New Phone - LG Optimus GT540

I have been looking at getting a new phone for a while now as the phone I have been using for the last few years was becoming pretty damn old, did not have any internet access, and the battery was starting to last for less and less time per charge. I finally chose to go with the newly released (in Australia) LG Optimus.

I got the black one on the left

I chose this phone for a few reasons but the main reason is because I am a cheap barstard. I was only looking at phones that I could get for free on the cheapest phone plan available to me which is a $19 a month plan. I went with this plan on the Optus network because this model of phone was available. On this plan I get $70 worth of calls, 100mb worth of data, and unlimited free access to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkdIn, EBay, and FourSquare.

The Optimus is also the cheapest of the Android phones I have seen around. It runs Android 1.6 which is a little disappointing seeing as I would have liked the more up to date version 2 Android OS but for the price what do you expect. Also it has a resistive touch screen rather than a capacitive screen, although many reviews say it is one of the best resistive touchscreens around it still does not compare to a capacitive touchscreen. In my personal use I have had no problems with the touchscreen at all, but I have played with IPhones before and agree the capacitive screens are better, but it's all about keeping the cost down for me. It is still pretty exciting to have my first Android phone... in fact it is actually the first 'smart phone' I have owned. Also I think it's a pretty sexy looking phone.

I have not had much of a chance to play with it yet because I only got it yesterday but from the stuff I have read online and the videos I have watched on Youtube there are plenty of Apps available. I mean, sure it's no IPhone in the way of apps... but then again it's $40 cheaper a month than the 16GB and $60 cheaper than 32GB IPhone. Also it can multitask (run multiple apps at once) and is very open compared to the IPhone. I am able access the file system and install apps from the PC to the phone with no problems and there is no need to do shit like 'Jailbreak' it like you would need to do with the IPhone.

Decide My Future - Employment

As you know I have been training a new staff member to take over my job and I will be moving into a slightly more technical position doing Tech Support work, but another new opportunity has presented itself.

At the moment I work for the local government and I really like where I work. I have been working there for nearly two years in an IT Support (helpdesk) position. But I do not actually work for them directly, I am employed by an employment agency and work for the local government under contract that gets extended every few months or so. Because of this I don't get any benefits such as sick pay and RDO's (Roster Days Off) and paid holiday leave etc. Also my job is actually not supposed to be permanent, I am filling a roll that is actually filled by an existing staff member that is just currently working on a big project so I may loose my position at some point. But at the same time there is also a high chance that I will eventually become hired full time and get to keep my job permanently, or fill another of the many new jobs that are becoming available at the organisation.

As I mentioned in the last post they have given me the opportunity to step up a level and start doing a more technical roll as a Desktop Support tech which is a step up and will make my resume look a little better and give me more experience.

At the same time my boss, who is a pretty awesome guy and always looks out for me, brought to my attention that the local University has two Service Desk positions advertised that I would be perfect for because they are the same kind of job I have been doing for the last two years and I am pretty damn good at. These positions will be directly employed by the University rather than through an employment agency which means that I get all the benefits and job security etc. But on the other hand it means that right now when I have the opportunity to get into a more technical roll, I will be instead moving back into the same experience level I have been in over the last two years.

So my question to you is, should I go for this job at the University for the job security and benefits even though I will still be at my current level, or should I stick where I am and take the new roll, build more experience have some opportunity to build my resume?

Oh... and I'm just about to leave to go to my uncles place... again! to watch the Grand Final ... again! Hope my team wins this time!

I'm moving up the corperate ladder people!

...well kinda, I guess. I am currently training a new staff member to do my job and I will be moving to a more technical position in IT. Unfortunately what this will mean is that for the next few weeks I will probably be posting much less because most of the posts I make on this Blog are done during work hours.

For the next few days or so I will be training the new staff member everything I can so I will be flat out... and I can't exactly just start typing up Blog posts in front of her. After I am done training her I will need to be training in my new position which will take a little while, then after that I will be pretty flat out in the first few weeks at least trying to learn as much as I can before I can really settle into the position and even think about getting free time to type up some stuff for you guys.

I will still post some stuff during that time but because I will have to do it at home it will most likely be much less frequent. But I'm sure I can come up with something for you to decide about changing my life during that time :D

AFL - Aussie Rules Football

AFL (Australian Football League) is the professional / national league of Australian Rules Football. The game is played with two teams of 22 players, 18 on the field and 4 interchangers. The game is played with an oval shaped ball on an oval shaped field (a modified cricket field). The game is played in quartes, with a 6 minute break between each quarter but a 20 minute break at half time. The four quarters are each 20 minutes, with the clock stopping when the ball is out of play. The aim is simply to score more points than the other team.

A football oval with the playing positions listed

The game is played by either kicking, hand-balling, or running with the ball, throwing the ball is not allowed. When running with the ball they must bounce the ball at least every 15 meters or pass it to another player. Players must always dispose of the ball by either a kick or a handpass. The most basic and most frequently used method of kicking the ball is by holding it out in front of you and 'dropping' it onto your foot as you kick forward, similar to how a soccer goal keeper kicks the ball onto the field. Soccer kicking the ball, punching the ball, etc. are all allowed, only throwing the ball is against the rules and results in a free kick for the other team. Dropping the ball also results in a free kick to the opposition.

