This year my new years resolution is to not make a new years resolution.
The first day back to work today for the suburbanites. I planned to get up, or more realistically stay awake until around 6am. At that time I was going to take a deck chair (probably the one I got for Christmas) and move to the nearby National Park to watch the fat people start their new years resolution jog attempts. It was a good plan, but it was ruined because I had to work and so I slept and didn't go. Also it seemed like the kind of idea that would be better exectuted with company. Maybe a good date idea. Not a first date or a second date, or a sixth date, but one of the other ones. It's always better to revel in other people's humilation with an intimate relation nearby.
Also I think that half the reason we have New Years Eve is so that people can make small talk about something other than "how are you" for a week after New Years Eve, and six weeks before it.

OK, I admit it, I can't grow a beard. I should have learnt from last summer when I stopped shaving a week before I went away camping so I could look rugged by the time I got back, and still came back with nothing. So I'm not going to try to grow a beard any more. However to mantain masculine manliness, and keep my chin looking defined and handsome, I will keep a fine showering of stubble. To maximise stubble effeciency for each day, I will shave before going to bed each night. This way I should have stubble when I wake each day, yet never have a beard. At least I hope so, I don't know if I can grow enough stubble overnight for authentic enough stubble. Eitherways, I'm off to shave.

Today at work I discovered that someone was actually two different people when they were in the room twice at the same time. This is why I don't like day shifts, there are too many people that I do not know and there is too much social pressure, it's getting to me. Nevertheless, I am earning a lot of money and that is good. I calculated my petrol costs this year earlier today and discovered that I spent $~118 a month on petrol a month, bringing forth a grand total of $~1400. Fucking ouch indeed. I don't understand how Cowan was so poor before he got a car.
Tommorow is my last day shift, and today Dragan told me that I had to wear a white shirt tommorow because I haven't been wearing it on day shifts for about four months. I laughed because he finally forces me to for my last shift only, and it's actually a charity casual day at Woolworths tommorow. It's going to be funny, I'll be there wearing complete formal day uniform while everyone else is in casual clothes and they will be like "why?" and I will be like "Dragan :0(" and they will be like ">:o(" and I will like "yeah, I know" and then there will be 14 minutes of awkward silence because my break is for 15 minutes.

I told my weiner-kid step brother today that, considering the circumstances in Phuket, it was innapropriate for him to be listening to Papa Roach's "Last Resort".
Then, I watched the cricket. And it was good to see that, after being smashed by a Tsunami, Asia was still able to get back on it's feet and make a cricket team that got smashed by the rest of the world cricket team. And it was a very good game, or at least, a very good first innings. Also it raised over $10,000,000. Which was splendid. I even donated $10. Which wasn't a great majority of the final amount raised, however, I also bought my iRiver today for $620, and that was made in Asia, so yeah!

Update - 5:30pm, still freeballing. I'm out there.
As usual it's time for my Day 50 Nostalgia Entry.

Day 49 Monday January 12th 2004
I squished a cockroach a few hours ago and despite lying on it's back with it's guts on the bench, it's still alive. I HOPE IT DIES.
Today I did the craziest thing, I spent three and a half hours knocking my bat in. Only, oh, 47 days after I bought it. Just in time for THE END OF SUMMER.

I admit it, last summer was pretty lax. I didn't acheive very much, but I did do a lot of things. More things than this summer anyway, but with less acheivements. Then again, that's the kind of person I am. I mean, I haven't even finished knocking my bat in yet. It does make a neat looking shelf ornament though. Also "JUST IN TIME FOR THE END OF SUMMER" is both capitalised and was written on day 49 of my 98 day break, ie., at the very midpoint. Who knows why but I did a lot of capitalisation in my entries this time last year.
I still don't like a lot of that journal last year, but then hey, what can I say when I'm in day 50 of what was supposed to be a temporary journal while I coded the real one. Time for my day 50 kick up the arse.
And speaking of journals, when is Sam going to put his back up online. Honestly, when I bother to think/care about it, it drives me crazy. I need to read it. The Internet needs it. I honestly don't understand how Sam can hope to get anywhere in life when he refuses to let the world know the answer to, effectively, "how are you doing?". I asked him how he ever planned to have sex if he couldn't even open himself up to other people enough to let them know how his day was. He couldn't answer though, mainly because from when I said 'sex' onwards he just started giggling uncontrollably.

Having a female boss is great.
Upon arriving at work I learnt that it was Mark's last night at work ever. I was dissapointed as he is a funny guy and also quite tall. Unfortunately, due to the short notice, I was unable to make Mark a goodbye card as a gift to him for leaving. However, whilst working I had the brainwave that I should make him a card out of some of the cardboard from the boxes. However, all the cardboard had stuff printed one one side or was too crappy. Then one particular box had nice, white, good cardboard on one side, but then bad cardboard on the outside. So, I decided I would get some sticky tape and double layer the cardboard so it was good cardboard on both sides.
So there I am, sticky-taping random bits of cardboard together as secretively as I can in my aisle and I see the manager walk past from the corner of my eye. So, I quickly drop the tape and card and rip open a package of hoses which I already decided earlier was too full to fill. Like a kids tv show she backtracks a few steps and comes down my aisle and the following conversation occurs:
Her: What are you doing with the sticky tape?
Brad: I... uh... fixing... hose... (looks at hose which is clearly not going on the shelf due to fullness) ... Making Mark a goodbye card because it's his last night.
Her: You shouldn't be doing that in nightfill time, even if it is a sweet idea.
And then Yes! She then said if I went back to filling then she would buy Mark a real goodbye card and I could get everyone to sign it, and then she bought it. But when I finished filling I finished off my card, and cut up bits of special tags to make hidden meanings ("you are [Special])". And then I got everyone to sign that one and I gave it to Mark and it was quite camp.
Also today marked the beginning of sales of Easter Eggs at Woolworths.

Today I was horrible to my brain by first watching "Without a Paddle" and then following that by watching "You got Served". Two movies which are almost guaranteed to make you stupider. It was probably almost as damaging as what all the alcohol I drank at Craig's the night before did. Saturday night was good. sat around, drank, didn't get sloppy, went on a large walk. The highlight was probably when I saw Reagan walking down a street at night whilst in the back seat of a car and I shouted "REAGAN!"
Today I also enjoyed cooking choc-orange muffins with a very ad-libbed choc-orange muffin recipe. And they were quite very nice. Also Tim's Emo party got cancelled and that was dissapointing because I had such an awesome, awesome costume planned for it and that will be revealed later.

Today it was time for my annual 75% off boob calendar purchase. And I got a very good nipple, I mean calendar. It's called "Pumped Up Down Under". What it should be called is "Nipple pokes of 2005". Not quite as hilarious as my "Babes with Balls" calendar from last year, but this year I bought it 3 days later. I know this because I wrote down the date I bought my calendar on it last year.
Buying good boob calendars at this stage of the year is like getting a good car park, which in turn is like gambling. The further you go the luckier you can get, but the riskier it is. Last year Josh got a boob calendar but this year he got a skateboarding calendar. And then there was one...
At Marion today I also bought a present for Sam Marshall. What could it be?!

Here's a story I wrote to test how bigish stories would look on my awesome web page design.
Why I don't Believe in Love
I think it looks pretty good.

There haven't been many updates recently so here's what's going down.
I've basically been doing regular, mundane things like getting haircuts, playing sports, hanging out with people at their houses etc. Nothing too interesting has occured and what has happened I haven't been motivated to turn into amusing prose. I'm working on the site regularly now and now that the skeleton is made I'm writing the php and setting up the database. I don't see any reason for me not to have everything up and running by the end of February.
However, as the site moves into a new gear and begins to showcase my writing and works, the journal will also evolve. It will be more about quality and less about quantity. So less about entries every day and more about insightful, better written paragraphs. I think this will be better. However it's not working that great for me right now because whenever I sit down to write stuff I usually spend the time writing code and setting up the site first. Content can come later.
However, I'll share my day with you for today at least. I know your lust for my daily transpirings can ne'er be satiated.
I woke up at 1pm thanks to my alarm. Recently the lateness of events has caused the end of my sleeping pattern to be pushed into the afternoon again. Once awake I read my PHP book for a little under the fan and then had breakfast at around 3pm. Then I went to Sam's where I sucked at pool. Also either side of work there was a game of 500. Sam and I, as "***Team Fabulous***" (it's hard to transcribe the decorative stars into this medium) beat out Chow and Cowan in team "Donkey Balls". I don't like their team name and I don't think it's very funny. The highlight of the game was when it was 460 all, Sam and I bid 9 no trumps after a bidding war, won the first 8 and then lost. Then they lost, and then we won. It was grande.
Work made up the more interesting portion of my day. It's Australia Day tommorow, and the store has little Australian flags strung up above the fridges and at the top of all the aisles. Also adding to the Australian Decour was the guy in the singlet, thongs and oppen stubby who was shopping with his young daughter.
Thus feeling patriotic, when asked if I could supply a ladder to take down the flags at the end of the night I offered to do the service in return for gaining fifty metres straight of Australian flags on a cable. This was allowed, and I spent about ten minutes pulling down all the flags and stockpiling them in my aisle.
However disaster struck when Glynn unpatriotically stole them all and tried to fit them in a tiny bin. This of course failed as no tiny bin could hold the sheer jingoism of fifty metres of Australian Pride. So I ignored them, only to find later that the checkout woman had began crushing them up and shoving them into a much larger bin which was capable of defusing national pride. So I rescued about five metres worth, and now plan on decorating my house with them for tommorow. My plans had earlier involved dressing up my entire car in Australian flags which could have been really beaut.
That's about the gist of today's work, except I also laughed at the fact that some tins of dog food have been special tagged with the "Back to School" promotion special tags. Also in the lunchroom noticeboard, in centre view as a trophy, there is a certificate proclaiming Woolworths exceptional safety record. It is signed by the local area manager, the regional area manager and the national area manager and it's gold trim sparkles under the fluro lights. The month that Woolworths Blackwood achieved a "0" safety incedents rating? November 2005.

I got back from Deep Creek today, after going there on Friday. It was quite good fun. I'll write more about it later.

Here's an update.
It was the coldest February day in 50 years today. In fact, the summer days haven't been hot like normal this summer. It seems to spiral into showers and storms after only a few days of intense heat. So logically the summer nights haven't been hot and steamy either. Not just in terms of weather, as previously mentioned, but also romanticly. Not that this is a particularly bothering issue I just thought it would be a good idea to point out the irony. I mean, hey, I'm a realist. I know that if I want to find a girl again then she probably won't be found setting up MYSQL and PHP and IIS and registering domain names and pulling my hair out as I try and configure all of these things on a system that I need to format badly (primarily so I can reinstall my Virus Protection so that it can be used again without prompting me to register it "now!").
Ah, it's too hard to get lonely in Summer, what with the Cricket being on every day. Sometimes there's two games on a day, and darned if that doesn't make me feel a little bit guilty.
Also, in web designing news I have to announce that I have given up on ripping on Ryan with my brilliantly conceived yet poorly executed parody of his website, which I called "Ryan's Pants".

It's Summer, yet it's really cold. Cold winds continually bring chilly air into my room and shake my calendar around. I'm trying to work out if this month's pumped up down under girl's super-erect nipples are related to the cold weather, or visa versa.
Speaking of trying to work things out, it is way too hard to find all the files you need to get youth allowance from the government. Seriously way too hard. I didn't expect getting free money to be so tasking, and require so many searches through my poorly sorted filing system (hey, an empty carton full of receipts counts as a filing system). Why do I need to find all these files for Centrelink? Can't they just ring up all the organisations and institutions and find the information out for themselves. Why does everyone have to be so lazy? If everyone was more dilligent like me then I would be sitting around getting free money a lot sooner!

Wow, that was awesome. Will update today with details while my ears are ringing:
On second thoughts, fuck it, I'll update tommorow when I'm not tired and my ears stop ringing...

OK I started it waiting for the cricket:
(Now linked above).

Today's mood is actually the mood from Friday. That's ok, because pretty much all I did today was write the Big Day Out Review. It took about 5 hours. The days before this have been spent writing copius amounts of php code. Everything is coming together nicely.
Finally, last night Chow and I cooked this, for an In the Kitchen with Brad article. This is just a preview.

This might only seem funny to me because I've spent so much time programming today, but I think I will send random people postcards with my return address on them. And I will write on them "PING".

I read Sam's journal and he hasn't updated it for 8 days. By posting this I can morally criticise this behaviour.
Oh, and to further do stuff to make Sam look bad, click here.
Not only that but today I also got a new pair of sunglasses. Also in news, I left my phone at the school at 7pm after playing basketball. I realised this at 3am when I had to look in my phone to make sure that my phone number started with a zero, because it all of a sudden seemed strange that it would. One panicked run later and, yes, my number starts with a zero.

Last night I slept without a doona. It's summer, well, for the time being it's Summer, yet I'd say I could count on my fingers the number of times I've slept without a doona since December 1st.
This morning I woke up very excited. Like, more excited than normal. You know. Also I woke up without a doona. Point is, today was the day I'd been waiting for with anticipation for weeks. Months, maybe, I don't know. How long has it been since the Australian Open?
Anyway, that was when Channel 7 neglected to continue showing Arrested Development, and since that time my appetite for this genius television program has been unsatisfiable. February 23rd has been scheduled as the release date for the first season box set, and though I've dreaded this week because it's close to uni starting, I've also longed for it because I wanted that Box Set. That is, I needed that box set. So I woke up early, at midday, and I was very excited. This was followed by 15 minutes of excited napping before I got up, went to Marion and began my hunt for Arrested Development on DVD for the lowest price I could find. It was everywhere, fortunately, and I went to the following places (in order of cost) Sanity, EzyDVD, JB, BigW. I touched it at Sanity, and I bought it at BigW for $39.85 minus Woolworths discount. Let it also be noted that I wore a shirt with a collar today for the specific purpose of making this purchase.
Seeing that the government also gave me $146 dollars for no real reason I spent some more money on 'Emotional Technology' by BT, tickets to Regurgitator and Shihad and a 10 pack of blank DVDs. Then I got home, watched the first of three DVDs, cooked Moroccan Chicken, went to work and then watched the Second DVD. Tomorow... I will... I don't know... maybe do some star jumps...

I've got some throat infection and it's making these days very uncomfortable. Alongside the general discomfort and nausea from over-snacking on Strepsils, I had to work tonight. I didn't have to; after all I am a little sick. However I heroically battled on and struggled into work and did my share for the team so that I could save my sick days for nights that I wasn't sick and could take proper advantage of them. Work went ok. The music is really loud down my aisle. The music is really urban at Woolworths. Combined with the headache and congestion, the never-ending stream of RnB got to me. It crawled into my skin and clawed at my brain and the inside of my eyes. It's never been that bad before. I swear RnB is going to be the Asbestos of the 21st century and it's going to turn out that when you listen to it it actually breaks down into powder and eats away at your internal organs as you grow older.
Arriving home and still feeling sickly, I did my best to shake the RnB from my system. The Bulldogs beat the Saints, and this was a good antidote. Closer to bed time I got the feeling that my mouth was missing something. It was a similar situation to when you're eating a meal and you think it's missing something that would give it perfect flavour. Except I wasn't eating anything. But I still felt that what I wasn't eating needed some Horseradish Cream. Knowing that my nose and throat were so thickly coated with mucus that I could probably handle whatever taste could throw at me, I ventured to the kitchen, opened the jar, stuck in my pinkie and started eating it. It made my ears pop and it tasted good. Don't get me wrong, I really like Horseradish Cream anyway, but something about it tonight made it taste so much better than it already did. Not positive, but it was possibly because I was licking it off my own salty finger. My thirst for flesh clenched, I left the kitchen, and then went back five minutes later for more.

