Not going nowhere

Photoshoot - Priscilla

2008-05-12T09:22:00.004+10:00

Pricilla is a lovely, lovely girl, but man this was a hard shoot. Firstly, 10pm the night before the shoot she wanted to reschedule, which I was able to do by moving some stuff around, then she had a car accident right near my house. Her car was pretty crashed and I did a massive cool job of duct taping it back together, but we didn't shoot that day. We shot later in the week and she was a good two hours late and actually one of the hardest people I've had to shoot.

I quite liked her and we got along quite well, but professionally, she was quite difficult. She had these massively huge breasts, that's right, massively huge that she was really quite self conscious of and didn't really want in the shots. The breastal area is really quite central to a young lady's image and so the task at hand was tricky. Everyone I've shot so far I've contacted through modelling websites. Eventually when I am Full Of Awesome As Photographer I'll be lending my services for a small fee to the general public, and Priscilla was a very good example of the problems I'm likely to face.

I'd love to say that I thought outside the box and came up with photographic gold, but to be honest, her restrictions somewhat defeated me. I still ended up with 251 shots, which Priscilla culled to 150. We actually sat together and deleted the shots, which killed me, I'm a hoarder of photos, but there really is no point in having shots the model cringes at.

I honestly don't really like many of the shots and struggled to find some for this post. I went a bit bolder with the makeup, and I think it worked okay. She has a great smile which is pretty easy to work with.

One thing we did try was to max out all the lights. It totally overblows everything, which in turn, smooths out the skin. It gives it a slight orange tinge, but could well be something to play with more later.

Wednesday Whingin'

2008-05-07T09:00:00.000+10:00

Why hello there.

Now that I'm officially 30 years old as recognised by the International Federation of Aging I feel that it's totally justified of me to have a bit of a complain every now and then. I'm currently at status Griper and will be looking to advance through the stages until I reach my utimate goal of Crotchety. It's bold, I realise, but I think I'm up for it.

Future gripes may include such characters as; the youth of today, work peeps and general citizenry.

Today's gripin' is titled : The Youth of Today That Sit Right Next To Me Not Quite 50cms Away At Work.

Dear Bec,

I know that this is your first ever job, but here is a list of things that are a bit dodge. You can tell everyone thinks they are a bit dodge by the way everyone kinda always says 'dude that is a bit dodge.'

1.) Donuts, chocolate and Coke every morning for breakfast is gross. You're a little bit huge.
2.) You're a two pack a day potato chip eater. That's some loud muthachunking snackage.
3.) You = Worst work ethic ever. You can't be serious.
4.) Yelling into your mobile at your Mum is disruptive and disrespectful.
5.) Hoping your work will go away if you complain about it doesn't quite gel with mankind.
6.) Neither does sighing loudly.
7.) Getting angry if your work takes you past 5:00pm isn't the usual Climb Corporate Ladder.
8.) You're actually a bit of a slob.
9.) Working 3 months in a row is tough, only 45 years to go.

Photoshoot - Elise

2008-05-05T21:00:00.000+10:00

Elise was absolutely great to work with, oh my lord. I actually dilberately organised a semi-professional model to help me out with posing and various lighting techniques and Elise made things really easy. I've really noticed that the more I get along with the model and the more I find their personality attractive the better the actual images come out. I was really happy with the different lighting styles we were able to develop and the overall look to the images. These images haven't been photoshopped or colour corrected or anything. I did the makeup for this shoot and the only thing I'd change would be that I didn't do the makeup heavy enough for photographic. It hardly looks like she has any makeup at all on. I find this tricky because in the makeup area the light is great and makes everything look okay, but under the studio lights it all gets lost. Practise, onwards and upwards.

Dreamteam - a week in regret.

2008-04-11T00:16:00.004+10:00

I promise I will post about other things, just as soon as I stop spending 60+ hours a week at work.

After so many decisions to be made last week, Josh Hill and Nathan Bock scored very well and rocketed up in dollars and points averaged.

Okay, okay, that's cool. I researched them and both will raise significantly monetarily so it's not too late to grab them, they haven't peaked yet. My new plan was to forget about Bock and trade Tippett (Adelaide) for Hill (WBD). That way I can still cash in on Hill and improve on a 30 points scoring player to a 100 points scoring player.

With this plan, I settled into the week, calm in the knowledge that I still had more trades than anyone else I knew. I was in a very good spot for the very first round of our Broadyboys competition. I am playing Bev, who scored about 100 points lower than me in Round 3. Not significant, but enough to make me feel pretty good, especially since I had chosen badly captain-wise. We made a bet for 6 Crown lagers on the outcome of the match, and while I'm not a massive drinker, winning is something I don't mind so much.

The team lists came out. I still had no emergencies in my backline, that's okay, my backline performed fine without them. Then disaster struck, I couldn't at all afford Hill. I could my spare money confused with my Supercoach, Josh Hill had skyrocketed out of my grasp. At the same time, word on the street was that my most expensive Backman Joel Bowden wasn't going to play. A player down, time to take action.... Goooooo trades.

What to do? I couldn't afford Hill, I could swap one of my emergencies with Harry Taylor (Geelong) who is another rookie set to play this week and make a fair bit of money, but I wasn't convinced.

Instead, I did something that I'm already regretting, something I've never done before. I traded one of my guns (expensive high scoring players) for a rookie. I traded Steve Johnson for Josh Hill, allowing me to trade Jake Edwards (Carlton) for Michael Osbourne (Hawthorn). I basically went against my strategy, all guns and rookies now has a mid-priced player. Both Josh Hill and Michael Osbourne just have to play to make money, and both are listed to play. Steve Johnson was bugging me, he was scoring so badly that he had gone down $40,000 in value, and he had to get 174 in Round 4 just to maintain his current price. Not going to happen.

What probably is going to happen is that he might take a couple of weeks and start getting good, real good. He was awesome in my team last year. Oh well, I can always buy him back and make a profit. I'm not happy that my team is now very similar to almost everyone else's, but I've now got emergencies covering every position, making it unlikely I'll score a zero.

I've chosen Money and Points over Trades. This time.

Round 4 Captain: Chad Cornes
Round 3 Score: 1,919
Overall Ranking: 3,957 of 162,898

Dreamteam - Before the prices change

2008-04-04T19:55:00.001+11:00

Firstly, thanks to Keeks who convinced me to get Paul Chapman instead of Jonno Brown. Chapman scored more points in Round 2 and is looking very likely to score more against Melbourne in Round 3.

I won my first pre-season match, and then lost my second. It seems like everyone else had surpassed me in scoring. I put it down to Port Adelaide playing Sydney with the Cornes brothers being kept very quiet.

My starting plan was to pick a good team with some superstars and some hopefully well-chosen rookies. I was then going to use 2 trades just before Round 3 to capitalise on whomever was about to make lots of money, then sit on my team until about Round 12 (10 rounds to the Grand Final) and then start trading so that I'd have a monster team going into the finals.

My advantange is that most people trade a fair bit and end up going into the finals with injured players. Knowing this, I'm intending to restrain myself.

