I would like to thank everyone who sent me cards/gifts so far! It's been
a great birthday and you guys have made it the best one in twenty years.

I had an awesomely great time a the "all Canada" BBQ on Sunday night. Anthony
and I went down at around 6:30 and were amazed at the number of people there!
I honestly didn't think there were going to be this large of a turnout! I had
a great time, everything was free (except for the $2.20 can of coke) and the
entertainment was good. I was able to meet some atheletes like Karen Cockburn,
Daniel Nestor, and some members of the Softball team.

They had the CBC on the televisions as well as copies of the National Post. It
was just like being back home :) It was so weird hearing everyone talk with a
Canadian accent, I had gotten so used to the Aussie one. Blue Rodeo was there
again (blah) as well as some other no name Canadian bands :) All in all we had
a good time, didn't leave until around 12am.

I just an e-mail from my ex landlord, we wants me to go laptop shopping with
him on Thursday.

It's still raining outside - has been for the past two days or so. I guess its only
expected since it hasn't rained in about 3 weeks.

*yawn* So early - but I figured I would write in my journal today because I have been
lacking in updates this past week.

On Friday, Chrissy came down to the city with the plan of sleeping over at my place. She
is visiting from Perth and was staying at Andys' house for the week. We decided to meet at
Town Hall (like the rest of the city). She gave be birthday card and some cool

chocolate/butterscotch
thingys.

We walked all over the city, went to the Opera House so that Chrissy could take some photos.
There was this one Olympic volunteer dude that insisted on taking a photo of us together. If
we refused, he would have probably cried - was just soo eager to help out the "tourists". We then
took the super long way to Darling Harbour to get some food (and take more pictures). The place
was PACKED! Chrissy and I split up and decided to meet at the "currency exchange place". I waited
about 15 min in line before I was able to get my yummy chicken kebab. I had to wait for Chrissy
for another 10 min at the "currency exchange place" before she came out with some nachos. Thats
when Andy called and told Chrissy that his parents aren't coming home that night and that she
can go back to his house and spend the night there instead. So we got some shopping done and headed
back to my place.

Yesterday (Saturday) was a pretty uneventful day. Got up at around 11:30 (like today) and bummed
around on the net and got some work done. I was supposed to meet Kristy and Anthony at Town Hall
at 8:30pm that night. Kristy called and canceled, so it was just Anthony and I going out for my
Birthday. I msged Anthony on IRC to let him know that we should go for dinner first and meet at
Town Hall at 7pm instead of 8:30.

We ate at Nandos (heh, Anthony was naive enough to assume that X-Hot was not going to be hot) and
chatted for a little bit. Then headed off to The Moose Lodge for some beers. Got there at around
7:45, there was no line up! All amazed and happy, we decided to head for the door, then the bouncer
d00d told us to wait and start a line. About 10 minutes past and I peer behind me, the line has
grown to about 50-75 people - so NICE!

I was here last thursday just to see what its all about. The story behind this place is that its
only a temporary thing, for the olympics. There are 3 of those huge moose (the ones that you see
in the streets of Toronto) as well as a booth for the Toronto '08 bid (not to mention the million
of Canadian Flags everywhere). This is where all the Canadian athletes hang out for a drink and
stuff. When I was tehre on Thursday night, Blue Rodeo was playing live! They have some pretty cool
tunes, and everyone was dancing. It's kinda cool, because I would have all these aussies coming
up to me asking who this band is and stuff. Before Blue Rodeo started playing, the DJ was playing
all Canadian tunes, mostly from the Barenaked Ladies. Again, Aussies were interrogating me about
the name of the songs and why they were called the "Barenaked Ladies".

Anyways, Anthony and I were there until about 3am, drinking, talking, having a good time. We got
passes to "Le Grand Concert Canadien" which gives US a free BBQ and Canadian beer. Labatts is doing
a lot of sponsering stuff, so you can't really get anything else but Labatt Blue at these places.
So my little wrist band is full of those Labatt Blue smiley faces and is what entitles me to the
Free BBQ and beer.

I wont bother explaining all the stuff that happened to my hat that night....

At around 3am we went to Star City casino, where Anthony gave me a mini tour of the place. As well
we headed to the bar and he got me to try a drink called "Green Chartrouse" (probably spelt wrong).

