or not. I really like the music ... I might just have to watch it again.

Cat siting

2011-12-20T08:21:00.001+10:00

A friend of mine is going to Europe for 6 weeks and needed someone to look after their cat. Being of no fixed abode myself I jumped at the chance.

So far the cat has ignored me. At least he's not running away!

The other good feature is the xbox 360. I've been keen to get into more casual games than my usual fare so this is a good chance to try it out. As a bonus it was 1 dollar for 1 months membership on xbox live gold so I'm doing well at keeping costs down.

Now I just need sometime to fire up Battlefield 3 ... and get the rest of my electronic gear over so I can enjoy it in full HD

Summer holiday

2011-12-13T13:58:00.001+10:00

A tradition that many families had growing up is the summer holiday. It's not one I've ever had and I don't think I'd have missed it.

It is, however, a new family tradition now that both my sisters have kids and most of the family is scattered arouns Australia. So we're off for a week of surf and sun (also not our traditional family activites) up on the sunshine coast.

And where I try to spend most of my time watching the cricket with a beer; Or now that's finished it is playing iPad games and eating pffernuisse. Now that's my kind of tradition.

Although hanging out with the nephews is kind of cool as well :)

Back again

2011-09-21T08:24:00.001+10:00

And it's like I've never left. But why?

Put simply, I didn't use my personal site anymore and didn't want to pay for it anymore. Plus I'm using so many google products that it makes sense to continue to put all my eggs in one basket.

Of course, now I have to set up the template and make sure everything still works.... that could be fun.

Last post

2009-12-19T23:47:00.000+10:00

This is the last post planned for this blog. I've laid out money for my own domain and web hosting, so I can now be found at http://www.benfreke.com.

It's also incorporates my work blog (which is kind of funny, as I'm not currently working) and other useful things. Now that it's not going to change much, it's time to move all the links, etc over. Maybe Monday :)

One thing I haven't tested is the RSS feed. I'm sure it works though, it's a default setting of Joomla! sites. I'll add that to the list on Monday.

Best error message eva!

2009-12-07T19:42:00.000+10:00

A little sense of humour goes a long way. In the case of Firefox, this has to be a message that makes you lol the first time you see it.

Not too sure about the 10th time though.

Movember almost over

2009-12-01T00:16:00.000+10:00

Sad but true.

The mo has grown on me. I don't want to keep it, so I'll be going back to the goatee. No more looking like a Spanish waiter for me!

As I'm sure most of you are aware, I have been made redundant. The good news is, that although my last day is December 9, I still get paid until the end of December. So if I get lucky and find a position before the end of December then I will be getting paid for 2 jobs, huzzah!

Since that's unlikely, plan A is actually to get PHP Certified, which should result in me obtaining a position that is far more worthy of my efforts. As part of this, while I will be applying for positions before xmas the plan is to try and do some contracting. Perhaps through oDesk or something along those lines.

Cara is back in Australia from now until boxing day as well, visiting family and basically just having a holiday. Which means that I'm free to play computer games to any hour of the night, a privilege I intend to exploit to the max.

Birthday

2009-11-14T02:34:00.000+10:00

Normally they aren't too exciting, but Cara took me away. Which was exciting. Specifically to York.

York Minster is still as impressive as ever, and we did the Jorvik viking experience. Highly recommended. Mainly because it's cheap. Not perfect but pretty good, and good value for money.

We stayed at a converted manor house. Very posh, and it took me a while to get used to being waited on to that degree. The food was absolutely fantastic though, so that definitely made up for it.

I've also decided that Swedish Full Body Massage's are not all they're cracked up to be. Just not relaxing for me. Of course, I was probably pretty relaxed to start off with though.

All in all, 4.5 out of 5 for the birthday. Obviously missing .5 as most family are on the other side of the world, but very impressive none the less.

Oh, and I've decided to get back into posting pictures of the Mo. It's going alright, starting to feel good now. I still reckon I'll be going back to the Goatee though.

Movember!

2009-11-04T20:45:00.000+10:00

After (not much) thought, I decided it was the right thing to do.

So I shaved off my beard to grow a moustache.

I look about 5 years younger, and I feel odd with not having a beard to fiddle with. I guess I'll get used to. The photo's are on Picasa, there should be a sidebox displaying a sideshow from that album.

I also bought a new phone, the T-Mobile pulse. An Android phone on pre-pay, I couldn't say no!

Other then that, nothing exciting going on. Oh, I'm 29 in 2 days. WooT.

Wonderful Cats

2009-10-28T08:49:00.000+10:00

This story is so good it needs to be shared.

The new place we are in has 2 cats. One is a tortoise shell, and she's very much a homebody. Loves to sleep in the same room as you, and if she's in the mood she'll always try to sleep on top of you. Literally. She fell asleep on my side one night, which made for a very uncomfortable sleep (until she moved). The second cat (Frodo) is orange, and is A Hunter. All cats will chase something shiny, or made of string if given enough time to get excited. Not all cats are A Hunter. Let me explain.

While Cara has been off work, she's been busy keeping the cats company. Frodo, one day, came home with his latest kill. Sticking true to form, it was a mouse. After being yelled at, Frodo ran out of the house, and then dismembered the poor thing in the front yard. On the driveway. You should have seen the size of the slugs that attracted.....

Anyway, that was the end of the mouse. The next day, he brought home a goldfish. I have no independent verification of this mind you, just Cara's word for it as it had been removed by the time I got home.

When she let the owner of the cats know about this, not only was he not surprised, he was just glad it wasn't like last year when Frodo brought home a fish a day. It's worth pointing out that these were not small fish, these (apparently) were more the size of 'the one that got away'. I'm far more interested in where on earth these giant gold fish live, as they're certainly not taken from your standard suburban fish tank. And if a cat could catch it, why on earth has some sort of hawk not gotten them before they got to that size? It's all very mysterious if you ask me.

This weekend, I headed down the stairs for a drink. Before getting there though, I saw Frodo at the top of the stairs. He gave a very self-satisfied meow, which I thought meant he was hungry. But no, down at the foot of the stairs was a fish. A gold fish. A very dead gold fish. A fish the size of my foot.

I had no idea gold fish grew that big, but it's true, they do. Now, thinking quickly I decided to praise Frodo instead of yelling at him. I read somewhere that that is a good thing to do, so they don't try and bring you more of there kills.

And just for reference, a dead fish is a slimy fish. You cannot pick it up by it's tail.

Fast-forward several hours. We live in a fairly well treed area, and there are plenty of birds around. They're often down the back of the yard digging for worms, or whatever it is they do, so you hear a lot of bird sounds. It's gotten to the stage that I ignore them. We (Cara and I) heard what sounded like a bird downstairs, but we decided that it must have been one of the cats. Until Cara headed downstairs and then required my assistance.

Somehow the bird had gotten it's feet stuck up on our clothes hanger, so it was hanging upside down bat like. This bird was bigger then Frodo. And still alive. Frodo is very much a believer of playing with his food. I'd love to know how he got it through the cat flap. All I can say is thank you to the RSPCA for coming and taking away our distressed bird.

I'm taking 2 things away from this.

1) All cats need a collar, whether they like it or not.

2) Praising a cat doesn't work. I'm going to yell in the future.

I wonder if he'll still like me once I put the collar on him .....

Of shoes and ships and ceiling wax

2009-10-24T19:08:00.001+10:00

Autumn has arrived most definitely. There are leaves everywhere, and it's cold. And then the sun comes out for 10 seconds, and that's it for the day. This is not a good time to be living in Britain if, like me, you like the warmth.

Not that much is going on over here. I've done some odd jobs outside of work, website related, which isn't like me at all. One of these days I'll get some time to get the photos off of my camera and put them up somewhere. I'm going to try this Picasa thing, mainly because it's done by Google. With the upcoming purchase of an Android phone, I see no reason for anything in my life to NOT be Google branded.

In completely related news, I bring you Google Editions. Which appears to have made it past the legal hurdles with the jumpiness of a Tim Forsyth. And this may come in handy.

Cara is off to Italy next week. I like to think that she is off to eat lots of Gelati. That might just be only what I'd do, but what else is there to do in Pisa?

Ciao, Bella.

It's the little things that matter

2009-10-13T00:45:00.001+10:00

My Camera has been found, hurrah! Now to download Picasa for the Mac and play with it....

Second, I've also bought / gazumped a TV and Surround Sound system. Don't get it for 2 weeks, but the price was right!]

Third, The Living End are now on Spotify. Today is officially a good day.

Browser stats

2009-10-07T18:44:00.001+10:00

For a while now, I've been talking about how IE6 is not needed support, and that IE7 is also useless.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. I've spent a bit of time doing some research on this, mainly through 2 sites. First up was w3schools.

As you can see, Firefox was unsurprisingly the top browser for visitors to the site. It's bleeding market share, probably to Chrome and Safari at a guess. Since this post is based on the fact I was wrong with an earlier guess ... take that with a grain of salt. Chrome and Safari are both increasing, something which I'm sure I've contributed to. But IE7 is still the top IE browser?? I didn't see that coming, especially on what is a 'tech' site. And 12% of all visitors STILL use IE6??? No wonder you need help with programming ....

Next, I went to statcounter. You need to dig down to find information, as the first page is pretty simple. What it does do, though, is show that IE6 and IE7 are not dying any time soon. Windows 7 may change that, but personally I doubt it.

My favourite stat though, was mobile OS. The iphone is not number 1, which isn't too surprising when you know how many 'smart' phones there are out there running rival OSs.

Anyway, the moral of the story is a) Aussie IE8 users will overtake IE7 this month and b) You still need to provide support for IE6 and IE7. For the rest of 2009 anyway. We'll see what the new year brings!

The great move has started!

2009-09-29T07:54:00.000+10:00

It's not really the great move. It's not even the biggest move. It's just going to take a while as there is a lot to do. Mainly cancel all the things I've signed up for. Council Tax was the biggest. I received a summons to appear at court because I hadn't paid.... I didn't really understand how it worked, but now that I'm moving it doesn't matter anymore :)

Cara has cleverly managed to get out of doing any serious work, as she's at work until late Friday. So on Thursday Wes and I will do all the serious cleaning, before packing up the kitchen on Friday. Last Idy's is planned for this Friday.

And because we need to hand in the keys this Saturday midday, it should be a nice cruisey weekend. We'll see how it goes.... roll on October!

How did I not know this before??

2009-09-17T20:56:00.001+10:00

Still using Tiger on the Mac at work (that's 10.4 if you're
interested, 10.6 is Snow Leopard), and I've constantly been saying
that I can't resize images with the default tools available. Mainly to
get out of doing the job, but also because I genuinely thought I
couldn't.

Then I noticed the option to open the image in iPhoto. Just for fun I
then clicked the enhance button. What a difference that made! How many
other Mac related goodness, that's there by default, do I not know
about? Especially in Snow Leopard....

And I call myself a developer.

False advertising

2009-09-14T19:30:00.002+10:00

People who know me, know that I yell at the TV. I tend to get upset at
pseudo science masquerading as advertising. I've also been known to
throw a book at Naomi Robson, but luckily (for me) that was also the
TV.

I have, however, found something that does exactly what it says on the
tin. Red Delicious apples. They're both red, and delicious. The only
good thing in Autumn is apples, which are my favourite fruit (after
melons). So I may finally be getting my five a day at this point in
time.

Even Morrison's has good fruit! And that's saying something....

Also, after going to the Cold Play concert I am not attending any
further large scale outdoor concerts. At least, not in Manchester.
That was no water that was being thrown around .... plus I don't
understand why you would go to a concert and then ignore the people
playing. And sing as loudly as you possibly can, despite not knowing
the words. Thanks for ruining all the songs you stupid scouse gits.

Tram's, though, very good. More cities should have them. It does help
that Manchester has lots of disused rail-lines to place them, so there
isn't much tearing up of streets required. I do like trains, far more
then I'll ever like buses. The busway in Brisbane though is great, so
it's not all bad. So possibly it's just the dedicated track that the
trains have that I like. That and the ease of transport, rails are
much smoother then potholed roads. Plus no chance of hitting cyclists.

And then there were 2 posts

2009-09-09T07:44:00.000+10:00

And of course, the first weekend in September was the end-of-season trip to Mayo to play Castlebar. What happens on tour stays on tour, but here are my highlights:

Drinking to 4am both days and not having a hangover.
Not having to organise a thing. Thanks Killa and Emma!
Irish lunch. I don't think I could eat anymore.
Breaffy Woods hotel resort is fantastic. If you're in Castlebar and looking for somewhere to stay (or have a wedding!) highly recommended.

Still catching up on sleep though ....

So much rain!

2009-09-09T07:32:00.000+10:00

It's amazing how much it rains over here. Truly. The best bit is that it's so soft and you don't mind too much hanging out getting wet. Unless you're soaked, in which case it's horrible.

Anyway. The Summer Bank Holiday Weekend (I think it deserves capitals when you have a 4 day week) Cara and I went to the Lake District. Not surprisingly, it rained. What was more surprising was that I didn't mind too much as I was having too much.

First, still no camera. So no photo's until I get them off of Cara's. I will buy 1 at Christmas, when I have more time to do research.

Second, llama's rock! We'd been wanting to go llama trekking for a while, so it was the main reason for the trip. Nothing like walking a horse, donkey, dog, cat, lizard, or any animal you may have walked before. Such lovely animals, and easy to control. Not spooked by anything. So a quick whip around Lake Derwent, a picnic lunch and llama's. What more could you want? Ok, Sun, but it was great. Thoroughly enjoyed it, despite having to trek through several deep puddles.

Third, the National Trust charges a lot for some places...but it's probably worth it. We also went to Beatrix Potter's cottage, which wasn't much to see, but also wasn't expensive. Very knowledgeable guides, and highly recommended (as long as you're not worrying over every last pence).

I can certainly see why everybody enjoys going up there, despite everyone going up there. The crowds are generally friendly and all in all my favourite place to visit in the UK (sorry Edinburgh).

Oh, and don't stay at the YHA Windermere if you're a couple. You've been warned!

Someone has to do it

2009-08-19T06:00:00.002+10:00

Given that someone has to keep this economy going in tough times, Cara and I went up to Edinburgh on the weekend. Ostensibly for the military tattoo, we also spent the time catching up with friends and sleeping. Lots of sleeping.

Getting tickets to the tattoo two weeks before is not easy. Some would say impossible. So instead we got a package deal, 2 nights at the Holiday Inn (next to the Zoo) plus 2 tickets. I managed to get the friday off work, and thanks to contacts within the rail industry, we got return tickets for 5 pounds each. As it's a 3.5 hour trip on the train, that is incredibly value.

It was raining when we got there (not much of a surprise) so we decided to go with a taxi to the hotel rather then figuring out which bus to catch. So did everybody else, so it took nearly an hour until we got a cab. It took a while to get there, but it was definitely worth it as we were very happy with our room. Great view over the golf course opposite and a really nice room.

We had dinner with Zach and Fi who were up there on a holiday as well. They'd spent the day walking around Edinburgh in the rain, so they were more then happy to spend the night in the hotel. We had a lovely dinner (chinese) and evening, and retired to bed ready for a big day on Saturday.

We decided that sleeping was more important, so we did that instead. We did eventually get into town and had a wander around. It was a much better day, so we collected lots of leaflets for shows we couldn't see and enjoyed the atmosphere. The Loch Ness experience was quite interesting, lots of little facts about Loch Ness that I didn't know.

Before the tattoo we had dinner at a little place with 2 of Cara's friends, Irene and Tom. And then it was off to the tattoo. Personally, not being a big fan of bagpipes it wasn't the best evening (mainly the cold) but it was still worth it. The choreography was very impressive.

Then we got the night bus back, had another sleep in and came back home. Sure, we didn't get up to much but it was a mini-holiday and we didn't want to be too busy. Good weekend, looking forward to the next one!

Economists doing what they do best

2009-08-11T21:40:00.001+10:00

Apparently economists have now gone into the business of finding out
what makes people happy. These lines stuck out, courtesy of The Times
Online:

Not every result is a surprise. For instance, having sex is lots of
fun. It is also, tragically, the activity that fewest of the 900 Texan
working women spent any time doing.

Spending time with your boss is no fun. As to the pros and cons of
having sex with your boss, economists can only speculate.

This is what they get up to when they're not ruining the global
banking system. Perhaps they need to spend less time with their boss?

Didn't understand Utegate?

2009-08-05T16:33:00.001+10:00

Never fear! Here it is all explained, via the medium of cute animals!

http://dailylolz.lolpolz.com/2009/06/coming-soon.html

I <8 lolz

Getting up to date

2009-08-04T05:19:00.001+10:00

It's hard to do. At this point I don't remember all the things I've
done. I hope it comes back to me as I type!

First weekend in June was up in the lake district for Nik's birthday.
Camping. Due to the rain, it was full of midges and little insects. It
was a good night regardless, and it was good to do something
different. The really bad thing is that we lost my camera, so I have
no photos from the weekend. Since it hasn't turned up now, it's
unlikely it's ever going to turn up. The barn we stayed in was very
isolated, and didn't have hot water. Or a toilet. It's good to rough
it every now and then to realise just how good beds are.

Continuing the theme of never staying home, the next weekend was in
Dublin, capital of the Republic of Ireland. We went over to see
Riverdance, and also to meet up with Cara's friend Irene. We got there
late Friday and spent Saturday sight seeing. The book of Kells,
Trinity College and the Guinness Factory were all toured. Riverdance
was really good, and is definitely worth seeing. I didn't think I'd
enjoy it, but it was the highlight of the trip, as good as Guinness is
:)

Once again, no photos because I have no camera :(

The next weekend we got to stay in Manchester, which made for a
pleasant change.

Then we had 2 more weekends playing Aussie Rules. We won both,
defeating our local rivals in the process. There was talk about if we
won both games we would make the finals. Unfortunately, a forfeit by a
London team (who should have no problems fielding a team) meant we
missed out on percentage.

