I get up this morning as I always do (well as I have most of my life thus far) and wander to the jym (as I normally do) Where I find they have re-arranged things so that I hawe to walk the full way past the gym to the reception, about 50m or so, past the 'old' reception (which was convienantly located just inside the door) then you have to walk all the way back basically to the front door to get into the gym. That all being said - I thought to myself 'thats the most stupid thing I am going to have to deal with all day' (see how upbeat I can be) I managed to have a really good workout & got home to a nice hot shower & a great breaky.

Then I arrive at work, there are no messages from clients who need the sun moved slightly so it doesn't shine it their eyes in the morning (1/2 my requests are about this stupid) the coffee is freely flowing, I have a great *bright* hawian shirt on - even better than this one Anto at work

Then I get to the /. emails - Normally I use them to notify me if someone has added a comment to something I have said or one of my friends has posted a journal entry. The first thing I do is click the link to open it up in Mozilla - at which point I see a nice annoying animated add (occasionally I actually click on one when its not someone trying to sell me freeze dried doggie grits). Today however The first thing I see is 8 lines of annoying ads (in the email) - all the same add telling me to waste my time looking at a thawte site to learn about friggin SSL. I daily talk to people about ssl - I organise secure hosting of our applications for clients - I arrange for the purchase of certificates on a regular basis. I have now just put thawte to the bottom of my list of providers... (yes Im pissed and ranting)

It is going to be trivial for me to automatically trim this spam from my email - I will never see the ads again. However I was also looking at getting a /. sub - I dont agree that I should have to pay to make /. the site it is - but I am (was) willing to do so. They [/.] have the arrogance to spam my inbox with the *exact same* add 3 times (I probably would have accepted seeing it once). How can people participating in the wonderfulness that is ./ fail to see that this just might be a really bad idea.

PS I am also mailing my fav. thawte reseller telling them why I wont be buying thwarte again.

(now a deep breath, a bit of loud music and some work)

It's (obviously) been way too long since I actually posted anything here.
My excuses are: (not that *I* need excuses mind you :)

1) I have been enjoying / dying through the Austrailan summer - as some of you know its an El Nino / La Nina (I hope I got that right) season which means we get quite interesting weather - no rain (at least in the southern part of the country) and hot dry days. Locally we have been on manditory water restrictions for a few months now (although at the current restriction levels it hardly affects me at all as they are sensible water saving measures wuich I pretty much follow normally) All this leads to spending a fair amount of time in a nice air-con enviroment or trying to find a way to live underwater.

2) My work load seems to be enormous and never ending - I finish one rush job only to have it replaced by 2, I have been doing some amazing levels of overtime causing me to not be at home in front of the PC all that much.

3) My SO seems to think that me sitting on the couch reading /. while she watches some *awful* TV (mostly she likes good, decent things - but there is the occasional show that I find awful) isnt exactly quality time - which I am a little inclined to agree with.

4) I converted my KB to dvorak - which has been a huge boon. I am now actually touch typing properly and not getting the 'you have been typing too much' wrist soreness. It is quite amazing the number of english words you can type without moving your hands off the home keys. BUT!!! the conversion was *brutal* I had to force myself to use the damm thing. For a while I was averaging about a character every 2 seconds (as I would not look at the kb.) after flying along with a 6 finger typing effort on querty it was amazingly frustraiting. While phoning in a support call to a company I don't normally deal with I was asked to type in a url - I can just imagine what was going through this guys head as a supposed IT guy is typing in a url with click.......click..... etc. Oh the shame.

