Opportunity is sometimes hard to recognize if you're only looking for a lucky break.
- Monte Crane

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This Friday myself and a couple of friends are heading to a bar down on Chapel Street and I find myself a little curious to how the night will pan out. In fact, I must admit, I am a little excited at the idea of having a big night out. In my mind there is going to be drinking and dancing and talking (yelling) and its going to be fun. However I am now 23, and though it doesn't look that old, I feel like some how I have out grown that 'scene', that I should leave it to the younger ladies and lads out there and I should just stay home and play pictionary. But yet I find myself hanging out for it.

I think, in my mind, I am building it up to be a huge night where we're going to start off with group shots of Baracardi 151 (and the shots will continue throughout the night), girls dancing, guys having more shots before joining the girls dancing, people stumbling over each other, people yelling, more shots, people crying, someone vomiting then crying, someone getting kicked out of the bar, some more people vomiting and then everyone heading off to grab souvlakis for supper. Funny, this sounds like what I did every Friday night during first year. And its going to be simply brilliant!

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I cracked under the pressure - I came home today and took some photos of my fishes for the brotherhood. I hope it pleases my fellow brethren.

+ Archocentrus Sajica
+ Microgeophagus Altispinosa
+ Sajica & Bolivian Butterfly

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
- William Jennings Bryan

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So the other night nik and myself made the journey down into the city to try and catch Melbourne while its all dolled up and looking beautiful for the Commonwealth Games. It was 11.45pm when we decided to go up and it was nik's mom who suggested it. We ended up taking seperate cars (from her parents) because we wanted to take lots of photos and didn't want to have nik's parents waiting; plus I had just installed my head unit earlier that day. However, as we were well on our way down the south eastern freeway I realised that I had forgot to bring the tripod b so kindly lent me. Which sucked very much seeing it was night and I also wanted to take lots of time delayed shots. So the photos posted below were my failed attempts at trying to keep the camera as still as possible, so excuse me for the poor quality of the photos.

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I don' t know if I'll get in trouble for saying this but...
nik wanted to buy the Shannon Noll cd the other day, Lift. (Yeah I know! Crazy huh). And in response I said "oh yeah, thats cool" which is my way of saying "no, thats not cool" which wasn't the response she was looking for, that and the fact that I had my "are you serious?" look on my face. BUT I quickly added, "I'll see what I can do for you", which means "save your money and I will try and find a copy kicking around at work" which means "I'll download it at work". So here I am downloading it and its actually pretty alright; well maybe just this one song that nik recommended: 'Now I Run'. The song is actually really good; it made me feel kind of funny inside; it made me a bit hot in the face and a little flustered, and my throat got a bit dry, not sure what it was. I must have been getting a cold, but it was actually a great song. So, nik I take back what I said and instead say "cool song" which means "two thumbs up to the runner up of Australian Idol".

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We live in deeds, not in years;
in thoughts, not breaths;
in feelings, not figures on the dial.
- Gamaliel Bailey

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I am tired, yet I do not want to go to sleep. If I sleep then the day has ended for me and there is still so much I want to do. Where has my day gone?

I woke up at 7 this morning, got ready for work, had time to pump fuel and fix a blown fuse in my car, had breakfast at work, started work, finished work, pick Nik up and went to JB, bought a CD receiver for the car and booked in an appointment to install it on Saturday, went to the gym, went to Coles, came home and had dinner, showered, did some work for the World Cup magazine.

At this point it is 11.30 am and I feel tired but there is still so much I want to do.

I read some blogs, made some comments. I started reading the 'Complete Guide to Photography' again just to sharpen up my knowledge. My eyes get heavier and I still don't want to give in.

There is still so much I want to do.

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Hey yum+jess, we miss you guys. This is how I like to remember you two.



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I don't mean to be so gloomy. In fact, I am looking forward to many things in the near future.

+ Like the annual Grace soccer match between the Married and Unmarried. Captain Bernie is going to lead us to another famous victory and with the likes of trev-ski on our team, we can't lose!

+ Saturday 3.00. My car head unit is going to be installed! No more listening to my iPod with my ear buds on.

+ I hope by this Friday that the World Cup Magazine will be on its way to South Korea, where it is being printed for a fraction of the price of Australian printers.

+ Easter Camp! That should be good seeing that it is battle of the SEXES! The ultimate challenge with the ultimate boasting rights.

