Choose your own adventure...

It's Christmas eve, and here we find ourselves under the Australian native mistletoe...

The options are:

(1) Pluck the fruit of the parasitic plant (Amyema quandang) and make tasty quandang jams and conserves,

(2) Admire the majesty of the Western Myall (Acacia papyrocarpa), the favoured host of the aforementioned mistletoe which can live for over 300 years,.... or

(3) Make out like bandits

The choice is yours.

Which ever path you decide, enjoy your Christmas and may your belly be large and filled with the fruit of your success.

... all over his pants

The new year can't come fast enough for me.

Almost like premature ejaculation.

I'm quite eager to get stuck into 2006, as a few things have become clear to me over the past few weeks. Work is crazy busy. I'm finding that an excellent way to not spend money is to make money. And it's been good to take my hand off the wheel and let things coast for awhile.

The only drawback to all this work is that I seem to be losing my creativity and the ability to have interesting conversation. Hmmm....

*blink*

"So Adrian, have they given you a date for moving back to Adelaide yet?" enquired my ever-so-righteous-housechum.

I sat in silent contemplation.

I didn't know what I was going to say, but I knew whatever it might be, that I was signing my name with my tongue. The next words out of my mouth would determine my future.

I smiled to myself as the good-fairy and bad-fairy jostled for position around my head.

"It'll be sometime mid-January. They said they would tell me on Monday.", I fabricated.

The bad fairy won. He often does.

"They sound a bit disorganised to me."

I smiled to myself and left it at that.

Well the truth of the matter is that I've decided not to go back to Adelaide. Not yet anyways.

Instead I've decided on a much more cunning course of action. I'm going to leave my current quarters, and search for somewhere else to live (in Melbourne).

Why should I move all the way back to Adelaide for an extra $10 K in benefits?

I think that I'm worth more than $10 K.

The Adelaide job will still be there in six months. I'll consider the options then. But for now, I want to live consarn it. And I still don't feel that I've landed in the right place yet, dagnabbit.

So I'm gunna be lookin for some new housemates. Interests should include (in no particular order)

Music (And I'm not talking about Shannon Noll or Bernard fucking Fannning)
Soirees (Tea, biscuits, wine, prawns)
Literature (Proust, Rousseau, Viz magazines)
Exercise (Jane Fonda, Clint Eastwood)

and

Being...

oo000oo

I'm all excited to be seeing the Fireballs at the Prince of Wales this Friday night (Christmas Eve Eve). The last time I saw this rockabilly outfit was in 1997 I believe at the Unibar in Adelaide. I was rather tipsy due to having consumed a good portion of a bottle of cheap scotch (Apologies to Alice for my wandering hands). It will be another sentimental journey for me, because I remember being at the Prince of Wales on NYE in 2000, and having a rather raucously riveting night. So I'm hoping for a repeat.

And what plans for New Years?

I am a firm believer that however you spend your New Years Eve sets a precedent for the year ahead. So... I'm going to go down to the Mornington Peninsula (I haven't been down there yet) to check out the sights. I hear good things happen there on NYE?

I'm still unsure whether I'm going to party on, or spend it in tranquil contemplation.

Hmmm...

Whatever the outcome...

Look out 2006, I'll make you into mincemeat.

Christmas crackerjacks

Santa (pictured centre with miscellaneous punters) watches in stunned disbelief as yours truly delivers another cracker of a shot down the green.

Yeah, it's true, Groove Terminator Laboratories will be having its Xmas party at the same bowling club where they filmed Crackerjack.

I've been told that it's quite a trendy place to hang out in Melbourne, so I'll have to dust off my salmon polo top and turn the collar up especially high.

Look out ladies :)

2005: The Revue

1. What did you do in 2005 that you hadn't done before?

Quit my dead-end job, established myself as a major player in the big smoke, had phone-sex, ... And started this Blog.

2. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No, I don't think so, although nearly all of my female friends have had kids in the last few years.

3. Did anyone close to you die?

Yes. My grandmother on my father's side.

4. Did you travel? Where did you go? Best holiday memory?

Drove over to Adelaide (and back to Melbourne) a couple of times. Flew to the Gold Coast. And travelling through country Victoria for work. Best 'holiday' memory was my GM's wake. It was so great to catch up with family, and knock back a few wines. I remember looking around the room and thinking how lucky I was to be related to these people.

5. Best thing you bought?

Screaming Believers album "Communist mutants from outer space" $8.

6. Where did most of your money go?

Most of my earnings has gone into the bars, eateries and cafeterias in Brunswick St and the surrounding district. But I've enjoyed spending every penny. And on my farking car.

7. What do you wish you had done more of?

I suppose I wish that I had spent more time with my friends.

8. What do you wish you had done less of?

Spending money!

9. What kept you sane?

I'm not exactly sure. Probably the ability to disassociate myself from my emotions. Scientology has some merit after all.

10. What drove you mad?

Being the only guy in a house with two women.

11. What made you celebrate?

Hmm, not much celebrating this year. I resolve to change that next year.

12. What made you sad?

Obvious answers include break-up with long-time girlfriend and leaving friends in Adelaide.

13. How was your birthday this year?

Good. I think I had a few beers and a curry with Darren at the Bombay if memory serves.

14. What political issue stirred you the most this year?

Probably the Singapore death-sentence thing. Remember: if you don't want to die, don't smuggle drugs to SE Asia.

15. Were you in love in 2005?

No. Only in the Biblical sense

16. What would you like to have in 2006 that you didn't have this year?

A passport full of stamps from far-away and exotic places (Like Cairns).

