Ok, So I’m over being single.  Not that there is anything wrong with being single, but I’m over it.

I’m pretty happy with where I am now and I’m ready to start sharing it. And this is where it gets interesting…

I had an epiphiny a while back and that was that I needed to get out more. A lot more. So I started heading out more, I took up a new sport, I embraced my desires for some hobbies and I got my bike.  This wasn’t an effort to pick up by any means. It was an effort to fill a large void best described as social interaction.

It has been great.  I am still reading lots, still learning lots still enjoying plenty of alone time but I have the beginnings of a network of friends. As well as that I have reached out across the spans of time and reconnected with some people I’d lost touch with and in doing so re-established some good friendships.

I’m actually content with my lot at the moment.  While I’d like to travel, I’d rather travel with someone else.  While I’d like to go out more It’s becoming increasingly evident that what I want most is someone to share the journey with.  Someone to care for, someone to love and be loved by.  So I started being active again on an online personals site and There are some amazing people on there.  Girls I’d like to just talk to.  Girls who I don’t feel worthy of knowing.  Now for those of you who know me, the lack of confidence is probably taking you aback, but it’s true.  

Yes, I’m immensly confident when it comes to most things technical, and even those non-technical things where I have some aptitude, but talking to girls… ahhh not so much.  As you can probably imaging this lack of self confidence doesn’t sit well in my slightly egodriven psyche.
 

It isn’t so much that I fear rejection (although that is one mask the anxiety presents itself in) it is just that I have no fracking idea what I’m doing.  Now I know everything (almost) but this.  And that annoys me. And scares me.

So I’m gtting into this ‘trying to get agirlfirend’ thing and I find an A Grade ten and a half (+1 bogan point for you if you can idenify the reference) on theonline personals site.  As Geo (Geologicrecords.com) puts it ‘B³ – Brains, Body, Both’. Now don’t any of my female friends feel put out – she is a gamer, atist, geek & more who identifes as single, and is withn a comfortable ride/drive and is on an online personals site.  Frak, I have to write to her. Shit. What do I say? How do I phrase it? Do I loose the Geek inside? So many quetions, so many possible permutations,so many potential landmines. 

So I slug through it and come up with a letter that (I hope) was enough t provoke a response, preferably positive, maybe maybe maybe even interesed, although the likelyhood of that is low.  

Now the waiting begins and I hope to be evaluated and not found wanting.  

But even content wit my lot as I am, I still want more.  I duppose that is a fundamental part of the human condition.

Probably more updates as they come to light.

As a Post Scriptm aside, is Holly-Phoenix coming back.  I’m starting to worry because it has bee all quiet on the western front for a while now. And i finally got around to user picing it up. ’bout time.

So here it is Tuesday morning, sigh, and I’m sitting in a site office waiting on a contractor to show up. As if my days need more time stolen from them. Anyway on with the retrospective:

Friday Night: I missed training Friday because I was busy getting some intersections ready to be changed over for a big project and then I was reading Justina Robson’s QuantumGravity Book Two; Selling Out. Damn this series is a cracking read. Thanks Kimberly for the reccomendation, again.

Onto Saturday: Went to the attempted commisioning of a set of traffic lights at lunchtime, but my favourite subbies had screwed the pooch again. Not only was the linemarking not done (no way I’m turning on an intersection that isn’t marked out), they have screwed up the wiring for a special call button that calls a special phase. Again a critical fault – no switch on for you. And they don’t have the communications link running yet so I can’t consent to turning the damn thing on either.

After telling these muppets to get their shit together, take two asprin and I’ll see you for a 10am switch-on on Tuesday, I went down to the Ship Inn and met up with the Brisbane Sci-Fi & Fantasy crew at their main meet. So I’m driving today so no booze even though I’m at the Inn.  Most of the crew are going to see wolverine so like a good little lamb I tagged along and it was better than I was expecting, but then again I wasn’t expecting much.  — Special note to Hugh Jackman, Computer Generated dosn’t have to be crap –

Kicked on from the Movies to a mate’s place and Watched Conan the Barbarian over Canadian Club & Coke (had a couple of light ones) and then shot the shit untill 4AM. Damn 4 AM as in ya’ know just before dawn.  I ran 2 people home and sacked out by 0445 hrs.

