A Night to Remember

I'm a last-minute all-nighter person when it comes to doing assignments. That's the way things are and they're not going to change anytime soon. I'm thinking that I'm going to pay for it soon, but I'll worry about that later, maybe the night before.

Last year I did a really exciting report on osmoregulation. We had to stab crabs and suck out their fluids, then drip them on to a kaleidoscope thing that told us stuff. I'm pretty sure I slept through the prac so I can't really remember. Anyways, we had to write it up and hand it in. A couple of days before it was due I had to fly down to Sydney and back for a Pearl Jam concert (AWESOME) so I was insanely tired and couldn't be bothered to get started until about 2am the day it was due. Since I was so desperate to procrastinate, I wrote a diary of how the night went:

The picture's small and I doubt you could read my writing anyway so here's the text:

2:00am - Start actual assignment. Due in 12hrs.

2:03 am - Looked at the cool scar on my arm for 5 minutes.

2:06am - Realised if I combined the names of all my guy friends it made the rather ear-pleasing rhyme "Ryan-Dee-N-Me-N-Een".

2:46am - Wrote "Introduction". Yep, just the word.

2:52am - 32 words

3:15am - 100 words exactly! WOOOO!! (1/10 finished!)

3:30am - 125 words

3:40am - 192 words
4:04am - Wrote some emails to friends, 219 words (2/10 finished)

4:32am - Finished introduction - 430 words (WAY too long). Subtract words for references... 390... sweet!

5:07am - Finished results, Birds are singing

5:30am - Trivia for half an hour ^_^, 580 words

5:53am - 175 words of discussion down! 756 all up!

6:00am - Due in 8 hours, still doing discussion

6:12am - 902....

6:23am - ERGH!!! THE SUN!!! NOOOOO!!

6:36am - 1026! Now for the editing...

7:14am - FINISHED! ^_^

7:35am - Safe Assignment (plagiarism detector) doesn't catch me this time! Mwaha!

7:37am - Le sleep ZzZzZzZzZzZz

It was actually during this time that I discovered my favourite time of the day - 5:30am. There's something very pure about it, I don't know, makes me feel good even if I've been up all night.

I have 4 assessments this week, 3 on Friday, so I'm thinking I'm in deep. Thursday is going to be awesome. Poor Iago.

A Sign from God!

There's something about signs that I really, really love. They're often brightly coloured, shiny (as a sidenote I recently learned that the reflective property of road signs is due to a coating of diatom frustules, how about that?) and have nice, big, easy to read letters. If you can get hold of one, it's like a trophy, increasing in value with the trouble you went through to obtain it.

But some signs are better left to the public, or better yet, humourously defaced. Townsville is home to many signs like this, a couple of which I have the fortune of sharing. The first was taken just the other day at Flinders St Mall, also known as "The Silent Road of Eventual Bankruptcy".


These signs are up nearly every ten metres in an apparent attempt to stop people throwing food to the birds. I guess instead you should throw it in the bin where they can dig it out after you leave, but at least you feel like you're doing sunny Townsville a favour. The thing that made me take a photo, however, was the little picture. How many birds do you see in that pose on the ground? My friend, that is a dead bird, and those aren't crumbs he's throwing, they're rocks. I'm shocked and appauled! Tsk tsk Townsville. You almost had me with your cloudless skies and sunset views from Castle Hill, but this savagery makes me stand tall and proud as a New South Welshman.

The next one is an old favourite of mine I've been meaning to put up here for a while. There are a few of these defaced in similar ways around the Biological Sciences buildings, so a few of you will no doubt be familiar with it.

Makes me giggle every time. Whichever douche decided to scrub out the R should be shot, it looked perfect before. If I ever find you, you WILL pay! Mark my words, douche. Mark. My. Words.

My children will hate me.

