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Summary| Highlights| 2008 (Year View)

01.01.2008Tuesday 1 January – The year of planning

It’s a new year, though it’s also just an arbitrary date picked to be the start of a year—I think? Perhaps astrologers would disagree. I fear this year will be one of planning—whether I want to or not, I’m growing up and facing that may be difficult. I need to think about the future, where I want to be, and make plans now so I end up where I want—drifting with the tide may not work... or maybe it will. I need to think about it. Juggling a career and getting the time off to do the things I want—and working out what those things are, is this year’s challenge.

02.01.2008Wednesday 2 January – Brisbane & Hitman

Morning
Went and saw the last ever Troubadour Variety Breakfast, before packing up the tent between spouts of rain, and driving back to Brisbane through gale-force winds.
Evening
Bronwen, Stella and I drove to Indooroopilly, via Hungry Jack’s, to do some shopping. Bronwen and I returned later to watch “Hitman” at Indooroopilly. They’re allocating seats now. I then drove to Bronwen’s.

03.01.2008Thursday 3 January – Sick & Pancakes

Morning
Spent last night at Bronwen’s place. Drove her to work, then drove back here. Have been slowly sorting through emails, receipts, and various other unexciting things that have to be done. I feel a bit sick—a sore throat and not one hundred percent in the stomach area.
Night
Went to the Ville for food, but nothing was open. Picked up Raymond, and drove to the Pancake Manor, where I had nachos.

04.01.2008Friday 4 January – Truck Accident

There was a truck accident near my place.

05.01.2008Saturday 5 January – Sick

Morning
Feeling sick.
Afternoon
Drove out to Bronwen’s and Bunning’s to get a door handle.
Evening
Dozed fitfully for a few hours.
Night
Picked Stella up from work, drove her to a party that had finished, bought Malt and Honey flavoured milk, still feel sick, and am going back to bed.

06.01.2008Sunday 6 January – Less Sick, but Hot

Morning
Still sick, but much less so. It’s incredibly hot.
Afternoon
Drove Bronwen back to her place, through a torrential downpour and drainage that just couldn’t handle the volume of water, and watched “American Beauty” while she did some washing.
Evening
Popped into Woolworths at Paddington, had curry for dinner from Halim’s Indian Taj, and watched random bits of junk on TV while chatting to Bronwen and Stella.

07.01.2008Monday 7 January – Phlegm

Morning
Did very little. Mostly better now, just phlegm to go. Another extremely hot day.
Evening
Had dinner at Hungry Jack’s, on the way to Woolworths at Indooroopilly. Bronwen stayed the night.

08.01.2008Tuesday 8 January – Bronwen’s

Night
I spent the night at Bronwen’s.

09.01.2008Wednesday 9 January – No Country for Old Men

Morning
Bronwen’s flatmate, Nacho, moved out. His girlfriend, Julia is moving in, in his place.
Night
Went and saw “No Country for Old Men” with Bronwen at Indooroopilly. It was good right up to the end, which was terrible. Big argument afterwards. Bronwen spent the night here.

10.01.2008Thursday 10 January – Sleep In

Slept in ridiculously late, waking around 1:30.
Afternoon
Drove to Indooroopilly with Stella, to buy sausages and pick up Tegan. Had Subway for lunch while there.
Night
Drove out to Bronwen’s late to say goodnight, but didn’t stay the night.

11.01.2008Friday 11 January – American Gangster

Morning
Slept in lazily.
Night
Went to Thai Treasure but they had no cheap vegetarian food, so went to Halim’s Indian Taj and had curry there with Bronwen.
9:30pm
Rushed to South Bank Cinemas, where there wasn’t any parking, and had to sit right at the side of the cinema due to being late and it being sold out, to watch “American Gangster”, which turned out to be quite good and it really didn’t make much difference sitting at the side once engrossed.

12.01.2008Saturday 12 January – Chris’s Wedding

Morning
Had an apple turnover for breakfast, then headed up to Bronwen’s parent’s place for lunch.
Afternoon
Nandini told me she is moving out.
3pm
Went to Chris’s wedding and reception.
Night
Home. Picked up Stella from work, drove her to Valley. Drove Bronwen to Nathan, then back to my place. Sleeping here.

13.01.2008Sunday 13 January – No Recall

I don’t recall.

14.01.2008Monday 14 January – Further No Recall

I still don’t recall.

15.01.2008Tuesday 15 January – New Tyres & Failed Brakes

Day
I get new tyres on car. $100 each.
Night
Bronwen and I drive to Amanda’s, brakes fail on the way there.

16.01.2008Wednesday 16 January – Fixing Car

7am
I take car to Metro Ford. Diagnose as faulty fuel pressure regulator, too high fuel pressure.

17.01.2008Thursday 17 January – Clint Departs

Night
Clint’s going away party. Bronwen and I attend.

18.01.2008Friday 18 January – Fixing Car

Afternoon
Changed fuel regulator and fuel filter in car.
Night
Bronwen came over and stayed the night.

19.01.2008Saturday 19 January – Futons & Black Books

Afternoon
Indooroopilly with Bronwen and Stella.
Evening
Drove with Bronwen to pick up futon.
Night
Watched Black Books.

20.01.2008Sunday 20 January – Cloverfield

Morning
Didn’t do much. Slept in a bit. Chatted to Bronwen.
Afternoon
Drove and had a look at a queen bed ($100) in Kelvin Grove.
Afternoon
Went to Bronwen’s then to the Gold Coast/Burleigh Heads with Bronwen, Stella and Mi.
Night
Went to curry with Stella, Bronwen. Then went to see Cloverfield at South Bank with Bronwen. Somewhat interesting, but mostly not.

21.01.2008Monday 21 January – Rope & Beds

Day
Drove to Autobarn to get brake master cylinder, which turned out to be the wrong one. Picked Bronwen up on the way back, borrowed her parent’s 4WD, picked up queen bed ($100) I had looked at yesterday. Lots of rope etc.
Night
Had dinner at the Thai place at Rosalie. Spent the night at Bronwen’s.

22.01.2008Tuesday 22 January – Brake Failure

Drove to Autobarn to get the second brake master cylinder and other car parts. Picked Bronwen up on the way back. Got pizza from Dominos and watched episodes of Coupling. Driving when brakes fail on busy roads isn’t overly fun.

23.01.2008Wednesday 23 January – Fixing Car

Installed new brake master cylinder and bled brakes.
  Drove to Supercheap to take back broken circlip pliers and buy air filter.
Night
Went to Maz’s, then to Halim’s Indian Taj for dinner.
  Went to UQ to adjust headlamps of car, then spent the night at Bronwen’s.

24.01.2008Thursday 24 January – Off to Cairns

Install air filter. Silicone up things. Sort out finances.
  I went to Indooroopilly with Raymond and Stella prior to lunch. Had planned to leave by 9 PM but left just before midnight. Bronwen came around for the evening. We had dinner at Hungry Jack’s.

25.01.2008Friday 25 January – Cairns & Silas

Night
Drove all night, sticking to the speed limit until 2 AM, then doing 120 km/h until 5 AM.
6am
Stopped at Marmor, just after 6 AM for fuel and a drink.
Morning
Stopped again at Cardwell for breakfast.
2pm
Stopped just outside Ayr for fuel again around 2 PM, before driving through to Silas’s in Cairns. It rained lightly outside Cairns but was dry everywhere else. Stopped for a milkshake at Sarina on the seaside.
7pm
Arrived at Silas’s in Cairns around 7 PM.

26.01.2008Saturday 26 January – Cairns & Shan

9am
Woke up at Silas’s. He had gone back to bed with a headache. Spent the morning chatting to him.
Afternoon
Silas went to work. I drove to Stocklands, then on to the Esplanade.
Fuel
I worked out the fuel I used to drive from Brisbane to Cairns: 25-Jan 06:05—54.25 litres @ $1.329, $72.10; 25-Jan 14:11—55.82 litres @ $1.309, $73.07; 26-Jan 15:10—42.19 litres @ $1.329, $56.07; Total 152.26 litres, $201.24.
Evening
Spent some time with Silas at work then had dinner with him, his girlfriend, and her friend, before heading to Shan’s to spend the night.

27.01.2008Sunday 27 January – Motocross

7am
I drove from Shan’s to Mareeba, got sunburnt photographing motocross, and met Justin, Jake, Amos and Luke.
Afternoon
I drove back to Shan’s, met Jade, had dinner, and then drove to Silas’s where I spent the night. I didn’t get to sleep until after 4 AM.

28.01.2008Monday 28 January – Cooktown

Morning
I drove to the Esplanade, and bought a milkshake. It is extremely hot. I’m waiting for Shan to wake up—he went out last night.
Afternoon
Shan is not feeling well after going out last night, and Silas is at work, so after laying in the shade at the Esplanade for a while watching topless women, I drove up to Cooktown. I hit a kangaroo on the Lakeland to Cooktown stretch, damaging the front bumper, and hopefully nothing else. Fortunately I was going fast and hit it straight on, as anything else would quite likely have had me going off the road. It jumped out just in front of me so there was no avoiding it.
8:30pm
Arrived at Mum’s, said hello to Dad and Mum, chatted for a while, and went to bed.

29.01.2008Tuesday 29 January – Family

I spend time with my family.

30.01.2008Wednesday 30 January – Sarah

Morning
Spent a quiet morning with my parents.
Afternoon
Went for a walk with Sarah and her dogs. She then came around for dinner.

31.01.2008Thursday 31 January – Family Photos

7:30am
Got up, picked up Sarah, and drove down to Finch Bay, where we took some family photos, theoretically for Mum’s frames.
Afternoon
I glued together broken parts of the front bumper with superglue and cable-tied up other parts. So far it seems to have worked but I’m not overly optimistic about it.

01.02.2008Friday 1 February – Rossville

Morning
We had a few photos of us taken by Narelle from the Cooktown Local News, then I drove Dad to Rossville via the supermarket and found a leak on the car. I drove out to Craig and Mandi’s, to whom I chatted for a couple of hours, and then to Ric for a while. I rush back to town, stopping at the Lion’s Den Hotel for a short time and meeting Wayne there.
6:30pm
I drove back to Cooktown and had dinner with Mum and Sarah, dropping in to see Ricci for a short while.
Night
Sarah came over. I walked back to her place. I changed Mum’s email client from Outlook to Gmail/Google Apps.
1:33am
Off to bed, must be up again in a few hours.

02.02.2008Saturday 2 February – Cairns

I woke up a little later than expected and drove to Cairns. I got caught for speeding on the way into Cairns—at the speed zone boundary between an 80 and 60 zone. I drove to Shan’s and spent the day there.

03.02.2008Sunday 3 February – Cairns

Morning
I drove to Redlynch Shopping Centre to look for Ella but it was closed. It rained.
Afternoon
I drove to Silas’s. He arrived shortly after. We chatted for a while and had a look at a car with Amos, before chatting some more.
Night
I drove to Shan’s, chatted, showered, and went to bed.

04.02.2008Monday 4 February – Maryborough

Morning
I bought some hose and things to fix the leaking heater hose tap, but it was all but impossible to get to, so I took the car to a mechanic—which took quite some time and was quite expensive, as they couldn’t get to it either.
Day
I drove from Cairns to Stella’s parent’s place in Maryborough.

05.02.2008Tuesday 5 February – Brisbane

Morning
Woke at Stella’s parent’s place. Chatted to Stella and her brother. Drove to Brisbane. It was raining heavily, making driving difficult.

06.02.2008Wednesday 6 February – Sweeney Todd

Afternoon
Went shopping at Indooroopilly with Bronwen and Stella, then out to the wreckers to get a remote car opener thing, then to Bronwen’s.
Night
Had curry with Bronwen, then watched “Sweeney Todd” at South Bank. Depressing, uninspiring movie.

07.02.2008Thursday 7 February – Forgetful

Either I had a forgetful day, or I’ve just forgotten...

08.02.2008Friday 8 February – Forgetful

Either I had a forgetful day, or I’ve just forgotten...

09.02.2008Saturday 9 February – Chinatown

Day
Walked to Chinatown with Bronwen. Nearly died from the heat.

10.02.2008Sunday 10 February – Mount Coot-Tha

Morning
Drive to Bronwen’s.
Afternoon
Late lunch at Chez Tessa with Stella.
Evening
Pick Bronwen up from her parents.
Night
Drive up Mount Coot-Tha, see scenery.
  Still fighting media centre. Now doesn’t work at all.

11.02.2008Monday 11 February – Media Centre

Afternoon
Drove Bronwen to work.
Night
Went shopping with Maz and Stella, then took my old computer over to Maz’s, where we found that the DVD drive was faulty, causing my problems installing Vista on it. After some messing around, it appears that Media Centre, running under Vista, may finally be working. Had curry for dinner with Stella.
4am
Stayed up most of the night fighting Vista and Media Centre.

12.02.2008Tuesday 12 February – Cranking Pizza

Night
Pizza with Bronwen. Watched Crank.

13.02.2008Wednesday 13 February – Lust, Caution

Day
Lunch at Chez Tessa with Stella. Played around with Media Centre.
Night
Watched “Lust, Caution” with Bronwen at the Palace. Got toothache. Was depressed.

14.02.2008Thursday 14 February – Coupling

Midday
Lunch at the vegetarian place at the Ville with Stella.
Night
Met Bronwen in the city to have a look at some opening of something or other at the State Library, but it wasn’t very good so we headed back to my place, where Bronwen cooked me a nice pasta dinner and we watched the last few episodes of “Coupling”, which really weren’t very good.

15.02.2008Friday 15 February – Potential Flatmates

7:30am
Up to clean.
9:45am
Two potential flatmates arrive to look at the room.
11am
Another potential flatmate arrives, after having got lost and me going to pick her up, and then dropping her to the city as she was very late.
12:20pm
Grace turned up to have a look at the room.
Afternoon
Nandini arrives to clean out her room.
5:21pm
The 5 o’clock potential flatmate called to say she’s running late, and arrived to have a look at the room shortly after.
Night
I dropped Stella to work then drove on to Kieran’s, where Maz and I stayed until late.

16.02.2008Saturday 16 February – I Don’t Know

I don’t know what happened today. This is one of the problems of keeping a journal—not keeping it.

17.02.2008Sunday 17 February – Relaxing

Night
Spent at Bronwen’s.

18.02.2008Monday 18 February – Curry

Day
Morning at Bronwen’s, drove to my place, dropped Bronwen at an interview, had lunch in the city with Stella, then to Toowong for shopping.
Night
Curry with Maz, Stella, Bronwen.

19.02.2008Tuesday 19 February – Grace

Day
Feeling sad, the following song cheered me up: Tori Amos [The Beekeeper] 14 - The Beekeeper.
  Messed around on PC most of the day doing not much. Girl coming at 11 o’clock called to say she’d already found a place. 3 girls, all of who seemed Eastern European, came at 4:30.
7:15pm
Grace called back to say she’d like the room.
Night
Got pizza with Bronwen and Stella, and watched a few episodes of “The Office”, which appears to be terrible.

