Speckled Green

Well, I haven’t posted since November 2011. What should I talk about in this post? Oh, I know. A generalised glossing over of what’s happened in the last 34 days or so!

So, let me see… I remember it was fun… and there was food. And friends. And fun. Oh, and at least 2 movies. And popcorn. And Skyrim. Lots of Skyrim.

Ok, well, first their was a friend’s belated birthday ‘party’, where several of us met up at Castle Towers to watch Puss in Boots (3D!), and then a rather enjoyable dinner at an Indian restaurant afterwards. Besides all the laughs, the conversations, and meeting new people, or eating a lot of food as I seemed to do, it was great to be with friends again!! Even if I had been with them just a few days before… You can never be with friends too often, right? Darn, this widescreen is messing up with my ability to judge how long this post is… Time for a blog redesign, I say! I just wish someone would do the visual designing for me, I’m awful at creating designs (I just find something I like on the internet, and make my own version of it).

I remember that there were some rather funny presents given to the friend (I remember saying that I would avoid naming people on my blog, because of the way the stalkerish internet works, so I’ll just name the friend Kau***. Those that know him should know who I’m talking about, right? NTS: go back over old posts and edit the names), who is a fan of Cricket (the sport invented by the English, and dominated by their colonies =P  That’s what they deserve, for never actually giving us the real ashes!)… Well, they gave him a box of crickets among other delicious gifts. Can’t quite remember how amused he was, but everyone else watching laughed our heads off, as he knelt on the ground, treating the box like a live bomb. And that was before he opened it.

Amongst all the outings with friends was video gaming, such as Half-Life 2, Counter Strike: Source, Skyrim, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Counter Strike: Source, Skyrim, Counter Strike: Source, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Skyrim, Counter Strike: Source, Skyrim… you get the picture =P   Scarily (blasphemicly… that is now a word) I have not felt urge to play Portal 2. I think I need another HSC for me to play it late into the night and far into the early morning, trying to beat my friends best times on the different levels…  And maybe there was some Minecraft, Dead Space and F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, and some other games, in there as well. I don’t remember too well.

Regardless, I have my new PC now. It’s all mine! And I let my brother use it as well sometimes… Anyhows, It’s powerful, fresh, and heavy. I can certainly do all my work on it for several years to come. Sure, it’ll probably slowdown with all the bloat I put on it over the years, and with newer technology coming out to make it look slow. But still, it’ll be great for years to come! That’s the way I like choosing computers, a little extra oomph now to make it worth the 5 – 8 years you use it for (or sometimes longer).

And by heavy, the case alone is 11.3Kg, and I’ve no idea how heavy the components inside it are (1 DVD drive, 1 3.5″ HDD, 1 mobo, 1 CPU + stock heatsink, 1 PSU, 2x 4GB RAM, 2x GTX 560 GPU). But it’s definitely a strong case. And it’s got enough fans built in to be well ventilated (and also a dust sucker, but that just means I have to be bothered to clean it more often).

What else have I done over the last month or so? I remember a movie marathon at Sat***’s house, were Oreos, chips and drinks were consumed, until we went for pizza and microwave popcorn. We enlightened (read: forced to watch) BMCB about Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, and also watched the first Matrix movie (for those that had not seen it yet, which is a surprisingly large number of 3 amongst the group of friends who were there that day). It was a highly enjoyable experience that I/we hope to experience again many times this year, and for many years after =P  Especially considering the list of movies/TV shows we thought would be great to watch, we may need a few years to reach the end of the list. And by then there’d be some new movies we’d like to watch as well XD

There was also the small matter of us receiving our HSC results and consequently our ATAR. Speaking of that, I’m still not entirely sure as to which university I’d like to go to, or which would offer me the best education/opportunity in the course(s) I’m interested in. I must continue to consult my friends who are all giving me different advice! And of course asking the universities themselves would be a little silly, as they’d try to sell themselves as the best.

