I know that i haven’t posted as of late (I have been slack) and I thought it a fitting time to finally release the full plans for my trip to the USA. I will not post a day to day itinerary as yet but I will reveal the overall plan.  On the 30th of August 2007 I will be leaving this country on my own (for the first time) and heading over to that wonderful place East of here (or is it West… stupid International Date line), the United States of America.

I will be heading over for my 2nd ever trip to the Country but this time I won’t be 13 and I won’t have my mum or grandmother telling me what I can do or see (not that I didn’t enjoy my last trip).  The trip is planned around 2 Contiki Tours, Grand Southern and Big Apple Explorer.  Grand Southern starts in Los Angeles (really Anaheim) and finishes 24 Days later in New York.  Big Apple Explorer is a 4 day Tour of New York City (the Big Apple).  I will be spending a couple of days pre tour in Anaheim visiting Michelle, Elm and Kenna as I have not seen them since July. It will be good to catch up.

Along the way I get to visit some places like Dallas, Las Vegas (oooooo yeah :D), Memphis and Washington DC.  A couple of things I am hoping I will get a chance to see on this trip will be:

  • American Football (whether it be College or NFL I don’t care.  Would love to go to a real game).
  • Shuttle Launch (there is one scheduled for “Some time in Fall” which means they don’t have a date
  • Meeting plenty of new people
  • Getting Drunk in Vegas
  • Eating a Hot Dog in the street in New York
  • Visiting the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

This is a trip that I think I have put off for so long, probably since I was 18.  I have made the decision to do it and I am going.  Work has approved my leave, flights are paid for in full (way back in November when i booked), Deposits have been paid.  Now the countdown begins.  This will probably be a trip of a life time for me (and possibly my last Contiki for a while).

At the top of my site from now on a Countdown will show with how long till I leave (30th August).  I will update as time goes on (though for the moment it could be quite boring as not much of the trip is happening although closer to the date it will begin to pick up as more preparations begin.  At present full blown saving is in effect (cept not this week it seems, as I’m going to Gold Coast tommorrow, Whitsundays on Thursday and then Sydney on 24 April (like 10 days away).

Let me know if you think of anything specific I should do in the USA while I am there!

What an afternoon. How else could you spend a lazy sunday afternoon than rushing through Brisbane city following a group of Zombies trying to get photos. What the hell am I talking about I can hear you thinking. Well today was the Annual Brisbane Zombie walk (no this is not an April fools joke). There was quite a lot of people congregated at the Roma St Parklands Ampitheatre, patiently getting themselves ready, covered in fake blood, ready and waiting for a trumpet call. When the trumpet call came so did a giant groan from all those around. It was a sight to behold. Several hundred zombies massing to the stage ready to be lead off to their end destination.

Once the zombies were assembled it was as though it was also time for the photographers to assemble. It was a sight to see. Several hundred zombies and a lot of cameras. There was only one TV station there (Channel 10) but there was a few cops to help along the walk. I was really their to support my friend Blair and Ben (also known as scythe and Franger respectively). Myself along with Nat, Andie and Jono followed this line of zombies all the way to the end and it was just a site to behold. At one stage the line of zombies stretched along Edward st from the Corner of Elizabeth St all the way up to the Corner of Adelaide St. Thats two city blocks. All the way plenty of moans and groans and wierd looks from onlookers.

After the walk was over a group of us went to go for a drink. Sadly the bouncers at the Victory were absolute dicks. They wouldn’t let my friends in because they didn’t fit the dress standards (they had closed in shoes, long pants). All because of a little fake blood. So we went to the Exchange and had a drink their instead (which is funny because the Victory usually lets everyone in and i mean everyone).

In the end almost 500 photos later and a lot of walking done I am stuffed. I feel like a good sleep but Band of Brothers is on tonight so much watch.

In other news went out to dinner last night with Ross, Suzanne, Brendan and Amanda (an old friend from tafe) and it was good to get out and socialize and not be a shut in for a night even though being a shut in is what I should be doing at the moment. Going to probably book my flights to Sydney tommorrow so that should be fine. Hopefully I can pull it off to get the Tuesday off work (day before Anzac Day) so that I can fly down to Sydney on QF176 which is an International Flight. Would mean that I can do some spotting in Sydney in the morning and see how things go, but it will depend. If it turns out I’m scheduled to have that weekend off i might just keep it. I dunno yet. We shall see.

