Crisp

Oz Trip: Guilt

Tue Aug 16th 03:09:09 2005 *

I've been having a great time in Australia since I last updated, and wont bother to go into detail because it'd become an essay and bore you all anyway. Safe to say in the last 2 months or so I've worked hard, played hard, and ran over a lot fo Australian wildlife.

Anyway, I thought I'd update with a quick one. Today I did the most dishonest thing I have ever done by far, and now feel pretty guilty (albeit with a heavy wallet :) I drove to a petrol station to get some money from the ATM. When I got there, this guy came up to me and said "I'd watch out for that machine mate, I just tried to take $500 out of there and it only gave me $250." So I told him I'd try anyway, and proceeded to withdraw $50. It processed the transaction, and then dropped out $300 into the tray. The guy was still standing there, and I realised that the extra $250 was his. So, in a split second desision, I looked up and said "well, it worked for me, look it gave me the $300 I asked for." We then decided the machine must have made an error on his transaction and that the best bet would be to call the ATM company that this particular cash point belonged to. So, I immediatly went and bought some cigarettes (with his money...) and he followed me to the cashier to ask about the problem. The cashier told him that the machine sometimes gets the cash stuck and that he'd check it. He went to check for the usual problem, and of course no money was there (it was in my wallet). In what was possibly the last chance to fein a mistake and do the right thing, I walked up the guy, and said "I'm sure if you phone the people they'll be able to sort it out, bad luck mate." To which, he accepted his bad luck and thanked me, as I walked out of the garage and tried my best not to burn out of the carpark like a bank robber trying to get away. I'm $250 up, have bought some weed, a crate of beer and paid my rent. Still have some left over, too. Do I feel guilty? Yes. That was most uncharacteristic of me. Would I do it again? Probably...

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Oz Trip: Moving On

Fri Jun 24th 02:07:01 2005 *

Well I've been in Darwin for three months or so now I think, and it's time to get out of here. As you know I had to stop to work, and got a great job in an internet cafe. If this was back home, I'd be happy doing this job full time before university, but as I'm on a trip, all good things must come to an end. So, I handed in my notice last week, had my last pay day today (along with a bottle of wine from the boss) and trained the girl who is taking my place for a couple of hours this morning (who I think is going to struggle, but that's not really my problem). I didn't save as much as I'd have liked by any stretch of the imagination, but c'est la vie. You have to live too, or what's the point?

So this weekend is going to be one of getting last bits and pieces together before we head off. I am one of three lads and a gal who originally came out here together, we know each other from back home. Plans have changed though, and so the girl is now travelling in the opposite direction to us. That means that this weekend we'll have one last meal together and say our goodbyes too, and of course the obligitary night of drinking. The three lads (me one of them) will be driving west to Broome, which will mean another time zone change, to meet up with some of the girls we've been with since February in Melbourne, who went to Broome a few weeks ago. The 7 of us are then going to road trip down the west coast to Perth - which is currently shitty weather compared to the days of 31C+ we're getting up here - and see the sights along the way. Us lads are bringing an ounce of weed and a 176mm telescope too, the night skies in outback Australia are amazing. The west coast could well be more sparsely populated than the desert in the middle was when we travelled up here originally, so that should be interesting.

Our car has been fixed up a little; new tyres, new oil and filters, it's been washed and cleaned inside and out, and looks respectable once more. We'll be really glad of the room too, what with the girl we were with's backpack taking uo half the boot. It also means whoever is in the back seat gets to stretch out too. As one of two drivers, that hasn't been an issue for me really so far - if I'm not driving I'm still in the passenger seat, but I know my mate who doesnt drive will be glad of the extra room. It should easily out run the girls camper van anyway, but then there was never really any contest there.

As this is my last day of work, it's the last day I'll have internet access for quite a while again now. So, you can expect me to go back into hiding as it were, I'll pop in and out when I can at internet cafe's though. Back to a world of being secluded from the latest technology news (I still have my phone for brief bits of news though! The only drawback is signal is going to be non existent out of major cities) I can't really complain though.

