That shit is whack

So we're heading west along the 595 to Fort Lauderdale last night at around 11pm, looking forward to hitting the town after a hectic week at work. At the intersection of the 595 and the Florida turnpike traffic had slowed to an absolute crawl. All I could see ahead of me were flashing lights everywhere and my mate and I were speculating as to what it could be. "Wow, there must be a huge pile up of cars ahead". Emergency vehicles were bloody everywhere. There were a couple of smashed cars along the side of the road but as it turned out that wasn't what was causing the problem. We looked towards the exit ramp for the 595 leading onto the turnpike and there were 30 or 40 emergency vehicles parked the whole way along. Then we looked a little more to the right and there were bloody flames everywhere! I don't know how we missed that to begin with. We didn't know what the hell was going on. We thought it could have been a plane crash or a petrol tanker. As it turns out a petrol tanker had overturned.

The enormity of things over here never ceases to amaze me. There are some seriously screwed up things that have happened while I've been over here, like four hurricanes hitting Florida and this and God knows what else.

What else? Ok, how about this one. This happened on my Christmas vacation trip at the end of last year. We were heading to Lake Tahoe from Yosemite at around 10pm and most routes in had been deluged with snow and had to be closed due to the threat of avalanches. So yeah, it was snowing pretty heavily. (Actually, because the snow was so thick it had a psychedelic effect as you drove along. It was incredibly distracting). We were about 20 miles out of Lake Tahoe and visibility was nothing when we had to put snow chains on. As we were doing this, "the woman" in the car shouted "Did you see that?!?!" We said we didn't see anything at all. A car coming the opposite direction had just gone straight off the side of the road. Fortunately there were quite a few cars pulled over so a few other people had seen what happened. We all rushed over to where the tyre tracks left the road and saw, about 150 feet down a slope that nearly went *straight down*, an upside down SUV wedged between 2 trees. We were calling out to anyone who may have been alive down there... we actually didn't think they would be. Fortunately, they were alive and fairly well. I threw a rope down to them and helped pull them up. They were a bit shaken up and had a couple of minor cuts. Considering what had just happened, I found that absolutely amazing.

Again, that shit is whack.

Nerrrrd

I've just completely nerded up this site. I think it's not too difficult to see what I've done to accomplish that.

To the rescue!

Noticed this little charger in the outdoor area not far from my cube:


I don't know what type of bird it was, but it sure was small:


He was puffing a little bit, but after a while he flew off to a tree. I hope this little charger finds his little charger friends:

Time for a change

I'm getting sick of using Webshots. I think it sort of sucks a little. The uploading service is pretty flaky, it's bloody hard to reorganise photos in an album, it crops my photos automagically, and it's been the same ever since I started using it.

I've been investigating another online photo album provider, Flickr and am thinking of switching over to that. Does anyone else use it or use a different online photo storage provider they can give a good review for? Now is the time to use the comments section! Or you could just do nothing. Your choice.

Hello Santos Renuentes!

Heh, this is pretty funny. My friend Omar from work informed me that one (or some) of his other band members had found a site that gave excellent reviews for all the Santos Renuentes gigs that the person had been too. They told him "see, you never know who comes to see our shows". Well, yes that's true... but if it weren't for Omar I doubt that I'd ever had heard of Tobacco Road or Santos Renuentes or whatever. Maybe I would have gone along to see some live music one time and seen their band. If I did take that path, I'd probably have given them a good review anyway ;-)

Keep up the good work Santos Renuentes!

Lunch today

This was the view I had at lunch today.

If I looked to the right I saw this:


If I turned a little more to the right I saw this:


I hope you enjoyed your lunch today too.

A man and a parrot

This story made me laugh a little because I intially thought it was a joke, but then I felt a bit disturbed:

"POLICE in the US state of Florida charged a 34-year-old rescue worker with cruelty to animals after a weekend incident in which he bit the head off a parrot."

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12196119-401,00.html

Found the pics from Rumi in South Beach

You can find the pics here. Go to picture 127 which is on the last page for Rumi restaurant. You'll see me looking like a goose in a red shirt. The guy next to me is my mate Sean from work (aka Saeed). The people are all Nina's friends AFAIK (1). I think they're all Persian except for the girl with the light brown hair. I think she was from Peru. Nina is the one all the way to the right in the brown top.

ed: I've updated the previous post.

(1) for the non-l337 (2) Internet users, AFAIK = as far as I know.
(2) Sorry, there I go again. l337 means elite.

Christmas/NY 2004 Part 4 - Yosemite

I can't put it into words how freaking amazing Yosemite national park was. It had some of the most beautiful scenery ever. Just absolutely amazing. I also experienced the coldest weather I've ever been in. We camped outside for 2 nights and the second night was just absolutely freezing. We're guessing it got down to about -1 or -2 degrees F, which translates to something like -16 degrees celcius. My sleeping bag was only rated to 0 degrees celcius, so... very bloody cold. Of course that was made up for by the fact that when I woke up after the second night of sleep I stepped out into snow. I'd never been in snow before. Absolutely awesome.

We saw Yosemite Falls, Mirror lake and a bunch of Giant Sequoia trees which were just truly huge.

Right now that's about 1/2 of the photos. My mate Timbo has the rest (including pics of Sequoia trees) but he's been a slack bastard in getting them to me (as I've been in getting my photos to him). When I do get them, I'll post them up ASAP.

I would have actually taken more photos myself but I encountered a limitation in SLR cameras. It was so bloody cold that the shutter froze shut and I couldn't take any more pictures. This was after trekking through snow a couple of feet deep in some places for about a mile to get to the trees. That's the only time I've been disappointed with my camera.

Things that I need to work better

I think the most important is a phone conversation recorder, and I don't know why it isn't automatically built into the phone systems that corporate engineering companies (well, this one at least) use. When I'm having a technical discussion over the phone with my tech lead or something (and sometimes these conversations can go for over an hour, especially when a group discussion is going on) I always miss stacks of points. There are a couple of ways I know of to record what was said during the conversation: make notes while you're listening, or listen very hard and try to understand so no notes need be taken. If I'm doing the former I'll miss key points without realising it because I'm concentrating on getting down on paper the information in a form I'll understand later. If I'm doing the latter I'll just forget stuff. Why don't they give us a "record" button on the phone so I can play back the conversation later to see if I missed anything? Maybe there is stuff out there that can do this, but they don't supply it to us by default.

Secondly, I reckon we should all get a drawing tablet. This would be especially useful when doing a netmeeting with someone. You can't draw with a mouse, that's stupid. You can't do it quickly with Word, you end up with what looks like fat Lego blocks. We need a drawing tablet so we can draw diagrams etc. quickly and easily. Please!!!

Pet peeve

People talking on their mobile phones in the restrooms whilst sitting on the toilet seat. Not cool guys. Not cool.

Google just gets cooler

Google is so cool. It helped me in my job so many times by getting me the best search results. It's just like an external brain... there is a heck of a lot of stuff I don't know but then I google it, get the answer, answer the question and then I *seem* smart, when in actual fact I'm probably not - I just know what keywords to use. I guess it's like how people in South Beach *seem* perfect (or walk around like it) when in actual fact of course, they're not (1). They just find ways around it (read plastic surgery). Oh, and I'm not talking about personality here either. I'm actually just dribbling.

Anyhow, Google has just released google maps: maps.google.com. I'm a big supporter of clean, usable interfaces (props to Frosty who actually got me thinking about that stuff in the first place) and this interface rocks. It's so quick, clean and intuitive I just love it. You search for a business nearby and va-voom! There it is. I'm saying goodbye to Mapquest from now on. For now maps is only US-centric but I expect that will change as Google modifies it to cater for other countries in the future, especially considering it's still only a beta.

Also, I'm now an even more major fan of Google because of their Picasa photo organising program. I thought I'd give it a shot and see how it'd do with organising my 7+ gigs of photos on my computer. No problem. It found ones I'd actually forgotten about and because the interface is so damn good I had no problem in actually realising this.

Oh, I also use blogger, also (now, anyway) by Google. And I use gmail (e-mail addy is daecks@gmail.com by the way) Why? Because they're piss easy to use and I've never had any problems with any of them.

(1) - ok, I don't think she was from South Beach but it's a funny story anyway. At the Superbowl party I went to on Sunday night these stripper-like girls turned up. I thought "wow, these parties really go off!" but as it turned out they were only friends of friends (2). Anyway, the blonde one was looking at a globe of the world later on in the night and showing us where her family comes from. She didn't know where Belgium was. I don't think she was even looking in Europe.

(2) - that's not to say of course that a friend of a friend could not be a stripper. Had to make that clarification. A friend who was a stripper would be even better though. Had to make that clarification too.

South Beach - finally

*Finally* I went for a night out in South Beach. Only one word describes that night out: awesome. When you're kicking on to breakfast at 6:30am in the morning and making sure that a friend is ok as they've been getting sick in the toilet, you know you've had a good night. I *think* we ended up in a place called "Pearl". The name of the place was "Rumi". Check out the pictures of this place! They played some bloody good music but only towards the latter part of the night. It seems that the music has to be dumbed down a lot earlier on in the night to please the fickle part of the crowd (err, rethink that. It's South Beach. The fickle part of the crowd is the crowd) and they only play the non-commercial, actually good-to-listen-to stuff later.

The club's closing song was "no woman no cry" by Bob Marley so I grabbed someone's cigarette lighter and ended up walking down the stairs at the head of my group swaying the lighter from side to side. It kept on extinguishing and I ended up flicking the little steel drum out of the lighter somehow, and at some point I burnt my thumb although I only found that out the next day.

