A new sign has been put up at the back of our flats. Some people around here are very bored and have nothing better to do than worry about the back gate. This current sign they have put up is a complete waste of time. Here is a picture.

I bought a stick of salami today, I thought salami lasts forever so thats sorta why i bought it (oh yeah and the fact that its much cheaper than buying the sliced stuff from the deli). I forgot to check the expiry date before I bought it, this sticks "Best by" date is 2 weeks away. What the hell! I thought salami was indestructable! Even the the big wad of turkey that i bought lasts until April, I feel ripped off.

I also feel full of Salami, since I am chowing down on it before it goes out of date.

Bendigo was good, I saw my cats, watched foxtel, saw Fenton and did the various items of work i needed to do for my parents (which all went off without a hitch! So far.....) .

Today I had my first lecture back at uni, its for a subject called Information Systems Project (ISP). I think I underestimated this subject, it looks damn hard and nothing like i thought it would be. Its basically doing a giant airline booking system entirely in Oracle. I hate Oracle, it sucks! And we have to use Oracle forms! No one uses those any more! This is lame!

It is also going to be pretty hard for me considering the last time I even thought about Oracle (or DB programming for that matter) is about 2 years ago, I've forgotten everything, now I need to learn it all again! ack!

Tonight serp will drive to Bendigo to look after my parents cats for tonight and Saturday night while they are away. serp will also be doing a myriad of other things at my dads work and home for them. serp is their free imported labourer. serp doesn't mind one bit either.

So today also went pretty well in regards to my society thingo. We had a lot of troubles with the student union coming down and telling us off about giving away alcohol without being really vigilant with checking ID's having a roped off area where people can drink the beer etc etc. Once we explained that we only give away ONE beer or drink to each member and we are not out to get them plastered (just have a decent time in O-week) then they got a bit better. We met them half way and sorta set up a dodgy section where we directed people to go and drink there booze, which ended up being where everyone went anyway because it was bloody hot today and the palce we set aside had chairs, tables and shade. A few of the union reps were amazed at how many people we have actually signed up to our society, some of them say we probably have the biggest membership base at Swin now, and that it's "really good that we have someone like you guys doing this", hmmm yes, anyway I'm just glad that we are finally getting somewhere and have enough number to leverage free (or cheap) stuff off uni and corporate sponsors for our members and get some sort of real succession plan going for when I leave.

Uh oh, somone also got really sunburnt today.

So we had our part one of the big O-week sign up push for our society today. It went extremely well, we didn't expect much over 50 to 80 people to sign up but we must have got at least 125+, maybe 150, possibly more. We were giving away a bunch of shit with our membership that we scammed off various people, so CPA stuff like waterbottles, pens, hi lighters, notepads, other information stuff, our society keyring/membership thing and either a free VB or champagne (sp?), which all only cost $5 (plus you get to be a member!). Being one of the older members of the society I had to do a lot of the telling people what we are all about and then trying to convince people to join, which was extremely tiring. Although one other guy really helped me out in that department which was excellent.

I learnt a few interesting things today, one was that student unions are a pain in the arse and like to bitch a lot. They love to go around telling you what you shouldn't do but give you no actual useful advice. They tell you that you shouldn't do that or that will get you into trouble. We sat there and just nodded our heads and went "uh-huh" and then when they went away we just kept on with what we were doing. Some of them even scoffed at us and though we were a bit of a joke, but once we got rolling we couldn't keep up with demand, we even had to turn people away and told them to come back on Thursday (which will be part 2) because the queues were long. I was surprised when a lot of the business faculty came up and commended us on what we were doing, even though the student union dissed us, that made me feel a lot better.

