Secret Stories of a Spy

magic

2010-02-11T00:48:00.001+11:00

when you keep talking even after you've run out of things to talk about? magic.

disappearing stuff

2010-01-11T20:31:00.002+11:00

So much of me and my family's stuff is going missing these days. First it was my sandals. Then my Taylor Swift CD. Then my Dad's 3G mobile wireless card. And now one of his map books. Where is all our stuff going? The only thing I can think of is that Mum's hiding it all, or she's just moved it and conveniently forgotten ever doing it. There's simply no other explanation for where it's all gone. It's not like she hasn't done it in the past.

Tuesdays

2010-01-05T21:45:00.002+11:00

I've found that I've come to hate Tuesday nights. No one is ever on to talk. Apart from NCIS, they're just plain boring. Can't I just have a fast-forward button?

A slow day's travel

2008-10-06T22:20:00.000+11:00

9:57pm 06/10/2008

I got through my Physics homework in less then an hour, which surprised me a lot considering I had 2 chapters worth of questions to answer. I went to bed shortly after, knowing that we were leaving the next day.

This morning was crap. I had to endure more yelling as we packed. To put it simply, Mum and Dad are getting more and more serious with their threats of chucking me out of the house. I really just want to know where I've gone wrong, and what I did to deserve this. All I've ever done is be myself and tried to have my own ways and my own opinions, and I'm being downtrodden and shunned because I'm not the "normal" my parents want me to be :(.

About 45 minutes after we headed off from Tuncurry, we hit some very heavy traffic that slowed us to a crawl. This happened 3 times before we got to Sydney, and it turns out it was caused by an overload of holiday traffic coming home after the Labor Day long weekend here in NSW. NSW drivers have no idea how to merge from 2 lanes into 1.

Once we got past Sydney (which happened about 4 hours late at about 5pm I think), we didn't have a problem with traffic. We made it to Gundagai just before 9pm and checked into the same hotel that we stayed in on the way up. This means we'll probably be home by about 3pm tomorrow. God I can't wait to get home. Right now I just need to talk to someone other then family to help keep me sane.

One more thing: I think I found a way of measuring my happiness while on holiday - look at the amount of photos I take in a time period. Wanna know why? I didn't take a single photo today. And when I got cut off from the person I was talking to on Saturday by my brother (he pulled out the mobile phone wireless card before I could say goodbye), I didn't take many photos for the rest of that day either.

Visiting Godfrey

2008-10-05T21:15:00.000+11:00

7:06 pm 05/10/2008

I wrote that timestamp 48 minutes ago before I was subsequently engaged in arguments and yelling matches for the next 45 minutes or so. But I'll get to that bit later.

I've been having to guard the book that I'm writing in like a Nazi these past few days. Like I wrote this morning, my parents are getting suspicious of the fact that I'm suddenly writing so much. Shortly before we left, my Dad got me to take out the rubbish, and emphasised the fact that I'd need to put down everything I was holding (which included my book) so I could hold the rubbish. I shoved it into my pockets instead. I obviously can't be sure, but I'm betting Dad just wanted to get his hands on the book.

I also had another fight with Mum about what clothes I was going to wear. I was dressed and ready to go, and she wanted me to wear something different, and of course I refused. It was kinda funny, as she was saying that, Pork and Beans by Weezer was playing, so I re-wound it to the line in the chorus “I ain't gonna wear the clothes that you like”. She just stomped out of the room after that.

We finally left at about 10:30 am after the massively long delay (we planned to leave at 9:45 am). After another delay at the supermarket, we finally got to Godfrey's house at about 11:30. After he showed us around his house and we fed his horses, we hopped in the 4 wheel drives and headed up the mountain. Dad and Mum drove in our car, and me and Andrew rode with Godfrey and his dog Mins (short for Mini).

When we got to the top of the mountain (Mount Krambach), we had the most amazing view of the entire valley. It's easily one of the best bits of scenery I've ever seen, something that no photo will ever truly capture.

We had lunch there on a picnic table, and then talked and admired the view for a couple of hours. When we'd had enough, we drove back down the mountain, and then stayed to look at some photos on Godfrey's computer of all these different kite-flying events (Godfrey is an avid kite-flyer).

Unfortunately, as it got time to go, we got onto the topic of Poppa's gravestone (in case you don't remember, my grandfather Poppa died about 6 weeks ago). Mum started to get into a flutter because she was afraid that, like on the obituary, her name would be placed under daughters-in-law, along with Dad's and Godfrey's ex-wives (and even more the issue, after their names instead of before). This has been my 2nd issue with Mum concerning the after-effects of Poppa's death.

When the will was found, my Dad discovered that, based on their age, each grandchild would receive a different inheritance, with Godfrey's children and Dad's children from his first marriage receiving more then me and Andrew. So what does Mum do? She starts complaining about how we should get more. For me, I'm just grateful for any inheritance and all, and I would never even entertain the thought of asking for more, or complaining about it. For me, that's greed, and I am not a greedy person. I never knew, but obviously Mum is.

Anyways, it just struck me today how sad and petty it was that Mum was competing for space on a dead man's gravestone. So I spoke up about it, unluckily for me in front of Godfrey. I just made the point that Mum didn't have to prove herself to anyone, and that we all knew that, and that that was all that mattered, rendering the discussion pointless.

In the car on the way back the yelling started again. First it was how Godfrey probably thinks I'm a miscreant and I shouldn't speak up like that and that I'm the child and I have far too much to say (a direct hypocrisy on her hate for Dad's similar view about how children don't need to be told everything, and that they are to be heard and not seen).

Then it turned to me myself again, about how I'm a disappointment and I look disgusting and all that crap. And then it turned to acceptance of other people's ways and cultures. Samie got dragged into it again; Mum denied ever calling her a chimp, and she wanted to know what was wrong with Australian girls and why I would want to travel and find a “yellow-skinned” girl to marry.

It continued when I got home as well. I'd just sat down to write all this, but didn't get past the timestamp before I was forced into more arguments, pretty much all centred around the same things. There was one other thing though: Mum said earlier this week to Andrew in another argument that she hates two-faced people. She then says tonight that even if I disagree slightly with something my parents were saying to someone, I should be loyal and stick by them, and then raise it with them later. How about no? Maybe if you'd been better parents, then sure. But not after random whacks in the head and being throttled and hit with a guitar and being downtrodden. No way. If I disagree with something, I'm gonna say something, no matter what. I am not a sheep, I do not roll over for anyone, and I am certainly not loyal to people who show me no respect.

I also got the now usual repartee about how I need to stop listening to “that American stuff”, and how it's instilling radical ideas in my head and causing me to be rebellious. Oh yeah, Mum's furious at Andrew for getting me Bullet in a Bible for my birthday.

It's now 2 hours since I wrote the timestamp. I've had interruptions from arguments and dinner, and I've now got no Physics homework done, which is a big problem. I'd better make a start, I'll see ya'll soon.

Habits and Addiction

2008-10-05T08:30:00.000+11:00

8:12am 05/10/2008

We had to put our clocks forward an hour last night for the commencement of daylight savings. Sure, its all well and good that we get more daylight, but now I have no idea what time it is in other countries around the world.

