thursday : 30 dec 2004

Since tomorrow night will be a write-off for one reason or another, now is a good time to sort through 365 days of navel lint. Nothing stands out from 2004 as being note-worthy. Holding pattern, treading water, brain fog and ennui are four terms that spring to mind. I am proud to say that few, if any, of my new year's resolutions from 2003 were achieved. That takes a special talent, oh yes it does. Anyway, running through my Life-O-Meter ® status bars is as good a way as any of dissecting the year that was and never will be again...

HEALTH: On the positive side, I changed my diet permanently. Note that I didn't use that heinous term "dieting", which implies a temporary and rather useless attempt at improving your food intake. On the negative side I avoided arranging the operation to remove my pilonidal cyst. Feel free to Google it if you are curious. It is nothing serious on a day to day basis, except that it's always there, and the only cure is surgery, and there is no guarantee that it will be 100% successful. All you can do is be fit and healthy before the procedure to speed up recovery. Something to look forward to...not.

EXERCISE: I lost weight. Not much, granted. My face is slimmer around the jaw line but the six pack never made an appearance – I didn't have anyone to show it to so it's no great tragedy (boom-tish). The routine consistency was negligible. I managed to do something almost every day of the year and walked to the train station. The dietary improvements – mixed vegies for dinner, minimal carbs after lunch – ultimately made the difference. Getting fitter will be easier from now on, assuming I make the effort.

SOCIAL: Excellent I have to say. I don't have that many friends compared to most people, and my family are interstate. Overall though, 2004 was a pretty good year for solidifying existing friendships and having a laugh. Thanks to everyone for keeping me entertained, sheltered, fed, drunk, informed, and generally stimulated. This truly is the stuff that money can't buy.

LOVE LIFE: Can I skip this one? Awww...strewth. Trust me, warbling on and moaning endlessly would be more tedious for me to write than it would be for you to read. I was going to say that perhaps the pilonidal cyst had more of a subtle effect that I was admitting to myself, but looking back it didn't really factor into the equation. Poor Luck and missed opportunities – I'll leave it at that and save the psychoanalysis for a rainy day.

THE ARTS: An easy category to ace. I ploughed through lots of movies and a respectable number of books, though more time spent reading on the train instead of sleeping might improve the tally. What the hell would I do if I moved closer to the CBD and lost 75% of my travel time? Syntax Error! Syntax Error! Or in other words, Aiiiiiieeeeeeeeee!!!! Need the sleep.

CREATIVE: I was industrious in ways that gave the maximum exposure but contributed the least to my true talents and Global Culture as a whole. Yes, I am talking about this infernal time sponge, Toxic Waste. Well, I am half-joking. The energy reserves and motivation to do drawing, painting and poetry (or some other noble form of creative writing) have been absent. Why? Look back at the previous summations for a couple of bloody big clues and likely suspects. No point getting stressed about it, because then I'd just be procrastinating and suffering angst. As things stand I am in that gooey, comfortable state of apathy where I don't give a toss. Yet.

RETAIL: No mega purchases this year, although steady attrition has delayed any closure of a house deal by another year. The lawyers (titles and deeds), state government (duty and tax), bank (fees and interest), and real estate agents (commission on inflated property prices) will have to wait before they get my hard unearned cash. DVD expenditure was borderline extreme, but many of the titles were bought secondhand or dirt fucken cheap. And let's not forget my headlong plunge into headphone gadget addiction. (Chris: "Why do you need two headphone amplifiers?!?!") The next big-ticket item is a sexy new office chair – chrome, black leather, tres stylish.

WORK: As I often say to my long suffering co-workers, I love what I do (programming) but I hate 9-to-5. When the sun is shining or I have a hangover, the last place I want to be is the corporate fishtank. Or rather, running for the 9:45am train because you slept in because you were up late because you wanted to milk more recreation time out of the previous day because you got home late because you slept in, blah blah blah. Watching movies like Mike Judge's Office Space (thanks Ken) and reading Dilbert (thanks Ken) brings the daft reality of the whole cubicle hell existence crashing down. Still, I accept the pay cheques and spend the dosh. To remedy the situation all I have to do is walk away, which of course I won't do. Yet.

