Never Have I Wanted So Much To Retroactively Kill John Denver

Howdy Internet Peeps, and merry merryness! First off, let me apologise for the lack of post yesterday – it was my last day at work before the holidays, and I spent all of my “down-time” trying desperately to finish the murder mystery that I'm planning for New Years Eve Eve (about which a post shall be made at some point in the future...)

This blog post is slightly unique, in the fact that I'm actually writing it whilst in the back-seat of my parents' car, travelling my merry little way up the country from Bathurst (where I live) to Inverell (where my grandparents live.) It is only by virtue of Nathan (my younger brother) deciding to drive his ute up that I am alone in the car with my parents, while Nathan himself gets to suffer the torture of spending a good (and I use the term ironically) seven hours with my youngest brother, Yuck.

The trip so far has been really nice – it's been ages since I've been along the vast majority of this road (I did make the 1.5hr journey from Bathurst to Mudgee in order to watch Yuck play football earlier this year) and seeing various pieces of scenery has brought back various memories for not only myself (such as a spot where I distinctly remember vomiting along the road's edge in my first year of university) but also my parents – my father especially has been waxing nostalgic about the area he grew up in, around Coolah, as we passed through there.

I'm going to take a break from writing for the moment, but I'll come back to it later – dad's just yelled out “OH MY GOD – THE HUMANITY!!” whilst reminiscing about a dropped sausage at a supposedly “Wet and Wild” animal park just outside of Gunnedah (we can only assume that their use of those words was also ironic due to the fact that, as my father said, the wildest thing that happened while we were there was the dropped sausage I mentioned above.)

Okay, so it's about 15 minutes since I last wrote something and I'm back for just one paragraph for the moment to tell you about THE MOST AMAZING CARVED BEARS IN THE UNIVERSE!! Whilst passing through a more than typical 30-second rural NSW village (by the name of Carroll), Mum and Dad were telling me that they had looked out some really nice, homemade wooden outdoor furniture at a place towards the end of the village. I made a joke about how Carroll must be a bit of a harlot to have so many people in her at once. Then, all of a sudden and is if from nowhere there were TWO MOTHER FUCKING LIFE-SIZED WOODEN CARVED BEARS on the side of the road. FOR SALE! Unfortunately we didn't have time to stop, and so I don't have a photo to show you, but on the way home I'll see what I can do.

Ding Dong – It's been an hour and a half since I last wrote – Greetings once more, for what is surely the penultimate paragraph (discounting, of course, my moral) of this particular post. I apologise for the apathetic alliteration and absence of assonance in that (I am ashamed at what I just wrote...) I blame the fact that we are now listening to They Might Be Giants (the Flood album!) We've had a pretty good trip, and we're winding down now towards what is hopefully the final hour of the journey. During the past hour and a half my mother (who is confined to a cast, as she broke her leg several weeks ago) has been complaining of her inability to move about, and has thus resorted to dancing – in some kind of strange reverse River Dance fashion (due to her current inability to move her bottom half, and the fact that he top half is comparatively over-mobile) to alleviate her boredom. It is quite amusing, in the same way that watching a muppet seize is amusing, although I'm glad that she's having fun.

And finally I say konnichiha to you, fifty minutes after my penultimate post (don't worry, I shan't start that again) to let you know that we have arrived safely at our destination (or, at least, we are very close to it...) We just drove past one of the places I used to go to primary school (there are many of those, though, which is another blog post entirely.) This particular school, Gum Flat Primary, had space in its hallowed halls for only 34 students, and thus needed only two teachers – an infants teacher and a primary teacher. Good times, good times...

The moral of this story is that if I ever have to listen to another John Denver song again (as I did at the start of the journey – for TWO FULL CDS OF THE MAN) I may specifically invent time-travel simply so that I can ensure that he dies by my hand, rather than in that stupid plane crash...Maybe I already have, and I was the pilot? We may never know. Anyway guys, Merry Merry as I said before, and I'll be back at some stage next week (maybe ever tomorrow) with the story of Christmas Day with my extended family...

Your Gift Is Practical, But Mine Was Pretty

With Christmas just around the corner it is no wonder that the Bathurst branch of D.I.T. (where I am currently employed) held their Christmas Morning Tea this morning. It was basically just a little "rock up and bring a plate of something, as well as a $2 gift for Chris Kringle..." The event was quite nice, considering how unprepared I was for it - and I managed to score two presents for myself!

So this morning before work, in a kind of "oh god I forgot this was a things!" rush, I grabbed the cheese from my depression-shop (which I didn't end up opening), and some water crackers from Woolies (where the evil robot lady did not attempt to kill me...this time...) as well as some paper plates to present what turned out to be a rather popular cheese-platter (someone else had had the forethought to provide some cabanossi, which set the whole thing off really quite nicely - plus I got rid of my depression cheese!)

As for my "Chris Kringle" gift - I ran into The Reject Shop this morning in a big of a rush (I do have a bus to catch, you know) and checked out what they had for $2. If you've never been to The Reject Shop before, it turns out that this is a very large assortment of things. I ended up settling on one of those "magic trees" which basically grows crystals on a cardboard tree by soaking it in a liquid made up of ammonia and some other things, and exposing it to air.

It might not sound like it, but I actually did put quite a bit of (admittedly ADD) thought into this gift. Initially I was going to buy one of those squishy balls with all of the flagella over it, as a kind of gooey (and relatively safe to throw) stress toy, but then I thought that that was potentially pretty dumb. Instead I turned around and stared long and hard at some decks of playing cards for a good while, only to be hit by the best gift idea that one could purchase for $2. Science.

That's right - This year I opted to give the gift of science! I mean, I work in the department of information technology. Surely, one would imagine, the average staff-member here would be more than a little scientifically minded, and may be a little curious about what was going on...Or, you know, they could think that it was pretty and place it on their desk for all to see. Either way, I gave a gift that lasted (you can repeat the experiment over again after the crystals drop off the tree, as long as you mix them back in to the liquid...)

In return for providing the miracle of crystalisation I was rewarded with the opportunity to either take another "player's" gift, or to select randomly from what was left wrapped on the table. I (stupidly, I might add) chose to go from the table - even though there was a perfectly good yo-yo currently in gift circulation! Oh my god why did I not steal the yo-yo?!

I picked the gift which most resembled a magic-eight ball (in the hopes of, you know, getting a magic-eight ball) and unwrapped it to find hand-soap. Not the gift I was expecting, but still one that enables my obsessive-compulsive tendencies, so I was pretty happy (although my therapist would probably be otherwise.) The other gift I received - a box of Belgian pralines - was in return for successfully answering a trivia question (which was, admittedly, really easy) - "What initials did rapper 'Hammer' lose from his name?"

I was more amazed that there were people there who couldn't answer that question, than the fact that I got in first.

The moral of this story is that it isn't the quantity of gifts you receive that matters. Rather, it is the quality of gifts - or the amount of joy you receive from them. I know people people tell you that it is the thought that counts, but really that's not entirely true. Today, someone received an angle-bracket in the Chris Kringle draw. An angle bracket. The thought was there, yes, but I'm sure that the person who received the yo-yo is having infinitely more fun with their gift. Damn I want that yo-yo...

Just Once Can You Not Betray Me?! JUST ONCE?!

I'm fairly certain that my friend and ex-work colleague Shibby is some kind of double-agent. Earlier this morning, we were discussing the fact that the ABC has miraculously decided to schedule the Doctor Who Christmas Special on Boxing Day - less than 24 hours after the UK has seen it. This, for me, is somewhat akin to a Christmas Miracle, especially as the ABC have a tendency to air regular episodes of Doctor Who about three weeks behind the UK, and specials aren't normally seen for months.

Really - before I go on - I just need to state that this is cooler than fezzes and bow-ties combined.

It was shortly after this branch of the discussion that I realised that Shibby and I had been talking about this very issue not twenty-four hours beforehand! After noting this with Shibby, I decided that surely they were spying upon us - they are, after all, a great evil organisation, and we have both done work with them in the past. Image how easily they could have bugged us!!

Shibby decried this fact, promptly declaring that they may or may not be spying on us, but that they are most definitely "Idea Thieves". It was then that she made her major slip-up in keeping her cover a secret. "I emailed them AGES ago, when Channel 10 was playing Torchwood at crumby times," she started "and I was like 'Dood, you should totes buy the rights to play Torchwood 'cause you already have a market for it - Dr Who. So it'd do better on your station ANYWAY." That, of course, would seem perfectly innocuous - were it not for what she said next.

You may wish to brace yourself for the damning evidence: "...Didn't hear back from them...Months later, the ABC is all 'OHAYYY WE'RE PLAYING TORCHWOOD NOW!'"

"Oh suuuure," I hear you thinking, "what's the big deal?" The big deal, buster, is that Shibby has now had not only one of her ideas implemented by the ABC - but she's had at least two (and one of them seemingly over-night, so we know that she works fast!) And those are only the changes that I know she's made to TV. There are also countless design influences that she's had on apps and websites produced by the ABC, and goodness knows what she's done behind my back.

Alas - I fear that we haven't much time! We must band together to stop this threat to our security, and so forth. Or we could, you know, just go along for the ride. Because, after all, if she is a double agent, then she appears to be working quite well on the side of humanity (as opposed to the ABC) - she got us Torchwood on a decent channel, and she has scored us Doctor Who within a reasonable time-frame.