It’s well and truly Sunday now: I was awoken after not more than 4 hours sleep by my dear cat.  Grrrrr. No, I didn’t go an play Triad.  It started at eleven and I was still in bed recovering from the night before despite my consciousness.  I was still reading Selling Out by Justina Robson.  As I said above awesome read I sorta didn’t want to hear back out that night but I did.  Caxton Street was a disaster so the cab to my mates place cost ten bucks more than it should have but the night out was gonna be expensive anyway.  Rumble, Rock & Wrestling was a fun gig and the wrestleing was tacky-fun in an I’m-kinda-drunk-and-these-guys-suck-kinda way.  We went back to the mate’s place and we RPG’d a scenario with a space pirate who stole a terraforming organism unwittingly & annoyed the sister of one of the deceased crew, who was captaining one of the pursuing starships, so much that she turned on the terraforming organism. I died when I turned mutinous. End of Game – 4:15 AM, another taxi an sleep by 0520hrs

Welcome to Monday:  The cat let me sleep, maybe she figured I’d skin her alive if she woke me up again after sacking out so late, but I still only got 6 hours of sleep.  Housework, finish the book (awesome read by the way check it out) and then to cap off the weekend, finally watch Twilight, the movie. Oh God, what a soggy shit sandwich of a movie.  Yes, it is reasonably faithful to the book but what they added & omitted didn’t add much.  Yes, I typically don’t like book adaptions as much as the book but damn they changed some of the set-ups for future books. Yes, the book isn’t literature, it’s poorly written crack but it’s still a good story if you prefix all mensions of Vampire with "Pathetic, Emo, Softcore" just to add the correct adjectives.  No, a modern architectural digest house dosn’t look like it has been there for ever.  Since when does Edward take Bella up trees, he is trying to keep her alive, not let her fall to her death.  Oh and since when does ‘Alabaster pale" translate to "normal looking white guy". Damn it.

Yes I’m still aggrivated but it’s not directed at anyone so I’m off to buy some dice.
 

I need to stop launching myself headlong into fantasy series… Wait let me back up.

I went to a Battlestar Galactica Finale party on Saturday night… That was fun and even though I thought the finale itself could have been better, the atmosphere was great.  Then I went home and made a galacticly stupid mistake.

I cracked Twilight.

Type your cut contents here.

I got home form the party at about 1210 am on Sunday morning, went through my post-night-out routine (ya know the usual: ablutions, banana, lots of water) and then I opened the book which I had already been warned was like flash (Andromeda Reference for the uninitiates) after the first dose you can’t get enough.

Well 75 pages later, I fell asleep from exhaustion, not disinterest (I have been shorting out on sleep so I was caught up to attend Saturdays Party), and slept for about 4 1/2 hours.  This was not enough to eliminate my sleep deficit, not by a long shot.  Then I proceeded to read the rest of Twilight in one session.  It was soooo good. 

Stephanie Meyer may not be the most literary of writers, but she has a way of luring you through the story with each page an irresistable successor of the previous one.  She should be banned from including bonus chapters.

I am now in a state that I would describe as sleep deprived and the stupid thing is that the interuption to my usually unshakable ability to sleep is being caused by something that I enjoy so much.

33 Hours ago I had read nothing of Stephanie Meyer’s work but now I am 2 books and 300 pages into the Twilight universe. That may just be a dire commentary on my search for escapism and an alternative to the daily hum-drum of life in Brisbane.

Post Time – I’ve been at work now for an hour and a half and I’m completly shattered form a lack of sleep but all I want to do is finish reading the damn books.  Still no coding or testing for me today, I don’t want that on my conscience.

So I’ve whiled away another day off, like so many days off before it, I havent gotten everything dont that I wanted to and got other things far more advance than I planned to.

Last weekend I was busy.  Just a quick rcap for all of you.

Friday night, I shot air rifle and did reasonably well.  Got told by my coach that I am ready to start wearing a jacket while I shoot.  Small steps but they are all in the same direction.  Probably means I need to buty a pair of shooting pants this year,  there goes some more dosh.

After shooting went to a club mates home to collect my shooting jacket which I had forgotten the previous Friday night, by the time I left his place it was already after midnight and I had to get up early, bright eyed & bushy-tailed to participate in my first significant coaching camp.

The coaching camp was organised by Queensland Target Sports and was really well run.  It featured some of Australia’s best coaches in both .22 50m Rifle & 10m Air rifle and ran for two days; unfortunately, I was only able to attend of Saturday, but I still learned a lot of useful techniques and philosophies.  Implementing the knowledge I gained will be a challanging and exciting time in my sporting career.  Probably gonna hurt too…  good thing I am a bit of a masochist.

