The final countdown

*cue Europe song of the same title*

Right now it's about 31 days, 8 hours, and 30 minutes away until I leave for Canada. I've even got a Yahoo! Widget telling me how many days, hours, minutes, and seconds I have left until I go on my merry way. If you rewind half a year, I don't think I was even seriously considering this, and now I'm barely over a month away from setting off on a year-long adventure.

Now that I've left work, I have a feeling time's just going to fly past in this next month and before I know it I'll be on that plane, enjoying the free beer and watching movies in 4:3. Leaving work felt good. It feels good to know that I have some time to relax for once, to know that, as much as I loved the people I worked with, I don't have to go back to working there. My last day was pretty interesting - they put me in a department where I hadn't worked before. This effectively meant that on my last day, it felt like my first day. But that's all done and dusted now, and it's time for some celebrations.

However, I couldn't really celebrate my resignation in typical Adrian fashion (that is, by having a few cold ones) because I'm currently on antibiotics that, from what I've been told and have researched on the internet, react quite badly with alcohol. This is a direct result of the fact that my dental health regime sucked during high school and university, and now I'm paying for it with bad gums. So, the dentist (who had quite an attractive assistant, but I digress) prescribed me some antibiotics to reduce the inflammation of my gums. They've worked pretty well so far, but I think all those years have really screwed the gums up and it's going to take some time to 'fix'.

Anyway, the celebrations will probably commence in about three weeks with a couple of events - a farewell party with my friends from Wollongong, and a farewell dinner with my friends from Sydney. The latter is taking place mainly for the fact that the venue - the Belgian Beer Cafe - has some incredible beer.

Also ahead in about three weeks is my final night of trivia at the local pub. That trivia night might also be the next time I'll actually have a chance to go, since my team is going to be AWOL for the next few weeks. One of them had a heart attack, and I sincerely hope he gets better. Another has a few busy Tuesdays coming up. Couple that with the fact that it's Melbourne Cup Day in two Tuesdays (which is, incidentally, when I'll be in Sydney seeing Pearl Jam anyway) and it's looking like I have just one trivia night left. I'm going to miss it. It's a lot of fun with some nice locals.

Exits and endings

Today marked a milestone in my life. It is the first time that I handed in a resignation letter (FYI, I finish in two weeks). Not to say that I have been fired from my previous positions... it's just that this job is the first in which my contract was not for a limited period. Perhaps coincidentally, I also found out that about a week ago, a former co-worker of mine, who had been ill for quite some time, had passed away. It was pretty sad to hear that, especially since, judging from the times we talked, she was not a bad person. That's life I guess. Though I did not know her too well, tonight I shall have a drink in her honour.

Obligatory filler post

I've noted more than a few times that I haven't made a single entry for a couple of weeks. Thus, I shall ramble on for the next paragraph or two about semi-exciting developments.

It's been an interesting week, actually. I was feeling a bit down on Tuesday for reasons unknown, and then was up again as my 4-day weekend started after work on Wednesday. I made my way to Sydney on Thursday for Morgan's birthday dinner and drinks at the Belgian Beer Cafe, shortly followed by more drinks at nearby Jackson's. It was (relatively) a pretty quiet night for me, as I was going to be backing up on Friday for another full day, where I would meet up with Matt for some time geeking out at the comic store, then meet up with Dave and Josh to head over to the Swans game (Swans won, hooray for Sydney).

Somewhere in all that mess, I also managed to finally get my hands on The Illogical Consequence by Planet Funk, which is probably the most expensive album I have ever bought, on account of it being insanely and unreasonably lacking in availability (you have to import from Italy!). I also got an email from Amazon UK that my copy of I Choose Noise by Hybrid had shipped after experiencing a delay. I've heard the album and I can't wait to have the actual CD, although it's a bit annoying that I had pre-ordered it from the UK in an attempt to get it as early as possible, and I got a pretty lengthy delay anyway.

Hot day today. Gonna head over to the beach.

Time perception

Funny things happen to your brain when you're not in your right mind. For example, in a drunken attempt to figure out what that phone call was all about the other night, I decided to make a few calls. I ended up talking to another stranger for what seemed like a few minutes. However, when I looked at my call history, it was actually only about a minute. The same thing happened when I got that first mystery call while I was half asleep.