Otherwise, not much else happening. The job is the same it always has
been, nothing to complain about and every now and then something
exciting happens. We'll see how that continues. I need to start
looking for some flights back home, as I've been given time off work
over December if I can get the flights. So I must do that. Very soon.

The other thing to look forward to is an Android powered phone. I have
no idea when I will get one, but sometime this month the Samsung i7500
(Galaxy) should be available in the UK. Once I've played with it and
seen what it's like, I may actually buy it. I am in the market for a
new camera after all ....

Stay excellent!

This made me laugh

2009-07-16T01:35:00.000+10:00

Gates: Natal will be used by Windows PCs
Flap arm left to create new Excel sheet

June

2009-07-13T18:53:00.003+10:00

June was very busy. Every weekend was supposed to be a game of Aussie Rules. One of those got cancelled so that allowed us 1 weekend of not travelling. I injured my shoulder in May, so I was gutted about that, but luckily the shoulder got better soon enough to play a part in the games.

Other then that, there were quite a few games. We're 4-4 at this stage of the season, although I've only kicked 5 goals I think that is pretty good for a ruckman who only plays half a game. Apart from one half where I got destroyed by the other ruckman I've been able to hold my own.

Sat 6th was Nottingham, so that was an early drive down, play 2 games (1 win an 1 loss) and then drive back and have some drinks. I was injured, so couldn't play. Losing to Nottingham is always devastating, but my consolation is that I wasn't playing. We have 1 more game against them this year...hopefully this will be it.

Sat 13th was London, which was when we were staying over. They have huge pitches down there, on the full size cricket pitch. We played 18-a-side with the help of lots of mates from London. Once again it was 1-1, as we won the first game and then lost the 2nd. Being the only ruckman on such a large ground was a bit of a shock, but I managed ok. The heat made it a bit of struggle.... for the english players. Personally I had no problems, it was the knee in the kidneys that made it more difficult.

Due to the heat and tiredness, it wasn't a huge night out. It was a good short night, but a struggle to keep going. Shepherds Bush is very Aussie, and it was a bit of a turn off. Apart from the fact we got cherry ripes and a real pie I don't think I could live there. The next day was a nice lie down in the park, another Jumbuck pie (fantastic!) and a bit of a wander around Soho. Good way to end the weekend.

Next weekend was the weekend off, which was great to just sleep in. We were meant to be playing in Nottingham, but the London teams forfeited. So we just bummed around, ate food and did very little.

The next weekend was our home game. Due to problems getting the changing rooms opened, we relocated to Broughton Park Rugby Club, which made for a very short game. A rugby pitch isn't designed for Aussie Rules.... but it did suit the teams as we didn't have that many players. My shoulder was back to normal, but man is that ground hard. I still have grazes from that day. Once again, we won the first but lost the second. Reading were defeated in the first game, and then Wandsworth were too strong. Their ruckman was just too good for me (it pains me to admit that).

That night I managed to get kicked out of a club for the first time. Some of the guys were doing lineouts (not a good idea in a pub) and I ended up in the middle of them at some point...so up I went. Bouncer came over and kicked me out, which is fair enough.

Cara has been working in Derby 4 days a week, so she comes back on Thursdays. Of all the games of Aussie Rules we played this month, she managed to not see any of them. Which takes some doing, but she managed it. Maybe the next few.

Alright, that's June up to date. July coming soon, along with photos from Dublin and the lake district.

Home on a Friday night

2009-06-27T04:46:00.002+10:00

This doesn't happen often. So, since it has it's time to update this.

The next weekend (June 4) was spent in Poland. The trip was basically to see Auschwitz and Birkenau, not for sight-seeing. We flew in on the Friday and booked into the hostel after a little worrying time getting a ride from the airport. As with most major towns in Europe, the budget airlines do not fly into the town. Katowice is an hour and a half out of Krakow, and due to advice from my travel companions (Wes & Cara) we had not booked a transfer. So I just sat back while the two of them panicked about it. We made it to Krakow and our hostel eventually, so that was good.

Being a Friday night, Wes and I headed down to the bar to have a quiet drink. Unfortunately, I under-estimated the strength of the cocktails....I don't remember how I got to bed. I do remember being woken at 7am....and I remember getting to Auschwitz. I also remember vowing to never drink again.

Auschwitz is haunting. I recommend finding your own way there, and avoiding a tour. Same with Birkenau.

Once we got back to Krakow, it was a short walk around the castle and then back to the hostel to watch the FA Cup final. Which wasn't on. A BBQ later (the hostel put it on) and while we were getting ready for a night of serious drinking, we over-heard that a few extra players were needed for a 11-a-side game down at the local park. So Wes and I tagged along and played a very un-expected game. I can now say I've played a game of football in Poland. We should have won, but some very bad defending (not by me) resulted in us losing the game. It was good fun anyway.

For the rest of the night, it was pretty quiet. Wes didn't get any sleep, and the phone call at 7am to make sure he knew we were walking to the bus to the airport was appreciated. We managed to get there in time, and got on the mini-bus (as they all are over there) to the Airport.

All I will say is that the drainage on the streets of Krakow is non-existent. I don't think I've been more scared of having an accident short of actually being in one. Once we were outside Krakow it was fine, but while we were in there .... not fun.

Still, got to the airport fine and got back alive. And really, that's all that matters.

Spring Long Weekend

2009-06-02T07:27:00.001+10:00

It's called the Spring Bank Holiday, but it was definitely the start
of summer. Not only did I not need a jumper (although I did wear one)
but I also used for the first time ever the air conditioning in my
car.

So for the weekend Cara and I went to Bath, Stonehenge and the Cheese
Rolling. Bath impressive, although apparently we missed 'The
Crescent'. I've looked at it on wikipedia so I don't believe that for
a second. What we did see is what Bath is famous for, and that was The
Baths. It's quite amazing how much is left from that long ago. That
and sleep was the priority for Saturday. And pear cider. Lots and lots
of pear cider. It's fantastic!

Sunday was Stonehenge. Forget what Lonely Planet says, it's not
underwhelming. It's not over-whelming either. If you're in the area
it's definitely worth a look. On the way back it was Salisbury. Which
has a cathedral and 1 of 3 surviving copies of the Magna Carta. Which
I was thoroughly excited to see. Cara not so much.

Monday was different. Running after cheese down that hill does not
look like fun, nor is parking on a steep hill in a wet field full of
grass. Next year I plan on having a go down the hill, as well as up.
Up looks much easier, even if it takes a lot longer. I don't want any
of the cheese so coming first doesn't bother me. But saying I've done
it. That will be cool.

So that was that weekend. We also booked a trip to Poland the weekend
after, just to keep the holiday feeling going. More on that later.....

Photos are up, but only on facebook. As I didn't take any photos
they're not on flickr. Sorry.

The Challenge

2009-05-17T19:45:00.001+10:00

I foolishly made a challenge to Mick the other day, about who would
kick the most goals in their AFL season. The main problem is that Mick
plays about 3 times as many games as I do. I had just kicked 3, so I
was feeling confident.

Of course, he's now at at a tally of 4. And I haven't played a game
since. So bring on June I say!

The payment is simply a 6 pack, so it's not a big deal. But it's the
principle of the thing.

My next phone will be the Samsung I7500. That depends on pricing, etc,
but it meets all my requirements for a new phone. Apparently it comes
out in June. I hope. And then it's just a matter of starting to write
applications for it and making my millions that way :)

What else? Cara is working away during the weeks, currently down in
Gloucester and not liking it. Apparently her luggage is meant to be
coming this week, so I might need to work from home one day this week.
Which would be good, as I could finally get down to see a Doctor and
get this booster shot. I may just do it anyway, just to get it over
and done with.

Got a fair bit of travelling coming up in the next few weeks, as they
are the 2 weeks free before a lot of Aussie Rules comes up. June is
chockers. I'm thinking Wales (followed by the Cheese rolling in
Gloucester) and then probably Poland. I think that I need to go see
Auschwitz before my travelling is over, and the opportunity is there
now. That's 1 of the many things I need to organise today.... so I
should get started....

Bah humbug

2009-04-22T01:52:00.001+10:00

I just fell in love with Spotify. It picks up the multimedia commands
on the Mac keyboard. Brilliant.

Played Aussie Rules down in Cardiff on the weekend just gone. Ruck
again, so very tiring. However, I had 3 shots at goal, and all 3 went
between the big sticks. 100% record. Fitness levels not quite up to
the level I'd like them so didn't quite get all the running I'd like
to have done in the position.

3 goals is pretty good though.

Germany was brilliant. I'll have photos up eventually. Highlights were
the Castles and the Mercedes Museum. I may have been kicked out when
it was closing .....

Cara is good. Still waiting for luggage and a job to appear, but given
time it will all come. Patience is all that is needed.

Looking for a new job, as I'm a little bit tired of this current job.
I'd like to work for a bigger company with more visible a future.
We'll see what happens though.

Still on the lookout for my next phone. There are rumours what I want
may be out this summer from Samsung, but that remains an unconfirmed
rumour.

That's about it for a quick update. If I ever get time and inclination
I will update with more information.

Achievements

2009-03-09T21:41:00.002+10:00

There have been a few things worthy of mention happening on this weekend.

We now have a pool table in our living room. How cool is that? Nik & Kat are having renovations done to their house, and Nik had to 'get rid' of the pool table. Understandably, selling it on Ebay was not his preferred option, so it ended up at our house. Bonza! It takes up surprisingly little space, and we've got it so you can hit the ball normally from every edge. It's brilliant!

For the record, Nik won the first game. And the second.

Secondly, first Aussie Rules training for the year. We got a huge number down (20), of course a lot were from Huddersfield, but it's looking very promising for this year. There is always the worry about whether people will turn up or not, 2 new guys from Manchester were there and looked keen to be back, 1 from Liverpool was also keen. So we may actually not have any problems organising a team! Hopefully a few more English come down, keep the game running. But we'll see.

Lastly, and best, is that I played Guitar Hero World Tour on Sat night. Relegated to Bass, I managed a perfect score on Medium. Sure it's not on the hard difficulty, but it's still an achievement :) Very happy at that geeky milestone, I've never managed 100% before. Any tips on how to get up to hard? That fifth button is a killer, I've only got 4 fingers!

Fastnacht Day!

2009-02-20T20:34:00.001+10:00

Wikipedia to the rescue again.

Shrove Tuesday = Pancake Day = Fasnacht Day = Last Tuesday before Lent
= DONUTS!!!

I now have an excuse to eat donuts 1 day a year. Excellent.

Observations on my digital life

2009-02-18T00:16:00.001+10:00

Twitter, I don't like. I don't like the exclusiveness of it. If you're
not on it you don't know what's going on, and I don't like the way
anybody in the world can read it. I like the fact that when reading a
blog you need to read more then just 140 characters, so get more of a
feel for the person. And that if you're out of the loop for a week,
you can then catch up. So I think I shall no longer twitter, I shall
instead just be a voyeur.

Blogger...I can deal with. There are minor issues, mainly to do with
formatting. Which is probably to do with gmail more then blogger.

The other thing I can no longer live without is hyperlinks. I was
reading a magazine the other day (don't worry, I didn't buy it) and up
came a word I didn't know. Which is quite rare for me to be stumped by
a word in a magazine that isn't targeted at a niche market. And I had
no way of looking it up as I didn't have a dictionary nor an internet
connection. So I'd like a Kindle reader from Amazon, as I like to
think that any decent online magazine will link any unknown words to a
glossary at the end of the article (if not, why not? There's a market
there). And the ability to download books from other sources. Not
having looked into it I don't know if that's possible.

So this brings me to the next point where my digital and analog lives
combine. Scheduling. I always forget what I'm up to. So I've decided
to outsource my calendar from my brain to Google Calendar. Not only
does this have the advantage of allowing me to not have to remember
what I'm up to, it also allows me to quickly know when I've double
booked myself. A quick click, and I'm in the calendar adding events.
Plus others can view what I'm up to (if I let them).

And so on and so forth to mobile phones. While I have resisted the
urge for an iPhone (quite successfully I might add) I have found the
need for a smarter phone growing. As I've now outsourced my Calendar
(and photos) to Google (and flickr/facebook), I need to have access.
This will be found through an Android powered phone. Currently the 2
phones available do not suit my needs. My needs are simple. Access to
the Internet. GPS in-built. A good camera with flash. I don't expect
it to be SLR quality, I simply want the ability to take photos without
lugging around my normal camera.

As yet, for some unknown reason, the current phones are pitched to
niche markets (full keyboard) or don't have a suitable camera. The
advantage of Android running cameras over competitors (iPhone not
withstanding) is the ability to download applications for it.

So we shall see what the future will hold. It would be nice if I could
then use my Android powered phone to control the TV.... I like to
think there is an application out there that does it. Sure you'd need
an IR port (which the iPhone does not have) but seriously, how cool
would that be?

Anyway, that's my thoughts for today. I'm sure there will be more
later...like why Safari and gmail no longer play nice. Can't expect
everything I guess.

Photos finally uploaded

2009-02-06T07:02:00.001+10:00

It's about time, but I've updated my flickr account with my photos from Tasmania. And I also put the photos up from the other day, when there was heavy snow. Pretty much everybody who lives here took a few photos, but it's the personal touch that counts.

Because I can

2009-02-03T21:06:00.001+10:00

Tweeter is over-rated. The number of users is small(er) then other
ways of getting your message out. Plus, since there are so many
updates you can't keep up easily (unless you are a tweeter)

Therefore, this reaches a wider audience. In my case, not too big, but
definitely bigger then my tweeter audience! (right Mum?)

Snowing!

2009-02-02T22:20:00.002+10:00

It is snowing in England. It seems like the UK doesn't expect to ever get snowed on....go figure. As I sit here, I can see through the heat haze from my heater at work flurries of snow coming down. I never knew what they looked like before today...

Driving to work was fun, everything was white. Except the road. The advantage of living where I do (more later), means that I travel to work on main roads. So they had been gritted. It was quite funny looking at all the cars travelling past with their loads of snow. By far the funniest was the Porsche, as there is no engine in the front there was no way for the snow on the bonnet to melt....and it was several cms thick.

So, to give a quick update, I'm now living in Manchester, in Northenden to be precise. So I have to drive to work, but it generally doesn't take longer then half an hour to get here, which is alright. I've taken quite a lot of photos, but I don't have the cables with me to upload them now. I didn't realise how thick it was until I had to brush it off my car windows. Which is better then scraping ice, let me tell you :)

And I am so glad I brought my lunch to work today, as I really don't want to go outside walking in this to go get some. Just walking to the car is going to be bad enough.

And in a side note, the snow is getting heavier...I think I may have a snow ball fight at some time today....just because I can :)

A Year in Review

2009-01-07T18:45:00.002+10:00

Following on from Jacqui, I thought it might be nice to put things in review. So here goes.

Living in England, obviously the highlight is all the travelling I've done. Skiing is very high on the list of fun things, although Barcelona and Berlin were also very cool. Basically, any of the travel was good, everything was a new experience. I have lots of photos, and hopefully I remember all the stories behind them.

Aussie Rules was great fun, it was exactly the sort of club I wanted to join. Playing a bit of sport while also doing lots of travel and drinking...what could be wrong with that? Kicked a couple of good goals, did a few good things but generally looking forward to next year when I'll be fitter and be (hopefully) a better player.

The number 1 highlight is definitely ZEDS. Very cute, and it's nice to have the pressure of grand children off the rest of us. In fact, I'm a little sad at living overseas because I won't get to see too much of him while over there. But that's the only regret.

Overall, I think I would rate 2008 the best year ever! Which doesn't mean much, as pretty much every year has been better then the last (except for 2005 (or 2006, I forget which)). 2009 should be even more filled with traveling, drinking and highlights. So far it's been pretty good, so I hope everyone else also has a good one!

Metric system

2009-01-02T16:22:00.001+10:00

Sitting here in the heat, I got to pondering. I like the metric
system. It's logical, and easily understandable by those people on the
planet who have 10 fingers. Which is most of us. So why does tradition
keep us using the Imperial system of weights and measures for heights
and weights? It can't just be the fact the USA still uses it. So I
decided to start a fashion of not using it, and instead of saying I
was 6 feet tall, to say I was 183 cms. Because I round up. But then
there's the problem of converting. So to use only the metric system
I'd need to learn the imperial system, and all the conversions. Which
seemed sort of ironic, learning the imperial system just so I could
phase it out.

And that's why traditionalism is winning this battle of inertia.

Made it!

2008-12-12T15:38:00.001+10:00

There has been a worrying trend lately, where I forget to put subjects
in my posts. That's because I've been adding entries via blogger
itself, and not via sending an email. The formatting is better, but
it's easier to just have 1 window open. So I do know about the
formatting problems, I just don't think it takes away enough from the
post to stop doing it.

Anyway, back in Australia, and pretty much over the jetlag now. It
helps that I napped pretty much all yesterday, and I slept 12 hours
last night. My body kept thinking it was time to wake up, but I went
straight back to sleep and woke up at 12. So while I'm still tired,
I'm sure I'll be fine and have now settled into a good routine of
staying up till midnight and sleeping till midday.

I did manage to throw out my razor though...so I need to go buy a new
1. Since I'm lacking a car, and waiting on said car arriving I can't
do that at the moment...I suspect Vanessa is asleep and am choosing
not to wake her. The helmets have gone down a treat, it's really a
shame that I have to give them to their rightful owners tonight. Since
Jacqui is a little more excited about it then I am, I'm willing to
forgive her. There is an offer of beer and food at her place sometime,
which it will be good to take her up on, decks and BBQ and Brisbane
are a combination that takes quite a bit of beating. Add in beer, and
it's like it is heaven.

I'm also quite disappointed to learn I may have picked up a slight
accent while away. It has been noted by 2 people, which while isn't
enough for a quorum, is enough to be worrying.