I crashed at Nina's place in South Beach which was about one or two streets away from the club. Her and my friend from work (she was my friend's cousin, and my friend is from my workplace) had another breakfast (at 3pm) at the Big Pink. I tell you what, the potato omelette they make there is bloody fantastic. That is completely neutralised by the fact however that they don't know how to make an iced coffee. And what is it with this cinnamon thing again? Why do they have to have it on everything???

Anyway, gotta get back to doing the thing I was sent over here for: work.

*sigh*

Christmas/NY 2004 Part 3 - San Francisco

What can I say about San Francisco? I absolutely, without a doubt, positively loved it. A-friggen-mazing place. We stayed in a hotel which was about a one minute walk from Union square, more or less the centre square for San Francisco and we had the cable cars going past our window down in the street. Did I do a lot of walking? Hell yes! I was absolutely buggered from walking around but loved every bit of it. A nice change from all the flatness here in Florida.

We went out one night for some sushi and then went to grab a drink. Who would've thought that the first place we went to grab a drink happened to be a gay bar? No matter, the people there were bloody friendly and I stored my camera there for a while when we went to check out some straight places, with a gay guy as our tour guide of course.

I got a bit freaked out on the way home. My friends had gone home much earlier in the night (as to why, refer to my post: "The woman") and it got to about the time where I had to leave the group I was hanging around with (read: nearly sunrise). Did I know my way around San Francisco well enough to find my way home? No. Was I a bit scared? Yes. Luckily I found Powell street after a bit of looping around and was just crossing at the lights across the road from our hotel when the lens cap from my camera fell off. A bum who happened to be walking alongside me picked up the lens cap and began looking at it quizzically. I said to him a couple of times "Mate, can I please have my lens cap back?" No response. I knew I had a $1 bill in my pocket and offered to swap it for my lens cap. We did the swap and by this stage I was out the front of my hotel and I absolutely bolted it upstairs. There were always a few people around the whole time I walked home, but I was still a bit freaked out in some points. Scary stuff.

We did the whole touristy thing, checking out Alcatraz, Fisherman's Wharf and took a bus tour of the city. After staying in San Francisco for a little over 3 days I did not want to leave there. It was such a cool city. Ah well.

It also happened to be the city where I lost my iPod charger. I believe we all heard a clunk sound as we were packing the car to leave San Francisco. Upon reflection, that did very much sound like an iPod charger hitting the ground, even though we couldn't find anything. I think that bum who tried taking my lens cap snapped up my iPod charger before we knew what the heck was going on.

To feel my pain, sing this to the tune of "San Francisco" as sung by Scott Mckenzie:

If you're leaving from San Francisco
Please do take care
To not leave belongings there
If you're leaving from San Francisco
A bum's got your charger
And he couldn't give a care

Bah! Screw writing anymore lyrics.

Pictures start here.

Stuffed

Err, thought it would be time to update my blog. Well, I've started up tennis again. Yah! I haven't played a game since I got over here and now I plan to make it a weekly thing. I was missing it so, so much. The only sport I've been doing is the odd swim and I don't do it often enough to get anything out of it. Anyway, it's been good to get away from the computer for a while. I sit all day in front of one (which I hate doing... well, all day at least). I hate, hate, hate that part of my job.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty cool that someone had started researching Venus fly traps. I went on a rant about such stuff in this post a while back. The research discusses the mathematics of how the trap operates, but it still leaves open how the hell the plant *actually does it*. The research is here. I only hope I don't look like that guy when I'm talking about Venus fly traps. Actually, I probably look worse since I'm normally intoxicated at the time.

Could you imagine how happy I was when I found this site? Oops, did I just link directly to Salma Hayek? Oh. Heh, they do talk about the famous scene in "From Dusk till Dawn". Hats off. It takes quite a while to read through all the top 100 women (as voted by readers of askmen.com). I found it quite a good idea to have several pictures of each person. Noice. Enjoy guys.

Australia Day

Heh, happy Australia Day by the way. Geez, I nearly forgot. I don't know how I could have, it was on the news constantly over here.

Picture updates

Pictures from the Bahamas are here, featuring guest appearances from the "grass-weed" guy and my brother doing something useful: carrying beer.

A close call

I was setting up my new computer on the weekend, and I nearly lost all my pictures that I've taken so far. Yeah, most of them are on the web but they're not the full resolution pics. Not all of them are backed up yet either. I couldn't find the pics after I did a re-install and I swear to God I was nearly in tears once I realised what I had done. So tonight, the first thing I'm doing is uploading all of the pictures I have to the web and doing massive amounts of backing up *and* creating an automatic backup plan. Geez, I don't want to ever feel like that again.

For the nerds, the computer is ok. AMD Athlon 64 socket 939 3200+ and appropriate motherboard, 1 GB PC3200 RAM (at the moment, more on the way), 160 GB seagate SATA drive, logitech wireless mouse and keyboard, antec sonata quiet case. All that for just over US $600. Not bad I thought. I didn't upgrade the video card - yet. I'll do that once I get an LCD monitor... which won't be for a while yet. Also might upgrade the sound card. We'll see how my current one goes for a little bit.

I was playing Van Halen's "Jump" again last night and the computer is sooooo much more responsive. Hehe.

Stupid

I was in my third project meeting on Monday, having been on my new project for two weeks. Things weren't going so well. My computer was set up completely wrong for the sort of work I was required to do so I was working with the systems support group to get those problems resolved. Plus, as with any new project, there is a thing call ramp up time. Or, time taken trying to understand what the hell you're supposed to be doing. That takes a while. So, combine computer not working properly with ramp up and you've got a bad start.

Anyway, the reason I got put on the project was because someone said I was supposed to be a fast learner, that I was supposed to be what they call "smart". I can be a smart arse sometimes but that's about it I reckon. I gave my new project manager the low down on why I was a couple of days behind some of the other guys in the group. She just looked at me and said "I thought you were supposed to be smart?" My response? Nothing really. What the hell am I supposed to say to that??? I had a good laugh at it later on and it's the joke of the week with my friends and former technical lead (who I believe is the one who stated that I was "smart").

Needless to say, I'm not behind in my work anymore and if anything I'm even a little ahead - but it took a little unpaid overtime to get there. Now I'm thinking I'm actually not that smart and my manager was right. I think I walked right into this little trap that she set for me. And get that dangling carrot out of my face.

When bad things happen

Well, here is the first one. The northern gate of my apartment block got taken out last night by someone trying to get out of the complex. This happened between midnight last night and 8 am this morning. Likelihood that it was someone from the party on the floor below me last night? Pretty high!


But this is even worse than what happened above. I've run out of milo.


Ok, yes, there is some still caught in the top and if I scrape hard enough I can get what's left in the bottom, but, hell...

Things that go bump in the night. And then die.

Right, it's nearly 2:15 am and I'm pissed off. There is something in the exhaust duct of my clothes dryer that keeps on making a tap-thud sound. I heard this sound a few weeks ago but then it stopped. I thought it was the wind at the time and there was some sort of valve that was loose or something but it can't be that tonight because it's as calm as a Hindu cow... and don't get me started on Indians! There are a bunch of them having a party on the floor below me and they've got their freaking balcony door open. I think they work at my company, I'm not sure. It's bloody 2 am in the morning. Shouldn't they be programming or something!?! Bloody hell, I'm trying to get some sleep so I can do good work so I don't become a victim of outsourcing. Jesus!

Sorry, but they've been pissing me off just about as much as tap-thud sound. I've been trying to think of what it is. I'm wondering what stopped the sound last time. Perhaps it just died. It sounds awfully like a frog. But how the hell would a frog get up there? I'm on the top floor, 4 floors up. It could be a super frog or something like that, bred by Frenchies to have really good leg muscles. Maybe it somehow jumped in the exhaust vent for my dryer after having double dare/physical challenges with its Frenchie frog mates to see who could jump over my apartment building.

I can't check to see WTF is going on because there is no way I can look outside.

Maybe the people below sent it on a mission to piss me off.

I was thinking it could be a bird... but it's not chirping.

Oh shit it's really pissing me off now.

That's it. I'm going to wash some towels and dry them on high heat. I'll cook the f&*ker... and then I'm going to get a flamethrower and fry the people downstairs. Check the papers tomorrow.

Fair dinkum, good work NASA/ESA

Yeah, you can already tell this post is going to be full of all things nerdy. Well, I gotta say it, but hats off to the folks at NASA/ESA/Uni Arizona for getting a space probe to land on Titan. That's just freaking amazing when you consider what must be done to accomplish something like that. I had to laugh though when they only got half the pictures they wanted because someone missed a command. Hehe.

I actually think about that and then I can totally relate to my own programming screw-ups. Hell, I just spent 6 hours fixing up/improving some software I wrote ages ago. If I didn't do that though, I probably would have just sat in my bed watching "My cousin Vinny" followed by "Death to Smoochy". Instead, I feel like I've achieved something today... something I probably should have achieved last week but hey. I was spending too much time rediscovering the Monkees and so forth and when I get nostalgic everything else can go get stuffed.

I went to a really cool party on Saturday night. No rum barrels involved, thank God, but I had a smashingly fun time. It was a girl's 30th birthday and some gay ex-neighbours threw a party for her. Of course, the place was in immaculate condition. It was very, very clean and I have to say very tastefully furnished. My favourite thing though was an old rotary telephone that they actually use. I reckon I might try retrofitting one in my future home. A re-dial function would be pretty cool :-)

Everyone at the party was either married or engaged. Normally I don't mind being the third wheel - I mean a few of my mates back in Australia have girlfriends and so forth so I get pretty used to it. But shit, lately it's just been beyond a joke!