There were carols nights (which I had mostly avoided because I didn’t feel Christmassy this year, except for one at my church, because my mum wanted me to give a gift from a family to both Pastors, simply because she didn’t feel like going herself and giving it to them). There were Christmas nights. Wait, only one Christmas night. And one Christmas day. There was a movie night with friends from church (PotC4! 2nd half of Robin Hood: Men in Tights!), and BMCB visited to see how nice Skyrim was on my PC. There were BBQ lunches at some point, and warm days, humid days, and cold days. Oh, and my mum decided it was a nice time to repaint the house. I managed to get out of doing a lot of work for that by being out with friends. Like at Dam***’s party/gathering/get-together in the city! Sadly I could not stay for dinner with them, but I did have a wonderful lunch at a noodle bar (I have totally got to try more foods so that I don’t stand there, looking at the menu and think to myself “Will I like that, or will it taste it and be like ‘…ehh… not eating that’?”) with the twins (why did they leave for James Ruse?! Also, I think I remember which one is And*** and Pet*** now). And then there was the Secret Room Cafe (Pictionary: 99.95 ATARs vs everyone else, with Dam*** hosting. We (everyone else) won =P  Actually, I don’t remember who won, but I remember it being close). Afterwards was internet cafe, and then they went to dinner at Blackbird (some restaurant of some type I guess? I wasn’t there at that point). Has*** asking for a fork at the noodle bar was highly amusing. Just putting that down so I don’t ever forget it.

I’m sure that there were more things that happened during December, but I’m at a loss as to what they were. Oh, wait, there was the annual Band Christmas party at Mar***’s house this year! Sadly it was a bit of a rainy day, but there was Pictionary, brawl, piano playing, poker, darts, food… friends, fun… any more alliterations I can use? Regardless, it was fun to be with friends yet again, be they from The Stoop, Backstoop, (umm… Matthew Wong group?), Band, or any number of the many groups of friends I have/know/hang-out with. Ahh… I would enjoy being in a band again, but I’m a little too shy to bother joining another one, and too lazy to really practise my flute playing. I remember on the night of the Band ‘Christmas Concert’ I finally admitted, in front of an audience which included the band committee, that I had not had a flute tutor since Year 8, despite the band member agreement stating that I should have one. Not that I think they cared. But it was still funny to see (or hear) some people’s reactions to it. And I was also an MC that night with Mag*** C. (haha MC with MC). Now, I don’t enjoy public speaking. I’m usually quite fine with handing it off to someone else. Be that debating, speeches, presentations, or in this case, ‘running’ a concert. In Yr 9, I was selected by Ms. Swe*** to be on the class debating team (funny story, because she knew I liked video games, she put me on the affirmative team for “Video games are bad for your health”. We won the debate), but I declined, because I was semi-morbidly afraid of having to debate in the next round of the inter-class competition (against Mr VL’s Yr 9 class, which our class lost? I cannot remember), because it would’ve been in front of more people, and required me to be ready to debate. I’ve never enjoyed being on a debating team. I like to have freedom with my debates (that is, I like to able to go on for hours, or just rant. As the year book says I do. Who wrote that anyway?). Funnily enough, since I’m continually told to lessen the amount of time I spend gaming, I knew plenty of arguments to use in the class debate…

Anyhows, this post is now really long. Looking at the word count, it has gone pass the 1550 word mark. Or 1570 work mark by now (the word ‘now’ just there is word 1571). I should stop that, it’s just making it longer. I remember an awesome Doctor Who Christmas Special (on boxing day for us Aussies, because the BBC cannot possibly let it air anywhere in the world before it airs in the UK……………….. WHY?! We’re your best customers outside of the UK! The Australian ABC has bought every single one of your episodes since you’ve been making them, and we’ve been doing reruns longer and more often than you have!). I also remember seeing a trailer for the new Hobbit movie, starring Martin Freeman (who until recently, I’ve only seen in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and the BBC’s The Office (the original show, I might add. The US ripped it off with their own version)), who is Watson in ‘Sherlock’, which I am still yet to watch.

Oh, and I went and got some new soundtracks and albums during this time. And I’m going end the post here, as I’m off to Church right now, and, well, this post is really long. I’ll start a 2nd one when I come back from Church =]