I love/hate it when media speaks right at me
Jul/090
um, so I’ve been watching the office
yeah
Adds a whole ‘nother dimension to the show when you see a character that you relate to. And then a character that you can relate to someone you know. And you actually quite wanted to relate to that person, but never could. And the characters have the same relationship that you did. And there’s another character that relates to the relationship that person is in, and that character is in a relationship with the character of that person you know, and this third character can be related to the person in a relationship with that person you know.
And if you can make sense of that, you’re dangerously close to thinking like me.
Fun though.
I am the world champion at achieving nothing
Jul/091
This will be less funny if you’re reading this via RSS and it displays this text
Ode to another chance
Jul/090
I remember when I first saw you. We met through a friend, it was a while ago now.
The attraction wasn’t instantaneous, it grew on me slowly. I remember the moment though, the exact second at which I realised hang on, this is actually rather good.
We had some fun times, you and I. I told my friends, and those with taste agreed with my opinion.
Sure, there were others, but you were my favourite.
It was all going so well, but then it happened. I don’t think it was anything I did, but you left a taste in my mouth like sour apple cider.
I didn’t deserve that.
No one deserves that.
I recovered, but I was wary. Still, time heals all wounds. I left it a while, and tried again.
Betrayal, somehow all the worse for it being expected.
It cut me to my core. I didn’t think I could ever love again.
Time passed. I tried out some other models. It wasn’t the same.
I needed to know.
One more chance.
Foolish dreaming?
Perhaps. Worth it.
I summoned all my courage, and had another go.
The taste was fantastic, the finish sublime. It was heavenly.
I had hope again. I knew love again. I was complete again.
We were there for the ribs, but it was all about you.
I missed you, Redback. Don’t ever leave me again.
Day Four
Jul/090
I feel like trying something different – over by over commentary of the cricket, because it’s not quite interesting enough to watch without doing something as well.
Drinks – Australia 5/526
Flintoff bowls … well, it wasn’t a very memorable over, clearly. I missed most of it.
5/530
Panesar is in to his second over of the day. No idea why Wing Commander Strauss left it so long to try spin, but it looks like the right option. Monty actually spun one, and beat the bat. Incredible, an English slow bowler with deviation. Haddin late cuts nicely, two off.
5/532
Spin at both ends now – Swann is on. He’s actually an entertaining guy, as I discovered earlier. He tosses one up, Haddin goes for a big shot and misses. Prior takes the bails off for fun more than anything, and asks Billy Doctrove something – where to get the weed, I guess. Clearly not out.
Already into the racial stereotypes!
5/534
Monty continues. Haddin defends a good nut, then gets two through midwicket to bring the lead past 100. Looking very solid, says I. Nearly jinxed it, as he advances and yorks himself.
5/536
Going pretty slowly here. England were really looking for early wickets to limit the damage, Haddin (35) and North (75) have shown no chances so far. Time is an issue with rain forecast; they’ll have to accelerate the scoring to push for the win.
North drives slightly uppishly and gets one. Swann has a big (overly ambitious) shout for LBW against Haddin, then gets him to pop one up off bat and pad, but wide of the short leg. There’s a fair amount of spin in the pitch now… if only we had a spinner in the team. I don’t rate Hauritz much. Actually, I don’t rate any off spinner with human joints, and I am one. I miss Shane.
5/537
The Barmy Army trumpeter has been going all morning, the highlights include the themes of Neighbours, Home and Away and the Flintstones. Yellow Submarine also got a look in – I checked, and it’s one of their favourite songs for the Ashes. You all live in a convict colony, convict colony, convict colony. etc.
They’re entertaining, but I’m glad I’m not sitting near them.
Monty almost spins one between North’s bat and pad, but he keeps it out.
5/541
Swann is looking pretty good right now. Haddin’s played a few quite late… and he does it again, very deliberately. Beautiful late cut for four, first boundary since I started this post actually.
Wing Commander Strauss changes the field: slip, silly point, short leg. Ian Botham is ambitiously suggesting that with the benefit of this large lead, Hauritz will be bowling with four around the bat. Presumably to match the four on the boundary that he needs?
