"It Sucks to be Me"

Here on Avenue Q! That was a great night. Tash, myself and a few of my work and gaming friends went to see Avenue Q last night and I was very happy to say it really lived up to all of the hype I've heard. I'm sure I'll be humming "The Internet is for Porn", "It Sucks to be Me", "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist" and "If You Were Gay I'd Shout Hooray!" for many days and weeks to come. Its even funnier if you're a parent of a young child as Seseme Street is often a staple part of your day.

But the other nice thing is this was Tash and my first night out in a long time. Last year we wnt to see my mate Greg in the Macbeth rock opera and we left Alex with my folks. He hated it and cried and cried until we got home. He was about 5 months old at that point and I'm not sure he was ready. He's now 15 months and is much happier to be left with his Nanna and Granda now. He was so happy in fact he seemed to be waving me out the door as we left, quite content to be left with my parents. He loves them a lot. And so Tash and I had a nice night out. I think we're going to have to do it more often now that we can. Next step: sleeping over at Nanna's or Meme's (that's what Tash's Mum likes to be called). That will be nice.

A very special moment.

Its the simple things that make you happy as a parent. Monday, my boy took his first steps. Three, unsteady steps before he fell onto his hands and then crawled the rest of the way at break-neck speed but nonetheless, first steps. His Mum and I are very proud.

But last night he took what I consider to be his first walk. He walked about a metre and a half without holding anything or anyone, didn't fall and made it to his goal. And he did it just for me. Tuesday nights are Tash's night out. She gets a break from Alex and he and I spend some quality time together, a boy's night. And to show off to me, he walked on his own. Tash is extremely jealous. He hasn't done that for her yet.

To say I am proud is a bit of an understatement. I feel very special that he decided to make his first real walk a special moment just for the two of us.

And doesn't he look pleased with himself?


I love my little boy.

Toll Roads!?! I hate freakin' toll roads!

Toll roads. What the hell is up with toll roads? Brisbane has recently "celebrated" (I use the term very loosely) the opening of the Clem Jones M7 Tunnel, commonly known as the Clem7. It is apparently the longest tunnel in Australia at 6.7km (or something). It allows people to travel from one side of the Brisbane River to the other without travelling through the City/Valley areas and avoiding lots of traffic lights. Nice. It cost $4.30 per trip. WTF!?! Why the hell does it cost me to use it? Didn't my taxes pay for the freakin' thing? And now they want to charge me for using it? I helped frikkin' pay for it! But even better, they have made the tunnel free for the first 18 days, then half price for the following 5 weeks. So like a good drug dealer, your first taste is free then they'll give you cheap hits until you're hooked, then charge you like a wounded bull 'cause you can't give it up. How can anyone use this thing and think its saving them money? They claim it will save you petrol. How? If you use the thing during Peak Hour, it will cost you $8.60 per day to use it and surely this tunnel will not save people over $40 in petrol costs per week? Time? Sure but at the cost of $40 per week? Surely it won't be that much faster than the current routes? If I was on a significant salary, I'm sure I could afford the $1100+ a year it would cost me to use the thing but the average bloke like myself can't afford it for a daily commute!

We have another river crossing being made as well: the poorly named "Go-Between" Bridge (yes, they really called it that). Another new road. Yay! Another way across the river. Yay! Another freakin' toll road! WTF!?! Yet another road built with public money that they're going to charge us to use. What in the hell? They claim it is to help recoup the costs of building the road. I can handle that (roads are expensive to build) but once the cost has been regained, will the toll go away? Not bloody likely. The Gateway Motorway paid for itself 10 years ago yet they kept the toll going. They're even talking about increasing it again.

The more I look at it the more I'd like to move away from the city.

Wow. Nerdcore.

Damn. I'm pretty Nerdcore. I have a couple of Nerf(TM) guns and their rip-offs. I have a very cool one that requires you to load the foam darts into shells and then fires them using a lever action that primes the gun and then ejects the empty shells. But when I saw that KMart(TM) had the Nerf(TM) Vulcan machine guns on sale, I had to get myself one. And damn its cool. A belt-fed, 25 dart capacity, fully automatic dart gun that comes with its own tripod. And its huge. There's no way Nerf(TM) designed this thing for kids. It's aimed squarely at nerds like myself. Check this out:

How Nerdcore is that? Pretty damned Nerdcore IMO. I need to get out more.

