Day One Hundred and Twenty Three...

Cut down the bottlebrush bush in front of the house today adn trimmed back the hedges. I broke my secatuers adn hedge trimmers. I might spend more than $6 on the next set I get.

So my first lesson from my first three decades is to love your family and friends above all else. Your family and friends (proper friends, not just hanger ons) are the ones who are there in thick adn thin. They will always be there regardles of what you do, how much you fuck up and how retarted you are. They are the most important part of your life and you need to treasure them. Love them, treat them with respect and make sure you let them know you are there and you care.

Day One Hundred and Twenty Two...

Feeling like crap today. I have a headache but at least I am almost done with work. I see that the two people from the archery club who went to the Archery Nationals both got bronze medals. Congratulations guys, hopefully a few more of us will compete next year and take home some more medals.

Been thinking about life so far, I might write a few of my thoughts down over the next few days.

Day One Hundred and Twenty One...

Ahhh, thirty years old. I feel as though being a teenager was only 2-3 years ago, but it was actually two children, a wedding and a military career ago. Now to get on with the dirty thirties.

Not much to say as I am still thinking about my life so far.

Day One Hundred and Twenty...

Why the Australian retail games industry needs to change.

I have been considering this for a while, so I have decided to write a few pieces about what is wrong with gaming in Australia and why things need to change. The first one is all about pricing and why our retail stores may be at risk.

Given the recent collapse of GAME in the UK, you would assume that the major game retailers in Australia might be starting to worry. Retail conditions across the board are pretty rubbish and have been for a few years now, but you are even more at risk when a large part of your target audience is tech savvy and know their way around the interwebs.

My most recent experience with the bricks and mortar stores came a few days ago when I went looking for a copy of The Old Republic, but first I need to set the scene. I know I am late to the SWTOR party, but only two MMORPGs have held my interest in the past so I am sick of forking out $100 to play for a few weeks then get bored.

For your information the two that held my interest were Ultima Online and EVE. I originally hooked into WOW but was severely disappointed by the fact that it really has bugger all to do with Warcraft as we knew it at the time. EQ and EQII, LOTRO, Guild Wars, RuneScape and Warhammer Online have all had a go and been quickly turfed in the disappointment bin. Because of these disappointments and many hundreds of wasted dollars, I decided that I would wait until there was a free trial of SWTOR as there always is with every game.

I finally had a chance to hook in and I was addicted. I was in love after about 3 days and decided I better buy it before my 7 day trial was up. So pay day rocks around and now we come to the issue of gaming in Australia. I very rarely buy games from bricks and mortar stores, but I thought that maybe they have changed...

First stop EB Games. Walked in, didn’t even look for it. Went straight to the counter and asked. ‘Its ninety dollars mate’ came the reply. A look of puzzlement crosses my face followed by ‘You do realise this is a 4 month old game?’

‘Nope, only came out this month’

‘In Australia perhaps but anyone who was really keen has been playing it for months’

‘But it’s only been released this month’

‘But the rest of the world has had it for four months now, surely it can’t cost that much’

‘Yep that’s the price because it is only a new game’

I shook my head and left. Next stop, JB Hifi. Same deal, only their gaming staff thought it was released worldwide on March 1....seeya. Called the GAME store near my house, same price. Starting to see a pattern here. Obviously I was naive and the stores haven’t changed a bit.

I took to my usual haunts. Not on Steam, Goddammit. Now I might actually need to sign up for ORIGIN, something I have been trying to avoid since it was launched since it offered me nothing I couldn’t get from Steam. ORIGIN AU has it listed for $89.99. WTF? For a digital copy? I might as well buy it from GAME and then I will have some handy coasters to put my beer on.

Time to dig a little deeper. Unfortunately my usual game key haunts like Greenman don’t have it so I did a little googling. After reading some reviews of where people in Australia have bought a key from I jumped onto one of the sites and had the key emailed to me and loaded up on my SWTOR account in under 10 minutes. I hear you all shouting at me ‘What was the bloody price!?’ Well, It was really expensive and it set me back a whole $40.

