End of Summer

Its been a great 3 months of ever-so-fun-holidaying and thumb-twiddling, freezing cold weather and then the stinking hot, days of plentiful friends and family to moments of intense nigelism and yes, from "I'm ready to start work now" to "Oh, fuck I have to work tomorrow"

Indeed this holiday has come to an end and it will be undoubtedly be some time before another 3 month holiday blessifully comes my way. And to clarify I mean holiday where you have every moment free and at your leisure, not the "I love my job so much, everyday is a holiday" - coz thats not a real holiday.

Highlights?

Of course, the graduation trip to Nth American takes the cake. No, it wasn't culturally moving nor was it life-changing - but it was awesome with its sights and sounds, over-sized meals and wheels, and of course, the shopping.

I guess the Gold Coast trip takes a second - sun 'n' sand, what more could you want? Oh, an accompanyment of eight nice females and three fine blokes. (Actually I was an add-on)

And the bits in between, like Y-Man's BBQ with the HS crew sipping beers and having dinner with good conversation with old friends. Finally, waking up late and going "I've got nothing to do" - you whinge coz of boredom but frankly, it doesn't get much better than that.

PS: Graduation April 8th @ Clancy.

Gold Coast Trip 16th - 23rd Feb

another trip has come and gone with the wallet emptier and a realisation work starts in an absolutely tiny 4 days.... of my first forray into the Sunshine State? generally it was all good - good company, great destination, fantastic weather and decent on the budget... now for my bullet point cameo summary of the trip:

the memorable?
- horse riding in the mountains and the relaxing massage afterwards
- buckets of fun @ Wet 'n' Wild and Dreamworld
- those mini boats we drove that i likened to go-karts
- the final night when tequlia was my best friend
- the great location of the apartment(s)
- Jessica's screaming @ Dreamworld

the not so memorable?
- getting sick and motion sickness at Dreamworld
- Arsenal playing shit whilst i was away

the plain strange and f-ing weird
- Josh or/and Jason's bloody retarded sauna game where the first to leave is 'slave' to the last person to leave

and some happy snaps (more to come later) of the trip....

The FOBs we saw on the rides @ Dreamworld

The Tower of Terror @ Dreamworld

one fine summer's day

summer is definitely coming towards the end, in more ways than one. i've signed part of my life away so work should commence in a fortnight, as will the end of summer and the dawn of autumn which doesn't bring much except my birthday and 3 public holidays.

however, today was one fine summer day... cool with a breeze, enough sunlight to not burn your retina and good company all round. early morning kayaking took me to Rose Bay and Shark Island amongst views of beautiful Sydney Harbour - i'm gonna be absolutely buggered from it tomorrow morning, that shall be interesting. then big Rowan and Sara kindly hosted a BBQ at their cozy new place...finally to wind the day down some relaxing beach cricket at Maroubra amongst the afternoon joggers.

makes u appreciate the city u live in, the company u have and Summer...

and now, Gold Coast here we come...

(edit) ouch, ouch... sunburnt =(

Currently Watching: Team America: World Police

Team America: World Police see related

one of the funniest movies i've seen in a while. incredibly crude, rude and often disgustingly distasteful but it made me laugh, a lot.

also, the Westies are Tuesday Night Division 2 Canterbury Oztag Competition Grand Finalists (geez, thats a mouthful). and in all honesty that really doesn't reflect anything as we made the GF on the virtue of a forfeit against a team the would have slapped our sorry arses back to the Belfield Hotel. so its been two weeks of training runs in a row with another next week as we have the week off due to a bye. rather concerning as we're terribly underdone match practice wise and training runs haven't achieved anything substantial.

ok, i've increased my St George customer satisfaction rating to 75%. but let me say this about HSBC. they don't charge any account keeping fees, whether u be a student or not, there's 5 free ATM withdrawals from any ATM, u can link it to a share trading account and they provide ur deposits with generous interest. granted, they have few branches but who goes into branches these days anyhow? i'll ramble on about Suncorp's account as i feel an allegiance to them, but that can wait.

finally...ouch!

Currently Watching: Closer

Closer Starring Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Clive Owen see related

didn't like the movie, did like Natalie Portman....

Fantasy Aussie sports - NRL, AFL and Rugby
something that will certainly kill time in future months...particularly if work dries up.

Currently Watching: Enemy of the State

Enemy of the State Starring Will Smith, Gene Hackman see related

decent movie, finally watched it after getting the dvd with my dvd-player.

anyway...so i was watching "A Day in the OC" or something along those lines the other night, basically its one of your typical "behind-the-scenes" shows. nothing to write home about but i raise this question or rhetorical question. why don't they tell us about bitch-fights between cast members, melt-downs, drunken filming parties and the like?

behind-the-scenes always portray the set as a happy area with laughter, joy and family-like love. they rave about the mutual respect they have for one another... its all a little dull. a show about the former would be a lot more entertaining & controversial. obviously, its not good PR, but whats better than a juicey trashy show? the juice and trash behind it =)

and as a postscript to yesterday's post:
my card's been cancelled and re-activated and then cancelled again after a call at the very early time of 9am.... brilliant.

ps: i've given st george a 67% customer satisfaction rating according to my limited sample size. (don't sue me happy dragon, i'm just stating facts from my site)

which bank are fucking retards?

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia

now, the completely incompetent people of Group Security at Commonwealth Bank of Australia have blocked my credit card because they believe security has been compromised. ok, that doesn't seem like such a bad thing, right? u think its coz they're doing their job in this day and age of internet shopping, global fraud and hacking. however.... NOOO.... these incompetent people have blocked becuase of a transaction that occurred whilst i was away on Dec 10.

now think about it.... if something that happened on Dec 10 and it only got onto their radars now... they're doing a bloody shit job of it. not only that... i had advised the bank that i'll be conducting transactions in foreign currency, only further demonstrating their total lack of competence.

now, my card has been cancelled and i have to wait 5 business days for a new card to delivered. i asked about express delivery, but thats going to cost ME $20 despite the CBA's wrong-doing.

as soon as i'm starting work, i'm going to a real bank, one that doesn't rest on the laurels of account holders who have never changed banks since their Dollarmite accounts, one that provides good service and low fees. a bank like HSBC, Suncorp or St George. Even banks like ANZ, Westpac and NAB will do. Anything but CBA.... morons.