I had a lot of interesting conversations with a lot of first years, I was really glad to see that some of them would just jump right in and not have an reservations at all about it. Which is great because a lot of Swinburne first years are generally quite timid. Some of the worst conversations I had were with wanker arts students, you know the type, the ones that look like they crawled out of a St Vinnies clothing bin and than went and rolled themselves in some dirt (yet they live with there well off parents in Balwyn North or something), they kept dissing everything I would say. To one lot I explained what you get for free and he was all "Why would I join up to what is essentially a $5 beer? I could go down to the pub and get a beer for $5!" ...... wtf? I felt like stabbing my eyes with vinegar filled syringes than keep talking to this guy, so I turned my back on him and converted the rest of his friends, he walked off after they had signed up with them and was all "why did you sign up with that group?" but then right before we closed up I saw him sneak back and sign up himself. Loser.

Anyway that has been my day so far, mostly rewarding and entertaining! I hope Thursday goes off really well too.

I dunno if this is old (I think it is) but this is Judge Judy's Reign retard flash thing thats made by the same guys that bought you barnyard shenanigans, the first few are a bit meh but the others just go hella retarded. Oh yeah don't watch this with headphones on with the sound fairly loud, it will make you crap your pants.

So i've been up reading graduate program stuff for the big companies. To my surprise some of the companies started accepting applications a week ago and go up until the end of March. I'm not so sure i'm really keen on going through the motions for these positions, to start with I only have average uni marks, so I believe i'll be chopped out of contention pretty early or, will go through a few of the hoops to only be cut down by that fact later. Also a lot of the positions are based in Sydney, a place I really don't want to move to, although if you are given a great opportunity like that you probably should go. I dunno, I just don't know what the hell I want out of a working life, all I do know is that I am ready to start it but I don't want to jump into a boring go nowhere job.

I USE MS PAINT!

*waves arms in air*

I don't know what the hell I did while I was sleeping but I've chewed the hell out of my tongue and sides of my mouth, it god damn hurts!

Anyway, today the maintence man came and tried to fix stuff at our flat. Supposedly our taps are quite old (and cheap) so its hard to make them stop leaking without replacing the whole thing. I was sort of amazed how the guy was making out that the landlord would find that unreasonable, i mean if the thing is fucked then you want to get it fixed right? You also want to have that added benefit of not wasting water? Not to mention the extra in water bills people might have to pay (which could be the landlord in the end after we move out or something).

So while the dude was here I sat at astros desk and read crap about possible jobs I could sort of apply for with my degree in tow. Some of them seem vaguely interesting and some of them sound dire. Its interesting when publications or workplaces give bio's on people who work in a chosen industry and there back always seems to go like this: < 25 years old, Has 3 to 4 years of after uni work experience in their chosen field, have a post uni qualifications or near finishing it, were part of graduate programs, love there job. This never seems to deviate much which sort of gets me down and thinking about how I've "wasted so much time", which I know I haven't really but I still get down about something. Perhaps it's just the fact that I have to start working soon and I feel I have such a long way ahead of me to get to a place where I will be enjoying myself and the work that I'll be doing. Whatever the hell that will be!

So yesterday I wasted most of the day fixing my computer. It started initially from me getting sick and tired of the horrid sound coming from my northbridge fan and the gfx card. So I open the barstard up and start to take the fan out, once I get the fan out I realise that basically all the screw connectors bar one are broken and it'll be almost impossible to fix back in, great. But before I did anymore about that i decided to vaccum inside my case and check the other fans for dust etc. Everything was well dusty, so I decided to remove everything from the case and give it all a good dusting off. Well hours and hours later after uses of such tools as tweezers, bread knives, hair dryer, sewing oil, vaccum cleaner, a spoon, a playing card and a credit card everything was fixed. Although during that time I encountered problems with my computer failing to boot, RAID configuration disasters, onboard clock troubles, bent cpu pins, stuck-to-heatsink-northwood-cores, complex mind bending and hand eye co-ordination tasks of reattaching the fan on the 9800XT and others I can't quite remember at this time. At one point I thought I was going to have to replace my mobo and cpu but I ended up prevailing. Now everything is back to normal, thank god! Although I am going to have to folk out for a 3rd party northbridge cooler in the near future as my current fan is stuck to the heatsink via some dodgy old heatsink compound that does not stick very well, the forces of gravity will eventually win that battle unless I can get something better to make it stick with or jimmy up some sorta screw-into-heatsink solution.

