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Personal

Self indulgence at it's best. I succumb to my interests, and talk too much about them. You've been warned.

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NYR

There’s a quote of the week board at work, and this week’s is pretty relevant to the topic of this post:

A New Years Resolution goes in one year and out the other.

The quote is listed as being by “Unknown Author” who it seems has made quite a few memorable quotes. Anyway, on topic.

I’m not making a new years resolution of any sort this year. Why? Well, lets look at last years resolutions:

• Get my Ls
• Lose 5 kilograms
• Finish this year’s NaNoWriMo
• No eating fast food
• Move out
• Get an orbital piercing
• Watch 26 movies in the cinema
• Buy an acoustic guitar
• Buy a top hat
• Stick with the video making thing, no matter how crap they are.
• Learn a language

Now, lets list the ones I actually managed to do:

• Get my Ls

Ok. So I’ve sort of kept with the video making, but I did stop doing it for a major period of time so I cannot count it. So, I can’t keep all those relatively simple resolutions, and I feel pretty shit for it. So I decided this year, I have skipped the whole affair, and therefore skip disappointment. See what I’ve done?

Is anyone else skipping the resolutions thing in favour of just enjoying the start of the decade?

Question #8

Today I’ve been asked a question on my FormSpring in relation to the one answer here.

so then whats your worst relatioship? you should by a fish

First thing’s first; I had a fish, it was an Axolotl (Mexican walking fish). I didn’t take good care of it. Now onto the actual question.

Rating relationships on how bad they were is a tough thing to do, but I think it comes down to two relationships, for two different reasons. That would be my first “relationship”, and my third.

My first, which I have written about in How To Fail At Girls, was because I was too inexperienced to actually do anything beyond hugging. I would go into that more, but you can read about it in that section (it’s titled My First Girlfriend, who’d of thought?)

My third relationship was worse for the reason that because of her lifestyle I ended up feeling worse about myself, and she cheated on me many many times. Once even while we were in the same house. I of course only found out about this after we broke up, but that’s life. I have no regrets about how it ended up, and am happier now anyway.

I hope that answered the question.

200 Sit-ups

A while back I attempted the 100 push-ups program alongside Craig in an attempt to get fit. Naturally, after about two weeks that failed miserably and the whole project was a failure.

Here I am again though, this time attempting one of the other programs made by the same people, the 200 sit-ups program. Fairly obvious what I have to do there. I figured rather than track my stats on the site and just link to that, this time I have the iPhone application, and I’ll post weekly results here as well.

To coincide with this, for the six weeks I’m doing the program, some guidelines to set myself in a vain attempt to control my diet:

• Only one glass/can of soft drink a day.
• No McDonalds, KFC, or any fast food. Subway is acceptable.
• Cut back on cheese; I love my cheese and put it with everything. For the next six weeks I’ll cut back to minimal (only cheese that comes with it)
• Limit of two pasta meals a week.
• On days off, no snacking after 10pm. If I do snack, I’m not allowed chips or chocolate; fruit or nuts or something healthy.
• One salad meal a day at work.
• No meat pies or sausage rolls; at work when there’s no hot foods that I eat, I often go for them…I’m going to need to stop that.
• If I’m at the pub, a limit of one drink while I’m there.
• No seconds at dinner (I’m a massive offender of this rule)

There’s probably a few other things I forgot there, but these seem like some good limits for me. For my initial sit-ups test I only got 12 sit-ups before I couldn’t do any more, so I’ll be going by the plan for people who can do 10-20 sit-ups. And I’ll see how many I can do by the end of the week.

Has anyone else done this program? How effective was it for you? And were you able to make it through the entire six weeks?

Question #7

I checked my FormSpring on a whim the other day, and there was ACTUALLY a new question, and it’s a good one.

wahts your best relationship so far? apart from with britney

Ignoring the mistakes, and the fact her name is actually Brittany, that is indeed a really good question, and one I can’t PROPERLY answer. Every relationship is important in making me what I am now, every kiss, every hug, every problem, all made me who I am today.

If I had to say one, it would probably be my relationship with Courtney; it ended nice with no fights, and unlike most of my previous relationships no one cheated on anyone. She’s the only person who after a relationship I’ve stayed friends with, and that makes it the best relationship I’ve had before Brittany.

I felt weird answering this, but it was a really good question. Who asked it? That’s my question.

The results (10 Cent Charity)

It’s a little late in writing this, but I’ve been too damned tired to do otherwise.

So October is over, and through spamming Twitter, Facebook, and some forums, the 10 Cent Charity post got over 100 comments. Sure, it would of been way cooler to say OVER 9000, but unfortunately getting that many people to take thirty seconds out of their lives to effortlessly help a cause is beyond me.

First, a thank you to everyone who commented or helped spread the word. It meant a lot to me. An extra thank you to Britt for designing the banner, and a thank you to PeedroPaula for being extra enthusiastic.

