lifescouts: nerd month

Somewhat appropriately, March, my birth month, has been "Nerd Month" for Lifescouts...

And I made it from badge 11 through to badge 15 this month.

Chess

Ma taught me to play chess when I was a teenager I think... I was never particularly great at it... possibly something to do with a lack of patience.

However, for some reason, I did end up taking part in some sort of school based chess tournament in high school... I have a memory of doing it, but no memory of what it was all about.

And then there was the game I had on my last pre-iPhone phone... which was chess related... Checkmate or something, where you had to get out of checkmate or work out the one move to check the computer... something like that.

I quite enjoyed that one.

Video games

I detailed my history with video games in a post last year after I bought my PS3.

Unfortunately, not long after that I injured my back, and I haven't actually gone back to it.

I did manage to complete Journey a couple of times, as well as finish Stacking, which was awesome. However, Portal 2 is still in my pile of shame... I got stuck on a particular level, and I really do need to go back to it sometime soon.

Scrabble

Like chess, Scrabble was something I learned to play when I was a kid... because what else are you going to do as a nerdy only child?

I don't have any specific or interesting memories related to Scrabble... I do remember playing the later game UpWords which was quite cool because you could stack letters on top of existing words to make new words.

And there was the Words With Friends epidemic of 2009/2010... I played a lot of games with friends from Twitter, and my workmates, and total strangers.

Klingon language

The Klingons are my favourite alien race from the three 90's incarnations of Star Trek... The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager.

And when Ludo and I devised our own crew around the time of the launch of Star Trek: Voyager in 1995, my character was a gay half Klingon, quarter Betazoid, quater human Science Officer (with a Trill partner who also happened to be the ship's counsellor).

Yeah, I know, I'm a massive nerd...

But this badge is about the Klingon language, not just Klingons in general.

I don't claim to speak fluent Klingon, however I do have the Klingon dictionary (and I've read it), and I can do a reasonable pronunciation of gagh. I also used to have a set of Klingon phrases for desktop sounds, and while I don't remember what they all meant, I can still remember how to say most of them.

Bowling

I have not been bowling for years! Seriously... like years and years and years... but this badge kinda makes me want to go again. Now all I need is some people to go bowling with.

But I have bowled (and not just ten pin bowling, I've also done indoor lawn bowls... because, yes, I am so gangsta!)... I have a feeling it was when I used to be involved with the "Boys Club" at school (all the boys who didn't do sport... so the weedy, the weird and the uncoordinated)... and I'm pretty sure we went bowling at least once if not a couple of times.

Current Mood:

happy (lego) easter

This is a perfect Easter holiday for me... rain, cloudy skies, cool weather... now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get some lunch and then I think I'll snuggle up on the bed and catch up with RuPaul's Drag Race...

I hope whatever you're doing with this holiday is as enjoyable.

Current Mood:

rainy easter saturday with shopping and kites

No prizes for guessing what we did today...

It all started out with the usual routine... tidying up, heading to the supermarket to wend our way between the Easter shoppers, then back here to unpack and whatnot.

Then, even though the forecast called for showers, we headed down to Semaphore for the 16th Adelaide International Kite Festival.

When we got there it didn't look especially promising... there were only a couple of kites up in the air and some of those appeared to be struggling a little.

So after we hung out for a little while to see if things would improve, we decided to go for a wander down Jetty Road, get something warm to drink, and come back to see if things had improved.

We ended up stopping at the Swedish Tarts Cafe... and I'm not going to lie, most of the decision was based on the fact that one of the waiters walked out in front of us as we went past, and he was fucking gorgeous. Turned out there was another cute (bearded) waiter too... and a shaven headed guy in the kitchen with fantastic arms (in a tanktop).

My kinda cafe really...

Sadly, the hot chocolate I had was a little bit lackluster... but at least the view was good.

By the time we wandered back down the jetty, the wind was starting to both pick up and shift around. And there were a bunch more kites in the air.

Unfortunately the crowd was somewhat problematic... in previous years the organisers of the festival have roped off underneath the jetty to prevent people from wandering onto the northern site of the beach where all the kites and flyers are located. If one of the big, rigid kites fell out of the sky or the flyer was distracted, those things could break someone's nose at the very least.

But people were just wandering all across the beach, parents were just letting their kids run wherever they wanted... once again it makes me wonder about the intelligence of some people.

We moved up and down the jetty, taking advantage of spaces without people (only to have people fill up those spaces around us) and watching as the flyers tried to get more kites airborne.