Subway have opened a store within walking distance, which I discovered
this morning/afternoon when I awoke and was hungry. It was great to
once again have a chicken fillet, which is not something I've been
able to get in England. They don't do fillets. And being able to order
it with capsicum rather then peppers was also quite enjoyable. I am
missing my guitar though, as it's that time of the day, when I'm
slightly bored and would like something to amuse myself for several
hours. A guitar fits that bill brilliantly.

And washing clothes, leaving them to dry in the air and having that
happen in under 24 hours is also good. I do need to stop saying Bonza
all the time though. Alright, off to find something else to fill the
time....

2008-12-10T15:11:00.001+10:00

301. Thanks Cameron.

Abu Dhabi airport needs more seats in the waiting area. Considering just how many flights come in and out, I find it hard to believe just how few seats there are. It is kind of amusing how many people have gone to the prayer room to sleep....I can't help but feel that's more then a little sacrilegious. Only 16 odd hours to go now, should be good! I'm definitely sleeping on this leg, the movie selection isn't good enough to keep me up otherwise.

Sadly true

2008-12-09T23:23:00.002+10:00

For my 300th post, I think it's time for something momentous in Internet terms. Like whether the Zune or Ipod is better. This matters, simply because the president-elect of the USA, Barack Obama may or may not have one or the other.

Google 'zunegate' if you don't believe me.

Honestly, I think it shows the level of interest that can be found in any niche area, like the 501st Legion, any online game, and the frenzy that awaits big computer game releases. It's much easier to find a similar fan of the Blood Ravens Space Marine Chapter in the 40k Universe online, and then you set up a feedback loop and suddenly before you know it you've ordered a full suit of armor from Ebay and are video calling each other just to show off how cool you look.

I've yet to decide if that's a good or bad thing, this ability to connect 'weirdos', thereby keeping them isolated from what is still considered 'normal' society. I'm certainly not able to tell, as I don't know enough. I just find it interesting.

For the record, the zune has a subscription based model which (naturally) is only available in the US of A. Which I can get over here with a Nokia comes with music phone. Not available (anywhere I know of) with the iPod. Of course, all 3 are just music players and your savvy computer user is going to easily be able to upload and download songs from all 3. But for your average user, who doesn't know the difference between mp3 and mp4, it's not quite as simple. Why are these things so confusing? I'd love it to never have to buy another mobile charger. Another 4 useless cords will come along when I buy another monitor. Back in my day, you could buy all manner of cords from Dick Smith, and I believe the way forward is to go back. K Rudd, imagine the green credentials you could get by banning the bundling of cords with all new electrical goods. The companies would complain, but when they charge the same price for the goods without the cords as they did when it had the cord, is their bottom line really going to suffer?

Alright, that's enough of a rant for the 300th post. In far more important news, I fly out in about...oooh, 6 hours for Brisbane, via Abu Dhabi. Everything is packed, I have my atm cards and everything. Bonza!!!

2008-11-26T01:51:00.002+10:00

Brilliant. That's from my work to-do list.

Rome was great. Great to see Mum and Dad again after all this time, good to feel warm (even though it didn't last, and great to see all the history. Sure there were some down parts (the getting torrentially rained on wasn't brilliant) but overall there was so much to do that a week isn't long enough. My highlight was the Church of San Clemente. 2 catholic churches, 1 mithraic temple and 1 Roman manor house. Incredible the amount of history underneath Rome.

The only disappointment is that we didn't get to either Pompeii or Ostia Antica, but there is always next time. I'm not going to go into a blow by blow account of the week, I have the good photos up in the usual spots, and as I should be seeing or have seen all those interested in the rest of the photos (that weren't as good and therefore haven't been posted) I can go through them with anybody interested when I next see them.

Christmas rapidly approaching, I have most of my presents organised. Most, but not all. Now it is just a matter of time waiting for them to arrive, so that I can pack them. And due to the amount of stuff I'm getting (thanks Jacqui!) I will definitely need to bring a second bag with me. Hopefully I can fill it with stuff on the way back, which given I'm picking up a whole bunch of Aussie Rules stuff shouldn't be hard.

Anyway, short post. I don't plan on blogging too much in the future, I don't really have the time to do it. Or inclination. So don't expect regular updates, but then again, with 2 notable exceptions nobody does blog regularly anymore. So I'm in good company :)

Welcome Zachary Elliot Douglas-Savage

2008-10-22T16:23:00.001+10:00

Bit of a mouthful that! Can't wait to see him :)

Famousness

2008-10-16T20:55:00.001+10:00

As AJ has decided to become an Internet celebrity, I need to mention
my claim to fame. Listening to the SBS radio coverage of the Australia
v Qatar game, they gave out their email address to send in comments.
So I did. If you were listening (extremely unlikely), you'd know that
Ben Freke from Warrington UK thinks that Foz and Bash provide a better
coverage then Fox Sports.

So yes, I'm the famous sibling. So famous I've been exported. Just
like Dannii Minogue.

Whoops

2008-10-08T21:43:00.002+10:00

Didn't realise it had been over a month. Would have been nice to know. I really should keep up to date with it.

So, what's happened? I can't remember that far back, which is why I will need to check my calendar*. It has been pretty busy at work, and I haven't been happy about that. I don't like worrying about work when I'm not there, and that has happened a bit lately. More on that later....

Ok, so EdFest, just after I last blogged. Drunken night of revelry, which was fun. Ed was turning 30, there was a band, I believe I was originally going to be playing but that didn't end up happening. Maybe next time.

Big B (Brenton) and Emma got married the weekend after that. Which was great! Mainly because I got Friday off work and I look good in a suit. I wore a pink shirt, which doesn't happen very often. I may or may not have stolen all the Koala clips available and attached them to my tie. And there were freckles, so many freckles! But the fun didn't end there, the next night was an engagement party and then Wes' going away party. He's gone back home for a couple of months, when he gets back the 2 of us will be finding somewhere to live in Northenden. In Manchester. So needless to say that weekend was a complete washout, but was great fun. The wedding was great, it was great to see Matt and Ness happy and engaged.

Next weekend was a recovery weekend, given all the partying that had gone on it was necessary.

So, we're up to September 27/28. That was originally down as a weekend in Liverpool with a mate, but I'd forgotten about the Grand Final. Hawks v Cats. Given the timezone, I didn't watch it live, but the game started at 930am. I decided to wait till quarter time for my first drink...but I may have been the only 1 who did. Was a great game, and being neutral I didn't mind who won. After the game, there was some minor celebration followed by the Mozzies award presentation. It was a great summers day, so we sat outside and drank cider. Everybody won a prize/certificate, and I got newcomer of the year, which is great! Next year I want Best and Fairest, but I would have to play every game to get that. I missed a few, which may have hurt my chances. After that...well, there was more drinking. And bbq. Eventually crashed out at 2am, which meant that was a solid session. Best thing is, I now own a straw hat :)

Needless to say, I didn't get to Liverpool. Sorry Jon.

And I think that's enough for this post. I went to Berlin last weekend, but that requires a bit more work to think about, plus I'd need to upload photos. Which I haven't done as I'm lazy. They're on my mac, and they're backed up. But not online...soon. But basically Berlin was great, I feel cultured.

* i.e. A piece of paper with each weekend written on it.

5 to go...

2008-09-05T07:13:00.003+10:00

Only 5 more post to 300.

Anyway, last week/end was interesting. My car broke down. Disturbingly, it was the brakes that failed, and the only reason I didn't hit anything was that I was in a traffic jam at the time. Luckily they did fail where they did, and I managed to limp round the corner and into a driveway at very slow speed. The RAC were kind enough to tow me home, so I need to upgrade my membership level as a thank you. It was hinted at that that would be very nice, and I like to pick up on these hints when I can.

So as it's not going anywhere, the mobile mechanic is coming out tomorrow to fix the brakes and also get an MOT done. An MOT (for those back home) is where they check it every year to make sure it's still road worthy. Apart from the brakes, I know it will fail on the fact that one of my parking lights doesn't work. Everything else seems to be fine, so that should be it. Besides, if it does fail miserably it didn't cost me much and I know a guy selling his car in the next couple of months so if it is riddled with termites I can downgrade to an old Fiesta. Exciting times....

Anyway, last weekend was a stag doo. As it was during the day calling it a bucks night seems wrong. We went white water rafting in north Wales, and I have to say that I think I spent more time out of the raft then in. This part of the Welsh river (I have no idea of it's name, but I can pronounce Llangollen in Welsh now (ghan-gok-lin), or at least close enough that people know what I'm trying to say. Great fun, apart from the time I got dumped out and came up underneath the raft. After a very brief panic, I'm glad to say I decided to go back down and come up again further down river, which worked. If it hadn't, then there was going to be a more extensive panic, followed by learning for just how long I can hold my breath. I'm glad I still haven't been forced to find that piece of information out. Great fun, and it was the best weather in weeks so it was actually warm enough in the water to get by. The wetsuit obviously helped, but for once I wasn't actually cold.

The rest of that night is a bit of a drunken haze, but I have a much better understanding of just exactly what a large bunch of bored teenagers in small country towns get up to. That's all I'm going to say about that.

So as a result of my car being off the road, I haven't been able to get out of the house this week. Which has resulted in me being slightly bored, but also more productive on the German learning front. When I say more productive, I mean I've started again. I've decided I need to look at it as real study, and actually sit down and spend a couple of hours a week on it. Otherwise it just won't get done. Now that I have done an entire lesson and concentrated on it, I feel like it's coming to me again. But I have had several weeks off, so you never know. I did manage to watch the entire extended series of Lord of the Rings, so it wasn't a complete waste :)

Work is good, I'm forcing myself to be productive there as well. I'm eating healthy (for me) so I'm trying to be a better person. I would just like to point out though that on the 4th day of Spring I could already see my breath in the air. And that I'm thinking about getting the thermals out. Hopefully it's just a passing cold snap (ha!), and the fact England only had 56 hours of sunshine during August was an aberration. I fear not though, and I look forward to the symptoms of SAD with great enthusiasm. Bring on December when I go home for 6 weeks I say! Before that Rome of course, and as soon as I've paid for my car I will buy my tickets there and back.

As for Fathers day, I've lost track of time. Somewhere in my room is my present, which obviously won't make it on time. So I now need to investigate alternatives, as if I can sort something out I can make that the present for his Birthday and get something else for Father's day. Unlikely, so I better have a look before heading to work tomorrow.

That's a pretty long update...I guess it might have something to do with the fact I'm in bed and the laptop is working as a hot water bottle (or in this case, hot plastic box) making me not want to switch it off.

Photos from various places are up, on both Flickr and Facebook. I'm not too sure about this Flickr, they want me to upgrade to a Pro account to see my early photos, and as I'm anti-imperialist I refuse to give money to Flickr. It may not be anti-imperialism as much as just not wanting to pay and dressing it up as a big word (which deserves a word of its own if it doesn't already have one). Much more likely, I've never really got out of the idea that everything on the Internet should be free.

That's all for tonight I think, time for some sleep. Hope you all have a good weekend, all 3 readers :)

Edinburgh

2008-08-26T05:58:00.000+10:00

I was in Dublin for a day for work, but not much to talk about there.
I enjoyed it and need to go again, but apart from one notable moment
(the cafe I walked past had a sign advertising gruel) in the window I
don't have much to say about it.

Edinburgh however was much better. I was there for the long weekend
and spent a lot of time a) climbing the hill and b) doing festival
'stuff'. I saw a heap of shows, of which 2 (which were in the same
venue (out of 150) which was quite coincidental) stand out most. 1 was
The Oxford Gargoyles (.co.uk), who basically did vocal jazz with no
instruments. Fantastic, and if I'd been sitting in the right spot for
the acoustics I'm sure it would have been even better. The 2nd was
Coffee and Cake. Which was stand up comedy improvisation with singing.
Just funny stuff (particularly the puppets), one liners and short
skits, of which my favourite was 'if I was Prime Minister for the day,
I'd launch a parliamentary inquiry into how I became Prime Minister
for day'. That type of humour. Luckily I've been living here in
England to get the jokes, as most wouldn't make sense unless you knew
a bit about English companies. And their catch phrases.

All in all, Edinburgh is now my second favourite place I've been to.
Barcelona was still better, but only just. If I'd had someone to
wander around with and see some shows, then Edinburgh would definitely
be top. It was in the middle of the fringe festival, so that had a lot
to do with it, but it's a very pretty city (town actually as it
doesn't have a cathedral) and I'm just about to put some photos up
that I hope do it justice. I did end up hanging out with a pretty cool
Canadian couple, who I met on a pub crawl. Incidentally, the leader of
the group is from Warrington, which proves just what a small world it
is. And the underground tour was scary. Hearing about ghosts in the
comfort of your own home isn't that scary, in a 300 year old brick
vault with no lights is.

We've had a new person start at work, so I'm back to teaching someone
else how to do support so I can do more programming. The previous
person didn't work out, so it's good to get away from the support
again. This one is good, so as long as we get paid on time (hasn't
happened yet) I can't see there being any problems this week. Anyway,
I think that's all that is new and worth repeating. Photos will be up
shortly...not sure how long it will take as I haven't uploaded
anything lately, so I may need to do a lot. Luckily it's the end of
the month so it doesn't matter how much bandwidth I use :)

Bah humbug

2008-08-09T02:19:00.001+10:00

I got told today I was being quiet...which is true. On the blogging
front anyway. I've been keeping busy, watching movies or going out.
I've gotten through most of the LotR, just have Return of the King to
watch again. I'll start on Heroes season 2 soon as well...not good :)

As for Gaelic, well those two games last week got cancelled. So I
decided to boycott training and instead stayed at home and ate
maltesers and watched the Bourne Supremacy. In my defence it was
raining at the time. And I was late getting back from work. Now I just
need to obtain the 3rd one and I'm all good.

Also, I have finally obtained a USB hard drive. 1 TB worth of storage
power at my disposal. So now if my mac has an attack of the gremlins
or something none of my photos will be lost. That's the idea anyway, I
neglected to read the fine print so it needs to be plugged in to work.
I also bought some sunnies. Right at the end of summer, but better
late then never. Shiny. Mick will know why I need them :)

I've thought about a video blog as well...but have decided against it
as it's just too rambling, and besides who's really going to watch it?
It's not like I'm that much part of popular culture anymore to want to
be doing the 'latest' craze (which I last I heard was Twitter) in the
whole 'Web 2.0'. And I'd have to do my hair. I don't want to do that,
so no hair.

Oh, go and watch this. http://www.drhorrible.com The ending made me
sad. But that's not such a crazy random happenstance is it? Been a
while since I've seen Dr Doogie Howser, MD. Clearly he's far more
talented then his role in Starship Troopers showed him to be.

A change of scene

2008-07-30T16:42:00.002+10:00

Well, our games in London got cancelled due to lack of numbers. So last weeks game against Ealing was the last game of Aussie Rules for this year. Very short season....

So now it's on to Gaelic. I played Sunday in the heat (it was the hottest day I've seen so far) but they made me play keeper which I didn't enjoy. Especially against the best side in the league...I got a lot of practice kicking that day. Hopefully in the next few games they forget about that performance (apparently they think I played well) and I get to remain out on the field. I think it's back to defence though, which I'm still not sure is a good or bad thing yet.

In other news....well there really isn't any other news. Same old same old really. Work is still busy. The summer seems to have finally arrived and then gone again, as it's meant to be raining for the next few days. For a change it's warmer over here then it is in Brisbane. There have been several occasions when I've worn shorts and not been cold...so it has to be warm!

Anyway, time to go and iron a shirt for work.

Champion!

2008-07-22T18:26:00.001+10:00

I've won my first trophy over here. I'm part of the Pennine League
Championship winning St Lawrences side. Gaelic football. Although my
part in the game was small I still feel I made a constructive
contribution. I was subbed on, ran 10 yards and then the whistle went
for full time. The term time waster has never been more aptly used....

In Aussie Rules. we drew 4.7 to 4.7. Only one game as the other team
forfeited. I missed one shot on goal but I did take some strong marks,
so I'm generally happy with the performance. Hopefully we can scrape
together enough players for this weekends games in London. It's
looking iffy at the moment, but we'll find out by tonight if we can.

Anyway, just a short update. Trying to learn German after 3 weeks of
not listening is remarkably hard...so I'm going to sit down and listed
to the 3rd CD a couple of times. I keep getting my verbs confused. If
nothing else, I've gotten a better grasp of the English language by
doing the lessons, which is a little odd. Silver lining and all
that...

5 months to go, wahey!

What a Corker!

2008-07-14T04:13:00.002+10:00

Well, didn't get to do much sight-seeing in Cork. Still did a bit, but it basically turned into a drink-a-thon. The plan was to fly into Cork Friday night, see some Hurling on Saturday and then fly home Sunday. The original plan was to play a game of Aussie Rules, but the Leeside Lions didn't get back to us to organise it. Apparently they were short of players.

Anyway, what really happened is this. Hendo (who is Irish) was keen on playing the game after Kat (President) said it was a possibility. So we decided to go regardless of the status of the AFL game. There was a half hearted attempt to get a combined rules game going, but that didn't happen as the Gaelic boys weren't keen to come. So it morphed into a cultural drinking tour.

To start off with, the flight was delayed 2.5 hours. So we sat and had a couple of jugs at the bar at the airport, and watched 'Anal Amy' and her mates get ready for their flight to Magaluf. Note to self, never ever every go to Magaluf. Since their flight was leaving around the same time as our revised plans we got to see the class of people heading off for a holiday in Magaluf. Less said the better.

On our flight though, we had a hens night. From North Wales. Who were very drunk and having a good time by singing. Which I personally found hilarious, but I can understand others not. Especially when there are 6 of them in the row behind you. Very loud. Got to the hostel about 1230, and after a brief thought about going out for a drink, we decided not to as their wasn't a pub close by, and we'd just have a big night Saturday.