5) We Moved offices *again* this time I didnt take any crap from subcontractors - and basically got everything I wanted done - now we have telco capacity to burn (which we will probably never use :)

6) 500+ houses burnt down in my city. I went out of town for just 2 days and all hell breaks loose. It was quite a scary time - my SO's suburb was put on 'high alert' (with her naughty cats not coming home like they should have when a suburb is about to be consumed by a fireball) My parents battled a grass fire about 40 meters from their house. Just a few houses down were places that literally burnt to the ground. All this was quite stressful while I was literally a 6 hour drive away (we only found out after the drive)

Oh and I am still spending loads of time at the jym. My Brother stopped coming to boxing with me - which has worked out quite well - most of the hime I end paired up with a fairly big ex-services guy. We get to *really* pummel each other - its good to know your partner will take pretty much whatever you throw at them. Occasionally one of us still manages to knock tho other over - its all part of the fun of it. In addition you got really interesting looks from people walking past :)

Well I seem to just pile my addictions on top of each other.

For everyone who have the good fortune of not knowing me I'll give a small amount of background info..
A while ago (quite a few years ago) I decided that I could afford to get (a little) more into shape. So like millions of other idiots around the world I joined a gym. I showed up did their fun fun fun tests (I'm lying about the fun part) got a program and started showing up about 3 times a week.

Then someone at the office was starting to do some aerobics classes at lunchtime and wanted someone to go along.. Being more than a tad stupid I decided that how much pain can a few girly aerobics classes cause.. (the answer is quite a lot :)

So now I'm doing about 6 hours at week at the gym...

And then my little brother broke himself playing rugby (in a really impressive way) so he started coming along to the gym to assist his physio. So we upped the number of times we do weights.

Then just recently a friend of mine decided that wouldn't it be *fun* (yes there is that word again) to have a nice friendly game of squash. I though - what a fun way to spend an hour on the weekend - and answered 'yes lets do that'...

Before I know it we are playing between 2-4 hours of squash a week, and its starting to get hard. My poor body is racked with pain most of the time. I know the logical answer is to cut down on something - but the hard bit is selecting which bit.. I like all of it...

However squash is quite a fun game - easy to pick up while providing enough of a challenge to keep you interested, its also quite good if you have a sadistic streak (not that *I* do mind you) as there is not much more fun than making your partner run all over the court running into things :)

Its been a week of new things (well the first two days) I have actually been pretty much working full time (not only *being* at work all the time but working my butt off while I am here), on top of that I tried a new ?aerobics? class yesterday - I sucked up all my macho weight lifting pride and dragged my carcass into a yoga class.

As it turns out it was quite enjoyable - although it did trick me into sweating without me realising I was actually likely to do so. The moves wern't *desperatly* hard although there was much thinking involved, and I can't say I have spent as much time staring at carpet (let alone face down smelling it - and my gym has pretty funky carpet, sadly not in a good way) What was interesting is that it obviously worked quite different muscles to thoes I normally excerise (or at least in a different way) since I was pretty damm sore - hence the title - by the time I managed to get home and to the nearest comfy couch.

Luckily I get to go off and do a nice (manly, tough :) boxing class tonight to get all that girly deep breathing, streching & relaxation out of my system...

Now time for the rant:
Wht on earth do we congratulate people that are going to get married - if there was some kind of competition to marry as many people as possible (as I am lead to believe exists in certin US states :) I can see it being something that should be congratulated - hell running really fast down a track for 100m at least requires an amount of effort. As I have been lead to believe by tv pretty much anyone can get married - there appear to be very few requirements. In fact there are pretty much none - we get to witness people marrying someone 60 years older than them to get their money, people marrying others to get revenge.. etc el etc.

Jeepers congratulate them when they actually tie the knot (at least they survived the planning etc) congratualte them when they are still together for a year - but please leave it alone til then....

Or mabee I'm just turning into a grumpy old man?

Well finally I gave up and got someone to move in with me - the general theory is that he can help pay the bills as well as splitting the cost of food etc. So far its been not too bad - I have a house that looks something like a large bomb may have recently landed nearby - but thats not entirly unusal :)

As a massive bonus I have scored an extra fridge (since mine was way to small & always pretty full - which is a good thing :) Oh and my little TV has been thrown back into my room, replaced with a nice bright, flat 68cm package of joy.