It seems I can't do anything more then a couple of times without my family getting uptight about it. Last year for example, I really got back into the Artemis Fowl series. Suddenly they're full of “why are you doing this?”, “what started this?”. Typical Mum to always need a reason for everything. Anyway, now that I've started writing a lot while we've been away, they've suddenly got their backs up about that too. I can't seem to like anything at all without claims of addiction.

Mum even wonders why I still like and read Harry Potter, because she has this warped idea in her head that it's a kiddies book, and that I'm too old for them now. She's never even read anything from the series. There she goes with the assumptions again. And that reminds me, I never got to talk about Mum's damn mood swings. I'll have to do that tomorrow when we're on the road again. Oh, one more thing: single-ply toilet paper should be illegal.

A rather random day

2008-10-04T22:00:00.000+10:00

9:28pm 04/10/2008

It's been a rather uneventful 24 hours. We slept in and then waited and waited for Mum and Dad to finally leave to go shopping, because they wanted to do some before going out to an amusement park. They finally left at about 10am, and me and Andrew watched Rush Hour 3 on DVD while they were gone.

After lunch we finally headed off to an amusement park about 10 minutes out of Tuncurry. However, when we got there, we watch the go-karts from the parking lot. Turns out there's no “go” in them at all; they're pulled to the top of a hill and then sent down one of three paths to let gravity do all the work. We gave the place a miss and tried another one in the area, but the only good thing there for people my age was the go-karts, and they were too slow to be any fun, so we gave that place a miss as well.

After a short detour by Mum's request to watch some water skiing (she used to water ski when she was younger and she's still obsessed with it), we went and visited Godfrey at his work to make plans for tomorrow. We then headed off to a beach nearby that was protected from sea creatures by an underwater net. Me and Andrew both had a swim there. It was alright, not too cold, but the waves were non-existent because it was so shallow.

We then went for a drive along the surf beach in Tuncurry. After being reassured that we'd be alright without a permit, we dropped the pressure in our tyres and started driving. We must of driven about ten kilometres overall. Once we were done, Dad dropped us off where we were staying and then drove off to get something from the shops.

Because he didn't have the keys, Dad had to get our attention to get one of us to open the garage and up into the apartment. He tried calling Mum's and Andrew's mobile phones, but neither of them heard them ring. He then resorted to honking the horn, and I finally heard him and rushed downstairs to let him in.

When he got upstairs, he was no doubt in a bad mood. Guess who he has to take it out on? He sees me on the laptop and comes straight over and yells at me to get off it. I decide “ok, I can finish up easily, I'll get off”. Less then 5 seconds later, he comes back over and tries to shut the screen, slamming my fingers in it. I naturally react with an “OI!”, and lift the screen back up. Next thing I know, I get a slap across the face. Reason why? “You're spending too much time on the laptop.” Real reason why? Dad was angry and I'm an easy target. I am so sick of taking his bullshit.

I spent most of the evening doing the maths homework I had to bring with me, and I've got a bunch of Physics homework to do tomorrow. I would've done it sooner but I didn't have the time or room in the place in Sydney. And don't get me started about the revision and homework I have to do when I get back.

It's 10pm now and I'm being yelled at to get in the shower, so I guess I'll write more later. So much for being an uneventful day.

Our first afternoon in Tuncurry

2008-10-03T22:45:00.000+10:00

10:28pm 03/10/2008

Tuncurry is a very nice, albeit small, town. I gotta say, it's just refreshing to know that not all drivers are like the ones in Sydney. We found our place alright, and it's a much nicer place then the apartment we stayed in in Sydney. The loungeroom and kitchen here are almost as big as the entire apartment back in Sydney. There's also room to unpack our bags this time! :P Unfortunately, the only way to get to the room this time is by walking up two flights of stairs.

After we'd checked in Mum and Andrew went shopping while me and Dad went to the local hardware store that his brother (who's named Godfrey) owns to meet up with him and organise what we were doing for dinner tonight. The whole reason for coming north for a couple of days was purely to see Godfrey and where he lived again, as we haven't been here for about 5 years now.

Once we got back to the unit I watched the rest of The Matrix Reloaded, before we headed out to dinner with Godfrey to the sister town on the other side of the river, Forster (although everyone here pronounces it Foster :S). We went to an American restaurant called the Hog's Breath Cafe. It was a really nice place with some decent food.

It was also really nice to catch up with Godfrey, talking about a whole range of things. At one point my Mum started talking about my hair (I just rolled my eyes). She then proceeded to talk about Godfrey's hair, and tried to convince him that he should have a haircut. Godfrey replied with “I've already had a haircut this year”. Mum couldn't understand, so she said something like “Why don't you get another one?” Godfrey's simple response: “I just can't be bothered!” I instantly gave him a high five. It was great to finally see someone else who shared my view about hair :P.

All in all, it's been a pretty enjoyable afternoon and evening. I think we're gonna have a great time over the next couple of days.

On the way to Tuncurry

2008-10-03T15:15:00.000+10:00

1:45pm 03/10/2008

We stopped for lunch at McDonalds about an hour ago after a lengthy search to find one. That was pretty surprising considering we were still in suburban Sydney. I was watching The Matrix Reloaded, but for some reason the transformer was cutting out intermittently, so we had to stop watching the movie. It looks fine now though. It must have had something to do with using the disc drive constantly. Which is also likely because whenever it's in use it makes this loud buzzing sound and there's nothing you can do to really stop it.

I also just took a couple of photos that kinda prove that this place copies everything from the rest of the world. We just passed the exit on the freeway to a town called “Toronto”. Go figure.

We're about 150-160 kilometres away from Tuncurry now, so we should be there in a little over two hours. If I get the chance I'll write more before we get there.

3:09pm 03/10/2008

We're about 50 kilometres from Tuncurry now. It's been a long trip north and we're doing it all in one go to be there before 5pm. To be honest I'm getting rather bored. It's a very very hot day which means we need the air conditioning on, but the air conditioning is always too cold for me so I never have it on for long if I can help it. It's also very humid, so it's really not that nice a day. It was a very hot night last night as well. I slept with the covers off. I woke up at 5am because I was cold and pulled the covers over me, but it was too hot and I couldn't get back to sleep, so I had a restless two hours before I just got up and got breakfast. I haven't really slept that well at all while I've been away. The beds have been far too uncomfortable and the temperatures have been far too warm.

Reflections on Sydney

2008-10-03T11:00:00.000+10:00

10:36am 03/10/2008

Dinner last night was very fun. We started out by walking down to a place near where we were staying that had been recommended to us, but they had smokers all throughout the restaurant (outdoor and indoor) so we gave that place a miss instantly. We caught a taxi down near Circular Quay and found a restaurant that is effectively Sydney's equivalent of the Cuckoo in Melbourne. I liked some things about it, like the wide range of menu items and the way the menu was presented, but overall I think I like the Cuckoo better.

This morning was the usual rush of packing and leaving. We didn't do that badly though. We didn't all really get up until about 8am and we were out the door by 10:15am. I have to say, we're all pretty glad to get out of there. It was far too cramped, there was nothing to do in the resort (which was more of a building then a resort), and there were not enough facilities or space in the apartment for four people.

