Being a public holiday, the Southern Expressway was open late this evening as a cavalcade of motorists made their way back up to the city from the coast. As a consequence my trip sealing drive home was even shorter than I had initially planned, and I had planned on it being short (thanks primarily to my driving instinct to not have any cars in front of me on long roads - an instinct I suspect might have something to do with making long trips less boring).

Joy at speeding along the longest over-taking lane on the Fleurieu soon churned to confusion as my most of a Franz Ferdinand CD trip home came to an end and I realised that although my car was parked in the driveway, my mind hadn't pulled in next to it. Nor was it back in the beach house in Encounter Bay instead it was still drifting back home at its own pace, as usually happens at the end of holidays. It's still not quite here yet, probably stuck behind some older brain who doesn't quite do the speed limit and brakes at times that make you exclaim "why would you brake?!", as usually happens at the end of holidays.

I don't mind waiting a little longer, after uncovering that days that I don't do any work on exist still. I don't know how to feel, now, what with emotional conflict, but it was definitely unforgettable.

http://bradism.com/display.php?jid=27

After midnight, the following things happen:

A new AFL Season. Not only is the first preseason cup game going to be happening in February, but also, as a Bulldogs fan, the long wait since August is over.
As a Bulldogs fan this year holds a lot of promise, which sucks because they're going to lose anyway and sometimes I think it's a lot easier when your team constantly loses after not showing promise. Less heart-breaking and soul-destroying that way...

Calculation of Petrol Costs. $1273 Dollars, ~$106 a month. There were some good months (June, $55) and some bad... days (August 20, $80). Still cheaper than last year, somehow, despite increasing oil prices. Documenting of petrol costs is pretty much the only reason I buy a physical calendar at the start of every year. That plus the excitement of...

Holding off on buying a Calendar. The longer you wait after mid-December, the cheaper calendars become... and the worse your options get. It's a thrill you can't find anywhere else, except perhaps in casino's and anything else involving gambling. Last year I set a personal best with my $4.25 'Pumped Up Down Under' calendar on January 17th. I know this, because I wrote it on the calendar.

Calculation of Speeding Fines. $0

Archives Page gets new sub-heading. I only noticed this when looking up my posts about petrol costs and calendars...

I remember when I worked at ETSA full time; I never found time for a haircut.
At least this time my original haircut was more styled and thus far mullet territory isn't on the map.
The thing is I have to find a new salon to get this cut at because I have a delicate relationship with my hairdresser and she will know that I have been avoiding getting a haircut. I mean, I'm the reasonable one I know I've been busy but she'll take it as an affront to her quality that I keep dragging out my haircuts for as long as possible before seeing her. I can't risk upsetting her. My plan is to get it cut somewhere else, and then turn up a couple of months after that like nothing happened.
I'm almost positive something negative happened to me as a child involving short hair because I always fall in love with my long hair and don't want to get rid of it, but then after I cut it I realise what a fool I've been.

I learnt a bit about myself today.

Throughout the three years that my IT degree degree spanned I met many politely curious people who asked me about what I did. My parents are both quite social.

I would always reply "I do an IT Degree". A vague response, justifiable by the like-naturedness of the actual degree, my response was usually followed up by the query "So what do you want to do when you finish?".

It was a running joke over the last three years to reply with a smirk "Anything that doesn't involve computers". Things have evolved slightly since then, surely, but today does reinforce why I used to feel that way.

I pulled myself out of bed at 11 this morning ready for another consecutive day of primarily working. I pressed the power button on my computer, sat down and waited for it to finish booting up.
It never did.

My first thought, based on the high pitch spinning noise that the computer was making immediately prior to restarting midway through booting was that a DVD was in one of the drives spinning out. Two unplugged, empty drives later and my fears were heightened.

The spinning was a hard drive.

The computer wasn't booting up and safe mode was not helping.

I knew one of my hard drives was dead. Yeah, this shouldn't be a problem because you should back these things up. But who has time to back up two 100gig hard drives every time you shut down the computer, especially on a system you just formatted and set up less than six weeks ago.

At this stage my only hope was that the hard drive that failed wasn't the one that had the 20 hours of work I had done on Friday and Saturday, the two days since my last backup of work.

I carted my computer to Alex's room, woke him up and unscrewed his computer to test my HDDs.

Today I learnt that being so scared you shit yourself isn't a colloquialism. The requirement of shitting is caused by fear and must be obeyed. I did this between finding out that my first, non-work hard drive was ok and watching Alex's computer boot up with the second drive hooked up but not being detected.

This was obviously a fairly stressful moment. Not only was all my work on there, but all of my Bradism files and my 60gig music library that had taken over 5 years to pirate. So I swore a few times, told God that he owed me and made sure the power connector was implanted firmly in the drive. I restarted, the second drive was detected and all my work was intact. I sighed a deep breath of relief. Alex, who was still topless in bed watching my actions with drowsy bemusement but obviously missed me just coming back from leaving the room asked me 'what feels better? getting all your files back or taking a big dump'.
'I've just done both,' I replied. 'So I'm pretty good.'

