I'm back

You know, I thought my post last night regarding this actually made it into the blogger brain... but obviously not. Pity that, actually. It was full of wit and humour that would have left even the most discerning critic wondering why I spend my time monkeying about with code rather than writing jaw-dropping literature.

Illusionary world aside, yes I'm back from New Orleans, Nawlins, the Crescent City, Big Easy, whatever you feel like confusing people with. After driving 1850 miles this is a quick-arse summary of my thoughts of my extended long weekend of travel:

1) New Orleans is a pretty effing cool city.
2) New Orleans actually looks better during the day than at night. Contrast this with Miami, which is a pretty city at night but not too pretty during the day.
3) Florida actually has undulations in its terrain up around the panhandle.
4) Miles don't click over quickly enough.
5) Aquaplaning for about 20 metres during a big arse thunder storm on the way back is "interesting".

New compilation album to get...

Just heard it on Annie Mac's Radio 1 session - Liquid V club sessions, for all good things DnB.

Dang, I gotta go. Got Santos Renuentes to see *yet again* tonight at Tobacco Road. I wish they'd play in like, New York or something like that. I need an excuse to fly up there*. Plus, tomoz I have to go to... New Orleans! Oh I'm bored already. hehe.

* WTF am I talking about, like I need an excuse???

Muvico

There is a huge movie complex not far from where I live called Muvico. Actually, there are a few of them around the place. This one has 24 cinemas - nothing to write home about when you come from a city that had a 31 cinema complex - but this place is all Egyptian themed and tries to be impressive in that respect. These cinemas weren't as good as the 31 cinema complex though. Maybe it was the crowd.

I've noticed a bit of a contrast to movie-goers here and over in Australia. Over here there are a few people who lack respect for anyone else watching a movie and don't recognise the fact that other people actually did pay to see the movie too. These people were constantly checking for messages on their mobile phones. I remember once I had a guy listening to his CD player at full volume sitting right next to me.

Point being, I went to see Star Wars episode 3. It was oooookay - but that was from going in with extremely low expectations. I guess those expectations were met. The wooden performances had me laughing in a couple of spots. I was thinking "does Lucas really expect me to buy into this?" Well, he got my money so I guess he really doesn't care. The movie experience was perfectly summed up though when during the silent parts I was able to hear some guy behind me snoring.

It's done!

So, the future is going to be even more exciting. In the next couple of months I'll be going through the motions of buying a car, finding a flatmate, getting a fortnightly salary (compared to the monthly one I've gotten so used to) all American style. To be perfectly honest, I didn't make this move for the money. I won't be much better off here than I was in Australia, but the difference is I *won't* be in Australia. Mexico is only a couple of hours away by plane. Jamaica ain't that far either. South America - just a wee bit south. Problem is that due to my Visa extension I won't be going outside of the US for another few months until processing has been completed.

That doesn't matter though, there is enough going on over here to keep me busy. The French food and wine festival is on this coming long weekend in New Orleans and I've made plans with a couple of friends to go for a road trip. I haven't been a tourist for a while now so "I'm excited".

Adios muchachos.

Update on change

I've given myself the weekend to think about this and do some more figures. I should know myself better. Although I've been thinking about doing this for a while, I have a gut feeling that says something isn't right with the current terms and conditions. I'll update how things go on Monday, which is my deadline for replying.

Change

I'll put it sort of cryptically - tomorrow I hand in a piece of paper that says 'next time, my flight from Australia to the US won't be return'.

(Kristian == nerd) == TRUE?

Noooo! Lately I've been feeling it... I've been working absolutely ridiculous hours at work and I'm nearly getting used to it. I'm coming to expect it of myself. This has to change, and it has to change now. I admit I may be a little nerdy - heck look at my bloody blog icon - it's from a bleedin' 1986 Nintendo game. I used to read microprocessor spec documents 'for fun'. Shit shit shit.

I watch Dr Who, I watch Battleship Galactica, I own Star Trek tapes.

