Saturday 1st August

The Most Easterly Place in Australia
Bronwen at the Most Easterly Point of the Australian Mainland
Morning

I slept in a bit, before driving Bronwen out to her place. She has a new flatmate moving in today—a German exchange student I believe.

Afternoon

I spent the afternoon messing about with my media centre, cataloguing movies, setting it up to look better on the new TV.

Evening

Planning to go get Bronwen, have dinner, etc.

Sunday 2nd August

Morning

I slept in, followed by Cold Rock with Bronwen for a sort of breakfast/lunch.

Afternoon

Bronwen and I attended the first of this year’s Sunday Live broadcasts—free classic concerts broadcast live from the ABC’s Ferry Road studios.

Night

I did my washing, ate two minute noodles, and looked for speakers on eBay.

Monday 3rd August

Day

I worked, as usual, being a titch late for work due to crappy traffic.

Night

I picked up Maz and his friend, Scott, from the train station and we drove to The Ville for dinner, then back to Maz’s place, where I unsuccessfully bid on some speakers on eBay—oh, the stress!

Tuesday 4th August

Morning

I bid on another eBay surround sound amplifier, missing out again.

Day

I worked.

Evening

I bid half-heartedly on another surround sound amplifier, not expecting to win, and being correct.

Night

Now I’m home.

Wednesday 5th August

Morning

Annoyed at traffic. I need to find the magic window where traffic eases up. I appear to have lost it.

Day

Working busily.

Night

Off to get Thai, taking that to Maz’s, eating it there, then driving down to Bronwen’s, then back to Maz’s with iced coffee, then off to bed.

Thursday 6th August

Day

Unsurprisingly, I went to work.

Night

I drove up to Bronwen’s parent’s place and helped Bronwen move a couch onto the back verandah, before driving to Maz’s to give him my 1080p copy of Watchmen; and Bronwen took her phone apart and swapped its keyboard for my old phone’s keyboard, after which we drove home, ate dinner, and went to bed.

Friday 7th August

Day

I got to work on time, for a change. I had quite a productive day actually, or so I think.

Night

I had a look at some speakers on Gray’s Online, all of which sold at more than I felt they were worth (in the bargain-hunting stakes anyway). It’s the same story as eBay—people are paying nearly-new prices for reconditioned goods, presumably based on a belief that the manufacturer’s stated RRP is actually a realistic indication of the going price for the new items, which needless to say, it isn’t. Ah well, it appears the days of online bargains have been killed by popularity. I also had a look at airfares—getting my sister and myself down south without me taking any time off work, and with my sister wanting to get back to work as soon as possible on Monday, is proving to be difficult. I think I might go to bed and have an early night for a change. I might even skip dinner.

10pm

Woops, change of plan—now going to go pick up Bronwen and watch a movie here.

Saturday 8th August

Morning

TV with Speakers
TV with Speakers
After spending the past several days trying to find a bargain home theatre surround sound system, I came to the conclusion that the Logitech Z5500 for $405 at Umart was the best deal I’d get in that price range, it having received almost unanimously good reviews, so I went and bought one, then spent the next couple of hours setting it up.

Afternoon

Unpacking and setting up the new speakers
Unpacking the new speakers

I had planned to go to a sunset photo shoot, but sadly that did not happen. Instead, I dropped past Bronwen’s parent’s place, buying a nice noodle soup on the way, and spent the evening messing around with the new surround sound system.

Night

Hungry Jack’s was had for dinner, followed by a drive out to Bronwen’s to pick up something, coincidentally arriving just as her flatmates were leaving to go to the pub, so we gave them a lift, and then watched Top Gear back at my place.

Sunday 9th August

Morning

I slept in and lazed about.

3pm

Bronwen and I watched “The Australian Voices” sing at Sunday Live. They were very good.

Evening

Bronwen and walked up to Woolies to buy things, and ended up helping Bronwen’s parent’s move things, having randomly just arrived at their place as they got home with a load of her grandfather’s things. We then walked back to here, drove back to there, picked up the TV stand thing, brought it home, stood the TV upon it, and had lovely curry from Halim’s Indian Taj for dinner.