The cool thing about the Olympics is that the city is just as busy 4am then it is at 8pm. A lot of
the bars are open 24/7, the public transportation is running all night too! I am having a great
time, even though Canada is doing poorly at the events Canadians all over Sydney still have that
spirit.

What an awesome day!

I got up at 7am this morning, packed all my stuff, got dressed and headed out to Olympic
Park. I got there at around 8:30, plenty of time to take a look around and pass through
security. You would have to be a pretty big moron to get lost in this place, signs are
everywhere. Security was a joke too! I passed through the metel detector and the people forgot
to check my bag - all I hear from behind me is "sir, sir!!" and the security lady running
after me with your magic scanning wand thing.

They had these people from Kodak taking HEAPS of pictures of people in and around the large
Olympic Flame. I didn't bother waiting around for one to be free, so I just snapped a picture
and headed for some brekky and McDonalds. $5 for an Orange juice and an bacon egg McMuffin.

The game was great (even though we lost). I had an excellent time, the croud was excellent.
Canadians out numbered the french at least 3 to 1. I met up with this one girl who is from
Alberta and we watched the game together. I just happen to glance up at the Jumbotron thingy
and notice I was on it! Both her and I went crazy and did our "go Canada" thing. I didn't
really think much of it afterwords, until I came home. I hopped on the computer and saw a lot
of ICQ messages. Three people saw me on TV! I was pretty shocked, I just hope someone taped
it.

One of the things that I did notice about the place, is the abundance of solar panels. The
Aussies do like their sun, and everything from golf carts to freezers to stoves are powered
by solar panels located all over the park.

I still can't beleive there is another week of this Olympic stuff - sheesh!

My plans for tonight are a little hazy, I want to see a movie - just not sure which one. This
weekend I will be going out doing the bar/club thing for my birthday. I just invited a buch
of people to come. Apparantly there is this bar exclusive to Canadians in Darling Harbour
which I want to check out.

If anyone saw me on the CBC last night I would love to hear from you!

Its been a crazy week, and will probably contine to be so for the next 4 or 5 weeks.

Work is fun, but keeping me busy - been pulling the long hours this week - with 4 out
of the five days consisiting of over 10 hours of work. Those 10 hours go by fast though
I enjoy what I am doing a lot. The only thing that I don't really like doing it getting to
and from work. The Commute sucks large, about 45 min in the morning, and about an hour and
a half on the way back. I usually read my book (Currently in the middle of Cryptonomicon)
but I get bus sick way too fast. The smell of Australian traffic makes me so sick in the
mornings. Especially on Epping Rd, during traffic everyone on the bus opens the windows
and the fumes just come crawling in. That coupled with the jerky start and stopping of the
bus just makes me want to puke.

Last night (after work) Kristy, Anthony, and I headed out to Pascals house to hangout. I
(of course) brought along a case of beer, as been tradition since I first went to Pascals
house last March. Gavin rented a buch of movies we didn't really end up watching (except
for Grosse Point Blank). I got to meet Andrews new girlfriend, Melanie. She's pretty cool
infact - I would say she is 95% Kristen. Looks a lot like her, except she's got an aussie
accent :) She's pretty cool. Didn't get home until around 1am or so, Gavin gave me a lift
since he was driving Kristy home anyways.

I don't have plans for this weekend - Saturday I am just going to relax, sleep in and
probably help Anthony with sovietarmy.com. Sunday I am off to work so either way I am going
to be on the computer. Which reminds me - I haven't really told anyone what my plans are
when I get back to Canada. Well, I am going to use the money I am making from work to buy
myself a laptop. The computer that I am using now (my desktop) I am going to sell the
monitor before I leave, because I dont want to haul it back to Canada. The actuall box, I
am going to co-locate it with Bryans machine at 151 Bay Street. I am going to start my
own little hosting company. I still need a name though :/ I know a lot of people who are
looking for a box to store their stuff on. Plus with Gords little company we go hand in
hand.

