November 2004

 25-Nov-2004 5:00p - Damn my toe

I've got a really sore toe today.. been limping around for the last 2 or 3 days.. ouch!

Was thinking of going to GodSpeed on the weekend, but I doubt I will go now with this damn toe.. and I dont think Julian wants to go anymore either. But we have decided that this NYE is going to be a rave NYE :-)

Went to darling harbour last night to have a look at the annual 'lighting of the christmas tree'... wasnt too exciting, there were a lot of people though. Saw Kwame on the way... I've gotta check out Halo 2 sometime soon, he has been wanting to play but I've gotta get off my butt on the weekend (or should I say get ON my butt) and play it!

I've been having a games craving for a while.. its been ages since i've played any sort of multiplayer game - I need to organise something with the guys from work.. maybe head down to an internet cafe or to someones place on the weekend.

Nothing much happened over the weekend apart from being told off by a tranny working at the cafe I was in for saying something I never said. Thats something that doesnt happen every day! Oh yeah I played lots of Tetris Attack with Jules.. man we are nerds.. but its damn addictive. Went to manly for a bit with John K. hmm.. thats about it really.

Still havent touched the remainder of my photos to scan... still need to do some... and then I can FINALLY put something up here.

Thats all for now folks. Giddyup!

18-Nov-2004 12:00p - Blast from the Past round 2

Met up with Nathan K for the first time in 17 years the other day! Went to chinatown and had a bite to eat. Who would have thought hey!

Property prices are falling and so are rents. Was talking to a guy from my building yesterday who used to pay $480/w for his two bedroom apartment, and when he decided to move out, they offered it to him for $410!!! Now he's staying in the building.

Went to mums last night and totally pigged out. Ben is DJing at a bar in Nth Sydney tonight.. if i'm not too tired (feeling pretty tired today) I might go and have a look.

What happened on the weekend? Hmm.. not much.. except went to Plastic on Friday night for the first time in about a year.. was pretty fun, and there was this really drunk (drugged?) chick who was constantly yelling out stuff really loudly to the DJ and everyone was laughing at her... what a freak!

And on Saturday (or was it Sunday?) me and Jules counted all the crazies that came up to us, and I think we ended up with 11! There was the male aboriginal guy who drinks metho, the weird smoker person at the cafe, rose begging for money, the drugged up former raver guy at the stools.. and 7 others who I cant remember! Oh yeah.. and the guy who walked up and down the street with something interesting poking out of his pants! Gotta love the crazies... I want to go and see what Mr Preachy is saying at town hall now that Arafat has died... would be very interesting!

12-Nov-2004 1:20p - Sharemarket going up

My stocks have been going well this week.. I think i've made more money from my stocks (theoretically anyhow) than I have working this week!

Hung out with Irish John on tuesday (now to be known as John K). Was thinking of going rollerblading wednesday but it poured down rain. Last night after coming out of the gym in my building, I could hear very loud rain outside the building, so I went to the entrance and it was POURING down! One of the gutters was blowing out air and spraying lots of water into air. Hopefully the dams got some of that rain!

I might go to Plastic nightclub tonight. Havent been to a ravery type club in a while, and i'm in the mood for it! Cant wait! Julian is going to come to my place beforehand.. hopefully we wont start playing Tetris Attack, or we'll never end up going out! ;-)

Weather forecast for this weekend is cloudy and rainy. Great. Been dying to go for a long jog, so might just end up jogging in the rain.

I read today that they are considering creating a new Town Square, opposite Town Hall in the city. That means demolishing the Woolworths building and Commonwealth Bank, and the other stuff on that block, and replacing it with a park. Somewhere new where Mr Preachy can do his anti-Muslim preaching! Just remember what he says.. Iraq is just a decoy so that Muslims will attack Israel which will give Israel a chance to NUKE all Muslim nations like they deserve. Thanks for the insight, Mr Preachy.

9-Nov-2004 1:15p - Blast from the Past

I was going through some of the photos i've scanned in my huge photo scanning project, and came across some with Nathan in them, an old friend from way back (havent seen him in around 17 years).

So I thought i'd search for him on the net to see if I could find him, and within only a few minutes I found a website with his name and mothers name on it. So I emailed a guy who was running the site, and asked if he knew Nathan, and what do you know - I get an email from Nathan himself about an hour later! The internet is amazing!