The game stars with a coin toss to determine beginning directions. Then the ball is bounced in the centre of the field by an umpire and one team member from each side jumps for the ball and attempts to knock it towards another team member to gain possession. There are positions for players on the field but all players are free to move anywhere on the field during the game.

Scoring might seem a little weird to people new to the game. The aim is to kick the ball between the other teams posts. There are 4 posts at each end of the field. One team aims for one set of posts and vice versa. The teams interchange which direction they kick each quarter. When the ball is kicked between the two big (centre) posts that is a 'goal' which scores 6 points. If the ball is kicked between a small and big post (outer posts) that is a 'behind' which is 1 point. If the ball goes through any of the posts but makes contact with the defending team before crossing the line it is only 1 point even if it goes through the centre posts. If a team scores a goal the ball is returned to the centre of the field to begin play with a bounce. If only a behind (point) is scored the defending team then starts with the ball at their goal line between the centre posts.

Players are allowed to tackle the player that is in possession of the ball. If the player that is tackled does not handpass or kick the ball before getting pulled to the ground a free kick is awarded to the opposing team. If the player getting tackled drops or throws the ball a free kick is awarded. Although tackles are allowed, tackles that are considered too high (grabbing around the neck or head) are against the rules and a free kick will be awarded to the player that was tackled. Pushing in the back is also against the rules but a clean tackle from behind is fine though.

Marking the ball is another rule that some people do not understand at first. A mark is when a player catches the ball directly from a kick from either a team mate or the opposition. If the kick travels over 15m (distance is estimated at the discretion of the umpires) before being marked, the player has the option to pay the mark (basically take a free kick) or to play on. If the player takes the mark he will usually stop when he marks the ball and if an opposing player is about to tackle him he may do something to indicate he is taking the mark such as stop and stick out his hand or something. If the player marks the ball while being tackled or while diving or falling it is usually just considered that he will take the mark. When a player takes the mark the opposition are not allowed to tackle the player, the player is free for 10-15 seconds or so to kick the ball (usually the umpires will allow more time if the playing is going for a kick for goal, particularly for a long distance or hard angle kick). If the player decides to run with the ball that is considered a play on and he can now be tackled.

For more info check the Wikipedia pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_rules_football
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_Australian_football
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_rules_football_tactics_and_skills

Here are the highlights from the Grand Final, Only the 3rd time a Grand Final has ever drawn. My team is Collingwood (the Magpies, in black and white stripes):

Quick Updates

Here are some quick updates on recent events.

The old friend I saw last week called me on Friday night to come over to his place to hang out. Went over, there were some other people there and his girlfriend who I'd never met before. Had a couple of drinks, talked, hung out, listened to music, went home.

AFL (Australian Football) Grand Final was today, my team was in it, went to my uncle's house, my uncles team is the other team that was in it, there were aunties, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc. there, got drunk, screamed and yelled at the TV... it ended up being a draw, there will be another game next week to decide the winners, going to go back over and get drunk again next week.

Family are visiting from interstate, going to go hang out with them tomorrow, go to the shops or something.

It looks like the majority of comments on the last post were in favour of sticking with what I am doing now with the weights while watching shows thing. I might keep an eye out just in case a club does strike my fancy but I will just stick with the weights at home for now. The biking idea was good too, I used to bike a lot. Also thanks for all the great comments.

There is a poll over there somewhere =>

Decide My Future - Fitness Edition

I have been recently working my way through the anime Baki The Grappler (great anime btw) and being the highly suggestible person that I am it made me want to get big and lift some weights. So I did one set of dumbbell curls and now feel like the most buff motherfucker on the planet.

I thought what I'd mention today is my history of fitness / unfitness. I have mentioned before that I used to do martial arts but I also did competitive swimming. Up until I was 17 I trained Monday to Saturday, sometimes multiple times a day. I would train swimming with my swim club in the morning before school and train Taekwondo in the afternoons. I even trained twice on Saturdays.

I could literally swim before I could walk and I started Karate not long after I started walking. I left Karate for Taekwondo because I wanted full contact competition. In Taekwondo I became state champion five times and national champion twice. In swimming the best I did was make it to the state championships for 100m backstroke and 100m butterfly. I made it to the finals for butterfly but did not place. I made the school cross country team every year and made the school swim team every year.

I was one fit motherfucker.

when I was 17 I first injured my ankle and weakened the ligaments in my ankle which put me out of any sport for a while, when I finally got better and was about to start training again I injured my knee badly. I was at the BMX track and stacked it, dislocating my knee and tearing my PCL (a ligament in the back of the knee). This took me out of action for a long time. I was on crutches for months and it took a lot longer to recover completely, although it is an injury which will never be completely fixed without surgery, which I do not plan on having.

After that I moved with my family interstate and started TAFE (similar to college for you Americans) and did not get back into training at all. After a while I put on a lot weight. When you train as much as I did your calorie intake is much higher than a normal person because you require immense amounts of energy to burn during training. When I suddenly stopped training it is nearly impossible to also suddenly cut your food intake at the same time. I was eating 4+ times the recommended calories for a normal person. So obviously I put on a lot of weight.