I did meet a nice couple who lived about an hour out of New York city. They were really cool and offered me a place to stay when I go up around that area. Excellent! I'm waiting on some availability for tickets to see the Daily Show. That will pretty much determine when I'll go up that way.

I have a stack more pics to put up yet, but I just can't be arsed using my current computer to do that. I've ordered a new beast which should be arriving this coming week and it'll be ideal for the music stuff I want to do. It's taking a bloody long time to get my music stuff sorted out with all this travelling that keeps getting in the way!

Hmmm, well I'm starting to dribble more than I do in person. I better go to sleep before I send you to sleep.

Rum Barrels - aka Baby Elephant killers

Last night I cruised along to a 33rd birthday party at a Thai themed place called "Mai Kai". It used to be one of the biggest and best places to go to in Ft Lauderdale back in the 50s and 60s and today it still rocks. Apparently there was a deal going on that if you bought one rum barrel you'd get another one free. Awesome. So I bought two, giving me 2 free drinks later on. A couple of points must be made:

1) A rum barrel is $14 *each*. Ouch!
2) I don't know what the hell was in them, but they were effen strong! Someone said that each rum barrel was like 6 standard drinks. Kapow!
3) I had 4 of these buggers. Boom!
4) I also had a few sake bombs *and* a Heineken. Thud!

I quickly pointed out to everyone there why my nickname is PK. Let's just say that I was incredibly drunk but still maintained my composure and my stomach contents. I swear people were looking at me waiting for me to keel over and die. I did get the comment that I had enough alcohol in me to kill a baby elephant.

"Here's to PK he's true blue.
He's a piss-pot through and through.
He's a bastard so they say,
Tried to go to heaven but he went the other way"

Wasn't I supposed to stop binge drinking once I left Uni?

Quote of the day

My friend said this to me whilst I was talking to him on the telephone. I didn't actually realise this myself...

It's not easy making lots of money

Damn. Damn. Damn. Oh well, I better save up some money for those lottery tickets.

North Korean hairstyle guidelines

Found this link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4157121.stm whilst trawling the net, where North Korea has launched an ad campaign against long hair. My favourite part of the article, because it's just so stupid:

It stressed the "negative effects" of long hair on "human intelligence development", noting that long hair "consumes a great deal of nutrition" and could thus rob the brain of energy.

How the hell does long hair consume any more nutrition when hair comes out of the scalp dead? I'm looking for some "gotcha" phrase. I can't find one. The mind boggles.

A supercharged weekend

NOT! This has been the biggest weekend of nothing I've ever had. I was feeling like crap all of last week at work. I think it *may* have had something to do with my trip over to California. Hmmmm... So I spent the whole weekend recovering in bed. I also discovered cable TV this weekend. Normally, I'd only turn the TV on to watch "The Daily Show" on the Comedy channel (oh, and Reno 911 and Drawn Together). But this weekend I watched the History channel as well and I watched a 3-hour special on stealth technology in the armed forces. Fascinating stuff.

I also spent a lot of time mucking around with my new Razr V3 phone. I've completely Aussied it up. The background is the boxing kangaroo and my ring tone is an mp3 of "Land down under" by Men at Work. Americans just love that stuff, and since coming over here I've become more of a patriotic Aussie anyway. ESPECIALLY since Australia is donating all that money for relief in the Tsunami disaster. Oi! Oi! Oi! (believe it or not, once someone found I was from Australia that's all they would say to me).

Goodnight!

Christmas/NY 2004 Part 2 - Los Angeles

This is where my journey started. Of course, I had the whole LA experience - touching down in the airplane and then being forced to wait on the tarmac for over 1/2 hour until a spot became free, leading to me being a total of 2 hours late.

Anyway, after meeting up with my touring crew we headed off to Venice beach. There was hardly anyone down there (it was the middle of winter after all) but it still had a pretty cool atmosphere. After checking out Venice beach we cruised down Santa Monica boulevard for a while and then went to Hollywood boulevard. Here I did the total tourist thing and got my pictures taken with whatever stars I could. I look back on it an think "what was I on?" - they were only names on the concrete after all, but anyway.

We then met one of the crew's friends. This is what I had been looking forward to all day. She was a former chick from Baywatch - not one of the main characters, but a background fill-in. But she was in Baywatch! She also played a small part in Jerry McGuire. Nowadays she seems to be obsessed with peace and scented oils. She also didn't look as young as I thought she would... but Baywatch was a while ago after all. We met up with her and her boyfried at a really cool bar in suburban LA. After that we went back to her place where we drank and where I attempted playing guitar whilst being drunk. Not advisable! Her boyfriend prepared us some appetizer that had Parmesan cheese and... cinnamon! What is it with Americans and cinnamon? They have it with everything! It actually tasted pretty good though. I spent a lot of the night trying to work out what the boyfriend actually did. He did a lot of things, but I think he was a cook but also trying to get into the acting scene. They (as in, actors trying to get a start) are apparently pretty secretive about that sort of stuff.

So anyway, the pictures from LA are here

It's by the friggin' Monkees!

There have been a few songs bugging me my whole life coz I like them a lot but I don't know who the hell they're by (and I don't know enough of the lyrics to google them). One I don't think I'm ever going to figure out until I actually hear it on some CD coz it's some Spanish song from the mid 80's or something like that. I've just solved the identity of one of the others however. I used to listen to this one when I was in Year 1. Yeah, a long time ago. There was a tape player out in the shed and I used to play this song over and over and then sing it at school. The name of the song is "Listen to the band" by the Monkees. I got it wrong at the time, I used to say "Listen to the fan." It didn't make much sense back at the time, and last week I thought about it again and determined that it must have been "band" instead of "fan". A quick google and a download of the song and voila! Mystery solved.

Today is a good day.

Christmas/NY part 1 - The woman

With any trip, you get highlights and lowlights. Highlights from my trip to California included sightseeing LA, San Francisco, camping in Yosemite and snowboarding Lake Tahoe. The low part of my trip was a constant hum in the background. That fly that won't let you get to sleep at night. The itch in the middle of your back that you just can't reach. It was... a woman.

No, it wasn't anyone I met people, but the one who was travelling with us. When I met up with my travelling group in LA it was all pot pourri. That sweet, sweet smell soon reeked of a sewage treatment plant. I have never met someone so neurotic in my life. I have never known anyone to take so long to get ready in my life (sometimes nearly 2 hours). Never have I met someone so insecure that they would blatently make their problem everyone else's.

Ok, let's set this straight: the girl was an ex of the other guy I was travelling with. But that relationship was over a long time ago. Actually, it was never even a serious relationship. He made it clear to her before she made her decision to come to the US: "we are all going to have a fun time, that is all. Don't expect anything else." This seemed all cool. We were all well into our 20's. Grown-up adults and all. However, she played the defenseless girl.

"Can you go get [some particular item] out of the car?" If you didn't, she'd be in a snoot for the next couple of hours.

When my mate and myself were having a laugh about something, and the attention was not directed at her: "This trip is supposed to be about me!" (I kid you not, she did say that)

Upon asking her if she'd like to do anything in particular, when no decision had been made: "I don't know"

Upon asking her if she'd like to do anything else once a decision had been made (because she couldn't make one): "Well you guys have made a decision already... what's the point?"

Upon suggesting food at reasonable prices other than the McDonald's which was always her first choice and was making me sick: "It's too expensive"

Upon learning that we may get snowed in at Lake Tahoe, something that we could do nothing about: "Well I have a plane to catch back!"

We needed to be somewhere, and somewhere early to get some sightseeing done. Not so! She had to spend over an hour putting make up on and doing her hair.

Obviously, this girl needed to grow up big time. Here she was, on the other side of the world, with the potential to have a fantastic time but she blatently chose not to. Her mood was constantly flipping between two extremes, spending most of it's time at the bad end of the scale. There is a major possibility that this will be the only time she'll ever be in the US. What a way to waste it.

On the trip back to Phoenix, which was the last part of the holiday, she was complaining about the music we were listening to. She claimed that we'd listened to far too much of our music (we were the ones driving). I decided I'd had enough. In a service station that we stopped at I saw a Cheech and Chong CD that looked really, really bad. I bought it and played it. She hated it so much that she forced herself to go to sleep so she wouldn't listen to it. Awesome.

The great thing is that I'm actually having difficultly remembering any more distinct examples of her being in a foul mood - let me say there were a LOT of them. I'm only really remembering the good stuff now... thank god the crap is being filtered out!

Holiday nearing an end

I've been heaps out of touch with everyone lately, but my Christmas 2004 vacation is nearing an end. Most of the time I've been away from Internet access to update this website. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year! I'll be updating this website with what I got up to over the break in the next few days and believe me that's going to take quite a few posts.

Right now I'm in Phoenix, Arizona and I'm due to fly back to Fort Lauderdale tonight. I gotta go now and see if I can find my iPod charger... I think I lost it in San Francisco though :-(

Sightseeing California

Well, I have absolutely been having a blast in California so far. I arrived in LA a couple of days ago feeling pretty agitated because my flight was over 2 hours late, and the fact that we had to wait on the tarmac for over and hour. After that though things got pretty good pretty quickly. We went cruising around LA, seeing the sights and meeting a few friends around the place. I met one of my mate's friends who was a former baywatch babe and also appeared on "Jerry McGuire". That was cool. I also got my photo taken with a lot of the stars on the ground. I think my favourite was one taken with the "Kenny G" star. We also visited Venice Beach and Santa Monica Blvd (for which I played Sheryl Crow's song "All I wanna do").