Holy Geek Retreat, Batman! Its a Man-Cave Update!

Yes! Finally I've gotten the Man-Cave organised. There's still a few tweaks here and there, like picking up the fridge I've got on hold for it ($50 makes for a good Man-Cave fridge methinks) as well as a few boxes of stuff still lurking under the house but otherwise, its ready to go! Its nice to have a space to hide in. I'm hoping to get some minis assembled and painted soon.

As promised a while ago, here's the pics:


Two pics of the outside and yes, its really is that tall. Three metres from ground to the top of the roof. Its gives it a nice, roomy feel inside.

And a few pics of the inside. As you can see I've got a nice, big painting table that I intend on putting to good use as well as space for a decent 6ft by 4ft gaming table in the centre (pretty much the standard on which most games are played for you non-wargamers out there). The shot of my shelves shows I still have some organising to do but on the whole, I'm very happy. My own little retreat from the world (bar the pram which will move as soon as we find a spot for it upstairs, or so I'm told). Now to find some time to use it...

Wet, wet, wet.

I like the rain. I love the feeling of serenity that comes over me when it starts to fall. I love the sound of it on my roof. I love the feel of it on my face. I especially like it when its accompanied by the rumbling of thunder and the flash of lightning.

But you can have too much of a good thing. Its been nearly two weeks now with near constant rain and I'm getting a little tired of it. And the main reason is: public transport. When its dry, I ride my scooter into work. Its fantastic for several reasons:

- Cheaper ($6.40 per day on the bus as compared to $8.00 per week in petrol on the scooter plus free parking).
- Faster.
- No waiting. (I hate waiting for buses. Its such a waste of time.)
- More fun.

I miss riding my scooter. Its way too dangerous to ride it in the wet. I've come off it twice in the wet now and simply refuse to risk it if there's the chance of rain. If you lose grip on one tyre in a car you've got three others to take up the slack. If you lose grip on one tyre on a scooter or bike, you've lost half of it and only have one tyre left gripping the road! Too scary, thanks very much. So to get to work I join the massed throngs and ride the buses. But bus seats are uncomfortable, other passengers tend to be very rude and the ride is unimaginably boring. Even with the iPod and its collection of Firefly episodes, movies and YouTube Muppet videos its a still a very boring and very uncomfortable trip. What kind of creature is man that it subjects itself to tortures of its own design like public transport, politics, advertising executives and peak-hour traffic? I wonder...

Mr Weather Man says we're in for another week of this. Bugger. I think I'm going to have to stand in the rain for a while tonight. Things seem simpler and less troubling when I do that. Strange that the cure to my rain-soaked woes would be to get rain-soaked. I never said I wasn't weird...

A University Summer.

Ah, a university summer is a wonderful thing. Firstly, we have a blissful 3 months without the undergrads making for a very quiet and mostly relaxing time. During the Christmas break we get the lab cleaned up and looking great and have a very relaxing time pacing ourselves with our paperwork.

Then comes the first week back of the students and the joy that is young women dressed for summer. Whew! I am a happily married man but I still appreciate the beauty that is the female form. And let me tell you that there is a LOT of female form to be appreciated at QUT right now. I have to remind myself that I am old enough to be a father to most of the women in first year! (There's also the problem of me being married, faithful and fat enough that most of them would rather gnaw their own arms off.) I also have to wonder what I would think if any of them were my daughter and they dressed like some of them are today. Would I let them out of the house? And does that kind of thinking make a Grumpy Old Man (TM)?

At any rate, I do very much enjoy the view here at Uni during summer. It really is very pleasing...

37 journeys around our sun...

Happy Birthday to me! Yay! I'm another year older. Funny thing is I don't feel any older. I don't really worry too much about my age. I'm pretty proud of every year I've spent circling this star of ours. I'm no genius and I'm fairly confident that I'm not going to win a Nobel or change the course of human history or anything like that (I'll leave that to my son) but on the whole, I'm pretty happy with my life.

