Christmas in Adelaide

Merry Christmas everyone!!

So, yes I am blagging on Christmas Day. So what? I am allowed to! I’ve been up for quite some time, due to the fact that there are four small children in the house (being my 4 cousins) and they had to open their presents from Santa nice and early! Speaking of presents, I have never seen so many of them in my life!! The kids seemed to enjoy unwrapping them a lot, which was nice. Their excitement is cool to watch, after quite a few years of nobody believing in Santa. I got all my presents before today, because Mum is in Melbourne and Dad didn’t want to bring too much stuff to Adelaide. I got some pretty cool presents though! Mum gave me a Sydway for when I go to Sydney to Uni! It’s so cool! Hehe. Also I got clothes and stuff. And… Dad is getting me notebook RAM!! w00t my laptop will be so awesome now! I still have to find some and buy it though – Dad didn’t want to because he doesn’t know exactly what RAM I need and stuff, so yeah.

Well we’ve been pretty busy here in Adelaide. The day we got here we had to fix the kitchen roof, part of which had collapsed due to water damage (it’s an 1850’s mansion). So that kept us busy for a while. Also, we brought a slide from our old cubby house up, so yesterday we made a treehouse thingy and put the slide on it, so the kids have been loving that. Then my Uncle let me have a drive of his BMW 323i JPS (similar to this one, except without the racing decals). It FLIES. Not that I could drive it terribly well, because it takes a bit to get used to, but I could feel the power nonetheless. That, and I took off from stopped in THIRD GEAR. By accident… Oops. But the gearbox is a bit weird, and I was afraid of putting it in reverse lol. But yeah, awesome car to drive. It has a six cylinder engine. In a BMW 3 series!! And old 3 series, so even smaller and lighter than the current ones!! I’m gonna try to get either my uncle or Dad to take me for a drive in it, cos they both know how to drive it very well indeed.

Well lunch is hopefully pretty soon. I’m getting a little hungry, and I think there is some nice food happening! Okay well I think we are going for another drive in the Beemer too. So cyas! Have a great day!

Love James

OMG Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!!

I keep hearing/reading stuff about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so I thought I would dig up one of our old TMNT videos (I used to love them ). Took a bit of finding, and I had to plug in the VCR cos it’s hardly ever used, but the video worked and I watched “Case of the Killer Pizzas” and “Enter the Fly”. SO AWESOME!! Rather lame at times too, but awesome nonetheless . It made me realise just how much of our language today came from the 80’s and even TMNT. I think I’m gonna download some more episodes so I can laugh my head of even more so!

Anyway, this will probably be my last blag before Christmas, as I’m heading off to Adelaide tomorrow (might get one in there, see what happens). If I don’t talk to you before then, MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Have a great time, and all the best for next year

Love James

And now for something completely different

Today’s blag is going to be a bit different for a change. I was having a conversation with Mum earlier today, and something she said made me start thinking (I do this a lot). Mind you, I don’t think what Mum said actually has anything to do with what I’m going to talk about, but the mind works in strange fashions, and somehow or another, this came up.

Does anyone wonder why the divorce rate is so high these days? A lot of people say that it’s because people have more freedom to get out of a bad marriage nowadays, and this has to be true to an extent. But what always puzzles me is… Why the hell don’t people pick somebody to marry that they actually want to spend the rest of their life with?! I mean, there are exceptions, of course. My parents are due to be divorced early next year, after being together for 18 years (although they separated on a few occasions within that time frame). I think that after that amount of time together, they must have (and did) got along for a fairly large chunk of that time. So, therefore their marriage was most likely justified. On the other hand, you get couples that have been together for only a few months and are already separated and filing for divorce! I mean, didn’t they notice something wrong?! There are, of course, also exceptions where this is acceptable – maybe one of the persons involved lied and pretended to the other, and the other realises. Still, it’s rather wrong for the lying, pretending person to do what they did.

Now, here’s what I think [i]could[/i] be the problem. Now remember, it’s just my opinion, so feel free to disagree – I would like to hear anyone else’s opinions! It seems to me that we have been brought up in a society that condemns people who don’t get married, or at least have a stable partner. There are people that don’t do this, but they go against the trend of the majority of the population. However, although it is not common, there is a growing number of teens and young adults that say they do not want to get married. Now, this seems all well and good at first glance, but who can really say at such a young age that they [i]are not getting married[/i]. In my opinion (yes, opinion), they are mostly just wanting to be different and rebelling against the norm of society. It’s the same reason a lot of social cultures are formed (emo, punk, etc.). To be different! Which is fair enough, in a lot of ways. But I think it goes a bit far when people start doing things that [i]they don’t want to do[/i], just to be different. It defeats the purpose!

