I haven’t got a lot of time today, so I’ll quickly get into the main points:

1. Bryce is back in town for the weekend. Hooray! We’re having lunch today and getting into the premiere of season 2 of LOST.

2. Rebekah is as old as the rest of us. Well, not as old as Lara, but frankly, who is?

Hey all,

It has indeed been a long time since I’ve written anything here, so you can be glad that I’ve got a lot to tell!

Interestingly, there’s a series of Friday birthdays. The 16th was the Belgian exchange student Laureline’s 18th Birthday, and my 21st was on the 23rd. The 23rd also happened to be the last day of term.

That’s the most important thing to talk about, so I’ll say a lot about it now. I had to go to stupid Uni in the morning though, but Dean came over really early with maccas breakfast, which was just great. I got the traditional 21st-birthday-ring with my initials engraved on it. It only fits on my wedding finger at the moment, so it needs to be resized - my right hand is bigger than me left, go figure.

So I had two classes - one of which I was promised a cake by my tutor, but being my birthday, he didn’t think I’d come, so he didn’t bring it :frown: Next time though apparently. I can hardly wait… I didn’t stay for the whole of the next one, or I simply wouldn’t have gotten anything done, though I did go and have a drink and some sushi with Larina (who is now my girlfriend) at the guild bar before racing off to do errands.

I high-tailed it straight to Liam’s to borrow his stereo. I woke him up at noon. Lazy bum :thefinger: He had a shower and came over my place to help set up for the party. Major props to him, I can’t thank him enough. Also, obvious and definite props to mum and dad. Can’t thank them enough either.

So the keg went ahead, and was quite a hit I think. I don’t really remember, because Morgan gave me a 1.7L stein, which I took as a personal challenge. I think I managed to drink 2.5 of em, after already having over a litre out of cups.

We continued on to Gilhooleys, where I don’t remember a whole lot. I walked in and had a drink thrust into my hand by Liam. Noice. I was already trashed - LET’S START MIXING DRINKS!

Went and saw Dukes of Hazzard before going out to dinner with Larina. Dukes was pretty funny, with the whole cinema laughing aloud at a few times. Dinner was at Wagamama - Japanese noodle place at the Emporium at the Valley. Quite good - nice big meals, reasonable priced food, nice fun atmosphere - but I wasn’t feeling 100%, so didn’t get to fully enjoy it. Finished the evening with an evening stroll through New Farm Park.

Had netball on Monday night, which was fun. I was shooter, and we had a pretty good team setup. I stood in the circle, and everyone else ran around. Worked for me :tongue: Going to an open mic night Thursday night at Stones Corner hotel with netball crew and Larina and her friend. Should be fun.

Here is version 2 of the Christmas chart.

Is anybody keen for a SLC this Sunday? It’s time to start a new season, so we should probably get into it. It’ll give people an opportunity to get ahead of Leyton again :teehee: I was thinking maybe this week at Southbank somewhere? or maybe … dare I say it … Monte’s? Email me your thoughts.

Also, Blacky expressed serious interest in a poker night SOON. He’s positively itchin’ to get his hands on Glenn’s money, and so am I. I want to throw Friday week out there … 7th October. If I’ve already made plans with you on the 7th October, and you read this, please remind me of them, and disregard this paragraph.

I watched that Brainiacs show last night … omg so lame. From the ads, Woo and I surmized it’d be a cross between Mythbusters and Jackass, but it was just a weak “science” show. :gay:

No family night last night, because my car is still in the shop, and I can’t drive anywhere. I feel like I’m under house arrest, cause lord knows, I don’t catch no public transport. Woo came over yesterday and helped me run errands, so that was very good of him, thanks old chap. Lara’s over today for another day at the business. ooh, that sounds rude.

It’ll be good to get my car back. I probably wouldn’t go anywhere in particulars, but it’s so liberating to have the option of going somewhere. Cest la vie.

Hey I can’t stay at chat for long today - it’s a Lara Day at work, so I need to be busy to set a good example. :teehee:

In all seriousness, HB to my broly Woo, who turned 21 on Friday. He had a strange, but fun, party Friday night, and a keg was almost drained in his honour. Thanks to Bek for coming along and keeping me company - that was nice, even if she did fall asleep mid-conversation afterwards. :tongue:

Good weekend, lots of sport. I watched the footy at M&D’s on Saturday whilst eating leftovers, and was joined later that evening by people, also eating leftovers. There are still several all-leftover meals to be had, I would guess. Sunday was another quiet day, with Price Point coding, and Tall Tower administration before double Gorran dosage. :jerkit:

Oh, a couple of things I need to mention: some low-life smashed the rear window of my car to steal my mp3 player on Thursday night. It’s in the smash repairs place being fixed today … $300 or so, but that includes having a light replaced. Also, Leyton was back briefly this weekend, and will be back for more long-term arrangements next weekend.