*falls asleep*

Right.. uhh yeah so now its Saturday night. I went to the travel agent today to book my
flight home. If nothing changes anytime soon, it looks like I will be back in Canada on
February 16th. I would have loved to have gotten into the city at a later time (so that
someone can pick me up at the airport), but the latest I could get was 3:20pm. Thats not
too bad I guess - at least I have the weekend to get over the timezone change and unpack
and stuff. Its going to be both good and sucky that I am going back home. I am kinda excited
to see everyone again, but I know I am going to miss Australia a lot :(

Chrissy also checked with her parents and according to them its fine for me to spend a week
with them. Which is good, I am going to be in Perth between Dec 20th and Dec 27th. The ticket
will be around $600 or so - which isn't too bad considering the flight is comperable to
flying from Toronto to Vancouver... about 5000kms. I am going to come back to Sydney for
New Years. From that point on - I don't know what I am going to do. I want to head up north
but I am not sure if I will have enough money. Well I will have enough money, but I want to
bring around $2k back home to Canada with me.

*about 5 hours later*




Yay! I keep getting sidetracked with this thing. Andrews new girlfriend (well sorta) and I
have been planning a little party

*about 4 days later*

I keep on getting getting disctracted :) Its still raining, and will continue to do so until
Monday. I feel like I am in Vancouver. It has been nonstop since Monday. Its not like its
really heavy, or really light - just medium constant rain. I think its all the rain that
broke my telephone line - which is why I havn't been online at all. There is a LOT of static
on the line and my modem cant connect. So I have been able to connect at 2400bps. For you
non techies out there - lets just see how slow that really is:

Your cable modem is around 150 000 000 bps (bits per second)

56k Is actually 56 000 bps

2400 is well, 2 400 bps

So the maxiumum I can download/upload stuff is 0.2 kb/s as opposed to around 4.8 kb/s. No
mp3s for me! ;).

It looks like my contract at work has been extended to December 22nd. Which is good I guess,
but that also means I have to change the date I was originally going to fly into Perth.
It works out in the end because Chrissy (the chix0r I am staying with) said "Hey Blake! Do
you think you could come on the 23rd instead of the 20th?". So I am going to probably buy
my ticket in two weeks, since what I got paid this week is going to the rent I owe (which is
about a month or so). Chrissy rocks too. She has this whole thing planned out for me, I can't
wait to get there! I am making a small list of the things I want to see when I go, and I will
be giving it to her sometime this weekend.

I don't have any plans for this weekend. Andrew and I are going out after work today for
dinner and to just chill. I might be going to his place on Saturday or something - haven't
been there for a REALLY long time. Just hang out - drink some Strongbow and watch South
Park :)

Ahhh yes, the Telstra d00d just showed up - trying to fix my telephone line. He is more or
less doing what the other two did. Brings out his fancing tracing equipment, only to rule
out that its now HIS problem because its not inside the house :) I told him he would be
wasting his time, but of course they "have to make sure". All of the Telstra d00ds that have
come to my place are pretty cool people. They let me hang around them, ask them the tech
questions push the buttons, etc.. Only took him a week to get out here though :/. I noticed
that all the junctions are stored underground in the sidewalk. So what happens when it rains
is that the boxes get full of water. Andrew reckons that his modem disconnects when there is
bad weather - I can believe him. Its been raining for the past week or so, and my line gets
fucked up - conincidence? I think not. The Telstra d00d was saying that all the splicing and
connecting is done with waterproof tape as well as these neat little jel screw thingies.

Annnnnyyyways - yes I am still alive (barely) just been really busy. I havn't had that much
time for my self lately, so its been a pretty crazy two weeks or so.
**Another Few Days Later**

My CD arrived in the mail! I ordered a cd from hmv.co.uk, it was the cheapest place, even
with the exchange rate! I got the Snatch Soundtrack - a really good CD. Yesterday I went over
to Andrews place to just hang out - was nice to get away for the city for a bit. I also paid
my rent yesterday, all months worth :) Landlord was happy - I was also able to buy some RAM
for my aging computer. My next big purchases are going towards my trip to Perth, including
the plane ticket ($500), spending money ($300) and Christmas presents.

Today I plan on doing some laundry, (finally) updating my journal - going to meet Andrew for
lunch later today. He is at work today. I am also going to write a letter to people back
home - Especially my grandmother. She wrote me again and I still haven't replied to her first
letter yet.




I am not using ICQ anymore - so if you need to get in touch with me, e-mail is going to have
to be the way to go :) I will be posting some new pictures soon (as soon as I get my camera
back), the city has gone into Christmas mode and there are some pretty nifty things going on.