It's now coming to the end of what's been only my second weekend in a long time. I've only had two weekends in the last 65 days. Sure, one of them was 58 days long but in terms of numbers two is not a very high one.
As weekends go, this four day one can best be expressed as a parabola function, positive, with a negative factor a little higher than its positive factor and a (4/11) marked in red pen evaluating just how well I think I did in expanding my metaphor using knowledge from year 12 maths. Wow, that was 3 years ago.
3 days ago was Thursday, and off I went in my recovery from the 2 days of uni i'd experienced in the 3 days prior to that. Numbers aside, the weekend did follow a rather up, down then up again pattern.
Thursday I slept in, ate some carbs, burnt some carbs... I think I coded something, then played and lost 2 games of basketball. After that I decided to go to Uni where apparently something called "the tav" was happening. So I went there with Chow. Pornland were playing there, and I didn't know who they were but I was told to dress as a porn star anyway so after trying to decide whether or not I should cut the arse out of my jeans (I eventually decided not to) I put on my sailors hat, padded my crotch slipped on a white shirt and some blue pants and away down the hill I went.
I don't recommend driving down hills with 3 socks in a ball being pressed against your crotch by the forces of gravity. Arriving at the tav, and then after waiting for 30 minutes, I finally entered it for the first time in my academic life that spans three years now. My first thought was 'Wow, pornland are a rock band'. Chow and I had a couple of beers and I met a few people and I began to think that maybe it would have been ok to cut the arse out of my jeans because I actually wasn't doing any sitting down at all. Chow and I stood and watched Pornland who were ok but who kept interjecting their set with references to their impending break up. Yelling 'break up!' at them didn't seem to hasten that process and they still had songs to go when I decided to investigate the bathroom situation and plotted my most direct route as being just through the dance floor.
It was at this stage of the walk that I was interrupted by a drunk Dusty yelling my name from a circle of people near the dance floor so I was temporarily distracted. Sensing my distraction, my padded crotch or perhaps both a girl from this circle then accosted me and suggested firmly that we should dance to pornland's last song ever in South Australia. So I danced, forcing my brain to try and remember all the things I learnt from the last time I danced with a girl in public, which was probably about nine months ago. Alarmingly this list didn't really contain much about 'what to do when dancing with a girl' in it, but the opposite would easily be said about the 'what not to do while dancing with a girl' portion and so I succesfully didn't do any of that. This seemed to work in my favour.
Leaving the tav later that night with Chow, who'd also made friends during the evening, although with a far less female companion, I commented that the tav was probably somewhere I should have started going to more earlier, and that I was probably going to continue padding my crotch everytime I went out. Chow wasn't quite as enthusiastic about the last part, possibly because I succesfully tested his catching reflexes by throwing my sock ball at him right before I got in the car to leave.
On Friday I went down to the gym at uni and spent the afternoon playing basketball, and this was quite an enjoyable time. That night I went to see the Vascoe Era and Regurgitator, who were about as good as each other. Vascoe Era exceeded expectation, Regurgitator played their new crap to below expectation levels. Possibly because I didn't pad my crotch that night, but it wasn't as good as previous.
I woke up Saturday morning, turned on Fox Sports and what I originally thought was highlights of Ricky Ponting's innings was, in fact, Ricky Ponting's innings. Then I waited around for basketball. I got to the stadium 10 minutes early with the rest of the team in time to learn that the stadium selection had been altered for the day, and so we got to the actual game 10 minutes late and the game was quite a let down. Paying $7 to play on a three-quarter court with a one-quarter umpire duet against a team of dirty (literally) dudes who we would've beaten quite soundly had we actually had the correct stadium details to begin with was a downer. What's worse is that the league seemed to have gotten 'competent umpire' and 'player's sister' muddled up when selecting an appropriate referee. Already feeling disgruntled, I watched the Bulldogs get destroyed by Carlton which was even more depressing. God, I think this was the first time I've ever found The Phantom Menace to be attractive viewing.
By now my spirits were deflated. Then slightly lifted by the receival of a text message from a girl, then deflated again when I accidently replied through habit by sending "FLIRT" to her phone. To this I got no reply, and as time passed I assumed I'd done bad, so two hours later I sent "STOP" but alas... The rest of the night was spent at Josh's where a lot was said but a lot less was done. I went to bed as a local minimum of man.
But on Sunday the sun was shining, it was a beautiful day. I walked to work reasonably carefree, then played basketball for Grant's team where we won. Then into the evening, after remembering but then accepting that a lot of women send sms with grammar skills that would dissapoint an international student, Kat and then Dusty assisted me in using my phone to talk to a girl. Well, in actual fact they told me exactly what to write and after questioning the placement of every character in the message I would send it ensuring they would take responsibility for whatever came of it. Then I went to bed ready for another hard three day week at uni, and with dreams that next weekend won't require a mathematical description in order to sum it up. And also dreams of a Tomato and Cheese Twisted Delight from Baker's Delight because they are really nice.

When I went to bed last night I wanted today to have ended in one of two ways. By the time my head hit the pillow I wanted to have either gotten together with a girl or learnt how to code sessions with PHP. Whilst it seems that I came close to one, I did do the other. And that satisfies me. Which one? Well, I think you can tell just by the fact that you're reading this.
You see, I'm posting this fresh from the admin control panel of Bradism.com. I can do this because I'm logged in as the administrator. It's like moving into a new house.
Today I've done a lot of work on Bradism. It now contains 14 stories plus the last year of journal. I had to upload all the recent entries in manually because of the temporariness of the last journal, but it's done now. From doing this I've realised that there haven't been a lot of entries lately. Also worrying is that, what passes for an entry once a week disturbs me about what I'm doing that doesn't pass for the other few days. Nevertheless, I do recall spending a lot of that time coding this. Majority of this effort was spent developing the 'Select Timmy Picture' applet for journal entries. It was worth it.

Most important thing out the way first, today's Twisted Delight was the Jalapeño & Green Tomato Twisted Delight and it was the most delicious twisted delight ever. It was even nicer than the first Twisted Delight I ever ate, and that one was so nice that after eating it I said 'I think I will eat one of these every day of uni'. Current Twisted Delight Count for semester 1: 6.
The second best part of uni today was learning more about which topics I will be able to skip. Ryan and I spent an hour working out what parts of our timetable we could trim to make it more fashionable. If 'working out how to skip uni' was a subject itself, we'd probably have HDs for it and probably have skipped all the lectures and most of the tutes.

In my life, and despite 6 units of Comm Skills last semester, I've never been good at reading body language. In actual fact, I'm not even very good at reading bodies. My inability to recognise acquaintances aside, however, one area I find I really fall down in is interpreting signs from members of the opposite sex.
I recently was informed that some girl who I only met once found me hot. This was a bit weird for me mainly because when we did meet I was splashed in my own vomit and running towards some bushes to make more. But still, I only found this out three months after I met her! The fact that I was unable to recognise an interest (even when you consider that for the next two hours I was passed out on a trampoline) that was actually verbally acknowledged speaks volumes about why I might not be able to register more subtle indications of attraction.
There are times I wish I was a graphic artists. Pretty much all of those times are when I want to create graphics or illustrate something, which is predictable really. You see, pictures could explain better than words my inability to read these signs. I’m as good at picking up signals from girls as geriatric elderly drivers are of obeying road signs. And this is what I wish I could portray for you. Fortunately history has done it for me and this article, which describes the biggest ‘Oh, Grandpa!’ moment since the bathroom scene near the start of ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ will help you feel what I mean.
Yes, that carnage is about parallel with what happens in my mind when I misread signs. This doesn’t just apply to signs like ‘Wrong Way, Go Back’, ‘No Parking’, ‘Stop’ and ‘Children’s Crossing’. It’s also signs like ‘Merge Left’ and ‘Increase Speed on On Ramp’ that I’m completely oblivious to, and all this leads to is more carnage, as you will. And that’s the reason that I’m probably going to spend more time than I want to striking the back of my own garage.
Ah, oh God I love analogies. I love metaphors and I love similes. The level and power of description they afford you is amazing. I really, really, really like them. I like them a lot.
Anyone who’s read my stories knows that I use more metaphors and similes than most rappers. Which brings me to my point:
“Love is hard to find, far harder than late night television advertisements would have you think. Whilst most people look for love, find it and live happily ever after, some people devote all their energy looking for it and never turn up anything. Other people find it in their face when they’re not even looking. Yes, finding love is like playing hide-and-seek with a kid with ADHD.”
I don’t know what makes me think I’m qualified to write about love, seeing I’ve never experienced it nor do I seek it, but people like to read stories that have metaphors about it in them. If that tricks people into thinking I’m deep then it will probably benefit me in some way. Most likely I’ll be able to get away with being obnoxious later because I’m ‘profound’.
Know what I’m talking about? The bit in italics I mean. I now have a photography mission.

Today's entry is 90% motivated by getting value out of this Timmy picture.
The other 10% is this:
I watched an episode of 'Andy Richter Controls the Universe' that was about the Irish.
I hurt my neck really badly.
I wore green underwear.

Also, I didn't consume any Irish liquids for personal enjoyment like I should have. Unless Flexall 454 is an Irish product. It says made in USA on the back of it, however, there's no mention of why's it has a suffix of '454' on its name. Yet, like whiskey, it too has been good for what ails me.

Ah, phones.
A girl who sends SMSs less than daily is pleasantly horrible. Yes, that is an oxymoron, I did write 'a girl who sends SMSs less than daily'.

Puzzle Bobble: Round 16 - Or as it's otherwise known as, 'The Widow Maker'.
Not the only game I played today.

Stupid EMIT today. I hate it when I have to go to uni on the weekend.

Today's entry is 90% motivated by getting value out of this Timmy picture.
The other 10% is this:
Some principles learnt in Puzzle Bobble can be adapted to games of pool successfully, others cannot.
As of today it's the official beginning of the 9 months of the year where I can't park my car anywhere at night that requires reversing to get out of.

And this:
A week or two ago I stepped into the shower on a mild morning to begin my daily routine. This optimistic plan was at that point shattered as I was immediately confronted by two intruders in the shower recess, a black container of "Radox Body Gel" on the shelf as well as a fluffy yellow ball hanging from the 'C' tap. Further investigation revealed this yellow object to be the aptly named "body puff".
Now I'm down with this new-age man stuff, and I'm cool with being both rugged and bold as well as fresh and clean smelling, however, this may be a step too far. After all, I can achieve all of these attributes with soap. Good old manly soap. No one's going to look at you twice for using soap. Soap's the number one ingredient in brutal gaol house rape, and let me tell you, you'll be hard stretched to find something manlier than huge, musclebound, skinhead shower rape.
Yet this soft, yellow ball, and invigorating, cleansing body gel have not left, and I admit, I've done more than wonder whether puff is pronounced as you'd expect, or as the French would say it, ie. "Poof". In fact, I've used them, both, together. As you'd expect, it does feel a bit queer for a 200cm man to be lathering up his hulking body with a dwarfed, meek bundle of intricate layers of fabric drenched in pleasant smelling gel. But I did it. And I think I'll continue to do it, because I've never been one to look away in the face of a challenge. I'm always willing to adapt, to accept new ways of doing old things. Even then, I still doubt there's going to be any gaol shower rapes initiated soon when an inmate drops the body puff.

I bought my Thomas the Tank Engine muffin mixes 390 Days ago. They've now officially expired. I can't help but wonder if I made a mistake in purchasing them. And it's not like I bought them and forgot about them or anything, they've spent every one of those 390 days sitting on my desk right between my monitor and my router. That's not the kind of place I'm likely to neglect.
This afternoon I went to the Cop Shop to sign my statement and fill in a Victim Impact Statement in regards to last years Orientbeering Incident. As I wasn't very impacted, I didn't really write much. However in the middle pages there were fields for your name, age and what grade you were in school. Then there was a big blank space for you to draw a picture of what happened if you were a kid. Unfortunately when the cop took it from me he removed the middle pages without looking at them, assuming I hadn't spent 90% of my time using the police crayons. I didn't care though because I stole the orange one. That's all I can tell you right now because the whole thing is in the courts.

30 Degree nights? Thousands of tiny little moths? How is this Autumn?

Aside: I played for Grant's Saturday team today and we lost and the umpiring was pretty horrible.

I saw my Pop today for I think the second time in 8 years when he came over from Perth. It's only now with my current level of experience in life that I can get a deeper insight into the man he actually is. Because I never realised it before now, but I think I'm a lot like him. I see it in the way he calmly stands and surveys the current situation and you can see him mentally processing it, making connections. Like me, he doesn't say much when he's not talking, but when he does he's making jokes and not taking much seriously. Yeah, so he stands around vacantly and laughs at random things. I think that's like me, or maybe he just has dementia.

I'm quite glad to know he's still a cool guy, and he is all there still, both mentally and physically, which is promising for me. Huzzah for good family history. Usually it's awkward whenever I meet my extended family because I never see them and it usually only leads to polite, uncomfortable small talk. However I truly did chat to my Pop today like a normal person who I see all the time and it was rewarding. Especially seeing as I confirmed one of my greatest suspicious, the man is a player. My Grandmother died when I was around 2, and since then he got married and then divorced the woman I grew up with as "Nanny", who was another cool old person, and now he's living in a freaking bachelor pad. He told me that on Monday he goes old time dancing at night, Tuesday through Thursday is square dancing and then with a wink and a laugh he tells me that Friday is a rest day. Ah man, a whole lineage of players in my family, and I get jumped. I wonder what my Great-Grandfather was like with the women. How sad for me. But hey, if all the pretty coloured birds only produced pretty coloured offspring, there wouldn't be many dull birds left. And that's why I'm glad humans don't have feathers.

Dusty's party last night was horrific. Horrifically hilarious. The events I try and regale from herein will try and convey this, but it will be difficult.

I arrived slightly late after returning from dinner with Pop and the family. Dusty had made a half-arse attempt at making the party a costume party, but other than allowing himself to wear a cummerbund and ensuring the rest of us had to endure Craig shirtless for the evening, not much effort was put into dressing up. Nevertheless, feeling slightly bad about last time I went to his house, I put on a fireman hat and within 2 minutes of arriving I donated it to Dusty as reimbursement for last time. Some guilt alleviated, I then joined the majority of the group outdoors when I talked manly with Kat and the hilarious German Bene. There was some banter, many sideways German jokes and attempts at pidgeon-deutch. Conversation of course led to the topic of whether or not Bene was a Hitler youth or not. To get to the bottom of that I conducted a word association experiment to reveal that, indeed, when I said "Zieg" he though "Heil!". Kat was bemused with this, and also wanted to play, however she wasn't a Hitler Youth so I declined her offer. To which she proffered "but my room-mates call me a communist... but I'm not.". We'd see about that, so I agree to word association, and open with "Voluntary Student Unionism", to which she associates "Bad!". I inform her that she is a communist, and then immediately leave so that Bene may no longer be distracted by me as he tries to teach Kat the German meaning of Love. (He later confirmed to me that it was 'leibe'.)
However I was now on a mission, having realised just exactly where I was: Dusty's house, at a party filled with arts students I was essentially in the Anti-VSU stronghold and as a pseudo Young Liberal it was time to ruffle some feathers.
With Sam's help, and unwittingly Dusty's, we secretively used his computer to print of many A4 Copies of many pro VSU slogans. When I say secretively, I mean as secretively as was possible where you're in the middle of a house that's having a party in it. Many close calls were had when it was almost discovered what we were up to. Nevertheless, somehow despite Dusty's sucky printer we managed to print off about 30 posters with giant phrases like:

• VSU IS GOOD
  
• I <3 VSU
  
• VSU IT'S WHAT TO DO
  
• What do we want? VSU When do we want it? NOW
  
• WE BUILT THIS CITY ON VSU
  

Sam and I then tried to subtly make it to Dusty's room unnoticed where we could tape them all up in our protest against the man probably more anti VSU than anyone.
About a third of the way through sticking them all over Dusty's walls and roof, we were interrupted by Kat who wanted to know why we were in Dusty's room. Completely oblivious to the posters around her, Sam and I tried yet another round of excuses to make drunken people leave us until the jokes peak, however eventually she noticed and I had to carry her out and this created a slight storm, which drew Dusty's attention. Dusty was then alerted to the situation is his room, and I then watched what was probably in the top 10 most hilarious things I've ever seen. Dusty, a little drunk, staggers to the closed door of his bedroom and slowly opens it. Inside all large available spaces have been covered with pro-VSU slogans. I laughed hard, so hard I almost cried, it was quite perfect. Dusty, I'll admit, handled it alright, he's a good guy, unfortunately the rest of the art students did not take it so well, and there was a small riot as the posters were destroyed and taken outside to be burnt. I managed to preserve several posters for a time but alas.
Again, this is just one of those stories than cannot be retold in a manner as good as being there, but by God was it funny, it was like living in a sitcom.