So if we are brought up believing that we [i]will[/i] one day get married, does that mean that we feel like we have to find a partner and marry them, even if we don’t truly love them? When somebody comes along that we seem to get along with pretty well, we think “oh, I have to find a life partner, and I seem to get along with this person pretty well, so they’ll do!”. Subconsciously, of course! This would indeed explain the reason for such a high divorce rate. And yes, people would’ve felt the same way in the past – to an even greater extent – but they weren’t allowed to divorce without incurring the wrath of God, or some such thing.

So, basically, I think that we need to stop taking love and marriage for granted, and [i]stop planning our futures before they happen[/i]!!! Who cares if we are going to get married in 5 or 10 years time, or even never get married? Just let things happen as they happen. Things like jobs, houses, businesses, etc – material things – usually need planning of some sort. But you can’t plan love!! I don’t know – maybe I’m completely wrong, but I think that if everyone stopped planning their relationships so much, and stopped having certain outcomes in their heads, there might just be a few more marriages that lasted. I would hope so, anyway.

Love James

Title… Ugh

I figured it was about time for another blag, as it’s been, what… five days? A while, considering my usual update interval. I guess it’s been a pretty hectic few days, but in a relaxing, non-hectic way. Not that that makes much sense. All I mean is that a fair bit has happened, but it hasn’t been stressful and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, ’twas good! That, said, I can’t really remember all that much about what happened…

Oh, last blag I mentioned my sister was in the emergency room. Turns out it was an allergic reaction to something when she went for a walk that day (either some sort of dust or maybe a plant or something). Anyway, they just gave her some drugs and stuff and she’s all better now! I also mentioned having an argument with Dad. I talked to him later that night and the next day and we made up, so all is well on that front also.

On Friday, I drove to Melbourne. Last time Grandpa was here (when I was in Sydney), his car broke down so it stayed at the mechanics here. To save him coming to pick it up, I drove it down for him, and met Dad at Grandpa’s house. The car is a Honda Civic. Dunno exactly how old it is, but it’s red and has 4 doors. It’s also pretty gutless, and not all that great to drive, which was surprising for a Honda. Oh well, I got there safely and it was a pretty nice drive. Then I talked to Grandpa about school and Uni and stuff for a while, after which Dad and I went into the city to get some tea and see a movie. We saw the new James Bond movie – Casino Royale. It was pretty awesome – definitely the best Bond movie I’ve seen in a long while. Daniel Craig did a great job as James Bond, too. Much better than Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore, etc. The only one that betters him would be Sean Connery – of course!! After that I caught the train home (Dad was staying in Melbourne). I like the train, it’s nice. I just sat and listened to music and all that jazz, while some idiot headbutted the door to the drivers cabin. He was rather drunk. Lol.

This weekend has been pretty lazy, come to think of it. I think hectic was the wrong word before. My life is actually really laid back. Which is good, because Uni could be pretty hectic, doing two degrees and all, so it’s nice to have a rest! Cal and I passed ‘Gears of War’ in co-op on the Xbox 360. It was awesome fun. Eat that, stupid aliens!! Hehe. Also played a bit of ‘NFS: Most Wanted’. Takes ages to pass, but I guess I’ll get there eventually. Passing ‘Oblivion’ before the end of the holidays would be nice, too. See what happens I guess!

Also, yesterday my Grandma dropped in on her way from Hamilton to Melbourne, so her, Mum, Cal (my brother) and I went out for lunch to Ferguson’s Bakery. They have nice pies! It was nice to catch up again, too.

I also had a 3 1/2 hour long phone conversation last night. To a mobile! Eek! I’ll have to pay Dad back, I guess. Oh well, it was worth it!

Anyway, now I am just doing not much because I can’t be bothered going to bed. I was eating delicious spiders (not the live ones), but they ran out . I think I covered everything. Not that it really matters, I guess. Okay I am going now! (Not to bed though). Bye!

Love James

VCE Results, Uni news plus more!!

Today has been a very interesting and varying day indeed, and it has followed a number of other very interesting days. On Monday I got my VCE results. I was rather stressed beforehand, afraid that I was going to bomb out. The results were released on the VCAA website at 7am, but there are always big waits on the server, so I decided (along with a lot of other people) to sleep in and get them a bit later. Wasn’t meant to be though – Dad rang me at 20 past 7 to ask how I went. He woke me up, so didn’t get much of a reply! But seeing as I was awake, I decided to boot up my laptop and find out once and for all what I got. Well… I found out my study scores at about half past 7, and was a bit afraid about what my score might be – I got a 29 in Lit, although my 43 in both Vis Comm and IT seemed to make up for it. My agony was dragged out for about an hour and a half while I repeatedly refreshed the page for logging in to find out my ENTER score (study scores and ENTERs were on different sites). Still, I got in eventually and found my score of 87.95, which I was very happy with indeed, as it means that unless the course I want to do at the University of Technology, Sydney (IT and International Studies) gets awfully popular, I should get in (the score was 82 last year).

