I dressed up as a vampire, and what a hassle that was.

I had grease paint all over my face and I was melting under it, but couldn’t wipe away any sweat because then the makeup would smudge. The ninja turtle girls seemed less green as the night went on, so they may have had similar issues with their makeup.

I had a pair of fangs which came with a cement that was supposed to affix to my canine teeth. Unfortunately, they didn’t mix well with alcohol and the cement changed to the consistency of melted chewing gum with sand in it. I spent the night talking through my teeth as I used them to clamp down on the fangs to keep them in place.

My favourite part of my costume was a vial of fake blood, that looked awesome for 10 minutes after each application but then dried out. I reapplied it throughout the night and I went from having a small trickle of blood at the corner of my mouth to having a bloody maw covered in congealed blood. For the last few days I’ve had red ink stains on my face and there is now a rash, because I am seemingly allergic to it. Non-toxic indeed!

The night had a slightly unpleasant end: I was rambling down Rokeby Road from Richard’s residence after the party and was the victim of a drive-by.

A car drove up behind me.
*whack*
-an impact on my side.
*whack*
-an impact on my back.

As the car, carrying four hoons, sped off, I wondered what the projectiles had been - they felt too soft to be rocks, but I was not covered in yolk and albumen indicating eggs were used.

I checked the ground - they were eggs. But I rechecked my body - no goo. They’d BOUNCED!
My years of preparatory training had paid off.

To set it up, pause Dark Side at the start of the album on your CD player, and then play Oz on your DVD player. As the MGM lion roars for the third time in Oz, unpause Dark Side. A minute in, the director’s name should materialize on the screen as a long guitar chord plays on the album. If it doesn’t, try again until they match.

A number of sites on the web have long lists of synchronicities between the two, but I found a lot were contrived. The best synchronicities that I observed were

• Dorothy doing a balancing act on a rail to the lyric “…balanced on the biggest wave…”
• The song Great Gig in the Sky lasts for the whole tornado scene as Dorothy’s house rises into the sky. A lot of changes in tune and rythm in the song match with the movements on the sceen
• The black and white part of the movie lasts as long as the first side of the album
• The lyric “…who knows which is which…” plays as the camera goes first to one witch then to another on each “which”
• The camera scrolls up to show tinman with blade of his axe raised as “…raise the blade…” plays
• The Scarecrow pushes an oilcan in the Tin Man’s ear as “…thunder in your ear…” plays
• The Tin Man moves lips, trying to make sound, as “…you shout and no one seems to hear…” plays
• In addition, there are a lot of moments in which characters, props, and munchkins are making movements in time with the music or even appear to be singing lyrics.

I’ve tried this three times now, and each time has been great. Supposedly if you watch it while stoned, it is better than watching it normally, but I wouldn’t know because I have only tried it the one way.

UPDATE: I’ve found a YouTube link to a segment in which MTV cover Dark Side of Oz, and also the Great Gig in the Sky clip.

Anyway, it could be the dry weather lately but I have manifested the unlimited awesome power of static electricity. Doors, my computer, the kitchen sink at work - all have fallen prey in the past two days to my galvanising touch. There’s been crackling static noises and different objects attracting my hair. Now if only I can harness this power for evil before the forecasted rain comes tomorrow.

I was walking towards the Woodlands Reserve cricket field and they pulled up. The guy sitting behind the driver opened his door and was getting out. The frontside passenger (who had a length of wood in his hand and was holding it out the window) said “We’re the cops and we’re gonna get you!”
A car came in the opposite direction and the guy in the back closed his door and they took off…
They drove out of sight, but then the fog ahead turned red, I heard a screech and reversing and they were speeding back towards me.

I crossed the road away from the park and made as if to go to a house up a side street…
They sped past and turned up a street parallel to the one I made as if to go up. Once they were out of sight I doubled back and ran into the shade of the trees in the park - towards to cricket nets.
Sure enough, a coupla seconds later they came back down the street that I’d made as if to go up.
I saw them going up and down some of the adjacent streets, and heard them revving around for ages after.

