This weekend was so good.  It was just me time from the moment I woke up to the moment Tristan came home.

Saturday I went into Chermside to check out if they had any camping supplies, and if they did, to check prices.  The only place that had anything was Kmart, and what they did have was crap and overpriced.

I did however find two Transformers that I’ve wanted for ages and ages.  The deluxe repaint of Armada Bendy Prime with the Planet Symbol tattoos, and Brimstone, who I never thought I’d see.  So I bought those two.  But what pisses me off is that almost all of the Transformers I’ve bought lately have some kind of production error.  Alternators Mirage came without a piece of his gun, and deluxe Prime came with two right thighs.  One of which was put onto his left leg, back-to-front.  Doesn’t matter to me much, but if I wanted to re-sell it, it’d bring the price down a bit.

And I also saw that Lost Season 2 has been released on DVD.  I soooo want it, but I’m going to see whether Mum will get it for me for Christmas.  And I already know what I’m gonna get Mum and Neil for Christmas.  But I’m not posting it here, just in case they should stumble across this blog.

Saturday afternoon I went for a walk along the Kedron Brook walking track.  I ended up walking past Gordon Park and I didn’t even get to the end.  It’s going to be my mission this Saturday afternoon to walk to the end of the track, just to see what’s at the end.

I had such a good time going for the walk.  Everyone was out there on the track with their families and pets.  Everyone was happy.  And that made me happy.  It also made me realise how much I want that.  A family.

Saturday night I played Kingdom Hearts II until 11:30 and passed out until 10am the next morning.

I played guitar for most of the day, and my mate Abbie asked me whether I’d be interested in organising some backing music for a song one of her friends is submitting to a song writing comp.  (Jebus that was a mouthful)  And I’m so excited!  It closes in May of next year, so I’ll have a while to work on it.

Other musical things… I’m really, really enjoying playing the guitar lately.  I’m actually getting decent.  I don’t consider myself a good guitar player yet, but I’m getting better.  I’m actually writing my own riffs now.  One I’m particularly jazzed about it a crushingly heavy intro I’ve written.  It’s in Drop C and HEAVY.  I need to find a way to upload sound clips onto here…

Triddy came home on Sunday single.  His girl split up with him for reasons I don’t fully understand, and I won’t go into it here.  He was surprisingly happy yesterday afternoon, and I just hope today isn’t too hard for him.

In regards to exercise and eating healthy, I’ve been pretty lax.  Pizza.  Coke.  Chips.  No exercise.  But that’s stopped as of Saturday.  I went for a walk, and tonight I’m going back to the gym.  I’m doing the 10 000 steps comp again this year.

Did you know that the Australian Government is guilty of committing genocide?

Genocide, as stated in the Geneva Convention is the slaughter of a particular race/culture of people in order to destroy that race/culture, or, the removal of children from a particular race/culture in order to destroy that particular race/culture.  In other words, the Assimilation Policy used by the Australian Government to take away Aboriginal children from their mothers.

Everyone has an image of Australia.  The carefree nation.  No blood on it’s hands.  Captain Cook sailed to this wide, empty land and declared it Terra Nullius, then claimed it under the Union Jack.  But no one ever told you that when Captain Cook became shipwrecked off the coast of Queensland that it was a tribe of Aboriginal people who helped him repair his ship, did they?

And you never heard of the massacres, poisonings, raping, torturing of the Aboriginal people upon colonisation and the new diseases the White Man brought with him did you?  I sure as hell didn’t, and they are my people, and it’s my history!  I find it funny that we know more about the native people of other countries than we do about the Aboriginal people of our own.

And why?  Because the Government doesn’t want to teach the truth of what happened to their children.  When John Howard stated that he wanted to teach the true Australian History in schools, you have to wonder which version of the true history is that?

The only history I learnt was when I was in school was the white history of Australia.  Ned Kelly, the Bushrangers, Colonisation, the Eureka Stockade, Captain Cook.  And I’ve only just realised that this country is inherently racist.  The Assimilation Policy, the White Australia Policy (one of the marketing campaigns stated that ‘two wongs don’t make a white’).

Now before I get into it, I want to tell you a bit about the aboriginal people of this country, which will help you further understand their position.

The Aboriginals believe that they were born of the Earth, and that the Earth is their mother.  When a child is born, they believe it to be a spirit from the Earth coming through a physical body to start its journey, not the pro-creation between man and woman.  Sex is just ceremony.

The main focus of Aboriginal life is the family.  The men are the hunters, the protectors, and the women are the mothers and the carers.  Children do not belong to one particular pair of parents, they belong to the entire community.  Outside of the immediate family, there are the extended family groups with nearby clans, which form language groups.  Did you know that before White Man came to Australia, over 700 languages were already spoken here?