17. What date from 2005 will be etched in your memory and why?

17 April 2005

18. What song will remind you of 2005?

Probably Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani ??? It just seems to capture the feel of 2005. Oh and also that horrible "Had a bad day song" due to monotonous repetition on Triple-Bogan FM (and everywhere else)

19. Compared to this time last year are you happier?

Hmm, that's a tough one. I was very unhappy this time last year. I'm not sure if I'm happier now, or more content, or more jaded to the point that I feel numb. I guess numb is better than unhappy? There is still a long way to go in this area. But I'm making progress I think.

20. Biggest achievement this year?

Realizing that I have a lot more potential than others would give me credit for.

21. Biggest disappointment this year?

Loss of several friendships/ acquaintances as a result of differences in opinions or marriages or other trivialities or irrelevancies.

22. What is the one thing that would have made you more satisfied?

A snickers bar? They really satisfy. Or so the advertisement says. Meeting more people on my wavelength would have been satisfying.

23. Best new person you met this year?

This girl

24. A valuable life lesson you learnt this year?

What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

25. Question you made up yourself?

Who is your current favourite hostess from TV?

Why it's Toni Pearen of course.


Thankyou and pieces-of-eight to Elaine the Pirate

Please Note!

2 x tyres require replacement $270
Outer tie rod ends worn $221.10
Front brake hoses are cracked $242.20
O/s front s/absorber leaking oil - both front struts are soft $675.48
Radiator side tank cracked and leaking - reqires replacing $735

Total
$2143.78

Spacewalk time, spacewalk time...

Getting out of bed this morning was a big mistake.

I was woken up at 7.45 (in the am) by my phone. A work colleague from Groove Terminator Laboratories rang to tell me that he had found some field maps on the air-conditioner in the parking garage beneath work.

"They must be mine", I concluded.

Although I had no idea why they would have been there. I'm sure I remember putting them upstairs, although memory is pretty hazy (It was Saturday, come on!)

I arrived at work at two thirty to find some maps stuffed on my desk, underneath the clear plastic folder that they came in. The only problem was that there were meant to be two plastic folders, and about twice as many maps.

I went down to the hire car and turned everything upside-down looking for them.

No trace.

I drove home and tipped everything over looking for the maps.

No maps.

Sheepish, but not particularly wooly, and quietly fuming, I drove back to work.

"They must be at work somewhere. I'll wait til everyone goes home, and then I'll have a good look around."

I managed to locate the person that had found my maps and put them on the airconditioner.

"Yeah there was just a whole bunch of maps layin on the ground and I put them on the airconditioner. They was all A3 and folded in half."

I had a flashback to Saturday, where I may have left the maps on the bonnet of the car whilst I unloaded gear into the workshop. That may have explained said maps flying off as I drove my steed flinging valuable maps into the recesses of the basement. It didn't however explain why only half the maps had been recovered.

So I didn't tell anyone that I'd lost my maps. Remember the golden rule.

Never admit to your mistakes

Especially not on your blog, where quite possibly everyone from the office reads it.

Okay so it's not the end of the world. I'll go back to the goldfields with the new maps this weekend, and get the data. And I'll have lost a weekend, but I'll have my job. Cool.

So then I'm sitting in my luxurious armchair when Mark comes over.

"Adrian, where are the keys to the workshop."

Eeep.

"It's okay, I'll just reach into my pocket and pull them out, because after all, that's where I put them right?"

And of course Murphy's Law played out in full effect. You know, key disappears from existence. I won't bore you with the details, but Candice Bergen was probably there with her little candid camera getting it all down on film to be shown at the office Christmas party.

Needless to say that there are people that will need the key first thing tomorrow morning, and will be rather pissed when it is not where it is meant to be.

Aren't you glad that I'm not a doctor?

"I'm sorry Mrs Watherstone, but I seem to have left my retractor in your pancreas."

Thar's gold in thum thar hills

The Central Goldfields is a charming place a couple of hours NW of Melbourne. Very reminiscent of the Barossa in Adelaide, but a little more remote.

For the most part of the week, the weather was great during the day, and on the drives home at night, there were heavy thunderstorms. Excellent timing. I took a couple of shots, but realised that the camera was in sepia mode. They still look okay though.



And check out this knarley tortoise following the broad gauge line on his migratory journey between ponds. I didn't even know that tortoises were native to Austalia. Or that they got about in the arid regions.


Friday night, we had dinner at the local saloon and watched the deluge outside. The young farmers would have been upset to be recieving such heavy follow up rains during the harvest.

Standing at the jukebox, I was going to put on some Gene Pitney, when I felt a presence loom behind me.

'Twas a man in a flannel shirt with the arms cut off, stubbie shorts and desert boots. He was dancing, flailing his arms about, drunk, and he poked me in the back.

"Put on some country and western. That'd go down a treat right about now."

"Country and western?"

About the only country and western I like is bluegrass. And they didn't have Who broke the lock on the hen house door?. Although I would have love to have played it just to see what would happen.

I'd already heard Lee Kernaghan about thirty times that night, so I put on "24 hours from Tulsa" just to spite him.

Not a wise choice.

"What's this shit?" "This isn't Cuntry and western"

I was later told that his brother was in jail for starving all his sheep, and there was some talk that he had shot the cigarette out of a mans mouth at thirty paces.

That's the gold fever. All crazy like.

I hightailed it out of the saloon and headed for the hills.

If only they had that Benny Hill music on the jukebox too.