I had to leave Andrews BBQ early yesterday, because I had some work to
do. I still had a great time though, got to see everyone again. Andrew
took some pictures of me which I will post as soon as he sends me a copy.

Today was another normal day as usual, except this time my computer broke
at work. Tomorrow is going to suck because I have no computer to do my
job. I was also hoping to be able to pick up my tickets today, but thanks
to the shitty Australian banks my cheque still hasn't cleared. I am
planning on getting up at 6am and head down to the ticket office to be
one of the first people in line. The box office opens at 8am so I hope
I can get my ticket then still make it in time for work. I have a few
options:

Basketball (Womens):


Canada Vs. France on Wednesday


Canada Vs. Slovakia on Friday

Basketball (Mens):


Canada Vs. Spain on Thursday

So my options are there if I something is sold out when I get there.
Those are the only sports that are left (and that I can afford at $45)
that are at Olympic Park.

I am going to take a shower and head down to Darling Harbour for the
night, going to watch some more Olympic stuff on the large screen TV (not
to mention the fireworks too :P~)

I just realized while I was washing my hair that I need to get up early
tomorrow morning - there goes my plans of going into the city.

There is nothing like waking up the sounds of the Glebe Market jazz music
at 1:30 on a sunny Saturday afternoon!

I wanted to watch the Womens Canadian basketball team play against Australia.
I only had one problem, no television. I decided to head out to the city and
catch a glimpse of the game on one of the many large screen TVs located around
the city.

Iced cream in had, I found a nice seat on the grassy hill and watched the
Australia Vs. USA Volleyball game and the Canada Vs. Australia basket ball game.
Thats where I saw these guys:

They kept the place alive, even though Canada was getting slaughtered by the
Aussies.

It was a short, but nice day! Got some sun (yes, my tan is improving) and fresh
air. Tomorrow I am off to Andrews place for a nice Lunch BBQ with a bunch of
friends. Tonight I am staying in to get some work done - have to get a few
things finished for BPI.

Monday, I am going to go see if I can get some tickets to a Handball game or
anygame for that matter being held at the olympic stadium. I want to get in
there and see what its all about - if its anything like what I have seen so far
it should be twice as fun!

humm, yeah, so I just got home and its 4:40 am in the morning. I had a GREAT
time tonight - heaps of fun! I am so glad I didn't leave the city during the
olympics.

It all started with a call from Kristy at work. She wanted me to go to a party
her boss was having. Being the all around cool guy that I am, I decided to say
yes - plus I didn't have anything planned for tonight. We got to the party
and everyone! (yes, including the dog) was in their Green and Gold outfits with
the aussie flags plastered all over the faces. There was a nice large TV screen
/projector thingy set up tuned onto channel 7 for the opening Ceremony.

It was great, we all had a blast. The show was good. The fact that it was all
women (and four at that, with one in a wheel chair) was the coolest thing that
anyone has done. I think the Aussies are trying to push women to compete more
in the Olympic games, this certainly was the right way to go.

We headed back to the city (Kristy and I) to meet up with Gavin, Anthony, Veg
and James to go bar hopping. This is where the fun began! We had to stop off
at Gavins work, so Gavin went up and the rest of us sat down on the steps
waiting for him. During this 10 minute span I had:

1 person shake my hand saying "thanks"


1 person give me a high five and said "like the hat"

The first bar we headed to was just down the street, so we decided to go in and
get something to drink. During this time:

1 person asking where I got the hat and how much I payed for it


1 person kindly taking it off my head and danced with it for a bit (she then
showed me her "canadian tatoo" on her butt and handed my hat back)

I danced a bit, and about 30 minutes later, we decided it was time to head off
to the next place. We started walking towards the rocks, during this time:

Two aussie girls screamed at us accross the road, asking about my hat. I told
her where she could get it (roots.com) and she started her bid at $10, it
stopped at $15.

I can't remember the name of the bar we went into, but it was crouded as hell.
It was one of the only bars still open as well. I got a coke and tried to get
out to the patio when:

1 Person grabbed my hat, and put it on some girl. She wouldn't give it back to
me. So I started talking to them, turns out one d00d is from Calgary and the
girl is from Vancouver. It took me about 5 minutes before I had to trade my
Canadian pin for my hat back - it was fine by me, nobody sees the pin :)

On my way out to the patio (after the above incident) another person asked me if
I was on the Canadian team.