So Saturday, we thought about being cultured and headed down to the Tourism office to find out what we could do before the Hurling game. That was at 5pm, and we were up early so there was quite a bit of time. We thought about the Jameison tour, but didn't want to get out of town. Castle Freke is on the tourist map, but since we were only there for a day Cork was a better idea. Kinsale also looked good for a day trip...next time! The open bus tour only took an hour, and was great value. Saw all the major sites, and if we were feeling more cultured we could have gone the Gaol tour. Once that was done, we wandered through the English market (so called because it's covered and you had to swear allegiance to the Queen to have a stall there). Then it was meet up with Hendo and his mate Bill. They'd gotten in the day before and had had a big night out, which is why we were only now meeting up with them. Anyway, 1230 is when the drinking started...it finished at 2am. In between was a game of hurling, which is an incredible sport. They sprint while balancing the ball on the stick. Watch some highlights on You Tube, but it was great live. Good crowd, and we already had a nice buzz from all the beer we'd drunk. So then it was back to a pub, drink some more and watch the Limerick game, last year's All Ireland champions. Who lost by a lot. And then drinking. Then dinner. Then more drinking. The Saturday night is censored....you had to be there for more of it to be funny, but I'll just say that toothpaste is very hard to wash off someones ear. Great night out on the town, then deal with the hang over (I wasn't too bad, but I would have been better without the shots). Fly back to Manchester, and the weather was just so good that I had to go for a bike ride.

It really is the perfect English day, sun is out, the temperature was just right and it was beautiful, postcard like. Shame it only happens a couple of days a year, but it really was very pretty. And that's all really... or at least all that I'm going to post on my blog. I've ended up with a new nickname of Back Draft Benny (don't ask and I won't have to refuse to tell you) which has been done to death. I'm trying to get it done to death anyway, so that I don't have to put up with it for too long. Not having much success, so we'll see how it goes.

Have a good one all! Two big weeks coming up, home games and then down to Londonium for Aussie Rules, which given it's the same crowd as Cork will mean lots of drinking. And playing Aussie Rules, which I'm really looking forward to, been over a month since I played last and I'm missing it. Work is busy, as they've given me a bit more responsibility as 1 of the other guys is away. Hasn't been that good to be honest, as it really just means more work on top of what I was already doing, but it is teaching me how to be better organised, as I've had to be. Silver lining, that's what I'm telling myself.

I'll put some photos up on Flickr later. By later, I mean today, but it could very well be next week at the rate I'm going.

And Go Ape

2008-07-10T03:32:00.001+10:00

So I forgot to change the subject before posting last night...I was
tired and sick of typing.

So last weekend, I went camping in the Lake District (yes it rained
almost the entire time) and did Go Ape. Which is basically climbing
with harnesses through some platforms set in the trees and flying down
zip wires. The reason for this was it was a guys from Aussie Rules
31st birthday, so it was as good an excuse as anything else. It was
seriously a lot of fun, I did my Tarzan impersonation while going down
the flying foxes, which I hope went down well and made people laugh.
It was quite hard to get the yodel right...

So after getting soaking wet doing that, it was time to head to the
camp site. It stopped raining long enough to get the tent up, and then
we had a bbq. And Carlton Cold. I'd forgotten just how nice tasting it
was, and I'm not the only one who said that. It probably helps that
they were ice cold. Great night, full of disgusting anecdotes and
things were said that should never be said. Lets just say that I think
we've found the ultimate 'Would You Rather' question.

Woke up early in the morning, and despite the showers went for a quick
walk up the stream to see what I could see. Would have been better if
the sun was out, but still very pretty.

So that's that weekend in a nutshell...you really had to be there to enjoy it.

Future plans still include trying to learn German. I've booked my
flights back home, so I will be in Australia for most of december and
half of January, which should be brilliant. Going to Cork this
weekend, which should be Ace. And then there's Aussie Rules the
weekend after (Grouse!). 2 Games (Choice!). How long can I keep going
till I run out of superlatives? Not far enough, as it's 630pm and I've
had enough of work for one day.

Cologne (and Go Ape)

2008-07-09T07:28:00.003+10:00

Alright, so Cologne was pretty good. Not as good as Barcelona, but still alright. Flew in late Friday night, found the hostel alright and then was kept up by some pretty horrific snoring. Got up early and met Jen at some place whose name escapes me. The whole point of the trip was to meet Jen as she is on a 6 week tour of Europe, so mission accomplished. After an hour of chatting, her brother finally woke up and joined us. First things first, it was time to visit the Cathedral, which apparently is the most visited one in Germany. The idea was get that out of the way and plan the rest of the weekend from there. So we went to the Cathedral, after walking along the river bank (which was nice) and had a wander around. It was about this time I realised I was completely over seeing old buildings. Really. I've seen a lot, don't think I need to see that many more to be honest. What was good though was the climb up the spire. It's 509 steps around a windy spire, but luckily there was a bell loft halfway up. I went down to have a look just as the bells went off, and I must have jumped a mile. Unfortunately none of my photos from there turned out well enough to put up. Anyway, from there it was all the way up, up! We'd gotten there early ( I don't think Europe likes to do anything on a weekend before 11 ) so there was no traffic to overtake. Jen is crazy fit, so she powered ahead and left Tom and I behind. Eventually got to the top, and the view was pretty spectacular. Worth the effort I feel. Then it was all the way back down again! Not that bad, particularly funny coming across people down near the bottom who were complaining about the length of the trip. I'm sure they weren't more then 50 steps up...if only they knew the pain that was to come!

After the Cathedral, Jen had discovered there was a Lindt Factory in the town. Not strictly true according to the tourist shop man, but after getting a few leaflets for our other activities (bike riding) we headed down to the chocolate museum. Which was sadly not open till 11 (still very early) so we headed around, and carefully avoided the kid show and headed to the cafe. Where we each had a hot chocolate. Even Jen who is lactose intolerant. Very very nice. So then we had a nice little walk through the chocolate museum, where the nice people gave us lots of chocolate, and we watched the factory making lots of chocolate. Apparently it's really small as it only makes 400kg a day....I guess just enough to feed the tourists! Really very interesting, I liked watching the chocolate get put into molds and the whole process there. And the old style vending machines, very cool. Sadly, there was only so much chocolate we could watch, so we headed off to find some lunch. And I discovered why I shouldn't travel with backpackers, because Jen and Tom both decided to eat at a fairly expensive place. But it was so worth it, we each had something different (Jen had Deer, I had Lamb and Tom had...something else) and it was great. Apart from getting rained on, even though we were under a tree it still wasn't comfortable! To finish off the afternoon, we went on a cruise up the river, nice and relaxing.

So after having a brief nap at our separate hostels (theirs was better then mine) we met up to go have something to eat for dinner. On the way we saw a whole bunch of people watching music and drinking on the street, so we thought we'd go through the middle of them. After getting in about 10 metres we realised what was going on. It was a gay festival, but feeling adventurous we ploughed right on through. Unfortunately Tom didn't have the knack of maneuvering through crowds, so he got stuck at a road block. And I got stuck in front of a big fat guy who was getting far too close for my liking....

Eventually we got through (Jen (surprise) shoved on through) and headed back to a street we found earlier. Found a nice looking pub and headed in as there were no seats outside (smokers). When the waitress came, I managed to use my rudimentary German to order drinks, until she asked one question too many and we had to admit we didn't know German. Which was fine as we got English menus. The meal was alright, nothing on lunch, and after a bit of a chat (and wait for the bill) headed back to their hostel and an early night.

Sunday, the plan was to hire some bikes, have a nap and then watch the Euro final and cheer Germany on. The bike ride was a brilliant idea, and I wish it had been mine. Instead, it was a guy from the Aussie Rules club, so I'm going to claim it. Jen worked out that we rode over 50 km, but it didn't feel like it. It was such a good bike compared to the one I own....I really wished I could steal it and bring it back with me...but that wasn't going to happen. Jen, being a triathlete and a mountain biker of course didn't think much of them as she's used to much better. I think Tom shared my opinion of the bike though. It's a great way to experience a different part of the country then usual. Plus I think I hooked Jen on the idea of hiring a bike everywhere, simply because the bike tracks are so good there...every main road had a bike track next to it, and we could have cycled all the way to Dusseldorf if we'd wanted to. We out-voted Jen on that one! Had a great pizza at Manheim ( I think that's what it was called ), and the waitress there had put a stone in her tooth. A fake diamond or something...I'd never seen anything like that before, was a bit freaky. Good talking point for the 3 of us though. Apart from a slight detour through some bushes the bike ride was great, highly recommend taking a hat though.

So after a nap, I headed over to their Hostel to meet up before the game. Their Canadian room-mate (Zac) was saying their was a big screen set up in a park, which sounded like a good idea to us. Just before we left from the bar where we had a pre-drink 2 other girls came down to look for somewhere to watch the game, an Aussie (Renee) and an American (Katie). I really like the American accent...it's a weakness of mine. So we headed off, drinks in hand (it's legal to drink on the street in Germany) to find this park. Unfortunately, they were relying on me to get there and I didn't have a map, so I followed the crowd. Instead of the park we found a street of pubs, which was still pretty good. Watched the first couple of minutes then headed off for the park, where we discovered that there was no big screen, just a big pub with lots of screens. So we watched the game there and started chatting to some German guys we met. Was a great night, and it would have been so much better if Germany had won. Understandably they weren't too keen to celebrate after their team lost.

I then managed to get home and to work on time, which I thought was quite impressive given I'd had possibly 2 hours sleep and was hung over.

Alright, that's one trip out of the way...I will get around to more information. A couple of travel tips for Cologne though
1) Hire a bike. So worth it
2) If you don't ask for the bill you won't get one
3) Further north seems to be the better part of town....

Busy busy bee

2008-07-04T00:03:00.002+10:00

It's been half a month since I last posted, and that is simply down to just how hectic things have been. I haven't had a chance to upload photos in a while as I've been just running around like crazy. Here's a brief run down

- Euro 2008. Watched lots of games and it was great because they were so attacking compared to most games. Plus I won free beer in a tipping contest! That pub has been so good to me....
- Aussie Rules. We're back on and with a few extra players we have enough to play the last few games. Training has been great because of the extra players.
- Indoor soccer. I've joined Walton Wednesday, and now that the ankle is no longer badly sprained I'm back to playing well so I'm happy. They seem happy to have me to, so that's Wednesday nights sorted for the next x years.
- Visiting uncles. I also managed to give away my digital free box while I was there, which was even better.
- Cologne. Germany. Been there, done that. Was great to ride along the Rhein, nice and flat and just a really nice way to experience a different part of the country side. Met some nice people while there, but the less said about the Monday morning at work after a big night of drinking the better.
- Camping. Still haven't done it, but soon.
- Further trips. Italy in November. Australia over Christmas (flights locked in, just need to pay now). Cork next weekend (with a possible trip to Castle Freke!). Need to plan further trips better, so I'm going to plan them around Festivals....more info once I've had time to look it up.
- Photos. I will put them up soon.

I will post more details as soon as I can.

Damn Commitmentphobes

2008-06-15T03:34:00.003+10:00

It's been a while between posts, but that's mainly due to disappointment. We played against Nottingham in Aussie Rules, and unlike the last game we got absolutely spanked 13 - 126. We didn't have a good side as many players didn't show up, and they were just too good. We ended up with quite a few injuries out of the game as well, so much so that we seemed to have more injured Tuesday night then were actually fit. I'd like to say there were some highlights from the game, but I can't remember doing anything particularly. A few times I dropped the ball when I should have held on to it, that would have helped.

We were also supposed to be playing down in Bristol this weekend, but had to call that off due to lack of numbers. Because I badly twisted my ankle I'm not too upset about that. Doesn't mean I'm happy either though.

Now on to the good things. I've looked at my calendar, and I'm not going to be home much for every other weekend during the summer. Cologne is coming up (meeting a friend over there), going down to see my uncles next weekend, so it's not just AFL that I'm doing. Work has been good lately, I've been given a bit more responsibility and I'm doing more coding work, which makes me happy. I won the battle with the insurance company over my no claims discount, and I can guarantee I won't be with them next year. Euro 2008 is on, and there have been some great games to watch. And Australia are currently beating Qatar 3-0, which means we're through to the next stage. The weather remains good. It was a bit windy today, but still warm enough that I wasn't cold.

Anyway, just wanted to update people with some things that have been happening. Nothing else to talk about really, just plan holidays now.

Funny blog

2008-06-06T19:34:00.001+10:00

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/

The writer has a great sense of humour and puts their point across
well. Of course it's not how all white people act, and I'm sure there
are some 'coloured' (I hope that's PC) people that also do the same
thing. Funny stuff though.

Mozzies v Liverpoll

2008-06-02T06:21:00.001+10:00

This weekend just gone the Liverpool side came over to our ground for
their first game ever. Being rugby players they didn't have much idea
what they were doing on the AFL field, but they were full of running.
They turned up late as they took a wrong turn but that as alright as I
slept in and was running late as well. Once the game got going, for a
change I wasn't in the ruck. Instead I was up at full forward, which
isn't my favourite position in the world. I'm put their to use my
speed when leading, but that doesn't mean I like it. It was only 12 a
side as well, as they didn't have enough players for more then that.
15 is probably ideal for our size field, but 12 was still good.

Anyway, I couldn't really see much of what was happening because I was
at the other end of the field, but as I was saying the opposition was
full of running, and were actually beating us at one point. We weren't
marking up and they managed to get the drop on us. Thanks to some poor
kicking as well, myself included. I took a mark early but as it was on
the edge of my range I decided to just put it in the square. I
probably should have gone back and taken more time and tried to kick
the goal...live and learn. Anyway, we eventually got on top of them. I
got one goal for the quarter, the ball came in to the half pocket and
Jordie marked it. I'd run over to provide support in case he dropped
it, which left the square open. So I sprinted back towards the square
and Jordie put it back into the square. It was going to run just wide,
so instead of shepherding it over I picked it up about 2 metres from
the line and popped it through.

At that point it was pretty much quarter time. Wayne had missed a few
set shots he'd normally get, which was unlike him so we weren't ahead
by much, it was about 22 to 14. One of our halfbacks had done a hammy
during the first quarter, so I volunteered to go down back. I hadn't
played that position before so I was looking forward to finding out
how it went. What I found out straight away was why we'd struggled
against the side early. Being rugby players (and some hadn't even had
a training session) they basically attacked in waves. So not having a
target up front to kick to they just knocked it over the top and ran
on to it. I'm pretty confident I'm the fastest guy in our team and I
struggled to keep up (I was just slightly faster), so the tactic
wasn't without merit and was surprisingly effective. They also exposed
us on the counter attack, as everyone ran forward so they always
outnumbered us. The only thing that worked in our favour was their
terrible skills. I cleaned up quite a few times as their kick missed
the target and I ran on to it and cleared it. I had a good shepherd as
well, Richo called early and I shepherded his player out of the way.
So by the end of the quarter, with me cleaning up at the back they'd
scored no points and we'd put on quite a few. The new guy Ed was
carving them up at half forward, apart from a lack of speed he was
doing some great things and took some good marks.

3rd quarter was much the same as the 2nd. Once again they got no
points (almost a rushed behind but they pushed Shelto just before he
rushed it) but it was still a good contest. At one point it was 3 on 1
(me being the 1), and luckily they missed the kick. I marked it,
played on and had my first bounce in a football game. Sure, the ball
bounced 4 times before I picked it up, but you've got to start
somewhere. I got a point during this quarter as well, my opponent ran
all the way back to try and get the ball so I followed him. The ball
came to me so I had a shot, which unfortunately drifted to the right.
The final quarter was where things got interesting. My opponent was a
rugby player, and gave me the don't argue on one occasion, from which
I got up and chased him and he did it again! I must learn to
tackle..... My highlight though was definitely when he drifted back
down to get a kickout. I followed, and as the ball came in I jumped up
and nearly marked it from behind. As it dropped in front of us I've
paddled it up the line a bit to get round the defender coming at us,
got round the slight tackle, picked the ball up and kicked the goal
from 35 metres on the boundary line. Goal of the game, even if I do
have to say so myself...

So although it was an easy win, it was soured by a broken collar bone
to Wade in the last 2 minutes of the game. He was going on holiday in
Europe on Wednesday, but that's not going to happen now...and it's
even worse for him as he's a surfer and apparently it'll be at least 3
months before he can do that again. Highlights of the game were (for
me) the goal I kicked in the final quarter and the fact I played
better then the last game which means I'm still improving. A few areas
I need to work on, I sometimes pick the wrong option with the ball in
hand and want to cut that out, but that's about it. And when playing
full forward I need to lead into space more. I'll probably be there
again this weekend for the game against Nottingham so it's something
I'll need to work on. For the game as a whole, Richo running straight
through a player and Ed kicking his first goal in his first game ever.
Contentious goal, but it was awarded and that's all that matters. It
was good to have the hit out and hopefully it'll help us out next week
against a much more competitive side.

Also, I've started listening to my German CD....and one of the things
it says not to do is practise outside of the lessons. My kind of
learning! After the second listen it is starting to make more sense,
so now once I get my money situation sorted (I don't want to discuss
that on here) I'll need to book a trip to Deutschland to practice.
Have a good week everybody!

Injury photo

2008-05-30T07:27:00.002+10:00

It took a while for the photo to get to me, but it has finally
arrived. I put a copy of it up on my flickr account, but as it is only
1 photo I've included a link to it here. Hopefully it shows up alright
:)

Barcelona

2008-05-29T06:47:00.001+10:00

Alright, time to fill in the blanks. I stayed at a friends place
Friday night so I could get to the Airport on time. Absolutely no
problems getting there, and it was a pretty easy ride to the hostel. A
little hard to get there, as there wasn't a door. It was a corrugated
iron shed type door, but after clicking the intercom button I got in
fine, and got the briefing. Being the first time I'd stayed at a
hostel, it was kind of interesting. So, being 2pm on a Saturday and
being up from 6 I decided it was time to get something to eat. So I
took the advice of the hostel and had some Paella a la carte. Never
again. I have an issue with eating sea food...I don't like the way it
looks at you. It was good, don't get me wrong, I just don't like
prawns.