They lived a life of constant movement in harmony with nature.  They would move from one area to the next as resources got low and prey moved on.  They would make sure that they never used up all the resources in any particular area, because they knew they would have to return.  They belonged to the land, not the other way around.  They did not see land as a commodity that could be bought and sold like the White Man.

Because of their nomadic nature, and the fact that they travelled constantly, the White Man decided that they were little more than savages.  They had no particular home, and as such, the White Man deemed that he could come in and claim the land as their own.

Up until 1967, Aboriginal people were not counted as people in the national census.  They were counted as stock, in line with Horses and Cows.

The Assimilation policy, which was used to take half-caste children away from their parents and to be raised in Missions is almost solely responsible for destroying the aboriginal culture.

Think about it.

You’ve been stolen from your parents and raised in an institution.  It was illegal to practice your customs and traditions, should you have known some of them before you were stolen away.  That is the main catalyst that has affected the Aboriginal people so negatively.

Apart from the media, of course.  Do me a favour people, don’t believe a word you hear in the media without checking into the story yourself.  Disconnect your TV, don’t read newspapers and don’t listen to the radio.  Violence, sex and disaster sells, and that’s all they spread.  But that’s an issue for another blog entry.

How could Aboriginal people learn to be good parents when they were never parented themselves?  The reason so many Aboriginal males are abusing alcohol and drugs is because their role in life, the protector, was destroyed.  How can the women care for children that have been taken away from them?  And native title?  It’s a joke.  In order to get native title to land you have to prove continuous links to the land by customs and traditions.  But you can’t have continuous links to the land when it’s been illegal to perform your ritual ceremonies and customs on that land can you?

One case of native title was not awarded because the farmer who squatted on that land put up a fence and did not allow the Aboriginal people of the area in.  My clan is still fighting for land rights.  They have been for years.

This new knowledge has awoken something inside of me.  I want to help my people, my brothers and sisters out there all over Australia.  What could be a more rewarding career choice?

I started today with a Red Bull.  In hindsight, maybe not the best idea, but today has been rather entertaining thus far as a result.

And I just got really surprised.  Someone I work with, who things have been kinda weird with for a reason I’m not quite sure, said I was looking very nice today.  Booyah.  Oh yeah.  And she’s always looking nice, but that’s a story for another blog.  I have to make more of an effort to look professional for work.  I like looking professional, but I just don’t have the clothes.

I’ma going shopping tomorrow.  I was going to anyway… Going to start the Ye OldeChristmas shopping early, so I’m not in a mad rush in December.

And I’m going to stay on a budget, so I won’t be spending too much on anyone.  Say sorry, say thank-ya.

I just made an evil mutant frog out of the top of a pump bottle that exploded on my desk.  And this entry has been sitting open on my computer for the last couple of hours.  You wouldn’t think it took three hours to write five paragraphs… but it’s true!  I started at like 9am and it’s now 12:12pm.

Only another 33 minutes until lunch/reading time.  Oh yeah.  I had a good system at work at the moment.  I have a book sitting on my desk constantly, up until last week it was Thinner, now it’s Four Past Midnight, and I get ten minutes worth of reading in the morning break, 45 minutes worth at lunch, then another 10 minutes in the afternoon.  And I’m DEVOURING books.  It’s only taking me a week at most to finish a novel, and well, two weeks probably for Four Past Midnight, cos it’s huge.

I’m actually reading three books in tandem at the moment.  One in the toilet at home, one at work, and one on my desk at home.  The system is working.

THE SYSTEM IS BREAKING DOWN!  TAPE RECORDER!  MARMOSET!  GRAPE-FLAVOURED-APPLE-CIDER-INDUCING-HALLUCINOGENS!

And that’s why we had Chinese for lunch.

Speaking of which, I could seriously go for some Chinese.  But there are no Chinese places around here… Well there are, but I want to good old buffet style Chinese restaurant, the kind we don’t have here.  Grr.

Guess it’s Subway for lunch then.  It won’t satisfy the craving, but eh, what can you do?

I feel like going into the city this afternoon/tonight, but I think it’d be best if I waited until tomorrow.  No peak hour traffic, and no random store closings.

And everyone in the centre I’m working at is leaving!  Gyah!  Seriously, we have four staff leaving in the next couple of weeks.  But it’s good for me, because I guarantees me a position here.  And I’m going to make myself utterly indispensable.  I want to stay here, I love working here, and I want to get more experience in the department before moving on.