Other Hilarious Events:
"No, that's what I'm saying; you should only go university if you can afford it. Poor people don't deserve education, this way the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" - This is not something you should say to a bi-sexual, hippy arts politician, especially after you call her a communist lesbian. This is how I became a 'have' and a glass of water became a 'have not'.

While Kat was in Dusty's room alone, the above mentioned girl walks in. Dusty, suddenly gifted a brainwave, jumps up and slams the door shut, barricading it. The two girls immediately start banging.
'What the fuck are you doing?' is raised, Dusty, slurring slightly, tells us not to worry.
'No No, you see, if I put them in there they will start making out... because I left my camera in there...'
I cannot believe this theory actually worked, as when we opened the door minutes later, Dusty instantly garnered a lot of respect.

"Cowan you drove 2 hours across town while drunk to give a lesbian a lift home?"
"No No, it's ok, I got her number!"

That and the sheer amount of German jokes I made, God, I love Bene.

I'm not suprised that during holidays I haven't really done anything. I suppose that is what makes them holidays. Nevertheless, I'm posting today to inform anyone that posting comments on Bradism is now easier and more fulfiling and also won't break the layout in Internet Explorer. So basically I spent a couple of hours today stealing emoticons from MSN and making them show up in comments. Cool Huh? :)

Also you can use line breaks in comments now. :rolleyes:

Wheee!

That's what these holidays are, in cricket terms, drinks. No time to visit the bathroom and have a snack, just long enough to get a new pair of gloves and a quick word to the 12th man. Whoever that is in this analogy, I'm not sure yet.
This afternoon I enjoyed a very good ice coffee. So good, in fact, that it was probably the highlight of my day. What that says about my day and, this being the first entry in a while, my week is probably best left unsaid. Although optimistically, in a carton-half-full perspective, what does it say about the quality of that ice coffee!
Needless to say the carton is, at least now, empty.

Today's entry is 90% motivated by getting value out of this Timmy picture.
The other 10% is this:

OH GOD I HAVE WASTED MY ENTIRE HOLIDAYS.

I'll Write More Entries Now:

• You've won a game in 4 rounds
  
• When you meet people named Ben, Michelle or Pauline you regard them with immediate suspicion
  
• Your Catholic neighbours now smile at you from their drive-way because you've been heard screaming "PAY FOR YOUR SINS" as you follow an unsuccesful moon shot with a succesful one.
  
• Whipping out your wang and shaking it at the screen in mockery when you win is no longer an impulse and instead something you've been caught doing... twice
  
• You've lost in 4 rounds.
  

I just washed up the mountain of dishes in our kitchen at 3:25am today. That's my entry. Leaving things to the last minute is working excellently, as expected.

I am in a soup. Today I found out from my parents that I was a drunken accident. I hate them, why did they have to tell me? I hate the world, why would you build an all night adoption clinic and why would there be a bar right next to it?!

So if you like mediocre jokes, I remembered last year when I wrote a humorous dating personal for each of my lecturers which was in fact a facade for a rant stemmed mainly from having to wake up early to gather material for the dating personals. I'm considering doing that again this year, except I haven't seen any of my lecturers for about 2 months so it may be difficult.

There's been not much to write about in the past few days. With that in mind, I quit my job tonight. No more Woolworths for me.
I think it was a worthwhile sacrifice for a decent journal entry.
If there's anything that gives you an antfarm view on life and death, it's working in a large business for a long period of time. I've only been there for about 30 months, since November 2002, yet it seems like so long ago when I didn't work there at all!
Like life, Woolworths had people before I was hired there. Some of the more famous ones I heard about, but there must be many others whose deeds do not live out in infamy.
During my short time on the shop floor new people came and people left. Some left young, some left old. I watched the careers of some people come and go in the blink of an eye, just like the butterfly and the tree. And in the same way I've come and gone in the blink of other's eyes. I think the point of the analogy is that Reagan is a Sequoia Tree. But that's what he gets for working at Woolworths for 100 years.
I will miss Woolworths, I never ever found the work difficult or challenging and the people there were good fun and cool. It is tragic then, I suppose, that it was only when the management became so overbearing such that it affected my quality of life that I was prompted to consider what my other options were. However the promising result is worthwhile. The butterfly of my life is leaving the branch of the Sequoia Tree and setting off down the tracks towards a new and better way. Just like the fairy tale, this butterfly is turning into a train and flapping it's wings away.

May 5th 2005

Dear Managers of Woolworths,

This letter is to signify my formal resignation from my position as Long Life Night Filler at Woolworths. I want to thank the store and all managers for having me as an employee for the past two and a half years. I have found this position to be fulfilling (no pun intended) and I leave only to undertake opportunities to advance my life forward.

Brad

I reverse parallel parked today, for the first time since I got P's in 2002. It was pretty shocking, and it was the reason I got to PLC 5 minutes late.
At uni Ryan, as he has already done this year, informed me that an assignment I didn't think was due tomorrow, was, in fact, actually due tomorrow. This led to much assigning. Unfortunately there had to come a break in which I went home from uni, prepared and ate a pizza and then went to work.
While eating my pizza I discovered that if you sign up for an ING Maxi-Saver account today before 11pm they give you $123 for free. So 5 minutes of forms later I was up $123. Then it was time to go to work for 3 hours to earn another $40.
I don't know how I got rostered on for a Tuesday shift, nor when Tuesday shifts devolved back into the 3 hours of pure face up that they used to be when I did them back in 2003. Alas, without even the prospect of Gug and Pete to talk to as was the case in the old days I began my saunter along the aisles adjusting cans and boxes. It helped me remember why I quit, especially towards the end of the shift when everything I'd faced up at the beginning of the shift was now ruined by customers. (10 days to go!)
Highlight of the shift: Watching a fat woman with a hand basket staring at the chocolate bars in the confectionary section for several minutes, then willing herself to leave without getting candy. She came back eight minutes later and got one, willpower defeated. It made me feel better than her.

I'm sitting in the same place right now as I was a week ago. Will update website when that changes.

My face is so incredibly soft right now. Last night at work there was pillaging of the excess Woman's Day Gift Bags and I nabbed a dozen Listerine Pocket Packs and 3 tubes of Oil of Olay Daily Regenerating Syrum.

I had my last night at Woolworths tonight.

It was actually pretty good. Like any finale, life managed to succesfully pull out a few cameos, but more than a few were missed.

I arrived at 7pm and within a quarter of an hour there were visits to my aisle by Dreadlocks WheelChair Guy and The Friday Night Midget. The Friday Night Midget was covered in cat hair as usual, but it's been a while since I saw her. The last time I think I saw her was when I dumped five packages of toilet paper down next to her, obscuring her from view.

Nathan was there, my oldest mentor at the place. I spent my first few weeks under his guiding eyes before he left nightfill for a life of perishables.

Checkout Nick also appeared at one stage, a guy I'll always remember for his strange inability to do the 'store closing' announcement; it was always truncated. This was more notable because he was in civvy's and I was thinking about Cameos.

Also working during the night were some of the many comrades I've spent most of my time with: Gug, Benno (my aisle companion for many months), Jono, Boris, Oakes. But how the crew has changed since I first walked through those doors.

Continuing with the Cameos, Dragan was working late this night. My perspective of Dragan sure has changed since I first met him. While most everyone in the world seems to be more of an asshole than they let on, Dragan is one of the only people I know that is less of an asshole than he acts. I'd be blown if I knew why he acts like this, but hey, he's got a weird name and allegedly an ugly arranged wife so I'd probably be bitter about people with Santa hats and mess up normal people's names too.

Kylie was very nice to me again tonight too, as usual, supplying two chocolate mud cakes and a farewell card for me at the end of the shift. Honestly, the card is bigger than my TV. I was a little bit taken aback. I think we spent about twenty minutes in the lunch room for what I think was my 'Turning in my knife and badge (and discount card) ceremony'.

There were non-personal cameos too. I cut my finger at the nail near the start of my shift, and this was a call back to my first few shifts where my nubile, unworked hands first had to deal with hard work and the fact that Steve never gave me a packet knife.

And finally, there was Trix Dishwashing Liquid: 1 Litre, lemon scented. The very first thing I ever filled at Woolworths and (not coincidentally) the last.

Some cameos that would have made the night really special, but didn't end up happening:

Steve: The day you realised you didn't have to take Steve seriously was the day that he became incredibly entertaining. He was a cool guy, pretty freaking fucked up, but hilarious nonetheless.

Posi-Anne: She was the woman/manager that taught me that in life when someone says "hi, how are you?" they're not really expecting an answer.

Nick: Nick was the epitomy of what made shifts good back in the old days. Yeah, the loads were big, but he didn't care if we got done on time nor how much stock we had to devour to give us the fuel to fill. The result was many fun filled five hour shifts, delectable delights and challenging work. Hey, I liked it. It was mainly during summer a few ago and I think I usually got drunk after. It may have been a bit much for Nick to come back from England for his apperance in my farewell though.

Paul: He gave me my job and he made me feel good about myself when I had the courage to say hello to him. For my interview with him, he asked if I wanted to work checkout instead, and I stood up for myself and said 'nah'. His departure really was the first slip in the slide of management and policies there, which is sad. What's sadder is that he didn't come back to say goodbye to me.

When I should have been at work tonight I was at the russell, and also doing some homework. The more I think about it the more it seems evident that my primary reason for leaving Woolworths was to provide the fuel for that huge entry on Saturday... and it only got one comment. For Shame!
In other leaving Woolworths news, I left my legacy in the mens toilets on Friday night. I can practically promise you it's still there.

You know, because permanent marker doesn't fade that easily.

I had a good day today.

I woke up, shot some hoops, did some weights, then went and played basketball at Uni for over two hours. This was sweaty work. From there I went straight to the gym and did weights for another hour. Then I came home and ate tea, then I went to my basketball game and we beat Team Palmers and it was the best Thursday night game in a long time even though I got cramp right near the end and didn't play after that. Then I came home and ate tea again.

I didn't put deoderant on at any stage today. Although... I did shower twice.

I'm focusing on my entire life and in particular where I am in it right now. While searching through every aspect of my being I am using relating memory techniques to associate this snapshot of my existence with this entry.
In 20 years Schapelle Corby will get out of gaol in Indonesia. On that day, (May 27th 2025 - I've set a reminder in my phone) I will read back to this entry and perform some mental arithmetic to see how much of a life she's missed out on.
Hopefully this experiment will give me some perspective on whether or not I'm being an ass when I make jokes about her and her sentence.

The Lord provided a beautiful, sunshining day on Monday the 30th of May, 2005.
This was pretty consistent with the rest of the month, and pretty much the norm for all of autumn.
This "Indian Summer" has (probably) broken records for the driest autumn on record in South Australia. There's been piss all rain for months, the ground is dry, the soil is loose and it's not even that cold.
And it's winter in 2 days. That's the deadline God has to somehow turn these parched South Australian hills into lush green valleys, damp the air, summon storm-clouds always threatening. He has to build puddles that will last for months on asphalt that hasn't even bathed recently. He's had three months to get this going and he's left it all to the last minute.
At the risk of sounding mildly conceited, I can empathise with God right now. At least after God's deadline passes he doesn't have 5 exams straight after, four at 8:45am! Oh uni.

I spent 6 hours trying to do my IC assignment today. I had more work to do tonight, a lot more work. This is why the colour scheme selector now works correctly in the menu.

I feel cleansed now, this is a level of procrastination that you can just take a step back from afterwards and go, "man, ahh, I spent hours of my valuable time on implementing a feature so useless even I won't use it".

Today's entry is 90% motivated by getting value out of this Timmy picture.
The other 10% is this:

Next year I will celebrate the 2nd of June as EMIT day by going out and nailing a woman in her forties.

This is where I'd like to be right now: On top of a cliff. At sunset. There'd be a slow bit of the song where the drums would slow down and then the guitar would come back in with all new electric-organ backing it and the camera on my determined yet relieved face would zoom out until I was a tiny speck on the edge of that cliff with the golden-orange rays of the sunset splashed over everything.

That's how you know movies are over, because the character you spent the last hour or two following closely and becoming attached to suddenly fades back out to where they came from and you let it go. It's the typical cliche ending. And I need one.

Because I can't remember when my last one was. I keep overlapping all my sequels with their prequels and there's no time for my electric-organ rock song and credits. But do I really want to become a speck and fade out? Maybe that's most people only get one these things, and it's when they die.

If anyone knows any good rock songs with keyboards and sunsettness in them please let me know (comment) so that when I get the feeling that every single thing is wrapped up and I can get some time that nothing important can happen I can listen to them and drink tropical cocktails and pretend like my life is complicated and that I deserve tropical cocktails and not doing anything. I saw a nice sunset on Friday night and because I was driving alone I seemed to think all this up. (I don't really need one, I just want one).

I read in an entry from when I was initially designing Bradism that my journal entries would focus on insightful reflections rather than everyday ramblings.
But I think it's important to iterate at this stage that while my brain is capable of processing, analysing and cultivating in-depth analysis of my life and associating it with imagery and metaphors, I'm really pretty chill. I think I'll hand in all my assignments on time and pass all my exams. In doing this I probably won't even do much work outside business hours. This is because of a combination of efficient working when I do manage to stop procrastinating momentarily and a lifelong habit of assuming that I will successfully meet all my goals even if I don't purposefully stride towards them every waking moment.

I've finished 4 assignments so far this week. This only leaves IC. IC as in I don't C that happening. The assignment I wrapped up in the computer labs by 6pm tonight was DB2. God, as if somehow offended by my offhand dismissal of his ultimate power and ability to get things done in a short amount of time, rewarded me with a torrential downpour at the corresponding moment. Apparently The Guy is kind of smarmy, like freeing the Israelites so they could wander the desert for 40 years wasn't enough.
So I've finished my assignments and while I was doing them it's turned winter. I leave the lab and walk downstairs to the door that leads to the car park and it is absolutely pissing down. Before I (practically) kick the door down and bolt for my car I first zip up my jacket, get my car key in one hand and tuck my bag under my arm. The 150m sprint, which involves almost slipping over on some gravel and trying to remember where my car is parked, was soon over and after hurling my bag onto the passenger seat and slamming my door I inhaled a deep breath, exhaled an impressed expletive and started my car. I wasn't positive it started, as the rain was drowning out the sound of the engine, but I was confident enough to put it in gear and cautiously experiment with driving.
This point, or actually the point just before it, is where I realise the quality of my car is going to play a major factor in my ability to get home. Even while approaching my car I could see that the Commodore windscreen, not notorious for promoting visibility, was already fogged up before I even got there. How this happened I don't know, most likely it was more God spite, synonymous with ‘science’. I resign myself to using the demister so I can, you know, actually see anything and upon flicking it up it cacks out and dies. However the setting below it worked so I had to demist the whole windscreen using the 'general warmth' level. For the record, I was actually able to see through the middle of the windscreen just before I pulled into my driveway.
My practically opaque windscreen was a disadvantage made much heartier by my headlights, with strength can best be comprehended when you consider that when I'm hurtling towards a deer or rabbit crossing the road at night, they just keep going. It was only because of appropriately timed lightening that I managed to negotiate around several obstacles during the journey home.
Cursing my demister, windscreen and headlights I put the car into gear and turn the wipers onto 'storm mode'. Screeching starts and I realise that the blade has been knocked free of the metal clip that holds it in place, and that is now scratching my windscreen to fuck. I guess when you design a car with such poor visibility as the VK Commodore, the concept of using plastic instead of metal for something that might touch the windscreen repetitively. It's not the first time my blade has come loose and I would be damned if I was going to get out to fix it in that weather. I've done that before and it always comes loose again. Ironically I think the blades only get knocked out when it rains.
So there I am, driving home navigate purely by keeping the line in the middle of the road to the right of the tiny gap of visibility at the bottom-right of my windscreen. This visibility was not enough to see the giant puddles on the edge of the road. So I actually had a few waves break over my bonnet on the way up the hill. Then there was a bus that I had to get around, and branches but then finally Car Park God led me safely to my carport. And I was happy. Rain makes me happy.