There's a little shop in Neutral Bay back home which boasts the large sign: "LAUNDRETTE". I remember on many an occasion an old friend and I would walk past and comment on what a beautiful name it would be for a girl. Thus, Laundrette will be my first daughter. She sounds kind of quiet, industrious even, but with a little sexy side to her that will be revealed briefly every now and then to the surprise of many.

Imagine my excitement when I discovered that in New Zealand, they have small convenience stores called Suprettes! And so, Suprette will be my second daughter. She is more street smart, has a real spunk in her step. Not so accomplised academically, but hey, she knows where all the sales are, right?

And then, like a sign from heaven, I came across this photo...

My mind is made up. My children will hate me for eternity.

There were these two whales...

Anyone who knows me well will know my three favourite jokes, mostly because I tell them over and over again. The first two are short and sweet, but still manage to make me laugh:

#1 - A man went to a zoo, but there was only one dog. It was a Shih-Tzu.

#2 - Did you hear about the wooden car with the wooden engine that wooden start?

The third joke however is a constant source of entertainment, because the mere mention of two whales gets me into a giggly fit.

#3 - A male whale and a female whale were swimming off the coast of Japan when they noticed a whaling ship. The male whale recognized it as the same ship that had harpooned his father many years earlier. He said to the female whale ,"Let's both swim under the ship and blow out at the same time, and it should cause the ship to turn over and sink .
They tried it and sure enough, the ship turned over and quickly sank. Soon however, the whales realised the sailors had managed to escape in lifeboats. The male whale was enraged that they were going to get away and told the female, "Let's swim after them and eat them!"
"Look," she says. "I went along with the blow job, but I absolutely refuse to swallow the seamen."

Hee hee hee.... very juvenile, I know. So anyway, there I was up at Surfers with some friends in the holidays, when we came across this statue.

The prospect of two whales was too much for me and I fell about laughing, revealing my one weakness to the company I was in. I could have gotten away with it if it wasn't for that meddling council!

The Worst Haircut Ever.

One of my friends was feeling a little bit down yesterday and decided to do some sort of purging activity that involved scissors, hair and dye. Unfortunately for her, she chose me as her accomplice. Now, I know as much about hair as I do about keeping a stable relationship with someone who doesn't already have a girlfriend, but she wouldn't listen.


For your entertainment, I present The Worst Haircut Ever...






Starting off, we have the worst fringe ever. It's half not there, half emo, ALL AWFUL!


This is my version of layering. It's really very easy I found. You just cut some bits short and keep others long. Before you know it, you have a great haircut that all the boys will go wild over!

I discovered I had a real talent with streaks about this time. If by streaks you mean "giant tracks of peroxide that look more like an industrial accident than directed application".

Wow, what a great look! She got told off at work later that night. I don't know what they were on about though, her boobs look fine.

I decided to help get rid of the remaining red dye. Sadly, my haircut wasn't nearly as amazing as Mel's and so I can't really carry it off as well.

Well, what do you think? Should I open up my own salon?

Calling for help

Come on people, do your bit for Emilio! If you have a lay-dee friend who's down and lonely, whisk her off to RSVP.com.au and introduce her to the FABULOUS Emilio. He looks after orphaned animals......

Still no responses. I'm starting to think those dating sites are only looked at by horny guys wanting to score. Well... I suppose Emilio could swing both ways...

"Friends Don't Let Friends Use Excel For Statistics"

A few days ago a friend and I were bored as hell and decided to crack out the paint and brushes. She was slightly drunk and I was slightly high since I'd only just driven a manual for the very first time. With our powers combined, we created a piece that was... interesting. Ever seen a painting that, depending on how you looked at it, could be deeply artistic or completely awful? Ours was like that, except we were quite considering the latter possibility to be the more correct one. In any case, let me present "Friends Don't Let Friends Use Excel For Statistics".