After that, I wondered around the old quarter and other assorted small
alleyways. I had a small walk planned, but it took so much longer as I
kept ducking down side streets just for the hell of it. Found lots of
interesting things, like the garden in the cathedral, and this
incredible little band. I took a video, but haven't had a chance to
edit it so it isn't up yet. Some fascinating pieces of architecture.
After having a wander, I went back to the hostel and hoped to meet a
couple of people to go out with, but they already had their own plans.
So I went to watch the water fountain display instead, and have a
wander around the museums. For some reason I never found out it was a
free weekend to get in the museums, so I wandered around an art
gallery after the fountain. It's quite interesting for me, as I
normally read all the signs, having to just look at the art and try
and interpret it. Not actually that interesting, so I didn't last that
long. After that, I went and had some over-priced tapas (never eat on
Las Ramblas) and then had a drink at what I called 'The Fairy Pub',
and what others would call 'Basque de la Fades'. Really, it's just a
themed pub but it was still worth the visit. Small drinks too, so
while I was on my own I didn't stay too long.

Next day, got up and had breakfast and got chatting to some Americans.
One of them was going to do the same thing I was, namely see
everything Gaudi possible in one day. As were two of the girls from
his room. So the four of us head off, and went to see all the major
Gaudi buildings. Lots of photos of them are up. We must have walked
for about 8 hours all up, and it was great. One of the highlights was
going up one of the towers in Sagrada Familia, and the two girls (who
incidentally were both from Australia) going straight back down the
lift as they didn't like the look of the stairs back down. Some
fantastic views, but disappointing in that we couldn't go all the way
up as that way was blocked off. Unfortunately at this point my camera
started to run out of power, so I didn't take many photos of the park.
All in all, well worth the trip.

I did also go out that night with a few other guys, to the Fairy Pub
again and then out to a little spanish bar, which they kicked us out
of at 3am. Needless to say, I was a little tired in the morning, but
got on the plane home fine, and then back home where I put the washing
on and had an early night.

Sorry for the shortness, but read this, look at the photos and then
read again and it will make more sense. I hope.

And then last weekend, Emma (housemate) was going down to Wales to
spend some time with her parents (it was her Mum's birthday) and she
asked me if I wanted to come along. So I did. I've now been to Wales
(I have some good Welsh slate sitting on my desk at work), Aberystwyth
to be precise. Fantastic little town. Very windy, and I didn't do much
site seeing but I will go back some time. As her parents are still
building a house, we stayed in a tent, which is something I hadn't
done for 10 years. I love the Welsh accent, and it was a cool little
trip away. Went rock pooling, had Yorkshire pudding for the first
time, talked about stone circles. Can't complain.

Anyway, that's up to date, but very sparse on details as I don't have
much time. Anything specific I've missed out (I can't think of any)
let me know and I'll edit this post....

But we have a game this weekend for AFL, which is going to be good. We
have a few players out with injury, so I might get a run in midfield
(I hope!). I was training at full forward, and I'm sure I'll be in the
ruck (I always am) but I'm hoping that my fitness will see me get a
run in the middle. We'll see though, but I'm looking forward to the
night out afterwards.

Had to say no to indoor soccer tonight as my ankle is still sore from
last week, but I am playing Gaelic again tomorrow night (maybe, they
have to get back to me first) so I'm keeping fit, having fun and
meeting lots of new people. It's supposedly summer (so they tell me)
but I had a beanie, scarf and gloves on on the way to work. Crazy
country.

Big update, but not everything

2008-05-20T05:35:00.002+10:00

It has been a while, hasn't it? To start off with, is the Nottingham game for the Mozzies.

Relying on the GPS to get there worked. And it was a good thing too, as I took a few wrong turns. Once it was because I was following a bus, and the second time was because I didn't read the sign properly. In my defence, I'd only had a car in England for a week. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it :) Eventually we got there though.

We had a large squad, so that was good considering it was so hot. For England. It was probably 26, which was great if you weren't playing. I didn't mind it too much, but my lack of fitness was definitely telling. I also got to play up front more then before, as we had 2 other people who were going to play ruck as well. I wasn't a big fan of playing up front to be honest, I didn't see too much of the ball. I preferred being in the middle, and helping out where I could. I won a few taps as well because their ruck wasn't that much taller then me, so if I timed my jump I'd get the ball. It was good to be competitive. To start off the first quarter I was up front and didn't see any of it. The Nottingham team had probably been training together a bit more then us, we had a few people who I'd never seen before. We then had a problem when Wade our main half forward went down with an ankle injury, and then our starting Ruck also got injured. So I got moved into the middle. The Nottingham side were a couple of goals up at the and of the quarter.

Going into the second quarter we started playing well, and it ended up even at half time. During the second quarter we lost a few more, and I ended up in the middle of the ground roving. Which was great fun, and if I was fitter and better I'd like to play there all the time. I copped a boot in the eye during this quarter as well, which luckily didn't bleed so I stayed on. I remember it happening, but since it wasn't bleeding I just ignored it. It actually turned out that I had a black eye, some nice bruises next to the eye and scratches from there down on to my shoulder. At some point I'd gotten the ball in front of me, and someone bumped me over. While the ball was on the ground I grabbed it, and someone got knocked over/slung near me. So that's how the boots got near my eye to do the damage.

3rd quarter was Nottingham again. They'd started to shut down Clint who was our main player in the middle so they got ahead of us again. In the last quarter I started in the Ruck before moving into the forward line. Unfortunately we couldn't get up in the last quarter. I moved up to half forward to use my pace to get the ball from the middle, which worked well. Unfortunately I ended up on a big guy who still had some pace and knew how to use his body, so if he was anywhere near me he'd win the ball. But I made quite a few leads and got the ball ahead of him which was good.

So, highlights? Going out on a lead, getting the mark, and then kicking the ball forty yards onto the chest of the player I was aiming at. Yes, he missed the goal that may have brought us back into it, but I did my part and that's all I can do. Low point was when the ball came in to the 50, I was near it and challenged for it. I had enough time to go up for a two handed mark if I had of been willing to put my body on the line, but I chickened out and went for the one hander instead. It was a little leverage for Jeselenko moment....next time. Got to have something to improve I guess.

So after that game, we went out drinking, which was a fantastic night. Those photos are on facebook, not flickr, as I didn't take them. Great night out. Sunday was a barbecue with the team, and some serious Wii action. I finally got to play Guitar Hero 3, which was a fun game. Not fun enough to make me buy a Wii specifically for that. I've also played quite a bit of Mario Kart for the Wii. Strangely enough both games have made a sudden appearance in the house, as Rob and Michelle bought those games. You'd think at this point I'd stop being so busy considering I was going to Barcelona, but no such luck. Tuesday was Bristol City v Crystal Palace in a semi final to see who would go to the play off to get into the premier league. We got up in extra time, so Bristol City are playing Hull for the chance to go up. There's a very good chance whoever wins will be going straight back down, but I've got to cheer for my team. So I watched them after training, which was great. I'm looking forward to this Saturday to see if they can do it.

Wednesday was my first appearance at indoor football. It's just a bunch of people, so it's not terribly serious. Great fun, and it was great to have a kick around. Not as good as I was, but I haven't played in so long that it wasn't surprising.

Thursday was a game of Gaelic. This was time the opposition was much better, and I didn't get to see much of the ball. I wasn't confident running off my man, so next time I do it I'll have to take more risks to try and do more. We lost the game by 3 points I think. I had a chance to get a goal, but my shot ended up going wide from six yards out. It was a snap shot, so I didn't have time to line it up. I think I did alright, not brilliantly. I'm looking forward to playing again, hopefully there are a few games left, I'm not really sure if there are or not.

Then saturday was off to Barcelona. I'm tired, so I'm not going to write too much now. It was great, and if you've never been you need to go. I've put the photos on Flickr. Or at least the good ones. I will write more about the trip once I get a chance.

Wow

2008-05-07T20:28:00.001+10:00

It's suddenly become nice over here. The sun is shining, all the trees
have their leaves back and spring is in the air, you can smell all the
pollen and freshly mown grass. It's pretty nice. I'm not going so far
as to not wear a jumper as it is still a little on the chilly side,
but I can see why having different seasons is a good thing. Makes you
appreciate the good ones more :) Cycling to work this morning I
deliberately went slow just to enjoy the ride more. There are now
officially hedgerows next to one of the back roads I take, and they're
in bloom. Must remember to watch out for Bees!

This weekend is the second AFL game of the year. In Nottingham.
Unfortunately we're not staying the night as there is something else
on so it's back to Manchester for the night out. Which really doesn't
bother me at all, should be a good night regardless of where it is.
I'm still playing in the ruck, which I think is half to do with my
fitness, and half height. So the plan is for my to put up a contest in
the ruck (I rarely win) and then run around and help out the midfield
guys. Hopefully help the team win, this team is apparently pretty good
and we've lost one of our midfielders to injury. We've got a fair few
new guys coming down so numbers are good, experience isn't that high.
Should be a good game. If I can kick a goal I'll be happy, but I don't
think that is very likely. I'm starting to get excited again though,
which is a good sign.

Nothing else to report, hope everyone had a good long weekend (if in
QLD or England). As for the rest of you, I'm sure there will be more
coming up :)

Oops

2008-05-06T03:26:00.002+10:00

It appears I didn't tell anyone that I was going to the Isle of Man this weekend just gone. I did tell some, but amongst everything else I was doing I never blogged about it. I went, played Gaelic Football and then did some drinking.

The football was good, I got put up half forward as they were short of players. It took me a while to figure out how to play but I did alright. It helped that the player they had against me wasn't very good. The main difference between Gaelic and AFL is tackling and soloing. You can't tackle in Gaelic, instead you have to try and slap the ball out of their hands. I'm not very good at that, but up forward I didn't need to be brilliant. I held play up enough that I was happy with it for my first game. The other thing is that unlike AFL players will run the ball much longer because they can't get tackled. So they kick the ball up to themselves. Drop it on the foot and kick it back to the hands at full speed is not something I've figured out how to do yet. So I did the AFL thing of get the ball and pass it on instead of travelling. That worked out fine and I got 4 points. 3 for a goal and 1 for an over. It was a lucky goal, the full forward had a free kick (like soccer) and it bounced off the cross bar, straight into my hands. So I kicked it into the goal for 3 points. After that all the other players started passing the ball to me. I don't think they thought I could play before that :)

I've uploaded photos to Flickr from the weekend, they're not much as it wasn't a sight-seeing tour. I've also put up a photo of me and my hat which we found in Manchester.

I would like to get back there again, and do some proper sight seeing. But that won't be any time soon as there are too many other things planned. Nottingham, Barcelona are it for plans, I need to sit down and work out where it is I'm going and when, but there won't be many weekends at home if I have my way. More news when I have it :)

p.s. I finally won a game in Dream Team! Yay!!

Apart from that, the car is still holding up nicely. I made the mistake of parking it under a tree that had blossomed, so when I came back it was covered in pink petals. Not a very butch look :)

Worst, help, ever

2008-04-29T07:57:00.001+10:00

Ok, I know I wasn't expecting too much out of the poll, but I was
hoping to get a more clear cut decision then that :) I guess it'll
have to be up to me to decide. German may end up being the way simply
because it's what I want. Plus I've been told it's fairly simple to
learn. I'll look into lessons and keep everyone informed of my
language lessons.

So what else is new? The car is good, lots of space to move and not
too big. Just the right amount of power for my liking. Despite claims
to the contrary, it is not grey, nor is it gray. It is instead a sort
of Lilac colour. It is the largest car I've ever owned too, which
isn't saying much. Given I've owned an NX-R and then an MX-5, it feels
more odd that there is no x in the name. The thing I'm most happy
about is that it's not a car that can be bought in Australia. Not this
model anyway.

While I haven't found the pod cast tour of Barcelona, I do have a
walking tour to go with. Las Ramblas figures prominently, and the tour
is coming together nicely in my head. We'll see how it goes and how
far I end up getting out of my comfort zone. Probably not very far but
you never know :)

We've had a new person start at work today who is going to be taking
over the support stuff. Which is fantastic news for me as I get to
move into development. Not a good start today as I wasn't able to fix
up something wasn't working. Of course, someone had to do the support
calls as well which is my excuse...talking to people on gmail didn't
slow me down at all ;)

Also, I have a few photos to put up. It will happen soon, probably
after I get 1 or 2 of the car as I'm sure people would like to see it.
That's the plan anyway. Sometimes these plans work, like dinner. I was
talking to Jacqui and she put the thought of steak and salad in my
head, so I planned it and it came out brilliantly. I didn't even set
off the smoke alarm. Pity all my plans don't go that well...

Lest we forget

2008-04-25T16:51:00.001+10:00

ANZAC day. Away from home all things Australian mean more. I still
call Australia home has a power that it doesn't when you're living in
the great country that we call home. A day to honour those who
sacrificed for what they believe in.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23592936-5007146,00.html

It's also worth asking questions.

Difficult questions

2008-04-19T03:49:00.002+10:00

Alright, I can't decide. I want to learn another language while I'm over here in Europe. Partly because it's so easy to go over there, and just because I've always wanted to learn another language since I realised I'd blown the chance to learn French at school.

Hence the poll up in the top right. I can't really decide between the top 3. The others are there just for fun, and for ones I haven't thought of. So I'd like other peoples thoughts on the matter, keep in mind that I know about the same amount in all languages at the moment. Which is how to count to 10 (almost). So thoughts away!

Let me know your thoughts, either just by voting or by commenting. As far as I can tell, none of those languages are going to be terribly useful in the long run. But you never know. One week till I get my car :)

Ramblings of a diseased mind

2008-04-17T06:16:00.001+10:00

So, to start todays blog, lets answer a question from a loyal reader,
who we shall call J. J asks, 'What is the state of that anyway?'.
Where 'that' is how long I'm going to stay in Europe for. Well, I've
decided to be here at least a year, probably more. I'm slowly getting
more organised with everything, as shown by buying a car and booking a
holiday. There are a whole lot of Aussie Rules games planned, and as
they're away that involves visiting another city. Generally. Despite
being disappointed at the lack of anyone to go travelling with (most
people have already done it, or don't want to, and I'm yet to meet the
other lot, damn their oily hides) that's not going to hold me back!
Europe here I come. Coming into summer when the weather is good I
think I'll be looking at northern Europe, Stockholm, Rotterdam, those
sorts of places. Southern Europe (where it's warm) can wait for the
colder months when I will appreciate it more.

In sad news (to me anyway), my stuff from home is starting to wear out
noticeably. The backpack, which has lasted me since the last year of
high school is starting to go. Given the way I treat it I'm happy with
11 years out of it to be honest. So that's a good excuse to upgrade to
a proper travel backpack, which I shall do...sometime. It'll last a
bit longer :) My shoes are also on the way out. One have a big hole at
the back, and others have nothing left at the back. Very sad, but it
is time for some new shoes. I just don't want to go shopping really
which is why I keep putting it off.

Really enjoying being part of a club again. I am officially a ruckman
now, they're talking about specialist training for me....I'm not too
sure about that. We had a good session on Tuesday, a bit of 2 on 2 and
my team won the majority of the contests. Good couple of shoulder
barges and tackles. I did get rag dolled once, so I will need a
tighter jersey. It's all in the name of not getting tackled, not to
show off my bulging guns....really :) Goal kicking is going well,
happy with the accuracy so I'll continue to get rested up front, which
makes me happy :)

Hmmm. I just read that article I posted again, and it says, right at
the bottom, 'Professor Don Aitkin, historian and political scientist,
is a fellow of three learned societies.' Which means what exactly? No
one knows. Unless you're a member of the learned society I guess.
Sure, these things I would normally google and look up, but in the
context of the article it is kind of odd.

I also spent some time trying to find a blog from an old friend. And
it's amazing how many people have started blogs and then never keep
them going. I don't mean as often as I am to keep it alive, but just
plain stop. Are they all on facebook or something, and I missed the
train? I don't think that's right, I just think I'm out of the loop.
Sadly (or not in some cases) people drift apart. It's inevitable, but
still sad at times. Facebook has made the whole finding people again
really easy. It also makes it harder to stay away from others. I guess
it all balances out in the long run.

Ah well, enough philosophy for one night. I think it's time to go
practise some more guitar before going to bed.

The perils of dreamteam

2008-04-13T18:59:00.001+10:00

It's heartbreaking when the matchup you need to do well (Deledio v
Simmonds), and when the score refreshes your player goes down points
because he gave away a free, and the other player goes up 3 for a
kick. Not happy Jan!!

Apart from that, it's been a good week. I'm still going to lose, but I
got a good score when I wanted to. And since there is still one game
left the score is only going to get better. Not good enough, but it
leaves me hopeful for the next couple of weeks.

Apart from that, in the real world I've done two things. Bought a car,
a 1998 Ford Escort Hatchback. So when I pick that up (around Anzac
day) that'll make getting to and from training so much easier. Plus I
can just get in the car and go do whatever I like. So that's good new.

And I've also booked the flight to Barcelona....like I was going to do
in January :) I've still got a few other things to sort out, but it's
a good start. Now to find these rumoured podcast tours....

Interesting article

2008-04-09T16:49:00.001+10:00

I liked it: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23508724-7583,00.html

AFL games

2008-04-08T17:07:00.001+10:00

Well, Cardiff was good. Took about 3.5 hours to get there by car,
which wasn't actually that bad. And by going there we missed the snow
that seemed to hit the rest of England....driving back was fantastic
with all the snow on the hills. And a few cars...every now and then
we'd overtake a car and bits of snow were falling off it. The scariest
bit was driving over the bridge to get out of Wales and there were
bits of ice falling off the bridge on to the road. Could have done
some serious damage if it had hit us.