Yes, I know I had a big b!tch about Bad News (TM) a couple of posts down but sometimes you need to let off steam. The reality is that I am still pretty happy with my life and having spent 37 years living it, I've grown rather fond of it.

Here goes for trip number 38 around Sol. Let's see what it holds...

Blood Bowl!!!!!

So last night I took it upon myself to show Medway how to play Blood Bowl. After recommendations from both myself and Greg to get the PC game and play, he explained to me that there were aspects of that game he found confusing. So I explained to him that he should play the boardgame and it would show him what was happening in the PC version.

Last night wound up as a good time to do that as the rest of the guys were finishing their 40K game so Medway and I collected up the stuff and headed off to a quiet corner to play.

He took Humans (a nice, generic team) and I took Necromantic (Werewolves, Frankensteins, Zombies, oh my!). Then he proceeded to wipe the floor with me. I helped him a lot with hints and tips so as to help him score but he rolled like a demon while my rolls were pretty sucky. He smashed my team around and I just couldn't do anything right. But at the end of the night I didn't care and I had a good time playing. Medway seemed to enjoy it too.

But at the end of it all I realised just how much I miss playing the game. Yes, I have the PC version but for me its really just not the same. The PC version is cool and all but really I love painting the figures (with a maximum of 16 players per team it's easy to get them done) and I just love the feel of moving them around the board and rolling dice. I need to try and find a way of playing it more often. I just wish that Ags and Draco were into it as we could have a great little 6-person mini-league. If only I could find more players and a little more time...

Sick of Bad News.

I've always been a proponent of the philosophy that life is like a footpath (sidewalk for you Americans). Just when you're walking along happily you seem to step in a big pile of sh!t and you have to take some time to step aside and wipe it all off before you can keep walking or else you'll always have a smell of sh!t following you around.

Well, it seems I've stepped in another pile. Its certainly not the biggest I've ever stepped in but I'm already tired of it. All I ever seem to hear nowadays is Bad News. It started last week when a good friend of mine told me that her mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Her dad already has dementia and now her mum has been given 6 months to live. She then informs me that one of my ex-lecturers who I got on really well with has had a stroke and will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He can barely communicate but the worst part is that he lives alone and it was three days before anyone found him. That's just horrible.

We are getting solar power installed in the house and we have had nothing but trouble with it. We signed the contract back in July of 2009 and once they had our deposit we heard nothing from them for 5 months. Every time we contacted them for details we got a "we'll get back to you" and then silence. Eventually my wife called and asked to talk to the CEO and was told that we would have work commence soon and they were sorry for the problems. Part of the install was the upgrade of our power box as the current one is over 50 years old (solar power systems generate a lot of heat). So a week ago we get a call from our sales rep to tell us that they aren't going to upgrade our box. They will refund us the cost of the upgrade once the installation is complete. We tell them, not good enough: we want the upgrade, not the money. We have plans to follow the upgrade. Nope, they won't do it. We argue and eventually I ask to speak with the CEO. I eventually get through to him and explain we are sick of the way we are being treated. Give us the upgrade we are paying for. He apologises again and tells us he will fix it. Yesterday, they come to install the panels. They leave without installing them telling us that the rails on the roof have not been put on properly. The sales-rep tells us that the contractors refuse to work on our roof because its an old asbestos roof (we told them this when we signed the contract BTW). Now, he has rescheduled the install but frankly, I'm sick of this crap from them. Really, really sick of it.

Last night I planned on getting some stuff done in the man-cave. I've moved all my stuff in, I just need to tidy it up and make it nice. Nope. Alex decided to be a pain last night and since my wife twisted her ankle yesterday, it was up to me to take care of him. He was a right royal pain and I'm very tired of the poor sleep patterns from him (as in he doesn't have one still). Don't talk to me about controlled crying and those other techniques. My son is smart enough to know that if he keeps us up all night, we will give in as sleep-deprivation is a torture technique for a reason (let me tell you). We only seem to get one good nights sleep from him for every two poor ones. I just wish he would settle down. We've tried every technique under the sun and a few that aren't and nothing seems to work with him. I love him but I'm really tired of this (literally).

