Thursday, August 31, 2006

Who would have ever thought spring onions could sting so much?

I figured that chopping spring onions would hurt less than chopping regular onions since they're smaller. How wrong I was. Anyway, it was all part of my pasta sauce experiment, part 2. Today I decided I'd try to get a Venetian style sauce going. I used spring onions instead of regular onions because I like them better, skipped the garlic (added a bit of garlic salt instead), and added parsley and vinegar to the mix. I also added a few more tomatoes. It was totally improvised once it had started cooking. At one point I thought I had added too much vinegar. To my surprise, it tasted quite good. I can't believe it didn't turn out terrible. This makes it two in a row now, which is starting to scare me. However, I'm glad that I finally discovered how to finely chop onions.

Tomorrow, I head off to Sydney to do various stuff. First and foremost is my interview with the US consulate for my B1/B2 visa. I hope it doesn't take too long and goes smoothly. I can't really see why it wouldn't. The rest of the day shall be spent buying CDs and DVDs and whatnot. Hopefully I don't splurge too much. I plan to purchase some of the classics like Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd and Quadrophenia by The Who. I'll also have a slight intermezzo at the Belgian Beer Cafe during lunchtime, provided I can get some other people to join me. It's looking like the day will end with an early Father's Day dinner.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Adrian's cooking... success?!?!

Ok, so it's not a secret that I'm more than capable of cooking simple meals with relative ease. However, I've never actually made my own pasta sauce from scratch... until now. What is scary is that this was my first try. Does this mark the end of Adrian's cooking disasters?

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Argh, headache!

What was meant to be a relatively light night of farewell drinks for Cynthia at one of Wollongong's watering holes turned out to be a binge of beer, Jagermeister, and vodka. I am only now recovering from the gigantic hangover/headache that I woke up with in the morning. It was a good night though, had a nice chat to some various people, conversations in which I became less and less talkative as my drunkenness progressed. It just occurred to me that I didn't even buy Cynthia a farewell drink. That's the third person heading over to Europe in the span of about a month. It seems I'm the only person going overseas who is going anywhere but.

In between seeing friends off to foreign countries, I've been fervently reading comic books. The most notable (since my last post about comics) have been Daredevil and The Ultimates. Daredevil for its great consistency in writing (I still can't believe they actually jailed Matt Murdock) and art (Alex Maleev is awesome), and The Ultimates for the great modernisation of The Avengers, and the fact that the storylines are worthy of a big-budget action movie. It's a shame they take so long to release issues. The final issue for Ultimates 2 is still about a month away.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Adrian's thought of the day

Why do they call a leave of absence a leave of absence? I mean, if you're taking leave, wouldn't that, by definition, already imply that you would be absent? I don't think it's really possible to have a leave of presence. It's kind of like saying flame of fire or bacon and egg sandwich of sandwich.

Think about it.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Déjà vu times two

I can't really say it's been a bad day today. Sure, bad things have happened, but I think I've just been so tired that I've lost the ability to form any emotional response and thus complain. Nevertheless, I'll catalogue some events in an attempted complaint-like fashion.

No sleep for the wicked

I had a 5:30 am opening shift today. This would usually mean that I would be asleep pretty early on the night before. Not so the case last night. I tried to sleep countless times but I just wouldn't lose consciousness. I would tussle around in bed, trying to get comfortable, but to no avail. In between attempts would be sessions of reading comics, making my eyes more and more weary. Still, this has no effect, to the extent that I finally gave up trying to sleep and just rested, waiting for my shift.

Work itself was not so bad. The opening shift is usually a calm one, with little activity compared to the day time. The only thing I could really complain about is the intense cold breeze that seemed to make its way into the store in the last half hour. I fell asleep almost immediately after getting back home. I slept twice during the day, and this kind of sleep pattern is eerily reminding me of my university days, much like the recurring dreams I have, though that story will be saved for another time.

Guess what? It's 10:20 pm at the moment and I've got another opening shift tomorrow.

Vuda je: The feeling that none of this has happened before

After the first stint of sleep I had today, I got a call from some guy asking if my dad was home. I told him he wasn't, and he left me a number to call back. About an hour later, the same guy calls, saying the exact same thing, and leaving the exact same message. I dismissed it as déjà vu, until I was woken up from my second stint of sleep by yet another call by the same guy saying the same thing. I told him that he already called me twice before, and he claims he didn't. If he calls again, I swear he will get an earful.

