I'm excited, for a few varied and valid reasons.

1) New Hellsing soon!
The new Hellsing Ultimate OVA episode is scheduled for release on 2008-09-16, the day after my birthday! ^_^

2) I have tickets to Disturbed! OMFG!
One of my favourite bands is coming to Perth... Not only this, but Perth will be their first concert in Australia, which means they won't be really tired out from travelling like Fear Factory was ^_^

3) Cass may have a job!
After being sick for a long time (sometimes quite violently), prohibiting working, Cass had a very positive interview and may have a job as a cook soon ^_^

4) I have my Galant GSR again!
The Mitsubishi Galant GSR, the non-turbo version of the VR4 (the flagship car of Mitsubishi before they brought out the Evo, hence it's often called the Evo Zero) is a car I used to own before I got sideswiped two years ago. I have it again, and have many plans underway for modding it... mostly for geek factor rather than automotive-power factor.

2008-07-03, Thursday, 5:30pm
The striking orange-red of the twilight horizon shimmers slightly from the heat generated by the jet engines, and I am thankful for the in-flight snacks as my ears equalise the air pressure.

This is the third time I have ever been on a plane and the first on a passenger airliner. It is better than I expected, the first spent cramped in with other tourists on a windy, turbulent day over the Kimberlys and the second spent actually flying a smaller cessna around over Bunbury and its waters. The food on this flight is passable, the seats comfortable.

Moving to Perth has been... Tiring, I suppose, but for some reason I've been tired all the time lately, regardless of sleeping patterns... maybe I'm diabetic. City living seems to suck the energy out of me... I must find an alternate source.

Right now, I am travelling a faster speed than I ever have before, Pink Floyd's "learning to Fly" meandering through my mind as I watch the sunset play shadow games on the clouds below us, The destination is Newman, specifically the BHP mining operation located near it. I will be but one of many Monadelphous workers there, and we comprise the bulk (if not all) of this chartered flight. Unlike many of my fellow flyers, I won't be fly-in-fly-out, as I am only there for two sleeps, two days.
Whoops, there go my ears again.
More after we land.

50hrs later...
I'd forgotten how RED everything is up here! There isn't much in the way of soil, as such; just red rock and red, red dust... Such was my divorce from this part of the country that I thought the scenery resembled pictures of Martian landscape, rather than the other way around which, as an Aussie who loves his country, I feel is the comparison that should be drawn.
The site was awesome... I could get used to it up here. I imagine it would get stinkin' hot in summer, but the beaches may make up for that... will have to scope it out. It's far enough northwards for me to worry about lethal jellyfish, and considering my run-in with a jellyfish two years ago turning me into a good likeness of Quasimodo I have a bit of a thing against them.

Question: what do little little boys like apart from food?
Answer: TONKA TRUCKS!!
One of the most appealing things about working on minesites is that I rarely get bored of great big machines rolling around the place as if it were an everyday thing. The forks, the frannas, the conveyors and the complete attitude of "Hey, this a problem, lets build a great big machine to do it for us!" I find very thrilling.
The twelve-hour days (inc. lunches) I don't have much of a problem with, I'm an early riser... And the sunrises up there are so beautiful. The air is so clean... again, I'd forgotten just how much I love being in the middle of nowhere. You really get a sense of how big the sky above you is when you can see the horizon in all directions, and likewise a very real sense of the earth below you, when you see whopping great big holes in the ground that could fit a suburb comfortably.
Another awesome thing about the site was the accommodation: Free washing facilities, meals catered for... the food is GREAT! Which is surprising, because it was done by the same company as Worsley uses for their facilities, and that was complete rubbish. The roast pork, roast lamb, the gnocchi, bolognaise, the veges, salads of all sorts, deserts...
Oh, and the wetty! In addition to the mess hall, they have a 'wet-mess' hall, which is essentially a pub directly in the centre of the accommodation village.
Not a huge selection of beers, but for $2.40 each, I certainly cannot complain. They also have three pool tables, a table-tennis table, the largest amount of decent songs on a jukebox I've ever seen (THREE PAGES of Metallica!), and plasma TV's outside.