Last night I went to AAMI Stadium to see the Bulldogs lose in Adelaide for the fifth time straight in 3 years. Happy obtained members seats for the outing and so I got to sit in the third level under shelter and was pretty comfortable for the game, particularly during the first half.
At least the Bulldogs kicked more than five goals this year. The trip was reasonably seamless, save for the one crucial mistake I made shortly after parking. Due to paying at the gate to the carpark, by the time I had parked I still had my wallet sitting on my lap with my change on top of it. I stopped the car and then put my wallet in my pocket and got out. This was not my normal routine for exiting my vehicle, and it meant I'd omitted the crucial step of removing my keys from the car before I locked the door. This was most likely a ploy by my car in revenge for the shit I wrote about it on Friday.
There was still an hour before the game so I rang up the RAA and they said they'd send a van to meet me. After hanging up I realised I was being a little foolish, after all, I was at a Port game. So I asked loudly to the air around me "does anyone here know how to break into a VK Commodore?”. A great many people thought they did, and tried, but my car is reasonably impenetrable when you're trying to break in without actually damaging any of it.
The RAA guy didn't come in an hour, so I abandoned my car and watched the game and then called them after. They came in 45 minutes this time and the guy broke into my car with a bent piece of wire in about 30 seconds. I'm never leaving anything valuable in my car again.
After the drive home I went to Jarrad's where we and Chow played Race, and then Snap with race cards.
I'm not supposed to play Snap anymore. As a junior I'd had a very promising career and made it to nationals. I was then suspended for snapping a guy in the face in the semi's. The next year I made to the final and was winning until I suffered a career ending wrist injury and had to withdraw.
Doctors said I could never play Snap again, and if I tried I may lose all use of my right hand. For a decade I heeded their warnings but then in two separate coincidences in two days I've been drawn back into the Snap arena for social games at Jarrad’s and again tonight at my house. I know I shouldn't be snapping, but all those instincts are still there. And the good news is I still kick arse at Snap. :cool:

I went to Marion the other day, probably the biggest shopping centre within reasonable driving distance from my house.
I'd just handed in my last assignment (important to note I said "handed in", not "finished") and felt like rewarding myself for my hard work with a new pair of shoes. But first I did a bit of shopping for odds and ends.
I need more weights for my bar. They don't stock them in the right bar size.
I wanted to get some DVDs that came out in the US weeks ago, they're not out yet.
I wanted to get brighter headlights for my car, but they're out of stock.
And nowhere in Marion could I find a nice pair of shoes in my size. What makes it worse is the way the shop assistants respond when you ask them about size 16 shoes.
I'm very polite, and experienced for that matter, so my usual strategy is to find someone working and approach them and ask them "what do you have in size 16 casual shoes?” For some reason everyone responds to this question in the same way I'd expect them to if I asked them if I could take them up the batty.
"Oh my, no, no way. Not now, not ever. Please never come back and ask questions like that again!"

And speaking of limited or late selection in Adelaide, if you're going to watch TV in the next few months please tune into House on Channel 10. It's one of the better shows to be produced in the last few years and I recommend checking it out.

On a rainy day I played basketball against an old foe, Brighton, powered by some ingeniously prepared steak sandwiches.
Despite being down 8 points to 17 at half time we managed to score 30 in the second half and restrict them to just six during, and a further 1 just after, and won the game comfortably. It was a very enjoyable and hard earned victory, the depth of this statement revealed to me when I washed all the blood off my hands afterwards leaving only the surely not coincidentally fingernail-shaped cuts beneath. A good team effort.
Then tonight, in between studying for networks, the Bulldogs beat Carlton and didn't really seem to try very hard. And that made it a good day for me.

Today I did not listen to a single song. It was a day without music as I required all my brain to focus on accepting and storing data in cold, grimy memory instead of having joyous melodies spin through the warmer corridors and back out into atmosphere as carbon monoxide.
Anyway I'm pretty sure I'll ace my biology exam.

Oh shit, prolog question.
Ok how does append work?
...
I bet that fat, old guy knows how append works
... Ok what does append even do? Oh god.
Oh man he's finished already.
Maybe if Prolog was actually good I would be able to do this
he's got to be like 35 years old and I bet he's stoked he finished early so he can go home and play World of Warcraft.
I wish I hadn't drunk two cups of coffee before this I need to pee so badly.
FUCK! Prolog...
I reckon his mum knitted him that sweater.
I am definitely getting something from the bakery on the way home.
Why am I thinking about writing a journal entry in the middle of my exam, freaking concentrate!
... I want to play basketball on those rings...

...

When it's really overcast and stormy outside I like to turn my light off and open my curtains and pretend I'm on a ship.

I cruised through the networks exam today. It's the ones approaching the bow that are my main concern. IC as in I'm currently lost at C when it comes to passing that exam. I have until Tuesday to do what I did the last few days for networks. That is, open a porthole in my brain and spend three days pouring the entire course into it then bailing it all out come the examination.

Once that was done, and despite a pressing need to use the head again, I drifted off course on the way home to visit a fitness store on South Rd which I thought may sell some weights I needed but in fact wasn't open and was some personal trainer centre. However, hard to starboard near where I parked was an Op Shop. It was called "Op Shop - Better than you think". Figuring I'd come this far I made a call to the store seeing that op shops are usually pretty good.

That op shop is shit. It's not better than you think and I'm pretty certain that an issue of Woman's Day from March 1993 may have devalued slightly since printing.

Muggy sunlight punched through the clouds and into my room, waking me up for the day. I blinked my eyes open and then my mouth dropped...

Yesterday started sourly because I missed basketball and instead went to uni for the DB2 exam at 1:15. Basketball was at 3:10. I had five exams this semester, and of them all the one, the only one that wasn't at 8:45am on a weekday, was the one at the same time as my basketball game.
This bugged me, but I accepted it and went to the exam and did pretty well I think. I've still got two exams to study for this week, but last night Alex had a whole bunch of his friends around and they were running around and I felt it best to vacate. So I headed down to Chalkers to meet up with Andy and some others and play pool just for a while until my house was emptied and I could still get a reasonably early night and prepare for my study tomorrow.
Well time goes slow at a pool hall when you suck and keep losing. I decided I wanted to unwind after my exam so as the night stretched I grabbed a beer, which became a couple of beers... Next thing I know I'm waking up sleeping next to something I do not want to be seeing lying beside me.

oh god

OH GOD!

Overcoming my initial nausea I resumed where I left off the night before and have stopped now 14 hours later to bitch about drullness, which is a mood I invented to describe studying IC.

I received a phone call this afternoon with a 'special offer' for me, a 'valued customer'. I :rolleyes:, but before I could express disinterest I caught a hint of accent and realised that the guy from BankSA that was calling me was Scottish. This was cool. So I agreed to let them sign me up for some BankSA Life Insurance policy. I get a 30 day free trial during which, if I die accidentally I get $100,000! And if I die on public transport or in a public library or in public (this was some important clause but hard to understand in Scottish) I get $200,000! No shit, for free. Plus I also get $5000 towards any credit card debt.
So I agreed to this deal, partly by accident because I had to compile my response before I'd finished interpreting what he said. I'm going to cancel it once the 30 day trial ends, but if I die then someone is going to get some money. I never specified who over the phone so IT MAY BE YOU!
Today was also welfare day so financially everything was pretty sweet.
Today I did the IC exam, and probably quite well I think. So that was very nice. Tomorrow is my final exam, EMIT, which should be quality with it being open book and everything. So come 11am I will be without the mental jocks that have been tightly constricting my brain during the mental marathon of the last 30ish days and I can finally freeball into 25 days of unrestricted cognitive freedom. During which I can die quite freely, but hopefully won’t.

Brad's Wintry Journal 3

I had a haircut today. I was looking forward to it because my hair was too long. It got cut and I came home. Later, I was sitting at the computer and my neck felt chilly. I reached up to touch it and felt smooth skin and realised with horror that my too long hair had been keeping my neck warm all this time.
Best day of the month by far.

Since finishing exams all my plans, mainly composed of tasks that seemed desperately more interesting than studying during exam revision, have taken a back seat to pure laziness. So, in the last week (and this time frame keeps extending) I haven’t accomplished many of the goals I set for myself during SWOTVAC. Instead what I’ve mainly done is occasionally drink at places, work out and/or sleep a lot.
I was once told, by my hairdresser no less, that she understands why university students sleep so much because all that learning is so very, very hard. She dropped out of uni (and is a skinny chick) so I can understand where she’s coming from, but I think she may be right about needing to sleep so much when you finally can sleep freely, you do with reckless napping abandon. Those days of arduous, break free study (aka June) must have taken out of me more than I knew or was willing to admit (most likely the former, I’m pretty upfront with myself mentally). I know this because I keep sleeping so much. For the first few days of break I accepted this. But as it keeps going, and my aims for these holidays continue to be avoided, I realise that maybe I was overambitious when deciding what I wanted to get done before July 26, and in the same regard how many hours I wanted to stay awake.
As you can imagine based on this 200 word exposé on my 10 hours a day voluntary bed-riddenness, I haven’t done much over the last week. I did go to Port Elliot on the weekend, and there was an embarrassing adventure in the field of keyboard washing (with associated valuable lessons learned). As of today I realised I should stop putting pressure on myself to achieve so much during the holidays and, in fact, just chill out and relax. After all, that’s what holidays are supposed to be about. Either way, it’s the lazy alternative and how could that not work for me at the moment. I mean seriously. Now to sleep for another 10 hours.

Steve went off to Army today. I'm not great with being emotional, but I realise this is probably something I should care about. Whenever people leave, to me, I never really think they've left. It's like "Should we invite Steve?" "Nah, he's busy tonight". Except multiplied indefinitely.
So to try and convey the emotional sadness of this day I would appreciate it if all readers could imagine a slow montage set to a sad, Scrubsesque track. In it Steve's packing his bags, putting his uniform on, swearing an oath to the Queen and then catching a bus that drives out into the horizon.
While all this is happening here's my day.
I woke up and had a shower and then went into town with Alex and Mother. We found the Army Building and Alex and I play I-Spy in the waiting room. I still claim I won because Alex lied when I asked him if it was inside or outside the car. Eventually the waiting was over and we went to the affirmation ceremony. Apart from Steve there were four other dudes going that day too. First there was a 30 minute presentation about some army organisation that you can talk to if you're in the army and people harass you. Mum said that made her feel better and I said "why? Now Steve can get in trouble when he harasses people" because that's the type of guy Steve is.
Then four of them swore and oath to God and the Queen and one just to the Queen. Apparently you get the choice. I don't know why you'd choose not to swear to God too. Even if you're a hardcore atheist, you're about to go off to be trained to get shot at. Why would you want to risk pissing God off?
After the ceremony we had afternoon tea and then Steve left. I saluted him before he left. Throughout the day I kept thinking about Buster in Arrested Development which I think helped everything go much smoother.

It's 4:07am and I have spent the last six hours writing my announcements code. I have plans to use this once. And it's, ironically, going to ask for requests for features for Bradism for me to code seeing that I can think of a few things but they don't seem very challenging.
Along the way my vision of a simple Announcement function got mutated into the hulking, awesome, javascript laden function it is now. It's powerful. I don't know why, but it wasn't until I wrote this announcement feature that I realised the novelty of the fact that I'm writing stuff, and it appears on the internet. I made my first website in 2001 (It's still hosted somewhere) and It's only now that I've come to understand the power I have. I write announcements... and people on the internet can read them! I think it's the little exclamation mark in a yellow triangle that makes them seem so important.

Today started pretty well. I woke up and drove to Uni and played basketball for three hours or so. First against Asians, then with Asians. I stopped when I got hungry and went to drive home. Along the way I was amused by three non personalised numberplates, the first was "WTF", the second "WEE" and the third was "VAG". I'm pretty easily amused and this eye candy helped me enjoy the drive home.
APPARENTLY my car doesn't like me looking at other cars; it's very insecure and wants to punish me. Later tonight, whilst driving, the battery light came on and would not turn off. I was a little worried but I figured the battery is in its third year now and was probably due to die soon.
However as I got closer to home things started to get worse. My petrol gauge went to empty. This worried me but I figured it might be the car shutting down non-primary systems to conserve power for the shield.
At this point I mentally chided myself for watching too much Stargate Atlantis this week in preparation for the new season starting tonight and diverted my attention back to my car. By this stage I was losing dash lights, headlights and my CD player kept saying "HELLO" to me. Only a few kilometres had passed since the light came on and I yelled at car for providing such little warning. However things got worse and after getting my car into the driveway at half-lights and turning off the engine I heard a noise. Trickling, to be exact. So I opened the bonnet and my coolant container was making cracky noises and stuff was leaking out from it and a pool formed on the ground.
I murmured 'I hate you car' and walked inside. I will fix it tomorrow, maybe with my Dad! I am having lunch with him tomorrow. I write a good announcements feature so I figure I can fix a Commodore.

Today's entry will be mainly about Angus. He's the third highest commenter on this site and his main complaint about my internet life is that it doesn't involve him enough.
I woke up this morning after about four hours sleep and sent Angus a message asking if he could drive me to Tim's, who was having a BBQ at 1 while the Bulldogs game was on. I thought offering to make a journal entry about him would be good motivation, but he was unable to do it. So I got mum to drop me off at my friends house and she asked what time I wanted her to pick me up at. I flashbacked to primary school.
The Bulldogs game was so great that I was very glad that I didn't make it to AAMI Stadium this time. After the game, during which I was manipulated by ads for Farmers Union Ice Coffee, I decided I wanted to get an Ice Coffee.
So Bene and I stole a car. Angus' car. It was really fun driving a new car and I don't know why. Maybe it was the lack of power steering.
Arriving at the servo and reverse parking Angus' car, I went in and bought an Ice Coffee, and I got a 1 litre one for some reason. Possibly because I was high on adrenaline due to my grand theft auto. Bene and I then drove back to Tim’s.
I drank my Ice Coffee reasonably fast and then Angus and I, along with James and Tim, played Air Hockey for a while. That was pretty fun, even though my knuckle is completely bruised now mainly because Angus sucks at air hockey and I laid so much beat down on him that I started sweating.
Eventually the air hockey came to an end and I went home. Basketball was forfeited so I spent the rest of my night programming which has been a major pastime for me in the last few days. It's actually the reason I only got four hours of sleep last night.
And that was my boring day today, which is mainly about Angus. The point obviously being that the reason I never mention Angus in my journal is because he lives a boring, boring life.

I don't know what was the best part of today. It might have been this:

COMP3001 Programming Language Concepts DN
COMP3004 Computer Networks DN
COMP3006 Database Systems 2 HD
COMP3020 Internet Computing DN
COMP3200 Enterprise Mgmt for Info Tech DN

Or it may have been winning hearts, twice, on a moon both times.
I have to say, it's got to be the hearts.

I ate too much chocolate mousse today.
For weeks the others talked about going to a buffet and I marked every occasion with references to how I like mousse, how I once read on the internet that your stomach can stretch to twenty times the size of your fist, and how I thought I could eat 20 fists worth of mousse.
I don't like mousse anymore. I ate 11 bowls of mousse tonight. I think I hopefully cancelled it out ish by playing basketball for 3 hours in the afternoon and evening but still. Fortunately the girl at Charlies liked me enough to only charge me half-price as a children's meal when I explained to her what I was planning to try.
I didn't even look at the food, just ate mousse. The first five bowls went down pretty easily. But, as not much time passed and I began to attract the attention of nearby diner’s things got harder.
By the end of the ninth bowl I was full. By the end of the tenth bowl, to ensure that I at least made it into double figures, I was sick.
There was then five minutes as my body furiously debated with my hand that, no, it didn't want any more mousse. It reminded me of the time I tried to drink 22 litres of water in 12 hours. Your body just stops you. I eventually overcame common sense and finished the 11th. This was followed by an hour plus of queasiness.
A lot of these uni breaks over the last few years I've felt I've wasted my holidays. These, I'm less certain I have!