You know what? Stuff it.

I for one welcome our new Indie-Girl Overlords.

The moral of this story is that I may, or may not, be a double agent. This may, or may not, just be me covering up the fact that I really am a double agent. Later on, when you accuse me of being a double agent, and having never told you this fact I may, or may not, then use this blog post to show you that I confessed to the whole thing. Internet sarcasm it a truly magical creation. I wonder if I'm on a watch list now.

Calm Blue Ocean?! That Just Makes Things Worse!!

Up until about three minutes ago (from the time I started writing this) I was nervous. So very, very nervous. Now, however, I am completely over the moon. Although I cannot make any official statements right now, I can give you a horrifically cryptic blog post in order to cause speculation - or perhaps just annoyance.

At midday today I had a meeting with various people from the university's division of information technology to discuss my future at the uni. It wasn't anything like "Oh, you're a horrible employee and you are fired RAWR!", but something more along the lines of deciding the capacity in which I would be employed, and the permanency therein.

Now, in my mind at least, any discussion with anybody at anytime that has anything to do with my future employment makes me quite nervous. As you may know from previous blog posts, I handle neither the thought of unemployment, nor the thought of being impoverished well at all - and so about fifteen minutes before this meeting started I was almost eating my own face with terror.

As the minutes ticked on I looked for someone to talk to about my current stress levels, and the fact that they were rising in a manner which mocked the mass of an object as it approaches light speed. I looked on MSN and tried to talk to Spud, but he must be out helping Lydia at the moment because I received no response from him. So I then talked to Cheva (who refuses to read any blog, so I could say whatever I want about him here and he wouldn't care...) who told me that he loves that, and that I'll be fine - his words helped a little, but not as much as I would have hoped...

For anybody who doesn't know me, I am, a great portion of the time, a great ball of nerves and neuroses. There are lots of things that make me worried or anxious (and I am, theoretically working with someone to overcome this...) such as being touched on my belly, and the ocean (hence today's blog post name) - and the thought of not having enough money to provide for myself and the ones I care about deeply is right up there.

As it turns out, however, I could not have been more wrong in my fears, as the second the call started I was rewarded with some brilliant, wonderful news. As it turns out I will not face next year with uncertainty or doubt about my future. No. I will instead face it with the prospect of a year-long contract, a pay rise, and over-all wonderfulness and joy...

I worry for nothing.

The moral of this story is BREAKING NEWS - It can now be revealed that I have been offered (and have accepted) a position at Charles Sturt University as their newest programmer! I'll be on a level 5, first step salary and I'll be entitled to leave and sick days and...just...everything wonderful! It also means that I'll be working regular hours (9 - 5 I am lead to believe) and it's a 12 month contract with a really high likelihood of being renewed at the end of that time. I can only sum up my feelings as: YEE!!

Dionysus Is My Home-Boy

There is something intrinsically wrong, it has been stated, with me talking like I did in the title of this post. I am frequently told by Spud, amongst others, that I am never to speak like that again. This doesn't stop me, of course, however it's usually just to cause them some particular ire, most often for no other reason than it gives me the jollies.

Note I said "most often".

A friend of mine (and I should also acknowledge, Spud's, because he knew him first) by the name of Squiggles is moving to Bathurst shortly with his girlfriend Emma. I can sum up my feelings about this scenario in one word. But really, that wouldn't make for much of a blog post, now, would it?

There are many reasons why it's very very exciting to have Squiggles and Emma in Bathurst for reals and for keeps. Mostly it's because I consider them close friends, and it's always nice to have close friends around me (especially when Andy is moving back to Sydney, like, today...) - it means that we get to do super-chocolatey-fudge-coated-awesome things together more often.

The secondary reason which has me super hyped right now, however, is that Squiggles plans on running a Scion game when he moves here. Scion, for those who don't know, if like D&D (kind of) except that it's set in the modern day, and you're the son/daughter of a god/goddess. Yes, you read that correctly. Of course, you don't have the ability to warp reality, or anything so over-powered that it would break the game - at least, not to start with - instead you start off as what I'd call a super-human. You may, for instance, be able to run faster than seems possible, or you might have the ability to control animals.

For Squiggles' game, we get to pick from the Dodekatheon - a group of 12 Greek gods and goddesses including, but not limited to Ares, Hades, Zeus, Hera, Athena, and Poseidon. I have selected, as my "divine parent", Dionysus - God of (amongst other things) partying the hell down. My basic character concept is for a guy named Daeon, who is a student at some college or another (to get his mother off his back), but who also runs a rather successful party-planning and DJ business on the side. He may seem like Van Wilder in concept, but my guy is genuinely likable, and not a complete and total tossing tool.

I'm quite excited to see how this game pans out, especially as Lydia is playing a scion of Ares, and Spud is playing a scion of Hephaestus. But there's still, like, a month to go - which is totally pants. Assuming that I don't explode in the interim, I'll update you on what it's like to play Scion when we've started.

The moral of this story is that in-proximity-friends seem to be like the heads of a hydra. Andy is leaving Bathurst, which (as the panda should have indicated) makes me quite sad, but then Squiggles and Emma are moving to Bathurst following that. I'm also aware that it's not the last time ever that I'll see Andy, because he's just moving to Sydney, and I'll be visiting there fairly often, I hope - and when I do visit Sydney, I'll get to see him, along with Roo, Shibby, Marija, and maybe a swathe of other people (hopefully unexpectedly, I do so love that!)

The Important Part About This Story Is That I Had An Onion On My Belt

If I were to personify the part of my subconscious that controls my dreams, I could not go past describing it as a slightly senile baby-sitter. "Now Tiger", I hear you think (or say, if you're prone to talking to your computer - and hey, I don't judge), "Calling your own mind senile is a little bit harsh" - well just hear me out.

Most nights I dream - and I remember the dream quite vividly, too (occasionally for quite some time afterward, depending on the impact the dream had on me...) - and I dream in colour, and there are ever-so-many dramatic plots and storylines and twists and turns. It is like being in a cinema watching some kind of epic film - only I am the epic film.

So there I am, using my terrific element control powers to fly through the air, chasing after someone who was picking on one of my friends, and hurling great balls of fire at them with ease that would make Mario envious, when suddenly I'm awake and writhing around in my bed slightly. I was just wooshing around the farm I used to live on - what is this strange soft creature covering me and why am I so warm?

And I'm not woken up by an alarm either - no - it seems that my brain decides that those climactic moments in my dreams are exactly the right times to alert me to the fact that what I was enjoying so much is not the real life. Following this, no matter how much I attempt to return to the my land of epic fantasy, I cannot - oh sure I can start a new dream, but unless I've been experiencing a horrible nightmare (in which case I return to exactly where I left off) going back to my miracle world is nigh on impossible.

In summary, my sleeping mind may as well be going: "Why don't you sit right back and I'll tell you a tale...And oh what a tale it shall be...*exceedingly epic and genuinely engaging story that gets to about 3/4 of the way through* and then...huh? Where am I? What was I doing? Oh yeah, I was telling you about the time that I *other story that is in no way related to the previous one*". Unless of course I'm having a nightmare, in which case it's more along the lines of "Did I ever tell you about the time your grandmother and I ran naked through the streets of Kabul? Yes? Well I'll tell you again! *you listen and start to fall asleep* Oh - you almost fell asleep there! Why not let me tell you about the time your grandmother and I ran naked through the streets of Kabul to keep you awake..."

And it's not just limited to dreams, oh no, now it's started to extend itself to my waking hours. Every morning, as I'm moving around the house preparing for work, I have thoughts about what I want to tell you all on that day. The second I reach a computer - BAM and the blog concepts are gone!

The moral of this story is that I'm still trying to figure out why on earth I opt to go swimming in my dreams. I am terrified of the ocean, and I'm even more scared of the fact that something is going to come at my from inside deep water and touch me or eat me or something like that. I would much rather stick to the dreams where I have super special awesome powers of magic and coolness, or the ones where the black knight whisks me away on his stallion to his castle where everything is always clean, and it's usually raining and the chocolate is dark and...*swoons*

Change Does Not A Holiday Equivalate

I have, it would seem, one of the strongest drives for change out of most people I know. Now, I'm not talking about the global kind of "heal the world" change where you write a whole bunch of letters and hope that your one, insignificant voice can do something about a political issue which has probably been going on behind the scenes since before you were cogent...No, I mean change in my own personal bubble.

It may shock some of you, especially those who know me well, but I have a problem with consistency and stability. If things in my life are the same for too long I start to get antsy - antsy as in anxious and depressed. It also seems to "inflame", as it were, any OCD and ADD tendencies that I exhibit.

I've had a few noticeable or major occurrences of this in the past few years, and each time it goes down I tend to need to make a decision that is going to majorly affect my life. There was the time, half-way through my honours year that I decided that I wasn't going anywhere, and that I may as well find a job - my supervisor convinced me to stay on and I ended up with first degree honours.

Then there was the time that I wanted to quit my PhD after 6 months because it was really dead-end stuff (in my eyes) - this time there was nothing anybody could say to dissuade me from my chosen course. So I packed up my life and moved to Sydney, because apparently there's "where it is" in terms of I.T. jobs (and yes, I know that the phrase is technically "where it's at" but I refuse to abuse grammar in such an obvious way.)