Anywho, I had to use a trade on Scott Lucas - 12 to 12 weeks is just too long out of the game to keep on the bench. My plan wasn't going so well.

This week I had to make some decisions:

I wanted to use trades to improve my side. Currently my backline is my trouble spot. I put 4 rookies in to boost my money making abilities, but the backline rookies very rarely play. Going into Round 3, Jake Edwards isn't playing, neither is Scott Thompson but Pfeiffer and Nathan Brown are. So I have no emergencies.

The prices of all players are established by their average from the last three rounds they've played. The price will change at the completion of the round - this makes right now the perfect time to trade in some injured or underperforming players and pick up some players that have played much better than their average (or starting price as rookies) and my intention was always to use the full trade allocation (2 trades) this round.

Josh Hill (Western Bulldogs) is set to make the most money in the forwards. Michael Osborne (Hawthorn) and Bret Thornton (Carlton) are set to make a lot of money in the backs. There has been a bit of talk around that these backmen are flash in the pans, and will be out when other players return, others see them as dudes that should be in for the long haul - I have no idea.
My plan was to trade Dale Thomas (Collingwood) for Josh Hill and then Scott Thompson (North Melbourne) for Nathan Bock (Adelaide).

Josh Hill and Nathan Bock are both set to go up in price fairly dramatically. Both can potentially score more than 100 in a game.

Dale Thomas has been slightly underperforming but is a good, proven player. There are many different views on how many games Scott Thompson will play, anywhere from 15 to 5.
In the end though, I'm just not sure there is enough long term benefit in this move. My backline will miss Bock for sure but my forward line is solid and doesn't need to make space for any fashionable player. I've decided to keep my two trades and go it alone with what I've got. All my emergencies are playing except for the backmen and I do expect the rest of my backline to play. It's a gamble, but I now have more trades up my sleeve then anyone else I know which could just win me a final.

I've chosen Trades over Money + Score. This time.

Round 2 score : 1812

Ranking : 4,934 of 157,249

Dreamteam 2008

2008-03-26T12:21:00.003+11:00

Obvs, most people reading this will not have the slightest interest, but since I am organising the little league thing I've been playing in for years, I hope writing about it will keep things a bit clearer in my head. There is entirely too much going on inside head.

I'm going to list my team below. I actually have a team in the Herald Sun supercoach competition, but it is the AFL website dreamteam that is the important one.

In the dreamteam competition you play against your mates from rounds 4 to 18 to establish a ladder. Rounds 19 to 22 of the footy calender then become a finals series until you've got a grand final winner. Last year I was beaten in the grand final, which isn't bad seeing as I know pretty much nothing about football. My only real exposure is through this dreamteam thing.

Since the competition doesn't start until round 4, we set up a little in-house pre-season competition in which we all bet 6 crown lagers per game. I won my first round with a score of 1744.

This is my team:
1. CORNES, Chad
2. MILBURN, Darren
3. SHAW, Heath
4. GUERRA, Brent
5. BOWDEN, Joel
6. EDWARDS, Jake
7. THOMPSON, Scott D.
8. CORNES, Kane
9. JACK, Kieren
10. STEVENS, Nick
11. TUCK, Travis
12. DYSON, Ricky
13. PALMER, Rhys
14. COX, Dean
15. WHITE, Jeff
16. JOHNSON, Brad
17. O'KEEFE, Ryan
18. PAVLICH, Matthew
19. THOMAS, Dale
20. JOHNSON, Steve
21. GAMBLE, Ryan
22. LUCAS, Scott
23. BROWN, Nathan J.
24. PFEIFFER, Darren
25. GEARY, Jarryn
26. BIRD, Craig
27. LEUENBERGER, Matthew
28. KREUZER, Matthew
29. RIOLI, Cyril
30. TIPPETT, Kurt

You have 10 million in which to buy your players initally. Throughout the season, you have 20 trades so you can get rid of underperforming players or injuries.

My overall strategy has been to bring in some very expensive but solid players and then complete the team with a whole heap of rookies. Players have their value change each week based on the results of the last 3 games. Picking the right rookies is essential for me because they have to increase a lot in value, which can only happen if they play quite a few games during the year. AFL teams tend not to choose many rookies because they are an unknown risk. Later in the season, I will trade a rookie for someone very cheap and with the money saved trade another rookie for someone very expensive so that by the end of the year I should have an expensive killin' it team.

Most people who play this game choose a couple of expensive good players, mostly average players and a couple of rookies. This means they'll get good scores throughout the year and can upgrade their average players to very good players if their rookies make them money.

My strategy is that I've purchased lots of very expensive players who I intend to keep all year and lots of very cheap players who I hope hope hope will play enough games to be upgraded substantially. My strategy is risky for too reasons; 1.) I may never make a lot of points early in the year so that I end up too far down the year to end into the finals when my team is good and 2.) if the rookies don't play, it's all over red rover. I don't have trades to waste on swapping rookies over each week.

I intend to trade a couple of people at the end of round 3, because the system changes the price after 3 games, that's the best time to pick up a player who is about to explode in price. Prices are established from their averages (mostly from last year). After that, I don't intend to trade at all until Round 12. Again, a risky strategy as I could very well fall down the ladder too far to ever recover. Since there are 20 trades, this means I could make 2 trades per game until the grand final. This has worked well for me in the past since most people actually have no or very few trades going into the finals. Finals are established at the end of Round 18.

The exception to my own rules are expensive players who have long-term injuries.

Going into Round 2:
I'm playing the team that beat me in the grand final last year. My team is sitting pretty except for Scott Lucas who may be out for 10-12 weeks. I may have enough players to cover him until the end of Round 3, but I might just replace him now and score the big points.
I'm tossing up between:
1.) Trading Scott Lucas now for Johnothan Brown.
2.) Trading Scott Lucas now for Paul chapman.
3.) Not trading him and thinking about it later.

The other choice I need to make is regarding Captain. Captain scores double points, so it's important to choose well.

The Cornes brothers are usually excellent choices, as is Pav but this week I'm either going to pick either Dean Cox, Brad Johnson or Chapman if I get him. This is mainly because the Cornes brothers are playing are playing against Sydney who are going at shutting the top players down at the SCG which is not a highscoring ground. Brad Johnson is playing against Melbourne who were dismal against Geelong last week.

Photographies Number 1.

2008-03-18T23:15:00.004+11:00

I'm going to start posting my photos on this blog.

I've only recently felt like I'm starting to get better. The initial learning curve was big, but for the last year or so I've been a bit stagnate. To be honest, I felt like I've gone backwards. It seems like the things I've learnt in the last year or so have actually introduced constraints that I was free from before I knew, it seems like I can't quite get back.

So, I want to record where I am and I how I get to wherever it is I'm going photographically.

Writing about it will hopefully enforce lessons learnt.

Ideally, because of the below post, I would like to become a half IT guy/half photographer guy so I'm aiming to get to a point where people would totally pay me money to take photos of them.