Once again the weekend vanashed in a pile of useless activities - sunday was spent moving stuff between 3 houses, with a nice break inbetween to chat to the Federal police about the (latest) break-in at my office. The only thing worse than being broken into on a sunday is having to clean up after people who have trashed your work breaking in on a sunday... (or mabee its just me)

Come monday I managed to start the morning sessions at the gym, my lazy injured brother managed to drag himself along at last, so far I have done 2 morning sessions in a row & am generally feeling pretty damm good (well I am damm good :)

Work continues to be like... well... work.... I'm currently doing web application development & hating coldfusion - although it could be *much* worse - it could be asp... :)

I just realised I have used the word "pile" *way* too much thus far so in order to make up for it I'll use the word hole for a bit to make up for it.

Soon I'm off to the hole that is my gym in order to patricipate in my fun fun fun boxersize class - as my brother hasn't been going for the past few weeks I have been partnered with someone else (who can *really* punch..) which has been quite the fun experience - now I'll hopefully scare mikl with my newfound punching power... On a related note I get to blame my new rather, well, streamline haircut on the boxersize instructor, who had previously given me 2 weeks to get my long & untidy hair cut or face expulsion from the class... And where would I be without my bi-weekly hitting of stuff :)

Well I'm surviving winter, interestingly once I started wearing less clothes on a regular basis I don't seem to notice the cold so much - I went for an ad-hoc walk / jog on satturday wearing only shorts & a t-shirt (ok I'd had way too much nice coffee which may have affected my judgment) I actually felt really good - not to mention I got loads of funny looks from people wandering around dressed for the artic :)

Not so interestingly I am still single, I'm sure the theory that this problem only clears up when you finally stop caring must have some merit - sadly though I can't force myself to stop caring just yet - although you never know - Soon I'll be old and grey (ok so 26 isn't *that* old & grey) so mabee resignation will be visited on me by the birthday genie.

My new(ish) house is going all well - it hasn't fallen down or anything :) Although after being involved with a friend who built from scratch I'd love to build - you get to make all kinds of fun choices (not to mention 10,000 annoying petty choices.) As a bonus you get to run *tones* of cables around the place & dig trenches in the rain - who wouldn't like that :)

Off to cook Lasagne & chicken mussaman tonight (yum) that should keep me going for the next week.

Is there anyone alive who truly belives the world underwent a massive change on the morning of the 11th of September?

Before I get you all ranting & raving & shouting me down - let me start by saying the senseless slaying of thouands of lives by religious fundalmentalists was one of the more horrific events that has occured in my lifetime.

Now I have gotten that out. Let me try and gently & honestly express my oppinion. I believe the attack on the US was born out of a generation brought up without hope for the future, versed in religious fundalmentalism & taught that the US is the world bully pushing all the small countires around as it pleases. Lets forget the first two & jump right on into the US..

For as long as I can remember the US has used underhanded & undemocratic processes to influence other countires around to their world view, they have killed citizens of other countries (outside of the 'legal' avenue of declared warfare) they have replaced democratically elected officials with dictators, worse still in my mind they have trained, funded & supported militant fundamentalist groups in order to help attack a common enemy.

The amazing string of US trained & supplied military dictators is scary, what it even scarier is that the citiznes of the US (and the government) seem to be suprised when the saddams, & the osmas of this world only play the US position as long as it suits them. Generally these people don't pretend to be loving & nice.. The US is supporting them because they will fight iran to the dealth, because russia will *never* win in afghanistan until every last man is dead or dying. The same reason they are such an attractive front line army for the US is the same reasons they are not to be relied on to continue to support US policy in the future.

About 50 years ago (long before my time) the US decided that in order to protect the lives of its armed forces they would end the lives of a large number of innocent civilians in Japan. More than 50,000 men, women & children were wiped from the face of the planet in an instant, with no recourse of argument or chance of surender. The US decided that in order to uphold its position (which I actually agree with) they would contemplate a *horrific* act (which I don't support) knowing full well the effect it would have on innocent civilians. Can we then critise the Talibhan government for learning from history & deciding that the only way to end US attacks throught the Middle East (and US lead control of the same) was to once again make a single horrific attack against the very people that make up the populus of the US?