After spending another half year in Sydney, I became exceptionally depressed (the worst I have ever been, I believe) and really just could not cope with life, so I made the decision to become self-employed and move back to Bathurst to be around a larger group of my friends, in a smaller (and altogether friendlier) community. The whole "self-employed" schtick lasted about 2 months, until I managed to land a job at the Service Desk, where I currently work.

Of course, I'm perfectly happy with my job - but I've lived in the same place now for almost 5 months (maybe even over 5 months) and it's starting to grow tedious. Characteristics that were charming at first have now become boring and old. There is never enough room to have people over for D&D; the bathroom is just plain weird; I still don't own a lawnmower.

But I'm trying to fix my situation - no-one enjoys a depressive person who also happens to be hyperactive. At first I was just going to clean up the place, break the lease, and move into a larger flat, but there are two problems with that. Problem 1 is that I would then be farther away from Spud's place that I would like - he is currently within my comfortable walking radius, and I don't want to break that. Problem 2 is that Andy won't let me.

So, instead of defying the powers that be (i.e. Andy) and searching for an apartment, I have started the task of rearranging the house I am currently in. This involves (at this stage) swapping the lounge and office around. Whilst this means that the lounge is now somewhat smaller, it hasn't really lost its ability to function as a place where one views media, and is indeed more "homey" than before. It also means that the "Drama Space" (where we hold D&D) is much larger, and could possibly now accommodate a table, which will make people a great deal more focused when we play.

The moral of this story is that moving stuff around the house is more difficult than you would imagine. When I lived on campus at uni it was pretty simple to change my room around when I started feeling "the need", and if it was strong enough then I could always shift the tables and couches around in the common room as well. Now I have to fit things through doorways that shouldn't, by rights, be able to accommodate them (and yet Spud and I managed to somehow get that couch into the new lounge...) Wow - If that's not a metaphor for anal, then I don't know what is...

Time Flies When You're Rocking Out

Last night I did something I haven't done for ages - I let the time slip away from me whilst playing video games. I know that doesn't sound like a big thing, but for me it is...well...pretty cool really. Anybody who knows me in person will be able to tell you that I'm a bit tightly wound, and getting to bed at a time that won't leave me all tuckered out the next day is something that I generally make a pretty big thing about - if I have to deal with people's IT problems, then I should be chipper and well rested, after all.

But no, last night I opted to let myself go loose with Andy, Lydia, and Spud. Well, when I say opted, I mean that I was having so much fun I thought it was like ten, maybe half eleven tops, but really it was ten minutes to one. The night started with the three of us settling down to watch Distraction - an old (by, like, 5 years) TV show on BBC4 which involves contestants putting themselves through hell in order to win a prize such as a car, or money.

After a couple of episodes of that, we shifted on to Banzai which is a show that allows the viewers to bet on a number of scenarios (such as how long a man can shake someone's hand for, before they pull away) and, although perceivably quite racist, it is really fun to play along with your friends. We're considering making a night of it and betting something tangible some time...Maybe...

After we had watched enough TV, and I had coloured Lydia's hair a nice red, I decided to fire up RB3 and spend some of my hard earned money on some expansion songs. Last night I bought quite a few, including (but not limited to) 'Somebody To Love' by Queen, 'Linger' by The Cranberries, 'Wonderwall' by Oasis, and 'Ironic' by Alanis Morissette.

Now, I know I've mentioned this before, but that song is not ironic at all. It has also occurred to me that, perhaps, there are many people who don't understand irony (given the number of times I hear it misused...) So, to round off this entry, I decided to compile a short list of things that are actually ironic:

• The use of the word "Ironic" in the song "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette
• A piano repairman walking down the street and being crushed by a piano which was being lowered from a building
• The fact that the most used simplification of Occam's Razor is technically incorrect
• A librarian who worked diligently to restore several ancient manuscripts being crushed to death by a stack of books

The moral of this story is that I don't regret my late-night follies at all - although I do acknowledge the fact that I hardly stand up to the standard definition of "follies". The only issue that has really arisen, so far, from it is the fact that 'Somebody To Love' by Queen has been on repeat in my head all day. Well, that and the fact that now anybody asks me to pick between two or more options I want to go "Prace Bets Now! No Bet, No Get! BETTING ENDS!!"

'I Say What I Mean' As 'I Mean What I Say'

The key, I have been repeatedly told, to a life full of happiness is to do what you love. This, I have discovered, is not as easy as everybody makes it out to be. "Oh yes," the seemingly ever-present "they" say, "Just find a job that allows you to do what you're passionate about. Then you'll love going to work every day and your life will be Elixir Of Life (which I will explain later) and Cheesecake."

I've found two problems with this philosophy thus far. The first issue is that I've had several jobs which I would qualify as doing "what I love" - I've been a maths teacher, and I've been a games programmer - and let me tell you, my experience with both of these jobs was less than stellar.

At first the experiences I was having with these jobs was wonderful, and I looked forward to work every morning - setting out with a smile on my face and a song in my heart (like some kind of bizarre Disney caricature.) Soon, however, I found my "free-time" passion for these activities waning. My internal monologue was something along the lines of "I just spent my whole day trying to make an electronic dog avoid disco fleas, why would I want to go to my own projects now? I need to do something different from that..."

This is the same issue that I have when I try to play games like WoW - the fact that you have to go out and kill 500 boars and collect six reams of paper from the haunted lumber mill three territories away, and that in order to actually get anywhere in the game you have to do this basically on a nightly basis makes makes the whole thing feel like something I'm being forced to do, rather than something I'm doing to wind down. That point, and the fact that if you're in an instance, people take it way to seriously, sucks the fun right out of it.

The second issue that I have with the "Elixir and Cheesecake" philosophy is that I'm lactose intolerant, so whilst I'd like to be able to enjoy cheesecake on a daily basis, I don't believe it would make for a lifestyle that is particularly conducive to pleasure.

Something that I have found, however, is that the secret is not doing what you love - rather it is loving what you do. The two concepts are most definitely mutually exclusive...(I suspect that my regular readers may expect some kind of link hidden among these words to a Charles Dodgson book - so I guess I'd best not disappoint.)

My current job has me as an Information Technology Service Officer (ITSO - It's fun to say, try it - email me video footage of you saying it - that's how slowly this day is going!!) which, you would imagine, could be quite boring and frustrating.

I, however, have a tactic that I use to ensure that I'm always engaged by my job - I make a game of it. Okay, so I know that sounds exceedingly lame, but it really does work wonders for my morale. I discovered on my first day here that people are awarded points for the various ways jobs are handled (for example, logging a phone-call job gets you 1 point, whilst logging and e-mail job only scores you half a point.) My mind swam with possibilities - there were points...there were collectibles.

Ever since then my day has consisted of me sitting, waiting for phone-calls and emails to come in, so that I may grab them while no-one is looking and get the precious beans (points) for myself. This isn't just a single-player game...It's not a co-op multiplayer game...It's competitive - and I play to win.

The moral of this story is that turning the most mundane activities into a video-game like reward system is often a great way to make them more fun. When I was younger I used to practice swimming by having various mathematical lap-counters running through my head (how many had I done, how many did I have left to do, what was that as a percentage, what was the simplest fraction I could make from that, and so forth) and I soon learnt to apply the same theory to cleaning my room, and so forth - though I'm yet to get any achievements, but I suspect they're just really hard to unlock at this level...

Roleplaying Games Are Cool

At some point in the near future I'm going to be running a role-playing game that uses a system which nobody I know has even attempted to test yet. The system itself doesn't look too bad, however I am slightly concerned about one aspect of it that may leave my potential players reeling - the main idea behind all games run in this system is that whilst confrontation and conflict are good things, the act of a player to actually engage in inflicting harm upon someone else is severely frowned upon.

Instead of just flat-out telling you what the theme of the game is going to be, I figure it might be interesting to do a guessing game kind of thing. I'll give you some clues, and you see if you get it right...What's that? You want incentive? A reward?! Well...If you get it right I will give you...love...Yes, that's right...Love...

-*Long Pause*-

Actually, you know what? Stuff it - I just spent ten minutes trying to figure out what to type here as far as clues go, and I got no-where other than writing the following down: Running; Adventure; Time; Space - if that wasn't enough to let you figure out just what kind of adventure I'll be running then I suggest you click here.

Now, because of the nature of the series in question, I want to be particularly careful about how I run this series of adventures - I want it to be every bit as epic as a season of the show! I am just now preparing the first "episode" of the adventure - entitled "The Honour Students" - and I'm constantly worried that I'm not putting enough into the details. It's no secret that my previous game was incredibly poorly thought out (mostly because I get bored of planning and just want to play play play!!)

So far I have plans for about 12 enemies, but all up I'm not sure how many "episodes" I want the adventure to have - I guess I'll just stop when the players get bored of it, or I can no longer write stories. The difficult part about writing the stories for this game is that I want to predominantly use enemies that are already established within the continuity of the series, however I'm somewhat limited to what I can really use as three of my targeted players haven't seen the vast majority of the show (and there is a lot of show to see.)

So I figure I'll post the outline of the first episode - kind of like the TV guide synopsis - and you guys can tell me what you think. If anybody has any ideas about how best to run the game then please, let me know...I'm always open to suggestions!