Monday 10th August

Morning

I drove to work, where I worked.

Evening

I drove home, where I homed.

Night

I fought my media centre, and its new surround sound system, and lost. I cannot get it to pass-thru DTS or AC-3. I can get it to output both as a test, so it’s clearly capable of doing so, but I cannot get it to play an actual video source and pass-thru the digital surround information directly. Fortunately, I suppose, it does pass it through encoded as stereo, which the received can decode just fine, but it means I have to manually change it into Dolby ProLogic II Movie mode for movies, and back into a music mode for music, which is all too hard for the average media-centre using person.

Tuesday 11th August

Day

I woke up with a sore lung-ular area (thoracic sounds too insect-like to me), which is worrying given my lung-ular area history.

Night

Bronwen and I ate pizza and watched my new TV.

Wednesday 12th August

Day

Lung still sore. Still worried. Today is the Ekka Show Holiday—the annual holiday for the Royal Brisbane Show. I’d planned to do something exciting, possibly climb a mountain extremely early in the morning, in time for the sunrise, but my lungular disorder prevented me from doing much at all, so a relatively relaxing day was had.

Thursday 13th August

Morning

Back to work. Lungular disorder still disordering painfully.

Friday 14th August

Day

A busy day at work.

Night

Bronwen and I attended the opening of Ian Smith’s Bay Pastel showing, before eating a nice pasta dinner and watching some Stargate.

Saturday 15th August

Morning

I made an appointment to see a doctor in the afternoon, then went for a walk with Bronwen, ending up having lunch at Toowong.

Afternoon

Maz and I had lunch (or an after-lunch snack in my case) at the bakery, before I drove to the doctor, got told it didn’t sound like I had a pneumothorax but that I should rush to hospital, rushed to The Mater, had an X-Ray, and was told that I don’t have a pneumothorax. This is excellent news, though I’m now not sure what the problem is. I’m going with generic lungular muscular disorder.

Sunday 16th August

Morning

I drove Bronwen out to Cleveland, so she could catch the floaty thing out to Stradbroke Island.

Afternoon

Raymond and I went to Sunday Live, which this week was the Clocked Out Duo—a rather weird collection of household items forming what they called “music”.

Night

Bronwen and I had a nice curry from Halim’s, as usual.

Monday 17th August

Evening

Bronwen and I walked over to Maz’s, then from there to The Ville where we had Chez Tessa for dinner, and then back to my place, me running the last of the way due to impending lateness.

9:50pm

Bronwen and I watched “District 9” at South Bank, arriving just in time after rushing back from Maz’s. It’s quite a good movie—probably the best this year I think. After the movie, I drove down to Bronwen’s, got petrol, and didn’t get to bed until after midnight.

Tuesday 18th August

Day

Off to work, through awful traffic, but fortunately leaving slightly early got me to work on time. My lungular disorder seems to be a little less painful today.

Night

Bronwen arrived and we bought, and subsequently ate, pizza, while watching Stargate.

Wednesday 19th August

Day

Work was its usual self. Traffic there was again bad, third day in a row. Traffic back was fairly normal.

Night

I had a quiet night at home, did some washing, messed around, and basically relaxed.

Thursday 20th August

Day

I left home a little late, but there’s some magic force of evil which ensures that, regardless of when I leave home, I get to work at about the same time. I suppose it’s useful when I’m late, but leaving nearly 25 minutes later than yesterday, and getting to work five minutes late when I was a few minutes early yesterday, just isn’t right.

Evening

Relaxation is needed. Leaving work the moment a stressful update is finished, fingers sore from high-speed typing, is somewhat dangerous—somehow all the cars didn’t seem that real, it was more like a game where I had to make my way through little plastic squares to get to the goal.

Night

Hollie and I went shopping at some strange shopping centre on the wrong side of town, before getting dinner from Hungry Jack’s and eating that at Maz’s. Maz finally got his carputer working, and then I went home and stayed up far too late.

Friday 21st August

Day

I slept in longer than I should have, leaving home about the same time I was supposed to get to work.

