Okay, can I just say that last entry sucked. I don't know why, all blogs are incredibly self indulgent, but when you start talking about the most mundane & make it sound like the very first time you've written an entry, the only thing I can do is appologise! It felt wrong writing it & it sure felt wrong reading it.
I think my problem is just finding time & patience to actually think about what I'm writing. Sometimes, it just taking a few minutes out from work, battling a lack of privacy from people looking over shoulders or late at night (or should that be very early in the morning) punching something on the keyboard before collapsing to noddy land. I've thought about doing the "hiatus" thing, which I know means a temporary, purposeful lapse of blogging, but we all know, those who have done so, never return. I shall therefore continue to make the effort, regardless of how painful it may be to read!
With that said, I'm going to do all the things I've mentioned recently but never followed through with..... Photos!
Back before Christmas, I went out & scored a bargain in a Studio Projects B1 Studio microphone. It's shiney & once fully warmed up, sounds impressive for something so cheap. I've recorded a few songs which I promise to put up sometime soon.
This was received for Christmas, an awesome gumball machine from my sister. Let's just say, it ain't quite as full today!
I've been following the progress of the construction work at Glenelg after the removal of Magic Mountain last year. This is the view from the Rotunda. Most of what can be seen used to be a car park which I walked across every single day from the Pier hotel to Jetty Road. Just out of this shot, was the very first place I was employed. I discovered this same day, it too has been demolished (though it had been unoccupied for some time). Times are sure changing down at the Bay. After bringing in a new Mayor to stifle progress, it seems more is actually changing the face of Glenelg now. Although, people are cursing the development, I think it will be a far better tourist location once it's all done!
This is the view North from the same location over Colley Reserve, once again the site for the annual Bay Sheffield race carnival. This is the one spot where I'd love to perform a concert from, the crowd would be amazing.
Here's a sample of shots I've taken of my two babies, which has given me some ideas for redesigning the site in full. The inspiration was someone who contacted me after finding some previous photos of my Maton & offered to buy it! I thought it would be good to put more photos up since images of this guitar are near impossible to find elsewhere. The grass in the backyard proved to be a perfect canvas for highlighting their true, natural colours. which I've always had trouble capturing.
Well, that should get a few of my past ramblings up to date, so I'll quit while I'm ahead!
Another total lack of updates from myself at the moment. The tennis at the Australian Open is just too good. One day, I'll actually do what I've always deliberated & fly over to Melbourne & watch proceedings live rather than on the painful half-hour delay!
I had Monday & Tuesday off from work & basically kicked back & achieved very little. Took in a couple of movies, The Incredibles & Ladder 49, which kept me out of the summer heat for a few hours & on Australia Day, waited as a massive storm developed & then vaporised without fanfare. I was going to a bit of time lapse photography on it, but to no avail. At least I know how to set it up for next time!
Working a two day week has been a bonus. It doesn't leave enough time for anything to completely go off the rails before the weekend falls.
I'm going to the open day at Adelaide's SAE College tomorrow to start my change in career. SAE is a technology institute specialising in graphics, multimedia & audio. I'm looking to study for a Diploma in Audio Engineering, which may just get me out of accounting forever!
To update the last post, I missed out. I received a rather blunt return email from the agent, which I'm sure would have been far more courteous had the blocks still been available!
The one good thing about working in hospitality is the staff turnover. That sounds strange, but it means lots of farewell parties, which gets everyone together. Even with the rock throwing mongrel still haunting the streets, I went along & had a great night. On a side note, the Police are out in force now, stopping cars at random, using speed cameras everywhere & just maintaining a presence this suburb has never seen before. I just hope they get him.
I've had the guitar blaring today, playing some blues in the lounge room. I'm not quite sure what the neighbors think. You would have to be able to hear it clearly from outside, no-one has ever complained & the Cops are yet to turn up, so maybe it isn't too loud. Maybe they like what they hear! I'm not having a very proficient playing session though, I have nail from my ring finger which has pulled away from the skin underneath from too much string bending. Sounds painful & yes, it is!
