Mini golf

Nothing like a good impulsive road trip when you're bored on Saturday evening. Didn't feel like slouching about at home like all our other weekends so we decided to book ourselves into a hotel at the Gold Coast and drive for an hour in search of some Mini Golf! Turns out we couldn't have picked a better hotel because King Tutt's Putt Putt was just around the corner.



Played two courses of the three and had a heap of fun. One of the courses had a "Dinosaur" theme and was pretty nifty.



There weren't too many moving obstacles on the course unfortunately so some of the holes got a little boring. Best they could come up with was a "Man Eating Croc" that rushes forward as you move in front of the cage to sink a putt.



Alison won the first course and I whooped ass on the second. In all honesty it was probably because she was getting tired in the end. Quite evident given where her ball ended up on the last hole.



Guess this'll be the last post before we move to the new place. Hopefully we'll get ADSL installed before too long and I'll put up some pictures of the apartment all done up.

Handyman

Yippee! More pressies for the birthday boy. John, Sheena, Peter and Mary put together a mini toolkit of drilling utilities and bits that will no doubt be useful when we want to put up paintings and towel rails at the new place. I'm about as far as you can get from being a DIY guru so it's a good thing that Peter's offered to show me how to get things done. Feel like a real man now that I have power tools in my collection.



Heard from the real estate agent that one of the ladies that applied for our apartment has been approved and her lease will be starting on the 1st of June. We're hoping to settle and get our keys on Friday and have already arranged removalist to lug our junk over on Saturday. It'll be busy but before long we'll be in a brand new house.

... darnit just realised that I won't have ADSL or any phone lines for at least a week. :(

Getting Old

Huzzah, clicked over another year in this mortal coil yesterday to the ripe old age of 25 summers. Vision is getting blurrier, bones weaker and I still feel no wiser. But birthdays are not about that, it's about getting presents! :)

Received a few phone calls and birthday wishes on Thursday from Mum, Uncle Wing, John and Sheena. Mum had good news about a job she's applied for with a large development firm back home (good on ya mum) and it's looking like we'll going ahead with this trip to Hong Kong and Malaysia come November for James and Dora's engagement party. Time to save up for the cheap electronics and food of South East Asia.

Anyways, woke up on the morning of the 12th and immediately tore into little parcels while rubbing the crud out of my eyes. Alison gave me a big red apron, which I assumed was to use with our gas stove at the new place, and a little pocket book on philosophy. Then I got treated to French toast for brekkie.

At work Dan went out to get me yummy chocolate cake to celebrate. It's a Double Chocolate and Strawberry Tort apparently. The remains are sitting on top of the Straberry Continental Cheese Cake that Alison and I prematurely purchased on Thursday because we wanted cake early (shame).



Left work early to come home and pick Alison up to head over to Shopping Town to see our broker about some finance documents for the house. I checked the mailbox while Alison was getting our documents ready to see if this drum controller (music freak is me) I ordered from eBay had arrived. Kinda dissapointed that it hadn't as I wanted to play a little on the weekend.

Had a big surprise waiting for me when we came back from Shopping Town. Well two big surprises really.



Apparently the drum controller had come early and Alison hid it under the stairwell so I'd have an extra present. Heheh, she was a little worried that I'd be mad that she didn't tell me it came but I thought it was really sweet what she did.



There's the drum controller all set up to play Drummania. Woo hoo!



After setting the controller up for Als to have a go I ripped open the even bigger present (I love getting big presents) to find... A PORTABLE BBQ! Now I feel like a real Aussie. This'll go great on our new balcony and will be great for sizzling steaks... and shrimp. Of course the apron makes a lot more sense now too.



Alison then took me out for dinner at Breakfast Creek Wharf. I of course had to order the largest plate of seafood on the menu. Completely ignored the fact that I'm mildly allergic to shellfish seeing as it's my birthday and I can get sick if I want to.



Took a while to finish but man was it worth it in the end.



All in all not a bad way to celebrate the quarter of a century I've managed to survive. Thanks everyone for a wonderful birthday.

Place for rent

Took some pictures today of our current place for the real estate agent. Hopefully they look inviting enough for potential renters to ask for an inspection.



That's the living room taken from the front door. My futon has served as our couch for close to two years now. Think we might have to bite the bullet and buy ourselves a real couch for our new place though. Standing up from that is getting harder as our old bones aren't as sturdy as they used to be *creak*.



