Monday 31 January
This afternoon on my way to a singing lesson (yes I started singing lessons, my Christmas present from my parents, they're wonderful) I found that in my planning to get there I had made a navigational error. I hadn't taken walking time into account, causing myself to be ten minutes late. When I was figuring out bus times I had obviously looked at the map, seen ten centimetres and thought "10 centimetres, I can walk that in a second!" not taking into account that maps are drawn to scale. A lesson learnt.

Sunday 30 January
The thrill of the auction
I just bought a CD off of Ebay! It was so much more exciting than normal shopping!

!!!

Sunday 30 January
Recently I had an idea based upon Benjamin's existence to live my life in dramatic movie-like moments figuring that these moments would then have no choice but to end in dramatic movie-like ways. I never followed through with this idea, but in the last two days the universe seems to have taken matters into its own hands dealing me two incidences which I never imagined would happen to me outside of the silver screen.
The first was: I walked down a street in which all of the other pedestrians who saw me started laughing at my expense. I had no idea this happened outside of movies. I know one day this will be funny, but that day has not come yet.
The second movie-like incident happened this afternoon in Boonah where my parents are looking for a farm. I walked into a small country store. At the counter was the elderly female owner of the store and one of her younger female customers surrounded by her brood. They were having a good old chin-wag while they procrastinated putting the order through. The second that they noticed me both of the women fell silent and started staring at me. I walked over to the potato chip stand and made my selection. They stared at me. I walked towards the counter. I said hello to the young female customer. She stared at me. I asked how much the chips were. The elderly female store-owner stared dumbly, eventually finding the words "$1.95." I said "I'll take them!" and the two of them once again stared at me. I said goodbye and left. They stared after me and presumably started talking again once I had gone. From this experience I can surmise that they have never seen an out-of-towner in Boonah shire before. My mother had told me that the people of Boonah were weird about strangers but her words had not prepared me for the incident. The movie continues, the residents of Boonah stare on.

Thursday 27 January
Max Martin! I have a name! I was watching a show on pop music tonight on the ABC and right at the end they introduced Britney Spears' songwriter Max Martin. Now I am thoroughly aware* that Britney Spears as a person leaves a lot to be desired. It is also my opinion that the way that her songs as they are presented in their current format are less than perfect. But the songs themselves... wonderful wonderful pop. I love them. I often download them and learn them on the guitar. Further investigation reveals that Max Martin is responsible for the songs of *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys. Now I'm not too hot on either of those bands but this piques my curiousity. But then they are examples of the man's earlier works, so perhaps his songwriting matured with age. Whatever it is I am happy to know who is responsible for these songs that I love.

In other news I am applying for a video store job in West End that wants me to send them a photo. Gross! What can be the meaning of this?

*by thoroughly aware I mean "it is my opinion that"

*If you are interested in learning more about this man here is a link.

Sunday 23 January
Do you remember back on February 12 of 2004 how I took an online test that told me I write like a man? Here's the address of the month http://www.geocities.com/bozcorp/february04.htm and here's the address of the test http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.html . Anyway, something made me think of it just then so I pasted in this month's entries so far and I have made it over the line! Finally, I write like a girl! That's very, very cool.

Female Score: 3183
Male Score: 3170

Sunday 23 January
Is it creepy that Helen's phone cut off tonight just when we were talking about consumerism, and that this has happened once before? I say yes. After all, Helen's phone cut off both times because she was out of credit. Credit is the phone form of money. We were bad-mouthing a system of living built on money and those who glorified money. Money got its own back.

Another similarly weird event happened last night. Last night I finally (finally finally finally) impressed the Canadian skaters in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and it was when I wasn't trying to. Now Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is an amazing game (and apparently all the rest of them are even better) and the thing I love most about it are all the interesting touches that make it more like real life. An obvious example of this is that when you start skating well your little dude (Flipper, in my case) builds up adrenaline and skates better and better, only to lose all of that adrenaline and better skating when he/she falls over. A relatively simple thing to implement I'm sure (no that's right, I don't know anything about writing computer programs but watch me cast my judgement nonetheless), but I'm very impressed that they thought of it. In the case of impressing the Canadian skaters I had been trying to do this for months and the second I forgot about impressing them they liked me. Or Flipper, as is the case. This is exactly what happens in real life! You cannot impress someone when that's what you're trying to do, but the minute that you relax and think about something else they're probably going to start liking you. The thing that really gets me, though, is how did the computer know I wasn't trying to impress it? Amazing.

And just because you were asking for it, here are some photos of flipper.

This is Flipper grinding, doing a double kickflip, and an invert respectively.

Here's a nice shot of his face

Here's Flipper harrassing some guy

Here's Flipper wreaking havoc! Note how the blonde guy deserved a beating for wearing those stupid plastic thongs people refer to as "massies"

Here's Flipper lying in a pool of his own blood. If you mess with Los Angeles, Los Angeles will mess right back

Saturday 22 January
Isolation is harder to achieve than it sounds. Just when you've declared that for a few months you're going to be alone you find yourself surrounded by other humans with other needs that you find yourself wanting to fulfill. Isolation, it appears, requires discipline. I am not quite yet comfortable with telling people that I want to be alone for a few months, but I guess that is something I will have to face if I am to continue with this plan. I have found so far that my significantly reduced time with people has had wonderous effects. I am feeling a lot better and I am getting a lot done. I have made it to the Los Angeles level of Tony Hawkes 3. The idea of other people is improving. This could be another potential hole in my plan. I will continue, I will succeed!

I will get a job!