It was interesting to catch up.. he is a lawyer now, and still living in the same suburb he grew up in.

Played table tennis today, and the Monzur-Ray team was unbeatable (after a couple of warm-up games of course).

Might go see a movie with Irish John tonight.

Oh and for you techie nerd types.. I found a funny bug in MS Access today. If you attempt to insert a STRING into the database with the exact words 'for update' within the string's text, it spits the dummy. As Minh (friend from work) says - "Access, its not a product, its a prototype"!

8-Nov-2004 1:05p - The Street of Action

As some of you know, i can often be seen having a coffee on oxford st with Ben and Julian, and sometimes Carmen and others. I always call it the street of action because something always happens that is interesting on that street, and this weekend confirmed it!

On friday night we were sitting there when 3 cars crashed into each other. It was on the busiest part of the street and traffic instantly went into chaos. The police were there straight away as they constantly patrol the street, and a group of ambulance officers were having coffee in the cafe I was in, and they all jumped up and went into Action Mode. Tow trucks turned up and sat there like vultures very quickly. Everyone was ok, it was only a minor crash but it was fun to watch the entire street turn to chaos because of it. And then just 10 metres up the road 3 more cars had a little accident (at least I think they did)... they must have been looking at the other accident!

On saturday the action was in the same spot.. this time some guy got hit by a taxi. I didnt see the impact, but apparently the taxi hit him and he got run over by a car behind the taxi. He was alive, but wasnt moving. We watched as the police got there straight away, the tow truck drivers got there about 2 minutes later and the ambulance guys 10 minutes later! I think all tow truck drivers need ambulance training, that would solve our ambulance shortages! On the same night some other guy got hit just down the road (so I was told).

Made a huge batch of chicken tikka masala with veges last night, so got lots of yummy food for the rest of the week. Went clubbing after that with Julian, had a bit of a dance, then got back home around 3am. Luckily I had some sleep Sunday arvo, or else I would have been very tired at work today.

Oh and Hero (the movie) is quite good.. watched that with Jules, and it is full of EXTREME SZECHUAN fighting. Should be rated ES13+

Gotta watch Dodgeball sometime this week. Anyway, thats my rant for today, auf wiedersehen!

5-Nov-2004 4:57p - Dodgy Banks and their Dodgy Credit Cards

Today I understand credit cards. Well mostly anyway. I never realised before how complicated the "up to 55 days interest free" scheme is with banks. I have read the terms and conditions and realised the truth - banks are the dodgiest businesses ever!

Did you know:

a) "up to 55 days interest free" does not mean every transaction is 55 days interest free. It means that if you buy something on 1st Jan, you get a bill on 30th Jan that says you must pay by 24th Feb, and you pay on 24th Feb, then you have gotten 55 days interest free on your 1st Jan transaction. However, if you also bought something on 25th Jan, and it appears in your 30th Jan statement, then you STILL only have up until 24th Feb before interest gets charged. In this case its 30 days interest free. Depending on your statement date and your transaction date, you may not get 55 days interest free. Tricky bastards!

b) If you bought something on 1st Jan, and need to pay your statement by 24th Feb and you dont pay the full balance by then, you get back-charged interest for the full 55 days! Dodgy!

c) If you bought something worth $10,000 on 1st Jan, and need to pay your statement by 24th Feb and on 24th Feb you pay $9,999, leaving a $1 debt then on 25th Feb you will be charged interest for the whole 55 day period on the AVERAGE DAILY BALANCE for the statement. This means you will be paying interest on pretty much all of the $10,000, and not just the $1 debt that you have left! What a rort!

d) If you failed to repay your balance by the due date, then all subsequent transactions are charged full interest straight away without the 55 day interest free period applying. Deceptive!

 

All cards have their own dodgy tricks, and most of these will probably apply to yours, and sometimes some have even worse conditions such as higher interest rates if payments arent received.

Moral of the story:

Never trust banks. Always pay your full balance by the due date. Buy bank shares.

4-Nov-2004 9:30a - Rollerblading

Went to the annual "Biggest Cityskate Ever" last night. Didnt exactly live up to its name - there were 100 or so people there this year, and 150 or so last year! But still, it was much bigger than usual.