It was Cowan's birthday party tonight. I love that little guy. Through coincidence today I also stumbled upon this chain mail I filled in with my thoughts about Cowan back in Summer 2002. Apart from making me laugh, it's a little wordy and won't make much sense if you don't know Cowan. But for those who do it certainly is an entertaining window into the life of Cowan three and a half years ago.
Happy Birthday Cowan. I'm suprised you lasted 21 years, here's to 21 more buddy.

Today marked the otherwise unremarkable return to uni. Despite being unemployed and sleeping way too much, it was probably my most productive uni break ever! I got so much done in the last two weeks!
Now, as is the norm, I'm in the grip of tutorial sign up fever. This time during the first week of every semester is spent devoting all uni energy into getting the best possible permutation of pracs and tutorials so that your timetable can be as compact as possible. Why this is done is kind of a mystery, seeing as by the end of the first month half your timetable has gone MIA and you don't even go to half the tutes anyway. But what else are you suppose for the first week? In other news, I also got offered a casual teaching position for Computer Programming 1 tonight so that was sweet because it gives me even more tutorials to try and build a timetable around.
I'll bring you more tales of uni later, after today's lecture slides go online and I can use them to illustrate the more entertaining moments of my day.
Wait, what? The break was four weeks. Oh crap!

If you read this entry please leave a comment telling whether or not you can place your ships diagonally in Battleships.

I have a few problems with one of my topic choices at uni this semester. It's not that it's a particularly bad topic or, worse, inconveniently scheduled. I think I can best illustrate my problem with a bit of background information followed by some quotes from the first lecture.
Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery is a third year database topic offered in odd years only. It is taught by Roddick, who may be remembered as the DB1 lecturer from last year. Whilst learning about Databases from him I felt that, although he at first appeared to be a nice guy he was, in fact, actually a real life version of Bowser, the evil overlord of the Mario universe. But he taught databases and they are important so I learnt from him and eventually jumped over him and landed on the hammer behind him to pass DB1.
So what is Data Mining? Roddick explained it like this. Initially there was Data Queries, where you had a question to ask and a general idea of what answer you would find. Then came Data Analysis, where you knew what your question was but had no way of determining what the answer could be. Then there is Data Mining, in which you don't have a question and you don't know what the answer will be like.
I'm sorry, but that's not "Data Mining", Roddick, that is "You making up random shit about databases". If you don't have a question or an answer you're not "mining", you're "not doing anything". Of course, not doing anything is much easier to get paid 30 grand a semester for compared to mining.
Roddick was particularly proud of his efforts in establishing this fraud so sturdily. He talked about how if anyone thought of Data Mining, they thought of Flinders. He then compared this to how if anyone wanted Biochemistry they thought of Adelaide University. The only real difference being that Biochemistry is non-fictional.
I like Roddick; I enjoy the way in which he surrounds himself with an air of authority as a Data Mining expert. He seemss like the Dungeon Master in Dungeons and Dragons. He creates an intricate reality in which everything he says seems crucial and important when, in actuality, he is just a big nerd making up random crap.
He finished the lecture by informing us that there was "large scope" to undertake Honours as a Data Mining PHD student. Seems there's not much demand to specialise in such a cutting edge field. I wonder why.

Everything has been coming up Brad recently it's almost a disturbig trend.
I won't go into too much detail, but today for example we won basketball and the Bulldogs beat Brisbane so that was pretty sweet.
I walked home from Tim's tonight after Bene's farewell. I'll miss Bene, but damn is it about time I walked home from somewhere again. I haven't walked home for ages, not since I left Woolworths I think. All the timed to the second runs and weight sessions don't hold a candle to the sheer amount of thinking and left-right-left-righting that a drunken stroll to your house does. I got home around 4:40am and cooked myself some tinned spaghetti. As far as important life decisions go, I rate that one pretty highly because damn that spaghetti was fantastic.

Today's day at uni made me feel smart.
First up I was a demonstrator for my very first CP1 lab session. It started incredibly nonchalantly and continued in that manner for the whole two hours. However in the process I didn't get stumped by any questions and maybe changed some lives out there.
Later in the day I went to my two hour English: Writing and Designing for the web lab. I'd heard that this was going to be a basic overview of Dreamweaver and Photoshop and therefore hopefully something I'd be able to knock off in about 15 minutes and then head to the tavern to kill the rest of the session. Unfortunately the practical was more demonstrated than practiced and, instead of leaving, I just sat at my computer pretending to listen while I wrote this for some reason. It's fun, there's a random in there.
Finally the day ended with a successful White Australia Policy being enforced for our group. One of the side effects of that was Dan being drafted into our group! THE BAND IS GETTING BACK TOGETHER

Tonight was pretty good. After being a demonstrator for my second lab ever in the afternoon, and then spending the money I earned in that lab on readers for lectures I will never go to, I was confronted with more money in the evening. I earned $45 fixing a neighbours computer and then proceeded to have a good night in town to see Pendulum with that specific money. I visited Josh's new place and had a few drinks before catching the train in, then we got to Earth and lined up. I finally got home at around 5am. Worst part of the night was probably never actually getting in to see Pendulum but other than that pretty good. I got Subway on my way out and the girl gave me extra meatballs.

It was the third test tonight. I spent the whole time focused on it. It was a great game. I was tense throughout. I think we did a lot of things right, but in the end, no one came away with victory.
I don't know if I can keep going through these close encounters without losing my sanity.

It was a cracking evening tonight. I stepped outside at around 7:30pm and was taken aback by the lack of chill in the air. What was it instead? Slight warmth. Delightful.
Enough time has passed since last summer to allow all the negative things that happened during it, small and large, to be mostly forgotten. Therefore I only remember the good bits now and I remember them fondly. What a great time!
Week 4 of Semester 2 is already over, and that leaves only another four weeks until my next break. That will go quickly, then the last couple of weeks of semester, then SWOTVAC and exams and soon as you know it I'll be thinking to myself 'I've forgotten all the bad parts about last summer and now I look back on it in fondness' once more.

It was another stomping night tonight, glorious. I was seriously actually buzzing even after losing basketball because the air was just so pleasant.
But after I left Emily's, it was raining.

Not a very busy weekend was had, but it was pretty good. It marked the end of another relationship for me, Emily. Other than that it was quiet.
We lost basketball again on Saturday, the fourth loss in a row in the league. It wasn't all bad though as it was a physical game so I enjoyed myself plenty. Right at the end I also got to break up a fight. Not exactly a common occurrence yet not really noteworthy either, except for the excellent segue it provided me for on the phone with Emily.
"How was my day? Pretty quiet, yeah we lost basketball but I got to break up a fight! Oh, speaking of breaking up..."
Seriously though, I don't understand why girls take break-ups so personally.
This evening I spent sifting through 1700 photos my camera has taken since May 2003 for my 21st photo board. I know usually the responsibility for that goes to someone other than the guest of honour, but of the 1700 photos there are probably one or two that mum shouldn't see. She's doing the rest. I told her I wanted a photo board that was bigger than all my friends. I think that's because I really like myself.
Just the last 28 months of my life that those photos cover, they make me smile. My life's been pretty good lately and I think it's made me a little less depressed about turning 21. But in a week, I'm almost 22!

During some spare time today, by which I mean procrastinating during homework, I was writing some database queries and found that I'm averaging about 10 entries a month this year. Compare this to August last year when I wrote 31 entries. Sure, some of them were of such high quality as:

Quote:
Sunday August 8th 2004
What the hell happened to today?

But most of them were pretty good. Another interesting fact:

August 2004: 9,000 words
August 2005: 900 words

I don't know what work I think I've done that makes me think I can deprive the internet of that much of my brilliant life, but I apologise and I will make up for it, I promise.
I know this sounds empty, and irrelevant to your lives, and that this entry will most likely be bumped downwards in over a weeks time when I get home from someone's house drunk and talk about how I'm reheating a small self-saucing pudding to eat before I pass out. But it's not. After all, it's almost Spring! Spring is a time for change, for new life, for laughter and for longer and more frequent journal entries.
Just think about it for a moment, everything is developing. I'm almost 21, I'm single again... I plan on doing new things, on meeting new people. I'm positive there have to be some hot, thin girls out there that also have insecurities. The internet is my oyster, and I'm going to write on it a lot.

The changes keep on coming, and as of 5pm today my week officially changed into "weekend".
This entry is strongly motivated by last night's entry, which was about me doing things and things being new. I think this was highlighted perfectly by yesterdays avatar, which was new and also a screen cap taken by me. I actually photographed my TV for that one, which is why it's all glary.
I've also been thinking about why I was able to write so much stuff last year, but find less motivation for writing this year. Surely last year was no more functionally interesting than this? Perhaps so, because as I perused those past entries I stumbled upon this one and was immediately set upon by a mood to tell that story. So in fact not only is my journal for this year getting shorter, but my journal for last year is getting longer.
The other night I also remembered events from the past, in this case the ING Super Saver account I signed up for several months ago under the influence of a free $123 just for registering. I checked it and it seemed my decision had been vindicated with not only the free $123 being in there, but also 1 (one) whole dollar of interest. Based on this I decided to transfer $500 more into the account from my normal bank account, to see if I could generate maybe $2 by next month. I've been thinking seriously about this whole savings thing. After all, I'm not getting any younger and my financial future is at stake here. I'm even considering having my welfare paid directly into it.

For my birthday I got

• From Replacement Dad a carton of beer
  
• The opportunity to wake up at 9am to drive my mum to the airport, then drive back alone albeit with breakfast
  
• From God a nice sunny day
  
• From my Nan a card with a cheque in it, a cheque with more writing on it than the card did
  
• From basketball, the other team being a player short and a free victory
  
• From my friends, free drinks
  
• From my liver, a hangover far less severe than what I deserved
  
• From Woolworths, who remembered, a special on two ice coffees
  
• From Dad, new speaker system. Old big one on left, new awesome one on right. Nothing to photograph to compare the new sub to.
  Christened sound system with Underworld song "Little Speaker".
  

My first Saturday night as a 21 year old panned out along pretty much the same lines as my last night as a 20 year old. Tonight my arse did hurt a lot though because I got a corky in basketball. Which we lost.
I wasn't expecting too much to change in the seven days between saturday nights. I've been so busy the last few days with birthday things and birthday jokes and birthday binge drinking that it actually slipped my mind that I was 21 until I was working out tonight whether or not it was worth checking out the chick driving a car with P-Plates in front of me. In the end I decided it was, and it wasn't worth it. But only because she was ugly.
However, I am different on my first Saturday night at 21 than I was during my first Saturday night at 20. Change is a gradual thing. Like a blossoming teenager one day you wake up with a sore back from your breasts that a year ago you didn't even know you'd start growing. But that was high school, and I'm so over that part of my life now.

I didn't leave the house today. I wish Aleem Dar had done the same thing.
For me it was part of my do homework and save money on petrol plan. Not a good day for sport.

I finished my last subject today, wearing only a shirt and jeans in the warm weather, and walked up the hill to my car passing several swarms of butterflies and pollen.
"What a nice day!" I said to myself, still slightly elated with my completion of my English Find-a-Word game that I'd just spent the lecture playing.
After starting my car, killing several butterflies accidentally and then getting home it was still nice so I had myself an Ice Coffee (see Friday's entry) and then decided now was the time for some Spring Cleaning.
It originally only started as changing my sheets and vacuuming my room, but somehow I got carried away and no sooner than I knew it I'd pulled everything out of my room and was Mr. Sheening every wood surface I could find.
Eight hours passed, some of them spent divulging in past life documentation that I'd uncover but most of them being spent moving and cleaning. Eventually it got to 2am and I realised that my bed base was covered in junk, my mattress was in the living room and all my bed linen was in the cupboard still. So I decided to post a journal entry.
My room is still very messy and there is a lot of new stuff everywhere. I think this happened because about an hour into Spring Cleaning there was thunder then lightning and then lots of rain. I knew I should have held off two more days!
Two of my favourite things to find during the clean were lecture notes from past semesters. The first being one where on the back Mark, Ryan and I played three player connect FOUR. I won.
The second lecture note had a diagram of many java beans in a java bean pool having a glorious time swimming and being watched by a java bean lifeguard. On the back there were 3 games of hangman. One was the word "Huzzah" which is a very hard word to get in hangman but Ryan got it. There is "HI RYAN WE ARE PLAYING HANGMAN" which Ryan also got. Then I made a four letter one and put it in front of Dave and he wrote "FUCK OFF PLEASE" on the paper and the word was "BEAN" so he got two letters right and surprisingly didn't die but then I only counted each letter once and there is three F's in that.

Despite gale-force winds, hail and more thunder, my spring cleaning finished off today quite well. Interestingly enough I have turned my room into a den. I didn't plan this, nor do I understand how it happened but now when I look at my room I just think "den".
One of the greatest things about rearranging your room is waking up facing in a new direction. Something about it just makes life seem more exciting. When I went to bed last night I thought there was no possible way I could rearrange my room in a way that would meet all my requirements based on jacks/sockets/ports, glare and bed-television visibility. Defeated after 8 hours of cleaning and tidying last night, I collapsed into bed on an angle hoping that the new degree of sleeping coupled with my alarm clock being on my shelf now instead of my bookshelf might provide me with the joy I wanted of waking up with a different room.
It didn't work, and in fact I slept badly, dreamt about waking up to many times and took about an hour to fall asleep in the first place. I was concerned during that process, fearing I'd inadvertently collapsed some Feng Shui compatibility my room once had by moving my VCR, evicting a bookshelf and vacuuming up a lot of small, dead bugs.
Things have changed since then, and I don't know about Feng Shui anymore, but I do know that my jocks draw is right next to my bedroom door and on the way to the shower from bed, this will give me an excuse to spend precious more seconds in bed. And that's weird and Asian enough for me.

For the first two years of uni, straight after the ETSA days of 50 hours a week, rise at 6:45am, poo at work to conserve whatever free time you can, things were good. Uni provided a way of life that you could take advantage of, sleep in, stay up late. Get drunk every weekend and play computer games every afternoon.
In Second year things didn't change. It was still evident that only the barest amount of work, with a good dash of innovation, would not only provide passing marks, but admirable results for all subjects. Playing computer games all day got boring, but skipping classes and sleeping into the afternoon never did. Life was just easy. In every week there was usually at least one day where you woke up and you knew from that moment there wasn't a single thing you needed to do before you went to bed again.
By now, in third year, we're not just enjoying the system, not taking advantage of it. We're openly mocking it. Gone are the days of skipping the lectures, these days the tutorials are also passed over in favour of sleeping or just not driving the 10kms down the hill. There are people out there stressing about assignments and desperately trying to comprehend the course at the same time (lol Dave). Meanwhile I set my alarm for a lecture on the other side of my room loud enough to be heard from the far side of the house and it's not even completely tuned to the station and when I wake up I just go back to sleep with it on. I'm sure it's got something to do with the amount of practice i have at sleeping. I don't take assignments seriously, I just assume that they'll get done alright, do them half-assed at the last minute and get distinctions for them. I know I'm not a genius, it's because the whole exercise is laughable.
Tomorrow I have another day of nothing, and I'll try and enjoy it, because eventually the joke won't be funny anymore. And that moment is coming up way to soon.

Town is very different when you're completely sober. I might explain this tommorow when I'm not sleepy.

Today was a very productive day, which is probably related to the sober evening last night. It was a day where everything slotted in between each other. I actually was on the winning side in a sport today, finally. I think basketball, cricket and football have all been very dissapointing for me lately. It was only the obscure promise of Cowan's that I might make my triumphant return to mixed netball sometime in the near future that kept me believing I might one day enjoy victorious satisfaction again.
Before tonight the last win I had in basketball was against the white team on thursday night when they only had four. Tonight I was on a white team and we only had four, and we still won by six points. That was despite the other team getting a 20 point bonus as well. I was finally satisfied with a win.
It's holidays very soon. Like this time last year, I don't deserve them yet, I've barely started this semester. However I have about three assignments to finish before the 15th and I'm actually slightly afraid that the spree of assignments and then exams might extend from when I wake up tommorow until the start of summer. This is disturbing for me because I don't like doing work or having to think to hard and Summer doesn't start until halfway through November. (Academically obviously, not the actual season).

Hi Internet.
My fears have been confirmed. There are assignments to do. A stream of them. Bad times are ahead.
For the moment I am working on my Writing and Designing for the Web project. It's an English topic.