That is what it wrong with gaming in Australia. Why would I take the time to go to a shopping centre, park the car, go to a store, buy the game for more than twice the price and then drive home again. I can get the exact same game online and be playing it within 10 minutes without leaving my house which leaves more time (and money) for me to spend with my kids. Time for the brick and mortar stores to step up or fade away.

Day One Hundred and Nineteen...

I am just going to give you a link today that sums up how I feel pretty well.

Dreams

Day One Hundred and Eighteen...

Eight days to go.

Why do people think you will respond anything other than badly when they email you and ask you to do a mojor task and respond in 15 minutes. Especially when it is not one of your jobs and you already have massive amounts of work to get done. How about you get stuffed and I will get to it when I get to it. If it was urgent you probably should have asked last week when you first found out about it. It's enough to make me want to resign.....hehehe.

I have kept up my walk each day and I am feeling much better for it. Have to make sure I keep doing it now.

Day One Hundred and Seventeen...

Nine days to go.

Had archery this morning. Got some good practice time in. It was really good to spend time practicing instead of coaching. Had a good time chatting to Dean as we shot. I enjoy shooting with people I can just chat to as we are going as it makes the whole thing much more enjoyable.

Did the shopping after that and made more roasted tomato sauce with the boy. I bottled some this time and I will need to get more bottles. Also baked bread and cornbread. Need to make soda bread tomorrow night and I think it is meatballs for dinner.

Day One Hundred and Sixteen...

Birthday lunch today. People drove from Sydney to be there. Lots of beer was drunk and the food was fantastic. Followed that up with a trip to Plonk and then more drinking at home.

Got a replacement pasta machine, the River Cottage Everyday cookbook and money. I will get more presents once they arrive from Mum and the Woman.

GOing to bed now, very tired.

Day One Hundred and Fifteen...

Eleven days to go.

Had lunch with one of our solicitors today. It made me realise that there are a lot of people I have dealt with that have been fantastic and they are the ones I will miss. Unfortunately the few people that make life difficult make it impossible to actually stay.

Birthday lunch tomorrow. Can't believee I am almost thirty. Where the hell has the last 10 years gone. At least it has been a fun decade adn I have got a lot done. Served in the Army, got married, had two beautiful kids. Hopefully the next decade is just as much fun.

Why is it that people send in the difficult work on a Friday afternoon? As if I am in the mood to reply to this crap now.

Day One Hundred and Fourteen

Twelve days to go.

Got heaps of work done today but overall it was pretty boring.

On my way to work I watched about 5-6 guys walk past a woman trying to change a tyre on her car. They all walked within a metre of her and not one stopped to see if she needed help. Fuck that shits me, is you life so fucking important that you can't be fucking polite. Quick, rush to your APS 5 public service job and pretend you are improtane when you are nothing more than a fucking worm.

For the record, I stopped and changed the tyre. took me all of two minutes adn my boss was fine with me being late since I was doing something nice. I fucking hate that people have no courtesy anymore, it is all me, me, me. You can all fuck off and learn some fucking manners.

Day One Hundred and Thirteen...

So.....handed in my resignation today. Feels like a massive weight off my shoulders. I ow have two weeks of this left and then it is time to go. In a way I am really sad as the company has been good to me for the most part and I really enjoy what I do until the last couple of months. I am going to point the finger at one person in particular and over the next two weeks I am going to make the issues clear to those further up the chain of command to see if I can improve things for those left. It is really sad that in the space of a few months I have gone from loving my work and my workplace, to hating it and being excited to leave.

It has been an odd day. I got through heaps of work, which isn't odd, but at the same time I wanted to be somewhere else. Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Day One Hundred and Twelve...

Not much to say today so I won't take up too much of your time.

Started walking at lunchtime. Exercise sucks.

Scheduled downtime for SWTOR, having withdrawals.