Night

Still no earphones. I was hoping they’d arrive today. I had a quiet night doing not a lot, upgrading my phone to Windows Mobile 6.5, using NRGZ latest EnergyROM ROM with a lot of the Manilla/TouchFlo2 additions from the newer HTC phones. It’s quite nice, and mostly a good improvement over my older Windows Mobile 6.1 based ROM.

Saturday 22nd August – Byron Bay

Morning

I slept in, having stayed up late.

Afternoon

Byron Bay
Byron Bay
After sleeping in, Bronwen and I got off to a late start on our way to Byron Bay. I had a rear tyre blow out at 140 km/h, which was quite dangerous, then to make things worse, the factory Ford wheel brace can’t actually remove tight wheel nuts—it simply rounds them—so I had to call NRMA, though my RACQ membership had not been transferred over from my old car, so I first had to do that. However, despite the troubles, Bronwen and I had a lovely, and scenic, time

Night

Bronwen and I had chips and a nice evening down at Byron Bay.

Sunday 23rd August

Afternoon

Bronwen and I, along with Bronwen’s parent’s, Cam and Tina, Tina’s Mum, Ben and Jane and Bronwen’s Grandfather, had a nice lunch out at Cam’s place.

Night

I dropped Bronwen home, then drove to Maz’s, and somehow stayed up until after 3 o’clock, getting a mere four hours sleep.

Monday 24th August

Evening

I got home to find that Bronwen and my earphones had finally arrived. I drove out to Bronwen’s and we tried them on. I’m very impressed—I now own what may arguably be the best canalphones in the world. As reviewers say, “The RE0s have the most faithful reproduction of music I have ever heard from an IEM solution”.

Night

I drove over to Maz’s, and he finished putting his car PC together. It now works.

2:50am

Somehow it’s late again. I must sleep.

Tuesday 25th August

Night

Bronwen and I had our traditional Tuesday pizza, and watched some TV.

Wednesday 26th August

Day

My boss is away from today, so I’m taking over his duties. It’s somewhat worrying.

Night

I had a very late night, dealing with American problems.

Thursday 27th August

Day

Second day of work without the boss. Fortunately, nothing too bad has gone wrong.

Friday 28th August

Night

Bronwen and I had Halim’s Indian Taj for dinner, excellent as usual.

Saturday 29th August

Morning

I slept in, and lazed about.

Afternoon

I drove down to Bronwen’s to drop her home, then back to my place, met Maz and Kieran at the new Umart, then drove up to Kieran’s, then after a while dropped Maz into the city to go rollerblading, then drove back to Bronwen’s, dropped her at a school reunion, and drove back to Kieran’s, had Hungry Jack’s, and messed around being nerdy.

Early Morning

Bronwen finished clubbing and I went and picked her up.

Sunday 30th August

Morning

MustangGetting up far too early after my late night, I moseyed around for a while, before heading to the bakery for vital body sustenance, then down to Bronwen’s to sell a washing machine, then to the “Mustang State Concours & Muscle Car Spectacular”,Guzler where there were, unsurprisingly, quite a lot of Mustangs, or Shelby Cobras, or Saleen something or others, or whatever you want to call them, and a handful of Chargers, Lincolns and various other mostly old cars, along with a few proper European supercars—and one Holden, though I’ve forgotten what it was.

Afternoon

ChryslerBronwen and I foolishly thought we had more time than we did, bought a small picnic with plans to take it up Mount Gravatt, found we had no time, drove to West End, had a ten minute picnic on the riverside, then went to ABC Classic FM’s Sunday Live broadcast, before dropping Raymond into the city and heading up to Bronwen’s parent’s place.

Evening

Bronwen, her Dad and I went for a short drive around Mount Coot-Tha in their new Hilux, before making—and subsequently, unsurprisingly—eating dinner at Bronwen’s parent’s.

Night

I drove home, hung out my washing that I had forgot to hang out this morning, promptly causing it to rain, and went to bed—it somehow having fast forwarded to 1:30 AM.

Monday 31st August

Night

Bronwen and I walked to Tara Thai in The Valley, and ate Thai, not surprisingly.