I was pretty over the moon about seeing some hills around here. Hills - yes, you may think I'm going loopy and in fact I probably am but as I've said before Florida has no hills, but California has lots of them. We went cruising long the coast yesterday for a while to get up to San Francisco and I got a few good shots. We visited Santa Barbara for lunch and that place was just amazing. The scenery was just beautiful - mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. I was just in awe of it all. You'd think I'd never seen the ocean or hills before.

Anyway, so now I'm in San Francisco and I absolutely love this place. It's bloody fantastic! Anyway, got some cable cars to catch.

Hooroo!

Merry Christmas to all!

To all who are reading this blog, I wish you a merry Christmas! I don't know where you'll be spending yours but I'm seeing what San Francisco has to offer in the way of Christmas festivities. Alright, it's been a hell of a ride so far and I have to go now for some sightseeing before I get called a nerd again.

Checkya later.

Ready for the trip

I really should be getting some rest at the moment, but I have a problem with getting any sleep before I'm due to catch a plane the next morning. I have this fear that I'll sleep through my alarm so I'll spend most of tonight waking up every half an hour and checking the time - and that's even if I do get to sleep!

I got this SMS from one of my friends who I'm meeting up with in LA:
"Hey Gringo! Campfire tunes are going to crank. We just purchased a guitar, maracas, bongos and a flute from Mexico :-) Adios amigo!"

The next 2 weeks are going to be packed full of stuff. Tomorrow I fly into LA and whilst there am going to check out Venice Beach, Malibu, Beverley Hills and Hollywood. The next day we begin the drive to San Francisco which is about a 400 mile drive. We spend three nights in SF, doing such things as seeing Alcatraz and a whole bunch of other stuff. I've seen to it that the schedule for SF will be nice and busy. After SF we drive to Yosemite national park and spend two nights there. After that we go to Lake Tahoe for skiing and snowboarding, and perhaps snowmobiling. We spend New Years Eve in Tahoe which is supposed to go off! Looking forward to that. Then we drive to Phoenix and I spend a day hanging around there. I get back on Tuesday 4th Jan at 5am in the morning, and then I go straight to work. Hehe, I'm going to be stuffed.

Right, I better get to sleep... right after I transfer these Spanish lessons to my iPod. Hasta luego!

Christmas gifts

I'm going to a Christmas party tonight and I'm trying to decide what to buy for a secret Santa gift for a woman who has a good sense of humour and a couple of kids. Three options are currently buzzing around in my head:

1) America: The Book

2) Heidi Klum's Body of Knowledge: 8 rules of model behaviour

3) "Has Been", by William Shatner

The Heidi Klum book is just up there for a laugh. I could just imagine a mother wanting to take life advice from a model.

I was thinking with the William Shatner CD that she may have had the hots for Shatner when she was younger. I dunno. Good for a laugh anyway. I know if anyone bought me that CD I'd be stoked (that's the well suppressed Star Trek fan part of me writing that). Plus, Ben Folds helped produce the CD so quality lingers.

I think I'm going to settle for "America: The book", just because I know it's damn good and I think it's a good gift for an American. If she hasn't already got the book it should go down well.

Slow motion day

It seems that today is one of those days that just seems to drag on forever. I've been trying to get motivated to do my work but so far that's taken nearly 7 hours to do. My body just feels like it's a ragdoll.

I went to see Santos Renuentes play last night at a place called Broadway in Aventura. They were awesome again. They have a new lead guitarist who's only 24 but he added a whole new dimension to their sound. It was a really, really good performance. I was talking to the band members commenting on how good they sounded afterwards and everyone seemed pretty pumped from the performance. They're hoping to get a record contract in the near future. Good luck guys!

I recently changed my diet a bit. No I'm not getting fat, not even with the American diet, but I just felt that cow's milk didn't do it for me anymore. So now I'm having soy milk on my cereal in the mornings instead. I'd say that I've been feeling a bit better generally, but I'm not sure if that's a false perception I've set up for myself.

I decided to change web browsers as well. Internet Explorer has not done it for me for a while now so I've been using something called Avant Browser which added tabbed browsing to IE. It was good for a while but I grew tired of it occasionally crashing. I've made the switch to Firefox and I'm so glad that I did. It's quick, hasn't crashed and there is a slew of plugins that can be used. I've added ones to show the weather, stock prices, google image previews, auto copy of text, and a Gmail mail present indicator. I find I need at least 6 tabs open at once when I'm trying to find solutions to problems. That's basically what I do actually. I am the solution guy. If there is a problem somewhere I program up a way to fix it. I wouldn't say I'm an ace engineer - far from it. I just know how to find stuff. Firefox makes my life easier :-)

God that was nerdy. I better sign off now before I do any more harm to my image!

Lincoln Mall

This mall is one of the most awesome malls I've ever been to. It's the premier mall in South Beach and it's as pretentious as hell. Everyone there looks and walks like a model. I'd probably be looking like a kid in a candy store or something like it coz there are just so many good things to look at. The girls are absolutely stunning! Hehe.

Everyone is always talking to someone on their mobile phones because they like to appear just so damn busy and important. When I went last week for my birthday I saw one girl walking around for about 1/2 hour with her mobile phone to her ear constantly. She didn't say a damn thing the whole time. It seems either a way of her avoiding being spoken to or a way of feeling important. Maybe I should set up a phone line that people can call and have some automated service dribble $hit to them (and not your typical phone sex service, that'd be just too plain expensive and, I'm assuming, not required for the ladies?) just so they feel important. Maybe I've already been beaten to that actually. Hmmm...

Dogs seem to be a fashion item. I don't know whether people are following Paris Hilton in that respect or what the deal is but I've never seen so many dogs in a mall. I saw some dogs dressed up as reindeer, some wearing a scarf, some dressed up as their owners, it's all pretty weird. I shall have to get some pictures.

It was pretty cold for Florida today with 19C being hit. I wasn't expecting to see so many scarves being worn though. It's like everyone should've been walking around in an esky. Not to be out done I bought myself a scarf plus some gloves and a couple of shirts and a beanie all for $85. Not bad I thought. Of course I'll be using these items when I go to the west coast coz I'll actually need them there.

One shop in Lincoln mall had me dumbfounded. I have quite literally never seen so much money in one store for items that were purely made for aesthetic purposes. I'm talking about sculptures. One sculpture had me nearly crying because it was so expensive. It was a 5 foot tall carving of a naked person made out of marble. It was worth (wait for it) US $495,000. You read that right. Half a million dollars. I seriously could not stop the tears from welling up in my eyes. Unfreakingbelievable. If I can, I shall try to get a picture of it.

I... am... stuffed...

There are just so many things that are stuffing up at the moment. Things getting lost, things just not going to plan, it's hard keeping track of it all. I've been getting virtually no sleep in the past couple of weeks thanks in no small part to the air mattress I've been using at night. It's something I should have gotten rid of a long time ago because every time I move it makes a god awful rumbling plastic squealchy sound (Ed: pfft, nice explanation mate) that is freaking loud! I can't understand where all the sound comes from. Anyway, if I move during my sleep I'm woken up, guaranteed.

Ok, I dropped my parents off at Miami airport this morning after getting 2 hours of sleep. We got there at 6am and I ended up leaving the airport at around 8:30am. I got back to the short term car park and was wondering where the heck my parking ticket was. I couldn't find it so I ended up paying $25 for 2 hours of parking when I should have been paying $3.

What else? My brother lost his wallet yesterday. I only found this out because I went to collect my mail and they said "Do you know a Joshua Golding?" and I'm thinking "Shit... they found out I've been hiding my family in my apartment". Well, they've probably worked that out already but the fact of the matter was I was given a post-it note with the apartment number of the guy who had my brother's wallet, but they were only going to be there after 6 pm. Anyway, the apartment was empty, I don't know where that little slip that had the details has gone but I have to somehow find my brother's wallet now and send it back to Oz.

I've also gotten no work done this week. I've done absolutely nothing of value, but my stuff isn't high priority anymore so nobody cares. I'm thinking "you're paying for me to be over here... shouldn't you be trying to extract as much work out of me as possible?" I need some of those Mensa puzzles to keep me occupied.

Plus, organising this Christmas trip has been a pain but thank God most of it is out of the way. I couldn't believe how difficult it was to book flights over here. When I booked flights and trains for my family's trip to New York and Washington D.C. I had no problems whatsoever with using an Australian Visa, and these are those small el cheapo plane companies similar to Virgin Blue. However, and I can't believe this, I can't use my Australian Visa to book flights with either U.S. Airways or American Airlines. WTF!?!?!? That just has me scratching my head and is considerably inconvenient for a little Aussie like me. Anyway, it's forced me to open a bank account over here just so I can book those flights without bothering Americans for their credit cards, and as a bonus it allows me to buy the cheap stuff I want to buy off the net. Bah!

72 97 112 112 121 32 66 105 114 116 104 100 97 121 32 116 111 32 109 101 33

Yay! Well, it might not be quite that day over here but it is in Australia anyway and that's pretty much what counts for me. So what will I be doing? NOTHING! Actually, I'm going to celebrate by having lunch down at South Beach and then maybe I'm going to go do some shopping or something. Of course, I'll be having the typical Wednesday night happy hour drinks at the Davie Ale House so I'm looking forward to that too. Yay!

WHAT!!!??? YEAH! OOOO-KAAAAY!!!

I must admit, I didn't know much about Lil Jon until I saw Dave Chapelle do a skit about him on his show. That was a couple of months ago now, and it's weird to find that I'm actually seeking out Lil Jon's music just so I can hear him say "What?", "OK!", "Yeah!" in his or other people's songs. It's awesome. And yeah, my family has been getting an earful of it while they've been over here. You hear A LOT of him being played on the radio... partially because the rap/hip-hop/rnb stations here like to repeat a lot of the same music... partially because he's an East side artist. You could imagine my joy when I found this soundboard. The samples are of Dave Chapelle impersonating Lil Jon, but it's still cool.