It's due on Friday, so if you have time click that link and leave any comments about the design or content, hey, that'd be cool. Not all the links work yet. But the most important one does, and that's the one called 'Titled Document' that leads to the final version of the crazy language educational tool I developed and boasted about earlier. There's now a secret, hidden game inside!

Today I did get down to Marion for a spare moment and I picked up 'Good News for People Who Like Bad News' for $13 and 'Antics' for $19. I've been listening to these CD's for ages, and they're both great. I feel it's only right to support the artists that I enjoy... when they're on special.

I haven't gotten a single comment on my journal all this month.
Thanks a lot everyone, the Internet probably thinks I'm a loser now.
I hope people are more receptive to the idea of saying a speech at my 21st on Saturday.
People should be talking about me!

Anyway today was a write off. I played basketball for about 30 minutes before twisting my ankle. Then I had to drive to the city and back. I'm thinking about converting my car to run on actual money because I think that would be cheaper than filling it with petrol at the moment.

Then the rest of the evening was spent fighting the distraction of cricket and ankle pain so I could complete my Invisible Flinders project. At least it's done now. It's kind of like a big journal entry :).

Stupid software just told me 'journal body cannot be blank'. What kind of loser wrote this thing?

Whilst procrastinating today about ITP assignments I played some FreeCell. Also this!

I think I've broken my wrist. It got hit on Saturday, and by Saturday night it got really swollen. However on Saturday afternoon I was on an extended diet of Panadeine Forte, Red-Bull, Powerade and then a lot of beer. This basically meant that instead of noticing the pain I just showed everyone I could my giant wrist.
Sunday afternoon I woke up and tested it, and it seemed fine. The next day I even went to the gym for like 2 hours and it was fine. But since then the swelling has got bigger, the pain has got more intense and putting ice on it makes it hurt (consistent with my other break). Me, I blame the assloads of homework and assignments I have typed up in the past four days.
You see Uni? You see what you do to me? I am not cut-out for this physical stuff.
All tonight I have been trying to download the season premiere of House. I've finally got it downloading, in Azureus of all things. I haven't used this client since last year.
It's so weird, not being able to download a show from the internet at whim. It feels like 2001 again.
I hope House is about some guy's sore wrist. It really, really hurts :(.

Typing this entry didn't help either!

I don't know if searching Google for articles relating to the Ethics of Data Mining for prevention of terrorism counts as much homework, but I did print off an article and put it next to my keyboard.
Later in the day I put my feet up on the desk and crumpled it. But I did read it!
In reality, the only productive thing I did today was add a "Use Yesterday's Date" feature to the journal. Before today it was either "Use Today's Date" or drop down boxes for day, month and year.
Half-arsed analysis of my journaling habits will reveal that this button will save me a lot of time not using drop down menus. Time that I can use efficiently to complete assignments... and will more than likely not use to complete assignments.

Arrested Development Season 3 started today.

The statistics are in.
Drop-Outs in Connection in past 48 hours: 960
Longest Period of Connectivity: 41 minutes

So having no internet for a week means my stats are up elsewhere:

Total:
Won: 177
Lost: 31

Streaks:
Wins: 29
Losses: 4
Current: 1 loss

That last line is, of course, what brings me here: writing a journal entry in Microsoft Word. An entirely different content management system to the one I wrote. It feels strange writing on this fake blank piece of paper instead of my Timmy adorned journal entry form. Not just because Word keeps telling me that things are fragments and I should consider revising.
The difference is that in Word it feels more like no one will ever read this. On the site I feel that people, or at least Internet, will read it. Seeing that I pretty much only use Word for short stories and writing Uni Assignments I suppose this feeling makes sense.
Unlike Word, which I am taunting with fragments now, Microsoft Visio is a fun program. Somewhere between games of FreeCell I have found the time to use it to make activity diagrams and some part of making flow charts truly appeals to my quaint instinct to make pretty, smart looking diagrams. So my life hasn’t quite been so sad and pathetic lately, with both FreeCell and assignments getting done. Not bad when you consider I’ve also won about 30 games of Minesweeper.

Progress on my Data Mining research report, titled “Roddick: You Made this Subject Up”, is also coming along nicely.

I think I might have fixed my internet. Yet another hardware problem on my system that can be fixed by just physically abusing the source of the problem. That's the reason that my router is dangling by it's cords off the side of my desk at the moment. Being closer to the cool, brick wall where it may experience closer-to-earth chilly drafts is helping it not over-heat, which apparently was the reason I was getting disconnected almost every 3 minutes.

My Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery research report is coming along nicely. I haven't actually written anything, but I have about 15 paragraphs cut out and put under different headings so it will pretty much write itself. What would be awesome is if I could write a data mining algorithm that would mine the web and produce research reports for me. That way I could do both assignments at once.

So yeah, my report titled "Roddick, you made this subject up" is not really real. It's actually about privacy and ethics or something. My research led me to this website that pretty much sums up what I feared about data mining.

Quote:
Data-mining is an untested idea that uses algorithms applied to massive amounts of data

It wasn't actually hard to find this page in Google, just search for "Data Mining" and click on the first link that isn't a paper written by Roddick

And by Christ I hope his constant data mining doesn't turn up this site. I'm now slightly pleased I didn't test to see if this site works in Safari.

Do not drive anywhere.

It was Martin's 21st tonight. Happy Birthday Martin.
There were free drinks. I'm going to feel sick when I wake up.
The price I pay to entertain my friends...
I guess I'm kind of like Jesus.

PS I am sorry that Tegan broke your chair.

It's Spring. New things happen in Spring. Like no Ballard, who leaves on Tuesday for the Air Force. I don't like that new thing.
I do like my Spring theme thing though, and that's new.

I've noticed an interesting trend in holidays that end with a public holiday monday.
There's been a few over the years, an extra buffer day between a dreary sunday and a mournful morning where you realise A) your holidays are over again and B) you've wasted them terribly.
Those Monday's are always sunny. Blue skies, sunshine, warm air, bird's chittering. Even when it happens in the middle of winter. It's like time is mocking me; ensuring that the last memory I have of the holiday before I return to the daily grind is that of a beautiful, care free day that, given the nature of my holidays, I've spent indoors furiously working on assignments I've had all holidays to work on.
What's also good about it this time is that when you cram your entire week of classes into the first two days, getting Monday off is pretty sweet.

I first met Sam "Fish" Ballard in 1998. It was in the earliest of days during High School and, with both of us being shy, introverted types, we didn't exactly talk. He was Andy and Tim's friend.
I met him for the second time around the next day or so. I swore at him in german/gibberish as I left my German lesson and he entered his.

Ballard offically stopped being "Sam" around about 2001, at a time when MSN Messenger was in fashion but having crazy display names was not. Ballard was the better Sam and changed his name to Ballard. I have spent much time during the last 8 years with Ballard. We walked together a lot. Originally we used to both walk to the train station from school in the afternoons, and that then merged into walking home. I think the main reason I like Ballard is that he has never, ever done anything wrong by me. Which makes me feel kinda bad for the bad things I did to him, including the time I accidently broke his arm. Especially when all the times I was hidesouly drunk he actually looked out for me.

Ballard is joining the Air Force now, and all the jokes I made about it being the Navy haven't prevented this in any way. I will write him every day. I hope he finds it rewarding and that it is easier for him than finishing uni and getting a real job.

I have been inside ALL day. I haven't even gone near an open door. It is assignment time and today was the kind of day that only makes your head hurt.
Yesterday… yesterday was much better.
Fantastic things first, I have to go back to uni after the break. Knowing my tendency to be particularly lazy when I'm in form, I set my alarm 10 minutes earlier than I normally would to make sure I got to uni on time for my demonstrating. I then conceded 10 more minutes of sleep because I knew I had to fill my car up with petrol on the way there.
Morning drops by and I'm awake… I'm awake I promise.
I shower, have breakfast and check the weather. 29 degrees: Oh yeah, t-shirt time. I pack my bag for uni and walk up to my car smiling in the sunlight.
"Why does this always happen to me?" I think, "I have two weeks of holidays and the day I finally have to go and sit inside for a whole day of classes it's sunny as. Why can't I spend more time outside?"
I sit down in my car, and it doesn't start. It's not going to start. It's making a bad noise. Nature obviously has a sense of humour.
I spend the next 30 minutes enjoying the sunshine as I steam up to the train station and then sit around waiting for a bus. I eventually get to my lab 30 minutes late and quite sweaty. I spend the rest of the day trying to do assignment work and thinking about what the hell is wrong with my car.
Ryan gives me a lift home and I call the RAA, who take 2 hours to arrive. He pops the bonnet and I fear the worst, this is not the first time this scenario has occurred and usually it costs me at least a quarter of a grand.
He decides to clean and replace a $5 battery terminal, tells me to start the car and it roars to life. This is good news, and I get in my car to go for a drive for 30 minutes to charge the battery.
I cruise around town, my window down, enjoying the dusk and the warm evening air blowing into my car. This is relaxing. Then I head over to Woolworths to buy some coolant because it needs topping up. There all my old friends are working a very big load due to the public holiday and I am not. I smile to myself as I re-enter the warm air with my coolant and decide I will hide from my assignments down at the beach. Even after midnight when I got home it was still a beautiful night, and my assignment worries had melted away like the chocolate and orange gelato I ate at the beach.

I guess my point is: why did the weather break my car if I could have enjoyed it just as much whilst driving in it?

Still Tippin' on four fours, wrapped in four fours
Tippin' on four fours, wrapped in four fours
Tippin' on four fours wrapped in four fours
Pimping four hoes and I'm packing four fours

I was listening to this Hollertronix EP that had a Diplo mash up of Britney Spears 'Toxic', a song I've loved ever since I got the Fashion Channel, with the lyrics of some song by Mike Jones. I had no idea who Mike Jones was, and after some quick Googling no one knew who Mike Jones was. So I downloaded his album: 'Who is Mike Jones?'

This guy is the most hilarious rapper I've heard since Shaq. Every second line in every song is either about Mike Jones or about Hoes. And when you consider that Mike Jones rhymes with 'Hoes', that's a hilarious problem.

I had two assignments due on Friday and another one due Monday morning. I was on track to finish all of those by the due date and right now I should be either playing cards and talking shit or passing out somewhere. Instead I have finished none of them because all of them got extended for, like, no reason. What the hell!? I wasted valuable time procrastinating just so I could have more time to procrastinate.
So instead I've spent my entire Saturday indoors listening to Mike Jones and creating a Conceptual Class Diagram. And after all that I still don't know who is Mike Jones?

Friday Night: Kick shoes off
Monday Morning: Untie laces, put shoes on

I recharged my phone credit today.

After I broke up with Lori I vowed never to date someone just for the sake of dating them again. This is probably the kind of time management skill that comes naturally to most people but I was probably slightly naive at the time.
It was an amusing break up (for me), where I called her and my phone ran out of batteries half way through, just as she started crying. As the phone beeped mournfully over her tears I told her I would call her on the home phone real quick to finish her off. So I ran to the kitchen and didn't bother to turn the light on, just sprinted towards the phone. In my zeal I knocked it out of the charger and it plummeted towards the linoleum floor and smashed into about five pieces, which I had to then find and reassemble. This took about 10 minutes and when I finally did call her back she was still crying and I think the main point I made was that I would drop some of her stuff back at her house later in the week.

The next day, before work, I bought a recharge card to put $30 credit onto my phone to replenish the $50 I’d spent in the last three months communicating with her - after all, she wasn’t that bad a girl. At that point, however, as I waited for the voice to confirm that my service balance had been updated I was gifted with an idea. From that point on every time I started dating a girl I would buy $30 credit for my phone. If, by the point it was almost time to recharge again, I didn’t really feel like there was a reason for me to continue being involved in the relationship I would use the remaining credit to call the girl and break up with her.

This was a good strategy, and it was particularly effective because if the girl was too clingy for me and SMS/called me too often I would use my credit up faster and the whole process was more efficient. It worked for a while, and it just confirmed that feeling things was not for me. A month ago I purchased credit when/and then started hanging out with Tegan. And today it came time to recharge again. So, yeah, I doubt I’m going to see Tegan any time soon... But only because she has Bronchitis or something at the moment... I already miss her...

G.O.B.: My God, what is this feeling?
Michael: You know the feeling that you’re... that you’re feeling is what many of us call "a feeling."

Fully Charged was a slightly ironic title for yesterday's entry given the nature of events today.
I got about five hours sleep last night, and woke up slightly early and feeling pretty tired just before 10am. I showered and ate breakfast and then approached my car which, despite being charged by the RAA last night, had a flat battery. After getting a jump start from my friendly neighbour I got to uni 10 minutes late. My two hour lab dragged on excessively but thankfully my Data Mining tute was thirty minutes shorter than usual. This gave me the opportunity to have a power nap on the grass for half an hour, basking in the sun.
Then I went to English and did the E-Publishing exercise. That finished early too, so it was back to the grass for me but this time with a curry pie and Ryan instead of a nap.
After the SE2 tute I went to start my car and my battery was flat again. Giving up, I called the RAA and got them to come to uni and give me a new battery. I got home before 6 and sat down in front of my Data Mining report, due Wednesday at 5pm and 3000 words short of finished. It was going to be a long night. I yawned and decided it was time for another power nap. So I passed out on my bed for an hour and then got up and drove to the store, for recharging.
I wanted to buy like 8 Red Bulls to help pump me up for the night. Except on the side of the can it said "do not take more than 2 within 24 hours". The V things said the same thing, as did this crazy "Wild" drink. So I said fine and just bought 2 of each of them. Stupid restrictions.
Armed with those drinks and a packet of M&Ms I set about giving myself energy and completing the report that had been charged to me. This involved drinking a lot of energy drinks. It's 7am right now, and I still haven't slept. I also haven't finished my report, but I've just got a conclusion and proofreading to do so I think its ok for me to go to sleep now for a bit and then I’ll have some more Red Bull’s and finish it.
The Red Bulls were supposed to help me concentrate, because I get so distracted when I'm trying to do homework. The first one worked pretty well but by the time I got to the second one I'd had two V's, a Wild and the M&Ms and therefore was already pretty jumpy. So it didn't focus me quite as I hoped. Still, I played FreeCell like a motherfucker possessed and in about 20 minutes I won 24 lost 2. Which coincidently corresponds to the amount of time I’ve spent awake and asleep in the last 26 hours.

It's 4:34am and I have just completed my last assignment for a while. And by 'a while' I mean for the next week. I swear, in the last three weeks every time I've woken up I've either had to start an assignment that day or I'd smacked my face on my keyboard after passing out staying up all night working on assignments.

So I've written lots of conclusions, and come to a lot of conclusions. Tonight's: Recharge by Sprite is shit and I have none of the associated energy or nausea that drinking six red bulls provided me the other evening. Of course when I say "evening" I of course literally mean "morning", but oh well. Mark, if you stumble upon my ramblings while marking my essay next week and you read this, please keep in mind: my essay was thought out and well researched and the only reason this might make it seem like a last minute job is because I just needed to put some final touches on it before handing it up and I spent most of the night winning basketball and then watching Gus, Benno, Jimmy et al playing basketball competitively for the first time since Primary School and then laughing about it. (Team members listed in order of commenting on my journal).

Also tonight, in other news, I was checking out the Internet archive and I decided to see if any of the last eight months of this site had been archived:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://bradism.com

Only to discover that for a fair while a couple of years ago some other guy called Brad has this domain registered. It was some scary stuff there for a moment; like going down into your basement to find some photos of last Christmas and discovering the corpse of some native Indians.

Brad, if you're reading this, I laughed a little bit about the concept of your cat pooping itself into nothingness over two days.

For the first day in weeks I had nothing planned. I mean, obviously there are assignments due in a few weeks that I could be doing but... just why start now? Especially when I could be programming random junk all day instead.

Last night I went to a few places, the best of which was Benno's 21st. I saw so many people there from High School. Gus (who was pleased to have been mentioned on Thursday), Jimmy, Benno (obviously), Chow, Cheezel and some other people from Woolworths and stuff. But there is one person who I really have to mention I met. Hang Ten! He was sitting at the bar as part of a different group and he recognised me and I recognised him sort of (you know...) and we had a good chat. Oh man. And then Chow talked to him and I was so happy.

