and then there's Blake (In stereo where available)

I tried out Wii Fit a few days ago. It certainly grabbed my interest. I would love to go out and buy it myself but I don't think I should. It doesn't make much sense since I'll probably only get to use it for three months.

They finally stand still for a photo and Tracy blinks. Stupid Miis.
That would be me, the thin one on the left, followed by Peter and Tracy.
Have I ever shown my Mii on here? I love how accurate he is.

The Wii board on carpet seems to not weigh you correctly - It picks me up about 5kg lighter than I actually am. Even with the slightly inaccurate reading it still kindly decided with all of its wisdom to put me in the 'Ideal' B.M.I. area and it also gave me a fitness age of 26. I haven't tried many of the training exercises but the hula-hoop and skiing games are good fun. The jogging wrecks me.

While at Grand Cinemas Joondalup last friday:

Have you been to the toilets here? It's like Pan's fucking Labyrinth.

Ignore the fact that I swear too much these days and instead focus on how I managed to get lost in the men's room. I'm happy to see new and innovative floor plans but I don't want to have to ask the faun for directions to the nearest urinal when I desperately need to pee.

Before leaving the house on Friday night I was drained of life. The greater part of my day involved reading academic journals which in my opinion is the digitised equivalent of somebody covering your face with a chloroform soaked rag. You violently struggle to stay awake but as you start losing consciousness it becomes obvious that this is a struggle you cannot win. Then you wake up in the back of a truck missing a kidney. I'm getting off topic here...

I took my tired eyes out to the cinema anyway. By the end of the movie my energy levels had risen so I joined Peter, Tracy, Daniel, Michelle, and Holly for a few rounds of Mario Kart on the Wii. Sometimes I wonder what it looks like from another person's point of view. Six adults in their mid to late twenties swearing plentifully at each other as we try to make our dinosaur, mushroom, chimp, turtle, princess, or plumber gain first place in a virtual go-kart race. We're the coolest kids on the block, that's for sure.


After that rollicking good time Peter and I headed out for a coffee. Disregarding the fact I didn't get home until 3am, it was a good idea. I can never remember what we talk about at the café but I'm sure it is both interesting and compelling to a modern audience. We admired the pattern in Peter's coffee but he assured me that it was probably more accidental than a deliberate design. I do wish there was a way to put a design in the crema of my long black. Until coffee scientists unlock that magic I will keep admiring everybody else's cups.

I've had one hell of a sweet tooth lately.


Suddenly, a large Trifle appears! It tries to blind me with sprinkles as I cut through its creamy outer layer with a spoon. There's not enough jelly in there but it still hits the spot. I should have put the spoon in the picture for scale.

I'm sitting here with some lapsang souchong tea that is ever so slowly filling the room with its disgustingly smokey aroma. I love it.


Sometimes I don't care about being creepy. In my direct line of sight across the café was a cute, possibly sri lankan looking beauty. She was a wee bit too expressive during conversation with her friend and continuously played with her hair but I would not fault her for that. She had me mesmerised for a great deal of time. I guess she caught me looking across the room six or seven times which even I admit is a tad excessive. Shoot me.

The rest of the time was spent mesmerised by Makan's Chocolate Profita Roll Mountain! It was a chocolate behemoth that eventually got the best of poor old Makan who left 1/4 of it behind after stating, "I'm not as young as I used to be". I tried to get a picture of it but it's difficult to take a picture of a lump of chocolate without it looking like a decretive piece of excrement.

After an early finish of a Bahasa Indonesia class I went to the tav with Tam and Marie. I have never been the type to go to the university tavern at the end of the day but I can see how it must be easy to unwind there. Aside from the horrible music after 16:00 it is a comfy and strangely relaxing place filled with twenty-somethings with nothing better to do.


I am often witness to Peter ordering a chai tea at Leaf Tea Merchants. It looks lovely but the dairy content has always put me off. Only recently was I told that you can actually order a Soy Chai Tea. Fantastic! So today I sat down with a wonderfully warm cup of my own. It was wonderful. The full milk version is probably far superior but this soy milk version is all I need... or at least that's what I will pretend to believe.

Today I'm sending my application for work in Korea. Yes it's the very same one I was supposed to send last year before the hiccup regarding my degree. It has been sitting next to me for a few days, completed, just waiting for me to send it to the consulate in Canberra. I wonder where my persistence to procrastinate comes from?

