Hmm Blogging, that guy... Whelp since the last time I blogged i've done a fair bit up here in ol' Sydney town. My sister came down for the weekend which was a lot of fun, we ended up taking her a lot of places in a considerable short space of time, also she is still on the tail end of recovery from her surgery so we had to take it easy when she needed it etc.
Getting her from the airport was a lot easier than expected, I haven't been driving much up here due to two things a) it feels pretty hectic everytime you go outt in a car in a new city and b) It is always pretty warm up here and the traffic can move pretty slowly in some places, which I am scared of making my car overheat, I've had a few little scary experiences but mostly I think they are me overreacting. But anyway getting to the airport is a breeze from my house, it only takes about 20 minutes or so by car and by and large there is no traffic after to get off King St (a big commerical area near my apartment).
So the rest of the weekend was showing my sister around my area by foot mostly, taking her to a few open air market type places, going for long drives which included going over all the big bridges and through the North Shore up to Manly and also going to Bondi on the last day she was here, we also ended up going out a big club down in the darling harbour area to see Crystal Method.
Good points?
- We all got in for free and didn't have to pay the almost $40 door tax.
- The venue was nice and right on the water.
- The headliners started early.

Bad points?
- The sound was so freakin' loud my head almost exploded, it was a good thing they had a good PA setup because if the sound had been off it probably would have cleared the place out or induced some sort of vomiting reaction from half the crowd.
- Drink prices were nuts or maybe i'm just not use to going out anymore.
- The bus ride to the venue took an hour from my apartment, on a normal trip you would be looking at about 20 minutes, I dunno what happens to the traffic in the Sydney CBD at midnight, but it was complete gridlock with no real reason.
- Crystal Method didn't play live and their DJ Set was very hit and miss, i would have been annoyed if I paid to see that.

Honk. More blog later!

So i fixed my laptop all on my own, basically required me to pry the front part of my laptop open and insert folded bits of paper in there to pad up where my hands rest as it would appear that is causing all the problems. The bits of paper jut out the front of my laptop, so now I need to figure out how to close to all back up without the bits of paper floating around inside or catching fire when this beast gets really hot :)

In other nerd news, I took pictures of the comet:

Squint really hard and you might be able to see it in those tiny photos :P

In other news, I'm enjoying my time here in Sydney.

Ok so my laptop is pretty much dying, it just keeps repeating the same old dq145 or whatever and also just slowly repeating the number "5" right from when you turn it on. It makes that bepbepbepbepbepbep noise like your holding down a key when you turn the laptop on, even if you physically disconnect the keyboard and pointer from the laptop internally it still does the same thing so something sounds a bit farked in the motherboard or something. I've tried doing a lot of things like taking ram and so on in and out, disconnecting everything I can get my hands on to no avail, I've tried to turn everything off in the bios as well but that is really hard to do when everything is beeping like crazy and you can't move the cursor because of the whole repeating "5" thing. God I hate my laptop! I think I am going to call the "tech support" line tomorrow and maybe take the laptop out to the service centre and see what they can do.

Good news is that we have broadband today! Hooray! No I am just waiting for them to put us on their dslam equipment so I can get the fast fast speeds back.

FYI, I couldn't see that comet tonight, I went up on the roof of our place to look but to no avail. :(

So now I am here in Sydney, things are different, the weather has been pretty consistent, none of this being really hot and dry to being cold with no rain and then back again.

Last night was our first night we spent in the flat, up until that point we have been staying in hotels provided to us by my work which were well above my expectations, we could have stayed on in the hotel for another week but we thought why bother? The place is pretty much set up and ready to be lived in so here we are, it is a nice place and bigger than we thought it would be when we got here with our boxes. There are of course, a few things that we'll need to get use to like the strange noises that go bump in the night and the fact that since there is no real seperate rooms you'll have to be pretty quiet while the other person is asleep, the floorboards are some cheap overlay so they sorta makes a strage squishy/splintery wood noise when you walk around in the well worn part, pretty annoying when you are trying to be quiet.

Here are some interesting points about me moving, cause I can't be bothered typing anymore:

1. The bus system is hella confusing with its pricing here, although it is very efficient, people actually obey the bus road rules around here.
2. SydU is the most beautiful university I've ever seen.
3. My original remote control for my TV that this guy dropped into a glass of vodka and something on one vomitous night at the grove magically just started working, yes I know you can't believe it either.
4. Sydney is full of Brits, I mean really really full of Brits looking for other Brits to hang out with.
5. In certain parts of the CBD, Sydney seems like it has traffic lights every 20 metres.
6. The closest pizza place to me tastes very similar to mumma mia and charges for pizza by size and not by toppings, this is a good thing.
7. Even though I live right next to Nando's now, i've only eaten there once.
8. The humidity here appears to be helping my skin or something, it doesn't flake like it use to already, I've hardly been putting anything on my skin and it is all fine, even with all the "bad food" I've been eating.
9. The water out of the tap is going to take some getting use to (for drinking).
10. I really like the area I am living in, lots of shops/stuff to see.

So now we are here, 2007.

This year I'm just focusing on keeping doing what I have been doing, I did alright for myself last year so if Ijust keep working hard and not get to down about myself or just general crap then I will be ok.

As for Christmas, it was really good, to have my sisters, parents and me in the one spot for the first time in over 12-14 years (I can't remember it has been that long) was really something special, I hope we can continue to make the effort to be together the older we get.

Now for the start of 2007; Packing and cleaning to move my life to Sydney, I sort of wish I was moving all this stuff myself inside of having to pack some stuff, but not pack other stuff, it is confusing and not as easy as "Let's just jam all our crap into boxes as quickly as possible and move". Throwing out stuff is also hard :/ .