Matt's Blog - even just one monkey could do better.

I dunno, nothing really interesting to add.

2006-08-31T00:06:00.000+10:00

Hi folks, nothing much is happening here. My house is really messy because it hurts a lot to bend down and clean it up.

I got taken out by some dickhead learner-skier on Monday last week, he decided that because he couldn't ski the best way to stop was to run into the guy about twice his size doing four times his speed. Ordinarily he'd be the one worse off but I held him up long enough for him to ski over my skis, popping one off and sending me hurtling chest first into the concrete-like snow. Got all the wind knocked out of one lung and a couple of broken ribs. So now, a week and a bit later it hurts to walk, breathe, lie down, sit up, stand, it all just fucking hurts. The other bloke didn't even fall, he just skied off looking a bit shaken and joined the rest of the class at the bottom whilst his instructor tried to make sure I could still breathe.

I put in my application for a Grad Dip down in Canberra for next year. It would be awesome to get in and live only two hours from the snow rather than the current five but then, all my mates are here (and that's not too many) and to be honest I'm sick of making new friends - we moved around so much (both cities and countries) as a kid and then whilst I was at Uni I stayed in a college for 3.5 years so every six months was a bunch of new friends to greet and later farewell. So I'm not sure how I feel about all this - it would be an amazing opportunity and I'm really over Wollongong as a town but I'm so sick of leaving good mates behind. Mind you, there's something to be said for upping stumps and starting again - a lot of history here and not all of it good.

I dunno, it's all just so damned confusing, how come everyone else seems to have it all figured out. I've graduated now and I still have bugger all clue as to what I want to achieve with my life, problem is that as soon as someone suggests something I don't want to do that anymore. I need to find something on my own, that I pursue on my own and achieve on my own. But I hate being on my own so it's a vicious, vicious circle.

Gah, everything's just going at a million miles an hour and I can't seem to get a grip on the world as it flies past.

Well, that's it for tonight, I'd go to sleep but I'm not in the mood. Sleep's for people who accomplish stuff and need to rest, I've done fuck all today so I don't need any rest.

Yeah, bad day, tomorrow will be better, two shifts and Family Guy is on tomorrow night.

Cheerio.

Stolen from Emleeeee....