+ And finally, I can't wait for FIFA World Cup 2006! Its going to be crazy!

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I would love to post you guys the gettyimages I get to play with for this magazine but my arse would get sued. So here are some photos of steph getting reacquainted with an old of yours and mine, smirnoff.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him. who have been called according to His purpose.
- Romans 8:28

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Just some photos I played around with.

+ Apex Service

+ MIsche
+ Nik, Rach, MIsche
+ Mong & Kah
+ Apex band
+ Sunset at Grace
+ Apex worship
+ Ruth with the coolest hair-doo at Grace
+ Nik

He who fears he will suffer, already suffers because of fear.
- Michel De Montaigne

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Been pretty busy this weekend with stuff and what not, so I've decided to give you the low down in point form.

• So we had the fiesta at Steph's tonight - Steph it was fantastic, the food you slaved away to prepare was practically inhaled in the first 5 minutes.

• We found some new sweet beers to go along with our sweet tacos; its called Cantina. Its on the same vein as Corona and Sol.

• My Big Blue Ram died today.

Yeah, thats pretty much it for me. I am pretty tired and can't be bothered making up stuff.


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FACT: As a little boy I hated wearing seat belts. I use to ride up in the center of the car, between the two front seats, so that I had the air-conditioning blowing in my face (whilst living in Malaysia). So when we migrated to Australia not only did I have to get used to the cold weather, tasteless food, the fact that there weren't any open air drains I could pee in - but I had get use to wearing a seat belt when I was in the car. This didn't go down well with me so I devised a plan on how to escape from wearing a seat belt. When someone in the car, say my dad, would put on their seat belt I would pretend I put my seat belt on at the same time, saying: "Hey dad, wasn't that cool how we both put on our seat belts at the same time". I really thought I had everyone fooled. However, now that I think of it, I am sure my parents knew I was pulling a fast one on them. I did it a couple more times before my sister dobbed me in.

Never ignore a gut feeling, but never believe that it's enough.
- Robert Heller

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Got my car back from Police Road Panel service - they did a fantastic job, however they sure took their time! Thanks for the sweet hook up juzz man. But it's back and I feel more mobile than ever before, and to celebrate I went down to Kmart straight after work hooray! I was hoping to find me a sweet piñata for the sweet fiesta tomorrow night and just when I started to lose all hope I saw them - right on the top shelf: pirates, donkeys and dragons. And then I saw the piñatas behind the pirates, donkeys and dragons! The one I wanted was in the shape of a bull - he looked awesome. I am sure the bull piñata wanted me to buy him and fill his belly with sweet sweet candy, but I knew in my heart that I would only end up hurting him. So I ended up buying some extra thick and creamy car polish. Only to discover that I had some in the boot of my car. dang it.

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Songs on my iTunes playlist:

Modest Mouse - Float On
Shout Out Louds - Oh, Sweetheart
Phoenix - Too Young
The Fray - Vienna
Augustana - Hotel Roosevelt
The Strokes - You Only Live Once
Tegan and Sara - Take Me Anywhere

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FACT: When I was in prep I didn't really care for clothes or material things. And one morning I really didn't want to wear underwear that day (I wanted to be free damn it!). My mom told me I would be the only one without underwear on at school. I thought she was lying to me to try and get me to wear my underwear. But the truth was, I just forgot to put them on before my pants and I was too lazy to take my pants off and put my underwear on and put my pants on again. Plus I was pretty stubborn back then, in fact I am still pretty stubborn when it comes to people trying to make me wear my underwear. But back to the story, so I went to school commando styles, and I've gotta be honest: it felt really wrong. I felt as if everyone could tell that I wasn't wearing underwear and that they could see my wang. Needless to say, I never did it again. Hey at least I didn't get dacked full monty in art class like my friend did. Now that's funny.

Change your thoughts and you change your world.
- Norman Vincent Peale

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This weekend I have a dinner to go to. Infact, its not just any normal dinner, its a fiesta! However I didn't realise it was St Patty's day too! *sigh* oh the tough decisions we face in life... On one hand I'm not one to pass up a good fiesta with all the tacos served with a cold coronas and a fat piñata loaded with candy! But I would love to catch up with some old school mates and just go round after round of beer and anything else with an alcohol content.

