Monday, August 15, 2011

My Monday night

I'm currently watching an old British sitcom, having:

Downloaded a rented movie off iTunes for my iPad
Watched highlights of an EPL game
Looked at movies to go see next week during my week off work
Scoured the internet for a place to live when I move out (hopefully soon though I've been saying that for years)
Tried to think of something to blog about
Failed
Worried about things out of my control,
Read Batman

I can't help but feel I'm wasting my life....

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Boobs

Why are we (guys) so fascinated? We don't know. And nor do we particularly care either. All we know is that they're there and we like them. We look at them when we know we shouldn't. Not because it's impolite, just because it's dangerous. The consequences of getting caught can be violent. One only need point to the great George Costanza to see what can happen. Admittedly it was Denise Richards he was looking at so he can't be blamed. Everyone would look, even you. Yes you.

But despite the danger, we'll continue to look. You may think you're good at catching us, but our skill at looking has been perfected through generations. We're the modern day ninja's. Albeit ninja's without a clear goal in mind. Only an ideal. And that ideal is: We like.

Back to the blogging world

So I've come crawling back. After 7 months I've come back to act like my thoughts and opinions are somehow interesting and relevant. No idea what I'll be aiming to achieve but I'll find out when I get there. No doubt it'll just be me going on about life, work and football. And since my twitter account is now private I can say what I want about work and nobody will ever find out! *evil laugh*

Now accepting suggestions for what I should blog about. And yes I promise that this time I'll keep it unncesssarily brief. (see what I did there?)

Monday, January 24, 2011

Recent photography kick

As some of my regular Twitter followers may know, I've been on a bit of a photography binge the last month or so. My Flickr has been ticking over regularly and attracting a fair few hits on certain days after I've uploaded some new pictures. It started when I purchased my new camera for a Muse concert I went to, Canon Powershot. I picked it because of it's high resolution and powerful zoom, 14x optical. Paid off as I got some fantastic shots from the concert, especially given I'd take all of 2 photos with it before heading into Rod Laver with it. And that made me realise that I had a pretty good tool at my disposal, so I may as well use it.

As people who have followed my Flickr realise, most of my pictures have been taken in Melbourne CBD. And it's a fascinating place to take a camera, although I'll never get why so many people focus on the architecture and the like. That's gonna be there for the prolonged feature, no need to take pictures of it. It's been done. The people and character of Melbourne is much more interesting. It's an incredibly multi-cultural city, like most of Australia, and as such you get all sorts of sights and sounds.

Most of the photos I've taken have been on my way home from work. When I'm with my camera I'll endeavour to head back to Flinders St Station a different way every day; Elizabeth St, Swanston, King, Russell etc. Sometimes going up different alleys and side streets, just looking for ways to find new sights. And as such I get different types of photos every day. Usually I'll just walk around, looking, taking my time to ensure I don't miss anything. And when I come to an intersection I'll just stand there for anywhere from 5-20 minutes just taking pictures of what I see. And trust me, you'll be amazed by what you see if you take the time to look. Especially in this city.


What's surprised me most is how indifferent the people of Melbourne are to seeing a camera and realising they're in the picture. Part of you always expects some idiot to ruin it but for the most part they carry on as if it's not there. I've said before it's like the people of Melbourne realise they're part of the picture and understand that. Which just makes getting good shots that much easier.

I shan't be one of those dolts who posts a picture and then spends 10,000 words summarising the meaning and hidden messages in my pictures, I see no point in that. To me a picture, like a drawing or painting or any form of art really, means whatever the person looking it thinks it means. That's the point of it. One thing can (hopefully) have different people think incredibly different things. If everyone just looked at something and said "Oh that's X" then there's no purpose in it, as it's just there for the sake of being there. No, instead I just put them up and if people want to they can make up their own minds. That's the whole point of being alive.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

My new laptop

Because I'm sure you're all dying to know...