5/545
North advances and clips Monty nicely for one. This is the 161st over, apparently. The second new ball is available, but I’d wager it won’t be seen for a while with these two bowling quite well.
5/550
North smacks a short wide piece of poo from Swann where it deserves. Nice cut shot to beat the deep offside sweeper. He flays a cover drive in the same direction, but can only get one.
The Sky commentators are turning their thoughts to Lords already. Steady on, fellas.
5/555. Good poker hand, that.
North cuts solidly behind point, Panesar jumps as though it wasn’t hit right off the meat of the bat. He’s far too enthusiastic.
5/559
Strauss decides to be a rebellious teenager and take the new ball, against all current popular opinion. Freddie Flintoff to bowl. North moves into the 90s with a bottom edge through third man from an attempted leave. Now he’s cutting for a single to deep point – a fielding position that should be outlawed for fast bowlers with the new ball.
Haddin flays over point in one-day style. This has been the best over for Australia so far, really loving the extra pace and hardness of the new ball.
5/569
Anderson to North: first two on the pads, both tucked away for two. 98 now. The return is wild and deflects off Prior’s gloves to hit North on the head. Possibly rattled, he pushes hard for two to third man on the next, and gets it comfortably because the throw isn’t good. 100 in his first Ashes match to go with 100 on his debut, quality effort. He’ll be in the team for a while.
5/575
Should be the last over before lunch, I think. The clock’s about to tick over to 10PM my time, and 1PM Cardiff time.
Haddin scampers a single to get to 50, there’s a direct hit but the replay shows North is well home.
Flintoff hits North on the gloves, first time that’s happened today. I get the feeling that England’s fortunes depend too much on him – not just today, but for the series.
Lunch! 98 runs in the session, apparently.
5/577 – Haddin 50, North 101.
Experiment concluded: opinions?
Done
Jul/090
ING Direct placement? Over.
I’m about two pages of writing away from completing my fifth semester.
I only have six. That’s scarily close to the end.
My last day was pretty good. My ‘goodbye’ email made people laugh. I got a decent crowd at the farewell lunch. Five o’clock was celebrated with foosball, then beer. My evaluation was filled out; I nearly succeeded in getting one section ticked without producing the document. Apparently my presentation was a little informal. Win.
The night finished off with a Bavarian dinner and a Belgian night cap. Always good, though I do agree with my friend’s sage advice that the Belgian is best as the first stop of the night, not the last.
I celebrated today as well, by doing nothing. Mind you, that’s usually an odds-on favourite on the weekend anyway. I did play some footyball, possibly because the Swans were so abysmal.
The rest of the night will be the Ashes and Le Tour. That probably also describes the next month pretty well.
Life is good.
Presentation
Jul/090
So this is pretty much going to be an ego-driven, self-congratulatory post about how awesome I am.
(Well, maybe. There’s a chance of that happening, and I thought I’d mention it right at the start.)
Today was the industry presentation day, mk 2. Mark 2 because it was going to be last Thursday, but the CIO and my immediate manager couldn’t make it at that time. I nearly went ahead with it anyway, but because ING is a new sponsor it was suggested that I might as well reschedule to make it as impressive as possible – i.e. have important people there to increase the chances of the course getting sponsored again.
I would’ve been quite happy to present it to no one, that’s almost what I did at Optus.
With the benefit of some extra preparation time, I decided that I may as well make it interesting. In the end, it featured
- subliminal messages (found to be hilarious),
- brutal slamming of the UTS mentor concept (less funny, but had to be done),
- honesty about what the whole experience had really been like (albeit, expressed diplomatically),
- gratuitous graphs and diagrams
- a take-home cryptic crossword companion to the entire presentation.
- full disclosure on the novelty applications I’ve made when I wasn’t being given real work to do
- me not getting completely nervous and terrified
This last point is kinda the important one. For the longest time, I hated any form of public speaking. Eventually I got over that to the point at which I could get through speeches without too many issues, but I was still pretty terrified.