Right now I'm a bit under the weather, both figuratively and literally. My head is still recovering from last night, and the rain outside doesn't seem to want to go away. If I didn't have to work in less than half an hour I think I would just stay in bed all day.

Late night phone calls

What is it that makes people talk to complete (non-telemarketer) strangers over the phone?

It was about 1 o'clock this morning, and I was fast asleep. All of a sudden, the sound of my phone ringing (or rather, the phone vibrating on the desk) wakes me up, as it so often does. I answer the phone, still half-asleep, and find that it's a girl I don't know on the other side. I try to tell them, as best as I can in my current state, that they must have dialled a wrong number on whoever's phone it was that they were dialling from. I mentioned where I work and then they mentioned a couple of workmates' names, and what I thought about them. It was probably nothing, but my paranoid self tells me that I was being 'scouted', in a manner of speaking. Either that or the late night hotlines are getting really desperate.

It was a very unexpected and unusual phone call.

Bloody Sunday

I'm not quite sure what came over me yesterday. I had intended to, you know, do stuff seeing as I had the entire day off. I was planning to at least go shopping for some new shoes and watch some DVDs. As the day progressed it became clear that going to the beach would be a very good idea due to the unusually warm weather for early spring. Alas, what occurred was a gross misjudgement of the conditions - I slept for a good part of the day's daylight hours. What's more is that this meant I couldn't find any sleep at night, meaning I got about 2 hours sleep before my opening shift this morning.

Bloody Sunday.

Foos. Acoustic. Money.

I was excited to find out that the Foo Fighters were doing 2 acoustic gigs at the Sydney Opera House in about a month's time. Tickets go on sale mid-week, and I started to write a message trying to organise people to go. Unfortunately, it was then that I read that the tickets would cost around $150 each. Seeing as I spent about a total of $380 on Friday, I think I'll have to skip this one, as tempting as it sounds. The rock concert they did last year was cheaper, and that's the one I'd rather see.

Oh right, there's an upside

Amidst all the hooplah that I had to go through today, there was a good point that should be noted. I went over to IEP to sort out some final details of my trip. While the major things such as visas, flights, and employment had been sorted out, I still had the business of some added extras. Firstly, and probably most importantly, I booked some accommodation through IEP to last me until my bus to Panorama. Secondly, I upgraded to a "Fully Loaded" membership, which means IEP's Canadian partner SWAP would help me out with whatever the hell the reason is that I am there in Canada at the time (or so I hope). Lastly, I also ordered a Lonely Planet guide that IEP were offering at a discount price. I decided to go with the USA and Canada on a Shoestring guide, as Alison (from IEP) had suggested that they tend to be good for people on a budget, as I assume I would be.

It's a bit weird to have almost everything organised about 3 months in advance. In fact, all I really need now is a better backpack and a new pair of shoes. Alison noted that I'm very organised. I'm really not. Not usually anyway. It's just that when it comes to travel, I turn into this machine that just needs everything sorted out. 3 months in advance... yep, I should be a travel agent.

When it all falls apart

Ok, so I know I was being very optimistic in yesterday's post. I was planning a grand day of adventures. I had forgotten that I should always expect the worst. I guess it all started this morning when I was being lazy and left home later than planned. As a result, I had to run the final leg of the trip to the train station so I could get there with time to spare.

The second thing to 'go wrong' was the US visa interview. The actual interview was fine. It was a short sub-5-minute chat about why I was applying for the visa. The wait, however, was incredibly long. I should have learned from the visa application process that it wasn't going to be as quick as I had hoped. Nevertheless, I got out after enduring almost two hours sitting quietly in a room full of similarly bored people.

To top it all off, the whole Belgian Beer Cafe meet up I had planned fell to pieces. Matt decided not to come because it was too far away from his work, Jenny had a massive hangover from last night, and Jim seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. I sat there waiting for Josh for about 40 minutes, having a couple of drinks. I eventually left the place at around 2:30 and headed off to buy some CDs and DVDs and go home.

The twist in the tale is that Josh was actually on his way to the Belgian Beer Cafe as I was leaving. My battery had died so I couldn't tell if he was coming or not. When I got home and charged my phone I got a message from him saying he was on his way. Damn technology.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.