Keep in mind that I ran away to protect them. I didn’t want to have to flip out and kill people.

At least two or three times a month I dream variants of the same dream:
I become aware that it is week [6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / …] of semester and I have not attended any of my [statistics / calculus / linear algebra / engineering for mathematics / …] lectures for which I am enrolled because I have [forgotten I was enrolled / been too busy / been skipping / been playing netball].
I attend a [lecture / tutorial] in the [arts / architecture / engineering / physics / ref] building and realise as [Dr Stoyanov / Prof Owens / Dr Ma / My boss at work / Pippa from Home&Away] is talking that I [don’t understand anything / have no chance of catching up / have missed most assessments / have an assignment due tomorrow] and will fail university.

The dream is never resolved, I just wake up and it takes a moment to overcome the terror and realise that I graduated university four years ago and will never have to do another maths course again. My bro Jimmy also has similar dreams with the difference that his aren’t maths lectures. I wonder if it is a common nightmare.
I also wonder if these nightmares will ever cease, or if I will be constantly tortured forever for actually unenrolling from 3rd year statistics after skipping the first three weeks of lectures to play intra-uni lunchtime netball and finding that I could not catch up.

I googled “10,000 days old” and came across

• a number of sites that calculate when this occurs;
• a site that sells 10,000-days-old merchandise, cards, and organises 10,000 day parties in the UK;
• a number of sites offering 10,000 days old whiskey; and
• The album “10,000 days” by Tool. Apparently that was the length of time between the lead-singer’s mother becoming partially-paralyzed and dying.

The next milestone for me will be turning one billion seconds old (1,000,000,000s) on 30 August 2010. I’ll have a big party then. Put it in your diary. BYO.

I wrote a letter back that started: “…I’ll thank you for not talking to me in that fashion in future unless you have your facts straight…” and got harsher from there.

I umm-ed and ahh-ed about sending the letter and eventually let my finger quickly hit the send button. Not one minute later, literally less than 60 seconds, my fellow-Capricornian workmate read out our star sign for the day:

Capricorn - Avoid rash responses. You must try to keep a lid on your emotions today as fiery words could lead to regret later.

In order of awesomeness:
Battle of the Planets
Ulysses 31
The Mysterious Cities of Gold
Thundercats
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
Voltron: Defender of the Universe
M.A.S.K.
Silverhawks
Centurions
Bravestarr

I lined up for The Darkness about 45 mins before the doors opened and was 100m from the door. By the time the doors opened, the line went down Roe St, along Milligan St, and up back around James Street - more than 400 metres. I helped my sister cut into where I was in the line (I hate people who do that ) and we managed to get seats on the balcony directly above centrestage. The view was awesome.

I’d seen the Darkness at Big Day Out ‘04 and they were my favourite performance that day, but this was something else again. Metro City was packed with obvious fans who hung on every note of the show and would sing along perfectly when Justin Hawkins tried to get the audience involved.

I was worried to hear that the band had kicked out bassist Frankie, but the new bass player Richie more than made up for the loss and even took center stage for a couple of AC/DC covers - in fact, the beginning of Thunderstruck that segued into a Darkness song was the highlight of the night for me.

The music was highly polished - I didn’t think they’d be able to get the same sound as their albums into a live performance. Justin’s banter with the crowd was excellent - he involved us in the show, rather than just shouting out nonsense like “It’s great to be here in [insert venue city here]” like other bands do. There were a lot of humourous moments too, like playing different tunes between songs, such as Van Halen’s Jump.

The Darkness themselves were impressed with the show. Their lead-guitarist Dan Hawkin’s tour diary said of the perth gig - “The whole show was one big highlight”, “our favourite place to tour in the world”, and “the crowd were the loudest we’ve ever encountered “.

On four occassions since then, I could have sworn that someone has been ringing the doorbell and running away. I found out today that it was actually our neighbour’s doorbell ringing - their bell had been working on the same frequency. I talked to my neighbour, and it turns out that it works both ways - our doorbell rings in their home.