A copy of the Video aired on Channel 10 tonight located here

2007 Zombie Walk

Well today was the first day of my new resolution to get myself a bit more in shape before heading to the USA. I want to be able to walk a lot further without feeling like utter crap. So with that every sunday (dependant upon work if i have to work a sunday i’ll just change the days) i will be walking a good 45 mins or so (around 3-4k). The route that i will take and can very depending upon how much time it will take takes me along the notorious Kedron Bike Path (i think someone got stabbed on it) and through the lovely back streets of Everton Park. If i start picking up my time ill just extend my route on the bike path longer or maybe do a one way on the bike path (which is 6.8k).

I can tell you what though, it’s tiring, cause i feel like utter shit at the moment although better than when i walked in. I think i need better shoes cause the ones i was wearing are killing my feet. Might have to go get new ones. But my time to beat next week is 46mins 41 seconds. I am not sure really how much it is gonna do each week but I am hoping it at least will help me feel like I am not going to die every time i have to walk somewhere.

Other news this week, Ross an old friend of mine is off to Brunei for about a week (bastard) and he gets a free upgrade to Business class. So if you know anyone travelling from Brunei to Brisbane next sunday, tell them to go Business class… muahahahaha (sorry buddy but its just unfair :P). Last night I was at Flora’s birthday party of which I will upload some photos later on. It was good although i piked early cause i was feeling tired after working since 8am yesterday. Flora was up belly dancing and so was Nav (which was hilarious).

The spotting photos have been updated on my webspace with 6 new shots taken this week while chasing the China Eastern charter. One day soon i might go down and try and chase the China Airlines A330-200 and see if I can get it. Also Eva Air i still don’t have. Now that I have the Emirates 773 and the Thai 772 new colours I need something new to chase (that is apart from Brunei’s RBK & RBF for Ross).

*edit*

Flora’s Birthday
Spotters Photos

Well saturday night was a fantastic night. It was the annual OCAU Cakes of the Pan (pancake) Scoff. It was a fantastic night, partying, eating and drinking. I went out with $100 came home with $6 and i remember each and every little bit of it. The night was so much fun. Daniel (navillus) came up from Sydney for just the night so that was great it was as though it was a repeat of the Sydney meet with Me, Flora, Erin and Nav out partying again. But this time i got to party with all of my other friends. We started the night with the “collective” at the casino. I was only expecting a few people for some pre dinner drinks. turned out to be 20 people. Was like sweet this is gonna be a good night. By the time we got to pancakes the numbers were up to 56. Pancakes was great i fed myself stupid with pancakes and it only cost me $8.50. Had some drinks below pancakes at the Knight Bar and then we headed off to Union Jacks for some cheap drinks and good music and dancing.

The podium was danced on by many including me and It was at Union Jacks that i began drinking some more Gin. Now while i was in Sydney i tried Gin for the first time. It tastes damn good with some Tonic water and some lemon. Around midnight we were still at Union Jacks and it was at this point that Yena joined us. Yena is an old friend that I met also online but on a different website. She is a beautiful and intelligent girl who knows how to party and one of her goals in life was to get me drunk. Well after we left union jacks and went to the Exchange she got her wish. I was plastered as I danced away drinking more Gin but this time at Yena’s suggestion with Juice, which is apparently very Gangsta (I googled it when i got home and its from a Snoop Dog song). I had a fantastic night and I enjoyed partying with Yena which I havent done in quite some time and it was good to have a final night out partying and spending $$$. Finished the night out at the casino where we finished off with $3 Daiquris and a touch more dancing.

Now that Saturday is all over its now back to being more serious with my life. I need to start saving for this trip to the states. My goal is $500 per fortnight (i get paid fortnightly) into my ING savings for my trip to the USA. I have $5k owing on this trip (which i have saved at the moment) and i need about another $6k AUD for spending money (equates to roughly $5k USD). That should be enough $$ to keep me going in the USA for a full month. I am also planning to get back into some more exercise and that means once my leg is no longer so bad will be back to Zone 3 every weekend. For the moment (if my right foot doesnt get any worse) it will be steps and plenty of them. I have 18 steps in the front of the house 10 in the back. So i’ll be doing plenty of steps in the house.

In other news I have had some more info on the Doubletrouble front (see previous post). An old friend from high school (who obviously reads this blog) has sent me some links to their myspace. So messages have been sent and we shall see what happens. Stay tuned. 😀

So i was on my way to work this morning sitting at the station when i run into an old teacher of mine from high school (i have forgotten his name but from here on out we will call him Mr B). So we were chatting about stuff and he lets me know that two girls I went to high school with who i was kinda friends with are now working on tv in Malaysia. I was thinking to myself this afternoon about the old high school days and thought, well if they are anything like most australian TV celebs or shows they would have a myspace. WRONG.

