They’ve posted up signs here at uni on the duck pond lawn to warn students about the birds that have moved in and are swooping at heads.

I’m so bored at uni right now I’m thinking about dressing up as Tippi Hedren, putting bird seed in my hair and flailing my hands and rolling, screaming, along the grass.

So I didn’t get to see Hedwig, despite how keen I was. But it wasn’t entirely my fault (or at all).

I rallied up a group of seven to travel to Sydney yesterday, but at the eleventh hour (literally, it was about 11.30pm Saturday), two decide they don’t want to go. It ended up being only three of us going on Sunday morning. Due to the strict credit card policies of Ticketek and the RSL not answering their booking line on any of my dozens of calls during the morning, we simply weren’t able to get tickets. By the time we finally did speak to someone at the RSL they basically said travelling to Sydney to see the show would be futile. And it was the last performance. Darn it.

I could go on a long diatribe about how important it is to plan, and more relevantly, how important it is to people to commit themselves to something when someone else is trying to plan (ie. ME), but that would just be boring and self-indulgent. But true. Very very true.

So after sitting on the phone all morning, I ended up doing precious little yesterday, but still didn’t get to sleep until 2am-ish. I was trying to implement a transparent PNG fix for the stubborn and archaic IE, but it wouldn’t take. With my usual 8.30 class monday morning, I have to wake around 6.30, which didn’t leave me much sleep. My mum woke me up this morning just before my alarm went off when she asked “Do you have to get up?” This was dangerous, because as I replied, I convinced my still asleep body that I was actually awake. And that I should stay that way. ie. Asleep. When I finally woke at 7.30, I had mere minutes to get to the bus stop which wasn’t going to happen, so I caught the convenient ’strays’ bus which arrives at uni 30 minutes after the on time one. Ironically, the class this morning was on Microsoft FrontPage (kill me now), so I walked into the lab late, skimmed the notes, flew through the task and left.

Finally, next year is shaping up to be a very busy year for me, theatre-wise. Firstly, the group is putting on a fundraising concert/revue show featuring music the group has performed in the previous ten years, and hopes to do in the next ten years, followed by the contemporary musical, “Tick, Tick… BOOM!“, penned by Jonathan Larson who’s more famous work “RENT” recently became a movie. I hope to be involved in the concert somehow, and was asked to be Musical Director for TTB this morning, which I’m tremendously excited about. Following that is a show two of my good friends (and Hedwig-pikers), Amy and Adam, are writing based on Eisteddfods, and I’d like to be involved in that somehow. Right after that I am musically directing another show featuring Cole Porter’s music (talk about contrast between jobs!) called “Red, Hot and Cole“. Right after that one, the director of Little Shop of Horrors is directing a production of “HMS Pinafore” and called me to say he’d like me to be involved somehow. That takes me right up to Christmas next year!

Now if I only knew what I’d be doing study/work wise…

I hate you, Microsoft Orifice.

Particularly the deranged, three-headed, stump-legged, leprocy-carrying cousin hiding in the back: Microsoft Access.

Most people don’t know what it is. I do. It is awful. This piece of software perfectly embodies the entire Microsoft range of software products. It is without forethought and consideration of it’s users needs, it is unweildly and archaic, and possibly the most offensive of all is it is just horrendously ugly. I’m talking about the reports and forms that come out of this thing look like someone let an on-heat monkey loose on ClarisWorks 3 for a few hours. Fields run into each other, the whole thing is unbelievably cramped (except for the giant white spaces where the next record won’t fit), fonts clash and when used, grey shaded backgrounds make the whole thing impossible to read. And Impact? C’Mon, aren’t we over that by now?

I think I had just about had enough when I changed the properties of a field in a table to be “required” in all records of that table. I went into the table view to delete a record I knew had become corrupted when it translated between the previous version of Access and Access 2003. Everytime I tried to right click to delete the record, it gave me an error that it was missing required data, and forced me back into the record to fill out all the required fields before then just deleting it anyway.

I was up until 2 am last night working on that beast for uni and I still didn’t get it all completed (it is now), but I’ve learned my lesson. Give me ClarisWorks and I’ll be happy.

My mobile phone shuttles itself across my desk noisily. I hover my hand over it for a moment before hitting the button.

“Hello”

A youthful, yet slightly ocker, voice returned, “Hey Caleb, this is Matt.”

“I think you’ve got the wrong number.”

He was halfway through saying “nah” when I hung up on him.

A moment later the phone buzzed again. I let it ring out and be sent to my voicemail as it was the same number.

Less than a minute after, another call. About the same time again and there was another call, this time from another number, interestingly a home phone number that is very local. I assumed it was someone else and answered.

“Hoy Caleb, this is Matt.”

“I really think you’ve got the wrong number.”

“Nah, it’s Matt — from school.”

“My name isn’t Caleb.”

Beat.

“Oh, sorry man,” and I hung up.

What’s interesting is it wasn’t just a random phone number that was wrong, the person calling was local. Another of those mysteries that will likely never be solved.

Okay, this is what I need.

I need someone to come over here and start shouting numbers at me until my brain can no longer remember all the numbers it needs to get into my netbanking. Actually, no, that won’t work. The whole process is so ingrained in my fingers, just like how they teach those monkeys to type or something.

Okay, this is what I need.

I need someone to come over here and crush my fingers in such a way that it would become the top hit on Youtube for a week and a half.

I have gone eBay mad. Some of the stuff, I don’t even want that much, I just get attached to the item as it is described or shown in the picture. It’s all DVDs. At least it’s resellable. That’s what I keep telling myself. I can just sell it again, I say. But I could never part with this stuff. It serves the collector obsession part of my O.C.D. Or should that be O*C*D. Someone stop me bidding on Season 8 of M*A*S*H, QUICKLY!

I’m actually thinking of dismantling my TV recording PC and selling off the tuner card. I’ve barely had a moment to watch any of the things I’ve recorded, and I’m not that captivated by it anymore. It’s quite possible the TV/PC was just another thing I had to conquer and now that I have, I’m not that interested anymore.

I really have scored some bargains on eBay though. Although it will likely increase my lifetime risk of heart failure, I’m going to recount my purchases here, in one list. It’s kind of like an auto-intervention.

That’s in the past two days. None of it particularly expensive though. There, that’s not too bad. Deep breaths.

Oh, if anyone is planning on coming around to brainwash me or dismantle my finger bone structure, can you wait a few days? I’ve got a bid going on some Ren and Stimpy DVDs…