Dimetri Martin

Unfortunatley I missed him at the Melbourne comedy festival. He's very funny though, check him out here.

News

Well I thought I would write a very brief history of what's been happening recently. Last week I finally got my car out of customs after being forced to jump through various Australian bureaucratic agencies wanting money. Went to take it for a Roadworthy test today and it got declined on various things pretty anal; in particular I need a new windscreen as it's too dirty, new windscreen wipers, turbo timer must be removed, I need to get the exhaust sound tested... the list goes on. Also today the rest of our New Zealand stuff was delivered so we can finally sleep in a proper bed and not our fold-out couch.
We went to Dave Matthews concert this week. Good concert; played for 2 &1/2 hours. I think the crazy violinist stole the show at times, but you can't deny Dave's voice. We're going to Nine Inch Nails in a couple of weeks which I'm much more looking forward to.
We're also going to Sydney over Queen's Birthday for a bit of a catch up with everyone who we haven't seen for ages.

Something I saw on Australia's Breakfast TV show

Host: How do you respond to reports of minorities feeling threatened from rising Australian nationalism?
Expert: These people are only in the minority.

Right....


Also; survey found 99% of people felt the Australian way of life was under threat.

From what? More tolerance and understanding?

Strangely funny

If you haven't seen it, here is Alanis Morisette's "My Humps" video
. Actually pretty funny.
Never would have picked Alanis for doing a piss-take clip, and it sounds better than the original version (which isn't hard).

Donut Monday

Today at work we had birthday cake for morning tea. We stopped to break for Donut Monday meeting, which took until lunch. Today I decided to go for the larger jam and sugar donut, over the regular pink iced donut. After lunch we had some more cake for someone else's birthday. Sweet.

Update

This blog thing requires persistance, something you may guess I don't often have. Anyways, I have found myself a good job and am really enjoying it so far. On Mondays we have donut day, where we get a selection of all sorts of donuts for morning tea. I'm sure this is motivation enough for some people to get over Monday-itis.
We finally got ourselves an apartment to live in, so we can now offer friends a place to stay rather the cardboard box on the side of the road which seemed to be an option for a while.
My container from NZ has officially arrived, although I haven't seen it yet as its still at the port. Not sure I would recommend it to others though;after I pay shipping costs, Australian GST of 10% plus another 10% duty plus customs, quarantine and handling fees, it will be a very big bill. All will be ok though if the car is worth much more here than in NZ.
I'm now off to watch some cricket; we have every ball of every game here which is brilliant.

Melbourne Mate

Hey, well yes in Melbourne now. It's hot and I have a stunning watch mark from the sun already (Haha Craig). We've been doing a lot of wandering around looking for places to live and it gets sticky but it's only been 28 degrees and we expect 38 on Saturday, so start planning the funeral now. We found a bloody brilliant apartment building in the weekend but got shot down as there were too many others wanting it too - I think we need to get used to that as occupancy rates are at 99% and it's making news headlines.
I had an interview today; not that I'm even looking for work until I find an apartment but word has spread and engineers are in short supply so that's all good. I got an interview without a CV prepared or job application or anything. Don't think it's a job I want as I can't bring myself to design Mcdonalds buildings all day.
Tomorrow brings another day of looking for apartments, so hopefully stays under 30 degrees!

P.s there is a car wash place on the corner that bikini girls clean it for you and give a pole dance. Seeing as you're not allowed to clean the car yourself due to water restrictions, this seems a great idea but Annabel doesn't seem to agree...

Cake

It's half past eleven on a Thursday night and I'm writing this post partly because I'm finding it tough to get any time free ( what with moving and all) and partly because I'm forced to stay up until Annabel's cake matures for her last day morning tea shout tomorrow.
Last day tomorrow. Yee---ah.
Plane leaves on Wednesday so got a lot to do beforehand but things will come right. No job or place to stay as yet but will worry about that later.
Also arranging a container to join us in Melbourne a week or so later which kind of adds to the stress a bit but hope it's all worth it.
I smell cake.

Catchup

So it seems I haven't written for a while. The news is we all went to Stewart Island for New Years and had a very cool time; day out fishing on the boat trying to decipher Annabel's Dad "Yada yada yada lesbians yada yada yada..", playin golf and loosing truckloads of golfballs, and a few walks here and there and of course New years eve shenanigans.
I had a look through my photos, and I thought this sideways shot perhaps best described the evening. Obviously too many lemonades.
Other highlights were Milford sounds - very strong recommendation you go if you haven't already, and Mount Cook which is miles out from nowhere but at least I can say I've been there.
Hope everyone from my huge viewing audience had a great New Years and yada yada yada lesbians yada yada.

Here comes the weather

Yes well.....
How about cold, miserable, nasty weather. The photo doesn't really show it but it's pissing down outside and the wind's blowing all over the place. It's like this all over the country and hanging around for the next few days.

On the bright side though, only one day of work to go for the year. Now that crappy weather just doesn't seem so bad anymore....

I'm quitting my job

On Monday next week I'm quitting my job. That's not a small event in itself - I've been there 3 years and first 'real' job out of uni.
However it's so much more bloody difficult now that literally half of our engineers have quit over the last 2 months. We had 8 structural engineers (excluding directors) about 2 months back and had already too much forward workload for 2007. When I leave it will be only 3. Plus one of the 3 senior draughtsmen has gone and another may be on his way...
So they're in the shit and they know it. Anyway not my problem, I look forward to celebratory drinks - so where-ever you may be in the world on Monday, please have a drink for me.

Making money from the internet

Got any ideas? I'm convinced the internet is the way of the future for potential millionaires. Like the milliondollarhomepage where some young kid charges rent space on his webpage. All you need is an idea. It doesn't even have to be original (a.k.a TradeMe), but it helps.

Lots to do

I feel as if I've finally accomplished something. After bloody rambling on about all the things I have to do before we leave for Melbourne I have managed to do 1 thing. I've got rid of the fridge yay. Now everything else will be easy right?
Oh yes if anyone want's any of the following: Acoustic Guitar, Heater, Coffee Maker, Minidisc player, they're on trademe under Jacobk1. I'm also getting rid of the following CD's; The Man Who, The Fragile, Paranoid Android (single), Running from Demons (Radiohead Japanese mini-album), Pablo Honey, March of the Pigs, Jagged Little Pill, Best of Blur, A-Sides, Album of the Year(FNM), What's the story (Morning Glory). Will be selling my golf clubs and bag after the annual work golf day.
At the moment my plan is to ship my car over, some may say because I couldn't tear myself away from it but I would argue that, at least a little bit.

Names for a Blog

So I was trying to think of names for a blog; so initially I thought of retro things I used to like such as Transformers, Voltron or Batman may bring an idea into my head.
Instead I stumbled across this Batman quotes site. I never knew how bloody condescending Batman is of Robin, and how stupid Robin was. Funny though. Never did get a good Blog name.

One small step for

Ok; after a computer crash first time around, this is my second attempt at my first blog post.