Episode 1 - The Honour Students
Setting: Australian Country University - Now
Synopsis: "The Australian Country University is an institution with a reputation for excellency, offering free (and mandatory) tutoring sessions to students who fail any of their units - tutoring sessions that never fail to bring up the GPA of those who attend.

Why, then, are the students who attend these sessions never seen studying - or ever interacting with others - outside of class again? And who is the mysterious new high-school aged student who seems to know more about the subjects she takes than the lecturers who teach them...?"

Other than that I can pretty much just tell you the "Episode Titles" for some of the other ones swimming around in the ocean of my brain...Spinning through the windmills of my mind...Round, like a circle...No! Focus!!

Episode 2 - The Diplomats Of Spite
Episode 3 - Being Human
Episode 4 - B.M.I.
Episode 5 - Maid To Order
Episode 6 - Tears Of Glass
Episode 7 - Echolalia
Episode 8 - Do You Hear Music?
Episode 9 - A Stitch In Time Saves None
Episode 10 - Playdate
Episode 11 - Clockwork
Episode 12 - Ashes To Ashes
Episode 13 - Revenge
Episode 14 - Betrayal
Episode 15 - Entrapment [Part I]
Episode 16 - Entrapment [Part II]

The moral of this story is that, whilst I can come up with episode titles that may breed intrigue within you, I honestly doubt my ability to turn them into a compelling game. We shall see, in due time, I suppose - and if you like...like...like the circles that you find, in the windmills of your mind! *sobs insanely*

9 Parts Inspiration

It has recently been discovered that there is very little difference, most often, between inspiring somebody to do something, and simply pestering them until they submit to your desire. Given my absolute raging infatuation with the scientific process, and ensuring things are "just so" you may well believe that this has actually been found during a long and needlessly drawn out study involving countless government grants and people in bitching white coats. If you'd like to verify, I suggest you check here.

So, assuming that you clicked that link, and didn't just skip over everything, I can say without spoiling anything that this is more of a personal discovery - something I have come to realise over the past few days as more and more of my friends start blogs of their own.

For me, blogging is a method of entertaining people - I write these things because I want to, of course, but my primary purpose in writing is to potentially brighten the day of someone else. If I am able to make one person smile through OHH, then I consider myself successful.

I have, in the past, tried many things in order to entertain people in various sectors of the community. I am a member of a radio-duo currently called Critical Hit (which was previously comprised of Josh and myself, but is now Spud and myself) however the show is currently on hiatus until Spud does his radio training and we get the proposal through. I've tried to write both fiction novels, as well as a series of mathematics books. I used to want to be a games developer, but then I realised that that life is just not for me.

It might seem, to the untrained observer, that what I really want to do with my life is bring joy and mirth to those around me - to everyone I can possibly affect. The untrained observer, of course, probably isn't aware that I would love to be a lecturer in mathematics, specially calculus and matrix algebra. My capacity to hurt, it would seem, is just as great as my capacity to heal (joy heals, right? I mean...That is its point yeah?)

Still, I love to believe that I'm able to overcome the great blob of wicked inside of me that is present inside all lovers of mathematics. Others have done it and lived to tell the tale - maybe I can be a force for good instead of evil...Or...Maybe...Just maybe...I could combine the two and become a force for neutrality! Yes...The wonder that is fiction writing combined with the pure malicious of pure mathematics...*finger tent of evil contemplation*

Math Fiction! Ho!!

The moral of this story is that, even though I like to think of myself as a "nice" person, my inherent capacity for evil cannot be ignored. Like it or not I am a mathematician, and I will always have the urge to solve an equation every now and then. Just count yourself lucky that I'm not tying you to something, whilst attempting to teach you how to integrate over the complex number system. My torture methods may not be orthodox, but by golly I'll stick to them...

Adventures In Foodening

If I were to summarise this weekend in one word, that word would have to be "owcosmuf" - a sentiment which, roughly translated from Tiger to English, means "Oh My God! Why did I cook so much food?!". The reason for this outburst of gibberish follows fairly logically...Well...Somewhat logically...Okay, okay - I may have spent 2 hours Friday (tea-stained eggs), 2 hours Saturday (Milo Cheesecake) and 6 hours Friday (the subject of this post) cooking. Geeze, give a guy a break will you?

Now, this may strike you as unusual, but my weekends are not typically spent in Harris Farm/Woolworths/The Kitchen. No. Nonononono. Whilst I do enjoy cooking, my aversion to doing things for any great period of time usually prevents me from getting too bogged down in any one recipe (especially ones that call for something to marinate, as I have been known to never get back to them...)

This weekend, however, I decided that I was going to be a good boy, and not buy a take-out lunch each day. Instead, I was going to prepare myself some meals to take to work and consume. Being the little otaku that I am, I've decided to go the bento route, and prepare a veritable tiny smorgasbord for each day's main meal. For those who don't know, bento boxes are a series of small portions of many different types of food, and they are the staple lunch meal in Japan.

In order to give myself the proper Japanese cuisine experience, I quickly jumped on the net and found six recipes to attempt, printed off a shopping list, and hit up the grocery store. All in all, I attempted to prepare the following: Eggplant Salad with Lemon Flavoured Plum Dressing; Yakitori; Sesame Flavoured Beef; Miso Marinated Pork; Sweet Pepper And Carrot Confetti; and Tamagoyaki (Egg-Roll). I swear, making that many dishes, I have never felt so close to Iron Chef in my life.

The only meal I would consider myself a failure at preparing was the eggplant salad, and that was because I left the eggplant pan-boiling for too long and it went all mushy - I managed to salvage it, however, by mixing in the plum dressing that I'd created, and stewing some seafood extender in there. The tamagoyaki also turned out a little worse than I'd have hoped, but I think next time I just need to make more mixture and have each layer be slightly thicker. Otherwise, all signs point to awesome as far as taste went (Spud, Lydia, and Andy were all suitably impressed!)

Of course, without actually owning a bento box, I kind of failed when it came to presentation, but that step can wait until I've become slightly more confident/speedy with my cooking, and further until I have managed to travel to Sydney to actually buy a decent bento box. For now, everything has been spooned into a disposable take-out container, and separated using kitchen paper (everybody knows that disaster occurs when two different flavoured foods meet each other...)

For today's meal selection I decided to take some of the Seafood Stewed in Plug-Eggplant, some of the Sesame Flavoured Beef, a handful of the Sweet Pepper and Carrot Confetti, and three Yakitori. I've eaten the yakitori for morning tea, and I'm not dead (yet - and they even contained mushrooms which is a pretty big thing for me). We shall see at lunch if I've created deadly poison overnight, so if I don't post tomorrow...Well...That's that I suppose...

The moral of today's story is the some people, when preparing bento boxes, have way too much time on their hands. Of course, I say "way too much time", what I mean is "an abundance of skill, why can't I do this? These are so cool I want to be the one to make such awesome foodstuffs..." Ultimately, of course, my jealousy will take one of two routes: it will either simmer out until there's nothing left but me eating my delicious, plainly presented food, or I'll obsess over it to the point where my kitchen is filled with tiny rice-ball animals. Would anybody like to place a bet?

Humanity Is Not Doomed...Yet...

Last night, instead of playing Spud's Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder game, we took a break and decided to play a one-shot discovered by Andy, entitled All Flesh Must Be Eaten. At first, I was slightly apprehensive about not playing Spud's game this week - I mean, Spud's game has been run (if I recall correctly) at least once a week since about May or June this year - and, as you may or may not be aware I am slightly averse to change.


Bu~~~t Spud is running his rogue game tonight, and he just needed a bit of time to prepare, and not worry about running his "big big" game, so Andy offered to run AFMBE instead. And, as it turns out, I'm glad he did. If you couldn't tell from the title of the game, AFMBE is a zombie survival horror game where you're trapped in an office building trying to make your way to the building's roof, in order to be rescued by a police helicopter.

Instead of creating a character from scratch with this game, like you do with most D&D-esque games, you play one of many-many archetypes. Lydia chose to play as an Ex-Goth Girl, Elmo was the Professional Student, Spud picked the Hacker, and I played as the Tortured Grade School Student. Basically, I was a kid whose parents, teachers, and class-mates didn't love him. Go me. Woo (and so forth.)

We started out in an elevator, traveling down to the ground floor of the building to purchase some snacks (we all wanted snacks at the same time...suspicious...) when suddenly there is a power outage, the lift stops, and all of the lights go out. My character (oddly enough named Tiger) decides to try the emergency phone, only to hear the sounds of gunshots and bloodcurdling screams coming from the other end. Sufficiently terrified by this, our situation was only worsened when the cable of the lift snapped, sending us hurtling about one and a half floors to the basement level.

So we then proceeded to make our way to the fire-stairs in the basement, in order to climb to the roof. This was an arduous process which I shall summarise thusly: we got into the corridor, only to be ambushed by the zombies. During this combat, Spud got bitten several times, I managed to shoot myself through the side with a .38 pistol, and Lydia smacked a zombie's head in with a toilet cistern lid. Following this, we cleared a couple of rooms of zombies (which led to Elmo getting bitten), and decided to lock some undead hoards in the rooms we found them in (because, let's face it, they're not going to be able to work door handles.)

Eventually, we got into the stairwell and proceeded to climb to the ceiling. Here, we managed to rescue a lady covered in dead bodies, gape in horror as Lydia goes crazy and runs into a floor filled with zombies, and I watched without remorse as Spud killed my mother. I then kicked her, and called her a bitch.

