June 2005

28-Jun-2005 - A special mention to Ben

Well that last post was controversial! Now everyone thinks i'm a psycho :-).

When I started this website, I thought "who's gonna read this crap?", but it turns out quite a few people do! So hello to you all - friends, guys at work, former work colleagues, internet people, and global randoms - welcome to the site where much crap is spoken, and noone has a right of reply :-)

I will have to put up some photos of the gang soon. And someday (when I get off my lazy arse) I will make a Friends section on the site.

And Ben complains I never mention him, so hey Ben! For those who dont know Ben, let me describe him ;-). He's an aussie who grew up in Gove (middle of nowhere in the NT) and he LOVES boxing. He knows I'm not into boxing, but still tries to convince me to come around and watch a match every now and then :-). We both love to see street fights - which happen every now and then where we hang out. And anything to do with cops and action - we're there! Me and Jules call him the "celebrity" because he knows lots and lots of people and everyone talks to him - which makes things entertaining when we are having coffee. We often go to our fave cafe and occasionally go clubbing. I'll put up a profile when I create my friends page :-). The ladies will love him!

I didnt get up to much this weekend, except a whole lot of playing CounterStrike Source. There are funny goings on there, but i'll save that for another day..

Thats enuff for now. See ya!

24-Jun-2005 - Yes its that time of the week again..

.. for my blog update! There isnt much to say really, so this ones gonna be fascinating (not!).

I have been playing in a clan on CounterStrike, been clubbing a bit too much, and been watching crap movies. All up its been pretty boring really.

So instead, i'll talk about... lets see... plastic bags!

All this "no plastic bags" nonsense is starting to give me the shits. I went to the corner shop the other day, and instead of just putting my crap in a plastic bag, they unwrapped one of those permanent "hard plastic" bags (out of another soft plastic bag mind you!), to put my groceries in. I had no say in the matter - they were doing two things: a) denying me my usual plastic bag which i reuse as a garbage bag, and b) "educating" me to use the permanent bags.

So heres the thing.. if I cant get my plastic bags from the shops, then i'm not going to have any bags to use for my garbage bin.. and I will have to go and buy some garbage bin bags instead. So instead of having a cheap mass-produced plastic bag which I can reuse, I will be forced to BUY garbage bags (which are just as bad for the environment, but probably worse because they are sold as much smaller parcels).

Now I understand that not everyone reuses their plastic bags, but why start enforcing this crap on everyone? Instead of "educating" the public to use permanent durable bags, why dont they educate people to either a) reuse the bags, or b) dispose of them properly.

Speaking of.. what is the reason everyone is so anti plastic bag in the first place? Well there are 2 main reasons: landfill, and litter.

So lets look first at landfill. The environmentalists are saying that plastic bags dont biodegrade for thousands of years, and fill up all our landfill and we are running out of landfill. What a load of crap! There is heaps of space to put our garbage.. for all intents and purposes an unlimited supply. For 46 years, the former Sydney Park site was used as the major Sydney landfill site. 46 years! One site! And now the site is a park (ie. the land wasnt wasted in the end, it actually went to good use). And anyone who has been to Sydney Park knows that we are not talking about a massive area. Now Australia is a big mother of a place. And our biggest industry is mining - thats right, pulling stuff OUT of the ground, leaving a HUGE hole in the ground. Yes thats right. A hole. If only we had something to fill it up with so we can cover it over with parkland or restore the surface to its natural environment. Now where on earth would we get that landfill? PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER!

And lets face it, plastic bags are compressed in your garbage truck to almost zero volume anyway. What is everyone complaining about? "running out of landfill space" - total CRAP! Do the figures.. Lets assume 50 years for one site (a small one at that), 1000 years for plastic bags to biodegrade. Assuming all the garbage we make is plastic bags (which it is not), then thats 20 sites - which can be revolved indefinately. FOREVER! Its not much space, and the landfill can actually be useful in many cases (such as used mines), so this is a totally invalid point made by the environmentalists.

The second point they make is litter. "plastic bags harm our enviroment and poor little ducklings get strangled". Firstly I seriously question the reality behind this statement. Just looking around the harbour and beaches, there arent that many plastic bags around... and the amount of bird/marine life that would actually get damaged as a result of them would (at least on the surface) seem miniscule. I havent seen any concrete evidence to back up this statement. Secondly, if its littering that is causing the problem then why dont the environmentalists focus their efforts on the problem itself - littering. Why arent they having an anti-littering campaign (which in the past have worked quite well) instead of having an anti shopping bag campaign. Surely this would be more effective because it would also prevent lots of other non-bag littering which is also (supposedly) killing all our marine life. Also this way you wouldnt be punishing those who actually do reuse their plastic bags (by forcing them to buy bags).