For the last couple of months at work they've been running this competition where you accumulate "money" for various things. And on Friday they had an auction where you could use this money to get prizes. I scored myself a $100 JB Hi-Fi voucher. Went down to JB that night and given my PC was A) 10 years old and B) slower than Aquaman outside of water, I decided to go for a laptop. Only cheapskate that I am I didn't wanna spend thousands of dollars on it, so I picked up a HP G62 for $570, $470 after using my voucher.
Came complete with Windows 7 Home Premium so I'm no longer the sole remaining user of XP. So far I'm enjoying 7, it feels like Vista only more refined. I'm a fan of "Sticky Notes", I can use it for what I use Notepad for, only it loads up straight away when you next turn your PC on. Very useful.

Comes with three USB ports, one on one side two on the other, a network cable slot, HDMI out outlet, and an SD Card slot, which given the amount of photos I take is going to come quite in handy. Also has a CD burner drive, there were laptops with Bluray drives but I didn't see the point, if you get a Bluray you want to watch it in HD, not on a small 15 inch screen. Defeats the purpose.

So all in all, a fairly standard notebook but since I've been using a PC older than the Australian cricket team, it's a sizeable step up. Also I find it far easier to Flickr and Blog on a notebook than on my old PC, which would routinely freeze for 10 seconds or so, and had an unbearably slow internet speed despite us having ADSL2+. So hopefully this means my work should be more regular this time around, and if not then you can just yell at me until it is.

Since our last episode...

While I'm establishing this new blog I guess I should post an update of what's been happening since my last interwebs update, which would've been about 3 weeks ago now.

Work wise things are pretty much same old. Had a great celebration night thing the other night (more about that later) but apart from that not much has been happening, not much ever does at the start of a new year in this industry. We're usually busy dealing with customers whinging about rates going up. Has been pretty quiet though, which I'm somewhat conflicted about. Part of me likes the easy days, but another part of me wants more sales. Paradox I guess.

Another development is that I bought a new laptop on Friday night (it's now Sunday). Hewlett Packard G62. With my $100 JB Hi-Fi voucher I got from work (my third in 2 months, loving it) it only cost me $450 and I'm loving it so far. Although when I got home with it Mum yelled at me saying HPs are rubbish and that her & our neighbour both had one and both broke very quickly. However my opinion is that my Mum and our neighbour won't have treated them properly. So I guess we'll find out in due course.

The other big development since my last update is VTAC offers being sent out. As some may know I'd applied for Journalism at several places and didn't get a Round 1 offer. Disappointing but not the end of the world. All I can do now is just wait till Round 2, and if I have no luck there then I guess I'll just have to go about teaching myself. Bring it.

Anyway, that's all for now. There'll be more later no doubt. I'm off to play my new game, DC Universe Online. Yes, I'm a nerd. But if you're reading this, you must already know that.

My new internet home (Again!)


The city of Melbourne
Originally uploaded by Straffo
Hello once again children. Yes, I have moved from my old blogging home a Live Journal to here. So I suppose I'd best introduce myself again to any new readers (yeah right).

Name: Jarryd
Age: Soon to be 23, sigh I'm getting on in years.
Job: Currently working at TRU Energy, one of the major energy retailers in Australia.
Interests: Many and varied. Sports, movies, TV shows, music, photography, writing (hence the blog), politics etc. I'm a person with whom many people have something in common.

I realise that most of the above could've just been found in my profile but let's be honest, who actually reads those? Nobody, that's who. Plus it gave me something to write for my first blog here, and you have to give the punters something new to come for otherwise you'll never get anywhere on the internet.

Suppose I should share why I disposed of Live Journal, simple really. Nobody goes there. It's unheard of and nobody likes it. And I'm far too egotistical to just write without people actually reading it. So I immediately left for the trendy, hip, popular option. So here we are; me, my iPhone and my crazy frog ringtone. The cutting edge of cool.

Anyway, the title of this blog is, as you can see, Unnecessarily Brief (god bless random adjective generators). So I guess I'd best follow my own rule and keep it brief. To keep you tied over until next time, I've included a picture I took of the city of Melbourne. I'll blog about Melbourne often. You'll be sick of it eventually.