So, finally we reached the top of the roof, and signaled to a helicopter that "Hey, we aren't horrible undead." They promise to come back and get us (which they actually do!) and we get ready for the wave of horrible undead to surge out from the building to attempt to eat us. Before this happens, however, both Spud and Elmo succumb to the horrible zombie plague, and attempt to eat the lady we rescued earlier.

Following this turn of events, I proceed to kill Elmo, and narrowly miss Spud - and suddenly the helicopter arrives! I run through the hoard of zombies, only to be bitten on the leg by Spud. Still, I get in the chopper, and manage to convince the general at the camp that I'm not hideously infected *cough cough splutter splutter*. After a little while, my conscious gets the best of me, and I fess up that "Yes, um...mister military man...sir...I was bitten and I have a zombie thingy and please help me...please?" Suddenly, bang, I've been shot and am dead.


So, that's the end of the story - the moral of which is that it's not always best to confess to something, even if you know it's putting a whole bunch of people at risk. I mean, come on, if I hadn't had told the general that I was bitten by a horrid plague carrying zombie, I would have taken out the rest of the survivors and potentially doomed humanity. But instead, I just crapped out and took the moral high road - now I'm dead, and humanity goes on...For now at least...

TypicalPowers For All

If I were to select the unreachable dream that most often enters my mind and proceeds to taunt me with the simple fact that it shall never be achieved, it would be the following: Would that I were able to teleport.

It's no big secret, really - I want super-powers. Ignoring the fact that I would most likely be studied by scientists long after I had died, I cannot describe to you how unbelievably cool my mind finds it. Or perhaps I can. I assume, of course, that everybody is just as enamoured of having a super-power as I am. I mean, who wouldn't want to be able to teleport, or fly, or turn invisible, or manipulate water, or cast magic missile, or...I shan't continue, though I assure you I could - after all, the list goes on ad infinitum, I'm sure.

There are two things that I really love about discussing super powers with people. The first of these is the fact that, in a given room, two people will very rarely have the exact same list of super-powers that they would pick from. I mean, sure, people may have the same "top" power, but when you get down to others (if they couldn't pick their top power, for some unknown reason) there is just so much variety. I've already said that I would love to be able to teleport, my ex-work colleague Shibby would love to be able to fly, Dezzles desires telekinesis, Chris would like super strength, and Alex believes that the ability to heal via physical contact would be rockin'.

The thing that I like most about discussing superpowers with people, however, is the fact that in order to keep things a bit grounded - sensible if you will - superpowers have to come with caveats. Teleportation, for instance, can be grounded in several ways. My personal favourite is the fact that, in order to teleport a certain distance, you must expend an equivalent amount of energy. This would make teleporting short distances fine, but it would mean that, the further you wished to travel, the more difficult it would become. Of course, this would also prevent you from cheating the system by teleporting many short distances, as you'd eventually become fatigued.

The only problem that I have with that limitation of teleportation is that the place I'd most want to transport myself to (Birmingham, England) is almost on the exact opposite side of the planet to us, so I'd most likely have to make a couple of layovers first.

The other thing that would worry me about teleportation is the fact that, if you were to teleport to somewhere you'd never been before (or a place that you do not have a clear view of) you run the risk of landing smack-bang in the middle of a solid object. It would be fairly unpleasant, I would imagine, if someone were to, say, rearrange the furniture in their house without telling you and you wound up with an end table for a torso.

The obvious way around this is what I'm calling the matter replacement principle. This is something that I've previously discussed with Andy, and the way we figured it would work is that when you teleport to your destination, any matter that was in the space that your body would occupy (and potentially a little bubble around it) would be transported to your starting location, and so all of your bits would theoretically replace all of their bits, and vice-versa. This would of course, lead to some very...disturbing circumstances if you were to teleport into the middle of another person.

So I finish today with a question for you - if you could have a superpower, what would it be? And, for an added challenge, what caveats would you introduce in order to make it a bit more realistic? Hopefully I get some really creative answers to this, and may a nice little discussion starts between the readers. That would rock. But not as much as being able to teleport myself.

The moral of today's story is that, according to the ABC series Sleek Geeks, everyone is a Super Human. I think, however, that this would cheapen the definition of "Super" to the point where "Super" becomes normal, leading us back to the generic conclusion that nobody is super, after all. If more than 50% of people can do something, it stops being super, and starts being average or typical. I guess, then, that if my dream is for everyone to have a superpower, would lead to them not being superpowers at all, but being...well...typicalpowers I guess...

Selective Amnesia Is Not Recognised As An Illness

I'm often fascinated by various aspects of the human condition - I am in complete awe, for instance, of individuals who have experienced adrenaline rushes so great it allows them to lift a car in order to free a trapped loved one. There is one thing that people do, however, which never ceases to amuse me.

I love the incredible ability that the human race, as a collective, has for complaint - and before you any of you say anything, I am aware of the potential for irony in this blog post, occurring only when I start complaining about the whining masses. Of course, this post isn't really intended as a whinge in itself, so unless I get remarkably side-tracked then this post will remain about as ironic as the lyrical content of a song by Alanis Morissette.

Note that above I said the lyrical content, not the song itself. The song itself is ironic because, whilst it claims to be about irony and lists a number of situations which are purportedly ironic, it does not contain a single situation which is, itself, ironic. Maybe that's why she called it that in the first place? Perhaps Alanis is a lexical genius, and the rest of the English speaking population is so far beneath her that we just don't get her subtlety. Or perhaps she, like so many other people, just really doesn't understand irony (oh have I got a future blog post in me about that topic.)

Did you know that a cubit is approximately 45.72cm in length? That remark may seem rather non sequitor after telling you that this post would be about the ability of people to complain (and the small segue into irony). If you had heard the way some people are talking about the current rain situation here in Bathurst (as well as in Sydney, from what I have been lead to believe), however, then you would understand why I'd be trying to find out just how much wood I need in order to build an ark.

I have discovered, I believe, a sub-section of the population who will never be pleased with a situation, no matter which way it decides to turn. There are some people who, I have found, will complain about how dry it is, only to start crying that all of their plans are ruined the moment it rains. I've met people who whine all Summer long about how stinking hot it is, only to cry "Oh! I wish Summer would hurry back!" the moment it starts to cool down in Autumn. I've even known people who tell me that there is nothing for them to do on The Internet, and that they're bored with it, but then go into a frothing rage when their connection drops out.

My theory is that perhaps they are all selective amnesiacs, and forget the alternative to any given situation the moment it changes. Or it may just be because they're so dull that they have nothing else to talk about, and they just like to have a contrary opinion. Either way, it sometimes seems as though people believe that they have the amazing ability to change reality just be saying how much they hate the current one. Don't people know that they have to be the change that they want to see in the world? If they want it to rain, all they need to do is organise a large picnic at which everyone will wash their cars...

Of course, before I leave this topic, I should clarify that I'm not talking about people who like things a certain way. I know people, for instance, who don't like humidity or dryness in the weather, but start doing a happy-dance the moment it rains. That kind of complaint is fine (to a degree) because it ceases once the situation flips - only when the change brings about a different kind of complaint do things start to become both baffling and remarkable.

And so that's it - a relatively short post from me today, and also a fairly cohesive one. I wouldn't get used to it, though, as anybody who knows me even slightly could tell you that I have the attention span of - OH MY GOD BEES!!!

The moral of today's story is that Noah's Ark was, it is said, 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits tall. The conversion to meters makes it a  137.16 x 22.86 x 13.716 object. And some of that space is negated because the ark has to curve, in order to actually remain buoyant. Given that the Titanic had dimensions of 269.06 x 28.19 x 53.34 I guess it turns out that something of biblical proportions isn't really that spectacular at all.

But Until The Advent Of T-Mail...

Yesterday, during my lunch break, I bought a packet of 5 Flavour Lifesavers. My intention with these little lollies was to suck them until they were so small that they dissolved in my mouth - I figured that each one would take me some time to break down my just saliva and some friction, so they should last me until the end of the day.

Alas, I was wrong. The native instinct inside me to crunch those tiny doughnuts of pure sugar is just too great and I ended up plowing through the entire delicious spectrum of flavour in about an hour and a half, and was left disappointed and candy-less for the rest of the day.

In an effort to curb this munchity munching of my workstation sweets, I today purchased some butterscotch lollies and some crunchy chips, in an effort to convince my brain that the crunch need was satisfied and enjoy the long lasting butterscotch deliciousness - so we shall see how that goes...

On the topic of purchasing things entirely to quell an innate desire within me, I yesterday was forced to realise that Christmas is fast approaching (25 days and counting) and I hadn't put any thought into what I was getting anybody this year. It was only when Lydia asked me what I wanted that I realised I had completed my Christmas shopping by this time last year, and that precious time was being wasted.

Of course, last year I also lived in Sydney, which (I will begrudgingly admit) made Christmas shopping a darn site easier. But then, living in Sydney also made me go bat-poop insane, so the trade off is acceptable, I suppose.

Anyway, I hopped on to Topatoco yesterday, as I had the best gift idea for Spud ever (which, for reasons of Christmas surprise giving-ness, I cannot explain on here...), and while I was on there I decided to pick up a couple of shirts for myself. Of course, picking only three shirts (I didn't want to go overboard) was quite the challenge, and I can see myself spending quite a bit of money there in the future.