At my peak I hit about 125kg (metric system motherfuckers... it's about 275 pounds) The weird thing though is, when I was way overweight like that I had no problem getting girlfriends, and I'm not talking girls my size, I'm talking hot girls that even at my physical peak I would have considered out of my league. The other thing is at this point, although I was not 'fit' I was way stronger than I was when I was training. I could lift things that I could never lift before and can not lift now. I had big arms and a massive chest, even if they were covered with fat.

After a while I made a decision to loose the weight. I immediately cut my food intake by half, completely stopped eating all the junk food snacks, and at the same time try to speed up my metabolism by basically eating many times during the day but in small, low energy portions. After a few weeks of much stomach pain I think my stomach actually shrunk and I would become full with much less food. After a while this just became the way I lived without thinking about it and I started loosing a lot of weight without even realising it. Over time I began eating more and more but the weight kept coming off and I didn't realise because I never actually weighed myself during this time. (and it was also the time when I kind of stopped having any normal type of social interactions with people)

When I finally realised I had actually lost a lot of weight was when someone got me a new t-shirt for Christmas and it was a medium and I put it on and it actually fit me. I looked at myself in the mirror thinking 'WTF?' and then decided to weigh myself to see what I weighed now. Last time I had weighed myself I was about 120kg... when I got on the scale it said 85kg. I actually thought there was something wrong with the scale and tried again. I had lost 35kg without even realising it, mostly because by this time I was back to eating whatever I want and it no longer affected me.

So now I am... actually I have not weighed myself recently... but somewhere around the 77kg-82kg area. The thing is now I feel so weak. First I was super fit, then I was pretty damn strong when I was fat, now I am neither. I want to start trying to do something again but I don't know what. There are a lot of weights at my house that I can use at any time to bulk up and get stronger, but at the same time my real passion is doing martial arts and getting fitter. But to train martial arts I would need to join a club, which means paying them money and taking up a lot of my time which even now I feel I do not have enough time to give. I don't even have enough time to choose between playing a game and watching a movie or some anime. I literally had to completely stop gaming for the last few weeks to find the time to watch Baki The Grappler (which I still have not finished).

To overcome the time restraints at the moment I have taken a pair of dumbbells and some extra weight up to my room and I just do some sets while watching shows at the same time.

So what is your opinion on this? Should I just keep doing what I'm doing and just lift some weights in my room while watching shows? or should I cave in, join a club, start training again, and have even less / almost no time to do the things I love like gaming and watching anime and movies?

I guess there is also the social interaction that comes with being in a club, and also the possibility that some day down the track I could become a better fighter than I ever was before and one day be a champion again...

... that post turned out way longer than I expected.

TLDR; gaming, anime, and doing weights in my room? or join a martial arts club and have no time for shit?

Games - X3: Terran Conflict

Today I am going to talk about my favourite game / series of games of all time. The latest in the X Universe series of games is X3: Terran Conflict. I could go on about these games forever so I am going to try and keep this a brief as I can.

When ever I try and classify the genre of the X Universe games I usually describe them as 'first person roll playing, action, empire building space sim' or a space trading combat sim. X3: TC is a single player only game that bases its game play over 4 distinct areas of Trade, Fight, Build, and Think. The game is set in a Universe that consists of hundreds of sectors that are connected by Jump Gates in the far future.

Trade - Trading does not just mean 'buy X here and sell Y here' like other games. Sure trading will start out that way but once your account grows with credits you will find yourself creating and managing entire trading empires and actually affecting the economy of the entire universe.

Check out the Trade trailer:


Fight - There are many starting options for the game where you can begin as any chosen race in multiple situations. Most game starts will plant you in a little scout ship or a medium fighter class ship to begin with. Each race has multiple ships of all classes making hundreds of ships available from little scouts, transporters, trading ships, frigates, bombers, and many more up to destroyers and carriers which are over a thousand times the size of some of the smaller ships. You can grow from owning one little scout ship to one day controlling entire fleets of destroyers. You can align yourself or make enemies of any of the races, even become a notorious pirate and make the lawless pirate sectors your home.

Check out the Fight trailer:


Build - It may be a little while before you start building your first space station, but when you do the feeling of achievement is amazing. Then before long you will raise the funds to build another and another until you are not only building stations but entire interconnected complexes containing many joined stations. Before long entire sectors, maybe even entire areas of the universe will be under the control of your trading empire.

Check out the Build trailer:


Think - There are many story line missions that you can play through if you choose, but you are at no time forced to do so. You can leave the missions at any time and then come back to them later. Another great thing about X3:TC is, although it is based after the events of the previous X games, you do not have to play them first because you are no longer the main character (Julian Brennan) from the previous games. There are also unlimited small missions and jobs to complete to make extra credits from transporting passengers to defending stations from attacks to even building stations for other corporations.

Check out the Think trailer:


The one major criticism that is given to this game is that the learning curve is immense. Most people give up on the game early on because it really throws you in the deep end with no tutorial or training. If you can get past the first few hours of game play you will really start to get into it.

The one major acclaim I have for this game is the games community. It has one of the biggest modding communities, right up there with the Elder Scrolls modding community. The best fan made content and mods are often included into later updates of the game. The forums are massive and I have literally never had to post there because I have always been able to find the answers to any question I have had about the game. Egosoft even has released an update for the game the removes the Tages DRM security so you don't have to have the disk in the drive to play. I don't know of any other company that gives the option to turn off their game security for its community.