So now the tally. Most people stayed under the limit of 10 comments per person, except for one over enthusiastic person who made two extra comments. That makes the end total 126 comments. Which to me is amazing. So that makes a total donation of $12.60 to Blood:Water Mission. That translates to $11.75 US dollars currently, which is enough to supply enough water for over a year for eleven African people. Thank you again, everyone.

Making the donation proved a little difficult; I forgot to check to see if Blood:Water Mission had a PayPal for donations; my bad. A quick email fixed that though, and I got given the link to donate directly to their paypal, which for anyone who wants to make their own (unlikely but) is https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=9373832.

So, I’ve made the donation, and because proof is needed I guess, here’s the email I got from PayPal following the donation:

Click to enlarge, dude.

So, that’s that :) It was a fun project. It’s really hot here too. To end this:

Bleep bloop.

Blah

So, not much to say. Unfortunately while I wanted to work on my NaNoWriMo story this month, work commitments (in that I never get to do anything important because I’m too tired after work to focus) have taken over, and I haven’t even cleared the first 1000 words. It’s horrible, but happens.
The story I want to write though has the potential for something else I want to do. It needs a lot of refinement, but I hope if I can work out the problems I can totally do it, which would be awesome.

In other news, I’m still finding it difficult to apply myself to a regular exercise program. I’ve committed myself to using the stairs instead of the elevator at work, but I’m finding it next to impossible to find the drive to do sit-ups every day. I’m headed for nightshift starting next week too, so it’s going to be even harder. All I can say is blah to that.

I get to see Brittany on Saturday, which I’ve been looking forward to since a fortnight ago; we rarely get to see each other, so when we do it’s the highlight of my week. She’s an amazing girl and it’s a real inconvenience I rarely get to see her. Like NaNoWriMo, work conflicts with that. However, that’s life.

The Application

I wrote yesterday of my gaining of the back room, and briefly mentioned that my brother and sister both applied for it too. Unlike me, who just grunted and said, “I’d like the room please.”, they actually submitted letters formally requesting it. My sister (yes, the one who likes doors) has given me an electronic copy of her letter to share with you, titled “Appeal For The Gain Of The Back Room For Private Use”.

Dear homeowner.

                                (You look very pretty!) ☺♥☺♥☺♥☺♥☺♥
                                 I have very recently heard that the back room will soon be vacated and may be available for use. After a few minutes of thought I have come up with some reasons to consider letting me move into the back room (and not James). These are some of the reasons I have come up with (so far) I have decided to show them in dot point form;

• James will probably be moving out soon
• James has already rejected your offer before
• I need more space for my desks
• I will not be able to disturb you (as much)
• More space for when friends sleep over
• I am thinking of buying a bookshelf (for books)
• I will be able to organize my stuff (crap) much more easily
• Easy access to the laundry
• Won’t wake people up when opening my door to go to the toilet
• I’m getting older and will need a larger space to accommodate myself
• I won’t be using a vacuum cleaner but a broom instead
• You can turn my old room into a walk-in wardrobe
• I will cut onions on Saturdays
• I am also thinking about saving up for a new dressing table
• It is somewhere I can actually walk around in
• Definitely more space for my crap (stuff)
• Easy access.
• My room won’t be right next to the toilet

I can see why it was so hard for mum to decide between us.

What I did today

After much talk, debate, and apparently humorous applications submitted by my siblings; I have scored the back room of this house as my bedroom/base of operations.

 

And this is what it looks like. Because I’m in a room that is nearly twice the size of my old one, which you can see in my video blogs on YouTube. As such, I’ve finally got a queen size bed again after 2 years, and have a semi decent TV again.
Also when it comes to getting in and out of the house and having friends over, there’s a door that leads straight outside. A good thing for when I’m on nightshift and don’t want to wake everyone up (for fear they will bitch to me).

There are negatives though; I’m further away from the router, and internet in this room is a bit iffy as a result.  Also, this room is the connector to the laundry, which means at times my grandmother has to come through and do the washing. However, it doesn’t detract from the face that I have this room, and it’s AWESOME.

I’m loving life.

20 Things

This is a simple idea; list 20 items in my room. Why 20? Because I can display the images of said items in a 4×5 table, and 20 is an nice rounded number. Good thinking right?

And, here’s a list explaining the items, in case photos aren’t clear enough, left to right, going down.