20.02.2008Wednesday 20 February – Market Day

Morning
Another potential flatmate, who came and saw the room yesterday, said she’d like to take it.
Afternoon
Went to Market Day at UQ.
Night
Drove to Maz’s. Got dinner from Chez Tessa. Picked Bronwen up from work late. Spent the night at Bronwen’s. Looked at sample GAMSAT tests and test preparation things of Mi’s. Slept on the floor due to her bed being too small, it being hot, there being mosquitoes and me being stressed.

21.02.2008Thursday 21 February – Rambo

Lunch
Bussed to city with Stella. Lunch at Govinda’s.
Afternoon
Indro for shopping with Maz and Stella. Bought mop-head replacement sponges.
Night
Caught a bus into the city. Went and saw a photography exhibition at the QUT art gallery with Bronwen. Had Mexican dinner at West End with Bronwen.
9:45pm
Saw “Rambo” at South Bank.
Midnight
Spilt coconut and pineapple juice across the kitchen floor. Used my cleverly pre-purchased mop-head replacement sponges.

22.02.2008Friday 22 February – Grace Moves In

Midday
Grace moved some stuff into her room. Drove her to QU Books, then on to Indooroopilly for lunch, then back to the train station.
Afternoon
Computer BSOD last night, and again today, PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGE_AREA.

23.02.2008Saturday 23 February – Kieran’s, Late

Ran memtest on my computer, which finds various faults with the RAM, though nothing I can isolate to a specific stick, or sticks, of RAM—I’m hoping it’s not the motherboard (or CPU I suppose).
Afternoon
Drove to Indooroopilly with Stella for a baked potato lunch.
Night
Drove Stella to work and then on to Kieran’s, where Maz was. Didn’t leave until after three o’clock, and then stayed at Maz’s for a while.
5am
Back from Maz’s, and needing to get to bed.

24.02.2008Sunday 24 February – Rushing, Computers, and Curry

11am
Woke up, rushed to Maz’s to borrow his RAM. Typically, my RAM, which had been failing with appropriate regularity yesterday, now seemed to work quite well. Installed Maz’s RAM in my computer, tested it for several hours without fault. Replaced my RAM, tested it, and found it faulty. I now find myself faced with the somewhat geeky scenario where my operating system (Windows XP), being 32-bit, and apparently not supporting PAE properly, isn’t going to take advantage of any more than my current 4 gigabytes of RAM, but I’ll probably end up with at least six, as I’ll probably buy two matched two gigabyte sticks to replace my currently faulty RAM, but then find that one of my two gigabyte pairs will be fine.
Afternoon
Stella and I drove to Mount Ommaney shopping centre, which sucked, then back to Indooroopilly shopping centre.
Night
Bronwen arrived back from the middle of New South Wales, and we went and had curry for dinner. Grace and her mother arrived just after I’d ordered, so I had to rush back to give them a key, then Maz got home just before I finished, so had to rush to his place to return his RAM, and then on to Bronwen’s to drop her home, and then back to my place to sit smugly at my faulty computer, and chat online to Mum.

25.02.2008Monday 25 February – New RAM

1pm
Woke up.
2pm
Caught a bus into town, had lunch at Govindas, and picked up a bond form for Grace.
4:45pm
Rushed to Umart and bought 4 gigabyte of RAM to replace my hopefully faulty RAM, and 4 gigabyte of SD cards for Maz.
Evening
Cleaned Nandini’s old food out of her old cupboard and the fridge, and defrosted the fridge. Drove to Maz’s, dropping off his SD cards, and meeting Kieran there. Drove Grace and Stella to Paddington Woolworths, and then drove myself to Bronwen’s, before getting stuck reading Wikipedia articles about gaming systems.
3:30am
Off to bed.

26.02.2008Tuesday 26 February – The Spatula

Morning
Slept in.
Afternoon
Drove to Indooroopilly with Stella to get a spatula. Ended up visiting fashion shops instead, and did not get a spatula. “Rushed” slowly to Jaycar in peak hour traffic, bought a USB-controlled power board and a few MOV’s to make surge protectors, then “rushed” slowly home again, then off to Woolworths to get a spatula, then to Eagle Boys for pizza. Then watched “Two Hands” with Grace, Bronwen and Stella, and ate some pancakes Stella made with the new spatula.

27.02.2008Wednesday 27 February – Indicating

Morning
Drove Stella to the train station. My indicators stopped flashing. Fortunately they turned on, just not off, then on again, and then off again, in their usual repetitive fashion.
Lunch
Drove Maz and a workmate to Indooroopilly, via Supercheap for a horribly expensive $30 indicator flasher, and lunch.
Evening
Dropped in on Maz, got dinner from Chez Tessa, dropped Bronwen home, and stayed up instead of going to sleep.
1am
Off to bed.
2am
Definitely off to bed this time.

28.02.2008Thursday 28 February – Nothing

Day
Well, I’ve done almost nothing all day, which makes me feel a little slack. I mean, I’ve been generically busy all day—I haven’t been staring into space—but the things I’ve been doing have been mostly pointless. For example, I spent ages installing XP Media Centre on a virtual machine, so that I could play around coding something to better support DVD ISO playback in it, only to find that DVD support is disabled due to the meagre graphics adaptor installed on the virtual machine—so that was a waste of time. I did do some washing and clean the bathroom, so I suppose that counts.
Evening
Went shopping with Maz and Grace. Dropped Maz at Kieran’s.
Night
Stayed up all night watching “Heroes” with Grace and Beck, and only managed to get to episode ten.
4:45am
Off to bed.

29.02.2008Friday 29 February – Leap Day

10am
Up. I am pleased to say today didn’t break my journal’s dating system.
Afternoon
Kebabs for lunch with Grace and Beck, then another episode and a half of Heroes (halfway through episode twelve now), then a rushed peak hour drive to get Grace to a train.

01.03.2008Saturday 1 March – A Mystery

It’s a mystery!

02.03.2008Sunday 2 March – Deepens

The mystery deepens…

03.03.2008Monday 3 March – Right

…turns slightly to the right…

04.03.2008Tuesday 4 March – Emerges

…and emerges back into sanity.

05.03.2008Wednesday 5 March – Rollerblades

Afternoon
Bought rollerblades.
Night
Drove Grace and Stella to Officeworks, then Stella and Maz to Woolworths, KFC, and Hungry Jacks for dinner, then did a little rollerblading practice. They are probably one size too big.
Comment by io – Monday 1 December 2008, 5:09 AM
  From previous day: "…and emerges back into sanity."
  
  Sorry to interject, but "Bought rollerblades" is sanity?
  
  "..Woolworths, KFC, and Hungry Jacks for dinner, then did a little rollerblading practice. They are probably one size too big."

06.03.2008Thursday 6 March – Rollerblading

Midday
Stella, Maz and I drove to Extreme Skates to have a look at a few more rollerblades. Maz bought mine as they’re one size too large for me.
Afternoon
Stella and I bussed to the city and had Govinda’s for lunch. I bought another set of rollerblades, one size smaller than the last.
Night
Practiced rollerblading again for half an hour or so with Maz and Stella. Bronwen came around; we had Cold Rock for dinner.

07.03.2008Friday 7 March – Lunch

Got up around 11 o’clock, and drove Stella to uni. Had lunch with Maz.

08.03.2008Saturday 8 March – Jade

Jade and Beau, her boyfriend, spent the night on their way to Melbourne.

09.03.2008Sunday 9 March – Curry

Didst eat curry with Grace, Stella, and Maz, before spending time at Maz’s.

10.03.2008Monday 10 March – Shopping

Morning
Did some shopping at Indooroopilly with Grace.

11.03.2008Tuesday 11 March – Gaming

Night
Dropped Stella at work. Continued on to Maz’s. Had pizza for dinner. Stella dropped past after work. Stella beat Maz at Mario Kart. Maz killed Stella a multitude of times in Goldeneye.
Midnight
Installing Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament. UT doesn’t work. Quake3 does. Trying UT2003 now.

12.03.2008Wednesday 12 March – Photos & Computer Problems

Afternoon
Rushed to RGB Digital to drop in $200 worth of photos for printing. Dropped past Bronwen’s on the way back. Drove back to my place, had dinner here, did some rollerblade practice.
Night
Dropped Bronwen home, and drove up to Kieran’s. Came home to find my computer had blue screened, for no particularly apparent reason—stupid STOP error. Seems like it may be related to CDROM problems, as there’s a lot of CD timeouts in the event viewer, and some JRAID ones, but none right before it would have failed.

13.03.2008Thursday 13 March – Lost

The records for today, lost they are.

14.03.2008Friday 14 March – IKEA

Afternoon
Drove to IKEA with Bronwen and Maz. Looked at photo frames.

15.03.2008Saturday 15 March – Not Known

Today, I know not what I did.

16.03.2008Sunday 16 March – Serenity

Night
Rollerblading then Raymond’s Choral thing then pizza then Serenity.

17.03.2008Monday 17 March – The Other Boleyn Girl

Morning
It’s raining. I drove Stella to uni as she was late.
Afternoon
Drove to Indooroopilly for lunch with Maz, via Supercheap for a headlight and the hardware for picture framing things.
7:15pm
Watched “The Other Boleyn Girl” with Stella at South Bank.
Night
Managed to stay up late doing very little.

18.03.2008Tuesday 18 March – Up Late

Morning
Sleeping in is especially nice now that it’s starting to get cooler.
Afternoon
Rushed to Umart to pick up a purchase for Maz, then drove him and Stella to Indooroopilly where we went shopping, then dropped Stella at work, spent some time at Maz’s, drove back to my place, picked up Grace, drove to Kangaroo Point Cliffs, picked up Bronwen, had dinner, talked for ages, drove Maz home, drove Bronwen home, drank iced coffee, and now it’s 3 o’clock in the morning.
5:45am
Oh dear. It’s light. It’s morning. Must go to bed. Must not buy iced coffee again. Looking on the bright side (no pun intended), I’ve just pounded out 2000 iced-coffee-powered words of my Tasmanian journal. Let’s hope it makes some sense.

19.03.2008Wednesday 19 March – Curry, Rollerblading & Milkshakes

Day
Drove Stella to her uni at South Bank, and then walked into the city where I had potato bake and pumpkin pasta for lunch, along with a strawberry milkshake. I then bought some rat poison, a toilet duck, a quarter of a litre of cream, a toothbrush holder, a scrubber, a metre twenty spirit level, three small ratchet clamps, and a ball and pein hammer, before driving Stella home again.
Night
Stella went rollerblading. I picked up Maz, Bronwen arrived, and we went and joined her, stopping for curry with Grace at Halim’s Indian Taj, and rollerblading up to midnight, when I drove Maz home again.

20.03.2008Thursday 20 March – Packing

Morning
Woke up horribly early, packed some things for Stradbroke, and dropped them off at Bronwen’s parent’s place.
10:43am
Got asked to attend interview for casual UQ web development job on Tuesday.
Midday
Dropped Stella at Roma Street. Traffic is looking quite busy.

21.03.2008Friday 21 March – Stradbroke

Morning
I got up horribly early and caught a bus to South Bank, and a train from there to Cleveland, and a water taxi from there to Stradbroke, where Cam picked me up.
Afternoon
Cam drove his new 4WD and Bronwen, her Dad, and I, drove in Bronwen’s Dad’s 4WD, all around Stradbroke.

22.03.2008Saturday 22 March – Brisbane

4:30pm
Bronwen’s Mum drove us to the Gold Cats water taxi, which didn’t turn up, then on to the Stradbroke Ferries water taxi, which did turn up. Unfortunately, once Bronwen and I got back to the mainland, the connecting bus didn’t turn up. Fortunately, a quick rush across to the Gold Cats terminal managed to get us on their courtesy bus—which despite looking nice and shiny, only started after the driver got all greasy down in the engine.

23.03.2008Sunday 23 March – Pittsworth

Morning
Bronwen and I drove to my local IGA, did some shopping, then on to Maz’s.
Midday
Maz, Bronwen and I drove to Pittsworth.
Afternoon
We executed a laptop.
Evening
A pleasant barbecue and bonfire, and resulting late night, was had

24.03.2008Monday 24 March – Top Gear

Afternoon
Drove back to Brisbane, dropped Maz at his place, had lunch at Hungry Jack’s with Bronwen.
Night
Watched some Top Gear, before dropping Bronwen home.

25.03.2008Tuesday 25 March – Job Interview

Morning
I missed the kerbside rubbish collection truck.
10am
I caught a bus into UQ and attended a job interview with the eResearch group.
Afternoon
I applied for jobs, and received a call back from one (the CSS one).
Night
I picked up Maz from his work and drove to Indooroopilly, where I bought my second lot of rat poison, then drove to Maz’s, bought pizza, and framed some of Maz’s photos.

26.03.2008Wednesday 26 March – Race

Morning
I finished and hung one of my photos in the toilet.
Afternoon
I drove to Indooroopilly with Maz to buy a door-stopper and get lunch, and spent some time at Maz’s place.
  I phoned Paxas and found that I hadn’t got the CSS job, but was given the details of another web design sort of contract.
Evening
I caught a bus into the city, meeting Bronwen. We wandered around the city and botanical gardens, tried to open a locked door on Riverstage, set off an alarm which loudly informed us that we’d breached a prohibited area, and that the police had been called, ran away, and had dinner at Tara Thai.
8:30pm
Bronwen and I saw “Race”, a Bollywood fantastic, at the Regent—and it was fantastic. Everything about it was better than a Hollywood film—even the surround sound. Either the Regent has superior surround to anywhere else I go, or this film did. Why other movies don’t make more use of surround sound I don’t know. As usual, it was a cinematic masterpiece, sacrificing the unrealistic exaggerated reality that’s become Hollywood’s mainstay for pure cinematic pleasure—nevermind that people don’t normally become surrounded in stunning models and break into dance every few minutes.
3:20am
It’s become 3 AM somehow. I’ve been transcribing my Tasmanian journal from its fancy paper based format to this simple XML format.

27.03.2008Thursday 27 March – Rambling

11am
I managed to sleep in—or more accurately, I managed to get up.
Afternoon
Picked Stella up from Roma Street Station. I now have incessant background music again.
Night
Drove to Maz’s, then went rollerblading with Maz and Stella, before driving back to Maz’s and watching a few things on his media centre.
2:42am
It’s somehow got late.
3:20am
Late at night, from time to time, a strange thing happens. If you’ve ever woken and not been able to figure out where you are, or which way up you’re lying on your bed, you’ll know what I mean—I feel as though I am back in my caravan in Rossville. It just comes to me—some sensation that’s tied to me being in that caravan. I’m aware it’s happening, but it is quite disorienting, as I become aware that I’m back in my caravan, sitting in front of my computer, as I used to when I lived there, yet at the same time, I’m consciously aware that I am not actually there. It’s a little scary. It’s probably a sign that I should go to bed.

28.03.2008Friday 28 March – Raymond’s Birthday

It be Raymond’s birthday. I went around to Maz’s, dropping Stella to work on the way, helped him move his couches into the lounge room (we had to take the door off to get them in), chatted for a while, then drove out to Bronwen’s, after she’d had dinner with Miffy, and brought her back into civilisation. We went and got Raymond after midnight, and went to Maccas.
Comment by io – Monday 1 December 2008, 5:15 AM
  Ah! Now I remember what I did this year!

