January 2006

23-Jan-2006 - 33º48'49.63"S 150º37'11.32"E

Thats officially the coordinates to the middle of nowhere. Or more specifically, it was where the rave I went to on Saturday was held. If you have a look at the satellite map you can see what I mean. It was called Eezyluv. Sounds very hippyish, but no.. not a hippy to be seen :-)

It was a long long way away. I was travelling from my place in the city with Julian in the car and playing some nice music in the car. We had some directions scribbled down on paper, a water wrecked street directory, a car that had problems starting (I need a new battery I think), an ample supply of chocolate, icecream, orange juice, water and red bull, and a clear nice warm night.

Apparently if anyone asks we are going to a 'birthday party'. Oh, and there are no toilets... you need to bring a flashlight and your own water. Hmmm.

So we arrive at Fairlight Rd in Mulgoa. There are no street lights on the side of the road, and its very windy and very hilly. I'm constantly driving up and down hills and swerving left and right around corners. Its a long road - went for about 8km and there were only a handful of houses the whole way. Finally at the end of the road it turned into a dirt track. There was a road going left and another going straight, and a house about 100m away. So I decide that going straight along the dirt path is probably the way, so onwards we go.

The road was damn bumpy - I had to drive really slow and was worried about my old car. If we broke down here we were stuffed. We hadnt seen a car drive past for many kilometres. Both me and Julian were having a laugh about how out of the way this place was - a bit crazy in the middle of nowhere. After 5 or 10 minutes of this dirt track we finally see cars ahead and I wonder if we are about to step out and get mugged. The road ends and I park the car.

As soon as I turn off the headlights I realise why they said to bring a torch. It was pitch black. We can hear music in the distance now, but not very loud yet. So we walk forwards towards the sound with our tiny little torch until I see the coolest thing.. in front of us was a little valley with a path made out of glowsticks placed on the ground - which lead to another path lined with christmas fairy lights. This went down a hill to the party where they had set up a couple of intelligent lights (synchronised to music), a laser, smoke machine and other lighting and dj equipment.

It all looked pretty cool and the crowd was very friendly. A good vibe. Right behind the DJ was a huge rock where the lighting was set up on. We climbed to the top of the rock and discovered the river in the valley below.

All in all it was a fun night - although the music was more italian house than rave - until the last set that we stayed for where the DJ played lots of old rave tracks which was fun. After making myself almost sick on 2 litres of orange juice and with us both getting a bit tired we made our way back home a few hours later.

Previously that night we had been to Ben's birthday dinner/drinks at the Whitehorse. I kept laughing at Julians steak which was $30 for something not much bigger than the size of a peach.

Yesterday I had breakfast (err lunch?) with Ben, Julian and Shirley at around 3:30pm. I didnt get up until late so it was breakfast for me. Then we went to play air hockey where I did some butt kicking Uncle Ray-Ray style :-). Watched a couple of episodes of lost in the arvo with Julian and then went clubbing at night which was quite a lot of fun. James was there with his friend who I cant remember his name..

And now its back at work for a short week. Its almost Australia Day. God bless Australia (and the free holiday we get!). Makes you proud to be an aussie - whats more Australian than bludging a day off work for your country, even though hardly any of us can sing the entire nation anthem. Ahhh Australia - I love it!

18-Jan-2006 - The nothingness weekend

Well like Jerry Seinfeld says.. everyone talks about something, so I'm gonna talk about nothing. And thats basically what my weekend was like this week.

I was extremely lazy this weekend and went out briefly on friday night before getting over it all and going home. Didnt do that much for the rest of the weekend either and ended up sleeping for most of it :-). Oh and playing counterstrike :-p.

Last night I went for one of my big jogs.. again it was about 10km, but I decided to go somewhere slightly different this time. It had been rainy all day and the rain had stopped so I finally had a brief chance to get some exercise - and after a weekend of slothfulness I was feeling a bit guilty and in need of some exercise.

I had previously used Google Earth to find a new place to jog to and discovered a large park in Balmain I had never been to before. So I set out across the Anzac bridge and up to Balmain, through some back streets and finally arrived at the park. It had a great view of the harbour bridge and would be an awesome spot to watch NYE fireworks from. There were lots of people walking in the park and taking their dogs for walks. After a bit of a jog around I headed on home.

I almost ended up flat on my face when I tripped on the Anzac bridge on the way back. After just narrowly avoiding hitting the pavement I composed myself, pretended not to look embarrased to the other pedestrians, and continued home! :-).