We apparently got the better deal - their doorbell was only rung four times that I heard, we’ve had heaps of people over in the past few weeks, and they usually rock up late at night after pubbing and clubbing. Muhahaha.

I thought I’d better get outside quick and give the neighbours a reassuring nod. But as I was just out of bed, I needed to dress properly, so I ran back to my room, chucked on shirt and pants, and ran back to the front door…which I found locked, because when your housemate sets the alarm, he also deadbolts the door.

I ran back to my room, grabbed my keys, ran back and unbolted the door. I leaned out and gave my neighbours a reassuring wave.

Only later did I remember that I don’t know any of my neighbours by sight - I could have been anyone waving at them.

To help him celebrate, the guys in the office decorated his desk with an assortment of Australian flags, a copy of Advance Australia Fair, a meat pie and sauce, vegemite roll, and a beer. We also renamed him to sound more Australian - “Kevin” (or just “Kev” to his friends).

Kev still has a bit to learn about Aussie customs and culture - he came into work rather than chucking a sickie.

The name on his badge says Jasper. But not wanting the dog to suffer due to my mum’s gay naming skills (like my poor brother (haha - BURN! - you know who you are)), I am trying to lead the push to have it named Flipper - a rugged name for a dog, reminiscent of the sea (which he took to swimming in immediately, unlike a certain dead dog I could mention…)

Update (25/2): The push for Flipper was unsuccessful, and the dog remains Jasper.
You win this round evil matriarch.

I love the fact that Perth is so small that you can’t help but come across people you know. I bumped into my cousins and a number of friends that I have not seen in ages. I also ran into the K-Town girls from Rotto, and spoke for a while with J-Dawg (but missed out on seeing T-Dawg).
I didn’t hang with anyone for any great period of time despite going to the concert with Con, Joey, and Lara . With the buzz from everyone in a crowd, I prefer to get in the middle of the action in the shows I want to see, rather than staying close to friends. I think being up close to a band makes a big difference.

My three favourite gigs of this year’s Big Day Out were
Wolfmother, for which I was in the mosh area, about 4 rows from the front;
The Go! Team, for which I was in the front row against the barricade; and
Franz Ferdinand, which I started 50m from the stage at the back of the “D” area and made a game of surreptiously pushing forwards throughout the jam-packed concert whenever people were jumping around or being pushed by the crowd. If we were pushed forwards, I’d stay forwards. If the crowd staggered backwards, I held my ground. I ended up about five metres from the front and reckon I could have made it the whole way to the front if they had stayed for two more songs.

During the day I also saw The White Stripes, Iggy & The Stooges, End Of Fashion, Hilltop Hoods, The Subways, The Presets, and Gerling.

We were 10 metres off the ground before my worry abated - I figured that given I was doomed to crash to death, I may as well enjoy the view. The view was awesome, and the pilot did a few tricks: flying straight up, flying on the side with the wing pointing down, and hard banks leading into turns. The flight turned out to be the best 15 minutes of the entire fortnight, and we had taken plenty of happy snaps, on the off-chance our parents would want photos of our last moments alive.

I’m not saying the two events are linked, but she arrived yesterday and suddenly it was pissing down and we were stuck at K-Town.
We let ourselves into the hall and played Taboo. At 4 o’clock, the Rottnest Volunteers came in to set up for a quiz night. With fundamentalist-christian-like enthusiasm they set about organising the hall for the event. We asked if we could stay at our table (which was already in place) while they set up but were told by one of the organisers that this was not possible. >:(
Trying to make her realise that there were hours left until the event in which we could sit out of the way and remain dry, I asked her when the quiz would be:

“When does the quiz night start?”
“Six dollars.”

Realising she’d misheard, I made out as if she’d answered my question and asked another:

“And what time does it start?”
“It’s six dollars.”

“$6.00″ - It’s the new answer-all for any question

Last night, after drinking at the pub and on our K.Town verandah, P-Dawg, N-Dawg and Me were joined by a group of 18- and 19-year-old girls that had been staying a few doors up from us. I’m not sure, but they may have been drunk, as evidenced by them all coming out in nighties and three of them each trying to swig the recently-finished bottle of Malibu on our table. A night of drinking, loud music, games, and dancing ensued.

