hey all,
hope you're havin fun

i'm gonna be offline for the next 10 days or so - goin on a beach holiday north of brisbane, and will be busy swimming, body-surfing, building sandacastles, chasin seagulls, relaxin, eatin, drinkin, havin siestas, and more & more of the same ... ;-D

so i hope to catch u in 2007 or should i say, 2550 ... that's right - i'm a buddhist [predominantly] and, according to theravada buddhism at least, next year is 2550! so i hope u all have a peaceful, mindful & happy 2550

anyhow, thanx for stopping by here; and in 2550 i hope to explore & describe, for anyone who may b interested, numerous topics & reflections ... including, from a personal perspective, how/why i:
- am seriously considering one or another type of career change, or going off on one or another unique tangent with my career
- appreciate buddhist philosophy
- would love to go to mozambique
- stopped smoking (quite a lot of) pot, several years ago
- make curry pastes and chicken satay with peanut sauce
- would sometimes like another kid, but at other times wouldn't
- have two, mostly distinct, groups/circles of friends
- enjoy playing & watching certain sports
- prefer body-surfing over surfing with a surfboard
- appreciate a broad spectrum of musics, from miles davis to KISS to the church to luzon
- am interested in sharing this stuff
- ~

so there u go - hope to catch u back here soon. cheers to those who have visited here to date especially those who have left comments, including: lee, dan, andy, keshi & awaiting ;-D

i'll leave it at that for now, and will just finally add a little sneak preview of some of what my family & i will be doing between now & when i am back online:





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apart from numerous xmases in australia, i have also spent other xmases in:
- denver, colorado
- israel (by the sea of gallilee)
- thailand
- laos
- flying xmas afternoon/evening from brisbane to bangkok

but that last xmas abroard was 7 years ago now. one of my best mates will be in bangkok right now, but i am happy to be here now in brisbane with family ;-D

have a good one everybody!

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ok - this post is maybe gonna be a mish-mash, or stream of consciousness, of sorts.
december is always a crazy month in our family. there is my wife's birthday, our son's birthday, our wedding anniversary, and then of course xmas and all the crazy shit & hype that comes with that. we're always ready for a real holiday once xmas is done with ... and luckily, we get that agin this year.
this year, throw in a 8-day visit from my wifes step-mum from colorado; then near the end of that, my wife's half-sister and her husband arrive in australia for an indefinite period of time, and stay with us for a coupla days ... meanwhile i'm still workin & trying hard to finish off various things before xmas; then my cousin (whom i haven't seen for 2.5 years) comes home on holiday from london, my ageing grandfather comes to town too; our young daugther seems to be teething, my mother-in-law & her husband (my wife's step-dad) stay with us last night then go home and a couple of hours later, my parents arrive here to stay for a week or so; a good mate of mine is back in brisbane from melbourne for a few days and as of tomorrow, another cousin of mine will be too ...... well, u get the picture! this is of course over & above all the 'regular' friends etc who want to 'catch up' or whatever before xmas ...
one of my very best mates, who is single and child-less, left today for 3 weeks in thailand & cambodia, and i'm pretty jealous in many ways! but then again, if given a choice, i'd stick with my life.
anyhow, it's a crazy time of year, as always. the real holiday, for me, kinda begins on boxing day (the day after xmas), or actually maybe after xmas lunch, when the pressure is off, the presents are opened, the food eaten and some drinks drunk ... then people either take an afternoon siesta, or have a few more drinks; or both!

we have a couple of parties/barbeques before xmas day, one of which we are hsoting for family, and i'm catering/cooking. but now that my parents- that is, baby-sitters! - are here, i need to take a few hours off first for my own mental health; and i don't mean shppoing, 'cos i've done more than enough of that lately!! some i'm gonna try to catch the 'borat' movie tomorrow - i have liked him & his tv show for a long time, and i need a break, and escape, and some serious laughs - which i am quite sure that movie can deliver!

finally - i am thinking of the song 'fairytale of new york' (a kind of twisted xmas carol) by the pogues & kirsty maccoll ...

~

today was my last day of work for this year and now i've actually got THREE WEEKS OFF WORK! yessssssss! i love it - it'll probably take me a coupla days to get the last bits of work-shit outta my head but that's all fine cos i don't need to deal with any more of that for the next 21 days at least!

fuc#en excellent! ;-D

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ok viewers:
quiz time!

from which source comes the following quote?