Now, on the Godfrey and Rob B being in town over christmas front, Lara and I have discussed some kind of chart in which people indicate their availability.

So,

Hey so here I am, back and surly.

My back hurts … a lot. There’s nothing much that can be done though, so I’ll just suffer, but never in silence. You’ll hear all about it, every step of the way.

Stupid Caroline invited me for lunch today - I think she wants her backpack full of free stuff that I put in my bag - but I didn’t. Getting into town is just too much of an arsearound.

Hey, that reminds me - I had a very Zen thought yesterday, when I wasn’t in the greatest of moods. Japanese people are the Americans of Asia. Loud, rude, lacking comprehension, at least that’s the way the people on my plane yesterday acted. One guy, woke me up with the noise of his eating an apple. HE WOKE ME UP EATING AN APPLE PEOPLE. That’s just ridiculous.

Of course, I’ve never been to Japan, so perhaps the rest of the population eats in silence and isn’t so annoying. But there you have it.

Woo’s birthday tomorry, and Bek a week later. She should have a party, or at least a get-together, but if I know Bek (and I think I do), she either won’t have one, or WILL have one and not invite any of us. Which will it be? :tongue:

Sawadee Kap is my greeting of choice today, not the Hola or Buenos Dias that I have been getting so used to. :frown: It’s been hard, actually, adjusting back to non-Spanish pleasantries - I kept saying “Gracias” to the German airport staff, and I keep stopping myself saying “Uno mos per favour” (one more, please) to the Thai waiter. Oh well.

So, yeah, I’m outta Europe, and in Thailand now. I slept with a vengeance last night, and missed breakfast. I’m getting sick of cooked breakfasts lately, and THAT’s something I never thought I’d hear myself say.

My back is still pretty sore, when doing anything besides lying down, but I learnt the Spanish word for backache, and have enough ibuprofen to keep me pleasantly medicated.

Thailand is hot. I’ve been using that as an excuse to catch ridiculously cheap cabs everywhere. That and the ridiculous cheapness of them.

Anyway, there’s nothing much to say about Thailand that I haven’t already said in previous blog entries, so I’ll sign off now. I got a foot massage yesterday afternoon which apparently included a hand massage, so I’m having difficulty typing with my newly relaxed hands. They hurt a little, too.

Well, by now, I’m completely exhausted. I think the show is now all over bar the shouting - tomorrow is a half day, and we’re allowed to pack up our stands at 1:30pm. I’ll be down the beach drinking sangria, trying desperately to recreate the feeling I had on the first day here.

As you may recall, I was considering staying in Europe for the next month, but I’m taking the cautious road, and going home as planned. I’d like to be completely certain that Perf PC’s are paying for it before I go and acrue expenses.

Thanks to those who offerered suggestions/help, I appreciate it a lot. I’ll catch you shortly.

Hola again from Hispania.

The show is not going particularly well - there’s not a lot of attendees, down 25% from last year according to the rumour mill.

I’ve been invited to speak in London and Scotland next month for a post-Brainshare conference on the 19th and 20th October. This could be good for business, of course, but I dread the flight so much I’m considering staying in Europe for an extra month to avoid it. Details are still being hammered out, but because this second trip is not budgeted for, Perf PC’s would pay for it on a fee-for-service basis. Say, for the sake of argument, we agree on $5K to do it … I could spend that $5K staying in Europe and delaying my current flight home, or I could spend that $5K on flights and accomodation next month, and go to London for just a couple of days.

I was getting some advice from Leyton late last night, your time. He said I have to make a list of pros and cons etc, but I’m too lazy. I’d need to stay somewhere cheap, with reasonable internet to do it. With reasonable internet, I could maintain Price Point and Tall Tower as businesses while I did it. From what I hear, Spain is one of the cheapest destinations in Western Europe, but maybe not so cheap in the middle of the city where I am staying now.

Hola Muchachos.

Yesterday was our sight-seeing day in Barcelona. Caroline is a real task master, we saw everything.

There’s a Tourist Bus, callled “Bus Turistic” which was E17 each for unlimited hop-on, hop-offs on the 3 circular routes - Blue, Red and Green. Our hotel was a short walk from the Green route. We started out at the Parc Diagonal Mar stop, and got off at Port Olympic, for a quick look around, but mainly to switch to the much more interesting Blue line.