TLDR: X3: Terran Conflict is an awesome game and you should play it.

Here is another trailer for no other reason than the fact that it is one cool fucking trailer:

Going Out - Results!

So as promised, I went out Friday night. I also went to a LAN on Saturday. I had a good time and here are the results.


I got to the place at about 10pm and it turns out that they have actually started charging even to get in the downstairs pub area. It was only $5 but I was surprised they did that. The place was not exactly pumping, actually it seemed kind of dead when I got there. There was a band doing covers and they were actually pretty good, I listened to them until they had a break and then decided I'd go for a walk around the area and grab a Ice Break Loaded from 7 11. I probably walked around for over 1/2 an hour before heading back to the pub.

On the way back I walked past a few guys that were sitting on a street corner and one of the guys started yelling at me about fighting him or some shit. I should probably mention about now that up until I was 17 I did martial arts all my life, first Karate and then Taekwondo. I was a state champion 5 times in a row and national champion twice. Even though I have not been training for years I am pretty confident in my ability.
Anyway that guy was talking shit but I did not give a fuck and just walked past him and he was all talk and did not do anything, but a group of 4 guys and a girl were near by and he started yelling at them. They were heading in the same direction as me and one of the guys (who looked a little drunk) said to me 'would you back me up' in relation to getting into a fight with the loud mouth guy. I said 'Fuck yeah, he was giving me shit too.' We ended up talking all the way back to the pub. I didn't see them again after I got back in though.

When I got back in the place was a lot more full of people. The band was back on and people were dancing, an ambulance came to save some chick who looked like she was dying or something, cops came and searched some guy on suspicion he was a drug dealer or something. I also discovered that they had added a small room off to the side that had a DJ spinning dubstep tunes. I sometimes like to listen to some dubstep but I had never thought it would be music to dance to... and I was right. The few people that were dancing looked they were spastic and must have been on lots of drugs.

I didn't really have any plans to go upstairs at any point but, I did... and this is why. For some reason a guy that was with a girl who looked like his girlfriend walked up to me, pinched my nipples, and said 'you should come up stars with us' ... and so I did. Thinking about it now, I don't know if they wanted to get freaky with a threesome or something, but the thought did not occur to me at the time. At the time my mindset was more just 'wtf? ok whatevers dude' ... also his girlfriend was hot and I was hoping they might have some similarly hot friend for me or something. But I lost them upstairs.

After a little but upstairs I decided to hit the dance floor. It was very crowded so I figured I could just blend in. Most of the time I was dancing by myself. At one point some girl started hitting me with her bag repeatedly... I have no idea why though.

I did dance with a girl, actually danced with the same girl a couple of times, and there is a little bit of a story to go with it.
I noticed this girl really early on in the night, actually while I was walking around outside I noticed her arriving to the pub. She stood out to me for a couple of reasons. She was pretty good looking but she was wearing what looked like guys jeans and a guys shirt. I actually thought she was a lesbian. Also, for some reason, she just seemed like a tough chick, just by the way she moved. I later found out I was right about that.
When I saw her upstairs on the dance floor, she was actually yelling at a guy (We will call him guy 1) that was hitting on her and pushing him away, roughly. After the guy was not leaving, one of her friends (we will call him guy 2), a massive guy, walked up to the guy and started yelling at him. Then he pushed him hard and the guy went flying and landed hard on his back. Then the guy disappeared into the crowd.
A little after this the same girl was dancing near me and looked at me, I gave her a smile and suprisingly she smiled back. She started moving towards me on the dance floor and we ended up doing the dance I can only explain as the 'girl dances with back to guy while there is a lot grinding of crotch to ass action happening.' This surprised me after seeing what happened to the last guy to try anything with her. After a bit of this, she grabbed one of her girl friends and started dancing with her.
A moment later I noticed guy 1 and the guy 2 standing in front of each other on the dance floor. Then guy 1 dived onto guy 2 and started beating the shit out of him. I put an arm around guy 2 to try and pull him off guy 1 but the bouncers jumped in and grabbed them. It took 3 bouncers to hold back guy 2. They got taken away and the dance floor cleared out a lot but I stayed there and suprisingly after they got taken away the girl started dancing with me again.

Later, just before closing time, I got a fucking surprise. A guy I used to hang out with a few years ago appeared in front of me looking just as surprised as I was. We started talking and after a while I was updated on the old group and was surprised to find out that 2 of them now have kids, one owns his own restaurant, another is working as the bar manager at that restaurant. He was also there alone so at closing time I offered him a ride home. On the way he told me he is working in the mines, 6 weeks on site and then 2 weeks back home. He said he is heading back on Monday and will call me next time he is back home to hang out and catch up more.

After I dropped him off I drove home and fapped.

TLDR; went out, watched fight, grinded on a bitch, met an old friend, did not get sexy times, fapped.

Going Out - Tonight!

So a few days ago I said I am going to go out Friday night (tonight) and asked you all what I should do. If you missed that you can read it here.