To be honest, for the most part it was the same dozen or so kites as previous years... the mermaid, the rainbow stingray, the frog, the soccer ball... and the guy doing tricks with one of the stunt kites and getting up close and personal with the people on the jetty (at one point he brought it down to balance on my outstretched hand... a little like the photo at the top of the post... which was cool).

We hung out for a while before wandering back up Jetty Road in search of some lunch. Unsurprisingly we ended up back at Swedish Tarts.

I was a little unsure of what to have... and ended up picking Pytt i Panna...

It sounded good on the board "bacon, sausage, potato, onion, beetroot and egg"... but it ended up being the type of thing I sometimes make when I don't have a lot of ingredients in the house to make something decent.

It was interesting and filling, but not something I'd get again.

And, to top it all off, the really pretty waiter had left.

Then we wandered back down to the jetty for a last look at the kites.

The "kite battle" was supposed to be coming up just after we wandered back, although it took a while before the announcer could get all of the stupid people off that side of the beach, and by the time they'd moved out of the way, the wind had picked up to such a degree that they decided it was too dangerous.

And that's about the point that the rain that was supposed to stay away, made an appearance.

Not for very long, just long enough to get everyone scurrying off the jetty, but at that point we called it a day and headed back to my place. And we just managed to make it back before it started to pour down.

Current Mood:

photo friday: storm vs sun

I'm so glad that it's the Easter long weekend this weekend... I really needed a break.

Wednesday especially was all kinds of insane... it started off when I got up at 5:45am to discover that the current temperature of 30°C was actually higher than the forecast maximum of 29°C.

Then once I got to work there just seems to be an awful lot of talking... talking and talking and talking... and decisions that needed to be made about all kinds of screwed up things...

As I mentioned on Twitter at around 3pm... "If today was a person, it'd be that guy standing on a street corner, screaming into a banana about anal probes".

And in the midst all of that, I had the news that the positions that myself and the other contract staff are currently doing have been approved to go through the official process of being turned into advertised positions.

To be honest, that really wasn't something that I necessarily wanted to hear on Wednesday... there's too much work stuff that's up in the air, or headed in the wrong direction, or currently going pear shaped... that it wasn't the good news I may have viewed it as a few weeks ago.

So I was very happy to get home and find my Lego mini camera kit from Powerpig on the doorstep.

Thursday wasn't anywhere near as bad, although I think my brain had mentally checked out a bit...

And on the plus side, the boots I ordered on Saturday arrived at work. Which isn't too bad, timewise... ordered Saturday, shipped Monday, arrived Thursday.

Just like every year, I'm always baffled by how insane everybody seems to get at the supermarket on the Thursday before Easter... and it's not even just for Easter eggs... people is cray-cray.

And today I did next to nothing...

Today was also the last episode (and episode 100 of the main story, episode 159 overall) of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries... so I watched that while laying in bed, just the same way that I've watched all the other episodes pretty much

I'm not going to lie, I had a little bit of a cry when Lizzie got choked up while said goodbye... and as soon as the episode started, I had a premonition of how it was going to end... which turned out to be amusingly correct.

Then I really didn't do much of anything... I tidied the apartment a little bit, finished watching a movie I started a few days ago, and not much else until I made Toona Noodle Doo for dinner.

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random sleeved hotness

Interestingly, this week's Random Hotness is a lesson in the art of 'faking it'.

When I first saw these photos of model Nicolas Lagiere by Sylvain Norget I thought that Nicolas had two sleeve tattoos... but on closer inspection they're those fabric fake sleeve sleeves.

And interestingly enough Sylvain has featured in a previous pre-Easter Hotness with his rabbit themed self portraits.

Current Mood:

mini lego camera kit

When I got home tonight I found my mini Lego camera kit from Powerpig aka Chris McVeigh.

As soon as I saw the build on Chris's Instagram I knew I had to buy the kit... what could be better than two of my favourite things, Lego and photography in the one item.

It was beautifully packaged too... with the invoice stuck to the inside lid of the box, and wrapped in brown tissue paper.

Also, I love bilingual shipping labels.

Then there was the little label around the bricks, and the fact that the box made the perfect container to hold all the bricks while I put the set together.

The build was slightly more involved than I was expecting... it looks like it should be straight forward, but to get all the flat surfaces took some fiddling and sideways building techniques.

I don't think that I've actually encountered brand new clear bricks for a very long time... the ones I'm used to seeing are usually pretty yellowed and cloudy, but these were perfectly clear, so much so that you can actually look through the viewfinder on the back of the camera which looks out the clear brick at the front.

Current Mood:

saturday with boots, driving and burgers

Today can most accurately be defined by boots, driving and burgers...

We started out with the usual supermarketry, then when we got back here neither of us really knew what we wanted to do with the rest of the morning, so there was some degree of sitting around being indecisive.

