Minimalist Dong

I just found a $5 note trapped under a bush near my mailbox.

It's a small thing, but maybe the universe is going to start being nice to me again. That'd really be appreciated, universe.

Worst. Day. Ever. So I figured I'd whine about it in my blog. That's what it's for, right?

Well, not really worst ever, but it's the worst one recently, so it gains extra points for proximity.

Started with me being empty-headed and forgetting to take stuff to work. Fortunately (or not so much) Eris was not at school due to feeling unwell, so Lisa took her to my mum's and dropped stuff off on the way. Yay Lisa.

Read about a truck crashing into a train about the time I was going to leave, and decided to let things settle for an hour or so before heading out on the road.

Never made it to the road, because one of my tyres was flat. When going to change it, it transformed from a momentary inconvenience into a major problem. All the wheel nuts except one came loose easily. The last one, as I strained to turn it, stripped into something more circular than hexagonal, leaving nothing to turn it with.

I decided to say "fuck it" at this point, and walked to the bus stop at Monash, deciding not to wait around for the RACV, since all I wanted was food and a beer. Got to Clayton station and boarded a train that smelled of wee. Got to Flinders Street and found no indication of a Werribee train on anything. Wandered to platform 5, where it was revealed that the next Werribee train was half a fucking hour away.

Two minutes later, a train pulls up under a "not taking passengers" display, which then briefly flickers into the magical word "Werribee" and details its plans to leave in two minutes. Good thing I didn't give up and go and get the drink I was craving.

Board the train, get a seat, huge person squeezes me up against the wall, which I take with gentle good humour. At least I'm going in the right direction.

Drunk guy on the train explains to anyone listening that, "trains can move electricity at one hundred miles an hour -- that's the same class as car speeds".

Disembark at Newport, aforementioned drunk guy and another drunk guy decide to fight on the platform. Williamstown train arrives. Three Connex "inspectors" or whatever the hell they are, are onboard. A couple of people indicate the fight on the platform. Mumbling, they move down the other end of the train and thank us for informing them. I never see them again. What the hell are they for? Oh yeah, revenue protection.

Finally meet Lisa for dinner. She listens to me whine about stuff, we eat, talk about life and stuff, eat good food, drink beers, I feel a bit better.

I have some sort of plan to recover my car on Wednesday. I don't need it this weekend. I've got four days off, and they better be an improvement on my fucking week so far.

Two sleeps until I get to hug my daughter. That always helps.

I've been sick as hell for the last few days, so really wasn't in the mood to run the "how to vote" gauntlet at the Williamstown by-election today. I just sort of de-focused, marched in, got my ballot and left.

Of course, now that it's too late, I wish it'd gone something like this ...

"Look, I've got the flu and I'm not in the mood to talk about my preferences. Unless ... is there someone here from Family First? You guys make me sick, and I'd like to return the favour."

Oh, and can someone tell me how to title-case French phrases properly? I'm too brain-dead to even think about it right now.

Maybe it's the hangover, but I had to read this four times to be sure I'd read what I thought I'd read.

"Our environmental scanning tells us that even with some of the cloning of human beings ... you could have potentially a cloned part-person, part-robot"

-- Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty

Ladies, if a domineering gentleman ever tells you to "grow a brain", you will!

Well, I'm here. Not a lot to report. Went to my first workshop on scripting in OS X, which was amazingly informative and filled in a lot of little blank spots in what I'd worked out so far. I expect the amount of tiny little OS X applications I produce to increase (from "none" to "some") soon.

I'm staying at the Mercure Sydney again. I love that hotel, I really do. For those of you who need a little more jealousy in your lives (you know who you are), here are some photos.

My Humble Room


The View From My Balcony

In about 8 hours, I'll be getting on a train and heading for Sydney. It's a work thing, so I doubt I'll see much of the place outside of the conference, but what the hell.

Once I get net access sorted out, I'll post pictures here for the vicarious enjoyment of you all. I'll be back Saturday morning.

I could answer the above question easily if I knew if the word for when you're feeling ecstatic, terrified yet optimistic, somewhat uncertain, elated, worried and astounded all at the same time.



If it exists, it's probably a German word. They're good at summing up that kind of thing.



I think I'll have to forgo honest replies to that question for the moment and just stick with, "Fine, thanks!"

HOW MANY FUCKING TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL WINDOWS I USE A4 PAPER BEFORE IT'LL FUCKING PRINT SOMETHING WITHOUT ASKING FOR LETTER PAPER?

...

And don't get me started on how it creates a new printer config every time I do something CRAZY AND INSANE like plug my printer into a different USB port than I did last time.

I took some photos of a new server at work that turned out to be a little more popular than I anticipated. Apparently an awful lot of people, many of them with Digg accounts, like looking at pictures of 128 gigabytes of RAM. The flood of viewers killed my web server.

There are a lot of nerds out there. Me included.