After perusing the online store for about two hours, trying to make up my mind (it's difficult for me at the best of times, let alone when money is involved) I placed my order and sat, waiting for my package to arrive. It was then I realised that, not only did some garments need to be created for me (one of the large shirts has a slight delay on it, and even though I'm a portly gentleman, I'm not a US XL) but also that delivery of any item is not instantaneous.

This morning, as I walked to the bus stop, I was lamenting the existence of what I believe could be the E-Mail killer. I call it "T-Mail" and, whilst I'm sure it's been thought of before, I am quite proud of its creation in my mind. With T-Mail, people will revert to writing pen and paper letters for many things, and instead of having to post a letter or parcel over long distances via plane or truck or whatever, we will instead just teleport it there using some kind of awesome teleportation machine.

That, then, has got me to thinking about how much I love receiving things in the mail. There's always this little bit of a thrill that I experience any time I receive a package or letter that isn't a bill. My internal monologue goes all a twitter with anticipation: "A mail item? For me?! How wonderful!! I cannot wait to open it. Right arm, be a good man and get to that, will you..." Well, I'm sure that's how it goes, anyway.

So anyway, I thought I'd just throw it out there that, perhaps, if you're bored one day, you could write me a letter, or send me something in the post. I promise that I will personally respond to every item I receive, and I'll even discuss some of the more interesting submissions on here!

[Redacted Because That Crazy People Use The Internet ^_^"]

I have an internal bet with my sense of pessimism that I'll not get any letters or parcels or drawings or anything - so help me show that smarmy prig who's boss!


The moral of today's story, by the way, is probably that all methods of communication are doomed to be replaced at some point in time, but delicious lollies are forever.

Five Loads Of Laundry, And A Stolen Painting

Yesterday, in between creating my character for Spud's rogue game, and actually playing Spud's rogue game, I decided that I had better do some laundry. Laundry is something that I am trying to do weekly (along with mowing my lawn, and cleaning my house), however I have enough clothing that I can easily last about two or three weeks before I'm having to re-wear something that isn't a pair of pants - and let's face it, pants can be worn for weeks assuming that you haven't spilt anything on them.

The fact that I own neither a washing machine, nor a car, makes my laundry task quite annoying - if I have anything more than a single basket to clean, or if it's raining (as it was yesterday) then I have to get someone to give me a lift. This means that I'm no longer cleaning on my own schedule, I'm now subject to the whims of the all powerful driver.

The aforementioned struggle to complete what seems like the most basic of garment hygiene rituals, coupled with the fact that I decided that I'd like to clean all of my winter clothing before I pack it away for the summer, meant that yesterday I had to do five machines worth of laundry. This wouldn't be too bad if I didn't have to mind my laundry for fear of it being stolen, and if the inside of the laundromat was not unlike being stuck inside a room full of machines designed to generate heat and moisture constantly (which, incidentally, it is.)

But I struggled through, and about two hours later I had a very large pile of clean (if not still slightly damp, but only just) clothes laying on my bed, just waiting to be sorted, and either hung up or packed away. I now, if you were wondering, have a very large pile of clean clothes laying on my floor (which, thankfully, is also clean - except for the giant pile of clothing sitting on it.)

Following my laundry misadventures (speaking of which, I just remembered that I left a load of washing in a drier there...Let's hope it's still there tonight...) we played our first session of Spud's rogue game.

I had started to write a post about this on Saturday, but got distracted by actually creating my character, and then watching Whose Line Is It Anyway? for several hours. Blogging on the weekend, as it turns out, is incredibly difficult.

My character in Spud's game is named Arlington Steele, and he is what I am calling a "Face" - he is a con-man who gets his jollies from pretending to be someone he's not in order to steal that painting, get that large sum of money, or just stuff you around royally. It's not that he's a bad person, he just finds that his acting talents weren't getting him anywhere on the legitimate stage, and so he decided to take his talent out onto the stage of life, where the audience is always slightly more believing (and malleable...)

So for Arlington's first job in this game, he has to steal a painting (see, I told you "steal that painting") from a rather...erm...passionate collector. The plan that I developed for this heist is as follows:

1. Pose as Derrick Dominoe, representative for Chester Sandwick - reknowned art critic and collector from the "high society" area of the city, and generate the idea in the owner that the painting could be sold for much more than he paid for it.
2. Return to the owner's house two days later to make "further inquiries" on behalf of 'Chester'. While in the room with the painting, create a diversion (using prestidigitation) that requires the owner to leave the room momentarily. Upon the return of the owner, act suspicious, and make a hasty exit of the house.
3. Post as Lachlan Tonnel, undercover watch representative, and inform the owner of the house that we believe that his copy of the painting has been stolen and replaced with a fake. Use prestidigitation on the painting in order to make it appear as though it has flaws.
4. Use charm person in order to allow the owner to let me take the "fake painting" in as evidence - as the burglars always leave a clue in the painting, and we have a guy who analyses them. Inform the owner that his real painting will be returned to him the moment it is found.
5. Take the painting to the person who requested that I "recover" it for him.
6. Profit

So yeah, that's how I'm hoping it will go. I may have to be a little "think on my feet"y at bits, especially if I fail any disguise or bluff checks, and so forth, but I'll handle that when I come to it.

The moral of this story, I suppose, would be that trying to be a responsible adult by keeping your things clean is tough, but there's always fun to be had afterward, and if you leave it too long then you'll just get a headache from sitting in the laundromat, because you have to 'watch your load', as it were.

Doughnuts Aren't Very Good Dancers

Something I really enjoy doing with my friends is playing D&D. Well, not really D&D per say, but Pathfinder, which is pretty much D&D 3.5 except with a couple of modifications in there to...well...make things better (in my opinion, anyway). Most people, I think, refer to it as D&D 3.75...

We have been playing for quite a while now, and I really enjoy it - it's a great social event, and it gives me a huge outlet for my creative instincts, what with all of the role-playing and problem solving that is involved. We've done a number of campaigns, some of which (unfortunately) were doomed to die :(

I ran a campaign of my own creation that went for maybe seven sessions, but I always have problems in sticking to a storyline without getting bored. Also, I don't plan things very well, so when I have to throw encounters at people they're just random things I yanked from the Bestiary. Oh - and they're too role-play heavy, with not enough combat in them. Otherwise, I've been told that I tell a pretty compelling (if not slightly farcical) story...

Andy was running a Cthulu-esque game, which unfortunately only ran for two sessions. Paul was similarly running a game that died after two sessions because Paul had to go away on his teaching prac. Spud wants to start a rogue-only game that would kind of be like "Leverage - The Pathfinder Version", Squiggles wants to run a Scion game, and I'm pretty sure that Elmo wants to start a Dark Heresy game. I would also like to run another game, but I lack the commitment to any given story, and my planning skills really need improving.

But the game that we have been playing the most of is Spud's main game (which I will make many many posts about in the future, I assure you.) This game is based on the Pathfinder "Rise Of The Rune-Lords" set, although he has been tweaking it slightly to compensate for our massive party size. Rise of the Rune-Lords is designed to be played with a player-party size of approximately four. Our party is currently of size eight.

It has been quite a varied game, in terms of characters - there is only one original character left. At some point after freeing the village of Sandpoint from the Goblin menace, and traveling to the city of Magnamar to try and stop some hideous snake lady from killing people, out party decided to give itself a name: The Solution. It's pretty cool. So anyway, the following is a list of all of the members (both past and present) of The Solution, as well as the people who played them.

• Me: Fleet [Killoren Shadow-Caster] [Dead]; Tetch Blackfeather [Tengu Shadow-Assassin]
• Eph: Ugg [Half-Orc Barbarian] [Dead]
• Mule: Serai [Human Paladin] [Wandered Off And Never Came Back]
• Shorty: Sebastian [Human Wizard] [Wandered Off And Never Came Back]
• Kalibur:Natasha [Human Cleric] [Dead]
• X-Man: Carsaadri Hollysword [Half-Elf Ranger]
• Andy: Camlo [Human Cleric] [Left To Follow Nomadic Urge]; Proserpine Of The Dancing Knives [Obitu Rogue]
• Emma: Kat'lina [Half-Elf Ranger]
• Squiggles: D'Ourk [Half-Orc Monk] [Dead]; Russell [Human Alchemist]
• Lydia: "Mittens" [Elf Fighter]
• Elmo: Kage [Human Fighter] [Dead]; Raina [Human Paladin] [Organising Troops]; Torel [Elf Archer]
• Morgo: Davor [Half-Orc Cleric] 

 There are actually quite a few good stories that have come out of this game so far, and I think it would make for a pretty interesting read, so I've decided that occasionally I'll chronicle the game for you...That is, if you guys decide that it's interesting to see my take on the events of the game...

Oh, also, you may have noticed that there is a character with a very long name - Andy's Obitu Rogue. Proserpine of the Dancing Knives is one of the more interesting characters I've seen played. For those who don't know, an Obitu is basically a good undead (PotDK resembles a skeleton), and they tend to take names that are big and grandiose, as the concept of naming is kind of new to them, and they figure the longer the name, the more awesome it must be.