One of the bar areas where I am going

First off, thanks for all the responses! They were pretty varied responses from go to a bar / pub / coffee house / library (Friday night at the library, party animal!) to don't go out alone, find someone to go out with (unfortunately that has not happened... yet anyway) to just go out because everyone will be drunk and you will never see them again anyways, to just stay home and be awesome by yourself.

The major consensus mostly seems to be to stay away from clubs and try a bar or pub. Well the best idea I can come up with from this info is to go to a place that is near by that is actually a pub downstairs and a club upstairs. It's free entry to the pub area then you have to pay to get upstairs to the club. I can just stay down in the pub and the best part about this is that drunk people from upstairs are always coming down and vice versa so there is a real mix of people. The down side to this place is, last time I went upstairs to the club area I got asked if I was gay... twice. I'm not going to lie, even though I am straight I was a little flattered but to this day I don't know why those guys got that impression of me. I wasn't even wearing my pink shirt.

Unfortunately I will not be getting drunk because I am going to be driving there since the public transport in my area is fucking terrible / non existent. But the up side to driving is that I can offer a lift to the sexy ladies (and then watch them turn me down because by then I will have a bad case of rape face).

Anyways that’s the plan, I will post the results... maybe not tomorrow because I am actually going to a local monthly LAN event and will be busy gaming / leaching all day... but soon, maybe on Sunday.

TLDR; Going out sexing the ladies, will post results.

My Financial Situation

I was reading a blog post by the sexy Katie Collins (Check out her blog here, and follow her because she's sexy and stuff) about the evils of credit cards and banks. It made me think of my current financial situation, which is something I don't really like to think about at all, and is kind of fucked. Then I read a reply to one of my posts from the sexy The Loon (Check out his blog here, may or may not be as sexy as Katie but you should still follow him anyway) "Wow, I'm not sure if your blog was supposed to have the concept of us deciding your life, but it's a fucking great idea."
A fucking great idea indeed!

Australian money is colourfull!

So here is the situation. As some of you may or may not already know, I am 24 and still live with my parents. Now I have never had a credit card, never been in dept, and generally spend very little money due to living at home, having no friends, and rarely going out. Because of this I have saved what I would consider (for me, personally) a lot of money, something like $45,000... most of which is now gone as you will see. Now my parents let me live at home with no rent but they are in quite a bit of debt. To help them out with this they have borrowed most of my money from me, over a fair bit of time, which I happily let them have.

How this happened was, originally they borrowed $30,000 and promised to start paying it back as soon as they were on top of the bills again. But instead of slowly paying me back, I have been slowly giving them more and more money to a grand total now of $42,000. The more money I save, the more I give to them.

Now just a few days ago my mum mentioned selling their house so they could pay me back, and I was shocked. I had never realised how far it had gone and how hard it will be for them to ever pay me back. I absolutely do not want them to have to sell their house for me. But at the same time, I want to buy a house of my own. I don't want to be still living with my parents in my late 20's. But the problem is, I need my money to buy a house, my parents need to sell their house to give me my money, I absolutely do not want my parents to sell their house that they have spent their entire lives working towards just for me.

So what is your opinion on this? What do you think I should do? I don't want my parents to sell their house but I don't want to get stuck living at home forever.

TLDR; parents stoled my moneys! wut do?

Quick Shout Out to sildude

A quick shout out / thanks to sildude for making this awesome picture at my request:


this whale is rowing a boat across the ocean - your argument is invalid


Check out his blog by clicking here to see other awesome digital art by him and also the intermediate steps to creating this finished picture. Also he has 200+ followers so he is obviously way cooler / more popular than me, so if you like me you will like him even more!

TLDR; sildude is a cool guy and doesn't afraid of anything.

Going Out - Attempt 2

Well after my fail attempt at going out and pretending to be social last weekend, I have decided to make another attempt this Friday night.

When I was going through my millions (number may have been exaggerated) of comments on various post displaying how and why I fail at life, I decided I will pander to your requests/comments. One in particular is this one from Randomly Reticulated: 'Damn no girl in 5 years? Holy shit dude. Goto a bar or something, fuck.' (I particularly like the extra 'fuck' added at the end)

But this tip brings with it some problems, one in particular mentioned by JP: 'a tip, don’t go to a club alone, that will just make you look awkward to other people! try meeting people that go out and then go out with them! the bigger the group the better! (like 5-8)' To which I replied in the comments: How do you meet people for going out without going out to meet people?
Seriously, I have no one to go out with in the first place. :(
(Take note of the sad face at the end there, I'm so sad... in the pants)

So now I turn to you, my millions of dedicated fanatical followers, what should I do this Friday night? Should I go out to a club? The problem there is that I have real problems communicating with people at clubs because I can never understand a word they are saying because the music is so loud. I have noticed other people somehow have developed some kind of supernatural way off reading other peoples body language to determine if they are interested or not when at clubs... unfortunately I never quite learned that.

