d… d… download

five day old beard

Today I haven’t done very much, except download a lot of music from iTunes. It is a little expensive, but then again it isn’t as expensive as a music store. Also getting to sample everything before downloading (and paying for) the whole song is good.

By the way, by a lot of music I meant just that. I was listening to tripplej and a story on roots of music and thought I needed some more Australian music especially if I am going to drive across it (I will need lots of music to listen to for that). So I got some Slim Dusty, Whitlams, Jimmy Barnes, Sarah Blasko, Josh Pyke and Midnight Oil. It isn’t that my music isn’t Australian or anything, I just wanted a wider range of Australian music and songs that I liked.

On other stories, my beard that I started growing on Monday is pretty well set. Should be very full by the time I get back from New Caledonia. I don’t know if I will keep it the whole holidays. At the moment I think it may get a bit to thick, or maybe I will just like the clean shaven look more (I haven’t had a beard before because of wanting to feel and look clean). Anyhow that is all really trivial, but that’s what happens when you do nothing for a day.

I go on summer holidays at the end of this week :|

I am a little worried I must admit. At the end of this week starts my ten weeks holidays. I didn’t really work to hard for them, I have just saved them up during my two and a bit years in the Navy, by only taking short Christmas leave and nothing else (bar the free days I have had holidays).

Originally the plan was for a three week holiday in November to go to New Caledonia, and then to do Christmas leave. But when I saw there was only two weeks between the two holidays, and considering that I haven’t really been working (mostly just playing computer games during the work day), I extended my Christmas leave to fill the gap.

So that leaves me with the frightening situation of ten long weeks of leave. No work for Shane from Saturday 8 November until Monday 19 January.

But other than what is really just my first two weeks, of flying over to my family in southern New South Wales and then to New Caledonia for a week with an old friend from school. Well I have very little on my plate, after those first two weeks.

Plans are to do the Perth to Melbourne road trip. Taking four days (maybe five) each way (because I don’t want to fuck up my car with a Kangaroo hit at night), but other than looking at the route I haven’t planned much for it. And a week ago I was looking at doing a trip through America visiting Memphis, Louisville, Buffalo (maybe Chicago, Detroit and another city) and meeting some extended family just north of Buffalo in Ontario. But with the dollar collapsed so much, the cheap train and bus trips, and small amount of car hire I would had wanted (not to mention the flights where nothing is under $3000 into the Mid West) would be just a little too much for my bank account to handle.

But Oh, and I purchased a guitar just last Saturday. So I should get in a few hundred hours learning it (and I can pick up my Violin from my parents place too).

Other things I have always wanted to do, that I may end up doing include:
i    write an interactive fiction game
ii    spend a good amount of time swimming (I live only two blocks from a beach)
iii    get a girlfriend

On the third point, a little emphasis should be put. I would hate for early January to come around to find I have spent it just sitting on my couch doing very little. At best I would love for the end of my holidays to have heaps of stories, new friends and maybe even a developing relationship.

Maybe that is why I am worried?

Oasis member for a night

I overheard a guy at work today talking about an online dating site (Oasis) and figured I would give it a go. It actually didn’t support Safari and so I installed Firefox to test it out.

My profile hadn’t even been accepted in full (the picture was still pending), and I had only really spent a couple hours browsing profiles and chatting with one quirky girl and sarted to read a little about online dating. I have attempted it in the past to no success, and rather than waste more time on it, I figured it was smart to nip it in the but and cancelled my account.

I am so glad I did it right this minute. It hopefully will mean I waste less time, when what I really want to do is be more outgoing. And to be more outgoing doing something introverted like having the internet to communicate with people you may or may not want a relationship with isn’t going to help.

My profile really was just telling the story of when I went to New York with Lucas and Doug. How we walked all over downtown and over the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. Doing something like that is what I want to do again on this 10 weeks of holidays I have comming up just after my birthday (next week).