One girl, T-Dawg, works as a hostess at children’s parties. She taught us a number of drinking games which were all based on the party games that she teaches kids in her capacity as a fairy princess. If they played them as hard as we did, there’d be some shitfaced four-year-olds out there.

It was a great night that ended on a perfect note - at 5 o’clock, the Rotto police arrived after a neighbour called.

Over the next fortnight I will go snorkelling, bike riding, jetty fishing, boat fishing, beer fishing, playing radio rummy, playing taboo, getting intoxicated, verandah cricket, perving at the beach, drinking at the pub, Brett Heady mini golf and air hockey.

I’ll be staying with 26 people: Alastair, Beth, Eugene, Jack, Jimmy, Jonesy, Fiona, Granddad, Grandma, Hannah, Margie, Maria, Mark, Matt, Melissa, Mum, Nick, Pete, Peter, Richard, Rolf, Ruhamah, Sophie, Tim, Tone, and Vinnie. Phwoar!

Combining lost earnings and money spent on the trip, I will be over three thousand dollars worse off. It would be a bargain at twice the price.

1) There was no Noni

2) There was a blatant example of plagiarism.
Here, for your judgement, are the theme tune for Channel 9’s What’s In The Box program and the song that they were singing this morning on Play School:

How hard is it to come up with an original song about a box?
Benita and Big Ted would be rolling in their graves.

I just wonder now when I will be able to repeat the experience by pressing the Emergency Stop button without raising suspicions.

Feeling cheated, I went out and got a ticket to see another movie (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - it was good). The movie had a trailer for “Wallace and Gromit and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit”. I had not seen any of the scenes in the trailer.

* God, I hate that song. It’s Green Day’s worst.

Today I lost my best friend - Asha (29 March 1995 – 9 September 2005)

Asha was a wilful, disobedient dog and, as such, fit in perfectly with the rest of the family. The kids in our family didn’t teach her the normal tricks of sitting, begging, or playing dead. Instead, we taught her how to open the door and come inside when she wasn’t allowed, knock down the make-shift gate erected later to prevent her from opening the door, and come over and sit next to us when our mum and dad were commanding her out of the house.

Since she joined our family, all the flowers, plants, trees and bushes in our backyard were destroyed by Asha either digging them up or running into/through them. She was impervious to being disciplined from destroying the garden, whether discipline took the form of being sprayed with a hose or buried up to her neck in the holes she had dug.

Over the years she graduated from being an outside dog to being allowed in the house pretty much whenever she wanted (the kids’ training had paid off). She liked to lie in the front entrance and look out the front door. We figured she liked to look at activity out on the street, but this theory was debunked the last time she got loose – we found her lying outside the front door, looking in – it turns out she just liked staring at the flyscreen.

There are so many special memories that I have of her - she slashed my chest with her claws as she climbed up my body and onto my shoulders when I took her into rough surf at the beach, she held the neighbour’s cat’s head in her mouth after it took a swipe at her, she peed on the porch when us kids came around the house with cereal boxes covering our heads pretending to be prowlers, she’d occasionally emit loud howls in her sleep and scare me awake, she would sit/stand/sleep in ‘her chair’ next to the back door and let out a noise akin to a yawn every now and then to make sure we had not forgotten her. But my most treasured memories are mundane - just those of sitting next to her and patting her – she liked the area around her ears being rubbed especially. She mellowed out during the second half of her life and will be remembered as a gentle and affectionate dog by all.

Asha was a dog with a big heart. In fact, it was four-and-a-half times the normal size of a heart thanks to cardiomyopathy. She slowed down a lot over the last six months of her life, eventually developing breathing problems due to the cardiomyopathy and cancer, but she was still chasing after birds in the backyard less than a week before her condition made it necessary to have her put down. She came damn close to catching one too.