We're on the road up north again now, on the Pacific Highway. We're going to stay for a few days at a place called Tuncurry, which is where my Dad's brother lives.

Seeing the sights of Sydney has been a lot of fun. It's great to finally be able to say that we've seen the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House and Bondi Beach and the like. I've gotta say a few things about it though.

The people here are useless. Like I wrote yesterday, the people have no idea about transport. They all seem to smoke as well. I reckon my lifespan has decreased by a few days because of all the tobacco smoke I've had to inhale while walking around the city. Something else that I've found is that they never seem to sleep. Even when I was still awake near midnight on Monday night, and we had the door open because it was really hot, you could always hear the traffic outside, amongst other ambiance noise noise. And all day, every day, at least once an hour, there was a siren from an emergency vehicle going past, and it would echo all around the city. That more then anything was annoying when you were trying to get to sleep.

Something else that I never really noticed when on holiday before is how limited my time is to do things like listen to music or write or read when I want to. Going on holiday can be very time-consuming. I brought away my Maths and Physics folders so I could do some homework, but I simply haven't had any time to do any (although admittedly, in that cramped apartment, there was no room to do any either).

I'm gonna copy all the photos off my camera now (my 2 GB memory card is nearly full, i've taken over a thousand photos on this holiday so far), and then I'm gonna watch The Matrix Reloaded after that. If I get time I'll probably write some more before we get there.

Our last day in Sydney

2008-10-02T19:15:00.000+10:00

6:55 pm 02/10/2008

Last night was an enjoyable affair. We had dinner while watching an Eric Clapton DVD (by the way, Eric Clapton is incredibly boring live if you're a fan), and then I finally convinced my Dad to let me use his mobile phone wireless card to use the Internet. I then spent the next 45 minutes doing as much as possible online in the time I had (I still have nearly 300 unread items in Google Reader). Amongst the things I found were about 15 birthday messages in my email, on MNI, on Facebook and on Myspace. Thankyou all very much everyone. It means a lot.

We went to bed early last night as well, but not before we made a sign to hold up on the set of Sunrise. Me and Andrew had to wake up early to walk to the place where it's filmed each morning to get there by 8am. We told a whole bunch of people that we were going to be there and we also got a few people to film it, so I'll eventually get around to putting it up on Youtube so everyone can watch it. We had to wait until the very end of the show when the hosts all come outside to sign things and say hi to the crowd (they do a pretty good job of ignoring everyone while they're inside to be honest). We also had to use the TV on the side as a guide to where to hold the sign, and we JUST made it into the final shot, but we're definitely there.

Oh, did I mention the sign said “I just lost the game”? Yep, we went on national TV to get that message across :P. I'd love to know how many people realised what it meant. We do know that a lot of our friends saw it however.

We walked back to the apartment after the show, but we couldn't get upstairs because the keycard that we had to use to activate the lift was magnetized or something and wasn't working properly. The lousy keycards here that you need to get into all parts of the building (including our room) have been so unreliable and fiddly. Sure, they're supposed to offer greater security, but to be honest, they don't work very well.

Something that struck me and Andrew on the way back was how stupid Sydney is when it comes to transport. Everyone honks their horns constantly, often for no reason. You can't buy bus tickets onboard the bus on some bus routes. The bus lanes aren't used properly by anyone, buses or the public. I've got two stories about that one actually. We saw eight buses all in a row, in a normal lane, which was just to the right of a bus lane. We also saw a taxi broken down in a bus lane, forcing all the buses to go around it. All drivers here are idiots to be honest. They don't consider anyone but themselves. Oh, and there are so many people that simply don't wait for green lights to start moving, whether they be on foot or in a car. However, that could be more to do with the retarded traffic cycles and amazing amount of one-way streets they have here.

Something else that struck us was how much Sydney has simply copied from the rest of the world: town names, building design, even a copy of Central Park from NYC (which they named Hyde Park, a copy of a famous park in England). Oh yeah, and just as we got back from Sunrise, a car pulled up outside the building with green stuff dripping from underneath the car. I do believe we have a Fail Blog entrant :P.

Once we got everything together and Mum got over her latest mood swing (I'll write more about that tomorrow), we finally got downstairs and into our car for the first time since Monday when we arrived. We drove down to Circular Quay this time and parked underneath the Sydney Opera House. We then walked all around the massive building, taking in the bay again, including the Harbour Bridge. The views there are just spectacular. Oh yeah, from there you can also see the back of Kirribili House (the place the Prime Minister stays occasionally) where the guy climbed over the wall and got into the grounds of the building :P.

From the Opera House we drove to Bondi Beach to see the famous surf and surrounds. I was the only person to actually go in the water, but it was still lots of fun. It was very very cold and windy though, and we didn't stay for long after I got out of the water. As we were walking off the beach, we saw dozens of piles of rubbish from where people had just dumped their litter. We got the feeling after that that people in Sydney generally are just douchebags. I think the only nice people we've met have been that guy from Wyndham at breakfast on Tuesday and the guy who sold us stamps today.

That reminds me, before we left Bondi today we got a few postcards and posted them off. A couple of people can expect some mail in the next few days :P.

We're going out for dinner now so I'll write more later. Seeya.

Not the most interesting of days

2008-10-01T21:37:00.000+10:00

7:45am 01/10/2008

It's really weird now, having to remember that I'm no longer 16 years old. I'm gonna miss being 16. So many things have happened in the last year that have changed me so so much. Hmmm. Guess my sweet sixteen wasn't really that bad after all.

In the other piece of news in this rather random post, I'm rather frustrated with Wi-Fi at the moment. There are about 20 different wireless networks around here (although they're not generally all visible at the same time). Most of them have security. I can only ever connect to one network, and that one just so happens to have no Internet associated with it. Grrr. I reckon I'd have more luck if we weren't 17 floors up :roll:.

I'm gonna have to see what I can do about persuading my Dad to let me use his mobile phone wireless card, or maybe go to an Internet cafe or something like that. As we were walking back from Breakfast yesterday I saw a bunch of computers inside a shop window really near here, so maybe I'll try there.

6:45 pm 01/10/2008

I'd be lying if I said I fully enjoyed myself today. Sure, I had a good time, but Mum's demeanour throughout the whole day was irritating and really dampened the mood. Right through from the start of the day until we got home, it was very awkward and frustrating.

We didn't head off until after midday after finally convincing Mum to come with us . We walked to the railway station to catch a train to Circular Quay. The railway system here in Sydney is ridiculously complicated. When you buy a ticket you have to know exactly where you're going and pick your destination station as you buy your ticket. The railway system isn't radial like Melbourne's, it stretches everywhere in all directions. Oh, and if you buy tickets for two adults and one child, the second child goes free. But do they give you a ticket for that second child? Nope. Which means the second child has to rush through behind one of the other people when they go through the turnstile. There is one good thing about the trains here though: most of each carriage is double-storey, allowing a much greater number of people to travel on the trains. This would really make a difference in Melbourne where things are congested to the pack of dangerousness.

We caught the train down to Circular Quay and walked straight across to the ferry that would take us across the bay to Manly. On the way we passed the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. They really are impressive sights, and are well worth seeing. We also saw the heads of the bay where it goes out into the Pacific Ocean. It got a bit rough in the last part of the trip and the boat started rocking. I reckon I must of taken over 70 photos on the ferry of all the different views.

