Pictures Pictures Pictures

Ah I almost forgot, I put some kinda photoalbum together so I can show off my photo's online so click on the topic title or http://tinyurl.com/q7bv4.

Hmmm cake!

It's my birthday once again (funny that...) and for the first time in years I'm actually feeling fan-fucking-tastic! Usually my birthday is somewhat of a drag, and I try to plan it well, organize who is coming etc., but not this year, I just got excited about the fact that its my birthday, and thats all I have done. The only planning I have done, is decide that I will be at my sisters house rather than at home. I'm feeling good so far.

Now, just in case you missed last years episode of my birthday, I will no doubt have to put up with the same crap as every other year with the "How does it feel to be xx years old?". Even tho I'm feeling great, I will still answer this exactly the same.

Joe: So, how does it feel to be xx years old John?
Me : Well Joe, much the same as it did yesterday - it's just another day, and just another year.
Joe: Yes, but it's your birthday today, it only happens once a year, you should get excited about it!
Me : Ok, well 2^Nd of October only happens once a year as well, but you don't see me getting excited about that....
Joe: Yes, bu...
Me : And, even February 29^Th - it only happens once every four years, and I definately don't get excited for that.

So anyway, where was I?
Oh, right... well I guess you all want to know what I got for my birthday...
Ok so maybe you don't want to know, or you don't give a crap, but I'm gonna tell you at least that I have gotten a new chess set. The rest of it still remains a mystery (and NO its not because I don't know what stuff is, I just haven't received them yet).

By the way, I just wanted to mention that I am going to go and cook pancakes now.
So... adios non-birthday-celebrators, until the next riveting episode from my life.

Rant mode = on (again)

Ok, I think this is going to be one of those long rants about utter crap again... so if you don't like reading, you better go here or something.

So today, I was just in one of those "I-don't-give-a-fuck" moods, I really could not be bothered doing much (so I didn't). Sadly, I spent most of my day browsing the web and doing household chores (yes... I know how to do laundry! And shortly I will give myself a go at cooking too, no seriously, my pancakes are awesome!). I honestly don't know why I am feeling so down today, I'm not usually like this.

For those of you that care to keep up with my personal life, I just got out of a 3.5 year relationship 6 weeks ago, and lost my job about 3 months ago. That about covers the two most dramatic things that have happened since my last post...

You know, I was just reading a blog that belongs to a friend of mine , and went of on a tangent, visited some websites, and had some more thoughts.

As a result of all this thinking and reading, I have now been posed with a question to ask.
What if.. Jesus was not real. What if the gospels written all those years ago, were for a poetry competition, or if they were written as part of a fictional series akin to The Da Vinci Code and Virginia Andrews' Flowers in the Attic series ?

[Ok two points to note here are:
1) I am an atheist, and I dont really give a crap, but I thought it was an interesting point to ponder nonetheless; and
2) I got to use the word "akin" in a sentence, which I have been planning all day believe it or not...]

So, this moves me on to my next point.
What if life just plain and simple sucks? No matter where you are, what you've done, what you're planning to do, where you're going... chances are that you will either be happy at the moment, or are feeling like shit because of something or someone.
I often wonder about things like that, like would I be happy if I went off and did , or would it make me feel happy because I accomplished but afterward made me feel .

Ok so I'm confused about where I was really trying to go with that... I guess I just wanted to say life sucks in some aspects at the moment, and yet again it rocks in some other aspects. I guess that's why I'm confused ?!

If the above two paragraphs are too random to understand, don't worry, I don't think I even know what I'm talking about.

Moving right along to go and take a sip of my coffee! Oh crap, cups empty. BRB.

K sweet, coffee cup is filled again.

In the meanwhile I've lost my train of thoughts and I guess you will now have to be patient and wait until I get it back.

How strange. Wait did you say moot?

I'm sure that doesn't make sense. That's ok, if you don't get it, I understand.
So anyway, I got one of the usual one-of-your-friends-has-blogged kind of emails, and it had one of those stupid tests from BlogThings on it (the "How abnormal are you" test, I'm not posting that one here, but rest assured that I am at high risk of being a psychopath and that I might possibly be a chaotic mess).
Now, I'm not one to sit there forever and do these utterly meaningless tests, but the "How quirky are you" test sounded promising, so I indulged:

Your Quirk Factor: 71%

You're so quirky, it's hard for you to tell the difference between quirky and normal. No doubt about it, there's little about you that's "normal" or "average."

How Quirky Are You?

As you can clearly see, these tests are 100% accurate as this totally reflects my quirkyness. If you think I am wrong please click here.
Ok so that was a bit of a cheap shot, and I'll be the first to tell you that all these tests are BS, having said that, they do make for the occasional chuckle/laugh/pmsl.

Moving right along!

  O
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w00t I is back

Ah its good to be back, except I'm not really, I'm just pretending to be back.
For those of you who are either confused or have something to say about the grammar of the title of this article, you need to read this.

If you are one of the lucky people to have actually read anything from that page, well ... good on you I suppose, I sure as hell know I didn't read past the first paragraph.

Ok so I know you're all dying to know why I haven't posted here in forever, and even if you're not, you're going to hear all about it anyway.