One thing that has held me back has been my choice in models. I've always chosen models who have fairly shabby portfolios so that anything I produce for them is exciting in comparison. While this has been good ego-wise, it's been terribly learning-wise because it's hard to learn off people less experienced than you. I have no contact with other photographers and am heaps not good at absorbing words via internets. Mainly I've been learningby trial and error, but my photographic excursions have been too few and far between to retain learnings.

That all ends right now. Forevs or similar.

Below is Kat. She's an experienced model, totally hilars and is very willing to share what she knows. This photo is as is, straight out of the camera.

She taught me about hotspots.
I had heard the term but didn't really understand.

Say you're taking a photo of friends on a night out. Looking back, you might notice that their nose, or their forehead or their elbow has a bright white spot on it from the flash. While this is usually okayish, if I'm going to be ace, I have to try and eliminate hotspots.

One way is by further diffusing the light (softbox, bouncing it, moving it further away) and another way is by putting translucent powder on the model. If the skin is a little shiny (which happens quick under lights) then the shiny bits will pick up hotspotsmuch more than the not shiny bits. Powder fixes this.

I did the makeup in this shot. I was aiming for natural looking makeup because she had a casting straight afterwards.

The foundation didn't go great, I put it on two heavily in parts and too sparse in others. Evens Stevens is so the goal in so many makeups.

I totally forgot to contour the face and to highlight just below the eyebrow.

I also feel like the colour of the lipstick didn't fit the 'natural' brief,too bright, too pink.

Things I'd do differently:

- Pay more attention so that the black dress or jacket don't fade into thebackground.

- Think more about colours to fit the brief.

- Make my own dagnam decisions makeup-wise instead of asking my model everystep of the way.

- Do the makeup faster, 1 hour 30 minutes is not going to get me any gigs.

Adam vs Forces Karmic

2008-03-18T14:58:00.000+11:00

For many, many years I didn't do any work. I was at work, I went to work everyday, but I seemed to have picked up a crazy knack of being desperately required by this corporate monstrosities, who then would have not much for me to do. So, for years I entertained myself with so many e-mails, blogs, internets, generally mucking around and charging entirely too much for it. While I continually feel like a fraud, and knowing karma hates unappreciated good fortune, I've made sure my little artiste is fed, housed and supplying the world with so many musics. Being a contractor though, equals little job security and so in an effort to save up some money to create myself an emergency buffer, I asked Cara to work again. At the same time I set up my own contracting company and so plans for the buffer were all set.

Officially titled 'The Buffer Plan', it did and continues to work very well. Lady Karma, though, wasn't real happy with the change of plan. She's not my favourite, instead of a polite 'Ahem, excuse me for the interuption, but could you explain your plan so that I might ascertain whether so many punishments are required.' she got all uppity and took matters into her own hands.

AP started more like normal than usual. I didn't have a computer for the first week, the first couple of months I did approximately 10 minutes of work a day. I kid you not, sometimes not even 10 minutes.

Then, The Project started.

The Project was being managed by another company, who had won the contract by offering a fixed price contract and under cutting everyone else. A fixed price contract means that you get paid for finishing the project (or developing the product) regardless of how long it takes you. If you do it quickly and cheaply, you make so many monies, if it takes you a long time, you end up working superhard and losing money for your trouble. A gamble for such, especially since this was the company's first venture into a project of this nature. I wasn't contracting to AP, I was contracting to the company, and they got me in to fulfill a role I often just fall in to... The Golden Child, the One Who Can Do No Wrong. The peeps at AP seemed to take quite a liking to me, especially since I was quite different from the previous people who had done my job. The peeps though, took an instant dislike to The Company once The Project started. The Company resolved this situation by being demanding and bringing on highly incompetent staff (possibly to replace me with a cheaper version) and 'fixing' the project plan to make it look better. this 'fixing' was pretty smart, it involved asking me how long a task would take, taking my estimate and halving it. To motivate everyone, the company then told us that AP quartered it and we had to produce the goods. Activities were skipped because they didn't look rad on the project plan and I was caught in The Position Of Ackwardity. I liked the peeps at AP and wanted to do a good job for them, but The Company was requiring very, very long hours and weekends to try and meet it's deadlines. I don't think I'm afraid of hardwork, I was actually excited by it going in, but because The Company was truly crap, I started to resent having to bail them out time and time again by working the hours craziness.

The Company clearly tipped the scales too far into crud and Lady Karma felt I learnt my lesson.

After 6 months, today is the last day that The Company works at AP. They have effectively been fired and AP have asked that I continue on to actually do the job required. I am relieved no end.

AP is determined to manage me properly and adjust the project plans to ensure I am only required to work 40 hours a week, I indeed get to live again and work like a normal. Not too much, not too little.

Updatation

2008-03-17T15:20:00.000+11:00

Hey kids.

I am actually intending to be more acer of blog from here on. I know I've said this before, but I got plans baby.

I've got a few things that I want to sort of keep a journal on, so for fairly selfish reasons I intend to blog up. Before I do that I should give you all a brief overview of where things are at:

- Africa is north of Antartica. Not so relevant, but that's where that is.
- Been the busiest ever, overwhelmingly so.
- Work has still be craziness, I was hoping to get fired at one point so I could just walk away, but they've sorted themselves out.
- While work was an idiot. I started a makeup course to complement my almost, nearly starting photography business. It has 12 contact hours and assignments and required practise hours - freakin' me out a bit.
- We're going to Brisbane on Thursday night and meant to organise a nerdfest... except I'm the most unorganised ever, we don't even have accomodation yet.
- Photography has been going okay, but it seems like the more I learn, the harder it all gets.
- Cara's band has been doing her head in. The've mastered their album but no one wants to tour or fund good artwork.
- To compensate, Cara has this week been creating a new band. A nine piece where everyone swaps around and different people feature in different songs. She is the boss.
- I still haven't got my contracting company good. My Dad is coming over tonight to beat it up a bit.
- For many years I've been in something called an AFL Dreamteam competition. It's where you pick players who play the game of football, and if they do good things you get points. With those points you want to beat the points your friends got. If we are feeling confident, we bet beers. The day of the AFL Grand Final we all get together and receive the beers we won and give out awards for hilarious bagging e-mails throughout the season. This year, I'm organising the whole thing so I might be blogging my team and the challenges so I can recap at the end of the year.
- I want to take more random ace photography photos, so hopefully this blog will do many motivates.

It is I, Adam, The Not Smart

2008-01-14T01:10:00.000+11:00

Why hello there,

I've been at work for approximately 17 hours. Can I make it to 24 hours straight? Only time will tell...

Adam the photogs.

2008-01-11T14:45:00.000+11:00

Here is my photography portfolio. It's on another website, but if you're ever interesteds, this is where you can see where I'm at (photographing-wise, not location). Since I'm really still very much learning the whole bizzo, I'd be totally interested in any shots you way hate or don't mind.

http://www.modelmayhem.com/pics.php?id=569683

I'm surprised Chester Copperpot didn't get further than he did. Didn't really put his back into it...

