A Spanish friend of mine from way back, Africa, messaged me on Facebook yesterday asking me bluntly if I wanted to go on an adventure to another part of the world with her and Pablo. It's tough to sound overly enthusiastic on Facebook, but believe me I was. After about 7 seconds of brainstorming, Nepal was the winner. How bad-ass would it be to climb base camp of Mt. Everest? Hellz yeh. Maybe I should take up smoking to prepare my lungs for some harsh conditions?
So far I've done no research into it, but I plan to start today after work. It'll be good to break the Monday - Friday, 9 -5 routine. Albeit the trip wouldn't be till October ish 2014 so there's no need to start packing now.
Well that's it folks. I've literally done nothing else interesting in my life.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
computer bugs
Day 3455: It's been one month since the bug bombs were set off. An aura of happiness and high moral set in with my roommates and I. After sweeping away the ashes of dead cockraoch carcass's we all made a pact to strive toward a new cleaner way of life. But the utopia was not to last. Corruption and laziness has set in once again, I can sometimes feel myself being corrupted and manipulated by the thick fog of laziness that pollutes the house. It's beginning to turn us against each other; now it's only a matter of time until the cockroaches grow in number and begin a second assault. More pressing matters are at hand though because another new type of insect has invaded our most personal living areas - our bedrooms. They're bugs and they live in my bed - I call them bed bugs. They've evolved to to fight a war on two fronts: Animal House is weak. I've tried buying new sheets and washing pillow cases, but even these high tech tactics are powerless to stop them. They're just so bloody fucking small! I just wanna smush them with my bare hands but I can't find them uurrghh!! War. War never changes...
So yeah this is actually pretty bad for me because I can't sleep. At least when we had to deal with a cockraoch infestation we could all sleep soundly at night. I'm tossing and turning non stop because I get the feeling of ants crawling all over my body - I also wake up with itchy marks over my arms and legs which aren't as itchy and pronounced as mosquito bites, but just as annoying. It doesn't help that my room is so hot that I turn into a hyperventilating warm sack of blood at night. I read somewhere that you can put rubbing alcohol on parts of your body to stop the bugs from biting you. Obviously I would never waste precious Alcohol that way, so maybe if I drank more alcohol, then the bed bugs won't be tempted to suck my blood? This all happened after the Germans left. Coincidence? I think not.
In other news, I've completely adapted to the 1950's way of life. My new routine is so predictable you can set an alarm to it (which I do).
1) I wake up at 8:49, press 'snooze' exactly 3 times to give me a bit over 1/2 an hour to get out of bed, then head to work.
2) At work I duck into the coffee room quickly to drink a glass of water on my way to my office
3) Listen to music and hum along with it a bit too loudly until my boss walks by and we share startled hello's
4) Come home at around 5 to find Harry sitting on the couch watching shit TV. We then play exactly 2 games of Nazi Zombies before I decide to make some shitty meal for myself.
5) At exactly 6:00 i decide i'm strangely tired and end up crashing on my infested bed for about an hour.
6) I then catch a glimpse of my tummy on some shinny object and feel sad. Then I head to the gym for about 15 minutes.
7) Come home and see Jasper/Lachie/Both in my room playing DOTA. I join them until midnight and then fall asleep.
Albiet somewhere in there, I do a very small amount of work trying to learn how to code JavaScript and make Engineering YouTube videos. This is actually more productive than you think because I have a small desire to start up my own Engineering website sometime soon.
Oh I should also mention that I've totally corrupted our newest roommate, Tom, by introducing him to the computer game DOTA. This means 4/6 of us play DOTA. We now have a voting majority. Goodbye House Parties, hello LAN parties!
Oh yeah, facebook did this thing recently where they showed you a video which summarized your entire life in 1 minute by giving you a montage of photos you've uploaded or been tagged in. Almost every photo featured someone else smiling in the foreground with me devouring snacks in the background. One of the photos which came up though was a screenshot I had made about 2 years ago. It was a montage of famous people in history with personalized quotes attached to each of them. This was a small artwork I'd made for fun, and I could tell I had a lot of creativity back then because I made every quotation read something stupid like "fuck bitches,get money!". Needless to say I dug up the virtual picture from my gmail and went to the printing department at UNSW to get a copy laminated asap. I now have a a poster of Winston Churchill quoting the line "Bitch, Please". I couldn't be happier.