“I’ve got my butt on the line now…”
“My butt is f#%ked. Can you check it?”
“…My butt’s not showing anything”
“I’ll just grab my spare butt…”
“I should be able to hear tone through my butt and I’m not”
“My butt is looping now”
“Here comes someone now - I’ll use his butt”
“I did a FAST test on my butt and it brought me through to you guys”

I like to think the guy was talking about Tone when he said “I should be able to hear Tone through my butt and I’m not.”

Along with 7 others, I formed a club called The London Bureau of Devilry and Obfuscation. Our purpose was to investigate castles and archeological sites on The University of WA campus. The members were

• Jonesy - Minister of Navigation
• Conrad - Minister of Breakfast
• Beth - Minister of Choosing a Video
• My NEW 4-year-old bro Jimmy (a clone of my bro Jimmy who was dead in the dream)
• Andrew McCarthy from the Brat Pack movies – Minister FOR Breakfast
• Peter and Susan from Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven Books - Peter was our leader.
• Me - I was Minister of Finance

We were tunnelling under the Reid Library in search of some Egyptian ruins when Jonesy, the Minister of Navigation took us on a wrong turn. Some campus guards spotted us and told us to stop. We pulled out our guns, pointed them at the guards, and made bang bang noises (because the guns did not have bullets). This only enraged the guards and they started shooting. I threw my gun at the guards and then we ran across the campus trying to lose them – through class rooms, corridors, New York, the University Club building, and finally through the waterslide park next to the Arts building where our clubhouse was.

I determined that our expenditure for the night was $40 each (to pay for my lost gun) and got everyone to pay. Andrew McCarthy determined that it was time for breakfast and got Conrad to make everyone scrambled eggs. Andrew McCarthy wanted to watch The Breakfast Club, but Beth pointed out that she was Minister of Choosing a Video and chose The Never Ending Story.
As we were watching the movie, I revealed to my baby brother Jimmy that he was a clone of my deceased brother. And that mum and dad didn’t like him as much as the real one. And that he was doomed to also die fishing at 20 like the real Jimmy.
The End

I am currently reading a popular-science book (light on the phys. so you can slam it down fast) called Hyperspace by Michio Kaku, which uses the above example as an introduction to string-theory and how current research shows that the forces of nature may be affected by multiple dimensions outside of our perception.
It says that the theory can explain wormholes, black holes, and time travel.
And I thought this book would be a change from the last few books I’ve read which were also Fantasy.

Currently Sucking On: My Saint Jude Medal

At that time in the morning, I generally have to sit up the front, if I am even fortunate enough to find a spare seat. The solution to The Mystery of the Spare Seats assaulted my face as I slammed into a malodourous cloud of stench emitting from the one passenger sitting in the back seat. At that moment, I would have been willing to spend the rest of my life with only four senses if only the smell would stop. I now know what the Bog of Eternal Stench smelled like in the movie Labyrinth. Halfway through the action of sitting down, I stood up and went to the middle of the bus to stand. I turned back to observe Stinky Pete and expected from the smell to see a homeless person wearing clothes that had been polished with excrement. I did not expect to see a man in a well-tailored business suit.
Throughout the trip, I watched as people would walk to the back of the bus, I anticipated the involuntary shake that quaked through their bodies as they hit the stench. Some turned back; Some stayed; No-one sat next to the man in the suit. By the time we reached Perth, the smell had wafted midway down the bus.
I like to think that the passengers that sat next to the man fretted for the rest of the day that the smell had attached itself to them.

In summary – there was a smelly person on the bus today. Not very interesting is it? Of course, I’ve got another bus story from years back and this morning’s incident works nicely as a segway into this next bus tale. I’ve probably already told it to most people reading this, but will blog it, as I certainly would have blogged it back then, had I had a blog:

Picture this: I’m sitting on the driver’s side of the bus, second row from the back. I look out the window at a fine Summer day . I have my left ankle resting on my right knee and am tapping a tune on my boot with my fingers. The man across the aisle turns to face me:

”What the HELL do you think you’re doing!”

