Work work work

So the results for the semester were released last Thursday, which I found to be satisfactory. So that's all good. Now that this year's uni is out of the way, I'm gonna have more time for work and grow some moolah.

As some of you may already know I've been working as Dr. Cooney's research assistant at uni (yea, teacher's pet or whatever you wanna call it), one of the more frequent questions regarding the matter I've been getting is 'What exactly do you do for your lecturer, Jet?'. Well, I appreciate everyone's interest in what I do for work and would like to take this opportunity to elaborate on what actually goes on behind the office door, as to supplement my usually short and perhaps, inadequate response to the fore-mentioned question.

In general, I do whatever z boss would like me to (get your mind out of the gutter). The main project that I'm helping him with at the moment has been running for a couple of months. Initially, 5,000 questionnaires were dispatched to organizations across different industries, to find out more about the current techniques and frameworks used for teamworking. Around 500 came back, which is actually enough to keep me busy for the next few weeks, as they need processing.

As for what exactly needs to be done to process and analyze these returned questionnaires I should probably omit, as I wish not to bore you too much. But vaguely, I have to go through each question from each of the questionnaires and code them before the response to each question can be enter into a database, which will need to be constructed in the near future. After that, the statistical analysis itself is pretty much executed on a software called the SPSS.

As boring as it may sound, I actually enjoy coming in to work everyday. I think the best thing about it is the peaceful working environment, not to mention other really friendly staff. Academics and lecturers suddenly become so much more approachable outside the lecture theaters. Despite everyone having their own office, all seems to have adopted the open door policy (literally), which adds to the overall benevolentness. And above all, I get to listen to my iRiver all day long :)

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Z Boss

The Corridor: One of my favourite places at the office

My lunchbox: Cake's Sushi

Randomania IV

And it's time for another Randomania, where everything has nothing to do with anything. And bookoo pictures is always fun. So without further ado...

Woohoo!! Another Space Invader spotted.

Location: Meyers Places, Melbourne

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A tram derailed in the city the other day. No idea how that happened.

The tram from another angle with a lot of onlookers.

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There have been a number of protests lately, within the city of Melbourne and that has been getting on my nerves a little. Roads and trams were blocked so getting places was a bit of a hassle.

People waited ages for trams as tractors strolled at the speed of a snail.

Well, it was a change to see some farm tractors roaming the city.

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Where my eyes are when I daydream at home.

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My new toys

Pieces of the Kaleesh and the Jedi Master

General Grievous and Master Yoda about to get it on

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Can't decide how I should do my laces. Which should I keep? And yea, I'm still wearing my BPS PE shorts.

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The best chicken rice I've had must be from Montien Hotel in Bangkok. Everything about it is so good. The sauces are uber tasty.

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Just a random little doll someone had put outside an apartment on my way home.

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Lunch: Mmmm Lamb Rump and Tofu

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Mara: The best thing to sleep with.

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There's this tiger farm in Thailand not far from Bangkok, where piglets and tiger cubs are raised together. And this is what you get, lil piglets sleeping on a mother tiger. Notice how they've dressed the piglets up in the tiger vests. hehe.

A cub sleeping on top of piglets

Tiger cubs drinking from a mother pig's teats

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As you can you see, Pie and I have been going a lil crazy over DVDs lately. Well, may be just me. To add to the rapidly growing collection;

Iron Monkey: Action packed traditional Chinese Kung Fu movie with funny bits. And Donnie Yen is always a plus.

Peanuts I & II boxsets: Kinda grew up watching Snoopy. Mother's special request.

Little Britain Complete Third Season: One of my favourite comedies. The new characters are getting more and more disgusting. And there's that Thai ladyboy, Ting Tong (or is it Tong Ting?)

The NeverEnding Story Trilogy boxset: Probably the first proper fantasy movie I watched. Gets me a lil nostalgic.

Pink Panther The First Season: I think the best thing about Pink Panther is the music.

Dragon Tiger Gate: Corny..Very Corny. But good fighting scenes. Of course, it's Donnie Yen.

The Adventure of TinTin: For the last time, Dom, TinTin is NOT homosexual, alright?

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Our house seems blessed with weird strawberries.

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And finally, dinner: Roast Turkey (Potato popcorns are great)

DVD Galore

And my dvd collection has begun. I've decided I'm gonna start collecting movies I like and ditch pirated dvds. I've had enough of the frustration from a bootlegged dvd getting stuck half way through a movie and having to skip the whole scene to get the dvd going again. Plus, it's always a good investment to build up a collection of films I like. Well so far, here's what the stock's looking like...

Fawlty Towers

Ahhh good old Fawlty Towers. I was first introduced to this classic British comedy series by a friend, Infomatica back in the days at the dorms. After a few episodes and I thought Fawlty Towers was one of the most wittily humourous comedy series ever written..still is. That's because it's written and starred by the ingenious Mr. John Cleese himself.

My personal favourite character has to be Manuel, played by Andrew Sachs as the hotel's only waiter (from Barcelona, as Mr. Fawlty always says). The character is simply adorably funny, being constantly confused due to his limited English.