Hopefully the company will respond to me before June but I do expect they might just collect and sit on the applications until the cut-off date. I shouldn't worry about my chances of being accepted because it seems a sure thing. But it is impossible to sit back and not worry a little. If this application gets rejected I'll probably lose the plot and start madly hunting for alternative private schools to employ me. All my eggs are in this one basket.

Lately, everything rattling around in my mind before going to sleep is about preparing for August/September. I make lists in my head and think of everything I should be doing.
Sell:
» iMac
» iBook
» Wii
» anything else I don't need.

Get:
» university degree
» graduate loan
» macBook
» work contract
» travel related gear.

Start living.
It's not too much for a 5 month plan.


Toni, do that face again.
*screenshot*
cooooool
There is nothing quite like the awesomeness of video conversations with far off friends via iChat. Peter is only 30 kilometres away in another suburb but funky lil' Toni is 7,550 kilometres away in another country! Technology is great. Working technology is even better. I wholeheartedly approve of the quality (much better than Skype), not to mention the ease of use. I look forward to one day trying a 4-way conversation.

I can only hope this shameless iChat endorsement will by chance score me a free macBook from the nice Apple people.

We have been going out for coffee for almost three years now. It's funny how our situations back then just fell into place for us to discover we both enjoyed sitting at a cafe and conversing about what is on our mind. Now here we are, still enjoying ourselves and driving even further than before for our enjoyment.

We had just sat down at The Moon on Saturday when I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. For a moment I freaked out (-1 manliness) but then I noticed that it was Tiffy. Running into somebody I know is a notable event because it rarely happens to me. Due to this rareness there is no schema in my mind for the brief hi/bye style of conversation. I think I talk to much in that situation and unintentionally keep the person around for much longer than they anticipated. Whoops.

Today I said good bye to Toni by organising a farewell lunch for us. We ate at The Lucky Shag. My BLT was fine, nothing amazing, and thus I deem it to be overpriced.

I'm always complaining about people leaving (mostly complaining to myself) but only because I am not leaving too. It's a little baffling to think that if I didn't screw up my degree then I would have been booked on that same flight as Toni. Oh well, there's no rush. Good things come to those that wait . . etc.

I am sunburnt.

It was intense. I guess you had to be there.

I love the song Fade Into You by Mazzy Star. Peter introduced it to me as "that song in lots of movies". We didn't know what it was called but through the situational context and years of male bonding I actually knew what song he meant. We have the song now. I always have a moment to myself when it comes on. It makes me feel like I am in my own movie. That may sound cheesy but I think it's the coolest thing ever.

Late yesterday afternoon I donated whole blood for the last time this year. Yen said she'd come and donate too. I liked that idea because she was the one who came with me to my first ever donation at the beginning of the year. It was like completing a story. As I said to her, it's not necessarily a great story but it's a story nonetheless. She beat my donation time by three minutes, damn it. Afterwards we ate pizza. Wednesday night is pizza night at the bloodbank. Give blood, get pizza. I like that deal.

I made an appointment to donate plasma in four weeks. That will surely be interesting.

Today was the first day in three weeks I actually felt like I was on holiday. It's about time that feeling kicked in because it felt good.

Went out for tea this afternoon with Peter and received what I think was 'regular-customer respect'. The waitress was being very nice and we even received a good discount.

Tonight I had dinner at Zebra's African Steakhouse with a few classmates from my Korean units. We decided to each bring a guest along to make it more interesting. I invited Nuala (truthfully it was more of a demand than an invite) and she said she enjoyed herself. Zebra's never fails at pleasing my senses. I had the Stuffed Cheese Fillet: A thick fillet filled with blue cheese and topped with a creamy pepper sauce. It's one of the most expensive things on the menu and it was worth every cent. It wasn't the greatest experience though because they took a very long time to serve us. It wasn't even that busy. We had a theory that we were being treated poorly because half of our table didn't turn up.

Humid mornings make it difficult to clean the stubble from my neck. It might not even have been humid, maybe I was too hot from the shower. Either way one fact is clear - I hate shaving during the summer. It irritates to say the least. These days there is thankfully a lesser area to deal with. This beard keeps winning points with me.