Busch Gardens, Tampa Bay - Awesome!

I've driven about a total 500 miles today to go to Busch Gardens in Tampa. Why? Because there are some *awesome* roller coasters there. Oh, and the guy who came with me is going back to Australia tomorrow and I thought it would be a good send off. Here are the rides and here are the number of times we went on them:

Gwazi (old school wooden type) - 3 times
Kumba - 5 times
Montu - 4 times
Python - once
Scorpion - once

Here are some pictures of the rides someone has taken. I'm really looking forward to the Sheikra ride that will be finished in Spring next year!

About half-way through the day we started feeling a little sick because I suggested closing our eyes during the Montu ride (bad idea). Not to worry, a fairly healthy lunch and a quick ride on the airlift set things straight and we were able to continue on our roller coaster spree. I must admit though I'm actually a little shakey at the moment as I'm typing this even though the last ride I went on was quite a few hours ago. Lots and lots of adrenalin got used up today :-)

Update: How could I mention what rides I went on without giving a small review of each?

Gwazi is the first wooden roller coaster I've been on. This shouldn't be too surprising though - before I came to the US I'd only ever been on one roller coaster and that was "Lethal Weapon: The ride" on the Gold Coast. I was too wussy to go on it again all those years ago. How times change. Anyway, Gwazi was bloody fast and if you had a bad back before going on it you sure as hell would have to check in to the doctor afterwards. It was really, really rough. The first drop is what gets me. The first time I went on the ride I saw that first drop and some part of me started screaming a bit prematurely. I had to say to the people around me "Sorry - I'll try screaming at the right time". It's a heck of a drop. Pretty cool though.

Kumba reminds me of "The Hulk" in that it's big and it's fast. Being right at the front of the roller coaster (we got to do this on all the rides we rode on more than once) is something else as it's pretty freaky at the start just looking straight down before the rest of the carriages come over the rise. Very, very smooth ride at the front but a bit less smooth near the back. Nowhere near as bad as Gwazi though! I still say I prefer the Hulk to this. I think it has to do with the way you get launched out of a tunnel with the Hulk ride, rather than being pulled up and then let down as is done with Kumba (and all the other roller coaster rides at this park for that matter).

Montu is an inverted rollercoaster, and it's probably my favourite roller coaster so far. Really, really sharp turns and high G-forces make this a really cool ride. It broke down for a few minutes when we were being winched up on the 3rd ride. Luckily we were down near the ground still though. I think my fear of heights would have started to take effect otherwise!

Python and Scorpion were more lackluster. Python was just too damn short. Scorpion however was a little bit of a sleeper hit. It doesn't ever take you up that high but the turns are sharp and you come really close to the support structure of the coaster so there is a good sensation of speed. This is one coaster I'd like in my backyard.

So where to next on my rollercoaster quest? Well, I may go back to Islands of Adventure and Busch Gardens every now and then just to get a fix, but I think Cedar Point would be the ultimate destination for any roller coaster fan. This ride has my palms sweating just thinking about it. Top speed: approx 120 MPH (nearly 200 KPH). Acceleration: 0 -> 120 MPH in 4 seconds. Ride height: 420 feet (for people back in Adelaide, that's approximately the same height as the Santos building). Jeepers!

Enchanted

To all the people who were going to enchanted this year back in good ol' SA: I HOPE YOU HAD FUN!!! I really wish I could have made it. Unfortunately, due to circumstances out of my control I couldn't be back at this time. Nav, CJB, Ben, I spammed all your phones and Nav I left return phone numbers (the 75225533 number was "PKCALLED", the other number was my real number here in the US). I couldn't call from my Australian mobile phone as my family were using it in New York.

One question I have though: how the hell are you guys going to get home this year? ;-)

Jump

I'm completely cracking myself up at the moment. I just found a really cool synth sound that reminded me of Van Halen's "Jump", and I played along with the song for at least 1/2 hour. Cool.

What's cracking me up even more is the South Park episode that's on TV at the moment. Paris Hilton has opened a whore store in South Park, and the writers are taking the piss out of Paris really well. It is one of the funniest episodes I've ever seen. One really bad/sad thing I noticed during one of the breaks in South Park though - an advert for an electric jar opener. What are us guys going to do now? Our job is to open jars. Men are slowly being replaced by machines. I feel lost.

The mind of a player

I've mentioned "the player" on this site before, and through discussions I've had with him recently we may as well be from different universes. First a background profile on "the player". He got divorced about a year ago after a 7 year marriage. He has 2 kids, aged 5 and 7 years old. He's in his early 30s.

"The player" for the past year has constantly dated women. He has a problem with being alone (as in, not dating) for more than 2 weeks at a time. He has no problem with dating more than one woman at a time, but he will will be honest with his date and tell them he is dating another woman if they ask (and if that is the case). His thoughts on dating are that it's ok to date more than one girl at once, so long as you are honest with them. Furthermore, he says his time is mostly spent on thinking about dating women, and he is completely and utterly absorbed in experimenting with chatting up women and finding that recipe of words that will make them his. He seems pretty confident that he's nailed most of that, and seems certain that for any given night he will pick some girl up. He also has no fear of being rejected, which would obviously help.

I know for certain I'm not that sort of person, but heck I'm going to try and find out what makes the mind of a person like "the player" tick. And I have other questions, the girls who date guys like this - why do they do it? Do they suffer from the same fear of being alone as "the player" does? Do they care/know that they in for a quick and dirty releationship that probably (and evidence has shown) won't last for more than a few weeks? Does it help prop up their self esteem that some guy is cracking onto them?

A nice sunny day

it's about 23C outside, nice and sunny but I also happened to notice the smog hanging about, and then the number of SUVs around with only one person driving. Which bothers me a little. I used to car pool a lot when working back in Adelaide. So if it's one thing I've noticed while I've been over here, it's how incredibly wasteful American society is. It's just downright amazing. The number of SUVs is just the tip of the iceberg. The fact that I'm not even given the option of recycling paper and cardboard at my apartment is another ice crystal in that massive iceberg.

Anyway, enough of that. I'm currently planning my Christmas/New Year's trip to the west coast. So far a visit to San Francisco, LA, Yosemite National Park and Lake Tahoe is on the cards. I'm travelling with a couple of crew from that side of the US and I think this trip shall be nothing short of an absolute blast!

Sports update

On Tuesday night I got to see another Miami Heat game. They lost again, and I'm beginning to think I'm some sort of jinx or something because at every sports game I've attended, the team I've been barracking for has lost. Heat went down to the Raptors 92-94. That was a pretty damn close game and the whole stadium was electric. Everybody was standing up and making a huge noise, and Heat nearly did win the game - a shot from the three point line in the last second hit the basketball rim.

Oh, the college football pics have been uploaded. You can find them here after the NBA pictures. I seem to have more shots of cheerleaders than those of the game though. Hmmm...

Australian Music - pushing the boundaries

Don't ask me how the hell I found this site... today hasn't been the most productive work day. Anyway, here is the link to the site: http://www.convictcreations.com/culture/music.htm.
It only really gets interesting about half way down, but this is the part that really made me laugh:

"Australian men are renowned for having the dancing rhythm of Frankenstein...their lack of rhythm and stiff knees has many of them resembling a chicken or jack in the box bouncing from side to side."

Hehe. Plus, the site's got the words to "Bloke" and "Land down under". Can't go wrong there.

The day I nearly became a redneck

This post is already a little weird from the headline, but I was a little apprehensive when I walked into a barber yesterday to get a haircut. My view of the US and haircuts was not a good one. I don't know where I got that perception from, but it's been stuck in my mind for ages. The barber spoke very little English and I was trying to tell them step by step how to cut my hair, because it seemed the Spanish-speaking barber didn't understand "one-inch off the whole way round". Anyway, I finished with the ordeal and walked outside. I put my hand on the back of my neck and felt something weird... something I hadn't felt since the 80's. Something that I thought I'd put behind me a long time ago. I had a mullet. I looked at the reflection in the barber shop window and saw a redneck. I had an urge to smash my front teeth out and buy a check shirt and braces and call myself "Cletus". I fought the urge, raced back inside the barber shop and said "This won't do!" and got that mullet removed. Thank God for that.

Home sweet Floridian home

Ok, let me try and sum up the Bahamas in a few short points:

- The most rubbish lying around I've ever seen.
- The most run-down places I've ever seen.
- The clearest water I've ever seen.
- The most stray dogs I've ever seen.
- The most pot-holes in roads I've ever seen.
- Surprisingly expensive.

Actually, that summary only applies the New Providence and Paradise islands. I have approximately 700 more islands to visit to get a real feel for the Bahamas.

We stayed at a place called Orange Hill beach inn, and it's run like an episode of Fawlty Towers. Bloody funny stuff. It was a simple place, comparitively cheap, and just opposite a beach that had sand like icing sugar. The people who ran it were some of the nicest people I've met.

I ran into the "Grass? Weed?" guy again. I swear, he works subliminally. I was walking around a corner and he was coming the opposite way and he said "Grass? Weed?" and just kept on walking. I was left standing there wondering if he actually said anything at all or whether I just imagined it. There was also a peanut guy who seemed to be all over the island (New Providence island) at one time.

The Bahamas was in a real mess, but that's probably because it got pummeled by a stack of hurricanes. I got to see a lot of it because I hired out a car and went cruising around with the family. The roads were in shocking condition and I got a completely flat tire, whoops, tyre at one stage plus another one that was on the way. It was also a bit weird driving on the left side of the road in a left hand drive, as is how driving is done in the Bahamas.