I've also taken my guitars on an outside journey for a bit of a photo shoot. A red guitar looks amazing on a rich green grass. The photos on the camera look pretty swish, but the last time my sister brought her minidisk player, she stole my USB cable, so I can't download them. When I do get it back (if she can remember where she put it) I'll put them up here. It's been weeks since she disappeared with it, I know there are some shots of my gumball machine still on the memory card which I promised to post ages ago! Expect a whole lot of photos here soon!
Since, I'm just posting all sorts of odd topics here.... I'm not quite sure what's happening with Blogger. Back in November last year, I passed the 500 post mark, but It hasn't counted the posts since 551. Even in my Profile it shows the posts from November! Has anyone else found this problem, or know a solution?
I'm currently in the market for purchasing some land & I've actually found a lump which may just fit my requirements. It's not huge, but it is expensive, Hey, what land isn't grossly over priced? The advantages are, it's in a convenient location, it's part of eight other blocks in a small "community" estate & if I build some sort of town house, it'll have water views over the Happy Valley Reservoir! Okay, it's not exactly waterfront & I can't jump on a jetski & ride around, but you should be able to see water!
Anyway, here's my rant for today & I'm sure hundreds of other property hunters have come up against the same frustration. The use of the Internet by real estate agents has been fantastic for both buyers & sellers, but why do agents write adds in such a way, that when you search in a specific price bracket, homes valued far beyond that bracket always come up. Some of it is innocent & caused by the filtering of prices picking up errors, but when advertisers place a ad using a really low value & then the full cost in the ads detail, it's bordering on spam. The simple fact of it is, I searched in a particular price bracket because it's realistically what I will be able to afford. Asking me to consider a $500,000+ home is stupid when I'm looking at under $200,000.
I was signed up to an agents property finding scheme which would send me SMS messages direct to my mobile, but I cancelled my registration after they never sent me anything under double the value I was looking for! It's just plain dumb.
While I've written this post, I've again checked out the land I'm chasing only to find it "under offer" from someone else. I've flicked them an email to confirm which block is up for grabs.
For the first week, I was trying to work out the familiarity of the face. The face was an aged version of someone I knew but the voice didn't seem to match my recollection.
When I worked it out, I understood why.
I'm working with a woman who looks like Yeardley Smith, the voice over for Lisa Simpson of The Simpsons. I imagine Yeardley will look like this woman in another 20 years time.
Eighteen people (that have come forward so far) have had rocks & bricks thrown through their windscreens over the past week or so in my area. On Sunday night, one of these missiles put a 25 year old guy in hospital. He spent over nine hours undergoing extensive head & brain surgery.
A few minutes after this incident occurred, another rock was thrown through the windscreen of a guy I worked with a couple of years ago. I found out who it was from the interview played on Triple J last night. It's good to hear people you know getting onto radio, but definitely not under these circumstances. Thankfully, he managed to control the car & only suffered minor injuries to his arm.
The perpetrator of these attacks is a lone male, driving a light coloured car. He's managing to hurl the rocks whilst driving & from my understanding, always at night. Apparently he has been chased on one occasion, but turned his lights off & managed to escape.
The roads the attacks have occurred on include; Kenihans Rd, Manning Rd, Blacks Rd & Happy Valley Drive. I use Happy Valley Drive every day & it's also has the highest speed limit of the roads mentioned. If a rock is thrown from a car travelling at 80kph at a car travelling the opposite direction at 80kph, the speed of impact & chance of getting seriously injured is massive, which has made it damn scary to travel these roads at any time. Other motorists were driving as far as possible from the centre line this morning & I admit I was doing the same, keeping the maximum distance from cars going the opposite way.
Hopefully the Police manage to catch this little fucker before he kills someone. The tragic part will be if a member of the public catches this prick first & takes matters into their own hands. They will be the one up on charges if they hurt him. In my opinion if he is prepared to take the life of someone else, he deserves to be shot on sight. (Personally, I'd like to see the "potato peeler" method of torture used.)
