What can I get you?

So I finished my Responsible Serving of Alcohol and my Food Hygiene Certificates on Saturday. I can now apply to jobs behind the bar and legally sell people alcohol, assuming that I'm selling it to people with adequate ID and all that jazz... Also part of my course was a basic coffee making lessons and wine appreciation. Turns out Cappuccino's and Latte's are almost exactly the same, just I fold the milk with a Latte (and I've also got to be careful not to destroy the crema).

And while the bar downstairs burst with roars of excitement when a favourite team would kick a goal, our group was pulling beers, foaming milk, sipping wine and breaking glasses. For a lovely change, I didn't see a single minute of the grand final this year due to my thoroughly enjoyable and very worthwhile course. The purpose of this is to lead into part time work for after exams and university, and I've already applied to several places including the place I was training at, the Belgian Beer café; even if it's a little annoying to get to (I hate public transport).

Today, while in the process of trying to backup Izzy's Tablet, I stumbled across something which has distracted me for a couple of hours now. While virtual desktops aren't original, the 3D cube model of them is relatively new, and my notebook now takes on a whole new flippy feel as I whir around the box. A separate background on them all helps me remember which desktop I'm on, handy! Only a few things I need to get used to, one of them is checking conversations in other desktops, because they don't make noise when they aren't on the active desktop. Nevertheless, I can see this as something that will change my productivity process. Have a screenshot of my computer, flipping between the desktops:

Sheep

Still in bed, trying to wake up. Writing a post should help right? Yes, that's a stuffed giraffe you see in the picture. Her name is Gerry. I suppose that means I've slept with a girl every night since my first Christmas. Sleeping with one of the human variety is, however, a different story. Hopefully that'll change soon.

Monday, I bought this laptop that I'm writing on now and on Tuesday I went out to the store again to actually pick it up. I spent all day Tuesday playing with it. It feels really powerful and works superbly at what I need it to do. By now I should have the files I need copied to it from my other computer but I bet I'll find I missed something later. It took me well and truly over 200 tools to customise and change Windows XP to the way I like it and with Vista I've only used four so far... No doubt that will change over time but it's a good sign that Microsoft might have done something right. It's only crashed twice, both times it was me acting stupid. I'm obviously enjoying the feel of my slick, new machine...

Wednesday I watched one and a half hours of Hamlet before getting bored and going to bed. Thursday I went to an Art gallery in the city to see the Australian Impressionists exhibition and I went on that new Ferris wheel in the city that you notice, specially at night time. Being not that fond of heights I was holding on pretty tightly... Favourite painting: Little Gossips, because it reminded me of people I know.

On Friday I spent the larger part of my day making my bed cos the sheets never seemed to look right. I even tried rolling them up but that didn't really work either, it looked like a slug though. Fun to look at! Went out to Prahran in the late afternoon to have an x-ray of my lower left leg. Running your finger up the bone and you'll find a interestingly sized hole where bone should be. Curious injury, caused when I was hit by a hockey ball. This was the first of the three successive hits. The two theories were that either the bone had shattered at that point and the little fragments eaten or carried away or that the bone had chipped the the fragment had moved somewhere else in the leg. Thankfully, it was neither. What appears to have happened is the thin layer of muscle on the top has formed a crater because of it being crushed in the hit which makes it feel like there is bone missing. But I always enjoy having x-rays, they're actually quite fun. I got to lead bib to protect... er... my more important bits and I had two brilliant spectators that made me laugh by sticking their tongues out at me at the same time! Also, my car leaks... Remind me to get that fixed...

Yesterday night I went out to the MCG to see the Bledisloe Cup match between Australia and New Zealand. Bought a new shirt, Alastair got one too. The match looked like it might be going all one way during the first five minutes when those Kiwi's scored a try without the Aussies even having touched the ball! At half time the score looked miserable for our team being 6-15 down. Amelia joined up with us during the second half when the level of game play started to increase. We cheered and shouted, only sometimes understanding why. New Zealand not scoring at all the second half and our excellent ability to score two converted tries put us in the lead for the final seven minutes of the match. It was an excellent game and the closeness and competitiveness of the two side is what really made it all worthwhile. Congratulations Australia on winning the Bledisloe Cup! And next time we go, we're taking giant inflatable sheep to bounce over the heads of the crowd!

All in all, a very memorable week, with plenty of times and places that I'll remember for the rest of my life. I have another event that I'm likely to remember tonight and I hope to see you there.