Well anyway, like it or not this anti plastic bag revolution has got quite a strong footing - my local corner store, my local fruit and veg shop (which insists I use a box), and all the politicians wanting to introduce a plastic bag surcharge, not to mention all the crap all over the supermarket promoting their "eco-friendly" green bags - the friendliness of these bags I am sceptical about (but thats another long story). Not to mention the average joe on the street who doesnt think twice about things being strongly passionate about stopping plastic bags.

The war on plastic bags is a war not worth fighting. Its based on false allegations, unsupported facts, its not achieving the goals it sets out to achieve, and affecting innocent civilians who have been doing the right thing all along. Sound familiar?

16-Jun-2005 - Training has begun

City to Surf training for me has officially begun. Even though I have been jogging lots recently, I am now in City to Surf training mode.

The event is on 14th August, so I have plenty of time to get up to speed (literally!). Last night I went for a 10.6km jog which took me 1 hour. Jogging at the same pace during the City to Surf, I should get a time of 79 mins.. but the conditions will be very different - I will be fitter at that time, and jogging my hardest on the day.. however its 14kms, so I have to pace myself more and I have to dodge millions of people. So who knows what time I will get!

Well it was the Queens Birthday long weekend last weekend. It was great to have another day off. I spent the majority of the weekend either playing counterstrike (i'm addicted), or hanging out with Julian & Ben. We went clubbing heaps and had lots of fun - I also bought a new pair of jeans which I think look really cool.. and they were only $45 from paddys markets - gotta love cheap chinese imports! Also got myself a couple of armbands when I went on an adventure to Westfields Parramatta with Jules.

I am about to restock some flashing tshirts.. I am running out of sizes now, so what the heck.. time to get a few more.

I've been going every week and getting a copy of a real estate magazine from the local agency. I'm wanting to eventually get myself an investment property - when prices become more reasonable. I will have a whole bunch of magazines so that I can compare prices for similar properties over time. Not sure yet where I will look, but I think I have a couple of years to decide since the market is slowing.

Well thats my spiel for the week. See ya!

9-Jun-2005 - Dance dance dance (Flash flash flash)

Ok, I lost the table tennis tournament miserably after making it all the way to the finals.. doh! Lets speak of this no more.

Went to a rave for the first time in a while on Saturday. It was Liberation 9, and was in Waterloo in a weird half renovated warehouse type place on Botany Rd, near the maccas and across the road from some storage place.

It was a damn cold night, and I was a bit worried about parking my car in such a dodgy area. Having lived there for a while when I was a kid, I know how dodgy the area is. Me and jules stocked up on junk food as usual, and put on the glow sticks, and we both had our flashing tshirts. Easy to spot amongst the crowd! Then we dumped our jumpers in the car and made a mad run for it in the freezing cold.

The party itself was ok... was a bit too crowded - there were hundreds of people there, and only 2 smallish dance rooms with a larger chillout area out the back. One of the rooms had a bad smell of spew in it when we arrived.. hmm... and the other room had blown subwoofers, not much bass. Later on in the night the main room also blew its subwoofers - so the sound wasnt fantastic. But for $20 it was alright.

Heaps of people commented on the flashing tshirts as usual, and I gave out my number to some people who were interested. We ended up leaving early at around 2:30 or something.

Went to Bondi on Sunday and saw Alex G's new place.. its only about a block away from the beach! We went rock-walking (errr bush-walking without the bushes, but with lots of rocks to climb and stuff).. that was fun, but the tide was coming in, so we had to get out of there. Its funny that one minute you are at Bondi surrounded by millions of people, and just walk around the rocks on the water, and suddenly there is noone at all. We had to pass a bit of a rock obstacle by squeezing under some large rocks to continue, so that probably stops all the people.

Did the usual Sunday night, and saw big Joe and APRA Mark. Had a bit of a dance, and suddenly the weekend was over.

Been playing counterstrike too much lately too.. usually on weeknights. What a great game. However I suck.

Cant wait for the long weekend now!