Back to the drawing board. So old faithful. Into google their names go and first hit I get is the MTV Asia boards. I’m like wtf MTV. So i look into it more and apparently they are VJ’s on MTV. Reading through find a podcast and listen to the voices and it sounds very familiar and can hear the kinda voices i remember for high school. I looked everywhere for a contact email or something like that and i was dissapointed to find nothing.

So i went to the contact us part and found the public relations side of MTV Asia. I have now sent them an email to see if I can contact them and say high to some old friends from high school with their new celebrity status. So i will keep my friends up to date of what happens. lets see if BigMal can contact the DoubleTrouble.

btw their link

http://www.mtvasia.com/doubletrouble/

So I finished reading the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster the other day and it is definately an interesting read. It makes you think, What if there is something out there that created the universe that is not the so called “God.” Reading through it they made very good points about how the world was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) and that it was created the way that he thinks we should be and manipulates the earth how he sees fit. I am not in anyway poking fun of the beliefs of others (thats not something a Pastafarian does) but I mean you have to admit they have some good points.

For those that don’t know much about the FSM he is a flying monster made of spaghetti (and two meatballs). He looks down from Heaven on us and any time and when we think that we have proven he does not exist he plays with the results to ensure that we will still believe. Heaven is where the Beer Volcano and Stripper Factory are and when we speak about the FSM we should be wearing the clothing of our prophets the Pirate.

I happen to like this “religion” simply for the fact its something different. Theres no real strict laws or anything to follow other than the 8 “We really rather you didn’ts” or that at least once a month I should be eating Spaghetti and on a friday drink my fair share of Grog and chase some booty like the pirate that I should be (although not so sure about the boat thing).

O for the life of a Pirate with my Parrott on my shoulder and my Grog in my hand, My wench beside me off searching the world for my booty (not that sort of booty.. sickos).

Heh i know i know i have been slack. I sware one day soon someone will come up and slap me till i update. Last weekend was definately something to talk about. I went to the Sydney OCAU Pub Crawl. For anyone who doesnt know what OCAU is, it is one of the largest online communities in Australia. It is a community with a common love of computers. Most people on this website love computers and we do our best to be sociable and not act like nerds or anything.

So anyway I flew down to sydney last friday night, missed out on VH-VBP, one of Virgin Blue’s Live2air aircraft (bastards). Stayed at the Vibe Hotel Sydney and was meant to stay in this lovely room with a King Size bed and spa bath but they ended up upgrading me to a Junior Suite (had a queen size bed and no spa, but a seperate living area). It was a pretty nice room. After spending saturday randomly moving about the city waiting for people i was meant to meet to call me but that never happened so I ended up meeting up with Flora, Erin and Kevin at around 6ish (stupid daylight savings down there is so trippy) for what would be the start of the pub crawl. We had dinner and a drink at the Star Bar in central sydney then caught the train to Circular Quay for the official start at a place called Jacksons on George. As we walked into the pub i saw a sign saying “Polestars in training” i was like damn i like this place (turns out later on they also have a cage for girls to dance in as well which i missed out on seeing). Met a heap of the sydney people who i dont really remember the names of most of them now, stupid alcohol.

After several drinks at Jacksons (tried a Gin and Tonic in a can on the flight down to sydney and it wasn’t bad so i got a real one at jacksons and its DAMN nice) we moved onto The Orient further into the Rocks. It was an ok pub but nothing special i guess. From there we took the big stab at the crawl. Everyone was spouting some ratio crap that they wont let guys in without girls (sure doesnt happen up here in brisbane). We headed for the Lowenbrau Keller. OMG this place is awesome. We have nothing like this in brisbane. Its a german beer house, Steins, Leiderhousen and Om Pa Pah music (i hope i spelt that right). After walking to the bar and seeing this massive line then realising i have no clue what to order i saw a random girl with some form of beer menu so i asked her if i could see it, this in turn ended up becoming a random meet for the night and we ended up talking. Eva and (cant remember his name) were both at the Lowenbrau for a good time and we gonna hit some more pubs as well so I invited them to join us. From the lowenbrau, Myself, Erin, Navillus (daniel), Kevin, Flora and the randoms headed for the Lord Nelson. Trudged along this dark street to the middle of no where to a pub that ended up being closed (turns out lord nelson is a micro brewery so i wish it had been open) and from their trudged back towards the Rocks and up this long steep staircase to a pub called the Glenmore. Trudged up this even longer staircase almost dieing but the time i got to the top and saw this specatcular view of the harbour. Got booted off the rooftop of the glenmore met up with another one of the crawlers (GTX) and headed back to the Circular Quay maccas. From their we headed to the Ship Inn (right next to our Sydney Office) and from their i waited half an hour for a taxi to go back to the hotel).