About that interpretation? Well, the title comes from a recent statistics lecture, and we called it that before we made our analysis of our beautiful painting. What we came up with is that the big eye in the middle belongs to someone who let his or her friends use Excel for stats and is now crying blood because they caught fire. The friends are the two blue stick people on the lower left. Artistic, no?

Anyway, at about 3am that night, I decided that it would be a really funny idea to send it to our lecturer. Here's how the email went:

"Hi Simon,
A friend and I are in BS2001, which I have to tell you is a lot less scary than I originally thought it would be. Of course, in saying that, it's mostly been cruisy so far, and you'll no doubt be getting a whole lot of crazed emails from us later.
You seem like a pretty easy going dude, so I thought I'd share something with you that happened over the weekend. A friend and I had a few drinks and got bored, so I cracked out the paint and brushes and together we painted this rather pretty sort of abstract piece. We called it "Friends Don't Let Friends Use Excel For Statistics" (sound familiar?). From that, we figured that it was a big eye crying because its owner let two friends use Excel for statistics and they exploded or something - they're the two bluish stick dudes on the bottom left. Doesn't make much sense to me now, but hey, you can't argue with drunken logic.
Just hoping this made you smile, at least now you know that we listen in lectures.
Keep it real, Emily and her accomplice Caitlin, now hoping for HDs for our outstanding effort."

Yeah. I haven't got a reply.

Honour Be Damned!

A long time ago I was in the bookshop with a friend and we spotted a book with the greatest cover I have ever seen! It had a pirate groping some chick's boob with one hand and holding a glass of booze in the other. The chick was holding a rather large gun suggestively between her legs. Tempted though we were, we didn't buy it.

We went back a few weeks later and looked for it, but didn't see it anywhere - we felt cheated! Here was the most brilliant cover of all time and we couldn't find it! Dejectedly, we went home, swearing that if we ever saw it again, we would buy it so we could look at it forever. At this point we hadn't even considered the possibility that the book itself might have been crap, but it couldn't possibly be with a cover like that.

Next time we went in looking for a completely different book - something in the Warhammer section. There, in place of where the book we desired should have been, was what we had deemed "The Pirate Book". It was a sign! I ran up to counter and bought it straightaway. So now I present, the greatest book cover of all time: "Honour Be Damned!"

Oh yeah, the book sucked.

Introducing... Emilio Bonero and the Amazing RSVP Project

So, in the Vegemite post a couple of days ago there was a picture of me with a little beard made out of Vegemite. What I didn't realise was the effect this picture would have on some of my female friends. And I quote: "Whoa. You're........ HOT!". And so one thing lead to another and somebody came up with the brilliant idea of creating an RSVP.com.au profile using the picture and creating a fictional character around it. People, I'd like to introduce you to Emilio Bonero!

Hi there! I'm a fun, nature-loving artist who likes burying myself in a good book just as much as meeting friends out and about. I moved from Santiago, Chile to Australia when I was 15 and recently finished a degree in fine arts. I have come to love this country and all its natural beauty which I find very inspiring when I come to put brush to canvas.

Music: I love emotional classical music along with a lot of modern artists like Dean Martin, Pearl Jam, Alanis Morissette and Mike Oldfield. When I'm painting I love listening to Massive Attack - it's very deep and instinctive, helps me be more expressive. Traditional Chilean music always makes me happy!

Reading: I'm a huge fan of the classics, especially dystopian literature - To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, The Old Man and the Sea, Brave New World, Catcher in the Rye, all the way to comedy like Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy and poetry like Keats and Coleridge (Rime of the Ancient Mariner is my favourite) Movies: American Beauty, Cinema Paradiso, A Scanner Darkly, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Amelie..... and I have to admit I treat myself to some junk action every now and then ;)

Sport: I swim laps as part of my regular exercise routine, and like to snorkel and scuba dive occasionally. Every couple of weeks my friends and I play soccer together in the park.

Other interests: Corny as it may sound, I love walking along the beach, and here in Townsville there is a lot of beach to cover! The natural world holds much beauty for me, and inspires a lot of the painting I do. I'm also a qualified wildlife carer and look after orphaned wallabies and birds.

