kelwebby

Last night, Markus, Blake, Lombardi and I spent many many hours playing Smash Brothers.... We also watched Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, enjoyed some delicious wok food (fresh from my local wok take-our joint) and had a coffee down at the Marina.

Overall it was a pretty good night. It was nice to see Blake getting his ass kicked a little by Lombardi... on the flip-side, it was pretty damn annoying seeing Lombardi win over and over again, while seemingly doing very little. Blake was particularly angered by this, to such an extent where be flung himself on top of him, hoping to teach him a violent lesson about the real world.... I have seldom seen William Blake so pissy. Unfortunately their little wrestle had little effect on Lombardi's winning streak, and he continued to win until we called it a night... crazy times indeed.

I look forward to the guys returning for a rematch. I continuously amaze myself at my lack of skill with that game. I consistently manage to come last or second-last, and only managed to win two or three games the whole evening.... keeping in mind that we must have played around 50 matches... maybe more.

Also - Tracy and I started watching Underbelly today. Tracy's dad lent us the DVDs, as he is a big fan and insists that we watch it. We somehow managed to squeeze seven episodes in today. Not bad considering each ep. is 42 minutes long. Needless to say, I did not cook any dinner tonight. Bless TV dinners.. they come in handy sometimes.

I must say that its a pretty good show. I struggle to keep up with all the different names and faces flashing across the screen, but the producers were clearly trying to make each character as distinguishable as possible. None the less, I do occasionally struggle to draw the connections between the characters... perhaps I am watching it with a lazy brain... I should pay more attention.

Cheers

housematehorror
Horror stories from the world of shared living spaces. EEK!

dwseason4
A journal where the alternative fourth season of the TV show Doctor Who is being written.

lol_comics
Keep youself smiling at the little things with some funny comics.

bikes
A community for everyone who loves bicycles, motorbikes, and more.

Yesterday, I was at the Supanova Pop Culture Expo (with free tickets) for about half an hour. It was excruciatingly dull, so much so that I felt sorry for the people who paid money to get in. The highlight for me was noticing Jewel Staite sitting at a table behind a back-the-fuck-off-this-bitch-is-a-celebrity style of rope divider. You had to queue to see her and I don't care enough about anybody's celebrity to warrant standing in a line. From the outside of this impenetrable roped fortress, for the briefest moment, I took a gander at her. That was only until I noticed she was looking back at me, the leering Australian with a sense of debauchery surrounding him. As our eyes met we made love for the first time and for the last time. She was okay, I was superb. The entire expo would have been a waste of time if not for that completely one-way and yet possibly (note: not very likely) shared moment of fantasy.

My escapism has socially ethical boundaries but they're not very clearly defined.

Today I met with Judeebee for tea in Cottesloe. There is such a different atmosphere in that suburb. So many pensioners were walking around, a contrast from the typical Mt.Lawley area I'm used to. We (by which I mean, she) bought some blueberries (that I gobbled half of) from a health shop afterwards. Blueberries are expensive! They're good but these dried ones weren't that good. I've actually been out and about a lot recently. Miraculously I'm managing to not buy food whenever I'm out. That being said I do have an insatiable desire to go to Flipside, Levant Cuisine and a few other places that I haven't visited in a while.

and now a moment from the dictionary:

(sometimes the example sentences in dictionaries make me snort with laughter)

I'm not really sure what to write about.... actually, its more the fact that I'm not sure what I should start with. Its been a busy month for me and most people around me. Not busy in terms of 'output', but busy in terms of activity.... and by 'activity', I don't necessarily mean 'Fun'.

• Trace and Blake both finished with Uni and were studying hard up until a couple of weeks ago. Trace is now a qualified midwife, while Blake is a certified Cunning Linguist


• Markus started looking for a job and has received several offers already. Unfortunately his lack of transport has resulted in him having to turn them down. Hopefully something more suitable will come along soon.


• I had my parents and Markus over for dinner last night. Blake also made an appearance. I cooked a Hungarian Goulash. I though it needed more pepper, but everyone else seemed to be happy with it. Perhaps they were just being polite. After dinner, the parents and I watched The Worlds Fastest Indian, while Trace, Markus and Blake watched Kill Bill in the other room. To me, the place felt like a little cine-plex, though I doubt others made that observation.


• In the last journal entry I made an exciting comment about Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. Soon after I wrote that, I read Masachika Kawata's (the producer) comments on Wikipedia about the game. Allow me to quote from the above liked page - "Wii users like easiness" and that a RE4-style game is "too complicated" for Wii users to enjoy. Masachika Kawata then elaborated that "complex operability can be an obstacle for Wii users", and that he purposefully had to "compromise to a lower difficulty level" and "reduce enthusiast-only elements".
  