The GameSpace counterstrike ladder is back open, and lots of matches are lined up, so i'll be ultra-nerdy now and be a counterstrike addict again.

And so concludes my most exciting week.

13-Jan-2006 - Holiday mode

Its 2 weeks into the new year and I am half in holiday mode. I am taking off days every week now so I can enjoy summer while it lasts :-)

I spent new years at Bens place in north sydney. He had a bbq there and Julian, James, Kate, Mark and many others turned up. Lots of yummy food hehe. At around 20 minutes to midnight we walked down to North Sydney park where you could see the harbour bridge.

We could see four sets of fireworks going off from 4 different barges (plus the harbour bridge). Afterwards some of us went to the city to hang out, but there were queues to get into everything so we just roamed the streets. Was a pretty good evening.

I was a bit disappointed that Utopia NYE didnt happen at the same place as before. I went to that party last new years eve and it went off! It was right next to the water, with a fireworks barge directly in front of us - and the harbour bridge in full view. There were two big warehouse rooms with lots of lasers and another outside dj. Was an awesome party and I was wanting to go again this year, but unfortunately the promoter couldnt secure the venue and ended up doing a party at the Entertainment centre (1 room only, much smaller, no view). So I didnt bother with it this year.. hopefully next year they will get their act together.

Last weekend I took monday off work and had a long weekend. Did a fair amount of clubbing and enjoyed myself quite a bit on Sunday night. Julian moved house into his new 4 bedroom apartment at Chatswood. And its awesome! Its on two levels and it has a couple of large balconies and I can see my office from them. Julians room is the best with a big balcony and also a staircase leading to a little loft thingy. Its big enough to put another bed up there and looks really cool. He has a nice big pool too.. and we saw someone snorkel in it - whats the go with that?!

Had a look at the gym too.. and it has a jogging machine which goes much faster than the one in my building. My building maxes out at 15km/h, but we got this one going at 20km/h... I was just keeping up but I had jeans on and hadnt stretched. When it hit 20km/h I pressed the emergency stop button - 20km/h is damn fast if you get thrown of the back of that thing. I will have to go back sometime with shorts and see if it goes faster than 20km/h. :-)

On wednesday night the fire alarm went off in my building. It was about 10pm and everyone kind of wandered out into the central area in a daze wondering what was going on. I live in a restored woolshed, and the whole thing is made from timber. And to top it off, all the oils from the sheeps wool has seeped into the wood - turning the whole building into one big combustible bonfire waiting to happen. This time, thankfully, it was a false alarm. Last time it happened was because some guy fell asleep after he had a bit to drink, with the stove left on hehe.

6-Jan-2006 - Procedamus in Pace

"Let us proceed in peace"

Well its 2006 now, and Ariel Sharon looks like he is about to drop dead. Looks like the middle east is back to square one, along with the rest of the world.

But in a more cheerful tone...

Its 2006! And before I continue there are some things I forgot to mention in my past entries, such as... The table tennis tournament!

At work every now and then we have a table tennis tournament where the whole office is invited to join in a week long competition for doubles table tennis. This time around I made it to the final along with my biggest competitor and rival Monzur! :-)

Me and Pete (on my team) were crushing the Monzur and Matt, but they came back strong and it was tied at 3 games all. On the final game me and pete just snuck through to win the tournament.. much to monzurs dismay ;-). I knew if i didnt win I wouldnt hear the end of it from Monzur. But now that I have won myself I occasional give him a daily reminder in passing hehehe.

Another thing I forgot to write about was when I parked on george st right across the road from the cinemas during my break. I was with Ben and Jules and we hung around the city for a bit. When I got back to the car I realised that I had left my lights on.. doh! Of course when I tried to start the car it didnt do anything. Hmmm.. what to do?

So I hailed every taxi that was going past and tried to get someone to jump start me. All of them said they didnt have jumper leads, and i'm sure some of them did. Finally we found a taxi driver who was willing to start my car. What a great guy! We got the car running again and I offered him $10 for his time but he refused to take it. I was very grateful and wished him a Merry Christmas before jumping in the car and driving around with the boys for a while to recharge the battery.

It took over a week before the battery was back to normal, but everything is good again now.

I recently bought my Prophecy 2 tickets. Got one for Julian and one for Tim as well. Ben (tims friend) and Craig are going too.. along with the 'dog girl'. Should be lots of fun! I'm looking forward to it!!

Havent got time to write much more (like new years eve stuff)... but I will write something a little later on. :-)