Anyway, I love Amber, she is wonderful, amazing, and every time I think of her I just go all warm and fuzzy inside.

I finally finished The Dark Tower on the train trip home.

My thoughts:

The series as a whole incorporates so many ideas, themes and characters, that it theoretically shouldn’t work.  I’m pretty sure when Stephen King started writing it, he had no idea where he was going.  And as he wrote each volume, he rode the waves of ideas that came to him and meshed the ideas and themes from his other books to create the Tower.

It’s the story of Roland Deschain of Gilead.  Once you finish the book, you’ll realise just how fitting the name Deschain (‘of chains’, or ‘in chains’) is for Roland.  He starts off, pursuing the Man in Black across to Mohaine Desert.  Eventually he chases down his prey and spends a moonlight eternity palavering with Walter, the Man in Black.  When Roland awakes, Walter is nothing but bleached bones in the sun.

This starts the journey that is the Dark Tower.  I’m not going to even attempt to summarise the story here, because that would cheapen the experience.  It’s part Western, part love story, part science fiction, part fantasy and everything else you can think of to throw into the mix.  As Roland grew to love his newfound family, or ka-tet, I grew to love them.  As he lost them, I wept, and I grieved.

It was a hard journey for me, as well as the characters in the books.  I was wondering just what the hell was going on even more so than they were.  I guess that was the biggest attraction to this series for me.  You never knew what was going to happen.  I was shocked when our favourite author made a guest appearance.  But as he said, it only made sense to include himself in his own magnum opus.  And in this fool’s professional opinion, it worked, and it made sense.

Some people may argue that the ending is disappointing.  I agree wholeheartedly with what Stephen King said at the end of the book.  It’s the journey that’s important, not the destination.

I’m either a very narrow minded reader, a very devoted reader, or a reader who knows what he likes.  I’m devouring any Stephen King book I can find.  I just picked up Four Past Midnight from the Salvo’s Store for $6 and I’m halfway through a story called The Langoliers.  It’s quite good.

I’m also reading On Writing, his book about, you guessed it, Writing.  I’m taking a lot of the advice that he gives on board and applying it to my writing.  I never realised there was a right way and a wrong way to write a sentence, but my eyes have been opened.  I’m not writing as much as I used to.  I want to start another writing project soon, but the writer’s block, otherwise known as the lack of inspiration, has returned.

But the wheels are turning, and something will be happening soon.  Watch this space.

My good friends Chris and Cassy tied the knot and became husband and wife over the weekend.  I’ve known Chris since Grade 2, and Cassy since Grade 8.  They got together at one of my sleep overs in Year 8, and have been together ever since.

I caught the train up on Friday night.  I passed the time by watching Chicken Little and the Chronicles of Narnia.  By that time, there as only about an hour left on the journey, so I just listened to my iPod for the rest of the journey.

Mum picked me up, and she let me borrow the car and gave me $20.  My Mum rocks so hard.  I dropped her off home, got a blanket and pillow from her place, and then drove over to Chris and Cassy’s place.  I stayed there the night and caught up with Matt R and his girl Miranda.  Those guys rock – I’ve only met them twice, but I just hit it off with them.  Matt has a massively stretched earlobe.  And then David and his girl Janet showed up a little later.  I didn’t quite know what to think of David, because on the buck’s night he seemed a little uninterested in giving me the time of day, but we ended up becoming mates by the end of the wedding.

So we woke up on Saturday and went to grab some breakfast.  Matt R has a very nice 180SX that he just happened to drift around a corner in front of a police car.  I don’t know how he managed it, but he didn’t get busted.  I ended up getting Hungry Jacks and ate it at Maccas with the other guys.  Then I went and picked up my suit and dropped it off at the place we were going to be getting ready.

Chris and the other boys had to go for a drive down to the Bay, so I took the opportunity to go and visit a few of my family members.  Grandma wasn’t home, so I went at made a quick stop at Station Square, my old stomping grounds, visited my good mate Ian, and then went and visited the Duggans.  It was so good seeing the guys again.  The only thing I hate about living so far away is not seeing my family as often as I used to.

At 11:30 I went back to Mel’s place, the place we were getting ready at, and hung around until the other guys got back.  The ended up taking a lot longer than I expected, and showed up at 12:30.  But I just ate my lunch (McDonalds… don’t kill me), listened to some music and read.

So we started decorating the bridal party cars, and once that was done, it was time to don our suits and get ready for the wedding.  Chris looked awesome in his black suit.  He had a white tie, to match the Bride, and the groomsmen all had pink ties to match the Bridesmaids.