In my experience all women are beautiful, I have ample time to share with you and look forward to it!

What a catch! Now we play the waiting game......

A Tale of Two Traffic Cones

I have to admit something. I have a cone fetish. No, not the geometric object, nor even a joint. I'm talking about traffic cones.

It all started late last year when we were driving home from the city after a night of getting wasted. Ahead on the road we spied a cone next to a big metal roadworks sign. We pulled over with brakes screeching, opened the door and snatched the cone up, effectively pulling off our very first conenapping. Further down the road we took another, before heading back to college with our new-found treasures. One we put on top of a sleeping friend's air conditioner. We had better plans for the other. Another friend who we know parties hard and had been out the same night was passed out cold on his bed. Another poor soul was lying on the floor. On the way to his room with cone #2, we found a little baby cone which we picked up as well. When we got inside, I pulled back the covers, gently placed the cone in the guy's arms and wrapped them both up in blankets. The baby cone we placed on the floor-dude's crotch.

Later that day I woke to a text message beeping: "I think I hooked up with a traffic cone last night!". He eventually found out it was me, and thus begun the Cone Collecting War, in which the participant to collect the most traffic cones by the end of the exam period won the respect and adoration of the people.

About a week later, myself and another friend went for a cruise. This cruise ended up being one of my most profitable escapades in terms of anecdotes, for we collected a staggering 38 cones, plus some construction flags that had been left next to the road. Imagine our terror as we approached the gatehouse of the university, the back of the car full to the roof with cones. However, we got through no questions asked. On return to the college, we did what any normal person would do with the cones - built people out of them.






All together we built four people - Conelia, Shaconea (as in Sharona), Conerad and Farmer Cones. Aren't they beautiful? Look at the detail! Conelia even has saggy bewbs!



You may well ask what befell of the remaining cones before the end of the exam period. Well, I freaked out. At 4am a few days later I figured it would be a great time to run out and stash the cones in the bushes. I had to do it in two lots since they were so heavy. The first lot went fine, as I'd suspected, there was nobody to be seen. However, on the second trip I was halfway across the road when suddenly a car came racing towards me, headlights at full beam. I literally ran and dived into the bushes to avoid being seen. The car continued past where I was and I breathed a sigh of relief. But then, it turned around. I was convinced it had seen me and so I wriggled further into the tall grass. But no, the car sped on past back the way it had come. I lay in the dirt for a minute afterwards, all I could say was "WHAT. THE. FUCK.". And so that was how I got rid of the cones.

It's not the end of the story though. This year upon my return to college, there was a leaking pipe in the quad and they had fenced off the area to students. Upon closer inspection I noticed something - On top of a star post was the head of someone very familiar - Conelia! And there on the ground was Conerad! I made a hasty escape back to my room so I could laugh loudly to myself. And that's when I decided it was time to expose the rest of the stash. There they all were, in the bushes just as I had left them months before. The same friend who had helped me 'liberate' them before helped me carry them down to my conenapping adversary's room. We placed them all around his front door and lawn and promptly ran off. The next morning I was greeted in many ways. "Very nice, but could you get rid of them?!" "Wow, that was the best thing I've seen in ages, good one!". Later that day, they were all gone, and yet I had not touched them. A day later I was walking past the maintenance guy's shed, when I spied a particularly familiar large stack of cones out the back. I'm glad I contributed something to the construction area of the college, but really I'm most surprised that I haven't been asked to leave yet. Again, I do things and go unpunished - I am unstoppable! But it has come at a price. I can never go anywhere now without my eyes widening and heart racing whenever I see a cone. Things came to a head over the holidays when I came across this beautiful piece of delectability. The hybrid cone - build of a traditional cone, height of the skinny poles we used to create the people's bodies. My mouth waters every time I pass it.