Eventually I decided that we needed to go looking for new work boots for me.

Which you would think would be easy... it's just a pair of boots... surely I could just walk into any store that sells boots and just buy a pair.

Yeah, no.

It was a combination of trying to find boots in my size, ones that didn't have steelcaps, were comfortable and were actually black. The number of boots that were "claret" or some version of brown was ridiculous.

Technically I probably could have bought a pair at the first place we went, but they were slightly brown and I wasn't completely sure about the sizing.

So we drove from Richmond, all the way down South Road and along Grand Junction Road to Athol Park in search of a pair of Redback boots... or something that came close to the fit of Redback boots.

Although the last place we went didn't actually have any, they did have some at another store and I could have ordered a pair, but I wanted to see if the Redback website itself would let me order them. Sadly their website dates from 2001...

However I just managed to find them online for about $15 cheaper than they quoted me, plus they've got free shipping and I don't have to go and pick them up, so I just ordered them.

After the third show, I was over it, so we headed over to Arndale, which wasn't exactly on the way back, but not completely out of the way. Not for any real reason, other than it was nearby.

We always do the same wander when we get to Arndale... which starts at Big W, stretches all the way down to The Reject Shop which we usually use as the turning point for our wander... then it's back to the Big W end, and back up to the car. There were some random purchases along the way, but nothing really noteworthy.

When we got back to the car Ma and I had one of those moments of shared brain that we occasionally suffer from...

And I suggested we take a trip to Pearl's Diner, to which Ma replied that she was just thinking the same thing.

So we punched the address into Google Maps on my iPhone and let the nice American lady who lives in my phone direct us from Arndale to Pearl's.

On the specials board they had a cheeseburger listed, and I do like to try new Burger Theory offerings, so we had one of those, and one of those pulled pork buns that are just too tasty for words.

And of course I couldn't resist a chocolate milkshake.

Not the healthiest lunch ever, but totally worth it. The cheeseburger was like a five star version of the item of the same name from a certain clown's establishment... all the flavours set off my memories of the cheap version, but the bun and the burger were soft and flavourful and not like eating a hockey puck inside two kitchen sponges.

So very, very, very tasty.

Then other than a quick stop off at my supermarket, that was it for the day... which didn't turn out to be too bad even though we had no idea what we were going to do this morning.

Current Mood:

photo friday: silver surfers

Back when I used to photograph on film, I did quite a bit of work with black and white film. I always like working with it, it always seems to get right to the heart of the image, without colour drawing the eye.

And they turned out to be great for these images, since after correcting the contrast, the colours were really blown out... and black and white is always very forgiving to skin tones.

The images themselves were almost accidental.

After all my Fringing, I did very little for the first three days of this week... but on Thursday, Tristan Kerr was having a gallery show down at Glenelg. I missed his last show, and regretted it, so I was determined to go to this one.

That did, however, involve driving down to Glenelg at 5pm, which is always a trial.

But I made it down there on time and checked out both the artwork, and the cafe that was hosting it which I think is new (and very funky). I also chatted briefly with Tristan about his work, and bought one of the smaller pieces.

I'd taken my camera with me just on the off-chance there were photo opportunities... and when I wandered down to the jetty, there were the surfers...

It was incredibly windy on the jetty, so I was surprised that I wasn't the only one hanging out there. And I hung out for quite a while as the surfers struggled to find decent waves to ride.

Eventually the few waves that there were around started to die down and a couple of the surfers left, so I called it a day.

I then headed back up Jetty Road and went to Relish'd for dinner. And even though I had to wait a while for my Fancy Chick burger, it was completely worth the wait. Other than Burger Theory, Relish'd is pretty much the only burger place in the vast number that have popped up recently that gets it right.

While I was waiting I killed some time checking messages on my phone and discovered one from a young guy I'd messaged a few days ago... so I messaged him back that I was out and about and would message him when I got home.

I fully expected that there would be a bunch of back and forth messages when I got home, but he was exactly the same amount of direct that I usually am, and was on his way over about ten minutes after I walked in the door.

And we spent a very enjoyable hour or so rolling around on my bed.

It's weird... I can go for months without either caring about getting laid, or, in fact, actually being able to get laid... but then suddenly it's falling out of the sky into my lap... so to speak.

And if past history is anything to go on, the fact that I'd love to hook up with him again means it probably isn't going to happen. We'll see, but I'm not holding my breath.

About the only other interesting thing I did this week was seeing my chiro this afternoon... and that slightly odd moment when you use the phrase "when I was having sex last night" while talking to your chiro... I mean it was relevant, about my knee, but yeah, still weird.

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