Also, Monday night I played squash and racquetball. It was finals. I can’t remember where we came in racquetball (5th or 6th I think). I don’t know where we came in squash either, because I didn’t play for my team (although I think it was 3rd or 4th). Instead, I filled in for one of the teams playing for 1st and 2nd spots. Usually I am in the 3rd grade (out of 3), but I was promoted to the 2nd grade, and played against one of the best people in that grade. Needless to say, I lost, but it was a fantastic game and I actually played pretty darn well! I had lots of fun!

So that was Monday. I can’t really remember what happened yesterday – it wasn’t very exciting I assume. But today, on the other hand, was rather exciting indeed. For the first half of the day, I programmed (I am learning C++) and then played Co-op campaign in Gears of War on the Xbox 360. It was heaps fun!

Then Dad and I had a pretty big fight, which was unusual – we haven’t fought in months! There was a fair bit of yelling though. I didn’t want to fight, but he wouldn’t let me just go away. It kinda sucked, but you get that. So I just went and locked myself in my room and put the music up loud for a couple of hours. Then he came in and started arguing again. So I locked myself in my room again. Then I got mail from the University of Ballarat saying that my interview with IBM was successful and I will be offered a place as long as my ENTER is good enough (it was about 70 last year, so it will be fine). That said, I would much rather go to Sydney, and coincidentally, not long afterwards, I received an email from the UTS Housing Service saying that my application for student housing was successful! So now I am guaranteed a place to stay in Sydney as long as I pay them a deposit before the 8th of January, and also manage to get into the course (just a minor detail ). So yeah, good day for Uni-related stuff!

In another eventful event for today, Jemma (my sister) is currently in the emergency room of the hospital. Her face is/was swollen (not sure of the current status) and it was feeling pretty bad so Dad took her in. Not sure what it is – maybe something to do with the acupuncture she had today? I really don’t know. Apparently it’s getting better though, so she should be fine

I think that’s about it for today’s excitingness. I could go to bed now, but I almost definitely won’t. I mean, why go to bed when there are so many more exciting alternatives, such as programming, Xbox, and doing the dishes?! See you later guys!

Love James

Mmm… Rain…

It is raining at the moment (well, thunderstorming actually), and it smells delicious. I love the smell of heavy rain after a big dry.

Also, I get my VCE results in… about 8 hours. ARGH!!!

Love James

Busy? Apparently…

Somehow, even though I do not have anything official to be doing, I had a rather busy and varied day today. It was pretty good – definitely better than boredom. I had to wash Dad’s car after schoolies, cos it was pretty dirty (most of it was there beforehand, actually), so I went down to the car wash and learned how to use the fancy pressure washer and foamy brush thing. It was pretty boring at first, because I started with the “low pressure rinse” or some shit like that. Then I discovered how much pressure the high pressure washer had!! . Twas very fun indeed. The foamy brush was kinda weird, and made weird noises, but it was okay. Anyways, the car is now a lot cleaner, so Dad better be happy when he gets home.

Also I ventured into the basement where all the old computer stuff is, because I knew Dad had some old books on C++ programming, something which I really want to learn. I found a few promising ones, then installed a C++ programming program, and away I went. One of the books was superb – just what I wanted, and my first program was made with ease – and I understood what was actually happening! (All the internet tutorials just seem to give you the program and expect you to work out what each bit of code does yourself). The problems occurred with my second program, which was still pretty simple, but required a few extra bits of code and stuff. The problem was that the book I was using was published in the mid 1990’s – when C++ was a relatively new programming language and there wasn’t really any standard for syntax and all that. (Nowadays, C++ is probably the most-used programming language, and there is a concrete standard for syntax). So when I put the code into KDevelop (the programming program)(yes Smitty, it is great just because it has a ‘K’ in front of it!! ) and tried to compile it, some errors came up. I worked out from the error messages that the compiler wasn’t recognising some of the code I was using. It also recommended to use a newer header file (iostream as opposed to iostream.h), so I gave that a shot, but then it wouldn’t recognise even more of my code. So, it really was just old code. I might go and buy a good C++ Programming book soon. It’s fun!