Finally, a mention to Matt Sanderson, who is able to make me burst out laughing at a fancy looking cafe next to the art gallery. I was already one of the youngest, most suspicious looking people there and you just added the touches to finish the picture. Thanks.

Notebook

Purchased a new notebook this week. It was a nice and simple male type shopping trip...
"Watcha got that's really powerful?"
"This one right here..."

Specs:
ASUS F3JR
Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.0 Ghz)
2 Gb DDR2 Ram
Mobile Intel 945PM Express Chipset
120Gb SATA HDD
DVD±Rewriter Double Layer
ATI X2300 (384Mb + 512Mb dynamic memory)
15.4" WXGA Colourshine (1280x800)
DVI, VGA, S-Video Output
1.3 Megapixel Webcam
Wireless A/B/G
Bluetooth V2.0 +EDR
7-in-1 card reader
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
Microsoft Office 2007

If your confused by all that, it's basically sitting in a place that isn't top-of-the-charts, but is incredibly powerful for a student notebook... 90% of the performance at 50% of the price...

The only thing I wished this had but it doesn't is a fingerprint reader... But I only want that for humour value... Toshiba notebooks have them as standard now, but this ASUS really caught my attention because it was just what I wanted.

I don't plan on using this to replace my current PC for those of you that might have hoped they might get it. I plan on re-formatting this older thing because it's getting very... er... sick at the moment and this new notebook will be a storage space while a do the job... (Granted, I could have stored my minute quantities of data on my brother's computer... but that thing is a bitch!). Also, I'm thinking of dual-booting this thing with Linux... Which will be a new experience for me (I have always run my copy of Ubuntu from a Live CD...).

Hope you're all having fun on your holidays so far!

Happy Birthday!!!

I turned eighteen today! At noon if you want to be more precise, so I'm eighteen and six hours at the time of writing. Don't really know what to say other than that except "Yay for me!"

I've been writing eighteen a lot more than 18 (cept for when I'm in a rush) because it has a special feel to it... I donno, maybe I'm just crazy...

List of presents? Sure!
From Dad: Indiana Jones box set (It's not a laptop though, still annoyed about that)
From Grandma and Grandpa (Mum's side): One of those outdoor chairs that folds up with a stubby holder in it.
From Michelle (Sister): Shirt and shorts, plus a nifty looking Tiki necklace :P
Other relatives from the US: Phone calls and cards to make sure that I know that they haven't forgotten about me.
From Mum and Michael: Bledisloe Cup tickets in really good seats, a BBQ (cos I was about to throw the pan out the window), Poster, Advanced driving course (so I become a 'safer' driver) and some workspace hazard tools (witches hats and 'DO NOT CROSS' tape for the desk).
From Hawley: Roger Waters tickets, even if it was a couple of months ago, still awesome!
And from Izzy: Well, a CD a guess, but she keeps forgetting :P (anytime is fine by me) (or maybe I just haven't looked under my pillow yet :P) and also her love (soppy... :P)

If you haven't got me anything yet, don't feel bad, I haven't actually had a party yet to warrant the need to presents. But I have had heaps of Birthday messages on my phone, thanks to all!

The reason for no party? Everyone is flat out with study for exams and SAC's and such, including me! So it makes more sense to have one when things have calmed down... like perhaps at the start or end of the holidays (I'll try to avoid the middle, most people go away).

Should this party have some sort of theme or something? That's your decision, I'm happy to do whatever so if you guys want a pirate party or something suggest it to me and I'll see what others think.

Going for my license on the 31st May. It was the closest date they had to my b'day in February when i booked it. Suggestion to those who haven't booked it yet: book now if you want it close to the day!

Finally, leaving you with something I thought of today: Eighteen, same as Seventeen, only legal!

Ask me how my month was...

March has been a busy month, with lots of changes to my lifestyle...

On the first of March I moved house, leaving Dad back in Sandringham. The new house is much smaller and is nice and cosy.

However at the start of the month there was no gas, hence no hot water. The reason for having no gas was due to a major gas leak under the new house because the shower was not connected to any drainage, and the water would run over the gas pipe, which over time has rusted out.

And up to a couple of days ago, no phone line because Telstra was considerate enough to connect the wrong phone line to the house. Similarly there has been no Internet, so I wasn't able to update my blog, but now I have cable Internet (and a fancy new router) that keeps me sane for when there's nothing to do. I didn't have a computer anyway, cos something was seriously wrong with it; all it would do was to spin fans and that's it... no system ok beep... then it stopped even doing that... it just sat there... It now has a new power supply and runs fine, apart from only loading Windows every second time and being incredibly unstable. I only have to live with it till May though, when I get a new notebook!