So we drank some more! Gavin and Kristy went out to George St. to try to catch
a cab when:

Someone who worked for Samsung (and was a volunteer) also kindly told me that I
MUST be an athlete otherwise I couldn't have gotten the hat. When I said no, she
insisted that I must be a friend, or boyfriend of an athelete to get the hat. I
told her about roots.com, then she left me alone.

By this time it was about 3:45 and I was getting tired/bored of waiting for
Gavin to get back to the pub. Anthony and I finished our drinks and headed out
to George St. We slowly walked back up towards central station, all the while
trying to hail a Taxi - no luck. There was trash EVERYWHERE, street cleaners
were trying to clean it up before the sun came up. In the background you could
hear the routine chanting of "Aussie, aussie, aussie, oy! oy! oy!". Cars honking
their horns, flags flying, people trippin over beer bottles - I really wish I
brought my camera. I think the next time I go out - I am going to take pictures
of everyone that decided to wear my hat.

The spirit in the city is something I have never seen before. 4 in the morning
and it still packed full of people and cars - all having a great time. You can
see the Huge NBC Luxury Liner stationed at pier eight. People are shaking hands,
greeting total strangers in the streets. Its wonderful!

The cool thing about tonight was - I had a great time, and all on $20.

Great Olympic Day Number Two!

Did, the usual work thing in the morning. Since Andrew was coming in today
instead of Tomorrow we had lunch together at Oportos. He took some pictures
of me in my snazzy new hat, which I will post as soon as I get a copy of
them from him. We were supposed to go out to dinner with Chrissy, but that
got dropped at the last minute - as did our plans to go to the zoo on
Saturday.

Andrew party pooped his way home, as I headed into the city to get some photos
of the torch running through the city. I got a great location and snapped a
few pictures. I then hopped outta the croud and ran further up a head, and took
some more pictures. I did this three or four times until I reached Town Hall -
where I spent the next 4 hours. Town Hall steps is in the dead centre of the
city, and its where Kristy and I meet for lunch every month or so. So for today
and tomorrow, the Olympic Flame is staying at Town Hall in this nice cauldron
thingydoo. So I took some more snaps, including some of the singers and Town
Hall itself. The police presence there was overwhelming. Cops on horses, bikes,
cars, Harley motorcycles. It was a great experience, everyone was chanting the
"Aussie, aussie, aussie!!! Oy, oy, oy!" thingy. And of course, everyone was
singing "Waltzing Matilda".

Yesterday I volunteered to work on the olympics.com website - they were still
looking for help. The people from IBM where supposed to call/e-mail me today.
I am a little dissapointed that they diden't, I was kinda hoping I would be
able to spend some time helping out. I have a big regret for not volunteering
my time for the Olympics, it seems like I am missing out on a lot of fun. I will
definately be doing so when (if) the Olympics come to Toronto in '08.

Here's the sad news - the 40 or so pictures that I took today, I lost them. I
lost the picture card with the photos of everything except for town hall. It's
not really the card that I miss, but the photos that were on it. It does have
my e-mail address on it, so I am hoping that someone finds it, but I am not
getting my hopes up. So I will probably buy a new one sometime next week,
because my 8MB one can only hold about 12 photos.

I am still trying to get my hands on some tickets to ANYTHING - I so want to go!

I got so much sun today, I feel sleepy - I will leave you with some interesting
facts from the Toronto Star:

At the first dress rehearsal [of the opening ceremonies], police confiscated six

knives, two paper cutters and a metal nail file. Also on the banned list: glass

bottles, flagpoles, horns, whistles and those lethal umbrellas.




Tiny phone receivers, for example, have been installed under seats and on poles

throughout the stadium to handle the huge number of calls expected to be made

from mobiles during the ceremony and subsequent events.

The torch relay was actually the inspiration of Adolf Hitler, for the Berlin

Games in 1936. One of the Fuhrer's better ideas.

Foster's brewery, studying the inventory of suds consumed thus far, with nothing

yet to celebrate, has realized they may have underestimated the Olympian thirst.