Sunday was a blast too.  Played some domestic catchup in the AM and met up thith the boys & girls from Brisbane SciFi & Fantasy for Triad in New Farm Park.  Much, much fun was had,.  The muscle pain for 2 days now sice I finished playing has taken some shine off it, and tempered my enthusiasum for more domestic catchup, but on the whole it was still a great time.  I look forward to playing again next week.  It mad me miss playing team sports again, because shareed accomplishment is one of the best natural highs around.  You feed off weachouther to build this sense of euphoria.  That sense of euphoria after a win is the one thing I miss form when I played Gridiron, Indoor Netball & Indoor soccer and to a much more limited extent to the sports I played as a kid.

Sport gives everyone a chance to show off their true colours; it can tell you so much about a person and how they conduct themself in everyday life.  Something as simple as how somebody responds to a ref’s call they disagree with and how long they hold onto their grievance can tell you a lot.  Helping an opponant from the deck after a knock or challange for the ball shows a considerstion for others that runs deep.  Now we were playing a game for fun, with makeup teams and while most people took it that way some people let some less than desirible trais show from under their masks.

I have managed to get a lot of catching up on BSG done this week.  On Sunday morning i was at 3.04 but now I have made it to 4.10.  Nine more episodes to fit in between now and the BSFF minimeet this weekend for the fiunale – unless There is a birthday bash for a friend that I am so hoping for.

Off now to engross myself in some domestic bliss.

 Bloody shaping.  How is anybody supposed to survive 10 days with only a 64kbps connection to the internet.  Sob.

Well it has been an interesting few days.

On Saturday, I shot in my first state level competition in 50m Prone ISSF Rifle and as far as I am aware topped my grade with a score of 541 (94, 86, 91, 90, 89, 91).  These scores by the way are not good.  I shot in D (Dreadful) Grade and from the comments of the scorer after scores were posted suggest (somewhat strongly) tha I will be promoted to C (Crap) grade for the next shoot.  The next event I will be shooting is is the Bill Campbell Memorial Shoot on March 28th organised by my club Paramount Targetsports.  

I then watched a Drop Pod load of Andromeda episodes… by the end of the weekend I had watch all of Andromeda upto the end of Season 3.  Dang Impatience.  So now I think I am far enough in front to look upon the episodes in the rewatch a fair degree of objectivity and hopefully I will be able to add reasonably valuable input.

So now I am starting BSG Season 2 and then Season 3, not that I’ll be able to return any loans come this weekend’s SciFi meetup.  I will return them later in the month.  Hopefully the Holly Phoenix Meetup will be able to be rescheduled for some time later in the month which should be a refreshing change.  

Now I get to go buy groceries; what fun.

PS. the situation in Gaza blows chunks and throwing lots of money around won’t fix it.  You need to address the sources of the distrust that lead to the violence that destroys the pursuit of happyness for the people of the region; all the people in the region.  Remember that man Hates what he fears, and fears what he does not know. knowledge and understanding is the only true way to forstall war and trade is the most effective means known for growing knowledge and understanding accross frontiers.  Where trade goods cross borders, armies do not.

There I go, wandering, searching valiently for data, crucial missing data. 375 Mb at last count. All that remains to be found from the 8.11 Gb total. Sigh. Patience is all I can draw upon to see me through this wait.

It’s all my fault really. I mean who watches a whole series of an old TV show in one week?! Me, that’s who. And in a roddenberry tradition the end of season cliffhanger ends … To be continued.

Damn! Damn! Damn!

Those three little words bring the first season of Andromeda to a crashing close. Dylan in command bleeding from wounds, Rommie in turnoil, Rev Ben in crisis, Harper & Tyr in enemy hands, Beka showing surprising loyalty and Trance more or less ok. What will happen to them? In 375 Mbs time (What a wired mix of units) I will know.

But once you have been throttled, 375 Mb can be a long time. 10 days into the month I hit the peak cap. At least it’s February, the short month.

Having lunch with a friend today should be fun.

Ends

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Frack being a sci-fi junkie… Frack it right in the anti-matter ejection port!

Yes, watching over half a season of Battlestar Galactica in one evening (only stopping because a new ep of Dollhouse was waiting to be unpacked & watched near midnight, (oh and you just finished the season you have on hand!) is a sure sign of obsession. Not that this is a bad thing of course.

OMG, what a cliffhanger at the end of BSG S1. And Echo is already making me ache for more dollhouse…

Then I start unpacking Andromeda, what a first episode to kick off a 5 season adventure through another of Gene Riddenerry’s Universes, or is that Universi (I like the latin suffix sounds more… snobbish intelectual).

Snitch, thank you for pointing me to your wonderfull Great Andromeda Re-Watch of 2009! and once I catch up (probably by the end of the week I’ll watch along and join the conversation (not that Ive read any posts except the intro yet (I hate spoilers just like everyone else).

I am starting to immerse myself into many new intersts, but my shooting will not suffer. 