One of the ways we got into Nassau from our hotel before I hired a car was by the Jitney service, and it only cost a dollar. All the locals use it and the drivers try and pile as many people into the bus as possible. One of the drivers had a picture of Jesus Christ on his windshield, and he put a tape into a VCR and proceeded to play a Gospel movie for the duration of the bus trip. It was like a mass conversion attempt.

Well, I'm a bit stuffed so I can't be arsed writing anymore. Perhaps later I'll post some pics with some pseudo-witty comments from the trip? Yeah, that's about as likely as me posting up all the other pics I've been meaning to get out there. I must note though that a record was achieved this week with the number of views of my webshots account. Out of the 267 views, 251 of them were from the Fantasy Fest album. Not bad! I'll have to remember to appeal to the basic human (male) desire to see scantily clad women. For the ladies reading this, sorry about that. Your only hope of seeing any studs in my pictures is if there was a guy standing in the general vicinity of a scantily clad female, and even then he may be out of focus. What I'll have to remember to do is increase the depth of field by setting a higher f/stop and slower shutter speed when taking pictures so more flesh is in focus. Hehe.

I'm in the Bahamas, mon

and it's been quite an experience so far. I rented out some rooms at a place called the "Orange Hill beach inn". It's quite unlike the normal resorts you see around this area, but that's exactly what I wanted - to get away from that sort of stuff. So many people come here to the resorts and end up spending most of their time gambling in Casinos. We had an authentic Thanksgiving day meal at the inn last night - it was pretty nice. So far I've seen a place burning down, a guy ask us if we wanted to buy some weed, and some crazy arse drivers. Lots of damage around here due to the hurricanes that came through a couple of months ago. Anyway, my internet cafe time is up and I have some sightseeing to do! checkya.

Time for an update, me thinks

I am soooo bloody tired at the moment. I drove my family back from Orlando last night. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive (the actual time of course depends on if you feel like driving 20 MPH over the speed limit, like everyone else does) and we only left DisneyWorld at 12:15 am. Yeah, the Magic Kingdom is cool and all, but I found myself going on the Space Mountain rollercoaster-like ride three times. It was the only ride there that could appease my desire for rollercoaster thrills. I probably did the wrong thing at one stage by driving past Universal Studios' "Islands of Adventure" and saying "look, there's the Hulk ride!" After that everyone didn't really want to go anymore, and it seemed fairly pointless going to Islands of Adventure after that :-(

I'm in for another pretty full-on week. This Thursday I'm heading off to the Bahamas. The tix and accommodation are all booked but I still have to organise what we're going to do once we get there. oh, it's a hard life, yes :-)

Hats off family (and Arnott's)

I picked up my family from Miami airport last night and took them down to South Beach for a quick drive. My bro seemed to take notice of the rims on the cars quite a bit, and Mum was trying to get over me driving on the other side of the road. Dad was pretty chilled out it seemed. The extra bonus of my family coming over was they brought a lot of cool stuff with them (at my request)

1. TimTams (Ten or so packets)
   
2. Cherry Ripes
3. Milo (REAL milo, the stuff you can eat straight out of the can, not the crud sold over here)
4. Vegemite
   
5. A cricket bat
6. An AFL football

So it seems I'll have to team up with some Aussies, head down to Fort Lauderdale beach and show those Americans how to kick a football properly. The TimTams have been an absolute hit today. I've had people coming back asking for seconds and OMG it's so good to actually eat a biscuit that tastes that good! My personal record with TimTams is 7 packets in 2 days. I did that during Uni because there was a chance to win $50,000. Unfortunately, I never did win but the TimTams were on special anyway and I was only feeling slightly sick for no more than a day.

Weird day at work

I met my technical lead for the first time today. She looked absolutely nothing like I thought she would (well, I only ever had a faceless person in my head like the people who appear in dreams), but heck, it was a bit mindblowing. I've been working with her for 5 months now and this is the first time I've seen her. Of course, I made myself look like a total dumb-ass on several occasions today. Here's to tomorrow and more opportunities to make myself look stupid!

F-A-U!

I've got a bloody FAU (Florida Atlantic University) College football chant in my head now. I'd like to thank the girl (who sounded very much like a guy) sitting right behind me during the game for getting it stuck in my head. FAU got absolutely flogged by New Mexico State, but hey, it was still pretty cool to see a game of college football. I got the tickets for free too!

Anyways, pics from the basketball game are here.

NBA game - Heat vs Mavericks

Wow! I just came back from watching the Miami Heat play the Dallas Mavericks. Heat got whipped, but I did get to see Shaquille O'Neal, which was pretty cool. The game entertainment was pretty cool and the whole place was pumped up so much! They play a whole lot of power songs throughout the whole night to keep the vibe going. It's just amazing how much energy there is going around the place even before the game has begun.

Tonight was supposed to be the big night where I tested out my new telephoto lens, specifically designed for sports and nature photography. There was a sign that said "no flash photography". That was cool - from where I was sitting flash photography would've been useless anyway. I walked up to the guards and they said "sorry sir, we can't let you in with the bag". I said, "but it's only got my camera stuff in it". I showed them my lens and they said "sorry, we can't let you in with professional photography equipment". I was stunned, shocked, and a little peeved. Then I thought "hehe. They said professional". I said "well, how about this lens?" and I pulled out my normal lens. They replied "haven't you got anything smaller?" and I shook my head. They said as long as the lens was under 6 inches it was ok, so I had to go in with my normal lens only. I hope this doesn't happen again. I'm going to get really pissed off if I go to sports games and I can't use my new lens.

There were some celebrities there as well which was quite a bonus - Boris Becker, Enrique Iglesias and Anna Kournikova. Pretty cool, huh? I was able to spot Boris Becker in the audience and got a snap of him. I was only able to get a snap of Enrique and Anna up on the scoreboard as I couldn't find them in the audience. Pics are coming soon (once my slow arse computer finishes processing them :-(

Fantasy Fest pictures - part 2

The non-worksafe ones. Ok, some of them are probably sorta worksafe in some parallel universe, but whatever. Click here to see them in their raw glory. Note: Yes, some of the pictures contain nudity, so don't click on the link if you're easily offended!

I'm a rollercoaster junkie

Orlando absolutely rocked again. On Saturday the Kennedy Space Centre was just amazing. Today (or Sunday), the Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios were just plain fantastic. Although after going on just about every ride there was, and going on "The Hulk" rollercoaster 3 times and the Dueling Dragons rollercoaster twice, I can safely say my voice will not be with me tomorrow (oops, I mean later on today). I wouldn't be surprised if I slept all day through Monday. Hell man, I gotta get to sleep.

P.S. Boss, you were right about the "Chunky Monkey" icecream from Ben and Jerry's. It's awesome!

To Orlando

Sorta got a big weekend planned. I'm leaving tonight with a work mate to go to Orlando. Tomorrow we're going to visit the Kennedy Space Centre and probably kick on to downtown Orlando for some nightclub action. Sunday we're supposed to be visiting Universal Studios, and then it's back home Sunday night. Rock on!

IQ vs President voted for

Heh, I know statistics can be used and abused to make any point, but I couldn't help but chuckle at this table showing US state, IQ and who they voted for. Also, another table showing US state, average income, and who they voted for

Wow

Talk about a trip down memory lane. I found this website that had scans of the original Zelda 2 manual from all those years ago. I remember playing it when it came out, and it was the best game ever. I was so innocent back then that even this picture from the manual wouldn't have raised an eyebrow.

My 'new' iTrip

I got angry at my iTrip on the way to Key West. I was pi$$ed off with its poor transmission range and the fact I had to keep on changing the radio tuning. I guess it's because there are so many radio stations here in Florida, and to give it some credit it seemed to work better the further away we got from Miami. But that didn't stop me from hacking it apart and trying to liberate the aerial.



Hopefully the transmission range will be a little better now :o) If not, I'm going to hook up a wire clothes hanger to it.

Fantasy Fest pictures!

Well, the reasonably worksafe ones are here

Wow

I just watched Senator John Kerry give his concession speech, and I thought it was just amazing. I nearly caught myself saying "Go America!", and temporarily forgot that he wasn't going to be President. He sure spoke and acted like one. Damn.

What the heck is going on?

I'm sitting here watching TV, monitoring the Internet here and I just can't believe what is going on with this freaking election. I'm trying to understand why so many people are still supporting Bush, globally seen as being an incumbent fool. I was talking to some Americans today who I thought were quite well versed with what was going on in the world, and they're voting Bush. I'm like (swear word warning) "what the hell are you doing that for? You're being fucken lied to! Where the fuck do you get your information from???" Ok, I didn't say that but I put it through a nice language filter so they didn't get too offended. And yes, politicians lie - but can you really top the Bush administration? Lying to go to war? Nobody could answer my question by the way. I got these paltry answers of "going by gut feeling", "choosing the lesser of two evils" (WTF?). I just don't understand.

Some people over here have been nearly offended that I should have such concern. Well America, yes, you're the most powerful country there is. You're number one. But when are you going to realise that you're not the only country on this planet and that being number one ACTUALLY carries some responsibility with it? Here are my words should Bush win: The next time that *your President*, propped up by his absurd administration, blindly staggers his way through an embarrassing speech, plans on occupying/destroying another country and alienating many others, and sends many troops and innocent civilians to their death for false reasons - I hope you feel proud. Johnny will likely be Dubbya's butt-boy and we'll be dragged along too. Fantastic!