Day One Hundred and Eleven...

Come on home time. I have stuff to do and then games to play. I have children to feed, a garage to finish cleaning, Children that need to have books read to them and help with homework, and then finally SWTOR to play. Too much to do and too litlle time.

I decided I should probably tidy up the massive piles of paper on my desk. Pretty much all of it went in the recycling. What happened to the paperless office idea, did they finally realise it was never going to happen, although a large part of the paperwork could be cut down with some cheap tablets and a system like Dropbox to allow agendas, training docs, case summaries and frequently used docs like legislation to be carried on a portable device. Of course this is too hard so it won't happen anytime soon in a large company.

Day One Hundred and Ten...

First archery championship of the year today. I did shit. My neck and back was sore to start with and I haven't been practising enough because I have been coaching all the time. I think I will need to spend less time coaching and more time practising from now on. Next week I am going to walk back from 90m and set my sights up. Target championship is next.

Did a little more cleaning and housework for the rest of the day. Not much to tell. Also played more SWTOR and watched Clone Wars at the same time.

Day One Hundred and Nine...

Heffs birthday party today. The big three-oh. We will also finally get to meet his Mum. He lived with us for three years but we have still never met her.

The rest of the day was spent cleaning the garage out. we have a skip and I have gotten rid of so much crap it is not funny.

I have started playing The Old Republic and it is great fun. I normally only play MMOs or a month or two then get bored. I think I will keep at this one. SOme, like WoW I played for about 3 hours and got over it. Iwas just shitful.

About to go to the party now. Bye.

Day One Hundred and Eight...

So my team leader is on leave and the atmosphere in this place is so much better. Peopple actually seem happy to be here. I think I worked out where the morale problem is.

Went to Woollies this morning to grab an iced coffee and spotted these beauties out of the corner of my eye. There needs to be a way for me to send half my money to George Lucas and he can just take a crap in a bag and mail it to me. That way we cut out the middleman. He still takes my money and I still get shit for all my effort.


So Tomorrow night is Heffs birthday. Can you guess what his present is? I think the wrapping paper was very appropriate for a 30 year old man.



I went to get a Laksa for lunch and at the last minute got a wonton noodle soup. I wish I had of stuck with the Laksa, the soup tasted like donkey balls...maybe that explains what was in the wontons.

Got my intive for SWTOR for a 7 day trial. I know I will end up playing it past the seven days, we will ahve to see what happens. Now I just need to download the game which should only take a month or so... No doubt it is a 5 trillion hexabyte download.

Day One Hundred and Seven...

It looks as though any posts that I publish from my tablet do not publish. They save, but do not appear online. I apoplogise for there being days where there is no update and then 4 in a row. I will try to make sure I check them from my laptop to ensure they are published.

Again, I didn't want to be here today. I am really getting tired of dreading coming to work and then I get here and have no motivation to do anything.

Fuck me, it's on like fucking Donkey Kong. I am sick of seeing people treated like shit. It is now time to stand up and if I have to sacrifice myself in order to make life better for others than that is what I need to do. It's time to stand the fuck up, face me like a man and try and pull that shit on someone who will push back. As usual you only pick on the weak and the scared. I know you read this because I have been told. Read this, digest it, understand it. Your time has come, motherfucker. To use a phrase made popular by a band my loving wife introduced me to 'I FIGHT FOR THOSE WHO CAN"T FIGHT AND IF I LOSE, WELL AT LEAST I TRIED'...You are on notice. Your time has come. You know who you are. Man up and explain yourself or we will bring this down on your head.

Day One Hundred and Six...

Well not much to say today. I mowed the lawn adn then kicked around at home. Kat made Chorizo and Chilli pasta for dinner which was yum.

I did a little bit of work to the archery club website and booked a skip to clean out the garage and do one of our regular clean-ups this weekend.