I don’t know whether I was just comfortable in the environment, or so smugly self-satisfied with my presentation’s jokes that failure was incomprehensible, or even just confident in my self, but it actually felt like a relatively normal conversation. With 10 people. All of whom were silently judging me. In a moderately positive way.
Most people in the room actually came up later and said that it was a good presentation. One even said that he was going to steal my subliminal messages concept. (Which I stole from Red vs Blue anyway)
Also, I’m pretty sure I made everyone laugh. I’ve decided this is the most important thing in the world.
5 days
Jul/090
So, there are just five days of work left in this placement. I’m looking forward to the end, I guess. There’s a lot I’ll miss about the place, but most of it was not the work. The people are really nice. The ferry trip in the morning is fantastic. I love the crossword lunches, which also feature the ritual reading of the quiz (when those level nine bastards haven’t pinched it) and lately, foosball.
At the end of the day, what have I left? A monitoring tool which is apparently useful, a configuration database, some magic deployment tools and some silly applications I made to amuse my friends (a countdown timer, an XKCD mass downloader, a crossword tray application).
They’re all pretty cool things which do make people’s jobs easier (or make their procrastination more subtle…), but there’s not really five months’ worth of effort.
Because I didn’t put in five months’ worth of effort. They didn’t demand it, and I never pushed for it.
I don’t particularly want to be content with apathy, but I am good at it.
Five days to go, featuring a hopefully awesome presentation, some sort of party at the end, and maybe a few hours of work in the middle.
From five days in the future to a 5 day retrospective. Segue!
Pretty quiet week, actually, right up until the point at which it got very loud. Turns out, one of my friends does a real university course, and only just finished exams this week. Celebration was required; giant schnitzels were vanquished. The Bavarian is always fun, as is the Redoak.
At work, we finally got our (REDACTED), which is part of our big project to make (REDACTED). It didn’t work at (REDACTED) but I think it got fixed because it’s been fine since. It’s pretty cool that I’m one of the first people to have a (REDACTED).
It’s still secret, obviously.
To celebrate, they handed out some tshirts and caps. The tshirt says “I helped build (thing)” but is missing the footnote “And all I got was this crappy tshirt”. The cap is white and boring, but I wore it backwards to be ironic. I can do that, you know.
Last night was fun too. I went to the Pumphouse with Steve (not that Steve, the other Steve) and met his girlfriend (it now feels like the previous qualifier was unnecessary). Note to self : Redback Cristal is meh.
We’d planned to meet up with Ciaran and Mickey at Scubar, but decided that didn’t actually sound like something we were in a hurry to do, and had a curry instead. We met up with them at Bar Broadway instead, had a couple of drinks and then went to Purple Sneakers.
That was fun.
At midnight I went to find a friend on the dancefloor, and then didn’t see my other friends for the rest of the night. Whoops?
Sneakers is not what I would normally call my sort of place, neither was save FBi. I had a surprising amount of fun at both.
It’s nearly 1pm and my ears are still slightly ringing, 10 hours after I left. Loud music that almost completely prevents conversation isn’t actually the worst thing for someone who doesn’t talk all that much anyway.
Sleep is quite difficult to achieve after what must’ve been at least six jaeger bombs. It’s one of the few things that can get me dancing, though. (Actually, several things need to coincide for me to dance, possibly including a full moon. Seeing me dance is like seeing a yeti: rare. Also ungainly and with quite a lot of hair).
The taxi ride home cleaned me out. I literally poured everything out to pay the driver, but he was good enough to return my key. I needed that, and presumably it’s not a very good tip anyway.
The fare was reasonable, it’s just that I’d spent the rest on alcohol.
On the plus side, I’d withdrawn the exact right amount from the ATM earlier in the night.
On the negative side, I thought I’d withdrawn enough to cover several days.
I’ll admit to feeling a little bit hungover. I need food, and/or a stomach pump. Worth it, even though Red Bull tastes like oblivion.
I need to try and stand up now. I have a beer tasting to attend!