Not Cross Buns

I didn't eat a single hot cross bun this entire Easter period/year.

If you combine my hot cross bun consumption in 2011 with my consumption in 2013... I ate a lot of hot cross buns per day still.


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The woman with the fake tan stepped into my office, sat across from my desk and lit a cigarette.
At least, she would, sometime in the next 20 minutes. Smelling the future has advantages, but precision isn’t one of them.


One Year

I can’t believe it’s been a year already.

image 1779 from bradism.com

Vest! Happy anniversary! I bought you for my wedding one year ago. I love you so much. You make my shirts better, more dynamic and happier.

Vanessa! Happy anniversary, my wife, I love you more than a million vests combined.

Easter Beer Hunt 2013

The Easter Beer Hunt is a seven year old tradition. It's a simple game. Under the full moon of a Good Friday evening bottles of beers are hidden within the boundaries of a large, outdoor area. Essentially in the same kind of way that chocolate eggs are hidden on Easter Sunday mornings: under leaves and bark, in nooks and crannies, and in haystacks behind giant spider webs.
The formula for number of beers to be hidden is:

N = x * 9/2
where N is the number of beers and x is the number of hunters. (You can also change this however you feel like that year)

image 1288 from bradism.com

All the hunters contribute an equal share towards the beers before the hunt begins.

image 1289 from bradism.com

After it's dark all the hunters gather somewhere indoors while the hiders determine the boundaries and hide the beers. When the hiding is complete the hunters are notified and, after any extra rules or important information is conveyed, there is a countdown and the hunt begins.

image 1293 from bradism.com

Hunters are allowed a torch and a basket as tools. In the original Easter Beer Hunt a wicker basket was required, which added a challenging element to the hunt when running at speed with several beers bouncing in an open basket. Since then baskets have been expanded to buckets, protein containers and shopping bags. Torches have also extended to mobile phone lights, lanterns and head torches.

image 1290 from bradism.com

Hunters work independently to find beers in the dark. A cap is set of six beers per hunter. After the hunter finds six beers they are out, but they may continue hunting to locate other beers and discretely switch them with an existing beer if the brand is preferable. They may also assist other hunters who are struggling with hunting or equipment.

image 1291 from bradism.com

They may also choose to open and drink a beer, but that's only if they've finished the beer they opened after their first find.

image 1294 from bradism.com

I've never taken photos of the Easter Beer Hunt because I'm always hunting in it. This year DJ Chow was happy to carry my camera/flash about for the night and take some photos.

image 1292 from bradism.com

Good times.


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Times Change

In the kitchen at work today there was an assortment of unopened boxes containing chocolate eggs. Next to them was a sign saying, "Help Yourself."

I raised an eyebrow, then proceeded back to my desk.

Twenty years ago I would have all over that! I can only imagine how eight year old me would have reacted as he walked into the twenty-three stories high kitchen in a North Sydney office tower and spotted free chocolate on his way to transferring his vegetarian curry from his briefcase to the fridge. Not with indifference, that's for sure.

Being an adult seems to be less about being responsible for big things, more about being responsible for endless waves of little things.

Adultism.

Boot Disk Errors

I was wondering the other day how long it had been since I bought and installed my Crucial M4 Solid State Drive. I was debating whether or not I should buy a bigger one (so I could install HOTS without having to uninstall other stuff).

I think I've been using my current SSD for about 5184 hours. I worked this out by having my PC lock up and die every hour and yell "BOOT DISK ERROR" at me all of yesterday. In between crashes I managed to determine that 64GB Crucial M4 SSD's have a bug that makes them stop responding once an hour after they reach 5184 hours of running time. Fortunately it's a simple firmware upgrade to fix it. So I guess I can't use this as an excuse to upgrade to a bigger SSD just yet.

The Bright Sides

My inner tightarse was heartbroken when I walked into the bathroom of our hotel room Sunday night and found these dispensers in the shower:

image 1298 from bradism.com
Before that the trip had been going so well. We'd been upgraded to a one bedroom apartment without even asking. The litre of UHT milk we'd brought was practically swimming in the full size fridge. I hadn't known what freebies I should expect when I opened the bathroom door. I would never have predicted this. Even the free soap was replaced with a third dispenser of hand wash by the basin. The only free things still available was a disposable shower cap and a sanitary bag.

It took me about five minutes to fill the sanitary bag with shampoo, but it should be at least five weeks before I've emptied it again.