My stuff is all in a shambles at the moment. I had to relocate most of my worldly possesions - all the important ones anyway; my computer, xbox, gamecube, dreamcast and TV. It all pretty much went onto my bed. Then some builders came, knocked a huge hole in the wall where said stuff was set up, and put in some full length windows with a ranchslider (or 'sliding door' as seems to be the internationally acceptable term). However, now that my vices are all out of the way, they spring it on me that they'll be staying away until the room gets rewallpapered. So my computer's set up on the dining room table at the moment, uncomfortable as it is.
University's back in motion, hopefully gonna go better than last semester.

Oh, and it's my birthday tomorrow. And I got Dad Reiner Knizia's Samurai because it's also his birthday tomorrow. But probably the most important element of tomorrow would be that it's my parents 25th (silver) anniversay, although the method of celebration seems to be staying home and having chinese takeaways for dinner because they're both ill. I think tomorrow I'll ask them just what they were thinking as far as getting married on someones birthday goes...

Current Mood: sleepy

Ugh, I really don't want to be awake at the moment, but I've got jury duty in a couple of hours, so I dragged myself out of bed half an hour ago in the hopes of leaving early and entirely avoiding the possibility of getting fined for absence.
Old news now, but the funeral (see last post) was pretty big, the church was packed out with hundreds of people. The widow was so distraught that she couldn't walk and had to be carried by her two sons... it was all fairly upsetting.
Tangent - I convinced Paul to buy an Xbox a few days ago. Well, convinced in so far as I showed him Ninja Gaiden and he started drooling, and broke the back of the camel that hates Microsoft so much.

Well, here's hoping I don't fall asleep in court.

Current Mood: tired

Upsetting news...

Old school readers might recall my carnie roots, and those from New Zealand that watch the news might have heard that some guy fell off the Superloop (it's like a rollercoaster, only it's just a vertical loop). Obviously, these two things are related, or I wouldn't be mentioning them together like this.
Anyway, as I understand it, my boss (as I was a carnie) and neighbour fell off the Superloop while doing maintenance, sustained damaged to his head (as well as the rest I suppose) and died on the way to the hospital. He was a genuinely nice guy, and the fact that he's dead is natrually the worst part of the whole incident, however, as I was driving Dad home, we heard the National Radio's report on it and couldn't help but get a little steamed over it.
Apparantly "some guy" fell off and was sent to hospital. The way it was delivered had the blatant implication that he was riding, and he fell off because it was unsafe. Then the next ten minutes were spent talking about ride safety, checking its warrent of fitness, getting an engineer, and getting opinionated mothers to talk on the radio about how they won't let any of their children on the rides because of the safety. As if the death of one of the pivotal members in their company wasn't enough, they have a national radio station taking creative license and sensationalising the whole affair.

Current Mood: sad

I gave blood on Wednesday - they give little soft toys away for people that do now, they're like beanie babies only a little bit bigger. Anyway, I turned them down on the basis that I really have no one give it to (which sorta got me bummed for a second, but I didn't dwell on it) and while I was sitting down getting hooked into the blood-sucking whatsit, one of the volunteers noticed I had no toy a more or less harassed me like I'd paid her a great personal insult or something. It was almost enough to make me say "Wow, I'm glad I gave you guys 470ml of my blood so I could experience this!"
Instead I told her that she could have the toy that I refused, but naturally that's not allowed.

Mum mentioned something about Janine teaching (or maybe it was taking) some course in Sydney, and that she and Dad are planning to go over there to spend time with her... would I like to come? Well, it's not that I don't want to, but the way water seems to run right through me lately suggests that I won't be able to scrape together the meager airfare.

Okay, that and the whole thing about being in a strange place either alone or with my parents doesn't really appeal to me.

Current Mood: cynical

Microsoft was pretty damn cool. The whole place oozed a feeling of sterile cleanness - and I'm not talking about a hostpital-clean type deal here, it was less antiseptic than that. The cleaness of the place actually reminded me of the imagery used in Microserfs - the lawns being compared to green lego plains. The visit consisted of sitting in a cosy (yet extremely well furnished) room with Nigel and the two MS guys, playing unreleased games and having a good old chat.
Of course, I spent over twice the time driving than I did visiting, as soon as I got past Papakura, it seemed like every asshole in Auckland decided they needed to get in my face and slow me down to 20km/h untill I made it to the Northwestern Motorway.

I sorta had an odd moment on Friday - I drove my sister to the airport and when I got back in my car I just happened to read the trip-meter, 1981 (my birth year - okay so it actually read 198.1km). Then I got to wondering how cool it would be to find out that 1981 is a prime number, but then I realised that it's divisible by seven.

Thoughts about prime numbers are probably induced by reading Dr. Riemann's Zeros by Karl Sabbagh.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: American Hi-Fi - Beautiful Disaster

I'm off to the Auckland office of Microsoft to check out some Xbox related stuff. Should be good. Sorry I haven't written much lately. Wei Yen has been faithfully bringing my neglect to my notice on a fairly regular basis. University is going alright (in spite of the fact that I'm skipping a bunch of classes tomorrow), spent a fair portion of tonight starting and almost finishing an assignment, now I'm going to bed and get six, maybe seven hours sleep before I go and accost these lovely Microsoft fellows.

Don't wait up!

Current Mood: excited
Current Music: Ra - Rectifier

My fathers mother is in hospital, so after I quickly vacuum the house, I'm driving myself and dad up there. Mum drove up a couple of days ago and spent about seven hours at the hospital - she also mentioned that the ward gives her the "heeby jeebies". As we'd expect, she's giving the doctors hell with the way she carries on complaining.

Current Mood: tired

I had a bizarre dream last night in which I found a $135 bill, and went to a bank to discover that it was, in fact, legal tender.

It's probably a bad sign to dream about fictional amounts of money, right?

Current Mood: curious

I'm off north for a few days for Christmas.
Sooo, maybe I'll bring back pictures, maybe I won't... Maybe I'll die on the eight/six hour drive, maybe I won't....
Merry Christmas to all.

Current Mood: tired

So I sorta owe an explanation of my recent hiatus, so here goes.
Initially, I stopped LJing because I was sitting my exams, and I was having enough trouble staying focused without rambling on and on in here about it.
Then, once the exams had rolled by, I was filled with angsty thoughts like "Oh shit I fucked up all the exams, I'm not going to pass any of my course, I'm a retard, where will I go what will I do?"... and that pretty much covers my general thoughts untill about two days ago, when my results came in the mail. It turned out that I passed all the courses core to my program of study, so I can keep going next year.
So I'm no longer a nervous wreck, I'm a recovering nervous wreck.

Current Mood: relieved