It's all very, very cool, and will be exciting to work there... whether or not I will be going up on the odd occasion or based up there on a FIFO basis... will have to get Cass a jobbie up there as well :-)
Pics to follow on my flickr account when I can be bothered paying for another Pro subscription...

1243 hours until I see Disturbed.

...then again, take the other bands into account... say 1245 hours.

I haven't posted much lately, sorry about that. Lots to update about, but screw all that, this needs to be broadcasted to everyone that would be interested, and since I'm on your friend list, you will probably find this interesting.



Disturbed will be in Perth on the 29th of August @ Metro City.
Tickets go on sale next Thurday.


That is all.

300 million Americans... let's say 250m of these drive a car.
* 70 Litres per week
* 52 weeks in a year
* $4 per litre (current average USofA price of petrol in $US, not $AU)
= 4,368,000,000,000 (4.368 trillion dollars spent on petrol by Americans in the last year)

So far, the US war in Iraq has cost $532.709-trillion (according to THIS site).
Even not taking into account the fact that the cost of fuel was not as high a few years ago, the cost of war is astronomically higher.

So, what am I missing? I've never thought that the war was purely for the oil... can someone enlighten me, here? Are my calculations bad? Is the site quoting the cost, biased, and the figure, inflated?

The midget, power-walking nun crosses our path to work every day, if we time the journey right.

What a way to start the day ^_^

Today, I saw a midget nun power-walking.

...So maybe Perth isn't that bad after all.

This job is seriously fucking awesome. I'm doing stuff I enjoy, not only making a difference to the efficiency of a large business but producing things CRITICAL to it's operation... or at least, for the moment, helping to produce them, since I'm still under training.

I don't have the time for a great big lifeblogdump, but to make it brief:
I'm living in Perth, something I always swore I'd never do but knew it was ultimately inevitable... I've mentioned this a few times I think, but I'm reiterating it here because I'm STILL disbelieving it.

I'm married. See above inability to believe.

I'm actually DOING something with my life.

...Holy fucking shit, Batman.

Also, I won $20 tipping Collingwood this weekend... was paying $4.50 per dollar, but I had a good feeling =P

It'd be funny if, when oil finally rises to such dizzying heights that it's financially destructive to use fuel, big companies start paying for people-power and/or pedal-power instead of using generators to produce the power for electricity and/or automotive transportation.

That'd work out quite nicely. Hundreds of thousands of people being employed for turning wheels to produce power, solving the 3rd-world unemployment problem, and solving our energy problems. Pity about all the other problems, really...

The "OLPC OS is vulnerable to Jeff Goldblum's Powerbook" had me giggling for an hour.

First off: My beautiful wife, Cass =)

Second: Iron Man. FTFW.
It's really hard to encapsulate how awesome this movie was; it quite literally FLEW past my meager expectations. I never read the comic, but saw the trailer and glee'd. At many stages I completely geekgasmed, because while I was expecting to have to simply turn my brain off enjoy the movie, it was surprising how many details they got right(Apart from the obvious stupid things like energy and fuel source of the suit)!
The full view of when he suits-up for first time is the very definition of a geekgasm: slack-jawed, wide-eyed, and a stupid grin on my face that was a mix of lust, desire and dumbstruck'd-ness.
It was just as good as the last movie I watched at the cinema, which *also* involved great big robots made of awesome.

Third: New toys!
- 24" widescreen monitor
- a nice new laptop. Seems solid, is quiet and low-profile.
- a new media-keyboard destined not for the lounge but my car-PC =D
Gonna be so cool when that thing's working.

Upcoming sequal to Donnie Darko.

Hope they don't fuck it up purely for the money-grab.

The last few weeks have been huge, and the next few weeks are going to be nearly as big.

Abbreviated version:
I'm now married to Cass! =D
I've got a new job! =D
I'm moving to Perth! ... :-/

The wedding ceremony was fantastic, and the honeymoon was just as good. We spent so much money >.<

As of the 19th of May, 2008, I will be working for Monadelphous up in Perth, and by all sounding of the scope, position, etc, I'll enjoy it a lot.