Crap crap crap.

Well, I may as well accept the fact.

So you can imagine how cool I find the Electronic Entertainment Expo! Dang, those PS3 videos look absolutely awesome http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/05/16/news_6124681.html.

*sigh*

However, I am proud to say that I couldn't care less about missing out on the premiere of Star Wars and actually only getting to see it in, ooh, a week or two. Episode 1 sucked hard, Episode 2 sucked a little less and maybe this one will be ok. Meh, whatever.

Winky vs Trinidad

I went to a friend's house Satdee night to watch a boxing fight on HBO pay per view. Now let me get this straight - I ain't the biggest fan of boxing. Actually I'd usually go out of my way to avoid watching fights because I just think it's sort of cave man like but I tucked all those thoughts away and just watched the damn thing. The fight was between Winky Wright and Felix Trinidad. The 'local' boy Winky ended up winning, even with a rather distracting boil or whatever the heck it was on his neck. Dis-gust-ing. Check the link here for some more fight details.

What I found really funny about the fight was the absolute crap and fluff the commentators dribbled to fill in time. It was just incredibly stupid stuff. My absolute favourite part though was when one of the commentators was trying to make a point that something was the exact opposite, so he resorted to this analogy (not exact wording but): "Take for example Afghanistan and then being all the way on the opposite side of the world . . . like Denmark". Hmmm, stick to the boxing world buddy. The real world is probably too big for you. It sort of surprised me he didn't say Iraq, because that's another country that the media here has been mentioning for some reason.

Speaking of funny, what I saw today cracked me up a bit. I'd pulled up at a set of lights and was watching some people get out of their car at the intersection and push it across because it had broken down. What was written on the windows? "For sale".

And to finish off the triple play of funnies, here is a website dedicated to chicks being filmed trying to get their bogged cars out of mud and so forth.
http://www.carstuckgirls.com/.
It's funny how you come across sites like that which are totally unrelated to the material you're reading at the time. I checked out the FAQ to get a 'please explain' for the website and all it had was help in sorting out technical difficulties with getting the videos to play. Oh, and it describes how they keep the packaging discrete. I guess that's so your significant other doesn't find out you have a . . . chicks-getting-cars-stuck-in-mud fetish? Ohhhhh kaaaay.

Bro's causing problems again!

At the moment my Bro is lying in a bed in the Royal Adelaide hospital and has been there for the past few days. He's had multiple CAT scans and MRI scans. I've been talking to him and he seems fine at the moment but has to stay in hospital once results from all the scans are in. The doctors said they actually found something - a brain! I say check again!

Anyway bro, hope you get out of there soon - and leave the female French doctors alone, ok? ;-)

UPDATE: He's now out of hospital.

Cinco de Mayo pictures

There was a Cinco de Mayo celebration at Tobacco Road last Thursday night and Santos Renuentes were playing there again. I've got pics from the night uploaded here.

Hard Rock casino

I went out Saturday night to the retail area around Hard Rock casino which has all the clubs and shopping stuff. I've been here a few times and it's pretty good, all things considered. I hadn't been out with that group for a night out before and damn, I ended up having a blast. I think seeing chicks riding mechanical bulls really sealed off the night.

We started off at an Irish pub that was playing songs like "Loveshack" by the B-52s. . . yeah. The "DJ" there could not mix fricken salt and water. It was absolutely terrible. I was glad to get out of there. Next we tried getting into a club called "Pangaea". It seemed a group our size was not going to have any luck in getting in without buying a couple of tables though (at $250 each).