2008-01-08T09:24:00.000+11:00

I read this meme over at Enny's and I liked it, so I thought I'd give it a go - a retrospective on 2007.

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?
Um, nothing.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next this year?
Nup, ummm, nup.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
I dunno.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Probs not.

5. What countries did you visit?
None.

- Meme after one proton energy pill giving me the strength of 20 tigers for a period of 20 seconds -

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?
Actually made and saved monies. Has honestly never really happened before apart from that 4 months of my first job when I was still living at home with parentals or similar.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next this year?
My new years resolutions for 2007 were to become 8% more hilarious and eat 32% more vegtables. It was a tough year and they were hardcore resolutions. During the year I peaked at a hilarious rating of 13% up on the previous year and at times also slumped to a rating of -4% on the previous year. The average ended up being a rise of 7.89% on the previous year - which is an improvement to be proud of, but not exactly the result I was looking for. The vegtables one I failed dismally purely because a large portion of 2006 I was living in Brisbane by myself and the usual nightly meal I would prepare was a mountain of meat and vegtable heaped on a plate. Early in 2007 I moved back to Melbourne and had normal person meals that incorporated more than 2 types of food groups, but meant that the actual quantity of vegtables dropped...

My resolution for 2008 is to have 6% more fun and make 12 more friends than I had in 2007.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not superclose no, I wasn't standing next to a single person in 2007 who dropped a childs on my shoes. One of my good friends' wife (can't believe I know married dudes) kidded up on the 3rd of Jan 2008, does that could as 2007?

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Well, actually, yes. For the first time ever someone I was good friends with died while he was in London. He was totally fine, then got sick one night, fell into a coma and died a fair bit later. It was quite an emotional rollercoaster, especially when word got around that he had died, then we found out that was incorrect, then a day later he did.

There was also little Chester, which one ARC still misses him terribly.

5. What countries did you visit?
Totally none. 2007 was a building of finances and businesses year.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
Not excited about any products or services, I feel I've got all the toys and essentials I need. Wouldn't say no to a hoverboard. Freakin' abs.

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
July 1 - my company starts operating and my life instantly improves.
April 22 - my birthday and Cara organised a nice thing that was nice.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Moved house twice but only totalled a random dude's car once - actually, that wasn't even me, it was Caras. Um, I must have achieved something big, um, I didn't unleash any plagues onto mankind, I didn't build the tallest building, I didn't acquire any TVs and surround sound that would transform my place into suburbia, I didn't acquire a single henchman the entire year. Maybe I can achieve something this year, ie, an army of legs with nasty kicking shoes.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I didn't get all the golden coins from One-Eyed Willy's Ship in the cave. I mean, I did grab some gems in my marbles bag, but to be honest, I didn't exactly take advantage of the situation.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
The RSI was definitely my biggest concern and 2007 was the year that I tried to punch it right in the top of hands. Unfortunately I was completely unsuccessful and currently quite discouraged. I still have options but I'm just not emotionally ready to tackle it again just yet.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A new company to call my own. I'm now not lining any of the pockets of the man and wish I had done it years ago (although I wouldn't have appreciated it as much if I had). All my contracting goes through my own company that I'm also setting up to be a management company for others. I totally done with so many peeps making money for nothing off contractors who don't work very hard at all. I intend to run them all broke by charging just enough to cover costs. Cara was also able to contract through my company which meant I could totally buy my employee a laptop which was a super ace macbook that she's been music'ing up a storm with. Also iRiver X20 - musics and TVs in my pocket - makes me the non-boredest ever - may hev forgatten how to read.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Into this and this and food, movies, rent.

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I'm not sure I did in 2007, maybe about the first two links in question 12.

14. What song will always remind you of 2007?
Anything from the divinyls, who we saw at the Forum, anything from Midnight Juggernauts or Plastic Palace Alace.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happier
b) thinner or fatter? Fatter
c) richer or poorer? Richer

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?
In 2007, I don't really have any regrets at all. It wasn't the most exciting year at all, but it was pretty important to buckle down and earn up - the difference in stress levels at the start of the year to the end of the year was huge.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Work with goofs, doofs and crazies... but there isn't a lot I could do about that. Apart from skitzing out and leaving, you can't do a whole lot choosing who to work with.

18. How did you spend Christmas?
If you scroll down a littles, you can probably read so many words on this very topic. If you can't be bozed, so many family things.

19. Did you fall in love in 2007?
I'm pretty much always falling in love with inanimate objects, animate objects, peeps, pets, clouds, rocks and foods, but yes, I find myself falling for young Caras on a fairly regular basis - damn unmanly emotions!

20. What was your favorite TV program?
2007 was the year of Scrubs. I had never seen an episode before and have now watched all 6 seasons.. Season 5 twice...

21. What was the best book you read?
No real standouts for me, I read million (or poss. a billion) books earlier in the year, but I didn't become a Ravey Rave McRavey holding bazookas to dudes and chicks heads/genitals demanding they read any particular collection of fictional or pretty true words bound by human skin or similar. Shame.

22. What was your favorite film of this year?
Transformers. I'd say "Surprisingly good".

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I totally turned 29, it felt like such a lame age to be turning. It's totally like getting second place in a schoolyard sprint. What's the point, really? If I saw 29 in the street, and I was driving, and had some mates in the car so no one would beat me up and the lights were green, I'd totally yell out the window at 29. Cara organise a nice dinner with friends that inlcuding gorging on meat and meat related desserts. It was grand.

24. What kept you sane?
The simple fact that I'm way better at skateboarding than old people who live in nursing homes in countries where concrete is banned. Unfortunately, I am worse at most things than most people including arts and crafts and playing the guitar.

25. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Bumblebee, Ironhide, Jazz...

26. Who did you miss?
29, if he ever crosses the road, I won't miss again... Also good friends of mine who think I'm ace but went overseas anyway. Selfish.

27. Who was the best new person you met?

Since our friend Mich is totally single in the sea of coupledom, she's made some new friends who are superfun. There is a whole gang of them and we very much enjoy their company. It's grouse finding whole new gangs of friends. They haven't heard my jokes before.

Was there totally a mouldy bit on my breakfast burger? That's not good.

2008-01-05T08:16:00.000+11:00

Dan's 30th birthday - A Dude's Review.

Dan's 30th birthday started at 9:30pm on Friday the 4th of January 2008 at the pub called Transport at Federation Square in the city of Melbourne.

Unfortunately this reviewer arrived much later than the start time in the hope that the heavy drinkers in the group may have achieved an uncatchable alcolholic lead. He had also imagined that he would arrive instantly, completely forgetting to allow for travel time and the 'does public transport even exist these days, if so, in what manner' moments.

Therefore the Dude's Review will begin from approximately 10:30pm:

Venue: Beer = expensive , lighting = good, view = river, staff = quick. 'Transport' is probs a better name than 'Walking Quickly', 'Bus' or 'to carry, move, or convey from one place to another'.