Much to ReLik's annoyance, I'm actually considering staying out here for the full year now, until next February. Problems that would present are that I wont be going to uni with Rel if I do that, which would be shit, and I'd have deferred for two year in a row by the time I got to uni. However, if I did decide to defer again, I'd have 6 months to work of debt and get some cash in my pocket for university by the time term started rather than going in the debt that I'll otherwise be going with before I even start. Obviously I'd also get to see the rest of Australia too, but I know I'd have a good time at uni too, so that point is moot. My cousin is coming over to Australia too soon, so it would be cool to travel with him. As it is, I'm waiting to see what the university say about fee's next year (I might have to pay extra if I go in 2006) and am generally juggling it around in my head. I've gone from 'going back home' to 'probably staying' to 'definitely staying' to 'maybe staying again' to 'oh fuck I don't know what to do'. What I might end up doing is pushing the trip until mid-late September instead of the planned early August return, because the course me and Rel are enrolled on starts late in the year, early October I believe. Uni with Rel may just be too much to pass up.

Hopefully I'll have enough money going down the west coast, I'd rather not have to worry about that too much until a couple of weeks into Perth, but we'll see. I still have to buy the girl who is leaving us out of the car, she owns 1/4 of it, but that's very much doable because the buy out will be divided by three (the rest of us) so that will soften the blow. I'll update you on my plans when I know exactly what I'm doing and have found somewhere with an internet connection.

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Oz Trip: Almost Homeless

Mon Jun 13th 20:15:48 2005 *

Yesterday I was sitting here at work when my friends came in about an hour before I was due to finish, and told me that we'd been kicked out of the hostel. I was mildly surprised, but not completly, because we did have a lot to do with the reason why people got kicked out. Basically, we'd been at the hostel for about 2 months, and us being us, spent two months working and getting wrecked. The final straw came over my birthday weekend, when we went on for about 4 days solid. Sunday was the worst, we got up and started drinking straight away; 16 hours, 4 crates of beer, some jack daniels and a whole lot of bongs later, the hostel looked like it had been a military target. After everyone was nicely toasted, there were glass bottles everywhere which probably wasn't the safest thing in the world. Before long a lot of them got accidently smashed as people bumped into tables etc. Then someone decided to get the fire extinguisher out and all hell broke loose as the whole outside and inside was gassed with a white cloud of powdery shit that hung in the air for half an hour, then finally settled all over the walls and floor. Following this a water fight broke out and more shit started breaking, then the fire alarm went off from the powder in the air. Thankfully it wasn't directly connected to the fire service. The water fight quickly grew into an 'anything-you-can-get-your-hands-on' fight, including such condiments as ketchup and mayo. Messy. Then the broken glass started getting everywhere, and people started cutting themselves and falling over etc. So then there was blood in the mix; all over the hostel there were patches or puddles of blood. Add to this the amount of noise that was going on from everyone and the music, and you pretty much have the reason why I'm not too suprised that we got kicked out.

We managed to find a new place to stay, at a hostel just down the road, but it's not good news for us. Although it was time we got out of our old hostel anyway for a change of scenery, our new one is half bar. Now I'm trying my best to save after last weekend, if I can save enough over the next three weeks I can get the fuck out of Darwin. It's a nice place, but not somewhere I'd like to stay for more than a week by choice, and two months is just too long. Skip back to the previous point: my new hostel is primarily a bar open until 4am every night with pool tables, and I've been turning into an alcoholic. Now I don't even have to go to the bottle shop to get some beer, I can just sit at a bar and not even leave the front door. This isn't a good recipie for saving money. Case in point, last night I finished work and went with a mate to play pool and have a quick drink at the pub just by my work. Fair enough. By 1am, I'd moved to my new hostel and drank a hell of a lot, and I didn't even know which room I was in at that point.

So, starting now, I'm going to make a big effort to start saving my money, drinking only on the weekends and more importantly eating properly. It was 1am before I ate yesterday, but I had drank tons, which technically means I didn't eat yesterday. And here I am lecturing Meta on eating more. I've gotta sort my lifestyle out for a few weeks at least, my body is starting to tell me to fuck off.

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Misc: My Birthday - Episode Three.

Wed Jun 8th 17:30:16 2005 *

Well this is the third birthday entry I've made at Blogotomy, weird to think I was 16 when I started here, and now I'm 19. Still got a few years left yet until I'm old though, so I'm sorted. It's like a strange time warp, I just spoke to Rel who got back from the pub pretty pissed, which was me last night, yet we're only 48 minutes apart in age (I'm older, don't believe relik whatever he says). Anyway the real wreck up will be tonight, and I don't really get any choice in the matter, I'm gonna be made blind drunk. I'm actually glad I'm working 11 hours today, so that I can start a bit later, around 8.30pm, rather than the 5pm it would have been otherwise (I still have work tomorrow, I'm not looking forward to it. I foresee a sickie being pulled tomorrow.