Since people were getting restless the decision was made to go to watch some mechanical bull riding at a place called Tequila Ranch, a Mexican themed restaurant. This place apparently doesn't have the best Mexican food around, but it made up for that in other ways. I have to say thankyou Todd for being so pro-bull. Not that Todd will probably ever read this blog but his name is now in here. Words can't describe how fantastic it was to see two girls at once riding a mechanical bull. "2night" were there and here is a link to pictures from the night. I was thinking that'd be a cool gig - taking pictures in all the cool clubs around Miami and surrounding areas with my digital SLR. . . how awesome would that be?! I think it would be as awesome as using someone's fist as a microphone to sing "No woman no cry" and "One love", which is something I ended up doing that night even though I wasn't drunk.

We closed out the country bar and most of the people in our group left after that. Those of us remaining went back to Pangaea hoping to get in this time. We got in no problemo and even slipped past the girl at the door collecting money because she was busy messaging someone on the phone (normally it would cost $20 to get in).

Pangaea is a pretty good club considering its location. Click this link to see a sampling of people who were there the same night. They have an obligatory RnB/Hip Hop room and in another room they have the dance music, which was ok I guess. It was a little too techno if you know what I mean. Too much beat and not enough style. Maybe some other nights they play music which is similar to that on their website.

I was at the bar in Pangaea ordering a drink when I noticed a guy having an epileptic fit on the floor not far from me. There was the typical crowd of stunned onlookers - of course no-one could have done much at that stage of a fit. But once the fit subsided I didn't see anyone putting him into the recovery position and checking his airways etc. So can you guess who had to do this? I didn't hang around for too long though as there were a few of his friends who were there to take care of him.

All things considered though, it wasn't a bad night at all.

Kung Fu movies and beer

Don't mix them. Especially don't mix beer and "Kung Fu Hustle". A friend and I did that Friday night and I think it was the weirdest movie experience I've ever had. That movie probably doesn't need the help of alcohol to make it interesting anyway.

Ft Lauderdale Air and Sea show

On Sunday here were the reasons why I hauled my arse out of bed at 7:00am in the morning to get a good seat for the Ft. Lauderdale Air and Sea show:

F-117 Nighthawk
B-2 Stealth Bomber
B-52 Stratofortress
A-10 Warthog
F-14 Tomcat
AV-8B Harrier
V-22 Osprey
last, and certainly not least, F-22 Raptor.

None of those planes showed up the whole damn day. I haven't seen any of these planes in real life yet. Exactly these planes were supposed to be there (pending operational availability blah blah blah). Was I disappointed? Yeah, a bit. I did get some pics though and a tan and I did get weirded out several times during the day. What I mean is, the show was obviously very American. Duh. The whole "support our troops" slogan was getting compressed into my ears and that just made me realise I really was over in the US. I go by every day not really thinking about that too much. Then a reality spin thing happened when I didn't really believe I was here and everything seemed to do a 180 degree turn. I also got that tinnitus or ringing in my ear just to help with the outer-body feeling. It was weird.

Here is the link to the damn pictures: click me, click me now.

Tobacco Road, 28th April

I especially went to Tobacco Road on Thursday night to get some pictures of Santos Renuentes playing an acoustic set, something that I hadn't heard them do before. There was going to be a delay with starting their set so my friend and I decided to get some food downstairs. I had just about finished my meal when I thought "hold on... they should have started by now". I raced upstairs and they were nearly finished. Sophia gave me a greeting saying something like "I'm glad you finally came to watch our show, Kristian." I found out later that while I was downstairs stuffing my face she did a shout out for me two songs prior because I always went to their gigs.... and I was nowhere to be seen at that time. Bloody hell.

Anyway, travelling to Miami to watch a live acoustic set and then nearly missing it completely - am I a knob or what? I did get some pics from their last song though that can be found here
. There is also a picture in that set of the back of Tobacco Road. You can see one of the members of the outdoor band playing through the entrance. Damn I love my new lens.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

Yes, the birthdays are coming in thick and fast it seems, so while I'm at it:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEAN!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAHA!

Dang nammit!

It's currently 4:42am Sunday morning in Florida. I have to be up in 2 hours to get ready to go to the Fort Lauderdale Air and Sea show. How much do you wanna bet that I sleep through my alarm???