Venue Patrons: Full of yupogans.
2 parts yuppie, one part bogan, these dudes wear designer t-shirts, spend all not-working time at the gym, have textured hair and expensive mobies but still seem dumber than a box of rocks.

As I approached the venue, the doorman/massive beefster of bounce, gave me the obligatory 'hey, how you doin', welcome to our lovely establishment, come right in and we'll look after you'/grunt-nod. I was nervous, I used to hang with these homies every Friday & Saturday night for most of my pre and early 20s. Adventures had been plentiful, jokes had been in, laughs and also playstations had been loud, but I hadn't seen any of them for years, which was my fault and knew I'd cop a hard time about. What if they had changed into balding, fatcats who spoke mainly of investment schemes and private schooling for childs?

Of course, I am idiots because once I found all the tall dudes of lank in the room, curse my normal person height, they were all exactly the same as the olden days, with slight variations in haircuts and shoewear. Although, some of the dudes have bought or are looking to buy property. Huh? Since when does turning 30 mean growing up? Property owners are usually only barons who charge the serfs too much for toiling the land. Anywho, the dudes weren't so keen for drunkeness like I remember, but that was cool seeing as I am at work right this very second 'n' all. Dan had a good birthday, but for a dude who was usually out cold, sleeping in a mate's brother's car before midnight most parties, he was quite the normal. I did a bit alright with the catching up, and the excuses for non attendance of anything for years, and the getting past the ackward gap of all the big things being spoken of to bring yo convo to the small important things of fun.

All in all, I give this event a 7. Could have used more adventures/accidental hilarity.

Cherry Ripes should be longer

2008-01-03T16:35:00.000+11:00

Hi kids, I have been the Slack of Blog, and it's because my head has been buzzing with so many things that I haven't been able to chuck any single thought onto internet paper and thusly have brought nothing to the interwebs.

I guess the second reason is that my boss of work is so houndingly that I don't really have many spare, non-interuptive, blog moments.

Anywho, hi. Cara and I came back from working at the Falls Festival for New Years. I don't reckon I've ever had such an understated midnight. The headlining band, Kings of Leon, did a quick 10, 9, 8, at 11:56pm and then quickly continued with their rocking and their rolling. We did the pash, hugged our new friends and then it was all done. We were exhausted, working at Falls was probably the hardest, longest, most frantically I've ever worked in my life and the hot days were hardcore, with little respite. That said, I've come out the other end, super content and planning to do it all again next year armed with hindsight aplenty.

Christmas was actually ok. For the last few years it gives me an almost unbearable stress that makes me want to hide away from the world for two days. I think I don't cope with the way that it becomes Not About Me, or more specifically, all about what totally old dudes and chicks want. I was especially getting anxious because I've been having totally no days off from work, and was all set to spend precious, precious freedom sitting on various couches at various places waiting for hours until it was the socially acceptable time to leave.

There were four family things; the first one was with my Dad, his partner and his new, tiny little childs, my sister and Cara at Yum Cha in the city. My sister was all eye-rolling when the little childs came along, I think she wanted Dad's attention all to herself, but having the kids there meant that the whole thing was wrapped up in an hour. It is hard to converse when kids are stabbing things with chopsticks, but I was cool with that, talking is totally overrated.

The second thing was lunch at my Mum's place. I was totally not looking forward to it because my Mum used to be a bit of a psycho. She's totally been alright the last few years, but 34 million times bitten, twice shy, etc. It was cool though, she cooked many foods (usually I have to grab something to eat on the way there and the way back), the convo was tension free and it was actually kinda fun. Whooo! Cara and I escaped just when it looked like they wanted to settle in for the afternoon so we had totally gotten out while everything was still sweet.

The next two things were Cara's things. I'm usually not a massive fan of these things either, mainly because they usually go for 10 hours and once everyone has done the appropriate small talk with me, I'm usually discarded by all - which is fair enough, why small talk a non-blood when you can hang with your cuz who used to be your very best friend until they moved interstate (for example). It's a huge cliquey family. This year though, I actually had an alright time, we were still there from 10am to 6pm which is crazy long and a bit boring, but obvs I've been in the family long enough to be in the gang now and there were some family peeps that didn't have their usual gang there so they hung with me instead. Cara's family things are Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Christmas Day was the long one, Boxing Day is usually harder as the family numbers got from 20 to 40 and the dudes I should hang out with are super occa/boring. Luckily, Cara also felt a bit out of place, we got outta there after the appropriate time so we could live LIVE! Boxing Day had a few more family peeps that are falling out of the clique these days, so I had friends again, it was cool.

The other thing I don't really like about Christmas is presents. I find it a bit frustrating because we all have monies to buy things that we like, and the peeps I should buy things for I don't know well enough, so everyone gives each other random token things that nobody likes. It just seems silly to me. Anywho, Cara is one unemployed bum right now, so she did it all. WHOAAA! How much does she rock? So much!

So, that was rad also, giving this Christmas the highest rating since I was 11 years old: 7.5

Interviewed like just another scraggly celebrity

2007-12-06T08:23:00.000+11:00

Young Enny has been kind enough to fire questions at me on the topics facing Australia's kindayouth:

1. What was one of your past jobs, what is your current job, and whatis your realistic dream job?

At one stage I was a candle wrapper, at another I was a rollerblade pamphlet guy and at another I was a podium gogo dancer but mostly I've been a computer dude extraordinaire. My continued Not Being Found Out As A Massive Fraud can be mostly attributed my ability to talk a whole lot of possibly legitimate sounding guff and me constantly telling people I'm a terrible IT guy. No other IT contractor I know talks themselves down with such gusto for fear of never being employed again, but I find it lowers expectation so much that if I do happen to accidentally do something correctly everyone is impressed. Mostly, permanent staff are out to highlight the limitations of any contractor so as to not be outshone, I've never had that problem.

As the pages of this blog may have noticed, I do have RSI in both my hands from computering, which means they ache pretty much all the time. I'm very much looking to get out of the computer industry, but I'm finding it hard to jump into something else without going back to uni to type so many essays, and I'd struggle cashola-wise. My currently plan is to improve my photography skills, find a niche market and reduce the computering to two or three days a week. Pretty much any dream job is one where I get to hang out with cool people who make me laugh.

2. If you weren't living in Melbourne, where do you think you would be living?

Apart from the Caras, there isn't anything keeping me in Melbourne. I totally think I could live in so many worldly places and would very much like to try my hand at living wherevs. Unforts Cara's band is very much keeping her in Melbourne, but once they start touring I would very much like to go with them. Could be fun.

3. If you were to have three bloggers for dinner, who would they be, what would you serve and what would y'all talk about?

Hmm, obvs I've got my favourite fun friends who I had many funtimes with in Brisbane, but to choose different people I'd probably go with IOYC, That's Mister Nora To You Sonny and Jobe. I think that would be superfun. I can't really say I'd know what we'd talk about, I assume many tangents, however I think the main topic of conversation would be my kickin' skills of serving, my massive food on a plate and my fairly okayish haircut. Yeah, probably it would accidentally get steered to topics about me until my guests cracked it, left and staged a rival dinner party with even bigger kickin' skills of serve and more massiver food on a plate. Then I would be sad/eternally seeking revenge.

4. Do you think you and the little red rockstar will be wed one day?What the LEAST likely way the proposal and wedding would go down?

We have quite decided to never, ever do the marrying for reasons thusly; not excited, monies could be spent on funner things. Cara does get jealously of friends at times, but when we do think about it, we'd much rather put that same cash towards recording an album or travelling. Both our sets of parents are quite supportive of our decision which is nice. It they disagreed it wouldn't change my mind at all, but would make family gatherings more awkward than they already are.

So, since anyway is the least likely, I'm going to push the envelope further and say that even leaster is us arriving in a cavelcade of white BMWs. Cara jumps out in tracky daks and a mexican poncho while her bridesmen rock down the aisle first in brilliant white dresses and trains. Not one but nine priests are presiding over this marriage in the Vatican while my divorced parents stand next to each other good naturedly chatting about how each wronged the other. My sister is arm in arm with my grandfather who she recently married herself. I conduct all my parents solemly and with respect while Cara continuing cracks jokes until her Mum runs up and piledrives her into the altar. The crowd claps and the Wiggles perform the leaving church bit.

5. Where do you see yourself at age 35?

Like totally carrying amps off a stage in Norway after taking awesome freakin' photos of the bands. Possibly with a crazy cool handlebar mustache that joins with my sideburns and goes around the back of my head like a sunglasses band.

Now it's your turn. If you want to be interviewed, leave me a commentincluding the words "Interview me." I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions. If you don't have a validemail address on your blog, please provide one. You will update yourblog with a post containing your answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in thesame post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will askthem five questions.

2007-11-24T14:46:00.000+11:00

C'Mon Not John Howard, you can do it!! This wait/weight is killing me!!

If JH gets back in, I'm moving to freakin' Switzerland.

I freaked out this morning because the internet at work was down and I still couldn't figure out the best voting strategy to get me what I wanted. I basically want JH out but I always want the Greens to have superawesome powers, after all, is a strong economy really that good if the country ends up being underwater? I would happily go through a whole heap of recessions if I had some confidence we were doing our best not to kill every living thing and I'm very sure that putting effort and monies into better sources of energy would drive employment anyway, changing everything has a habit of creating so many jobs.

So, I want JH out and KR in, but with the Greens ready to beat up dudes and chicks who were playing silly buggers. I'm a bit frightened that the ALP might not get the exact seats they need to take over government, but I freaked and panicked and voted the Greens in both bits of paper. I figured that since it was close, people might not vote for the Greens and they'd be left beind. If the ALP didn't get in I wanted Bob Brown to have many powers instead. I just did on over the line too, and I now think I should have done the 1-68 thing to ensure the Coalition were at the bottom. So, yes, I'm slightly wracked with non-preparedness despite having a kabillion years to look this stuff up.

C'MONNNNNNNNN!!!!

2007-10-30T10:25:00.000+11:00

Facebook is ruining everything.

Here is a list of things I'd be good at it if it wasn't for facebook:

- Making photos superawes in Adobe Photoshop.
- Writing blogs.
- Having freakin' abs.
- Stacking and unstacking the dishwasher.
- Doing fitnesses.
- Organising photoshoots.
- Going to random gigs spontaneously.

Instead, here is a list of things I'm currently good at:

- Beating up hobos.
- Training and then fighting once a day.
- Having armies kill me good by Heroes with more time on their hands than me.
- Buying and trading virtual people.

If I calculated the hourage of facebookness I'd be appalled. I could have all sorts of mad skillz otherwise. Obvs, I'm aware this isnt' actually facebook's fault. If I had like, strength of character, determination, massive hair this all wouldn't be a problem.

Tonight I'm totally going to delete all those little applications and just leave the wall and photos. This is my pledge to you internetz.

bike bike bike bike

2007-10-29T16:58:00.000+11:00

Today was Radical Day as for the first time ever I rode a bicycle into work. Craziness. I've been riding my motorbike to work ever since I bought it, but I've still been jealous of the bicycles squeezing past the impossible and singing with butterflies while I've been muttering MMM Delicious at so many exhausts.

From the city to Northcote there are a few bike tracks and super sneaky ways to avoid the main roads. Cara got her bicycle out last week and loved it, so I thought I'd give it a burl today.
Since my job is All Perception No Substance I like to get there earlier than most, this was doubly important as some dude told me the Totally Secret Bike Shed of Mystery fills up pretty early. So, I left the house this morning armed with Cara advice and directions. On the obvious bits Cara's advice was all 'Follow the other bikes'. Obvious, ha!

I set out at first light (not really) and met my first travel companion a few hundred metres from my house, a lanky old gentleman attired in an ill-fitting business suit and a old-fashioned helmet. Across the lights we acquired a new travelling companion, a flashy lycra'd speed dude with a racer. Following my new friends I went gaily into Uncharted Territory. The Business Suit was flying ahead and Flashy couldn't touch him but was totally pulling away from me. Not to lose my guiding stars, I tried a little harder, my totally unused and newly WD-40 drenched bicycle slipping on each rotation.

I went along the Bridge Of Cara Fear, it was fun.

I caught up to my friends, as they slowed to traverse a tricky bit/fork in the path and then one went left and the other went right.

Um.

I didn't plan for this.

Old Business Suit went right that went under a train station. Flashy went left. The tunnel under the train station had confused Cara in the olden days last week and so I thought it was the way home but not the way to the city. So I turned around to follow Flashy - who was gone. Everyone was gone, grrrr my indecision. I checked the signpost. Left = 8kms to Southgate. Right = 8kms to Southgate.

The path was lovely. It followed the Yarra and it wasn't long before I realised Cara had never descibed Even Scarey Wooden Bridges and lovely trees, but I thought maybe I singlehanded invented a brand new way.

20 minutes pass. I am rooted. So many hills. So many not curvy paths of not really going in the direction I hoped.

5 minutes. Signpost = 14kms to Southgate. If I had energies, what the?

After freakin ages I get to a staircase. Not really what I was after. Scenary is still lovely though.
Struggling with carrying the bike up so many stairs, I see another dude who wheels his bike up the side, smart. In so many huffs and puffs I ask him which way to the city. Continue on the scenic path or go down this street which I reckon leads to Punt Rd? Either way he says, want to go along the river? Why not I reckon, come this far. Heading over a new bridge, I follow my new best friend who soon leaves me for dust, and on a path soon headed well away from where I want to go. So. I do some abandonment. Head back and get onto Punt Rd, swap the trees and tranquil chirping for so many massive buses.

Another 20 minutes I get to work. The email version of Cara says she did it in 35 minutes, I took well over an hour. She is possibly smarter than me.

In 5 minutes I'm going home, swallowing so many prides and stubborn 'I'll be Right's and riding with my beautiful girlfriend along the path she nominates.

I've never really cared before...