29.03.2008Saturday 29 March – Earth Hour

7pm
Maz, Bronwen and I rushed—via Bronwen’s parent’s place to get her camera—to Brisbane Square to meet up with some photographers to photograph Earth Hour. Or more accurately, I dropped Maz and Bronwen at Brisbane Square, drove most of the way to Kangaroo Point before I could find a park, walked hurriedly through South Bank nearly all the way back to Brisbane square, only to meet them on their way to South Bank. We took a few photos, all the branded skyscrapers turned off their lights, and the bridge lights, but nothing else—so it was the expected anti-climax.

30.03.2008Sunday 30 March – Chocolate

Afternoon
I awoke.
Evening
Us all went rollerblading, what is fun ‘n’ stuff.
Night
Bronwen, Maz, Stella, and of course, my fantastic self, drove to KFC at Indooroopilly, then Subway, then Hungry Jack’s, for dinner.
Later Night
I drove Bronwen home, gave her moral support while she did two loads of washing, and bought some petrol.
4am
Stayed up late playing Unreal Tournament, eating chocolate, and helping Stella with her uni assignments—all of which seem to be due tomorrow.

31.03.2008Monday 31 March – In Under 5 Seconds…

Morning
It was very cold last night, and I got to bed very late. Sleeping in would have been great, but I got woken first by an SMS, then by a phone call, then picking Grace up from the train station, then dropping Grace back at the train station, then by a courier knocking on the door. Sleep just wasn’t working, so I gave up.
Afternoon
I drove Stella to the doctor, and bought a kebab for lunch from the Ville. So far, so good. I then went to drive home, only to find that traffic was backed up all the way to the roundabout at uni. Unfortunately this didn’t happen until I was nearly at the end of Sir Fred Schonell Drive. Fortunately, I managed to skip across the wrong side of the road into a driveway, turn around, and escape. A few slightly bent road rules and ignored “no right turn” signs later, and I managed to weave my way down side roads back home, where the garage door promptly broke. Then, in the process of fixing it, I stood on a full tube of superglue, which applied itself in the correct quantity to one side of the surface of my foot, ready to be permanently bonded in only 5 seconds. I’m afraid to say, that’s the end of the interesting story—I then washed some dishes, washed some clothes, and drank some fruit juice.
Night
Drove out to Bronwen’s and chatted for a while.

01.04.2008Tuesday 1 April – Car Accidents & High Speed Internet Nails

9am
On my way to an interview with a recruiter, I was involved in an accident. Coming around a corner in a 70 km/h zone, I found a stopped rubbish collection truck. It was directly in the centre of the right-hand lane in a two lane, one way road. It wasn’t off the side of the road. The rubbish truck man was standing behind it loading a bin into the truck. I managed to stop before killing the rubbish truck man. The car behind me didn’t manage to stop before running into me. The front of their car was forced into their radiator, their bonnet bent up a good foot or so. Mine has some scratches and a little cracking on the plastic bumper on the back. I’m now a great fan of large, heavy, well-built cars.
1pm
Stella and I bussed into the city and watched a few hundred people freeze in place at Queen Street Mall. It was interesting. I then had lunch at Govinda’s.
Evening
I drove to Maz’s, where we managed to get a gigabit network connection through concrete, brick, glass and aluminium, using only a 3 inch nail.
Night
Stayed up programming something in C# to measure internet download usage.

02.04.2008Wednesday 2 April – Blading

I dropped past Maz’s to discuss some .net problems I was having. Bronwen came around, and we went rollerblading.

03.04.2008Thursday 3 April – Shopping

Went to Maz’s. Went to Indooroopilly. Gave the economy a small amount of money.

04.04.2008Friday 4 April – Nacho Heroes

Afternoon
Train into city with Stella, meet Maz, buy pop rock candy, and then back home. Drive to Indooroopilly to get nacho ingredients with Grace, and then back home.
Night
Eat Grace’s nachos. Watch an episode of Heroes. Grace goes to study. Maz and Stella get drunk. Drive to KFC at Kangaroo Point for dinner for Maz. Maz and Stella play games in the park. Drive Maz home. Find out there were $309 return flights to Kuala Lumpur, but that they had to be booked by tomorrow. Regret not knowing this sooner. Go to bed.

05.04.2008Saturday 5 April – Rocket Scientists

Morning
Lazy sleep-in.
Evening
Bronwen came over.
Night
Had a nice dinner with Bronwen, her parents, and her brother and his fiancé.
Later Night
Went to a combination birthday, housewarming, and house expulsion party—for the same person and the same house. He’s moved in and been immediately evicted, on his birthday. It was probably also the largest single collection of rocket scientists (or hypersonic engineers, technically) outside the US, which made for an interesting party—though there was also the dance teacher.

06.04.2008Sunday 6 April – Fire, Curry & Ugly Green People

Morning
I slept in.
Afternoon
Watched “Shrek 2” with Bronwen, then had a late lunch at Indooroopilly with Stella and Maz.
Afternoon
Watched “Shrek 2” with Bronwen, then had a late lunch at Indooroopilly with Stella and Maz.
Night
Had curry from Halim’s with Stella, before driving to Maz’s. It’s very cold.
4am
Fire alarm went off, for no apparent reason. I do not like it.

07.04.2008Monday 7 April – Broken Bolts

Afternoon
Woken by Stella, who was fifteen minutes late for a presentation at uni. Rushed her to uni. Parked at South Bank and walked to Govinda’s for lunch.
Night
Drove to Kangaroo Point with Maz and Stella to go rollerblading, but a bolt holding one of Maz’s wheels sheared off. Instead we walked across the Goodwill bridge, through QUT and the botanical gardens, and back past McDonald’s and Hungry Jack’s, through South Bank, to the car, then back to Maz’s.
3:30am
It’s got late. I’ve been up re-jigging my résumé—changing it from a performance to a functional résumé, at least in theory. In reality, I got sick of that and have been writing up the rest of my Tasmanian trip, and sorting out some of my music, filling out some missing Massive Attack and Pendulum songs—incomplete albums are a horrific imperfection to a perfectionist such as myself. Using “an” before an hard aitch is also an horrific mastication of the Queen’s good English.
5:30am
Bed. Now. I have just discovered that the real estate lady is coming today, not tomorrow.

08.04.2008Tuesday 8 April – Bad Traffic

9am
I sort of wake up when my alarm goes, so I can be sort of awake, should the real estate lady come.
Later
The real estate lady came, saw, and left.
Later
The real estate lady came, saw, and left.
Afternoon
I drove out to Wooloowin and bought two foam mattresses for $15 each, so that Stella can hide her guests away in her room. Traffic is insane for some reason—not any busier than normal, just chaotic driving. I saw a motorbike rider most probably killed by two cars, a stopped bus, several smashed cars blocking traffic, was forced to drive on the wrong side of the road to avoid the remains of cars, and waited in traffic for ages while police guided people through lights closed due to accidents, to mention a few. And this was before it started raining.
Night
Bronwen came over and we went and got pizza and watched a few episodes of Heroes with Grace. I drove Bronwen home and then drove up to Maz’s, where I waited until Stella finished work. The driver chaos continued on the way home, where a car sped and somehow managed to slide itself in at a strange angle between me and a maxi-cab in the next lane before stopping. Neither the taxi nor I were touched by the errant maniac in his car, but it certainly got the ole heart racing.
Midnight
Off to bed, so I can get up at a reasonable hour for a change and get some things done.

09.04.2008Wednesday 9 April – Heroes

Midday
I got up late again. Caught a bus into the city with Stella, though she got out at South Bank to go to uni. I dropped Maz’s broken rollerblades at Rebel Sport, who are sending them away under warranty—not an ideal solution as I don’t know how long that’ll take, but there didn’t seem to be much choice.
Afternoon
Added a few things to the fullboar site.
Evening
Caught a bus into the city, met up with Stella on her way home from uni, went grocery shopping. It is, once again, quite cold.
Night
Watched the remaining couple of episodes of the first series of Heroes with Grace. I had planned to go to bed around 10, but it’s now midnight, so off to bed I am.

10.04.2008Thursday 10 April – Firefly

Morning
I actually managed to get to bed not too late last night, and managed to get up before midday today.
Midday
I rushed off to uni to print things at POD. It rained a little.
2pm
After rushing back from printing at uni, I rushed down to the Computer Associates building, checked the second level for people waiting for me, found that Hanson, the only people on that level, weren’t waiting for me, and arrived at Candle on the ground floor ten minutes late—unsure if I was supposed to be there or not. Turned out I was, and I had a chat to Kevin, who discussed the Queensland Health role with me.
Afternoon
Watched several episodes of Firefly with Grace, who was home from uni early.
Afternoon
Watched several episodes of Firefly with Grace, who was home from uni early.
Night
Drove to Hawken Village with Maz, Grace and Stella, where I bought a mixed veggie rice thing, of which I ate half before finding it contained chicken. I was given a second serve that didn’t contain chicken, so ended up eating quite a bit.
  Spent some time developing my responses to the Queensland Health position.

11.04.2008Friday 11 April – Slowly More Ridiculous

Morning
I woke up. No, seriously. I then ate a breakfast of “Crunchy Grain”, the cheap Nutri-Grain lookalikes that are unfortunately nowhere near being taste-a-likes.
Evening
Drove to Indooroopilly with Maz for a late lunch. Met Kieran at the train station on his way home from work and spent the evening at his place.
Night
Went to Maccas with Grace and Stella so Grace could buy dinner, and then stayed up until 3 AM getting slowly more ridiculous.

12.04.2008Saturday 12 April – Computer Building

Morning
Picked up Bronwen from her parent’s place and drove to Maz’s. Ordered parts for her new computer with Maz and Kieran. Drove to Umart to pick up the parts, then to Kieran’s for a monitor and lunch at Indooroopilly.
Afternoon
Put Bronwen’s computer together at Maz’s with Maz, Kieran and Bronwen. It had lots of problems, was very unstable, and randomly rebooted. Formatted my computer and put Vista on it.
Evening
Messed around setting up my computer again, and figuring out that it’s most probably faulty RAM causing Bronwen’s problems.
Night
Had dinner at Kieran’s. Went back to Maz’s. Stayed late.

13.04.2008Sunday 13 April – The Black Balloon

Morning
Quite sleepy from getting to bed late last night. Didn’t do much. Relaxed.
Evening
Drove to Paddington Woolworths with Grace and bought items for sale therein. Then caught a bus to the city, and watched “The Black Balloon” at the Regent with Grace and Stella. As predicted, it was depressing and not very good.
Night
Drove Stella to uni so she could print things due tomorrow.

14.04.2008Monday 14 April – TV Tuners are Bad

Morning
Took Bronwen’s faulty RAM back to Umart. Fortunately it failed memtest there so I got store credit. Unfortunately they didn’t sign the store credit. When I went to the Umart shop to buy new RAM for Bronwen and a SATA DVD drive for me, I had to get the manager to sign my credit note, and take the 3% credit surcharge off it.
Evening
Drove to Woolworths at Indooroopilly with Maz and Stella to do shopping. Drove out to Bronwen’s to drop her RAM off. Drove back to Maz’s. Chatted for a while.
Night
Up all night messing around with the media centre. Gave up installing Vista again, could not get TV tuner to work. Ghosted the previous install back. The media receiver service fails to start, complaining about being unable to find a file. I have no idea why. Anyway, after hours and hours of pointless effort, it’s back to how it was before I started.

15.04.2008Tuesday 15 April – Faulty New Computers

Afternoon
Stella’s friends, Sam and Emma, arrived. I picked up Maz, and his new computer parts, from Umart, and spent the rest of the afternoon watching him fight with hardware that didn’t fit. The heat-pipe cooled RAM didn’t fit in the RAM slots... not sure how they managed that one. The graphics card didn’t fit in a large-sized case, and the power supply was longer than normal and only just fit with difficulty.
Night
Picked up pizza and got Bronwen from South Bank, and went back to Maz’s. He is having problems with his computer freezing up. Drove Bronwen home after.

16.04.2008Wednesday 16 April – Curried Relaxation

Afternoon
Applied for a few jobs.
Night
Picked up Kieran and drove to Maz’s. His computer appears to have a faulty motherboard. Had curry from Halim’s with Stella, Emma and Sam, then drove them up Mount Coot-Tha, before driving back to Maz’s, and eventually driving Kieran home. Stayed up for a while talking to Grace, and later Stella and her friends, before going to bed.

17.04.2008Thursday 17 April – Rebellious Rollerblades

Morning
Woken by someone from Telstra in Perth phoning—“your number is not with Telstra, but is obviously working so I guess it’s an Optus number?” Responding that it was an IP-based phone had him hang up almost immediately. I then went to Umart’s service centre with Maz, to drop off his presumed-faulty motherboard.
Afternoon
Maz and I messed around building up a computer, and generally lazing about. I dropped Stella, Emma and Sam at Indooroopilly and picked them up again a couple of hours later. I dropped past Hungry Jack’s for lunch.
Evening
Grace, Maz and I went to Rebel Sport, where I bought Grace some rollerblades as a late birthday present, and picked up Maz’s warranty returned blades.
Night
Maz and I watched some Stargate at his place, and finished building up a computer.

18.04.2008Friday 18 April – Korma

Day
Updated my resume, and sent it off to a couple of recruiters who had requested an updated copy. Drove Stella to uni. It rained.
Afternoon
Picked up Maz’s motherboard from Umart, then picked up Maz, and drove to Maz’s place. It seems his computer is working now, though no idea why.
Night
Drove out to Bronwen’s. Helped her set up her media centre/server/computer/thing, but couldn’t due to lack of monitor and antenna cable. Drove back here, made korma.

19.04.2008Saturday 19 April - …and so on

Morning
Dropped Maz’s computer at the Umart Service Centre, for checking.
Afternoon
Went to Indooroopilly with Maz and Bronwen.
Evening
Dropped Bronwen home to her place, and fought her new computer, having all sorts of silly problems. It can’t connect wirelessly as the signal has to pass directly through the centre of the computer long-ways, so she’ll need to get an external antenna for that. It wouldn’t POST to the TV until it had its special funny-plug to S-Video adaptor installed, and then it wouldn’t detect a secondary VGA monitor without a reboot, then it had redraw problems in a virtual machine viewed via a TV, and... so on.

20.04.2008Sunday 20 April – Bad Hard Disk

Morning
I woke late, fought some SAS software, made a virtual machine image, burnt it to a DVD, and rushed down to Bronwen’s to give it to her.
Afternoon
I drove to Indooroopilly with Maz and Stella, did some grocery shopping there, and had Subway for lunch. I also dropped past Officeworks, where I found and bought an 80 GB “Maxtor One Touch 4 Mini” for $50, which had been returned as “unsuitable”.
Evening
Fought Ghost, Acronis True Image, and Knoppix, in a dual attempt to Ghost my machine and format as FAT32 a new Maxtor One Touch hard drive I bought, which I think may be faulty. Eventually managed to get Ghost working by disabling AHCI SATA mode in the BIOS. With that enabled, nothing will boot from a CD other than Vista, it appears. I didn’t, however, manage to format the new hard drive. Crazy things happened—it managed to BSOD my computer, showed up as several thousand gigabytes, no gigabytes, didn’t show up at all, froze Explorer, froze the disk management stuff, and most things in between.