Day One Hundred and Five

I really want today to hurry up. I have tomorrow off and I don't want to be here today. It is really sad that in the space of six months I have gone from loving my job and enjoying being at work to hating it and dreading coming here. I think that speak volumes about the changes that have occured since my team leader went on leave.

Day One Hundred and Four...

So, it is a public holiday in the ACT today. This means there are only 4 of us in the building as the ACT staff get the day off. We have to work on a skeleton staff because we manage NSW work. I hope the day goes quickly.

 I have the worst headache. It started about 9am and hasn't stopped since. I really hate headaches and wish they would die.

Had a roast veal sandwich for lunch, got the veal from the smae place we get chorizos from at the markets. I was really yum. I think it will need to be put on regular sandwich rotation at least once a week.

Day One Hundred and Three...

Back at Acery today, a small turn out of members due the the ACT long weekend, but a fair few new people. Lots of new members joining up. Next week is the first championship rund, so I had to get my sight sorted to shoot 18 metres. Hopefully now it should be all good and I can get some decent scores on the board.

Toby and I made pizza for dinner. It was really nice. Made it with my own tomato sauce, which I think we are going to start making en masse and storing.

Day One Hundred and Two...

Just kicking around a home today, getting washing done and tidying up around the house. Cooked my home-made sausages for dinner, they were nice but very meaty. I will need to play with the recipe for a bit to get it right.

Sitting back, drinking wine and watching Star Wars: Episode V at the moment.

Day One Hundred and One...

Ahhhh, Friday. Without a doubt the best day of the week. It is also the day that I am most likely to procrastinate because I don't want to do any work and I have completed all my work for Friday earlier in the week. I could start on next weeks work, but can't be stuffed.

Need to work out what to get Heff for his birthday. He is being particularly unhelpful and not responding to my emails. I am not sure why as it is not like he actually does any work...heehee.

I don't want to wait any longer for more Raspberry Pi's to be available. i ahve put my name down for two of them and I really want them now. My intention is to buld one into a case that can fit in a pocket or handbag and will be able to plug into any TV or monitor (such as the one in my car) and be able to be used. I am going to start work on the OS shortly in preparation for it. I have noticed that the RP specific Fedora system is now available so I might use that as my base. It will be able to connect automatically on booting to my Box and Dropbox accounts to access all my documents that I have on my Laptop at home and means that I will be able to carry it instead of my Laptop when I go away.

The second one will be used to get the Boy interested in programming. I will hook it into an old monitor and it can be his personal toy. I want him to build it, with my help, and continue to develop it into something that is tailored to him. I think that he would love to do something like that and if he starts now then he may be headed for a career in programming or app development.

I wonder whats for dinner tonight, maybe it's time to message Woman and find out.

Day One Hundred...

Well, here we are. One hundred days since I began on this adventure. Much of it has been drival and stupid shit...in fact all of it has been drivel and stupid shit.

I note that Day One Hundred happened to fall on New iPad announcement day. I have noting to read on the net because it is all pointless Apple shit that I don't care about. I notice with glee that once again they have put out a product that is slightly worse than the current android offering in every way except one (the display). This means that when you sheep rush out to buy one you will be buying something that is already obselete. Have fun with that.

I see that the new proposal for media regulation in Australia would have me classed as a publisher becuse I get more than 41 hits a day. Awesoem, hopefully someone will start paying me like a publisher...not fucking likely.

I wish this rain would bugger off. It has come and go all day. I am glad I parked near work becuase I was late this morning, it's really annoying when I park and walk and then it rains and I have to walk 1.5km in the rain.

Day Ninety Nine...

I see that the USA has decided that they can shut down any site with a .com domain as these domains are controlled by a US comany, namely Verisign. This is absolute bullshit, who made the USA the supremem ruler of the world? I have a .com.au site so I am unaffected but I am still disgusted that they believe they can do this. It is now time for the rest of the world to tell them to go fuck themselves and spread control of these things around the world.