Thus they've cranked up production by 30 per cent, supplying 50,000 kegs and 6

million cans of brewski for Homebush alone.


That's enough to fill five olympics swimming pools!

I had a GREAT day today. It was so warm and yummy outside, I decided to take
some pictures of the Olympic stuff.. wheeee!

About one quarter of the olympic events are happening at Darling Harbour, which
is about a 20 minute walk from my place. I decided to head there along George St.
On the way by, I walked pass the Olympic Ticket office place and it was packed
full of people as usual. There were also three camera crews as well.

The whole city has turned into one huge amusment park. The atmosphere is one of
fun and happyness :) I thought that this place is going to suck during the actual
games, but from the looks of it it wont. Everywhere I turn I see people in colourful
uniforms displaying their countries colours. I saw a guy from the Toronto Star taking
some photos of things and decided to snap one of him :) The coke "Olympic Pin Trading"
thingydoo was kinda funny actually. There are rules to pin trading, like for example
you arn't allow to sell the pins, only trade them. So they provide the place where
pin traders world wide trade pins, all the while drinking the $2 coke from the
pretty cool looking vending machines. Thats where my first Canadian encounter happened.
Thanks to my nice hat I got for my b-day (THANKS MOM DAD AND BRO!) they knew I was
a fellow canuck. So we got to chatting. Turns out they are here to see the Rowing
team win a gold medal - NICE!

I walked around darling harbour taking some photos of people, flags, sights - the usual.
All the while hearing American voices all around me. The place is full of them. So instead
of hearing british people talk, I see fat ugly Americans blabbing away and making fun
of the way Aussies talk. I decided to get a "Cyberpass" a lame IBM thing that makes you
"feel like part of the games". Its a fake ID badge thingy that little kids (and people like
me) love to get :) So I took my photo and got one printed out at the surfshack(tm). Thats
where I met my second fellow Canadian. Didn't really talk to him, just said Hi and exchanged
names. So I had to kill some time waiting for my Cyberpass to print out and I decided
to take a look what was being offered on the computers. You can "send e-mail to an athlete".
So I scrolled through the list of Canadian athletes - none of the ones I wanted to send
an e-mail to were there. One did catch my eye though. Cal Bourchard. She went to my
high school and was a killer basketball player. Turns out she is on the Canadian Womens
Basketball team. Wrote a nice "good luck" e-mail and fired it off. I doubt she will write
back, but you never know. I took some more pictures of stuff inside the Surfshack(tm) then
decided to go home. All in all I spent about 6 hours taking pictures and playing with stuff
and toys. My favorite were the voice activated vending machines. There are no buttons, just
an LCD screen with a little guy asking you want you want to drink. I was like "uhh can I
have a coke please?" And the dude said "sure, no problem" and out popped a free coke!
NICE!

One of Andrews' friend from IRC (who lives in Perth) came down today. She is spending about
a week in Sydney so Andrew is showing her around the place. We are going out to dinner the
three of us tomorrow. Hopefully I will finally go to Toronga Zoo this next week too.

Hopefully Steve from BPI will be able to give me some Tickets to (heh, don't laugh) a Handball
match. Yes, thats all that's left. He is a referee, so has like a nice VIP access. He even
let me wear his official "Olympic Referee Hat". For some reason I dont look to happy in that
picture:

I wouldn't mind seeing the match, but I would love to have a ticket for souveneer and as well
be able to take some snaps of the Olympic Park and Village. One problem is that they don't take
Mastercard ANYWHERE (damn Visa is a sponsor), so it looks like I am going to have to dip into
my St Geroge account for some spending money. Again, its something I don't think I will ever
forget. This Olympic shit is pretty cool :)

Work is going nicely. Most stuff is on hold though because of the Olympics. But that doesn't mean
that I stopped working :) There is some pretty large equipment going into the racks at First
Link. I don't think that the air conditioner can keep up. Its set at 17C, but the room jumped up
to 22C. The UPS wont be able to keep up either, the load is already at 85% drawing around 23A.
So yes, LARGE and POWERFUL equipment going in - all for DSL :)

I am going to be posting a lot of pictures for the next few weeks - I am back in the picture
taking mood. Plus there are heaps of stuff to take pictures of :)

SUMMMER IS HERE!! YIPEEE!