It will take me a while to get right down to the level of minutie that I display knowledge of inso many other areas.  So much to learn and study.

PS.  It’s now 7 hours later and I am ahead of the Andromeda Re-watch and not likely to slow down tonight…

Talk about letting myself get sucked into another wonderful adventure…  but now I have even more DVD’s to buy to keep up.

Apologies for the neglect that this journal has suffered from for the last 8 weeks but I bought a place, moved, waited to get the ‘net on and did a bunch of other stuff.

This Weekend in Reverse chronological order…

I just finished watching Dollhouse Ep 1 (Created by Joss Whedon)… Damn.  How has Joss done it again?  It kicked ass totally.  Others will do a better job of breaking down the series in the coming months but if you can, check it out.

*** News Flash *** Housework still sucks.  That’s about as important as most of the media’s news flashes these days.

Finally re-watched the Battlestar Galactica epic prelude to the series this afternoon…  Much BSG goodness to follow in the following weeks.

Went to the Market with two interesting gents this morning, G & T.  Both are Landscape Architects and speaking as a former civil designer, formerly my sworn professional enemies, well after architects proper.  These guys are seriously cool and I has a great time going to both the markets this morning but should have omitted the sauerkraut from the debricener at chandler, oh, and waited till rocklea to get the sausage, 50c cheaper.

Now back to Saturday Evening:
Following a surprise phone call from K, I attended a wonderful, decidely informal, dinner party at K & G’s house with T as the other guest.  The turkey was delectable (G did a great job seasoning the hindquaters, and K is a killer meat turner) as was the house specialty pumpkin soup; as an aside there was sooo much soup but it was all so tasty.  The 10 premixed vodka cans left me suitably anestitised to sleep on the georgeous leather couch.  Well the sleeping was technically Sunday morning, I can’t be bothered editing this.

Such a relief to have found another sci-fi-fantasy fan who can consume adult beverages and have a good time (K if you are trying to guess)

By the way so much fart humor and so many rippers (Mainly G) at the gathering

Saturday, the day of household chores, laundry, meal planning, grocery shopping, cleaning and the ubiquitous sleep in after Friday Night.  Nothing real interesting but I did find some interesting burrito recipies at allrecipies.com NOT all recipies.com.au .  Why do webmasters insist in redirecting users to local sites even after the user selects NO in the “would you like to check out your local website?” prompt. Grrr.

Talk about stream of consciousness writing with nerd* errors as well.
* Ya know: Grammer, spelling capitalisation all the marks of a truly quality document.

Friday Night.  Apologies for getting annoyed at the punters, but there are so many and we have comp in a fortnight.  Can’t we have a punter management system that dosn’t screw over the club members who are trying to train seriously. Fracking annoying.

Rant Over…  For Now

Erratum,  Last month at the Holly – Phoenix and later at the Feb BSFFmeetups I made reference to ‘Goblin Made Wine’  in this I was incorrect it was ‘Elf Made Wine’ and whilst i was refering to the correct scene I had it mis-placed in the books.  For failing to live up to my usual level of minutiae precision, I once again apologise.  It seems I do a lot of that. (See K, Erratum – Nerd for cock-up)

Apologies for the initials but I don’t have releases and as such need to be discrete in my references to people and private places.  I think it lends a nice, conspiritational tone to an online journal anyways.

Come on thet’s get throuh this pseudo regious holiday and bring on 2009 – I will be settleing on my new apartment in the last couple of weeks and will be buying my first home alone.  Wooo and quite possibly Hoo!

The vendors have signed contracts for my purchase of their apartment and I will be able to move in just before settlement so I don’t need to spend some days in a motel, despite their solicitor chucking a hissy fit.  Damned solicitors are driving me bloody nuts!  I wont be buying again any time soon unless I have too…

Bloody Lawyers

I read a blog post by Michael Shermer today and was amazed to see the argument within the comments.  I understand that political ideology (the post was about the impact of regulation on the financial markets) is something that people who have a political ideology, the apathetic are excused from the following sweeping generalisation, tend to hold them pretty near and dear.  Then you have the really really really hardcore skeptics who said that Michael Shermer (who wrote ‘Why people believe wierd things’ a great book for people interested in skepticism) wasn’t being "skeptical enough" about the data he used.  WTF? He used unaltered, official statistics to make his case; What the *bleep* was he syupposed to do? Undertake a 2 year intensive, indepth investigation into the relationship between dollars spent and pages of regulation to the freedoms experienced by persons operating in the financial sector?  IT WAS A BLOODY BLOG POST, ya know topical, timely – Not an artical in the economist!

People need to harden the fruit cake up and let their insecurities go.