Later, Josh climbed up multiple stories to the top of a crane after jumping over the barrier into a construction site. From the top, he peed off it. That was pretty hilarious too.

I got out of bed in time for ITP and slid my pants on, then found a shirt.
Later, during breakfast, I was preparing to reach over and grab a pair of socks when I felt it: warmth. This caused trepidation. My foot was already at the right temperature, I was comfortable. By putting on socks I would be increasing that temperature. That could lead to discomfort.

I looked down at my legs, beacons of denim. I glanced at my shoe drawer, then at my calendar. Mid October... ‘Dare I’... I hesitated... ‘Dare I wear thongs?’

Oh, I wore thongs. And Jeans. This just exemplifies me. I'm proud enough to be stubborn and support my decisions, but I'm also grounded enough to learn from my mistakes and adapt. My tutour later heard me say this to Ryan and I think he rolled his eyes, which was pretty impressive...

Later tonight, while eating tea, I decided to take those jeans off and wear shorts instead. That was even after the sun had gone down. Yep, summer is on its way. Like I couldn't tell by all the freaking bugs.

This is me pointing at you in my mind as I drive past you waiting at the Bus Stop.

If I had seen you earlier and been in the left lane I would have pulled over and picked you up. Instead I was watching some old dude pulling an unwilling child across the road at the pedestrian crossing and wondering if he was the kids Grandfather.

Then I used my awesome traffic light reflexes to accelerate as soon as it went green because today when I woke up at my normal time I pressed snooze even though I shouldn't have and I had to have a quick shower. My quick showers aren't exactly quick, they just involve less standing around trying to wake up than most mornings. Time was of the essence!

But anyway, why did you have to stand there, leaning against the bus stop looking both apathetic and forlorn at the same time. You must have seen me stopped at the lights. You could have run up to the car and jumped in. Instead I'm sitting there in my car the whole way down the hill to uni thinking about you still standing at the bus stop and feeling bad.

If it makes you feel better, I was once leaving Uni and saw Dave sitting at the bus stop near the car park and he saw me driving. I slowed down as if I was going to give him a lift, but when he went to stand up I just shook my head sadly and drove off.

My dreams often have B Plots

I slept 12 hours, today. This might explain why for the first time in a month I have nothing to add to my journal.

I would say that I will never mix banana with porridge again, except I discovered that at about 1am. Sorry to let you down, Internet. Let me just test a theory that there is a certain length of journal entry that is optimal for receiving comments. I should Data Mine this...

(note to self: implement :raise: smiley)

I think I'm getting procrastination down to an art.
I set today out to be completely wasted on homework. This starts at midday when I get out of bed. The next six hours are spent with a near blank word document open while I do anything but homework. Play FreeCell, watch whatever cricket is on TV, browse Internet. Once or twice, while I wait for something to load usually or possibly during an ad break, I will add a little note or structure heading to my "assignment". Eventually dinner will occur and I'll watch a TV show for 40 minutes while I eat that. Soon it's getting late and I realise that I've spent the whole day doing nothing. This planned sin then guilts me into spending the next few hours writing madly, paragraph after paragraph, until I reach a stage where I'm happy with my days output after all. Then I go to bed.

This also helps me conserve petrol.

I can't smell anything, I can't taste anything, my ears are blocked and playing 'Drop the Pressure' only helped the tiniest bit. I feel sick. At least my eyes are still working.

Still sick.
I blew my nose so often and so hard that it started bleeding.
I filled up with petrol today for the first time since Ballard left. One tank lasted 20 days. That's pretty good!

At the moment my 4000 word ITP report only has one reference, and it's from my first year psychology textbook. Of course I've only written 1000 words so there's still plenty of room to find more references, perhaps I'll cover first year Modern History sources and first year Creative Writing readings when I discuss integration issues for new information systems.
It's pretty bad considering this topic alone has three relevant textbooks assigned to it. Of course, I haven't purchased a textbook since first year when I was naive. Tomorrow I think I will have to bite the bullet and go to Uni Books during my break and read some of them in the corner and write down page numbers for references without paying for them.

Writing a 3000-5000 word research report for only 10 marks is such a lame thing to do. Especially when you feel spastic because you can't make any information come out of the internet about it. I've lost my ability to use Google properly, probably because my brain is struggling to conquer the myriad of diseases I'm subjected to. I think I have bird flu.
It's not like it helps that the keywords for my report are about the most ambiguous words ever:
"System, implementation, issues, computer - I wonder if I'll find anything about that on the Internet...”
So with a half done research essay with a desperate need for some research (and by research I mean references) I had to resort to going to the library.
The library makes me feel sad. It's full of so many books, and seriously, who is ever going to read this stuff? It's so boring! I just scan for bits that back up what I made up in my report at 2am the night before and jot them down.
Nevertheless I hired three books, and as I walked out of the library I remarked to Ryan "Don't panic, this research report is in the bag".

Also I might need to purchase a new bag soon.

I'm getting used to making information systems that no one will ever use. I knocked this up so far in like less than 8 hours of work.
But today wasn't a totally nerdy waste... I also downloaded some episodes of Earth 2.
Oh yeah, only test with Phillip Banks and Will Smith.

Edit: And record how much time you test it for, I will use that for the WBS.

I made that saying up today, and apart from that I did a lot of work... and a fair bit of coughing too! I think I'll see my doctor tommorow.

So to make up for the lacklustre day, here's a summary of my normal life, both online and in the real world:

Clicky

Hand down pants.

Mess with some dudes.

Awkwardly interact with opposite sex.

They say Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and usually I agree. Since Passions stopped airing I haven't been quite the breakfast man I once was. But I still eat breakfast every day of the week.

Not today though, there was no time after I didn't get to sleep until 0630 due to assignments. I only got five hours sleep and woke up with just enough time to shower before I had to go and demonstrate. So, I skipped breakfast.
Despite not eating for thirteen hours I was actually very alert and didn't notice the hunger at all. To boot, I also wrote a 1200 word summary report for my ITP assignment during the lab at a pace that my home assignment work would lust after. So this raises some serious scientific questions!

My first bite of the day eventually came after 3pm when I grabbed a ham and cheese roll from Coles. But this was no ordinary roll. It was like, half hot-dog half pizza and it was totally worth $2. Respect!

Six months ago my meteorologist recommended I put some daylight away into savings for a while. I was initially against this, as it was turning May and daylight was starting to be in short supply in the Brad household. Nevertheless I heeded his advice in lieu of arriving at events an hour early for six months.
Last night I made the call and said "It's time to check on my investment".
Boy has it gained interest! It's 8pm and there's glare. Summer is on its way and I have almost shaken the following diseases: conjunctivitis, tonsillitis, it degree, acute sinusitis.

"Alright Bradley, you think you're so much smarter than the rest of society, you can do this".

This is what I told myself as I attempted to drain and flush the coolant system in my car. Did it need fucking around with? No, no it did not. Does it need fucking around with now? Yes, yes it does.

There's still grease on my hands though, I feel both more masculine and stupid despite the whole event. I suppose that's appropriate really.

After the Data Mining tute ended at 1:30, 20 minutes early, I decided to go to the tav and kill those minutes as well as wagging my English workshop (hardcore) to work on SE2 diagrams.

Mark and Chow arrived shortly after 2, so did a lot of other people who sat at my table with me and stuff and I was a bit weirded out because even though uni is all "hey let's be friends" to me all the time none of these people were actually talking to me. Then an old guy set up a projector and I realised the Melbourne Cup was on.

Right before the race I made an open bet that everyone pick a horse and if that horse won the other two people had to buy that person a beer. Chow wasn't quick enough to pick a horse, but Mark and I did. And then my horse won! So I got a free beer (I had to walk and get it myself) and because it was pints-for-schooners time I got a free pint because of my horse picking abilities! This experience supersedes the Melbourne cup of 2000 for best Melbourne Cup ever. That year the race was on during Science and the four labs converged into Mr. Dostal's lab to watch the race. Unfortunately for Sam, who was in Mr. Dostal's class and taking a test he'd missed earlier in the week due to illness, this meant I came and sat next to him. While he was distracted by the race I took the liberty of answering some questions for him. I figured he'd notice that I'd written that plants reproduce by "meeting in bars" and one of the biological insects that threatens plant life is "moths with chainsaws" but apparently he didn't and handed it in like that, and that was funny. But that didn't involve free beer or the actual horse race really so this year was better.

This kind of makes up for all the times in high school when I saw "Melbourne Cup" written on the calendar in October and then bitterly discovered on the day that it wasn't actually a public holiday in my state every single year.

Tonight I made sequence and collaboration diagrams in Visio. This was some intense work, because Visio makes me very angry! Nevertheless this work was for uni and surprisingly came with no procrastination at all. I didn't even realise I wasn't procrastinating until after I was done. After finishing one I printed it out and held it in my hands and went "wait a second, I didn't get distracted at all doing this!".

In further tales of the weird, the other basketball team lost today by only 1 point and Angus scored two threes! I'm mentioning this pretty much because I know when I score multiple 3s in a game I wish someone would tell the internet but no one does so I am telling you about it because it was awesome. In my game we won by a point.

Other than those events, today I watched the cricket and bought new shoes at Harbour Town. Either those shoes or my new toothbrush will be purchase of the week. I saw an ad for a toothbrush on television and it was like "the head of the brush splits in half and moves up and down" and said "I want that toothbrush" and the next day I bought it.

It's 6am and I have almost finished my second SE2 assignment. I have been on an assignment rollercoaster for longer this semester than any other semester I can remember. Everytime you get over one, there's another one coming and you finally finish that and then there's another one! So many assignments!

This one is due in 12 hours and it will be a race between me finishing the assignment and my eyes bleeding and falling out after looking at too many diagrams.

Another assignment turned in successfully. Only one hurdle remains, due this Friday, before I can relax... for maybe one of the four days I then have off before my first exam. Sigh.

After handing in SE2 I popped down to Marion to go to JB HiFi and in my post-assignment completion afterglow I bought a hundred and one DVDs. One was Jurassic Park which I got for $12. The other 100 are blank.

In the evening I was checking my uni mail and on a whim decided to check my normal student account instead of my normal IT one. This whim proved beneficial because whilst dismissing several notices about art student things I stumbled across a job notice for a job that I am perfect for. Thank goodness for my magical brain which delivered this whim to me in time, applications close on Friday. Timing couldn't be better as not only did my demonstrating contract run out last Friday, but I'm currently in the midst of writing a website about creating Résumé’s for English. The only way this timing could have been any better is if I'd checked the mailbox six days earlier when the email was actually delivered :|.

When I heard about Voluntary Student Unionism early this year I was naturally excited about not having to waste almost $200 on helping less fortunate people have better access to coke machines and child-minding services every semester.

Every time that I went to the plaza (pretty sure it was both times) all I would hear about was "VSU is Bad! God Help Us!". Meanwhile I am thinking "Sweet, next semester I can buy a sick pair of pants instead."

I was wrong! Second Semester came along and I was asked to pay my student services fee. "What about VSU?" I asked. Oh, apparently it's not quite in yet.

So I decided to wait it out a few weeks, see what happens. It's study leave now and I haven't had to use a single student service this whole semester. I once bought some hot chips and they asked if I was a student and I said "no" and paid the extra five cents. But then it turns out they won't let me graduate without paying the fee - They’re holding my degree hostage! So I begrudgingly paid the damn thing four months late and I asked the woman if next year we would have VSU.

"Oh no!" she said. "VSU has passed but it won't be implemented for another few years."
What the hell. Why are all these arts students making such a big fuss when VSU won't even be implemented for years and they'll have finished their degree and left uni...? Oh wait I see...

If you've read down this far into the entry, you might have noticed to your right now that I have Google Ads running on the site. Obviously this was a last resort that I had to turn to after such a crippling student services fee. If you see an ad that interests you please click it because that gets me a few American cents which obviously exchanges into millions of Australian dollars.

All day spent on final internet assignment, eyes hurts. Birds loud.
$2.51 USD from friendly ad clickers.

The Internet giveth, the Internet taketh away.

We tied basketball, Arrested Development was cancelled and my website keeps telling me I'm stressed and anxious. In reality i'm just sad.

You've ruined the act, Fox.

The first of my final exams is on Wednesday morning, so today was set aside for studying. I woke myself up early, just past 9 and set about reading but with the sun peeking through my curtains and already a tickle of warmth in the air I decided it was too nice to study inside all day. So I put some sunscreen on lugged the sofa on the deck down to the backyard and lazed on that for 6 hours while reading my text book for the first time this year: Cram and Tan.

If I was the killer in Cluedo today, guss which room it would be in.

If there was a cricket watching room maybe that one as well.

When you see people from high school that you haven't seen since high school you say "Hey, I haven't seen you since High School! How are you doing?” You can alternate between "doing" and "going".

This isn't technically true, Adelaide is a small town and you pretty much can't go three years without seeing everyone at least once. But it sounds better than "Hey, I haven't seen you since that one night in town about eighteen months ago when you were with your friends, I was with my friends we made eye-contact for a second but never bothered to talk to each other".

Anyway, the only time I actually initiated this exchange was when someone was blocking my path to the beer. I probably should have waited for the insincere handshake to end before I asked to be passed one.

Happy Birthday Jono.

Most of my time is being spent studying, so there hasn't been much to update lately.
When my life encounters similar circumstances to times passed I oft revist my entries from that period to see how I handled it the first time. Documentation probably is important after all.

Exceeding 12 months ago I became determined to resurrect what was, at the time, a novel worthy Wintry Journal in the grip of a plummet back to mediocrity. That wasn't exactly true, I was just getting a little sick of updating every day when I wasn't doing that much during the days. So I divinely decided to kill of my creation at the beginning of Study Vacation and bring it back following exams as Bradism.com.

So overall it was a good move, but currently it's disappointing because I was hoping to nostalgically recreate some of my procrastination techniques from last year... Then again that’s probably not the best idea...

I... just... it's... exams... boring... useless...

The above sentence is about parallel with the pace, coherence and interestingness of the subject I'm studying, Whatever 2. No need for windscreen wipers this time around though. Should be good, despite the fact that reading over previous exams indicates that the questions might not even be proofread. It's the first exam I'm bringing a ruler to since High School.

I haven't seen my ruler since high school...

One of my primary techniques for exam preparation is making sure I have a solid idea of the layout, concepts and likely questions it will have. I'm pretty good at this, mainly because past exam papers are usually available and academic staff aren't that re-creative.

So going in I knew what questions I'd have to answer and diagrams I'd need to draw. However, when you're accurately predicting the proofreading errors in the exam it's getting a little ridiculous.

It was a good exam though. I literally ruled.

Today was a beautiful, sunny event and during it I drove the length of two main roads in my sleepy neck of suburbia. Although mostly passing houses there was the occasional school, business or church along the way.

I noticed that all the mini-marts and deli's had little banners on their stores advertising coke and ice-coffee as well as using free standing signs by the edge of the road. The thing is that all the churches I passed were using the exact same technique to advertise Jesus.

It's nice that the church has recently hired some marketers, but seriously, it's not even December can't the commercialism of Christmas wait a little longer?

I finished, quite comfortably, the last exam I will ever have for IT, otherwise know as 'it never actually did get harder'. Yesterday evolved into a pretty sweet day, despite having to get up at 7am after less than 5 hours sleep. Not only did I finalise an IT related employment situation on the same day I finished the degree, but also I won basketball, threw a piece of bread into a birds mouth on the full and received some very beneficial emails.

It does not seem all that long ago when I was in my first semester of IT, learning about correct ergonomics and HTML tags. Wait, no, I think HTML tags came in second semester. Right before the launch of Brad's Summer Journal 3. Sure, I learnt things that year, but they were mainly along the lines of 'you don't have to go to lectures to pass subjects'; 'most of the people in this course are morons'; 'don't try and drink a bottle of vodka in one night no matter how cool you think it makes you at the time'; 'this years exam will be intensely similar to the exam two years before it' and 'there is actually a limit to how much you can sleep in one day' (24 hours).