What else did I do today? I got some new music – TV On The Radio (not all that great, but not terrible either), and the new Snow Patrol album (bloody fantastic). I admit that I got it because of the song “Chasing Cars”, but the rest of the album is just as brilliant! I very recommend it.

Oh yeah, I am also downloading Fedora Core 6 (Linux). When I went to UTS, I noticed that they ran it dual booted with Windows XP, so I figured I’d give it a look – probably handy to know a bit about it if I get to go there next year!! It’s > 3GB though, so I’m gonna have to wait a few hours for it! Oh well, I hope it’s worth it! I’ll also have to figure out my partitioning again, because I’m already dual booting Ubuntu with Edubuntu! So it’ll be either get rid of Edubuntu, or triple-boot – an idea I’m not awfully fond of, given my meagre 40GB HDD. I wouldn’t hesitate to dump Edubuntu (it’s very similar to Ubuntu), but I have a project in mind for which I need it. See what happens. Maybe I could get another external HDD. Or some more RAM. Or some money to get both! Oh well, one day .

Other than that, I played a lot of minesweeper. It’s soo addictive! I also ate. Naturally. Anyway, enough for today’s blag. I think I’ll go and play some more minesweeper, or read a book (currently ‘The Bear and the Dragon Pt. 1′ by Tom Clancy) or something like that. Bye!!

Schoolies!! (is over)

Yes so we arrived home safely after a very fun schoolies yesterday. All seven of us – me, Smitty, Elaine, Beth, Mollie, Emma and Kale – made it back to Ballarat pretty late last night, pretty buggered after the 12 hour drive home (not all of which was spent actually driving, thank god). I didn’t take my laptop or anything else that was terribly electronically sophisticated (just music players), so I didn’t write a journal or anything like that each day (maybe I should have written it on paper? Pfft paper… It’s so yesterday ). Due to this, my memory of exactly what happened could be slightly off-colour, and I will most likely forget numerous events. That said, I will do my best to recount the major happenings (and unhappenings) of our week in Bermagui (which, for those who don’t know (basically anyone who hasn’t been there), is on the NSW coast just north of Merimbula (almost 400km south of Sydney)).

I’ll actually start with the day before schoolies, which was quite interesting in itself. I was under the impression that everyone was bringing their gear to my house at 4pm so we could back the cars before we left (so we didn’t have to do it in the morning). However, the only person that turned up anywhere near that time was Kale. Some of the rest had excuses, some didn’t, some even denied that they were told to meet there. I was pretty pissed by 5 o’clock. That said, everything worked out fine in the end, so no grudges were held, and by 11pm that night I was in a good mood with everyone going. Elaine, Beth and Smitty came over at like 9 to help me finally pack, which was good. We had too much stuff to fit in the cars alone, so we had to chuck the roof rack on Dad’s car at the last minute, but it was worthwhile. We got to bed after 12 – so much for an early night before a very early morning!!

As I said before, Wednesday begun with a very early morning (I was up before 4am). I quickly jumped in the shower, had brekky, etc., then jumped in the (pre-packed) car and drove off to pick Kale up. Then we went to meet everyone else at Elaine’s, chucked in the last of the gear, and headed off on our journey. Elaine and I shared the driving of Dad’s car (Nissan Patrol) and Smitty drive his car (Mazda 323) (he wouldn’t let anyone else near it). So in my car was Elaine, Beth and Kale, and in Smitty’s was Emma and Mollie. Beth and Kale talked and talked the whole way up, and there were no fights, so all was good (except once, when I threatened to turn off the two-way radio because someone in the other car was trying to play music through it, but we could only really hear static. Static is really annoying whilst trying to drive! Anyways, we got to Bermagui pretty safely, and met the lady at the park, who kept complaining about the wind when it wasn’t even all that windy (she also thought we were horrible drunken schoolies, so she wasn’t very nice at first. She got to like us by the end though, and ended up giving us two free ice creams each on the second last day!). The caravan park we stayed in was practically empty, which suited us just fine. We were on Regatta Point, which is on Wallaga Lake, and just a couple of hundred metres from the ocean! It was lovely, and we had great views.

I can’t really remember what happened each particular day after that, so I’ll just mention things in no particular order. It’s not as if it really matters. First up, Tilba. Tilba is a historic town that has all nice shops and stuff, and wasn’t far from Bermagui, so we decided to check it out. It was really nice, and there were some cool and crazy locals there. There was also a lolly shop, with the biggest range of lollies in NSW. I bought some . We also went to the cheese factory and tasted some cheese, which was a new experience for me. I’ve never been cheese tasting before! I also bought some of the cheese I tasted. It’s all been eaten already. We decided we were pretty hopeless schoolies at this stage – I mean, cheese tasting, for crying out loud!! Hehehe. Also, I seem to recall that only four of the seven people took alcohol on schoolies (not me!), and I think all of them brought some of it back. Hardly any was consumed. Yeah, very terrible schoolies . That’s the way I like it though!