All right, enough whiny catharsis. I am making myself sick with terminal cringe factor. To finish off, here is the cool shit from 2004: Various web journals including Hooverdust, Lyn "take this job and shove it" and "I liked Bad Santa" Screens, Belle De Jour (remember her?), Sister Madly, Mondo Gore V2 (the welcome return of Hank!!!), Lola Wolf, Moby Journal, Harlan Ellison's Art Deco Dining Pavilion, and many others. Let's have more celebrities 'blogging' in 2005. Arnott's Savoury Shapes. Jim Beam Black and all the other booze (watered down or otherwise) I consumed this year – my liver salutes you. Any bouncer who let me in when I looked less than sober and/or was wearing sneakers. The friendly ginger cat up the street and, for that matter, any cat that let me pat it. All the fast-food joints that stay open after 11:00pm or open before 6:00am, and a supersized thanks to all 24hr venues. Also to corner shop burger joints – gotta love burgers with the lot! The Night Rider bus service in Melbourne. Sennheiser for making great headphones. Critical Mass on the ABC. Friends at work who make it all so much easier. Marylu for the good times and the omelets. The Onion A.V. Club, Astronomy Picture of the Day, Head-Fi and all of my regular Internet haunts. Michael Moore and anyone else who cares enough to do something. Anyone who wrote comments in Corrosive Journalism. Refused Classification for being on the ball about censorshit, and anyone who refuses to follow the lemmings over the cliff. Heath G. and Bogan the Wanderer for you know what. Skateboard pants. Adidas. Cascading stylesheets. My creative friends in Sydney. Joan, who makes me good coffee every morning. Mum, dad and bro.

Currently I have no plans for New Year's Eve. The default itinerary involves staying home, watching DVDs, eating delicious food, and drinking half a bottle of muscat. Hence, there might be one more journal entry before 2004 expires. I'll try to use grammar checking software.

wednesday : 29 dec 2004

The death toll keeps rising in the aftermath of the tsunamis. Only a colossal meteor strike would cause more damage than this disaster. It should be noted that the epicentre is close to the original location of the Krakatoa volcano. More video footage of the waves causing havoc has been shown on the news, giving you a good idea of what it was like. Chilling.

Hey I picked up my other headphone amplifier from the post office this morning. I sampled the sound for an hour after plugging it in, and even at this early stage the sound is absolutely gorgeous on the Sennheisers. It seems to work best with higher impedance headphones, because the Grados (35 ohms) sounded weak and gutless. Some headamps have a low/high gain switch to handle different brands of headphones, but of course you need to add more circuitry to accomplish this. So, needless to say I am very impressed. It is a real struggle to be here and leave it alone to burn-in. No doubt I'll steal more listening time before beddy byes. I now know why Sennheiser chose the GSP Solo to demo their products at a recent European electronics show.

tuesday : 28 dec 2004

saturday : 25 dec 2004

"Saturday night, do-do-do, da, do-doooo. Saturday night..." Merry XXX-mas everyone. I promised to do an update today and it is 12:51am Saturday night, and thus technically Sunday not Martyrday, i.e. the day after the birthday of the bloke who got nailed to a tree 2000 years ago, plus or minus the error margin created by calendar disparities. I am not drunk but neither am I sober. Just walked home from Chris and Kylie's lovely place, where I was invited to participate in another orphan's Christmas backyard celebration. It was not entirely respectful of the whole three Wise Men and baby JC thing, but we had a great time with malfunctioning hammocks and Shaun of the Dead on UK DVD. Bring it on.

Earlier today I took it very easy watching a DVD, eating food mum sent me, and listening to my secondhand wooden Grado RA-1 battery powered headphone amplifier: how sweet it sounds! I was also supposed to get the GSPaudio Solo 2004 headphone amplifier as well on Friday, but Aussie Express Post's SLA must have bitten the dust just before xmas. Anyway the RA-1 sounds divine thanks to a very simple circuit and a clean power supply (2x 9V batteries) that lasts approx 50 hours. (You pay for mains power anyhow so what is the big deal.) I will grab the Solo on Wednesday, hopefully. Mum also sent down another care packet full of goodies. Needless to say I've been diving into said goodies. It wouldn't be Christmas without gorging one's self on food and liquids of dubious nutritional value.

sunday : 19 dec 2004

I ate left-over pizza for breakfast this morning and then took myself to work. Nothing like brain food to ensure a productive day on the cerebral treadmill. The rest of the weekend was quiet and uneventful – I managed to keep cash in my pocket for a change, although the team lunch and drink and drunk bowling and pool afternoon we had on Thursday kind of made up for it. Not much more to report except continued lethargy, both physical and mental. No explanation for it, though. I will assume that the arrival of 2005 will galvanise my jaded sinews somehow... At least I went grocery shopping tonight. No more mummified pizza for breakfast; for a couple of weeks anyway!

