Well I survived the first weekend in hospital. Now I need to turn up early in the morning each day this week, then 4 times next week to give on going blood samples, THEN repeat the whole cycle again starting next Friday. After all that, I can go and buy some gold jewellery and a couple of fur coats, then finally retire in style with my bitches and hos. It’s a hard life.

Anyway to change the subject somewhat I heard from my little brother yesterday for the first time in weeks. He started a Commerce/Arts degree at Melbourne Uni this year, but decided to take the second semester off and work on the Aussie ski slopes for as long as the snow season would allow, so as to raise money to trek overseas later this year. He might also take the first semester of 2007 off, but that remains to be seen. He’s been working up on Mount Hotham for about a month now, but as I realised yesterday afternoon, I’ve not really taken advantage of his absence. Not at all, to be frank. His room sits, less than 5 metres away from my own, much larger and with a queen size bed in it. Although my life would become null and void if I were to take either his room or his bed, I think I can successfully pilfer the smaller things that he might not miss so badly, or rather the things that he won’t notice have been loved in his absence.

So with that in mind I have managed to pinch in the last twenty minutes: a wall clock, a reading light, an iPod dock (I never got one with my pissy 10GB model in 2003, although these days you don’t even get an AC adaptor with iPods), a nokia phone dock, a stack of music and most noteworthy – the newest and most impressive addition to the junkheap that is called my computer: a 20 inch, widescreen LCD monitor – and boy, am I glad I took it! Although it’s a little odd getting used to these windowy things being 40 times the width that they used to be, it’s nice that I have a bit more room on my desk now that the old CRT is in Andy’s room. Little brothers should be forced into labour camps every year.

Pete

I’m not quite sure how this all happened, but I am in hospital again this weekend, to what must be the chagrin of most of my friends and family. Now for those who don’t know me, please don’t worry – I’m not ill, and I’m not about to die, but rather making a bit of money as a human guinea pig – not that I need the money at the moment but hey.

A few weeks ago when a letter arrived from this medical trial company I paid little attention to it. The trials that they needed volunteers for were all regarding anti-depressants, and neuroinhibitor drugs are on my list of ‘don’t mess with’ drugs. Unfortunately for me, AB felt otherwise, and…. well here I am. Anyway for now I can’t really be bothered elaborating partly because I can’t be arsed, and partly because I need to be up in 5 hours so a mean man can stick a very long needle into my arm. Keep an eye on the newspapers!

Pete

As Australia goes through yet another mild and extremely dry winter, our pommy friends up north are ‘sweltering’ (note the inverted commas) through one of their hottest summers on record. Apparently yesterday the faces of millions of Britons actually started melting off and many roads around the green and pleasant land spontaneously caught on fire and burned motorists to death because of the extreme heat…… of 33 degrees celcius.

Now please excuse me for the sarcasm, but come on – even though the motherland is quite a coolish country for much of the year, brits are meant to be a tough breed, and 33 degrees is not really hot anyway. I remember a 48 hour period early this year when temperatures in Melbourne didn’t drop below 30 degrees at all – and we recorded maximums well in excess of 40 degrees. I don’t want to turn this into a ‘my country is hotter than your country’ competition (although clearly my country IS ), but for god’s sake – grow a back bone England, and try to tar the road with something that doesn’t melt at room temperature.

Oh, I think the reason behind this outburst is probably because as I was flicking through BBC online, I noticed that I am decidedly cold and miserable right now – although I do get to cut up a dead guy’s lung tomorrow, so the miserableityness will surely dissipate pretty quickly after 10am. Yippee!