Plus at work we have undergone a "restructure" of our faculty. This is supposed to make us more efficient. All I have seen so far is the faculty office trying to take all the power away from the technical areas and make our lives more difficult. Not one benefit have I seen but I can count at least 6 new obstacles to overcome. Joy.

Gaming. My outlet. The way I let off steam. Thursday night is my night with my mates and games. Last week i get a call from Humph that something has died uder his house (where we play) and that its unlivable. Great. Evening cancelled. Oh well, I have a Warmachine tourney Saturday. That will make up for it. I turn up for said tourney. And only 3 other people do as well. I know of at least 6 people who all said "Oh count me in, I'll definitely be there." Not one of them turned up. It was, frankly, bloody slack. Allen took time out of his weekend to run this event and people just didn't bother turning up. Next year we have both resolved to play Blood Bowl instead.

I know there are people out there who have it much worse than I do. I'm no emo and I am very thankful for what I have. But I am tired of Bad News. I'd like to see some good stuff happening. It's hard to be positive when all you hear is Bad News. I'd like to wipe the sh!t off my shoe and keep going, thanks.

Nana nana nana nana na! Man-cave!

Wheee! Horray for me! Man-cave ahoy!

Last year my wife and I discussed how to keep our son safe from various dangers around our house. One of the big ones is my nerd-hole. I have scalpels, super glue, apoxy resin, hot-wire cutters, drills and all manner of small, easily swallowed pointy things littering the place. Not only that but I can be a very messy individual and as such my nerd-hole gets rather, shall we say, cluttered. All right it looks like a bomb hit it most of the time.

So my suggestion was that my Dad and I build in a section under the house for me to use as my nerd-hole. My wife's suggestion was to build a garage in the back corner of our garden (which at the time resembled certain untamed wilderness areas of South America). She insisted as she didn't want to hear me swear everytime I hit my head on the low beams under the house. Fair call. Also the garage will add value to the house. Garage it is, then.

We call in various suppliers and eventually go with Titan. While they aren't the cheapest up front, they wound up being so as they included full insulation and council fees with the total cost. Who knew that the best-in-the-business could also be the cheapest? Before we finalise anything, I mention to the guy that I know that our sewer line runs towards the location we chose for our garage. His reponse is to check with the council and make sure we know where the pipes go. If there is a line there, we need a special slab poured which will make it more expensive. We check and find out that not only does out own sewer line run that way, but so does the main line for the entire street!!! Bugger. We also find out that to avoid the extra cost of the special slab we need to get at least 2 metres away from the line. Double bugger.

So the garage is placed right next to the house behind our carport. In all, a better spot as it looks good there and I have less distance to travel to get to it. Nice. New problem: our land has a 0.5metre drop off at the point. We need a retaining wall and fill to make it level. That adds aout $3000 to the cost of the garage (cheaper than the extra $5000 that the special slab would have cost). New bugger. Still, in the end my Dad and I built a retaining wall (a very satisfying accomplishment) and it got filled and slabbed.

Last week, the garage went up. Yay! To say I'm excited to have my Man-cave is a bit of an understatement. I'm a big believer that everyone needs their own space. Somewhere they can say: this is my space, my stuff, my rules. Now any parent will likely know that it can be tough finding that kind of thing for yourself. Kids have their room. Parents usually share one with each other and, inevitably, their kids so having your own space to hide in every now and then is really, really important I feel. The added bonus of my Man-cave is that the space in the house I vacate will become Tash's Lady's Lounge. We intend on putting a lockable cupboard and new desk in there and she can start on her crafty stuff again. I can't wait until this weekend when I plan on setting up the Man-cave fully with power, lights and all my crap. Pics will follow soon.

Nana nana nana nana na! Man-cave!

Nerd Ragin'.

I'm a nerd. I have been for as long as I can remember. I read books on facts out of sheer interest rather than being required to as part of study or work. My favourite TV show is QI. I can remember dialogue from movies or TV shows after having watched them only once. And I love wargaming. Pushing my little mandollies around the table and rolling dice in anger is just so much fun for me (well, usually). So I don't get the level of nerd rage that is being spewed at my current favourite games company: Privateer Press.

