"iPod, iPod, why hast thou forsaken me?!?"

So my iPod made me late today.

I plugged the 'Pod in last night, knowing it would erase the 12000-odd files I had on there and replace them with about 11984 more. It took most of the night to do the erasing. It started the upload at 8:15 this morning.

I got up, ate my breakfast, watch Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny. Fun times. Dave Grohl played the Devil. Sporadically checked on the 'Pod. Still uploading. I make myself a sandwich for lunch, make the bed, stack the dishwasher, get dressed. Ready to go.

Still uploading.

I work at 11. If I want to walk I need to leave by 10.

10 goes by. Still uploading.

Ok, fine. I can leave at 10:10, catch a bus, and still be to work with time to spare.

10:15. Still uploading.

Ok, it's ok. I can catch a train if I leave at 10:20. That'll still get me there in time to load my systems.

10:25. Still uploading. Shit.

10:30.

10:39. Still uploading.

If I leave now, I can catch a train and JUST get there on time.

So I left.

For the first time in a year and 6 months, I left for work without an iPod of some kind.

I feel naked.

Postscript: Saw "Perfume: Story of a Murderer". The Moral of the story: "If I had only known what sex was, I wouldn't have had to become a creepy fetishist serial killer and distill women into perfumes. Oh, and that the right scent can turn a lynch mob into an orgy. Be told."

FUCK!

We bought a 320 Gb external hard drive. Great news, right? We can start storing the 50 gigs or so on music and pictures I have on here on the drive. Well, there was an unforseen hitch.

I dragged the contents of the My Music folder onto the drive.

What I expected to happen was what happened beofre when I'd delete the original of a movie, but left its file name in iTunes: It stays on my iPod, but not on the computer. Well, when I moved the iTunes folder, it didn't just leave empty file names in iTunes, waiting for me to link them to the actual files.

It erased everything out of the library.

I still have all the files, but I have no playlists, no organisation, no nothing. Oh, and those aforementioned movies that I'd deleted from the harddrive? They'll remove themselves the minute I plug my iPod into the computer.
Modern fucking technology, eh?

You little fucknubbin!

So yesterday after work I met up with Ashleigh and later Ted and Craig at the Rose for inane chatter and amusingly named cocktails (Ash had a Monica Lewinsky. I had a less-amusingly-named but very nice Poached Pear and Ginger Daquiri). Anyhoo, under the thumb as I was, i headed home at 7. Had lovely vindaloo made by Tanja and watched Licence to Kill.

Then we realised we hadn't seen the cat in like three hours.

After a frantic search of her usual hiding places reveal no pussycat, we came to the worrying conclusion that she must have escaped outside.We thought she must have scooted out either when I arrived, or when I put the garbage out.I grabbed the bag of cat food, and wandered around the neighbourhood, shaking it plaintively. Despite sighting two cats, neither was ours. Tanja then joined me and we both looked.No joy. It was getting close to midnight and we got back to the house, resolving (shakily) to call the RSPCA and Cat Protection Society in the morning. Then Tanja went into the backyard and heard something. A quiet, plaintive meow. She called to me, and I did the stupid movie thing:

Tanja: "Listen! I think I hear her!"
*beat*
Me: "I don't hear anythi-"
Tanja: "SHUT UP!" (lol)

We could hear her voice coming from either the backyard next to us, or the one behind that. Cue us running to our neighbours door. Knocking. No answer. Tried the next one along. Woke up a little old lady who let us into her backyard (and was very polite for someone who had just been woken up at midnight). No cat. I stood on her fence to look into the yard between ours and hers. And saw a little white face. I went into the back alley again and found a way to push in the roller-door to the yard and squeeze through. Retrieved the cat, who scratched me for her troubles.

My exact quote: "You stupid cat! I'm going to beat you until candy comes out!"

So we have her again. And her backyard priveliges have been revoked (it turns out she climbed the fence and jumped over. I didn't let her out after all). Tanja and I were relaxing in bed, de-stressing, and I mentioned that this was good practice for parenting.

She gave me an evil look and said "If you ever lose my kids like this I'll beat you."

I patted her head.

"Don't worry honey. I'd never tell you anything like that."

Human Germ!!!

• Blowing up human jets as a Decepticon helicopter is more fun than it should be. Puny earthlings! You dare?!?
  
• A good soundtrack for this game? Maybe I should make an album:
  

Primus - Hellbound 17 1/2 (Theme From)

Soil - Breaking Me Down

Kidney Thieves - Before I Die

Marilyn Manson - Personal Jesus

Primus – Lacquer Head

Cherrybomb – Manitoba

Voodoo People – Prodigy

• Less so? The Waitress, by the Waifs. Stupid Random iPod.
  
• Man, Bumblebee handles like crap. Well, at least in his early form.
  
• Blackout does burnouts like a Decepticon should. Oh, and running head-on into a police car, and watching it fly up, physics be damned (the only explanation is that Transformers are MUCH denser and have a hell of a lot more mass than Earth materials), and then you fire a missile on the way down and blow it to slag? Awesome.
  