Initially, Andy was going to call PotDK something along the lines of "Proserpine of the Dancing Darkness", however when we were discussing this I may have been watching a rather loud episode of Who's Line Is It Anyway? and thus I may have misheard him and assumed that his character was called (in jest) Proserpine of the Dancing Doughnuts. It turns out that, once Andy had heard me say that name, it kind of broke the original for him, and he couldn't use it - and so PotDK was born.

This all leads me to my big question - can anybody else picture a doughnut dancing by doing something that isn't bouncing from one stick-leg to another whilst waving its stick-arms in around in the air? I certainly can't...

Doughnuts suck at dancing, they should just stick to being delicious.

Theraphied - Or - It's Not Okay To Touch Me There

Yesterday after work I had an appointment with a psychologist/therapist. It's the first time I've ever really seen a proper one, and I have to say that the experience was really quite pleasant. My initial thoughts about what it would be like were the stereotypical "Lie down the couch...How interesting...Yes, yes...And how does that make you feel?", but it was so much different.

I've got what I suppose you would call mild OCD and ADD (nothing really severe, but enough to annoy myself and others on occasion), coupled with a little bit of neurotic behaviour and general anxiety (triggered usually via the realisation of one or more phobias that I have...)

Anyway, I'm sick of letting this stuff control various areas of my life, so I figured that I should do something about it. I mean, let's face it, nobody wants to hang around a guy who is constantly stressing about something. So basically we went into her little room, and (after I had been told my confidentiality rights) we sat down on these really comfortable chairs and she just asked me a couple of questions and let me talk about myself a whole bunch. It was pretty cool. Occasionally she'd ask follow up questions to things I said, or ask me to clarify something a bit further, and the whole time she was scrawling notes, so at the very least I felt as though she was listening to me.

Because it was the first session, we talked about a fair few things. We talked about why I initially decided to see her, which lead into a discussion about the problem I was having yesterday with not getting work next Friday, and then into one about my general fear of being some kind of "bum" and not having enough money to survive. Then I told her that people have mentioned that they think I have OCD and ADD (or, as Andy likes to call it, ADOLB - Attention Deficit Oh Look Birdies!!)

From there we spoke about why people think I have ADD, and then about the OCD stuff. We spent a lot of time talking about the OCD stuff - it was really pretty cool. For instance, I didn't know that I was already using the strategies that they wanted to teach me to handle them, without even realising it! Then I got this nifty poster which showed me the way OCD creates a cycle (which I will talk about in a separate post some time) and I got information on how to break that cycle.

Then my hour was up, and I had to go home, which kinda sucked cos I was really getting into it.

Oh, I also got homework - I have to make a list of my phobias and rank them from most severe to least severe. I'll do a post about that one too.

Anyway, after we got home Andy and Spud and Lydia and I were discussing how I have this weird semi-phobia of people touching me in certain places. It's not okay for people to touch me anywhere beneath my belly button, or above my knees. It's also not okay for people to touch the back of my legs. I didn't know just how not okay it was, though, until we decided to do some pseudo-scientific tests last night.

Andy touched my belly, and my thigh. When he touched my belly I wanted to get away, but I couldn't cos I was stuck in the chair and moving out of his touch would have involved hurting something. When he touched my leg, I was very uncomfortable, and eventually it started to physically hurt. I wanted out of there bad.

Next I shut my eyes, and he repeatedly said "Is this okay?" and "How about now?", for the first little while my brain was going off and I started to curl up into a ball because I didn't know just how close he was and whether he was going to touch me or not - it was not nice. Eventually, I realised that he wasn't going to do anything, and I felt fine, but then my brain soon realised that he would have figured out that I figured that out, and would have gone back to trying to touch me, and the cycle started again. It's really odd, because I don't mind being touched with objects...It's just people-touching that really bothers me...

So yeah. I guess the moral of this story is that therapists are really nice, and touching me anywhere other than my back without warning is likely to get you unintentionally attacked.

Finances and Budgeting - A Tale Of Needless Worry

Yesterday I mentioned that I started a new job. This is a good thing, for no greater reason that it means that once a fortnight I am blessed to receive some form of purchase credits in my bank account. I believe it's called money.

Regardless of how often I get paid, however, is the slight problem which hit me today. Every Wednesday the staff roster is sent out via email to myself and my co-workers, so that we know what shifts we have to cover for the following week. I've worked here for three weeks now, and so far I've covered 8am to 4pm for two weeks, and 9am to 5pm for 1 week. So this week, when I got the roster, I was ready for pretty much anything.

I say pretty much anything, because I wasn't quite mentally prepared for the eventuality that was staring me in the face as I checked my weekly hours.

I scanned the spreadsheet quickly to find the following:

• Monday: 9am - 5pm
• Tuesday: 9am - 5pm
• Wednesday: 9am - 5pm
• Thursday: 9am - 5pm

I checked the chart once more, trying to find my place in the Friday column. But I wasn't there.

Slowly it dawned on me...I'm a casual...There's no guarantee that I'll get five days a week each week. There's not even a promise that I'll get four days...Hell, what if there's a week where I just don't get to work at all?

My mind started to question my current state of existence - how was I going to survive without a supplementary source of income? What if I'm having a particularly expensive week? What if they decide that they don't need me anymore?

And from there my hyperactive little ADD spoilt mind went into overdrive - what was the rate of taxation on my income? What if there's a week I can't afford rent? Could I get some tutoring money?

And so I continued on in my little downward spiral of ADD neuroticism, as I tend to do. Until, that is, I managed to get onto MSN to talk it out with Spud (who you will quickly come to learn is the person who makes me feel good about pretty much any situation. I could be having my face chewed off by a bear and he'd make it seem okay.)

I talked to Spud - I poured my panic all over the screen, and he wiped it down with a chamois of calmness (and, admittedly, anesthetic from the dentist.) Suddenly, things didn't seem so bad. He and I could spend Friday doing something cool. I'm earning more money this week that I normally would (because of the time I spent training) so I can just budget carefully and sensibly. And (most notably) in a four day period at this job, I earn more than I used to in a five day period at my previous job.

After I'd taken all that in it didn't seem so bad. Sure, I still have those little panic butterflies in my stomach, but they'll go away with time (and after I find out how much I get taxed, which should happen tomorrow.)

All in all, it's not as bad as I initially thought it would be - which I suppose is the case with most incidents like this.

I'm Not Dead, I'm Just Employed

Hey Internet Friends,

How are you all going? I know it's been quite some time since I last posted on here, and I just wanted to send some kind of reassuring message that I'm not dead - I have just got a job.

I've been trying to gain employment for quite some time now, and I'm glad that I finally got one. I think that, had I stayed at the level of "Oh god I'm running out of money faster than it comes in" panic that I was experiencing, then Spud would have killed me and fed my body to the masses in the form of some kind of delicious pie. So, after experiencing the crippling agony of financial stress and "YOU ARE MEANT TO BE AN ADULT, YOU CLOD"itis, I finally got my stuff together and badgered a friend's mother into giving me work - woo, go me, and so forth.

I work in I.T. Customer Service Management. Basically, my job consists of sitting at a desk for 8 hours a day (although 1.5 of those hours is spent on Lunch/Morning or Afternoon Tea) and saying the same thing, over and over again, until I suffer some kind of debilitating aneurysm (at least, I assume that is the purpose, it hasn't happened yet, and I'm still saying the same thing over and over...)

Now, I've seen the IT Crowd, I know how people think of IT divisions and help desks, and I know just how bad some of the people there are at social interaction. I wanted to be different from that - I wanted to break the curve. I have an honours degree, for goodness sakes, and I'm a skilled linguist - I can be polite and eloquent and there's nothing they can do to take that away from me!

So what I started out saying was something along the lines of:

"Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening, C.S.U. D.I.T. Service Desk, this is Dwaine speaking. How ma..."

"Yes I wa..."

"y I help you?"

This was all said in the most chirpy and chipper voice that I can muster, and if you've ever heard me get excited about something, you know that I can be pretty damned animated in the vocal chords when I want to be.

Of course, my greeting was followed by something along the lines of:

"Yes, hello Glenn..."

"Sorry, it's Dwaine."

"Oh, sorry...Anyway, my problem is just that..."

And then they launch into a spiel about how they cannot access the internet, or how they need to install some esoteric piece of statistics software that no other human being has ever had to use, but they need me to grant them installer rights.

Since then, however, I have noticed a growing pattern in two areas:

1. People are so excited to tell me that they have a problem that they're willing to cut me off mid-sentence to let me know about it.
2. Nobody will ever get my name correct over the phone

Thus, my greeting has now devolved into the following:

"Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening, D.I.T. Service Desk, Dwaine speaking."

"Yes, hello Glenn..."

"How may I help you today?"

At which point they launch head-first into their pointless spiel, and I inevitably take control of their PC using VNC, and solve their problem my restarting I.E.

Still, no amount of not-knowing-my-name rudeness will ever stop me from being so chipper I cause their ears to bleed. I consider it part of my payment, knowing that whilst they are in PC hell, I can maintain a level of happiness shared only by Santa Claus and hyperactive children.

I almost consider it better than the money.

Almost, but not quite.

44.1 - Catch Snow On My Tongue

Hey there Internet Land, let me tell you the story of my day.