1. SocialVibe pink ball: That’s the reward SocialVibe gives you for earning 2000 points for charity. But I whore that site out plenty in other posts. Time to move on.
2. This is a shot glass. I don’t actually remember most of that morning, but it was after work one night shift and I had drunk a fair bit. We’d left our regular after hours haunt and ended up at another pub. I bumped into some lady clearly older than me. Being totally drunk and generous, I  offered her a drink. She wanted something shotable, so I bought two Quick Fucks. When I got back, she wasn’t there (either that, or the fact I couldn’t even remember what she looked like inhibited me from giving her the drink) so I drank both. Then, I remember waking up in my bedroom. No idea what happened in between, but I ended up with one of the glasses.
3. This is clearly a portable tape player. I bought it on a spur of the moment want to make some real mixtapes. Haven’t made any yet, because the tape recorder I own is dead.
4. Everyone at my Dad’s wedding in the main party got a tuxedo stubby cooler. However I missed out. I complained enough though, and got one. This proves that bitching gets you what you want.
5. This is an Out Of Order sign from one of those children’s rides at the Supermarket. The sort you put twenty cents into and it rocks back and forth for thirty seconds. It was a Batman ride.
6. For Valentine’s Day a few years ago, my friend had a fake bunch of roses, which she cut up and gave out to her friends. I was one of the lucky ones who got one.
7. This clip came off of the backpack of someone at The Matches gig that was held at Fowlers. He shoved his way in front of me when I was at the front (bastard) and decided to mosh while wearing the fucking bag, getting me in the face a few times. It had a lot of attachments so I took them all off and dropped them on the floor and opened a few pockets enough that things would fall out. And I took the tent peg attachment off it. I am the world’s most devious man ever.
8. This is a testament to why I think the internet is awesome. Back story is that I had a deck of playing cards given to me by my Blackjack training school to practice shuffling at the time. Eight months later, I got bored and started scraping the the designs off so they were blank. I never had any use for it, but it was something to do. So those cards were sitting doing nothing until I saw this video, and decided to steal the idea. However when I looked at the cards, you could still see the old designs stained on them. I had no idea where to go to get a real blank pack of cards, so on a whim I turned to Twitter, and asked if anyone knew where to get a deck of such cards. A few people suggested printers and the like, but Edible_Hat pointed me in the direction of a man called Ryan_The_Leach, who for some reason had thousands of the cards. I spoke to him, and he offered to GIVE me a whole deck of cards for free. I met up with him and got the cards, but it just proves that the internet is a powerful tool. They’ll be the topic of a future post too.
9. This is a ring that my cousin gave me. He had just divorced and was getting rid of all his stuff, so among other things, I got this ring. It needs a few bits fixed, so it just sits in my drawer.
10. This 11 ball was left by a friend at my house. Well actually, she put it down and I took it because it’s awesome. She found it on the road and didn’t care though, otherwise I’d of given it back.
11. This is a guitar pick that the guitarist of The Matches threw out into the crowd during the gig from the 7th picture.
12. This penguin was a present from my sister. I have no idea what inspired her to give it to me, but I’m cool with it.
13. This is a full coke can. The can is from from a few years ago, when the slim style came out. I did it to collect it. Why is it in my pants? The real question is “Why Not?”.
14. A hobby of mine is geocaching. Geocaching is essentially treasure hunting using GPS coordinates. As such, I needed a reliable hiking GPS device; this is it.
15. On the way to Big Day Out we found this bracelet, apparently belonging to an André. It’s mine now, bitch.
16. This is a memory card for a Playstation ORIGINAL. An official one. I think it’s almost 10 years old, if not older. It makes me happy that it hasn’t gone missing or is broken. I’m curious as to what games I have saved on there, but I have no way of finding out.
17. This is a moneybox. But what I’m indicating in this photo is the super magnets attached to it. They suit the guy as eyes. I’m weird.
18. YUUUUUUUU-GI-OH. I have a full deck of Yu-Gi-Oh trading cards, and a tin box full of them too. I’m a complete nerd, as I’ve said before. I’ve always loved the game, but don’t get to play much anymore. That’s what happens when a game is no longer popular.
19. This is a dongle. It is in my mouth. I have a dongle in my mouth. Enough said.
20. This is my big Happy Tree Friends plush toy. I won it in the skill tester machine at Tunza Fun. Jack, Ash and I were there, and we’d discovered the secret to easily winning the toys. So we were pumping money in, and had won 4 of the toys. I had two, Jack had two. Ash was just eating the Ghost Drop extra that was won with each attempt and spitting multicoloured on the ground. Ash’s action got the attention of Security and they started keeping an eye on us. Eventually we had a toy sitting right on the edge of the barrier and just needed to be knocked a little further. Jack being impatient as he is, reached in and grabbed it. He of course ignored the two uniformed men standing three metres behind us. Next thing you know, that toy is confiscated and we’re banned for 24 hours from the entire shopping centre.
    I ended up with the photographed toy, and the yellow rabbit character. However, I gave my rabbit to my girlfriend of the time, and this is the only one I have left.

And that ends this amazing, long post. I put it to you to make a post like this yourself. 20 things, complete with photos. Comment here if you do it, so I can check it out and link to it.

Question #3

Decided to answer a rather unexpected question I received via FormSpring, on this here blogging type place.

Are you single?

Obviously this person doesn’t have me as a friend on Facebook. I changed my relationship status, and within ten minutes I had multiple text messages on my phone from random friends and acquaintances wondering whether I’d gotten back with my ex, or who it was if not her. It was amazing considering I hadn’t had a chance to tell even my best friend.

If you didn’t gather by now, the answer is no, I’m not single. I’m in a fairly new relationship with a talented artist. Trufax.

Please, feel free to ask more questions of me by clicking here. Really.

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