Lastly, I met a bunch of Texans on the bus back to 17 middle from the City. They were really friendly and asked me where they should go before the start their exchange in 2 weeks. I told them to head to the blue mountains. They were really grateful. It was good reminiscing.
gg
So yeah this is actually pretty bad for me because I can't sleep. At least when we had to deal with a cockraoch infestation we could all sleep soundly at night. I'm tossing and turning non stop because I get the feeling of ants crawling all over my body - I also wake up with itchy marks over my arms and legs which aren't as itchy and pronounced as mosquito bites, but just as annoying. It doesn't help that my room is so hot that I turn into a hyperventilating warm sack of blood at night. I read somewhere that you can put rubbing alcohol on parts of your body to stop the bugs from biting you. Obviously I would never waste precious Alcohol that way, so maybe if I drank more alcohol, then the bed bugs won't be tempted to suck my blood? This all happened after the Germans left. Coincidence? I think not.
In other news, I've completely adapted to the 1950's way of life. My new routine is so predictable you can set an alarm to it (which I do).
1) I wake up at 8:49, press 'snooze' exactly 3 times to give me a bit over 1/2 an hour to get out of bed, then head to work.
2) At work I duck into the coffee room quickly to drink a glass of water on my way to my office
3) Listen to music and hum along with it a bit too loudly until my boss walks by and we share startled hello's
4) Come home at around 5 to find Harry sitting on the couch watching shit TV. We then play exactly 2 games of Nazi Zombies before I decide to make some shitty meal for myself.
5) At exactly 6:00 i decide i'm strangely tired and end up crashing on my infested bed for about an hour.
6) I then catch a glimpse of my tummy on some shinny object and feel sad. Then I head to the gym for about 15 minutes.
7) Come home and see Jasper/Lachie/Both in my room playing DOTA. I join them until midnight and then fall asleep.
Albiet somewhere in there, I do a very small amount of work trying to learn how to code JavaScript and make Engineering YouTube videos. This is actually more productive than you think because I have a small desire to start up my own Engineering website sometime soon.
Oh I should also mention that I've totally corrupted our newest roommate, Tom, by introducing him to the computer game DOTA. This means 4/6 of us play DOTA. We now have a voting majority. Goodbye House Parties, hello LAN parties!
Oh yeah, facebook did this thing recently where they showed you a video which summarized your entire life in 1 minute by giving you a montage of photos you've uploaded or been tagged in. Almost every photo featured someone else smiling in the foreground with me devouring snacks in the background. One of the photos which came up though was a screenshot I had made about 2 years ago. It was a montage of famous people in history with personalized quotes attached to each of them. This was a small artwork I'd made for fun, and I could tell I had a lot of creativity back then because I made every quotation read something stupid like "fuck bitches,get money!". Needless to say I dug up the virtual picture from my gmail and went to the printing department at UNSW to get a copy laminated asap. I now have a a poster of Winston Churchill quoting the line "Bitch, Please". I couldn't be happier.
Lastly, I met a bunch of Texans on the bus back to 17 middle from the City. They were really friendly and asked me where they should go before the start their exchange in 2 weeks. I told them to head to the blue mountains. They were really grateful. It was good reminiscing.
gg
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Back in Aus
I went to the beach a couple of days ago with my German roommates. I went because I wanted to get some fresh air and enjoy the rays. The Germans went because they needed a break from watching episode after episode of a world war two series called Generation War (spoiler: the Germans loose). The beach was crowded, but it was still nice to get a good break. I found out five hours later that I had missed putting sunscreen on random patches of my body. One of the red marks down my back looks just like the front cover of signs - I'm contemplating leaving it in the sun more so that'll look like a coloured tattoo.
Oh, random fun fact: Mango in salad tastes amazing! Not even kidding.