The last few days:

Sometimes it feels weird to always be chronicling what I've done. I went through my archive last week though and was annoyed at large gaps with no information. I like to know what happened in any given portion of time. If there is no information then I'll never remember what I have done. It feels like lost time. Being able to read what I have done makes even the most mundane event feel worthwhile.

Impossible options do not exist. The idea behind them seems so outlandish that the notion overshadows the steps that would get you there.

A lie would be to pretend to be meaningful. The truth would be to tell you I was staring at my moustache when that thought came to mind.

Everyday this week I was goading my mind for stimulus but it was a write off.

Saturday morning I got together with Nikki for tea. That was superb. We sat there and chatted for almost two hours. It might have been longer if I didn't have to leave. As far as flowing conversations go this was very good. It was probably made easier because of the five years of information we know about each other.

I had been window shopping all week and on Saturday afternoon I finally spent some money on gifts. I bought some shirts for myself and at the same time came up with a theory about why the male section of some stores are so small. I took the time to walk around and look at the dismal amount available for myself while Tutti frutti was trying some things on. After looking at everything five times, some of the special offers didn't seem so bad. They had me! That must be how they do it. Women take you into the store and the waiting time while they are in the changing room is just long enough to make a man buy clothes. Tricky devils.

That night Peter, Tracy, and I watched Long Way Down (episode 3). It difficult to like this series as much as Long Way Round but we try. After watching, a night drive with Peter followed and completed this Saturday. I was noticeably tired at the end. It's been a long time since we two men have gone for a drive at night.

Today I had lunch with Yen and two of her friends. It was nice meeting new people and getting to know them. The food was your typical dim sum menu but I didn't manage to eat as much as I usually would. The inside of the restaurant (Oriental Inn) is very plain and they squeeze as many people in as they can. It's not bad but not as good as the other dim sum restaurants I have been taken to. I'm attempting to get some extra time with Yen before she leaves us for the distant land of Canberra.

I've watched a few movies recently and I'll quickly mention two of them.

Babel - I enjoyed watching this but there was something missing in the way they bound the stories together. The Mexican story seemed out of place in the overall concept of a film about language diversity. I was never sure if I was supposed to be paying attention to the children or the Mexican lady. The other two stories held together on their own very well. The whole experience was good but there was a problem in story delivery that stops this movie from being great. Also the unexpected slew of good endings took away a lot of the emotion that it had initially built up.

Transformers - I'm not even going to link it. It was two hours and fifteen minutes of rubbish.

I found out I have to delay all my plans by six months or so to finish a unit at uni. After changing my degree there is one unit outstanding that only runs in first semester next year. It's a shame it does not run during the summer break. There is more to this but I will not go into it because the whole situation annoys me.

Yesterday, after enrolling, I suggested lunch because I'd been hungry ever since we left my house. Nuala insisted I ate something very fatty. After a quick look in the Carousel food court I ate a plate of deep fried goodness from Mandarin Duck. My plate was loaded with all of those bad things people cringe at. The sort of food you know isn't good for you because you can't stab it with a plastic fork without the fork breaking. It was good.

A few people have been a bit concerned about the 12kg I've lost this year. I had put it down to stress but decided (while getting my Hep booster) to ask the doctor about it. He got me to have a few blood tests which came back normal so he eventually agreed with me that it is most likely stress induced. This means that with time, food, and exercise it should all come back. It'd be nice for my trousers to fit snug against my waist again. I look forward to it.

Last night I watched Control at the cinema with Judith and Peter. It's about the life of Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division. I feel it would be a good movie for anyone unfamiliar with the story. I was entertained but slightly bored because I've heard his short life story a few times before. More than anything it gave me the urge to watch 24 Hour Party People again.

Thursday felt like the longest and most boring day ever. I got up, did a load of laundry, started reading a book, watched a movie, exercised, went for a drive, ate lunch on the Canning River foreshore, went to the shops, came home, exercised again out of boredom, sat around wondering what to do - and it was only 15:00! After all of that I just wanted it to be bedtime and to start my next day.

I've started to be a tiny bit more active in organising activities with people. I love Peter and Nuala and the individual time spent with each of them but as to not have them get sick of my company I felt I should whore myself out, so to speak. Only I'm not very good at organising things.

Hands up if you hate hayfever.