wednesday : 15 dec 2004

Been to the flicks for the third time this week to use up tickets that were due to expire today. I have to say it's pretty surreal. You come home (usually late) from work, chill out for a spell, then have a shower, put your 'chav' wear, drive to the multiplex by yourself, and then disappear into another world for two hours. It would be very therapeutic if I actually had something wrong with me, har har. I have another movie pass that's valid until the end of the month, so I'll go again tomorrow night to see if I either get sick of the movie treadmill or want to do it some more. However, between relaxation time and being a cinephile, I have accomplished virtually nothing at home this week. No bother, really, although I must ring dad back tomorrow night. You can't read this dad, but sorry young fella.

sunday : 12 dec 2004

I had a good time doing trivia earlier tonight at a pub in St. Kilda with Chris, Kylie, and two other very sociable types. Our team came second last, thus missing out on the edible scratch and sniff G-string booby prize by one or two points. It's not the end of the world, though.

Just now I've been shredding my ears with some Pantera in the wake of Diamond Darrell's tragic death on stage the other day. I saw them live in Brisbane once at Festival Hall with the guys from one of the garage bands I was in. It goes without saying that the mosh pit was completely out of control. I think I stayed on the outskirts of the roughest sections, which tended to be front and middle. Anyway, if you've gone to similar gigs you'll know what goes down. One of the things I liked about Pantera is that they often prided themselves on being ultra heavy and intense. They certainly succeeded. RIP Dimebag Darrell...

saturday : 11 dec 2004

Can you believe it? The police turn up at a 50th birthday party in Nunawading to address a complaint about noise at the ungodly hour of 12:30am. Shock horror and Christ on a stick. I was present at said party and can vouch for the subdued nature of the PA system and its general, all round non-offensiveness. Anyway, I am home now at 1:34am. Kylie and Chris have just dropped me off, and I have no inclination at this point to venture out and engage more of Melbourne's nightlife. Besides, my now married flatmates are not at home, so I can kick back and indulge the decibels on the hi-fi system. "Woooooh!!" as Tim would say.

Oh yeah, I forgot to report on the talent quotient at this party. It was negligible, with two single women attending: one who left early, and another who was 20 years old and the daughter of a bloke who I beat at table soccer last time I was at this house partying. Probably not a good move, although I tried and got 10 flavours of indifference.

I started today by slouching on the lounge suite watching DVDs and web surfing. Then at 11:30am I get an emergency call to set up and configure an LG rear projection TV for a friend of mine Angela. This I do willingly, for the sheer knowledge that Angela and Co. will be watching material where people's faces are not orange and the sharpness has been sufficiently curtailed. Setting your contrast, brightness and sharpness correctly is easy and will (a) improve picture quality, and (b) generally prolong the life of your display unit. Makes sense to me.

thursday : 9 dec 2004

Dear Diary,
   I have been out and about for the last two nights. Life is good! Should probably take it easy between now and Saturday night, which features a 50th birthday party for a work colleague. Last night was cruisey. After a user's group meeting drinks and nibblies were served. That finished at about 6:00pm, but I stayed out and visited a few venues, even catching a band playing at Pony. They were OK and kept thanking the sound technician for the fine job he was doing, so they were certainly enjoying themselves on stage. Must leave it there, Dear Diary... the demon force that is Work wants to chew on a piece of my soul, and it will not be denied.

sunday : 5 dec 2004

Just a short entry in lieu of a longer PhD thesis about the Big Night Out on Friday evening. Then again, I was also going to blab at length about my flatmate's wedding but never did. So I've got this bridge for sale, good condition, slightly used...

In summary it was a super night and very much anticipated by everyone I knew who was attending. It is weird and cruel how time absolutely flies at these things. You blink and it's five minutes to midnight already. Needless to say, the rest of the weekend was more subdued and kinder to my liver and body clock. I bought a pair of rebadged Grado SR-325 headphones on Saturday whilst doing the rounds of hi-fi shops I've neglected for a few years. They (the headphones) are being burnt in now with continuous music from Nova FM. What else? I stayed home Saturday night as per usual, then got Heath over today for DVD bashing, and finally I had a very filling dinner at Chong and Julee's. They also showed me their wedding photos and we watched half of Starsky and Hutch – undemanding on all levels is the phrase I would use for this comedy. A step down from Zoolander, if that's possible!