And what of the US lead response, they admit that this was a terrorist attack & then in the same breath declare war on the entirity of the afghanastani (is that the correct form?) people in the same breath. The people the war on terror will kill is not high powered generals, or even people planning the next attack (of which there is sure to be one) but the innocents who have no choice but to stay and fight for their homes - as far as they know the US is an all dominating force that is coming in to kill them all.

Now back to my original premis: Has the world really changed? Is the mass murder of civilians a new occurance? Obviously not! Is a fundamantalist supported by a rich state turning on that state a new occurance? Obviously not! Is the use of terror tactics in an undeclared war a new occurance? If you look to the UK terrorist bombings have been occuring for years now (with obvious effect) so that too is obviously not a new occurance.

As far as I can tell the thing that has changed is the citizens of the US may have had the first look at how the rest of the world views them. They have experienced the same terror parents everywhere have when they don't know if there is going to be a safe place for their children to grow up away from violence.

Would the world not be a better place if rather than bombing afghanstan the money was instead put into doing away with poverty in the third world? If a part of the money funding the 'war on terror' was put towards ensuring the majority of the worlds children had the chance at at least a primary school if not a high school education. But no, the Middle east is rich in oil, a drug the US craves like no other, so an unstable middle east directly hits the entire US in the pocket. While I am happy to admit the US has done some genuine good in the region, Clinton managed to get Israel & Palestine to actually sit at the same table & talk, something that bush seems to have thrown away in his rush to declare 1/2 the world an axis of terror, I would much rather see them invest billions of dollars into education & healthcare (where they certinly don't lead the world) rather than the *amazing* amount spent on 'defence' (even when that defence is offensive)

Please keep in mind this is a *messy* brain dump & until I tidy it up probably reads wrong.

Well I have finally realised, by any consevative measure I'm not normal... This dawned on me when I received an email from someone I could consertivly describe as a 'rabid christian' now if you didn't know me you could confuse me with a christian (or catholic for that matter) I don't go around shooting people, even though it would be my democratic right if I lived in the US.. In fact many of my beliefs seem to mirror thoes of the catholic church. If you were just a casual observer you may assume that my attending catholic schools would be the evidence you need. So to clear it up once & for all, I am not a catholic, christian or for that matter a member of any organised religion. I am an atheist my general outlook on religion (organised or not) is pretty nicly summed up in the following:

• I can understand why primitive cultures believed that invisible beings controlled what we now call the elements and natural phenomena. With access to factual knowledge, there is now no excuse for believing in gods, fairies or any supernatural concept.
• I live in a natural universe with known natural laws. Religion, based on belief in the existence of the supernatural, is dependent on the indoctrination of infants generation after generation, by parents brainwashed in religious cultures.
• The confrontations and fighting today provide ample evidence of the unstable nature of societies, which endorse religious beliefs.
• Infantile concepts seriously hinder the full potential development of humans in a world with problems that require logical thought.
• Atheists find their motive for action in the needs and problems of their fellow citizens and consider that the worship of, or reliance on, imaginary supernatural beings to be a useless waste of time, energy and resources. Which I pretty much wholesale borrowed from The Atheist Foundation of Australia of which I'm not a member but they turned up in a google search first :) Now back to my original argument... I realised when I got quite annoyed at something someone said today, that
• a large percentage of the population would have probably agreed with the statment
• &amp that dosn't make it right. I've totally lost my point by now so I have to run away and finish this later :)

Well After more than 10 days I am *almost* recovered from the wedding, I now know that when the cock is crowing (something I never knew actually happened these days - but thats the joy of being a city boy) it is probably a *really* good time to be already in bed sleeping. Being me of course I was just heading back to the hotel after a *really* good night - which suprised me as I kinda expected the wedding concept to pretty much suck; spending time in a church, although there were points I was amused almost to laughter there.. Hours being told to stand in silly places for the photos. Although *huge* thanks goes out to the wonderful people who provided the drinks & nibblies at the photo shoot - they were a godsend...