Didnt think my old crappy blades would have got me far.. but they seemed to be ok last night. Now that the weather is warmer i'm going to start blading more often.. I need to get a skullcap because i've been scared off by the advanced nights after hearing about and seeing too many huge accidents.

Met up with some of the old guys from blading, and also John W who I havent seen in a while, and Kwame came along a little later. He's moving out of the building and he's gotten married.. lots of things changing for him.

I wanted to buy a new pair of blades on the weekend when I had a look at Manly Blades, but realised I better not spend money while I am still waiting for my pay cheque. I think I'm going to get a good pair of Salomons with UFS so that I can have a recreational frame and an aggressive frame for skating arounds skate parks.. but I need to get that skullcap if I'm going to be doing that stuff. mmm... need money...

George Bush won the election. Damn. Although I won $1 from Monzur at work as a result ;-)

3-Nov-2004 11:00a - Too much chocolate

Been eating lots and lots of chocolate from Bruce at work, who brought in a whole lot of it. I cant help myself.. time to do some jogging! Going rollerblading tonight so that should help :-)

Irish John came over last night and we watched a DVD and ate lots of pringles.

Pretty tired today.. been working on a new project at work, and its going along faster than I expected. Still lots to do though, with a February deadline. Lets hope I make it!

Cant wait for rollerblading tonight.. should be fun...

2-Nov-2004 9:50a - Evil Trains!

It took me 1.5 hours to go from Chatswood to Town Hall on the train yesterday afternoon! It was completely crazy.. it normally takes around 20 minutes. The train stopped at every station and had to wait for a manual signal to proceed to the next station.

Apparently some sub-station at Ashfield had a power failure.. you would think they would have backup generators and stuff so that none of this crap happens... ahhh... anyway thats my 2 minute rant for the day. Back to work...

1-Nov-2004 8:30a - Quiet Office

Its monday morning.. and i've had 3 hours sleep, but feeling pretty good - a bit dehydrated after clubbing with Jules at ARQ last night. We had lots of fun watching SGD (szechuan) and MGD (minimalist) amongst many others, and the music was quite good at times, so danced around quite a bit.

On friday two friends from work left the company - Andrew and Minh. It was sad to see them go.. no more "harvey norman down" or dwarf talk in the office. Andrew has been here the whole time i've been here (3 years) and Minh has been here for a year and a half or so I think, so the team is looking very different today. Its eerily quiet this morning. Good luck guys if you are reading!

Had a pretty non-stop weekend.. was going to do lots of cleaning and grocery shopping and stuff because my place is a mess and I have no food, but was doing something the whole weekend so didnt get a chance. On friday hung out with Ben and Jules, had coffee, and thats about it.. was pretty tired. Got up earlyish (for me anyways!) on saturday at around 11:30, and went to manly beach with Ben and Jules again... sunbaked a lot and ate ice-cream and had a nice frozen shake thingy called a 'Skinny minny'. Meant to make you skinny, but has loads of sugar and stuff in it... what a load of crap! But it tasted nice and thats what counts! Bought two new tshirts that were pretty cool from Jay Jays and got a new pair of board shorts. Plus they chucked in a free CD and 3 packs of listerine pockepaks.. all for $60. Bargain!

Saturday night went to stonewall with Ben, Jules and Carmen and her crew. Met Irish-John there and hung out with him for a while which was pretty cool. He is in Sydney for a few months before continuing his trip around the world. Was pretty tired by the time the sun came up, and after adjusting for daylight savings it was already 6:30am! So went to sleep...

Then woke up around 1pm (after daylight savings) on sunday, and went and played tennis with Heath.. it was the closest game we have ever had... 6 games each down to a tie-breaker which I won... YEAHH! ;-) hey heath if you are reading ;-). Met up with Jules again for some chinatown Eating World food.. so much oil... but so much taste! Came back and slept for a bit cos I was tired, while Jules went on the net and started chatting to everyone (as you do..). Then went out to ARQ.

Now my place is still a mess and the weekend has gone by without doing anything about it! doh! Maybe tonight, but I will probably be tired by then, so might just end up crashing as soon as I eat dinner.

Now its back to the eerily quiet office... adios!