2006-08-13T01:56:00.000+10:00

150 Questions
The Bold Ones Are The Ones I Have Done.

01. Dyed your hair - I was viciously attacked and streaked with blonde.
02. Been a DJ
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Been arrested - No, but I got a very stern talking to from the Singaporean Police, that's waay more scary.
05. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
06. Held a tarantula - tarantulas are to be squished, not held.
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said "I love you" and meant it
09. Taught yourself an art from scratch
10. Done a striptease
11. Bungee jumped
12. Had a booth at a street fair
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Stayed up all night long, and watched the sun rise - so many times, I'm doing it right now. 2am, just over 4 hours to go.
15. Seen the Northern Lights
16. Gone to a huge sports game
17. Walked the stairs to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
18. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
19. Touched an iceberg
20. Slept under the stars
21. Changed a baby's diaper
22. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
23. Watched a meteor shower
24. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
25. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
26. Driven any land vehicle at a speed of greater than 100 mph
27. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment - all the time, I love giggling.
28. Had a food fight
29. Built your own PC from parts
30. Taken a sick day when you're not ill - and spent it in bed with my girlfriend-at-the-time. Awesome.
31. Asked out a stranger
32. Had a snowball fight
33. Photocopied your bottom on the office photocopier
34. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
35. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
36. Enacted a favorite fantasy
37. Taken a midnight skinny dip
38. Taken an ice cold bath - had a temp of 42°C, needed an ice bath.
39. Had a meaningful conversation with a beggar
40. Seen a total eclipse
41. Rode on a roller coaster
42. Hit a home run
43. Rode on a motorcycle
44. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
45. Adopted an accent for an entire day - working wuth New Zulundurs cen be the puts.
46. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors - What, Croydon NSW?
47. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
48. Rode a horse
49. Had major surgery
50. Loved your job for all accounts
51. Taken care of someone who was shit faced
52. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
53. Had amazing friends
54. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
55. Apologized to someone years after inflicting the hurt
56. Stolen a sign
57. Backpacked in Europe
58. Taken a road-trip
59. Rock climbing
60. Selected one "important" author who you missed in school, and read
61. Midnight walk on the beach
62. Sky diving
63. Changed your name
64. Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love
65. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger's table and had a meal with them
66. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
67. Benchpressed your own weight - never tried but I can leg-press nearly double my weight
68. Milked a cow
69. Alphabetized your records
70. Pretended to be a superhero - na na nanananana Batmannnn!!!
71. Sung karaoke
72. Lounged around in bed all day
73. Posed nude in front of strangers
74. Scuba diving
75. Got it on to Let's Get It On" by Marvin Gaye - oh yes.
76. Kissed in the rain
77. Played in the mud
78. Played in the rain
79. Gone to a drive-in theater
80. Done something you should regret, but don't regret it.
81. Parasailed
82. Discovered that someone who's not supposed to have known about your blog has discovered your blog
83. Skipped all your school reunions
84. Started a business
85. Dined in a restaurant and stolen silverware, plates, cups because your apartment needed them
86. ...and gotten 86'ed from the restaurant because you did it so many times, they figured out it was you
87. Taken a martial arts class
88. Swordfought for the honor of a woman
89. Written your own computer language
90. Gotten married - twice when I was three and once when I was five, all three time to a girl called Emily (spooky)
91. Been in a movie
92. Crashed a party
93. Loved someone you shouldn't have
94. Kissed someone so passionately it made you dizzy
95. Gotten divorced
96. Had sex at the office
97. Gone without food for 5 days
98. Made cookies from scratch
99. Won first prize in a costume contest - three years in a row in Primary School
100. Rode a gondola
101. Gotten a tattoo
102. Found that the texture of some materials can turn you on
103. Rafted the Snake River
104. Found out someone was going to dump you via Blogger
105. Got flowers for no reason
106. Masturbated in a public place
107. Got so drunk you don't remember anything
108. Gone back to school
109. Performed on stage
110. Been to Las Vegas
111. Recorded music
112. Eaten shark
113. Had a one-night stand
114. Gotten someone fired for their actions
115. Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about
116. Bought a house
117. Been in a combat zone
118. Buried one/both of your parents
119. Shaved or waxed your pubic hair off
120. Been on a cruise ship
121. Spoken more than one language fluently - Danish as a child and Indonesian in primary schoool
122. Gotten into a fight while attempting to defend someone
123. Bounced a check
124. Had your picture in the newspaper - too many times to remember them all
125. Read - and understood - your credit report
126. Raised children
127. Recently bought and played with a favorite childhood toy
128. Eaten kangaroo meat - well der, I'm an Aussie, of course I've eaten Roo, also Emu, Crocodile and all kinds of bush tucker.
129. Been a sperm or egg donor
130. Eaten sushi
131. Found out something significant that your ancestors did
132. Called or written your Congress person
133. Slept through an entire flight: takeoff, flight, and landing
134. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
135. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge - maybe, was only little if I did
136. Sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking
137. Had plastic surgery
138. Survived an accident that you shouldn't have survived
139. Wrote articles for a large publication
140. Lost over 100 pounds at one time
141. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
142. Piloted an airplane
143. Petted a stingray
144. Broken someone's heart
145. Helped an animal give birth
146. Been fired or laid off from a job
147. Won money on a T.V. game show
148. Broken a bone
149. Had sex on a moving train

Evening all...

2006-07-29T23:03:00.000+10:00

Well, just back from work - big night and understaffed in the kitchen so I was waiting on about 20 people and doing the dishes for the full 45. My back is killing me and I can't even feel my feet.

Ya know what gets me though, last night we had 45 booked - both upstairs and downstairs and as such were booked out and had to turn people away. Of those 45 booked people, only 25 bothered to show up. We could've fit them all in upstairs and needed one waiter rather than three and one person in the kitchen rather than three - total nightmare, a very dull night and I suppose the only saving grace was that it ended early.

My apartment is up for sale - has been for ages - and this morning I had an open house. I had stayed up much of the night getting this place spotless for the open house but nobody turned up. I could've left it in the pig-sty state it was in, got some much needed sleep (I can count the hours of sleep I've had in the past 4 days on one hand) and cleaned it up today but Noooo...

It was, however, a gorgeous day. I took my camera down to the beach where the ocean was like a large lake, clear as far as the eye can see and apart from some large and very clean waves along the shoreline, really quite calm. A yacht, out for a day of sailing was reflected in the water as the white sails caught the early afternoon sun and shone against the dark blue ocean like the full moon on a clear night.