Once we touched down we walked across the road into the main shopping strip in Manly. It must have been a good 750 metres long, and full of practically all clothing shops :roll:. We had lunch at a fish and chips restaurant and then walked down to the beach. It really was an amazing view with some beautiful sand and surf. Me and Andrew then split up from my parents to go look round all the shops again. We walked around the main shopping strip (it's actually called the Corso) a couple of times. My brother bought a T-shirt that had “Cheer Up Emo Kid” written on it, but I didn't find anything that interested me (although I wasn't really that enthused about looking because I generally don't find anything I like in most shopping areas. We also got a couple of large pieces of paper to make signs out of for our visit to the set of the breakfast TV show Sunrise tomorrow. I'll write more about that later ;).

The ferry ride back across to Sydney was a lot less interesting, although it was a lot easier to see the Sydney Harbour Bridge from the other side of the ferry. We also saw Kirribili House where the Prime Minister stays occasionally. The train ride and walk back to the house were pretty boring though.

It's now 7:13pm and, after a long conversation trying to sort out some differences between Andrew and Mum which apparently caused all the distance between Mum and us today, we're now being forced to sit through an Eric Clapton live concert DVD. I'm gonna go ask my Dad to use the mobile phone Internet now. It's time to bite the bullet :P.

An awesome birthday

2008-09-30T23:50:00.001+10:00

12:14 pm 30/09/2008

I'm 17! We all slept in this morning and didn't end up getting down to breakfast til about 9:30. I got a card from my parents and Green Day's live CD/DVD Bullet in a Bible from Andrew. My parents weren't quite sure what to get me though so we're going shopping later today.

At breakfast we had someone from the holiday company Wyndham that we use to go on holidays with try and sell us a better package that allowed us to do more. He was a really nice guy and we ended up getting a one-off opportunity thingy simply because of the good timing of when we first signed up.

We're back at the unit now and we're just about to head out, so I guess I'll write more later.

6:45pm 30/09/2008

After about an hour of messing around, including making me shave, we finally got out and walked quickly to the nearby monorail station. It turns out there's a medium-sized monorail network that runs around the city and goes past Chinatown and Darling Harbour. We caught the monorail round to the Queen Victoria Building. There we spent about two hours, looking for somewhere to eat lunch and then juts hunting around looking for shops. I don't think I've ever seen a more confusing building. There are so many places and so many ways to get everywhere! :S :S Oh, and as we were walking around, Tim K from Venturers called to wish me a Happy Birthday :).

While we were there I saw this guy who had five empty paint tubs and a pair of drumsticks and was playing a whole load of drum routines on them. He was really awesome, I wouldn't of minded to see him play them on a real drum kit. We then found a JB Hi-Fi (for those who don't know, it's a shop full of CDs, DVDs, video games, computers and all sorts of other consumer technology products) so I could try and convince Dad to get me a laptop (the Asus Eee PC) as a joint birthday & Christmas present. It's only $680 and I offered to chip in $200 myself, and my Dad said he'd consider it, so I am a bit hopeful that he'll agree. I think he's definitely convinced that it's not just a toy now at the very least.

After we were done there we got back onto the Monorail and went down to Darling Harbour. There were some absolutely beautiful views and some great sights to see. We walked past a massive lighthouse and we saw the Australian Maritime Museum (although we didn't go inside). I must of taken about 250 photos of all the things in the harbour from all different angles.

We got an ice cream shortly after we got there, and then went to watch this guy performing in the street. He had some really cool acts like juggling an axe that weighed three kilos along with two machetes, but the majority of the act was his jokes, which were non-stop throughout the act. He had some lame ones, but that's expected. Most of his act was really good and really funny. He also borrowed someone's packet of cigarettes and then made a very big point to the young kids watching that you should never smoke and that it doesn't make you cool. I doubt that woman would of lent him her cigarettes if she'd know what he was about to do with them :P.

His act went for about an hour, and after we were done we kept walking around to the other side of the bay so we could see the rest of it. The sun was setting by then, so there were some really beautiful views. Then we walked back to the monorail and caught it back round to our original stop, and then walked back to the unit in some pretty high winds.

That's been my birthday so far. We're going out for dinner soon hopefully. Just one thing before I go: the person who named their wireless network “Britney Spears” should be ashamed of themselves.

11:39pm 30/09/2008

It was an enjoyable evening tonight. We caught the monorail back to Darling Harbour, then took our time walking around to the other side of the harbour so we could see all the surrounds in the night time with their lights on. I still don't know why office blocks are allowed to leave all their lights on at night.

Dinner was alright. The fish and chips were nice, but the venue was far too dark and impractical for my liking. We finished dinner after 10pm, which meant the monorail had stopped running for the night, so we had to walk the couple of kilometres back to the building we were staying at. I hadn't listened to music all day yet so I took that opportunity as we were walking back.

Overall it was a very nice birthday. But I know it's not really over yet: I know I've already got a couple of surprises waiting for me when I get home, and when I finally get some more Internet I'm probably gonna have half a dozen messages waiting for me as well :P. Anyways, it's late and we have another busy day planned tomorrow, so I'll see you all later.

Night-time musings

2008-09-29T23:40:00.000+10:00

11:33pm 29/09/2008

Well, the rest of the evening wasn't much different. I had to pull this book away (I'm writing in a book when I can't use the laptop) from my Mum when she started trying to read it. That was a panic moment.

I tried just before to find some Internet-enabled Wi-Fi with no success. I'm still amazed at what some people call their access points: “Satan” and “Super Slow Internet” are stand-outs.

I'm gonna be 17 in just 23 minute's time! I really hope tomorrow is a good day. It's my first birthday away from home. We'll see how things go I guess.

Day 2 of the trip was boring

2008-09-29T20:46:00.001+10:00

5:40 pm 29/09/2008

Well, it sure has been an eventful four and a half hours. When we got in we found that our room hadn't been cleaned or made up, so we had to go out for an hour so they could clean it. We also found that we were on the top floor. Being 17 floors up on a high-rise is alright, but the view isn't really that great. And I still can't look straight down off the edge.

My Mum asked us if we wanted sushi, so I said yes, wanting to try it again (and also knowing that if I didn't say yes Samie would probably kill me :P), but no one else wanted it, so we moved on and had some Indian food instead.

When we got back to the unit we finally had a chance to check out the place we were staying in. As usual, at first sight the unit looked great and fancy, but eventually you find the flaws. There is just one small table for two, despite it being a 4-person apartment. The toilet is so cramped you can hardly reach the toilet paper. The TVs (all three of them) don't work properly. And the cutlery drawer is underneath the oven, centimetres from the ground. Do I hear an epic failz? We can't even really unpack our bags properly because there's virtually no wardrobe space, and nowhere to store our bags.

Once we'd settled in, we planned on going for a walk around the city, but that never happened. My parents just sat around, and despite repeated assurances we were going somewhere, we never left. That was really frustrating because there isn't much to do other then watch TV in this cramped apartment.