A pretty standard weekend in Key West

I didn't get up to that much. I got some good sleep on a water bed Friday night but had to have a cold shower Saturday morning. I watched a parade Saturday night. I got about 1 or 2 hours of sleep in the back of a car Sunday morning. I bailed a friend out of jail Sunday afternoon and then went home Sunday night. A pretty standard Key West experience.

...

Ok ok, yes that was the most insane weekend ever and I'm having a hard time both staying awake at the moment and digesting what actually happened. I've got a stack of photos that I took; unfortunately I can only upload *some* of them to my Webshots account. Those photos will be the worksafe ones. The rest are *not* worksafe (lots of body paint and not very many clothes) and I'll find somewhere to post them. Stay tuned! (I'm sure you will now).

To mum...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!


from Kristian.

Key West, take 2

Key West has a massive festival called "Fantasy Fest" that finishes up this weekend, and I'm going to it today, Saturday and maybe a bit of Sunday. Now, my last time in Key West was pretty interesting so I'm a bit apprehensive about this one. The only place I could find accomodation was at a Bed and Breakfast place (that doesn't serve breakfast) located on Marathon Key, about 45 mins drive away from Key West. The guy who owns it is a Vietnam veteran and he was a fighter pilot who flew over 200 missions, so it should be interesting hearing what he has to say for himself. He's also a massive environmental activist who has had no small part in preventing a lot of Key Largo from being developed and subsequently destroyed. His name is "Captain EcoEd" but for some reason I keep on shortening that to "Captain Co-ed". Uhhh, yeah.

Little charger of the week!

YOU'RE JOKING ME!!!

During the time Florida was getting bombarded with hurricanes, there was one guy we all watched to give us the low down on what the hurricanes' plans were: Bill Kamal. Bill was the man! We watched him for hours on end coz basically that's all that was on TV at the time. He always wore a pin-stripe suit and was so precise in what he said I was thinking "now there is a guy who knows his hurricanes!" He was a fountain of hurricane knowledge.

Now read this: news story

Florida just isn't the same any more people.

Le weekend

Was pretty darn full-on. Like I said, I went to Swap Shop on the Friday night. I wouldn't say that the place was Florida's 2nd largest tourist attraction because of the drive in theatre part though. They're crap. We were watching "Team America" on some shoddy screen with a shoddy projector and shoddy sound. Oh hold on, people don't go to a drive-in to watch the movie anyway. Anyone who has watched "Grease" would know that. Doh! Ok, next time I go to a drive-in theatre you won't be hearing about it. Mwa haha. Unfortunately this time I was there with fellow nerds. You can find the best bits of "Team America" on the ads, I swear. I did laugh a couple of times but only at the fact the movie has freaking marionettes walking about, I didn't laugh at any of the actual dialogue much. Hearing South Park voices everywhere is sorta off-putting since I'm pretty much over South Park.

So, the best part of the night was finding that the Hooters 5 mins from my apartment is actually good. It's so good in fact that I've no need to go to the one in Ft Lauderdale. The quality is, IMHO, much better. The food is good too.

Saturday I was up at 5:30am (only after getting 2 hours of sleep) to go kayaking in the Keys. That was an absolutely FANTASTIC day! I was in a single kayak as was one other guy who is quite experienced. There were about 8 other people in double kayaks. We paddled about 8 miles that day visiting a few small islands around the place like Indian Key. It was just such a fantastic day weather-wise. At some points I was in the middle of the ocean, trying to paddle against the currents and when I stopped to rest and took in the sights I was just so damn relaxed. And then I paddled some more. It was hard to keep up with the rest of the group coz there were two people per kayak making for more paddling power, but I did Australia proud and kept up nonetheless. I did find it difficult at times trying to hold a beer and paddle at the same time though. One pretty funny incident was when we stopped at one of the keys for a swim. Two of the guys were standing on the edge of a jetty and had just jumped in when a park ranger came in on his speedboat *out of nowhere* and said "you're not supposed to swim within 100 feet of the jetty. There is a sign over there and a sign right under where you jumped from. Please go swim somewhere else". The amazing thing we didn't notice him coming, he just appeared and he would have seen everything! The guys were standing up on the railing of the jetty for at least half a minute whilst the ranger was speeding towards our general location.

That night I was in an awesome amount of pain. My shoulders hurt like they never have before and I had a really hard time trying to get to sleep. The pain pretty much disappeared Sunday night though and was completely gone Monday. I was expecting some muscle soreness either Monday or today but I haven't got any yet, which is really bloody weird. Something is wrong there. Anyway, I plan on doing the trip again so I'll grab some pictures next time I go.

Swap Shop

(I've got the theme song to that ABC show from yonks back in my head now). No, that's where I've planned to go tonight, the world's largest drive-in complex to watch Team America. Of course, I'll be visiting Hooters in Fort Lauderdale first coz a man's gotta eat. I have to get a sorta early night tonight (anything before 1am) because I'm leaving at 5:30am tomorrow morning to go on a full day kayaking trip in the Florida Keys. Woo hoo! I plan on going to an Apple store after work tonight to get an iTrip so I can annoy the heck out of the people I'll be travelling with. What, you want more Roxette? No problemo! How about we follow that up with some 2 Unlimited and then to cap it off, the KLF. Hehe.

Hats off Bro!

This post is for my little brother: CONGRATULATIONS for blitzing the technical test, the passing of which is one of the requirements for entrance into the Airforce. I knew you could do it! Good luck for the remaining tests that you will have to do.

From a very proud brother.

I forgot

to add this picture to the St Petersburg album. Oops.

Is it really that difficult?

To send my bankcard to the right address?

Thankyou BankSA for sending my bankcard to my address back in Australia. This is after I called your hotline for people currently *overseas* who had their cards lost/stolen. I then explicitly gave details on where I was living in Florida so you could send it to *that* address. How the heck did you stuff that up, after I even had you repeat the address details to me? And where the heck would my PIN have gotten to? Somewhere in Mozambique perhaps?

You really piss me off.

Lucky I like driving

Coz I drove nearly 800km today. The trip to St Petersburg was FANTASTIC. It's amazing how each town has it's own feel to it. The Salvador Dali museum of course was the highlight. I'll definitely be making a trip back there when the new exhibits roll in. After checking out some art I went to St Pete Beach to get an awesome view of a sunset over the gulf of Mexico (whilst drinking a Corona, of course :)

I had to laugh at myself on the way back home. I was getting a really cramped foot from pressing the accelerator all the time. Then some other part of my brain came up and said "dude, you've got cruise control". Shiiiiiiiit. Well, at least for the last 300km I could give my foot a rest.

I was supposed to go out to South Beach tonight. Of course, because I'm currently writing up my blog you can guess I didn't make it. The person whose contact number I had, well his phone wasn't working properly. So, he only just got back to me then. Given the fact that it's going to take me well over an hour to get to South Beach it just ain't worth it. Oh hold on, the guy said he was out with 4 girls. WTF am I doing??? Actually, the girls he was with said they couldn't guarantee they be able to get anyone else in (very exclusive club apparently) so that made it not worth the effort (or so he said... is he keeping them all to himself?? Why that selfish...). If I'd met up with them earlier in the night things may have been different. If only I'd driven home faster. Stupid wanky clubs that I always want to go to. End story is that I still haven't been to South Beach for a night out. That's pretty crap.

ANYWAY enough bitching, here are some pics from today's adventure.
Click me

What to do, what to do

Tomorrow I've planned a bit of an adventure for myself. I'm hoping to make it to St Petersburg because there is a Dali art gallery there. That should be pretty cool. I've been informed that on the way I'll be going through real southern hick country, which should be even *more* cool. It's supposed to be a 4 hour drive there so I plan to leave around 8 in the morning. I have to check if my new Multiaccess card has come in as well. It's bloody inconvenient not being able to withdraw money out of my account you know, especially when I've just been paid.

Hopefully tomorrow night I'll head to South Beach for a night out on the town with a few friends. I haven't actually been there at night yet, so it'll be interesting to see what places we'll be able to get into. There were some really cool places on "Wild On" on channel E!, but of course they're all the really difficult places to get into. And no, having an Australian accent doesn't make it any easier to get past the bouncers.

More little chargers

These little chargers are everywhere, just like the other little chargers I previously posted about.

Cool stuff

I see that the new Motorola Razor V3 (or for more info look here) is coming out very very soon and god dammit, I'm getting one. I've been reading a few forums and lots of people are complaining that it's too expensive and they're not going to buy it and Motorola made a bad business decision in pricing it the way they have. Note to those people who are complaining: YOU DON'T HAVE TO BUY IT! If you can't or don't want to afford it then don't get it! I think it's quite obvious which market segment Motorola is targeting this phone at, and whatever certain people would like to say about would be purchasers of this phone brings a big care factor zero from me :-)

Onto something which is nearly as cool, the Google Desktop search utility. I'm a big Google fanboy and I've been making use of this utility all day today. It's super quick and super useful. I suggest you download it and open your computer up to the wonderful world of Google search. Note that this program is only in beta, but that means that it should only get better as they add more features.

Ok, back to work for me peeps. check-ya.

What an uninspiring day

It's one of those days where sticking a needle in your eye would almost be more entertaining. I obviously didn't get enough sleep last night so I'm in a super-fantastic sarcastic mood. I've actually discovered a few things about myself and others while I've been over here:

1) I really can't relate to full-on nerds all that well. They really don't like going out and partying, and they probably believe beer should only be consumed while participating in a LAN party. I only consider myself a *partial* nerd, and really, I only make nerdy comments "for a laugh". Honest.

2) Some people should smile more often. I don't mean smiling permanently, coz that probably shows some sign of dementia, but when you're walking past someone in a corridor and you know them just try smiling for crying out loud. Unless of course you've walked past them 10 times already today, in which case it's ok to make it look like you just got a phonecall or are checking your messages and you didn't happen to see them walking past.