Another uneventful weekend has passed, this time $20 short and a crappy movie
to boot.

Just came back from Scary Movie, yeah yeah - I knew it was going to be shit, but
I really had nothing else to do. I have been thinking about just packing up and
going home the past three days. Andrew says I should just work as hard as I can
for the next two months or so, save up some cash then see the rest of the
country in Janurary, then leave. Most of you are probably thinking the same
thing - I don't know if I can hold out that long.

Work for BPI is extremly boring nowadays, and lagging on. I am starting to get
the impression from my friends that I am not welcome anymore. First Link, well
nothing has changed there. I think I will go on the advice from Andrew, to be
honest I don't really want to go back home to another winter :)

You know those glasses that young Luke Skywalker wears when he is pod
racing? I some girl wearing the exact same goggles while walking her dog -
typical glebeian (or is it Glebite?)

Apparantly there was a rape/sexual assult thingy that happened in our backyard.
I didn't hear a thing, slept through it fine. Now my landlord is all freaky
about everything:

It was about 7am and I was trying to sleep. On my roof I have what I like to
call pseudo-skylights. They arn't made of glass, so you can't see through them,
but they are made from semi-opaque acrylic. A bird landed on the roof and
started pecking at pseudo-skylight, waking me up. In my half asleep stupor, I
was able to find a small peice of CAT5 cable and threw it up at the
pseudo-skylight. The bird flew away and the peice of cable fell down the stairs
right infront of my landlords' bedroom door. Next thing I hear (about an hour
later) is my landlord screaming that this cable wasn't here before and that
a burgler (or the rapist) must have brought it in. Took me about 5 min to calm
her down and explain to her exactly how the cable got there.

I am going to call the ATO sometime this week to tell them I wont be able to
pay the money I owe them in time. Gotta pay the tax man $600 by December 5th.
I am tempted not to pay at all, but if I ever want to go back into the country
I am going to need to pay off all my debts before I leave the country.

The weather has been great today. 23C and really windy. The wind is what is
heating everything up! It's so warm and moist, never really experienced really
hot and moist wind before - especially when its gusting at like 30 or 40km/h.

The Olympic shit has already started to begin. Everywhere I turn I see people
wearing the large SOCOG badges - driving their fancy "VIP Olympic" cars. There
are about 200 or so burgandy coloured Holden cars that have Olympic sickers on
them. How smart is that? Just another target for terrorists to attack. I also
need to take some pictures of the Sydney Harbour Bridge again, because it has
large Olympic rings that are lit up during the night.

"I've only eaten toast today. Lots of it. I think that's a real sign that you've moved out of home, when you really start to appreciate toasted bread. It becomes an addiction - you can quite happily sit there and munch your way through a whole loaf. You know you're hardcore when you're eating margarine on bread and that's all." - Jebz

Jebz is wise, Jebz is smart, Jebz is funny!

I cut myself today pretty badly installing some batteries at work. It's one of
those kinds of cuts where you dont realize you did it until you notice these
small bright red puddles appearing from nowhere.

23 Days until my birthday - 22 days until the first day of spring - 14 days until the olympics.

Living without a TV sucks - I am spening a lot more time on the computer and
my back and wrists are suffering for it. The chair I am using is a piece of
shit, and I am still getting used to my Intellimouse (you know, the cool ones
with no mouse ball). I started downloading video games - quake3 and The Sims.
Since they are the full CDs (and I am on a lonley modem) its going to take
me a week or so. Since I don't have my cd burner anymore I am going to have
to do some creative things with my hardrives. It still doesn't solve my problem
of being on the computer more.

I am handing in my first "pay me money cause I need it" Timesheet with BPI. I
would rather they pay me in cash than goods. That should be direct deposited
into my St. George account sometime in the next week or so.

Its been raining - weird. It would rain for about 5 min, then stop. Now its
thundering and raining, but only on one side of the house. Sydney rain is
the weirdest.

I have been listening to 104.5 CHUMFM on real audio a lot lately. There are
ads for all these ads for trips to Sydney, Australia. They make is sound like
its a once in a lifetime thing - that you would be the luckiest person in the
world. Well if an 19 year old kid can do it for a year - anyone can. Just takes
$3,000 :)

gotta close windows, raining again.