WauloK : The life and interests of an Aussie

So last weekend I was in Melbourne. Friday night I had dinner at a Greek restaurant called Othello.  I had a really nice dinner with some Pepperjack red wine.  I also had the Many Berries Cheesecake. Yum! I don’t often have dessert. I was so full, but hey, I was on holiday.  I visited the Crown "Entertainment Complex" ie. Casino. I wandered around for a while and ended up trying a game of Blackjack.  I didn’t do too badly at first, but in the end they took my money. Never mind. It was $50.  I was at the $10 table.  I had fun anyway and headed back to my hotel room at the City Square Motel. It’s a nice place. Nothing lavish, but it served it’s purpose, was worth it and not expensive. I have no complaints to make about it.  The hotel closes at 10pm but you get a code to type into the electronic pad to open the door out of hours.  I got to sleep around 11pm.  I’m a light sleeper so if the hotel was noisy I would have been kept awake. But I slept.

I got a phone call at 6:50am the next morning.  The 2IC guy told me I’d get a phonecall Monday to offer me a job position in Sydney.  He wanted me to have time to think about it.

I got up since I was already awake and got showered and dressed. I went for a walk to Federation Square and hopped onto the free Tour bus which drives around Melbourne telling you about the history.  The driver was very friendly and amusing and reminded me of a guy I worked with at AAPT in Brisbane named Gary.  When the tour was over I jumped onto the free Tour Tram (City Circle) and went around on that to learn some more. Much better than walking, particularly when you’ve been woken at 6:50am!  While on that I received a phonecall from a friend I’d made on Second Life. She had not been able to meet me the night before but her lunch friend had cancelled so she suggested we meet up for lunch.  We had a nice lunch at Cookie.  At 2:30pm I’d already arranged to meet up with another couple of people from Second Life so we parted ways and I caught up with my other friends.  We walked around the city a bit and nearly went to the aquarium until we found out the entry price was $31 each. Well, none of us were keen for that so we wandered around and ended back at the Casino.. er.. I mean Entertainment Complex (No, I don’t really!)

We had some drinks and Andrew played "Match Maker". (Not much info on that webpage yet). Basically it’s a $1 game whereby you put down bets on whether the two dealt cards will match by the value (ie pairs) which gives 11:1 payout, by suit which gives 5:1 payout or neither which is 1:1 payout.  Andrew started with $10 and got up to $65 in the game.  He had a ball as he’d not played at Casino’s before.  He was in his element.

We had dinner at the Casino restaurant "Steakout".  Once that was over we went back and played some more Match Maker until about 9pm when Andrew and Jodie had to go home and I was tired enough to sleep.  They walked me most of the way back to my hotel and caught the train. I watched some of Hot Fuzz on the TV and went to sleep.

Sunday morning I woke up and got dressed and showered.  I was going to eat breakfast in a cafe but had to go find an ATM. By the time I got to it, it was getting to around 9am and I needed a quick breakfast so I could get ready for the wedding.  I just bought a Hungry Jacks breakfast and ate that then went to my room and ironed my stuff.  I got dressed and went to buy a wedding card.  I jumped in a taxi and after a bit of driving around with his GPSr we found the place.  I had a look inside but was about 45 minutes early so just wandered around outside until it was closer to starting.

The wedding was fabulous and Kate was in a lovely big corset, her bridesmaids in smaller ones, but all looking ravishing.  I only had time for the entree and I had to go call a taxi to get back to the city.  The taxi arrived promptly and drove me back to the city.  I picked up my bag from the front counter and walked down to Southern Cross Train station.  I arrived 5 minutes before the bus was due to leave and jumped onto the bus.  I flew back home and got the train home, however there was trackwork on my line so I had to hop off at Central and catch a Rail Bus to my station. Luckily it was an express bus.  I walked home past the local Dominos pizza shop and picked up a pizza to eat for dinner.  I put on Dylan Moran’s DVD and watched that to chill out while eating then it was off to bed!

This morning I got a Jetstar flight to Melbourne. We just flew into Avalon airport. I’m here until Sunday as a friend is getting married on Sunday. I’m also meeting up with friends from Second Life. Should be great!
I drove with Chris to Melbourne many years ago to see the Avalon Air Show. So this will be my second visit albeit the first on a plane.
The flight was very smooth and safe. It was a great trip. I’m not sure why people hate Jetstar so much. Maybe they just like being waited on. Still, it saved me $100 on the flight.
I’ve got a hotel in the city for $80 per night. It had better reviews than hotels $50 more!
I think the flights were about $334 all up.
On the Sita Coaches bus on the way to the hotel in the city. Takes aboutan hour from Avalon but only $36 return. Sweet!

New Microsoft Laptop Hunters ad says Macs are for kids

engadget.com — Microsoft’s latest installment in its popular series of ripped-from-the-headlines, real-America style ‘puter buying adventures follows a mom and son duo — Lisa and Jackson. They almost buy a Mac, but Lisa notes they’re "popular at this age" (we guess what she meant to say is that they’re for children).

Let’s see. What have I been up to?

Well. I’m beginning to wonder if there’s much point in updating this blog so I haven’t done it much lately.  Most of the things I am currently doing, I post to Facebook. Photos go to Facebook and/or Flickr and most people I know whom would be interested in what’s going on are on my Facebook anyway so it seems like I’m doubling up here.

I guess for the few whom may read this on occasion it will get the odd update.  You can keep up to date with some of it by reading my LifeStream page and column. They will show my Twitter posts, YouTube favourites and Facebook status changes.

I’ve been spending a lot more time in the game Second Life again, catching up with my good friend Striker Stormbringer and making other new friends. I hang out at a club in there dancing with a new friend from USA and talking to others.  I have decided to do some DJ work in Second Life and have set up a webpage to take requests when I’m broadcasting.  I’ve just put in applications for two clubs to DJ at so I just have to wait to hear from them.  I had a really good headset with boom mic I got for about $70 from Harvey Norman, but Sienna accidentally snapped the cable, so I have an older mic handy and have plugged that in until I get my Ruddy money.

My friend Lisa is on her way here to stay for a couple of days. That should be nice. I like to catch up with her whenever we can.  Sunday night I’m going to see Mindless Self Indulgence with Mil.  A couple of weeks back we went to a beginner’s introduction course in Archery and had a fantastic time.  Sienna came along and had fun too.  She didn’t do any Archery, of course.  On Monday, a friend of mine I used to work with at AAPT on the Gold Coast is coming over to play the Wii and catch up, so that should be quite good as well.

Next Friday I’m flying to Melbourne to go to my friend’s wedding.  I will also be meeting up with some other friends I’ve known for years on Second Life.  I can’t wait for that!  I had just paid off my CC and cut the limit to $500 then had to book my plane tickets on it, so will use my money from Krudd to pay that off again, then I’m square.

Now I remember why I don’t like typing up posts in WordPress. The textbox keeps adding in new lines automatically, particularly when I use capital letters or the word ‘I’ by itself. I have to keep backspacing to where I wanted to be. Stupid thing.

I had a week off work last week due to being very sick. This week I worked 3 days and had today off to go to Sienna’s Easter Hat Parade. I have next Friday off to fly to Melbourne, so it’s two weeks of 3 working days. Sweet!