I could go to a bar, but I'm not sure if you have ever been to a bar by yourself... it is fucking awkward. Whenever you go to a bar by yourself, it is very clear that you are the ONLY person there that is by themselves. Everyone is there in groups, somehow you have to approach a group to socialise.
There are groups of guys, who when you approach leaves you with a 80% chance of them staring at you like an idiot and then telling you to fuck off, and a 19% chance of getting punched in the face, and 1% chance of someone actually including you in some form of conversation.
There are groups of mixed guys and girls, which leaves you with a 50% change of face punching because one of the guys thinks you are hitting on their girlfriend, 49% chance of the girls laughing at your face because you look like a try hard desperate loner, and 1% chance of someone taking pity on you and including you in a conversation.
And lastly there are groups of girls which (if you are male, and alone) gives you a 50% chance of 'not interested' and 50% chance of 'fuck off' (unless you go straight for the fattest, most ugly girl there... and even then, the chances are one of her drunk friends will 'cock block' you)

The environment I have found I have performed best with being able to semi fit-in and pretend to be social is at parties. But the problem there is... I have no friends. I can't get invited to a party if there is no one to invite me. The last time I went to a party it was years ago with people I met on the internet.

So I ask you... what should I do Friday night? Whatever happens I will post the results which will either be me saying how I succeeded at being social, or most likely me saying how, once again, I fail at life.

TLDR; going out Friday, wut do?

Shows - The Shield

One of those things I do a lot is watch many TV shows, usually on my PC... that I may or may not have downloaded from the internets. And the one I want to mention today is one that actually finished a few years ago called The Shield.

I have to admit that I am not really a fan of cop shows on TV, but The Shield is the exception to the rule for me. In my personal opinion, it is the best cop show I have ever seen. Now being in the mindset I was in when The Shield was in it's early years I thought 'oh great, another crappy cop show to add to the ever growing list of a million other crappy cop shows' and did not give it much thought, so it was not until years later that I was re-introduced to the show by a friend.

The thing you have to take into account with The Shield is that, unlike most other cop shows, you can not just watch random episodes here and there because, unlike other cop shows, there is one EPIC ongoing storyline that runs through the entire 7 seasons of the show, not separate stories for each episode. If you just want to check out an episode to see what the show is like make sure you watch the pilot episode (Season 1 Episode 1) and if it does not blow your mind in that very first episode then don't bother with the rest of the show. (Blew my mind when I watched it, did not expect what happened at all)

Things that make The Shield awesome:

Detective Vic Mackey, the most bad ass cop you will find on film. He makes Dirty Harry look like Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Although he is the main character there are many times through the show when you don't know if you love him or hate him, or if he is the good guy or the bad guy. Most people would say he is both (but mostly bad). You love to hate him and hate to love him. You will call him pathetic yet praise him like a hero. You will want him dead yet feel sorry and sympathise with him. On Bravo TV's countdown of the 100 Greatest Television Characters, Michael Chiklis described Mackey as "a cross between Hannibal Lecter and Dirty Harry." Also he probably has the biggest Wikipedia page dedicated to a single character from a single TV show I have seen.

Epic story. And when I say epic, I mean a non stop, action packed, edge of you seat, continuous story that spans the entire 7 years of the show. None of that 'chasing a different bad guy every show' bullshit, or even every season. If you can not watch every single episode, do not bother watching it at all because every episode is vital to the story.

Guest stars are another thing that The Shield does completely different to other shows. When you see a guest star appear on a show you usually expect them for a single episode, maybe two if they have a good character. When a guest star appears on The Shield, they stick around for an entire fucking season! Or even 2 seasons if they are awesome enough. And I'm not talking about crappy celebrities trying to break into acting as guest stars, I'm talking awesome actors like Glenn Close, Forest Whitaker, and Anthony Anderson.

The Shield has won Emmys, Golden Globes, AFI awards, Satellite Awards, and has been nominated for Screen Actors Guild Awards and Ewwy Awards.

The show finished back in 2008 and when it did it left a massive hole in my show watching activities that needed to be filled. And after looking around I found out that many of the production team from The Shield had moved onto another show called Sons of Anarchy. I'm not going to go far into SoA right now but it is another fantastic show and just started its 3rd season.

TLDR; The Shield is fucking awesome and you should watch it.

Also check out this video of 'Solving Crimes the Vic Mackey Way':

I Fail at Woman

So today I was once again reminded how forgettable I am and how much I fail at life. And once again it is to do with a girl... or lack of girl.

(I even gave her one of these premium mice)

I got a call from one of the employees saying that their mouse had gone faulty and they needed a replacement. She sounded familiar so I looked her up and saw that she was actually a girl I knew. She was actually the last girl I almost dated. I knew her sister and she introduced us and we hung out a couple of times and kind of hit it off but it never went any further than that.

That was something like 5 years ago and I have not had a girlfriend between then and now.

Anyway I remembered her and for some reason was sure she would remember me if she saw me, so I told her to drop by my desk with the faulty mouse and I will give her a new one (I even gave her one of the premium mice... it has more buttons and everything!).

So she comes past and I can immediately tell she has no idea who I am. So, being the idiot I am, I start with the "Hey, you look familiar" crap... she does not buy it and I can tell she is thinking I'm some douche trying to hit on her. She gives me the "Oh, you've probably just seen me around before or something" and tries to escape, but no! I can not let her get away now... not until she remembers me. Now I am determined to get her to remember me.
As she turns to run away from me I say "Hey wait a sec... what's your surname?" I immediately think 'why the fuck would she give me her surname, now she thinks I want to e-stalk her or something.' But by now she is a deer in the headlights and does not know what to do, so she tells me her surname and I say "Isn't your sister (insert sisters name here)?"
"... Um... Yes..."
"Oh yeah... I used to hang out with her... back in the day..."
"......"
"......"
>.>
<.<
And after a shitload of awkward silence and looking around at nothing she turns around and walks away, and I am left standing there, once again thinking about how much I fail at women.