I stop mid-tap.
The guy has a shaved head, RayBan sunglasses, beard, leather jacket, jeans, and heavy biker boots. Oh Shit! I think; wondering what I have done to annoy the bikie. On second inspection, I realise he is not facing me, but rather someone sitting behind me in the back row. I turn my head to see, but only register that it is a guy, before looking back to the bikie.
He reaches around his back and pulls out a badge:

”I’m a cop. You’re under arrest!”

So, he’s a cop – not a bikie. I figure the guy behind me must be writing graffiti or something. I begin to turn around to look, but the cop stands up, and my attention is drawn to him:

”Driver! Stop the bus! I’ve just caught this man masturbating!”

My head whips forward immediately – eyes staring directly ahead.
The bus stops and the cop picks the guy out of his seat and propels him through the back door. The cop storms back, picks up the guy’s shopping, and thrusts it into the guys arms outside.
The cop asks the driver if he can use his radio to call it in, and does so.
He then comes up the back of the bus and asks me and a girl who’d been sitting in front of him if we had seen anything. We are both (thankfully) able to say no.
The whole time the cop is on the bus the perpetrator stands on the curb, shifting his feet under the scrutiny of the other passengers.
The bus pulls away from the curb as the cop launches into berating the pervert.

Now the important thing for you to take away from reading this blog is that both the smelly passenger from today and the pervert from years ago sat in the far-right seat of the back row of the bus.
Coincidence? I think not.

The Festival of Fire (FoF) has been run since 2000 by my uncle on his farm in Geraldton with family, friends, colleagues, and neighbours invited to attend and create a display involving fire. This year there were about 15 different displays.

The FoF is run on a Saturday night, and I went up on the Wednesday with my brother, cousin, and another of our uncles (who is 3 years older than I am). The trip seemed doomed from the start, as we were the only represesentatives from our family going this year; everyone else was struck down with illness and other disasters. We camped out on the property and experienced the joy of setting up our camp at evening time in the rain. The weather worsened and we found our very large camp tarpaulin blown over twice during the night. Camp morale was a tad low and got worse when on the Friday night while fishing (I caught a Tailor and 3 crabs) my cousin fell ill. Saturday morning saw us disassembling the camp and the three of them going home. I stayed on, the only representative of our large family, other than my uncle who was running it and his immediate family. This was fine, as his immediate family included three of my favourite cousins.

Anyway, enough doom and gloom. That Saturday morning saw the weather finally clear into one of the finest days that the middle of winter has to offer. At almost spot on noon cars began to rock up, so that by evening we had in the vicinity of 50 -60 people.

At dusk, the displays began. Displays included

-a rocket show (rockets being like fireworks but set off using electrical switches at a distance);
-a large sheet over a frame that burnt away to reveal a long-burning image of a Ned Kelly helmet;
-a rope with crackers and flares wrapped around it (this one was a bit of a fizzle. The next morning, we found an aerial flare that had not gone off. When we then set it off, it careened off a rock, and then missed our head and a 4WD by a couple of feet)
-A 9-foot statue of a man made from hay bales
-A family of 4 life size statues sitting on chairs (this one was good, but needed accelerant - it took too long to get going)
-An effigy and a train rising up a spiral (I felt that this one sullied the event, as the effigy was of a political figure and the train which looked cool carried political sentiments. The people who made it should have left their political convictions at home (along with their poncho). There’s a time and a place for politics - and it’s NOT during a fun-natured event, and NOT around me);
-A series of 10-20(?) viking vessels with canvas coverings that contained candles (A great effect was achieved that made them look as if they were glowing ships sailing down the horizon)
- Three perfectly proportioned 2-3 foot statues dancing in a circle (I saw these earlier in the day and it was a shame that they had to be burned - I thought they looked evil - as if they came from a nightmare)
- A structure that once lit shone out the Southern Cross
- A log cabin! (This one won the first prize for the night (a sandalwood trophy with a silhouette of a man burned through it)
- A trefoil-like spiral made from hundreds of matches (with the matcheads all touching, so the fire ripped across it)
- A full-sized trebuchet!! (Or a big-ass catapault for those not in the know. It was something like 9 feet tall and was loaded with boulder-shaped objects which were on fire)

