Well, I know that I’m on holidays and all, but this is an extra bonus edition of chuckler.org for those still at work. I’m actually waiting up for a little while - I’d like to change loads in the dryer before I go to sleep, and I was gonna yarn with Godfrey, but he’s out AGAIN, so I thought I’d blog a bit.

The party was great, I thought. There was LOADS of food, and a lot of it got eaten. Mum had leant me these huge great platters, and I made three big salads - one was a prawn, mango, avocado and gourmet lettuce salad, one a chicken caesar with bacon, croutons, egg, chicken and optional anchovies :yum: and one was an iceberg lettuce, marinated beef, and blue cheese one. I had an enormous ham, as well, and plum pudding and custard for desert. And, a vodka tasting.

I’d read somewhere about the merits of filtering cheap, crappy vodka with a Brita filter. And in true dodgy science style, I conducted my own experiment with the subjective opinions of the 10 or so people braving it. I had 2 bottles: a bottle of Stolichniya (about $40) and a bottle of Regency (about $20), on which the tests were devised. 5 tastes were served (in random order) - Stoli unfiltered, Regency unfiltered, Regency once-filtered, Regency thrice-filtered, and Regency quince-filtered. Almost unanimously, tasters favoured the cheap vodka quince-filtered. Further study is required to see if sep-filtered is markedly better.

And then, when all was said and done with that, Sunday I went ot Vivienne (from work)’s Christmas party. It was a nice affair, entirely too many kids on a very hot day for my taste, but it was nice - Vivienne’s food is always spectacular. And plentiful. I got home just in time to miss the cricket finishing, so I chilled out playing a new computer game, whose name I’m not yet speaking. It’s addictive though - I played it all night Sunday and all day Monday as well. Crazy.

Today I went into town and did some shopping and stuff. And I lent Lisa my bike for her use while she’s here. I figure, someone might as well use it, because I certainly don’t.
Tomorrow is markets with an extended crowd, and then dinner with the markets crowd. Should be nice if it’s not too hot.

ok, I’m bowing to public pressure to actually give significant details for the christmas party on Saturday.

At this stage, the following invitees are coming. If you’re coming but aren’t on this list, :nono: tut tut.

• Me
• Blacky
• GLara
• 1/2 of Brek
• Leyton
• Rob and Nadia
• Tim R
• US Lisa
• Davo and Julie
• M&D

and that’s it I think. 14 in all. Should be a hoot. This list also means that Leyton can wear his joystick if he wants to.
Hey John - do you have my DVD aquarium? :fingersx:

2pm-ish is what I’m going to announce as the start time, but you know how my place works. It’s party party party 24/7, so it doesn’t specifically matter what time you arrive.

Hello, hello. Another big weekend comes to a close, and provides fodder for another entry on chuckler.org.

It was really bothering me, since I’ve started watching NCIS I’ve been unableto determine who the hell the girl is on some other show or movie or something. Turns out it’s Gretcher Witter, Pacey’s sister and Dawson’s love interest in Dawson’s Creek. I do feel a lot better with that weight off my mind.

On Friday, I got talked into a night of DVDs and stuff. I admit to not being particularly keen myself, at least initially, but this trepidation quickly melted away once people were there and conversing. Brek and Leyton were over, and Blacky had gone out, we watched Shaun of the Dead, which is my first ever experience at a Romantic Zombie Comedy, or as Brett tells me, “rom-zom-com” for short. :rofl:

Saturday morning I thought I would die, frankly. I was that tired when Rob called me to say that they were leaving their place and would be at my place shortly, I thought I was already dead. Seriously. Turns out I wasn’t - I was just insanely tired. Dragged myself up and tried to be civil until the first coffee of the morning at the markets. Things quickly fell into place. Rob and I ran errands after the traditional post-markets breakfast, and before you knew it, it was 2pm and he was dashing home. I don’t know what happened for the next few hours, but by 5:30pm, I was at M&D’s to accompany Mum to Lisa Green’s 21st birthday. (Dad was coming late).

That was a lovely night, I got home to M&D’s at about 11pm, just shagged. I lay in front of the television until about midnight, watching some Michael Cain abomination. Eventually I dragged off to sleep in Callun’s lounge, and was attacked by ants for most of the night.

Glara came around on Sunday afternoon for a pop-in visit, apparently they’d slipped away for holidays on the sunshine coast for a week, lucky bastages. I did some cleaning of my house in preparation for my christmas gathering, even though numbers of RSVPed people are sketchy at best. WOTEVA. I’ll just carry on, doing my thing and so forth.