This still didn't explain why my computer couldn't start up, and it took until 3:30am to fix that problem. Those 15 hours were mainly spent staring at the windows repair progress as it stalled at 'Installing Devices - 34 Minutes Remaining' over and over again. Anyone who finds this entry based on that search term (and based on my searching there might be a few) - If you're doing a repair and this is screwing you over: give up and do a clean format.

I automatically judge myself on my achievements for a day and how the rate against my overall progress in life. Right now, having installed most of what was already installed on my computer in the past few hours, I'd still say that my status has regressed over the last 24 hours, which probably pisses me off more than any of the other frustrations that have occured during today. But I also learnt that sometimes there are situations in life that do get me upset and stressed, and I can still handle them.

Tim informed me late in the evening that Sophie Heathcote was dead. So even though I woke up to troubles today, at least I got the chance to wake up at all. I'm not really saying that as one of those 'be glad you're alive' things because as reasons for accepting shitty days go, that's low on the list. I'm pretty much only mentioning this because I didn't even know who Sophie Heathcote was until I Google searched for her after Tim told me her name and I saw her boobs.

So non-chronologically, things are about the same now. But one thing has changed. Although I do plan to have future jobs involving computers I think my past mission can be extended to 'anything that doesn't involve computers where I have to do tech support'.

And seriously, I don't even know why I ever bother shutting down my computer, I'm going to stop doing that.

Today I got four hours sleep (from 9am onwards), tried to eat noodle box but instead had my car break down and then later one of my thongs broke.

On the 29th of December 2005 I got to see Krafty Kuts live for the first time. It was pretty great. I'm a big fan of Krafty Kuts and his mixes so getting to hear him playing his trademark tune 'These are the Breaks' live acheived one of my life goals. One of many million life goals, of course, it's not like it was religous or anything.

Tonight that song came on at random and I actually listened to the words properly for the first time. Stuff happens, these are the breaks. And after consecutive shitty days, it was helpful. But not that helpful because I already didn't care. Because I went to the seaside. That's what I'm calling the beach now: the seaside. Chilling...

It doesn't count as being unproductive because I did most of it during dinner!

Massive props to Yahoo! for having the best, free international weather XML feed.

Edit: Today felt a bit more like 27...

It's almost the end of another week of Brad's Summer Journal 5. Not a good one on almost most fronts, but good in others. This week apparently being "Former Passions stars appear in mainstream television shows week". I saw Father Lonigan in House and Ethan no. 2 in Scrubs! Also Wallace's mum was in House as well. Astonishing stuff!

Today I spent another $80 on my car and $20 on thongs (neither of which needed money spent on them a week ago). I spent another $6 on basketball which we won, that was good.

But that's not all. Today was calendar day! And by God have I outdone myself this year. It blows away 'Babes with Balls'. It deflates 'Pumped Up Down Under'. Are you ready for... Silicon Valley!

$4.98. It's so hilarious. I don't even need to focus properly to enjoy it.

Weather stuff will be nicened up later.

I'm going to Perth for almost a week for my cousin's wedding! It will be quite an adventure. So, yeah, if I make entries in Perth the weather display will be inaccurate. Like, more than usual.

Perth has Sizzler. Sizzler is awesome. God himself would dine there every night if it wasn't for the extreme expensiveness of the standard $16.95 salad bar being $16.95 plus extra for a drink. But, as an occasional treat for God or myself it is exceptionally awesome.

Adelaide no longer has Sizzler. Adelaide no longer has the complimentary serve of cheese and herb toast that, after you excitedly explain to the manager that you have driven 36 hours across the Nullarbor for the sole purpose of eating cheese and herb toast (casually mentioning a wedding in the process) they will elect to supply you with unlimited cheese and herb toast and you will be like “oh god this is so good maybe I should just ask for the recipe”.

However, the value of coke in Perth is a lot higher than in Adelaide and also is quite unstable. On Friday the price of a medium coke at Subway was $2.25, by Monday it had skyrocketed to $2.30. If it weren't for the fact that I was ripping of Subway with re-used Sub-Club cards I would feel quite mournful in regards to my lost 55c.

In Perth a bus ticket can be of two varieties, zone 1 or zone 2. Essentially if you're not going to be on the bus for many stops, it's cheaper. In Adelaide once you're on the bus it is the same price for however far you can try to get in 2 hours. This is not made clear, so when you request 'One student ticket please' and the driver says 'which one?', it's confusing, especially when expanding to 'university student' and 'single-trip' along with ', I'm from Adelaide' prompt for only the same request. Eventually he said 'Where are you going?' and I told him the street name. He gave me the stink-eye as well as my ticket and said 'I'm not a taxi-driver you know'.

In Adelaide, all you have to do is get in a Taxi and say 'Student ticket please' and they take you where you need to go.

Perth has a lot of hot chicks and a lot of fat people.

Adelaide has a lot of hot chicks and a lot of fat people, but they are all less tanned.

Perth doesn't have an urban growth boundary. They also have the name of the road you are intersecting with visible when you come up the stem of each T-intersection. This is very helpful!

