I was actually happy to wake up at 7:20 on Friday because it was just so goddamn sunny. After managing to get myself sunburnt on the last day of Winter I'm assuming vitamin D was flooding through my body at the time and possibly releasing endorphins.

Winter was crap, and that's not just because at the start of it I bought a tent for below the marked price and then never got to use it. After suffering through a barrage of injuries, illness and dullness I now don't care about them because, well, it's just so Goddamn sunny. I almost missed the train the other day because I stopped to look at the flowers. Hence the scheme.

I feel stronger now, filled with more potential and pollen and I can do anything again. Like eat an 18 inch schnitzel, code a host of massive changes for this site and possibly go camping in my discounted tent.

Steve Irwin is dead. I used to hate him. First of all, an apology:

Quote:
Sunday, 27th of January, 2002
I watched "The Crocodile Hunter" for the first time tonight. Before my hatred [of Steve Irwin] was simply based on the fact that he was ruining Australia's Reputation and in my opinion if they are going to let some moron have his own TV show, why the hell can't I have one?
As far as I can see the main purpose it to annoy the hell out of the viewer. You see good ol' steve dive into the water inhabited by man eating critters, he swims near them, kisses them and narrowly escapes death a few times, however, you know that he's narrated the story after they taped it and that he's fine and dandy and the exact opposite of Dead and it just burns you up inside.

I was wrong to say this. Eventually he doesn't get back to narrate it. I'm amazed at how nuts the internet has gone over this whole Steve Irwin is dead thing. I'm pretty sure this morning people were apathetic about him at best. It's even affected me! I feel bad that he's dead. Someone psychologise that!

The thing about Steve Irwin is that he was just a big kid, even down to the pudgy cheeks, blonde hair and boofy haircut. He was a boy who never grew up. This, of course, was the reason he was so annoying. Still that didn't stop me from initially mourning him and watching hilarious YouTube videos about him all afternoon.

Yet everyone is caring just a little too much. I didn't like him and, really, I still don't like him. I just lied about liking him so that I could go home early from work.

Steve, you're in Heaven now; catching angels and kissing them.

That is assuming he's gotten past the inevitable stage where he arrives and stands gobsmacked just saying 'Crikey' over and over and over again.

RIP

Car parking stuff.

Dream Park
The best possible, legitimate park available at a site. Characterised primarily by proximity to site entrance although other factors may effect the exact Dream Park eg. shade, lighting, cover/weather protection and ease of exit.

Confidence Parking
The act of navigating directly to the location of the Dream Park and other best parks in a car park even though they are most likely all taken. This includes ignoring any available parks en route. See Self Fulfilling Prophecy.

Throughy
A car park that can be entered one side and left on the other side. This is often prized because it requires two 90 degree parks to be in line with each other so that you can enter the ultimate park at the wrong end.
If car parking is sex then a throughy is the girl getting you a beer afterwards.

Car Park God
Lord of the Car Park. Giver of Car Parks and taketh of Car Parks away. Provides Dream Parks and Throughy's to true believers who utter the Lord's Prayer.

Quote:
Oh Car Park God, feared be thy name, thy car parkers come, and then be gone, at Marion as it is at Uni. Give us this day our daily spot, and forgive us for parking too close to the line as we forgive those that park too close to the line on us. And lead us not into disabled parks or loading zones but deliver us from walking too far, amen.

But this time I like I'm 21 again >_<

The first time I found my shell was on a family trip to the seaside when I was very young. I wandered away from our towels and over a dune. In a refraction of the sunlight I spotted my shell, half buried in the sand. Stumbling down the dune I dropped to my knees to admire the curves, the layers, the colours that had been picked when the earth crafted one of its most successful creations.
Hearing my name yelled aloud shattered the moment just as I reached forward to lay a hand.
'Come back', I was instructed, 'that's not for you.'
'Mother', I pleaded, 'please!'
She was resolute; her eyes told me no. Her eyes told me I didn't know where it might have been and it might not belong to me.
'Look but don't touch' was the direction. 'Come back to the family right now' was the undertone. I turned back one last time and I know somehow I connected before I was dragged away.

Using the journal to try and force me to write a story has been a pretty spectacular failure.

This morning I skipped the Marketing Management lecture which may have been a mistake. I actually got to uni during the middle of it but decided I would study and wait for my tute which, I was soon to learn, was empty.