Anyway, on to AFL. There were 3 games to be played, Chippenham, Wales
(their national team) and Bristol (in that order). Chippenham had
played one game before, while the other two were going to be much
harder as they'd both played before. We were playing 10 a side on a
rugby pitch that had had an oval marked out using markers.

I was playing in the Ruck and then being rested at full forward, so I
got the chance to win the first ball. Which I didn't. Their guy won
it, but then our midfield took over and we started attacking into a
quite vicious wind. A couple of things I was happy with in that game
was when the ball came out of a pack of players, I dived on it, got up
with the ball in my hands and shot a hand pass out the side to one of
our players. Beautiful skills by the big man :) Then there was my
first goal. The ball bounced around up front, and I'd been moved to
full forward by this stage. Our half forward had led at the ball and
it had been spilled across the face of goal. I sprinted to the ball
and did a sliding soccer kick (left footed!) right through the middle
of the goal from 10 yards out. Great feeling. We ended up winning that
game 65-1. They got a point with the last kick of the game.

Next up was Wales. Once again a giant ruckman, where I didn't win
much. Much harder team as well, and my lack of marking up ability was
shown up a few times. I did a few good things, a couple of good use of
skills to put us down the field (pick up, handball, run on and get it
back, then a kick to the half forward who marked it) but my favourite
was when the ball was kicked out from a point, their ruckmen didn't
quite get to it, and the ball bounced out of his path straight into
mine. I grabbed it, sprinted away from him and then kicked a point.
Didn't steady myself, but I now know better then to kick at full
sprint. Another time the ball came out their again, and ran past him.
So I barged him over, almost got the ball but their midfielder got
there and took it away. We won by 7 points I think, was a fun game,
nice and competitive.

Last was Bristol, who like us had won both games that day. I got run
ragged by their ruckmen, but I had two shining moments. One was after
we had been under a bit of pressure, and I was at full forward. We'd
finally got the ball with time, so I've sprinted down the pitch and
called for the ball. Ted has kicked it about 40 yards, and I've
sprinted it, dived and taken the mark on the wing. I've kicked it on
to the midfielder running through (bad kick) and we've ended up
getting a goal out of it. Yay us! The second was when I was playing in
the ruck again, from a throw in I've tried to just get the ball (as it
fell short) and snap it towards goal. The other ruckman arrived late
and I think whacked me over the head. I didn't notice to be honest,
but I got the free kick in the pocket at about a 70 degree angle. So
I've gone back, thought about it, and with the breeze still blowing a
gale I knew I had to start it left and let it come back. Perfect
pocket to kick it from. I didn't connect cleanly, and the ball has
started out near the behind post. Because it wasn't kicked well
though, the breeze has got hold of it and it's done a sharp right. The
defender got mixed up with the wind, and it ended up bouncing on the
line and through for a goal! So from set shots I'm 1.0 for the season.
The rest of the time it 1.5, but that will come with time (I hope).
Lot of fun, even when I got smashed (which happened once, my back is
still sore). Unfortunately our next game is in May, which is a bit of
a wait. Still, I thought overall I played well and I know where I need
to improve (goal kicking and marking up).

Dreamteam on the other hand, I'm up against Mick in round 1 who just
got 2000 points. I only got 1700. At least I know I'll improve my
results as the season comes round. I've only had 20 players playing,
so hopefully with a full 22 this week things go right for me and wrong
for Mick :) Of course, after Mick I then have Brad, who got 2000 last
week......
So till next time, have fun party people! And blog/email me more!

Hurray!

2008-04-05T03:12:00.002+10:00

Tomorrow is my first AFL game. So very very excited. I just hope I'm good at it. My competitive streak won't be able to handle it if I'm not :)

Also, guess who got a ticket for the Man Utd v Roma 2nd Leg game at Old Trafford? That's right, me! No idea how I'm getting there or what time the game starts. Still, it's supposedly one of the great stadiums in the world, so that'll be good. As I'm going to Cardiff, no updates on the weekends, nor will I be able to check how my Dream Team is going. I'm just going to assume that everything goes to plan. The question does have to be asked when Lachlan Hansen will get picked....I need one more defender to play dammit!

Not so cold

2008-03-31T23:37:00.001+10:00

Well, the title says it all. Now that heating (and the shower!) is
back, I'm not so cold anymore. Still not warm because the heating at
work is off, but when I get home it'll be nice :)

So, update time I guess. Friday was terrible. I got rained on riding
to work, and rained on going home. Also not fun because Jamie and
Idecided to go our separate ways the night before. Saturday...nothing
really. It rained all day and I didn't leave the house because of
that.

Sunday was AFL training again. Thanks to the torrential downpour the
night before the fields were very waterlogged. Still a good run, and I
do know that I will be rucking on the weekend for our three games. I
imagine I'll then just stand in the middle going 'Kick it to me, kick
it to me!' or something similar. Still, I'm getting incredibly
excited, and it's still 6 days away. Something to look forward to I
guess.

Emma, the new room-mate, has moved in. And is promptly heading to
Australia for 2 weeks. It really seems like everyone is going there
except me, who's just come from there. I did ask her to bring me back
some double chocolate Tim Tams....here's hoping she remembers! Either
or Cherry Ripes :)

A couple of mentions to go out this week as well. All the best Jacqui
with things, and I hope they work out. Paris, I'm looking forward to
meeting you. And Mick, I want a match report!

So very very cold

2008-03-26T08:39:00.001+10:00

So, the house I'm living in is being renovated. Slowly, piece by
piece. I believe I have mentioned at some point that it has a bar in
the living room, along with a pool table. If I haven't, I have now :)

Anyway, it's being renovated. Stage 1 was to get the plasterer in and
to redo the windows. So currently my roof is bare....something and I
have a brand new window. I also have a brand new radiator.
Unfortunately, it's not on. Neither is the hot water. I assume they're
connected somehow (I really don't know) but I do know that all the
radiators are being moved around / upgraded. And we're getting a brand
new kitchen. The problem I have is that the hot water has not been put
back on as the radiators aren't ready for it. Or something like that.
All I know is that I'm huddled under the covers, the laptop on my lap
which is the only warm part of my body. I'm still fully dressed and
I'm still cold! Worst yet, I cannot have a warm shower in the morning.
Fan-bloody-tastic.

In other news, I've gotten most of my music back into iTunes on my
computer. I'm listening to Carmen at the moment, which is quite
soothing actually. Which was the whole point of buying the classical
music CD, to relax me :) I think I'm coming down with a bit of a cold
actually though. Strangely, there is an Elvis impersonator teaching
golf on the TV....isn't pay TV random?

So my Easter was different. I didn't get any chocolate, which was
disappointing. Well, I did get a cherry ripe. Two shocking facts about
Jamie are that she can't swim and that she doesn't like cherry ripes.
So the first one is more shocking, but I can't understand anybody not
liking cherry ripes...it seems wrong. The Tim Tams were good though.

Also, for all those using gmail in Safari, do not upgrade to 3.1
Safari yet as you will find that you've lost the ability to use
capitals while composing Rich Text emails. No fix yet, but there are a
lot of people out there with the same problem. Sure, you could just
use firefox or change the formatting to plain text. But why should I
have to? Not happy about that. What I am happy about though is the
googlechat widget for my google homepage. Safari also can't handle
googletalk within gmail, so I've been forced to not use it at home. I
went to download the separate application and found out that you can
add a widget to my homepage. So that made me happy :)

What else is new? I got snowed on again on Sunday...honestly I'm over
it, give me an Australian summer anyday. Well, unless I've got all my
winter clothes on, in which let it snow let it snow let it snow!

And no, I don't want to talk about Dreamteam this week.....it wasn't a
good result compared to last year, when I think I was ranked 87th out
of everybody. I've come up with my buying price for Guitar Hero 3,
which is £40. Since the cheapest I've found it is $65, it could be a
while before I get it :) Anyway, that's enough for another night, I
think I'll try and sleep i this igloo of a house....bloody England.

Ode to Spring

2008-03-20T20:02:00.001+10:00

The spring has sprung,
The grass has riz,
I wonder where da birdies is?
Da birds are on da wing,
Why that's absurd!
Da wings are on da bird!

And in the spirit of spring, I know 3 couples that are now engaged who weren't a month ago. Brad and Lore, George and Anna and Jacqui and Grant. I'm yet to receive any invites, but I'm confident of at least 1 :) George and Anna are also getting married in 2 weeks, which has a lot more to do with French tax avoidance (they're moving to France) then anything else. At least, that's the reason they're getting married now rather then later.

Today I will do my Easter shopping...and not just because I have supermarket vouchers in my draw :) It's because it is the last day before the shops are all closed, so I better do it now.

Dreamteam has started...2 of my big name players didn't perform today, but 1 did. Unfortunately, 2 of them got injured. Stupid Carlton.

Happy Easter all, don't eat as much chocolate as I plan to!

Weekend that was

2008-03-18T02:15:00.001+10:00

Well, my plans didn't come through, so I spent the weekend in Warrington/Manchester. Friday night was a St Patricks day party, saturday was a wipe-out because of that and Sunday was AFL. It appears I'm being groomed as a key position player up front. Sure that's where they stick the useless guy, but that means goals dammit! Lots of goals, I'm going for the Coleman medal :) I just need to learn how to catch and I'll be fine. I'm pretty good at knocking it down even if I don't catch it, so that's a good thing. I also did a bit of defensive work, but they had me matched up on a guy of similar talent so on the long lead I think we both nearly killed each other. My favourite bit was when he was attacking, he didn't quite get to the ball and dived to try and get it, so when he fell over and then scrambled for the ball I just pushed him in the back so he couldn't move. Dead set free kick, but funny.

So it's either that or ruck. I think lack of fitness will tell in my race to get into the midfield. I also spent Sunday doing a first draft of my dream team. Not only is it over budget but 3 of my players are out injured. Oops. So it's back to the drawing board, and also to see whether I want to get rid of any of my forwards. I don't want to but that is where a lot of money is tied up at the moment. So we'll see how it goes tonight, I'll need to go through the injury lists and work out what who has to go. And then do my reading in some other places which I haven't looked at yet. Hopefully it will be competitive by the time the season rolls around. Not being around a whole bunch of people obsessed with the game and picking things up just by listening to conversations is something, I'm sure, that will hurt me this season. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't try.

Apart from that, same old same old really. Happy Easter to all in case I don't put anything up before then.

Ow!

2008-03-12T03:28:00.002+10:00

My hammys are still sore from Sunday. But the point of this post is self-congratulation really. Last night I was thinking about what on Earth I could do for dinner, given I had a huge number of veggies left over from Fridays meal (yes, I didn't eat dinner at home either Saturday or Sunday). So I decided I'd chop them all up, get some rice and a stir through sauce and see how it went. It was incredibly tasty, so I felt the need to say good on me :)

I've got a cold, and it keeps hanging around. Thanks for the echinacea Jamie, but I don't know if it's doing any good. I've got a headache, sore legs (I think that was training though) and generally miserable. It's nowhere near as bad as the one I had at Christmas but I hate being sick. Especially as it's not bad enough to get out of work, so I have to walk here. I have to walk because the bike is stuffed...I think I'll have to take it to the shop and get new tyres put on, and new inner tubes. The rear tyre went flat on Friday, and I got a new tube. Put that on Monday, and on the way to work today (Tuesday) it went flat. I also hadn't tightened the nut enough, so it went wonky and kept braking, which made for some fun power slides :) But I don't want to talk to work, so I shall update the bike. We can rebuild it, we have the technology.

Apart from that, I'm looking into going to Dublin this weekend. No exact plans yet, and I will be back in England for St Patricks day (monday) but it's worth looking into. I watched the NAB cup final last night too....good to watch some AFL again. It just wouldn't be the Saints without someone missing easy shots at goal would it? I think I've noticed the player that everybody (and I mean EVERYBODY) will be having on their team this year, based on one certain performance. Then again, you never can tell...some people might actually pick Tredrea again. I'm looking at you Duncan.

Long time readers will no doubt be aware of the infatuation I have with AFL dream team....new readers will no doubt become accustomed :)

And I am in love with my phone. I charge it every five days, it's got Nokia predictive text (so it works) and generally it's bright and cheerful. It's basically a Toyota Aygo compared to a Lexus LS300 (or something equally luxurious). Not as good mechanically or technologically, but it does the job as well as I want it. So I'm quite happy, and hopefully I'm over my whole advanced mobile phone fixation that I used to have. I think I have the iPhone to thank for that...very un-impressive piece of kit, as it doesn't do what I want it to....but there is always the future :) It took me until iPod nano v2 before I wanted one, so we'll see what Apple have in store for me.

Sorry there are no pics, I don't go out every weekend :)

Sore

2008-03-10T09:06:00.001+10:00

Today I had my second session of AFL training. It was a lot more physical today, I laid a few tackles and generally got muddy. What was most interesting was the fact in the six a side handball game I got put in the ruck. I tried, but I won 1 tap, so I don't think I'll be staying there. I did give the other guy a cork, so it wasn't a complete loss. I had a talk to the coach afterwards, and although that's one spot he's thinking of he's also thinking of half-forward....all that kicking for goal practice down at Yeronga has helped. The two times I've been there I've been in the last round of the goal kicking (admittedly it hasn't gone many rounds) so the chance to kick lots of goals appeals to me. We'll see what happens at the Cardiff tournament. One thing I just thought of was that if I get my British passport (which I could) I'd then count as an EU citizen for the quota requirements. Plus that would make it easier to get around Europe, and since I need to get a new passport anyway (apparently the barcode doesn't scan) it's something I should look into. I do have a few bruises from it, so I know I was involved.

Not much else happening really, work is busy, my bike has a busted tyre and I don't have the tools to fix it. The place I'm living at has gotten new windows and doors as well. Not much difference there to me, maybe it'll improve the heat holding ability of the house? Not likely, it is a very cold house. The water is always hot in the shower though, so I can't really complain. Sorry for the kind of boring update, I don't even have photos of a coach to show (like some). Have a good week everybody.

Wrap up

2008-03-05T23:52:00.000+10:00

Well, i was going to blog more while I was away, but enjoying the trip got in the way.

So to sum up the skiing, I ended up being a fairly confident skier by the end of the week. I'm not that keen to go again, I will go if a group is going, but I'm not so enamoured with the idea that I'll go on my own again. All the good photos are up on flickr. Future photos will be tagged, hopefully that will make it easy to find them, I'll figure that out later. I did get snowed on on the final day, which was cool. It was very cold, I'm not sure I wanted to repeat the experience, but on Monday on my way to work I got snowed on. I should have had my thermals on.

At home, the other room-mate has moved out, leaving Rob, Michelle and me. I never met him during my time there (2 months), which is a little odd. But I can live with that. I've put out my feelers for a 5-a-side football side so that should start soon, and I've still got AFL, so I'm set for my sport for the next 6 months. I've even got a trivia team sorted, so things are coming up milhouse :)

On the deep thinking front, I've found 2 articles which I think are worth sharing. http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/the-phoney-battle-of-the-codes-107556/ This one is from Les Murray, the elder statesman of Australian Soccer (RIP Johnny Warren). He makes some interesting points about the rival codes in Australia that are worth reading if you've got nothing better to do. http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/driving/features/article3458479.ece This one is Jay Leno on cars and the environment. He's not quite as radical as Jeremy Clarkson, he makes some points that I'd never thought about so it's also worth reading.

Finally, if you've ever wanted to stop burglars, this is how it's done. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3485931.ece

Skiing - Wednesday

2008-02-28T02:26:00.002+10:00

Two things. I'm sunburnt and I've uploaded photos. They're even in an order that should make sense to everyone :)

Today, we didn't learn much, apart from how to get up if we wall in strange places. Really was just practising turning, which I'm pretty happy with as long as I don't go too fast. For lunch I went up the top of a mountain (hence the photos) with a South African girl who is in the same learner group. Much more fun skiing with some people rather then on your own. Not sure what I'll do tomorrow as the rest of her group is back and I think she'll be going off with them instead. So while we were up there we practised on the slope that we're going to try tomorrow morning. For the rest of the afternoon I want to get some sun cream, as it's a little painful at the moment. I've been meaning to do that for a while, so now is as good a time as any.

This skiing thing is pretty tiring though. I'm using muscles I haven't used before (in the arms, pushing myself along) and they're protesting. Plus there hasn't been any snow for a while (it is late in the season) so the snow down by the resorts isn't brilliant. In fact it's pretty bad. Hopefully there will be some snow tomorrow, which will make everything good. Up the top it's good, there was some snow up there last night and you can really feel the difference. The runs are a lot harder there though. I'm really quite content on the green runs, it is just the difference in length of runs and the quality of the snows which makes me want to get better so I can do some of the harder runs.

Anyway, not much else to report. Will write more tomorrow (possibly).

Skiing - Tuesday

2008-02-27T02:09:00.002+10:00

Today I learned how to turn. An important skill, without which you can't do very much. In the morning lesson we did that with some snow ploughing. What I really needed to work on is keeping my weight forward. I'm still in the habit of leaning backwards when I want to slow down, which doesn't work. So I spent the afternoon practising that. What I've managed to do is get pretty good at both for a beginner. In the lesson I was terrible, and then I started tucking the poles underneath my arms like a professional, and that forced me to lean forward. As long as I then pushed my weight on to my toes everything made sense and worked. I still fell over once, and lost control a few times, but as I now knew what I was supposed to do it was possible get myself out of it without injury to me or the people I came close to hitting.