Tuesday 18 January
In recent conversation with Colin we discovered a connection: in high school he had sat in "Geek Street" and I in "Loser Lane". When I told a fellow loser laner she informed me that the year above us had called one of the better sitting areas "Bimbo Boulevarde". Hilarious stuff.

When I said several months I don't think it had quite sunk in yet that that was more than a couple of days, but now that it has it still seems necessary and there I go writing like Ronnie again.

If you are interested, I have added to my photos page. I would recommend it if your name was Jon and you liked looking at photos of yourself, if your name was Celeste and you liked looking at photos of yourself or if your name was Grace and you liked looking at photos of Brad Harms.

Friday 14 January
Best birthday greetings ever:

Hey

Sorry to startle you and all the other night, is everything ok? Just calling to wish you a Happy birthday (trust me there is no difference between 18 and 19... except your boobs sag even more, your gut bulges out even more, and those damn rinkles and grey hair keep appearing).

Anyway looking forward to the start of Uni? *deadpan* I'm deffiantly am...

Anyway this is all I have to say for now, oh yeah before I forget, I got kicked off radio because my show 'apparently' doesn't appeal to youths...

So yeah, see ya around

steven

Thursday 13 January
I feel so drained. I have spent the afternoon writing a cover letter for a job I wish to apply for. After maybe two hours working on a letter which I considered to be wonderful my parents went through and took out anything that might suggest that I have a personality, intelligence or the ability to think for myself. I cannot imagine why anyone reading cover letters would prefer something that could have been written by a robot to my sensible yet interesting letter. Also I can't think why I'm taking cover letter advice from somebody who hasn't changed jobs since before I was born and somebody who can't find a new job presumably because her cover letters are too boring. But there you have it and hopefully I will be employed in the near future.

Thursday 06 January
What a weird... weird. I am sitting around listening to my Mum contacting all of my relatives because the doctors have said that my great uncle Dave is going to die within the week. She's pretty cheerful in truth. I love my old uncle Dave. He's a sweet old man who would gently joke with all at family functions and particularly loved his desserts. I will miss him, but death doesn't really upset me. He's an old man and his time has come. There will always be a gap he filled. We won't forget him. While all this was going on my sister's playlist continued playing and I heard a Powderfinger song that I must have heard a million times over but this one time it hit me. It's called Over My Head. It's an incredibly simple song. I listened to it three times over and now for the second time in years I find myself listening to and enjoying Internationalist. Today was good. I hung out with Ben for what will be the last time in Brisbane except if we happen to hang out tomorrow. I imagine this is the last quality time I will get with the boy for quite some time. We met up with James and Celeste who, as much as I really like the individual parts, make an incredible whole. I must confess that this is something of an uninformed opinion, but they just seem really, really good together. I cancelled on them today for the sake of seeing Uncle Dave tomorrow (I wouldn't be able to get a bus out of New Farm early enough to meet my Mum and what with my early unavoidable bed time we weren't going to get in the movie we intended to see. I am quite sad at missing them, though, I was really looking forward to it. I am fascinated at this new-found Jamesness and this new-found Celesteness) but I will see them on Wednesday, so I guess that's OK. On coming home I found birthday cards from my friends Genevieve and Leah. Genevieve has, for the second year in a row, found me a card featuring frangipanis. This is incredibly thoughtful, because not only has she remembered my birthday and my favourite flower but she has gone to the trouble of uniting the two in a difficult-to-find card. It's a beautiful card. Leah's card featured some pertinent questions on Woodley and why we were all concerned with him which I will probably share with you all later. I will leave you with the news that I am no longer a hepatitis health risk (immunised!) so you can all rest easy tonight.

Wednesday 5 January
The following email was innocently awaiting me in my junk email folder:

From : Disentangled H. Adheres
Sent : Tuesday, January 4, 2005 3:31 AM
To : Smeg <--------------->
Subject : appropriately

Marc




.
What could it all mean?

I had my first driving lesson this morning and it made me really hungry. I enjoyed it very much. I keep having this fantasy of donning my letterman jacket and cruising down the street to wave at all the ladies. Perhaps I'll be on my way to the drive-in movies with my girl or to my fellow jock's place to throw around the pig skin. One thing I know and that is with my steamin' ride I'll be sure to impress!

Tuesday 4 January 2005
I have had an excellent day! My birthday has fallen on a Tuesday, which if you think about me and the fourth of January it is a very fitting day for it to fall upon. As such I finally got my learner's license (it was pretty easy and to think that two and a half years have passed since I could have gotten it!), I got my bike back from the bicycle mechanics which was like a birthday present in itself it was such a joy to ride, I went shopping with my sister, I saw Liberty working at KFC and then I watched M*A*S*H. Tonight we're eating Indian and I love Indian! What a fantastic day!

Yesterday was a fantastic day as well. A group of my closest buddies and I had a delicious picnic on Ronnie's front lawn. For four hours we ate food and discussed whatever it is that we discuss. It kind of felt like one of the last days of seeing Benjamin as well and you couldn't have asked for a better last day. It really was lovely.

Saturday 1 January
In a bout of New Year's go-get'em spirit (not really) I just wrote to Britnee to tell her how much I hate her. Sure that means I will have to put other plans on hold, but altogether it feels a satisfying end to a horrifying chapter of my life. New Year's Eve itself was fun, but my biggest memory of it will probably be the sound of Ronnie's wracking sobs. I don't know what's going to happen with him and I don't think there's anything I can do but be there for him and both of those things are hard. It was horrible seeing him so upset and without belief in his own ability to get through his problems and to still have to acknowledge to myself that by and large I couldn't get involved.