Twas a good night till the next morning when i woke up and found that it hurt like a sunofabitch to move my right leg. I could walk without to much discomfort but lifting the leg and walking up and down steps was painful. So anyway i got myself home and on monday went to the doctors. At some stage on Saturday night i have pulled my Groin muscle. This is similar to a footballers injury but i have no clue how the hell i did it. So it means a return to Zone is out of the question for a couple of weeks while it heals.

Anyway thats it for today. Brother arrives tommorrow *sigh*

I know its been a while since I updated. I was promptly pointed out today at work by Bianca (happy now) that I should update my website so she has something to read after she finishes work. I did happen to reply I’ve been lazy. But really it is definately laziness. Lately I have just come home from work and just started playing 2142 or watched “TV.”

Last week was very different at the Star Night. I got myself thoroughly trashed, tried not to make a fool of myself infront of the girls from Stella (Nat, Andrea if your reading this and i said or did something stupid you have my sincerist apoligies). I really don’t remember how much beer I drank that night (i think it was 6 schooners in 3 hours) but i do remember the two shots. Last friday night I was out at Blair’s poker night and came home with $35 which was awesome. Tommorrow night will be an experience. My dad is getting presented with his Defence Forces Medal (i think thats the right one) from when he was in the CMF (the old reserves). That’s at Parliment House tommorrow, so after work i have to quickly make my way up to the mall to meet mum and dad and walk up from there.

Friday is Australia day. The day of all things Aussie (or if your sam kekovitch.. lamb lamb and more lamb). It also means that I get a day off work to be slack and do nothing, also the Triple J Hottest 100 (which again i was to lazy to vote in) and also apparently a party. Saturday and Sunday are gonna be huge though. its time for MOTHERLAN! Thats right in soviet russia lan attends you. Which means i spend all of saturday & sunday gaming with 170 other people and just plain enjoying myself. Fragging at its greatest.

Ok ill do a better update after motherlan and a mini review. for now i feel like watching Numb3rs.

When i first started my current Job, a joke was made in training that my computer was my girlfriend.  Well the funny thing is that no matter what i can never fault my pc.

After the last rebuild when Fridge died (last pc was named fridge because when switched on one day the Temp display showed -4°C) the newest PC needed a name.  I usually name my pc’s something around a look or even a quality of the pc.  For this one when i was carrying it, she weighed what felt like a tonne and was a massive case as well almost as big as a cow.  So i felt it was appropriate to name my pc what is a common name for a cow.  Bessie.

Now Bessie is a lovely machine.  She looks sexy in her Termaltake Soprano case with her half nakedness showing thanks to her perspex window which shows just enough of her inside goodies to make any technophile feel happy.  She sits resplendant originally with 2 x 17″ Benq LCD’s.  Sitty their nice and shiny.  Now one of the LCD’s one day decided to have a problem.  So i thought id be a good boyfriend and give Bessie a face lift.  She now sits happily after neatening her insides, fixing the power meter so it actually stays still and then added to that 2 x 20″ Dell Widescreen LCD’s.  These are like giving a girl a boob job so she looks sexy.

But the thing is, spending time with dear old Bessie relax’s me and people look at me wierd when i say I have named my pc.  Thing is, its totally common.  People name their cars why can’t I name my pc without looking like a wierdo?  In today’s world where technology runs rampant and the technophile is no longer looked down upon as a wierdo, why can’t people accept that a computer is not just a tool, it is a piece of your life.  How else can you communicate with friends, family or even randoms on the other side of the world.  Would life not be easier to share photos on the internet with your friends than having to send them endless copies of photos in the post which could possibly get lost on the way.

The more I look at the world of today the happier I am.  I feel like I can be myself more than I used to.  Being a technophile is no longer a dirty word it is something to be proud of.  Sadly i wish i had more of the knowledge towards IT and was able to earn the big $$$ that are in Tech at the moment but that will never happen.

If you want to see a photo of Bessie in all her sexiness go here.