21.04.2008Monday 21 April – HTC Hermes

Morning
Telstra is shutting the CDMA network in 7 days, meaning I’ll have to change to another network, and another phone. So, I bought a new phone (HTC Hermes, or TyTN) on Ebay--$258. I’ll try the whole geek thing, chatting on messenger and sending email from unlikely locations.
Day
Picked up Shan and Kylie from Kangaroo Point and drove them to Mount Coot-Tha, then back to my place for a chat. Caught a bus back into the city, had some food,
Night
Drove to Chez Tessa for dinner with Grace and Stella, picking Maz up on the way back, and going rollerblading.
Late Night
I added comments to my Hard Answers site.

22.04.2008Tuesday 22 April – James Bond

Afternoon
I bought a power supply for Maz and a webcam for Stella, from Umart.
Night
I dropped Stella at work, and continued on to Maz’s, chatting to him for a while before driving out to Bronwen’s and bringing her back here. I then pondered for a while, before ordering pizza, getting ten James Bond DVD’s out (including the same one with a different cover twice—clever move that), going and getting Maz, driving Bronwen back to her place, rollerblading, driving Maz home, installing Visual Studio 2008, and drinking an iced coffee.
6:02am
I may have accidentally stayed up watching James Bond, “Live and Let Die”. I regret it now.
Comment by io – Saturday 13 December 2008, 4:10 AM
  lol oops!

23.04.2008Wednesday 23 April – Pancakes & New Phones

Midday
A man came and removed the smoke detector from the kitchen and replaced the one in the hallway with it. Hopefully it won’t go off in the middle of the night now.
Early Afternoon
Stella woke me up to give me my new phone, which arrived in the post today.
Afternoon
Maz and I picked up Maz’s computer from Umart, went to Officeworks to return my hard drive, and spent the evening installing a new firmware and software onto my phone.
Midnight
Grace, Stella, Raymond and I went to pancakes for dinner.

24.04.2008Thursday 24 April – Bronwen

Morning
Drove down and picked up Bronwen, bringing her back here via Maz’s phones he bought on eBay.

25.04.2008Friday 25 April – ANZAC Day

Morning
Woke up just before eleven o’clock, too late to go in and watch the parade. Not very patriotic of me.
Night
Watched TocH thing at midnight.
Comment by io – Saturday 13 December 2008, 4:12 AM
  You've got the "Morning" and "Night" swapped! TocH was before parade, and also before dawn service!!

26.04.2008Saturday 26 April – Driving

Morning
Bought an LCD monitor from Umart for Bronwen.
Afternoon
Drove to Bronwen’s and picked up my monitor, then back to my place.
Night
Drove out to Bronwen’s, and then back here. Spent some time up at Kieran’s. Re-imaged my phone again. Hopefully it stays working nicely this time.

27.04.2008Sunday 27 April – Tashan

Afternoon
Picked up Maz and Kieran, and drove to the Sunday Computer Markets with Bronwen, then back to Indooroopilly for lunch, then on to Kieran’s.
Night
Caught a bus into the city and watched a Bollywood film, “Tashan”, with Bronwen at the Regent. It was unfortunately not very good—the plot was too implausibly predictable.

28.04.2008Monday 28 April – Rollerblading

Morning
Walked to the city with Bronwen.
Evening
Went rollerblading with Maz and Grace, the same path as the other day—across the Goodwill Bridge and back across Victoria Bridge.
Night
Got Thai from the Ville with Grace and Stella.

29.04.2008Tuesday 29 April – Casino Royale

Morning
Drove up to Bronwen’s parent’s place. Chatted to Bronwen.
Day
Did day sort of things. Chopped up a cheap IKEA picture frame to make it smaller.
Night
Dropped past Maz’s, bought pizza with Grace, picked Bronwen up from Kangaroo Point, bought her pizza, watched “Casino Royale”, drove Bronwen home, and fuelled up. I’ve driven 445 kilometres in the past week.

30.04.2008Wednesday 30 April – Geeking

Stayed up all night implementing AJAX-y photo things for my journal.

01.05.2008Thursday 1 May – Ironman

Night
Had a Hungry Jack’s Veggie Baguette at Maz’s with Bronwen and Kieran, then watched “Ironman” with Bronwen.

02.05.2008Friday 2 May – Driven

Morning
I drove Bronwen back to her place, then Mi to work, and then myself back home.
Afternoon
I drove Stella to uni for an exam, then Grace to the city, then picked Stella up from uni, then picked Maz up from his place, then Kieran from his work, and drove them to the airport. Traffic coming home was awful. I managed to miss the worst of it by taking back roads, but still awful.
Evening
I drove Stella to work, and dropped past Woolworths to replace the cream and ice cream she kindly finished for me.
Night
So far, I’ve watched the news and eaten 2 minute noodles, complete with corn and peas.
Later Night
I watched a few episodes of Heroes with Grace, then picked Stella up from work.

03.05.2008Saturday 3 May – Buddha’s Birthday Festival

Morning
Drove to Woolworths at Toowong to buy some laundry detergent and Milo.
Afternoon
Drove to Officeworks so Grace could look for butcher’s paper. Then caught a bus into South Bank to get some food at Buddha’s Birthday Festival.
Night
Stella went to work. Grace cooked a stir fry, and we watched Heroes. I don’t normally watch poor quality TV drama, but now that I’ve been watching it for so long, it’s frustratingly annoying how they don’t tie up any loose ends. One more episode to go. In other news, I’ve been slowly adding my Tasmania trip to my online journal.

04.05.2008Sunday 4 May – Buddha’s Fireworks

Afternoon
I drove to the airport where I found Maz and Kieran, and drove them back to Indooroopilly, where I found Hungry Jacks.
7:30pm
After a rushed trip to Paddington Woolworths and a subsequent nachos dinner courtesy of Grace and Stella, I rushed off to Maz’s, then we all rushed to the bus stop, and managed to get to South Bank just a bit too late for the 7:30 fireworks—except they were quarter of an hour late starting so we got to watch them.
Night
I drove down to Bronwen’s—who had just got back from her bushwalk—and brought her back here.

05.05.2008Monday 5 May – Rainbow Eels

Afternoon
Bronwen, Grace, Stella and I drove to UQ. The studying ones went to the library, and Bronwen and I wandered around the campus for a while, finding large rainbow-coloured eels in the lake.
Evening
Grace, Stella, Maz and I went rollerblading along the Coronation Drive/Riverside bikeway. Unfortunately the rubber on one of Maz’s wheels peeled off—not very impressive considering that he hasn’t had his blades for very long.
Night
Stella, Maz and I drove to Maz’s via Macdonald’s, where Maz took my phone apart to tighten up its sliders.

06.05.2008Tuesday 6 May – Lazing

Day
I feel guilty for having done almost nothing all day. I slept in. I posted Mum’s photos to her. I had lunch. I watched half of “Leon the Professional”, and so far that’s it.
Evening
I drove Stella to work, and stopped at Maz’s. We went to the video store, got out some James Bond DVDs, and picked Bronwen up from Kangaroo Point. 387km last week.
Night
Bought, and ate, pizza.

07.05.2008Wednesday 7 May – Unsleeping & Evil Media

Morning
Off to the city to meet Bronwen, and return Maz’s faulty rollerblades.
Evening
Drove to Indooroopilly with Grace and Stella to do some shopping.
Night
Found that my media centre has lost the ability to play DVD’s. It simply doesn’t. PowerDVD works just fine, but Media Centre and Media Player don’t work. Last time I fought it, I lost. The TV tuner would not work, and I had to roll back to a previous Ghost image, which for some reason, does work albeit apparently without DVD support. Now I’m going to try again. Step one: Install Vista slipstreamed with service pack one, with the TV tuner card removed from the computer.
4am
This really is insane. I have spent an unbelievable amount of time trying to fix this crap media centre, and it’s going exactly the same as last time—it’s not working. I install a clean install of Vista, slipstreamed with SP1. I ghost that. Ghost fails. So I use Acronis True Image instead. I then install Winrar, PowerDVD, the sound drivers, and reboot. I then put in the TV tuner card. Windows finds drivers for that from Windows Update. I fire up Media Centre. The TV tuner doesn’t work. Neither can I play DVD’s. Windows Media Player says my DVD’s are the wrong region, and can’t be played. They happen to be region-free DVD files on my computer. And the tuner service can’t start; it can’t find a required file. Basically exactly the same as last time. So it appears I cannot have a Vista-based media centre that plays DVD’s anymore. I can ghost back to the old install that will play TV, but I don’t appear to be able to play TV if I reinstall Vista. Perhaps it’s time to roll-back to XP, though the TV tuner didn’t work in that either last time I tried. This is horrible. Why would DVD’s not play? That doesn’t even make sense. Needless to say, PowerDVD can play them just fine, as can my Vista-based desktop machine.
4:45am
Vista cannot play DVD’s from an external hard drive with UAC off. I kid you not. Workarounds include turning UAC on, copying the DVD’s to an internal drive, or mapping the external drive as a network share and accessing the DVD’s via that share. Don’t ask why, just believe, and take a slow, deep breathe. It’s better than screaming. Oh, and DVD support is in the box, I didn’t need to install any DVD players or codecs.
5:24am
I now have TV tuner and DVD support at the same time. For future note: Install the old, outdated drivers that came on the CD with the tuner card before installing any other type of tuner driver, and then prevent anything from ever updating those drivers. That seems to have worked so far.
7am
Five minutes after going to bed, Bronwen called me. I picked her up from the Convention Centre.

08.05.2008Thursday 8 May – Sleepy

7am
Went to bed for about five minutes, then picked Bronwen up from the Convention Centre.

09.05.2008Friday 9 May – Blading

Afternoon
Drove to Indooroopilly with Grace, Stella and Maz.
Night
Watched Blade, and Blade II with Grace.

10.05.2008Saturday 10 May – Computering

Drove up to Bronwen’s parent’s place, and helped Bronwen order parts from Umart to build her Mum a computer. Then drove to Umart to pick up aforementioned parts, and on to Maz’s to use aforementioned parts to build aforementioned computer. This took most of the afternoon, and a large portion of the evening. Maz, Bronwen and I had dinner at Chez Tessa, and spent some time at my place in discussion. I also drove Grace to the city, Stella to work, picked up Stella from work, drove Stella to the city, picked up Grace from the city, drove Grace and Stella to the valley, and several hours later, picked up Grace from the valley and drove her home, then drove Bronwen up to her parent’s place, sometime around 4 o’clock in the morning.

11.05.2008Sunday 11 May – Shopping

Morning
I woke up scarily close to nine o’clock—extra scarily, considering I didn’t get to bed until after four o’clock, a mere couple of hours ago. I did manage to snooze on and off for a lot of the rest of the day though.
Afternoon
Stella, Maz and I drove to Indooroopilly to do some shopping, and that’s about all that happened today. I spent some time chatting to Maz; I recoded several DVD’s for my media centre, which seems to still be sort of working, and ate dinner, not forgetting to phone Mum to wish her a happy Mother’s day, in retrospect.

12.05.2008Monday 12 May – Chillin’

Day
Had a cruisy day, chillin’. Drove Stella to Eckersley’s a few minutes after her assignment was due, then to a printing place, then home, then back to the printing place, then off to Griffith to submit it. Gave up on the media centre (again), and rolled back to a previous ghosted version—which works so far. It’s really not worth the effort.
Night
Drove to Maz’s, off to the IGA for iced coffee, back to my place, back to Maz’s, chatted, and so forth.
3:53am
I’ve found the ultimate Winamp Visualisation—a Milkdrop preset, “Rovastar + Giess – Snapshot of Space (LSB Mix)”. It’s fantastic. I’ve been watching it for the past... far too long. Off to bed now.

13.05.2008Tuesday 13 May – Pizza

Night
Dropped Stella at work. Went to Maz’s. Got Bronwen from Kangaroo Cliffs. Bought pizza. Ate pizza and watched comedy at Maz’s.

14.05.2008Wednesday 14 May – Broken Chargers

Evening
I picked up my USB charging cradle for my phone from Maz’s, only to find that it doesn’t work – the charging plug in the cradle part is broken.

15.05.2008Thursday 15 May – Indooroopilly

Evening
Maz, Bronwen and I drove to Indooroopilly so Maz and I could buy vacuum cleaners, but the vacuum cleaner man told us that the cute purple one would be half price on Saturday, so we delayed our purchase until then.

16.05.2008Friday 16 May – Traffic

Morning
I drove Bronwen back to her place, and did some shopping down there.
Midday
Raymond and I had Hungry Jack’s for lunch.
Afternoon
I’ve just been stuck in traffic for nearly an hour. I drove Stella to Griffith/South Bank Campus, with Raymond. Traffic there was fine. I attempted to drive back over the William Jolly/Grey Street Bridge, but traffic was not moving that way. It wasn’t just slow, it wasn’t actually moving. After being stuck at an intersection for several light changes with absolutely no movement, I managed to escape and sat at the river for a while with Raymond, who wisely chose to walk to a City Cat to get home. I then tried the Victoria Bridge, which was moving, but incredibly slowly. It took so long to get to the start of the bridge that I escaped via the South Bank parklands car park and headed south, avoiding the expressway entirely and driving through the city via the Story Bridge, which was fine. It took a little over an hour to drop Stella off at uni—and, ironically, I picked her up again as I was driving south, having wasted over 45 minutes trying to cross William Jolly and Victoria Bridges.

17.05.2008Saturday 17 May – Purple Vacuums

Morning
Drove to Indooroopilly with Maz, and we both bought cute purple vacuum cleaners.

18.05.2008Sunday 18 May – Coomera Circuit

Up at seven o’clock, ready by ten past, spend the next forty minutes ensuring Bronwen and Stella get ready, then off to Maz’s, the IGA and a bakery for food. We then drove to the Binna Burra section of Lamington National Park, and walked the Coomera Circuit. It was very windy and extremely cold in shorts and short sleeves, but overall an easy eighteen kilometre walk along a marked track—and unlike last time, it didn’t rain, there weren’t any leeches, and we didn’t have to turn back covered in blood.

19.05.2008Monday 19 May – Blank

This day intentionally left blank.

20.05.2008Tuesday 20 May – Stargate

Day
I applied for a few jobs off Seek.
Night
I dropped Stella at her work, then continued on to Maz’s and from there to the video store for Maz to drop his videos back. After watching some Stargate at Maz’s, we drove to Kangaroo Point and collected Bronwen, drove back to my place, ordered pizza, and drove back to Maz’s to eat it. Stella arrived later after work, and I drove Bronwen back out to her place.
Late Night
I went for a wander through the bottom level of what used to be Milton Bowl. There’s a lot of water leaking from somewhere.

21.05.2008Wednesday 21 May – Interviews & Rollerblades

5pm
Interview with Hays.
Night
Rollerblading with Maz and Stella, in to South Bank via the Goodwill Bridge and back again.