Play that funky music

What was probably the worst part of today was when I found out that renowned band Tool are touring Australia... in January! Normally, this would be great news. The bad part comes when you consider my overseas trip. I'll be in Canada working on the snow during their tour, so I'll miss seeing them. It may not be a complete loss though, as they could still tour North America (again) after finishing off their overseas shows.

What I'll also be missing out on is Homebake for 2006. The festival of home-grown acts has a great line-up this year, including Silverchair, You Am I, and Infusion just to name a few. Last year's show was incredible, and I doubt this year's would be any different. Sadly, I will narrowly miss it by a week due, once more, to my trip to Canada.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Oh snoes!

I read in the local paper today that so far this snow season, the NSW slopes have experienced the worst snowfalls since 1982. That's pretty horrible, considering 1982 had 91.0 cm of snow. That's less than a metre! I'm glad I decided to stay away from the snow (apart from the yearly pilgrimage) until my trip to Canada. I sure hope this terrible record doesn't follow me over there.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

This week on Mythbusters

I went to see Australia play Kuwait with David (Boyd) in an Asian Cup qualifier tonight (which is technically last night) and had a ball (no pun intended). It was with a bunch of people from his work, and it all only cost $20 including the transport to and from Aussie Stadium. The only bad thing to come from it was that we got there about 30 minutes into the game. Fortunately, no goals were scored in the first half.

Australia ended up winning 2-0, and the crowd was understandably elate. People were singing various Australian/victory tunes whilst exiting the venue. I decided to start singing Bohemian Rhapsody, which worked out pretty well. I did, however, damage my lungs and throat in the process. As for the title of today's post, one of the girls that were there was a spitting image from Kari from Mythbusters. I'm not kidding here, she looked very much like the attractive female member of the Mythbusters.

Some good news today. I have finally found a suitable flight for my year-long mission to Canada. It leaves on the 26th of November, and goes to Calgary after 2 stops. I am indeed very excited about this development. More on this as it happens.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Late on the bandwagon

Radiohead are great. Ok, maybe I'm about 15 years late to the party. So sue me. I had heard some of their stuff before but have never owned any of their albums. It was only recently when I got a hold of OK Computer and was completely blown away. I haven't been able to stop listening to it since. Now I'm eager to get their other five albums. And The Eraser. And their next album expected in 2007.

Radiohead bandwagon... check.

I only started reading comics again lately so you can't blame me as much for this one. There's a great mountain of titles that I still need to catch up on as well as some ongoing series of considerable interest. In particular, I've been hooked on Marvel's Civil War event and Y: The Last Man. Ultra was a great mini-series by the Luna Brothers, as were all of Frank Miller's Sin City stories.

However, what has impressed me the most so far has been the works of Brian Michael Bendis. I read through his Alias and Secret War series, and they were just pure gold. Both series showed that the Marvel Universe can be very gritty indeed, and I think Marvel was very smart to get him on board. I also read through other Marvel-related things that he masterminded, namely The Pulse, Avengers: Disassembled, and House of M. Although I had only heard of him in passing in the past, now that I'm back into comics I can safely say that I am now a Bendis fan.

Bendis bandwagon... check.

It must also be noted that I used Wikipedia for 100% of the links on this post.

Wikipedia bandwagon... check.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Randomness, part 2

I just realized that I didn't even cover the drunken shenanigans that occurred on Friday night, so since I'm still awake, I shall try to elaborate. Friday was Lauren's birthday, and so she decided to have a night out with friends. It wasn't until about 9:30 when I found out where the hell to even go, and so the drinking began soon after at the Glasshouse which, it must be said, is one of my most hated places in all of Wollongong these days. The beer taps there are pretty horrible, and the other drinks are expensive. Mind you, I only spent around $50 for the entire night, including the cab fare home, but I digress.

I guess I still had a few drinks there because I wanted to have a fun night. I randomly ran into a girl named Angela who remembered me from primary school. I didn't remember her... but then again, I only remember about a handful of people from primary school. My memory sucks, and the fact that I don't have class photos doesn't really help either. Kind of annoying really, I wouldn't mind meeting all my former classmates again. Anyway, after Ricky, Lauren's boyfriend, got kicked out for having sandals (the Glasshouse has really stupid rules for such a small-time place in the great scheme of things) we headed over to the Illawarra Hotel, leaving behind Tara who was seemingly out of contact. The Illawarra was pretty good. I guess I don't really put as much hate on the place since an acquaintance runs the place.