We caught the Blue line to Pla de Palau and checked out the architecture of the church of Santa Maria (really a cathedral) and the Museu Picasso, which is excellent. Caroline had heard good things about a cafe we stumbled into, Princessa 23, and we had a quick sangria before pushing onwards.

We then walked through the Gothic district to the famous La Ramba, which makes its way from the sea to the Placa de Catalunya. Here we got on the Red line and went out to Sagrada Familia. This was truly amazing. The Sagrada Familia is the only cathedral in the world which is still under construction. It was Gaudi’s - an influential architect from Barcelona - dream, to which he devoted much of his life. I forget how long it’s been being built for, but I do know that Gaudi died in 1926 and only one of the towers had been completed (out of eight major spires). Construction is estimated to take another 25 years. It was spectucular, and very beautiful. I couldn’t justify the E7 admission, and figured that there was no way I’d be fit enough to make it to the top of one of the spires anyway.

The Sangria Familia was probably the only thing on the Red line we wanted to see, but because it was circular, we had to go around the whole circle (almost) to get a connection back to the Blue line. Futbol Club Barcelona would’ve been a good stop, if we weren’t forced to be extremely picky by aching feet and dwindling supply of Euros. It took about an hour to get to Francesc Macia-Diagonal, where we changed to the Blue line. It was quite interesting, actually, to meander around a more residential-type area and just get some taste of how people here live.

We caught the Blue line to Placa d’Espanya, which was quite pretty, and then caught the bus through the Olympic area, on to the boat-shaped World Trade Centre on the pier. There was an impressive statue of Columbus near the maritime museum, and we walked along the pier from Port Vell to Museu de Catalunya. We were tired, and a bit over museums at this point, so we just got on the bus and went straight to Port Olympic, where the Green line intersected.

We walked along the beach for a while, and Caroline showed me these awesome concrete lounge chairs on the beach - I forget what they’re called, you know the ones you lie down on next to a pool or whatever? Very comfortable, with a beautiful view over the ocean. It was very hard to get moving again, but somehow we made our way to the stop and caught the Green bus back to Parc Diagonal Mar.

I was desperate for a shower. We went out for dinner at around 9pm - which is about normal here - and had stunning Paella, and got back home by 9:45pm. I was asleep from the moment my head hit the pillow.

So this week’s been quite fun for me, with lots of things happening. Had a test on maths teaching at uni last Monday before going home to veg. We won the first game in ages at netball by about 10 points, which was refreshing. Then after the game I went to choir, and then I went to Chermy for coffee with Michelle.

Deano came round later and we went for a drive to clear his head. Though, in hindsight, I could’ve just blown in his ear with the same effect. :teehee:

Had a big day of uni as usual on Wednesday, and Steve invited me out to see some bands. The carrot of being on the door list was dangled in front of me, so I went in (drove), but when I got there, the proverbial cupboard was bare I had to fork out $10 just to get in. Fortunately, having driven, I didn’t have to pay for anything for the rest of the night, and in repayment for me giving him a lift home, Steve bought me some drinks to meet my quota of “2 in the first hour and one every hour after that”.

Steve quite enjoyed the performance. I, on the other hand, didn’t very much. It was on the fringe of being “emo-punk”, neither of which genre’s I particularly enjoy, and I’d say that I quite dislike emo music, let alone the retarded fashion associated with it :ugh: I’ll give credit where credit’s due - the energy they were giving off was really quite impressive and commendable. If I didn’t think the music was crap, I probably would’ve enjoyed watching.

Thursday was a day of bumming round - I quite enjoy those days. I took Dean and Caroline to the airport as planned, and as mentioned, they’ve arrived safely. I installed Skype, and ginned around with some mates until late at night calling and talking to random people, trying to conference calls. Much fun.

I had my nose back on the grindstone on Friday, but it was qiute a relaxing day. We watched the movie, “Beneath Clouds”, which is kinda hard to explain, but you can check a summary from the IMDB here if you’d like. It was quite powerful, and enjoyable. It’s not a downer, but it’s definitely not cheery. I reccomend it, quite strongly.

Later that night, I went into the Valley to see Rhubarb play. Steve really did get me and two mates on the door list this time, so how could I turn it down? They really rocked out, and we got to have a chat to the chaps afterwards. Very enjoyable evening with Morgan, Brad, Tim, Sam and Steve. We enjoyed a kebab after wards, before I split a cab home with Steve.

So now, I’m supposed to be doing an assignment, which I haven’t really got my head around, and is very vague in its expectations. I think I have a general idea, but, it’s hard, because we’re expected to express our own opinions, but then back them up with references? Anybody else thinking “what the”? I hope inspiration comes tomorrow, because the assignment’s due Monday. :noes: