I think it's fair to say I've had a big three weeks. I got a job in Melbourne, quit the one in Japan, spent two days in Tokyo at my new company's office, then flying home to Australia for a weekend, then flying to California for a week, then Chicago for a week, and now I'm in LA again waiting for my flight home. And when I say home, I mean Melbourne. I should have left last night but the flight from Chicago was delayed and I missed my flight from LA back to Melbourne. I say missed, I got to the airport 40 minutes before the plane actually left, but thems the rules. Ah well. I was pissed off at the time, but didn't lash out. Just got a taxi to a hotel. Take me to a nice, cheap hotel, I told the driver. This is around midnight. So he takes me to a place called Hotel 6. $60 a night. While I wait in line to get a room, the place stunk like marijuana, and your gangster types were walking in and out all while an armed security guard watched over us. Fuck this, I thought, and decided to walk down the road to the Hotel Inn. I was about halfway there, walking down a freeway underpass, when it struck me where I was, what time it was, and how if I thought missing a plane was bad, it could get a whole lot worse any second. Luckily nothing happened, and I got a room at the Holiday Inn and slept. I watched a movie till checkout time this morning, and then caught a shuttle bus to the airport, and this is where I am now, waiting. Only four more hours till my flight. My credit card is maxed out, I am exhausted, and to be honest, a little overwhelmed at the job I'm supposed to be doing in a couple of days. I have a solid two months of making mistakes ahead of me, and I'm really not looking forward to it. I have eaten like a... like an American for the last two weeks and I feel like shit. This week has just been about telling myself to relax, not to worry about too much about anything, and just learning what they have been teaching me, but it's a battle. I know what I have to do, and I know that if I do it I'll be okay. The people I met over here were just the best people, so friendly and generous. With the freakouts I occasionally had, I also had some moments where I thought, Shit, here I am in America, having a cocktail with some really cool people on the 90th floor of the Handcock Building in Chicago, or, Shit, there's the Golden Gate Bridge. I have made the choice, and I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I'm going to do it.
I miss Junko and the boys. It hasn't even been three weeks yet! Skype is pretty good though, and when I get back to Australia and the time difference is negligible, it'll be even better.
So, health wise, I'm the fattest I've ever been, don't need to weigh myself to know that. I'll have to work something out.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
2012: My bunker is secure
I have been reading (or listening) to a couple of really good books lately. First, Reamde by Neal Stephenson. The gist is, Russian mafia boss' hard disk becomes encrypted by a Chinese hacker, so the mafia boss goes looking for him. It's a big book, 1,000 pages, or about 35 hours of audio book, so it took a month to finish. Great story, never boring. I haven't tackled any of his other books, they have always intimidated me, especially Anathem, which I heard was great, but I might give it a look now.
When I finished that, I was really keen to read Dan Simmons' new book Flashback. He wrote Hyperion, which is one of my favourite books. I listened to the first few hours, but it was... ugly. I just couldn't get into it. So I dumped it. Easy to do when you haven't paid for it. Next I started with Stephen King's new book 11.22.63, which I heard was really good. I'm not a big fan of Stephen King. I don't know why, probably a bit of snobbery there. I've started two of his books in my life, Dreamcatcher and Pet Semetary, both of which I enjoyed, but both times I ended up getting the movie just to see what happens, and both times thinking, wow, what a sucky ending. His premises are great, but I think resolutions are hard for him. Some of his ideas are just so out there that any ending is going to fall flat. In 11.22.63, a man travels back in time through a time gap in the back of a diner owned by his friend, back to 1958, and he decides to try and stop the Kennedy assassination. I'm half way through it and really enjoying it. His books are very American, and some of his themes don't really work on this Australian. Yes, there's a murderous clown. The main character of the book the main character is occasionally writing is a serial killer who dresses up as a clown. The American guy I work with says his greatest fear is clowns, so there you go. But I can recommend both if you want something to read over the holidays.
Jo Jo had a stomach bug over Christmas, so I got woken up more than a few times to the noise of 1) chucking 2) splashing 3) crying.
On the other hand Will was very excited of course, excited about getting his Nintendo DS from Santa. Only Santa didn't bring him one of those wretched, boy-stealing devices. Instead, Santa in his wisdom brought a dinosaur book and an indoor soccer kit. No mention of the DS no-show, which was a relief. We had our reasons ready, "Santa doesn't want you and Jo Jo to fight over a toy", "You are too young for a DS", even "Santa didn't think you were a good enough boy to give you a DS," but they weren't required. He loves the soft soccer ball. Jo Jo got a book, and some Lego that he didn't touch, he just wants to play soccer too. I can't wait to take them home and introduce them to a better sport, Australian Rules Football. They are going to love it. You get to use your hands, too. And jump on heads!
Willy's got chicken pox now. Not too bad because he had a vaccine years ago, but he's itchy and sooky. Jo Jo will have it in a couple of weeks, the doctor said.
So that brings me to News Years Resolutions. Mostly the same as last year. Get fitter, get better at Japanese. Get a job in Australia. Read more. More quality computer gaming, less watching Liveleak and Youtube. I've been playing Limbo, which is a good puzzle game, one of those running left-to-right games, there's a word for these kind of games, but I forget. I've also got a WW2 flight sim game called Wings Of Prey waiting for me when it's done. If you aren't on Steam, you should be. Lots of great games on there, and the sales they have are awesome. So many times you find a game that you heard was awesome two years ago or so for just $5. One click, and it's yours. Too easy. Speaking of too easy, Amazon. I ordered books 5-8 of the Magic Treehouse series for Willy for $14, and it'll be arriving today, about 40 hours later. If Australia gets an Amazon, you can say goodbye to the retail industry. You'll be going to the mall to try on clothes so you know which size to order on Amazon.
