gonna be sore tomorrow

I went back to the gym again for the first time a good 18 months. It was quite refreshing, but I'm so unfit and I've lost some of my strength and a lot of my endurance. :(

It felt great though. However, I know I will suffer tomorrow.

there needs to be a war against bogans

To the arsehole who kneed me: if you ever make the mistake of touching me again, I will fuck you up.

And yes, that's right: I wear a suit and I have a great job. So I am fucking better than you. It sickens me that my taxes pays for your survival.

That is all.

bargains

I just bought 3 pairs of shoes. Yes, three. Admittedly they're all the same style of shoe; they're just different colours. They're Onitsuka Tigers (Mexico 66 Baja), and they look like this:

Well actually one is a Navy (Navy/Orange stripe) and the other two are Leaf (Green/White stripe). Why? Cos the Platypus store in Melbourne Central were having a sale on them for 80% off recommended retail price. Basically it's 50 bux a pair! That works out to be $250RRP. The RRP is a bit hard to swallow, though. But I did buy a pair about three years ago on special for $170. Which I thought was a great price then, but this just takes the cake, the cookie, and whole-danged pantry! One of them (the 2nd of the Leaf Tigers) is going to my brother. So, now I have two new, cheap, very-nice looking shoes. :)

Since I'm talking about bargains: About 2 weeks ago, I picked up a brand new XFX Radeon 4850 512MB from my friend who runs a computer store:

It cost me around ~$140; or, the price of a 9600GT 1GB. At current prices, normally these babies retail for more than $185. A month ago, and they were $225. AMD must be brewing up something if they're slashing prices, but I'm stoked to get such a great mid-range card for so little money. Playing Companies of Heroes has never been smoother, and Rainbow Six Vegas and Vegas 2 are just so much nicer to play now.

changes, swapmeets, pot luck, and 10-pin bowling

I've recently gone back to working for Novell (Australia) at their Sensis engagement. This is because I was made redundant last month on the 19th of May from my old place of employment: BearingPoint Australia. To be honest with you, it was a bit of a surprise that it happened. But I wasn't entirely shocked about it, and I can understand the circumstances behind their decision. At least I wasn't the only one chopped.

It's good to be back working with people that I know and who also appreciate the skill and ability that I bring to the job. That and getting paid contract-rates is pretty nice too. Especially in these times of uncertainty. I was also offered a role with DWS, but declined it after weighing up the two options. It was not a light decision, and perhaps there will be opportunities in the future to work with them.

I've also been helping out a friend on Sundays at the Computer Swapmeets. Little did I know, I make a reasonably good salesman. Especially when it comes to PC systems. If you're looking for a PC, look me up and I'll spec-up a nice system for you. ;) Anyways, it's good to know that I'm also good at something else other than my primary source of income. And computers have always been somewhat of a passion of mine as well.

However, I decided to take off the Sunday that just passed (the 21st). A friend wanted to hold a pot-luck at his place cos his better half was overseas on training. So a group of us brought over our home-cooked dishes and we made merry and ate great food. I brought - or rather, cooked it at my friend's place - my "Mum's Special Recipe" Siew Yuk (Crispy Pork), which was a hit, cos there was absolutely nothing left on the dish! It was great to catch-up with friends, drink beer and have a laugh. Speaking of beer, I am really liking Hoegaardens of late.

Finally, I want to end this post on a hobby I've picked up of late. Ten-pin bowling. We play everyone Monday night, and it's great! It's exercise (well not really, more like an activity, but I use it as an excuse for 'exercise') and a chance to be destructive at the same time. :P I don't know what my average is, but I think it's about 100. Which isn't great, but it's more due to inconsistency than being sh!te. When I feel good, I get good scores. And when I feel lame, well I get rubbish scores. But tonight I tried using my father's 12-pound hook (uneven core) ball. It's drilled for a left-hander, though, but that didn't deter me (I'm right-handed), cos really it's 3x better than the house balls - even if it doesn't fit the position of my fingers exactly. The highlight of my night was when I got a 7-9 split hooking the ball into the right-hand side of the 9-pin. Watching it slide to the left and getting the 7-pin was a thing of beauty! :D :D You could say I'm stoked! Frankly it's the best ever conversion I've ever done!

still alive (no really)

Well it's been a really, really, really long time since I've updated this blog. Truth be told, it's been pushed to the back of my mind for mostly negative reasons. I won't be melodramatic; suffice to say that until a few months ago, my life has been utter sh!te. To make things short, it all hit the fan about mid-May of last year. I had an accident on my bike (my fault) and given that I walked away with a fracture of my left scaphoid (wrist) and nothing else, I could say I was very lucky - given the speed I was carrying at the time when I was attacking that left-hander.

The time that passed between then and now has basically been the worst experience in my entire life. I made some decisions, which turned out to be wrong (and bad) decisions. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but at the time, I thought I was doing the right thing. Or at least, I believed it to be best thing to do. Obviously, things didn't work out. And I can only apologise for what transpired.

Anyways, at least I can say that I've put that episode behind me. I can only move ahead and grow stronger from day to day. I can and I will succeed, and I will do it with the help and love of my family and friends. Without them, I would be lost. So, I want to say 'thank you' to those who stood by me, and those who also continue to stand by me.

There is a significant milestone that I have set for myself. Once I get there, I will know that I have returned completely from the void. Certainly, when that day passes, there will be an entry in this blog to signify that milestone.

buying bike gear off ebay

I checked my transaction records on eBay and found that I haven't purchased anything in 1.5 years!

Anyways, I bought myself some gear for my Honda. I needed a replacement Voltage Regulator/Rectifier as the OEM part is toast. It won't charge the battery anymore, so eventually the bike will splutter to death again like it did last Christmas. I also bought a set of wing mirrors as my current items are scratched (due a drop when when I first bought the bike). Hopefully it will make the bike more appealing as they're probably the most scratched items on the bike.

I also bought an Evo-tech fender eliminator for my GSX-R600. The stock fender is massive and cumbersome looking. Frankly, it's ugly. The new fender will help to tidy up the rear-end of the bike heaps.

serviced the Honda; new oil in Suzuki

I was able to service the CBR250RR with Chiev's help on Friday night. We changed the oil, changed the spark plugs, changed the coolant, bled the brakes and put in new brake fluid. We couldn't change the oil filter because the bolt holding it in was rounded. Even if we could get it off, we probably couldn't get the plug back on afterwards. I did not like the prospect of fuel leaking onto the rear tyre will riding.

Most of the work was fairly straight-forward. Take the side fairings off and all the plugs are pretty much at hand; except the spark plugs. They are right in the bowels of the bike (under the radiator). Curiously, and annoyingly, the spark plug arrangement is grouped by sparks 1-2-3 and the 4th spark is on its own. The number 3 spark plug is a bastard to get to. I'm not sure what it is, but there's something dividing spark 3 and 4, so the only way to get to spark 3 is to reach right in from the spark 1 side. Given that there's not much space, it's quite a challenge undoing the spark with 5/8th spark plug socket, socket extender and ratchet. Let's not forget that you still have put the new spark plug in. After the service, I took the bike for a quick spin around Chiev's area. The gearbox felt a lot smoother than before. I'm not sure if the engine revved smoother (it felt like it did), and the brakes felt about the same. On the whole, it was a good exercise and I learnt a lot from it.

I bought all the gear during on the Friday (while I was at work) from Peter Stevens in the city. The gear included 2x 4l bottles of Motul 5100 10w-40 semi-synthetic oil, 2x 500ml bottles of DOT5.1 Motul brake fluid, 4x NGK spark plugs, an oil filter for the 250RR (which we didn't use), and Motul Inugel Ultra coolant (also didn't use, as I forgot to buy distilled water).

On the Saturday, I changed the oil out of my 600. I bought a Suzuki OEM filter from Peter Stevens the day before, and used the left-over Motul oil to do the service. Let me say, this was far more nerve-wracking than working on the Honda as the bike is only 3 weeks old and the last thing I wanted is to scratch-up the fairings. Thankfully I got some help from Chiev (again), Adrian and Jack. The left side fairing proved to be a difficult one to get off. There was one fastener that just wouldn't budge, but somehow Adrian managed to pop it off.

Before I got started, I dropped into Bunnings and bought myself a nice 43 piece Kincrome socket set to do this work with. Sure, I only needed the 17mm socket, extender and ratchet; but it's nice to have a good complement of tools, and I'll look to do more of the work myself in the future. I'll need an oil filter wrench eventually, as I had to get Chiev to get the oil filter off with his own home-made 'seat-belt' contraption. I also dropped into SupaCheap Autos and picked up a oil pan and some funnels.

So we drained the oil, changed the oil filter, tipped in new oil, put the bike back together and fired it up. After firing-up the bike a couple of times to check the oil level, I decided to jump on the bike and take it for a quick spin around my area. The gearbox felt a little smoother but I think the engine might have idled a little better. Could be placebo. But I think it was worth changing the oil, even though it's only 550km till my first service. I'll bet the old oil had been sitting in the bike for ages before I bought it.