Good luck to everyone working in central Adelaide at the moment, bravely dodging the cyclists in the 2005 Jacob's Creek Tour Down Under. Some of the weaving through traffic I've seen has been absolutely hair-raising, but you can tell they've done it very successfully for years. I'm sure they've tackled far worse traffic throughout the world than anything Adelaide can throw at them.
Around 100 cyclists were riding up Anzac Highway practicing for the race on my way to work. They all bunched up at a set of traffic lights & when the lights turned green, all quickly got back up to speed, except for one out of the corner of my eye who seemed to be struggling. I turned to look at the young guy doing his absolute best to keep up with the pack, on a not out of place bike. I'm sure it was the back pack, the stomach weight disadvantage & the shiney, black work shoes which were possibly not the best equipment for such an exercise. He soon slowed back to his own pace, realising his dream of winning the event was over, long before it had begun.
I picked up a copy of Sim City 4 a couple of weeks ago for $20. I was playing the Sims, but it just seems to take so long to really get anywhere. In my last effort, I managed to get Mr Goth to move out from his wife & daughter & shack up with another bloke! I didn't think it would happen, but it did disturb me somewhat!
Anyway, I'm now hooked on Sim City 4. The frustration of trying to make money & getting those little filthy rich sims to spend their funds on building high-rise buildings just becomes so addictive.
Over the weekend, I had a city which was raking in the money & all the little sims were happy & I was proud to be mayor of such a vibrant colony. That was until all my neighborhood deals for electricity & water disappeared for no apparent reason! Within a minute (or two months Sim time), all the residents had done a runner & I went from a nice profit to getting kicked out of office. Unfortunately, the timing of the last saved game has rendered it impossible to bring it back into shape.
Now, I'm back to building little towns, gradually expanding them until I once again have a massive metropolis & the world conquered. I did contemplate reloading the Sims & trying some other bizarre romantic twist, but watching sims getting more action than myself is just too distressing!
Without being facetious, there is a metal button at each end of any guitar (not just Fenders)& each end of the strap has a hole. Not exactly rocket science to put the two together! I suppose the question should be raised - what on earth is someone like this doing playing a Fender anyway!?! Pure sacrilege!
I also had a search for "spanking & caning" & they will have been horribly disappointed. It's interesting to see the combinations of words from past innocent entries, which if placed in various orders, become complete smut!
e days into the year & after spending my New Year’s Eve screwing around with the site, I haven’t been back since. I’ve been dreading this week & probably more so the next, as the Financial Year ends at the Hotel & the auditors come swarming in around the 10th. So far, it’s all reasonably smooth, but I’ll likely be hairless by the end of it all.
I should be updating on what’s happened after saying I would. A full year summary was the objective, but that would just be rehashing the archives & since 2004 sucked as badly as it did, I feel like avoiding it entirely. After all the issues affecting so many other countries & the countless loss of life after the Indian Ocean earthquake, most personal problems can be over shadowed as rather petty.
Christmas was the usual family affair & I’m now the owner of a rather funky gumball machine, from my sister of course. She filled it with all sorts of lollies & had it set to require payment before the handle can be turned. It’ll only take 5 or 10 cent pieces, so let’s just say that I’m searching everywhere for loose change!
The staff Christmas bash was held down at Glenelg at my old place of work. Not a huge crowd, virtually no food, but plenty of alcohol provided for a great night. It didn’t go too long either, just long enough for everyone to get to that happy point of intoxication. Seeing your colleagues dancing (or attempting to) can really give some nice highlights to the evening.
Normally, I’d be livid if I didn’t go out for New Year’s, but as I mentioned, all I did was play around with this site & watch the Sydney fireworks on the telly. Even the ending of those were a flop, which I think summed up the night. Not that it was a bad NYE, but I just don’t think anyone was really fired up for a big night. The opportunities to get blotto were available, but I was far more content to escape the crowds, drunkenness & the early morning drive home & just sit around enjoying the fact that 2005 had finally arrived.
