Archive for June, 2002

Absinthe and old mood swings

June 30th, 2002

You know the little buttons on people’s website with a mood attached to it? They annoy me. Really annoy me. They annoy me on a couple of levels. The first one is that they are kind of tacky – it is just not a very classy design or piece of code. The second reason is that I’d prefer to express my mood through words rather than some glib little icon that says ‘happy’ or ’sad’. That doesn’t really tell anyone anything. I mean I write this diary for myself mostly. So in a while when I might go back and read how I was feeling I’d like to know that I was feeling a little more than ’sad’ – I’d like to know that I was annoyed about little mood icons – *grin* well perhaps not.

Went out with my sister last night and some old friends. Was very weird evening. We ended up drinking absinthe and roaming from bar to bar. Now I’ve been told the absinthe has no wormwood in it so therefore should not be hallucinogenic but I must admit I had some very vivid dreams last night – including a Wild West shootout with slow motion bullets. Now in itself this isn’t too weird – it was the appearance of Heinrich Himmler (played by Willem Dafoe in my dream) and Hermann G

Tired and still here

June 29th, 2002

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

Saturday and still typing away. Very bored now. Miss Lu a hell of a lot and don’t want to be here at all. Missed dinner out last night with friends of ours, missing what might be a fun party tonight. Missing my cats. Don’t like being away from home unless it’s my plan or has been planned. I don’t mind a job with travel because you can plan around travel – you can’t plan around the cluster fuck that we seem to make of pursuing business.

We are the only people in the office – even the guys we’ve come down to help have pissed off for the weekend. Which doesn’t thrill me because I’d expect they’d work as bloody hard as us given the fact the we’ve dropped everything to help them out. Typically though it’s only us who make the commitment and the rest of them don’t give a shit. We’re probably also the worst paid of the people working on this. Fucking company has a screwed view of how to reward people.

It occurs to me that people get in trouble for discussing their employers like this but I feel I’m discreet enough – I don’t name names or discuss anything commercial in confidence. So if anyone reading does know who I work for then big deal. It’s my fucking freedom of expression. Sod the fuckers if they can’t take a joke.

Bloody hell I’m in a bad mood…

Reading: Big Issue – which I almost never buy in Sydney but bought every week in Melbourne. Strange how old habits come back. It was almost instinctive to wander over and buy it this morning.

Listening to: Moby – 18.

Melbourne on my Friday mind

June 28th, 2002

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

My brain is operating in limited function mode. Two days of writing tender responses is making it fire some weird neurons and make some very odd neural pathways connect. Somehow being in Melbourne is not assisting my thinking either. It’s like this is a nowhere place where my laptop happens to currently reside and all the other “Melbourne” things are just a big coincidence or sort of just look like Melbourne. I can’t sort of relate to being here and working like this – it all happened so quickly and I didn’t sort of get a chance to make any adjustments. When you plan to go somewhere you think about it first I suppose so you are prepared when you step off a plane to be in the place you planned too. I didn’t plan to come down so my brain did not get a chance to acclimatise and with the tender work since it still hasn’t. It’s a fairly bizarre concept all in all.

So I’m off to mind quiet to rest my eyes and brain until I start this again tomorrow. Adios all.

Reading: stupid tender material – like long lists of equipment and requirements which mean less and less as time goes by.

Listening to: George – which I bought and am not sure I like yet and Catie Curtis.

Tendering in Melbourne

June 27th, 2002

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

Flown to Melbourne to work on this Tender thus this is very short entry today. Not my plan and not happy about it. Had plans for the rest of this week and the weekend. Very unamused. It’s made me really fucking grumpy. Might go an see the folks tonight and see if they have food and wine to cheer me up. It’s one of the few good things about being down here is that I might, if I have a scrap of time spare from this stupid thing, catch up with a few people. Anyways adios et all.

Reading: Very crappy airport paperback called Ice Station

Listening to: Moby – 18. Really cool – even from a pretentious wanker like Moby.

*sigh*

June 25th, 2002

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

Am tired and stressed again. Had a bloody good presentation this morning at a client and everything went to shit after that. Got back into the office to discover our efforts in a tender that is due next week has grown considerably from our original 20% contribution to about 80% of the tender needing our input. Not happy Jan. It’ll mean no proper sleep and far too much work for the next week. Now I’m simply getting that “It is time to walk” feeling and one of these days I am actually going to have to act on it. Too annoyed to write anymore and have a shocking headache also making me cranky.