22.05.2008Thursday 22 May – Interviews & Hungry Jacks

2pm
Bus into the city with Bronwen, taxi from the city to Herston, interview with QLD Health. Bus back into the city via the new Roma Street bus platform and new tunnel and George Street Bus Station or whatever it’s called, and an interview with Sapphire Recruitment.
Night
Drove to Bronwen’s, then to KFC with Maz, then to Hungry Jack’s for dinner for myself, then back home.

23.05.2008Friday 23 May – Caramel

Evening
Went to Maz’s. Bought caramel slice. Felt caramelled.
Night
Went rollerblading but didn’t go. Bronwen, who did go, along with Maz and Stella, fell over.

24.05.2008Saturday 24 May – Indiana Jones

Evening
Watched Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark with Bronwen and Grace, which is not very good.
Night
Kieran’s with Bronwen, Maz, via Hungry Jack’s.

25.05.2008Sunday 25 May – Brisbane Zombie Walk

Photograph Brisbane Zombie Walk. Stella, Grace and Jamie are zombies. Jamie stays the night. Curry at night with Bronwen, Grace, Stella, Jamie.

26.05.2008Monday 26 May – Leg Scrapes

Morning
I drove Bronwen back to her place, via a bakery for breakfast.
Afternoon
I moseyed around, getting coffee at Park Road with Stella, sitting in the sun, and relaxing.
Evening
Rushed off to Toowong Woolworths with Stella, then on to Maz’s, then back to my place to go rollerblading with Bronwen.
Night
Rollerbladed into South Bank and back again with Bronwen, Stella and Maz. Managed to hit a concrete wall and go through a metal fence, scraping my leg a bit.

27.05.2008Tuesday 27 May – Laughing Pizza

Day
I walked up to Bronwen’s parent’s place with Bronwen, watched some The IT Crowd on my media centre, ate lunch, drove to Woolworths at Indooroopilly with Grace, and so on and so forth.
Night
I ordered pizza from Eagle Boys, and turned up just before their closing time to pick it up, only to find that their oven had stopped making pizzas and I didn’t have a pizza to pick up. Fortunately, Dominos is open until midnight, so I had slightly inferior Dominos pizzas instead, which I ate at Maz’s while watching Stargate until Stella arrived. We then listened to her laughing for a while, discussing the pros and cons of euthanasia and capital punishment, before heading home to sleep.

28.05.2008Wednesday 28 May – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Day
Nothing of particular interest happened.
Afternoon
I drove out to Bronwen’s, bringing her back to my place.
Night
Bronwen, Maz and I went rollerblading to South Bank and back.
9:30pm
Bronwen and I watched “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, which was roughly identical to the previous Indiana Jones movies, as expected—pointlessly enjoyable action without being particularly memorable.
1am
I drove Bronwen back to her place.

29.05.2008Thursday 29 May – Socks

Morning
Woken by a call from a recruiter.
Evening
Drove to Indooroopilly with Stella and Maz, where I bought some socks, amongst other less exciting things. It is raining.

30.05.2008Friday 30 May – Bourne Again

Morning
It’s a grey and wet day, the sort of day you don’t get out of bed—which is precisely what I’ve done so far.
Afternoon
I was eventually prompted to get up by a call from a recruiter. I drove Stella into South Bank, had lunch, watched an episode of Firefly, and have been messing around on my computer and looking through job vacancies since. It’s still raining on and off.
5:17am
Stayed up all night watching the three Jason Bourne movies with Bronwen on my stupid media centre—which refused to play the first one until rebooted, and froze towards the end of the second one. It did, however, play the third just fine. Bronwen and I went for a walk along the river between the second and third movies, and had a break to pick up Stella and get iced coffee from the IGA just before midnight.

31.05.2008Saturday 31 May – Kebabs

Midday
Slept in until midday. Bought a kebab from the shop near the IGA with Stella and Bronwen, and ate it in the park. Dropped Bronwen off at her parent’s.
Night
Dropped Stella at a party in St. Lucia and bought some chips with Bronwen, before driving up to Kieran’s, where we stayed with Maz, until late.

01.06.2008Sunday 1 June – Thai

Day
Slept in until midday.
Afternoon
Dropped Bronwen back to her place, via her parent’s.
Night
Drove to the Valley with Stella and had a nice dinner upstairs at Tara Thai.

02.06.2008Monday 2 June – Interview

9am
I managed to get to the airport before nine for my interview, without getting killed, flooded, or otherwise stopped, while most of the rest of the city apparently went under water.
Evening
I have developed a toothache, and taken some ibuprofen which has made the pain go away.

03.06.2008Tuesday 3 June – Aching

Evening
I still have a toothache, and have taken some more ibuprofen.
Night
Dropped Stella at work and continued on to Maz’s, where I stayed for a while before driving to Kangaroo Point to pick up Bronwen. We drove back to my place, dropped a DVD off at the video store, bought pizza, and ate it at Maz’s, where Stella arrived after work, and we all went home and slept peacefully.

04.06.2008Wednesday 4 June – Tired

Morning
Woke up, but became tired, and went back to bed.
Afternoon
Drove to Indooroopilly with Grace and Stella, and waited for a long time while they discussed makeup, clothing, and so on.
Evening
I still have a toothache and have taken some more ibuprofen.
Night
Went rollerblading with Maz and Stella. Dropped Maz home, came back, and finished writing up my Tasmanian journal and adding photos to it.

05.06.2008Thursday 5 June – Curry

Morning
Got a call asking me to come in on Tuesday for a second interview out at the airport.
Afternoon
Got MyTV and MceFM working in my Media Centre. Not very exciting, but at least it’s more usable. MceFM is actually quite nice—better than the official last.fm client. The MyTV service had some permissions issue under the media centre user account. It’s all very geeky.
Evening
My toothache seems to be a lot better but I can still feel it.
Night
Had curry from Halim’s with Stella for dinner, and then drove up to Kieran’s, where Maz already was.

06.06.2008Friday 6 June – Relaxing Late

Day
I had a relatively relaxing, sleepy sort of day.
Night
I drove to Maz’s, bought dinner from Hungry Jack’s, dropped Stella home after work, and spent most of the night at Maz’s, getting home around 3 AM.
Night
I can still feel my toothache but it’s not overly painful.

07.06.2008Saturday 7 June – Up Late

Day
I have had a quiet, relaxing day, doing very little. Stella and I went shopping at Indooroopilly just before Woolies closed, and that’s about the most energetic thing I’ve done today.
Night
Drove up to Kieran’s, and later back to Maz’s, where I stayed until around 6 AM, theoretically helping Maz work on his new website, though in reality doing nearly anything but.

08.06.2008Sunday 8 June – Late, Again

Day
Due to my late night last night (or this morning, more accurately), I didn’t wake up until the afternoon.
Evening
I drove out to Bronwen’s, and we sat on the top of Mount Gravatt for a while, during which time it rained lightly.
Night
I stayed at Maz’s until 5 AM, helping him work on his website, and working on adding categories to my journal.

09.06.2008Monday 9 June – Queen’s Birthday Holiday

Afternoon
I, once again, woke up after midday.
Evening
I drove up to Kieran’s, where I stayed until late before driving Maz home, spending a little while at his place, and heading back to my place to go to bed.
Night
I couldn’t sleep, lying in bed thinking until well after midnight.

10.06.2008Tuesday 10 June – New Job

Morning
Up early to get to the airport by nine o’clock. I arrived over half an hour early, traffic being better than last time, taking about half an hour. I discovered that there’s a runway viewing area up at General Aviation.
9am
I attended my interview, and was offered a position, pursuant to reference checks and so forth.
Later Morning
I have phoned previous managers, who have agreed to provide references.
Afternoon
Maz had stayed home from work, so I drove up to his place, took him to KFC for lunch, had a Hungry Jacks veggie burger myself, and watched some Stargate at his place.
Night
I ordered pizza, picked Bronwen up from Kangaroo Cliffs, picked up the pizza, ate the pizza while watching Top Gear, dropped some DVD’s back to the DVD store, and drove Bronwen home.
5:30am
What started as a quick little site-fix-up turned into an idea—to add categories to my journal. Now I appear to have accidentally stayed up all night, refactoring and entirely redesigning the way my journal works. In theory, it now has “set” support. Sets are a cross between categories and keywords—each entry can belong to one or more sets, and the display view can be filtered based on these sets, combined with a year and one or more months. I plan to add a few more custom views, such as the previous “Highlights” and “Summary” views, and probably a “most recent X days” view, and I suppose anything else I happen to think of. In theory it’s fairly flexible. In reality, I’ve been up all night hacking away at something I had slowly built up over several years, so I’ll quite likely wake up and realise I’ve neglected to take something vital into consideration and none of it will work.

11.06.2008Wednesday 11 June – Jelly Beans & New Pants

Morning
I did some work to attempt to make what I did last night a little more polished—that is to say, I made it work enough that it mostly appears that my journal still works, other than the non-working month links (but at least they do something) and the lack of any journal on the front page of the journal... But it is still hiding there somewhere! I also spent some time setting it (that is, tagging my journal, except I’ve called them sets, so it’s setting... like the sun, but not as hot).
Afternoon
I rushed off to Indooroopilly to buy some new, cheap, black shoes and some pants. The people at K-Mart refused my credit card on the basis that my signature doesn’t show my last name... I wasn’t aware it had to.
Night
Due to an urgent requirement for 3 bags of Allen’s Jelly Beans, I rushed off to Woolworths to buy them for Grace. On the way, and on the way back, I stopped at Maz’s, and Kieran arrived, and we watched some Stargate, and chatted, and I bought five litres of milk—one one litre bottle and two two litre bottles. I then drove home, ate dinner, prepared to get up early tomorrow, wrote this, marvelled at the triviality of it all.

12.06.2008Thursday 12 June – First Day at Work

Before 7
I got up, showered, and drove to my first day at SkyNet. It took a little over half an hour to get there, which I thought wasn’t too bad considering the time and that it’s out at the airport.
8:30am
For my first duty on my first day at work, I assembled my desk and chair—something everyone here has apparently done. It’s harder than it looks. The rest of the day was spent learning things about my new job, as you’d expect.
5:15pm
Traffic back from the airport is as bad as expected, though once onto Kingsford Smith Drive, it isn’t too bad.
5:55pm
Home again. It’s about a 40 minute drive, but once I’ve learnt enough to be self sufficient I’ll work outside peak hour times.
Evening
I dropped past Woolworths, where I bought dip and corn chips, and headed over to Maz’s, where Kieran, Maz and I watched the latest Futurama movie. It’s not very good.

13.06.2008Friday 13 June – Tara Thai

Day
I attended the second day at my new job, and became stuck there when most of the bridges in Brisbane suffered multi-vehicle accidents, preventing the smooth and efficient flow of traffic through most of the roads I required to get home. In the end, it took me an hour to get home, after waiting a while for traffic to clear.
Night
Bronwen and I had dinner at Tara Thai, sat around at my place chatting, went to Maz’s, and stayed up until the wee hours of the morning.

14.06.2008Saturday 14 June – Onion Poisoned Slow Cooking

Morning
I drove to Indooroopilly with Grace and Stella, dropping Stella off to go ice skating with Mister Harry Egg, while Grace and I bought a wok, a slow cooker, and some groceries.
Afternoon
I am suffering from onion poisoned eyes, and my first experiment in slow cooking is cooking slowly.

15.06.2008Sunday 15 June – Wandering

Evening
Bronwen and I went for a wander around the Paddington area.

16.06.2008Monday 16 June – Working

Morning
Up bright and early, and off to work. Surprisingly, it took just a twitch under half an hour to get there.
Day
I worked.
Night
Diddums here went to Maz’s, where he chatted about buying his sister a laptop, amongst other things. I managed to stay up far too late, going to bed in what is technically tomorrow.

17.06.2008Tuesday 17 June – Iced Coffee & Pizza

7:30am
I slept in a little, but managed to get up at 7:30, and was out the door by 8, arriving at work by 8:30—which isn’t too bad really.
Evening
I bought pizza, which Stella, Grace and I enjoyed whilst watching the first episode of “Earth 2”.
Night
I foolishly stayed up until after one o’clock chatting to Maz about controlling household items with embedded devices and making cross-protocol compatible chat-proxies, after buying iced coffee at Woolworths.

18.06.2008Wednesday 18 June – Curried

Day
Worked.
Night
Drove out to Bronwen’s with Bronwen, and ate curry. Dirk, Stella’s brother, and his girlfriend, are here.

19.06.2008Thursday 19 June – Storage

Afternoon
I picked Bronwen and her mum up from town, got stuck in lots of traffic, and eventually managed to get home and go to Umart to pick up a new Western Digital Green Power 1 TB hard drive for $218, via their service centre so Bronwen could return her faulty DVD drive.
Night
Bronwen and I bought dinner from the Ville and drove to Kieran’s, where I got a SATA power adaptor. We picked Grace up from Indooroopilly station, dropped Bronwen back at her parents, picked up Stella, and rushed back to Indooroopilly where we watched “Sex and the City”. After that, I installed my new 1 TB hard drive—sitting out the back of my computer on a SATA cable poking out a PCI slot hole.

20.06.2008Friday 20 June – Vince & Sarah

Morning
Getting up wasn’t much fun, but I did, managing to get to work only ten minutes or so late.
Evening
It rained a little, and while traffic home wasn’t good, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Vince and my sister are down, having arrived earlier this afternoon. Sarah and I went to Halim’s Indian Taj for two of his usual fantastic curries.
Night
It’s nice to have a Friday night, and the following weekend, when working. I’m off to Maz’s now.
2am
I spent a lot of time at Maz’s, went for a bit of a walk, and am now off to bed.

21.06.2008Saturday 21 June – Eruption III

Morning
I walked Sarah and Vince to the bus stop. They’ve gone shopping in the city.
Evening
Picked Bronwen up from her parent’s place and drove to South Bank, where we met Sarah and Vince and had some lunch, before driving up Mount Coot-Tha, and relaxing back at my place.
Night
I drove Bronwen, Vince and Sarah to the Beenleigh “Eruption III” Muay Thai Kickboxing fight night, where we stayed until around midnight, driving home via Bronwen’s place, and staying up late.

22.06.2008Sunday 22 June – Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

Morning
I drove Vince and Sarah to the airport via a bakery for breakfast. They’ve flown back up north. It was nice to see them.
Afternoon
I went to Woolworths at Indooroopilly with Maz and Stella, and bought ingredients to cook my second slow-cooked curry, which I then did.
Night
Bronwen and I watched “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” at Maz’s, before eating my curry at my place. It was nice. I then drove Bronwen back home, and am now off to bed.

23.06.2008Monday 23 June – Sam

Morning
I slept in a titch more than I’d planned, getting to work a little later than I’d hoped, and staying a little later than I’d planned. Fortunately, traffic wasn’t too bad either way.
Evening
I drove to Maz’s, then on to KFC and Hungry Jack’s—where I was a little surprised to be unexpectedly hugged from behind while filling my drink, it was Sam, who I haven’t seen in ages—then back to Maz’s, and now it’s 1 o’clock in the morning. In other news, it appears the degauss in my $11,000 monitor cum media centre TV has failed or is failing. It doesn’t degauss when it turns on, making it all sorts of pretty colours, and the manual degauss doesn’t always work. Perhaps it’s time I bought a projector instead of telling everyone else that they should, though I’m not sure if it’s possible to fit one in anywhere here. It’s probably also time I went to bed.