About a year ago their flagship game Warmachine(TM) (and its partner Hordes(TM)) is floundering under too many rules. So many new figures with new and funky rules have been released over the years that the game is drowning in errata and clarifications. The errata document was over 70 pages long! So the company announces they are re-releasing the game as Mark 2 in an attempt to streamline the game and make it play better than before (and it was pretty good the first time around). They have been developing it for the last year and are nearly ready to send it to the printers but they want the input of their gaming community. They want their customers to try out the new game and provide them with feedback on what works and what doesn't. And they provide this to us for free thanks to this wonderous digital age we live in. I've been gaming for nearly 25 years now and I have never encountered a miniature games company that has ever done this. Usually the first time you hear about a new rules set is about 6 months before it is to be released and by then its been at the printers for at least half that time again. This is a pretty big thing.

So we test their game and they make changes based on our feedback. And then we wait. We know the game will be released in all its glory come January 2010. But as a new version is coming, the gaming dies down as everyone waits for the new version. PP knows this is a problem from both a PR perspective and a marketing one so in September they give us the new rules for free to download. These will be the final rules and there will be no changes. Yay! We all start playing again. Some models still aren't as 100% awesome as we'd like but they are locked in now.

So now its January 2010. All we PP nerds buy our shiny new book and look at the models that are available in there. Shock horror! Some of the stats have changed! Now all the changes are, IMO, for the better. Yet some gamers are crying foul that PP have lied to us and that this is ruining the game. I mean, they are really, really upset like the sky is falling or that armageddon has arrived. What the..? I just don't get it. So PP made an error and told us that the free rules they gave us were set in stone but just before printing, they made some minor changes to models that weren't as awesome as they could be. I'm passionate about my gaming but in the end: its just gaming. I'm just pushing my mandollies around a table and going "pew, pew!" at my opponent with them.

Some people need to take a pill and have a good lie down. Why, oh why does the internet generate so much rage in people. Is it a side effect of the 'net itself or is a reflection of the way our society is heading? It makes me wonder...

And so another year begins...

So now its 2010. Ye gods. I know a lot of people say this but where did that year go? Its like I was told not long before Alex was born: "With kids, the days are long but the years are short". All too true! 2009 held days for me that I thought would never end with many sleepless nights and long, long days yet i sit here now and wonder what happened to the year.

I sit here at my desk and watch photos of my son and wife roll by on the digital photo frame and I am amazed at how much has happened to me in the last 12 months. I'm getting pics of Alex when he was 1 month old being quickly followed by pics of him at 11 months and I marvel at how much he has changed. From virtually bald to a head full of very curly locks (which is unusual as neither my wife or I have curly hair), from no teeth to four nasty sharp ones at the front (trust me, they draw blood) and from a little bundle wrapped in a blanket that slept most of the day (and stayed awake most of the night) to the boistrous bundle of beans that crawls around the house getting into anything that has a power cord and then smiling innocently at you when you berate him for it.

I also note the changes in my wife and see that while she looks a little older and more tired, she also looks happier than I have ever seen her. She smiles a lot more now that she's a mother and I can't remember a time in our lives together that I have ever seen her smile as much as she does now. Anyone who knew Tash five or more years ago may realise how strange that is. When we first met she was adamant that she would never, ever have children. Now she can't imagine life without Alex. I always knew I wanted to have children. I like them (well, most of them) and knew I wanted one of my own. Tash was confident that she didn't (which may seem strange that I would marry her but you can't pick who you fall in love with). But after many years together, she grew older and wiser and eventually decided that she was ready for children and so we have been blessed with the wonderful little boy we have now.

2009 was a turbulent year but when all is said and done, for me it was a good one. I say bring it on 2010. I'm a lucky guy and I'm looking forward to seeing what you hold for myself and my family.

A Giggling Child...

...may well be the most wonderful thing in the world. My son doesn't laugh much. That's not to say he's not happy. He spends a great deal of each day smiling his very big smile at just about everything, its just that for him to giggle or laugh it has to be really, really funny to him.

