Woops! I took the blog offline to do maintenance to the database and forgot to put it back up. I'm sure the 0 people who checked in that time were devastated...

Okay, I take that back. Apparently 17 people. I wonder how many of them were web spiders...

The week started on a low note. Nothing specific, I just got frustrated at work for no apparent reason. That happened a little yesterday too, but I know the reason for that (same old story). But some good came out of it - I got fired up enough to get around to some of the things that I was dragging my heels over. That felt good, especially since I've been lacking enthusiasm and motivation recently (a real problem for me).

I've actually been getting along with the other guys at work recently. This is a Good Thing ®, especially when you consider my track record up to now. I wonder what they think about it, or if they've even noticed. Personally, I think it comes down to this: I've decided that in the position I'm nothing other than a Hell Desk employee, and will aspire to nothing more in the short or medium term. With that in mind, I've dropped all concerns that I've previously raised, and decided that I'll have nothing more to do with it. I'll keep my mouth shut or bite my tongue over the issues that I feel are important, opinions, etc, and they can go their merry way. I do regret that it paints me in a bad light externally, but it's about the only way I can find to survive. Because of this lack of concern, I just Don't Care any longer, which lifts a huge weight from my shoulders. This has made me a much easier person to get along with, and made it easier for me to get along with others.

Another thing that's popped up repeatedly over the last month or so is "So why don't you get another job, like you said you would?" Well I did say that, but after a lot of consideration, it's not really going to do any beneficial towards reaching my goals. In fact, if anything, it'll set me back. Additionally, I've made some commitments to this job. I'm not going into the details about any of the above here though.

So I'm staying for the short to medium term, and I've found a way to survive, and it's paying off. Aside from the lack of job satisfaction, I'm moderately happy.

Happy Easter! And all that crap.

Personally, while I can appreciate the message of Easter (and Christmas, etc), I'm not overly fond of the event itself. This is mainly due to the lip service paid to the religious history of what has become a commercialised event. I'm sure that there are some people of there of the religious persuasion out there that celebrate and respect the meaning of the holidays, but from casual observation they seem few and far between. I'm not old enough to remember, but how long ago was it when holidays like Easter and Christmas were about religion, not commercialisation?

But I'm probably just reiterating the comments echoed in thousands of other blogs worldwide, so I'll keep quiet on that.

But still, the enforced holiday does give us a chance to do something different. Instead of our usual Friday Night On The Town, The Group gathered at Jono's for a congregation. Catholic Friendly food was served (ie: fish and chips, and some salad) and we spent the nightD playing the card game Spoons, of all things. It was really quite enjoyable, and it got more than a little silly.

I'll be catching up with Family tomorrow, which will be nice. Instead of doing the standard Easter eggs thing, Michele and I are doing the Chocolate Cake Of Doom, and idea which seems to be quite well received. I like it, because I don't like Easter eggs :P Go Shay!

In other news, I got the Powerbook back. It's nice and shiny, and as we're seeing more and more of them at work, I'm getting to know them a lot better. I'm still trying to convince them to buy me a better one, but when I think about what I actually do with it, a memory upgrade on this one would probably do me just fine. Quite honestly, I wouldn't mind using it as a desktop replacement at work. I'm already using it at home exclusively.

Daniel just got himself a new camera, and I'm insanely jealous. Jealous because it's the one that I've been drooling over for ages. I wanntssss it, my preciousss. He got the body and lens separately. The lens is the US version which has a better focal range, and a metal base instead of the plastic base that the Australian model comes with. He brought it over to my place to play with it, and we took some pictures and farted around with it for a while. Hopefully he'll put up a gallery one day, so we can all take a look at his photographical genius.

Well we didn't get to make it into the pen shop when we wanted, but we made it in a week later. It's our new favourite shop. "T. Sharp & Co", located on the corner of Barrack and Hay St in Perth. A tobacconist and pen specialist, amongst other things. The people there really know their stuff. They were able to make a rough estimate of what the Mont Blanc pen is and when it was from, and gave me some leads to chase up. I also picked up a convertor for the Rotring pen, which makes that much more convenient to use.

Very friendly staff (I swear I know the husband of the owner from somewhere), who really know their stuff, and are very easy to talk to.

/me plays with pens...

So, there was going to be a post about the recent US media frenzy about video games leading to violence, but it just got too long to actually finish adequately. Maybe I'll come back some other time and finish it off. Or perhaps not. That would then make two unposted blog entries...

We've just finished the first week of the new semester. Lots of new students have started passing through, and some of us (old-timers) are starting to get to know some of the new ones. This years students seem to be a cut above the students from recent years. For all their other faults, they seem interested in the course, the culture, and interacting with people. They're still full of the newbie questions, but that's to be expected from any group immersed into a new environment.

We're having fun breaking in the new students. They have enough personality that they can give back almost as good as they get, and don't seem to mind. Explaining the culture and vocabulary used in and around the common room is most entertaining.

But during the breaking in process, I started thinking about all the things that are part of the culture. And I realise that I've had no small part in creating that culture. I can see my marks all over it, from the stories, the vocabulary, the history, then dents and bumps and markings, etc. It's a good feeling - I don't think I've felt that I've left my mark on anything before :P Sure, it'll be gone in a few years, but it's still nice to know that stuff that I did had a lasting impact on people.

The downside to all this is that it's much hard to get a game on the pool table now than it was before.