In other news, Jasper is back from South Africa. He payed 8 grand for a 1 month holiday in which he spend 2 of those weeks doing charity stuff. It's good to have someone organize the house again - the garbage was starting to pile up quite a lot.
Now I've been advised by my Uncle and Father that it's particularly unwise to talk about my feelings about my Job on my blog. Buuuuut I figured if any boss of mine has the time to read all the crap I write just to get to some commentary about my job, then the business is probably verging on bankruptcy so I'd probably lose the job regardless.
I've been given a cubical in the midst of an empty office on the highest floor in the Engineering department. My Employee number is 3290498 but my boss says I can move up to 3290497 if I play my cards right. The job itself is a cocktail of interesting, frustrating and boring. I often find that my short attention span gets hold of me and I subconsciously hover my curser over the facebook tab. I also spend roughly 20% of the time doing Engineer related stuff - this is the stuff I really like, it allows me to do research and talk to academics, but the other 20% of the time (60% is spent on facebook) I end up reviewing code. This is the stuff which isn't so fun because reading a whole bunch of 1's and 0's has the same value as reading twilight. Even though I haven't started mentally adjusting to the job yet, physically I'm almost there. I've already developed an ideal cubical slouch with a permanently relaxed jaw and a small breathing problem to match. It's come to the point where I no longer dream about independence and freedom of speech anymore; I dream about having a son who can fulfil the James legacy of working in a factory as part of the ford assembly line - ideally my son would have a slight genetic disability making him shorter and hunched over, I'll call him Günter.
Oh yeah, my computer is broken too so that means I'm forced to be productive. I got so much shit done today, it's awful
Oh, random fun fact: Mango in salad tastes amazing! Not even kidding.
In other news, Jasper is back from South Africa. He payed 8 grand for a 1 month holiday in which he spend 2 of those weeks doing charity stuff. It's good to have someone organize the house again - the garbage was starting to pile up quite a lot.
Now I've been advised by my Uncle and Father that it's particularly unwise to talk about my feelings about my Job on my blog. Buuuuut I figured if any boss of mine has the time to read all the crap I write just to get to some commentary about my job, then the business is probably verging on bankruptcy so I'd probably lose the job regardless.
I've been given a cubical in the midst of an empty office on the highest floor in the Engineering department. My Employee number is 3290498 but my boss says I can move up to 3290497 if I play my cards right. The job itself is a cocktail of interesting, frustrating and boring. I often find that my short attention span gets hold of me and I subconsciously hover my curser over the facebook tab. I also spend roughly 20% of the time doing Engineer related stuff - this is the stuff I really like, it allows me to do research and talk to academics, but the other 20% of the time (60% is spent on facebook) I end up reviewing code. This is the stuff which isn't so fun because reading a whole bunch of 1's and 0's has the same value as reading twilight. Even though I haven't started mentally adjusting to the job yet, physically I'm almost there. I've already developed an ideal cubical slouch with a permanently relaxed jaw and a small breathing problem to match. It's come to the point where I no longer dream about independence and freedom of speech anymore; I dream about having a son who can fulfil the James legacy of working in a factory as part of the ford assembly line - ideally my son would have a slight genetic disability making him shorter and hunched over, I'll call him Günter.
Oh yeah, my computer is broken too so that means I'm forced to be productive. I got so much shit done today, it's awful
Friday, January 24, 2014
Japan day 6
This was my last day and I was all skiied (I still don't know how to spell that word!) out. Just like your ordinary cocaine addict, I've had my fix of the white stuff and now I'm ready to be a productive member of society again. We were lucky with our timing because the visibility on the last day was just awful - easily the worst yet. I decided it would be a waste of time to take a photo of it when I could just as easily screenshot an empty Microsoft word document and show you that instead.
We spent the majority of the day hitting different bars around Hirafu drinking different cocktails and good Japanese beer. I've decided I'm a huge fan of dark rum and coke (Myers Rum & Coke) and Sapporo beer - which is surprising because I hate the smell of dark rum and usually hate the watered down taste most Asian beer has.