The drinks were much cheaper there and so I drank. I also played pool. Now, I only remember playing pool once, but Amanda assures me that I played quite a bit. The powers of alcohol at work, obviously. Amanda was one of the people that stayed sober that night, so I'll take her word for it. She also claims that I was doing a very strange dance with some lady on the dance floor. I also don't remember this. Apparently it was very amusing to watch, though that's not really that hard to believe. Seeing me dance is like a spectator sport. It's kind of like how people watch Funniest Home Videos to see people hurt themselves... you watch it because know it's going to turn out badly.

I eventually went home at around 2-ish or 3-ish. I split a taxi with Matt, who lives relatively nearby. I tried escaping the taxi without giving him my part of the fare, but he was very observant (that is, probably more sober than myself). After a short sleep, I woke up with a headache and some memory loss. The reason I got up was because work called to ask if I could take an early shift next Saturday. And so the cycle begins once again. I can't say I'll miss it when I finally leave.

Map your visited countries

I can't really think of very many things to do in the early hours of the morning, so I usually just read stuff. The usually fare are comics, Wikipedia, and other people's blogs. After going through Nabil's blog, I found the following handy little link for the keen world traveller.

Visited Countries

If you haven't already figured, it marks on a world map the countries that you have visited. Hopefully one day I'll have covered a good portion of it. For now, this is the extent of my adventures.


"Same thing we do every night, Pinky... try to take over the world!"

Canada is obviously next, though I've already got that on my map (I was there for about a week in 2002). After that, I'm thinking it'll be New Zealand and Japan.

Early morning ramblings

What is it about the twilight hours that makes somebody think up weird random thoughts? I think the better question at the moment is "why am I awake so early in the morning?" I guess I just woke up randomly and can't get back to sleep due to said weird random thoughts.

I'm still considering whether or not to go to Sydney today to record some stuff with Morgan and co. I mean, it would be nice to experience a recording and all, but I figured it'll take me about 2 and a half to 3 hours (or possibly more) to actually get to the place from Wollongong. That means a total of about 6 hours on public transport for barely 4 hours in the 'studio' (I say 'studio' because I don't actually know if it's a studio I'm supposed to be going to... but I assume it is in one way or another). I guess I'll have to discuss it with Morgan if/when he calls me later in the morning.

I've never really had anything against public transport before. I think being on the Sydney-Wollongong train for extended periods of time every couple of weeks for the past few months has started to get to me. It's not so much the fact that there are complete weirdos on the train. I'm used to that. I see weirdos all the time. No, it's the fact that, in the 1 and a half to 2 hours it takes to make the trip, the most exciting thing to happen is often to find yourself trying to memorise which station comes after which.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Shenanigans

I've been convinced that I should apply for the US B1/B2 visa just to make sure I don't get held up in the US, even though I've been told that they are usually confused when you show them the visa. The B1/B2 visa is meant to be for stays in the USA of more than 90 days. It stipulates in the conditions that going to neighbouring Canada or Mexico does not count as leaving the country, so technically I would have to get a visa even if I'm only transiting through the USA. However, by all reports they usually tell you at the airport/border that the visa is unnecessary, thus causing more confusion than would be desired. Regardless, I'll still apply for one just to get it out of the damn way.

In terms of the actual flight, I have yet to book anything. Since I'm applying for the visa, I figured I may as well get the cheapest flight that goes through the USA instead of going through Korea or Japan as I had originally considered. This would also mean I could visit my relatives in San Francisco. The FlyBuys idea fell through pretty quickly. It turns out that the flight is valid for 12 months from the date of issue, which is really annoying. It would mean that if I book it today, I would have to return in August, and if I book it later in the year, the seats would probably not be available anymore.

It's true that I usually enjoy the organizing part of a trip. However, if it involves the USA, stress inevitably comes into the equation.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Further tales from the deep

And now time for more dreams that don't make sense...


I was minding my own business at work (doing checkouts at Coles) and noticed that one of the supervisors was in the store, off-duty, and had a very attractive friend with her. I decided to help them out in whatever the hell they were trying to find. It was starting to get late in my shift so I decided to try and hurry them up. A while later, I tried looking for both of them and before I knew it I was in the clothing section of K-Mart. No big deal as K-Mart was in the same shopping centre as my work.

The worrying thing was that I found that I no longer had my pants or shoes on. My supervisor friend then told me that I better get back to work as I was late. I started heading back to work but, after running randomly into another friend from work, who offered me a lift back, I realised that Coles was on the other side of the mall.