As I started writing this, I had to endure another rant from my Mum about how I need to “stop this Americanised attitude” and how I'm a total disappointment and she doesn't want to be seen out with me and all these other things. I really am getting pretty sick of my Mum's constant goings-on. I wish she'd just accept that not everyone thinks the way she does. She's constantly going on about how I should be “normal”.

What is “normal”? Normal is the most subjective word in the English language. Sure, you might consider yourself to be normal, and that guy you saw walking down the street with funny hair and strange clothes to be a weirdo. I'm sure he considered you exactly the same way. Normal is a stupid word. Everyone is unusual and abnormal in their own way. People just have to learn to accept that everyone is different.

8:30pm 29/09/2008

Well, nothing's really changed in the last couple of hours. We're still just sitting around watching TV. My parents have spent most of the time lying down talking or sleeping. I've got on quickly now to post today's blog entries, but I'm doing it on Dad's mobile SIM card wireless, so I can't do much else other then briefly check my emails and post these. I guess I'll write more later. I'm also gonna have to go through and tag all these posts as well as I haven't had time to do that so far. Oh, and yes, the previous post was back-dated. I'll see you all tomorrow!

Stories from the car

2008-09-29T13:30:00.001+10:00

9:13am 29/09/2008

We left about half an hour ago and have been on the Hume Highway the whole way. We passed a long stretch of road works which meant we had to slow down to 80 kilometres an hour and in some points as low as 40 kilometres an hour. But we're well on the way now.

As luck would have it, there was some unsecured Wi-Fi near where we stayed, and as long as it didn't drop out, it was actually quite fast. So yeah, I was able to check my email and other things. Hopefully I'll find some more Wi-Fi later so I can post this.

The place where we stayed was alright, but the beds were a bit uncomfortable. And I didn't realise I'd left my pillow in the car until I was lying down to go to sleep, which meant I didn't have that great a night's sleep. We had dinner last night at about 8:45 at a nearby restaurant. I had honey chicken, and that was really nice, but there was a bit too much of it, and after the McDonalds we'd had earlier, I struggled to finish it :P.

I guess I should tell the story about what happened to my two dogs Tammy and Toby, and why we set off 8 hours late. On Saturday night at about 10:30pm, we got a call from the 24 hour emergency animal hospital saying that they had two dogs that had just been dropped off, and that they'd identified Toby through his microchip. They were perfectly fine, but they'd been found wondering along a main road, getting close to a railway line. So we called the man who was looking after them to tell him that they'd been found, and got him to go pick them up. It turns out that they'd gone missing over three hours earlier, and he hadn't bothered to call us to let us know.

At about 11:15pm, me and Mum went out to the guy's house to pick the dogs up, because we just didn't feel right leaving them there anymore. When we got there, we found out that he hadn't told us that a rather big fighting dog (similar to a pit bull) would be staying there. This dog had ripped a couple of the wooden strips off of the wooden gate at the back, creating a hole big enough for our two dogs to get through. We think that Tammy escaped first, because she was going absolutely mad when Mum and Dad dropped her off earlier that day, and that Toby followed her, and then they stuck together while they wondered off down to the main road. Anyways, we got home from there at about 12:10am and went to bed shortly after, wondering what on earth we were going to do with the dogs the following day.

The next morning, Mum was lucky enough to get a friend of hers who looks after dogs to look after them for the time we were away. After they finally took them off again, we got around to packing the car and then finally, at 2pm, we finally got in the car and got moving.

We're about half an hour from Yass now I think, but we're not stopping until we get to Goulburn, further up the highway. Oh, and while I was writing this, I discovered that someone's gone and deleted four photos off my camera that I took last night at dinner. It's not the first time, but hopefully it'll be the la time. I' sick of having to to look after my camera so securely. I shouldn't have to worry about people deleting photos off my camera!! Anyways, I'll write more later. Hopefully I'll see something a bit more interesting then grass plain after grass plain to take photos of.

11:47am 29/09/20008

We stopped at Goulburn about an hour ago so Mum could get some sewing gear. Me and Andrew got some Egg and Bacon rolls for morning tea, so that was nice. We're only about 135 kilometres out from Sydney now, so we'll probably be arriving in about an hour and a half.

12:35pm 29/09/2008

We're getting very close to Sydney now, we're only about 50 kilometres out from the city. It'll be good to finally get there and get settled, albeit 16 hours behind schedule. It's gonna be cool to finally see things like Martin Place, the set of the breakfast TV show Sunrise, the Sydney Opera House, and also for those who didn't know, the place where all three of The Matrix films were filmed. We took a bunch of screenshots yesterday and we're going to see if we can find were they were taken :P.

I said yesterday that I was going to talk about the song Pork and Beans by Weezer. Here's the music video of it. You'll probably recognise a lot of the things in it if you've spent a lot of time on Youtube.

Here's the chorus:

I'mma do the things that I wanna do

I ain't gotta thing to prove to you

I'll eat my candy with the Pork and Beans

Excuse my manners if I make a scene

I ain't gonna wear the clothes that you like

I'm finally dandy with the me inside

One look in the mirror and I'm tickled pink

I don't give a hoot about what you think

This song kinda represents how I've changed in the last nine months. I've stopped caring what other people think of me when their opinions don't affect me. Sure, I used to say it a lot. But I know now that I really do mean it. I can stand on the corner of two major roads waiting for the lights to change and be quite free in myself to move around in time to the music that I'm listening to, just as I would if I was listening to it at home.

Part of the reason why we simply weren't ready to leave on Sunday morning is because on Saturday night we had another big argument. One of the things that came up was yet again caring what other people think of you. I made the point about what I said above. Mum said “those people in those cars must of thought you were one of those weirdos from Kew Cottages that were all released into the public” (Kew Cottages used to be a place for people to live who were mentally unfit to live in normal society. It's shut now, and the people who lived there were released (is that the right word? I'm not sure if they had a choice about living at Kew Cottages or not) back into the public.). Anyway, my instant response was “so what?”. And she simply could not get it through her head that it could be possible that I didn't care what those people thought of me. I've said many times to her, “once you can explain to me how you can get embarrassed in front of people you don't even know, maybe I'll take a bit more notice of some of the things you say”.

It's 12:55 pm now, and we're only about 25 kilometres from Sydney. As we get closer on the freeway there's more and more traffic, which means the speed limits are dropping too. Hopefully the city will be coming into view soon, just over the next hill maybe.

Oh great. We've just had to slow to a crawl because we're heading into a tunnel and there's smoke coming out the front. We just had to move over for a fire truck to pass.

Lol. It's just a grass fire right outside the tunnel. We're inside now and we're back to full speed. Jeez it's a long tunnel. We just passed a sign saying the exit wasn't for another 2 kilometres I think.

I just remembered that I was gonna write something more about the chorus from Pork and Beans. The line “I ain't gonna wear the clothes that you like” is quite literal with me. I have a lot of conflicts with Mum over the clothes I'm going to wear all the time, regardless of whether I'm going out or I'm just staying at home for the day.

Great, we just left the main tunnel and then entered a second one. Fortunately we're already out of it, and we're just passing by Sydney International Airport. Oooh, there's our first look at the city as well. Into another tunnel, out the other side, and we just passed Air Traffic Control. It's a tall building with a spiral staircase around the outside.