I had two displays:
- A scarecrow with a papier mache head that flailed it’s arms as it burned (You better believe I had fun making the papier mache - it has a calming effect as you regress to Grade 2 arts and craft. Oh, and Clag glue still tastes as great after 20 years)
-A bird sculpture with a four-foot wing span (My brother made the sculpture, but intended it to be a static piece - I wired it together so that when i pulled a wire, the wings would flap while it was on fire. After rubbing 2 litres of kerosene into it, it was spectacular - the fire rolled down the wings when they descended and the flames joined together above the body as the wings rose. It’ll be a while before I have access to any of the photos or video taken of it - but when I do I’ll post it on the blog)

For the past few years, my uncle has made a large statue of a man out of cast-iron mesh and covered with wood (this year wicker) for the finale. It is huge. I am 5′10′’ and barely passed it’s knees as you can see in the photo. It took around an hour to erect using 8 people, metal wires, a tractor, and a ute. It took much longer last year. As it burned, the iron mesh melted so it crumpled in upon itself.

Afterwards, we played Flaming Soccer with kerosene soaked toilet rolls. The games has two teams (most players wearing coloured balaclavas indicating their team) and is played on a circular field with raised hoops (like Quidditch goals) for goals. I didn’t get one of the balaclavas and never really worked out which side I was on, or who won, but I came away with the hair still on my arms unlike last year.
The pics at the start of the article are of your truly making a fiery drop-kick.

Afterwards, I stayed up til 3:30am, chatting with my cousins (who were also camping out), and then looking up at the most amazing stars I have ever seen - we were in the middle of nowhere and it was a perfectly clear night.
The next morning after taking down the tent and other gear, we had a rifle-target-shooting competition and clay-pigeon shooting with the shotgun.
Phew…what a long blog…I’m spent.

My virus began as a cough and slight running nose when I woke. After an hour at work, I had a headache, fever, and felt ill in the stomach. I left work, stopped past a pharmacy, and got back on the bus to come home. My day at work was so short that I got to use the same bus ticket to go home, which was a plus. I slept most of the day and got up when I heard my housemate Graham come home. After telling him that I was sick, I went to the toilet (still 2 rolls of poor-quality toilet paper to go. Good one, Con) and was hit by a burst of hacking coughs. Having heard the coughs and mistaking them for puking noises, Graham called through the door asking if I was okay, and later offered to take me to the hospital. I should have milked the sympathy, but set him straight that I hadn’t done Number 3s.

Having slept a bit, and having a keyless keyboard and mouse that I can use from my bed, I got on my computer.
A couple of days ago I heard the song Tingly by Pop! coming from Conrad’s room. Having loved the song when it came out ~10 years back, I got it from Con and listened to it over and over and over, to the point where iTunes shows that it is already my most played song for the past 3 months. I wanted to find out any info for the song so I started googling. The first page I went to had nothing to do with the song and my puter started going slow and making noises. As I hastened to close the webpage and open up Windows Task Manager, my Virus Scanner kicked in and told me that it had detected a Trojan Horse and did I want to cancel it from damaging my computer? Hrmmm… I chose yes.

It was a special moment between “Putey” and I. I came down with a virus, so my loyal computer did so too.
I’d like to think that if my computer ever crashes, I will be able to repay the favour.

A few weeks back I was asleep and in the middle of a dream when a pop-up message(as above) jumped up in front of my dream. In the dream, I then opened MSN Messenger which opened to the right of my dream. I messaged a friend and told him that I was having windows pop up in my dreams. I then closed the MSN, selected Continue Dream from the popup and continued my original dream.
I’m going to have to install a Pop-up filter in my head.

PS. As I was initially designing the banner from scratch, I googled “Windows Error Message” to make sure I got the correct font and came across Atom Smasher’s Error Message Generator and saved myself an hour.
Man, the Internet’s got Everything.

Here is a pic of one of our previous efforts from Dunsborough Nov ‘02