As for lunch, I went and had that with a group of South Africans. One of the girls in the beginners course I'm in was part of the group so I invited myself along. Tomorrow I'm hoping to go up with some of them to the harder spots, depending on how I go in training. It's all making sense, and as long as it stays that way I should be right. As I have been skiing all day my muscles are a little sore now. The thigh muscle in particular is sore as that is what has been holding (or trying to) hold the skis in place.

As for those people thinking of skiing, you need to have confidence in your ability. Not over-confidence. One of the guys at work has a theory. If you enjoy riding a bike down a hill quickly, without using the brakes unless you have to, then you will like skiing. I enjoy doing that, and I enjoy skiing. Apparently he's asked about 10 people and it's been proven right so far.

Anyway, still no photos. I'm confident I won't fall over tomorrow, so I will be taking my camera with me and getting some shots. It'll probably snow for the next few days and there won't be any decent shots possible, but we'll see.

Skiing - Monday

2008-02-26T07:22:00.002+10:00

Traveling on your own there is always quite a bit of time to yourself. That's my excuse for blogging and I'm going to stick to it. I'm going to take my camera with me tomorrow and get some shots of the Alps. They're very cool, hopefully I can get a few widescreen shots to use as backgrounds. Besides, it allows me to get in more sideway then up and down, and that's good.

Ok, so today was my first skiing ever. So as part of that I had to get to the ski school first and then learn to ski. Luckily there were 2 other people from the same hotel who are complete beginners, so that was good. So I've learnt the duck waddle (moving on the flat, much like roller blades) and the snow plough. I'm not leaning far enough forward, but that (hopefully) is just practice. There are 10 of us all up in the group, and I think most of the people there are English. 1 I know is Dutch and I can't place another girls accent. It sounds European, but I might be wrong. I am one of the very few people traveling on my own in the whole resort who has never skied before though, as everyone else in the group is traveling with partners. Of course, their partners can already ski so they're there learning to ski.

Anyway, the instructors name is Jack, and his english isn't brilliant. It's enough to get by, as he demonstrates everything it can generally be figured out. He's not a great teacher but he is very entertaining, and the morning went quickly. I fell over 3 times, which is the most of anybody in the group. It was particularly bad falling over on the last exercise of the day, as everyone else did it right. Apparently the skis I was given are about 10 cms too long, so I need to change them.

After that learning, I was absolutely exhausted particularly by the walk back to the hotel. So I had a bit of a rest before heading for another nursery slope to practice for a bit. So all on my own I've learnt a little bit about changing direction. I don't do it well, but if I had to get to the bottom of the mountain without falling I'm pretty confident I could now do it. I'd look like a horrible novice while doing it, but I could. By the end of the week I hope that I'll be able to ski properly instead of ploughing my way down the mountain. The few times I got it right and just went down it was great fun. Of course, I did fall over quite a bit. There's a trick to getting off the button lifts I haven't mastered yet. Sometimes it all just works, and I end up parallel to the mountain and ready to go, out of the way of the people coming up. Most times I go in the wrong direction, or fall over. I did accidentally ski backwards, simply because I didn't turn enough and there was someone else coming up the lift. Lesser of two evils was me ending up in the carpark :) I managed to come to a good stop, and if I had any idea how I'd done it I'd be very proud :) My last crash was particularly spectacular, I was trying to turn parallel to the mountain and had too much speed. As my technique is very bad, I lost it and fell over head first, losing both skis. That was a little painful on the knee, and since I've got plenty of other time left to ski I thought that was enough for the day.

As for other times, there are a whole bunch of guys who are traveling solo, so we all eat together. I'm the only beginner so meal times are the only time I see them. 8 guys all up, and one guy keeps complaining about there being no women. Considering I'm the youngest by at least 10 years it's a little weird hearing him complain. I was coming purely to learn to ski and hopefully meet a few people to go around European cities, not to meet women as he seems to be. Still, it takes all types. The hotel is right next to a nursery slope, which is all I'm capable of. So in the afternoons I can just go up and down that, practicing what I've learned.

I'm much more tired then I thought I would be, the first night we did stay up quite late and probably drank a bottle of wine each. I felt good the next day, but come the late afternoon I thought I'd have a quick nap before dinner, and ended up getting woken by reception asking where I was. They have a system designed to seat everybody at a time of their choosing, and everybody else from the group was waiting for me. Oops. Not so much tonight, just need to organise a wake up call now. I never realised just how much I relied on my mobile until I lost it.

Only one last thing to mention. When I first started typing this post, the autosave notification was in French. Sometime during this it's become English. Makes me curious how that is worked out. Not curious enough to do anything about it of course, but curious :) Alright, that's enough of making people jealous, I'm going to bed to sleep. On my bunk bed....luxurious :)

Skiing - Sunday

2008-02-25T07:58:00.001+10:00

Bonjour!

Words can't describe how annoying an alarm is that goes off when it's on the other side of the room. Particularly when it's 430 in the morning and you want to get across to it to shut it up before it wakes everyone else in the house up. It's certainly a shock to the system!

So, once that was done it was time to get to the airport for my 7am flight, where they recommend (i.e insinuate you will miss your flight if you don't) arriving at the airport 2 hours before departure. It was a lot more active then Brisbane was when I left. I got there very early, before anything was open. Watching everyone arrive and the airport waking up isn't something I can recommend :)

As far as I can tell at this stage of the holiday, the only thing I've forgotten is batteries for my camera. Since it takes AA batteries (a conscious decision) it should be simple to pick some up. I'm a little annoyed as the spare ones I have are rechargeable, and I specifically charged them, but if that's the only thing I've forgotten that's not too bad given m track record.

The flight itself was forgettable. Very little legroom, as expected on a budget airline. The flight was also full, once again as expected. What I didn't expect was the snack breakfast they gave us, which was really quite tasty. An egg and bacon pastry, mainly egg but quite tasty. As seems to be a pre-requisite with every airline I travel with in Europe, I needed to catch a bus from the plane to the terminal. I haven't flown that much but so far everytime I have the airline in question doesn't have somewhere to off load passengers at a terminal. I imagine European airports must be quite crowded and not so worried about expanding as other countries are. Once my bag came out (always takes a while) it was then on to another bus for a four hour journey to the resort. That did include a stop for a toilet break at a service station of course.

So far scenery has included a little bit of Switzerland (we flew into Geneva) which included several tunnels as featured on Top Gear. Lots of quite spectacular scenery, as you would expect in the alps. One thing that is very noticeable is the lack of green grass. It hasn't rained/snowed here for a while, so everything is looking a bit worse for wear. Not a drought but it looks like it's waiting for rain. Still on the bus at the moment, so I'm typing this up for future upload. I've already finished one book I brought so I'd like to keep the other for emergencies. I'm yet to find out if the hotel has wi-fi, or whether I will need to use an Internet cafe to post stuff (if I even bother), but I've brought it so I can go through my photos. I'm sure my camera has a snow setting...I'm equally certain I've forgotten how to bring it up. I'm hoping that if I leave it on automatic it'll figure it out for itself. If not there won't be many photos :)

Not much has happened today, I've gotten boots and skis fitted. I do really like the french accent, that's about all I've confirmed :) There are 8 guys on this friendship skiing thing (no girls), which is a little odd but it gives me someone to talk to at meal times, and that's the hardest thing about travelling alone in my opinion. More to come tomorrow, including hopefully some photos of snow!!!!!

And I'm off

2008-02-24T05:11:00.001+10:00

Skiing that is. I've bought everything I need so it's just a matter of packing now, and getting to the airport. We'll see how it goes and there will be lots of photos. At the moment I'm still too stressed over packing to get excited...but I will be soon. So far I think I've only forgotten to get one thing, an international power adaptor. That's pretty good for me :)

The seagulls are coming!

2008-02-13T08:48:00.000+10:00

I've created a YouTube account, so I've uploaded my video of the seagulls. Apparently it's a fairly common thing. But here it is anyway.

Bristol - Details

2008-02-12T06:33:00.001+10:00

Alright. We left Friday night and got back Sunday night. It was good to have enough time to do everything I wanted for a change instead of rushing around like I normally do. So we stayed at a hotel that I booked, and forgot to find out where it was relative to the train station we got in at. As we came in late at night there wasn't much light to see stuff apart from the neon that is everywhere in most cities. So we tried to find a map to find our way around. None of them helped, but since I knew the station was near the hotel, we decided to go for a walk and find it. And we did. At the bottom of the driveway out of the station.

Next day we worked out what we wanted to do. Jamie, who I went with is a fan of street art, so a lot of walking to look at stencils and stickers was the order of the day. That and Arnolfini, which is an art gallery. I was after seeing the bridge, but that was Sunday. So we walked around to find the museum, and completely missed the sign to it. We saw it the next day, and that would have saved us 10 minutes or so. In the end the gallery wasn't worth it, they had a display on Persoplis and also some pictures done by some photographer, who's name I've already forgotten. Still worth a visit since we were in the area, and it's probably better during the week...probably. After that we wanted to go up to the top of Cabot Tower (if anyone knows how to pronounce that I'd like to hear from them) so we found the park that was in. But the tower was shut, which was a shame as it was a really good day and we could have got some great shots. So instead we sat down in the sun after taking some shots of bits of park. At that point I noticed the spy.

Obviously she wasn't a spy, but she wanted to look like she was. You can see the shots in the Flickr gallery. As we were discussing what she was about, spy number 2 came across the path in front of us. We were certain they were together, but she didn't move for a while after that. Eventually she got up and left from under the pole she was standing under. We were about to get up when she came across the same path in front of us. So I followed her by staying behind a handy copse of trees and got another shot of her. So I headed back to where we were sitting and then Spy number 2 came past again. But she'd already left so we followed spy number 2 instead. Eventually he stopped and started scanning the hill, and we noticed spy number 1 meeting her contact. Spy number 2 took notes on the contact. And that was about it. Very weird.

After that we headed up to Gloucester Street to find some more street art and have lunch. Found quite a bit which was good, and we also went past the Christmas steps...not quite as exciting as I'd hoped they'd be. I'm sure that was the wrong time of year probably. One last thing that we saw on the way back was dancing seagulls. I will add a video to a youtube account (which I haven't yet created) just to show you what I mean. Very odd and very funny. Make sure you have sound on for the video :)

That was pretty much it...there was a lot of walking involved. Good dinner that night at the Italian place next to the restaurant, ate far too much. Really. But it was very good and definitely worth it. Then there was sleep.

Unfortunately we then got woken by a fire alarm in the morning. So we went downstairs (all five flights) only to be told that it was all over and we could go back in. So we went back to bed. When we finally felt like breakfast, went downstairs and then the fire alarm went off. Again. So we got kicked out of the hotel for about 10 seconds before they let us back in again. But eventually we got it all sorted and it was time to head off to the Bridge.

And I've now uploaded the photos of it :)

We walked past the SS Great Britain. Not something I really wanted to see. Neither did Jamie so we kept going. I decided that we should take the Avon trail along the river and then head up to the bridge. Which turned out to be a mistake as there is no stairs up on that side of the gorge. So we instead took a track through the forest. A muddy track through the forest. A mountainous steep muddy track through a wintery cold forest. Eventually we got to the top. Very expensive area. And then there is the bridge. Quite impressive how high above the gorge it is. Then we also had a look at the observatory, and there is a tunnel underneath it to a lookout in the side of the gorge. The walk to the lookout through the narrow tunnel was better then the lookout to be honest, but well worth the price of admission. Then there was the slide down the side of the hill. Another video to add...lots of fun. Found a nice little cafe to have lunch at as well. Not much else to talk about in Bristol that's really worth mentioning. Highly recommended place to go. I thought it was worth it anyway. But this has to be a new record getting my blog updated and pictures up only a day after getting home....very odd for me! Have a good week all, AFL training starts Sunday. I'm Big Kev excited :)

Bristol (synopsis)

2008-02-12T00:28:00.001+10:00

More to come later on the trip to Bristol, including photos! Including, but not limited to

a) mud

b) A bridge

c) Street Art

d) Dancing seagulls

e) Spies!

f) Rail delays (shock horror)

Stay tuned...

Progress

2008-02-07T19:43:00.001+10:00

Progress comrades, progress.

I was just sitting here, pretending to do work (I've become quite good at that) and was thinking about browser technology and switching between windows. As you do. And I'm trying to imagine a world without tabbed browsing. It's hard. There are definite advantages to non-tabbed browsing. Alt-tabbing between applications would be easier. I keep going to do that when all I really want to do is go to a different tab. Which in firefox (on a mac) is command-number of the tab.

Can you tell I like my shortcuts?

The problem with that particular shortcut is it doesn't work in Safari, my new browser of choice. That is command-shift and then left or right to change. Not my favourite way of dealing with things, but it does work.

Which doesn't really answer the question. Is tabbed browsing better? Yes, but not intuitively. When you're only using one browser to view pages, yes. You can see all the pages you have open on the screen instead of cluttering up the task bar. But I find it difficult when I'm trying to do work online (CMS's you see) and I have other applications open. Remembering to change between tabs and between windows often throws me, making me wish sometimes for windows. But then there would be so many windows open that alt-tabbing to the right window would be harder. Although you can use the mouse to select the one you want if you leave the alt key down. Which defeats the purpose of a shortcut doesn't it?

So there you have it, a non-indepth analysis of the benefit of tabbed browsing. It's good and it's hear to stay. It's also the reason I don't use Internet Explorer anymore. Since I still need to support IE6, I need that. It has no tabs. You can't have both 7 and 6 installed on the same computer, meaning I don't get to use 7. So firefox is used most. Doesn't work to well on a mac, hence Safari. So, no tabs in IE6, which I've come to rely on, and MS's decision to not allow you to run both 6 and 7 on the same PC have driven me to Safari, the least friendly of the tabbed browsers. Hmmm.

2nd in a row

2008-02-06T20:37:00.001+10:00

Of the Socceroos games I haven't watched. This time I have the excuse of it's not being shown over here, and I have to work.

3-0 though, good work boys. I look forward to watching the highlights on YouTube cause they sure aren't going to show them over here with England playing Switzerland tonight.

Moved!

2008-02-04T10:16:00.001+10:00

Hello all.

I've now moved house. I haven't spent much time here, so I don't know what it will be like. I do know there is a dog here, and that the room-mates I have met are nice and friendly. I also found the Krispy Kreme in Manchester....fun weekend even if I may have had a suger rush or three on Sunday :)

Going to Bristol this weekend, so there will be photos now I have my Macbook. I just recently uploaded the pictures from Christmas to Flickr....I assume I've added a link to my account on the right hand side of here....if not that will be done tomorrow. Have a good week everybody, mine is going to be pretty busy. One of our contracts is finishing, so as it has to do with people creating award applications online, and I'm the sole support for that, I'm expecting a busy week. I know one thing I can do to stop about half the calls, so hopefully it's not too busy Monday morning and I get a chance to do that before the proverbial hits the air pusher arounder thingy.

Have a good week all y'all!

Wow, what a weekend

2008-01-28T22:56:00.001+10:00

Australia day was absolutely fantastic. My original plan was to go to
the Uluru bar in Manchester, talk to some people about signing up for
the <a href="http://www.manchesteraussierules.com">Manchester
Mozzies</a> AFL club. Which I did. I also bought 3 raffle tickets, to
help the club out because I never win these things.

Obviously that day was a bit different, as that day I won my first
raffle ever. And in true Aussie style, I won my weight in beer. Which
comes out as 6 cartons. I do know that I weigh 73.3 kilos, which is
always good to know. I of course didn't have anyway to get it back
home, so I'll be picking it up when I go to training. That's one way
to get me there :)

After that, went out to The Walkabout in town with some people I'd met
that night and had a great time there as well. Then on Sunday I went
and bought my shiny new apple macbook. It is the base version, so
nothing fancy but it's running Leopard and gee it's nice. I have
nothing installed yet, so it is pretty quick still. I think it takes
about 5 seconds, if that, to shut down. Still no internet access at
home, so I've brought it to work with me to install software I need.

So yes, that was my weekend. It was really good to be surrounded by
Australian accents again. Apparently I'm losing mine as everyone said
I didn't have a strong one..which is a bit odd as I definitely got
told by an american girl back home that I did have a strong one.
Anyway, I'm sure it'll improve with time.

Anyway, back to installing software. Happy Birthday to Mum and AJ!

Been a while...

2008-01-25T06:36:00.001+10:00

Alright, the long awaited post. I was going to wait till I had the
photos up....but that's not happening anytime soon. It will happen,
because I am soon to be the owner of a macbook (where's my upgrade
Steve?!?) and then I can have a lot more time to do the tagging,
describing, etc of photos.

Anyway, the Christmas period has been briefly glossed over. There's
not much else to tell really. I met some cousins at Uncle David's
place, who I will try and meet up with next time I'm in London. The
other thing I did learn that spending an entire week wandering around
a strange town on your own isn't much fun. Luckily I met up with Anne
during the break which was fantastic, great to see a familiar face. By
the time I got to Brighton I was pretty over the whole trip (I was
also very hung over on the day, which didn't help). Did quite a bit of
walking around, and it looks like a fantastic place to be in a warmer
month. As seaside towns go it gave me a much better impression then
Blackpool ever did. And did I mention that track work meant my 6 hour
trip home became a 10 hours? Involving 5 changes, including Victoria
station which was incredibly busy on the day.

Alright, on to new stuff. I'm moving again! Claire is getting her
sister to move in, so I'm out. She gave me a months notice, so that's
not bad. I'm moving closer to town, I think it's a slightly smaller
room, but it will have broadband. Which I'm sure my macbook will
appreciate.

Jobwise, we're very busy. But I get to do some php programming and I'm
enjoying that. Most of the time I'm busy which is good, working longer
hours then I ever had before.

Also, I've found an AFL club to join! Sure, pre-season starts next
month, the season starts in April and it's only 9 a side (played on a
rugby field) but it's a start. That should get me nice and fit, and
hopefully not too injured. I like to think that the training won't be
as bad as at was at Yeronga....I didn't do any of the hard stuff, and
for that I am glad. Sure I'd prefer to be playing football, but the
English (here at least) are very clannish and it's awfully hard to
find a club in the middle of a season. So maybe next season.