Speaking of US companies and tech stuff, am I the only one who doesn't care about what Apple is going announce tomorrow. I really couldn't care. IT will be another stupid device for stupid people are are too dumb to be trusted with full access to the world so they buy devices that are inferior and live ina  'walled garden' where they can't hurt themselves. It will also be overpriced, underspecced and fueled purely by hype rather than innovation and good design.

Just found out that my employer will not be replacing any staff that resign. Bwahahahaha guess who holds the power now bitches. Time to tighten the screws that little bitr more. This is made even sweeter by the fact I have had two companies contact me now, I don't even need to apply for jobs. I know who is giving them my details and I know he reads this. Thankyou.

Not sure if Woman has somethign planned for dinner, if not I am thinking it might just be pesto because that is what I feel like.

Day Ninety Eight...

Today is Woman's 30th Birthday. We are going to the National Gallery to see the Renaissance exhibition, that is her birthday present from me. They do not allow phones or cameras to be used in the exhibition so I will need to fill you in afterwards.

Fuck me, those paintings are awesome. I can't bel;eive the detail and skill in them and they are so awesomely preserved for something so old. The oldest ones dated back to the 1400's I think. To think they have surveived that long and still look as good as they do is awesome.

After the exhibition we walked around the rest of the gallery. Since about 1870, art has been shitful. There was two paintings that were just white with a red border and that is apparently art. I have some of those at home, they are just walls I haven't stuck shit on yet. fucking hell, I can't beleive people pay for this crap. The Indian and Asian sections are awesome, but it appears that the caucasian idea of art has been in steady decline. Now it is just what ever shit you can come up with.

Dinner was a failure. I did stuffed pumpkin again but it was too big and it cracked at the bottom and fell over. I am thinking I might try and do some really small pumpkins and see how they go down.

Day Ninety Seven...

Took a trip to Belconnen today....and you fuckers bag out Queanbeyan. Fuck me, I felt like I needed a shower when I got home to get rid of the dirty feeling. The place is miserable and just looks dirty. I couldn't wait to get back to NSW.

Spent the rest of the day cleaning and cooking.

Day Ninety Six...

Went to see Warragamba Dam this morning. It was good to see it overflowing at last. Had lunch at Wallacia Hotel afterwards. Food is good, tables were in nice shady areas and they have a really nice courtyard with plenty of shade and playground for the kids.

After that drove back and now it is time for bed.

Day Ninety Five...

Well obviously I am meant to live with the rain this weekend.No matter where I go it seems to be determined to follow me. Off to dinner soon and I guarantee that I will come home soaking wet.

I have been testing Windows 8 and submitting bug reports to Microsoft. It is actually very robust and I am finding a lot fewer issues than what I found in Windows 7. Overall I am very happy with it and the new Start interface is awesome, although it takes some getting used to and that will be what people will complain about the most.

I will try and get some pics tonight and post them up from my phone, but I make no promises. Check back for updates later.

Day Ninety Four...

Sooo tired, I don't want to be here. I also don't want to spend three hours in the car driving to Sydney. I have a feeling I will be out like a light when I get there.

At least it is not raining a lot today. They are predicting increased rain for the Saturday and Sunday. I won't be here but it will probably be raining in Sydney as well. That could put a downer on the birthday celebrations. Mor importantly, it will be my birthday soon. Dirty Thirty. I feel like 21 was only 2-3 years ago.

BOOOOOOOOORRRRRRREEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD. I am struggling to stay awake.....*snore*......Not even Lamb of God is helping me to stay awake.


Time to go, seeya

Day Ninety Three...

Snore, I have done five days work in two. Now that's not a bad effort and reinforces my claims that refusing to let me work part time is just wrong.

So the river that runs through my home town has flooded, that means traffic will be a nightmare. We were the second last car over the low level bridge before it was closed, but now there are only two ways back into town.

Took ages to get home, and now I am buggered. Need to pack to go away tomorrow but that shouldn't take long. Time to fire up a bit of Star Wars me thinks.