Thursday already - on the one hand, this pleases me inconceivably, but on the other, it DOES mean that I’ve still got a lot of work to do before I can take holidays guilt-free.

The new computers are proving to be a bit of a disaster - everything is incorrectly specced, so it’s lucky I had no part in it. We found out yesterday that our new server’s RAID chipset doesn’t have Netware drivers, and you can imagine how popular that was. Leyton was around yesterday to watch the cricket and we investigated alternatives. If alternatives were going to be considered, and there’s no guarantee that they will. I’m trying to learn enough linux to make ZENworks Imaging work on the new computers. First step - download the new Red Hat Fedora DVD image. No telling how long that’ll take.

The cricket last night was great - I’m trying to reconcile the idea of going to the cricket with Leyton on Friday. Possibly anyone else who wants to come. Tickets yesterday were at about the $60-mark, but I don’t know if there’s any left after how close last night’s game turned out to be.

Oh, you’ll also be pleased to hear that I got my credit at the indian place sorted. I had indian food delivered last night, and they remembered that they owed me money, so it all turned out fine.

Mum and Dad were getting Telstra cable installed yesterday, but the guy had to leave because nobody knew the administrator password of the computer it had to be installed on. Oh noes!

So things are a little hectic around here lately. I’ll start with Friday, cos that’s what I remember.

Friday I discovered that I’d been payed incorrectly. Someone had forgotten to forward my timesheet to my work, and so I only got payed for 1 day’s work. It got sorted out though, so this week’s pay is going to be HUGE, because the pay is going to be bundled with the coming week’s. I can’t wait. It’s also been good as I’ve had no money to spend this week.

We had that big dinner that Dean mentioned, and that was good. Jake stayed over, and we continued doing our own thing. We finally finished that switch box that we’d been working on, which was refreshing. It works really well, but needs a little fine-tuning, like putting a weight in it to keep it still when ya flick the switches off.

Then there was Sunday. Sunday I went with Jake to his church, and hung out at his place most of the day. Put up some Christmas decorations at their place before having to go to a CEBS bbq. There was a little show put on for the kids, and then a sausage sizzle before some carols, and CEBS were in charge of the sausage sizzle. For an hour straight we cooked and sold sausages. It was quite a marathon.

I’ve been working nights this week, and last night I came home to find a couple of blokes in our house. They’re NYSF fellas that mum ‘n’ dad invited to stay. They’ve been seeing a little bit of Brisbane and doing the touristy things.

I’ve gotta do some christmas shopping I suppose.

Hello, this is the first Chuckler’s Musings from my new computer at work. Jealous? I thought you would be.

So the weekend was great. Friday I left work early for a Dr’s appointment and then popped into M&D’s to see what they were doing for dinner. Turns out that G&R were visiting them later that evening for tea, and Woo and Jake were also on the guest list, as was a young girl named Susan from the NYSF orientation that Dad was working at on Friday. So there was quite a crowd - pizzas were ordered, and I felt hungover within hours of eating it, just like normal. Oh well, I guess some things have to be endured in the name of pizza.

Saturday I was up bright and early to do some work at Bathroom Warehouse, regarding the setup of a new ADSL router, and then ultimately, a new VPN conection. Initially we couldn’t get it to work, but eventually, it all came up trumps and we covered ourselves in glory. Rob invited me to his place for dinner on Saturday night, and as usual, outdid themselves with the food preparation. Dinner was a delicious salad that I fully intend to replicate at every applicable moment. I also fit some shopping in on Saturday, and picked up some bits and pieces for a Secret Santa I’m participating in. I left a big part of the SS present at M&D’s on Friday, which I’m kicking myself for. Dammit.

Sunday was spent watching the cricket, and napping. I had Indian food from the Bengal Curry House for lunch, and have leftovers for dinner today.

Yup - the weekend was great - there should be more weekends like that I reckon.

Mostly, an entry of quickness.

I’m in full-on project construction mode at the moment. I had a trial run with the portable aircon last night, and lo, it was good. I’ve now got the hardware to make it less temporary, whilst at the same time, still not being permanent.

It’s true - I was at Bunnings this morning at 7:45am, a time at which I am normally asleep, or just waking. Go team project construction.

Bryce has some news, which I’ll post more of later. Lisa also has some news, but I’m waiting to hear the real deal on it before I blah it all over the web.

And lastly, fond hellos to my poor sick Mum. Hope you’re feeling better. :happysad: