Hey there, my little buckaroos. I’ve just finished scoffing a breakfast scone, and thought I’d post with a quick update. I’ve got my new computer running now, thanks to Leyton for coming around and doing all the hard work for me. It’s sweet, and pretty fast. I can’t wait to install some games on it to see how they run. Sweet, I’ll bet.

Glenn and Lara must be back soon. I wonder, does anyone actually know when?

Rob was over for more intranet help, and we succeeded in making perhaps the world’s greates intranet phone directory. I’m not kidding, although the procedure to create a mySQL database on a Linux server was really quite complex, neither of us coming from a linux background. Still, that’s where our good friend Google saves the day, right?

Blacky did the driving test on TV last night and made Veal Strog. Mmmm, Veal.

Hey guys. I was sitting here, working away, when the phone rings at about lunch time, and it’s the cleaners basically explaining that the key I cut for them doesn’t actually work. Argh! So I bolt home and let them in, and obviously the key is just not quite correctly cut. So give them another key and bolt back to work.

Leyton needs more driving around, and I volunteer as we’re going to a late (actually very late) lunch at Sizzler anyway (mmm Megabacon Burger) … and I’m back at work at around 3pm.

Family night, over to M&D’s. Bryce finished exams today, so I ordered some computer equipment off him before the end of the financial year finished to write off my tax. If everything’s in stock, it’ll be there by the time I get home. What’d I get? An ASUS A7V8X Motherboard, a AthlonXP 2600 Processor, and a Gb of 333MHz Corsair RAM. My puter’s gonna fly, baby.

Personal to Woo: hey, you wanted a downstairs computer - how’s a P3-866 with 256Mb Ram and a GF2MX sound? Message me if you’re interested.

Tuesday is now becoming an exciting day for me - last health kick I was on, I ate Lite’n'Easy meals - a service that basically delivers you with an entire week’s food, which if you eat that and only that, you will lose weight. Anyway, last week as I sat down to yet another Chinese takeaway meal, I realized that since work has moved to Moorooka, the only takeaway lunchtime options are Chinese, Chinese, or Pies. And I’m bored with that. So, I thought about it, and ordered 14-days worth of Lite’n'easy dinners to eat at lunch to get more variety than Chinese, Chinese, or Pies. Delivery came this morning. I’ll keep you appraised, chances are pretty good that Edward will steal several, so I need to keep a running count on the blog so that I can keep track. Right now I have 14.

Also exciting news today is that my new cleaners start. I look forward to going home to a cleaned house this afternoon - how many other people can say that?

Rob was over last night as we struggled to convert a Excel spreadsheet to a HTML document using only Office 97. Should’ve been easy, and in hindsight, I should’ve checked whether I’d installed the Web Publishing Tools, but we ended up installing several little freeware proggies and eventually succeeded. Ridiculous amount of work to do that, though. The next step is to find a PHP/MySQL solution that will allow me to build a phone list style applet.

Family night tonight, and a special Cheerio to Bryce who finishes exams today. W00t!

Ah, a lazy weekend it was. I played the role of Leyton’s bitch Friday night, driving him around everywhere when he was too drunk to move. I stayed at M&D’s that evening because Mum and I were going to the markets on Saturday morning.

They were more awesome than they usually are … I don’t know why, exactly, but I had a ball. Mum spent every last cent she had with her, and was pleased with the results. A Saturday afternoon nap, before John came over for a Sopranos hit, and then left quickly - he had to work that evening. Blacky and I headed out on the town (which is something I haven’t done in, like, ages, as I usually normally hate it) and had a pretty good night. Started off at the Casino, and after cruising around the block 1 and a half times, found the perfect carpark FOR FREE. This was going to be a good night. Had average to bad luck at the Carribean Stud Poker (which is a game I quite like, but stupid casinos in Brisbane only have $10 ante tables, as opposed to the GC which has $5 ante … makes the game far more enjoyable when you’re only risking $5/hand …) before heading over to the Craps table.

To say that I was “on fire” at the craps table may’ve been the understatement of the year. If I’d known then what I know now about the game, I’d be far better off, but I had good fun … on my come out roll, I threw 7 about 10 times in a row. I was a hero.

We left the casino at around midnight to pursue other interests.

Sunday was a really quiet day, watching the stupid Lions forget how to play football for the second week in a row (something that hasn’t happened since October 2000 apparently) and then watch the Broncos back up well after State of Origin for a narrow (but exciting) win over the Raiders. Then Old School - a good fun, stupid movie that Bek failed to turn up for, so the boys watched it without her. I’ve recently acquired the pilot of a new series called Kingpin which I hope will (temporarily) fill the void that the finish of 24 has left in our lives.

So, a blog entry after lunch, eh? Nice.

After work yesterday, my bro came over to get some stuff off me, which was fine, but I knew that I had soccer to go to later that night. Leyton has his exam for the semester today, irrc, so he couldn’t play last night, which explained my shock inclusion in the side that narrowly went down 5-4 at Carindale last night. Good game, late start: kickoff at 8:15pm, which means you don’t get home until 9:30ish.

It’s all official for the weekend: movies at my place this Sunday at 6pm. I might be staying over at M&D’s tonight, so that I can take Mum to the markets tomorrow, and Leyton might be staying at my place tonight, presumably because he will be so seedy that he won’t want to go home to face his mother.

I’ve discovered the secret of perfect banana smoothies, I think. The key is to freeze the bananas, and then nuke them slightly to get their skin off before your blend them with equal parts skim/nonskim milk, vanilla extract (not essence) and a scoop or two of icecream. Oooh, yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.