In what can only be described as an extended scene from Risky Business, I finally found myself back at work. I didn't quite remember it being that far away from K-Mart, let alone either K-Mart or Coles being in the city mall. I rushed in, more than 30 minutes late, and told the supervisors that I was sorry I was late but I had somehow lost my pants and shoes. They already seemed to know all about it and laughed it off. Maybe it was because the girl I was helping out was already back at the store (she somehow got there before I did).

I went back to my register, which had now turned into a really old-school cash register, and tried signing off (which isn't the right procedure, mind you). For one reason or another something wouldn't print out, and it took all of the supervisors and a few other people from the store, all crammed into the register area, to fix it. All this, time I still haven't put on my shoes or pants.


What the hell is it with dreams involving me being half-clothed?

Sunday, August 06, 2006

In like Flynn, baby!

I had to pike Dave's birthday. I had to skip what was probably an awesome bonfire with the boys from the Northern Beaches. It was all worth it.

I started off the day being woken up by my mobile phone alarm at around 7 in the morning. It took me a good while to get up from bed and, after taking a shower, I caught the bus into the city. I had a hot chocolate at Gloria Jean's while going through my 'interview notes' then proceeded to head to the nearby Y Hotel, where the IEP Work & Ski Canada Job Fair was being held. At this point I was feeling both very tired and very nervous. As soon as the employer presentations started, the nerves miraculously went away.

The first couple of hours seemed to go like a bullet train. Not just a regular bullet train either, more like the ones you see in Japan. Before I knew it, I had a job offer from both employers I interviewed with. I had a choice of either being a kitchen steward at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, or a room attendant at Panorama. Mind you, my interview skills had deteriorated a great deal over the years. My mastery of the English language is not nearly as good as it was when I was still in public education. Anyway, I decided I'd wait for Leigh and Ben (from Canberra) to figure out where they'd be going before I chose which employer's offer to accept.

Several coffees, a Guinness, and a few slices of pizza later, it had looked like Leigh was not going to get the job at Whistler so I stopped hassling the IEP people about details about the trip (especially Alison, whom I had talked to a few times before with related issues) and put my autograph on that piece of paper for Panorama. I haven't exactly got the job yet... but it's pretty much guaranteed. All that needs to happen now is for me to send off a reference or two to Panorama and for them to send me an employment contract.

And so the grand plans for a year-long North American adventure begins. I'm having some Verdi Spumante (really nice despite not being very alcoholic) to celebrate.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Extravagance

Monday was a strange, strange day. I guess I could just leave it at that, but something compels me to write about it. Most likely because I am rather bored and taking breaks from watching season 2 of Stargate Atlantis.

It all started in the wee hours of Monday morning. I had gone with my parents to Sydney so that, on the next day, scout out the location of my interview, which takes place this coming Sunday (more on this here, here, and here). I was ready to go to bed when my mum realised that she had left some important documents in Wollongong. I volunteered to go home and fetch said documents the next day. I proceeded to spend about half an hour figuring out the bus routes and schedules in Wollongong, as I had not caught public transport there in quite some time.

4+ hours on buses and trains later, I had made the return trip from Sydney to home and back in one piece. During transit, I ascertained that two of my friends were no longer attending a dinner I had planned (the other reason why I was in Sydney), leaving only three of us in total. The other two people were Jim and Apte, from the great Thredbo adventure.

After taking care of some travel-related things and buying some CDs at the $10 CD store (it must be noted that cheap CD stores are evil, but I digress), I jaywalked seemingly dozens of times (thanks to peak-hour traffic) and met the duo at Circular Quay station. Our eventual destination: the Heritage Belgian Beer Café. We came for the beer - as Belgian beer is among the best, if not the best in the world - but we were also there for dinner. The appetiser was a bottle of Forbidden Fruit, served in its own fancy special glass. After our main meals, we decided to go all out and split a magnum of Chimay Grande Réserve three ways. It was by far the finest beer I've ever tasted. It also cost us around 20 dollars each. The entire dinner (including drinks) cost each around 60-70 each. It wasn't cheap, but it was worth it for a nice fancy night out, and I would not count out doing it again some time. In fact, I would bet on it.

Sadly, the fancy-schmancy theme of the night ended there. After leaving the Heritage, we headed to a nearby bar and played some pool. I made the dubious decision to purchase a Jager Bomb. Stupidity and memory loss ensued, as is often the case when I have that drink. The last thing I remember after leaving the second bar was being at home. Later investigation (by way of looking at my TravelTen) suggests that I caught the bus home. Apparently somewhere along the line Apte climbed a pole too.