24.06.2008Tuesday 24 June – Pizza & Carpet

Morning
After my late night last night, I was fortunate to get to work just before nine.
Day
Working. Having carpet installed at work. Melting plastic. More working.
Evening
Go see Maz, get pizza, see Bronwen, probably pick her up from Kangaroo Point.

25.06.2008Wednesday 25 June – Lumpy

Day
Another day, another dollar. Quite a lot of traffic too. It took over an hour to get home from work. Not good.
Night
I phoned Mum, had a chat, drove to Bronwen’s, had a chat, then drove to Maz’s, had another chat, and then drove home.
Late Night
I have a lump on the roof of my mouth. I dunno why, but it’s annoying. Been there all day.

26.06.2008Thursday 26 June – Laptop

Morning
Sarah’s laptop was delivered to me at work. It looks quite nice.
Evening
Drove to Maz’s, then to Umart, bought 4 GB of RAM for Sarah’s new laptop. Swapped that into it. Drove to Indooroopilly and Kieran’s with Kieran where we had dinner, drove back to Maz’s, drove home, slept.

27.06.2008Friday 27 June – Zilch

Records have been searched, and found suspiciously missing.

28.06.2008Saturday 28 June – Zippo

Removed for reasons beyond your comprehension.

29.06.2008Sunday 29 June – Slow Cooked Curry

Afternoon
Drove out to Bronwen’s and spent some time there.
Night
Slow cooked curry, watched “Shoot Em Up” with Maz and Bronwen on my somewhat working Media Centre, and looked for cheap airfares up north and to Sydney.

30.06.2008Monday 30 June – The Incredible Hulk

Morning
Called Mum and found that she was about to go to hospital suffering from dehydration and constipation.
1am Tonight
I’ve just driven back from Bronwen’s, dropping her off there so she can get a restful sleep before work tomorrow—something I should be doing, but clearly aren’t. Before that, Grace, Bronwen and I had eaten a kebab at the Ville, and watched “The Incredible Hulk” at Indooroopilly. Grace had free tickets. It wasn’t incredible—though it was incredibly violent—but it was a powerful, entertaining movie. Earlier, I had booked flights up to Cairns and on to Cooktown for the end of next month.

01.07.2008Tuesday 1 July – Undisclosed

Day
I drove to work, worked, and drove home from work. It wasn’t all that boring, but I am working under a non-disclosure agreement, so I’d have to kill you if you read any more.
Evening
I got home from work, drove to Indooroopilly with Grace, picking Maz up on the way, and did some shopping.
Night
I took Sarah’s laptop over to Maz’s, where I Ghosted it and packed it up ready for posting up to Sarah, ordered pizza, ate pizza, watched TV, and argued about the end of the world, iPhones, and other related things.
Later Night
Attempted to book flights to Sydney prior to midnight to see Jambavati, but was unable to contact her to confirm that it was a good time for her.

02.07.2008Wednesday 2 July – Mum’s Cancer

Morning
Got an email from my sister saying that the doctors think Mum’s problem may be pancreatic cancer.
Evening
Chatted to Grace for a bit, then drove to Maz’s. Kieran turned up and we went and got Hungry Jack’s for me and KFC for Maz and Kieran.
Night
Maz and I investigated laptop options, coming to the conclusion that it’s impossible to get the laptop I want, and the laptop his brother wants, without getting it shipped from the US.

03.07.2008Thursday 3 July – Jaycar

Evening
Bronwen came around after picking her replaced DVD drive up from Umart. We drove to Jaycar to return my USB-switched powerboard, though unfortunately they were out of stock so are going to post me one.
Night
Bronwen and I had curry at Bronwen’s place. I researched laptops.

04.07.2008Friday 4 July – Aliens

Every so often, when going through my journal and transcribing it into this website, I find a blank page. It’s usually an indication of an alien abduction, I think, but have never been able to prove it—though I think the lack of proof is proof itself.

05.07.2008Saturday 5 July – New Fridge

Morning
I got up horribly early and drove out to Bulimba with Dean, my boss from work, where we picked up a $50 fridge from one of Bronwen’s co-workers, and dropped it back at my place.
Day
Dirk, Stella and I drove to Indooroopilly shopping centre, where we couldn’t find parking for well over half an hour. I bought a teapot.
Night
I spent the night at Kieran’s with Maz.

06.07.2008Sunday 6 July – GPS

Afternoon
Took my media centre over to Maz’s, put in a gigabyte of RAM and a faster CPU, which broke it as usual. It’s cursed. The digital cable rights something or other crashes now, which kills the eHome receiver service, which means I can’t watch TV.
Evening
Drove to Forest Lake shopping centre where I met a lady off eBay and bought a Bluetooth GPS for $60.
Night
Moved the new fridge into position in the kitchen and put all the stuff from the old fridge into the new fridge. Cleaned up and put rubbish into bins because the neighbours have put all their stuff into the wheelie bins—it looks like they’re moving out or doing a huge spring clean or something.

07.07.2008Monday 7 July – Hancock

Evening
Went to watch “Hancock” with Bronwen but it was sold out, so instead drove to Maz’s where we had dinner, and watched the 9:40 PM session instead. Drove Bronwen home, and installed TomTom software on my phone.

08.07.2008Tuesday 8 July – Empty

Today is empty.

09.07.2008Wednesday 9 July – Empty

Today is also empty.

10.07.2008Thursday 10 July – New Media Centre

Evening
Bought new media centre for $182 from Umart. I have spent far too much time on my old one and it still doesn’t work well.

11.07.2008Friday 11 July – Forgotten

I forget.

12.07.2008Saturday 12 July – Forgotten Still

I still forget.

13.07.2008Sunday 13 July – Typical

Sleepy. Drive to Bronwen’s. Supercheap Auto for degreaser to get oil off B’s garage. Nachos at Coffee Club. Dinner at my place with B. Maz over to watch DVD. Doesn’t work on new media centre. Typical.

14.07.2008Monday 14 July – Orange Sky

Evening
Drove down to Bronwen’s. Funny orange sky. Dropped past Maz’s on the way home.
Comment by Reubot – Sunday 1 February 2009, 6:41 AM
  Given up Ned?
Comment by Ned – Friday 13 February 2009, 6:41 PM
  Nah, still going. Just slow. Lots of other things have got in the way.

15.07.2008Tuesday 15 July – Jogging & Pizza

Evening
Picked Bronwen up from Kangaroo Point on my way home from work as it began raining. Went to the DVD store and bought pizza for dinner. Booked tickets to Batman. Went for a short jog (after pizza, bad idea). Drove to Maz’s. Stayed up until 2 AM.

16.07.2008Wednesday 16 July – Shopping

I am not getting enough sleep. Must correct. Went shopping with Stella and Grace at Indooroopilly after work, which took hours. Then drove up to Kieran’s, where Maz was, then back to Maz’s, and now it’s 1:30 and I’m off to bed.

17.07.2008Thursday 17 July – Batman

Night
Went and saw Batman “The Dark Knight” at South Bank with Bronwen, Grace, Stella and Raymond. There were two jokers in the audience. Got to bed very late.

18.07.2008Friday 18 July – Shaped

Day
Got to work a little late. Home internet is shaped.
Night
Watched movies with Grace and Stella.
6am
Stayed up all night at Maz’s. Now off to bed.

19.07.2008Saturday 19 July – Unknown

Today shall remain unknown.

20.07.2008Sunday 20 July – Gatton

Picked Bronwen up and drove Maz to Gatton. Saw UQ Gatton, and caught the Moggill Ferry back home.

21.07.2008Monday 21 July – Sick

I am sick, sadly. Sore throat, blocked nose, not feeling well.

22.07.2008Tuesday 22 July – Pizza & Sickness

Day
Still sick, making it a bit of a drag being at work.
Evening
Picked up Raymond and got pizza, dropping past Woolworths on the way. Ate it here while watching some TV. Stella drove back from Raymond’s place.

23.07.2008Wednesday 23 July – Car Accident

Night
I drove Grace and Stella to Uber in West End, via getting myself a milkshake. I spent a few minutes in Uber, before driving home. Unfortunately, just a few blocks from where I parked, I had an accident with a truck. I don’t recall the specifics. The first thing I remember is my car being pulled away from the truck. I gather that it had taken half an hour to get to that stage. It then felt like another 5 minutes while I was cut from my car, but it was apparently another half an hour. I was irrationally worried about not having my phone, and kept asking the emergency personnel if they could find it. I managed to find my wallet and remember Bronwen’s phone number, which I repeated to myself in the ambulance to the PA hospital.
  Once at hospital, I was scanned several different ways, drank and injected with various radioactive isotopes and dyes, x-rayed, ultrasounded, CT and CAT scanned, and eventually declared mostly ok other than a few fractured ribs. My right shoulder is also very sore but they can’t find anything wrong with it and are putting it down to internal bruising. I was put in a ward and slept fitfully until the morphine wore off, after which it became too painful.

24.07.2008Thursday 24 July – Hospital

Bronwen rushed in before work and comforted me.
  The morning doctors told me that I had some fractured ribs, and that they’d like me to stay in until the afternoon for further observation in case of internal bleeding or head problems, but I discharged myself and caught a taxi home. It was raining lightly. Grace and Stella were very lovely, walking in the rain to buy me painkillers, various nice things to eat, and making me a lovely dinner. I phoned the police, to try locate my car, and was told it had been taken by the forensic crash unit and I wouldn’t be able to access it. I found the phone number for the forensic crash unit and managed to arrange to get my stuff back from my car under the watch of a member of the forensic department.
  A $40 taxi fare later, and Grace and Stella collected most of my stuff from my car—me being unable to bend low enough to get into it. The policeman cut my back seat and managed to get into the boot, where I got my camera lenses. My phone is smashed, and I couldn’t find my GPS or get my stereo, forgot my tools, and no doubt several other things. Another $40 taxi fare home made it a fairly expensive reclamation exercise. Why they would take a crashed car from West End to Virginia I don’t know.

25.07.2008Friday 25 July – Cairns

Morning
I had a relaxing day, having had a reasonable night’s sleep last night, slowly packing for my trip up north.
Afternoon
Bronwen’s Mum drove me to the airport, and I caught a Virgin Blue flight to Cairns. Silas and Lisa picked me up from Cairns, and we went and had Italian food for dinner, before going to bed at Silas and Lisa’s place.

26.07.2008Saturday 26 July – Cooktown

Morning
Woke up early at Silas and Lisa’s. Was worried my taxi wasn’t coming, so re-called the taxi place, only to find it was on its way and arrived shortly later. Drove to the SkyTrans terminal and caught a Dash 8 to Cooktown. Was met at the Cooktown Aerodrome by Dad and Mum, and drove to Mum’s place, where I spent most of the rest of the day.
Afternoon
Sarah came over, and we both drove to the hospital. She had her dog-bite dressing changed, and I had some glass dug out of my hand and my hand re-bandaged. I then installed Sarah’s ADSL modem at her place and set up her wireless network.
Night
Sarah and I walked back to Mum’s, where Dad, Mum, Sarah and I had dinner and had a pleasant chat and watched some TV.

27.07.2008Sunday 27 July – Cooktown

Morning
I slept in, though not for too long.
Midday
We all had a big lunch.
Afternoon
Sarah and I walked to Sarah’s place, where I went online for a while to test her laptop and wireless ADSL. It seems to work. Vince had been out fishing and got a lot of fish. Sarah and I dropped past the Local News office to copy some photos off my camera.
Evening
Sarah watered Mum’s garden. I tried skipping my ibuprofen, taking only paracetamol—which mostly worked, but did start hurting a fair bit by 5 o’clock.
Night
Dad and I watched TV. Mum went to bed early.

28.07.2008Monday 28 July – Empty

This day left unintentionally empty.

29.07.2008Tuesday 29 July – Empty

This day also left unintentionally empty.

30.07.2008Wednesday 30 July – Working

Morning
Caught the air train to work. Walked from the domestic terminal to work. Even with broken ribs, it’s not too bad. Might not be too good in the heat of summer, or during rain, or bombing raids.
Afternoon
Becky came around and drove Grace, Stella and myself to Woolies at Toowong, and now they’ve all gone out to Uber, leaving poor little me all alone, cold and in pain.
  Managed to get $20 weekly air train ticket, and caught the air train home again.

31.07.2008Thursday 31 July – Working

I once again caught the train to work, though I got a lift home with a co-worker. Other than that, not much to report today—my pain is subsiding somewhat.

01.08.2008Friday 1 August – The Bank Job

Morning
Missed my train to work, arriving half an hour late.
Evening
Stella, her brother, and I had dinner at Halim’s Indian Taj, though I spent most of my time on the phone to Silas, not actually eating much curry.
Night
I caught a bus into the city, and walked to South Bank, where I met Bronwen and we watched “The Bank Job”. It was quite good.

02.08.2008Saturday 2 August – New Phone

Morning
I have had a quiet day, at home.
Afternoon
I had a look around on eBay and a new screen for my phone is going to cost me over $70, whereas a new (used) phone is going to cost somewhere around $200.
Night
I’ve bought a new phone from eBay for $210, and will pick it up tomorrow.

03.08.2008Sunday 3 August – Sunday Live

Morning
I caught a train out to Ferny Grove, where I met Wayne and picked up my new phone. I then caught a train back to my place, and a bus to Maz’s. We put his broken screen on my old phone and managed to backup my data on it and get it onto my new phone, before I had to rush off to meet Raymond.
Afternoon
Raymond and I rushed to Guyatt Park, only just getting there in time for the City Cat to West End. Rushing isn’t my strong point right now—apparently the cracks in my ribs are lazy. Fortunately the City Cat was a bit late, so we managed to make it. Unfortunately the City Cat was a bit late, so we had to rush from the City Cat to Ferry Road, only just getting to the ABC Studios, where Bronwen already was, on time for the first of this year’s Sunday Live concerts.
Evening
Raymond, Bronwen and I went looking for where my car accident had been. I found where I think it was—at the intersection of Peel and Cordelia, but I don’t know for sure. Bronwen and I then caught a bus to Maz’s, nearly freezing in the process of walking the last little bit. I flashed my phone with a new ROM—S64. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be particularly impressive.
Night
Bronwen and I walked back to my place from Maz’s, then on to Rosalie where we had curry from Halim’s. It is so cold.

04.08.2008Monday 4 August – Geeky Phone Things

Night
My phone ROM is crap. I walked to Maz’s, and we flashed it with several other versions of ROM, all of which were also fairly crap. Eventually, I flashed it back to K’s WM6 Final—the ROM I had on my old phone, and which seems to do most of the things I want. I wish I could get my headphones to work though. In other news, it’s really cold.

05.08.2008Tuesday 5 August – Pizza

Night
Bronwen came around, and we walked up to Eagle Boys and bought pizza. Raymond dropped past and had some too.

06.08.2008Wednesday 6 August – Maz & Stella

Night
After dinner, I walked over to Maz’s, walking back with Stella later, after she finished work.