“darkness falls across the land
the midnight hour is close at hand
creatures crawl in the search of blood
to terrorise your neighbourhood.
and whosoever shall be found
without the soul for getting down
must stand and face the hounds of hell
and rot inside a corpse’s shell!

“the foulest stench is in the air
the funk of 40,000 years
and grisley ghouls from every tomb
are closing in to seal your doom.
and though you fight to stay alive
your body starts to shiver
for no more mortal can resist the evil of the ______ !”
[cue evil laughter]

let's see who gets this one. btw the last bit of the quote is not noted as that would provide a big hint.

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i came across this travel agency on the second floor in a side street somewhere between syntagma square & the plaka district of athens. the guy whom i dealt with was a rather suave middle-aged, silver-haired greek guy called giorgos. he wore a dark floral shirt and spoke fluent english, with a slight but consistent american accent. he was competent at his job and gave me a good price for a one-way plane ticket; although he asked more than once why i didn’t want a return ticket. with the benefit of hindsight, i suppose that was a more understandable question than i thought it to be at the time.

after almost six months on a greek island, i was more than ready and very keen to get to my destination, which i’d decided upon over & above turkey or a ski season in austria. i’d also seriously considered going by boat to this destination, but that would have been a long, slow journey and i wasn’t that patient by that stage.

there was a small radio / cassette player on the window sill by giorgos' desk, and it was tuned in to an athenian radio station. as giorgos booked my seat and took my details, guns n’ roses’ “welcome to the jungle” came on. as it turned out, this event was quite prophetic.

giorgos completed the reservation, i paid my money and got my one-way ticket. the next afternoon i flew to cairo with egyptair

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just for the record (no pun intended):

my fave album track on the guns 'n' roses debut album, 'appetite for destruction', is 'i think about you'

and what is my fave track on the KISS 'double platinum' compilation (double) album? i'll have to get back to u on that one ... ;-D

oh yeah - and on another musical note (again, no pun intended), this morning - for the first time in a long time - i put my taped copy of miles davis' 'kind of blue' and 'round midnight' into my car stereo on the way to work. always a great move - should have done it sooner!

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firstly, a warm welcome back to australia (literally & metaphorically) for dan - gald u got to enjoy a few drinks with my mate in singapore en_route, and look forard to doing so with u (in brisbane) very soon ...

secondly, a big shout-out to lee & keshi. strangely, out a few vinos i feel like dancing around not only to 'appetite for destruction' & KISS (double platinum compilation album) but also to neil young's 'cinnamon girl' & even - dare i say it? - a song by the title of 'rock dj' !!! ;-D

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i have always thought that there is something very amusing about a dog with its head out a moving car window (or out the top/side of a moving ute), the wind in it's face, tongue hanging out, and head enthusiastically bent forward towards the oncoming world. in such circumstances they always seem to look so free, invigorated & eager to explore what's around them ... maybe we should do the same? ;-D

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i've spoken - actually, written - about this before: favourite albums & all that jazz.
last night i watched the reuslts of the 'my favourite album' poll conducted by the abc (national, non-commercial media network in australia).

there are some surprises, for myself & others, not only in the top 10 but across the whole top 100 announced. for example myself & others (including some of the show's comperes) were quite suprised to see radiohead's "ok computer" & jeff buckley's "grace" come in at numbers 3 & 2 respectively.
i was probably also a little surprised that the most popular album polled as highly as it did - but in this case it was a pleasant surprise as this album (which I have talked abouit before on this blog) is in my own personal top 5.
for the record (no pun intended!) only this and one other album from my own top 10 made the top 10 of the abc poll. the latter album, which polled at number 10, is "the joshua tree" by u2. this album was my favourtie album at the time i finished high school, and it still makes my top 10, probably at_about_number 8 or so.
the album which is in my top 5 and which was voted the most popular album by this abc poll, is "dark side of the moon" by pink floyd. 'the lunatic is on the grass ... '!

i'll talk more about such topics later. there were a couple that made this top 10 which would be in my top 20 or 25. one surprise for me was the fact that one of my top 3 albums, "sticky fingers" by the rolling stones, came in at only number 95 in this poll. actually i'm surprised there wasn't a rolling stones record in the top 10, especially when there are_four_albums by the beatles in the top 20. in fact no album by the rolling stones polled higher than number 95! this is a big suprise - particularly given that numerous other albums from the stones' "peak" era made the cut. bizarre!

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