Getting off Facebook has changed my life for the better, reduced the BS in my life enormously, and given me a lot more time. I miss it occasionally, but when I see the latest garbage news story about it, like "Man arrested for abusive Facebook comment", or "Store apologizes for Facebook thread", or whatever has been going on in Australia recently, I think, thank god I have nothing to do with that craziness anymore. I have come to think it's a bubble, and Facebook will go the way of Myspace and Second Life, somewhere for 15 year olds and pedophiles to meet and chat. In ten years we'll look back and think, how on earth did we believe that was going to last? Something else will come along, and it'll fade away like everything else. Or maybe it'll end up running the world. Dunno. I just know that it's good to be out.
I want to read less news. It's funny, but this year I have noticed a pattern. When I'm tuned in to what's going on in the world, the more I'm convinced we are on a precipice, about to tumble into an age of desperation, class warfare, and martial law. Then, when I don't read the papers or blogs for a while, I think everything's going to be okay. I do think we are at a critical time in history, and that is exciting, and I think people want something to change. Problem is, any kind of change probably won't work out for overpaid, petulant, semi-skilled underachievers like me. We'll see what happens.
When I finished that, I was really keen to read Dan Simmons' new book Flashback. He wrote Hyperion, which is one of my favourite books. I listened to the first few hours, but it was... ugly. I just couldn't get into it. So I dumped it. Easy to do when you haven't paid for it. Next I started with Stephen King's new book 11.22.63, which I heard was really good. I'm not a big fan of Stephen King. I don't know why, probably a bit of snobbery there. I've started two of his books in my life, Dreamcatcher and Pet Semetary, both of which I enjoyed, but both times I ended up getting the movie just to see what happens, and both times thinking, wow, what a sucky ending. His premises are great, but I think resolutions are hard for him. Some of his ideas are just so out there that any ending is going to fall flat. In 11.22.63, a man travels back in time through a time gap in the back of a diner owned by his friend, back to 1958, and he decides to try and stop the Kennedy assassination. I'm half way through it and really enjoying it. His books are very American, and some of his themes don't really work on this Australian. Yes, there's a murderous clown. The main character of the book the main character is occasionally writing is a serial killer who dresses up as a clown. The American guy I work with says his greatest fear is clowns, so there you go. But I can recommend both if you want something to read over the holidays.
Jo Jo had a stomach bug over Christmas, so I got woken up more than a few times to the noise of 1) chucking 2) splashing 3) crying.
On the other hand Will was very excited of course, excited about getting his Nintendo DS from Santa. Only Santa didn't bring him one of those wretched, boy-stealing devices. Instead, Santa in his wisdom brought a dinosaur book and an indoor soccer kit. No mention of the DS no-show, which was a relief. We had our reasons ready, "Santa doesn't want you and Jo Jo to fight over a toy", "You are too young for a DS", even "Santa didn't think you were a good enough boy to give you a DS," but they weren't required. He loves the soft soccer ball. Jo Jo got a book, and some Lego that he didn't touch, he just wants to play soccer too. I can't wait to take them home and introduce them to a better sport, Australian Rules Football. They are going to love it. You get to use your hands, too. And jump on heads!
Willy's got chicken pox now. Not too bad because he had a vaccine years ago, but he's itchy and sooky. Jo Jo will have it in a couple of weeks, the doctor said.
So that brings me to News Years Resolutions. Mostly the same as last year. Get fitter, get better at Japanese. Get a job in Australia. Read more. More quality computer gaming, less watching Liveleak and Youtube. I've been playing Limbo, which is a good puzzle game, one of those running left-to-right games, there's a word for these kind of games, but I forget. I've also got a WW2 flight sim game called Wings Of Prey waiting for me when it's done. If you aren't on Steam, you should be. Lots of great games on there, and the sales they have are awesome. So many times you find a game that you heard was awesome two years ago or so for just $5. One click, and it's yours. Too easy. Speaking of too easy, Amazon. I ordered books 5-8 of the Magic Treehouse series for Willy for $14, and it'll be arriving today, about 40 hours later. If Australia gets an Amazon, you can say goodbye to the retail industry. You'll be going to the mall to try on clothes so you know which size to order on Amazon.
Getting off Facebook has changed my life for the better, reduced the BS in my life enormously, and given me a lot more time. I miss it occasionally, but when I see the latest garbage news story about it, like "Man arrested for abusive Facebook comment", or "Store apologizes for Facebook thread", or whatever has been going on in Australia recently, I think, thank god I have nothing to do with that craziness anymore. I have come to think it's a bubble, and Facebook will go the way of Myspace and Second Life, somewhere for 15 year olds and pedophiles to meet and chat. In ten years we'll look back and think, how on earth did we believe that was going to last? Something else will come along, and it'll fade away like everything else. Or maybe it'll end up running the world. Dunno. I just know that it's good to be out.
I want to read less news. It's funny, but this year I have noticed a pattern. When I'm tuned in to what's going on in the world, the more I'm convinced we are on a precipice, about to tumble into an age of desperation, class warfare, and martial law. Then, when I don't read the papers or blogs for a while, I think everything's going to be okay. I do think we are at a critical time in history, and that is exciting, and I think people want something to change. Problem is, any kind of change probably won't work out for overpaid, petulant, semi-skilled underachievers like me. We'll see what happens.
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