For a lil taste of what Fawlty Towers is like, here's a short clip off of my favourite episode, where Manuel's having trouble understanding one of the hotel guests.

The Neighbour No. Thirteen

This Japanese film first caught my attention with its cover with these two guys in identical urban clothes, one holding a samurai sword. I thought that was pretty cool. Its Jap name Rinjin 13, the plot follows young Juzo, who used to get bullied in school and develops an avengeful alter-personality, whose sole mission is to kill his childhood tormentor. The movie gets more interesting as the bully coincidently moves into the same building as Juzo, along with his young wife and his lil son. And when Juzo's split personality, #13 comes out to visit them at home :)

The other thing that got me picking up the dvd was that the guy on the cover with the samurai sword is Nakamura. If you have seen Fearless (Jet Li), Nakamura is the Jap guy, who fights Jet Li at the end. I like his style...

From Dusk till Dawn

One of my favourite movies. I remember watching it on VCDs in highschool, and thought it was a shit cool movie. I like to think of From Dusk till Dawn as like an everlasting gobstopper, with each scene dissolving to reveal a new flavour/mood. You get to see George Clooney be as crude as ever, starring as the elder of the crime-indulging duo, the Gecko brothers (nothing to do with the amphibian whatsoever).

This movie was the one that got me into Tarantino's work. In fact, I think it's my favourite from the Tarantino collection. Mr. Tarantino also plays one of the main characters in the movie; Clooney's character's younger brother.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: The First Three Nightmares

This dvd boxset contains the first three of the infamous A Nightmare on Elm Street series. The last time I saw any of these was probably when I was around 8 or 9. Wasn't exactly my movie of choice at the time but dad had me sat next to him while he was watching it, and I remember thinking Freddy Krueger's damned cool. He's just different from any other boogiemen out there. He's not another one of those slow-moving big stupid mysterious figures with a large knife in one hand and a mask to hide a disfigured face, who can barely walk but somehow always manage to catch up with the girl only to see her scream hideously and stick the knife in her stomach. Freddy's much more than that. He makes slashing wayyy stylish.

P.S. Freddy kicks Jason's ass any day.

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I have also just seen SAW III at the movies. Now, I would classify myself as a fan of horror flicks and usually, the bloodier the marrier. But SAW III did turn my stomach in that cinema. Well, may be it had been a while since I last saw a blood and guts film on the big screen so everything seemed so amplified. A brain never looked so big.

Dont get me wrong. I'm not saying the movie was bad in any way. In fact, I think it was very well made. The plot was clever as usual with its unexpected twists and turns. The concept behind each of the torture scenes was also very clever, with each of the excruciating machines that were so nerve-wrenching to watch operate, and at the same time, invigorating...in a way.

All in all, a good movie with some excellent make-up effects (well, they better have been make-up effects), and a clever plot. And if you're a fan of the good old blood and guts (and brains), SAW III will definitely not dissappoint.

A Day in the Life of Jet

Woohoo!! No more exams.

So today, there was this weirdo guy in the changing room at the gym. I had seen him before and thought he was very weird but today he was even weirder. In fact, the only place in the gym I've seen him is in the changing room. He's this lil Asian dude, who walks around wrapped in his white towel around his waist, low enough to make other guys rather uncomfortable. I mean it's normal for guys to walk about naked, just minding their own business in the changing room in a non-gay manner. That's ok. But this guy walks around half naked in an obscene way, constantly looking at himself in the mirror, and at other guys.

So anyways, fair enough if you wanna be weird then it's ok just leave other people alone, you know. After kickboxing, I walked in and he was looking at me. I walked to the basin to wash my hands and he followed and stood there. Then, I went to the aroma room and again, he followed and sat next to me. Then, he turned to me and asked if I had finished working out.

Me: 'Yea, I'm done' I tried keeping it at that. But he wanted to talk...

The weirdo guy: 'Haven't seen you here before. Have you just started coming here?'

Me: 'No.. I've been coming here a while.'

The weirdo guy: 'Oh ok. I come here a lot but I don't use the gym. I like the sauna and the changing room.'

Me: ?!??!

Some people are just strange.

Being a cheapo, I dropped by Borders to read some magazines and to JB Hi-Fi to check some DVD's on the way home. I found this digitally remastered dvd boxset of one of my all time favourite movies: Event Horizon. It looks something like this...

And this...

Awesome. I also stopped by this pet shop to look at some kitties they had on display. Very cute. Too bad we can't keep pets in our apartment.

I got home just in time before it started drizzling. I actually like it when it rains and I'm inside, especially at night. I sleep well when it rains, as long as there're no thunders to wake me up.

It was time to cook and roast turkey was on the menu. I opened the pantry and thought to myself that may be some of the vegetables had been in there for a lil too long. For example,

And...

I should buy less potatoes next time. Anyways, dinner looked something like this...

Half way through the meal, Pie barged in through the front door, screaming without sound 'Help! Help! There's a worm on my sweater'. FYI, worms are Pie's worst nightmare. Here's what the lil guy looked like after I flicked him off of Pie's stomach...