Holy moly. The new stadium is awesome - last night State of Origin (herein referred to as SoO) match was a sellout, and the place was electric. In the end, our boys lost, sure, but it’s the same old story: Queensland always gets a team that consists mostly of bigger blokes who lose their puff towards the end of each half, and that’s where the game runs away with them. I may’ve said this last year, but I don’t really remember.

Getting there was a mess - because I’m so close to town, the free Stadium buses were all full by the time they got anywhere near my stop. So we caught a regular bus to the city centre, and then followed the people in Maroon jerseys and scarves to another big line, but one at which empty buses came to. We made it onto the second bus, no problem.

After the game, we figured that we’d walk back to my place, as our hopes for the public transport system weren’t too high, as people were all leaving at the same time, instead of arriving over a three-hour period. We asked some dude how to get down to the street to walk to the city, and he’s like: “well, there’s hundreds of buses and they’re arriving now … trust me, take the bus.” Doubtfully, we descended the stairs and walked straight onto a bus going into town - we even got seats on said bus.

The plan from there was to walk over the bridge and catch another bus, a plan that became even more likely as we saw that Gelatissimo, the new Gelati bar in Albert Street, was still open, and we all had Gelati. Excellent … I had a two-scoop waffle cone with one scoop of Pistachio and one of Apple Pie. Bek’s reaction on tasting the Apple Pie part: “omg, how exactly like applie pie is that!!!?!?!” She was correct. It was just like it.

Walk over the bridge eating Gelati, caught the bus to the Mater, walked back to my place from there. Was really a whole lot easier than it could’ve been.

In other news, I’m playing soccer for Leyton tonight, apparently. Poor Leyton, studying his ass off. How I mourn for him.

AND … I’ve got Old School on SVCD, and we’re planning on watching it on my faux cinema this weekend. Bek has expressed mucho desiro for the day and time to be Sunday early evening. I’m cool with that, and unless I get a swarm of emails from people saying: “I’m sooo there, but it has to be Saturday”, then that’s when it’ll be. Shall we say, my place, Sunday, at 6?

So the SoO tonight is going to rock … I must remember to fetch beer and get liquored up in advance, so I’m not paying $5 for a glass of midstrength. Hmm, although the downside to this plan is that I will break the seal early, and that’s not good when there’s football to watch. Conundrums, conundrums.

So family night last night … I’d pre-determined that I wasn’t going to stay the night, but that didn’t happen. Mum made trifle.

I’d been thinking of going on to Perth this Christmas, to catch up with poor, lonely Snod, but in the past few weeks, all of the business class seats with points have vanished. Hmm, that does not bode well for me, I’m afraid. I’ve flown to Perth twice in economy, and once in business, and let’s just say that if I never fly economy there again, it will be too soon.

I’m sure something will come up.

I’m just checking my bank statement, and there’s a refund of US$62.88 from American Airlines (I think) which I wasn’t expecting, especially since the only time I’ve ever flown on American is on a US$58.19 flight from Vegas to LA, which I didn’t end up actually taking. And although the charge was from Nevada, the refund was from Oklahoma, so I don’t have any idea what’s going on.

Good weekend. Friday night I cleaned the apartment, as a couple from VIP Home Services were coming to give me a fixed-price quote on cleaning the apartment, once a fortnight. One thing that Mum always did as we grew up was to insanely insist on tidying up the house before our cleaning lady came, but I figure that this is different: this is making sure that the fixed price quote that they give me before it is the lowest it can be. That’s all.

Saturday, Blacky and I spent the day in ridiculous laziness … I went shopping that morning, but for the rest of the day neither of us left the house. Caught Phone Booth that afternoon on VCD, and then made pasta for dinner.

Sunday I saw Basic at the cinemas … pretty good, seen better. A lot of plot twists and turns, and it got a bit predictable. But ok. John came over for a late night Sopranos fix, and all was good.

Monday, I made a really good brekkie, had lunch at Rob and Nadia’s (and was influential in the fixing of their washing machine), and dinner and TSLOU at Bek’s after a long mid-afternoon nap. Hey Bek: I realized when I got home that we forgot to drink the wine. D’oh. Cellar it for next time, mm kay?

I can’t find my maroon shirt, which could be a disaster for the State of Origin thing tonight. Hopefully I’ll find it at family night tonight.

Hello. Bryce and his friend Christian (probably Kristian) from Germany came over to finish off season 2 of Enterprise on tele last night. I plan to run this exhaustive testing procedure this weekend whereby I determine whether these cdrs that I bought are crap or not … we get quite a few artifacts when watching programs burnt to white cd, and not when watched directly on the PC. So it is either the media, or the burning process that causes grief. This weekend, I will therefore subject myself to dual sessions of the same episode of The Simpsons to compare the differences in media. Stay tuned for the results.

So, I drove Bryce home last night and stayed for the Foo. There was this story on Getaway last night about the Porsche driving school just outside of Brisbane, the only one in the Southern Hemisphere apparently, and for only AU$1100, you can get the day fanging around in a Porsche, lunch included. Holy moly - that’s a lot of money.

Got an email from Bek today inviting me and Blacky to her place on Monday for dinner and TSLOU. Tops - it’s nice to be remembered.

Three holes in the ground - well, well, well. I watched the final three episodes of season 4 of The West Wing last night, and permit me to express my amazement: there’s some seriously crazy stuff going on, and it’s tense. I don’t even want to think about how long until the next series is available, but I really can’t wait to see what happens.

Leyton’s back on board for soccer tonight, so I might clean-up the house a little. I’m thinking that maybe we need a little help, cleaning-wise. So much to do - it’s a little daunting.

I’m proud to announce the release of DeanMusic1. Unfortunately, my burner at work is crap, so I’ll need to somehow get the tracks back home before you all get a copy. Anyone who’s not one of the usual suspects who would like one, drop me a line.