RANT MODE ON

I guess I could say that I have been somewhat slack on the updates in the first place. Though my lack of postage is probably attributed to work, that and my new found past time, World Of Warcraft, I realise this game has been very popular for quite some time now and I've only been playing it since early december last year. I wouldn't have bought the game because of its subscription model, mainly because I don't like the idea of paying for a game every month after paying AUS$90 to get it. So I guess I am lucky because it was given to me, including the standard first month free, and the friend who gave it to me, also gave me a 2 month game card, so I was all set for 3 months.
As you can all guess I have gotten quite addicted to the game, and needless to say, this is much to the dismay of my girlfriend (probably rightly so, nonetheless, raiding Horde and PVP'ing are essential things to get done every week).
Ok, Ok, I can already hear you say: "Ah this guy is just another MOMRPG addict...". And I would probably have to agree, sadly enough, although I realise my addiction, and I try to make an effort to be sociable and go out with friends.

/RANT MODE OFF

Right... so after enjoying that little rant, which I have no doubt was a joy to read, I might just have to talk about stuff that actually matters...

So... I find myself here, blogging away, on sunday night close to 10 pm, which is nice because it means it's nearly bed time. Anyway, thats not what you want to hear... So I'm sitting here, wondering about what lies ahead for the next few weeks, and months.

Why you ask, do I wonder. Well let me tell you.

I have been quite dissatisfied with my job as of late, and I'm not sure if its just the sheer volume of work that I get assigned, or the way that I have been putting up with my company just kind of making me work on the weekend because they think I should. Granted, there is indeed a lot of work to do, and my lack of motivation does not help me get things done either. I guess this goes of onto a bit of a tangent, so I will try to summarize this as best as I can...

(Quite) a few months ago, I was assigned to re-develop my company's website, which was in dire need of being re-designed, so whilst doing that, it was going to be re-developed as well.

This was quite fine at first, but after about a month I started to realise that I was the only one developing on this website, which will be the public face of the company that most people will see (I didn't have to worry about the design, that's what designers are for after all). So after quite a bit of development, some backfires here, some great features there, and a design ready a mere 2 - 3 weeks before the site was due to go live, things couldn't have been more out of control. Of course, after all this hard work, we were glad to have the website live, up and running, only to be told to take it down the next day because it wasn't good enough. Admittedly, it was running terribly slow on Internet Explorer, which I attributed to the ie7 javascript library (but lets not get technical about this, I don't want to bore everyone), in addition to the apparent slowness on IE some of the images and other content weren't working, which I as the main developer on the project, had to take a lot of heat for, even though the dept. that looks after content is responsible for this. Please, don't get me wrong, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone or any departments, this whole project was just a joke from the moment it was started.

Anyway, lets carry on. After working through most of my Christmas break, I came back to the office, and kept on hammering out code and fixing up things here and there. Ah ... and then, finally a good decision was made somewhere along the line, and a project manager was assigned, to keep track of and assign tasks. Now, this should have probably been done 5 months prior, when I started on the project. Nevertheless, work was being done much more efficiently, with a proper schedule set out, and a deadline that was to be met, (an unrealistic one, but I think that might just be the developer POV there).

So another month, another re-design and another code overhaul onwards, and the site was actually starting to look like something decent. This time things went a little different though, another re-design was in the plans, and if it wasn't for the ever changing mind of the project manager, things would have gone nice and smooth. But, like I said, the ever changing mind did not help things go along, especially from my point of view, when getting told one thing on monday, and the opposite on wednesday, it doesn't help this project getting finished.

I have now gotten to the stage, where I have just been asked one too many times to stay in a motel near my workplace to either work late, and come back to work the next day, or to stay said motel on a friday night so I could continue work on the weekend, I miss an incredibly large part of my day already just by traveling to work ... My day starts travel at 6.30 am and finishes by getting of a bus at 7 pm, this is a 9 am start, and me leaving at 4.30 pm just to get home at a decent hour, every time I stay untill 5 pm or later, it means I get home at either 8 pm or 8.30 pm depending on which train I end up making, if I stay past 5.30, it costs me instead of a bus fare, a taxi fare, because there are no buses to my suburb after 8.20 pm.

So now it has come to me looking for alternate means of employment, definately something that's closer to home. I know a few of you who read this will say: "Oh but the commuting and travelling isn't that bad...", yes it is (nothing further, it just is).

After 7+ months of working on this website, and seeing the severe lack of support I get from the company, my motivation has flown out of the window so-to-speak. So, after just working for 12 straight days, 11 of which were in the office, I have made the oh-so wise decision, to let them figure their stuff out for themselves while I look for a new job. Obviously I'm not going to leave my current position before I find another one, but I sure as hell am not about to work any more weekends. The company doesn't do me any favours, I don't do them any favours (and I really mean it when I say they don't do my any favours or show me their support, I am on a salary package, which means I could work 100 hours a week, and still be getting the same shitty amount of money for that week).
Anyway - it's time to move on. If a local job does not pop up anytime soon, I might go back to college, and start teaching.

Ok, so I have seen two strange things about this so far. Firstly, I have no idea why on earth the company I work for has shouldered me with the responsibility to develop this whole website, with nothing for guidance except the existing website and a wishlist of features. At the time when I started, I suppose I would have been working there for a whole 4 or 5 months, so I'm not quite sure if I should be flattered for their faith in my ability, or stupified for their faith in my ability.
Secondly, I was somewhat surprised that I was in fact the only one working on this website for about 2 - 3 months, it's just... strange.

So now that this entire post has turned into a huge rant about much I don't like my job at the moment, I really hope that one of my next posts will say something like: "Woohooo I just got a new job a few suburbs down the road!!!"

Anyway, thats about enough out of me for tonight!

PS: Have you had anything similar happen in your workplace? Leave a comment, I'd love to hear your story.