Hmm sorge you were right about this root manuva rage being good. Had some Roni Size (although one of his worst tracks), T Power (Rock!), The Artful Dodger, Public Enemy, Eric B & Rakim, The cool Faithless track with all that footage from that North Korean documentary I saw (Must watch it again cause its frickin' amazing), Mark B & Blade (I love that film clip), two Dizzee Rascal clips, NIGHTMARES ON WAX!!!! (I've never seen them on Rage before, rock!) and some other decent shit. Although he showed two Mylo tracks who friggin' suck, I blow screaming chunks at the moon everytime I hear that "Drop The Pressure" track or any of its variants, and no, it was NEVER ANY GOOD, IT ALWAYS SUCKED!

So what else has been going on? Not much, waiting for uni to start so I am stuck in this limbo of wanting to do nothing and wanting to just do useful stuff. Wasting a lot of time playing DoD and fucking around with some music stuff, so nothing special.

This whole not having a lot of money thing (and spending what I do have :/ ) is proving to be a bit annoying with the whole "doing stuff" thing, here is hoping I can have some cash spare towards the mid to end of the year so I can do some decent travelling.

As for the house inspection, yes it has come and gone, it went well, our place is clean and it feels nice not having so much crap lying about :)

A computer in a whisky bottle, where does it end? I'm waiting for the Melbourne Bitter longneck version.

Because you really want to know, here is the subjects I am doing this semester and what I think of them:

Personal Investment - This subject will be much like what I did last semester in International Finance & Banking & Finance (or so I am told) although slanted at individuals instead of being taught how a cog in some giant finance institution should handle shares/Swaps/Futures/CFDs/Bonds/debt instruments etc. I was told by a few of the lecturers at uni that its a great subject to take before you finish your degree and a lot of fun. Supposedly a lot of people end up coming back after they finish their degree to do this as a single subject because they really *want* to (the reason they probably don't do it in the first place is because they are accounting majors and basically have to devote all their electives to doing CA/CPA approved subjects). I hope it will be entertaining and relevant.

Financial Risk Management - My last Finance major subject, this subejct gets into hardcore finance theory and the equations that go with it, I've been told its the hardest finance subject you can do and if there is any subject you will fail in your last year this will be it. Lots of people told me to stay right away from it, for some reason I can't, it actually sounds pretty interesting to me, a few really good students say they got a lot out of the subject (in hindsight) although they teared their hair out all the way through it. I will probably do the same but I figure I'd best keep challenging myself and doing the things I (think) find interesting.

Marketing Law - I have to do one more subject to finish my law major so I can get my business degree (I have been told to consider it as a major and not a minor that I thought I was doing, weird), their are only 2 other law subjects I can choose from and they are basically high end corporate law/tax subjects that make we want to fall asleep just reading the subject outline (plus i've already done some corporate and tax ones) so this one is it. I hate marketing, I hate the marketing major and all subjects that falls under its umbrella, I'm sure i'm not the only one that has done marketing subjects and at the end just thought "Half of that was bullshit and the other half is common sense". However I somehow hope that this will be interesting.

Information Systems Project - The last of my Information Systems degree subjects, This subject is basically teaming up with other students to complete some sort of project for a real live business and than presenting the project/product at the end of semester to our mentors/business. Something I have already done at TAFE, something I have already done in the "real world" (fuck I hate it when people say that to me, the "real world", what the fuck world do you think I live in???), hopefully I don't get put into a shitty team and they can actually do something (and well) and not be handheld. This subject is a real wildcard as it could go really smooth or be my worst nightmare, I'll prepare for the worst.

Also tonight, astro and I made chocolate and walnut brownies. These bad boys are so rich and delicious that I have to drink a whole glass of water after I eat them, I don't know what this means, it worries me.