Oh, and she clearly did not remember me after all that.

Work Placement Kid

So for this week at work there is a work placement kid with us. He looks so young and innocent and awkward... I want to pull some pranks on him!

Basicaly this is just a shout out to anyone who can come up with same funny pranks to pull on this kid (non life threatening pranks). If you have any cool ideas please post them in the comments and I will try to do them and post the results. I work in the IT department of a local government but the pranks don't have to be limited to computer realted stuff. He is here for the next 5 days so there is a bit of time to come up with some ideas. If I come up with any of my own I will post them in the comments too.

Going out?

Last night I worked up some motivation and I decided that I was going to go out to a club and pretend to be a social guy.

Well that was the plan anyway. What actually happened was a little less exciting. I had a shower and a shave, made myself look decent, looked at myself in the mirror and said "damn boy you lookin` fiiine" (note: may not have actually been looking fine)

I was feeling pretty tyred, I had actually been feeling sleepy all day, but I was not going to let that stop me. I had a look at the time and it was not even 9pm yet so I thought I would have a lay down a rest a bit before going out so I would not feel so sleepy when I head out at about 10:30pm. So I lay down on my bed and BAM! I wake up and it's 7:30am.

This was going to be the third time I'd gone out for some form of social interaction (not including family birthdays) all year... I guess not.

On a semi related note, one of my little cousins is turning 12 today and is having her birthday at LaserTag (Zone3). I'm 24 and I will be playing LazerTag with a bunch of 12 year olds... and this is the most exiting thing I will have done all year.

CAN'T WAIT!

Double Digits! thank you

I noticed on a lot of the blogs I follow they have recently done a "Thanks for following me and supporting me" post because they have hit 100 or 200 followers. They always follow it up by saying something like "If I could thank you all individually I would."

Well I would like to celebrate hitting the double digits (yay 12 followers!) by first saying "Thanks for following me and supporting me" and following that up with "If I could thank you all individually I would." Oh wait a second... I CAN AND I WILL!

A big thanks to these people:

sildude -  Artwork Blog of awesome - He gets first place because he agreed to paint a whale rowing a paddle boat on the ocean. You should follow him.

chasityxo - The Beautiful Life - A blog about being a parent but also sometimes including funny stuff and daily games. 

Cynthia - Life Hack it - A pretty cool and growing collection of life hacks and other cool info.

Katie Collins - Sexlexia - Only just started and has 2 posts but already looks pretty cool and entertaining... surprising lack of sex though :D

Ray - ray-thefail - Funny videos, pictures, and also some gaming information thrown in there for good measure.

The Loon - Stumble Upon Finds! - The Loon uses Stumble Upon a lot and when he comes across cool stuff posts them in the blog. He actually started following me while I was typing this post and I only noticed when I hit the Preview button.

Thanks to the following people also but you did not link your blog in your profile so I have not been able to follow you back :(

RAILS

Dylan Broadbent

deathmetalzebra

deezsl

mehdi.abourabia

sickmansblog

A pink t-shirt

At my work, fridays are considered a casual day where people can dress in a more relaxed manner such as t-shirts and jeans or shorts if it's warm enough. I have a fascination with having to wear all of the clothing I own and when I see something in my wardrobe that I have not worn for a while I feel a compulsion to wear it. Today it was a pink t-shirt. I only own one pink t-shirt and it deserves to be worn damit!

When I put it on I was sure it looked sensible and not over the top and something along the lines of this:

But the moment I walked into the office my opinion of myself changed instantly and I had a feeling that when people looked at me what they saw was something more along the lines of this:

I think I look like a douche... I mean, the t-shirt does not even have a collar, I am not wearing a cap, I don't have a fake tan or any tattoos or anything, but everyone I look at that looks back at me gives me the distinct feeling that in their head I must be the biggest fucking douche on the planet...

... I guess what I am saying is I should wear this pink t-shirt more often.

A little regret and my out of control imagination

My usual attitude towards pretty much any situation is generally identical nearly every time... something along the lines of 'I don't really give a fuck.' But today for some reason a little bit of regret hit me.

Now how I am going to explain this is by going through explaining first the girl, then my current personal situation, and then my insane mind. And the other thing I need to do is to warn you that this is not some epic cool story bro, it's just an example on how my imagination sometimes takes the smallest insignificant situation and blows it way out of control in my head.

What happened was I was leaving work and as I walked through the car park towards my car I looked over to my right and saw a girl that I have seen before.

The Girl: Many of my lunch breaks consist of a trip across the road to Subway and this day was no exception. But as I walk through the door and line up in the queue I see a girl waiting at the register for a smoothy she already ordered and for some reason I can not fucking take my eyes off her. I don't find anything particularly special about her, in fact if anything she is spectacularly plain. She has straight long black hair, very white skin (no tan at all), a decent figure (not super fit but in NO way fat), and even nicely dressed.