In the middle of all this I'm involved with the year 10 play, Hating Alison Ashley, so my spare time created from my inability to be able to do anything at home has been used up there... Very very busy...

Oh and the Honours Society's Games of the World night was heaps of fun too. I have pictures of our School Captain dressed for the weekend!

Then I went to Sophie's 18th a couple of weeks ago (March 17th to be exact) and found myself a nice girl named Izzy (or did she find me?) and we invited each other to our formals (and mine was only two weeks away.. lucky I'm just so organised :p).

Wednesday the next week I got what felt like a stitch on my right side just under my chest, but it got worse and worse throughout the day. The pain spread up my body and into my right shoulder as well and it would hurt to breathe or move. Lucky the guys found it funny as I rolled on the ground in pain cos I didn't find it humorous at all (though I was laughing... which hurt). Panadol did nothing to ease the pain. 9 or 10pm that night (I wasn't really watching the time) I was taken to hospital. They prodded and poked me and at about 1am they decided I was in pain so issued me some Morphine (about bloody time). Couple of conclusion jumping moments later I was being taken into the operating theatre to remove my appendix.

Woke up the next day (about 4am) without any pain... feeling much better... and I didn't even have any Morphine in me yet! I was told that my appendix hadn't ruptured like they had suspected and it was completely normal, yet they removed it anyway. They asked if the pain from yesterday was still there and were confused with the outcome. Clinically, they had done nothing that would have an affect on the pain and its cure yet I was all better (apart from having a 10cm hole that never needed to be created). They told me I would most likely be in hospital for more than a week and I'd miss out on going to my formal, I was pretty sad about missing it. They ended up holding me in hospital for two days til Friday afternoon and I got a good experience of what boredom feels like, as I was unable to do anything in the hospital bed... Soooooo BORING!!! Had some visitors though which made my days really interesting, you have no idea how much more interesting my day would become when there was someone to talk to. No idea at all. Thanks to Martin, Alastair, Nick and Amelia for visits. A double thanks to Izzy for two visits. And another thanks to Simon for an attempted visit and a big bar of chocolate.

After a quick chat with the doctor I was allowed to go home. Dr Dyer told me I would be allowed to go to the formal, but I had to take it easy and no dancing. She suggested not too much drinking because throwing up would put me back in hospital. Also, not allowed to be sitting down for any great periods of time which eliminated me from heading over to South Australia these holidays (I'd be leaving now otherwise). Finally, I had to take it easy for the next three months and I wasn't allowed to do any heavy lifting for one to three months, which means I won't be able to help much for the next school play, Inheritance, and I'd miss out on the first half of the hockey season. I'm annoyed but thankful it ain't worse (like if they had went looking for what the problem was). Missed out on a week and a half of school, now have heaps of homework to catch up on.

Izzy helped me pick out a shirt and tie for the formal (Thanks for that, it turned out perfect). I was late to the before party at Amelia's but it was still fun, mostly photo's and talking which was a comfortable way to start the night. The formal itself was a good night, with lower than average food and quality music that started to head the wrong direction towards the end. Plenty of photos taken, I'll post a link when I finish uploading them to Flickr (There's another email address I've acquired in my travels, starting to get frustrating all these addresses). After party at Alastair's was excellent too; poker night worked well until Jess turned up and got distracting. Heaps of fun being dressed up playing poker and I had a very sexy partner helping me play.

The formal itself wasn't worth $140 but the whole night from start to finish definitely was, I had heaps of fun with everybody, especially Izzy.

Yesterday (Sunday 1st) I went to the Flower and Garden show with Izzy and that was a nice relaxing day out. Oh and flowers don't need water to live... nah...

Thanks all for keeping me alive (almost) during March, just hope next March ain't like it.

EDIT: Formal photo's uploaded - higher resolution pics available, send me a message. Anything with a _1 at the end has been edited and is at a lower quality. Again, just ask for the original if you want it.

Proposal

I just finished my Electrotechnology Proposal and if you're curious, I've posted the final circuit diagram here - If you don't know how it works, ask and I'll do my best to explain it (its easy when you know the theory).


Total Cost: $151.61, assuming I don't blow something up!

Life's a little hectic at the moment... some of you might know why; but consequently some things are moving a little faster, and I might be picking up some benefits along the way (no promises). Though it generally doesn't mean things are any easier...

This week will be a busy one... I've got something written for every day except Thursday, which means that Thursday will be really busy, it always is.

And finally, my favorite video from YouTube: Kiwi!