I guess I'll write some more soon. I'm gonna concentrate on taking photos now. Oh, and scanning for some Wi-Fi so I can post this :P. Woah. I just ran a scan for Wi-Fi points and a good 40-50 points must of come up. Sadly, most of them had security. I reckon we're moving too fast to get a proper connection though. Anyways, I'm gonna stop babbling now :P.

1:20pm 29/09/2008

Just got told that it's time to shut all this down, so I'm just gonna write a little entry now. We're nearly at our destination (the GPS just beeped). It's been fun driving around the city and seeing all the different Wi-Fi hotspot names (who names theirs “ejector seat reservation”?). Anyways, have to go. Seeya soon!

On the way to Sydney

2008-09-28T20:10:00.001+10:00

6pm 28/09/2008

Hey there. We've been on the road for 4 hours now. We stopped for McDonalds about half an hour ago near Glenrowan, and we're now heading on towards Albury, just across the Victoria/NSW border (Dad just said that we're 6 kilometres away). I'm using my Dad's laptop to write this. Me and my brother watched The Matrix earlier to pass the time. It was good to get the first one out of the way because I have to watch all three Matrix films for English. Well, that's not technically correct.

We're studying Future Worlds in English in the last few weeks before the exams. In the last two weeks of term we watched Minority Report and Blade Runner, and then we read the first chapter of 1984. And then, over the holidays we each have to watch a movie that looks at a Future World. And of course, being me, I had to pick The Matrix, which means I need to watch all three films, plus The Animatrix, to help understand the entire world of The Matrix.

We just crossed over the Murray River, which means we're now officially in NSW (for those who don't know, that's New South Wales, the state north of Victoria where I live). From what I remember, making the trip to the border in just over four hours is pretty quick (it's now 6:10pm, and we left at 2pm).

We're planning to stay the night at a town called Gundagai, but I'm guessing that depends how far we can travel tonight before we turn in for the night. Urgh, now I have motion sickness from staring down at a screen for too long. Lousy movie. Well, I guess I'll write more later. I should probably explain why we didn't leave until 2pm later as well :P. Seeya.

6:45pm 28/09/2008

We're just coming in towards the town of Holbrook, and we're about an hour and a half away from Gundagai. My Mum just booked us a hotel room, so I guess that's definitely where we're staying.

6:55pm 28/09/2008

We've stopped very briefly at a petrol station in Holbrook to clean the windows. I've switched from the Guest account to the Administrator account in Safe Mode so I can scan for wireless networks. I found a whole bunch as we passed through the town center, but most of them were password-protected and I couldn't connect those that didn't have any security.

We're on the road now, Dad was rushing us back into the car. All the wireless networks seem to of disappeared, we've already left the town. I'll keep trying to get some Wi-Fi as we keep going.

Now Mum's complaining about us having the CD player on the back seat. She's afraid it'll fly forward and hit the windscreen if we have to stop suddenly. So we ask her to suggest where else we should put it. “On the floor of the car” she says, and starts to grab things off the already crowded floor and chucking them on me and my brother's laps.

We're just 95 km's away from Gundagai now, which means it's about an hour before we stop.

7:50pm 28/09/2008

We're a quarter of an hour away from Gundagai now. We've been on the road for nearly six hours. I'm gonna shut the laptop down now because it's been on for over two hours. Just before I do, another reminder for something I need to write about tomorrow is the song Pork and Beans by Weezer. I'll try and get on again tonight if time and parents permit.

Oooh, just before I go, just thought I'd mention that Mum's trying yet again to understand how the GPS works. It's kinda funny sometimes :P. Anyways, see ya'll soon.

8:05pm 28/09/2008

So much for turning off the laptop. We're coming into Gundagai now. I've decided to keep it on so I can try and get some Wi-Fi in town so I can get onto Twitter, Gmail and Blogger quickly. We've just arrived at our hotel now, and Dad's gone to book in.

And what do ya know, the moment we pull into town all these wireless networks pop up. Trying to connect now.

YES! Just got some Wi-Fi, posting things now before we get out. See you all soon!

Before I go away...

2008-09-26T23:50:00.000+10:00

To make sure everyone knows, I leave this Sunday (in about 30 hours from now actually :S) to go up to NSW for a vacation. So yeah, this is probably gonna be my last blog post before I go. I'll miss you all *hugs* and I'll try and get some Internet while I'm away. Otherwise I'll see you when I get back.

So what have I been up to in the last few days? Practically nothing. Literally all I've done is spend my time programming or at school in those revision classes for IT, which have got more and more boring as the week went on. I think we were all glad that today was our last class.

I mentioned that I've spent a lot of time programming. I'm actually making a program to remotely control the Xbox Media Center on my Xbox from my computer. Sure, there are already other programs out there that do it, but they're so limited in functionality or buggy, or don't work for me. So I'm writing my own program to do it all. So far it's going well, I think I'll have enough in it soon to release version 1 :P. Although, the odds of the people reading this actually using it are slim :P.

This afternoon I spent about half an hour wondering around Knox City with Nathan (Migit) and Tristan while I worked out what to buy my Mum for her birthday tomorrow. I ended up buying her a blue dressing gown (thanks for the suggestion Josh!). When I got home from that it was a quick bit of organising stuff to pack followed by heading over to Josh's house for a few hours. Turns out it was a suprise mini-party for my birthday on Tuesday, so that was really cool :). They got me a 4 GB USB memory stick, which was awesome, because I was actually planning to buy one of those myself. Funny, last year Josh got me a 2 GB SD Card for my digital camera, which I was also planning on buying myself :P.

Anyways, I now have a LOT of packing to do for Sunday, as well as a LOT of revision for my practice exams in 2 weeks time, and then I've also got to fit in homework for most of my subjects which is due when I go back in 2 and a half weeks time. I am sooooo snowed under. Anyways, I'll write an entry when I get home on the 6th of October. See you all soon, stay safe!!

On Holidays

2008-09-22T22:15:00.001+10:00

Yes, I'm officially on holidays, as of last Friday. Although whether or not you can call these holidays is debatable. Sure, they go for three weeks, but in that time we have a stack of homework, as well as revision for practice exams for our Year 12 subjects in the third week, as well as revision classes all through this first week for our Year 12 classes. At least I'll get to go away on vacation for a week (I leave on Sunday).

Other then getting on holidays, Friday meant two tests. The first was a Business Management test for all of this term. Not only was it really long, it was also really hard. There were a couple of things on it that I simply didn't know >.<. And in our last class for the term, IT, we had our last SAC for the year. It was in the form of a written test full of short answer questions about IT Security, and I don't think any of us finished it, so we're going to finish it when we come in for our practice exam in the third week of the holidays. Saturday was just spent relaxing and talking to friends. Saturday night however meant heading off to an all-night movie night with Venturers. It was a bit of a fail, only 6 people turned up. But it was still fun. We watched the first half of Spaceballs, Anchorman, Cloverfield, The Fast and the Furious and 10000 BC. I fell asleep near the start of 10000 BC and woke up to Josh playing Xbox Live Arcade games on my Xbox 360 because everyone else was asleep :P. However, I did sit through all of Cloverfield. I'd heard a lot about it from other people: it makes you dizzy as hell when the guy runs with the camera, it has no plot, etc. Personally, I thought it was bloody awesome. It's one of the most amazing films I've ever seen. Sure, it was all filmed on a handheld camera (which is an amazing feat in itself) but they still had to set up every scene like normal, cue everything, do all the cinematogray, etc. And also, with the use of a handheld camera, all the shots were a lot longer then normal, making them a lot easier to screw up. So yeah, for me, it was an incredible movie. And personally, I think there was plot, it just wasn't obvious. Sure, it asked a lot of questions and didn't provide any answers, but some movies are just like that.