In Adelaide, street signs are optional and when you don't know when you're going it's only the laws of probability and chance applied within a limited geography that ensure you'll eventually get to your destination. If you really get stuck just jump into a taxi and ask the driver for a ticket.

In Perth, you should marry whoever you started dating while you are a teenager and the only purpose of dating is to get married.

In Adelaide it is not so insanely Christian, despite it being the city of churches. The churches are mainly there as landmarks for navigation due to the absence of street signs.

Perth doesn’t have daylight savings, and because it is already out in the middle of nowhere the time difference is two and a half hours from Adelaide.

Adelaide is on the edge of nowhere and because your Dad decides to drive 36 hours straight (no pun intended) to get to the middle of nowhere during which you get less than 3 hours sleep which occurs sitting up and with all the associated jolting and drooling on yourself that ‘micro-sleeps’ entail, you will be so fingered after getting to Perth (and then immediately stuffing yourself at Sizzler) that you will find it difficult to stay awake past 11pm every night and, as a result, rise at around 9am and by the end of the week after you fly back you’ll realise you are still on Adelaide time anyway.

The Perth trip and its associated conservative Christian environment has taught me that I'm not truly that dependant on many things. No Internet, no swearing, no programming... Great news, I'm not an alcoholic! That wasn't a major worry or anything but I went six days without a drink and in fact didn't even notice (OK I had one four X at a BBQ but that barely even counts as a beer). It wasn't until I got back late last night that I even thought about the distinct lack of types of fluids that usually go in (or in some cases leave) my body. I did notice that my lack of bed and sleep ended quite comfortably upon arriving home which signalled the end of all my abstinences.

Today has been a relaxing day for the most part. I slept in until Adelaide time as usual, but this time actually in Adelaide. Then I had a hankering for some basketball and played that until I got blisters on both my feet (I had a head start because I was wearing new shoes). Then the evening was spent catching up with my good friends Internet and Beer. I fixed the weather script and weather display up and went through with my other plan of creating a summery colour scheme. As I continued my reunion with beer on this warm January night mulling over possible seasonal colours I realised the answer was in my hands and I created Beerism and yeah... I like beer and I like summer and I like Adelaide. Jesus tittyfucking Christ it's good to be back!

Chow rang me up for no reason today and advised me that I could get cheap clothing from Jetty Surf - today only!

So I got to Jetty Surf in Rundle Mall and was casually shopping and glancing around for specials when I saw Lori. This is the first time I've seen her since four days before I called and broke up with her.

I don't think she saw me at that instant, so I looked away. My first instinct was to scamper and keep my perfect 'never meeting exes again' game intact. My second instinct was to save money on shirts. So what followed was about four minutes of browsing a rack of shirts intently while occasionally muttering "oh shit oh shit oh shit".

She never came up to me and I got a nice new shirt for $24.

I woke up today and ate my Weet-Bix with 100% Australian Honey, skim milk from Australian cows and Australian grown bananas.

I then dressed myself in the jersey of my favourite Australian Rules Football Team and drove my Australian made Holden Commodore to my mates place for a BBQ. There I listened to the Australian radio station's countdown of the best 100 tracks of 2005 that, like everyday on Triple J, was biased towards Australian artists. Simultaneously I watched the Australian cricket team win at cricket whilst sinking Australian beers sitting in the Australian heat.

I then drove home and made some vegemite on toast.

Today was good times, although I do feel like I should have done something special for Australia day.

I have a very strong desire to go out and buy a giant, expensive flatscreen TV and a Playstation 2 and a whole bunch of games and hook it all up into my sound system and just turn my lights off but I don't know why.

I don't even like Playstation 2's although I bet they would be more reliable than my PC at the moment...

I feel terrible. I finally got around to doing weights for the first time in two months. It's safe to say some muscle loss has occured. Today I woke up and my shoulders and arms are sore. I'm so happy!

I asked Chow what features I could add to the journal that would increase user participation and he suggested that an entry rating system would be succesful on the front page. Would you rate entries if there was a link on each entry?

There's two systems I'm considering. One would be a simple 1 through 5 vote box. The other would be a thumbs up/thumbs down kind of thing. Let me know what you think.

Also, to encourage voting I have been tossing up the idea of a 'comment posted' confirmation screen that I would set up to provide an optional link to a nice pair of boobs or a cute animal depending on your sexual orientation (the script itself wouldn't determine that, it'd just give you the option for both). Who's interested?

Also Also, the weather is now only displayed on the individual entry display page to avoid clutter and because of filthy IE and it's horrible grasp of CSS and parent objects.

I never really did New Years Resolutions and in fact on the first day of this year I announced that I would not have a new years resolution this year.

Australia Day is a good day for resolving to do things because it is more seperated from the "holiday period". This is good because if you resolve to lose weight or drink less beer or something on New Years then by Australia Day you will not be able to drink lots of beers and eat lots of meat. It's also good because it gives you 26 more days to procrastinate about your goals.

I made some Australia Day resolutions. Get back into weights. Go for a run. Some other boring stuff. It's working.

This is my message, I guess, start your new years resolutions on or immediately after sobering up from Australia Day.