My other tute was also cancelled today meaning there was now no reason for me to have actually come to uni. But it's always good to have a backup plan and I grabbed my basketball stuff from the car and made my way to the sports centre. They told me that the hall was booked from noon to 4pm.

As it was only 12:15pm at the time, too early even for me to start drinking, I decided that I needed to shake some shit up. So I got back in my car and turned left towards the beach instead of right towards my house. It was a sunny enough day; I could kill some time at the beach probably by reading my notes for tomorrow’s exam and even if I didn't have fun I would still be able to gloat about going to the beach to everyone who had to work today.

I parked my car, abandoned my shoes and like a baby turtle I fumbled across the sand until I found a spot to study Economics and Business Strategy. Predictably this got boring after a short while and I figured that while I was at the beach I might as well poke my head out of my shell and relax. So I attempted to tan myself while I lay and pondered where I was going to find the inspiration to finish my seaside tale from Tuesday. Of course, life was not forthcoming with any inspiration and it was very hard to think with the noise of some 5 year old girl going on and on to her Mum about a shell she had found. Yeah, thanks a lot seaside, my story is about a boy.

Then I went and had a baguette and read more until finally it was 4pm and I could go play basketball where I somehow managed to earn myself a blister, a victory that comes with the prize of having an excuse to wear thongs for the rest of the weekend.

The shell... it's actually a beard!

My day of thongs and exams was brief and intense. There was twenty minutes to fill between finishing my exam and my replacement tute so I went to the plaza to get an ice coffee.

Just as my goal was in sight I was accosted by student politicians who wanted me to vote for them in the current student elections. I'm guessing these are the people who actually pay the student services fee after VSU just so they have some funding for their hobby. However I realised that buying an ice coffee probably wouldn't stretch to twenty minutes and figured I could find the time to vote. I was immediately handed a 'how to vote' pamphlet and was about to trundle to the voting tent when an opposition party politician ran up with the opinion that I should listen to the other sides policies as well. This was going to lead to a much better way of killing twenty minutes.

After a bit of banter and sledging between myself and the candidates I then gave them 15 seconds to give me their best policies. They both did with some enthusiasm and I had to interject during both speeches to ensure they stuck to their 15 second limit.

It became apparent that the were both pretty much running on the same policies, so I gave them another 15 second window to tell me their best policies that the other party didn't have. That started turning into one of those debates where two people argue in front of you so I simply said to the guy that had come up 'Look, you both make compelling arguments but I think I'll just vote for Meg because I met her once at a party a few months ago and she seemed nice.'

He furrowed his brow and said 'OK but I really think you should only vote based on policy.'

I smiled and said: 'Oh I'm sorry, do you take this seriously?'

Seriously it was midday on a Friday and I didn't see either of them going to lectures. Why don't they get a job and then expend energy in avoiding that job by going to uni.

In the end it turned out I had to go to some website to cast my vote properly and I gave up on the whole ordeal. I can never seem to be bothered putting effort into things on the internet.

I saw Ryan for the first time since I think Easter on Sunday. It was a good time despite still receiving wavering reminders of the food poisoning I got Saturday night. I've checked his site every day since then, but no updates.

I was in the IT Building at uni today and recently seeing Ryan reminded me of his, Mark and my epic times there over the years. As I pulled into the car park I thought back to this time a year ago where my journal indicates I was in the middle of a data mining report and if Ryan's archives worked properly they'd probably talk about how he was playing games online instead of doing the same.

I wondered how the IT students of 2006 were faring with what was probably slightly modified versions of the assignments we did last year. Then, as I looked into the IT lecture theatre I saw the exact 2006 versions of us. You see, there were these three white guys.

I saw Miami Vice and asked my friends to review it in exactly 5 words.

"That really was quite shit" - Chow
"Not worth my fifteen bucks" - Josh
"Crap Crap Crap Crap Crap" - Burrett
"I should of downloaded it" - Tim
"An uninspiring tale of pyrotechnics" - Brad

I forgot what Tom said. His first word was 'colours' and I thought he was going to reveal a poignant lesson he learnt from the co-operation between interracial federal agents working undercover. However I think his next word was 'detailed' and whammo, I lost all train of thought.

The movie was entertaining enough at times but it did reek a bit of someone just taking themes and concepts from several stories in the same genre and just combining them into a new film without any sense or originality or creativity. I mean what is this, year 8 English?