If I could have it my way, I would hit tacos at this fiesta and then later that night I track my school mates down and play catch up, and then go absolutely mental. But realistically, I think I am just going to go the fiesta and have a few cold ones with B. Good old trusty B. He'll always go a few, but I have never actually seen him go hard. That's it! This friday, you and me b, behind the oval. Going hard, or going home, with Sols and Coronas. And we can string along the Juzz man and possibly his lady friend he brings around everywhere, I hear she can neck a cold one pretty fast.

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I have taken out the code that opens my links in new windows by an overwhelming uproar by 50% of my loyal readers. (Nik & B).

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FACT: My voice broke on stage while performing my solo in the church choir. I didn't know what was going on until after.

True change starts from within.

Right now I feel short on time, short on energy, short on people - I really feel like I am lacking. Its obviously just a passing thing, which should pass by about the end of March (seeing the end to the magazine), but it doesn't mean I am happy with my situation right now. I want to flip things around, I need to change my attitude towards everything and embrace the pressures that is life. But I feel short on time and energy, which consequenctly makes me feel short on people which leaves me back at square one. But change starts from within and I believe it is an attitude thing, which means it is a mental thing, which means I can beat this.

Hey ya'

just updating you guys on what's going on. I am so stressed I want to just run away So stressed, even, that I would run away to canberra! believe that!

But the stress will end soon, cause the dead line was cut in half and now we have 9 days till we have to finish off this magazine. So now it's 8.15 pm and I am still at work. The lesson I learnt from this experience: be careful what you wish for. Before this I was bored out of my brains wanting a crazy challenge, something that would push me. And boy did I get what i deserved.

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There are 50 dots in the above line break. Or am I lying to you?

Instead of doing the whole 10 things or 100 things about myself, I'll give you a fact about me every once-in-a-while. So here goes:

FACT: Back when I was still leaving in Malaysia we had these fantastic hardwood staircase in our house and our floors were made of granite stone. When I was about 2 years old, I was crawling up the staircase when I accidentally slipped from near the top of the stairs and crashed all the way to the bottom. I don't remember much of the details but when I hit the bottom, I hit the granite floor with my chin which split the skin and exposed some bone. I had a couple of needles and stitches and still have the scar.

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Random pictures of when I thought the deadline of the magazine was at the end of March/early April (happier days).

Been a struggle this week, what with the World Cup magazine on my back. I didn't realize it would be such a struggle - you never really notice how things are laid up in a magazine until you have to make one yourself. Its intense. But the good thing is the cover is pretty much finalized (knock on wood), and now I am just hoping that the deadline will be pushed till the end of the month, because if it isn't I've got till about the end of next week to finish feature articles, team photos, team profiles etc. Now that would be intense.

So thanks for listening to me gripe about work stuff. And seeing this is a photo journal, I'll capture some moments to emphasize how intense it is.

This one is for the juzz man.

+ Skunk Clown in anemone
+ Coral
+ Hermit crab

Do you love it.

Hey ya'll

What's going on. Its been a pain in the butt, but I have finally decided on a digital SLR! It came down to the Nikon D50 and the Canon EOS 350 - and it damn near killed me trying to decide! I switched back and forth between the two at least 2 million times. I was decided on the Nikon cause the ED glass they used on the kit lens was better, but the clincher for the Canon was the fact that more of my mates had Canon and I could flog their lenses (ooh and uncle David offered to lend me his super wide-angle lenses which costs more than my camera! Hooray!)

BUT... I gotta get this 1 thing out of my system before I give myself up to team Canon: In my research about the two cameras I spoke to many people and read many reviews and forums and I came to this conclusion. I think Canon dudes (primarily the ones who own the SLR that I do, and some others) are absolute jive turkeys who love to jive over how good their Canons are...

Well, now that I got that off my chest lets begin...

Welcome to my photo Journal. I made it a photo journal cause I'm too lazy to write about my day/week/life, so I hope to captue it in pictures.

So these photos are pretty much what I did straight after I bought the camera and charged the battery... they are probably the best photos I have ever taken in my life... like ever

+ Nik & Rach swinging around
+ B & Nik swinging
+ Me, B & Juzzy
+ Juzzy, B & Me
+ Sunset on highstreet
+ Rach & Nik & friends
+ Steves & Rach
+ Rach in Juzzy's shorts

bon appétit