Second year rolled around and it was time to get serious. Serious about cruising through life that is. Although my English, History and Psychology topics had finally been replaced with actual COMP topics nothing seemed to actually dictate that I was required to attend lectures and, with the moral excuse of working nightfill I slept in daily with reckless abandon and at least one day a week I played SNES cricket. The last credit result I ever got was in Semester 1 2004... Ever since then I've got distinctions or above. It was about second semester 2004 that I also started skipping tutes.

Sure, there were the occasional moments of knuckled-down, backs-to-the-wall assignments where Mark, Ryan and I would have to work together against the odds to pull off a project in time. Probably the best example I can think of is the time we stole a clock from the Engineering building because it amused us so much during Communication Skills workshops because its second hand kept slipping. Towards the end of semester the three of us managed to combine 90% of the five topics semesters assignments into the one week exam study break, pass them all and still manage to ace all the exams. It was pretty funny. It’s worth noting that if the three of us had put as much effort into our group assignments as we did manipulating member allocations and dismissals for group assignments we could have been unstoppable.

I got home that year after my third exam in three days (High Distinction, Distinction, High Distinction) and sat in front of my computer trying to work out exactly what it was that I did during summer holidays. I think my main problem is that it just didn't seem all that different to the past 18 months anyway. I had vowed earlier that week that summer 2004/05 would be a productive one and this kicked off well when I played my brother at Solitaire Showdown 14 times in a row. However by the end of summer it could at least be called semi-productive as it concluded with a product - this journal system.

I don't want to risk cheapening my degree, if that’s possible given what I’ve already said, but I’m suspicious that my main employability is sourced from the completely independent learning I’ve undertaken since last summer began. I’m sure that in the future I’ll look at what I’m doing and realise my decisions are grounded by concepts I studied (probably a term that should be used loosely) during university. Then again maybe I won’t, although I’m basing this opinion mainly on the fact that I was unable to assist Alex at all with his year 11 maths questions last week.

I said a year ago today that I thought I was a different person to the one I was a year before that. I think I can safely say the same thing again. But it’s slightly different. This time last year I was relocating the ground floor, since then I’ve started building up. So I’m guessing I kind of think I’m in the right place. Good for me!

Comparing that first day of holidays last year, Solitaire Showdown and a shift at Woolworths, compared to yesterdays helps to highlight this. While last summer I was drifting and my goals with me, this year I am focussed and engaged. I’m excited about this opportunity I have to deliver a web application, not just because of the appealing project and the benefits of working it, but also due to this ultimate opportunity to actually prove to the world and myself that I’m as smart and competent as I make myself out to be in this entry.

I actually managed to pull off a bad day this weekend. And yet I'm still really good.

I finally formatted my computer for the first time since January 2004. 22 months without a format, man, I feel like a jock. My operating system has new car smell.

I just pulled a tiny bug out of my hair, so it must be summer.
It was four years and one week ago that I first posted an entry in the original Brad's Summer Journal. Since then I've successfully documented not all but a large amount of the periods in my life. Pretty good considering I created the first journal on a completely spontaneous urge on a Saturday afternoon.

I've never understood my tendency to want to want to document my mental journey. But it's definitely been an interesting process. The things you write at one point in your life seem so foreign later in life. After you learn from your mistakes you can go back and see where you made them.

This is how I managed to only spend $70 on petrol last calendar month!

According to the news one in three Australians are overweight or obese. I would never have believed this if I'd never gone out to Marion on a Thursday night.

It was the first day of Summer and it rained all day. I like where this is going!

Days where I don't leave my room are the best!

Also today, the female wiener child arrived for her bi-monthly weekend visit and, as usual, brought her entourage of head lice. She has had head lice for so long now the lice themselves must be close to entering a renaissance period.

Also, Gus, I miss your comments :(.

I know I am really tall. The next time a random stranger comes up to me and says 'wow, you're really tall!' I'm going to look at how far down it is too the ground, do a double-take and yell 'Holy Shit!'

Sam's 21st last night was more often than not an entertaining night. After leaving my camera bag at Tim's 21st last month I finally got it off him yesterday and then left it at Sam's this morning, which is unfortunate because there is a good photo of Sam in there.

Today I drank lemonade and watched Season 3 of the Micallef Pogram. It is a riot. Not a lot of shows crack me up with consistency, but if you think you appreciate my type of humour the following shows are for you: The Micallef P(r)ogram(me) [Aus]; Arrested Development [US]; Peep Show [UK].

I get an email from my ISP today saying they are upgrading my account from a 15gig cap to a 20gig cap for no extra increase in price, less than a week before I am migrated to ADSL2+. I love Internode.

Then I went to McDonalds and ordered a small orange juice. It cost almost 2 dollars and when I first saw the size of the cup I had a reflex to take it into bathroom and pee in it.

It was very windy today. It made me remember how in the initial designing phase for Bradism I was investigating the feasibility of implementing a weather feed that would record what the temperature and weather had been like that day. This would have helped my nostalgic romps through my journal at times like this where I would read about that Saturday night Chow, Jarrad and I played Snap for around 3 hours and be prompted 'yeah, that night was drizzly with an overnight low of 8 degrees. Ahh, the chilly memories.'

Weather plays an important part of my life, as do the seasons. That's probably why my journals used to operate seasonally. This summer hasn't been too summery yet, just like last summer was. This time last year, however, I was sitting around wishing I was accomplishing more but instead playing Spider Solitaire. This summer so far I've already achieved so much.

The wind blew the wheelie bin over today. That's how I noticed it was windy; because that was the only time I went outside.

Steve turned 19 today.
In army, they give you a present on your birthday!
He gets home in a week. It will be awesome!

I love Darren Lehman!

...is a new Christmas gimmick.

2001: Stole Christmas
2002: 'twas the Fight Before Christmas
2003: Eating lots of animals
2004: Eating lots of animals
2005: ...

My car is going to make some mechanics day tommorow.

I was very hot this morning and pissed off about several things. I had just submitted myself to sleeping instead of dealing with problems any further when there was a blackout and my fan, the only consistent and reliable source of comfort of the day, died. I was officially in a dark place.

I've been a pretty chill person most of my life and I don't let much stress me because, hey, what's the point? At least that's what I tell everyone else around me who gets stressed while I cruise through my life with my combination of sharp wits and incredible luck.

So, I sucked it up. "It" being a soup spoon of my own medicine (because I always use soup spoons in lieu of regular spoons because you can eat more at once). I woke up today to the rain washing away everything except my extreme sleepiness and caught a train to town and drank an espresso (but possibly not properly because the cafe woman looked at me strangely straight after).

In the end though, today led to this:

• Car situation in handle
  
• First payment for the last two weeks of working
  
• 2 Beers
  
• 80 filled Sub Club cards. THANK YOU ZOE!!
  

People used to think It was weird that I liked Dr. Pepper because they said it tastes like medicine. Guess what, life? I love medicine! However, I should probably look into not getting stressed out due to puns...

It's my 400th entry posted on Bradism, so that means it's time for my Traditional Day 50 Nostalgia Entry!

Quote:
Monday December 13th 2004
Lately I have been trying to improve my mental-social abilities by decreasing the amount I over think and therefore overcomplicate situations. This includes, but isn't limited to, improving my ability to say hello to someone I know when I see them, instead of trying to avoid them. Yeah, I suck at initiating conversations, but every day I make progress.
Today while at Dads house digging a retaining wall I was pushing the wheelbarrow back to the dig site and looking down the hill I saw the neighbour, who I don't know, walking towards his shed. Without thinking, and I mean spontaneously, I lifted my hand and waved at him. Then I quickly faced forward and didn't look for a reaction. But I was friendly to a neighbour! Later I remembered that Dad had been reporting him to the council for noise complaints and stuff and they were effectively mortal enemies but I still felt a little more self-assured.
Thing is, I've always been prone to seriously over-complicate things. I'm constantly mentally arguing with myself and lately its gotten worse and it's starting to get more aggressive. I hope that they can get along soon because it would be a messy divorce for me and I already went through one of those!
I was thinking today, over thinking as usual, and I figured that considering the amount of mental aerobics and fight-dancing that goes on, my brain must be very unique. I wonder if I have a tasty brain.

It's difficult, at least without preparation and research, to determine at what stage you stop doing things. Life moves so fast and I change so often in so many areas that it's sometimes not until I read something I wrote less than a year ago and realise that not so long ago I had a completely different outlook on the world. And yet at the time, it seemed normal. I guess it was pretty normal. I realised after much introspection that I try and live almost every moment as a sitcom. I reduce all situations and interactions into the appropriate clichés, make jokes at every opportunity and hopefully, by the end, learn a lesson.

And in this Sitcom of life, in which I star, the same rules apply to me. This time last year I saw myself as the quiet, socially awkward guy who always spent more time planning what he was going to do than actually doing it. Through sheer fluke I may have stumbled upon one of the moments that led to me shedding that skin. In other ways I still am that socially awkward guy who is trying to work out how he fits into the world. However, these days my social awkwardness is most often caused by my bluntness or monochrome like rationalisation rather than my introversion. I still feel special in a way that I believe my brain seems to possess more complex functionality than most others. Working three years in retail backs this up. I remember I was putting Ajax and some other cleaning chemicals up on loose during a nightfill shift when I originally mulled over my brain’s argumentative fight dancing. So to bring this full circle back into temporal-character comparisons, I don’t work at Woolworths anymore. I don’t spend 15 hours a week inhaling every cleaning fluid in Blackwood and possibly coincidentally my thoughts are less erratic and conflicting...

I will probably be drunk tonight and not update so here is some albums I listened to this year that coincidentally were also released this year. They are pretty good!

1. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
2. Gorillaz - Demon Days
3. Spoon - Gimme Fiction
4. Hot Hot Heat - Elevator
5. Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have it So Much Better
6. Beck - Guero
7. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
8. Kaiser Chiefs - Employment
9. Pendulum - Hold Your Colour
10. Plump DJs - Saturday Night Lotion
11. Röyksopp - The Understanding
12. M.I.A. - Arular
13. Goldfrapp - Supernature
14. Mint Royale - See You In The Morning
15. Audio Bullys - Generation
16. Porcupine Tree - Deadwing
17. Jarrad Payne - Lorem Ipsum
18. Klute - No One's Listening Anymore
19. Caribou - The Milk of Human Kindness
20. M83 - Before the Dawn Heals Us
21. Mike Jones - Who Is Mike Jones?
22. Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
23. The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema

30 Degree nights? Thousands of giant, annoying bugs? Hours of programming? How is this not Summer?

... is a Christmas Gimmick. Yeah. And also my digital camera cable so that I can document my search for a Christmas gimmick so that I can remember it in a few years. And a new phone would be nice too..

I was proceeding through my final steps of the day in the smallest room in the house when I spied a cockroach perched on the blinds.

Instantly snapping to attention, I began a quick reconnaissance of available weapons. Limited at the time to that could be reached without leaving the bowl, I settled on the air freshener spray. I grabbed it, aimed and coated the roach in a film of propellant and artic breeze.

It fell off the blind on the window sill and spazzed out a moment, before it seemed to suddenly realise that it hadn't just received a dose of bug spray, but instead just cold, cold deodorant. Upon this epiphany it hopped back onto its feet and trawled along.

So during it's traipse throughout my house over the coming night, it may not be dead but it will at least be spreading through the house a nice aroma. Which is good, because I'm too cheap to regularly buy those plug-in air fresheners for my room.

Also, this is about the sixth time that a day without entry was saved by the bugs I encountered on my trip to the bathroom at bedtime

It's 3:30am and I have been awake since 7:30am after I fell asleep this time yesterday.

Suprisngly, I'm not that tired. Although today has become one of those days that things I did earlier seem to be distant memories.

I went to Marion today and there were parks EVERYWHERE. Take that Christmas!

Things to do Tommorow: Wear Santa hat; drink.

Well it is already that time of year again where you say “where has all the time gone?!” At least that is according to this year’s family Christmas letter. But the information in there about me was sketchy and focussed far too much on the rest of my family than it did about me. So, Internet, it’s that time of the year again where I will send out a Christmas letter in the hope that, next year, everyone who received it will send me a copy of theirs and I will accumulate a giant pile of Christmas cards and letters that I can use to try and validate my popularity and rank myself against my neighbours. So screw my family; I’m going to recap the last twelve months with respect to the most important people in my life.

2005 was a good year for Sports Brad and he’s been keeping very active playing lots of basketball, running and working out. Sometimes he played up to four social games of basketball in a week as well as spending time down at the university sports hall with his friends teaching them the art of beating down Asians at sports. He obviously has been taking lessons from Academic Brad who knows a thing or two about that.
In his basketball competitions his teams failed to qualify for finals over summer and finished third, third and second on winter Thursday, Saturday and Sunday leagues respectively. Sports Brad himself has played quite well, although, like all Brads he does not like to spotlight too much on himself and thanks his team-mates constantly for giving him the opportunity to be so damn good without having to pay a forfeit fine at the same time. Brad’s quality was also recognised by people other than himself as he retained the B.R. Ninnis Trophy for Fairest and Most Brilliant Player the second time.
Currently his Summer Thursday night team is undefeated during the mid-season break, although month long plans for new uniforms have not been anywhere near as successful.

Academic Brad’s 2005 also bore good fruit. Starting the third and final year of his easy IT degree he cruised with a distinction minimum throughout the year, graduated with a GPA of 5.69 and was offered a guaranteed position in honours next year. This, of course, was not particularly special as everyone who does IT is guaranteed a position in honours because if they don’t net one or two for the program who will make up stuff to teach next year? To Education Brad’s credit, he also engaged in independent study throughout the year and thankfully taught himself some skills that he can use in the IT industry after his university life comes to his end. Using this expertise he produced his website, Bradism.com, which is painfully shit and not ever read by anyone.

The description of this year given to me by Sex Brad was ‘the best yet’. Technically, an awkward kiss with an assertive cousin notwithstanding, it might also be described as ‘the only yet’, or perhaps more fluently ‘the only one so far’. Sex Brad managed to date several women this year, none of which he met on the internet. ‘Sure’, he admits, ‘that is less than you can count on one hand. But at least your hand’s only being used for counting’. At some point during the year conservative, awkward barriers were broken down and for Sex Brad relations went from ‘frightful’ to ‘hilarious’, or for almost everyone else: ‘over-described’. Hilarious, of course, is the favourite form of entertainment for all Brads.

Employment Brad had a less balanced year than the rest of the family. After spending almost three years at Woolworths he decided to quit, seemingly on a whim possibly inspired by expanding his musical tastes and listening to more indie music. He then spent a month living off government handouts. For a short while, Employment Brad and Academic Brad hooked up and Employment Brad spent the second semester of 2005 demonstrating Computer Programming 1 twice a week which helped him maintain his lifestyle of driving around to places and going to the RSL to drink pints at the price of schooners and play one dollar pool.
After the semester ended, Brad curiously decided to abandon his plans of having ‘one last summer to do nothing’ and submitted an application for a web development contract that he is currently in the midst of and is finding the experience quite rewarding. ‘This is a situation where I’m learning things that will benefit me in the future,’ he confided in me whilst lacking a succinct synonym for “experience”, ‘sorta similar to that whole firing of people from my ITP groupwork team was experience for my project management course next year.’ Well, that wasn’t you, Employment Brad, it was Academic Brad who did that. You’ve ruined the whole gimmick.
Although Employment Brad and Academic Brad’s relationship has drifted apart since the beginning of summer, Employment Brad hopes to rekindle the flame by doing more demonstrating for the university next year. ‘I actually enjoy helping other people learn!’ he explained, ‘it’s truly satisfying. The “two hours of wheelie chairing” aspect is also appealing.’

Introspection Brad has become less narcissistic and reduced his proneness to sharing private thoughts with random strangers. He then later died towards the end of spring.

All the Brads have one thing in common, they’re tall. Today they also have another thing in common and (aside from cheap jokes) they all want to wish you a Merry Christmas and hope you’re safe and well over this holiday period. Merry Christmas, Internet!

Merry Christmas Internet!

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HOW DID I NEVER NOTICE THIS BEFORE?

I'm in the majority of people who always marvels at how quickly the time goes. Another year already?! Well, not this year. This year has been really long.

Good Cricket. Good Music. Good lamb sandwich with garlic sauce. Hit the spot. Hit the spot next to it.