07.08.2008Thursday 7 August – Cool & Sunny

Day
Nothing overly exciting to report for today. I went to work. It was a cool, somewhat sunny day.

08.08.2008Friday 8 August – Pasta

Day
I worked, as I am wont to do.
Evening
Bronwen dropped round, and we had a nice pasta dinner. Grace has gone to a play, and Stella is off at John’s Ball.
Night
I wandered over to Maz’s, bought an iced coffee, and didn’t get home until 3 AM. I tried to record the opening ceremony of the Olympics—but HDTV is, it turns out, fairly big—after 33 GB my recording space ran out.

09.08.2008Saturday 9 August – Up All Night

Night
Maz and I stayed up all night at Maz’s place. I ordered some CR123A rechargeable batteries and a charger for my new torch, and headphone adaptors for Maz and my phones, from eBay. My lack of a car, while probably helping with my overall fitness, certainly makes for a cold walk home at 6 AM.

10.08.2008Sunday 10 August – Sunday Live

Morning
Bronwen came around, waking me up horribly early, given my lack of sleep last night.
3pm
Bronwen, Raymond, Raymond’s flatmate, and I attended Sunday Live at the ABC’s Ferry Road studio.
Evening
Bronwen and I met Maz at Toowong, and we walked back to my place, then later back to Maz’s place, spending the evening there.

11.08.2008Monday 11 August – Working, Not Sleeping

Day
I worked.
Night
Spent far too long at Maz’s, when I should have been sleeping.

12.08.2008Tuesday 12 August – Pizza

Night
Bronwen and I bought cheap Tuesday pizza from Eagle Boys.

13.08.2008Wednesday 13 August – Sleep

I slept in, finally.

14.08.2008Thursday 14 August – Zilch

Zilch.

15.08.2008Friday 15 August – Racecourse Road

Night
Bronwen picked me up from work on her way back from dropping her Dad at the airport, and we had a pleasant dinner at a place on Racecourse Road.

16.08.2008Saturday 16 August – Christmas in July

Day
Bronwen and I caught a bus into the city, picked up Bronwen’s shoes from her work, and went to her work’s “Christmas in July” trivia lunch. Our team lost, and Bronwen drank or ate too much, was sick, and slept back at my place for the rest of the day.
Night
I caught a bus into the city with Grace, and walked back. I walked Stella to the train station. I did some reworking of my media listing site.

17.08.2008Sunday 17 August – Forgotten

Today has been forgotten.
Comment by io – Friday 20 February 2009, 2:53 AM
  You were at Sunday Live, obviously! www.abc.net.au/classic/daily/stories/s2305052.htm#sunlive
  
  I think..

18.08.2008Monday 18 August – Forgotten

Today has been forgotten.

19.08.2008Tuesday 19 August – Forgotten

Today has been forgotten.

20.08.2008Wednesday 20 August – Taken

Night
My headphone adaptors for my phone arrived. Bronwen and I had dinner at a curry place at South Bank, sadly average, and watched “Taken”, also at South Bank, and also sadly average—though Bronwen liked it.

21.08.2008Thursday 21 August – Earphones

Evening
Picked up two 8GB micro SD cards from Umart for $49 each, one being for Maz. Caught a bus to Toowong where I met Maz, and then another bus on to Indooroopilly. Maz and I changed our phone’s 3G data plans to the newer $12 for 200 MB plan. I bought Hungry Jack’s for dinner, $70 Sony inner-ear earphones—which are impressive and strange to use, and spent some time at Kieran’s chatting, before walking back to Maz’s, then on to my place. I wanted to copy music onto my new 8 GB SD card, but neither Maz nor I can get either of them to work in any card readers we have, using XP, Vista, or Server2008... not very impressed. It works fine in both our phones though.
2:40am
I should be in bed, but have just got back from Maz’s, and am trying to work out how to get my new SD card to work.

22.08.2008Friday 22 August – Dockside Comedy Club

Morning
I slept in. Either my alarms didn’t go off, or I didn’t hear them. I think they didn’t go off because my phone was in mass storage device mode connected to my computer, which was copying music across to the phone, seeing as I’ve no other way of getting anything onto my 8 GB SD card. I got to work nearly two hours late.
Night
I phoned Mum, who said she’d had a bad day and didn’t feel well. Stella, Grace and I then went to the Dockside Comedy Club, which unfortunately was marred by my mood.

23.08.2008Saturday 23 August – Mum

Morning
Sarah phoned, and told me that the doctors have given Mum 1 to 3 months, 2 weeks ago.
Afternoon
I did some washing, hung around the house, picked up an SD card reader for me, an internal everything card reader for Maz, and copied music to my new 8 GB SD card now that I can read it properly.
4:51pm
Off to Maz’s, via the bottleshop with Stella.
Night
Maz and I dropped Maz’s parent’s off at Libby’s place, then bought KFC and Hungry Jack’s for dinner, respectively, before heading up to Kieran’s, and picking up Maz’s parent’s again later.
3:30am
Back from Kieran’s, and off to bed.

24.08.2008Sunday 24 August – Curried

Morning
I woke up as each of the reminders I’d set on my phone went off, snoozed them, and kept sleeping.
Afternoon
I got up, caught a bus to Toowong, walked on to Maz’s, got a lift to Indooroopilly with Kieran, and did some grocery shopping.
Evening
Kieran dropped my grocery shopping back to my place, and Maz and I went to Kieran’s for a while, before walking back to Maz’s, then back to my place where I put on some curry in my slow cooker, then on to Halim’s for a lovely curry dinner, then back to Maz’s via my place to copy some media and wait for midnight so I can turn off my slow cooker.
1am
I’ve walked back from Maz’s, and am waiting for rice to cook so I can put my curry in containers and in the freezer. Now I need to check out flights so I know what my options are tomorrow when I have a chat to work about leave, shower, pack my curry, and get to sleep.
2:30am
Curry done—in the freezer. Showered. Time to sleep.

25.08.2008Monday 25 August – Sick

Morning
Despite my best efforts, I missed my train. The next train was then cancelled. This made the third train too full to take passengers, so I had to jog to Roma Street, still managing to get there too late to get the second train to the airport, and having to catch the third one. This is why no one likes public transport.
Day
I told work about my Mother’s health, and that I’d need time off. I then booked flights to Cooktown this coming weekend. In other news, I am quite sick—presumably the same thing Bronwen has.
Night
My stove lighter thing caught fire. The flame, instead of coming out the end as planned, came out the trigger.
10:20pm
Off to bed. Early night, due to being sick.

26.08.2008Tuesday 26 August – Sick

I am sick. I went to work, but it was awful. I was alternatively very cold, or very hot, and my nose wouldn’t stop running.

27.08.2008Wednesday 27 August – Very Sick, Lots of Limes

9:15am
I was woken by Stella, crying because she had a fever. I had missed all my alarms and one reminder. I called work and told them I was too sick to come in.
Afternoon
After dozing for most of the morning, I dazed myself to the IGA, where I accidentally bought $31 of limes. I didn’t think limes cost anything... apparently they are $30 a kilo.
Evening
Stella and I watched “The Notebook”, which is quite sad.
11:42pm
After dozing again for most of the evening, I’m awake. I don’t seem to have a fever anymore, but I feel like I’m going to vomit if I stand up. I should get to bed and hope I’m well tomorrow. This is a nasty flu.

28.08.2008Thursday 28 August – Sick & Working

Day
Work. Didn’t feel fantastic, but much better than yesterday. Am now hypersensitive to taste, oddly. Tried an iced coffee—it was disgusting, I could taste all the disparate flavours unmixed in it.
Evening
Nearly vomited on the train home, only just made it to the station in time. It appears that if I stand up for any extended period, I feel like I’m going to vomit. I’m not sure why, but it’s not good.
Midnight
I’ve been dozing all evening, but haven’t managed to get to sleep. I’ve just had a weetbix, which went down ok, so hopefully that’ll help somehow. Brushing my teeth is awful—the scents in the toothpaste are disgusting.

29.08.2008Friday 29 August – Cairns

Ate a piece of veggie pizza and a piece of cheese pizza at the airport.
  Jetstar Airbus a330 over half empty. I got extra leg room exit row with a spare seat beside me.
  Arrived Cairns 10 minutes early but had to wait for taxis.
  A $15 taxi got me to Silas’s by 12:05. He’s not home but left a key. A quick shower then bed.

30.08.2008Saturday 30 August – Cooktown

Morning
I very nearly missed the taxi. I woke when my alarm went off at 5:30 then went back to bed, waking in a panic at 5:53. I then spent another minute or two getting ready as fast as I could, thinking that the taxi hadn’t come yet, only to notice a car parked outside. I rushed out the door and the taxi was still there. The driver said he’d already reported it as a no-show, but before he could drive off, heard a door. A minute later, I was "ready" and 4.6 km later, at the SkyTrans terminal. I hope I haven’t forgotten anything in the rush. That’s an awful way to get up, especially when already sick.
7:35am
I arrived in Cooktown. There were only 4 of us on the Dash8. I cried when I saw Mum which was a bit embarrassing, even though she doesn’t look any different.
Day
I sat talking to Dad and Mum. Unfortunately I’m still sick so I dozed a few times which seems a bit silly after rushing to get here. It’s really windy. I think the wind through the trees outside the verandah is actually really nice though it’s apparently been windy for months up here and everyone is sick of it. I thought it made the house seem snug and safe, surrounded by wild weather, like a lighthouse. Sarah came over and spent most of the afternoon here. She and I walked down to the supermarket at one point and bought some apple juice and Pringles, after I suddenly got more energy in the afternoon. Mum spent a lot of time dozing.
Evening
I fell asleep on the couch and when I woke up Sarah had gone home and Dad had gone to sleep, so I went to bed too.

31.08.2008Sunday 31 August – Dad & Mum

8am
Woke up. Had a shower. Felt sick when I tried brushing my hair while standing up and had to sit down. Mum mentioned her cat, Squeak, took the flyscreen out of the front door so now she can’t leave the light on at night without getting moths. Maybe could get Mum a new screen and put it in or a night light?
Afternoon
Sarah and I went to Sarah’s work where I booked flights up again next fortnight and got Pop’s slideshow and the QuickTime installer for Mum’s laptop. We bought some milk and apple juice from the supermarket and spent the evening at Mum’s.
Evening
Dad, Sarah and I went down to the wharf where we left Dad listening to an Irish singer at Restaurant 1770, while Sarah and I went to Sarah’s place to water her garden, and I phoned Silas. We then sat down at the wharf for a while until the music stopped, then drove back to Mum’s, and Sarah went home.
Night
I had a relatively early night, getting to bed before ten.

01.09.2008Monday 1 September – Cairns

Morning
I woke up and showered around nine o’clock. I think I feel a bit better but it’s too early to know. I’ll see if I can eat breakfast.
  I had a weetbix for breakfast.
Afternoon
I had a bit of a snooze, as did Mum. Other than that, a quiet day chatting with Dad and Mum. Planning to drop past the supermarket to get something for lunch tomorrow, past the paper to say bye to Sarah, and then out to the airport. Mum is sleeping again now.
Evening
An uneventful flight back to Cairns. Silas picked me up, and made me a pleasant dinner. We stayed up talking for a few hours, getting to bed around midnight.

02.09.2008Tuesday 2 September – Brisbane

Morning
I woke up horribly early and caught a taxi to the airport, and flew back to Brisbane, where I walked to work.
Evening
Bronwen dropped past and we spent the evening chatting. I’m still a bit sick, and still don’t feel like I can eat much. I ended up having two minute noodles for dinner, while Bronwen had one of my lunch curries.
Night
I managed to get to bed not too late.

03.09.2008Wednesday 3 September – Normality

I woke up when my alarm went off, and actually got up as well—which is a relief, and something I haven’t been doing a lot of lately. I had a reasonable day at work, not as sick now, but still not perfectly well. After work, I had a relaxing evening, eating some two minute noodles for dinner, and getting to bed by 9:30.

04.09.2008Thursday 4 September – Working

Nothing too exciting today—I worked.

05.09.2008Friday 5 September – Lack of Flights

Day
I worked. Someone from SkyTrans phoned up to tell me they’ve cancelled my Saturday flight, and no longer fly in or out of Cooktown on weekends. This is actually really crap for me, as there have always been weekend flights to Cooktown, and now—the one time I actually need them—they cancel them. This will make it very difficult, or perhaps impossible, to continue only taking one day off work a fortnight and getting to see my parent’s every fortnight, and probably means my pre-booked flights to Cairns are useless.
Night
Bronwen and I had a nice curry dinner at the cheap curry place in West End, and bumped into Kat.

06.09.2008Saturday 6 September – Planning

Morning
Bronwen and I discussed religion, and what I should do about getting up north now that I’ve got flights booked from here to Cairns, and one of the flights I have from Cairns to Cooktown has been permanently cancelled—SkyTrans no longer fly on weekends as far as I can tell.
Afternoon
Bronwen and I went to Indooroopilly, to look for birthday presents for Dad. We met Kieran and Maz there. I booked a new flight up north on Thursday, after finding it would cost me around $200 to book a car instead, though it unfortunately means taking another day off work.
Night
Bronwen and I had a pleasant dinner at Bronwen’s parent’s place. I went to bed around half past one, after chatting to Stella for a while and reading online things.

07.09.2008Sunday 7 September – Dining

Morning
Stella and I walked down to the IGA where I bought a milkshake from Baskin Robbin’s, and a few things from the IGA and the bakery.
Afternoon
Maz walked over, and we caught a bus into the city, then a citycat to UQ, then walked back to my place via the Ville and Maz’s.
Night
Bronwen picked me up a couple of blocks from my place, I had a quick shower, and we drove out to a place in Bulimba where we had dinner with her parents, an aunt, a grandfather, her brother and his fiancé, and his fiancé’s mother.

08.09.2008Monday 8 September – Ranting

Morning
I managed to get up on time and get to work on time—something I’ve been better at since I’ve started going to bed early, mostly as a result of being sick and more tired than usual, though I’ve also lost the motivation to really do much at the moment, some kind of depressing combination of things at the moment have made most of the things I used to do seem pointless. Hopefully I get over it soon. I think it’s a result of losing the (probably false) sense of security I felt I had from the (probably also false) stability of routine I’d fallen into—with my relationships, and renting here. It’s a combination of Mum being ill forcing me to face the reality that my family unit, the one thing that feels like it should always be there as something to fall back on if I need to, won’t be; finding that the lease here is probably not going to be renewed and having to accept that it’s probably not feasible for me at my age to get another cheap rental and expect to be able to find the type of flatmates I’ve been sharing with; and going through some relationship difficulties, realising that I need to sort out what I want from a relationship, and do that.
  The end result of all this has been that I’ve felt like there’s no point doing anything—I feel like the only reason to do most things is because of other people, and I don’t feel like I have any “other people” at the moment. I feel as though doing things without “other people”—no one will know I’ve done anything, so there just isn’t any reason to do anything... It’s mostly mental—nothing has really changed at this point, though things look like they will be changing in the future. It’s something I need to get over.
Evening
I walked up to Maz’s, and we walked up to Hungry Jack’s, where I bought a veggie baguette. He took the day off work as he feels like he’s broken a rib from coughing.
Night
I couldn’t sleep, lying in bed until well after three o’clock.