2007-10-25T10:06:00.000+10:00

Sunday started of superdodge, with The Corporate Entity Named Adam getting up early to go to work but it fairly quickly became awesomerad when some system was down and I was forced to get the heck out and join all my homies at Mich's beachhouse. The night before a few of us met Mich at some bar after all her friends had been at the Caulfield Cup. It had been ages since we'd gone out to a night of dodge and everyone was so dressed up and so completely trashed, it was seedier than anyone could have hoped for.

Anywho, we all made friends on saturday night and then hung out together again on Sunday. It was fun. I haven't made new friends for ages.

After the sun went down and the chips got eated all up, a few of the peeps scattered homeside and just the stayers remained. Since there were 3 girls and 2 boys, the TV got switched to the on position and we flicked between Australian Idol and that Election Debate something.
As with pretty much everyone we know, we're all heading down the vote Not John Howard path of politics, except for Mich who said that she didn't know she was going to vote for. Fair enough, but as I was hilariously bagging out our Prime Ministers gitters, his constant licking of his teeth and his Economy First Environment Somewhere After speeches, Mich was hacking into Rudd. Comments that I thought were overly agressive given that we don't know that much about him, about how much he bores and irritates her.

Some days later, I'm still taken aback.I've become personally concerned that one of my closest friends might vote Liberal and for the first time in my life I understand why Religion and Politics don't make polite dinner conversation. I totally admit that the Adam/Cara combo were probably far more forceful in our dislike than Mich was, and therefore probably annoying to anyone who might barrack for The Brow but I just can't make the jump to why anyone in our stage of life/intelligence/world views would think differently to me. I'm probably more thrown with how much her comments effected me and I've been coming up with plans to not to just deal with it, but to change her mind.

Mich is highly suggestable and can be OTT agressive about pretty much anything, so I'm merely thinking of offering to buy her dinner to vote Not JH. Obvs, this is so freakin' illegal that if I don't write blogside for a while it's because I'll finally be able to add Political Prisoner to my resume, but if she likes food and I like Not JH then we're all happy, right?

Of course, I shouldn't even care. Each person should be free to vote for whomever candidate they think will do the best job. I guess I'm just freaked that one of my closest friends must think fairly fundamentally differently to myself and I never picked it up until now. Or maybe she's just mimicking comments her parents or someone attractive made...

2007-10-16T08:05:00.000+10:00

I used to have an awesome memory for faces, and a not too shabby memory for names.Unfortuantely, years of slipping through the cracks of the corporate wastelands have transformed my brain from speedily hilarious to quite the idiotic dullard. Even this phrase, 'idiotic dullard' has taken me 25-30 minutes to come up with, in my uni days, I would come up with something far more creative, descriptive, imaginative and crude in mere mini-micro seconds.

That Corporate Entity Called Adam leaves the elevator this morning with almost a suave swagger, with all the time in the world to walk to the cafe three metres away. In the mornings I like to get a bit of a swagger in my walk, because every other time I'm desperate to be away/get food/be hateful of slow walkers, etc.

Another elevator opens and I glimpse another output of the corporate machine. She's well dressed, good posture and looks familiar. My faces brain kicks in, but I now can't tell if I worked with her for 10 years or shared a crowded tram once. So I ignore it. Did she live with me?

She follows me into the cafe. I didn't make breakfast this morning, and I need foods like nothing else. The staff has recently learnt my name and my one order, it's cute. I ordered at the food section, while this maybely familiar young lady ordered at the coffee section. I have no idea if she has seen me, knows me, or whatevs, so I go to the papers table to pretend to read while I try to remember who she is. Was she that chick on that breakfast show?

By the time she joins me at the papers table, I think I've got it figured out.I'm sure of her last name, I think I've got her first name. She looks more professional and is laughing less than I remember. I worked with her ages ago. I remember dudes I worked with after she left lamenting that someone so good looking was gone. That wasn't so important; she was a hilarious story teller, man, she has us in tears.

That Corporate Entity Called Adam was dressed nice, but had helmet hair. So I didn't say anything to her, didn't even look up, soon the staff called my name and I Early Morning Adam Strutted outta there. I had no idea if this girl saw me, or would remember or would care.

I assume I'll bump into her again if she's in my building. If so, I should tell her that she changed my life back in the day. Changed. My. Life - Freakin. Every week I receive an e-mail that makes me laugh so much, grosses me out and gives me all sorts of stupid tidbits that I drop into so many random convos.

I can definitely improve someone else's life the way Emily improved mine...Subscribe to www.popbitch.com You may or may not regret it.

2007-10-15T11:21:00.000+10:00

I reckon I've actually had RSI of the top of hands for about 15 years. I remember seeing a doctor about it in 2002 who told me I had to not touch computers and that every keystroke was doing me damage. Freaked me out. There really aren't many occupations that don't use computers, even less that I can just slot straight into without going back to study, even less that could potentially provide a similar salary.

So, instead of giving up my day job, I just bought all the ergonomic squishy things.Kinda helped maybe... hard to say really.

A couple of friends I know also got hit with RSI stuff, so they gave me a hint. Grab a 3kg weight, rest your hand on a table so that your wrist and hand are hanging off, hold the weight vertically. Hold that for 90 seconds. Change your hand to hold the weight horizontally so that you see your top of hand. Hold for 90 seconds. Change your hand the other way so that your top of hand faces the floor. Hold for 90 seconds.

I haven't done this exercise for ages, I remember it took a couple of weeks to have an effect, and you had to be really persistent. I think it had a slight beneficial effect but it certainly didn't fix anything. I might start that up again though, can't hurt.

When I went to Brisbane last year, for the first two months I was putting in crazy hours, actually working hard (but not making any difference) and the RSI really became a problem... my hands were sore all the time, whether I was on a computer or not.

First I saw a Natrapath. She was lovely and always excited to see me, which was nice in a city where I didn't know anyone. The downside was that, she kept putting me on different pills and remedies that were crazy, crazy expensive.

Her approach was two-fold. RSI is an inflammation, so she tried to reduce the imflammation and also get my body in top condition to heal itself. She changed my diet and gave me rules on digestion so that my blood was good, so that I'd soon gain Wolverine-like healing powers.
She also did the Bowen Technique which is a form of deep tissue massage that I think is supposed to be good for scar tissue and the like. She worked the hands, arms, back and neck. She wasn't happy that I was a gym dude at the time, I guess it tightened everything up. The massage was quite nice on the back but painful on the hands, and the RSI would superhurt the day after. I'm not really sure if it felt much better in the following days.

After a while of that, I also went to Back School, where they taught me the Alexander Technique for standing, walking, sitting, etc... That was hardcore superhard exhausting. The technique is all about posture and using the right muscles for the right movements. The only time I felt relaxed and rested was when I could lie on my back. I did it for weeks and weeks and still hadn't trained the muscles to these new ways. Standing felt very unnatural so I had to concentrate all the time.

I gave them both a couple of months but didn't find any improvement.