The rocket bar is three stories up and offers exhilarating views of the strip club across the road. Satan's Cheerleaders played there tonight. I asked my friends to review them in exactly 6 words.

"Trendy jazz funked metal student band" - Craig
"I really like them, Shenannigans don't" - Brad

I went to Martin's party and asked my friends to review it in exactly 7 words.

"So could of done with more pirate" - Sam
"I got my peanut in Andy's beer" - Chow
"Brad was impressed by a baby's scrot" - Josh
"Chow got his peanut in my beer" - Andy
"There was chocolate and there was nuts" - Martin
"Where was the fucking pirate? Jesus Christ!" - Brad

And according to "Inside the human body" when a baby is born its scrotum is already at normal size. I was apparently the only one alarmed at the possible snags that this threatened. I never want to read that book again.

"I should improve at reading chicks obvious signals" - Brad

But at the nights conclusion:

"Oh God, I really love Up And Go" - Brad

I asked my friends to discuss when this gimmick would start getting old in exactly 9 words.

"I'm thinking not that long after you started it" - Sam
"Probably around the time I started padding with profanities" - Brad
"It's pretty damn annoying and I'd reallyappreciateifyoustopped but ienjoyhowyoumakeitanextrawordeverytime" - Zoe

Netball is the sport of Gods. Not because it is intensely good, it's more a literal thing. Netball just seems religious when you analyse it: There are people divided against each other, confusing rules, it's played on a Sunday. You can also ask everyone there what they came for and they will say 'Netball' but in their actions it's evident that half the people are not really taking it seriously.

I filled in for Tim in mixed netball yesterday and had my prescribed 'Good time'. I think I scored 5 goals and only got one obstruction. In true ringer form I also managed to take out an opposition player however the details on that are still fuzzy. All I know is that I'm standing there waiting for a ball to fall into my arms when I feel this knock on my elbow. Next thing I know this girl has thrown herself about four feet across the court and is now lying on the ground clutching her face. It was pretty awkward because technically she was my direct opponent and as far as I knew there are no subs in netball. However they bent that rule and the girl that replaced her didn't impale herself on my elbow and seemed quite nice.

After the game I went to offer apologies/condolences to the injured girl but she wasn’t very friendly and just glared at me. So I said: 'How are you going, feeling any better?' and she just increased her glare.
'Yeah, sorry you got hurt. I hope you recover quickly' I sold her, in exchange for apathy.
'Your nose should be ok I reckon. I mean, you're not a model or anything are you?' I laughed nervously.
'No' she muttered.
'Yeah you didn’t look like a model...' And there was more glaring. 'Well... Thanks for the game!'

We lost

To set the scene: The month was a few months ago, the day: unspecified. I was working in the IT industry for an IT company on an IT project. Surprisingly, despite this entire IT context the IT project was behind schedule and over budget. Now I wasn't management here so I'm not completely positive whether this was just normal "it's IT" controlled, planned behind schedule and over budgetness, or whether this was full blow "holy shit we are actually behind the behind schedule schedule and totally over the expected over budget budget". Nevertheless several of the million emails I've received this year were distributed en masse containing recondite buzz words about new schedules, delivering value to key stakeholders and some footnotes about restructuring of existing structures. All of this was then redacted by the incoming Project Manager who jovially encouraged us that despite the hardships currently upon us we were all capable people that, when we worked together, could overcome these hurdles and deliver this IT project under the expected over budget and in front of the expected slightly over schedule schedule.

After all, the email stated in its opening motivational thrust, 'This is Applications Delivery. This is what we live for!'

Several months later it seems I have a peccadillo. It's become more apparent that it's not Apps Delivery I live for at all. In fact other than just being my badass self I struggle to specifically identify any cause, noble or otherwise, for my existence. Whilst getting up early to live in the grown up world of IT development has rendered me the newest parvenu on the block it's increasingly obvious that its motivation and rewards are purely financial, both in short and long term. With this epiphany billowing away a haze it seems extremely evident that my intention to spend $24k on my new car is far and away an over-compensation. Over-compensation for what? It has nothing to do with phallus, it seems my logic is just skewed into believing that having a fully sick automobile might somehow make the months I spent earning that amount somehow more valid and worthwhile. Still, it is a Goddamn nice car...