Tomorrow I am up early to catch the bus from Wollongong up the windy, windy, ever so twisty-turny Macquarie Pass to my old home town. Then it's off to Sydney for my Grandmother's seventysomethingth birthday. She's both a born-again christian and a dementia sufferer so not only does she annoy me with all the god-bothering (I'm as atheist as they come) but she doesn't realise she's doing anything and will say some really absurd stuff. She's a real fundamentalist - you know, the dangerous type that run the US but don't get pulled up on it because they've got the world afraid of the muslims? Yeah, that sort of born-again nutjob. I never bring anything up relating to religion - she bales me up and starts attacking me the moment I'm in the door, it's a massive effort to ignore her and I always, always break down and start yelling. Last time I was at a birthday of hers I had to leave the house she was making me (and the rest of the family mind you) so mad. But she's my Grandma and we love her.

Geeze I'm hungry. If I weren't so comfortable I'd rip down to the servo and get something to eat, but it's 11:11pm and too late to eat anything, A bugger too since I won't have time to eat tomorrow before the bus - I'm going to be starving by the time I get home.

Well, that's enough for tonight,
Night all,
Matt.

OK folks, the obligatory lyrics thread, get cracking...

2006-07-23T00:55:00.000+10:00

1. "Oh baby refrain from breaking my heart" = "A Little Respect" by Erasure. EmLah

2. "I knew you'd find me crying"

3. "Your story's a small one, your goods have no buyers"

4. "And it won't be so far away tomorrow"

5. "Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus"

6. "Six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told"

7. "It's wrapped up in conversation"

8. "She says she doesn't love me but she likes my company, for now that's good enough for me"

9. "A toothless bitch to blow him for a vile of crack" - "The Secret Life of Morgan Davis" by Ben Folds. Mr. Ross

10. "Aotearoa, rugged individual"

Easy bunch to start off with, first person to comment with all ten correct gets a minor dose of respect - they are very easy you know....

Monster Wave

2006-07-22T23:29:00.000+10:00

Monster Wave
Originally uploaded by Matty's Life in Pictures.

Yep, so this bloke's looking down at waves a good 2.5 to 3 metres (8 to 10 foot) - they're supposed to be getting bigger too, I'm going to head down tomorrow and see just how it's going.

Bloke Surfing

2006-07-22T23:25:00.000+10:00

P1010241.JPG
Originally uploaded by Matty's Life in Pictures.

Took this down at the beach last week, this was taken a good 200 metres from where the person actually was - I love my new camera.

Right, here we go.

2006-07-22T22:43:00.000+10:00

Hi folks, thought I'd switch over to Blogger from Live Journal mainly because I don't really use Live Journal anymore and wanted to start afresh.

If you don't know me, I'm an Aussie, early-mid twenties living near the beach in sunny Wollongong NSW. I just graduated from Uni after what seems like forever and now I'm sitting here in my apartment, bored, because suddenly I have no Uni and no proper day job.

Ah well, plenty of other things to do like visit the beach, take photos, drink coffee, drink beer, drink wine. drink anything really, and shop with money I don't have.

Currently I'm home after a busy but quick night at work and listening to an acoustic version of The Church's "Under The Milky Way" - an Aussie classic from the early 80's. I had a bit of a rush of blood to the head the other night and hit up the iTunes Music Store for a stack of 80's classics from my youth you just can't find in shops anymore (unless you want to spend $30 on the whole CD). So I'm just sitting here riding the wave of nostalgia and thinking about nothing much at all.

Nice quiet late night song, what's coming up next? "Bottle Baby" by Augie March - now there's a fantastic indie Aussie band, probably one of the most original bands going around these days, definitely can recommend their new album "Moo, You Bloody Choir" as well as any of their early stuff. If anyone is after something to listen to, download "One Crowded Hour" it's an awesome song.

Tomorrow if it's sunny and judging by the clear sky tonight it will be I'll be off to the beach in the morning to do some photo taking. I'll try and post some of the ones I took last week - they really don't give the impression it's the middle of winter down here. Mind you you wouldn't know it's the middle of winter, there's bugger all snow in the mountains and it hasn't been properly cold all season, hopefully August will bring some of the more familiar chills, lazy winds and some good dumps in the hills - I wanna ski on some proper snow this year dammit!! The Kiwis are stealing all the snow!!

OK, I'll sign off now and try and get some more exciting stuff up in the morning.

Night all,

Matty.