  Its pretty much the most downgrading comment I've ever read in regards to game development - If I had actually read the article before I headed out to buy it, I never would have made it out the door! Add to that the 7 hours of game-play that I got out of it, and you have a recipe for a overpriced, short, pile of crap. I wish developers would take the Wii more seriously and actually start developing some good quality games for it. I feel like I'm getting shafted by developers that think they can release any old shit and make some money off it... and unfortunately its working for them. Wii owners - PLEASE STOP BUYING INSULTINGLY STUPID SHIT GAMES AND MAKE THESE ASSHOLES WORK A LITTLE FOR YOUR MONEY!!!!!! Most games of these damn games are the game world's equivalent to McDonalds - Can we please please insist on getting some quality for our money!!! When paying 'quality' prices is it too much to ask to get some quality software?!?!? God, the industry shits me at times. (I appear to be having quite a rant here.... good times)


• While I'm on the topic - I traded the above mentioned game, as well as The Godfather, and obtained Super Smash Bros. Brawl as a result. I'm not sure what to make of it yet.... but I think I hate it as well. Blake seems to love it, while Markus is pretty pleased with it..... I'm not quite sure what the excitement is about. The game is so damn chaotic that its hard to employ any manner of strategy while playing it... I'm shit at it... I really am. I'm not good at button masher games, and this game is exactly that. There are times when I literarily have no idea of what is going on onscreen, and times when I have no idea of where I even am for 5, sometimes 10 seconds at a time. I get pretty damn pissy about it.
  
  That being said, Markus and I played it a little this morning, and I felt myself getting a little better at it...


• Blake, Lombardi, Markus and I attended the Supanova Pop Culture Expo at the Claremont Showgrounds today. I have ranted a lot in this journal entry already, so I will keep it to a minimum here....
  
  ORGANISERS: YOU HAVE INSULTED EVERY PERSON WHO ATTENDED YOUR DAMN TEMPORARY SHANTY TOWN SHOPPING CENTRE GHETTO- $20 entrance fee? WTF!!! rant rant rant rant. Congrats to the fans that actually got dressed up for the occasion... though no doubt you were thinking the same thing I was - 'I got dressed for is?'
  
  Please enjoy the following quality photos, depicting the highlights of the expo:
  
  
  
  
  The only good thing to come out of going there was the second-hand copy of Elebits I picked up for $20. I am yet to play it, but I'm pretty sure it will be better than most of the other rubbish on the Wii.


• Oh yeah.. speaking of Resident Evil - Blake and I watched Resident Evil:Extinction a couple of weeks go. I actually really enjoyed it.. though my enjoyment was mainly based on the fact that it had a pretty nice surround mix, and the gunshots made great use of the sub. I would gladly watched it again, just because I enjoyed the sound so much :-) For some reason I've been really in the mood just to watch load action movies which make the room rumble a little bit... normally my taste in movies is a little more refined :-) How strange of me.



• Trace, Makan and I went to see You Don't Mess with the Zohan last week. It had a couple of golden moments (as most Sandler moves do) but overall it was almost insultingly simplistic with its deep and meaningful conclusion. Clearly, if Hollywood celebrities ran countries, there would be no wars. 4.5/10


• Dad has been having some age related issues..... luckily a check last Friday revealed that there is nothing to worry about at the moment.....

I could write at length about what has been happening at work..... at great length... to safe time I will quickly write some basic points.

• I am not staying in Citizenship - I'm off to Student Compliance this week.


• I have, at this point, still not been made a permanent 4. To make things even worse, the state director had decided to dissolve the order of merit I was on. Apparently budget increases have paved the way for a whole new recruitment round. I am highly displeased at his, since I actually did pretty damn well with the last selection round.... and that was only 5 months ago!


• I have to lodge a new APS4 application at the end of this week... as I did not see this coming, I have been a little unmotivated. None the less, I will apply and hopefully get some recognition this time around. I'm glad I generally enjoy my work, lest I would have thrown the towel in with immigration a long time ago.


• I'm taking most of this week off. Citizenship has been a strange and intense experience - highs and lows on a daily basis. I'm drained and need a bit of time away from the office.


• Nothing is ever certain at work.... the only thing that is pretty much certain is that I will always have a job there (guess that's comforting certainty). There are times that I wish the department was a bit more stable.... I even sometimes wish it was more like the ABS.... the good old reliable and stable ABS.... oh how I miss you from time to time....


• ...with the previous point in mind - I might be going for some training over east within the coming couple of months.... I wish I could say more, but nothing is ever certain in the damn place.


• While I would have been happy to have stayed in Citizenship, I am also happy to rejoin my colleagues in Student Monitoring. They are a great bunch of people, and lots of fun to work with.

Cheers

Peter

+ shopping for nothing in particular
+ finding a fantastic lemon tart at the tea & coffee merchants
+ lunch with friends
+ buying a psp
+ eating take-away lebanese last weekend
+ spreading chilli jam on toast

+/- accidentally putting premium petrol in the car
+/- figuring out new bank accounts
+/- changing health insurance payments
+/- tracy bugging me to make a trifle for her
+/- boxing old university notes

- not being able to fix my beard trimmer
- reading grammar books that push christianity on children with no subtlety whatsoever
- being dion's personal banker
- still fucking waiting
- getting chilli jam in my eye

While going through a quintillion old messages, I realised Toni didn't get a call until about a month before she had to leave the country. There is a timeline breakdown of what to expect on the website and now I don't see any reason for them to contact me until I am allocated to a province. I don't really know what is going on, I'm just wading in a stream of non-information. I could call them but they're always so ill-prepared to receive calls from people.

I made this for twelve_cards new zine, which is based around gigs and music.

knitted_wedding
Follow one woman's quest to knit an entire vow-renewing wedding. Encouragement is encouraged.

brigits_flame
For writers interested in an ongoing competition that tests your narrative chops.

hollow_art
A longstanding art, icon and base archive centered around RPGs.

here we have the new characters from the new comic I made last week