Then there was the potential nightmare of the reception, where I had to be sober enough to give a really bad speach, where thankfully everyone else was so drunk they thought it was funny, excepting keef who seemed somehow midly annoyed at the end of it (no idea why he must just be sensitive or something :)
Then there was the post reception partying, including (but certinly not limited to) trying to drink a 3L magnum of warm beer - which didn't work but we *sure* tried hard :) Followed by quite a few interesting hours spent freezing to death chatting to some interesting & inteligent young ladies...
All in all although my body may not agree with me it was a good event.

Oh and congrats to the happy couple, may you have a long life togther (almost like a chinese curse :)

Well I can finally (and at least in my mind justifiably) blame slashdot for my physical pain.

I (like millons of others) read all about the silly sounding guy who did the two weeks of Navy seal PT traning (twice!) I was reading it thinking - well it would be intersting, but why kill your body (and damage your health) for no good reason..

So I kept on reading... And then was quite dispaonted when I didn't see some interesting ray of sunshine lighting up the interior of my brain...

... then a *really* strange thing happened, I thought mabee I should do thoes situps that we skiped at the gym this morning, so I did them (and some) then I though, well occasioanlly I used to skip some pushups as well - so I did some of them as well (by this stage my brain must have *really* been pumping some funny stuff into its self, I usually don't get such random desires to hurt myself..

After a bif (or a lot) of annoying excerise, I thought, you know what would be good - I know the answer now, a nice lie down & a cold beer - at the time I though a nice painful 2.5k run (mostly uphill, I have *no* idea how you can run uphill more than 1/2 of a circut run) would just make my satturday night perfect..

... Well it certinly made it something, I woke up in a rather largish amount of pain sunday morning - I fergot to strech after the run. Sunday turned out to be *incredibly* unproductive, which wasn't my fault, but then by about 10pm I was thinking, you know... I could run again... So I did - this time however it wasn't *too* painful & I found myself actually enjoying it (mostly - in fact I didn't stop or slow down at all)
now I'm off to crawl into bed & hope I wake up tommorow & think this was all a bad dream :)

Well - I can now tick off another extreme (kinda) activity from my decreasing list.

For keef's bucks we trotted down to the local paintball provider.. Boy was it fun, there was close to no pain at all (at the time :) and we generally enjoyed a good 4 hours of running around in the bush 'killing' each other.

I have never had such an insight into what it must be like to occupy a battlegound equipped with modern weapons, the difference between being 'alive' & 'dead' was at times miniscule - one second you would be nice & hidden the next a paintball would smack into your body somewhere & you would be walking off the gound with your gun (opps 'marker') above your head.
The only problem is that its yet another expensive activity that I would *love* to do again, that and the increasing worry that I might be addicted to things that generate large amounts of adrenaline... But how can that be a bad thing right :)

Well its T-2 days til the big bucks party (you all know who its for) and I must say I have really racked my brains to try and create an interesting, educational & enjoyable enviroment that will push peoples physical & mental barriers. Let me just say before the great destruction & judging that I did it all for the joy of the moment (omg I'm starting to sound like a strange female solo artist...)
That being said we are all just going to run around playing paintball & drinking a lot :)
Quick Update
Well now in hindsight - it all turned out great, of course the poor groom having not the stamina of the rest of us with regards to fatal levels of alcohol consumption quietly tried to die of vommiting at a hardly respectful 2am (or perhaps it was the constantly feeding him drinks :)
It turned out that everyone seemed to have a good evening - even the married men who had to be home before dark or risk rasing the ire of their loving spouses...

All I can say that after almost a week of going to the gym everyday (don't just go out & do it people - you need to *gradually* build up to such stupidity) my body is holding out quite well, at this stage I'm really enjoying the process of daily excerise and as a bonus I seem to be replacing fat with muscle (we will just see if this continues to work :)