The ceremony went off without a hitch.  Everything just went perfectly.  After the ceremony there were many, many photos.  All of the girls looked absolutely gorgeous, and I had the honour of having Sam as my partner for a few of the pictures.

After the ceremony we all headed back to William House for the Reception.  I stopped off at my Mum’s place to show off how good I looked in the suit.  I’m a narcissist.  Shoot me.  So I got to William House, and I told Matt R that he should put a flower through his massive stretched earlobe.  It looked awesome.  So I tried putting one through my lipring, but it didn’t get the same effect.

So then we had the dinner, the toasts, the speeches and the dancing.  I felt a bit odd for me at times, especially during the bridal waltz.  Everyone was up there with their partners, and I was sitting there, by myself.  It made me realise just how much I want it.  How much I want to have someone to hold, to dance with, and to laugh with.  To marry, come to that.

The rest of the reception we spent taking random pictures of nothing in particular.

After everything was said and done, I went back to Mum’s place, spent about 10 minutes at a party up the road, then came home and crashed.  Sleep was so good.  I was so tired, but woke up with a nose full of plegm.  I had a shower, had some breakfast and got ready for the train ride home.

I was worried, because I had to sit in Economy and the trip was going to take five and a half hours.  I ended up taking care of the first two hours by reading On Writing by Stephen King (awesome book) and then passed the rest of the trip by playing my DS, listening to music, drifting off to sleep, and talking to my single serving friend.  I never actually found out her name, but she was cute, and it was a hell of a lot better than sitting next to some smelly hobo.  She went out to have a smoke at Caboolture, and only JUST made it back on the train.  Another couple of people didn’t make it back on the train at all.  But that’ll teach them for jumping out of a train to have a smoke.

So I got home, and got to talk to my Canadian darling for a few hours before lapsing into unconsciousness.

All in all, a very good weekend.

One thing that has been annoying me though is that when I’ve been telling people about my decision to stay single until Amber comes over, they always ask ‘How do you know she’s for real?’

I’ve been replying ‘You can’t fake a six year friendship.  You can’t fake the kind of relationship we have.’  And a lot of people I’ve been talking to just don’t get it.

But I’m happy with my decision.  And I guess that’s all that really matters.

Oh, and Rosie came online yesterday afternoon.  The instant she came on I blocked and deleted her.  Good riddance to bad rubbish.

The time has come for pictures!  Click Me!

I'm now officially really pissed off.

I'm worse today thatI was yesterday, I can barely talk, my head is killing me and I'm constantly off balance because my ears are full of fluid.

I'm going to the doctors today, and because of that stupid woman coming to work sick, I'm going to have to apply for Leave Without Pay for the next few days.

That's $450 less I'll be getting next fortnight.. and that's money I NEED to survive!

I can't even afford to pay the doctor's bill...  So I'm going to have to work something out there.

:(

Yarr!  Today be September 19th, and ye know what that means, yo mangy curs!

It be talk like a Pirate Day!  Yarrr!  And my name for ye scurvy land lubbers who don’t know is The Lone Drinker!  I got me name back when I was a youngin’.  Instead of being suckled with milk, me Mam gave me whiskey!

Ye know what really skittles my scampers?  Cohorts who come a plundering right next to ye, when they know damn well they’ve got a cold!  Woke up this morning, spread out on the poop deck, with spittle on me lip and a blocked nose!  Yarr!  And me throat’s killing me, but I got an old family recipe to quieten that down.  RUM!

And I’ve had enough of typing like a pirate.  Yarr.

I’m going to see Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby tomorrow night.  It should be good.  I’m going and seeing it with a mate of mine named JoAnn from the Gold Coast.  I was interested in her about a month ago, but since then, circumstances have changed.

Amber’s coming over in April of next year, and I couldn’t be happier.  She was telling me this morning that when she was asked who she’d be staying with in Australia, she just replied ‘My Boyfriend’.  So, you know, that’s that.  On the weekend we exchanged ‘I Love Yous’ for the first time in over a year, and it felt great.

I’ve always said, and Tristan can vouch for me on this one, that Amber is my perfect girl.  We may not have exactly the same interests, and we may not agree all the time, but what long lasting couple doesn’t?  And I figure, if 85% of a relationship is based on communication, we’ll be more than fine.  We’ve been relying on communication for the past six years and we’re stronger than ever.

So now it’s just a waiting and a saving game until April of next year.  I think the plan is that she’ll be staying here for a year, and then I’ll be going back over to Canada to her for a year.  So I’ve got to get saving too.

And I also want to look hot for her when she gets over here, so I’ll be gymming it quite a bit and eating healthy.  If any of my mates suggest pizza, maccas, hungry jacks or KFC, I’m gonna keel haul them.