3) I really really hate walking around public places by myself. It's ok if you're by yourself and you want to go to the sea or a forest something and find your moment of zen (I guess that's not really public anyway), or if you're going to meet someone, but generally I find it uncomfortable. Unless I'm listening to music on my iPod of course.

4) I can't really go out to the tourist spots by myself anymore. I nearly feel like I'm a local now and the tourist feeling I had at the start where I could go anywhere by myself has worn off (as per point 3). For some reason I'm no longer aware that I have an Australian accent so I'm sort of surprised when people say "ooh, where are you from?"

Hmmm, well, I gotta go and do some work now. Freaking Avis are bothering me again regarding my Floridian license. I wish they'd just leave me the hell alone! There's nothing else I can do at the moment...

The seesaw

It really has been a seesaw while I've been over here. I've had some extremely high highs but some really low lows. If you've been reading this blog you'll know what some of them are. Whenever something good seems to happen something bad will happen just to even things out. I actually found some people who liked going out - much unlike a lot of the other people I've met here. I was so glad to meet some other people my age who were like this. A lot of other people at work are either married or in a steady relationship or just plain uninterested in going out. So Friday night was a really good night because I went out with some of the party people from work. Today I was planning on going to Key Biscayne for a swim and to get some pics because I really liked it last time I was there. There is a spot where I could get a really good shot of Miami at night. Anyway, I left at lunchtime today and I had to go fill up with fuel. I got to the bowser and couldn't find my credit card. It wasn't in my wallet anywhere. Ok, maybe it's somewhere in my car. Nope, not there either. I found this really curious because I don't carry my credit card around without it being in my wallet. I spent the whole afternoon looking for it and I can't find it anywhere. This is really bloody weird and also highly inconvenient. So, the seesaw strikes again - good Friday night but that's been overshadowed by losing this card. Bloody hell...

So I strummed my guitar a bit to get myself out of the mood I was in and I broke two strings. Well, I have a few books to read now so maybe I should go do that :-)

How to dress like a nerd in Florida

and you don't even need a pocket protector. These notes are taken from my observations here at work.

1) Wear sporty sneakers. The whiter the better. Sneakers like Asics Gels will do fine.

2) Wear a pair of denim jeans. The lighter blue the better. Basically whatever your mother bought you for last Christmas from the bargin bin will do.

3) Wear a belt. This will not coordinate with your sneakers at all of course, so it can't be white. This basically leaves you with brown or black. It can be pink if you want to suggest something.

4) Have a mobile phone with a clip-on holster to attach to your belt. If you don't, you'll miss the call that no-one ever made to you.

5) Wear a collared short-sleeved shirt. Any colour will do. It is preferable that the colour of the collar will contrast with the rest of the shirt. For example, if the shirt is dark green the collar will be navy blue. It is VITALLY IMPORTANT that this shirt be tucked into your jeans. If it is not, you'll instantly lose your nerd cool status. Plus, you'll fumble around trying to find your mobile phone to answer the call that no-one ever made to you.

Koenigsegg is coming to Oz!

Firstly, props go to Frosty at http://tvrfreak.blogspot.com for alerting me to this. This is way cool. I've always looooved the Koenigsegg and I non-stop dribble about it. It's always been the desktop wallpaper of choice for my computer, and OMG, it's coming to Oztralia. I wish I could go see it at the Australia International Motor Show. If you live in Sydney or are even planning to go there for this, please go and appreciate this awesome supercar for me.

(ps - Nav, that means I expect you to go and take some pictures of this car and all the other cool cars that will be there, but especially this car).

Little chargers

At night these little chargers can be found jumping around just outside my apartment. This one is about the size of a 20c coin.


I haven't stepped on any... yet.

I just blew up a power supply at work

Oops. Credit where credit is due though, that's normally a pretty hard thing to do.

I passed my driving test

Yay! I passed a Florida driving test today. All in all, both the written and practical exams only took 3 hours, which is supposed to be pretty good. I aced the written exam - that was pretty darn easy though. I got deducted 2 points in my practical exam however because I failed to indicate whilst reversing out of a car park. What the? Anyway, I receive my driver's licence in about 3 weeks, which will make for quite a nice souvenir I think.

This is one of the funniest news stories I've ever read

Click here.

My dream job

If you're like me you'll be plodding along in your current job but in the back of your mind you're always wondering what it is you're going to do next, coz you sure as hell don't want to do this for the rest of your life. I was thinking about this today and I was reading my latest computer music mag (instead of doing work - I sent out an e-mail that will get me an hour of free time at least) and there was an article about a guy who wrote the music for the PC game "Far Cry". While I was reading it I thought "Eureka! That's it!". I have always loved music in computer games, even from the tinny, bass lacking sounds of the original NES. I remember I've been in conversations with people talking about such and such a game and I'd mention something about the music in that game being good or bad, but I mostly get raised eyebrows from them. I can remember feeling pretty disappointed if a game had bad music. In fact, the music is what I remember the most about any game I've ever played.

I think this is what I'm going to aim for. I've freaked some of my friends out when I play them music from an old game that's been redone. I love it, but they just look at me weird. When a game has little or no music I'll play my own music to listen to while gaming. Have you ever tried playing Carmageddon to Mozart? It's sounds pretty weird, but it's strangely satisfying. Err, I don't think I'd go to that extreme if were to compose music though...

I think I've found the perfect combination of electronics, music, programming and games. To my highschool music teacher, Mrs Bond, I should have listened to you 10 years ago. Sorry it took that long.

EDIT: Ok, when I wrote this post, I'd just had a very strong cup of coffee on a fairly empty stomach. That's probably the equivalent of drinking a litre or so of straight red cordial, just to put things in perspective. I've come down from the clouds a bit since that original post... but gosh darn, that'd be an ok job.

A bit unusual

Did anyone see the debate between Kerry and Bush? I watched parts of it. I thought Kerry trounced Bush, which I thought was good. At least now people here may start thinking "that Bush guy, I ain't too sure about him..." if for some reason they weren't before. If you're even vaguely interested in politics, you should read this excellent article about the WMD that never were. Yeah, I'm fairly interested with what happens in this election. I think it's because Australia seems to align itself with the US so much that this election is more important than one back in Australia. The thing is, will Kerry do a better job? I really hope he has the balls to make some tough decisions coz he's got to fix up a lot of the Bush administration's "mistakes". It'd be good to see some heads roll in the "Intelligence" community too.

Now there is a conversation going on in the cubicle next to me about how Kerry talks like he has a silver spoon in his mouth, whereas Bush seems to relate to the common man. One of the guys is also talking about how Kerry dumped his first wife for a much richer second wife. He said the first wife was worth $300 million, whilst the second wife was worth billions. Heck, I don't know about those figures. Probably blown out of proportion to make a good Monday morning conversation though.

Speaking of a Monday morning conversation, I thought some interesting stuff happened to me on the weekend. Well, I was talking to my friend here at work, "da playa", about what he did on the weekend. He dumped 2 girls, hooked up with another girl, and attended a funeral. I'm sorry, I just can't beat that!

Friday night was a bit of a weird one. I went to the Bonefish Grill for some nice seafood for tea. Aside: I never ate that much seafood before coming over to the US. Now I'm eating it all the freaking time. I've always liked fish fingers but apparently that doesn't count... So anyway, I'm at the Bonefish and this woman comes over to me and asks me if I'd like to speak to her friend. I thought "yeah, this will be good for a laugh" and I went and sat next to them. Errr, her friend was in her late 40's!?! I travel around to the other side of the world and I still get hassled by older women (some people who know me well enough are cracking up laughing now, I just know it...) Anyway, I thought I'd humour myself and get into the conversation. I did get something out of this though, as I've been keen on going on a road trip to the Carolinas, one of the "ladies" was from North Carolina and she gave me a few tips on what to go see and when to go. So, I plan on going to the Carolinas in the next couple of weeks to catch the Autumn (I haven't allowed myself to get converted to saying "Fall") scenery.

Saturday was just one of those do-nothing days. I got back into playing my guitar on the weekend in a big way and my fingers are really hurting as I type this. I absolutely destroyed some songs by Coldplay, Travis, Nada Surf, Smashing Pumpkins and Steelers Wheels. For those of you who don't play instruments or at least don't attempt to sing when playing one, believe me when I say that when you first try singing and playing an instrument that it's a bloody hard thing to do. I'd like to take this opportunity to formally apologise to my neighbours :-|

Sunday I did a bit of shopping. Clothes are so damn cheap over here! I got a pair of Calvin Klein jeans for $40 and nice long sleeved shirt for $20. Unfreakingbelieveble. If you're so inclined, you can pick up brand name surf wear for like 10 bucks. God damn.

Sunday night I went to downtown Ft Lauderdale for some Margharita pizza at this place I know that makes it good. I was hungry and scoffed the pizza down fairly fast. The waiter came back and said "Oh Sir! Would you like another meal, perhaps another pizza?" Hehe. After that I went to Delray beach hoping to get some good moon-over-water shots. I don't know where the bloody moon got to, I thought it was supposed to be out but I couldn't see it anywhere. I did however snap a night shot that looks pretty damn freaky once you run it through Photoshop. I'll have to post it up (yeah, when I post up the baseball pics). I'm pretty unhappy with a lot of the shots I'm taking with the camera so far. I just can't seem to pick the right spot to stand to take a picture such that it conveys the essence and feeling of the location... ha!

I've been going on a full retro gaming binge recently, and was thinking how I could make my next flight that much more bearable. I think this would fit the bill perfectly.

Gotta go do some work now peeps, respecta!