She looks at me for a moment and then quickly looks away, then does not look at me again which already gives me the impression she is in no way interested. When she leaves I watch her and see that she walks across the road and into the building next to the one I work in which is also used by the same organisation I work for so now I know she works at the same place I do... and that's all I know.

As soon as I get back to my desk I spend the rest of my lunch going through random names on the staff directory intranet page hoping to come across her picture and find out her name (there are literally thousands of staff listed in the directory so realistically I had no chance of finding her).

I have only seen her one other time at Subway after that and basically the same thing happened and she did not look at me at all.

My Current Situation: I am 24 years old and I have not had a girlfriend for something like 6 years. No one night stands, no fuck buddy, basically no female friendship of any kind for 6 or so years. What's even worse is I have also had very minimal male friendship over the last few years also. When I was 18 I moved interstate and about 2000km away (metric system motherfucker, deal with it). I had to make all new friends which I did, and I kept those friendships for a few years but over time we drifted apart and now the closest thing I have to friendship is two guys I know that I usually am lucky to be in contact with maybe once every few months.

The problem with this type of a lack of social interaction, especially in relation to women, is that the problem itself is what makes the problem worse. As time goes on with less and less social interaction you grow more and more socially awkward. As you grow more and more socially awkward it becomes harder and harder to partake in social interaction.
It is pretty hard for the guy with no friends to get invited to a party. You don't exactly look like a guy that girls what to get to know when you go to the cinema by yourself. It's pretty hard to get the motivation to go to a night club when you realise you are going all by yourself, and the times you do convince yourself to go you feel like a retard because, lets face it, you at a nightclub by yourself.

My Insane Mind: I look across the parking lot and see the girl. She is doing that thing when you are in a rush but not enough of a rush for an all out sprint, she is running, then walking, then running, then walking some more etc. Once again I can not take my eyes off her and she looks across in my direction a few times but I can not be sure if she is actually looking at me or not as there is a bit of distance between us. We are walking parallel to each other and I see her pause for a moment an take her shoes off so she can move faster and/or easier and there is something about her running down the street with her bare feet that I find very sexy. She continues down the road and I go to my car.

As I am driving down the road and turn a corner I see her heading the same direction still doing the run/walk thing. Just before I catch up to her an idea flashes in my mind "what if I pull up beside her and ask her if she needs a lift since she looks like she is in some kind of rush to get wherever she is going?" but as soon as the thought enters my head I get a mix of just thinking "pfft that's just stupid, who gets in some strangers car? someone looking to get raped that's who" and "oh dear god a girl!" then it is already too late and I am going past her and I get my last moment of "If I slam on my breaks now maybe I can still do it." But I don't... and then my insane imagination takes over.

For the next half an hour my mind takes over and my body goes into 'auto-drive-yourself-home' mode and it's almost like I am not even looking at the road while I drive. My imagination runs completely out of control and creates all these fictional situations from her refusing the lift, to her taking the lift, to different fictional conversations we have while she is in my car. From finding out she already has a boyfriend to finding out she is just not interested, or that she is even a lesbian. From where I drive her to all the different ways I could ask her out and even just what her name is... and it keeps going! I am only about half way home now so my insane mind goes to the extreme and begins go fantasise an entire fictional relationship from our first date, to meeting up at work, further dating, eventually taking her home, far later even meeting my parents and getting married.

I barely even realise that I am now sitting in my car... at home... parked in my driveway... with the motor running. I 'wake up' and my out of control imagination finally releases it's grip on me and as I am walking to my front door, thinking about what just happened, about how a half an hour drive home felt like and entire lifetime...

... and then I realise how insane I am to have basically created an entire relationship in my head simply by driving past some girl I don't even know.

TLDR; I am fucking crazy and have no control over my imagination.

These things I do... Short Films

Since I can't think about anything better to mention at the moment, lets hear about another one of these things I do...

When I am on my lunch break at work I like to watch short films while I eat. In fact I like to watch short films whenever I find I have a little free time but not enough time to watch a full length feature film. My favourite place to find good short films online is on the video streaming site Vimeo and for the last few months I have been spending my lunch breaks working my way through all the videos on the Vancouver Film School (VFS) channel.

You may be more aware of the work of VFS than you think if you have seen the movie District 9 as director Neill Blokamp is a VFS alumni as well as many of the production staff and effects staff that worked on the movie. In fact, over 40 former VFS students were involved in the making of District 9.

The VFS channel on Vimeo consists of hundreds of works done by VFS students and are of the highest quality. If you are interested in short films, mini documentaries, or even things such as sound design or animation I highly recommend checking out the VFS channel on Vimeo by clicking here.

These things I do...

Welcome to another edition of These Things I Do...

This is something I am sure a lot of other people also do, and in fact I am doing it right now. I waste excessive amounts of time on the internet doing pointless stuff and things, but I think that a lot of the time I take it a bit further than most people. I have created more free websites and forums and blogs and even social networks than I can even remember. This always happens while I am at work and really should be working. It normally goes something like this:

'Oh look, they are offering free sub domains, maybe I will just take a couple of minutes and sign up so I can use it later at some point...'
... I then spend the entire rest of the day setting up a new site or forum that no one will ever visit while my work load gets out of control.