We then had our last dinner in a fancy Japanese restaurant which served amazing Japanese food. Sadly I don't know the names of any of the types of dishes they served us except for "Plain Rice" which was awesome.
Well that was the end of my Japan trip. I made a very lengthy and emotional farewell to my automatic toilet and started packing up my bags for an early departure tomorrow morning. 
We spent the majority of the day hitting different bars around Hirafu drinking different cocktails and good Japanese beer. I've decided I'm a huge fan of dark rum and coke (Myers Rum & Coke) and Sapporo beer - which is surprising because I hate the smell of dark rum and usually hate the watered down taste most Asian beer has.
We then had our last dinner in a fancy Japanese restaurant which served amazing Japanese food. Sadly I don't know the names of any of the types of dishes they served us except for "Plain Rice" which was awesome.
Well that was the end of my Japan trip. I made a very lengthy and emotional farewell to my automatic toilet and started packing up my bags for an early departure tomorrow morning.
Japan day 5
Niseko, Japan has been completely white washed so it's very challenging to find anything particularly cultural here. Most businesses here are run by Australian entrepreneurs and most Japanese restaurants often feature a cheeseburger on the menu. I can understand why this change has happened due to such a strong Australian tourist industry, but it's still a little disappointing to see a lack of real culture. That being said, there are still some parts of Japanese tradition/ culture which stream out through the cracks of this white washed town. You still meet a lot of Japanese on the ski lift - and their friendliness kind nature is pretty representative of the entire country. It's tough to describe in words; but the facial expressions and directness is really fascinating feature of all the Japanese people I've met so far.
I changed back to my skis and it's been a pretty good switch. I definitely don't ache as much I used to. The weather was ideal too. Still not perfect enough to ski the top of the mountain comfortably, but good enough to go see a snowboarder stack an easy green from about 300m away while you're going up a chairlift. My mum fell over too and hurt her knee. She thinks that she'll need some type of reconstruction surgery - I think she needs an ice pack.
I left the snow early so I could spend the afternoon walking around Hirafu and in some deep snow beside the hotel. There wasn't much in Hirafu since it was mostly filled with accommodation, bars and ski rental places. However, the walk around the hotel was really rewarding because you got to see completely untouched snow that had been building up since the start of winter. I'd say it got to at least 1 meter deep easily. As an Engineer I had to use my head to test whether the snow was really that deep, so I decided to face plant into the snow directly.
I changed back to my skis and it's been a pretty good switch. I definitely don't ache as much I used to. The weather was ideal too. Still not perfect enough to ski the top of the mountain comfortably, but good enough to go see a snowboarder stack an easy green from about 300m away while you're going up a chairlift. My mum fell over too and hurt her knee. She thinks that she'll need some type of reconstruction surgery - I think she needs an ice pack.
I left the snow early so I could spend the afternoon walking around Hirafu and in some deep snow beside the hotel. There wasn't much in Hirafu since it was mostly filled with accommodation, bars and ski rental places. However, the walk around the hotel was really rewarding because you got to see completely untouched snow that had been building up since the start of winter. I'd say it got to at least 1 meter deep easily. As an Engineer I had to use my head to test whether the snow was really that deep, so I decided to face plant into the snow directly.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Japan day 4
The worst part about falling over is the searing pain. The second worst part about falling over is the mild aching which comes after. Ive been walking around the city like a zombie with one of its legs injured. I started snowboarding this morning but changed out my board for my old skis again before midday. This change over was pretty convenient timing because it gave me an hour to stroll around Hirafu (the city area). I couldnt find much though because the snow prevented me from getting too far. None the less it was still pretty awesome walking around aimlessly while getting slowly blanketed in snow. While I was walking around I found a small little Kebab shop on the side of the road called 'elvis kebab shop' playing reggae music which was located right next to a few pubs - I guess its good to know that having Kebabs while drunk is now an international standard.
At 1pm I had all you can eat Sushi. I can only describe the place as a Sushi go round except without the Sushi train.