Bermagui itself was a lovely place, I thought. There wasn’t a hell of a lot there, and the whole town seemed to die at about 6:30pm (we found that out numerous times, with a few last-minute runs to get matches and the like), but really, who cares?! There were plenty of nice beaches there, and the locals were mostly pretty friendly. Out of all the places we visited, I think it was probably my favourite. Eden and Merimbula were pretty nice, but I still think Bermagui was probably better. I definitely liked it a lot better than Narooma and Bateman’s Bay, neither of which I found terribly attractive (although the meals at the bistro in Bateman’s Bay were pretty darned nice!).

Now for the story of the week: Kale losing his shorts on Beare’s Beach!! I wasn’t there, but some of the others were at the beach swimming, and a big wave came and Kale’s board shorts came off. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Luckily for Kale, the beach was deserted except for fellow schoolies. Beth almost drowned because the waves were big and she couldn’t stop laughing, it was that funny! In a way, I wish I was there, because it would’ve been absolutely hilarious, but on the other hand… Yeah, Kale naked is something I don’t really want to see. Needless to say, the rest of the week was spent making jokes about Kale losing his shorts. It was rather fun. For everyone except Kale, that is. But maybe he should’ve worn something underneath his boardies! That would’ve saved a lot of paying out.

Besides Beare’s Beach, I think the only other place we went swimming was in Wallaga Lake, which was nice and placid and all that. Except for the jellyfish, but they were only there at night, so it was okay! Apart from that, we didn’t do a lot else. A lot of the time was spent sitting around and reading, etc. (Mollie read like 20 books over the week!), which I was really grateful for. In Sydney we were constantly on the go, and I wanted some time to just lay back and relax with friends. ‘Twas very lovely indeed. Also, we did a teeny bit of 4WDing, mostly because Smitty kept nagging about it . It was really good fun, actually. Nothing too serious or anything, but some nice bumps and hills and all that!

Elaine did most of the cooking for the week, which wasn’t really supposed to happen, but I wasn’t one to complain too often. She did a darned good job, mind you! The food at the start of the week was marvelous, and although it slowly deteriorated due to dwindling amounts of food money, the standard stayed pretty high, and was always nice. I cooked the last night though – it was good old camping food. Jaffles!! Basically, toasted sandwiches, filled with tinned spaghetti (baked beans, ham, cheese, etc. are also suitable) and cooked on the fire in a jaffle iron!! Some of them were a tad burnt, but they were delicious nonetheless.

I really loved the sky in Bermagui. Living in Ballarat, the lights of the city make it harder to see as many stars as in the country, so it was really nice. I miss the stars (used to have them all the time when I lived in Yendon). Also, towards the end of the week there was a full moon, and on the last night (or second last?), the smoke from the bushfires in the Snowy Mountains made the moon go orange. It was quite spectacular! So one of my fondest memories of schoolies would have to be lying on top of the car in my sleeping bag staring at the sky and the trees. Mmm…

Oh, I almost forgot. Everyone except me and Elaine went on a day trip to Bega and Merimbula. We couldn’t be bothered with more cheese factories, and I slept for half the day anyway. They went to the Bega cheese factory, which apparently wasn’t anywhere near as good as the Tilba one. Also they raved about the McDonald’s in Merimbula. I didn’t see how it was all that different to any other Maccas, but hey, who am I to judge? .

I was pretty worried about the trip home, thinking we would all be completely buggered and we would have trouble getting home okay. But all the drivers stayed surprisingly alert, and we didn’t crash/die/anything else horrible. I was pretty glad about that. I got a little snitchy a couple of times, so I guess that I actually was pretty tired, but the trip ended on a positive note, so all is well.

That’s all I can remember for the moment. I’m sure there is more, but I can’t recall it at this precise moment in time. Meh. Anyway, today was spent unpacking and cleaning out the car (I still have to wash the outside though). I didn’t mind – tis nice to do something routine and mundane for a change . Oh well, that’s about it from me for now! I suppose I had better go and find something to do until our Yr 12 scores come out on Monday. That will provide me with a few hours entertainment, and then I suppose I’ll have to find me something to do in between that and when Uni offers come out. Oh, and I suppose I should fit Christmas and New Year’s in there somewhere too… Wow it’s come up so fast!! See you for my next blag soon, I suppose!!

Love James