Once I got home, I put off the sleep for as long as possible, only to finally crash at about 2:30pm. I slept until about 7:30pm when my parents got home and woke me up to have dinner. Then I went back to sleep at about 11pm and slept right through until about 9am this morning.

Today wasn't terribly exciting either. All I really did was spend two hours in a revision class for IT, then come home again and work on the website I'm working on for my new web design job (I don't remember if I mentioned that on here before?). I officially hate all web browsers other then Firefox. Getting a page to look exactly the same in all browsers is practically impossible.

Anyways, I'll write more later, hopefully a couple of times before I go away on vacation. I'm still working on getting a laptop, and my outlook isn't bright.

Good and Bad News

2008-09-18T23:15:00.000+10:00

Well, the last few days certainly have been exciting.

On Tuesday at lunchtime we finally had the Guitar Hero competition for Business Management that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. It worked really well. We ended up getting through 12 games during the hour-long lunchtime, which is about what we expected. At the end of all of it, we made 55 dollars in profit, which was apparently the best takings for a video game small business to date. Me and Matt H, the guy I was working with, had a fun time keeping track of everything and watching everyone else have fun. I also have to thank David RS for helping us set up before lunch. Once everyone had gone at the end of lunch, me and a friend used the packing up time to have a go ourselves so we didn't completely miss out. There really isn't an experience like playing Guitar Hero with a massive sound system on a massive screen. Now we just have to complete our evaluation of the small business, and then we're done ^_^.

On Wednesday night at Venturers we had our long-awaited music night. It worked rather well. Everyone played something, whether it be just a short piece or two or three full length pieces. All in all it was a really fun night. Now I just have to get a hold of the tape from the night (we filmed all the performances), and I'll edit it a bit and put some of the footage of me playing up on Youtube. It's good to finally have a recording of some of my pieces that I played in my exam.

Today in IT I finally got to see the laptop that I would be testing for the school over the holidays. However, after it came in the techies at the school started messing with it and decided it was a no-go, and honestly, I have to agree with them. The keyboard was too messy, the mouse buttons were weirdly placed, they'd tried to fit a massive resolution onto a tiny screen, the battery life was too short, it was too slow because it comes with Vista Business when it's only certified for Vista Home Basic, and there was a myriad of other problems as well. It's only redeeming feature is that the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi worked well.

So yeah, while I'm glad that they've given up on a crappy laptop so the school will be getting some decent ones next year (hopefully the Asus Eee PC), it also means I won't have a laptop to take with me on vacation during these upcoming holidays. So, I've tried to convince my parents to get me an Eee PC 1000H model as a joint Birthday/Christmas gift, and I've even promised to chip in $100-150 if it helps my cause. I'm banking on getting it before we go away though. It's a really good laptop, and I think I kind of convinced my Dad that the Eee PCs weren't just toys when I explained about the 7 hour battery life :P.

One last thing before I go: for any fans of Metallica, make sure you check out the group Apocalyptica. My brother showed me some of their stuff tonight and it's just amazing.

I kinda got lazy

2008-09-15T17:33:00.012+10:00

Yeah, I got pretty lazy with this thing and haven't updated in a week. Time to change that :P *goes to check where the last update was up to*
Ah yes, my racism rant.

To be honest, I can't remember much of what's happened over the past week, so I'm just gonna give you points on what I can remember :P.

Tuesday... we continued work in Physics on Electricity, but that's pretty much all I can remember. Wednesday, I came home to find my Dad had gotten Skype, so we could talk for free with webcams while he was up in NSW. That was fun. Mum was amazed when she got home and was suddenly talking to Dad. Venturers that night was also fun; it was just a swimming night at a local pool, but it's generally more just a chance to talk for 2 hours, which is always good once in a while.

I can't remember much about Thursday other then our IT class; our teacher showed us this really cool video and then we talked about IT in not just education but all walks of life, proceeded by a talk about IT security which is what our next SAC is on. It was a great talk, really interesting and fun. We also kept learning about Electricity in Physics. Friday was more of the same; Physics first period, and then IT second period. I also found out at the end that out of everyone in our IT class, the teacher had picked me to road test a laptop over the holidays as a trial for a rollout of them next year to Senior School students. So there's some good news: I'll have Internet access (albeit intermittent access when I can get some Wi-Fi) while I'm away on holiday from the 28th of September to the 6th of October. Yes, that means I'll be away for my birthday but hopefully I'll be able to get on at some point during the day so I can chat to some of you guys.

Friday ended with a test in Maths on Calculus. I did okay, but I wasted so much time on the extended response question at the end and I know I mucked up part of it. Saturday, at about 12:30am, my Dad got home from NSW, although I was asleep by then (I'd tried to stay up til he got home by reading New Moon, but shortly after midnight I just couldn't keep going). So yeah, in the morning we all helped unpack the car. There were a lot of boxes that he'd brought down and he also brought a TV down, so I now have a bigger TV in the computer room. I still haven't decided if I like it though. Sure, the picture's bigger, but it's a lot less sharper, and when you're using menus on XBMC and the Xbox 360, it can really make it hard to see some of the menu items. It hasn't affected Guitar Hero much though :P.

On Sunday we had some friends over for afternoon tea. That was fun. They also brought over another Guitar Hero guitar to lend to us because their Xbox was being repaired, so for the next few days I'll be playing a lot of Guitar Hero co-op with my brother :P.

Today was awesome. I found out in IT that me and another guy got both got perfect scores in our latest SAC on Excel. The teacher said something like "However, these two layabouts both did extremely well." and he handed us our SAC folders that we put all of our documentation into. We both pulled out the mark sheets that had our results on them, saw the 100% at the top and were like "HOLY SHIT". Then we gave each other high fives :P. However, this does mean that, if you average the marks for all three SACs so far, he's still one mark ahead of me! We have another SAC this Friday (our last for the year) in the form of a test, and it's on IT Security, so that's gonna be interesting to see how we do on that.

Once again, another long update. I wonder when I'm gonna get motivated and update every 2-3 days instead of every 5-7 days so you guys don't have to read so much. Hmmm.

Racism

2008-09-08T23:48:00.002+10:00

So here comes my first official rant. I HATE racism.

I have to put up with a lot of it at my school because we have a lot of international students from countries like Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan and the like. No, I'm not affected by it, but I have several friends who are of the same origin, and I'm just as inclined to stick up for them as anyone else who I call my friend. Alex P, Samie, April, Claire, Darshini, Zahab, Radha, Arjuna, Tej, Taran, Aaron, Nirav, Amira, Ginny, Marija, Mehvish, and all my other friends who have origins different to mine (as I'm sure I've forgotten people :P), you're all awesome people. Don't ever doubt that.