We then enjoyed a few drinks at a few different pubs before we went out for a Tapas type Japanese meal. Ive decided that Im going to exploit duty free as much as possible on my return to Australia by convincing (forcing?) my family to buy 2 bottles of spirits each for me so I can set up my own cocktail bar in the animal house. At the moment Im thinking: Vokda, Jager, Gin, Spiced rum, Kahlua and sambuca.
At 1pm I had all you can eat Sushi. I can only describe the place as a Sushi go round except without the Sushi train.
We then enjoyed a few drinks at a few different pubs before we went out for a Tapas type Japanese meal. Ive decided that Im going to exploit duty free as much as possible on my return to Australia by convincing (forcing?) my family to buy 2 bottles of spirits each for me so I can set up my own cocktail bar in the animal house. At the moment Im thinking: Vokda, Jager, Gin, Spiced rum, Kahlua and sambuca.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Japan day 3
I was in line for the first Gondola heading up the mountain. This was a good day to start early because the visibility was much better than the previous 2 days. I went to the very top of the mountain with my dad and ski'ed (am I spelling that right? IDK) to the very bottom in one go. I decided to film about 3 minutes worth of skiing which I might put up on facebook when I'm back in Australia. I've found out that my skiing level is quite unfortunate because the double black runs are quite easy for me, but the trick park is too hard for me. So when I had the chance I decided to trade in my skis for one day for a snowboard. I've never snowboarded before so this would definitely be a challenge for me. This turned out to be a good idea in the end because I could progress through the mountain with my family. Sadly, my Dad had the foresight to film me learning which means he's got a few clips of me stacking which I think are good material for a cheesy TV show.
It turns out that you only realize how hurt you are when you have a shower and find all the bruises and cuts on your body. I fell over a lot. A lot. and even my triple layering wasn't enough to protect me from the falls. It also didn't help that I made the habit of adding a bit of unnecessary momentum in every fall so that the people watching me stack it would think I'm hardcore. You could tell by their indifferent posture and lack of eye contact that everyone thought I was badass. I've also got a small bruise on my nose because I made the mistake of thinking that a beautiful clump of white snow was in fact just white snow. For fun I dived face first onto the clump expecting the clump to flatten out like a pancake and soften my fall - instead the bulge was made out of 95% ice with only a small layering of white snow on top. Ouch.
When I got back and showered up I turned on the TV and discovered one of the best shows of all time. It's a commercial for the hotel that lasts about 15 seconds with the most repetitive but catchy song in the background (Almorox by the Twister Guys). The commercial is put on repeat so it drives you into a happy kind of crazy.
In other news, my brother and I went to an all you can eat Japanese Buffet. The theme of the night was Italian so we went nuts on the pasta. To make it easier to shove food on my plate, I managed to find a children's section of the buffet which had slightly larger plates with grooves in it for separating food. The plate also had a few pictures of Popeye to keep me entertained. It worked well.
It turns out that you only realize how hurt you are when you have a shower and find all the bruises and cuts on your body. I fell over a lot. A lot. and even my triple layering wasn't enough to protect me from the falls. It also didn't help that I made the habit of adding a bit of unnecessary momentum in every fall so that the people watching me stack it would think I'm hardcore. You could tell by their indifferent posture and lack of eye contact that everyone thought I was badass. I've also got a small bruise on my nose because I made the mistake of thinking that a beautiful clump of white snow was in fact just white snow. For fun I dived face first onto the clump expecting the clump to flatten out like a pancake and soften my fall - instead the bulge was made out of 95% ice with only a small layering of white snow on top. Ouch.
When I got back and showered up I turned on the TV and discovered one of the best shows of all time. It's a commercial for the hotel that lasts about 15 seconds with the most repetitive but catchy song in the background (Almorox by the Twister Guys). The commercial is put on repeat so it drives you into a happy kind of crazy.
In other news, my brother and I went to an all you can eat Japanese Buffet. The theme of the night was Italian so we went nuts on the pasta. To make it easier to shove food on my plate, I managed to find a children's section of the buffet which had slightly larger plates with grooves in it for separating food. The plate also had a few pictures of Popeye to keep me entertained. It worked well.
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