May 2005

31-May-2005 - Quiet Please..

The table tennis tournament for my company has begun.. and after 2 days me and my partner in crime are sitting at the top position on the scoreboard.. 5 wins out of 5 games!

I had a troublesome week with my car. Its getting old now and this time its the alternator. I went to my mums on thursday night, and the car was acting up.. battery and brake lights were on, the lights inside the car were dimmer than usual, and it was doing weird revving up things. I thought i'd just see how it went.. and what do you know.. Friday night I am on my way to Alex's at Bondi, when the car loses battery power completely - it was at night, and my lights/blinkers everything went out.

And guess where I had to pull over? In a dodgy seedy back alley in darlinghurst. I had to wait for the NRMA while homeless drunk people walked past. The NRMA guy bashed at my alternator for a bit, and it started to work... briefly. I drove for 5 mins then I had to call NRMA again. This time I was towed away - but on the bright side it was fun getting a ride in a big truck! :-)

Its tuesday now and my car is still at the mechanics. Should be able to pick it up today, but I think the cost is gonna be $500 or something. Ouch!

Speaking of money - I have now paid off half my home loan. Hooray!

On Sunday I went jogging - it was a nice afternoon so I thought i'd get a bit of a jog in before the sun went down. I went from my place over to the Prime Ministers place at Kirribilli, and back again. Was about an hour jog and I put on my new shoes again (they gotta be worn it some time..). Ended up with really really really sore feet the next day - Just in time for the table tennis competition :-). And Julian was like "I'm not going out to THAT place all weekend" and I was like "Yeah Right!". And what do u know... Sunday night we went clubbing! If only I had known beforehand I wouldnt have FEET OF EXTREME PAIN.

In other news.. in the last week Alex G has moved from Central to Newcastle to Kings Cross and finally to Bondi! Thats a lot of moving in a week!!

Oh and Monzur hasnt stopped complaining about the table tennis team drawing method for the last month. He is coming second last ;-).

Oh yeah.. also last Tuesday I went and had dinner with 3 guys from the "Pyrmont Collective" (and 1 other friend-of-a-friend). That was fun - should do it again. Met someone new from my building too!

Well i'm amazed you have read down to this line.. go and do something useful already!

23-May-2005 - Tax cuts for the rich?

Ok.. my pet peeve is igorant people who think that the latest round of tax cuts are "tax cuts for the rich". Politicians like Kim Beazley use this ignorance for their political advantage - and people believe him. Stupid people. Of which there are huge numbers. They quote statistics like the rich are getting an extra $60 a week, while the poor are getting $6 a week. This is true, but it is far from unfair... here is a good example I have found to explain what is really going on with tax cuts:

Suppose that every night, 10 men go out for dinner at La Porchetta's. The bill for all 10 comes to $100.They decided to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, and it went like this:

* The first four men (the poorest) paid nothing.

* The fifth paid $1.

* The sixth $3.

* The seventh $7.

* The eighth $12.

* The ninth $18.

* The tenth man (the richest) paid $59.

All 10 were quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner said:

"Since you are all such good customers, I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."

So now dinner for the 10 only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.

The first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free.

But how should the other six, the paying customers, divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"?

They realised that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth and sixth men would each end up being paid to eat. The restaurateur suggested reducing each man's bill by roughly the same percentage, thus:

* The fifth man paid nothing (like the first four) instead of $1 (100%saving).

* The sixth paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).

* The seventh paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).

* The eighth paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).

* The ninth paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).

* The tenth paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off, and the first four continued to eat for free, as now did the fifth - but outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He Pointed to the tenth man "but he got $10!"

"That's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"

"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner. The nine sat Down and ate without him, but when they came to pay the bill, they Discovered that they didn't have enough money between all of them to meet even half of the bill!

That, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our Tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.

There are lots of good restaurants in Monaco and the Caribbean.

So before you start whinging about tax cuts for the rich, have a think what is really going on.

19-May-2005 - I guess its time...

...for my weekly update. But nothing much has really happened over the last week, so what do you want me to say?

It was a long weekend for me (took monday off) and spent a lot of the time playing CounterStrike (yes I am a sad case). However I am totally crap at it and get killed very easily - I always have the highest number of deaths, and often have the least number of kills. Lots of practise required!

I have to take a day off next week for some guy to come and do something on my balcony (not sure what).. they were meant to come two saturdays ago, and I spent the day waiting for them and they didnt show up! Bastards! So now I have to take a day off work.. if they dont show up this time I'm gonna be real pissed.

Does anyone remember Lemmings? Well now you can play it on the internet! :-). This used to be on the net ages ago, but it got shut down, but now its back..

I am a nerd. I know I must be one because I think Das Keyboard is cool. I want one. Ich möchte ein "Das Keyboard" kaufen!

13-May-2005 - Games, games and more games

The week has been fairly uneventful. Alex came around last weekend to help me finish off another Halo level, but nothing much has happened on the weekend other than that.

Julian is learning to drive - god help us all ;-). (Hi Julian!).

After finally finishing FarCry (what an awesome game!) I thought its time to get another shooter.. so I have just bought Half Life 2 bronze (includes HL2, Counterstrike Source, HL2 Deathmatch and Codename: Gordon). And I got it REALLY CHEAP. It is retailing for $90 at a games store I went to at Chatswood, but I bought the same thing for $26 (legal + legit) off ebay. All you get is a license key - everything else must be downloaded through Steam (software which updates half life). So I saved myself $64, plus I now have a few new games to play with - some which are multiplayer online.

So guess what i'll be doing this weekend (which is another long weekend for me) :-).

The last time I played CounterStrike was at an internet cafe, which was filled with 10-12 year olds. Every time I entered the game, I had a few seconds before getting killed. Damn it sux being destroyed by someone half your age in a matter of seconds.

Time to go off to the gaming zone of mindlessness... see ya!

06-May-2005 - Choose your phobia!

Here is a website listing many of the phobias you can have. Some of my favourites are:

Linonophobia - Fear of string
Papaphobia - Fear of the Pope
Pteronophobia - Fear of being tickled by feathers
Pupaphobia - Fear of puppets
Soceraphobia - Fear of parents-in-law

So go and choose your phobia!

05-May-2005 - More photos uploaded

Created a new section - current photos. This will contain new photos that I am currently taking.

04-May-2005 - Celebrity of the week: Bob Brown

Yes.. Bob Brown was walking into a 7/11 as I was walking out of it. I did a double-take and he grinned as he noticed. So there you go!

Had a day off on Monday.. so had a 3 day weekend. So glad I did.. was very relaxing and did some bits and pieces I've been meaning to do finally, including finishing Far Cry! Yeah!! The last level was crazily difficult and spent hours and hours trying to get through it. I was walking around on Sunday night with visions of little green boxes zooming in on people - ready to be snipered! ASIOs Echelon system (run by DSD) probably just triggered an alert at the previous sentence. No ASIO/DSD, I am not a terrorist!

By the way - JIHAD TO ALL AMERICANS!! Just kidding :-)

Went out on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights to the usual host of venues. Julian invited Irish James out.. who got quite drunk - was funny to watch. I also got a couple of photos with the legendary Harry (although the best one was blurry doh!). We still dont know much about him - but he's a pretty funny guy.

Met Richard on Sunday night and caught up with him over a huge plate of chips and a big burger on Monday night. Yumm... chips and burgers!

Tim wants to do a video with me.. that would be pretty fun - I've always wanted to do a music video thingy! :-) Might do some filming with him in a few weeks.

Still learning German. Möchten Sie etwas essen? Ich bin hungrig!
:-)

Back to work - nothing is working on my computer today, argghh!