Then I took up with an accupuncturist. That actually felt better the first few times, I definitely noticed an improvement in the first couple of weeks, my hands felt less sore, but after a while, the accupuncture sessions had no effect.

Around this time I moved back to Melbourne, and started seeing a chiropractor. I also had a job that was a bit less busy. I also got one of those pen tools at home that replaces the mouse. The chiro was good, it got to a stage where my hands didn't hurt at all when I wasn't touching a computer but I do think that was because he had me on tablets called Arthoguard (designed for arthritis) which specifically target inflammation. I went to the chiro for ages and ages, and the pains did come back, the tablets didn't work as well as they did and he didn't think there was much point in continuing.

My current options are to see a Rumatologist, an Oesteo my Dad recommended or an Oesteo INC recommended. To be honest, although my hands are in pain all the time, I'm just not really ready to go through the emotional journey of highs and lows, hope and disappointment that I've been through a few times already. Each medical professional I've seen has been totally sure we can fix it, I've handed over so many monies and then after a couple of months they break up with me. It's tough on a young man.

I did find a mouse thing that doesn't hurt me at all, it's design is quite clever, but IT DOESN'T ACTUALLY WORK AS A MOUSE, freakin. I sent the first one back as a defect, the second one developed the same problem and the support staff seem to bit over it. It's a bit crap. The mouse pen thing is pretty good, but I still get sore from using it, although in a different bit of hand.

So yeah, it's not debilitating or anything, but I guess I am worried I'm making things worser and worser, it's definitely become more painful in the last 2 years.

2007-10-12T09:28:00.000+10:00

Hey kids,

Just thought I'd do some updates of life as we know it.

Enny will be pleased to know that Cara got us BDO tickets at 9:07am this morning. She is more excited than a red cordialed drummer trapped in a 360 degrees drum kit setup. After reading Enny's So Many Complaints Cara was onto it the second the clock tick-tocked to 9.

Deb will be pleased to know that I caved and got a Canon 5D to be an even better portrait maker. This here blog is going to be rammed solid full of awesome pictureness.

B will be pleased to know that the bike is going surprisingly well, it's super different to the VFR but it does seem to be the perfect traffic combatant. It's light and nimble, I can see everything and it's quicker than all things if it puts it's mind to it.

Kiki will be please to find out that I still think he's ace. Probably one of the acest dudes forevs.

D'Jen will be pleased to know that I'm trying to set up a mate with so many ladies, but he has the most rules ever. It's impossible, but I have always quite enjoyed The Challenge of Lurve. Maybe I'm a meddling old lady at heart.

INC will be pleased to know that Cara's band is nearly, nearly about to release their album. Nearly.

Bevis will be pleased to know that the little red rockstar and I are about to hit a massive 5 years of togethering in 2 weeks. I'm still good at listening and lugging and she's still good at making foods and wearing underwear. Everyone's happy.

Meva will be pleased to hear that I'm still awes at taking down massive companies from the inside by Doing Not Much. It's becoming my best skill.

I'm sure most of you will be still gnashing of teeth that RSI is still being an idiot. The dude is freakin' invincible.

Deb & Jac, could you send me a blog password via facebook or something? I have no clues how to read your words of wise and wacky wickedness.

Have a way rad weekenders.
Adam.

'woe is I', etc

2007-10-02T09:00:00.000+10:00

Dear you / hi,

One of the main reasons I wasn't up to the grand actions of persons called Updating This Here Blog was because I became quite the ugger. I don't usually use this term, 'quite the' but in this situation I feel it's warranted.

Lower mouth, right hand quadrant, either a pimple, a coldsore or leprosy.

I can understand if pashing/licking utensil parties are now out of the question, I've never had such an obvious mulfunction of face before and so can't say that I coped with it very well, and would sob loudly whenever anyone greet me with a 'Good Day Old Chap, bit of an ugger eh?'.

Luckly, due to Da Brain only ever being used to develop world domination strategies I was able to flip it and turn it onto Coping Strategies For the Modern Day Ugger.

Everyone knew I looked more attractive than usual, but thought I had a new tie (I don't even wear a tie, haha)... luckily I don't hang out daily with those meddling kids Sherlocko and Watso. I'm so done with their skillz of observations.

Further excuses for not Updating This Here are:

- Still sore of tops of hands

- Kidnapped by facebook and forced to purchase my friends as pets

- Had work computers visible to all

- Cara fighting with highly trained commandos

- Cara's band requiring an amp to be moved to the other side of the stage

- Required sustinence in the form of food and cool refreshing beverages

- Forgot

Have a lovely day dudes and chicks,

Adam.

Today's new toy for the boy.

2007-09-26T09:39:00.000+10:00

Have to say good-bye to Very Fast Red 750 though... it's been a heaps good 5 years.

Still pluggin...

2007-05-05T09:44:00.000+10:00

Hey kids,

The RSI has gotten worse, freakin'. Tell you what, I'm hardly a violent person (despite being an IT Ninja) but I'm totally set to walk up and kick RSI dead set in the nuts. It's kinda getting to a point where I'm not sure how much longer I can be an IT Ninja for, each day is pretty freakin' full of pain in the top of hands variety. A week starts to look like a very long time....

Anywho, I'm seeing a Chiro about it, since I've already had my funness with Back School, a Naturapath, A GP and a Accupuncturist. Like all the others, the Chiro is confident he can get the pain right down, so we'll see how that goes.

In other news, we moved house to Northcote. It's pretty mad. We've got like double the space that we used to and everything seems to be in walking distance. We had a heaps fun day of moving with lots of Friends of Rad carrying a box or a kabillion or lugging, fridge, etc. We've still got two weeks to clean up the old house, but really, now that we've moved that junk just doesn't seem the funnest. Again, I find myself putting the word out for any cleaning slaves to come a ringin'. Why, oh why, do they never ring?

We went to a funeral yesterday, in Sydney. I've never been to a funeral of a friend of mine before, I've only been to family ones of very, very old people. Our friend had been totally fine, and then had a slight cold, then suddenly was in a coma. I think he was in a coma for 65 days, with some brief forays into conciousness but eventually his body had a stroke and he never recovered. He fought a tough fight, he had contracted some bug that there have been only 13 other cases world-wide, and lived much longer than the doctors expected. He left behind a heap of good friends and a fiance. They had been working in London, so it all feels a bit surreal for us here. Despite the saddness, it was good. His sister did a great speech thing at the church thing and the wake was good. They made a photo montage that was excellent. We've known his fiance for years and while she was clearly gutted, she was okay. I haven't seen her for a while so I was worried that she might be a shadow of her former self, everything was going along swimmingly and then suddenly she's spending all her time at a hospital, but she was okay and was totally herself whenever we spoke about safe topics. It was all interesting for me, I've never had to deal with something like this before. I seem to emotionally detach myself when I see that everyone else is upset and go into lookeraftery mode, I guess everyone handles these things differently.

Anywho, Cara's just woken up, even though we have heaps of room here, we still need to figure out where everything goes. The storage for junk isn't great. Fun, fun.

Have good times kids,
Adam.