In other news, I finally got around to seeing Episode Three on Tuesday. I had been really looking forward to seeing it, and went in really positively. However, I have to say that it was medicore, or fairly good at best. The dialogue was pretty shitty, again, and it just didn't capture me. Without a doubt it was better than the first two, but there was something about the whole thing that was pretty "meh". I nearly fell asleep at one point, but then I was pretty tired. It was without a doubt a good film, but for a Star Wars and the expected standard, it just didn't meet the challenge in my opinion. I also thought the ending was pretty shit; the film just kinda stopped. Obviously it has to stop where the original Star Wars starts, but even so it felt like Lucas said "fuck it lets go home guys" towards the end of filming. I'll see it again when it comes out on DVD, perhaps that will change my mind about it, but even so it didn't live up to the raving that I heard some people deliver.

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Tech: lmao

Mon Jun 6th 01:25:09 2005 *

Read the third comment down. It made me laugh anyway, possibly because I was thinking the same thing...

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Oz Trip: Another Weekend Wrecked

Mon May 30th 03:41:29 2005 *

Well now that I'm working 40 hour weeks in the Internet Cafe, I'm appreciating the weekends a hell of a lot more than before. So, every weekend comes and goes in a blur, but it's usually good. This weekend we built and smoked a 28 sheeter joint; I'm pretty sure that's the biggest I've ever smoked. It took a couple of hours to get through it, although we did need a half time for a few minutes. The only problem with this is that I'm not getting certain things done that I wanted to do. Seeing Star Wars Episode 3 definitely comes up there on that list, I've been meaning to see it since it came out, but I always seem to be fucked at the times when I plan to go. I finish early on Tuesdays, so tomorrow is my designated day to get a lot of shit sorted that I've been meaning to do for ages now.

In response to Meta's recent post where he went to the beach: I thought I'd throw it right back at ya Meta. This was a standard Sunday evening (last night) at the beach with a crate of beer, a 5 minute drive away :D Click on the thumbnails...

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Misc: This Is Funny

Thu May 26th 03:24:15 2005 *

I've seen this before, but I'm not sure if you lot have. I just stumbled across it today and it still makes me grin so I thought I'd post it.

I'm not doing too much exciting in Darwin at the moment, just working hard and playing hard (read: getting very wrecked a lot). I might be doing a sky dive soon though, which will probably be the scariest thing I've ever done in my life. I'll get it all recorded if I do it, and a select few of you can have access to the video, but I think I'm gonna have to have a few drinks before hand.

Blogotomy dev is coming along nicely, I think I'll add the custom CSS to the comments view of the page tomorrow, now that it seems to be holding up ok. OK, also, if I coded a private messaging system for Blogotomy, do you think any of you would actually use it, or is it not worth doing? Please feel free to request any other features, no matter how big or small, just to give a few ideas. Even if I don't do it, I'm sure Tyler or Relik will. I've actually just come up with an idea for future implementation that would enable total customisation, I'll discuss it with the other guys before I say anything though.

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News: This is unreal

Fri May 20th 01:20:59 2005 *

Ok, well this really isn't funny. But then again, in another way, it really is hillarious. I guess it depends on your outlook on things. Anyway, get a load of this.

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Sorry LaVa :D

Thu May 19th 02:41:26 2005 *

LaVa [ Formatting computer will be offline for a hot min ] says:
Doom 3 gives me nightmares
LaVa [ Formatting computer will be offline for a hot min ] says:
after I played that game with surround sound I was sleeping with the lights on for a couple of days

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Blogotomy: My Second Birthday

Wed May 11th 17:39:09 2005 *

Of sorts. I just noticed that today is exactly 2 years since I first joined and posted here on Blogotomy. That's pretty cool, I wonder if I'll be able to say the same in another 2 years? I certainly hope so. I've matured in many ways over the last 2 years, and it's interesting reading between the lines about that progression looking back over all my blogs. I wonder where Blogotomy and it's members will all be in 2 years time? I guess only time will tell.

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Current Location:
England

Robbed from Snags ;)