TV setup next to the front door. Shame there's no Xbox 360 there yet. Hopefully will have a nice Nintendo Wii there when it comes out too... assuming the financial controller approves *glances over at Alison*.



Main bedroom. Old Compaq laptop serves as our television and intermittent Internet machine.



"Dining Room" and kitchen taken from the balcony. Should have probably straightened out that rug before hand.



Bigger pic of the kitchen. Fish are still alive for now though transporting them to our new place will definitely be interesting.



Balcony and our wonderful view of the river. Can you see it? Can ya?

Didn't take any pictures of the study as we haven't finished tidying it up yet. Will need to get around to that pretty soon though I'd imagine.

So whatdya think? Two Bedroom, Two Bathroom and three seperate air-conditioners. Would you rent this for $295 AUD per week? :P

Money, Money, Money

Just heard from our broker today that our bank has just given us unconditional approval for our home loan! Freaking banks always seem to leave things to the last minute though. We put in our home loan application the day we signed the contract and it's taken the full two weeks to get the stamp. Now we just need to find a new tennant to take this place off our hands and we can start worrying about calling the movers. Joy oh joy.

Shave for a Cure

Michael Hill held an event in conjunction with B105 (local radio station) for The World's Greatest Shave. It's a yearly fund raiser where you shave or colour your hair to help the leukemia foundation.



There was even a bouncy castle! Alison was really jealous that she couldn't come. :P



Over 20 MHJ staff rocked up to get a crop so there was plenty of support. Here are the two lovely ladies with their instruments of destruction.



Three of us from IT worked up the courage to join the cause (Matt, myself and Craig). Now you see hair.



Now you don't...



It's going to take a little getting used to especially during winter. At least we'll be saving money on shampoo and hair gel for a couple of weeks before my unruly mane returns.

In the picture box

Another silly purchase even though we're supposed to be saving for loan repayments. When will the madness stop? :P

Alison and I picked up an Eyetoy for the PS2 late last week and have been playing a bunch of games for it. I remember when the Eyetoy first came out yonks ago I thought it was a great idea even if the first few games relied completely on novelty factor. Thankfully the game companies (at least those that have bothered developing titles for this peripheral) have come up with some valid uses for the device that turn out to be surprisingly fun.

Now the whole idea about the eyetoy (basically a webcam) is to actually put you into the game and allows you to interact visually with it. Moving your body and using your hands to hit buttons, smack zombies, balance eggs... you get the idea. Only downside we've found so far is that the motion detection can be somewhat finicky and it really doesn't like low light rooms. Still, when things work it almost feels like you're in Tron.

Tried to take some pictures for this post but as you can imagine, it's pretty hard to take a picture of yourself in a webcam without the camera getting in the way. Just use your fertile imagination or click on the links. There you go.

We've managed to pick up three games for the thing.

Kinetic

Came packaged with the device when we bought it. It's basically a bunch of games with an exercise slant to them. Games are split up into cardio, toning, combat and mediatation which attempt to give you an overall workout. Gameplay basically boils down to chasing after blue balls while avoiding red ones or punching stuff rapidly or testing your hand eye coordination and balance. Pretty fun and by the end of it you get a good workout (I'm still knackered and I stopped playing three days ago). Kinda disturbing how much fun it can be to play what's essentially a virtual variant of "Piggy in the middle".

Haha look at the fat guy chase the blue ball

Sega Superstars

Bunch of little crappy minigames that I thought Alison would like. Has a sorta party-game feel to the title though oddly enough this doesn't support multiplayer modes. Still, there are quite a few games which are all based on Sega favourites (Sonic, Crazy Taxi, Nights etc) so it's pretty fun. Especially like the Virtua Fighter game as you get to actually beat people up. Once again tiring as heck though (hmm... maybe should increase fitness before playing videogames)

Haha look at the fat guy beat up a girl

Groove

Probably my favourite so far of the three (Beatmania and Rhythm game freak that I am). This is a music game (or dance game more specifically) that involves hitting six rings in time with the music. The feel is pretty close to Para Para Paradise (shudder) though at least this one doesn't have quite as much in common with a Japanese Party Girl dance. Lots of fun and finally this has multiplayer modes so it'll be a blast during a party with "open minded" friends. *cough*

Haha look at the fat guy dance