Reading: David Gemmell Legend

Listening to: Catie Curtis

Agent Orange and other rainbow topics

June 24th, 2002

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

I’ve started doing some research about Agent Orange and fertility. I’m taking a fertility test this week – yes I am presuming it is the whole wank in a plastic cup routine – to ascertain whether kids are going to be feasible or not. At least the natural way. So that’s a little nerve wracking. The other options are a lot harder to handle both emotionally and financially. Adoption is very difficult and costly. As an unmarried couple we also are ineligible for a lot of countries adoption schemes. They all want established married couples. Something that is monumentally unfair I feel given the fact that I believe my relationship is stronger than a lot of people’s marriages. We’d, by preference (and I know it’s often hard to get a say), probably want to adopt from South America. It’d be nice to have a child who resembles you – or at least Lu somewhat. Most of the other options are medical and I get a lot of conflicting reports from people about the viability of them. Another option is fostering but the emphasis is on family reunions and be heartbreaking to let kids go all the time. All the options (I suppose bar fostering) are fundamentally bloody expensive too. I mean we could do it but it would hurt a lot. Anyways still thinking away – we will see how we go.

Off to dinner with my folks and honorary god parents, Italian at Leichhardt. Adios or rather ciao.

Reading: Empire magazine. Film heaven.

Listening to: Whirr of air con and tap of keyboard.

Little changes and other problems

June 22nd, 2002

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

I’ve added the new poem I wrote into my writings section and will endeavour to dig out the other stuff I have lurking around my laptop and upload those too. I need to start writing again too. Maybe the poetry by stanza approach is the best way back into it. My boss seems to find time and brain power to write still but I get home from work and it’s my best efforts just to add an entry to my diary.

My parents are in town, dropping off a dryer that used to belong to my grandfather, and we’re taking them to a place called Epoque. It’s a Belgium beer bar which is quite a fun place and Lu loves the taste of the beer. She was in heaven in Belgium – tasting all the obscure beers varieties like banana or cherry (her favourite) beer.

On the topic of booze my drinking also seems to have gotten worse again. I have been hitting the bottle a little harder than normal the last couple of weeks. Maybe it’s time for a few AA meetings – an old friend, who shall remain nameless because it’s not my place to talk about it, has gone cold turkey and started attending meetings. I’ve promised her to only drink tonic water when I next see her. It’s a hard habit to break though – especially with the complete lack of willpower I usually show. As they say in AA – one day at a time or my far more sad variation – one day at time just not tonight because fuck I need a drink.

Reading: Still thinking about what to read tonight.

Listening to: Nothing but the tap of the keyboard until I got bored and kicked off some Maren Ord. Who I sense is suspiciously like a Christian of some kind but since she’s so talented and I enjoy her music I’ll overlook her minor theological failings.

Actually yesterday.

June 21st, 2002

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

Worked from home today – what a wonderful euphemism for being a total slacker. Unfortunately it never works for me and I always have to do some work. And here I am still up at midnight (on a fucking Friday night too). Just finished writing some capability statements so I can have a mostly free tomorrow and not have to type away. I suspect being the dufus I am I will end up in front of the keyboard anyways. Ah well. Got to chat with my friend Zac over ICQ in Berlin which was cool. Later all.

Reading: Hot Springs by Stephen Hunter.

Listening to: The increasingly awesome Catie Curtis

New things…

June 20th, 2002

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

In case I haven’t mentioned it before I added a commenting system to the webpage. I don’t expect anyone to actually use it *grin* but it was interesting trying out the various versions I found. Though it’s seems to be doing weird things with my stats. Something else to puzzle out I suppose. *Update* A little bit of research and I think I’ve found the solution. The amazing Phil Ringnalda strikes again. *End Update*

I also got a nice review at The Weblog Review. Thanks Mariann! I thought that was pretty cool.

Reading: Empire magazine (which I also just subscribed to). Movies – love those movies.

Listening to: Catie Curtis

Day in the park…

June 19th, 2002

Warning: array_keys() [function.array-keys]: The first argument should be an array in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1310

Warning: shuffle() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1311

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/kartar/www/www/wp-content/plugins/simple-tags/inc/client.php on line 1312

Feeling very unwell today. Got up and my stomach was a mess. Ulcers hurting me really badly and have passed their evilness onto my stomach. I can’t eat anything without feeling like someone made me swallow a hot poker which then hangs around in my stomach. I put out a lasagna for dinner but even looking at it makes me sweat so I think I’ll be cooking it just for Lu. Anyways in too much pain to write anymore at the moment.

Reading: just about to start High Eight, the new Janet Evanovich book.

Listening to: Beautiful Girls soundtrack, the music from the Foxtel weather channel.