Alright, that's a decent update for the moment I think. I'll blog
again after Australia day (I've found a pub called 'The Uluru Bar'
where I shall be spending the arvo). Probably. I should also probably
start taking some stuff over to the new digs....it's a thought :) I
think we all know I won't though.

Two (important) things

2008-01-10T23:28:00.001+10:00

Yesterday was the first day I have accidentally used an English phrase to describe something. I used 'dead nice' to describe the farm....I feel dirty.

Secondly, my USB powered rocket launcher has arrived....no victims as yet, but the day is young. Bwahahaha!

Edit: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/warfare/8a0f/

Happy New Year!

2008-01-04T07:30:00.001+10:00

Hi everybody!

Hope everybody I haven't talked to had a good Christmas and New Year. I took a heap of photos and I hope to have them up soon, been catching up on work. As for what I did, spent Christmas at Uncle David's and helped feed the sheep which was fun, went for lots of long walks. Then i went to London and had a good look around, very impressive. Watched Spamalot on the West End. Not as good as the movie in my opinion, but that could have been because of the terrible seats I had. Then for New Year, after recovering from a heavy night out at The Church I went to the Funky Fish club in Brighton. Good music and a good time had by me. Of course I then had to get back home in the middle of the rail disaster that was the rugby engineering works. And now I have to look for a new place to live...just perfect.

Still, it's another experience to chalk up, and another new place to live in my hectic living arrangements of the last few years. One of the books I've been reading has been all about notes that flatmates have written to each other...I'm thinking I'm going to be collecting a few of them soon at this rate :) As Monty Python would say, Always look on the bright side of life... *whistle up to refrain*

Last blog before Christmas!

2007-12-21T19:22:00.001+10:00

As the title says, I don't think I'll get another chance to blog before Christmas. So this could be a little long...good thing I can type crazy fast :)

Ok, I went to York. Got on the train, pretty cold but blue sky. After we got through Manchester we suddenly went into this big patch of fog...which seemed to cover the entire North East of England. To say the least, it was bitterly cold in York. Bitterly. In fact, so cold the very first thing I did was buy a ski-beanie and gloves, just to stay above freezing. It was that cold. As with most of the towns I've wandered through here in England, they had markets on in the middle of town. They're generally pretty good, so it's not too much of a hassle to wander around them.

Next thing I encountered was the cathedral. Thanks to the narrow streets it was kind of a shock to come around a corner and then suddenly there is this great big cathedral staring at you. It's pretty big. That's the impression it gives. It took me around 15 minutes to walk around it, but I was going slow and taking photos, so that's not a good indication. When it was built it must have been even more impressive, I reckon more so then the castle. That could just be me though. I wasn't the only tourist around, as I got asked to take a photo of a couple here. First time for everything, thank god for digital cameras as it's just point and shoot. And I didn't get my thumb in the way of the lens, as I have a habit of doing.

After that, I passed by the Jorvik viking museum (I think Jorvik was a viking king who invaded in 830ad or something) which I didn't have time to see (bit of a shame really, it looked interesting) on the way to the castle. Or what I thought was the castle. What it actually is is a museum now, with a tower all that is left. It does stand on a hill all on it's own, so I can see why it has been left alone. It's a ruin now, but from the top you get some quite good views of the country side. I also got asked to take the photo of two german tourists. I think they were german, I'm not really sure. I had to take two photos as I did get my thumb in the way of this one :)

York Musuem/Castle is the first museum I've paid to get into, and I think it was actually worth it. I also have the ability to go back any time in a year for free as I pay tax over here (I assume I will anyway), but I'm not sure it was that good. It did have a lot of history, and it was quite interesting to see all the different period living rooms side by side. Worth a trip if you're in town.

Also, I bought my own christmas present this year, a digital camera. It takes some really nice photos compared to my phone, so I'm quite happy with it. I don't have any photos worth uploading yet, so you can't compare them, but trust me on the fact they are :) Actually, that's a lie as I have a nice one of the Christmas tree (it's real) in our living room but the camera is at home and I'm at work. So you'll just have to wait till next year.

Going to Uncle David's for Christmas, and then on to London until the 31, then Brighton for a couple of days and then back at work. Should be quite busy, but I'm looking forward to it. Expect a very long update when I get back, I'm thinking about actually keeping a diary as it may be that jam-packed I won't remember most of it.

Last of all, Merry Christmas everybody. If you're in Australia, I hope it's not too hot for you (or that the air con doesn't break down). Just think of me over here sitting in front of a fire drinking mulled wine and eating lots. I'll probably be asleep when everyone else is enjoying Christmas, but then you'll all be asleep while I'm enjoying mine...time zones are fun aren't they? Have a good one!

Can't blog, working

2007-12-19T21:58:00.001+10:00

Quick update though, went to York, took lots of photos, remembered just how big real cathedrals are, looked for a castle and found a turret, bought a digital camera (canon powershot a560, very nice) and that's about it. We have a real christmas tree at our house this year too, now I've just got to wrap everything and put it under there.

Crazy Roundabout

2007-12-12T03:42:00.001+10:00

I was walking to the shop to get my lunch today (top temperature of 6, bloody England) and walked through a new housing flat thingy that is next to work. I was absolutely shocked to see a roundabout in the middle of a carpark there. Sure, it's triangle shaped, but if it was real it would make the whole thing that much harder to get in and out of. At least it's only painted on, so it's not too bad. But have a look at my photo stream to see it, http://www.flickr.com/ben-at-home/.

Also, it was very very very cold this morning. It was so cold that several puddles I normally splash through on the way to work, I rode over the top of. You can see an example of how cold it was in the other photos. They're actually from another day, but it felt the same level of coldness to me so I'm pretty certain it was.

While I'm on the topic of the photos I've been taking, I've noticed an option to see how many views of the photo there has been. I'm kind of curious how the Liverpool photos got so many views, as the rest generally have none. Which is fine, I take them to remind me of where I've been, not to show off my photoing skills. Which is good, because I don't have any :) To be honest though, I think they're actually getting better with practice. Not much, but maybe a little.

Which brings me to Christmas. I don't expect any present from anybody back in Australia (be pretty silly of me to if I did!). So I have to buy myself a Christmas present. Suggestions welcome. Please keep in mind though that the Nintendo Wii is sold out in most places over here, I'm going to buy a laptop in January/February next year so not quite yet. Clothes are boring. I'm not sure about a DS, as I don't think I'll use it after I get a real computer. It's tricky, but I'd like to think people can help me come up with some ideas.

Leeds

2007-12-04T20:35:00.001+10:00

Once more on the exploring England front, I went to Leeds. Not much to say about it really. Cheap to get to :) Cold, lots of shopping all close together. Wasn't terribly exciting, apart from the protest outside the corn exchange. Apparently it's being shut down, so somebody organised a bunch of high school students to come down and protest about it. They were noisy, not terribly passionate and I don't think they knew what they were on about. But they got to show off for their friends and have photos taken which they can put up on Facebook...and isn't that what counts?

Continuing my cultural trend, I also went to the Royal Armouries museum. Good way to spend a couple of hours, quite a lot of medieval history and lots and lots of weapons. Quite empty as well, which was a little surprising. Wandered around, had a look at all the sharp weapons, all the blunt ones, all the others ones as well. At least it was warm :) Windy outside so it wasn't terribly pleasant. Leeds also has the largest indoor market in England....and typical of those type of markets, wasn't very interesting. There was a lot of cheap butchers though, so if I lived in Leeds and wanted cheap food I'd be shopping there. Thankfully, I don't live in Leeds.

After that, I wandered around for a bit longer looking for either a) KFC or b) The original Harry Ramsden fish and chip store. I didn't find either, which was mildly annoying. I did however buy some fresh cinnamon donuts...very tasty. So I was happy about that.

So I've uploaded the photos, and by now you should know where to find them. I've got a few other photos which I'll hopefully upload during the week, nothing terribly interesting. I do want to get some photos of the house I live in, including room-mates just so people have an idea of what I'm doing. I may actually take a video just to try something else interesting.

And to finish this post, to update on previous weeks activity, nothing further is going to happen. I am going to go watch the Liverpool Reserves play Everton Reserves tonight, so that could be fiery. This time I'm going to buy something to eat before I get there....horrible horrible pies for sale there. Anyway, have fun y'all.

Busy time

2007-11-26T22:43:00.001+10:00

Lots of things have been happening...I almost don't know where to start. Let's start with the election.

After doing some reading, unless I could get to London I couldn't vote. For a postal vote to be valid, it would need to be witnessed by somebody else who is on the electoral roll.....not many Australians in Warrington. So basically (I did research this) I didn't have to vote, and I'm not eligible to vote in the next election. Of course, I will be re-enrolling when I come back home.

But I am very pleased to see that the Coalition has been dumped out of power. I haven't been a fan of the government for a long time, so I'm happy to see them go. Too many of their policies I disagreed with. That's not to say they didn't have some policies I did like, as they did. But too much bad (along with the whole lying thing). I particularly like the way that Howard lost his seat..even though that's not confirmed yet, it's looking very likely.

But another sad story that I'm not sure got much coverage is that the Democrats are now no longer a political party with any representatives. Coverage over here wasn't brilliant, there was quite a bit after the election itself, so I got to see Howard's concession speech and Rudd's we've won speech. So that was good.

Moving on to other things. In the past week (or two) there have been a few firsts, notably:

a) Karaoke singing (so far 2 Rolf Harris songs, not of my choosing)

b) Speed dating

c) A blind date

d) Bike crash

A. In the order i've listed them, there is a DJ at the local pub I now frequent, and he just happens to do Karaoke. Unfortunately, I had quite a bit the first night I was there, and have now started a trend as the crazy aussie singer. Luckily for me they are now out of Rolf Harris songs, so I may now be safe. For the record, the two songs are Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport and The Court of King Caractacus. Interestingly, Lauren my room-mate tells me that there is a dance that goes with Caractacus....I can't imagine how it goes. And I'm not planning on learning it either :)

B. I (perhaps foolishly) agreed to let my other housemate Claire have control of my life for a month. Which hasn't been as bad as I thought it might. One of the things she made me do was go speed dating, which was quite fun actually. For the record, you get 3 minutes with each 'date', and at the end of the night you give your sheet with your preferences to the guy organising everything and he'll let you know what matches there are. I think the best part of the night is the whistle he used to announce that your 3 minutes are up. You wouldn't think that it would be hard to find something to talk about for 3 minutes...but trust me it was with some of them. My favourite (I'm using sarcasm there) was the one who said, not once, but twice, that she'll pray for me. Needless to say there was no tick in the yes column for her (in fact, I didn't even bother to write her name down). And yes, I am meeting up with one of the girls from the night this Wednesday. And that's about all the information I'm revealing here...

C. Due to not having control of my life, Claire set me up with one of her friends on a blind date in Manchester on Friday night. Fun night but doesn't seem like it's going to progress anywhere. Guess I'll just have to wait and see.

D. It wasn't serious, and nothing got damaged apart from my pride. I tried to turn a little bit too quickly, and it was on some bricks on the road. So the bike slid out and ran into the traffic island. There were no cars around so it wasn't dangerous, and the bike isn't permanently damaged. The only damage to me was a bruise on my shin where the bike fell on me. So I will be a bit more cautious in future about making sharp turns on the bike. And this is why I prefer to drive then get a motor bike. Now to get a car....

So that should get most people up to date. Is that enough information for you Mick? No travelling around for 2 weeks, but I did kind of blow my budget last week so I'm trying to save a bit by not travelling. Once I get a credit card I should be able to book flights/trains and get around a bit more. Waiting to purchase long distance tickets on the day is pretty expensive, so I'm trying to avoid that. Hopefully I can get to Leeds, as that's the next stop on my travels around England. Anyway, work calls, so I better get to it.

Things I miss

2007-11-20T02:04:00.001+10:00

Obviously Family. Then Donuts. I was reading the Penny Arcade site, and they had some donuts in a picture. I looked at them and immediately identified them as Krispy Kreme....it's all in the way they're baked, as I remember being very unimpressed with that style.

That and Bundaberg Rum. So I guess I just have to drink Corona while I'm over here. It's a tough life... Interestingly, at the Walkabout they had Tooheys Dry, but no XXXX or 'normal' standard beer. Or any premium brands. They did have Coopers on tap though, which I thought was also a little odd. It's also only an option to have beetroot on a burger...that's not right. It should be standard!

Manchester

2007-11-20T01:51:00.001+10:00

Hi all.

You know where the photos are, if not: http://www.flickr.com/ben-at-home/

This weekend, I went to Manchester. I would rather have gone to London to see the Socceroo's game, but I didn't know it was on. Poor planning. So I've signed up to a few newsletters so that doesn't happen again. I really should have thought about it, considering it was an international weekend. Ah well.

Manchester was busy, I think is the right term for it. It wasn't that long ago that a giant IRA bomb exploded in the centre of the town, so it wasn't quite as old looking as other towns I've been to. What it does well (or at least, in the bits I went to) was shopping. I went to the Arndale Centre (not as big as I thought it would be) and had a wander around. Saw the Manchester Eye, which continues an English tradition of not putting prices up until you get into the queue. So I didn't go.

Apart from that, they had the Christmas markets out. Like your usual high street market (think Southbank for those of you from Brisbane), with the exception that they all seemed to be German. There was some really nice looking food there, chocolate covered fruit (strawberries seemed very popular), chocolate covered chestnuts (I think, they may have been hazelnuts) and Bratwurst. I had the Bratwurst. Very spicy for a sausage, but really good. Not much to them but it is making me interested in the Oktoberfest celebrations next year.

Apart from wandering around the markets, I also went to the Museum of Science and Industry. Not as good as Liverpool, but that's probably because I'm not into Textiles. Being Manchester, they're obviously big on them. There is a very tall and skinny Hilton hotel (apparently the overhand houses a restuarant, so 20 floors up you can eat and look down through the floor to all the plebs below you) as well. Seemed kind of out of place. Back through some more markets, I found a singing Moose. So much more impressive then the singing fish...obviously harder to fit in your living room :) I also stopped into the Walkabout Pub, a chain of Australian Themed restaurants. Apart from a green and gold colour theme, the only notable difference was the music. It definitely sounded Australian to my ears, compared to the usual English style of songs. There isn't much of a difference there, but it is noticeable.

Last but not least on my Manchester experience is the store Primark. Cut price everything, and more crowded then an Indonesian fishing boat on it's way to an excised part of the Australian mainland. Worth it for the price of everything though. As long as you can put up with the crowds that is, as it is very cramped in there. Not only was there a queue for the tills, there is also a queue to try things on.

Apart from that nothing else from the weekend of note to report. Still no snow over here, and it hasn't even got to below freezing yet. Soon hopefully though :) White Christmas here I come :)

Music

2007-11-16T23:33:00.001+10:00

After purchasing my guitar, there has been one song I've been wanting to learn for ages. Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T's. Which is an interesting choice as I recently got Black Holes and Revelations by Muse to listen to. So I've decided that when I'm playing music, I like Soft Guitar Based Rock. Kind of an interesting Genre (that I'm pretty sure I made up). It includes the aforementioned song, then there is also any song Bernard Fanning has done as a solo effort. There are plenty of other examples.

That's acoustic songs anyway. If I had an electric guitar it'd be more punk based, simply because they're easy to play (power chords, yee-ha!). When I want to get fancy then I bring out Looking Out My Backdoor or Tears in Heaven. But generally soft rock.

Whereas listening is just general rock, as long as it's guitar based it's almost guaranteed that I'll like it. But then of course there are the exceptions, like Girls by Calvin Harris. I wouldn't want to be pigeon-holed now would I? ;)

The Phoney War begins

2007-11-15T19:37:00.001+10:00

After firing a shot across his bows yesterday, Mick has responded in kind. And it's on like donkey kong bi-yatch!

http://mrjorge.blogspot.com/

You can find his blog there.

Also, some uninteresting person sent me a link to Mr Rudd's campaign speech. http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22758200-5013650,00.html If he actually delivers on the promises he's put forward in this speech I will be very impressed, and not being able to vote in the lower house election while over here makes me upset that I can't support his vision for a better Australia. Of course, I'm still cynical enough to not believe it will all happen but I think it's a step in the right direction.

The other interesting piece of news that has hit my rss feed today is the first production fuel cell vehicle. http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/ Sadly only available in California, but it's a great step in the right direction. While nay-sayers will (rightly) point out the amount of power needed to create hydrogen, you've got to start somewhere. Once large scale hydrogen use starts, storage ability will increase (look at mobile technology), and with some forward thinking renewable energy sources should be used to create this hydrogen. And then hopefully the price will start to come down.

Exciting time to live :)

Last week

2007-11-15T03:10:00.001+10:00

So, another year older, if only I was also another year wiser all in one day...that'd be interesting :)

So yes, some people who should not have did forget my birthday. They shall remain nameless but there was more then one, so don't think you're special or anything like that :) For those who had no idea, it was November 6, a Tuesday. For my Birthday I
a) Woke up
b) Went to work
c) Had Fish and Chips for dinner

Exciting, no?

I did go out for dinner on Wednesday to a fantastic little Indian place, so it's not like I didn't do anything at all for it. Apart from that it was a pretty uneventful week. Followed by an uneventful weekend. I did think seriously about going to Manchester, but in the end just didn't feel like it so I didn't make it. I will make it soon, probably this weekend as I could use a few more clothes, so I need to go shopping and Manchester is good for that. I did buy a guitar though last weekend though, so that made up for it. It's not a very good one, as it's cheap, but it's enough to keep my hand in.

Anyway, I just needed to post as I can't have Mick posting more then I am. It just upsets the natural order of the things when that happens... :)