I've had NO free time doing coding etc, to the point where I don't have time for simple things like washing clothes and packing stuff ready for the move to Perth.
This is going to scare me. I've only just got used to living in a city like Bunbury. There was once a time when I couldn't enter Perth at all without getting splitting headaches. The problem is that if I keep telling myself it'll only be a temporary thing, maybe for a year, maybe for fifteen years, then I'll hate the place and never enjoy myself there.

Going to be living with Anton for a bit, which will be fun. Hope it doesn't screw over the friendship, which living with mates generally does. Cass and I will need a place of our own. That will be nice... no telling how far down the track it will be, though.

Cass might have to finish her degree and start practicing law first ^_^

I just deleted an account by the name of Guy Smillie.


I'm not sure what's cooler, a name like Guy Smillie or his supervisor's name, Dick Savage.

Seriously.

So I'm sitting here with my Official Fancypants (tm) cup of Melaleuca Hibiscus and Rosehip tea after a couple of glasses of spiced mead some nice port, listening to Yngwie Malmsteen effortlessly make his Stratocaster cry, sing and sear it's way across a Tchaikovsky movement (and do it justice!), reflecting on just how BIG the last few weeks have been.

I really should be programming right now. But the mood makes it impossible, it demands I take my head and heart and immerse it in melodic ecstasy.

So I'm working two jobs at the moment, one fulltime and one... well, taking the rest of my time, programming PHP and MSSQL databases, working with someone else's (clearly) half-finished code, trying to make sense of a knot that Escher would give his left arm to be able to draw.
I'm horribly failing, partly because I don't have the time to do it, partly because there's simply too much that's expected to be already KNOWN about the database for me to progress effectively. Anton (who gave me the project) is aware of this and is as such lenient, but it makes it no less difficult, and I'm mortally afraid of losing the best-ever thing that's been handed to me, from a career perspective.

Last Thursday I drove to Perth and back for a job interview that I've since learned I didn't get, which is a shame, but it's not the only path available to me. I just have to do a decent job with this PHP code and I might have a job doing that. Which would be awesome, but it's not something I can carry over the rest of my life. I simply don't have the maths skills to be an effective programmer from every angle... know what "O(log(nc))" does? I sure don't, other than Google asks about it their interviews.

And then there's the wedding.
Cass has, single-handedly, FIXED my depression and mood-swing extremities, and made me happier in many more ways than I ought to be. The life we see ahead of us is something that I desire and just as fantastic, something I feel we can achieve, and this fills me with a happiness and peace I just can't convey in words.
Which makes my vows a bit of a problem.
I get married in... (*checks*) ... 3 days, 23 hours, 9 minutes.
This is something that I would not have thought within the realms of the sane, the canny and the real, even two years ago, and yet, HERE IT IS!

A Brobdingnagian ocean of possibilities below, the incalculable multitude of selves that walk innumerable paths, echoes of might have been, what is, what could have been. I feel a 27 year old in New Orleans loving and leaving at will and enjoying it. I feel a stoner working at an abattoir, again, cheerfully self-destructing and not giving a shit. I feel a 36y/o venturing with his girlfriend to Antarctica, but they will never work out and they both know it, they just love the thrill of the now. I feel a bridge-burning bastard who uses people until they cotton on, and then dances to a different town, on and on.

The path less traveled by can be taken by others (and is). The discoverers and explorers and inventors... Buggrem.
I'm happy where I am.

Ross, I think you'll enjoy this.

Directly ripped from the Bad Astronomer's LJ feed comes a youtube rap music video that is sure to bring the lulz.

Google "i hate the internet".

The very first link is, predictably, a rant on some of the less attractive points of the 'net.

The link is located on a geocities page.

Also:

The death of any significantly brilliant man is indistinguishable from immortality.

Every single novel this man wrote was so earth-shatteringly believable and detailed, one had no choice but to finish each one with the unshakable feeling of "Wow, that is how the future is really going to be. This is what will happen."

The king is dead... long live his legacy.

I hate people who call their taste in music "eclectic".
I've heard no less than six people describe themselves that way in the last month or two.
1) They are absolutely incorrect.
2) They have usually never used the word 'eclectic' before, they just heard someone ELSE describe themselves that way and thought it sounded good.

Bah. Sam, you're a damned hypocrite, you know that, right?
...because it's what many of us think of ourselves =P