YARRRR!

I’m going to make it a daily thing where I come here and post what I’ve eaten, what I’ve done for exercise etc, and make myself accountable.  I’ll also post on weight loss or gain that happens.

Oh and last night I talked to one of the boys from Emporium on MSN.  I’m not sure which one it was though, I should have asked.  The first thing he said was ‘Hey I remember you from Hervey Bay!  You’re in Brissie now right?’ and then we got to talking about music and stuff, which is mainly what I talk about nowadays.

I’m going to Chris and Cassy’s wedding this weekend.  I’m so psyched.  I’ll get to wear an awesome sexy suit!  It’ll be pure black with a hot pink tie.  I want pictures of that ASAP so I can put decent pictures of me on all of my various profiles.

And my god I’m getting a fucking headache.  I hate, hate, hate people who come to work when they’re sick!  Stay home and let the rest of us stay healthy, god damn it!  I’m just a little pissed at the moment because I only JUST got over a chest infection, and I’m not too keen to try that experience again.  And yes, I do realise the irony of ME showing up for work today, so shut up.

You get no explanation as to why this blog hasn't been updated in a while.  None at all.

We had the bachelor party for Chris, the budding groom to be, last weekend.  I'm not really sure how it happened, but we ended up in Rockhampton.

Friday night we went up to Mount Archer and saw the entirety of Rockhampton from an awesome viewpoint.  Then we hit the strip club.  I had never seen that many boobs in one place in my entire life.  I bought a whole heap of alcohol with the intention of getting plastered, but I ended up leaving it all in the car.

Sunday we went to a Go Kart track, apparently the fastest in Queensland, on the way to Yepoon.  They were way too fast for me.  I ended up getting a cramp in one of my legs and pulling out early, but that left me free for the next round to take many many pictures.

After the Go Karting we went to Laserforce, which was the best fun I've ever had.  It was just like a video game, only better.  I came second most of the games, apart from the last, where I came first.  I totally dominated.  It was awesome.  In the last game though, I tripped down one of the ramps and slammed right into a beam sticking out of the wall.

I've uploaded all of the pics of the Bucks Night, well, the good ones anyway, to my photobucket account - click here if you want to take a look.

This weekend has been pretty cool - I've had my mate Nikki staying over, she's only just left at lunch time today.  We stayed up watching Silent Hill, Viva La Bam and Family Guy and getting drunk.  Good stuff.  Friday night we were walking up to Centro cos Nikki needed smokes, and the boys from Nova radio were parked near our local Subway.  They were doing this thing where you had to put your hand in this bag with 'something' in it to get Dreamworld tickets.  Nikki fucked them up pretty good - there were cockroaches in there and she's really not scared of them.  The radio announcer was so scared of cockroaches that he bribed me with a shirt and a double to the premiere of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby to open the bag for him.  So, I'm going to Talladega Nights on Wednesday on Nova.

Yesterday we went into the city to buy a whole heap of piratey goodies for International Pirate Day on Tuesday.

I got a kick ass bandana with skull and crossbones on it, a fingerless glove with skull and crossbones, a skull and crossbones pendant, a sword, and piratey looking jeans.  I'm going to win Best Costume at work on Tuesday for damn sure.

I also picked up The End Of All Things To Come and a CD/DVD of L.D. 50 by Mudvayne from Rocking Horse.  I'm liking these guys a whole lot lately - they're just so different from most metal I hear.  They're heavy, but the next moment they could be mellow and melodic, but still have an edge to them.  Some tracks to listen to: Dig, Happy?, Forget To Remember and World So Cold.

And Amber is coming to Australia next year!  I've made the decision to stay single until then, just in case.  I don't want to get into a relationship, then have to break it off before Amber comes over.  And I probably would do that, too... I'm just a bastard like that.  But that's my decision I guess, so I don't really know why I'm attempting to justify it.

Oh and in case everyone doesn't know, Triddy and I left Furion due to personal and  creative differences with the other band mates.  They called a band meeting, which was pretty much an excuse to come over and tell us exactly what they thought was wrong with us, not just from a band perspective, but from a personal perspective.  The rules that applied to me and Tristan didn't apply to the drummer and guitarist.  I felt that they had a major case of Hetfieldandulrichitis.

Triddy and I have now resurrected Fools INC, which is not a band as such, but a group of guys who love music and who love creating it. We want the web site to be launched by about November, and you'll be able to download a whole lot of Fools INC tracks from there.  I'll keep you posted.

Anyway, enough with the rambling.  Go poke a chicken.