I woke up this morning, came to my PC and hit up FaceBook (as I usually do) and was hit by a torrent of status updates about the fact that it was snowing in Bathurst. I've not seen snow that I can remember, and so I rushed to my backyard to catch a glimpse. I was hit, however, by a blizzard of green!

Given that I've lived here for almost seven full years, and I've not once seen snow, I was kind of ticked off. Also, given that it's freaking Spring I am amazed that it was snowing in the first place.

So I sat at my PC, dejected, talking to my friend Trevor (who lives in Canada, and thus sees snow all the time) when, all of a sudden...WHITE! FALLING FROM THE SKY!! So I rushed outside and looked up - the wet coldness clung to my face! So I opened my mouth, stuck out my tongue, and caught some on there.

It sounds small, but it's something I've always wanted to do, and it was really cool to experience it.

The only things that would have made it better would have been if my friends were there, or if the snow was settling (then I could have made a snow angel!)

Anyway, Internet Friends, thanks for sharing this with me ^_^

Catchya later

6.1 Watching Cosplay Complex

Ahoy-hoy Internet-Land! So this afternoon I completed the anime series Cosplay Complex, a three part anime (four if you include the 'special episode') focussing on the training session of the cosplay club at East Oizumi College, Japan. The series really offers very little in terms of what anybody could call a cohesive story; the "focus" of the series seems to be the various situations that the girls get themselves into whilst training to better their cosplay abilities.

The training sequences however, seem to be used simply as an excuse to show the girls in a variety of skimpy outfits (admittedly all pulled from various anime/game series), and for quite a bit of yuri fan-service to be pumped out (pun totally intended) to keep the predominantly male audience salivating. Why, then, did I keep watching so intently? Well, Internet-Land, I must confess that I found myself completely engrossed in attempting to determine the characters that the cosplayers were attempting to emulate - a feat made quite difficult by the fact that none of the characters ever change their hair.

Over-all I'd probably recommend giving Cosplay Complex a miss, unless you fall into one of the two categories:

a. You're really into cosplaying, are looking for some good ideas
b. You're a horny male in your teenage years, or early twenties, and you're only able to get off by watching surreal, soft-core henai.

Final Rating: 2/5 (it was uplifed by the 'weird factor', and the fact that they showed me what each of the cosplay attempts were meant to be in the final "special" episode.)

For those of you wondering about the finer details of the series (which I will be providing for everything I watch) it was brought to us by Wonder Farm (the same company responsible for Hand Maid May), and was brought out all at once on the 25th of May, 2002.

Death By Cheesecake

Tonight's challenge, whether I choose to accept it or not, is to finish this post without having to run to the bathroom to throw up. Not from a lack of delicious, mind you, but instead the exact opposite. I am, if you will, suffering from what shall now forever be known as delicious overload.

Tonight I decided to tackle the first item in List 24: 100 Foods Recipes To Make - the Nutella Black & White Cheesecake. I decided that the first recipe I would make had to be a cheesecake because, after all, cheesecake was the impetus for the hundred hundreds challenge. So I went through the cheesecake recipes on food.com, and discovered that one can (supposedly) combine the cheesecake (something already delicious) with Nutella (possibly the most delicious spread on the face of the planet...)

So, the cooking process itself wasn't nearly as scary as I thought - although there is a heck of a lot of cleaning up to do (tomorrow, though, as I'm about to fall victim to a dairy coma) - and the most annoying thing was the fact that my beaters lowest setting was still not slow enough to stop mixture from flying onto my walls. And my friend Andy was around to give me some assistance, and to show me some of the basics of cooking, such as how to fold cream into a mixture, so big thanks to him.

So, how did the recipe turn out? Well, it was delicious. So. Very. Delicious. Very rich, too. The only comment I'd make is that the recipe calls for 1 hours chilling time, which (given that the Nutella mixture is basically just ganache) I would probably increase to more like 24 hours to get a really good firm going on, as when I took it out it was still very runny in the Nutella portions (the remnants are in the fridge, so I'll update this tomorrow with how it looks after more chilling time...)

I'll post some pictures of the finished product below, as well as a link to the recipe that I followed, but for one final word I shall give the honour to my best friend Alydd (the person who I mentioned in my very first post, the one for whom I was initially cooking the cheesecake)...Of this cheesecake he says "It was fantabulous!"

Indeed it was, Alydd...Indeed it was....

 How To Make This Cheesecake

The Finished Product

The Slice I Ate

List 24: 100 Food Recipes To Make

I don't have much to say about this list right now - I just finished my slice of the richest cheesecake I have ever tasted and I don't know how much longer I can hold out for...

I shall update with something that makes sense later :P

1. Nutella Black & White Cheesecake

Why 0.(9) Is Equal To One

Hey there Internet-World, today marks a kind of special day for me, as it is (or will be, when I press that "Publish Post" button) the day when I achieve the first of my ten-thousand goals!

The goal I'm kicking in the pants today is from List 40: 100 Mathematical Theories To Learn, and comes to you thanks to a set of rather...um...heated discussions I have with friends about the fact that 0.(9), which denotes 0.9 repeated (0.9 with an infinite number of 9's following...) is in fact equal/equivalent to 1.

Typically, when I assert the fact that, yes, 0.999999... = 1, I am met with various cries of "Get the heck out of here" or "No...No it isn't...", mixed (of course) with varying levels of obscenity. However occasionally I am faced with a different type of opposition - instead of decrying the fact itself, they respond along the lines of "Oh yes, that - of course it is, and here is the proof as to why..."

What they then proceed to thrust into my face is, in fact, not a proof of this fact at all. Well, rather, some of them do offer me a proof, but the mathematics behind it is flawed. So, if you don't believe that 0.(9) = 1, or if you think that using the "1/3 = 0.(3)" method is the best way to quash resistance to this fact, then read on, and be informed!

0.(9) is a number that is expressible as what is called a Geometric Series - this basically means that we can take 0.9999... and split it up into a series of numbers where successive terms have a common ratio between them. In the case of 0.(9) the common ratio is a power of 1/10 - example:

9*(1/10) = 9/10

(9/10)*(1/10) = 9/100

(9/100)*(1/10) = 9/1000

0.9999... = 9/10 + 9/100 + 9/1000 + 9/10000 + ...

Now, even though this sum is infinite (that is, if you tried to add it together, you'd be going forever because there are always new terms to add) there is a mathematical nicety in the fact that if the terms of the sum are approaching zero (which ours are) then the sum is finite (I will offer a proof of this later.)

The sum of such a series is given by:

S = (a)/(1 - r)

Where S is the sum of the series

Where a is the initial term of the series

Where r is the common ratio

So we have:

a = 9/10 = 0.9

r = 1/10 = 0.1

Which all lead us to...

0.9999... = 0.9 + 0.09 + 0.009 + 0.0009

               = a/(1 - r)

               = 0.9/(1 - 0.1)

               = 0.9/0.9

0.9999... = 1

So, there you have it - a pretty simple proof to what is, to most people, quite an astonishing fact. What follows now is just the proof of convergence I promised earlier (that is, the proof that the sum of a series is, in fact, equal to a/(1 - r))

So, if you're not interested in reading that (and you've made it this far...) then I say to you the following: congratulations for making it through the post; thank you for sharing my first achievement with me; and later days Internet-Crowd!!

---

PROOF OF CONVERGENCE

The sum of a geometric series can be written as the sum of a geometric progression of the form:

SUM[k=0, inf] ar^k = a + ar + ar^2 + ar^3 + ar^4 + ...

Which we will write, then as 

lim[n->inf] (SUM[k=0,n] ar^k)

If we look, first at:

SUM[k=0,n] ar^k = a + ar + ar^2 + .. + ar^n

If we multiply both sides by (1 - r) we obtain:

(1 - r)(SUM[k=0,n] ar^k) = (1 - r)(a + ar + ar^2 + ... + ar^n)

(1 - r)(SUM[k=0,n] ar^k) = a - ar + ar - ar^2 + ar^2 + ... - ar^n + ar^n - ar^(n+1)

(1 - r)(SUM[k=0,n] ar^k) = a - ar^(n+1)

Dividing both sides by (1 - r) now:

SUM[k = 0, n] ar^k = (a - ar^(n + 1))/(1 - r)

Substituting that back into our original equation we get:

lim[n->inf] (SUM[k=0,n] ar^k) = lim[n->inf] (a - ar^(n + 1))/(1 - r)

We can separate the fraction to become:

lim[n->inf] (a/(1 - r) - ar^(n + 1)/(1 - r))

We can then use the fact that lim[n->inf] a - b = lim[n->inf] a - lim[n->inf] b to obtain:

lim[n->inf] (a/(1-r) - lim[n->inf] ar^(n + 1)/(1 - r)

Now, we are restricting the problem domain here to values of 'r' that are strictly less than 1 (if you remember, in our example, r = 0.1, which is less than 1)

When r < 1, and as n approaches infinity, r approaches zero, thus

lim[n->inf] ar^(n + 1)/(1 - r) = a*0/(1 - r) = 0

Which gives us:

lim[n->inf] a/(1 - r) - 0 = lim[n->inf] a/(1 - r)

And because there are no terms of n in this, it is easily calculated to be:

a/(1 - r)

So, we have just proven that:

a + ar + ar^2 + ar^3 + ar^4 + ... = a / (1 - r)

in case you didn't believe me blindly, in which case - good for you! And congratulations on making it to the true end of my very first accomplished post!