The Final Word: 2002
18 December, 2002
'tis the season for people to be wankers. Just when you think you're getting on top of things the dishonest and the pratty wander out and work their magic. This has been a year of heavy learning experiences that's for sure. And what the hell is the American Emperor doing!! If you really want to fight have a civil war and leave the rest of us alone. Pricks.
12 December, 2002
Roll on Xmas. I am looking forward to a break. It has been a week of revising a business plan and starting to plan for next year. Despite all this I have still managed to fit in some GameBoy...what a champ.
27 November, 2002
Tired....just plain ol' tired.
11 November, 2002
You wouldn't read about it...the cat has gone and fractured his leg. Not bad for an animal that is barely a year old. Mixed feelings all around as I swing between feeling sorry for the little guy and seeing dollar signs flashing before me. It is odd that since starting the business we have had the worst run of events I have ever witnessed. Low income, lots of stress, a burglary, a car accident, illness and the cat incident. If I was a religious man I'd be getting worried about vengeful gods.
31 October, 2002
Post Japan all is beginning to settle down again. Great holiday, lots of fun and chance to get involved with a completely insane country. These photos show a brief synopsis of what went down while we were there. Summer is finally here and it's a great time to be self employed.
10 October, 2002
Loading up for a holiday in Japan that starts on Monday. Really looking forward to this and just want to get going. Two weeks of Japanese people, food, beer and general sites and sounds.
2 October, 2002
Some major shit going down at the moment and the perpetual headache continues. Spending much more time working from home to avoid the realities of school holiday ugliness. Taking great joy in riding my bike straight at moving cars in a test of stupidity, social boundaries and sheer frustration. Trying to come up with a sticker campaign.
28 August, 2002
Feeling majorly trapped in life. No real reason expect for that quiet uneasiness that seems to be lurking underneath everything I do at the moment. Been following the 'war on terrorism', the 'war on drugs', the 'war on music piracy', the 'war on idiots' (actually that's mine)....with all these wars on it's hard to believe we live in peace. So much for the rational thinkers. Taking joy in music by the Vandals.
16 August, 2002
Major PS2 weekend planned with Aggressive Inline. Been watching the Asia X-Games on ESPN...finally something other than golf on. Noticed Scott at PRA is down. The car is back and repaired, the business is still alive and a holiday in Japan is on the books.
27 July, 2002
The last few months have been remarkably tough...in fact I think I can say they have been complete crap. The business has come to a tough patch where it needs to grow but also keep making money. I have had quite a major case of food poisoning, our house has been broken into and last night we were in a car accident (no one injured). I have had to bottle up a few of these to deal with later as at this stage it's just way too much. It's a weird feeling to know you are on the brink and not know quite how to get back from it.
26 June, 2002
I can now officially say that food poisoning is a nasty experience. I figure it's simply safer to not eat anything than go through that again. For some reason this year has been one in which nature seems to want me gone.
6 June, 2002
All my latest design work is ending up looking ads in a snowboarding magazine. I have started reading Voltaire's Bastards. I can't wait to see how it turns out.
31 May, 2002
My little venus fly trap has caught it's first fly...all by itself. I was quite impressed really considering how small it is. My inspiration has come from a plant :-)
9 May, 2002
It's been a while since the last note. Partly due to work, partly due to a lack of enthusiasm. I went for a walk yesterday looking for some sort of inspiration and found very little. Days seem to be passing and disappearing with very little changing. People seem to be all very similar and doing very similar things and I'm as guilty as anyone. Apathy.
I have, however, bought some greenery for the office. The hell with a pot plant though, I got carnivorous plants...and so far they seem quite happy.
8 March, 2002
CyberPunk...I want cybernetics, I want a microphone embedded in my jaw, an audio set embedded in my ear, solid-state memory in my head. I want eyes that can see InfraRed and UltraViolet frequencies, I want zoom lenses built in. My eyes should be cameras to world just as they are windows to my soul. I want bio-implants monitoring my health, fitness and emotional state. I want a virtual environment, I want to fight with samurai swords risk free, I want to ride a motorbike at the speed of light and crash it, I want to play zero gravity sports, I want to play SpeedBall. I want Nano Technology, I want programmable hair, I want an enhanced immune system, I want the paint on my walls to change at a whim. I want to reach up into the biosphere and grab information as it passes by.
28 February, 2002
Golf eh?...interesting concept. I went to a driving range with some friends last night. Having never really hit a golf ball with any seriousness before this was an experience to be remembered. I discovered quickly that inline hockey skills are very little help in this game of crazy posing and metal sticks. Did you know that slapshots are illegal in golf? Go figure. I wasn't prepared for having sore muscles in the morning though. I mean...it's golf.
22 February, 2002
Last night I was struck by a rather odd juxtaposition of television programmes that highlighted something about Australians and New Zealanders. I can't remember which was first (they may have been on different channels) but the two programmes in question are: Australian Survivor and 60 minutes (or possibly 20/20, who can tell the difference).
This got quite long so I've put the full article on its own page
18 February, 2002
I think I had a holiday a week ago...I seem to remember a beach.
Had to resort to NoFX this wonderful Monday morning to get a kickstart. It was that or coffee and alcohol and, quite frankly, it was pretty close there for a while. NoFX won out and have just this minute merged into Millencolin.
23 January, 2002
The gobstopper is no more. It was finally conquered last night at 8:37pm.
Here's a question. Why do companies think they can get away with having email addresses that don't work? It's like having a phone number that no one answers.
18 January, 2002
Computers suck. The things you can do with them are great but the whole environment including the crappy boxes suck.
After years of making web sites work for clients, users, managers, project managers, bob the janitor and the design institute of web awards (or something), a pursuit that requires, form, function and interaction to be merged in a delicately impossible symbiosis, I find it ironic that we still use computers that are complete bollocks.
16 January, 2002
The gobstopper mission is still a go. It's finally changed color though so progress is being made. Looking forward to having my stereo fixed...Rancid just isn't the same without some real bass and decent speakers (though who can really tell).
14 January, 2002
I have been given a which is proving to be a challenge. It's about 4cm in diameter and so far it's taken 3 hours to remove the first 2 layers. I still can't get it in my mouth though I haven't forced the issue in case I can't get it out again.
13 January, 2002
Okay now the weather's just being silly. It can stop raining anytime now and it'll be okay with me. At least the house hasn't flooded...yet. :-)
10 January, 2002
I'm having one of those days that seems to be bursting with time. This morning I spent what felt like 2 days working on a web concept only to look up and find it had only been a few hours. While I kind of like these sorts of days where time doesn't drag, there just seems to be a lot of it, it is a little unnerving for some reason. Maybe it's guilt..who knows. Maybe it's just a benefit of working at home or maybe it's the rain.
I was all set to go for a but as the driveway is flooded and not conducive to wheeled activities I haven't been yet. Instead I sat at the computer and read punk articles...which really just made me want to go out for skate.
Interestingly enough time appears to have sped up again. Life can be weird sometimes.
9 January, 2002
After spinning around a couple of punk sites I learned that Bad Religion's drummer has had to stop due to injury and that 59 Times the Pain and No Fun At All have split up. NFAA's break up is particularly sad as I have been a fan from their early days. I even have an from 1996 when they had just released "Out of Bounds". It's interesting to note that punks had taken to the Internet so well. I like punk bands..they stay real.