There's a couple of boys in my Geography class this year, Adam and Trent (yes, I'll be naming names), who piss me off to no end because they believe they're superior in every way. And yes, they include me in that "superior race" simply because my Dad was born in England. *rolls eyes*. Anyway, every lesson, I have to listen to them bang on about what they'd change about Australia. Those plans revolve around turning Australia into a dictatorship and removing all forms of expression, including all banning music except techno. They also include moving all the "degenerates" (ie Aborigines, Asians, etc) up north, and keeping all the desirable people (ie me simply because of my ancestry) down south. This irritates me to no end, and I've told them quite a number of times. They got so pissed off at me last week for voicing my opinion that they asked if they could burn me at the stake.

I don't mind dealing with those two idiots, because that's easy; they're just a couple of morons with warped ideas who'll get what's coming to them eventually. What really annoys me is when I have to deal with it in my own home. One of the many things I hate about my mother is her inability to tolerate anything that she doesn't classify as "normal". "Oh no, there's nothing wrong with being gay. They're just weird and odd, and what they do isn't normal." "I don't want you ever dancing around like that when you're out with me." "I couldn't see you in amongst all those slant-eyes." AAARRRGGGHHH.

Who cares if someone kisses boys or girls, or both, or neither for that matter? Who cares if I like to move my hands in time with the music? Who cares if other people see me doing it, who cares what they think? I don't know them. How on earth can I possibly get embarrassed in front of them? But the main point of this rant: who cares what their eyes look like?

My mum actually said "I couldn't see you in amongst all those slant-eyes" today at home. It infuriated me to no end. She said it like she was better then them. Like they could help the way their face looked, and were like that on purpose. Like she was superior to them. I hate it when people think like that. I hate it so fucking much.

I questioned her about it later, on the way to my violin lesson. All she did was try and shrug it off with an "everyone does it", "haven't you heard your father say those kinds of things?", "I don't want to talk about this right now". I could tell I made her really uncomfortable, and I'm glad, because she deserved it.

Anyways, I really had to get that off my chest; it's been bugging me all night. I'll probably write again tomorrow with a proper update.

A busy few days

2008-09-06T23:40:00.000+10:00

First of all, I got over the tiny bout of flu I had without missing any school, so that was good.

Wednesday was rather boring. It was a short day because we don't have sport anymore, so I got home at like 2:30pm. That was good though because it meant I had time to do homework before I went to yet another early Venturers night. We did a Photo Scavenger Hunt, once again in the city. It was alright but we didn't have as much time as previous times, and the list wasn't that interesting. To top it all off, it wasn't even really a competition because the other team just went food-hunting instead of picture-hunting.

Thursday was a bit of fun. We started our last topic for the year in English, "Future Worlds". We're gonna be watching a lot of films over the coming weeks, so I reckon I'm gonna enjoy that a lot. Now I just have to find the motivation to do this damn text response essay before Monday so I don't get in trouble. Also, that night, I finally got my first work to do as a web designer, so I now officially have a job!!!

In complete contrast to Wednesday, Friday was awesome. The first three periods were practically empty because a whole lot of people were at a leadership thingy. We got to listen to music in Maths, we did almost no work in Business Management, and in English we spent 40 of the 70 minutes simply talking. And then at lunchtime, me and my friend Matt H finally got to do our test-run for our small business that we're holding on the 16th. We set up an Xbox 360 and Guitar Hero and played it briefly on a big projector with a massive-ass sound system. It looked and sounded fantastic, so it looks like everything's gonna run smoothly.

Today we had my oldest half-sister Sarah over for lunch. It was fun to catch up with her again. She also got my Dad a really interesting book for Father's Day called "Companies that Changed the World". That's definitely gonna be worth a read. And speaking of Father's Day, it's tomorrow, and good old me, instead of getting the card and present-wrapping out of the way early, spent all afternoon and evening playing Guitar Hero. I'm going to wrap the present after I finish this post. But yeah, I spent several hours playing Guitar Hero today. I came so close to getting 100% on Miss Murder on Expert, and I also had my best run yet on Through the Fire and Flames on Expert (69% of notes hit, in practice mode obviously).

Anyways, I've probably bored you enough by now. I promise to start updating more often :P.

OMG Results!

2008-09-02T21:05:00.000+10:00

Time to stop putting this off and actually write it :P.

First of all, Saturday morning meant a well needed sleep-in. However, I then found myself trying to squeeze many things into the couple of hours before my violin exam at 1:30pm. I finished my first subtitle file (lyrics for the song CrushCrushCrush by Paramore) and I'm quite proud of that accomplishment. It took me three long hours :P.

We got to the AMEB exam place thingy 20 minutes before my exam, signed in and then went for a warm-up (I should probably mention that it was a Grade 3 exam. There are 8 Grades that the AMEB offers). That went really well. But then I got into my exam room and things started flopping instantly :(. I mucked up quite a few things (at least, it seemed like it at the time). Probably my most obvious mistake was messing up the bowing style for one of the exercises I had to do. And then the guy had to ask me to play the one exercise I completely sucked at :(.

Later that day we picked up my Dad from the airport. He'd just came back from New South Wales after 6 days dealing with the after-effects of Poppa's death (the funeral, the executing of the will, etc.). It was good to see him again, and it was fun to see some of the stuff he'd brought back with him. Unfortunately, he has to go up there again in about a week's time to bring back more stuff.

On Sunday I finally caught up with Stuart, someone who I haven't seen in ages. We played some Xbox before us and his whole family went along to watch him and his Dad play hockey. That was really fun (and cold!) and Stuart's team won 3-2.

Monday meant handing in my IT assignment and then hurriedly finishing my Maths assignment that had to be handed in today. I also finally got the results of the Trig test I did last Tuesday: 89%. So much for predicting a perfect score :P. I also tonight got a call from my Violin teacher. Turns out the results of my exam on Saturday have already come in, and I scored a B!!!! Considering I reckon I fumbled over parts of it, I reckon I did pretty well. If I remember correctly, my Grade 1 exam that I did nearly four years ago, I only got a C+, so I've definitely improved, even though I already know that myself. I really sucked four years ago :P.

So I don't write anything for just four days (not including the Lyricwiki SOTD post), and I still write this much? Jeez. I guess there's just one thing left to say; I think I'm coming down with the flu AGAIN.

My Lyricwiki Song of the Day Nomination!

2008-08-30T20:40:00.001+10:00

I got home today after my violin exam, lots of maths homework and picking my dad up from the airport (all of which I'll talk about tomorrow) to find I had an email from Lyricwiki. My Song of the Day nomination got accepted!! The song was That's What You Get by Paramore. You can watch the music video here (the pic is a screenshot from the music video).

Here's what I wrote to get it nominated:

I got into Paramore a few months ago through the recommendation of a friend. When I finally got the lyrics for this song, and saw the music video, I just got more and more addicted to it. I don't think any song has ever meant more to me then this song. It's absolutely amazing. And it means a lot to the band too. The music video shoot practically saved Paramore from disbanding.

So yeah, I was really stoked about that. I took a screenshot to make sure I had proof of it in the future as well :P.
I'll write more tomorrow, I'm hard-pressed for time at the moment.