09.09.2008Tuesday 9 September – Pizza

Morning
I was a bit tired after my lack of sleep last night, but still managed to make the train.
Day
New marketing man starts today.
Night
Bronwen rode here after climbing, we went and got pizza and ate it down by the river and had a chat.

10.09.2008Wednesday 10 September – The Forest

Day
I had a reasonable day at work, buying some chips from the taxi rank café for breakfast, and heading out late morning with my boss to visit a monitoring centre that uses one of our products, which was interesting.
Night
I met Stella in South Bank and we went to The Forest for dinner. I then packed stuff for my flight up north tomorrow, and went to bed.

11.09.2008Thursday 11 September – Cairns

Day
I was late to work due to packing and sleeping in in the morning, but I stayed until after 8 due to my late flight to Cairns tonight. I also passed my 3 month probation today.
9:20pm
Jetstar A320 left roughly on time. I was nearly late as Silas phoned me just as I was about to leave work and we chatted for a while. After a rushed walk to the airport I arrived hot and sweaty and got through check-in just after the half hour cut-off, though I was in-line before the half hour mark. I’m seated in seat 10D, an aisle seat, with the seat beside me free. The flight looks like it’s probably about two thirds full, with most people having a spare seat beside them.
1:37am
Trying to sleep. Flight arrived ok, roughly on time. In geeky news, I used Google Map’s contact integration on my phone to automatically bring up a map of where Silas lives to show the taxi driver as he didn’t know the street. It has been raining in Cairns but isn’t right now. Got a Prius taxi to Silas’s. Went on MSN and tried to wish Stella a happy birthday but she was on the phone for at least one and three quarter hours so I gave up.

12.09.2008Friday 12 September – Cooktown

Morning
Got up at ten to six and caught a taxi to the SkyTrans terminal. A King Air Super 200 with an attractive young female pilot flew me to Cooktown through heavy cloud and a warning that landing might be delayed due to weather.
  The landing ended up being smooth—it was cloudy all the way up to Cooktown then opened up just as we got to Cooktown. Mum picked me up from the airport and we had a chat for a while.
9:30am
Mum has headed off to the doctor. I am checking my email on Mum’s laptop via dialup.
2:30pm
Mum has gone to have a nap. I noticed for the first time her upper arms are looking gaunt, though that could well be normal for her age and I just haven’t noticed before. I’m going to have a lie down myself though I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep-I don’t usually sleep during the day.
5:45pm
I woke up. Turns out I can sleep during the day. Mum is cooking.
6:30pm
Dad turned up. Expecting Sarah soon.
Night
Sarah turned up and we had a nice dinner that Mum made. I found out that Sarah and Vince spent $45,000 on their last big fight night.
10:40pm
Sarah has gone home, Mum has gone to bed, having got up at 3 AM, Dad is going to bed, and so am I.

13.09.2008Saturday 13 September – Dad & Mum

9am
I wake up, after having had a good sleep. Sarah calls shortly after and I walk down to the supermarket where I buy flavoured milk and meet her. We walk, with one of Sarah’s dogs, down to the markets, on to the wharf, and back to Mum’s.
Midday
Sarah and I have just finished a late fruit salad breakfast, followed by some wallaby and joey photography. There’s quite a lot of wallabies around at the moment. I’m planning to try asking Mum questions about my life now, and take some notes, which might be a bit odd.
2:48pm
Have just finished lunch. I have been asking Dad and Mum questions and taking notes. I’m up to 5 pages of notes now, and up to where my memory has a lot less holes, at Macksville.
4pm
Mum has gone to have a lie-down and Sarah is also having a snooze by the looks. I’m planning to go for a walk, probably to Sarah’s, when she wakes up, and am chatting to Dad in the meantime.
5:30pm
Sarah and I are back from Sarah’s, where we walked via the supermarket, but drove back. Mum is up. I’ve had a shower, so less sticky now. My right eye hurts for some reason.
Night
Dad, Mum and Sarah watched the footy while I semi-watched it while chatting online. Sarah went home after the game and Mum went to bed but Dad and I stayed up watching the AFL until well after midnight, making it a bit of a late night.

14.09.2008Sunday 14 September – Dad’s Birthday

10:45am
I’ve showered and am up. Hopefully Sarah will come around soon. I’m tossing up whether to walk over to her place and wrap Dad’s present. I did walk to Sarah’s.
Midday
Mum is making some lunch and Sarah and I are giving Dad his presents—a book from Sarah and three flannelette shirts and a pair of shorts from me.
Afternoon
Sarah and I drove to her place, took two of her dogs for a walk down to the wharf and back, washed and flea-shampooed two of them, and drove back to Mum’s.
Night
Mum made a nice curry soup and I took notes about Mum’s life. Sarah went home and I phoned Silas. I then went online.
1am
Dad and Mum have gone to bed a while ago. I’m still up chatting online but about to go to bed.

15.09.2008Monday 15 September – Cairns

10am
I got up and began typing the notes I had taken onto Mum’s laptop.
Afternoon
Mum and I went to the post office and supermarket where I bought some lunch for work tomorrow. I finished transcribing the paper-based notes I had onto Mum’s laptop and emailed them to myself, and packed ready for my flight back to Cairns.
5:20pm
My flight left roughly on time; seat 7D on a Dash8 Series 100. I spent the time before the flight chatting to Dad and Mum, and dropped into the newspaper to say bye to Sarah.
Night
The flight to Cairns was uneventful. Silas picked me up from the airport and we got take away Thai food for dinner and chatted for a few hours.
11:15pm
Taxi ordered for 5:10 tomorrow morning, and alarm set for 4:55. Now, off to bed.

16.09.2008Tuesday 16 September – Brisbane

4:55am
I got up and caught my 5:10am taxi, which arrived at 5:05, to the airport. Check-in went without incident, and I’m now awaiting my 5:40 boarding call for a 6:10 departure.
7:47am
I’ve just woken up because the hostesses came to collect rubbish. I didn’t know Virgin Blue headrests could be raised and wrap around until the person in the seat in front did.
8:30am
The flight, on a Boeing 737-800 was uneventful. I snoozed for most of it. I was asked to take my earphones out and told that I could only use Virgin ones and only with the supplied “entertainment” (it’s $9.90 to access the 24 Austar/Foxtel channels) as I was sitting in an exit row. I walked to work after landing, finding out that the café doesn’t do chips or wedges until after 8:30.
5:50pm
I am on the train home. Work was fairly hectic—deadlines have been pushed forward rather drastically and some unforeseen and really annoyingly stupid problems wasted a lot of my time.
Night
I walked up to Eagle Boys and got pizza. Bronwen rode over after climbing, and we had a chat and ate pizza, walking up to her parent’s late to get some clothes for her tomorrow.

17.09.2008Wednesday 17 September – Curry

Day
I caught the train to work, and worked. Work is still fairly hectic due to deadlines being pushed forwards.
Night
Stella and I went and got curry from Halim’s Indian Taj.

18.09.2008Thursday 18 September – Error

Error: No content found.

19.09.2008Friday 19 September – Warning

Warning: Today does not appear to have occurred.

20.09.2008Saturday 20 September – Blank

Today left intentionally blank.

21.09.2008Sunday 21 September – Swell Sculpture Festival & wall-E

Morning
Bronwen and I caught a bus, train, and another two buses to Currumbin Beach to see the Swell Sculpture Festival.
Evening
Bronwen and I went and saw wall-E at South Bank Cinemas. The animation is superb—they have emotions down to an artwork now. The plot is rather childish, but in a cute, almost charming way.
Night
I went to Maz’s, staying late.
3am
Rushing to bed.

22.09.2008Monday 22 September – Sadly

Sadly, another day where I cannot remember what I did, and didn’t write it down at the time.

23.09.2008Tuesday 23 September – Malaysian

Day
I worked.
Evening
I continued on the train to South Bank, walking down to Kangaroo Point and meeting Bronwen and her climbing friends. We went and had dinner at a Malaysian place near Kangaroo Point.
Night
I continued on the train to Toowong, walking to Maz’s, then up to Raymond’s to get some TV shows for Maz, before heading home.

24.09.2008Wednesday 24 September – Pizza

Day
Work.
Evening
I walked up to Maz’s, then up to Domino’s Pizza at Taringa, where I bought a margarita pizza and ate half of it back at Maz’s, before walking home again, getting to bed just after half past midnight.

25.09.2008Thursday 25 September – Cold

Day
Busy day working.
Night
Walked up to Bronwen’s parent’s place, where Bronwen was. It was quite cold. Due to arriving late, I ended up sitting out in the park for a while, which was especially cold.

26.09.2008Friday 26 September – Chez Tessa

Day
I slept in, getting to work nearly an hour late. I had a busy day at work.
Night
I caught a bus over to Maz’s, and we walked to Chez Tessa at the Ville for dinner. I picked up the photos I’d printed of Grace and Stella, and stuck them to their doors when I got home from Maz’s. I went to bed shortly before two o’clock.

27.09.2008Saturday 27 September – Eagle Eye

Day
Go to Bronwen’s. Spend most of the day there.
Night
Pasta for dinner at Rosalie with Bronwen, then to Southbank to watch Journey to the Centre of the Earth 3D, but it’s not being shown in 3D at South Bank so swap to Eagle Eye—which wasn’t very good, I had trouble finding it believable. Phone police—they will call me back Wednesday and arrange a meeting.

28.09.2008Sunday 28 September – Hare Krishna

Day
Had a quiet day at home, watching some Scrubs on TV with Bronwen and chatting.
5pm
Bronwen and I went to the Hare Krishna’s Sunday Feast at Govinda’s.
Night
Walked Bronwen up to her parent’s place, then walked to Maz’s, where I stayed far too late, getting home around 3 o’clock.

29.09.2008Monday 29 September – Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Morning
Slept in. An hour late to work.
Evening
Pasta with Stella.
8:30pm
Internet died.
9pm
Journey to the Centre of the Earth 3D at Indooroopilly with Stella. Crappy plot, cool 3D.
11:30pm
Cleaning house.

30.09.2008Tuesday 30 September – Curry

Far Too Early
I got up especially early to get to work in time for the Tuesday meeting, only to find it moved to tomorrow.
Night
Maz walked over with his new flash, Bronwen rode over after climbing, and we all had a lovely curry from Halim’s Indian Taj.

01.10.2008Wednesday 1 October – Flash

6:40am
Glaziers turned up to replace Grace’s broken window.
Afternoon
Maz convinced me to buy a $585 Canon 580EX II Speedlite flash from Rainer’s, which Maz picked up for me. Yay for unplanned purchasing. I walked over to his place, via a bus, after work and picked it up, had dinner from Hungry Jack’s, and messed around in a park for a while. Now it’s 3 AM.
3:45am
Having hung out my washing and showered, it’s now a quarter to four. This is bad. Work is early. Bed now.

02.10.2008Thursday 2 October – Phone Break

Evening
I dropped my phone, breaking it, just as I was about to walk up the steps to the front door.
1:36am
Back from Maz’s. Phone fixed—accidentally using the mainboard of my old phone, and intentionally the keyboard. Now need to shower then sleep.

03.10.2008Friday 3 October – Drastic

Night
I caught the train home from work, showered, and caught a bus into the city, and a bus from there to Bronwen’s place—in theory. Unfortunately I looked at the bus sign and saw “Upper Mount Gravatt”, thought that was where Bronwen lived, and got on the bus. It turns out she lives in “Mount Gravatt”, and the bus I got not only doesn’t go there, but it takes a very slow and circuitous route to get anywhere—so I ended up in Garden City, from where I caught a bus back to Bronwen’s.

04.10.2008Saturday 4 October – Babylon AD

Day
I had a relaxing day, watching some Scrubs, and trying not to move too much—it’s very hot.
Evening
I walked over to Maz’s to drop off a torch for his potentially dark mountain walk/climb tomorrow, and caught a bus into South Bank, where I watched “Babylon AD”—a very crappy ending, but up until that point, a relatively normal Hollywood action movie.
Midnight
750mL of iced coffee and an action movie later, I’m home but not really in the sleeping mood. I’ve been updating my journal.
2:25am
Off to bed now.

05.10.2008Sunday 5 October – Amberley Airshow

Went to the Amberley Airshow with Bronwen and her dad, meeting Raymond and Charelle. Quite interesting it was, and quite hot.

06.10.2008Monday 6 October – Blank

This day intentionally left blank.

07.10.2008Tuesday 7 October – Pizza

Night
Stella, Grace and I walked up to Eagle Boys and picked up pizza. I continued on to Maz’s. A few minutes after arriving at Maz’s, Bronwen phoned and I headed back to Eagle Boys, where I met Bronwen and we picked up pizza again, eating it in a park nearby, before walking to Bronwen’s parent’s place to drop off Bronwen, then back to my place to put me to sleep.

08.10.2008Wednesday 8 October – Curry

Night
I caught a bus to Toowong, did some shopping, met Maz, caught a bus back to my place, went to Halim’s Indian Taj with Maz and Stella, caught a bus back to Maz’s again, then caught a bus back to my place.
1am
Off to bed.

09.10.2008Thursday 9 October – Forensic Crash Unit

Morning
I managed to arrive at work on time for a change, and had a busy, challenging, day.
7pm
The police from the forensic crash unit turned up to record my statement regarding my recent car accident, which was fairly short due to me not actually remembering anything. They were good about it, and explained what they’d found and why they’d come to the conclusions they have—that I ran a red light, and that they’ll recommend it be treated as a traffic offence, rather than a more serious criminal one.
Night
Grace, Jamie, Stella and I walked to Halim’s, where I bought a very large vegetable biryani.
Later Night
Bronwen turned up on her way back from some technical meeting, and it began to rain a little, fortunately easing off enough that I could walk up to her parent’s place with her.

10.10.2008Friday 10 October – Empty

Today: Empty.

11.10.2008Saturday 11 October – Null

Today: Null.

12.10.2008Sunday 12 October – Void

Today: Void.

13.10.2008Monday 13 October – Body of Lies

Evening
Stopped and had a chat to Bronwen at Central Station before heading home, then to South Bank with Maz, to watch “Body of Lies”. Fairly generic Hollywood action—not very good, but not awful.

14.10.2008Tuesday 14 October – Phone Fixing

Night
I dropped the DVD Chocolat, which was overdue, back to the DVD store and caught a bus to Indooroopilly, meeting Maz halfway. Maz and I had dinner (Hungry Jack’s for me), went to Woolies, and caught a bus back to Maz’s, where we changed the main board of my phone back to the new phone’s main board, which has a working backup-battery.
2:42am
Horribly late. Off to bed.

15.10.2008Wednesday 15 October – Rain, Thunder, Lightning

Evening
Big rain and thunder storm. I am stuck at Milton station without an umbrella. Lots of lightning. Eventually run home. Bus to Maz’s later, get camera parts, take macro photos. Meet Bronwen at my place, walk up to her parent’s with her.
1:50am
Sleep.

16.10.2008Journal v3

Journal Entries from this day forward are in the third version of my site.

Summary| Highlights| 2008 (Year View)

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