Poor guy. He didn't make it so we threw him in the bin. Well, I threw him in the bin as Pie went to shower and wash all her clothes she had on *roll eyes*.

Now that I'm about to go to bed, I've just seen a bruise on my right foot. Gotta take it a lil easy on the pads.. hehe.

Thanks for reading about my day. Goodnight everyone. ZZzzzzzzz

Woohoo!! No more exams..ZZZZzzzzz

How kids these days do maths

Pie showed me these today. Damned funny...

Notice the etc.. hahaha
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Have you heard this one?: Why were the Polacks so easily defeated by the Nazis in the WWII?...

Because the Nazis marched in backwards and the Poles thought they were leaving.

HAHAHA. I laugh every time.

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So we went skating today. It was nice to finally get a chance to get out and do something out in the sun after having been in the library every day for the past few weeks. Not that all my exams are over, tho. The fourth and final one will be on Thursday; International Trade Law. Not really my kinda thing. It's fun to learn and all, but I hate it when there are no right or wrong answers in the exams. I know some of you may think 'Wow, that's sweet..no right or wrong'. But it's not so sweet when even there's no wrong answer, when they don't like it..it's wrong.

So anyways, Spaceman Spiff was going down this slope on his skates today, for the first time in years. Well, he didn't exactly stack it or anything, but managed to leave behind a black trail from pressing on the break so hard haha. And then the track stopped half way down as he jumped onto the grass hehehe. Don't mean to be cussing you or anything, Mr. Spiff, but it was hilarious.

Speaking of skates. Check out this new Kelso 2 boot. It's sweeeeeeet.

Damned sexy

I think I would wear them on the street if they were walkable.

With a Ground Control Hi-Lo frame on

Anyhoo, I still love my skates. Eventhough they gave me burns today on my ankles, but I still love my skates. My sweet ass Legacy Venoms.

My babies

Best and worst places to get away with your nasty habits

On the way back from the library today on the tram, I was thinking of where the best and worst places would be for some nasty habits, us human can get away with. Don't ask me what got me thinking the topic..'cause I don't know either. Here's what I came up with:

Letting one rip, aka One man jazz band
Best Places..
1. On a friday night in a night club (no one can hear and smell it)
2. In a fertilizer factory, unless your friends can distinguish your smell from the smell of shit in general. This works particularly well for the silent fart.
3. In a swimming pool, as long as you let it go slowly as to avoid that bubble effect on the surface of the water. This is especially good for the wet fart because you're already wet.
Worst Places..
1. In a church or a temple, especially when monks are doing their meditations.
2. In the library. Unless you have mastered the silent fart, breaking wind out loud in the library can have a devastating effect on yourself and the others around you.
3. In the movies, unless you can time your fart with the loud bits on the film.

Burping
Best Places..
1. In a restaurant in China, as a sign of appreciation.
2. At Paris Hilton's concert, again, as a sign of appreciation.
3. At a party, as you and your friends race through the alphabet.
Worst Places..
1. In a packed public transport on a hot day.
2. When you're doing your wedding speech/eulogy on the mic.
3. In an exam. Just like the guy behind me on my Monday's exam, who kept distracting and torturing me with his sausagy burps.

Missing the target (probably most applicable for guys, and in extreme cases for girls)
Best Places..
1. In the toilet at a pub. Since it's already all over the place, might as well contribute.
2. In a bush. You can even set your own target.

Sneezing and spraying
Worst Places..
1. At a subway restaurant, when you're making your customer a sub.
2. On a date, just before your first kiss with him/her.
3. In china in 2003, during the SARS epidemic.

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Got a new book today; 'The Hypochondriac's Pocket Guide to Horrible Diseases You Probably Already Have'. Read through a bit of it in the library, and learnt some pretty interesting stuff from this lil book full of humour. Like, have you heard of this disease called 'SCLERODERMA'? Let me read to you about it..

SCLERODERMA

'You can buy the finest European Moisturizers. Rub yourself with freshly picked aloe. You can take bath in extra-virgin olive oil and pack your face with mud from the deadsea. You can inject pure royal jelly from the hives of South African bees directly into your pores, and it won't do you any good.'

'Scleroderma (skle''-ro-der'-mah) is a chronic autoimmune disease that causes hardening and tightening of the skin and its connective tissue... ... results from your body's immune system producing an excess of collagen in your body's tissues... ...in which your skin and organs slowly harden and you begin to resemble a human statue.'

-DiClaudio, 2006

Mm, that doesn't sound very fun. How about 'CAVERNOUS SINUS GRANULOMATOSIS', in which it constantly feels as though someone were driving a nail into your eyeball, or 'CONGENITAL ERYTHROPOIETIC PORPHYRIA' (a very painful sounding name), in which your skin blisters and burns when exposed to the sun. Sounds familiar?

Anyways, I shall have the pleasure of reading through the book once all my exams are over.

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*Big up to Spaceman Spiff for having sold his car, finally.