• You get great spanking firearms in this game, but much like Path of Neo, they only work against the lowest-level enemies (basic drones, and humans). Anything above that has a shield that works for missiles and bullets.
  
• And hey! Starscream sounds like Odo from DS9 (he's not, though. I checked).

Blast!

Here I am, up at 9:02 am on my day off and there's NO ONE in TikiBarTV Chat. Of course, there's USUALLY no one there, due to our being on the other side of the world. Stupid hemisphere.

That's it. I'm going to go play Transformers: The Game on PS2.

...

Stupid Autobots. I don't WANT to drive, save people, then drive. I want to blow shit up! If I wanted to chase people, then fight for five seconds, then chase again, I'd play Ultimate Spider-Man. Again.

The Decepticon missions should be more blowing-shit-up intensive.

...

WTF, how am I supposed to level an army base in two minutes?

I need more coffee.

Cough Cough.

Despite sleeping poorly and waking up with a stuffy nose, sinus headache, and sore throat, I was overshadowed. First at work, by the fact that everyone and their dog was as sick if not sicker than me (including 70% of my and Craig's team, my boss, and my fellow coaches). So I had a LemSip and, in the words of Chopper Read, hardened the fuck up. Secondly, once I got home, it seems that Tanja had hurt her leg just below the knee in an unknown mishap, causing her to hobble about and be generally immobile. So I did the running around. Sigh. No time to be sick. Got a world to run.

Checked the online TV guide tonight and saw to my delight that Spicks and Specks was showing, despite it being a Monday. Great, said I. So I killed the hour between then and 8:30, watching Top Gear, which (surprisingly) I thoroughly enjoyed, despite not being a car guy, and the presence of Steve Coogan, who I still think is a wanker. They actually had these two guys, who were experts in parkour (free running), as seen in Casino Royale, racing a guy in a car across Liverpool. They used a combination of gymnastics, capoeira, and general athleticism to, well, generally run around being awesome and jumping things. Unfortunately, the Monday-night Spicks/Specks was not to be. I read the wrong column. People in Queensland got to see it instead. Bugger.

Oh, and I bought a pair of Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars for $40. Score.

This made me snort. In an empty room.

Which is less embarrassing, I guess*.

And some Mormons or Witnesses or Satanists or something came to the door this morno. They had a bible bookmarked to Revalation and they wanted to tell me about it. I wanted to lie and say "I've just been masturbating! Shake?" and then stick out my hand.
But I was polite. I just said "Not interested." and shut the door. Why do people pretend to be not home, or hide behind the couch? I just don't get it.



*This too: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/07/23

I, Drinkbot

This is too cool for words.

Weekendaru!

So, my weekend:

Saturday:

Had practice with Ted in the morno. Love my new cowbell and my splash upside down on the crash (for all that hitting the underside of the splash dents it). Makes me much faster on the left side of the kit, for all that it now sounds a bit disco-like. Songs are coming along too. Ted and I are slowly agreeing that we can do a three-song grouping (maybe a medley?) off the White Stripes new album(songs 8, 9, and 10). I enjoy this as it gives me the chance to do my Jack-White-snake-oil-salesman-vocal-impression. Also, I broke my first drumstick ever! I hit the cymbal and the left stick split along the grain and cracked in half. Just about took my eye out. As much of a fun milestone as this is, it was from the good pair of sticks I just bought. Oh well. I borrowed 5 more CDs off of Ted. I need to stop doing that. Listen to the ones you have, Lucas, don’t get more!

Later that evening, I was set to go to Alexandria and take pictures of David as he played, but he called up at the last minute saying he was sick as the proverbial. So free evening. Tanja and I got picked up a few bottles of vino, and settled in to watch movies. First was Thank You For Smoking. Very dark and funny. Highly recommended. At that point we were through a litre of Sauvignon Blanc/Chardonnay blend. Then we started on the Merlot. And a little movie called Blood Diamond. The movie was stopped several times for booze-fuelled argument and discussion. Eventually (with about half a glass left in the 1-litre bottle of Merlot), I had to turn it off. That much senseless violence (and not cool Sin City or Scream violence, before Craig rebuts) I just can’t stomach. Apparently even my hard-bitten Dad took three tries to get through it. Went to bed.

Sunday:

Urgh. Slightly hungover. Fixed with Panadol dissolvable and back rub from Tanja. Hooray! So then we head off to Taronga Zoo with before-mentioned hard-bitten Dad. Had lots of fun, despite Tanja’s lunch noodles being seemingly solid garlic. Took lots of pictures. Once again had the thought that tigers seem to be the big cats who remind me most of small cats. Lions are lions, leopards are leopards, but tigers are big Magrats.

No One Knows.

I was typing an email and I saw that I had misspelled "over" as "ofver". So I went back and deleted the v. Leaving ofer. And the other day after making my sandwich in the morning I (according to Tanja, who found it later) left the pepper mill in the fridge. Yesterday it was the remote left on the bathroom counter. This morning I found myself blowing on a spoonful of cereal to cool it down, as if it was soup. And yesterday...

...see, that's the problem. There was an incident yesterday that triggered this blog entry in my head and now I can't remember it!

I'm losing my mind.