Pete

It was interesting, that much can be said quite safely. In truth, I had quite a bit of fun, and it definately wasn’t a bad way of making a bit of money and getting an expenses paid holiday out of it (however short). But let me, in no uncertain terms make abundantly clear that work in the hospitality industry is not easy. I was up before six each morning, and only got to bed before midnight once. Although there was an awful lot of nothingness in between the occaisional bursts of activity, that nothingness was general passed standing up outside a lift well, directing stragglers to different conference rooms, preparing for future sessions, and then if I was really lucky, addressing various staging equipment that chose this particular conference to stop working. Due to this unusual amount of standing still, paired with not so comfy shoes, I had bruised and sore feet for the majority of the conference, and as a result was much more temperamental than I would have liked. The whole trip also meant I missed Madam Kelly’s 21st, and that’s not cool in anyone’s books. But as consolation to all these drawbacks, I found ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots‘ for $10 (I’ve been trying to find that particular album for months), met and worked with some very nice Gold Coast girls, and managed to get my bank account to finally look at least a little healthy. As tedious as the work was, I wouldn’t decline if I was offered the same gig again, although I would do a couple of things differently. I think I’d negotiate wages before accepting the job, or at least DEFINATELY before flying home. I’d also try and get an outline of my responsibilities before starting – I was completely truthful last post when I said I had no idea what I was going to be doing up there – and although that didn’t matter so much as far as preparation was concerned, it would have made things easier if I knew what to expect. But hey, I survived and even managed to receive glowing compliments from various delegates as they were leaving.

Oh – on another matter, uni started again yesterday. After catching a delayed flight on Sunday evening and arriving back home at 1am after a week away, I had a lecture at 8am. Needless to say, I didn’t make it. This semester was meant to be my ‘attend everything and be diligent with work’ semester. Failed that before it started. Oh well.

Pete

I’m sorry for not giving this thing my all during the last week, but if you thought this was the breaking of the drought you would be very much mistaken. I’m off for the rest of the week to make an honest man of myself. From tomorrow morning I’ll be up on the Gold Coast, working for Jake’s company on a large international conference, assumedly in a support and administrative capacity. The fact that I don’t really know a thing about the nature of the job doesn’t seem to worry me, but admittedly that could be more to do with the ridiculously small amount of sleep I’m currently running on (about 30 minutes last night) than anything else.

So. The Italians won. God damn it. Zidane got red carded in his last match, and the most important soccer match for 4 years went down to penalty kicks. Looks like another disappointing World Cup. WE COULD HAVE WON!@>!@#

I need sleep. I’m off at 8am, so there’s no chance of a post tomorrow but if you’re lucky (and I’m nerdy) you might hear from me while I’m in Queensland (get back Sunday eve)

Pete

During my little course yesterday a couple of blokes mentioned to me that they enjoyed this blog. Although to be honest I was suprised firstly that anyone from coffeesnobs would suffer a lack of taste bad enough to actually visit this site and secondly that people actually read my blog (I kid I kid!), I was quite touched that people I had only just met in the flesh, and who had nothing to do with me apart from a shared love of coffee took the time to check out my little corner on the interweb.

Anyway I’m pinching this little music meme from Helen, my newest pommy friend.

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I’m sure I’m going to regret this sooner or later but I’ve had an incredibly enjoyable evening. Samo turned 21 last week and has (unlike some) organised himself a party, or more correctly HAD organised himself a party – it was last night.

Anyway it was very nice to see the usual assortment of old Wesley faces and a few new ones. It was also very nice to get drunk on a tab for a change (as of now I am officially broke), although kicking us all out at the unreasonable time of 1am seemed a bit crap. A bunch of us kicked on, and all ended up paying $8 a beer in a little bar that apparently banned us from not drinking. The owner was a tosser, but hey what can you do.

After the novelty of outrageously priced beer wore off I decided to make tracks. At about 3 I burst through the door at home to find Richard asleep infront of the soccer with England and Portugal tied 0-0 at the end of normal time. I watched extra time, then the penalty shootouts (quite pleased with the result to be honest) and decided to head off to catch at least a couple of hours sleep. Finding that difficult, and noting that Andrew and two mates had come home for the Brazil – France match, I decided to watch that too. And now, here I find myself at 8:10 in the morning, needing to be awake ready for a coffee cupping session in 50 minutes still inebriated and without a wink of sleep. God help my soul.

Pete

P.S. Apologies for non-sensical post. I don’t think I need to explain myself.