Apparently, me jumping out from around the corner and yelling "BOO!" at him is just about the funniest thing in the world. So funny in fact that he will actually fall over laughing. Its likely that I look like a complete tool doing it but you know what? I don't care. It makes my boy laugh and laugh and that to me is the most wonderful sound in the world.

Kids make you realise that its the simple things that can make you really happy. I'm a pretty lucky guy all things considered.

Gaming Fun

Yay! Gaming! Since my son's arrival just over 12 months ago my spare time has vanished. I rarely get out of the house on my own more than once a week. So yesterday I managed to get out of the house and get to a Warmachine/Hordes tournament, one of my beloved hobbies. The tourney was the "Battle of the Cities" tourney which pits Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast and Toowoomba against each other (Logan claims its a city, but do bogans really count as part of the population? ;) ) in an annual event. It was really fun. Last year I played Cygnar but this year, for a change, I decided to play Mercenaries. My first list was a Magnus the Traitor list and the second was a Searforge Dwarf list. Mostly I played the Searforge list because I could field The Bear in it (yep, a giant bear) as well as giant, steam-powered magical robots.

A twist for this tourney was that you got tourney points for making successful Power Attacks with your Warjacks/Warbeasts and for making enemy units flee. I did pretty well. I won two and lost two. Ironically, the two I won were with the Searforge list and the two I lost were with the Magnus list. Go figure. But every game I played was fun and that's what it's all about IMO.

The main thing was, though, that I managed to get out and have a great time yesterday and managed to be me again for a while rather than just being "Dad" or "Husband". Its important and I look forward to doing giving my wife the same chance this coming weekend.

The incompetence of suppliers...

I am the Senior Lab Technician for one of the teaching labs at a Queensland University. As a result, I am in charge of purchasing new equipment, chemicals and consumables for use in my undergraduate teaching lab. This year I was so awesome at this I had a surplus in excess of AU$10,000 in my budget when all was said and done. I went to my boss to work out what to spend it on. Well the academics fluffed around a bit on what they wanted to buy and the order changed about 4 or 5 times as they tried to work out what was the best purchase. In the end they settled on a pair of homogenisers (fancy, expensive scientific blenders for those of you who don't know) as well as some new balances (scientific scales) and a sonic bath.

Now we have a deadline by which said purchases must be receipted as the Uni runs on a financial budget year of Jan to Dec and not July to June like the normal financial year. This deadline is December 17. No problem. I am told by my supplier that all the items we want (three balances, two homogenisers plus attachments and the sonic bath) are all in stock and we will have them well before the 17th. The balances - no problems; they arrived and I've receipted them. The sonic bath - coming from their Sydney supplier but should be here early next week. O.K. I can handle that. The homogenisers - one unit and two attachments arrived today. So where is the second unit? I called them.

"Oh, its on back-order and will be coming out from Germany. Its due late January."

"Excuse me? I was told they were in stock. That's why I ordered them."

"Oh. Well we must have only had the one."

"Well if the other one is arriving January I can't buy it. The funds need to be cleared before December 17 or I lose the funding. Plus I won't need the extra attachment so I'll be sending that back." (The attachment costs $1500 BTW).

"Oh." (She said that alot)

"So what are you going to do?"

"Um. I'll have to get back to you."

Now this really gets my back up. If I don't spend this money, we lose it. I'll be about $4000 poorer next year and my student numbers are increasing by about 30%. I need that extra money to make sure the classes actually run. I was relying on this item being in stock (which I was assured was the case) so I could clear the account. This is the kind of c-rap that really annoys me. I hate unreliable information.

My First Blog

Well, here we go. I've joined the 21st century and started a blog. Those of you who know me will see this is a very big step. I'm normally not keen on doing these sorts of things but I've been thinking about a blog for a while now. Like most blogs out there it will be a random collection of my thoughts and feelings on my life, hobbies and the world in general. Geez, next thing you know I'll go and get a Facebook page...nah. I hope to be good at updating it but one of two things will happen: I'll either be good at it and update it once every couple of days or I'll quickly lose interest (like I did with My Brute).

Anyhoo, I hope to have something more substantial to say soon. Stay tuned...